Conservative; but already he had incurred the suspicions of a section of
the Liberal Party, and the old Whigs of Northumberland would have nothing
to do with his visit to the Tyne. But Mr. Gladstone did not need the
sympathy or countenance of the Brahmins of Liberalism. He came, he was
seen, and he conquered. Rarely have I seen anything to compare with the
enthusiasm which fired the people of Tyneside during the two days he
spent amongst them in October, 1862. I have said elsewhere that this
visit was one of the turning-points in Mr. Gladstone's life. He himself
practically acknowledged this to me in after-days. It was the first
occasion in his career on which he had been brought into close contact
with a great industrial community. It was the first time that he was
treated as the popular idol by an overwhelming multitude of his fellow
men. On the first day of his visit he was entertained at a banquet in the
Town Hall, and it was in his speech after dinner that he made one of the
notable mistakes of his great career. The Civil War in America, to which
Lord Russell had alluded twelve months before, was still raging. I need
hardly say that the sympathies of the upper classes were enthusiastically
with the South. The names of the public men of eminence who favoured the
North might have been counted upon one's fingers. Mr. Gladstone believed
in the cause of the Confederates, and in this speech at Newcastle he
declared that Jefferson Davis had created not merely an army and a navy,
but a nation. The speech caused a great sensation. Naturally enough, it
aroused bitter indignation on the other side of the Atlantic, whilst the
sympathisers with the North in this country felt deeply aggrieved by it.
In subsequent years Mr. Gladstone publicly made amends to the great
Republic for his error of judgment, but it was a long time before he was
allowed to forget it.

I had no misadventure in reporting this memorable speech. It was the
first occasion on which I had ever heard Mr. Gladstone speak, and it is