On these occasions the mercury sometimes descends to 10 or 12 degrees below 0.  Rivers a mile broad are frozen over in one night, and the bay of Chesapeak traversed in waggons and sleighs!

Though this climate, compared with that of England, is not in my opinion on the whole so good, yet it possesses many advantages, such as the clearness of the atmosphere, greater equality of the length of the days, and certainty of settled weather; for though the transitions are more violent, they are by no means so frequent as in England; where you have the wind from every point of the compass, and experience all the seasons of the year in twenty-four hours!

Recollect these observations on the climate of America are confined to the middle states, including Virginia in this description.  Those of the north, and south, are somewhat different; but I am informed the country to the S.W. of the Allegany Mountains is materially different.  The distance the N.W. wind has to travel to this country, and the opposition it meets with from those mountains, in a great measure meliorates and destroys those penetrating qualities, which make this wind so formidable to the Atlantic States.  I have heard so many extraordinary accounts of the South-western territory, that I have long made up my mind to visit that country:  two trifling reasons alone prevented me; viz. want of time and money; and from some disagreeable intelligence I have lately received from Wells, instead of climbing the Allegany, I apprehend I shall soon be obliged to cross the Atlantic; in which case, I shall have the pleasure of returning you thanks in person for your obliging attention to my order concerning the........... which I received by the Peggy.

At present I must content myself by assuring you of my being

Your obliged friend, &c.

Philadelphia, September 13th, 1796.

DEAR SIR,

I write this in my way to Boston, where I am going to fulfil my engagement with W——­, the particulars of which I informed you of in a former letter.

When I arrived at Newcastle, I had the mortification to find upwards of one hundred irish passengers on board the packet.

For some time before I left Baltimore, our papers were full of a shocking transaction, which took place on board an irish passenger ship, containing upwards of three hundred.  It is said, that, owing to the cruel usage they received from the captain, such as being put on a very scanty allowance of water[Footnote:  By a law of the United States, the quantity of water and provision every vessel is obliged to take (in proportion to the length of the passage and persons on board) is clearly defined.  A master of a vessel violating this law forfeits five hundred dollars.] and provision, a contagious disorder broke out on board, which carried off great numbers; and, to add to their distress, when they arrived in the Delaware, they were obliged to perform quarantine, which, for some days, was equally fatal.