Warm day. Quite busy at home with visits and accounts. Mr Evarts came in to speak to me about a letter from Mr Seward recommending it to him to remain for some time. He proposed to go home on the 18th, thinking that after the close of the session there would be little to do. I concurred in this view; at the same time expressing my satisfaction at his being here, and suggesting the possibility of his return in the autumn or winter when his aid might again be needed. He seemed to fall in with this suggestion, saying that he had already thought of it. The news from home this day still leaves us in doubt about General Lee’s movements. Incidentally I found in the newspapers an account of a sharp cavalry skirmish in which Charles must have been engaged with his regiment. A list of casualties showed the name of his major but not his own. I thank God he is yet safe, but in reflecting on the perils to which every day must now expose him I confess my heart sank within me. My spirits are weighed down by this constant apprehension, in addition to all anxieties for the public. Courts are now crowding to a result of some kind. My confidence is only shaken by the deficiency in the direction. May God have mercy on us. I dined with Mr and Mrs Charles Turner. A company almost new to me. Sir William and Lady Martins, Mr Mrs and Miss Jackson, Sir Charles and Lady Young, Mr Western and two or three unknown. These people were very courteous to us. Sir William Martin quite profuses for an Englishman. The ladies went to a ball at Lady Goldsmith’s, and i was engaged to a musical party at Mrs Gladstone’s But I felt in no mood to go. The season is dreadfully irksome and becoming more so as we approach its close. I called today to see Mr Perry, who is on the wing for Madrid, and on Judge Pringle, who goes as Judge under the slave trade Treaty to Capetown. Much conversation today on the debate in the commons last evening on Mr Roebuck’s motion. That gentleman succeeded in spoiling his case most completely, as well as in complicating the Emperor at Paris with the Ministry here and the government at home. Yet I doubt not he spoke his true feeling towards us and that of many of his countrymen who are less honest in expressing it.403