d its important port shore lines.) If Gregory had been able to
quote a report by Bunch from Charleston of April 5, 1862, he would have
had a strong argument. "The blockade runners are doing a great
business.... Everything is brought in in abundance. Not a day passes
without an arrival or a departure. The Richmond Government sent about a
month ago an order to Nassau for Medicines, Quinine, etc. It went from
Nassau to New York, was executed there, came back to Nassau, thence
here, and was on its way to Richmond in 21 days from the date of the
order. Nearly all the trade is under the British flag. The vessels are
all changed in Nassau and Havana. Passengers come and go freely and no
one seems to think that there is the slightest risk--which, indeed,
there is not." (Lyons Papers. Bunch to Lyons, April 5, 1862).]

[Footnote 572: I have nowhere found any such statement by Seward.
Gregory's reference is to a note from Seward to Lyons of May 27, 1861,
printed in the Blockade Papers. This merely holds that temporary absence
of blockading ships does not impair the blockade nor render "necessary a
new notice of its existence."]

[Footnote 573: _A Cycle of Adams' Letters_, I, pp. 119-20. Henry Adams
to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., March 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 574: This "three months" statement returned to plague Russell
later, British merchants complaining that upon it they had based plans
in the belief that the Government had something definite in view.
Spence's reference to this "three months" idea, after his conferences in
London, would indicate that Russell was merely indulging in a
generalization due to the expected financial collapse of the North. The
Russian Ambassador in London gave a different interpretation. He wrote
that the Northern victories in the West had caused Great Britain to
think the time near when the "border states," now tied to the Union by
these victories, would lead in a pacification on lines of separation
from the Southern slave states. "It is in this sense, and no other that
Russell's 'three months' speech in the Lords is to be taken." (Brunow to
F.O., March 3-15, 1862. No. 33). Brunow does not so state, but his
despatch sounds as if this were the result of a talk with Russell. If
so, it would indicate an attempt to interpret Lincoln's "border state
policy" in a sense that would appear reasonable in the British view that
there could be no real hope at Washington of restoring the Union.]

[Footnote 575: M