mode of reconciling such parties as these. The best thing _now_ would
be that the right to secede should be acknowledged.... I hope sensible
men will take this view.... But above all I hope no force will be
used[69]." And again twelve days later, "I suppose the break-up of the
Union is now inevitable[70]." To Russell, as to most foreign observers,
it seemed that if the South with its great wealth, its enormous extent
of territory, and its five and one-half millions of population, were
determined to leave the Union, no force whatever could compel a return.
History failed to record any revolution on so large a scale which had
not succeeded. His desire, therefore, was that the North would yield to
the inevitable, and would not plunge into a useless civil war disastrous
alike to the prosperity of America and of foreign nations. Russell's
first hope was that the South would forgo secession; his second, this
accomplished, that there would be no war, and in this sense he
instructed Lyons. The latter, less expectant of peaceful separation, and
more aware of the latent power of the North, maintained throughout his
entire service at Washington that there was at least a _chance_ that the
North could subdue the South by might of arms[71], but he also, looking
to British interests, saw his early duty, before war broke, in cautious
suggestions against forcible Northern action. Thus from January to
March, 1861, British effort and indirect advice were based on the hope
that British trade interests might escape the tribulations inevitable
from a civil conflict in America. Beyond that point there was no grasp
of the complications likely to arise in case of war, and no clear
formulation of British policy[72].

In fact up to the middle of March, 1861, both public and official
British opinion discounted armed conflict, or at least any determined
Northern effort to recover the South. Early British attitude was,
therefore, based on a misconception. As this became clear, public