Very sultry with a heavy fog for much of the day. The mail bag did not come, but so many newspapers came outside of it from America as to use up a large portion of the time. The accounts as a whole were not very favorable. The great and constant anxiety in my mind turns upon the character of the President which has not gained a particle in my estimation since the first shock I experienced in February last. He is not equal to the emergency. To be sure, few men could be found who are. Be that as it may the sense of the absence of such a one gives a feeling of floating uncertainty about the future which makes the torment of this struggle. O! had the chief a voice to go forth and give heart to the struggle as founded on great ideas, the establishment or confirmation of which were necessary to the advancement of civilization, would not be have included a moral power which would have made half the battle. As it is we go on floundering to the same results, scarcely seeing the way out. I wrote several letters to consuls as usual, and towards evening walked around the regent’s park. In the evening I finished General Fry’s interesting fragment on the peninsular war.