in war-time.  They are uncostly, plain, and humble, showing the unostentatious mind of the great man.  Here are all the presents from different courts:  members of the United States Government are not allowed to keep them.  There is a costly diamond snuffbox from the Emperor of Russia; and a large bottle of pure attar of roses, three times the price of gold.  There are portraits of Gortez, conqueror of Mexico in 1521; of Columbus, the discoverer of America; of Cuvier, the French naturalist; and one I was much struck with, by Spagnoletti, of Job and his three friends (see Job xiv.):  also one of Wat Tyler!

We visited the old departments of Government, State, War, and General Government.  The rooms of the various secretaries are furnished plainly.  We were disappointed at the Navy Yard—­no appearance like England.  The first object introduced was a piece of cannon taken from the English fleet when Sir George Cockburn came up the Potomac.  The sight of this gave me a chill, as it was the first time I had ever seen England’s arms in other powers’ possession.  The name of Sir George Cockburn is hated, as he would have destroyed recklessly, had not Ross, a Fifeshire man, restrained him.  Ross’s memory is as much loved as the other’s is hated.  This was in 1814.  On the left is the house of the commandant of the yard—­a captain in the navy.  They make anchors, blocks, and tackle of all sorts for ships’ use.  There are several hundred men usually employed at the yard.  Several first-rate vessels have been built here.  They told us that they sunk several of their vessels here when they heard of their defeat at Bladensburg; but I guess it was the English that sunk them.  There are many more sights, but our time would not allow us to tarry.

I had much wished to have gone down to Charlestown, and then into the far West; but the contemplation of slavery, the pain of living in the constant intercourse with slave servants, and the awfully hot weather, which might have caused me to take the fever—­added to all, my great anxiety to receive letters from England—­particularly from my wife, from whom I had now been absent five weeks without hearing—­the pleasures of memory having almost kindled into the charming reminiscences of my first love—­decided me to take my course North again; and I must acknowledge I left Washington with regret, and the contemplation that, ere many years roll over, it will be a magnificent city.  I may here remark there is a telegraph, or galvanic power, fixed between the Capitol and Baltimore, that takes the news forty miles in a second.  This is a good line of single rails, which they all are.  At Baltimore we took steam up the Pennsylvanian states to Frenchtown—­about sixty miles; and thence rail twenty miles to Newcastle; thence steam up the Delaware to Philadelphia; thence rail to Amboy, through Burlington, Bordingtown, and Hidestown.  Amboy is only five miles from the Atlantic, where we came in from England.  We came up Staten Island Sound,