On the sixteenth Russell again instructed Lyons to speak to Seward, but now was much less rasping in language, arguing, rather, the injury in the future to the United States itself in case the harbours were permanently destroyed since "...

the object of war is peace, and the purposes of peace are mutual goodwill and advantageous commercial intercourse[540]." To-day it seems absurd that any save the most ignorant observer should have thought the North contemplated a permanent and revengeful destruction of Southern port facilities.

Nor was there any just ground for such an extreme British view of the Northern plan.

Yet even Robert Browning was affected by the popular outcry.

"For what will you do," he wrote Story, "if Charleston becomes loyal again[541] ?" a query expressive of the increasing English concern, even alarm, at the intense bitterness, indicating a long war, of the American belligerents.