Stoeckl was behind the times, knowing nothing, apparently, of that positive change in British policy in the late 'fifties which resulted in a determination to cease opposition to the expansion of American power.

Such opposition was then acknowledged to have been an error and in its place there sprang into being a conviction that the might of America would tend toward the greatness of England itself[1322].

In the months preceding the outbreak of the Civil War all British governmental effort was directed toward keeping clear of the quarrel and toward conciliation of the two sections.

No doubt there were those in Great Britain who rejoiced at the rupture between North and South, but they were not in office and had no control of British policy.
The war once begun, the Government, anxious to keep clear of it, was prompt in proclaiming neutrality and hastened this step for fear of maritime complications with that one of the belligerents, the North, which alone possessed a naval force.

But the British Ministry, like that of every other European state, believed that a revolution for independence when undertaken by a people so numerous and powerful as that of the South, must ultimately succeed.