London, April 24, 1863
We go here much as usual. The American question excites more fever than ever. The collisions that inevitably take place on the ocean in the effort to stop all the scandalous voyages to help the rebels, that are made from this island, necessarily created much bad feeling. I have got a little mixed up in it of late, so that my name has been bandied about rather more than I like. But such is the fate of all men who are in situations of difficulty in troubled times. I hope and trust I shall survive it. My rule is, so far as I know how, to follow a strict rule of right. As long as I keep myself within it, I trust in God and fear no evil. My endeavor will be to prevent things from coming to a rupture here, not from any particular goodwill to the English, but from a conviction that quarreling with them just now is doing service to the rebels. So far as I can judge from their own reports of their condition, the suffocating process is going on steadily to its end. On the other hand the position of the loyal part of the country is more dignified and imposing than ever. In spite of lukewarm generals and a defective and uneven policy, the great body of the people and the army are true to their duty which is to save the country. I feel more hopeful of that result than ever before. Presently our people will fight with the same energy that animates the rebels. Whenever that happens, the struggle will be soon brought to an end.
We have of late quite an influx of Americans, more than have been here all the winter before. First, there is Mr. Robert J. Walker, the quondam Secretary of the Treasury and Governor of Kansas. I am amused to find him changed into a thorough anti-slavery man, determined upon emancipation as the only condition of pacification. Then we have Mr. W. H. Aspinwall of New York and Mr. John M. Forbes. And in addition, Mr. John A. Kasson of Iowa, late Assistant Postmaster General, and now member of the next House of Representatives, who is out here as a delegate to a convention to settle postal matters between nations. I wish he could succeed in getting a reduction of ocean postage. Over and above these we have my old colleague in the Massachusetts Legislature, Mr. Alvah Crocker of Fitchburg, and George Morey, whilom the great factotum of Whig politics, in days of yore. So we cannot be said to be solitary or without sympathisers….
