Soon Stuart was able to give notice, a full month in advance of the event, of Lincoln's plan to issue an emancipation proclamation, postponed temporarily on the insistence of Seward[748], but he attached no importance to this, regarding it as at best a measure of pretence intended to frighten the South and to influence foreign governments[749].

Russell was not impressed with Stuart's shift from mediation to recognition.

"I think," he wrote, "we must allow the President to spend his second batch of 600,000 men before we can hope that he and his democracy will listen to reason[750]." But this did not imply that Russell was wavering in the idea that October would be a "ripe time." Soon he was journeying to the Continent in attendance on the Queen and using his leisure to perfect his great plan[751].
Russell's first positive step was taken on September 13.

On that date he wrote to Cowley in Paris instructing him to sound Thouvenel, _privately_[752], and the day following he wrote to Palmerston commenting on the news just received of the exploits of Stonewall Jackson in Virginia, "it really looks as if he might end the war.

In October the hour will be ripe for the Cabinet[753]." Similar reactions were expressed by Palmerston at the same moment and for the same reasons.