The American Minister was directed to press these demands for an alteration of the law. In reply, Lord John Russell, after adverting to the injury sustained by England in the blockade, says:— “Yet Her Majesty’s Government have never sought to take advantage of the obvious imperfections of this blockade, in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously observed the duties of Great Britain towards a friendly State. But when Her Majesty’s Government are asked to go beyond this, and to overstep the existing powers given them by municipal and international law, for the purpose of imposing arbitrary restrictions on the trade of Her Majesty’s subjects, it is impossible to listen to such suggestions.... If, therefore, the United States consider it for their interest to inflict this great injury on other nations, the utmost they can expect is that European Powers shall respect those acts of the United States which are within the limits of the law. The United States Government cannot expect that Great Britain should frame new statutes to aid the Federal blockade, and to carry into effect the restrictions on commerce which the United States for their own purposes have thought fit to institute, and the application of which it is their duty to confine within the legitimate limits of international law.” Mr Seward’s demand, that we should adopt his interpretation of the character of the war, would entail the consequences that we should ourselves enforce the Federal blockade; that we should refuse all Southern vessels admission to our ports, while allowing the freest use of them to the Federal ships; that we should stop all exports of commodities to the South, while granting fullest commercial intercourse with the North: and that we should alter our own laws for the purpose of making ourselves the agents of the belligerent interests of the Federal Government. His interpretation of neutrality in affording supplies to the belligerents is amusingly, though we daresay quite unintentionally, illustrated by himself in a couple of sentences. It will be recollected that, at the time of the Trent affair, Federal agents had bought up a great quantity of saltpetre here, and that, in expectation that this might be used against ourselves in case of war, the export of the article was prohibited by an Order in Council. This prohibition was withdrawn when the settlement of the Trent affair removed the apprehension of war. “It affords me pleasure,” says Mr Seward thereupon, “to know that the inhibition of saltpetre, which was so unnecessary, has been rescinded.”