"
When Mr. Adams, not satisfied even with this positive assurance,
pressed for a categorical answer: "I asked him if I was to
understand that policy as not now to be changed; he said: Yes!"
John Morley's comment on this matter, in the "Life of
Gladstone," forty years afterwards, would have interested the
Minister, as well as his private secretary: "If this relation be
accurate," said Morley of a relation officially published at the
time, and never questioned, "then the Foreign Secretary did not
construe strict neutrality as excluding what diplomatists call
good offices." For a vital lesson in politics, Earl Russell's
construction of neutrality mattered little to the student, who
asked only Russell's intent, and cared only to know whether his
construction had any other object than to deceive the Minister.
In the grave one can afford to be lavish of charity, and
possibly Earl Russell may have been honestly glad to reassure his
personal friend Mr. Adams; but to one who is still in the world
even if not of it, doubts are as plenty as days. Earl Russell
totally deceived the private secretary, whatever he may have done
to the Minister. The policy of abstention was not settled on
October 23. Only the next day, October 24, Gladstone circulated a
rejoinder to G. C. Lewis, insisting on the duty of England,
France, and Russia to intervene by representing, "with moral
authority and force, the opinion of the civilized world upon the
conditions of the case.
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