Passages from the English Notebooks Part 8

Mr. G------ sat down and rested his head on the coffin: the clergyman read the service; then knelt down, as did most of the company, and prayed with great propriety of manner, but with no earnestness,--and we separated.

Mr. G------ is a small, smooth, and pretty young man, not emphasized in any way; but grief threw its awfulness about him to-day in a degree which I should not have expected.

January 20th.--Mr. Steele, a gentleman of Rock Ferry, showed me this morning a pencil-case formerly belonging to Dr. Johnson. It is six or seven inches long, of large calibre, and very clumsily manufactured of iron, perhaps plated in its better days, but now quite bare. Indeed, it looks as rough as an article of kitchen furniture. The intaglio on the end is a lion rampant. On the whole, it well became Dr. Johnson to have used such a stalwart pencil-case. It had a six-inch measure on a part of it, so that it must have been at least eight inches long. Mr. Steele says he has seen a cracked earthen teapot, of large size, in which Miss Williams used to make tea for Dr. Johnson.

G.o.d himself cannot compensate us for being born for any period short of eternity. All the misery endured here const.i.tutes a claim for another life, and, still more, all the happiness; because all true happiness involves something more than the earth owns, and needs something more than a mortal capacity for the enjoyment of it.

After receiving an injury on the head, a person fancied all the rest of his life that he heard voices flouting, jeering, and upbraiding him.

February 19th.--I dined with the Mayor at the Town Hall last Friday evening. I sat next to Mr. W. J------, an Irish-American merchant, who is in very good standing here. He told me that he used to be very well acquainted with General Jackson, and that he was present at the street fight between him and the Bentons, and helped to take General Jackson off the ground. Colonel Benton shot at him from behind; but it was Jesse Benton's ball that hit him and broke his arm. I did not understand him to infer any treachery or cowardice from the circ.u.mstance of Colonel Benton's shooting at Jackson from behind, but, suppose it occurred in the confusion and excitement of a street fight. Mr. W. J------ seems to think that, after all, the reconciliation between the old General and Benton was merely external, and that they really hated one another as before. I do not think so.

These dinners of the Mayors are rather agreeable than otherwise, except for the annoyance, in my case, of being called up to speak to a toast, and that is less disagreeable than at first. The suite of rooms at the Town House is stately and splendid, and all the Mayors, as far as I have seen, exercise hospitality in a manner worthy of the chief magistrates of a great city. They are supposed always to spend much more than their salary (which is 2,000 pounds) in these entertainments. The town provides the wines, I am told, and it might be expected that they should be particularly good,--at least, those which improve by age, for a quarter of a century should be only a moderate age for wine from the cellars of centuries-long inst.i.tutions, like a corporate borough. Each Mayor might lay in a supply of the best vintage he could find, and trust his good name to posterity to the credit of that wine; and so he would be kindly and warmly remembered long after his own nose had lost its rubicundity. In point of fact, the wines seem to be good, but not remarkable. The dinner was good, and very handsomely served, with attendance enough, both in the hall below--where the door was wide open at the appointed hour, notwithstanding the cold--and at table; some being in the rich livery of the borough, and some in plain clothes.

Servants, too, were stationed at various points from the hall to the reception-room; and the last one shouted forth the name of the entering guest. There were, I should think, about fifty guests at this dinner.

Two bishops were present. The Bishops of Chester and New South Wales, dressed in a kind of long tunics, with black breeches and silk stockings, insomuch that I first fancied they were Catholics. Also Dr. McNeil, in a stiff-collared coat, looking more like a general than a divine. There were two officers in blue uniforms; and all the rest of us were in black, with only two white waistcoats,--my own being one,--and a rare sprinkling of white cravats. How hideously a man looks in them! I should like to have seen such a.s.semblages as must have gathered in that reception-room, and walked with stately tread to the dining-hall, in times past, the Mayor and other civic dignitaries in their robes, n.o.blemen in their state dresses, the Consul in his olive-leaf embroidery, everybody in some sort of bedizenment,--and then the dinner would have been a magnificent spectacle, worthy of the gilded hall, the rich table-service, and the powdered and gold-laced servitors. At a former dinner I remember seeing a gentleman in small-clothes, with a dress-sword; but all formalities of the kind are pa.s.sing away. The Mayor's dinners, too, will no doubt be extinct before many years go by. I drove home from the Woodside Ferry in a cab with Bishop Burke and two other gentlemen. The Bishop is nearly seven feet high.

