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at the insult to England, great satisfaction at the capture of Mason and Slidell and the deification of Capt. Wilkes.”21 The next day Captain Conway Seymour boarded the Boston-bound Europa with the cabinet’s letters.22 Lord Stanley chafed when he realized how long it would be until they received a reply: “It cannot get to [Lord Lyons] in less than 12 days & another 12 days to return will be the earliest we can get any intelligence of its reception.” As soon as the messenger left, however, Russell began to suffer misgivings about the plan. “I cannot imagine their giving a plain yes or no to our demands,” he wrote. “I think they will try to hook in France, and if that is, as I hope, impossible, to get Russia to support them.”23 At the bottom of Russell’s anxiety was the sense that the Americans had misunderstood his actions and that he was being wrongly blamed for reasons he still could not understand. “Not a word had been spoken, not a deed done by him but what showed the friendliest feeling,” Lady Russell wrote loyally about her husband’s dealings with the North.24

Palmerston thought that the United States would not even bother with negotiation. The “masses,” he categorically stated, will “make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result.” George Cornewall Lewis, the secretary for war, complained that they were doing France’s dirty work, which was rather ungrateful of him considering that Napoleon III had promised his support. “It is quite certain that the French Govt wish for war between England and America,” wrote Lewis. “The blockade of the South would be raised, and they would get the cotton which they want.”25

Late on December 3, Russell and Palmerston called another cabinet meeting. The Treasury had received an alarming report that a Federal agent had bought up the country’s entire saltpeter reserves—about 4.5 million pounds. Most of it was due to be shipped the following day. The cabinet agreed to an immediate export ban; lacking sufficient mines of their own, the Federals would be hard-pressed to manufacture gunpowder without this precious commodity.26 The Admiralty issued a worldwide alert to every station. Admiral Milne’s instructions to ready his squadron reached him in Bermuda, where he replied: “The ships’ companies are in a high state of excitement for war, they are certainly all for the South. I hear the Lower Decks to-day are decorated with the Confederate colours.”27

The next day, the fourth, Stanley scribbled to his wife, “I write from the Cabinet where it has been decided to issue another Order in Council, prohibiting the exportation of arms & munitions of war, in addition to the former order prohibiting the exportation of saltpetre. I fear that the prospects of a satisfactory & amicable settlement are small.”28 One or two of his colleagues had protested against the ban, fearing that it would ruin Britain’s arms trade, but Stanley was entirely with Palmerston and Russell. “If we are to be at war it is as well not to let them have improved rifles to shoot us with.”29 “If this goes on,” added Stanley, “a Brigade of Guards will go out, one Battalion out of each Regiment.” His younger son, Jonny, would be among the first to go.

The cabinet agreed to form a six-member war committee. Military experts were called in, and at the War Office, strategic plans drawn up during previous periods of tension were taken out for revision. Maine was to be the first target, with simultaneous actions by the Royal Navy to blockade Boston, New Bedford, Newport, Long Island, New York, and the Delaware River. If necessary, some of these ports would be bombarded into submission. “War has no doubt its honours and its evils,” Admiral Milne reminded the secretary of state for the navy, who deprecated such wanton destruction, “but to make war felt it must be carried out against the Enemy with energy, and every place made to feel what war really is.”30

The strategic difficulties were indeed formidable. The Canadian border was more than 1,500 miles long,