pectedly gets to be scarce. Credit, comfort,
bones, sinews, marrow and all appear to depend on the result; and it is
no wonder that, under so lively impressions, men who have hitherto been
content to jog on in the regular and quiet habits of barter, should
suddenly start up into logicians, politicians, aye, or even into
magicians. Such had been the case with my present correspondent, who
seemed to know and to care as little in general of the polity of his own
country as if he had never been in it, but who now was ready to
split hairs with a metaphysician, and who could not have written more
complacently of the constitution if he had even read it. My limits
will not allow an insertion of the whole letter, but one or two of its
sentences shall be given. "Is it tolerable, my dear sir," he went on to
say, "that the executive of ANY country, I will not say merely of our
own, should possess, or exercise, even admitting that he does possess
them, such unheard of powers? Our condition is worse than that of the
Mussulmans, who in losing their money usually lose their heads, and are
left in a happy insensibility to their sufferings: but, alas! there
is an end of the much boasted liberty of America! The executive has
swallowed up all the other branches of the government, and the next
thing will be to swallow up us. Our altars, our firesides, and our
persons will shortly be invaded; and I much fear that my next letter
will be received by you long after all correspondence shall be
prohibited, every means of communication cut off, and we ourselves shall
be precluded from writing, by being chained like beasts of burden to the
car of a bloody tyrant." Then followed as pretty a string of epithets
as I remember to have heard from the mouth of the veriest shrew at
Billingsgate.

I could not but admire the virtue of the "social-stake system," which
kept men so sensibly alive to all their rights, let them live where they
would, or under what form of government, which was so admirably suited
to sustain truth and render us just. In reply I sent back epithet for
epithet, echoed all the groans of my correspondent, and railed as became
a man who was connected with a losing concern.

This closed my correspondence for the present, and I arose wearied with
my labors, and yet greatly rejoicing in their fruits. It was now late,
but excitement prevented sleep; and before retiring for the night I
could not help looking in upon my guests. Captain Poke