On the 29th I went over the Tract House in New York, and was delighted to see there six steam-presses,—­four of which were then at work, pouring forth in rapid succession sheet after sheet impressed with that kind of literature which in my judgment is admirably adapted to meet the wants of this growing country.  They were then printing on an average 27,000 publications, including nearly 2,400 of each kind, per diem! and employing sixty women in folding and stitching.  During the last year they printed 713,000 volumes, and 8,299,000 smaller publications, making a total of 217,499,000 pages, or 58,154,661 pages more than in any previous year!  Of the volumes issued, I may mention 14,000 sets of four volumes of D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation, 17,000 of Bunyan’s Pilgrim, 10,000 of Baxter’s Saints’ Rest, 9,000 of Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, 7,000 of Pike’s Persuasives, 13,000 of Alleine’s Alarm, and 41,000 of Baxter’s Call!  The two Secretaries, whose business it is to superintend the publishing department and matters relating to the raising of funds, the Rev. Wm. A. Hallock and the Rev. O. Eastman, are enterprising and plodding men.  They told me they were brought up together in the same neighbourhood, and had both worked at the plough till they were 20 years of age!

The 1st of May is the great moving day in New York.  Throughout the city one house seems to empty itself into another.  Were it to the next door, it might be done with no great inconvenience; but it is not so.  Try to walk along the causeway, and you are continually blocked up with tables, chairs, and chests of drawers.  Get into an omnibus, and you are beset with fenders, pokers, pans, Dutch ovens, baskets, brushes, &c.  Hire a cart, and they charge you double fare.

One day at the water-side, happening to see the steamer for Staten Island about to move off, we stepped on board, and in less than half an hour found ourselves there.  The distance is 6 miles, and the island is 18 miles long, 7 miles wide, and 300 feet high.  Here are a large hospital for mariners and the quarantine burying-ground.  It is also studded with several genteel residences.  In 1657 the Indians sold it to the Dutch for 10 shirts, 30 pairs of stockings, 10 guns, 30 bars of lead, 30 lbs. of powder, 12 coats, 2 pieces of duffil, 30 kettles, 30 hatchets, 20 hoes, and one case of knives and awls.

Several emigrant vessels were then in the bay.  On our return, we saw with painful interest many of them setting their foot for the first time on the shore of the New World.  They were then arriving in New York, chiefly from the United Kingdom, at the rate of one thousand a day.  The sight affected me even to tears.  It was like a vision of the British Empire crumbling to pieces, and the materials taken to build a new and hostile dominion.