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 1 
 
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 32X 
 
 1 
 
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3] 
 
 Wl 
 
yi^ 
 
 MEN AND THINGS IN AMERICA ; 
 
 BEING THE EXPERIENCE OF 
 
 A YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES, 
 
 ^W.:' 
 
 ifn a ^tviti of Uttttrd to a jTrirntl. 
 
 " Of all the ills that human hearts eudure, 
 
 How few are those that kings can cause ov cure." 
 
 GULUSMITU'S TItATEI.LEU. 
 
 " For he no freeman isi 
 
 Who makes cr keeps a slave." pollock. 
 
 BY A. THOMASON. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WILLIAM SMITH, 113 FLEET STREET. 
 
 FRASEK AND CO., EDINBURGH; CURRY AND CO., DUHLIN, 
 
 « 
 
 MDCCCXXXVIII. 
 
PRINTED BY NUTTALL AND HODGSON, 
 GOUGH SQUARE. 
 
THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH REVERENT RESPECT, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL. BARONET, 
 
 BY ONE OF THE HUMBLEST OF HIS 
 
 NUMBERLESS ADMIR'ilRS, 
 
 ITS AUTHOR. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 As the autlwr's stay in America extended from 
 August, 1835, to August, 1836, it may be expected that 
 he should give some reason for so great a delay in the 
 appearance of his little work. He had taken notes, 
 with a view to a much earlier publication -, but imme- 
 diately on his return to England, having received an 
 urgent invitation to join in a speculation started by a 
 newly-formed company in Belgium, his stay there, and 
 some other hindrances nearer home, caused him to lay 
 aside his first intention altogether. It so happened, 
 however, that the person to whom the letters were ad- 
 dressed, having had for years a strong desire to settle in 
 the United States, in which he was to be joined by 
 several other individuals his acquaintances, having, li! 
 him, emigratory predilections, the author was asked to 
 give his opinions at length on the subject, for their 
 guidance : hence the more immediate origin of this 
 volume. As so many take an interest in the subject, 
 the author had been not a little applied to, from many 
 other quarters, for information ; and he is now sorry 
 that he could not find leisure enough to extend his notes 
 into their present shape long ago ; he would thus have 
 been able to reply to all importunities like a departed 
 surgeon — who will be immortalised by his biscuits, as 
 Madame de Maintenon has been by her cutlets — with 
 the ready stop-query — '* Have you read my book?" 
 
 It will be seen that the complimentary terms usual in 
 epistolary address have been retrenched, as taking up 
 room uselessly. Nevertheless the following letters are 
 strictly what they profess to be — familiar communica- 
 tions to an old and valued friend, for his behoof and 
 
\ 
 
 VI 
 
 ri 
 
 1 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 that of others more intimate with him than with the 
 writer. Without this understanding, tlie style adopted 
 might justly be chargeable with undue familiarity. 
 
 Mention is made in Letter IX. of certain Addresses 
 drawn up for the perusal of the workmen of the United 
 States, but which did not see the light there. The 
 auther's first intention was to subjoin them by way of 
 appendix to this volume, as not inapplicable to exist- 
 ing circumstances among ourselves. On consideration, 
 however, as they would form a good-sized pamphlet 
 alone, he thought they would greatly increase the bulk 
 without commensurately increasing the utility of the 
 work. Nos. I. and II., however, he has given. That on 
 Trades' Unions was at first selected, but rejected, partly 
 on account of its length, and partly because a great deal of 
 matter, similar to what is therein contained, has been an- 
 ticipated by recent articles in the journals. But, indeed, 
 much of what would have been new to the humbler class 
 of enquirers in America, is to be found at sources of easy 
 access among us : and therefore the suppression of most 
 of these Addresses, at least for the present, will be of the 
 less consequence to the English general reader. 
 
 One observation remains to be added : that the dis- 
 tinguished person to whom this small work is inscribed, 
 knows nothing "wlliatever of the writer, nor of his inten- 
 tion to make such a dedication. 
 
 A. T. 
 
 February, 1838. 
 
 ( 
 
 i . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Letter Page 
 
 I. PRELIMINARY . . . . . .1 
 
 11. THE VOYAGE . . . ... 10 
 
 III. NEW YORK ... . . .23 
 
 IV. NEW YORK AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD . . 35 
 V. IRISH OPINION OF THE AMERICANS, &C. . il 
 
 VI. EXCURSION TO ALBANY, &C. . . .58 
 
 VII. NEW LEBANON SPRINGS THE SHAKERS . 73 
 
 VIII. RETURN TO NEW YORK A LAND STORM 
 
 AMERICAN OPINION OP THE IRISH 
 
 CANADIAN AFFAIRS .... 100 
 
 IX. trades' UNIONS AMERICAN POLITICS . 117 
 
 X. COURTS IN NEW YORK DIVORCE CASE . 137 
 
 XI. NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA DESCRIP- 
 TION OF THE LATTER CITY THE QUA- 
 KERS PASSAGES IN THE EARLY HIS- 
 TORY OF PENNSYLVANIA NOT TO BE 
 FOUND IN ITS PUBLIC ANNALS . .161 
 
 XII. COLOURED PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 177 
 
 XIII. AMERICAN CLIMATE; MANUFACTURES ; BOOK 
 TRADE DRUG STORES OF PHILADEL- 
 PHIA; THEATRES; FIREMEN; PUBLIC 
 MEETINGS; STATE OF SOCIETY THERE . 19G 
 
via 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I 
 
 Letter Page 
 
 XIV. SAnHATICAL OBSERVANCES IN AMERICA AND 
 ENGLANI) THEIR INFLUENCE UPON GE- 
 NERAL MORALS PARTICULAR EXAM- 
 PLES ... ... 212 
 
 XV. PRETENDED ABSENCE OP POVERTY IN AME- 
 RICA SEVERE WINTER THERE— FEMALE 
 
 EMPLOYMENT FANNY WRIGHT . 229 
 
 XVI. GENERAL LEGISLATURE, GOVERNMENT, AND 
 
 JUSTICIARY OF THE UNITED STATES . 240 
 
 XVII. "CHEAP government" . . . 254 
 
 XVIII. ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS RETURN TO 
 
 ENGLAND HOME POLITICS CONCLU- 
 SION .... . . 276 
 
 APPENDIX . . ... 287 
 
 , 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 The indulgent reader is besought to alter the mistaken words 
 " shoal of porpoises," in third line page 13 of his copy, to 
 " herds of the grampus." 
 
NI) 
 
 
 DK- 
 
 
 VM- 
 
 
 • 
 
 212 
 
 VI E- 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 ALK 
 
 ! 
 
 • 
 
 229 
 
 \ND 
 
 
 S . 
 
 240 
 
 • 
 
 254 
 
 TO 
 
 
 JLU- 
 
 
 • 
 
 276 
 
 • 
 
 287 
 
 MEN AND THINGS IN AMERICA, 
 
 SiC. cStf. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 You know, my dear friend, that a tedious conva- 
 lescence, which followed upon a fit of illness as sud- 
 den as severe, was the principal cause of my leaving 
 England for the Continent, more than ten years 
 ago. At that time there was small encouragement to 
 remain in London, for any prospects that our busi- 
 ness offered, which had not even at that time re- 
 covered from the effects of the panic of 1825. After 
 a while, my health continuing to improve, France 
 became, as it were, a second country to me, and I 
 thought it likely I might pass my days there. Trade 
 generally, and ours in particular, was flourishing ; 
 and my prospects of doing something satisfactory 
 for myself in Paris were tolerably fair. Perhaps 
 nevor, since France was a country, was it in such a 
 prosperous condition. But soon " Jeshurun waxed 
 fat and kicked." The revolution of 1830 — the glo- 
 rious three days — came upon us like a thunderbolt. 
 
 B 
 
If I 
 
 I! ' 
 
 t( 
 
 I ! 
 
 O 
 
 EARLY PARTIALITY FOR AMERICA. 
 
 Thot event put an immediate stop to every thing 
 v/ith us for a time ; nor was that the worst, had 
 affairs gone on smoothly afterwards within a reason- 
 able space of time ; but commerce long seemed 
 likely to fall into a confirmed atrophy. It was then 
 that, being put to my shifts for means of comfortable 
 existence, I accepted a fatiguing and unwholesome 
 situation, which bade fair to send me out of the 
 country in a worse state of health than that with 
 which I entered it. All this I informed you of at 
 the time, when you expressed in your letters to me 
 yonr surprise at what you called the suddenness of 
 my determination to visit America. There was also 
 another grievance, springing from a source which 
 you did not then know the existence of 3 and all 
 combined to make it expedient for me to try a change 
 of %cene and circumstances. I had heard and read 
 a great deal about the United States, and my 
 intention to go thither was not new. Just as I 
 had reached what is called the age of discretion 
 (most commonly that of indiscretion), it was with 
 me a kind of passion j and I used to look with a 
 longing, lingering eye at every American ship which 
 sailed from a certain sea-port, where I passed a 
 twelvemonth about that time. Circumstances then 
 forbade my going -, the desire abated, and ultimately 
 slept. It was now to be realized. Yet I had read 
 and heard enough of America to be much less san- 
 guine on the subject. 
 
 Early in June, 1835, I took my place in the dili- 
 
THE CITY OF ROUEN. 
 
 1 
 
 gcnce from Paris to Rouen. We passed through St. 
 Germain (famous for its chateau), Mantes, Gaillon 
 (noted for a large prison), Louviers and Elbeuf, 
 where are great manufactories of cloth. I lost sight 
 of part of the country, as I had taken the night 
 stage: the road, especially near the termination, rather 
 hilly ; but the sudden burst upon the eye of the river 
 Seine, and the little group of islands it incloses, was 
 very fine : the place I mean is about three miles 
 above Rouen. This at once antique and modern city 
 (for it is the great seat of the French cotton manu- 
 facture) interested and pleased me exceedingly. I 
 speak not of its factories ; I had seen more than 
 enough of them elsewhere j but of its superb antique 
 buildings and monuments, and the beauty of its 
 environs. The Palais de Justice is a rich morsel of 
 the architecture of the middle ages. The church 
 of St. Ouen is the most beautiful Gothic structure I 
 have ever seen. The cathedral, too, is venerable — 
 perhaps even imposing— but its architecture is by no 
 means in so pure a taste as that of the former. 
 I ascended one of the cathedral front towers (the 
 centre one, a lofty spire, had lately been struck with 
 lightning, and pulled down) ; thence I had a most 
 extensive view, reaching all over the city and beyond. 
 It was early in the morning, the weather fine, and I 
 was so pleased, and stayed so long, that the honest 
 tower- keeper was, or pretended to be, alarmed about 
 me ; being an Jnglais, perhaps he thought I might 
 take a fancy to throw myself from the top. Went to 
 the theatre, and saw a comedy tolerably performed. 
 
 B 2 
 
THE CITY OF ROUEN. 
 
 The house showy, but tawdry : on the ceiHng is 
 painted the apotheosis of the great Corneille, who 
 was a native of the place. They also have him cast 
 in bronze, on their Pont Neuf, which is not unlike 
 the bridge of the same name at Paris ; but the former 
 is a fashionable promenade in the evening, which the 
 other is not. I revert to the subject of the theatre 
 merely to mention that I chose a place in the parterre 
 or pit, where there were no seats whatever j those 
 prudent enough to come early are able to lean on the 
 back partition of the orchestra. This I take to have 
 been the first arrangement of things both in French 
 and English early theatres — and hence the term : 
 for Shakspeare talks of *' splitting the ears of the 
 groundlings : " — thus evidently indicating the origin 
 of the term. 
 
 After a few days' stay, I sailed from Rouen in the 
 steam-boat for Havre : scenery beautiful most of 
 the way. The country (of that part of Normandy at 
 least) may challenge comparison with almost any 
 j)art of England, and that is saying a good deal. 
 Passed no towns of any great note except Harfleur, 
 which boasts a conspicuous site and spire 5 however, 
 it is not of these that an Englishman thinks : it is 
 of our [^lorious Henry V. and Shakspeare. Honfieur 
 is on the further side of the river, lower down, and 
 nearly opposite to Havre. In the steam -boat, found 
 my French companions all happy and sociable j the 
 English (with one exception) the contrary. Perhaps 
 I ought not to have made even that exception, the 
 individual in question being a Scotch gentleman. 
 
THE CITY OF ROUEN.' 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 who had been travelling all over the Ctrntinent for 
 two years : he had gone abroad to distract his atten- 
 tion from a domestic calamity. To please him, I 
 went to an English hotel, contrary to my rule in 
 such cases, and got treated accordingly. 
 
 As I found that the ship which I had taken my 
 passage in was not to sail for several dxys, I turned 
 the interval to profit, by sea bathing, and excursions 
 to the environs of Havre. But the intense heat of 
 the season (90* F. in the shade) was much in the 
 way of the latter, and confined me a good deal to the 
 town ; which seems all perfectly modern, and, by con- 
 sequence perhaps, uninteresting. There is a fine pier 
 for promenading. The cliffs that extend seaward 
 below the town are of a rugged aspect ; and there 
 is one fine bold promontory, rising to a great height 
 sheer from the sea, and having on its verge a light- 
 house and signal station, to give notice to the town 
 of ships being in sight. It is about three miles below 
 the town, but seems much nearer ; and when a setting 
 sun brings it out in high relief on the western sky, 
 the effect to the eye of the spectator standing on the 
 pier, is like that of a fine Claude Lorrain painting. 
 Havre is considered by the French no inconsider- 
 able sea-port (it is, I believe, the second they have 
 in amount of trade) j and yet I think I have seen 
 shipping to twice the amount of tonnage in one 
 dock (the Prince's) at Liverpool. 
 
 Getting tired of Havre, I crossed the estuary of 
 the Seine, and paid a visit to Honfleur, a port of 
 greater account than the former in days gone by, and 
 
y c 
 
 O A PROTESTANT S INCREDULITY. 
 
 an agreeable place still. There are parts of the old 
 fortifications entire — such as an embattled gate- 
 way, &c. 3 and the town lies, as it were, huddled up 
 in the lap of the hills. Round the coast, ocean- 
 ward, the cliffs are very steep. On the top of one 
 of these (called the Calvaire) is a figure of the Saviour 
 crucified, larger than life, and coloured to a hideous 
 similitude of that same j the cross itself being nearly 
 as high as Haman's gibbet. Close to it is the 
 chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Graces, full of votive 
 oflFerings from devout mariners who have been, or 
 supposed themselves to be, rescued from great perils 
 by her visible interposition : as many most wretched 
 daubs of paintings strongly, I cannot say plainly, 
 testify. The high altar is plentifully garnished with 
 crutches, &c., once serviceable to cripples now no 
 longer so, being made whole by the special kindness 
 of the same beneficent saint : not to mention the va- 
 rious models of parts of the human frame recovered 
 from imperfection and disease in a similar way. — Of 
 a truth, there is nothing new under the sun. We 
 find benitiers for holy (lustration) water still fixed at 
 the temple doors of Pompeii j our museums are filled 
 with many an ex voto of the Pagans : and have we 
 not in Romanism the various and many-functioned 
 saints, that superseded the tutelary deities of the 
 Pagans ? There is little change, even in name, if it 
 be true (as the Papists assert) that Jupiter & Co. 
 were succeeded by Jew Peter and the other Popes. 
 
 On the evening before sailing, went to the theatre 
 at Havre. House handsome outwardly, and the in- 
 
THE SHIP SETS SAIL. 
 
 r« 
 
 terior respectable j also of considerable extent for the 
 town, perhaps a little too large. Among other pieceis 
 the amusing vaudeville of Madame Gregoire, the chi«if 
 part therein cleverly played by the same actress I saw 
 in it at Paris : other performers not bad. 
 
 *' Now we sail with the gale, from the land of pass- 
 ports O ! " So sang oneof the crew,as he saw the two 
 gendarmes descend into the boat, booted and spurred, 
 and long sworded, with their buflf gauntlets grasping 
 packets of writings. This sailor^ an Anglo-American 
 and a merry fellow, was the only joker of the ship's 
 company ; and often talked at^ if he did not dare^talk 
 to, the passengers. As these tall stiff-backed gentle- 
 men took their seats beside the pilot, now conducting 
 them ashore, this man said, loud enough for us all to 
 hear, " I've often heard of horse marines, but I'm 
 blest if I ever saw any afore." 
 
 The wind was favourable for several days, quite a 
 brisk breeze from the east. While that lasted we 
 made good way; but I, always a wretched being on 
 shipboard, scarce left my berth all the time. It is 
 recorded of Mary Queen of Scots, that in quitting 
 her much regretted France she kept her eyes fixed 
 on its receding shores till they entirely disappeared 
 from her view ; which proves that her Scottish Ma- 
 jesty must have been what is called a good sailor : as 
 for me, so soon as we were under weigh, I found that 
 the more speedily I got below it would be the better 
 for my credit. 
 
 Passage vessels to America are put upon a very 
 different footing from what they were in Franklin's 
 
8 
 
 PACKET ACCOMMODATIONS. 
 
 
 In I: 
 
 time J who treats largely on the subject, and gives 
 a long list of •* sea-stores," and things he says it is 
 indispensable for a passenger to take. He observes, 
 too, how hard it is to get a captain who is at once 
 obliging in his. manners and skilful in his profession ; 
 yet nothing is more common now. Nousavons changt 
 tout cela. The cabin was beautifully fitted up ; table 
 supplied with a profusion of every thing : wine, spirits, 
 fruit, &c. furnished at will : and though our fresh 
 meat soon failed us, we had potted meats, and the 
 like, to supply its place j with milk and hot rolls 
 everyday. Then we had the pigs and the poultry. 
 Franklin commends the former as being good eating 
 at sea, but cries the other all to nought. I could not 
 much commend the fowls myself, especially those 
 served up towards the end of the affair. The crea- 
 tures, from neglect and confinement, soon grow dis- 
 eased, and rapidly lose bulk. They are sadly knocked 
 about. Loss of sleep seems to have as mortal an 
 effect on them as on ourselves. I have stood by their 
 coops in the night, and listened to the murmurs of 
 their unrest. I assured myself that they dream as 
 truly as we do ; and on one occasion, I am positive, 
 some of them dreamed of quarrelling with others : 
 this arose no doubt from their diseased condition. 
 
 Now you, my dear friend, who have no doubt seen 
 cabins of first-rate American packets, are not to sup- 
 pose that all the silk hangings and fringes, rich table 
 covers and carpets, are allowed to remain as you see 
 them so enticingly set out in port. No : with a wise 
 economy the cabin is shorn of all those splendours, 
 
 
SMALL VARIETY AT SEA. 
 
 9 
 
 id gives 
 lys it is 
 bserves, 
 at once 
 fession j 
 IS change 
 > ; table 
 , spirits, 
 ar fresh 
 and the 
 lot rolls 
 poultry, 
 d eating 
 ould not 
 ly those 
 he crea- 
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 mocked 
 3rtal an 
 by their 
 murs of 
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 positive, 
 others : 
 tion. 
 ibt seen 
 to sup- 
 ch table 
 you see 
 ■i a wise 
 ndours, 
 
 which it is no doubt thought would '* dazzle (a sick 
 man) in vain." Yet in real comfort and attention to 
 wants, there is no falling off. — But it is now time to 
 bring my first letter to a close. My second will nar- 
 rate some incidents of the voyage, with short notices 
 of my fellow passengers. The former, after all, were 
 few. A quatrain, which ran the round of the Ameri- 
 can papers during my stay, describes laconically, and 
 not very untruly, the whole affair : 
 
 *' Two things break the monotony 
 Of an Atlantic trip ; 
 Sometimes, alas ! you ship a sea, 
 And sometimes see a ship." 
 
 

 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 b 
 
 * 
 
 'I, 
 
 f f 
 
 * I 
 
 
 U 
 
 10 
 
 A REMEDIABLE GRIEVANCE STATED. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 Our fair wind lasted only five days. The ship 
 was a very superior one, the crew numerous, mostly 
 young active men, and the captain a man of great 
 decision and experience ; so that in the time stated, 
 short as it was, we had made considerable way. 
 Afterwards we had, for ten days or more, either 
 light baffling winds, or a dead calm. I often thought, 
 during that time, that surely some way of pro- 
 pelling a sailing vessel might be found out, either 
 by paddles similar to those of steam-boats, or other 
 means j it seemed to me a pitiful state of things, in 
 this age of mechanical inventions, that a ship, full 
 of valuable merchandize and impatient passengers, 
 should lie stock-still upon the waters, waiting the 
 chance of a wind springing up. Have men, thought 
 I, during all the time that has passed since first 
 ships were sailed, got no farther on than this? 
 Gladly would I have worked all day on any tread- 
 mill apparatus, had it moved the ship but one mile 
 in an hour nearer to port. The sailors even, for 
 whom such times are a season of repose, do not 
 seem altogether to like it ; and although they take a 
 kind of spiteful pleasure in the baffled anxiety of 
 
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 tent ^ 
 
 in ou: 
 
 condi 
 
 worse 
 
 comn 
 
 of th« 
 
 which 
 
 the p 
 
 propr 
 
 quenc 
 
 passei 
 
:d. 
 
 A SMALL TEMPEST. 
 
 11 
 
 The ship 
 )us, mostly 
 an of great 
 ime stated, 
 rable way. 
 lore, either 
 en thought, 
 ay of pro- 
 out, either 
 ts, or other 
 f things, in 
 a ship, full 
 passengers, 
 vaiting the 
 en, thought 
 since first 
 than this? 
 any tread- 
 ut one mile 
 rs even, for 
 se, do not 
 they take a 
 anxiety of 
 
 1 
 
 the passengers, it seems to be a poor satisfaction for 
 the universal impulse of man to move on rapidly, 
 towards an object, whatever that may be. This was 
 at last put an end to by a storm, accompanied with 
 thunder and lightning ; about as lively a thing of the 
 kind as I ever " assisted" at. For some minutes the 
 flashes and peals succeeded each other so quickly 
 that one was hardly able to count them. It is pro- 
 bable that the electric fluid, which seemed to play 
 its capricious pranks on every side of us, was 
 attracted by the conductors placed on each mast j 
 and it was a painful thing to think that one poor 
 ship was the only object, in the midst of the mad- 
 dened waters, that it could spend its strength upon. 
 Our vessel had been struck, and considerably da- 
 maged, eighteen months before, in a hurricane in 
 the gulf of Mexico : at that time she sailed regularly 
 from New Orleans. Upon the whole, although I 
 was not sorry to have seen a tempest of this kind 
 " for once and a way," I was by no means malcon- 
 tent when it was over. I had the utmost confidence 
 in our ship, its crew, and captain — but none in the 
 conductors, for he told us frankly he thought them 
 worse than useless. It showed, notwithstanding, a 
 commendable care, however mistaken, on the part 
 of the owners, for the safety of those on board, 
 which is not always to be met with ; for so long as 
 the present abused system of insurance lasts, most 
 proprietors of ships will be too reckless of conse- 
 quences to the life and limb of their crews and 
 passengers 3 as matters at present stand, their profits 
 
 
}'• i 
 
 IS 
 
 VICIOUS SYSTEM OF INSURANCE. 
 
 can be secured against all risk. A worthy gentleman 
 of the name of Ballingall has lately proved to de- 
 monstration that with tolerable care in the construc- 
 tion of vessels, and with crews numerous enough to na- 
 vigate them, very few vessels need ever be lost j that 
 even when they are wrecked, they will hold together 
 long enough for the people to get on shore : for, 
 after all, it is not in the open sea, and far from land, 
 that there is much danger. But such a vicious sys- 
 tem of insurance of property, without regard to 
 life, has been established, that it is often for the 
 interest of owners that a ship should be cast away. 
 The mate of our vessel told me, that just before he 
 left New York he saw a ship of 600 tons rigging 
 out for sea, which had been ** run up " in 40 days, 
 and in which, he declared, no amount of wages 
 could have ever tempted him to embark. 
 
 The storm in question was short, if not sweet : it 
 lasted only nine or ten hours, but it was a good 
 while before the swell of the ocean subsided. As 
 soon as it was over, the captain had the men, by 
 turns, into the cabin to get a small tumbler of spirits. 
 This was no otherwise remarkable than that our 
 ship was a '* temperance one" — at least, so far as 
 regarded the men. My friend, the jocose English- 
 man, seemed to enjoy his glass exceedingly : I asked 
 him if he was usually a " tee-totaller" on principle. 
 " Why, yes," says he, ** rather : I never likes no 
 water in my rum." 
 
 We had now, if not absolutely a fair wind, a tole- 
 rable one. We had been by this time out about 
 
TUE SHU'S PASSENGERS. 
 
 13 
 
 gentleman 
 ved to de- 
 e constnic- 
 loughtona- 
 ; lost ; that 
 Id together 
 shore : for, 
 
 from land, 
 vicious sys- 
 t regard to 
 ten for the 
 2 cast away. 
 st before he 
 ons rigging 
 
 in 40 days, 
 t of wages 
 
 3t sweet : it 
 was a good 
 bsided. As 
 
 he men, by 
 
 r of spirits, 
 n that our 
 so far as 
 )se English- 
 
 y : I asked 
 >n principle. 
 
 er likes no 
 
 vind, a toie- 
 ; out about 
 
 i 
 
 twenty days, and had scarce made a third part of 
 the passage. I forgot to mention that we saw seve- 
 ral shoals of porpoises on the morning of the stormy 
 day, just as the weather was beginning to rougher. 
 " Ho, ho! how they snort and how they c ow." I 
 thought, in my simplicity, from the way they rose 
 and curved, intensely black in the blue sea-water, 
 (not simply tinged, but seemingly as darkly blue as 
 what runs from a dyer's vat,) that they might be young 
 % whales. In mid-ocean very few fish are seen ; the few 
 I that you do see are large, and glide quickly and 
 silently past like ghosts, sometimes being visible 
 to a great dei)th. 
 
 And now I must say something concerning my 
 fellow-passengers. They were not numerous, we 
 being but six in all. Of steeragers, there were about a 
 hundred, mostly German peasants, an uncouth- 
 looking set. We were, first, three Spanish gentle- 
 men (I begin with them, for they called themselves 
 nobles,) on their way to New York, meaning to 
 obtain a passage thence to Cuba, where they had 
 property j and also, I believe, to escape from the 
 agreeable state of things about to commence in 
 Spain. There were two Frenchmen ; one a work- 
 ing lapidary from Strasbourg, of mean mind and 
 low manners, who had been engaged, and his pas- 
 sage-money paid, by some house in New York. He 
 ought to have been accommodated in the steerage. 
 On the other hand, had that, the natural arrangement, 
 been made, we should have lost by it, for he was 
 invaluable to us as a torn- fool, and he was the butt 
 
\ 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 ARRIVE AT A WRKCK- 
 
 1 
 
 ; 
 
 
 .■ 
 
 ( 
 
 
 Ii 
 
 I 
 
 . i 
 
 on all occasions. The other Frenchman was of a 
 diflerent stamp, a native of Versailles, and now on 
 his way to the estate of a relation in Canada. He 
 was of the reddest-hot mouvement politics, and of a 
 mind in all things which the French call bien pro- 
 nonet ; a bitter enemy, of course, of Louis Philippe 
 and of England 3 and uniting in his mind two things 
 rather discrepant, admiration and warm approval of 
 the doings of Buonaparte, with a violent love of 
 pure republicanism. " Liberte, ou la mort !" He 
 was a fine high-spirited young man, but rash in his 
 judgment of things, and a determined hater of 
 England, and every thing English. If he be in 
 Canada still, it is a pretty sure thing, I conclude, 
 that he will have mixed himself up in the Canadian 
 revolt J and, so far as a strong arm and a stout 
 heart can serve such a cause, he roust have been an 
 acquisition to it. 
 
 Such were my five fellow-passengers. 
 
 In the middle of the Atlantic we fell in with a 
 deserted brig. She lay right in the course we were 
 steering j but our captain approached her very cau- 
 tiously., as he said that, though she looked a sheer 
 hulk at a distance, and externally harmless, she 
 might be full of mischief within : in a word, that 
 pirate ships were sometimes equipped with moveable 
 masts, &c., so as to be made to look like helpless 
 wrecks on occasion, and thus deceive honest traders, 
 till too late to get out of their way. But there was 
 no fear of this ; there did not seem to be a soul on 
 board. We sailed close to her stern, on which was 
 
 and 
 
ITS EFFECT VPON OUR SPIRITS. 
 
 15 
 
 was of a 
 nd now on 
 nada. He 
 3, and of a 
 11 bim pro- 
 is Philippe 
 two things 
 ipproval of 
 ;nt love of 
 lort !" He 
 rash in his 
 i hater of 
 f he be in 
 [ conclude, 
 e Canadian 
 ind a stout 
 ive been an 
 
 in with a 
 
 •se we were 
 
 very cau- 
 
 ked a sheer 
 
 rmless, she 
 
 word, that 
 
 h moveable 
 
 ie helpless 
 
 est traders, 
 
 t there was 
 
 e a soul on 
 
 which was 
 
 |)ainted, in large letters, " The Emerald of Quebec." 
 The masts were not there, and parts of her com- 
 panion and galley had been swept away j but water- 
 casks were still firmly lashed in their places, and 
 she floated high in the water, on which she rose and 
 fell at each heave of the restless waves, which ever 
 ^ and anon gushed through her, in at one breach in 
 » the side, and out at another in the opposite side, 
 i with a dreary hollow sound. She had been a timber- 
 ' carrying vessel, and seemed to be of nearly 3(H) tons 
 burden. As her masts had gone by the board, and 
 left rugged fragments behind, it was pretty plain 
 § that she had been run down, most probably in the 
 night-time. What had become of the crew, man 
 
 and boy ? 
 
 *' Ocean endures no monument 
 To tell of those his greedy waves engulf." 
 
 i 
 
 4 It was a melancholy sight to us all. She pre- 
 sented, to a fanciful eye, the appearance of some 
 
 /murdered giant's corpse, gashed, mangled, and 
 ghastly. Even the sailors seemed to have their 
 spirits damped for a time by the spectacle. As we 
 passed her, lighted pitch-pots were thrown on the 
 deck, to burn her, if possible ; as she might be the 
 destruction of vessels under sail coming that way 
 unsuspectingly in the night, (such an object would 
 
 I scarce be found any where marked in the charts) , 
 
 jbut these failed to take effect, so we sailed en. My 
 
 opinion was, that she ought to have been boarded, 
 
 I and deliberately set fire to ; which would have given 
 
 an- opportunity to search her cabin and hold j some 
 
16 
 
 THE STORMY PETREL. 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 ■A 
 
 ■'i 
 
 
 '1 vh 
 
 
 I I 
 
 SI 
 
 
 miserable being, exhausted, might have crawled 
 there to die, and be still not dead, yet too feeble to 
 make *< a sign." But the wind was fair, and the 
 word was "Go a-head ! " 
 
 By and by we tell in with that singular bird, the 
 petrel. How these pretty creatures live, and move, 
 and have their being so far from any land, seems at 
 first sight a mystery. They are not larger (at least 
 all those which I saw) than a young pigeon. They 
 are long-winged web-footed birds, and are named, in 
 honour of St. Peter {PetrelLus, or little Peter,) because 
 they appear to walk naturally on the waters j which, 
 by the by, he did not. It is an interesting sight, says 
 Wilson, to observe these little birds in a gale, 
 coursing over the waves, down the declivities, up 
 the ascent of the foaming surf that threaicn-i to 
 burst over their heads 3 sweeping along the hollow 
 troughs of the sea, as in a sheltered valley j and 
 again mounting with the rising billow, and, just 
 above its surface, occasionally dropping its feet, 
 which, striking against the water, throws it up again 
 with additional force ; sometimes leaping with both 
 legs parallel on the surface of the roughest waves 
 for several yards at a time. Meanwhile it conti- 
 nues coursing from side to side of the ship's 
 wake, making excursions far and wide, to the 
 right and to the left, now a great way ahead, and 
 now shooting astern for several hundred yards, 
 returning again to the ship as if she were all the 
 while stationary, though running perhaps at the rate 
 of ten knots an hour. This naturalist conjectures 
 
 III .. 
 
A SAiLOR S PRACTICAL JOKE. 
 
 ir 
 
 crawled 
 
 feeble to 
 
 , and the 
 
 bird, the 
 md move, 
 seems at 
 •■ (at least 
 m. They 
 named, in 
 ',) because 
 rsj which, 
 sight, says 
 in a gale, 
 [ivities, up 
 reaicn-i to 
 the hollow 
 alley J and 
 and, just 
 T its feet, 
 it up again 
 ; with both 
 best waves 
 e it conti- 
 the ships 
 e, to the 
 .head, and 
 •ed yards, 
 ere all the 
 at the rate 
 onjectures 
 
 that the partiality of these birds for the wakes of 
 ships arises from the c^tinual turning up of weedy 
 substances by the motion of the water, upon which 
 they partly feed ; and also by the detaching of barna- 
 cles from the ships' bottoms by the same operation, 
 though the refuse which is cast overboard, such tfs 
 the offals from cooking, &c., form a part of the at- 
 traction. One day, while a group of these birds 
 were enjoying a hearty meal on some garbage thrown 
 over our vessel's side, a fellow threw a stick among 
 them and killed one. The others, thus disturbed in 
 their meal, rose high in the air, uttering that faint 
 wailing cry peculiar to them, which has such a me- 
 lancholy sound in the night-time to a wakeful ear, 
 and which, when long'continued by numerous birds, 
 is generally the precursor of a storm. They soon 
 came down and hovered over their dead companion ; 
 examined it with their beaks as it lay floating on the 
 water j and really, poor things, seemed puzzled what 
 to make of it. I thought of the crew which killed 
 the albatross, in Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner. " 
 Here was a gentle creature which had flown to us 
 from more than a thousand miles off, consequently 
 gifted with far superior natural capabilities to man — 
 able to pass into the clouds, to dive under the ocean, 
 or to skim its entire surface — on a sudden wan- 
 tonly killed by a two-legged grinning animal, and 
 for what ? for the dear stupid love of mischief. The 
 petrel is a very pretty bird, symmetrically shaped, 
 and its plumage of an agreeable brown, with the 
 inside lining of the wings (gentle naturalists, pass me 
 
 c 
 
I ' 
 
 18 
 
 RATHER A THICK FOG. 
 
 1 
 
 that term !) adorned with a broad band of a finely- 
 contrasting white, tinted at t^e edges. 
 
 During the voyage, the great resource to while 
 away the listless hours was card-playing. With me, 
 who take little pleasure therein, it was reading and 
 lying abed. The consequence was, I soon ran through 
 my whole stock of books, and was fain to borrow 
 one or two. " But weary woe it was, and labour 
 dire," to kill the time. The Rev. Isaac Fidler, in his 
 account of his voyage across the Atlantic (Travels in 
 the United States and Canada, 1834) makes some 
 candid confessions on this head, drawn from his own 
 experience. He owns it is difficult, or rather im- 
 possible, to turn one's attention to literary occupa- 
 tion : he set himself tasks, which he could not exe- 
 cute ; and even so did I. He says, " On shipboard 
 eating is a positive pleasure 3" I seldom found it so. 
 " I hailed the hours of repast with gladness ; " so did 
 not I. To be sure I am a poor sickly wretch at sea, 
 and w»s never thoroughly comfortable in mind or 
 stomach from beginning to end. 
 
 We were three days passing through the fogs of 
 Newfoundland, which extend downward a good 
 way. I heard my countryman the sailor (the only 
 one on board at all jocular, the others being all 
 matter-of-fact men,) assuring a comrade that he had 
 once seen the fogs thereabouts so thick, that if a 
 hatchet were thrown at random, it would stick 
 there firm and fast. — At length, about the thirtieth 
 day, our captain began to take soundings, and gave 
 
 !%i 
 
FIRST PERCEPTION OF AMERICA. 
 
 19 
 
 a finely- 
 
 to while 
 With me, 
 ding and 
 1 through 
 
 borrow 
 id labour 
 ler, in his 
 Travels in 
 ,kes some 
 n his own 
 rather im- 
 y occupa- 
 i not exe- 
 shipboard 
 and it so. 
 5 ; " so did 
 ;ch at sea, 
 
 1 mind or 
 
 le fogs of 
 
 d a good 
 
 r (the only 
 
 being all 
 
 lat he had 
 
 :, that if a 
 
 ould stick 
 
 3 thirtieth 
 
 , and gave 
 
 us good hopes of soon reaching port. But the day 
 after set in foggy ; and to this soon was added a deluge 
 of rain, such as I have seldom or never seen the 
 like of : this watery state of affairs, with the fog conti- 
 nuing also, lasted full twenty-four hours. All this 
 time, though the wind was available, we made small 
 progress, some caution being necessary in such weather 
 in nearing the coast. It was not till the morning of 
 the thirty-third day that we began to scent the 
 land, which made itself known to us by smell some 
 hours before we saw it. A stray butterfly, too, 
 came fluttering about our rigging, and got caught. 
 It was a pretty insect, and of a species said by the 
 captain to be common in the States, although I 
 never saw one of the kind aftervv^ards. 
 
 Just as the roads leading to a great city shew 
 plain intimations of its proximity by vehicles of all 
 kinds, and the bustle of passage and re-passage, even 
 so did vessels now come upon us on all sides, some 
 of them much smaller than any we had lately been 
 accustomed to see. Then came sweet smells from 
 the New Jersey shores, and eagerly did my sensitive 
 nostrils snuflF up the grateful fragrance. It seemed 
 to me like what might arise from a broad expanse 
 of mignionette or new -mown hay. I would here 
 fain say something of " spicy gales from Araby the 
 blest," had it not been quoted so often before, yet 
 seldom so appropriately as it would be in this case. 
 But land ! land ! is in sight. And now strange 
 noises enter the ear, such as never found admission 
 there before : sounds like hundreds of small wheels 
 
 c2 
 
\ 
 
 20 
 
 THE AUTHOR S FEELINGS. 
 
 I 
 
 
 in spinning mills, interspersed with occasional notes 
 like those of stocking-frames j caused, as I was in- 
 formed, by some large species of crickets and grass- 
 hoppers — or rather tree-hoppers. And this was 
 America — the New World ! — whose shores were now 
 rapidly developing themselves. 
 
 I imagine there are few moments of greater enjoy- 
 ment in a man's life than those that I experienced 
 at this time. The weather was beautiful j our tire- 
 some voyage ended; and a mighty continent, of 
 which we had heard and thought so much, lay before 
 us, ** whereon to choose our place !" I was on the 
 tiptoe of curiosity and expectation as to what I 
 might expect to meet with and see on shore 3 I tried 
 to form a notion of what every thing would be like, 
 intending to compare these present imaginings with 
 the after reality. But however natural my impa- 
 tience, it soon became evident that, as the day was 
 far spent, there was little probability of my being 
 able to plant foot on American ground that night. 
 As the evening shades fell, the lights in the pharos 
 of Sandy Hook began to tell upon the eye. My 
 friend the sailor now sported the last joke I heard 
 him utter : I never heard one of his trade pun before. 
 He said that iSandy Hook stood there for no other 
 purpose than to show the way into New York to his 
 beggarly countrymen the Scots ! 
 
 A pilot now came, on signal being made, and 
 boarded us. I remarked that his boat, and indeed 
 all the others I saw on every side, were light, beauti- 
 fully shaped, and seemed to course about in a most 
 
"WHAT IS GOING ON IN EUROPE?' 
 
 21 
 
 er enjoy- 
 )erienced 
 our tire- 
 inent, of 
 ay before 
 as on the 
 D what I 
 ; 5 I tried 
 d be like, 
 ings with 
 ny impa- 
 e day was 
 my being 
 lat night, 
 le pharos 
 eye. My 
 I heard 
 un before. 
 r no other 
 ork to his 
 
 lade, and 
 nd indeed 
 ht, beauti- 
 in a most 
 
 intelligent manner up to every possible quarter of the 
 wind. The most famous of these are called *' Balti- 
 more dippers." News-boats too, a species of craft I 
 bad never heard of before, hailed us ; a packet of pa- 
 pers was thrown aboard of one, which made all sail 
 for shore directly, and soon disappeared. These are a 
 fast-sailing kind of yachts, equipped and sent forth 
 by the great newspaper establishments of New 
 York, for the purpose of anticipating the arrival of 
 packets from Europe, and getting the earliest news 
 possible of politics and markets : which news they 
 will publish in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th editions in a 
 day, or so often as these foragers, who sometim**?; 
 sweep the coast in a radius of 100 miles or more, 
 can pick up fresh intelligence. As these vessels are 
 manned by several hands, and their maintenance 
 must be very costly, it gives a lively idea of the 
 dashing system of speculation that is hazarded in 
 America. 
 
 Just before dark, we dropped anchor for the night 
 in the channel opposite the quarantine station at 
 Staten Island, and were there boarded and mustered, 
 crew and passengers, by an inspector, who called 
 over the names and went through some formalities. 
 Several agents of the diflferent journals came to glean 
 for newspapers and information, and there was a 
 good deal of bustle in our ship, which now lay quiet 
 enough, except as she slowly swung round with the 
 changes of the tide, pouring out or in from the Hud- 
 son — Washington Irving' s own Hudson : a river now 
 almost classic. At the quarantine station there are 
 
 h^ 
 
t 
 
 I 
 
 
 U l! 
 
 
 If 
 
 22 
 
 OUR LONGINGS SATISFIED. 
 
 houses for the reception of the sick, and other pur- 
 poses — a kind of village, in the windows and streets 
 of which I now remarked with some interest the 
 lights carried hither and thither. 
 
 Our voyage had lasted thirty-three days — the same 
 duration as the first voyage of Columbus, when he 
 discovered America. I know not whether this tri- 
 fling coincidence will furnish an excuse for mention- 
 ing his great and honoured name ; but I could not 
 help thinking of his feelings and anxieties as he cast 
 anchor (at night-fall too) before the strand of Guan- 
 ahana (afterwards San Salvador), not knowing what 
 kind of scene, savage or cultivated, would meet his 
 view with returning light. Meantime^ ere we went 
 to rest — for sleep was out of the question, at least 
 with me — the famous city of New York was recog- 
 nisable in the distance, by its lights, reproduced by 
 reflection on the bosom of the bay, and stretching 
 across it like a long and luminous bridge. 
 
 A^ 
 
AN EARLY MORNING SCENE. 
 
 98 
 
 the same 
 when he 
 this tri- 
 mention- 
 could not 
 IS he cast 
 of Guan- 
 oing what 
 L meet his 
 5 we went 
 i, at least 
 ^as recog- 
 duced by 
 tretching 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 On the succeeding morning, long before day-light, 
 I got on deck, ready to avail myself of the earliest 
 dawn, being mighty curious to see what the shores 
 of the New World were like. The river I seemed 
 to have already got acquainted with, as its tide ran 
 rapidly past our ship with a gurgling murmur sooth- 
 ing to the ear. At length the sun rose majestically 
 over Long Island j and, the morning mists slowly 
 clearing away before his rays, we had, on one side, 
 a long line of undulating land, whose gently-swelling 
 summits were here and there crowned with some 
 neat villa or farm-house ; in other directions we 
 could see more imposing country residences, proba- 
 bly serving as occasional retreats to the opulent 
 merchants of New York from the feverish toiling 
 and moiling of that most restless of all cities. The 
 general efiFect of all this was quite dioramic. Every 
 colour, verdant or russet, came out with a volup- 
 tuous richness that I thought I had never before 
 observed any where. 
 
 After enjoying the view a reasonable time — point- 
 ing out its beauties, and explaining, as far as I was 
 able, its probable peculiarities, to my fellow-passen- 
 
24 
 
 THE BATTERY. 
 
 I !■ 1 
 
 gers, none of whom were quite as enthusiastic on the 
 subject as I — we were all summoned to an extra- 
 abundant breakfast, for good part of which, such as 
 fresh meat, eggs, &c., a boat had been expressly sent 
 to shore. It now appeared that there was no proba- 
 bility, if we stayed by the ship, that we should reach 
 New York for three days or more. The announce- 
 ment of this fact rather damped our spirits, till the 
 captain said he would man a boat for our accommo- 
 dation, which would take us to a little port hard by, 
 \vhence we could get a passage in a steam-boat 
 within a short space. This offer we of course gladly 
 accepted ; and in due time we were landed at the 
 jetty of Whitehall : so is the nearest landing-place 
 called. Close to this is **the Battery," a name ap- 
 plied to an irregularly outlined space of ground, at 
 the abutting end of the island whereon New York is 
 built, including a mischievous-looking brick-kiln 
 sort of circular building, from which, in times of 
 strife, no doubt the thunderbolts of war were ready 
 to be hurled; but which now-a- days, things being 
 put on a footing of peacefulness, is become a licensed 
 dispensary of the various mixtures that the souls of 
 Americans do so much delight in, such as gin- sling, 
 cock-tail, mint-julep, and the like. Now this grim 
 building has planted itself right in the way, so as to 
 grievously obstruct all satisfactory view of the beau- 
 tiful bay ; but this inconvenience (else considerable) 
 is easily got over, for a very small silver key, in the 
 shape of a Jippenny bit, will open the locks of its 
 formidable gate. The grand prospect from its 
 
THE BROADWAY. 
 
 25 
 
 ic on the 
 
 n extra- 
 
 , such as 
 
 ssly sent 
 
 o proba- 
 
 ild reach 
 
 inounce- 
 
 , till the 
 
 ccommo- 
 
 hard by, 
 
 ;am-boat 
 
 se gladly 
 
 !d at the 
 
 ing-place 
 
 lame ap- 
 
 •ound, at 
 
 York is 
 
 rick-kiln 
 
 times of 
 
 re ready 
 
 rs being 
 
 licensed 
 
 souls of 
 
 in- sling, 
 
 lis grim 
 
 so as to 
 
 le beau- 
 
 derable) 
 
 r, in the 
 
 :s of its 
 
 rom its 
 
 platforms is then uninterrupted. As I knew not 
 this till afterwards, I turned my attention to a 
 serious consideration of the ground behind, which 
 has a sombre churchyard-like aspect j it is fair to 
 say, however, that the tomb-stones have been left 
 out — as also certain (or rather uncertain) shrubs 
 and flowers, which menacing " take notices," painted 
 on several boards in large characters, forbid you to 
 root up or otherwise damage : the penalties in such 
 case made and provided it would however not be very 
 easy to incur j there not being, all the while I was 
 among the Manhattoes, any flower or shrub in any 
 part of the place j nor had the ground the least sign 
 to show for it that any had a right to be there. 
 Having satisfactorily ascertained this important fact, 
 I set my face townward. 
 
 From this point begin two long lines of street. 
 That on the left runs parallel with the North River, 
 or Hudson ; the wharfs of this side of the town are 
 frequented mostly by vessels engaged in the coasting 
 trade, or by steam boats. The other, after a short 
 bend, leads to the Broadway. 
 
 Proceeding up the latter, the number of passen- 
 gers and vehicles seem to increase at every step, and 
 in a very few minutes you find yourself quite in the 
 middle of the bustle and racket of this most stirring 
 city. The shops (stores) here, are many of them as 
 elegant and richly stocked as any in London. Up to 
 this time, we have met with no public or other 
 remarkable building, unless large handsome hotels 
 be counted for such, until we arrive opposite Wall- 
 
 : 
 
26 
 
 CIIUIICH-YARD NUISANCE. 
 
 1 
 
 Street (the Cornhill of New York), right facing 
 which is a very handsome building with a spire, 
 surrounded by a burying-ground (!) It is the prin- 
 cipal Episcopal church. The interior is fitted up 
 in excellent taste. I remarked that most of the 
 pews were furnished with long-handled fans, of 
 feathers or other light material, indicating, plainly 
 enough, the heats of the climate, and the annoyance 
 of insects. 1 was not sorry to find a temporary 
 breathing-place here, out of the hurry-scurry of the 
 Broadway and Wall- Street, where the driving, jostling, 
 and elbowing, must be very annoying to those not 
 accustomed to large towns. What an anxious, 
 unhappy, bilious-looking race they seemed to be — 
 not even one *' comfortable," much less happy, face 
 among them all ! Add to this the crashing noises 
 of rapid omnibuses, flying in all directions, and 
 carts, (for even they are driven as fast as are 
 coaches with us), and we have a jumble of sights 
 and sounds easy to understand, but hard to describe. 
 The most crowded parts of London can scarce be 
 compared with it. Wall-street forms a right angle 
 with the Broadway, and leads, in a straight line, to 
 the East River, where lie the ships engaged in the 
 foreign trade : there almost all the considerable 
 vessels are congregated ; and so numerous are they, 
 and so closely packed together — six and eight deep 
 — that it is generally some days before a ship can 
 get a berth at all. When ours did come up, I had to 
 pass over I know not how many decks of others, 
 before I could reach her. Wall-street is the centre 
 
 fi ;'i 
 
THE EXCHANGE — CONFLAGRATIONS. 
 
 ^7 
 
 of all the considerable business of New York. Here 
 are clustered together the Custom House, several 
 banks, most of the money changers (a formidable 
 band), the insurance offices, ship-brokers, agents, &c., 
 and the counting-houses of the most opulent mer- 
 chants. In the centre of all this stands (or rather 
 stood) the Exchange, which was a very handsome 
 building, and seemingly well suited to its purposes. 
 The body of it was a lofty hall (not a court with 
 arcades) and the post-office close behind, with 
 passages leading from the Exchange into it. Such 
 an arrangement must have been convenient to the 
 merchants, in a mart where foreign arrivals take 
 place from hour to hour. In front and at the back 
 the building itself was divided into a lower and 
 upper floor, in which were many commodious rooms 
 for the transaction of business. In the centre of 
 the hall had been placed a rather flne statue of a 
 great statesman and excellent man, the federalist. 
 Colonel Hamilton, who was shot in a murderous 
 duel by Aaron Burr. In a country so bare of works 
 of art, the destruction of such an ornament was 
 almost a national loss. Of course you will remem- 
 ber, that in a few months from the time I visited the 
 place, this Exchange, and "all that it inherited," 
 most of Wall-street, every smaller street leading 
 therefrom to a great distance around, including 
 banks, wholesale stores, &c. — in short, the very core 
 of this great city's heart — all was reduced to formless 
 heaps of ruins in a few hours. Never, perhaps, 
 were the magazines more full of the richest of 
 
«8 
 
 THE GREAT FIRE IN NEW YORK. 
 
 1 
 
 ;r^ 
 
 merchandize than at the time of this event— De- 
 cember 1835. The cold (I remember it too well) 
 was so intense that not a drop of water was to be 
 obtained ; all that the suiferers had to do, in the 
 end, was to look on, and let the devouring flames 
 have it all their own way. At first, quantities of 
 goods were removed to a distance from the first seat 
 of the conflagration, into churches and other places ; 
 but these supposed places of safety soon caught fire 
 also : all the while a scene of plunder was going on, 
 seldom seen in a civilized country. But more of 
 this elsewhere. 
 
 Only a few days before my arrival, some scores 
 of buildings had been burnt down in the same 
 quarter, including sundry newspaper and other 
 large printing establishments, &n., with one or two 
 churches j several individuals, too, lost their lives. 
 It was the greatest fire (to a smaller extent they 
 are of nightly occurrence, and usually thought little 
 about) that had taken place — so they told me — for 
 some time ; they were fated to have a greater soon, the 
 most extens'vely destructive of our times, excepting 
 indeed the unparalleled one of Moscow. I saw the 
 labourers digging at the smouldering ruins in search 
 of bodies, the flames every now and then bursting 
 out. I have long thought the continual recurrence 
 of fires on land, and wrecks at sea, an anomaly in a 
 state of advanced civilization. These houses had 
 been run up to a great height (the confined ground- 
 plan of this part of the city in some measure 
 obliging them to this,) and of only one brick 
 
 I. : 
 
THEY ORDER THINGS BETTER IN FRANCE. 29 
 
 ?nt— De- 
 too well) 
 vas to be 
 3, in the 
 ig flames 
 ntities of 
 first seat 
 er places ; 
 aught fire 
 going on, 
 more of 
 
 me scores 
 the same 
 nd other 
 ne or two 
 leir lives. 
 Ktent they 
 ught little 
 me — for 
 soon, the 
 excepting 
 I saw the 
 in search 
 bursting 
 ecurrence 
 maly in a 
 luses had 
 Id ground- 
 measure 
 me brick 
 
 UO 
 
 thickness ; once fairly in combustion, it was plain 
 they could hardly keep together for an hour. 
 Whole sides of walls had come down bodily ; and I 
 remarked there was scarcely any plaster between 
 the bricks. Verily, thought I, they of the " Saxon 
 blood," which the Americans are really proud to 
 think they have in their veins — these same Saxons 
 of both hemispheres are behind the Gauls in the 
 useful art of preserving life and estate from the 
 chances of total destruction by accidental fire. 
 During a good many years' residence in Paris, to my 
 certain knowledge there was not one private-dwelling 
 burnt. Some few fires, to a trifling extent, did take 
 place in floors of houses, and to these portions they 
 were all confined. Of theatres I speak not : every 
 where they are ** trebly hazardous." The *' tyranni- 
 cal" French Government takes care that play-houses 
 shall always be isolated from other buildings. This 
 part of New York was, soon after I saw it, rebuilt 
 exactly as it had stood before, (!) Burnt again, to a 
 ten times greater extent, the same system has again 
 been followed. If the Americans are great innova- 
 tors in some things, it is not in the routine of 
 house-building. I know not whether the upper floor of 
 their Exchange was one continuous corridor, divided 
 by wooden partitions. Well may the doomed chimes 
 ring out, like a felon's penitential psalm, ** There's 
 nae luck aboot the hoose." How could there be any? 
 Returning to the Broadway — which a stranger 
 naturally threads his way to as a point of depar- 
 ture or return — I walked up, through a range of shops 
 
30 
 
 AMERICAN THEATRES. 
 
 and hotels as well appointed as most in London^ to 
 an open space of irregular shape, called the Park, 
 which interrupts the line of the Broadway houses, 
 to the right. In the centre it is laid out into grass 
 plots and gravel walks, with a few trees, the whole 
 surrounded by a railing. On the upper side is the 
 City Hall, perhaps as fine a building as any in 
 America J excepting the Capitol at Washington, 
 which last, however, puts a Londoner provokingly in 
 mind of our Bedlam. The City Hall is outwardly 
 handsome, and in its interior commodious — in short, 
 a neat affair altogether. Let us not pass without 
 mention the famous Park Theatre, though it have 
 nothing remarkable outside; still less Tammany 
 Hall, the kind of *' Crown and Anchor Tavern" of 
 New York. It is principally used for public meet- 
 ings. One Sunday night, seeing it lighted up, I 
 entered it, and found a man holding forth against 
 the Christian revelation. The men and women 
 auditors (all respectably dressed) sat apart from each 
 other J and in a corner was a band of instrumental 
 performers to wind up the affair. Deism set to 
 music ! Hard by the Park, but not in sight, is the 
 Bowery (or national) Theatre, devoted to fostering 
 *' native talent," which, God wot, stands much in want 
 of such succour. But the Park is the highest priced, 
 and most fashionable theatre. No distinguished 
 individual, or family of any pretensions to gentility, 
 is ever seen at the Bowery in New York, or the 
 Walnut- street theatre of Philadelphia j which last 
 similarly sets up a hopeless rivalry of the English 
 
THE PARK — TRADES UNIONS. 
 
 31 
 
 theatre in Chesnut-street. The exterior of the 
 Bowery displays most pretensions j but its archi- 
 tecture is in the worst possible taste, and tawdrj^ to 
 the last degree. Over the portico are, most basely 
 sculptured, the national arms, flaring with colour 
 and gilding, the whole surmounted by a flag- staff of 
 an enormous size. I may as well mention here that 
 the Americans are amazingly fond of flags. You 
 see the '* star-spangled banner " every where, even 
 on the lowest pot-houses. Lastly, on the left or 
 Broadway side of the enclosure of the Park there is 
 a gigantic hotel, built of grey blue-stone, (which 
 passes here for marble), that in size surpasses most 
 barracks I have yet seen. I am not sure but I have 
 heard it was to be called the ** Mammoth Hotel." 
 
 Upon the whole, the Park is an agreeable place ; 
 and it such a pleasant vacancy had been left in a 
 French town, it would have been set apart for a 
 place des armcs. The first look I had of it made me 
 think that if it were not so in name, it might be in 
 effect used as a place of warlike mustering. I found 
 the entire area, and indeed the whole neighbour- 
 hood, in a state of complete commotion. Bodies 
 of men were marching and countermarching in files, 
 with drums and fifes and trumpets j while solid 
 masses of others were drawn up, as it were, in 
 battalia. When I came to inquire into these appear- 
 ances, I was informed that it was a general parading 
 day of the *' Trades' Unions" of the city. What! 
 thought I, is it necessaiy even here for men to 
 combine — to club together — to obtain their natural 
 
3d 
 
 THE CITY HALL. 
 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 
 i) 
 
 li 
 
 
 !":» 
 
 rights (beginning with that of tyrannizing over their 
 neighbours) in this happy country, where each man 
 is free as the air he breathes ; — I learned farther 
 that full one half of the mechanics in the place had 
 *' struck ;" and that one trade in particular, which I 
 had learned in my youth, and might, other things 
 failing, become a precious resource to me — that 
 even the professors of that trade had turned out 
 with the rest. The general question, and the 
 particular instance, set me a musing rather pensively. 
 I stepped out of the turmoil into the lobby of the 
 City Hall, which is stuck all round with advertise- 
 ments of various *' wants," (for this is a world of 
 wants, although Mr. Disraeli has of late reduced 
 them all to two — '* want of love, want of money!') } 
 and there I saw, inscribed in fair characters, an inti- 
 mation, among many others of a like kind, that the 
 writer, a young man of liberal education and good 
 connexions, would thankfully give his best services 
 to any body that chose to command them for three 
 dollars (about 12s.) per week. All this was no ways 
 encouraging. It was, in fact, the first unwelcome 
 indication I had of an over-stock of hands and an 
 under- stock of employment. And then I thought 
 upon lying books and lying newspapers, and a great 
 many other things, of which more anon. 
 
 In the meantime it was necessary for me to look 
 out for an hotel j and, as an indispensable prelimi- 
 nary, to get some of my European gold turned into 
 American paper. One need never go far to find a 
 money-changer in any town or village of America — 
 
 
MONEY-CHANGERS. 
 
 33 
 
 they swarm every where — leave any locality to visit 
 another, and your money loses part (sometimes no 
 small one) of its value. They are by far too nume- 
 rous for them to be able to aiFord to maintain the 
 trade in the wholesome sweetness of honesty. The 
 talents of five out of every six of these gentlemen, 
 in any given town, could easily be spared, and with 
 unspeakable advantage to the general pocket : it is 
 thus that when they do get a bite, the fangs are 
 sent in rather deep. In France there is a regular 
 tariff fixed by the government to prevent mistakes — 
 for money-changers, both before and since they were 
 turned out of the Temple, have been supposed to be 
 more liable to these than most other traders j but 
 France is a land of slavery, whereas this is the 
 unique country of freedom ; and one can never pay 
 too dear to be assured of the fact. 
 
 Having now found a tolerably comfortable hotel in 
 Fulton Street, at the bottom of which is a spacious 
 market, and near thereto another "Mammoth 
 Hotel," you must allow me to rest and refresh 
 myself. — My Versaillian, bound for Canada, has 
 companioned me every where hitherto like a faithful 
 dog, and never quitted my side for an instant all day 
 — probably for fear of accidents, as he hates the 
 English, and has not learned to speak American. 
 When a man comes into a country, no one word of 
 whose language he does know, he has the mortifica- 
 tion of finding out that he can become a child once 
 more. Not that my Frenchman showed himself a 
 child at all points 3 for instance, he wondered at 
 
 D 
 
h 
 
 f 
 
 IP ! 
 
 I 
 
 S4 
 
 FEMALE HEAD-DRESS. 
 
 nothing. He was all for the nil admirari system : 
 v;ith one signal exception, however, for he stared in 
 amazement at the calash bonnets of the first females 
 he saw. These must be light and convenient, 
 though 3 and I think that, from old prints I have 
 sepn, they were once common in England. They 
 are not worn by the American women of the supe- 
 rior classes, except in going to and returning from 
 the theatre, or parties. They are mostly made of 
 green silk ; and when expanded, comfortably sur- 
 round the head and ears, having the facility of con- 
 tracting, like a fan, into a small space. 
 
 I am now about to prepare for taking my place 
 in a firm bed — rather a novelty for me of late. 
 As my head is in a bit of a whirl, I shall see whether 
 a fresh night-cap and a fixed pillow will have a 
 steadying effect upon it. So I most heartily bid you 
 good night. 
 
 I 
 
 y.t 
 
 i: 
 
 Jl!' .!.J 
 
INCONVENIENT SITE OP NEW YORK. 
 
 35 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 NEW YORK AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
 
 New York is built on Manhattan Island, which is 
 fifteen miles long, and reaches to a width of one and 
 a half. The general configuration of the city, which 
 is built at the southern extremity of this island, is 
 something like that of a pear — the Battery is the 
 lowermost point or twig. 
 
 The site of the old city, that which is the business 
 part still, covers but a small space — it is the nar- 
 rower part of the supposed pear. The ground plan 
 of the city was originally very limited. Cooped up 
 between two rivers, the Hudson on the west, and 
 the East River, separating it, on the other side, by a 
 channel half a mile wide, from Brooklyn in Long 
 Island, there was no means of finding further elbow- 
 room, but by extending it further up the island of 
 Manhattan. The settlement the Dutch made here, 
 you of course know, was called New Amsterdam. 
 Little did its original founders think, that it would 
 one day become, in the hands of their conquerors* 
 descendants, the Tyre of the western world. The 
 situation they chose had " ample room and verge 
 
 enough" for tliemj but, in others' hands, led to grave 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 GENERAL APPEARANCES. 
 
 incoiiveniences as the want of farther room increased. 
 It has been asserted, that the Dutch built New Am- 
 sterdam on no regular plan ; that in fact the streets 
 were originally nothing more than cow-paths, along 
 which the houses were ranged, following all the 
 capricious deviations of these animals on their way 
 to the upper pas+nres. Whether this be literally true,^ 
 I know not : certain it is the lower or oldest part of 
 the city seems strangely put together, and is not 
 a little perplexing for a stranger to find his way 
 through. 
 
