Edward stopped keeping a diary after he arrived in Continental Europe, so we rely on what he wrote in other sources after he got home.
We were obliged to hurry from [Edinburgh] in order to reach the continent in season for the Peace Congress in Frankfort, . . . and although I had never formally joined any peace society at home, I sympathized with the object aimed at by such associations . . . I thought it a rather bold stroke of policy to hold this congress so far in the interior of Germany, even where Austrian bayonets bore rule, and it seemed to me that had the authorities been fully aware of our object and of the doctrines that would be broached, a veto would have been put upon our proceedings. . . . Several members of the congress . . . came [by steamboat] up the Rhine with us, and we found them very agreeable fellow travelers. They seemed conscious that the movement is regarded by most of the higher classes as quixotic, and scarcely raised above ridicule; yet it did not trouble them. When it was mentioned that this and that respectable man was expected to be present, Mr. Cobden remarked that ‘when we were going to be laughed at, it was pleasant to be in good company.’