"If contrary to our expectations, the British Government, either alone or in combination with any other Government, should acknowledge the insurgents, while you are remaining without further instructions from this Government concerning that event, you will immediately suspend the exercise of your functions.... I have now, in behalf of the United States, and by the authority of their Chief Executive Magistrate, performed an important duty. Its possible consequences have been weighed and its solemnity is therefore felt and freely acknowledged. This duty has brought us to meet and confront the danger of a war with Great Britain and other States allied with the insurgents who are in arms for the overthrow of the American Union. You will perceive that we have approached the contemplation of that crisis with the caution that great reluctance has inspired. But I trust that you will also have perceived that the crisis has not appalled us." Mr. Adams must have perused this letter many times as he waited for the meeting of the British Ministry,--which he learned had been called for October 23,--to act upon the question of the Civil War in America. Indeed, he had felt a strong impulse to call for his passports immediately after the Gladstone speech at Newcastle, but had concluded to wait a few days for formal action by the government to which he was accredited. But now conditions and circumstances beyond the ken of diplomacy had conspired to put the inevitable moment indefinitely forward. Whether, as has been suggested, Gladstone, in his Newcastle speech, had intended to force his colleagues into a position the only outlet of which was recognition, or whether knowing their sentiments he had in mere exuberance let the cat out of the bag, he had committed a grave breach of official etiquette in thus speaking without express Cabinet sanction. It was a false move, upon which Palmerston and Russell seized with eagerness and,--it may be imagined,--private glee. Within a week Sir George Cornewall Lewis, a member of the Cabinet, made, at Palmerston's express direction, a public speech in which he adroitly gave the lie to Gladstone. The fateful Cabinet meeting of the 23rd was postponed, and a new proposal of Napoleon III that came at about this time,--a proposal looking to joint mediation or intervention,--was rejected, on the ground that the time was not yet ripe.