_September 22nd._--I am just returned from Doncaster, Bretby, and Wilby. The Indian mail arrived on Monday last, just as I was starting for Doncaster. The news it brought at first appeared rather good, but when it all came out it seemed so chequered with good and evil, that it produced great despondency. Still it is a curious circumstance (which I have heard no one else remark) that, with all the deep interest universally felt on account of this Sepoy war, not only as it regards our national interests, but out of feeling and sympathy for the vast numbers of our countrymen and women exposed to its horrors and dangers, it does not produce the same degree of enthusiasm as the Crimean War did, in which we had no real interest concerned, and which was only a gigantic folly on our part. People are very anxious about this war, and earnestly desire that the mutiny may be put down and punished, but they regard the war itself with aversion and horror, whereas they positively took pleasure in the war against Russia, and were ready to spend their last guinea in carrying it on. A subscription has been set on foot, but although there never was an occasion on which it might have been expected that vast sums would be subscribed, the contributions have been comparatively small in amount, and it seems probable that a much less sum will be produced for the relief of the Indian sufferers than the Patriotic Fund or any of the various subscriptions made for purposes connected with the Crimean War. I was so struck with the backwardness of the Government in rewarding General Havelock for his brilliant exploits, that I wrote to George Lewis and urged him to press his colleagues to confer some honour upon him and promote him. I am on the point of starting for Balmoral, summoned for a Council to order _a day of humiliation_. [Sidenote: VISIT TO SCOTLAND.] _Gordon Castle, September 27th._--I left town on Tuesday afternoon, and slept that night at York, on Wednesday at Perth, and on Thursday posted to Balmoral, where I arrived between two and three o'clock. Granville, Panmure, and Ben Stanley formed the Council. Granville told me the Queen wished that the day appointed should be a Sunday, but Palmerston said it must be on a weekday, and very reluctantly she gave way. What made the whole thing more ridiculous was, that she gave a ball (to the gillies and tenants) the night before this Council. The outside of the new house at Balmoral, in the Scotch and French style, is pretty enough, but the inside has but few rooms, and those very small, not uncomfortable, and very simply decorated; the place and environs are pretty. In the afternoon I drove over to Invercauld with Phipps. On Friday morning came on here, by post, by rail, and by mail. Without any beauty, this is rather a fine place, and the house very comfortable.