LETTERS.
FROM 1852 TO 1853.
AMERICA.
To .
Here you see my first written words on board H.M.S. Canada, which is tossing like fury against a dead-ahead wind.
Saturday night we passed Holyhead, Sunday coasted Ireland, and passed the Asia steamer with all her sails set. This day week we are to be in port, spite of head wind.
A very Sunday-like Sunday indeed: fair wind and bright weather; church service in the chief cabin, read by the surgeon, with sermon by the Rev. Dr. Cook, of the Presbyterian Established Church in Quebec: the lieutenant in his uniform, and some ten or twelve broad-chested sailors, in their blue woollen shirts, occupying the end of the cabin, aft—fine fellows as need be seen. Since then, a deal of promenading on the quarter-deck. I get sick of the publicities, however, about 2 o'clock, and come down to my cabin to scribble. Lowell, who is on board, is very friendly indeed. Thackeray and I also get on.
We have on board a Dragoon officer and a young Engineer officer, bound for Bermuda; two American medical students; a young half-English New York candidate for orders; a Manchester youth, on his first trip to New Orleans; a Cambridge travelling bachelor, with his brother, an Oxford man, knocked
