America and her commentators : with a critical sketch of travel in the United States

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

y

Class

7 ' ^ i rf ..

^. r 1 , tfit' t

AMERICA

AND

HER COMMENTATORS

WITH A CRITICAL SKETCH OF

TRAVEL IN THE UNITED STATES.

BY

HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length
Throws its last fetters off: and who shall place

A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ?

For thou, my country, thou shall never fall,
Save with thy children: —

Who shall then declare

The date of thy deep-foun,»ed strength, or tell
How happy, in thy lap. the sons of men shall d^ell ?

BRYANT: The Ages.

CFTHE

UNIVERSITY ]j

OF
£4LfF

^**^..itt.;..-.,vv^^

NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET

1864.
LONDON : S. LOW, SON & COMPANY,

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864. by
HENEY T. TUCKEEMAN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York.

JOHN P. TROW,
PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPKH,

46, 48, & 50 Greene St., New York.

.6"

PEEPACE.

THE object of this work is twofold — to present a gen
eral view of the traits and transitions of our country, as
recorded at different periods and by writers of various
nationalities; and to afford those desirous of authentic
information in regard to the United States a guide to the
sources thereof. Incidental to and naturally growing out
of this purpose, is the discussion of the comparative value
and interest of the principal critics of our civilization.
The present seems a favorable time for such a retrospective
review ; and the need of popular enlightenment, both at
home and abroad, as to the past development and present
condition of this Republic, is universally acknowledged.
There are special and obvious advantages in reverting to
the past and examining the present, through the medium
of the literature of American Travel. It affords striking
contrasts, offers different points of view, and is the more
suggestive because modified by national tastes. We can
thus trace physical and social development, normal and
casual traits, through personal impressions ; and are un
consciously put on the track of honest investigation, made
to realize familiar tendencies under new aspects, and, from
the variety of evidence, infer true estimates. Moreover,
some of these raconteurs are interesting characters either

IV PREFACE.

in an historical or literary point of view, and form an
attractive biographical study. In a work intended to
suggest rather than exhaust a subject so extensive, it has
been requisite to dismiss briefly many books which, in
themselves, deserve special consideration ; but whose
scope is too identical with other and similar volumes de
scribed at length, to need the same full examination. It
is not always the specific merits of an author, but the
contrast he offers or the circumstances under which he
writes, that have induced what might otherwise seem too
elaborate a discussion of his claims. In a word, variety
of subject and rarity of material have been kept in view,
with reference both to the space awarded and the extracts
given. The design of the work might, indeed, have been
indefinitely extended ; but economy and suggestiveness
have been chiefiy considered.

Many of the works discussed are inaccessible to the
general reader ; others are prolix, and would not reward
a consecutive perusal, though worthy a brief analysis ;
while not a few are too superficial, and yield amusement
only when the grains of wit or wisdom are separated
from the predominant chaff. Ifris for these reasons, and
in the hope of vindicating as well as illustrating the
claims and character of our outraged nationality, that I
have prepared this inadequate, but, I trust, not wholly
unsatisfactory critical sketch of Travel in the United
States. Those who desire to examine minutely the his
torical aspects of the prolific theme, will find, in the
" Bibliotheca Americana " of Rich, a catalogue of an
cient works full of interest to the philosophical student.
Another valuable list is contained in " Historical Nug
gets," a descriptive account of rare books relating to
America, by Henry Stevens (2 vols., London, 1853) ; and
the proposed " American Bibliographer's Manual," a dic
tionary of all works relating to America, by Joseph

PEEFACE. V

Sabin, of Philadelphia, will, if executed with the care
and completeness promised, supersede all other manuals,
and prove of great utility. No fact is more indicative of
the increased interest in all that relates to our country,
than the demand for the earlier records of its life, prod
ucts, arid history ; * while the foreign bibliography of the
war for the Union, and the American record and discus
sions thereof, have been already collected or are in process
of collection under Government auspices.f

* " If the price of old books anent America, whether native or foreign,
should continue to augment in value in the same ratio as they have done for
the last thirty years, their prices must become fabulous, or, rather, like the
books of the Sibyls, rise above all valuation. In the early part of the pres
ent century, the " Bay Hymn Book " (the first book printed in North Amer
ica), then an exceedingly rare book, no one would have supposed would bring
$100 ; now, a copy was lately sold for nearly $600, and a perfect copy, at this
time, would bring $1,000. Eliot's " Grammar of the Indian Tongues " was
lately sold for $160 — a small tract. The same author's version of the Scriptures
into the Indian language could be purchased, fifty years ago, for $50 ; now it is
worth $500. For Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christi Americana," $6 was then
thought a good price ; now, $50 is thought cheap for a good copy. Smith's
" History of Virginia," $30 ; now $75. Stith's " History of Virginia," then
$5, now $20. Smith's " History of New Jersey," then $2, now $20. Thomas's
" History of Printing," then $2, now $15. Denton's " History of New Neth
erlands," $5, now $50. These are but a few out of many hundreds that
could be named, that have risen from trifling to extraordinary prices, in the
short space of half a century." — Western Memorabilia.

\ " The importance of this subject has been more directly brought to our
notice in the examination of the foundation of a " Collection of European
Opinion upon the War," now before Congress for the use of the members, and
to be deposited in the Congress Library. This desirable collection is to com
prise the various pamphlets, speeches, debates, and brochures of all kinds
that have appeared in reference to the war, from the attack on Fort Sumter to
the present day, and to be continued to the end of the struggle. We have
the leading editorials, arranged with great care in chronological order, from
the most powerful representatives of the public press in England, France,
Germany, &c. ; also, the correspondence from both armies in the field, of the
special agents sent for that purpose. The various opinions expressed by emi
nent military and naval writers upon our new inventions in the art of war will
well deserve study ; and the horoscope of the future, not only in our own
country, but in its influences upon the welfare of the Old World, should be
carefully pondered over by all political economists." — National Intelligencer.

vi PREFACE.

Numerous as are the books of travel in and commen
taries on America — ranging from the most shallow to the
most profound, from the crude to the artistic, from the
instructive to the impertinent — so far is the subject from
being exhausted, that we seem but now to have a clear
view of the materials for judgment, description, and
analysis. It required the genius of modern communica
tion, the scientific progress, the humane enterprise, the
historical development, and the social inspiration of our
own day, to appreciate the problems which events will
solve on this continent ; to understand the tendencies,
record the phenomena, define the influences and traits,
and realize the natural, moral, and political character and
destiny of America.

NEW YORK, March, 1864.

CONTENTS

PAGB

INTRODUCTION.. 1

CHAPTER I.
EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 13

CHAPTER II.

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION.

Hennepin ; Menard ; Allouez ; Marquette ; Charlevoix ; Marest ; etc. ... 37
CHAPTER III.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

Chastellux ; L'Abbe Robin ; Duche ; Brissot de Warville ; Crevecceur ;

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt ; Volney ; Raynal 58

CHAPTER IV.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS — Continued.

Rochambeau; Talleyrand; Segur; Chateaubriand; Michaux; Murat;
Brillat-Savarin ; De Tocqueville ; De Beaumont ; Ampere ; Lafayette ;
Fisch ; De Gasparin ; Officers ; Laboulaye, etc 110

CHAPTER Y.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

Berkeley ; McSparran ; Mrs. Grant ; Burnaby ; Rogers ; Burke ; Doug
lass ; Henry ; Eddis ; Anbury ; Smythe 156

Vlll

CHAPTER VI.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS — Continued.

PAGB

Wansey ; Cooper ; Wilson ; . Davis ; Ashe ; . Bristed ; Kendall ; Weld ;
Cobbett ; Campbell ; Byron ; Moore ; Mrs. Wakefield ; Hodgson ;
Janson; Caswell; Holmes and others; Hall; Fearon; Fiddler;
Lyell ; Featherstonaugh ; Combe ; Female Writers ; Dickens ;
Faux ; Hamilton ; Parkinson ; Mrs. Trollope ; Grattan ; Lord
Carlisle ; Anthony Trollope ; Prentice ; Stirling ................. 193

CHAPTER YII.
ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA ................................... . . 252

CHAPTER VIII.

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS.

Kalm ; Miss Bremer ; Gurowski, and others ; German Writers : Saxe-
Weimar; Von Raumer; Prince Maximilian Von Wied; Lieber;
Schultz. Other German Writers : Grund ; Ruppius ; Seatsfield ;
Kohl; Talvi; Schaff ........................................ 293

CHAPTER IX.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS.

National Relations ; Verrazzano ; Castiglione ; D'Allessandro ; Capobian-

co ; Salvatore Abbate e Migliori ; Pisani ....................... 334

CHAPTER X.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

John and William Bartram ; Madame Knight ; Ledyard ; Carver ; Jef
ferson ; Imlay ; Dwight ; Coxe ; Ingersoll ; Walsh ; ' Paulding ;
Flint; Clinton; Hall; Tudor; Wirt; Cooper; Hoffman; Olmsted;
Bryant ; Government Explorations ; Washington ; Mrs. Kirkland ;
Irving. American Illustrative Literature: Biography; History;
Manuals ; Oratory ; Romance ; Poetry. Local Pictures : Everett,
Hawthorne, Channing, etc ................................... 371

CHAPTER XI.
CONCLUSION ................................................... 438

INDEX . . 451

ISTTKODUCTION.

La Terre, says Fontenelle, est ime vieitte coquette. While
in so many branches of authorship the interest of books is
superseded by new discoveries in science and superior art and
knowledge, honest and intelligent books of travel preserve
their use and charm, because they describe places and people
as they were at distinct epochs, and confirm or dissipate sub
sequent theories. The point of view adopted, the kind of
sympathy awakened, the time and the character of the writer
— each or all give individuality to such works, when inspired
by genuine observation, which renders them attractive as a
reference and a memorial, and for purposes of comparison if
not of absolute interest. Moreover the early travellers, or
rather those who first record their personal experience of a
country, naturally describe it in detail, and put on record
their impressions with a candor rarely afterward imitated,
because of that desire to avoid a beaten path which later
writers feel. Hence, the most familiar traits and scenes are
apt to be less dwelt upon, the oftener they are described ;
and, for a complete and naive account, we must revert to
primitive travels, whose quaintness and candor often atone
for any incongruities of style or old-fashioned prolixity.

A country that is at all suggestive, either through associa
tion or intrinsic resources, makes a constant appeal to genius,
to science, arid to sympathy ; and offers, under each of these
1

2 INTRODUCTION.

aspects, an infinite variety. Arthur Young's account of
France, just before the Revolution, cannot be superseded ;
Lady Montagu's account of Turkey is still one of the most
complete ; and Dr. Moore's Italy is a picture of manners and
morals of permanent interest, because of its contrast with the
existent state of things. Indeed, that beautiful and unfortu
nate but regenerated land has long been so congenial a theme
for scholars, and so attractive a nucleus for sentiment, that
around its monuments and life the gifted and eager souls of
all nations, have delighted to throw the expression of their
conscious personality, from morbid and melancholy Byron to
intellectual and impassioned De Stae'l, from Hans Andersen,
the humane and fanciful Dane, to Hawthorne, the intro
spective New Englander. What Italy has been and is to
the unappropriated sentiment of authors, America has been
and is to unorganized political aspirations : if the one country
has given birth to unlimited poetical, the other has suggest
ed a vast amount of philosophical speculation. Brissot, Cob-
bett, and De Tocqueville found in the one country as genial
a subject as Goethe, Rogers, and Lady Morgan in the other ;
and while the latter offers a permanent background of art and
antiquity, which forever identifies the scene, however the light
and shade of the writer's experience may differ, so Nature, in
her wild, vast, and beautiful phases, offers in the former an in
spiring and inexhaustible charm, and free institutions an ever-
suggestive theme, however variously considered.

The increase of books of this kind can, perhaps, be real
ized in no more striking way than by comparing the long
catalogue of the present day with the materials available to
the inquirer half a century ago. When Winterbotham, in
1795, undertook to prepare an " Historical, Geographical, Com
mercial, and Philosophical View of the United States " * — to
meet an acknowledged want in Europe, where so many, con
templating emigration to America, anxiously sought for ac-

* Four vols. 8vo., with a scries of maps, plates, portraits, &c., London,
1795. "A valuable record of the state of this continent at the end of the
last century, selected from all accessible sources."

• INTRODUCTION. 3

•

curate knowledge, and often for local and political details, and
where there existed so much misconception and such vision
ary ideas in regard to this country — he cited the following
writers as his chief resource for facts and principles of his
tory, government, social conditions, and statistics : the Abbe
Raynal, Dr. Franklin, Robertson, Clavigero, Jefferson, Bel-
knap, Adams, Catesby, Morse, Buffon, Gordon, Ramsay, Bar-
tram, Cox, Rush, Mitchill, Cutler, Imlay, Filson, Barlow,
Brissot, and Edwards. The authenticity of most of these
writers made them, indeed, most desirable authorities ; but
the reader who recalls their respective works will readily per
ceive how limited was the scope of such, considered as illus
trating the entire country. Dr. Belknap wrote of New
Hampshire, Jefferson of Virginia, Bartram of Florida and a
few other States ; Ramsay, Gordon, Adams, and Franklin fur
nished excellent political information ; but Morse's Geography
was quite crude and limited, and Brissot's account of America
was tinctured with his party views. We need not lose sight
of the benefits which our early historical authors and natural
ists conferred, while we fully recognize the superior complete
ness and scientific insight of later and better-equipped authors.
Dr. Belknap, it will ever be conceded, stands foremost as a
primitive local historian, and benign is his memory as the
indefatigable student of venerable records when the steeple
of the Old South Church, in Boston, was his study; while, as
the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, every
explorer of New England annals owes him a debt of grati
tude : yet his description of the White Mountains is more
valuable for its early date than for those scientific and pic
turesque details which give such interest to the botanical
researches of contemporary authors. The data furnished by
Catesby and Bartram have still a charm and use for the
savant who examines the flora and ichthyology of Florida
and the Carolinas — notwithstanding the splendid work of
Agassiz ; and there are temporary aspects of life at the South
noted by Paulding, which give emphasis to the more thorough
statistics of Olmsted.

4: INTRODUCTION.

To a philosophical reader, indeed, there are few more
striking illustrations of character than the diverse trains of
thought, sources of interest, and modes of viewing the same
subject, which books of travel incidentally reveal : from
Herodotus to Humboldt, the disposition and idiosyncrasies
of the writers are as apparent as their comparative ability.
There is, undoubtedly, great sameness in the numerous jour
nals, letters, and treatises of travellers on America ; only a few
of them have any claim to originality, or seem animated by vital
relations to the subject ; a specimen here and there represents
an entire class ; and to analyze the whole would be wearisome ;
yet, in all that bear the impress of discrimination and moral sen
sibility, there is evident the individuality of taste and purpose
that belongs to all genuine human work ; and in this point of
view these writings boast no common variety : each author
looks at his theme through the lens to which his vision is
habituated ; and hence we have results as diverse as the
medium and the motive of the respective writers. It accords
with Talleyrand's political tastes that the sight of Alexander
Hamilton — one of the wisest of the republican legislators —
should have been the most memorable incident of his exile in
America : equally accordant with Ampere's literary sentiment
was it that he should find a Dutch gable as attractive as
Broadway, because it revived the genial humor of Irving's
facetious History : Wilson and Charles Bonaparte found the
birds, French officers the fair Quakers, English commercial
travellers the manufactures and tariffs, English farmers the
agriculture, Continental economists the prison and educational
systems, Lyell the rocks and mines, Michaux the trees, sports
men the Western plains, and clerical visitors the sects and
missions — the chief attraction ; and while one pilgrim be
stows his most heartfelt reflections upon the associations of
Mount Vernon, another has no sympathy for any scene or
subject but those connected with slavery : this one is amus
ing in humorous exaggeration of the Connecticut Blue Laws,
and that one extravagant in his republican zeal ; tobacco and
maple sugar, intemperance and prairie hunting, reptiles and

INTRODUCTION. 5

elections, the whale fishery and the Indians, manners and
morals, occupy, in most unequal proportions, the attention of
different writers ; an engineer praises the ingenuity and hardi
hood, while he deprecates the fragility of the " remarkable
wooden bridges in America ; " an editor discourses of the in
fluence and abuse of the Press ; a horticulturist speculates on
the prospects of the vine culture, and an economist on the
destruction of the forests and the desultory system of farm
ing. Chambers, accustomed to cater for useful knowledge
for the people, describes public establishments and schools ;
while Kossuth's companion Pulskzy looks sharply at the
" white, red, and black " races of the land, and speculates
therefrom upon democracy and its results; Lady Stuart
Wortley enters into the sentiment of the scenery, and Miss
Bremer into the details of domestic economy ; the Earl of
Carlisle asks first for Allston's studio on landing, and, with the
liberality of a scholar and a gentleman, elucidates the country
he has partially but candidly observed, in a popular lecture ;
while the Honorable Augustus Murray had too much rare
sport in the "West, and formed too happy a conjugal tie in
America, not to have his recollections thereof, bright and
kindly in the record. In a word, every degree of sympathy
and antipathy, of refinement and vulgarity, of philosophi
cal ie^ight and shallow impertinence is to be traced in these
books of American travel — from coarse malice to dull good
nature, and from genial sense to repulsive bigotry. And
while the field may appear to have been well reaped as re
gards the discussion of manners, government, and industrial
resources — recondite inquirers, especially the ethnologists,
regard America as still ripe for the harvest.

Years ago, Le Comte Carli * wrote to his cousin : " Je me
propose de vous developper mes idees, ou, si vous le voulez,

* " Lettres Americaines," 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1788. "In the first part,
the author describes the manners and customs of the Americans before their
country was discovered by Europeans. He also believes that traces of the
religious rites of the Church of Rome were found among them, which resem
bled baptism and the communion of bread and wine."

6 INTRODUCTION.

mes songes, concernant les anciens peuples de 1'Amerique que
je crois descendus de ces antiques Atlantides si fameux dans
1'histoire des premiers temps." And, within a few months, a
London critical journal has mercilessly ridiculed the Abbe Em.
Domenech, who published his " Seven Years' Residence in the
Great American Deserts ; " in the introduction to which he
remarks : " America is not solely an El Dorado for free
booters and fortune seekers ; though few persons have gone
thither to gather the fruits of science." He refers to the
origin of the Indian tribes and the various theories on the
subject, and alludes to the undoubted fact that " numerous
emigrations took place at very remote periods ; " and adds :
" Africa has become known to us, but America has still a
vast desert to which missionaries, merchants, and some rare
scientific expeditions have alone penetrated. Its history, its
geography, and its geology are still wrapped in swaddling
clothes. America is now, comparatively speaking, a • new
country, a virgin land, which contains numerous secrets.
The Government of the United States, to its praise be it,
have, of late years, sent scientific expeditions into the Amer
ican Deserts ; " and he notes the publications of Schoolcraft,
Catlin, and the Smithsonian Institute.

We have first the old voyageurs in the collection of
De Bry and his English prototype Ogilby — the quaint, often
meagre, but original and authentic records of the first explor
ers and navigators ; then, the diaries, travels, and memoirs of
the early Jesuit missionaries ; next, the colonial pamphlets
and reports, official, speculative, and incidental, including the
series of controversial tracts and descriptions relating to New
England and Virginia and other settlements ; the reports of
the Quaker missionaries, the travels of French officers who
took part in the Revolutionary War, and the long catalogue
of English books — from the colonial to the cockney era ;
while the lives of the Spanish explorers, of the pioneers, the
military adventurers, and the founders of colonies fill up and
amplify the versatile chronicle. From Roger Williams's Key
to the Indian Languages, to Sir Henry Clinton's annotations

INTRODUCTION. 7

of Grahame's History of the American War, from De Yries to
De Tocqueville, from Cotton Mather * to Mrs. Trollope, from
Harmon's " Free Estate of Virginia," published in 1614, to
Dr. Russell's fresh letters thence to the London Times • from
Champlain's voyage to Dickens's Notes, from Zenger's Trial f to
the last report of the Patent Office — the catalogue raisonnee
of books of American travel, history, and criticism would
include every phase of life, manners, creed, custom, develop
ment, and character, from the imperfect chart of unknown
waters to the glowing photograph of manners in the analyt
ical nineteenth century. We find, in examining the library
of American travels, that toleration is the charm that invests
her to the heart yet bleeding from the wounds of relentless
persecution ; and, in the elation of freedom, the page glows
with eloquent gratitude even amid the plaints of exile.
Mountains, rivers, cataracts, and caves make the child of
romance pause and plead ; while gigantic fossil or exquisite
coral reefs or a superb tree or rare flower win and warm the
naturalist : one lingers in the Baltimore cathedral, another at
the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, and a third in a Uni
tarian chapel at Boston, according to their respective views ;
while " equality of condition," small taxes, cheap land, or
plentiful labor stcures the advocacy of the practical; and
solecisms in manners or language provoke the sarcasms of the
fastidious.

We derive from each and all of these commentators on our
country, information, not otherwise obtainable, of the "aspect
of nature and the condition of the people, at different eras and
in various regions : we thus realize the process of national

* Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christ! Americana ; or, the Ecclesiastical
History of New England," 2 vols. 8vo., first American ed., Hartford, 1820.

f " A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John P. Zenger, Printer of
the New York 'Weekly Journal,' for a Libel," 4to., pp. 53, New York, 1770.
Governeur Morris, instead of dating American liberty from the Stamp Act,
traced it to the prosecution of Peter Zenger, a printer in the colony of New
York, for an alleged libel : because that event revealed the philosophy of
freedom, both of thought and speech, as an inborn human right, so nobly set
forth in Milton's treatise on unlicensed printing. .

8 INTEODUCTION.

development ; trace to their origin local peculiarities ; behold
the present by the light of the past ; and, in a manner, iden
tify ourselves with those to whom familiarity had not blunted
the impression of scenes native to ourselves, and social traits
•or political tendencies too near for us to view them in their
true moral perspective. It may therefore prove both useful
and interesting, suggestive and entertaining, to follow the
steps and listen to the comments of these numerous travellers
and critics, and so learn better to understand, more justly to
appreciate and wisely love the land of our birth, doubly dear
since fratricidal hands have desecrated her fame.

After colonial enterprise, "republican sympathy, economical
zeal, the satirical, the adventurous, and the scientific had thus
successively reported to Europe the condition and prospects,
the errors and merits of our country, in the height of her
material prosperity, broke out the long-matured Rebellion of
the Slaveholders ; and while a vast and sanguinary civil war
tested to the utmost, the moral and physical resources of the
nation, it called forth a new, more earnest and significant
criticism abroad. To analyze this would be to discuss the
entire foreign bibliography of the war for the Union. We
can but glance at its most striking features and important
phenomena. t

The first lesson to be inferred from the most cursory sur
vey of what has been published in Europe on what is there
called " the American Question," is the immense and intricate
influence and relations which now unite the Kew to the Old
World. Commerce, emigration, political ideas, social inter
ests, literature, science, and religion have, one and all, con
tinued to weave strong mutual ties of dependence and re
ciprocity between Europe and America, to realize the extent
and vital importance of which we have only to compare the
issues of the European press for a single week with the sparse
and obscure publications whereby the foreigner, a century
ago, learned what was going on or likely to be achieved for
humanity on the great western continent. This voluminous
and impressive testimony as to the essential importance of

INTRODUCTION. 9

America to Europe, is quite as manifest in the abuse as in the
admiration, in the repulsion as the sympathy of foreign wri
ters, during the memorable conflict ; for selfish fear, interested
motives, or base jealousy inspired their bitter comments far
more than speculative indifference ; while those in a disinter
ested position, actuated solely by philosophical and humane
impulses, elaborately pleaded the cause of our national life
and integrity as involved in the essential welfare of the civil
ized world. Next to this universal acknowledgment of a
mutual stake in the vast conflict, perhaps for us the most sin
gular revelation derived from the foreign discussion of our
civil and military affairs has been that of the extraordinary
ignorance of the country existing abroad. Apart from wilful
political and perverse prejudice, this popular ignorance is
doubtless the cause and the excuse for much of the patent
injustice and animosity exhibited by the press toward the
United States. The rebellious government organized a social
mission to Europe, Avhereby they forestalled public opinion
and artfully misrepresented facts : so that it has been a slow
process to enlighten the leaders of opinion, and counteract
the work of mercenary writers in France and England sub
sidized at the earliest stage of the war.

But with all due allowance for want of knowledge and
the assiduity of paid advocates of error, through all the pas
sion, prejudice, and mercenary hardihood which have given
birth to so much falsehood, malice, and inhumanity in the
foreign literary treatment of our national cause in this stupen
dous crisis and climax of social and civil life — we can yet dis
tinctly trace the influence and recognize the work of friend
and foe in the recent avalanche of new commentators on
America : their motives become daily more obvious, their
legitimate claims more apparent, and their just influence bet
ter appreciated. History has in store for the most eminent
an estimate which will counteract any undue importance
attached to their dicta by the acute sensibilities of the passing
time, so " big with fate." In an intellectual point of view,
the course of English writers is already defined and explained
1*

10 INTRODUCTION.

to popular intelligence : the greater part of their insane ill
will and perverse misrepresentation being accredited to polit
ical jealousy and prejudice, and therefore of no moral value ;
while the evidence of bribery and corruption robs another
large amount of vituperation and false statement of all
rational significance ; while the more prominent and pOAverful
expositors, as far as position, capacity, and integrity are con
cerned, are, to say the least, not so unequally divided as to
cause any fear that truth and justice lack able and illustrious
defenders : in the political arena, Roebuck's vulgar anathemas
were more than counterbalanced by the sound and honest
reasoning of Cobden and the logical eloquence of Bright ;
while we could afford to bear the superficial sneers of Carlyle,
more of an artist than a philosopher in letters, and the un
worthy misrepresentations of Lord Brougham, senilely aris
tocratic and unsympathetic, while the vigorous thinker and
humanely scientific reformer John Stuart Mill so clearly,
consistently, and effectively pleaded the claims of our free
nationality. And in France, how vain in the retrospect seem
the venal lucubrations of pamphleteers and. newspaper con
tributors arrayed against the Government and people of the
United States when fighting for national existence and against
the perpetuity and canonization of the greatest of human
wrongs — when, in the lecture room of the College of France,
the gifted and erudite Edouard Laboulaye expounds the grand
and rightful basis of our Constitution, and in the salons of
the same metropolis scatters his wit-kindled pages in vindica
tion of our social privileges and civic growth ; and, at the
French Academy, Montalembert thus opens his discourse :

" Gentlemen, eighty years have elapsed since M. Montyon con
fided to the French Academy the mission of crowning not only lite
rary works useful to morals, but virtuous deeds. It was in the year
1782; at the moment when the peace of America commenced to
recompense the glorious cooperation which France had lent to the
emancipation of the United States and to the birth of a great free peo
ple, whose greatness and whose liberty shall never perish, if it please God,
in the formidable trials which it is passing through to-day. Louis XVI.

INTRODUCTION. 11

showed himself still animated by the wisdom which had called Male-
sherbes and Turgot to his counsels. The Queen Marie Antoinette had
given birth to her firstborn ; Madame Elizabeth of France was in
her eighteenth year, illuminating Versailles with her virginal graces
and her angelic piety — that Elizabeth whose bust you see before you,
presented by M. Montyon himself, with the inscription ' To Virtue,'
of which she seemed the most perfect and touching type. Liberty
then seemed to rise up pure and fruitful in Europe as in America, and
our ancient royalty to be steeped in a new fountain of youth, pop
ularity, and virtue.

" How many miscalculations, ruins, and disasters, above all, how
many crimes and humiliating failures, since these days of generous
illusion, of legitimate enthusiasm and blind confidence ! How many
cruel lessons inflicted upon the noblest aspirations of the human
heart ! How many motives for not surrendering themselves to the
most reasonable hopes except with a salutary humility, but however,
without ever abdicating the indissoluble rights of human liberty or
banishing to the land of chimeras the noble ambition of governing
men by honor and conscience ! "

The new comments on America elicited by the war are
threefold : first, political speeches ; second, newspaper com
mentaries ; and third, treatises deliberately written and pub
lished. Of the first, the greater part are unavoidably ephem
eral in their influence, and usually called forth by a special
phase of the war in its international relations ; the second,
especially as regards the leading journal in Great Britain and
most famous in the world, have sunk to the lowest conceivable
level as a medium of authentic information and a mercenary
agency ; in the third department alone has anything of a com
plete and permanent interest been introduced ; and there are
pages of De Gasparin, Laboulaye, Mill, Cairnes, Newman,
Cochin, and Martin, which deserve to be enshrined as literary
illustrations of Christian liberalism and eloquent loyalty to
truth and humanity in the defence and illustration of Ameri
can liberty, law, and life, in their magnanimous conflict with
injustice, degradation, and cruel sacrilege. When Lafayette,
nearly half a century ago, received at the hands of the nation
in whose behalf he had fought in his youth, the greatest pop
ular ovation ever granted to a hero, he thus alluded to the

12 INTRODUCTION.

Union in one of his replies to the municipal welcomes that
greeted his entrance into every city of the land :

"A Union, so essential, not only to ihefate of each member of the
confederacy, but also to the general fate of mankind, that the least
breach of it would be hailed with barbarian joy by a universal war-
whoop of European aristocracy and despotism."

It was in reply to this base " war whoop " that the writers
we have mentioned, so eloquently and seasonably advocated
the cause and character of our nation.

One of the most curious and interesting of the countless
subjects which the history of our memorable conflict will
yield to future philosophical investigation, will be its literary
fruit and record — the bibliography of the war — and of this
the foreign contributions will afford some remarkable and
brilliant specimens. If to ourselves, as a nation, the war for
the Union has been a test of extraordinary scope and intensity
— developing a military and scientific genius, a sanitary enter
prise, an extent of financial resources, a capacity for self-sacri
fice and self-reliance undreamed of in our prior experience ; if
it has tested personal character and modified social estimates,
and tried absolutely the comparative worth and latent force
of our institutions and national sentiment, not less has it
tested the political magnanimity, the press, the prejudices, the
social philosophy, and humane instincts of Europe ; and if the
crisis has evoked much that is mean and mortifying in the
spirit of those old communities in their feelings toward our
young republic in the bitter hour when the pangs of a second
birth are rending her vitals, so also has it called forth memor
able, benign, noble words of cheer and challenge from volun
teer champions of America abroad, in the foremost ranks of
her best and most honest thinkers, lovers of truth, and repre
sentatives of humanity.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS.

FKOM the time when the existence of this continent was
but conjectural to the European mind, and recognized as a
fact of nature only in the brain of a poor Genoese mariner,
it was looked to, thought of, imagined chiefly in its relation
to the Old World, as the completion and resource of her civil
ization — a new opportunity, a fresh arena. Gold seekers, *
indeed, were prompted to gaze hither by mere cupidity, and
Columbus nearly lost his long-solicited aid from the Spanish
sovereigns by insisting on hereditary privileges of rule and
possession in case of success ; but the idea that warmed the
generous purpose of Isabella was the conversion to Chris
tianity of the heathen tribes of America, and the extension
of Catholic rule in the world. No candid thinker can look
back upon the period of the discovery without tracing a
wonderful combination of events and tendencies of humanity,
whereof this land seems the foreordained and inevitable goal
and consequence. It cannot appear to the least imaginative
and philosophical mind as an accident, that the zeal for mari
time discovery should have awakened in Europe simultaneous
ly with the access of new social truth, the sudden progress of

* " Les chercheurs d'or ont commence, ni voulant qu'or, rien de plus brisant
i'komme, Colomb, le meilleur de tous, dans son propre journal, montre cela avec
une naivete terrible, qui d'avance, fait fremir de ce que feront ses successeurs."
— MICHELET.

14: ' AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ideas, and the triumph of mechanical genius. With the
fifteenth century the " civilization of the sanctuary " over
leaped its long exclusive boundaries, and, with the invention
of printing, became a normal need and law of humanity ;
feudalism waned ; the Reformation awoke and set free the
instinct of faith and moral freedom ; and just at this crisis a
new world was opened, a fresh sphere afforded. As the idea
of " geographical unity " — the conviction that " the globe
wanted one of its hemispheres " — was the inspiration of Colum
bus, so to the eye of the thoughtful observer, an equilibrium
of the moral world — a balance to the human universe — was as
obvious and imperative a necessity ; for the new ideas and the
conflict of opinions and interests, and especially the new and
absolute self-assertion, incident to the decay of error and the
escape from traditional degradation, made it indispensable
to the safety of the innovator, the freedom of the thinker,
the scope of the dissenter and reformer, to find refuge and
audience in a land whose destinies yet lay undeveloped in the
wild freedom of nature, and where prowess of mind as well
as of animal courage could work into " victorious clearness "
the confused problems of an aspiring civilization, and lay the
foundation of an eclectic, liberal, and free community of men
— " a wider theatre and a new life."

Accordingly, with the progress of time and the accumula
tion of historical details, with the profound analysis thereof
that characterizes modern research — the decline of feudal and
ecclesiastical sway in Europe, the Reformation, and the inven
tion of printing are seen to have an intimate relation to and
affinity with the discovery of America, in the series of historical
events which have resulted in the civilization of the nineteenth
century. Nor is this original association of the New and Old
World without a vague physical parallel ; for* it has been a
favorite scientific speculation that there was an ancient union
or proximity of the two continents — suggested by the fact
that the eastern shore of America advances where the opposite
shore of Europe recedes. " Firstborn among the continents,"
says Agassiz, " though so much later in culture and civiliza-

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 15

tion than some of more recent birth, America, as far as her
physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the
New World." " America," says Ritter, " although it repeats
the contrasts of the Old World, yet the course of its mountain
chains is riot from east to west, but from north to south. Its
sea coast best endowed with harbors and islands is on the
eastern side, and so turned toward the civilization of the Old
World. The Gulf Stream, which may be called the great com
mercial highway of nations, brought both of the continents
bordering on the North Atlantic into direct connection.
North America was, therefore, destined to be discovered
by Europeans, and not by Asiatics. Asia could easily have
transferred a part of its population to America, in consequence
of the proximity of their shores at Behring's Straits. But the
sea coast of North America is so richly furnished with har
bors and islands, that it readily attracted European civiliza
tion. The gentle slopes of the American continent offered a
most favorable field to Europeans, allowing, as they did, civil
ization to penetrate without obstruction every portion of the
land. Nature, too, has shown us, by giving to America river
systems which run northward to the numerous groups of
islands and peninsulas of the Polar Sea, that America was
destined even more than Europe to send civilization to the
northern portions of the globe." *

The North American continent extends from the twenty-
fourth to the forty-nintfy degree of north latitude, and from
the sixty-sixth to the one hundred and twenty-fourth degree
of west longitude : its area is more than five sixths that of
Europe, and more than ten times that of Great Britain and
France united : there are seven thousand miles of eastern
shore line, thirty-four hundred southern and twenty-two
hundred western ; while the northern lake line is twenty-two
hundred miles. Climate, soil, avocation, and productions are,
by this affluent space, adapted to the constitution, the charac
ter, and the necessity of each European nationality — so that

* " Geographical Studies," by Professor Carl Ritter, of Berlin, translated
by W. L. Gage.

16 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

the German vinedresser, the Italian musician, the Spanish
planter, the French modiste — Pole, Russian, Swede, Swiss, and
Sicilian — the professor, merchant, man of science, agriculturist,
tough rustic, delicate artiste, radical writer, proselyting priest,
or cosmopolitan philosopher — with any sagacity, self-respect,
or urbanity, can readily find the physical conditions or the
social facilities, the climate, business, and community, the
scopes, position, and prosperity adapted to his temperament
and faculty. The Spanish, French, and colonial history of
America — the national epoch with its statistics of navigation,
population, taxation, education, public lands, railways, manu
factures, patents, canals, telegraphs, legislation, municipal
rule, emigration, jurisprudence, trade, and government — and,
finally, the causes and significance of the present rebellion —
are each and all elements of a vast historical development,
wherein a Christian philosopher can easily trace a consecutive
significance and Divine superintendence of humanity.

Travellers of ordinary intelligence and observation are not
unfrequently lured into vague but rational conjectures as to
the history of races by the resemblance so often apparent
between the memorials of widely separated and most ancient
people. An American familiar with the trophies of an Egyp
tian museum, who has examined the contents of a Western
mound, visited an Etruscan city, like Volterra, Druidical re
mains in Britain, or compared the porcelain idols of Burmah
with those found in South and Central America, will be
tempted to follow with credulity the ingenious speculations of
antiquarian savans who argue from symbolic coincidences that
an identical language arid worship, in remote ages, linked in a
common bond the world's inhabitants ; or that similar trophies
of faith found in Odin stones and Hindu temples, in Etrurian
sepulchres and Mississippi tumuli, at least, suggest a more
ancient emigration to America than is claimed by the advo
cates of Norse discoveries. It is but needful to read the his
tory of the serpent symbol and the recent controversies as to
unity of races, to find in such ethnological speculations a re
markable basis of fact ; whether or not we admit the prob-

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. IT

ability so confidently urged that a Chinese priest and a fifth-
century Buddhist missionary visited this continent via the
Pacific, and reported thereof, ages before Christopher Colum
bus dreamed of a new world. In fact, the early history and
traditions relating to the discovery and casual settlements, is
one of the most remarkable chapters in the annals of the
world — affording, on the one hand, the greatest scope for
imagination, and, on the other, the most suggestive material
for philosophical inference and elucidation. How early and
in what manner the nearest points of contact between America
and the rest of the world, in the far northwest, were first
crossed at Behring's Straits, gives room for bold conjecture :
ethnologists, iarcha3ologists, and antiquarians have broached
numerous theories and established curious facts to prove that
the " new world " of Columbus was known and partially
colonized long before that intrepid navigator heard the
thrilling cry of " land ! " from the mast head of the Pinta :
not only those primitive explorers the Chinese and Japanese,
but the ancient Phoenicians, Norman colonists from Greenland,
Irish saints, and Russian overland expeditions have been con
fidently traced and sometimes authenticated. Naturalists
have, with subtile knowledge, pointed out how the secret of
another continent was whispered by the voice of Nature, seeds
borne on the currents of the air, and plants on those of the
sea ; scholars have culled from old Latin and Italian poets
intimations of the existence of a hemisphere unexplored ; and
ingenious observers have appealed to stone hearths, like those
of Denmark, found at Cape Cod, moss-grown clefts in aged
trees, brass arrow heads, and copper axes, to evidence a long-
lost colony.

The Icelandic navigators are supposed to have made voy
ages to Yinland, on the southern coast of New England, five
centuries before Columbus. The Welsh, too, claim a share in
this remote exploration of America. In the preface to his
poem of " Madoc," Southey says of the hero, he " abandoned
his barbarous country, and sailed away to the west, in search
of some better resting place. The land which he discovered

18 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

pleased him ; lie left there part of his people, and went back
to Wales for a fresh supply of adventurers, with whom he
again set sail, and was heard of no more. Strong evidence
has been adduced that he reached America, and that his pos
terity exist there to this day." And a venerable scholar, of
our own country, observes that

"Madoc is stated to have been a son of Owen Gwynedd, Prince,
or, as lie is often styled, King of Wales. His father's death is assigned
to the year 1169, and the commencement of liis own voyage to the
succeeding year. I quote an authority which has apparently been
overlooked, in citing Warrington's History of Wales. He writes :
4 About this time [1170] Madoc, seeing the contention which agitated
the fiery spirit of his brothers, with a courage equal to theirs, but far
more liberally directed, gave himself up to the danger and uncertainty
of seas hitherto unexplored. He is said to have embarked with a few
ships ; sailing west, and leaving Ireland to the north, he traversed
the ocean till lie arrived by accident upon the coast of America.
Pleased with its appearance, he left there a great part of liis people,
and returning for a fresh supply, he was joined by many adventurers,
both men and women ; who, encouraged by a flattering description
of that country, and sick of the disorders which reigned in their own,
were desirous of seeking an asylum in the wilds of America.'

" Some, indeed, have regarded the whole subject as unworthy of
investigation. But when we perceive it asserted, that individuals
have seen in the possession of Indians, as we call them, books or rolls
written on parchment, and carefully wrapped up, though they could
not be read ; and the people who possessed them, though but a frag
ment of our Indian population, showing a fairer skin than the ordi
nary tribes, and hair and beard, occasionally, of reddish color — we
must think the subject worth some farther inquiry ; and I cannot
but express the hope that the inquiry may be pursued." *

Carl Christian Rafn, a Danish archa3ologist, in his work on
American antiquities, published at Copenhagen in 1837, en
deavors to prove that America was not only discovered by
the Scandinavians in the tenth, but that during the four suc
ceeding centuries they made frequent voyages thither, and

* " Address before the American Antiquarian Society, at their Annual
Meeting, October, 1863," by Rev. William Jenks, D. D.

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 19

had settlements in what is now Massachusetts and Rhode
Island.

Availing himself of these researches, our eminent country
man Henry Wheaton enriched his " History of the North
men " — a work, like the author's Treatise on International Law,
of European reputation — the fruit of studies carried on in the
midst of important and admirably fulfilled diplomatic duties.

Alexander von Humboldt, on his way from Mexico via
Cuba, arrived at Philadelphia in 1804, and was cordially re
ceived at Washington by Jefferson ; his sojourn in the United
States, however, was quite brief: of his views in regard to
the ancient memorials found in the American continents the
historian Prescott observes : " Humboldt is a true philoso
pher, divested of local and national prejudices ; like most
truly learned men, he is cautious and modest in his deductions,
and though he assembles very many remarkable coincidences
between the Old World and the New, in their institutions,
notions, habits, etc., yet he does not infer that the New
World was peopled from the Old, much less from one par
ticular nation, as most rash speculators have done." *

From the vague but romantic conjecture of the Egyptian
legend which Plato repeated in regard to the island of At
lantis, to the dim traditions which place the wonderful Vinland
of the Scandinavian navigators on the shores of Labrador ;
from the mysterious charm that invested the newly discovered
isles of the tropics and found immortal expression in Shak-
speare's Tempest, to the curious ethnological speculations which
recognize in the ancient mounds of the Mississippi valley rel
ics of a civilization anterior to the American Indians ; from
the fabulous lures, like the fountain of youth, that attracted
Southern Europeans to Florida, to the stern crises of opinion
which drove English Puritans to the bleak coast of New Eng
land — the earliest descriptions of and associations with the
country, now known as the United States of America, are deep
ly tinctured with visionary legends and traditional fables ; to

* Ticknor's "Life of Prescott," p. 165.

20 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

extricate which from the substratum of truth and fact, is a
hopeless attempt. Nor, despite the exploded theories which
found in certain rocks and structures evidences of the North
men's sojourn, and the symbolical science which seerns par
tially to unite the trophies of ancient sepulchres with the East-
pera races — are we averse to leave un analyzed the vast and
mysterious region of inquiry outside of authentic history ; let
it remain in vague extent and dreamy suggestiveness — the
domain of limitless possibilities to the philosopher, and of ro
mantic suggestiveness to the poet.

Even the imaginative charm that belongs to this myth
ical era, yields to one scarcely less attractive, when the Amer
ican traveller remembers, at St. Malo, that the intrepid Car-
tier thence sailed to discover the St. Lawrence, or inspects with
a deeper feeling than curiosity the letters of Verrazzano, still
preserved in the library at Florence, wherein he describes the
coast of Carolina and the harbors of New York and Newport
in all their virgin solitude ; and recalls at Bristol the primitive
expeditions of the Cabots.

It is sufficient, indeed, for the inquirer who aims to dis
cern and illustrate the actual resources, development, and pros
pects of the country, to begin with the first authentic descrip
tions of the mainland by the old navigators who, in that era
of maritime enterprise, visited so many points of the coast
toward the close of the fifteenth and the early part of the
sixteenth century.

When we consider what geography was in the hands of
Strabo and Pliny, and what the literature of travel was Avhen
Columbus discovered the West Indies,* Cabot Labrador, and

* San Domingo has been well named " the vestibule of American discovery
and colonization ;" that island having long been the headquarters and rendez
vous of Columbus, and the scene of his first success and subsequent misfor
tunes : it was thither that the animals and plants originally introduced to this
country from Europe were brought ; there was the first white colony established
on this side of the Atlantic ; and there, at present, seems to be the most flour
ishing and promising free negro population. A full and interesting account of
this island, whose future is fraught with interest, was recently read before the
N. Y. Geographical Society, and is published by G. P. Putnam, of New York.

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 21

Vespucci gave a name to this continent — instead of wonder
ing at the meagre details and extravagant generalities of those
primitive accounts of the New World, we should rather congrat
ulate ourselves on the amount and kind of authentic material
which Navarette collected and arranged and Irving gracefully
elaborated in his Life of the Discoverer of America. It is
quite an abrupt transition from the glowing fables that im
mediately precede the first chapter of our regular history, to
perceive and admit the fact that " shoals of cod " really estab
lished the earliest practical mutual interest between Europe
and America ; and that the Newfoundland fisheries formed the
original nucleus whereby originated the extraordinary emi
gration which, from that day to the present, has continued to
people this hemisphere with the representatives of every race,
country, and lineage of Europe. The old navigators were the
pioneers — Spanish and Portuguese ; in 1512, Ponce de Leon
commenced his romantic quest in the Bahamas ; eight years
later, Magellan finished the demonstration Columbus began,
by circumnavigating the globe ; in 1524, the Florentine mar
iner Verrazzauo anchored in the bay of New York ; in 1528,
Narvaez was in Florida ; in 1539, De Soto discovered the
Mississippi ; in 1540, France commenced the colonization of
the country around the St. Lawrence, and in 1606 was
granted the first charter of Virginia; in 1610, the Dutch
began to trade with the aborigines of the Hudson ; and in
1620, the "Mayflower" arrived at Plymouth.

For a long period, when the fisheries of Newfoundland
were the only attraction and the chief promise to European
adventure, the whole country was spoken of and written
about by a French appellative signifying codfish ; and during
another era, Florida, the name .given to their southern settle
ment by the Spaniards, was applied to the whole extent of the
coast ; while Virginia, whereby the Jamestown colony was
called from the Virgin Queen, whose favorite Raleigh was
patentee thereof, designated an indefinite extent of country,
and on the old maps and in the current parlance stood for
America to Englishmen : a German writer laments that one

22 AMEKICA AND HEE COMMENT ATOES.

of those names was not retained as national — instead of being
confined to a single State ; arguing their better adaptation to
indicate a flourishing and a virgin land than the vague terms
America and the United States. One reason why a citizen of
the latter is so often startled at the ignorance of rustics and
provincials on the Continent, in confounding North and South
America, is that the products of the latter, some of which are
in prevalent use in Europe, are known merely as American
productions.

The decadence of Spain and the growth of England are
intimately associated with the settlement of America. The
introduction from the latter country into Europe of the
potato, maize, and tobacco, has exerted an influence and pro
duced results far transcending the more obvious economical
consequences. Upon maritime enterprise and interests, in
cluding both legal and scientific progress, the discovery and
settlement of the New World produced effects incalculable.
While the priests and the fur traders who explored Canada
achieved little beyond the local and often temporary establish
ment of depots, forts, and chapels, and left in the memory
of Champlain a foreign tradition rather than a fresh national
development, the colonization of the Atlantic slope embodied
and conserved a new political development, and identified the
country with progressive industry, religious toleration, free
citizenship, educational privileges, and an economical rule.
Newfoundland became a school for English seamen ; New
Belgium preserved and propagated the social enfranchise
ment and instinct of liberty wrested in the Netherlands from
the cruel despotism of Spain ; French Protestants found scope
and safety in the Carolinas, and English Puritans a bleak but
vital realm in New England.

Those formid able-looking folios in old Latin type, and
with the imprint of Venice or Amsterdam, dear to anti
quarians, wherein the old navigators, through some medieAral
scholar's pen, registered for the future bibliopole and histo
rian the journal of their American voyages, constitute the first
records of travel there, although mainly devoted to descrip-

EARLY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 23

tions of the coast and adjacent waters. These now rare tomes
are curious from their quaint antiquity — the combination of •
fact and fiction, statements which are confirmed to-day by the
measurement of bays and the aspect of nature, and fabulous
exaggerations obviously born of honest credulity or super
stitious faith — and according, in their obsolete wonderment,
with the primitive style and appearance of the venerable
books. Very curious also are the illustrations which repre
sent, in stiff and artificial designs, the fields of maize and
tobacco and the Indian games and ceremonials which form
the marvellous but monotonous features of those first
glimpses which the Old World obtained of the New. De Bry's
Collection of Voyages and Travels to America, comprised in
parts, and printed in folio at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1590,
is the most copious repertory of these ancient records. Flor
ida and Virginia are described as " gardens of the desert,"
and the heroes of romance cluster around the narrative of
their partially explored resources, new products, and myste
rious natives.

Most venerable of all, however, is the " Imago Mundi " of
Petrus de Alyaco that inspired Columbus, of which Irving
says :

" Being at Seville, and maldng researches in the Bibliothcca Colum-
bina, the library given by Fernando Colnmbus to the cathedral of
the city, I came accidentally upon the above-mentioned copy of the
work of Peter Aliaco. It is an old volume in folio, bound in parch
ment, published soon after the invention of printing, containing a
collection in Latin of astronomical and cosmographical tracts of Pedro
de Aliaco and of his disciple John Gerson. Aliaco was the author of
many works, and one of the most learned and ingenious men of his
day. Las Casas is of opinion that his writings had more effect in
stimulating Columbus to the enterprise than those of any other author.
His work was so familiar to Columbus that he had filled its whole
margin with Latin notes, in his handwriting, citing many things
which he had read and gathered elsewhere. ' This book, which was
very old,' continues Las Casas, ' I had many times in my hands, and
I drew some things from it, written in Latin, by the said Admiral
Christopher Columbus, to verify certain points appertaining to his
history, of which I before was in doubt.' "

24: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Then, among others, there is a " General Description of
America," by P. d'Avity (Paris, 1637) ; " News from Amer
ica " (Rouen, 1678) ; " De Vries's Voyage ; " the famous " Re
lation of Virginia" (1615), and many other local treatises and
more or less authentic accounts written to beguile adventur
ers, celebrate discoveries, or ventilate controversy respecting
the boundless land of promise to military and religious, polit
ical and rapacious adventure. Many, and characteristic, too,
were these early memorials of New England colonization,
tinged with the religious element so largely developed in her
primitive annals ; as, for instance, " New England Judged by
the Spirit of the Lord" (1661) ; "111 News from New Eng
land, by John Clarke, of Rhode Island ; " " The New-England
Canaan" (Amsterdam, 1632). The Spanish Voyageurs ; the
memorials of Raleigh, De Soto, La Salle — of John Smith,
Ponce de Leon, Oglethorpe, Winthrop, Roger Williams,
Hendrik Hudson — and, in short, of the pioneers in conquest,
colonization, and civilization, whether religious, agricultural,
or administrative, furnish a mine of description, more or less
curious, whereby the original aspect, indigenous products, and
theoretical estimates of America may be learned in part, and
inferred from or compared with later and more complete
explorations and reports. A vast number of works devoted
to this country appeared during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries ; and they attest the historical development incident
to the discovery of America and the reaction of colonization
there upon European civilization ; but the legitimate literature
of travel, as we understand it, in the New World, was initiated
by the French missionaries.

In the venerable records of maritime discovery and ex
ploration, the fabulous and the authentic are curiously blended.
One of the earliest collectors of these quaint and valuable data
was Richard Hakluyt, an English prebendary, born in London
in 1553. His love of nautical science and passion for geo
graphical research made the acquisition of an original journal
of one of those adventurous mariners who first visited any
part of this continent or other half-explored region of the

EAELY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 25

earth a precious experience. Hakluyt was educated at West
minster school and Oxford ; he corresponded with the most
famous living geographers of his day — such as Ortelius and
Mercator. A residence of five years in Paris as chaplain to
the British embassy, gave him excellent opportunities for the
prosecution of his favorite studies on the Continent ; and
these were enlarged on his return to England, when Sir Wal
ter Raleigh appointed him one of the counsellors, assistants,
and adventurers to whom he assigned his patent for the pros
ecution of discoveries in America. To him we owe the pres
ervation of numerous original accounts of English maritime
enterprise. Hallam remarks that the best map of the six
teenth century is to be found in a few copies of the first edition
of Hakluyt's Voyages. John Locke says of the work that it
is " valuable for the good there to be picked out." He was
encouraged in his labors by Walsingham and Sidney. Few
documentary annalists have rendered better service to our
primitive history than Hakluyt ; his publications made known
the discoveries of his countrymen, and, by disseminating the
facts in regard to America, encouraged colonization. He
translated from the French, in 1587, " Foure Voyages unto
Florida by Captain Londonniere," and an improved edition of
Peter Martyr's work, " De Novo Orbe ; " but his most cele
brated work is " The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traf-
fiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by sea or
over land, within the compass of 1,500 years." The first edi
tion is extremely rare ; but an enlarged one appeared in
1598, the third part of which contains a history of expedi
tions to North America and the West Indies. His papers, at
his decease, became the property of Rev. Samuel Purchas,
who, in 1613, published that curious work, "Purchas, his
Pilgrim," two volumes of which form a continuation of Hak
luyt's Voyages. From these sources may be gleaned some
of the earliest authentic descriptions of America. In regard
to the indigenous products, the geography, and some details
of aboriginal character and customs, we recognize the honest
intention of the brave pioneer navigators ; but their credu-
2

26 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

lity and often their lively imagination are equally apparent, and
the style and comments of Purchas sometimes add to the
incongruous result. An eminent writer has justly defined
these collections of Hakluyt and Purchas as " very curious
monuments of the nature of human enterprises, human testi
mony, and of human affairs. Much more is, indeed, oifered to
a refined and philosophic observer, though buried amid the
unwieldy and unsightly mass, than was ever supposed by its
original readers or by its first compilers." *

A very curious relic of these primitive annals of discovery
has been renewed to modern readers by Conway Robinson,
who so ably prepared for the Virginia Historical Society an
" Account of Voyages along the Atlantic Coast of l^"orth
America, 1520-1573 ;" and a not less curious antiquarian
memorial of old times, in that State, was printed for the Hak
luyt Society, " The Historic of Travaile in Virginia Brit-
tanica." Of late years every authentic document emanating
from or relating to Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, Drake, Hud
son, La Haye, Champlain, and other discoverers and explor
ers, has been, by the judicious liberality of historical and anti
quarian societies, or by private enterprise, reproduced, col
lated, and sometimes printed in fac-simile, so that the means
of tracing the original ideas and experience of the old navi
gators have been made accessible to studious comparison and
inquiry ; and, in addition to such facilities, the jealousy of
European Governments in regard to their archives has, with
the growth of intelligence and the love of science, become
essentially modified, so that charts, journals, commissions,
original data of all kinds, relating to early explorations, have
been and are freely and sagaciously consulted by geographical
and historical scholars.f

* " Lectures on Modern History," by Prof. Smythc.

f Among other important collections — besides those of Do Bry, Hakluyt,
Purchas, and De Tries — may be mentioned that by Murray (Lond. 1839),
and Ternaux-Compan's "Voyages, Relations et Memoirs Originaux pour
servir a histoire de la decouverte de 1'Amerique," in ten vols. ; and " Ameri
ca, being the latest and most accurate description of the New World, &c.,

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 27

There is an absence of details in most of these early
chronicles, which indicates but a superficial and limited explo
ration, such as the dangers and difficulties adequately explain.
Yet sufficient is recorded to afford materials for the his
torian and the naturalist, who aim at fixing the time and
indicating the original aspect of those portions of the conti
nent that were first visited by Europeans, and have since be
come, through the early appreciation of their natural advan
tages, the centre of prosperous civilization. Thus, in Yan
der Dock's account of New Netherlands in 1659, he describes
the rigors of winter on the coast, the numerous whales that
frequented the then lonely waters where is now congregated
the shipping of the world, and mentions the fact that two of
these leviathans in 1647 grounded forty miles up the river,
and infected the air for miles with the effluvia of their de
composition. The abundance and superior quality of the oys
ters, the wild strawberries, the maize, grapes, hazelnuts,
sheephead and sturgeons, are noted with the appreciative em
phasis of a Dutch epicure ; and that is a memorable picture
to the visitor at Albany to-day, which presents to his mind's
eye Hendrik Hudson receiving tobacco, beans, and otter and
beaver skins from the natives, environed by a dense forest.

Of the primitive reports of colonial explorers and settlers,
none has so vivid a personal interest as that of Captain
John Smith : the romantic story of Pocahontas alone embalms
his name. Sent out by the London Company in 1606, his party
landed at Jamestown on the 13th of May of that year; he
returned to England in 1609, and five years afterward ex
plored the coast of America from the Penobscot to Cape Cod.
In 1615, having commenced another voyage, he was made
prisoner by the French, and did not succeed, on regaining his
liberty, in securing occupation again in American exploration,
although he sought it with earnestness. Captain Smith died in
London in 1631. His " True Travels, Adventures, and Obser
vations " was published in 1629. His map, tract on Yirginia,

collected from the most authentic authors, and adorned with maps and sculp
ture, by John Ogilby," folio, London, 1675.

28 AMERICA 'AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and " Description of New England," attest his claims to a better
recompense than he received : " In neither of these two coun
tries," he writes, " have I one foot of land, nor the very house
I builded, nor the ground I digged with my own hands, nor
any content or satisfaction at all." The original editions of
Smith's several works relating to America are very rare :
some of them have been reprinted in historical collections.
His most extensive work is " The General History of Vir
ginia, New England, and the Summer Isles," prepared at the
request of the London Company, and illustrated with portraits
and maps. The period described is from 1584 to 1626.
These writings are curious rather than satisfactory ; valuable
as records of pioneer experience and memorials of the early
settlements : they were written to inform, and in their day
were of great practical value ; but, except for aboriginal
details and geographical facts, their authority and interest
have long been superseded. Yet no American can look upon
the old church of St. Sepulchre in London, where Captain
John Smith was buried, without recalling that intrepid charac
ter, and associating it with the early fortunes of his native
land. It is characteristic of this remarkable man that his
favorite authors, when a youth, were Macchiavelli's "Art of
War," and the Maxims of Antoninus — two books, says the last
Mid best translator of the latter, admirably fitted to form the
character of a soldier and a man.* He describes the animals,
vegetables, soil, and rivers with quaint and brief eulogium
— declaring Virginia " the poor man's best countrie in the
world." f

Among these primitive travels is a small quarto in anti
quated type, entitled " America Painted to the Life, by Fer-

* George Long.

f " The Generall Historic of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles,
with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours, from their first
beginning, anno 1584, to this present 1626. With the proceedings of those
severall Colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journeys and
discoveries. Also the Maps and descriptions of all those countryes, their com
modities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided
into sixe bookes." Folio, pp. 148, engraved title and one map, London, 1632.

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 29

nando Gorges, Esq.," published in London in 1649.* The
author says, " all that part of the continent of New England
which was allotted by patent to my grandfather, Sir Ferdi
nand Gorges and his heires, he thought fit to call by the name
of the province of Maine," which, we are told, then extended
from the Penobscot to the Hudson ; and was rented for two
shillings per annum the hundred acres. Sir Fernando ex
pended twenty thousand pounds in his American enterprises.
The work by his grandson, descriptive thereof, contains the
usual details as to products, politics, sects, and Indians : an
allusion to a feast of the latter would seem to indicate an early
origin for the famous pudding called huckleberry. The occa
sion was a council, to which the Boston magistrates were
invited. " The Indian king, hearing of their coining, gath
ered together his counsellors and a great number of his sub
jects to give them entertainment ; " — the materials of which
are described thus : " boiled chestnuts in their white bread,
which is very sweet, as if they were mixed with sugar — and,
because they would be extraordinary in the feasting, they
strove for variety after the English manner, boyling puddings
made of beaten corne, putting therein great store of blackber
ries somewhat like currants." A quaint and compendious
account is given of the first settlement of Springfield, in Mas
sachusetts — the few facts related giving a vivid idea of the
economical and social condition of that now flourishing town,
in 1645. " About this time, one Mr. Pinchin, sometime a
magistrate, having, by desire to better his estate, settled him-

* " At the same time, Sir Ferdinand Gorges was gathering information of the
native Americans, whom he had received at Weymouth, and whose descrip
tions of the country, joined to the favorable views which he had already im
bibed, filled him with the strongest desire of becoming a proprietary of domains
beyond the Atlantic." — BANCROFT'S History of the United States, vol. i.

When, in 1643, the commissioners from Plymouth, New Haven, Say
brook, &c., assembled at Boston, " being all desirous of union and studious of
peace," none of " Sir Ferdinand Gorges, his "province beyond Piscataqua,
were received nor called into the confederation, because they ran a different
course from us, both in their ministry and civil government." — WINTHROP'S
Journal.

30 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

self very remote from all the churches of Christ in the Massa
chusetts Government, upon the river of Conectico, yet under
their government, he having some godly persons resorting
unto him, they erected a town and church of Christ, calling it
Springfield ; it lying on this large navigable river, hath the
benefit of transporting their goods by water, and also fitly
seated for a bever trade with the Indians, till the merchants
increased so many, that it became little worth by reason of
their outbuying one another, which caused them to live upon
husbandry. This town is mostly built along the river side
and upon some little rivulets of the same. There hath, of late
been more than one or two in this town greatly suspected of
witchery." Here we have the pious and shrewd motives of
the early settlers, the initiation of free trade and their primi
tive political economy, and superstition quaintly hinted. How
curious to compare the picture of that little town and church
so " very remote " from others in the colony, the " bever
trade with the Indians," and the destructive rivalry therein —
the lonely river in the midst of the wilderness, and the godly
pioneer who came there " to better his estate," and the " sus
picions of witchery " — with the populous, bustling scene of
railway travel, manufactures, horse fairs, churches, schools,
trade, and rural prosperity, now daily familiar to hundreds
of travellers.

It is remarkable how some of these obsolete records link
themselves with the interests and the questions of the passing
hour. What more appropriate commentary, for instance,
upon the provincial egotism of Virginia, can be imagined
than the statement of Childs, a man of authority in his day,
in England, that while some cavaliers found refuge there,
many of the colonists were outcasts, and their emigration the
alternative for imprisonment or penal exile ?

One of the most suggestive and authentic records whence
we derive a true idea of the social tendencies and the natural
phenomena amid which the American character was bred in
the Eastern States is the journal of John Winthrop. Its very
monotony reflects the severe routine of life then and there ;

EAELY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 31

religion enters into and modifies domestic retirement and
individual impulse ; the rigors of unsubdued nature in a
northern climate are painfully manifest : we learn how isola
tion, strict oversight, and ecclesiastical rule, the necessity of
labor and the alternations of extreme temperature disciplined
and dwarfed, purified and hardened, elevated and narrowed
the associations and instincts of humanity. What a vivid
glimpse of life two hundred years ago in New England do
the brief notes of the first Governor of Massachusetts afford
us, and how easy thence to deduce the characteristics and the
history of those remarkable communities, explain their pecu
liarities, and justify their tenacious traits ! Take a few ran
dom extracts by way of illustration :

Nov. 15, 1637. — A day of thanksgiving for the victory obtained over

the Pequods.

Mar. 7, 1638. — Mrs. Hiitchcnson, being removed to the Isle of Aquid-
ney, was delivered of a monstrous birth : Mr. Cotton hereupon
gathered it might signify her error in denying inherent righteous
ness.

A woman was judged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates.
Mar. 1, 1638. — A printing house was begun at Cambridge by one
Dave.

charged with taking above sixpence in the shilling profit.

Mar. 10, 1639. — At the General Court an order was made to abolish

that vain custom of drinking one to another.
In this winter, in a close calm day, there fell down diverse flakes of

snow of this form ^ , very thin, and exactly pointed as art would

have cut them in paper.

Sep. 20, 1630.— The wolves killed six calves at Salem.
May 13, 1632. — The French came in a pinnace to Penobscott and

rifled a trucking house belonging to Plimouth, carrying away

three hundred weight of beaver.
Nov. 5. — The congregation at Watertown discharged elder for

intemperance in speech.
Jan. 17. — A servant of Mr. Skelton lost her way, and was several

days in the woods, and half frozen.
June 1, 1633. — A Scotchman by prayer and fasting dispossessed one

possessed of the devil.

Droughts, freshets, meteors, intense cold and heat, terrific
storms, calm beautiful days, conflagrations, epidemics, Indian

32 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

massacres, alternate in the record with constant church trials,
reprimands and controversies, public whippings and memor
able sermons, occasional and long-desired arrivals from Eng
land, the establishment of a college and printing press, local
emigrations and perilous adventure ; wherein bigotry and the
highest fortitude, superstitions and acute logic, privation and
cheerful toil, social despotism and individual rectitude indicate
a rare and rigid school of life and national development.

Among the first colonial tributes of the muse descriptive
of the New World was " New England's Prospect," a true,
living, and experimental description of that part of America
commonly called New England, by William Wood. It was
published in London in 1635. The author lived four years in
the region he pictures, and states in the preface to his metrical
tract his intention to return there. He gives a rhymed ac
count of the colony's situation, and dilates upon the habits of
the aborigines. The scene of the poem is Boston and its vicin
ity, and the versified catalogue of indigenous trees is interest
ing, as probably the first record of the kind. " Cheerful Wil
liam Wood " tells us, in delineating the country along the Mer-
rimack, that

" Trees both in hills and plains in plenty be,
The long-lived oak and mournful cypris tree,
Sky-towering pines and chestnuts coated rough,
The lasting cedar, with the walnut tough :
The rosin-dropping fir for masts in use ;
The boatman seeks for oares light, neat-growne sprewse ;
The brittle ashe, the ever trembling aspes,
The broad-spread elm whose concave harbors wasps,
The water-springie alder, good for nought,"

<fcc., &c. A more elaborate attempt at a primitive natural his
tory of the same region is " New England's Rarities Discov
ered," by John Josselyn, published in 1672. The first explorer
of the Alleghanies, John Lederer, wrote in Latin an account
of " Three several Marches from Virginia to the West of Caro
lina and other parts of the Continent, begone in March, 1669,
and ended in September, 1670." Sir William Talbot made
and published an English translation in 1672. The Westover
Manuscripts, published by Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, in

EAELY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLOEEES. 33

1841, describe expeditions conducted by William Byrd, in
1728, wherein much curious information of Southern life,
resources, and manners, at that period, is given.

Governor Bradford, who succeeded Carver as chief magis
trate of the Plymouth Colony, left also a poetical description
of New England — which, though a fragment, is a singular
literary relic of those days — the aspect of the country and
" spirit of the Pilgrims." But a better known and more
copious as well as quaint memorial of colonial life in the old
Bay State, and one which Hawthorne has evidently pondered
to advantage, is to be found in the theories of Cotton Mather,
illustrated as they are by the facts of his career and the inci
dental local and personal details of the " Magnalia : " although
it appeared in London printed in folio in 1702, not until 1820
was it republished in America. Odd, credulous, learned,
speculative, narrow, and anecdotical, this and his other books
reflect the times and country.

There lived in Medford, Mass., more than a century ago,
a clergyman's daughter and wife, Jane Turrel, who wrote
graceful and feeling verses, some of which have been pre
served as early specimens of the New England muse. In one
of her pieces, called " An Invitation to the Country," she
enumerates the fruits and other delicacies with which she pro
poses to regale the expected guest ; and we learn therefrom
that one indigenous product of the woods, now only found at
a distance from the scene, was then a familiar luxury :

The blushing peach and glossy plum there lies,
And with the mandrake tempt your hands and eyes.

A class of publications, which belong neither to the de
partment of travels nor memoirs, but which contain many im
portant and specific facts and comments in regard to the origi
nal aspect, resources, and character of the country, while yet
a colonial territory, remains to be noticed. These are the
various publications descriptive, statistical, and controversial,
which motives of interest and curiosity elicited from the
early emigrants, agents, and official representatives of the
2*

34: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

different colonies. They are chiefly in the form of tracts :
many of them crude and quaint in style, inadequate and desul
tory ; some obviously inspired by the hope of alluring emi
gration ; others suggested by a spirit of rivalry between the
different settlements ; some are honestly descriptive, others
absurdly exaggerated ; the theological and political questions
of the day, whether local or administrative, gave birth to
countless writings ; most of them are curious, some valuable
from their details and authenticity, and others as unique illus
trations of history and manners : passages might be gleaned
from not a few of these ancient brochures, which would favor
ably compare with more elaborate works written by educated
travellers in America. The greater part of these now rare
and costly literary relics of our country at the dawn of and
immediately subsequent to its civilization, refer to Virginia
and New England ; next in number are those devoted to
Florida ; the tracts which discuss and describe the Carolinas,
Maryland, and Pennsylvania being comparatively few ; while
those that refer to Canada are multifarious. These primitive
records of colonization often yield invaluable hints to the
philosopher and historian ; although a vast proportion of
them have lost their significance, and are more attractive to
the bibliopole and the antiquarian than the general reader.
In the form of letters, appeals, protests, advertisements, pic
turesque or economical narratives, such incidental records not
unfrequently conserve an incident, a law, a fact of nature or
government, of natural, political, or social history, that has a
permanent interest. Buckminster early called attention to
the importance of preserving every publication relating to
America, however apparently trivial, as a resource for his
torians ; and societies and individuals have since emulated
each other in the purchase and collection of these scattered
data.*

As early as 1547 there was printed an account of the

* One of the most remarkable private collections is that of John Carter
Brown, of Providence, R. I., whose library contains over five thousand publi
cations relating to America, all of a date anterior to 1800, bound, lettered,
and classified in the most convenient manner.

EARLY DISCOVERERS ASTD EXPLORERS. 35

" Medical Substances discovered in America ; " and a nar
rative of the deeds and habits of the once formidable bucca
neers, who infested the coast (and the traditions regarding
whom gave the elder Dana a subject which he treated with
effective interest in an elaborate poem), was published in
1685 : ten years later we find a catalogue of American
plants ; and the query of a native poet in enumerating the
subjects of permanent curiosity as yet unsatisfied — "Did
Israel's missing tribes find refuge here ? " — was partially an
swered in 1651, by a treatise on "The Jews in America."
Numerous publications relating to the fisheries indicate at
how early a date that branch of native economy assumed
important relations in the eyes of Europeans, while such
titles of current tracts as " On the Scheme of Sending Bish
ops to America," and " The Present Disposition of English,
Scots, and Irish to Emigrate " thither, suggest how early the
national tendencies of the colonies were regarded as sig
nificant of future political results. In 1789, when their
character and destiny had grown formidable and definite,
more general speculations occupied British writers, and an
essay of that year discusses the " Influence of the Discovery
of America on the Happiness of Mankind." Indeed, we have
but to glance over any catalogue of publications relating to
this country to perceive that the theme has afforded a con
venient pretext, if not a special motive, to treat of almost
every subject connected with political, religious, and social
interests : printing, witchcraft, revivals, trade, currency, in
oculation, meteors, unitarianism, and agriculture, alternate in
the list with tracts on natural history, the fur trade, expedi
tions, and accounts of Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, French,
and English settlements ; until these brief and special gave
place to more complex and generalized views, wherein Amer
ica is " dissected by a divine," " compared with England,"
and made the subject of " summary views " and " surveys,"
" sketches," " random shots," " recollections," and criticism
of all kinds and degrees of perspicacity and prejudice. It is
seldom, even when such works had multiplied incalculably,
that the authors write under a nom de plume ; but there are

36 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

exceptions, as the Lettres Anonymous of " Rubio," " J. M. B,"
" A Citizen of Edinburgh," " A Rugbean," " New Englander,"
" Southron," " Yankee," " Fur Trader," etc.

To no single individual will the seeker for original me
morials of American civilization, nationality, and development
recognize higher obligations than to the venerable, assiduous,
and disinterested Peter Force, of Washington, whose " Nation
al Calendar and Annals of the United States" (1820-'36), and
whose " Tracts and Papers, Relating to the Origin, Settle
ment, and Progress of the Colonies in North America, from
the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776 " (1836-'46),
are a mine of precious and peerless historical materials, as a
glance at the contents of the collections and of those not yet
published will satisfy the reader. It is true that most of
these tracts and documents refer to matters of government,
polity, and public events, and can be rarely classed under the
literature of travel, yet many of them incidentally include
its most desirable features, and some of them are " descrip
tions," " relations," " narratives," and " accounts," which, in
their homely details and quaint sincerity, bring out the life,
'the manners, and the physical aspect of Georgia and Massa
chusetts, Maryland and Carolina, Virginia and New England,
in the earliest colonial times, quite in the spirit of the old
travellers. The enthusiasm and perseverance whereby was
realized the great enterprise of collecting and preserving for
future generations these inestimable memorials of the Past of
America, are unprecedented in this country as an example of
intelligent and self-devoted patriotism.*

* Quite an elaborate sketch of the " History of Discovery in America,
from Columbus to Franklin," has recently appeared in Germany, from the
pen of that intelligent and indefatigable author of valuable books of travel, J.
G. Kohl. The work is confessedly incomplete and somewhat desultory, but
full of interesting facts and speculations. A translation, by Major R. R. Noel,
was published in London early in the present year. " American Archives :
consisting of a collection of authentic records, state papers, debates, and let
ters and other notices of public affairs, the whole forming a Documentary His
tory of the Origin and Progress of the North American Colonies ; of the
causes and accomplishment of the American Revolution ; and of the consti
tution of government for the United States to the final ratification thereof."

CHAPTER II.

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION.

, MENARD, ALLOUEZ, MARQUETTE, CHARLEVOIX, MAREST.

LONG after the Crusades, a spirit of adventure and a love
of travel animated men whom religious faith or ecclesiastical
influence dedicated to the priesthood. That vocation pre
sented the two extremes of contemplative and active life ;
and where the temperament and the enthusiasm or intelligent
curiosity of the monk made him impatient of routine or a
limited sphere, it was easy to become a missionary, and thus
combine religious ministrations with the experience of travel.
Accordingly, some of the earliest reports of the physical % re
sources of the New World were made to the Old, by Catho
lic missionaries ostensibly braving its unexplored domain to
win the aboriginal inhabitants to Christianity, but now often
remembered chiefly as the pioneer writers of American travels.
The avidity with which information in regard to this con*
tinent Wias sought in Europe, immediately antecedent and
subsequent to its colonization — the interest felt in the natural
wonders and possible future of an immense, productive and
uncivilized country — the arena it afforded to baffled enter
prise, the asylum it promised to the persecuted, the resources
it offered the poor — the conquest it invited from regal power
and individual prowess — the vague charm with which it
inspired the imaginative, and the fresh material it yielded so
abundantly to the votaries of knowledge — all tended to make
America and descriptions thereof alike attractive to prince

38 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and peasant, scholar, soldier, and citizen. Few, indeed, of the
early missionaries possessed the requisite qualifications, either
scientific or literary, to make what we should now consider
desirable writers of books of travel. They either, through a
large endowment of what phrenologists call the organ of
wonder, exaggerated the natural features of the country, and
gave fanciful instead of genuine pictures of what they saw ;
or, from lack of knowledge and imagination, confined them
selves to a literal and limited recital of personal adventure,
whence little practical information was to be derived. There
is a singular union of extravagance and simplicity, of the
fabulous and the true, of the boastful and the heroic, in these
narratives. It must have required unusual discrimination on
the part of readers in Europe, seeking facts, to disentangle
the wreb of reality and fiction so often confusedly woven in
such memoirs of travel. Yet some of them have proved in
valuable to the historian of our own day, as the only known
repertory of authentic statements as to the early productions,
aspects, natives, explorations, and phenomena of parts of this
continent : the integrity and patience of some of these mission
ary authors are apparent in their very style and method ; and
many of their assertions have been fully proved by subsequent
observation and contemporary evidence. Still, there is no class
of writings which must be interpreted with more careful refer
ence to the character and motives of the writers, to the state
of scientific knowledge at the period, and to the spirit of the
age. A certain credulity, the result of superstition, ignorance,
and enthusiasm, was characteristic even of the enlightened
class of explorers then and there ; and, when motives of per
sonal vanity, self-aggrandizement, or national rivalry were
added to these normal defects, it is easy to imagine how few
of the clerical raconteurs are to be considered satisfactory to
a philosophic inquirer. On the other hand, the singleness of
purpose, the sincere Christian zeal, the pure love of nature
and of truth, and a certain heroic conscientiousness of purpose
and of practice, make some of these missionary travels in
America naive, suggestive, and interesting. As representa-

FKENCII MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 39

tions of what certain parts of the country were two hundred
years ago, of how nature looked, and what life was here and
then, they afford us a contrast so vivid and surprising to the
scene and the life of the present, that, on this account alone,
no imaginative mind can revert to them without realizing
anew the mysterious vicissitudes of time and place and the
moral wonder involved in the settlement, growth, and present
civilization of America.

Among the French missionaries whose travels on this
continent attracted much attention in his own day, and, in
ours, are regarded at once with curiosity and distrust, was
Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan. He was a native of Holland,
and born in the year 1640. Quite early in life the instinct of
travel asserted itself; for, as one of that privileged mendicant
fraternity whom every traveller has encountered in Sicily or
Spain, he wandered asking alms through Italy and Germany.
It was while thus following the vocation of a pious beggar
at Calais and Dunkirk, that Hennepin's wandering passion
became infected with that desire to cross the sea, which,
sooner or later, seizes upon all instinctive vagabonds. He
enlisted as a regimental chaplain, and in that capacity was
present at the battle of Senef, between William of Orange and
the Prince of Conde, in 1674. He had passed one year as
preacher in Belgium ; and had been thence sent by his supe
rior to Artois, and subsequently had the charge of a hospital
for several months in Holland. Such was the early career of
Father Hennepin, previous to entering upon his American
mission. He was ordered to Canada in 1675, and embarked
at Rochelle, with La Salle. Having preached a while at
Quebec, he went, the following year, to the Indian mission at
Frontenac ; he afterward visited the Five Nations and the
Dutch settlement at Albany, and returned to Quebec in 1678.
When La Salle prepared to explore the Lakes, and des
patched the Chevalier de Tonty and La Motte from Fort
Frontenac to Niagara, to construct vessels, Hennepin was
attached to the expedition ; and, in 1677, passed through
Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, to the mouth of the St.

40 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Joseph's, ascended in a canoe to the portage ; conveying
their slender barks six miles across the country to the Kan-
karee, they glided down this stream and the Iroqnois to the
Illinois river, and erected Fort Crevecceur, on the spot where
now stands the city of Peoria.

It is said that La Salle's conjectures about the Mississippi
river " worked upon him ; and that, zealous for the honor of
his nation, he designed to signalize the French name." His
character has been thus described : " He was a man of regular
behaviour, of a large soul, well enough learned, and under
standing in the mathematics ; designing, bold, undaunted,
dexterous, insinuating ; not to be discouraged by anything ;
wonderfully steady in adversity ; and well enough versed in
several savage languages." Here we have all the requisites
for a great explorer ; yet few have achieved such fame to
endure such misfortunes. " The government of Fort Ed
ward," says his biographer, " which is the place farthest
advanced among the savages, was given to him ; and he
going over to France, in 1675, the king made him proprietor
of it ; he came home with stories of mines, wild bullocks, for
ests, &c. ; and there grew up a jealousy of him among his
countrymen : they thwarted his designs ; and after he had
picked out forty or fifty of them for a new expedition, and
had spent years in going and coming, he was once nearly
poisoned; he conciliated the savage inhabitants, and gave
her name to Louisiana."

"When, after the lapse of a few weeks, La Salle was
obliged to return to Frontenac for supplies, he sent Hennepin
to explore that mighty river, hitherto only known to Euro
peans above the mouth of the Wisconsin. The adventurous
friar started on this expedition in the month of February,
1680, in his frail canoe, and, tracking the Illinois to its mouth,
ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, which he
so named in honor of his patron saint ; and was the first Euro
pean who ever beheld those beautiful rapids in the heart of
the wilderness. Having arrived at the mouth of the St. Fran
cis river, in what is now Minnesota, a stream which he thus

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 41

baptized from the founder of his own religious order, Henne-
pin again landed, and traversed the country to the distance
of one hundred and eighty miles ; he sojourned for three
months among the Sioux Indians ; returned in safety to Que
bec, and soon after embarked for France ; and in 1683 pub
lished his " Descriptions," &c. This work was the most com
plete account of the first expedition of La Salle, and, as such,
was sought for and read with avidity. Had the record of
Hennepin's career ended here, his name would have remained
honorably associated with those of other European mission
aries who, with courage and probity, sought for and pro
claimed the wonders of the New World, while planting there
in the cross and the faith to whose service he and they were
pledged. But, not satisfied with the glory of a pioneer navi
gator of the Father of Waters, nor with the prestige of a
faithful attache to a brave but unfortunate chieftain, or that
of a self-devoted minister of religion, in 1697, ten years after
the death of La Salle, Hennepin audaciously gave to the world
his " Nouvelle decouverte d'un tres grand pays situe dans
1'Amerique entre la Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale ; *
claiming therein to have descended the Mississippi and com
pleted, for the first time, its exploration. The mere fact of
his extraordinary delay in announcing this remarkable experi
ence is sufficient to make a candid mind distrustful ; and the
motive thereto seems evident when we remember how imme
diately this publication followed upon the demise of the only
witness its author had reason to fear. Accordingly, Hennepin
has been and is regarded as untruthful by our own and Euro
pean historians, except in regard to topographical and local
details confirmed by other testimony and by observation of
natural facts. Still his adventures, and the narrative thereof
possess an interest derived from their early date ; we asso
ciate them with the first authentic glimpses of the new conti
nent iii its vast Western phase which were attained by Euro-

* " New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above 4,000
Miles, between Xew France and New Mexico," &c., map and plates, London,
1698.

42 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

peans ; we cannot but imagine the wonder, hope, and curiosity
inspired by such travellers' tales, and look upon the diminutive
volumes and obsolete type of the earliest editions with a kind
of fond reminiscence ; beholding, in fancy, the eagerness and
incredulity with which they were originally pondered. And
those of us who have sailed along the umbrageous and lofty
bluffs of the Upper Mississippi, and gazed from a steamer's
deck, in the early summer morning, upon the magnificent soli
tude — the noble stream, the far reach of woods, the high, cas
tellated limestone rocks — and heard a wild bird's cry, or
caught sight of a Sioux, a log hut, a hunter — watched the
moving panorama of foliage, prairie, village, fever-stricken
settlement and growing city alternating with lonely forest —
realizing how Nature's wild seclusion and Humanity's primi
tive civilization meet, separate, and mingle on the borders of
a mighty inland river, flowing deep and far through the West
— so fraught with destiny, so recent in the annals of nations,
and so ancient in the beauty and grandeur of creation — we,
who have thus gazed and mused, when rapidly borne on the
wings of steam, where Hennepin's lonely and fragile canoe
slowly moved through this scene of virgin and unexplored
loveliness and power, cannot refrain from a thrill of sym
pathy with those emotions of awe and love, of expectancy
and danger the roving Franciscan must have felt ; and, with
all his want of veracity, recognize somewhat of fraternity by
virtue of that " touch of nature " which makes us all akin.
We accept the memorial of Hennepin, which gives his name
to locomotive and steam barge, where he first baptized the
waters ; we recall him as we stand in the midst of the dash
ing flood which still murmurs his saintly nomenclature ; and,
when a prairie flower takes us back to the bosom of nature, or
the wind, unchecked on the wide plains, sounds the same eter
nal anthem that greeted his ears who first invaded their soli
tude, we feel that, however the face of the land has changed,
woods fallen before the settler's axe, and aborigines faded in
the path of civilization, and thrift encroached upon sport, agri
culture upon the wilderness, Nature still breathes her ele-

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 43

mental charms, and preserves not a few of her most significant
features. To an imaginative mind there is as much poetry as
philosophy in the contrast between the Illinois which Henne-
pin traversed, and that which to-day holds such a world of
life and labor in her bosom. The vast fields of grain, the
teeming orchards, the cities and railroads of the present, to
the political economist, afford a marvellous parallel to the ver
dant deserts described in 1680 ; but not less striking is the
coincidence that deserted Mormon temples are there found, and
a President of this republic was thence elected to meet the
greatest crisis of our national life. One sees the extremes of
civilization and the normal physical resources of this Western
region, side by side with the distinctive natural features which
excited the admiration and fill the chronicles of the mission
ary explorers. Even a rapid transit brings these associations
home to the mind. On one occasion, as our train stopped on
the edge of a rolling prairie, whose treeless, undulating sur
face, for miles, was unbroken save by harvest fields, the early
descriptions of the face of the country were realized ; and,
while specimens of the mineral wealth and fruits of the allu
vial soil were passed around, there appeared, pensively walking
on the edge of the " garden of the desert," in entire contrast
with the solitude and wild fertility of the landscape, an Eng
lish lady, in the costume of the landed gentry, leading a child —
their flaxen hair and high-bred manner suggestive of Saxon
lineage : they were evidently of the better class of emigrants,
who had sought in the far-away West a sphere, limited and
dreary in comparison with their English home, however
blessed by nature, but auspicious for the future of children
whose native land affords no promising scope either for work
or subsistence. The vivacious and brave heralds of the Cross,
who, two centuries ago, delighted the Parisians with their
accounts of a land of boundless woods and waters in the
West, rarely and imperfectly surmised its destiny in the Prov
idential issues of time : it was recognized, indeed, as a new
domain for the rule of a French monarch, a new sphere for
the triumph of religion, a new arena for military adventure

4A AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and colonization ; but few realized that it was to become a
grand scene of political development and a refuge for the
baffled nationalities of Europe. Indeed, there is no chapter
in the primitive history of the country, which, appreciated
in all its relations, picturesque, adventurous, heroic, and
religious, that offers such attractive themes for art, romance,
and philosophy as these early missions, whereby the Old
World first won a foothold in the grandest portions of the
"New. It was through the vague reports of their aboriginal
converts that the pious followers of St. Francis de Xavier,
were stimulated to seek now a great lake, and now a mighty
river : it was when in search of new tribes as subjects of their
missionary zeal, that incidents of romantic interest and scenes
of unrivalled beauty became known to them, and, through
them, to the civilized world. Menard, a Huron missionary,
planned an expedition in search of the Mississippi in 1660 :
at the mission on the Saguenay, the Jesuits heard from their
wild converts, of a vast lake, that lured them on a voyage of
auspicious discovery ; while their brethren in New York State
witnessed the ceremonious departure of the Iroquois to give
battle to an inimical tribe on the shores of the " beautiful
river," and, being thus made aware of new links in the mag
nificent water chain, urged their explorations in the direction
of the Ohio. Father Dablon, when superior of the Ottawa
mission, established a station among the Illinois, and reached
the Wisconsin river after a toilsome voyage : his " Relation "
was published in 1670, and contained a map of Lake Superior.
But the narrative of Father Claude Allouez, who left France
in 1658, contains one of the earliest accounts of an expedition
to the Illinois country, which the Indians had described to
Father Dablon as intersected by a river " so beautiful that,
for more than three hundred leagues from its mouth, it is
larger than that which flows by Quebec ; and the vast country
is nothing but prairies without trees or woods, which oblige
the inhabitants of those parts to use turf and dung for fuel,
till you come about twenty miles from the sea." Allouez
began his journey thither on the ice ; one of his companions

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 45

was killed by a bear ; he had seen Father Rene Menard go
forth on his sacred work, to die in the wilderness ; but the
ardent love of religious enterprise, which made his appoint
ment to this wild and distant land so welcome amid the com
forts of home, was not chilled or daunted : one of the first
missionaries who reached the Mississippi, his name is asso
ciated with that of Marquette in the annals of Western dis
covery, whom he succeeded in the Illinois mission ; in his
light canoe he faithfully explored the shores of Michigan, and
erected a chapel at Chippewa, The record of strange animals,
impressive scenery, savage hospitality and games, alternates
curiously, in these narratives, with the observance of saints'
days and the rites of Christianity, and the American wilder
ness with the associations of the Roman Church.

