At the Court of St. James 1861. May 1.–The America brought me a note from Mr. Adams. He quits Boston to-day. I may, therefore, look for him at farthest on the 15th inst. The President’s Proclamation against the seceding States as insurrectionary follows quickly upon the fall of Fort Sumter, and firmly accepts the challenge [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1861. April 28.—I have repeatedly observed on the utter impossibility of keeping a diary without long chasms. More than a month has gone by, and an eventful one, too, without [...]
1861. March 20.–Dr. Hitchcock, of California, the surgeon of General Taylor at the battle of Buena Vista, who saved the life of Jeff. Davis by extracting from the wound he received a piece of steel of a spur and part of its leather strap, brought me direct from Secretary Black a despatch instructing me to [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1861. March 17. –A long and interesting telegram by the America. The Inauguration on the 4th had gone off without disturbance of any kind, in the presence of some thirty [...]
1861. March 12.–Letters and newspapers, both in abundance, from home are gloomier than ever. We may yet pass through a convulsion only less frightful than the revolution of 1789 in France.
1861. March 7.–Dined with Lampson, for the time being a resident in a capital house at the farthest end of Eaton Square. Went at eleven to Lord Chelmsford’s for fifteen minutes. A youthful dance. The news from home a shade more promising. A word of meditated coercion in the inaugural of the 4th instant may [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1861. February 28.–….By the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon at Londonderry, a telegram announces the fact that the Committee of the Peace Convention had reported a plan for adjustment, made up [...]
1861. February 17.–Mr. Reuter sends me a telegram from Queenstown of the American news. 1. The conference invited by Virginia met on the 4th, and re-assembled with closed doors on the 5th at Washington. 2. Slidell and Benjamin have withdrawn. 3. A truce between Lieutenant Slemmer and State forces at Pensacola Navy-Yard, followed by surrender [...]
1861. February 12.–Yesterday’s news from home a shade more promising. The President’s message to Congress on the mediatorial propositions from Virginia is calmly and judiciously written. It looks to that State for the preservation of the Union. The Convention of the Border States, free as well as slave, assembled on the 30th of January, and [...]
1861. February 6.–Parliament was opened yesterday by the Queen in person. The military parade, turnout of royal equipages, and assemblage of Peers, Peeresses, Bishops, and Judges, were unusually imposing. The speech was fuller and clearer than common. The paragraph devoted to the United States was uttered as if really felt, though I certainly did not [...]
1861. February 2.–A slight solace to one’s anxieties about home is found in the circumstances brought by successive steamers during the week. 1. The proposition of Mr. Crittenden, or “The Border States,” seems growing into favour. 2. There was a large minority on the question of secession before next 4th of March in the Georgia [...]
1861. January 20.–….The news from home during this week has been deplorable. On the l0th inst. the President sent a message to Congress which depicts the state of things in the gloomiest colours. South Carolina, at Charleston, has fired repeated volleys at a United States transport carrying troops for Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, and [...]
1861. January 16. – I have been kept for a week, and am still, in a state of great anxiety about the dangerous political excitements at home. The President has taken an attitude less friendly to the secessionists. This has been owing, it would seem, to the occupation of Fort Moultrie and the seizure of [...]
1861. January 8.–South Carolina, it appears, adopted her Ordinance of Secession on the 19th of December, unanimously. It has been hailed with exultation in most of the Southern States. Mr. Mason rather intimates that the movement is designed to compel adequate concessions from the North, or to form a basis upon which the confederacy may [...]
1861. January 5.–….Mr. Motley, the historian, called and spent an hour in chat. I expressed my great delight with his recently issued work, the “Dutch Republic.” Told him I had noted two new spellings, Escorial and Burghley; the first he said was unquestionably correct, the second he took from the Lord Treasurer’s uniform mode of [...]
1860. December 29.–Dates and news from New York to the 15th inst. General Cass had resigned. Governor Dickinson is mentioned as his successor. So we go, from one unfit to another more so. My country, my country, whither in the intoxication of your liberty are you plunging! Skating for several days on the Serpentine; ice [...]
1860. December 25. – Christmas. Fahrenheit stood this morning eighteen degrees below freezing point. A rare degree of cold in England, exceeding any we have felt during our residence in London. Mr. Cobb resigned the Treasury on the 10th instant. He will greatly strengthen the secession movement in Georgia. A dissolution of the Union seems [...]
1860. December 23. –The Arabia brings the news that Secretary Cobb has resigned. He goes then to join the Disunionists, who, in Georgia, object to joint, but are in favor of separate, secession. Mr. Cobb is forty-five years of age; before he becomes sixty, he will have discovered that a good cause is really only [...]
1860. December 19.–The message of the President was sent in to Congress on the 4th instant. I got it yesterday. The President has been weighed down by the vast load he carries; his sagacity, firmness, and patriotism have given way under the appalling condition of the country and the violence in his Cabinet. He argues [...]
1860. December 3.–The news brought by the steamer from America is exciting. The political storm rages fiercely in the South, taking a reckless direction for secession, and produces a financial panic which cannot pass away without effecting a widespread ruin. The successful Republican party at the Presidential election are striving to appease and propitiate, but [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1860. July 24.–Judge Longstreet has issued a letter addressed to the International Statistical Congress about their gross conduct in applauding Lord Brougham. It is printed in the Morning Chronicle, and [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1860. July 21.–The Peers don’t approve their troublesome “chartered libertine” Brougham. Shaftesbury writes. Lansdowne comes to make impressive assurances. And Overstone denounces ore rotundo.
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1860. July 20.–Lord Brougham called at ten A.M. I had just time to tell my servant to refuse me. He is so old, and has been so remarkable a man [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1860. July 18.–Judge Longstreet, the United States Delegate to the International Congress, sent yesterday his written withdrawal, in consequence of Lord Brougham’s conduct. There is no telling to what this [...]
/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} 1860. July 16.–The International Statistical Congress opened its fourth session to-day in this city. I had declined being a member, when invited a month ago by the President of the [...]