should only have pledged each party more strongly to the
object for which they are fighting. I am therefore inclined
to change the opinion on which I wrote to you when the
Confederates seemed to be carrying all before them, and I am
very much come back to our original view of the matter, that
we must continue merely to be lookers-on till the war shall
have taken a more decided turn[796]."

By previous arrangement the date October 23 had been set for a Cabinet
to consider the American question but Russell now postponed it, though a
few members appeared and held an informal discussion in which Russell
still justified his "armistice" policy and was opposed by Lewis and the
majority of those present. Palmerston did not attend, no action was
possible and technically no Cabinet was held[797]. It soon appeared that
Russell, vexed at the turn matters had taken, was reluctant in yielding
and did not regard the question as finally settled. Yet on the afternoon
of this same day Adams, much disturbed by the rumours attendant upon the
speeches of Gladstone and Lewis, sought an explanation from Russell and
was informed that the Government was not inclined at present to change
its policy but could make no promises for the future[798]. This appeared
to Adams to be an assurance against _any_ effort by Great Britain and
has been interpreted as disingenuous on Russell's part. Certainly Adams'
confidence was restored by the interview. But Russell was apparently
unconvinced as yet that a suggestion of armistice would necessarily lead
to the evil consequences prophesied by Lewis, or would, indeed, require
any departure from a policy of strict neutrality. On the one side
Russell was being berated by pro-Southerners as weakly continuing an
outworn policy and as having "made himself the laughing-stock of Europe
and of America[799];" on the other he was regarded, for the moment, as
insisting, through pique, on a line of action highly dangerous to the
preservation of peace with the North. October 23 Palmerston wrote his
approval of the Cabinet postponement, but declared Lewis' doctrine of
"no recognition of Southern independence until the North had admitted
it" was unsound[800]. The next day he again wrote: "... to talk to the
belligerents about peace at present would be as useless as asking the
winds during the last week to let the waters remain calm[801]."

This expression by Palmerston on the day after the