 The outward appearance of the buildings is neat ; 
 they almost all, excepting in a few low quarters, look 
 particularly clean. Many of the houses have the 
 brick" work painted red, with green doors and window 
 blinds ; the former having plated (not brass) names 
 upon them, which never tarnish — thus proving the 
 dryness of the atmosphere here. The Americans 
 are prodigal of paint. The New Yorkers seem to 
 have acted upon the sentiment of the Dutch nation, 
 from whom many of them are descended, who have 
 a proverb, that "paint costs nothing." Americans, on 
 first arriving in Liverpool or London, are always 
 struck with the grimy and dingy look of our brick 
 buildings j on the other hand, we have not, like 
 them, any *' frame-houses.'' These are scattered, at 
 intervals, in New York and all American towns. In 
 case of fire, they are the great spreaders of de- 
 struction, and ought not to be permitted to stand. 
 In New York and Philadelphia — perhaps in other 
 places — there is a regulation in force, that, once 
 
EXORBITANT RENTS. 
 
 37 
 
 icreased. 
 [ew Am- 
 e streets 
 tis, along 
 r all the 
 heir way 
 ally true, 
 t part of 
 id is not 
 his way 
 
 5 is neat ; 
 ters, look 
 have the 
 i window 
 3s) names 
 ving the 
 mericans 
 
 seem to 
 h nation, 
 who have 
 
 icans, on 
 e always 
 our brick 
 Qot, like 
 
 tered, at 
 Iwns. In 
 
 s of de- 
 
 to stand. 
 
 in other 
 
 at, once 
 
 burnt down or demolished, no others shall be per- 
 mitted to be built : this evil no doubt will remove 
 them in time. Meanwhile, their proprietors keep 
 them up with a jealous care. This may be com- 
 mendable on their part, as showing a respect for 
 reliques of old times; but the existence of such 
 masses of material having a strong affinity for com- 
 bustion, must not a little raise the price of insur- 
 ance. 
 
 Of course, the upper or broader part of the city 
 is the most airy and the most genteel ; it is, no doubt, 
 built on the pasture grounds of the Dutch cows al- 
 ready mentioned. There are many streets, and a few 
 squares, which would not disgrace our West End. 
 What the rents may be in that quarter, I know not. 
 In the City proper they are high ; in certain streets 
 enormously so. In no part of any city in Europe, per- 
 haps, is such a price paid as ground rent. It would not 
 be easy to find a parallel any where but in the Palais 
 Boyal, where every square inch is well known to be as 
 precious as beaten gold. In the Broadway — which, 
 in some parts, may be compared to Cheapside — first- 
 rate shops are let at rents ranging from 6,000 to 
 10,000 dollars a-year. As no notice, unless by spe- 
 cial agreement, is necessary, people have thereby a 
 facility of speculating to their own ruin, t^ an extent 
 and with a rapidity which could hardly exist with 
 us. First floors over these shops let proportionably 
 high. For such a one as would be used by a teacher, 
 engraver, or artist — three rooms unfurnished — I was 
 asked about £20 a-month. 
 
 I It 
 

 I 
 
 : 
 
 a' < 
 
 38 
 
 AMOUNT OF POPULATION. 
 
 f 
 
 The resident inhabitants of New York, by one 
 authority, are computed at 300,000 j by another which 
 included Brooklyn and probably an estimated amount 
 of shifting population, such as emigrants, sea-faring- 
 men, &c., the amount was stated at full 420,000 j 
 the latter I take to be pretty near the mark. When I 
 was there, emigrants were pouring in at the rate of 
 20,000 a-month -, in one week more than 6,000 were 
 landed. The bulk of these, of course, scatter them- 
 selves about different parts of the country ; and one 
 portion finds it the most convenient route to Ca- 
 nada. New York, although the greatest city of Ame- 
 rica, is not even the capital of the state that bears 
 the same name j the latter, the best peopled of all the 
 States, has more than two millions of souls — a popula- 
 tion greater than that of Scotland. The capital is Al- 
 bany, 1 50 miles off, a thriving place, but not containing 
 as yet quite 30,000 inhabitants. The same system 
 obtains in all the other States, of removing the seat 
 of government to some distance from the larger 
 towns. There is, no doubt, a judicious policy in 
 this ; the founders of American liberty were wise 
 men; of a surety "there were giants in those days." 
 They knew the pernicious influence the masses were 
 likely to exercise on the deliberations of the state 
 legislatures — the "pressure from without," of which 
 factions are so prone to avail themselves ; which, 
 like the element of fire, they find at first a useful 
 servant, but in thr ^nd a cruel master. The seat 
 of the general govs^rnment was long established at 
 Philadelphia. On this account^ the Pennsylvanians 
 
PERSONS OF THE AMERICANS. 
 
 89 
 
 by one 
 T which 
 amount 
 •faring- 
 20,000) 
 When I 
 rate of 
 K) were 
 [• them- 
 md one 
 to Ca- 
 »f Ame- 
 it bears 
 fall the 
 popula- 
 il is At- 
 taining 
 system 
 he seat 
 larger 
 icy in 
 wise 
 days." 
 s were 
 e state 
 which 
 which, 
 useful 
 seat 
 bed at 
 xnians 
 
 still affect to call theirs '* the empire state,' and have 
 recently made some attempts to have restored to 
 them the seat of general government. It was to 
 prevent jealousies, much more than to build a model 
 city or to pay a compliment to Washington, that a 
 new capital was projected (for even yet it is but be- 
 gun), one that should have its site in none of the 
 States. Accordingly, it is situated in the district of 
 Columbia, which has a square area of 100 miles only. 
 The state of Pennsylvania, although Philadelphia 
 numbers over 200,000 inhabitants, has for its capital 
 Harrisburg, with less than 5,000 j while the capital 
 of the State of Illinois is Fandalia, with only 500 — 
 enough, too, perhaps, if its inhabitants are of the 
 same stamp with the older barbarians. 
 
 But to return to the people of New York. They 
 are a very good-looking race, both men and women ; 
 and this applies (even yet more exactly in other in- 
 stances) to the generality of the Americans. The 
 men are almost all lean and lathy ; and most of the 
 women (especially in the superior classes) slightly 
 made ; several of the ladies that I saw in New York, 
 had the most perfect sylph-like ^gures. A good 
 complexion is a rare thing here ; in their faces nature 
 has planted more lilies than roses. But no where 
 have I seen finer complexions than those of the ladies 
 of Philadelphia. This difference, on a distance of 
 country short of 100 miles, may be partly accounted 
 for by a slight variety of climate, and a greater ' 
 arising from situation, for New York is not built in 
 a healthy spot ; besides, the excessive dissipation of 
 
40 
 
 THE BAY OF NEW YORK } 
 
 the one, and the sober quakerish habits of the 
 other, must count for something. Among the men, 
 a deformed person is scarcely ever to be seen. Both 
 sexes dress well and expensively, and most have 
 that indescribable something in outward appearance, 
 called gentility, strongly stamped upon them ; the 
 ladies especially have a deal of what the French call 
 tonrnure. The ladies of New York, and indeed all 
 other towns, follow much more than ours the fashions 
 of France. All the topping dressmakers are French. 
 If the converse of the proverb were true of nations, 
 " Handsome is, that handsome does," the Americans 
 would be a most desirable people to abide with. But 
 they are decidedly an unamiable, and consequently 
 an unhappy, race 3 although they have the happiness 
 of not knowing it. Bilious complexions are too 
 common among the men of New York. In fact, I could 
 not see one " comfortable looking" individual among 
 them all. 
 
 While at New York, it was to me a delightful thing 
 to turn my back upon all the toil and trouble of that 
 city, and, reposing myself at the Battery, look out 
 on the beautiful and quiet scene presented by the 
 bay. Its natural features are of the first order, and 
 the continual passage of vessels of all descriptions, 
 gives it a variety which prevents monotony. Of 
 course, the least picturesque of the vessels that pass 
 and repass, are the steam-boats. Their smoking 
 chimneys, their ungraceful and worse than dromedary 
 projections, give the idea of a floating foundry. I 
 have considerably lost my enthusiasm for the lake 
 
II 
 
 ITS COMPOSITION AND FEATURES. 
 
 41 
 
 of Geneva, since they have covered it with steam- 
 boats. If Rousseau could rise from the grave and see 
 the substitutes of the pretty sailing skiffs of his time, 
 he would hold up his hands in sorrow, and say, " On 
 m'a gate mon beau lac." You have no doubt already 
 read many laboured attempts at a description of the 
 Bay of New York j so I shall not endeavour to make 
 another. I hold that no man can have any thing 
 but a very vague, perhaps a false idea, of a grand 
 natural scene. We read pages on pages of details, 
 and it seems to us as if we were being put in perfect 
 possession of a consistent whole ; but " the mind's 
 eye" is a sad self-deceiver. Mrs. Radcliffe com- 
 mences her " Mysteries of Udolpho" with a minute 
 description, forty mortal pages long, of the scenery 
 of the Pyrenees ! which mountains I doubt whether 
 she had ever seen one of: be this as it may, a fly 
 perched on St. Paul's, with a four-inch sweep of 
 vision, might as well have attempted to describe that 
 mountain of architecture. However, for the infor- 
 mation of those who have had no account elsewhere 
 of the bay of New York, I may as well mention that 
 its outline is formed by the island of Manhattan, by 
 Statenlsland, placed nearly opposite ; nearer, but more 
 to the right, and not quite so much under the eye, is 
 a portion of the continent of New Jersey; to the 
 left is the lower part of Long Island. The nearer 
 waters of the bay are agreeably diversified with some 
 islets, such as the Governor's, &c., which all fall 
 under the range of view in regarding it with your back 
 to New York, and your face turned to Staten Island j 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
49 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF HODOKEN. 
 
 the last forms part of the state of New Jersey, while 
 Long Island belongs to that of New York. The 
 islands in the bay are no way picturesque in them- 
 selves, nor do they owe much to art, but add 
 considerably to the general effect. What is called 
 the bay of New York (for the term is almost a mis- 
 nomer), is really the estuary of the Hudson. Staten 
 Island seems to plant itself as an obstacle in the 
 way of its waters j the noble river divides and passes 
 round it with a double channel. At this point, too, 
 the current of the East River pays its tribute to 
 the general mass of waters. On the continent of 
 New Jersey, the first town that meets the eye, is 
 Jersey City j but which, despite its well-sounding 
 name, seems an insignificant place. Higher up is 
 Hoboken, a kind of transfiuvial Hampstead, much 
 frequented at holyday times by the Cockneys of New 
 York. On summer Sunday evenings, steam-boats 
 ply incessantly j indeed at all other times they com- 
 municate with it pretty constantly j the distance is 
 between two and three miles, and the charge 3d. on 
 week-days ; on Sundays probably double ; for, every 
 where in America the sin of sabbath-breaking is 
 costly. 
 
 Those who have had the pleasure of reading Mrs. 
 Butler's outspeaking and highly talented volume on 
 America, must be familiar with the name of Hobo- 
 ken. It is a prettily situated but rather straggling 
 village, with a commanding front to the Hudson, 
 and has a fine country behind and around. There 
 being scarce any open public promenade in New 
 
INSTANCE OF AMERICAN TASTE. 
 
 43 
 
 ^ while 
 
 . The 
 
 I them- 
 
 )ut add 
 
 i called 
 
 : a mis- 
 
 Staten 
 
 in the 
 
 passes 
 
 nt, too, 
 
 )ute to 
 
 nent of 
 
 eye, is 
 
 tunding 
 
 • up is 
 
 , much 
 
 of New 
 
 1- boats 
 
 y com- 
 
 ance is 
 
 3d. on 
 
 , every 
 
 ing is 
 
 Mrs. 
 me on 
 
 lOBO- 
 
 ggling 
 idson, 
 There 
 New 
 
 York, and the air not being good, genteel families 
 find it advantageous to send their children thither 
 for daily recreation. I saw there a kind of railway 
 merry-go-round set up for their benefit, which would 
 make any one's fortune in England or France. It 
 was a round construction of frame-work, the outside 
 of a great circle being partly moveable and partly 
 fixed, on the former portion of which the young 
 folks were firmly fixed in chairs, with their nurses. 
 In these they flew round with great velocity — yet, 
 the circumference being extensive, without any sen- 
 sation of giddiness. The motion, thus so rapid at 
 the extremities, is communicated from the centre, 
 by horses, leisurely pacing out of sight, as in a 
 gin. 
 
 The walks about Hoboken are delightful; the 
 shore is bold, and the surface of the country pictu- 
 resquely undulated : here are also some fine old trees, 
 rather a rare thing in most parts of the four states 
 which I have been in. How these trees have 
 escaped destruction, I know not. I suppose it so 
 happened that they were not wanted, and so escaped 
 the axe. The Americans seem to have no idea of 
 ornamental planting 3 even their finest villas have a 
 naked appearance. I do not doubt the truth of an 
 anecdote related of an American, who, when proudly 
 shown the fine prospect from Richmond Hill, 
 said, " The country would be a fine country enough, 
 but it sadly wanted clearing!" As for the great 
 masses of natural wood which I saw remaining. 
 
m^ 
 
 44 
 
 BROOK LYX. 
 
 here and there, on high grounds of difficult access, 
 most of it had a mean scrubby appearance. 
 
 No where can so good a general view of the city 
 of New York be had as from Hoboken. Brooklyn 
 more directly faces that city, at not more than a 
 fifth of the distance j but the view there is much 
 obstructed by the dense mass of shipping j and the 
 harbour-side of a great port is always its dirty side. 
 The great lion of Hoboken, when I was there, 
 was a genuine Barbarian, named General Jackson. 
 J do not mean the great cotton-bag hero so called, 
 but a proteg^ of his bearing the same name j 
 — in fine, an actual young lion, sent to him as a 
 present from Africa by one of the piratical states of 
 Barbary. The Congress having provided no funds 
 for the keep of such an animal, the general sold 
 him to a showman, by whom he was now exhibited to 
 the public at 6d. a head. What was the price paid ft: 
 him I do not know ; it must have been a windfall to 
 the general j unless, indeed, he parted with him dog- 
 cheap, from jealousy, to rid the city of Washington 
 of such a " rival near the throne," for it is well 
 known that the general is tenacious of the distinc- 
 tion of being himself the only *' lion " in the whole 
 country. 
 
 The passage that separates New York from 
 
 Brooklyn is called the East River. It is here half 
 
 a mile wide ; higher up it widens into Long Island 
 
 Sound. 
 
 Brooklyn is the kind of Southwark or Walworth 
 
A NAVAL DEPOT. 
 
 45 
 
 from 
 half 
 Island 
 
 rorth 
 
 of New York, with a wider separation ; but which 
 steam-boats, continually passing to and fro, bring 
 almost as near as our bridges. It is mmous for a 
 small naval depot, which pisses for something in a 
 country that has only heard of Portsmouth. I saw 
 two frigates afloat, and two on the stocks. One of 
 the former I visited, and was very civilly shown all 
 over by one of the officers. Every thing was in the 
 greatest order ; and the crew as fine a set of men 
 as could any where be seen. I found a schoolmas- 
 ter on board in uniform, busily instructing some lads, 
 probably in navigation. The frigate I saw was one 
 of the four that was constructed, more than forty 
 years ago, when the government took the first step 
 towards forming a navy, on occasion of some mis- 
 understanding with the ephemeral French Directory. 
 These ships are all afloat now, in good order for 
 service, and are first-rate sailers, with superior 
 capabilities to any they have been able to build 
 since that time. The one I examined is nick-named 
 Old Ironsides, from its solid construction ; yet with 
 all its firmness it obeys helm more readily than any 
 of the modern frigates, so much lighter and prettier 
 to look at 3 for whereas the latter require at least 
 four men to work the wheel, the former needs only 
 two. One might imagine, from this rare example, 
 that once upon a time public contractors were 
 honest men. — Long Island, on the lower verge of 
 which Brooklyn stands, is well named, it being 
 140 miles long by ten of medium breadth. 
 I have given some particulars of the view on two 
 
 'I { 
 
 
 11 
 
*(( 
 
 46 
 
 STATEN ISLAND. 
 
 H 
 
 sides of the Bay of New York — first, from the Bat- 
 tery, and second from Hoboken. But the most com- 
 prehensive, the most animated, and in some respects 
 the finest, is that from the high grounds of Staten 
 Island; a locality beautiful in itself, and the chosen 
 retreat of the opulent citizens of New York for sum- 
 mer rustication. Brooklyn indeed is nearer, and has 
 many good suburban residences at reasonable rents, 
 but they are not so distingue. — To the southward is the 
 ocean, spotted with distant ships ; at your feet, labour- 
 ing steamers, and sailing vessels and skiffs of every 
 variety of shape and rig, gliding continually along in 
 all directions. The eastern x;:remity of this island 
 points straight up Long Island Sound, the most fre- 
 quented in North America, being the asual channel 
 by which trade is carried on between the Eastern 
 and Middle States. A short way up is the celebrated 
 Hell-gate, so pleasantly treated of by Washington 
 Irving. 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 47 
 
 !;* 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 IRISH OPINION OF THE AMERICANS, &C. 
 
 On the morning of the third day after my landing 
 in New York, I saw my French friend safely em- 
 barked on board the Albany steam-boat. He bought 
 a map^ on which I traced for him the route he was 
 to take. He was sure of not going wrong for the 
 first hundred and fifty miles, Albany being at that 
 distance from New York. I may as well mention 
 here, that this map, as well as every other of American 
 manufacture that I had occasion to examine, was 
 shamefully incorrect. As the government never has 
 a sixpence at its disposal beyond what is allowed it 
 for the wants of the day, nothing is ever done for 
 constructing more correct plans of the country. 
 They avail themselves of the improvements brought 
 about by English money in this as in every other re- 
 spect ; and their ships are all navigated by means 
 of English charts. The booksellers who publish the 
 things called maps and atlasses, knowing that they 
 must sell them at a very low rate, and knowing that 
 not a cent more would be paid for a superior than 
 for an inferior article, go on copying and re-copying, 
 perpetuating old blunders along with a handsome 
 
48 
 
 AMERICAN MAPS AND CHARTS. 
 
 i\ 
 
 increase of new ones. Even the price of one copy 
 of our superior publications, to serve for a model, 
 would be held top dear by an American publisher. Is 
 it not shameful to be indebted to us for correct plans 
 of even their own coasts ? By way of pleasing the 
 eye of the purchaser, their things are generally 
 showily garnished with a border of trumpery engra- 
 vings, and always daubed plentifully with coatings 
 of many colours, through which it is very difficult 
 to read the names of places at all -, but there may be 
 policy in this, for the paint, like charity, often covers 
 a multitude of errors. — But to revert to my French- 
 man : the steam-boat being now ready to start, he 
 saluted me in the most brotherly fashion, after the 
 mode of his country ; that is, he kissed me on both 
 sides of the face : and I having done the same by 
 him, and commended him to the keeping of Provi- 
 dence we parted, probably never to meet again. 
 
 I now bethought myself of delivering some of 
 my letters of introduction, of which I had half-a- 
 dozen to diiferent houses or individuals engaged in 
 trade in New York. I was received with a show of 
 hearty kindness by all, and got encouraging pro- 
 mises from several. But there the matter pretty 
 well ended — excepting that I had a few dinner invi- 
 tations. The truth is, such letters are of very little 
 use in America. So many are sent that they scarcely 
 ever get attended to. It is necessary to appeal 
 strongly to people's interest here, if you would 
 induce them to do any thing. A man must do every 
 thing for himself : if he do not, small indeed is the 
 
 n1 
 
 A- 
 
^ 
 
 A NEW YORK HOTEL. 
 
 49 
 
 ivery 
 Is the 
 
 number of those who will do any thing for him. I 
 was not exactly aware of this at first, and deceived 
 myself accordingly. A gentleman who knew the 
 country well, told me afterwards, to trust nothing to 
 such credentials. He said they were like so many 
 insignificant petitions to Parliament, laid on the 
 table and never more heard of. The person in 
 question was a bit of "a character," and I am now 
 about to give some particulars of him. The hotel 
 at which I lodged in New York, was tolerably well 
 furnished, and of considerable accommodation — as 
 full forty persons sat down to dinner daily. The 
 Americans, quick at every kind of business, are 
 quickest of all at that of eating j their refections 
 are dispatched as rapidly as an English road-side 
 meal, eaten to the sound of the mail-guard's horn. 
 For the most T>art, no one utters a word, except in a 
 low tone. The '' silent system" there is not entirely 
 confined to the state prisons. This is more espe- 
 cially true of New York ; yet perhaps it is better, after 
 all, than what my unwilling ears have been some- 
 times regaled with elsewhere, disputations and 
 wranglings about their petty polities. 
 
 Every day at meals, I noted a very perceptible 
 change in the composition of the company — on a 
 daily average there were not more than three out of 
 any four of my companions the same. Besides, the 
 hotel custom of New York is a very fluctuating one -, 
 and being the centre point of all comers and goers 
 from and to every part of the Union, it is the chosen 
 threshold of emigrants. If the Pelasgi of ancient 
 
 E 
 
 m 
 
 n'dipi" leij ' ■.!■[ 
 
50 
 
 A RETURNING EMIGRANT. 
 
 »| 
 
 times were famous for their roving propensities, 
 they are far outdone by the Americans. The organ 
 of locomotion may have been as strongly developed 
 in the ancients, but then they had neither rail-roads 
 nor steam-boats. 
 
 Franklin has left on record his testimony to the 
 inquisitiveness of the Ameriiian character. Aware, 
 probably, of this being cast upon them as an imputa- 
 tion, they seem, in less primitive times, to have gone 
 to the other extreme. Whether it be that they look 
 upon all emigrants as a set of poor destitute devils 
 who cannot find means of existence in the " old 
 country," I know not, but I cannot conscientiously 
 accuse any of them (except in one instance) of taking 
 the least interest in any affairs of mine. They are, 
 almost all, rigid and repulsive in their manners, and 
 seem ever to look into you with the keen cold eye of 
 " sly inspection," before you can get an answer to 
 the simplest question. Of course what I have said 
 applies more especially to those you meet with in 
 public. They know nothing of what FalstafF calls 
 " the freedom of mine inn." 
 
 One respectable middle-aged looking gentleman, 
 of weather-beaten aspect, who had shown me a num- 
 ber of little courtesies at table, I had remarked as a 
 favourable exception to the rest, and him I soon had 
 an opportunity of being acquainted with, as I met 
 him by chance in the coffee-room (or rather drinking 
 and smoking room) on the evening of the fourth 
 day after my arrival. I had already suspected he 
 was not an American, and so it turned out. He was 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 f J 
 
AN EXTRA GOOD HATER. 
 
 51 
 
 an Irishman — Mr. W r by name, and from some- 
 where in the neighbourhood of Belfast ; he told me he 
 was descended of a Scotch family settled in Jie north 
 of Ireland. He had been more than twenty years 
 absent from his country, and the greater part of that 
 time he had been employed in the publication trade, 
 which he had been brought up to. When I met him, 
 he had come to New York to settle some affairs there, 
 and to find a passage to Ireland j being about to quit 
 America for ever, with which he appeared to have 
 become utterly disgusted. After all his labours and 
 speculations he had realised next to nothinfr, perhaps 
 little more than enough to pay his passage home ; 
 but he was called thither by the recent deaths of a 
 nephew and niece, who had been in possession of 
 some property in Ireland j and this now fell to 
 him 3 his elder brother, and their father, being long 
 since dead. He certainly was one of those persons 
 that Dr. Johnson expressed a partiality for ; — a good 
 hater. The Doctor would have been delighted with 
 him. For the rest, a well-informed intelligent man, 
 only a little too sarcastic. Both of us had by chance 
 a good deal of time on our hands, — he was not un- 
 willing to communicate, and I anxious to receive in- 
 formation about the country, so we grew intimate in 
 a very short space of time. He interested himself 
 very kindly in my prospects, which, he assured me, 
 were likely to turn out any thing but satisfactory ; 
 and I must own that my experience confirmed, in the 
 main, most of what he said. 1 am not sure, however, 
 as first impressions are said to be the strongest, that 
 
 E ^ 
 
! 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 
 IF 
 
 52 
 
 IMPUTED YANKEE CHARACTER. 
 
 these conversations with him may not, uncon- 
 sciously to me, have given an undue bias to my mind. 
 A sample taken from his first conversation with me, 
 may amuse. On my asking him what he thought of 
 the Americans generally, and of their national cha- 
 racter, he indulged in a long diatribe against them. 
 I shall give a portion of it in his veiy words, as nearly 
 as I can remember them : — '< The poet Pope had a 
 great talent of squ 3ezing a deal of truthful meaning 
 into a few words j — but he was entirely out when he 
 stigmatized England as being 
 
 ' A land of hectors. 
 Thieves, supercargoes, bank directors.' 
 
 Now, what was never true of the English, is as true 
 as Gospel of the Americans, (the Yankees espe- 
 cially,) who swarm like locusts on every part of this 
 continent." (I here stopped him to inquire what he 
 meant by making, as it seemed to me, a distinction 
 without a difference. It was then I first heard that 
 the term was recognized only of the inhabitants of 
 the Eastern states. He thus resumed.) *' They are to 
 a man braggarts j and many of them, if they be not 
 sv/indlers, have horse-jockey tricks in dealing which 
 they glory in, which yet you or I (supposing — which 
 God forbid ! — we were keen enough to practise) should 
 be ashamed to own. In religion, the great mass are 
 either fanatics or hypocrites 3 in a word, there are two 
 deities which they more especially worship. Mammon 
 and Gaminun. I showed you to-day a sly dancing- 
 master's prospectus, who professes to teach ' dancing 
 on Christian principles.* You also saw, in the Broad- 
 
 en 
 fr 
 II 
 
"shocking" system of teaching. 
 
 53 
 
 way, huge placards announcing, in large letters, an 
 exhibition of 'Moral Pictures.' As far as church- 
 frequenting, bible- spreading, and barbarian torment- 
 ing missions can make them so, they are out of all 
 question the most ' religious people ' in the world. 
 
 * They're very heathens in the carnal part. 
 But each a right good Christian in his heart.* 
 
 It would be a kind of blasphemy perhaps for me to 
 say, that such a nation can be under the dominion of 
 Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air ; 
 but this I am certain of, they have passed under the 
 domination of the prince of the power of humbug ! 
 
 Having mentioned that one of my plans was to do 
 something, if necessary, in the way of teaching, he 
 asked me, '* Can you give lessons by steam ? Can 
 you lay the grammar and dictionary aside altogether, 
 and shock languages into your pupils by an electrical 
 machine (taking care not to charge it with Italian 
 when you mean to charge it with French) ? Can you 
 teach captains of ships, or others pressed for time, a 
 beautiful copperplate hand in three lessons, as a fel- 
 low of the name of Bristow (as you have seen) un- 
 dertakes to do ? Have you brought with you any 
 new inventions of cloths, that when torn will skin 
 over, like a living cuticle when lacerated ? Can you 
 
 throw snuff by handfuls into " I here laughingly 
 
 stopped him, and said, none of these things could I 
 do, and assured him that what I did undertake would 
 be entirely on the old system. *' Well, then," he re- 
 joined, " that has been exploded here long ago, and 
 superseded by a system of outrageous puffery that 
 
i' ' 
 
 54 
 
 TIMES CHANGED IN THE STATES. 
 
 i 
 
 I' ! 
 
 you can form no idea of. — But you will soon learn 
 thiri, that unless you shift your tack, you will never 
 do for this country." As he had heated himself a 
 little by all this strong Ian 'uage, he begged my par- 
 don for the liberty he permitted himself, and asked 
 me the plain question why I left Europe, and whether 
 I could not get bread to eat there ? I said I had never 
 as yet wanted for that 3 putting him in mind, by a 
 Scriptural quotation, rather irreverently though per- 
 tinently applied, of the inadequacy of even an abun- 
 dance of that staff of life to satisfy the desires of 
 people not immoderately ambitious. " Well, then," 
 he responded, " if you had bread at home, I can as- 
 sure you it will never get buttered here. When you 
 asked ^^e to-day, why the Americans used the term 
 bed-bugs, I told y3u the distinction was a necessary 
 one, for that there were many other kinds of bugs j 
 but I did not tell you then, as 1 do now, that the 
 most numerous species of all in their country is that 
 of the humming bugs !" 
 
 Then dropping that odd way of discourse, he told 
 me that, twenty years before, \7hen he first came to 
 the country, a man with great industry might get on : 
 but at present the whole affair was overdone 3 unless 
 indeed, in the way of daring speculation, which 
 required money, either of our own or other peo- 
 ple's ; and even for such as have that, America 
 presented no advantages which Europe could not 
 afford 3 along with that, there was the disadvantage 
 of dwelling in a land of foreigners, '* for foreign," 
 he said, " you will find them to the end of the chapter." 
 
 if 
 
 i 
 
I 
 
 )n learn 
 11 never 
 mself a 
 my par- 
 i asked 
 vhether 
 d never 
 id, by a 
 gh per- 
 1 abun- 
 ires of 
 then," 
 :an as- 
 len you 
 e term 
 essary 
 bugs^ 
 at the 
 s that 
 
 e told 
 me to 
 t on : 
 miess 
 vhich 
 peo- 
 erica 
 not 
 itage 
 
 Iter." 
 
 POST-OFFICE AM ADMIRABLE INVENTION. 55 
 
 He said that he had travelled far and wide, in the 
 way of business, and that he had met with hundreds 
 of our jountrymen who would gladly return home ; 
 but were restrained, either not liking the idea of re- 
 turning home poorer than they left it, or positively 
 lacking the means ; the golden bridge of retreat, as 
 it were, being broken down behind them. I found 
 that what I had heard from him, notwithstanding its 
 ludicrous tone at first, contained matter for rather 
 grave consideration, and that it was insensibly affect- 
 ing my spirits j my friend W r perceived this, 
 
 and considerately changed the subject. As we had 
 both letters to write that night to go by the packet, 
 I happened to express my admiration of the inven- 
 tion and regularity of post-office communication ; 
 yet how little the convenience was thought of or ap- 
 preciated by many. I remarked to him, that when 
 I dropped a letter into the dark corner of an Ame- 
 rican letter-box, to come to light in due time on the 
 further side of the broad Atlantic — at such times I 
 could not help calling to mind the old story of the 
 river Alpheus, which, losing itself in the territory of 
 Achaia, re-appeared in Sicily, and faithfully carried 
 thither whatever might be committed to its current. 
 He said he should not like to trust a letter to such a 
 conveyance, and said that people might have even 
 too favourable an opinion of the powers of the post- 
 office itself. He instanced in proof the case of a 
 half-witted fellow in Belfast, well known there in 
 W — r'g young days. This man had learned to ^-^^ad. 
 
 Vh\ 
 
 i 
 
I 
 
 i 
 
 56 
 
 IRISH PRACTICAL BLUNDERS. 
 
 ^9- 
 
 but was often entrusted with letters and parcels to 
 be taken from one part of the town to another. 
 One day, having been sent by somebody with a 
 quantity of sprats, he unluckily forgot the address of 
 the party who was to receive them -, and as he had often 
 seen numberless small packets put into the receiv- 
 ing-box of the penny-post (then newly established in 
 that town), every one of which had come safe to hand, 
 he stood up, and deliberately emptied his fish- basket 
 by small handfuls into the receptacle for letters, till 
 it was quite choked up. Finding it would hold no 
 more, he walked ir 'o the post-office, and reproached 
 the astonished officials for having so small and in- 
 convenient a box ! Finding me laugh at this blunder 
 of his countryman, he followed it up by an anecdote 
 of one of his country-women, a servant girl — for Irish 
 menials abound in American families which cannot 
 afford to hire others. He assured me it was a fact, 
 and that he knew the parties well : — *' A genuine bog- 
 trottress, of pure Milesian breed, and as raw," to use 
 W — r's words, as ** an under-boiled potatoe, was set 
 b^ her mistress to cook some lobsters, to be eaten 
 in the evening at a supper party. Some time after 
 they had been put on the fiie, her mistress sent her 
 to look how they got on -, she soon returned, with 
 staring eyes, looking like one bewitched, and said 
 " the deevil's flown Jiway wi* the durty cratu rs, for 
 sorrow a bit could ishe find o' them." The Ifidy, sure 
 enough, on looking into the pot, found nothing there 
 but boiling-water. The fact was, the animals had 
 
 
I LOSE MY " CHARACTER. 
 
 57 
 
 been put into cold water, and as that gradually heated 
 they began to dislike their position, and so the one 
 nearest the top of the unlidded pot had probably 
 thrust out his readiest claw and got on to the ground : 
 the others following the example — it must have been 
 a general sauve qui pent ; they were found, some under 
 the bed, — one having stept into a nameless vase to 
 cool himself — some here and some there — in short 
 in every place but where well-brought-up lobsters 
 ought to be." I thought the story the less impro- 
 bable as it took place in New York, where I may 
 mention* by the way, fishmongers' shops are few or 
 none. Amateurs of shell and other fish generally 
 are taken to the harbour, one portion of which is 
 fitted up with a well constructed piscinium, being a 
 kind of floating frame-work pervious to water, which 
 rises and falls with the tide, and is boxed off into 
 compartments 3 in these are kept every variety offish 
 alive, so that an abundant choice is to be had fcr the 
 table, and that too at prices more reasonable tii tu 
 the amateur would be made to pay by the London 
 salesmen. 
 
 In a few days, my friend W — r sailed for Europe. 
 He parted from me most afifectionately, and said he 
 hoped to see me some day in Ireland. Almost his 
 last words were — " I can tell you, you will not stay 
 long in this cursed country j mark what I say — you 
 will find it come true." 
 
 I 
 
hi \ 
 
 Hi 
 i 
 
 ili 
 
 
 I) 111 
 
 58 
 
 AMERICAN STEAM-ROATS. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 EXCURSION TO ALBANY, &C. 
 
 Having danced attendance on different individuals 
 for three days, and not seeing my way clearly, I 
 began to grow tired of New York, and thought it 
 would be an agreeable way of spending unavail- 
 able time to penetrate a little into the interior -, it 
 would give certain gentlemen time to think of some 
 offers of service I had made them, and which they 
 seemed to be in no hurry to give a definite answer 
 to. I accordingly got on board one of the Albany 
 steam-boats, one fine morning, the sun shining 
 bright, and the morning air sweetly pure. There 
 is a peculiar clearness in the atmosphere of America, 
 which has been remarked on by Mrs. Butler. I 
 always thought the stars shone more vividly there 
 than here, and T have seen the moon so dazzlingly 
 bright that it really was painful to look at her j and 
 I believe I saw Halley's comet much more distinctly 
 there than I should have done in Europe. 
 
 The Albany steam-boats are of a considerable size, 
 and divided into three stories. The double engines 
 are of great power, and their furnaces fed, not with 
 coal like ours, but with massive pine logs. There is 
 a very well -served ordinary, at a reasonable rate. It 
 is easy to imagine that the dinner party one sits 
 
 d 
 
 SJ 
 
THE NOBLE RIVER HUDSON. 
 
 59 
 
 ividuals 
 early, I 
 mght it 
 mavail- 
 rior ; it 
 )f some 
 ch they 
 answer 
 Albany 
 shining 
 There 
 merica, 
 er. I 
 Y there 
 lingly 
 j and 
 inctly 
 
 1 
 
 e size, 
 gines 
 with 
 liere is 
 e. It 
 sits 
 
 down with must be rather numerous, when it is con- 
 sidered that these boats often convey more than 
 five hundred passengers at one trip. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to accommodate all at one sitting, so that 
 it is necessary to serve each meal twice. The decks 
 of such p. vessel present a lively scene. There are 
 waiters, shoe-blacks, barbers, barmen, cooks, sailors, 
 engineers, stokers, &c., all bustling about as in a 
 crowded street. Still they are by no means the 
 largest steam-boats on the American rivers. In the 
 south-west — on the Mississippi for instance — they 
 are enormous, some of them being full two hundred 
 feet long, and bulky in proportion. These last will 
 sometimes go two thousand miles into the interior. 
 Five thousand persons have passed to or from 
 New York and Albany in a day. It is estimated 
 that no fewer than a million go by them every year. 
 The passage, one hundred and fifty miles, is always 
 made within twelve, and sometimes under ten, hours. 
 The Hudson runs up into the country in an 
 almost straight line j there is no finer river in the 
 world, so far as it goes, for navigation ; it has, 
 indeed, but a short course for an American river of 
 distinction, being only three hundred miles long ; 
 while the Mississippi, including the Missouri, de- 
 scends four thousand four hundred miles before 
 reaching the sea. The latter was always called by the 
 Indians '' the parent of waters." Leaving Hoboken 
 on the left, we pass by Sing-sing, where is the prison 
 for the city of New York ; there being but a small 
 building there for the temporary lodging of criminals. 
 
 t.'i 
 
 I 
 

 !i 
 
 1 
 
 (i 
 
 « 
 
 u 
 
 It' 
 
 h f! 
 
 
 flo 
 
 AMERICAN PRISONS — ANECDOTE. 
 
 But the great state prison is at Auburn, where the 
 criminals are put to hard labour, and all intercourse 
 vith each other, either by word or sign, is strictly 
 orbidden. At meals they sit back to back j every 
 look is vigilantly watched, and all infractions of 
 the rule laid down are severely punished j yet even 
 this is not so bad as the solitary-cell system of the 
 Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. There every 
 prisoner is kept quite apart from his fellows j and 
 never sees any one but his keeper, not even his 
 nearest friends j neither is he permitted to have any 
 communication with his connexions, except at the 
 discretion of the jailer. By such treatment, some, 
 sentenced for long periods, have grown crazy. Con- 
 versing with a gentleman on board the steam-boat 
 respecting the effects of these two systems, and 
 contrasting them with the old mode of treatment, 
 he related an anecdote which is curious, as showing 
 the eflfects of imagination on the human frame. 
 
 At the time the cholera was ravaging the States a 
 few years ago, all knowledge of its existence was 
 carefully shut out from the prisoners at Auburn, 
 and not one of them was ever attacked with it, or 
 likely to be. But it so fell out that, one unlucky 
 Sabbath-day, when the malady had nearly ceased, 
 the chaplain of the prison, in the fulness of his 
 heart, could not help offering up grateful thanks 
 to God for his goodness in staying the ravages of the 
 retiring pestilence. He enlarged too much on the 
 occasion, and with ill-timed eloquence and in strong 
 colours depicted the sad symptoms of what had so 
 
BANKS OF THE HUDSON. 
 
 61 
 
 here the 
 ercourse 
 
 strictly 
 ■ ', every 
 tions of 
 yet even 
 Q of the 
 •e every 
 ^s J and 
 ^en his 
 ave any 
 
 at the 
 
 , some, 
 
 Con- 
 
 m-boat 
 
 s, and 
 
 tment, 
 
 owing 
 
 tates a 
 3e was 
 ibum, 
 it, or 
 [lucky 
 ;ased, 
 ^f his 
 tanks 
 )fthe 
 the 
 frong 
 ^d so 
 
 8 
 
 \ 
 
 long scourged the land. This had such an eflFect 
 on the minds of the prisoners, that many presently 
 fell sick, and in a few days several died, with une- 
 quivocal signs of the most malignant type of cholera. 
 
 The stream here rather widens than otherwise, 
 till, about eight miles above New York, a range 
 of high rocks, called the Palisadoes, begins, as it 
 were, to hem in the river. These extend for twenty 
 miles, and some of them rise as high as five hundred 
 feet perpendicular. They are considered, I believe, 
 to be of basaltic origin. They are really not un- 
 like broad palisades, and in some places rise sheer 
 out of the water, presenting as smooth a surface as 
 if cut with the chisel. Beyond these, what is called 
 the Highlands commence, and in the distant hori- 
 zon are seen the lofty Catskill Mountains, some of the 
 peaks of which run up beyond three thousand feet ; 
 as you near them, they seem all covered with verdure 
 to the very tops. 
 
 The river continuing to grow gradually narrower, 
 we arrive at Westpoint, remarkable [in our times as 
 the seat of the military school for the United States 
 army. Since I saw it, the number of pupils have 
 been considerably increased : at that time the stand- 
 ing army was under 6000 men, garrisons included 
 Westpoint is a strong position, and is the ke^ to the 
 upper part of the provin ce. I saw sentinels, at the 
 landing-place and on the heights, in grey uniforms ; 
 and, apparently, no one could pass into the country 
 thit way, without being challenged. During the war 
 of independence, it was strongly fortified and jea- 
 
62 
 
 AN EVANESCENT NOSE. 
 
 ' I 
 
 IP'*' 
 
 u 
 
 lously guarded ; and that shabby modern Coriolanus, 
 General Arnold, made strong interest to obtain the 
 command of it, in order to deliver it to the English. 
 The first part of his plan succeeded, the other failed 3 
 and one consequence of it was the sacrifice of the 
 accomplished and brave Major Andre, who had been 
 chosen to treat with him on the subject. He saved 
 Arnold's life at the expense of his own. The motive 
 Arnold had for his conduct was not the hope of re- 
 ward, but the desire of revenge : his self-love had 
 been deeply wounded by the scurvy treatment he 
 received from the Congress. He fled, leaving Andr6 
 to the tender mercies of the immortal Washington, 
 the great patriot and Negro-breeder, who had Andre 
 hanged in the sight of the British lines, with every 
 circumstance of the most tender regard for that suf- 
 ferer's feelings. 
 
 Not far from Westpoint, among the Highlands, 
 close to the water, is a promontory called " Anthony's 
 Nose," well known, by name at least, to all readers 
 of Irving's ** Knickerbocker." It is said to present a 
 rude profile of the human face, with a nose of dis- 
 proportionate size. I could not make it out, either 
 in ascending or descending the river, although I had 
 at least half a dozen people to assist me in the search. 
 The boat sails so rapidly, that if the instant of " pro- 
 jection " is allowed to pass, it is irrecoverable. One 
 village on the right bank, which we have left behind 
 us, is called '* Hyde Park ; " on the opposite bank, 
 at another spot, is *' Athens ; " beyond Albany is 
 *• Troy 5 " and back from that again, in the direction 
 
GENERAL ASPECT OF ALBANY. 
 
 63 
 
 •iolanus, 
 tain the 
 English. 
 p failed 3 
 e of the 
 ad been 
 [e saved 
 ; motive 
 3 of re- 
 Dve had 
 aent he 
 ; Andre 
 lington, 
 I Andre 
 h every 
 lat suf- 
 
 hlands, 
 hony's 
 eaders 
 
 esent a 
 f dis- 
 either 
 I had 
 earch. 
 pro- 
 One 
 ehind 
 bank, 
 |ny is 
 ction 
 
 \<< 
 
 of the lakes, is " Rome." But at present we are 
 nearing a much more interesting place, not famous 
 for its arts or conquests, but for brewing most potent 
 ale : it is Poughkeepsie, a name (inAmerica) beyond 
 all Greek — all Roman fame ; and much more Ameri- 
 can than Palmyra, Paris, Persepolis, &c. Higher up, 
 again, after passing Kingston and many other places, 
 whose names are little known to fame, we arrive at 
 Hudson, a town on our right, which does not shew 
 much river front, but runs a long street some dis- 
 tance into the inter ^ir. This town is faced towards 
 the river with some bold rocks. 
 
 Here we have got among the beginnings of the 
 Catskill Mountains ; and ascending the river, after a 
 number of meanders, we at last arrive in sight of the 
 cupolas of our place of destination — Albany, the 
 most advantageous looking place at a distance I 
 have ever seen. When I first saw it, the sun was 
 declining, and seemed as if about to set behind it. 
 This city, the capital of the state of New York, is 
 built on a mount, sloping down to the river in front, 
 and to the western country behind. The lofty Capi- 
 tol, which is surmounted with a dome, and some 
 other massive buildings, form a centre, round which 
 the other houses are closely grouped. Altogether it 
 has a well compacted, noble appearance. Tie whole, 
 when it first met my view, was, as it were, flooded 
 with the richest colours of dying sun-light -, and the 
 metallic plated roofs (the buildings are covered with 
 plates of block tin) reflecting the golden rays, made 
 it have the aspect of some gorgeous oriental city 
 seen in a dream. 
 
•i) 
 
 i: 
 
 \\i 
 
 ! ■ 
 
 1.1 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 61 
 
 SEAT OF STATE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 As soon as I had secured lodgings for the night, 
 and taken some refreshment, I walked out to enjoy 
 the beauty of the evening. The moon had risen, full 
 and broad, over the cliffs that face the town 
 Oil ill? eastern shore. After admiring the scene for 
 a considerable time, I wandered heedlessly about the 
 town, up one street and down another, penetrating 
 into the country at different points j till at last, it 
 getting late, I bethought me of returning to my hotel. 
 Not having used the precaution to take the name of 
 the house, or that of its proprietor, it was long before 
 I could trace it out. I found that my love of the 
 picturesque had been carried too far : it was nigh 
 midnight before I got into my chamber, and not 
 without rousing the people from their beds. 
 
 Next morning I went to see the Capitol. It is as 
 commodious inside as its exterior is noble : it is 
 altogether worthy of a stat° which numbers a popu- 
 lation of more than'2 ,000,000. It includes the senate 
 house and chamber of representatives, a library 
 adorned with a few portraits in oil of eminent men, 
 a council- chamber, committee and examination 
 rooms, &c. Here, too, is the residence of the Go- 
 vernor, an important officer, invested with greater 
 powers within his jurisdiction than the great Pre- 
 sident himself. In him resides, for example, the 
 power (in concurrence with the senate) of mitigating 
 the punishments, or granting pardons, of criminals 3 
 and it is easy to imagine how much he is importuned 
 by their relations and connexions. 
 
 Two rail-road lines lead from the centre of Albany 
 
 si 
 
 tl 
 
THE FERRY AT TROY. 
 
 65 
 
 le night, 
 :o enjoy 
 sen, full 
 e town 
 ?ene for 
 5out the 
 etrating 
 
 last, it 
 y hotel, 
 ame of 
 ; before 
 
 of the 
 as nigh 
 ind not 
 
 It is as 
 : it is 
 popu- 
 senate 
 ibrary 
 
 men, 
 
 ation 
 e Go- 
 Ireater 
 
 Pre- 
 the 
 ating 
 
 als^ 
 lined 
 
 )any 
 
 to different places. The coaches that I saw on them 
 were drawn, not by steam power, but by horses. At 
 Albany is the commencement of probubly the 
 longest canal in the world, which terminates at 
 Buffalo, on the shores of Lake Erie, 363 miles dis- 
 vant. It was begun in 1817, and finished in 1825 j 
 and executed at the expense of the State of New 
 York, costing nearly £2,000,000 sterling. 
 
 Quitting Albany, and following a road close by the 
 side of the Erie Canal, which here runs parallel with 
 the Hudson, after a pleasant walk of four or five 
 miles I arrived at Troy. What resemblance this 
 place may bear to ancient Ilium, so as to entitle it to 
 the name it bears, I know not. Methinks the modern 
 Trojans might have had the modesty to call it New 
 Troy. The mode of ferrying across the Hudson was 
 a kind of novelty to me. At both sides of an im- 
 mense raft, solid and broad enough to accommodate 
 half a dozen loaded waggons, is placed a horse, each 
 with his head turned diverse ways j they are en- 
 closed in a kind of shed, open at the sides from about 
 mid-height, and when the ferryman gave the word 
 they both commenced walking, but without advanc- 
 ing a single inch, and continued to do so till we 
 had got quite across the river. Every forward 
 movement they made was immediately lost by the 
 retrograde motion of a kind of wheels they were 
 placed on, which all the while kept turning briskly 
 round. Here, then, were two innocent and docile 
 animals put to the tread-mill ! This vertical move- 
 
 F 
 
 i II 
 
 m 
 
 ^1_ 
 
66 
 
 PEDESTRIAN TRAVEL. 
 
 I ! 
 
 
 lit 
 
 11 i^ 
 
 II 
 
 l<^ 
 
 
 ) 
 
 1 
 
 
 I 
 
 ment of the side wheels is communicated by means 
 of cranks to a kind of paddles, placed under ♦he 
 bottom of the raft, and thus is the thing cleverly 
 brought about. 
 
 I had been much interested by the accounts I had 
 read of the community of the Shakers, and endea- 
 voured to get as much information as possible of 
 that singular society j among whom, as I under- 
 ptnod, there was a community of goods, and " neither 
 J tarrying nor giving in marriage." I was not a little 
 » fundus to see such an experiment in full operation. 
 I fouiiuL 'hey were not well spoken of in New Yor i j 
 nor were they by any means popular in their o^ m 
 neighbourhood, if I may judge by the scandalo is 
 anecdotes that were related to lae, tending to shew 
 that they do not quite live " even as the angels in hea- 
 ven." Their two establishments are neither of them far 
 from that part of the Hudson where I now was j 
 the smaller is at Watervliet, on the eastern side. 
 I thought it best to visit the larger one, near New- 
 Lebanon Springs, which is a kind of dwarf Chelten- 
 ham, and much resorted to by company for the sana* 
 tive powers of its waters, or for pastime. When I 
 arrived at Troy, from misinformation received at 
 Albany, I found I had missed the morning stage by 
 a full hour. I was invited to take my place in the after- 
 noon coach J but as I saw nothing in Troy to detain 
 me, I determined to push on and let it overtake me 
 on the way. I cannot say I was sorry to arrange 
 the matter thus, being much of the opinion of the 
 author of " Highways and Byways," that those who 
 
A COMPANION ON THE ROAD. 
 
 67 
 
 )y means 
 
 nder ♦he 
 
 cleverly 
 
 its I had 
 d endea- 
 ssible of 
 [ under- 
 ' neither 
 )t a little 
 aeration, 
 w Yor i 3 
 leir Qv/n 
 mdalovis 
 to shew 
 s in hea- 
 hem far 
 |w was ', 
 n side, 
 r New- 
 helten- 
 e Sana- 
 hen I 
 lived at 
 age by 
 after- 
 detain 
 ke me 
 jrrange 
 of the 
 e who 
 
 
 are driven over a country in coaches never learn 
 much of it that is worth the knowing. 
 
 I had no*^ travelled far, when I saw, at some 
 distance on the road before me, a single traveller 
 with a knapsack on his back, pushing briskly for- 
 ward on his route. I thought it desirable to have a 
 companion ; so, being a tolerably fair walker, I soon 
 joined him, and expressed a wish to know whither 
 he was bound. He was rather shy at first, but we 
 soon got acquainted. He told me he was a Con- 
 necticut man, but had been for sor ^ nrs settled at 
 Buffalo, and was then going to se*. his 'ends in New 
 England, and arrange some fam' v ATairs. He gave 
 me wonderful accounts of th-^ «. arges that had 
 taken place in Buffalo, from t^ t'me he had first 
 known it ; how, that from an insignificant village of 
 no account, it had become a flourishing depot, with 
 a great and increasing trade ; several daily news- 
 papers were now published there : it seemed to me 
 an extraordinary example of the kind, even for 
 America. Having in my pockets some provision 
 which I had purchased at Troy, and as my com- 
 panion seemed to be faint and foot-worn, after a 
 while I invited him to take a share with me. There 
 being no tavern near, we sat ourselves down, like the 
 travelling players in Gil Bias, in a shady wood near 
 the road, where, like them, we could, if we chose, 
 " soak our crusts in a spring.'* Once more on our 
 way, we became very familiar : nothing brings men 
 closer in mind than social refection of the body. 
 So, as soon as we arrived at a tavern, although I 
 
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 f'HH 
 
 \ 
 
 
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 \- 
 
 4 
 
 ifti 
 
 mm '^ 
 
 i 
 
 l|V8 
 
 ;,! 
 
 Iw 
 
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 IK 
 
 Is 
 
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 Hi wltln ^ 
 
 
 C8 
 
 t( 
 
 ANY NEWS FROM THE OLD COUNTRY r 
 
 much eschewed the dram-drinking habits of the 
 country, he gained his point and got me in. There 
 I found several people of the country ; and, in particu- 
 lar, a French Canadian — a thin, sinewy, elderly man, 
 not unlike in person and looks to what we should 
 suppose Scott's Baron of Bradwardine to be. He 
 was one of the kindliest and gayest tempered souls 
 I ever met with. 
 
 Understanding I had lately come from the land 
 of his ancestors, he asked me all sorts of ridicu- 
 lous questions about it, for he seemed as ignorant of 
 its present state as a child j and being a small pro- 
 prietor in this part of the country, and married to a 
 New Englander, he had not seen Canada for some 
 years : thus opportunities of speaking his mother 
 tongue were rare, and he poured out most peculiar 
 French in a full torrent. Finding me a good listener, 
 — who, in nine instances in ten, is better appreciated 
 than a good speaker — I made great progress in his 
 good graces in a short time : he insisted on taking 
 nie home, ana introducing me to his wife and daugh- 
 ters, the latter — as he assured me, " belles comme le 
 jour j" I must absolutely pass some days with him,&c, 
 I was not much disinclined to accept his offer, but I 
 had made up my mind to go on to New-Lebanon, 
 it now being Saturday, and I wanted to witness the 
 Shakers' mode of worship next day. 
 
 Being loath to part with one another, we had chairs 
 placed for us outside the bar, and our little circle 
 insensibly increased, by individuals dropping in, 
 to a dozen or more. One of them began discuss- 
 
 1 
 
 CI 
 
 cl 
 
 s] 
 
 ol 
 cl 
 
Y?" 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 
 
 GO 
 
 of the 
 
 There 
 
 particu- 
 
 rly man, 
 
 should 
 36. He 
 d souls 
 
 he land 
 
 ridicu- 
 
 )rant of 
 
 ill pro- 
 
 ed to a 
 
 r some 
 
 mother 
 
 )eculiar 
 
 stener, 
 
 eciated 
 
 in his 
 
 taking 
 
 3augh- 
 
 nmele 
 
 im,&c, 
 
 but I 
 
 3anon, 
 
 s the 
 
 chairs 
 circle 
 g in, 
 cuss- 
 
 in 1^ the merits of a preacher who had been lately 
 itinerating in these parts — no doubt hunting for a 
 church to settle down in comfortably. This is a 
 common thing in America, and such a degrading 
 system is well calculated to create a class of pulpit 
 mountebanks. He had been sorely puzzling the brains 
 of the natives by a fine-spun theory about who Mel- 
 chizedek may have been — whether he was really the 
 High Priest of Salem who, as recorded in Gen.xiv. 18, 
 came and blessed Abraham on his return from the 
 slaughter of the five kings. The reverend aspirant 
 had preached a long string of discourses to prove 
 that Melchizedek was not a man such as we, but the 
 Saviour ; that he was a pre-manifestation of Christ 
 in the flesh. This assertion had sadly perplexed all 
 plain-witted people ; and one of my companions, 
 thinking perhaps he saw signs of an inquiring 
 temper in my countenance, gravely submitted the 
 case to me. I, thinking that the starting of such a 
 profitless inquiry by the parson had been only done 
 for the purpose, as Burns would say, of " courting the 
 kintra clash to raise a din," told them so frankly ; 
 adding, that those who indulged in speculations on 
 dark passages of Scripture, were not always the most 
 remarkable for their attention to its plainest pre- 
 cepts. I could not help enlarging on the subject 
 a little, though divinity is not my forte j and 
 getting heated with the subject, I turned round 
 to " explain " to one behind me, who had made 
 a posing remark, when, to my consternation, I 
 found I had had a crowd of listeners, the whole 
 
 
 
 M 
 
. ! 
 
 7() 
 
 SINGULAR INSTANCE OF A TRANCE. 
 
 •ii 
 
 
 
 space between the chairs and the door being literally 
 crammed, door-way included, with pe()i)le, mostly 
 militia-men of the environs in full uniform ; they had 
 been summoned that day to a muster for exercise 
 and firing at a target. Now such an increase in my 
 auditory, had I had the genuine spirit of practised 
 oratory ia me, would have given me fresh vigour 
 to continue -, but, as for me, it pulled me off " my 
 high horse " in a moment. — Shortly afterwards, the 
 evening ;?tage being now in sight, and darkness com- 
 ing on, I parted with my kind-hearted friends of 
 an hour j but it was some time before the garrulous 
 Canadian would let go my hand. 
 
 The driver of the stage (I do not dare to call him 
 coachman — that would be an insult in America) be- 
 side whom I now took my place, was an agreeable, 
 and rather a superior kind of man. Few or none of 
 that class, indeed, are of such a low caste as ours at 
 home. He seemed to be dexterous in his trade too. 
 The road led, in some places, through a wooded 
 country, of a most rugged description. Had I been 
 seated beside some English drivers, going down one 
 declivity and up another, I should have been in 
 terror of my neck ; and then the American horses 
 are such docile creatures. I did not, on this occa- 
 sion, see the man use his whip to them even once, 
 although he spoke to them often, calling each by his 
 name. This person related to me, that, some years 
 before, he was on the point of being buried alive, 
 as it was supposed that he had died of an illness 
 which reduced him very low at that time. In Ame- 
 
 II 
 
 ■ii' 
 
 U 
 
OBSTINACY NOT ALWAYS WRONG. 
 
 71 
 
 ▼ literally 
 ;, mostly 
 they had 
 exercise 
 se in my 
 practised 
 h vigour 
 off " my 
 ards, the 
 ess com- 
 •iends of 
 ;arrulous 
 
 call him 
 rica) be- 
 ;reeable, 
 none of 
 ours at 
 ide too. 
 wooded 
 I been 
 wn one 
 een in 
 lorses 
 occa- 
 once, 
 by his 
 years 
 alive, 
 llness 
 Ame- 
 
 rica, the corruption of animal matter is much more 
 rapid, in summer especially, than with us ; so that 
 they arc obliged to have the bodies of the dead 
 sooner disposed of. He assured me he lay in a kind 
 of trance, having a dreamy kind of consciousness of 
 all that was passing around him, for more than 
 thirty hours. The village doctor, and all his neigh- 
 bours, with one exception, thought him dead. This 
 last was his most intimate friend, and had been his 
 schoolfellow. The man had his doubts ; although, 
 as he declared afterwards, he scarce knew why ; he 
 owned all appearances were against the notio i that 
 he had so firmly taken up. Meantime, the others 
 laughed him to scorn, when he obstinately persisted 
 in not allowing the supposed defunct to be inclosed 
 for burial. The coffin was prepared, and the pa- 
 tient's friend about to give way, when the body show- 
 ed unequivocal outward signs of animation — inward 
 consciousness the patient had never lost for a mo- 
 ment ; he was not aware even of having slept. I asked 
 him if he had been perfectly acquainted with what 
 was going on about him. He positively declared he 
 had J but that his sensations were all passive. He 
 heard them talk of his funeral, and discuss the parti- 
 culars ; he listened to the remonstrances with his 
 frieua, his answers, and every thing that passed on 
 the occasion 3 but although he knew it was all about 
 him, and concerned him so nearly, he did not feel as 
 if he had the desire, much less the power, to get up 
 and interfere ! I had read of some remarkable ca^es 
 
 
 1 " 
 
 { 
 
 \ 
 
it 
 
 '.\ 
 
 k 
 
 n 
 
 r 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 l1 
 
 72 
 
 TOWN OF NASSAU. 
 
 of this sort, as narrated in books ; but never fell in 
 with any one whose personal experience could con- 
 firm or contradict their existence, till I fell in 
 with the driver of the stage between Albany and 
 Nassau. 
 
 at 
 
 & 
 a 
 
 ai 
 
 
f I. 
 
 A PERTINACIOUS BORE. 
 
 73 
 
 m 
 
 ' fell in 
 lid con- 
 fell in 
 ny and 
 
 I 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 NEW LEBANON SPRINGS THE SHAKERS. 
 
 
 
 At Nassau, two miles from New Lebanon, we 
 changed our driver. As I did not like his appear- 
 ance quite so well as that of my " dead alive/' I 
 got inside, where I encountered an elderly man, with 
 a gruif voice, who I could orly see was fat, and who 
 annoyed me greatly with questions, whether I was 
 *' a traveller, or a clergyman, or a merchant, or a 
 mechanic, or" — I stopped him here, thinking he 
 might go even lower in his conjectures as to what 
 I might be, and said to him, " My good sir, just 
 imagine that I am nothing at all — that I am no- 
 body." I was not aware, at that time, that the term 
 " mechanic " has a different meaning there than with 
 us : it is generally applied to master tradesmen in 
 different callings, especially workers in metal, such 
 as machinists, brass-founders, and the like ; also to 
 engineers, railroad-contractors, &c. This man, 
 whose property he said lay near, soon got down 
 and left us. I was not sorry for his absence. I 
 could have been glad that he had left bis daughter 
 behind him, who was a well-spoken young ladyj 
 whether her person were as agreeable as her con- 
 versation, I cannot say. 
 
 i 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
74 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED SCENE 
 
 The watering-place, called New Lebanon Springs, 
 is built on the top of a hill, of gentle ascent. It is 
 composed of a bathing-house, and three very exten- 
 sive and stately taverns, forming a kind of square j 
 its conspicuous position upon a hill, like '* a city 
 that cannot be hid," at a distance, with the hun- 
 dred shifting lights in the windows, gave it the 
 appearance of some illuminated palace in a theatri- 
 cal scene ; a comparison that was still further help- 
 ed by the sounds of music and revelry which fell 
 upon the ear as we approached it. Having "^aken up 
 my quarters at one of the taverns, I found myself in 
 the midst of the gayest company T had yet mixed 
 with in America. It is a resort for many invalids 
 to get rid of cutaneous and other diseases, in the 
 first of which the waters are said to be very useful -, 
 but a much greater number repair thither to 
 shake off the spleen, or idlers, who merely come 
 to kill time. It is, in short, a place of innocent 
 dissipation. Although not of the gayest turn of 
 mind myself, I have always been, like Goldsmith's 
 Doctor Primrose, an admirer of happy faces ; and 
 here there was a freedom of intercourse, a forgetful- 
 ness of the cares of life, an oblivion of its distinc- 
 tions, all reigning about this charming spot, which 
 it was quite delightful to meet with, and what I 
 hardly expected to find, and indeed never did find 
 afterward, in any part of America. Numbers of the 
 young ladies — some with their parents, but mostly 
 with their sweethearts — tired with much dancing in 
 the concert-room, were walking about the grounds. 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 t 
 c 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 « 
 
" BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON : " 
 
 7' 
 
 [ Springs, 
 nt. It is 
 ry exten- 
 f square ; 
 '* a city 
 the hun- 
 e it the 
 L theatri- 
 ler help- 
 hich fell 
 aken up 
 ayself in 
 !t mixed 
 invalids 
 , in the 
 useful ; 
 ther to 
 Y come 
 inocent 
 urn of 
 smith's 
 ', and 
 getful- 
 istinc- 
 which 
 vhat I 
 iind 
 of the 
 nostly 
 ng in 
 )unds. 
 
 pleasantly laid out garden-fashion, in the centre area 
 of the buildings ; the stoup or colonnade in front of 
 the taverns had rows of chairs for gentlemen ; and 
 there sat the latter smoking, discussing lightsomely 
 their own affairs or those of the nation, and all the 
 world enjoying itself in its own way. But the tell- 
 tale moonlight, which shone bright over all, showed 
 me lady arms twined round favoured necks, with a 
 most loving simplicity that thought no ill. These 
 pairs moved about jauntily, keeping time in their 
 steps to the cadence of imaginary music, the in- 
 struments having now ceased. It grew late, but no 
 one seemed to think of going to rest : how could 
 they, and leave such a bright shining moon behind ! 
 Although I have been, in my time, rather scurvily treat- 
 ed by many individuals of my species, there have been 
 moments when my heart has swelled within me with 
 such an expansion of love to human kind, that I 
 thought I could lodge the whole race within its 
 core : such a feeling as this did I experience, for in- 
 stance, when the French people showed such hero- 
 ism in combat with so much moderation after victory 
 in the early days of their last Revolution. But the 
 subsequent conduct of many of them made the 
 heart, thus expanded, soon contract again. It was 
 then I first got acquainted with the delicious sen- 
 timent of LOYALTY, a fccliug quitc new to me ; and 
 which, if only inferior in strength to th«' love of 
 woman, is much purer in its nature. Let Louis 
 Philippe have been an intriguing usurper or not, 
 he was a man whose talents and general character. 
 
