208 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



dignity which they had not deserved, and 

 encouraged them beyond measure. Not only 

 in the press and in popular speech, where the 

 law and practices of war were not understood 

 in their details, but also in the despatches of 

 Secretary Seward and other diplomatic proceed 

 ings, resentment against Great Britain was open 

 and bitter. It happened that the offending 

 proclamation was promulgated on the very day 

 that the new minister from Washington, Charles 

 Francis Adams, reached London, and before 

 he had entered upon his duties. This, to the 

 agitated North, proved that the British Gov 

 ernment hastened its action designedly, to avoid 

 listening to the arguments against it, and to 

 make clear beyond controversy a sympathy with 

 the Confederacy. The distrust and hatred en 

 gendered by this proclamation of neutrality 

 continued to determine for a generation the 

 feeling of a great body of influential Americans 

 toward the ruling classes of Great Britain. 



The alienation of the North from the British 

 was not accompanied by any marked growth of 

 friendliness between the British and the South. 

 The Palmerston cabinet devoted itself to the 

 maintenance of the most rigid impartiality 

 between the two contending sections of the 