In the Old World, it is a pastime of singular fascination to
the cultivated and imaginative American, to haunt an ancient
town like Chester, where Roman walls and camp outlines,
faded banners won in Cromwell's time, and baronial escutch
eons or classic coins identify the site of historic events
associated with the distant past. To the native of a land
where all is so fresh, active, and changeful, the shadow of the
pyramids, the moonlit arches of the Colosseum, and the me
dieval towers of Florence impart to the landscape a hallowed
charm, more impressive from its entire novelty. And yet such
experiences are possible at home, if the same retrospective
dreamer will but connect the facts of the past, of which there
are so few artificial memorials, with the aspect of nature un
modified in her more grand features by the vicissitudes of
centuries. Looking forth, in the calm of a summer morning,
upon a lonely and wooded reach of Western river or lake, let
him recall the story of pioneer, adventurer, or missionary,
contrasting it with the tokens of subsequent civilization, and
the appeal to wonder is not less emphatic, though more vague.
How wild, remote, exuberant must have seemed the Father
of Waters to Marquette and Joliet, when they glided out
upon its vast and unexplored bosom ! On the 13th of May,
1673, with five other Frenchmen, they embarked in two

46 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

canoes, provided with a slender stock of Indian corn and
smoked beef; and, guided by such information as they could
gather from the aborigines, left Green Bay, ascended the
Fox river, and, on the 25th of June, entered the Mississippi.
The first naive and quaint record of what they saw, heard,
and did on this primitive expedition, has, by the liberal enter
prise of one of our citizens,* been reproduced as it then greet
ed the eyes of their sympathetic countrymen, with the obso
lete type so appropriate to such a voyageic^s chronicle.
Father Marquette tells us there of the wild rice, grapes, and
plums whereAvith they regaled — of the Miamis that assisted
their portage — of the trace of footsteps on the river's bank,
following which they came upon a beautiful prairie — of so
journs in Illinois villages, calumet-smoking with friendly
natives, feverish nights with mosquitos — of the dreary bellow
of herds of buffaloes, and the lowly flights of the startled
quails. Those months of primitive navigation were fraught
with a rare excitement to minds reared amid the highest
existent civilization ; but, as if awed by the precarious life
and majestic aspect of primeval nature, the simplicity of the
narrative is only equalled by the unprecedented interest of
the discoveries ; and the good priest's memory has long been
hallowed by his death in the midst of scenes forever identified
with his brave and pious character. On the shore of Lake
Michigan, the isolated and picturesque witness of those heroic
toils and that humane ministry, on the 18th of May, 1675, the
canoe of Father Marquette entered a small stream, and he
requested the two men in charge thereof to leave him for
half an hour : on returning, they found him dead. The site
of his grave, f near the bank, is still designated, and the
little river bears his name ; but the brief and artless record

* James Lenox, Esq., of New York.

f " Marquette's body was disinterred from its lonely resting place on the
lake shore by the Kiskakon Indians, among whom he had faithfully labored.
Dissecting it, according to custom, they washed the bones and dried them in
the sun, then putting them neatly in a box of birch bark, they set out to bear
them to the house of St. Ignatius, at Michilimakinac." — DABLON'S Narrative
of Marquette's Expedition.

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 47

of his voyage, a small duodecimo of forty-three pages, is
the most characteristic memorial of the man, and one of the
most endeared as well as vivid glimpses of that marvellous
river and region, as they were first revealed to civilized
nations.*

Another French missionary to Canada has left, not only a
more ample, but more authentic chronicle, and his name is
often invoked with trust and respect by our historical writers.
Pierre Francois Xavier Charlevoix was born in 1682, at St.
Quentin, and died in 1761, at Lafieche. His life was devoted
to study and travel in behalf of his faith ; and few of his
order have manifested greater courage, patience, and in
tegrity. His American tour, although now but a pleasant
excursion, was formidable and adventurous enough, in his
own day, to render him more famous than an African or
Arctic traveller of our own. His account of the productions
of the wilderness, the extent and character of rivers, woods,
and mountains, and especially of the character and customs
of the natives, was not only esteemed when the novelty of its
details originally won readers, but has continued among the
standard books of travel.f Charlevoix carefully and thor
oughly, with the means and opportunities at command,

* See J. G. Shea's " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Yalley,
with the Narrative of Marquette, Hennepin, Douay," &c., 8vo., fac-simile and
map, New York, 1852; Rev. W. I. Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions in North
America, compiled from the letters of the French Jesuits," 1 vol., New York,
1846, and 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1847; and "Relations des Jesuits, conte-
nant ce qui s'est passe de plus remarquable dans les missions des Peres de la
Compagnie de Jesus dans la Nouvelle France : ouvrage public sous les aus
pices du gouvernement Canadien," 3 vols. royal 8vo., of about 900 pp. each,
Quebec, 1858. " This work, of which only a small number were printed, is a
complete reprint of all the Jesuit relations concerning the missions in Canada
and French North America, from 1611 to 1672, and contains most important
matter concerning the Indian tribes, and the early history of Maine, New
York, and all the Northwest."

f " Histoire et Description generale de la Nouvelle France," atlas and 6
vols., Paris, 1744.

" Letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguires, giving an account of a voyage to
Canada, and travels through that vast country and Louisiana to the Gulf of
Mexico," 8vo., London, 1763.

48 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS.

ascended the St. Lawrence, traversed the region called the
" country of the Illinois," and descended the Mississippi. A
county now bears his name in Michigan. He visited the
East and West Indies, and, when at home again, elaborately
recorded his extensive travels. They form a valuable work
of reference when it is desirable to ascertain the physical and
local facts in regard to these countries during the first part
of the last century. Among the suggestive historical and
personal associations which the rapid march of events, and
especially the triumphs of locomotion and intercourse, contin
ually excite in this age and country, few are more impres
sive than the fact that the two most remote points of Charle-
voix's world-wide journeys were, in a manner, brought to
gether when the Japanese embassy visited the United States
a few years since. In his wildest dreams the ardent Jesuit
could scarcely have imagined that the region of mighty rivers
and primeval woods, which he so laboriously explored amid
privation, toil, and danger, could, in so brief a period, become
accessible, populous, and fused, as it were, into the compass
of a recreative tour; and that the natives of that far-away
isle in the Indian seas, whose semi-civilization he first reported
to Europe, should come hither as ambassadors to a vast re
public, and cany their Asian aspect through crowded cities
of Anglo-Saxon freemen. Never, perhaps, were stationary
and progressive civilization brought so directly in contrast.
The Japanese envoys, as well as their distant home, are identi
cal with those Charlevoix so long ago described ; while the
virgin solitudes of nature, amid which his lonely canoe floated
or his solitary camp fire blazed, are superseded by busy towns
and peopled with flying caravans of travellers, representing an
economy, character, and government fall of vitality and of
prosperous and original elements.

It is curious to turn to the somewhat monotonous but still
instructive pages of Charlevoix, and realize how exclusively,
at the time he wrote, the interest of this continent was aborig
inal and prospective ; for it is with the aspects and resources
of nature and the peculiarities of the Indian tribes that his

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 49

pen is occupied. Whatever of romance tinges his chronicle
is Arcadian ; the myths and manners of the different tribes,
the trees and the reptiles, waterfalls and savannas, are the
staple themes. His religious views and mission lend a pensive
dignity to his narrative : like most of his countrymen, he
develops certain sympathies with, and finds curious interest in,
the sauvages / he pictures the wild beauty and primitive life
of the country when furs were the chief article of traffic —
when the convents of Canada, the frontier forts, and the
Indian villages were the only places of secure sojourn — when
" fire water " had only begun its fascinating destruction
among the then naive children of the soil — when rude fields
of tobacco, orchards, and maize fields alone gave sign of culti
vation, and game and fish supplied the wanderer's subsist
ence. In Charlevoix we find the germs of colonial romance
in America ; the primitive maps, the old forts, the early crude
botanical nomenclature, with ethnological hints regarding the
Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquin, and other tribes. He first
elaborately pictured the " lacs " — those wonderful inland seas
which constituted so remarkable a feature of the New World
to its first visitors, and became the great means of economical
development by initiating, under wise statesmanship, the pro
lific system of communication between the far interior and
the broad seacoast.

His letters were commenced in 1720, by order of the King
of France. One of the best English translations appeared in
1765. The details are curious now, rather than novel; they
are carefully noted, and form the best authority for reference
as to the primitive aspect, productions, and aboriginal tribes.
The topographical statements are often confirmed by experi
ence at the present day ; and the imaginative traveller finds
his enjoyment of the scenery enhanced by contemplating it
with the record of this venerable guide before him, and con
trasting with that early record the scene as modified by the
sights and sounds of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

" In New England, and other provinces of America," says
Charlevoix, " subject to the British empire, there prevails an
3

50 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

opulence of which they seem not to have taken the benefit ;
and, in New France, a poverty disguised by an air of ease,
which does not seem constrained. Commerce and the culture
of plantations strengthen the former : the industry of the
inhabitants supports the latter ; and the taste of the nation
diffuses an unbounded agreeableness. The English colonist
gathers wealth, and never runs into any superfluous expense ;
the French enjoys what he has, and often makes a show of
what he has not : one labors for his heirs ; the other leaves
them in the necessity in which he found himself, to shift as
well as they can. The English are entirely averse to war,
because they have much to lose ; they do not regard the sav
ages, because they think they have no occasion for them."
In these remarks we have a key, not only to the national char
acteristics of the two peoples, but one which explains the suc
cess of one and the failure of the other in permanent coloni
zation. Our associations with the name of Chicago and of
Illinois make it difficult to realize the casual mention of them
by Charlevoix as the abode of Indians only : " Fifty years
ago," he writes, " the Miamis were settled at the south end
of the lake Michigan, in a place called Chicago, which is also
the name of a little river that runs into the lake : the Illinois,
a savage nation, on the banks of the river Illinois ; they burn
prisoners, and sing doleful songs." He observes that the
" navigation of Lake Michigan requires much care, because
the wind comes from the open lake, that is, the west ; the
waves are the whole length of the lake, and blend with the
shock of currents and of rivers running in ; " — a primitive
description, which comes home to all who have experienced
a gale there.

Of the two great rivers of the West, he writes : " The
Missouri is far the most rapid, and enters the Misissippi like
a conqueror ; afterward it gives its color to that river,
w^hich it never loses again, but carries quite down to the
sea. The natives are obliged to use pettiaugres instead of
canoes of bark, on account of snags ; they are trees made hol
low : the natives know the north by the tops of trees, as

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 51

they lean a little that way ; the Mississippi is little known
above the Falls of St. Anthony."

Charlevoix was an eminent teacher, both of languages and
philosophy, and, for more than twenty years after his return
from America, " had a chief share in the Journal de Trevoux."
His character and learning gave authority to his " Histoire
Generale de la Nouvelle France." As we read his accounts
of personal observations and experience in Canada and on the
Mississippi, of the beavers and cypress trees, the elks and eels,
the lakes and falls, the maize and oysters, the snakes and tur
tles, Indians and missions, we can perceive a directness and
honesty of purpose, which is internal evidence of the author's
good faith. The simplicity and ingenuousness of his style have
always been recognized, though its correctness is not admit
ted by verbal critics.

With the wild, luxuriant, lonely, remote picture of the
Jesuit clear and full to the mind's eye, what a wonderful pro
cess of development, relation, and change, does the Illinois
region offer to one now familiar with its history and its
aspect ! The unpeopled desert of the isolated missionary is
still in the far West, " a vast prairie dotted with groves and
intersected with belts of timber ; " but, less remote, its climate
is only modified ; and the herds of buffalo have disappeared,
the wild deer drink no more at the streams ; the same millions
of fertile acres and a portion of the immense swamp diversify
the face of the land ; the same limestone bluffs frown impos
ingly upon the vast river ; the same piercing blasts from the
Rocky Mountains sweep snow-covered plains ; and, away from
the settlements, the same blue-bells, wild roses, thistles, sorrels,
fragrant herbs, and lofty weeds and hairy-leaved plants, and
grassy levels make the summer gorgeous and balmy ; the scar
let trumpet blossoms and the golden dandelion, the low box
trees, the purple wild grape, and the crimson sumach make
brilliant and variegated the meadows ; the same gray, mottled,
and flying squirrels occasionally cross the wanderer's path ; the
owl may be heard at night, and the turkey buzzards hover over
carrion ; the crow, the falcon, the hawk, the vulture, the mock-

52 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ing bird, and the rattlesnake, here and there, attest that old hun
ters and early naturalists correctly noted the indigenous animal
life of the region ; but tall maize stalks, and woolly flocks, and
fruitful orchards, and herds of cattle have superseded the wil
derness where the elk browsed fearlessly and the hares bur
rowed unharmed. Since the flag of Spain was planted at the
mouth of the Mississippi, in 1541 — since, a century later, Father
Marquette offered the calumet of peace and the Canada fur trad
ers came thither, what vicissitudes and progress have signal
ized the scenes that Hennepin so long ago described ! Be
stowed by Louis XI V., in 1712, upon Anthony Crozat, with the
entire territory of Louisiana and Wisconsin, the Illinois country
became the capital upon which a trading company, managed
by John Law, produced financial convulsion which shook the
Old World and bred political and social revolution — the only
relic and memorial whereof are the poor fragments of Fort
Chartres which he erected when at the pinnacle of his auda
cious success. Wolfe, in 1759, brought to an end the rule of
France on this continent ; yet many of her children lingered
in the Illinois and preserved intact their characteristic modes
of life, which have been more or less transmitted. In- 1763
the vast domain passed to the British crown; in 1778 its
posts there were captured by the Virginia rangers under
Roger Clark; in 1809 the country became a separate Terri
tory, in 1818 a State of our Union ; and the name of one of her
counties preserves the memory of the leader of those who
successfully opposed any provision for slavery in her consti
tution. Her Indian wars, during this period and subsequent
ly, form a remarkable historical episode, which includes the
last stand taken by Pontiac, Tecumseh, and Black Hawk for
their aboriginal dominion, and the scene of their final sacrifice.
But, however romantic, these events are less interesting to
the economist than the unprecedented physical development,
the vast crops of grain, the coal region, and the lead and
copper mines, which have made Illinois so productive. Par
allel with these demonstrations of latent wealth and normal
fertility, of Indian history and land speculation, social life

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 53

there has yielded original traits, whereof authors and artists
have not inadequately availed themselves. The adventures
of missionary, trader, hunter, settler, and traveller have been
genially recorded ; the descendants of the original three thou
sand French colonists on the banks of the Mississippi, with
their national proclivities, so diverse from the Anglo-Saxon,
and manifested in their household economy and vivacious
temperament— the primitive manners and costume of the
farmers, who long conveyed the products of their farms in
flatboats to New Orleans, clad in raccoon-skin caps, buckskin
leggings, moccasins, and linsey hunting shirts, with the home-
wrought, brightly dyed frocks of the women, and the frank
and brave manners and language of this free and thrifty popu
lation — have yet a traditional charm : here, too, the terrible
justice of Lynch law had full scope — the Missouri ruffians, the
debris of the Indian tribes, the Western politician, and the
robust or ague-stricken emigrant, made up an unique and
original population, full of salient points to the eye of a Euro
pean or visitor from the communities of New England or old
Southern States. Cooper, in a novel, and Bryant, in a poem,
have graphically described the life and aspect of the Prairie
State, which now boasts millions of inhabitants. Kohl, speak
ing of Illinois, compares it in shape to a grain sack, rent in
the middle by its river, and bursting out with grain at both
ends. Professor Yoelcher, consulting chemist of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England, analyzing four samples of
prairie soil, said : " The most noticeable feature in the analysis
is their very large quantity of nitrogen — nearly twice as much
as the most fertile soil of Great Britain ; in each case, taking
the soil at an average depth of ten inches, an acre of their
prairie soil contains upward of three tons of nitrogen, and as
a heavy crop of wheat, with its straw, contains about fifty-
two pounds of nitrogen, there is thus a natural store of am
monia in this soil sufficient for more than a hundred wheat
crops."

But the most remarkable fact in the economical history of
Illinois and its adjacent States, is the effect of locomotive facil-

54: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ities and the genius of communication, in developing the re
sources and bringing, as it were, to the Atlantic coast and the
commercial East, the region Hennepin so laboriously and so
long traversed a mighty wilderness to reach. The contrast
fully realized of the approach then and now, is one of those
modern miracles of practical life to the wonder of which only
habit blinds us. Vessels go direct from Liverpool to Chica
go, by crossing the Atlantic, entering the St. Lawrence, and
surmounting the rapids by means of the Canadian locks and
canals, entering Ontario, and, after sailing through that lake,
and a descent of three hundred feet of the Niagara River, by
the Welland Canal, reach Lake Erie, thence through the straits
and lake of St. Clair to Lake Huron and Lake Michigan — in
the heart of the American continent. Four thousand seven
hundred and thirty-six miles of road terminate there, of which
two thousand eight hundred miles are within the State limits.
These great highways were built to carry off the surplus of
the prairies.*

As an illustration of the cosmopolitan tendency of the
population, it was but recently that in this distant inland city,
where a blockhouse fort alone stood within the memory
of " the oldest inhabitant," sons of the Bishop of London, of
Admiral Collingwood, of the novelist Dickens, with German
barons and Hungarian officers, were there cheerfully engaged
in various vocations.

There is something exciting to the imagination as well as
impressive to the mind in the fact that the oldest authentic
written memorials of America, after the narratives of mari-

* The following table compares the official returns of the population of
Chicago :

1830 70

1840 4,853

1843 7,580

1844 10,864

1845 12,088

1846 14,169

1847 16,859

1848 20,023

1849 23,047

1850 29,963

1852 38,734

1853 60,625

1860 110,973

1862 138,835

Thus, in thirty-three years, a colony of seventy persons has grown into a
city of nearly 140,000.

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 55

time adventurers, are the letters and " relations " of the Jesuit
missionaries. Often when a band of hunters or company of
early colonists penetrated to a region of the wilderness, as
they imagined, unvisited before by any human being except
the savage natives, the sight of some relic or token of these
religious pioneers brought into immediate contrast the most
hallowed associations of the Old World and the virgin wilder
ness of the New. Sometimes an old aboriginal guide re
peated to the astonished strangers what had been whispered
in his ear when, as a child, he played around the council fire
or the wigwam, of kind and wise men, robed in black, who
talked to the children of the forest, of heaven, prayed over
their dead, and baptized their maidens. On other occasions,
amid the mossy coverings of ancient trees, the curious ex
plorer would find rudely carved the effigies or escutcheon of
the French king : here a broken cross, there a respected grave,
now a ruined chapel, and again a censer or sacramental cup,
even in the heart of the woods revived to the exiles the
images, sacrifices, and triumphs of these indomitable members
of the Society of Jesus : some of their names are perpetuated
in those of towns now flourishing on the site of their apostle-
ship or martyrdom ; others are only preserved on a page of
history seldom consulted. Poets and novelists, historians
and artists have, from time to time, renewed the pious tra
ditions and isolated lives of these remarkable men ; but few
of the summer tourists who gaze with delight upon the um
brageous islands of the St. Lawrence, or stand entranced amid
the foaming rapids of St. Anthony, or watch with rapture the
undulating sea of herbage and flowers on a blooming prairie
of Illinois or Missouri, associate these characteristic aspects of
nature with their first European explorers. Their written
memorials, however, aptly consecrate their experience : there
by we learn how cheerfully scholars, soldiers, and courtiers
braved the privations and the cruelties incident to such heroic
enterprises ; we read the artless story of their ministry — how
at times they feel rewarded for months of suffering by the
saintly development of an Indian virgin, by the acquiescence

56 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of a tribe in the rites of Christianity, or by the amelioration
in the habits and temper of these fierce children of nature,
under the influence of consistent, humane, and holy examples
and care. All the correspondence and reports of the Jesuit
missionaries are interspersed with local descriptions, some
times vivid and often so specific as to serve as data for natu
ralist and historian. The anecdotes of Indian character and
of personal adventure also give a quaint zest to the story ;
and not unfrequently a deep pathos is imparted thereto by
the fate of the writer — dying of hunger, at the stake, or by
treachery — going forth on their perilous journeys from fort
or settlement, conscious they may not hope to return — and
yielding up their lives with the same intrepid zeal with which
they bore the discouragements, exposure, ingratitude, and
lonely struggles of missionary life in the wilderness. Jogues,
Du Poisson, Souel, Breboeuf, Lallemand, Sen at, La Chaise,
Joliet, and Marquette, are names thus endeared and hallowed.
Among other episodes recorded in the letters of the
Jesuit missionaries, which combine romantic with historical
significance, are the accounts of the Iroquois martyrs, of
Catherine, the saint of that tribe, of voyages up the Missis
sippi, of the massacre by the Natchez, of the mission to the
Illinois, and of Montcalm's expedition to Fort George. Some
of the letters written by the missionaries to their superiors and
brethren in France contain the earliest descriptions of por
tions of States now constituting the most flourishing region
in the West. In his account of a " Journey through Illinois
and Michigan, in 1712," Father Marest writes : " Our Illinois
dwell in a delightful country. There are great rivers, which
water it, and vast and dense forests, with delightful prairies."
He descants on the " charming variety " of the scene, speaks
of the abundance of game, such as buffaloes, roebucks, hinds,
stags, swan, geese, bustards, ducks, and turkeys ; he notes
the wild oats and the cedar and copal trees, the apple, peach,
and pear orchards, and says the flesh of young bears is very
delicate, and the native grapes " only moderately good." Of
the Indians he remarks that " their physical development is

FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLOEATION. 57

fine — the men being tall, active, and very swift of foot ; " he
describes their mode of life, their wigwams, corn staple,
manitous and medicine men : it is among the women, how
ever, that his mission best succeeds ; they, he writes, are
" depressed by their daily toil, and are more docile to the
truths of the gospel," and are invariably " modestly clothed
when they come into the church."

The cheerful temperament and quick observation, as well
as the pious zeal of the French Jesuits, made them admirable
pioneers and explorers; -with enough imagination to enjoy
and describe nature, and sympathy adequate to put' them in
relation with the races they aimed to convert, more or less
preliminary study enabled them to note the phenomena and
products of the new country, if not with scientific complete
ness, yet with intelligence and precision. Charlevoix singu
larly combined the priest and the savan ; he tells us, speaking
of Christian baptism among the savages, how an enfant mori
bund fut guerit par la vertu de ce sacrament ; and, at the
same time, his was the first correct estimate of the height of
the Falls of Niagara. His " Histoire de la ISTouvelle France "
is a pleasing memorial of his loyalty and pious self-devotion,
whereto he so aptly joined the assiduous observation and
careful narrative of an expedition which revealed so many
then fresh and valuable facts in regard to the magnificent
domain partially colonized, and, as was then hoped, perma
nently appropriated by France.
3*

CHAPTER III.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS'.

CHASTELLUX ; L'ABBE ROBIN ; DTJCKE1 | BRISSOT DE WARVILLE ;

CREVECCEUR; LA ROCHEFOUCAULD-LIANCOURT ; .

VOLNEY; RAYNAL.

AFTER the colonial adventurers and the religious pioneers
had made the natural features of America familiar to Europe
— after settlements had been made (disputed, declined, and
flourished) by representatives of every civilized land, and the
English character was the established social influence in the
New World — came that memorable struggle for political in
dependence which attracted so many brave and intelligent
allies from abroad : some of these have left accounts of their
experience and a record of their impressions ; they differ
from the earlier series of travels in a more detailed report of
the manners and customs of the people, in a sympathetic em
phasis derived from mutual privations and triumphs, in a
speculative interest suggested by the new and vast prospects
which then opened before a free people, and in the attractive
personal associations which connect these literary memorials
with the names of our champions in the War of Independence.
Perhaps no one of this class of travels in America is more
satisfactory, from the interest of the narrative and the agreea
ble style, than those of the Marquis de Chastellux.* He vividly

* "Voyages dans I'Amerique Septentrionale dans les annees l780-'81-'82,"
2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1786.

FRENCH TEAVELLEES AN» WEITEES. 59

caught the life of America at the time of its most character
istic self-assertion. His amiable manners and intelligent zeal
had won him the special regard of Washington. He was one
of the forty members of the French Academy, and a major-
general of the French army, serving under Count Rocham-
beau.

Francois Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, was born in Paris
in 1734, and died there in 1788. He was one of those charac
ters almost peculiar to the old regime, in France, wherein the
militaire and the man of letters were gracefully combined
with the gentleman. At quite an early age he entered the
army, and won distinction in Germany during the Seven
Years', war. His agreeable conversation and urbane manners
made him a great favorite when, under Rochambeau, he
served in America ; in camp and drawing room, at wayside
inns and among educated and philosophical men, he was
alike pleasant and courteous ; and from the commander-in-
chief of our army to the shrewd farmer of whose hospitality
he partook while travelling, from the stately dowager at
Philadelphia to the rustic beauty of an isolated plantation in
Virginia, he gained that consideration which high breeding,
quick sympathy, and a cultivated mind so naturally win. He
acquired no inconsiderable literary reputation by a work that
appeared in 1772, De la Felicite Publique : the significance
of this somewhat ambitious treatise has long since passed
away, with the tone of feeling and the state of opinion it
once not inadequately represented ; still, it is an interesting
memorial of an amiable and accomplished champion of the
American cause, and a curious illustration of the theories and
style once so prevalent in France. The Marquis sympathized
with Condorcet's views of the possible and probable progress
of humanity, and his work is chiefly inspired with these specu
lations ; but it has no claim to logical order or harmony of
plan ; it has vigorous thoughts, but they are expressed in too
rhetorical a manner to impress deeply a reflective mind ; the
absence of Christian Faith is characteristic of the author's
times and country among philosophical writers : yet, notwith-

60 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

standing the incompleteness and scepticism of the work, its
brilliant generalizations so pleased Voltaire that he declared
it superior to Montesquieu's famous treatise. As in so many
other instances, the fame of the Marquis de Chastellux, as a
writer, rests upon the incidental rather than the formal and
elaborate achievements of his pen. His Voyages dans VAme-
rigue Septentrionale are the spontaneous comments and de
scriptions such as fill the letters and journals of an intelligent
traveller ; they are written in a very pleasant though desul
tory style, and abound in details of interest not familiar at the
time the work appeared. Many important economical, social,
and personal facts are gracefully recorded ; and the charac
ter of the country and of the men who directed the War
of Independence and the formation of a free government are
described ; there are some lively anecdotical episodes, and not
a few acute speculations : the work is truly French in the con
stant alternation of a light vein of remark with serious observa
tion, and warm sentiment with worldly wisdom. The frugal
and simple ways, the mental independence, modesty, habits of
reading, and political tendencies of the people elicit from, the
Marquis the most intelligent sympathy ; he appreciated the
eminent characters to whom the country owed her safety ; he
notes with accuracy the climate, productions, and habits, with
which he comes into contact ; but, now and then, a tone of
pedantry seems inconsistent with the scene and the senti
ment ; yet sometimes the associations of both naturally excite
classic and romantic memories ; he quotes Rabelais and Metas-
tasio, Moliere and Guarini ; a fair country girl is suggestive
of Greuze, and a rural Adonis of Marmontel ; he thinks of
Buffon among the novel birds and beasts of the wild ; and a
Connecticut statesman reminds him of a Holland stadtholder ;
Philadelphia is a modern Capua, and he praises the ladies of
that city for skill on the harpsichord ; and the fortified High
lands of the Hudson seem a war-girdled Thrace ; he contrasts
the silent watchfulness of a Quaker meeting with the chanting
of the Church of England. The mocking bird and the moun
tain top, grand old trees and original human beings beguile his

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 61

fluent pen. As a digest and epitome of his observations in
the New World, his discourse on " The Advantages and Dis
advantages resulting to Europe from Democracy in America,"
1787, is praised by La Harpe as his best work, and seems to
have definitely settled the question, as proposed by Raynal, in
favor of the advantages. De Chastellux was one of Pope
Ganganelli's correspondents ; and translated Humphrey's
" Campaign." The period of his sojourn in America adds
greatly to the interest of his account thereof : the early bat
tle fields of the Revolution were yet fresh, and the momentous
conflict was drawing to a glorious end ; he saw a fair fugitive
from the Wyoming massacre at a New England tavern ; and
parted with Washington where he took a final leave of his
officers, in the " right-hand room " of the old headquarters
at Newburgh.

One of the biographers of Chastellux, praising his accom
plishments, observes : " Cette alliance des armes et des lettres,
moins rares autrefois, fut doublement glorieux pour lui"
His " Essay sur 1'Union de la Poesie et de la Musique " and
his " Vies de quelques grands Capitaines " were highly com
mended by Buftbn, who was president of the Academy when
the Marquis was elected a member ; the subject of the latter's
discours $ entrance was Le Gout : an appropriate theme for a
nobleman whose writings indicate the cultivation of taste in
all departments as a mental habit. It has been objected, and
justly, to his philosophical writings, that their style is too
ambitious ; and, in this respect, the simplicity and geniality
of his less pretentious Travels give them a more popular tone
and scope. They were, notwithstanding their immediate suc
cess, bitterly criticized by Brissot de Warville.

An English gentleman, who lived in America at that time,
translated the Travels of the Marquis from the French, and
added copious notes. Only twenty-four copies of the original
had been printed. It is a curious illustration of the period,
that " at a time when there was very little hope of any pack
ets reaching Europe but by means of duplicates," the author
availed himself of the little printing press on board the squad-

02 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES.

ron at Rhode Island. Only ten out of the twenty-four arrived
to the address of those for whom they were destined, and who
had been earnestly requested not to take copies ; but such
was the prevalent desire to know everything possible as to
the condition and prospects of America and the remarkable
events that had so lately transpired there, that these few im
pressions were widely circulated ; and the translation before
alluded to appeared in Dublin and afterward in London, in
1787.* Whoever would compare the present condition of a
part of the Southern and most of the New England States
with that of eighty years ago, will find few more pleasant
authorities than the Marquis de Chastellux. He united, in a
singular degree, the gentleman and the scholar, the philosopher
and the artist, the man of the world and the good fellow ;
accordingly he looked upon the primitive life, the original
characters, the economical resources, and the natural beauty
around him, with curiosity and sympathy ; he had the facility
of intercourse, the liberal culture, the desire of knowledge so
requisite for a traveller ; and he was alive to the significance
of the present in its relation to the future. His appreciation
of the social virtues of the people and his tolerance of their
limited means — his interest in their welfare, and his respect
for their cause, are evident on every page. No foreigner has
manifested a greater admiration of Washington, or more truly
described his bearing and principles. Some of his observa
tions are full of interest for those who delight to trace na
tional character and local influence to their sources. Here an
anecdote, and there a description ; now military details, and
again social traits occupy his pen : no phase of domestic econ
omy or statistics of trade and agriculture, no pretty face or
shrewd comrade which accident reveals by the way, is allowed
to escape him ; so that unconsciously he prepared a book of
reference whence the philosopher, novelist, and historian may
still draw useful hints. It was in the spring of 1782 that the
Marquis de Chastellux travelled through Upper Virginia, and,

* "Travels in North America, in the Years 1780, '81, '82," 2 vols. 8vo.,
maps, London, 1787.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 63

during the ensuing autumn, through Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, and part of Pennsylvania. He was accustomed
thus to occupy the intervals of professional duty ; and, there
fore, his journeys were undertaken for the express purpose of
acquainting himself with the country and people — a fact in
dicative of liberal curiosity and a love of travel for its own
sake, which is an indispensable requisite for the pleasing re
port thereof. It is not uninteresting to revert to some of the
least uncommon experiences of such a writer, especially when
we are familiar with the places described as they appear after
nearly a century of prosperous development : we thus obtain
veritable glimpses into the life of the past. At the outset of
his journal he speaks of having breakfasted at Providence,
R. I., " with Colonel Peck. He received me in a small house,
where he lived with his wife, who is young also, and has a
pleasing countenance, but without anything striking. This
little establishment, where comfort and simplicity reign, gave
an idea of that sweet and serene state of Happiness which
appears to have taken refuge in the ISTew World, after com
pounding it with Pleasure, to which it has left the Old." His
local facts correspond with our experience of the town, which
he describes as " pent between two chains of hills, one to the
north and the other to the southwest, which causes an insup
portable heat in summer ; and it is exposed to the northwest
wind, which rakes it from one end to the other, and renders it
extremely cold in winter. Of the original source of its wealth
to the inhabitants, he says they " carry on the Guinea trade —
buy slaves and carry them to the West Indies, where they
take bills of exchange on old England, for which they receive
woollen stuffs and other merchandise." He never fails to
note the accommodations at the inns, and is minute in com
ments on female character and appearance ; thus, describing a
maiden at a house where he tarried in Rhode Island, he says :
" This young person had, like all American women, a very
decent, nay, even serious carriage ; she had no objection to
be looked at, nor to have her beauty commended, nor even to
receive a few caresses, provided it was done without an air

64: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of familiarity or libertinism. Licentious manners, in fact,
are so foreign in America, that freedom itself there bears a
character of modesty." He remarks, as a striking circum
stance, that in every house he found books which were evi
dently read ; a " town " in America, he observes, means " a
few houses grouped round a church and tavern." The obsta
cles to travelling he finds incessant, having often to cross fer
ries and to transport provisions and baggage on carts ; he
alludes to a landlady's expression that she could not spare one
bed, as a local idiom. The chief man at Hartford, in those
days, was Colonel Wadsworth. The Marquis was his guest,
and speaks of his honesty as commissary to supply the French
troops, and of the high regard in which he was held by Wash
ington and Lafayette. Of Governor Trumbull he says : " He
has all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance and even
pedantry, becoming the chief magistrate of a small republic.
He brought to my mind the burgomasters of Holland in the
time of the Barnevelts." He examined manufactures, con
versed with intelligent men, noted the " lay of the land," and
estimated local resources ; he was delighted at the sight of a
bluebird, and descants upon the limited nomenclature which
designated every water bird as a duck, from the teal to the
bla-ck duck, distinguishing them only by the term " red,"
" wood," &c. ; and calling cypress, firs, &c., all pine trees.
He is impressed with the sight of " mountains covered with
woods as old as the creation ;" thinks always of Buffon as so
many objects of natural history come in view ; and expe
riences a sensation of wonder when, in the midst of " ancient
deserts," he comes upon traces of a " settlement ; " the process
whereof he describes — how the rude hut gives place to the
wooden house, the woods to the clearing ; and then comes
a piece of tilled land, and more , trees are girdled and
other roofs are raised, at which neighbors " assist " " with no
other recompense than a barrel of cider or a gallon of rum."
" Such are the means," he adds, " by which North America,
only a hundred years ago a vast forest, is peopled with three
millions of inhabitants." As illustrative of the equality of

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 65

condition and personal independence, he speaks of the indif
ferent reception often met with at the inns, where travellers
often give " more trouble than money," and of the custom
of the country, when a public house is not at hand, for the
traveller to claim and pay for byway hospitality. He com
pares this conduct with the obsequious manners of innkeepers
in France, and accounts for it by the fact that, in this primi
tive community, " innkeepers are independent of their voca
tion." He found broken panes common, and glaziers rare ;
he is enraptured with the scenery of the Housatonic, and the
Hudson Highlands. Amid the latter he is saluted with thir
teen guns as major-general, by General Heath, then in com-
mancf there, the echoes whereof are marvellous ; the scene of
Arnold's treason inspires him with grave thoughts ; he de
scribes the batteries, praises the officer in command, and ad
mires the magnificent view. " The guns they fired," he says,
" had belonged to Burgoyne's army." Here he is entertained
by the officers, enjoys their reminiscences of the war, and talks
over the treason of Arnold, then but two years old ; he visited
Smith's house, and reflects earnestly on this memorable inci
dent : " in this warlike abode," he declares, " one seems
transported to the bottom of Thrace, and the dominions of
the god Mars ; " thence he goes to Lafayette's camp, and notes
details as to the state of the army ; on seeking his first inter
view with Washington, he finds him talking with his officers
in a farmyard, " a tall man, five feet nine inches high, of a
noble and mild countenance ; " by the chief he is immediately
presented to Knox, Wayne, Hamilton, and others. After
three days of delightful intercourse with the leaders of the
American army at headquarters, he breakfasts with Lord Stir
ling, and, upon taking leave of Washington, is presented by him
with a horse, of which he stood hi much need ; and proceeds
to New Jersey, where he visits the battle fields of Trenton,
Monmouth, and Princeton ; at the latter place visiting Dr.
Witherspoon, the head of the college ; and enjoying the novel
carols of a mocking bird. " Addison said," he writes, " in
visiting the different monuments of Italy, that he imagined

66 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

himself on classic ground; all my steps were on martial
ground ; I went, in the same morning, to see two fields of
battle." He finds the custom of giving toasts and speeches
at table very irksome ; and, in allusion to Governor Living
ston, of New Jersey, remarks, " I have often had occasion to
observe there is more of ceremony than of compliment in
America," a discriminating view of the manners of that time.
At Philadelphia, the Marquis notes his intercourse with Reed,
whose correspondence with Washington so fully illustrates
the anxious perplexities of that immaculate patriot's life dur
ing the war ; he speaks of a visit to Dr. Franklin's daughter,
Mrs. Bache, whom he found " simple in her manners, like her
respectable father, and possessed of kindred benevolence of
disposition ; " Robert Morris he describes as a " large man,
very simple in his manners, but his mind is subtile and acute ;
his head is perfectly well organized, and he is as well versed
in public affairs as in his own ; a zealous republican and an
Epicurean philosopher, he has always played a distinguished
part at table and in business." He enjoyed interviews with
Rittenhouse and Tom Paine, and had a talk on government
with Samuel Adams. Nothing can be imagined more oppo
site than the social code of a Frenchman and a Quaker, the
one having such excessive faith in manner and dealing so
fluently in verbal courtesies, and the other repudiating both
as inimical to spiritual integrity. Yet there is no trait of
the American character, as then exhibited, which won more
sincere admiration from this soldier and nobleman than its
simplicity ; it is the constant theme of his eulogy ; but this
beautiful quality did not strike him as spontaneous and can
did in the Quakers whom he met in the city of brotherly
love : " The law," he writes, " observed by this sect, of neither
using you nor sir, is far from giving them a tone of simplici
ty and candor ; they in general assume a smooth and whee
dling tone, which is altogether Jesuitical." Philadelphia, it
would appear from the experience of the Marquis, was as
famous then as now for its market and household comfort ;
for he expresses a fear lest the " pleasures of Capua should

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 67

make him forget the campaigns of Hannibal ; " he therefore
determines to leave the luxury of the city, and explore the
recent battle fields of Germantown and Brandywine.

The public beneficence of Philadelphia, as indicated by the
endowment of hospitals and corrective institutions, had al
ready become a marked feature ; but the Marquis comments
on a defect, soon after remedied — the absence of a public
walk. Milton, Addison, and Richardson he found the authors
chiefly read by the young women ; and so universal was the
interest in and knowledge of civic affairs, that he declares
that " all American conversation must finish with politics."
His winter journey to Saratoga was a formidable undertak
ing, or would have been to a gentleman unfamiliar with the
hardy discipline of the camp ; its principal episodes of interest
were the view of Cohoes Falls, and a visit to General Schuy-
ler, just after the marriage of his daughter with Hamilton ;
he inspected some interesting documents revealing the actual
condition of Canada, and expatiates on the novel excitement
and exposure of what he calls a " sledge ride." With the
present byway scenery of the railroad which intersects the
central part of New York State, it is instructive to read his
account of that region, through which, by slow stages, he
penetrated from town to fort and through a snow-shrouded
wilderness. " The country," he tells us, " which lies between
Albany and Schenectady, is nothing but an immense forest
of pine trees, untouched by the hatchet. They are lofty and
robust ; and, as nothing grows in their shade, a line of cavalry
might traverse the wood without breaking their line or defil
ing." Schenectady contained then but five hundred houses
" within the palisades ; " diverging from his road, he visited a
Mohawk settlement, a few straggling descendants of which
tribe the traveller of to-day still encounters, in that vicinity,
among the peddling habitues of the railway cars. He also
saw, on the way to Fort Edward, the house formerly the
home of the unfortunate Jane McKca ; startled a bevy of
quails, and, at a wayside inn, saw a girl " whom Greuze would
have been happy to have taken as a model ; " while, on his

68 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

chamber table, he found an abridgment of Newton's Philoso
phy, and discovered that his landlord, a surveyor by profes
sion, and incessantly occupied in measuring land, was well
versed in Physics. The Marquis, after thus journeying
through the northern section of the country, observing its
peculiarities, seeking the acquaintance of its leading men, and
visiting the scenes of the war, yet fresh in association and
destined to become memorably historical, rejoined the French
army then stationed at Newport, R. I., whence, after a brief
interval, he started on a Southern expedition.

The Marquis thus records his method of setting out on a
journey into Virginia, eighty-four years ago : " On the eighth
of the month I set out with Mr. Lynch, then my aide-de-camp
and adjutant, now general ; Mr. Frank Dillon, my second aide,
and Mons. la Chevalier d'Oyre, of the engineers, six servants,
and a led horse composed our train ; so that our little caravan
consisted of four .masters, six servants, and eleven horses."
At the very outset of the expedition he notes that capricious
state of the climate which in our country so often blends the
aspect of different seasons ; writing of the month of April, he
says : " I regretted to find summer in the heavens, while the
earth aiforded not the smallest appearance of spring;" the
devastations of war were yet fresh ; he sojourned at a house
which " had been pillaged by the English ; they had taken the
very boots off the owner's legs." On this journey he first
made acquaintance with a mocking bird, and gives a lively
description of its performance : " Apparently delighted at
having an auditor, it kept hopping from branch to branch, and
imitated the jay, lapwing, raven, cardinal, &c." He finds " a
garden in the English style ; " court houses usually in the cen
tre of counties ; daughters of the isolated planters, " pretty
nymphs, more timid and wild than Diana ; " and, approaching
the South, observes a different kind of popular amusement and
of traffic than prevailed in New England, especialy cock fight
ing and horse trading ; he is struck with the conjugal epithet of
his landlord, who calls his wife " honey," which he regards as
synonymous with the French term of endearment — mon petit

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 69

coeur ; with him the transition from gallant to economical
details is easy, and, traversing the then sparsely inhabited
region comprised within and around the State of Virginia, he
observes the frequent instances, among the inhabitants, of
" patriarchal agriculture, which consists in producing only
what is sufficient for their own consumption ; " and remarks
that " nails are the articles most wanted in these new colo
nies ; for the axe and saw can supply every other want." He
visits Monticello, a name signifying little mountain, though
he finds it a big one, and the house of Jefferson " in the
Italian style, and more architectural than any in the coun
try;" while the master thereof elicits all his enthusiasm:
" Let me describe," he writes, " a man not yet forty — tall,
and with a mild and pleasant countenance ; but whose mind
and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior
grace ; an American who, without ever having quitted his
own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a
natural philosopher, legislator, and statesman. Before I had
been two hours with him, we were as intimate as if we had
passed our whole lives together ; walking, books, but, above
all, conversation always varied and interesting, made four
days pass away like so many minutes." The twain grew elo
quent about Ossian over a bowl of punch, and speculated
upon the genus of American deer, which Jefferson fed with
Indian corn, and the Marquis describes as half roebuck and
half English deer. They also engaged in a meteorological
discussion, and expatiated on the advantages for observations
in this then embryo science, afforded by the extent and va
riety of the American climate. Jefferson stated some inter
esting results of his observations as to the effect of woods in
breaking clouds and absorbing exhalations. Political and
social questions were not forgotten by the two philosophers :
" A Virginian," writes the Marquis, " never resembles a Euro
pean peasant ; he is always a freeman, participates in the gov
ernment, and has the command of a few negroes, so that,
uniting in himself the two qualities of citizen and master, he
perfectly resembles the bulk of individuals who formed what

TO AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

were called the i people ' in the ancient republics." He also
expresses the conviction that " the dignity of man is rela
tive ; " and is struck with the superior riflemen of the Vir
ginia militia ; he finds novel sport in shooting a wood hen,
and discovers quite an ideal rustic in the person of a hand
some miller : " He was a young man, twenty-two years of
age, whose charming face, fine teeth, red lips, and rosy cheeks
recalled to mind the pleasant portrait which Marmontel gives
of Lubin." The alternation of pastoral, patriarchal, and aris
tocratic manners, the aboriginal traditions, the grand econom
ical resources observed, and frequent personal discomfort ex
perienced, offered to his thoughtful, susceptible, and adventur
rous mind constant subjects of interest — a vivid contrast with
the society and condition of the Old World, a freshness and
freedom combined with hardihood and privation, an originality
of character and vast promise for humanity ; the primitive and
the cultivated elements of life were brought into frequent
contact ; and the urbane and intelligent French officer seems
to have had an eye and a heart for all around him suggestive
of the past or prophetic of the future. By a most toilsome
and perplexing access, he visited the Natural Bridge of Vir
ginia ; delighted with this wonderful structure, he measured
its dimensions with care, and* speculated upon its formation
with curiosity ; it excited in his mind a kind of " melancholy
admiration."

Another characteristic scene which impressed him was a
conflagration in the woods — a feature of the landscape which,
to his European vision, was ever fraught with interest ; he
records his appreciation of the " strong, robust oaks and im
mense pines, sufficient for all the fleets of Europe," which
"•here grow old and perish on their native soil." He is much
struck with the cheerful spirit with which emigration goes on
in the New World, when he encounters, in the lonely wild,
a buoyant adventurer " with only a horse, saddle bags, cash
to buy land, and a young wife ; " of the latter he observes :
" I saw, not without astonishment, that her natural charms
were even embellished by the serenity of her mind." The

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. Tl

importance to a traveller of a love of nature and an eye for
character, is signally manifest in the American travels of
Chastellux. To one destitute of these resources the journey
thus described would have been irksome, through its mo
notony and discomfort. But the vivacious and amiable
French officer found novelty in the wild creatures, the vegeta
tion, and the people he encountered ; he was constantly alive
to the fact that he was traversing a new country, and there
fore bound to observe all its phases ; it is surprising how
much he discovered to awaken pleasant memories of his
studies and experience in Europe ; how the charms of nature
suggested reminiscences of art, and the individuality of char
acter recalled the celebrities of other eras and climes. A vul
gar mind, an ignorant man, would have hastened through the
rude domain, and sought amusement only in the more settled
and populous districts ; but the resources and character of
the country, the eminent among its inhabitants, their sacred
struggle for freedom, and the vast possibilities incident to
such an extent of territory and to a great political experiment,
quickened the sympathies and enlisted the careful observation
of the cultivated soldier. The rabbit that runs across his
woodland path, the delicate pink blossoms of the peach trees
in a settler's orchard, the novel sight of a marmoset caught by
the way, a fat and original landlord, tobacco " as a circulating
medium," and the magnificent prospect from the summit of
the Blue Ridge, suffice to occupy and interest. A fair Vir
ginian recalls to his mind " those beautiful Virgins of Raph
ael ; " he is agreeably surprised at the opportunity of prac
tising Italian with a cook of that nation he finds in a Rich
mond inn, and is eloquent in describing the humming bird,
and precise in delineating the sturgeon ; repeats the story of
Pocahontas amid the local traditions that endear her memory,
and thinks one " must be fatigued with hearing the name of
Randolph while travelling in Virginia." It would appear
that " young America " was as real then as now : " The youth
of both sexes," he says, " are more forward and ripe than
with us ; and our maturity is more prolonged." Still he finds

72 AMEIUCA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

special charms in the Old Dominion, and thinks the inhabit
ants of Virginia best situated of all the colonists under the
English Government. " The Government," he adds, " may
become democratic at the present moment ; but the national
character, the spirit of the Government itself, will always be
aristocratic ; it was originally a ' company ' composed of the
men most distinguished for their rank and birth." He appre
ciates the diversity of political origin and local character in
the different sections of the country ; observing that New
England was settled " to escape arbitrary power " — New
York and the Jerseys by necessitous Dutchmen, " who occu
pied themselves more about domestic economy than the pub
lic government ; " that of Pennsylvania he considers a " gov
ernment of property — feudal, or, if you will, patriarchal." He
describes the domestic luxury of the Virginians as con
sisting in " furniture, linen, and plate, in which they resemble
our ancestors, who had neither cabinets nor wardrobes in their
castles, but contented themselves with a well-stored cellar and
a handsome buffet" In analyzing their domestic life, he
makes the just and suggestive remark, " they are very fond of
their infants, but care little for their children" which trait,
in a measure, explains the facility with which families dis
perse, and the early separation of households, wherein our
civilization is so different from that of the Old World. It is
both curious and instructive, at this moment, when her soil
has been stained and furrowed by contending armies, which
rebellious slaveholders evoked by violence because of an indi
rect and legitimate interference with " property in man," to
note the calm statement of this disinterested traveller, after free
intercourse with all classes of Virginians, eighty years ago :
" They seem afflicted," he writes, " to have any slavery, and
are constantly talking of abolishing it, and of contriving
some other means of cultivating their estates ; " the motives
thereto, he says, are various — young men being thus disposed
from "justice and the rights of humanity," while "fathers
complain that the maintenance of their negroes is very ex
pensive."

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 73

The Marquis, in a subsequent journey, after visiting Con
cord, made a careful observation of Dorchester and Bunker
Hill ; and, in reference to the battle at the latter place, he
remarks that " without the protection of the shipping, the
British could not have embarked to return from Bunker Hill ;
the little army in Boston would, in that case, have been almost,
totally destroyed, and the town must, of course, have been
evacuated. But what would have been the result of this ?
Independence was not then declared, and the road to negotia
tion was still open ; an accommodation might have taken place
between the colonies and the mother country, and animosities
might have subsided." While at Portsmouth, 1ST. H., on Sun
day, he attended church, and heard the father of one of Bos
ton's most endeared young divines ; his comment on the dis
course is characteristic both of the writer and of the times :
" The audience was not numerous, on account of the severe
cold ; but I saw some handsome women, elegantly dressed.
Mr. Buckminster, a young minister, spoke with a great deal
of grace, and reasonably enough for a preacher. I could not
help admiring the address with which he introduced politics
into his sermon." One of those old-fashioned brick dwellings,
with front yard, wide portal, and broad staircase, wherein of
yore abode the colonial aristocracy of New England, still
stands, with its venerable trees, in this pleasant town ; and is
still the abode of genial hospitality ; there our traveller
" drank tea at Mr. Langdon's ; " and, impressed with the pros
perous situation and evident wealth of the place, he declares
" there is every appearance of its becoming to New England
what the other Portsmouth is to old." To those familiar
with the old localities and associations of Boston, it is not un
interesting to know, from the journal of the Marquis, that,
when, in 1782, he visited the metropolis of New England, he
first " alighted at Mr. Brackett's, the Cromwell's Head inn ;
and, after dinner, went to the lodgings proposed for me, at
Mr. Colson's, a glover, in the Main street." In the evening
he attended the " association ball," which, he tells us, " was
opened by the Marquis de Yaudreuil with Mrs. Temple ; and
4

74: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

that " the prettiest of the women dancers were Mrs. Jarvis,
her sister Mrs. Betsy Broom, and Mrs. Whitmore." He calls
on Hancock, who is too ill with the gout to see him ; but is
more fortunate in finding Dr. Willard, president of Cam
bridge University ; he meets Mrs. Tudor, Mrs. Morton, and
Mrs. Swan at a party ; drinks tea with Mrs. Bowdoin, and
finds the younger lady of that name " has a mild and agree
able countenance, and a character corresponding with her
appearance ; " he dines with Mr. Breck ; of Mrs. Temple he
writes : " Her figure is so distinguished as to make it neces
sary to pronounce her truly beautiful ; " and describes a girl
of twelve he meets at the house of one of his Boston acquaint
ance as " neither a handsome child nor a pretty woman, but
rather an angel ; " he notes " feather beds " as a local pecu
liarity ; and praises the skill of Dr. Jarvis, and the wisdom
of Dr. Cooper.

The Marquis of Chastellux, as we have seen, took leave of
Washington at Newburgh, in the " parlor on the right " as
you enter the low-roofed stone farmhouse, now preserved
there as national property, and consecrated as the " head
quarters " of our peerless chief; "it is not difficult," writes
the French officer, " to imagine the pain this separation gave
me ; but I have too much pleasure in recollecting the real
tenderness with which it affected him, not to take a pride in
mentioning it." If an ardent yet judicious appreciation of his
character merited such regrets at parting, few of his foreign
friends deserved it more than Chastellux, whose written por
trait of the American leader was the most elaborate and dis
criminating of contemporary delineations ; familiar as it is,
we cannot better take leave of the courteous and intelligent
nobleman and soldier than by quoting it :

" Here would be the proper place to give the portrait of General
Washington ; but what can my testimony add to the idea already
formed of him ? The continent of North America, from Boston to
Charleston, is a great volume, every page of which presents his eulo-
gium. I know that having had the opportunity of a near inspection,
and of closely observing him, some more particular details may be

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 75

expected from me ; but the strongest characteristic of this respected
man is the perfect union which reigns between the physical and
moral qualities which compose the individual : one alone will enable
you to judge of all the rest. If you are presented with medals of
Csesar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you will
be led to ask what was their stature and the form of their persons :
but, if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an an
tique Apollo, be not anxious about the other parts, but rest assured
that they were all conformable to those of a god. Let not this com
parison be attributed to enthusiasm. I wish only to express the im
pression General Washington has left on my mind ; the idea of a
perfect whole — which cannot be the product of enthusiasm, but
would rather reject it, since the effect of proportion is to diminish
the idea of greatness. Brave without temerity, laborious without
ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous
without severity — he seems always to have confined himself within
those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively
but less changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults.
This is the seventh year that he has commanded the army, and that
he has obeyed the Congress ; more need not be said, especially in
America, where they know how to appreciate all the merit contained
in this simple fact. Let it be repeated that Conde" was intrepid, Tu-
renne prudent, Eugene adroit, Catinat disinterested. It is not thus
that Washington will be characterized. It will be said of him, at the
end of a long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach
himself. If anything can be more marvellous than such a character
it is the unanimity of the public suffrages in his favor. Soldier,
magistrate, people — all love and admire him ; all speak of him in
terms of tenderness and veneration. Does there then exist a virtue
capable of restraining the injustice of mankind, or a glory and hap
piness too recently established in America for Envy to have deigned
to pass the seas ?

" In speaking of this perfect whole, of which General Washington
furnishes the idea, I have not excluded exterior form. His stature
is noble and lofty; he is well made and exactly proportioned ; his
physiognomy mild and agreeable, but such as to render it impossible
to speak particularly of any of his features, so that, in quitting him,
you have only the recollection of a fine face. He has neither a grave
nor a familiar air; his brow is sometimes marked with thought, but
never with inquietude ; in inspiring respect, he inspires confidence,
and his smile is always the smile of benevolence."

Nor did the Marquis fail to remember his American
friends and advocate their country when returned to his

76 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES.

own. He translated the Address to the American Armies,
written in heroic verse, in 1782, by Colonel Humphreys ; and,
in a letter to Franklin, dated at Paris, June 21st, 1786, he says :
" When you were in France there was no need praising the
Americans ; for we had only to say, ' Look, here is their repre
sentative.' But, however worthily your place may have since
been filled, it is not unreasonable to arouse anew the interest
of a kind-hearted but thoughtless nation. Such has been my
motive in translating Colonel Humphrey's poem. My success
has fully equalled and even surpassed my expectations. Not
only has the public received the work with favor, but it has
succeeded perfectly at court, especially with the king and
queen, who have praised it highly."

L'Abbe Robin was a chaplain in the Count Rochambeau's
army. He writes in the same genial strain as most of his
countrymen, with the peculiar kind of observation and tone
of sentiment which marks almost all French travels. He was
touched and repelled, at the same time, by the domestic life
of New England — its religious teachings and exemplary duti-
ftilness ; while he laments the fragile beauty of her daughters,
and speaks of rum as the commodity which served as a con
necting link between Yankeeland and the French colonies.
Sunday in the Puritan capital, impresses him strongly, and he
discovers, by the dates on the tombstones, that the women
there are short lived; the following letter, dated Boston,
14th June, 1781, is a fair specimen of the Abbe's manner of
viewing things, while it is a curious picture of the " hub of
the universe " eighty years ago :

" At last, after two more days of anxiety and peril, and of sickness
to me,' a favorable breeze sprang up and brought us safety into the
roadstead of Boston. In this roadstead, studded with pleasant islands,
we saw, over the trees on the west, the houses rising amphitheatre-
like, and forming along the hillsides a semicircle of nearly half a
league ; this was the town of Boston.

" The high regular buildings, intermingled with steeples, appear
ed to us more like a long-established town of the continent than that
of a recent colony. The view of its interior did not dissipate the
opinion which was formed at first sight. A fine mole or pier projects

FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 77

into the harbor about two thousand feet, and shops and warehouses
line its whole length. It communicates at right angles with the prin
cipal street of the town, which is long and wide, curving round to
ward the water ; on this street are many fine houses of two and three
stories. The appearance of the buildings seems strange to European
eyes ; being built entirely of wood, they have not the dull and heavy
appearance which belongs to those of our continental cities ; they are
regular and well lighted, with frames well joined, and the outside
covered with slight, thinly-planed boards, overlapping each other
somewhat like the tiles upon our roofs. The exterior is generally
painted of a grayish color, which gives an agreeable aspect to the
view.

" The furniture is simple ; sometimes of costly wood, after the
English fashion ; the rich covering their floors with woollen carpets
or rush matting, and others with fine sand.

" The town contains about six thousand houses, or nearly thirty
thousand inhabitants, with nineteen churches of all denominations.
Some of the churches are very fine, especially those of the Presbyte
rian and Episcopal societies. They are generally oblong, ornamented
with a gallery and furnished with pews throughout, so that the poor
as well as the rich may hear the gospel with much comfort.

"The Sabbath is here observed wi'th much rigor. All kinds of
business, however important, cease ; and even the most innocent
pleasures are not allowed. The town, so full of life and bustle during
the week days, becomes silent like the desert on that day. If one
walks the streets, he scarcely meets a person ; and if perchance he
does, he will hardly dare to stop and speak.

" A countryman of mine, lodging at the same inn with me, took
it into his head one Sunday to play a little upon his flute ; but the
neighborhood became so incensed that our landlord was obliged to
acquaint him with their uneasiness.

" If you enter a house, you will generally find each member of the
household engaged in reading the Bible ; and it is a very interesting
and touching sight to see a parent, surrounded by his family, reading
and explaining the sublime truths of the sacred volume.

" If you enter a temple of worship, you find a perfect stillness
reigns, and an order and behavior which are not found generally in
our Catholic churches.

" The singing of the Psalms is slow and solemn, and the words of
the hymns being in their native tongue, serves to increase ihe inter
est and engage the attention of the worshippers. The churches are
without ornament of any kind ; nothing there speaks to the mind or
heart ; nothing to recall to man why he comes there, or what shall

78 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

be his hope of the future. Sculpture and painting trace no sacred
events there to remind him of his duties or awaken his gratitude."

His Nouveau Voyage dans VAmerigue /Septentrionale en
Vannee 1781, consists of thirteen letters, which were published
in Paris in 1782. Of Boston trade at the period he says :

"The commerce of the Bostonians embraced many objects, and
was very extensive before the war. They furnished Great Britain
with masts and yards for the royal navy. They constructed by
commission, or on their account, a great number of merchant
vessels, renowned for their superior speed. In short, their construc
tion is so light that it is not necessary to be a great connoisseur to
distinguish their vessels in the midst of those of other nations. Those
which they freighted at their own expense were loaded, for the
American islands or for Europe, with timber, clapboards, pitch, tar,
turpentine, rosin, cattle and swine, and some peltry. But their
principal article of commerce was the codfish which they found near
their coast, and particularly in the Bay of Massachusetts. This fish
ery amounted to fifty thousand quintals, which they exported to the
other New England provinces, and even to Spain, Italy, and the Med
iterranean. Those of the poorest quality were destined for the ne
groes of the islands. They employ a large number of men, who make
excellent mariners. The province of Massachusetts, which has a poor
soil, will always be powerful, owing to this branch of commerce ; and
if one day this new continent spreads its formidable forces upon the
sea, it is Boston that will first advance. In exchange for this mer
chandise, they bring back the wines of Madeira, Malaga, and Oporto,
which they prefer to ours, on account of their mildness, and perhaps
also from the effect of habit. They take from the islands a good quan
tity of sugar, which they use for their tea, which the Americans drink
at least twice a day ; they also bring from there a greater quantity
of molasses, which they distil into rum, their ordinary beverage.
The importation was so considerable, that before the war it was
only worth two shillings a gallon.

"Their fishery, their commerce, and the great number of vessels
which they build, have made them the coasters of all the Northern
colonies.

" It is estimated that in 1748 five hundred vessels cleared at this
port for a foreign trade, and four hundred and thirty entered it ; and
about one thousand vessels were employed in the coasting trade. It
appears, however, from the statement of an Englishman, that their
commerce has declined. In 1738, they constructed in Boston forty-

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 79

one ships, making a total of 6,324 tons ; in 1743, thirty-eight were
built; in 1746, twenty; in 1749, fifteen, making in total 2,450 tons.
This diminution of the commerce of Boston arises, probably, from the
new settlements formed along the coast, which attract to themselves
the different branches that their situation may render most favorable.
" The great consumption of rum by the Americans induced them
to establish commercial relations with the French colonies ; our
wines and brandy rendering this liquor little used by us, they natter
ed themselves with bringing the molasses to a better use. This spec
ulation resulted beyond their expectations ; they had only to give in
exchange wood and salt provisions."

The following observations indicate the feeling and rela
tions between our countrymen and their Gallic allies :

" It is difficult to imagine the opinion that the Americans enter
tained of the French before the war. They regarded them as enslav
ed under the yoke of despotism, delivered up to prejudices and super
stitions, almost idolaters in their worship, incapable of firmness and
stability, and occupied only with curling their hair and painting their
faces ; unfeeling, faithless — not even respecting the most sacred du
ties. The English were eager to spread and strengthen these preju
dices. Presbyterianism [Congregationalism], an implacable enemy
of Catholicism, has made the Bostonians, where this sect is dominant,
still more disposed to this opinion.

" All seemed, at the commencement of the war, to confirm these
views. Most of the Frenchmen who first came to America at the
rumor of revolution, were men involved in debts and ruined in repu
tation, who announced themselves with titles and fictitious names,
obtained great distinction in the American army, received considera
ble advance money, and suddenly disappeared.

" The simplicity of the Americans and their inexperience ren
dered these impositions easy. Many of these adventurers even com
mitted crimes worthy of the scaffold. The first merchandise that the
Bostonians received from France contributed again to support them
in these notions, so unfavorable to our honesty and industry. Even
at the present time, French goods are sold, for this reason, at a much
lower price than English goods of the same quality.

" On the arrival of M. le Count d'Estaing, the people were very
much astonished not to see frail and deformed men. They believed
that these had been expressly chosen to give them a more advanta
geous idea of the nation. Some with over-florid faces, whose toilet
was careless, convinced them that we made use of rouge.

80 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

" Notwithstanding my being a Frenchman and Catholic priest, I
receive daily new civilities in many good families of this city. But
the people still retain their first prejudices. I have lately seen a
proof of this in an event which has at the same time served to make
me better acquainted with their character. The house where I
lodged took fire; it belonged to a Frenchman. One can imagine
what emotion this sight would produce in a city built of wood. The
people ran thither in crowds, but when they arrived there, they re
mained only spectators of the scene. I caused the doors to be closed,
in order to arrest the currents of air, and sealed the chimney, whence
the fire was, hermetically with a wet cloth, causing water to be
poured upon it without intermission, that it might retain its damp
ness. The women of the house were enraged at the sight of their
flooded and dirty floor. If I had not made myself the master, they
would have preferred to let the danger increase.

" The arrival of the army of M. le Count de Eochambeau at Ehode
Island spread terror there. The country was deserted, and those
whom curiosity led to Newport found the streets empty. All felt the
importance of dissipating these prejudices, and exercising self-respect
has contributed to this. The superior officers established the strict
est discipline ; the other officers employed that politeness and ameni
ty which has always characterized the French nobility; the private
soldier, even, has become gentle and circumspect, and in a year's so
journ here, not one complaint has been made.

" The French at Newport are no longer a trifling, presumptuous,
noisy, and ostentatious people ; they are quiet and retiring, limiting
their society to that of their guests or visitors, that they may become
daily more dear to them. These young noblemen, whose fortune,
birth, and court life would naturally lead them to dissipation, luxury,
and extravagance, have given the first example of simplicity and
frugality ; they have shown themselves as aifable and familiar as if
they had lived entirely among similar people. This elevated con
duct has brought about an entire revolution in the minds of people.
Even the Tories cannot help loving the French, while blaming the
cause which they uphold, and their departure afflicts a thousand
times more than their arrival alarms."

An interesting evidence of the vast promise, social and
economical, with which the extent, resources, and political
prospects of America inspired thoughtful and enthusiastic
observers at this period, may be found in the characteristic
expressions of a clergyman, born in Philadelphia, but of

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 81

Huguenot origin, whose rhetoric and writing were much
admired in his own day, and whose name is not wholly unfa
miliar in our own, from the circumstance that, at the sugges
tion of Samuel Adams, he opened the old Continental Con
gress of 1774 with prayer. Three years previously, while
assistant minister of Christ Church, Philadelphia, were pub
lished the Letters of Tamoc Caspipina, in which Jacob Duche
thus speaks of the country, just before the Revolution : " My
attachment to America, I am apt to think, proceeds from the
prospects of its growing greatness. In Europe, architecture,
gardening, agriculture, mechanics are at a stand ; the eye is
weary with perpetual sameness ; after roaming over the mag
nificence of churches and palaces, we are glad to fix our gaze
awhile upon a simple farmhouse or straw-built cottage ; we
feel a particular delight in tracing the windings of a beautiful
river. The objects of Art, as well as those of Nature, in
this New World, are, at present, in such a state as affords the
highest entertainment ; here and there, in the midst of ven
erable woods, scarce a century ago the haunts of roaming
savages, are fields of corn and meadows. Within the compass
of a mile, we behold Nature in her original rusticity and Art
rising by rapid advances. I see learning stripped of all scho
lastic pedantry and religion restored to gospel purity." The
transition state, the strong contrasts, the process of develop
ment, and the opportunity of going back to first and true
principles in civil and social life, hinted at in such views, con
stituted the great attraction which the New World offered to
philosophical and benevolent minds. This it was that urged
Berkeley's prophetic muse and gracious enterprise, and, a cen
tury before, the " Church Militant " declared George Herbert's
" Prophecy," in the " Country Parson," realized in America.

Duche's reputation, however, has a less amiable and honor
able side ; of him it has been written : " He, whose sublime
prayer as chaplain of the Continental Congress, melted the
hearts of his audience every time he bent to repeat it, fell
away from his loyalty, and enjoys the sole infamy of having
sought to corrupt Washington. While the wretch was pray-
4*

82 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ing to Almighty God for the success of the Revolution, his
heart was black with treason."

One of those extraordinary children of the time who, with
out any remarkable endowments or adaptation for the career
of politics, were whirled into that sphere of thought and action
by the tides of the French Revolution, came to America in
1788, and, like Ceracchi, the sculptor, not only derived new
ideas and enthusiasm from his visit, but became a martyr to
his convictions and the circumstances of his native land. We
find the record* of his observations in the New World
quoted with deference by his contemporaries ; it was trans
lated more than once into English, f and seems to have been
more permanently attractive than any other of the several
political treatises from the same pen ; one of Brissot's biogra
phers calls him an ecrivain mediocre et un dissateur monotone
et verbeux ; yet, with all his speculative hardihood and French
sentiment, many of his remarks on our country at the time
are characteristic and noteworthy. Born in 1754, at the vil
lage of Ouarville, near Chartres, he subsequently modified his
local appellation into Warville, for the prestige of an English
name while under surveillance ; placed in the Bastile for the
hardiesse de ses ecrits contre Vinegalite des rangs, he was liber
ated through the influence of the Duke of Orleans, whose
sympathy in his behalf had been excited by Madame de Gen-
lis ; and the association thus induced led to his marriage with
one of the ladies of the Duchess and to his embassy to Eng
land on a secret mission as lieutenant of police. Having
vainly sought to advance his fortunes in that country, he
crossed the ocean early in 1788 ; and, in the following year,
left our shores on account of the terrible political and social
crisis which convulsed his own country. He soon became

* Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats Urns de 1'Amerique Septentrionale,
fait en 1788, 3 vols., Paris, 1791.

f Brissot de Warville's New Travels in the United States of America, per
formed in 1788, 8vo., London, 1792.

Brissot's Travels in the United States in 1788, with Observations on tho
Genius of the People and Government, &c., 8vo., 1794.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 83

prominent as a journalist in Paris, was bold and unscrupulous
as an advocate of revolution, and soon drew upon himself
the bitter attacks of rivals and opponents, one of whom,
Morande, issued a pamphlet charging Brissot with the basest
conduct while in England, and proposing to make JBrissoter
the synonyme of Voter. Undaunted by scandal, he took an
active part in forwarding the petition of the Champs du
Mars, whereby he alienated Lafayette, with whom he osten
sibly and ardently sympathized ; chosen a deputy, and, on ac
count of his foreign travels, placed on the diplomatic commit
tee, Brissot advocated war with Europe, attached himself to
Delessart, then at the head of foreign affairs, and, with the
disgrace of the latter, became the object of invective from
Camille Desmoulins and of persecution from Robespierre.
Brissot reverted to his original theories, denounced those who
were attached to the king, was accused of federalism, which
he had defended as the true principle of the American Gov
ernment, and of conspiracy against the French republic. He
drafted the declaration of war against England and Holland ;
and never ceased, with tongue and pen, to attack the colonial
proprietors and plead for their slaves ; so that he was consid
ered a prime instigator of the St. Domingo insurrection :
proscribed on the last of May, 1795, he was soon after arrest
ed at Moulins, and perished, by the guillotine, during the
following October. There was something anomalous in his
character ; of feeble constitution, he was energetic and perti
nacious ; an adventurer, he failed to seize opportunities for
advancing his own interest ; without being a man of pleasure,
he neglected his wife and children, leaving them without the
means of subsistence ; of this he sincerely repented at last, and
died bravely. He accomplished little practical good, while
convinced he could regenerate his country. His Voyage aux
Mats Unis was first published at Paris in 1791.

Brissot expatiates on the religious tolerance he found pre
vailing in Boston in 1788. " Music," he writes, " which was
proscribed by their divines as a diabolical art, begins to form
a part of their education ; you hear, in some rich houses, the

84: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

i

pianoforte." He notes the absence of cafes in that city, and
the existence of clubs " not held at taverns, but at each
other's houses." " A favorite amusement," he adds, " is to
visit the country in parties, and drink tea, spruce beer, and
cider ; " he notes the " distilleries of rum at Watertown, des
tined for the coast of Guinea," and declares that " two mala
dies afflict the State — emigration west and manufactures."
He exults in the sight of his native authors in the library of
Harvard College : " The heart of a Frenchman palpitates," he
writes, " to find Racine, Montesquieu, and the Encyclopedic,
where, a hundred and fifty years ago, smoked the calumet of
the savage." Hancock was then Governor, Jarvis the lead
ing physician, and Willard president of Harvard College, each
of whom Brissot seems to have appreciated ; and he compli
ments as leaders in Boston society, Wigglesworth, Sullivan,
Lloyd, Dexter, and Wendall ; he explores Bunker Hill, and
visits John Adams, whom he compares to Epaminondas. He
suggests the establishment of diligences in Massachusetts ; and
describing his journey from Boston to New York, commends
the white sheets of Spenser and the cheap breakfast at Brook-
field. He is vexed at the tolls ; sees Colonel Wadsworth at
Hartford, and remembers that Silas Dean is a native of
Weathersfield, where the immense fields of onions duly im
press him. New Haven interests him as having " produced
the celebrated poet Trumbull, author of the immortal
McFingal ; " at Fairfield, " the pleasures of the voyage ended,"
and thenceforth there was " a constant struggle with rocks
and precipices." At New Rochelle he sees Mr. Jay, and at
Rye finds an excellent inn. He witnessed Fitch's steamboat
experiment on the Delaware ; and was interested in the
"places fortified by the English," as he approached New
York. The market, the blacks, and the Quakers of Philadel
phia are subjects of curious observation ; the calmness and
the costume of the latter fascinated him to such a degree that,
for a while, he abjured the use of hair powder and other luxu
ries of the toilet ; and describes with interest a Quaker farm,
meeting, and funeral. Of the social characteristics of the

FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 85

people, especially in the Eastern States, he thus speaks : " La
proprete sans luxe est une des caracteres physiognomonique de
cette purete morale ; et cette proprete se retrouve par-tout a
Boston, dans 1'habillement, dans les maisons, dans les eglises ;
rien de plus charmant que le coup d'oeil d'un eglise ou d'un
meeting. Je ne me rappellerai jamais sans emotion le plaisir
que je rassentis, en entendant un fois le respectable ministre
Clarke qui a succede docteur Cooper." But, like most of his
countrymen who then visited and described the young re
public, his warmest admiration was reserved for " the Father
of his Country," whom he visited, and thus describes as only
a Frenchman would : " This celebrated general is nothing
more at present than a good farmer. His eye bespeaks great
goodness of heart ;' manly sense marks all his answers, and he
is sometimes animated in conversation ; but he has no charac
teristic feelings which render it difficult to seize him. He
announces a profound discretion and a great diffidence in him
self ; but, at the same time, an unshaken firmness, when once
he has made a decision. His modesty is astonishing to a
Frenchman. He speaks of the American war and of his vic
tories as of things in which he had no direction. He spoke to
me of Lafayette with the greatest tenderness." Brissot
passed three days at Mount Vernon, and, according to his
own statement, was "loaded with kindness." The after
career and melancholy fate of Brissot lends a peculiar interest
to his narrative ; inconsistently combined and imperfectly
manifested in his life and nature, we find the philosopher and
the republican (wherein he declared Priestley and Price were
his models), the philanthropist, the man of letters, the editor,
and the politician. He criticized Chastellux — defended Amer
ica ; according to his opponents, " fled with a lie," and yet,
by undisputed testimony, died with courage. He thought
our lawyers superior ; and calls Isaiah Thomas the Didot of
America : associating with Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and
other eminent citizens, he learned highly to estimate the in
fluence of free institutions upon human character. Among
other pleasant sojourns in New England he delighted to re-

86 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

member the " Laurels," where he was entertained by Dr. Dai-
ton, wThile on his way from Newburyport up the Merrimac.
In his apostrophe to this beautiful stream, Whittier gracefully
alludes to Brissot's enjoyment thereof:

" Its pines above, its waves below,

The west wind down it blowing,
As fair as when the young Brissot

Beheld it seaward flowing, —
And bore its memory o'er the deep

To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,

His prison walls with gladness."

Brissot, seeking to unite economical with social philoso
phy, devotes no inconsiderable portion of his work to the
commerce and commodities of the New World ; like other
sojourners of that era, he is beguiled into speculative remarks
as to the maple tree as a substitute for the sugar cane ; coin
cident with his visit was the initial movement in behalf of the
negroes, which then enlisted the best sympathies of the new
republic ; anti-slavery societies had just then been established
in various parts of the country, and their object was freely
discussed in regions where, in our day, law and social tyranny
barred all expression thereon. Brissot rejoiced in Washing
ton's views and purposes in this regard : " It is a task," he
writes, " worthy of a soul so elevated, so pure, and so disin
terested, to begin the revolution in Virginia, to prepare the
way for the emancipation of the slaves." He was not always
a true prophet, as for instance, when he remarks : " Albany
will sooij yield in prosperity to a town called Hudson." The
spectator of two, and the actor and victim in one revolution,
there is a certain pensive charm in his earnest appreciation of
the political and social advantages of America : " The United
States," he declares, " have demonstrated that the less active
and powerful the Government, the more active and powerful
the people " — a moral fact eminently illustrated by the recent
history of the nation. He appreciated the essential influence
of personal character to attain civic prosperity : " There can

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 87

be no durable revolution," he observes, " but where reflection
marks the operation and matures the ideas : it is among such
men of principles that you find the true heroes of humanity —
the Howards, Fothergills, Penns, Franklins, Washingtons,
Sidneys, and Ludlows." He invokes his erratic countrymen
who wish for " valuable instruction " to ponder his record :
" Study the Americans of the present day, and see to what
degree of prosperity the blessings of freedom can elevate the
industry of man ; how they dignify his nature and dispose
him to universal fraternity ; by what means liberty is pre
served ; and that the great secret of its duration is good
morals."

Thus enthusiastic as a republican, and recognizing so
warmly the simplicity of rural and the intrepidity of working
life in America, Brissot looked with suspicion upon the
encroachments of fashion and wealth upon manners and
tastes. It is amusing to read his account of New York and
find so many coincidences at the present day in her social
tendencies, and to compare the limited indulgences then prac
ticable with the boundless extravagance now so apparent.
Thus he wrote of the commercial metropolis of the New
World in 1788 :

" The presence of Congress, with the diplomatic body and the
concourse of strangers, contributes much to extend here the ravages
of luxury. The inhabitants are far from complaining of it ; they
prefer the splendor of wealth and the show of enjoyment to the sim
plicity of manners and the pure pleasures which, result from it. If
there is a town on the American continent where the English luxury
displays its follies, it is New York. You will find here the English
fashions: in the dress of the women you will see the most brilliant
silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair ; equipages are rare, but they
are elegant: the men have more simplicity in their dress ; they dis
dain gewgaws, but they take their revenge in the luxury of the table ;
luxury forms already a class of men very dangerous to society ; I mean
bachelors ; the expense of women causes matrimony to be dreaded
by men. Tea forms, as in England, the basis of parties of pleasure :
many things are dearer here than in France ; a hairdresser asks
twenty shillings a month ; washing costs four shillings the dozen."

Lafayette, in his letter introducing Brissot to Washington,

88 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

writes : " He is very clever, and wishes to write the history
of America." It is a singular coincidence that while he
praises the inns of the country, which were so generally
complained of by English travellers, he expresses a national
repugnance to a habit now so prevalent among his country
men as, in the view of some of the late critics, to have essen
tially modified their disposition of mind, if not of bodily tem
perament. " The habit of smoking," observes Brissot, in his
account of New York, " has not disappeared with the other
customs of their fathers — the Dutch. They use cigars.
These are leaves of tobacco rolled in the form of a tube six
inches long, and are smoked without the aid of any instru
ment. This usage is revolting to the French, but it has one
advantage — it favors meditation and prevents loquacity." It
is characteristic of this writer's political prepossessions that,
while he found " decency, neatness, and dignity " in the
taverns, when dining with General Hamilton he recognized
in his host the " countenance of a determined republican."

Much ridicule has been expended upon that artificial rural
enthusiasm which once formed a curious phase of French
literature, wherein the futile attempt was made to graft the
ancient Arcadian on the modern rustic enjoyment of nature.
This incongruous experiment originated in Italy, and found
its best development in the pastoral verse of Guarini and San-
nazzaro ; but when the Parisian pleasure-seekers affected the
crook and simplicity of shepherd life — when box was trimmed
into the shape of- animals and fountains, grottos and bowers,
in the midst of fashionable gardens, and the scent of musk
blended with that of pines and roses — the want of genuine
love of and sympathy with nature became ludicrously appa
rent ; the manners and talk of the salon were absurd in the
grove, and the costume and coquetry of the ballroom were
reproached by the freedom and calm beauty of woods and
waters. The hearty love of country life which is an instinct
of the -English, and has found such true and memorable ex
pression in the poetry of Great Britain, finds an indifferent
parallel in the rhymes of Gallic bards or the rural life of the

FRENCH TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 89

gentry of France. But there is a vein of rural taste and feel
ing, of a more practical kind, native to the French heart — a
combination of philosophic content and romance — a love of
the free, independent life of the wilderness, a capacity of adap
tation to new conditions, and a facility in deriving satisfac
tion from inartificial pleasures, which, when united to the
poetical instinct, makes nature and agricultural life a singu
larly genial sphere to a Frenchman. The sentiment of this
experience has been eloquently uttered by St. Pierre, Chateau
briand, and Lamartine ; its practical realization was long evi
dent in the "urbane, cheerful, and tasteful colonists of Canada
and of the West and South of the United States ; and the
writings of French travellers there and in the East, abound
in its graceful commemoration. The literature of American
travel is not without memorable illustrations thereof; and
one of the best is a book, which, although the production of
a Frenchman, was originally written in English under the title
of " Letters of an American Farmer." * It is a most pleasing
report of the possible resources and charms of that vocation,
when it was far more isolated and exclusively rural than at
present, when town habits had not encroached upon its sim
plicity or fashion marred its independence. Somewhat like a
prose idyl is this record ; Hazlitt delighted in its naive enthu
siasm, and commended it to Charles Lamb as well as in the
Quarterly, as giving " an idea how American scenery and man
ners may be treated with a lively poetic interest." "The
pictures," he adds, " are somewhat highly colored, but they
are vivid and strikingly characteristic. He gives not only the
objects but the feelings of a new country." The author of
this work, Hector St. John Creveco3ur, was of noble birth, a
native of Normandy, born in 1731 ; he was sent to England
when but sixteen years old, which is the cause of his early
and complete mastery of our language. In 1754 he came to
New York, and settled on a farm in the adjacent region.

* " Letters from an American Farmer, conveying some Idea of the Late
and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America,"
by J. H. St. John Crevecoaur, 8vo., London, 1782.

90 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

The British troops repeatedly crossed over and lingered upon
his estate during the war of the Revolution, much to his
annoyance and its detriment. His affairs obliged him to
return to France in 1780, and he was allowed to pass through
the enemy's lines in order to embark with one of his family ;
but the vessel was intercepted by the French fleet then off
the coast, and Creveco3ur was detained several months under
suspicion of being a spy. After his release he reembarked for
Europe, and reached his paternal home safely, after an absence
of twenty-seven years. In 1783 he returned to New York to
find his dwelling burned to the ground, his wife d'ead, and his
children in the care of friends.

He brought with him, on his return to America, a commis
sion as French consul at New York — a situation which he
honorably filled for ten years, when, once more returning to
his native land, he resided at his country seat near Rouen, and
subsequently at Sarcelles, where he died in 1813. All ac
counts agree in describing him as a man of the highest prob
ity, the most benevolent disposition, rare intelligence, and
engaging manners. Washington esteemed him ; he made a
journey in Pennsylvania with Franklin, on the occasion of
the latter's visit to Lancaster to lay the corner stone of the
German college. The account of the incidents and conversa
tion during this trip recorded by Crevecoaur, are among the
most characteristic reminiscences of the American philosopher
extant. His " Letters of an American Farmer " were pub
lished in London in 1782. He translated them into his native
tongue.* They have a winsome flavor, and picture so delec-
tably the independence, the resources, and the peace of an
agricultural life, just before and after the Revolution, in the
more settled States of America, that the reader of the present
day cannot feel surprised that he beguiled many an emigrant
from the Old World to the banks of the Ohio and the Dela
ware. But this charm originated in the temper and mind of
the writer, who was admirably constituted to appreciate and

* " Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain, traduites de 1'Anglois," 2 vols.,
8vo., Paris, 1784.

FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 91

improve the advantages of such an experience. He found on
his beautiful farm and among his kindly neighbors, the same
attractions which Mrs. Grant remembered so fondly of her
girlhood's home at Albany. Among the best of his letters
are those extolling the pleasures and feelings of a farmer's
life in a new country, and those descriptive of Nantucket,
Martha's Vineyard, and Charleston, the notice of Bartram the
naturalist, and the account of the Humming Bird. Nor was
this the author's only contribution to the literature of Ameri
can travel. In 1801, the fruit of his leisure after his final
return to Normandy, appeared in the shape of a work in the
publication of which he indulged hi a curious literary ruse.
It was entitled " Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvania et dans
1'Etat cle New York, par un Membre Adoptif de la nation
Oneida, traduit par 1'Auteur des Lettres d'un Cultivateur
Americain." It needed not this association of his first popu
lar venture with this new book of travels in the same coun
try, to pierce the thin disguise whereby he announced the
latter as printed from MSS. found in a wreck on the Elbe ;
for the author enjoyed the eclat of success in the Paris salons,
while elsewhere his kindliness and wisdom made him a great
favorite. These two works have the merit and the interest
of being more deliberate literary productions than any that
preceded them. There is a freshness and an ardor in the
tone, which is often magnetic ; and in the material, a curious
mixture of statistics and romance, matter of fact and senti
ment, reminding the reader at one moment of Marmontel, and
at another of Adam Smith ; for it deals about equally in sto
ries and economical details : many of the most remarkable
Indian massacres and border adventures, since wrought into
history, dramas, and novels, are narrated in these volumes
fresh from current traditions or recent knowledge. The
author was on intimate terms with the savages, and had been
made an honorary member of the Oneida tribe. He gives a
clear and probably, at the time, a novel account of the differ
ent States, their productions, condition, &c.