 
 I I : 
 
 ! 1 
 
 f 
 
76 
 
 SOME REFLECTIONS ON IT. 
 
 f.l 
 
 M 
 
 \\ 
 
 i\ 
 
 HI 
 
 
 \- i 
 
 
 apart from his ambition, were well worthy of re- 
 spect and affection. If ir.iny soon turned against the 
 man of their choice, I at least, who took as great an 
 interest in their happiness as a foreigner could do, 
 stood firm by those who maintained their integrity. 
 To a man who has been jostled about in the lower 
 thoroughfares of life, such sensations as I have de- 
 scribed can come but rarely — they are holiday, not 
 every-day feelings — yet let not the titled or the 
 prosperous impute the rarity of such kindly visita- 
 tions of the soul in their humbler fellow-men to 
 insensibility of heart, or to a cold, unsympathizing 
 spirit. No ! it is the bitter knowledge, the daily 
 experience, of the conduct of certain . laracters — the 
 cruel, habitua) subjection to base, tyrjiniical natures, 
 that sullen the mind,' and sour tliv. lumper of the 
 otherwise amiable portions of tbt ! wer class. Ah ! 
 they who bask in the suixshine A' «.\:e upr>er waters, 
 know not of the creeping -'Uings they would be 
 crawled over by, if their fate had confine 1 them to 
 the lower regior .fthe ocean of life. 
 
 In m/^mentB :>f pai i and sorrow, in the desolation 
 of a dejected soul, in the dreariness of enforced 
 solitude, when I wish to expel from my mind the 
 gloomy sensations of the intolerable present by 
 pictures of the agreeable past, I shall always recall 
 to mind the evening I passed at Lebanon Springs. 
 
 Early next morning, which was Sunday, I got up 
 to have a look at the healing waters. I found twenty 
 or thirty people assembled around them, and drink- 
 ing them by large tumblers-full, being used both in- 
 
'i 
 
 of re- 
 inst the 
 jreat an 
 )uld do, 
 tegrity. 
 e lower 
 ave de- 
 lay, not 
 or the 
 ■ visita- 
 men to 
 .thizing 
 e daily 
 's — the 
 atures, 
 of the 
 Ah! 
 aters, 
 Id be 
 em to 
 
 llation 
 
 ^orced 
 
 d the 
 
 t by 
 
 ecall 
 
 |gs. 
 
 )t up 
 
 fenty 
 
 rink- 
 
 in- 
 
 i 
 
 GENERAL ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 // 
 
 wardly and outwardly. It is the most remarkable 
 water I have ever seen for clearness. The bottom of 
 the reservoir was lined with a shining silvery grey- 
 coloured deposite ; and the fluid over it so transpa- 
 rent, that at a few feet distance it was difhcult to be- 
 lieve there could be water there at all. Thin wreaths 
 of smoke curled lightly over the reservoir's mouth. 
 This hot spring issues from a rock, with a flow of 
 eighteen barrels a minute. Part of the water is 
 carried, by means of pipes, into the baths hard by. 
 
 Besides the large taverns onj^^ount-Lebanon, tb-'re 
 are several smaller buildings, such as out-houses, 'nd 
 a considerable dairy farm. The view from this place, 
 over the country, especially towa;'ds the west, is very 
 extensive and beautiful. Besides some intermediate 
 villages, it includes the town of Nassau and a toler- 
 able expanse of country beyond, but is interce;)ted 
 by the high land that shuts up the Hudson in the 
 direction of Troy and Saratoga ; ths latter is fauums 
 for its waters also, and well known to us hv he 
 mortifying surrender of Burgoyne and !ii? army 
 to the Americans. To the nortl are the Cat:-kil' 
 Mountains, ranged like a long i e of giaiits, the 
 nearer peaks darkly green, this lurther i'pdiv.ijr into 
 different tints of blue. And in this direction, to the 
 right and near to the spectator ire the broad slopes 
 of other hills of inferior height, \tendingfrom east to 
 west with a long sweep, covered with forests of fune- 
 real-looking pine. Here and there the roofs of small 
 wooden dwellings peep forth ; the thin blue early 
 morning smoke, when I saw them beginning to rise : 
 
 \ f. 
 
 ''I 
 
 m 
 
 -i 
 
 ti 9 
 
78 
 
 NOVEL BUT MONOTONOUS SCENERY. 
 
 i^ 
 
 there are but few of these, and they only slightly break 
 the sombre monotony of the scene Not a sound 
 arises from this part of the landscape. The " song of 
 early bird" is no where to be heard. It is the Sab- 
 bath, and one would think that nature herself rested 
 from her labours. I have often had occasion to re- 
 mark the stillness of American scenery. Of singing 
 birds, wherever I have been, there is a great scarcity. 
 There are no skylarks j neither are there any daisies ! 
 can the country ever be poetical ? On this occasion 
 I could see no fowls in the air, nor animals of any 
 kind in tlie woods ; excepting now and then a ground- 
 squirrel, which, it must be owned, are pretty little 
 creatures, but very shy. Even the crows and rooks 
 of England are wanJng, whose noisy presence would 
 be most desirable to break up the stillness that sur- 
 rounds one on ev ry side. The absence of hedge-rows 
 is another cause of baldness in their landscapes. The 
 mode of fencing differs in different parts of America. 
 In the upper portion of the State of New York, where 
 I now was (at a short distance from the western boun- 
 dary line of Connecticut), the fields are inclosed with 
 zigzag fences. They are composed of long stakes 
 placed horizontally, their jK)ints crossing and forming 
 a series of obtuse angles, raised upon rails driven 
 into the ground. At a distance, looking at them 
 from above, they present an outline such as you see 
 traced on the engraved plans of fortifications. Three 
 miles off, but to the north-west, the buildings hid from 
 view by an interposing hill crowned with wood, is 
 the great Shaker establishment. The upper parts of 
 
 

 
 ESTATE OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 79 
 
 their farms are, however, in sight, and in an admi- 
 rable state of cultivation they are said to be. 
 
 Having breakfasted early at the tavern, along with 
 some twenty persons, mostly gentlemen — few of 
 the ladies being visible as yet — I set out to visit the 
 Shakers. After a circuitous walk of three miles, I 
 found myself in front of their meeting house. It is 
 a pla'n square building, having the exterior of a large 
 riding-house. It was not yet opened. Opposite to 
 it, the high road passing between, is the Trustees' 
 house — a substantially-built and very neat structure, 
 two stories high 3 such a place as would be fit for 
 the residence of an English gentleman of moderate 
 fortune. This building, with the meeting-house, 
 school-house, &c. stands on ring ground, which still 
 continues to ascend till it cuds in a woody ridge. 
 The descending ground, whereon stands the meet- 
 ing house, ends in a hollow, inclosing various mills 
 and workshops advantageously placed about a stream 
 which there runs, so as to make its water-power 
 available. As for the dwellings of the brethren, 
 owing to the undulating surface of the land, scarce 
 one is visible from the spot I have been trying to de- 
 scribe ; they are scattered up and down in all direc- 
 tions on the different farms. Having no one to 
 point out the property to me, or give me any authen- 
 tic information about the society, 1 inquired of one of 
 the first brothers I met whether the establishment 
 could be seen that day; he answered me briefly, but 
 civilly) that Sunday was an inconvenient day, 1)ut 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 
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 ijl 
 
 ' 
 
 
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I 
 
 i 
 
 \'^i, 
 
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 11 
 
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 80 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH THE SUPERINTENDANT. 
 
 that if I were only " curious to see their worship," 
 the meeting house would be opened in an hour or 
 two. I told him that was not all I wanted ; that I 
 had come from afar, and wished to get as much 
 information as they were willing to give. After 
 some slight hesitation, he knocked at the door of the 
 head-quarters, and it was opened by "a sister," an 
 elderly female, who showed me up to " the Elder." 
 This was a middle-aged man, shrewd-looking and 
 intelligent, with an intellectual forehead and penetrat- 
 ing eye. He seemed a perfect man of the world, and 
 was of ready speech, having certainly nothing of the 
 enthusiast in looks, manners, or conversation. He 
 asked me what I wanted with him. I made an apo- 
 logy for coming on such a day, when, as I had just 
 heard, it was not usual for visitors to be received ; 
 but that I had come from abroad, was pressed for 
 time, as I was obliged to hasten back to New York, 
 &c. He told me it was not possible for him to show 
 me the working part of the establishment, nor the 
 grounds, because it was with them a day of absolute 
 rest, and therefore he had no one to send with me -, 
 but he would willingly shew me the government 
 house J which he thereupon did, and took me through 
 the different rooms himself, with unceremonious 
 civility. They were all well and substantially, though 
 plainly furnished, and particularly neat and clean — 
 the whole a model of order and comfort. The pierre 
 de touclie of a house is its kitchen ; and none in Lon- 
 don could exceed theirs in neatness of equipment. If 
 
)ANT. 
 
 VOLTAIRE AND THE QUAKER. 
 
 81 
 
 worship," 
 1 hour or 
 I; that I 
 as much 
 . After 
 or of the 
 5ter/' an 
 
 Elder." 
 ting and 
 ienetrat- 
 )rld, and 
 ig of the 
 on. He 
 an apo- 
 lad just 
 3ceived ^ 
 ised for 
 
 York, 
 to show 
 [lor the 
 bsolute 
 h me ; 
 rnraent 
 hrough 
 lonious 
 though 
 lean — 
 t pierre 
 I Lon- 
 it. If 
 
 the great business of life be to live well, in one sense 
 of these words no means or appliances are want- 
 ing in the premises set apart for "the elders and 
 trustees of the people called Shaking Quakers." One 
 apartment, which he called " the store," was full of 
 articles, of light manufacture, for sale to visitors or 
 others, mostly the handiwork of the sisters, such as 
 baskets, cradles, and the like, with packets and sam- 
 ples of various kinds of seeds and grain, plants, bun- 
 dles of healing herbs, &c. He assured me, these 
 were in great request in most parts of the country 
 around, and their sale added considerably to the 
 general funds ; also, that the general produce of 
 their fields and dairies had a higher value in the 
 market than that of other producers. Next to the 
 store, he shewed me the laboratory. He told me 
 that more than one of the " brothers " had studied 
 medicine 3 and that they had everything '' within 
 themselves," even to a printing house. 
 
 We now returned to the sitting room, and he 
 seemed to be preparing to leave me ; but I had a 
 similar desire to that of Voltaire, who, in his Travels 
 in England, relates, that he asked Thomas White of 
 London, a leading Quaker, to whom he was intro- 
 duced, *' to be good enough to instruct him in his 
 religion :" I expressed to my Shaker, though in less 
 direct terms, a similar wish. He asked me, fixing 
 his keen eyes on mine, if ever I had heard anything 
 remarkable about them in my own country, before. 
 I said I had not, excepting some slight accounts I 
 
 'I I 
 
82 
 
 CONVERSATION WITH A SHAKER. 
 
 < ! 
 
 had read in books of tourists, who all treated the 
 hubject in a strain of levity that had induced me to 
 put little trust in them. He said that his duties 
 ■would prevent him, for the present, from gratifyiniij 
 my desire : but that it was a pity I was so urgent, as 
 I was welcome to call next day, or whenever it suited 
 me, and that then he, or some other to whom he 
 would mention my desire, would give me every rea- 
 sonable explanation. ** In the meantime," said he, 
 directing my attention to a heavy octavo volume lying 
 on the table, ** there is a book which will tell thee 
 more about our people than I can. And here again 
 is a little work, lately sent forth by us, in our own 
 defence, which will explain some things that concern 
 us J should thou never find time to read it, it will be as 
 a remembrance to thee — of my brethren I was going 
 to say, but they are thine also j" so saying, he put 
 into my hand a small pamphlet of 36 pages 12mo. 
 " To-day," said he, " thou mayst see, if thou wilt, a 
 kind of worship which will be altogether new to thee. 
 The hour of meeting will soon arrive, and so I 
 must leave thee ; but take thy seat at that window, 
 and thou mayst turn the interval to profit by perus- 
 ing the volume I have shewn thee." So saying, he 
 left me.— I here copy the title of the Shakers' pam- 
 phlet, thus kindly given j it was drawn up on occa- 
 sion of some attacks made upon them by the State 
 legislature : " A brief Exposition of the established 
 Principles and Regulations of the United Society of 
 Believers called Shakers. O magna vis veritatis ] Cic. 
 • The power of truth is great, it must and will pre- 
 
 't ■ 
 
GENERAL PREVALENCE OF SLANDER, 
 
 83 
 
 111 
 
 ited the 
 [ me to 
 s duties 
 •atifying 
 
 gent, as 
 it suited 
 horn he 
 • ery rea- 
 said he, 
 ne lying 
 ell thee 
 "e again 
 •ur own 
 concern 
 t'ill be as 
 is going 
 he put 
 12mo. 
 wilt, a 
 |to thee, 
 so I 
 indow, 
 perus- 
 ing, he 
 pam- 
 occa- 
 State 
 l^lished 
 (ety of 
 Cic. 
 II pre- 
 
 vail, When false reports shall cease, and sland'rous 
 tongues shall fail.' " 
 
 The reader will see, by extracts appended to this let- 
 ter, that the government of this singular community 
 is founded on the purest moral and religious princi- 
 ples ; if they at all act up to what they profess, it 
 might be a good thing for the world that Sh:d:.r 
 establishments were more common. It is true I 
 heard some scandalous anecdotes about them in their 
 own neighbourhood, of clandestine connections 
 between certain brothers and sisters, and how that 
 children had been born and made away with, &c. 
 &c. J but such stories are sure to get abroad, whe- 
 ther well founded or not. Their pretensions to 
 greater purity of life than others — both sexes living 
 ** even as the angels in heaven" — expose them natu- 
 rally to animp.'iversion ; besides, their great prospe- 
 rity is enough to make them envied by most, and 
 haCed by many. The motto they chose for their 
 pamphlet contains a consoling, yet false asser- 
 tion, that we confidingly read in the books of phi- 
 losophers when young J but which our experience of 
 the world afterwards obliges us, with a sigh, to 
 refuse our assent to. How many times do good 
 men descend to their graves, overborne with calum- 
 nies, which few ever take the trouble to examine 
 into } If tardy justice is sometimes done to the 
 injured in this world, (and this world was all that 
 the ancient sophist's aphorism could refer to), such 
 justice is so rarely done, as to form no rule, but is 
 rather the exception. Most people are ever eager 
 
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84 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THIS. 
 
 h.t\ 
 
 to listeu to what makes against their neighbours, 
 and hear with listlessncss or impatience what can be 
 said in their behalf. A remarkable instance of this 
 occurred with respect to these same Shakers, which 
 sufficiently proved that their Latin motto (Cicero- 
 nian though it may be) enounces a " vulgar error." 
 A few months after my visit to them, one of the 
 elders formed an attachment to a sister, and they 
 agreed to leave the community and get married. 
 He had a right to do so, and none of his brethren 
 objected to it. He gave proper nctice to his col- 
 leagues months before he left, arranged his affairs, 
 and parted with every one on the most amicable 
 terms 3 at the same time quitting the community 
 poorer than he entered it, for he took away no money, 
 except a present given to him by his brethren — not as 
 a rights for they recognize no claims of restitution, 
 but as a testimony of their respect. Well : an Alba- 
 ny journal, immediately getting false information of 
 the affair from some *' kind neighbours " of the Sha- 
 kers, roundly asserted that their principal trustee, 
 *' the keeper of the bag," had, Judas-like, betrayed 
 his trust, and run off with the prettiest of all the 
 young sisters, and an immense sum of money besides! 
 Immediately, this slander was eagerly copied into 
 more than a thousand other lying newspapers of the 
 United States. The individual in question (who may 
 have been the very man whose conversation with me 
 I have reported above) immediately wrote an indig- 
 nant contradiction to a leading journal of New York. 
 Not more than half a dozen out of the thousand 
 
ALCORAN OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 85 
 
 ighbours, 
 lat can be 
 :e of this 
 rs, which 
 (Cicero- 
 ir error." 
 ae of the 
 and they 
 married, 
 brethren 
 his col- 
 is affairs, 
 amicable 
 mnxunity 
 o money, 
 1 — not as 
 stitution, 
 an Alba- 
 lation of 
 the Sha- 
 trustee, 
 )etrayed 
 all the 
 )esides ! 
 ed into 
 s of the 
 ho may 
 K^ith me 
 indig- 
 V York, 
 iousand 
 
 
 just mentioned ever took the least notice of it ; and 
 thus, up to this time, and probably for ever, a respect- 
 able man is believed by millions of his countrymen to 
 be a consummate scoundrel. " Magna est Veritas, et 
 praevalebit !** It will indeed prevail a bit, and a very 
 small one too. No, no, unhappily slanderous tongues 
 will never " fail." But these were after reflections : 
 meantime I set myself seriously to read the heavy 
 book he spoke of, which was a most voluminous his- 
 tory of the Shakers, from the time of their first 
 foundation by Ann Lee, the wife of an English 
 blacksmith. That good old lady, finding that pro- 
 phetesses have no honour in their own country, 
 left Toad-lane in Manchester, and came to America 
 in 177 ^t probably finding our little island too small 
 for her. In Toad- lane she had already dreamed 
 dreams and seen visions ; but few attended to 
 them J while in America her accounts of them were 
 listened to with respect. By and by, the believers 
 formed a sect, and various supposed manifestations of 
 the Spirit shone forth in others of the members. 
 The ground on which the Shakers go, as well as most 
 other enthusiasts — as, for instance, the French convul- 
 sionaries of the past, and the " unknown tongue" 
 visionaries of the present century, is this — that no 
 **vhere in Scripture is it said, that spiritual gifts 
 ceased with the Apostles. Accordingly, long details 
 are given in the above-mentioned work, which, though 
 related in earnest language, and with a plausible cir- 
 cumstantiality, yet seem quite ludicrous to one who is 
 " of the world, worldly." I could only dip here and 
 
86 
 
 PERSONALITIES OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 n 
 
 there into such a massive volume, which contained 
 full 700 closely printed 8vo. pages j for, independent 
 of the absurdity of the subject, my attention was 
 ever and anon diverted from it, by the scene passing 
 outside. As the hour of service approached, a flock of 
 visitors began to arrive, some on foot, but mostly in 
 carriages. No less than three stages came, full of 
 ladies and gentlemen, from Lebanon Springs alone. 
 Presently came "brothers and sisters" in quick succes- 
 sion : they were mostly conveyed in well-built spring 
 carts, and all dressed in the same sober uniform ; 
 which is even plainer than that of the Quakers, and as 
 spotlessly clean. The men wore old-fashioned square- 
 cut fustian frock coats ; plain fronted shirts, without 
 collars J some few with ample cravats, but mostly 
 without. The women wore a dress of light greyish 
 fawn-coloured stuflF, fashioned in such a way as to 
 hide as much as possible the contour of the body, 
 and make all the sisters appear of one shape. They 
 wore very high-heeled shoes, which added consider- 
 ably to the height of their persons j and, being gene- 
 rally lean, and destitute of any projections to break 
 their straight poplar-tree-like outline, gave most of 
 them, when they stood up, the appearance of the 
 ghosts of giantesses. Most of their complexions 
 were pale, and their looks universally downcast and 
 melancholy. At first they took their places on long 
 forms ranged under the walls to the right j over their 
 heads was a long row of pegs for bonnets 3 their head 
 pieces were of a shape like that of our coal scoops, 
 with retrenched handles 3 the material they were made 
 
 
THEIR MEETING-HOUSE. 
 
 87 
 
 contained 
 
 ependent 
 
 tion was 
 
 e passing 
 
 a flock of 
 
 mostly in 
 
 ;, full of 
 
 gs alone. 
 
 :ksucces- 
 
 iilt spring 
 
 uniform ; 
 
 rS; and as 
 
 d square- 
 
 j, without 
 
 it mostly 
 
 t greyish 
 
 ^ay as to 
 
 he body. 
 
 They 
 
 onsider- 
 
 ng gene- 
 
 to break 
 
 most of 
 
 i of the 
 
 plexions 
 
 act and 
 
 on long 
 
 er their 
 
 ir head 
 
 scoops, 
 
 re made 
 
 of was apparently some cheap cotton fabric, and its 
 colour a slaty grey. Similarly ranged, on the oppo- 
 site side to them, sat the brethren, each under the 
 shadow, not of his own fig- tree, but of an immense 
 broad-brimmed hat of plaited straw ; and a useful arti- 
 cle this is, too, in summer. The position and look they 
 assumed was the same as that of the sisters ; and 
 the hands of all were disposed in a convenient fashion 
 for what is called thumb twaddling. 
 
 The visitors had entered by side doors in front of 
 the building — the ladies by one door, the gentlemen by 
 another; the same separation of sexes being observed 
 for the audience as for the performers. The latter 
 sat sidewards to the rows of the sisters, the former 
 were similarly placed as to the brethren ; and we 
 were ranged on seats sloping down from the entry- 
 wall for a short way into the room. Behind the sis- 
 ters was their door of entry ; the brethren entered 
 from behind also, but the door of the latter led into 
 «a side-room, like a vestry : thus were all parties kept 
 separate. There were about one hundred and fifty 
 men, and, as near as may be, the same number of 
 women. The spectators were full two hundred, oc- 
 cupying but a small space. 
 
 After the doors were shut, a dead stillness prevailed 
 among the members for ten or fifteen minutes, and 
 the silence was maintained unbroken by us also. All 
 at once we were startled by a man's rising up with 
 a sudden jerk ; the others got on their legs in an 
 instant 3 and, after taking off hats, hanging them up, 
 and stripping themselves to their shirts, they huddled 
 
 i 
 
tl 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 (A 1 
 
 n 
 
 ! i( 
 
 88 
 
 THEIR SINGULAR EVOLUTIONS — 
 
 the chairs together, ard drew up in a long line. A 
 similar operation was going on among the sisters 
 — omitting the stripping ; they unbonnetted, how- 
 ever, and taking off their tiny shawls, stood up oppo- 
 site to the men. These confronting lines were not 
 parallel, but rather angular, so as to increase their 
 length, the open part of the angle being that nearest 
 to us. No two lines were ever more admirably 
 dressed by any drill-serjeant. Midway between the 
 ranks, stood a select band of women, about a dozen 
 or so, upon whom, as on a pivot, the whole machi- 
 nery of the evolutions that followed seemed to turn. 
 They always sung (or screamed) the loudest, and ges- 
 ticulated the most energetically. They were like the 
 fuglemen to a regiment when it is exercised. But let 
 us take things in their order. 
 
 The two parties stood as immovable as a long 
 avenue of statues, with eyes fixed on the ground, for 
 full five minutes 3 at the end of that time symptoms 
 of life began to manifest themselves by a kind of 
 spasmodic projecting and retracting of some of the 
 sisters' toes, which presently spread along the whole 
 female line, and then communicated itself to the 
 men by a quick infection ; to this was soon added an 
 astounding yell, the starting-note of a kind of ranting 
 hymn, uttered by the strongest voice of the centre 
 band, which was immediately caught up by all ; and 
 off they set, in a kind of singing gallopade. The 
 same words were, no doubt, sung by every one j but 
 the confusion of so many voices, some not keeping 
 exact time, made it difficult to hear them connectedly. 
 
 I! ,11 
 
AND WHIRLIGIG WORSHIP. 
 
 S9 
 
 ; line. A 
 ke sisters 
 ted, how- 
 up oppo- 
 were not 
 ase their 
 ,t nearest 
 dmirably 
 ween the 
 ; a dozen 
 e machi- 
 [ to turn. 
 , and ges- 
 ? like the 
 But let 
 
 a long 
 und, for 
 mptoms 
 kind of 
 e of the 
 e whole 
 
 to the 
 
 dedan 
 ranting 
 
 centre 
 and 
 The 
 but 
 eeping 
 ctedly. 
 
 * f 
 
 They rang the changes, however, very often on the 
 
 following lines — 
 
 *' In day of doom will Jesus come 
 To save my soul alive ! 
 To save my soul alive !" 
 
 Their style of singing, I am almost ashamed to say, 
 made me think directly of Signor Corri, (for even in 
 the most sacred places will profane thoughts now 
 and then intrude.) This singer, while in England, 
 one day passing near a meeting-house of Ranters, 
 while voicing an uproarious hymn, put his hands in 
 his sensitive Italian ears, and asked, with a look of 
 dismay, " Vat deese peoples vere dooin." Being told 
 they were singing the praises of God, he rejoined, 
 " Den dey must tink he haf ver' bad ear." 
 
 The hymn, or whatever it were, of the Shakers, 
 was '* a joyful noise " to the letter. All this while 
 the brothers and sisters were moving about, some- 
 times in circles, at other times in ellipses ; one while 
 the brothers stood still and let the sisters whirl 
 round them j otherwhiles the reverse j but however 
 the figure changed, there was never any commingling 
 of sexes. Both had their arms drawn close to their 
 bodies, leaving the hands sticking out in a strange 
 manner ; and with these last, like a turtle's fins, they 
 kept gapping time to the quick measure of their 
 song. Meantime, loudest and most active in all 
 this were the centre band of women. Many of them 
 were quite hoarse before it was concluded. There 
 they stood, like the axis of a wheel, while round 
 them moved the wide circumference of this " peri- 
 

 90 
 
 SHAKER EXHORTATIONS. 
 
 ] ' ' 
 
 ,il 
 
 odical fit of distraction," as douce old David Deans 
 would say. At last, with every appearance of fatigue 
 and lassitude, again they sat down, and a dead si- 
 lence reigned for fifteen minutes or so. Then the 
 Spirit moved a man to get up and speak. He was 
 evidently a •* weak brother." His rambling unin- 
 telligible discourse united the two essentials of bad 
 oratory, being at once extravagant and dull. It was 
 really what old Colonel Crockett would have called 
 a strain of " almighty twaddle." When he had 
 ceased, after a reasonable pause another got up. 
 This was a speaker altogether of a different stamp j 
 but his discourse was much more addressed to us 
 than to his own people. He intimated, among other 
 things, while deprecating the contempt of the world 
 for his community, that it contained in its body 
 some who had been well considered by that world 
 they had renounced for ever j it was not because the 
 worlddespised Mem that they left a distinguished place 
 in its ranks : it was because they despised it, on ac- 
 count of its vanity, its noihingness, its total insuffi- 
 ciency, with all its allurements, to satisfy a reasonable 
 soul. So long as he confined himself to this part of his 
 subject, he spoke with easy fluency and great feeling. 
 I strongly suspected, indeed, thit he alluded, in 
 much of what he said on this head, to himself ; but 
 when he came to treat of the peculiar notions of the 
 Shakers, there was a sad falling oflF : — he sank at 
 once into downright rigmarole. The following was 
 the sum of this part of his discourse : — Jesus Christ 
 was man only, though inspired of God. He lived a 
 
 '1 
 
CONCLUSION OF THEIR ODD SERVICE. 
 
 91 
 
 vid Deans 
 of fatigue 
 a dead si- 
 Then the 
 He was 
 ling unin- 
 als of bad 
 1. It was 
 ave called 
 n he had 
 r got lip. 
 nt stamp ; 
 sed to us 
 long other 
 the world 
 its body 
 tiat world 
 icause the 
 ;hed place 
 it, on ac- 
 al insuffi- 
 ^asonable 
 >artofhis 
 it feeling, 
 uded, in 
 elf J but 
 |ns of the 
 sank at 
 ing was 
 s Christ 
 lived a 
 
 pure life in this world by the Divine assistance. 
 Ordinary mortals were not favoured with that assist- 
 ance, at least to so great an extent, and therefore 
 could not reach the same perfection that he did; 
 but, by retiring from the world, and living a life of 
 celibacy, it was still possible to attain to a great, 
 though inferior, degree of purity — even to make 
 human beings in the end fit for the society of angels 
 in heaven. 
 
 After having conveyed this kilderkin of meaning 
 in a tun of words, he suddenly stopped, and sat 
 down 'y then there was silence again for a quarter of 
 an hour. The *' Spirit " moving no one else to 
 speak, the afifair closed as it had begun, only to 
 another tune which was of a slower measure j but 
 carefully kept time to, with the same wagging of 
 Jins as before : the figures also were a little different, 
 and of course having a less dizzying effect on the 
 spectator's head. No bible, or psalter- book, indeed no 
 book of any kind, was used, nor prayers offered up j 
 all was either extempore or learned by heart j how- 
 beit their evolutions must have been well practised, 
 for they were as perfect as those of dancing on 
 a stage. When this second vocal gallopade was 
 finished, the doors were thrown open, and the meet- 
 ing broke up. The sisters immediately departed j the 
 majority of them got into spring- carts, and in these 
 were driven home by one or other of the brethren. 
 Those of the latter who remained, dispersed into 
 little groups, probably discussing the merits of the 
 
 ili 
 
 \i 
 
92 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH 
 
 speakers j and I, observing that they shunned contact 
 with "the world " to which I belonged, and having 
 no hope of further edification or amusement, took a 
 first and last farewell of the Shakers. 
 
 EXTRACTS PROM A SHAKER PAMPHLET, DATED NEW- 
 LEBANON, MARCH 15, 1830, AND SIGNED " CALVIN 
 GREEN, AND SETH Y. WELLS." 
 
 " Many erroneous opinions are entertained concern- 
 ing the people generally known by the name of Shakers, 
 which are calculated to mislead the public mind, in 
 
 respect to the true character of this Society 
 
 The following are the — 
 
 Faith and Principles of the Society. 
 
 1 . A life of innocence and purity , according to the 
 example of Jesus Christ and his first true followers; 
 implying entire abstinence from all sensual and carnal 
 gratifications. 
 
 2. Love. — " By this shall all men know that ye are 
 my disciples if ye have love one to another. — Love is 
 the fulfilling of the law." This is our bond of union. 
 
 3. Peace. — "Follow peace with all men," is a Divine 
 precept ; hence our abstinence from war and bloodshed, 
 from all acts of violence towards our fellow men, from 
 all the party contentions and politics of the world, and 
 from all the pursuits of pride and worldly ambition. — 
 *' My kingdom [said Christ] is not of this world.'* 
 
 4. Justice. — " Render to every man h's due. — Owe 
 no man any thing, but to love one another." We are 
 to be just and honest in all our dealings with mankind, 
 to discharge all just dues, duties, and equitable claims, 
 as seasonably and effectually as possible. 
 
d contact 
 d having 
 t, took a 
 
 ED NEW- 
 " CALVIN 
 
 concern- 
 f Shakers, 
 mind, in 
 
 ing to the 
 [ollowers ; 
 nd carnal 
 
 tat ye are 
 —Love is 
 union. 
 
 a Divine 
 loodshed, 
 Len, from 
 
 )rld, and 
 
 >ition. — 
 Id." 
 
 J. — Owe 
 We are 
 
 mankind, 
 claims. 
 
 OF VHE SHAKERS. 
 
 93 
 
 5. Holiness. — " Without which no man shall see the 
 Lord." Which signifies to be consecrated , or set apart 
 from a common to a sacred use. Hence arise all our 
 doctrines and practical rules of dedicating our persons, 
 services, and property to social and sacred uses, having 
 adopted the example of the first Gospel Church, in es- 
 tablishing and supporting one consecrated and united in- 
 terest by the voluntary choice of every member, as a 
 sacred privilege, and not by an undue constraint or 
 persuasion. 
 
 6. Goodness. — Do good to all men, as far as oppor- 
 tunity and ability may serve, by administering acts of 
 charity and kindness, and promoting light and truth 
 among mankind. ** Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
 
 7. Truth. — This principle is *. jposed to falsehood, 
 lying, deceit, and hypocrisy ; and implies fidelity, real- 
 ity, good, earnest sincerity, and punctuality in keeping 
 vows and promises. These principles are the genuine 
 basis of our institution, planted by its first founders, ex- 
 hibited in all our public writings, justified by Scripture 
 and fair reason, and practically commended as a system 
 of morality and religion, adapted to the best interest 
 and happiness of man, both here and hereafter. 
 
 Manner of Admitting Members, 
 
 1. All persons who unite with this Society, in any 
 degree, must do it freely and voluntarily, according to 
 their own faith and unbiassed judgment. 
 
 2. In the testimony of the Society, both public and 
 private, no flattery nor any undue influence is used ; but 
 the most plain and explicit statements of its faith and 
 principles are laid before the inquirer ; so that the whole 
 ground may be comprehended, as far as possible, by 
 every candidate for admission. 
 
 3. No considerations of property are ever made use 
 of by this Society, to induce any person to join it, nor to 
 prevent any one from leaving it 3 because it is our faith, 
 
 A 
 
 "* 
 
 V 
 
I ♦ 
 
 J 
 
 i 
 
 M 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH 
 
 that no act of devotion or service that docs not flow 
 from the free and voluntary emotions of the heart, can 
 be acceptable to God as an act of true religion. 
 
 4. No believing husband or wife is allowed, by the 
 principles of this Society, to separate from an unbeliev- 
 ing partner, except by mutual agreement j unless the 
 conduct of the unbeliever be such as to warrant a sepa- 
 ration by the laws of God and man. Nor can any hus- 
 band or wife, who has otherwise abandoned his or her 
 partner, be received into communion with the Society. 
 
 5. Any person becoming a member, must rectify all 
 his wrongs, and, as fast and as far as it is in his power, 
 discharge all just and legal claims, whether of creditors 
 or filial heirs. Nor can any person, not conforming to 
 this rule, long remain in union with the Society. But 
 the Society is not responsible for the debts of any indi- 
 vidual, except by agreement ; because such responsibility 
 would involve a principle ruinou? to the institution. 
 
 6. No difference is to be made in the distribution of 
 parental estate among the heirs, whether they belong to 
 the Society or not; but an equal partition must be 
 made, as far as may be practicable and consistent with 
 reason and justice. 
 
 7. If an unbelieving wife separate from a believing 
 husband, by agreement, the husband must give her a 
 just and reasonable share of the property ; and if they 
 have children who have arrived to years of understand- 
 ing sufficient to judge for themselves, and who chose to 
 go with their mother, they are not to be disinherited on 
 that account. Though the character of this institution 
 has been much censured on this ground, yet we boldly 
 assert that the rule above stated has never, to our know- 
 ledge, been violated by this Society. 
 
 8. Industry, temperance, and frugality, are pro- 
 minent features of this institution. No member who is 
 able to labour, can be permitted to live idly upon the la- 
 bours of others. All are required to be employed in 
 some manual occupation, according to their seve- 
 
OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 95 
 
 not flow 
 !art, can 
 
 i, by the 
 mbeliev- 
 nless the 
 t a sepa- 
 any hus- 
 lis or her 
 Society, 
 ectifv all 
 
 m 
 
 IS power, 
 creditors 
 trming to 
 ty. But 
 any indi- 
 snsibility 
 tion. 
 
 ibution of 
 
 elong to 
 
 [must be 
 
 tent with 
 
 )elieving 
 re her a 
 if they 
 lerstand- 
 ;hose to 
 Irited on 
 [titution 
 boldly 
 know- 
 re pro- 
 who is 
 the la- 
 ^yed iu 
 seve- 
 
 ral abilities, whei not engaged in other necessary 
 
 duties. 
 
 Manner of Government, 
 
 1. The eftective basis of the government, and 
 which is the support of ull its institutions, is the faith, 
 voluntary choice, union, and general approbation of the 
 members 
 
 2. The leading authority of the Society is vested in a 
 Ministry, generally consisting of four persons, including 
 both sexes. These, together with the Elders and Trus- 
 tees, constitute the general government of the Society 
 in all its branches : and being supported by the general 
 union and approbation of the members, are invested 
 with power to appoint their successors and other sub- 
 ordinate officers, us occasion may require j to counsel, 
 advise, and direct in all mutters, whether of a spiritual 
 or temporal nature ; to superintend the concerns of the 
 several families, and establish all needful orders, rules, 
 and regulations for the direction and protection of the 
 several brandies of the Society ; but no rule can be 
 made, nor any member assume a lead, contrary to the 
 original faith and known principles of the Society. . . . 
 
 3. No creed can be framed to limit the progress of 
 improvement. It is the faith of the Society, that the 
 operations of Divine light are unlimited. All are at 
 liberty to improve tlieir talents and exercise their gifts, 
 the younger being subject to the elder, and all in con- 
 cert with the general lead. 
 
 4. In the order and government of the Society, no 
 corporal punishment is approved r nor any external 
 force or violence exercised on any rational person who 
 has come to years of understanding 
 
 5. The management of temporal affairs, in ;^ families 
 holding a united interes'., as far as respects the conse- 
 crated property of the Society, is committed to trustees. 
 These are appointed by the Ministry and Elders ; and 
 being supported as aforesaid, are legally invested with 
 the fee of the real estate belonging to the Society. . . . 
 
90 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH 
 
 ^■^l- '• 
 
 ,^ 1 
 
 ■ i 18 
 
 This community is divided into several different 
 branches, coikimouly called families. . . . There 
 are three classes, or progressive degrees of order, as 
 follows : 
 
 The first, or novitiate class, are those who receive faith, 
 and come into a degree of relation with the Society, but 
 ' chuse to live in their own families, and manage their 
 own temporal concerns. Any who chuse may live in 
 that manner, and be owned as brethien and sisters in 
 the Gospel, so long as they live up to its requirements. 
 
 Parents are required to be kind and dutiful to each 
 other ; to shun every appearance of evil ; provide for their 
 family; bring up their children in a godly manner^ use, im- 
 prove and dispose of their property wisely ; and manage 
 their affairs according to their own discretion. — They may 
 thus continue as long as it comports with their faith, 
 their circumstances, and their spiritual improvement. 
 But they are required to bear in mind the necessity and 
 importance of a spiritual increase, without which they 
 are ever exposed to fall back into the course and spirit 
 of the world ; and they can hold their connection with 
 the Society no longer than they continue to conform to 
 its religious faith and principles 
 
 No children are ever taken under the immediate 
 charge of the Society, except with the request or free 
 consent of those who have the lawful right and control 
 of them, together with the child's own consent. But 
 few, comparatively, are admitted. 
 
 Those taken into the Society are tr'^ated with care 
 and tenderness, receive a good school education, accord- 
 ing to their genius, are trained to industry and virtuous 
 habits, restrained from vice, ar*d at a suitable age led 
 into the knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, and prac- 
 tically taught the Divine precepts contained in them, 
 particularly those of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. 
 
 The second, or junior class, is composed of persons 
 who, not having the charge of families, and being under 
 no embarrassments to hinder them from uniting together 
 
OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 97 
 
 ral different 
 . . There 
 of order, as 
 
 receive faith, 
 
 Society, but 
 aanage their 
 may live in 
 nd sisters in 
 equirements. 
 tiful to each 
 vide for their 
 ner^ use, im- 
 
 and manage 
 . — They may 
 
 their faith, 
 mprovement. 
 lecessity and 
 
 which they 
 se and spirit 
 lection with 
 
 conform to 
 
 • 
 
 immediate 
 uest or free 
 and control 
 nsent. But 
 
 V. with care 
 ion, accord- 
 in d virtuous 
 ible age led 
 and prac- 
 d in them, 
 lostles. 
 of persons 
 being under 
 ng together 
 
 in community order, chose to enjoy the benefits of that 
 situation. . . • Ail the members of such families 
 are mutually benetited by the united interest and la- 
 bours of the whole family, so long as they continue to 
 support the order thereof ; and they are amply provided 
 for in health, sickness, and old age. These benefits 
 
 are secured to them by contract 
 
 The third, or senior class, is composed of such persons 
 as have had sufficient time and opportunity practically 
 to prove the faith and manner of life practised in the 
 Society, and are thus prepared to enter fully, freely, and 
 voluntarily, into a united and consecrated interest. 
 These covenant and agree to dedicate and devote them- 
 selves and services, with all that they possess, to the 
 service of God and the support of the Gospel for ever, 
 solemnly promising never to bring debt or damage, 
 claim or demand, against the Society, nor against any 
 member thereof, for any property or service which they 
 have thus devoted to the uses and purposes of the insti- 
 tution. This class constitutes what is called church 
 order, or church relation. 
 
 To enter fully into this order, is considered by the 
 Society to be a matter of the utmost importance to the 
 parties concerned, and therefore requires the most ma- 
 ture and deliberate consideration j for after having made 
 such a dedication, according to the laws of justice and 
 equity, there can be no ground for retraction. Nor can 
 they, by these laws, recover any thing whatever which 
 has been thus dedicated. Of this all are fully apprised 
 before entering into the contract. Yet should any after- 
 ward withdraw, the trustees have discretionary power 
 to bestow upon them whatever may be thought reason- 
 able, not on the ground of any just or legal claim, but 
 merely as an act of charity. No person, however, who 
 withdraws peaceably, is sent away empty. 
 
 Children taken into the order of the church, are treat- 
 ed with care and tenderness The practical 
 
 H 
 

 98 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH 
 
 exercise of mildness and gentleness of manners, is early 
 and carefully cultivated among them. All churlishness 
 and moroseness of temper, all harshness of language, 
 all rough, unfeeling behaviour, all unkind and uncivil de- 
 portment, and all mischievous and wicked propensities, 
 are cautiously vtratched and reproved. Great pains are 
 taken to lead them into the practical exercise of truth, 
 honesty, kindness, benevolence, humanity, and every 
 moral virtue. The duties of obedience to their instruc- 
 tors, respect to their superiors, reverence to the aged, 
 and kindness and civility to all, are strictly enjoined 
 upon them. 
 
 A good common school education is carefully provided 
 for them, in which it is acknowledged that they gene- 
 rally excel children of their own age in the common 
 schools of the country. Where traits of genius are 
 discovered, their privilege of instruction, as occasion 
 requires, is proportionably extended. They are early 
 led into the knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, instructed 
 in their history, and practically taught the Divine pre- 
 cepts contained in them, particularly those of Jesus 
 Christ and his apostles. They are always brought up 
 to some manual occupation, by which they may be en- 
 abled to obtain a livelihood, whether they remain with the 
 Society or not 
 
 No person can be received into this order until he 
 shall have settled all just and legal claims, both of cre- 
 ditors and filial heirs ; so that whatever property he may 
 
 possess, may be justly and truly his own 
 
 The members of this order are all equally entitled to 
 the benefits and privileges thereof, without any difference 
 made on account of what any one may 'lave contributed 
 to the interest of the Society. All are equally entitled 
 to their support and maintenance, and to every necessary 
 comfort, whether in health, sickness, or old age, so long 
 as they continue to maintain the principles, and conform 
 to the orders, rules, and regulations of the institutio.ii 
 
 
OF THE SHAKERS. 
 
 99 
 
 ), is early 
 irlishness 
 anguage, 
 ncivil de- 
 pensities, 
 pains are 
 of truth, 
 nd every 
 r instruc- 
 ;he aged, 
 enjoined 
 
 r provided 
 ley gene- 
 common 
 jenius are 
 > occasion 
 are early 
 instructed 
 ivine pre- 
 of Jesus 
 rought up 
 ly be en- 
 with the 
 
 until he 
 th of cre- 
 y he may 
 
 • • • 
 titled to 
 jiiFerence 
 ntributed 
 
 entitled 
 lecessary 
 i, so long 
 
 conform 
 lstitutio.1. 
 
 They therefore give their property and services for the 
 most valuable of all temporal considerations : an ample 
 security, during life, for every needful support, if they 
 continue faithful to their contract and covenant, the na- 
 ture of which they clearly understand before they enter 
 into it. 
 
 It may readily be seen, that such an order could not 
 be supported, if its members, on withdrawing, should 
 take whatever they have given, and have the avails of 
 their labours restored to them. They have agreed to 
 give it all to sacred and charitable purposes, claiming 
 nothing but their own support from it. It has been dis- 
 posed of according to their own desire j and the institu- 
 tion may therefore be no better able to refund it, than 
 if such dedication had never been made. If, therefore, 
 it should be returned to them, it would be literally 
 taking it from those who remain faithful to their cove- 
 nant, and giving it to covenant breakers. Who cannot 
 see that this would be both unreasonable and unjust ? 
 
 Notwithstanding all reports to the contrary, we confi- 
 dently assert ' hat no person has been wronged, by any 
 dedication of property ever made to the purposes of this 
 Society ; and that no person whatever has any just or 
 reasonable ground of complaint in this respect, c . . 
 
 We believe it will be generally granted, that the his- 
 tory of the world does not furnish a single instance of 
 any religious institution which has stood fifty years 
 without a visible declension of the principles of the in- 
 stitution, in the general purity and integrity of its mem- 
 bers." 
 
 H^ 
 
100 
 
 BY-ROADS TO THE HUDSON. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 RETURN TO NEW YORK — A LAND STORM — AMERICAN 
 OPINION OF THE IRISH CANADIAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 It was some time past mid- day before I left the 
 Shakers' meeting-house, the service, or whatever it 
 may be called, having begun at eleven, and ended at 
 twenty minutes past one. I had no inclination to 
 return to Lebanon Springs, whence I could get no 
 conveyance any where for that day. So I deter- 
 mined to cross the country by a descending line 
 towards the banks of the river Hudson, where, on 
 some part of its shores, I might get on board some 
 of the return steam-boats for New York. My way 
 for some time lay through circuitous bye-roads, 
 which, though not the most convenient, were fa- 
 vourable for getting a view of the country. Being 
 still on the Shaker estate, which extends to a con- 
 siderable distance all round, I lighted upon several 
 of their cottages, into which I might have been in- 
 vited had I shewn any inclination, but I determined 
 to push on, fearing that the night might overtake me 
 at a distance from shelter. The general direction of 
 my route was at right angles with the town of Troy 
 and New Lebanon j each limb of the angle, in a 
 straight line; perhaps not exceeding twenty miles ; 
 
tfERICAN 
 URS. 
 
 left the 
 atever it 
 ended at 
 lation to 
 i get no 
 I deter- 
 ling line 
 here, on 
 rd some 
 Vly way 
 e-roads, 
 were fa- 
 Being 
 D a con- 
 several 
 )een in- 
 jrmined 
 take me 
 ction of 
 of Troy 
 le, in a 
 miles ; 
 
 LANDSCAPE IMPROVES. 
 
 101 
 
 but the road (when I could find one) passed over an 
 almost continued series of heights for full two-thirds 
 of the distance. The general character of the country 
 much resembles the nearer and more fertile parts of 
 the highlands of Scotland in the counties of Perth 
 and Stirling, only much less picturesque. The wea- 
 ther being fine, there were similar hues in the sky, 
 and like clouds sailing gently overhead, but the face 
 of the country was very different : it had the same in- 
 animate look, so new to a stranger, which I have al- 
 ready remarked ; and no sound issued from the thick 
 woods of funereal green that clothed to their tops the 
 lofty hills all around. 
 
 In a mountainous country water generally abounds ; 
 accordingly refreshing little rills trickled across the 
 road, at short intervals, as it wound round the foot 
 of the heights j and here and there, on either hand, 
 rugged dells, where the noise of restless streamlets 
 dashing from rock to rock in their rugged beds, broke 
 the else monotonous stillness with a not unpleasing 
 sound. At last, signs of my being in a Christian 
 country began to shew themselves ; testified — not by 
 gibbetSj according to the well known anecdote — but 
 by taper masts of great elevation, surmounted by the 
 small oval board that universally marks to the distant 
 wayfarer's eye the site of the welcome tavern. By 
 this time I was too tired, what with mounting heights 
 for views, and the heat of the day (for the weather 
 was very close) to reach one without some rest } and 
 finding that the united brooks of this part of the 
 country formed a small lake, of the most limpid 
 
 I 
 
 . H 
 
102 
 
 LANDSCAPE IMPROVES. 
 
 water, I bathed in it for some time, to my great 
 refreshment. Again on my way, I passed through 
 different prettily- situated villages, near mill-sites, ro- 
 mantically placed in hollows conveniently near to 
 water-courses ; and, just as evening set in, came to 
 a country road, having at its side a triple finger- 
 post, with one index pointing to Stockbridge — de- 
 servedly famous, if for nothing else, as the residence 
 of Miss Sedgwick, the Edgeworth of America 5 and 
 another, being the one which just then interested me 
 most, pointing in the direction of the town of Hud- 
 son, thence distant about ten miles. Foot- worn as I 
 was, to walk thither could not be : not that the road 
 I had come was a long one as the crow flies, but it 
 was almost one continued series of undulations ; and 
 like Dr. Johnson's Obidah, I, too, had ** listened to 
 every echo, had mounted every hill for a fresh 
 prospect, had turned aside to every cascade, and 
 pleased myself with tracing the course of streams 
 that rolled mong the trees, and watered a large 
 region with innumerable circumvolutions." Like 
 Obidah's day also, mine was to end in an unexpected 
 storm. Meantime, the pleasing remembrance of the 
 great sage's beautiful narration could not make me 
 forget the condition of my feet, which pained me ex- 
 ceedingly. When I came to examine them, I found 
 three of my toe-nails split, and my stocking-ends 
 soaked in blood. And here, my friend, let me give 
 you and others a bit of advice, founded on experi- 
 ence. Never travel far in a mountainous, or indeed 
 in any country, in slightly made shoes. They are light 
 
 
<< 
 
 BATH STAGE. 
 
 103 
 
 my great 
 
 through 
 
 sites, ro- 
 
 near to 
 
 came to 
 
 le finger- 
 
 dge — de- 
 
 pesidence 
 
 icaj and 
 
 ested me 
 
 of Hud- 
 
 vrorn as I 
 
 the road 
 
 ;s, but it 
 
 ons ; and 
 
 stened to 
 
 a fresh 
 
 ide, and 
 
 streams 
 
 a large 
 
 ' Like 
 
 xpected 
 
 e of the 
 
 ake me 
 
 me ex- 
 
 I found 
 
 g-ends 
 
 e give 
 
 experi- 
 
 indeed 
 
 e light 
 
 
 and easy at first, but irksome and heavy in the 
 end. 
 
 At the door of a tavern, near to those three roads, 
 stood an unoccupied stage-coach, the horses very 
 busy eating their supper, but their heads turned 
 Hudson-ward. It was the very thing I wanted. I 
 got into it ju 5t as the first drops of rain fell, the 
 forerunners of a storm, which, had I been able to 
 foresee it, I should not have thought of confronting. 
 Scarce had we got a mile upon our way, when the 
 rain came down upon us in pitiless torrents. The 
 lightning fires began to kindle up the northern 
 heaven, and the *Mive thunder" to leap among the 
 mountains underneath. In that quarter, one while 
 earth and sky were swallowed up, as it were, in palp- 
 able darkness j while, at short intervals, the ever-re- 
 newed lightning blazed, as upon a curtain of the deep- 
 est sable, flinging out in bulky relief the huge masses 
 of the Catskill range, couched in grim repose below, 
 like a herd of sleeping behemoths. To all this, add 
 the roaring of the wind, intermingled with the dash- 
 ing of angry brooks spurning their boundaries, and 
 flooding the roads far and near. On that side where I 
 was it reached the horses' bellies, and 1 expected every 
 moment to find the vehicle afloat, or something 
 worse. The American stage-coaches are closed in, 
 not with pannels, but with leathern curtains, and it 
 was as much as I could do by main force to keep the 
 unmitigated storm from pouring in. Otherwise it 
 was the most agreeable side of the machine, as 
 enabling me to peep through the stormward opening. 
 
 , i 
 
104 
 
 ECONOMY OF TIME AND TROUBLE. 
 
 A 
 
 in 
 
 As I stood thus, *' holding on," I could not prevent 
 my vagrant imagination from reverting to the pro- 
 bable position of worthy John Kemble, when he 
 looked through the curtain-slit, at the O. P. " Tem- 
 pest, scene I.," when Covent Garden theatre was 
 first opened. As for our tempest, even the driver 
 could not outsit it. He quitted his box, and crept 
 into the coach beside me. The rain by this time had 
 so filled the hollows of our road, that many times 
 our horses came to a stand-still in the flood. Never- 
 theless the man did not venture out j he tugged at 
 the reins with both hands, for he had passed them 
 through the opening in front. This would rouse 
 them for a while, but soon they came to another 
 obstacle, and there made as decided a halt as the 
 mules in the old coach that ought to have gone on, 
 with the old Abbess of Andouillets and the amiable 
 Margarita. 
 
 Such a storm was far too violent to last long. 
 The rain slackened, and erewhile the roaring thunder 
 died away into distant growlings. The evening then 
 became beautifully fine, and we now went on our 
 way with speed. The rain had lasted long enough, 
 however, in the sort of vehicle that I occupied, to 
 drench me to the skin. My lower parts especially 
 were to the full in as wet a state as the famous 
 Judge Blackstone's, when he went that notable humid 
 journey of his on the Welch circuit. It is the only 
 instance of that great man's incontinence on record. 
 He said to his companion, who he thought needlessly 
 dismounted from his horse, " Imitate me, I am in a 
 
 
AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 105 
 
 >t prevent 
 I the pro- 
 when he 
 '. " Tem- 
 ;atre was 
 he driver 
 ind crept 
 time had 
 ,ny times 
 Never- 
 ;ugged at 
 sed them 
 Id rouse 
 I another 
 lit as the 
 gone on, 
 amiable 
 
 ist long, 
 thunder 
 ing then 
 
 on our 
 enough, 
 pied, to 
 pecially 
 famous 
 ! humid 
 
 e only 
 
 Irecord. 
 
 dlessly 
 
 in a 
 
 pickk ; one may be the warmer for the omission, 
 and can hardly be more wet." In two hours and 
 three quarters after the stage's regular time, I was 
 set down at a comfortable hotel in the town of 
 Hudson. 
 
 Next morning, having pretty well slept away my 
 fatigues, I got on to the wharf at Hudson, in time 
 for the return steam-boat passing that way to New 
 York. I saw nothing ren ark able in the town of 
 Hudson J it consists principally of one very long row 
 of houses, not running parallel with, but at a right 
 angle to the river : of course it is not a place for 
 trading. I was told you cannot offer a greater insult 
 to a Hudson man than to ask him what street he lives 
 in, there being but one there. — I found some agree- 
 able company on board the steam-boat. Politics 
 formed the staple of the conversation I overheard 
 and mixed in j and they were discussed with greater 
 temper than is common in America amongst people 
 promiscuously met together. There was one gentle- 
 man whom I got tolerably intimate with. I remarked 
 he did not say much when the others spoke, but what 
 he did say was pithily put in, and in its sensible way 
 formed a kind of contrast to the mouthy jargon of 
 some of the hot democrats. Such men as he are 
 called Tories in America j but English though the 
 term be, it does not, cannot, carry the same meaning 
 as it does with us. Thus much, however, may be said 
 of this individual — he was a decided " Conservative." 
 Perhaps he had inherited some of his notions, for he 
 
106 
 
 AMERICANS IRISH-RIDDEN. 
 
 •■i 
 
 11 ' 
 
 was descended from a family of British loyalists, 
 whose sacrifices for their attachment to their father- 
 land, he assured me, had heen ill requited by our 
 government after the peace of 1783- The affairs of 
 the dear " old country" interested him still. He 
 had no confidence in the Whigs. But the doings of 
 the democratic party in his own country, which he 
 said would, at no distant period, bring it to ruin, 
 formed the chief topic of his discourse. General 
 Jackson (" our Irish president " he called him, from 
 his Irish descent) he looked upon as the cvise of his 
 country. He drew an unfavourable parallel between 
 him and Mr. J. Q. Adams, whom he represented to 
 me as one of the most accomplished statesmen that 
 America had ever produced j and asked me what I 
 thought of a people who could set aside such a man 
 (he was president only one term) to make way for 
 such a personage as " Old Hickory." Before I could 
 answer the appeal made to me, he said, " But it was 
 not we who consummated that deadly folly. Sir, we 
 are governed by foreigners." I asked of what nation ? 
 He answered, *' principally Irish. That unhappy 
 race, which never could do good for itself and never 
 will for any other people, will, in the end, bring our 
 union to nothing. Well is it named the Land of Ire, 
 for, of a surety, the Almighty made it in his 
 wrath !" — Alluding to some recent political move- 
 ments in England, he said, " But your destruction 
 will come upon you, from the same malign quarter, 
 with a yet swifter wing." I was staggered for a mo- 
 
ANOTHER •'GOOD HATER.' 
 
 107 
 
 ment, and did not ask, for some time, what ht 
 meant. He resumed : — " ' By their gods ye shall 
 know them.' What can you think of a nation who 
 can be hounded on by that rank charlatan, that arch- 
 humbug, that hollow-hearted, most unprincipled of 
 all impostors, Daniel O'Connell ? Patriot he certaini^ 
 is — in the exact sense of the letters of that word — 
 the great Pat Riot : hence the adoration of the Irish 
 for him j for they always throw themselves, with 
 you as with us, into the arms of the deepest-dyed 
 democracy, because it opens the readiest way to their 
 hearts' delight — rows ,' I beg pardon for the homely 
 word — I would say anarchy and bloodshed. At pre- 
 sent O'Connell and your Whigs, to use an Irish 
 phrase, coarse but pithy, are as ' thick as thieves.' 
 But let them once attach themselves intimately 
 to him and to his tail ; no dog that ever had a tin 
 kettle tied to his tail, will drag them through dirtier 
 ways than he will. People will say, perhaps, * Oh the 
 animal mai/ choose clean paths j* but we, who know 
 the cur's habits and nature, will say, 'No !' " — As I 
 did not care to discuss English affairs with one who 
 probably could not form so just an opinion of them as 
 of those of his own country, I asked him how it was 
 that Irishmen, who must form but a fraction of the 
 great American family, could exercise so potent au 
 influence on its affairs. He answered, " Because as 
 a nation they are destitute of all principle. They 
 lower the moral character of every community they 
 enter. Among us, they are brought up in bands, at 
 election times, by our democratic leaders. These 
 
 I m 
 
 n 
 
 I 
 
108 MORE REPULSION THAN ATTRACTION. 
 
 know that thousands of their Irish voters, without 
 whose weight the seal" could never turn in their 
 favour, have perjured themselves : they know that 
 multitudes of them have not yet scraped off 
 the dirt of the ship that brought them hither j yet 
 •upon their swearing to their qualification to citizen- 
 ship by residence, they will deal out to them, clear 
 of fees, false certificates in heaps ; thinking, (those 
 of our democrats who have any conscience at all,) 
 that the good end justifies any means. Yet, further, 
 as if we had not enough of bitter politics to vex our 
 spirits, they bring into the bosom of our country 
 all their own feuds and distinctions. They mount 
 party emblems too, their colours, yellow and green 
 — we, also, have Irish loyalists and croppies, orange- 
 men and ribbonmen, whose feuds burst out, not 
 seldom, into public disturbances. The stiff-necked 
 Egyptians were smitten with many sore inflictions, but 
 the worst of all was spared them, the plague of Irish- 
 men. In general society, the most turbulent, intrigu- 
 ing, overbearing part of our population, is Irish, or of 
 Irish descent." — I here remarked, that at that rate, if 
 many thought as he did, the *' West Britons" could 
 not be too well looked on in America. For the pre- 
 sent, waving my question, he said, " They are a race 
 apart. From what I have heard of their habits in 
 Britain, and what I know of them with us, I should 
 say, they do not mix readily with our other races : 
 not that there is a want of affinity in the Irish for fo- 
 reigners J but because many of their ways excite re- 
 pulsion. Every Hibernian, however ignorant, however 
 
N, 
 
 , without 
 
 ia their 
 
 now that 
 
 aped off 
 
 ler } yet 
 
 ) citizen- 
 
 !m, clear 
 
 g, (those 
 
 e at all,) 
 
 , further, 
 
 ) vex our 
 
 country 
 
 ;y mount 
 
 nd green 
 
 , orange - 
 
 out, not 
 
 necked 
 
 ions, but 
 
 of Irish- 
 
 intrigu- 
 
 sh, or of 
 
 rate, if 
 
 could 
 
 the pre- 
 
 B a race 
 
 bits in 
 
 should 
 
 races : 
 
 for fo- 
 
 cite re- 
 
 owever 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST BRITONS. 109 
 
 poor, is, by nature, a man of pleasure. Other rustics 
 are brought to participate in tl.^ vices of luxurious 
 communities by degrees j an Irishman slides into 
 them at once — he seems to be ' as if to the manner 
 born.' Admit him into your house, he first blarnijies 
 and then cheats you j seduces your wife, or steals 
 your daughter. This comes possibly, in part, from 
 want of culture, for I reckon the worst species of 
 Catholicism in which he has been brought up, can go 
 but a short way in a moral direction. As to your 
 question about their standing with us, my answer 
 shall be compendious, but exact. In our country, 
 an Englishman is considered to be an honest 
 man till he i)rove himself a rogue ; an Irishman is 
 set down for a rogue till he prove himself an honest 
 man. Nobody here owns to Irish descent, if he can 
 possibly avoid it ; and many will drop the prefixes of 
 their names (O's and Macs, and the like,) or other- 
 wise slightly change them, to hide what they do not 
 care should be known. Sometimes, when I express 
 what I think of the Irish as a nation, people try to 
 invalidate all I advance by the stupid aphorism (sup- 
 posed by many to be a concentration of the very 
 essence of wisdom) that 'there are good and bad in all 
 countries j *to which I answer, * Of course there are : but 
 that is not the question J where do youfind the good so 
 few and the bad so many, as among them ?' In short the 
 Irish are, in a peculiar sense, ' a peculiar people.' Their 
 numbers at home have not swelled, by slow increase, 
 like those of civilised countries. Had they had the 
 morals orthe industry, or even the wawis of ordinary oi- 
 
 I ii 
 
110 
 
 ANDREAS PRIMUS TYRANNUS. 
 
