suspicious, concluding his report, "I cannot quite
forget that Monsieur Mercier and Monsieur de Stoeckl had agreed to go to
Richmond together last Spring[850]." The day after this despatch was
written Mercier presented, February 3, the isolated French offer and on
February 6 received Seward's reply couched in argumentative, yet polite
language, but positively declining the proposal[851]. Evidently Lyons
was a bit disquieted by the incident; but in London, Napoleon's overture
to America was officially stated to be unobjectionable, as indeed was
required by the implications of the reply of November 13, to France.
Russell, on February 14, answered Lyons' communications in a letter
marked "Seen by Lord Palmerston and the Queen":

"Her Majesty's Government have no wish to interfere at
present in any way in the Civil War. If France were to offer
good offices or mediation, Her Majesty's Government would
feel no jealousy or repugnance to such a course on the part
of France alone[852]."

The writing of this despatch antedated the knowledge that France had
already acted at Washington, and does not necessarily indicate any
governmental feeling of a break in previous close relations with France
on the American question. Yet this was indubitably the case and became
increasingly evident as time passed. Russell's despatch to Lyons of
February 14 appears rather to be evidence of the effect of the debates
in Parliament when its sessions were resumed on February 5, for in both
Lords and Commons there was given a hearty and nearly unanimous support
of the Government's decision to make no overture for a cessation of the
conflict in America. Derby clearly outlined the two possible conditions
of mediation; first, when efforts by the North to subdue the South had
practically ceased; and second, if humane interests required action by
neutral states, in which case the intervening parties must be fully
prepared to use force. Neither condition had arrived and strict
neutrality was the wise course. Disraeli also approved strict neutrality
but caustically referred to Gladstone's Newcastle speech and sharply
attacked the Cabinet's uncertain and changeable policy--merely a party
speech. Russell upheld the Government's decision but went out of his way
to assert that the entire subjugation of the South would be a calamity
to the United States itself, since it would require an unending use of
force to hold the South in submissi