nited States[826]. On
the other hand the _Herald_, always intense in its pro-Southern
utterances, and strongly anti-Palmerston in politics, professed itself
unable to credit the rumoured Cabinet decision. "Until we are positively
informed that our Ministers are guilty of the great crime attributed to
them," the _Herald_ declared, "we must hope against hope that they are
innocent." If guilty they were responsible for the misery of Lancashire
(depicted in lurid colours):

"A clear, a sacred, an all-important duty was imposed upon
them; to perform that duty would have been the pride and
delight of almost any other Englishmen; and they, with the
task before them and the power to perform it in their
hands--can it be that they have shrunk back in craven
cowardice, deserted their ally, betrayed their country,
dishonoured their own names to all eternity, that they might
do the bidding of John Bright, and sustain for a while the
infamous tyranny of a Butler, a Seward, and a Lincoln[827]?"

In the non-political _Army and Navy Gazette_ the returned editor, W.H.
Russell, but lately the _Times_ correspondent in America, jeered at the
American uproar that might now be expected against France instead of
England: "Let the Emperor beware. The scarred veteran of the New York
Scarrons of Plum Gut has set his sinister or dexter eye upon him, and
threatens him with the loss of his throne," but the British public must
expect no lasting change of Northern attitude toward England and must be
ready for a war if the North were victorious[828]. _Blackwood's_ for
November, 1862, strongly censured the Government for its failure to act.
The _Edinburgh_ for January, 1863, as strongly supported the Ministry
and expanded on the fixed determination of Great Britain to keep out of
the war. _The Index_ naturally frothed in angry disappointment,
continuing its attacks, as if in hopes of a reversal of Ministerial
decision, even into the next year. "Has it come to this? Is England, or
the English Cabinet, afraid of the Northern States? Lord Russell might
contrive so to choose his excuses as not to insult at once both his
country and her ally[829]." An editorial from the _Richmond_ (Virginia)
_Whig_ was quoted with approval characterizing Russell and Palmerston as
"two old painted mummies," who secretly were rejoiced at the war in
America as "threatening the complete annihilation" of both sides, and
expressing th