Then came the first public effort of the sympathisers with the rebellion. After several preliminary skirmishes, which were defeated by Mr. Forster (who had what we lawyers should call the watching brief, with Cobden and Bright behind him as leading counsel, and who used to go round the lobbies in those anxious days with his pockets bulging out with documents to prove how effective the blockade was, and how many ships of our merchants you were capturing every day), Mr. Gregory put a motion on the paper. He was well chosen for the purpose, as a member of great experience and ability, sitting on our side of the House, so that weak-kneed Liberals would have an excuse for following him, and though not himself in office, supposed to be on intimate terms with the Premier and other members of the Cabinet. His motion was simply “to call the attention of the House to the expediency of prompt recognition of the Southern Confederacy.” It was set down for 7th June 1861, and I tell you we were all pretty nervous about the result. The _Spectator, Daily News, Star_, and other staunch papers opened fire, and we all did what we could in the way of canvassing; but until the Government had declared itself no Union man could feel safe. Well, Lord John Russell, as the Foreign Minister, got up, snubbed the motion altogether, said that the Government had no intention whatever of agreeing to it, and recommended its withdrawal. So Mr. Gregory and his friends took their motion off the paper without a debate, and did not venture to try any other during the session of 1861. In the late autumn came the unlucky _Trent_ affair, to which I have already sufficiently alluded. Belying on the feeling which had been roused by it, and cheered on by the Mason club in Piccadilly and the _Index_ newspaper fulminations, and by the severe checks of the Union armies, they took the field again in 1862. This time their tactics were bolder. They no longer confined themselves to asking the opinion of the House deferentially. Mr. Lindsay, the great shipowner, who it was said had a small fleet of blockade-runners, was chosen as the spokesman. He gave notice of motion, “That in the opinion of this House, the States which have seceded from the Union have so long maintained themselves, and given such proofs of determination and ability to support independence, that the propriety of offering mediation with a view to terminating hostilities is worthy of the serious and immediate attention of Her Majesty’s Government.” Again we trembled for the result, and again the Government came out with a square refusal on the 18th of July, and this motion shared the fate of its predecessor, and was withdrawn by its own promoters.