On Monday night there was a debate in the House of Lords on the American blockade, when Lord John Russell declined to give the papers moved for, and said that 'the policy pursued by our Government had been dictated not by expediency, but by justice, and that both sides at some future period would acknowledge this fact, and he trusted that within three months, if not sooner, we might see the end of the war, and he hoped that it might terminate in a manner consistent with the welfare and happiness of both parties, and a renewal of the old good feeling between North and South, and that they would consent to a peaceful separation into two States which might be powerful and prosperous.' I don't think this prophecy on the part of John Russell was judicious, however likely it may be of accomplishment, and I see no probability of it. It is, however, remarkable that by the advices from New York the same expectation exists of the approaching end of the war, and Mr. Seward gives exactly the same opinion of its duration as John Russell did (ninety days), though by no means with the same result. Edward Ellice, whom I met at Flahault's on Monday, said he was convinced that whether the war went on or not, the Federal Union was doomed. Mr. Adams, the American Minister, told Flahault that the war would be over by the month of June, but with what result he did not specify.
SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1861-1872, pp. 28-9
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