1. Is there any possible way HM's government could order the Royal Navy to impound the CSS Florida and the CSS Alabama, forcibly if necessary, on the grounds that they were deliberately constructed and procured in violation of British orders in council?
2. Is there any way an apparent British decision to intervene could end up turning the UK against the South? Say the Confederacy achieves some kind of victory at Antietam and the UK and France make a joint offer of arbitration. Say also Lincoln and Seward savvily/desperately don't outright refuse and, playing for time, actually meet with the arbitrators, etc. Would it be possible for Lincoln and Seward to maneuever in the arbitrations and negotiations to make the South look like it was in the wrong or even to have the South withdraw? Or might the South withdraw simply because British arbitration was unlikely to give it all it wanted (Gladstone, who was one of the two biggest advocates for arbitration on the basis of separation, apparently believed that a fair boundary would give parts of Tennessee and Virginia to the Union)? If so, how does UK respond, and what would the consequences be thereafter?