In February, 1863, such a meeting at Plaistow, attended by the gentry of the neighbourhood, but chiefly by working men, especially by dock labourers and by men from the ship-building yards at Blackwall, resolved that "the Chairman be requested to write to the Prime Minister of our Queen, earnestly entreating him to put in force, with utmost vigilance, the law of England against such ships as the _Alabama_[992]." Such expressions were not as yet widespread, nor did the leading papers, up to April, indulge in much discussion, but British _doubt_ was developing[993].
Unquestionably, Russell himself was experiencing a renewed doubt as to Britain's neutral duty.

On March 23, he made a speech in Parliament which Adams reported as "the most satisfactory of all the speeches he has made since I have been at this post[994]." On March 26, came the presentation by Adams of Seward's instruction of which Russell wrote to Lyons as made in no unfriendly tone and as a result of which Adams wrote: "The conclusion which I draw ...

is, that the Government is really better disposed to exertion, and feels itself better sustained for action by the popular sentiment than ever before[995]." Russell told Adams that he had received a note from Palmerston "expressing his approbation of every word" of his speech three days before.

In a portion of the despatch to Seward, not printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence, Adams advised against the issue of privateers, writing, "In the present favourable state of popular mind, it scarcely seems advisable to run the risk of changing the current in Great Britain by the presentation of a new issue which might rally all national pride against us as was done in the _Trent_ case[996]." That Russell was indeed thinking of definite action is foreshadowed by the advice he gave to Palmerston on March 27, as to the latter's language in the debate scheduled for that day on the Foreign Enlistment Act.

Russell wrote, referring to the interview with Adams: "The only thing which Adams could think of when I asked him what he had to propose in reference to the _Alabama_ was that the Government should declare their disapproval of the fitting out of such ships of war to prey on American commerce.
"Now, as the fitting out and escape of the _Alabama_ and _Oreto_ was clearly an evasion of our law, I think you can have no difficulty in declaring this evening that the Government disapprove of all such attempts to elude our law with a view to assist one of the belligerents[997]." But the tone of parliamentary debate did not bear out the hopeful view of the American Minister.