Launching Mac Mail without importing any emails

I've been having a real headache of a problem, in that my mail server is spewing out hundred's of thousands of emails (only for July 8 email and only for a few random letters, go figure. While I've deleted them from my webmail system, whenever I launch Mac Mail, it says it wants to import over 1.2 million, emails. If I hit cancel it closes up Mail. (yes, I have my hosting company looking into it).

If I let it import them all, it sticks at the last email and won't allow me to continue.

Is there a way to launch Mail without doing the import?