practice of drinking punch in the mornings as well as evenings. The tankard was prepared early, and visitors, during the day, were invited to partake of it. The usual dinner-hour was one or two; and the suppers were abundant in good things. The evening amusements were cards and dancing; concerts were attended, theatres were prohibited. We may gather some idea of the manner of living by the fact that, when going to visit a niece of his wife in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Hancock traveled with a coach and four, two outriders, a postillion, coachman, and footman,-the servants in livery, besides seven horses. At the end of the first day's journey they reached Marblehead; arriving at Portsmouth, sixty miles from home, on the second day. At another time they were a fortnight traveling from Boston to Philadelphia, in similar style. Once, when journeying on this route, Mrs. Hancock found, after stopping over night at a certain place, that her horses were so jaded they could not proceed the next day. On inquiry, it was ascertained that they had been taken in the night and used on a pleasure excursion in honor of St. Patrick's day.

Governor Hancock was a great sufferer from the malady aforementioned. At one time, when he returned from public business, he was so ill that he was taken from his carriage in the arms of his servants, and laid upon the sofa till the tailor who had made the new suit of clothes he had on could cut them off, so that he could be carried with less pain to his sleeping room. At

another time, when suffering in a similar way, he went as usual to the State House, which was then at the head of State Street, to attend to his appointed duties. Coming out, he was surrounded by an admiring multitude, who, after he had entered the carriage in which his wife had come to meet him, began to remove the four horses, with the design of drawing him themselves to his home in Beacon Street. Four hundred men were already forming in procession with this intent. The Governor was overcome by this demonstration of public respect, and being so ill he could not speak for himself, he requested his wife, who was noted for her personal beauty, to address the crowd from the carriage window, and say to them that the Governor was overwhelmed by the honor they desired to confer upon him; that he gratefully acknowledged the kindness of feeling that prompted the act; but he must beg them, on account of his present weak state, to permit him to be taken by his horses as rapidly as possible to his home. His request was granted.

Mrs. Hancock often related the circumstances of his severe attack of gout at the time when General Washington was expected to make his first appearance in Boston. The General had accepted an invitation to dine that day with the Governor. It had been represented to Washington that etiquette demanded that the Governor should be at the entrance of the town to welcome him. This was expected; and when the General had been delayed two hours-waiting, in a cold wind,