After writing the foregoing account of a civic banquet, where I ate turtle-soup, salmon, woodc.o.c.k, oyster patties, and I know not what else, I have been to the News-room and found the Exchange pavement densely thronged with people of all ages and of all manner of dirt and rags.

They were waiting for soup-tickets, and waiting very patiently too, without outcry or disturbance, or even sour looks,--only patience and meekness in their faces. Well, I don't know that they have a right to he impatient of starvation; but, still there does seem to be an insolence of riches and prosperity, which one day or another will have a downfall.

And this will be a pity, too.

On Sat.u.r.day I went with my friend Mr. Bright to Otterpool and to Larkhill to see the skaters on the private waters of those two seats of gentlemen; and it is a wonder to behold--and it is always a new wonder to me--how comfortable Englishmen know how to make themselves; locating their dwellings far within private grounds, with secure gateways and porters'

lodges, and the smoothest roads and trimmest paths, and shaven lawns, and clumps of trees, and every bit of the ground, every hill and dell, made the most of for convenience and beauty, and so well kept that even winter cannot cause disarray; and all this appropriated to the same family for generations, so that I suppose they come to believe it created exclusively and on purpose for them. And, really, the result is good and beautiful. It is a home,--an inst.i.tution which we Americans have not; but then I doubt whether anybody is ent.i.tled to a home in this world, in so full a sense.

The day was very cold, and the skaters seemed to enjoy themselves exceedingly. They were, I suppose, friends of the owners of the grounds, and Mr. Bright said they were treated in a jolly way, with hot luncheons.

The skaters practise skating more as an art, and can perform finer manoeuvres on the ice, than our New England skaters usually can, though the English have so much less opportunity for practice. A beggar-woman was haunting the grounds at Otterpool, but I saw n.o.body give her anything. I wonder how she got inside of the gate.

Mr. W. J------ spoke of General Jackson as having come from the same part of Ireland as himself, and perhaps of the same family. I wonder whether he meant to say that the General was born in Ireland,--that having been suspected in America.

February 21st.--Yesterday two companies of work-people came to our house in Rock Park, asking a.s.sistance, being out of work and with no resource other than charity. There were a dozen or more in each party. Their deportment was quiet and altogether unexceptionable,--no rudeness, no gruffness, nothing of menace. Indeed, such demonstrations would not have been safe, as they were followed about by two policemen; but they really seem to take their distress as their own misfortune and G.o.d's will, and impute it to n.o.body as a fault. This meekness is very touching, and makes one question the more whether they have all their rights. There have been disturbances, within a day or two, in Liverpool, and shops have been broken open and robbed of bread and money; but this is said to have been done by idle vagabonds, and not by the really hungry work-people.

These last submit to starvation gently and patiently, as if it were an every-day matter with them, or, at least, nothing but what lay fairly within their horoscope. I suppose, in fact, their stomachs have the physical habit that makes hunger not intolerable, because customary. If they had been used to a full meat diet, their hunger would be fierce, like that of ravenous beasts; but now they are trained to it.

I think that the feeling of an American, divided, as I am, by the ocean from his country, has a continual and immediate correspondence with the national feeling at home; and it seems to be independent of any external communication. Thus, my ideas about the Russian war vary in accordance with the state of the public mind at home, so that I am conscious whereabouts public sympathy is.

March 7th.--J----- and I walked to Tranmere, and pa.s.sed an old house which I suppose to be Tranmere Hall. Our way to it was up a hollow lane, with a bank and hedge on each side, and with a few thatched stone cottages, centuries old, their ridge-poles crooked and the stones time-worn, scattered along. At one point there was a wide, deep well, hewn out of the solid red freestone, and with steps, also hewn in solid rock, leading down to it. These steps were much hollowed by the feet of those who had come to the well; and they reach beneath the water, which is very high. The well probably supplied water to the old cotters and retainers of Tranmere Hall five hundred years ago. The Hall stands on the verge of a long hill which stretches behind Tranmere and as far as Birkenhead.

It is an old gray stone edifice, with a good many gables, and windows with mullions, and some of them extending the whole breadth of the gable.

