Also, in relief at the outcome of the _Trent_, he was convinced, momentarily at least, that the general British suspicion of Seward was unfounded.

"I do not," he wrote to Gladstone, "believe that Seward has any animosity to this country.

It is all buncom" (_sic_)[485].

Apparently it was beginning to be realized by British statesmen that Seward's "high tone" which they had interpreted, with some justification earlier, as especially inimical to England, now indicated a foreign policy based upon one object only--the restoration of the Union, and that in pursuit of this object he was but seeking to make clear to European nations that the United States was still powerful enough to resent foreign interference.

The final decision in the _Trent_ affair, such was the situation in the American Cabinet, rested on Seward alone and that decision was, from the first, for peace.
Nor did Seward later hold any grudge over the outcome.