smuggled, or pretended to be smuggled; our commander's pocket was not
the lighter for New-England "_quidnuncism_." But every day afforded
instances of meanness; scraping misery to the bone, for a few pence.

The United States is the region of all regions of the earth for
newspapers. _There are more newspapers printed in the United States,
than in all the rest of the world besides._ We do not mean a greater
number of copies of the same title, but a greater number of different
titles; insomuch, that invention is nearly exhausted to afford them
new names. In England, newspapers pay a very high tax; in America,
they are perfectly free, and their transport by the mails is nearly
so; and this is because our government, that is to say, the _people_,
consider newspapers one of the necessaries of a Yankee's life. In the
definition of a New-England man, you should always insert that he is
"_a go to meeting animal_, and _a newspaper reading animal_!" The sums
which we poor prisoners paid for one English newspaper a year, would
have paid the annual board of a man in the interior of our own
plentiful country. I am firmly of opinion, however, that Boston has
and will have reason to curse her _federal_ newspapers. They, like,
the "_Courier_" and "_Times_," of London have spread false principles,
and scattered error amongst a people too violently prejudiced to read
both sides of the question.

I thought that, at this time, we were as happy, or as free from
misery, as at any time since our captivity. The pleasant season was
advancing, the days growing longer, and the nights shorter, and our
condition seemed improving, when a dreadful calamity broke out upon
us; I mean the _Small pox_. There are no people on the face of the
earth, who have such a dread of this distemper as the people of
New-England. Their laws and their municipal regulations prove this. No
person can remain in his own house with this disorder; but certain
municipal officers take charge of him, and convey him to the small pox
hospital, provided by the laws for the reception of such patients. If
the disorder has progressed so far as to render it, in the opinion of
physicians, dangerous to life to remove him, then the street, where he
lives, is fenced up, and a guard placed so that no one can pass, and a
red flag is hoisted on the house. These formidable precautions may
have added to the dread of this loathsome disease.

When this alarming distemper first appeared in the