This was done through Clarendon, who wrote to Palmerston on October 16 that Derby was averse to action.
"He said that he had been constantly urged to _go in for_ recognition and mediation, but had always refused on the ground that recognition would merely irritate the North without advancing the cause of the South or procuring a single bale of cotton, and that mediation in the present temper of the Belligerents _must_ be rejected even if the mediating Powers themselves knew what to propose as a fair basis of compromise; for as each party insisted upon having that which the other declared was vitally essential to its existence, it was clear that the war had not yet marked out the stipulations of a treaty of peace....

The recognition of the South could be of no benefit to England unless we meant to sweep away the blockade, which would be an act of hostility towards the North[789]." More than any other member of the Cabinet Lewis was able to guess, fairly accurately, what was in the Premier's mind for Lewis was Clarendon's brother-in-law, and "the most intimate and esteemed of his male friends[790]." They were in constant communication as the Cabinet crisis developed, and Lewis' next step was taken immediately after Palmerston's consultation of Derby through Clarendon.

October 17, Lewis circulated a memorandum in reply to that of Russell's of October 13.

He agreed with Russell's statement of the facts of the situation in America, but added with sarcasm: "A dispassionate bystander might be expected to concur in the historical view of Lord Russell, and to desire that the war should be speedily terminated by a pacific agreement between the contending parties.

But, unhappily, the decision upon any proposal of the English Government will be made, not by dispassionate bystanders, but by heated and violent partisans; and we have to consider, not how the proposal indicated in the Memorandum ought to be received, or how it would be received by a conclave of philosophers, but how it is likely to be received by the persons to whom it would be addressed." Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, Lewis admitted, presumably was intended to incite servile war, but that very fact was an argument against, not for, British action, since it revealed an intensity of bitterness prohibitory of any "calm consideration" of issues by the belligerents.