Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820Flint, James, active 19th century
History
Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820
Flint, James, active 19th century
Ohio River Valley -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
The Washington, a new ship of war, mounting 96 guns, is much visited
at present.[13] The seamen are a party of stout healthy looking men,
dressed in striped cottons, very suitable to the present hot weather,
and cleanly in the extreme. The decoration, cleanliness of the ship,
and the order that prevailed aboard, can scarcely be surpassed.
Diffident, however, as I am in forming an opinion on any naval affair,
I cannot avoid the impression that a vessel of such strength, and with
such a crew of freemen, must be an overmatch for any other vessel
constructed and manned as European ships of war were wont to be.
The steam-frigate is a novelty in naval architecture. The vessel
is bomb-proof, impelled by a powerful steam-engine; is said to be
furnished with apparatus for heating ball, for throwing hot water, for
moving a sort of arms to prevent boarding, and to carry submarine guns
of one hundred pounds shot.[14]
The steam-boat, Chancellor Livingstone, is the largest and finest
vessel of the kind perhaps ever built; she is 526 tons burden, length
165 feet, and breadth 50 feet. The power of the engine is estimated
as being equal to that of eighty horses. The boiler is of copper, and
weighs twenty tons. The cabin unites something like the horizontal
dimensions of a church, and a degree of elegance not exceeded by
any floating apartment. The Chancellor sails between New York and
Albany.[15]
{22} _August 3._ The theatre has some degree of resemblance in its plan
to that at Edinburgh, and is attended by a genteelly-dressed audience.
To-night the celebrated Mr. Incledon completed his engagement.[16] He
was highly applauded. The song, “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” was
alike cheered by Scots and Americans.
During this season of the year, most people wear light cotton clothes;
the jacket is in many cases striped, and the pantaloons of Indian
nankin. A broad-brimmed straw-hat is commonly used, to prevent the
face from being scorched by the rays of the sun. Draymen, and other
labouring people, wear a sort of frock or hunting shirt of tow-cloth,
that hangs down to the knees. A tall, thin, swarthy-countenanced man,
with a frock, surmounted by a broad straw hat, is a figure somewhat
new to the Briton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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