viewed by certain parties as a sort of ola podra; before which deluded persons thought nothing more certain than that their manifold grievances would be patiently heard, their claims find a ready settlement, and their family affairs all be handsomely arranged.  There had been men from the coast of Africa seeking a protection under cousin Jonathan’s wing, by which their demands on Old John were to them certain of being paid.  There were good men from Manchester, who, forgetting their anti-slavery sentiment’s, sought a relationship with our noble cousin which dated from previous to 1812, and under the shadow of his wings now sought to make the rascally Britishers pay for certain slaves frittered away from them while residing in Georgia, during the last war.  There too, were noble Dukes and Earls presenting claims against our cousin for certain lands in Florida, presented long since to them by some imbecile king, who would upon the same style of conditions, have given away the whole Continent.  The said gentlemen had long since forgotten the titles, and were only reminded of them by the existence of this Commission.  English gentlemen from Mexico sought, through the virtues of this Commission, pay for property appropriated by General Scott during the Mexican war.  Pensionless widows thought it the grand centre of generosity, and sought through it compensation for dead husbands.  Holders of Mississippi bonds regarded it a perfect El Dorado, at the shrine of which those long repudiated mementoes would be duly paid, hopes and angry passions requited, and old Mississippi herself again, as bright as a new-coined Jackson cent:  and last, but not least, gentlemen with very credulous and speculative faculties, and who held the most doubtful species of Florida bonds, had made their hearts glad on the certain payment of them by the Commission.  ‘In a word,’ said the learned Councillor, ’nothing can be more certain to my mind (and I am borne out in the belief by the variety and character of the claims presented to this Commission) than that the whole world is beginning to look on our worthy transatlantic cousin as the most generous, if not the most credulous, fellow extant!  Whether his model friend George Saunders, can take to himself any merit for having created this now very general opinion in Europe (by virtue of his most extraordinary circulars), Smooth is unable to decide; but certain is it that every disaffected subject on the continent who can get up spleen enough to fancy himself a much injured republican—­’ Here General F——­ interrupted, by submitting to the honorable Umpire whether these remarks were not gratuitous, irrelevant, and improper.  The Umpire, having given his opinion that they were unduly long (extending a whole hour beyond his dinner-time), begged the gentleman would turn the key to his concluding remarks.  ’I have only another remark to make,’ rejoined the gentleman with the sharp face:  ’If Sydney Smith had lived, there would have been more wit and sarcasm levelled at this