Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1825-07-07

cussion is at ali events premature
This resolution will be called up in
due season before congress, when, il
its designs are fraught with danger
let it sleep forever in silence, if it is
calculated to rouse the angry spirit OF
opposition.
Extract Of letter from a Gentleman at Quebe'
tohsf friend in this place, dated June 90, 1925
"My Dear Friend,-While the impressions
are fresh upon my mind, I sit down to give you
a detail of the launch of the great ship, be-
lieve she is not yet named, compared with
which, modern "a gunner is long boat
did not post myself among the crowd In
steamboats,, wineries, and all the othermarne
conveyances which were put in requisltlon'
but from my study windows, at about a miles
distance, with an excellent magnifer, beheid
the pageantry and hustle ofthe scene: what
lost in music, ] gained in the witchery OF the
landscape-for the Bay spreading before me,
seemed absolutely peopled with human exls,
tences-lf you have read Silliman's descrlp'
tionyou can understand something oft; if mot
no delineation of mine can portray it. My
dwelling is upon the rampant huge and
ponderous stone wall which encircles the city
as a barrier and fertilization on the top OF the
| hill, which falls almost perpendicularly into
the lower town. An old long Tom, "a
FOUNDER or 18, I have not had the curiosity to
| inquire which, stands inclosed in solitary Dig
nifty before my door, trophy of Wolte's Prov
ess, and Montcalm's death: two shots about
Gas big as your head" belong to tins house,
and descends from tenant to tenant, having
found their way through the roof during the
cannonade of the city-but the view from
where am now writing, is, in diversity of
scene, hill, dale, gardens, woods, villages and
farms, encircling the spacious Bay, without
exception the most imposing landscape which
I ever beheld. Were painter, you should
soon see it-were l poet, you should soon
feel it: but dull prose is poor medium, thro'
which to describe creations magnifcence, and
arts ingenuity. On Saturday evening last,
the whole of our wharves exhibited but one
mass of motion; and by o'clock the small oar
and sail boat began to fit through the water
from every direction: at six, the steamboats,
and team.boats, with their living cargoes, de-
parted from their moorings, and the Bay was
speedily covered with curious Observers
The evening before had been very brilliant,
and the whole scene was as infinitely discern
IDLE through the glass as propinquity could
have made it; but Madam Aurora covered her.
self with haze, which the rays of Master
PhGbus only partially dispersed, so that the
minor portions of the concern became less dis
tinct However, as the appointed hour, high
water, arrived, the signal guns were fred
all eyes bursting from their sockets, as the
fastenings were successfully cleared away
all hats in hand, when the ponderous mass be-
gan, amid the huzzas of the multitudcs and
the sounds ofthe mellow horn, combined with
a grand chorous of several bands en- board the
different steamboats, But the anxious spec
tators were doomed to add one more testimo-
nv to solomon's inspired adage, "Vanity of
vanities and vexation of spirit, all is vanity"
for the mountainous mass of timber having
slipped about one third of the way into the
food, being something ola land-lubbermyself,
and preferring, it seems, her native Terra Fir
ma, to the boisterous uncertain deep, rem@ n
ed motionlsss. Six or seven steamboats, were
then fastened by cables to her Ladyshlp's
stern; but the coils of rope as soon as the pad
dies were in motion, snapped like SIMPSONS
green withs, or as "thread of tow is broken
when it toucheth the fire +"
There was vast number of persons on the
battery near me, and when it was ascertalned
by the return of the first steam boat, and the
crowd of at least one hundred small boats,
and at the lapse of full half an hour after high
water, that some obstruction had occurred,
Paddy with genuine good humor began to
sound the alarm, "April fools!"-and the peo-
ple began without ceremony, to secret them
selves in their dwellings. Miss NJ. and Mas
tiers r. and C.. returned about two hours at
forwards hungry and chopfallen-the steam
boats and oarsmen being the only gamers,
and we, poor creatures, having paid very
"dear for our whistle" Every kind OF con-
troversy is now aAoat, and the ingenious dis
play Of mechanical acumen, exhibited by the
sta,,d-stN partisans, and the shorecf boys,
would form fine topic for Hudibrastic recl-
tai. No doubt exists that she will be started,
if money, or power, or skill can doit. She is
too valuable to stay on shore. One half of
her cargo is on board nearly, containing 4ooo
tons of timber-the freight alone to England,
setting aside her contents, will be worth about
125, 900 dollars. Hshe stays, you must come
and see this Babel of wood; if she sails, you