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pectedly gets to be scarce. Credit, comfort, bones, sinews, marrow and all appear to depend on the result; and it is no wonder that, under so lively impressions, men who have hitherto been content to jog on in the regular and quiet habits of barter, should suddenly start up into logicians, politicians, aye, or even into magicians. Such had been the case with my present correspondent, who seemed to know and to care as little in general of the polity of his own country as if he had never been in it, but who now was ready to split hairs with a metaphysician, and who could not have written more complacently of the constitution if he had even read it. My limits will not allow an insertion of the whole letter, but one or two of its sentences shall be given. "Is it tolerable, my dear sir," he went on to say, "that the executive of ANY country, I will not say merely of our own, should possess, or exercise, even admitting that he does possess them, such unheard of powers? Our condition is worse than that of the Mussulmans, who in losing their money usually lose their heads, and are left in a happy insensibility to their sufferings: but, alas! there is an end of the much boasted liberty of America! The executive has swallowed up all the other branches of the government, and the next thing will be to swallow up us. Our altars, our firesides, and our persons will shortly be invaded; and I much fear that my next letter will be received by you long after all correspondence shall be prohibited, every means of communication cut off, and we ourselves shall be precluded from writing, by being chained like beasts of burden to the car of a bloody tyrant." Then followed as pretty a string of epithets as I remember to have heard from the mouth of the veriest shrew at Billingsgate. I could not but admire the virtue of the "social-stake system," which kept men so sensibly alive to all their rights, let them live where they would, or under what form of government, which was so admirably suited to sustain truth and render us just. In reply I sent back epithet for epithet, echoed all the groans of my correspondent, and railed as became a man who was connected with a losing concern. This closed my correspondence for the present, and I arose wearied with my labors, and yet greatly rejoicing in their fruits. It was now late, but excitement prevented sleep; and before retiring for the night I could not help looking in upon my guests. Captain Poke
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