Detroit contains about three hundred houses, and is the largest town in the western country. It stands contiguous to the river, on the top of the banks, which are here about twenty feet high. At the bottom of them there are very extensive wharfs for the accommodation of the shipping, built of wood, similar to those in the Atlantic sea-ports. The town consists of several streets that run parallel to the river, which are intersected by others at right angles. They are all very narrow, and not being paved, dirty in the extreme whenever it happens to rain: for the accommodation of passengers, however, there are footways in most of them, formed of square logs, laid transversely close to each other. The town is surrounded by a strong stockade, through which there are four gates; two of them open to the wharfs, and the two others to the north and south side of the town respectively. The gates are defended by strong block houses, and on the west side of the town is a small fort in form of a square, with bastions at the angles. At each of the corners of this fort is planted a small field-piece; and these constitute the whole of the ordnance at present in the place. The British kept a considerable train of artillery here, but the place was never capable of holding out for any length of time against a regular force: the fortifications, indeed, were constructed chiefly as a defence against the Indians. Detroit is at present the head-quarters of the western army of the States; the garrison consists of three hundred men, who are quartered in barracks. Very little attention is paid by the officers to the minutiæ of discipline, so that however well the men may have acquitted themselves in the field, they make but a poor appearance on parade. The belles of the town are quite au desespoir at the late departure of the British troops; though the American officers tell them they have no reason to be so, as they will find them much more sensible agreeable men than the British officers when they know them; a style of conversation, which, strange as it may appear to us, is yet not at all uncommon amongst them. Three months, however, have not altered the first opinion of the ladies. I cannot better give you an idea of the unpolished, coarse, discordant manners of the generality of the officers of the western army of the States, than by telling you, that they cannot agree sufficiently amongst themselves to form a regimental mess; repeated attempts have been made since their arrival at Detroit to establish one, but their frequent quarrels would never suffer it to remain permanent. A duellist and an officer of the western army were nearly synonimous terms, at one period, in the United States, owing to the very great number of duels that took place amongst them when cantoned at Grenville. [Sidenote: DETROIT.]