Often, in parts of the country most remote from each other, in wooden shanties and the poorest huts, I had this interesting fact of the purity and identity of the language of the Americans forced on my attention. And at such times I thought, not without some feelings of shame and sorrow, of the wretched vocabulary, consisting of not more than three or four hundred words, and those often ungrammatically used, and always more or less mispronounced, of our honest and hard-working peasantry. As language is the vehicle of ideas, these poor fellows have not been fairly used, and are being deprived of a large portion of the rich intellectual patrimony of Englishmen. [Sidenote: _Will the Debt be Paid?_] Before I went to America, I felt as certain as one can feel about any future event, that the Americans would pay every cent of their debt. I think still they possibly may. For their own sakes and for the honour of the race I hope they will. But I am not now so positive on this point as I was. Wherever it was allowable in conversation, I introduced the subject of the debt. At first, to my surprise (but after a time I got so accustomed to the expression of the sentiment that I should have been surprised had I heard anything to the contrary), I never met a single person in railway cars, or in hotels, who was in favour of complete payment. Many were in favour of complete repudiation; but far the greater number advocated the plan of immediate payment, by an issue to the public creditors of, as I heard it sometimes put, cartloads of greenbacks. This, of course, would not be very far from repudiation pure and simple: though nominally a payment in full, it would really be only the payment of a few shillings in the pound, as so large an issue would enormously depreciate the value of the greenbacks. This is the plan of Mr. Pendleton of Ohio, who is now the democratic candidate for the next presidency. It must therefore be approved generally by his supporters. The people, at a knowledge of whose sentiments I arrived in the way I have just mentioned, belonged chiefly, I suppose, to the class of storekeepers and travelling traders; though I have sometimes heard persons whose position I knew was better announce the same opinions. On the other hand, however, I never met with any flourishing and respectable merchant, and I may almost say with anyone whom we should describe as belonging to the upper class of society, who admitted for a moment the possibility of repudiation in any form. It seems, then, that in forecasting the probabilities of this question, the class that has numbers on its side must be regarded as pitted against the class that has on its side cultivation, intelligence, and wealth. But even from these few, some, as was once observed to me, ought probably to be discounted; because it is possible that some may be making a cheap profession of honesty, which they know will not, and have no wish ever should, be acted on. And the more certain they may