With the fall of Fort Sumter and the European recognition that a civil
war was actually under way in America, a large number of new and vexing
problems was presented to Russell. His treatment of them furnishes the
subject matter of later chapters. For the period previous to April,
1861, British official attitude may be summed up in the statement that
the British Minister at Washington hoped against hope that some solution
might be found for the preservation of the Union, but that at the same
time, looking to future British interests and possibly believing also
that his attitude would tend to preserve the Union, he asserted
vehemently the impossibility of any Northern interference with British
trade to Southern ports. Across the water, Russell also hoped faintly
that there might be no separation. Very soon, however, believing that
separation inevitable and the disruption of the Union final, he fixed
his hope on peaceful rather than warlike secession. Even of this,
however, he had little real expectation, but neither he nor anyone else
in England, nor even in America, had any idea that the war would be a
long and severe one. It is evident that he was already considering the
arrival of that day when recognition must be granted to a new,
independent and slave-holding State. But this estimate of the future is
no proof that the Russian Ambassador's accusation of British
governmental pleasure in American disruption was justified[125].
Russell, cautious in refusing to pledge himself to Dallas, was using
exactly such caution as a Foreign Secretary was bound to exercise. He
would have been a rash man who, in view of the uncertainty and
irresolution of Northern statesmen, would have committed Great Britain
in March, 1861, to a definite line of policy.

On April 6, Russell was still instructing Lyons to recommend
reconciliation. April 8, Dallas communicated to Russell an instruction
from Seward dated March 9, arguing on lines of "traditional friendship"
against a British recognition of the Confederacy. Russell again refused
to pledge his Government, but on April 12 he wrote to Lyons that British
Ministers were "in no hurry to recognize the separation as complete and
final[126]." In the early morning of that same day the armed conflict in
America had begun, and on the day following, April 13, the first
Southern victory had been recorded in the capture of Fort Sumter. The
important question which the man at the head of the British