Forster strongly approved the conduct of the Government in preserving strict neutrality, alleging that any other conduct would have meant "a war in which she [England] would have had to fight for slavery against her kinsmen." Gregory's speech was cautious and attempted to preserve a judicial tone of argument on fact.

Forster's reads like that of one who knows his cause already won.

Gregory's had no fire in it and was characterized by Henry Adams, an interested auditor, as "listened to as you would listen to a funeral eulogy."...

"The blockade is now universally acknowledged to be unobjectionable[573]." This estimate is borne out by the speech for the Government by the Solicitor-General, who maintained the effectiveness of the blockade and who answered Gregory's argument that recognition was not in question by stating that to refuse longer to recognize the blockade would result in a situation of "armed neutrality"-- that is of "unproclaimed war." He pictured the disgust of Europe if England should enter upon such a war in alliance "with a country ...

which is still one of the last strongholds of slavery"-- an admission made in the fervour of debate that was dangerous as tending to tie the Government's hands in the future, but which was, no doubt, merely a personal and carelessly ventured view, not a governmentally authorized one.