Of Ellice no one knows anything. He is brother to the Ellice who married Lord Grey's sister. Lyall is, or was, Chairman of the Committee of Shipowners. Douglas is brother to Lord Queensbury. They say his is not a very good house. _April 28._ Read the correspondence between the Duke and Lord Anglesey. Then read a memorandum of the Duke's in reply to one of Hardinge's on the subject of the discipline of the British army. Hardinge wished to introduce the Prussian [Footnote: Which did not include capital punishment. See _Wellington Correspondence_, vol. v. p. 932.] discipline into ours. The Duke shows that with our discipline we have more men fit for duty in proportion to our numbers than the Prussians in the proportion of two to one. That in Prussia the army is everything. There is no other profession. All are soldiers--the officer lives much with his men--they are always in masses, always in fertile countries. In our service the worst men in the community enter the army. The officers are gentlemen. They cannot mix with the men. Without discipline our army would be inferior to others. It is not even now the favourite profession. There is much jealousy of it. It is not popular with the common people. It is difficult to find recruits even in times of distress. I was in an army, the Duke concludes, which cannot be governed on the Prussian principle. You cannot treat the English soldier as a man of honour. The Duke had been with the King, who was in very good humour. He had not, however, got to close quarters with him as to the changes. _April 29._ Cabinet at 12. A letter has been received from Lord Heytesbury, from which it is clear that Russia will very soon resume altogether the exercise of her belligerent rights in the Mediterranean. Nesselrode communicated to him the blockade of Candia. Lord Heytesbury only observed that 'it was a resumption of belligerent rights.' This Count Nesselrode did not deny, and he said they could not long remain in the false position in which they now were in the Mediterranean. Count Heyden at the end of January blockaded Candia on pretexts arising out of the state of Greece. In three weeks from that time he rested his interception of the Egyptian vessels near Candia on the necessary exercise of his rights as a belligerent. Lièven, when first spoken to, disavowed Heyden. He now changes his tone, and it is evident that Russia now for the second time breaks her word. The French do not behave much better. They have 6,000 men in the Morea, and mean to keep them there notwithstanding their engagement to withdraw their troops as soon as the Egyptians were embarked. To be sure, they say if we insist upon it they will withdraw them.