On the same day that Adams reported the result to Seward he wrote privately to his son in Boston: "My position here thus far has not been difficult or painful.
If I had followed the course of some of my colleagues in the diplomatic line, this country might have been on the high road to the confederate camp before now.

It did not seem to me to be expedient so to play into the hands of our opponents.

Although there has been and is more or less of sympathy with the slave-holders in certain circles, they are not so powerful as to overbear the general sentiment of the people.

The ministry has been placed in rather delicate circumstances, when a small loss of power on either extreme would have thrown them out[187]." In Adams' opinion the Liberals were on the whole more friendly, at least, to the North than were the Conservatives, and he therefore considered it best not to press too harshly upon the Government.
But the concluding sentence of this same letter was significant: "I wait with patience--but as yet I have not gone so far as to engage a house for more than a month at a time...." He might himself be inclined to view more leniently the Proclamation of Neutrality and be able to find excuses for the alleged haste with which it had been issued, but his instructions required strong representations, especially on the latter point.

Adams' report to Seward of June 14, just noted, on the interview with Russell of June 12, after treating of privateering and the Southern commissioners, turns in greater length to the alleged pledge of delay given by Russell to Dallas, and to the violation of that pledge in a hasty issue of the Proclamation.