The newspapers and letters from America absorbed me a large part of the day. They give me no very decided intelligence, and they fill me with more or less of dissatisfaction. It seems to me that as well in civil as in military proceedings we need men of great and imposing qualities to carry us through. With the exception of Mr Seward I see nothing but respectable average capacity and character. To be sure this characteristic is not peculiar to America. It is visible here, in France and every where. That the contest is steadily approximating its end is clear to me, but what the nature of that end will be is still as dubious, about the issue, and from thence travelled to Mr Cobden and his mention to him of my difficulty with Lord Palmerston. I showed him the correspondence for the first time. He read it with evident surprise. He expressed the hope that it would not get out. I said I had communicated it to nobody in England, excepting so far as I had mentioned without showing the papers to Mr Cobden. I knew that he had told Mr Bright. Mr Forster feared that the animosity of the two against Lord Palmerston might lead them to betray it in Parliament, which would only255 aggravate the invitation which was now declining. I agreed with him in deprecating any publicity, but at the same time mentioned Lord Palmerston’s auction as my symptomatic of his temper down to this moment. I had no relations with him and this would be scarcely to concealed through a London season. Evening quiet at home. I read to my family a little of Orley Farm, a novel of Mr Trollope.