ns brought forward and agreed to
was--"That they did not owe one farthing to the English people."

"They may say the times are bad," said a young American to me, "but I
think that they are excellent. A twenty dollar note used to last me but
a week, but now it is as good as Fortunatus's purse, which was never
empty. I eat my dinner at the hotel, and show them my twenty dollar
note. The landlord turns away from it, as if it were the head of
Medusa, and begs that I will pay another time. I buy every thing that I
want, and I have only to offer my twenty dollar note in payment, and my
credit is unbounded--that is, for any sum under twenty dollars. If they
ever do give change again in New York it will make a very unfortunate
change in my affairs."

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A government circular, enforcing the act of Congress, which obliges all
those who have to pay custom-house duties or postage to do so in specie,
has created great dissatisfaction, and added much to the distress and
difficulty. At the same time that they (the government) refuse to take
from their debtors the notes of the banks, upon the ground that they are
no longer legal tenders, they compel their creditors to take those very
notes--having had a large quantity in their possession at the time that
the banks suspended specie payments--an act of despotism which the
English Government would not venture upon.

Miss Martineau's work is before me. How dangerous it is to prophecy.
Speaking of the merchants of New York, and their recovering after the
heavy losses they sustained by the calamitous fire of 1835, she says,
that although eighteen millions of property were destroyed, not one
merchant failed; and she continues, "It seems now as if the commercial
credit of New York could stand any shock short of an earthquake like
that of Lisbon." That was the prophecy of 1836. Where is the
commercial credit of New York now in 1837?!!!

The distress for change has produced a curious remedy. Every man is now
his own banker. Go to the theatres and places of public amusement, and,
instead of change, you receive an IOU from the treasury. At the hotels
and oyster-cellars it is the same thing. Call for a glass of brandy and
water and the change is fifteen tickets, each "good for one glass of
brandy and water." At an oyster-shop, eat a plate of oysters, and you
have in return seven tickets, good for one plate of o