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Diary of Charles Francis Adams, 1861

Friday 31st

31 May 1861

Sunday 2d.

2 June 1861
1 June 1861
154
Saturday 1st
London
CFA AM

This day we packed and bid goodbye to Mr Mannigy’s hotel. Whilst I rather prefer the English habit of small houses and separate lodgings for families, I must say that the accessories are in all respects quite inferior to what we find in our best hotels in America. And the prices are disproportionately high. My charge here has been nearly two hundred and fifty dollars a week. We did not get away until after twelve, and we found he house to which we went in the greatest confusion. The legation was moving likewise so that the trouble was complicated. Of course, we could only in part get ourselves to rights. Mrs Adams and I went to dine with Lord Palmerston, the premier. Twenty at table. Lord and Lady Stanhope, Monckton Milnes, Lord and Lady Bury, Lord Stansky of Alderley, his Wife and daughter, the rest I did not make out to know. I took Lady Palmerston into dinner. No conversation. After dinner Lord Palmerston spoke to me quite moderately of the course taken by Mr Seward. He intimated that his ways of doing things towards Lord Lyons had been ungracious and unpleasant. He said that as it respected the acts of blockade and all that might follow, he of course did not complain, but he though the manner need not be unpleasant. He instanced one or two cases as mentioned by Lord Lyons which had annoyed him a good deal. I said in reply that I wondered at this, for what I believed Mr Seward was not disposed to be offensive, and his temper was mild and conciliatory. But possibly this might spring from what he imagined to be the wish of others. I construe it actually as some of his awkward brusquerie which he means to be playful, but which Lyons does not understand or appreciate. I must write to him about this. Home by eleven.

Cite web page as:

Charles Francis Adams, Sr., [date of entry], diary, in Charles Francis Adams, Sr.: The Civil War Diaries (Unverified Transcriptions). Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2015. http://www.masshist.org/publications/cfa-civil-war/view?id=DCA61d152