On the morning of the 16th of October, I embarked at Liverpool, on board of the American packet ship, New York, Captain Bennet, bound for the port of the same name. There were twenty-six passengers on board, and though the accommodations were excellent, the cabin, as might be expected, was somewhat disagreeably crowded. Our party consisted of about fifteen or sixteen Americans, some half-dozen countrymen of my own, two or three English, a Swiss, and a Frenchman.

Though the elements of this assemblage were heterogeneous enough, I have great pleasure in remembering that the most perfect harmony prevailed on board. To myself, the whole of my fellow-passengers were most obliging; and for some I contracted a regard, which led me to regret that the period of our arrival in port, was likely to bring with it a lasting cessation of our intercourse.

The miseries of a landsman on board of ship, have afforded frequent matter for pen and pencil. At best, a sea voyage is a confinement at once irksome and odious, in which the unfortunate prisoner is compelled for weeks, or months, to breathe the tainted atmosphere of a close and crowded cabin, and to sleep at night in a sort of box, about the size of a coffin for “the stout gentleman.”

The mail sleigh in which I found myself a passenger, was one of the most wretched vehicles imaginable. The wind—a north-wester—penetrated the curtains of the machine, at a thousand crevices, and, charged with particles of snow so fine as to be almost impalpable, communicated to the faces of the passengers the sensation of suffering under a hurricane of needles. Our route lay through a country flat and uninteresting, which presented no object to arrest the attention of a traveller. We breakfasted at a wretched cabaret, and the pretensions of the dinner house were not much greater. The fare, however, though coarse, was abundant; and proceeding on our journey about six o'clock, we reached Lancaster, a town of some note, and famous for its manufacture of rifles. After an hour's halt, we again started in a sort of covered sledge-Avaggon, and the number of passengers being reduced to myself, my servant, and a Hungarian pedlar, we without ceremony ensconced ourselves among the straw in the bottom of the cart.

This part of the journey was comparatively comfortable. I had passed the night before leaving Philadelphia in writing, and “ tired nature's kind restorer” now visited my eyelids very pleasantly. The rumbling of the waggon on the vast wooden bridge which crosses the Susquehanna at length broke my slumber. I rose to gaze on the scenery, which showed finely in the moonlight.

In the observations I have already hazarded on the character of the federal government, it was my object simply to illustrate the fallacy of the leading and fundamental principles on which it is established. I would now willingly be permitted to direct the attention of the reader to those practical defects, arising from want of congruity and adaptation in its separate institutions, which have contributed materially to derange the whole action of the machine.

The colonies had no sooner achieved their independence, than they became desirous of establishing such an union between the different States, as might maintain tranquillity at home, and ensure unity in their relations to foreign powers. In 1787, a convention, over which Washington presided, was held in the city of Philadelphia. This convention consisted of delegates from all the States, with the exception of Rhode Island. After long deliberation, the plan of government, which forms the present federal constitution, was recommended and submitted for the separate consideration of the different States. In each of these a convention was assembled, and in 1789, the constitution, all the necessary formalities having been gone through, was duly organized and put in operation.

The legislative power conferred by this constitution is vested in Congress, which consists of two bodies—the House of Representatives and the Senate. The former of these is chosen biennially, in a proportion not exceeding one member for every thirty thousand inhabitants. The minimum only being specified, Congress possesses the power of extending the number of electors who are to enjoy the privilege of returning a member.