 If, ' 
 
 i; 
 
 vilization, they could not have gone on multiplying 
 at the rate they have done. In less than a century the 
 population in Ireland has more than quadrupled, 
 and that too in the midst of sloth and privation. 
 They are, evidently, a spurious race grown out of 
 potatoes !" 
 
 It was now pretty plain to me that my American 
 friend was afflicted with a rabid Hibernophobia. 
 
 Just at this moment, three good-natured souls 
 hastened severally to inform me that we had nearly 
 arrived at that part of the Highlands where Anthony 
 Van Corlear the trumpeter's great Nose becomes ap- 
 parent. I missed it, however, as before : but blessed 
 this seasonable interruption, as giving me a fair op- 
 portunity to escape hearing more libels on ** the finest 
 pizzantry in the world." / 
 
 I listened to a good deal of conversation among the 
 different groups scattered about the decks, on Ame- 
 rican affairs — especially about the removal of the 
 bank deposits by General Jackson. One anti- Jack- 
 sonite said, the greatest tyrant of Europe — poor en- 
 slaved Europe ! — would never have dared to go such 
 lengths in despotism as the President had done. In 
 this he was earnestly opposed by several 3 and one 
 man in particular railed most intemp^rately against 
 the " great monster," — meaning the United States 
 Bank— and its director, Nicholas Biddle, whom he 
 represented as a kind of devil incarnate 3 it appearing 
 plainly, if he spoke sooth, that the younger Nick is 
 quite as bad as ever was Old Nick. Things growing 
 >rarm among them, I set myself to divert their at- 
 
A DISH OF HIGHLY-SPICED FLUMMERY. Ill 
 
 tention from small things to great ; and complimented 
 them as a stranger, on the great things, the Ame- 
 rican people had done, were doing, and yet might do. 
 I said that empire had first arisen, like the sun, in 
 the east, but had been for ages back progressing to 
 the west, and might yet set there. Here one indi- 
 vidual, a genuine Yankee, stopped me with an obser- 
 vation, not very pertinent, but most laudatory of 
 the Bostonians and the battle of Bunker's-hill ! I 
 set my interrupter right, and proceeded. The "im- 
 mense" Napoleon, as La Fayette called him, has pre- 
 dicted that ultimately allEurope, the present directress 
 of the Old World, will one day become Cosaque ; but 
 as every eagle, like every dog, can only have its day, 
 Russian domination would be too hateful to last long,. 
 It would find a mighty rival in the great bird of the west j 
 which, though with talons not half grown, even now 
 hovers, with a daily expanding wing, over the whole 
 continent of the New World and all its Isles. The 
 time shall surely come, when it will make every fea- 
 ther of the Muscovite two-headed vulture shiver with 
 fear. In plainer words, I said, if Bonaparte's pre- 
 diction be realised, the Americans and Russians will 
 alone have to struggle together for the mastery of the 
 globe ; for all the older governments of Europe, ours 
 included (I owned), were nodding to their fall. This 
 was a rather daring ascent into the cloudy regions 
 of hyperbole j but no one (I mean of those who had 
 not altogether lost sight of me) thought it was at all 
 too high a flight ; for the imaginings of the Americans 
 as to what their wonderful country will one day be- 
 
112 GREAT '^ COCK OF THE WORLd's WALK.' 
 
 1/ 
 
 come, are most extravagant. Having thus descend- 
 ed in safety from my altitude, and seeing that my com- 
 plimentary bombast was so well received, I put them 
 in mind that, when only thirteen ill-peopled States, 
 they had secured their independence ; that now with 
 territory much more than doubled, and a population 
 increased fivefold, all within half a century too, I asked 
 what limits could any merely human power set to 
 the career of such a people ? The greatest nations of 
 the Old World think it no degradation to yield to all 
 your demands. One day France cedes you Louisiana; 
 at another pours its treasures into your lap by way of 
 "indemnity." Spain, once the sole possessor of 
 the Indies, at the first pointing of the pistol to her 
 throat, yields to you the two Floridas j and as to the 
 transatlantic possessions of too- colonising England, 
 they are like ripening fruit, almost ready to drop at 
 your feet. The greatest island of the west, Cuba, 
 oflFers itself to you 3 and now that the old English 
 lion's claws are grown so dull, you can take Jamaica 
 and the others (so convenient for you), whenever you 
 please. Then there is Canada — " But we won't have 
 that," said they; '* we don't wish to tie that leaden 
 sinker about our necks." And in fact this sentiment, 
 however oddly expressed, 1 found to be little short 
 of universal. I speak not of this occasion, when it 
 was asserted to me by every one present, the Irish-de- 
 testing loyalist included j but on all others when the 
 subject came up, which was pretty often in my hear- 
 ing — for even then it had been much discussed, the 
 Canadian orators and journalists having blown long 
 
THE CANADIAN REVOLTERS. 
 
 113 
 
 blasts on the trumpet of sedition. Had the Canadians 
 succeeded in the Papineau revolt — the worst thing 
 that could have befallen them — they would soon have 
 been glad to fly from the misrule of their cowardly 
 prating anarchists — those " avocats criards," as 
 Murat called the noisy democrats of the Council of 
 Five Hundred— and been fain to sue humbly at 
 " Uncle Sam s" gate for admission. Now, never 
 did St. Peter keep a luckless sinner longer at " the 
 back door of purgatory" — to use the words of Sterne 
 — than would that knowing and prosperous gen- 
 tleman keep the habitans suing outside his threshold. 
 In the first place, he has a dogged John Bullish 
 dislike of every thing French : they are our genuine 
 descendants, and true to our and their blood, in 
 that. Not even the Bailiff in Goldsmith's " Good- 
 natured Man" had a greater instinctive antipathy to 
 those he called "the parly-vows," than have the ma- 
 jority of the American people to Frenchmen. I 
 could see this break out, in a thousand ways, on 
 occasion of the excitement produced by the delays of 
 the French Chamber in the affair of the Indemnity. 
 All parties would have forgotten their feuds in an in- 
 stant to have had a '* turn-up" with France, notwith- 
 standing the aid granted them by that nation in the 
 revolutionary war ; they look to the motive of that 
 timely succour — hatred to England, not love for them 
 — and allow them small credit therefor : no doubt 
 they are right. But a better reason for not caring 
 to have much to do with the Canadians, is a well- 
 founded contempt of their ignorance, superstition. 
 
 m 
 
 \ r 
 
114 
 
 FIGHTING AUXILIARY PATRIOTS. 
 
 u, . 
 
 and sloth. A country like Canada, not naturally 
 rich, and in such hands, really presents no field of 
 enterprise for the men of the United States. The 
 differences of cultivation, &c. between the two fron- 
 tiers, are marked to a degree that, I understand, it 
 is difficult for those who have not seen it even to 
 imagine. A Scotch gentleman, long resident in 
 America, and now an eminent publisher in Philadel- 
 phia, told me, that in his travels through the Canadas 
 on business — and they were extensive — he never 
 needed, at any point of the boundary lines, to be 
 told where he got into and where he left Canada : 
 the fact was written too plainly on every house, on 
 every field, on every fence. United States land, at no 
 great distance, sometimes sells for ten times the 
 price of that within the Canadian line. 
 
 We read, indeed, in some of the disrespectable sort 
 of American papers, that'* vast numbers of our citizens 
 have joined the patriots." I take it, that most of 
 these ** citizens" are of a kind that the cities can 
 well spare : if they have really left their country, it 
 will have been " for their country's good." In 
 America, as every where else, there is no lack of 
 vagabonds — fellows " ripe for anything" — the black 
 sheep of different flocks — the refuse of respectable 
 families. Any row, within a reasonable distance (in 
 my time it was the Texas rebellion) will serve as a 
 kind of seton to draw off much peccant humour 
 from the body politic. It is all for liberty and glory 
 — also a little for pay and plunder — with these patri- 
 otic gentry. Spain has been lately useful to us in 
 t^is way. True, they have not done much as yet for 
 
s. 
 
 OUR TOO GOOD-NATURED GOVERNOR. 
 
 115 
 
 b naturally 
 I no field of 
 tates. The 
 e two fron- 
 derstand, it 
 
 it even to 
 resident in 
 in Philadel- 
 he Canadas 
 — he never 
 lines, to be 
 ft Canada : 
 y house, on 
 \ land, at no 
 
 times the 
 
 ectable sort 
 ur citizens 
 t most of 
 
 cities can 
 country, it 
 od." In 
 o lack of 
 
 the black 
 espectable 
 stance (in 
 erve as a 
 it humour 
 
 and glory 
 
 |iese patri- 
 
 to us in 
 
 as yet for 
 
 the throne or babyhouse of the legitimately- illegiti- 
 mate Jpanish bamhinella ; but several of them have the 
 Carlists disposed of abroad ; and many of our cross- 
 ings are the cleaner for those we have now at home. 
 
 No ; the sympathy of the respectable part of the 
 American community for the Canadians and their 
 pretended grievances must have been small indeed. 
 ' Robert Shallow esquire saith he hath great wrongs.' 
 The real root of that contested matter seems to me 
 to be simply this — if my poor notion, gathered from 
 a careful perusal of public documents, be good for 
 any thing — my firm opinion then is, that he who 
 filled our official saddle there, knew not the vicious 
 qualities of the animal which he had been set to 
 mount. The instinct of your mule will ever inform 
 him when he has got an infirm rider on his back. 
 The stupid, yet malicious brute, first stumbles and 
 plays antics — then, his courage increasing with im- 
 punity, he comes frequently to a stand-still, and ulti- 
 mately he ventures to throw his rider ; who will be 
 but too happy if he receive not a parting kick in the 
 face from the off- scampering animal. In the recent 
 case, however, the creature has not been allowed to 
 run far, and the sound lashing he lately received 
 will teach him the difference between ill-judging for- 
 bearance and impotency to punish. 
 
 Even the accidental yet most happy circumstance 
 of Sir Francis Head's being so prominent an actor 
 in recent scenes, will have increased the *' Saxon " 
 sympathies in American bosoms for our cause in 
 the Canadas. His charming book, *' Pubbles from 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 RETURN TO NEW YORK. 
 
 the firunnens of Nassau/' was the most popular 
 work in America when I was there ; and had made 
 every reading man in the States^ as it were, his 
 personal friend. 
 
 In conclusion I should say, that the first overtures 
 of the Canadians for a federation with Uncle Sam. 
 let them be made when they may, will be received 
 by him much in the same way as the early propo- 
 sals of the Genoese deputies to Louis XIV., when at 
 the height of his prosperity j it was on occasion of 
 that petty state offering "to give itself away" to 
 France, that these memorable words were uttered 
 by that haughty monarch : — Messieurs, vous vous 
 donnez d moi, et moi je vous donne au diable ! "Gen- 
 tlemen, you give yourselves up to me, and I send 
 you all to the devil ! " 
 
 Having now arrived at the Albany Steam-boat 
 Wharf on the East River, I took leave of my com- 
 panionable fellow voyagers, including the anti-Irish 
 monomaniac, who, up to the time I left him, had not 
 bitten any one. 
 
 ,1 
 
QUESTION OF UNIVERSAL FREEDOM. 
 
 117 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 TRADES UNIONS — AMERICAN POLITICS. 
 
 The great German poet Schiller, who carried his 
 early notions about liberty almost to licentiousness, 
 as his play of " the Robbers " testifies, has left it on 
 record, as the sober and well-matured opinion of 
 his riper years, that mankind, however great their 
 love of liberty, can never be long free ; because, in 
 almost all ardent natures, the passionate love of 
 freedom for their own actions, is allied to a restless 
 desire of controlling the actions of others. Thus it 
 is that government has always moved in a vicious 
 circle ; setting out in absolute despotism, it by and 
 by is mitigated, then ameliorates into comparative 
 freedom : to that succeeds licence, then comes anar- 
 chy, then despotism again, in one eternal round. His 
 conclusion is, that the bulk of men do not deservcio 
 be free. 
 
 America has been long held up by many as an 
 exception to this, — an exception considered by some 
 strong enough to break the rule. Be this as it may, 
 a desire to examine personally the working of the social 
 machine in the United States, where, to use the words 
 of Washington in his correspondence with Jefferson, 
 
118 ONE OF THE " FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE.' 
 
 )■< 
 
 ''tl 
 
 " the grand experiment was being tried, what measure 
 of liberty men could be entrusted with for their own 
 benefit" — this desire, not uncommon, had descended 
 even so low as to me. I will not, however, pretend to 
 say that this was my chief motive for going thither, 
 but still it counted for somewhat in my mind. 
 Up to manhood, politics was a subject I had neither 
 had time nor inclination to think much about — 
 the Revolution of 1830 in France made me a 
 kind of politician. I then was, or thought myself, a 
 passive radical j which colour of politics was, in a 
 manner, natural to me, as I had insensibly adopted it 
 from my father and those most intimate with him — 
 radicalism had naturally succeeded to the republican 
 notions of the times of his youth ; for he was a " perse- 
 cuted patriot" of 1794. Perhaps I may have occasion 
 to speak of him again. Meantime, from what I saw and 
 heard of the doings of the Trades* Unions of America 
 on first stepping, as it were, on the threshold of the 
 country, it was plain to me that the individuals com- 
 posing them (or rather their leaders) were not unwill- 
 ing here, as elsewhere, to deprive certain of their 
 fellow- labourers of the control of their own actions — 
 to dispo3sess the working man of the first and most 
 important ** liberty" to him, that of carrying his 
 labour to the most eligible market. With regard to 
 the worse than inutility of trades' combinations, my 
 mind had been long made up ; I had seen too much 
 of its withering effects on individual prosperity and 
 comfort, in the business which 1 had been appreu- 
 
 I 1 
 
)PLE. 
 
 »» 
 
 DOINGS OF THE TRADES UNIONS. 
 
 119 
 
 it measure 
 their own 
 descended 
 pretend to 
 ig thither, 
 my mind, 
 ad neither 
 1 about — 
 ie me a 
 myself, a 
 was, in a 
 adopted it 
 ith him — 
 epublican 
 
 ft 
 
 a " perse- 
 
 3 occasion 
 
 I saw and 
 
 America 
 
 d of the 
 
 lals com- 
 
 ; unwill- 
 
 of their 
 
 ctions — 
 
 nd most 
 
 ying his 
 
 ;gard to 
 
 ans, my 
 
 )o much 
 
 rity and 
 
 appren- 
 
 ticed to. I have heard it sportively said, that when 
 you cannot obtain a desired thing yourself, the next 
 best thing is to prevent another from getting it ; and 
 truly my brother co-operatives had worked together 
 in such a way, by having " scales" (not well balanced) 
 of payment for work — by rigidly enforcing one fixed 
 rate of remuneration, no matter whether it were well 
 or ill done, they had successfully brought things to 
 such a dead level, that the veriest bungler, both in 
 amount of work dealt out to him, and in its price, 
 could insist on an equality with the accomplished 
 workman. Thus did the round balls of dung, floating 
 cheek-by-jowl with the fruit in the inundated farm- 
 yard of the fable, say, * How we apples swim ! " 
 And the masters dared not interfere. It wanted not 
 that black affair of the cotton-spinning factory-men 
 of the north — who so nearly spun a halter for them- 
 selves the other day — to convince me of the perni- 
 cious effects of the combination system to the indus- 
 trious and pains-taking mechanics themselves. But 
 1 had had no information that it extended to America j 
 I had always thought it the creature of the igno- 
 rance and abuses of older societies. I was there- 
 fore not a little astonished to hear of the perfect or- 
 ganization of Trades' Unions there ; the great gene- 
 ral periodical meetings, the continual private con- 
 claves of delegates, the deputations from town to town 
 crossing and re-crossing each other at all the populous 
 points of the Union — the journals, the pamphlets, the 
 manifestoes, &c. This unquiet state of things, accom- 
 panied with disturbances that had taken place in 
 
120 
 
 BALTIMORE ANARCHISTS. 
 
 t i: 
 
 !•' 
 
 different towns, was not a little staggering to me, 
 who had heard so much of the prosperity, the hap- 
 piness, and above all the tranquillity of America. 
 
 A few days before my arrival, a dreadful riot had 
 taken place at Baltimore, somewhat similar to that of 
 Bristol in 1832. The pretext was, one of the savings- 
 banks having stopped payment. I say the pretext, al- 
 though the failure was an infamous business, because 
 the devastations that ensued wer?, as usual, commit- 
 ted by the from hand-to-mouth part of the community, 
 scarce one of whom could have lost a cent by it. 
 But then the mob are great sticklers for abstract 
 rights — upon this occasion, the authorities of the city 
 (so called, perhaps, from having no authority at such 
 crises), seemed to have a great respect for popular 
 rights also, and they were much blamed by many 
 for looking on, and allowing the rioters to follow 
 their own " sweet will." The truth is, they dared not 
 interfere ; they were too weak to do so with effect : an 
 evil this, the result of too *' cheap government," — a 
 subject which I shall have some occasion to enlarge 
 on hereafter. Meantime, my present business is with 
 the American Trades' Unions. 
 
 Scarce had I returned to New York, when, on 
 making further anxious inquiries as to what was 
 going on among the unionists, a pamphlet was 
 shown m'*, entitled *' Constitution of the Trades' 
 Union of the City and County of Philadelphia, with 
 the By-laws and Names of Trades : Instituted March 
 1834." This production opened with the following 
 preamble : — 
 
trades' union "constitution " — A TRIAL. 1*21 
 
 ■^ ** When we consider that all men are endowed by the 
 Ruler of the universe with the same natural rights, and 
 are fitted to enjoy the same privileges, and the same 
 blessings ; — when we know also that these are guaran- 
 teed to us by our constitution, and by the glorious de- 
 claration which our fathers made when they wrested 
 from their oppressors, at the sacrifice of life and fortune, 
 their invaluable birth- rights, civil and religious indepen- 
 dence ; and when we see those rights daily invaded, and 
 feel that they are rapidly withering in the unrelenting 
 grasp of usurping power ; and knowing also that as the 
 past has lived for us, so we must live for the future j 
 it becomes our sacred and imperious duty to come bold- 
 ly forward to the rescue, and, at every peril, and by 
 every means, to cherish and protect those immunities, 
 which belong not only to ourselves but to succeeding 
 generations." 
 
 The subject matter of the work thus ambitiously 
 commenced, was the framework of a ** constitution," 
 a kind of " latest edition improved " upon the best 
 European ones. As a recent trial has lately made 
 such details familiar to the public, I need not enter 
 into them farther. In a few months after — namely, 
 in the winter of 1835-6 — the "strikes" became so 
 numerous, and the system of intimidation so alarm- 
 ing, that the master tradesmen began to call out 
 for protection to themselves and the peaceably-dis- 
 posed union-shunning portion of the workmen. The 
 government did not know how to deal with a con- 
 tingency unprovided for in the ** Constitution." To 
 propose a new law on the subject it did not dare. 
 On a direct appeal, however, of the merchant tailors 
 of New York against the tyrannical conduct of 
 
122 
 
 ENGLISH LAWS NOT EQUITABLE. 
 
 |i' 
 
 their workmen (the best paid operatives in America) 
 the tribunals took up the case, and a public trial 
 ensued. All the while it was going on, the courts 
 were surrounded by an overawing mob, whose tur- 
 bulence nearly broke out, on more occasions than 
 one, into something like open rebellion. It ended in 
 the ringleaders being sentenced to a few days' im- 
 prisonment, and an insignificant fine. The authori- 
 ties did not venture, for the present, to go any 
 farther j and thus did " the majesty of the people " 
 not receive a deadly wound, but a slight scratch 
 merely. Still was the precedent thus set invaluable 
 to the cause of common sense and good order. 
 Meantime " the victims " had their fines eagerly paid 
 for them, and were hailed as a kind of martyrs. 
 
 The cases which served the American lawyers for a 
 guide, were those furnished by the practice of the 
 English Courts. To the mother country they 
 owed, both the evil (so they said) and its antidote. 
 Perhaps a more equitable system to have referred 
 to, would have been that of the Code Napoleon, 
 which deals out more even-i.anded justice than 
 our laws : for that punishes conspirators — masters 
 as well as combining workmen. We heard the 
 other day from the bench, in the north, *' the law of 
 our country allows masters to combine against work- 
 men, and workmen against masters." The law of 
 France says neither party may do any such thing. 
 As " the self-same rope at several ends they twist," 
 the offenders of both classes are treated as enemies 
 of the public repose and interests. Ecce signum. 
 
FRENCH ANTr-COMBINATION LAViS. 
 
 123 
 
 Article 414 of the French Penal Code. 
 
 " Every combination among those who employ work- 
 men, tending to force unjustly, unreasonably {abusive- 
 i)u;nt), tlie lowering of salaries, followed by an attempt 
 at or a commencement of execution, shall be punished 
 by an imprisonment of from six days to one month, 
 and by a fine of from '200 francs (8/.) to 30,000 francs 
 (1200/.) 
 
 Art. 415. ** All combinations on the part of the work- 
 men to cause a simultaneous cessation of labour, or pre- 
 venting labour in a workshop, or hindrance thrown in the 
 way of workmen entering or remaining therein before or 
 after certain hours, and in general any thing done to 
 suspend, hinder, or augment the price of the work 
 there done, if there be an attempt at, or a commencement 
 of execution, shall be punished by imprisonment, for 
 at least one and not exceeding three months. The 
 ringleaders (moteurs) in such proceedings, to be im- 
 prisoned for not less than two, and not more than five 
 years. 
 
 Art, 416. "The workmen who shall have levied 
 fines, or issued prohibitions, or menaced punishments 
 of any hind, or under any pretexts whatever, either 
 against owners or managers of workshops, will incur the 
 same penalties hereinbefore recited, having regard to the 
 same distinctions in the degrees of culpability." 
 
 Official Commentary on Article 414. ** It is to be 
 remarked, that the term of imprisonment for the masters 
 is shorter than for the workmen. This difference is not 
 made by the law by way of partiality for the former j 
 but is a reasonable distinction ; for a too prolonged ab- 
 sence of the head of an establishment would be, not 
 a punishing of him alone, but of those, in the first p^ace, 
 whose work he has undertaken to execute, and after- 
 wards of his workmen. To balance this, however, the 
 law has inflicted on him a pecuniary mulct, proportionate 
 to the nature of his offence." 
 
u* 
 
 INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Independently of Trades' Unions, other elements of 
 convulsion might be seen fermenting in the bosom of 
 American society. In no country, perhaps, of the 
 world is the hatred of those who have every thing to 
 get, so envenomed against those who have something 
 to lose. For a while I distrusted the accounts I 
 heard and read of this, as so many party mis- 
 statements or exaggerations. I at last got convinced* 
 from what I discerned myself, on all sides, that they 
 were but too true : but I shall quote authorities ; 
 and the first shall be an extract from an article in 
 the *' United States Gazette," a paper of considerable 
 authority, and not remarkable for violent parti zan- 
 ship either way. It will give an idea of " the perfect 
 contentment and happiness " supposed by many here 
 to prevail in the '* favoured land over the way." The 
 writer of it is commenting on an inflammatory hand- 
 bill, circulated widely among the "productive classes," 
 directing them to rise in revolt against the oppres- 
 sions of their tyrants, the "non-productives." 
 
 " There is an attempt — a secret, silent, artful attempt 
 now in progress in this country, to undermine and de- 
 stroy public confidence and security — to impair, if not 
 to counteract, the powers of government and law — to 
 make every man, legislator, judge and juror for himself 
 — and in one word, to reduce our free and happy com- 
 munity to a state of anarchy and insubordination — such 
 as would make the worst despotism a most desirable 
 
 relief Many persons are now 
 
 busy here in the circulation of handbills — in the getting 
 up of associations and combinations of various kinds — 
 and in leading the minds of the discontented, and ambi- 
 tiouS) and envious, among us, to think that they are 
 oppressed 3 that wealth, though acquired by years of 
 
 
UNPRINCIPLED DEMOCRACY. 
 
 125 
 
 honest industry, is not the rightful possession of him 
 who has it, but ought to be divided, and that prices of 
 labour ought to be regulated, not according to the or- 
 dinary principles of political economy, but with reference 
 to mere physical or numerical strength." 
 
 Hereupon the writer, in affecting terms, invited the 
 good and wise in the land to come forward and bring 
 the minds of the working men to a sense of their 
 true interests, by some cheap publications, " level to 
 their capacity," and finished by calling on the go- 
 vernment to grant money to defray the expense on 
 such a pressing occasion. The government did no 
 such thing. On the contrary, many of the government 
 supporters, being pretended red-hot patriots, and hav 
 ing their own purposes to serve, winked at all sorts of 
 disorders which they ought to have discountenanced. 
 No sacrifice, either of character or principle, could be 
 too great, when " liberty" was to be advanced. In 
 other words, certain ambitious men would remain 
 mob favourites at whatever risk. In America, as with 
 us, — to use the words of Milton, — noisy democrats 
 
 *' Bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
 
 And still revolt when truth would set them free : 
 Licence they mean when they call Liberty !" 
 
 For a long time the appeal to " the good and wise" 
 remained unanswered, till a lawyer of Philadelphia, of 
 no mean talent (Mr. Williams) , took up the matter in 
 the "North American Quarterly Review," in an article 
 entitled, ♦' Political Symptoms and Popular Rights." 
 But it was a call, not to sinners to turn from the errors 
 of their ways, but rather to those •' who needed no 
 repentance." Besides appearing in a work of too 
 
126 
 
 POLITICAL SYMPTOMS 
 
 high pretension and price, the reasoning, although 
 excellent, and based on indisputable facts, was too 
 much in the forms of the schools, and therefore not 
 likely to be even read, much less appreciated, by 
 those most in want of being set right by it. General 
 readers are almost as much repelled by classical 
 quotations as their ancestors were frightened by con- 
 juration. Mr. W. ought to have avoided them on 
 this occasion. 
 
 The following are some of its best passages : — 
 
 ** Each age reproduces the absurdities of its predeces- 
 sors. Men go to the school of experience, (the only 
 school, says Burke, at which they will learn any thing,) 
 but their wisdom drops with them into the grave, and 
 their sons never think of searching for it there. . . 
 The moment that labour is looked upon as an unnatural 
 condition, that moment its advantages are desired with- 
 out its inconveniences. An envious glance is cast to- 
 wards those who have inherited or acquired its re- 
 wards We sincerely believe that during 
 
 the reign of open violence, when every man was an Ish • 
 mael in the wilderness, the human mind was scarcely 
 more pregnant with apprehension than it is at pre- 
 sent It is impossible not to see, in the re- 
 cent fermentation of American society, something more 
 remote and deeper seated than the operation of mere 
 physical causes. The progress of power, the profligacy 
 of party, the rude licence of pen and tongue before 
 which nothing has remained sacred, and the diligent ap- 
 peals to caste, (that odious old cry of poor against rich, 
 which demagogues have ever found so potent a destroyer 
 of happiness,) are producing certain effects. Studied 
 or not, there has been in our recent history a successful 
 array of passion against experience, a powerful and over- 
 vhelming combination of exciting influences against na- 
 
AND POPULAR RIGHTS. 
 
 127 
 
 tional repose and individual contentment 
 
 Our paper laws will be scattered to the winds, if men 
 find, as they have lately seemed to imagine, that they 
 may be violated at the dictates of caprice or con- 
 venience Midnight alarms, dwellings ri- 
 fled, and citizens driven into exile or gibbeted in the 
 market place, are wretched yet obvious results of this 
 corruption and degradation of opinion ; of an upstart and 
 bastard authority which ventures to sit in judgment on 
 the laws themselves, and dares to usurp functions and 
 defy forms which lie at the very foundation of individual 
 security, and the tranquillity of the republic. It is the 
 Jacobinism of the press and the rostrum, carried out into 
 
 practice No society can live in a perpetual 
 
 fever. Function is smothered in surmise by incessant 
 agitation, and the public mind fretted into delirium by 
 appeals from legislation and decision to extraordinary and 
 revolutionary remedies. The laws which ought to re- 
 cognise no power between their functionaries and their 
 objects, are paralysed by the din and turmoil with which 
 they are surrounded; and they are subverted, or at least 
 turned aside, by the intervention of illegitimate influ- 
 ences. Public men legislate and live in America in the 
 arena, where they are exposed not merely to the swords 
 of their fellow gladiators, but to the fang and the claw of 
 more obscure antagonists. Nigro bellua nil negat ma- 
 gistro. The pack fastens at the signal of the huntsman. 
 Fame goes for nothing, honour for nothing, the sufferings 
 and services of a long life for nothing. An exalted in- 
 tellect is too high by the head. Are not all men equal ? 
 Why not bring it, in the slang of coparcenary, into 
 hotchpot 9 It is aristocratical to know too much, as it is 
 to have too much. This is the new-old ostracism of great- 
 ness and virtue — the same which banished Aristides and 
 poisoned Socrates. With us it may not kill, but it may 
 make life not worth the keeping Martyr- 
 dom has always had its charms. It is a great ennobler. 
 
I'ZS 
 
 POLITICAL SYMPTOMS 
 
 But that war upon reputation which cuts it away by piece- 
 meal, and fights with the file instead of the sword, leaves 
 its adversary nothing with which to combat while he is 
 on the stage — nothing to look for when he quits it. We 
 deprecate in every view the spirit of unfairness, of mis- 
 representation, of low imputation, which pervades our 
 American politics. The limits between truth and false- 
 hood are utterly confounded and obliterated by it. It 
 respects no standard of judgment ; it yields to no weight 
 of evidence ; it stops at no aggravation of injustice. It 
 is terrorism aided by the press instead of the guillotine, 
 accompanied by political proscription and followed by 
 the extremes of distrust or adulation. The next and 
 sure consequence, if the mischief is not abated, will 
 be practical terrorism. Flash and Squib have already 
 begun to write letters, intimating that houses may be 
 burned and that legislators are mortal. Sejanus ducitur 
 unco ; the idol of a year ago has already had the rope 
 around the neck of his straw representative — Caesar 
 and Brutus have become apt parallels." [An allusion this 
 more especially to the case of Mr. Jesse Burdon, whom 
 I saw hanged and burnt in eflSgy tioice (that was too 
 bad !) in front of the State House of Philadelphia. He 
 was an opulent and eloquent citizen, and had been popu- 
 lar, but offended " the majesty of the American people " 
 by one unlucky vote. When I came away he was on the 
 point of taking refuge in England.] ** Shall we be told 
 that all this is all mere harmless eflfervescence — the work 
 of a few of those unquiet spirits whose passion has in every 
 age and state outrun their judgment.'^ We are sorry 
 to believe that the evil is more diffused and more alarm- 
 ing. It lies in a disposition to bring every act and every 
 character to the immediate test of popular judgment ; in 
 a repeal of the representative sy stem 5 — legislation by a 
 show of hands in the Agora, or the tribunitial veto on the 
 Mons Sacer. . . . Our legislators are fast descend- 
 ing into clerks with their amen written down for them. 
 
AND POPULAR RIGHTS. 
 
 129 
 
 Pledges beforehand and instructions after, will soon leave 
 them the choice of parrots between the favourite phrase 
 of a present or a recent master — a glorious alternative 
 between nunc and nuper. Senatorial service is becom- 
 ing coeval with that of the bodies it represents. The 
 majority shifts with the weathercock, and six years 
 dwindle into one. Fortune plays her game with the 
 conscript fathers of the republic, adroitly juggling them 
 in and out with a shake of her wings j 
 
 " Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax, 
 . . - Transmutat incertos honores, 
 
 Nunc mihi, nunc alii beniG:na." 
 What is the object of a deposit of power if it is to be 
 thus instantly resumed ? Why is the grave farce of elec- 
 tion periodically acted to be made of none avail ? Is it 
 not apparent to the dimmest vision that there can be 
 neither stability nor strength where the plain provisions 
 of the fundamental law are thus evaded for selfish 
 and temporary purposes ? If the people so please let 
 them abrogate their constitution, and boldly and man- 
 fully make another with all manner of provisions for po- 
 pular protection. If any branch of the government is 
 too strong or too long-lived, they have a mode of shear- 
 ing its locks, and of curtailing its exiytence. But this sap- 
 ping and mining, these side winds which blow in gusts 
 and flaws, this continual dropping which, by little and 
 little, wears away the corner-stone of their edifice, are 
 all mischievous and miserable alternatives. Plain men 
 are mystified by jargon until they lose all confidence in 
 the catechism of their political rights. They are taught 
 to believe that they are cheated by every exercise of 
 function which does not emanate from their own express 
 and immediate dictation. Like honest Nick Bottom, 
 they must play all the parts. So be it, if so it must be. 
 But let us have no more pretence about the matter. Let 
 the people know honestly and fairly what they are to do. 
 Their constitution is half a century old. The French had 
 
 K 
 
 
130 
 
 POLITICAL SYMPTOMS 
 
 half a dozen in one-tenth of that period, running through 
 every variety of pyramid and column, with checks, 
 counter- checks, and balances; classes^ colleges, synods, 
 and senates, fresh minted for each new holiday. If 
 Americans are for similar experiments, like good republi- 
 cans, we go with them — nay, we will put in at the grand 
 receiving-shop with our model, founded on no silly prac- 
 tical compromise, like our onr-e glorious, now (always 
 under favour of the conditional if) obsolete old charter, 
 but redolent of abstract rights and beautiful theories 
 
 of the social compact or of some antediluvian era 
 
 Yet are we, after all, for the established order of things, 
 because it is order. Possibly a change may make it 
 better ; probably it will make it worse. We are for the 
 constitution of 1787, without the commentary of 1798, 
 or any other gloss or scholium whensoever concocted, 
 save, it may be, thai; contemporary one, which as it pre- 
 ceded the refinements and inventions of modern party, 
 and as its authors were subsequently sundered by politi- 
 cal division, claims, as it has received, uniform respect. 
 We are for a president for four years, a senate for six 
 years, a house of representatives for two years, a judiciary 
 dum bene se gesserit, if for no better reason, at least for 
 this, that so runs the compact under which most of us 
 
 have been born Once enter on this 
 
 career (is it not already entered on ?) and where are we to 
 stO|. ? Threaten the timid, instruct the scrupulous, de- 
 fame the bold, and legislators here at home will become 
 in time as very machines as the members of the national 
 assembly surrounded by six thousand dictators in their 
 hall at Versailles. We cast no imputation upon those 
 who carry their notions of constituent rights to this 
 extreme, but we beg them to reflect upon the tendency 
 of their doctrines, and to ask themselves in what prin- 
 ciple they differ from the advocates of a simple demo- 
 racy Much as we may defer to their 
 
 opinions, we cannot espouse them. They are too radi- 
 
AND POPULAR RIGHTS. 
 
 131 
 
 cal for the institutions under which we live. . . . 
 Man's innate love and power eats silently like a 
 mildew into the paper bulwarks which in a moment of 
 magnanimity or prostration he may have set up against 
 it. The self-imposed restraint to which he submits, 
 resembles that of stage-captives — the chains are fast- 
 ened on with straps. We are by nature revolu- 
 tionary ; first (for when history discovered our spe- 
 cies it was in subjection at least, if not in slavery) 
 towards freedom ; then back again towards its opposite. 
 The former tendency is the result of instinct, of hope, 
 and of moral knowledge ; the latter of despondency — we 
 had almost said, of despair. It is a vibration between 
 the aspirations and the experience of humanity. The 
 problem is, as indeed it is in most other cases, political 
 or moral, to rest at the middle point — the point of safety 
 and repose. Past ages have carried the pendulum so 
 far to the side of experience that we may well fear the 
 wide sweep of its return toward the region of hope and 
 trial. If it does not swing too far, it may rise too 
 rapidly. To what extent we can trust ourselves be- 
 yond the gravitating point is not now the question. We 
 seem to have no suspicion that we can become giddy 
 under any circumstances, but may we not go too fast ? 
 ** In all free nations," said the Drapier, more than a 
 hundred years ago, " I take the definition of law to be, 
 " the will of the majority of those who have the property 
 in land." That maxim was superseded by the Draconic 
 code of the French revolution, for even in America 
 nobody thought of disputing it until the events of that 
 struggle in a few short years obliterated half the old 
 axioms of politics. The principle, however, is repealed, 
 (it matters not how or when,) so far as America is con- 
 cerned, and on most philosophic grounds. It would be 
 absurd, where the development of the national energies 
 and the support of the national character owe to com- 
 merce, manufactures, and the applicatioii of mechanical 
 
 r 
 
i 
 
 ■(Bi. 
 
 I| 
 
 1 
 
 132 
 
 POLITICAL SYMPTOMS 
 
 labour, as much as to agriculture, that the possessor 
 of a few acres of mountain or moor — of " forty pounds 
 a year " in corn or cabbages, should be the exclusive 
 law-maker. Dry goods, a lap-stone, or a ship-car- 
 penter's hammer, are as legitimate parents of the 
 franchise as Gonzalo's '* longr heath of brown furze." 
 But we stop there, and stand on our reserved rights. If 
 property in land is not a qualification, neither is property 
 of any sort, nor is that mother of property and influence in 
 a free and republic, educated intellect, to be a disquali- 
 fication. We recognize no privilege of poverty, — we 
 
 would as soon submit to the privilege of peerage 
 
 When a war against property unites the majority of the 
 physical and moral force of a country, it is generally a 
 war against abuses too — it is revolution. Such it was 
 in France, and we are not prepared to say that in the 
 outset, while motives were pure, many an honest patriot 
 might not well have contemplated a division of property 
 as an inevitable precursor of reform. It was indeed 
 a wretched alternative most wretchedly settled. But 
 here a war against property would be what a great 
 statesman calls '* Jacobinism by establishment ;" a mere 
 strife for gain without even excuse of pretended virtue ; 
 a mad agrarianism ending in its own suicide ; a bloody 
 and circuitous hunt after that which lies at every man's 
 door. Yet have the inflammatory harangues and 
 paragraphs of some designers with purposes to answer, 
 and some dupes with no purposes at all — mere echoes 
 
 from the mountains — half excited it When 
 
 any class of society forsakes the open track, disregards 
 the very principles under which it claims to live, and 
 which its members, or those possessing common interests 
 with them nave established, and seeks for remedies which 
 those principles cannot sanction, the safety and rights of 
 every other class are endanger and the compact of 
 society broken up. A league iii defence of the law is 
 the necessary counterpart of ths conspiracy against it. 
 
AND POPULAR RIGHTS. 
 
 133 
 
 he possessor 
 forty pounds 
 the exclusive 
 a ship-car- 
 ents of the 
 Town furze." 
 ed rights. If 
 er is property 
 d influence in 
 be a disquali- 
 poverty, — we 
 
 2rage 
 
 lajority of the 
 is generally a 
 Such it was 
 ,y that in the 
 tionest patriot 
 n of property 
 t was indeed 
 settled. But 
 what a great 
 ent;" a mere 
 nded virtue ; 
 de ; a bloody 
 every man's 
 angues and 
 les to answer, 
 mere echoes 
 . When 
 :k, disregards 
 |s to live, and 
 on interests 
 edies which 
 and rights of 
 compact of 
 f the law is 
 :y against it. 
 
 The result, however modified, or by whatever means it 
 may be called, is a state of war j not necessarily a war 
 of guns and swords, (though it comes to that at last,) 
 but a war of opinion, a war of sentiment, a war of 
 strenuous and agitating effort, a war of bad passions and 
 irritated feeling, a war of desire against possession ; the 
 old war, as we said at the beginning, against the security 
 of property and the stability of those provisions by which 
 
 alone property can be protected Are there 
 
 no indications of the existence or probable commence- 
 ment of such a state of things here at home ? What 
 import the signals of attack upon obnoxious corporations; 
 the threatened repeal of charters ; the bold agrarian doc- 
 trines of certain societies, exultingly avowed by their 
 practical expounders during the sack of Baltimore } 
 Tlie vultus instantls tyranni, has an eye for plunder as 
 well as for revenge. What imports the institution of 
 Trades' Union, and which exists but as the branch of a 
 wide-spread combination designed to promote its own 
 interests (for that is the plain English of the case) at the 
 expense of those of the community ? It matters not, as 
 a political symptom, that it proceeds upon an uttc 
 fallacy which it claims in all sincerity to take for granted. 
 Ignorance or mistake may sometimes extenuate wrong, 
 though even those excuses are no justification for breach 
 
 of law Of so much the members of the 
 
 society are not ignorant. They know that they interfere 
 with other men's rights, and that they do so by a system 
 
 of proscription, terror, and espionage If 
 
 men may combine for one illegal purpose, they may do 
 so for another ; if they may regulate the price of labour 
 they may enact a sumptuary law ; if they may dictate 
 opinions they may interfere with practice. At present 
 they are content to place their mark upon a refractory 
 workman or an independent employer— to dog the steps 
 of the one, or plant a sentry at the door of the other. 
 Anon will appear more potent sanctions and more effec- 
 
 ■— I 
 
I' < 
 
 )>■ 
 
 134 
 
 SOLEMN ABSURDITIES. 
 
 tive penalties. Nous ne sommes encore quau premier fias. 
 The price of disobedience may be blood as well as 
 
 money The sooner the issue between law 
 
 and licence is made up and settled, the better for all 
 parties and on all accounts, because the sooner will men 
 know how to provide against future contingencies, or to 
 submit to absolute and overwhelming necessity. If we 
 are to be exposed to the inroads of unprincipled radicalism, 
 the earlier the orderly begin to bury their possessions 
 and fortify their homes, the more harmless will be the 
 struggle." 
 
 The writer evidently pointed his arrows too high ; 
 and thus they were sure to miss their mark. Having 
 the happiness of knowing one of the leading gentle- 
 men of the city who took a great interest in public 
 matters, I stated my opinion as to what was wanted, 
 and offered to write " A few short and timely Ad- 
 dresses to the Artisans and Labourers of the United 
 States, by one of themselves." I told him that the 
 Trades' Unions had, in their manifestoes, set out, as 
 from a starting point, with the preamble of the De- 
 claration of Independence, (afterwards copied by 
 the French anarchists,) that all men are by nature 
 equal, and that I much desired an opportunity to 
 tear the false proposition to rags. He said, it had 
 been solemnly propounded by grave authority, and 
 that it had, in America, the weight of Holy Writ. 
 I replied, I was not going to fly directly in the face 
 of such a grave document ; but I urged, the higher 
 the authority of a practical fallacy, the more mis- 
 chievous was it likely to be. It was the very soil, as 
 it were, in which the baleful tree had taken root. On 
 
 .1 
 
t< 
 
 STRIKING ARGUMENTS. 
 
 135 
 
 this explanation, he said he highly approved of my 
 plan, and advised me to proceed in it forthwith. 
 When I had completed the *' addresses," I showed 
 my MS. to a person, the acting manager of a large 
 establishment in Philadelphia, who knew well the 
 character of those for whose benefit I was about to 
 write, from having had to deal with them as a 
 negociator on occasion of a *' strike " in his line of 
 business a twelvemonth before. He was a person of 
 strong good sense — a real practical man — much more 
 so than the person I first consulted. He advised me 
 by all means to refrain j put me in mind that the 
 Trades had lately established a journal of their own 
 in Philadelphia, full of ignorance and virulent twaddle, 
 and any opposition to it would be highly resented. 
 
 He told me that while the " strike " above-men- 
 tioned, and the discussions it led to were going on, 
 he was obliged many times to pass by groups of 
 unionists gathered together in the passages of the 
 house of business whose interests he had firmly de- 
 fended j that for months he was obliged to carry 
 arms for protection -, and, in prooi, took out of his 
 desk " a pistol which (as he said) never missed fire." 
 It was a large "Bowie knife," a murderous weapon, 
 much used in the west. In his hands — for he was a 
 man of enormous strength — such a dagger must have 
 been redoubtable indeed. Besides menaces of per- 
 sonal violence, from which his courageous bearing 
 saved him, he had received several letters threatening 
 him with hanging ; but, he confronted the one, and 
 despised the other. " Most of these Union talkers 
 
! ii. 
 
 i:36 
 
 PRUDENT COUNSELS. 
 
 (said he) are either of a cowardly spirit naturally, or 
 their courage is quenched by a distrust of the good- 
 ness of their cause. 1 have more than once plunged 
 into the middle of their groups, and they always 
 made large way for me, like a flock of timid sheep. 
 But as for you, my friend, if you get into trouble with 
 them — which you'd be sure to do — Idoubtwhetheryou 
 have strength of arm, or firmness of nerve, to carry 
 you through. Recollect always that we are here 
 upon the * every man his own best protector' system. 
 We talk, indeed, of the strong arm of the law j but 
 the hand that terminates the arm is apt to be wofully 
 paralysed at times. Your present employment 
 obliges you, in some sort, to mix with many of them ; 
 your daily comfort, if not your means of existence, 
 depends on your being companionable. Never for- 
 get that you are a foreigner among us ; and mongrel 
 race though we be, that will be a ready handle for the 
 adversaries to invalidate all you say. Your being* 
 in one sense, one of themselves, will not be in your 
 favour ; on the contrary, you will be set down as an 
 apostate from the great cause — perhaps as an emissary 
 or spy. Excuse my frank roughness : but if you 
 have a due fear of the Lord and Lynch law before 
 your eyes, you will desist." I did desist, though, I 
 must own, very unwillingly. 
 
im:(uliar laws of amkrica. 
 
 137 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 COUJTS IN NEW YORK — DIVORCE CASE. 
 
 As I spent some time in New York, during which 
 nothing eligible turned up for me, the time began to 
 hang heavy on my hands. It was my frequent cus- 
 tom to step into the City Hall, and listen to the 
 pleadings going on in the courts there. I well remem- 
 ber the case which interested me more than any other 
 I heard there. It was a d v orce affair. The husband 
 was the injured party ; and. as I understood at the 
 time, had applied to the state legislature for a disso- 
 lution of the marriage tie j and that this had been 
 granted, and a bill to that effect passed. But 
 laws made by the state legislatures, or even by Con- 
 gress itself, remain a dead letter, unless sanctioned 
 by the decisions of the Supreme Courts. To the 
 latter the wife had appealed, as I understood, on 
 some Iv^al grounds. Defective proof of her guilt it 
 could not well be, as she had been detected m^^a- 
 grante delicto with her paramour. But one or both 
 of the parties were aliens, namely English ; and the 
 strongest part of the husband's case rested on tlie 
 intercourse sworn to have taken place on board the 
 packet ship from Liverpool, and therefore possibly 
 out of the jurisdiction of the United States courts. 
 

 138 
 
 THE IMPATIENT HUSBAND OF 
 
 mil *^ 
 
 '( 
 
 The evidence of the fellow passengers of the parties, 
 and also the crew of the ship, went to prove the 
 whole case beyond a doubt. The evidence, after the 
 arrival of the parties on shore, where the criminal 
 intercourse had been continued, was not so strong. 
 The husband came to the knowledge of his wife's 
 conduct in an odd way. He had written to her ear- 
 nestly to join him in America, whither he had been 
 sent as an agent for a mercantile house, and was 
 settled at a town a hundred miles or more from New 
 York. Some business delays had hitherto prevented 
 his wife from joining him in America ; he was daily 
 expecting her arrival, and naturally anxious to hear 
 of her safety, so that he looked into every New York 
 paper for tidings. He knew not the name of the 
 vessel that was to convey her ; but he was aware 
 that the New York papers always insert the names, 
 taken from the ship's books, of every cabin passenger 
 that arrives there. There are different reasons for 
 this 3 one is, that it serves to prove the time of any 
 one's arrival in the country, in case of his afterwards 
 wishing to be naturalized. Not to mention too, that 
 it is a readier way of conveying information than by 
 letter. He was not a little delighted to see his wife's 
 name at length in the list of the last arrived packet, 
 and his impatience to meet and welcome her knew no 
 bounds. Day after day passed, however, and she 
 came not. He, at last, after waiting a reasonable 
 time, set out half distracted for New York. He flew 
 to interrogate the captain, the officers, the crew ; for 
 by this time the other passengers had all gone their 
 
LOVING WIFE. 
 
 139 
 
 f the parties, 
 to prove the 
 nee, after the 
 the criminal 
 ►t so strong, 
 of his wife's 
 ;n to her ear- 
 he had been 
 ise, and was 
 jre from New 
 rto prevented 
 he was daily 
 tious to hear 
 :ry New York 
 name of the 
 e was aware 
 rt the names, 
 bin passenger 
 reasons for 
 time of any 
 lis afterwards 
 tion too, that 
 ition than by 
 see his wife's 
 Tived packet, 
 her knew no 
 ver, and she 
 reasonable 
 rk. He flew 
 he crew j for 
 11 gone their 
 
 several ways. No one would at first tell him any- 
 thing. At last, remarking something mysterious in 
 the captain's explanations, he begged, he prayed, 
 he conjured him to say if anything, and what, were 
 wrong. He drew from him, at last, that his lady 
 had made herself early remarked in the voyage, 
 which had been a long one, by the levity of her gene- 
 ral conduct ; and that it was universally believed she 
 had been on too intimate terms with a young gen- 
 tleman on board, about five years younger than her- 
 self, she being on the verge of thirty. On several 
 occasions, too, since the ship's arrival, he was told 
 they had been seen together in New York, and had 
 taken their meals, if not slept together, in the same 
 hotel. The ship's steward was now called in, and he 
 said he could swear to having seen the parties in 
 situations which set their guilt in the clearest point 
 of view. The husband now hastened on shore — a 
 mournful quest — to collect all the evidence he could 
 as to his wife's proceedings since her arrival. But 
 these amounted to strong probabilities only j parties 
 applied to were either unable or unwilling to give 
 positive testimony. It is probable that the system of 
 publishing cabin passengers' names was unknown to 
 the lady and her paramour : she thought probably to 
 make her husband believe she had come by a later 
 packet, and imagined there could be no harm to 
 indulge, meantime, in a little innocent pastime, then 
 fly to her husband's arms, and salute him with the 
 " dutiful " kisses of impure lips. Be that as it may, 
 during her husband's inquiries about her inNew York, 
 
140 
 
 AN AMERICAN BARRISTER. 
 
 ■M 
 
 she left it, and when he returned home, after a week's 
 delay, he found her installed there, just as if nothing 
 had happened to her. His first step was to eject 
 her thence, no doubt with utter loathing, if not with 
 contumely. He then addressed himself to the con- 
 stituted authorities to do him right, who made an 
 award in his favour accordingly ; but from that rea- 
 sonable decision, probably on a writ of error, the 
 lady now appealed. In general, the different state 
 legislatures have thepower of passing bills of divorce, 
 on sufficient cause being shewn. There is one 
 exception, however (if not more), to this jurisdiction j 
 it is that of the supreme court of Mi'ssachusetts, 
 which has original and exclusive jurisdiction in all 
 matters of divorce and alimony. I am not sure whe- 
 ther a similar arrangement may not obtain in the state 
 of New York also. Be this as it may, there could be 
 no moral, but there was some legal, doubt of this 
 woman's guilt. Here her advocate took his stand; 
 and contended that if •* aliens" could get that relief 
 from American tribunals, which those of their own 
 country (possibly for wise reasons) denied them, 
 it would create an abuse which it would not be easy 
 to see the end of. If it were as easy to dissolve 
 marriages in America as to solemnise them, every 
 packet would bring over troops of discontented or 
 guilty couples, seeking release from relations they 
 repented entering into. The distance presented no 
 obstacle ; for what wPb once a painful sea-voyage had 
 become a pleasant summer excursion. Thus the 
 benevolent intentions of the law, in devising an expe- 
 
fter a week's 
 as if nothing 
 vas to eject 
 ;, if not with 
 ' to the con- 
 ho made an 
 tm that rea- 
 f error, the 
 fFerent state 
 Is of divorce, 
 lere is one 
 jurisdiction} 
 •ssachusetts, 
 iction in all 
 ot sure whe- 
 1 in the state 
 ere could he 
 )ubt of this 
 t his stand; 
 :t that relief 
 f their own 
 snied them, 
 not be easy 
 r to dissolve 
 them, every 
 ontented or 
 ations they 
 resented no 
 -voyage had 
 Thus the 
 ng an expe- 
 
 HIGHLY ENTRUSTED JUDICATURE. 
 
 141 
 
 dient for the benefit of their own citizens alone, 
 would becom*^ a convenience for profligate foreigners, 
 whose cases had never been so much as thought 
 of by the law-makers. 
 
 Neither on this occasion, nor on any other, did I 
 see any thing of the gross indecorum detailed by 
 tourists as existing in the American courts. The 
 appearance, manners, and language of the barristers 
 and judges were gentlemanlike in the highest degree. 
 True, the former had not the powdered wigs of the 
 English judges, nor the latter the ridiculous trencher- 
 caps or ungainly dresses of the French avocats ; 
 but I thought the absence of both adjuncts no loss. 
 I have not a doubt that the lawyers number in their 
 ranks most of the higher intellects of the elite of 
 American society. The present president was a law- 
 yer ; so was the last but one, and he is even yet the 
 foremost man of his country if not of his time — I 
 mean John Quincy Adams. Judge Marshall, the 
 Eldon of America, and the friend and biographer of 
 Washington, died shortly before my arrival. 
 
 The discretionary power invested in the superior 
 courts of this country, of nullifying the bad inten- 
 tions or blunders of their legislators, must give a 
 higher tone to the judicial mind here than elsewhere. 
 When any case comes before them founded on a 
 statute contrary to the Constitution, to equality, or 
 to the common sense of mankind, they quash the 
 proceedings at once j and this too without any further 
 appeal. Would that such a check now and then 
 
 
Jl' 
 
 I'lH^riwhit.aa 
 
 142 
 
 A SKETCH, TAKEN FROM THE LIFE 
 
 
 I'i 
 
 as 
 
 ii 
 
 existed with us ! but that would be as bad 
 " reforming the reformed House of Commons/' 
 
 How they dealt with the divorce case above narratfed, 
 J had not an opportunity of learning. The proceed- 
 ings of the courts are not reported, except in rare 
 instances, as with us j neither do their journals give 
 the impure details of evidence on trials, which are 
 read with such gusto by so many individuals of 
 either sex in England. The frail appellant's lawyer 
 handled her rotten cause very delicately 3 he argued, 
 not so much on defective evidence, as on general prin- 
 ciples. — I have very little doubt that when the first 
 honest blushes had left the cheeks of his client, 
 when she began to look about for excuses, she found 
 them " plentiful as blackberries j " they are never 
 wanting on such occasions. 
 
 Perhaps, for instance, she had married far below 
 her supposed rank and self-imagined merit — perhaps 
 she might be accustomed to turn round upon her 
 husband with the startling query, " How dared a 
 person like you ever think of marrying such a one. as 
 me ? ' — Her natural temper, from her cradle upwards, 
 may have been one that could never brook '^ control" 
 — her unfashionable husband might have been ten 
 years older than she was — she being " very gay," his 
 habits might have been too recluse for her — he might 
 have been too much occupied in business to have 
 many opportunities or sufficient leisure (supposing 
 that he had the inclination) to show her about to an 
 admiring world. Some one, or all, or none of these 
 
 I A 
 
OP A HOME-DESERTING LADY. 
 
 143 
 
 palliatory circumstances may have attended the re- 
 lative position of the parties, and preceded her dis- 
 graceful exposure j but as none such were narrated 
 in court, it would be rash to affirm there were, and 
 I will not " go beyond the record." One thing was 
 plain : if she had not any excuses at all to plead, in 
 extenuation of her infamous conduct, her effrontery 
 must have equalled her wantonness, when she could 
 hire a lawyer to defend a counter-plea to her hus- 
 band's reasonable demand to be rid of her for ever. — 
 I do not say, however, that she had no excuses j every 
 sinner has some j but when Dr. Johnson heard some 
 one fine-drawing apolo^.;^;^ for a convicted adultress 
 of his time, he stopped him, saying, '' I have no pa- 
 tience, my good Sir, with this pernicious nonsense : 
 
 the woman's a , and there's an end on't." 
 
 The recent escapade of our mutual friend 's 
 
 wife, has broug'it the circumstances of that case more 
 strongly to my recollection ; not that there is a re- 
 semblance between them, in the blacker parts ; at 
 least, not that I know of. Still there may be abun* 
 dant reason for a husband's having a legal release 
 granted him from an abandoning, if not an abandoned 
 woman. I am induced to bring the two particular 
 instances to bear on the general question, with the 
 view of discussing the expediency of such an altera- 
 tion in the law of England relating to divorce, as 
 would assimilate it more to the practice of other 
 countries, and to the immutable principles of equity 
 implanted in the breasts of all mankind, high and 
 low. — But more upon the English laws by and by. 
 
R 
 
 144 MISERY OF UNRETURNED AFFECTION. 
 
 As ycu know of my close connexion with one of 
 the last indicated parties, you at least will require no 
 apology from me for what I am about to say. I was in- 
 timate with from his childhood, and well knew 
 
 his enthusiastic, I dare not say his generous, character. 
 Without knowing his wife so well, I had always re- 
 marked in her a great measure of sensibility — so 
 charming in a woman, but which may, or may not, be 
 allied to a good heart. — I always thought she had 
 good natural instincts ; but I knew, at the same time, 
 that she had no steady principle. It was, therefore, 
 
 with no small apprehension I saw embark his 
 
 hopes of happiness in such a frail vessel. 
 
 Of late, 1 had not seen so much of , and knew 
 
 not the precise footing on which he stood with his 
 wife ; but every one thought they lived together on 
 the best terms. As for the lady's capability of being 
 happy with him, or with any one else, I own I had 
 little faith in that. A morbid sensitiveness of natural 
 temperament in her had been much increased by a 
 pernicious education. It might have been as surely 
 predicted of her, as the shrewd old lady did of Mrs. 
 Hemans : " That dear child, your daughter, can 
 never be happy — her colour comes and goes too fast.'' — 
 Were there, then, on his side, any outbreaks of stormy 
 inquietudes arising from the mind's "heroic confidence 
 and its human misgivings j its agonies of hate, spring- 
 ing from the depths of love " — for I have been assured 
 that his mind was shaded with a tinge of jealousy. 
 If so, and it were not carried to an unreasonable ex- 
 tent, it was complimentary to her, for we never dread 
 
 I: 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
BUILDING ON SANDY FOUNDATIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 m 
 
 to lose that which we do not love. Such a feeling 
 ought to have been prudently dealt with, and not 
 madly exasperated. An ingenuousness of conduct 
 may have been wanting on her part. — What says 
 Charles Lamb on this head ? 
 
 " Truth explained, is to suspicion 
 Ever still the best physician. 
 Wounds which love had made him feel 
 Love alone had power to heal — ." 
 
 But, from the beginning,! fear, all the love was on his 
 side j or, if there were any on hers, it must have been 
 lightand evanescent. Thus much I can safely say of him, 
 that he always seemed to me to deport himself to her 
 more as a lover than a husband. She was, indeed, 
 if I might judge, the pride of his eye, the joy of his 
 heart -, like Bathsheba to Uriah, he accounted her 
 his sole worthy possession — " his one ewe-lamb." 
 No J never was mortal man more bound up in his 
 wife than he. The very ground she trod on seemed 
 hallowed in his sight. Without being a poet, his soul 
 was strongly imbued with the hues of poetry ; and 
 there were few more passionate admirers of the 
 beautiful in nature or in mind. His feelings, in such 
 things, he always delighted to communicate to her 
 whom his soul loved. Like Rosamond Gray's lover, 
 " He would make her admire the scenes he admired — 
 fancy the wild flowers he fancied — watch the clouds 
 he was watching — and not unfrequently repeat to her 
 the poetry which he loved, and make her love it." In 
 a word, I know he prided himself in the idea that 
 he would ever be to her as •' a guide, philosopher. 
 
tl^ 
 
 y t 
 
 146 
 
 h'aLKMBERT and VOLTAIRE. 
 
 and friend ;** and that she esteemed and respected 
 him accordingly. He has often remarked to me, 
 after conversations with her, by which he thought 
 she had profited — 
 
 " The pleasures he derived from opening up 
 His own oi others' lore to her apt mind." 
 
 I remember writing to him soon after his marriage, 
 on occasion of that event altering all his pursuits, 
 and detaching him from his friends, so as to devote 
 the most exclusive attention to her — " Well, as the 
 old saying has it, you have not gained much by the 
 exchange, even if you have turned your twenty-one 
 shillings into a guinea." Oh that the supposed 
 golden coin should ever turn to a false counter, to 
 pass from hand to hand, in itself worth nothing I 
 
 When a married woman quits her husband, her 
 reasons for such a step cannot be too good. As 
 D'Alembert wrote to Voltaire, on occasion of the lat- 
 ter writing some severe criticism on Corneille ; " Mon 
 ami, tu me dis, ' j'ai raison :' ce n'est pasassez j il 
 faut que tu aies raison et demi." V^hat shall we say, 
 then, if instead of extra-good reasons, she have only 
 a string of idle excuses to offer ? She will take ad- 
 vantage of a ridiculous quarrel, find in that a pretext 
 she had long been looking out for, and leave her 
 husband's house to go, God knows whither, with- 
 out deigning to say farewell, or leaving a word of 
 explanation. However, the day may come when, too 
 late, remorseful sentiments, such as are expressed in 
 the poem above cited, by Charles Lamb, may come 
 into her mind — 
 
 
A FAMILY PICTURE. 
 
 147 
 
 id respected 
 
 •ked to me, 
 
 he thought 
 
 ;nin^ up 
 mind." 
 
 lis marriage, 
 his pursuits, 
 as to devote 
 Well, as the 
 much by the 
 r twenty-one 
 ;he supposed 
 e counter, to 
 nothing I 
 husband, her 
 30 good. As 
 ion of the lat- 
 neille j " Mon 
 pas assez j il 
 shall we say, 
 she have only 
 ; will take ad- 
 ;hat a pretext 
 ,nd leave her 
 hither, with- 
 |ng a word of 
 me when, too 
 expressed in 
 b, may come 
 
 " A vain unthinking creature, I 
 Deem'd lightly of that sacred tie, 
 Gave to the treacherous world my heart. 
 And play'd the foolish wanton's part." 
 
