In this instruction, dated April 27[174], he wrote: "When you shall have read the instructions at large which have been sent to you, you will hardly need to be told that these last remarks of his lordship are by no means satisfactory to this government.

Her Britannic Majesty's government is at liberty to choose whether it will retain the friendship of this government by refusing all aid and comfort to its enemies, now in flagrant rebellion against it, as we think the treaties existing between the two countries require, or whether the government of Her Majesty will take the precarious benefits of a different course.
"You will lose no time in making known to Her Britannic Majesty's Government that the President regards the answer of his lordship as possibly indicating a policy that this government would be obliged to deem injurious to its rights and derogating from its dignity." Having promptly carried out these instructions, as he understood them, Adams soon began to report an improved British attitude, and especially in the Government, stating that this improvement was due, in part, to the vigour now being shown by the Northern Government, in part "to a sense that the preceding action of Her Majesty's ministers has been construed to mean more than they intended by it[175]." But at Washington the American irritation was not so easily allayed.

Lyons was reporting Seward and, indeed, the whole North, as very angry with the Proclamation of Neutrality[176].

On June 14, Lyons had a long conversation with Seward in which the latter stubbornly denied that the South could possess any belligerent rights.

Lyons left the conference feeling that Seward was trying to divide France and England on this point, and Lyons was himself somewhat anxious because France was so long delaying her own Proclamation[177].