My first business after breakfast was to call, as it was yesterday agreed I should do, upon Mr. G―. I found him up to his very eyes in the business of preparation for his trip to England. Books, papers, boxes, were in every direction, and he in the midst. But he had leisure to resume our Indian subject, and to discuss it, as he does all other subjects with a brisk, and animated, and penetrating spirit, which never fails to ferret out of the darkest corners every thing that may be concealed there with life enough to stir; or if dead, that is worth bringing out into the light. When such a man speaks, I generally listen, and hear; and when the subject relates to our Indians, I endeavour to profit by it. I have not time even to sketch an outline of this conversation. We agreed to exchange letters, and parted-I for the Lakes, and he for London.

I dined with my excellent friend, the Rev. Mr. N———; and have just risen from table that I might say thus much to you, and tell you how sincerely and truly I am yours.

MY DEAR ***

Brunswick, N. J. Saturday, June 3, 1826.

At five o'clock, yesterday, the steamboat left the wharf at Baltimore, and arrived at Frenchtown, without any variation of the usual appearance of things upon this route, or the occurrence of a single incident worth mentioning, and as usual, at the very uncomfortable hour of midnight, where the baggage you know is shifted, with its owners, into stages for Newcastle, .distant about fifteen miles, and where, at the hardly less uncomfortable hour of daybreak, we are again shifted from the stages into the steamboat on the Delaware. Still this accommodation to the public is great. About eleven o'clock we arrived at Philadelphia. The Delaware and its shores looked as usual; and Mud fort and Red bank both remain to preserve with the same fidelity the deeds done at them in the war of the revolution.

I paid my respects to the wealthy and regular built city of Philadelphia as I passed, but only for an hour; for, after delivering a letter with which I was charged by a friend in Baltimore, and calling to pay my respects to my valued friends, Mr. and Mrs. Js, I went on board the Trenton steamboat to write letters.

Philadelphia has always been full of interest to me. The many and frequent visits I have made to it in my earlier life, and to friends who have nearly all of them passed away, will make it always fruitful in associations, many of them mournful, but many also of the most agreeable sort. And then you know it is the City of Penn, that incomparable lawgiver and philanthropist; and contains within it the remains of Franklin and of Rush, and others, whose lives and labours reflect such lustre on their country, and endear to it, by ties that can never be severed, their memory and their renown. And then its charities--but I have not time to enlarge.

***

At two o'clock we were under way. I was happy in meeting in the boat with my early and excellent friend, the Rev. J. Ey and family, travelling to New York. I need not tell you that we soon formed a kind of travelling party, nor that the way, to me at least, was made thereby highly agreeable. But home, and those who are dear to me. there, would now and then pass in review before me, and bring over my feelings the kind of shadows that have weight! It is not so easy, my dear after all that is attributed to the power of absence, or said, or sung of its smile-blighting influence, to leave one's family and friends, with a lake and wilderness journey of two thousand miles in prospect, and be insensible to such a parting. The home that has been left in all the beauty and freshness of spring, has often been returned to, and found clad in mourning, and surrounded by the dreariness and desolation of winter; and often, too, in a shorter period than that which is marked for my return. But I will dismiss such reflections-and refer all to

"The Governor of all, himself to all

So bountiful, in whose attentive ear

The unfledg'd raven and the lion's whelp
Plead not in vain."

The steamboat, as usual, touched at Burlington and at Bristol. At the former place I should have been delighted to have stopped, if for only ten minutes, but that time could not be allowed, and so we passed on, and were fortunate in being able to reach Trenton by water, which is not always done. There are several miles which, in low water, have to be gone over in stages. The water was now high enough, and this inconvenience obviated.

Trenton is a respectable looking town, about thirty-three miles from Philadelphia, and has the appearance of a place of business. But as I am not going to encumber my letters with any very considerable weight of statistical materials, its population and the items which usually enter into the composition of tables of the sort, will have to be omitted-and especially as I am a stage passenger, and stop only long enough for the driver to deliver his mail, water his horses, and take a dram, in which last act he is not unfrequently very ably seconded by good men and true, who stand ready to bear him company. On this occasion he had one at each elbow, who seemed to have been brought along for this express purpose.

