From Pompeii we went to Castel-a-mare. This town stands near the ancient site of Stabiæ, which was also destroyed by the eruption of the year 79. The king has a favourite country palace on the heights behind the town; it is called _Qui si sana_,[2] a name that answers to the _Sans Souci_ of Frederic, though of a different signification. We saw, a short time since, the royal squadron on its way from Naples to Castel-a-mare, the king having several vessels that he uses as yachts. One was a ship, and there were also a brig and a schooner. There is a schooner now lying at Naples, that was seized under the decrees of Murat, which was formerly appropriated to the same purposes. Since my arrival here, I have heard an interesting fact coupled with these seizures, on authority so good that I give it credit. Footnote 2: “_Here one is cured_,” literally translated. When the proposition to seize these vessels was made to Murat, he resisted it, on the ground that it was a species of piracy, a breach of faith that could not be tolerated for a moment by any independent nation, and _that immediate war would be the consequence_. His minister knew America better than his master: “_America will not declare war, sire, for it is a country of traders, and these are men who will not consent to lose their present profits for the maintenance of a principle._ It is true, in the end something will be done, for no nation can submit to such an aggression; but at present it will be nothing but talk. Hereafter, Naples may have to make compensation; but your majesty needs money, and we can consider this as a forced loan.” The counsel was followed, and we now know how true was the minister’s prediction. This person was wrong in his general estimate of the American nation, but perfectly right in that of its merchants, who have the character common to all in trade. They never look beyond the day. It is our misfortune to have no towns but trading towns, and, consequently, no collected influence to resist their published opinions and interested clamour, which are fast tending to a misconception, and to a displacing of all the interests of life. Thus it is we find men treating commerce, which is merely an incident of human affairs, as a principal, and struggling to make every thing, even morals and laws, subservient to its ends, and this, too, without a due regard to means. This class of citizens overawe those presses which have the greatest circulation, and by acting in concert, and with available means, form a powerful, and, more especially, a clamorous resistance, to any thing that thwarts, or which they fancy thwarts, their interests. The commercial class of America, as a class, will ever be found in opposition to any administration that loyally carries out the intention of the government; for that intention is indissolubly connected with great principles, whereas their bias has ever been to expedients that are temporary and fluctuating, or to the