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London June 4 ^th Saturday
My dear Fanny,
By the laws of Great Britain the princes
& ^princesses^ of the Royal family are forbidden from intermarrying with
persons of inferior extraction. The late Duke of Sussex
in violation of Son of George the 3 rd married a lady of the
Napier family in violation of this law. The marriage of
course was held to be a moral and religious one
but illegal in view of the laws. On his death the
Parliament raised her to the rank of the peerage by the
title of the Duchess of Inverness and she retains his
residence Kensington Palace one of the Royal domains
in the city an andcurious relic of ancient
times. She made a party at luncheon yesterday
for the Napiers at which I attended by invitation
and met there the Duke of Bedford one of the
first statesmen of Great Britain but now retired from
public life. The party had also some other
very agreeable persons. The Duchess is a very unaf-
fected and good woman. She has given me some
bonbons for you, of whom she had heard such high
praise from Lady Napier.
At eight o,clock I was
at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond dining with Lord
John Russell, one of the most eminent and active
of the statesmen of England, and lately Prime Minister
He contends with Lord Palmerton the position of

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Chief of the Liberal party in the realm I know it
not probable that he will succeed in retaining the
high position of Prime Ministers these weeks but
the vote is to be made. His residence in the
Country is Pembroke Lodge in the Royal domain
of the Windsor Forest – or Windsor Hill. Windsor
is ten miles from London and is about as large
as Auburn, but is a very beautiful old town.
The party consisted of Lord John & Lady John
Lord George Grey, Mr Arthur Russell a nephew
of Lord John, Mr Potter of New York and myself
Lady Russell is a daughter of Lord Minto,
highly educated, he sincere, unassuming and
quite domestic in her tastes and ways, The dinner
was a pleasant one. Lord John is a speculative
man, a nice believer in progress, and just so much
more so than other British statesmen as to be
called forward sometimes a fanatic sometimes
factious, I thought I could read in his charac-
ter that while others alarm and deride with
him if indeed they do not despise him altogether
of the conduct of the great Liberal party, his
earnestness and sincerity contribute the great strength of
the party, without which it could scarcely cohere
I was invited to dinner and a party at Lord Palmer-
tons, but declined of course. I am only fit to rest and sleep.
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