A great event has just been decided in this city. The ceremony of the election of a president of the United States, for the four years which shall commence on the fourth day of March next, took place yesterday. The circumstances which led to the peculiar forms of this choice, the characters of the candidates, and the probable result that it will have on the policy of the country, may not be without interest to one who studies mankind as generally as yourself.

The first president, you know, was Washington. He was succeeded by the vice-president, the elder Adams. At the end of four, years, a hot contest occurred between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, the president and vice-president of the day, for the chair. In order to give you a proper understanding of the case, it will be necessary to explain the law for the election to this high office.

You know that the sovereignty of the states is represented by the senate. Thus, Rhode Island, with 70,000 inhabitants, has two members in the senate, as well as New York with 1,700,000. But the members of the lower house, which is the connecting link between the states, are apportioned according to the population. The state of Rhode Island has, therefore, two representatives, and the state of New York thirty-seven. In all ordinary cases of legislation, each individual, whether a senator or a representative, gives one vote.

—It was a week before I recovered from the shock of such an alaram. But on more mature thought, (especially when I came coolly to reflect on some recent dangers through which I had myself passed in triumph, as well as on the numberless instances in which I had felt symptoms of the same disorder,) I began to consider your case as far from hopeless. We become more liable to these attacks as we advance in life, and I warn you of being constantly on your guard against them. I also beg leave to recommend exercise and change of scene as the most effectual cure. I am fully persuaded that had not fortune made us all travellers, we should long since have ceased to be the independent beings we are. Waller spoke, in his last letter, of a Venetian beauty, in language that seemed ominous; but I know too well that deep inward eccentricity of the man, which he so prettily calls mauvaise honte, to dread any thing serious from the affair. I think his eminently impartial manner of viewing things, will for ever save him from the sin of matrimony.

Besides, the girl is only descended from two doges of the fifteenth century, and four or five old admirals of the thirteenth and fourteenth, a genealogy that surely cannot pretend to compete with the descent of a Somersetshire baronet, whose great grandfather was an alderman of Lincoln, and whose great grandmother was the youngest daughter of a British officer.

From the hour that we landed in America, to the present moment, the voices of men, the journals, and the public bodies, have been occupied in celebrating the work of national gratitude. The visit of La Fayette, his ancient services, his appearance, his sayings, his tact, his recollection of, and meeting with veterans whom he had known under other and more adverse circumstances, are the constant themes of press and tongue. The universal sentiment, and the various scenes to which it has given birth, have not failed to elicit many sparks of that sort of feeling which is creditable to human nature, since it proves that man with all his selfishness and depravity, is the repository of a vast deal that is generous and noble. Two or three little anecdotes have come to my ears that may serve to amuse, if not to edify you.

One of the familiar, and certainly not the least touching manners, chosen by the Americans, to evince their attachment to La Fayette, who has been well termed the “nation's guest,” is by making offerings of the labours of their own hands, in the shape of a thousand trifling articles that may affect his personal comfort, or at least manifest their zeal in its behalf. Among others, it seems that a hatter had even gone so far as to send a hat, or hats, to France, as his portion of these little contributions.

Yesterday, while walking with Cadwallader on the banks of the Potomac, we saw a group of gentlemen, in the midst of whom we distinguished La Fayette, with his animated features, moving towards a steam-boat that was waiting their arrival. A moment of explanation induced us to join the party, which was about to visit the tomb of Washington.

Mount Vernon, an estate which the hero inherited from an elder brother, lies on the river at the distance of about two hours' sailing towards the sea. The boat was rather more crowded than

It may be premature to pretend to speak with any certainty concerning the true state of ordinary American society. My opinions have already undergone two or three revolutions on the subject, for it is so easy, where no acknowledged distinctions prevail, for a stranger to glide imperceptibly from one circle to another, that the impressions they leave are very apt to be confounded. I have never yet conversed with any declaimer on the bad tone of republican manners (and they are not wanting), who has not been ready enough to confess this, or that, individual an eminent exception. Now, it never appears to enter into the heads of these Chesterfieldian critics, that the very individuals in question are so many members of a great class, that very well know how to marshal themselves in their ordinary intercourse with each other, although, to a stranger, they may seem no more than insulated exceptions, floating, as it were by accident, on the bosom of a motley, and frequently far from inviting state of society. I think, however, that it is not difficult to see, at a glance, that even the best bred people here maintain their intercourse among each other, under far fewer artificial forms than are to be found in almost any other country. Simplicity of deportment is usually the concomitant of good sense every where; but, in America, it is particularly in good taste.

