The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

Mail Articles.

PHILADELPHIA, March 21.

Extract of a letter from Washington City, dated March 16, to the Editor of the National Gazette.

Conversation turns here chiefly upon what the foreign Ministers have said, or mean to say, and the foreign world will think, of the recognition of the emancipated Spanish provinces. Out of the Cabinet, nothing positive is known. If the Spanish Ambassador has protested, as was to be expected, I presume his remonstrance will be laid before Congress, that none of the data in possession may be wanting to that body, when they proceed to act upon the President's Message. Members are not now, I believe, personally as inquisitive as they used to be. A worthy country Representative, in the good old republican days, would pay a morning visit to Mr. Jefferson or Mr. Madison, seat himself deliberately in an arm-chair near his Excellency, take root, and if any great diplomatical affair was in agitation, interrogate him in the most direct manner, with regard to all the particulars within his knowledge. "They say that you have received despatches from our Minister at the Court of , what does he tell you? What do you mean to answer? I guess you mean to do so and so. What's your opinion about peace or war, and things in general?"— There was a naivete in all this, which baffled all polite and distant intimation of unwillingness to answer, or impropriety in disclosure. Nothing was more difficult than to get round the interrogatory, and nothing more sure than that if facts and sentiments were avowed, they would, in the course of the day, travel from mess to mess, until they become as profound a State secret, as the expedition against the West-India pirates, over which the National Intelligencer has lately thrown a thick veil, by publishing the report of the Naval Committee on the subject. However, as I have suggested, members no longer pump the President, nor even the Secretaries and clerks, out of the two Houses.