SUNDAY NIGHT, Feb. 15, 9 o’clock [1801].

MY DEAR AMIABLE FRIEND:  Could you have seen the boat leave the ship, I am sure your heart would have sunk within you. I would not have given sixpence for the lives of the men:  a tremendous wave broke and missed upsetting the boat by a miracle.  O God, how my heart thumped to see them safe!  Then they got safe on shore, and I had given a two-pound note to cheer up the poor fellows when they landed; but I was so anxious to send a letter for you. I knew it was impossible for any boat to come off to us since Friday noon, when the boat carried your letters enclosed for Napean, and she still remains on shore.  Only rest assured I always write, and never doubt your old and dear friend, who never yet deserved it.  The gale abates very little, if anything, and it is truly fortunate that our fleet is not in port, or some accident would most probably happen; but both St. George and this ship have new cables, which is all we have to trust to; but if my friend is true I have no fear.  I can take all the care which human foresight can, and then we must trust to Providence, who keeps a lookout for poor Jack.  I cannot, my dear friend, afford to buy the three pictures of the “Battle of the Nile,” or I should like very much to have them, and Mr. Boyden cannot afford to trust me one year.  If he could, perhaps I could manage it.  I have desired my brother to examine the four numbers of the tickets I bought with Gibbs.  I hope he has told you.  I dare say in the office here is the numbers of the tickets my agents have bought for the ensuing lottery.  I hope we shall be successful.  I hope you always kiss my godchild for me:  pray do, and I will repay you ten times when we meet, which I hope will be very soon.  Monday morning.  It is a little more moderate, and we are going to send a boat, but at present none can get to us, and, therefore, I send this letter No. (1) to say we are in being.  I hope in the afternoon to be able to get letters, and, if possible, to answer them.  Kiss my godchild for me, bless it, and Believe me ever yours,

NELSON AND BRONTE.

“WHITE-HAT” DAY.

On one of the last days in September we were the astonished recipients of a singular and mysterious invitation from a member of the New York Board of Brokers.  The note contained words like these:  “Come to the Exchange on Monday, September 30th:  white hats are declared confiscated on that day.”

It would have puzzled Oedipus or a Philadelphia lawyer to trace the connection between white hats and stocks, to tell what Hecuba was to them or they to Hecuba, and why they should be more interfered with by the New York Stock Exchange on the 30th of September than upon any other day.  It is true that during the last summer some slight political bias was supposed to be hidden beneath that popular headpiece irreverently styled “a Greeley plug,” but then stocks are not politics, nor would any but a punster trace