For once a day without rain, only the second during the month. I devoted much of my time to a preparation for my annual balance of account. This is always a tedious and vexatious business. Several persons calling to see me, most of them Americans, who390 seem to be coming out now in some numbers. Mr Scott Russell came thus knowing on account of my visit to him on Saturday. I enquired the terms of the agreement with Mr Brown for the iron plates. He showed me General Dalegreen’s last letter to him which gave little clue. As Mr Brown was pressing Messr Baring for payment I concluded that it would be necessary to refer the question back to the source of the order in America. Mr Russell talked very clearly on the subject of iron plating and the experiments of shot. He thinks we have gone to the extreme in building vessels so armed as to be unfit for sea. He planned the Warrior which is not altogether free from that objection. In the evening Mrs Adams had her first reception of Americans. I scarcely expected a dozen. But there must have been forty or fifty. The thing was more lively too than I anticipated.