Keenly appreciating the relation of landed property to citi-

92 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

zenship, exulting in the independence of an agricultural life in
a free country, and alive to all the duties and delights of
domestic seclusion, his letters breathe a wise and grateful
sense of the privileges he enjoys as an American farmer :

"The instant I enter on my own land," 'he writes, "the bright
idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalts my mind.
Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it
that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What
should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of
that soil ? It feeds, it clothes us ; from it we draw our great exuber
ancy, our best meat, our richest drink — the very honey of our bees
comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its
possession — no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been
able to say that such a portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic
to realize that happiness. This formerly rude soil has been converted
by my father into a pleasant farm, and in return it has established all
our rights ; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as
citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district. These
images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend
them as far as my imagination can reach ; for this is what may be
called the true and only philosophy of the American farmer. Often
when I plough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair
which screws to the beam of the plough ; its motion and that of the
horses please him ; he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I
lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which crowd into rny
mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did
for me : may God enable him to live, that he may perform the same
operations for the same purposes, when I am worn out and old. I
release his mother of some trouble while I have him with me ; the
odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits and seems to do the child a
great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted
the practice : can more pleasure, more dignity be added to that pri
mary occupation ? The father, thus ploughing with his child and to
feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China, ploughing
as an example to his kingdom."

Very loving and observant are his comments on the aspect,
habits, and notes of birds ; they remind us of the spirit with
out the science of our endeared ornithologists, Audubon and
Wilson. " I generally rise from bed," writes Crevecoaur,
" about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 93

neither night nor day ; for this is the moment of the most
universal vocal choir. Who can listen unmoved to the sweet
love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree ; or to the shrill
catbird ? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high,
always retard my steps that I may listen to the delicious
music." A long discussion with Dr. Franklin during their
memorable journey in 1787, as to the origin of the aboriginal
tribes and the mounds of the West, which of late years have
so interested ethnologists, is reported at length by this assidu
ous writer ; we thence learn that this new and extended
interest was foreseen by the venerable philosopher, who re
marked to his companion : " When .the population of the
United States shall have spread over every part of that vast
and beautiful region, our posterity, aided by new discoveries,
may then, perhaps, form more satisfactory conjectures."

The religion and politics of the country are defined in
these epistles. The Quakers, the weather, the aspect of the
land, excursions, speculations, anecdotes, and poetical epi
sodes are the versatile subjects of his chronicle : several old-
fashioned engraved illustrations give a quaint charm to the
earlier editions ; domestic fetes, mafitte Fanny, and the trans
planting of a sassafras tree, alternate in the record with re
flections on the war of the Revolution, the " Histoire de Rachel
Bird," and"La Pere Infortune !" There is a naive ardor and
the genial egotism of a Gallic raconteur and philosopher, in
the work — which survives the want of novelty in its econom
ical details and lc»cal descriptions.

During Crevecceur's visit to Normandy, five American
sailors were shipwrecked on that coast, and he befriended
them in their great need and peril, with a humane zeal that did
credit to his benevolent heart. A gentleman of Boston in
New England was so impressed with this kindness to his
unfortunate countrymen, that, hearing of the destruction of
the generous Frenchman's homestead far away, he made
a long and hazardous journey in search of the deserted chil
dren, discovered, and cherished them till the father's arrival
enabled him to restore them in health and safety. The ardent

94 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

style of Crevecoeur's writings, and that tendency to exaggera
tion incident to his temperament, caused his books to be criti
cized with some severity as incorrect, highy colored, and
prolix ; yet the vital charm and ingenuous sentiment of the
enthusiast, combined with his tact as a raconteur, and his love
of nature and freedom, made these now neglected works pop
ular at the time and long subsequent to their original publi
cation.

One of the most striking instances of the historical value
of authentic and detailed records of travel, is the use which
philosophical annalists, like De Tocqueville, have made of
Arthur Young's observations in France. This intelligent and
enthusiastic agricultural writer chronicled, as a tourist, the
practical workings of the old regime in regard to the peasant
ry and rural districts, so as to demonstrate the vital necessity
of a revolution on economical and social principles alone. A
disciple of this writer, whose integrity and patriotism as well
as painstaking research make up in no small degree for his
limited scientific knowledge and want of originality, prepared
a large and well-considered work from a careful survey of the
American States and their statistics in 1795. The Duke de
La Rochefoucault-Liancourt commanded at Rouen, when the
Constituent Assembly, of which he was a member, dissolved ;
subsequently he passed many months in England, and then
visited this country. His " Voyage dans les Etats Unis," and
his efficiency in establishing the use of vaccination in France,
cause him to be remembered as a man of letters and benevo
lence ; he reached a venerable age, and won the highest re
spect, although long subject to the unjust aspersions of parti
san opponents whom his liberal nature failed to conciliate.
There is little of novel information to an American reader in
his voluminous work, except the record of local features and
social facts, which are now altogether things of the past ; yet
the fairness and minute knowledge displayed, account for the
value and interest attached to this work for many years after
its appearance. It is evident that the Duke de La Rochefou-
cault travelled as much to beguile himself of the ennui of

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 95

exile arid the disappointments of a baffled patriot, as on
account of his inquiring turn of mind. He occupied himself
chiefly with economical investigations, especially those con
nected with agriculture ; the process whereby vast swamps
and forests were gradually reduced to tilled and habitable
domains, interested him in all its stages and results. He
describes each town, port, and region with care and candor ;
and it is a peculiarity of his Travels that they contain many
elaborate accounts of certain farms and estates in diiferent
sections,' whence we derive a very accurate notion of the
methods and the resources of rural life in America soon after
the Revolution. The Duke was a philosophical traveller, con
tent to journey on horseback, making himself as much at home
with the laborer at the wayside as with the gentleman of the
manor ; and seeking information with frankness and patience
wherever and however it could be properly acquired. The
lakes, bays, roads, the markets, manufactures, and seats he
examines, in a business-like way ; complains of all crude
arrangements, and bears the hardships then inseparable from
travel here, like a soldier: Indians and rattlesnakes, corn and
tobacco, the Hessian fly, pines, maples, negroes, rice planta
tions, orchards, all the traits of rural economy and indigenous
life, are duly registered and speculated upon.

He -visited, with evident satisfaction, the battle grounds
of the Revolution, and complacently dwells on Yorktown,
the grave of Ternay at Newport, and the grateful estimation
in which Lafayette was held. He seems to have well appre
ciated our leading men in public life and society ; Jefferson,
Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, Adams, and Burr figure in his polit
ical tableaux, and he was the guest of General Knox, in Maine.
He sums up the character of the Virginians as a people noted
for dissipation, hospitality, and attachment to the Union ; of
the special characteristics of the different States he was singu
larly cognizant ; and notes the slow adoption of vaccination,
the adaptation of soils, and the existence of wild hemp on the
shores of Ontario.

Apart from the specific information contained in his

96 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" Voyage dans les Etats Unis d'Amerique," the Paris edition
of which, printed in 1800, consists of eight volumes, 8vo.,
there is little to attract the reader of warm sympathies or
decided tastes. An English translation was published in
quarto.* Although the work is the chief source of the Duke
de La Rochefoucault's literary reputation, it is justly char
acterized, by an intelligent French critic, as a froide compila
tion, sans imagination et sans V esprit $ artiste. Both this
writer, Chastellux, and other of their countrymen, gave satis
factory facts in regard to American military and political
leaders, who can be most fairly estimated by competent for
eign critics : the former describes Stirling, and the latter
Simcoe, Knox, and others.

The Duke sums up, in the last chapter of his % voluminous
work, his impressions and convictions : like Brissot, he
praises the Quakers for their civic virtues ; he notes what he
calls the " prejudice " among the men against " domestic ser
vitude," a feeling in which the women then did not share ;
of the freedom of action accorded the latter, he speaks with
a Frenchman's national surprise, and adds that, when married,
" they love their husband because he is their husband ; " he
expatiates on the need of a more thorough educational sys
tem ; physically, however, he thinks the Americans had the
advantage of Europeans in their habits of sporting and use
of the rifle, and deems the liberty enjoyed by children the
best method of teaching them self-reliance ; he describes the
prevalent manners as essentially the same as those which exist
in the provincial towns of England ; he praises the hospitality
and benevolence of the people ; and says that drunkenness is
" their most common vice," and " the desire of riches their
ruling passion ; " " the traits of character common to all," he
adds, " are ardor for enterprise, courage, greediness, and an
advantageous opinion of themselves." Such are some of the
opinions formed by this noble but somewhat prosaic traveller

* " Liancourt's (Duke de La Rochefoucault) Travels through the United
States, the Country of the Iroquois, &c.,inthe years 1795, '96 and '97," 2 vols.
4to., large folding maps, London, 1799.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 97

immediately after the Revolutionary war, when, as he ob
serves, the Americans " having for the most part made their
fortunes by their own industry, labor had not become repug
nant to them." He ends his work with the most benign
wishes for the prosperity and integrity of the nation.

That gifted and solitary pioneer of American fiction,
Charles Brockden Brown, among his- numerous and ill-
rewarded but most creditable literary labors, made a transla
tion of Volney's once noted book on America.* The career
and the character of this writer must be understood in order to
estimate aright his writings, and especially those that belong to
the sphere of political and social speculation. Born in one of
the provinces of France, just before the commencement of that
memorable chaos of thought and action which ushered in the
Revolution, of a studious and independent habit, he early
manifested that boldness of aim and originality of convic
tion which marked the adventurous and the philosophic men
of his day. Changing his name, and accustoming himself to
hardships, he aspired to an individuality of life and a free
dom from conventionalities, somewhat akin to the motive
that made Byron a wanderer and Lady Stanhope a contented
sojourner in the desert. The passion for travel early pos
sessed him, and he equipped himself therefor by adopting a
stoical regime, and acquiring the historical and philological
knowledge so essential to satisfactory observation in foreign
countries. An invalid from birth, his sequestered habits and
sensitive temper gave a misanthropic tinge to his disposition,
while his limited means induced a remarkable frugality ; the
result of which circumstances and traits was to make Yolney
a morbid man, but a speculative thinker and a social non
conformist. Like Bentham and Godwin, but with less geni
ality, he professed to disdain the tyranny of custom, and to
seek the good of humanity and the truth of life, in the neg
lected and superseded elements of society, so hopelessly

* "View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America," trans
lated by Charles Brockden Brown, with maps and plates, 8vo., Philadelphia,
1804.

98 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

overlaid by blind habit and unreasoning acquiescence. Like
all Frenchmen, in carrying out this programme as a written
theory, he is rhetorical, and, in practice, more or less gro
tesque ; yet with enough of ability and original method to
excite the curious, and suggest new ideas to less adventurous
minds, however more sound judgment and holier faith might
repudiate his principles. Professedly a social reformer, and
at war with the life and law around him, he, like so many
other civilized malcontents, turned ardently to the East.

A Breton and a peer of France, there is much in Volney
to remind us of Chateaubriand — the same passion for knowl
edge, love of travel, political enthusiasm, romantic egotism,
vague and vaunted sentiment ; but there the parallel ends :
for Chateaubriand's conservatism, social relations, and opin
ions, literary, political, and religious, separate him widely
from Volney, although their experience of vicissitude was
similar. The genius of the author of Atala was pervasive,
and is still influential and endeared ; while the writings of
Yolney are comparatively neglected. He was born in 1755,
and known, in youth, as Constantine Francois Count de
Chassebomf — a name he not unwisely discarded when seek
ing the honors of authorship. After his early education was
completed, he converted his little patrimony into money, and
travelled through Egypt and Syria, lived for months in the
Maronite convent on Mount Lebanon, to acquire the Oriental
languages, studied Arabic with the Druses, and sojourned in
an Arab tent. Not the least remarkable fact of his three
years of Eastern life, was that the sum of a thousand dollars
defrayed the entire expense thereof — a result he attributes to
his simple habits and hardihood, and his facile self-adaptation
to the modes of life prevalent among those with whom he
became domesticated.

Volney's Travels in the East, based, as they were, on such
unusual opportunities for observation, and written con amore,
as indicative of his opinions not less than his adventures,
proved eminently successful, and drew attention to his claims
as a scholar and thinker, and indirectly led to his appoint-

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 99

merit to an official station in Corsica, where he knew Bona
parte. Volney's ambition, however, seems to have originally
tended to philosophical eminence rather than political distinc
tion. He was a profound hater of tyranny, and too inde
pendent and fastidious, as well as physically sensitive, to
engage heartily in the struggles of party : he loved rather to
speculate freely, and to wander, observe, theorize, protest,
and portray. Having established himself at Auteuil, near
Paris, he became intimate with the literary men of the day,
embraced the Liberal cause, and, as deputy from Anjou, in
1789, proved an effective speaker. In 1791 he published
" Les Ruines ; or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Em
pires " — the work that embodies at once his scepticism, senti
ment, historical speculations, and humanitarian ideas ; a work
whose rhetoric and vaguely sad but eloquent tone won the
imaginative as it repelled the religious. It was regarded as
among the most dangerous of the many sceptical works of
the day. The remarks on sects and religion excited Joseph
Priestley to a vigorous protest. Volney declined the pro
posed controversy ; and there is something absurd to the
English reader (who, if candid and intelligent, must know
that a more honest and humane philosopher than Priestley
never lived) in the assertion of the author's biographer, that
the malevolence of a rival writer's jealousy, and not a love
of truth, led to the original challenge. Yolney was a radi
cal, and a victim of the Revolution. He accompanied Poz-
zo di Borgo to Corsica, and endeavored to establish sugar
cultivation there. Failing therein, he returned to Paris, to
suffer persecution in the reign of terror ; and, on the fall of
Robespierre, regained his liberty, after ten months' imprison
ment. In 1794 he was appointed professor of history in the
Normal School, on the philosophy of which subject he ably
lectured; and, in 1795, embarked at Havre, " with that dis
gust and indifference which the sight and experience of injus
tice and persecution impart," intending to settle in the United
States. He tells us that the prospect that allured him thither
was certain facts in regard to that country wherein he con-

100 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

sidered it surpassed altogether the rest of the civilized world
as a home for the man of independent mind, brave individu
ality, enterprise, and misfortune. These were, first, an
immense territory to be peopled ; second, the facility of
acquiring landed property ; and third, personal freedom.
Although Volney found these privileges extant and estab
lished, neither his antecedents nor his disposition were auspi
cious to their realization. In his famous Treatise, he had
traced the fall of empires, and speculated on the origin of
government and laws ; the prejudices and errors of mankind
he considers the cause of social evil, and advocates a return
to normal principles, recognizing, however, no basis of faith
as the foundation of social prosperity. Montesquieu and
Montaigne, Rousseau and Godwin, have made the essential
truths of social reform patent ; the question of their prac
tical organization remains an unsolved problem, except^ as
regards individual fealty. Combe and Spurzheim showed
that the violation of the natural laws was the root of human
misery. Buckle illustrates the historical influence of super
stition upon society ; and Emerson throws aphoristic shells at
fortified popular errors, or what he considers such, that ex
plode and sparkle, but fail to destroy : all and each of these
and other kindred theorists expose evil far better than they
propose good ; repudiate, but do not create ; and this vital
defect underlies the philosophy of Yolney, which is desti
tute of the conservate elements of more benign and recep
tive minds. It eloquently depicts wrong, ingeniously ac
counts for error, but offers no positive conviction or practical
ameliorations whereon the social edifice can firmly rise in new
and more grand proportions.* His Utopian anticipations of
a political millennium in America were disappointed ; and per-

* " The conclusion to which Volney makes his interlocutor come, is, that
nothing can be true, nothing can be a ground of peace and union which is
not visible to the senses. Truth is in conformity with sensations. The book
is interesting as a work of art ; but its analysis of Christianity is so shocking
that its absurdity alone prevents its becoming dangerous." — Critical History
of Free Thought, by A. S. FARRAR, M. A.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 101

sonal resentment, imprudence, and egotism aggravated this
result. His visit was abruptly closed ; and the record
thereof became, for these reasons, incomplete, and warped
by prejudice, yet not without special merit, and a peculiar
interest and value.

Volney's difficulties as an emigrant were complicated
by political excitement incident to the troubles in France, the
arrogant encroachments of Genet, and the partisan strife
thus engendered. In the words of his biographer, " the epi
demic animosity against the French breaking out, compelled
him to withdraw " — a course rendered more imperative, ac
cording to the same authority, " by the attacks of a person
who was then all powerful." He was charged with being
a secret agent of his Government, conspiring to deliver
Louisiana to the Directory ; and we are gravely told that
" the world would be astonished at the animosity of John
Adams," who, Volney declares, " had no motive but the
rancor of an author, on account of my opinion of his book on
the Constitution of the United States." In these state
ments, those cognizant of the attempted interference of for
eigners, sustained by party zeal, and the just indignation and
firm conduct of Washington, at that memorable crisis, can
easily understand why Volney found it expedient to relin
quish his purpose to settle in America. On returning to
France, he was a senator during the consulship of Napoleon ;
and, in 1814, a member of the Chamber of Peers. He died
in Paris in 1820. The following year his works were col
lected and published in eight handsome volumes. " I am of
opinion," he writes, " that Travels belong to history, and not
to romance. I have, therefore, not described countries as
more beautiful than they appeared to me ; I have not repre
sented their inhabitants more virtuous nor more wicked than
I have found them."

Volney made the reflections, historic and speculative, in
duced by the contemplations of " solitary ruins, holy sepul
chres, and silent walls," the nucleus and inspiration for the
utterance of his theories of life and man. He apostrophizes

102 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

them as witnesses of the past, and evokes phantoms of
buried empires to attest the causes of their decline, and the
means and method of human regeneration. There is a nov
elty in this manner of treating great questions ; and this,
combined with rhetorical language, a philosophical tone, and
no inconsiderable knowledge, explains the interest his work
excited. Stripped of glowing epithets and conventional
terms, there is, however, little originality in his deductions,
and much sophistry in his reasonings. Like Rousseau, he
reverts to the primitive wants and rights of humanity ; like
Godwin, he advocates a return to the normal principles of
political justice as the only legitimate basis of social organ
ization ; and, like the enthusiasts of the first French Revolu
tion, he claims liberty and equality for man as the only true
conditions of progress ; while he ascribes to ignorance and
cupidity the evils of his lot and the fall of nations. In
common, however, with so many speculative reformers of
that and subsequent periods, his practical suggestions are
altogether disproportioned to his eloquent protest ; and his
estimate of Christianity fails to recognize its inherent author
ity as verified by the highest and most pure moral intuitions,
and confirmed by the absolute evidence manifest in the
character, influence, and truths made patent and, pervasive by
its Founder. As a traveller, Volney wrote with remarkable
intelligence ; as a student of history, his expositions were
often comprehensive and original ; as a moralist, he grasped
the rationale of natural laws and duties ; and as a linguist,
his attainments were remarkable. There is more pique than
candor in his reply to Priestley's letter controverting his
atheistical views. His labors as professor in the Normal
School of Paris, as administrator in Corsica, as a political
representative, and an economical writer, indicate rare assi
duity, insight, and progressive zeal. His biographer claims
that from his " earliest youth he devoted himself to the
search after truth ; " extols " the accuracy of his views and
the justness of his observations" — his moral courage, and
the originality of his system " of applying to the study of

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 103

the idioms of Asia a part of the grammatical notions we pos
sess concerning the languages of Europe " — and of his doctrine
" that a state is so much the more powerful as it includes a
greater number of proprietors — that is, a greater division of
property." Erudite, austere, a lover of freedom, and a
seeker for truth, whatever might be the speculative tenden
cies of Volney, his information and his philosophic aspira
tions won him friends and honor at home and abroad ; but
his sceptical generalizations repel as much as his adventurous
individuality attracts. His visit to this country is thus
alluded to by his biographer : " Disgusted with the scenes
he had witnessed in his native land, he felt that passion re
vive within him, which, in his youth, had led him to visit
Africa and Asia. Then, in the prime of life, he joyfully bade
adieu to a land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel
among barbarians ; now, in mature years, but dismayed at
the spectacle of injustice and persecutions, it was with diffi
dence, as we learn from himself, that he went to implore
from a free people an asylum for a sincere friend of that lib-,
erty that had been so profaned."

Although imbittered by personal difficulties and acrimo
nious controversy, the sojourn of Volney in the United
States was not given to superficial observation, but to scien
tific inquiry. In this respect, his example was worthy of a
philosopher ; and it is a characteristic evidence of his assidu
ity, that he improved his acquaintance with the famous Miami
chief, Little Turtle, when the latter visited Philadelphia, in
1797, on treaty business, to make a vocabulary of the lan
guage of that aboriginal tribe.

His work * on this country, published in England with
additions, is less rhetorical, on account of the subjects dis
cussed, than his other writings ; singularly devoid of per
sonal anecdote, and, but for the description of Niagara Falls,
and the bite of a rattlesnake, comparatively unpicturesque

* Volncy's (C. F.) " Yiew of the Climate and Soil of the United States,
&c., and Vocabulary of the Miami Language," 8vo, maps and plates, London,
1804.

104 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENT ATORS.

and un adventurous as a narrative. It anticipates somewhat
the later labors of savans and economists, and sets forth with
acumen many of the physical features, resources, and charac
teristics of the country. It possesses an extrinsic interest
quite unique, from the antecedents and literary reputation
of the author ; and it is in the latter character that he is
remembered, as identified with the progress of infidelity —
but original, philosophic, and liberal. Catharine of Russia
recognized his merit ; Holbach introduced him to Franklin ;
and he solaced his wounded pride, after leaving this country,
by reverting to the consideration manifested for him by
Washington. He is the first foreign writer of eminence who
made the climate of North America a subject of study and
scientific report ; and his views and facts have been and are
still often referred to as authoritative, notwithstanding their
limited application. His description of the action and influ
ence of winds is highly picturesque, and his observations on
rain and electricity noteworthy.

When Yolney, in his preface, advises Frenchmen not to
emigrate to America, because the laws, language, and man
ners are uncongenial, though better adapted to the English,
Scotch, and Dutch, he adds : " I say with regret, my experi
ence did not lead me to find ces dispositions fraternelles I
had looked for." The political exigencies at the time of his
visit, and personal disappointment, evidently warped the
philosopher's candid judgment; and he confesses feeling
obliged thereby to give scientific rather than social commen
taries on America. His analysis and description of the soil
and climate are brief. He begins with the geographical
situation, discusses the marine, sandy, calcareous, granite,
mountain, and other regions, the Atlantic coast, and the Mis-
sissipi basin. Subsequent geological researches, the progress
of meteorological and ethnological science since his day, com
bine to render Yolney's tableaux more curious than satisfac
tory or complete. He has specific remarks on New Hamp
shire, based on a then current history of that State by Samuel
Williams, many facts and speculations in regard to the

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 105

aborigines, and interesting notes respecting the French colo
nists.

Volney's visit was long remembered by our older citi
zens. A Knickerbocker reminiscent, in describing the local
associations of " Richmond Hill," in the city of New York —
a domain now marked by the junction of Yarick and Van-
dam streets — speaks of the Lispenard meadows once flanking
the spot, and of the adjacent forest trees, where the echo of
the sportsman's gun often resounded ; and, in allusion to the
mansion itself, notes the curious fact that the first opera
house was built upon its site ; that the elder Adams resided
there when Congress met in New York ; and that the dwell
ing became the home of the notorious Aaron Burr, among
whose guests he mentions Volney, " whose portly form gave
outward tokens of his tremendous vitality, while the Syrian
traveller descanted on theogony, the races of the red men,
and Niagara." *

We have a curious glimpse of Volney during his tour in
this country, from another venerable reminiscent : " Some
thirty or more years ago, at the close of a summer's day, a
stranger entered Warrentown. He was alone and on foot,
and his appearance was anything but prepossessing ; his gar
ments coarse and dust-covered, like an individual in the hum
bler walks. From a cane resting across his shoulder was sus
pended a handkerchief containing his clothing. Stopping in
front of Turner's tavern, he took from his hat a paper, and
handed it to a gentleman standing on the steps. It read as
follows : c The celebrated historian and naturalist, Volney,
needs no recommendation from G. Washington.' "

It is said that the idea of his celebrated work on the
Ruins of Empires was first suggested in the cabinet of
Franklin. Herein he elaborately proclaims and precisely
defines the law of decay as the condition of humanity in her
most magnificent social development ; and states, with the
eloquence of scientific logic, the right, necessity, and duty of

* " Old New York," by Dr. Francis.
5*

106 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

toleration — then a doctrine but casually recognized as a
philosophical necessity. It was objected to this work, in
addition to its sceptical generalization, that, in describing
sects, he misrepresented their creed and practice. A merit,
however, claimed for Volney, and with reason, is his freedom
from egotism when writing as a philosopher. There is a
remarkable absence of personal anecdote and adventures both
in his work on the East and his American travels. One of
his biographers claims that the topographical descriptions in
the latter are written in a masterly style, and that his re
marks on the course and currents of the winds denote origi
nal insight and observation. The same writer, however,
states that his character, which was naturally serious, became
morose as he advanced in life.

It was his original purpose to treat of America as a
political essayist and social philosopher. He intended to
trace " the stock, the history, language, laws, and customs ;
to expose the error of the romantic colonists, who gave the
name of a virgin people to their descendants — a combination
of the inhabitants of old Europe — Dutch, Germans, Span
iards, and English from three kingdoms ; to indicate the
differences of opinions and of interests which divide the New
England and Southern country — the region of the Atlantic
and that of the Mississippi ; to define republicanism arid
federalism," &c. A profound admirer of the liberty of the
press and of opinion, he would have explained the antag
onism between the followers of Adams and of Jefferson. In
a word, the scope of his work, as at first projected, resem
bled that so ably achieved by his more consistent and judi
cious countryman, De Tocqueville. Instead of this, Volney
wrote in a scientific vein. He treats of the winds, tempera
ture, qualities of soil, local diseases ; and writes as a natural
ist and physiologist, instead of making the great theme
subservient to his political theories. There is much con
densed knowledge and remarkable scientific description ;
interesting accounts of Florida, the French colony on the
Scioto, and others in Canada, with curious remarks on the

FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 107

aborigines. The style and thought as well as scope of the
work, although thus partial in its design, are superior to most
of those which preceded it.

Another Frenchman, who enjoyed considerable literary
renown in his day, was instrumental, though not in the
character of a traveller, in making America and her political
claims known in Europe. Born at St. Geniez, Guienne, in
1711, and dying at Paris in 1796, the life of the Abbe Ray-
nal includes a period fraught with extreme vicissitudes of
government and religion, whereof he largely partook in opin
ion and fortune. Bred a Jesuit, he went to Paris, and, from
some elocutionary defects, failed as a preacher at St. Sulpice,
became intimate with Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert,
and abandoned theology for philosophy. Familiar with the
writings of Bayle, Montaigne, and Rousseau, he became an
ardent liberal and active litterateur ; first compiling memoirs
of Ninon de L'Enclos, then writing " L'Histoire du Stathou-
derat" — a branch of the noble theme since so memorably
unfolded by our countryman Motley; the "Histoire du Parle-
inent d'Angleterre ; " articles in .the " Cyclopaedia ; " literary
anecdotes, &c. But the work which for a time gave him
most celebrity, was written in conjunction with Diderot —
" Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissements et du
commerce des Europeens dans les Indes." The first edition
appeared in 1770. In the second, ten years after, his direct
attacks upon the existing government and religion caused the
work to be prohibited, and its author condemned to imprison
ment ; which latter penalty he escaped by flight. In 1781
appeared his " Tableau et Revolutions des Colonies Anglaises
dans 1'Amerique Septentrionale," * whose many errors of fact
were indicated in a pamphlet by Tom Paine. Elected a
deputy, his renunciation of some of his obnoxious opinions
failed to conciliate his adversaries ; and, despoiled by the
Revolution, he died in poverty, at the age of eighty-four.
Incorrect and desultory as are the Abbe Raynal's writings,

*"The Abbe Raynal on the Revolution in America," 12mo., Dublin,
1781.

108 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and neglected as they now are, his advocacy of the American
cause, and description of the country, drawn apparently from
inadequate yet sometimes authentic sources, on account of a
certain philosophical tone and agreeability of style, were for
some years read and admired. As we recur to them in the
ninth volume of the latest edition of his chief work, wherein
they are now included, we obtain a vivid idea of the kind of
research and rhetoric then in vogue, and can imagine how to
foreign minds must then have appeared the problem of our
nascent civilization.

The Abbe's biographer claims that he was personally very
agreeable, and possessed of a fine figure ; that the vivacious
discussions and literary fellowship of the Paris salons en
livened and enlarged the acquisitions of this eleve of the
cloister who " succeeded in the world," and, though he did
not understand the science of politics, and often contradicted
himself, was, notwithstanding, an ardent and capable de
fender of human rights, and a true lover of his race. It is a
curious fact, that he was a warm admirer and eloquent eulo
gist of Sterne's fair friend, Eliza Draper ; and a more inter
esting one, that he was among the very earliest to protest
against the cruelties then practised against the negro race.
He draws a parallel, at the close of his history, between the
actual results of European conquests in America, and their
imagined benefits. The new empire multiplied metals, and
made a grand movement in the world ; but, says the Abbe,
" le mouvement ne'st pas le bonheur," and the Western em
pire " donne naissance au plus infame, au plus atroce de tous
les commerces, celui des esclaves." Chiefly occupied with
the West India Islands, what is said of North America is dis
cursive. He describes the process of civilization in brief ; the
Puritan, Dutch, and Catholic leaders ; Penn, and Lord Balti
more ; the settlement of Georgia and Carolina ; the trees,
grain, birds, tobacco, and other indigenous products ; notes
the imported domestic animals, and the exported wood and
metals ; discusses the probable success of silk and vine cul
ture in the southern and middle regions, and gives statistics

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 109

of the population, and partial accounts of the laws, currency,
municipal and colonial systems, <fcc., of the several States ;
and then, in outline, describes the Revolution. A love of
freedom, and a speculative hardihood and interest in human
progress and prosperity, imbue his narratives and reasonings,
though the former are often incorrect, and the latter inade
quate.

According to the habit of French authors of those days,
the Abbe occasionally turns from disquisition to oratory;
and it is amusing to read here and now the oracular counsel
he gave our fathers : addressing the " peuples de PAmerique
Septentrionale," in 1781 : " Craignez," he says, " 1'affluence de
For qui apporte avec le luxe la corruption des moeurs, le
mepris des lois ; craignez une trop inegale repartition des
richesses ; garantissez-vous de Fesprit de conquete ; cherchez
1'aisance et la sante dans le travail, la prosperite dans la cul
ture des terres et les ateliers de 1'industrie, la force dans les
bonnes moeurs et dans la vertu ; faites prosperer les sciences
et les artes ; veillez a 1'education de vos enfans ; n'etablissez
aucune preference legale entre les cultes. Apres avoir vu
dans le debut de cet ouvrage, en quel etat de misere et de
tenebres etait 1'Europe a la naissance de FAmerique, voyons
en quel etat le conquete d'un monde a conduit et pousse le
monde conquerante." He laments the fanaticism of Massa
chusetts ; tells the story of Salem witchcraft, and the per
petuation in the New of the cruel laws of the Old World ;
says epidemics like the small pox acquire new virulence in
America ; praises the Long Wharf of Boston, and compares
the dwellings and furniture of that city to those of London.

CHAPTER IY.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED.

ROCHAMBEAU ; TALLEYRAND ; sfiGTJR ; CHATEAUBRIAND ; MICHATTX ;
MURAT ; BRILLAT-SAVARIN ; DE TOCQUEVILLE ; DE BEAUMONT ;
AMPERE, AND OTHERS ; LAFAYETTE ; FISCH ; DE GASPARIN ;

OFFICERS; LABOULAYE, ETC.

SOME of the most pleasing and piquant descriptions of
America, and life there, at the period of and subsequent to
the Revolutionary War, are to be found in the memoirs and
correspondence of French allies and emigres. In some in
stances, as we have seen in the case of Chastellux, Brissot,
the Abbe Robin, and others, instead of an episode, our Gallic
visitors have expanded their observations into separate vol
umes ; but even the casual mention of places and persons,
character and customs that are interwoven in the biography
and journals of some of the French officers, are noteworthy
as illustrations of the times, especially in a social point of
view. We find them in the memoirs of De Lauzun, De
Segur, De Broglie, and other of the gallant beaux who made
themselves so agreeable to the pretty Quakers at Newport,
where they were so long quartered ; and left, as in the case
of Yosmeneul, traditions of wit, love, and dancing — the
evanescent record whereof still survives in the initials cut on
the little window panes of the gable-roofed houses with
their diamond rings, and were long rehearsed by venerable
ladies of Philadelphia and Boston. Among these incidental
glimpses of America as her scenes and people impressed a

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. Ill

noble militaire, are many passages in the Memoirs of Count
Rochambeau, who is so prominently represented beside
Washington in the picture of the surrender of Yorktown, at
Versailles. Born in 1725, and soon distinguished as a sol
dier, in 1780 he was sent as the commander-general of six
thousand troops, to assist our Revolutionary struggle. He
landed at Newport, R. I., and acted in concert with Wash
ington against Clinton in New York, and against Cornwallis
at Yorktown. On his return to France, he was made mar
shal, and commander of the Army of the North, by Louis
XVI. He was gradually superseded by more energetic
officers, became the object of calumny to the journalists, and
vindicated himself in a speech before the Assembly, who
passed a decree approving his conduct. He retired to his
estate at Vendome, resolved to abandon public affairs. He
was arrested, and narrowly escaped death under Robespierre
— like so many of his eminent countrymen who had become
well known on this side of the ocean. In 1803 he was pre
sented to Bonaparte, who conferred on him the cross of the
Legion of Honor. He died in 1807, and, two years after,
his " Meinoires " were published.

Count Rochambeau describes at length the military oper
ations of which he was a witness in America, and looks at
the country, for the most part, with the eyes of a soldier.
He repudiates all idea of writing in the character of a pro
fessed author, and both the style and substance of his auto
biography are those of a military memoir. Still he records
many significant facts, geographical and economical. He
notes the agricultural resources of those parts of the country
he visited, describes the houses, ports, and climate, and
gives an interesting account of Arnold's treason — first re
vealed to Washington in connection with a journey under
taken by the latter to meet him ; and of many of the subse-
quents events connected therewith he was a witness. But
the most attractive feature of Rochambeau's American
reminiscences is his cordial recognition of the popular mind
and heart. He appreciated, better than many more super-

112 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ficial observers, the domestic discipline, the religious tolera
tion, and the genuine independence of character which then
formed our noble distinction in the view of liberal Europeans.
He remarks the imequal interest in the war in different
localities : " En distinguant d'abord les commer§ans des agri-
coles, les habitudes des graudes villes maritimes de ceux des
petites villes ou des habitans de 1'interieur, ou ne doit pas
etre etonne que les commergans et ceux qui, dans ces ports,
avaient une relation ou des intdsrets directs avec le gouverne-
inent Anglais, aient temoigne moins de zele pour la revolu
tion que les agricoles." Boston was an exception; and the
Northern States seconded the Revolution which the violence
of the British and Hessians precipitated. The equal for
tunes of the North favored democracy, while the large pro
prietors of the South formed an aristocracy. He says of
American women : " Les filles y sont libres jusqu'a leur
mariage. Leur premiere question est de savoir si vous etes
marie ; et, si vous 1'etes, leur conversation tonibe tout a plat."
Sometimes in youth, though going to church with parents,
" elles n'aient pas encore fait choix d'une religion ; elles
disent qu'elles seront de la religion de leur maris." They
observe, he says, " une grande propriete." He describes a
settlement " par mettre le feu a la foret (to. clear). II seme
en suite, entre les souches, toutes sortes de grains, qui crois
sant avec la plus grande abondance, sous une couche de
feuilles, pourries et reduites en terreau vegetal forme pen
dant un tres-grand nombre d'annees. II batit son habitation
avec les rameaux de ces arbres places 1'un sur 1'autre, soutenus
par des piquets. Au bout de vingt ou trente ans, lorsqu'il
est parvenu a desancher et a rendre la terre ameublie, il
songe a construire une maison plus propre " — and later one of
brick ; " on y fait au moins quatre repas, interrompu par un
travail moder6, et le petit negre est continuellement occupe a
defaire et a remettre le convert.

" Dans les grands villes," he adds, " le luxe a fait plus de
progres. Le pays circonscrit sous le nom des Etats Unis,
avec les arrondissemens qu'ont cedes les Anglais, par la paix

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 113

de 1783, pourra comporter un jour plus de trente millions
d'habitans sans a gener."

He recognizes the complete division of church and
state in our democratic system : " Par ces precautions, la
religion n'entra pour rien dans les deliberations politiques ;
chacun professa son culte avec exactitude ; la sanctification
du dimanche s'y observoit avec exactitude ; " and, like so
many other sojourners of that period, he attests that "1'hos-
pitalite est la vertu la plus generalement observee."

An incident related by his companion, illustrates the
popular respect for law : " At the moment of our quitting
the camp," writes Count Segur, " as M. de Rochambeau
was proceeding at the head of his columns, and surrounded
by his brilliant staff, an American approached him, tapped
him slightly on the shoulder, and, showing him a paper he
held in his hand, said : ' In the name of the law I arrest you.'
Several young officers were indignant at this insult offered to
their general ; but he restrained their impatience by a sign,
smiled, and said to the American, ' Take me away with you,
if you can.' c No,' replied he ; ' I have done my duty, and
your excellency may proceed on your march, if you wish to
put justice at defiance. Some soldiers of the division of
Soissonnais have cut down several trees, and burnt them to
light their fires. The owner of them claims an indemnity,
and has obtained a warrant against you, which I have come
to execute.' "

Rochambeau was much impressed with the state of reli
gion in America, and especially the voluntary deference to
the clergy, coexistent with self-respect and self-reliance in
matters of faith, so manifest at the era of the Revolution.
" They reserve," he writes, " for the minister the first place
at public banquets ; he invokes a blessing thereon ; but his
prerogatives, as far as society is concerned, extend no far
ther ; and this position," he adds, obviously in view of cleri
cal corruption in Europe, " should lead naturally to simple
and pure manners."

Another anecdote, illustrative of the times and people, is

114: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

related with much zest : " Je hasarde," he says, " d'inter-
rompre ici I'attention du lecteur, par le recit d'une historiette
qui ni laisse pas de caracteriser parfaitement les racours des
bons republicans du Connecticut." He then states that,
being on his way to Hartford, to confer with Washington,
and accompanied by the Count de Ternay, who was an in
valid, the carriage broke down, and his aide was sent to find
a blacksmith to repair it. The only one in the vicinity, being
ill with fever and ague, refused, and declared a hat full of
guineas would not induce him to undertake the job ; but
when the Count explained to the resolute Yulcan, that if his
vehicle was not repaired, he could not keep his appointment
with Washington, "I am at the public service. You shall
have your carnage at six to-morrow morning," said the black
smith, " for you are good people." Such instances of disin
terested patriotism, and superiority to the blandishments of
rank and money, among the mechanics and farmers, struck
Rochambeau and his companions as memorable evidences of
the effect of free institutions and popular education upon
national character.

Another famous Frenchman, at a later period, received
quite a different impression — finding in the isolated material
ism of American border life a hopeless dearth of sentiment
and civilized enjoyment, which, in his view, though habitu
ated to the sight of starving millions and effeminate cour
tiers, more than counterbalanced the independence and pros
pective comfort of the masses thus bravely secured. When
Talleyrand was a temporary exile in the United States, he
visited a colony of his countrymen, and wrote thus of the
American backwoodsman : " He is interested in nothing.
Every sentimental idea is banished from him. Those
branches so elegantly thrown by nature — a fine foliage, a
brilliant hue which marks one part of the forest, a deeper
green which darkens another — all these are nothing in his
eye. He has no recollections associated with anything around
him. His only thought is the number of strokes which are
necessary to level this or that tree. He has never planted ;

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. • 115

he is a stranger to the pleasure of that process. Were lie to
plant a tree, it never could become an object of gratification
to him, because he could not live to cut it down. He lives
only to destroy. He is surrounded by destruction. He does
not watch the destiny of what he produces. He does not
love the field wnere he has expended his labor, because his
labor is merely fatigue, and has no pleasurable sentiment
attached to it."

Few men bom in the Eastern States, especially if they
have visited Europe, can fail to realize a certain forlorn re
moteness in the sensation experienced, when surrounded by
the sparsely inhabited woods and prairies, akin to what Talley
rand describes. The back country of the Upper Mississippi
seems more oppressively lonely to such a traveller than the
interior of Sicily. The want of that vital and vivid connec
tion between the past and present ; the painful sense of new
ness ; the savage triumph, as it were, of nature, however
beautiful, over humanity, whose eager steps have only in
vaded, not ameliorated her domain — seem, for the moment,
to leave us in desolate individuality and barren self-depend
ence. But the experience Talleyrand compassionated was
and is but a transition state — a brief overture to a future
social prosperity, where sentiment as well as enterprise has
ample verge.

Count Segur, the French ambassador to Russia and Prus
sia, was born in 1753, and his first youth was educated under
that chevalresque social luxury that marked the reign of Louis
XV. Of noble birth, and commencing life as a courtier, he
experienced to an unusual extent, the vicissitudes, the disci
pline, and the distinction incident to his age and country.
He was an accomplished military officer and diplomatist, an
author, a politician, a voyageur, and a peer ; and, withal,
seems to have been an amiable, liberal, and brave gentleman.
He came to America in 1783, with despatches to Rocham-
beau, to whom he was appointed aide, with the rank of
colonel ; and, after various and provoking delays and priva-

116 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tions, joined the French camp and his own regiment on the
Hudson River.

The circumstances of his landing were such as to 'predis
pose a less heroic and gracious nature to take an unfavorable
view of the New World ; for battle, shipwreck, the loss of
his effects, great discomfort, and a series of annoyances and
mishaps attended him from the moment his battered ship ran
aground in the Delaware, within sight of the enemy's fleet,
until he reached his commander's quarters, after a wearisome
and exposed journey. Yet few of his gallant countrymen
looked upon the novelties of life, manners, and scenery
around him with such partial and sympathetic eyes. Per
haps it was by virtue of contrast that the young courtier of
Louis conceived a strong attachment for the Quakers of
Philadelphia ; and this feeling received a fresh and fond
impulse from the charms of the beautiful Polly Lawton, of
Newport.

The sight of the American forests inspired him ; and the
independent character, probity, and frugal contentment of
the people was the constant theme of his admiration. " I
experienced," he writes, " two opposite impressions — one
produced by the spectacle of the beauties of a wild and sav
age nature, and the other by the fertility and variety of
industrious cultivation of a civilized world. Indigence and
brutality were nowhere to be seen ; fertility, comfort, and
kindness were everywhere to be found ; and every individual
displayed the modest and tranquil pride of an independent
man, who feels that he has nothing above him but the laws,
and who is a stranger alike to the vanity, to the prejudices,
and to the servility of European society. No useful profes
sion is ever ridiculed or despised. Indolence alone would be
a subject of reproach."

He was, at first, astonished to find men of all vocations
with military titles. The " wild and savage " prospect
around West Point delighted him. He dined with Wash
ington, and describes the toasts and the company with much
zest. He enjoyed a week's furlough at Newport, and, with

FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 117

his brother officers, gave a ball there. Quartered with a
family at Providence, he learned to love the simplicity of
domestic life in America. One of his general observations
on the country has now a prophetic significance :

" The only dangers which can menace, in the future, this happy
republic, consisting in 1780 of three millions, and now (1825) num
bering more than ten millions of citizens, is the excessive wealth
which is promised by its commerce, and the corrupting luxury .which
may follow it. Its Southern provinces should foresee and avoid an
other peril. In the South are to be found a very large class of poor
whites, and another of enormously wealthy proprietors; the fortunes
of this latter class are created and sustained by the labor o/ a popu
lation of blacks, slaves, which increases largely every year, and who
may and must be frequently driven to despair and revolt by the con
trast of their servitude with the entire liberty enjoyed by men of the
same color in other States of the Union. In a word, this difference
of manners and situation between the North and South ; does it not
lead us to apprehend in times to come a separation which would en
feeble and perhaps break this happy confederation, which can pre
serve its power only in being firmly locked and united together ?
Such was the sad thought which ended my last conversation with
the Chevalier de Chastellux, on the eve of his departure from the
army." *

Like so many other visitors, he was struck with the re
semblance of Boston to an English town, with the beauty
of its women, and with the preaching of Dr. Cooper. In a
letter written on embarking for the West Indies, he ex
presses keen regret at leaving America, dwells with much
feeling upon the kindness he had received and the opportuni
ties he had enjoyed there, and descants upon the purity of
manners, equality of condition, and manly self-reliance which,
combined with the natural advantages of the country and
the freedom of its institutions, made America to him a subject
of the most interesting speculation and affectionate interest.

Another Frenchman, whose name and fame are far more
illustriously identified with the political vicissitudes and influ
ential literature of his times, saw somewhat of America, and

* " Memoires," &c., par M. le Comte de Segur, torn, i, pp. 412, 413,
Paris, 1825.

118 AMERICA A:ND HER COMMENTATORS.

reported his impressions with characteristic latitude and sen
timent. The scene of his best romance is laid in one of the
Southern States ; but the description of nature and percep
tion of Indian character are far removed from scientific pre
cision. Yet over all that Chateaubriand wrote, however
warped by egotism or rendered melodramatic by exaggera
tion, there breathes an atmosphere of sentiment, whereby a
certain humanity and eloquence make significant what would
otherwise often seem unreal and meretricious. He loved
nature^ and, by virtue of a vivid imagination and intense
consciousness, connected all he saw with his own life and
thought. His visit to our shores forms an interesting episode
in his " Memoires d'outre Tombe." After crossing the At
lantic, he was becalmed off the shores of Maryland and Vir
ginia, and had leisure to appreciate the beautiful skies ;
imprudently bathed in waters infested with sharks ; trav
ersed woods of balsam trees and cedars, where he observed
with infinite pleasure the cardinal and mocking birds, the
gray squirrels, and a " negro girl of extraordinary beauty."
The contrast between these wild charms and the cities was
most uncongenial to the poetical emigrL He " felt the archi
tectural deformity" of the latter, and declares, sadly, that
" nothing is old in America excepting the woods." But his
chief disappointment consisted in the discovery that the
modes of life and tone of manners were so far removed
from what he had fondly imagined of the ideal republic.
"A man," he writes in 1791, "landing, like myself, in the
United States, full of enthusiasm for the ancients — a Cato,
seeking, wherever he goes, the austerity of the primitive
manners of Rome— must be exceedingly scandalized to find
everywhere elegance in dress, luxury in equipages, frivolity
in conversation, inequality of fortunes, the immorality of
gaming houses, and the noise of balls and theatres. In
Philadelphia I could have fancied myself in an English town.
There was nothing to indicate that I had passed from a mon
archy to a republic." Reasoning from historical facts and
analogy, one would imagine that a foreign visitor could only

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 119

expect to find Anglo-Saxon traits, local and social, in those
American communities directly founded by English emi
grants. Yet Dickens expressed the same disappointment in
Boston, at the similarity of the place and people to what was
familiar to him at home, that Chateaubriand confesses, half
a century previous, in the city of Brotherly Lo\7e. The
allusion to Roman names and manners, so common with
French writers in their political criticisms, would strike us
as extremely artificial, were it not that the drama and the
academic talk in France, at that time, continually adopted
the characters and history of Greece and Rome as the stand
ard and nomenclature of an era in every respect essentially
different — a pedantic tendency akin to the Arcadian terms
and tastes which so long formalized the degenerate muse in
Italy. It is not, indeed, surprising that the republican enthu
siasts of the Old World should have been disenchanted in
the New, when they found what is called " society " but a
tame reflection of that from which they had fled as the
result of an effete civilization. But the complaint was as
unreasonable as unjust ; for, in all large and prosperous com
munities, an identical social, conventional system prevails.
In America, however, this sphere was very limited, and, at
the dawn of the republic, embraced remarkable exceptions
to the usual hollowness and vapid display ; while, in the vast
domain beyond, the rights, the abilities, and the self-respect
of human beings found an expression and a scope which,
however different from Roman development, and however
unsatisfactory to a modern Cato, offered a most refreshing
contrast to and auspicious innovation upon the crushing,
hopeless routine of European feudalism. The political dis
appointment of the author of Atala induced him to write
against the Quakers. He found Washington was "not Cin-
cinnatus, for he passed in a coach and four ; " but wThen he
called on the President with a letter of introduction, he
recognized in his surroundings " the simplicity of an old
Roman — no guards, not even a footman." Chateaubriand's
object was to promote an expedition, set on foot in his own

120 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

country, for the discovery of the long-sought and much-
desired " Northwest Passage." It appears that Washington
rather discouraged the enterprise ; upon which the compli
mentary instinct was aroused in his guest, who, with the
usual misapprehension of foreigners as to the character of
our Revolution, and of our matchless chief's relation thereto,
replied, " It is less difficult to discover the Northwest Passage
than to create a nation, as you have done." And w^e can
easily imagine the amused and urbane " Well, well, young
man," with which Washington dismissed the subject. He
showed Chateaubriand the key of the Bastile. In describing
their interview, the French author compares him with Bona
parte ; and, in allusion to his own feelings on the memorable
occasion, significantly declares, " I was not agitated." A
startling experience in his subsequent journey, was encounter
ing, in the wilderness of New York State, a dancing master
of his country teaching the Iroquois to caper scientifically.
Indeed, the great pleasure derived from his visit was that
afforded by the salient contrast of a nascent civilization with
the wild beauty of nature. He was awestruck wThen, in the
heart of the lonely woods, the distant roar of Niagara
struck his ear ; and few have approached that shrine of won
der and grace with more reverence and delight. The great
lakes of the interior, the coast fisheries, the isolated sugar
camp in the maple groves, and the aspect, rites, and traits of
the aboriginal tribes, excited the earnest curiosity and grati
fied the adventurous sentiment which afterward found such
copious inspiration in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a sojourn in
Rome, exile in England, and a conservative and pathetic plea
for outraged Christianity in his native land. "It is impos
sible," he writes, " to conceive the feelings and the delight
experienced on seeing the spire of a new steeple rising from
the bosom of an ancient American forest."

The transition from the political essayist to the natural
historian is refreshing. The zest with which Michaux de
scribes some of the arborescent wonders of the West is as
pleasant as his intelligent discussion of economical facts and

FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 121

Puritan domesticity in the East. Dr. Michaux, in the year
1802, visited the country westward of the Alleghanies and
the Carolinas, under the auspices of the Minister of the Inte
rior. He found delightful companions in the trees, and
charming hospitality among the flowers ; and, contrasting
the vegetation of the Southern with that of the Western
States, gave to his countrymen a correct and impressive idea
of the products and promise of the New World, as an arena
for botanical investigation, and a home for the enterprising
and unfortunate.* He describes new species of rhododen
dron and azalea ; expatiates on the varieties of oak and wal
nut ; gives statistics of size, grouping, and diversities in the
native forests ; points out indigenous medicinal and floral
products, and discourses genially of the cones of the mag
nolia, the fish and shells of the Ohio, the salt licks of Ken
tucky, and bear hunting in the Alleghanies. In a word, his
brief and discursive journal illustrates that delightful series
of Travels, whose inspiration is the love of nature, and whose
object is the exposition of her laws and productions, with
which Nuttall, Wilson, Audubon, Lyell, and Agassiz have so
enriched scientific literature on this continent. And while it
is interesting to compare the more copious and special narra
tives of these endeared writers with that of Michaux, and
realize the advancement of knowledge and scientific zeal
since he wrote, it is no less cheering to witness the social
progress of the West — especially the effects of the temper
ance reform and the success of the grape culture — and revert
therefrom to the earnest protest of this amiable writer, who,
as a Frenchman and a naturalist, was revolted at the perver
sion of nature's best gifts which the current habits of the
population evinced. " The taverns, and especially that in
which we lodged," writes Michaux of the valley of the Ohio,
fifty years ago, " were filled with drunkards, who made a
frightful uproar, and yielded to excesses so horrible as to be

* " Travels to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains in Ohio, Ken
tucky and Tennessee," &c., by Dr. F. A. Michaux, translated by Lambert,
8vo., 1805.
6

122 AMEKICA AND HER COHHENTATOES .

scarcely conceived. The rooms, the stairs, the yard were
covered with men dead drunk ; and those who were still able
to get their teeth separated, uttered only the accents of fury
and rage. An inordinate desire for spirituous liquors is one
of the characteristics of the country in the interior of the
United States. This passion is so powerful, that they quit
their habitations, from time to time, to go and get drunk at
the taverns. They do not relish cider, which they think too
mild. Their distaste for this salutary and agreeable beverage
is the more extraordinary, since they might easily procure it
at little expense, for apple trees of every kind succeed won
derfully in this country." It has been charged against
Michaux, that he accepted a commission from Genet to raise
troops in Kentucky and Louisiana.

Among the political refugees who found safety and com
fort in the United States after the fall of Napoleon, were
two sons of the dashing and brave but superficial and unfor
tunate Murat. One dwelt many years in. New Jersey, where
Joseph Bonaparte, with benign philosophy, enjojed the ele
gant seclusion of a private gentleman so much more than he
had the cares and honors of royalty ; and, among the extra
ordinary vicissitudes that mark the history of individuals
associated with European politics in our day, the marvellous
restoration of Murat to fortune in France, under the imperial
success of Louis Napoleon, is to the people of that little
town in New Jersey " stranger than fiction ; " for the refugee
was a boon companion and needy adventurer among them;
for years supported by his accomplished wife and daughter,
who kept a most creditable school, and maintained their self-
respect with dignity and tact. The other brother, Achille,
found a home and a wife, with slaves and a plantation, near
Tallahassee, Fla., and seems to have enjoyed his adopted coun
try with the zest of a sportsman and the adventurous spirit
of his race, and easily to have reconciled himself to the in
congruities of such a lot. Nine years of residence made him
familiar with the country ; and, when an honorary colonel in
the Belgian army, he presented to a comrade the manuscript

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 123

wherein, to inform a friend in Europe, he had written at
length his impressions and convictions in regard to the
United States. After his death, it was translated and pub
lished in this country.* The distinction of the work is, that
it is written by a foreigner whose experience of the country
and whose sympathies are almost as exclusively Southern, as
if he was a bigoted native instead of a stranger in the land.
He considers agriculture the primal and pervasive interest ;
he advocates slavery both on practical and metaphysical
grounds ; he considers Charleston, S. C., the centre of all
that is polished and superior in American society ; he shares
and repeats the obsolete prejudices about " Yankees,"
founded upon the days of blue laws and peddling ; he
prophesies the political ascendency of the Southern States,
and deems the " spirit of calculation " elsewhere " marvel
lously connected with the observance of the Sabbath." Yet
he is enthusiastic in his admiration of and firm in his trust in
the "principles of liberty" and the system of government.
He is proud and happy in his American citizenship, grateful
for the prosperous home and independent life here enjoyed,
and throughout his observations there is a singular combi
nation of the political enthusiast and the man of the world,
the mllitaire and the advocate, the lover of pleasure and the
devotee of freedom. There is little said about the beauties of
nature, few criticisms on manners ; but the processes whereby
the Indians are dispossessed, the forest occupied, the hunter
superseded by the squatter, the latter by the settler, and the
Territory made a State, are given with the details only obtain
able through long personal observation. One chapter is
devoted to the history of parties ; another to the administra
tion of justice ; one to religion, and one to finance. Our
national means of defence, the Indians, and the new settle
ments are described and discussed ; and thus a large amount

* Murat's (Achille) " Moral and Political Sketch of the United States of
.America," 8vo., London, 1833.

" America and the Americans," by the late Achille Murat, New
York, 1849.

124: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of correct and valuable information is given. But it is evi
dent the writer is acquainted intimately with only one sec
tion of the country ; that the new, and not the old communi
ties, have been the chief scene of his observation ; and,
while there is much both fair and fresh in his comments, they
refer in no small degree to local and temporary facts. Murat
writes, however, with acute and sympathetic intelligence, from
a material point of view ; and it is interesting to contrast
his speculations of thirty-seven years ago with the events of
the hour. "The English minister," he writes in 1827,
" wishing to stop emigration to the United States, descended
so far as to induce mercenary writers to travel, and promul
gate, through the press, false statements against our people
and Government. In all these works, which had an extensive
circulation with John Bull, and thereby influenced his mind,
the subject of slavery has been the avowed and principal
topic." On which subject he thus argues : " A man meets a
lion, and has the indubitable right to appropriate the skin of
the animal to his own particular purpose ; while, on the other
hand, the lion has an equal right to the flesh of the man.
The difference is, one defends his skin, the other his flesh ;
hence it follows that the spontaneous objection in each be
comes an obstacle to the other, and which either has the
right to destroy. By an individual right we are by no means
to understand a natural right. A man has undoubtedly no
claim to the possession of another man in relation to that
man, but possesses this claim in relation to society. If I
mistake not, public opinion in the Southern States is, that
slavery is necessary, but an evil. I, however, am far from
considering the question in this point of view. On the con
trary, I am led to consider it, in certain periods of the his
tory or existence of nations, as a good."

His pro-slavery argument, when at all original, is undis
guised sophistry, and compares absurdly with his recogni
tion of the principles of civil liberty and self-government;
while no foreigner has more cordially entered into the re
deeming spirit of individual self-reliance and a controlling

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 125

public opinion, as means and methods of social progress and
safety. The plan and scope of the work are such as to render
it useful arid interesting to educated Europeans who contem
plate emigration. Its economical details and political philoso
phy are comparatively unauthoritative now, facilities of
travel and more comprehensive and elevated criticism hav
ing made the questions and facts clear and familiar. The
" America and Americans " of Achille Murat is, therefore, a
work more interesting from the circumstances and history of
its author, than from its intrinsic novelty or value.

In that ingenious work wherein the rationale of luxury
is so genially expounded — the " Physiologic du Gout " — there
is an episode, wherein the same kindly and cordial estimate
of republican manners and economy characteristic of French
travellers in America, — is naively apparent. The author,
though chiefly known by a work which associates his name
with the pleasures of the table, was, in fact, a philosopher
whose cast of mind was judicial rather than fanciful ; and
who, in his most popular book, under the guise of epicurean
zest, grapples with and illustrates profound truths. An inde
fatigable student, a keen sportsman, and a conscientious offi
cial, Brillat-Savarin, from the moment his early education was
completed, filled important situations, such as deputy, mayor,
president of the civil tribunals, and judge of the bureau of
cassation, in his native province ; with the exception of three
years of exile during the Revolution, which he passed in this
country, and chiefly in New York, gaining a subsistence by
teaching his native language and regulating a theatrical
orchestra. He alludes to his sojourn as an era of pleasant
experiences. He made numerous friends in America, and
attributes this to his facility in adopting the habits and man
ners of the country, and his knowledge of the language ;
although his quotations are often amusingly incorrect. A
scholar, musician, man of the world, and jurist, his culture and
his endowments were such as to make him an appreciative
observer of life and institutions here ; for he united rare
powers of observation and reflection with adequate sensibil-

126 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ity to the beautiful and the true. He was so tall, that his
brother judges called him the drum major of the court of
cassation. He was an habitue of Madame Recamier's
charming salon. Balzac expressed the opinion that no
writer, except La Bruyere and La Rochefoucauld, ever gave
to French phrases such vigorous relief. Since the death of
Brillat-Savarin, science has thrown new light upon many sub
jects connected with those so agreeably discussed in the
" Physiologic du Gout ; " still the scope and style of the
work give it prominence. The application of science to gas
tronomy, of taste and wisdom to the art of human nutrition,
was thus initiated in a most attractive manner, and the inci
dental relations of the subject shown to be identical with the
best interests of society. The author varies his disquisition
by logical, anecdotical, and eloquent alternations. His per
sonal experience is often made to illustrate his speculative
opinions. In the chapter devoted to " Coq d'Inde," or " Din-
don," after describing the turkey as the most beautiful gift
which the New World has made to the Old, treating as para
doxical the tradition that it was known to the ancients, de
scribing its introduction to Europe by the Jesuits, discussing
its natural history, its financial importance, and its gastro
nomic value, he thus describes an exploit du professeur :

" During my residence at Hartford, in Connecticut, I had the
pleasure of shooting a wild turkey. This exploit deserves to be
transmitted to posterity, and I record it with the more complaisance,
inasmuch as I was the hero. A venerable American farmer had in
vited me to sport on his domain ; he lived near the least-settled por
tion of the State ; he promised me excellent game, and authorized me
to bring a friend. Mr. King, my companion, was a remarkable
sportsman ; he was passionately fond of the exercise, but, after hav
ing killed his bird, he regarded himself as a murderer, and made tbe
victim's fate the subject of moral reflections and interminable elegies.
On a beautiful morning in October, 1794, we left Hartford on hired
horses, hoping to reach our destination, five mortal leagues distant,
before the evening. Although the route was scarcely indicated by
travel, we arrived without accident, and were received with that
cordial and unpretending hospitality which is expressed in actions
rather than words : in short, we were immediately made to feel

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 127

comfortable and at home — men, horses, and dogs — according to their
respective wants and convenience. Two hours were spent in exam
ining the farm and its dependencies ; I would describe all this in de
tail, but I prefer to introduce to the reader the four beautiful daugh
ters of Monsieur Bulow, to whom our visit was an important incident.
Their ages ranged from sixteen to twenty ; they were radiant with
the freshness of health, and they possessed that simplicity, ease, and
frankness which the most common actions develop into a thousand
charms. Soon after our return from the walk, we were seated at a
table abundantly provided ; — a superb piece of corned beef, a fine stew,
a magnificent leg of mutton, plenty of vegetables, and, at each end
of the table, enormous jars of excellent cider, with which I could not
be satiated. When we had proved to our host that we were genuine
sportsmen, at least in regard to appetite, the conversation turned upon
the object of our visit. He pointed out the best places for game, the
landmarks whereby we could find our way back, and the farmhouses
at which we could procure refreshments. During this discussion the
ladies had prepared some excellent tea, of which we drank several
cups ; after which, ascending to a double-bedded room, we enjoyed
the delicious sleep induced by exercise and good cheer. The next
morning, after partaking of refreshment ordered to be in readiness by
Monsieur Bulow, we started for a day's sport, and I found myself, for
the first time, in a virgin forest. I wandered there with delight, ob
serving the effects of time, both productive and destructive; and
amused myself by following the different periods in the life of an
oak, from the moment it breaks through the mould with two little
leaves, until all that remains of it is a long black trace — the dust of
its heart. Mr. King reproached me for these abstract musings ; and
we began the sport in earnest ; shooting numerous small but fat and
tender partridges : we bagged six or seven gray squirrels, which are
much esteemed here ; and, at last, my happy star brought us into the
midst of a flock of wild turkeys.- They followed, at short intervals,
one after the other, with rapid, brief flights, and uttering loud cries.
Mr. King shot first, and ran on ; most of the flock were soon out of
range, but the largest bird rose ten paces before me ; I fired instantly,
and he fell dead. One must be a sportsman to conceive the delight
which this beautiful shot occasioned me. I seized the superb fowl,
and a quarter of an hour afterward heard Mr. King calling for aid ;
hastening toward him, I found that the assistance he craved was
help in finding a turkey which he pretended to have shot, but which
had mysteriously disappeared. I put my dog on the trace ; but he
only led us among thickets and brambles, which a man could hardly
penetrate ; it was necessary to abandon the pursuit, which my com
panion did in a fit of ill humor that lasted all the rest of the day.

128 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENT ATOES.

The remainder of our sport does not merit description. In returning,
we became confused in the woods, and ran no small risk of passing
the night there ; but the silvery voices of the ladies Bulow and the
shouts of their father, who had the kindness to seek us, guided us
back. The four sisters were in full dress : fresh robes, new girdles,
beautiful bonnets, and bright shoes, proclaimed that they had made
a toilette in our honor ; and I had, on my side, equal intention to
make myself agreeable to these ladies, one of whom accepted my arm
with as much candor and propriety as if she had been my wife. On
reaching the house we found a supper already served ; but, before
partaking of it, we seated ourselves an instant near a bright fire,
which had been kindled, although the weather did not make it indis
pensable ; we found it, however, most welcome. This custom is,
doubtless, adopted from the aborigines, who always have a fire on
their hearth ; perhaps thence came the tradition of Francis de Sales,
who said a fire was desirable twelve months in the year. We ate as
if half famished, and finished the evening with an enormous bowl of
punch ; and a conversation, wherein our host was more free than the
previous evening, occupied us far into the night. We talked of the
War of Independence, in which Monsieur Bulow had served as a supe
rior officer ; of La Fayette, who grows continually in the grateful
appreciation of the Americans, and whom they always designate by
his title — the Marquis ; of agriculture, which then was enriching the
United States, and finally of that dear France which I love all the
more since I was obliged to quit her shores. To vary the conversa
tion, M. Bulow, from time to time, said to his oldest daughter :
'Maria, give us a song ; ' and she sang, without being urged, and with
an embarrassment that was charming1, the national song, the com
plaint of Queen Mary, and trial of Major Andre, which are very pop
ular in this country. Maria had taken a few lessons, and, in this
isolated region, passed for an adept ; but her singing derived all its
merit from the quality of her voice, at once sweet, fresh, and em
phatic. The next day we left, notwithstanding the most friendly re
monstrances ; for I had indispensable duties to fulfil. While the
horses were preparing, Monsieur Bulow took me aside and said, ' You
See in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there is one on earth : all that
you see around and within is mine. These stockings my daughters knit ;
my shoes and garments are provided by my flocks and herds ; they
contribute, also, with my garden and fields, to furnish a simple and
substantial nourishment ; and, what is the best eulogy upon our Gov
ernment, is the fact, that thousands of Connecticut farmers are not
less content than myself; whose doors, too, like my own, are with
out locks. The taxes here are not large ; and, when they are paid,
we can sleep in peace. Congress favors our industry with all its

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 129 *

power ; manufacturers are eager to take whatever surplus produce
we have to sell ; and I have money laid up, and am about to dispose
of grain at twenty-four dollars a ton, which usually sells for eight.
All this comes from the liberty we have conquered and founded upon
good laws. I am master in my own domain ; and it will surprise you
to know that I never hear the sound of a drum, except on the Fourth
of July, the glorious anniversary of our independence, and never see
uniforms, soldiers, or bayonets.' During the whole period of return
I was absorbed in profound reflections ; and you may well believe that
these last words of Monsieur Bulow occupied my mind. At last I had
another subject of meditation : I thought how it was best to have
my turkey cooked and served. I was not without perplexity, as I
feared it would be difficult to find at Hartford all the requisite means;
for I wished to dispose of my trophy in the most effective and bril
liant manner. I make a painful sacrifice in suppressing the details of
profound study — the aim whereof was to treat in a distinguished man
ner the American guests whom I had engaged for the banquet. Suf
fice it to say that the wings of the partridges were served aupapil-
lote, and the gray squirrels cour bouillonnes au vin de Madere. As to
the turkey, which constituted our only plate of roast, it was charm
ing to behold, fragrant to inhale, and delicious to the taste: so much
so that, until the last morsel had disappeared, we heard from all sides
of the table the exclamations : Tres-l>on, extremement ~bon I 0, mon
cher monsieur, quel glorieux morceau I "

From a region of vast promise, the United States had
become one of accomplished destiny, so far as the establish
ment of a novel and extensive free government is concerned ;
and the results, economical, political, and social, in full de
velopment. Accordingly, the exploration of the agriculturist
and manufacturer, the comments of the practical emigrant,
and the social gossip, began to give way to the speculations
of the philosopher ; science investigated what curiosity had
originally observed ; and our country won the earnest thought
of the humanitarian analyst, intent upon tracing laws of civil
life and popular growth under the extraordinary physical,
moral, and social influences of the New World. A young
Frenchman who came to America as commissioner, to report
upon our system of prison discipline, in 1830, subsequently
published a work on the United States quite different in scope
and aim from those we have before noted. Whatever may be
6*

130 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

thought of Alexis de Tosqueville's views of " Democracy in
America," that treatise began a new era in the literature of
American travel.* It seriously grasped the problems of human
life, destiny, and progress involved in an Anglo-Saxon repub
lic on the immense scale of these United States. The pecu
liar claim and character of De Tocqueville's work is, that,
ignoring, in a great measure, the superficial aspects and casual
traits of the country and people, he has patiently and pro
foundly examined and reported the elementary civic life
thereof, with a view to ascertain and demonstrate absolute
political and social truth. A brief analysis, or even a run
ning commentary on such a treatise, would do it no justice ;
and a more elaborate discussion is inconsistent with the limits
of a volume like this. The necessity for either course is
obviated by the fact that De Tocqueville's work is so familiar
to all thinkers, and so accessible to all readers. To indicate
the scope and motives of the author, we have but to recur
to his own introductory statement :

" It is not merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that 'I
have examined America. My wish has been to find instruc
tion by which we may ourselves profit. Whoever should
imagine that I have intended to write a panegyric, would be
strangely mistaken, and, on reading this work, he will per
ceive that such is not my design. Nor has it been my object
to advocate any form of government in particular ; for I am
of opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in
any legislation. I have not even affected to discuss whether
the social revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is ad
vantageous or prejudicial to mankind. I have acknowledged
this revolution as a fact already accomplished, or on the eve
of accomplishment ; and I have selected the nation from

* " De la Democratic en Amerique," par A. de Tocqueville, 4 vols., 8vo.,
Paris, 1835-'41.

De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," translated by Henry Keeve,
Esq. ; edited, with notes, the translation revised and in great part rewritten,
and the additions made to the recent Paris editions now first translated, by
Francis Bowen, Alford Professor of Moral Philosophy in Harvard University ;
2 vols., post 8vo.

FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 131

among those who have undergone it, in which its develop
ment has been the most peaceful and the most complete, in
order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be pos
sible, to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered
profitable. I confess that in America I saw more than
America ; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its
inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in
order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its
progress."

Thus it is universal principles, and not special traits, that
M. de Tocqueville discusses. It is because of the identity of
American development with human destiny, and not as a
fragmentary phenomenon and a peculiar nationality, that he
deemed it worthy of his conscientious study. In the first
part of his work, he shows " the tendency given to the laws
by the democracy of America ; " in the second, " the influ
ence which the equality of conditions and the rule of democ
racy exercise on civil society." The mere mention of such
texts indicates at once the vastly superior aim and higher
motives of De Tocqueville, when compared with so many other
commentators on America. Not as a social critic, a natural
ist, a complacent vagabond, a pedantic raconteur, or a viva
cious gossip, but as a humane philosopher, does he approach
the problem of American life, institutions, and destiny.
Hence the permanent value and present significance of his
work, than which no abstract political treatise was ever so
frequently quoted and referred to in the current discussions
of the hour. The prophetic wisdom of his work proves how
justly he declared : " I have undertaken not to see differently,
but to look farther than parties ; and, while they are busied
for the morrow, I have turned my thoughts to the future."

The mature and wholesome fruit of such conscientious
intelligence has long been recognized both at home and
abroad. " M. de Tocqueville," whites Vericour, " has revealed
to Europe the spirit of the American laws, deduced from a
comprehensive survey of usages and institutions. He has
decomposed, with a firm and skilful hand, the curious

132 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

mechanism of this new government. In a calm and dispas
sionate spirit he investigates its action, effects, impulses, and
destinies, gradually leading his reader to a profound knowl
edge of America ; while, upon manifold questions of the
gravest interest to Europe, affecting its future progress and
welfare, he throws unexpected streams of light." With the
fondness for broad generalization from inadequate premises,
and for specific inferences from casual facts, which makes so
many of his countrymen philosophize charmingly, but at ran
dom, De Tocqueville yet seized upon some vital principles of
our national life, clearly and truly illustrated some normal
tendencies and traits of our civil and social character, and
initiated a method of observation and discussion more
thoughtful, authentic, and wise than any one of his more
superficial predecessors. No one can read his work without
finding it full of valuable suggestions, and often profoundly
significant. He looked upon the country with the eye of a
philosopher ; and, however the prejudices of his own country
and culture may have exaggerated some and obscured other
perceptions, the spirit of his survey was comprehensive,
humane, and acute. The geographical peculiarities of the
country, the origin of her Anglo-American colonists, and
their different national elements, are briefly considered. The
" advanced theory of legislation " of the first laws enacted ;
the Puritan as distinguished from the English character of
the colonists ; the system of townships in New England ;
the predominance of popular will ; the ideas of honor, of
equality, administration, prerogative, suffrage, law ; the alle
giance to education and religion, trial by jury, the Federal
Constitution — each distinctive form and feature of our politi
cal system is described and considered ; and then the reflex
influence of these upon manners, language, labor, family life,
letters, art, and individual character, is more or less truly,
indicated — our restlessness of temper, monotonous social
experience, devotion to physical well-being, absorption in the
immediate, unchastened style of speech and writing, mate
rialism, subservience to public opinion. The unique privi-

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 133

leges and peculiar dangers born of our political condition,
are defined and delineated, not, indeed, with strict accuracy,
but oi'ten with salutary wisdom and rare perspicacity.

Alexis de Tocqueville was born at Paris, in 1805. He
studied for some time at the College of Metz ; travelled with
one of his brothers in Italy and Sicily ; was attached, after
his return, to the court of justice at Versailles, where his
father, the Count de Tocqueville, was prefect. While per
forming the duties of Juge-Auditeur, he found time to
engage with ardor in political studies. After the Revolution
of 1830, he obtained from the Ministry of the Interior a mis
sion to America, for the purpose of examining our system of
prison discipline. In 1831 he came to the United States with
his friend M. de Beaumont, and, after a year's residence,
returned to Paris, and soon after published the first two vol
umes of his " Democracy in America " — a work that estab
lished his reputation as an original and systematic thinker on
political questions and social science. He married an English
lady ; became a member of the Chamber of Deputies, being
reflected from Yalognes for nine successive years. Mean
time he was chosen a member of the Institute, received an
academy prize, and published the additional volumes of his
work on America. Eminently conscientious and useful in
public, and happy in domestic life, De Tocqueville continued
to think, write, and speak on subjects of vital social interest,
until the failure of his health enforced a life of retirement,
which was peculiarly congenial to his studious habits and
elevated sympathies. " There ever seemed to stand before
his imagination," says a recent critic, " two great moral
figures, sufficient to occupy his entire being, ever correlative,
continually intermingled : the one, France, her Revolution and
its consequences ; the other, England, her constitutional lib
erty and its gigantic democratic development in the United
States of America." With all his recognition of democracy
as the inevitable political tendency and test of humanity, he
thoroughly understood how few were able to conceive or.
enjoy the legitimate fruits of liberty as an inspiration of

134 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

character. " It enters," he writes, " into the large hearts
God has prepared to receive it ; it fills them, it enraptures
them : but to the meaner minds which have never felt it, it
is past finding out."

He was one of the deputies arrested on the 2d of Decem
ber, 1851, at the time of Napoleon III.'s coup cVetat, and
was confined for a time at Vincennes. "Here," writes his
friend and biographer, De Beaumont, "ended his political
life. It ended with liberty in France." We have the same
authority for a beautiful and harmonious estimate of his
character both as a writer and a man. He died at the age
of fifty-four, in 1859.

" I have said," remarks his intimate companion and faith
ful biographer, " that he had many friends ; but he experi
enced a still greater happiness — that of never losing one of
them. He had also another happiness : it was the knowing
how to love them all so well, that none ever complained of
the share he received, even while seeing that of the others.
He was as ingenious as he was sincere in his attachments ;
and never, perhaps, did example prove better than his, ' com-
bien Tesprit ajoute de charmes a la bonte."

" Good as he was, he aspired without ceasing to become
better ; and it is certain that each day he drew nearer to
that moral perfection which seemed to him the only end
worthy of man He was more patient, more labo
rious, more watchful to lose nothing of that life which he
loved so well, and which he had the right to find beautiful —
he who made of it so noble a use ! Finally, it may be said
to his honor, that at an epoch in which each man tends to
concentrate his regard upon himself, he had no other aim than
that of seeking for truths useful to his fellows, no other pas
sion than that of increasing their well-being and their dig
nity."

An episode of De Tocqueville's American tour, published
after his death, evinces a sensibility to nature and a power
of observation in her sphere, which are rarely combined with
such logical tendencies as his political disquisitions manifest.

FRENCH TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 135

It is a remarkable fact, that a visit to one of the oldest seats
of civilization, in his youth, inspired him with that love of
economical and humane studies which led, in his prime, to
the sojourn in and the examination of the United States.
His biographer tells us that, during De Tocqueville's tour in
Sicily, " witnessing the misery inflicted on the people by a
detestable Government, he was led to reflect on the primary
conditions on which depends the decay or the prosperity of
nations." We learn, from the same authority, that his mis
sion to the United States was a pretext for, not the cause of,
investigations there. The secret of his liberal and earnest
spirit of inquiry, whereby his work attained permanent sig
nificance and philosophic value, is to be found not less in the
character than the mind of De Tocqueville ; for his intimate
friend and the companion of his travels assures us, that
"the great problem of the destiny of man impressed him
with daily increasing awe and reverence." It is this senti
ment, so deep and prevailing, which enabled him, as a social
and political critic, to rise " above the narrow views of party
and the passions of the moment;" for it was his noble dis
tinction as a writer, a citizen, and a man, " in a selfish age, to
aim only at the pursuit of truths useful to his fellow crea
tures." De Tocqueville was surprised and attracted by the
" admirable and unusual good sense of the Americans." He
entered with singular zest into the freshness and adventure
of border life, enjoyed a bivouac in the forests of Tennessee,
and a " fortnight in the wilderness," where he saw the In
dian, the pioneer, and the different classes of emigres;
noting the sensations and the sentiment of this experience,
with as much accuracy and relish as breathe from his specu
lations on the institutions and the destiny of the New
World. He found " mosquitoes the curse of the American
woods," yet realized therein the " soft melancholy, the vague
aversion to civilized life, and the sort of savage instinct"
which so many poetical and adventurous minds, from Boone
to Chateaubriand, have acknowledged under the same influ
ences. His analysis of the French, American, half-caste, and

136 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES.

Indian inhabitants of the new settlements is discriminating ;
and he was keenly alive to the contrast of this new life and its
primitive conditions to that he had known in Europe. " Here,"
he writes, " man still seems to steal into life." The uniform
tone of character, and the similarity of aspect incident to the
fact that the dwellers in the woods of America are, with few
exceptions, emigrants from civilized communities, struck De
Tocqueville forcibly, accustomed as he was to a peasant class,
and those diversities of character which spring from feudal
distinctions. His remarks on this subject are true and sug
gestive :

" In America, more even than in Europe, there is but one society,
whether rich or poor, high or low, commercial or agricultural ; it is
everywhere composed of the same elements. It has all been raised or
reduced to the same level of civilization. The man whom you left in
the streets of New York, you find again in the solitude of the far
West ; the same dress, the same tone of mind, the same language, the
same habits, the same amusements. No rustic simplicity, nothing
characteristic of the wilderness, nothing even like our villages. This
peculiarity may be easily explained. The portions of territory first
and most fully peopled have reached a high degree of civilization.
Education has been prodigally bestowed ; the spirit of equality has
tinged with singular uniformity the domestic habits. Now, it is re
markable that the men thus educated are those who every year mi
grate to the desert. In Europe, a man lives and dies where he was
born. In America, you do not see the representatives of a race
grown and multiplied in retirement, having long lived unknown to
the world, and left to its own efforts. The inhabitants of an isolated
region arrived yesterday, bring with them the habits, ideas, and
•wants of civilization. They adopt only so much of savage life as is
absolutely forced upon them ; hence you see the strangest contrasts.
You step from the wilderness into the streets of a city, from the wild
est scenes to the most smiling pictures of civilized life. If night does
not surprise you, and force you to sleep under a tree, you may reach
a village where you will find everything, even French fashions and
caricatures from Paris. The shops of Buffalo or Detroit are as well
supplied with all these things as those of New York. The looms 01"
Lyons work for both alike. You leave the high road ; you plunge
into paths scarcely marked out ; you come at length upon a ploughed
field, a hut built of rough logs, lighted by a single narrow window ;
you think that you have at last reached the abode of an American

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 137

peasant ; you are wrong. You enter this hut, which looks the abode
of misery ; the master is dressed as you are ; his language is that of
the towns. On his rude table are books and newspapers ; he takes
you hurriedly aside to be informed of what is going on in Europe,
and asks you what has most struck you in his country. He will trace
on paper for you the plan of a campaign in Belgium, and will teach
you gravely what remains to be done for the prosperity of France.
You might take him for a rich proprietor, come to spend a few nights
in a shooting box. And, in fact, the log hut is only a halting place
for the American — a temporary submission to necessity. As soon as
the surrounding fields are thoroughly cultivated, and their owner has
time to occupy himself with superfluities, a more spacious dwelling
will succeed the log hut, and become the home of a large family of
children, who, in their turn, will some day build themselves a dwell
ing in the wilderness."

As was inevitable, De Tocqueville, in describing and dis
cussing our governmental institutions, made some mistakes.
Looking at the organization of the central and State Govern
ments in the abstract, he could not perceive any guarantee
for the supremacy of the former in case of serious dissatisfac
tion on the part of a State. To one familiar with the mili
tary and administrative system of Europe, it is not surprising
that the national power should appear inadequate and un-
sanctioned in such a contingency ; but farther consideration
would have modified this scepticism, had the sagacious and
honest critic been more practically acquainted with the latent
agencies at work. The fact is to be found in the history of
the Constitution itself, wherein it is made apparent that the
surrender of State sovereignty to national law was regarded
as absolute, and not experimental. The hesitation of some
States, the arguments for and against union, so able, deliber
ate, and earnest, and the entire tone and tactics of the peer
less Convention which, at last, gave authority to that great
instrument of republican rule, all show that the compact was
a vital and permanent inauguration of popular sentiment
and embodiment of popular will. Less binding affiliations
had been tried under the old Confederacy, and the indepen
dent coexistence of the several States had brought the

138 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES.

country to the verge of ruin, before the wise and patriotic
instincts of the people led them to merge the life of States,
so flickering and fugitive, into that of a nation so self-subsist-
ent and powerful ; and to the maintenance thereof the people
thus became forever pledged, and hence prepared to defend
and enforce what they had calmly and voluntarily decreed.
Hence the resources of all the States became pledged to the
integrity of the nation ; precisely as, in so many instances, in
the history of other Governments, the will of the majority has
made the law, the system, the form, and the foundation,
thenceforth the object of loyal support, protection, and faith.
Recent events have, indeed, proved the fallacy of De Tocque-
ville's remark, that " if one of the States desires to withdraw
its name from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove
its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would
have no means of maintaining its claims either by force or
right." Even this experiment has never yet been tried, no
legitimate and free expression of the desire " to withdraw its
name from the compact " ever yet having been made by the
constitutional voice of any State. The " secession" of 1861
was effected by as flagrant violation of State as of Federal law.
The prescience and wisdom of De Tocqueville are em
phatic in what he says of the dangers attending our insti
tutions. Herein, instead of seeking in the form of govern
ment itself the only causes for vigilance, and finding sophis
tical arguments to decry republican manners and culture, after
the prejudiced style of most English writers, he notes the
local and incidental influences, the facts of nature and of his
tory peculiar to America, as threatening to the integrity of
the republic — especially the disproportionate increase of cer
tain States ; the jealousy of the slaveholders and their eco
nomical theories ; the conflict between free and slave labor,
and the consequences thereof; the sudden growth of popula
tion ; universal suffrage without equal or adequate education ;
the frequency of elections — and utters thereon many philo
sophical arguments full of insight and sympathy. "There
are, at the present time," he observes, " two groat nations in

FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 139

the world, which seem to tend toward the same end, although
they started from different points : I allude to the Russians
and the Americans. The world learned their existence and
their greatness at almost the same time. The Anglo-Ameri
can relies upon personal interest to acomplish his ends, and
gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense
of the citizens ; the Russian centres all the authority of soci
ety in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former
is freedom ; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is
different, and their courses are not the same ; yet each of
them seems to be marked out .by the will of Heaven to sway
the destinies of half the globe."

" It was my intention," observes De Tocqueville, " to
depict, in another work, the influence which the equality of
condition and the rule of democracy exercise upon the civil
society, the habits, and the manners of the Americans. I
begin, however, to feel less ardor for the accomplishment of
this object since the excellent work of my friend and travel
ling companion, M. de Beaumont, has been given to the
world.*

The grave statistical work with which the name of De
Beaumont was identified, made his advent as a romance
writer a surprise. But he aspired to no such title. His
" Marie " deals with historical and social facts under a very
thin disguise of fiction, adopted rather to give free scope to
speculation in the form of imaginary conversations, than to
subserve dramatic effect. The thread of the story is evolved
from what the author found to be a prevalent and permanent
social prejudice. He relates an incident which occurred in a
Northern city during his sojourn in America, which made a
great impression upon his mind. A gentleman of dark com
plexion, and regarded as a mulatto, was forcibly ejected from
the theatre, simply and only because of his color. M. de
Beaumont sought to trace the extent and ascertain the force
of this " barriere place entre les deux races par un prejuge

* " Marie, ou L'Esclavage aux ^tats Unis, Tableau de Mceurs Americaines,"
par Gustave de Beaumont, Bruxelles, 1825.

