On this my day of vacation I started directly after breakfast on a visit to Guilford to see another house which I found is open to negotiation. It is distant thirty miles from London in Surrey, and I had to go to the Waterloo Station across the river to take the train. The town of Guilford is a poor, shably looking place enough. but I was rather pleased with Woodbridge, about a mile out of it, the point of my journey. It is low but spacious, convenient and pretty. The grounds and gardens are the last I have found. On the whole I am quite divided between this and Caldecott. I got home by four o’clock. Mr Bartlett and Mr Harrod dined with us. The news from America is again quite exciting. The President has issued a proclamation virtually declaring a policy of emancipation. Mr Bartlett expressed great fear of the consequences. And indeed there is much reason. But after it is impossible to deny that the adoption of such a policy is a mere question of time. This is the real difficulty in America. And whether the Union be or not be preserved the very existence of the war renders a retreat from it impossible. I do not pretend to peer into the future. But this terrible series of calamities appears as a just judgment upon the country for having paltered with the evil so long. God have mercy on us, miserable offenders.