w Weed puffs Stanton and patronises him. O, God!
It is a terrible blow to Stanton. How, now, can one have confidence
in Stanton's manhood. Are contracts at the bottom of the puff, or is
it only one of _Weed's_ tricks to defile and to ruin _Stanton_?

_July 20._--It is almost humiliating to witness how mongrels and
pigmies attempt to rob the people of their due glory, how they
attempt to absorb to their own credit what the pitiless pressure of
events forced upon them. All of them limped after events as lame
ducks in mud; not one foresaw any thing, not one understood the
_to-day_. Neither emancipation nor the transformation of slave into
free states, are of your special, individual work, O, great men; but
you strut now.

_Mirmidons, race feconde, enfin nous commandons._

Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to
humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan.

_July 20._--Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses,
but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No
brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And
perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure
it is nobody's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather,
and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub.

_July 20._--Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war,
captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere
in the vicinity of Bermuda. England asserts that the shoal is a
shore, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once
yields, Neptune defends as he always does, the rights of the
national _Tritons_, and of the national flag. The supreme power
sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or
something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that
Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be
consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand.

The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's
claims to the _salvage_ of the country.

_July 20._--From all that I learn, _Meade_ has a better and larger
army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest
brains of the two.

_July 20._--From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by
the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress
served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of
legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of
patrio