My attention, after our arrival at this place, was early called to the great body, which was about to assemble. We had taken a little suite of rooms in a lodging house, or rather tavern, which soon began to fill with members of congress from all quarters of the country. Perhaps of the whole legislative corps of the country, there is not a single individual who is the proprietor of a dwelling at the seat of government. Those who are of sufficient estate to maintain two houses, have their town residences in the capitals of their own particular states, though a very large majority of the members are far from being men of large fortunes at all. There are a few individuals who appear at the capital with their wives and families, but by far the greater part of those who have them, leave them at home. The common practice is, for a certain number of the members who are acquainted with each other, to make what is called a “mess,” at some chosen boarding-house. Here they reside together, during the session, like the members of one large family. Even ladies are often included in these arrangements. Others again choose to live entirely secluded: and, in some few instances, families keep their regular winter establishments, in such narrow accommodations as the place affords. The fact that a member is so completely dependant on the public will, for his election, is enough in itself to prevent any one but a man of very large estate from incurring the expense of building on so uncertain a tenure.

—You will be satisfied with these reasons for the abrupt conclusion of my last. I shall now tax your patience for a short continuation of the subject.

Although there are so many reasons why an imaginative literature should not be speedily created in this country, there is none, but that general activity of employment which is not favourable to study, why science and all the useful arts should not be cultivated here, perhaps, more than any where else. Great attention is already paid to the latter. Though there is scarce such a thing as a capital picture in this whole country, I have seen more beautiful, graceful, and convenient ploughs in positive use here, than are probably to be found in the whole of Europe united. In this single fact may be traced the history of the character of the people, and the germ of their future greatness. Their axe is admirable for form, for neatness, and precision of weight, and it is wielded with a skill that is next to incredible. Reapers are nearly unknown; but I have seen single individuals enter a field of grain in the morning, and clear acres of its golden burthen, by means of the cradle, with a rapidity that has amazed me. The vast multitude of their inventions, as they are exhibited in the patent office in this city, ought to furnish food for grave reflection to every stranger.

My pen grows weary, for I have seen so much, and written so little to the purpose, that I feel disposed to throw it away altogether. After making the tour of the coast of New England, and seeing all its large towns, I have returned here to prepare for my departure. I cannot quit the country, however, without giving you a summary of the information I have gained, or without indulging a little in speculations to which that information must naturally give rise.

The first reflection that is excited in the mind of an intelligent foreigner, after visiting these states, is an inquiry into the causes that have effected so much with means so limited, and in a time so short. A century ago the whole of the 1,000,000 of square miles that are now more or less occupied by these people, did not contain a million of souls. So late as the year 1776, the population was materially under 3,000,000, nor at the time did they actually cover more than 200,000 square miles, if indeed they covered as much. But since the peace of 1783, activity, enterprise, intelligence, and skill, appear to have been contending with each other, and they have certainly produced a result that the world has never before witnessed. I have heard Europeans say, that when they have heard that the Americans, of whom they had been accustomed to think as dwellers in remote and dark forests, possessed a million of tons of shipping, they believed their neutral character had made their flag a cloak for the enterprise and wealth of other nations.

A man who has revelled so often on the delicacies of Very and Robert; who has so long flourished with éclat in the saloons of the modern queen of cities; who has sickened his taste under the arches of the Colliseum, or on the heights of the Acropolis, and who must have often cast a glance at that jewel of architecture, the Bourse of Paris, as he has hurried into its din to learn the fate of his last investment in the three per cents of M. de Villele, may possibly turn with disdain from a description of the inartificial beauties of nature, a republican drawing-room, or a mall in a commercial town of North America. But you will remember how often I have passed the bridge of Lodi in your company, (methinks I hear the whizzing of the bullets now!) how patiently I have listened to your sonnets on the mien and mind of Sophie, and how meekly I have seen you discussing the fragments of a paté de foie gras, without so much as begrudging you a mouthful of the unctious morsel, though it were even the last. Presuming on this often tried, and seemingly inexhaustible patience, I shall proceed to trespass on your more elevated pursuits in the shape of one of my desultory accounts of the manners and mode of life of the grave burghers of New York.