He repeated old arguments based on suffering in Lancashire--a point his opponents brushed aside as no longer of dangerous concern--attacked British anti-slavery sentiment as mere hypocrisy and minimized the dangers of a war with the North, prophesying an easy victory for Great Britain.

Then, warmed to the real attack on the Government Roebuck related at length his interview with Napoleon, claiming to have been commissioned by the Emperor to urge England to action and asserting that since Baron Gros had been instructed to apply again to the British Cabinet it must be evident that the Ministry was concealing something from Parliament.

Almost immediately, however, he added that Napoleon had told him no formal French application could be renewed to Great Britain since Russell had revealed to Seward, through Lyons, the contents of a former application.
Thus following the usual pro-Southern arguments, now somewhat perfunctorily given, the bolt against the Government had been shot with all of Roebuck's accustomed "vigour" of utterance[1089].

Here was direct attack; that it was a futile one early became evident in the debate.
Lord Robert Montagu, while professing himself a friend of the South, was sarcastic at the expense of Roebuck's entrance into the field of diplomacy, enlarged upon the real dangers of becoming involved in the war, and moved an amendment in favour of continued British neutrality.
Palmerston was absent, being ill, but Gladstone, for the Government, while carefully avoiding expressions of sympathy for either North or South, yet going out of his way to pass a moral judgment on the disaster to political liberty if the North should wholly crush the South, was positive in assertion that it would be unwise to adopt either Roebuck's motion or Montagu's amendment.

Great Britain should not _commit_ herself to any line of policy, especially as military events were "now occurring" which might greatly alter the whole situation, though "the main result of the contest was not doubtful." Here spoke that element of the Ministry still convinced of ultimate Southern success.
If Gladstone's had been the only reply to Roebuck he and his friends might well have thought they were about to secure a ministerial change of front.