A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [155]
I determined to devote myself to giving intelligent Englishmen every facility for acquainting themselves thoroughly with the true condition of Southern affairs and the spirit of the Southern people … it might prove useful to make so intelligent a convert: Lord Lyons of course attempted to dissuade him from carrying out his project, and went as far as to tell Lord Edward that if he was caught and thrown into prison, he need expect no aid from him as Minister. Lord Lyons from the beginning did everything he could to prevent the slightest offense being given to the Federal Government.… He made later several remonstrances to me through his attachés.58
Dread at what might happen to Lord Edward overshadowed Lyons’s otherwise joyful departure on June 18. In Washington, President Lincoln shook his hand and asked him to convey “his good intentions towards the people of Great Britain.” When Lyons reached New York, Seward stopped by his hotel to say goodbye. He promised that if anything did arise between the two countries while Lyons was away, he would place the matter on hold until his return.59 Lyons was touched by these displays, although he had no illusion that the goodwill toward him was anything other than temporary and capricious. If he, rather than Mercier, had visited Richmond to explore the views of the Confederate government, the result would have been expulsion from the country and an apology demanded from Britain. The contrast between the public’s attitude toward Britain and France also disturbed him. The French attempt to topple the Mexican government in the spring, Lyons noticed, had been accepted with an angry shrug, even though it mocked American claims to be the sole power in the region.11.3 They “are more civil to France than to England,” he asserted to Lord Russell, “partly because they never will have, do what she will, the same bitterness against her as they have against England.”60
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Lord Edward knew that crossing the lines into Southern territory might be risky, but “there is no imprudence in what I am doing—I have asked good advice,” he assured his parents on June 19. “I do not intend to get into any chance of difficulties.”61 Nor did he; Glenn’s contacts proved their worth, and Lord Edward was safely deposited in Richmond on June 26. He did not think it odd that with the Confederacy fighting for its life, President Davis would make time to see him. Lord Edward was perhaps too young and naïve to realize what the presence of an English cabinet minister’s son would mean to Southerners. All Lord Edward had to do was say his name and government officials, staff officers, and influential citizens opened their doors to him. “There is a remarkably friendly feeling towards England … the only sign of ill-feeling that exists is on the subject of recognition,” he not surprisingly concluded. “I saw and talked to everybody, I was very kindly treated indeed.”62
He was so well treated that other British subjects—many of whom were desperately trying to find any means of leaving the South—became quite jealous. The Confederates deliberately shielded him from the hardships and persecution often suffered by ordinary Britons. A young Scottish journalist named Gabriel Cueto, for example, had been held without charge since May.63 Lord Edward never heard about him, and Cueto’s case did not receive a mention in England either, although he would spend nine months in a Confederate prison essentially for speaking his mind.64 An English governess named Catherine Hopley, who was stranded in Richmond, thought it was outrageous that “Lord Seymour [sic] should be able to obtain a passport from the Confederate government without any trouble,” while the rest of them were left to rot in the city. “I went the first thing in the morning, to see Mr. Cridland,” she wrote, “at what the ‘blockaded British subjects’ used to call ‘anything but the Consolation Office.’ ” She also visited the Confederate