In some parts of the house, the windows seem to have been built up; probably in the days when daylight was taxed. The form of the Hall is multiplex, the roofs sloping down and intersecting one another, so as to make the general result indescribable. There were two sun-dials on different sides of the house, both the dial-plates of which were of stone; and on one the figures, so far as I could see, were quite worn off, but the gnomon still cast a shadow over it in such a way that I could judge that it was about noon. The other dial had some half-worn hour-marks, but no gnomon. The c.h.i.n.ks of the stones of the house were very weedy, and the building looked quaint and venerable; but it is now converted into a farm-house, with the farm-yard and outbuildings closely appended. A village, too, has grown up about it, so that it seems out of place among modern stuccoed dwellings, such as are erected for tradesmen and other moderate people who have their residences in the neighborhood of a great city. Among these there are a few thatched cottages, the homeliest domiciles that ever mortals lived in, belonging to the old estate. Directly across the street is a Wayside Inn, "licensed to sell wine, spirits, ale, and tobacco." The street itself has been laid out since the land grew valuable by the increase of Liverpool and Birkenhead; for the old Hall would never have been built on the verge of a public way.

March 27th.--I attended court to day, at St. George's Hall, with my wife, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Channing, sitting in the High Sheriff's seat. It was the civil side, and Mr. Justice Cresswell presided. The lawyers, as far as aspect goes, seemed to me inferior to an American bar, judging from their countenances, whether as intellectual men or gentlemen. Their wigs and gowns do not impose on the spectator, though they strike him as an imposition. Their date is past. Mr. Warren, of the "Ten Thousand a Year," was in court,--a pale, thin, intelligent face, evidently a nervous man, more unquiet than anybody else in court,--always restless in his seat, whispering to his neighbors, settling his wig, perhaps with an idea that people single him out.

St. George's Hall--the interior hall itself, I mean--is a s.p.a.cious, lofty, and most rich and n.o.ble apartment, and very satisfactory. The pavement is made of mosaic tiles, and has a beautiful effect.

April 7th.--I dined at Mr. J. P. Heywood's on Thursday, and met there Mr.

and Mrs. ------ of Smith.e.l.l's Hall. The Hall is an old edifice of some five hundred years, and Mrs. ------ says there is a b.l.o.o.d.y footstep at the foot of the great staircase. The tradition is that a certain martyr, in b.l.o.o.d.y Mary's time, being examined before the occupant of the Hall, and committed to prison, stamped his foot, in earnest protest against the injustice with which he was treated. Blood issued from his foot, which slid along the stone pavement, leaving a long footmark, printed in blood.

And there it has remained ever since, in spite of the scrubbings of all succeeding generations. Mrs. ------ spoke of it with much solemnity, real or affected. She says that they now cover the b.l.o.o.d.y impress with a carpet, being unable to remove it. In the History of Lancas.h.i.+re, which I looked at last night, there is quite a different account,--according to which the footstep is not a b.l.o.o.d.y one, but is a slight cavity or inequality in the surface of the stone, somewhat in the shape of a man's foot with a peaked shoe. The martyr's name was George Marsh. He was a curate, and was afterwards burnt. Mrs. ------ asked me to go and see the Hall and the footmark; and as it is in Lancas.h.i.+re, and not a great way off, and a curious old place, perhaps I may.

April 12th.--The Earl of ------, whom I saw the other day at St. George's Hall, has a somewhat elderly look,--a pale and rather thin face, which strikes one as remarkably short, or compressed from top to bottom.

Nevertheless, it has great intelligence, and sensitiveness too, I should think, but a cold, disagreeable expression. I should take him to be a man of not very pleasant temper,--not genial. He has no physical presence nor dignity, yet one sees him to be a person of rank and consequence. But, after all, there is nothing about him which it need have taken centuries of ill.u.s.trious n.o.bility to produce, especially in a man of remarkable ability, as Lord ------ certainly is. S-----, who attended court all through the Hapgood trial, and saw Lord ------ for hours together every day, has come to conclusions quite different from mine. She thinks him a perfectly natural person, without any a.s.sumption, any self-consciousness, any scorn of the lower world. She was delighted with his ready appreciation and feeling of what was pa.s.sing around him,-- his quick enjoyment of a joke,--the simplicity and unaffectedness of his emotion at whatever incidents excited his interest,--the genial acknowledgment of sympathy, causing him to look round and exchange glances with those near him, who were not his individual friends, but barristers and other casual persons. He seemed to her all that a n.o.bleman ought to be, entirely simple and free from pretence and self-a.s.sertion, which persons of lower rank can hardly help bedevilling themselves with. I saw him only for a very few moments, so cannot put my observation against hers, especially as I was influenced by what I had heard the Liverpool people say of him.

