The wind has prevented the arrival of the post.  The city of London is pleasanter than I expected; the buildings more regular, the streets much wider, and more sunshine than I thought to have found:  but this, they tell me, is the pleasantest season to be in the city.  At my lodgings I am as quiet as at any place in Boston; nor do I feel as if it could be any other place than Boston.  Dr. Clark visits us every day; says he cannot feel at home anywhere else:  declares he has not seen a handsome woman since he came into the city; that every old woman looks like Mrs. H——­, and every young one like—­like the D—–­l.  They paint here nearly as much as in France, but with more art.  The head-dress disfigures them in the eyes of an American.  I have seen many ladies, but not one elegant one since I came; there is not to me that neatness in their appearance which you see in our ladies.

The American ladies are much admired here by the gentlemen, I am told, and in truth I wonder not at it.  Oh, my country, my country! preserve, preserve the little purity and simplicity of manners you yet possess.  Believe me, they are jewels of inestimable value; the softness, peculiarly characteristic of our sex, and which is so pleasing to the gentlemen, is wholly laid aside here for the masculine attire and manners of Amazonians.

LONDON, BATH HOTEL, WESTMINSTER, 24th June, 1785.

My Dear Sister: 

I have been here a month without writing a single line to my American friends.  On or about the twenty-eighth of May we reached London, and expected to have gone into our old quiet lodgings at the Adelphi; but we found every hotel full.  The sitting of Parliament, the birthday of the King, and the famous celebration of the music of Handel, at Westminster Abbey, had drawn together such a concourse of people that we were glad to get into lodgings at the moderate price of a guinea per day, for two rooms and two chambers, at the Bath Hotel, Westminster, Piccadilly, where we yet are.  This being the Court end of the city, it is the resort of a vast concourse of carriages.  It is too public and noisy for pleasure, but necessity is without law.  The ceremony of presentation, upon one week to the King, and the next to the Queen, was to take place, after which I was to prepare for mine.  It is customary, upon presentation, to receive visits from all the foreign ministers; so that we could not exchange our lodgings for more private ones, as we might and should, had we been only in a private character.  The foreign ministers and several English lords and earls have paid their compliments here, and all hitherto is civil and polite.  I was a fortnight, all the time I could get, looking at different houses, but could not find any one fit to inhabit under L200, beside the taxes, which mount up to L50 or L60.  At last my good genius carried me to one in Grosvenor Square, which was not let, because the person who had the care of it could let