I was informed by an American that it was called after the second name in the title of James the Second, before he ascended the throne. “Bad as the Stuarts were to you, they were a great deal better for the colonies,” said he, “than your Hanover House, and perhaps if you hadn’t changed them you might not have lost us.” It was curious to hear an American saying a good word for the luckless house, though I am by no means of the opinion that England could ever have ruled colonies which were saturated with the principles of self-government. It was too cold at such a season as this for philosophical research in a sleigh, and too slippery for sauntering; and we were whirled out of the State capital without seeing much of it, except church steeples, and some decent streets, and the ice-bound river studded with hard-set steamers. There are, however, in summer time, as I hear, and can well imagine, many fine sights to be seen. There is the Fall of Cohoes, where the Mohawk River, a stream of greater body than the Thames at Richmond, leaps full seventy feet down into a gulf, whence it collects itself to pursue its course to the Hudson. There are Shaker settlements, and many communities of “isms” and astounding congregations of “ists;” and there are clean Dutch streets, and Dutch tenures and customs to this day. With the tenures, however, the rule of the majority has made rough work; and the lords _in capite_, or padroons, have suffered pauperisation by the simple process of nonpayment of their rents. The Legislature is now in solemn conclave. They are investigating charges implied in the speech of a New York alderman, who declared he could get any measure passed he liked, by paying the members--of course extra-officially, because the payment, _per se_, could only be an agreeable addition to their income. The Speaker is Mr Raymond, of the _New York Times_, who, in spite of or perhaps in consequence of the opposition of the _Caledonian Cleon_, his rival, was elected to that high office. It was in course of conversation with an American gentleman respecting the election, that I learned there was no more certain way of succeeding in any contest in the State, than to obtain the abuse of the organ under that person’s control. Be it senator, mayor, or common-councilman, the candidate he favours is lost, for all respectable people instinctively vote against him. CHAPTER III.