The Russian Minister, Stoeckl, reported to his Government that he had learned from "a sure source" of representations made to Jefferson Davis by Blair, a prominent Unionist and politician of the border state of Maryland, looking to reconstruction and to the sending by Lincoln of armies into Canada and Mexico.

Stoeckl believed such a war would be popular, but commented that "Lincoln might change his mind[1269] to-morrow." In London the _Army and Navy Gazette_ declared that Davis could not consent to reunion and that Lincoln could not offer any other terms of peace, but that a truce might be patched up on the basis of a common aggression against supposed foreign enemies[1270].

Adams pictured all British society as now convinced that the end of the war was near, and bitter against the previous tone and policy of such leaders of public opinion as the _Times_, adding that it was being "whispered about that if the feud is reconciled and the Union restored, and a great army left on our hands, the next manifestation will be one of hostility to this country[1271]." The basis of all this rumour was Blair's attempt to play the mediator.
He so far succeeded that on January 31, 1865, Lincoln instructed Seward to go to Fortress Monroe to meet "commissioners" appointed by Davis.

But Lincoln made positive in his instructions three points: (1) Complete restoration of the Union.
(2) No receding on emancipation.
(3) No cessation of hostilities "short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Government." A few days later the President decided that his own presence was desirable and joined his Secretary of State in the "Hampton Roads Conference" of February 3.

It quickly appeared that the Confederates did indeed hope to draw the North into a foreign war for a "traditional American object," using the argument that _after_ such a war restoration of the Union would be easily accomplished.