It were not possible, however, even to fly through Trenton without seeing and admiring its arched bridge, and recurring to that spirited and bloody fight of the 8th Dec. 1776; and pausing to look at the Assumpsick, now so peaceful and pure, but which on that day was troubled and red with blood! It was a day of victory-and a day which gave renewed strength to the arms, and fresh animation to the spirits of our patriot fathers. It was a day of glory, and Trenton was the chosen spot for its display. Yes, and long after Trenton shall have, like Babylon, and Carthage, and other cities of olden time, been mingled with the earth, and no vestige of it remain, will its name be preserved, and the memory of

the patriots and heroes who fought, and bled, and died there, be gratefully cherished.

The prospects of the farmer on the greater part of this route, I mean from Trenton to Brunswick, are better than I expected to find them. The drought is oppressive, and nature throughout her domain was, until to-day, thirsty and almost to famishing; but here she was better able to endure the absence of rain than with us, because there is more fertility here, the grounds are better, and better covered with verdure, and are therefore in a situation to imbibe and retain the damps of the atmosphere. But rain began to be actually needed even here. The harvest had attained its accustomed height, but there was a moisture required at the root of the stock to put in motion the needed supply for the perfection of the grain-and at this critical moment the clouds gathered, and this great blessing is conferred, but amidst a display of electric fire, such as is rarely witnessed. We had passed through Trenton but a short time before this elementary war commenced, and before we had reached Princeton, the welkin rung with the blast and the thunder, and the ground was well soaked.

Princeton! What an ornament to New Jersey. How honourable is the interesting nursery of science and of religion which graces this little town, to the state*-and, may it not be added, to the nation? I could do no more, in passing, than look with grateful recollections to the past, and hopes for the future, upon those edifices in which science holds her seat, and religion has erected her altar. And here, too, has the blood of the patriot been shed. These fields have been honoured with the presence of freemen contending for liberty, and with some of the richest blood of the country; for here Mercer fell! It was here that the sun which had shed his last parting ray upon Washington at Trenton the evening before, rose upon him and his army the next morning, and lighting the ground, in place of the fires that he had left burning at

* Though not indebted to it for the means, either for its origin or continuance.

Trenton, demonstrated to the astonished British general, that the roar of the cannon, which came from the direction of Princeton, was none other than that which Washington had with him the evening before at Trenton! What a movement! In the dead of night, and a winter's night, to transport an army, with its baggage and artillery, across the Delaware, unperceived, and almost in the very presence of the enemy! But Washington was there-and PROVIDENCE WAS HIS GUIDE. It is said that a cannon ball passed through the chapei at Princeton, on the morning of this ever memorable battle, and took off the head of George III. from his portrait that was hanging there. This might have indicated the issue of the war, and would, to others having more faith in omens. But the enemy heeded it not.

On arriving at "the five-mile-house," so called, a watering place and tavern, that distance from Brunswick, and while the drivers were off their seats, a flash of lightning of unusual fierceness, followed quickly by a rattling peal of thunder, alarmed our horses, and they started-but a timely coming up of the drivers stopped them, and thus saved us from a ride to Brunswick in less time than we would have chosen, and perhaps, and what is more likely, from broken bones and comfortless situations along the public way. The drivers stopped the horses, but were not competent to stop a very fat couple who tumbled out of the stage next to ours, one after the other, although we joined in recommending them to be composed and resume their seats. That flash of lightning was too ragged and too fierce for them; and the thunder altogether too appalling, seeing there was no defence between them and this cloudy conflict, but the thin partition of the top of a stage. We left them at this "five mile house," where they doubtless felt more secure, under a shingled roof, with a promise on their part, that "if the gust cleared up" they would come on to-night-it was then about sundown-"or to-morrow morning in time for the boat."