 Nevertheless, I do not wish to stigmatise too harsh- 
 ly the conduct of this rash and ill-advised woman. 
 She has been the victim of a vicious education. No 
 parent had she, capable of impressing on her opening 
 mind the wholesome truth — more precious than 
 rubies — " Virtue alone is happiness below." Her na- 
 tural bias for dissipation, instead of being checked by 
 prudent restraint, was inflamed by every encourage- 
 ment ; and so alive was her craving for admiration, 
 that, in after years, it became as insatiate as the 
 thirst of the horse-leech for blood, crying ever— 
 " Give, give ! " 
 
 The portion of female education which most influ- 
 ences female life and conduct, is that which is received 
 at home. If the parental house, then, be '* divided 
 against itself," — if all the members of the family be 
 in a permanent conspiracy against its head — if a con- 
 tinued system of deception and trickery be esta- 
 blished there, not uncountenanced by motherly ex- 
 ample, and discountenanced by no matronly precept 
 — then are the younger members of that house on the 
 readiest road to degradation and ruin. In whatever 
 harm that may follow, the parent has much to an- 
 swer for. And when any of the daughters, bred up 
 in such a circle of make-believe, get married, the 
 odds are, that the dupery they have been used to at 
 home will cling to them in their intercourse with their 
 
 l2 
 
t 
 
 Iff 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 VI 
 
 'i 
 
 148 
 
 OBJECT OF MISPLACED ENVY. 
 
 husbands : and small, indeed, is the hope of happi- 
 ness or comfort for the man who finds he cannot put 
 confidence in his wife. Thus do the vices of famihes 
 continue " even to the third and fourth genera- 
 tions." — '* O femme, femme ! creature faible et de- 
 cevante. Nul animal cr^e ne manque k son instinct j 
 le tien est-il done h tromper ?" — (Beaumarchais' 
 Figaro.) 
 
 Captain Marryat has said, that no man can have 
 any security in a woman destitute of relifyion. But 
 the party in question was fanatically Irreligious — 
 a bitter hater and contemner of the Christian revela- 
 tion, whose doctrines indeed had never been properly 
 laid before her, and whose evidences she would 
 never give herself the trouble to examine. Educated 
 principally in a popish seminary, her early girlhood 
 had been dosed with Romanism. This she soon 
 renounced ; whether that were exchanged for a better 
 state of mind by an assiduous perusal of the produc- 
 tions of the Onanites or Owenites (Gallice precau- 
 tionnaires,) I rather doubt ; but she had deeply studied 
 the '* new views of society " contained in the "Na- 
 tural Physiology " of the younger parallelogramist. 
 She was also a great envier of the fame and 
 fortunes of the notorious Ninon de TEnclos, a lady 
 who was so much " her own mistress." She did not 
 know, or forgot, that this unhappy woman, writing 
 to her old friend D'Evremond, says, in her latter 
 days, " I do not merely say I would rather die 
 than lead the life I have again j but, worse than that, 
 I would rather be a dog ! At the time when the un- 
 
 
Y. 
 
 pe of happi- 
 e cannot put 
 is of families 
 irth genera- 
 faible et de- 
 son instinct ; 
 
 lUMARCHAIs' 
 
 lan can have 
 jlif'ion. But ^.. 
 I Irreligious — ^ 
 istian revela- 
 t)een properly 
 3 she would 
 e. Educated 
 sarly girlhood 
 his she soon 
 d for a better 
 f the produc- 
 allice precau- 
 .eeply studied 
 in the "Na- 
 allelogramist. 
 fame and 
 Qclos, a lady 
 She did not 
 »man, writing 
 in her latter 
 d rather die 
 se than that, | 
 when the un- 
 
 APPLICATIONS TO MAGISTRATES. 
 
 149 
 
 ■'-%; 
 
 ^^4 
 
 thinking thought me the happiest, I have been ever 
 the most pitiably miserable." But enough of poor 
 Ninon, and of her admirer too, for the present. I 
 am now about to take up the general question al- 
 ready mentioned. 
 
 The English laws recognise two kinds of divorce : 
 one an absolute release from *♦ the matrimonial chain/' 
 th other from bed and board. For the first, it is 
 almost always necessary to apply to the House of 
 Lords J the second is generally sued for in the spi- 
 ritual courts. In either resort, the result of an ap- 
 plication is very uncertain ; but the expense, consi- 
 derable in the latter, in the former is enormous. In 
 such courts no suits can ever be entered in forma 
 pauperis. It is plain, then, that the laws of England 
 take for grauted that no man, if he be of inferior 
 rank or substance, can have either honour or feeling. 
 
 When individuals of the middle or inferior ranks 
 apply for relief to the lower tribunals, the suit is 
 not merely repelled, it is mocked at. The industrious 
 penny-a-line- men, who report the case, thereupon 
 grow quite facetious, and wonder at the poor fool's 
 ignorance of the law j yet the number of such applica- 
 tions do not prove men's folly or ignorance. This 
 state of things being contrary to natural equity, it 
 is not wonderful that sufferers are slow to believe, and, 
 inclined to exclaim with Shylock, " Is that the law r' 
 What ! may the party quit my protection, heap 
 wrong upon wrong, plunge me in debt and disgrace 
 every where, and shall there be no legal means of 
 relief from all this ? " Ciim nocens absolvitur, [lex] 
 damnatur." 
 
li 
 
 -' 't. 
 
 i f' 
 
 150 
 
 AN EASY BRIDGE TO PASS. 
 
 Oh yes, but there is one remedy, if you be an out- 
 raged husband : you can raise an action for damages. 
 Damages ! as if any sum of money a jury can award 
 can lighten the concussion his whole soul may have 
 received from the brain-blow thus criielly dealt him. 
 But we will suppose^ for a moment, that he has the 
 hardihood to brave the scarcely endurable exposure 
 of a trial and newspaper-reports ; and he will finil 
 some hard-mouthed barrister get up and plainly 
 assert, or cunningly insinuate — especially if the se- 
 ducer be rich — that it is a case of collusion — a base 
 conspiracy to get money by his wife's infamy. Or if 
 this vile charge be not followed up by the audacious 
 member of the worshipful company of " insolens 
 privil^gi^s en robe," as Figaro calls them, then 
 there will be charges of" want of proper care " exer- 
 cised by the plaintiff over his wife's conduct ; he will 
 have been too confiding or too distrusting j he will 
 have taken her out too much, or kept her unreason- 
 ably confined — he will have been too much this, or too 
 little that ; no insinuation, no supposition, no asser- 
 tion will be spared that can distort the case, and give 
 an unfavourable bias to the minds of a jury. It will 
 be proved to them, by a sharp scrutiny, that the 
 appellant's entire conduct towards his wife was oflF 
 the fine median line. Happy the husbands of women 
 of a *' gay " turn of mind, if tliey could but light upon 
 it ! it must be hard to discover, being narrower than, 
 the bridge with the razor-edge that leads over the 
 abyss of the Mahometan hell, and by which the 
 Faithiiil pass into their Paradise. Too confiding ! 
 
PROVISIONS OF FRENCH LAW. 
 
 151 
 
 be an out- 
 ir damages, 
 car. award 
 may have 
 dealt him. 
 ae has the 
 e exposure 
 le will find 
 ad plainly 
 if the se- 
 Dn — a base 
 my. Or if 
 I audacious 
 ** insolens 
 iem» then 
 are " exer- 
 }t ; he will 
 g J he will 
 unreason- 
 this, or too 
 
 no asser- 
 B, and give 
 It will 
 
 that the 
 
 ife was off 
 
 of women 
 
 light upon 
 
 ower than. 
 
 over the 
 which the 
 confiding ! 
 
 ** Wilt thou make trust a transgression ? The trans- 
 gression is in the stealer." So says our greatest poet. 
 And thus our greatest sage — '* Virtue which always 
 needs looking after, can never be worth the trouble 
 it gives." 
 
 I admit, however, that there have been men who 
 looked upon what is held to be an intolerable wrong 
 by the majority, as a very trifling affair : La Fontaine, 
 for instance, who says, " L'infidelite de sa femme, si 
 Ton n'en sait rien, n'est rien ; si Ton en est instruit, 
 c'est apres tout peu de chose." Happy (or insen> 
 sible) La Fontaine ! Such men are, however, not 
 common. Shakspeare knew the general sense of 
 humanity better than that. Vide his *' Othello." 
 
 But are there not other means by which a per* 
 verse woman may destroy a husband's comfort, and 
 make his life a burden to him, besides that one 
 crime, so rarely susceptible of legal proof ? Why, in 
 France, even incompatibility of temper is held to be 
 a good and sufficient cause to grant a deed of 
 separation. Still, I am not unaware of the evils 
 which a stern persistence in the present system 
 removes from society } — no, every thing has its 
 good and bad side j yet even a good rule may 
 be carried too far. I would not plead for a gene^ 
 ral facility of obtaining a divorce -, but only against 
 its all but total impossibility. It is just to add, that 
 the French tribunals act with great caution, in re- 
 ceiving appeals for separation from married parties. 
 They must, in the first place, where want of agree- 
 ment in disposition is the plea, be unanimous in 
 
152 
 
 COMMON WANT OF FORESIGHT. 
 
 /•I 
 
 !. :! 
 
 their desire to part. They are both obliged to appear 
 before the tribunals and *' shew cause." They are 
 then carefully admonished of the irrevocable nature 
 of the step they are about to take ; they are ear- 
 nestly advised to try for a reconcilement. All per- 
 suasion failing, they are obliged to come again at the 
 expiration of a twelvemonth, during which time they 
 must prove they have lived entirely apart ; they are 
 asked if they are still of the same mind ; if they be, 
 then, and not till then, does the process commence. 
 Small precautions are taken against fire and ship- 
 wreck, because every one hopes to escape them : 
 as to precautions against a state of things where the 
 wife of one's bosom, in one short hour, becomes a 
 bitter enemy for life, there are none. That such 
 things may often, and do sometimes occur, we have 
 
 seen in the case of the excellent and talented S e, 
 
 who was driven insane by the conduct of his wife, as 
 you well know, and died raving mad, within these 
 three years, in Bedlam. Few young people who 
 marry ev.er contemplate tLe occurrence of contin- 
 gencies that may arise, and make a separation 
 indispensable to their future comfort, — ignorant as 
 both parties generally yet are of each other's nature 
 fend habits. What says the expressive couplet — 
 
 ♦* Wedlock's a lock however strong or thick, 
 Which villains still may find a way to pick." 
 
 Yet does the law offer no door of escape for the 
 generality of either sex, from such a state of in- 
 tolerable humiliation. . 
 
GRAND FAULT IN EDUCATION. 
 
 153 
 
 I appear 
 bey are 
 nature 
 ire ear- 
 yi per- 
 in at the 
 me they 
 hey are 
 they he, 
 mence. 
 id ship- 
 them : 
 lere the 
 somes a 
 at such 
 ve have 
 
 S e, 
 
 wife, as 
 n these 
 e who 
 contin- 
 aration 
 rant as 
 nature 
 
 ;k." 
 
 'or the 
 of in- 
 
 One great source of mischief among the less opu- 
 lent of the middle classes, is the prevailing system of 
 female education. Young women, though having lit- 
 tle or no fortune, are nevertheless, too many of them, 
 
 " Bred to the taste of lustful appetence j 
 To dance, to lisp, to roll the wanton eye." 
 
 From this, as from an ever- open well-spring, 
 flows abundance of acute misery and irregularities 
 among women. In speaking of such an unsuitable, 
 not to say vicious, state of things, a poet (Kennedy) 
 recently says — 
 
 '* It is the waste of the best faculties, 
 
 (Thanks to vain fashion and rank flattery) 
 First maketh helpless, then a slave of her 
 Man ought to find an apt and faithful comrade. 
 And not a gazing-stock for simpering fools, 
 All heedless of life's better purposes." 
 
 I lately met with the following passage in a writer 
 whose name is unknown to me, but in whose senti- 
 ments I fully agree :- -" It seems odd to me, that 
 while young ladies are sedulously taught all the 
 accomplishments that a husband disregards, they are 
 never taught the great one he would prize the most. 
 They are taught to be exhibitors, while he wants a 
 companion. He wants neither a singing animal, 
 nor a drawing animal, nor a dancing animal : 
 what he wants is a talking animal. But to con- 
 verse profitably they are never taught 3 hence 
 domestic ennui, and, on the part of the lady, a 
 restless feverish love of display — the bane of so many 
 
154 
 
 DANCING AND MUSICAL AMATEURS. 
 
 n 
 
 l 1 
 
 i • 
 
 (I 
 
 '111 
 
 firesides." Yes ! display. The author has here 
 put his finger on the root of much mischief. For 
 instance, peo^ .e who are good at dancing, are seldom 
 good for much else. There is J — F — (you know 
 him), who has not spare brain enongh to block up 
 the eye of a Whitechapel needle withal ; and yet I 
 am assured, on female authority you wot of, that he 
 is '• such a divine waltzer." I have often thought I 
 should like some one to take a goose to F — , by way 
 of testing the common saying, and to ascertain satis- 
 factorily whether he could say " Boh ! " to it or 
 not. Dancing men are often fribbles. The most de- 
 termined quadriller I know is the sonneteer, now 
 
 laid up, poor fellow ! with a bad cold, caught from 
 the damp sheets of his small poesies, which were 
 sent him unaired by his too careless printer. I 
 believe it is Master Trueworth, in Sheridan Knowles's 
 Love Chase, who says, ** I can never see a dancing- 
 man without thinking of a dancing-dog," and of the 
 merits of the whip which has brought about all his 
 pretty motions. And Margaret, in Much Ado about 
 Nothing, says to her friend, " God match me with a 
 good dancer ! but God keep him out of my sight 
 when the dance is over." She was a sensible girl. 
 The sentiment thus pithily expressed was probably 
 strongly fixed in Shakspeare's observant mind. 
 
 Most of what are called " musical people," also, 
 are as unsuited for rational companions, and as in- 
 eligible to mate with, as the dancers. And of what 
 kind is a great part of the amateur music now, so 
 extensively cultivated, to the dereliction of higher 
 
 ;• !■ I 
 
WILL MATTERS EVER IMPROVE ? 
 
 155 
 
 IS here 
 f. For 
 seldom 
 1 know 
 lock up 
 d yet I 
 
 that he 
 ought I 
 
 by way 
 in satis- 
 to it or 
 nost de- 
 eer, now 
 ht from 
 ch were 
 nter. I 
 nowles's 
 
 ancing- 
 of the 
 all his 
 
 'do about 
 with a 
 y sight 
 
 |ble girl. 
 
 robably 
 
 ft 
 
 " also, 
 
 as in- 
 
 )f what 
 
 |now, so 
 
 higher 
 
 duties ? Gracious heaven 1 what have we not listened 
 to in this way lately ? Females will set themselves 
 to sing, for instance, without natural taste, ear, or 
 voice J and what is the result of all their efforts? 
 Let Benedict describe it j he is speaking of those 
 who encourage repetitions of such inflictions upon 
 the human ear by their praises : — *' An it had been 
 a dog that should have howled thus, they would have 
 hanged him ; I'd as lief have heard the night-raven." 
 Music ought, with some few exceptions (the rarer 
 the better), to be confined to those who have stimu- 
 lus enough, and leisure sufficient, to study it tho- 
 roughly — namely, its professors. Its prevailing diffu- 
 sion contributes little to our pleasure^ and nothing 
 at all to our happiness. 
 
 I have often reflected seriously in my innermost 
 mind, on the present mode of bringing about the 
 union of the sexes ; and wondered whether the day 
 would ever arrive, when women's hearts could be 
 gained by other means than specious appearance and 
 flattery. These are so much put in operation now, 
 and so successfully, that the most deserving men 
 have by no means a fair chance of obtaining the most 
 eligible women. At present, love enters into their 
 minds too much through their eyes. If their educa- 
 tion were put on a better footing, they would soon 
 see that showy and therefore (to t!iem) attractive 
 men may have, like the gaudy peacock of La Fontaine, 
 *' belle tete, mais de cervelle point." The cajoleries 
 of a fool are boundless, because they are not limited 
 by delicate sense or self-respect. The ladies ought 
 
 h .1 
 
■■■I 
 
 156 
 
 ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. 
 
 to be put in mind, too, that personal beauty in men 
 has often an evil influence on their character. Not to 
 mention that the handsomest men are not the deepest 
 thinkers — which may perhaps be no disadvantage — 
 they not seldom become hollow-hearted selfish cox- 
 combs. If any sensible young lady detect in herself 
 a mighty fancy to marry a "nice young man" of this 
 sort, after dancing and chatting agreeably with him 
 for a pleasant evening or two, let her read Lady Mor- 
 gan, on the subject of the greatest curse that can be- 
 fall a woman, the being tied to a fool for life. This 
 will " give her pause," if any thing will. Let us re- 
 turn to the ladies. 
 
 I do not confine the term " eligible" to riches or 
 beauty merely, though neither is to be despised ; 
 still the first of these may be totally wanting, and the 
 party be truly desirable. If the lover be of a senti- 
 mental turn, he will be content to find the woman 
 of his choice answer to Young's description, 
 
 " Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair." 
 
 Should he be too anxious for mere beauty, upon the 
 please-my-eye-if-I-should-break-my-heart system, he 
 may find that he has got hold of a gaudy being, no 
 doubt " excessively remarkable at times," and very 
 fit for holiday show, but not for every- day use j one 
 with 
 
 " A brain of feathers and a heart of lead ;" 
 
 one given up to depraved habits of .v elf- seeking, and 
 whose natural affections have been long withered up 
 by early cherished pride and uncontrollable vanity. 
 
 
' m men 
 Not to 
 ? deepest 
 mtage — 
 ish cox- 
 1 herself 
 ' of this 
 rith him 
 dy Mor- 
 ; can be- 
 e. This 
 ;t us re- 
 
 'iches or 
 sspised } 
 . and the 
 a senti- 
 woman 
 
 pon the 
 tem, he 
 ing, no 
 id very 
 Ee ; one 
 
 ,»» 
 
 ng, and 
 
 ered up 
 
 vanity. 
 
 A FEMAL£ EXPERIMENTALIST. 
 
 157 
 
 The Americans would call such a partner " a help- 
 eat, but not a help-meet." One of their writers point- 
 edly says, " Noted beauties are often hard to get and 
 harder still to keep." Let a man take such a ono to 
 his bosom, and forsaking all other things for her 
 sake — loosening or renouncing every tie of blood or 
 friendship to cleave to her onlyj yet he will quickly 
 find that, like political economy projects, " the reci- 
 procity is all on one side." True, she will take an 
 oath before heaven, to cherish and comfort him 
 — " love, honour, and obey," i^ now set aside on all 
 hands, as being quite antiquated and perruque — she 
 promises to do these while life endures. But a witty 
 Frenchman has said that a coquette's '' eternity" lasted 
 three weeks at the most. 
 
 Some women have now-a-days such loose notions 
 of the marriage tie, that it is really doing an in- 
 justice to others — sometimes to themselves also — 
 to get married at all. When the too celebrated 
 Madame de Tencin changed her single (but not 
 maiden) condition, some one insisted, in the hear- 
 ing of the Duke de Richelieu, that Mr. de T. had 
 '' robbed the public," and wondered what in the 
 name of heaven such a woman could ever marry for ^ 
 whereupon that ready-witted profligate said, *' She 
 has married purely from curiosity, not interest, and 
 not even for convenience." ''How then?" said the 
 other. *' Simply becausebeing tired of fornication, she 
 wanted to try what adultery would do for her." But 
 then this happened in the horrid times of the Re- 
 gency, when, as Montesquieu says, " L'homme qui 
 
 \^l 
 
158 
 
 MARRIAGES BY LOTTERY. 
 
 I 
 
 'i 
 
 f < • 
 
 voulait jouir de sa femme' k lui seul, ^tait tenu pour 
 un perturbateur de la joie publique." Whereas, in 
 modern France, as Bonaparte truly said at St. Helena, 
 ** les vertus doinestiques sont aujourd'hiii en hausse." 
 The French are at this time a more decent, and at 
 least as moral a people as the English, let the latter 
 gainsay the assertion as they may. The Americans, 
 too, have adopted our ill-founded notions upon this 
 point, at second-hand. 
 
 The English think their system of marrying and 
 giving in marriage the best of all possible systems j if 
 it were proposed to exchange their mode for that of 
 France, they would, to use the words of Burns, " shud- 
 der at the niffer." It is so unnatural — abominable — 
 disgusting." Yet it has been lately advanced, and 
 with some plausibility too, that were the names of 
 marriageable parties of the different ranks, put indis- 
 criminately in two urns, and drawn severally at ran- 
 dom, so as to leave not even a shadow of choice, the 
 amount of connubial happiness might be greater than 
 it is at present. Without going so far, however, as 
 this, what can an inexperienced young man, or a giddy 
 girl, know of the world or its ways 3 so as to make it 
 safe for them to have all their own way in taking an 
 irrevocable step like this ? There is also a prevailing 
 opinion, too, about the propriety of giving way to 
 the crude fancies of young people in choosing trades 
 and professions, equally reasonless, although perhaps 
 not quite so mischievous in its effects. 
 
 And let not the well- intending husband of a 
 " gay" lady suppose that the treatment he receives 
 
 
 \ f 
 
SUMMARY OF THE PRECEDING. 
 
 159 
 
 a pour 
 >as, in 
 leleiia, 
 lusse." 
 Eind at 
 ; latter 
 ricans, 
 )n this 
 
 ng and 
 :ems j if 
 that of 
 " shud- 
 lable — 
 ed, and 
 mes of 
 t indis- 
 at ran- 
 ee, the 
 |er than 
 iver, as 
 giddy 
 ake it 
 ing an 
 [vailing 
 /ay to 
 I trades 
 jerhaps 
 
 of a 
 jceives 
 
 will be shaped by that he gives. All animal natures, 
 except the human animal nature, are permanently 
 attached by p, system of unceasing kindness observed 
 towards them. Many a loose-principled woman, on 
 the contrary, has been made a kind of saint of, for the 
 time being, by the bad conduct of some worthless 
 fellow of a husband. What I mean is, that conscien- 
 tious men's doing all that is reasonable, or even more, 
 by certain kinds of women, will go but a small way to 
 secure their spouses* affections. To be convinced of 
 this, we have only to examine the published annals of 
 adultresses, and we may then see that in almost every 
 instance the most flagrant offenders — beginning, sup- 
 pose, with the Countess of Essex (temp. Jac. I.) and 
 going regularly downwards — have been women who 
 were treated by their husbands with the most pam- 
 pered indulgence. 
 
 It is now time to conclude this letter, on a subject 
 which occupies a much larger space than I had 
 intended to devote to it. We have seen, that the 
 practice of France and of America, with respect to 
 divorces, differs essentially from ours 3 and what I 
 have been aiming to shew is, that our law inflicts 
 great injustice, and ought to be altered, so as to 
 accommodate itself to the pressing wants of societj'. 
 I have also expressed my opinion, that the pre- 
 vailing system of female education occasions a great 
 deal of the misery which such ar. alteration in our 
 law would be wanted to alleviate, if not to remove. 
 Had Heft myself room, my intention was to finish with 
 the story of Frederick Robinson — a profligate youth, 
 who was tried for the murder of one Ellen Jewett, a 
 
 t] 
 
 • - ,■ ' 
 
 ! 
 
 I'M 
 
 'IK 
 
 m 
 
160 
 
 CONTRACT OF VILLANY. 
 
 prostitute in New York. It occurred when I was in 
 America J and made as great a sensation there, as 
 Greenacre's affair did here. In the face of the plain- 
 est evidence, this " interesting " young villain made 
 so sure of being acquitted, that he undertook, as 
 soon as he should be released, to seduce the wife of a 
 fellow-pi '^one^ who had got tired of the nuptial 
 tie. Th a>j mnd gave him minute instructions 
 how to set ;>0UL his task, the wretch's object being 
 to secure a divorce. But the iniquitous plan failed. 
 I cannot enter here into the details of the case ; 
 however I may possibly find an opportunity to revert 
 to it. 
 
 fl 
 
TRAVELLING BY STEAM. 
 
 161 
 
 V/B.S m 
 ere, as 
 e plain- 
 n made 
 :ook, as 
 /ife of a 
 nuptial 
 ructions 
 ct being 
 [1 failed, 
 e case ; 
 ;o revert 
 
 '1. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA — DESCRIPTION OF 
 THE LATTER CITY — THE aUAKERS — PASSAGES IN 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA NOT TO 
 BE FOUND IN ITS PUBLIC ANNALS. 
 
 After some further stay at New York — ^ot:^ng 
 suitable in the way of business having presi lUd 
 itself there, and as I had contracted no grr IM-Jng 
 to that city» nor had the best opinion of its salubrity 
 as a place to settle in permanently — I began to think 
 of visiting other American cities. I had, even before 
 coming to the country, a strong predilection for Phi- 
 ladelphia, and thither I determined to go. Its easy 
 distance from New York, not quite 100 miles, and 
 the rapidity and regularity with which the passage 
 to it is made, enabled me to gratify my desire with- 
 out much trouble. During eight months of the year 
 the Philadelphia steam-boats start from New York 
 twice every morning, one at eight and another at 
 six. There is a double set of these employed ; one 
 set on the Hudson, the other on the Delaware. In- 
 termediate between the water conveyances is that by 
 land locomotives on the rail-road, about sixty miles 
 long, laid across New Jersey state to Camden, and end- 
 ing at Camden. Here then are two transfers of pas- 
 
 M 
 
 n 
 I 
 
162 
 
 ADROIT DISPOSAL OF BAGGAGE. 
 
 ii 
 
 sengers and baggage ; and yet with such celerity ar d 
 punctuality are things managed, that in midsummer it 
 is possible for a merchant of one of the cities to pass 
 to and fro in a day, and still leave an interval of nearly 
 two hours to transact business in. The most admi- 
 rable part of the whole affair is the disposal of the 
 baggage. The porter is directed to take your bag- 
 gage to the lower deck ; where, on an open space, 
 it is set down indiscriminately with the trunks, &c. 
 of ochers ; but no sooner is the boat under way, 
 than half a dozen active fellows begin to stow them 
 into small strongly-built wooden houses, equipped 
 with what you take to be castors underneath, but 
 which are wheels fitted to the rails of the road. They 
 are numbered 1,2, 3, &c., and so many of them as 
 may be necessary are filled with the packages. It 
 is desirable for a passenger to be present at this 
 business, as he will then know out of which number 
 his goods ought to come to light j for want of 
 proper precaution in this way, I knew a Scotch emi- 
 grant, who lost all the clothes and money he brought 
 with him from home, exceeding £100 in value, and 
 the savings of several yearu. It was the beginning of 
 a series of misfortunes, which brought on melan- 
 choly madness, and ended in his drowning himself 
 in the Schuylkill a few weeks before I left. It is 
 said there are often thieves on board these boats, 
 ever ready to take advantage of the negligence of 
 the unwary. As soon as the steam-boat arrives at 
 the landing there, these heavy machines are rolled 
 off the deck to the railroad 3 then they are joined to 
 
STATE OF NEW ".RSEY. 
 
 16s 
 
 rity ard 
 mmer it 
 3 to pass 
 >f nearly 
 st admi- 
 al of the 
 )ur bag- 
 n space, 
 oks, &c. 
 ler way, 
 )w them 
 equipped 
 lath, but 
 d. They 
 them as 
 ages. It 
 t at this 
 number 
 want of 
 )tch emi- 
 brought 
 ilue, and 
 nning of 
 melan< 
 himself 
 It is 
 le boats, 
 ence of 
 rives at 
 e rolled 
 loined to 
 
 each other, and hooked on to the rearmost trains j 
 when, the passengers having taken their places, the 
 whole moves off in two or three minutes after leav- 
 ing the boat. 
 
 Leaving New York behind, we dropped down the 
 river in the direction of the sea ; but soon quitting 
 the estuary of the Hudson, we entered the sound 
 which separates Staten Island from the continent of 
 New Jersey. The shores of the latter are much of 
 the same character as those of Essex below Black- 
 wall — flat and stale, if not unprofitable. At the near 
 corner of this sound is Amboy, otherwise Perth- 
 Amboy j and here our salt-water voyage terminated. 
 
 The rail-road is run through as uninteresting a 
 country as it was ever my fate to travel on • it passes, 
 for a great portion of the way, through woods of a 
 mean character, growing in a light sandy soil. The 
 monotonous tenor of our way was ever and anon 
 interrupted by arriving at water or fuel stations, 
 which are all begirt with dram-shops j and these, so 
 far as I could see, do a good deal of business with 
 the passengers. Two things I saw on this road then 
 new to me, Indian corn and buck wheat — the giant 
 and the dwarf of " bread-stuffs," as the Americans 
 call edible grain j of inedible, I had already seen 
 some patches growing on the banks of the Hudson, 
 viz. broom-corn, whose use is indicated by its name : 
 it furnishes the fibre of our carpet-brushes, and is 
 almost in universal use in America for all other 
 brooms, hair and bristles being probably dearer 
 
 t 
 
 there. 
 
 M 2 
 
If! 
 
 164 
 
 VOYAGE DOWN THE DELAWARE. 
 
 i 
 
 The town of Trenton is the only considerable 
 place near the line of the railway. It is a very neat 
 and thriving place; also famed for the battle fought 
 there between the Americans and English in the 
 revolutionary war. About a quarter of a mile, or 
 less, from the rail-road station, near the banks of 
 the Delaware, I saw the residence of the Count de 
 Survilliers (Joseph Bonaparte). It was a mean- 
 looking double building, probably of brick, and 
 stained with yellow ochre. The ground looked 
 neglected — the count was then in England. As I 
 viewed it, I thought of the Escurial. The difference 
 between the two residences must have been great. 
 
 We are now embarked on the river Delaware, and 
 paddling with the current towards the '' city of bro- 
 therly love." That sounds well, at any rate. — The 
 scenery on the banks of this river is of the tamest 
 character possible. It somewhat resembles the worst 
 parts of the Thames ; and even in that comparison 
 the villas and ornamented grounds of the latter must 
 be nearly all left out. The most considerable place 
 on the line of shore is Bristol, where are some neat 
 houses and trim gardens ; there are, certainly, parts 
 of the older place of that name that look much 
 worse. — Upon the whole, I was not sorry when the 
 houses began to thicken on the right bank of the 
 river, and I was told that Philadelphia had com- 
 menced. In a short time, its one spire came into 
 view — that over Christchurch, built in English times; 
 I suppose it is the one which Franklin got tired 
 waiting for the finishing of, when he sent up his elec- 
 
 i 4i 
 
 11 
 
ORIGIN OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 165 
 
 idcrable 
 ery neat 
 ; fought 
 i in the 
 mile, or 
 Danks of 
 vount de 
 I mean- 
 2k, and 
 L looked 
 I. As I 
 ifFerence 
 great, 
 /are, and 
 Y of bro- 
 pe.— The 
 tamest 
 le worst 
 nparison 
 er must 
 e place 
 me neat 
 y, parts 
 much 
 hen the 
 of the 
 id com- 
 me into 
 1 times ; 
 ot tired 
 his elec- 
 
 
 k 
 
 trical kite. The belfry of the State-house now began 
 to show itself ; the latter, with the aforesaid steeple, 
 are the only objects that rise above the dead level of 
 the Philadelphia bricks j yet neither is of considerable 
 height. 
 
 The State of Pennsylvania, of which Philadelphia 
 is the capital, was founded in 168^, by Pcnn and his 
 followers, about 2000 in number. The territory he 
 had pitched on formed part of what was then called 
 New Jersey j which name is now restricted to the 
 country between the Hudson and the Delaware. The 
 Danes had begun to colonise long before in these 
 parts, even as early as 1624. The Swedes, also, had 
 made some trifling settlements ; but when the English 
 took from the Dutch the province of New York, in 
 1664, they entered into possession of New Jersey 
 likewise. In March, 1681, Charles 11., under the 
 influence of his brother, afterwards James II., granted, 
 by charter, as much territory to William Penn as he 
 could colonise, associating with him eleven others in 
 the proprietary. The first governor appointed was 
 Robert Barclay, well known as the great polemical 
 champion of the Society of Friends. Before ventur- 
 :ng to enter on his acquisition, he thought it advisable 
 to come to terms with its rightful possessors, the 
 Indians ; vhose consent he gained, in the first in- 
 stance, by bargain, and whose tolerance of after en- 
 croachments was obtained by the occasional presents 
 and constant wheedling of his successors. So fortu- 
 nate were they in this prudent management, that no 
 open hostilities broke out between the parties for fall 
 
166 
 
 CiTY OF PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 . 
 
 M 
 
 J3 
 
 feeventy years. The wily Quakers soon found that 
 much greater way might be made with savages by 
 sap, than by open assault ; for rum costs much less 
 in the end than steel or gunpowder, so much put in 
 requisition by other civilisers of *' the Pagan salva- 
 ges," as old puritanic Mather called the unfortunate 
 natives. Nevertheless, the spiritual instrument of 
 extinction, if slower in its effects and less revolting in 
 the application, turned out to be the more cruel ope- 
 rator of the two. It is fair to admit, however, that 
 the Friends did not traffic in spirituous liquors to 
 such an extent as the north-easterns did with the 
 Indians. — Return we to " the city of brotherly 
 love." 
 
 Philadelphia, the second city of the union for popu- 
 lation, is perhaps the greatest in the extent of ground 
 it covers. Its neatly-built but not lofty houses, are 
 laid out in squares like a chess-board, the streets 
 crossing each other at right angles j those streets 
 which run parallel with the river, are numbered from 
 one to thirteen, and North or South, according as 
 they lie on either side of a broad road which divides 
 them into two unequal parts j the older and most 
 populous portion being that which is bounded by the 
 Delaware. The cross streets are generally named 
 after various species of trees, found by the settlers 
 on clearing the land whereon the city was built — such 
 as Chesnut-street (the most frequented). Walnut, 
 Pine, Sassafras, &c. 
 
 When any one in London, by way of giving a 
 notion of the proximity of his dwelling to another's, 
 
 t: 
 
ITS BUILDINGS, AND SITE. 
 
 167 
 
 nd that 
 ages by 
 uch less 
 ti put in 
 1 salva- 
 )rtunate 
 naent of 
 siting in 
 uel ope- 
 er, that 
 [uors to 
 vith the 
 rotherly 
 
 )r popu- 
 
 :' ground 
 
 ises, are 
 
 streets 
 
 streets 
 
 ed from 
 
 ding as 
 
 divides 
 
 d most 
 
 by the 
 
 named 
 
 settlers 
 
 — such 
 
 alnut, 
 
 iving a 
 )ther's, 
 
 says, " I live but three or four streets off," the 
 idea he wishes to convey is very vague, — in fact, quite 
 unmathematical. Not so in Philadelphia, when any 
 one says, " I live so many squares off." In the latter 
 case the distance indicated is precise, even to a few 
 feet. Now, these squares are not vacant places — as 
 such a name would imply with us — of which utilities 
 there are but two (and neither large), in the whole 
 wide extent of Philadelphia j no, they are square 
 masses of building, the sides of which are there 
 called *' blocks," and most of them intersected by 
 various alleys and courts. The houses, in most parts 
 of the town, are substantially though plainly built ; 
 but the general result is the most wearisome unifor- 
 mity imaginable. This is by no means diminished 
 by rows of starveling trees, ranged, like so many 
 high lamp-posts in weeds , along the sides of many 
 of the streets j their poor ill-used roots making despe- 
 rate efforts to raise up the superincumbent load of 
 paving-tiles, in their all but vain quest in search of 
 a scanty nourishment. Many who hear of streets 
 lined with trees, without seeing them, think it must 
 be a very fine thing. The effect, nevertheless, is bad : 
 ■' is so much easier to plant trees than to grow 
 Them. Besides, it gives a sombre, desolate aspect to 
 a city. No, let us rot imitate our descendants in this 
 particular ; let us continue to have " a place for everj'^ 
 thing, and every thing in its place." 
 
 Philadelphia is built on the delta formed by two 
 rivers ; and, in so far, resembles New York in its 
 site. These are the Delaware and the Schuylkill. 
 
 n 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
mmmm 
 
 
 ! 
 
 
 168 
 
 VOLTAIRE S QUAKER PARTIALITIES. 
 
 But William Penn and his Quaker brothers were 
 more shrewd and sensible than the Dutch early set- 
 tlers of the latter city. They chose their location as 
 they chose their clothes, large and roomy. Instead 
 vif commencing at the point of the fork or angle 
 formed by the conflux of the two streams, they began 
 building four good miles higher up, at a spot called 
 Hackamaxon by the Indians — now the suburb of 
 Kensington. — All have seen the print from Trum- 
 bull's painting, of Penn's treaty with the Indians. 
 The noble tree, under which the Indian chiefs are 
 there represented sitting (called in after- times the 
 Treaty Tree) exists no more, having been blown down 
 in a storm in the year 1812 ; a small obelisk, with 
 an inscription, marks the spot where it stood. It was 
 then ascertained to have been from six hundred to 
 seven hundred years old 5 and was an object of so 
 much respect with the English and Americans, when 
 contending for the possession of Philadelphia, that 
 each army stationed sentinels to protect it from the 
 axes of foragers. — Under this tree (if we may believe 
 M. de Voltaire) was signed the only treaty not drawn 
 up in the name of the Blessed Trinity, yet the only 
 one whose stipulations were never broken. He is 
 rather too liberal, however, in his praises of the 
 Quaker policy. If they did not rob or do violence 
 to the simple-minded aborigines, it is certain that 
 William Penn or his associates overreached them in 
 more ways than one. Besides the total inequality of 
 the price paid to the value received — the commodities 
 given amounting, in value, to '^ a mere song" — the 
 
 > 
 
A PROFITABLE JOURNEY. 
 
 169 
 
 ; were 
 ly set- 
 tion as 
 nstead 
 angle 
 began 
 called 
 iirb of 
 Trum- 
 idians. 
 fs are 
 es the 
 1 down 
 , with 
 It was 
 Ired to 
 of so 
 when 
 , that 
 nn the 
 )elieve 
 rawn 
 only- 
 He is 
 f the 
 lence 
 that 
 m iu 
 ity of 
 dities 
 the 
 
 wily Quakers interpreted one important article of the 
 treaty in a way as much too favourable for them- 
 selves, as it was unthought of by the Indians. For 
 the great Penn, unlike most of his companions, 
 having had the advantage of a classical education* 
 knew that a cow-skin, when cut into strips, can be 
 made on occasion to go a great way. Something in 
 the same manner as Dido expanded her hide of land 
 at Carthage, did William stretch an Indian present 
 of land so as to comprehend, not merely sufficient 
 for the building a large town, but an immense extent 
 of territory besides. He got the offer of as much 
 ground as " the day's journey of a man." As the 
 Indians make no excursion in a straight line, and 
 cannot imagine the use of long walks j as in hunting, 
 like other animals of prey, they seldom long keep an 
 onward course, they attached quite a different meaning 
 to these worHs from what William did. He inter- 
 preted them largely, and quite in his own way. Mr. 
 Locke calls out to all disputers, '' Define your terms, 
 gentlemen — define your terms!" But the ring-nosed 
 Chippewas had never read that great man's works j 
 now, probably, William had. Be this as it muy, he 
 carefully picked out the longest-winded Quaker of his 
 train, and sent him on his way rejoicing ; previously 
 f translating for his benefit the Latin caution, " Festinn 
 lente." In spite of all obstructions, this man as- 
 cended the Delaware for nearly fifty miles, the longest 
 day in summer being chosen for the purpose. Some 
 native umpires were sent along with him, but he ulti- 
 mately distanced them altogether. They had no 
 
 r I I 
 
 I 
 
 ^It; 
 
 fi 
 
 ^1 
 
J 
 
 !' I 
 
 » 
 
 170 THE STATE HOUSE, AND ELECTIONS ; 
 
 idea of such dogged perseverance. At last, being 
 quite spent, he was obliged to cry, " Hold, enough." 
 Witnesses were summoned, and tokens left at the 
 point which he had attained to. The Quakers after- 
 wards had a line drawn thence to the same distance 
 up the Schuylkill. Now as the two streams run on 
 lines by no means parallel, but contrariwise at an 
 angle whose limbs have an ever-increasing divergence, 
 a glance at the map will show how many hundreds 
 of square miles William's greedy compasses tt ' k in 
 at one full sweep. It formed a not inconsiderable 
 territory, including some of the most productiv'e land, 
 with the finest climate, in all America. And ';'t it 
 not surprise us, that tbe Quaker outwalked tlm- na- 
 tives : though superior to the whites at a sb^rt t in, 
 they have less of what is called "bottom" thfvi many 
 of the Europeans. It was, in srme det're a re- 
 petition of the match of the tortoi'^.o aj^ahsi the 
 hare : we all know that the former reached iiie goal 
 first. 
 
 Philadelphia c^ntair.'s few p blic buildingji — fewer 
 still outwardly remarkable. The State-houso is a 
 small and plain brick building, surmounted by a b^h 
 frey ; on the ground floor, to the left of the street 
 entry, is the hall where the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence was signed, as represented in the well- known 
 print from Trumbull's painting. It looks better there 
 than it ought, for it is a shabby and not large room. 
 But it will ever be famous as the cradle of American 
 Liberty : if that were strong as Hercules in its in- 
 fancy, it was not able, like his, to strangle its 
 
 11 
 
THE BANK, THE EXCHANGE. 
 
 171 
 
 being 
 
 LOUgh." 
 
 at the 
 s after- 
 listance 
 run on 
 i at an 
 jrgence, 
 indreds 
 tcok in 
 iderable 
 /e land, 
 id V;'t it 
 tlfr na- 
 irt Tiin, 
 \ many 
 a re- 
 L.S'v. tiit; 
 ihe goal 
 
 —fewer 
 
 [so is a 
 
 |y a bnl~ 
 
 street 
 
 idepen- 
 
 I known 
 
 ;r there 
 
 room. 
 
 lerican 
 
 its in- 
 
 rle its 
 
 
 serpents — the venomous reptiles of faction, which 
 may one day sting it to death. At election times, 
 the ballot boxes as they are called (for balls are not 
 used, but cards), are fixed at the different windows 
 of this room j and sworn receivers take candidates' 
 names from the voters, and place them over the re- 
 spective heaps ; they also administer oaths, if they 
 doubt the right of the party presenting them to a 
 vote. In this, I was told, a great degree of partiality 
 is often shown. At such times, the passages leading 
 to the boxes are beset by party agents — ciome of 
 them with great placards, others with printed paper 
 lanterns on poles, which at night-fall have candles 
 inside, to enlighten the public as it were. What 
 with the noise, and bustle, and occasional rioting, the 
 whole scene is striking. Desperate attempts are 
 often made by the coarser democrats to keep out 
 those known to be averse to their cause ; and thus 
 sometimes many hundred respectable individuals, of 
 good principles but feeble in body or weak of nerve, 
 are prevented from voting at all. 
 
 The United States Bank is said, by a popular -ne- 
 rican writer, to be the finest building in Amer . j if 
 it be so, any foreigner who has seen it will Mave a 
 poor idea of American constructions. Here ilso is 
 the Mint, rather a neat house. The Ex( nige is 
 pronounced, on the same authority^ to be " a beauti- 
 ful building." If it be held up as a work of art, I 
 should call it a complete abortion. It is, neverthe* 
 less, considered by the Philadelphians as a chef' 
 d'oeuvref and was shown to me with great exultaf ; ^n by 
 
 -#.. 
 
172 
 
 FINE ARTS NEGLECTED — NAVY YARD. 
 
 'li 
 
 
 ' P 
 
 'i4 
 
 If 
 
 a native, who asked me if I had ever seen any thing 
 like it in Europe ? I owned freely that I had notj I 
 hope my short answer pleased him. The roof, in par- 
 ticular, painted by some barbarian, was pointed out 
 for my especial admiration : I was told — which seems 
 hardly credible — that it was executed by an Italian 
 sent over expressly for that purpose. I thought, as 
 Hooked at the coarse daubing, of the exquisite pla- 
 fond of the Bourse at Paris, by the masterly hands of 
 Messrs. Abel de I'^.jol and Meynicr. The only really 
 handsome bit of architecture in the whole place is 
 the front of Girard's Bank, which was sent in pieces, 
 I believe, from Europe. 
 
 Architect ure^ as well as all other of the Fine Arts, 
 is in a low estate in America. Their buildings are 
 generally well put together, so far as regards mecha- 
 nicals ; few people, I should » nagine, are better lodged 
 with regard to real comfort ; but in any thing relating 
 to taste, they are, as Person said the Germans were 
 in Greek, " sadly to seek." Painting and engraving 
 are at the rame low ebb ; sculpture or modelling ex- 
 isteth not. No sculptor WcHild be held in higher 
 esteem there than if he were a moderately clever 
 stone-mason. 
 
 Here is a place for government ship-building, of 
 no great extent, called the Navy Yard, at the lower 
 end of the town. In it I saw the large ship, the 
 Pennsylvania, described by Mrs. Butler in her piquant 
 style ; it has been lately launched, and is said to be 
 the largest ship of war in the world. 
 
 The immediate environs of Philadelphia are not 
 
FAIRMOUNT— GRAY S FERRY. 
 
 173 
 
 ly thing 
 1 notj I 
 f, in par- 
 nted out 
 ih seems 
 :i Italian 
 •ught, as 
 site p la- 
 hands of 
 ly really 
 place is 
 n pieces, 
 
 ine Arts, 
 ling's are 
 5 mecha- 
 ir lodged 
 
 relating 
 lans were 
 
 graving 
 
 ling ex- 
 higher 
 
 y clever 
 
 ding, of 
 le lower 
 hip, the 
 piquant 
 id to be 
 
 are not 
 
 
 very remarkable for beauty, with one or two excep- 
 tions. The most remarkable of these is Fairmount, 
 on the Schuylkill ; where are the forcing pumps for 
 raising the waters of that river into a high reservoir, 
 whence they are distributed in abundance all over 
 the town, which is thus well furnished with that 
 prime necessary of life. In case of fire, too, the sup- 
 ply is usually abundant. The grounds surrounding 
 these water-works are prettily, if not tastefully, laid 
 out ; and the natural features of the scenery here are 
 very fine. Lower down the Schuylkill, at a floating 
 wooden-bridge, called Gray's Ferry, the banks of the 
 river look rather romantic. Indeed, in many places 
 along the course of the Schuylkill, there are more or 
 less of picturesque snatches : in this r ^[>ect far ex- 
 ceeding the Delaware, which is a much wider but 
 featureless stream. 
 
 With respect to the exterior characters of the po- 
 pulation of Philadelphia, the first thing a stranger 
 remarks is, the number of Quakers and coloured 
 people. The first he is prepared for, even perhaps 
 to a greater extent than he finds ,; but the latter he 
 is at a loss to account for, as Pennsylvania is not a 
 slave state ; yet the one is the cause of the other : 
 for the Quakers, much to their honour, are the 
 especial protectors of the negroes. They are, indeed, 
 friends of the weak and oppressed generally. I 
 read many details of their kindness to the Indians. 
 One settlement of that hunted race, who were trying 
 to till the land for a subsistence in a remote district, 
 their hunting grounds being taken from them, in 
 
 i''y I 
 
 I I 
 
 
 \^ 
 
t 
 
 li 
 
 174 
 
 SCHISM OF THE HICKSITES. 
 
 
 1836, met with a sad disaster, their crops having 
 been destroyed by floods -, the Friends lent them a 
 helping hand, which probably saved them from star- 
 vation. The Quakers have also made great efforts to 
 introduce the growth of the beet-root, so as to 
 supersede sugar-cane cultivation ; and silk- worms, so 
 as to diminish the quantity of cotton grown ; which 
 two commodities are mostly obtained by slave labour, 
 and together form a great cause of continuing it. 
 They labour earnestly, besides, in the great work of 
 Negro education, neglected or discountenanced by 
 all others. 
 
 But while the respectable Society of Friends are 
 doing these and other great things to merit the love 
 and esteem of their fellow men, it is melancholy to 
 think that their own community should be vexed with 
 inward troubles j but such, alas ! is the fact. 
 
 This erewhile peaceful society is now rent into two 
 distinct and antipathetic parties. The name of the he- 
 resiarchwhointroduced these troubles, was one Hicks ; 
 and his followers, who now outnumber the orthodox 
 or English Quakers, are called by these last, not 
 Friends, but Hicksites^ and these '* friends of an ill 
 fashion " are even increasing daily. The rival 
 parties have each their separate great annual meet- 
 ing£i, when each section brings together as strong a 
 muster as possible from all quarters. They Lave, of 
 course, also rival " meetings for sufferings." 
 
 What this Hicks' s exact tenets were, it would be 
 difficult to say. I have read but one small work on 
 the subject, sent forth by the orthodox, and made \ip 
 
TAKE CARE OF YOUR TOES ! 
 
 175 
 
 having 
 them a 
 m star- 
 forts to 
 as to 
 rms, so 
 ; which 
 labour, 
 ling it. 
 work of 
 iced by 
 
 nds are 
 the love 
 choly to 
 :ed with 
 
 nto two 
 the he- 
 Hicks J 
 •thodox 
 st, not 
 .f an ill 
 rival 
 meet- 
 trong a 
 |ave, of 
 
 mid be 
 [ork on 
 lade np 
 
 of extracts from published and unpublished dis- 
 courses of his — for I am not aware of his having 
 drawn up a detailed confession of the new faith. 
 Judging of his opinions by that little volume, I should 
 most assuredly say of him and his (as worthy George 
 Keith said frankly of the first Quaker settlers, his 
 late brethren and coadjutors,) that *' they were very 
 little better than Deists." In many points of doc- 
 trine and discipline, he appears to have set the 
 authority of the Holy Scriptures altogether at 
 nought 3 and in one passage he goes so far as to 
 say, that it would have been better for man, upon 
 the whole, if the Bible had never been written at 
 all ! He is for following the unaided suggestions of 
 the Spirit only. The two parties are at open war, 
 and have on more occasions than one very nearly 
 come to blows. There have been such dire contests 
 for the possession of the meeting-houses, grave- 
 yards, and other property (the latter not inconsi- 
 derable in value) belonging to the community j such 
 mobbings and counter- mobbings in places of general 
 resort ; such nudgings and elbowings to push one ano- 
 ther out of contested ground ; such wrenching-off and 
 putting-on of locks on doors, and removals of gates, 
 and making breaches in walls, and pitching of loose 
 bricks, resulting therefrom, on one another's toes, 
 with a pretendedly civil but rather long deferred cau- 
 tionary *' Get out of my way, friend, or I shall of a 
 surety hurt thee ; " — such spiteful doings, in short, 
 altogether, as are enough to make Christian eyes 
 weep themselves blind with vexation. And the 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 1 
 
176 
 
 A MOURNFUL FALLING OFF. 
 
 
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 m 
 
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 worst of all is, that a people who made it their prin- 
 ciple and their pride to shun all interference of the 
 civil magistrate, on any occasion whatever, have ap- 
 pealed to the laws against one another with the bit- 
 terest recrimination. Oh, friends ! what a lapse was 
 there. When I left, one of the state legislatures 
 (that of New Jersey) had tried tn settle their dis- 
 putes about the contested property, by an award on 
 the share-and-share-alike principle 3 but the ortho- 
 dox were quite indignant at this, although by far the 
 fewer number, and were preparing to resist it to the 
 utmost. " Ichabod, Ichabod ! the glory hath de- 
 parted from our house." 
 
 
 mi 
 
 ii' 
 
 '^1 
 
 f 
 
ANTI-AMALGAMATIONISTS. 
 
 i7r 
 
 • prm- 
 of the 
 ve ap- 
 [le bit- 
 se was 
 latures 
 I'lr dis- 
 ard on 
 ortho- 
 far the 
 to the 
 ith de- 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 COLOURED PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Part of the last letter related to the Society of 
 Friends ; the present will be devoted to the objects of 
 I their especial care, our fellow-men of the Negro 
 race, who have few others to look to for protection in 
 America. The Quakers alone, of all the many deno- 
 minations of a religion of love and good-will to man, 
 furnish the means of their secular or religious im- 
 provement. By all the others (I speak of them col- 
 lectively, not individually) they are denied sympathy 
 in life, and after death a grave. The Quakers, on 
 the contrary, strive zealously to advance their in- 
 terests in every way. Does an unprmcipled slave- 
 owner set up a claim to deprive a free negro of his 
 liberty, he finds a fund set apart by the Friends to 
 defend his cause. Is he out of employ, they find him 
 work J is he in prison, thev comfort him, and, if 
 worthy, try to obtain his release ; is he sick, they 
 visit him. They open numerous schools for his in- 
 struction, or for that of his offspring. To do all 
 these things, and more, in the face of the American 
 world, requires no small degree of moral courage, as 
 well as of active humanity. 
 
 The possible incorporation of the two races is 
 
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 Photographic 
 
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 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14510 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
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178 
 
 A BLACK BUSINESS. 
 
 ! ' 
 
 looked upon with horror. Any white who would 
 stoop to espouse a woman with negro blood in her 
 veins, would find himself excluded from all respect- 
 able, not to say genteel, society -, no matter how rich 
 or how accomplished the party might be. To use 
 the emphatic words of one of their writers, " He 
 might, by such ready means, degrade himself for 
 ever, but could never exalt her for a moment." 
 
 A few weeks before my arrival in Philadelphia 
 some excesses took plac^e, arising from the mobbish 
 antipathy to the men of colour, which might have 
 been the means of setting the whole country in a 
 flame. It appeared that a murder had been com- 
 mitted by a negro servant on his master, for which 
 he had then been arrested, and was afterwards in 
 due time and form punished for his crime. This 
 unlucky affair caused a deal of excitement ; and the 
 odium, which should have been in reason confined to 
 the guilty individual, was extended, by the savage 
 mob, to all of his colour. After insulting and 
 cruelly beating numbers of black men in the public 
 places of Philadelphia, and hunting them about like 
 wild beasts every where, one large body went to the 
 quarter of the city principally inhabited by them, 
 pulled down some of their dwellings over the heads 
 of the inmates, and burnt others. Many of the 
 coloured people were so grievously maltreated, that 
 several died. Finding matters had got to these ex- 
 tremities, and dreading they might get worse, 
 a considerable portion of the more able-bodied men 
 of colour left the city, took up a position near it, 
 
 
 IV; 
 llti 
 
A WORD TO THE WISE. 
 
 179 
 
 would 
 in her 
 
 •espect- 
 
 [)W rich 
 To use 
 
 s, " He 
 
 self for 
 
 idelphia 
 mobbish 
 ;ht have 
 try in a 
 en com- 
 jr which 
 vards in 
 e. This 
 and the 
 ifined to 
 e savage 
 ing and 
 le public 
 Dout like 
 it to the 
 )y them, 
 he heads 
 of the 
 ted, that 
 hese ex- 
 t worse, 
 lied men 
 1 near it, 
 
 and began to arm. There they remained three days, 
 rapidly adding to their numbers and means of resist- 
 ance or offence. By this time the popular effer- 
 vescence having a little subsided, the wiser heads of 
 the city sent to treat with the fugitives, and per- 
 suaded them to return, on conditioning to obtain for 
 them *' indemnity for the past, and security for the 
 future." They did return ; and in due course appli- 
 cation was made to the State legislature for repara- 
 tion of the damage sustained from lawless devasta- 
 tion ; but, as had been usual on such occasions, it 
 was denied. 
 
 Political rights they have none, in any of the free 
 States. No personal taxes are levied on them, and 
 they do not vote. In Pennsylvania, there is, indeed, 
 no positive law to prevent their taking part in elec- 
 tions ; and knowing this, I asked a Philadelphian 
 why they did not come to the poll as others did ? 
 His answer was significant, ''Just let them try!" 
 There is a strange law in some, if not all, of the slave 
 states, which allows a slave-holder additional votes 
 in right of his slaves, and those increase in propor- 
 tion to the number of these he may happen to own. 
 Our " animal parliament and universal sufferings " 
 people might take a hint from this inverted system of 
 representation, and let every coster-monger have a 
 vote for his donkey. It would be reasonable, and not 
 carry reduplication of suffrage so far as the American 
 system. 
 
 Thus much for their want of political rights. Of 
 their deprivation of social rights I have already said 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 AMERICAN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 somewhat ; what remains to be said might be summed 
 up in a few words. Nobody will travel in the same 
 coach, no one will sit in the same church, with 
 them ; no man will learn them a trade ; no one will 
 teach a school where they are j no preacher will 
 serve as a pastor to them ; nobody will allow his 
 dead to be buried in the same ground with theirs. 
 In short, every circle, even the lowest, will shun the 
 approaches of the highest of theirs. 
 
 1 was a spectator once of the first-mentioned 
 species of exclusion, one day, on the rail-road from 
 Philadelphia to Norristown. The weather was op- 
 pressively hot ; and some coloured men and women, 
 most respectably dressed and of civil manners, came 
 up and asked the conductors, in a very humble tone, 
 if they could be accommodated in any part of the 
 train ? They had been out on a country excur- 
 sion, and seemed tired ; but no one shewed the 
 least inclination to receive them, although there 
 were a good many vacant places in almost every car- 
 riage on the line. At last I got up, and said we 
 could accommodate five or six of them in ours, and 
 if the rest passed farther on, no doubt they might all 
 get places. Upon which more than one of my fellow- 
 travellers said I might give up my place if I chose, 
 but ** no niggers should come there." I of course 
 sat down ; to argue the matter would have be<Jn of 
 no use to the poor outcasts, and might have been 
 harmful to me. The conductors looked on while 
 this was passing, but did not urge the point one way 
 or other. Still I could see they were anxious to 
 
 
ANOTHER INSTANCE. 
 
 181 
 
 summed 
 he same 
 h, with 
 one will 
 her will 
 How his 
 h theirs, 
 shun the 
 
 entioned 
 »ad from 
 was op- 
 [ women, 
 rs, came 
 ble tone, 
 :t of the 
 J excur- 
 wed the 
 Th there 
 very car- 
 said we 
 )urs, and 
 might all 
 ly felloW" 
 I chose, 
 f course 
 be<in of 
 ave been 
 on while 
 ; one way 
 ixious to 
 
 obtain the money of the coloured people whom they 
 
 despised so much. 
 
 "Though proud as Lucifer, they 're willing 
 To vail their pride to gain a shilling." 
 
 So we were all asked, as a favour, to get out and 
 disperse ourselves in other carriages, and thus leave 
 the suppliants by themselves. The poor souls were 
 glad of any arrangement j and I could read in their 
 eyes the thankfulness to me that their mouths did 
 not venture to utter. 
 
 If a black man and a white man enter into discus- 
 sion, as soon as the latter gets on the wrong side of 
 the argument, the obnoxious colour of the former is 
 always a ready retort, and, in America, held ** good 
 in law." One night that I was in a New York oyster- 
 cellar, I happened to be present when an instance of 
 this occurred, which will serve as an example. The 
 waiter — a black man, of decent exterior, and particu- 
 larly civil — had been opening oysters, for some Jme, 
 to a fellow in the garb of a gentleman, whom he 
 was not able to content, try as he would. lie 
 did not "open fast enough;" he was accused of 
 picking out the worst oysters, &c. ; the tarragon 
 vinegar was bad, the limes were spoiled, the cayenne 
 was saw-dust, &c. The whole company were annoy- 
 ed with his noisy complaints, not unmixed with 
 imprecations at the luckless servitor. At last the 
 man began to remonstrate, and appeal to the gentle- 
 men present against the unmerited abuse of this 
 ferocious gourmand. No one answered to the appeal. 
 The other was emboldened, by this want of sympathy. 
 
182 
 
 PRECAUTIONARY OLD LADY. 
 
 to farther outrage ; and, among other things, asked, 
 " D — n your soul, you black thief ! how dare you 
 speak so to a white man ?" &c. I felt the blood begin, 
 as it were, to boil in my veins, and could contain 
 myself no longer. Accordingly I rose up and said, 
 " I wonder the gentleman will pay a negro the com- 
 pliment to suppose that he can have a soul to damn." 
 I fully expected the observation would lead to a 
 quarrel j but the ruffian found it convenient to take 
 no notice of the remark : as for the others present, 
 they met my unusual proceeding with a who- 
 are-you kind of broad stare. I resumed my place, 
 and so the matter dropped. This is not the only 
 instance which I could relate of the liberal conduct 
 of many of the Americans. 
 
 I have given an example of the first species of exclu- 
 sion enumerated above : I shall give one of the last. 
 I had it on grave authority — that of a sexton him- 
 self. He assured me the burial-ground people were in 
 the habit of breaking into coffins brought them for 
 interment by families whom they did not know, to 
 satisfy themselves there were " no blackies inside.*' 
 I did not directly give an opinion on such excessive 
 delicacy, carried so very far ; but, by way of in- 
 directly conveying my sense of its absurdity, told the 
 friend then with me, in the sexton's hearing, the 
 story of the old lady who was so horrified at the 
 proposal of a neighbour to bury a child, who had just 
 died of the small-pox, near a dead grandchild of the 
 former, who had never had that malady ! It fell a 
 dead-bolt, however, and so might as well not have 
 
CROSSINGS-SWEEPERS GORGED WITH WEALTH ! 183 
 
 been shot j neither of my hearers could make the 
 application. 
 
 I have said no one will take coloured people's 
 children to apprentice j of course they never learn 
 any regular trades— unless, indeed, chimney-sweep- 
 ing be reckoned one. That aspiring profession is. 
 indeed, entirely in their hands. Now, a Frenchman 
 of the rigid " classic school " would find here, well 
 observed, two unities — blackness of dress, blackness 
 of trade ; for the American chimney-sweepers are 
 all negro boys : and gay little fellows they are too ; 
 how often have I heard the streets of Philadelphia 
 ring with their cheering songs, even in the coldest 
 winter mornings ; for they are not like ours, dummies 
 as well as chummies ! I wish dear Charles Lamb 
 had but known them. 
 
