As early as December, 1862, and January, 1863, Greeley had begun in the _Tribune_ a movement for ending the war by foreign mediation between North and South. The following month Napoleon III actually made an offer of mediation, which Lincoln immediately refused. Advance news of it had been sent Bryant by Bigelow, and the _Post_ was ready to speak vigorously against it. Greeley in July, 1864, again tried to initiate peace negotiations, and asked Lincoln to arrange a conference at Niagara with two Confederate “ambassadors” who were reported to be there, telling him that “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further devastations, and of new rivers of human blood.” The attitude of the _Evening Post_ was contemptuous. “No,” wrote Bryant as Greeley bought his ticket to Niagara, “the most effective peace meetings yet held are those which Grant assembled in front of Vicksburg, which Meade conducted on the Pennsylvania plains, which Rosecrans now presides over near Tullahoma; their thundering cannons are the most eloquent orators, and the bullet which wings its way to the enemy ranks the true olive branch.” There was some fear for the moment that the _Times_ would join the _Tribune_ in its readiness for peace without victory. Bryant wrote his wife on Sept. 7, 1864, that he had a good deal of political news which he could not put in his letter. “I wrote a protest against treating with the Rebel Government, which you will have seen in the paper.... I was told from the best authority that Mr. Lincoln was considering whether he should not appoint commissioners for the purpose, and I afterwards heard that Raymond of the _Times_ had been in Washington to persuade Mr. Lincoln to take the step, and was willing himself to be one of the commissioners.” Bryant’s 1,500 word editorial, “No Negotiations With the Rebel Government,” anticipated the arguments of Lincoln’s message to Congress in December opposing any parley.