October 5th.–A day of heat extreme. Tumbled in upon me an old familiar face and voice, once Forster of a hospitable Crimean hut behind Mother Seacole’s, commanding a battalion of Land Transport Corps, to which he had descended or sublimated from his position as ex-Austrian dragoon and beau sabreur under old Radetzsky in Italian wars; now a colonel of distant volunteers, and a member of the Parliament of British Columbia. He was on his way home to Europe, and had travelled thus far out of his way to see his friend.
After him came in a gentleman, heated, wild-eyed, and excited, who had been in the South, where he was acting as correspondent to a London newspaper, and on his return to Washington had obtained a pass from General Scott. According to his own story, he had been indulging in a habit which free-born Englishmen may occasionally find to be inconvenient in foreign countries in times of high excitement, and had been expressing his opinion pretty freely in favour of the Southern cause in the bar-rooms of Pennsylvania Avenue. Imagine a Frenchman going about the taverns of Dublin during an Irish rebellion, expressing his sympathy with the rebels, and you may suppose he would meet with treatment at least as peremptory as that which the Federal authorities gave Mr. D ____. In fine, that morning early, he had been waited upon by an officer, who requested his attendance at the Provost Marshal’s office; arrived there, a functionary, after a few queries, asked him to give up General Scott’s pass, and when Mr. D____ refused to do so, proceeded to execute a terrible sort of proces verbal on a large sheet of foolscap, the initiatory flourishes and prolegomena of which so intimidated Mr. D____, that he gave up his pass and was permitted to depart, in order that he might start for England by the next steamer.
A wonderful Frenchman, who lives up a back street, prepared a curious banquet, at which Mr. Irvine, Mr. Warre, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Lamy, and Colonel Foster assisted; and in the evening Mr. Lincoln’s private secretary, a witty, shrewd, and pleasant young fellow, who looks little more than eighteen years of age, came in with a friend, whose name I forget; and by degrees the circle expanded, till the walls seemed to have become elastic, so great was the concourse of guests.