140 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

sociale ;" and this forms the inspiration of his story, wherein
the course of true love does not run smooth because of a
difference, not of character, refinement, or position, but of
chemical proportions in the blood of the lovers. Much ro
mantic emotion and no little social and moral philosophy are
ingeniously deduced from this circumstance. If there are
few startling incidents, there is a charming tone and grace of
style. If the " situations " are not dramatic, they are often
picturesque. Extreme statements occur in the discussions,
but they are modified by explanations given in the copious
notes appended to the story. »While antipathies of race and
the problem of slavery constitute the serious and pervading
themes, manners and customs in general are illustrated and
considered with reference to the institutions of the United
States. There is little originality in these topics or their
treatment. They have long been staple texts for theoretical
and practical criticism by the pulpit and the press. M. de
Beaumont, or rather his imaginary characters, comment on
the materialism, the devotion to gain, the absence of taste,
the nomadic habits, the unimaginative spirit, and the monoto
nous routine of American life. Elections, emeutes, Sundays,
sects, domestic and social tendencies and traits, are deline
ated often in a partial or exaggerated way, yet, on the whole,
with candor, and in much more pleasing and finished lan
guage than we often find in books of travel. Our sociable
arrangements are attributed in part to our comparative equal
ity of condition, which is also justly declared to promote
marriage, whereas rank, in France, discourages it. The
total separation of church and state, and the consequent mul
tiplicity of sects, however favorable to religious convictions,
are described as wholly opposed to the development of art.
An industrial career being the destiny of the American, he
is soon in the way of gaining at least subsistence, and a
home and family of his own is the natural consequence ; so
that one of the rare things in America, according to this
observer, is " an old boy of twenty-five " — in other words, a
young bachelor.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 141

From Baltimore the reader is transported to un foret
vierge, and refreshed with some delicious landscapes ; for De
Beaumont, as well as his friend and companion De Tocque-
ville, had a keen eye for nature in the JSTew World, and de
scribes her wild and characteristic features with vivid truth
and feeling. Few modern books of travel in America give
a more complete, authentic, and interesting sketch of the
condition of the diiferent Indian tribes. They and the ne
groes occupy a large space in the descriptions and discussions
of this work, and obviously enlist the warmest and most
intelligent sympathies of the author. His comments on the
lack of artistic enthusiasm, of bon gout and tact fin et subtil
in literature, and on the intensely practical tone of mind, the
pride and jealousy of which money is the motive and object,
the want of time for sentiment and gallantry, the partisan
ferocity, and the dearth of romance and repose, are some
times extravagant, but often piquant and just, and not unfre-
quently amusing from their partial recognition of latent facts
and feelings whereby their power and prevalence are essen
tially modified. We are told there is no heureuse pauvrete in
America, and no small theatres, and — as consequent upon the
latter defect — a lamentable want of dramatic talent and
taste ; and that, while love is wholly in abeyance to interest,
our charitable institutions are original and effective. The
extreme " facilite de s'enricher et d'arriver au sacerdoce," it
is declared, produces serious and often sinister social results.
As with all Frenchmen, the different relative positions of the
sexes, and the character and career of women in America
and in France, excite frequent comment. " Les femmes
Americaines," we are told, " ont, en general, un esprit orne
mais peu d'imagination et plus de raison que de sensibilite ;
pour toute fille qui a plus de seize ans la manage est la grand
interet de la vie. En France elle le desire ; en Amerique elle
le cherche : chez nous la coquetterie est une passion ; en
Ame'rique un calcul." He is touched with the fragility of
constitution which makes the beauty of our women so pro
verbially transient, and observes that their girlish days are

142 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

the most free and happy ; for while, in France, marriage
brings a liberty to the wife unknown to the maiden, in
America it ends the irresponsible gayety, and initiates " les
devoirs austeres au foyer domestique." There is much truth
and wisdom in many of the generalizations in M. de Beau
mont's graceful supplement to M. de Tocqueville's stern
analysis of facts. But, while the reasoning and principles
of the latter are quite as, if not more significant to-day than
when they were written, many of the former's comments
have lost their special application, and may now be quite as
justly appropriated by his own countrymen as by Americans
— so completely, in a quarter of a century, has chivalrio
France become material, and money overpowered rank, sub
sidized political aspirations, and made uniform, luxurious, and
mercenary the standard tone and traits of social life ; while,
in America, new and momentous practical issues have suc
ceeded the speculative phase of slavery, and a direct physical
and moral conflict between its champions and those of free
constitutional government, has developed unimagined re
sources of character and results of democratic rule, which
may yet purify and exalt the national ideal and the social
traits, so as to make wholly traditional many of the worse
"blots on the escutcheon" so emphatically designated by
this and other humane and enlightened commentators on
America.

Another of De Tocqueville's most congenial friends was
J. J. Ampere, so long the amiable and accomplished profes
sor of belles lettres in the College of France, and the biogra
pher of the author of " Democracy in America " judiciously
refers to Ampere's " Promenade en Amerique " * as an excel
lent illustration of his friend's philosophical work, giving
the facts and impressions wThich confirm and explain it. Not
only did community of opinion and mutual affection suggest
this relation between the two authors, diverse in plan and
power as are their respective books on this country ; but it

* " Promenade en Amerique.," par J. J. Ampere, de 1'Academie Fran9aise,
Paris, 1855.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 143

was when reading De Tocqueville's " Democracy," during a
trip up the Rhine, that Ampere conceived the desire and
purpose to visit the United States. Looking up from the
thoughtful page to some ruined tower or memorable scene,
he had the relics of feudalism before his eyes, while his mind
was occupied with the modern development of humanity in
the most free and fraternal civic institutions. He had trav
elled in Greece, Italy, and the East, and brought a scholar's
wisdom and a poet's sympathy to the illustration of that
experience ; and now, under the inspiration of his friend's
treatise on the condition and prospects of the Western repub
lic, he felt a strong interest in the experiment whereby he
conld compare the New with the Old World, and observe the
most intense life of the present as he had explored the calm
monuments of the past. Ampere's record of his American
tour is singularly unpretending. It resembles, in tone and
method, the best conversation. The style is pure and ani
mated, and the thoughts naturally suggested. He describes
what he sees with candor and geniality, criticizes without
the slightest acrimony, and commends with graceful zeal.
And yet, simple and unambitious as the narrative is, it affords
a most agreeable, authentic, and suggestive illustration of De
Tocqueville's theories. " Toujours," he exclaims, " la negli
gence Americaine ! " in noting a shower of ignited cinders
falling upon cotton bales on the deck of a crowded steam
boat ; and, in describing the substitute for bells in the hotel
at New Orleans, he remarks : " Les sonnettes sont remplacees
par un appareil elecfro-magnetique. En ce pays, non-seule-
ment la science est applique a 1'industrie, mais on 1'emploie
aux offices les plus vulgaires. Au lieu de tirer le cordon
d'une sonnette on fait jouer une pile de Volta."

The arrival of Kossuth gave Ampere an excellent oppor
tunity to note the phases of popular feeling in America. He
has that catholic taste and temper so essential to a good trav
eller. He takes an interest in whatever relates to humanity,
and his extensive reading and cosmopolitan experience place
him en rapport with people and things, historical associations,

144 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES .

and speculative opinions, with the greatest facility. While
devoting attention to those subjects which have always occu
pied intelligent travellers .in America, he sought and enjoyed,
to an uncommon extent, the companionship of men of letters
and of science, and, when practicable, secured them as cice
roni. On this account his work gives more exact and full
information in regard to the intellectual condition and scien
tific enterprises of the country than any similar record of the
same date. His intellectual appetite is eager, his social affini
ties strong, and his love of nature instinctive : hence the vari
ety and vividness of his observations. He describes a sunset
and a political fete, analyzes a sermon as well as a theory,
can feel the meditative charm of Gray's Elegy while roam
ing, on an autumn afternoon, through Mount Auburn, and
patiently investigate the results of the penitentiary system in
a model prison. Observatories, ornithological museums, the
maps of the Coast Survey, the trophies of the Patent Office,
private libraries and characters, the antiquities of the West
and the social privileges of the East, schools, sects, botanical
specimens, machines, the physiognomy of cities and the
aspects of primeval nature, embryo settlements and the
process of an election, an opera or a waterfall — are each and
all described and discussed with intelligence and sympathy.
He recalled Irving's humorous description of New York at
the sight of a Dutch mansion ; examined the process of the
sugar manufacture in Louisiana, discussed glaciers and geol
ogy with Agassiz, jurisprudence with Kent, Mississippi
mounds with Davis, and the Alhambra with Irving. He
contrasts the German and New England character in Ohio,
traces the history of parties and the character of statesmen
at Washington, and utters his calm but earnest protest
against slavery while describing the hospitality of Carolina.
He portrays with care and feeling the representative charac
ters of the land, and is picturesque in his scenic descriptions,
drawing felicitous comparisons from his experience in Italy
and the East. He calls Agassiz a veritable enfant des Alpes,
and Sparks the American Plutarch ; recognizes the military

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 145

instiiict of the nation, since so remarkably manifest, and
aptly refers to Volney, Chateaubriand, and other French
travellers. Sometimes his distinctions are fanciful : as when
he attributes the different aspects under which he saw Long
fellow and Bryant — the one in his pleasant country house,
and the other at his editorial desk — to political instead of
professional causes ; but, usually, his insight is as sagacious
as his observation is candid. He writes always like a scholar
and a gentleman, and, as such, is justly revolted by the indif
ference exhibited toward travellers in this country, on the
part of those in charge of public conveyances. He truly
declares the absence of indications and information in this
regard a disgrace to our civilization, and gives some strik
ing examples of personal inconvenience, discomfort, and
hazard thus incurred. Indeed, when we remember that
Ampere, during his sojourn among us, was more or less of an
invalid, his good nature and charitable spirit are magnani
mous, when left to wander in wet and darkness from one car
to another, obliged to pass sleepless nights on board of
steamers recklessly propelled and overloaded, robbed of his
purse at a Presidential levee, and subjected to so many other
vexations. He was much interested in discovering what he
calls a veine europeenne pervading the educated classes, and
was agreeably surprised to find so often an identity of cul
ture between his old friends in Europe and new ones in
America, which made him feel at home and at ease. He pro
tests against the bombastic appellatives to which the Ameri
cans are prone. He was gratified to find his illustrious
father's scientific labors recognized by a professor at the
Smithsonian Institute, and his own archa3ological research by
a lecturer at New Orleans. The sound of the bell saluting
Mount Yernon, as he glided down the Potomac, touched him
as did the " tintement de 1'Angelus dans la campagne Ro-
maine." He felt, like most of his countrymen, the " tristesse
du dimanche " in America, but, unlike them, found congenial
employment in a critical examination of the hymns, the homi
lies, and the character of the various denominations of Prot-
7

146 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

estant Christians. Amused at the universality of the term
" lady " applied to the female sex in America, he yet soon
learned to recognize, in this deference, a secret of the social
order where no rank organizes and restrains. Quakers and
Mormons, cotton and architecture, aqueducts and Indians,
Niagara and the prairies, a slave auction and a congressional
debate, are with equal justice and sensibility considered in
this pleasant " Promenade en Amerique," which extends from
Canada to Cuba and Mexico, and abounds in evidences of the
humane sympathies, the literary accomplishment, and the
social philosophy of the author.

One of the most deservedly popular French economical
works on the United States is that of Michael Chevalier. It
contains valuable and comparatively recent statistical infor
mation, and is written with care, and, in general, with liberal
ity and discrimination. The " Voyage dans 1'Interieure des
Etats Unis," by M. Bayard (Paris, 1779) ; Godfrey de
Vigny's "Six Months in America" (London, 1833); the
" Essais Historiques et Politiques sur les Anglo-Americaines,"
by M. Hilliard d'Ubertail (Brussels, 1781), and the " Re-
cherches " on the same subject, by " un citoyen de Yirginie "
(Mazzei), as well as the account of the United States fur
nished " L'Univers, ou Histoire et Descriptions des Tous les
Peuples " — a work of valuable reference, by M. Roux, who
was formerly French Minister in this country, of which he
gives a copious though condensed account — are among the
many works more or less superseded as authorities, yet all
containing some salient points of observation or suggestive
reasoning. " La Spectateur Americaine," of Mandrillon,
Cartier's " Nouvelle France," Bonnet's " Etats Unis a la fin
clu 18me Centurie," Beaujour's " Apercu des £tats Unis,"
Gentry's " Influence of the Discovery of America," and
Grasset's " Encyclopedic des Voyages," afford many sugges
tive and some original facts and speculations. Lavasseur's
" Lafayette in America," * and Count O'Mahony's " Lettres

* "Lafayette in America in 1824-'25 ; or, A Journal of a Voyage to the
United States," by A. Lavasseur, Secretary to General Lafayette, 2 vols.,
12mo., Philadelphia, 1829

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

sur les Etats Unis," contain some curious details and useful
material. To these may be added, as more or less worthy of
attention, of the earlier records, the " Memoires de Baron
La Honton," * and later, the " Observations upon Florida," by
Vignoles,f and the volumes of Claviere, Soutel, Engle, Fran-
ehere, Palessier, Bossu, Hariot, Chabert, Bouchet, Hurt-
Binet, &c.

Besides the more formal records of tours in America,
and episodes of military memoirs devoted thereto, the inci
dental personal references in the correspondence of the gal
lant officers and noblemen of France who mingled in our best
local society, at the Revolutionary era, afford vivid glimpses
of manners and character, such as an ingenious modern
novelist would find admirable and authentic materiel. It was
a period when republican simplicity coalesced with the refine
ments of education and the prestige of oM-school manners,
and therefore afforded the most salient traits. Some of the
most ardent tributes to American women of that date were
written from Newport, in Rhode Island, by their Gallic
admirers ; and in these spontaneous descriptions, when
stripped of rhetorical exaggeration, we discern a state of
society and a phase of character endeared to all lovers of
humanity, and trace both, in no small degree, to the institu
tions and local influences of the country. The Due de Lau-
zun, when sent into Berkshire County, because his knowledge
of English made his services as an envoy more available than
those of his brother officers, seems to regard the errand as
little better than exile, and says, " Lebanon can only be com
pared to Siberia." Attached to the society of Newport, and
domesticated with the Hunter family, he is never weary of
expatiating upon the sweetness, purity, and grace of the
women of " that charming spot regretted by all the army."

* La Honton's (Baron) " Memoires de 1'Amerique Septeutrionale, ou la Suite
des Voyages, avec un petit Dictionnaire de la Langue du Pais," 2 tomes, 12mo.,
map and plates, Amsterdam, 1705.

f Vignoles' (Charles) " Observations upon the Floridas," 8vo., New York,
1823.

148 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

And when De Vauban there introduced the Prince de Bro-
glie to a pretty Quakeress, the former writes that he " sud
denly beheld the goddess of grace and beauty — Minerva in
person." It is a striking illustration of the social instinct
of the French, that manners, character, and personal ap
pearance occupy so large a space in their commentaries on
America.

" Other parts of America," says another officer, " were
only beautiful by anticipation ; but the prosperity of Rhode
Island was already complete. Newport, well and regularly
built, contained a numerous population. It offered delightful
circles, composed of enlightened men and modest and hand
some women, whose talents heightened their personal attrac
tions." This was in 1782, ere the commercial importance
of the port had been superseded, and when the belles of the
town were the toast and the triumph of every circle. La
Rochefoucault and other French tourists, at a later period,
found the prosperity of the town on the wane, and the social
distinction modified ; yet none the less attractive and valuable
are the fresh and fanciful but sincere testimonies to genuine
and superior human graces and gifts, of the French memoirs.

But such casual illustrations of the candid and kindly
observation of our gallant allies, fade before the consistent
and intelligent tributes of Lafayette, whose relation to
America is one of the most beautiful historical episodes of
modern times. After his youthful championship in the field,
and his mature counsels, intercessions, and triumphant advo
cacy of our cause in France (for, " during the period," says
Mr. Everett, " which intervened, from the peace of '83 to
the organization of the Federal Government, Lafayette per
formed, in substance, the functions of our Minister"), when
forty years had elapsed, he revisited the land for which he
had fought in youth, to witness the physical and social, the
moral and intellectual fruits of " liberty protected by law."
And during this whole period, and to the time of his death,
he was in correspondence, first with Washington and the
leading men of the Revolution, and later with various per-

FRENCH TKAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 149

sonal friends. In his letters from and to America, there is
constant indirect testimony to and illustration of the charac
ter of the people, the tendencies of opinion, the means and
methods of life and government, founded on observation,
intercourse, and sympathy, and endeared and made emphatic
by his devotion to our spotless chief, his sacrifices for our
cause, and his unswerving devotion to our political prin
ciples ; in a word, by his vigilant and faithful love of
America.

In 1824, De Pradt, formerly archbishop of Malines, and
deputy to the Constituent Assembly from Normandy, a volu
minous political writer, published " L'Europe et 1'Amerique,"
in two volumes, the third of his works on this subject, " in
which he gives an historical view of the principles of gov
ernment in the Old and New Worlds." Judicious critics pro
nounce his style verbose and incorrect, and his views partial
and shallow. His motto is, " Le genre humain est en marche
et rien ne le fera retrograder."

Several of the French Protestant clergy have visited the
United States, within the last few years, and some of them
have put on record their impressions, chiefly with regard to
the actual state of religion. In many instances, however, the
important facts on this subject have been drawn from the
copious and authentic American work of Dr. Baird.* Among
books of this class, are " L'Amerique Protestante," par M.
Rey, and the sketches of M. Grandpierre and M. Fisch.
The latter's observations on Religion in America, originally
appeared in the " Revue Chretien," but were subsequently
embodied in a small volume, which includes observations on
other themes.f

The latter work, though limited in scope, and the fruit of
a brief visit, has an interest derived from the circumstance
that the worthy pasteur arrived just before the fall of Suni-
ter, and was an eyewitness and a conscientious though terse
reporter of the aspects of that memorable period. He recog-

* " Religion in America," by Robert Baird, D. D.

| " Les £tats Unis en 1861," par Georges Fisch, Paris, 1862.

150 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

nizes in the Americans " un peuple qui n'avait d'autre force
publique que celle des idees ; " and deprecates the hasty judg
ment and perverse ignorance so prevalent in Europe in regard
to " une grande lutte ou se debattatit les int6rets les plus
eleves de la morale et de la religion ; " and justly affirms that
it is, in fact, " le choc de deux civilizations et de deux re
ligions." M. Fisch, however, disclaims all intention of a
complete analysis of national character. His book is mainly
devoted to an account of the religious organization, condi
tion, and prospects of America, especially as seen from his
own point of view. Many of the details on this subject are
not only correct, but suggestive. He writes in a liberal and
conscientious spirit. His sympathies are Christian, and he
descants on education and faith in the United States with
intelligent and candid zeal. Indeed, he was long at a loss to
understand what provision existed in society to check and
calm the irresponsible and exuberant energy, the heterogene
ous elements, and the self-reliance around him, until con
vinced that the latent force of these great conservative prin
ciples of human society were the guarantee of order and
pledge of self-control. There is no people, he observes, who
have been judged in so superficial a manner. America he
regards as having all the petulance of youth, all the naivete
of inexperience : all there is incomplete — in the process of
achievement. This was his earliest impression on landing at
]STew York, the scene whereof was " un bizarre melange de
sauvagerie et de civilization." But, after his patience had
been nearly exhausted, he entered the city, emerging with
agreeable surprise from muddy and noisome streets into
Broadway, to find palaces of six or seven stories devoted to
commerce, and to admire " les figures fines et gracieuses, la
demarche Ieg6re et libre des femmes, les allures vives de toute
la population." The frank hospitality with which he was
received, and the interesting study of his specialite as a trav
eller, soon enlarged and deepened his impressions. He has a
chapter on "La lutte presidentielle " which resulted in Lin
coln's election, the phenomena whereof he briefly describes.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 151

Then we have a sketch entitled " Statistique religieuse des
fitats Unis ;" followed by judicious comments on the " Unite
de 1'^glise Americaine, son esprit et son influence." He
considers Henry Ward Beecher an iinprovisatore — " mais c'est
1'improvisation du genie ; " and says, " L'on va entendre M.
Beecher comme on irait a theatre." He describes succinctly
the system of public instruction ; alludes to the progress of
art and letters ; expatiates on Venergie and Vaudace of the
Americans ; is anecdotical and descriptive ; praises the land
scapes of Church and the sculpture of Crawford, Powers,
and Palmer ; gives a chapter to the " Caractere national,"
and another to " L'esclavage aux l^tats Unis ;" closing with
hopeful auguries for the future of the country under " le
re veil de la conscience," wherein he sees the cause and scope
of " la crise actuelle ; " declaring that " la vie puissante de
1'Amerique reprendra son paisible cours. Elle pourra se
reprendre avec une puissance incomparable sur une terre
renouvelee, et le monde apprendra une fois de plus que TEvan-
gile est la salut des nations, comme il est celui des individus."
Brochures innumerable, devoted to special phases of
American life, facts of individual experience, and themes of
social speculation, swell the catalogue raisonnee of French
writings in this department, and, if not of great value, often
furnish salient anecdotes or remarks ; as, for instance, M.
August Carlier's amusing little treatise on "La Mariage aux
Hitats Unis," the statement of one voyageur who happened to
behold for the first time a dish of currie, that the Americans
eat their rice with mustard, and the disgust natural to one
accustomed to the rigorous municipal regime of Paris, ex
pressed by Maurice Sand, at the exposure, for three days,
of a dead horse in the streets of New York. Xavier Eyma's
" Yie dans le Nouveau Monde" (Paris, 1861) is one of the
most recent elaborate works, of which a judicious critical
authority observes :

" He has given two goodly octavos to a solid criticism and descrip
tion of American ' men and institutions ; ' two more octavos to a his
tory of the States and Territories ; one volume to the ' Black-Skins,'

152 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

in which he sketches with admirable fidelity the peculiarities and the
iniquities of slave life in the South ; and one volume to the ' Red-
Skins,' in which he shows the Indian tribes as they are. Besides
these, he has told of the islands of the West Indies, of their corsairs
and buccaneers, and of the social life of the various classes in Amer
ica, native and immigrant, and has devoted one amusing volume to
' American Eccentricities.' In such a mass of material there must of
course be repetition ; nor are any of the views especially profound.
M. Eymar is in no sense a philosopher. He loves story-telling better
than disquisition, and arranges his material^ rather for romantic effect
than for scientific accuracy."

Finally, we have the prolific emanations of the Paris
press on the war for the Union ; pamphlets evoked by venal
ity, abounding in sophistical arguments, gross misstatements,
and prejudice ; editorials written in the interest of partisans,
and a mass of crude and unauthentic writing destined to
speedy oblivion. A valuable contribution to the national cause
was made, of late, by our able and loyally assiduous consul
at Paris,* in a volume of facts, economical, political, and sci
entific, drawn from the latest and best authorities, published
in the French language, and affording candid inquirers in
Europe precisely the kind of information about America they
need, to counteract the falsehood and malignity of the advo
cates of the slaveholders' rebellion. Army critics and corre
spondents from France, some of them illustrious and others
of ephemeral claims, have visited our shores, and reported
the momentous crisis through which the nation is now pass
ing. The Prince de Joinville has given his experience and
observation of the battles of the Chickahominy ; and several
pleasant but superficial writers have described some of the
curious phases of life which here caught their attention, dur
ing a hasty visit at this transition epoch. Apart from viru
lent and mercenary writers, it is remarkable that the tone of
French comment and criticism on the present rebellion in
America has been far more intelligent, candid, and sympa
thetic than across the Channel. Eminent publicists and pro
fessors of France have recognized and vindicated the truth,

* John Bigelow, Esq.

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 153

and sent words of faith and cheer across the sea. In his lec
tures, and extravagant but piquant and suggestive "Paris
dans 1'Amerique," Laboulaye has signally promoted that bet
ter understanding and more just appreciation of the struggle,
and the motives and end thereof, which now begin to pre
vail abroad. De Gasparin's " Uprising of a Great People "
fell on American hearts, at the darkest hour of the strife,
like the clarion note of a reinforcement of the heroes of
humanity. Cochin, Henri Martin, and others less eminent
but equally honest and humane, have echoed the earnest pro
test and appeal ; which contrasts singularly with the indiffer
ence, disingenuousness, and perversity of so many distin
guished writers and journals in England. Herein we per
ceive the same diversity of feeling which marks the earliest
commentators of the respective nations on America, and the
subsequent feelings manifested toward our prosperous repub
lic. Mrs. Kemble, in a recent article on the " Stage," ob
serves that the theatrical instinct of the Americans creates
with them an affinity for the French, in which the English,
hating exhibitions of emotion and self-display, do not share.
With all due deference to her opinion, it seems to us her rea
soning is quite too limited. The affinity of which she speaks,
partial as it is, is based on the more sympathetic temperament
of these two races compared with the English. The social
character, the more versatile experience of American life,
assimilate it in a degree, and externally, with that of France,
and the climate of America develops nervous sensibility ;
while the exigencies of life foster an adaptive facility, which
brings the Anglo-American into more intelligent relations
with the Gallic nature than is possible for a people so egotis
tic and stolid as the English to realize. But this partial sym
pathy does not altogether account for the French understand
ing America better : that is owing to a more liberal, a less
prejudiced, a more chivalric spirit ; to quicker sympathies, to
more scientific proclivities, to greater candor and humanity
among her thinkers. They are far enough removed in life
and character to catch the true moral perspective ; and they

154 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS.

have few, if any, wounds of self-love to impede their sense
of justice in regard to a country wherewith their own history
is often congenially and honorably associated.

Yet anomalous and sad will it seem, in the retrospect,
that to a nation alien in blood and language, we are indebted
for the earliest and most kindly greeting in our hour of stern
and sacrificial duty and of national sorrow, instead of receiv
ing it (with rare exceptions) from a people from whom we
inherit laws, language, and literature, and to whom we are
united by so many ties of lineage, culture, and material
interests.

Humane, just, and authoritative, indeed, is the language
of those eminent Frenchmen, Agenor de Gasparin, Augustin
Cochin, Edouard Laboulaye, and Henri Martin, addressed to
a committee of loyal Americans, in response to their grateful
recognition of such distinguished advocacy of our national
cause ; and we cannot better close this notice of French
writers on America, than with their noble words :

" Courage! You have before you one of the most noble works,
the most sublime which can be accomplished here below — a work in
the success of which we are as interested as yourselves — a work the
success of which will be the honor and the consolation of our time.

"This generation will have seen nothing more grand than the
abolition of slavery (in destroying it with you, you destroy it every
where), and the energetic uprising of a people which in the midst of
its growing prosperity was visibly sinking under the weight of the
tyranny of the South, the complicity of the North, odious laws and
compromises.

" Now, at the cost of immense sacrifices, you have stood up against
the evil; you have chosen rather to pour out your blood and your
dollars than to descend further the slope of degradation, where rich,
united, powerful, you were sure to lose that which is far nobler than
wealth, or union, or power.

" Well, Europe begins to understand, willingly or unwillingly,
what you have done. In France, in England, everywhere your cause
gains ground, and be it said for the honor of the nineteenth century,
the obstacle which our ill will and our evil passions could not over
come, the obstacle which the intrigues of the South could not sur
mount, is an idea, a principle. Hatred of slavery has been your cham
pion in the Old World. A poor champion seemingly. Laughed at,

FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 155

scorned, it seems weak and lonely. But what matters it ; ere the
account be closed, principles will stand for something, and conscience,
in all human affairs, will have the last word.

" This, gentlemen, is what we would say to you in the name of all
who with us, and better than ourselves, defend your cause in Europe.
Your words have cheered us ; may ours in turn cheer you ! You
have yet to cross many a dark valley. More than once the impossi
bility of success will be demonstrated to 'you ; more than once, in the
face of some military check or political difficulty, the cry will be raised
that all is lost. What matters it to you ? Strengthen your cause
daily by daily making it more just, and fear not ; there is a God
above.

" We love to contemplate in hope the noble future which seems
to stretch itself before you. The day you emerge at last from the
anguish of civil war — and you will surely come out freed from the
odious institution which corrupted your public manners and degraded
your domestic as well as your foreign policy — that day your whole
country, South as well as North, and the South perhaps more fully
than the North, will enter upon a wholly new prosperity. European
emigration will hasten toward your ports, and will learn the road to
those whom until now it has feared to approach. Cultivation, now
abandoned, will renew its yield. Liberty — for these are her miracles
— will revivify by her touch the soil which slavery had rendered
barren.

" Then there will be born unto you a greatness nobler and more
stable than the old, for in this greatness there will be no sacrifice of
justice."

CHAPTER Y.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

BERKELEY ; MCSPARRAN ; MRS. GRANT ; BTTRNABY ; ROGERS ; BURKE ;
DOUGLASS; B^NRY; EDDIS; ANBURY; SMYTHS.

" THERE * are more imposing monuments in the venerable
precincts of Oxford, recalling the genius which hallows our
ancestral literature, but at the tomb of Berkeley we linger
with affectionate reverence, as we associate the gifts of his
mind and the graces of his spirit with his disinterested and
memorable visit to our country.

In 1725, Berkeley published his proposals in explanation
of this long-cherished purpose ; at the same time he offered
to resign his livings, and to consecrate the remainder of his
days to this Christian undertaking. So magnetic were his
appeal and example, that three of his brother fellows at
Oxford decided to unite with him in the expedition. Many
eminent and wealthy persons were induced to contribute
their influence and money to the cause. But he did not trust
wholly to such means. Having ascertained the worth of a
portion of the St. Christopher's lands, ceded by France to
Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and about to be dis
posed of for public advantage, he undertook to realize from
them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug-

* From the author's " Essays, Biographical and Critical."

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 157

gested that a certain amount of these funds should be de
voted to his college. Availing himself of the friendly inter
vention of a Venetian gentleman whom he had known in
Italy, he submitted the plan to George I., who directed Sir
Robert Walpole to carry it through Parliament. He ob
tained a charter for ' erecting a college, by name St. Paul's,
in Bermuda, with a president and nine fellows, to maintain
and educate Indian scholars, at the rate of ten pounds a year,
George Berkeley to be the first president, and his companions
from Trinity College the fellows.' His commission was voted
May 1 1th, 1 Y26. To the promised amount of twenty thousand
pounds, to be derived from the land sale, many sums were
added from individual donation. The letters of Berkeley to
his friends, at this period, are filled with the discussion of his
scheme ; it absorbed his time, taxed his ingenuity, filled his
heart, and drew forth the warm sympathy and earnest
cooperation of his many admirers, though regret at the pros
pect of losing his society constantly finds expression. Swift,
in a note to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, says : ' I do hum
bly entreat your excellency either to use such persuasions as
will keep one of the first men of the kingdom for learning
and genius at home, or assist him by your credit to compass
his romantic design.' * I have obtained reports,' says one of
his own letters, ' from the Bishop of London, the board of
trade and plantations, and the attorney and solicitor-general ; '
' yesterday the charter passed the privy seal ; ' ' the lord chan
cellor is not a busier man than myself;' and elsewhere, 'I
have had more opposition from the governors and traders to
America than from any one else ; but, God be praised, there
is an end of all their narrow and mercantile views and en
deavors, as well as of the jealousies and suspicions of others,
some of whom were very great men, who apprehended this
college may produce an independency in America, or at least
lessen her dependency on England.'

Freneau's ballad of the ' Indian Boy,' who ran back to
the woods from the halls of learning, was written subse
quently, or it might have discouraged Berkeley in his idea of

158 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the capacity of the American savages for education ; but
more positive obstacles thwarted his generous aims. The
king died before affixing his seal to the charter, which de
layed the whole proceedings. Walpole, efficient as he was as
a financier and a servant of the house of Brunswick, was a
thorough utilitarian, and too practical and worldly wise to
share in the disinterested enthusiasm of Berkeley. In his
answer to Bishop Gibson, whose diocese included the "West
Indies, when he applied for the funds so long withheld, he
says : ' If you put the question to me as a minister, I must
assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as
soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a
friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America,
expecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise
him by all means to return to Europe.' To the project, thus
rendered unattainable, Berkeley had devoted seven years of
his life, and the greater part of his fortune. The amount
realized by the sale of confiscated lands was about ninety
thousand pounds, of which eighty thousand were devoted to
the marriage portion of the princess royal, about to espouse
the Prince of Orange ; and the remainder, through the influ
ence of Oglethorpe, was secured to pay for the transporta
tion of emigrants to his Georgia colony. Berkeley's scheme
was more deliberate and well-considered than is commonly
believed. Horace Walpole calls it c uncertain and amusing ; '
but a writer of deeper sympathies declares it c too grand and
pure for the powers that were.' His nature craved the united
opportunities of usefulness and of self-culture. He felt the
obligation to devote himself to benevolent enterprise, and at
the same time earnestly desired both the leisure and the re
tirement needful for the pursuit of abstract studies. The
prospect he contemplated promised to realize all these
objects. He possessed a heart to feel the infinite wants,
intellectual and religious, of the new continent, and had the
imagination to conceive the grand destinies awaiting its
growth. Those who fancy that his views were limited to
the plan of a doubtful missionary experiment, do great injus-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 159

tice to the broad and elevated hopes he cherished. He knew
that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and un
civilized, and the varied moral exigencies of a new country,
would insure ample scope for the exercise of all his erudition
and his talents. He felt that his mind would be a kingdom
wherever his lot was cast ; and he was inspired by a noble
interest in the progress of America, and a faith in the new
field there open for the advancement of truth, as is evident
from the celebrated verses in which these feelings found ex
pression :

' The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime

Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

' In happy climes, when from the genial sun

And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true ;

t
' In happy climes, the seat of innocence,

"Where nature guides and virtue rules ;
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of schools ;

' Then shall we see again the golden age,

The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts ;'

' Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ;

Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

' Westward the course of empire takes its way ;

The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall end the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.'

In August, 1728, Berkeley married a daughter of the
Honorable John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Com-

160 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS.

mons, and, soon after, embarked for America. His compan
ions were, his wife and her friend, Miss Hancock ; two gen
tlemen of fortune, James and Dalton ; and Smibert the
painter. In a picture by the latter, now in the Trumbull
gallery at New Haven, are preserved the portraits of this
group, with that of the dean's infant son, Henry, in his
mother's arms. It was painted for a gentleman of Boston,
of whom it was purchased, in 1808, by Isaac Lothrop, Esq.,
and presented to Yale College. This visit of Smibert asso
ciates Berkeley's name with the dawn of art in America.
They had travelled together in Italy, and the dean induced
him to join the expedition partly from friendship, and also to
enlist his services as instructor in drawing and architecture,
in the proposed college. Smibert was born in Edinburgh,
about the year 1684, and served an apprenticeship there to
a house painter. He went to London, and, from painting
coaches, rose to copying old pictures for the dealers. He
then gave three years to the study of his art in Italy.

' Smibert,' says Horace Walpole, i was a silent and mod
est man, who abhorred the finesse of some of his profession,
and was enchanted with a plan that he thought promised
tranquillity and an honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian
climate, and, in spite of remonstrances, engaged with the
dean, whose zeal had ranged the favor of the court on his
side. The king's death dispelled the vision. One may con
ceive how a man so devoted to his art must have been ani
mated, when the dean's enthusiasm and eloquence painted to
his imagination a new theatre of prospects, rich, warm, and
glowing with scenery which no pencil had yet made com
mon.' *

Smibert was the first educated artist who visited our
shores, and the picture referred to, the first of more than a
single figure executed in the country. To his pencil New
England is indebted for portraits of many of her early states
men and clergy. Among others, he painted for a Scotch

* " Anecdotes of Painting," vol. iii.

BKITISII TRAVELLERS AND WKITEES. 161

gentleman the only authentic likeness of Jonathan Edwards.
He married a lady of fortune in Boston, and left her a widow
with two children, in 1751. A high eulogium on his abilities
and character appeared in the London Courant. From two
letters addressed to him by Berkeley, when residing at
Cloyne, published in the Gentleman's Magazine, it would
appear that his friendship for the artist continued after their
separation, as the bishop urges the painter to recross the sea
and establish himself in his neighborhood.

A considerable sum of money, and a large and choice
collection of books, designed as a foundation for the library
of St. Paul's College, were the most important items of the
dean's outfit. In these days of rapid transit across the
Atlantic, it is not easy to realize the discomforts and perils
of such a voyage. Brave and philanthropic, indeed, must
have been the heart of an English church dignitary, to whom
the road of preferment was open, who was a favorite com
panion of the genial Steele, the classic Addison, and the bril
liant Pope, who basked in the smile of royalty, was beloved
of the Church, revered by the poor, the idol of society, and
the peer of scholars ; yet could shake off the allurements of
such a position, to endure a tedious voyage, a long exile, and
the deprivations attendant on a crude state of society and a
new civilization, in order to achieve an object which, how
ever excellent and generous in itself, was of doubtful issue,
and beset with obstacles. Confiding in the pledges of those
in authority, that the parliamentary grant would be paid
when the lands had been selected, and full of the most san
guine anticipations, the noble pioneer of religion and letters
approached the shores of the New World.

It seems doubtful to some of his biographers whether
Berkeley designed to make a preliminary visit to Rhode
Island, in order to purchase lands there, the income of which
would sustain his Bermuda institution. The vicinity of that
part of the New England coast to the West Indies may have
induced such a course ; but it is declared by more than one,
that his arrival at Newport was quite accidental. This con-

162 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

jecture, however, is erroneous, as in one of his letters, dated
September 5th, 1728, he says : ' To-morrow, with God's bless
ing, I set sail for Rhode Island.' The captain of the ship
which conveyed him from England, it is said, was unable to
discover the Island of Bermuda, and at length abandoned the
attempt, and steered in a northerly direction. They made
land which they could not identify, and supposed it inhabited
only by Indians. It proved, however, to be Block Island,
and two fishermen came off and informed them of the vicin
ity of Newport harbor. Under the pilotage of these men,
the vessel, in consequence of an unfavorable wind, entered
what is called the West Passage, and anchored. The fisher
men were sent ashore with a letter from the dean to Rev.
James Honyman. They landed at Canonicut Island, and
sought the dwellings of two parishioners of that gentleman,
who immediately conveyed the letter to their pastor. For
nearly half a century this faithful clergyman had labored in
that region. He first established himself at Newport, in
1704. Besides the care of his own church, he made frequent
visits to the neighboring towns on the mainland. In a letter
to the secretary of the Episcopal mission in America, in 1709,
he says : ' You can neither believe, nor I express, what excel
lent services for the cause of religion a bishop would do in
these parts ; these infant settlements would become beautiful
nurseries, which now seem to languish for want of a father
to oversee and bless them ; ' and in a memorial to Governor
Nicholson on the religious condition of Rhode Island, in
1714, he observes : ' The people are divided among Quakers,
Anabaptists, Independents, Gortonians, and infidels, with a
remnant of true Churchmen.' * It is characteristic of the
times and region, that with a broad circuit and isolated
churches as the sphere of his labors, the vicinity of Indians,
and the variety of sects, he was employed for two months, in
1723, in daily attending a large number of pirates who had

* Hawkins's " Historical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England
in the North American Colonies," p. 173.

163

been captured, and were subsequently executed — one of the
murderous bands which then infested the coast, whose extra
ordinary career has been illustrated by Cooper, in one of his
popular nautical romances.

When Berkeley's missive reached this worthy pastor,
he was in his pulpit, it being a holiday. He immediately
read the letter to his congregation, and dismissed them.
Nearly all accompanied him to the ferry wharf, which they
reached but a few moments before the arrival of the dean
and his fellow voyagers. A letter from Newport, dated
January 24th, 1729, that appeared in the New England
Journal, published at Boston, thus notices the event : ' Yes
terday arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry, in a
pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, and
of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered
into the town by a great number of gentlemen, to whom he
behaved himself after a very complaisant manner. "Pis said
he purposes to tarry here about three months.'

We can easily imagine the delightful surprise which
Berkeley acknowledges at first view of that lovely bay and
the adjacent country. The water tinted, in the clear autumn
air, like the Mediterranean ; the fields adorned with symmet
rical haystacks and golden maize, and bounded by a lucid
horizon, against which rose picturesque windmills and the
clustered dwellings of the town, and the noble trees which
then covered the island ; the bracing yet tempered atmos
phere, all greeted the senses of those weary voyagers, and
kindled the grateful admiration of their romantic leader.
He soon resolved upon a longer sojourn, and purchased a
farm of a hundred acres at the foot of the hill whereon
stood the dwelling of Honyman, and which still bears his
name.*

There he erected a modest homestead, with philosophic
taste choosing the valley, in order to enjoy the fine view from

* The conveyance from Joseph Whipple and wife to Berkeley, of the land
in Newport, is dated February 18th, 1729.

164: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the summit occasionally, rather than lose its charm by
familiarity. At a sufficient distance from the town to insure
immunity from idle visitors ; within a few minutes' walk of
the sea, and girdled by a fertile vale, the student, dreamer,
and missionary pitched his humble tent where nature offered
her boundless refreshment, and seclusion her contemplative
peace. His first vivid impressions of the situation, and of
the difficulties and consolations of his position, are described
in the few letters, dated at Newport, which his biographer
cites. At this distance of time, and in view of the subse
quent changes of that region, it is both curious and interest
ing to revert to these incidental data of Berkeley's visit.

' NEWPORT, IN RHODE ISLAND, April 24, 1729.

' I can by this time say something to you, from my own expe
rience, of tins place and its people. The inhabitants are of a mixed
kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. Here are
four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, Indepen
dents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many
differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere,
the people living peacefully with their neighbors of whatever per
suasion. They all agree in one point — that the Church of England
is the second best. The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all
colder in the winter than I have known everywhere north of Eome.
The spring is late, but, to make amends, they assure me the au
tumns are the finest and the longest in the world ; and the sum
mers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, foras
much as the grass continues green, which it does not there. This
island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising ground, hath
plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful
rocks, and promontories, and adjacent lands. The provisions are
very good ; so are the fruits, which are quite neglected, though vines
sprout of themselves of an extraordinary size, and seem as natural
to this soil as any I ever saw. The town of Newport contains about
six thousand souls, and is the most thriving place in all America for
its bigness. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first
sight of the town and its harbor.'

' June 12, 1729. — I find it hath been reported in Ireland that
we intend settling here. I must desire you to discountenance any
such report. The truth is, if the king's bounty were paid in, and the
charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than Ber-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 165

muda. But if this were questioned before the payment of said
money, it might perhaps hinder it and defeat all our designs. I
snatch this moment to write, and have time only to add that I have
got a son, who, I thank G-od, is likely to live.'

' May 7. — This week I received a package from you ma Phila
delphia, the postage of which amounted to above four pounds ster
ling of this country money. I am worried to death by creditors, and
am at an end of patience, and almost out of iny wits. Our little son
is a great joy to us : we are such fools as to think him the most per
fect thing of the kind we ever^saw.'

To the poet, scenery of picturesque beauty and grand
eur is desirable, but to the philosopher general effects are
more congenial. High mountains, forests, and waterfalls
appeal more emphatically to the former, and luxuries of cli
mate and atmosphere .to the latter. Accordingly, the soft
marine air and the beautiful skies of summer and autumn, in
the region of Berkeley's American home, with the vicinity
of the seacoast, became to him a perpetual delight. He
alludes, with grateful sensibility, to the ' pleasant fields,' and
' walks on the beach,' to ' the expanse of ocean studded with
fishing boats and lighters,' and the ' plane trees,' that daily
cheered his sight, as awakening c that sort of joyful instinct
which a rural scene and fine weather inspire.' He calls New
port ' the Montpelier of America,' and appears to have com
muned with nature and inhaled the salubrious breeze, while
pursuing his meditations, with all the zest of a healthy
organization and a susceptible and observant mind. A few
ravines finely wooded, and with fresh streams purling over
rocky beds, vary the alternate uplands ; from elevated points
a charming distribution of water enlivens the prospect ; and
the shore is indented with high cliffs, or rounded into grace
ful curves. The sunsets are remarkable for a display of gor
geous and radiant clouds ; the wide sweep of pasture is only
broken by low ranges of stone wall, clumps of sycamores,
orchards, haystacks, and mill towers ; and over luxuriant clo
ver beds, tasselled maize, or fallow acres, plays, for two thirds
of the year, a southwestern breeze, chastened and moistened
by the Gulf Stream.

166 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

Intercourse with Boston was then the chief means on
the island of acquiring political and domestic news. A brisk
trade was carried on between the town and the West Indies,
France, England, and the Low Countries, curious memorials
of which are still visible, in some of the old mansions, in the
shape of china and glass ware, of obsolete patterns, and faded
specimens of rich brocade. A sturdy breed of Narraganset
ponies carried fair equestrians from one to another of the
many hospitable dwellings scattered over the fields, on which
browsed sheep and cackled geese, still famous in epicurean
reminiscence ; while tropical fruits were constantly imported,
and an abundance and variety of fish and fowl rewarded the
most careless sportsman. Thus blessed by nature, the acci
dental home of the philosophic dean soon won his affection.
Intelligent members of all denominations united in admira
tion of his society and attendance upon his preaching. With
one neighbor he dined every Sunday, to the child of another
he became godfather, and with a third took counsel for the
establishment of the literary club which founded the Red
wood Library. It was usual then to see the broad brim of
the Quakers in the aisles of Trinity Church ; and, as an in
stance of his emphatic yet tolerant style, it is related that he
once observed, in a sermon, ' Give the devil his due : John
Calvin was a great man.' * We find him, at one time, writing
a letter of encouragement to a Huguenot preacher of Provi
dence, and, at another, visiting Narraganset with Smibert to
examine the aboriginal inhabitants. His own opinion of the
race was given in the discourse on ' The Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts,' delivered in London on his return.
To the ethnologist it may be interesting, in reference to this
subject, to revert to the anecdote of the portrait painter cited
by Dr. Barton. He had been employed by the Grand Duke
of Tuscany to paint two or three Siberian Tartars, presented
to that prince by the Czar of Russia ; and, on first landing in
Narraganset with Berkeley, he instantly recognized the In-

* Updike's " History of the Narraganset Church."

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 167

dians there as the same race as the Siberian Tartars — an opin
ion confirmed by Wolff, the celebrated Eastern traveller.

During his residence at Newport, Berkeley became ac
quainted with the Rev. Jared Elliot, one of the trustees of
Yale College, and with the Rev. Samuel Johnson, an Episco
pal minister of Stratford, Conn., who informed him of the
condition, prospects, and wants of that institution. He after
ward opened a correspondence on the subject with Rector
Williams, and was thus led, after the failure of his own col
lege scheme, to make his generous donations to a seminary
already established. He had previously presented the col
lege with a copy of his writings. In 1732, he sent from
England a deed of his farm in Rhode Island, and, the con
ditions and descriptions not being satisfactory, he sent, the
ensuing year, another deed, by which it was provided that
the rents of his lands should be devoted to the education of
three young men, the best classical scholars ; the candidates
to be examined annually, on the 6th of May ; in case of dis
agreement among the examiners, the competitors to decide
by lot ; and all surplus funds to be used for the purchase of
classical books. Berkeley also gave to the library a thousand
volumes, which cost over four hundred pounds — the most
valuable collection of books then brought together in Amer
ica. They were chiefly his own purchase, but in part con
tributed by his friends. One of the graduates of Yale, edu*
cated under the Berkeley scholarship, was Dr. Buckminster,
of Portsmouth, N. H. Unfortunately, the income of the
property at Newport is rendered much less than it might be
by the terms of a long lease. This liberality of the Bishop
of Cloyne was enhanced by the absence of sectarian preju
dice in his choice for the stewardship of his bounty of a col
legiate institution where different tenets are inculcated from
those he professed. That he was personally desirous of in
creasing his own denomination in America, is sufficiently
evinced by the letter in which he directs the secretary of the
Episcopal mission there to appropriate a balance originally
contributed to the Bermuda scheme. This sum had remained

168 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

at his banker's for many years unclaimed, and he suggests
that part of it should be devoted to a gift of books for Har
vard University, ' as a proper means to inform their judg
ment, and dispose them to think better of our church.' His
interest in classical education on this side of the water is also
manifested* in a letter advocating the preeminence of those
studies in .Columbia College.*

It is a remarkable coincidence that Berkeley should have
taken up his abode in Rhode Island, and thus completed the
representative character of the most tolerant religious com
munity in New England, by the presence of an eminent Epis
copal dignitary. A principal reason of the variety, the free
dom, and the peace of religious opinion there, to which he
alludes, is the fact that, through the liberal wisdom and fore
sight of Roger Williams, that State had become an asylum
for the persecuted of all denominations from the neighboring
provinces ; but another cause may be found in the prevalence
of the Quakers, whose amiable tenets and gentle spirit sub
dued the rancor and bigotry of fanaticism. Several hundred
Jews, still commemorated by their cemetery and synagogue,
allured by the prosperous trade and the tolerant genius of
the place, added still another feature to the varied popula
tion. The lenity of Penn toward the aborigines, and the
fame of Fox, had given dignity to the denomination of
Friends, and their domestic culture was refined as well as
morally superior. Enterprise in the men who, in a neighbor
ing State, originated the whale fishery, and beauty among the
women of that sect, are traditional in Rhode Island. We
were reminded of Berkeley's observations in regard to the
natural productions of the country, during a recent visit to
the old farmhouse where he resided. An enormous wild
grapevine had completely veiled what formed the original

* " I am glad to find a spirit toward learning prevails in these parts, par
ticularly in New York, where, you say, a college is projected, which has my
best wishes. Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught ; be this the
first care as to learning." — BERKELEY'S Letter to Johnson. — MOORE'S Sketch of
Columbia College, New York, 1846.

BEITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 169

entrance to the humble dwelling ; and several ancient apple
trees in the orchard, with boughs mossy with time, and
gnarled by the ocean gales, showed, in their sparse fruit and
matted tivigs, the utter absence of the pruning knife. The
dwelling itself is built, after the manner common to farm
houses a century ago, entirely of wood, with low ceilings,
broad fireplace, and red cornice. The only traces of the old
country were a few remaining tiles, with obsolete designs,
around the chimney piece. But the deep and crystal azure
of the sea gleamed beyond corn field and sloping pasture ;
sheep grazed in the meadows, hoary rocks bounded the pros
pect, and the mellow crimson of sunset lay warm on grass
slope and paddock, as when the kindly philosopher mused by
the shore with Plato in hand, or noted a metaphysical dia
logue in the quiet and ungarnished room which overlooks the
rude garden. Though, as he declares, 4 for every private rea
son ' he preferred ' Deny to New England,' pleasant was the
abode, and grateful is the memory of Berkeley, in this rural
seclusion. A succession of green breastworks along the brow
of the hill beneath which his domicile nestles, by reminding
the visitor of the retreat of the American forces under Gen
eral Sullivan, brings vividly to his mind the Revolution, and
its incalculable influence upon the destinies of a land which
so early won the intelligent sympathy of Berkeley ; while
the name of Whitehall, which he gave to this peaceful do
main, commemorates that other revolution in his own coun
try, wherein the loyalty of his grandfather drove his family
into exile. But historical soon yield to personal recollections,
when we consider the memorials of his sojourn. We asso
ciate this landscape with his studies and his benevolence ;
and, when the scene was no longer blessed with his presence,
his gifts remained to consecrate his memory. In old Trinity,
the organ he bestowed peals over the grave of his firstborn
in the adjoining burial ground. A town in Massachusetts
bears his name. Not long since, a presentation copy of his
4 Minute Philosopher ' was kept on the table of an old lady
of Newport, with reverential care. In one family, his gift
8

170 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES.

of a richly wrought silver coffee pot, and, in another, that of
a diamond ring, are cherished heirlooms. His rare and costly
books were distributed- ^t his departure, among the resident
clergy. His scholarship at New Haven annually furnishes
recruits to our church, bar, or medical faculty. In an adja
cent parish, the sacramental cup was his donative. His leg
acy of ingenious thoughts and benign sentiment is associated
with hanging rocks that are the seaward boundary of his
farm ; his Christian ministry with the ancient church, and
his verse with the progress of America."

A brave clerical resident of South Kingston, R. I., where
he died in 1757, wrote a brief but useful and interesting
account of the English settlements in America. He de
scribes, in a series of letters, the Bermudas, Georgia, and the
northern dominions of the crown as far as Newfoundland.
As one of the founders of the Episcopal Church in America,
an intimate friend of Berkeley, and a respected and efficient
minister of Narraganset, the Rev. James McSparren's " His
torical Tract " has a special authority and attraction.

One of the most pleasing and naive memorials of social
life in the province of New York in her palmy colonial days, is
to be found in the reminiscences of Mrs. Grant, a daughter of
Duncan McVickar, an officer of the British army, who came
to America on duty in 1757. This estimable lady, in the
freshness of her youth, resided in Albany, and was intimate
with Madam Schuyler, widow of Colonel Philip Schuyler, and
aunt to the general of the same name so prominent in the
war of the Revolution. The four years which Mrs. Grant
passed in America, made an indelible and charming impres
sion on her mind. She married the Rev. James Grant, of
Laggan, Invernesshire, and, in 1801, was left a widow with
eight children. Nine years after, she removed to Edinburgh,
where she became the centre of a literary and friendly circle,
often graced by the presence of Sir Walter Scott and other
celebrities. He secured her a pension of a hundred pounds.
Mrs. Grant's conversation was of unusual interest, owing to
her long experience, and, for that period, varied reading.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 171

She was ambitious of literary distinction. Her " Letters
from the Mountains," for their descriptive ability and inde
pendent tone, won no inconsiderable popularity. Jeffrey re
marks that her " poetry is not very good ; " while Moir pays
her the somewhat equivocal compliment of declaring that she
" respectably assisted in sustaining the honors of the Scottish
Muse." But she is chiefly remembered as a writer by her
" Memoirs," and they have served many novelists, historians,
and biographers as a little treasury of facts wherewith to
delineate the life and the scenery of those days, not else
where obtainable. Notwithstanding his moderate estimate
of her other literary efforts, Jeffrey gave Mrs. Grant credit,
in the Edinburgh Review, for this autobiography, as " a very
animated picture of that sort of simple, tranquil, patriarchal
life, which was common enough within these hundred years
in the central parts of England, but of which we are rather
inclined to think there is no specimen left in the world." It
was not, however, merely the reproduction of this attractive
and primitive kind of life that lent a charm to these Me
moirs. Many of the features of that Albany community, its
habits, exigencies, and aspects, were novel and curious ; and
the lively record thereof from the vivid impressions of such
a woman, at her susceptible age, gives us a remarkably clear
though perhaps somewhat romantic idea of what the mano
rial and colonial life of the State of New York was, and
wherein it differed from that of Virginia and New England.

In her day, the amiable and intelligent author of the
"Memoirs of an American Lady" enjoyed no little social
consideration from her literary efforts — unusual as such a dis
tinction was with her sex at that period— and from her kindly
and dignified character. De Quincey, when quite a youth,
met her in a stage coach, and cherished very agreeable recol
lections of her manners. "I retain the impression," he
writes, " of the benignity which she, an established wit, and
just then receiving incense from all quarters, showed, in her
manners, to me, a person utterly unknown."

172 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

According to Mrs. Grant,

" The summer amusements of the young were simple, healthful,
and joyous. Their principal pleasure consisted in what we now call
picnics, enjoyed either upon the beautiful islands in the river near
Albany, which were then covered with grass and shrubbery, tall
trees and clustering vines, or in the forests on the hills. "When the
warm days of spring and early summer appeared, a company of
young men and maidens would set out at sunrise in a canoe for the
islands, or in light wagons for ' the bush,' where they would fre
quently meet a similar party on the same delightful errand. Each
maiden, taught from early childhood to be industrious, would take
her work basket with her, and a supply of tea, sugar, coffee, and
other materials for a frugal breakfast, while the young men carried
some rum and dried fruit to make a light, cool punch for a midday
beverage. But no previous preparations were made for dinner, ex
cept bread and cold pastry, it being expected that the young men
would bring an ample supply of game and fish from the woods and
the waters, provision having been made by the girls of apparatus for
cooking, the use of which was familiar to them all. After dinner,
the company would pair off in couples, according to attachments and
affinities, sometimes brothers and sisters together, and sometimes
warm friends or ardent lovers, and stroll in all directions, gathering
wild strawberries or other fruit in summer, and plucking the abun
dant flowers, to be arranged into bouquets to adorn their little par
lors and give much pleasure to their parents. Sometimes they would
remain abroad until sunset, and take tea in the open air ; or they
would call upon some friend on their way home, and partake of a
light evening meal. In all this there appeared no conventional re
straints upon the innocent inclinations of nature. The day was
always remembered as one of pure enjoyment, without the passage
of a single cloud of regret."

In 1759-'60, a kindly and cultivated minister of, the
Church of England made a tour of intelligent observation in
the Middle States ; and fifteen years after, when the aliena
tion of the colonies from Great Britain had passed from a
speculative to a practical fact, this amiable divine gave to the
public the narrative of his Amerian journey. There is a
pleasant tone, a wise and educated spirit in this record, which
make ample amends for the obvious influences of the writer's
religious and political views upon his impressions of the coun-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 173

try and the people. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby was a native of
Lancastershire, an eleve of Westminster School, and a graduate
of Queen's College, Cambridge. He became vicar of Green
wich in 1769, and obtained credit as an author by a volume
of sermons, and an account of a visit to Corsica. His book
on America was " praised and valued " as a fair and agree
able report of " the state of the colonies " then called the
"Middle Settlements." The author states, in his preface,
that its appearance during " the present difficulties " may ex
pose him to misrepresentation ; but he asserts the candor of
his motives, and frankly declares that, while his " first attach
ment " is for his native country, his second is to America.

Burnaby landed from Chesapeake Bay, and his book (a
thin quarto) opens with a description of Virginia, where he
sojourned with Colonel Washington. He is struck with the
efficiency of lightning rods, and the efficacy of snakeroot, and
with the abundance of peaches, which are given as food to
the hogs. He describes the variety of squirrels, the indige
nous plants and birds, the ores and crops of the Old Domin
ion. The women there, he says, " are immoderately fond of
dancing, and seldom read or endeavor to improve their
minds." He notes the " prodigious tracts of land " belong- \
ing to individuals, and then a wilderness, and, like so many |
other travellers there, is impressed with the comparative im
provident habits of the people. " The Virginians," he says,
" are content to live from hand to mouth. Tobacco is their
chief staple, and they cultivate enough to pay their mer
chants in London for supplying those wants which their plan
tations do not directly satisfy." On the other hand, he cele
brates the virtuous contentment "of the German settlers on
the low grounds of the Shenandoah. Their freedom, tran
quillity, and " few vices " atone, in his estimation, for the
absence of elegance. He attended a theatre in a " tobacco
house " at Marlborough, and enjoyed a sixteen hours' sai]
along the Chesapeake to Frederickstown. " Never," he
writes, " in my life, have I spent a day more agreeably or
with higher entertainment." Much of this zest is to be

AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ascribed to the good clergyman's enjoyment of scenery, fresh
air, and fine weather. The streams, the woods, and the
mountains of the New World elicit his constant admiration.
A salient trait of his journal is the positive character he con
fidently assigns to the inhabitants of the different colonies.
Sometimes it is evident that their respective religious and
political tendencies enlist or repel his sympathies, and there
fore modify his judgment, but, at other times, his opinion
seems to be the result of candid observation ; and it is inter
esting to compare what he says on this subject, with later
estimates and present local reputations. Of Philadelphia he
remarks : " There is a public market held twice a week,
almost equal to Leadenhall. The people there are quiet,
and intent on money getting, and the women are decidedly
handsome." He notes the stocking manufacture of the Ger
mans, and the linen made by the Irish in Pennsylvania. He
thinks the New Jersey people " of a more liberal turn than
these neighbors of theirs," and is enthusiastic about the Falls
of the Passaic. He recognizes but two churches in New
York — Trinity and St. George's — and declares the women
there " more reserved " than those of the colony of Penn.
He speaks of a memorable social custom of New York —
" turtle feasts," held at houses on the East River, where, also,
ladies and gentlemen, to the number of thirty or forty, were
in the habit of meeting " to drink tea in the afternoon," and
return to town " in Italian chaises," one gentleman and one
lady in each. The good doctor evidently is charmed with
these snug arrangements for a legitimate tete-a-tete, and men
tions, in connection therewith, a practice not accordant with
the greater reserve he elsewhere attributes to the New York
belles. " In the way " (from these turtle feasts and tea
drinkings), " about three miles from New York, there is a
bridge, which you pass over as you return, called the Kissing
Bridge, where it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady
who has put herself under your protection."

Like most Englishmen, Burnaby finds a rare combination
of scenery, climate, and resources on Long Island, and makes

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 175

especial mention of one feature. " About sixteen miles from
the west end of it there opens a large plain, between twenty
and thirty miles long and four or five miles broad. There is
not a tree growing upon it, and it is asserted there never was.
Strangers are always carried to see this plain, as a great curi
osity, and the only one of the kind in North America."
What would he have thought of a Western prairie ?

He is reminded in Hellgate of Scylla and Charybdis ; and
the aspect and climate of Newport, R. I., charm him.
" There is a public library here," he writes, " built in the
form of a Grecian temple, and by no means inelegant." The
Quakers, the Jews, and the fortified islands are duly noted ;
but the multiplicity of sects in the Providence Plantations
evidently does not conciliate the doctor's favorable opinion.
He speaks of the buttonwood trees, then so numerous and
flourishing on the island ; " spruce pines," and the beer made
from their " tender twigs ; " of the abundant and excellent
fish, and hardy sheep, as well as of the superior butter and
cheese. Of Newport commerce then, he says : " They im
port from Holland, money ; from Great Britain, drygoods ;
from Africa, slaves ; from the West Indies, sugar, coffee, and
molasses ; and from the neighboring colonies, lumber and
provisions." Of manufactures he observes, " they distil
rum, and make spermaceti candles." The people of Rhode
Island, he declares, " are cunning, deceitful, and selfish, and
live by unfair and illicit trading. The magistrates are partial
and corrupt, and wink at abuses." All this he ascribes to
their form of government ; for " men in power entirely de
pend 011 the people, and it has happened more than once that
a person has had influence to procure a fresh emission of
paper money solely to defraud his creditors." It is obvious
that the Churchman leans toward the Proprietary form of
rule then existent in Maryland, and the manorial state of
society farther south ; but he concludes his severe criticism
of the Rhode Islanders with a candid qualification : " I have
said so much to the disadvantage of this colony, that I should
be guilty of great injustice were I not to declare that there

176 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

are many worthy gentlemen in it." Although forty years
had elapsed since the benevolent and ingenious Bishop of
Cloyne had left Newport, the beneficent traces of his pres
ence and the anecdotical traditions of his character still pre
vailed among the people. Burnaby thus alludes to the
subject : " About three miles from town is an indifferent
wooden house, built by Dean Berkeley when he was in these
parts. The situation is low, but commands a fine view of
the ocean, and of some wild, rugged rocks that are on the
left hand of it. They relate here several strange stories of
the dean's wild and chimerical notions, which, as they are
characteristic of that extraordinary man, deserve to be taken
notice of. One in particular I must beg the reader's indul
gence to allow me to repeat to him. The dean had formed
the plan of building a town upon the rocks which I have
just taken note of, and of cutting a road through a sandy
beach which lies a little below it, in order that ships might
come up and be sheltered in bad weather. He was so full
of this project, as one day to say to Smibert, a designer
whom he had brought over with him from Europe, on the
latter's asking him some ludicrous question concerning the
future importance of the place, ' Truly you have little fore
sight ; for, in fifty years, every foot of land in this place will
be as valuable as land in Cheapside.' The dean's house,"
continues Burnaby, " notwithstanding his prediction, is at
present nothing more than a farmhouse, and his library is
converted into a dairy. When he left America, he gave it to
the college in New Haven, Connecticut, which have let it to a
family on a long lease. His books he divided between this
college and that of Massachusetts. The dean is said to have
written the ' Minute Philosopher ' in this place."

Conservative Dr. Burnaby was not so perspicacious as he
thought, when he thus reasoned of Berkeley's viewte of the
growth in value of the region he loved. However mistaken
as regards the specific locality and period, he was essentially
right as to the spirit of his prophecy — as the price of de
sirable " lots " and the value of landed property in Newport

BKITISH TEAYELLEES AND WEITEES. 177

now evidence. Herein, as in that more comprehensive predic
tion which foretold the westward course of empire, the good
and gifted dean exhibited the prescience of a benignant genius.
Burnaby, like countless other visitors, was delighted with
the country around Boston. He notes the two " batteries of
sixteen and twenty guns built by Mr. Shirley," and is struck,
in 1770 — as was Dickens, eighty years after — with the resem
blance between the New England capital and the " best coun
try towns in England." Indeed, natives of the former recog
nize in Worcester, Eng., many of the familiar local traits of
Boston, U. S. Our clerical traveller has an eye for the pic
turesque, and expatiates on the " unsurpassed prospect " from
Beacon Hill. He thus enumerates the public edifices then
there: "The Governor's palace, fourteen meeting houses,
the Court House, Faneuil's Hall, the linen manufactory, the
workhouse, the Bridewell, the public granary, and a very
fine wharf at least a mile long." In architecture he gives the
palm to King's Chapel, but significantly records the building
of an Episcopal church near the neighboring university,
that was long a beautiful exception to the " wooden lan
terns" which constituted, in colonial times, the shrines of
"New England faith. " A church has been lately erected at
Cambridge, within sight of the college, which has greatly
alarmed the Congregationalists, who consider it the most
fatal stroke that could possibly be levelled at their religion.
The building is elegant, and the minister of it — the Rev. Mr.
Apthorp — is a very amiable young gentleman, of shining
partSj great learning, and engaging manners." Well consid
ered, the details of this statement singularly illustrate the
ecclesiastical prestige and prejudice of the day. Burnaby
recognizes quite a different style of manners and mode of
action in the Puritan metropolis from those which character-
ized the Cavalier, the Quaker, or the Dutch colony before
visited. " The character of this province is much improved
in comparison with what it was ; but Puritanism and a spirit
of persecution are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry
of both sexes are hospitable and good-natured : there is an
8*

178 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

air of civility in their behavior, but it is constrained by for
mality and preciseness. Even the women, though easiness of
carriage is peculiarly characteristic of their nature, appear
here with more stiffness and reserve than in the other colo
nies. They are formed with symmetry, are handsome, and
have fair and delicate complexions, but are said universally,
and even proverbially, to have very indifferent teeth. The
lower orders are impertinently curious and inquisitive." He
records some singular, obsolete, and scarcely credible cus
toms, which, with other of his observations, are confirmed by
Anbury, and other writers, who visited New England a few
years later. The strict if not superstitious observance of the
Sabbath in New England has been often made the theme of
foreign visitors ; but Burnaby gives us a curious illustration
both of the custom and its results. He says that a captain
of a merchant vessel, having reached the wharf at Boston on
Sunday, was there met and affectionately greeted by his
wife ; which human behavior, on Sunday, so outraged the
" moral sense of the community," that the captain was
arrested, tried, and publicly whipped for the offence. Ap
parently acquiescing in the justice of his punishment, he con
tinued on pleasant terms with his numerous acquaintances
after its infliction, and, when quite prepared to sail, invited
them to a fete on board ; and, when they were cheerfully
taking leave, had the whole party seized, stripped to the
waist, and forty lashes bestowed on each by the boatswain's
cat-o'-nine-tails, amid the acclamations of his crew ; after
which summary act of retaliation he dismissed his smarting
guests, and instantly set sail.

At the close of his book,* the Rev. Andrew Burnaby,
D. D., Vicar of Greenwich, expresses some general opinions
in regard to the colonies, which are noteworthy as the honest
impressions of a candid scholar and amiable divine, received
nearly a century ago, while traversing a region wherein an
unparalleled development, social, political, and economical,

* " Travels through the Middle Settlements of North America, 1759-'60,"
4to., London, 17*75.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 179

has since occurred. " America," he declares, " is formed for
happiness, but not for empire." The average prosperity of
the people made a deep impression. " In a course of twelve
hundred miles," he writes, " I did not see a single object that
solicited charity." He was convinced that the latent ele
ments of discord and division already existed. " Our colo
nies," he remarks, " may be distinguished into Southern and
Northern, separated by the Susquehanna and that imaginary
line which 'divides Maryland from Pennsylvania. The South
ern colonies have so many inherent causes of weakness, that
they never can possess any real strength. The climate oper
ates very powerfully upon them, and renders them indolent,
inactive, and unenterprising. I myself have been a spectator
of a man, in the vigor of life, lying upon a couch, and a
female slave standing over him, wafting off the flies, and f^i-
ning him. These Southern colonies will never be thickly
settled, except Maryland. Industrial occupation militates
with their position, being considered as the inheritance and
badge of slavery." The worthy author also seriously doubts
if " it will be possible to keep in due order and government
so wide and extended an empire." He dwells upon the
" difficulties of intercourse, communication, and correspond
ence."- He thinks " a voluntary coalition almost difficult to
be supposed." " Fire and water," he declares, " are not more
heterogeneous than the different colonies of America." It is
curious to note wherein these diversities were then thought
to lie. Dr. Burnaby tells us that Pennsylvania and New
York were mutually jealous of the trade of New Jersey ;
that Massachusetts and Rhode Island were equally conten
tious for that of Connecticut ; that the commerce of the
West Indies was " a common subject of emulation," and that
the " bounds of each colony were a constant source of litiga
tion." He expatiates upon the inherent differences of man
ners, religion, character, and interests, as an adequate cause
of civil war, if the colonies were left to themselves ; in which
case he predicts that both the Indian and the negro race
would " watch their chance to exterminate all." Against ex-

180 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ternal foes he is of opinion that maritime power is the
exclusive available defence. " Suppose," he writes, " them
(the colonies) capable of maintaining one hundred thousand
men constantly in arms (a supposition in the highest degree
extravagant), half a dozen frigates could ravage the whole
country ; " for it is " so intersected with rivers of such mag
nitude as to render it impossible to build bridges over them,
and all communication is thus cut off." The greater part of
America's wealth, when Burnaby wrote, according to his
observations, " depended upon the fisheries, and commerce
with the West Indies." He considered England's best policy
" to enlarge the present, not to make new colonies ; for, to
suppose interior colonies to be of use to the mother country
by being a check upon those already settled, is to suppose
what is contrary to experience — that men removed beyond
the reach of power, will be subordinate to it." From specu
lations like these, founded, as they are, in good sense, and
suggested by the facts of the hour, we may infer how great
and vital have been the progressive change and the assimilative
process whereby enlarged commercial relations have doomed
to oblivion petty local rivalries, mutual and comprehensive
interests fused widely-separated communities, and the applica
tion of steam to locomotion brought together regions which
once appeared too widely severed ever to own a common
object of pursuit or sentiment of nationality. The Revolu
tionary War, the naval triumphs, the system of internal im
provements and communication, the agricultural, commercial,
and manufacturing growth of the United States, in eighty
years, are best realized when the present is compared with
such authentic records of the past as honest Dr. Burnaby has
left us. Yet the events of the passing hour not less em
phatically suggest how truly he indicated the essential diffi
culties of the social and civic problem to be solved on this
continent, when he described the antagonism of the systems
of labor prevalent in the North and South.

" A Concise View of North America," * by Major Robert

* " A Concise Account of North America, and the British Colonies, Indian
Tribes, &c.," by Major Robert Rogers, 8vo., 1765.

BEITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 181

Rogers, published in London in 1765, contains some general
information ; chiefly, however, but a meagre outline, which
subsequent writers have filled up. The unhoalthiness and
mosquitos of the Carolinas seem to have annoyed him
physically, and the intolerance of the "New Haven Colony"
morally. He finds much in the natural resources, but little in
the actual life of the country to extol ; and gives the follow
ing sombre picture of Rhode Island, which forms an entire
contrast to the more genial impression which Bishop Berke
ley recorded of his sojourn there :

" There are in this colony men of almost every persuasion in the
world. The greater number are Quakers, and many have no reli
gion at all, or, at least, profess none ; on which account no questions
are asked, each man being left pretty much to think and act for him
self—of which neither the laws nor his neighbors take much cogni
zance : so greatly is their liberty degenerated into licentiousness.
This province is infested with a rascally set of Jews, who fail not to
take advantage of the great liberty here granted to men of all pro
fessions and religions, and are a pest not only to this, but to the
neighboring provinces. There is not a free school in the whole col
ony, and the education of children is generally shamefully neg
lected."

Two works on America appeared in London in 1760-'61,
which indicate that special information in regard to this coun
try was, then and there, sufficiently a desideratum to afford a
desirable theme for a bookseller's job. The first of these
was edited by no less a personage than Edmund Burke ; * and
somewhat of the interest he afterward manifested in the
rights and prospects of our country, may be traced to the
research incident to this publication, which was issued under
the title of " European Settlements in America." It was one
of those casual tasks undertaken by Burke before he had risen
to fame : like all compilations executed with a view to emol
ument rather than inspired by personal taste, these two
respectable but somewhat dull volumes seem to have made
little impression upon the public. They succinctly describe

* "Account of the European Settlements in America," by Edmund Burke,
2 vols., 8vo. maps, London, 1757.

182 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the West India Islands, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the
colonies of Louisiana, and the French, Dutch, and English
settlements, the rise and progress of Puritanism, and the
persecution and emigration of its votaries. With reference
to the latter, considerable statistical information is given in
regard to New England, and the colonial history of Penn
sylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carol inas sketched.
Trade, laws, natural history, political views, productions, &c.,
are dwelt upon ; and, as a book of reference at the time, the
work doubtless proved useful. It appeared anonymously, with
the imprint of Dodsley, who issued a fourth edition in 1766.

" The affairs of America," says Burke, in his preface,
" have lately engaged a great deal of public attention. Be
fore the present hour there were very few who made the his
tory of that quarter of the world any part of their study.
The history of a country which, though vast in itself, is the
property of only four nations, and which, though peopled
probably for a series of ages, is only known to the rest of
the world for about two centuries, does not naturally afford
matter for many volumes." He adds, that, to gain the
knowledge thus brought together, " a great deal of reading
has been found requisite." He remarks, also, that "what
ever is written by the English settlers in our colonies is to
be read with great caution," because of the " bias of interest
for a particular province." He found most of these records
" dry and disgusting reading, and loaded with a lumber of
matter ; " yet observes that " the matter is very curious in
itself, and extremely interesting to us as a trading people."
Although irksome, he seems to have fulfilled his task with
conscientious care, " comparing printed accounts with the
best private information ; " but calls attention to the fact
that " in some places the subject refuses all ornament." He
acknowledges his obligation to Harris's " Voyages."

It is interesting, after having glanced at this early com
pendium of American resources, history, and local traits —
the work of a young and obscure but highly gifted Irish
letter ateur — to turn to the same man's plea, in the days of his

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 1&3

oratorical renown and parliamentary eminence, for that dis
tant but rapidly growing country. " England, sir," said
Burke, in the House of Commons, in 1775, in his speech on
conciliation with America, " England is a nation which still,
I hope, respects, and formerly adored her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your charac
ter was most predominant ; and they took this bias and
direction the moment they parted from your hands. They
are, therefore, not only cfevoted to liberty, but to liberty
according to English ideas, and on English principles ; " — and,
in allusion to the whale fishery, " neither the perseverance of
Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterity and
firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most
perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it
has been pushed by this recent people — a people who are still
in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."

The other current book of reference, although of some
what earlier date, was the combined result of personal obser
vation and research, and, in the first respect, had the advan
tage of Burke's compilation. It is curious to remember, as
we examine its now neglected pages, that when " Rasselas "
and the " Vicar of Waketield " were new novels, and the
" Traveller " the fresh poem of the day, the cotemporaries
of Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burke, as they dropped in at
Dodsley's, in Pall Mall, found there, as the most full and
recent account of North America, the " Summary, Historical
and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improve
ments, and Present State of the British Settlements in North
America, by William Douglass, M. D." * There is much infor
mation, especially historical, in these two volumes, although
most of it has long since been elaborated in more finished
annals. Here is the story of the Dutch East India trade ; of
the Scots' Darien Company, which forms so graphic an epi
sode of Macaulay's posthumous volume ; of the Spanish dis-

* " Summary, Historical and Political, of the First planting, Progressive Im
provement, and Present State of the British Settlements in America," by Dr.
William Douglass 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1755.

1/84 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

coveries and settlements, and of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The voyages of Cabot, Frobisher, Gilbert, Davis, Hudson,
Middleton, Dobbs, Button, James, Baffin, and Fox, are briefly
sketched. On the subject of the whale and cod fisheries,
numerous details, both historical and statistical, are given.
The " Mississippi Bubble " is described, and the Canadian ex
pedition under Sir "William Phipps, in 1690, as well as the
reduction of Port Royal in 1710. Each State of New Eng
land is delineated, as well as New York, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and Virginia ; and what is said of the Indians, of
sects, of boundaries, polity, witchcraft, currency, colleges,
scenery, and products, though either without significance or
too familiar to interest the reader of to-day, must have
proved seasonable knowledge to Englishmen then meditating
emigration to America. The author of this " Summary "
was a Scotchman by birth, who long practised his profession
in Boston. He seems to have attained no small degree of
professional eminence. He published a treatise on small
pox in 1722, and one on epidemic fever in 1736. The most
original remarks in his work relate to local diseases, and his
medical digressions are frequent. He remarks, in stating the
diverse condition of the people of old and New England,
that the children of the latter " are more forward and preco
cious ; their longevity is more rare, and their fecundity iden
tical." He enumerates the causes of chronic distempers in
America, independent of constitutional defects, as being bad
air and soil, indolence, and intemperance. The wrorthy doc
tor, though an industrious seeker after knowledge, appears to
have indulged in strong prejudices and partialities according
to the tendency of an eager temperament ; so that it is often
requisite to make allowance for his personal inferences. He
was warmly attached to his adopted country, and naively
admits, hi the preface to his work, that, in one instance, his
statements must be reconsidered, having been expressed
with a " somewhat passionate warmth and indiscretion "
merely in affection to Boston and the country of New
England, his altera patria. Dr. Douglass died in 1752.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 185

His work on the " British Settlements in North America "
was originally published in numbers, at Boston, between
January and May, 1749, forming the first volume; the
second in 1753 ; and both first appeared in London in 1755.
The work was left incomplete at the -author's death. An
improved edition was issued by Dodsley in 1760. Adam
Smith calls him " the honest and downright Dr. Douglass ; "
but adds that, in " his history of the American colonies he is
often incorrect ; and it was his foible to measure the worth
of men by his personal friendship for them."

Chancellor Kent, in a catalogue raisonne he kindly drew
up for the use of a Young Men's Association, commended to
their attention the " Travels and Adventures of Alexander
Henry," * a fur trader, and a native of New Jersey, who, be
tween the years 1760 and 1776, travelled in the northwest
part of America, and, in 1809, published an account of this
long and remarkable experience. Confessedly " a premature
attempt to share in the fur trade of Canada directly on the
conquest of the country, led him into situations of some dan
ger and singularity " — quite a modest way of stating a series
of hazards, artifices, privations, and successes, enough to fur
nish material for a more complacent writer to excite the
wonder and sympathy of a larger audience than he strove to
win. In the year 1760 he accompanied General Amherst's
expedition, which, after the conquest of Quebec, descended
from Oswego to Fort Levi, on Lake Ontario. They lost
three boats and their cargoes, and nearly lost their lives, in
the rapids. Much curious information in regard to the In
dians, the risks and method of the fur trade, and the adven
turous phases of border life in the northwest, may be found
in this ingenious narrative. Henry's " enterprise, intrepidity,
and perils," says Kent, " excite the deepest interest."

Forty letter s,f written between 1769 and 1777, by William

* " Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territory, between
the Years 1760 and 1776," New York, 1809.

f " Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising Occur
rences from 1769 to 1777, inclusive," by William Eddis, 8vo., 1792.

186 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Eddis, and published in London in 1792, contain numerous
statistical and historical facts not elsewhere obtainable. The
author's position as surveyor of the customs at Annapolis, in
Maryland, gave him singular advantages as an observer ; and
his letters are justly considered as the " best account we
have of the rise of Revolutionary principles in Maryland,"
and have been repeatedly commended to historical students
,by British and American critics, although their details are so
unfavorable to the former, and so full of political promise to
the latter. The writer discusses trade, government, manners,
and climate, and traces the progress of the civil dissensions
which ended in the separation of the colonies from the mother
country.

If from an urbane French officer and ally w^e turn to the
record of an English miUtaire, whose views of men and
things we naturally expect to be warped by political animos
ity and the fact that many of his letters were written while
he was a prisoner of war, it is an agreeable surprise to find,
with occasional asperity, much candid intelligence and inter
esting local information. Thomas Anbury was an officer in
Burgoyne's army, and his " Travels in the Interior of Amer
ica" was published in London in 1789.' He tells us that the
lower classes of the New Englanders are impertinently curi
ous and inquisitive ; that a " live lord " excited the wonder
ment of the country people, and disappointed their expecta
tions then as now. He complains of Congress as " ready to
grasp at any pretence, however weak, to evade the terms of
the convention ; " but, at the same time, he commends the
absence of any unSnanly exultation on the part of the Amer
icans at Burgoyne's surrender. " After we had piled our
arms," he writes, " and our march was settled, as we passed
the American army, I did not observe the least disrespect, or
even a taunting look ; all was mute astonishment and pity."
He sympathizes with the sorrowful gratification of a be
reaved mother, to whom one of his brother officers restored
her son's w^atch, which the British soldiers had purloined
from his body on the battle field. He writes of the bright

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 187

plumage of the hummingbird, and the musical cry of the
whippoorwill ; the grandeur of the Hudson, and the grace of
the Passaic Falls. He notes some curious and now obsolete
'New England customs, and describes the process of cider
making, and the topography of Boston ; in which vicinity he
experienced all the rigor of an old-fashioned winter in that
latitude, the dreariness of which, however, seems to have
been essentially relieved by the frolicking sleigh rides of the
young people. In one of his letters, dated Cambridge, where
he was quartered for many weeks, he thus speaks of that
academic spot as it appeared during the Revolution :

" The town of Cambridge is about six miles from Boston, and
was the country residence of the gentry of that city. There are a
number of fine houses in it going to decay, belonging to the Loyal
ists. The town must have been extremely pleasant ; but its beauty
is much defaced, being now only an arsenal for military stores : and
you may suppose it is no agreeable circumstance, every time we walk
out, to be reminded of our situation, in beholding the artillery and
ammunition wagons that were taken with our army. The character
of the inhabitants of this province is improved beyond the descrip
tion that our uncle B gave us of them, when he quitted the

country, thirty years ago ; but Puritanism and the spirit of persecu
tion are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry of both sexes are
hospitable and good-natured, with an air of civility, but constrained
by formality and preciseness. The women are stiff and reserved,
symmetrical, and have delicate complexions ; the men are tall, thin,
and generally long-visaged. Both sexes have universally bad teeth,
which must probably be occasioned by their eating so much mo-

Although a more genial social atmosphere now pervades
the comparatively populous city, since endeared by so many
gifted and gracious names identified with literature and sci
ence, the " stiffness " of Cambridge parties was long prover
bial ; and an artist who attended one, after years of sojourn
in Southern Europe, declared his fair partner in a solemn
quadrille touched his hand, in " crossing over," with a reti
cence so instinctively cautions as to remind him of " a boy
feeling for cucumbers in the dark." The defective teeth then
so characteristic of Americans, which Anbury attributes to

188 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the use of molasses, was noticed by other foreign visitors,
and more justly ascribed to the climate, and its effect upon
the whole constitution. It is owing, perhaps, to the greater
need of superior dental science on this side of the water,
that it subsequently attained such perfection, and that the
most skilful American practitioners thereof not only abound
at home, but are preferred in Europe. A Virginian, to whom
this writer complained of the inquisitiveness and exacting
local pride of the people, advised him to avoid it by an antici
patory address to every new set of acquaintance, as follows :
" Ladies and gentlemen, I am named Thomas Anbury. .It is
no little mortification that I cannot visit Boston, for it is the
second city of America, and the grand emporium of rebel
lion ; but our parole excludes us from it."

Despite an occasional sleigh ride along the Mystic and the
Charles, some interesting phases of nature that beguiled his
observant mind, and the hospitable treatment he frequently
received, we cannot wonder that he found renewing his
" pass " every month, and the monotonous limits of his win
ter quarters, irksome ; so that every morning, with his com
rades, he eagerly gazed " from their barracks to the mouth
of Boston harbor, hoping to catch sight of the fleet of trans
ports that was to convey them to England."

