I. BACKGROUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF IMPENDING CONFLICT, 1860-61 . . . 35 III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POLICY, MAY, 1861 . . . . . . 76 IV. BRITISH SUSPICION OF SEWARD . . . . . . . . . . 113 V. THE DECLARATION OF PARIS NEGOTIATION . . . . . . . 137 VI. BULL RUN; CONSUL BUNCH; COTTON, AND MERCIER . . . . 172 VII. THE "TRENT" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 VIII. THE BLOCKADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 IX. ENTER MR. LINDSAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PART ONE LORD JOHN RUSSELL . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ _From Trevelyan's "Garibaldi and the Making of Italy_" LORD LYONS (1860) . . . . . . . . . _facing p_. 42 _From Lord Newton's "Life of Lord Lyons" (Edward Arnold & Co_.) SIR WILLIAM GREGORY, K.C.M.G. . . . . . " 90 _From Lady Gregory's "Sir William Gregory, K.C.M.G.: An Autobiography"_ (_John Murray_) WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD . . . . . . . . " 114 _From Lord Newton's "Life of Lord Lyons"_ (_Edward Arnold & Co._) C.F. ADAMS . . . . . . . . . . . " 138 _From a photograph in the United States Embassy, London_ JAMES M. MASON . . . . . . . . . . " 206 _From a photograph by L.C. Handy, Washington_ "KING COTTON BOUND" . . . . . . . . " 262 _Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch"_ GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR CHAPTER I BACKGROUNDS In 1862, less than a year after he had assumed his post in London, the American Minister, Charles Francis Adams, at a time of depression and bitterness wrote to Secretary of State Seward: "That Great Britain did, in the most terrible moment of our domestic trial in struggling with a monstrous social evil she had earnestly professed to abhor, coldly and at once assume our inability to master it, and then become the only foreign nation steadily contributing in every indirect way possible to verify its judgment, will probably be the verdict made against her by posterity, on calm comparison of the evidence[1]." Very different were the views of Englishmen. The historian, George Grote, could write: "The perfect neutrality [of Great Britain] in this destructive war appears to me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public--generally so meddlesome--have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary[2]." And Sir William Harcourt, in September, 1863, declared: "Among all Lord Russell's many titles to fame and to public gratitude, the manner in which he has steered the vessel of State through the Scylla and Charybdis of the American War will, I think, always stand conspicuous[3]."