th the animals that made a very
considerable part of my household. Consequently, I determined to travel.
Motion was a substitute for variety of objects; and, passing over immense
tracks of country, I exhausted my exuberant spirits, without obtaining
much experience. I every where saw industry the fore-runner and not the
consequence, of luxury; but this country, every thing being on an ample
scale, did not afford those picturesque views, which a certain degree of
cultivation is necessary gradually to produce. The eye wandered without
an object to fix upon over immeasureable plains, and lakes that seemed
replenished by the ocean, whilst eternal forests of small clustering
trees, obstructed the circulation of air, and embarrassed the path,
without gratifying the eye of taste. No cottage smiling in the waste, no
travellers hailed us, to give life to silent nature; or, if perchance we
saw the print of a footstep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to
turn aside; and the head ached as if assailed by the scalping knife. The
Indians who hovered on the skirts of the European settlements had only
learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from
them to do it with more safety.

"From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns, and
learned to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering into
commerce (and I detested commerce) I found I could not live there; and,
growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar aristocracy,
seated on her bags of dollars, I resolved once more to visit Europe. I
wrote to a distant relation in England, with whom I had been educated,
mentioning the vessel in which I intended to sail. Arriving in London, my
senses were intoxicated. I ran from street to street, from theatre to
theatre, and the women of the town (again I must beg pardon for my
habitual frankness) appeared to me like angels.

"A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late
to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked
down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into
a coach, which brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to be
treated like one who had lost them. My keepers are deaf to my
remonstrances and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not
last long. Still I cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures,
why I am confined, or in what part of England this house is situated. I
imagi