Lord Palmerston hastily sketched a dispatch to
Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, demanding instant
reparation, but couched in language so threatening and insolent as to
make compliance scarcely possible. Fortunately, in like manner as Mr.
Seward had taken to Mr. Lincoln his letter of instructions to Mr. Adams,
so Lord Palmerston also felt obliged to lay his missive before the
queen, and the results in both cases were alike; for once at least
royalty did a good turn to the American republic. Prince Albert, ill
with the disease which only a few days later carried him to his grave,
labored hard over that important document, with the result that the
royal desire to eliminate passion sufficiently to make a peaceable
settlement possible was made unmistakably plain, and therefore the
letter, as ultimately revised by Earl Russell, though still disagreeably
peremptory in tone, left room for the United States to set itself right
without loss of self-respect. The most annoying feature was that Great
Britain insisted upon instant action; if Lord Lyons did not receive a
favorable reply within seven days after formally preferring his demand
for reparation, he was to call for his passports. In other words, delay
by diplomatic correspondence and such ordinary shilly-shallying meant
war. As the London "Times" expressed it, America was not to be allowed
"to retain what she had taken from us, at the cheap price of an
interminable correspondence.
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