I am so exhausted with the life I am obliged to lead here, that I have
had time to write but one letter which is at all deserving of the name,
as giving any account of our movements. Forster has it, in trust, to
tell you all its news; and he has also some newspapers which I had an
opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further particulars
of our progress.
We had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all concur in saying,
that they have ever known. We were eighteen days coming; experienced a
dreadful storm which swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our
lifeboats; and ran aground besides, near Halifax, among rocks and
breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. After we left the English
Channel we had only one fine day. And we had the additional discomfort
of being eighty-six passengers. I was ill five days, Kate six; though,
indeed, she had a swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the
way.
I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There never was a king
or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and
entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by
public bodies and deputations of all kinds. I have had one from the Far
West--a journey of two thousand miles! If I go out in a carriage, the
crowd surround it and escort me home; if I go to the theatre, the whole
house (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring
again. You cannot imagine what it is. I have five great public dinners
on hand at this moment, and invitations from every town and village and
city in the States.
There is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for
description. I keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so
to some purpose by the time I come home.
When you write to me again--I say again, hoping that your first letter
will be soon upon its way here--direct to me to the care of David
Colden, Esq., New York. He will forward all communications by the
quickest conveyance and will be perfectly acquainted with all my
movements.
Always your faithful Friend.
[Sidenote: Mr. Fitz-Greene Halleck.]