proach was already filled. I was set down at a side-door, where stood servants in the Prince's livery. Gaining the hall, persons were seen in different costumes-among them yeomen of the guard, with halberds. They had hats of velvet, with wreaths round them, and rosettes in their shoes. In the court-yard, which opened through the columns of the portico, bands of music were heard. Carriages, in a stream, were approaching by this access, through the double gates that separate the royal residence from the street. The company arriving this way entered through the portico, and turned off to the right. I went to the left, through a vestibule, leading to other rooms, into which none went but those having the entrée. They consisted of cabinet ministers, the diplomatic corps, and persons in chief employment about the court, and a few others, the privilege being in high esteem. Knights of the Garter appeared to have it, for I observed their insignium round the knee of several. There was the Lord Steward with his badge of office; the Lord Chamberlain with his; also, gold stick and silver stick. The foreign ambassadors and ministers wore their national costumes; the cabinet ministers, such as we see in old portraits, with bag and sword. The Lord Chancellor, and other functionaries of the law, had black silk gowns, with full wigs. The bishops and dignitaries of the Church, had aprons of black silk. The walls were covered with paintings. If these were historical, so were the rooms. As I looked through them, I thought of the scenes in Doddington; of the Pelhams, the Bolingbrokes, the Hillsboroughs. The Prince had not left his apartment. Half an hour went by, when Sir Robert Chester, Master of the Ceremonies, said to me, that in a few minutes he would conduct me to the Prince. The Spanish Ambassador had gone in, and I was next in turn. When he came out, the Master of the Ceremonies advanced with me to the door. Opening it, he left me. I entered alone. The Prince was standing; Lord Castlereagh by him. No one else was in the room. Holding in my hand the letter of credence, I approached, as to a private gentleman, and said, that it was "from the President of the United States, appointing me their Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of his Royal Highness; and that I had been directed by the President to say, that I could in no way better serve the United States, or gain his approbation, than by using all my endeavours to strengthen and prolong the good understanding that happily subsisted between the two countries." The Prince took the letter, and handed it to Lord Castlereagh. He then said, that he would "ever be ready on his part to act upon the sentiments I had expressed; that I might assure the President of this, for that he sincerely desired to keep up and improve the friendly relations subsisting between the two nations, which he regarded as so much to the advantage of both." I replied, that I would not fail to do so.-pp. 81-84.

Mr. Rush was about to retire, when the prince appeared disposed to prolong the interview: his Royal Highness inquired for Mr. Adams, Mr. Pinckney, and Mr. King, and spoke in high terms of the ladies of America who had visited England, particularly Mrs. Patterson and the Miss Catons. The narrator proceeds:

"When the Prince came from his apartment, called in the language of palaces his closet, into the entrée rooms, I presented to him Mr. John

Adams Smith, as public secretary of the legation; and Mr. Ogle Taylore, as attached to it personally. Other special presentations took place; amongst them, that of the Prince of Hesse Homberg, by Lord Stewart, both distinguished in the then recent battles of the Continent. The Prince Regent moved about these rooms, until he had addressed everybody; all waiting his salutation. Doors, hitherto shut, now opened, when a new scene appeared. You beheld in other rooms the company that had turned off to the right. The opening of the doors was the signal for the commencement of the general levee. I remained with others to see it. All passed, one by one, before the Prince, each receiving a momentary salutation. To a few he addressed conversation, but briefly; as it stopped the line. All were in rich costume. Men of genius and science were there. The nobility were numerous; so were the military. There were from forty to fifty generals; perhaps as many admirals, with throngs of officers of rank inferior. I remarked upon the number of wounded. Who is that, I asked, pallid but with a countenance so animated. That's General Walher,' I was told, 'pierced with bayonets, leading on the assault at Badajos.' And he, close by, tall but limping. Colonel Ponsonby; he was left for dead at Waterloo; the cavalry it was thought had trampled upon him.' Then came one of like port, but deprived of a leg, slowly moving; and the whisper went, That's Lord Anglesey.' A fourth had been wounded at Serin-. gapatam; a fifth at Talavera; some had suffered in Egypt; some in America. There were those who had received scars on the deck with Nelson; others who carried them from the days of Howe. One, yes one, had fought at Saratoga. It was so that my inquiries were answered. All had done their duty;' this was the favourite praise bestowed. The great number of wounded was accounted for by recollecting, that little more than two years had elapsed since the armies and fleets of Britain had been liberated from wars of extraordinary fierceness and duration in all parts of the globe. For, so it is, other nations chiefly fight on or near their own territory; the English everywhere.

