So strong was this obsession that governmental foreign policy neglected all other considerations and the first Commission to Europe had no initial instructions save to demand recognition[662].

The failure of that Commission, the prompt British acquiescence in the blockade, were harsh blows to Southern confidence but did not for a long time destroy the faith in the power of cotton.

In June, 1861, Bunch wrote that there was still a firm belief that "Great Britain will make any sacrifice, even of principle or of honour, to prevent the stoppage of the supply of cotton," and he enclosed a copy of an article in the _Charleston Mercury_ of June 4, proclaiming: "The cards are in our hands, and we intend to play them out to _the bankruptcy of every cotton factory in Great Britain and France, or the acknowledgment of our independence_[663]." As late as March, 1862, Bunch was still writing of this Southern faith in cotton and described the newly-made appointment of Benjamin as Secretary of State as partly due to the fact that he was the leader of the "King Cotton" theory of diplomacy[664].

It was not until the war was well nigh over that British persistence in neutrality, in spite of undoubted hardships caused by the lack of cotton, opened Southern eyes.

Pollard, editor of a leading Richmond newspaper, and soon unfriendly to the administration of Jefferson Davis, summed up in _The Lost Cause_ his earlier criticisms of Confederate foreign policy: "'Cotton,' said the Charleston _Mercury_, 'would bring England to her knees.' The idea was ludicrous enough that England and France would instinctively or readily fling themselves into a convulsion, which their great politicians saw was the most tremendous one of modern times.