I do not know whether I have mentioned that the handsomest man I have seen in England was a young footman of Mr. Heywood's. In his rich livery, he was a perfect Joseph Andrews.

In my Romance, the original emigrant to America may have carried away with him a family secret, whereby it was in his power, had he so chosen, to have brought about the ruin of the family. This secret he transmits to his American progeny, by whom it is inherited throughout all the intervening generations. At last, the hero of the Romance comes to England, and finds, that, by means of this secret, he still has it in his power to procure the downfall of the family. It would be something similar to the story of Meleager, whose fate depended on the firebrand that his mother had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the flames.

April 24th.--On Sat.u.r.day I was present at a dejeuner on board the Donald McKay; the princ.i.p.al guest being Mr. Layard, M. P. There were several hundred people, quite filling the between decks of the s.h.i.+p, which was converted into a saloon for the occasion. I sat next to Mr. Layard, at the head of the table, and so had a good opportunity of seeing and getting acquainted with him. He is a man in early middle age,--of middle stature, with an open, frank, intelligent, kindly face. His forehead is not expansive, but is prominent in the perceptive regions, and retreats a good deal. His mouth is full,--I liked him from the first. He was very kind and complimentary to me, and made me promise to go and see him in London.

It would have been a very pleasant entertainment, only that my pleasure in it was much marred by having to acknowledge a toast, in honor of the President. However, such things do not trouble me nearly so much as they used to do, and I came through it tolerably enough. Mr. Layard's speech was the great affair of the day. He speaks with much fluency (though he a.s.sured me that he had to put great force upon himself to speak publicly), and, as he warms up, seems to engage with his whole moral and physical man,--quite possessed with what he has to say. His evident earnestness and good faith make him eloquent, and stand him instead of oratorical graces. His views of the position of England and the prospects of the war were as dark as well could be; and his speech was exceedingly to the purpose, full of common-sense, and with not one word of clap-trap. Judging from its effect upon the audience, he spoke the voice of the whole English people,--although an English Baronet, who sat next below me, seemed to dissent, or at least to think that it was not exactly the thing for a stranger to hear. It concluded amidst great cheering. Mr. Layard appears to be a true Englishman, with a moral force and strength of character, and earnestness of purpose, and fulness of common-sense, such as have always served England's turn in her past successes; but rather fit for resistance than progress. No doubt, he is a good and very able man; but I question whether he could get England out of the difficulties which he sees so clearly, or could do much better than Lord Palmerston, whom he so decries.

April 25th.--Taking the deposition of sailors yesterday, in a case of alleged ill-usage by the officers of a vessel, one of the witnesses was an old seaman of sixty. In reply to some testimony of his, the captain said, "You were the oldest man in the s.h.i.+p, and we honored you as such."

The mate also said that he never could have thought of striking an old man like that. Indeed, the poor old fellow had a kind of dignity and venerableness about him, though he confessed to having been drunk, and seems to have been a mischief-maker, what they call a sea-preacher,-- promoting discontent and grumbling. He must have been a very handsome man in his youth, having regular features of a n.o.ble and beautiful cast.

His beard was gray; but his dark hair had hardly a streak of white, and was abundant all over his head. He was deaf, and seemed to sit in a kind of seclusion, unless when loudly questioned or appealed to. Once he broke forth from a deep silence thus, "I defy any man!" and then was silent again. It had a strange effect, this general defiance, which he meant, I suppose, in answer to some accusation that he thought was made against him. His general behavior throughout the examination was very decorous and proper; and he said he had never but once hitherto been before a consul, and that was in 1819, when a mate had ill-used him, and, "being a young man then, I gave him a beating,"--whereupon his face gleamed with a quiet smile, like faint suns.h.i.+ne on an old ruin. "By many a tempest has his beard been shook"; and I suppose he must soon go into a workhouse, and thence, shortly, to his grave. He is now in a hospital, having, as the surgeon certifies, some ribs fractured; but there does not appear to have been any violence used upon him aboard the s.h.i.+p of such a nature as to cause this injury, though he swears it was a blow from a rope, and nothing else. What struck me in the case was the respect and rank that his age seemed to give him, in the view of the officers; and how, as the captain's expression signified, it lifted him out of his low position, and made him a person to be honored. The dignity of his manner is perhaps partly owing to the ancient mariner, with his long experience, being an oracle among the forecastle men.

