same time, I do hope and believe you feel some interest about me; and therefore trust that the following detail of facts and opinions, formed and occurring during my journey, may not be wholly without interest to you.

I arrived in the U. S. about the middle of November, after a very tolerable passage. My reception every where in this country has not only been most cordial, but most flattering. My books I found were well known on this side the Atlantic, and 'Cyril Thornton' had passed through no less than four editions; so I am a bit of a lion, and the object of much more notice than is desirable to one who would rather look on the world around him from a corner, than be, as I fear I am here, the observed of all observers. Some advantage, however, I have derived even from this unpleasant notoriety. My society has been courted by the greatest men America can boast, and I have, in consequence, moved in a circle to which, without some literary celebrity, I should have found it very difficult, if not impossible, to have obtained access. But of this enough. My motions have been

as follows:

I first arrived at New York; after a stay of three weeks I went on to Boston; a fortnight passed there very pleasantly. I then returned to New York, where I again spent ten days; from thence I proceeded southward to Philadelphia, to which I devoted three weeks. One week was enough for Baltimore; and I have now been just a fortnight in Washington. Mr Vaughan, our minister, has been most kind and attentive, and whenever I have no engagement I dine with him. has done every thing in his power for me, and is one of the most delightful companions I know. Two days ago I was presented to the President. I was prepared for a good deal of form, but there was none. I was introduced precisely as I should be to any private individual; and, after shaking hands, sat chatting with him, alone, for more than half an hour. The impression I made, I

He

hope, was not unfavourable, for I dine with him to-morrow-an honour not frequently accorded to my countrymen. Perhaps you would like to know about him. He is, then, a very decent-looking old gentleman, something like a country minister in Scotland, and kind, though somewhat vulgar, in manner. He chews tobacco, and kept rolling an enormous quid about in his mouth, and squirting his saliva on the carpet, which, round his chair, was really covered with a fluid of the most disgusting description. We talked of the revolution in Poland, and the state of France; and the old gentleman's ideas, I confess, did not strike me as very luminous, or evincing any great extent of political knowledge. He makes sad mistakes, too, in grammar, and asked me about my servitude in the army, This rather foolishly touched my pride, and I even felt half inclined to reply that an English officer, though he may see service, can never know servitude. Indeed, the general has a good deal of the Malaprop blood in his veins; but what puzzled me most was to conceive, that a person so very mild and pleasant, and even benevolent in manner, could be the savage and ferocious duellist who, on several occasions, killed his antagonist as he would a dog. The house was dirty, and gave you the impression of a large, ill-furnished, and ill-kept hotel. His servants, with the exception of an Irish footman, are ALL SLAVES! From Mr Van Buren, the Secretary of State, I have received great attention, and have dined twice with him. He is certainly a clever man, and I can easily believe that the charge made against him here, of having too much political cunning, is true. If not, my penetration is at fault. Eaton, the Secretary for the War Department, is a very inferior person. Nothing brought him into office but his being the personal friend of Jackson. He certainly, whatever his other accomplishments may be, cannot write English. The Vice-President, Mr Calhoun, is unquestionably a man of considerable talent,

and as unquestionably a very pleasant one in society. Through his favour, I am admitted into the body of the house whenever I go to the senate. Jackson and he are at daggers-drawing; and he will oppose Clay and Van Buren for the next presidency, though, I believe, without much chance of success. Jackson's re-election is considered certain by all south of New York. But the most delightful person I know is Mr Edward Livingston, Senator for Louisiana. He has just succeeded in drawing up a new criminal code for that State. No one, I should imagine, is better qualified for such a task. I spend some part of nearly every day with him, and shall always be proud to call him friend. He wants me to write a story illustrative of the evils of punishment by death, to which, as a philanthropist, he is strenuously opposed. Mr Webster of Boston is, however, the great man of the day. I know him intimately, but have not yet heard him speak on any occasion fitted to draw out his powers. The impression he has made by his speeches of last session is very great throughout the Union. I never saw a countenance on which great talent and acuteness were more legibly imprinted. His eye is one of peculiar power. He and Livingston are the only two Americans I have yet met who understand our constitution, not only in its prominent features but in its under workings, or who understand English feelings with regard to it. What strikes an Englishman

in

my situation as most strange, is the entire freedom of intercourse to which he is admitted with such individuals as those I have described. They have none of the official reserve to which at home we are accustomed, and even seem to court occasions of talking politics with you. The best-informed Americans even speak to me with greater freedom than they would do to their own countrymen; and thus I have had the best and surest channels of information open to me in every city I have yet visited. It may seem strange, but so it is,

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that in this free country a large body, and these the best-informed and most intellectual of the people, dare not publicly avow their political principles. The Federalist party, you know, is annihilated. I had the curiosity to ask some of its most enlightened supporters whether the opinions they formerly advocated were really changed, and, if not, why they did not publicly assert them. The answer was, "Our opinions are unchanged; but such is the state of things here, that were it even suspected by the people that we entertained them, we should be proscribed men―men excluded utterly from public life, and every object of honourable ambition, and liable in a thousand ways to petty but galling persecution. Such is the state of things in this country, that we dare not state our honest convictions to the world." "Good God!" I could not help exclaiming, can it be possible that in this country of free institutions, in republican America, a despotism so degrading can exist? In England every man is free to form his own opinions, and free to express them. A man is not branded there because the opinions he entertains are not the opinions of the mob. In one Parliament you will find every shade of political opinion, from the highest Toryism to the most lightly veiled republicanism; and each has its champions and apostles, who support their views openly and manfully." It is not so here. No man can even enter public life without first truckling to the mob, and too often paltering with his conscience. He must profess-often falsely profess to entertain all the prejudices of the ignorant men by whom he is elected. He goes to Congress with a halter round his neck. Let him dare to differ from them by one hair's-breadth, and he is kicked out, and his hopes blighted for ever. Every man in Congress must and does profess himself a democrat, though he may be at heart a monarchist. In short, he must lie in his throat; and the result is, that there is a regularly understood

b

system of deception, which I cannot bring myself either to tolerate or admire. No man of high principles and honourable pride can enter public life in this country. The whole members of Congress (the exceptions are very few) are attorneys, many of them low, ignorant, and contemptible pettifoggers. I declare most solemnly, that I have never yet met with any man in this country whose opinions could carry with them any weight, who was not decidedly of opinion that the system of government here is in many respects a decided failure. It is a mistake to call it a free government. It is a despotism of the most degrading kind-the despotism of a mob. It is most unfavourable to the development of mind. Men here are judged of by a lower standard than in England; and this standard, both in regard to knowledge and manners, is becoming lower every generation. The crop of young men now coming forward is decidedly more vulgar and more ignorant than the preceding; and what, in God's name! shall we say or think of institutions which cause men to retrograde in the scale of civilization? In England every generation, taken in the mass, is better educated than its predecessor. A young man coming into Parliament now, comes armed with a mass of knowledge of which his father knew nothing; and thus our standard is progressively becoming higher, while that of America is sinking. But it is the fashion to call the American people a sensible people. I wish those who think them so could only spend a fortnight at Washington, and listen to the empty, frothy, and interminable speeches which are daily uttered in the Capitol. A man in our Parliament generally speaks because he has something to say; and, if he has not, the House will not listen to him. A far different rule, however, prevails among this sensible people. The demand here is not for thoughts but words; and I must say the market is well supplied. It is impossible to visit the Senate and House of Representatives, (less, however, the former than the latter,) and to