which lie on and adjacent to the national road, whichi has lately been marked out, and for the opening of which an appropriation of 40,000 dollars was voted by the last Congress. As you would yourself have the selection of those lands, you could not fail to appropriate money to advantage upon them. They will be the property of, and a patent will be issued in the name of the person in whose name they are located.

"There never can be, from the nature of our surveys, a dispute about the title of lands derived from the government in the State of Illinois. This was not the case in the old states, where the surveys were made by individuals, and clashed with each other. It was this conflicting of titles that enriched the lawyers of Kentucky and Tennessee, and rendered so doubtful and precarious the freeholds in those states.

"The house of Mr Soard at Blooming Grove is at this time full, having in it three families. Jackson's at Hilsboro' would be a better place. They have but one servant, and could probably not spare more than one room. The family is amiable and agreeable, and would do all in their power to add to the comfort of both Mrs and yourself; but, if you should conclude to examine the country on the national road, (which I would certainly advise,) it would be better for you to spend part of your time at the seat of government, where you can be furnished after a fashion with both rooms and servants, for something like six dollars per week for both of you. And you would, I suppose, have to pay about the same price at either Jackson's or

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Soard's. The cheapest and most agreeable plan for you to travel at this season of the year would be to purchase a vehicle and horses, and come by land. I do not know the price of horses in New York; but I am certain, that, if you were to purchase a handsome dearborn there, you could sell it for a much higher price here,—at least twenty-five per cent. above cost; and, while you were in this beautiful level prairie country, it would be the means of affording amusement and recreation, both to Mrs and yourself; and, as you would have to employ a pilot to show you the country and the surveys, it would be a cheap and agreeable mode of passing from point to point. As the attorneygeneral does not live in this place, and Judge Hall is an excellent lawyer, I showed your letter to the latter gentleman, who freely afforded the legal advice contained above upon the subject of the military and public lands. As the land-office is in this place, he thinks it would be quite as convenient for you to fix your porary residence in it.

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"If the Ohio should be high, which seldom happens at this season of the year, would it not then be best for you to bring a dearborn to Louisville, and purchase horses at that place, and come through by land? Horses are, I understand, low at Louisville.

"As I have been engaged in surveying public lands, and have a good knowledge of the country, it is probable that I could be of service to you if you should conclude to make some locations in this state, in which case I will be happy to serve you.

"If any accident should have detained my brother, General Joseph Duncan, who is the member of Congress for this State at New York, where he was at the date of your letter upon business, hunt him out, and he will have it in his power, and will take a pleasure, in giving you more information than could be expected in the limits of a letter."

I have been surprised, while engaged in revising what I had written at the time respecting Albion and the English prairie and neighbourhood, to observe, in the fifth chapter of Mr Ferrall's book, the statement as to the settlement of Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, in which he describes Albion as "a small insignificant town,"- "their property as having passed into other hands," and "the members of their families as in comparative indigence."

I was fearful, on obtaining this information, that some calamity had recently befallen the settlement, since I visited it in May 1830, and turned over the pages of Mr Ferrall's book to learn when he was there. Mr Ferrall is, I found, entirely silent as to dates on his ramble, but he mentions in his very last chapter, that he left New York on the 1st October 1830, which proves that he could not have seen Illinois much later than I did.

The discrepancy between his representation and my own, therefore, appears to me not easily to be accounted for. It is clear from what he writes, for he states the fact positively, that he was at Albion, but he

must have seen it with very different eyes from mine. The late Mr Flower laid out, confessedly, far too large sums in expensive buildings there, for which his family are not likely, at least for a long period, to have any adequate return. But it is a thriving place, a county town, the great market for the produce of a very large district of Illinois, and the residence of extensive merchants. The country in the neighbourhood is singularly beautiful. That the property had not passed from the families of Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, when I was there in May 1830, is most certain.

The original settlers, Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, were, it is true, both dead: Mr Birkbeck drowned, not as Mr Ferrall mentions, when he was Secretary of State, but after the Illinois senate had rejected his nomination, and he had again returned to a private station. His son-in-law, Mr Pell, and his daughter, were residing on his property when I was on the spot. Mr Flower's property passed to his eldest son on his death. He and his family, and his mother, are all resident upon it, and, as far as I observed or heard, in flourishing circumstances, contented and happy.

It may be very true, that Mr Flower is not so rich a man as his father, who had a large family, and divided his fortune among his children, not in the unequal proportions very common in England. I cannot conceive that Mr Ferrall was himself on the English prairie, or at least on Mr Flower's settlement, nor does he say that he was. I therefore suspect that the information he has given on this subject has been derived from

others, in which case I submit, that, considering the nature of the information, and the effect it might have on the friends of the parties, and perhaps on some part of the public, he ought to have mentioned the source from which he had it.

I know nothing of the hostility said by Mr Ferrall to have been shown by the back-woodsmen to Messrs Flower and Birkbeck. Neither Mr Flower, nor any of the gentlemen I saw at Albion, ever mentioned any thing of the kind. I cannot give any credit to the story.

The Wabash River having lately overflowed itsbanks, we had to pass five miles of very wet bad road before we arrived on the west bank of the Wabash,' opposite to Harmony, where the river and its banks are very beautiful. I was struck with the gay appearance of the place, before the ferry-boat moved from the east side to carry us over. The population seemed to be altogether out of doors, on a beautiful Sunday evening. In a few minutes after I crossed the river I found myself in an excellent hotel, where there was a good reading-room, at Harmony, in the State of Indiana.