 Thus ignominiously expelled from- the communion 
 of mechanics, they are obliged to atiopt such callings 
 as no one else cares to follow. They become waiters, 
 barbers, shoe- cleaners, porters, old clothesmen, 
 secondhand furniture brokers, scowerers, cooks in 
 ships (not sailors), &c. &c. They are, in a general 
 sense, literally ** hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water " to their white brethren. We do not, how- 
 ever, find any of them sweepers of crossings there, 
 although we have it on the authority of the hard- 
 headed Scot, who indites a certain grievously-be- 
 praised periodical, that there are such a marvellous 
 number ofblacks found at sweeping- stations in London. 
 *' I have often been struck, as I am sure every one who 
 has passed through the streets of London must have 
 
184 
 
 A BIT OF KINO ADVICK. 
 
 I 
 
 been — with the great number of black men who 
 possess lucrative (!) stands, &c. How it happens 
 that so many of the ebony personages have been 
 so fortunate, compared with the white population of 
 London, is one of those things which are beyond 
 the reach of my philosophy." Suppose I had asked 
 a Philadelphian, " How is it that your coloured 
 people alone eat the meat of the huge sturgeons which 
 follow the shad up the river Delaware, and so get 
 caught ? " His answer would be short and plain : 
 *' Because, as no one else will eat it, it all falls to the 
 share of the blacks, who can buy it at a very low 
 price. As it would not require a great reach of 
 " philosophy " to comprehend this ; so neither would 
 it be difficult to understand how the poor blacks who 
 are thrown ashore, as it were, in London, upon a 
 society which knows them not, should take to this 
 last resource of the miserable to keep them from 
 starving. 
 
 Whatever he may say, I do not think street-sweepers 
 ever could realise " handsome fortunes " either there 
 or here : and if this person find it convenient to make 
 war on the miserably poor, let him not make selfish- 
 ness still more selfish, by telling such bangers in 
 his '* Random " way. His statistics of humbug — or 
 rather humbug statistics, full and minute though 
 they be — are stJU incomplete. The next time he sets 
 about calculating the " nett sums yearly realised " 
 by those who impose upon the town in different 
 ways, let him not forget to inform us how much he 
 receives by his works. 
 
COLOURED PEOPLE GOOD-NATURED. 
 
 185 
 
 en ^ho 
 happens 
 ve been 
 lation of 
 beyond 
 id asked 
 coloured 
 ns which 
 d SO get 
 d plain : 
 lis to the 
 very low 
 reach of 
 er would 
 icks who 
 J upon a 
 e to this 
 2m from 
 
 
 The coloured men like to give fine names to the 
 places where they exercise their calling. The bar- 
 bers are of course all hair-dressers and perruquiers ; 
 many of them are **from Paris," though how they 
 got there and back, Heaven alone knows. " Shaving 
 establishments" and "shoe-cleaning emporiums" 
 are common. Over a cellar door of one of these 
 '* emporiums" in Sixth-street, Philadelphia, is the fol- 
 lowing couplet in painted letters : 
 
 '* Gentlemen, step down and read the news. 
 While I clean your boots or shoes." 
 
 s. Those of them who are employed in traffic are less 
 greedy in their dealings than the whites, — the dealers 
 in sale furniture for instance, as I have had occa- 
 sion to experience. They seldom ask more than 
 a third over and above what the article would K-v>st 
 new. Now the white salesmen of London demand a 
 full half more, and will scarce ever abate of that cori' 
 scientious price, whereas the black brokers of Ame- 
 rica always do. 
 
 I think the natural dispositions of the coloured 
 race are excellent. The Americans accuse them of 
 being lazy and sulky : if they are, I am convinced they 
 are made so by the treatment they receive. A proof 
 of this, in my own case, may amuse. The waiters in 
 the different hotels and boarding houses soon found 
 out, by my exact civility to them, that I did not con- 
 sider them altogether as brutes. The consequence 
 was, that I always got helped to every thing I wanted 
 at table sooner than any one else could ; any little 
 dainty was anxiously pointed out and sedulously 
 
186 
 
 ROOT OF VIRTUE — SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 brought to me. The shghtest glance of any noble- 
 man's eye was never watched with more care by ob- 
 sequious servants for interest, than was mine by these 
 kind souls, from unbought gratitude. Of their strong 
 natural affection, I used to read many interesting ex- 
 amples detailed in different journals of the Friends. 
 One paper in particular, which I brought to England 
 with me, but have unfortunately lost, contained se- 
 veral instances of forgetfulness of self, which did 
 honour to our common nature. It is no unusual 
 thing in the Slave states for men and women to be 
 sent out for employment by the day or week, on con- 
 dition of paying a fixed sum as the reasonable amount 
 of their supposed earnings. When this occurs, they 
 almost always strive to obtain more j they have then 
 the pleasure of having something they can call their 
 own, and which they can do what they like with. 
 And what is the first use many of them think of ap- 
 plying this money to ? In buying what is infinitely 
 more precious — the personal liberty of those who 
 are dear to them. Often a man will thus buy his wife, 
 or a wife her husband j a child the parent ; the parent 
 the child, a brother the sister, &c. In the journal 
 above mentioned, was detailed the case (if my memory 
 serves me right as to a name which it were a sin to 
 forget) of one Mary Douglas, a domestic slave in some 
 family — names and places were given — of Louisiana. 
 She was about twenty years of age when her master, 
 a widower, died. He had been a planter ; and being 
 a free living man, had left scarce any property ex- 
 cept what he had in her person ; but then she was 
 
y noble - 
 e by ob- 
 by these 
 ir strong 
 sting ex- 
 Friends. 
 England 
 ,ined se- 
 hich did 
 unusual 
 ;n to be 
 , on con- 
 e amount 
 urs, they 
 lave then 
 call their 
 ke with, 
 ik of ap- 
 nfinitely 
 lOse who 
 |his wife, 
 le parent 
 journal 
 lemory 
 |a sin to 
 I in some 
 luisiana. 
 master, 
 [d being 
 erty ex- 
 Ihe was 
 
 CONTRAST IN CONDUCT AS IN COLOUR. 187 
 
 what the advertisements style, " a very valuable 
 slave." She became, by his death, the property of 
 his only child, an infant still in arms. Him she sup- 
 ported entirely, for many years — indeed till he arrived 
 at manhood — principally by going out washing. She 
 also bought off, in that time, two near relations j then 
 her husband (all slaves in other families) j and then — 
 but not till then — did she think of emancipating 
 herself. On application to her young master, he had 
 the heartless ingratitude to exact such an exorbitant 
 price for that which he ought to have given, that she 
 fell dangerously ill with vexation and despair. This 
 second Inkle then prudently, if not kindly, abated 
 of his demand ! and thus the heroic woman ultimately, 
 when long past the middle age, gained her liberty. 
 
 Thus, not only do the Friends forward the material 
 interests of the blacks, but by setting their character 
 in its proper and amiable point of view, they do their 
 utmost to enlighten the public mind in their behalf. 
 If ever there be a hostile struggle — and it would be 
 deadly — between the two colours, these western 
 ** bianchi e neri," Quakers' hats will sell at a high 
 premium in the " stores }" and happy will be the 
 head that gets covered with their broad protecting 
 brims. I once had this riddle put to me : '' What 
 is that thing which may be best likened to the devil 
 asleep ?" Answer, ** A powder magazine." Let the 
 American *' anti-amalgamationists," who will not 
 listen for a moment to any thing you can say in 
 favour of the coloured people — let them beware ; they 
 verily live next door to a " sleeping devil." 
 
188 
 
 EXAMPLE OF MODERN BARBARISM. 
 
 When I was in America, there were two coloured 
 men burned alive in slow fires, by the Lynchers. 
 One of the wretched beings who met this cruel fate 
 was a freeman, and had had a quarrel with a white, 
 who insulted, and I believe struck him. A scuffle 
 ensued, in which he drew a knife, and slightly wound- 
 ed his adversary. He then took to flight, but was 
 pursued and driven for shelter into an outhouse. 
 Thither a town constable was sent to arrest him ', but he 
 would not submit to be taken, and in the heat of pas- 
 sion, threatened death to any one who would make the 
 attempt. The constable rushed upon him, and in the 
 struggle received a woundof which he died. Others now 
 poured in, and the black was secured, pinioned, and 
 safely lodged in the town jail. The deed having been 
 done in presence of so many witnesses, his just and 
 legal punishment as a murderer was certain ; but the 
 people of the town found out that " hanging was too 
 good for him." In about five or six days after the 
 event, a numerous body of well dressed men, in 
 masks, went to the prison at night-fall, and demanded 
 the prisoner of the jailor. The latter making a show 
 of resistance, they threatened to burn his house 
 over his head, if he were not instantly delivered up 
 to them. He was then tied to a large tree in a public 
 place, and faggots piled round him sparingly, in order 
 to prolong his tortures. This done, they were set 
 light to, and a ring formed about him by the Lyn- 
 chers, so as to shut out all hope of rescue from indi- 
 viduals of his own colour. This scene continued till 
 past midnight ; when, the hapless victim of delibe- 
 
A NEGRO NEWSPAPER. 
 
 18: 
 
 
 rate cruelty having long ceased to utter cries, they 
 thought him dead, and so dispersed to their several 
 houses. Not one of the coloured population, bond or 
 free, had ventured to approach the fatal spot, no doubt 
 fearing maltreatment ; but some white people, either 
 from sympathy or curiosity, having gone to examine 
 the state of his body, said, " He must be dead." 
 Whereupon the sufferer said, " Oh no, gentlemen, I 
 am not dead ; in mercy kill me — oh ! in mercy kill 
 me ; for the love of God, dear gentlemen, do kill 
 me !" He died in the course of the night. 
 
 For several Sundays after, as the news of these 
 events spread over the Union, the details, so dis- 
 graceful to the age we live in, were given out from 
 the pulpits in different negro meeting-houses, and 
 commented on by their preachers to audiences whose 
 cheeks streamed with tears of sorrow and indigna- 
 tion. — The details of the other roasting I do not so 
 distinctly recollect, but they both took place in the 
 west, and they were not unsimilar. 
 
 During my stay, I saw what I considered a great 
 curiosity, a newspaper from Liberia. This is a set- 
 tlement of English and American blacks, oii the 
 coast of Africa, which is now a thriving colony, and 
 will, no doubt, be powerfully instrumental, one day, 
 in extending the blessings of religion and civilisation, 
 to some considerable portion at least of the continent 
 wherein it is situated. The composition and *' mak- 
 ing-up" of this journal did not differ much from 
 those of most others : of course the editors, printers, 
 and contributors, were all negro men. There were 
 
 I 
 
 •f. 
 
190 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WAR IN TEXAS. 
 
 editorial articles, a poet's corner, arrivals and depar- 
 tures, shipping lists, houses and shops to let, ac- 
 counts of parties given, marriages and deaths, &c. &c. 
 But by far the most amusing part of this news- 
 paper was a long and plausibly- written, though too 
 severe, critique of Mrs. Butler's book on America. 
 The writer — editor, or whoever he were — accused her 
 of great illiberality in her way of treating the sub- 
 ject ; but the charge he dwelt most on was that of 
 her ** excessive vulgarity" of style and words ! He 
 made a list of some dozens of the latter, which he 
 gave the lady the credit of manufacturing herself, and 
 begged to be informed by the initiated " whether 
 they were English" at all. — The imposing '* we," and 
 the tone of authority of our Reviews, were through- 
 out carefully preserved. 
 
 During a considerable part of my stay in America, 
 the war between the revolted United Statesmen 
 of the Texas and the Mexicans, was going on. The 
 great grievance of " the patriots" was the flat refusal 
 of the Mexican authorities to allow them to buy 
 and sell, or keep claves. Now, to use a phrase that 
 has been a good deal bandied about of late years, 
 the kind-hearted and liberty-loving Americans wanted 
 ' to do as they liked with their own." They have, 
 I believe, gained their point ; thanks to the sympa- 
 thies and assistance of their brother negro-breeders 
 in the contiguous states and elsewhere. 
 
 I see, by late papers, that there was the other day 
 great danger of a dissolution of the Union, on occa- 
 sion of certain petitions being presented against the 
 
 t 
 c 
 
jfiiiiiMiltf" 
 
 SLAVE-MART. 
 
 191 
 
 lerica, 
 
 ismen 
 The 
 
 ;fusal 
 buy 
 that 
 ears, 
 mted 
 lave, 
 
 |mpa- 
 iders 
 
 day 
 
 )cca- 
 
 the 
 
 indecency of having a market for negroes close to 
 the Capitol at Washington, that metropolis of a free 
 country, where, as in so many cattle stalls, they 
 
 <i 
 
 gauge and span, 
 
 And traffic in the muscles and the bones of man !" 
 
 So loud and so indignant were the remonstrances 
 of the handful of emancipationists on the occasion, 
 that the slave-holding members of Congress with- 
 drew from the hall in indignation, and threatened to 
 return at once to their constituents. After all, the 
 slave-holders are not altogether in the wrong. What 
 right have they to give up, they will say, their most 
 valuable property, secured to them by the federal 
 compact, without any indemnity whatever ? For 
 the example of England, in paying for humane feel- 
 ing carried into practice, does not seem to be thought 
 of by the noisy — and I fear, in many instances, hol- 
 low — abolitionists of the north. Two years ago, 
 when they fell out so about " surplus revenue," why 
 did they not emancipate the slaves with that ? 
 
 " No, no, they never mentioned it ; 
 Its name (compensation) was never heard." 
 
 All the time of my stay in America, complaints 
 came pouring in from all quarters of the " diabolical 
 doctrines" and " satanic attempts" of the emancipa- 
 tionists. The government interfered de 5potically, and 
 forbade the post-office to convey any of their pub- 
 lications or other missives ; while, in search of these, 
 packets were broken open, and searches made, quite 
 in the style of Bonaparte's police. A certain gover-. 
 
 3; 
 
 '■ 
 
192 
 
 A SOPHISTICAL GOVERNOR. 
 
 i; 
 
 ')l 
 
 J^ 
 
 nor of a state (Carolina, North or South) Mac-Duffie 
 by name I think, addressed a special message to the 
 State legislature on the subject ; in which, after 
 stigmatising the labours of the abolitionists as " in- 
 cendiary in the highest degree," he entered into a 
 laboured defence of slavery in the abstract ; satisfac- 
 torily proving, as the tippling ordinary in Jonathan 
 Wild did of punch, that " it was no where forbidden 
 in Scripture ;" and that it was the estimable source of 
 unnumbered blessings to the happy country of Ame- 
 rica, and, through her, to the world at large. This 
 conclusion he came to, if not in the most logical 
 manner possible, yet by a rather pretty, and not 
 unplausible, way of sorites. As thus : the world 
 cannot get on without sugar j and if it could, it 
 must have cotton. Now the comfort and prosperity 
 of America depending on her growing cotton, and 
 those of Europe on manufacturing it ; once stop the 
 supply of this commodity, which slave labour alone 
 can produce (a debateable proposition, however, but 
 no matter) and universal misery would ensue both 
 here and there 3 then would come anarchy and bar- 
 barism, succeeded by loss of liberty and religion ; 
 ergo, freedom demands slaves, q. (jion) e. d. His 
 amiable Excellency then called the attention of 
 the legislature to the contrast presented in the 
 comfort and freedom of the lower classes of Ame- 
 rica, as compared with the penury and slavish- 
 ness of those of Europe, which was secured alone 
 by slave-keeping. In his idea of European de- 
 gradatioU; however false, he but echoed the pre- 
 
mmmmhuj mm 
 
 AMERICAN CARICATURIST. 
 
 UiS 
 
 in- 
 
 id not 
 world 
 uld, it 
 perity 
 , and 
 p the 
 alone 
 r, but 
 both 
 bar- 
 gionj 
 His 
 n of 
 the 
 Ame- 
 vish- 
 alone 
 de- 
 pre- 
 
 vailing sentiment of his country. I may find an 
 opportunity elsewhere, to take this notion of theirs 
 to pieces. Meantime, I can assure him, from my own 
 experience in situations the best of all adapted for 
 giving me the means of judging, that, if he include 
 England and France in the term Europe, he is alto- 
 gether mistaken. I have seen such abject submis- 
 sion in American workmen, to the searching tyranny 
 of domineering capitalists and their underlings, as 
 involved the dereliction of all manhood, and would 
 not have been borne by Englishmen or Frenchmen 
 for an hour. But to give an idea of the exaggera- 
 tion which passes current in the States on this head, 
 even among their best-informed, I shall subjoin a 
 paragraph from the " Review," before quoted : it is 
 given as a faithful picture of the general condition of 
 our labouring classes : — 
 
 ** We have heard of countries in which * natural 
 rights' seem all that existing institutions have left to the 
 unfortunate victims of over-supply and a fluctuating 
 market, — where manufacturing man vibrates, from his 
 crib to his coffin, between oatmeal salted and oatmeal 
 saltless — where political economists reckon him in the 
 same category with a spinning-jenny, and ministers view 
 him only with an eye to the poor-rates or the estimates 
 for the home service. His straw, his rags, and his por- 
 ridge, are computed to * the tenth part of a hair.' Such 
 a man's light of rebellion can be contravened by no law 
 save that of the strongest. He is an outlaw, with the 
 caput lupinum, gaunt and grisly, on his shoulders. The 
 society in which he lives has found or made him a sacri- 
 fice to the pride and ambition of its rulers j to the grasp- 
 ing spirit of conquest and the vain magnificence of the 
 
 o 
 
 •;' 
 
 
 1 
 
194 
 
 ANECDOTE OF 
 
 
 crown and the hierarchy. Why should he endure it 
 through a life of slavery, like the Elaean misanthrope, 
 feeding upon his own vitals ? Penury and despair are . 
 not bound to ask questions of casuistry." 
 
 But to return from the white slaves to the '* black 
 cattle" of the States — I have already stated that no 
 master will take young negroes as apprentices to a 
 regular trade ; nor would any journeyman mechanic 
 work beside them, if he did. I know but of one 
 exception — that of a boot-maker and mender in 
 Philadelphia, and he made me a pair of boots after a 
 most roguish fashion. He had, no doubt, imperfectly 
 learned the art of the physicians of soles in the 
 Eastern Penitentiary, where, each culprit being con- 
 fined at work in a solitary cell, there is no opportu- 
 nity for the '* common damned" to shun his society. 
 I shall close this digressive letter with an instance 
 of the acuteness of the coloured people to flaws in 
 statutes ; it goes also tq show that patchwork legis- 
 lation is not confined to our parliamentaries. The 
 legislature of one of the south-western states passed 
 a law having provisions somewhat like those of the 
 Irish Insurrection Act 5 one of which was, that no 
 man of colour was to go out after dark, except in 
 certain specified cases of urgency 5 and then to be 
 always provided with a lantern, or be liable to arrest 
 and punishment. The order was literally obeyed, for 
 each black carried a good and sufficient empty lan- 
 tern ! Thereupon the angry legislators passed " an 
 act to amend an act," &c. That too was obeyed, but 
 with unlighted candles ! Then came out a third 
 
 ■t I 
 
 '\l 
 
i H l . i i iii 
 
 NEGRO ACVTENESS. 
 
 195 
 
 are 
 
 act, with a preamble commencing, *' whereas, the 
 plain intentions, &c., having been frustrated by cer- 
 tain wicked evasions,*' &c., ordained that said candles 
 should be lighted ; and lighted they were by the 
 obedient Ebonites. Now, plain mother wit must 
 have the credit of all their shrewdness ; for it oc- 
 curred in a state where the penalty of death is me- 
 naced at all who shall dare to instruct them in read- 
 ing or writing. 
 
 
 it no 
 )t in 
 lo be 
 Irrest 
 I, for 
 lan- 
 " an 
 [, but 
 third 
 
 I 
 
 o3 
 
1 96 
 
 A ** SIBERIAN WINTER." 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 AMERICAN CLIMATE i MANUFACTURES j BOOK TRADE 
 
 DRUG STORES OF PHILADELPHIA ; THEATRES j 
 
 FIREMEN ; PUBLIC MEETINGS ; STATE OF SOCIETY 
 THERE. 
 
 I ARRIVED in Philadelphia at the finest season of 
 the American year. In the middle states the spring is 
 unpleasantly moist ; in summer, the heat is, for se- 
 veral weeks, intense, with sudden variations of tem- 
 perature that will cause the tnermometer to fall 
 sometimes thirty degrees in a few hours ; while, on 
 the other hand, the winter is almost insufferably 
 cold. That great imitator, Mathews — himself in- 
 imitable — used to speak with shuddering recollec- 
 tion of " the Siberian winter " he endured in Ame- 
 rica J and, I believe, imputed his last fatal illness to 
 its effects. But the American spring is delightful. 
 About the autumnal equinox there is usually a vio- 
 lent storm } and to that succeed two short months of 
 the finest weather imaginable — a kind of second 
 summer, superior to the first, and called there, I 
 know not precisely why, " the Indian summer." At 
 its termination, it was my fate to pass, in this city, 
 the severest winter — that of 1835-6 — which had 
 visited the country for nearly a century. 
 
 The Delaware, a fine navigable river, is about 
 1200 yards broad at Philadelphia ; but it is frozen 
 
iit^mmm 
 
 ibout 
 :ozen 
 
 
 AMERICAN MANUFACTURES. 
 
 197 
 
 for several months every year. This inconvenience, 
 added to the distance (more than a hundred miles) 
 from the sea, will prevent its ever becoming a con- 
 siderable port. There are, consequently, very few 
 foreign vessels that trade to it ; and there are only 
 four packets, of inferior equipment and accommoda- 
 tion too, that sail to England. Neither is it a con- 
 siderable seat of any kind of manufacture -, but it is 
 of great consequence as a kind of central entrep6t for 
 all productions, native and foreign. The manufac- 
 turing population of the United States are almost 
 all confined to New England. In the hands of its 
 busy and enterprising people is the entire cotton- 
 trade, the fisheries, and distilleries. In some 
 branches of the cotton-trade they have even be- 
 come our rivals, as they weave full ^00,000,000 yards 
 of plain goods annually — an amount far exceeding 
 the wants of their own country. Wool is manufac- 
 tured to the value of £5,500,000 per annum, * and 
 paper to the amount of £1,200,000. In New Eng- 
 land are also manufactured immense quantities of 
 shoes and boots, straw hats (much worn by both 
 sexes), clocks, tin- ware, &c. Our towns of North- 
 ampton and Dunstable find their counterparts in 
 Hartford, and other places there. 
 
 To the Philadelphian wholesale warehouses, as 
 into a great reservoir, do most of these commodities 
 flow, and are thence distributed over the more 
 southern and western states. This transmission of 
 products has been much facilitated of late years by 
 improvements in roads, &c., insomuch that the jour- 
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 
I 
 
 198 
 
 HOW OUR AUTHORS LOSE THE 
 
 I 
 
 ney to Pittsburgh, on the great western route, and 
 famous for its coal and iron mines, which used to 
 occupy a fortnight, can now be made in less than 
 three days. Immense sums have been spent by 
 Pennsylvania in internal improvement j and thereby 
 that state has a heavier debt than any in the Union. 
 It is to be observed, that when we hear of the United 
 States having no public debt it is to be understood 
 of the general government only, for each state has a 
 separate debt of its own, and, in some instances, 
 these are not very light either. 
 
 In Philadelphia there are, consequently, a prodi- 
 gious number of storing warehouses ^ of retail "stores" 
 there are, considering the extent of the place, very 
 few J — in a large proportion of the streets, indeed, there 
 are none at all. [^Nota : haberdashers and silk mercers 
 are called " dry goods stores."] Among those last, 
 "book-stores "hold a conspicuous place j for, among the 
 branches of Philadelphian traffic, printed literature 
 must not be forgotten. Reprints of English works — 
 called " pirated editions*' by our trade — are so abun- 
 dant, that most Americans look upon books not of 
 the current year's date as scarce worth the reading. 
 Such works as Bulwer's or Marryat's novels may be 
 had complete, as soon as they appear in England, 
 and well done up in cloth, for 2«. j or in sheets, 
 printed newspaper fashion, for about l.v. 2d. In 
 England they sell at prices varying from £1. 1*. to 
 £1. 10*. 6d. All other works of our originating bear 
 a similar price. This state of things, so convenient 
 for them, is too well established to be shaken. Yet 
 
 
tnlMff -it^ 
 
 VRUITS OF THEIR BRAIN-SWEAT. 
 
 199 
 
 e, and 
 3ed to 
 i than 
 Dt by 
 lereby 
 Jnion. 
 Jnited 
 rstood 
 : has a 
 ^ances. 
 
 we heard lately of applications being made by English 
 authors and publishers to Congress to put down 
 American literary piracies, or at least to secure an 
 interest in such reprints. We may save ourselves 
 the trouble : however civilly Congress may seem to 
 entertain such a proposal, it dares do nothing, for 
 the state legislatures would never allow any justice to 
 be dune in the matter. In a commercial point of 
 view the gain to the country, by " stealing brooms 
 ready made," is very great. Viewed as a literary 
 question, the result for the Americans is not so 
 favourable. They have as yet little literature of their 
 own J nor, while the present system endures, can they 
 ever have 3 but, no doubt, they comfort themselves 
 with the idea that they get on very well without. 
 Of poetry, indeed — such as it is — they have no lack. 
 Suppose each of their J, 200 newspapers have ten 
 taggers of lines with ragged endings, we have here 
 12,000 " poets," who limp after ours " in base 
 awkward imitation." Still, as I have just intimated, 
 the system is not one of clear gain ; it must ever 
 belittle (to use an Americanism) their general mind. 
 They are like the bees at whose hive- doors basins 
 full of sugar have been put, who, from being 
 active and cleanly insects, cease to make much honey, 
 and become besides lazy, lousy creatures. The book 
 trade in Belgium is a yet much nearer thorn in the 
 side of French bibliopolists j but vain will be all 
 attempts to remove it, till a national incorporation 
 take place. And yet Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, in bring- 
 ing up his new law on copyrights, said that something 
 
 i I 
 
 ..I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
'200 
 
 LAWS OF COPYRIGHT. 
 
 
 }U 
 
 might be (Ipne for English literary interests, both on 
 the Continent and in America. Propositions may 
 indeed be made, and laws enacted ; but the one will 
 be neglected, and the other become a dead letter. 
 A not much better fate will attend the great changes 
 he has in store for securing perpetual copyright to 
 authors and their descendants. If his plans were 
 feasible, which they are not, they would produce in- 
 justice. If ever the rule that " partial ill is univer- 
 sal good " could be applied with safety, it would be 
 in the looseness of our laws regarding property in 
 published works. Nothing would be more preposte- 
 rous than granting the perpetual interest he talks of 
 investing in persons who had neither head nor hand 
 in their creation. No, the public will not long allow 
 itself to be at the mercy of such : such a privilege 
 might, in many instances, amount to a prohibition of 
 the thing protected. It would never permit the pro- 
 ductions of human intellect to run the risk of being 
 abolished in this way. Let authors look to their 
 future fame, as well as to present profit j how would 
 they like to see a race of literary middle men spring 
 up between them and the booksellers, all under 
 contract to disfeature their best works, and present 
 them to the public under other names ? By such 
 evasions, on a large scale, would both " empty praise 
 and solid pudding" elude their too eager grasp. 
 
 To return to the Philadelphian " stores" — I never 
 saw a place so abundantly supplied with druggists' 
 shops — nor, perhaps as an inevitable consequence, 
 any one so rich in burying- grounds. I have stood 
 
 
AMERICAN MORISONIANS. 
 
 201 
 
 in one spot, and counted eleven chemists' " stores' 
 in siglit at once, the furthest certainly not a quarter 
 of a mile off. The Americans, younr and old, cer- 
 tainly do swallow medicine n amaztjg quantities. 
 Of a surety their *' practice ot physic" Qoserves not 
 the stigma thrown by the medical men of this self- 
 sufficient little island of ours on that of the Conti- 
 nental physicians, as being " ridiculously inert. ' It 
 is the thorough horse-drenching system, and no mis- 
 take. Can it arise from desperate efforts to prolong 
 life by violent remedies for small ailments, that the 
 Americans are in reality a very short-lived race — for 
 middle-aged people are scarce among them, and 
 aged persons very rare ? Be this as it may, they 
 certainly do carry purge-procuring, pill-gorging pro- 
 pensities farther even than we — indeed, as far as 
 human flesh can bear. 
 
 We are, also, a meat- devouring race ; in this, too, 
 they go beyond us, for animal food forms no small 
 part of their three or four meals every day. Our 
 general cookery is in the semi-savage state : theirs 
 is no better. We swallow great quantities of tea j 
 the Americans do so also 3 and for every pound of 
 black they use ten of green. The English despise 
 the comforts of the bath j they cannot have a greater 
 practical contempt for it than the Americans. In 
 Philadelphia, with a population of nearly 200,000, 
 there is only one public bathing establishment j in 
 New York, with more than double the amount, I 
 could discover only three ; and these, I believe, are, 
 in both cities, almost solely supported by foreigners. 
 
 
 
•202 VOLUNTARY DWELLERS IN PURGATORY. 
 
 A bold writer in one c»f our cheapest and least pre- 
 tending, but by no means least meritorious perio- 
 dicalSj Orrs Magazine of Domestic Economy, lately pro- 
 claimed the astounding fact — publish it not in Gath ! 
 — that, leaving mere savages out of view, "the English 
 are the dirtiest skinned people in the world." I 
 would add — with the exception of the Americans, who 
 seem to have a more than feline antipathy to ablu- 
 tionary water. The same writer probably, in a 
 recent work, the Handbook of Cookery , in treating on 
 the carnivorous and medicamenivorous appetite of 
 our country-folks, thus expresses himself, in words 
 which would apply with double force to our trans, 
 atlantic descendants : — 
 
 *' Esculent vegetables possess medicinal properties, 
 
 which might obviate the necessity of that eternal recourse 
 
 to aperients — that horrible, dangerous, and ignorant 
 
 abuse of calomel and drastics, which not only disgraces 
 
 the medical profession in tiiis country, but converts 
 
 almost every father of a family — and often the mother 
 
 too — into a gratuitous empiric. Costiveness, and a 
 
 copious secretion of lithic acid — hence gout, gravel, 
 
 stone, and the Lord knows what besides— are induced 
 
 by an abuse of animal food in its most solid form 3 and 
 
 a man so gorged, besides seeking relief in fermented 
 
 liquors, must take cathartic pills, forsooth, to disburden 
 
 him of the fruits of his intemperance ! The family drug- 
 
 compounder of course supplies him with box after box 
 
 of pills, and his poor stomach is irritated and tortured, 
 
 and often brought into a state of permanent disease, in 
 
 order to relieve the lower bowels, where the evil lies, 
 
 especially the colon, which is generally the seat of the 
 
 obstruction. Why not apply the remedy to the part 
 
 affected, instead of blistering your arm to cure a sore 
 
 leg } The application of a simple enema ** [" Oh the 
 
THE AMERICAN STAGE. 
 
 203 
 
 monster !" I hear the Saxon woman-kind cry] *• would 
 administer more effectual relief, in a few minutes, than 
 all the drugs in Apothecaries' Hall in as many hours j 
 and surely the perfection which mechanical means have 
 reachedi render this an easy remedy." 
 
 We have it on the authority of Aristotle, that the 
 drama purges the mind. Accordingly, in the inter- 
 vals of the other pastime, the Philadelphians do now 
 and then find time to go to the theatre, especially 
 when a star rises above their horizon. The most 
 fashionable house, as I have already hinted, is that 
 in Chesnut-street. The rival *' native talent," or 
 rawhead-and-bloody-bones stage, on which are ex- 
 hibited such pieces as are played at some of our 
 minors, to the great delectation of the mob, is said 
 to be found in Walnut- street. The superior house tries 
 to unite the three grand branches, tragedy, comedy, 
 and opera, which in more civilized countries are usu- 
 ally treated separately j the effect, of course, is bad. 
 The ballet they rarely attempt. They made one signal 
 exception, however, very much to the profit of one 
 Mrs. Celeste, whose small talent had been found very 
 useful in the numerous corps de ballet of the Con- 
 servatoire : her they had palmed upon them as a 
 second TagKoni ! There were also pieces got up to 
 introduce her pantomimic powers, which are re- 
 spectable. One of those that I saw was founded on 
 the incidents of the revolutionary war, in which she 
 represented the part of a love-sick French girl, who 
 feigns to be dumb, and follows her lover disguised 
 as a drummer in one of LaFayette's auxiliary legions. 
 
 I 
 
204 
 
 MRS. BUT^LiER. 
 
 [• 
 
 
 The lover is of course taken prisoner by the cruel 
 English j and equally of course saved by her, after 
 her virtue (!) has been attempted by the English 
 officers, who were all represented in this piece as a 
 set of cowardly cold-blooded Svioundrels. Washing- 
 ton also figured in the piece ; but, being played by 
 an inferior performer, evidently on no friendly foot- 
 ing with the property-man, his leather-breeches were 
 scandalously old and dirty. This " national drama " 
 was plentifully besprinkled with claptraps about 
 *' star-spangled banners," and the like j which, with 
 the often-repeated strain of Yankee Doodle, clashings 
 of swords, &c., made the affair, on the whole, go down 
 well. Of their efforts at opera, I can speak more 
 favourably, for I saw the Sonnambula tolerably well 
 got up there — quite as well, indeed, as at any of our 
 English houses out of London. The Amina was Mrs. 
 Wood ', the paltry lover was played (I speak of the 
 part, not the man) of course by her husband. But, 
 on this occasion, one of the audience interested me 
 much more than any of the performers — this was 
 Mrs. Butler, who sat in a stage-box with her 
 husband. 
 
 **But oh ! ye lords of ladies intellectual, 
 Your spouses, have they not henpecked you all ?" 
 
 I had never seen her act, and she had not to me the 
 appearance of one of Shakspeares heroines. Of a 
 truth so small a body seems hardly great enough 
 for the soul ; but her eye is full of latent fire. The 
 performance was for the farewell benefit of Mrs. 
 
 
 
INCONVENIENCES OF BEING A PERFORMER. 205 
 
 
 four 
 Mrs. 
 lof the 
 But, 
 d me 
 was 
 her 
 
 ill ?" 
 
 le the 
 Of a 
 [ough 
 The 
 IMrs. 
 
 Wood, who was most " rapturously " received : I 
 never should have given an American audience 
 credit for so much enthusiasm for talent. And not 
 the least demonstrative of her approbation, was little 
 Fanny Kemble. As I saw her rise in her seat, and 
 throw a wreath at Mrs. Wood's feet in the last 
 scene, I wondered if she did not regret leaving the 
 stage, to pine, like " a dull weed, on Lethe's wharf," 
 — in the midst of the most unappreciating of all 
 communities. I had, not long before, read Croly's 
 " Married Actress," and could not help thinking that 
 certain passages in that admirable story might, 
 peradventure, be applicable to her. Meantime, no 
 one remarked her j all eyes,, and apparently all 
 hearts, were turned to the retiring singer, whose 
 path was literally strewed with flowers. She, on 
 her part, was quite overcome with so much kind- 
 ness. When she attempted to express her thanks, 
 she could only sob aloud j most of the ladies wept, 
 and not a few of the men shed tears also. Mr. 
 Wood, too, had his full share of the immense 
 applause. It certainly was such a scene as I never 
 saw in any theatre. 
 
 Now let us turn the medal. Whether it were that 
 the Americans were ashamed of having been *' so 
 foolish " on this and othei occasions, or that Mr. 
 Wood had said something disrespectful of the star- 
 spangled banner, or criticised the whiskers of Pre- 
 sident Jackson's cat, or whispered a hint that this 
 thin-skinned nation was not the foremost in the 
 world, I know not 5 what is certain is this, that in a 
 
 \i. 
 
206 
 
 PREVALENCE OF FIRES. 
 
 few days thereafter he was driven with execration 
 and violence from the country. As for his lady, she 
 was nearly brained with heavy missiles thrown at her 
 by the audience of the Park theatre, New York. 
 He was held up to public hatred by the sweet- 
 mouthed newspapers as a " diabolical wretch," a 
 " foreign mountebank," an " impudent hell-hound,'* 
 and other complimentary gentillesses of the like kind. 
 Even captains of ships were adjured by them not to 
 give either a passage j and all " true-born Americans" 
 were menaced with rigid anathema, if they sat at the 
 same board with such " vile miscreants." A few 
 years before, one Anderson, another public singer, 
 had been chased out of the country in a similar 
 manner } he being accused of having " spoken ill " 
 of the Americans, on the passage out, but which 
 charge he solemnly denied. 
 
 Americans are, in general, vevy little interested in 
 European politics. Such an event as I have related, 
 in such a city as Philadelphia, is a kind of godsend. 
 But a never failing source of interest is found in the 
 great number of fires that take place there j however, 
 they are never so destructive as in New York, and 
 are only just sufficient to keep the public mind in 
 a state of gentle excitement. Besides being built on 
 a superior plan to the latter city, in Philadelphia 
 great precautions are taken not to let the flames go 
 too far. Still a fire there is worth going to see for 
 once, if it were only to survey the congregation of 
 happy faces it collects. I never saw but two, al- 
 though scarce a night passed^ during a stay of several 
 
 t 
 
TWO UNADVERTISED SPECTACLES. 
 
 207 
 
 ation 
 fy she 
 it her 
 York, 
 iweet- 
 h," a 
 und," 
 kind, 
 not to 
 icans" 
 at the 
 A. few 
 ainger, 
 similar 
 m ill " 
 which 
 
 months, that I did not hear the State-house bell an- 
 nounce one or more. One took place within a few 
 doors of my boarding- house — time, Sunday morning. 
 Every countenance was radiant with virtuous satis- 
 faction at the unbought spectacle thus kindly pro- 
 vided for them. I am sure not even our execution- 
 fanciers, that crowd, on occasions now happily 
 rare, to the Old Bailey, could have been more 
 joyous. 
 
 Great numbers of the young men of Philadelphia 
 enrol themselves into a species of fire brigades, hav- 
 ing gaily painted engines, hose, and equipments, at 
 their own cost. There are terrible rivalries and con- 
 suming jealousies between these various companies 
 — they of the " Hope" hating the persons and de- 
 spising the prowess of the gentlemen of the " Fame," 
 &c. Being all volunteeri^ — this service exempts them 
 from that of the militia — they are under no general 
 control of the City authorities j and it will sometimes 
 happen, a dispute arising as to which troop arrived 
 first on the ground, or as to who has the best right 
 to take the lead, that an inflamed tenement will be 
 consumed to the cellars, before the point can be 
 settled which of the parties has the right to com- 
 mence playing upon it. These quarrels do not always 
 terminate without bloodshed ; as I was a witness to, 
 in the case of an immense drug-store in Front street, 
 belonging to a German firm. A misunderstanding 
 of this kind took place here, which ended in " a battle 
 royal :" the combatants fought desperately, grappled 
 each other by the throat, rolled about in the plash 
 
*208 
 
 PHILADELPHIAN POLYLOGOMISTS. 
 
 it 
 
 arising from the running plugs, and rose exhausted, 
 many of them, from the kennel, obscene with filth and 
 gore. Meantime the fire, as may be supposed, had 
 made much way j but by this time, their pugnacious 
 ire being a little abated, they turned tl)eir attention 
 to the burning pile, upon which they played with 
 almost as much fury as they had fought, insomuch 
 that there was every prospect of the lower and most 
 valuable part of it being saved. Unhappily, however, 
 some insidious enemy of the proprietors spread a 
 rumour among the firemen — which yet the suflfering 
 parties protested, too late, was a calumny — that the 
 services "of the gentlemen firemen of the city" had 
 just been spoken of in a slighting manner. In an 
 instant, every arm was dropped, and the devoted 
 house allowed to burn on to its foundations. The loss 
 of property here was immense. — I am the more par- 
 ticular in stating facts which I know, because the 
 Philadelphian system of fire-extinction has been cried 
 up as a model. The Americans ought, as well as 
 ourselves, to think more of fire-prevention, by using 
 less timber in constructions. The very roofs are 
 of wood, cut in slate-like squares, bearing the 
 name of " shingles." Upon contiguous houses, burn- 
 ing brands are sure to fall 5 and by this ready means 
 alone, were there no other, will conflagrations spread. 
 If the *' doings" of the Americans are great, their 
 " sayings" are assuredly ten times greater. Public 
 meetings in Philadelphia, for the delivery of speeches 
 of distressing length, on every occasion (sometimes 
 on no occasion at all), are incessant. Sometimes 
 
 €* 
 
PUBLIC SYMPATHISERS. 
 
 209 
 
 usted, 
 bhand 
 {, had 
 acious 
 ention 
 i with 
 omuch 
 1 most 
 wever, 
 tread a 
 iffering 
 lat the 
 y" had 
 In an 
 levoted 
 lie loss 
 re par- 
 ise the 
 cried 
 well as 
 using 
 s are 
 the 
 bum- 
 means 
 pread. 
 , their 
 Public 
 eeches 
 etimes 
 etimes 
 
 
 they are holden *' to protest," sometimes " to congra- 
 tulate," at other times " to condole, " hardly ever to 
 subscribe. A flagrant instance of this occurred in Phila- 
 delphia, on occasion of the ruinous fire at New York. 
 Oh ! what lengthy orations did we have, in the hall 
 of the Exchange, from the wordy cohort who always 
 present themselves at such times — oh ! the eloquent 
 and touching speeches, brim full of sympathy for 
 " our suffering brethren" — such forests of hands too, 
 (with nothing in them) held forth in behalf of the 
 victims ; that really any listener's heart must have 
 swum in joy to think that there could be sc ; uch 
 good feeling among the trafficking sons of men ! And 
 what did all this result in ? — a subscription, the 
 amount of which it would be shameful to name. 
 Many an English nobleman would give a larger sum 
 in a present to a deserving indigent family, than the 
 whole inhabitants of this opulent city sent to the 
 sufferers in New York. But one important point was 
 gained : the numerous band, possessed with thesca6ie« 
 loquendi, had talked to their hearts' content ; another 
 public calamity occurring, they would be as ready to 
 lend a helping tongue as ever — for he who (not gives, 
 but) 
 
 " Talks and walks away, 
 May live to talk another day." 
 
 The only effective aid rendered by Philadelphia, was 
 that afforded by the "' raonopolising monster" — the 
 " liberticide" directory of the United States Bank. 
 I meant to have said something, ere this, on the 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 ARISTOCRATICAL SPIRIT 
 
 r,i 
 
 
 society of Philadelphia j but I cannot communicate 
 much on this head, from personal experience. 
 So far as that went, I should certainly say, that 
 many of its citizens are a stifF-mannered anti-social 
 race j being so not merely as regards foreigners — of 
 whom, it appears, they now stand in awe, under a 
 dread, as they say, of being TroUopised — but they are 
 so even among themselves. I was told by a gentle- 
 man, who had excellent opportunities of judging, that 
 there were nine or ten distinct ranks in the city, be- 
 ginning at the lower class of traders, and ending in 
 the dozen or so who keep a carriage, and have a large 
 establishment j each of these circles, repelling and 
 repelled, carefully keeps itself apart, and draws a 
 line that no one of doubtful status may pass. Dr. 
 Johnson makes mention somewhere of the difficulty 
 there would be in settling a dispute for precedence 
 between a louse and a flea j and yet some such nice 
 distinctions must sometimes arise among the arbiters 
 of Philadelphian suitabilities. 
 
 Mr. Bulwer has drawn a striking picture of 
 English anti-socialism and repulsiveness j and im- 
 putes it to our aristocratical institutions and abject 
 idolatry of rank ; how would he account, then, for an 
 exaggeration of the same spirit in a country where 
 the laws say " all men are equal," and countenance 
 no assumption of privileges of any kind ? The fact 
 is, the spirit of aristocracy forms a part of human 
 nature j and, as some Frenchman says, " De toutes les 
 aristocraties, la pire c'est celle de la bourse." If it 
 
IN AMERICA. 
 
 ^211 
 
 :e of 
 im- 
 ibject 
 for an 
 
 /here 
 
 lance 
 fact 
 
 iman 
 les les 
 
 If it 
 
 be a proof of having arrived at the highest pitch of 
 aristocratical exclusiveness, when, as Lord Byron 
 says, " every body hates every body ; " then are the 
 richer Americans in general, and the " respectable " 
 Philadelphians in particular, the most consummate 
 aristocrats in the world. 
 
212 
 
 PHILADE7.PHIANS FOND OF DRUSJJ. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 SABBATICAL OBSERVANCES IN AMERICA AND ENG- 
 LAND — THEIR INFLUENCE UPON GENERAL 
 MORALS — PARTICULAR EXAMPLES. 
 
 The first Sunday turn-out I saw of the Philadel- 
 phian population, confirmed me in my opinion of the 
 peculiar pride the Americans take in dress. There 
 being no positive acknowledged degrees of rank 
 among them, all the world wish to hide their hum- 
 ble stations as much as possible by imposing exter- 
 nals. It might be said of them with more truth than 
 George the Fourth did of the Scotch, on seeing them 
 in holiday attire, "They are a nation of gentlemen." 
 They are certainly, in outward things, a distingu6 
 people. As I looked, with much interest, at the vast 
 numbers of well-apparelled females, no small pro- 
 portion of them very beautiful, on their way to the 
 diflFerent churches and chapels, I thought of the con- 
 trast this country must have presented, at the time 
 of the revolutionary war, when the stock of articles of 
 personal equipment ran so low, from poverty and 
 stoppages of importation, that the ladies were fain to 
 fasten their worn-out clothes with thorns, instead of 
 pins ; and when a good sewing-needle was thought 
 worth lending from one distant farm-house to an- 
 other. 
 
 \:. 7 
 
AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 213 
 
 D ENG- 
 ENERAL 
 
 hiladel- 
 
 n of the 
 
 There 
 
 >f rank 
 
 ir hum- 
 
 ; exter- 
 
 Lth than 
 
 g them 
 
 emen." 
 
 istingu6 
 
 he vast 
 
 11 pro- 
 
 to the 
 
 le con- 
 
 J time 
 
 cles of 
 
 r and 
 
 ain to 
 
 ead of 
 
 ought 
 
 o an- 
 
 Having ascertained which was the principal Epis- 
 copal place of worship, I was directed to Christchurch, 
 and had, before entering, the satisfaction of hearing 
 the familiar sounds of a peal of bells, rather imper- 
 fect indeed, but the only one I then knew of in the 
 country. The venerable Bishop White officiated. 
 This patriarch of the American church was conse- 
 crated to his sacred office in England, and had 
 been chaplain to the first American congress : he 
 died some days before I left. The members of the 
 Episcopal community are not so numerous as these 
 of some of the others in Philadelphia — the Presby- 
 terians for instance j but they comprise a large por- 
 tion of the prime families of the place. As the elite of 
 the Americans are Tories in politics, so they are no 
 less churchmen in religion. They seem to partici- 
 pate in the sentiments of old Herbert, as expressed 
 in his *' British Church :" 
 
 (( 
 
 I joy, dear mother, when I view 
 Thy perfect lineaments, and hue 
 
 Both sweet and bright : 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 A fine aspect in fit array. 
 
 Neither too mean, nor yet too gay. 
 
 Shows who is best : 
 Outlandish looks may not compare ; 
 For all tliey either painted are. 
 
 Or else undrest." 
 
 Charles the Second said he thought Presbyterianism 
 was no fit religion for a gentleman j the superior, kind 
 of Americans seem to think so too. 
 
o 
 
 214' 
 
 BITTER BIGOTRY OF 
 
 Morning and evening service being ended, as I 
 had as yet made few acquaintances, and as my let- 
 ters of introduction were merely to houses of busi- 
 ness, I found the city become miserably dull. Hav- 
 ing lived for some years on the continent, and been 
 rather unused to the deadness of all towns where 
 the Protestant religion prevails, I began to call in 
 question, in r^y private mind — perhaps wrongly — the 
 utility of a total suspension of all amusement, and 
 absence of agreeable relaxation. The Catholics, I 
 thought, had done wisely, in coming to a compromise 
 with poor human nature j and I doubted much whe- 
 her the conduct of the many were much improved 
 by the rigid observances imposed upon them by the 
 few. I must own I have never been a strict Sabba- 
 tarian. I never could find the institution of a Chris- 
 tian Sabbath any where in the New Testament. I 
 have long thought that the Jewish Sabbath, as part 
 of the ceremonial law, and meant to be confined to 
 the Jews, was, by implication, virtually abolished, 
 and no other put in its place. See Matt. xii. 1 — 12 ; 
 Luke xiii. 15 — 16, and other passages. 
 
 The first colonists of this country — the New 
 England settlers particularly — were mostly rigid, not 
 to say fanatical, Puritans ; the principal distinction 
 of these schismatics, after their bitter hatred of the 
 Church, was their Judaical way of spending the Sun- 
 day ; the freedom with which Christ made us free, 
 was foregone by them. Not only so, but spiritual 
 despotism was inconsistently mixed up with free poli- 
 tical institutions ; and seldom was intolerance carried 
 
 1^ 
 
THE NEW ENGLANDERS. 
 
 *2ir> 
 
 New 
 d, not 
 Lction 
 the 
 Sun- 
 free, 
 itual 
 poli- 
 rried 
 
 <i 
 
 farther by the most bigoted Catholics, than by these 
 pretended victims of spiritual tyranny at home. 
 They thought fit to take exceptions against the Qua- 
 ker sect in particular, and passed a law, banishing 
 them from certain of the new settlements under pain 
 of death if they ever returned ; I believe some indivi- 
 duals did actually get hanged in consequence. Their 
 laws against infractions of sabbatical observance were 
 rigorous to the last degree j and, as an instance, it is 
 on record, that the head men of Salem punished the 
 captain of a vessel with public flogging, for having 
 Baluted his wife in public ; this poor man had not 
 seen her for many months, and on hi'^ arrival, which 
 unluckily for him happened to be the Sabbath, was 
 naturally overjoyed to meet her. It is even said, 
 that these gloomy bigots would never put malt to 
 ferment near the end of a week, lest it should "work" 
 on the Sabbath j and tied the legs of their dung- 
 hill fowls, to prevent them from gallanting the hens. 
 Constables were employed to scour the streets for 
 stragglers, with power to lay hands on violators of 
 gloomy Sabbath sanctities, and force them into the 
 conventicles 3 or, if refractory, to imprison and set 
 them in the stocks. 
 
 Thus rigorously was the observance of the 
 Sabbath established by the early Americans, and the 
 influence of such institutions is felt even now. A 
 punning Frenchman called a London Sunday " un 
 jour de poudins de plomb ;'' an American Sabbath is 
 still more leaden. Yet does the sun go on his way 
 rejoicing, the birds sing, the winds blow, the tides 
 rise and fall — of a surety a ritual observance of Sab- 
 
 f 
 
 ( 
 
*216 GIN-PALACES AND ** RANTING" CHAPELS. 
 
 bath has no sympathy in the visible creation ; not to 
 urge that the Sabbath in the synagogue of Pear- street, 
 Philadelphia, has yet four hours to run, when that of 
 the Jews of Duke's Place has finished; while in Pales- 
 tine, for which, probably, the institution was alone 
 meant, it has even ceased long before. No, the Sab- 
 bath has small foundation in external nature ; has it 
 any in the general mind of man ? If I were captiously 
 asked. Would you shut up the churches, and abolish 
 religion ? I would answer such a question by another. 
 What has that to do with it ? Do the continental 
 Catholics shut up their churches because the theatres 
 and concert rooms are open ? 
 
 With respect to ourselves, is there any population 
 in the world more immoral, more besotted, more 
 degraded than ours ? — and this, too, in despite of all 
 sabbatical ordinances. If there have been a "reform " 
 in politics since I left the country some ten years 
 ago, there has been none in morals. Look at the 
 condition and habits of a great mass of the London 
 lower classes— '^ ark the crowds of squalid drunken 
 men and wretched women on Saturday and Sunday 
 evenings, with miserable infants in arms, " conceived 
 in gin, and begotten in poverty." What has the 
 Sabbath vet done for them but add to their means of 
 doing themselves harm ? 
 
 Nothing has spread dissent from the Church all 
 over the country so much as leaving the Sabbath 
 evenings open to schismatical eloquence. Evening 
 lectures, by Church divines, are certainly more com- 
 mon than they were ; but it is too late to hope to les- 
 sen the amount of dissent by a rivalry in this way* 
 
«MI«i^ 
 
 THE CnURCII NOT ALWAYS SADDATARIAN. '21" 
 
 iday 
 
 ived 
 
 the 
 
 s of 
 
 It would be more effectually done by oncouraging 
 public recreations after daily church service. The 
 sects have committed themselves too much to Sabba- 
 tarianism, to countenance any thinp; of this kind ; 
 and it is only the Church of England which can 
 afford to relax. Once it had puritanical practice 
 forced upon it, but these days are gone by. — Let us 
 refer a little to history, in the year 1618, James 
 the First published his declaration, called the Book 
 of Sports, permitting certain pastimes, and com- 
 manded it to be read in all churches. The Puritans 
 held up their hands in holy horror against the indul- 
 gence J but of all the principal clergy of the Church, 
 Archbishop Abbot alone opposed himself to it, and 
 would not adow it to be published in his diocese. 
 He was a very mediocre man, and a cunning trim- 
 mer all along between his duties to the Church, 
 and his popularity with the undermining Puritans -, 
 but unhappily in the end the latter gained the day. 
 Thus we see that the suggestion of a relaxation is 
 not new. If such were needful then, how much 
 more now! when increased habits of confinement 
 and lengthened hours of labour, are, by the progress 
 of society, so much established. Holidays have 
 almost ceased to exist j Sunday is the only instru- 
 ment put into our hands, whereby to re-civilize a peo- 
 ple relapsing into brutality, and make them withal 
 happier and better. The very first step to an im- 
 proved, a more moral state of things, will be to 
 OPEN THE THEATRES ou Sunday. 
 This novel proposition may possibly startle many. 
 
 I 
 
 t I 
 
 I ( 
 
218 
 
 MORAL IMPROVEMENT DESIRABLE 
 
 1 
 
 ■ K 
 
 3- 
 
 .:| 
 
 t 
 
 : I 
 
 
 ' \ 
 
 l' 1 
 
 
 whom I would fain ask, Are not the pothouses and 
 the brothels open already ? Aye, but we are used to 
 that ! Yes, somewhat too much. Besides, vice may 
 find a haunt in the nightly meeting-house as well as 
 the theatre. I have heard of chapels being made 
 places of assignation as well as masquerades. If it 
 is emphatically said, the Deity " dwelleth not (spe- 
 cially) in temples made with hands," neither does 
 the devil confine himself to certain special localities. 
 Besides the theatres, I would also give access to con- 
 cert rooms ; these would present harmless attrac- 
 tions to many a young man who would else spend 
 his Sabbath evening amid the grosser sensualities of 
 the tavern or the stews. As for those who think the 
 larger portion of the day spent in religious exercises 
 not to be enough, after a week's close application to 
 labour, let them go to sermon still j only let them 
 put no personal restraint on others j neither let them 
 make an unhandsome construction of the conduct of 
 their weaker brethren 3 for the first of Christian vir- 
 tues is charity . 
 
 Assuredly, before such a change as that proposed 
 could be made properly instrumental in advancing 
 public morals, the theatres ought to be put under 
 better regulations than at present; some of the 
 pieces played in many of the houses are certainly 
 corrupting enough. But this is an evil that could 
 easily be remedied. It arises, in great part, from 
 the low ebb which the drama has sunk to, from 
 various causes. There is no want of talent for dra- 
 matic writing amongst us, but it flows little in the 
 
IN AN EXTENDED DRAMA. 
 
 219 
 
 >osed 
 icing 
 inder 
 
 the 
 |ainly 
 fould 
 Trom 
 from 
 Idra- 
 
 the 
 
 direction of the existing stage. Nothing would con- 
 tribute to elevate the drama from its present depres- 
 sion so much as Sunday performances. Let some 
 houses even be set apart for the performance of reli- 
 gious pieces. Miss Hannah More thought it no 
 derogation to her delicate sense of religious propriety, 
 to write " Sacred Dramas j" and possibly had the hope 
 of their becoming one day available in this way. Of 
 moral pieces we have few or none j but there is a 
 great amount of talent in the country, which might 
 be employed in producing such, with unspeakable 
 advantage to the community. There is an American 
 work, called " Temperance Tales," which would fur- 
 nish the groundwork of more than a score of excel- 
 lent pieces that would be very profitable to the in- 
 temperate, and might tend much to rescue them from 
 the degrading vice which threatens to sink our work- 
 ing population lower than the brutes. Let us lure 
 them from their swilling- troughs, and recal them to 
 virtue, by clothing her in an attractive dress j old 
 means have failed, we ought therefore to try new. 
 
 And let not the moralist underrate, much less 
 despise, the stage as a corrector of manners. Let it 
 be borne in mind, that I speak of it as it might be 
 made, not of it as it is. It is not many years since 
 one of the judges of England said on the bench, 
 that even the existing drama was well calculated to 
 instruct as well as amuse mankind 3 but still I should 
 be for purifying it, and exalting its character as 
 much as possible. Nevertheless, corrupted though 
 scenic representation may be, it has a beneficial, a 
 
220 
 
 SUNDAY EVENING OCCUPATIONS 
 
 humanising effect on the minds of the better portions 
 of the working class j no one wtll acquainted with 
 them will ever think of disputing this. It creates a 
 taste in the lower orders ,• it gives them a perception 
 of the beautiful and the heroic. But for a liking to 
 the drama, thousands of the gentler humble would 
 be for ever ignorant of the lofty courtesies and re- 
 fined sentiment to be found in the higher walks of 
 life. But for it, they would know the feeling of love 
 only in its grossest form ; that of valour, in its most 
 brutal. With respect to the higher classes, the 
 drama is to them an elegant amusement ; and the 
 most harmless, as well as the most delightful, that 
 has yet been discovered. It unites all the arts, 
 poetry, painting, music, and is the master-piece of 
 civilisation. As nothing sours a man's temper so 
 much as unamused solitude, or shuts his heart so 
 close against his species; on the other hand, the 
 elevating equality, and cheerful association with all 
 classes in a handsome theatre, are admirably adapt- 
 ed to call into exercise the best sentiments and 
 kindliest sympathies with our fellows. And, as good 
 feelings invariably tend to good actions, I say again, 
 let not the enlightened moralist undervalue the acted 
 drama. 
 
 Multitudes of well-disposed, regularly- conducted 
 young men are to be found filling laborious com- 
 mercial situations all the week, who are not able to 
 bear the confinement of a church or chapel, up to a 
 late hour of their only day of leisure j nor is it desi- 
 rable, from a regard to their health, that they should. 
 
AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
 
 221 
 
 i 
 
 ortions 
 id with 
 eates a 
 leption 
 ing to 
 would 
 nd re- 
 ilks of 
 )f love 
 most 
 the 
 
 id the 
 
 , that 
 arts, 
 
 ce of 
 
 kr so 
 
 rt so 
 
 , the 
 
 h all 
 
 iapt- 
 and 
 
 ?ood 
 
 Now what other proper means of recreation have they, 
 — those from the country especially ? — the latter have, 
 most of them, neither relations nor connexions in this 
 great metropolis. I was once in that forlorn posi- 
 tion myself, eighteen years ago, on my arrival here j 
 since then several literary institutions have indeed 
 arisen, and it is admirable they should be so well 
 attended by so many of small means and little 
 leisure ; but they, too, are carefully closed against the 
 subscribers on Sundays ! Thus does leisure, which 
 might be turned to profitable account, become a 
 snare to very many, and a curse to not a few. 
 
 I have remarked that the most consummate black- 
 guards I have ever heard of, both at home and in 
 America, have ever been brought up in the most 
 religious families. In the part of the country where 
 I was '* raised" (this strange term is good American), 
 the more notorious scamps were all clergymen's 
 sons. One of the most depraved characters, con- 
 sidering his youth, that any country could produce, 
 was an individual already mentioned at p. 159, who 
 was a kind of Don Juan in a small way. He was 
 born in a village of Connecticut, and had had the 
 advantage of a strictly moral and religious educa- 
 tion. It is astonishinr how ignorant some rigid 
 parents are of their children's private minds and 
 morals while at home with them. When they find it 
 convenient, from narrowness of means, to send them 
 to push their fortunes in large towns, and that just 
 at an age when the youthful passions are getting 
 strong, they think their sons go thither as so many 
 unspotted lambs 3 and are astounded to find they do 
 
222 
 
 A r:i5W YORK CLERK 
 
 not go on so well as they had confidently expected. 
 They immediately think they must have fallen into 
 ill company, which has " led them astray j " and 
 seriously imagine there must be something corrupt- 
 ing in the very air of a city. Young Frederick 
 Robinson, who kept a journal of many things he 
 did and thought, chuckles at this confidence of 
 honest and simple country parents in the good prin- 
 ciples they have taken such pains to inculcate. In this 
 singular production, which fell into the hands of the 
 New York journalists, and might have been entitled 
 " Some Passages inthe Life of aFinished Blackguard," 
 he says, *' Oh, if the old chap but knew how I passed 
 my Sundays !" He was a young man of really superior 
 talent, but of matchless depravity of heart. Having 
 a gentlemanly exterior and pleasing manners, he was 
 well received in classes superior to his own — for he 
 was but a clerk in a wholesale house ; and had paid 
 his addresses to a young lady of some fortune, whom 
 he was about to marry when his exposure took place. 
 He had previously formed an attachment to Ellen 
 Jewett, a woman of the town, of considerable per- 
 sonal attractions, and not unaccomplished ; he was 
 so fascinated for a while with her, that he had pro- 
 mised to rescue her from degradation, and marry 
 her. Besides finding himself trammelled with this 
 indiscreet engagement, it was believed she possessed 
 secrets about some pecuniary embezzlements that put 
 it in her power to blast his character, and ruin his 
 prospects for ever : thus did he find it convenient to 
 put her out of the way, as soon as her love became 
 importunate. It was evident to all who read the 
 
 i 1 
 
AND HIS FEMALE ** FRIEND.' 
 
