Yesterday, at two o’clock, we proceeded to Mrs. Phillips’s dinner, and found, to our infinitely disagreeable surprise, that it was a gala mercantile Schmaus [banquet] in honour of the peace. Sad work. Near forty people at dinner. […] Various other vulgar English and ugly Prussians, all squeezed at a table fit for twenty people, our elbows pinned awry to our sides, and half the talk consisting of apologies for polts and thumps unintentional. Band of music close to the door in the garden murdering ‘Rule, Britannia,’ and deafening us all with the great drum. Ladies rose first, and proceeded to the drawing-room, where we were edified by the gentlemen’s conviviality, Mr. Phillips’s toastmaster getting drunk, and proposing the ‘Allierte’ and the Emperor Alexander’s health, while cannon fired, band thundered, company roared, and mob stood all about the house in envious admiration.