This view was repeated by him many times and most emphatically as late as the first month of 1863.
(Russian Archives, Stoeckl to F.O., January 29-February 10, 1863.

No.
342.) It was not until September, 1863, that Stoeckl ventured to hope for a Northern reconquest of the South.

I am indebted to Dr.Frank A.
Golder, of Stanford University, for the use of his notes and transcripts covering all of the Russian diplomatic correspondence with the United States, 1860-1865.

In the occasional use made of this material the English translation is mine.] [Footnote 72: Stoeckl reported that at a dinner with Lyons, at which he, Mercier and Seward were the guests, Seward had asserted that if Civil War came all foreign commerce with the South would be interrupted.

To this Lyons protested that England could not get along without cotton and that she would secure it in one way or another.