policy that suits the prevailing interest of the hour. Trade, liable to so many vicissitudes and sudden reverses, never can have any higher code of principles. I cannot express to you the sensations which crowded my mind as, seated on the mole at Naples, I regarded the schooner in question; a vessel that had been wrested, without even the pretence of legality, from an American citizen, to contribute to the pleasures of the king of this country. Of what avails it that one is an American? His property is taken from him by violence, his person outraged, and if he complain so as seriously to bring in danger the relations of his country, the chances are more than equal that his character would follow his property, if no other means offered to protect, as it is termed, the interests of trade. What aggravates the wrong, is the fact that a large portion of the class who have given this false direction to the public policy are not even Americans, but foreigners who assume the American character merely to advance their fortunes, and who are always ready to throw it aside when there is a question of national pride, or of national disgrace. For myself, a near view of the effects of these wrongs, and a consideration of the policy and feelings that have succeeded them, has destroyed all confidence in the protection of my native country. I deem the national character of no more use or service to me, as a traveller beyond the influence of his own laws, than if I were an Esquimaux. I know that others of more experience,—I may say, of _bitter_ experience,—have the same feeling. I declare solemnly, were I a merchant, and were my vessel seized by any power of sufficient force to render a contest with it of momentary importance to trade, that, so far from believing myself protected by my flag,—unless, indeed, I could call to my immediate succour some of those gallant and right-feeling men who command the cruisers, who are ready enough to assert the honour and rights of the flag, but who are oftener reproached than commended, however, when they _do_ discover a proper spirit of this nature,—I should conceive I had made a good escape by compromising with the aggressor for one half, instead of appealing to the government for protection.