Taking the whole line, perhaps a thousand must have passed. Its current flowed through the entrée rooms, got onward to the vestibule, and was finally dispersed in the great hall. Those who composed it, found themselves there, by a course reverse to that of their entrance; and went away through the portico, as their carriages came up.―pp. 85-87.

The letter of credence, which was presented by Mr. Rush, was a document drawn up in exact conformity with the precedents established immemorially in the diplomatic circles. As the text of this epistle is followed literally, mutatis mutandis, by all the governments of Europe, whenever they send a minister plenipotentiary to any other state, its terms become interesting. The following is a copy:

"Great and good Friend:

I have made choice of Richard Rush, to reside near your Royal Highness in quality of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. He is well informed of the relative interests of the two countries, and of our sincere desire to cultivate and strengthen the friendship and good correspondence betweeen us;

and from a knowledge of his fidelity, probity, and good conduct, I have entire confidence that he will render himself acceptable to your Royal Highness, by his constant endeavours to preserve and advance the interests and happiness of both nations. I therefore request your Royal Highness to receive him favourably, and to give full credence to whatever he shall say on the part of the United States, and most of all when he shall assure you of their friendship and wishes for your prosperity; and I pray God to have your Royal Highness in his safe and holy keeping. Written at the city of Washington, the thirty-first day of October, anno Domini one thousand eight hundred and seventeen. By your good friend,

JAMES MONROE. "John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State."-pp. 89, 90.

It being the rule for a new minister, after having been received by the sovereign, to call on the members of the royal family, Mr. Rush was careful to comply with the practice. The call is made by the minister inscribing his name in books kept at their several residences. His next duty was to leave cards at the houses of the cabinet ministers, and of the other members of the diplomatic corps; he also visited the lord high steward, lord chamberlain, the master of the horse, and a few other officers of the household. The cabinet ministers are understood to be allowed an exemption from the general obligation to return a visit; but the politeness of Lord Castlereagh, it seems, induced that nobleman to waive his immunity in this instance, and he returned the compliment which Mr. Rush had paid him of a visit. Amongst the other consequences of his reception at court, the minister was struck in particular with one which consisted of a series of calls from the servants of official persons for "favours." The nature of these solicitations he had already become acquainted with, as we have seen, at Portsmouth. The first set were the "Palace Drums and Fifes;" the next were, "The Royal Waits and Music ;" and the third, which surprised the American minister most, was that body which called itself the King's Marrow Bones and Cleavers.'

Each made him an address, and had their book to show. The tax on the foreign ministers which these claims imply, had its origin in a longestablished custom. Ambassadors, when they quit England, usually receive a sum of one thousand pounds; but to ministers plenipotentiary no more than half that sum is given. So that, if upon the first arrival of the ambassador he is troubled with the claims of the menial officers of the government of this country, that government deems it only justice to compensate the ambassador for the losses to which he is thus inevitably put. Now the hardship on Mr. Rush, and his successors in office, has been, and perhaps still is, that the American minister is forbidden to accept the donation; but as the refusal to pay the "Waits" upon such a ground would require a degree of humiliation on the part of the person applied to, the minister has no resource but to give out the black mail.

Mr. Rush, however, carefully notes that all the spontaneous

visits received by him were by no means connected with motives such as those just mentioned, for a great number of persons of the court and other circles paid him visits, and gave him the advantages of an extensive acquaintance, which was a source to him of the greatest satisfaction. This feeling was considerably augmented in his mind by the conviction that such kindness was the measure of the estimation in which his country was held. In the course of the period of his residence amongst us, his intercourse became more extended, and led to hospitalities which he feelingly declares can neither pass from the memory, nor grow cold upon the heart. Mr. Rush speaks very favourably of the demeanour of Queen Charlotte, to whom he was duly presented at Buckingham-house. There was, he says, a benignity in her manner, which, associated with her age and rank, became absolutely affecting; and the gentleness of her tones seemed to be the effect not so much of the infirmity of age, as of her innate suavity of disposition. Mr. Rush and his family attended a birth-day drawing-room held by the queen, and the description of it which he gives us is in the highest degree pictu

resque.

