half, of a greater productiveness of the customs to the amount of another million, and in the opinion they expressed, that the sum estimated as unavailable, being in a state of passage from distant places, would be sufficiently covered by the sums due, but not called out of the treasury. In a second report, made a few days before the close of the session, they took a still different view of it, arising from the loss of upwards of $200,000 by the failure of the bank of Vincennes, the retrenchments ascertained by the appropriation law, which in fact amounted to about four and an half millions for 1820 and 1821, in place of the inferior estimate before relied on, and the necessity they discovered of reducing the estimated income from the public lands to one half, or $800,000. The retrenchments were settled as follows-those which were civil, $116,508,-military, $1,481,064,-naval, $719,583,-total, $4,447,155. They still presented a deficiency, for the year, of $3,634,228, and a loan for four millions and an half was recommended.

A law was at length passed fixing the loan at five millions, at a rate of interest not exceeding five per cent. and reimburseable at any time after the commencement of the year 1835. The first four millions were obtained from the bank of the United States, with a premium of five per cent.

The treaty with Spain, signed at Washington on the 22d February, 1819, and soon after ratified by the president and senate, was at length sanctioned; with the necessary approbation of the Cortes, by the ratification of the king of Spain. This instrument was received at Washington by his minister, general Vives, in the beginning of the year 1821; but on account of the delay, which had taken place on the part of that government to ratify it, the president thought proper again to submit it to the consideration of the senate, who a second time gave their constitutional approbation to it, on the 19th February, with only four or five negative votes, and the ratifications were exchanged on the 22d. The Spanish ratification expressly declares the obnoxious grants to the Duke of Alagon, the count of Punon Rostro and Don Vargas, to be null and invalid. Thus was happily concluded, through the moderate counsels and laudable prudence of the American government, and particularly of the president, all our controversies with Spain, at the same time that guards were provided, by the settlement of the territorial boundary, along our immense confines, against any future contentions from that fruitful source. A law soon after passed both houses, for carrying the treaty into effect, and providing for the temporary government of the ceded territory. The president was authorised to take possession of Florida, to remove the Spanish officers and soldiers to Havana; and for those purposes, and also to maintain the authority of United States, to employ any part of the army, navy or militia. The revenue laws of the United States and those relating to people of

colour were extended to Florida, and the powers of the late Spanish government were continued, without other alteration, in the hands of such persons, and to be exercised in such a manner, as the president might direct, for maintaining the inhabitants in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and religion. The president also had power given to him, to establish districts for the collection of the revenue, and during the recess to appoint officers to enforce them. Provision was also made for effecting the objects of the 4th and 11th articles of the treaty, by appointing the necessary commissioners and other officers. Among the appointments, the principal were those of general Andrew Jackson as governor, and Elijius Fromentin, Esq. as judge. The portion of judicial power meant to have been given to the latter, was that alone, which flowed from such of the laws of the United States, as were extended to the territory by the act of congress, or resulted from it; but as his commission was expressed in general and comprehensive terms, that circumstance was afterwards made the cause of a violent and indecorous altercation between him and the go

vernor.

In the beginning of November delegates representing the commercial interests of most of the Atlantic seaports, met at Philadelphia, and agreed upon a memorial to congress, upon the subject of the new tariff reported at the preceding session, by the committee of the house upon manufactures. Though expressed in an elevated style, it unfolds no views or arguments, not before fully embraced in the speeches of the members upon the subject, and especially the acute, masterly and comprehensive one of Mr. Lowndes. Its principal topics consist of representations of the injustice and abortive policy of forcing particular employments, through favors conferred upon them, at the expense of the community generally, and of the reduction of the revenue by the direct effect of the increased imposts proposed, and its necessary consequence of producing smuggling and the adulteration of imported articles.

At the close of the session there was communicated to the house of representatives, by the attorney general and the district attorney, the decision of the supreme court of the United States, in a suit commenced against its sergeant at arms, by one Anderson, for having taken him into custody by a warrant to compel his appearance, on a charge of contempt, or breach of privileges, in offering a bribe to one of its members. According to that communication, the court "fully affirmed the power of the house, sui juris, to vindicate its own privileges, against every attack of violence or fraud, necessarily tending to control the freedom or taint the purity of legislative deliberation."

On examining the votes for President and Vice President of the United States it appeared, that Mr. Monroe was re-elected president, by only one less than an unanimity, and Mr. Tomp

kins had fourteen less than the whole number of votes, as vice president. On the 5th of March the oath of office was administered to the former, by chief justice Marshall, in the great hall of the house of representatives, where the president delivered the usual address to the citizens, assembled to witness the ceremony. In this, after expressing a suitable acknowledgment for the unanimity of his election, he recapitulated, at considerable length, the most interesting proceedings of the government, and concerns of the nation, as they affected either its foreign or domestic policy, which was coloured throughout with flattering delineations of its present condition, and future prospects.

At the close of the session Mr. Clay made a handsome address. to the chair, in commendation of the speaker. "Let us," said he, "terminate the session by making that officer the depositary of our entire reconciliation, whose election first elicited our divisions, and whose situation has been extremely arduous and difficult. For my part, I have great pleasure in testifying to the assiduity, impartiality, ability and promptitude, with which he has administered the chair, since I have been able to take my seat." He concluded with a motion of thanks, which was carried with but one dissenting voice. (To be continued.)

