At noon, agreeably to appointment, we were waited upon by the dignitaries of the city, and the commander of the garrison, together with a large number of the leading inhabitants. They all exhibited the same cordiality with the ruder portion of the population, and a degree of refinement and courtesy which would have done credit to more pretending capitals. We were a little startled by the somewhat exaggerated tone of compliment, both in respect to ourselves and our country, which ran through their conversation, and which seems characteristic of the Spanish people wherever found, in the Old World or the New. All concurred in representing the present unsettled state of public affairs as in a great measure due to foreign intervention and intrigue; and referred to the seizure of San Juan, and the English encroachments on their territories, in a tone of indignation and reproach, commensurate with the indignity and outrage to which they had been subjected. They seemed to entertain the highest hopes from the opening of more intimate relations with the United States; but, unacquainted with the nature, constitutional powers, and the policy of our government, these hopes were, as a matter of course, somewhat vague; yet it was not unnatural that, distracted within, and subjected to unscrupulous aggression from without, the United States should be looked to as a conciliator of intestine factions, as a friend, and a protector. I was deeply impressed with the feeling which they manifested, and was convinced that if once treated with consideration, and taught to respect themselves as a nation, there was no reason why the States of the Isthmus should not take a respectable rank amongst the republics of the continent. The interview was highly interesting, and gave me more elevated views of the temper of the people of the country than I had gathered from what had been published concerning them; an impression which a further and more intimate acquaintance only tended to confirm.