 '2*23 
 
 
 journal above mentioned, which was full of reasoning 
 vice of the blackest kind, that no scruples were 
 likely to stop the hand from executing what such a 
 mind would conceive. Accordingly, he made an ap- 
 pointment to pass the evening with Ellen at her 
 lodgings, a splendid brothel in the city, between 
 eight and nine o'clock one night j and she had agreed 
 to be at home to no one but him, at the same time 
 apprising her fellow " boarders " of the expected 
 visit of her lover. The servant who let him in knew 
 his person well, though that was muffled in a cloak, 
 and there was a handkerchief held over his mouth. 
 On this, as on former occasions, he passed by a feign- 
 ed name. Having shown him up stairs, she heard 
 Ellen open the door of her room, salute him with 
 eager affection, chide him lovingly for not coming 
 sooner, and re-enter it with him. By and by she 
 came out to the landing-place, called for a bottle of 
 champagne, and some other refreshments ; these she 
 took from the servant outside the door. No more 
 was heard or seenof either that night ; and the house 
 was shut up, as usual, about twelve o'clock. An 
 hour or so afterwards, some one was heard to grope 
 his way out of the house by a private door, and 
 climb the wall of the yard behind, which communi- 
 cated with a narrow street. Early in the morning, 
 the mistress of the establishment was disturbed in 
 her rest by the smell of fire ; and getting up to en- 
 quire about it, she found the bed-curtains and furni- 
 ture of Ellen Jewett's room in a blaze, herself lying 
 on the bed in her shift, and weltering in her blood 
 
224 
 
 TRIAL FOR MURDER. 
 
 from some hideous wounds in the head — in fact, the 
 hinder part of the skull beaten to pieces. Not- 
 withstanding, her eyelids were closed as in a gentle 
 sleep, and a tranquil smile still played upon the lip. 
 It wa3 supposed she had passed from life to death 
 without the least consciousness. 
 
 Suspicion of course fell upon Robinson. He 
 gave a most unsatisfactory account of how he had 
 spent the evening in question. He said he had pass- 
 ed it partly at the theatre, partly in certain taverns, 
 &c. Yet no box-keepers, check-takers, or waiters 
 at the places indicated, to whom his person was well 
 known, could be got to sustain any of his statements. 
 The young man who usually slept in the same room 
 with him, owned that he had not arrived at the 
 usual time of retiring to rest, and said he had found 
 him a-bed on the succeeding morning j but either 
 could not, or would not, say at what hour he did 
 come in. His clothes were examined, and marks of 
 plaster and whiting found, such as any one climbing 
 over a wall would be likely to get, and it was proved 
 that he had borrowed a hatchet at his store a day 
 or two before, but had] never returned it j although 
 afterwards it was found in its place, bearing the ap- 
 pearance of having been used and cleaned. He was 
 thereupon arrested, and indicted for the murder. 
 
 His father, a farmer of some propeity, being sent 
 for to New York, hired the most able counsel he 
 could procure there, and sat beside him the whole 
 time of the trial, which lasted several days. Being 
 a man of a venerable appearance and unspotted cha- 
 
 c 
 d 
 
 y 
 
 c] 
 
TONY WELLER's FAVOURITE DEVICE. 
 
 225 
 
 fact, the 
 ;s. Not- 
 . a gentle 
 n the lip. 
 5 to death 
 
 son. He 
 w he had 
 had pass- 
 1 taverns, 
 Dr waiters 
 1 was well 
 tatements. 
 5ame room 
 ed at the 
 had found 
 but either 
 ur he did 
 i marks of 
 e climbing 
 vas proved 
 store a day 
 although 
 ing the ap- 
 1. He was 
 lurder. 
 being sent 
 counsel he 
 the whole 
 lys. Being 
 potted cha- 
 
 racter, this had probably a great effect on the jury ; 
 so much so, that, added to the impression produced 
 by the ingenuity and eloquence of the gentlemen of 
 the bar, it determined them to give the acquittal they 
 did, in the face of the strongest evidence ; yet many 
 scrupled not to say afterwards, that some of them 
 were bribed. There was indeed a barefaced alibi 
 got up at the eleventh hour j and never did Henry 
 Erskine's definition of that legal term apply more 
 truly than in this case. A lady asked him, " What is 
 an alibi ?" " Madam, it is a lie by which many a 
 rogue escapes hanging." — The party in question was 
 a tobacconist, who swore that young Robinson came 
 into his shop just as he was shutting up, namely at 
 ten o'clock or thereabouts, when, as had been sworn 
 by the people of the brothel, he was in Ellen Jewett s 
 room, and had purchased some cigars, for which he 
 was an occasional customer. It was added, however, 
 that Robinson never had thought of so important 
 a circumstance himself j he had never even hinted at 
 such a thing in any of his examinations ; this ''friend 
 in need " called at the prison just before the trial, 
 and, in the presence of the jailer, after being told 
 he could not see the culprit in private, proceeded to 
 put what lawyers call leading quesl'ons to Robinson — 
 who did not seem at first able to recognise him — 
 beginning with, " Do you not remember, young man, 
 coming," &c. The ready reply was, " Of course, I 
 do !" "And don't you recollect so and so ?" " Oh 
 yes, yes." This positive swearing, added to the bad 
 characters of some witnesses unavoidably called on in 
 
 -J 
 
I 
 
 256 KILLING WITH KINDNESS. 
 
 such a case, and the profligate life of the unhappy 
 woman, led to the very unexpected result. When, 
 after great seeming hesitation, the jury brought in 
 their verdict, ** Not guilty," the prisoner, who had 
 looked the very picture of penitential shame, rose up 
 in his place, and, with a face radiant with triumphant 
 joy, held out a thankful hand to his able leading 
 counsel ; who shewed his sense of the honour by 
 turning his back upon him. He changed his name, 
 and left the place immediately. A few weeks there- 
 after all his father's property was sold, for reasons 
 best known to themselves. 
 
 This affair attracted much notice all over the 
 Union. The murderer and his victim were both 
 extraordinary persons ; handsome in person the one 
 and the other, also very young, neither being much 
 turned of twenty, and both of superior minds and 
 acquirements. 1 had lent me a packet of her letters, 
 which were handed about for private perusal in Phi- 
 ladelphia J they were addressed to a frail friend in 
 that city, formerly an attached schoolfellow, and 
 written in a diction that would have done no discre- 
 dit to the most accomplished lady. No one could 
 have gathered any information from them of the 
 habits of the parties, had they not known of it before- 
 hand. The handwriting was beautiful, and the style 
 elegant and flowing, having all the charming femi- 
 nine ei.« .nd playfulness, which no masculine talent 
 can ever properly imitate. She was, in short, a vic- 
 tim OF MODERN EDUCATION. Bom of poor parents, 
 who gave her instruction out of proportion with their 
 
 W., 
 
" SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES." 
 
 227 
 
 unhappy 
 When, 
 ought in 
 who had 
 B, rose up 
 umphant 
 e leading 
 lonuur by 
 lis name, 
 iks there- 
 r reasons 
 
 over the 
 vere both 
 m the one 
 ing much 
 (linds and 
 ler letters, 
 sal in Phi- 
 friend in 
 jUow, and 
 no discre- 
 one could 
 lem of the 
 )f it before- 
 d the style 
 ning femi- 
 jline talent 
 lort, a vic- 
 >or parents, 
 1 with their 
 
 menns, and who petted her from her cradle on account 
 of her beauty and wit, shehad grown up to womanhood 
 in the unrestrained indulgence of self-will j and thus 
 did she fall an easy prey to the first seducer of supe- 
 rior rank who presented himself. She had a great love 
 for poetry, and wrote tolerable verses herself. She 
 used always to say, that what first corrupted her 
 morals, and turned her heart irresistibly to licentious 
 courses, was the continual perusal of Lord Byron's 
 works, which accidc^ntally fell in her way when quite 
 young. Although not unaware of their baleful effects 
 on her life, she longed passionately to have known his 
 Lordship, whom she adored as a kind of divinity. 
 For the rest, she was one of the most generous kind- 
 hearted creatures in the world, and merited a better 
 fate. 
 
 *' Say, Virtue, can it be a crime to pity 
 The erring children of our common Sire — 
 Of all his creatures is there one more curst 
 Than she who smiles and fawns for doubtful bread?" 
 
 Multitudes of young men in America, sent from 
 the villages and smaller towns to cities to *' make 
 their way," there ruin themselves as eflfectually, if 
 not so shamefully, as Frederick Robinson., They 
 mostly go thither crammed with good advice too ; 
 and all with bibles and good books in their trunks, 
 which, nevertheless, most of them forget to read. I 
 knew one, who, ^n his return home, ill in health and 
 low in pui se, being anxiously asked, by a doting and 
 very religious mother, if he had read two chapters 
 daily, as he had promised to do, and she not being 
 
 a2 
 
228 
 
 " LIFE BEGINS AND ENDS IN SMOKE." 
 
 altogether satisfied >vith his repeated assurances in 
 the affirmative, examined the volume, and found a 
 20 dollar note still in the middle of it, where she had 
 put it herself for his private use three years 
 before. 
 
 No nation can be happy where the ties of rela- 
 tionship are little regarded. In America they are 
 loose indeed. As a consequence, American pa- 
 rents in general find their offspring, in the East- 
 ern states especially, amazingly apt to spring off. 
 No children that ever 1 have seen, are so much 
 spoiled with indulgence as the generality of them. 
 No schoolmaster is allowed to chastise them on any 
 account ; he would be indicted for an assault if he 
 did. In company they are all but insufferable, being 
 treated as men and women long before their time. 
 Urchins of seven or eight years old, for instance, 
 instead of longing for lollypops, come to their parents 
 boldly, and demand money to buy cigars ! 
 
 To revert to my original subject of the Sabbath, I 
 should say, that any relaxation in our system would 
 be sure to be adopted by these Americans. They 
 would follow every movement of ours, in this as in 
 every thing else, even with exaggeration 3 just as the 
 spectres of the Brocken mountain answered to every 
 gesticulation of the travellers on the opposite hills of 
 the Harz. 
 
 
 
 ^--.^^,- 
 
CURRENT FALSEHOOD CONTRADICTED. 229 
 
 ■ances in 
 
 found a 
 
 e she had 
 
 'ee years 
 
 s of rela- 
 
 they are 
 
 rican pa- 
 
 ;he East- 
 
 pring off. 
 
 so much 
 
 of them. 
 
 na on any 
 
 ault if he 
 
 ble/being 
 
 leir time. 
 
 instance, 
 
 lir parents 
 
 sabbath, I 
 ;em would 
 as. They 
 this as in 
 just as the 
 d to every 
 ite hills of 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 PRETENDED ABSENCE OF POVERTY IN AMERICA — 
 
 SEVERE WINTER THERE FEMALE EMPLOYMENT 
 
 FANNY WRIGHT. 
 
 Miss Fanny Kemble, in her work on America, talks 
 of the States being a land of plenty for all the in- 
 dustrious, and avers, that '* no absolute want exists 
 there for any one — at least there need not." Mrs. 
 Butlevy no doubt, now knows better; the married 
 has had better opportunities of knowledge than the 
 single lady. A brilliant promenade voyageuse de 
 theatre could give her an idea only of the superficies 
 of things, and she probably adopted, without exa- 
 mination, the common cant on the subject. The 
 Americans are very fond of imparting to travellers 
 this false idea of their " lovely country — their fa- 
 voured land," or at least of letting them take it up 
 without contradiction j and as all crimes (poverty 
 included) are laid exclusively to the charge of fo- 
 reigners, there is thereby an ever-ready answer to 
 those who wish to know why there is so much squalid 
 misery in all their populous towns. I have seen scores 
 of destitute homeless wretches lying on bulks, or 
 under the sheds about the markets of New York and 
 Philadelphia, as well as in such places of London ; 
 
h 
 
 230 
 
 tt 
 
 THE POOR MAN S OWN LAND. 
 
 and I have been an eye-witness to great misery, 
 from cold and hunger, in the severe winter of 
 1835-6, such as probably was never experienced in 
 our country. Coroner's inquests were being held, 
 time after time, on the extenuated bodies of suf- 
 ferers from privation j and subscriptions repeat- 
 edly talked of, but very little entered into. The 
 *' checks on population " are certainly now in as full 
 operation in the American cities as with us ; and 
 small chance will there be of its increase going on 
 any longer in the dreaded geometrical ratio. Oh 
 that terrible book of Malthus ! which might have 
 taken for its text the converse of a favourite vulgar 
 error — namely, " Where God sends meat he is sure 
 to send mouths.'' This transposition would give a 
 more truthful turn to the words, and contain the 
 whole essence of a volume which is often abused by 
 many who have never read it. The present popula- 
 tion of the States is estimated at fourteen millions -, 
 it may take centuries before it doubles that amount, 
 by natural increase at least. 
 
 During this winter, provisions more than doubled 
 in price j and the poor, entirely left to the tender 
 mercies of speculators, had to pay sixteen dollars a 
 cord (or waggon- load) of wood, no better than I laid 
 in early at four and a half. In New York the price 
 ran up as high as twenty -, this too with a climate 
 cold enough to freeze the ink in my pen while writing 
 in a stove-heated room, and where rain often turns 
 to ice on the ground as soon as it falls. T le rail- 
 roads in the middle states were every where rem^ered 
 
WINTER IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 231 
 
 misery, 
 inter of 
 >nced in 
 fig held, 
 
 of suf- 
 
 repeat- 
 po. The 
 n as full 
 us ; and 
 ;oing on 
 ;io. Oh 
 ht have 
 e vulgar 
 
 is sure 
 1 give a 
 tain the 
 msed by 
 
 popula- 
 nillions -, 
 amount^ 
 
 doubled 
 i tender 
 iollars a 
 m I laid 
 ie price 
 climate 
 5 writing 
 n turns 
 r 16 rail- 
 enc'ered 
 
 useless ; and mail communications generally in- 
 ternipted or stopped, up the country. In several 
 lone houses, the inhabitants, cut off for many weeks 
 from neighbourly assistance by the snow, were starv- 
 ed to death for want of supplies of necessary food. 
 The wolves, too, thought fit to devour a coloured man 
 at no great distance from Philadelphia. Some idea 
 of the inclemency of this winter may be formed, when 
 I state that it snew (an Americanism) eleven Sundays 
 in succession ; now all this was to clear away when 
 God willed it — and not before — the city police being 
 quite non- efficient. At times the streets were a series 
 of glassy- surfaced undulations, which cut out much 
 work for the bone-setters. 
 
 The ice on the Delaware was eight or nine feet 
 th!ok, and the communication between Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey carried on across it with heavily 
 loaded waggons. But sleighing, or sledging, was all 
 the rage -, it was a kind of madness among all classes 
 who could afford to indulge in it. Americans seem 
 as if they could be happy at rest nowhere j like a 
 bed-ridden sick man, who seeks relief by incessant 
 turning, so are they ever on the move. An ox roasted 
 whole on the Delaware was one day thought a grand 
 spectacle ; it drew half of the city, on foot and in 
 sledges, to see it. Was the meat given away to the 
 poor ? Oh no ! but by paying threepence, any one 
 could see it. If charity (money-giving) cover a mul- 
 titude of sins, the Americans will scarcely have a 
 rag to lay on their poor souls : admission to their 
 public hospitals even, must be dearly paid for. 
 
'hi 
 
 ■IMIWHPWWaia 
 
 232 
 
 FEMALE LABOUR 
 
 
 Above all, the condition of the working females of 
 the city (mostly single women) became truly pitiable. 
 Their wages being always very low, the expenses of 
 augmented board swallowed up their entire weekly 
 wages— in a country, too, where decent clothes are 
 very expensive, and even more than a necessary of life. 
 The cries of distress from all quarters at length rous- 
 ed the attention of the small band of Philadelphian 
 benevolists, with Matthew Carey, Esq. at their head ; 
 when on inquirj'' the amount of distress among the 
 industrious women of the city, sempstresses, "tailor- 
 esses," shoe-binders, book-folders, &c. was really ap- 
 palling. Something, I believe, was done — I am sure 
 nothing considerable — for its alleviation. 
 
 Very differently paid from the poor *' tailoresses" 
 are the " gentlemen tailors." While the former, 
 with the closest applJ<*ation, can seldom earn more 
 than two dollars, the latter may earn from nine to 
 twelve. The tailors are the best remunerated me- 
 chanics in America — and possibly the most discon- 
 tented and troublesome to deal with. That scorn, 
 real or feigned, for their useful calling, seems not to 
 prevail there as it does among the lower orders of all 
 European countries. This ridiculous contempt, I 
 cannot help imagining, has come down to us from 
 feudal times, when strength of body being most 
 prized, and fighting the fashionable trade, the weakly 
 or decrepit members of families were alone reserved 
 for sedentary occupations. But as in America feuda- 
 lism never existed, and as there money is all in all, 
 high wages will make the members of any trade re- 
 
 I 
 
SCARCE, AND ILL PAID. 
 
 '233 
 
 nales of 
 pitiable. 
 ;nses of 
 weekly 
 hes are 
 y of life, 
 th rous- 
 lelphian 
 r head > 
 long the 
 "tailor- 
 ;ally ap- 
 am sure 
 
 :)resses" 
 
 former, 
 
 \n more 
 
 nine to 
 
 ted me- 
 
 discon- 
 
 scorn, 
 
 not to 
 
 TS of all 
 
 empt, I 
 
 us from 
 
 ig most 
 
 weakly 
 
 eserved 
 
 a feuda- 
 
 1 in all, 
 
 rade re- 
 
 \M. 
 
 spected and respectable. An American tailor thinks 
 it beneath his dignity to make any thing but coats j 
 waistcoats, trowsers, &c. are ell made by females- 
 Now what have tV.ey ioat by this arrangement, so 
 convenient for the women ? Nothing. On the con- 
 trary, though fewer in number, they are much better 
 paid. In all old countries, female labour is most 
 wretchedly paid : unhappily young America forms no 
 exception to the rule. Can there be any cause for 
 this but the stupid and suicidal jealousies of the 
 working men, which, by sending the other sex in 
 crowds to a very few employments, leaves them en- 
 tirely at the mercy of those who can engage them ? 
 Do these short-sighted men forget that they have, 
 most of them, female connexions, wives, sisters, or 
 daughters, and that if these could earn money, the 
 well-beiag of the men would be ultimately advanced ? 
 This helplessness, in a pecuniary sense — for money is 
 power and independence too — forces on a thousand 
 imprudent marriages and worse connexions, which 
 keep the lower classes in a state of continual debase- 
 ment. A respectable state of maidenhood is now 
 considered a reproach. The men have given the 
 word, and the silly women have echoed it j if single 
 females were true to themselves, they would learn to 
 despise their despisers. Would the interests of the 
 lower orders of men suffer, if they postponed marriage 
 till their future spouses had earned a sufficient sum 
 to begin the world with creditably? Women are 
 naturally more economical than we 3 and the money 
 now all laid out in dress to attract a husband, would 
 
234 
 
 THE FAIR AND UNFAIR SEXES. 
 
 1 
 
 , 1 
 
 i 
 
 then be applied to make him comfortable after they 
 had him. But so long as their earnings are so low, and 
 their means of employment so scanty, there is little 
 chance of much good being done in this way. Verily, 
 it is not fair. 
 
 There are really very few trades that women might 
 not follow, or at least take a part in j and yet, judg- 
 ing by what we see in the mercers' shops of London, 
 it seems to require the strength and address of a 
 man to measure out ribands or unrol pieces of stuif 
 to make a gown withal. In Amei ica generally, as I 
 have said, a great j arr of the tailoring is in female 
 hands. In New England, all or nearly all the cotton- 
 spinning in the factories is performed by women j 
 there too, in large printing establishments a great 
 portion of the printer's compositor branch is done by 
 them, and well done too. The correction of proofs 
 is considered the most difficult part of the divided 
 labour of printing ; and yet the most accomplished 
 corrector in Paris, is Madame Bertrand, wife of the 
 bookseller of that name, once Miss Schultze, of Poland 
 street ; while in London there is another lady, Mrs. 
 
 E , scarce inferior to her j and there may be many 
 
 others. But then it is to be observed of those fac- 
 tory women and corapositresses, that they cannot 
 leave the district where they have been taught, so 
 as to exercise their calling elsewhere ; besides being 
 mor_ closely bound by family ties than men, the 
 artisans of the fair sex would be subjected to the con- 
 tempt and ridicule, if not persecution, of mechanics of 
 the unfair sex ; thus are they put too much in the 
 
THIS IS THE AGE OF GOVERNESSES. 
 
 235 
 
 after they 
 ) low, and 
 re is little 
 r. Verily, 
 
 len might 
 yet, judg- 
 f London, 
 dress of a 
 ;es of stuff 
 rally, as I 
 in female 
 the cotton- 
 y women ; 
 ts a great 
 is done by 
 of proofs 
 e divided 
 omplished 
 ife of the 
 I, of Poland 
 ady, Mrs. 
 ly be many 
 Ithose fac- 
 ey cannot 
 ;aught, so 
 des being 
 men, the 
 lo the con- 
 hanics of 
 ch in the 
 
 power of employers, who, as a matter of course, will 
 take an unhandsome advantage of them. 
 
 Wars among mankind, and prostitution among 
 womankind, are the great plague- sores of society ; 
 unenlightened poverty is the nurse, if not the parent 
 of both. Personal independence and moral education 
 beget self-respect j and when this shall have been 
 properly called into action, neither sex will be found 
 so subservient to the purposes of carnal lust, or to 
 that of political aggression, as they have hitherto 
 been. In no cities of Europe are prostitutes more 
 numerous in proportion to the population, than in 
 New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore ; this fact 
 alone, convinced as I am of poverty being the great 
 originator of prostitution, would prove to me that 
 the supposed comfort and prosperity of the lower 
 orders of America is little better than a delusion. Miss 
 Sedgwick has said, that in the United States there 
 is but one alternative for poor females of the gentler 
 sort who have been delicately brought up — either to 
 keep a school or a boarding house -, and these occupa- 
 tions she describes as seldom realising more than 
 the wages of menial labour. Of boarding-houses, 
 we have in England too few to co unt for any thing 
 in the affair j but of schools, such as they are, we have 
 no lack. We have also shoals of half and quarter edu- 
 cated poor things calling themselves "governesses," 
 who are daily let loose upon society to an appaUing 
 and ever-increasing extent. Many thousands of 
 ambitious mothers of the " only productive" classes 
 
mmmf 
 
 236 LOW-PRICED TEACHING NOT ALWAYS CHEAPER. 
 
 it 
 
 now-a-days may be heard to utter such a dire threat 
 as the following : — 
 
 " I do intend, with God's good blessing, 
 To send my gals a governessing. " 
 
 Notwithstanding the schoolmaster is now said to be 
 abroad (abroad he certainly is, much more than at home) 
 the thick ignorance that prevails in even highly res- 
 pectable families is astonishing, when so many impos- 
 tors can be palmed upon them : pretending to teach 
 everything, most of them can in reality teach nothing. 
 I know of one myself, for instance, now resident in 
 the family of a professional gentleman, who has been 
 so badly grounded even in the humble science of 
 arithmetic, that when she buys a yard of ribbon for 
 herself she can never tell how much change she 
 ought to take. Once I heard her try to count the 
 monthly portions of her yearly salary, but it baffled 
 her completely, and she gave it up in despair j yet 
 several children are entirely dependent on this igno- 
 ramus for their instruction in that as well as other 
 ** branches," of which she is equally ignorant ! '* They 
 manage things better in France," in this respect as 
 in many others. The government there has created 
 competent boards for examination into the capabili- 
 ties of public and private teachers, both male and 
 female, which grant the indispensable diploma only 
 to the competent. But does the bargain-loving 
 English public deserve any better treatment than it 
 gets ? How can families ever expect a dozen diffe- 
 rent branches to be imparted to their children, of 
 
 I 
 
 
lEAFER. 
 
 ire threat 
 
 " EARS BORED HERE." 
 
 237 
 
 said to be 
 a at home) 
 ighly res- 
 ny impos- 
 y to teach 
 h nothing. 
 2sident in 
 ) has been 
 science of 
 ibbon for 
 lange she 
 count the 
 it baffled 
 Ipair J yet 
 this igno- 
 as other 
 ! "They 
 espect as 
 s created 
 capabili- 
 ale and 
 ma only 
 in-loving 
 it than it 
 ;en diflPe- 
 ildrettj of 
 
 which there are several that separately require a life- 
 time to learn properly j for all which they are only 
 to pay from thirty to forty pounds a year ? — a paltry 
 sum, and scarce so much as they give to a hard-handed 
 menial. Some folks find a conscience too dear to keep. 
 A recent writer on the subject, Madame Beraud 
 Riofrey, herself once a teacher, has shown that 
 governesses, capable of teaching the various branches 
 now demanded in modern education, must have laid 
 out from £800 to £1000 in their own instruction j and 
 that for such, £200 a-year would not be too great a 
 salary. Are girls, therefore, to remain uneducated ? 
 no, but even sheer unpretending ignorance is better 
 than a semblance of showy accomplishments. As 
 for music, it has been well observed — 
 
 *' No martyrology can furnish a thousandth part of 
 the victims that have been sacrificed to the forced music 
 mania of England. If we had the power to ascertain 
 by vote how many persons of the fashionable world are 
 bored by elaborate instrumental music and mechanical 
 singing, we should find thousands who would wish, with 
 Dr. Johnson, that it were not merely difficult, but quite 
 impossible. If pleasure is expected from merely instru- 
 mental music, unaccompanied by a genuine voice, the 
 end of so much expense and trouble is not attained -, 
 neither is drawing, without the power of original design, 
 worth any very heavy expense. A graceful mien, how- 
 ever, a richly stored mind, and the power of self-govern- 
 ment, are happy possessions, whose influence is far beyond 
 any mechanical skill of the hands. Let not then the 
 superficial things, which are so early laid aside, be pre- 
 ferred by parents in the choice ef a governess to the 
 precious attainments, which, when once they are im- 
 parted to her, last the pupil through life. Let them 
 
r, 
 
 V 
 
 it 
 
 *■ i 
 
 • 
 
 238 
 
 : ETTICOAT-RENOUNCING LADIES 
 
 listen to Madame Riofrey, and be convinced that these 
 e::cellences cannot be united with several professorships 
 of the arts in owe person, either in^the teacher or the 
 taught. She truly spys : — ' From the general view taken 
 of education, it would seem that we were born only for' 
 pleasure, that our path through this world was to be 
 strewed with roses, i\nd that twenty or thirty years of 
 our existence could pass, without any event occurring 
 that required the exertion of our judgment, or called for 
 any strength of mind or the assistance of religion.' " 
 
 It is painful to reflect, that from this class of 
 incapables — spoilt for housewives, yet unfit for 
 teachers, and quite unsuitable as companions — or, 
 lower still, from among young women in situations 
 of household servitude, the very best of our sex in 
 the middle classes, who may not have the means of 
 establishing themselves in business, are obliged to 
 select their wives, or go without. A cruel alternative ! 
 
 I know not whether I ought to set down itinerant 
 lecturing as one of the employments fairly falling 
 within the women's province ; but our notorious 
 countrywoman, Fanny Wright, has contrived to pi^k 
 up more money in that way than any half-dozen in- 
 dustrious tailoresses, so much her superiors in ge- 
 nuine respectability. After long lecturing against 
 marriage, after a most immoral fashion, she now lays 
 claim to be married herself, and bears the title 
 of Madame Darusmont. Who the man may have been 
 that had the courage and taste to couple himself to 
 such a grim ogress, I cannot imagine ; but it is 
 strange, and says little for " philosophic" consistency, 
 that Mrs. Woolstoncraft in England formerly, 
 Madame Dudevant (George Sand) in France, and 
 
IN COATS OF MALE. 
 
 239 
 
 that these 
 fessorships 
 her or the 
 view taken 
 rn only for 
 
 was to be 
 ty years of 
 
 occurring 
 r called for 
 ligion.* *' 
 
 3 class of 
 unfit for 
 nions — or, 
 situations 
 our sex in 
 ; means of 
 obliged to 
 ternative ! 
 itinerant 
 |rly falling 
 notorious 
 ed to pivk 
 [-dozen in- 
 |ors in ge- 
 g against 
 now lays 
 the title 
 Ihave been 
 imself to 
 but it is 
 sistency, 
 formerly, 
 nee, and 
 
 now the other woman (?) in America, all three bitter 
 railers against matrimony, have hi jn unable to live 
 without husbands. "Why, even the most back-sliding 
 believers in the religion which they have vilified, and 
 do so mortally abhor, could not have evinced so great 
 a discrepancy between precept and practice as 
 this. — I had the curiosity, when in Philadelphia, to 
 go and hear part of one of her lectures at the Military 
 Hall there. It was on " the rise and progress of 
 Liberty in America" — a subject of which, I could 
 plainly see, this venomous vixen knew as little as 
 I do of the administrative details of the twopenny 
 post-offices in Pekin. I heard her utter sundry blas- 
 phemies against the Federalists — Colonel Hamilton, 
 Mr. Jay, &c. — whom she accused of being the cor- 
 rupters of the mind of Washington, and the betray- 
 ers of their country for " English gold" (!), and pre- 
 dicted all sorts of calamities on the country and its 
 present rulers, for not carrying democratical princi- 
 ples far enough. Her lectures ultimately produced 
 so much excitement, that the city authorities got her 
 turned out of the hall — and this most despotically, 
 although properly ; thereupon she took to the fields : 
 a public row put an end to that. Fanny cried out 
 against oppression, and she was right, so far 3 but 
 alas ! " liberty- loving" men are often quite as incon- 
 sistent as marriage-hating women. 
 
 ■ *?-■■-" 
 
 -^> 
 
«40 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OP 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 ; n 
 
 rt i 
 
 GENERAL LEGISLATURE, GOVERNMENT, AND JUSTI- 
 CIARY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The General Legislature, or Congress, of the United 
 States, consists of two chambers, a Senate and House 
 of Representatives j and, constitutionally, must as- 
 semble* once a year, on the first Monday of De- 
 cember, when a message is delivered to them by the 
 President. 
 
 The Senate, or upper house, consists of forty- 
 eight members, chosen by the legislatures of the 
 several states, each sending two. They are ejected 
 for six years, one-third going out by rotation every 
 two years. The Vice-president of the United States 
 is president ex-oflficio of the Senate. He has no 
 vote, except when the numbers are equal. 
 
 The members of the house of representatives 
 arc elected by every state in the union, each sending 
 representatives in proportion to its population, at 
 the rate of one member for every 47,700 persons. 
 The suffrage in the electors may be considered as 
 universal. The members sent by each state re- 
 spectively are in the following proportions : — Maine, 
 8 ; New Hampshire, 5 ; Vermont, 5 ; Massachu- 
 setts, 12 ; Rhode Island, 2 j Connecticut, 6 ; New 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 241 
 
 SD JUSTI- 
 
 the United 
 and House 
 , must as- 
 ay of De- 
 em by the 
 
 of forty- 
 res of the 
 ire elected 
 
 ion every 
 ited States 
 le has no 
 
 ENTATIVES 
 
 ch sending 
 ulation, at 
 persons, 
 isidered as 
 state re- 
 : — Maine, 
 Massachu- 
 \, 6 J New 
 
 York, 40 ; New Jersey, 6 -, Pennsylvania, 28 ; Dela- 
 ware, I J Maryland, 8; Virginia, 21 ; North Caro- 
 lina, 13 ; South Carolina, 9 ; Georgia, 9 j Alabama, 
 5 ; Mississippi, 2 j Louisiana, 3 ; Tennessee, 13 j 
 Kentucky, 13 ; Ohio, 19 j Indiana, 7 j Illinois, 3 j 
 Missouri, 2. Total, 240. The territories of Florida, 
 Michigan, and Arkansas, sent, in 1835, each one 
 delegate to Congress, who had seats, but not votes. 
 
 The members of the Senate and House of Repre- 
 sentatives are paid 8 dollars per day (32s.), and are 
 allowed 8 dollars for every twenty miles' distance, as 
 travelling expenses, going and returniiig. The 
 speaker of the lower house has 16 dollars a day. 
 
 Each State is within itself a government, with its 
 particular laws, revenue, and expenditure. In the 
 finances of the United States, as a federal govern- 
 ment, the State revenues and expenses should not be 
 overlooked j for although not entered in tlie general 
 budget, they form equally a part of the general 
 public burden and expenditure. The different state 
 legislations have no share in the general elections to 
 the House of Representatives, but they have the right 
 to send a member each to Congress, who is entitled 
 to sit and to speak, but not to vote. 
 
 Elections to the House of Representatives take 
 place every two years. 
 
 The Senate. — No person can be a senator under 
 thirty years of age. It has the sole power of trying 
 all impeachments. Convictions require two-thirds 
 of members to concur. If a president be impeached, 
 the chief-justice to preside. — All bills for raising re- 
 
 i 
 
I. 
 
 242 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 
 
 ■ ! ! 
 
 venue F^hall originate in the House of Representa- 
 tives, Dut the Senate may propose or concur with 
 amendments as on other bills. 
 
 House of Representatives. — Every member must have 
 attained the age of twenty-five, and been seven years 
 resident in the United States. 
 
 Every bill which passes the two houses, before it 
 can become a law, must be presented to the Presi- 
 dent. If he approves, he signs it j if not, he returns 
 it with objections to the House wherein it origi- 
 nated, who thereupon reconsider it. If still ap- 
 proved of by two-thirds of each House, it neverthe- 
 less will become law. 
 
 The powers of Congress are, to levy taxes, re- 
 serving the rights of the State governments ; to 
 borrow money ; to regulate commerce ; to coin 
 money ; to establish post-offices, and post-roads ; to 
 constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court — 
 the latter being already established by act of the 
 original Constitution ; to declare war j and sup- 
 port armies and a navy, for two years only j to call 
 out the militia, &c. &c. 
 
 The President — is elected by a body of distinct 
 electors, qualified within each State. Each State 
 shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature 
 thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to 
 the whole number of senators and representatives 
 to which the State may be entitled in the Congress ; 
 they shall name in their ballots the persons voted 
 for as president and vice-president, and these they 
 are to transmit sealed to the seat of government. 
 
 1 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 '243 
 
 [)re8enta- 
 icur with 
 
 nust have 
 ven years 
 
 before it 
 the Presi- 
 le returns 
 i it origi- 
 • still ap- 
 
 neverthe- 
 
 taxes, re- 
 ments ; to 
 ; to coin 
 roads; to 
 ne court- — 
 act of the 
 and sup- 
 ily ; to call 
 
 of distinct 
 :ach State 
 I legislature 
 equal to 
 [esentatives 
 
 Congress ; 
 [sons voted 
 
 these they 
 loverninent, 
 
 directed to the president of the senate. These are 
 opened in presence of the two houses, and the 
 result is declared. 
 
 No one but a natural-born citizen can fill this 
 office. He must have attained the age of thirty- 
 five, and been fourteen years resident in the country. 
 He is commander-in-chief of every species of force. 
 He has power, by and with the concurrence of two- 
 thirds of the senators, to make treaties. With the 
 same concurrence he appoints ambassadors, public 
 ministers, consuls, judges of the supreme court, and 
 certain other officers. He has the power, on extra- 
 ordinary occasions, to convene the two houses ; and 
 in case of disagreement between them, with respect to 
 time of adjournment, may adjourn them at his own 
 discretion. Finally, he receives ambassadors, ikc; 
 in general watches over the execution of the laws, 
 and commissions all the officers of the United States. 
 In case of death, or other constitutional disability, 
 the Vice-president takes his place ad interim. The 
 President's salary is fixed at 25,000 dollars (5000^.) ; 
 that of the Vice-president 5000 (1000/.) 
 
 The Cabinet, or Privy Council, is composed of — 
 
 1. TheSecretary of State, vfhose functions combine those 
 of the Home and Foreign Departments in England. — 
 
 2. Secretary of the 2\easury. He superintends the fiscal 
 concerns of the government, and, upon his responsi- 
 bility, recommends to Congress measures for im- 
 proving the condition of the revenue, which is prin- 
 cipally made up of imports collected at v.ie custom- 
 houses on imported foreign goods, and moneys 
 
 r2 
 
244 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 arising from the sale of public lands. All public 
 accounts are finally settled at the Treasury depart- 
 ment.— 3. Secretary at War. The attributions of 
 this office are much the same as ours in England. — 
 4. Secretary of the Navy. Is assisted by a Board of 
 Naval Commissioners for the regulation and govern- 
 ment of the navy. The salary of all these officers is 
 the same — viz., 6,000 dollars, or 1,200/. 
 
 PosT-0» yiCE. — 5. The Postmaster- General has the 
 sole appointment of all the postmasters, the making 
 all contracts for mails, and the general direction of 
 his department. Salary, 6,000 dollars. 
 
 The Post-office revenue has been principally ex- 
 pended on improvements, by which means the regular 
 conveyance by mail, of letters, newspapers, pamph- 
 lets, and even closely printed works published in 
 parts (and dated), are conveyed to the remotest terri- 
 torial settlements at very low rates (the latter parti- 
 cularly). The following are the rates of postage for 
 Letters : 30 miles, 3d. ; 80, 5d. ; 150, 6|d. j 40O, 
 lOd. ; over that distance (say 2,000 miles or more) 
 1«. Newspapers : 100 miles^ ^d. ; over that, f (/. 
 Magazines and Pamphlets • For each sheet (sometimes 
 as large i?s a blanket), 100 miles, |d. ; beyond that, 
 l^d. 5 works not pretending to be periodicals, 100 
 miles, 2i. ; over that, 3d, — Franking is allowed to 
 members of Congress and government head-officers, 
 as in England. 
 
 The Postmaster-General stated, in a letter to a 
 committee of the Sen: . January 19, 1833, that it 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 245 
 
 11 public 
 r depart- 
 tions of 
 igland. — 
 Board of 
 1 govern- 
 officers is 
 
 ,1 has the 
 le making 
 rection of 
 
 ipally ex- 
 ;he regular 
 s, pamph- 
 blished in 
 )test terri- 
 tter parti- 
 ostage for 
 400, 
 or more) 
 that, ^tl. 
 sometimes 
 lyond that, 
 icals, 100 
 llowed to 
 d-officers. 
 
 lid. 
 
 letter to a 
 533, that it 
 
 was of daily occurrence that more than a ton weight 
 of newspapers was carried in one mail for hundreds 
 of miles together : since that time the mode of dating 
 books, printed in parts, to send them by mail every 
 where, has been found out j much to the increase of 
 printing, if not to the ease of the horses. Amount 
 of postage returned on newspapers for one year, 
 1831-2, came to about £60,000. 
 
 Seat of Government. — In the city of Washing- 
 ton, district of Columbia. The Congress has the same 
 particular powers there, as the legislature of each 
 State has within its own bounds. All the above 
 functionaries are there resident. 
 
 The Mint. — ^This establishment is seated in Phil- 
 adelphia. It is lawful for any person to carry gold 
 and silver to be coined at the Mint, where it is as- 
 sayed. If below standard purity, expense of refining 
 to be paid. The treasurer is not obliged to receive 
 a less quantity of gold than D.20, or 200 of silver. The 
 dies, both in design and execution, are miserably bad. 
 
 The coins are the eagle, or 10-dollar piece ; half 
 eagle, and quarter eagle; pieces of £2, £1, and \0s. 
 value. The silver dollar, or 45.-piece, is divisible into 
 ^,^, and 1- 10th portions. But payments of £ lor more 
 are generally paid in public or private bank paper. 
 There is likewise a good deal of old Spanish royal and 
 republican Mexican money in circulation J also 5-franc 
 French pieces. 100 cents, as the name implies, make 
 a dollar j and this decimal division of money much 
 simplifies commercial calculations. 
 
•246 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 i: I 
 
 M 
 
 Salary of 6. Secretary (director) 0/ Mint, 6000 dollars. 
 
 In 1835 one-dollar notes were everywhere in cir- 
 culation. Early in 1836, they were cried down in 
 the middle States, and no smaller taken in payment 
 than fives. At the time of the late panic caused by 
 stoppage of cash payments, the country was deluged 
 with paper, and specie for a time totally disappear- 
 ed. Sovereigns were sold for D.5,60 c. of the best 
 notes. Meantime vast numbers of houses, some with 
 capital but most without — yea even petty " stores" — 
 issued whole reams of notes j some of these were for 
 very small sums, many as low as 5 cents {^\d.) ; 
 they must have been something like the French 
 assignats, only having nothing to assign upon. It is 
 easy to imagine what plundering of the labouring 
 classes must have been going on all the while ; at a 
 time, too, when every kind of business was at a com- 
 parative stand-still. 
 
 Forgery is always carried on to a frightful extent 
 in America. One Bicknell, a money-changer in Phi- 
 ladelphia, issues a thick periodical pamphlet called 
 *' The Detector," that details the particular marks by 
 which counterfeit notes may be known j and, to such 
 an extent is forgery carried on, that it is necessary 
 to issue a new one every two months. Great talent 
 must be employed in this nefarious trade, for the 
 American paper is generally beautifully engraved, and 
 difficult to imitate. 
 
 JUDICIARY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Art. III. Sec. 1. of the Constitution. — '* The judicial 
 power shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in sv.ch 
 Inferior Courts as Congress may, from time to time, es- 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 247 
 
 DO dollars, 
 ere in cir- 
 . down in 
 i payment 
 caused by 
 IS deluged 
 disappear- 
 f the best 
 some with 
 ' stores" — 
 36 were for 
 its md.) J 
 he French 
 pon. It is 
 labouring 
 ^hile ; at a 
 s at a com- 
 
 tful extent 
 ger in Phi- 
 hlet called 
 r marks by 
 nd, to such 
 necessary 
 reat talent 
 ie, for the 
 rraved, and 
 
 The judicial 
 and in sv.ch 
 to time, es- 
 
 tablish. The judges both of the Supreme and Inferior 
 Courts shall hold their office during good behaviour. 
 Their salary to remain the same while in office." 
 
 Sec. 2. •' The judicial power shall extend to all cases, 
 in law and equity, arising under the Constitution and 
 laws, and extend to treaties made under their authority ; 
 to all cases affecting ambassadors, &c. ; to admiralty 
 and maritime jurisdiction j to controversies where the 
 United States shall be a party ; to controversies between 
 two or more States j between a State and its citizens 
 claiming lands, and between the different States and 
 foreigners. In all cases affecting ambassadors, &c., in 
 which any State shall be a party, the Supreme Court 
 shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before 
 mentioned appellate jurisdictioi., both as to law and to 
 fact, under regulation of Congress. The trial of all 
 crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury, 
 and such trial shall be held in the State where said 
 crimes have been committed ; but when not committed 
 in any State, then Congress to direct where trial shall 
 proceed." 
 
 Sec. 3. " Treason against the United States shall 
 consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering 
 to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No 
 person shall be convicted of treason except on the testi- 
 mony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on con- 
 fession in open court. The Congress shall have power 
 to declare the punishment of treason ; but no attainder 
 of treason shall work corruption of blood or foreiture, 
 except during the life of the person attainted." 
 
 Art. II. Sec. 4. '^ The President, Vice-President, and 
 all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed 
 from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, trea- 
 son, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors." 
 
 There have been constituted one Supreme Court, 
 thirty-one District Courts, and seven Circuit Courts. 
 
 1 
 
248 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 > il 
 
 l; h 
 
 The Supreme Court has one Chief Justice, and six 
 Associate Justices. Salary of the former, five thou- 
 sand dollars j of each of the latter, four thousand 
 five hundred. Attorney-General, four thousand. It 
 is held annually at Washington ; and each Justice 
 attends a Circuit, comprising two or more districts. 
 A justice of the Supreme Court, and the judge of the 
 district, preside in each Circuit Court. A District 
 Court is prezided in by the District Judge alone. 
 Appeals are allowed from the District to the Circuit 
 Courts in cases where the matter in dispute exceeds 
 fifty dollars in value 3 and from the Circuit Courts to 
 the Supreme Courts, when of 2,000 dollars value. 
 
 Each court has a clerk, a public attorney or pro- 
 secutor, and a marshal : all appointed by the Presi- 
 dent, except the clerks, who are named by the Court. 
 His appointings are made by and with the advice of 
 the Senate. 
 
 The judges are removable only on impeachment. 
 
 The trial of issues in fact, in the Supreme Court, 
 in all actions at law against American citizens, is by 
 jury. 
 
 A final judgment or decree in any suit in the 
 highest court of law or equity in a State, may be re- 
 examined and reversed, or afhrmed in the United 
 States Supreme Court. 
 
 Circuit Courts. — They have original cognizatice, 
 concurrently with the State Courts, of all suits of a 
 civil nature at common law or in equity, where the 
 thing litigated exceeds 500 dollars value. No suit 
 can be brought before Circuit or District Courts, 
 
 M. 
 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ^49 
 
 , and six 
 ive thou- 
 thousand 
 sand. It 
 h Justice 
 
 districts, 
 ige of the 
 \. District 
 Ige alone. 
 lc Circuit 
 :e exceeds 
 Courts to 
 s value. 
 !y or pro- 
 the Presi- 
 Ithe Court. 
 
 advice of 
 
 ichment. 
 le Court, 
 [ens, is by 
 
 it in the 
 ay be re- 
 le United 
 
 Ignizatice, 
 Isuits of a 
 rhere the 
 No suit 
 Courts, 
 
 against a citizen by original process, except in the dis- 
 trict wherein he may be found on serving the writ. 
 The Circuit Courts have appellate jurisdiction from 
 final decrees and judgments in District Courts for 
 any greater value than fifty dollars. They have also 
 jurisdiction of certain cases removeable into them, 
 before trial, from the State Courts. The trial of 
 issues in fact in the Circuit Courts in all suits, ex- 
 cept those of equity and of admiralty or maritime 
 jurisdiction, is by jury. 
 
 District Courts. — They have, exclusively of the 
 courts of the several states, cognizance of all crimes 
 and offences that are cognizable under the authority 
 of the United States, committed within their respec- 
 tive districts, or upon the high seas where no other 
 punishment than whipping not exceeding thirty 
 stripes, or a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, 
 or not more that six months' imprisonment, is inflict- 
 ed, also original exclusive cognizance of all civil 
 causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction over 
 small vessels and petty seizures. They have cog- 
 nizance, concurreatly with the courts of the seve- 
 ral states, or their <3ircuit courts, of all causes where 
 an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of 
 nations or a treaty of the United StaL?s. They are 
 also cognizant concurrently, as last mentioned, of all 
 suits at common law, where the United States sue 
 for 100 dollars value. Trial of issue in fact is by 
 jury J with exceptions as for Circuit Courts. 
 
 No judge of the United States is permitted to prac- 
 tise the law, either as counsel or attorney. 
 
 i 
 
•ss* 
 
 250 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 The salaries of the judges of the District Courts 
 range from lOOO to 3,500 dollars. 
 
 N.B. — The common law of England was adopted 
 by the Republic after the revolution ; and although 
 altered and modified by acts of congress, it may be 
 still considered as the text-book of the American 
 lawyer. No question, the indictment against the 
 Trades Unionists, mentioned at page 122, was found- 
 ed on the English common law, for American prac- 
 tice furnished no precedents. 
 
 ■ M 
 
 i 
 
 The State Governments. — Each has its sepa- 
 rate constitution, legislature, and justiciary. As at 
 the head of the general government is placed the 
 President, so every state has its Governor, invested 
 with powers somewhat similar. The differences be- 
 tween one state government and another, are not 
 very considerable. I propose to give that of New 
 York, the most populous, perhaps the leading, state 
 in the Union j it was founded in 1821. The constitu- 
 tion of Philadelphia assumed its present form in 
 1790 J it seems not to have given universal satisfac- 
 tion, however (see page 130), as a convention is now 
 sitting for the purpose of amending it. 
 
 Outlines of the Constitution of New York. — The Ex- 
 ecutive p?wer is in 3 Governor, elected every two years 
 by the people. i\t the same time a Lieutenant-governor 
 is also chosen, who is president ex-officio of the Senate ; 
 on whom, in case of the resignation, impeachment, death, 
 or absence of the governor from office, the power and 
 d'Jties of government devolve. 
 
rict Courts 
 
 ras adopted 
 id although 
 , it may be 
 e American 
 against the 
 , was found- 
 erican prac- 
 
 las its sepa- 
 iary. As at 
 5 placed the 
 lor, invested 
 fferences be- 
 ler, are not 
 :hat of New 
 eading, state 
 he constitu- 
 nt form in 
 sal satisfac- 
 tion is now 
 
 c— The Ex- 
 |ry two years 
 lant- govern or 
 the Senate j 
 timent, death, 
 [e power and 
 
 AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 251 
 
 The legislative power is vested in a Senate of thirty- 
 two members, chosen for four years, and an assembly of 
 one hundred and twenty-eight members, elected an- 
 nually. 
 
 For the election of the Senators, the State is divided 
 into eight districts, each being entitled to choose four 
 Senators, one of whom is elected every year. The 
 members of the Assembly are chosen by counties, and 
 apportioned according to population. 
 
 The legislature meets yearly at Albany, in January. 
 
 The constitution grants the right of suffrage, in the 
 election of public officers, to every white male citizen of 
 twenty-one years of age, who has been an inhabitant of 
 the State one year previous to each election. 
 
 The Chancellor and State judges are appointed by the 
 Governor with consent of the Senate. The Chancellor 
 and Justices of the Supreme and Circuit State Courts 
 hold their offices during good behaviour, or until sixty 
 years old. The Judges of the County Courts, or Courts 
 of Common Pleas, are appointed for five years only. 
 
 Of the Executive officers the Governor receives a sa- 
 lary of 4000 dollars ; Comptroller, 2500 ; Deputy- 
 Comptroller, 1,500 J Treasurer, 1,500 j Secretary of 
 State and Superintendant of Commonwealth Schools, 
 1,500 i Attorney- General, 1,000. The members of the 
 Senate and Assembly have each three dollars a day in 
 Session time. 
 
 Of the judicial functionaries, the Chancellor of the 
 Court of Chancery receives 2,000 dollars j Chief Justice 
 of the Supreme Court, and two associated Justices, each 
 2,000. 
 
 There are eight Circuit Courts, one ia each Senate 
 district, with eight judges; these have a salary of 1250 
 dollars each. 
 
 The materials of the foregoing abstract have been 
 all carefully drawn from authentic sources, and 
 
 ) 
 
1 
 
 \ 
 
 •t ];• 
 
 I ■' 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 ji 
 
 ! ' 
 
 i 
 
 V. in 
 
 ■I 
 
 i i 
 
 (J ' 1 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 1:1 
 1. 1 
 
 I • 
 
 1 n 
 
 I 
 
 252 
 
 COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF 
 
 though familiar to some, may be useful, for reference' 
 to many. 
 
 It will be seen that the President can refuse his 
 assent to a bill in certain cases ; and that if full two- 
 thirds of the houses do not insist on its becoming 
 law, his single opposition will be fatal to it. This did 
 take place a few years ago, on occasion of the renewal 
 of the United States Bank charter. The majority In 
 its favour was considerable, but it fell a trifle short 
 of the exigible two- thirds of the collective votes. 
 In flatly refusing his assent, the late President cer- 
 tainly stretched his prerogative to the utmost ; for 
 he had probably five-sixths of the property and intel- 
 ligence of the country arrayed against him. We 
 shall see whether his successor, who ceems to look 
 rather dwarfish in his unbuckled armour, will be able 
 like him to " go the whole hog. " Jackson also re- 
 moved the government deposites from the caie of 
 " the monster," and dispersed them among banks of 
 less account, said to be his pets, some of whom have 
 since failed. 
 
 If the salary of the President is sufficiently low, 
 his patronage nevertheless is immense ; as he has 
 many thousand offices at his disposal. It is probable 
 that he has more real power also than our Sovereign 
 and all her ministers put together. There is no doubt 
 that the continuance of the federal compact was put 
 in imminent jeopardy by President Jackson's obsti- 
 nacy — or patriotism, if you like. But had his 
 patriotism been of the purest water, would he have 
 hazarded an evil of such magnitude as the dissolution 
 
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 253 
 
 or reference 
 
 tt refuse his 
 t if full two. 
 ts becoming 
 it. This did 
 ■ the renewal 
 ; majority in 
 a trifle short 
 ective votes, 
 resident cer- 
 utmost ; for 
 rty and intel- 
 ;t him. We 
 ems to look 
 r, will be able 
 Lson also re- 
 the cave of 
 ong banks of 
 whom have 
 
 of the Union, for any inferior consideration what- 
 ever ? If his system fall to pieces in the less firm 
 hands of his successor and the " kitchen cabinet/' 
 the absurdity as well as danger of his wrong-headed 
 policy will be apparent to all the world. The tri- 
 umphs of mere brute masses, who were certainly on 
 his side in that affair, can never endure but for a very 
 brief season. 
 
 fciently low, 
 
 as he has 
 
 is probable 
 
 ^r Sovereign 
 
 is no doubt 
 
 [act was put 
 
 tson s obsti- 
 
 it had his 
 
 lid he have 
 
 dissolution 
 
 i 
 
i\( 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 *' CHEAP GOVERNMENT." 
 
 Three or four years ago, President Jackson, in 
 'lis annual Message, had occasion to detail the parti- 
 culars of an " equitable adjustment "he hid made 
 with the hapless reliques of the Indian tribes. In 
 this document the General grew quite philos )phical — 
 not to say philanthropic — on the superiorities of civi- 
 lisation. His countryman Franklin has said, the 
 great privilege of a civilised man is his rationality, 
 which enables him to justify what he has done or 
 has a mind to do, whether that may be justifiable or 
 not. Accordingly the General made out that the 
 conduct of the American government in that afifair 
 was quite a model of humanity and tender conside- 
 ration for the feelings of the red man. He stated, 
 that among other arrangements " new locations " 
 were assigned to them in the then far west -, to 
 which they had been removed at the government ex- 
 pense, to prevent " daily misunderstandings" (that 
 is, sanguinary quarrels) between them and the re- 
 moter settlers. Scarcely had these Indians, however, 
 quitted the forest lands and ** the graves of their 
 fathers, " with piteous regrets, than the current of 
 civilisation still rolling westward with unexpected 
 force, and the enterprising settlers finding them 
 
 t 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 255 
 
 Jackson, in 
 ail the parti- 
 e hid made 
 1 tribes. In 
 ilos )phical — 
 rities of civi- 
 as said, the 
 s rationality, 
 I has done or 
 justifiable or 
 out that the 
 in that affair 
 ider conside- 
 He stated, 
 V locations" 
 far west ; to 
 ernment ex- 
 dings" (that 
 and the re- 
 ins, however, 
 ves of their 
 |e current of 
 unexpected 
 nding them 
 
 much in their way, peremptorily bade them -till 
 ** move on. ' As they had made a solemn cc a; -ict 
 with the general government, and their chiefs .ad 
 been to Washington to arrange matters with their 
 ** great father, " they were in no hurry to obey the 
 order j and the consequence was, the encroachments 
 and violence of the colonists brought on a bar- 
 barous and desolating war, which, during the latter 
 part of my stay in America, h-^d extended its ravages 
 on a frontier line of full 200<i mV s' extent. Neither 
 of the contending parties r -re * . together to blame 
 for this cruel state of thi'" ^. . ^or both of them had 
 been imposed on : the faU i/cing, that the western 
 state governments, actii.^ r open contempt of all 
 decency and the arrangements of Congress, had st>ld 
 the reserved Indian grounds to unprincipled land- 
 jobbers, who in due course parcelled them out, at 
 temptingly low rates, to unconscious purchasers. 
 The aborigines of America, like those of England 
 fearing to be driven at last '* right slick " into 
 the sea by their invaders, determined to make 
 a stand. Their forbearance, however, was great j 
 some months of delay passed before the heads 
 of their tribes would allow them to act in concert 
 against the white faces. 
 
 In the meantime they sent to their ** great father '* 
 the general, who was naturally scandalized at the 
 Punic faith of the western states ; he remonstrated, 
 he waxed wroth, but all in vain. He knew, too 
 well, that he was at the head of a *' cheap govern- 
 ment," and that public safety was compromised, as 
 
I r 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 well as national honour ; for he had not, for many 
 months, a single soldier at his disposal, that he 
 could send to the menaced frontiers. Accordingly 
 the " Seminole war " broke out, with all its savage- 
 ries, its manifold slaughters and burnings. The 
 luckless settlers were taken quite by surprise, and 
 suffered accordingly. At last, seeing the govern- 
 ment not able to do any thing for them, and the 
 militia coming in but slowly from the contiguous 
 states, they had to quit their occupations altoge- 
 ther, the resolute to combine and defend themselves, 
 the timid to flee the country. 
 
 Now this question arises, — A government which 
 fails in its €rst duty, the protection of its subjects 
 from exterior or interior violence (of the latter here- 
 after), can it be too cheap? No j to use an expres* 
 sive vulgarism, it ought to be " dirt cheap." When 
 the publicists and politicians of the United States, at 
 the time of the French indemnity affair, were railing 
 at the bad faith of the Chambers, and the rashness 
 if not duplicity of Louis Philippe and his ministers, 
 in signing a treaty " without proper warrant," I 
 could not help thinking of the broken covenant with 
 the poor Indians. While on this subject, I may re- 
 mark by the way, that within a few weeks of the time I 
 write, the Americans have, by what they may think 
 an opportune accident, got rid of some hundreds of 
 these same troublesome Indians. They were em- 
 barked in an old crazy steam- boat, which had been 
 hired, at a cheap rate, to take them to some distant 
 part of the great western wilderness j and most of 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 257 
 
 ;, for many 
 il, that he 
 xcordingly 
 its savage- 
 
 ings. 
 
 The 
 
 rprise, and 
 he govern- 
 sm, and the 
 contiguous 
 ions altoge- 
 themselves, 
 
 ment which 
 its subjects 
 ; latter here- 
 e an expres* 
 ip." When 
 id States, at 
 were railing 
 ;he rashness 
 IS ministers, 
 arrant," I 
 Ivenant with 
 ;t,Imay re- 
 lofthetimel 
 may think 
 Lundreds of 
 were em- 
 ;h had been 
 Jome distant 
 nd most of 
 
 them were drowned. Had this noyade been brought 
 about by design (which of course it was not), instead 
 of resulting from a " conscientious economy " of go- 
 vernment money, it still would have been merciful, 
 compared with the protracted misery probably in 
 store for survivors. 
 
 This Seminole war, and the venturous menaces 
 of General Jackson against France, on the Indemnity 
 question, set the wiser heads of the nation a think- 
 ing on the defenceless state of the country. True, 
 the President presented his unloaded pistol to the 
 head of the reluctant party, not without effect ; but it 
 was a hazardous movement, and might have brought 
 on a war with a nation the best prepared for it of any 
 in the world. France had at that time nearly half a 
 million of soldiers a- foot, and a formidable marine 
 of 300 vessels of all sizes. The bulk of the na- 
 tion were happily ignorant of the danger their Pre- 
 sident's policy ran them into ; most of the people 
 of the States having the comfortably confident spirit 
 of the barbarous Falatah tribes of Africa, mentioned 
 by the Landers as having the opinion of themselves 
 that, " were it not for the salt water lying between, 
 they might conquer the whole world ! " Had the 
 French magnates not been more considerate than 
 the American President and his " kitchen cabinet," 
 and let them put their threats in execution, the in- 
 demnity exactors would soon have called out with 
 Sir Andrew Jgue-cheek, " Plague on't, an I had 
 known he had been so cunning of fence, I'd have 
 seen him damned an I'd have challenged him. Let hint 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 '.; t 
 
 [them] let the matter slip, and I'll give him [them] 
 my horse, grey Capilet [i.e. renounce the indem- 
 nity]." 
 
 The lucky result of these perilous bravadoes, no 
 doubt gave great grace to the President's retire- 
 ment. He is one of your men of a very ordinary 
 stamp — falling under the classification of those whom 
 Shakspcare describes as having " greatness thrust 
 upon them." It is said he laughed to scorn the first 
 mention of his being put in nomination for the pre- 
 sidency ; yet he filled the office two terras, and per- 
 haps might have been re-elected a second time had 
 he so willed it j but it is understood in America, 
 that it would be presumption in any one ever to 
 exceed the bounds that Washington prescribed for 
 himself. 
 
 In the late very small augmentation of the na- 
 tional force, the Congress has shewn its usual nig- 
 gard spirit of ill-judging economy. The Americans 
 are understood to have invincible prejudices against 
 a standing army. I should think the western settlers 
 must by this time be cured of such a prejudice, and 
 wish they were a little more taxed, and a great deal 
 better protected. The militia was long waited for, 
 and, when it was tried, found wanting : yet this 
 force has been always the great reliance of the 
 Americans. 
 
 Did they ever listen to the opinion of the saga- 
 cious Paley on this head ? I am tempted to give, 
 unabridged, his masterly exposition of the subject, 
 although the extract will be long : — 
 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 259 
 
 m [them] 
 e indem- 
 
 adocs, no 
 it's retire - 
 f ordinary 
 lose whom 
 less thrust 
 rn the first 
 3r the pre- 
 3, and per- 
 d time had 
 n America, 
 me ever to 
 scribed for 
 
 of the na- 
 usual nig- 
 Americans 
 ;es against 
 lern settlers 
 Ijudice, and 
 great deal 
 [waited for, 
 : yet this 
 ice of the 
 
 the saga- 
 
 ;d to give, 
 
 le subject. 
 
 ** The closeness, reguhirity, and quickness of move- 
 ments ; the unreserved, instantaneous, and almost me- 
 chanical obedience to orders ; the sense of personal 
 honour, and the familiarity with danger, which belong 
 to a disciplined, veteran, and embodied soldiery, give 
 such firmness and intrepidity to their approach, such 
 weight and execution to their attack, as are not to be 
 withstood by loose ranks of occasional and newly- 
 levied troops, who are liable by their inexperience to 
 disorder and confusion, and in whom fear is constantly 
 augmented by novelty and surprise. It is possible that 
 a militia, with a great excess of numbers, and a ready 
 supply of recruits^, may sustain a defensive jr a flying 
 war against regular troops ; it is also true that any ser- 
 vice, which keeps soldiers for a while together, and 
 inures them by little and little to the habits of war and 
 the dangers of action, transforms them in effect into a 
 standing army. But upon this plan it may be neces- 
 sary for almost a whole nation to go out to war to repel 
 an invader ; beside that a people so unprepared must 
 always have the seat, and with it the miseries, of war, 
 at home, being utterly incapable of carrying their oper- 
 ations into a foreign country. 
 
