The battle served, in some degree, to bring into the open the metropolitan British papers which hitherto professing neutrality and careful not to reveal too openly their leanings, now each took a definite stand and became an advocate of a cause.

The Duke of Argyll might write reassuringly to Mrs.Motley to have no fear of British interference[329], and to Gladstone (evidently controverting the latter's opinion) that slavery was and would continue to be an object in the war[330], but the press, certainly, was not united either as to future British policy or on basic causes and objects of the war.

The _Economist_ believed that a second Southern victory like Bull Run, if coming soon, would "so disgust and dishearten the shouters for the Union that the contest will be abandoned on the instant....

Some day, with scarcely any notice, we may receive tidings that an armistice has been agreed upon and preliminaries of peace have been signed[331]." John Bright's paper, the _Morning Star_, argued long and feverishly that Englishmen must not lose sight of the fact that slavery was an issue, and made appeal for expressions, badly needed at the moment, of pro-Northern sympathy[332].

To this _John Bull_ retorted: "Nothing can be clearer than this, that black slavery has nothing whatever to do with this Civil War in America....