But five days later, on March 25, Lyons gave a dinner to Seward and a number of the foreign Ministers, and there Seward's violent talk about seizing any and all ships that tried to trade with the South, even if there was no blockade, made Lyons very anxious.

As a host he diverted the conversation lest it become too acrimonious, but he himself told Seward "...

that it was really a matter so very serious that I was unwilling to discuss it; that his plan seemed to me to amount in fact to a paper blockade of the enormous extent of coast comprised in the seceding States; that the calling it an enforcement of the Revenue Laws appeared to me to increase the gravity of the measure, for it placed Foreign Powers in the dilemma of recognizing the Southern Confederation or of submitting to the interruption of their commerce[99]." Lyons' advice to Russell was that no rebuff should be given the Southern Commissioners when they arrived in London, but that they be treated well.

This, he thought, might open Seward's eyes to his folly.

Still Lyons did not yet fully believe that Seward would be so vigorous as his language seemed to imply, and on March 29 he wrote that "prudent counsels" were in the ascendant, that there would be no interference with trade "_at present_," and that a quieter tone was everywhere perceptible in Washington[100].
From the point of view of the British Minister at Washington, the danger spot in relations between the United States and Great Britain lay in this matter of interference with trade to Southern ports.