of our voyage, a difference of four or five hours in the time of our meridian and yours, led us to fancy our English friends as retiring to bed as we were sitting down to tea. On Sunday, we had always part of the Church service and a sermon; at which many of the crew were present.

On Monday night, 1st November, we retired to bed at 12 o'clock, confident of seeing land the next morning; and the next morning, at 6 o'clock, we dropped anchor off Sandy Hook, 22 or 23 miles from New York. I could hardly believe that I was really in that hemisphere,

"Where first his drooping sails Columbus furl'd,
"And sweetly rested in another world.”

We were enveloped in a thick fog, and I walked the deck impatiently for an hour or two before the sun partially dispersed the mist. The Jersey shore, about half a mile distant, was the only land we saw during the day, and that but at intervals; it appeared low and brown, but it was land, and it was America, and for the moment that was sufficient.

To our great disappointment, we found the tide would not allow us to reach New York that night, but a few of us went up in a pilotboat, as it was dusk. I must not attempt to

Potowmac, and suitable for the chief magistrate of a powerful republic. We passed

through a spacious saloon into the drawingroom, where we had some difficulty in making our way to Mrs. Monroe and the President, to both of whom strangers are presented in due form. The drawing-room was too crowded to admit of our sitting down, but overflowed into another room, where there were sofas for those who preferred a quiet tête-a-tête to the bustle of a well-dressed crowd. The appearance of the company was respectable, but my friend remarked that there were more persons than usual who appeared as if they had just arrived from the country, and that he had been introduced to above twenty new members of Congress.

In many respects, Washington reminds me very much of a watering-place. Scarcely any of the members reside here, except while Congress is sitting, and then they are in lodgings. The ladies, who accompany their fathers and husbands to see a little of the world, are situated very much as they would be at Harrowgate or Cheltenham, and there are usually many strangers in pursuit of entertainment. It is the residence also of the foreign Ministers, and the heads of the

departments of government. All this, you will readily believe, gives rise to much dissipation. On some of the evenings, there are routs at the houses of one or other of the ministers of the Corps diplomatique, and the rest are generally anticipated by two or three invitations.

All, however, complain, that this routine becomes very dull before the session closes, as they meet almost the same persons every evening, and the sober ones will seldom go out above two or three times a week. Families who are acquainted with each other, often board together at the large taverns, and the members who are bachelors for the time being, form messes at the private boardinghouses, where they are often in very close, and sometimes very shabby, quarters. I think quite the majority of the members go to the capitol in hackney coaches; and as the ground has been covered with snow, I have several times seen a sledge and four, with eight or ten Senators from Georgetown, in the neighbourhood. The vicinity of Washington is extremely beautiful, but of the eligibility of the situation for the capital of the United States there is great difference of opinion.

St. Louis, on the Missouri, is by some supposed to be destined to be the future capital, as it will probably be almost the centre of those states which may be expected one day to compose this gigantic confederation. Washington, may be said to be rather the site of a city that is to be than an actual city. It is laid out on an extensive scale, but the streets are for the most part unbuilt, or chequered with houses of the shabbiest description. Still, however, it has some magnificent features, while the romantic scenery which surrounds it, and which is visible from almost every part of it, redeems much of the deformity of its scattered and uncomfortable aspect.

The principal street, Pennsylvania Avenue, has a noble appearance, and is a mile long, with one wide and two narrower avenues of poplars, which conceal from the view the ill assorted houses on each side. On a lofty eminence, at one end, stands the capitol, and at the other, on a commanding, though less elevated position, the President's house.

I have hitherto spent nearly every morning at the Senate, or House of Representatives. These beautiful chambers are calculated to make an impression very favourable to the

dignity of the deliberative assemblies which oc cupy them, and the general appearance of the members does not materially impair it. Many of them have the appearance of English country gentlemen, and a considerable proportion of them are lawyers, who carry in their faces those marks of intellectual exertion which seem to plead some apology for having sacrificed little to the graces. Some of the members from the Western country, indeed, would look a little queer in our House of Commons. The proceedings both of the Senate and House of Representatives seem to be conducted with great order and decorum, and with a courtesy and attention to the feelings of “honourable gentlemen," which I was not prepared to expect. The style of their best speakers is fluent, forcible, and perspicuous; and in cases where it is not possible that their arguments should be sound, they seldom fail to be specious and acute. My friend, who would, I believe, be considered the first authority on the subject, told me that he considered their two prominent faults to be, a proneness to engage in dissertation, and to pursue the investigation of a difficult question, which had been started incidentally in the course of the debate, without ascertaining whether its solution was absolutely necessary to the original