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died in London; this picture is from the masterly pencil of Sir 
Thomas Lawrence. There are two painting by Teniers, and 
two others by Salvator Rosa. I was particularly pleased with 
one of the latter; an old soldier praying in a wild landscape before 
a simple cross! Two other paintings are said to be by Rubens: 
among these I observed a portrait of Rubens, of which the origi¬ 
nal is in the collection of Mr. Schamp, at Ghent. There are 
likewise good plaster-casts of the best Roman antiques, of a Ve¬ 
nus of Milo^and the three Graces of Canova, and likewise two 
gladiators of full size by the same artist. 
The house of Commodore Chauncey* is situated on a hill in 
the navy-yard, which affords a fine view of the wharf and Long 
Island. The commodore took a walk with me to the wharf. As 
I left his house, I was escorted by a guard of honour of thirty ma¬ 
rines, commanded by a captain; in the meantime the man-of-war 
Franklin saluted me with twenty-one guns. This mark of re¬ 
spect was quite unexpected in the United States, and of course I 
was the more surprised and flattered. 
In the navy-yard two frigates and two corvettes, not yet 
named, were building; one frigate was finished, but was still 
under cover. Both frigates are called forty-fours, but carry 
each sixty-four guns. These are intended to be thirty-two 
pounders, which is now the common calibre of the navy of the 
United States. The vessels are built of live oak, from North 
Carolina; the timbers are salted in order to prevent the dry-rot. 
The three ships of the line, Franklin, Washington, and Ohio, 
were in ordinary; they are called seventy-fours, but the two first 
are each calculated for eighty-six and the latter for one hundred 
and six guns. I saw likewise the renowned steam-frigate Ful¬ 
ton the First, of which many fables have been fabricated in Europe. 
The schooner Shark, of eight guns, was perfectly fitted out, and 
ready to sail in a few days for the coast of Africa, in order to pre¬ 
vent the slave-trade. 
At a second visit, we first went on board the steam-frigate, 
Fulton the First; this vessel is entirely disarmed, and serves as 
a receiving ship. She is a floating battery, and was to carry 
thirty thirty-two pounders. Her sides are six feet thick, made 
of oak timbers, which are fixed upon and crossing each other, so 
that the vessel may be compared to a floating block-house. Her 
machinery resembles that of a team-boat: she has two parallel 
keels, between these an engine of one hundred and twenty-horse 
power is fixed, and one large wheel is moved by it. The vessel 
is very spacious: in several places reverberatory furnaces may 
be added, in order to heat balls red-hot. Before this frigate was 
* Commodore of the navy-yard. 
