RUSSELL'S MEDIATION PLAN The adjournment of Parliament on August 7 without hint of governmental inclination to act in the American Civil War was accepted by most of the British public as evidence that the Ministry had no intentions in that direction.

But keen observers were not so confident.

Motley, at Vienna, was keeping close touch with the situation in England through private correspondence.

In March, 1862, he thought that "France and England have made their minds up to await the issue of the present campaign"-- meaning McClellan's advance on Richmond[734].

With the failure of that campaign he wrote: "Thus far the English Government have resisted his [Napoleon's] importunities.