[780] Bright to Sumner, October 10, 1862. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVI, p. 108. Bright was wholly in the dark as to a Ministerial project. Much of this letter is devoted to the emancipation proclamation which did not at first greatly appeal to Bright as a wise measure.
[781] The Times, October 9 and 10, while surprised that Gladstone and not Palmerston, was the spokesman, accepted the speech as equivalent to a governmental pronouncement. Then the Times makes no further comment of moment until November 13. The Morning Post (regarded as Palmerston's organ) reported the speech in full on October 9, but did not comment editorially until October 13, and then with much laudation of Gladstone's northern tour but with no mention whatever of his utterances on America.
[782] Gladstone wrote to Russell, October 17, explaining that he had intended no "official utterance," and pleaded that Spence, whom he had seen in Liverpool, did not put that construction on his words (Gladstone Papers). Russell replied, October 20. "... Still you must allow me to say that I think you went beyond the latitude which all speakers must be allowed when you said that Jeff Davis had made a nation. Negotiations would seem to follow, and for that step I think the Cabinet is not prepared. However we shall soon meet to discuss this very topic" (Ibid.)
[783] Palmerston MS. Appended to the Memorandum were the texts of the emancipation proclamation, Seward's circular letter of September 22, and an extract from the National Intelligencer of September 26, giving Lincoln's answer to Chicago abolitionists.
[784] Morley, Gladstone, II, 80, narrates the "tradition." Walpole, Twenty-five Years, II, 57, states it as a fact. Also Education of Henry Adams, pp. 136, 140. Over forty years later an anonymous writer in the Daily Telegraph, Oct. 24, 1908, gave exact details of the "instruction" to Lewis, and of those present. (Cited in Adams, A Crisis in Downing Street, pp. 404-5.) C.F. Adams, Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity, Ch. III, repeats the tradition, but in A Crisis in Downing Street he completely refutes his earlier opinion and the entire tradition. The further narrative in this chapter, especially the letters of Clarendon to Lewis, show that Lewis acted solely on his own initiative.
[785] Anonymously, in the Edinburgh, for April, 1861, Lewis had written of the Civil War in a pro-Northern sense, and appears never to have accepted fully the theory that it was impossible to reconquer the South.
[786] Cited in Adams, A Crisis in Downing Street, p. 407.
[787] Derby, in conversation with Clarendon, had characterized Gladstone's speech as an offence against tradition and best practice. Palmerston agreed, but added that the same objection could be made to Lewis' speech. Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 267. Palmerston to Clarendon, Oct. 20, 1862. Clarendon wrote Lewis, Oct. 24, that he did not think this called for any explanation by Lewis to Palmerston, further proof of the falsity of Palmerston's initiative. Ibid., p. 267.
[788] The Index, Oct. 16, 1862, warned against acceptance of Gladstone's Newcastle utterances as indicating Government policy, asserted that the bulk of English opinion was with him, but ignorantly interpreted Cabinet hesitation to the "favour of the North and bitter enmity to the South, which has animated the diplomatic career of Lord Russell...." Throughout the war, Russell, to The Index, was the evil genius of the Government.
[789] Palmerston MS.