Great indignation is expressed by the whole French press at the destruction of the harbour of Charleston. Yesterday, on calling at Queen's Terrace to enquire after Mrs. Bradshaw,1 I was greatly shocked to hear she was dying. She heard of my being in the house, and asked to see me, and I went up to her bedside, when she took a most affectionate leave of me.
The American and English correspondence on the Trent' affair
has been published in extenso. Seward's despatch on
surrendering the prisoners is a longwinded piece of special pleading full of
exaggeration and misrepresentation of all he could rake up of English law and
practice most adverse to neutral rights, for the apparent purpose of justifying
Wilkes, at the moment when he is compelled to admit the act itself to be
unjustifiable. John Russell, in his reply, says that the English Government
differ from Mr. Seward in some of his conclusions, and adds that a better
understanding on several points of law (International) may be arrived at
between the two countries by his stating in what that difference of opinion
consists, and that he will do so in a few days. We heard on Tuesday evening
that the United States Bank, and all the private Banks, had suspended specie
payments, and this is foretold to be the beginning of the end of the war. The
American press urges heavy taxation as the only legitimate means of relief.
Mason and Slidell had been sent to Halifax, and their departure had caused no
sensation.
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1 Mrs. Bradshaw was Mary Tree, sister of Ellen Tree, who married Charles Kean the younger. She was beautiful, and had a lovely voice.—Ed.
SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1861-1872, pp. 8-9
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