they combated with united courage and perseverance, and, when they found it was impossible to extinguish it, exerted themselves to save all that the flames had not destroyed before their arrival and mine.

"All the furniture, statues, pictures, money, plate, gold, jewels, linen, books, and in short every thing that was not consumed, has been most scrupulously delivered into the hands of the people of my house. In the night of the fire, and during the next day, there were brought to me, by labouring men, drawers in which I have found the proper quantity of pieces of money, and medals of gold, and valuable jewels, which might have been taken with impunity. This event has proved to me how much the inhabitants of Bordentown appreciate the interest I have always felt for them; and shows that men in general are good when they are not perverted in their youth by a bad education; when they maintain their dignity as men, and feel that true greatness is in the soul, and depends upon ourselves.

"I cannot omit on this occasion to repeat what I have said so often, that the Americans are the most happy people I have known; still more happy, if they understand well their happiness.

I pray you not to doubt of my sincere regard.

.

Your's, &c.

JOSEPH COMPTE DE SURVILLIERS.

While I have been writing, our vessel has made its way many miles down the Delaware; pitch and toss, pitch and toss! The wind has risen very suddenly, and now blows a hurricane. We are likely to have a rough passage. I must seek the deck, and see who and what are our fellow-passengers. A face peeped into the cabin just now that looked very English, and a sentence with the Lancashire accent, now sounding on the stairs, seems to sanction my reading of the physiognomy. There is a grey duffle cloak, too, that seems not in the fashion of this country. A propos to this cloak; I must express my concern for the too frequent deficit of such an article in the wardrobe of an American lady: truly my teeth have chattered when I have seen in the streets of New York in the month of January, when the mercury stood but few degrees above zero, troops of young women in such attire as might have suited Euphrosynes in the sweet days of May: no furs, no boots, no woollen hose, no, nor even woollen garb wore the delicate creatures; but silks, and feathers, and slippers, as gay as the sparkling skies that shone above them, or the glistering snows they trod upon. But here is too serious trifling with youth and health; and the prevalence of consumption proves the danger and the folly of this sacrifice of comfort to appearance. It is, doubtless, a cruel thing to bury a pretty ankle in a fur-lined boot or a stocking of worsted, and a well-turned throat and

delicate waist in a coat with triple capes; but I would fain put it to the good sense of my fair friends in this country, if it is not more cruel to be cramped with rheumatism, or tortured with tooth-ache, or sent out of the world in the very spring-time of youth by a painful and lingering disease. I would that Franklin were alive to read them a lesson upon the folly of sacrificing health and life upon the altar of fashion he would say more to them in a pleasant fable of ten lines, than a wordy moralist or learned physician in a lecture of a thousand pages. But would they listen to an old sage any more than they would to me? Youth must buy its own experience; and the wisdom of our fathers usually lies on the shelf till we have split on all the rocks from which it would have warned us.

477

LETTER XXVII.

ANCE OF THE CITY.

YELLOW FEVER AT FELLS POINT. - APPEAR· MISCELLANEOUS.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Baltimore, April, 1820.

We pushed along-side of the wharf between two and three in the morning, and so gently, that, but for the sudden pause of the machinery, we slumbering passengers should have received no intimation of the circumstance. Ascending to the deck before sun-rise, we encountered the last drops of a spring shower, the loud pattering of which we had heard for some time over our heads, and had apprehended in consequence a comfortless termination to our journey; but fiercer war, sooner peace, says a vulgar proverb, which, perhaps, you will call me vulgar for quoting; and a cloud which in our misty island takes a week or a month to dissolve itself, will perform the operation here in a few minutes. I have seen rain in this country, and taken it on my shoulders, like the breaking of a water-spout: great on such occasions is the bustle and hurry of the forlorn wights exposed to the elements. You will hear a horseman whistle to

his steed, who, on his part, seems scarcely to wait the hint of his master, and see a saunterer collect his limbs, and set them to their full speed as though Death were behind him. I have often in fancy contrasted such a scene with that which a street or highway presents in England when the heavens are weeping from sun-rise to sun-set. The quiescent traveller, with slouched hat, close-buttoned coat, and dripping umbrella, holding on his way with measured steps, and a face composed to patient endurance, neither expecting compassion from the elements, nor seeking it from his fellowcreatures.

This city is singularly neat and pretty; I will even say beautiful. It is possible, that in the first gaze I threw upon it, it owed something to the hour, the season, and the just fallen shower of sweet spring rain; but what is there in life that owes not to time and circumstance the essence of its evil or its good? We looked forth from our cabin in the still grey dawn, and paced awhile up and down the spacious deck of the lordly steam-boat, to enjoy the scene, and the hour, to which the scene owed much. All yet was silent in the citysilent as the unpierced forests of the west; not a foot trod the quays, or was heard upon the pave ments of the streets that branched from them; not a figure was seen on the decks, or in the shrouds of the vessels that lay around us; the very air was sleeping, and the shipping reposed on the waters