ay if similar propositions
were made to the other cosigners of the Paris convention, our minister
was obliged to confess his utter ignorance about the whole proceeding.
Prince Gortschakoff good-naturedly inquired about it from his
ministers at Paris and London, and enlightened Cassius Clay.

No ministry of foreign affairs in Europe would treat its agents in
such a trifling manner, and, if done, a minister would resent it.

This mistake, or recklessness, is to be credited principally to the
internal chief, or director of the department, and not to the minister
himself. By and by, the chief clerks, these routinists in the former
coarse traditions of the Democratic administrations, will learn and
acquire better diplomatic and bureaucratic habits.

If one calls the attention of influential Americans to the
mismanagement in the organization of the army; to the extraordinary
way in which everything, as organization of brigades, and the inner
service, the quartermaster's duty, is done, the general and inevitable
answer is, "We are not military; we are young people; we have to
learn." Granted; but instead of learning from the best, the latest,
and most correct authorities, why stick to an obsolete, senile, musty,
rotten, mean, and now-a-days impracticable routine, which is
all-powerful in all relating to the army and to the war? The Americans
may pay dear for thus reversing the rules of common sense.

General Scott directs from his sleeping room the movements of the two
armies on the Potomac and in the Shenandoah valley. General Scott has
given the order to advance. At least a strange way, to have the
command of battle at a distance of thirty and one hundred miles, and
stretched on his fauteuil. Marshal de Saxe, although deadly sick, was
on the field at Fontenoy. What will be the result of this
experimentalization, so contrary to sound reason?

Fighting at Bull Run. One o'clock, P. M. Good news. Gen. Scott says
that although we were 40-100 in disadvantage, nevertheless his plans
are successful--all goes as he arranged it--all as he foresaw it.
Bravo! old man! If so, I make _amende honorable_ of all that I said up
to this minute. Two o'clock, P. M. General Scott, satisfied with the
justness and success of his strategy and tactics--takes a nap.

_Evening._--Battle lost; rout, panic. The army almost disbanded, in
full run. So say the forerunners of the accursed news. Malediction!
Malediction!

What a horrible night and day