This Kind Of Weather The Indians Call _Half_ Winter.

Unfortunately for the Philadelphians, they had no half winter in the year 1793.

- I spent this day in surveying the city, which, as well as the manners of the inhabitants, is more like England than any other part of America. New York is a London in miniature, populous streets, hum of business, busy faces, shops in style, &c.

_Sept. 25th,_ - I spent this day in viewing the city with increasing admiration: It is certainly one of the first maritime situations in the world. The extensive settlements on the banks of the Hudson, which is navigable upwards of two hundred miles, amply supplies the city with exports and provision. The inhabitants boast of having the best fish-market in the United States; their own oyster-beds, and their vicinity to the _New England states_, give them this advantage[Footnote: There are fish on the coast of America which have certain boundaries, beyond which they never go; salmon, for instance, is never found south of a river in Connecticut; and certain southern fish never visit the New England coast.]. - The governor's house, new theatre, and tontine coffee house, are magnificent buildings; the public walks well laid out, and pleasantly situate.

One advantage this city possesses peculiar to itself; you may be as much in the country as you can desire for five farthings english money: the fare is no more to Long Island, where you may be conveyed, from the heart of the city, in a few minutes, and meet with as great a variety of hill and dale, wood and water, as in any part of the world. This island is ninety miles in length.

_Sept. 19th_. - I intended proceeding to Boston, by the way of Rhode Island, as I was informed the passage through _Hell Gates_[Footnote: A dangerous strait, between stupendous rocks.] and the Sound is very pleasant at this season; but the fear of being obliged to perform a quarantine at my arrival prevented me. I set off this morning, in the stage. Our course lay the whole length of the island, which is barren and rocky; affording some romantic situations, in several of which I observed (to use a cockney phrase) _snug little boxes_; these, I was informed, belonged to the wealthy citizens; they commanded a view of the city, the North River, the Sound, and adjacent islands.

At noon we entered Connecticut, the most southerly of the New England states. Slept at Fairfield.

On the night of the 20th we reached Hertford, the capital of the state. - About five miles from it, a house was pointed out to me, where a very shocking circumstance took place a few years ago. - A merchant, not being able to bear a change in his circumstances from affluence to extreme poverty, coolly and deliberately shot his wife and five children, and afterward himself. He tried every means, for several days, to send his wife away; but she preferred dying with him and the children.

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