June 17, Lyons told Seward, privately, and alone, that Great Britain _must_ have some intercourse with the South if only for the protection of British interests.

Seward's reply was that the United States might "shut its eyes" to this, but that if notified of what England and France were doing, the United States would be compelled to make protest.

Lyons thereupon urged Seward to distinguish between his official and personal knowledge, but Lyons and Mercier again postponed beginning the negotiation with the Confederacy[297].

Yet while thus reporting this postponement in one letter, Lyons, in another letter of the same date, indicated that the two Ministers thought that they had found a solution of the problem of how to approach, yet not negotiate with, the Confederacy.

The idea was Mercier's.