Mercier asserted to Thouvenel that he was taken by surprise, having foreseen no such eager acquiescence in a suggestion made _without previous thought_, but that on consideration he returned to Seward and accepted the proposal, outlining the substance of what he intended to say at Richmond.

He should there make clear that the anxiety of France was above all directed toward peace as essential to French commercial interests; that France had always regarded the separation of North and South with regret; that the North was evidently determined in its will to restore the Union; and, in repetition, that France wished to aid in any way possible the early cessation of war.

Seward, wrote Mercier, told him to add that he, personally, would welcome "the presence in the Senate" of any persons whom the South wished to elect[593].
Mercier, writes Bancroft, "from the first had been an impatient sympathizer with the Confederacy, and he was quite devoid of the balance and good judgment that characterized Lord Lyons." "Quite unnecessarily, Seward helped him to make the trip[594]." A circumstance apparently not known to Bancroft was Mercier's consultation with Lyons, before departure, in which were revealed an initiative of the adventure, and a proposed representation to the authorities in Richmond materially different from the report made by Mercier to Thouvenel.

These merit expanded treatment as new light on a curious episode and especially as revealing the British policy of the moment, represented in the person of the British Minister in Washington[595].
On April 10 Mercier came to Lyons, told him that he was about to set out for Richmond and that he had "been for some little time thinking of making this journey." He told of _making the suggestion to Seward_, and that this "rather to his surprise" had been "eagerly" taken up.
"Monsieur Mercier observed that the object of vital importance to France, and to England also, as he supposed, was to put an end, as soon as possible, to the blockade, and generally to a state of things which caused so grievous an interruption of the trade between Europe and this country.

It was, he said, possible that he might hasten the attainment of this object by conferring personally with the Secession leaders.