Barriers of race, language,
birth, habit, ceased to exist. Diplomacy held diplomats apart in
order to save Governments, but Earl Russell could not hold Mr.
Adams apart. He was undistinguishable from a Londoner. In society
few Londoners were so widely at home. None had such double
personality and corresponding double weight.
The singular luck that took him to Fryston to meet the shock of
the Trent Affair under the sympathetic eyes of Monckton Milnes
and William E. Forster never afterwards deserted him. Both Milnes
and Forster needed support and were greatly relieved to be
supported. They saw what the private secretary in May had
overlooked, the hopeless position they were in if the American
Minister made a mistake, and, since his strength was theirs, they
lost no time in expressing to all the world their estimate of the
Minister's character. Between them the Minister was almost safe.
One might discuss long whether, at that moment, Milnes or
Forster were the more valuable ally, since they were influences
of different kinds. Monckton Milnes was a social power in London,
possibly greater than Londoners themselves quite understood, for
in London society as elsewhere, the dull and the ignorant made a
large majority, and dull men always laughed at Monckton Milnes.
Every bore was used to talk familiarly about "Dicky Milnes," the
"cool of the evening"; and of course he himself affected social
eccentricity, challenging ridicule with the indifference of one
who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a maker of
men -- of a great many men.
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