May 22, he warned Sir Edmund Head, Governor of Canada, urging him to make defensive preparation[215].

The following day he dilated to Russell, privately, on "the difficulty of keeping Mr.Seward within the bounds of decency even in ordinary social intercourse[216] ..." and in an official communication of this same day he records Washington rumours of a belligerent despatch read by Seward before the Cabinet, of objections by other members, and that Seward's insistence has carried the day[217].
That Seward was, in fact, still smarting over his reverse is shown by a letter, written on this same May 23, to his intimate friend and political adviser, Thurlow Weed, who had evidently cautioned him against precipitate action.

Seward wrote, "The European phase is bad.

But your apprehension that I may be too decisive alarms me more.

Will you consent, or advise us to consent, that Adams and Dayton have audiences and compliments in the Ministers' Audience Chamber, and Toombs' [Confederate Secretary of State] emissaries have access to his bedroom[218] ?" Two interpretations are possible from this: either that Seward knowing himself defeated was bitter in retrospect, or that he had not yet yielded his will to that of Lincoln, in spite of the changes made in his Despatch No.10.The former interpretation seems the more likely, for though Seward continued to write for a time "vigorous" despatches to Adams, they none of them approached the vigour of even the amended despatch.