A Drawing room in the evening. Recognized a great variety of my old acquaintances both in and out of Congress. But a vast crowd of entire strangers were here, principally members of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal Convention which assembled today, I believe for the purpose of counteracting the effect produced by the estimates of the cost of the work as made by the board of U.S. Engineers. They are made in the most liberal way, and perhaps after all, it would be better at once to accustom the public mind to that amount than to cheat them by prices too low.2