A website from the Massachusetts Historical Society; founded 1791.

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, 1861

Thursday 23d

23 May 1861

Saturday 25th

25 May 1861
24 May 1861
146
Friday 24th
London
CFA

1861-05-24

AM

I know not what the cause may be but I do not find myself so well here as I am at home. Exercise unnerves me quite. This was quite a warm day. I went to the Legation as soon as I could finish my weekly dispatch, and today is not long. I was interrupted by a visit from Mr Sanford from Paris, who appears to have come over to discover what I was doig about the negotiation touching neutral rights. I told him how it stood,and what I had done. He expressed much anxiety lest the terms prospect by Mr Seward should have been communicated here, for in his belief the renunciation of privateering would be received with very great147 dissatisfaction in the United States. I did not assent to this view, but at the same time explained the course things had taken with Lord John Russell so that I had been relieved from any present part in the matte, and even from disclosing any thing at all. Mr Sanford thinks this government playing false, and that I shall not probably stay here a great while. Mr Bates seems to incline to the same opinion. And the impression is growing so much in my own mind that I begin to hesitate about making any contracts on time. I wrote a letter to my son Charles, from whom I have heard nothing. This is the Queen’s birth day. She is forty two years old. There was little notice of it on account of the mourning. She herself has gone to Osborn in the Isle of Wright, and it is said that the effect of her sadness is to make the present season a very dull one. In the evening I went alone to a small party at Countess Bemstorff’s, the Prussian Minister’s Wife. Not more than twenty or thirty persons, of whom I made the acquaintance only of the Earl of Derby, of Baron Brunnow, the Russia ambassador, and of the Duke of Manchester. At any rate, this is breaking the ice. The last name person suddenly as we were leaving asked me to dine with him tomorrow at eight, which I accepted.

Cite web page as:

Charles Francis Adams, Sr., [date of entry], diary, in Charles Francis Adams, Sr.: The Civil War Diaries (Unverified Transcriptions). Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2015. http://www.masshist.org/publications/cfa-civil-war/view?id=DCA61d144