rity from Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary
of State. On July 23 Slidell made a similar offer to Thouvenel and left
with him a full memorandum of the Southern proposal[709]. He was
cautioned that it was undesirable his special offer to France should
reach the ears of the British Government--a caution which he transmitted
to Mason on July 30, when sending copies of Benjamin's instructions, but
still without revealing the full extent of his own overtures
to Napoleon.

[Illustration: JOHN SLIDELL (_From Nicolay and Hay's "Life of Abraham
Lincoln": The Century Co. New York_)]

In all this Slidell was still exhibiting that hankering to pull off a
special diplomatic achievement, characteristic of the man, and in line,
also, with a persistent theory that the policy most likely to secure
results was that of inducing France to act alone. But he was repeatedly
running against advice that France must follow Great Britain, and the
burden of his July 20 letter to Mason was an urging that a demand for
recognition be now made simultaneously in Paris and London. Thouvenel,
not at all enthusiastic over Slidell's proposals, told him that this was
at least a prerequisite, and on July 23, Slidell wrote Mason the demand
should be made at once[710]. Mason, on the advice of Lindsay,
Fitzgerald, and Lord Malmesbury, had already prepared a request for
recognition, but had deferred making it after listening to the debate of
July 18[711]. Now, on July 24, he addressed Russell referring to their
interview of February, 1862, in which he had urged the claims of the
Confederacy to recognition and again presented them, asserting that the
subsequent failure of Northern campaigns had demonstrated the power of
the South to maintain its independence. The South, he wrote, asked
neither aid nor intervention; it merely desired recognition and
continuation of British neutrality[712]. On the same day Mason also
asked for an interview[713], but received no reply until July 31, when
Russell wrote that no definite answer could be sent until "after a
Cabinet" and that an interview did not seem necessary[714].

This answer clearly indicates that the Government was in uncertainty. It
is significant that Russell took this moment to reply at last to
Seward's protestations of May 28[715], which had been presented to him
by Adams on June 20. He instructed Stuart at Washington that his delay
had been due to a "waiting for military events," but that these had
been in