this. You will
not find at a gentleman's table more than two dishes of meat, though
invited several days beforehand. Mrs. Atkinson went out with me
yesterday, and Mrs. Hay, to the shops. I returned and dined with Mrs.
Atkinson, by her invitation the evening before, in company with Mr.
Smith, Mrs. Hay, Mr. Appleton. We had a turbot, a soup, and a roast leg
of lamb, with a cherry pie....

The wind has prevented the arrival of the post. The city of London is
pleasanter than I expected; the buildings more regular, the streets much
wider, and more sunshine than I thought to have found: but this, they
tell me, is the pleasantest season to be in the city. At my lodgings I
am as quiet as at any place in Boston; nor do I feel as if it could be
any other place than Boston. Dr. Clark visits us every day; says he
cannot feel at home anywhere else: declares he has not seen a handsome
woman since he came into the city; that every old woman looks like Mrs.
H----, and every young one like--like the D---l. They paint here nearly
as much as in France, but with more art. The head-dress disfigures them
in the eyes of an American. I have seen many ladies, but not one elegant
one since I came; there is not to me that neatness in their appearance
which you see in our ladies.

The American ladies are much admired here by the gentlemen, I am told,
and in truth I wonder not at it. Oh, my country, my country! preserve,
preserve the little purity and simplicity of manners you yet possess.
Believe me, they are jewels of inestimable value; the softness,
peculiarly characteristic of our sex, and which is so pleasing to the
gentlemen, is wholly laid aside here for the masculine attire and
manners of Amazonians.

LONDON, BATH HOTEL, WESTMINSTER, 24th June, 1785.

_My Dear Sister_:

I have been here a month without writing a single line to my American
friends. On or about the twenty-eighth of May we reached London, and
expected to have gone into our old quiet lodgings at the Adelphi; but we
found every hotel full. The sitting of Parliament, the birthday of the
King, and the famous celebration of the music of Handel, at Westminster
Abbey, had drawn together such a concourse of people that we were glad
to get into lodgings at the moderate price of a guinea per day, for two
rooms and two chambers, at the Bath Hotel, Westminster, Piccadilly,
where we yet are. This being the Court end of the city, it is the
resort of a vast concourse of carriages. I