This he believed to depend on the life of the Prime Minister and his anxious inquiries as to the health of Palmerston were frequent.

Nothing in his instructions indicated a desired course of action and Mason after consulting Slidell and, naturally, securing his acquiescence, determined to remain in Europe waiting events.
If the South was indignant at British inaction the North was correspondingly pleased and after the seizure of the Laird Rams was officially very friendly--at least so Lyons reported[1117].

In this same private letter, however, Lyons ventured a strong protest against a notion which now seems to have occurred to Russell of joint action by England, France and Spain to withdraw belligerent rights _to the North_, unless the United States formally "concede to their enemy the status of a Belligerent for all _international_ purposes." Why or how this idea came to be taken up by Russell is uncertain.

Possibly it was the result of irritation created by the persistence of Seward in denying that the war was other than an effort to crush rebellious subjects--theory clearly against the fact yet consistently maintained by the American Secretary of State throughout the entire war and constantly causing difficulties in relations with neutral countries.

At any rate Lyons was quick to see the danger.