The first, he says, was based on "unsound reasoning" (II, 177).

On the second he quotes with approval a letter from Russell to Edward Everett, July 12, 1861, showing the British dilemma: "Unless we meant to treat them as pirates and to hang them we could not deny them belligerent rights" (II, 178).

And as to the Southern commissioners he asserts that Seward, later, ceased protest and writes: "Perhaps he remembered that he himself had recently communicated, through three different intermediaries, with the Confederate commissioners to Washington, and would have met them if the President had not forbidden it." Bancroft, _Seward_, II, 179.] [Footnote 186: Du Bose, _Yancey_, p.

606.] [Footnote 187: _A Cycle of Adams' Letters, 1861-1865_, Vol.

I, p.