On January 13 the Liverpool Shipowners' Association called the attention of the Foreign Office to the news that Charleston harbour had been closed by stone boats and urged governmental remonstrance[538]. Hammond at once replied quoting the language of Russell's letter of December 20 and stating that further representations would be made[539]. On the sixteenth Russell again instructed Lyons to speak to Seward, but now was much less rasping in language, arguing, rather, the injury in the future to the United States itself in case the harbours were permanently destroyed since "... the object of war is peace, and the purposes of peace are mutual goodwill and advantageous commercial intercourse[540]." To-day it seems absurd that any save the most ignorant observer should have thought the North contemplated a permanent and revengeful destruction of Southern port facilities. Nor was there any just ground for such an extreme British view of the Northern plan. Yet even Robert Browning was affected by the popular outcry. "For what will you do," he wrote Story, "if Charleston becomes loyal again[541]?" a query expressive of the increasing English concern, even alarm, at the intense bitterness, indicating a long war, of the American belligerents. How absurd, not to say ridiculous, was this British concern at an American "lapse toward barbarism" was soon made evident. On January II Lyons, acting on the instructions of December 20, brought up the matter with Seward and was promptly assured that there was no plan whatever "to injure the harbours permanently." Seward stated that there had never been any plan, even, to sink boats in the main entrance channels, but merely the lesser channels, because the Secretary of the Navy had reported that with the blockading fleet he could "stop up the 'large holes,'" but "could not stop up the 'small ones.'" Seward assured Lyons that just as soon as the Union was restored all obstructions would be removed, and he added that the best proof that the entrance to Charleston harbour had not been destroyed was the fact that in spite of blockading vessels and stone boats "a British steamer laden with contraband of war had just succeeded in getting in[542]." Again, on February 10, this time following Russell's instruction of January 16, Lyons approached Seward and was told that he might inform Russell that "all the vessels laden with stone, which had been prepared for obstructing the harbours, had been already sunk, and that it is not likely that any others will be used for that purpose[543]." This was no yielding to Great Britain, nor even an answer to Russell's accusation of barbarity. The fact was that the plan of obstruction of harbours, extending even to placing a complete barrier, had been undertaken by the Navy with little expectation of success, and, on the first appearance of new channels made by the wash of waters, was soon abandoned[544].