to be more and more elevated; our rights are more and
more respected, and our flag is more and more whitening every sea.
After this flattering and honorable account of the state of our general
concerns, I hasten to communicate the following interesting particulars.

"The treaty between our beloved North-Western Confederate Union and
Leaphigh, has been dishonored in every one of its articles; nineteen
Leaplow seamen have been forcibly impressed into a Leapthrough vessel
of war; the king of Leapup has made an unequivocal demonstration with
a very improper part of his person, at us; and the king of Leapover has
caused seven of our ships to be seized and sold, and the money to be
given to his mistress.

"Sir, I congratulate you on this very flattering condition of
our foreign relations; which can only be imputed to the glorious
constitution of which we are the common servants, and to the just dread
which the Leaplow name has so universally inspired in other nations.

"The king has just had a drawing-room, in which I took great care to see
that the honor of our beloved country should be faithfully attended
to. My cauda was at least three inches longer than that of the
representative of Leapup, the minister most favored by nature in this
important particular; and I have the pleasure of adding, that her
majesty the queen deigned to give me a very gracious smile. Of the
sincerity of that smile there can be no earthly doubt, sir; for, though
there is abundant evidence that she did apply certain unseemly words
to our beloved country lately, it would quite exceed the rules of
diplomatic courtesy, and be unsustained by proof, were we to call in
question her royal sincerity on this public occasion. Indeed, sir, at
all the recent drawing-rooms I have received smiles of the most sincere
and encouraging character, not only from the king, but from all his
ministers, his first-cousin in particular; and I trust they will have
the most beneficial effects on the questions at issue between the
Kingdom of Leaphigh and our beloved country. If they would now only
do us justice in the very important affair of the long-standing and
long-neglected redress, which we have been seeking in vain at their
hands for the last seventy-two years, I should say that our relations
were on the best possible footing.

"Sir, I congratulate you on the profound respect with which the Leaplow
name is treated, in the most distant quarters of the earth, and on the