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the secretary of state’s words, Russell thought the safest course was to ignore him, since Seward was a “singular mixture of the bully and coward.”22 Palmerston agreed, although he wished that more regiments had been sent to Canada as a warning to Seward against becoming too cocky. But the British cabinet’s anxieties were dismissed by the new secretary for war, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who advised them not to be fooled by Seward’s charade of aggression: “The Washington government is violent and unscrupulous,” he wrote, “but it is not insane.”23

Throughout Britain, however, the effect of Seward’s threats, which he ensured were known to the press, was to swing public opinion dramatically away from the North. The mills had already moved to short time in order to preserve their dwindling cotton stocks. Reynolds’s Newspaper, a popular weekly aimed at the working classes, blamed the Northern blockade rather than the Southern cotton embargo for the looming crisis. “England must break the Blockade,” cried an editorial in early autumn, “or Her Millions must starve.”24 Henry Adams was trying without success to plant favorable articles in the press. “I hope that you will see in some of the London newspapers if not my writing, at least my hand,” he wrote in confidence to his brother Charles Francis Jr. “They need it, confound ’em.”25 Benjamin Moran was convinced that the Confederates were either feeding Reuter with false information or encouraging him to slant his news. “That he is under the influence of the rebels is too clear to be the subject of doubt,” he fulminated in his diary. Only after the news service turned a recent Federal victory into a defeat was Moran able to persuade Charles Francis Adams to deliver a friendly warning to Reuter.26

Ill.10 Punch acknowledges the threat posed by the Union blockade to “King Cotton.”

Henry Adams complained to Charles Francis Jr. that their father would not engage in any form of journalism or public speaking. Although the senior Adams received many more invitations than his Confederate rivals, he invariably turned them down. While he agreed to attend the Lord Mayor’s dinner on November 9 on the assurance that he would not be called upon to speak, William Yancey eagerly accepted an invitation to the less coveted Fishmongers’ Company because there was a chance that he might.27

The departing Confederate commissioners had been working hard, they informed Richmond, to cultivate anyone “likely to bring to bear a favorable influence on the British cabinet.”28 But the greatest Southern propaganda coup had nothing to do with the envoys’ efforts. In September a book entitled The American Union, which defended the South’s claim to independence, became a surprise bestseller. The author was a Liverpool businessman named James Spence whose travels in America had persuaded him that while slavery was doomed, the cultural and economic differences between the North and South would never be overcome. In his opinion, it was politically and morally unfeasible for two such distinct entities to remain united.

The great strength of The American Union was its sober style and earnest attempt to discuss the merits of secession. Although Northern sympathizers disagreed with Spence’s arguments, they had to admit that the book was too well written to dismiss. “It is studiously suited to the English taste,” explained the abolitionist Richard Webb, “being moderate in tone, lucid in style, and free from personalities.”29 Moreover, the subject matter—independence—appealed to English sensibilities. “I believe Englishmen instinctively sympathize with rebels,” the American vice consul, Henry Wilding, commented to his former superior, Nathaniel Hawthorne, so long as “the rebellion be not against England.”30 “Why do the Southern agents have it all their own way?” grumbled Charles Francis Jr. when he heard about the success of The American Union and other polemics. “Our agents abroad apparently confine their efforts to cabinets and officials and leave public opinion and the press to take care of themselves.”31

Henry