motives of forbearance would seem to disappear, and, if really an American in more than pretension, it appears to me the time would be come to vindicate the truth with the frankness and energy of a freeman. [Footnote 29: In 1833, the writer was in discourse with a person who had filled one of the highest political situations in Europe, and he was asked who represented the United States at the court of ----. On being told, this person paused, and then resumed, "I am surprised that your government should employ that man. He has always endeavoured to ingratiate himself in my favour, by depreciating everything in his own country." But why name a solitary instance? Deputies, members of parliament, peers of France and of England, and public men of half the nations of Europe, have substantially expressed to the writer the same opinion, under one circumstance or another, in, perhaps, fifty different instances.] LETTER XIII. Ferry across the Rhine.--Village of Rudesheim.--The _Hinter-hausen_ Wine,--Drunkenness.--Neapolitan curiosity respecting America.--The Rhenish Wines enumerated.--Ingelheim.--Johannisberg.--Conventual Wine.--Unseasonable praise.--House and Grounds of Johannisberg.--State of Nassau.--Palace at Biberich.--The Gardens.--Wiesbaden.--Its public Promenade.--Frankfort on the Maine. Dear ----, Within an hour after we left the Ritterstein, we were crossing the bridge that leads into Bingen. Like true _flaneurs_, we had not decided where to sleep, and, unlike _flaneurs_, we now began to look wistfully towards the other side of the Rhine into the duchy of Nassau. There was no bridge, but then there might be a ferry. Beckoning to the postmaster, who came to the side of the carriage, I put the question. "Certainly, as good a ferry as there is in Germany."--"And can we cross with your horses?"--"Ja--ja--we do it often." The affair was arranged in a minute. The leaders were led back to the stable, and with two horses we drove down to the water-side. A skiff was in readiness, and spreading a sprit-sail, we were in the middle of the stream before there was time for thought. In ten minutes we landed in the celebrated Rheingau, and at the foot of a hill that was teeming with the vines of Rudesheim. "Charlemagne observing, from the window of his palace at Ingelheim," says an old legend, "that the snow disappeared from the bluff above Rudesheim earlier than from any of the neighbouring hills, caused the same to be planted with vines." What has become of Charlemagne and his descendants, no one knows; but here are the progeny of his vines to the present hour.