The author had been but a short time in England, when he was assailed by a host of letters from persons seeking intelligence and advice on the policy of emigrating from England to America. But here he gave another proof of his good sense, for he abstained from all interference in such matters.

Short histories of dinner parties, assemblies, &c., to which he was invited by the most eminent of the nobility, are next given in succession by Mr. Rush. His introduction to a late well-known nobleman accidentally took place at a party given by the Duchess of Cumberland. Whilst he was conversing with Lord Hardwick, a gentleman low in stature, and in a brown wig, stood within a few paces of him. On Mr. Rush separating from Lord Hardwick, the stranger advanced to the former, saying, "I'm going to bring a bill into parliament, making it indictable in any stranger, whether ambassador from a republic, kingdom, or popedom, ever to leave his card without his address upon it. How do you do, Mr. Rush, how do you do? I've been trying to find you every where-I am Lord Erskine."

As immediately connected with his department, Mr. Rush particularly alludes to a conversation which he held with the Duke of Sussex as to the choice of the language in which state papers should be written. The prince observed, that with respect to the French, all foreigners readily acquired enough of it for ordinary purposes; but when treaties were to be drawn up, in which the fate of a nation perhaps depended on the employment of one word differing in its import to the amount of perhaps a scarcely perceptible shade from some other, the necessity of having as far as possible all the advantages derivable from a unity of language was strenuously enforced by his royal highness; and he ultimately proposed that the

Latin should be the invariable language of all written instruments to which more than one nation was a party. "Each nation," said the duke, "would then stand upon the scholarship of its public men." Mr. Rush, however, differs from the prince in the selection of the particular tongue for the use of statesmen in the manner just mentioned. He thinks that that language should have the preference which is most likely to be predominant throughout Christendom. In pursuing this view, Mr. Rush informs us that the European dominions of Great Britain have a population of twenty-two millions, in addition to which is to be counted the population of the United States; making altogether upwards of thirty-four millions of people, with whom the English language is vernacular. Besides this fact, the foreign commerce of Britain and the United States conjointly, far exceed the commercial transactions of all Europe put together, and this superiority cannot fail to have its weight in giving importance to the language, since it is the one that is, under these circumstances, the most widely and the most frequently diffused. Adverting to these indisputable facts, Mr. Rush very properly inquires why it is that the French should insist on the perpetual preference of their language by all the world; or rather, why should England acquiesce in their claim?

At a

It is impossible for us to accompany Mr. Rush through the scenes, private and public, which he passed; and much even of the most interesting portion of his adventures, as well as his remarks, must be altogether omitted. Some of the more striking incidents in his pages, however, are all that we can notice. dinner at Holland House, the hospitable seat of Lord Holland, the conversation happened to turn on the Scotch Novels, each praising the particular one which had struck him as the best. At last, Lady Holland proposed that each of the company should write on a separate piece of paper the name of his favourite novel amongst the set: nine papers were handed in, each with a title different from the rest-a happy illustration, observes Mr. Rush, of the various merit of the fascinating writer.

At Greenwich, whither Mr. Rush made an excursion, in company with Sir Humphry Davy, he was struck with admiration at the sight of the majestic pile appropriated as the asylum which England had prepared for the repose of the wearied and wounded guardians of her seas. But one sad reflection tarnished the delight which his first contemplation had inspired—namely, that many of the veterans, with their hoary locks and scarred faces, were originally inveigled or forced into the service by impressment. His remarks on this subject deserve to be studied by our government, and we quote them in particular for the benefit of Captain Hall, who too often condescends to become the apologist of political abuses. It will be seen, in a previous article, that the captain just mentioned endeavours to defend the practice of impressment, and it is partly with the view of seeing how this defence