Saturday, January 11th.—­Visited the shore.  Cadiz full of life and bustle.  Met Mr. Oliver; he is from the East.  He says Russia is laying deep schemes for uniting the whole Sclavonic race under her rule; and that the cotton pressure is felt at Constantinople, up the Danube, and, in short, all over Eastern Europe.  Received permission from the Governor to land the marine who was sentenced by court-martial to be discharged.  News of the great fire in Charleston.  Rumour that the Yankees have given up the Commissioners.  Can scarcely credit it as yet.  Yankee-dom can hardly have fallen so low.

Sunday, January 12th.—­Landed the discharged marine.  The news that Messrs. Mason and Slidell have been given up appears to be confirmed.  The subtle diplomacy, notifying the Yankee Government unofficially, that the ultimatum would be withheld a short time, to allow them time to give up the prisoners voluntarily, was resorted to!  The Yankee Consul here gave a dinner on the occasion!  The Cadiz papers comment very unfavourably upon this back-down, and insist that notwithstanding, it is the duty of the great Powers to interpose and put an end to the war.  In the afternoon we got under way, and passing through the fleet of shipping, went up to the dock at Caracca, some eight miles east of the city.  The harbor is perfect, the water deep, and the buildings extensive.  The pilot who took me up, says he is the man to run me out by the enemy, when I am ready—­that he was in New Orleans sixty years ago, and remained a year in Louisiana, where he learned to speak the language, which he has not yet entirely forgotten.

Monday, January 13th.—­At about 10 o’clock the dockyard people came on board of us, and at 10.30 we were safely docked, and at noon the dock pumped dry.  We suffered very little damage from running ashore at Maranham.  We indented a small place under the forefoot, and knocked off only a small portion of our false keel instead of the whole of it, as we supposed.  We are now knocking away bulk-heads, and removing magazine and shell room to get at the shaft.  At 1 P.M. called officially upon the Naval-Commandant, and returned him my thanks for the handsome manner in which he had docked my ship.  I spoke of the back-down of the Yankees, which he asserted would make them lose caste in Europe.  The great fire at Charleston was alluded to by him, whereupon I remarked that Europe could see from this incident—­(the work of incendiarism prompted and paid for, no doubt, by the enemy)—­the barbarous nature of the war waged upon us, and told him we were in fact fighting the battles of Spain as well as our own; for if the barbarians of the North succeeded in overcoming the South (which, however, I pronounced an impossibility), and destroying our slave property, in their wild fanaticism and increasing madness, they would next make war on Cuba and Porto Rico.  He replied that this war could not continue much longer; there were people and territory enough in North America to make two great governments, and Europe would, no doubt united, soon interpose.  I was treated with great civility and kindness.