Concerning the first thought, he understood of course that a neutral President could not say that he favoured one side or the other: everybody understood that and nobody expected him to take sides.

But when the President said that the objects of the war did not concern him, that was taken by British public opinion as meaning a condemnation of the British cause, and it produced deep feeling.
Concerning the "freedom of the seas," he believed that the first use of the phrase was made by Colonel House (on his return from one of his visits to Berlin)[40], but the public now regarded it as a German invention and it meant to the British mind a policy which would render British supremacy at sea of little value in time of war; and public opinion resented this.

He knew perfectly well that at a convenient time new rules must be made governing the conduct of war at sea and on the land, too.

But the German idea of "the freedom of the seas" ("freedom" was needed on land also) is repulsive to the British mind.
He mentioned these things because they had produced in many minds an unwillingness, he feared, to use the good offices of the President whenever any mediatorial service might be done by a neutral.

The tendency of these remarks was certainly in that direction.