At about ten o'clock
P.M., of the 13th instant, Gaeta, in which the young Neapolitan King Francis
II. has long and bravely stood a siege, capitulated to the Sardinians under
Cialdini. So passes into the shade of exile another dethroned Bourbon!
A levée to-day at
St. James's Palace. I presented, in the general circle, Colonel Schaffner, of
Kentucky, the indefatigable explorer of a northern route for a submarine
electric cable, from the highest point of Scotland to France, thence to
Ireland, thence to Greenland, and thence, finally, to Labrador. This plan of
four stepping-points, instead of one vast leap, has its advantages. It may realize
the old phrase, “the longest way round is the shortest way home."
I dined yesterday
with Mr. Croskey, meeting a company of most interesting gentlemen, about twenty
in number: Admiral Fitzroy, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Scofield, Sir Edward Beecher, Mr.
Rae, Dr. Shaw, Captain Peacock, etc.
SOURCE: George
Mifflin Dallas, Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States
Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861, Volume 3, p.
434-5
