to love by a creature I am ashamed to mention; and the other women
with whom I afterwards became intimate, were of a class of which
you can have no knowledge.  I formed my acquaintance with them at
the theaters; and, when vivacity danced in their eyes, I was not
easily disgusted by the vulgarity which flowed from their lips.
Having spent, a few years after I was of age, [the whole of] a
considerable patrimony, excepting a few hundreds, I had no resource
but to purchase a commission in a new-raised regiment, destined to
subjugate America.  The regret I felt to renounce a life of pleasure,
was counter-balanced by the curiosity I had to see America, or
rather to travel; [nor had any of those circumstances occurred to
my youth, which might have been calculated] to bind my country to
my heart. I shall not trouble you with the details of a military
life.  My blood was still kept in motion; till, towards the close
of the contest, I was wounded and taken prisoner.

     "Confined to my bed, or chair, by a lingering cure, my only
refuge from the preying activity of my mind, was books, which I
read with great avidity, profiting by the conversation of my host,
a man of sound understanding.  My political sentiments now underwent
a total change; and, dazzled by the hospitality of the Americans,
I determined to take up my abode with freedom.  I, therefore, with
my usual impetuosity, sold my commission, and travelled into the
interior parts of the country, to lay out my money to advantage.
Added to this, I did not much like the puritanical manners of the
large towns.  Inequality of condition was there most disgustingly
galling.  The only pleasure wealth afforded, was to make an
ostentatious display of it; for the cultivation of the fine arts,
or literature, had not introduced into the first circles that polish
of manners which renders the rich so essentially superior to the
poor in Europe.  Added to this, an influx of vices had been let in
by the Revolution, and the most rigid principles of religion shaken
to the centre, before the understanding could be gradually emancipated
from the prejudices which led their ancestors undauntedly to seek
an inhospitable clime and unbroken soil.  The resolution, that led
them, in pursuit of independence, to embark on rivers like seas,
to search for unknown shores, and to sleep under the hovering mists
of endless forests, whose baleful damps agued their limbs, was now
turned into commercial speculations, till the national character
exhibited a phenomenon in the history of the human mind--a head
enthusiastically enterprising, with cold selfishness of heart.
And woman, lovely woman!--they charm everywhere--still there is a
degree of prudery, and a want of taste and ease in the manners of
the American women, that renders them, in spite of their roses and
lilies, far inferior to our European charmers.  In the country,
they have often a bewitching simplicity of character; but, in the
cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who give
the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England.
They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good,
and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified
to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages,
than the men with love.  All the frivolity which often (excuse me,
Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England,
here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their charms.
Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep
myself awake in their company by making downright love to them.

     "But, not to intrude on your patience, I retired to the track
of land which I had purchased in the country, and my time passed
pleasantly enough while I cut down the trees, built my house, and
planted my different crops.  But winter and idleness came, and I
longed for more elegant society, to hear what was passing in the
world, and to do something better than vegetate with the animals
that made a very considerable part of my household.  Consequently,
I determined to travel.  Motion was a substitute for variety of
objects; and, passing over immense tracks of country, I exhausted
my exuberant spirits, without obtaining much experience.  I every
where saw industry the fore-runner and not the consequence, of
luxury; but this country, everything being on an ample scale, did
not afford those picturesque views, which a certain degree of
cultivation is necessary gradually to produce.  The eye wandered
without an object to fix upon over immeasureable plains, and lakes
that seemed replenished by the ocean, whilst eternal forests of
small clustering trees, obstructed the circulation of air, and
embarrassed the path, without gratifying the eye of taste.  No
cottage smiling in the waste, no travellers hailed us, to give life
to silent nature; or, if perchance we saw the print of a footstep
in our path, it was a dreadful warning to turn aside; and the head
ached as if assailed by the scalping knife.  The Indians who hovered
on the skirts of the European settlements had only learned of their
neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from them to 
do it with more safety.

     "From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns,
and learned to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering
into commerce (and I detested commerce) I found I could not live
there; and, growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar
aristocracy, seated on her bags of dollars, I resolved once more
to visit Europe.  I wrote to a distant relation in England, with
whom I had been educated, mentioning the vessel in which I intended
to sail.  Arriving in London, my senses were intoxicated.  I ran
from street to street, from theater to theater, and the women of
the town (again I must beg pardon for my habitual frankness) 
appeared to me like angels.

     "A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning
very late to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival,
I was knocked down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of
insensibility, into a coach, which brought me hither, and I only
recovered my senses to be treated like one who had lost them.  My