settle amount of the duplicate.  My only resort is to collect; in doing so I should be sorry to have to resort to the authority given me by law for the recovery of the same.  It should be the first object of every good citizen to pay his taxes, for it is in that way government is supported.  Why are taxes assessed unless they are collected?  Depend upon it, I shall proceed to collect agreeably to law, so govern yourselves accordingly.

     JOHN SPENCER,
     Sh’ff and Collector, D.C. 
     Nov 20, 1828.”

“N.B.  On Thursday, the 27th inst.  A. St. Clair and Geo. H. Dunn, Esqrs. depart for Indianopolis; I wish as many as can pay to do so, to enable me to forward as much as possible, to save the twenty-one per cent, that will be charged against me after the 8th of December next.

     JS.”

The first autumn I passed in America, I was surprised to find a great and very oppressive return of heat, accompanied with a heavy mistiness in the air, long after the summer heats were over; when this state of the atmosphere comes on, they say, “we have got to the Indian summer.”  On desiring to have this phrase explained, I was told that the phenomenon described as the Indian Summer was occasioned by the Indians setting fire to the woods, which spread heat and smoke to a great distance; but I afterwards met with the following explanation, which appears to me much more reasonable.  “The Indian summer is so called because, at the particular period of the year in which it obtains, the Indians break up their village communities, and go to the interior to prepare for their winter hunting.  This season seems to mark a dividing line, between the heat of summer, and the cold of winter, and is, from its mildness, suited to these migrations.  The cause of this heat is the slow combustion of the leaves and other vegetable matter of the boundless and interminable forests.  Those who at this season of the year have penetrated these forests, know all about it.  To the feet the heat is quite sensible, whilst the ascending vapour warms every thing it embraces, and spreading out into the wide atmosphere, fills the circuit of the heavens with its peculiar heat and smokiness.”

This unnatural heat sufficiently accounts for the sickliness of the American autumn.  The effect of it is extremely distressing to the nerves, even when the general health continues good; to me, it was infinitely more disagreeable than the glowing heat of the dog-days.

A short time before we arrived in America, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar made a tour of the United States.  I heard many persons speak of his unaffected and amiable manners, yet he could not escape the dislike which every trace of gentlemanly feeling is sure to create among the ordinary class of Americans.  As an amusing instance of this, I made the following extract from a newspaper.