that he dislikes, so as to have the pleasure of flogging him in fancy. By-the-bye, our coachman for the last stage is a colonel! On our arrival at Newhaven the coach stops at a very good tavern, where we dine sumptuously for half a dollar, or two-and-threepence sterling. The servants who wait are seated, as is customary, except while they are serving us, and the landlord attends with his hat on his head.
Newhaven to New York by water. Distance ninety-four miles. Packets three times a week. We pay two dollars and a half for our berth, and sail at four p.m., arriving at New York in twelve hours. We have the Chief Justice of the United States among the passengers. An unpretending gentleman, whom some young men treat with marked disrespect, although, considering he can sit in judgment on the President, he may be regarded as the first person in the States. In our note-book we find the following sentence, apropos of this: “Americans always affect, if they do not really feel, contempt for their seniors and all persons in office.”
When we hear the captain call out that we are passing Hell Gates, we start out of bed, and go on deck to see this famous eddy. It is nothing to those who know the passage of these dangerous rocks; and we think it very like shooting London Bridge. But stay: it is all very well to underrate the dangers of Hell Gates, when you pass them in a vessel of light draught and under favourable conditions. Lord Howe settled an annuity of fifty pounds a-year on a negro pilot who brought the Experiment, a frigate of fifty guns, successfully through this passage, thereby reinforcing his little fleet most seasonably. One of our fellow-passengers told us that when the Experiment was in the most critical part of the boiling channel, Sir James Wallace, the captain, gave some orders on the quarter-deck; which, in the negro pilot’s opinion, interfered with the duties of his office. He touched Sir James gently on the shoulder, and said:
“Massa, you no peak here.”
Sir James felt the force of Sambo’s remonstrance, and interfered no more.
Travellers who visit England are not satisfied until they have been to London; those who go to France, hurry to Paris without delay; so we, having touched American soil, permit no rest to the soles of our feet until we have visited Philadelphia. We care not for Boston or New York; the former is the Bristol, the latter the Liverpool, of the newly United States. Philadelphia is the London, the seat of government, the metropolis where you may meet President Washington any day in the streets, and see Jefferson tie the bridle of his horse to the railings of the State House.
Business, however, compels us to stay at New York a few days. And who do we meet? What sights do we see? Genet, the late ambassador from sans-culotte France, is staying at the same lodgings, near the battery, and so is young Mr. Mr. Joseph Priestley, waiting the arrival of his father, the well-known Dr. Priestley. M. Genet is on the eve of marrying the daughter of General Clinton, Governor of the State of New York; and, being a Girondist, he dare not return to France, but talks of becoming a naturalised citizen of the States. One day at dinner, a Mr. Priam told us that, in the neighbourhood of Worcester, Connecticut, when their apple-trees grow old and decayed, it was customary to strip off the bark from them, and then a new bark, smooth and healthy, would be produced, and they would bear with fresh vigour. This diverted M. Genet extremely: he was too polite to say that he doubted Mr. Priam’s statement; but, laughing merrily, he declared that, now the long-lost method of restoring youth had been again happily discovered, he would adapt it to man, and when he was old he would himself undergo the operation, and publish the recipe for the benefit of mankind.
Breakfast with General Gates, the hero of Saratoga, and a call from Chancellor Livingston, are two of the noteworthy incidents of our short stay in New York. By-the-bye, there was one sight that we shall not easily forget. We were getting up in the morning; a noise of drums and fifes attracted us to the window, and, behold! on the other side of the Governor’s house, a large body of people, with flags flying, and marching two and two towards the water-side. What can this be? Not another case of baptism by immersion, surely? We are in a country which has no standing army; no sound of drum has invaded our ears since we quitted England: what means this military music? Hurrying down stairs, the mystery is soon explained. It is a procession of young tradesmen going in boats to Governor’s Island, to give the State a day’s work at the fortifications for strengthening the entrance to New York Harbour. This day, it was the whole trade of carpenters and joiners; the masons went on another day; a third day was appropriated to the “grocers, coopers, schoolmasters, and barbers,”—a strange medley! The day before we left New York, the attorneys and all people connected with the law started with mattock and shovel on this patriotic duty. Young Mr. Priestley had joined in one of these working parties, and said it was one of the most cheerful days he ever spent.
Onwards at last to the metropolis! We pay five dollars at the office in Broadway for our place in the waggon. It is cheaper to go to Philadelphia by way of Amboy, but we want to see “the Jerseys.” The next morning finds us ready with our luggage at the office at nine o’clock.
“I say, stranger, you don’t suppose the stage starts from here, do you?”
We had supposed so, but are soon undeceived. With sardonic smile the hard-featured Yankee informs us that we must cross the Hudson to Paulu’s Hook, in the State of New Jersey, where we should find the stage waiting. Indignation is a word that but feebly expresses our feelings on the occasion. To our jaundiced eye the Hudson appears a couple of leagues in breadth, but it is only two miles and a half across. No matter, we are an hour and a half in passing, owing to the heavy rain which has swollen the stream, and we have to pay our own ferryage.
A miserable place is Paulu’s Hook,—the Jersey city of the future,—supported by travellers, all the New York stages and horses for going South