A striking illustration of the influence of Tory prejudice
and disappointment, immediately after the successful termina
tion of the War of Independence, may be found in the Trav
els of J. F. D. Smythe.* The work was published by sub-,
scription, and among the list of patrons are many names of
the nobility and officers of the British army. The writer
professes to be actuated by a desire to gratify public curios
ity about a country which has just passed through an " ex
traordinary revolution." He declares it a painful task " to
mention the hardships and severities " he had undergone in
the cause of loyalty and the pursuit of knowledge. He dis
claims ill will, having "no resentments to indulge, no revenge

* " A Tour in. the United States of America," by J. F. D. Smythe, Esq., Lon
don, 1784.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 189

to pursue ; " and adds, " The few instances I have met with
of kind and generous treatment, have afforded me infinite
gratification." The occasion and motive of his publication are
thus stated : " Having lately arrived from America, where I
had made extensive journeys, and fatiguing, perilous expe
ditions, prompted by unbounded curiosity and an insatiable
enthusiasm for knowledge, during a residence in that country
for a considerable length of time, I had become perfectly
reconciled and habituated to the manners, customs, disposi
tions, and sentiments of the inhabitants." He conceived
himself peculiarly fitted to describe and discuss the new
republic. Moreover, he was dissatisfied with all that had
been published on the subject. " I eagerly sought out and
pursued," he observes, " with a degree of avidity rarely felt,
every treatise and publication relating to America, from the
first discovery by the immortal Columbus to Carver's late
travels therein, and even the ' Pennsylvania Farmer's Letters,'
by Mr. Hector St. John, if, indeed, such a person ever exist
ed ; but always had the extreme mortification to meet with
disappointment in my expectations, every one grasping at
and enlarging on the greater objects, and not a single author
descending to the minutiae, which compose as well the true
perspective as the real intercourse and commerce of life."
He bespeaks the kindly judgment of his readers for a work
" written without ornament or elegance, and perhaps, in some
respects, not perfectly accurate, being composed under pecu
liarly disadvantageous circumstances." The latter excuse is
the best. Baffled and chagrined in his personal aspirations,
and having suffered capture, imprisonment, and, according to
his own account, some wanton cruelty ; remembering the pri
vations and dangers of travel in a new, and exposure in an
inimical country, shattered by illness, and, above all, morti
fied at the ignominious failure of the Royal cause, he writes
with bitter prejudice and exaggerated antipathy, despite the
show of candor exhibited in the preface. Nor can we find
in his work, as a literary or scientific performance, any just
reason for his depreciation of his predecessors. He may

190 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

note a few circumstances overlooked by them, but, on the
score of accurate and fresh information, there is little value
in the physical details he gives ; while the political and social
are so obviously jaundiced by partisan spite as to be of lim
ited significance. Indeed, there is cause to suspect that Mr.
Smythe was not infrequently quizzed by his informants ; and
his best reports are of agricultural and topographical facts.
His " Travels in America," therefore, are now more curious
than valuable : they give us a vivid idea of the perverse and
prejudiced commentaries in vogue at the period among the
least magnanimous of the Tory faction. He, like others of
his class, was struck with the " want of subordination among
the people." He descants on the " breed of running horses "
in Virginia. The bullfrogs, mosquitos, flying squirrels, fossil
remains, and lofty timber; the wheat, corn, sugar, cotton,
and other crops ; the characteristics of different Indian
tribes ; the clearings, the new settlements, the hospitality,
splendid landscapes, and " severe treatment of the negroes ; "
the handsome women, the " accommodations not suited to
an epicure," the modes of farming, the habits of planters
and riflemen, the extent and character of the large rivers,
the capacity of soils, and the behavior of different classes,
&c., form his favorite topics of description and discussion,
varied by inklings of adventure and severe experiences as a
fugitive and a prisoner. He tells us of the " harems of
beautiful slaves" belonging to the Jesuit establishment in
Maryland ; of being " attacked by an itinerant preacher ; "
of the " painful sensation of restraint " experienced from the
" gloom of the woods ; " of his horse " refusing to eat ba
con ; " and of the " formal circumlocution " of a wayside
acquaintance, evidently better endowed with humor than
himself. In these and similar themes his record assimilates
with many others written at the time ; but what give it
peculiar emphasis, are the political comments and prophecies
— very curious to recall now, in the light of subsequent
events and historical verdicts. " I have no wish to widen the
breach," he says ; " but the illiberal and vindictive principles

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 191

of the prevailing party " in America, seem to him fatal to
any hearty reconciliation between the mother country and
her wayward and enfranchised offspring. So absolutely is
his moral perception obscured, that he deliberately maligns a
character whose immaculate purity even enemies then recog
nized with delight. " It was at Alexandria," he writes,
" that George Washington first stepped forth as the public
patron and leader of sedition, having subscribed fifty pounds
where others subscribed only five, and having accepted the
command of the first company of armed associates against
the British Government." So far we have only the state
ment of a political antagonist ; but when, in the retrospect
of his career as military chieftain and civic leader, he thus
estimates the man whose disinterestedness had already be
come proverbial, we recognize the absolute perversity of this
professedly candid writer :

" Mr. "Washington has uniformly cherished and steadfastly pur
sued an apparently mild, steady, but aspiring line of conduct, and
views of the highest ambition, under the most specious of all cloaks
— that of moderation, which he invariably appeared to possess. His
total want of generous sentiments, and even of common humanity,
has appeared notoriously in many instances, and in none more than
in his sacrifice of the meritorious but unfortunate Major Andre".
Nor during his life has he ever performed a single action that could
entitle him to the least show of merit, much less of glory ; but as a
politician he has certainly distinguished himself, Laving, by his politi
cal manoeuvres, and his cautious, plausible management, raised him
self to a degree of eminence in his own country unrivalled, and of
considerable stability. In his private character he has always been
respectable."

As a specimen of Tory literature, this portrait forms a
singular and suggestive contrast with those sketched of the
same illustrious subject by Chastellux, Guizot, Erskine,
Brougham, Everett, and so many other brilliant writers. It
is easy to imagine what discouraging views of the new
republic such a man would take, after this evidence of his
moral perspicacity and mental discrimination. Yet Mr.
Smythe was of a sentimental turn. There are verses in his

192 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES.

American Travels, " written in solitude," not, indeed, equal
to Shelley's ; and, when incarcerated, he inscribed rhymes
with charcoal on his prison wall. We must make due allow
ance for the wounded sensibilities of a man who had been
the victim of a " brutal Dutch guard," a " robber of the
mountain," and a " barbarous jailer," when he tells us that
the " fatal termination of the war," and the " consequences
of separation from Great Britain and alliance with France,"
are "inauspicious for both countries." According to Mr.
Smythe, the Americans were " corrupted by French gold,"
and entered into an " affected amity with that artful, perfidi
ous, and gaudy people." He prophesies that " when the in
toxication of success is over, they will repent their error."
Meantime, he pleads earnestly for the Loyalists, declares
America rapidly becoming depopulated on account of its
" unsettled government " and the check of emigration, and,
altogether, an " unfit place of residence."

CHAPTEK VI.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED.

WANSEY ; COOPER ; WILSON ; DAVIS ; ASHE ; BKISTED ; KENDALL ;
WELD ; COBBETT ; CAMPBELL ; BYRON ; MOORE ; MRS. WAKE-
FIELD ; HODGSON ; JANSEN ; CASWELL ; HOLMES, AND OTHERS ;
HALL ; FEARON ; FIDDLER ; LYELL ; FEATHERSTONAUGH ; COMBE ;
FEMALE WRITERS ; DICKENS ; FAUX ; HAMILTON ; PARKINSON ;
MRS. TROLLOPE ; GRATTAN ; LORD CARLISLE ; ANTHONY TROL-
LOPE ; PRENTICE ; STIRLING.

IF, in early colonial times, North America was sought as a
refuge from persecution and a scene of adventurous explora
tion, and, during the French and Revolutionary wars, became
an arena for valorous enterprise ; when peace smiled upon the
newly organized Government 'of the United States, they
allured quite another class of visitors — those who sought to
ascertain, by personal observation, the actual facilities which
the New World offered, whereby the unfortunate could re
deem and the intrepid and dexterous advance their position
and resources. Hence intelligent reporters of industrial and
social opportunities were welcomed in Europe, and especially
among the manufacturers, agriculturists, and traders of
Britain ; and these later records differ from the earlier in
more specific data and better statistical information. To the
American reader of the present day they are chiefly attrac
tive as affording facts and figures whereby the development
of the country can be distinctly traced from the adoption of
9

194: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the Federal Constitution to the present time, and a salient
contrast afforded between the modes of life and the aspect
of places sixty years ago and to-day. The vocation,, social
rank, and personal objects of these writers so modify their
observations, that, in almost every instance, allowance must
be made for the partialities and prejudices, the limited knowl
edge or the self-love of the journalist and letter writer ; yet,
as their aim usually is to impart such information as will be
of practical benefit to those who contemplate emigration,
curious and interesting details, economical and social, may
often be gleaned from their pages. One of these books,
which was quite popular in its day, and is still occasionally
quoted, is that of Wansey, which Avas published in 1794, and
subsequently reprinted here.* His voyage across the Atlan
tic was far from agreeable, and not without serious priva
tions. Indeed, nothing more remarkably indicates the prog
ress of comfort and luxury within the last half century, than
the speed and plentiful resources wherewith the visitor to
America now makes the transit. Wansey, as was the custom
then, furnished his own napkins, bedding, and extras for the
voyage ; his account of which closes with the remark, that
" there does not exist a more sordid, penurious race than
the captains of passage and merchant vessels." Yet a no
bler class of men than the American packet captains of a
subsequent era never adorned the merchant service of any
nation.

Henry Wansey, F. S. A., was an English manufacturer, and
his visit to America had special reference to his vocation.
He notes our then very limited enterprise in this sphere, and
examined the quality and cost of wool in several of the
States. On the 8th of June, 1794, he breakfasted with
Washington at Philadelphia. " I confess," he writes, " I was
struck with awe and veneration. The President seemed very
thoughtful, and was slow in delivering himself, which in-

* "An Excursion to the United States, in the Summer of 1794," by Henry
Wansey ; with a curious profile portrait of Washington, and a view of the
State House in Philadelphia, 12mo., pp. 280, Salisbury, 1798.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 195

duced some to believe him reserved ; but it was rather, I
apprehend, the result of much reflection ; for he had, to me,
the appearance of affability and accommodation. He was, at
this time, in his sixty-third year, but had very little the ap
pearance of age, having been all his life exceedingly temper
ate. There was a certain anxiety visible in his countenance,
with marks of extreme sensibility."

Wansey, like most visitors at that period, was struck with
the great average of health, intelligence, and contentment
among the people. " In these States," he writes, " you behold
a certain plainness and simplicity of manners, equality of con
dition, and a sober use of the faculties of the mind. It is
seldom you hear of a madman or a blind' man in any of the
States ; seldom of a felo de se, or a man afflicted with the
gout or palsy. There is, indeed, at Philadelphia, a hospital
for lunatics. I went over it, but found there very few, if
any, that were natives. They were chiefly Irish, and mostly
women." What an illustration of our present eagerness for
wealth and office — of the encroachments of prosperity upon
simple habits and chastened feelings — is the fact that now
insanity is so prevalent as to be characteristic, and that a
" sober use of the faculties of the mind " is the exception,
not the rule, of American life !

To those curious in byway economies, it may be pleasant
to know, that Wansey, in the year '94, found the " Bunch of
Grapes " the best house of entertainment in Boston ; that it
was kept by Colonel Colman, and that, though " pestered
with bugs," his guest paid " five shillings a day, including a
pint of Madeira." He records, as memorable, the circum
stance that he " took a walk to Bunker Hill with an officer
who had been on the spot in the battle ; " and that they re
turned " over the new bridge from Cambridge," which Wan
sey — not having lived to see the Suspension Bridge at Niag
ara, the Victoria at Montreal, nor the Waterloo in London —
observes is " a most prodigious work for so infant a country
— worthy of the Roman empire." Boston then boasted
" forty hackney coaches, which carry one to any part of the

196 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS .

town for a quarter of a dollar." The pillar on Beacon Hill,
and Long Wharf, were to him the chief local objects of
interest. He visited the " famous geographer," Jedediah
Morse, at Charlestown, read the Columbian Centinel, and
attended " the only Unitarian chapel yet opened in America,
and heard Mr. Freeman." Springfield, in Massachusetts, put
him in mind of Winbourn, in Dorsetshire ; the coffee there
was " ill made," and the " butter rank," while the best article
of food he found was " fried fish." He was charmed with
the abundance of robins and swallows, and saw " a salmon
caught in a seine in the Connecticut River," and " a school-
house by the roadside in almost every parish." He attended a
meeting of the Legislature in Hartford, and heard a debate
as to how " to provide for the poor and sick negroes who
had been freed from slavery — the question being whether it
was incumbent on the former masters, or the State, to subsist
them. Like all strangers then and there, he was hospitably
received by Mr. Wadsworth. He mentions, as a noteworthy
facility for travellers, that " three or four packets sail every
week from New Haven to New York." Of New England
commodities which he records for their novelty or preva
lence, are sugar from the maple tree, soft soap, and cider.
Like all foreigners, he complains of the bad bread, and enu
merates, as a curious phenomenon, that there is " no tax on
candles ; " that thunder storms are frequent, and lightning
conductors on all the houses ; that woodpeckers, flycatchers,
and kingbirds abound ; that the dwellings are built exclu
sively of timber, and that " women and children, in most of
the country places, go without caps, stockings, and shoes."
The well poles of New Jersey, and her domestic flax spin
ners, cherry trees, and fireflies impress him as characteristic ;
and he is disappointed in the quality of the wool produced
there. In New York, Mr. Wansey lodged at the Tontine
Coffee House, near the Battery, where he met Citizen Genet
and Joseph Priestley, breakfasted with General Gates, and
received a call from Chancellor Livingston. He " makes a
note " of the then " public buildings " — viz., the Governor's

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 197

house, the Exchange, the Society Library, the Literary Coffee
House, Columbia College, the hospital, and workhouse. He
found some " good paintings by Trumbull " at Federal Hall,
was interested in Montgomery's monument, went with a
party to see " Dickson Colton's manufactory at Hellgate,"
and Hodgkinson in " A Bold Stroke for a Husband " at the
theatre. He encountered John Adams, then Yice-President,
at Burling Slip, " on board the packet just sailing for Bos
ton," and describes him as " a stout, hale, well-looking man,
of grave deportment, and quite plain in dress and person."
He dined with Comfort Sands ; and Mr. Jay, " brother to
the ambassador," took him to " the Belvidere — an elegant
tea-drinking house, with delightful views of the harbor ; "
also to " the Indian Queen, on the Boston road, filled with
Frenchmen and tri-color cockades." In Philadelphia, he saw
Washington at the play, which was one of Mrs. Inchbald's ;
dined with Mr. Bingham, and heard all about the ravages of
the yellow fever of the preceding year.

How suggestive are even such meagre notices of personal
experience, reviving to our minds the primitive housewifery,
the political vicissitudes, and the social tastes which mark the
history of the land sixty years ago : when the first President
of the republic had been recently inaugurated ; when the
mischievous " French alliance " was creating such bitter par
tisan feeling ; Avhen a Unitarian philosopher fled from a Bir
mingham mob to the wilds of Pennsylvania ; when the abo
lition of slavery was a familiar fact in our social life ; when
good Mrs. Inchbald's dramas were favorites, and Brockden
Brown was writing his graphic story of the pestilence that
laid waste his native city ; when Trumbull was the artist.
Hodgkinson the actor, Genet the demagogue, Livingston the
lawyer, and Washington the glory of the land !

Among the economical writers on our country, Thomas
Cooper was at one time much quoted.* His remarks were,
however, the fruits of quite a brief survey, as he left Eng-

* " Some Information respecting America," London, 1794.

198 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

land late in the summer of 1793, and embarked on his return
the ensuing winter. He found " land cheap and labor dear ; "
praises the fertility of the Genesee Valley, then attracting
emigrants from ISTew England, as its subsequent inhabitants
were lured by the same causes to the still farther western plains
of Ohio and Illinois. Cooper indicates, as serious objections
to New York State, the intermittent fevers, and the unsatis
factory land tenure — both of which obstacles have gradually
disappeared or been auspiciously modified, as the civilization
of the interior has advanced, and its vast resources been
made available by the genius of communication. This writer
also declares that the climate of Pennsylvania is more dry.
The existence of slavery he considers a vital objection to the
Southern sections of the country for the British emigrant.
He remarks of Rhode Island, that it is " in point of climate
as well as appearance the most similar to Great Britain of
any State in the Union " — a remark confirmed often since by
foreign visitors and native travellers. It is to be observed,
however, that most of those who explored the States, when
the facilities for travel were meagre and inadequate, for the
purpose of obtaining economical information, usually confined
their experience to special regions, where convenience or acci
dent induced them to linger ; and thus they naturally give
the preference to different places. Brissot recommends the
Shenandoah Valley, and Imlay, Kentucky. Cooper thought
u the prospect in the professions unprofitable." He states
that literary men, as a class, did not exist, though the names
of Franklin, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, Paine, and Barlow were
distinguished. The number of articles he mentions as indis
pensable " to bring over," in 1793, gives one a startling idea
of the deficiencies of the country. He asserts, however, that
the " culinary vegetables of America are superior to those of
England ; " but, on the other hand, was disappointed in the
trees, as, " although the masses of wood are large and
grand," yet the arborescent specimens individually " fell
much short of his expectations ; " which does not surprise
those of his readers who have seen the noble and impressive

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 199

trees which stand forth in such magnificent relief in some of
the parks and manor grounds of England. The details of a
new settlement given by this writer, are more or less identi
cal with those which have since become so familiar to us,
from the vivid pictures of life in the West; but we can
easily imagine how interesting they must have been to those
contemplating emigration, or with kindred who had lately
found a new home on this continent. More, however, of the
Puritan element mingled with and marked the life of the set
tlers in what was then " the West " — and tinctured the then
nascent tide of civilization. Somewhat of the simplicity no
ticed by writers during colonial times, yet lingered ; and the
social lesson with which Cooper ends his narrative is benign
and philosophical : " By the almost general mediocrity of
fortune," he writes, " that prevails in America, obliging its
people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices
that arise usually from idleness are in a great measure pre
vented. Atheism is unknown ; and the Divine Being seems
to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbear
ance and kindness with which the different sects treat each
other, by the remarkable prosperity Avith which He has been
pleased to crown the whole country."

Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, the Paisley weaver
and poet, after enduring political persecution and great pri
vations at home, landed at Newcastle, in Delaware, July
14th, 1794, and, having shot a red-headed woodpecker, was
inspired with an ornithological enthusiasm which decided his
career. He became a schoolmaster, an ardent politician, and,
through intimacy with Bartram, a confirmed naturalist. He
wrote for Brockden Brown's magazine, made a pedestrian
tour to Niagara, was the author of " The Foresters " — an
elaborate poem in the Portfolio, and fixed his home on the
banks of the Susquehanna : meantime, and subsequently, toil
ing, in spite of every obstacle and with beautiful zeal, upon
his " American Ornithology ; " and in this and other writings,
in verse and prose, giving the most vivid local descriptions of

200 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS.

life and nature in America as revealed to the eye of science
and of song.*

Travel here, as elsewhere, brings out the idiosyncrasies,
and proves a test of character. A certain earnestness of
purpose and definite sympathy lend more or less dignity to
the narratives of missionary, soldier, and savant / but these
were soon succeeded by a class of men whom accident or
necessity brought hither. The welcome accorded some of
them, when " stranger was a holy name " among us, and the
greater social consideration experienced in a less conventional
state of society than that to which they had been accus
tomed, sometimes induced an amusing self-complacency and
oracular tone. With the less need of the heroic, more super
ficial traits of human nature found scope ; and a fastidious
taste and critical standard were too often exhibited by writers,
whose previous history formed an incongruous parallel with
the newborn pretensions warmed into life by the republican
atmosphere of this young land. A visitor whose narrow
means obliged him often to travel on foot and rely on casual
hospitality, and whose acquirements enabled him to subsist
as a tutor in a Southern family, for several months, w^ould
•challenge our respect for his independence and self-reliance,
were it not for an egotistical claim to the rank of a practical
and philosophical traveller, which obtrudes itself on every
page of his journal. Some descriptive sketches, however,
atone for the amiable weakness of John Davis, f whose
record includes the period between 1798 and 1802, during
which he roamed over many sections of the country, and
observed various phases of American life. " I have entered,"
he says, " with equal interest, the mud hut of the negro and

* " American Ornithology ; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the
United States," with plates from original drawings taken from nature, 9 vols.,
folio, Philadelphia, 1808-' 14.

" The Foresters, a Poem descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls
of Niagara," 12ino., Paisley, 1825.

f " Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States, during the
years 1798 to 1802," by John Davis, dedicated to President Jefferson, 8vo.,
London, 1803.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 201

the log house of the planter ; I have likewise communed with
the slave who wields the hoe and the taskmaster who im
poses the labor." Pope, Addisori, and Johnson were his
oracles, and the style of the latter obviously won his sympa
thy. Burr fascinated him; Dennie praised his verses, and
he saw Brockden Brown. His volume abounds with byway
anecdotes. He records the details of his experience with the
zest of one whose self-esteem exalts whatever befalls and
surrounds him. To-night he is kept awake by the howls of
a mastiff, to-morrow he dines on venison ; now he writes an
elegy, and now engages in literary discussion with a planter.
His odes to a cricket, a mockingbird, to Ashley River, etc.,
evidence the Shenstone taste and rhyme then so much in
vogue. He " contemplated with reverence the portrait of
James Logan," and draws from an Irish clergyman new anec
dotes of Goldsmith. He disputes Franklin's originality in the
form of an amusing dialogue between a Virginian and a New
Englander, tracing the philosopher's famous parable to Bishop
Taylor, and his not less famous epitaph to a Latin author.
He praises Phillis Wheatley, and notes, with evident pleas
ure, the trees, grains, reptiles, birds, and animals. Great is
his dread of the rattlesnake. Anecdotes and verses, philo
sophical reflections and natural history items, with numerous
personal confessions and impressions, make up a characteris
tic melange, in which the vanity of a bard and the specula
tions of a traveller sometimes grotesquely blend, but with so
much good nature and harmless pedantry, that the result is
diverting, and sometimes instructive. " My long residence,"
he writes, " in a community ' where honor and shame from
no condition rise,' has placed me above the ridiculous pride
of disowning the situation of a tutor." In this vocation he
certainly enjoyed an excellent opportunity to observe that
unprecedented blending of the extremes of high civilization
and rude economies which forms one of the most salient
aspects of our early history. The English tutor, when do
mesticated in a Southern family, was sheltered by a log
house while he shared the pleasures of a sumptuous table ;
9*

202 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and, when surrounded by the crude accommodations of a
new plantation, witnessed the highest refinement of manners,
and listened to the most intellectual conversation. If, during
his wanderings, he was annoyed, one night, by a short bed,
he was amused, the next, by a travelling menagerie. If, in
tutoring, his patience was tried by seeing people " strive to
exceed each other in the vanities of life," he was compen
sated, in the woods, by shooting wild turkeys with his pupil.
He quotes Shakspeare, and observes nature with great relish ;
and the cotton plant, the autumn wind, the wild deer, eagles,
hummingbirds, whippoorwills, bog plant, and flycatchers,
with occasional flirtations with a mellifluous muse, beguile
the time ; and he boasts, in the retrospect of his four years'
sojourn, and the written digest thereof, that he " scorns com
plaints of mosquitos and bugs," that he " eschews magnifi
cent epithets," " makes no drawings," and " has not joined
the crew of deists " — which negative merits, we infer, were
rare in travellers' tales half a century ago. The republican
ideas, inquiring turn of mind, or extreme deference of this,
writer, seems to have won him the favorable regard of Jef
ferson, upon whom and Burr he lavishes ardent praise : and
the former seems to recognize not only a political admirer,
but a brother author, in Davis ; for, in reply to his request
to dedicate his Travels to the apostle of American democ
racy, Jefferson, after accepting graciously the compliment,
writes : " Should you, in your journeyings, have been led to
remark on the same objects on which I gave crude notes
some years ago, I shall be happy to see them confirmed or
corrected by so accurate an observer." His work is entitled,
" Travels of Four and a Half Years in the United States,
1799-1802," London, 1817. "With more sincerity," says
Rich's JSibliotheca Americana, " than is usual among travel
lers, he states tliat he made the tour on foot, because he
could not afford the expense of a horse."

In 1806, Thomas Ashe visited North America, with the
intention of examining the Western rivers, in order to learn,
from personal inspection, the" products of their vicinage, and

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 203

the actual state of the adjacent country. The Mississippi,
Ohio, Monongahela, and Alleghany were the special objects
of his exploration. His "Travels in America"* is' a curi
ous mixture of critical disparagement, quite too general to
be accurate, and of romantic and extravagant episodes, which
diminish the reliance that might otherwise be placed on the
more practical statements. The work appeared in London in
1808.

The natural appetite for the marvellous, and the desire
to obtain a knowledge of facts, at that time, in regard to the
particular region visited, being prevalent, this now rarely con
sulted volume was much read. From Pittsburg he writes :
" The Atlantic States, through which I have passed, are un
worthy of your observation. The climate has two extremes."
The Middle States " are less contemptible ; the national fea
tures not strong ; " and, from this circumstance, he thinks
it difficult to conjecture what national character will arise.
At Carlisle, Pa., he u did not meet a man of decent litera
ture." He seeks consolation, therefore, in the picturesque
scenes around him, which are often described in rhetorical
terms, and in a recognition of the fairer portion of the com
munity. Thomson's " Seasons" is evidently a favorite book ;
and he presents a copy to a " young lady among the emi
grants," on the blank leaf of which, he tells us, he wrote a
" romantic but just compliment." Education, sects, manu
factures, and provisions are commented on ; but the tone of
his remarks, except where he praises the face of nature or
the manners of a woman, is discouraging to those who con
template settling in the western part of the country — which
he continually brings into severe comparison with the more
developed communities of the Old World. Indeed, he re
pudiates the flattering accounts of previous travellers ; and it
is evident that the reaction from his own extravagant expec-

* " Travels in America, performed in 1806," by Captain Thomas Ashe, 3
vols. 12mo., London, 1808.

" His account of the Atlantic States forms the most comprehensive piece
of national abuse we ever recollect to have read." — Rich.

204: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tations leads him to picture the dark side with earnestness.
Personal disappointment is expressed in all his generaliza
tions, although certain local beauties and exceptional indi
viduals modify the strain of complaint, which, though some
times well founded, is often unreasonable. He describes the
hardships and privations incident to emigration, and illus
trates them by melancholy examples. The " vicious taste in
building," the formidable catalogue of snakes, the want of
literary culture, the discomfort, and the coarse manners quite
eclipse the charms of landscape and the natural advantages
of the vast region which, since his journey, has become so
populous, enterprising, and productive. He " reports " a
boxing match, horse race, ball and supper in Virginia ; hears
a debate in Congress, and retires " full of contempt ; " swin
dlers and impostors intrude on his privacy at a tavern. He
says, with truth, that " no people live with less regard to
regimen ; " and, as we read, beautiful scenes seem to be
counterbalanced by bad food, grand rivers by uncultured
minds, cheap land by narrow social resources ; in a word, the
usual conditions of a new country, where nature is exuberant
and civilization incomplete, are described as such anomalies
would be by a man with a fluent and ambitious style, tastes
and self-love easily offended, and to whom the "law of a pro
duction," which Goethe deemed so essential to wise criticism
in letters, is scarcely applied, though still more requisite to a
traveller's estimate. Ashe put on record some really useful
information, and stated many disenchanting truths about the
New World, and life there ; but the rhetorical extravagance
and personal vanity herewith ventilated, detract not a little
from his authority as a reference and his tact as a romancer.
The gentler portion of creation alone escape reproach. " I
assure you," he writes, " that when I expressed the supreme
disgust excited in me by the people of the United States, the
ladies were by no means included in the general censure."

When we remember that such books, half a century ago,
were the current sources of information in Great Britain in
regard to America, and that a writer so limited in scope, in-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 205

discriminate in abuse, and superficial in thought, was re
garded as an authority, it is easy to perceive how the inimical
feeling toward this country was fostered. One fact alone
indicates the shallowness of Ashe : he dates none of his com
placent epistles from the Northern States, and gives, as a rea
son therefor, that they are " unworthy of observation." He
thinks the social destiny of Pittsburg redeemed by a few
Irish families settled there, who " hindered the vicious pro
pensities of the genuine American character from establish
ing here the horrid dominion which they have assumed over
the Atlantic States." He finds the men deteriorated on
account of their " political doctrines," which, he considers,
tend " to make men turbulent citizens, abandoned Christians,
inconstant husbands, and treacherous friends." Here we
have the secret of this traveller's sweeping censure. His
hatred of republican institutions not only blinded him to all
the privileges and merits of American life and character, but
even to certain domestic traits and professional talents, recog
nized by every other foreign observer of the country. Yet,
palpable as are his injustice and ignorance, contemporary
critics at home failed to recognize them. One says, "his
researches cannot fail to interest the politician, the statesman,
the philosopher, and the antiquary;" while the Quarterly
Review mildly rebukes him for having " spoiled a good book
by engrafting incredible stories on authentic facts."

Rev. John Bristed, who succeeded Bishop Griswold in St.
Michael's Church, at Bristol, R. I., published, in 1818, a work
on " America and her Resources." He was a native of Dor
setshire, England, and, for two years, a pupil of Chitty.
Strong in his prejudices of country, yet impressed with the
advantages of the New "World, his report of American
means, methods, and prospects, though containing much use
ful, and, at the time, some fresh and desirable information, is
crude, and tinctured with a personal and national bias, which
renders it, superseded as most of its facts have been by the
development of the country, of little present significance. It
is, however, to the curious, as an illustration of character, a

206 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

suggestive indication of the state of feeling of an English
resident, and of the state of the country forty or fifty years
since. The author was a scholar, with strong convictions.
He died at Bristol a few years since, at an advanced age.
He also published " A Pedestrian Tour in the Highlands,"
in 1804. His work on America was the result of several
years' residence ; and its scope, tone, and character are best
hinted by the opinion of one of the leading Reviews of
England, thus expressed soon after its publication : " We
cannot avoid regarding Mr. Bristed with some degree of
respect," says the London Quarterly. " In writing his
book, his pride in his native country, which all his repub
licanism has been unable to overcome, has frequently had to
contend with the flattering but unsubstantial prospect with
which the prophetic folly that ever accompanies democracy
has impressed his mind, to a degree almost equalling that of
the vain people with whom he is domiciled." As an au
thentic landmark of economical progress, this work is use
ful as a reference, whatever may be thought of its social
criticism.

An entire contrast to the record of Ashe appeared about
the same time, in the " Travels through the Northern Parts
of the United States," * by Edward Augustus Kendall. No
previous work on this country so fully explains the State
polity and organization of ISTew England, and the social facts
connected therewith. " The intention of travel," says the
intelligent and candid author, " is the discovery of truth."
As unsparing in criticism as Ashe, he analyzes the municipal
system and the social development with so much knowledge
and fairness, that the political and economical student will
find more data and detail in his work than, at that period,
were elsewhere obtainable. It still serves as an authentic
memorial of the region of country described, at that transi
tion era, when time enough had elapsed, after the Revolution
ary War, for life and labor to have assumed their normal

* " Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States, in the years
1807-'8," by Edward A. Kendall, 3 vols. 8vo., New York, 1809.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 207

development, and before their scope had been enlarged and
their activity intensified by the vast mechanical improve
ments of our own day. The local laws of Connecticut, for
instance, are fully discussed ; townships, elections, churches,
prisons, schools, and the press — all the elements and principles
which then and there manifested national and moulded pri
vate character. The famous " Blue Laws " form a curious
chapter ; and, in his account of the newspaper press, he notes
the remarkable union of " license of thought with very favor
able specimens of diction," and enlarges upon the prevalent
" florid and tumid " language in America, its causes and cure ;
while his chapter on Hartford Poetry is an interesting illus
tration of our early local literature.

Scarcely any contemporary writer of American travels was
more quoted and popular, sixty years ago, than Isaac Weld,
whom the troubles of Ireland, in '95, induced to visit this
country. That experience, we may readily imagine, caused
him thoroughly to appreciate the importance of practical
observations in a land destined to afford a prosperous home
for such a multitude of his unfortunate countrymen. Ac
cordingly we find, in his well-written work,* abundance of
economical and statistical facts ; and the interests and pros
pects of agriculture and commerce are elaborately considered.
While this feature rendered Weld's Travels really useful at
the time of their publication, and an authentic reference sub
sequently, his ardent love of nature lent an additional interest
to his work ; for he expatiates on the beauties of the land
scape with the perception of an artist, and is one of the few
early travellers who enriched his journal with authentic
sketches of picturesque and famous localities. The French
translation of Weld's Travels in America is thus illustrated ;
and the old-fashioned yet graphic view of an " Auberge et
voiture publique dans les fitats Unis," vividly recalls the days
anterior to locomotives, so suggestive of stage-coach adven*

* " Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of
Upper and Lower Canada, in 1795-'96-'97," by Isaac Weld, illustrated with
fine engravings, 4to., 1799.

208 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tures, deliberate travel, and the unmodified life and character
of the rural districts. In describing the sanguinary attacks of
"New Jersey insects, he deals in the marvellous, giving Wash
ington as authority that the mosquitos there bite through
the thickest boots.

No writer on America has more singularly combined the
political refugee and adventurer with the assiduous econo
mist than William Cobbett. Born and bred a farmer, he
fled, while a youth, from the peaceful vocation of his father,
to become a soldier in Nova Scotia ; but soon left the service,
visited France, and, in 1796, settled in Philadelphia, where
the fierce tone of his controversial writings involved him in
costly libel suits. His interest in the political questions then
rife in America is amply evidenced by the twelve volumes of
the works of Peter Porcupine, published in London in 1801.
Returning to England, he became the strenuous advocate of
Pitt, and started the Weekly. Register, which contained his
lucubrations for thirty years ; but, having once more ren
dered himself amenable to law by the combined freedom and
force of his pen, he returned to the United States, and en
joyed the prestige of a political exile in the vicinity of New
York ; and when the repeal of the Six Acts, permitted his
return home, he conveyed to England the bones of Thomas
Paine, whose memory he idolized. Cobbett is recognized
under several quite distinct phases, according to the views of
his critics — as a malignant radical by some, a philosophical
liberal by others. His style is regarded as a model of per
spicacity ; and his love of agriculture, and faith in habits of
inexpensive comfort and cheerful industry, made him, in the
eyes of partial observers, quite the model of republican hardi
hood and independence ; while the more refined and urbane
of his day shrank from his vituperative language and bitter
partisanship. He slandered the benign Dr. Rush, and Ben-
tham declared " his malevolence and lying beyond every
thing;" while Kent remarked that his political writings
afforded a valuable source of knowledge to those who would
understand the parties and principles which agitated our

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 209

country during his sojourn ; and the London Times ap
plauded the muscular vigor of his diction. But it is as a
writer on the economical and social facts of American life,
that Cobbett now claims our notice ; and in this regard he
differs from most authors in the same sphere, in the specific
character of the information he imparts, and the deliberate
conclusions at which he arrived. Some of our venerable
countrymen remember his pleasant abode on Long Island,
and the memorable discussions which sometimes took place
there between the political exile, reformer, grammarian, and
horticulturist, and his intelligent visitors from the city. The
late Dr. Francis used to quote some of his emphatic sayings,
and describe his frugal arrangements and agricultural tro
phies. In the preface to his " Year's Residence in America,"*
Cobbett complains of English travellers as too extreme in
their statements in regard to the country — one set describing
it as a paradise, and the other as unfit to live in. He treats
the subject in a practical way, and from patient experience.
Enamored of a farmer's life, he boasts that he was " bred up
at a ploughtail and among the hop gardens of Surrey," and
that he was never eighteen months " without a garden." He
expatiates on the superior condition of the agricultural class
in America, where " a farmer is not a dependent wretch,"
and where presidents, governors, and legislators pride them
selves on the vocation. He describes his own little domain,
the American trees he has planted around his house, his ex
periments in raising corn, potatoes, and especially rutabaga.
By " daily notes " he carefully reports the transitions of tem
perature and seasons, and gives definite accounts of modes
of cultivation, the price of land, cost of raising kine and
poultry ; in a word, all the economical details which a prac
tical man would prize. By the narrative of his own doings
in the vicinity of New York, and of his observations during
a journey to the West, the foreign reader must have obtained
from Cobbett the most satisfactory knowledge of the rnate-

* " A Year's Residence in the United States," 3 vols., SYO., London,
1818.

210 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

rial resources of a large section of the country as it was
forty years since. Through these agricultural items, how
ever, the disappointment of the politician and the sympathies
of the republican vividly gleam ; for the truculent author
constantly rejoices that no " spies, false witnesses, or blood-
money men " beset the path of frugal toil and independent
thought in this land of freedom. He justly laments the
prevalence of intemperance, and compares the " Hampshire
parsons " and their flocks — not at all to the advantage of
either — with the " good, kind people here going to church to
listen to some decent man of good moral character .and of
sober, quiet life," Despite the narrowness of the partisan
and the egotism of the innovator, Cobbett, in some respects,
is one of the more clear and candid reporters who sought to
enlighten Europe about America. A critical authority in
agriculture, while denying him scientific range, admits that
he adorned the subject " by his homely knowledge of the art,
and most agreeable delineation ; " while some of the most es
sential social traits, remarkable political tendencies, and emi
nent public characters of the United States, have been most
truly and impressively described by William Cobbett.

" I visited Parliament House," writes an American from
London in 1833. " The question was the expediency of ab
rogating the right, under any circumstances, of impressing
seamen for her Majesty's navy. Cobbett said but a few
words, but they went directly to the question : ' One fact on
this subject claims and deserves the attention of the House.
The national debt consists of eight hundred millions of
pounds ; and seven hundred thousand of this debt was
incurred in the war with America, in support of this right
of impressing seamen.' "

However coarse the radicalism of Cobbett, there was a
basis of sense and truth in his intrepid assertion of first prin
ciples — his recognition and advocacy of elementary political
justice — that just thinkers respect, however uncongenial may
be the manner and method of the man ; no little of the offen
sive character thereof being attributable to a baffled and false

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 211

position. An acute German writer * apostrophized him, not
inaptly, thus : " Old Cobbett ! dog of England ! I do not
love you, for every vulgar nature is fatal to me ; but I pity
you from my deepest soul, when I see that you cannot break
loose from your chain, nor reach those thieves who, laughing,
slip &WSLJ their plunder before your eyes, and mock your fruit
less leaps and unavailing howls."

While political reformers of the liberal school, drew argu
ments from American prosperity, popular bards gave expres
sion to the common vexation, by taunting the republic with
the taint of slavery, though a poisoned graft from the land
of our origin — as Campbell, in his bitter epigram on the
American flag — or with sarcasms upon democratic manners,
as in Moore's ephemeral satire. And yet, when the prospect
for men with more wit than money, and more learning than
rank, in Great Britain, was all but hopeless, the Bard of Hope
could discover no more auspicious home than the land he thus
sneered at for a local and inherited stain. Alluding to a half-
formed project of joining his brother in America, and earning
his subsistence there by teaching, he observes, in a letter to
Washington Irving : " God knows I love my country, and
my heart would bleed to leave it ; but if there be a consum
mation such as may be feared, I look to taking up my abode
in the only other land of liberty ; and you may behold me,
perhaps, flogging your little Spartans in Kentucky into a true
sense and feeling of the beauties of Homer."

Byron, an impassioned devotee of freedom, and disgusted
by the social proscription his undisciplined and wilful career
had entailed on him in his native land, turned a gaze of sym
pathy toward the West. It is said no tribute to his fame
delighted him so much as the spontaneous admiration of
Americans. He was highly gratified when one of our ships
of war paid him the compliment of a salute in the harbor of
Leghorn ; and expressed unfeigned satisfaction when told of
a well-thumbed copy of his poems at an inn near Niagara

Heine.

212 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Falls. Indeed, his restless mind often found comfort in the
idea of making his home in the United States. Every school
boy remembers his apostrophe to this country, in his Ode to
Venice :

u One great clime,

Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion
Of freedom, which their fathers fought for and
Bequeathed — a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land —
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic. She has taught
Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating wall of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earned with blood."

" One freeman more, America, to thee," Byron would
have indeed added ; and, had he followed the casual impulse
and found new inspiration from nature on this continent, and
outlived here the fever of passion and the recklessness of
error, how easy to imagine his later manhood and his per
verted name alike redeemed by faith and humanity into " vic
torious clearness."

A remarkable evidence of the prevalent fashion and feel
ing, on the other hand", is to be found in the writings of Tom
Moore. His Life, so imprudently sent to the press by Lord
John Russell, exhibits, in his own letters and diaries, as com
plete a fusion of the man of the world and the poet — if such
a phenomenon is possible — as can be found in the whole
range of literary biography. But Moore was a man of fancy
and music rather than of deep or wide sympathies — a social
favorite and graceful rhymer, who lived for the drawing
room and the dinner, and was beguiled by aristocratic hospi
talities from that great and true world of humanity wherein
the true bard finds inspiration. Accordingly, it was to be
expected that his hasty visit to America should be, as it was,
made capital for satire and song, in the interest of British
prejudice. There is so little originality or completeness in

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 213

these desultory notes of his visit, with the exception of two
finished and melodious lyrics — " The Lake of the Dismal
Swamp " and " The Canadian Boat Song " — that only the
prestige of his name makes them of present interest.

Moore arrived at Norfolk, Va., in the autumn of 1803,
in II. B. M. frigate Phaeton, where he stayed ten days, and
then went to Bermuda in the " Driver " sloop-of-war.
Thence he proceeded in the " Boston " to New York ;
visited Washington and Philadelphia, Canada and Niagara
Falls. At Bermuda he met Basil Hall, then a midshipman.
At Washington he had an interview with Jefferson, " whom,"
he writes, " I found sitting with General Dearborn and one
or two other officers, and in the same homely costume, com
prising slippers and Connemara stockings." He enjoyed
Philadelphia society, and addressed some verses to " Dela
ware's green banks " and " Fair Schuylkill." He describes
Buffalo as a village of wigwams and huts ; and part of his
journey thence to Niagara he was obliged to perform on
foot, through a half-cleared forest. On his arrival, he tells
us he lay awake all night listening to the Falls ; and adds,
" The day following I consider a sort of era in my life ; and
the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave
me a feeling which nothing in this world will ever awaken
again." His rhymes intended as " the song of the spirit of
that region " are not, however, suggestive of these emotions.
He spent part of his time with " the gallant Brock," who
then commanded at Fort George, and, accompanied by him
and the officers of the garrison, visited the Tuscarora In
dians, and witnessed their dances, games, and rites with satis
faction. The Falls of the Mohawk also awoke his muse ; and
he was much delighted at the refusal of the captain of a
steamboat on Lake Ontario to accept passage money from
the u poet." Nearly all the period of Moore's sojourn was
passed with British consuls or army and naval officers. From
these and the Federalists of Philadelphia, he tells us, he
" got his prejudices " in regard to America. The " vulgarity
of rancor " in politics, and the " rude familiarity of the lower

214 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

orders." were very offensive to him ; and, although his oppor
tunities for "cursory observation" were quite limited, he
found America " at maturity in most of the vices and all the
pride of civilization." Slavery, of course, is the chief object
of his satire : of its origin he is silent. The crude state of
border life, the prevalence of French sympathies, and the
recklessness of partisan zeal, are among the special defects
upon which he ironically descants, as usual ascribing them to
the institutions of the country. He sneers at

" The embryo capital, where fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees ; "

and scornfully declares that

u Columbia's patriot train
Cast off their monarch that their mob might reign ; "

and assures his readers

"I'd rather hold my beck
In climes where liberty has scarce been named,
Nor any right but that of ruling claimed,
Than thus to live where bastard Freedom waves
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves."

He" begins one of his tirades with

" Aready in this free and virtuous state,
"Which Frenchmen tell us was ordained by Fate ; "

and his anti-Gallicism is as obvious as his hatred of the
" equality and fraternity " principles, which he thinks so de
grading. Yet it was here that he saw the picture of domes
tic peace and prosperity that prompted the lines, " I knew,
by the smoke that so gracefully curled ; " and the want of
magnanimity in an Irish bard, in overlooking the blessings
America has rained upon his countrymen, in flippant com
ments on temporary social incongruities, is the more apparent
from his acknowledgment in the preface to his " Poems
relating to America," subsequently written : " The good will
I have experienced from more than one distinguished Ameri-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 215

can, sufficiently assures me that any injustice I may have
done to that land of- freemen, if not long since wholly for
gotten, is now remembered only to be forgiven." '

Even a cursory examination of the British Travels in
America already noticed, would suggest the facility and de
sirableness of a judicious compilation therefrom. It is easy
to imagine a volume replete with information and attraction,
gleanecl by a discriminating hand from such copious but ill-
digested materials. Omitting the mere statistics and the
extravagant tales, the egotistical episodes and the coarse
abuse, there remain passages of admirable description, racy
anecdotes, and genial speculations enough to form a choice
picture and treatise on nature, character, and life in the New
World. It is surprising that such an experiment has not
been tried by one of the many tasteful compilers who have
sifted the grain from the chaff in so many other departments
of popular literature. The attempt, on a small scale, was
made, in 1810, by one of those clever female writers for the
young, who, about that period, initiated the remarkable and
successful department of juvenile literature, since so memo
rably illustrated by Maria Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, Sir
Walter Scott, Hans Andersen, and other endeared writers.
" Excursions in North America, described in Letters from a
Gentleman and his Young Companions in England," by Pris-
cilla Wakefield, was a favorite little work among the children
on both sides of the Atlantic, half a century ago. It is
amusing to revert to these early sketches, which have given
to many minds, now mature, their first and therefore their
freshest impressions of this country. Mrs. Wakefield drew
her materials from Jefferson, Weld, Rochefoucault, Bartram,
Michaux, Carver, and Mackenzie, and, in general, uses them
with tact and taste. The cities and scenery of the land, its
customs and products, are well described. She notes some
of the stereotyped so-called national vulgarities which have,
in the more civilized parts of the country, sensibly diminished
since the indignant protests of travellers reached their acme
in Mrs. Trollope. " We have been," it is said in one of the

216 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

letters, " once or twice to the theatre, but the company in the
pit have such a disgusting custom of drinking wine or porter
and smoking tobacco, between the acts, that I have no incli
nation to visit it again."

But the pleasantest parts of her book, especially consider
ing for what class of readers it is intended, are those which
delineate the natural features and productions. Here, for
instance, we have a description of an indigenous tree, now
exalted by the selfish and narrow passions of a small and sen
sitive community into an emblem of political hate and ungen
erous faction. With this association there seems a .latent
satire in the details of the arborescent portrait. " The Pal
metto Royal, or Adam's Needle, is a singular tree. They
grow so thick together, that a bird can scarcely penetrate
between them. The stiff leaves of this sword plant, stand
ing straight out from the trunk, form a barrier that neither
man nor beast can pass. It rises with an erect stem about
ten or twelve feet high, crowned with a chaplet of dagger-
like green leaves, with a stiff, sharp spur at the end. This
thorny crown is tipped with a pyramid of white flowers,
shaped like a tulip or lily ; to these flowers succeeds a larger
fruit, in form like a cucumber, but, when ripe, of a deep
purple color."

" We scarcely pass ten or twelve miles," says another
of these once familiar letters, " without seeing a tavern, as
they call inns in this country. They are built of wood, and
resemble one another, having a porch in front the length of
the house, almost covered with handbills. They have no
sign, but take their name from the person that keeps the
house, who is often a man of consequence ; for the profession
of an innkeeper is far more respected in America than in
England. Instead of supplying their guests as soon as they
arrive, they make everybody conform to one hour for the
different meals ; so you must go without your dinner, or
delay your journey till the innkeeper pleases to lay the
cloth." This remark on the country taverns as they were
before the " hotel " had become characterized by size, show,

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 217

and costliness, strikes us as most natural, coming from one
only acquainted with English inns ; and the independent man
ners of the landlords are so obvious now, that a foreign writer
declared they and the steamboat captains formed the only
aristocracy he had encountered in America ; while the cus
tom of arbitrarily regulating the hours for meals, and the
gregarious manner of feeding, led a Sicilian to complain that
the guests of a public house in this country, were treated like
friars in his own.

A sensible and pleasant but not very profound or methodi
cal gentleman of Liverpool published " Remarks during a
Journey through l^orth America in 1819." This book, writ
ten by Adam Hodgson, Esq., was published in this country
in 1823, and met with a kindly reception on account of the
well-meaning aim and disposition of the writer, whose na
tional prejudices were expressed in a more calm manner than by
his more vulgar countrymen ; while a tour of seven thousand
miles had furnished him with a good amount of useful knowl
edge, not, however, well digested or arranged ; and mingled
therewith are certain personal tastes and views amusing and
harmless, that lend a certain piquancy to the narrative. He
examined the country with an eye to its facilities and pros
pects for the emigrant, and thus put on record important sta
tistical facts, which are sometimes ludicrously blended with
matters of no consequence. He so admired the chorus of
frogs, heard in the stillness of the night at one place of his
sojourn, that he opened his window to listen to their croak
ing, mistaking it, at first, for the notes of birds. He ex
pressed the most naive surprise at finding a copy of the
" Dairyman's Daughter " at a shop in Mobile ; and was so
nervous in regard to the safety of his baggage, when travel
ling by stage coach, that he used a chain and padlock of his
own, and held the cue thereof. He enjoyed Southern hos
pitality, which, however, was sadly marred, to his conscious
ness, by slaveholding. He dined on turkey every day for
weeks, with apparently undiminished relish ; and, with
amusing pathos, laments that the " absence of the privileges of
10

218 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

primogeniture, and the repeated subdivision of property, are
gradually effecting a change in the structure of society in South
Carolina, and will shortly efface its most interesting and charac
teristic features." " His book," wrote Jared Sparks, " is cred
itable to his heart and his principles. We should be glad if
as much could be said for his discretion and judgment."

C. W. Janson, " late of the State of Rhode Island," re
sided in America from 1793 to 1806, and published in Lon
don, the year after the latter date, " The Stranger in Amer
ica," * which the Edinburgh Review severely criticizes ; while
John Foster, in the Eclectic, awarded it much praise.

Henry Caswell, in 1849, published "America and the
American Church, with, some Account of the Mormons, in
1842 ; " and Robert Barclay issued " An Agricultural Tour in
the United States ;" a couple of volumes entitled "Travels
through Parts of the United States and Canada in 1818-'! 9,"
and " A Sabbath among the Tuscaroras," are dedicated to Prof.
Silliman, of Yale College. A small work appeared anony
mously in London (1817), entitled "Travels in the Interior
of America in 1809, '10, and '11," including a description
of Upper Louisiana.

Isaac Holmes, of Liverpool, gave to the public, in 1823,
" An Account of the United States of America, derived from
Observations during a Residence of Four Years in that
Republic ; " of which the Quarterly observes that its author
" is rather diffuse and inaccurate," yet gives " a modest and
true statement of things as they are."

A rather verbose work of E. S. Abdy, previously known
for a hygienic essay, was read extensively, at the time of its
appearance, though its interest was quite temporary. It de
scribed, in detail, a " Residence and Tour in the United
States in 1833-'34."

Sir J. Augustus Foster, Envoy to America in 1811-'! 2,
wrote " Notes on the United States," which were not pub
lished, but privately circulated ; although the London Quar-

* " The Stranger in America," by Charles William Jansou, engravings, 4to.,
London, 1807.

BEITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 219

terly declared its publication desirable " on both sides of
the Atlantic ; " and Godley's " Letters from Canada and the
United States," published in London in 1814, contains valu
able agricultural data, and is justly characterized by the
critical journals of that day as sensible and impartial.*

There was, indeed, from the close of the war of 1812, for
a series of years, an inundation of English books of travel,
wherein the United States, their people and prospects, were
discussed with a monotonous recapitulation of objections, a
superficial knowledge, and a predetermined deprecation,
which render the task of analyzing their contents and esti
mating their comparative merit in the highest degree weari
some. Redeemed, in some instances, by piquant anecdote,

* Among other works of British writers of early date worth consulting are
Governor Bernard's Letters ; Burton and Oldmixon on the British Empire in
America ; and of later commentators, as either amusing, intelligent, curious,
or salient, sometimes flippant and sometimes sensible, may be mentioned Birk-
beck's " Notes of a Journey in America in 1817 ;" Kingdom's " Abstract of In
formation relative to the United States" (London, 1820); "Tour in North
America," by Henry Tudor, Barrister (1834); also the Travels of Bradbury,
Shirrefif, Byam, Casey, Cunningham, Chambers, Davison, Feroll, Finch, Head,
Latrobe, Mackinnon, McNish, Majorbanks, Park, Sturge, Sutcliffe, Thomson,
Thornton, Turnbull, Tasistro, Shraff, Warden, Waterton, Warburton, Weston,
Keating, and Lamber ; Dixon, Jameson, Wright, Dickinson, and Pursh ;
Vigne and Gleig's " Subaltern in America, a Military Journal of the War of
1812," which originally appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xxi. ; J. M. Dun
can's Travels (1818); Tremenhere's work on " The Constitution of the United
States compared with that of Great Britain ; " Prof. J. F. W. Johnson's " Notes
on North America," chiefly agricultural and economical ; Ousley's " Remarks
on the Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States ; " the statisti
cal works of Seyber and Tucker; A. J. Mason's Lectures on the United
States (London, 1841); and Flint's "Letters from America," chiefly devoted
to the Western States (Edinburgh, 1822), of which it has been said that
"James Flint was one of the most amiable, accomplished, and truthful foreign
tourists who have visited America and left a record of their impressions : he
died in his native country (Scotland), a few years after his book was pub
lished." Two English officers, Colonel Chesney and Lieut.-Colonel Freemantle,
published brief accounts of what they saw and gathered from others, in regard
to the war for the Union — too superficial and prejudiced to have any lasting
value ; and Mr. Dicey, the young correspondent of a liberal London journal,
collected and published a narrative of his experience, candid, but of limited
scope and insight.

220 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

interesting adventure, or some grace of style or originality
of view, they are, for the most part, shallow, egotistical, and
more or less repetitions of each other. So systematic and
continuous, however, are the tone of abuse and the purpose
of disparagement, that the subject claims separate considera
tion. Among those works that attracted special attention,
from the antecedents of their authors or a characteristic
manner of treating their subject, was the once familiar book
of Captain Basil Hall, R. N., the Journal of Fanny Kemble,
and the " Notes " of Dickens. Of the former, Everett justly
remarked, in the North American Review, that " this work
will furnish food to the appetite for detraction which reigns
in Great Britain toward this country;" while even Black-
wood's Magazine, congenial as was the spirit of the work to
its Tory perversities, though characterizing Captain Hall's
observations as "just and profound," declared they were
" too much tinctured by his ardent fancy to form a safe guide
on the many debated subjects of national institutions." A
like protest against the authenticity of Fearon, a London
surgeon, who published " A Narrative of a Journey of Five
Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States of
America,* was uttered by Sydney Smith, who wrote, as his
critical opinion, that " Mr. Fearon is a much abler writer than
either Palmer or Bradbury, but no lover of America, and a
little given to exaggerate his views of vices and prejudices ;"
which estimate was confirmed by the London Review, which
declared that the " tone of ill temper which this author usu
ally manifests, in speaking of the American character, has
gained for his work the approbation of persons who regard
that country with peculiar jealousy."

So obvious and prevalent had now become this " peculiar
jealousy," that when, in 1833, the flippant " Observations on
the Professions, Manners, and Emigration in the United
States and Canada," of the Rev. Isaac Fiddler, appeared, the

* " Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern
and Western States, with Remarks on Mr. Birkbeck's Notes," by Henry B.
Fearon, 8vo., London, 1818.

BRITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 221

North American Review truly said, of it : " This is another
of those precious specimens of books with which John Bull
is now regularly humbugged three or four times a year." It
seemed to be deemed essential to every popular author of
Great Britain, in whatever department, to write a book on
America. In those instances where this task was achieved
by men of science, valuable knowledge gave interest to spe
cial observation ; as in the case of Lyell, Featherstonaugh,
and Combe, three writers whose scientific knowledge and
objects give dignity, interest, and permanent value to their
works on America: but the novelists signally failed, from
inaptitude for political disquisition, or a constant eye to the
exactions of prejudice at home. Marryatt and Dickens
added nothing to their reputations as writers by their super
ficial and sneering disquisitions on America. .Yet, however
philosophically superficial and exaggerated in fastidiousness,
the great charm of Dickens as an author — his humanity, the
most real and inspiring element of his nature — was as true,
and therefore prophetic, in these " Notes," as in .his delinea
tions of human life. Of the long bane of our civic integrity
and social peace and purity — of slavery, his words were
authentic :

" All those owners, breeders, users, buyers, and sellers of slaves,
who will, until the "bloody chapter has a bloody end, own, breed, use,
buy, and sell them at all hazards ; who doggedly deny the horrors of
the system, in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was
brought to bear on any other subject, and to which the experience
of every day contributes its immense amount ; who would, at this or
any other moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign,
provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their
riglit to perpetuate slavery, and to whip, and work, and torture
slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and tmassailed by any
human power; who, when tbey speak of freedom, mean the free
dom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel ;
and of whom every man, on his own ground, in republican America,
is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot, than
the Caliph Haroim Alraschid, in his angry robe of scarlet."

Of the female writers, there is more reflection and knowl-

222 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

edge in the remarks of Mrs. Jameson and Miss Martineau ;
while nothing can exceed the indelicacy and want of insight,
not to say absurdities, of the Hon. Amelia Murray — other
books, however, by female writers, are, despite their unjusti
fiable personalities, grateful records of hospitalities and ex
periences, well enough for private letters.

The histrionic commentators, like Power and Fanny Kem-
ble, and the naval annotators, like Hall and Mackinnon, are re
markable for a certain abandon and superficiality. Silk Buck
ingham* much enlarged the previous statistical data, and
Francis Wyse collected some valuable expositions of America's
"Realities and Resources." Abdy and Duncan, Finch and
Graham, Lang and Latrobe, Waterton and Thomson, Palmer
and Bradbury, Wright and Mellish, with scores of others,
found readers and critics ; and a catalogue raisonne of the
series of books on America between Ashe and Anthony Trol-
lope, would prove quite as ephemeral in character as volu
minous. It is interesting to turn from the glowing impres
sions of American scenery, the ingenuous hatred of the
" press gang," and unscrupulous personal revelations of Fanny
Kenible's " Journal of Travel in America," written in the
buoyant and brilliant youth of the gifted girl, to the details
and descriptions of " Life on a Southern Plantation," re
corded by the earnest and pitiful woman, and published at so
critical a moment of our national struggle, to enlighten and
chide her countrymen.

One of the most contemptible of the detractors was a
vulgar English farmer, named Faux, whose " Memorable
Days in America " was thought worthy of critical recogni
tion by the once famous reviewer, Gifford. Among the

* " America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive," 3 vols. ; " Eastern and
Western States," 3 vols. ; " Slave States," 2 vols. ; " Canada, Nova Scotia,
Xew Brunswick, and other British Provinces," 1 vol. ; in all, 9 handsome vols.
8vo., by J. S. Buckingham, London, 1841-'3. One of the most interesting
series of works descriptive of the New World which has ever emanated from
the press. These volumes contain a fund of knowledge on every subject con
nected with America : its rise and progress ; the education, manners, and
merits of its inhabitants : its manufactures, trade, population, etc.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 223

absurd calumnies of this ignorant scribbler, were such grave
statements as that poisoned chickens were served to him at
Portsmouth ; that the Mississippi boatmen habitually rob the
sheep folds ; that Boston people take their free negroes to
Carolina, and sell them as slaves ; and that, in America, " the
want of an established religion has made the bulk of the
people either infidels or fanatics."

Among the exceptions to that general rule of ignorance
and crudity which marks the hasty records of American
travel by English tourists, when a visit to America, while no
longer adventurous, was yet comparatively rare, is the once
famous book of Captain Thomas Hamilton. The author of
a successful novel of modern life — as far as literary cultiva
tion may be considered an element of success — this intelli
gent British officer claims the consideration which is due to a
scholar and a gentleman, although he was not the highest
exemplar of either title. He discussed " Men and Manners
in America " neither as a philosopher nor as an artist. There
is no great scope or originality in his speculations, no very
profound insight ; and the more refined tone of his work is
somewhat marred by the same flippancy and affectation of
superior taste, which give such a cockney pertness to so
many of his countrymen's written observations when this
country is the theme. Two merits, however, distinguished
the work and yet make it worthy of attention — a better
style, and superior powers of description. Captain Hamil
ton's prejudices warped his observation of our political and
social life, and make his report thereof limited and unjust ;
but there is a vividness and finish about his accounts of natu
ral beauty — such as the description of Niagara and the Mis
sissippi — which, although since excelled by many writers,
native and foreign, at the time (1833) was a refreshing con
trast to previous attempts of a like nature. Itlackwood
recognized his political bias in commending the work " as
valuable at the present crisis, when all the ancient institu
tions of oar country are successively melting away under the
powerful solvent of democratic institutions."

224: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Parkinson was an English farmer, and therefore might
be supposed capable of producing at least a valuable agricul
tural report; but impartial critics declared him both impu
dent and mendacious. Stuart's book * owed somewhat of its
casual notoriety to the circumstance that he fled to America
because he had killed Lord Auchinleck, BoswelTs son, in a
duel at Edinburgh ; and beguiled months of his involuntary
exile at Hoboken, "N. Y., in writing his experience and im
pressions. The Edinburgh JZeview says of another of the
countless writers on this prolific theme — Birkbeck : " Detest
ing his principles, we praise his entertaining volume." f .

Harriet Martineau, through her Unitarian associations,
became at once, on her arrival in the United States, intimate
with the leading members of that highly. intellectual denomi
nation, and thus enjoyed the best social opportunities for
acquiring a knowledge of the country and a favorable impres
sion of its average culture. To this advantage she added
liberal sympathies, an earnest spirit of inquiry, and a decided
power of descriptive writing. Accordingly we find, in her
work, a warm appreciation of what is humane and progres
sive in American institutions, right and wise in society, and
beautiful or picturesque in nature. She often adopts a view
and makes a general statement upon inadequate grounds.
Her generalizations are not always authentic ; but the spirit
and execution of her work are a vast improvement upon the
flippant detraction of less intelligent and aspiring writers.
As in so many instances before and since, her gravest errors,
both as to facts and reasoning, may be traced to inferences
from partisan testimony, or the statements of uninformed
acquaintance — a process which hasty travellers bent on book
making are forced to have recourse to. Where she observed,
she recorded effectively ; when her informant was duly
equipped for his catechism, she " set in a note book " what
was worth preserving ; but often, relying on hearsay evi-

* "Three Years in America," by James Stuart, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1823.
f " Notes on a Journey from Virginia to the Territory of Illinois," by Mor
ris Birkbeck, with a map, 8vo., Dublin, 1818.

BRITISH TEAYELLEES AND WE1TEES. 225

dcnce and casual statements, inevitably mistakes occurred ;
but these do not invalidate her arguments or diminish her
authority, when fairly provided with the opportunity to ex
amine herself, or correctly informed by others. Blackwood
condemned her book with an asperity that is prima facie
evidence that it has considerable merit. " Nothing," says
that trenchant and Tory oracle, in reference thereto, " noth
ing can rectify a reformer's vision, and no conviction of
inadequacy prevent any of the class from lecturing all man
kind."

Of this class of books, however, none made so strong a
popular impression as the " Domestic Manners of the Ameri
cans," by Mrs. Trollope — a circumstance that the reader of
our own day finds it difficult to explain, until he recalls and
reflects upon the facts of the case ; for the book is superior
to the average of a like scope, in narrative interest. It is
written in a lively, confident style, and, before the subjects
treated had become so familiar and hackneyed, must have
proved quite entertaining. The name of the writer, how
ever, was, for a long period, and still is, to a certain extent,
more identified with the unsparing social critics of the coun
try than any other in the long catalogue of modern British
travellers in America. Until recently, the sight of a human
foot protruding over the gallery of a Western theatre was
hailed with the instant and vociferous challenge, apparently
undisputed as authoritative, of " Trollope ! " whereupon the
obnoxious member was withdrawn from sight ; and the in
ference to a stranger's mind became inevitable, that this best-
abused writer on America was a beneficent, practical re
former.

The truth is, that Mrs. Trollope's powers of observation
are remarkable. What she sees, she describes with vivacity,
and often with accurate skill. No one can read her Travels
in Austria without acknowledging the vigor and brightness
of her mind. Personal disappointment in a pecuniary enter
prise vexed her judgment ; and, like so many of her nation,
she thoroughly disliked the political institutions of the Unitedj
10* *

226 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

States, was on the lookout for social anomalies and personal
defects, and persistent, like her " unreasoning sex," in attrib
uting all that was offensive or undesirable in her experience
to the prejudice she cherished. Moreover, her experience
itself was limited and local. She entered the country more
than thirty years ago, at New Orleans, and passed most of
the time, during her sojourn, amid the new and thriving but
crude and confident Western communities, where neither
manners nor culture, economy nor character had attained
any well-organized or harmonious development. The self-
love of these independent but sometimes rough pioneers of
civilization, was wounded by the severe comments of a stran
ger who had shared their hospitality, when she expatiated on
their reckless use of tobacco, their too free speech and angu
lar attitudes ; but, especially, when all their shortcomings were
declared the natural result of republican institutions. Hence
the outcry her book occasioned, and the factitious impor
tance attached thereto. Not a single fault is found recorded
by her, which our own writers, and every candid citizen, have
not often admitted and complained of. The fast eating,
boastful talk, transient female beauty, inadequate domestic
service, abuse of calomel as a remedy, copious and careless
expectoration, free and easy manners, superficial culture, and
many other traits, more or less true now as then, here or
there, are or have been normal subjects of animadversion.
It was not because Mrs. Trollope did not write much truth
about the country and the people, that, among classes of the
latter, her name was a reproach ; but because she reasoned so
perversely, and did not take the pains to ascertain the whole
truth, and to recognize the compensatory facts of American
life. But this objection should have been reconciled by her
candor. She frankly declares that her chief object is " to
encourage her countrymen to hold fast by the Constitution
that insures all the blessings which flow from established
habits and solid principles ;" and elsewhere remarks that the
dogma " that all men are born free and equal has done, is
doing, and will do much harm to this fair country." Her

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 227

sympathies overflow toward an English actor, author, and
teacher she encounters, and she feels a pang at Andre's
grave ; but she looks with the eye of criticism only on the
rude masses who are turning the wilderness into cities, re
fusing to see any prosperity or progress in the scope and
impulse of democratic principles. " Some of the native
political economists," she writes, " assert that this rapid con
version of a bearbrake into a prosperous city is the result of
free political institutions. Not being very deep in such mat
ters, a more obvious cause suggested itself to me, in the
unceasing goad which necessity applies to industry in this
country, and in the absence of all resources for the idle."
Without discussing the abstract merits of her theory, it is
obvious that a preconceived antipathy to the institutions of a
country unfits even a sensible and frank writer for social criti
cism thereon ; and, in this instance, the writer seems to have
known comparatively few of the more enlightened men, and
to have enjoyed the intimacy of a still smaller number of the
higher class of American women ; so that, with the local and
social data she chiefly relied on, her conclusions are only
unjust inasmuch as they are too general. She describes well
what strikes her as new and curious ; but her first impres
sions, always so influential, were forlorn. The flat shores at
the mouth of the Mississippi in winter, the muddy current,
pelicans, snags, and bulrushes, were to her a desolate change
from the bright blue ocean ; but the flowers and fruits of
Louisiana, the woods and the rivers, as they opened to her
view, brought speedy consolation ; which, indeed, was modi
fied by disagreeable cookery, bad roads, illness, thunder
storms, and unpleasant manners and customs — the depressing
influence of which, however, did not prevent her expatiating
with zest and skill upon the camp meetings, snakes, insects,
elections, house moving, queer phrases, dress, bugs, lingo,
parsons, politicians, figures, faces, and opinions which came
within her observation.

"With more perspicacity and less prejudice, she Avould
have acknowledged the temporary character of many of the

228 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

facts of the hour, emphasized by her pen as permanent. The
superficial reading she notes, for instance, was but the eager
thirst for knowledge that has since expanded into so wide a
habit of culture that the statistics of the book trade in the
United States have become one of the intellectual marvels of
the age. Her investigation as to the talent, sources of dis
cipline, and development, were extremely incurious and
slight ; hence, what she says of our statesmen and men of
letters is too meagre for comment. The only American au
thor she appears to have known well was Flint ; and her
warm appreciation of his writings and conversation, indicates
what a better knowledge of our scholars and eminent profes
sional men would have elicited from so shrewd an observer.
The redeeming feature of her book is the love of nature it
exhibits. American scenery often reconciles her to the bad
food and worse manners ; the waterfalls, rivers, and forests
are themes of perpetual admiration. " So powerful," she
writes of a passage down one of the majestic streams of the
West, " was the effect of this sweet scenery, that we ceased
to grumble at our dinners and suppers." Strange to say, she
was delighted with the city of Washington, extols the Capi
tol, and recognizes the peculiar merits of Philadelphia. In
fact, when she writes of what she sees, apart from prejudice,
there are true woman's wit and sense in her descriptions ; but
she does not discriminate, or patiently inquire. Her book is
one of impressions — some very just, and others casual. She
was provoked at being often told, in reply to some remark,
" That is because you know so little of America ; " and yet
the observation is one continually suggested by her too hasty
conclusions. With all its defects, however, few of the class
of books to which it belongs are better worth reading now
than this once famous record of Mrs. Trollope. It has a cer
tain freshness and boldness about it that explain its original
popularity. Its tone, also, in no small degree explains its un
popularity ; for the writer, quoting a remark of Basil Hall's,
to the effect that the great difference between Americans and
English is the want of loyalty, declares it, in her opinion, is

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 229

the want of refinement. And it is upon this that she harps
continually in her strictures, while the reader is offended by
the identical deficiency in herself; and herein we find the
secret of the popular protest the book elicited on this side of
the water ; for those who felt they needed to be lectured on
manners, repudiated such a female writer as authoritative,
and regarded her assumption of the office as more than gra
tuitous.

The interest excited by many of the now forgotten books
at which we have glanced, can only be compared to that
which attends a new novel by a popular author. Curiosity,
pique, self-love, and indignation were alternately awakened.
Hospitable people found themselves outraged, and communica
tive tuft hunters betrayed ; provincial self-complacency was
sadly disturbed, and the countless readers of the land, for
weeks, talked only of the coarse comments of Mrs. Trollope,
the descriptive powers of Captain Hamilton, the kindly views
of the Hon. Augustus Murray, the conceit of Basil Hall, the
good sense of Combe, the frankness of Fanny Butler, the
impertinence of Fiddler, the elaborate egotism of Silk Buck
ingham, the scientific knowledge of Featherstonaugh and
Lyell, the indelicate personalities of Fredrika Bremer, the
masculine assurance of Miss Martineau, and the ungrateful
caricatures of Dickens, as exhibited in their respective ac
counts of American life, institutions, resources, and manners.

One of the latest of this class of Travels in America, is
an elaborate work entitled " Civilized America," by Thomas
Colley Grattan. Although this writer commences his book
by defining the Americans " a people easy of access, but diffi
cult to understand," and declares that " no one who writes
7 *

about the United States should be considered an oracle," he
is behind none of his predecessors in the complacency and
confidence with which he handles a confessedly difficult sub
ject. He thinks that " it is in masses that the people of this
country are to be seen to the greatest advantage ; " not
apparently recognizing the fact that this is the distinctive aim
of republican institutions — the special compensation for the

230 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

absence of those monopolies and that exclusiveness whereby
the individual in Europe is gratified at the expense of the
multitude. He notes the " sacrifice of individual eminence,
and consequently of personal enjoyment " — a result of the
same spirit of humanity which cherishes manhood and woman
hood as such, and, therefore, cheerfully loses the chance of
individual aggrandizement, in so far as it implies superiority
to and immunity from the universal and equal development
or opportunity therefor, whether of character, talent, material
welfare, or social position. Our educational system, public
men, some of the current political problems and parties, the
Irish in America, relations between England and the United
States, slavery, and other general subjects, are treated of
with little originality, but occasionally illustrated by facts
which to a British reader may be new and suggestive. The
old sarcasms about the bad architecture in our cities, and the
limited triumphs in art and literature yet achieved ; the usiial
sentimental protest against the slight local attachments, the
hurry, and the unrecreative habits and want of taste that
prevail ; the hackneyed complaint of unscientific regimen,
with especial reference to the indigestible nature of dough
nuts, salt fish and chowder ; and th£ baneful variety of
alcoholic drinks, and their vulgar names, diversify the grave
discussion of questions of polity and character.

It is surprising that a native of Great Britain should find
punctuality at meals and the condition of women in Amer
ica themes of animadversion ; and that conceit and flippancy
should strike him as so common on this side of the water ;
and narrowness of mind, as well as the want of independ
ence, be regarded as characteristic. In these and several
other instances, the reader familiar with life and manners in
England, and alive to the indications of character in style
and modes of thought, cannot but suspect him of drawing
upon his experience at home and his own consciousness, quite
as much as from intelligent observation here. At all events,
it is obvious that he is piqued into indignation by some spe
cial experience of his own while British Consul in Boston ;

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 231

for that " hub of the universe " is not the nucleus about
which either his sympathies or his magnanimity revolve.
Great ameliorations have occurred in " Civilized America "
since Mr. Grattan left her shores. Nothing shows the prog
ress of the country more emphatically than the obsolete sig
nificance of many of his remarks. They often do not apply
to the United States of to-day ; and both that country and
the reading public generally have outgrown the need and the
taste for this kind of petty fault-finding, which fails to com
prehend the spirit of the people, the true scope of the insti
tutions, the real law of life, labor, and love, whereof the
communities gathered on this vast and prolific continent are
the representatives. Not as a nursery of local manners, a
sphere for casual social experiments, an arena for conven
tional development ; but as the scene of a free expansion and
assertion of the rights of humanity, a refuge for the victims
of outgrown systems and over-populated countries, a home
for man as such, a land where humanity modifies and moulds
nationality, by virtue of the unimpeded range and frank
recognition thereof, in the laws, the opportunities, the equal
rights established and enjoyed, is America to be discussed
and understood ; for her civilization, when and where it is
truly developed, is cosmopolitan, not sectional — human, not
formal.

In 1850, the Earl of Carlisle delivered before the Me
chanics' Institute of Leeds a lecture embodying his observa
tions and comments during a tour in the United States;
which was subsequently published and read with much inter
est by his lordship's numerous friends on this side of the
Atlantic. A candid discussion of social defects and political
dangers is mingled, in this work, with a just appreciation of
the privileges and prosperity of the country. The American
edition was widely circulated, and justly estimated as one of
the most frank, kindly, and intelligent expositions of a
familiar but suggestive theme, which had yet appeared.
Though limited in scope, it is unpretending in tone and
genial in feeling.

232 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

In 1862, thirty years after Mrs. Trollope gave to the
world her opinion of the " Domestic Manners of the Ameri
cans," her son Anthony published his • book on " North
America." * His novels illustrative of Irish and ecclesiasti
cal life, had made his name and abilities as a writer familiar
on this side erf the water. These works of fiction have for
their chief merit an adherence to fact. The characters are
not modelled on an ideal standard, the incidents are seldom
extraordinary, and the style is the reverse of glowing. Care
ful observation, good sense, an apparently conscientious re
gard to the truth, make them a singular exception to the
popular novels of the day. The author is no imaginative
enthusiast or psychological artist, but he is an intelligent and
accurate reporter of life as he sees it, of men and things as
they are ; and if the subject interests his reader, he will
derive very clear and very just ideas of those forms and
phases of British experience and economy with which these
books so patiently deal. Mr. Troll ope's account of his visit
to the West Indies is recognized, by competent judges, as
one of the most faithful representations of the actual con
dition of those islands, and especially of the normal traits
and tendencies of the negro, which has appeared. Accord
ingly, he seems to have been remarkably fitted to record with
candid intelligence what he saw arid felt while visiting North
America ; and this he has done. The speciality of his book
is, that it treats of the Rebellion, and is the first elaborate
report thereof by a British eyewitness. Its defects are those
of limited opportunities, an unfavorable period, and a super
ficial experience warped by certain national proclivities, which
the feeling at work around him inevitably exasperated ; and
further modified by the circumstance that he is a Govern
ment employe and an English author. His spirit and intent,
however, are so obviously manful and considerate, that his
American readers are disarmed as soon as they are vexed, by
whatever strikes them as unfair or indiscriminate. Yet,
friendly as is the sentiment he challenges by his frankness,
* "North America," by Anthony Trollope, New York, 1862.

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 233

good sense, and good nature, one cannot avoid feeling some
what impatient at the gratuitous tone of criticism, and the
wearisome repetition and re-discussion of the most familiar
subjects. If, as Mr. Trollope says, it has been " the ambition
of his literary life to write a book about the United States,"
why did he not consult what has already been written, and
give an adequate period and study to the subject ? Scarcely
a topic upon which he dilates as a grievance, has escaped like
treatment from scores of his predecessors in this field, and
been humorously exposed or cleverly discussed by our own
authors ; and yet he gravely returns to the charge, as if a
newly discovered social anomaly claimed his perspicacious
analysis. This unconsciousness of the hackneyed nature of
the objections to American civilization, or want thereof, is
the more amusing from a certain tone of didactic responsi
bility, common, indeed, to all English writers on America, as
if that vast and populous country included no citizen or
native capable of teaching her the proprieties of life and the
principles of taste. We are constantly reminded of the re
iterating insect who " says an undisputed thing in such a
solemn way." Inasmuch as Mrs. Trollope, who came here
thirty years ago to open a bazaar in a newly settled city of
the West — which speculation failed — " with a woman's keen
eye," saw, felt, and put " in a note book " the grievous sole
cisms in manners arid deformities of social life which struck
her in the fresh but crude American communities, her honest
and industrious son now feels it incumbent upon him to com
plete the work, as " she did not regard it as part of hers to
dilate on the nature and operation of those political arrange •
ments which had produced the social absurdities which she
saw ; or to explain that, though such absurdities were the
natural result of those arrangements in their newness, the
defects would certainly pass away, while the political arrange
ments, if good, would remain." This, he thinks, is better
work for a man than a woman, and therefore undertakes to
do it — not apparently dreaming that it has been and is con
tinually being done by those whose lifelong acquaintance

234 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

with the problem, to say nothing of their personal interest in
its solution, enables them fully to comprehend and clearly to
analyze. This instinctive self-esteem is apparently the normal
mood with which even the kindliest and the most sensible
English travellers comment on America. They do not conde
scend to examine the writings of Americans on their own
country, and ignore the fact that the lectures, essays, ser
mons, and humorous sketches of our own authors, have, for
years, advocated reforms, exposed defects, and suggested
ameliorations which these self-constituted foreign censors pro
claim as original. Mr. Trollope seems extremely afraid of
giving offence, continually deprecates the idea, and wishes it
understood that it is very painful to him to find fault with
anybody or anything in the United States, but he must cen
sure as well as blame, and he means no unkindness. All this,
however amiable, is really preposterous. It presupposes a
degree of importance as belonging to his opinions, or rather
a necessity for their expression, which seems to us quite irra
tional in a man of such common sense, and who has seen so
much of the world. It is amusing, and, as a friend re
marked, " comes from his blood, not his brain." It is the
old leaven of self-love, self-importance, self-assertion of the
Englishman as such. If he had passed years instead of
months in America, and grown familiar with other circles
besides the circle of litterateurs who so won his admiration
in Boston, he would have found all he has written of the
spoiled children, the hard women, the despotic landlords, dis
gusting railway cars, Western swindlers, bad architecture,
official peculations, mud, dust, and desolation of Washington,
misery of Cairo, and base, gold-seeking politicians of Amer
ica, overheated rooms, incongruous cuisine, and undisciplined
juveniles, thoroughly appreciated, perfectly understood, and
habitually the subject of native protest and foreign report.
On many of these points his views are quite unemphatic,
compared to those of educated Americans ; so that his dis
cussion of civility vs. servility, of modern chivalry, of the
reckless element of frontier life, of the unscrupulous " smart-

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 235

ness" and the want of reverence in the American charac
ter, and the want of privacy and comfort in our gregarious
hotels, seem to us quite as superfluous a task as to inveigh
in England against fees, taxes, fog, game laws, low wages,
pauperism, ecclesiastical abuses, aristocratic monopolies, or
any other patent and familiar evil.

That " necessity of eulogium " which pressed upon Mr.
Trollope, as it has upon so many of his countrymen in Amer
ica, is regarded as the evidence of extreme national sensitive
ness ; but he himself unwittingly betrays somewhat of the
same weakness — if it be such — by the deep impression made
by an individual's remark to his wife, which remark, if made
seriously to an Englishwoman, must have come from a per
son not overburdened with sense ; and if from a man of
intelligence, doubtless was intended as humorous. In either
case, it would seem unworthy of notice ; but Mr. Trollope
refers to it again and again, as if characteristic : " I never
yet met the down-trodden subject of a despot who did not
hug his chains." Those English flags among the trophies at
West Point, too, much as he delighted in the picturesque
beauty of the place, sorely haunted his mind. The fact is,
that this personal sensibility to national claims and associa
tions is the instinct of humanity. Its expression here is more
prevalent and its exactions more imperative, from the. fact
that, of all civilized countries, our own has been and is the
chosen theme of criticism, for the reason that it is more
experimental. In his somewhat disparaging estimate of
Newport, R. L, Mr. Trollope strangely omits the chief attrac
tion, and that is the peculiar climate, wherein it so much
differs from the rest of the New England coast. He ignores
this essential consideration, also, in his remarks upon the dis
tinctive physiognomy of Americans. Yet such is its influ
ence, combined with the active and exciting life of the
country, that the " rosy cheeks," full habit, and pedestrian
habitudes of Englishmen, often, after a few years' residence,
give place to thin jaws and frames, and comparative indiffer
ence to exercise : the nervous temperament encroaches upon

236 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENT ATOBS.

the sanguine ; beef and beer, port and porter, are found too
nutritive a diet ; and a certain quickness of mind and move
ment, and sensibility to physical influences, transform John
Bull even to his own consciousness. What Mr. Trollope says
of the American press, whether just or not, comes with an
ill grace from an Englishman, at a period wherein have been
so absolutely demonstrated to the world the wilful perversity
and predetermined falsehood of the leading press of Great
Britain. As in the case of so many of his countrymen, the
scenery of America proved to Mr. Trollope a compensation
for her discomforts. Niagara, the White Mountains, the
Alleghanies, and the Upper Mississippi, are described with
more enthusiasm than anything else but Boston hospitality.
Of course, for this feast of beauty, so amply illustrated by
our writers, he suggests that only Murray can furnish the
Guide Book.

It is curious that a man with such an eye for nature, and
such an inquiring mind, should find the St. Lawrence so
little attractive, fail to see President Lincoln, and feel no emo
tion at the scene of Wolfe's heroic death. Few visitors to
" the States " have more intelligently appreciated the manli
ness of the frontier settlers, the sad patience there born of
independent and lone struggling with nature, the immense
cereal resources of the West, and the process of trans
portation thereof at Chicago and Buffalo. He follows his
predecessors in attributing the chief glory of America to her
provision for universal education, her mechanical contri
vances, and the great average comfort and intelligence.

" The one thing," he remarks, " in which, as far as my judgment
goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen,
so as to justify them in taking to themselves praise which we cannot
take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of education ;
* * * and unrivalled population, wealth, and intelligence have
been the results ; and with these, looking at the whole masses of the
people, I think I am justified in saying, unrivalled comfort and hap
piness. It is not that you, my reader, to whom, in this matter of
education, fortune and your parents have probably been bountiful,
would have been more happy in New York than in London. It is

BEITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

237

not that I, who, at any rate, can read and write, have cause to wish
that I had been an American. But it is this : if you and I can
count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn
the circumstances of their lives, we shall be driven to conclude that
nine tenths of that number would have had a better life as Ameri
cans than they can have in their spheres as Englishmen.

" If a man can forget his own miseries in his journeyings, and
think of the people he comes to see rather than of himself, I think
he will find himself driven to admit that education has made life for
the million in the Northern States better than life for the million is
with us.

" I do not know any contrast that would be more surprising to
an Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that
which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in London,'
and then a free school in New York. * * * The female pupil at
a free school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a
charity girl, if not degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and
dress of the charity. "We Englishmen know well the type of each,
and have a fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is
imparted to them. We see the result afterward, when the same girls
become our servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The
female pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a
charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is per
fectly cleanly. In speaking to her, you cannot in any degree guess
whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand dollars a
year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in which her
associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you, it is always
the same as though her father were in all respects your equal.

" That which most surprises an English visitor, on going through
the mills at Lowell, is the personal appearance of the men and
women who work at them. As there are twice as many women as
there are men, it is to them that the attention is chiefly called.
They are not only better dressed, cleaner and better mounted in
every respect than the girls employed at manufactories in England,
but they are so infinitely superior as to make a stranger immediately
perceive that some very strong cause must have created the differ
ence. * * * One would, of course, be disposed to say that the
superior condition of the workers must have been occasioned by
superior wages ; and this, to a certain extent, has been the cause.
But the higher payments is not the chief cause. Women's wages,
including all that they receive at the Lowell factories, average about
fourteen shillings a week ; which is, I take it, fully a third more
than women can earn in Manchester, or did earn before the loss of

238 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the American cotton began to tell upon them. But if wages at Man
chester were raised to the Lowell standard, the Manchester woman
would not be clothed, fed, cared for, and educated like the Lowell
woman."

Charles Lamb aptly says, that the finer in kind things are,
the more scope there is for individual taste ;'and therefore he
was " always rather squeamish in his women and children."
Mr. Trollope, judging of the latter by the en f ants terribles
encountered at inns and on steamboats in America, describes
the nuisance of over-indulged and peremptory " Young
America " with emphasis ; and also draws the line, so re
markably obvious in this country, between female refinement
and vulgarity. He is doubtless right in ascribing the Ama
zonian manners and expression of the latter class to that uni
versal consideration for the sex so peculiar to our people. It
certainly is abused, and offensively so by the selfish and arro
gant. The conduct of Southern women, during the present
war, to Northern officers, is the best proof of their con
sciousness of safety by virtue of this public sentiment of
deference and protection. But has it ever occurred to Mr.
Trollope that this sentiment, however abused by those lack
ing the chivalry to respond to it, is almost a social necessity
in a land where people are thrown together so promiscuously,
and where no ranks exist to regulate intercourse and define
position ? Crinoline and bad manners have, indeed, done
much to encroach upon romance, and render modern gallantry
thoroughly conventional ; but the extravagant estimation in
which the rights and privileges of woman are here held, is
one of the most useful of our social safeguards and sanc
tions. Mr. Trollope pays the usual tribute of strangers to
the beauty, intelligence, and grace of American women who
are ladies by nature and not by courtesy ; but he draws the
reverse picture, not unfaithfully, in this mention of a species
of the female sex sometimes encountered in a public convey
ance :

" The woman, as she enters, drags after her a misshapen, dirty
mass of battered wirework, which she calls her crinoline, and which

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 239

adds as much to her grace and comfort as a log of wood does to a
donkey, when tied to the animal's leg in a paddock. Of this she
takes much heed, not managing it so that it may be conveyed up the
carriage with some decency, but striking it about against men's legs,
and heaving it with violence over people's knees. The touch of a
real woman's dress is in itself delicate ; but these blows from a
harpy's fins are loathsome. If there be two of them, they talk
loudly together, having a theory that modesty has been put out of
court by women's rights.

