lutions made, crape on the arm for thirty days, &c. Now what is this but pride? What right has any class in society to exalt themselves by themselves? What do they more than others? Is not a respectable merchant, a carpenter, a printer, or brick-layer, just as useful in his place as any lawyer? Now, suppose the merchants in Pearl-street, or suppose the master-builders were to shut their shops for two days; and suppose they were to to hold meetings in the Park, and wear crape for thirty days whenever one of the fraternity died--why our streets would be filled with a set of idle vagabonds, our stores as dark as midnight, and the city clothed in sackloth and ashes; and yet these men have a better right to shut their stores, and close their shops, than the judge has to stop the sale of justice for two days.

Besides, is not this intended to establish a dangerous precedent, a sort of law, full of

aristocracy? Thinking, perhaps, that they receive not honour enough from men in this life, it may be they intend to try the experiment whether or not they cannot introduce some old, obsolete, heathenish custom of paying honours to the dead, and thereby we will have all the lawyer's deified. This would surely be something new in the other world, and in this also. When a lawyer dies, what more have we to do with him, or for him, than for any other member of the community who makes his money by his hands or his wits? If a lawyer has a head and a tongue, and knows how to make use of them, he has his reward in this world, and when he dies society owes him nothing-no more than they do to a master-builder, who, having finished the house, receives his money, and then departs this life. But this subject is so prolific, and so full of bad precedent and bad practice, that I hardly know where to leave. off. But enough, I think, has been said, to

convince every man in New-York, that it is high time they should set their faces against this piece of self-created pride.

But all this has nothing to do with the book, and perhaps the least said on that subject will be the soonest mended. If the story is a good one, it will sell; if not, those who don't like it, can just let it alone.

THE AUTHOR.

Hallet's Cove, 5th Dec., 1834.

CHAPTER I.

Journal from New-York to Liverpool-Reflections on leaving Land-Seamen's character-a Passenger from ship General Williams—a Funeral at Sea.

Oct. 9, 1833-Ship George Washington, at 12 P. M., with a strong northwester and an unclouded sky, we took our departure from the Hook, the lighthouse due west three miles; shortly after we lost sight of land. I have more than once known what it is to take the last look of the land which contained all I held dear. It is at times such as this that the imagination delights to be busy, and at which she often plays the tyrant over the affections, by throwing the charms of a double fascination around the objects and scenes from which we are torn, as with rapid pencil she sketches in vivid colouring all I have left behind. I keenly feel the reality of my departure, and am almost ready to wonder that I could voluntarily have undertaken, at such a sacrifice, a voyage, attended with much uncertainty, and necessarily involving many a hazard; but in my better judgment I cannot and do not regret it. I think the duty has been pointed out plainly by the dispensations of Him who directs alike