332 .4.V AMERICAX FARMER IX EXGLAXD. 



The number of vessels (of the navy) in port was much less 

 than I had anticipated seeing, and most of these were hulks, or 

 "advance ships" (with guns and water-tanks on board.) Those 

 we went on board of (one of them ready for sea), seemed to me, 

 compared with ours of the same class, inferior in all respects, 

 except it might be in some novelties in their rigging, of the effi- 

 ciency of which I could not judge. The extent to which wire- 

 rigging was employed in some surprised me. "We saw four gun- 

 boats (large barges with a swivel-gun in the bow), manned by 

 the workmen of the yard, whose awkward evolutions were very 

 amusing. The landsmen working in the yard are divided into 

 two squads, one of which alternately with the other, is drilled in 

 the Jefferson plan of harbor defense two evenings in each week. 

 They are dressed in a simple uniform, and armed as boarders. 



There were more steamers in the harbor than in all our navy. 



In the evening we called at the old lady's in Portsea, and re- 

 ceived from Susan some clothes, which she had undertaken to 

 get washed for us, and a watch which my brother had accident- 

 ally left in his bed-room. The kind old woman received us cordi- 

 ally, apologized again for the prudence which had led her to 

 lock us in, and introduced us to some friends. Of their simplicity 

 and curiosity, as shown in their questioning of us, I might, if I 

 chose to report our conversations, give as amusing a picture as 

 English travelers enjoy to do, of that of those they meet in Ameri- 

 can boarding-houses. Of fidgety anxiety lest we should not dis- 

 cover that everybody and everything in the country is superior 

 to anybody and anything anywhere else in the world, which so 

 annoys visitors to the United States, I must confess that we have 

 seen but little in England. With the poorer class of English- 

 men, patriotism seems to have been starved out. If they ever 



