decisive. He gave a resume of all the sins of the North as a
belligerent and wrote in a distinctly captious spirit. Yet these sins
had not "induced Her Majesty's Government to swerve an inch from an
impartial neutrality[716]." Here was no promise of a continuance of
neutrality--rather a hint of some coming change. At least one member of
the Cabinet was very ready for it. Gladstone wrote privately:

"It is indeed much to be desired that this bloody and
purposeless conflict should cease. From the first it has been
plain enough that the whole question was whether the South
was earnest and united. That has now for some months been
demonstrated; and the fact thus established at once places
the question beyond the region even of the most brilliant
military successes[717]...."

Gladstone was primarily influenced by the British commercial situation.
Lyons, still in England, and a consistent opponent of a change of
policy, feared this commercial influence. He wrote to Stuart:

"...I can hardly anticipate any circumstances under which I
should think the intervention of England in the quarrel
between the North and South advisable....

"But it is very unfortunate that no result whatever is
apparent from the nominal re-opening of New Orleans and other
ports. And the distress in the manufacturing districts
threatens to be so great that a pressure may be put upon the
Government which they will find it difficult to resist[718]."

In Parliament sneers were indulged in by Palmerston at the expense of
the silent cotton manufacturers of Lancashire, much to the fury of
Cobden[719]. Of this period Arnold later sarcastically remarked that,
"The representatives of Lancashire in the Houses of Parliament did not
permit the gaieties of the Exhibition season wholly to divert their
attention from the distress which prevailed in the home county[720]."

Being refused an interview, Mason transmitted to Russell on August 1 a
long appeal, rather than a demand, for recognition, using exactly those
arguments advanced by Lindsay in debate[721]. The answer, evidently
given after that "Cabinet" for whose decision Russell had been waiting,
was dated August 2. In it Russell, as in his reply to Seward on July 28,
called attention to the wholly contradictory statements of North and
South on the status of the war, which, in British opinion, had not yet
reached a stage positively indi