Patience for a few more weeks is I am satisfied the wiser and the more expedient policy[556]." [Illustration: KING COTTON BOUND: Or, The Modern Prometheus.

_Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch"_] This would indicate some Cabinet discussion, at least, on the blockade and on British trade interests.

But Westbury's "few more weeks" had no place in Russell's thought, for on February 15 he wrote to Lyons in regard to assertions being made that the blockade was ineffective because certain vessels had eluded it: "Her Majesty's Government, however, are of opinion that, assuming that the blockade is duly notified, and also that a number of ships is stationed and remains at the entrance of a port, sufficient really to prevent access to it or to create an evident danger of entering or leaving it, and that these ships do not voluntarily permit ingress or egress, the fact that various ships may have successfully escaped through it (as in the particular instances here referred to) will not of itself prevent the blockade from being an effective one by international law[557]." From this view Russell never departed in official instructions[558].
England's position as the leading maritime Power made it inevitable that she should promptly approve the Northern blockade effort and be cautious in criticizing its legitimate operation.

Both her own history and probable future interests when a belligerent, required such a policy far more important in the eyes of statesmen than any temporary injury to British commerce.

English merchants, if determined to trade with the South, must take their own risks, and that Russell believed they would do so is evidenced by his comment to Adams that it was a tradition of the sea that Englishmen "would, if money were to be made by it, send supplies even to hell at the risk of burning their sails." But trade problems with the South soon brought real pressure on the Government.