of this defective hearing in the Hall of
(Congress, I may quote a passage from a newspaper report of
(a debate on improvements. It was proposed to suspend a
(ceiling of glass fifteen feet above the heads of the
(members. A member, speaking in favour of this proposal,
(said, "Members would then, at least, be able to understand
(what was the question before the House, an advantage which
(most of them did not now possess, respecting more than
(half the propositions upon which they voted."

If I mistake not, every debate I listened to in the American
Congress was upon one and the same subject, namely, the entire
independence of each individual state, with regard to the federal
government. The jealousy on this point appeared to me to be the
very strangest political feeling that ever got possession of the
mind of man. I do not pretend to judge the merits of this
question. I speak solely of the very singular effect of seeing
man after man start eagerly to his feet, to declare that the
greatest injury, the basest injustice, the most obnoxious tyranny
that could be practised against the state of which he was a
member, would be a vote of a few million dollars for the purpose
of making their roads or canals; or for drainage; or, in short,
for any purpose of improvement whatsoever.

During the month we were at Washington, I heard a great deal of
conversation respecting a recent exclusion from Congress of a
gentleman, who, by every account, was one of the most esteemed
men in the house, and, I think, the father of it. The crime for
which this gentleman was out-voted by his own particular friends
and admirers was, that he had given his vote for a grant of
public money for the purpose of draining a most lamentable and
unhealthy district, called "_the dismal swamp!_"

One great boast of the country is, that they have no national
debt, or that they shall have none in two years. This seems not
very wonderful, considering their productive tariff, and that the
income paid to their president is 6,000_L. per annum_; other
government salaries being in proportion, and all internal
improvements, at the expense of the government treasury, being
voted unconstitutional.

The Senate-chamber is, like the Hall of Congress, a semicircle,
but of very much smaller dimensions. It is most elegantly fitted
up, and what is better still, the senators, generally speaking,
look like gentlemen. The