Sir George Lewis was far from well (he died the next spring), and reluctant to do what his chief wished; but he did it on the 17th of October 1862 in a speech at Hereford.

Mr.Milner-Gibson was also put forward to the same end, and after Parliament met, in February 1863, Mr.Disraeli gave the Government a sharp lashing for sending one or two Ministers into the country in the recess to announce that the Southern States would be recognised, and then putting forward the President of the Board of Trade (Milner-Gibson) to attack the Southern States and the pestilent institution of slavery.

Mr.Gladstone's speech at Newcastle, coming as it did from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the close of a session during which everybody knew that the Emperor of the French had been urging upon England the recognition of the Confederate States, and that Mr.Mason had been in active correspondence on that subject with Lord Russell, was taken at Newcastle, and throughout the country, to mean that the recognition was imminent.

Mr.Gladstone even went so far as to say he rather rejoiced that the Confederates had not been able to hold Maryland, as that might have made them aggressive, and so made a settlement more difficult, it being, he said, as certain as anything in the future could be that the South must succeed in separating itself from the Union.

This remark about Maryland distinctly indicated consultation as to what limits and boundaries between the South and the North should be recognised in the recognition, and on that account, it seems, was particularly resented by Earl Russell as well as by Lord Palmerston.
Sir George Cornewall Lewis's speech of October 17, 1862, was a most skilful and masterly attempt to protect the Cabinet against the consequences of what the _Times_, on the 9th of October, had treated as the "indiscretion or treason" of his colleague.