The cheering at the close of Mr. Clay’s speech merged into an awful tempest of barking.  I could compare it to nothing else,—­500 men barking with all their might!  I thought it was all up with the meeting—­that all was lost in incurable confusion; and yet the gentlemen on the platform looked down upon the raging tempest below with calmness and composure, as a thing of course.  Amidst the noise I saw a middle-aged gentleman, rising on the platform, deliberately take off his top-coat, and all was hushed—­except at the outskirts of the assembly, where a great trade in talking and tobacco was constantly carried on.  This gentleman’s name was S.S.  Prentiss, Esq.; and the barking, it was now evident, consisted of calling out Prentiss!  —­Prentiss!—­Prentiss! with all their might, on the top of the voice, and with an accent, sharp and rising, on the first syllable.

This gentleman gave us to understand that he was a lawyer—­that he had often appeared before his fellow-citizens on former occasions (those occasions he briefly enumerated); but that the present was the most painful of all.  He expatiated largely, and with great vehemence of tone and action, on the miseries of famine as experienced in Ireland,—­talked much of their own glorious and free country—­("Looking out for a few niggers this morning?” occurred to me),—­and made some severe reflections—­not, I admit, altogether undeserved—­on the Government of England.  This man was fluent, though turgid.  He seemed resolved to act the orator throughout, and certainly to me appeared in point of talent far—­far a-head of Henry Clay.  Bravos and hoohoos in abundance greeted Mr. Prentiss.  He spoke long; but the noise of the suburbs prevented my hearing so perfectly as I wished.

The cheering at the close of this speech merged into barking as before.  In this instance it was Hunt!—­Hunt!—­Hunt! that they called for.  The president (standing) showed them a sheet of paper, containing probably a list of subscriptions, and smiled coaxingly to intimate that he wished that to be read.  But it would not do.  Hunt!—­Hunt!—­Hunt! was still the cry; and the democracy, as before, carried the day.

By this time the atmosphere of the room had become so poisoned with smoking that I could endure it no longer.  I had not only the general atmosphere to bear, but special puffs, right in my face, accompanying the questions and remarks which, in that free meeting, of free citizens, in a free country, were freely put to me by the free-and-easy gentlemen around.  The meeting resulted in the raising of 15,000 dollars for the relief of the Irish.  The sum was handed by the American Minister in London to Lord John Russell; and a note from his Lordship, acknowledging the gift, has gone the round of the papers on both sides of the Atlantic.  The subject of relief to Ireland was subsequently, in many ways and places, brought under my notice; and while I have been delighted in many instances with the display of pure and noble