In the afternoon we went for the third time to hear Father Taylor, at the Mariner's Church, and were more deeply affected by his peculiar and touching eloquence than before. There were some recent circumstances which made the occasion one of deeper importance than usual, and these gave him more than his accustomed share of energy and feeling. On the Friday preceding I had gone with Father Taylor, at his request, to visit, with his family and my own, the "Mariner's Home;" to see the accommodation there provided for the comfortable boarding and lodging of seamen, with a view to take them from the temptations by which they are surrounded on all hands when landing from their voyages; and to inspect the store of clothing, prepared of the best materials, put together by the excellent workmanship of seamen's wives and daughters, and furnished at the cheapest rates; and nothing could be more complete than the whole.

On this very day, however, it happened that 500 men had been paid off from the United States frigate and some sloops-of-war forming the Mediterranean squadron, which had returned from a three years' absence. Large as the number was, however, thus thrown upon the stream at once, there were enough of grogshop keepers and other interested harpies to decoy them nearly all into their dens; and, except the few that were rescued from their fangs by the Mariner's Home and the Seaman's Home, they were nearly all intoxicated before night. Some were robbed while thus unconscious, by those who made them so for this purpose; and on the following day many were without a dollar, though on the average they had come on shore with from 100 to 200 dollars each. Being thus stripped of all their money, and reduced to a state of stupid insensibility by drunkenness, they were, on the following night, seen choking up the streets and lanes by the wharves, so as actually to impede the passage, and the night being intensely cold, the thermometer at 6°, the watchmen were all employed in taking them up from the ground, many of them stiff with cold, and piling them up one on the other in heaps in the watch-houses, to prevent their being frozen to death! This was the fate that befell the brave defenders of their country when they returned to the land of their nativity, and this was the treatment they received at the hands of their fellow-citizens!

On the following day, Monday, the second election was to take place for the representatives of Boston, and the question at issue between the two sections into which the Whigs had split was, whether the regular Whig ticket, as it was called, which contained in it no less than seven dealers in intoxicating liquor out of 36 candidates, and nearly the whole of the remainder were for an unrestricted trade in ardent spirits, should be elected; or whether the Amory Hall ticket, as it was called, on which were 36 men all in favour of upholding the recent license law, which prohibits the sale

of spirits in a less quantity than 15 gallons, should be elected in their stead.

Father Taylor, bearing in mind these two circumstances, took for his text the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, from the 20th chapter of Exodus, “Thou shalt not kill," and made a most powerful and thrilling discourse. He walked up and down the platform just as a sea-captain walks the quarter-deck; behind him were seated half a dozen fine-looking seamen; and the winding stairs ascending to this pulpit on each side, as well as the altar-place beneath it, were filled with seamen also.

In the centre, or body of the church, the whole space was filled by seamen only, and the side-seats below and in the gallery were occupied by the public generally, the whole number exceeding 1000 persons. He addressed the seamen chiefly as his brethren, and told them that in the face of this commandment, “Thou shalt not kill," many of their shipmates and messmates had been murdered, cruelly and in cool blood murdered, some of them body and soul, by the poisonous drink administered to them by guilty and avaricious hands; and after first poisoning, and then plundering them, they had left their victims to perish in the streets! He asked whether they would look on with indifference while these scenes were passing around them; and he urged them to rally round the polls to-morrow, and defeat the dealers in the deathinflicting liquid, by preventing their return as members of the Legislature, and electing the friends of temperance, who are the friends of humanity, in their stead.

His discourse was one of the most thrilling and heart-piercing that it was ever my lot to hear. The big tear rolled down his furrowed cheeks when he spoke of the sufferings of his brother mariners as though they were his own children; while the robust and manly frames of the seamen, to whom he addressed his discourse, alternately swelled with sobs and melted with tears as they heard his touching tones, and looked upon his beaming and benignant face. The land part of his congregation were as deeply affected as the seamen, and at times there was not a dry eye to be seen in the whole assembly.

If the 500 victims of the avarice and cruelty of the spirit-sellers could have been present, they would have fallen down and worshipped him; for he seemed like an Angel of Light sent to save them from sinking in the gulf that yawned open its frightful abyss to receive them; and if the voters of Boston who were indifferent to temperance, or legislators of the world who scoff at all attempts to promote it by legislative means, could have heard this powerful and searching appeal, they would have been overwhelmed with shame at their past indifference, and never have rested afterward till they had done all within their power to atone for past neglect. * See Appendix, No. XI.

At the close of the service, though it lasted till it was quite dark, every one seemed reluctant to leave; and after many friendly greetings, warm prayers, cordial benedictions, and mutual interchanges of tears and good-wishes on either side-for the two families, Father Taylor's and my own, seemed knit by this bond of common sympathy for the sons of the ocean into one-we bade a difficult and painful, yet affectionate farewell, and hoped we might meet again.

I felt so much exhausted by the excitement of the day, that I was disposed to pass the evening alone; but this was not permitted. The fellow-boarders with whom we had been, living for the past eight weeks our first week in Boston having been passed at the Tremont Hotel-were unwilling that we should separate without passing the evening together in social intercourse; and as their acquaintance had grown up to friendship in several, and to great cordiality in all, we were unable, as well as unwilling, to refuse it. Mrs. Putnam, the lady at whose house we lived in Pearl-street, had made her dwelling so much more like a home to us than any boarding-house in which we had lived since we had been in America, and everything around us, indeed, had been made so agreeable by the kindness of all under the same roof, that, though we had seen but little of Boston hospitality to bind us to its general society, we really found ourselves more strongly attached to our home-circle than we had thought of till we came to part.

