“MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I have been so occupied and I have been moving about so fast that I really have had time to write to hardly anybody, and I put off a letter to you till I had a more quiet moment; but as it appears that moment was never to come, I now write to you on board of a steamer on Lake Erie. You have, of course, heard from the Tuckers [these were his cousins on his mother’s side] that I went up to Boston for a few days to see some of them; indeed all except Mrs. C---- and Mr. Tucker himself, who was mending his bridge, and could not leave his work; they were all very kind, but I like poor Mrs. G---- better than any of them. “I have since been a tour of the lakes, and have travelled some thousand miles. I went up the Hudson, crossed to Saratoga, Trenton Falls, Falls of the Mohawk, Oswego River to Lake Ontario; then to Niagara, Buffalo, and to Lake Erie--to Detroit; from Detroit to Lake St. Clair, and Lake Huron to Mackinan, from Mackinan took a bark canoe, and crossed the Huron, went up the River St. Clair to the Sault Sᵗᵉ Marie, and from thence to Lake Superior. The latter part of the journey, five days in a bark canoe, was very fatiguing, and I was devoured by the mosquitoes; but it has been very interesting, and I have been much gratified. I am now on my return and am bound for Canada, passing by Buffalo and Niagara to Toronto. Since I have been here I have been looking out for a good piece of land, for it more than doubles its value in five or six years, and I have been fortunate in purchasing some very fine land from the Government opposite to Detroit on the Canada side--about 600 acres. I have written to B---- B----, offering to settle him on it, as it is not out of the world, but in very good society. I think it will be worth his while, as in a few years he will be independent. He will however require £300 or so to fit himself out, but that he only need borrow as he will soon be able to pay off. I trust that if he accepts my offer his brother will assist him, and if so, he will do well. “I am going to Toronto to pay the first instalment, and from there to Montreal, and then I return by Lake Champlain so as to call upon Mrs. C---- at Burlington; and from thence proceed to Bellows Falls to see my Uncle Tucker, who is rather angry with me for not going there before, which I could not. From Bellows Falls I shall return to New York--I do not think by the way of Boston, for they want to give me a public dinner there, and I want to avoid it. At Philadelphia I must be in September for the same purpose, as I accepted the invitation; but I wish they had not paid me the compliment. From Philadelphia I go to Washington to canvass for the international copyright, and then I shall probably go south for the winter.