Cloudy but yet freezing cold. I sat down for the purpose of working very hard, but the interruptions were such that I effected little. Mr Evarts came in to talk of the state of the Alexandra case and of the conversations he had had with Mr Vernon Harecourt and Sir Fitzroy Kelly about the Alabama. The power thinks this Government should prohibit her from coming into British ports. Mr Evarts urges it strongly. They say that no representation to that effect had ever been made by our government. This is the most extraordinary position of all. We protest against the emission to detain this vessel, and claim damages for every outrage She has committed on the ocean since. She is injured in an action with one of our vessels and take refuge in the port of Kingston in Jamaica, where is repaired and supplied. We call their attention to this act, and they affect to consider that the vessel has changed her character, and is converted into a belligerent. Thus the question is decided, and we are precluded from repeating a remonstrance in any future case. Yet now, forsooth, that the consequences of this decision are becoming grave, and there is an inclination to rescind it, they wait to have the step suggested to them even though their yielding to it be susceptible of a false interpretation which would not rob teh cut of half its merit. I remarked to Mr Evarts that I should be willing in conversation with Lord Russell to them it out as a suggestion rather than to commit the matter to writing. The anxiety about the claims in this case of the Alabama is amusing. They want them withdrawn. I fancy it will be some time before they gain their object. That they are weary of the situation in which they find themselves is certain. How to get out of it is another matter Before Mr Evarts had got through a fog came on so dark that we could neither write no read. This lasted so long as pretty much to spoil work the rest of the day. I went out and took a long walk. Brooks returned to Twickenham. The children dined out at Mrs Sturgis’s Quiet evening at home—in which I made up the arrears of my Diary.580