or two
at Washington; let him go amongst the little leaders of party in that
preposterous capital, watch their little tricks, the rapacity with which
they clutch the meanest spoils and wonder how political profligacy grows
fat upon diet so meagre and uninviting. He will come away with a
conviction, already indorsed by the more respectable portion of the
American community, that their government is the most corrupt under the
sun; but he will not, with them, lay the flattering notion to his soul,
that the people of whom such men are the chosen representatives and
guides, are likely to contribute much to the aggregate of human
happiness, freedom, and civilization.

As to the denunciations of Great Britain, so thickly strewn through
these _carmina non prius audita_ of the Congressional muse, we are sure
they will excite no feeling in our readers but that of pity and
contempt, and that comment upon them is unnecessary. The jealousy of
foreign nations towards the arts and arms of his country, is no new
experience to the travelled Englishman. Still, as the Americans have no
reason to be particularly sore on the subject of our arms, and as they
appropriate our arts, at a very small expense, to themselves, they might
afford, we should think, to let the British lion alone, and glorify
themselves without for ever shaking their fists in the face of that
magnanimous beast. In a political point of view, however, the
deep-seated hostility of this people towards the British government, is
a fact neither to be concealed nor made light of. From a somewhat
extended personal observation, the writer of this is convinced that war
at any time, and in any cause, would be popular with a large majority of
the inhabitants of the United States. It is in vain to oppose to their
opinion the interests of their commerce, and the genius of their
institutions, so unsuited to schemes of warlike aggrandizement. The
government of the United States is in the hands of the mob, which has as
little to lose there as elsewhere, by convulsion of any kind.

We are willing to believe that the person who at present fills the
Presidential chair at Washington, is fully alive to the responsibilities
of his situation, and would gladly allay the storm which himself and his
party have heretofore formed for their own most unworthy purposes. He
knows full well that the dispute is in itself of the most trumpery
nature; that the course of Great Britain has been throughout m