I said the good understanding would always exist while such men as Loch were in the chair, and while I was at the Board of Control.  I paid a high compliment to Loch, and then congratulated them on the appointments of the two Generals.  Their mildness of manner, their benevolence of character, and the goodness of their natures would obtain for them the affectionate devotion of a grateful soldiery, and, educated in a school of continued victories, they were the fittest leaders of an army which had never met an enemy it had not subdued.  I ended by saying I was sure they would devote themselves to the maintenance under all circumstances, not only of the efficiency, but of an object which they would pursue with equal interest—­ of the happiness and well-being of the native army of India.  I spoke rather well, was attentively heard, and well received.  I sat by the Duke of Buccleuch.  We had a good deal of conversation.  He seems a fine young man.  Lord Rosslyn complained he could never see a draft till it was a month old, and that there had been no new despatches placed in the boxes since he came into office.  I told him no one complained more of the same thing than Aberdeen did when Dudley was in office, and I believe all Foreign Secretaries had a shyness about showing their drafts till they were sent off and unalterable.

June 25.

At the office found a letter with enclosures from Colonel Macdonald, dated
Tabriz April 20.  What he has been doing in Persia I do not know.

I have written to him to call upon me on Saturday.

Called on the Duke to tell him the substance—­which is, that the Turks have already 30,000 men and sixty pieces of cannon at Erzeroum.  That a dispossessed Pacha is in arms at Akiska.  That the Russians have reinforced the garrisons of Natshiran and Abbasabad, and have withdrawn all their troops to the left bank of the Araxes, with the exception of those who garrison Bayazid.  The plague seems rife at Erivan.  The Russians about Count Paskewitz abuse the English very much.

June 27.

The Chairs told me Lord W. Bentinck had extended to all persons the benefit of the regulation as to coffee planters, omitting, however, all the restrictive clauses.  They think very seriously of this, and very justly.  The Calcutta newspapers consider the principle of colonisation to be conceded.

We must abrogate this ‘Regulation’ without loss of time.  I went to the Duke to tell him of it.  He said Lord W. Bentinck was not to be trusted, and we should be obliged to recall him.  He is gone down in a steamboat to Penang.

No news of much importance at the Cabinet room, except that Lord Heytesbury’s despatches confirm the account of the sickness of the Russian army.

The Turks seem to have given the Russians a great smash at Eski Arnaut.

June 30.

A battle near Schumla between the Russians and Turks.  The Turks were besieging Pravadi.  Diebitsch marched from Silistria and moved upon their communications with Schumla.  The Turks seem to have been surprised.  They fought gallantly, however, and seem to have caused the Russians great loss.