And now, while we have been talking thus, the “Samaria” has been getting far out into mid Atlantic, and yet we know not one among our fellow-passengers, although they do not number much above a dozen:  a merchant from Maryland, a sea-captain-from Maine, a young doctor from Pennsylvania, a Massachusetts man, a Rhode Islander, a German geologist going to inspect seams in Colorado, a priest’s sister from Ireland going to look after some little property left her by her brother, a poor fellow who was always ill, who never appeared at table, and who alluded to the demon sea-sickness that preyed upon him as “it”.  “It comes on very bad at night.  It prevents me touching food.  It never leaves me,” he would say; and in truth this terrible “it” never did leave him until the harbour of Boston was reached, and even then, I fancy, dwelt in his thoughts during many a day on shore.

The sea-captain from Maine was a violent democrat, the Massachusetts man a rabid republican; and many a fierce battle waged between them on the vexed questions of state rights, negro suffrage, and free trade in liquor.  To many Englishmen the terms republican and democrat may seem synonymous; but not between radical and conservative, between outmost Whig and inmost Tory exist more opposite extremes than between these great rival political parties of the United States.  As a drop of sea-water possesses the properties of the entire water of the ocean, so these units of American political controversy were microscopic representatives of their respective parties.  It was curious to remark what a prominent part their religious convictions played in the war of words.  The republican was a member of the Baptist congregation; the democrat held opinions not very easy of description, something of a universalist and semi-unitarian tendency; these opinions became frequently intermixed with their political jargon, forming that curious combination of ideas which to unaccustomed ears sounds slightly blasphemous.  I recollect a very earnest American once saying that he considered all religious, political, social, and historical teaching should be reduced to three subjects:  the Sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of American Independence, and the Chicago Republican Platform of 1860.

On the present occasion the Massachusetts man was a person whose nerves were as weak as his political convictions were strong, and the democrat being equally gifted with strong opinions, strong nerves, and a tendency towards strong waters, was enabled, particularly after dinner, to obtain an easy victory over his less powerfully gifted antagonist.  In fact it was to the weakness of the latter’s nervous system that we were indebted for the pleasure of his society on board.  Eight weeks before he had been ordered by his medical adviser to leave his wife and office in the little village of Hyde Park to seek change and relaxation on the continent of Europe.  He was now returning to his native land filled, he informed us, with the gloomiest forebodings.