May 3d.--It rains to-day, after a very long period of east-wind and dry weather. The east-wind here, blowing across the island, seems to be the least damp of all the winds; but it is full of malice and mischief, of an indescribably evil temper, and stabs one like a cold, poisoned dagger. I never spent so disagreeable a spring as this, although almost every day for a month has been bright.

Friday, May 11th.--A few weeks ago, a sailor, a most pitiable object, came to my office to complain of cruelty from his captain and mate. They had beaten him shamefully, of which he bore grievous marks about his face and eyes, and bruises on his head and other parts of his person: and finally the s.h.i.+p had sailed, leaving him behind. I never in my life saw so forlorn a fellow, so ragged, so wretched; and even his wits seemed to have been beaten out of him, if perchance he ever had any. He got an order for the hospital; and there he has been, off and on, ever since, till yesterday, when I received a message that he was dying, and wished to see the Consul; so I went with Mr. Wilding to the hospital. We were ushered into the waiting-room,--a kind of parlor, with a fire in the grate, and a centre-table, whereon lay one or two medical journals, with wood engravings; and there was a young man, who seemed to be an official of the house, reading. Shortly the surgeon appeared,--a brisk, cheerful, kindly sort of person, whom I have met there on previous visits. He told us that the man was dying, and probably would not be able to communicate anything, but, nevertheless, ushered us up to the highest floor, and into the room where he lay. It was a large, oblong room, with ten or twelve beds in it, each occupied by a patient. The surgeon said that the hospital was often so crowded that they were compelled to lay some of the patients on the floor. The man whom we came to see lay on his bed in a little recess formed by a projecting window; so that there was a kind of seclusion for him to die in. He seemed quite insensible to outward things, and took no notice of our approach, nor responded to what was said to him,--lying on his side, breathing with short gasps,--his apparent disease being inflammation of the chest, although the surgeon said that he might be found to have sustained internal injury by bruises.

he was restless, tossing his head continually, mostly with his eyes shut, and much compressed and screwed up, but sometimes opening them; and then they looked brighter and darker than when I first saw them. I think his face was not at any time so stupid as at his first interview with me; but whatever intelligence he had was rather inward than outward, as if there might be life and consciousness at a depth within, while as to external matters he was in a mist. The surgeon felt his wrist, and said that there was absolutely no pulsation, and that he might die at any moment, or might perhaps live an hour, but that there was no prospect of his being able to communicate with me. He was quite restless, nevertheless, and sometimes half raised himself in bed, sometimes turned himself quite over, and then lay gasping for an instant. His woollen s.h.i.+rt being thrust up on his arm, there appeared a tattooing of a s.h.i.+p and anchor, and other nautical emblems, on both of them, which another sailor-patient, on examining them, said must have been done years ago.

This might be of some importance, because the dying man had told me, when I first saw him, that he was no sailor, but a farmer, and that, this being his first voyage, he had been beaten by the captain for not doing a sailor's duty, which he had had no opportunity of learning. These sea-emblems indicated that he was probably a seaman of some years'

service.

While we stood in the little recess, such of the other patients as were convalescent gathered near the foot of the bed; and the nurse came and looked on, and hovered about us,--a sharp-eyed, intelligent woman of middle age, with a careful and kind expression, neglecting nothing that was for the patient's good, yet taking his death as coolly as any other incident in her daily business. Certainly, it was a very forlorn death-bed; and I felt--what I have heretofore been inclined to doubt-- that it might, be a comfort to have persons whom one loves, to go with us to the threshold of the other world, and leave us only when we are fairly across it. This poor fellow had a wife and two children on the other side of the water.

At first he did not utter any sound; but by and by he moaned a little, and gave tokens of being more sensible to outward concerns,--not quite so misty and dreamy as. .h.i.therto. We had been talking all the while--myself in a whisper, but the surgeon in his ordinary tones--about his state, without his paying any attention. But now the surgeon put his mouth down to the man's face and said, "Do you know that you are dying?" At this the patient's head began to move upon the pillow; and I thought at first that it was only the restlessness that he had shown all along; but soon it appeared to be an expression of emphatic dissent, a negative shake of the head. He shook it with all his might, and groaned and mumbled, so that it was very evident how miserably reluctant he was to die. Soon after this he absolutely spoke. "O, I want you to get me well! I want to get away from here!" in a groaning and moaning utterance. The surgeon's question had revived him, but to no purpose; for, being told that the Consul had come to see him, and asked whether he had anything to communicate, he said only, "O, I want him to get me well!" and the whole life that was left in him seemed to be unwillingness to die. This did not last long; for he soon relapsed into his first state, only with his face a little more pinched and screwed up, and his eyes strangely sunken.