ART. VII.-The Stout Gentleman, a Tale of Mystery. From "Bracebridge Hall, or the Humourists. A Medley, by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent."

It was a rainy Sunday, in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained in the course of a journey, by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering, but I was still feverish, and was obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn! whoever has had the luck to experience one can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against the casements; the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye; but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of amusement. The windows of my bed room looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys; while those of my sitting room commanded a full view of the stable yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw, that had been kicked about by travellers and stable boys; in one corner was a stagnant pool of water surrounding an island of muck; there were several half drowned fowls, crowded together under a cart, among which was a miserable, crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit; his drooping tail matted as it were into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back. Near the cart was a half-dozing cow, chewing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on,

with wreaths of vapour rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dripping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog house, hard by, uttered something every now and then, between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backwards and forwards through the yard in pattens, looking us sulky as the weather itself; every thing, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hard-drinking ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor.

I was lonely and listless, and wanted amusement. My room soon became insupportable. I abandoned it and sought what is technically called the traveller's room. This is a public room set apart at most inns for the accomodation of a class of wayfarers called travellers or riders; a kind of commercial knights errant, who are incessantly scouring the kingdom in gigs, on horseback, or by coach. They are the only successors, that I know of at the present day, to the knights errant of yore. They lead the same kind of roving adventurous life, only changing the lance for a whip, the buckler for a pattern card, and the coat of mail for an upper Benjamin. Instead of vindicating the charms of peerless beauty, they rove about spreading the fame and standing of some substantial tradesman or manufacturer, and are ready at any time to bargain in his name; it being the fashion now-a-days to trade instead of fight with one another. As the room of the Hotel, in the good old fighting times, would be hung round at night with the armour of way-worn warriors, such as coats of mail, falchions, and yawning helmets; so the traveller's room is garnished with the harnessing of their successors; with box coats, whips of all kinds, spurs, gaiters, and oil-cloth covered hats.

I was in hopes of finding some of these worthies to talk with, but was disappointed. There were, indeed, two or three in the room; but I could make nothing of them. One was just finishing his breakfast; quarrelling with his bread and butter, and huffing the waiter; another buttoned on a pair of gaiters, with many execrations at " Boots," for not having cleaned his shoes well; a third sat drumming on the table with his fingers, and looking at the rain as it streamed down the window glass; they all appeared infected by the weather, and disappeared, one after the other, without exchanging a word.

I sauntered to the window, and stood gazing at the people picking their way to church, with petticoats hoisted mid-leg high and dripping umbrellas. The bell ceased to toll, and the streets became silent. I then amused myself with watching the daughters of a tradesman opposite; who, being confined to the house, for fear of wetting their Sunday finery, played off their charms at the front windows to fascinate the chance tenants of the inn. They at

length were summoned away by a vigilant vinegar-faced mother, and I had nothing farther from without to amuse me.

What was I to do, to pass away the longlived day? I was sadly nervous and lonely; and every thing about an inn seems calculated to make a dull day ten times duller. Old newspapers smelling of beer and tobacco smoke, and which I had already read half a dozen times. Good for nothing books, that were terse than the rainy weather. I bored myself to death with an old volume of the Lady's Magazine. I read all the common placed names of ambitious travellers scrawled on the panes of glass; the eternal families of the Smiths, and the Browns, and the Jacksons, and the Johnsons, and all the other sons; and I decyphered several scraps of fatiguing inn-window poetry that I have met with in all parts of the world.

The day continued lowering and gloomy; the slovenly, ragged, spongy clouds drifted heavily along in the air; there was no variety even in the rain; it was one dull, continued, monotonous patter, patter, patter; excepting that now and then I was enlivened by the idea of a brisk shower, from the rattling of the drops upon a passing umbrella. It was quite refreshing (if I may be allowed a hackneyed phrase of the day) when in the course of the morning a horn blew, and a stage coach whirled through the street, with outside passengers stuck all over it, cowering under cotton umbrellas; and seethed together, and reeking with the steams of wet box coats and upper Benjamins.

The sound brought out from their lurking places a crew of vagabond boys, and vagabond dogs, with the carrotty headed hos tler and that non-descript animal ycleped Boots, and all the other vagabond race that infest the purlieus of an inn; but the bustle was transient; the coach again whirled on its way; and boy, and dog, and hostler, and Boots, all slunk back again to their holes; and the street again became silent, and the rain continued to rain on. In fact there was no hope of its clearing up; the barometer pointed to rainy weather; mine hostess' tortoiseshell cat sat by the fire washing her face and rubbing her paws over her ears; and on referring to the almanac, I found a direful prediction stretching from the top of the page to the bottom through the whole month, "expect-much-rain-about-this-time."

I was dreadfully hipped. The hours seemed as if they would never creep by. The very ticking of the clock became irksome. At length the stillness of the house was interrupted by the ringing of a bell. Shortly after I heard the voice of a waiter at the bar, "The Stout Gentleman, in No. 13, wants his breakfast, Tea and bread and butter, with ham and eggs the eggs not to be too much done."

In such a situation as mine every incident is of importance. Here was a subject of speculation presented to my mind, and am ple exercise for my imagination. I am prone to paint pictures to