I.IFM ON THS MISSISSIPPI.

APPEITDIX 0,
RECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S SO OK IN THE
UNITED S1ATES.
HATOTG now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am induced; ere I
conclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkable
traits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their exquisite
sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or written concerning
them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I can give is the
effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the appearance of Captain
Basil Hall's ' Travels in North America.' In fact, it was a sort of moral
earthquake, and the vibration it occasioned through the nerves of the reĢ
public, from one corner of the Union to the other, was by no means over
when I left the country in July 1831, a couple of years after the shock.
I was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not till
July 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom I
applied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood the nature
of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothing should in-
duce him to sell another. Other persons of his profession must, however,
have been less scrupulous j for the book was read in city, town, village, and
hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoop was sent forth
perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any occasion whatever.
An ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under cen-
sure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of character;
but the condition into which the appearance of Captain HalTs work threw
the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to excess, produce a
weakness which amounts to imbecility.
It was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, were of
some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of any instance
in which the common-sense generally found in national criticism was so
overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, and of Mr
and liberal iaterpretation these, perhaps, were hardly to be expectei
Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union