].

Had in fact a "pledge to wait" been given to Dallas; and was the
Proclamation hasty and premature? Russell always denied he had given any
such pledge, and the text of Dallas' report of the interview of May 1
would seem to support that denial[190]. On that day Russell for the
second time told Dallas that England would not commit herself, as yet,
as regards Southern recognition, clearly meaning a recognition of
_sovereignty_, not of belligerency, and immediately asked Dallas what
the rumours of a blockade meant. Dallas replied that he had no
information on this point, and Russell "acquiesced in the expediency of
disregarding mere rumour, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought
by my successor. The motion, therefore, of Mr. Gregory may be further
postponed, at his lordship's suggestion."

The unprejudiced interpretation of this report is merely that Russell
refrained from pressing Dallas about a matter--blockade--of which Dallas
knew nothing, agreeing that this would be explained by Adams, and
especially that he let Dallas understand that Gregory's motion, which
was one for _recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the South_,
would be postponed. If there was a pledge here it was a pledge not to
recognize Southern sovereignty until after Adams' arrival.

But even if there was no promise of delay "there can be no question,"
writes the son of Adams in a brief biography of his father, "that the
proclamation of the 13th was issued with unseemly haste.... The purpose
was manifest. It was to have the status of the Confederacy as a
belligerent an accomplished fact before the arrival of the newly
accredited minister. This precipitate action was chiefly significant as
indicating an animus; that animus being really based on ... the belief,
already matured into a conviction, that the full recognition of the
Confederacy as an independent power was merely a question of time, and
probably of a very short time[191]." The author does not, however,
support the contemporary American contention that _any_ Proclamation was
contrary to international custom and that no recognition of belligerent
status was permissible to neutrals until the "insurgents" had forced the
mother country itself to recognize the division as fully accomplished,
even while war still continued. Indeed American practice was flatly
contradictory of the argument, as in the very pertinent example of the
petty Canadian rebellion of 1837, when President Van B