And lost in his head; and the surgeon said that there would be no use in my remaining. So I took my leave. Mr. Wilding had brought a deposition of the man's evidence, which he had clearly made at the Consulate, for him to sign, and this we left with the surgeon, in case there should be such an interval of consciousness and intelligence before death as to make it possible for him to sign it. But of this there is no probability.

I have just received a note from the hospital, stating that the sailor, Daniel Smith, died about three quarters of an hour after I saw him.

May 18th.--The above-mentioned Daniel Smith had about him a bundle of letters, which I have examined. They are all very yellow, stained with sea-water, smelling of bad tobacco-smoke, and much worn at the folds.

Never were such ill-written letters, nor such incredibly fantastic spelling. They seem to be from various members of his family,--most of them from a brother, who purports to have been a deck-hand in the coasting and steamboat trade between Charleston and other ports; others from female relations; one from his father, in which he inquires how long his son has been in jail, and when the trial is to come on,--the offence, however, of which he was accused, not being indicated. But from the tenor of his brother's letters, it would appear that he was a small farmer in the interior of South Carolina, sending b.u.t.ter, eggs, and poultry to be sold in Charleston by his brother, and receiving the returns in articles purchased there. This was his own account of himself; and he affirmed, in his deposition before me, that he had never had any purpose of s.h.i.+pping for Liverpool, or anywhere else; but that, going on board the s.h.i.+p to bring a man's trunk ash.o.r.e, he was compelled to remain and serve as a sailor. This was a hard fate, certainly, and a strange thing to happen in the United States at this day,--that a free citizen should be absolutely kidnapped, carried to a foreign country, treated with savage cruelty during the voyage, and left to die on his arrival. Yet all this has unquestionably been done, and will probably go unpunished.

The seed of the long-stapled cotton, now cultivated in America, was sent there in 1786 from the Bahama Islands, by some of the royalist refugees, who had settled there. The inferior short-stapled cotton had been previously cultivated for domestic purposes. The seeds of every other variety have been tried without success. The kind now grown was first introduced into Georgia. Thus to the refugees America owes as much of her prosperity as is due to the cotton-crops, and much of whatever harm is to result from slavery.

May 22d.--Captain J------ says that he saw, in his late voyage to Australia and India, a vessel commanded by an Englishman, who had with him his wife and thirteen children. This s.h.i.+p was the home of the family, and they had no other. The thirteen children had all been born on board, and had been brought up on board, and knew nothing of dry land, except by occasionally setting foot on it.

Captain J------ is a very agreeable specimen of the American s.h.i.+pmaster, --a pleasant, gentlemanly man, not at all refined, and yet with fine and honorable sensibilities. Very easy in his manners and conversation, yet gentle,--talking on freely, and not much minding grammar; but finding a sufficient and picturesque expression for what he wishes to say; very cheerful and vivacious; accessible to feeling, as yesterday, when talking about the recent death of his mother. His voice faltered, and the tears came into his eyes, though before and afterwards he smiled merrily, and made us smile; fond of his wife, and carrying her about the world with him, and blending her with all his enjoyments; an excellent and sagacious man of business; liberal in his expenditure; proud of his s.h.i.+p and flag; always well dressed, with some little touch of sailor-like flas.h.i.+ness, but not a whit too much; slender in figure, with a handsome face, and rather profuse brown beard and whiskers; active and alert; about thirty-two. A daguerreotype sketch of any conversation of his would do him no justice, for its slang, its grammatical mistakes, its mistaken words (as "portable" for "portly"), would represent a vulgar man, whereas the impression he leaves is by no means that of vulgarity; but he is a character quite perfect within itself, fit for the deck and the cabin, and agreeable in the drawing-room, though not amenable altogether to its rules. Being so perfectly natural, he is more of a gentleman for those little violations of rule, which most men, with his opportunities, might escape.

The men whose appeals to the Consul's charity are the hardest to be denied are those who have no country,---Hungarians, Poles, Cubans, Spanish-Americans, and French republicans. All exiles for liberty come to me, if the representative of America were their representative.

Yesterday, came an old French soldier, and showed his wounds; to-day, a Spaniard, a friend of Lopez,--bringing his little daughter with him. He said he was starving, and looked so. The little girl was in good condition enough, and decently dressed.--May 23d.