Merely a "confident hope" had been expressed to the United States that "every facility will be given" to British subjects to prove ownership of property[1307].
Evidently the Government was not eager to raise irritating questions at a moment when all eyes were strained to observe the concluding events of the war.
Then came the news of Lee's surrender and of the assassination of Lincoln, with the attack on Seward, already incapacitated from active duties.

Seward's illness delayed American pressure on England--a fortunate circumstance in the relations with Great Britain in that it gave time for a clearer appreciation of the rapidity and completeness of the collapse of the South.

May 15, Lord Houghton asked whether the Government did not intend, in view of recent events in America, "to withdraw the admission of belligerent rights conceded to the so-called Confederate States." Russell promptly objected to the form of the question: England had not "conceded" any rights to the South--she had merely issued a proclamation of neutrality after Lincoln had declared the existence of a war by proclaiming a blockade.

England had had no other recourse, unless she chose to refuse recognition of the blockade, and this would have drawn her into the war.

As to a withdrawal of the neutrality proclamation this must wait upon official announcement from the United States that the war was at an end.