I need not say I shall be very happy to hear from you during your sojournment abroad.  Especially tell me what your impressions are when you turn from David’s picture with Romulus and Tatius in the foreground, and Paul Veronese’s Marriage at Cana directly opposite, at the entrance of the picture gallery in the Louvre.

We are all well and all desire to be remembered.  I have only time to add my best wishes for your happiness and prosperity.

Yours truly and constantly,
JOHN A. DIX.

The Mr. Rives mentioned in the letter was at that time our Minister to France, and the Mr. Van Buren was Martin Van Buren, then Secretary of State in President Jackson’s Cabinet, and afterwards himself President of the United States.

The following is from the pencilled draft of a letter or the beginning of a diary which was not finished, but ends abruptly:—­

“On the 8th November, 1829, I embarked from New York in the ship Napoleon, Captain Smith, for Liverpool.  The Napoleon is one of those splendid packets, which have been provided by the enterprise of our merchants, for the accommodation of persons whose business or pleasure requires a visit to Europe or America.

“Precisely at the appointed hour, ten o’clock, the steamboat with the passengers and their baggage left the Whitehall dock for our gallant ship, which was lying to above the city, heading up the North River, careening to the brisk northwest gale, and waiting with apparent impatience for us, like a spirited horse curvetting under the rein of his master, and waiting but his signal to bound away.  A few moments brought us to her side, and a few more saw the steamboat leave us, and the sad farewells to relatives and friends, who had thus far accompanied us, were mutually exchanged by the waving of hands and of handkerchiefs.  The ‘Ready about,’ and soon after the ‘Mainsail haul’ of the pilot were answered by the cheering ‘Ho, heave, ho’ of the sailors, and, with the fairest wind that ever blew, we fast left the spires and shores of the great city behind us.  In two hours we discharged our pilot to the south of Sandy Hook, with his pocket full of farewell letters to our friends, and then stood on our course for England.

“Four days brought us to the Banks of Newfoundland, one third of our passage.  Many of our passengers were sanguine in their anticipations of our making the shortest passage ever known, and, had our subsequent progress been as great as at first, we should doubtless have accomplished the voyage in thirteen days, but calms and head winds for three days on the Banks have frustrated our expectations.