It rains more or less daily now, and the air is chilly and ungenial. I was much occupied with visits and writing my Despatches of the week. Mr Aspinwall came and read to me a letter from Mr Chase, giving highly favorable accounts of the state of the Treasury. The other accounts by telegraph are of mixed good and bad. The great nobleman of Vicksburgh is not yet solved, and I fear will not be. Yet the course of success on the Mississippi has been such as materially to change the relation between the combatants. We get decided victories slowly, and dearly, Mr Evarts also came in. We talked of the Steamers fitting out for the rebels, and the manner in which our representations are treated by the government. He said that it was almost time to begin upon the Ironclad vessels built by Laird. I replied that I should be ready to proceed as soon as the testimony could be prepared, and the proper moment should be thought to have arrived. He thought the vessels would not yet be ready till August. Should the government here fail to act at that moment, he saw no prospect of farther pacification. So I presume that we must pass through another crisis in about two months. Before that time we shall know the decision in the case of the Alexandra. My hopes are not great of any favorable result. The ministry are feeble and vacillating, whilst the commercial interest is pushing and decided. Nothing will move England but an idea of our power. But where is that whilst the requisite leaders fail us. Quiet walk and evening. The ladies went to Miss Cutts’s ball.388