Lindsay, refusing to accede to appeals for postponement because "the South was winning anyway," argued that slavery was no element in the conflict, that the Southern cause was just, and that England, because of her own difficulties, should mediate and bring to a conclusion a hopeless war.

He claimed the time was opportune since mediation would be welcomed by a great majority in the North, and he quoted from a letter by a labouring man in Lancashire, stating, "We think it high time to give the Southern States the recognition they so richly deserve." Other pro-Southern speakers emphasized Lancashire distress.

Gregory said: "We should remember what is impending over Lancashire--what want, what woe, what humiliation--and that not caused by the decree of God, but by the perversity of man.

I leave the statistics of the pauperism that is, and that is to be, to my honourable friends, the representatives of manufacturing England." No statistics were forthcoming from this quarter for not a representative from Lancashire participated in the debate save Hopwood who at the very end upbraided his fellow members from the district for their silence and was interrupted by cries of "Divide, Divide." Lindsay's quoted letter was met by opponents of mediation with the assertion that the operatives were well known to be united against any action and that they could be sustained "in luxury" from the public purse for far less a cost than that of a war with America.
But cotton did not play the part expected of it in this debate.

Forster in a very able speech cleverly keeping close to a consideration of the effect of mediation on _England_, advanced the idea that such a step would not end the war but would merely intensify it and so prolong English commercial distress.