..."
"These acts are inconsistent with the respect and comity
which ought to be shewn by a belligerent towards a
Neutral Power.
"Her Majesty has declared her Neutrality and means strictly
to observe it.
"You will therefore call upon Mr. Benjamin to induce his
Government to forbear from all acts tending to affect
injuriously Her Majesty's position[1035]."
To carry out this instruction there was required permission for Crawford
to pass through the blockade but Seward refused this when Lyons made the
request[1036].
Not everyone in Britain, however, approved the Government's course in
seizing the Rams. Legal opinion especially was very generally against
the act. Adams now pressed either for an alteration of the British law
or for a convention with America establishing mutual similar
interpretation of neutral duty. Russell replied that "until the trials
of the _Alexandra_ and the steam rams had taken place, we could hardly
be said to know what our law was, and therefore not tell whether it
required alteration. I said, however, that he might assure Mr. Seward
that the wish and intention of Government were to make our neutrality an
honest and bona-fide one[1037]." But save from extreme and avowed
Southern sympathizers criticism of the Government was directed less to
the stoppage of the Rams than to attacks of a political character,
attempting to depict the weakness of the Foreign Minister and his
humiliation of Great Britain in having "yielded to American threats.
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