LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS; WITH SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE PROMINENT PUBLIC CHARACTERS OF THE UNITED STATES. WRITTEN DURING THE WINTER OF 1817-18. BY A FOREIGNER. George Wakersten CITY OF WASHINGTON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JACOB GIDEON, JUNR. 1818. Checked May 1913 THE NEW YORK ASTOR. LENOX AND DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, to wit: L. S. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twelfth day of August, eighteen hundred and eighteen, and in the fortythird year of American independence, Jacob Gideon, junr. of the said district, hath deposited in the Clerk's office of the United States' District Court, for the district of Columbia, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor and publisher, in the words following, to wit: "Letters from Washington, on the Constitution and Laws ; "with Sketches of some of the Prominent Public Characters of the United States. Written during the winter of661817-18. By a Foreigner." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to an act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." In testimony whereof, I, Edmund I. Lee, Clerk of the said Court, have hereto set my hand and affixed the seal of my office, the date above mentioned. EDMUND I. LEE, Clerk of the District Court. PREFACE. THE following letters having been received by the American public with very general approbation, the editor has been induced to present them to the world in another, and he trusts, a better form than the one in which they originally appeared. The eagerness with which they were republished and the satisfaction with which they seem to have been read, must have been highly gratifying to the feelings of the author. The editor presumes too, that it was not the least of that gentleman's gratifications to find his labors ascribed to men so conspicuous for ability and literature as Selkirk, Walsh, Paulding, Wirt, &c. It gives the editor pleasure to state that, from the occasional remarks he has seen in the different prints into which these letters have found their way, he has taken the liberty to erase those passages which were deemed offensive, without diminishing the correctness of the sketch or destroying the truth and accuracy of the portrait. It is, however, due to the author to observe, that for those gentlemen whose characters he has attempted to delineate, no man can entertain a higher respect or a more exalted opinionand that no idea could have been more distant from his mind than to diminish their standing in society or to depreciate the well merited reputation they have acquired. Intentions like these, were, I am sure, entirely foreign to his feelings, and he deeply regrets that they should have been imputed to him. His object seems to have been to present to the public portraits of some of the leading |