This reply ended the matter, and as far as is known,
neither of them ever mentioned the subject again. Mr. Lincoln put
the papers away in an envelope, and no word of the affair came to
the public until years after both men were dead. In one mind at
least there was no longer a doubt that the cabinet had a master.
Mr. Seward recognized the President's kindly forbearance, and
repaid it by devotion and personal friendship until the day of
his tragic death.
If, after this experience, the Secretary of State needed any
further proof of Mr. Lincoln's ability to rule, it soon came to
him, for during the first months of the war matters abroad
claimed the attention of the cabinet, and with these also the
untried western man showed himself better fitted to deal than his
more experienced advisers. Many of the countries of Europe,
especially France and England, wished the South to succeed.
France because of plans that Emperor Napoleon III had for
founding French colonies on American soil, and England because
such success would give her free cotton for her mills and
factories. England became so friendly toward the rebels that Mr.
Seward, much irritated, wrote a despatch on May 21, 1861, to
Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister at London, which, if
it had been sent as he wrote it, would almost certainly have
brought on war between the two countries.
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