This being despatch day I was much engaged in finishing up several letters to be sent before night. I have written three to Mr Seward, and one to my son Charles. Colonel Fremont and Mr Billings called today, and I arranged with them the amount of the liability to be incurred. Mr Billings took the notes which I have got from Mr Dayton, signed, and agreed to place them before Messr Peabody and Co. I am not a little uneasy touching the transaction. I went out with Mrs Adams for an hour. This day was fixed for the debate in Parliament on the recognition of the Confederate States, but he sense of the Commons was so decided against the agitation that Mr Gregory was compelled to consent to indefinite postponement. So that for the present these people are shut out, and our relations are to that extent reestablished. Dined by invitation today with Lord and Lady Macclesfield. She is the daughter of the Marquis of Westminster, whose fortune is now said to be the largest in England. I knew very few of the guests. The Bishop of London and his Wife I had seen at Miss Cutts’s reading. I talked with the Marquis himself, who is evidently quite an ordinary man. He asked me about New York, and its position on the Potomac. Lady Macclesfield159 told me that she had six sisters, five of them married, and some were probably at the table. I am at a loss to know the cause of their civility to us, as he is not of the government party, though his Wife’s family are. Her brother Grosvenor has just carried the Flintshire election for that side. From here we went to Count d’Apponivy’s, the Austrian Ambassador’s. A ball to the Duchess of Cambridge, who is an ugly, fat woman with a profusion of diamonds. Indeed the display of jewels on these occasions gives one some little notion of the extent of the wealth of this people. I made no great progress in acquaintance. It is uphill work.