Lord Clarende Paget on Thursday night let drop very quietly
a little hint which ship that the much enduring patience of the Foreign Office is charting to a close. Sir John Pakington had been asking about the condition of the Channel Fleet, and Lord Clarence replied that it was coaling, that some of the ships might be sent North, and that it had been calculated that the ice in the Baltic would be broken up by the 15th April. Herr von Bismark will do well to couple that statement with Lord Clarendoks, made on Tuesday night, that he had found in his interviews with the Emperor " that there existed on the part of the Emperor of the French the same desire as on the part of Her Majesty's Govern- ment, that on all important questions which might arise in the Conference there should be a cordial understanding as far as pos- sible between this country and France." With a British squadron in the Baltic, the garrison of Strasburg warned for service, and Garibaldi at Ancona, the arguments of the West at the Conference may have some slight weight.
