assent to in respect to the St. Lawrence,--the Abbé proposed a walk in the grounds, and once there, laying aside politics, diplomacy, and international law, the two statesmen were soon very deep in botany and the system of Linnæus, and agriculture, and in all the cognate questions of climate, soils, manures, &c., and seemed quite as eager in these pursuits, as in those grave and more solemn questions of state policy, which occupy, but do not, in the same degree, innocently and surely reward the attention and interest of public men. It was on occasion of this visit, that the Abbé Corréa expressed his gratification at finding in the plantation of Mr. King so large a collection of the plants and shrubs indigenous to that part of our country,--a gratification enhanced, as he added, by the previous discussions in the library, in the course of which he had such demonstration of Mr. King's varied and comprehensive, yet minute knowledge of the great public questions which had agitated Europe, and of the more recent, as well as more ancient expositions of international law applicable thereto. Previously to this period, however, Mr. King had been recalled to public life. At the commencement of the war of 1812 with Great Britain, Mr. King, though disapproving both of the time of declaring, and of the inefficiency in conducting, the war, and reposing little confidence either in the motives or the abilities of the administration, did nevertheless feel it his duty, the sword being drawn, to sustain, as best he might, the cause of his country. Among the first, and for a time most discouraging results of the war, was the stoppage of specie payments by all the banks south of New England. The panic in New-York unavoidably was very great; and very much depended upon the course to be taken by its banks and its citizens, as to the effect to be produced upon the national cause and the national arm, by the suspension of payments. In this emergency, appealed to by his former fellow-citizens, Mr. King went to the city, and at the Tontine Coffee House, at a general meeting called to deliberate on the course to be taken by the community in regard to the banks, and in general in regard to the rights and duties alike, of creditors and debtors under the circumstances, he made a speech to the assembled multitude, in which, after deploring the circumstances which had forced upon the banks the necessity of suspension, he went on to show that it was a common cause, in which all had a part, and where all had duties. That the extreme right of the bill-holder, if enforced to the uttermost against the banks, would aggravate the evil to the public, although possibly it might benefit a few individuals; while, on the other hand, good to all, and strength and confidence to the general cause, would result from a generous forbearance, and mutual understanding that, if the banks on their part would restrict themselves within the limits as to issues and credits