The morning broke while we were still on the water and a drizzling rain made objects beyond a short distance entirely imperceptible. We reached New York before breakfast and I procured a Hackney Coach for the ladies in which we rode from house to house to get lodgings. At the Clinton Hotel, the Franklin, the City we were refused and at last barely got in at Bunker’s, only accommodated with bedrooms and those scarcely the best. I was glad to get any at all for such is the state of New York in general that it is with the utmost difficulty families can be accommodated.

Breakfast finished I had the day before me. My morning was consumed in a long walk. The weather cleared away and it was fine. I rambled up the streets of Broadway as far as the famous block of Marble houses in Lafayette place. My thoughts followed a singular channel. Here was a great city of busy people. Yet in this City there 7seemed little of the character of a fixed population and little of the external appearance of happiness or content. The Houses look as if they had been built upon too small a scale for the present necessity. And as if contrivances of every kind had been put in requisition to supply the defects. Then the activity of competition glares in every street. Here is a livery stable built of half burnt bricks and clay mortar painted to imitate a Roman temple, there a two story wooden tenement announces the Café des Mille colonnes. One man advertises his blacking in large chalk capitals upon the wooden fences of every vacant lot and another man builds a house to the clouds that his painted letters may be seen for half a mile glaring over the intervening houses. Then such an intermixture of fashion and poverty. The spot where all the trade of the town is carried on is the residence of most of its wealthy men. Here is a great house and there a ginshop, or a tailor’s or a grocery. Such is the character of New York.1 The old families which were an aristocracy have given way. The new ones are coming forward on the strength of wealth suddenly acquired and which in all probability will be as suddenly lost. Adventurers dash in for the spoils and the thousand and one bloodsuckers who are found in the haunts of a corrupt city. I should never be anxious to live in such a city.

I returned home and dressed for dinner. Found nobody at the large table at which I dined whom I knew, and as neither of the ladies came down I had a very solitary and a very stupid dinner. Afternoon short and spent in my Mother’s room. Evening, a short walk and early to bed.

Arose early and got every thing in preparation so that we started in the boat for Philadelphia at 7 o’clock. Such a crowded boat. The company has a monopoly in the Railroad from Amboy to Bordentown, and they have dropped all the lines but this. There were more passengers and more baggage than could be accommodated. Among others I met our companions of yesterday, and Governor Knight of the Senate and St. Clair Clarke. The Post Office Committee of the Senate of which the last is Secretary and the other a member sit in Philadelphia tomorrow.

We travelled very quietly in the Railroad Cars the distance from 8Amboy to Bordentown in two hours and thirty five minutes which is quite reasonable going, the distance is I believe about thirty five miles. My mother bore the riding quite well though somewhat fatigued. We reached Philadelphia at a few minutes after three.

After an ineffectual attempt to get in at the United States Hotel we went to the North American kept by a Mrs. Yohe’s, and found ourselves on the whole pretty comfortable, so much so that I advised and my Mother concluded to remain here tomorrow.

The late dinner we had took up the afternoon, and as I had nothing to do, in the evening I thought I would drop in at the Theatre almost opposite our hotel and see Matthews give one of his “at homes.”1 The house which is a pretty but not a convenient one was quite filled. Matthews is now rather old, and after many experiences has come out for the second time to this Country to see if he can fill his pockets as well as he did the first. If I might judge from the entertainment of tonight he will hardly succeed. For he certainly was quite tiresome. His jokes are old, and no imitations however good can put new life into them, while his age shows itself in frequent repetition. After all it must be doubted whether he has not consulted his pocket at the expense of his reputation. For as a comic actor to perform a part assigned, he was excellent and still remains so. For as Nicholas Frefoil in a short afterpiece with the rest of the company he was admirable. His acting is the nature of a man sensible of great comic power—No straining after the applause of the vulgar, by buffoonery. As such I remembered him and was glad though so late to recognize him, but I could not sit out all the performances.