Note 648 — Chapter IX

Ibid., Lindsay to Mason, June 18, 1862. Lindsay wrote: "Lord Russell sent to me last night to get the words of my motion. I have sent them to him to-night, and I have embraced the opportunity of opening my mind to his Lordship. I have told him that I have postponed my motion in courtesy to him--that the sympathy of nine-tenths of the members of the House was in favour of immediate recognition, and that even if the Government was not prepared to accept my motion, a majority of votes might have been obtained in its favour--that a majority of votes would be obtained within the next fortnight, and I expressed the most earnest hope that the Government would move (as the country, and France, are most anxious for them to do so) and thus prevent the necessity of any private member undertaking a duty which belonged to the Executive. "I further told his Lordship that recognition was a right which no one would deny us the form of exercising, that the fear of war if we exercised it was a delusion. That the majority of the leading men in the Northern States would thank us for exercising it, and that even Seward himself might be glad to see it exercised so as to give him an excuse for getting out of the terrible war into which he had dragged his people. I further said, that if the question is settled without our recognition of the South, he might rest certain that the Northern Armies would be marched into Canada. I hope my note may produce the desired results, and thus get the Government to take the matter in hand, for sub rosa, I saw that the House was not yet prepared to vote, and the question is far too grave to waste time upon it in idle talk, even if talk, without action, did no harm."