PRESIDENT: The suppression of facts about the military situation is more rigorous than ever since the military facts have become so discouraging.

The volume of pretty well authenticated news that I used to hear privately has become sensibly diminished.

Rumours that reach me by the back door, in all sorts of indirect ways, are not fewer, but fewer of them are credible.

There is great confusion, great fear, very great depression--far greater, I think, than England has felt, certainly since the Napoleonic scare and probably since the threat of the Armada.

Nobody, I think, supposes that England herself will be conquered: confidence in the navy is supreme.