In the meantime, while these negotiations were pending, and in the midst of these friendly assurances, the Lincoln administration was secretly preparing hostile measures, and, as was clearly demonstrated by subsequent revelations, had never seriously entertained any of the propositions submitted by the Confederate Government. Resolved not to evacuate Fort Sumter, the Federal Government, while amusing the Confederate commissioners with cunning dalliance, had for weeks been meditating the feasibility of reënforcing it. To pass the numerous batteries erected by the Confederates in Charleston harbor was clearly a task of the utmost difficulty, if, indeed, possible. So complete was the cordon of Confederate batteries which had been in course of preparation for many weeks, that the beleaguered fortress was evidently doomed whenever the Confederates were provoked to fire upon it. The evacuation of Fort Sumter was clearly a military necessity, so pronounced by the highest military authority in the United States, and so regarded by the intelligent public of the North. Never had a Government so auspicious an opportunity to save the needless effusion of blood, and to avert indefinitely, if not finally, the calamity of war. Such a result was, however, farthest from the wishes of Mr. Lincoln and the majority of his Cabinet. Reinforcement of Fort Sumter being out of the question, it became the study of the Federal authorities to devise a convenient and effective pretext by which the North could be united in a war of subjugation against the South, and for the extermination of slavery. To this end an expedition was ordered to Charleston, for the purpose of supplying the garrison of Sumter with provisions, _peaceably or forcibly_, as events might decide. As it was well known that the Confederate authorities would not permit the execution of the object of this expedition, it was clearly a measure of hostility, prepared and conducted, too, under the most dishonorable circumstances of secrecy and falsehood as to its destination.