 ** From the acknowledged superiority of standing 
 armies, it follows, not only that it is unsafe for a nation 
 to disband its regular trooj)s, whilst neighbouring king- 
 doms retain theirs ; but also that regular troops provide 
 for the public service at the least possible expense. I 
 suppose a certain quantity of military strength to be 
 necessary, and I say that a standing army costs the 
 community less than any other establishment which 
 presents to an enemy the same force. The constant 
 drudgery of low employments is not only incompatible 
 with any great degree of perfection or expertness in 
 the profession of a soldier, but the profession of a 
 soldier almost always unfits men for the business of re- 
 gular occupations. Of three inhalitants of a village, 
 it is better that one should addict himscli entirely tu 
 
 s 2 
 
' ^ 
 
 (^ 
 
 7f' 
 
 .t; ' 
 
 H 
 
 260 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 
 i I 
 
 i < 
 
 if 
 
 * '. 
 
 i 
 
 \ 
 
 t > 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 J 
 
 
 arms, and the other two stay constantly at home to 
 cultivate the ground, than that all the three should mix 
 the avocations of a camp with the business of hus- 
 bandry. By the former arrangement, the country gains 
 one complete soldier, and two industrious husbandmen j 
 from the latter it receives three raw militiamen, who 
 are at the same time three idle and profligate peasants. 
 It should be considered also, that the emergencies of 
 ■war wait rot for seasons. Where there is no standing 
 army ready for immediate service, it may be necessary 
 to call the reaper from the fields in harvest, or the 
 ploughman in seed-time j and the provision of a whole 
 year may perish by the interruption of one month's 
 labour. A standing army, therefore, is not only a more 
 effectual, but a cheaper, method of providing for the 
 public safety, than any other, because it adds more than 
 any other to the common strength, and takes less from 
 that which composes the wealth of a nation, — its stock 
 of productive industry." 
 
 I have mentioned in another place the small amount 
 of the United States regular force, scarce so numerous 
 as our three battalions of Guards, and most of it 
 scattered in petty garrisons j yet a handful of them 
 the other day, under a General Scott (who figured in 
 the Seminole war), countenanced the rather boastful 
 *' flare-up " of the American militia at Navy Island, 
 where they were not at all wanted, in the lat ana- 
 dian affair — that *' tempest in a tea pot," as Edward 
 first Lord Thurlow would have called it. 
 
 Thus much for the external efficiency of " cheap 
 government." Let us see something of its internal ope- 
 ration. And first, let us ask the question, have they 
 provided for contingencies that may arise among 
 themselves, on the fierce agitation of any public riutsiio 
 
t home to 
 ihould mix 
 3s of hus- 
 intry gains 
 bandraen 5 
 amen, who 
 e peasants, 
 rgencies of 
 o standing 
 > necessary 
 est, or the 
 of a whole 
 ne month's 
 only a more 
 ing for the 
 s more than 
 es less from 
 , — its stock 
 
 lall amount 
 numerous 
 most of it 
 l1 of them 
 |o figured in 
 er boastful 
 |avy Island, 
 lat ana- 
 as Edward 
 
 of " cheap 
 iternal ope- 
 i, have they 
 :ise among 
 iblic questio 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ^61 
 
 vexata 9 Their motto of " E pluribus unum," might in 
 a single day need changing to '* Ex uno plures," by 
 a facile slip of the loose knot that binds them — ^just 
 as easily as a small derangement of letters changes 
 '' Umied States" into " Untied States." The interests 
 of the northern and southern states are ever clashing; 
 the spirit of " nullification" is not dead, it hardly 
 sleeps ; and public opinion is divided on that black 
 business of slavery, whose " blessings" they will soon 
 be the only civilised nation to enjoy. The French, 
 as we see, have the grace to be ashamed of their share 
 in it ', and had they recently allowed themselves to 
 be provoked into a war, it is probable that in any 
 invasion of America they would have proclaimed a 
 universal emancipation of the negroes — with what 
 dire results to their masters it is not difficult to 
 imagine. 
 
 It is to be kept in view, that one cause of the cheap- 
 ness of government in America is its having had 
 English foundations to build upon. Law and divi- 
 nity are imported ready-made, as well as literature, 
 If they have no regular establishment, or university 
 foundations, they profit by all that we have done ; and 
 the advocates of *' the voluntary system" may net draw 
 too sweeping conclusions in its favour from a state of 
 things existing in a country so peciiliarly situated as 
 America. 
 
 If it be an incontrovertible proposition that secu- 
 rity of person and respect for property have alone 
 ameliorated the condition of civilised man, and must 
 no less be the basis of all further improvement, then 
 
 I I 
 
 1: 
 
 SI 
 
 m 
 
26«2 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 <■ i1 
 
 will the Americans find it indispensable, at no distant 
 hour, to increase, to a considerable extent, a mi- 
 litary establishment which has been found as ineffi- 
 cient to repress internal disorder as external aggres- 
 sions. It has been well said, that " opinion, even 
 where a material force exists to back it, is the soul 
 of civilisatioii and order -j how much more so, where, 
 as in the United States, it stands alone, the guardian 
 as well as the creator of the laws. Break down 
 the ideal majesty of that opinion, and the only choice 
 left is between anarchy and the bayonet." The 
 " sack of Baltimore," mentioned at page 133 ; the 
 dangerous Philadelphian riots, detailed at page 178 j 
 the horrors narrated at page 180 , and lastly, the un- 
 restrained plunder at the great conflagration of New- 
 York — these, with many other excesses, all shr>w 
 what ** American citizens" can do ; for what may yet 
 be done, a slight perusal of the melancholy expo- 
 sition of the American reviewer (above cited) will 
 plainly show. Let Congress pat it oif as long as they 
 may — further delays will only be prejudicial to their 
 country — a powerful standing force must be had re- 
 course to. *' To this complexion it must come at 
 last." 
 
 With respect to the last of the three above cited 
 instances of lawlessness — the fire at New York — did 
 not more urgent matters press upon me, I should 
 enter into some details. Let it suffice to say, that 
 when the suffering merchants of that city had suc- 
 ceeded in rescuing great quantities of valuable goods 
 from their burning warehouses, the " sovereign peo- 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 263 
 
 no distant 
 ent, a mi- 
 d as ineffi- 
 lal aggres- 
 nion, even 
 is the soul 
 ; so, where, 
 le guardian 
 ireak down 
 only choice 
 net." The 
 e 133; the 
 t page 178 j 
 itly, the un- 
 tion of New 
 Is, all show 
 lat may yet 
 holy expo- 
 cited) will 
 ong as they 
 cial to their 
 be hadre- 
 ist come at 
 
 ibove cited 
 York — did 
 I should 
 o say, that 
 ty had suc- 
 aable goods 
 ereign peo- 
 
 e, 
 
 pie" of the city came down in crowds, not to assist 
 in arresting the conflagration, but to help themselves 
 liberally from the rich piles of fine cloths, silks, satins, 
 velvets, shawls, &c. &c. Numbers of the country 
 people, too, joined in the plunder, and carried off, 
 openly, wlioLe boat-loads of valuable booty. 
 
 Places in the American judiciary are by no means 
 coveted : they are every day becoming, among the 
 members of the legal profession, a mockery and a 
 by- word. They are rapidly sinking into what a writer 
 in a new periodical of merit, the Law Magazine, calls 
 " a conclave of dowager Serjeants." We have it, on 
 the authority of Mr. Wharton of Philadelphia, one of 
 the most accomplished lawyers in America, that if 
 the people are pleased with the present ** economical" 
 arrangement, the profession by no means is j he says 
 '•^ the commonwealth" is, as it deserves to be, the 
 worst-served client in the United States. Let us look 
 at the salaries of the judges, in a country of daily in- 
 creasing luxury, where fortunes are lost and won so 
 rapidly, where nothing but wealth is respectable, and 
 ask whether the bench is always likely to remain as 
 incorrupt as it is now said to be. I wish not to 
 insinuate any thing agairist the present judges; 
 no doubt there are some now, as there have been 
 many heretofore, who, like Judge Marshall, have lost 
 sight of self altogether for the public Ijiiipfit ; but 
 ought such virtue and magnanimity betrusti-d to, soas 
 safely to found a general rule thereupon ? Htill further 
 to destroy the respectability and independence of the 
 
 II 
 
 i I 
 
 m 
 
w 
 
 264 
 
 CHEAP GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ,! 
 
 judges, numbers of the democratic party are bent on 
 making their situations annually elective by the 
 people ! as if the blind party-ridden and newspaper- 
 influenced mob were the best appreciators of legal ca- 
 pabilities ; and as if there were not enow of elections 
 already to keep the public mind in an nnintermittent 
 fever, and plunge so many otherwise respectable minds 
 in all the debasements of degrading intrigue. In the 
 present Convention of Philadelphia, violent attempts 
 will no doubt be made by " the majesty of the people " 
 to change the safe dum bene se gesserit into the 
 hazardous dum populo placet. But let the real friends 
 of Peiin'-ylvanian liberty atu, .jrder frustrate these 
 politics. 
 
 The small salaries rf diilf iont petty legal function- 
 aries make them greedy of v f^ty fees ; and I was told 
 of a good deal of foul y}.--. *' oi« Dccnsion of emigrants' 
 deaths, when no i3l.?.tions or intimate friends were 
 preserit to look after their efFectiL. The " authori- 
 ties " m sues' cases — that is, the subordinate law- 
 officei t; - i,aLe possession in name of the heirs, but 
 they are in no hurry at all times to render an account. 
 This occurred in the case of a cousin of my own, 
 who died at New Orleans, a few years ago, possessed 
 of some thousand pounds' worth of property, which 
 were reduced to about as many hundreds in official 
 hands before the family got a settlement. In cases 
 of violent deaths, too, the investigations of the coro- 
 ners are often tardy and ineffective -, nor is it to be 
 wondered at when that important officer's small pay 
 is considered. 
 
 
CHEAP GOVERNMENT 
 
 ^65 
 
 ire bent on 
 ive by the 
 newspaper- 
 of legal ca- 
 3f elections 
 ntermittent 
 table minds 
 ue. In the 
 it attempts 
 the people '* 
 '•it into the 
 real friends 
 strate these 
 
 ;al function- 
 
 d I was told 
 
 ' emigrants' 
 
 riends were 
 
 e " authori- 
 
 dinate law- 
 
 e heirs, but 
 
 an account. 
 
 )f my own, 
 
 0, possessed 
 
 >erty, which 
 
 Is in official 
 
 In cases 
 
 of the coro- 
 
 is it to be 
 
 s small pay 
 
 The question of the vote by ballot has been much 
 agitated among ourselves lately. I am convinced, 
 from all I saw and heard of its operation in the 
 States, that the absolute secrecy, so much desired 
 by some, is not by any means so well attained there 
 by that system as its English advocates do so confi- 
 dently give out. In the first place, the avenues to 
 the voting-places, on occasions of political elections, 
 are, as I have already intimated at page 171, beset 
 with crowds of importunate and "sharp" (i. e. un- 
 scrupulously intriguing) agents of the sev :ral aspi- 
 rants. These have their hands full of candidates" 
 lists, which they do their best to press upon 
 all comers. The names are printed at the top of 
 narrow slips of paper about the length of this page, 
 with a facility of turning the names round hidmgjy 
 under the blank paper, so as to hold them m a pecu- 
 liar manner between the fingers and thumb. There 
 is sometimes, on important occasions, a deal of tu>i- 
 ning enginery put in motion, bent on t -^i/lmg all 
 prudent endeavours at concealment. Of tb';« I was 
 assured by a countryman of own in PhiladcVolia, 
 who has resided nearly tli .ty years and realisjcd 
 some property there. Livint' in the popubms suburb 
 of Southwark, where most of the inhabitants are of 
 a low, and consequently crcely Jacksonian or de- 
 mocratic, cast, he told me he was *' almost bothered 
 out of his wits " by the prying scrutinies of his 
 neighbours, whose distrust of his politics, which 
 were secretly Whiggish if not Tory (meaning thereby 
 Conservative), showed itself >s distrust is ever the 
 
 \\ 
 
 i \f 
 
 III 
 
 PI 
 
I; 
 
 7**« 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
 '266 
 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 
 parent of gnawing hatred) in all sorts of unneigh- 
 bourly acts and petty persecution. In levying rates 
 on his property for instance — which is, or ought 
 to be, done ad valorem — the '* select men," who are 
 invested with that discretionary power, had much 
 more regard to the principle of ad meritum. lo 
 express freely his opinions in his own neighbour- 
 hood on civic or political matters, was, he affirmed, 
 entirely out of the question, — that is, with any hope 
 of even a moderate share of personal quiet or safety j 
 and he said there were not two individuals in the 
 whole city, exclusive of myself, to whom he durst 
 communicate unreservedly his sentiments on public 
 affairs. Thu? H is that the intolerance of a tyrannical 
 majority, like the air we breathe, surrounds us every- 
 where. 
 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN 
 
 NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 The branch of public rule which has been in our 
 country called *' the fourth estate," may naturally 
 form a section of the subject matter of this letter. 
 Washington Irving, in his Salmagundi, has drawn 
 the portraits of the '* slang-whangers" of his youth- 
 ful times ; let us hear what a more recent American 
 writer says of them : — 
 
 " These dangerous spirits, the factious, the designing 
 and the dark, incessantly apply stimulants to a disease 
 which requires a mild and soothing treatment. Like 
 unfaithful menials, they conjure up imaginary ghosts to 
 frighten unquiet children. They abuse terms, they 
 
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 267 
 
 ■ iinneigli- 
 ying- rates 
 or ought 
 who are 
 had much 
 ntum. 1.0 
 leighbour- 
 e affirmed, 
 1 any hope 
 or safety j 
 lals in the 
 I he durst 
 on pubHc 
 tyrannical 
 s us every- 
 
 IRICAN 
 
 3en m our 
 naturally 
 
 his letter. 
 
 las drawn 
 
 his youth- 
 American 
 
 3 designing 
 ;o a disease 
 ent. Like 
 
 ^ ghosts to 
 srms, they 
 
 pervert history, they dress up the effigies of old names, 
 they decry knowledge and art, and pander to bad and 
 unwholesome influences. They place the passions be- 
 tween the light of the laws and the public tranquillity. 
 They are agitators by trade , men who live upon denun- 
 ciation and falsehood ; and who might style themselves, 
 in the fever of revolution, like Camille Desmoulins, 
 attorneys-general of the lamp-post. The worst enemies 
 of popular rights are the professional trumpeters of po- 
 pular privileges. In a government of laws there can be 
 no privileges, save such as tbose laws confer, and they 
 in receiving legal sanction become rights. Neither have 
 our people reserved any power ; they have merged it in 
 the laws — they have even prescribed the very method 
 whereby it should be resumed if necessary. Power re- 
 sides in the representatives of authority 
 
 Rewards of public service too — honest and honourable 
 service — ought to lie el ■''where than in a man's own 
 bosom. A good conscknc'e is a good defence, but the 
 state is not to be thanked for it ; that brazen wall is not 
 built at the public charge. We may talk of living down 
 calumny, but who wants such a foul fiend dogging bis 
 heel through the whole summer of his existence ? The 
 statesman, who in a past age went from the cabinet to 
 the scaffold, at least walked through a court of justice 
 on his way, and the next generation raised a monument 
 to his memory — happier in that than he who, in our 
 times, meets no responsible accuser, and awaits not even 
 tardy and posthumous renown." — North American Re-' 
 view. 
 
 In England, when a man has failed in every thing 
 he may have attempted, it is said there are still two 
 resources left him — to become a coal-merchant, or set 
 up a boarding-school. In America such a one would 
 become the editor of a newspaper; for newspaper 
 writing is a trade that needs no apprenticeship. If 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
568 
 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 
 ui 
 
 American newspaper discussion and information were 
 to be taken as a fair sample of the general mind of 
 that nation, then must a foreigner set it down at 
 a low point indeed. And yet the many-headed multi- 
 tude, having few or no ideas of their own, are entirely 
 dependent on those they find ready-made in these 
 unsafe and poorly-informed guides, the " one-eyed 
 leaders of the blind." We need hardly wonder, how- 
 ever, that they are admired in their own country, 
 when we find so many English newspaper compilers 
 eagerly copying their numerous facetise, and mis- 
 taking their small-beer wit for sparkling champagne. 
 Of their virulent politics, I say little ; uninteresting 
 they are to all strangers who do not know them, and 
 truly sickening to those who do. Whatever may be 
 their virulence, it is yet exceeded by their venality j 
 ** golden opinions" of editors, in politics, literature, 
 or any other matter whatever, are unblushingly let 
 out on hire. Their double employment is to daub 
 with bought praise, or to besprinkle with unpur- 
 chased filth. In the former function, they do for 
 lucre what our obliging provincial newspapers do for 
 love -J namely, become puffing-machines for dull 
 books, as soon as their publishers have struck the 
 key-note of praise, sounded by the metropolitan 
 journals '' for a consideration." 
 
 I think it was Paley who wondered how human 
 beings got topics of discussion, or passed their time, 
 before the invention of newspapers. To tens of 
 thousands among us, who are fond of " domestic in- 
 telligence," those who pore with so much interest 
 
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 ycy 
 
 ition were 
 1 mind of 
 
 down at 
 led multi- 
 pe entirely 
 
 in these 
 
 one-eyed 
 ider.how- 
 1 country, 
 compilers 
 
 and mis- 
 lampagne. 
 nteresting 
 them, and 
 er may be 
 
 venality j 
 literature, 
 
 hingly let 
 to daub 
 
 ti unpur- 
 
 ey do for 
 •ers do for 
 for dull 
 
 truck the 
 
 tropolitan 
 
 w human 
 ;heir time, 
 o tens of 
 mestic in- 
 h interest 
 
 over details of murders, robberies, fires, floods, and 
 other melancholy accidents — these things seem indis- 
 pensable as their bodily nutriment : insomuch that 
 they might add to their prayers for needful bread, 
 " Give us this day our daily disasters." In the 
 public mind there is almost always a chasm of un- 
 gratificd curiosity j and when some Thurtell or 
 Greenacre or Robinson leaps into this yawning gulf, 
 like another Curtius (that is, commits an enormous 
 crime), he may be considered in some sense a be- 
 nefactor to his country. Immediately we have the 
 dish of horrors served up in all the successive forms 
 of the first " awful" details of the deed ; the arrest — 
 examinations — committals — trials — sentence, and 
 execution. The murder committed by Thurtell and 
 his accomplices was the making of at least one of 
 our popular weekly prints. Not to mention how that 
 crime opened (and also filled) the mouths of vast 
 numbers of industrious speech-criers,ballad-mongers, 
 &c. I remember, and cannot help quoting, a few lines 
 of one of the latter " occasional pieces :" — 
 
 " His throat was cut from ear to ear. 
 His skull was beaten in j 
 His name was Mr. William Weare, 
 ^ And he dwelt in Lyon's Inn." 
 
 The Rev. Timothy Flint, the American author of 
 several articles on his country's literature in the 
 AthencEian, speaking of the tortures inflicted by the 
 Indians on their prisoners, says, that the sufiferings of 
 the patient are not so great, especially if he be of a 
 high spirit, as we may be led to suppose. These 
 
 •\ 
 
K^ 
 
 570 
 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 i' * 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 barbarians, besides having a less sensitive fibre than 
 we,, are stubborn to endure as well as stern to in- 
 flict J and perhaps, (upon the utilitarian principle of 
 securing " the most happiness to the greater num- 
 ber," without any regard to individual wrong,) in a 
 state of things where other spectacles are not, the 
 amount of pleasure derived by the spectators at 
 these torturing exhibitions may far exceed the pain 
 endured by the sufferers ; who may thus console 
 themselves with the reflection, so kindly tendered 
 by Paley to those who get wrongfully hanged on 
 suspicion, that *' they still die by a just law, and are 
 really martyrs for the public good." 
 
 But the great duty of most American newspapers, 
 as of a considerable portion of our own, is to keep 
 the public mind in a continual fret, by showing forth 
 real or pretended violations of popular rights. They 
 will never allow the lower classes to be a moment 
 easy at their work ; which is besides incessantly in- 
 terrupted, not, as in some older countries, by whole- 
 some holiday-making, but by ever-recurring elec- 
 tions ; and let the vacant offices be of ever so insig- 
 nificant a kind, the occasion is treated as one of the 
 greatest moment, and involving " the dearest inte- 
 rests of the republic." I was sometimes tempted to 
 tell some of the " operative " voters who made all this 
 mighty stir, what Byron said about there being but 
 one kind of domination after all j that of those who 
 had money over those who had none. — Perhaps the 
 French were, upon the whole, a more happy people 
 under their old despotic government than they have 
 
 ?^ 
 
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 ^in 
 
 ibre than 
 rn to in- 
 inciple of 
 ter num- 
 ong,) in a 
 ; not, the 
 itators at 
 [ the pain 
 s console 
 tendered 
 anged on 
 Vf and are 
 
 ;\vspapers, 
 s to keep 
 ving forth 
 hts. They 
 moment 
 santly in • 
 3y whole- 
 ring elec- 
 so insig- 
 me of the 
 irest inte- 
 empted to 
 de all this 
 Deing but 
 those who 
 rhaps the 
 py people 
 they have 
 
 ever been since. As I remarked the successive out- 
 bursts of their reasonless turbulence in Paris, and 
 their determined indisposition to be pleased with 
 anything the government they themselves set up 
 could do, I often called to mind the lines of Aaron 
 Hill : — 
 
 " Gently seize a stinging nettle, 
 
 And 'twill prick you for your pains ; 
 But seize it like a man of mettle. 
 
 Soft as velvet it remains : 
 'Tis just so with common natures — 
 
 Use them gently, they rebel ; 
 But rub them hard as nutmeg graters, 
 
 Then the rogues obey you well ! " 
 
 The American newspapers are often ludicrously 
 inexact in statements and details of European mat- 
 ters ; yet the generality of their readers pin their 
 faith uudou btingly on what they put out in this way, 
 and will scarce ever allow you to set them right, or 
 hesitate a doubt of editorial infallibility. An amus- 
 ing instance of this occurred to myself at the dining 
 table of a boarding-house in Philadelphia, where 
 there were at least a dozen young gentlemen of good 
 families — medical students at the college there. 
 A discussion arose on the amount of the English na- 
 tional debt, " its history and mystery," on which 
 subject their papers had made some absurdly false 
 assertions and remarks. Being from " the old coun- 
 try," I thought my information might pass for some- 
 thing on the occasion, but it did not. The very idea 
 of any one pretending to know better than a favourite 
 editor, seemed to be a kind of crime in their eyes. 
 

 ^.V^. 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 
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 ISO 
 
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 m 
 
 lU 
 
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 |25 
 ■ 2.2 
 
 140 
 
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 U 11.6 
 
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 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 33 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. MSSO 
 
 (716) 872-4S03 
 
o 
 
 ^^A 
 V 
 
 w 
 
272 
 
 CHAPwACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 
 n fl 
 
 As those who are too confident are generally the 
 most easily mystified, I took a harmless revenge for 
 their want of urbanity, by assuring them, as soon as 
 the conversation ran strongly on money speculations 
 railroad shares, bank stock, &c. that, on the assassi- 
 nation of Julius Caesar in the Senate-house at Rome, 
 the public funds there sank full 40 per cent. ; and 
 that the more knowing senators ran in crowds to the 
 Forum to sell out. No one seemed to doubt that. 
 As for their political discourse, their ignorance of 
 first principles in their own affairs is intense 5 num- 
 bers of them will tell you such and such men act 
 contrary to "the constitution ;" this and that mea- 
 sure are inimical to it j but ask them to explain to 
 you what the constitution really is, and not one in 
 twenty of them can tell : this I have put to the proof 
 again and again. Take from them their party terms, 
 and their jargon about Jacksonism, Van Burenism, 
 &c. and they are struck dumb. This comes of being 
 too dependent on shallow and frothy newspapers. — 
 Yet would it be going too far to say, that the Ame- 
 ricans are in general an ignorant people. Such a 
 measure of knowledge as has been dealt out to them 
 is pretty generally diffused j and as in times of scar- 
 city in a beleaguered city, if none can be said to have 
 a bellyful, yet all have a mouthful. (A saying once 
 applied, by Dr. Johnson, to Scotch university educa- 
 tion.) 
 
 One cause of the literary inferiority and venality 
 of the American newspapers, is their being by far too 
 numerous. I was assured that the average circula- 
 
AMERICAN NEIVSPAPERS. 
 
 «73 
 
 lerally the 
 jvenge for 
 as soon as 
 eculationSj 
 he assassi- 
 e at Rome, 
 :ent. ; and 
 iwds to the 
 loubt that. 
 norance of 
 ase J num- 
 h men act 
 i that mea- 
 explain io 
 not one in 
 bo the proof 
 larty terms, 
 L Burenism* 
 les of being 
 vspapers. — 
 it the Ame- 
 e. Such a 
 ut to them 
 les of scar- 
 aid to have 
 aying once 
 rsity educa- 
 
 ftd venality 
 by far too 
 age circular 
 
 lion of six daily papers in Philadelphia did not ex- 
 ceed 500 copies. The price of an advertisement six- 
 teen lines long, is only one dollar for every three in- 
 sertions. But besides the avowed advertisements, 
 they insert a great many puffing articles, apparently 
 got up for the amusement of the miwary reader ; 
 such as long descriptions of the unrivalled romantic 
 scenery about '* Benson's Bluffs, " or some such 
 place, written by a hireling of the tavern-keepers 
 thereabouts, from whose houses he dates his letters, 
 interlarding them with praises of the liquors and ac- 
 commodations. I knew of one myself, who was sent 
 for this purpose to Cape May, at the mouth of the 
 Delaware, a favourite sea-bathing resort of the Phi- 
 ladelphians. 
 
 Advertising being so cheap, some of them are very 
 familiar, and not unamusing. Neighbours will some- 
 times carry on a long war with one another in rival 
 journals. As for instance : " An ill-favoured person, 
 calling himself Zedekiah Dickson, did, on 8th inst., 
 order a pair of boots, cash price, at my store, whicii 
 are still unpaid," &c. Or thus: "Whereas that abomi- 
 nable strumpet my wife, and her no less wicked jade 
 of a mother, did," &c. The latter pithy words fo imed 
 the preamble of an advertisement in the last paper 
 I bought, published the morning of my departure. 
 
 Newspaper editors are often public orators also ; 
 but speech-making is really a kind of prevailing ma- 
 nia among all classes in America. The great field-day 
 of all the public orators is the anniversary of their de- 
 claration of independence. All the rival parties get up 
 
274 
 
 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 
 grand public dinners in halls and the theatres, where 
 toasts are spun out half a column long -, then come 
 speeches, of a merciless length. There is a saint in 
 the French calendar called St. Babillard : I forget what 
 day his festival falls on — it may be the 4th of July. 
 
 General Washington, although a prosy old gentle- 
 man himself, made a special clause in his will, that 
 "no orations" were to be pronounced over his body j 
 almost talked to death in his life time, he wished to 
 lie quietly in his grave. He was certainly popular ; 
 one cause of his being so great a favourite with the 
 
 Americans, W r once sneeringly said to me, was 
 
 because he served all his offices for nothing. 
 
 I am not prepared to say, that to the all but uni- 
 versal dead level of information and acquiremente;, 
 above mentioned, there are no exceptions at all. In 
 Boston, besides Dr. Channing, who has a European 
 reputation, there are not a few superior men. At 
 New York or in its neighbourhood, lives Washington 
 Irving 3 who in an unlucky hour pledged himself to 
 his countrj'men that he would '* never leave them." In 
 Philadelphia, too, there are a dozen or more of the 
 higher order of writers and thinkers. Of this little 
 band are, a Mr. Walsh, author of diflFerent works ; 
 Lieutenant Sliddell, a spirited young officer and 
 clever writer, author of some volumes of Travels in 
 Spain and England, under the anonyme of " A 
 Young American 3" Mr. Wharton, an accomplished 
 lawyer, and some of his coadjutors in the Review, 
 with a few others. America may boast of several 
 clever women too 3 as Miss Sedgwick^ Miss Leslie, 
 
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 275 
 
 es, where 
 len come 
 a saint in 
 rget what 
 of July. 
 Id gentle- 
 will, that 
 his body ; 
 wished to 
 J popular ; 
 ; with the 
 o me, was 
 
 11 but uni- 
 
 uirements, 
 
 at all. lu 
 
 European 
 
 men. At 
 
 SHINGTON 
 
 himself to 
 them." In 
 ore of the 
 this little 
 nt works ; 
 officer and 
 Travels in 
 le of "A 
 lomplished 
 he Review, 
 of several 
 iss Leslie, 
 
 Mrs. Sigoumey, &c. In the States are several respect- 
 able poets likewise, such as Bryant, Halleck, Dana, 
 and some others. But are all these intellects appre- 
 ciated as they ought to be ? On the contrary, of 
 some of them it may be said, their country '^ knoweth 
 them not." They are like so many *' pelicans in the 
 wilderness," or mariners on a desert rock. They live 
 in a kind of mental exile 3 and if they wish for sym- 
 pathy with their " labouring minds," and sale for 
 their works, it is to England they must and do turn 
 their longing eyes. 
 
 T <2 
 
276 
 
 AMERICAN PROSPERITY. 
 
 " 1 
 
 1^1 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 
 i Si 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS — RETURN TO ENGLAND — 
 HOME POLITICS — CONCLUSION. 
 
 A GOOD deal of what I had meant to say under 
 this head, has been anticipated in previous letters ; 
 and it will have been seen by this time, that I am not 
 one likely to recommend emigration to America. In- 
 dependent of the forlorn feelings that ever attend a 
 self- banished man, there is a positive want of stabi- 
 lity in the prosperity of America, which makes it very 
 hazardous for any mechanic who has learnt but one 
 trade to go thither. The late panic caused by the 
 restrictive measures of the Bank of England, for in- 
 stance, threw many thousands in all the great towns 
 out of employ, and much reduced the wages of the 
 rest. On occasion of Jackson's contest with the 
 banks, too, business was paralysed for a long time ; 
 so much so, that I knew instances of industrious men 
 brought up in the branch of business I was most in- 
 timate with, who did not earn a dollar for an entire 
 twelvemonth. Now I never knew any thing like this 
 happen in the worst of times here. The truth seems 
 to be, that in America, as soon as these crises arrive, 
 no one of the moneyed classes will lay out a shilling 
 if they possibly can avoid it. They are all, more or 
 
OF NO GREAT DEPTH. 
 
 2/ 4 
 
 NGLAND — 
 
 less, traders; there is no steady money-spending 
 class, such as our nobility and gentry, annuitants, 
 &c. whose expenditure is sure to find its way to the 
 pockets of the industrious, come what will. Our 
 law of primogeniture, which throws large masses of 
 money into a fe^ but liberal hands, keeps up the 
 price and quality of our wares, and the working classes 
 — ^the superior mechanics especially — find their ac- 
 count in this state of things, '' unnatural and unjust " 
 though it is said to be. The heavy taxes and the 
 enormous national debt even work for their good — 
 though most of them know it not — by forcing money 
 out of the hands of tenacious holders. If those 
 heavy exactions are duly paid, they are as duly spent ; 
 and money at all times circulates more surely, as well 
 as more freely, among us, than perhaps any where 
 else. The splendour of our court, the luxury of our 
 nobility, so much cried out against, all add to the 
 comforts of the working man ; and this we have a 
 proof of in the misery that ensued among the French 
 lower orders, when, early in the first revolution, 
 the upper classes laid aside their carriages and re- 
 trenched their lavish and '' insulting" expenditure. 
 The wicked extravagance of Louis XIV. in making 
 a paradise for himself out of a desert at Versailles, has 
 furnished matter for many an indignant comment ; 
 but if we take into account the vast numbers of 
 foreigners that are yearly attracted to France by 
 that and other public acquisitions, libraries, museums, 
 galleries of pictures, &c. it will be found that they 
 have repaid their outlay ten times over. It is true 
 
278 
 
 (( 
 
 OLD COUNTRY EXTRAVAGANCE. 
 
 that the Americans have laid out no money in these 
 extravagances ; and are the intelligent and curious 
 among the lower orders one whit the better for this 
 parsimony ? for there are some even of them who 
 have minds as well as stomachs. Any such will find 
 the United States a land of barrenness. 
 
 You may remember, my friend, the conversation 
 we once had, on " the unholy feasts of the rich" — 
 their green peas at two guineas a quart, and peaches 
 at a sovereign a piece. On my asking you what you 
 would have the opulent do with their money, you 
 promptly answered, " Give it to the poor. " Quoting 
 a great name, I asked, did you mean the industrious 
 or the idle poor ; because if the former, I showed, in 
 the cases cited, that they had had the money already. 
 The gardeners who raised, the carpenters and gla- 
 ziers who constructed hot-houses to cover, the miners 
 who dug fuel to force, vegetation out of season, had 
 all profited largely thereby. And reverting to your 
 virtuously indignant but unthinking proposal, to 
 sweep such " unhallowed dainties from the board, 
 while so many were pining for want of the commonest 
 necessaries of life, " I hinted, that if once tables were 
 put under popular regulation, in the end your humbler 
 steak or chop would have a small chance of being 
 respected j it being so much more agreeable to many 
 natures to share unearned even the humblest fare, 
 than to be at the pains to gain it by honest pains- 
 taking, as you do. You did me the justice to own* 
 on consideration, that I was right. 
 
WAGES OF DIFFERENT TRADES. 
 
 *279 
 
 Mere diggers of ditches, so long as there is so 
 much waste land to till, and so many roads to make* 
 may earn higher wages than they can usually do here. 
 I have seen as high as a dollar a day offered for the 
 services of labourers on new rail-roads ; which is as 
 much as many men who have learned a regular trade 
 can get. I have also heard of some of the companies 
 strewing dram-shops and victualling-booths on these 
 lines, in which they retailed food and liquors to the 
 thoughtless Irish, and others, at exorbitant rates j so 
 that they got the moiety of their pay back again, and 
 thus had the labour done for half-price. I may ob- 
 serve by the way, that their rail-roads are often flimsy 
 affairs, and dangerous to life and limb to travel 
 on. Canals, too, that shew well on the maps, are occa- 
 sionally destitute of water ! The truth is, these things 
 are often undertaken for speculation in shares, which 
 pass quickly, like live coals, from hand to hand, and 
 rise much above their value, for a while, but end by 
 burning somebody's fingers at last. 
 
 Of domestic trades, the tailor's is perhaps the best 
 in the great towns j shoe and boot-maker s, decidedly 
 bad. Hatters not better than here, if so good ; house 
 carpenters about the same j superior cabinet-makers 
 much lower paid ; gun-makers also j hand- weaving 
 a little better, not being yet entirely superseded by 
 machinery j paper makers poorly paid j book-bind- 
 ers also. Book printers are lower paid than in 
 England, and still less sure of getting work. Those 
 employed on newspapers in New York are wretched 
 
 !t:te 
 
280 
 
 REAL EVILS OF EMIGRATION 
 
 slaves, and earn besides a full third less money than 
 in London. Of pressmen t the American employers have 
 of late years found means, by a cunning device, to 
 ' abridge the numbers by one-half. From the quantities 
 of paper-money issued, there is a tolerable chance 
 for engravers ; but for any artist to go thither, would 
 be madness. As for clerks, they are no better [>aid 
 than here, if so well. In a word, let no respectable 
 mechanic think he will better himself by emigrating 
 to the United States. I revert to the shoemakers' 
 business, to mention that one cause of its depressed 
 state is owing to the quantity of their wares made 
 in the public prisons. I heard bitter complaints 
 from several of the workmen about this ; and I saw, 
 in New York, printed labels in several windows of 
 shoe and boot warehouses ; " No prison-labour goods 
 sold here, which rob the honest poor man of his dues, 
 to give them to thieves !" However, one good fea- 
 ture of the American prison system is, that inmates 
 are never shown, nor their names used, to any one j 
 they are dismissed as secretly as they have been kept, 
 and not without needful money in their pockets. 
 This is a good arrangement for the penitent and well 
 disposed, since they may easily mix unrecognized 
 with some one of the shifting populations of the coun- 
 try. But, on the other hand, the shoemakers observe, 
 this throws a disgrace upon all of the craft, thus 
 augmented by so many jail-taught practitioners. 
 
 In a question of emigration, climate is not to be 
 overlooked ; and certainly that of America does not 
 agree with many English constitutions. The winter 
 
SELDOM ANTICIPATED. 
 
 281 
 
 I have already noticed ; I have also mentioned the 
 sudden changes frequent in summer. The heats are 
 not so easy to describe j but it really seemed to me 
 sometimes as if the wholesome freshness and elasti- 
 city of the air were altogether gone, and a suffocating 
 oppression weighed instead upon the relaxed frame. 
 At such times individuals given to excesses are 
 stricken with a frenetic malady, called by the doctors 
 there mania a potu ; while others again find their vital 
 powers more slowly, but not less surely, sink under dis- 
 ease apparently brought on by insupportable heat. 
 At such times, animal matter putrefies rapidly, and it 
 is very difficult to procure untaintt i meat. Butter 
 nearly loses one of its qualities altogether, viz. — 
 consistence, and may very well be sold by the quart 
 rather than by the pound. 
 
 And let not the mechanic who is discontented 
 with his particular situation, and the general state of 
 things at home, think that when he gets upon the 
 American shores he will find himself in *' a land of 
 brothers, *' such as has been depicted in certain 
 lying *' articles on Emigration," lately inserted in 
 weekly papers in London : he would deceive himself 
 more in this than perhaps in any thing else. He 
 would find Uncle Sam a very cold and distrustful 
 gentleman to •• aliens." One version of their national 
 anthem, " Yankee Doodle," indeed, contains these 
 -lines : — 
 
 *' America's a dandy place. 
 
 And all its folks are brothers, 
 
 For when one's got a pumpkin-pie, 
 
 He shares it with the others." 
 
282 
 
 AMERICAN CIIAKACTER. 
 
 [J ^■ 
 
 But which Mr. W — , already mentioned, in singing 
 repeated thus altered — 
 
 ** Your song contains an arrant lie, 
 Surpassed by but few others, 
 For when a Yankee's got a pie, 
 He never thinks of others." 
 
 I ought to mention that the sobriquet " Uncle 
 Sam " (equivalent to our John Bull) is a popular fill- 
 ing up of the initials U. S., abbreviation of " United 
 States.** 
 
 What I have above said of course is addressed to 
 working men exclusively. As to those who can 
 afford to go to America and return, I dissuade them 
 not ; if they fare as I did, they will have a double 
 pleasure — happy to get there, happier still to get 
 away : in my own case, however, this pleasure, 
 like some others I have had in my time, cost me 
 rather dear. 
 
 Of my return passage, I should have even less to 
 say than the first. The accommodations of the pre- 
 tended " packets " running between Philadelphia and 
 Liverpool, are miserable. The treatment of the 
 steerage passengers was really infamous j and I pur- 
 posely name the agents, Messrs. Brown and Co., 
 to reprobate their conduct, in squeezing fifty human 
 beings in a space scarce large enough to comfortably 
 accommodate a dozen. The stifling heat and stenches 
 — numerous as thoj^s of Cologne, so exactly reckoned 
 up by Coleridge — were past all imagination ; if any 
 putrid malady had broken out among the miserable 
 
<H CHARACTER. 
 
 '2S3 
 
 beings, it must have made ravages like tlie plague. 
 What I saw among these ill-treated victims of Quaker 
 cupidity, gave me a lively idea of what the horrors of 
 ** the middle passage " in a slaver must be. 
 
 The majority of these returned emigrants were 
 Irish. One family, of six, was from the neighbour- 
 hood of Coleraine : they had been in America but ten 
 wceksi and had taken a mortal dislike to k. They 
 were of the class of small farmers j had sold their 
 little property, the proceeds of which were all ab- 
 sorbed in the two voyages, and other expenses. 
 Among the charges they brought against America, 
 one of them said to me, that the victuals of that 
 country did their bodies no good, for St. Patrick had 
 not passed his blessing on them ! — I mention, as 
 proving an Irishman to be the same animal all the 
 world over, that on the day of our departure, as 
 some delay occurred by missing the tide, the crowds 
 of Irish who came to see their friends oflF, could not 
 be content without filling up the interval by the 
 divertisement of three distinct fights on the wharf, 
 in which a great deal of blood was shed, and not a 
 few heads were cracked ; extempore weapons being 
 found by breaking up chairs, procured from the 
 nearest taverns, and turning the heavier portions 
 into fragmentary cudgels. Surely the organ of com- 
 bativeness must be more largely developed on Irish 
 sculls than on any others. 
 
 In returning to this wonderful island of ours, after 
 a ten years' absence, I could not help feeling proud 
 of having been born in it. What a little space it 
 
284 
 
 A FRIENDLY WORD AT PARTING. 
 
 fills on the maps — having the appearance only, to a 
 fanciful eye, of a small outhouse annexed to the 
 greater continental structure — and yet its influence is 
 either visible or felt every where. The old boast of 
 Spain, that the sun never set on its dominions, is still 
 more true of England — India in the East, the immense 
 expanse of Australia, Southern Africa, the West 
 Indies, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, 
 and Canada, the entrance of the Mediterranean 
 and many of its islands — all these and more are 
 ours ; but of the many great things we have done, 
 none will bring us so much credit with the future 
 generations of men as our founding such a nation as 
 THE United States. Every extension its popula- 
 tion receives — most of whose enterprising natives are 
 bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh — whether 
 from natural increase of numbers, or foreign admix- 
 ture (for the latter all melt ultimately into the 
 general mass), will serve to spread the fame of 
 our name, to all time, over a mighty continent. 
 Thus, in the vigorous and daily-strengthening hands 
 of the Anglo-Americans, will be deposited our laws, 
 our language, and our manners ; and even if, in the re- 
 volutions of empires, our existence as a leading Euro- 
 pean power should for ever cease, we shall yet live, 
 and thrive, and be respected by contemporary na- 
 tions, in the persons of our western relatives. They 
 are proud of the race they have sprung from, and 
 well they may; let them give us no cause to be 
 ashamed of them. Come the struggle, so long 
 threatened between us and envious rivals, when it 
 
THE author's republican DESCENT. 285 
 
 may, they surely will never wish to see us undergo 
 the humiliation of a foreign yoke. 
 < I believe I have already said, that the men of the 
 States pique themselves not a little on being of the 
 Saxon blood ; I might add, that they are very nearly 
 B8 proud of Waterloo as we are. No man in England 
 is looked at with so much interest by a travelling Ame- 
 rican, as the Duke of Wellington j and I do believe, if 
 his Grace were to pay the States a visit, unfond of 
 holidays though they be, every city and town would 
 make one to receive him. 
 
 And let it not be supposed, from any thing thrown 
 out in these letters, that I set out with personal 
 prejudices against America. As a Republican coun- 
 try-^for I was brought up in republicanism — I was 
 prepared to respect it. One of the earliest songs I 
 can remember my father singing to me in early 
 childhood, had this verse in it, which I have never 
 forgotten — 
 
 " Vive la the French Convention, 
 Vive la the rights of man 5 
 Vive la America — 
 
 'Twas in you it first began I " 
 
 My poor father was fond of music, and played 
 tolerably on the violin j but of all tunes his greatest 
 favourites were the Marseillaise and ^a Ira. He was 
 one of the persecuted " patriots " of 1794, having 
 been Secretary of a Corresponding Society of the 
 " Friends of the People," and was obliged to abscond 
 till times grew calmer. He went to his rest some 
 years ago ; it is a pity he did not live to see the advent 
 
 I 
 
 Jl 
 
286 THE GOTHAM SHIP WANTS NO BALLAST. 
 
 of Roebuck and Wakley, both (the latter especially) 
 tried friends of the people. My old grandfather, 
 after Thomas Muir was sentenced to transportation 
 and hurried off to Botany Bay, went on a pilgrimage 
 to condole with his father and mother. How much 
 I have degenerated from such patriotic ancestors ! 
 The last French revolution — respectable as it was, 
 compared with the former — cured me of repub- 
 licanism. I then saw plainly, that if society were 
 to exist in any thing like tranquillity or comfort, 
 no measures could ever be kept with the chevaliers 
 de la guillotine, the men of " the movement." 
 
 Our mouvementaires, I found on my return, had 
 made great way. The Whigs had, to please them^ 
 removed "the dirty parts" of the old ship, *' The 
 Constitution." They had taken all the heavy and ri- 
 diculously needless ballast, out of her hold j such as 
 rusty iron-bars, stones, and the like, which so much 
 impeded her way on the course that some of her 
 more adventurous crew wanted her to run quickly 
 on ; namely, to — the antipodes of heaven. For this 
 good service done to the country, we have much to 
 thank the Whigs j — and also for the strange vagaries 
 the poor old vessel has been playing ever since ; 
 one while driving on like mad, with increased sail 3 
 at others, trying to tack about, but oftener merely 
 spinning round on her lightened bottom, like a dizzy 
 goose not knowing which way to turn, and therefore 
 turning all ways. Would to Heaven she were once 
 more safe in port again ! — Adieu. 
 
287 
 
 i 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 " A FEW SHORT AND TIMELY ADDRESSES TO THE AR- 
 TISANS AND LABOURERS OF THE UNITED STATES, BY 
 ONE OF THEMSELVES. ADDRESS I." 
 
 (Referred to at page 134.) 
 
 Friends and fellow-labourers — 
 
 The passages put at the head of this address 
 (see p. 1 24) are taken from an article in a late Number 
 of the United States Gazette, purporting to be sent by a 
 correspondent of that journal. That such doctrines as 
 he indignantly reprobates should be openly proclaimed 
 at any time, gives matter for deep concern to every well- 
 wisher to his kind ; '>:hat they should be so industriously 
 spread abroad just now, when a new kind of *' monopoly" 
 (I mean that of the Trades' Union) is threatening to 
 deprive both employer and employed of all right to the 
 exercise of individual free will — these tilings, I say, 
 furnish grounds for serious alarm to every quiet reflect- 
 ing man. The writer, above quoted, after some indig- 
 nant comments, designated several individuals, consi- 
 dered by him as the great lights of the time, and en- 
 treated them to come forward for the sake of the 
 republic, whose continued prosperity (whose very exist- 
 ence) he thinks is endangered by the currency of anti- 
 social opinions and practices. I say '* practices," be- 
 cause, as appears by the newspapers, several personal 
 outrages have been committed in different parts, seem- 
 ingly springing out of the coercive temper of the times. 
 If, as some appear to think, (but which Heaven fore- 
 fend !) the wilful Are- raisings at Boston, and elsewhere^ 
 
 I '!| 
 
288 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 |] 
 
 ■■I 
 
 [ 
 
 I' 
 'It 
 
 be mixed up with other things ^vhich we do not care to 
 particularise just now, then are we far gone indeed on 
 the road to ruin. 
 
 Meantime, fellow-citizens, you will perhaps be kind 
 enough to lend your attention to what a brother artisan 
 has to say on a subject of sQch momentous concern to 
 us aU. The hours of leisure at his disposal are neces- 
 sarily few — he is then the less likely to tire you with a 
 long discussion ; they will at all events be thus spent 
 with great pleasure to himself, and, permit him to hope, 
 with some profit to you. An exposition of the opinions 
 of such a one will be less liable to have an unfair bias, 
 than if proceeding from another, of a superior rank, 
 however gifted with talent, or graced with eloquence, 
 that other might be. 
 
 Fate so willed it, that he who now addresses you 
 should be a sojourner in France for several years. Dur- 
 ing his stay in Paris he saw the struggle that ended in 
 the late Revolution. He was afterwards, in common 
 with others of his trade, doomed to suffer personally 
 from the bad effects which for a time flowed from that 
 great (and as some maintain glorious) event 3 his atten- 
 tion was thereby turned, more strongly than is usual, 
 to serious reflections on the true sources of public com- 
 fort and happiness, which were near being dried up in 
 that great nation for a season. It was then he plainly 
 saw, brought home to him in a manner not to be mis- 
 taken, how vastly important a well regulated and stable 
 state of things is to the comfortable existence of a great 
 community. The period alluded to may be comprised 
 between the end of July 1830, and June 8, 1832, on 
 which day the turbulent and levelling portion of the 
 French Republicans was firmly (it is to be hoped 
 finally) put down by the strong arm of public force, 
 exerted on the side of order and the laws. The sight of 
 antagonist principles, striving for mastery almost daily 
 in the vexed streets of Paris, during the above space of 
 time> — where the arguments used in the strife were not 
 
ADDRESS I. 
 
 289 
 
 ; care to 
 deed on 
 
 be kind 
 r artisan 
 icem to 
 e neces- 
 1 with a 
 lus spent 
 to hope, 
 opinions 
 fair bias, 
 lor rank, 
 ioquence, 
 
 isses you 
 rs. Dur- 
 ended in 
 common 
 Personally 
 rum that 
 lis atten- 
 is usual, 
 )lic corn- 
 ed up in 
 plainly 
 be mis- 
 nd stable 
 >f a great 
 omprised 
 832, on 
 n of the 
 hoped 
 ic force, 
 sight of 
 st daily 
 space of 
 ere not 
 
 words, but blows, — taught a lesson not likely to be 
 soon forgotten. The subjects the writer proposes to 
 handle fall under four heads, which, for the sake of 
 greater clearness, he will state in numerical order. They 
 are these : — 
 
 1 . Will be an examination of the popular assertions, 
 that "all men are created equal," or *' all men by 
 nature are equal," as these phrases are commonly un- 
 derstood ; and he will try to prove that they are founded 
 in error. 
 
 2. Will be an illustration of this axiom : " The law 
 of security of property is that from which every thing 
 valuable to man has arisen , " and that, by a necessary 
 consequence, any infringement of that law, — whether 
 by disturbing the quiet possession of goods and lands, 
 or houses, and other tangible property — or any calling 
 in question of the ability to hold chartered rights, (if 
 legally obtained), is both unjust and impolitic; and 
 that its immediate effect is to loosen the key-stone of 
 the social edifice, and shake the structure to its founda- 
 tions. That, further, any attempts to derange, by 
 force, the established order of things, will turn to the 
 present disadvantage of all, and the ultimate ruin of 
 many ; and that our class will be that which will suffer 
 from it first and most. 
 
 3. Will be an attempt to prove that labour is neces- 
 sary to man's health of body and sanity of mind ; and 
 that the advantages of riches are much overrated by 
 those who possess them not. 
 
 4. In this part will be considered the (to us) all- 
 important question of wages. Also, whetiier " strikes " 
 are likely to be beneficial to the labourers in this 
 country ; illustrated by statements of what has taken 
 place elsewhere. To these will be subjoined a candid exa- 
 mination of the conduct of Trades' Unions, and in par- 
 ticular of the tendency of their interference with ap- 
 prenticeships, &c. 
 
 But before proceeding to enter upon these subjects 
 
 u 
 
 I 
 
 lj\ 
 
290 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 r[ 
 
 i 
 
 "which Mrill furnish matter for several other addresses, 
 and before closing this one (which is merely intro- 
 ductory) let the writer of them solemnly assure his 
 fellow- workmen, that it is not with the intention of 
 pleading the cause of the rich, or in the view of for- 
 "warding the interests of employers, that he is induced 
 tu combat what he considers to be prevailing errors : 
 that these last may be benefited by a general adoption 
 of his views, is probable enough; but this, let him 
 once for all honestly protest, is not his aim. No : he 
 hopes to shew you, before he has done, that it is your 
 (or rather our) interests he has most at heart, in all that 
 he will submit for your consideration. Fur be it from 
 him, too, to make intemperate remarks on those who 
 differ from him in opinion ; his intention is to try to 
 persuade, not to call hard names — recollecting how lia- 
 ble we all are to errors of judgment. He will even allow 
 that the man who penned and issued the production 
 above quoted, and such like, may have had honest 
 though mistaken intentions, and that he might not be 
 actuated therein by a " spirit of hatred, of malice, of 
 envy, and all uncharitableness ; " he grants this, with 
 all his heart ; but he will not the les!« earnestly contend, 
 that if his aim was to benefit his fellow-men, he set 
 about it in the worst possible way. 
 
 ADDRESS II. 
 
 The first subject, in the order laid down, is the consi- 
 deration of the common assertion, that " all men are by 
 nature equal." Under the subordination of laws we 
 enjoy many privileges without thinking whence we de- 
 r ve them j these, become by constant possession and en- 
 joyment natural to us, we are too apt to consider as " na- 
 tural rights." But, alas ! my friends, "when history first 
 found man, she found him in bondage, if not a slave." 
 
 Of all animated beings, man has his first state, that of 
 
ADDRESS II. 
 
 «29l 
 
 infancy, the most prolonged. For several years, parental 
 care must be in continual exercise ; let it be intermitted 
 but for a few hours, and its miserably feeble and helpless 
 object perishes. With animals it is otherwise ; a few 
 months, or even weeks, is all that is necessary to make 
 them independent of their parents. It would seem, at 
 first sight, that nature had acted like a very stepmother 
 with regard to man. In addition to his long-continued 
 childhood, she gives him neither clothing to cover nor 
 arms to defend himself. All animals are clothed, and 
 many more or less armed — some are stronger, others 
 swifter than he. But for all these apparent defects, she 
 made him rich amends in giving him the gift of reason. 
 " Our strength is made perfect in our weakness." — A 
 savage arrives at a broad river. He is too weak to swim, 
 he cannot fly across it. He looks round him — he thinks. 
 He has found an expedient, for he drags a tree to the 
 brink, and launches it. He now floats, but that is not 
 enough, he wants something to steer by j he cuts a 
 sapling, and is soon on his way to the further shore. It 
 was the unsupplied wants of man that, by calling all his 
 energies into activity, have made him what he is. Had 
 he, in the supposed emergency, been endowed with the 
 qualities of a bird or a fish, should we have ever known 
 any thing of the noble — the sublime — art of navigation, 
 for, from such small beginnings, such difficulties sur- 
 mounted as these, has it all arisen. Man — the adult man 
 — whether in the civilised or uncivilised state, is still 
 •* lord of the creation." But man — the infant man — is 
 he not the most feeble, the most helpless, the most 
 wretched of all created beings ? Then, indeed, we are 
 all '* equal ;" and if this were the sort of natural equality 
 pleaded for, no one could well dispute it. 
 
 Yet as he approaches manhood, and long before he 
 attains to it, he gives unequivocal indications of possess- 
 ing qualities of mind and body which will be likely to 
 subject his fellows to him, or him to them ; and to no 
 one who has had much experience of children need it be 
 
292 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 ' ': > 
 
 hi 
 
 f 
 
 told how surprisingly early they begin to exert tlie sub- 
 jugating faculties. And this arises not so much irs^m 
 superior powers of body, as of mind j for in families, how 
 often do we see the younger and weaker rule the older 
 and stronger brother ! So it is with animals. Take the 
 horse, for instance. While some individuals of the pro- 
 geny of one sire and dam are remarkable for their fleet- 
 ness, fire and spirit, others of the breed are weak, slug- 
 gish, and of little value. It is said that no two plants — 
 no two blades of grass even — are altogether alike. It is 
 evident then that Nature delights in variety. Even so 
 is it with the mind of man. Lord Rochester has said, 
 in one of his poems. 
 
 tt » 
 
 Tis beyond dispute. 
 
 Men differ more from men, than man from brute." 
 
 This, no doubt, is exaggeration j we find it in a satire, 
 which usually bears the same relation to a candid de- 
 scription that a caricature does to a portrait. Never- 
 theless, both have the quality of resemblance, and are, 
 therefore, so far true. 
 
 Mankind have lived, and do now live, in three condi- 
 tions — the savage or hunter, the pastoral, and the civilis- 
 ed or agricultural states. Have we been able to find that, 
 in any of the three, men have ever been found altogether 
 equal ? They never have. The next question arises. 
 Can they be so ? we trow not. With respect to the first 
 of these conditions, as savages keep no records, we must 
 trust to the accounts of travellers and voyagers ; but 
 men like Captain Cook and Mungo Parke, for instance, 
 are worthy of all credit. From their accounts, and those 
 of many others, we find, that even the most savage horde 
 has its superior or privileged class — its aristocracy, in 
 short } and that not only the property, but the lives of 
 the common people, are entirely at its disposition. This 
 rule maybe sometimes confined to particular families, and 
 hereditary, as among the Incas of Peruj sometimes 
 arises from the merit or courageous usurpation of indivi- 
 
ADDRESS II. 
 
 'ZOS 
 
 duals, and dies with them ; hut that it exists every where 
 in some shape or other among uncivilised or half civilised 
 trihes, is positive. The first step in man's progress 
 towards liberty is when he " can call his life his own." 
 And yet among the South Sea Islanders this does not exist. 
 There, we are told, the lives of the inferior classes of the 
 people are considered by their superiors as absolutely of 
 no value. These abject beings are even, in some places, 
 put under harsh restrictions both as to the quantity and 
 quality of the provisions they are to eat. At the Sand- 
 wich Isles, for instance, distinctions are perhaps more 
 strongly marked than elsewhere : in these seas both 
 lives and property depend^bsolutely on the sovereign 
 will and good pleasure of the nobles, this power begin- 
 ning with the head chieftain or king ; and it is not held 
 lawful for any one but him to eat pork or fowl every 
 day 'f the inferior chiefs may eat it once a week, or once 
 a month, according to their rank or riches : this too in 
 a country where both hogs and poultry abound ! As 
 for the common people — '* the baser sort" — so far as 
 Mr. Anderson (who relates the fact), could see, little of 
 any kind of animal food seemed to fall to their share ex- 
 cepting the offals after feasts, given by these aristocrats 
 to their foreign visitors. The most indecent dog-like 
 scrambles would take place for the remains ; even the 
 crumbs would be eagerly searched out and fought for. 
 We think such an example of the actual inequality of 
 man could scarce be furnished under the most despotic 
 government of any civilised community. Such is the 
 " natural state" of man, where the human faculties, " un- 
 fettered by the chains of civilisation,'* are supposed to 
 have had the best chance of finding fair play : 
 
 •" Ere arts or laws began. 
 
 When free in woods the noble savage ran." 
 
 If farther examples were necessary, we have only to 
 read the accounts of the native North American Indians, 
 as given by the French Catholic missionaries, viz . Char- 
 
294 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ? 
 
 P 
 
 ^ 
 
 levoix, Lafitan, &c., who lived long among them. But 
 it is, as has been already said, every where the same. — 
 Thus much for the savage state. How stands it with the 
 intermediate or pastoral state — has equality ever existed 
 there ? We believe not. At least the first book of the 
 Old Testament, — which, even keeping out of view its 
 having proceeded from the pen of inspiration, is the best 
 and most minute record extant of such a state of exist- 
 ence — the Book of Genesis, we say, would seem to 
 contradict such a supposition. 
 
 With respect to civilised life, little need be said. 
 That men are any thing but equal, seems plain enough ; 
 and what is more, they never can be, so long as there is 
 such a thing as property, and laws to protect the posses- 
 sion and enjoyment of it. Lord Byron said, perhaps 
 rather strongly, that " after all he knew but one kind of 
 government : it was that maintained by those who had 
 money over those who had none." There are surely 
 other causes of inequality than the mere accidental pos- 
 session of money ; in civilised states, at least, it is cer- 
 tainly mind that principally rules in the end. 
 
 Perhaps you yourself, gentle reader, may have some - 
 times had such a taunt as this thrown at you by a bois- 
 terous fellow whose notions you may have opposed in 
 some way or other — " D — n you. Sir, am I not as good 
 as you ?" You of course, being a prudent sensible man, 
 answered in words something like these, " My good 
 friend, there is no doubt of that." And yet, in your own 
 secret mind, you thought nothing of the kind. You 
 knew well, as no doubt did others of the auditors, that 
 the fellow was at a loss for something better to say, 
 and being angry, and therefore unreasonable, he put this 
 sharp proposition to you like the point of a sword, which 
 your modesty or your discretion would prevent you from 
 gainsaying. Now just think a little of the tendency of 
 a vain doctrine which would really sink you to a level 
 with a being of this kind, — obstinate, brutal, and igno- 
 rant as he is, and without any seeming natural capacity 
 
ADDRE6S II. 
 
 '295 
 
 of ever becoming otherwise. You of course inwardly 
 smiled at his impudence, or pitied the blindness of his 
 self-conceit. On the other hand, are yuu prepared to con- 
 tend that your mind is naturally equal to that of a 
 Newton, a Bonaparte, a Byron or a Shakspeare, which 
 centuries can scarce match ? Yet, it is sometimes dan- 
 gerous for an individual to profess openly his unbelief in 
 the ridiculous doctrine of the natural equality of men. 
 The truth seems to be, that we most of us own it in 
 words, though we give the lie to it by our conduct, and 
 even by our thoughts. This state of things certainly 
 gives rise to a deal of make-believe, to which it would 
 still be too harsh to apply the name of deceit. For 
 what is the greater part of politeness-^or even what 
 passes for " modesty," — founded on ? "A seeming pre- 
 ference of ethers to one's self." And such honest de- 
 ception it is which alone makes us supportable to each 
 other. We are all comedians, more or less. 
 
 The sophism that ** all men are equal," will always pass 
 current for truth with the mass ; it is the favourite doc- 
 trine of the weak in body and feeble in mind, who 
 are ever the majority. And yet the great and wise 
 Dr. Johnson thought that two men could scarce have in- 
 tercourse together for a quarter of an hour in the face of 
 the world, but that one of them would show a marked 
 superiority over the other. How often do we see mas- 
 sters become slaves to their own servants ? An instance 
 of this, from French history, may be cited here as being 
 much in point. When Leonora Galigai, Marchioness 
 d'Ancre, was put to the rack, and enjoined to declare by 
 what " wicked charms'* and *' sorceries" she had con - 
 trived to gain such an ascendancy over the mind of her 
 mistress. Queen Mary de Medicis, she very sensibly, and' 
 no doubt truly, replied, " Gentlemen, I used no charms, 
 for I am no sorceress ; I only exerted the natural in- 
 fluence which a strong mind will always have over a 
 weak one." But this did not save that hapless lady from 
 being burnt as a witch, with every circumstance of 
 
S96 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 vengeful cruelty. Her imbecile mistress's more imbe- 
 cile son, Louis XIII., was still more he slave of his mi- 
 nister, Cardinal Richelieu, in whose presence he used to 
 to be as disquieted as is a naughty school-boy in that of 
 his master. No, men are not equal ; for there are some 
 natures that mount as readily over others, as a man 
 vaults upon a saddled horse's back, or as oil rises above 
 water. 
 
 It sometimes happens that a puny or even a sickly body 
 contains a strong mind ; as pearls are said to be found 
 in oysters supposed to be diseased. Some have only 
 heads to pi. , others capacities to execute ; some are fit 
 neither for the one thing nor the other. It will be vain 
 to urge in reply; that every thing is the result of educa- 
 tion and circumstances ; these, doubtless, do much, but 
 they cannot do all. The foundation is laid by nature, 
 in each individual's original character, and such as is that 
 foundation, so will the superstructure be. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 II 
 
 If'l 
 
 Printed by NuttaU and Hodgson, tiough Square, London. 
 
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