" But, though not modest, the woman I describe is ferocious in
her propriety. She ignores the whole world around her, as she sits
with raised chin, and face flattened by affectation. She pretends to
declare aloud that she is positively not aware that any man is even
near her. * * * But every twist of her body, and every tone of
her voice, is an unsuccessful falsehood. She looks square at you in
the face, and you rise to give her your seat. You rise from a defer
ence to your own old convictions, and from that courtesy which you
have ever paid to a woman's dress, let it be worn with ever such
hideous deformities. She takes the place from which you have
moved without a word or a bow. She twists herself round, banging
your shins with her wires ; while her chin is still raised, and her face
is still flattened, and she directs her friend's attention to another
seated man, as though that place were also vacant, and necessarily at
her disposal. Perhaps the man opposite has his own ideas about
chivalry. I have seen such a thing, and have rejoiced to see it."

And of the spoiled children he thus discourses :

"And then the children — babies I should say. if I were speaking
of English bairns of their age ; but, seeing that they are Americans,
I hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these per
fectly civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to
four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner
table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and
going through the ceremony with all the gravity and more than all
the decorum of their grandfathers. "When I was three years old, I
had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of
my own, wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery; and I
feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as
I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy-

" But at hotel life in the States, the adult infant lisps to the waiter
for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is
choice in his selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak
at breakfast shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice

24:0 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

in his water. But perhaps his — or in this case her — retreat from the
room when the meal is over, is the chef d'ceuwe of the whole per
formance. The little precocious, full-blown beauty of four signifies
that she has completed her meal — or is 'through' her dinner, as she
would express it — by carefully extricating herself from the napkin
which has been tucked around her. Then the waiter, ever attentive
to her movements, draws back the chair on which she is seated, and
the young lady glides to the floor. A little girl in old England would
scramble down; but little girls in New England never scramble.
Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief ministers,
walk before her out of the saloon, and then — she swims after
them."

The frequent change of occupation, and the hardihood
with which misfortunes — especially pecuniary reverses — are
met, impress him. " Everybody," he writes, " understands
everything, and everybody intends, sooner or later, to do
everything ; " and, " whatever turns up, the man is still
there, still unsophisticated, still unbroken." He thinks
American coachmen the most adroit in the world ; the
houses more convenient than those of England of the same
class ; the green knolls and open glades of Kentucky more
like what his countrymen love in a manorial estate, than any
land or forest elsewhere in the country ; and, of cities, gives
the preference to Boston and Baltimore — the former on ac
count of its culture, and the latter because of its " hunting-
ground " vicinity, pleasant women, and " English look." It
is amusing to find him gravely asserting, that " the mind of
an Englishman has more imagination than that of an Ameri
can," and that " squash is the pulp of the pumpkin." He
thinks we suffer for " a national religion," and have found
out that " the plan of governing by little men has certainly
not answered ; " and justly regards it as our special blessing
to " have been able to begin at the beginning," and so, in
many things, improve upon the Old World. Of Congress
and Cambridge, Mr. Trollope gives details of parliamentary
customs and educational habits, indicating wherein they differ
from those of England. He repeats the old arguments for an
international copyright. He discusses Canada in her present

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 241

and prospective political relations with singular candor, and
frankly admits the inferiority of her material development to
that of the United States. " Everybody travels in America,"
he observes, " and nothing is thought of distance." In this
fact he could easily have found the explanation of the dis
comforts of American travel, inasmuch as railroads that are
built to lure emigrants to build towns in the wilderness, and
cars that are intended to convey crowds of all classes, in the
nature of the case do not admit of those refined arrange
ments which make foreign railways so agreeable, and the
absence of which renders most American journeys a penance.
Among the things which Mr. Trollope, however, finds superior,
are canvas-back ducks, rural cemeteries, schools, asylums, city
libraries, waterfalls, maize fields, authors, and women. But
the special interest of his book is its discussion of the civil
war. His own political views seem to us somewhat inconsist
ent. Repudiating the military despotism existing in France
as a wrong to manhood and humanity, he yet thinks " those
Chinese rascals should be forced into the harness of civiliza
tion." In allusion to our errors of government, he justly
remarks, that " the material growth of the States has been
so quick, that the political has not been able to keep up with
it." In some respects he does justice to the war for the
Union, asserting its necessity, and recognizing the disinter
ested patriotism of the North, and the wholly inadequate
reasons put forth by the South for treachery and revolt. Yet
he fails to grasp the whole subject — treating the exigency as
political exclusively, and the Rebellion as analogous to that
of Naples, Poland, and our own Revolution. This is, to say
the least, a most inadequate and perverse view. Not only
had the South no wrongs to redress for which the United
States Government were responsible, but they violated State
not less than National rights, in their seizure of property, per
secution and murder of loyal citizens, and enforced votes and
enlistments at the point of the bayonet. Citizens in their
midst claimed and deserved Federal protection not less than
those on this side of their lines. Moreover, the " landless
11

242 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

resolutes " of the South proved, in warfare, barbarians in
sacrilegious hate ; so that, under any circumstances, it would
have become a necessity for the North to fortify and defend
her frontier. These circumstances make an essential differ
ence between this Rebellion and other civil wars : they
aggravate its turpitude, and vindicate the severest measures
to repress it, irrespective of any question of political union.
In like manner Mr. Trollope gives but a partial view of the
feeling of America toward England. It was not sympathy in
a mere political quarrel, between two equally justified parties,
that she expected, and was grieved and incensed at not re
ceiving. Such a feeling might be unmanly, as Mr. Trollope
thinks, and also unreasonable ; but when, for years, English
statesmen, travellers, and journalists had taunted us with the
slavery entailed upon the Southern States in colonial days,
and by British authority ; and when, at last, we had made
the first grand step toward limiting, if not undermining the
evil, and, by doing so, had incurred the hatred, treachery,
and violence of the slaveholders, we had every reason to
expect that a Christian nation, akin in blood and language,
would throw the weight of her influence, social and political,
into the scale of justice, instead of hastening to recognize the
insurgents as standing before the world on an equal moral
and civic footing with a Government and a people they had
cheated, defied, and were seeking to destroy for no reason
save the constitutional election of a President opposed to the
extension of slavery. It was this that created the disappoint
ment and inspired the bitterness which M?. Trollope declares
so unjust and unreasonable. He compares the struggle to a
quarrel between a man and his wife, and with two parties
throwing brickbats at each other across the street, to the
great discomfort of neutral passengers. Mr. Gladstone re
cently compared it to a difficulty between two partners in
business, the one wishing to retire from the firm, and the
other attempting to force him to remain. Lord Brougham
also spoke of a late treaty between England and the United
States of America to suppress the slave trade, as " the treaty

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 243

of the Northern Government." It requires no special candor
and right feeling to perceive the animus of such expressions.
They ignore the true state of the case ; they betray a want
of respect for historical accuracy, and an indifference, not to
say contempt, for the Government and people of America,
only to be explained by a brutal want of Christian sympathy,
or mean desire to see a great and patriotic nation decimated
and humbled. How sadly do such observations contrast with
the just and kindly statements of De Gasparin, of John
Bright, and of John Stuart Mill ! All the solicitude which
agitated England and America in regard to the capture of
the rebel envoys, about which Mr. Trollope has so much to
say, would have been avoided had Great Britain acted,
thought, spoken, and felt in this matter with any magnanim
ity. To her the safe transit of those Secession commissioners
was of no importance ; to us it was, at the time, a serious
misfortune. Their relinquishment, without war threats and
war preparations, would have cost a friendly and noble nation
no loss of dignity, no harm to private or public interests.
The proceeding was assumed to be a premeditated insult,
whereas it was purely an accident. An insult implies inten
tion. In this case, the object of Captain Wilkes was mani
festly to perform a duty to his own, not to injure or treat
with disrespect another country. His act was illegal, but the
exigency was peculiar. A generous man or woman person
ally incommoded by the representative of a just cause, and
in the hour of misfortune, where there was no malice, no
impertinence, but an important end to be achieved at the ex
pense of a temporary discourtesy— not real, but apparent —
would cheerfully waive conventional rights, and, from nobil
ity of feeling, subdue or postpone resentment. In social life,
examples of such forbearance and humane consideration often
happen ; and though it may be Utopian to apply the same
ethical code to nations and individuals — in the view of a
Christian or even a chivalric man, such an application of the
high and holy instincts of our nature is far from irrational.
In that sacred chart whereon rest the hopes and the faith, the

244: AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS.

precedents and the principles of Christianity — " the spirit we
are of" is constantly referred to as the test of character and
the evidence of feeling. Throughout our national sorrows,
from the inception of this wicked Rebellion, through all its
course, the spirit of the press and Parliament, the spirit of
England, as far as it has found official expression, with a few
memorable exceptions, have been unjust, disingenuous, and
inimical ; and when the history of this national crisis is
written, the evidence of this will be as glaring as it is
shameful.

Mr. Trollope has lost an opportunity to realize •" the am
bition of his literary life." His visit was too brief and un
seasonable for him to do anything like justice to himself or
his subject. He visited the West in winter — a comfortless
period, when nature is denuded of the freshness and beauty
which at more genial seasons cheer the natural " melan
choly " he felt there. He saw the army of the Union in its
transition state, and beheld the country and the people when
under the shadow of war, and that war undertaken against
a senseless and savage mutiny. He rapidly scanned places,
with no time to ripen superficial acquaintance into intimacy ;
and he wrote his impressions of the passing scene in the
midst of hurry, discomfort, and the turbulence and gloom of
a painfully exciting and absorbing era. Moreover, his forte
is not political disquisition. Still, the interests involved, the
moral spectacle apparent, the historical and social elements at
work, were such as to inspire a humanitarian and enlighten .a
philosopher ; and if unambitious of either character, there
remained a great duty and noble mission for an English au
thor — to correct specifically, to deny emphatically, the cur
rent misrepresentations of British statesmen and journals,
and to vindicate a kindred and maligned people. He has
told many wholesome truths ; he has borne witness to many
essential facts about which the British public have hitherto,
in spite of all evidence, professed utter incredulity. But he
might have gone farther and done more, and so made his
work signally useful now, and far more memorable hereafter.

BEITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 245

The Scotch are far more discriminating and sympathetic
than the English in their comments and comparisons in re
gard to America. The affinity between the North Britons
and the New Englanders has often been noted. In habits of
industry, native shrewdness, religious enthusiasm, frugal in
stincts, love of knowledge, and many other traits, a parallel
may be easily traced. We have seen how genial was the
appreciation of Mrs. Grant in her girlhood, of the independ
ence, harmony, and social charms of colonial life in Albany.
Alexander Wilson both loved and honored the home he found
on our soil ; and among the Travels in America of recent
date, which, in their liberal spirit and their sagacity, form
honorable exceptions to British misrepresentation, are two
works written by Scotchmen, which our publishers, so ready
to reproduce books that have the piquancy of abuse or the
flash of extravagance, with singular want of judgment have
ignored. The first of these is an unpretending little bro
chure, entitled " A Tour in the United States," by Archibald
Prentice.* This writer has been a public-spirited citizen and
an editor in Manchester, and was thus practically fitted intel
ligently to examine the economical features of the country.
Of Covenanter stock, his sympathies were drawn to the Con
necticut clergy ; and the graves of kindred endeared the land
which he visited in order to examine its physical resources
with special reference to emigration, manufactures, trade, and
labor. He is enthusiastic on entering, on a beautiful day, the
harbor of New York, and, with all the zest of a practical
economist, dwells upon the activity and scope of that com
mercial metropolis. " Here," he writes, " bright visions arise
in the imagination of the utilitarian. He sees the farmer on
the Hudson, the Mohawk, the Ohio, the Illinois, the Miami,
and the lakes Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, cheerfully labor
ing in his own fields for the sustenance of the Manchester
spinner and weaver ; he sees the potter of Horsley, the cut
ler of Sheffield, the cloth manufacturer of Yorkshire, and the
sewer and tambourer of Glasgow, in not hopeless or unre-
* London: Charles Gilpin, 1848.

246 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

warded toil, preparing additional comforts and enjoyments
for the inhabitants of the American woods and prairies. He
conjures up a great cooperative community, all working for
mutual benefit ; and sees, in the universal competition, the
universal good." He finds the usual defects, as he extends
his observations — the cheap railroads, the fragile women, the
over-eagerness for foreign appreciation, the inadequate agri
cultural science, and, above all, the monstrous evil — political,
economical, social, moral, and religious — of slavery. But
while all these and other drawbacks are emphasized, the
causes and conditions are frankly stated. This writer ap
preciates the favorable relations of labor to capital, and,
although an anti-protectionist, recognizes cordially the advan
tages here realized by honest industry and intelligent enter
prise in manufactures and trade. " Even the Irishman," he
writes, " becomes commercial." " The Illinois coalfields,"
he notes, " are reached by drifts instead of shafts — horizon
tally, not perpendicularly." He lauds our comparatively
inexpensive Government, the " moral machinery " of our
manufacturing towns, the harmonious coexistence of so
many religious sects. He considers the stern virtues bred by
the hard soil and climate of New England a providential
school, wherein the character of Western emigration was
auspiciously predetermined. But Mr. Prentice has as keen
an eye for the beauties of nature as for the resources of in
dustry. He was constantly impressed, not only with the gen
eral but with the specific resemblance of American scenery
to that of Great Britain ; and compares an " opening " in the
landscape between Baltimore and Washington to " the Esk
below Langholm ; " the view up the Shenandoah to the Clyde
at Auld-Brig-End, near Lanark ; the bluffs of the Ohio to
the " irregular face which Alderley Edge presents Wilm-
stone ; " and Lake Champlain to Windermere arid Ulswater ;
while . he finds the " footway to the Charter Oak, at Hart
ford, worn like the path to the martyr's grave in the Old
Friar's Churchyard in Edinburgh. Although thus warmly
alive to native associations, he is not less an ardent advocate

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 247

for mutual forbearance and wise fellowship between Great
Britain and America. " The citizens of the United States,"
he remarks, " do not dislike Englishmen individually. On
the contrary, they are rather predisposed to like them, and to
pay them most kind and respectful attention when they visit
America. Their dislike is to John Bull — the traditional, big,
bullying, borough-mongering and monopolizing John Bull ;
the John Bull as he was at the time of the American and the
French Revolutions, before Catholic emancipation, before
the repeal of the Orders in Council, before the Reform Bill."
And, in conclusion, he thus benignly adjures the spirit of a
candid mutual appreciation and harmony : " Would that men
in both countries would drop all narrow jealousies, and, look
ing to the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon family, earnestly
resolve that the sole struggle between those of its branches
only geographically separated, should be which most jealously
and most energetically should labor to Christianize and civil
ize the whole human race."

The other Scotch writer whose recent observations are
worthy of that consideration which an honest purpose, ele
vated sympathies, and conscientious intelligence, should ever
secure, is James Stirling,* a member of Parliament, whose
" Letters from the Slave States," published seven years ago,
but, strange to say, not reprinted here, feems to have antici
pated many of the subsequent political events and social
manifestations. This writer has evidently made a study of
economical questions. He has that mental discipline which
experience, legislative and professional, insures. Firm in his
opinions, but liberal and humane in spirit, there is a combina
tion of sagacity and generous feeling in his tone of mind
which commands respect. These letters are candid and
thoughtful ; and, while some of the views advanced chal
lenge argument, the general scope is just and wise. Mr.
Stirling was chiefly struck with the rapidity of growth in the
American settlements, and records many specific and authen-

* " Letters from the Slave States," by James Stirling. London : J. W.
Parker, 1857.

24:8 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tic facts illustrative of this peculiar feature in Western civili
zation, of which he calls railways "the soul." The con
ditions of success for new communities he regards as, first,
an energetic population ; second, fertile soil ; third, favorable
climate ; and, fourth, easy .means of communication ; and he
explains the prosperity and the failure of such experiments
by these conditions. He is opposed to protection and to
universal suffrage, and finds ample evidence to sustain these
opinions in his observations in the United States. The sub
ject, however, which mainly occupies his attention, is the
actual influence and effects of slavery, the difficulties in the
way of its abolition, and the probable consequence of its
existence upon the destiny and development of the nation.
His economical argument is strong. He indicates the com
parative stagnation and degradation of the Slave States with
detail, describes the status of the poor whites, notes the his
torical facts, and seems to anticipate the climax which three
years later involved the country in civil war. " The South,"
he writes, " seems to me in that mood of mind which fore
runs destruction ; " and elsewhere observes that " the acci
dent of cotton has been the ruin of the negro." Pie recog
nizes a " moral disunion " in the opposition of parties and
social instincts in regard to slavery. " Like most foreign
ers," he observes, " I find it very difficult to appreciate the
construction of American parties. There is a party called
the Southern party, which is distinctly in favor of separation.
It will carry along with it, notwithstanding its most insane
policy, a great proportion of the low white population.
Opposed to it is the conservative intelligence of the South."
Mr. Stirling justly regards the " want of concentration " as
the characteristic defect of American civilization ; and re
gards the " aristocracy of the South " as almost identical
with " the parvenu society of the mushroom cities " in
Britain ; and observes significantly that it is " on the impor
tance of cotton to England that the philosophers of the
South delight to dwell." Indeed, throughout his observa
tions on the Slave States, there is a complete recognition of

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 249

the facts and principles which the North has vainly striven
for months past to impress upon English statesmen ; and this
testimony is the more valuable inasmuch as it is disinter
ested, and was recorded before any overt act of rebellion had
complicated our foreign relations. . Although this writer's
experience in Alabama is more favorable to the social con
dition of that State than what fell under the observation of
Mr. Olmsted, yet the latter's economical statistics of the
Slave States are amply confirmed by Mr. Stirling. He is
equally struck with the contrast between the two parts of
the country in regard to providence and comfort. He agrees
with other travellers in his estimate of popular defects, and
is especially severe upon the evils of hotel life in the United
States, and the superficial and showy workmanship which
compares so unfavorably with substantial English manufac
tures. Many of these criticisms have only a local applica
tion, yet they are none the less true. Duelling, lynching,
" hatred of authority," " passion for territory," inadequate
police, and reckless travelling, are traits which are censured
with emphasis. But the charm of these letters consists in
the broad and benign temper of the writer, when from spe
cific he turns to general inferences, and treats of the country
as a whole, and of its relations to the Old World and to
humanity. It is refreshing to find united in a foreign critic
such a clear perception of the drawbacks to our national
prosperity and incongruous elements in our national develop
ment, with an equally true insight and recognition of the
individual and domestic rectitude, and the noble and high
tendencies of life and character. A few random extracts
will indicate these qualities of the man and merits of the
writer :

"We have experienced, even from utter strangers, an officious
kindness and sympathy that can only arise from hearts nurtured in
the daily practice of domestic virtues."

" I have no fears but that the follies and crudities of the present
effervescent state of American society will pass away, and leave be
hind a large residuum of solid worth."
11*

250 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" I cannot overlook that latent force of virtue and wisdom, which
makes itself, as yet, too little felt in public affairs, but which assuredly
is there, and will come forth, I am convinced, when the hour of trial
comes to save the country."

" The American nation will wrestle victoriously with the^e social
and political hydras."

Mr. Stirling gives a most true analysis of an American
popular speaker in his estimate of Beecher. He discrimi
nates well the local traits of the country, calling Florida the
"Alsatia of the Union," because it is such a paradise for
sportsmen and squatters ; and explaining the superiority in
race of the Kentuckians by; their hunting habits and progeni
tors. " The little step," he writes, " from the South to the
North, is a stride from barbarism to civilization — a step from
the sixteenth to the nineteenth century."

Of tne physiognomy of the people he says : " You read
upon the nation's brow the extent of its enterprise and the
intensity of its desires. The deepest-rooted cause of Ameri
can disease is the overworking of the brain and the over-
excitement of the nervous system."

Equally clear and earnest, humane and noble, is his view
of the relation of this country to Great Britain : " Never
were two nations," he writes, " so eminently fitted to aid and
comfort each other in the vast work of civilization, than Eng
land and America." He reproaches Great Britain with her
indifference, as manifest in sending second-class ambassadors
to the United States ; and invokes " the spiritual ruler, the
press," to do its part, " by speaking more generously and
wisely." If the prescience of this writer is remarkable in
estimating aright the temper and tendencies of Southern trea
son while yet latent, and of Northern integrity and patriot
ism before events had elicited their active development, no
less prophetic is his appeal to English magnanimity :

" Why, in God's name, should we not give them every assurance
of respect and affection? Are they not our children, blood of our
blood and bone of our bone ? Are they not progressive, and fond
of power, like ourselves ? Are they not our best customers ? Have

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 251

they not the same old English, manly virtues ? What is more befit
ting for us Englishmen, than to watch with intense study and deep
est sympathy the momentous strivings of this noble people ? It is
the same fight we ourselves are fighting — the true and absolute
supremacy of Eight. Surely nothing can more beseem two great
and kindred nations, than to aid and comfort one another in that
career of self-ennoblement, which is the end of all national as well
as individual existence."*

* " The stupendous greatness of England is factitious, and will only be
come natural when that empire shall have found its real centre : that centre
is the United States."—" The New Rome ; or, The United States of the
World" (New York, 1843).

A remarkably bold and comprehensive theory of American progress,
unity, and empire, by Theodore Poosche and Charles Goepp — one an Ameri
canized German, the other a Teutonic philosopher. In this little treatise the
geography, politics, races, and social organization of the United States are
analyzed, and shown to be " at work upon the fusion of all nations — not of
this continent alone, but of all continents — into one people."

CHAPTEE VII.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA.

IT has often been remarked, that there is a fashion in
bookcraft, as in every other phase and element of human
society; and the caprices thereof are often as inexplicable
and fantastic as in manners, costume, and other less intellect
ual phenomena. The history of modern literature indicates
extreme fluctuations of popular taste. Waller and Cowley
introduced the concetti of the Italians into English verse,
which, in Elizabeth's reign, was so preeminent for robust afflu
ence ; in Pope's day we had satire and sense predominant ;
Byron initiated the misanthropic and impassioned style ;
while Steele and Addison inaugurated social criticism, the
lake poets a recurrence to the simplicity of nature, and the
Scotch reviewers bold analysis and liberal reform. But the
uniform tone of books and criticism in England for so many
years, in relation to America, is one of those literary phe
nomena the cause of which must be sought elsewhere than
among the whims and oddities of popular taste or the caprice
of authors. A French writer, at one period, declared it was
the direct result of official bribery, to stop emigration ; but
its motives were various, and its origin far from casual or
temporary ; and the attitude and animus of England during
the war for the Union, give to these systematic attacks and
continuous detraction a formidable significance. The Ameri
can abroad may have grown indifferent to the derogatory

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 253

facts or fictions gleaned for Galignani's Messenger, and
served up with his daily breakfast ; he may treat the prejudice
and presumption of English censors with amusing non
chalance, when discussing them with an esteemed and kindly
friend of that race ; but the subject assumes a more grave
aspect, when he finds his country's deadly struggle for nation
ality against a selfish and profane oligarchy, understood and
vindicated by the press of Turin and St. Petersburg, and
maligned or discouraged by that of London. Cockneyism
may seem unworthy of analysis, far less of refutation ; but,
as Sydney Smith remarked by way of apology for hunting
small game to the death in his zeal for reform, " in a country
surrounded by dikes, a rat may inundate a province ; " and it
is the long-continued gnawing of the tooth of detraction
that, at a momentous crisis, let in the cold flood at last upon
the nation's heart, and quenched its traditional love.

We have seen how popular a subject of discussion were
American manners, institutions, and character, by British
writers ; and it is amusing, in the retrospect, to consider with
what avidity were read, and with wThat self-confidence were
written, these monotonous protests against the imperfect
civilization prevalent in the United States. That there was a
certain foundation for such discussion, and a relation between
the institutions of the country and the behavior of its people,
cannot be denied ; but both were exaggerated, and made to
pander infinitely more to prejudice than to truth. The same
investigation applied to other lands in the same spirit, would
have furnished quite as salient material ; and the antecedents
as well as the animus of most of these self-appointed cen
sors should have absolved their attacks from any power to
irritate. The violations of refinement and propriety thus
" set in a note book " were by no means universal. Many of
them were temporary, and, taken at their best significance, to
a philosophical mind bore no proportion to the more impor
tant traits and tendencies which invite the attention and
enlist the sympathy of lovers of humanity. It is remark
able, also, that the most severe comments came from persons

254: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

whose experience of the higher usages and refinements of
social life was in the inverse ratio of their critical complaints.
Lord Carlisle found, in the vast social possibilities of this
country, an interest which rendered him indifferent to the dis
comfort and the anomalies to which his own habits and asso
ciations might have naturally made him sensitive ; while the
latter exclusively occupied Dickens, whose early experience
had made him familiar with the least elegant and luxurious
facilities of life. The arrant cockneyism and provincial im
pertinence of many of these superficial and sensation writers,
on a subject whose true and grand relations they were incapa
ble of grasping, and the mercenary or sycophantic motive of
many of their tirades, were often exposed ; while in cases
where incidental popular errors were truly stated, the justice
of the criticism was acknowledged, and, in some instances,
practically acted upon. The reckless expectoration, angular
attitudes, and intrusive curiosity which formed the staple
reproach, have always been limited to a class or section, and
are now comparatively rare ; and these and similar superficial
defects, when gravely treated as national, seem almost devoid
of significance, when the grand human worth, promise, and
beauty of our institutions and opportunities as a people, are
considered and compared with the iron caste, the hopeless
routine, the cowed and craven status of the masses in older
and less homogeneous and unhampered communities.

"We must look far back to realize the prevalent ignorance
in regard to this country wherein prejudice found root and
nurture. In colonial days, many bitter and perverse records
found their way to the press ; and Colonel Barre said to the
elder Quincy, in England, before the Revolutionary war :
" When I returned to this country, I was often speaking of
America, and could not help speaking well of its climate,
soil, and inhabitants ; but — will you believe it ? — more than
two thirds of the people of this island thought the Ameri
cans were all negroes."

Goldsmith's muse, in 1765, warned the impoverished peas
ants, eager to seek a new home in the Western hemisphere,

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 255

against perils in America so imaginary, that they would pro
voke only smiles but for the melodious emphasis whereby
ignorance and error were thus consecrated.

And after our independence was acknowledged, English
men regarded it as a strictly political fact. We were inde
pendent of their Government, but not of themselves — the
least of them assuming superiority, patronage, and critical
functions, as a matter of course ; so that Americans with any
intelligence or manliness came inevitably to sympathize with
Heine's estimate : " The English blockheads — God forgive
them ! I often regard them not at all as my fellow beings,
but as miserable automata, — machines whose motive power is
egotism." That insular and inevitable trait found expression,
as regards America, through the Quarterly Reviews, Monthly
Magazines, and a rapid succession of " Travels."

A pregnant cause of temporary alienation, fifty years
ago, may be recognized in the last war with Great Britain.
Our naval skill and prowess were a sore trial to the pride of
Englishmen ; although some of the popular authors of that
day, like Southey, frankly acknowledged this claim to respect.
" Britain had ruled the waves. So her poets sang ; so nations
felt — all but this young nation. Her trident had laid them all
prostrate ; and how fond she was of considering this emblem
as identified with the sceptre of the world ! Behold, then, the
flag which had everywhere reigned in triumph supreme, send
ing forth terror from its folds — behold it again and again and
again lowered to the Stars and Stripes which had risen in the
new hemisphere ! The spectacle was'magnificent. The Euro
pean expectation that we were to be crushed, was turned into
a feeling of admiration unbounded. Our victories had a moral
effect far transcending the number or size of their ships van
quished. For such a blow upon the mighty name of Eng
land, after many idle excuses, she had, at last, no balm so
effectual as that it was inflicted and could only have been
inflicted by a race sprung from herself." *

* " Occasional Productions : Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous," by
the late Richard Rush, Philadelphia, 1860.

256 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Coincident with or ere long succeeding this naval pres
tige, our commercial marine advanced in character and pros
perity. The cotton of the South became an essential com
modity to Great Britain. In New England, manufactures
were firmly established, with important mechanical improve
ments and facilities ; while the Western States became more
and more the granary of Europe. New territorial acqui
sitions, increase of mines, and a system of public instruction,
which seemed to guarantee an improved generation of the
middle and lower class — these, and other elements of growth,
power, and plenty, tended to foster the spirit of rivalry and
jealous criticism, and to lessen the complacent gaze where
with England beheld her long chain of colonial possessions
begird the globe. Thus a variety of circumstances united to
aggravate the prejudice and encourage the animadversions of
English travellers in America, and to make them acceptable
to their countrymen. And it is a curious fact for the philoso
pher, an auspicious one for the humanitarian, that the under
current of personal and social goodwill, as regards individu
als, of sympathy, respect, and, in many instances, warmer
sentiments, flowed on uninterrupted; individual friendships
of the choicest kind, hospitalities of the most frank and gen
erous character, mutual interests and feelings in literature,
religion, philanthropy, and science, consecrated the private
intercourse and enriched the correspondence of select intelli
gences and noble hearts on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
But the record of the hour, the utterances of the press, were
as we have seen.

The importance attached to the swarm of English Travels
abusive of America, upon calm reflection, appears like a
monomania; and equally preposterous was the sensitiveness
of our people to foreign criticism. Their exceptional fast
eating, inquisitiveness, tobacco chewing, ugly public build
ings, sprawling attitudes, and local lingo, were engrossed in
so huge a bill of indictment, that their political freedom,
social equality, educational privileges, unprecedented material
prosperity, benign laws, and glorious country, seemed to

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 257

shrink, for the moment, into insignificance before the mo
notonous scurrility and hopeless auguries of their censors.
It was not considered that the motive and method of the
most of these caustic strictures rendered them innocuous;
that, to use the test of an able writer in reference to another
class of narrow minds, they " endeavored to atone by misan
thropic accuracy for imbecility in fundamental principles ; "
that few English men or women can write an authentic report
of social and political facts in America, differences of habit
and opinion therein being more fierce by approximation,
thereby destroying the true perspective ; add to which inabil
ity, the miserable cockney spirit, the dependent and subser
vient habit of mind, the underbred tone, want of respect for and
sympathy with humanity as such, limited powers of observa
tion, controlling prejudice, unaccustomed consideration, and
native brutality, which proclaimed the incompetency and dis-
ingenuousness of the lowest class of these once formidable
scribblers ; and we realize why " folly loves the martyrdom
of fame," and recognize an identical perversion of truth and
good manners as well as human instincts as, in the ignorant ar
rogance which, in their own vaunted land of high civilization,
incarcerated Montgomery, Hunt, and De Foe, exiled Shelley,
blackguarded Keats, and envenoms and vulgarizes literary
criticisms to-day in the Saturday Review — ignoring at home,
as well as abroad, the comprehensive, the sympathetic, and
the Christian estimate both of genius, communities, and
character.

The prevalent feeling in relation to this injustice and un-
kindness of English writers on America, forty years ago,
found graceful expression in a chapter of the Sketch Book,
the first literary venture heartily recognized for its merits of
style and sentiment, which a native author had given to the
"mother country." Irving comments on the singular but
incontrovertible fact, that, while the English admirably re
port their remote travels, no people convey such prejudiced
views of countries nearer home. He attributes the vulgar
abuse lavished on the United States by the swarm of visitors

258 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. »

from Great Britain, first, to the misfortune that the worst
class of English travellers have assumed this task ; secondly,
to the prejudice against democratic institutions ; thirdly, to
the lack of comforts in travelling here, whereby the humor is
rendered splenetic ; fourthly, to disappointed avarice and en
terprise ; and, finally, to jealousy, and a degree of considera
tion and hospitality to which men of the class of Birmingham
and Manchester agents, being wholly unaccustomed, they were
spoiled instead of being conciliated thereby. He descants,
with a good sense equally applicable to the present hour,
upon the short-sighted policy of incurring the resentment of
a young and growing nation having a common language and
innumerable mutual interests ; and advances the claim which
America possesses to every magnanimous people of Europe,
as constituting the asylum of the oppressed and unfortunate.
Since this amiable and just protest was written, the intellect
ual progress of the country has been as remarkable as. the
increase of its territory, population, resources, trade, and
manufactures ; while even the diplomatic conservatives across
the sea, recognize in the United States a power vitally asso
ciated with that traditional " balance " whereon the peace and
prosperity of the civilized world are thought to depend. But
the improved and enlarged tone of foreign criticism has not
quelled the original antipathy or prejudice, indifference or
animosity of England — as the rabid and perverse comments
of British journals, at this terrible crisis of our national life,
too sadly demonstrate. The same wilful ignorance, the same
disingenuous statements, the same cold sneers and defiant sar
casms find expression in the leading organs of English opin
ion to-day, as once made popular the shallow journals of the
commercial travellers and arrogant cockneys ; so that we and
they may revert to Irving's gentle rebuke, now that he is in
his grave, and feel, as of old, its strict justice and sad neces
sity. Hear him :

" Is this golden bond of kindred sympathies, so rare between
nations, to be broken forever ? Perhaps it is for the best : it may
dispel an illusion which might have kept us in mental vassalage;

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 259

which might have interfered occasionally with our true interests,
and prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard
to give up the kindred tie ; and there are feelings dearer than inter
est, closer to the heart than pride, that will still make us cast back a
look of regret, as we wander farther and farther from the paternal
roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel
the affections of the child."

And Allston echoed Irving's sense and sentiment with
genial emphasis :

" While the manners, while the arts,

That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,

Between let ocean roll,

Our joint communion breaking with the sun :
Yet still from either beach,
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
' We are one.' "

The reader of the present day, who is inclined to doubt
the justice of any reference to this contemptible class of
writers, as representatives of English feeling toward Amer
ica, has but to consult the best periodical literature, and note
the style and imprint of the books themselves, to recognize
in the fact of their eligible publication and reception, an abso
lute proof of the consideration they enjoyed ; and this, be it
remembered, in spite of the known character and objects of
the authors, whose position and associations unfitted them for
social critics and economical reporters such as an intelligent
gentleman could endure, far less accord the slightest personal
or literary credit. Ashe is openly described as a swindler ;
Faux as " low ; " Parkinson was a common gardener ; Fearon
a stocking-weaver. Cobbett, who is the last person to be sus
pected of aristocratic prejudices, and was the most practical
and perverse of democrats, observed, in reading the fasti
dious comments of one of these impudent travellers, upon
an American meal, that it was " such a breakfast as the fel
low had never before tasted ; " and the remark explains the
presumption and ignorance of many of this class of writers,

260 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS.

who, never before having enjoyed the least social considera
tion or private luxury, became, like a beggar on horseback,
intoxicated therewith.

Even a cursory glance at the catalogue of books thus pro
duced will indicate how popular was the theme and how
audacious the writers. We remember falling in with a clever
but impoverished professor, several years ago, in Italy, who
had resided in this country, but found himself in Europe with
out means. In obedience to an appeal which reached us, we
sought his economical lodging, and found him pacing up and
down a scantily furnished chamber, every now and then .seizing
a pen and rapidly noting the result of his cogitations. He had
been offered, by a London publisher, a handsome gratuity to
furnish, within a specified period, a lively anti-democratic
book on life and manners in America. The contract, he
assured us, provided that there should be enough practical
details, especially in regard to the physical resources of the
country, to give an air of solid information to the work.
There were to be a vein of personal anecdote, a few original
adventures, some exaggerated character painting, and a little
enthusiasm about scenery : but all this was to be well spiced
with ridicule ; and the argument of the book was to demon
strate the inevitable depreciation of mind, manners, and en
joyment under the influence of democratic institutions. The
poor author tasked his memory and his invention to follow
this programme, without a particle of conviction in the em
phatic declaration of his opinions, or any sympathy with
the work other than what was derived from its lucrative
reward. The incident illustrates upon what a conventional
basis the rage for piquant Travels in America rested.

Contemporary periodical literature echoed constantly the
narrow comments and vapid faultfinding of this class of
English travellers, most of whose sneers may be found re
peated with zest in the pages of the Quarterly and Black-
wood. Somewhat of the personal prejudice of these articles
is doubtless to be ascribed to political influences. Then, as
now, the encroachment of democratic opinions excited the

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 261

alarm of the conservatives. The reform party had made
extraordinary advances, and the extension of the right of
suffrage became the bugbear of the aristocracy. To repre
sent the country where that right had such unlimited sway,
as demoralized thereby, became the policy of all but the so-
called radical writers; and the Reviews, fifty years ago,
exhibited the worst side o? American life, manners, and gov
ernment, for the same reason that the London Times and
JZlackwood's Magazine* to-day persist, in the face of truth
and history, in ascribing the Southern Rebellion to repub
lican institutions, instead of their greatest bane and most
anomalous obstacle on this continent — slavery. Thus the
organs of literature and opinion encouraged the cockney
critics in their flippant strictures upon this country, and did
much to prolong and disseminate them where the English
language is spoken. But the journals of the United States
were not less trenchant on the other side. In the North
American Review, especially, several of the most presuming
and ignorant of the books in question were shown up with
keen and wise irony, and an array of argumentative facts
that demolished their pretensions effectually. It should be
remembered, in regard to this period, when expediency, fash
ion, and prejudice combined to make our country the favorite
target of opprobrious criticism in Great Britain, that Amer
ica began to excite fears for that " balance of power " which
was the gauge of political security among the statesmen of
that day. Moreover, the literary society then and there had
not been propitiated by success on this side of the water, nor
its respect excited by the intellectual achievements which
have since totally reversed the prophecies and the judgments
of English reviewers ; nor had the United States then be
come, as now, the nation of readers whose favor it was the
interest as well as the pride of popular authors abroad to win

* " It would perhaps be too much to say that the tendencies of our Consti
tution toward democracy have been checked solely by a view of the tattered
and insolent guise in which republicanism appears in America." — Blackwood's
Mag., 1862.

262 AMERICA AND HER, COMMENTATORS.

and cherish. In reverting to some of the articles which
proved most offensive and to the tone of all that more or less
sanctioned the spirit of vituperative travellers in America, it
should also be considered that private feeling, in certain
instances, lent vigor to the critical blows. Some of the
writers had been annoyed by the intrusion or disgusted with
the indelicacy of pertinacious and underbred tourists from
this side of the Atlantic. Many were the current anecdotes
illustrative of Yankee impudence which the friends of
Southey, Maria Edgeworth, and Sir Walter Scott used to
relate — anecdotes that, unfortunately, have found their paral
lels since in the experience of Carlyle, Tennyson, and other
admired living writers. And, although these and their pre
decessors have found reason to bless the " nation of bores,"
as in many instances their most appreciative and remunerative
audience, personal pique did and still does sharpen the tone
and scope of British authorship when America is referred to,
as in the case of Sydney Smith,* whose investments were
unfortunate, or Leigh Hunt, whose copyrights were invaded,
or Dickens and other British lions, who found adulation and
success less a cause for gratitude than for ridicule ; while
every popular British novelist has a character, an anecdote,
or an illustration drawn from traditional caricatures of
American manners and speech. A comprehensive mind and
a generous heart turns, however, from such ephemeral mis
representation and casual reproach as the bookwrights and
reviewers in question delighted in, not so much vexed as
wearied thereby ; but it is a more grave reflection upon Eng
lish probity and good sense, that so many of her standard
writers, or those who aspire to be such, are disinclined to
ascertain the facts of history and social life in America.

* Notwithstanding the deserved rebuke he administered to our State
delinquency in his American letters, Sydney Smith vindicates his claim to the
title of Philo-Yankeeist. No British writer has better appreciated the insti
tutions and destiny of the United States. He recognized cordially the latent
force of Webster, the noble eloquence of Channing, and the refined scholar
ship of Everett. " I will disinherit you," he playfully writes to his daughter,
'* if you do not admire everything written by Franklin."

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 263

Such wilful errors as those of Lord Mahon and Alison, to
say nothing of the vast display of ignorance evoked by the
recent discussion in British journals of the Rebellion in
America, are utterly unworthy of men of professed candor and
scholarship in this age. The specific objections to American
civilization, political and social, emphasized with such zeal
and unanimity, by certain English writers, are often just and
true ; but the statement thereof is none the less disingenu
ous because the compensatory facts are withheld, and inci
dental, particular, and social faults treated as normal and
national. This kind of sophistry runs through the Travels,
Journals, and conversation of that illiberal class of British
critics who, then as now, from policy, prejudice, or personal
conceit or disappointment, habitually regard every question,
character, and production of American origin with dislike
and suspicion.

This inveterate tendency to look at things exclusively
from the point of view suggested by national prejudices, is
apparent in the most casual notice of American localities. A
writer in Blackwood '« Magazine,* describing his visit to the
" Cave of the Regicides," at New Haven, is disgusted by
the difference of aspect and customs there exhibited from
those familiar to him at the old seats of learning in England ;
and, instead of ascribing them to the simple habits and lim
ited resources of the place, with a curious and dogmatic per
versity, finds their origin in political and historical opinions,
about which the students and professors of Yale care little
and know less ; as a few quotations from the article will
indicate :

" I suspect the person who leaned over the bulwarks of the
steamer and gave me the facts, was a dissenting minister going up to
be at his college at this important anniversary. There was a tone in
his voice which sufficiently indicated his sympathies. The regicides
were evidently the calendared saints of his religion." * * *

* * * " The streets were alive with bearded and mustached
youth ; but they wore hats, and flaunted not a rag of surplice or

* Blackwood's Mag., vol. Ixi., p. 333.

264: AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

gown. They are devoutly eschewed as savoring too much of popery ;
nor master, doctor, or scholar appears with the time-honored de
cency which, to my antiquated notion, is quite inseparable from the
true regimen of a university."

" It was really farcical to see the good old president confer de
grees with an attempt at ceremony, which seemed to have no rubric
but extemporary convenience and the despatch of business." * * *

" In this college one sees the best that Puritanism could produce ;
and I thought what Oxford and Cambridge might have become,
under the invading reforms of the usurpation, had the Protectorate
been less impotent to reproduce itself."

The memorable papers which first established the reputa
tion of Dickens, curiously indicate the prevalence of this
deprecatory and venal spirit in English writers on America,
at a later period. The elder Weller, in suggesting to Sami-
vel his notable plan for the escape of Pickwick from the
Fleet prison, by concealing himself in a " pianner forty," sig
nificantly adds : " Have a passage ready taken for 'Merriker.
Let the gov'iier stop there till Mrs. Bardell 's dead, and then
let him come back and write a book about the 'Merrikens
as '11 pay all his expenses, and more, if he blows 'em up
enough."

The preeminence of the British colonies in America early
proved the Anglo-Saxon destiny of this continent. The long
wars with the aborigines, and the memorable struggle be
tween the French and English, resulting in the confirmed
possession and sway of the latter rule and colonies, and,
finally, the American Revolution and its immediate and later
consequences, furnish to a philosophic and benevolent mind
so remarkable an historical series of events, combining to
results of such infinite significance, not to this country and
nation alone, but to the world and humanity, that it is sur
prising English speculation and criticism so long continued
narrow, egotistic, and unsympathizing. Noble exceptions,
indeed, are to be remembered. Chatham, the most heroic,
Burke, the most philosophic of British statesmen, early and
memorably recognized the claims, the character, and the des
tiny of our country ; and many of the intellectual nobility

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 265

of Great Britain, in the flush of youthful aspirations, baffled
by political or social exclusiveness, turned their hopes and
their tributes toward the Western continent. But among the
numerous English visitors who undertook to describe, to illus
trate, and to criticize nature, government, and society in the
United States for the benefit of their countrymen, few have
proved adequate or just ; and still less is the number who
rose to the philosophy of the subject.

Many of the French writers seize upon practical truths of
universal interest, or evolve the sentiment of the theme with
zest : either process gives a vital charm to descriptions and
speculations, and places the reader in a genuine human rela
tion with the writer. The same distinction between the Eng
lish and French method of treating our condition, history,
and character, is observable in the current literature of both
countries, as well as in the works of their respective travel
lers. How rarely in an English writer do we encounter epi
sodical remarks so generous in tone as this page from Miche-
let's little treatise, " La Her " :

" L'Amerique, est le desir. Elle est jeune, et elle brule d'etre en
rapport avec le globe. Sur son superbe continent, et au milieu de
tant d'Etats, elle se croit pourtant solitaire. Si loin de sa mere
1'Europe, elle regarde vers ce centre de la civilization, comme la
terre vers le soleil, et tout ce qui la rapproche du gr°nd luminaire la
fait palpiter, qu'on en juge par 1'ivresse, par les fetes si touchantes
auxquelles donna lieu la-bas le telegraphe sous-marin qui mariat les
deux rivages, promettait le dialogue et la replique par minutes,
de sorte que les deux mondes n'auraient plus qu'une pensee ! "

The historical character of France and England explains
the discrepancy so evident in their recorded estimate of and
sentiments in regard to America. The former nation envied
the Spaniards the renown of their peerless discovery, and
blamed their king for not having entertained the project of
Columbus. As a people, they love power more than gain,
and are ever more swayed by ideas than interest ; whereas,
in the earliest chronicles of English polity, we find a spirit
of calculation. On that side of the Channel, we are told,
12

266 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

they " seldom voted a subsidy without bargaining for a
right ; " and in a sketch of the wars between the two coun
tries, one of their own writers observes : " Our character at
that time (1547) was more economical than heroic; and we
seldom set our foot in France, unless on the careful calcula
tion of how much the enemy would give us for going away
again."

This sharp appreciation of material results has had much
to do with the civic prosperity of England, for thereby the
popular mind has grown alert and efficient in securing those
privileges in which consists the superiority of the English
Constitution, and the absence of which enabled Philip Au
gustus, Richelieu, and Louis XIV. to establish in France such
absolute despotism. On the other hand, so exclusive and
pertinacious a tendency to self-interest is and has proved, in
the case of England, a serious obstacle to those generous
national sentiments which endear and elevate a people and a
Government in the estimation of humanity ; and it is only
necessary to recall the caricatures of the French, the Dutch,
the German, and Italian character, which pervade English
literature, to realize the force of insular prejudice and self-
concentration thus confirmed by national habits "and polity.

" Some years ago," says a popular English writer, " it
would have been an unexampled stretch of liberality to have
confessed that France had any good qualities at all. Our
country was an island — we despised the rest of the world ;
our county was an island — we despised the other shires ; our
parish was an island, with peculiar habits, modes, and insti
tutions ; our households were islands ; and, to complete the
whole, each stubborn, broad-shouldered, strong-backed Eng
lishman was an island by himself, surrounded by a misty and
tumultuous sea of prejudices." *

A curious illustration is afforded by the entire series of

English Travels in America, of this national egotism so

characteristic of England, w^liich regards foreign countries

and people exclusively through the narrow medium of self-

* Rev. James White.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 267

love. The tone of these records of a sojourn or an explora
tion in America is graduated, almost invariably, as to the
sympathy or the depreciation, by the relation of the two
countries to each other at different times. For a long period
after the early colonization, so remote and unprofitable was
the New World, that indifference marks the allusions to, and
superficiality or contempt the accounts of, those thinly settled
and unprosperous communities. As they grew in population
and resources, and glimpses were obtained of a possible
future alike promising to the devotees of gain, of ambition,
and of political reform and religious independence, English
writers dwell with complacency upon the natural beauties
and fertility of the land, upon the prospect here opened for
enterprise ; and as a colonial tributary to their power and
wealth, America, or that part of it colonized by the British,
is described with pride and pleasure ; even its social traits
occasionally lauded, and the details of observation and expe
rience given with elaborate relish. Especially do we find
political malcontents at home, and social aspirants or benign
and intelligent visitors, dwelling upon the novel features and
free scope of the country with satisfaction. Immediately
subsequent to the Revolution, a different spirit is manifest.
When the choicest jewel of her crown had been wrested
from the grasp of Great Britain, numerous flaws therein be
came at once evident to the critical eyes of English travel
lers ; and, though occasionally a refreshing contrast is afforded
by the candid and cordial estimate of a liberal writer, the
disingenuous and deprecatory temper prevails. It is impos
sible not to perceive that the rapid growth and unique pros
perity of a country governed by popular institutions, without
an established church, a royal family, an order of nobility,
and all the expensive arrangements incident to monarchical
sway, however free and constitutional, has been and is a
cause of uneasiness and hatred to a nation of kindred lan
guage and character. " Freedom," wrote Heine, " has sprung
in England from privileges — from historical events. All Eng
land is congealed in mediaeval, never-to-be-rejuvenated institu-

268 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tions, behind which her aristocracy is intrenched, awaiting
the death struggle." Hence the example of America has
been to a large political party, to a proud social organiza
tion, inauspicious ; to the popular, the liberal, the democratic
masses, encouraging. Hence the base jubilee at our recent
internal dissensions, whose root — slavery* — was planted by
the English themselves. Hence their constant assertion that
" the republic is a failure."

One of the chief grounds of complaint stated, when the
Declaration of Independence was first written, against the
British Government, was that it had, contrary to the Wishes
of the colonies, planted African slavery on our soil. Hence
the extreme baseness of ignoring this primal and positive
cause of our domestic troubles on the part of writers and
rulers in England, and striving to make republican institu
tions responsible exclusively therefor — a course referable to
shameful jealousy, and to the want of cotton and the desire
for free trade. In all British history there is no more re
markable illustration of what De Tocqueville, whose English
proclivities and philosophic candor no intelligent reader can
question, remarked, in one of his letters :

" In the eyes of an Englishman, a cause is just if it be the inter
est of England that it should succeed. A man or a Government that
is useful to England, has every kind of merit; and one that does
England harm, every possible fault. The criterion of what is honor
able, or just, is to l)e found in the degree of favor or of opposition to
English interests. There is much of this everywhere ; but there is
so much of it in England that a foreigner is astonished."

The mineral wealth and adaptation of mechanical pro
cesses to manufacture, which laid the foundation of Eng
land's commercial prosperity, are no longer a monopoly.
Identical resources have been elsewhere developed and em
ployed, and her productions and enterprise have become, in
the same proportion, less essential to the industry of the

* It was the monopoly of the infamous traffic in negroes, which, during the
ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, so greatly increased the mercantile prosperity
of London, and founded that of Bristol and Liverpool.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 269

world. Her power, therefore, in more than one direction, is
on the wane. But to a liberal and philosophic mind, the
grand natural provision for the subsistence of her impover
ished laborers, and the .permanent amelioration of their
status, on this continent, should be regarded as a vast bless
ing, not a selfish vexation ; as a cause of religious gratitude,
and not of jealous detraction. Will it not prove a sugges
tive anomaly to the rational historian of the wonderful age
in which we live, when science, letters, adventure, economy,
education, and travel are making human beings every day
less local and egotistic, and more cosmopolitan and humane,
in their relations and sentiments — that in such an age, when,
for the privilege of holding black people in servitude unchal
lenged, a class of American citizens rose in arms against
national authority, the nobles of England, and a portion of
her traders and manufacturers, became the allies of the insur
gents ; while the royal family, the starving thousands of Lan
cashire — who are the real sufferers from the war — and the
bravest and wisest representatives of the people in Parlia
ment, gave to the United States, and to the cause of justice
and of freedom, their sympathy, advocacy, and respect ?
The real fear of America in Great Britain is of our moral
influence, which, of course and inevitably, is democratic ; and
if her detractors in England are pensioned, the working
class there spontaneously, through faith and hope, attach
themselves to her cause.

The superior candor of the French writers on America is
obvious to the most superficial reader. The urbanity and the
philosophical tendency of the national mind account for this
more genial and intelligent treatment ; but the striking differ
ence of temper and of scope between the French and English
Travels in America, is accounted for mainly by the compara
tive freedom from political and social prejudice on the part
of the former, and the frequent correspondence of their sen
timents with those of the inhabitants of the New World.
From the descriptions of primeval nature by the early Jesuit
missionaries to the gallant gossip and speculative enthusiasm

270 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of the French officers who cooperated in our Revolutionary
struggle, a peculiar sympathy with the prospects and affinity
with the conditions of nature and of life, on this continent,
inspire the Gallic writers. Nor did this partiality or sense
of justice diminish with the growth of the country. From
the swarm of dilettante critics and arrogant or shallow au
thors of books on the United States, during the last fifty
years, the only philosophical work wherein the principles of
democratic institutions are fairly discussed, and their peculiar
operation in America justly defined, is the standard treatise
of Alexis de Tocqueville ; while the first able and eloquent
plea for our nationality, the first clear and honest recognition
of the causes and significance of our present civil war from
abroad, came from a French publicist. What a contrast be
tween the considerate argument and noble vindication of Do
Gasparin, and the perverse dogmatism, disingenuous tone,
and malicious exaggeration of a large part of the English
periodical press ! " We are not just toward the United
States," says the former. " Their civilization, so different
from ours, wounds us in various ways, and we turn from
them in the ill humor excited by their real defects, without
taking note enough of their eminent qualities. This country,
which possesses neither church nor state, nor any government
al protection ; this country, born yesterday — born under a
Puritan influence ; this country, without past history, with
out monuments, separated from the middle ages by the
double interval of centuries and beliefs ; this rude country
of farmers and pioneers, has nothing fitted to please us. It
has the exuberant life and the eccentricities of youth ; that
is, it affords to our mature experience inexhaustible subjects
of blame and raillery."

This frank statement explains while it does not excuse
the long tirades of English writers against the crudities of
our national life : not because these were not often truly re
ported, but because the other side of the story was omitted.
Our sensitive pride of country took offence, and thus gave
new provocation to the " blame and raillery " of which De

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 271

Gasparin speaks. No American familiar with Europe can
wonder that refined visitors from the Old World to the New
should find the gregarious habits, the unventilated and promis
cuously crowded railway cars, the fragile high-pressure steam
boats of the Western rivers, the cuisine, the flashiness, the con
ceit, the hardihood, the radicalism, the costume, the architecture,
the social standards, the money worship, and the countless
incongruities, especially en the outskirts of the older settle
ments, distasteful, and often revolting ; but it requires no
remarkable powers of reflection to understand, and no extra
ordinary candor to admit, that many of these repugnant and
discordant facts are incidental to great and benign innova
tions and improvements upon the hopeless social routine and
organization of Europe ; that they coexist with vast human
privileges ; that they are compensated for by new and grand
opportunities for the mass of humanity, however much they
may trench upon the comfort and sense of decency of those
accustomed to exclusive privileges and luxury. It is pre
cisely because, as a general rule, the French writers recog
nize, while so many of the English ignore such palliations
and compensations, in judging of and reporting life in Amer
ica, that the former, as a whole, are so much more worthy of
respect and gratitude. Any shallow vagabond can compare
disadvantageously the huge and hot caravansaries of West
ern travel with the first-class carriages of an English railway ;
the bad whiskey and tough steaks of a tavern in America
with the quiet country inn and the matchless sirloin and ale
of old England. The social contrasts are easily made ; the
defects of manners patent ; but when it is considered that
what is applied by way of privilege or superiority to a class
in Europe, is open — in a less perfect way, indeed, but still
open — to all ; that the average comfort and culture here are
unequalled in history ; and, above all, that the prospect and
the principle of civil and social life are established on an equal
and prosperous basis — the superficial defects, to the eye of
wisdom and the heart of benevolence, sink into comparative
insignificance. " America," writes De Tocqueville, " is the

272 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

place of all others where the Christian religion has preserved
the most power over souls."

Other reasons for the difference of English and French
interpretation of American questions are well stated by a
recent writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes :

" Frenchmen and Englishmen cannot be impressed alike by what
is passing in the United States. At the bottom of the quarrel there
is, it is true, the abolition of slavery, to which the English are de
voted by a glorious beginning ; but, on the other hand, what relates
to the United States, awakens in England memories, interests, an
tipathies, which can have no parallel in the politics or feelings of
France. In the first place, the Star-spangled Banner (le-drapeau
seme tfetoiles) is the only flag that France has never met in the coali
tion of her enemies. To the English, the United States are always
the rebellious colony of the past ; to us, they are a nation whose
independence we contributed to establish by common victories car
ried in the teeth of British obstinacy. For British politics, in spite
of the accidental importance of cotton, it would be a satisfaction to
see the American Union enfeebled by a division. For French poli
tics, the breaking up of the American republic, which would destroy
the balance of maritime power, would be a serious misfortune. The
English cherish the disdain of an aristocratic race for the republican
Yankee ; democratic France ( ! ) has been enabled to take lessons
from American democracy, and has more than once made itself en
vied by the latter. The two young volunteers who have just en
rolled themselves in the army of the North have thus remained
faithful, in their choice of the cause which they would serve, to the
traditions of their country."

How uncandid English writers are, even when quoting
respectable authorities, is evinced in the remark of a late
quarterly reviewer, in alluding to De Tocqueville's hopeful
views of democracy in America in contrast with the South
ern Rebellion : "If he had lived a little longer, what an ex
ample of the fallacy of man's profoundest thoughts and
acutest inference would he himself have mournfully acknowl
edged, in the unnatural and incredible convulsion of the
United States of America ; " whereas, so far from being un
natural and incredible, the whoje argument of De Tocqueville
is prophetic thereof. He knew the incubus of slavery — the
anomaly of local despotism in the heart of a republic — must

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 273

be thrown off, as a loathsome disease in the body politic :
how and when, he did not pretend to say ; but still pro
claimed his faith in the strength of the Constitution — the
vital power of political justice embodied in a democratic
Government, and a vast, industrious, educated, and religious
nation — to triumph over this accidental poison, which had
been allowed to taint the blood but not blast the heart of
the republic. Moreover, this same scientifically humane
writer beheld, in the triumph of the democratic principle, the
progress of the race and the will of God ; but he inferred
not therefrom any roseate dreams of human perfection or
individual felicity. On the contrary, as the responsibility of
governing, and the privileges of citizenship expanded and be
came confirmed, he saw new claims upon the serious elements
of life and character ; the need of greater sacrifices on the
part of the individual ; a necessity for effort and discipline
calculated to solemnize rather than elate. It is one of the
most obvious of compensatory facts, that, as we are more
free to think and to work, we afe less able to enjoy, as that
word is commonly understood. Where occupation is essen
tial to respectability, and public spirit a recognized duty,
pleasure has but infrequent carnival, and duty perpetual vigil.
With all his elasticity of temperament, the self-dependence
and the exciting scope of the life of an American tax the
powers of body and mind as much as they inspire.

Geographical ignorance, and errors in natural history, in
excusable now that so many authentic accounts of the coun
try are accessible to all, continue to be manifest even in the
higher departments of English literature. Goldsmith's melan
choly exaggeration of the unhealthy shores of Georgia, in his
apostrophe to the peasantry, finds a parallel in the tropical
flowers Campbell ascribes to the valley of Wyoming ; while
the last Cambridge prize poem places Labrador in the United
States, and confuses the locality of American rivers with
more than poetic license. Philosophical keep pace with geo
graphical errors. Despite the evidence of common sense and
patent facts, the English press insisted that Mississippi repu-
12*

274: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

diation of State debts was a direct and legitimate result of
republican institutions. It now ascribes the slaveholders'
rebellion to the same cause ; and a religious review of high
standing recently attributed the high-flown and exaggerated
style of Parke Custis, in his " Recollections of Washington,"
to the undisciplined American method of expression.

Ignorance of the social life incident to republican institu
tions betrays itself continually in an indirect manner. In a
work recently published in London, called the " Book Hunter,"
the writer observes of a work on American private libraries :
" The statement that there is in Dr. Francis's library a com
plete set of the ' Receuil des Causes Celebres,' &c., would
throw any of our book knight-errants in convulsions of laugh
ter ; " and elsewhere, speaking of thus publishing the cata
logue of private libraries, he says : " That the privacy of our
ordinary wealthy and middle classes should be invaded in a
similar shape, is an idea that would not get abroad without
creating sensations of the most lively horror. They manage
these things differently across the Atlantic ; and so here we
have over fifty gentlemen's private collections ransacked and
anatomized. If they like it, we have no reason to complain,
but rather have occasion to rejoice in the valuable and inter
esting result." How little this writer seems to understand
that the facts which excite his wonder and disgust are legiti
mate results of democratic society, wherein we are accus
tomed to forego private for public good, and to liberally
exchange intellectual privileges ! Monopolies are forced to
yield to the pressure of humane exigencies. It is made
known that a benevolent physician has a copy of the " Causes
Celebres," not because the work is rare, but that some poor
scholar may know where he can refer to it ; for in America
we are bred to the recognition of mutual aid in culture as in
economy, and, like Sir Thomas Brown, " study for those who
will not study for themselves." It may be said of many
English critics, as was said of a recent traveller in America,
that, " living as he had so long in an atmosphere of country
houses and parsonages, he is constantly exclaiming against

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 275

the absence of those complicated rules of social intercourse
which have so long engaged his attention."

<: When will the English learn how to write correctly
about this country ? " asks a recent writer. " A very
friendly press, the Daily News, reviewing Hawthorne's
book, says, very compassionately, that our ' national life has
been too short ' for the formation ' of a homogeneous charac
ter ' among our people. We should like to know what homo
geneity there is among the British people, though a thousand
years old, composed of Welshmen who cannot speak English,
of Irishmen always in revolt and forever at enmity with their
rulers, of Scotchmen who are distinct in dialect, manners,
and customs, and even now are not too fond of the Sasse-
nachs ? How much of this is there in the English counties
of Yorkshire, Kent, Cornwall ? The truth is, there is far
more homogeneity in the United States, notwithstanding its
short national life, than there ever has been in Great Britain,
from the time of the heptarchy down."

Much ridicule has been wasted upon our national sensi
tiveness to criticism; and the hardihood and self-love of
English writers and talkers often repel, as weak and irra
tional, the expectation of sympathy w^hich finds utterance in
every unfortunate crisis on this side of the water. Yet even
John Bull winced at Hawthorne's choicely worded and
thoughtfully insinuated hits at his tendency to obesity and
stagnation. Without defending that natural and honorable
instinct that cherishes the tie of a common language and
literature, historical, social, and domestic associations with a
distant people, in the present age and among enlightened
nations, it is certainly justifiable to demand scientific obser
vation in all those deliberate estimates of a country or a race,
a government or a cause, wherein mutual and permanent
interests are concerned. One chief cause of protest and com
plaint against British commentators on America, is their
ignorance of facts whereof but slight investigation would
requisitely inform them, and their wilful repudiation of the
inferences thence resulting. It is a significant truth, that

276 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

throughout the vast discussion by newspapers, reviews, maga
zines, pamphlets, club and dinner talk, lectures and parlia
mentary speeches, which the Southern Rebellion and its con
sequences in the United States, have induced in Great Britain,
scarcely any evidence appears of cognizance and appreciation
as regards the simple geographical facts of the case ; without
a knowledge of which it is impossible to perceive the scope
or judge the merits of this question. Long ago Humboldt
and other naturalists recognized in the fact that this conti
nent is placed between two oceans, the provision and pledge
of a grand destiny ; long ago economists found, in the re
markable number, size, and relative situation of its lakes and
rivers, the means established by nature to bring together and
render mutually dependent and helpful the most widely sepa
rated regions ; long ago philanthropists hailed in the variety
of climate and the liberal political institutions, a vast asylum
and arena predestined to shelter and succor the independent
but proscribed, and the impoverished and hopeless victims of
over-populated and down-trodden Europe. Yet, when these
institutions and this prosperous nationality were threatened
by a minority in the interest of African slavery, and the civil
war inevitably consequent thereon, challenged the sympathy
of the world, in order to give a plausible excuse for their
advocacy of our disunion, the writers and speakers of Eng
land, with very rare exceptions, assumed that a geographical
line isolated the two communities, by kinds of labor, forms
of society, political and personal interests so in conflict, that a
peaceable separation was not only practicable, but wise, hu
mane, and requisite. Had these malign and specious advocates
merely ignored the fact that our power and prosperity have
been the offspring of our union, it might have been tolerated
in silence ; but when they refused to acknowledge that this im
mense country * known as the United States of N^orth Amer-

* Its greatest length is from Cape Cod to the Pacific, near lat. 42°, 2,600
miles; in breadth from Maine to Florida, 1,600 m. ; there are 3,303 m. of
frontier toward British America, and 1 ,456 of that toward Mexico ; on the
ocean the boundary line, including indentations, is 12,609 m. ; the total area
of the States and Territories in 1853 was 2,963,606 square miles.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 277

ica is intersected by a mountain range inhabited by a people
absolutely one in attachment to their Government and devotion
to free labor, and that the slave interest borders upon, inter
sects, and isolates rather than divides this homogeneous and
patriotic race, so that, to break up the political unity of the
country is to expose these citizens to the despotic cruelty of
rebels — to abandon the highest duty of a state and the noblest
principle of human government, we cannot but feel that ig
norance degrades or sophistry impugns the honest humanity
of these ostensible interpreters of public opinion in Britain.
To illustrate the practical bearing of geographical facts in
this instance, note the language of an intelligent native * of
one of the border States, a kinsman of one of the unprin
cipled politicians who fomented, when in office under the Gov
ernment he betrayed, this wicked rebellion :

" Whoever will look at a map of the United States, will observe
that Louisiana lies on both sides of the Mississippi River, and that
the States of Arkansas and Mississippi lie on the right and left banks
of this great stream — eight hundred miles of whose lower course are
thus controlled by these three States, unitedly inhabited by hardly as
many white people as inhabit the city of New York. Observe, then,
the country drained by this river, and its affluents, commencing with
Missouri on its west bank, and Kentucky on its east bank. There
are nine or ten powerful States, large portions of three or four oth
ers, several large Territories — in all a country as large as all Europe,
as fine as any under the sun, already holding many more people than
all the revolted States, and destined to be one of the most populous
and powerful regions of the earth. Does any one suppose that these
powerful States, this great and energetic population, will ever make
a peace that shall put the lower course of this single and mighty na
tional outlet to* the sea in the hands of a foreign Government far
weaker than themselves ? If there is any such person, he knows
little of the past history of mankind ; nnd will, perhaps, excuse us
for reminding him that the people of Kentucky, before they were
constituted a State, gave formal notice to the Federal Government,
when General Washington was President, that if the United States
did not acquire Louisiana, they would themselves conquer it. The
mouths of the Mississippi belong, by the gift of God, to the inhab
itants of its great valley. Nothing but irresistible force can disin
herit them.

* Dr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky.

2T8 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" Try another territorial aspect of the case. There is a bed of moun
tains abutting on the left bank of the Ohio, which covers all Western
Virginia and all Eastern Kentucky to the width, from east to west, in
those two States, of three or four hundred miles. These mountains,
stretching southwestwardly, pass entirely through Tennessee, cover the
back parts of North Carolina and Georgia, heavily invade the north
ern part of Alabama, and make a figure even in the back parts of
South Carolina and the eastern parts of Mississippi ; having a course
of perhaps seven or eight hundred miles, and running far south of
the northern limit of profitable cotton culture. It is a region of
eighty thousand square miles, trenching upon eight or nine Slave
States, though destitute of slaves itself— trenching upon at least five
Cotton States, though raising no cotton itself. The western part of
Maryland and two thirds of Pennsylvania are embraced in the north
eastern continuation of this remarkable region. Can anything that
passes under the name of statesmanship be more preposterous, than
the notion of permanent peace on this continent, founded on the
abnegation of a common and paramount Government, and the idea
of the supercilious domination of the cotton interest and the slave
trade, over such a mountain empire, so located, and so peopled ? "

When, in the calm and kindliness of meditation, we re
member the solemn assemblies of wise and intrepid English
men and women who, two centuries and more ago, left their
native shore with tears and prayers, only " comforted to live "
by the thought that they took with them a great principle
and a cherished faith to transplant and bequeath in another
hemisphere ; when we recall the proud and fond associations
with which their descendants sought and yet seek the ances
tral homes and graves of these brave and holy exiles ; and
how tenderly the traditions, the literature, the laws, and the
liberties of the Old World have been cherished by the en
lightened and earnest natives of the New ; how the kings of
thought and the heralds of freedom regarded the Anglo-
Saxon settlements in America, when persecution and strife
made England to many a perilous sojourn ; how eagerly John
Milton questioned Roger Williams ; how ardently Berkeley
appealed to Walpole ; what Vane and Penn, Calvert, Win-
throp, Puritan, Churchman, Quaker, Catholic, Huguenot,
thought, felt, wrote, and did to colonize what to all of them

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 279

was a land of promise ; and how, during the long lapse of
time, the civilization that originated when the world had
reached a period of glorious development, has ever responded
to and often quickened that of older date but identical
character, like the "child of Earth's old age" as she is — it
seems incredible that disdain and indifference, especially in a
crisis of national life, should mark and mar nearly all public
expression in England regarding a country thus morally
assimilated and historically identified with her. Not strange,
indeed, that traders and shallow egotists should ignore or
sneer at a nation of kindred language and memories ; but
strange that legislators and writers, who profess to instruct,
should prove their want of interest by gross ignorance, his
torical and geographical. How perversely blind have they
shown themselves to the facts that the experiment of State
sovereignty has been fully tried during the perilous interval
between the acknowledgment of our independence and the
adoption of the Constitution, whereby industry was par
alyzed, fiscal and social confidence lost, and advantage taken
of the weakness of the isolated fragments of a nation by
foreign powers ; that federal union, from all this chaos and
imbecility, created and confirmed a nation whose growth,
freedom, and self-reliant resources are unparalleled ; that so
essential, by the laws of nature, is one section to the pros
perity of the other, that the chief motive and absolute con
dition whereby the new Southwestern States indissolubly
linked their destiny and allegiance to the old thirteen, were
that the free navigation of the Mississippi should be perma
nently guaranteed — that noble stream, like a main artery,
vitally connecting the heart with the extremities of the body
politic ; that what the practical effect is of a faction, how
ever large, undertaking illegitimate opposition to a Govern
ment based upon popular will, was memorably illustrated by
Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1785-'86 ; by the career
of Citizen Genet in '93 — his wild and anomalous partisan
success, and his ignominious practical failure ; by the Vir
ginia Resolutions of '85 and '86, by the base and futile con-

280 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

spiracy of Burr, and the prompt overthrow of Calhoun's
sophistical theories. Equally blind to the present as the past,
the fraud and coercion whereby the present Rebellion was
initiated, the inhuman cause for which it was undertaken, the
despotic violence resorted to for its maintenance, the latent
barbarism made patent by its career, were all, from base pol
icy or selfish malice, studiously kept out of view by these
ostensible interpreters of public opinion. It is, indeed, one
of those singular exhibitions of the blindness induced by self-
love, that vituperation should mark the press of England in
discussing American institutions, when often, in the identical
sheet, glares the evidence of her own inadequacy in pro
viding for the masses. It is a striking coincidence, that,
when an American banker * in London desired to indicate his
interest in and gratitude to the country where he had ac
quired a colossal fortune, the best method his sagacious obser
vation could discover, was to provide homes for the working
classes, whose physical degeneracy is thus noted in a recent
issue of the most widely circulated and implicitly trusted
organ of British opinion :

" We have only to take a walk through any of our populous quar
ters— Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, the Borough, Lambeth, all the
river side, Clerkenwell, Gray's Inn Lane, and those numerous smaller
districts of which the working classes, for one reason or another,

* " When Mr. Peabody, the celebrated American banker, who is about to
quit this country, first heard of the national memorial of the late Prince Con
sort, he authorized Sir Emerson Tennent to state that, should that memorial
be a charitable institution, he would give £100,000 toward it ; and his dis
appointment was great on learning that the money would not be expended in
that way. However Mr. Peabody, still resolved on carrying out his charitable
scheme — as a token, he says, of gratitude to the English nation, for the many
kind acts he has received from them, and also in memory of his long and
prosperous career in this country — has decided on erecting a number of houses
for the working class, who, through the innumerable improvements in the
metropolis, have been rendered almost homeless. For this purpose he gives
£100,000, and also undertakes to pay the first year's interest of the money —
£5,000. Sir Emerson Tennent is appointed one of three trustees ; Lord Stan
ley, M. P., it is hoped, will be the second ; the third has not yet been nomi
nated." — London Paper.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 281

have obtained inalienable possession ; take them at the hours when
they show — going to their work or returning from it, or making
their purchases, or cooling themselves in the open air : look at them,
and please remember, that when you have deducted half a million
people rather better off, there remain two millions of the sort you
see before you."

It would prove, indeed, a more ungracious than difficult
task to enumerate social anomalies and characteristic defects,
quite adequate to counterbalance, in English civilization, those
so constantly proclaimed as American. Deans and poachers,
snobs and weavers, sempstresses and governesses, convicts,
pretended lunatics, might figure as unchristian monopolists or
pitiable victims ; and poor laws, costly and useless govern
mental arrangements, the ravages of gin and beer, the press
ure of taxation, the inhumanity of rank and fashion, the
cold egotism of the social code, the material routine of life,
the absurd conventionalities, the servility of one class and
the arrogance of another, the law of primogeniture, ecclesi
astical abuses, the hopeless degradation of labor, and numer
ous kindred facts and figures in the economical and social sta
tistics of the British realm, not only offer ample range for
relentless and plausible defamation, akin to that which has
been so bitterly indulged by English writers on America ;
but the indictment would be confirmed by the testimony of
popular and current English literature — Crabbe, Hood, Dick
ens, Mrs. Gaskell, Reade, and Thackeray having elaborated
from patent social wrongs their most vivid pictures of human
suffering and degradation.

Nor, were the test applied to specific traits, would the
comparison be less disadvantageous. The vulgarity and bru
tality of an Englishman, when he is vulgar and brutal, are
unparalleled. The stolidity of their lower class is more re
volting than the inquisitiveness of ours. The history of
England's criminal code, of her literary criticism, of her
artists and authors, of her colonial rule, of her aristocratic
privileges, of her army, naval, and merchant service, has fur
nished some of the darkest pictures of cruelty, neglect, self-

282 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS.

ishness, and abuse of power to be found in the annals of the
world.

The favorite subject of Punch — the trials of an " un
protected female " — betrays a national trait in brutal contrast
with the habits and sentiments of the kindred people whose
" domestic manners " have so long been the subject of their
sneers. " Not a day passes," remarks an English lady of
intelligence and character, but without rank or wealth, in
writing to an American friend, " but I regret that paradise
of my sex — your country. There my womanhood alone was
my safeguard and distinction."

Centuries ago, the very " land question " which led to the
recent controversy whereby the Times was unmasked, offered
the same ominous problem to humane and liberal English
men, and was, to not a few, the motive of emigration to
America.

" This land growes weary of her inhabitants." writes
Winthrop, " soe as man, whoe is the most pretious of all crea
tures, is here more vile and base than the earth we treade
upon. All townes complaine of the burthen of theire poore,
and we use the authoritie of the Law to hinder the increase
of or people by urginge the statute against colleges and in
mates. The fountaines of Learning and Religion are soe
corrupt as (besides the insupportable charge of theire educa
tion) most children are perverted. Why, then, should we
stand striving here for places of habitation, many men spend
ing as much labour and coste to recover or keepe sometimes
an acre or twoe as would procure them many and as good or
better in another Countrie." *

Compare this ancient statement with one in a journal of
this year :

" In the main, landed property is still in the same condition in
England to-day as it was immediately after the Norman conquest.
The foreign invaders at that time divided the land among a small
number of nobles and brigand captains with the point of the sword ;

* " Reasons for the Intended Plantation in New England," by John
Winthrop, 1629. Life of John Winthrop, by Robert C. Winthrop..

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 283

and in the Doomsday Book it was then laid down that their right to
the possession of these lands was as high as heaven and as deep as
hell, and that the hand of him should wither who would dare to
touch it. In course of time a number of free proprietors crept in
between the landholding aristocracy ; but subsequent parliamentary
acts, known as the 'Enclosure Acts,' restricted once more the num
ber of free proprietors by forcible expropriation. With the excep
tion of a few localities, England possesses no peasantry in the sense
of France and of Southern and "Western Germany. There is only
the aristocratic proprietor, the steward, or the farming tenant and
the laborer. The condition of the laborer is worse than anywhere
in Central or Western Europe. The political power British feudal
ism wields is immense. A statistical table shows that, with regard
to the representation of the people in the so-called House of Com
mons, there are about thirty popular constituencies ; one hundred
constituencies slightly influenced by personal or family control, and
most of them by money ; two hundred and forty constituencies almost
wholly under such family and aristocratic influence ; and thirty con
stituencies which may be regarded as mere family property."

With such social and political evils — a portentous report
whereof, in their actual results upon labor and life, may be
found in the work of Mr. Kay,* lately published — emigration
to America has been and is a resource to Great Britain which
should have engendered gratitude instead of growls. An
acute French writer attributes to it no small degree of Eng
land's prosperity :

" Let others denounce, if they will, as culpable want of foresight,
the energetic multiplication of the English people, and felicitate
France on being preserved from this misfortune by the demi-sterility
of marriages ; but, for my part, faithful to the ancient morality and
patriotism which regarded a numerous posterity as a blessing from
God, I point out this exhaustion of vital sap as a symptom of malady
and decline. I see the people who emigrate redouble efforts to fill
up voids, redouble virtues, savings, and labor to prepare departures
and new establishments. Among a people who do not emigrate, I
see wealth disbursed in the superfluities of vain luxury ; young men
idle, without horizons, and without lofty ambition, consuming thern-

* " The Social Condition and Education of the People in England," by
Joseph Kay, Esq., M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, Barrister-at-Law,
and late Travelling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge, 12mo., New
York, 1863.

284: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

selves in frivolous pleasures and petty calculations ; and families
alarmed at a fecundity which would impose on them modest and la
borious habits. Like stagnant waters, stagnant populations become
corrupt. Moved by this spectacle, I should dread for the sedentary
race an early degradation, if this inequality revealed a decree of
Providence, instead of being a fault of man." *

If from the graver interests we turn to the superficial
traits of the English people, it requires little acumen to dis
cover materials for ridicule quite as patent and provocative
of satire as the " domestic manners of the Americans " yield.
Leach and Doyle have long since stereotyped for the public,
certain traits of physiognomy, costume, and manners, some
what monotonous, certainly, but quite as absurd and vulgar
as any so-called American, characteristic and popularly recog
nized as such. The pronunciation, snobbishness, egotism,
bad taste, stolidity, and arrogance of different classes are
thus caricatured. Deference to wealth and rank, perverse
adherence to obsolete and unjust as well as irrational systems,
habits, and opinions, in England, are the staple themes of
satirical novelists, eloquent liberals, and comic draughtsmen ;
while the "English abroad" furnish a permanent subject of
ridicule to their more vivacious neighbors, and figure habitu
ally in French farces and after-dinner anecdotes. But this
mode of discussing national character is not less unworthy a
philosopher than a Christian ; it is essentially one-sided, preju
diced, and inhuman. Yet it is worth while to suggest the
recognized vulnerable points of English life, manners, and
institutions, that it may be seen how easily their reproach and
ridicule of Americans can be retaliated.

But we do not cite such national defects and misfortunes
in the spirit of retaliation, but simply to indicate how unjust
and uncharitable it is to regard a country or a people exclu
sively in the light of reproach and animadversion, and how
universal is that law of compensation whereby good and evil
in every land are balanced in the scale of Divine wisdom. It

* " Histoire de 1'Emigration au XIXe Siecle, par M. Jules Duval," Paris,
1863.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 285

is indeed a remarkable evidence of inconsistent and perverse
feeling, that a course which no man of sense and common
humanity would think of applying to an individual, is confi
dently adopted in the discussion of national character and
destiny. That allowance which the mature in years instinct
ively make for the errors of youth — the compassion which
tempers judgment in regard to the indigence, the ignorance,
or the blind passions of the outcast or the criminal, is
ignored when the faults or the calamities of a whole people
are described. Yet such a fearful exposition of " London
Labor and London Poor," which Mayhew has made familiar,
should excite only emotions of shame and pity in the Chris
tian heart. But the hardihood that so long coldly admitted
or wantonly sneered at the wrongs of Ireland and Italy, gives
a bitter edge or a narrow comprehension to the class of Eng
lish writers on America w^e have, perhaps too patiently, dis
cussed.

The simple truth is, that there is scarcely a vulnerable
point in our system, social, political, or religious, but has
its counterpart in the mother country. For every solecism
in manners or inhuman inconsistency in practice, growing
out of democratic radicalism on this side of the water, a
corresponding defect or incongruity is obvious in the eccle
siastical or aristocratic monopolies and abuses on the other.
For our well-fed African slaves, they have half-starved white
operatives ; for the tyranny of demagogues here, there is the
bloated rule of duke and bishop there ; for the degraded
squatter life in regions of whiskey drinking and ague in
America, there is the not less sad fate of the miner and
the poacher in the heart of civilized England ; and there is
reason to believe that, if a philosophical collector of the data
of suicides, railway catastrophes, and financial swindlers, were
to be equally assiduous in the United States and Great Bri
tain, the figures, in the ratio of space, time, and population,
would be nearly parallel. Even the philological blunders and
absurdities over which cockney travellers here have been so
merry, may be equalled in many a district of England ; and

286 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

if the classic names applied to new towns on this continent
savor of tasteless pedantry, a similar lack of a sense of the
appropriate stares us in the face in the names of villas in the
suburbs of London ; while the same repetition and conse
quent confusion of names of places occur in English shires as
in our States.

Language has been one of the most prolific sources of
ridicule and animadversion ; especially those peculiarities of
tone and speech supposed to belong exclusively to the East
ern States, and popularly designated as Yankeeisms. Yet it
has been made obvious at last, that, instead of being indige
nous, these oddities of speech, with very few exceptions,
were brought from England, and are still current in the locali
ties of their origin. In the preface to his " Dictionary of
Americanisms," Mr. Bartlett tells us that, after having col
lected, he imposed upon himself the task of tracing to their
source these exceptional words, phrases, and accents. " On
comparing these familiar words," he writes, " with the pro
vincial and colloquial language of the northern counties of
England, a most striking resemblance appeared, not only in
the words commonly regarded as peculiar to New England,
but in the dialectical pronunciation of certain words, and in
the general tone and accent. In fact, it may be said without
exaggeration, that nine tenths of the colloquial peculiarities
of "New England are derived directly from Great Britain ;
and they are now provincial in those parts from which the
early colonists emigrated, or are to be found in the writings
of well-accredited authors of the period when that emigra
tion took place."

Neither has the long-standing reproach of a lack of liter
ary cultivation and achievement present significance. Syd
ney Smith's famous query in the Edinburgh Review, " Who
reads an American book ? " is as irrelevant and impertinent
to-day as the other famous dictum of Jeffrey in regard to
Wordsworth's poetry — " This will never do." In history,
poetry, science, criticism, biography, political and ethical dis
cussions, the records of travels, of taste, and of romance,

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 287

universally recognized and standard exemplars, of American
origin, now illustrate the genius and culture of the nation.

In thus referring the liberal and philosophical inquirer,
who desires to comprehend the character, destinies, and his
tory of the United States, and thence infer the relation of
and duty to them on the part of Europe, to the several de
partments of literature which bear the impress of the
national mind, another form of prejudice and phase of injus
tice habitual with British writers inevitably suggest them
selves. Fifty years ago, American literature was declared by
them beneath contempt ; but as soon as leisure and encourage
ment stimulated the educated and the gifted natives of the soil
to enter upon the career of authorship ; when the literary
products of the country attained a degree of merit that
could not be ignored, these same critics objected that Ameri
can literature was unoriginal — only a new instalment of Eng
lish ; that Irving reproduced the manner of the writers of
Queen Anne's day ; that Cooper's novels were imitated from
those of Scott ; that Brockden Brown plagiarized from God
win, Hoffman from Moore, Holmes from Sterne, Sprague
from Pope ; and, in short, that, because Americans made use
of good English, standard forms of verse, and familiar con
struction in narrative, they had no claim to a national litera
ture. It seems a waste of time and words to confute such
puerile reasoning. If the number of English authors who have
written popular books in any and all of the British colonies,
should have their literary merits questioned on the ground
that these works, although composed and published in the
vernacular, were not actually conceived and written in Lon
don, the absurd objection would be deemed too ridiculous to
merit notice. Not only the language, but the culture ; not
only the political traditions, but the standards of taste, the
religious and social education, the literary associations, the
whole mental resource and discipline of an educated Ameri
can, are analogous to or identical with those of England;
but, as a people, the statistics of the book trade and the
facts of individual culture prove that the master minds of

288 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

British literature more directly and universally train and nur
ture the American than the English mind. Partly from that
distance that lends enchantment, and partly from the vast
number of readers produced by our system of popular edu
cation, Shakspeare and Milton, Bacon and Wordsworth, Byron
and Scott have been and are more generally known, appre
ciated, and loved, and have entered more deeply into the
average intellectual life, on this than on the other side of the
Atlantic; and the best thinkers, the most refined poets of
Great Britain in our own day, find here a larger and more
enthusiastic audience than they do at home. Accordingly,
until the laws of mind are reversed, there is no reason to
expect any different manifestation of literature, as far as
form, style, and conventional rules are concerned, here than
there. The subjects, the scenery, the characters, the opinions
of our historians, poets, novelists, and essayists, are as diverse
from those of British writers as the respective countries.
Cooper's local coloring, his chief personages, the scope and
flavor of his romances, are as unlike those of Scott as are the
North American Indians from Highlanders, and Lake Onta
rio from Loch Leven. The details of Bryant's forest pic
tures are full of special traits of which there is not a trace in
Thomson or Burns. The author of "Caleb Williams" ac
knowledged his obligations to the author of " Weiland " and
" Arthur Mervyn." There are pages of the " Sketch Book "
and " Bracebridge Hall " which Addison might have written,
for their subjects are English life and scenes ; but when the
same graceful pen expatiates, with rich humor, among the
legends of the Hudson or Dutch dynasties in New York,
describes the prairies or colonial times in Virginia, except in
the words used, there is not the slightest resemblance in sub
ject, tone, impression, or feeling to the " Spectator." Why
should Motley write otherwise than Hallam, Prescott than
Macaulay, Emerson than Carlyle, Channing than Arnold,
Hawthorne than Kingsley, as regards the technical use of a
language common to them all, and a culture identical in its
normal elements ? All the individuality to be looked for is

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 289

in the treatment of their several subjects, in the style inci
dent to their respective temperaments and characters, and in
the literary genius with which they are severally endowed.
Yet, if it were desirable to vindicate the American quality as
a distinction of these and other approved authors, it would
be an easy task to indicate a freedom and freshness, an inde
pendence and humanity, so characteristic as to prove singu
larly attractive to foreign readers, and to be recognized by
high continental criticism as national.

