The first move by the Association was planned to be made in connection with the _Alexandra_ case when, as was expected, the Exchequer Court should render a decision against the Government's right to detain her.

On January 8, 1864, Lindsay wrote to Mason that he had arranged for the public launching of the Association "next week," that he had again seen the Chief Baron who assured him the Court would decide "that the Government is entirely wrong": "I told him that if the judgment was clear, and if the Government persisted in proceeding further, that our Association (which he was pleased to learn had been formed) would take up the matter in Parliament and out of it, for if we had no right to seize these ships, it was most unjust that we should detain them by raising legal quibbles for the purpose of keeping them here till the time arrived when the South might not require them.

I think public opinion will go with us on this point, for John Bull--with all his failings--loves fair play[1149]." It is apparent from the language used by Lindsay that he was thinking of the Laird Rams and other ships fully as much as of the _Alexandra_[1150], and hoped much from an attack on the Government's policy in detaining Southern vessels.

Earl Russell was to be made to bear the brunt of this attack on the reassembling of Parliament.

In an _Index_ editorial, Adams was pictured as having driven Russell into a corner by "threats which would not have been endured for an hour by a Pitt or a Canning"; the Foreign Secretary as invariably yielding to the "acknowledged mastery of the Yankee Minister": "Mr.Adams' pretensions are extravagant, his logic is blundering, his threats laughable; but he has hit his mark.
We can trace his influence in the detention of the _Alexandra_ and the protracted judicial proceedings which have arisen out of it; in the sudden raid upon the rams at Birkenhead; in the announced intention of the Government to alter the Foreign Enlistment Act of this country in accordance with the views of the United States Cabinet.