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Seward been so inclined—to allow the distribution of the fund to Confederate prisoners without suffering a loss of face. “It would be a great relief to us if we could get permission to act openly,” Spence wrote to Lord Wharncliffe on November 2, after he realized that the fund was in danger of turning into a thankless burden.34.4 19 He suggested that they write a letter to Charles Francis Adams asking leave to send “an accredited agent” on a tour of Northern prisons. At the very least it would demonstrate the organizers’ good faith to the British public. The bazaar committee had already purchased two thousand blankets, ten thousand socks, and five thousand shirts, which were boxed and ready to be shipped. Wharncliffe duly wrote to Adams on November 9 begging him to show pity on “the suffering of American citizens, whatever their State or opinions.”20 Adams tersely replied that the matter was for the State Department to decide, not the legation, and he refused to answer any further correspondence on the subject. (Adams did not feel the least guilty about turning away the pro-Southern supporters; he had his hands full with cases he considered to be far more deserving.)

Henry Hotze was too absorbed by his own troubles to help Spence. His plan to step back from the day-to-day running of the Index had backfired in spectacular fashion.34.5 The staff had revolted against John Witt, the new editor, imperiling Hotze’s plan to expand his operations.22 Nor had anything come of his attempt to create a recruiting scandal in Ireland. Hotze had in fact discovered a genuine fraud in England involving three con artists from New York who enticed several hundred workers over to America on a false glass-manufacturing contract. But the press had shown only perfunctory interest in the case. The Tories were content to let it alone as well; Lord Derby ordered the party “to sit still” and allow the government to tear itself apart.23

Palmerston was not in the least interested in petty recruiting scandals, except as a counterargument to Northern complaints about the Alabama; he was only concerned with the Civil War insofar as it revealed a new military threat to Britain. “If the Americans go to war with us,” Palmerston wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, “they will send out a swarm of fast steamers … sturdy enough to escape from our cruisers, and strong enough to capture any merchantman.”24 When Russell received Seward’s protest about the Confederates’ use of Canada on November 10, Palmerston reacted as though it was only a matter of time before the U.S. Navy’s new Monitor-class gunboats seized control of the Great Lakes. Worried that the Americans could close off access to the St. Lawrence River, which connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, he suggested to the war secretary, Lord de Grey, that the river be protected by “floating batteries and heavy guns” powerful enough to “smash and sink monitors.”25 “Any Reduction of our real Naval Force,” Palmerston warned Somerset, “in the face of all the warnings we have of contingent hostility on the part of the Federal States of North America would be taking upon ourselves a very dangerous responsibility.”26

Adams, too, was worried by the aggressive language in Seward’s protest to Lord Lyons. He knew the foreign secretary well enough now to be certain that the dispatch would be counterproductive. Unaware that Russell had already received an unofficial copy of the protest via Lord Lyons, Adams decided to rephrase Seward’s letter before delivering it to the Foreign Office.

Adams was still struggling to find the right tone for the “improved” dispatch when the Canada arrived on November 21, bringing the results of the presidential election. Lincoln had carried all but two states, though a few went Republican by the slimmest of margins, including New York State by less than 1 percent of the popular vote. “Thus has the country passed safely through the most grave of its trials since the first outbreak of the war,” wrote Adams with relief in his diary.27 The British press concentrated