The mercenary spirit so continually ascribed to our civili
zation by English writers, long before was the habitual re
proach cast on their own by continental critics. Thrift is a
Saxon trait, and the " nation of shopkeepers " cannot appro
priately thus make the love of or deference to money our
exclusive or special weakness ; whereas the extreme and
appalling diversity of condition in England, the juxtaposition
of the duke and the drudge, the pampered bishop and the
starving curate, the magnificent park and the malarious hovel,
the luxurious peer and the squalid operative, bring into such
melancholy relief the sharp and bitter inequalities of human
lives and human creatures, that not all the latent and obvious
resources, energy, self-reliance, and power which so beguiled
the wonder and love of Emerson in the aspect of England
and Englishmen in their prosperous phase, can reconcile that
social atmosphere to the large, warm, sensitive heart of an
unselfish, sympathetic, Christian man. Clubs and races,
cathedrals and royal drawing rooms, the freshness of rural
and the luxury of metropolitan life, Parliament and the
Times — all the elements, routine, substantial bases and super
ficial aspects of England and the English, however adequate
to the insular egotism, and however barricaded by prejudice,
pride, and indifference, do not harmonize, to the clear, humane
gaze of soulful eyes, with what underlies and overshadows
this stereotyped programme and partial significance. We
hear the " cry of the human " that rang so drearily in the ear
of the noblest woman and poet of the age :
13

290 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

" I am listening b.ere in Eome ;

Over Alps a voice is sweeping :
' England's cruel ! Save us some

Of these victims in her keeping.' "

'-Let others shout,

Other poets praise my land here ;
I am sadly setting out,

Praying, ' God forgive her grandeur ! ' "

Nor less authoritative is the same earnest and truth-
inspired voice, in its protest against the inhumanity that
ignores or wilfully repudiates the claims of other nations :

" I confess that I dream of the day when an English statesman
shall arise with a heart too large for England, having courage, in the
face of his countrymen, to assert of some suggestive policy, ' This is
good for your trade ; this is necessary for your domination : hut it
will vex a people hard hy ; it will hurt a people farther off; it will
profit nothing to the general humanity ; therefore away with it ! It
is not for you or me.' When a British minister dares so to speak,
and when a British public applauds him speaking, then shall the
nation be so glorious, that her praise, instead of exploding from
within, from loud civic mouths, shall come to her from without, as all
worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered, and from
the populations she has saved." *

Voltaire compared the English to beer — '• the bottom
dregs, the top froth, and the middle excellent." The first
arid last class, for a considerable period, alone reported us ;
low abuse and superficial sneers being their legitimate expres
sion, and an inability to understand a people, sympathize with
an unaccustomed life, or rise above selfish considerations,
their normal defects ; whereof the last three years have
given memorable proof.

' Instead of the vague title of Annus Mirabilis which
Dryden bestowed upon a memorable year in English history,
these might more appropriately be called, as far as our coun
try is concerned, the Test Years. Not only have they proved
the patriotism, the resources, and the character of the people

* Elizabeth Browning.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 291

and their institutions, but they have applied specific tests, the
result of which has been essentially to modify the convictions
and sentiments of individuals. Any thinking man who will
review his opinions, cannot fail to be astonished at the
changes in his estimate of certain persons and things, which
have taken place since the war for the Union began. Thou
sands, for instance, who entertained a certain reverence for the
leading British journal, simply as such, without any familiar
ity therewith, haying become acquainted with the Times in
consequence of its gratuitous discussion of our national
affairs, and perceiving its disingenuous, perverse, inimical
spirit toward their country in the hour of calamity ; and, of
their own personal knowledge, proving its wanton falsehoods,
have been enlightened so fully, that henceforth the mechani
cal resources and intellectual appliances of that famous news
paper weigh as nothing against the infamy that attends a dis
covered quack.*

In countless hearts and minds on this continent, pleasant
and fond illusions in regard to English character, govern
ment, and sentiment are forever dispelled, first by the injus
tice of the official, and then by the uncandid and inimical
tone of the literary organs of the British people. There lies
before us, as we write, a private letter from an American
scholar and gentleman, who, on the score of lineage as well
as culture and character, claims respect for his deliberate
views. What he says in the frank confidence of private
correspondence, indicates, without exaggeration, the change
which has come over the noblest in the land : ' Let John Bull
beware. War or no war, he has made an enduring enemy
of us. I am startled to hear myself say this, but England is
henceforth to me only historical — the home of our Shak-

* Cobden thus characterizes the Times with reference to its treatment of
a home question and native statesmen : " Here we have, in a compendious
form, an exhibition of those qualities of mind which characterize the editorial
management of the Times — of that arrogant self-complacency, that logical in
coherence, and that moral bewilderment which a too long career of 'impunity
and irresponsibility could alone engender."

292 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

speare, and Milton, and Wordsworth ; for all her best writers
are ours by necessity and privilege of language : but farewell
the especial sympathy I have felt in her political, social, and
total well-being. With her present exhibition and promulga
tion of jealousy and selfishness and heartlessness and ungen-
tlemanly meanness, she has cut me loose from the sweet and
cordial and reverent ties that have kept her so long to me a
second fatherland.' '

CHAPTEE VIII.

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS.

KALM ; MISS BREMER ; GUROWSKI, AND OTHERS ; GERMAN WRITERS :
HUMBOLDT; SAXE WEIMAR; VON RAUMER; PRINCE MAXIMILIAN
VON WEID ; LIEBER ; SCHULTZ ; OTHER GERMAN WRITERS I
GRUND ; RUPPIUS ; SEATSFIELD ; KOHL ; TALVI ; SCHAFF.

IN the North of Europe, since the beginning of the pres
ent century, French literature has been the chief medium of
current information in regard to the rest of the world.
Within the last twenty years the English language has be
come a fashionable accomplishment ; and, with the wonderful
development of German literature, books of science and
travel, in that language, have furnished the other northern
races with no small part of their ideas about America. In
Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, many of our best authors
have been translated ; and the Journal de St. Petersbourg,
L'Abeille du Nord, Vedemosti (Bedemoctii), during the civil
war, have, by the accuracy of their facts and the justness of
their reasoning, evidenced a remarkably clear understanding
of the struggle, its origin, aim, and consequences. A pleas
ant book of " Impressions " during a tour in the United
States, by Lakieren, a Russian, was published in that lan
guage in 1859; and a Swedish writer — Siljestroem * — gave

* " The Educational Institutions of the United States, their Character and
Organization," translated from the Swedish by Frederica Rowan, London,

I
291 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

to his countrymen an able description and exposition of the
American system of popular education, which is justly
esteemed for its fulness and accuracy ; while the great work
of Rafn on " Northern Antiquities " identifies the profound
researches of a Danish scholar with the dawn of American
history.

It is refreshing alike to the senses and the soul, to turn
from the painfully exciting story of those early adventurers
on this continent, whose object was conquest and personal
aggrandizement, whose careers, though signalized often by
heroism and sagacity, were fraught with bloodshed, not only
in conflicts with the savages, but in quarrels among their own
followers arid rivals, to the peaceful journeys and voyages —
attended, indeed, with exposure and privation — of those who
sought the woods and waters of the New World chiefly to
discover their marvels and enjoy and record them. We find
in all the desirable reports of explorers, whether men of
war, diplomacy, or religion, more or less of that observa
tion, and sometimes of that love of nature, so instinctively
active when a new scene of grandeur or beauty is revealed to
human perception. But these casual indications of either a
scientific or sympathetic interest in the physical resources of
the country are but the episodes in expeditions, whose lead
ers were too hardy or unenlightened to follow these attrac
tions, for their own sake, with zeal and exclusiveness. Other
and less innocent objects absorbed their minds ; and it is
chiefly among the missionaries that we find any glowing
recognition of the charms of the untracked wilderness, the
mysterious streams, and the brilliant skies, which they strove
to consecrate to humanity by erecting, amid and beneath them,
the Cross, which should hallow the flag that proclaimed their
acquisition to a distant but ambitious monarch. To the natu
ralist, America has ever abounded in peculiar interest ; and

1853. Other Swedish works on America are C. D. Arfevedson's "Travels,"
(1838); Gustaf Unonceis' "Recollections of a Residence of Seventeen Years
in the United States " (1862-'3). Munck Rieder, a Norwegian, wrote a work
on his return from the United States in 1849 — chiefly statistical.

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 295

all with an inkling of that taste have found their loneliest
wanderings cheered thereby. Nor has it been the scientific
love of nature alone to which she has here ever appealed.
To the adventurous and poetical, to the brave lover of inde
pendence and freedom, like Boone, and the enthusiast, like
Chateaubriand, the forest and the waterfall have possessed a
memorable charm. From Bartram to Wilson, and from Au-
dubon to Agassiz, the world of animal and vegetable life in
America has yielded a long array of naturalists the richest
materials for exploration.

One of the earliest scientific visitors to our shores was
Peter Kalm, who was sent from Sweden, with the approba
tion of Linnreus, in 1745. His salary was inadequate, and he
so trenched upon his private resources, in order to carry out
the objects of his journey, as to be compelled, after his re
turn home, to practise rigid economy. Kalm was born in
Osterbotten, in 1715, and educated at Upsal. On his return
from America, he was appointed professor of natural history
at Abo, where he died in 1779. A charming memorial of his
visit to our country is the botanical name given to the wild
laurel of our woods, first made known by him to Europe,
and, in honor thereof, called the Kalmia. His work, " En
resa til Norra Amerika," appeared in Stockholm in 1753-'61,
in three volumes, and was translated into Dutch, German, and
English — the latter by John R. Foster, under the title of
"Travels in North America" (2 vols., London, 1772).*
He passed the winter of 1749 among the Swedes settled at
Racoon, New Jersey. He explored the coast of New York,
visited the Blue Mountains, the Mohawk, Iroquois, Oneida,
Tuscarora, and Onondaga Indian tribes, Lake Ontario, and
the Falls of Niagara. His description of the latter was long
popular. In his diary, while at Philadelphia, he notes the
variety of religious sects and their peculiarities, the exports,
and the hygiene. Some of the facts recorded by him of the

* " Travels in North America, containing its Natural History, and Civil,
Ecclesiastical, and Commercial State," £c., by Peter Kalm, 3 vols. 8vo., best
edition, map, plates Warrington, 1770.

296 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

City of Brotherly Love a century ago, enable us to realize
how rapid has been the advance from suburban wildness to
the highest metropolitan luxury. When Kalm sojourned
there, elks, beavers, and stags were hunted where now is
" the sweet security of streets." So abundant were the
peaches, that they served as the food of swine. The noisy
midsummer chorus of frogs, locusts, and grasshoppers vibra
ted through what is now the heart of a great city. Maize
was to the Swedish botanist the most wonderful staple of the
soil. He discovered a species of Rhus indigenous to the
region. The murmur of the spinning wheel was a familiar
sound ; and sassafras was deemed a specific cure for dropsy.

Kalm's picture of Albany in 1749 is an interesting paral
lel and contrast to Mrs. Grant's more elaborate description,
and to the pleasant social glimpses of its modern life given
by the late William Kent in a lecture before the young men
there of this generation. The Swedish traveller tells us
that all the people spoke Dutch, that the servants were all
negroes, and that all the houses had gable ends to the street,
with such projecting gutters that wayfarers were seriously
incommoded in wet weather. He describes the cattle as
roaming the dirty streets at will ; the interior of the dwell
ings as of an exemplary neatness, and the fireplaces and
porches thereof of an amplitude commensurate with the
wide and genial hospitality and liberal social instincts of the
people, whose prevalent virtues he regarded as frugality in
diet and integrity of purpose and character. In their houses
the women were extremely neat. " They rise early," says
Kalm, " go to sleep late, and are almost over nice and cleanly
in regard to the floor, which is frequently scoured several
times a week." Tea had been but recently introduced among
them, but was extensively used ; coffee seldom. They never
put sugar and milk in their tea, but took a small piece of the
former in their mouths while sipping the beverage. They
usually breakfasted at seven, dined at twelve or one, and
supped at six ; and most of them used sweet rnilk or butter
milk at every meal. They also used cheese at breakfast and

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 297

dinner, grated instead of sliced ; and the usual drink of the
majority of the people was small beer and pure water. The
wealthier families, although not indulging in the variety then
seen upon tables in New York, used much fish, flesh, and
fowl, preserves and pastry, nuts and fruits, and various wines,
at their meals, especially when entertaining their friends or
strangers. Their hospitality toward deserving strangers was
free and generous, without formality and rules of etiquette,
and they never allowed their visitors to interfere with the
necessary duties of the household, the counting room, or the
farm.

In describing his visit to Niagara Falls, in a letter dated
Albany, September 2, 1750, Kalm furnishes us with an inter
esting contrast between the experience of a traveller to this
long-frequented shrine of nature, a century ago, when such
expeditions were few and far between, and the magnificent
scene with its frontier fort was isolated in the wilderness,
&nd the same visit now, when caravans rush thither many
times a day, with celerity, to find all the comforts, society,
and amenities of high civilization :

" I came, on the 12th of August, to Niagara Fort. The French
there seemed much perplexed at my first coming, imagining I was an
English officer, who, under pretext of seeing the Falls, came with
Borne other view ; but as soon as I showed them my passport, they
changed their behavior, and treated me with the greatest civility.
In the months of September and October, such immense quantities
of dead waterfowl are found, every morning, below the fall, on the
shore (swept there), that the garrison of the fort for a long time live
chiefly upon them, and obtain such plenty of feathers in autumn as
make several beds."

The Swedish colony on the banks of the Delaware early
associated that brave nationality with the settlement of
America.* Longfellow's translation of Tegner's " Children

* 1. " Description of New Sweden in America, and the Settlements in
Pennsylvania by Companies," Stockholm, 1792, a small quarto, with primitive
engravings.

2. " Description of the Province of New Sweden, now called by the English
Pennsylvania," translated and edited by Peter S. Duponceau. Phila., 1824.

3. " The Swedes on the Delaware," by Rev. Jehu Curtis Clay, Phila.

13*

298 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of the Lord's Supper," with the prefatory sketch of life ill
Sweden, gave us a pleasant glimpse of its primitive and rural
traits ; and the vocalism and beneficence of Jenny Lind en
deared the very name of that far-off land to American hearts*
But the novels of Fredrika Bremer first made known in this
country the domestic life of Sweden, which, delineated
with such naivete and detail in " The Neighbors," charmed
our households, and prepared them to give a cordial welcome
to the author. The first impression she made, however, was
not highly attractive. A journal of the day well describes
it, and the natural reaction therefrom :

" The slowness with which she spoke, and the pertinacity with
which she insisted on understanding the most trifling remark made
to her, a little dashed the enthusiasm of those who newly made her
acquaintance. Further intercourse, however, brought out a quaint
and quiet self-possession, a shrewd vein of playfulness, a quick obser
vation, and a truly charming simplicity, which rewon all the admi
ration she had lost, and added, we fancy, even to the ideal of expec
tation."

There are few situations in modern life more suggestive
of the ludicrous, than that of a wroman " of a certain age,"
professedly visiting a country for the purpose of critically
examining and reporting it and its people. Every American
of lively imagination who has been thrown into society with
one of these female philosophers on such a voyage of discov
ery, must have caught ideas for a comedy of real life from
the phenomena thus created. " Asking everybody every
thing," the self-appointed inspector is propitiated by one,
quizzed by another, feared by this class and contemned by that,
all the time with an unconscious air, looking, listening, noting
down, and, from the most evanescent and unreliable data,
" giving an opinion " or drawing a portrait, not of a well-
known place or familiar person, but of an unknown country
and a strange nation ! To see Miss Martineau vigilantly
thridding crowds and paying out the flexible tube of her ear-
trumpet, like a telegraph wire, into the social sea ; or Dick
ens astride a chair in a hotel, receiving gratuitous and exag-

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 299

gerated reports of the state of the nation, from a group of
lion-struck republicans, are tableaux that will recur to many,
as illustrations of this comedy of travel in America.

It was our lot to see Miss Bremer at a manorial domicile
on the Hudson, in all the glory of her " mission." It was in
the autumn, and no one could pass along the river without
being struck with admiration at the splendid colors that
kindled the woods : it was the common theme of remark.
She, however, resented this assumed superiority of the
American autumn, saying, " The Lord also has done some
thing for Sweden. Our foliage is brilliant in the fall." In
the same spirit she refused to believe a lady fresh from Ken
tucky, who, in describing to her the Mammoth Cave, men
tioned the familiar fact that the fish therein have only the
rudiment of an optic nerve. At dinner, her inquiries about
the material and preparation of the viands would have led to
the supposition that she meditated a manual of cookery ; and,
on returning to the drawing room, she whipped out a sketch
book, and coolly drew a likeness of Irving, the most illustri
ous of the guests. The fabrics of the ladies' dresses, the
modes of dancing, the style of meals, the trees, furniture,
books, schools, and private history of all persons of note, and
even of those unknown to fame, were investigated with per
fect good humor and nonchalance / but the process and idea
of the thing, when considered, are a singular commentary
upon modern life and social dignity ; and when the long-
expected book appeared, the kind people who had enter
tained Miss Bremer, were dismayed to find their sayings and
doings recorded, and their very looks and characters analyzed
for the public edification. This breach of good faith and
good taste, however, did not prevent her Swedish readers
from learning, through her very frank and naive but often
superficial report, many details of domestic economy, and
some novelties of American life ; while here the effect was
once more to "give us pause" in our hospitable instincts, and
to feel the necessity of a new sumptuary law, whereby to eat
one's salt should be a pledge against the freedom of pen-craft.

300 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

Adam Gurowski's book on America is noteworthy as
the observations of a Pole. It appeared in 1857, and has
few elements of popularity, being alike devoid of statistics
and gossip — the staple elements of favorite records of travel
on this side of the water ; but it is honorably distinguished
from these by a vein of grave speculation and historical rea
soning, of which the author's subsequent hasty, irate, and
irrational comments on the war for the Union, give no indica
tion. Being a publicist and a well-read political philosopher,
as well as a political refugee, the Count's experience as a
Polish revolutionist, an employe of Russia, and a long resi
dent in America, fits him eminently to discuss the tendencies
and traits of this country by the light of the past. He com
pares our civilization with that of Europe. The tone of his
work is liberal and rational. He is a sincere and earnest
admirer of our institutions, a trenchant social critic. The
pulpit, press, and " manifest destiny " of the nation are
keenly analyzed, and slavery is discussed from an historical
stand-point, and thoroughly condemned by practical argu
ment. As a treatise on government and society, the book
contains an unusual amount of thought, and grasps salient
questions with a comprehensive scope. It is, indeed, defec
tive in style, and contains palpable errors of statement and
inference ; but these are more than atoned for by its philo
sophical spirit.

A highly educated Swiss, K. Meier, in a pleasant wprk
entitled " To the Sacramento," has described his journey
from the Northern States to California ma Panama, in the
German language, with the interest which ever attaches to
the tour of an intelligent votary of the natural sciences ; and
an officer of the same nation, Colonel Lecointe, has published,
in the French language, a report of our military operations
during the first months of the war for the Union, which has
been translated into English.*

* " The War in the United States : a Keport to the Swiss Military De
partment ; preceded by a Discourse to the Federal Military Society, assembled

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 301

An accomplished member of the Belgian Representative
Chamber wrote an able little treatise on " La Question Ame-
ricaine," * in which he arrays facts and arguments in a lucid
and forcible manner, and discusses, with rare fulness and per
spicacity, the causes and consequences of the civil war. His
views of the mutual interests of his own and our country are
worth citing :

" It will not seem out of place to show here, briefly, that, as re
gards Belgium, the cotton question is not the only one which inter
ests her in the affairs of America. "We have close constitutional
analogies with the United States. If their institutions should fall,
ours would suffer by reaction. We have copied the American Con
stitution, not only as to municipal and provincial decentralization,
as to that of industrial, financial, charitable associations, &c., as to
the great liberties of worship, of instruction, and of the press (of
which the English charter offered us equally the model) ; but we
have followed America particularly as regards the absence of a state
religion, of which Catholic Maryland gave the first example. We
have imitated her in the institution of an elective Senate, in that of
a House of Representatives identified with the democratic interest.
The national Congress voted the Belgian Constitution with their eyes
fixed on the American Union. Were we to consult only the interest
of Belgium, we ought to desire that the United States should con
tinue to remain what they have been, and to give us the example of
union, of the spirit of liberty, and of decentralization — qualities
which characterize the Anglo-Saxon race, with which the Belgians
have bonds of relationship and close affinities." (P. 63.)

No Europeans, in our own day, have had more reason to
regard North America with hopeful interest than the Ger
mans. To their indigent agricultural population this country
has proved a prosperous home ; and the zeal with which our
Teutonic fellow citizens, of all classes, volunteered for the
war on whose issues hang the liberties of this continent, is
the best evidence of their appreciation of the privileges of

at Berne, August 18th, 1862," by Ferdinand Lecomte, translated from the
French by a Staff Officer, New York, 1863.

* " La Question Americaine dans ses Rapports avec les Moeurs, 1' Escla-
vage, F Industrie et la Politique." Par Le Chanoine de Haerne, Membre de la
Chambre des Representants, Bruxelles, 1862, 8vo., pp. 72.

302 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

American citizenship. No foreigners seem to organize their
national life among us with such facility. The guilds and
pastimes of the fatherland are as familiar in our cities as on
the Rhine. German scholars and thinkers are attached to
our colleges, contribute to our literature, and enrich our soci
ety ; Avhile large sections of the Western States are culti
vated by German peasants. Moreover, the literature of Ger
many has essentially modified the culture of the present gen
eration of American scholars ; and thus, in the sphere of
intellectual and of utilitarian life, a mutual understanding
and sympathy, and a community of political interests, have
tended to bring the two nationalities into nearer relations.

Many statistical works on the United States have* been
published in Germany as guides to emigrants ; and many
sensible treatises explaining and describing our institutions,
manners, resources, and characteristics, like those of Yon
Raumer, Lieber, and other residents and visitors. A certain
philosophical impartiality of tone makes the German record
a kind of middle ground between the urbane and enthusiastic
French and the prejudiced and sneering English writers.
Some of the most just views and candid delineations have
emanated from German writers. Their political sympathies,
extensive information, and patient tone of mind, alike fit
them for the task of investigating and reporting physical and
social facts. The record may lack sprightliness, and be
tinged with a curious vein of speculation, but is nevertheless
likely to convey solid and valuable knowledge, and suggest
comprehensive inferences. Gerstaecker, who travelled on
foot over a large part of the Soutlnvest, and Trochling, have
given to many of their countrymen the first vivid impres
sions of America. Writing in the novelistic form, they
reached the sympathies of many who would neglect a merely
statistical work. Private letters, and the current journals and
translations of Cooper and Irving, are, however, the popular
sources of specific information and romantic impressions in
Germany in regard to the United States. Although Baron
Hurnboldt's American researches were chiefly confined to the

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 303

Southern continent, he was keenly alive to the human interest
and civic problems of the United States. " We would sim
ply draw attention," he writes in " Cosmos," " to the fact
that, since this period " (that of the discoArery and coloniza
tion of America), " a new and more vigorous activity of the
mind and feelings, animated by bold aspirations and hopes
which can scarcely be frustrated, has gradually penetrated
through all grades of civil society ; that the scanty popula
tion of one half of the globe, especially in the portions oppo
site to Europe, has favored the settlement of colonies, which
have been converted, by their extent and position, into inde
pendent States, enjoying unlimited power in the choice of
their mode of free government ; and, finally, that religious
reform — the precursor of great political revolutions — could
not fail to pass through the different phases of its develop
ment, in a portion of the earth which had become the asylum
of all forms of faith, and of the most different views regard
ing Divine things. The daring enterprise of the Genoese
seaman is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these
momentous events. Accident, and not fraud and dissension,
deprived the continent of America of the name of Columbus.
The New World, continuously brought nearer to Europe
during the last half century by means of commercial inter
course and the improvement of navigation, has exercised an
important influence on the political institutions, the ideas and
feelings of those nations who occupy the eastern shores of
the Atlantic, the boundaries of which appear to be constantly
brought nearer and nearer to one another."

There is a curious illustration of the first impressions of
the highly educated Germans in America, in a phrase of
Baron Furstenwarther, and its explanation by Mr. Schmidt :
" With all the facility," writes the former, " particularly of
the material life, there is no idea, not a distant suspicion, of
a high and fine existence." " By material," observes the lat
ter, " we mean men who take more pleasure in a cattle show
or a breed of swine, than a Venus de Medici or a Laocoon."
Very patient and informing, but quite tame and didactic, are

304: AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

the " Travels in North America " by His Highness, Bernhard,
Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, republished in Philadelphia
in 1828. The kindliness and intelligence of the Duke are
apparent on every page of these two volumes ; but there is
little new in the subjects or mode of treatment. It is a work
which excites respect for the man more than admiration for
the writer. His benevolent interest and his detailed account
of what he sees and hears, are the most remarkable traits.
He gives a favorable report of the hospitality of Americans ;
describes his visit to the elder Adams, and a Virginia rail
fence, a granite machine in New England, and a Hudson
River steamboat or horse ferry, the Creek Indians, and
Owen's community, with the same fulness and apparent inter
est. He criticizes West's painting of " Christ Healing the
Sick " judiciously, bestows the epithet " dear " upon Philadel
phia, was astonished "to hear Virginians praise hereditary
nobility and primogeniture," and greatly enjoyed a visit to
the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, the Natural Bridge,
and a dinner at Monticello. It is remarkable that the travel
lers of rank show so much more human and so much less con
ventional interest in American life, manners, and resources
than those who belong to a class we should imagine especially
alive to the opportunities and privileges of a new and free
country. Yet the Cavalier Castiglione, the Marquis of Chas-
tellux, the Duke of Saxe- Weimar, and Lord Morpeth are
more just and generous in their observation and sympa
thies, as travellers in America, than a Hall, a Trollope, or a
Dickens.

Friedrich Von Raumer, more of an historian than an
observer, a professor in the University of Berlin, and author
of several political and historical treatises, after travelling in
England and publishing his observations on that country,
which were translated by Mrs. Austin (5 vols., London,
1836), visited this country, and, in 1843, wrote a book there
on, entitled " America and the American people," subse
quently translated and published in New York.* It contains

* " America and the American People," by Frederick Yon Raumer,

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 305

much valuable information, and is written with the love of
knowledge and patient exposition thereof characteristic of a
German professor, but evidently drawn much more from
books than from life.

The German edition of the " Travels " * in America of
the Prince Maximilian von Wied, is superbly illustrated, and
much used as an authentic reference by his countrymen, for
whom the work was expressly written : it is wholly descrip
tive, and therefore contains little that is new to a well-in
formed native. The work was translated into English, and
with its superb illustrations republished in London. One of
the best known here of the German writers on this country is
Dr. Francis Lieber. He was born at Berlin in 1800, and re
ceived a doctor's degree at the University of Jena. Like so
many ardent and cultivated young Europeans, he espoused
the cause of Greece during her Revolution ; became a politi
cal exile, received a letter of encouragement from Richter,
wrote poems in prison, and, in 1827, came to America. He
edited the Cyclopaedia Americana, and was professor in Co
lumbia College, South Carolina, several years, and now holds
a like situation in Columbia College, New York. Dr. Lieber
is an eminent publicist. His views on political economy are
original and profound. His expositions of international law,
and his occasional political essays, are alike remarkable for
extensive knowledge and acute reasoning. His " Letters to
a Gentleman in Germany," or " The Stranger in America," f
exhibit his ability in his special line of studies, applied to our
institutions and resources. They give remarkably full state
ments of judicial and penitentiary systems, and of social
traits. Dr. Lieber's ample opportunities of observation, his

translated from the German by W. W. Turner, 8vo., pp. 512, New York,
1846.

* " Journey through North America," by Prince Max v. New-wied-Wied,
a most valuable work, rich in characteristic sketches of nature and life, as well
as in scientific results.

f " The Stranger in America ; comprising Sketches of the Manners of
Society, &c.," by Francis Lieber, 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1835.

306 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS.

familiarity with society and life both North and South, and
the philosophical tendency of his mind, make him a remarkably
apt expositor of the most important questions relating to our
country. His work was translated into English by a son
of the celebrated jurist Hugo.

Christian Schultz made an inland tour through the United
States, in 1807-'8, of six thousand miles, his description
whereof was published in New York in 1810.* Though not
intended for the public, his letters are intelligent, and, for
the most part, accurate. Those referring to the Western Ter
ritories must have afforded seasonable and desirable informa
tion at that period ; and his account of the Middle States is
in some respects highly satisfactory. A good illustration of
the absence of locomotive facilities at' that time on one of
the most frequented lines of travel in our day, occurs in the
notes of his journey from Albany to Oswego. The latter
place, he tells us, was then " wholly dependent upon the salt
trade." He went there by canal and through Wood Creek
and the Onondaga River ; in fact, by the route described in
Cooper's " Pathfinder," substituting a barge for a canoe. As
to the town itself, thus slowly approached by water, and long
the goal of fur trader, missionary, and military expeditions,
this author thought its " appearance very contemptible from
the irregular and confused manner in which the inhabitants
build their houses ; " but his impression of the place changed
when he surveyed the lake from the shore, and recognized so
many local advantages and so vast and beautiful a prospect.

A volume, written also from personal experience, of the
same date, by Ludwig Gale, entitled " My Emigration to the
United States," is another of the early specimens of German
Travels therein, since forgotten in the more complete and
careful reports of later writers. Nor should the essay of a
political philosopher and naturalist, E. A. W. Zimmerman,
be neglected. It is entitled " France and the Free States of

* " Travels on an Inland Voyage through the States of New York, Penn
sylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, &c.," by Christian Schultz,
with numerous maps and plates, 2 vols. 8vo., New York, 1810.

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 307

North America," and appeared in 1795. Its author, a native
of Hanover, and educated at Leyden and Gottingen, died in
1815, and, "during the whole period of the French ascen
dency in Europe, was distinguished for his bold denunciation
of the usurpations and oppressions of that Government."

In 1839, a view of " Social and Public Life in the United
States," by Nicholas H. Julius, appeared at Leipsic. It is
written in a very intelligent and humane spirit, and with
practical judgment. Paul William Duke of Wurtemberg's
" Journey in North America in the Years 1825-'26," is finely
descriptive, with vivid sketches of social life. It contains
a detailed account of some of the German settlements.
William Grisson characterizes ably the juridical, religious,
and military relations of America, and comments on life
there from careful observation. F. W. von Wrede drew
some authentic " Pictures of Life in the United States and
Texas." In Count Gorsz's " Journey Round the World," the
first volume is devoted to America ; and, the author having
remained there longest, it is the best of the series. M.
Busch's " Wanderings in the United States " is written with
candor, and presents the extremes of light and shade, with
no small humor ; while Francis Loher has some excellent
national portraits in his " Lands and People in the Old and
New World," and describes at length the " Germans in
America," with whom he long resided. Frederick Kapp
published, at Gottingen, in 1854, a treatise on the slavery
question, in its historical development, full of facts and just
reasoning, although recent events have negatived its pro
phetic inductions. Louis von Baumbach's " New Letters
from the United States" (Cassel, 1856), is a useful guide to
the candid study of American life and institutions ; and
Julius Frobel's "From America" (Leipsic, 1857) treats with
esprit and geniality social and political questions.

In a work entitled " The Americans in their Moral, Social,
and Political Relations," a German writer, Francis J. Grund
(subsequently a naturalized citizen and active politician), ex
posed some of the superficial and false reasoning of English

308 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

travellers in America. Published in Boston * and London in
1837, and claiming to be the result of fourteen years' resi
dence in the country, it discussed, with much acuteness and
candor, several unhackneyed topics of this prolific theme :
among them, the aversion to amusements, the reception of
foreigners, the relation of American literature to the English
periodical press, and the influence of the Western settlements
on the political prospects of America ; while the more famil
iar topics of education, universal suffrage, slavery, and indus
trial enterprises, are treated with much discrimination. The
political sympathies of the author give an emphasis to his
arguments ; but he is by no means blind to the national defi
ciencies ; and in a subsequent work, evidently more especially
devoted thereto — which, although ostensibly edited only, was
written by him, and entitled " Aristocracy in America " — he
exhibits them with sarcastic vigor. His first book, however,
was timely, true, and remarkably well written. He professes
to have arrived at strict impartiality, and was chiefly inspired
by an " honest desire to correct prejudices, American and
English, and not to furnish them with fresh aliment." He
declares that the "Americans have been greatly misrepre
sented ; " and this not so much by ascribing to them spurious
qualities, as by omitting to mention those which entitle them
to honor and respect, and representing the foibles of certain
classes as weaknesses belonging to the nation. In the opin
ion of this writer, " a remarkable trait of English travellers
in the United States consists in their proneness to find the
same faults with Americans which the people of the conti
nent of Europe are apt to find with themselves." He recog
nizes an " air of busy inquietude " as characteristic of the
people, and " business " as the " soul " of American life ; yet
he considers the tendency of their democracy " not to debase
the wealthy in mind or fortune, but to raise the inferior
classes to a moral elevation where they no longer need be

* " The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations," by
Francis J. Grund, 2 vols. in 1, 12mo., Boston, 1837.

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 309

degraded and despised." As to the " unhallowed custom of
talking about trade and business, I must confess," he says,
" not to have remarked it half as often as Hamilton. I rather
think an honorable exception was made in his favor, in order
to acquaint him the better with American aifairs, on which
they knew he was about to write a book.." To this natural
explanation of a circumstance which the English traveller
magnifies into a national defect, the more kindly continental
observer adds another which accounts for many false infer
ences : " From the writings of Basil Hall and Hamilton, it is
evident that neither of the gentlemen became acquainted with
any but the fashionable coteries of the large cities, and that
the manners of the people, and especially of the respectable
middle class, escaped altogether their immediate attention."
He observes that "the most remarkable characteristic of
Americans is the uncommon degree of intelligence that per
vades all classes ;" and thinks that " their proneness to argue
lends a zest to conversation." To popular education he
attributes the mental activity and enlightenment so striking
to a European as general traits. " The German system," he
remarks, " favors the development of the mind to the exclu
sion of all practical purposes. The American aims always
at some application, and creates dexterity and readiness for
action." In the Western communities, he finds an attractive
" naivete of manners and grotesqueness of humor." No one,
he says, can travel in the United States without making a
business of it. " He must not expect to stop except at the
place fixed upon by the proprietors of the road or the steam
boat." The position of a man of leisure in this country,
unless he is interested in literary or scientific pursuits, he
deems forlorn, because it is companionless. " There is no
people on earth," he observes, " with whom business consti
tutes pleasure and industry amusement, to an equal degree as
with the inhabitants of the United States." Hamilton attrib
utes the " total absence of the higher elegancies of life " in
this country to the " abolition of primogeniture ; " while this
German commentator cheerfully accepts the condition that he

310 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" must resign his individual tastes to the wishes of the major
ity " in view of the compensatory benefits. " Every new
State," he writes, " is a fresh guarantee for the continuance
of the American Constitution, and directs the attention of
the people to new sources of happiness and wealth. It in
creases the interest of all in the General Government, and
makes individual success dependent on national prosperity."
With such broad sympathies and liberal views, he protests
against the narrowness and the injustice of British writers,
who have so pertinaciously misrepresented the country, its
institutions and prospects, declaring that " the progress of
America reflects but the glory of England. All the power
she acquires extends the moral empire of England. Every
page of American history is a valuable supplement to that of
England. It is the duty of true patriots of both countries to
support and uphold each other to the utmost extent compati
ble with national justice ; and it is a humiliating task either
for private individuals or public men to make the foibles of
either the subject of ridicule to the other."

In his novels, Otto Ruppius, who resided for a consider
able period in the United States, undertook, in this form, to
make his countrymen familiar with the various aspects of life
in America. They are interesting and suggestive, and in
many respects authentic, though not always free from those
partial or overdrawn pictures which are inseparable from this
form of writing.

Another German author, for some years a resident in the
United States, has made life and nature there the subject of
several interesting and effective novels — after having, on his
return home in 1826, published the general result of his ob
servation and experience on this side of the water. He came
back the following year, and his first American romance ap
peared in Philadelphia soon after, under the title of " To-
keah ; or, The White Rose." Charles Seatsfield thus became
known as an author. In 1829 and '30 he was one of the
editors of the 'Courier des Etats Unis, and, soon after, went
to Paris as correspondent of the New YorJc Courier and

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 311

Enquirer. In 1832 he visited Switzerland, and there pub
lished a translation of " Tokeah." So popular was this work
abroad, that he resolved to compose a series of romances
illustrative of American life. His keen observation, strong
sympathies, and imaginative zest enabled him to mould into
vivid pictures the scenes and characters with which he had
become familiar in America, where the six novels devoted to
that subject soon became known through partial translations
which appeared in Blackwood 's Magazine. The intensity
arid freshness of these delineations excited much interest.
They seemed to open a new and genuine vein of romance in
American life, or, rather, to make the infinite possibilities
thereof charmingly apparent. This was an experiment sin
gularly adapted to a German, who, with every advantage of
European education, in the freshness of life had emigrated to
this country, and there worked and travelled, observed and
reflected, and then, looking back from the ancient quietude
of his ancestral land, could delineate, under the inspiration
of contrast, all the wild and wonderful, the characteristic and
original phases and facts of his existence in Texas, Pennsyl
vania, or New York. " Life in the New World" was soon
translated and published in the latter city. It was followed
by " The Cabin Book ; or, Sketches of Life in Texas," and
others of the series which abroad have given to thousands
the most vivid impressions of the adventure, the scenery, and
the characters of our frontier, and of many of the peculiar
traits of our more confirmed civilization. Seatsfield resides
alternately in Switzerland and the United States.

Few modern travellers have won a more desirable reputa
tion for intelligent assiduity and an honest spirit than John
G. Kohl, who, born at Breme in 1808, was educated at Got-
tingen, Heidelberg, and Munich, and, after filling the office
of private tutor in two noble families, established himself at
Dresden, and thence made numerous excursions through vari
ous parts of Europe and America ; describing, with care and
often with a singular thoroughness, the countries thus visited.
Few records of travel convey so much interesting information.

312 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

The attainments and the temper of Kohl alike fit him for his
chosen department of literature ; for, to much historical and
scientific information, an enlightened and ardent curiosity,
and a habit of patient investigation, he unites a liberal,
urbane disposition, and a rare facility of adaptation. He
deals chiefly with facts that come under his own observation,
and views them in the light of history. Imagination is quite
secondary to rational inquiry in the scope of his studies from
life ; but he is not destitute of sensibility to nature, nor
wanting in that philosophic interest in man, whereby the
records of travel become so suggestive and valuable. Still,
to most of his readers the charm of his books is mainly their
candid and complete report of local features, social circum
stances, and economical traits ; so that one is often surprised
to find a hackneyed subject arrayed in fresh interest, through
the new facts noted or the special vein of inquiry pursued by
this genial and intelligent cicerone. Kohl has written thus
of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Styria, Bavaria, England, Scot
land, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, Istria, Dalma-
tia, and other countries, explored by him with obvious zeal
and vigilant observation. The tone of his mind may be in
ferred, not only from the extent of his books of travels and
their fulness and authenticity, but also from the casual sub
jects which have occupied his indefatigable pen ; such as the
" Influence of Climate on the Character and Destiny of the
People ; " and " Esquisses de la Vie, de la Nature et des
Peuples." The inquiries and impressions of so experienced a
traveller and comprehensive a student cannot be destitute of
interest and value. During his sojourn among us, Kohl culti
vated the acquaintance of men of letters. He was eager in
searching for the earliest maps and charts of the country and
the coast. He domesticated himself where there was most
to be learned, and won the esteem of all who knew him, by
his naive, candid, and intelligent companionship. Thus far
his published writings on America consist of an account of
his visit to Canada, an expedition to Lake Superior, an elabo
rate sketch of the History of Discovery on this Continent,

r; \ UrtAKV^^
i>' x -t x\

C,THE' \

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 313

and various local delineations, which have appeared in the
London periodicals. He differs from other writers by his
geographical knowledge and the comparisons founded on ex
tensive observations in other parts of the world. Although
not blind to the incongruities and inequalities of our civiliza
tion, he is keenly alive to the progressive tendencies and
actual privileges here realized. His eye for nature is scien
tific, his interpretation of national character acute, his judg
ments often historical in their basis ; and it is in the spirit of
a kindly man of the world, and a scholar and thinker, that he
looks on the spectacle of American life. With a true Ger
man patience and zest, he seeks the men and the things, the
facts of the past and the traits of the present that interest
him, and have, in his estimation, true significance as illustra
tive of national 'character or local traits. How he thus re
garded some of our literary and political celebrities and social
aspects and traits, appears from his account of Boston. It is
curious to compare his impressions of the metropolis of New
England, viewed in such a spirit and for such an 'end, at this
period, with the primitive picture of the Abbe Robin and the
imbittered reminiscences of Consul Grattan :

" Of all the cities of the American Union, Boston is the one that
has most fully retained the character of an English locality. This
is visible upon the first glance at its physiognomy and the style of
building. The city is spread out over several islands and peninsulas,
in the innermost nook of Massachusetts Bay. The heart of Boston
is concentrated on a single small peninsula, at which all the advan
tages of position, such as depth of water, accessibility from the sea
and other port conveniences, are so combined, that this spot neces
sarily became the centre of life, the Exchange, landing place, and
market.

" The ground in this central spot rises toward the middle, and
formerly terminated in a triple-peaked elevation (the Three Moun
tains), which induced the earliest immigrants to settle here. At the
present time these three points have disappeared, to a great extent,
through the spread of building ; but for all that, the elevation is per
ceptible for some distance, and the centre of Boston seems to tower
over the rest of the city like an acropolis. From this centre numer
ous streets run to the circumference of the island, while others have
14

314 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

been drawn parallel with it, just as Moscow is built round the
Kremlin. All this is in itself somewhat European, and hence there
are in Boston streets running up and down hill ; at some spots even
a drag is used for the wheels of carts. The streets, too, are crooked
and angular — a perfect blessing in America, where they generally
run with a despairing straightness, like our German everlasting pop
lar alleys. At some corners of Boston — which is not like other
American cities, divided chess-board-wise into blocks — you actually
find surprises : there are real groups of houses. The city has a
character of its own, and in some parts offers a study for the archi
tect — things usually unknown in America.

" The limitation of the city to a confined spot, and the irregular
ity of the building style, may partly be the cause that the city
reminds us of Europe. But that the city assumed so thorough an
English type, may be explained by the circumstance that Boston re
ceived an entirely English population. In 1640, or ten years after
its formation, it had five thousand English denizens, at a period when
New York was still a small Dutch country town, under the name of
New Amsterdam. Possibly, too, the circumstance that it was the
nearest seaport to England, may have contributed to keep up old
English traditions here. The country round Boston bears a remark
able likeness to an English landscape, and hence, no doubt, the State
obtained the name of New England ; but as in various parts of New
England you may fancy yourself in Kent, so, when strolling about
the streets of Boston, you may imagine yourself in the middle of
London. In both cities the houses are built with equal simplicity,
and do not assume that pomp of marble pilasters and decoration
noticeable at New York and elsewhere. The doors and windows,
the color and shape, are precisely such as you find in London. In
Boston, too, there is a number of small green squares; and, amid
the turmoil of business, many a quiet cul de sac, cut off from the rest
of the street system.

" Externals of this nature generally find their counterpart in the
manners and spirit of the inhabitants, and hence I believe that Bos
ton is still more English and European than any other city of the
Union. This is visible in many things ; for instance, in the fact that
the police system and public surveillance are more after the European
style than anywhere else in America. Even though it may not be
* quite so bad ' as in London, it strikes visitors from the West and
South, and hence they are apt to abuse Massachusetts as a police-
ridden State. Even in the fact that the flag of the Revolution was
first raised in Boston — and hence the city is generally called ' The
Cradle of American Freedom ' — we may find a further proof that

NOETHEBN EUEOPEAN WEITEES. 315

the population was penetrated with the true Anglo-Saxon tempera
ment.

" This is specially perceptible in the scientific and social life of
Boston, which suits Europeans better than the behavior in other
American towns. Boston, in proportion to the number of its popu
lation, has more public and private libraries and scientific societies
than any other metropolis of the Union ; and, at the same time, a
great number of well-organized establishments for the sick, the poor,
the blind, and the insane, which are regarded as models in the Uni
ted States. Boston has, consequently, a fair claim to the title of the
'American Athens.' There are upward of one hundred printing
offices, from which a vast number of periodicals issue. The best and
oldest of these is the North American Review, supplied with articles
by such men as Prescott, Everett, Channing, Bancroft, &c. Among
the Boston periodicals there has existed for some time past one de
voted to heraldry, the only one of the sort in the Union, which, per
haps, as a sign of the aristocratic temper of the Bostonians, evidences
a deeply rooted Anglicanism.

" The Historical Society of Boston is the oldest of that nature in
the country. Since the commencement of the present century, it has
published a number of interesting memoirs ; and the history of no
portion of the Union has. been so zealously and thoroughly investi
gated as that of New England. The ' Lowell Institute,' established
and endowed by a rich townsman, is an institution which works
more efficaciously for the extension of knowledge and education than
any other of the same character in America. It offers such hand
some rewards for industry and talent, that even the greatest scien
tific authorities of England — for instance, Lyell — have at times found
it worth while to visit Boston, and lecture in the hall of the Lowell
Institution. In one of its suburbs — Cambridge — Boston possesses
Harvard College, the best and oldest university in America ; and it
has also in the heart of the city a medical school. The city library,
in its present reformed condition, surpasses in size and utility most
of such establishments to be found in Germany.

" At Boston, too, private persons possess collections most inter
esting for science and art, which prove the existence of a higher
feeling among the inhabitants of the city. During my short stay
there I discovered and visited a considerable number. For instance,
I met with a linen draper, who first showed me his stores near the
waterside, then took me in his carriage to his suburbanum, where I
found, in a wing expressly built for its reception, a library contain
ing all the first editions of the rarest works about the discovery and
settlement of America, which are now worth their weight in gold.

316 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

This worthy Boston tradesman was a very zealous member of the
Historical Society, and «has already published several memoirs upon
his speciality (the earliest history of the American settlements). I
was also taken to the villa of another tradesman, who made it the
business of his life to make the most perfect collection of editions
of the Bible. His collection is the only one of the sort in America,
and, at the time I saw it, consisted of no less than twelve hundred
Bibles, in every sort of edition and shape, published in all the lan
guages and countries of the world, among them being the greatest
typographical rarities. I was also enabled to inspect a splendid col
lection of copperplate engravings, equally belonging to a tradesman :
it consisted of many thousand plates, belonging to all schools, coun
tries, and epochs. The owner has recently presented it to Cambridge
University, where it is now being arranged by a German connoisseur.

" One evening I was invited to the house of a Boston tradesman,
where I found, to my surprise, another variety of artistic collections.
It was a partly historical, partly ethnographical museum, which the
owner has arranged in a suite of most elegant rooms, and which he
allowed us to inspect after tea. His speciality lay in weapons and
coats of mail, and the walls were covered with magnificent speci
mens bought up in all parts of Europe, regardless of cost. He pos
sesses all the weapons employed before the invention of gunpowder ;
while in an adjoining room were all the blood-letting tools of Japan.
In another was a similar collection from China, and several other
countries. Never in my life have I seen so many different forms of
knives, hatchets, battle axes, and lances collected together as at this
house.

" At the same time, the company assembled on that evening was
of great interest. Among others, we were honored by the presence
of Fanny Kemble, who, as is well known, belongs to the United
States since her marriage with an American. The fact that this most
intellectual of artistes has selected Boston as her abode, will also
bear good testimony to the character of the city. During rny stay
in Boston she was giving readings from Shakspeare, and I heard her
in the ' Merchant of Venice.' The readings took plnce in a magnifi
cent hall capable of containing two thousand persons, and it was
quite full. I have frequently heard Tieck, Devrient, and many oth
ers of our best dramatic readers ; but I am bound to say that Fanny
Kemble is the best of all I ever heard. She is graceful in her move
ments, and possesses a well-formed chest, and an energetic, almost
masculine organ. On the evening I heard her she was hoarse, in
consequence of a cold, and, by her own statement, weak and lan
guid; but. for all that, managed so admirably that nothing of the

NOKTHEKN EUROPEAN WEITEKS. 317

sort was perceptible. She developed all the male and female parts
in the play— especially the Jew's— so characteristically and clearly,
that I could not help fancying I had the whole thing hefore me, bril
liantly designed on Gobelin tapestry. She accompanied her reading
with lively gesticulations, but did not lay more stress on them than
is usual in an ordinary reading. The Boston public were silent and
delighted ; and it is on account of this public that I insert my re
marks about Fanny Kemble. I was charmed with the praise which
this excellent English lady bestowed on our German actors during a
conversation I had with her. She told me that she preferred to see
Shakspeare acted on a German stage, especially by Devrient. And
this, she added, was the opinion of her father, Charles Kemble. The
circumstance that his wife was a native of Vienna may have contrib
uted, however, to make Charles Kemble better acquainted with the
character of the German stage.

" Of course it was not in my power to inspect all the collections of
Boston, and I need scarcely add that I found magnificent libraries in
the houses of a Prescott, a Ticknor, an Everett, &c. In Boston, a
good deal of the good old English maxim has been kept up, that
every one buys a book he requires. A great quantity of rare and
handsome books wander from all parts of Europe annually to these
libraries. In the same way as the Emperor Nicholas had his mili
tary agents in every state, the Americans have their literary agents,
who eagerly buy up our books. In London I was acquainted with a
gentleman permanently residing there, who was a formidable rival to
the British Museum, and found his chief customers among the Bos
ton amateurs, though he had others in New York and elsewhere.

" When they desire to satisfy any special craving, the Americans
are not a whit behind the English in not shunning expense or outlay.
Thus I was introduced, at Philadelphia, to a book collector, whose
speciality was Shakspeare. He had specimens of every valuable edi
tion of the poet's works. Only one of the oldest and rarest editions,
of which but three copies exist, was missing from his shelves ; and
when he heard that one of these would shortly be put up for sale in
London, he sent a special agent over with secret instructions and
carte Nanche. He succeeded, though I am afraid to say at what an
outlay of dollars, and the expensive book was shipped across the
water. When it arrived at Philadelphia, the overjoyed owner in
vited all the friends of Shakspeare in the city, and gave them a bril
liant party, at which the jewel — an old, rusty folio — was displayed
under a brilliant light upon a gold-embroidered velvet cushion. In
terminable toasts and speeches were given, and finally the volume
was incorporated in the library, where it occupied but a very small
space.

318 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" In other American cities I saw various remarkable collections
of rarities— as, for instance, Mr. Lenox's, at New York, who has a
mania for bringing together all the books, documents, and pamphlets
referring to the history of America. Mr. Peter Force, of Washing
ton, has a similar one ; but I will not stop to describe it, but return
to Boston, which is to some extent the metropolis of such collec
tions.

"Alexander von Humboldt's library has been made known to the
world in a copperplate, but I must confess that I could draw a much
more attractive picture of some of the studies of the Boston savans.
In their arrangement, in the picturesque setting out of the books and
curiosities, in the writing tables, and chairs, as ingenious as they are
comfortable, in the wealth of pictures and busts found in these
rooms, generally lighted from above, you find a combination of the
English desire for comfort and the American yearning after external
splendor. The Americans are the only people in the world who pos
sess not merely merchant princes, but also author princes.

" I visited several of these distinguished men in their spacious
and elegant studies. One morning I was taken to the house of the
celebrated Edward Everett, one of the great men of Boston, who,
first as preacher, then as professor of Greek, and lastly as author and
speaker, has attained so prominent a position in the Union, and is
still an active and busied man in spite of sixty odd years having
passed over his head. Any remarkable book a man may have writ
ten, or any sort of notoriety that brings him before the public, can
be employed in America as political capital, and lead to position and
influence in the state. The preacher and professor, Everett, who for
a season edited the North American Review, and very cleverly praised
and defended in its pages the manners and Constitution of his coun
try, soon after became, in consequence of his writings, member of
Congress, a leader of the old "Whig party, Governor of Massachu
setts, and lastly a diplomatist and American ambassador to England.
Like many American politicians who have held the latter office, he
was frequently proposed as candidate for the Presidency, but did not
reach the chair, because the old Whigs had lost much of their former
influence. On the final dissolution of his party, Everett devoted
himself to the sciences and belles lettres. At the time when I formed
his acquaintance, he was engaged in delivering a public lecture in all
the cities of the Union on the character of Washington. The great
man's qualities naturally had a brilliant light thrown on them, and,
in comparison with our renowned monarchs, such as Frederick the
Great, Joseph II., and Napoleon I., the latter came off second best.
Everett had learned his lecture by heart, and delivered it with great

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 319

emphasis and considerable success, though I confess that when I
heard it I could not conscientiously bestow such praise on it as did
the patriotic Americans. In order that the lecture might not lose
the charm of novelty, all the American papers were requested to
give no short-hand report of it : hence it remained unknown in each
city until the lecturer had publicly delivered it. Everett saved up
his earnings for a patriotic object — namely, the purchase of Wash
ington's estate of Mount Yernon, for which purpose a ladies' com
mittee had been formed. In 1857, Everett had collected more than
forty thousand dollars toward this object. There is hardly another
country besides America in Avhich such a sum could be collected by
reading a lecture of a few pages, however effective it might be.
Moreover, the whole affair is characteristic of the land and that is
why I have related it.

u Boston has ever been not only the birthplace, but the gathering
ground of celebrated men. In politics it frequently rivalled Vir
ginia, while in the production of poets and literary men it stands far
above all other cities of the Union. Starting from Benjamin Frank
lin, who was born on one of the small islands in Boston harbor,
down to Everett and his contemporaries, there has never been a de
ficiency of great and remarkable men in the city. Hancock, who
drew up with Jefferson the Constitution of the United States, lived
in Boston ; and the most distinguished of the few Presidents the
North has produced— the two Adamses — belonged to Boston, where
they began and closed their career. Daniel Webster, the greatest
American orator of recent times, received his education in Boston,
and spent all that portion of his life there when he was not engaged
at Washington. There are, in fact, entire families in Boston — as, for
instance, the Winthrops, Bigelows, &c. — which have been rich in
talented persons ever since the foundation of the city.

" When I visited Boston in 1857, the circle of celebrated, influen
tial, and respected men was not small, and I had opportunity to form
the acquaintance of several of them. Unfortunately, I knocked to
no purpose at the door of the liberal and gifted Theodore Parker,
whose house is ever open to Germans. The noble, equally liberal,
and high-hearted Chauning, whose pious, philanthropic, and philo
sophic writings I had admired from my earliest youth, and who had
labored here as the apostle of the Unitarians, I only found repre
sented by a son, who does honor to his great father's memory. The
Websters and Adamses had also been dead for some years, though I
formed the acquaintance of several of their personal friends, who
told me numerous anecdotes about them.

"I am sorry to say, too, I missed seeing George Ticknor, the

320 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

great historian of Spanish literature, a true child of Boston, where
he was born and educated, and where he spends his time in study
when he is not travelling in Europe, which was unfortunately the
case at the period of my visit. I saw nothing of him but his splen
did Spanish library, which he exclusively collected for the purpose
of his classical work, which has been translated into almost every
language.

"As a compensation, Prescott, who was summoned away some
time ago, to the regret of all his friends, was at home to receive me,
and he was one of the most amiable men I ever met. I saw him
both at his own house and in society, and greedily took advantage of
every opportunity that offered for approaching him. As he was de
scended from an old New England family, and was educated, and
lived, and worked almost entirely in Boston — he had only visited
Europe once, and had travelled but little in the United States — I
could consider him as a true child of Boston, and as an example of
the best style of education that city is enabled to offer. He was a
man of extremely dignified and agreeable manners, and a thorough
gentleman in his behavior. I met but few Americans so distin
guished by elegance and politeness ; and when I first met him, and
before knowing his name, I took him for a diplomatist. He had not
the slightest trace of the dust of books and learning, and, although
he had been hard at work all day, when he emerged into daylight
he was a perfect man of the world. I found in him a great resem
blance, both in manner and features, with that amiable Frenchman
Mignet. He was at that time long past his sixtieth birthday, and yet
his delicate, nobly-chiselled face possessed such a youthful charm that
he could fascinate young ladies. In society his much-regretted weak
ness of sight was hardly perceptible ; and at dinner he made such
good use of his limited vision, that he could help himself without
attracting the slightest attention. He frequently remarked that this
weakness of sight, which others lamented so greatly, was the chief
cause of his devoting himself to historical studies. Still it impeded
his studies greatly ; for he was obliged to send persons, at a terrible
expense, to copy the documents he required in the archives of Spain.
He could only employ these documents and other references — par
tially, at any rate — through readers. He was obliged to prepare
much in his. mind and then dictate it, without the help of his hand
and fingers, which, as every author knows, offer such aid to the head,
and, as it were, assist in thinking. At times he could only write by
the help of a machine that guided his hand. I say purposely 'at
times,' for every now and then the sight of his own eyes became so
excellent and strong, that he could undertake personally the me-

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 321

chanical part of his labor. Still, literature is indebted to Prescott's
semi-blindness for his elaborate historical works on Pern, Mexico,
Isabella, and Philip II. ; for, had he kept the sight of both eyes, he
would have continued the career he had already begun as barrister,
and in all probability have ended as a politician and a statesman.

"Another somewhat younger literary talent Boston was proud of
at that period, was Motley, the historian, who in many respects may
be placed side by side with Prescott. Like him, -he also belongs to a
wealthy and respected Boston family ; and like him, too, he has de
voted himself to history, through pure love. His union with the
Muse is no marriage de convenance, but he entered into it through a
hearty affection. The subject that Motley selected, ' The History of
the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,' had a
special interest for his countrymen. At that period Holland was
remarkably influential all over the New World, and, inter alia, laid
the foundations of New York State. This State and its still some
what Dutch inhabitants consequently regard the Netherlands to some
extent as the mother country, and their history as a portion of their
own. They feel as much interested in it as the French do in the his
tory of the Franks in Germany. Moreover, they like to compare an
event like the insurrection of the Netherlands against Spain with
their own revolt against England. Motley, therefore, selected a very
popular theme. After learning something of the world as attache
to the American embassy at Petersburg, he travelled in Germany,
and stayed for several years at Dresden, the Hague, and other Euro
pean cities, in order to employ the libraries for his purpose. Nine
years ago, he read to a small circle of friends in Dresden, myself
among the number, extracts from his historical work — for instance,
his description of the execution of Counts Egmont and Horn — and
then returned to America, where he published it. This work was a
great success ; and when I met Motley again at Boston, he had just
been crowned with laurel. He was a handsome man, in the prime
of life, with dark curly hair. Unluckily, he did not like his country
sufficiently well to remain in it, and returned quickly to Europe, dur
ing my visit to Boston. Perhaps he had lived too long upon our con
tinent, and had not the patience to go through the process of re-
Americanizing, to which an American who has long been absent is
bound to subject himself. He proceeded to London, where he re
sided several years, continuing his studies, and always a welcome
guest in fashionable society, until the recent troubles forced him to
return home.

" We might fairly speak of a thorough historical school of Bos
ton, for nearly ail the recent remarkable historians of America have
14*

322 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

issued from this school. Among these I may specially mention
George Bancroft, who has selected the history of his native land as
his special study. His career has a great likeness to that of Everett :
like him, he went to Gottingen when a young man, and acquired his
tendency for historic research from Ileeren, Eichhorn, and Schlosser.
Like Everett, he began his career as a professor at Cambridge Uni
versity, and like him, also, his talent and the growing popularity of
his books led him up to important offices and posts under Govern
ment. He was for a time secretary to the navy at Washington, then
American ambassador in England, and at last, as he was not success
ful in politics, like Everett, he retired from public life into the calmer
atmosphere of his study, where he has remained for several years,
dividing his time between literary work and pleasant society. Dur
ing the winter he now resides at New York, and during the summer
at a charming villa near that pretty little watering place, Newport,
on Narraganset Bay, whence he pays a visit now and then, though,
to his old Boston. I had the good fortune to visit this active and
energetic historian at both his winter and summer abode. At New
York, he passes the whole winter shut up in his splendid library,
like a bee in his honey cell. In the midst of the turmoil of business,
his lamp may be seen glimmering at an early hour ; and he lights it
himself, as he does his fire, in order not to spoil the temper of his
lazy American helps for the day.

" I am forced to remark that the result of my observations is, that
this zeal and this 'help yourself are no rarity among American
men of letters. Thus I always remember with pleasure old Senator
Benton, whose ' History of the American Congress,' although an ex
cellently written work, and a thorough mine in which to study the
politics, parties, and prominent men of America, is, unfortunately,
but little known on this side the water. This brave old Roman Ben-
ton, of Missouri, a man otherwise greatly attacked for his vanity and
eccentricities, I remember seeing, one morning at six, lighting his
fire, boiling his coffee, and then devoting the morning hours to
his History.

" This Benton was, at that period, above seventy years of age,
and long a grandfather. He wrote his ' History ' with so firm and
current a hand, that the copy went almost uncorrected from his table
to the printing office, and within a few months entire volumes could
be worked off. And yet he could only devote his morning and late
evening hours to the task ; for, so long as the sun was up, he thought
it his duty to take part in the debates of Congress and quarrel in the
committee rooms. At times, he broke his labors entirely off, because
he considered it necessary to take a trip to Missouri, and agitate for

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 323

some political purpose or other. One evening, it happened that his
entire library, with all the manuscripts it contained, fell a prey to
the flames. He had temporarily taken up his quarters in a small
wooden house in the vicinity of the Capitol, which caught fire.

u These fires are an almost regular and constantly menacing ca
lamity to American authors, their libraries, and manuscripts. During
my short stay in the United States, I heard of a whole series of cases
in which valuable literary undertakings were completely interrupted
by fire. Senator Benton, on the occasion to which I refer, lost his
entire library, a large portion of manuscript ready for the press, and
a heap of materials, extracts, and references, which he had collected
for a new volume of his ' History.' As I was on rather intimate
terms with him and his family, and, as an author myself, felt a spe
cial compassion for him, I visited him a few days after to offer him
my sympathy. As it happened, President Pierce came up at the
same moment, and for the same object. We found the aged man, to
our surprise and admiration, not in the slightest degree affected or
excited. He had removed from the ruins to the house of his son-in-
law, the celebrated traveller Fremont, had had a new table put to
gether, and was busy rewriting his manuscript. With Anglo-Saxon
coolness and a pleasant face, which reminded me of the stoic referred
to by Montaigne, who did not allow himself to be disturbed in his
speech when a dog tore a piece out of the calf of his leg, he told us
the story of the burning of his books. Mr. Benton allowed that a
quarto volume of his work, with all the materials belonging to it,
was entirely destroyed ; but he said, with a smile, while tossing a
little grandchild on his knee, ' It is no use crying over spilled milk.'
He had begun his work afresh on the next day, and retained in his
head most of what he had written down. He hoped that he should
be able to collect once more the necessary materials — partly, at any
rate — and he expected that the printing would not be delayed for
many days.

" This man, in his present position — and there could not be a
more lamentable one for an author — appeared to me like an old Eo-
man. And, in truth, old Senator Benton had something thoroughly
Eoman in his features, just as you might expect to find on an ancient
coin. And all this was the more remarkable to me, because I dis
covered such an internal value in a man who in the external world
afforded such scope for jibes. In Congress I saw him twice play the
part of a quarrelsome and impotent old man. At times — especially
when he marched into the field to support the claims of his son-in-
law Fremont, or any other distinguished members of his family of
whom he was proud, and whom he thought he must take under his

324- AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

wing, like a patriarch of old — he grew so excited, that the President
several times tried in vain to stop him. Once I saw him leave Con
gress cursing and gesticulating, and loudly declaring that he would
never again appear in that assembly. "When, too, he rode up and
down the main street of Washington, with his grandson on a little
pony by his side, and keeping as close as possible to the pavement,
that he might be bowed to by the ladies and gentlemen, they cer
tainly saluted, but afterward ridiculed the ' great man.' Hence it
caused me special pleasure, I repeat, to recognize in so peculiar a man
an inner worth, and find the opportunity to say something in his
praise. After all, there were heroes among the wearers of full-bot
tomed wigs and pigtails.

"Since then, the inexorable subduer of all heroes has removed old
Senator Benton forever from his terrestrial activity. He was enabled
stoically to withstand the fire ; but death, which caught him up four
years ago, did not allow him to complete his work. Still, the frag
ments of it that lie before us contain extraordinarily useful matter
for the history of the Union from the beginning of this century, and
I therefore recommend them strongly to public writers at the pres
ent moment, when everybody wishes to know everything about
America. But I will now return to Boston.

"In the hot summer, when Longfellow, Agassiz, and other dis
tinguished men of Boston fly to the rock of Nahant, Bancroft, as
I said, seeks shelter on the airy beach of Newport ; and I remember,
with great pleasure, the interesting trip I took thither for the pur
pose of spending a couple of days with the historian. The pleasant
little town of Newport, which a hundred years back was a promis
ing rival of New York, is now only known as the most fashionable
watering place in the Union. Most of the upper ten, as well as the
politicians and diplomatists of Washington, congregate here in July
and August. Splendid steamers, some coming from New York
through Long Island Sound, others from Boston through the archi
pelago of Narraganset Bay, bring up hundreds of people daily. On
one of these green islands in the bay, Newport is built, surrounded
by a number of villas and gardens, which stretch out along the
beach. And one of these hospitable villas belongs to the celebrated
historian, who in that character, and as ex-minister and statesman,
is reverently regarded as one of the ' lions ' of Newport.

" When I entered his house, at a late hour, I found him sur
rounded by the ladies of his family, to whom he was reading a
newly finished chapter of his ' History ' from the manuscript. He
invited me to listen, and told me that it was his constant practice to
read his works in this fashion in the domestic circle, and take the

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. .325

opinion of his hearers, but, above all, of his amiable and highly edu
cated wife. This, he said to me, was the best way of discovering
any lack of clearness or roughness of style, and after this trial he
made his final corrections.

" Newport is also known, to those versed in American antiqui
ties, as the spot where an old octagonal building still stands, which
the Danish savans believe to have been erected long prior to Colum
bus, and which they consider was built by the old Norman seafarers
and heroes who visited America about the year 1000. This monu
ment was very interesting to me to visit in the company of the his
torian of the United States, even though the townspeople regard it
as the foundation of an old windmill, that belonged to a former in
habitant of Newport. Bancroft was of opinion that the good people
of Newport were more likely to hit the truth than the scientific men
of Copenhagen. I, too, after an inspection, in situ, consider the
opinion of the latter so little founded, that it is hardly worth contra
dicting. As is well known, to the south of New England, in the
middle of a swamp on Taunton Eiver, there is a huge rock covered
with all sorts of grooves and marks, which the Danish savans regard
as a Kunic inscription, also emanating from the Normans. The
Danes have even gone so far as to decipher the word 'Thorfiun,' as
the name of one of the Norman heroes, while others believe that
they are marks and memoranda made by an Indian hand; while
others, again, are of opinion that the grooves and scratches are
produced by natural causes.

u Bancroft described to me the difficulties he experienced -in
reaching this rock — at one moment wading through the water, at
another forcing his way through scrub. He was, however, unable
to convince himself of the truth of any one of the above three
hypotheses ; and hence, in his * History of the United States,' he
could only say that the much-discussed Taunton Eiver inscription
did not afford a certainty of the presence of the Normans in these
parts. But I must hasten back to Boston, where I have many an
excellent friend awaiting me.

" First of all rises before my mental eye the image of that noble
senator, Charles Sumner, one of the most honored men of Boston,
whom I visited not only here in his birthplace, where he spends his
leisure hours with his mother and relatives, but also at Washington,
where he was delivering his bold and fiery speeches against slavery.
While at the capital, I heard him deliver that magnificent speech
which, although it lasted for several hours, was listened to in speech
less silence by the whole Senate, even by the Southern members who
were boiling over with fury, and entailed on this noble man the bru-

326 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tal attack from one of the chivalry of the South, which laid him on
a bed of sickness for weeks, where he hovered between life and
death.

" How painful and sad it was to see this tall and stately man
felled like a pine tree, and writhing in agony on his couch! His
noble face, in which his lofty intellect and towering mind spoke out,
was swollen and lacerated, as if he had been under the claws of a
bear. English, Germans, French, Spaniards, and Italians were the
first to hurry to him on the day of the outrage, to display their sym
pathy and respect, and lay a crown of honor on his bleeding temples.
With this great man, after his return from Europe, and several kin
dred spirits, I used to spend pleasant evenings en petit comite in Bos
ton, and felt delighted at the opportunity of discussing with them the
great questions of the day. Not so pleasant, though equally remark
able, were my feelings when I returned home at night from such an
intellectual and sympathizing circle, and was compelled to listen to

the expectorations of a Colonel B , of Carolina, who lodged in

the same hotel. He made it a point to lie in ambush for me every
night, to smoke a cigar, drink a glass of grog, and take the opportu
nity of explaining to me his views about the North. Although he
had travelled in France and Germany, associated with the nobility,
and belonged to the Southern aristocracy, the Colonel was so full of
prejudices against the North, that he walked about among the New
Englanders of Boston like a snarling sheep dog among a flock of
lambs. He ' pished ' and ' pshawed,' even abused loudly and bitterly
all he saw, both the men — the accursed Yankees, their narrow-
hearted views, their stiff regulations, their unpolished manners — as
well as things, such as the Northern sky, the scenery, the towns, vil
lages, and country houses. All that Boston or a Bostonian had or
possessed seemed to him infected with abolitionism. He would even
look on, with "a sarcastic smile, when, during our conversation, I
stroked a pretty little spaniel belonging to a Boston lady. He could
not endure this Boston animal, and if ever it came within his reach
he was sure to give it a harmless kick. Nothing was right with him,
of course — least of all the Boston newspapers, in which he pointed
out to me articles every evening, which, according to his opinion,
were horrible, perfidious, atheistical, full of gall and poison, although
I could not discover anything of the sort in them when he read them
aloud to me with many gesticulations. To the people who sur
rounded us he generally behaved politely, because, as I said, he was
a Southern gentleman, and did not let it be seen how his heart heaved
and boiled. But if any one took up the cudgels with him, merely
expressed an opinion that had the remotest connection with the sla-

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 327

very question, or smelled of abolitionism, he would break out into
the most enthusiastic diatribes in defence of the peculiar institution.
His glances would become passionate, and his tone insulting. He
appeared evidently bent on war, and I was often surprised that the
Yankees put up with so much from him, and let him escape with a
whole skin. In the South, had a Northerner gone to one tenth of
the same excess, it would have been enough to hand him over to the
tender mercies of Judge Lynch.

" If I asked him why he had come to this North, which he so
heartily despised, he would reply that, unhappily, his physicians had
found it necessary to send him into this exile for the sake of his
health ; and he had long had an intention of visiting, on the North
ern lakes, the poor Indians who were so shamefully maltreated by
the Yankees. The sufferings of these unhappy tribes, who perished
beneath the heel of the oppressor, and pined away in their shameful
fetters, had long touched his heart. He could never think of them
without emotion, and he now intended to go as far as the cataracts
of St. Anthony to give the Sioux a feast, and offer them some relief
from their shameful martyrdom. I remembered that I had once
before noticed the same compassion for the Indians in a Southern
slaveowner, and consequently that it is, in all probability, traditional
among these people, to answer the reproaches cast on them for slave-
holding, by accusing their hostile brethren of ill-treating the Indians.
Although I in no way shared my Southern friend's views of sla
very and abolition, but was generally in the opposition, as a foreigner
I did not seem to him so utterly repulsive as these God-forgotten
Yankees. At first, at any rate, he believed that he should not be
washing a blackamoor white with me. If I only would visit the
South, he expressed his opinion I should be speedily converted, and
grow enthusiastic for his side. Hence he condescended to argue with
and instruct me, while he gnashed his teeth at his Northern country
men when they dared to address him on the vexed question. Toward
the end, however, I began to perceive that he was giving me up as
incorrigible, and extended his enmity to me as well. We at length
parted, not exactly as sympathetic souls ; and when I now think of
my Southerner stalking about Boston like a tornado in a human
shape, I do not understand how it was that I did not then see civil
war ante fores in that country.

" It may be imagined what a relief, joy, and comfort it was for
me, after the stormy evenings I spent with the Southerner, to be in
vited the following day to a dinner table, where I found all the men
with whom I sympathized, and whom I respected, assembled. The
old Flemish painters, in their fruit and flower pieces, and in what is

AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

called ' still life,' have striven to represent the roast meats, wine-
flasks, crystal glasses, grapes, and oranges which decorated the tables
of their rich contemporaries. But how can I depict such a dinner at
Boston, where a Longfellow took the chair, an Agassiz acted as
croupier, a Prescott was my left, a Motley my right hand neighbor,
and where my vis-d-vis was a tall, thin, dry-looking man, who, I was
told, was Ralph Waldo Emerson ? Between the epergnes and flower
vases I could see also the characteristic features of noble and distin
guished men ; the gray head of a Winthrop, or the animated face of
such a benefactor to humanity as Dr. Howe, whom the blind and
the deaf and dumb combine to bless. When I reflect how rare such
highly gifted men are in the world, and how much more rare it is to
be enabled to see a dozen of them sitting together cheerfully and
socially over their wine, I find that we cannot sufficiently value such
moments which accidents produce, and which, perhaps, never again
occur in the traveller's life. When we read such books as those of
Mrs. Trollope, Captain Basil Hall, or Dickens, we might suppose that
there is nothing in America that can be called ' good society.' But
when a man finds himself in such company as fell to my lot in Bos
ton, he begins to think differently, and is at length disposed to allow
that in America a good tone peculiar to the country, and possessing
highly characteristic qualities, exists. I concede that it is rare, and
I believe that the American, in order to appropriate this tone, must
have passed the ocean several times between America and Europe ;
in this, imitating his twice-across-the-line Madeira (which, by the
by, is magnificent in some Boston houses). The American, as a rule,
becomes really full flavored in and through Europe. What I would
assert, though, is, that the American has a peculiar material to take
the polish which Europe can impart, and that, when he has rubbed
off his American horns — for it is quite certain that the American is
as much of a greenhorn in Europe as the European seems to be in
the United States — a species of polish is visible, which possesses its
peculiar merit, and nothing like it is to be found in Europe. There
is no trace of mannerism or affectation ; none of that insipid polite
ness, prudery, and superfinedom into which Europeans are so apt to
fall. In the well-educated American we meet with a great simplicity
of manner, and a most refreshing masculine dignity. Both in Bos
ton and New York I visited private clubs, and met gentlemen belong
ing to the bar, the church, the mercantile classes, &c., who possessed
all these qualities in an eminent degree. In these small retired clubs
— they may have been select, and I am unable to decide how many
of the sort may exist — humor and merriment were so well controlled,
wit and jesting were so pleasantly commingled with what was seri
ous and instructive, that I never knew pleasanter places for men."

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 329

In our inadequate because inevitably brief summary of
German writers on America, should not be forgotten the
learned widow of the lamented Professor Edward Robinson,
who, among other notable writings published under the name
of "Talvi," gave to her countrymen (Leipsic, 1847) "The
Colonization of New England " — an able historical digest of
the early history of that region and people, subsequently
translated by a son of William Hazlitt, and published in Lon
don (1851) in two handsome duodecimo volumes. In this
work the details of each original State organization are
given, and much incidental light thrown on the character of
the people and the tendencies and traits of local society at
this primitive era. Relying upon the Diary of Bradford, first
Governor of Plymouth, the New England Memorial, Governor
Dudley's Report, Johnson's, and " America Painted to the
Life, a True History" (London, 1658), the Relations of Hig-
ginson, Wood, Lechford, Joscelyn, the Reports of Munson,
Underbill, Gardiner, &c., with the writings of " founders "
such as Clark, Gorges, Roger Williams, &c., and for later
facts referring to Hubbard, Mather, Church, Miles, Neale,
and others, Mrs. Robinson eliminated from these and other
authentic sources the essential facts, and moulded them into
a most significant and lucid narrative — the more so from
being the work of a mind trained in the older civilization of
Europe. " I look upon the early days of New England," she
naively remarks, " with love certainly — but as a German."
Comparatively impartial as she is, even in this primitive
record we find indications of the prejudice which subsequent
events fostered into a habit, and almost a mania, in " the
mother country." "In the Revolutionary period," she writes,
" S. A. Peters, a degenerate son of Connecticut, published a
4 General History' of that State (London, 1781) — a mesh of
lies, and deformed with enormous slander. Nothing could be
more characteristic of the feeling at that time prevalent in
England toward America, than the fact that this contempti
ble and slanderous work survived, the following year, in a
second edition."

330 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

We cannot, perhaps, more appropriately close this cursory
notice of German writers on America, than by referring to
two lectures by Dr. Philip Schaff, whose fame as a Church
historian, and labors as a theological professor at Mercers-
burg, Pennsylvania, give special interest and authority to his
views. When Dr. Schaff revisited his native country, in
1854, he gave, at Berlin, two discourses, part of a series by
eminent scholars. Carl Ritter, and other illustrious friends,
advised their publication ; and this is the origin of his unpre
tending but comprehensive " Sketch of the Political, Social,
and Religious Character of the United States of North
America." It was translated from the German, and pub
lished in New York in 1855. The latter branch of the sub
ject naturally occupies the largest space ; and it is in relation
to German emigration and the Evangelical Church that he
chiefly discusses the condition and prospects of his adopted
country. In view of the fact that, the very year of his visit
to his fatherland, the emigration of his countrymen to the
port of New York alone, amounted to more than one hundred
and seventy-nine thousand, he descants upon the privileges,
needs, dangers, and destinies involved in this vast experiment,
with the knowledge of a good observer and the conscience
of a Christian scholar. He laments the evil attending so
large a proportion of ignorant and irreligious emigres, and
the low condition of the German press in America ; but, on
the other hand, anticipates the happiest results from the coali
tion of the American and Teutonic mind. " With the one,"
he observes, " everything runs into theory, and, indeed, so
radically, that they are oftentimes in danger of losing all they
aim at ; with the other, everything runs into practice, and it
is quite possible that many of the best and worst German
ideas will yet attain, in practical America, a much greater
importance than in the land of their birth, and first become
flesh and blood on the other side of the ocean, like certain
plants, which need transplanting to a foreign soil in order to
bear fruit and flowers." He describes with candor the promi
nent traits of our country and people. The latter, he says,

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 331

" are restlessness and agitation personified : even when seat
ed, they push themselves to and fro in their rocking chairs,
and live in a state of perpetual excitement in their business,
their politics, and their religion. They are excellently char
acterized by the expressions ' help yourself ' and ' go ahead,'
which are never out of their mouths." " The grandest des
tiny is evidently reserved for such a people. We can and
must, it is true, find fault with many things in them and
their institutions — slavery, the lust of conquest, the worship
of mammon, the rage for speculation, political and religious
fanaticism and party spirit, boundless temerity, boasting, and
quackery ; but we must not overlook the healthy vital ener
gies that continually react against these diseases — the moral,
yea, Puritanical earnestness of the American character, its
patriotism and noble love of liberty in connection with deep-
rooted reverence for the law of God and authority, its clear,
practical understanding, its inclination for improvement in
every sphere, its fresh enthusiasm for great plans and schemes
of moral reform, and its willingness to make sacrifices for the
promotion of God's kingdom and every good work. They
wrestle with the most colossal projects. The deepest mean
ing and aim of their political institutions are to actualize the
idea of universal sovereignty, the education of every individ
ual. They wish to make culture, which in Europe is every
where aristocratic and confined to a comparatively small por
tion of society, the common property of the people, and train
up, if possible, every youth as a gentleman, and every girl as
a lady ; and in the six States of New England, at least, they
have attained this object in a higher degree than any country
in the Old World, England and Scotland not excepted.
There are respectable men, professedly of/The highest cul
ture, especially in despotic Austria, who have a real antipa
thy to America, speak of it with the greatest contempt or
indignation, and see in it nothing but a grand bedlam, a ren
dezvous of European scamps and vagabonds. Such notions it
is unnecessary to refute. Materialism, the race for earthly
gain, and pleasure, find unquestionably rare encouragement in

332 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

the inexhaustible physical resources of the country ; but it
has a strong and wholesome counterpoise in the zeal for lib
eral education, the enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, the
munificent liberality of the people, and, above all, in Chris
tianity. Radicalism finds in republican America free play for
its wild, wanton revellings, and its reckless efforts to uproot
all that is established. But there is unquestionably in the
Anglo-Saxon race a strong conservatism and deeply-rooted
reverence for the Divine law and order ; and, even in the
midst of the storms of political agitation, it listens ever arid
anon to the voice of reason and sober reflection. Despotism
and abuse of the power of government make revolution;
while moderate constitutional liberalism forms the safest bar
rier against it : radicalism, therefore, can never have such a
meaning and do so much harm in England and America, as in
countries where it is wantonly provoked to revolutionary re
action."

Dr. Schaff sketches the size, growth, polity, social life,
and religious tendencies and traits of America, in a few au
thentic statements, and expresses the highest hope and faith
in the true progress and prosperity of the nation. " To
those," he remarks, " who see in America only the land of
unbridled radicalism and of the wildest fanaticism for free
dom, I take the liberty to put the modest question : In what
European state would the Government have the courage to
enact such a prohibition of the traffic in all intoxicating
drinks, and the people to submit to it, as the Maine liquor
law? I am sure that in Bavaria the prohibition of beer
would produce a bloody revolution."

Education in America, and the state of literature and sci
ence, are ably discussed and delineated. The press there is
fairly estimated ; and the Church, as an organization and a
social element, analyzed with remarkable correctness as to
facts and liberality as to feeling. The influence of German
literature in America is duly estimated, and the character and
tendencies of foreign immigration and native traits justly
considered. Without being in the least blind to our national

NOETHEEN EUEOPEAN WEITEES. 333

faults, Dr. Schaff has a comprehensive insight as to our na
tional destiny, and a Christian scholar's appreciation of our
national duties. " The general tendency in America," he
observes, " is to the widest possible diffusion of education ;
but depth and thoroughness by no means go hand in hand
with extension. A peculiar phenomenon is the great number
of female teachers. Among these are particularly distin
guished the ' Yankee girls,' who know how to make their
way successfully everywhere as teachers — as in Europe the
governesses from French Switzerland. Domestic life in the
United States may be described as, on an average, well regu
lated and happy. The number of illegitimate births is per
haps proportionally less than in any other country. The
American family is not characterized by so much deep good
nature, and warm, overflowing heartiness, as the German ;
but the element of mutual respect predominates."

No foreign writer has more clearly perceived or em
phatically stated the moral and economical relation of Amer
ica to Europe than Professor Schaff. His long residence in
this country, and his educational and religious labors therein,
gave him ample opportunity to know the facts as regards
emigration, popular literature, social life, and enterprise;
while his European birth and associations made him equally
familiar with the wants of the laboring, the theories of the
thinking, and the exigencies of the political classes. " Amer
ica," he writes, " begins with the results of Europe's two
thousand years' course of civilization, and has vigor, enter
prise, and ambition enough to put out this enormous capital
at the most profitable interest for the general good of man
kind. America is the grave of all European nationalities ;
but it is a Phrenix grave, from which they shall rise to new
life. Either humanity has no earthly future, and everything
is tending to destruction, or this future lies, I say not exclu
sively, but mainly in America, according to the victorious
march of history, with the sun, from east to west." *

* " America, Political, Social, and Religious," by Dr. Philip Schaff, New
York, C. Scribner, 1855.

CHAPTER IX.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS.

NATIONAL RELATIONS I VERRAZZANO ; CASTIGLIONE ; ADRIANI ;

GRASSI ; BELTRAMI J D'ALLESSANDRO ; CAPOBIANCO ;

SALVATORE ABBATE E MIGLIOBI J PISANI.

