Last week there came up a storm, when we were near the land, and they hauled into port.  Clarendon walked off on shore in his fishing-clothes, without appearing in the least ashamed of them, and went to make a call on a gentleman in the place, whom he had seen in Virginia a year or two since.  I wish I had been well enough to have gone with him, for he saw a great many things which were new to him, and he says that British America is as different from the United States as if it were not a part of the same continent.  None of the crew minded walking about on shore in the rain, and while they were gone I was alone, excepting Dick, and he was on deck writing a letter to his sister, to send across the country and prepare her for his return; for you know she thinks that he is dead.

When David came back, though, I had fun enough; for he gave me the most amusing description of every thing he had seen.

“Hurrah for New England!” he exclaimed, as soon as he got on board.  “John Bull don’t beat Brother Jonathan yet.  Let them talk of their lords and their ladies; there is not a gentleman in Boston that is not quite as noble-looking as the one that I saw, and a great deal more knowing, I can tell you.  We saw a splendid carriage and four, with a troop of soldiers in red tramping after it, and a passably pretty flag flying over them.  I asked a little boy whom we met what they were about, and he replied, that they were escorting a great British general, who had just come over to the Provinces.  I ran forward to get a peep at the wonder, and had a good stare at the old fellow; and such another fright you never saw.  I wished I had a temperance tract to give him, for his face was redder than the sun last night, when it went down in a cloud, and his eyes looked like stoppers to a whiskey-bottle, which had got soaked through.  He’d better not have much to do with fire-arms, for he’d blow up to a certainty.  They say he lies in bed till twelve o’clock every day, and then does nothing but just drink and eat, and drink and smoke, till midnight.  I am glad that our government has no such loafers to maintain.”

“But did not the place itself look flourishing?” I asked, amused at his warmth.

“No, indeed!” he replied; “every body had a constrained air, as if they were in bondage, and it made my blood boil to see two fine-appearing men waiting so obsequiously on a good-for-nothing young scamp, just because he had a title to his name.  I hope that I shall never live to see the day when there is any such nonsense tagging to my label as they string on to theirs.  How much better George Washington sounds than the Honorable Alexis Fiddle Faddle, &c.”

“That’s a nobleman I never heard of,” said old Jack, laughing at David’s vexation; “but Nelson is a very fine-sounding name, for all it’s an English one.”

“And the Duke of Wellington, too,” said I, “is not an ugly title, and I would give a great deal to see the man who bears it.”