“You know better than I do what people at home are disposed to do, and what’s more, what they _can_ do. By the newspapers I gather that at last the English people are aware that they have no army; and as a fleet, even if it floats, cannot fight on dry land, we are comparatively powerless in ourselves. Of course we could subsidise, but whom? Not the Austrians, though I see all the correspondents say so, and even tell the number they could bring into the field and the places they would occupy, &c.: and our Ambassador at Vienna, I hear, writes home most cheery accounts of the Austrian resources. Now I _know_ that if Austria were to move to-morrow, her Slavic population, quite entirely in the hands and some in the pay of Russia, would rise and dismember the empire. Imagine Fenianism not only in Meath and Kerry but in Norfolk, Yorkshire, and Kent, and then you can have some idea of the danger of provoking such a rebellious element as the Austrian Greek. “A friend just arrived from Florence tells me that the King made an ostentatious display of his cordiality to the Turkish Minister a few nights ago, and that we can have 150,000 Italians to come down to such assistance. Perhaps to accept the help might be regarded as a compromise by the Peace party in England. It is like the very small child of the unchaste young lady. “A Cabinet courier went through here to-day for Constantinople, _the Danube route being judged no longer safe_, which is very significant: but what are we to do? “Have you reviewed Henry Bulwer’s ‘Life of Palmerston’? I hear it very well spoken of. Bulwer has all the astuteness to relish the _raserie_ of Pam, and I understand what the world at last sees was his mock geniality. But what would we not give to have Lord Palmerston back again, and some small respect felt abroad for the sentiment and wishes of England!” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _Dec_. 4,1870. “I am so convinced of your better judgment, that when I differ from you I am ready to withdraw a favour and take your verdict. In the present case you will, however, see that ‘Pall Mall’ of the 29th has ventured on ‘quizzing’ war incidents and correspondents as freely, and I don’t think more successfully, than myself. “At all events, you are the only competent judge of the matter, and I can’t move pleas in demurrer, and if it be not safe, don’t print him or use him. “I only write a very hurried line to say so much, and now go back to a sofa again, for I am crippled with gout and worse--if there be a worse. “I am not up to writing: the last thing I had done was an ‘interview’ of M’C. with the Emperor at Metz, and it is dangerously near the waste-paper basket at this writing.” _To Mr John Blackwood._ “Trieste, _Dec_. 22, 1870. “I am so low and _découragé_ that I have little heart to send you the two O’Ds. that go with this.