tional vanity. I hardly need observe, that the American naval
officers are as much disgusted with the assertion as I was myself. That
Lawrence fought under disadvantages--that many of his ship's company,
hastily collected together from leave, were not sober, and that there
was a want of organisation from just coming out of harbour,--is true,
and quite sufficient to account for his defeat; but I have the evidence
of those who walked with him down to his boat, that he was perfectly
sober, cool, and collected, as he always had proved himself to be. But
there is no gratitude in a democracy, and to be unfortunate is to be
guilty.

There is a great deal of patriotism of one sort or the other in the
American women. I recollect once, when conversing with a highly
cultivated and beautiful American woman, I inquired if she knew a lady
who had been some time in England, and who was a great favourite of
mine. She replied, "Yes." "Don't you like her?" "To confess the
truth, I do not," replied she; "she is _too English_ for me." "That is
to say, she likes England and the English." "That is what I mean." I
replied, that, "had she been in England, she would probably have become
_too English_ also; for, with her cultivated and elegant ideas, she must
naturally have been pleased with the refinement, luxury, and established
grades in society, which it had taken eight hundred years to produce."
"If that is to be the case, I hope I may never go to England."

Now, this was _true_ patriotism, and there is much true patriotism among
the higher classes of the American women; with them there is no alloy of
egotism.

Indeed, all the women in America are very _patriotic_; but I do not give
them all the same credit. In the first place, they are controlled by
public opinion as much as the men are; and without assumed patriotism
they would have no chance of getting husbands. As you descend in the
scale, so are they the more noisy; and, I imagine, for that very reason
the less sincere.

Among what may be termed the middling classes, I have been very much
amused with the compound of vanity and ignorance which I have met with.
Among this class they can read and write; but almost all their knowledge
is confined to their own country, especially in geography, which I soon
discovered. It was hard to beat them on American ground, but as soon as
you got them off that they were defeated. I wish the reader to
understand particularly, that I am