Attempts to leave New York City - thwarted!

Monday September 1st, 1823 – [Douglas attempts to leave town] In the morning, wrote to Mr Sabine [Secretary of the Horticultural Society in London and the person to whom Douglas had to report] and sent my despatch off at 10am. I prepared to leave town early [to go up the Hudson] by steamboat; owing to a change of boats I was prevented for the present. I set my dry plants to rights in the afternoon and attended in the evening a committee meeting of the New York Horticultural Society, for the purpose of offering their assistance to me during my residence in this city. M Hoffman, Esq., the President, is a man of reputation, being a wealthy merchant here. He uses me with all possible attention imaginable; invited me to stay at his all night, which I did. They will assist me materially in the way of my selection.  [This is another example of Douglas working his contacts to extract maximum benefit from his time in the USA.  No doubt the long arm of Professor Hooker is at work here, along with Sabine and locally Dr Hosack.  It's also another example of Douglas's role as an ambassador for the Horticultural Society, one in which he will make a good impression; he is helping the Horticultural Society in Britain quite as much as he is being helped by the New York Horticutural Society.  Just one example of the vigorous and active trade in ideas and knowledge, horticultural and scientific, which spanned the Atlantic and the whole of Europe. ]

There is currently a thriving and influential Horticultural Society of New York (founded in 1902) but it isn't the New York Horticultural Society which Douglas visited. Shades of the Popular Front of Judea!! The original New York Horticultural Society seems to have met with repeated failure to establish a botanic garden but inaugurated a movement that by the 1890s culminated in the creation of the New York Botanical Garden, a splendid institution to which I heartily recommend a visit.