Gregory urging the Government to declare the blockade
ineffective[570], and of a similar debate on March 10 in the Lords. As
is inevitable where many speakers participate in a debate the arguments
advanced were repeated and reiterated. In the Commons important speeches
for the motion were made by Gregory, Bentinck, Sir James Ferguson, Lord
Robert Cecil and Lindsay, while against it appeared Forster and Monckton
Milnes. The Solicitor-General, Roundell Palmer, presented the Government
view. Gregory opened the debate by seeking to make clear that while
himself favourable to recognition of the South the present motion had no
essential bearing on that question and was directed wholly to a
_fact_--that the blockade was not in reality effective and should not be
recognized as such. He presented and analysed statistics to prove the
frequency with which vessels passed through the blockade, using the
summaries given by Mason to Russell in their interview of February 10,
which were now before Parliament in the document on the blockade just
presented, and he cited the reports of Bunch at Charleston as further
evidence. This was the burden of Gregory's argument[571], but he glanced
in passing at many other points favourable to the South, commenting on
its free trade principles, depicting the "Stone Fleet" as a barbarity,
asserting the right of the South to secede, declaring that France
regarded British attitude as determined by a selfish policy looking to
future wars, and attacking Seward on the ground of American
inconsistency, falsely paraphrasing him as stating that "as for all
those principles of international law, which we have ever upheld, they
are as but dust in the balance compared with the exigencies of the
moment[572]." Gregory concluded with the statement that the United
States should be treated "with justice and nothing more."

When presenting a cause in Parliament its advocates should agree on a
line of argument. The whole theory of this movement on the blockade was
that it was wise to minimize the question of recognition, and Gregory
had laboured to prove that this was not related to a refusal longer to
recognize the blockade. But Bentinck, the second speaker for the motion,
promptly undid him for he unhappily admitted that recognition and
blockade questions were so closely interwoven that they could not be
considered separately. This was promptly seized upon by Forster, who led
in opposition. Forster's main argument,