Astor brought to London, according to our quaint Lutheran, “a pious, true, and godly spirit, a clear understanding, a sound youthful elbow-grease, and the wish to put it to good use.”  During the two years of his residence in the British metropolis, he strove most assiduously for three objects:  1.  To save money; 2.  To acquire the English language; 3.  To get information respecting America.  Much to his relief and gratification, he found the acquisition of the language to be the least of his difficulties.  Working in a shop with English mechanics, and having few German friends, he was generally dependent upon the language of the country for the communication of his desires; and he was as much surprised as delighted to find how many points of similarity there were between the two languages.  In about six weeks, he used to say, he could make himself understood a little in English, and long before he left London he could speak it fluently.  He never learned to write English correctly in his life, nor could he ever speak it without a decided German accent; but he could always express his meaning with simplicity and force, both orally and in writing.  Trustworthy information respecting America, in the absence of maps, gazetteers, and books of travel, was more difficult to procure.  The ordinary Englishman of that day regarded America with horror or contempt as perverse and rebellious colonies, making a great to-do about a paltry tax, and giving “the best of kings” a world of trouble for nothing.  He probably heard little of the thundering eloquence with which Fox, Pitt, Burke, and Sheridan were nightly defending the American cause in the House of Commons, and assailing the infatuation of the Government in prosecuting a hopeless war.  As often, however, as our youth met with any one who had been in America, he plied him with questions, and occasionally he heard from his brother in New York.  Henry Astor was already established, as a butcher on his own account, wheeling home in a wheelbarrow from Bull’s Head his slender purchases of sheep and calves.  But the great difficulty of John Jacob in London was the accumulation of money.  Having no trade, his wages were necessarily small.  Though he rose with the lark, and was at work as early as five in the morning,—­though he labored with all his might, and saved every farthing that he could spare,—­it was two years before he had saved enough for his purpose.  In September, 1783, he possessed a good suit of Sunday clothes, in the English style, and about fifteen English guineas,—­the total result of two years of unremitting toil and most pinching economy; and here again charity requires the remark that if Astor the millionaire carried the virtue of economy to an extreme, it was Astor the struggling youth in a strange land who learned the value of money.