_March 29th._--The die is cast, and war was declared yesterday. We are already beginning to taste the fruits of it. Every species of security has rapidly gone down, and everybody's property in stocks, shares, &c., is depreciated already from twenty to thirty per cent. I predict confidently that, before many months are over, people will be as heartily sick of it as they are now hot upon it. Nobody knows where our fleets and armies are going, nor what they mean to attempt, and we are profoundly ignorant of the resources and power of Russia to wage war against us. As the time for action approaches, Austria and Prussia grow more reluctant to engage in it. The latter has proclaimed her neutrality, and unless some events should make a change in her policy, I do not believe the former will ever be induced to _act_ with us and against Russia. The Government here are in a very weak unsatisfactory state. They are supported in carrying on war, but in every other respect they are treated with great indifference, and appear to have very little authority or influence either in Parliament or in the country. Nobody seems to have risen in estimation, except perhaps Clarendon, who has done his work well and got credit for it. Palmerston and Graham have positively disgraced themselves by their dinner to Napier, and the foolish speeches they made both there and in the House of Commons afterwards. I do not know what Palmerston's popularity might turn out to be if it should be tested by some change which brought him forward, but he certainly has greatly lost ground this year by his whole conduct from his resignation down to this time. Gladstone, the great card of the pack, has forfeited by the failure of his financial schemes a good deal of the credit he had obtained. John Russell has offended everybody by his obstinacy about his ill-timed Reform Bill, so that the Government does not stand very high, and is only strong in the weakness of all other parties. They are constantly beaten on small matters in the House of Commons, which produces a bad effect. Up to this moment nobody knows what John Russell means to do about the Reform Bill; if he puts it off again, he ought to do so to-morrow, when the discussion will take place about the declaration of war.