Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons.—William Howard Russell’s Diary.

October 19th— Lord Lyons and Mr. Seward were driving and dining together yesterday en ami. To-day, Mr. Seward is engaged demolishing Lord Lyons, or at all events the British Government, in a despatch, wherein he vindicates the proceedings of the United States Government in certain arrests of British subjects which had been complained of, and repudiates the doctrine that the United States Government can be bound by the opinion of the law officers of the Crown respecting the spirit and letter of the American constitution. This is published as a set-off to Mr. Seward’s circular on the seacoast defences which created so much depression and alarm in the Northern States, where it was at the time considered as a warning that a foreign war was imminent, and which has since been generally condemned as feeble and injudicious.