The Royal Exchange - This building is certainly the most respectable object in the commercial city of London.  It was first built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and fell a sacrifice to the fire of London, in 1666; and in the place of it, the present superb structure was erected.  The ground plot of the Royal Exchange in 203 feet in length, and 171 in breadth.  The area contains 61 square perches, and is surrounded with a regular and substantial stone building of rustic architecture.  In both the principal fronts which are north and south, there is a portico, in the centre of which are the two grand entrances.

The interior part of the area is surrounded by an arcade, which serves as a kind of a mercantile promenade, and to shelter the merchants at the times of their assembling, from the inclemency of the weather.  In the intercolumnation there are 24 niches, twenty of which are filled with statues of the kings of England.

In this place the merchants, &c. &c. meet every day between the hours of twelve and three.  One sees at that time, as it were in miniature, the four quarters of the world assembled.