Mr. Seward is not without his chance of a nomination, though some of your friends here affirm that he has none. He is himself, I hear, very confident of getting it. While the John Brown excitement continued, his prospects improved, for he was the best-abused man of his party--now that he is let alone, his stock declines again and people talk of other men. For my part I do not see that he is more of a representative man than a score of others in our party. The great difficulty which I have in regard to him is this, that by the election of a Republican President the slavery question is settled, and that with Seward for President, it will be the greatest good luck, a special and undeserved favor of Providence, if every honest Democrat of the Republican party be not driven into the opposition within a twelvemonths after he enters the White House. There are bitter execrations of Weed and his friends passing from mouth to mouth among the old radical Democrats of the Republican party here. Bigelow, writing home from London (March 20), saw in Lincoln the only hope of the party. He had no use for Seward; he had even less for Bates--“an old Clay Whig from Missouri ... who has been for two years or more the candidate of Erastus Brooks and Gov. Hunt, who is not only not a Republican but who is put forward because he is not a Republican, and whom the _Tribune_ recommends because he can get some votes that a straight-out Republican cannot get.” Moreover, Bigelow saw “no possibility of nominating Fessenden, or Chase, or Banks, or any such man”; and he knew that unless the right kind of Republican was elected the fight was lost.