On Great Britain the alteration in the American tone produced less effect than might have been expected, and this because of the persistent fear and suspicion of Seward.

His voice, it was felt, would in the end be the determining one, and if British belief that he had long sought an occasion for war was correct, this surely was the time when he could be confident of popular support.

Thurlow Weed, Seward's most intimate political adviser, was now in London and attempted to disabuse the British public through the columns of the _Times_.

His communication was printed, but his assertion that Seward's unfriendly utterances, beginning with the "Newcastle story," were misunderstood, did not convince the _Times_, which answered him at length[457], and asserted its belief "...

that upon his ability to involve the United States in a war with England, Mr.Seward has staked his official, and, most probably, also his political existence." The Duke of Newcastle's report of Seward's remarks, wrote George Peabody later, "has strongly influenced the Government in war preparations for several months past[458]." Adams himself, though convinced that Seward's supposed animosity "was a mistake founded on a bad joke of his to the Duke of Newcastle," acknowledged that: "The Duke has, however, succeeded in making everybody in authority here believe it[459]." Surely no "joke" to an Englishman ever so plagued an American statesman; but British Ministers founded their suspicions on far more serious reasons, as previously related[460].
As time passed without an answer from America, British speculation turned to estimates of the probable conditions of a war.