10 was dated, Lyons wrote a long twelve-page despatch to Russell, anxious, and very full of Seward's warlike projects.

"The President is, of course, wholly ignorant of foreign countries, and of foreign affairs." "Seward, having lost strength by the failure of his peace policy, is seeking to recover influence by leading a foreign war party; no one in the Cabinet is strong enough to combat him." Britain, Lyons thought, should maintain a stiff attitude, prepare to defend Canada, and make close contacts with France.

He was evidently anxious to impress upon Russell that Seward really might mean war, but he declared the chief danger to lie in the fact of American belief that England and France could not be driven into war with the United States, and that they would submit to any insult.
Lyons urged some action, or declaration (he did not know what), to correct this false impression[213].

Again, on the next day, May 21, the information in his official despatch was repeated in a private letter to Russell, but Lyons here interprets Seward's threats as mere bluster.

Yet he is not absolutely sure of this, and in any case insists that the best preventative of war with the United States is to show that England is ready for it[214].
It was an anxious time for the British Minister in Washington.