One of its agreeable incidents was an accidental meeting with John Curtis, of Ohio, on his way, on a free trade mission, to Great Britain, from motives which I believe to be disinterested and philanthropic.  His labors, which are principally intended to show the evils of our taxes upon food, will not be in vain; though he will find many in England, as I found in America, who have no ear for truth when it opposes their prejudices or imaginary self-interest.  He gave me a most cheering account of the march of abolition in Ohio, and said he had lately attended a meeting held at the invitation of the abolitionists, on the 5th of July, at which there were three thousand persons, who had come to the place of meeting in nine hundred vehicles of different kinds.  He said he had never witnessed a more enthusiastic meeting.  Another gentleman and his wife made themselves known to me, in the railway carriage, as warm abolitionists, and spoke favorably of the prospects of the cause in this part of the State of New York.  The gentleman said he had lately had a discussion with a deacon of a church he attended, who defended the admission of slave-holders to the communion.  On being asked, however, whether he would admit sheep-stealers, he acknowledged this was not so great a crime as man-stealing, and pleaded no further in favor of church-fellowship with slave-holders.

The journey from New York to the Falls of Niagara, a distance of 480 miles, is performed in about forty-eight hours, and when the railway communication is further completed, and the speed raised to the standard of the best English lines, it will probably be accomplished in less than thirty hours.  The railway passed for many miles through the original forest, in which I observed very lofty trees, but none of an extraordinary girth.  In many places the ground was crowded with fallen trees, in every stage of decay.  I found my friends at the Eagle Hotel, at Niagara, where I remained till the twelfth, enjoying with them the views and scenery of “the Falls,” a spectacle of nature in her grandest aspect, which mocks the limited capacity of man to conceive or to describe.

On the eleventh, being the first day of the week, we held a meeting for worship, at our hotel, and were joined by an Irish lady and her three daughters, who had been living here some months.  This lady told me she was present when M’Leod was arrested in this hotel.  From all I have been able to learn, there are a number of reckless men on both sides the border line, who are anxious to foment war for the sake of plunder; but the great bulk of the American people, I am persuaded, are for peace, and especially for peace with England, a feeling which time is strengthening.