From some three or four of the families of Boston-whom I should be proud to name, were not the feeling of repugnance to all public mention so strong among persons in private life in this country-we had received very kind and friendly attentions, and particularly from one family, whom we had the pleasure to know and to receive in England. But, with these few exceptions, nothing could be more distant, cold, and frigid than the general intercourse we maintained with the mass. This, however, was not from want of respect or indifference; for few persons had ever before enjoyed so large a share of public favour, public attention, and public commendation and compliment, as I had the honour of receiving from the thousands who attended my lectures, and who, at their close, often came to express individually their high respect and sincere admiration, mingled with expressions of deep gratitude for pleasure received, and warm congratulations on the amount of good likely to be effected, by the diffusion of the information and opinions which these lectures conveyed.

But of the private hospitalities of Boston we neither saw much ourselves, nor could learn of its exercise towards others; and as we heard on all hands that it was not the general custom to invite guests, except at crowded and ostentatious parties, where 400 or 500 persons are sometimes asked to houses not large enough to accommodate agreeably half the number, we had seen sufficient of

discomfort and irrationality of such thronged masses as these, fatal as they are to any continuous enjoyment of intellectual intercourse, to make us very reluctant to join them.

As we sat around the family fireside for the last evening of our stay, amid the many expressions of regret at our being about to leave, and anticipations of the blank that the loss of our party of three would create for a time, all hoped that we should return again to a community which they admitted was cold of temperament and slow of approach, but steady in attachment when once known.

All this was more agreeable to us than it would have been to leave no regret behind; and, after sitting up later than usual, our circle separated for retirement with a cordial interchange of best wishes for our mutual welfare, and hopes of a speedy reunion in the same spot.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Journey from Boston to Providence.-Lectures delivered here.-Churches and Pulpits occupied.-Animated Public Discussions on the Question, "Is it right, expedient, and necessary to use Legislative Influence for the Promotion of the Temperance Reformation?"-Absence of any written Constitution.-Still governed by the Royal Charter of Charles II-Area, Statistics, and Population of the State.-Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping-Legislature-Governor, Senators, and Public Officers. Judiciary.-Proportion of Representatives.-Rotten-borough System of unequal Rep

resentation.

ON Monday, the 26th of November, we left Boston for Prov dence, and were about two hours performing the journey by the railroad. The cars were commodious, and well warmed by stoves; but the company were more than usually variegated, and among them there were many under the influence of strong drink. These, probably, had been occupied in the second election for Boston, which was held to-day; and the anti-temperance party having been again beaten, many of their disappointed voters may have sought to drown their mortification in drink. The weather was cold, the thermometer in the open air being at 10°; and as the ground was covered with snow, the road appeared dreary and monotonous. We reached Providence about four o'clock, having left Boston at two, and repaired to the City Hotel, where we took up our abode. We remained in Providence a fortnight, and passed a more than usually agreeable time there, from the pleasant acquaintances we had the happiness to form, and the cordial and friendly hospitalities that we enjoyed during our stay. I was chiefly occupied in the delivery of my lectures on Egypt; but, as there is no public room or hall in Providence capable of accommodating more than 400 persons, we were obliged to seek the use of such places of

PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS.-ROYAL CHARTER.

417

worship as were to be had. We obtained for this purpose the grant of six separate churches in succession, in different parts of the city, and these were filled with audiences varying from 500 at the first to about 800 at the last, increasing regularly every night. A seventh lecture was given gratuitously for the benefit of the funds of a chapel, called, after the founder of Providence, Roger Williams's Chapel, and this was still more fully attended than any of the preceding, and added a handsome sum to their treasury.

The fullest and most animated meetings I attended in Providence were, however, two held for the purpose of public debate on the following question: "Is it right, expedient, and necessary to seek legislative aid to promote the temperance reform?" These meetings were held in two other churches, one on each side of the river; making, therefore, nine churches in all, from the pulpits of which I gave my lectures on Egypt and Palestine, and delivered temperance addresses, during my short stay in Providence. The audiences at the public discussions on the temperance question, being admitted free, were very large-2000 at least, and some thought 2500 and 3000-but the two churches in which they were held were the largest in the city, and they were completely filled. The result of the discussion was in favour of the position that it was the duty of the Legislature to put every practicable restriction on the sale of intoxicating drinks; and this was carried by a large majority.

My evenings were therefore all fully occupied in Providence, and during the mornings of every day I was busily engaged in seeing all the various institutions, manufactories, and other objects of public importance in the town, and interchanging visits with the inhabitants, who took the greatest interest in my inquiries, and assisted them in every way.

The most remarkable feature in the history of Rhode Island is, that it possesses no written constitution for its local government, and in this respect it differs from every other state in the Union. It is still governed by the charter of Charles the Second, which was granted in 1663, the provisions of which are so liberal that little inconvenience, it is asserted, has been hitherto experienced from the want of such a constitution as is possessed by the other states; nor does there appear the slightest desire on the part of any of the population to annul the royal charter, or substitute a written constitution in its stead.

Rhode Island is the smallest of all the states in the Union, its length from north to south being only 48 miles, and its breadth 42; its area, therefore, is about 1500 square miles, or 960,000 acres in the whole. It is bounded on the north and east by Massachusetts, on the west by Connecticut, and on the south by the Atlantic. Its surface is agreeably diversified, being hilly and rocky in the northwest or interior, and generally level in the southeast or towards the sea. VOL. II.-3 G