All that had been planned by Great Britain and France had been based on their estimate of the necessity of the situation.

They had no knowledge of Seward's instructions of April 24.

When therefore Adams, toward the conclusion of his interview, stated his authority to negotiate a convention, he undoubtedly took Russell by surprise.

So far as he was concerned a suggestion to the North, the result of an agreement made with France after some discussion and delay, was in fact completed, and the draft finally drawn _two days before_, on the sixteenth.

Even if not actually sent, as Henry Adams thinks, it was a completed agreement.