FEOM the antiquated French of the missionary Travels,
and the inelegant English of the uneducated and flippant
writers in our vernacular, it is a vivid and pleasant change to
read the same prolific theme discussed in the " soft bastard
Latin" that Byron loved. Although no Italian author has
discoursed of our country in a manner to add a standard
work on the subject to his native literature, America is asso
ciated with the historical memorials of that nation, inasmuch
as Columbus discovered the continent to which Vespucci
gave a name, and Carlo Botta wrote the earliest European
history * of our Revolution ; while the great tragic poet of
Italy dedicated his " Bruto Primo," in terms of eloquent
appreciation, to Washington ; and the leading journal of
Turin to-day has a regular and assiduous correspondent in
New York, who thus made clear to his countrymen the cause,
animus, and history of the war for the Union, and whose
able articles on the educational system and political condition

* Botta's " History of the War of the Independence of the United States
of America,1' translated by Otis, 2 vols. 8vo. in 1.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 335

of the United States, which have appeared in the Rimsta,
Gontemporenea — the ablest literary periodical in Italy — are a
promising foretaste of the complete and well-considered work
on our country that he is preparing for his own : a task for
which long residence and faithful study, as well as liberal
sympathies and culture, eminently fit him.* At the banquet
given in New York to the officers of the Italian frigate Re
Galantuomo, on the occasion of her visit to bring the equip
ment for the Re d'ltalia, a magnificent ship of war built in
this country for the navy of Italy, the same writer, in re
sponse to a sentiment in honor of the king, aptly observed :
" Con qual animo non pronuzieremo il nome de Yittorio Em-
manuele, in questo solenne occasione, quando per la prima
volta nella storia d'ltalia i rappresentati della marina nazion-
ale, toccano a questi lidi e mettono piede su questo continente
che da quasi quattro secoli un marinaio italiano scopriva e
dava alia civilta del mondo ! " f

Within a recent period, the despotism of Austria, and the
reactionary and cruel vigilance of the local rulers in the penin
sula, which succeeded the fall of Napoleon and the conspira
cies and emeutes thence resulting among the Italian people,
brought many interesting exiles of that nation to our shores.
The establishment of the Italian opera created a new interest
in the language of Italy— which, with her literature, were
auspiciously initiated in New York by Lorenzo Daponte forty
years ago ; arid the popular fictions of Manzoni, Rufini, Mari-
otti, d'Azeglio, and Guerazzi, have made the story of their
country's wrongs and aspirations familiar to our people ; while
such political victims as Maroncelli, Garibaldi, and Foresti
challenged the respect and won the love of those among
whom they found a secure and congenial asylum ; and thus,

* Professor Vincenzo Botta.

f " With what emotions shall we not pronounce the name of Victor Emman
uel, on this occasion, when, for the first time in the history of Italy, the rep
resentatives of her national navy touch the shores and tread the continent
which, nearly four centuries ago, an Italian mariner discovered and gave to
the civilized world ! "

336 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

although the least numerous class of emigres,* the Italian
visitors became among the most prominent from their merits
and misfortunes. To the vagabond image venders and organ
grinders, musicians and confectioners, were thus added emi
nent scholars and patriots, and endeared members of society.
Nowhere in the civilized world was the national development
of Italy more fondly watched than here. The lecture room,
the popular assembly, and the press in the United States, re
sponded to and celebrated the reforms in Sardinia, the union
of that state with Lombardy, Tuscany, and Naples, the lib
eral polity of Victor Emmanuel, and the heroic statesman
ship of Cavour. Garibaldi has received substantial tokens
of American sympathy ; and current literature, love of art,
and facilities of travel, have made the land of Columbus and
the Republic of the West intimately and mutually known
and loved. The caf<§, the studio, the lyric drama, letters, art,
and society in our cities attest this ; f and should steam com
munication be established, as proposed, between Genoa and

* Between 1820 and 1860, about 13,000 Italian emigrants reached this
country. At present, in New York, the Italian population is estimated at
2,000 — most of them peasants and peddlers, who earn a precarious subsist
ence as organ players, venders of plaster casts, &c. Colonies of them live in
limited quarters in the most squalid part of the city — monkeys, organs,
images, and families grotesquely huddled in the same apartment. An evening
school for these emigres has been in successful operation for some years, and
with good results.

f Scanty as is the record of Italian travel in the United States, the emi
gration of that people being chiefly directed to South American cities, where,
as at Montevideo, they have large communities, the Spanish is still more
meagre, and contrasts in this respect with the prominence of that race in the
chronicle of maritime enterprise and exploration centuries since. Among the
few books of Spanish travel of recent origin, are the following : 1. " Viage
a los Estados-Unidos del Norte de America," por Don Lorenz.o de Zavala,
Paris, 1834, 1 vol. Svo., pp. 374. The author was, at one time, Minister from
Mexico to France. His book is a slight affair.— 2. " Cinco Mescs en los Es
tados-Unidos de la America del Norte desde el 20 dc Abril el 23 Setiembre,
1835, Diario de Viage de D. Ramon de la Sagra, Director del Jardin Botanico
de la Ilabana, eft".," Paris, 1836, 1 vol. Svo., pp. 437. Le Sagra has published
an important book about Cuba, been concerned in Spanish politics, and is
well considered as a man of science ; but his book, says an able critic, is not
much better than Zavala's.

ITALIAN TEAYELLEES. 337

New York, the emigration will improve. When the war for
the Union commenced, many Italian citizens volunteered, and
some have acquired honor in the field ; while not a few can
find in the following anecdote, which recently appeared in a
popular daily journal, a parallel to their own recent experi
ence :

" Ten or twelve years ago an Italian emigrated from Northern
Italy, and, after various wanderings, pitched his tent at Jackson,
Mississippi. He prospered in business, increased and multiplied. He
also managed to build two comfortable little houses, and altogether
was getting on quite well in the world. At the time the war broke
out he was North on business ; and finding, from his well-known
Union sentiments, that it would be dangerous to return, he took
what money he had with him, and, accompanied by his wife, sailed
for Europe, while his sons entered the Union army.

" In the beautiful Val d'Ossola, not far from the town of Domo
d'Ossola, on the great thoroughfare where the Simplon road, issu
ing from the Alps, and but just escaped from the rocky frowns
of the gorge of Gondo, passes amid fringes of olive groves to the
great white ' Arch of Peace ' and the brilliant city of Milan, is located
one of those unpretending inns or locandas which abound in Italy —
a low, rambling house, half hid in trellised vines, and prefaced as to
doorway by several rude stone tables, at which transient guests may
sit and sip the country wine.

" A few months ago, two American pedestrians stopped at this place
and ordered wine, and, while sipping it, were accosted in tolerable
English by the landlord, who wanted to know their views about the
war, and particularly when the State of Mississippi would be re
gained for the Union. The question, coming from such a source, led
to a conversation, during which it was revealed that the worthy inn
keeper was none other than the Italian emigrant and the house-
owner in the town of Jackson.

" At that time there was no early prospect of the taking of the
capital of Mississippi ; but, now that General Sherman is in that very
vicinity, if not in the city itself, there will probably be good news for
the innkeeper of the Simplon road. And this is but one instance out
of many, in which each of even the minor phases of the war strikes
directly at some personal interest or some chord of affection in indi
viduals in the most remote corners of the continent of Europe."

x A curious waif that gives us tokens of early exploration,
is what remains of the journal of the old Italian navigator
15

338 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

Yerrazzano — a relic still preserved among the treasures of the
public library at Florence. In a summer sail down the bay
of New York, or an excursion in and around the harbor of
Newport, R. I., we easily recognize the local features thus
noted by Verrazzano ; but to which scene they apply, seems
to have been doubtful to nearly all the commentators upon
this ancient mariner ; although to us the former place seems
obviously intended. " The mouth of the haven," he writes,
" lieth open to the south, half a league broad, and being
entered within it, it stretcheth twelve leagues, and waxeth
broader and broader, and maketh a gulf about twenty
leagues in compass, wherein are five small islands very fruit
ful and pleasant, and full of hie and broad trees, among the
which islands any great navie may ride itself." So New
York Bay struck the eyes of Verrazzano in 1524, and so he
described it in a letter to the king of France, wherein he also
speaks of the " great store of slate for houses," the abundant
wild grapevines, the mullets in the waters, and the " okes,
cipresses, and chestnuts " of the islands.

There is something that excites the imagination into a
more objective view of familiar things, when they are de
scribed and commented on in a foreign tongue ; and certain
peculiarities of American life and scenery thus derive a fresh
aspect from the vivacious pictures and observation of French
writers. We seem to catch glimpses of our country from
their point of view, and to realize the salient diversities of
race and customs, as we never do when discussed in our ver
nacular. A similar though equally characteristic effect is pro
duced by reading even hackneyed accounts of men and things
in America when couched in Italian. Accordingly, though
we find little original information in the " Viaggio negli Stati
Uniti dell' America Settentrionale, fatto negli anni 1785, '6,
e "7, da Luigi Castiglione," to one who has visited Italy
there is a charm in the record of a " Patrizio Milanese." His
book was printed in Milan, 1790. He paid especial attention
to those vegetable products of the New World which are
valuable as commodities and useful in domestic economy.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 339

He observed with the eye of a naturalist. Climate, sects,
food, edifices, and local history occupied his mind ; and when
we remember the almost incredible ignorance prevalent even
among educated Italians, within a few years, in regard to the
United States, we cannot but think that Castiglione's copious
and generally accurate narrative must have been valuable and
interesting to such of his countrymen as desired information,
seventy years ago, about America. To a reader here and
now, however, the work has but a limited significance, the
writer's experience being so identical with that of many bet
ter-known authors. It is curious, however, in this, as in
other instances, to note the national tendency in the line of
observation adopted. Castiglione says more about architec
ture than manners, meagre as that branch of the fine arts
was in our land at the time of his visit. He is much struck
with Long Wharf on arriving at Boston : " II Gran Molo per
cui si discenda a terra, e uno da piu magnifici degli Stati
Uniti ; e si dice avere un mezzo miglia di lunghezza." He
specifies " 1' isola di Noddle " in describing the harbor. The
shingles which then covered most of the roofs proved a nov
elty to him ; and a salt-fish dinner, with shellbarks and cider,
he found so indigestible, that it made quite an impression
both upon his stomach and brain. Alive to the charm of
great memories, as lending dignity to cities, he recalls with
delight the fact that Franklin, Hancock, Adams, and other
patriots, were born in Boston ; the republican equality of
which community is to him a memorable fact, as is the sight
of the statue of Pitt in New York, and the simultaneous
advertisement of a negro and a horse to be sold at auction
there. As the Signore frequently travelled on horseback, he
was exposed to the caprices of our temperature, and vividly
realized the extremes of the climate. He alludes to his visit
at Mount Vernon in the same terms with which all intelligent
foreigners dwell upon the privilege of a personal acquaint
ance with the spotless patriot, whose recent career was then
the moral marvel of the age. There is so much in this con
temporary testimony that agrees with and anticipates the ver-

340 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

diet of history, that we never can read the spontaneous
expression thereof, from so many and such various sources,
without a fresh emotion of love and honor, inspired not less
by the blessing such a character and career have proved to
humanity, than by our own national preeminence. Never was
there such identity of sentiment in so many different Ian-
guges, in regard to the same human being. " Ivi," writes
Castiglione of his visit to Mount Vernon, " passai quattro
giorni favorito del Generale Washington colla maggiore ospi-
talita. II Generale ha cerca cinquante setti anni, e grande
di statura, di robusta complessione, di aspetto maestoso e
piacevole, e benche incallito nel servizio militare, sembra
ancora di eta non avanzata. Yoglia il Cielo, che, vivendo molti
anni, serva, per lungo tempo, d'esempio nella virtu e nella
industria a suoi concittadini, come servi d'esempio all' Eu-
ropa, nelle vittorie che consacrarono il sou nome ad un' eterna
fame."

In 1790, Count Adriani, of Milan, brought an ode from
Alfieri to Washington, and afterward wrote an abusive book
about America, of which the General wrote to Humphrey, it
is " an insult to the inhabitants of a country where he re
ceived more attention and civility than he seemed to merit."

Whoever visited the Roman Catholic convent at George
town, twenty years ago, chatted with the priests, and per
haps tasted the old Malaga with which they used to beguile
their guests, must, especially if fresh from Washington soci
ety, have experienced a curious kind of old-world sensation,
inspired by the contrast between this glimpse of the monas
tic life of Europe and the vivacious, hopeful, experimental
tone of American society. It is easy, with these impressions,
to imagine what kind of a report of our country, its pros
pects, manners, and tendencies, an isolated priest of such an
establishment would be likely to prepare. Its main character
would, of course, be deprecatory of the religious freedom
of the land ; its social comments would naturally be founded
on convent gossip and hear-say evidence ; and it would be
natural to expect traces of that waggery with which our

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 341

quick-witted people, when provoked by the perversity or
amused by the credulity of their foreign visitors, are apt to
quiz these seekers " of knowledge under difficulties ; " as
when a complacently curious lady scribe was made to believe
the water carts used to lay the summer dust in our Northern
cities, sprinkled the streets thrice daily with vinegar, to obvi
ate infection ; or when the cockney accepted the statement
that a rose bug was a flea, everything, from hotels to moun
tains and insects, being on a large scale in America.

Accordingly, the reader of a now rare pamphlet, written
by a former inmate of the Georgetown convent, will not be
disappointed in any of these anticipations. Originally pub
lished in Kome, it was reprinted at Milan in 1819, and is en
titled " Notizie Yarie sullo stato presente della Republica
degli Stati Uniti dell' America Settentrionale da Padre Gio
vanni Grassi della compagnia de Gesu." This Jesuit writer
is of the urbane class. Take away the priestly animus, and
there is nothing consciously un can did in his account, narrow
and superficial as it is. The marvellous growth of the coun
try in population and resources is fairly indicated, and some
agricultural information given. He declares " the mass of
the people are better provided with food " than elsewhere in
the world, but are not as well off as regards drink, wine
being very dear and beer quite rare. The seventh part of
the population, he says, are negroes, and are kindly treated.
He is severe on " the passion for elegant preaching," on the
extravagance in dress, on the prevalence of duels and dan
cing, on the superficial education, and the practice of gam
bling. The two last defects come with an ill grace from an
Italian, the bane of whose nation they have been for ages.
Padre Grassi must have been hoaxed by some report of the
Connecticut Blue Laws, for he speaks of the superstitious
observance of the Sabbath as constituting religion in the view
of American Protestants, who " saddle a horse the day be
fore Sunday to go to church on, and have no beer made on
Saturday, lest it should work the next day." He gravely
declares that cider is substituted for wine at the communion

34:2 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS

service, from motives of economy. He is not at all compli
mentary to the people of the Eastern States, of whom he
probably heard a Southern report. " Among the inhabitants
of the United States," he writes, " those of New England
are regarded as thorough knaves, and are called Yankis."
He mentions, as ordinary infractions of good breeding, that
people in America " pare the nails and comb the head in com
pany" (in Italy the latter is a street occupation), and "sit
with their feet braced on a wall or a chair." He inveighs
against the " display of piety," and indulges in some rather
coarse jokes and some very free caricatures, that suggest
rather the licentious than the disciplined side of monastic
life ; yet, withal, there is something kindly in the spirit as
there is absurd in the prejudices of Father Grassi, whose
summing up, however, is rather discouraging : "The unre
strained freedom which obtains, the drunkenness which
abounds, the rabble of adventurers, the great number of
negro slaves, the almost infinite variety of sects, and the
little real religion that is met with, the incredible number of
novels that are read, and the insatiable eagerness for gain,
are, indeed, circumstances that would hardly give reason to
expect much in point of manners. At first view, however,
one is not aware of the depravity of this country, because it
is hidden, for a time, under the veil of an engaging ex
terior."

J. C. Beltrami, previously a judge of a royal court in the
kingdom of Italy, in his " Pilgrimage in Europe and Amer
ica," published in London in 1828, gives his impressions of
the West with much vividness. He had much to say of the
aborigines, and expatiates • upon the natural history and
scenery of the region he visited with intelligence and enthu
siasm. Of the latter he writes, " one wants the pencil of
Claude and the pen of Delille to describe it."

Twenty years ago, there resided in Boston a Sicilian refu
gee, still affectionately remembered. He celebrated in grace
ful verse the solemn beauty of Mount Auburn,* and was
* " 31onte Auburno : Poemetto da Pietro d'Alessandro."

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 343

esteemed by many of our scholars and citizens for his genial
disposition and refined mind. His first impressions of New
England manners were essentially modified when time and
opportunity had secured him friends ; but his early letters
are interesting because so natural ; and they express, not
inadequately, the feelings of a sensitive and honest Italian,
while yet a stranger in the " land of liberty." They indi
rectly, also, bring the sentiment of the two countries, before
the days of Italian unity, into suggestive contrast. Not
intended for publication, they are all the more candid on that
account. I obtained permission to translate them, and they
are now quoted as a faithful local sketch of personal experi
ence of an educated Sicilian patriot in the American Athens :

" BOSTON, 183-.

" ' I was reading Yorick and Didimo* on the 26th of December,
the very day preceding your departure ; and I wept for you, for
Didimo, and myself, earnestly wishing, at the moment, that our coun
trymen would yield at least the tribute of a tear to the memory of
Foscolo, recalling his sublime mind and the history of those lofty
but hopeless feelings which drove him a wanderer, out of Italy, to
find repose only in the grave.'

" I often ponder upon these few words written by you on the
blank leaf of my Didimo. I can never read them unmoved, for they
awaken a sad emotion in my heart, as if they were the last accents I
am destined to hear from your lips. Never have I so vividly felt the
absence of your voice, your presence, and your counsel, as now that,
driven by my hapless fortune to a distant land, I have no one either
to compassionate or cheer me, nor any with, whom to share my joy
or sorrows. Believe me, Eugenio, the love of country and friends
was never so ardent in rny bosom as now that I am deprived of
them ; and time, instead of healing, seems rather to irritate the
wound which preys so deeply upon my heart. I often wrote you
while on the Atlantic, describing the various incidents of our voyage,
the dangers we encountered, and the fearful and sweet sensations I
alternately experienced, as the sea lashed itself into a tempest, or
reposed beneath the mild effulgence of a tranquil night. But, upon
reviewing those letters, I find they breathe too melancholy a strain,
and are quite too redolent of my wayward humor, even for a dear

* The name assumed by Foscolo as translator of Sterne's " Sentimental
Journey."

344 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

friend's perusal ; and, besides reaching you too late, they could only
serve to grieve both yourself and my poor mother. But at length I
have arrived at a place whence I can give you some definite account
of my welfare.

" On the night of the 15th of March, notwithstanding the con
trary wind which had beat us about here and there for several suc
cessive days, we cast anchor in Boston harbor. That night was long
and wearisome to me. Obliged to remain on board until dawn, I
passed it like many others during the passage, unable to sleep. The
weariness and anxiety consequent upon a long sea voyage, were at
length over. Indeed, the moment I caught the first glimpse of land,
they were forgotten. Yet I could scarcely persuade myself that I
had reached America. The remembrance of the last few months of
excitement and grief, passed in that dear and distant country which,
perhaps, I am never destined again to behold, came over me anew,
and, contrasting with my present situation, awoke in my mind the
most painful sense of uncertainty. I felt doubtful of everything,
even of my own existence. I experienced, at that moment, an utter
want of courage. The flattering hopes which had brightened the
gloomiest hours of my voyage, all at once abandoned me. My ima
gination no longer pictured scenes of promise. I looked within and
around, and beheld only the naked reality of things. I realized only
the sad certainty, that a new life was before me. I revolved the
various necessities of my situation : the importance of immediately
forming new acquaintances — the uncertainty how I should be re
ceived by the few to whom I had brought introductions — my own
natural aversion to strangers — and a thousand other anxious thoughts,
which made me long for day as the signal of relief from their vexa
tion. At length the morning dawned ; but it was obscured by a
damp fog and heavy fall of snow. All around wore a gloomy and
cheerless aspect. In a few moments, the captain came to greet me
as usual, but with more than wonted urbanity. He informed me I
was now at liberty, and, whenever I pleased, the boat should con
vey me to the nearest wharf. I did not wait for him to repeat the
summons, but, throwing off my sea dress, assumed another ; and,
descending the ship's side, soon touched the shore so long and
ardently desired. It is true, I then felt intensely what it is to be
alone. Yet not less sincere was my gratitude to that invisible and
benignant Being, who had guided and preserved me through so many
dangers. I landed with tearful eyes ; and, although no friend, with
beating heart, was there to welcome me, I stooped reverently to kiss
the land sacred to liberty, and felt then for the first time that I, too,
was a man.

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 345

" llth April.

" I have now passed several days in strolling through the streets
of this city, amusing myself with the sight of so many objects of
novelty and interest. I find the place rather pretty than otherwise ;
much more so, indeed, than I had imagined. The buildings, how
ever, are in a style so peculiar, as to suggest the idea that the principles
of architecture are here entirely unknown, or purposely disregarded.
And then, the people all seem in such a hurry ! — ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, white and black, horses, hacks, wagons, and omnibuses
hastening so furiously along the streets, that, unless you are on your
guard, there is no little danger of awkward rencontres. How de
lightful to my sea- worn sight, this spectacle of animated life ! How
gladly would I, too, have assumed a part in the busy scenes in which
the multitude about me were engaged ! "With what delight should I
have rejoiced with them, in anticipating the comforts and the greet
ings of a home ! But, situated as I was during these first days suc
ceeding my arrival, the scenes around me served but to make me
realize anew my loneliness ; and, but for the gratification afforded
my curiosity, I would have willingly remained immured in the little
chamber of my hotel. I am, however, anxiously seeking employ
ment ; but, as yet, my efforts have been unsuccessful. My letters of
introduction I do not think will be of much service to me, except the
one proposing a credit in my favor, from our mutual friend, which
has been duly honored by his correspondents. These gentlemen, like
many others here, have expressed great pleasure in seeing me. They
have introduced me to such individuals as I have chanced to meet in
their company, either at the counting house, or in the streets. They
have also made innumerable proffers of assistance. In short, they
have received me kindly, arid yet with a curious species of kindness,
certainly not Italian; and, as yet, I know not if I can properly
characterize it as American. Polite or not, however, they certainly
seem to aim first to satisfy their curiosity ; for, after having beset
one with a thousand questions — many more, indeed, than it is agree
able to answer — they make no scruple of waiving all ceremony, and
leaving you very abruptly, without even a hasty addio. This has
occurred to me very often, though I cannot say invariably. The
figure which I have presented more than once, on such occasions, I
am sure must have been ridiculous. Taken by surprise at the abrupt
termination of the interview, I have stood immovable and half mor
tified, following with my eyes the receding form of my friend, walk
ing so coolly off, intent upon his own affairs.

u Another kind of courtesy, which some, perhaps, might ascribe
to frankness, but which certainly wears the appearance of perfect

15*

34:6 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

indifference, is their habit of inviting one to their houses and tables,
in terms so very vague and general, that I assure you, during the
month I have been here, it has been frequently impossible for me to
make up my mind to accept many of the civilities offered me. I
question, however, whether there will be frequent occasion for scru
ples of this kind, as I apprehend there is little danger of such courte
sies being repeated : yet the good people seem in earnest, and to
tender their hospitalities with all their hearts. I am inclined to think
they do. But, to tell the truth, I feel no small degree of delicacy in
accepting such courtesies, because the experience I daily acquire of
their customs and manner of thinking, forces upon my mind the con
viction, that the reputation they have for egotism, especially as- re
gards foreigners, is not without foundation.

" Boston people may be ranked among that large class who con
tent themselves with respecting all who respect them, and refrain
scrupulously from doing the slightest injury to all who are equally
harmless. They are, however, exceedingly wary of foreigners, and
not, perhaps, without much reason ; since many who have sojourned
among them have shown themselves both ignorant and unprincipled,
and, besides leaving a bad impression of their individual characters,
have also induced the most unfavorable opinions of the countries
whence they came. In Italy, the very name of stranger is a pass
port to civility and kindness. Here, while you require no sealed and
signed document from any of their European majesties to insure free
communication and travel, you can scarcely ask the slightest civility,
or approach one of your kind, without exciting a certain degree of
suspicion ; and your disadvantage is still enhanced, if, in addition to
the name of foreigner — which, like original sin, is deemed a common
taint — you also bring the still less pardonable sin of poverty. The
necessity of earning a livelihood, however honestly, is certainly the
worst recommendation with which to enter a foreign country ; nor
is it less so in the New World, since here, as well as elsewhere, a
well-filled purse, and the disposition liberally to dispense its con
tents, will insure the heartiest welcome. The Americans, too, being
universally intent upon gain, are naturally indisposed to encourage
new competitors, and their time is too completely absorbed in busi
ness to allow of their devoting many moments to the interests of for
eigners. Their lives are entirely spent in striving after new accumu
lations ; and the whole glory of their existence is reduced to the
miserable vanity of having it said, after their death, that they have
left a considerable estate ; and this short-lived renown is awarded
according to the greater or less heritage bequeathed. This is not
only the course of the father, but of the children ; for they, being

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 34:7

by law entitled to an equal portion of their father's property, are
obliged to follow in his footsteps, in order to obtain their shares of
this same glory : that the question, ' How much has he left ? ' may
be answered as much to their credit as it was to that of their sire.
Thus the young and the old, those barely possessing a competence
and those rolling in wealth, with equal zeal bend all their energies to
the common end. Intent upon gain and traffic, they are too absorbed
to think of any but themselves. They calculate, with watch in hand,
the minutes and seconds as they pass, and seem naturally averse to
any conversation of which trade and speculation are not the subject.
Hence results, as a natural consequence, the prevailing mediocrity of
ideas and feelings, derived from the uniform system of education and
manner of thinking, as well as the great similarity of interests.
Hence, too, the equal tenor of life, and the absence of great vices, as
well as of great virtues ; hence the social calmness and universal
prosperity, and hence the apparent insensibility to the appeal of mis
fortune, resulting from the want of exercise of feelings of ready sym
pathy and compassion incident to such a social condition.

" You may infer, from what I have said, the condition of the
stranger in the midst of such a community — of him of whom it may
be said with truth, that he interests no one. For my part, I cannot
be too grateful for the generosity of my relatives : without it, God
knows what, by this time, would have become of your wretched
friend. Still, I am anxious about the future — the more so since I
have discovered that political misfortunes, which have driven into
exile so many of our countrymen, furnish no claim to the sympathies
of these republicans. Many of those with whom I am already ac
quainted are so foolishly proud of their political privileges, that,
instead of pitying, you would fancy they intended to ridicule the less
favored condition of other lands. I beg you, however, to consider
what I have said on this subject as hastily inferred, and not dog
matically affirmed. I may be quite mistaken ; and, indeed, to pretend
to give a correct idea of a country entirely new to me, after only a
month's residence, especially where the aspect of things differs so
essentially from what I have been accustomed to, would, I am well
aware, appear very absurd. Yet there is a very just proverb which
says, that from, the dawn we may augur the day ; and if it be true, I
regret to say that the dawn before me seems most unpromising.
Would that a bright and cheerful sun would arise to dispel the mists
of doubt, and throw gladness upon the heart of your devoted
friend !

348 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

"28th April.

" Often, during my voyage, I promised myself great delight, upon
my arrival, in visiting the plains of Cambridge, and the heights of
Dorchester and Bunker Hill, renowned as the early scenes of the
American war. As I read Botta's ' History,' my imagination often
transported me to those spots which he so vividly pictured. I longed
to find myself upon the hallowed ground, to render my tribute of
grateful admiration to the memory of those noble men who there
perished fighting for the liberty of their country. The inclement
season, however, has not yet allowed me to realize my anticipations.
"We are at the end of April, and yet the spring seems scarcely to
have commenced.

" The aspect of the environs of Boston is most desolate. The
earth is still buried under the snow ; the streets are covered with
ice, here and there broken by the constant travelling, which renders
them almost impassable. In addition, there prevails here, at this
season, a most disagreeable wind. It blows from the east, and is so
exceedingly chilly and penetrating, that it not only destroys one's com
fort, but undermines the health. It seems to freeze my very soul,
and effectually drives away all disposition for romance. I have been,
therefore, constrained to remain in town, and rest satisfied with a
distant view of the environs, until the coming of a more genial
season.

" Although the city is scarcely less gloomy than the country, it
is still some amusement for the stranger to note the pedestrians. On
both sides of the principal street you may behold men of all sorts
and sizes, muffled up to their eyes in cloaks, high-collared surtouts,
or quilted wrappers, fur caps and gloves, woollen capes, heavy boots
and heavier overshoes ; and, although thus burdened with garments —
weightier far than the leaden cloaks of Dante's hypocrites — they con
trive to shuffle along at the usual rapid rate, for they are business
men. Now and then the light figure of a dandy flits by, arrayed in
raiment quite too light for the weather, and looking as blue as win
ter and misery can make him. And then the women — ladies, I
mean, God bless them ! women, there are none here — all in their
gala dresses, all satin and muslin, light feathered bonnets, silk stock
ings and dancing shoes, with a bit of fur round their necks, or the
skirt of their pelisses, to whisper of comfort. Thus attired, they glide
over the ice with a calm indifference worthy of heroines, stopping
occasionally to purchase blonde lace or cough candy, and then mov
ing on in the very face of the April breeze I have described to you.

" To speak seriously, I had thought to find in this country, if not
the original, at least the remains of ancient simplicity. I flattered

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 349

myself that I should see, among the descendants of those Puritan
colonists, who were ' wise and modest in all their wishes,' a com
plete absence of pretension. But it is not so. The habits which
prevail, and especially those relating to dress, are most extravagant.
In the houses, in the streets, at every hour of the day, you see^ dis
played — I say not with how much taste — the same dresses which our
female nobility, who are as extravagant %s any countesses in the
United Kingdom, are accustomed to wear only at soirees, weddings,
or the opera. It is much the same with our sex. I will not now
pretend to account for these extravagant habits, although I fancy I
have divined the reason. Yet I must believe that, in this republic,
female dress is the great item of domestic expense. The materiel,
being imported from abroad, is very dear. Indeed, the price of
everything is exorbitant. As the saying is with us, those who have
not a house pay for every sigh ; and here they cost not less than
half a dollar or seventy-five cents, each. And this adds another to
the disadvantages of the stranger, especially if, like myself, he has
indulged the idea that, in this young country, dress was not thought
to make the man in the same degree as elsewhere, and finds that,
with all their vaunted progress, the Americans have not gone an
iota beyond their predecessors in establishing a just standard of esti
mating mankind ; and are quite as prone to base their judgments
upon appearance rather than character. Nor can you practi
cally oppose such customs either with your philosophy or indiffer
ence, since the individual who avails himself of the privileges of
social life is bound, as far as he can without self-debasement, to con
form to popular prejudices ; and, indeed, it seems to me that here
appearances are peculiarly imposing. Wherever you turn, you be
hold the names of every description of dealer, from the poor huck
ster to the rich merchant, blazoned upon signs in gilt letters, as if to
impress the stranger with the idea that he had entered the most
prosperous country of the earth.

" But I will speak to you of the more noteworthy objects around
me, which, however, are not numerous. Notwithstanding the un
pleasant season, I have visited Cambridge, with the situation of
which I have been much pleased. The village is about three miles
and a half from Boston ; and, in its centre, you find the most ancient
and best-endowed seat of learning existing in the United States. It
is called Harvard University, and the establishment consists of sev
eral buildings, containing lodging and recitation rooms, built of brick,
with one exception, all in a simple style, which struck me as happily
accordant with the character of the institution. The law and theo
logical schools constitute a part of the University. But what par-

350 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

ticularly pleased me was the library, which, from what I hear, is the
best in the country, and, in truth, is excellent. Among other works,
there is quite a collection of Italian books ; and many of the edi
tions are beautiful, and very neatly bound. You cannot imagine how
much I enjoyed the sight of so many of our beloved authors. Amid
the legacies of these illustrious dead, I, for the moment, forgot all my
private griefs and anxiety^ I seemed no longer to be among stran
gers, for in every one of those books I recognized an honored and
dear friend of my youth : so long unseen, and so unexpectedly en
countered, they seemed to transport me to a new world. In truth,
this was the first moment that I felt really encouraged. Who knows,
I asked myself, but these ancient allies of mine will introduce me to
their friends of the New "World? — and then Yorick's unfortunate
adventure with the police of Paris occurred to me.

" Of the University, the method of instruction pursued, and the
progress it has made, I will tell you when I am better informed. It
grieves me, at present, that I cannot go every day to Cambridge.
The season being so bad, it is necessary to ride thither. Then, there
is my dinner. So that, by a broad calculation (you see how I have
already begun to calculate), the pleasure of six hours' reading would
daily make me minus a dollar. ' But,' you ask, * cannot you dine
upon your return in the evening ? ' Yes, if they would let me ! But
here, even at the hotels, it is not the custom to order your dinner
when you please. They treat us quite like friars ; and it is neces
sary, if you would not lose your dinner, to be at the table punctually
at the stroke of two ; otherwise — but, Holy Virgin ! it is the dinner
bell. Wait only a moment, for I must make haste to be in time for
the roast beef. In three minutes (all that is required here) I will
return, and continue my letter.

" I went, the other day, with one of our countrymen, to visit the
Athenaeum, which is the only literary establishment in the city. It
is supported by the savans and aristocracy of Boston. It has a
library composed chiefly of donations of books, among which are
many of the principal works published in Europe and America, sev
eral literary and scientific journals, and numerous gazettes. There
are also rooms containing casts and a few marble statues, a small col
lection of medallions, and two apartments for the study of architec
ture and drawing, but destitute both of masters and pupils, and one
large hall, on the lower floor, used as a reading room. The share
holders and their friends are only admitted to the Athenosum. These
are, for the most part, gentlemen of leisure or idle people, according
to the complimentary title bestowed on them by their fellow citizens ;
and they go, as their taste may be, to occupy their time in the read-

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 351

ing room, which is open from early morning till nine at night. In
this room, there is a rule inscribed expressly prohibiting conversa
tion ; and you see, to far more advantage than in our libraries, so
many living statues in every variety of attitude, often not the most
graceful, all with a book in hand, or intent upon a newspaper. The
librarian, a very good sort of man, has shown himself, like many
others, very glad to see me. He told me that, as a stranger, the
Athenaeum would be open to me for the period of one month ; but
that after that time, if I remained, and wished to continue my visits,
it would be necessary for me to become a subscriber, like the other
frequenters of the institution. I thanked him for his politeness, and
have shown how sincerely I valued it, by going almost every day to
the Athena3um ; and as to the end of the month, I do not trouble my
head about it, because, by that time, I hope the weather will allow
me to walk frequently to Cambridge. What and how great are the
advantages which result from this institution, I leave you to esti
mate. The Athena3um, however, now in its infancy, seems destined
to advance greatly ; and if, one day, it should become a public estab
lishment, it cannot but be of lasting benefit to Boston. And truly,
in a city like this, which I hear called the Athens of America, there
should be, if nothing else, a rich library freely open to the people.
Thus you see that, both in and out of town, I have not failed to find
the means of becoming learned and illustrious. All these literary
advantages, however, are reduced to nothing to a poor devil who is
in the situation of being obliged to derive profit from the little he
knows, rather than from what still remains to him to be acquired.
And this necessity has urged me to seek an occupation at every sac
rifice ; and, having gone the rounds with the diploma of a young
letterato, the office which, for the moment, I can most certainly
obtain, is that of a teacher of our language. And I have, indeed,
one scholar, a lean doctor of medicine, to whom, as he has the merit
of being connected with a relative who is intimate with one of the

family of , who pays me my remittances, I give my lessons

gratis. This has been, thus far, my greatest resource. But this gen
tle minister of death gives me promise of an introduction among his
patients — of whom, as yet, I have not caught even a glimpse. How
ever, I am obliged to trot every day, at the expense of my poor legs,
to the doctor's door, which is no little distance from mine. I go very
punctually, but often only to find him asleep in his chair, and dozing
while I read the lesson — which, moreover, I am obliged to explain
through the medium of a French grammar. This avaricious San-
grado piques himself not a little upon his egregious lisping of the
French ; and to this day I have been unable to induce him to buy

352 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

another grammar. But, somehow or other, I hope soon to send him
on a journey to Elysium, to carry my compliments to his master
Hippocrates.

" May 1th.

" I am angry with you. Five packets have arrived since I landed ;
and every day I hurry anxiously to the post office, only to hear the
same chilling negative to my ardent inquiry for letters. I have even
conceived quite an antipathy to the stiff, laconic postman, who some
times deigns no other reply than a cold shake of the head. Yet you
promised to write me at the end of the first month after my em
barkation. How can I forgive such neglect ? And what reasonable
excuse can you offer ? Perhaps you allege the uncertainty of my
fate. Yet, had I gone to my last sleep in the bosom of old Neptune,
think you a friendly letter would not have been a pleasant offering
to my manes ? Nay, Eugenio, you know not the comfort a few lines
from you would bring to the heart of a poor friend. I am homesick.
My feelings seem dead to all that surrounds me. I seem condemned
to the constant disappointment of every cherished hope ; and, were
I able to express all I feel, I could unfold a most pitiable story of
mental suffering. Do you realize, Eugenio, how far I am from home,
and all that is dear to me ? — that I am living in a weary solitude
which I sometimes fear will drive me mad ? "With affections most
tenderly alive, and a nature that would fain attach itself to all
around, I find not here a single congenial being or idea upon which
my heart can repose. A stranger to everything, I am by all regarded
as a stranger, and read that forbidding name in the expression of all
whom I approach. Did I carry the remorse of a criminal in my
bosom, I could not meet the gaze of my fellow beings with less con
fidence. The few whom I have known thus far, are, for the most
part, merchants or commonplace people, too much occupied in their
own affairs to relish interruption during their leisure hours. But
when I fall in with them, they instantly tender the old salutation,
' Glad to see you,' coupled with an invitation to their counting
houses, where they are too busy to talk, and content themselves with
proffering a chair and the newspaper. These manners result from a
mode of life very different from that which prevails in Europe : still
they are painfully striking to the novice, especially if he be one of
those who know not how to support the toil and vexation of exist
ence, unsoothed by those cheering palliatives with which we are wont
to sweeten the bitter cup of life. You well know that I was never
over fond of general society, nor took much delight in the heartless
glitter of fashionable life. But what I voluntarily avoided at home,

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 353

is not a little desirable here, as a relief from the loneliness of my
position. Yet the only house at which I can spend an evening with

any pleasure, is that of our countryman B , who, with the true

feeling of Italian hospitality, at once made me at home under his
roof. I meet him, too, occasionally in my walks, and we converse
of our country, our literature, and, most frequently, of our misfor
tunes. God knows how grateful I am for his sympathy, without
which it seems as if I should have died of weariness and grief. Yet
our conversations sometimes serve to renew most keenly the mem
ory of my sorrows — which I fain would bury in the bottom of my
heart— and send me back to my little chamber to find more sadness
than before, in the companionship of my own thoughts. That which
renders me most anxious, is the harassing doubt which seems to
attend my steps. I feel already that I am a burden to my relatives.
Every day, which passes without advancing me in an occupation from
which I can derive support, seems lost. Although I have not neg
lected, nor shall neglect, seeking for every honest mode of relieving
them from this care, yet I feel a species of remorse, as if I were
abusing their generosity ; and the bread I eat tastes bitter, when I
reflect that the expense of my bare subsistence, even with all the
economy I can practise, in these times, and under existing circum
stances, would half support the family of my afflicted mother. Thus
my days pass, sustained only by hope and the promises of my new
friends. Now and then, as at this moment, I write to those dear to
me by way of solacing my bleeding heart ; but even this occupation
is painful to me, since I can only write of my afflictions.

';Ah, Eugenio, how aggravating is now the remembrance of all
your kind advice ! It is true, in an important sense, that man is the
creator of his own destinies. With how much care and ingenuity do
we raise the funeral pile, which is to consume our hopes and burn
our very hearts ! It is true, indeed, that if I had reconciled myself
to existing circumstances, and allowed to subside the first force of
those feelings which even you, with all your natural wisdom, could
not but confess were generous and noble ; and especially had I opened
my eyes, and calmly looked those illusions in the face, in which so
many of our young men, and I among the rest, so inconsiderately
confided, it is true I should not have experienced the bitterness of
the present. But how could I contemplate the miseries of our coun
try, and not glow with indignation at beholding all the rare gifts
which Heaven and nature had so beiiignantly bestowed, rendered
unavailing — made but the occasion of tears to us all — every fountain
of good dried up, or poisoned by the envy and iniquity of man ?
How could I admit the idea that I ought to sacrifice my thoughts and

354 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

dearest sentiments, merely for the sake of pursuing, at home, one of
our genteel professions, which, after all, could not preserve me from
the general degradation, nor, perhaps, from infamy ? And should I
have done so ? And why ? From the cowardly fear, perhaps, of
being exiled from the land of my fathers, when, in the huoyancy of
youth, I could turn to another country — far distant, it is true, but
free ; to a country in which I could obtain a subsistence without sac
rificing one of my opinions ; where, even now, notwithstanding I
may be made deeply to realize the axiom that mankind are the same
everywhere, I do not see all around me the aspect of misery and un-
happiness, nor daily instances of the petty vengeance and cold-hearted
injustice of our tyrants ; where the cheerful prospect of peace and
universal prosperity almost reconciles one to the inevitable evils inci
dent to human society ; where, at least, thought and speech are not
crimes, and you can cherish the hope of a better future without see
ing beside you the prison or the gallows ; where the mind can ex
pand unfettered by any servile chain — yes, the mind, which I now
feel as free within me as when it was first bestowed by God.

" And yet I complain ! It is true ; and I well know what you
will reply to these letters, which I write only for the pleasure of
being with you, even while we «are separated. But if you have the
heart to charge all the blame to me, I would beg you, Eugenio, to
remember that every tear teaches a truth to mortals, and that I, too,
am one of those numerous creatures, made up of weaknesses and
illusions, who drag themselves blindly, and without knowing where
or why, in the path of inexorable fate. Now that I feel that there
never existed so great a necessity for bringing about an alliance be
tween my reason and my heart, I cannot discover the method by
which to accomplish it, and the task never seemed more impractica
ble. Reason, which levels everything with her balance to a just
equilibrium, and reduces, by calculation, all things to a frigid system,
you have adopted as your goddess ; and truly she is a most potent
divinity, and often have I invoked her aid, and supplicatingly adored
her power. Yet this heart of mine is such a petty and obstinate
tyrant, that it will never yield the palm even when fairly conquered ;
and, in its waywardness, takes a wicked pleasure in pointing out the
naked coldness of your divinity, and setting her before me in a most
uninviting light. Hence it is that I am devoured with the desire of
home ; nor will all the charms of glory, or the smiles of fortune,
lure me from the dearer hope of reunion with the land and the loved
of my heart. Yet who knows where I shall leave my bones ? "Who
knows if these eyes shall close eternally to the light amid the tears
of my kindred, or whether friendship and love will linger sorrowfully
near to receive my last eigh ?

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 355

"Addio. I commend to you my mother. This phrase would be
meaningless to any but you. I have used it to express all I feel for
that tenderest of beings — for her whom I continually behold in ima
gination, weeping and desolate. If the voice of pity and friendship
are powerful in your heart, I pray you, Eugenio, leave her not un-
consoled. Thou must be as another child to her, and ever remember
that she is the mother of thy friend.

" May \f>th.

" This morning I rose full of anxiety. The moment I awoke, my
first thought was of you, of my family, and of the delay of your
letters ; and the sound of the breakfast bell first aroused me from my
painful reverie. I descended, swallowed a single cup of coffee, and,
quick as thought, hastened to the office. I did not expect to find let
ters, but having given my name, and perceiving that the postman did
not return the customary nod of refusal, my heart began to palpitate
strongly. I did not deceive myself. I have my mother's letter to
which you have made so large an addition, and I have been till this
moment shut up in my room, reading it over and over again, and
bathing every line with my tears. God reward you for all your care
and your love for me ! I trust that, ere this, you have received my
first letters, and thus been relieved of all anxiety on my account. I
thank you for all the news you give me, and especially for what you
tell me respecting our young companions, who, I rejoice to know,
are now quite free from the ill-founded suspicions of Government.
The condition of Italy, however, seems to grow more sad every day ;
and you write me that many are rejoicing at the rumor of imminent
war, and in the hope that our old liberators will again reappear
among us. For my part, however, I cannot but tremble with you,
since now there is less certainty than ever that aught will remain to
us but injuries and derision. The present and past misfortunes of
our country should have taught us that, if there is anything to hope,
it is from ourselves alone ; and it is certain, that if the new subjects
of the new citizen-king descend again from the mountains, there is
reason to believe that the disgraces of bygone times will be renewed
in Italy, and it will be our lot to transmit another record of shame
and cowardly execrations.

" From your literary news, I learn that the Anthology of Flor
ence has been abolished, and, as usual, by command of Austria. I
had made no little search for the last number. Be it so. The sup
pression of that work is only one other insult to our condition, but
not a serious loss to the nation, since the writers, who perhaps set
out with the idea of undeceiving the Italians, are themselves the

356 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

very ones who propagate .their unfortunate illusions ; and in that
journal, which was doubtless the best we had, they also said too
much, and without profit. In these times, there exist no Alfieris or
Foscolos ; and the new school, which promised so much by its his
torical romances, has thus far accomplished little enough, if we ex
cept one or two sermons on passive obedience. Botta remains, but
he is alone ; and the soul of Tacitus, which sho,uld be devoted to so
exalted a work, is wanting to him. Moreover, his thoughts, although
grand and sacred, are rather understood readily by those who think,
than felt deeply by the mass, with that profound sense of despera
tion, from which alone a real change and constancy of opinion are to
be hoped for among the Italians.

" To tell you the truth, I believe we are so susceptible of illu
sions, that the intellectual energy of no writer whatever can avail
anything in eradicating from the hearts of our countrymen the weak
nesses which are as old as our servitude, and which are strongly
maintained by the consciousness of general debasement and actual
incapacity, as well as by the small degree of virtue and the total
absence of ambition on the part of our princes. I desired to allude
to, these circumstances, in reply to that part of your letter wherein
you recommend me not to forget Italy and our studies. But, as yet,
you seem unaware, that in this land I have conceived a love of conn-
try not only more powerful than ever, but instinct with a desperate
earnestness which consumes my heart. Wherever I turn, the aspect
of all the civil and social benefits enjoyed by this fortunate people,
fills me, at the same time, with wonder, admiration, and immense
grief. Not that I envy the Americans their good fortune, which, on
the contrary, I ardently rejoice in, and desire, as much as any one of
themselves, may be forever continued to the land. But I think of
Italy, and know not how to persuade myself why her condition
should be so different and so sad. I do not allude to the general
policy of the country, but I speak of what I see every day while
walking the streets — a quiet population, incessantly intent upon in
dustry and commerce, without being retarded by civil restrictions or
tyrannical extortions, by the subterfuges of official harpies, or by the
machinery of so many hungry and shameless financiers, nor yet
continually irritated by the insufferable and cowardly insolence of
the ministers of the law, who, either in the military garb, or as civil
officers, or in the form of police, are the vilest instruments of Euro
pean tyranny — the pests of the state, consuming its substance and
resources, and corrupting the manners and morals of the people.
Here, I have not yet seen in the streets a single soldier, nor one
patrol of police, nor, in fact, any guard of the public safety ; and,

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 357

having occasion to go to the Custom House, I was quite astonished
to see the simplicity of the forms, the expedition with which affairs
were conducted, and the small number of officers employed. In
deed, this people seem like a large and united family, if not bound
together by affection and reciprocal love, at least allied by a common
and certain interest, and the experience that the good of all is the
good of the individual. Every one who has the will to labor will
easily find occasion for its free practice and most adequate recom
pense. Not being incited by opportunity and the keen necessities of
life, crimes are rare, violences almost unheard of, and poverty and
extreme want unknown. In the streets and markets, and in every
place of public resort, you behold an activity, a movement, an
energy of life, and a continual progress of affairs ; and in the move
ments and countenances of the people, you can discern a certain air
of security, confidence, and dignity, which asks only for free scope.
I know not how it is, but often I pause thoughtfully in the midst of
the thoroughfare, to contemplate the scene around me. I sometimes
find myself standing by some habitation, and my fancy begins to pic
ture it as the sanctuary of every domestic and social virtue — as the
cradle of justice and piety — as the favorite sojourn of love, peace,
and every human excellence. And my heart is cheered, arid bleeds
at the same time, as I then revert to Italy, and imagine what might
be her prosperity, and how she might gloriously revive, and become
again mistress of every virtue and every noble custom, among the
nations of the world.

" Judge, then, if I have forgotten, or if it will be possible for me to
forget Italy, as long as I remain in this country. For the rest, as I
have before said, I am only made the more constantly to remember
my native land. I am told, and begin to realize, that here, as well
as there, Utopian views of politics, morals, religion, and philosophy,
have long prevailed, and promise to grow more luxuriously than
ever, and become, perhaps, fatal to the prosperity and liberty of this
land. It is, however, no small consolation for the moment, to reflect,
that the doctrines of this nation do not depend upon the letterati, or
rather, that the country does not look to that class for its salvation ;
which, as such, has no voice in the capital. There are here no mere
questions of language; no romanticists or classicists who cannot
understand each other ; no imperial nor royal academicians of gram
mar ; no furious pedants who are continually disputing how we
should write, nor any that pretend to dictate how we should think.
Eloquence is here the true patrimony, and, in fact, the most formi
dable weapon for good or for evil, in the hands of the people, who
estimate it more or less by the standard of their wants or individual

358 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

partialities. I will tell you, however, from time to time, in future
letters, as I become better informed on these subjects. Yet expect
not, I pray you, from me, either statistics, disquisitions, or a travel
ler's journal, since you know I came hither in quite another capacity.

There goes, with this, another letter to our young friend B , who

writes me that he desires to come and seek his fortune in the United
States. You will see my reply ; and, to dissuade him still more from
the project, let him see what I have written you. Addio. Live ever
in the love of your friends, of letters, of your country, and of yours,

An errant countryman of ours, with the ready wit of an
educated New Englander, when sojourning in London, after
a long visit to the Continent, being disappointed in his remit
tances, conceived the idea of replenishing his purse by a spir
ited article for one of the popular magazines, wherein he
imagined the sayings and doings of a Yankee ruler suddenly
placed at the head of affairs in the kingdom of Naples. The
picture was salient and unique, and amused the public. We
were irresistibly reminded thereof by a little brochure
wherein the process here described is exactly reversed, and,
Instead of a Yankee letterato in Naples, we have a Neapolitan
priest in America. So grotesquely ignorant and absurdly
superstitious and conservative is the spirit of this brief and
hasty record,* that we cannot but regret the naive writer had
not extended his tour and his chronicle ; for, in that case, we
should have had the most amusing specimen extant of mod
ern Travels in America. The author was a chaplain in the
navy of his Majesty of Naples. Lie describes the voyage of
the frigate Urania during a nearly two years' cruise from
Castellamare to Gibraltar, thence via Teneriffe to Pernam-
buco; Rio Janeiro, and St. Helena, to New York and Boston,
and back to Naples by way of England and France. In his
dedication of the " Breve Racconto " to the very reverend
chaplain of Ferdinand II, he declares he finds " non pochi

* " Breve Racconto delle cose Chiesastiche piu Important! occorse nel
viaggio fatto sulla Real Fregata Urania, dal 15 Agosto, 1844, al 4 Marzo,
1846, per Raffaele Capobianco, Cavaliere del Real Ordine del Merito di Fran
ceses I. e Capellano della Real Marina," Napoli, 1846.

ITALIAN TRAVELLEKS. 359

consolazioni " in having gathered " some fruits in the vine
yard of the Lord " during his perilous voyage ; but he adds,
" the rivers are but little grateful for the return of the water
they yielded in vapor ; " and so this dedication and descrip
tion are but a poor return to " our fountain of wisdom and
virtue." The style, spirit, ideas in this little journal are quite
medieval. The simplicity and ignorance and bigotry of the
roving ecclesiastic are the more striking from their contrast
with the times and places of which he writes. Imagine a
priest or friar suddenly transported from the Toledo to
Broadway, and it is easy to solve what would otherwise be
enigmatical in this childish narrative. He mentions, with
pious reflections, the death of a mariner at sea from " nos
talgia;" lauds, at the South American ports, the Roman
Catholic religion, remarking its aptitude to " generalmente
insinuarsi nel cuore del popolo docile." At Rio Janeiro he
celebrates the feast of the Virgin ; and to the devout manner
in which the ship's company commended themselves to her,
he attributes their subsequent miraculous escape from ship
wreck. Thus, he writes, " God showed himself content with
our homage to the Virgin." They keep Palm Sunday on
board, with palms brought from St. Helena. He describes
summarily the aspect of the cities they visit, gives the alti
tude of the peak of Tenerifte, notes the zones and tropics, the
rites, and rate of their progress. " La navigazione felice,"
he observes, " arrise alle pie devozioni." On entering New
York harbor, the chaplain says we passed " il grande forte
Hamilton, e finalmente la Fregata," after six thousand miles
of navigation, " dropt her anchor opposite the Battery gar
den, built in the sea, and joined to the continent by a wooden
bridge about two hundred feet long." He remarks upon the
public buildings, observing that the Exchange was " rebuilt
in 1838, and is destined for a hospital;" that the Croton
water " serves for conflagrations, which are very frequent,"
and that " il commercio 6 attivissimo." He descants upon
" la immensita de vapori," declaring that the ferry boats
carry " not only loaded carts, ten or fifteen at a time, but also

360 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS.

bath-houses, with every convenience." His most elaborate
descriptions, however, are reserved for the Catholic churches
— St. Patrick's, St. Peter's, St. Giuseppe, and the Church of
the Transfiguration, where he celebrated mass. He admires
the " Campanile" of " il Tempio colossale degli Episcopal! "
(Trinity Church), and is charmed with the " Seminario Cat-
tolico," through which he was conducted by " quel gentile e
virtuoso vescovo Monsignore Hus " — doubtless the late Bishop
Hughes. The Italian priests, the juvenile choristers, and the
church music excite his enthusiasm. Crowds of Catholics,
he tells us, came on board the frigate to hear the sailors, sing
" Salva Regina." Romanism, he declares, has " profound
root " in the United States, and " daily grows," though the
Episcopalians still strive " to infuse into the human heart the
poison that, in 1603, came from Elizabeth's successor." He
calls the Protestant sects " tristi piante," and gives a list
thereof, adding, " and to finish the noisome catalogue, to con
fusion add confusion, with the Quakers and Hebrew syna
gogues." " II nemico infernale," he says, tried to insinuate
his " veleno dell' errore " into the ship. Protestant emissa
ries from the Bible Society came on board to distribute the
Scriptures " senza spirito santo ! " His indignation at this
proceeding is boundless. " Era mai possibile," he exclaims,
" che i ciechi illuminassero gli illuminati e che intiepidessoro
nel el cuore de Napolitani quella Religione che il Principe
stesso degli Apostoli venne a predicare nella loro citta ! " *

Leaving New York, the pious chaplain was " swept from
the shores of the Hudson to Cape Cod," and, on the 3d of
June, entered "the wonderful and picturesque bay "'of Bos
ton, to the sound of greeting cannon, and surrounded " by
gondolas, whence arose cordial hurrahs" ("ben venga").
Boston, says the erudite chaplain, " was founded by English
colonists from Boston in England. Bunker Hill monument
was commenced in 1827 by the celebrated engineer, O'Don-

* " As if it were possible for the blind to enlighten the enlightened, and
weaken in the hearts of Neapolitans that religion which the Prince of the
Apostles himself came to preach in their own city."

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS, 361

nell Webster, under the presidency of the celebrated La
fayette ! " He describes the public edifices, and, among them,
the " Casa di Citta," u which rises from a height near the
public garden, and presents a majestic appearance, with col
umns of white marble" Among the memorable names of
streets, he observes, is "that of Franklin, who drew the
lightning from heaven." Of the churches, he only remem
bers the Cathedral, the care and prosperity of which he
ascribes " to that excellent prelate, Fitzpatrick." Again he
congratulates himself upon the progress of his Church —
thanks to the labors " della propagazione delle fede " — and
declares that " the net of St. Peter does not fail to fish up
many new souls from the turbid sea of error." Although
made up of all nations, " the Americans," says the Neapoli
tan padre, " follow the habits and customs of the English."
From Boston the frigate went to Holland and to England,
from Plymouth to Brest, thence to Carthagena and Toulon,
the island of Zante and Navarino, all of which places are
briefly noted; and from the latter they proceed to Naples,
which harbor and city the delighted chaplain hails as the
cradle of Tasso and the tomb of Virgil; saluting, in the
facile rhetoric of his native tongue, Mergellina, " where rest
the ashes of Sannazaro," Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the light
" del nostro sole, un perpetuo e vivissimo verde, 1'ombrifero
pino, il pomposo cipresso, 1'odorato arancio, una sopredente
moltitudine di eleganti casine sparse per tutta quanto la
costa, stanze di un popolo vivacissimo ed amorevole ! " At
length, two steamers sent by " la benignita de Re " approach
the Urania, and the loyal and loving Padre Capobianco in
vokes Heaven's blessing on his head and reign, and, " in the
midst of the joy and affection of kindred and friends," kisses
his native earth.

Every American who has travelled in Europe has some
extraordinary anecdote to relate of the ignorance there exist
ing in regard to the geography, history, and condition of his
country ; but, perhaps, the questions asked him are nowhere
so absurd as in Sicily. Her isolated position before the ad-
16

362 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS.

vent of Garibaldi, and the prevalent want of education,
explain the phenomenon. Two things chiefly the Sicilians
know about America — that she imports fruit, sulphur, and
rags from the island, and affords a safe asylum for political
refugees. At the seaports, especially in Syracuse, our naval
officers are remembered as the most liberal of gentlemen. A
deputation, not many years since, when the American squad
ron in the Mediterranean wintered there, waited on the com
modore, and offered to cooperate with him in annexing Sicily
to the United States. A spacious hotel was built at Syracuse,
under the expectation that the fine harbor of that ancient city
would become the permanent rendezvous of our fleet ; but
the jealousy of Bomba interposed, and Mahon continued to
be the depot of our national ships, until Spezzia was substi
tuted. Within a short period it was impossible to find in
Sicily a book that could enlighten a native, in the Italian lan
guage, as to the actual resources and institutions of America.
In 1853, however, one of the Palermo editors published a
volume giving an account of his experience in the United
States, with statistics and political facts, interspersed with no
small amount of complacent gossip. The novelty of the
subject then and there seemed to atone for the superficial and
egotistic tone. Yery amusing it was to an American so-
journer in the beautiful Sicilian capital, to glance at the
" Viaggio nella America Settentrionale di Salvatore Abbate e
Migliori." We have seen what kind of gossip the French
and English indulge in while recording their experience in
America ; let us compare with it a Sicilian's. He avows his
object in visiting the New World — to ascertain for himself
how far the unfavorable representations of a well-known class
of British travellers are correct. He gravely assures his
countrymen that, although foreigners are kindly received
there, the Government does not pay for the transit of emi
gres. The great characteristic which naturally impressed a
subject of Ferdinand of Naples, was the non-interference of
Government with private persons and affairs, except when
the former have rendered themselves directly amenable to the

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 363

law, by some invasion of the rights of others — an inestimable
privilege in the view of one who has lived under espionage,
sbirri, and the inquisition. All things are gauged by the law
of contrast in this world ; and it is curious, with the bitter
and often just complaints of Englishmen of the discomforts
of travel in America fresh in mind, to note the delight with
which a Sicilian, accustomed to the rude lettiga, hard mule,
precarious fare, and risk of encountering bandits, expatiates
upon the safety, the society, and abundant rations accorded
the traveller in the Western world. " Ecco," exclaims Salva
ge, after describing a delightful tete-a-tete with a fair com
panion in the cars, and a hearty supper on board the steamer
en route from Boston to New York, " ECCQ il felice modo di
viaggiare negli Stati Uniti sia per terra che per acqua ;
divertimenti sociali e senza prejudizii, e celerita di viaggio
liber o dai fur tori e dagli assassini."

The festa bells of some saint are forever ringing in Sicily ;
and, although our traveller found holidays few and far be
tween in this busy land, he describes, with much zest, the first
of May, New Year's, and St. Valentine's Day in New York.
His journal, while there, is quite an epitome of what is so
familiar to us as to be scarcely realized, until thus " set in a
note book," as the strange experience of a Southern Euro
pean. To him, intelligence offices for domestics, mock auc
tions, the Empire Club, anniversaries of national societies,
the frequency of conflagrations, matrimonial advertisements,
the extent of insurance, the variety and modes of worship
of Protestant sects, the number and freedom of public jour
nals, the unimpeded association of the sexes, and the size and
splendor of the fashionable stores and hotels, are features
and facts of metropolitan life so novel as to claim elaborate
description. Amusement is an essential element of life to an
Italian, fostered by his sensibility to pleasant excitement, and
his long political vassalage. Accordingly, Salvatore devotes
no inconsiderable portion of his book to the public entertain
ments available in our cities. Few Americans imagine how
much an enthusiastic foreigner can find to gratify his taste

364 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

and divert his mind in New York. The careers of the cele
brated English actors, Italian opera singers, and German
pianists, the concerts of Ole Bull and De Meyer, the military
balls, travelling circuses, public dinners, private soirees^ and
theatres, afford Salvatore a theme upon which he dilates as
only one of his sensitive and mercurial race can ; and the
American reader is astonished to discover what abundant
provision for the pleasure seeker may be found in our utilita
rian land.

More grave interests, however, are not forgotten. A suc
cinct but authentic account is given of some of the aborigi
nal tribes ; our constitutional system is clearly stated ; the
details of government in the Eastern and Middle States are
defined ; the means and methods of education ; the cereals,
trees, rivers, charitable institutions, agricultural and mechani
cal industry of the country, are intelligently explained and
illustrated; and thus a considerable amount of important
information afforded, altogether new to the mass of his
countrymen. This is evidently collected from books of refer
ence ; and its tone and material form an absolute contrast to
the light-hearted and childish egotism of the writer's own
diary, wherein the vanity of a versifier and sentimentalism
of a beau continually remind us of the amiable gallants and
dilettante litterateurs we have met among Salvatore's country
men. His generalizations are usually correct, but tinctured
with his national temperament. He describes the Americans
as "a little cold, thoughtful, sustained, grave, positive in
speech and argument, brave, active, intelligent, and true in
friendship." The Northerners, he says, " are born with the
instinct of work, and in physiognomy are like Europeans."
Though there are " not many rich, most are comfortable ;
and, though few are learned, the great majority are intelli
gent. Labor is a social requisition ; moderate fortunes and
large families abound ; and the test question in regard to a
stranger is, ' What can he do ? ' ' He sums up the peculiar
advantages of the country as consisting of " a good climate,
a fertile soil, salubrious air and water, abundance of pro vis-

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 365

ions, adequate pay for labor, good laws, affable women, en
couragements to matrimony, freedom, and public education "
— each and all of which he seems to appreciate from the con
trast they afford to the civil wrongs and social limitations of
his own beautiful land, not then emancipated from the most
degrading of modern despotisms. He notes the temperature
with care, and has occasion to realize its extreme alternations.
To a Sicilian, a snowstorm and sleighing must prove a winter
carnival ; and Salvatore gives a chapter to what he calls " La
citta nel giubello della neve." He finds the American women
charming, and marvels at the extent and variety of their edu
cational discipline, giving the programme of studies in a
fashionable female seminary as one of the wonders of the
land ; and also a catalogue of popular and gifted female
writers, as an unprecedented social fact in his experience.
Salvatore was a great reader of newspapers while in this
country, and was in the habit of transcribing, from those
" charts of busy life," characteristic incidents and articles
wherewith to illustrate his record of life in America. He
was puffed by editorial friends, and mentions such compli
ments, as well as the publication of some of his own verses,
with no little complacency ; as, for instance, " Quest' oggi,
contra ogui mi a aspettazione, si e pubblicato nel giornale —
Evening Post, un elogio dando a conoscere agli Americani lo
scopo del mio viaggio," &c. ; and elsewhere, " il mio addio
all' America e stato messo in musica."

One of the latest publications of Italian origin, although
written in the French language and by a French citizen, is
that of a Corsican officer, one of Prince Napoleon's suite, on
his brief visit to the United States, in the summer of 1861.*

Eighteen hundred leagues traversed in two months, " more
with eyes than ears or mind," would seem to afford a most
inadequate basis for discussion where grave facts of national
polity and character are its subjects ; but when the author of
such a record begins by confessing himself mistaken as a

* " Lettres sur les £tats-Unis d'Amerique," par le llieutenant-Colonel
Ferri Pisani, Aide-de-camp de S. A. I. le Prince Napoleon, Paris, 1862.

366 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

prophet, and disclaims all pretensions to other accuracy and
interest than can be found in a " point de vue general," and
" portraits saisis au vol," and " resumes de conversations fugi
tives," we accept his report and speculations with zest, if not
with entire satisfaction, and accompany his rapid expedition,
animated descriptions, and thoughtful though hasty com
mentary, with the more pleasure inasmuch as the temper
and tone of both indicate an experienced traveller, a shrewd
observer, and a cultivated thinker. The time of this visit
and date of its record give thereto an interest apart from any
intrinsic claim. America had just been converted from a
world of peaceful industry to a scene of civil war. The
Gallic visitors compared the crisis to that which had once
hurled France into anarchy and military despotism ; and be
held here a mighty army improvised in the Free States, with
no apparent check to their industrial prosperity ; and govern
mental powers assumed to meet the exigency without pro
voking any popular distrust in the rectitude of the authori
ties or the safety of their rights ; arrests, proscription, and
enlistments were sanctioned by public confidence ; in a word,
the patriotism of an instructed people was the safeguard of
the republic.

It is remarkable that a writer whose mind was so pre
occupied with the exciting military scenes and imminent
political problems of the day, should have become so thor
oughly and justly impressed with the religious phenomena
of the Eastern States, tracing their development from the
Pilgrims to Edwards, and thence to Whitfield and Channing ;
and the conflicts of faith thus foreshadowed. " Les iStats-
Unis," he writes, " presentent en ce moment des spectacles
bien emouvants. Les armees s'entrechoquent sur tous les
points de leur immense territoire. Une race qui semblait
devoir realiser 1'ideal pacifique de I'humanite moderne se
transforme tout a coup en un peuple belliqueux et se dechire
de ses propres mains. D'autre part Fesclavage se dresse, au
milieu des horreurs de la guerre, come une question de vie ou
de mort, devant laquelle reculent et le philosophe, et 1'homme
18*

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 367

d'etat et Feconomiste. Eh bien ! faut-il vous 1'avouer, mon
colonel, tons ces faits extraordinaires, dont nous sommes
temoins, et qui rempliront un jour 1'histoire de ce siecle, ont
a mes yeux une portee moins redoutable que celui que nous
venons de trouver a Boston, un de ees faits qui bouleversent
la condition de 1'homme, sans s'inscrire, comme les grands
evenements politiques, en traits de feu et du sang, dans sa
memoire. Je veux parler de I'etablissement du Deisme dans
le nouveau monde sous la forme d'une religion, d'une Eglise,
du Deisme, non plus enseigue par une philosophic speculative,
mais pratique comme un culte, comme un principe moral et
social, par 1'elite de la soci6te Americaine, et faisant, au de-
pens du Protestantisme, les progres les plus effrayants."
Thereupon we have a treatise on "Protestantism," from
Edwards and Whitfield to Channing; the Puritans, the
voluntary church system, rationalism, &c., " face a face avec
le Catholicisme ; " and he concludes with the prophecy that
" ce sera entre ces deux champions que se livrera le combat
supreme qui decidera des destinees futures de 1'humanite."

Colonel Pisani's letters are a striking illustration of the
facilities of modern travel. He describes the complete and
elegant appointments of the swift and safe steam yacht in
which Prince Napoleon, his wife, and suite, after visiting
various points of the Old World, crossed the ocean, and, in a
very few weeks, saw half a continent. They entered the
harbor of New York, a'fter days of cautious navigation
owing to the dense fog, which, fortunately, and almost dra
matically, lifted just as they sailed up the beautiful bay, re
vealing, under the limpid effulgence of a summer day, a spec
tacle which enchanted the Colonel, familiar as he was with
the harbors of Naples and Constantinople.

The reader can scarcely help finding a parallel in this sud
den and delightful change in the natural landscape, with that
which exists between the preface and the text of this work,
in regard to the national cause. Arriving at the moment
when the defeat of the Federal army at Bull Run had spread
dismay among the conservative traders, and warmed to im-

368 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

prudent exultation the traitors of the North, all the travel
lers heard from the official representatives of their country
who greeted their arrival, was discouraging — almost hopeless
for the republic. His Highness thought otherwise, and
viewed the national cause with unshaken confidence ; but
Colonel Pisani, in giving his letters to the public, a year
afterward, found himself obliged to retract premature fore
bodings, and admit a reaction and reversal, not only of the
fortunes of war, but of the vital prospects of the nation.
Midsummer is the worst period of the year for a foreigner to
arrive in New York — a fact this writer scarcely appreciated,
as he regards the deserted aspect of the palatial residences as
their normal condition, and speaks of the then appearance of
the population as if it were characteristic. Surprised by the
courteous urbanity of those with whom he came in contact
in shops, streets, and public conveyances, he contrasts this
superiority of manners with his anticipations of ruffianism,
and with the utter neglect of municipal method and decency.
The American steamboats and railways are fully discussed
and described. Broadway seems to Pisani a bazaar a league
and a half in length. He misses the taste in dress familiar
to a Parisian's eye, thinks the horses and harnesses fine, but
the horsemen and equipages inferior. Despite " les indus
tries de luxe," men of leisure, varied culture, and special
tastes seemed quite rare, and the average physiognomy un
attractive. The architecture and aspect of the hotels strike
him as sombre compared with those of Paris ; and he de
clares every gamin of that metropolis would ridicule our
popular and patriotic fetes as childish attempts thereat, which
he attributes to the basis of Anglo-Saxon reserve in the na
tional character, wherein " 1'expression de la pensee est rare-
ment dans un rapport exact avec la pensee elle-meme." De
centralization, and all its phenomena, naturally impress his
mind, accustomed to routine and method ; and the manner of
recruiting and organizing — in fact, the whole military regime
of the country — offers salient points of comment and criticism
to one who has long witnessed the results of professional life

ITALIAN TRAVELLEKS. 369

in this sphere. Visiting Philadelphia, Washington, and the
great lakes, adapting themselves to the customs and the peo
ple, examining all things with good-natured intelligence, this
record contains many acute remarks and suggestive generali
zations. We have numerous portraits of individuals, sketches
of scenery, reflections on the past, and speculations as regards
the future. The absence of a concierge at the White House,
the naivete of the new President, the character and principles
of statesmen and of parties, are subjects of candid discus
sion. The mines of Lake Superior, the community of Rapp-
ists, McCormick's manufactory of " engins agricoles," the
local trophies and the economical resources of the country,
find judicious mention. While the Colonel is indignant at
the " curiosite brutale " encountered in the West, he pays a
grateful tribute to the hospitality of the people. At Pitts-
burg, the site of Fort Duquesne, he reverts with pride and
pathos, to the French domination on this continent, recalls its
military successes, and laments its final overthrow. At Mount
Vernon he thinks of Lafayette's last visit, and sadly contrasts
that period of republican enthusiasm and prosperity with the
sanguinary conflict of the passing hour. Indeed, the value
and interest of these letters consist in the vivid glimpses
they afford of the darkest hour in our history as a free peo
ple, and the indirect but authentic testimony thus afforded to
the recuperative and conservative power of our institutions
and national character. Colonel Pisani accompanied Prince
Napoleon in his visits to the camps of both armies, and heard
their respective officers express their sentiments freely. Hare
in the history of war is such an instance of dual observation
apparently candid ; seldom has the same pen recorded, within
a few hours, impressions of two hostile forces, their aspect,
condition, aims, animus^ and leaders. Rapid as was the jour
ney and hasty the inspection, we have many true and vivid
pictures and portraits ; and it is interesting to note how
gradually but surely the latent resources of the country, the
absolute instincts of the popular will, and the improved be
cause sustained force of the Government, are revealed to the
16*

370 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

mind of this pleasant raconteur, who brings home to the
American reader the moral crisis, so memorable in the retro
spect, which succeeded our premature battle for national
honor and life — whose vital current, thus baffled, shrank back
to the heart of the republic, only to return with fresh and
permanent strength to every vein in the body politic, and
vitalize the popular brain and heart with concentrated patri
otic scope, insight, and action. Absorbing, however, as was
the question of the hour even to a casual sojourner, the
physical, social, and economical traits of the country were
only more sympathetically examined by the intelligent party
of the Prince because of the war cloud that overhung them ;
and we are transported from inland sea and lonely prairie to
the capital of Xew England, where, says the Colonel, " for
the first time I believed myself in Europe," and to quite other
society than the governmental circles at Washington or the
financial cliques of Xew York. At Cambridge and Bos
ton, with Agassiz, Felton, Everett, and others, he found con
genial minds. The speech of the latter at a parting banquet
given the Prince, is noted as a model of tact and rhetoric ;
while " Vive la France," the refrain of Holmes' song, with
happy augury cheered their departure.

CHAPTEE X.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS.

JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM ; MADAME KNIGHT ; LEDYARD ; CAR
VER ; JEFFERSON; IMLAY; DWIGHT; COXE; INGERSOLL; WALSH;
PATJLDING; FLINT; CLINTON; HALL; TUDOR; WIRT; COOPER;
HOFFMAN; OLMSTED; BRYANT; GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS;
WASHINGTON; MRS. KIRKLAND; IRVING; AMERICAN ILLUSTRA
TIVE LITERATURE; BIOGRAPHY; HISTORY; MANUALS; ORATORY;
ROMANCE; POETRY; LOCAL PICTURES; EVERETT, HAWTHORNE,
CHANNING, ETC.

THERE is one class of travellers in America that have
peculiar claims upon native sympathy and consideration ; for
neither foreign adventure nor royal patronage, nor even pri
vate emolument, prompted their journeyings. Natives of
the soil, and inspired either by scientific or patriotic enthusi
asm — not seldom by both — they strove to make one part of
our vast country known to the other ; to reveal the natural
beauties and resources thereof to their neighbors, and to
Europeans ; and to promote national development by careful
exploration and faithful reports. All the intelligent pioneers
of our border civilization more or less enacted the part of
beneficent travellers. Public spirit, in colonial and later times,
found scope in expeditions which opened paths through the
wilderness, tested soil, climate, and natural productions, and
estimated the facilities hitherto locked up in primeval soli-

372 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tudes. Washington's early surveys, Boone's first sojourn in
the woods of Kentucky, Clinton's visit to Western "New
York to trace the course of the Erie Canal, are examples of
this incidental kind of home travel, so useful to the early
statesmen and the political economists. At subsequent
periods, the natural features of the Great West were revealed
to us by Flint and Hall ; New England local and social traits
were agreeably reported by Tudor and Dwight ; Lewis and
Clarke gave the first authentic glimpses of the Rocky Moun
tains and the adjacent plains, afterward so bravely traversed
by Fremont and others ; and Schoolcraft gathered up the
traditions and the characteristics of those regions still occu
pied by the aborigines ; and while Audubon tracked the
feathered creation along the whole Atlantic coast, Percival
examined every rood of the soil of Connecticut.

Among the most interesting of the early native travellers
in America, are the two Bartrams. Their instinctive fond
ness for nature, a simplicity and veneration born of the best
original Quaker influence, and habits of rural work and medi
tation, throw a peculiar charm around the memoirs of these
kindly and assiduous naturalists, and make the account they
have left of their wanderings fresh and genial, notwithstand
ing the vast progress since made in the natural sciences.
John Bartram's name is held in grateful honor by botanists,
as " the first Anglo-American who conceived the idea of
establishing a botanic garden, native and exotic." He was
lured to this enterprise, and its kindred studies, by the habit
of collecting American plants and seeds for his friend, Peter
Collinson, of London. Encouraged by him, Bartram began
to investigate and experiment in this pleasant field of inquiry.
He was enabled to confirm Logan's theory in regard to maize,
and to illustrate the sexes of plants. From such a humble
and isolated beginning, botany expanded in this country into
its present elaborate expositions. The first systematic enu
meration of American plants was commenced in Holland, by
Gronovius, from descriptions furnished by John Clayton, of
Virginia. As early as 1732, Mark Catesby, of Virginia, had

AMEEICAN TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 373

published a volume on the " Natural History of Carolina,
Florida, and the Bahamas." Golden, of New York, corre
sponded with European botanists, from his sylvan retreat
near Newburg. We have already noticed the visit to
America of a pupil of Linnaeus — Peter Kalm. The labors
of Logan, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Adam Kuhn of Philadelphia,
the first professor of botany there, the establishment of Ho-
sack's garden in New York, Dr. Schoeffs, Humphrey Mar
shall, Dr. Cullen of Berlin, the two Michauxs, Clinton, and
the Abbe Correa, promoted the investigation and elucidation
of this science in America, until it became associated with the
more recent accomplished expositors. But with the earliest
impulse and record thereof, the name of John Bartram is
delightfully associated ; and it is as a naturalist that he made
those excursions, the narrative of which retains the charm of
ingenuous zeal, integrity, and kindliness. John Bartram was
born in Delaware, then Chester County, Penn., in 1699. His
great-grandfather had lived and died in Derbyshire, England ;
his grandfather followed William Penn to the New World,
and settled in the State which bears the famous Quaker's
name ; his father married, " at Darby meeting, Elizabeth
Hunt," and had three sons, of whom John, the eldest, in
herited from an uncle the farm. His early education was
meagre, as far as formal teaching is concerned. He studied
the grammar of the ancient languages, and had a taste for
the medical art, in which he acquired skill enough to make
him a most welcome and efficient physician to the poor. It
is probable that, as a simpler, seeking herbs of alleviating
virtues, he was won to that love of nature, especially fruits,
flowers, and plants, which became almost a ruling passion.
But, according to the exigencies of the time and country,
Bartram was an agriculturist by vocation, and assiduous
therein ; yet this did not prevent his indulging his scientific
love of nature and his philosophic instinct : he observed and
he reflected while occupied about his farm. The laws of
vegetation, the loveliness of flowers, the mysteries of growth,
were to him a perpetual miracle. To the thrift and sim-

374: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

plicity of life common among the original farmers of Amer
ica, he united an ardent love of knowledge and an admira
tion of the processes and the products of nature — partly a
sentiment and partly a scientific impulse. Purchasing a tract
on the banks of the Schuylkill, three miles from Philadelphia,
he built, with his own hands, a commodious dwelling, culti
vated five acres as a garden, and made continual journeys in
search of plants. The place became so attractive, that visit
ors flocked thither. By degrees he gained acquaintances
abroad, established correspondence and a system of ex
changes with botanists, and so laid the foundation of botani
cal enterprise and taste in America. This hale, benign, and
wise man, rarely combining in his nature the zeal and ob
servant habitude of the naturalist with the serene self-posses
sion of the Friend, travelled over a large part of the country,
explored Ontario, the domain of the Iroquois, the shores and
sources of the Hudson, Delaware, Schuylkill, Susquehanna,
Alleghany, and San Juan. At the age of seventy he visited
Carolina and Florida.

Peter Collinson wrote of him to Golden as a " wonderful
natural genius, considering his education, and that he was
never out of America, but is a husbandman." " His obser
vations," he adds, " and accounts of all natural productions,
are much esteemed here for their accuracy. It is really
astonishing what a knowledge the man has attained merely
by the force of industry and his own genius."

The journal* of his tour was sent to England, and was
published " at the instance of several gentlemen." The pre
face shows how comparatively rare were authentic books of
Travel from natives of America, and how individual were
Bartiarn's zeal and enterprise in this respect. " The inhab
itants of all the colonies," says the writer, " have eminently

* " Observations on the Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, &c., made by
John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and
the Lake Ontario in Canada ; to which is annexed a Curious Account of the
Cataracts of Niagara, by Mr. Peter Kalm, a Swedish Gentleman who travelled
there," London, 1751.

AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 375

deserved the character of industrious in agriculture and
commerce. I could wish they had as well deserved that of
adventurous inland discoverers / in this they have been much
outdone by another nation, whose poverty of country and
unsettled temper have prompted them to such views of ex
tending their possessions, as our agriculture and commerce
make necessary for us to imitate."

The region traversed by Bartram a little more than a cen
tury ago, and described in this little volume, printed in the
old-fashioned type, and bearing the old imprimatur of Fleet
street, is one across and around which many of us have flown
in the rail car, conscious of little but alternate meadows,
woodland, streams, and* towns, all denoting a thrifty and
populous district, with here and there a less cultivated tract.
Over this domain Bertram moved slowly, with his senses
quickened to take in whatsoever of wonder or beauty nature
exhibited. He experienced much of the exposure, privation,
and precarious resources which befall the traveller to-day on
our Western frontier ; and it is difficult to imagine that the
calm and patient naturalist, as he notes the aspects of nature
and the incidents of a long pilgrimage, is only passing over
the identical ground which the busy and self-absorbed vota
ries of traffic and pleasure now daily pass, with scarcely a
consciousness of what is around and beside them of natural
beauty or productiveness. It is worth while to retrace the
steps of Bartram, were it only to realize anew the eternal
truth of our poet's declaration, that

" To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A varied language."

It was on the 3d of July, 1743, that John Bartram set
out, with a companion, from his home on the Schuylkill. His
narrative of that summer journey from the vicinity of Phila
delphia to Lake Ontario, reads like the journal of some intel
ligent wayfarer in the far West ; for the plants and the ani-

376 AMEPwICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

mals, the face of the country, the traveller's expedients, the
Indian camps, and the isolated plantations, bring before us a
thinly scattered people and wild region, whereof the present
features are associated with all the objects and influences of
civilization. Flocks of wild turkeys and leagues of wild
grass are early noted ; the variety and character of the trees
afford a constant and congenial theme ; swamps, ridges, hol
lows alternate ; chestnuts, oaks, pines, and poplars are silent
but not unwelcome comrades ; snakes, as usual, furnish curi
ous episodes : Bartram observed of one, that he " contracted
the muscles of his scales when provoked, and that, after the
mortal stroke, his splendor diminished." He remarks, at one
place, " the impression of shells ujton loose stones ; " he is
annoyed by gnats ; and, in an Indian lodge, " hung up his
blanket like a hammock, that he may lie out of fleas." He
lingers in an old aboriginal orchard well stocked with fruit
trees ; swims, creeks, coasts rivers, lives on duck, deer, and
" boiled squashes cold ;" smokes a pipe — " a customary civil
ity," he says, " when parties meet." Here he finds " excellent
flat whetstones," there "an old beaver dam;" now "roots
of ginseng," and again "sulphurous mud;" one hour he is
drenched with rain, and another enraptured by the sight of a
magnolia ; here refreshed by the perfume of a honeysuckle,
and there troubled by a yellow wasp. No feature or phase
of nature seems to escape him. He notes the earth beneath,
the vegetation around, and the sky above ; fossils, insects,
Indian ceremonies, flowers ; the expanse of the " dismal wil
derness," the eels roasted for supper, and the moss and fun
gus as well as locusts and caterpillars. He travelled on foot
to the Onondaga, and paddled down in a bark canoe to the
Oneida, " down which the Albany traders come to Oswego."
He stops at a little town thereabout " of four or five cabins,"
where the people live " by catching fish and assisting the
Albany people to haul their bateaux." In this region of
railways and steamboats, such were then the locomotive
facilities. Nor less significant of its frontier wilderness is
Bartram's description of the spot which has long flourished

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 377

as the grain depot and forwarding mart of "Western New
York, where immense warehouses line the river, and fleets of
barges, steamers, and schooners cluster along the lake shore.
Oswego is identified with his picture mainly by the topogra
phy. " On the point formed by the entrance of the river
stands the fort, or Trading Castle. It is a strong stone house,
encompassed by a .stone wall twenty feet high and one hun
dred and twenty paces round, built of large square stones
very curious for their softness. I cut my name in it with my
knife. The town consists of about seventy log houses, of
which half are in a row near the river ; the other half oppo
site to them, on the other side of a fair, where two streets
are divided by a row of posts in the midst, where each Indian
has his house to lay his goods, and where any of the traders
may traffic with him. This is surely an excellent regulation
for preventing the traders from imposing on the Indians.
The chief officer in command at the castle keeps a good look
out to see when the Indians come down the lake with their
poultry and furs, and sends a canoe to meet them, which con
ducts them to the castle, to prevent any person enticing them
to put ashore privately, treating them with spirituous liquors,
and then taking that opportunity of cheating them. Oswego
is an infant settlement made by the province of New York,
with the noble view of gaining to the crown of Great Britain
the command of the five lakes ; and the dependence of the
Indians in their neighborhood to its subjects, for the benefit
of the trade upon them, and of the rivers that empty them
selves into them. At present the whole navigation is carried
on by Indian bark canoes ; but a good Englishman cannot be
without hopes of seeing these great lakes one day accustomed
to English navigation. It is true, the famous Fall of Niagara
is an insurmountable barrier to all passage by water from the
Lake Ontario into the Lake Erie. The honor of first discov
ering these extensive fresh-water seas is certainly due to the
French. The traders from New York come hither up the
Mohawk River, but generally go by land from Albany to
Schenectady ; about twenty miles from the Mohawk the car-

378 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTAT.DES.

riage is but three miles to the river, that falls into the Oneida
Lake, which discharges itself into the Onondaga River. It
is evident, from the face of the earth, that the water of Lake
Ontario has considerably diminished."

It is interesting to contrast the vague and timid conjec
tures of Bartram with the subsequent facts in the develop
ment of that intercourse between the lakes, the far interior,
and the seacoast, whence dates so much of the commercial
and agricultural prosperity not only of the State of New
York, but of the metropolis, and the vast regions of the
West. Bartram observed, at Oswego, " a kitchen garden and
a graveyard to the southwest of the castle," which reminds
him that " the neighborhood of this lake is esteemed un-
healthful." This opinion, however, refers only to a large
swampy district, and not to the elevated site of the present
town. Draining and population have long since redeemed
even the low lands from this insalubrity ; and now, in conse
quence of the constant winds from that immense body of
pure water, Oswego enjoys a better degree of health than
any place in Western New York. Its summer climate is
preferable to that of any inland city of the State. Bartram
notes many traits of Indian life there — the girls playing with
beans, and the squaws addicted to rum, and " drying huckle
berries." As usual, he expatiates on the trees, and especially
admires specimens of the arbor vitse and white lychinus.
The last entry in this quaintly pleasing journal is characteris
tic of the writer's domestic and religious faith, and of the
adventurous nature of a tour which then occupied seven or
eight weeks, and is now practicable in a few hours. Under
date of August 19th, he writes: "Before sunset I had the
pleasure of seeing my own home and family, and found them
in good health ; and with a sincere mind I returned thanks to
the Almighty Power that had preserved us all."

At an advanced age Bartram embarked at Philadelphia
for Charleston, S. C., and went thence, by land, through a
portion of Carolina and Georgia, to St. Augustine, in Florida.
While there, he received the appointment of botanist and

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 379

naturalist to the king of England, with directions to trace
the San Juan River to its source. Leaving St. Augustine, he
embarked in a boat at Picolata, ascended and descended that
beautiful river nearly four hundred miles, making careful
observations not only as to distances, width, depth, currents,
shores, &c., but recording all the physical facts, vegetable
and animal. The full and accurate report thereof he sent to
the Board of Trade and Plantations, in England. The labor
of love this exploration proved to him, may be imagined
from the enthusiastic terms in which Florida, its coast, its
flowers, and its climate, are described by subsequent naturalists,
especially Audubon and Agassiz. The latter thinks the com
bination of tropical and western products and aspects there
unrivalled in the world. It is, indeed, a paradise for the
naturalist, from its wonderful coral reefs to its obese turtles,
and from its orange groves, reminding the traveller of Sicily,
to its palms, breathing of the East. When old John Bar-
tram, in his lonely boat, glided amid its fertile solitudes, it
was a virgin soil, not only to the step of civilization, but the
eye of science ; and later and far more erudite students of
nature have recognized the honest zeal and intelligent obser
vation wherewith the venerable and assiduous botanist of the
Schuylkill recorded the winders and the beauty of the scene.
But it was amid his farm and flowers that Bartram appeared
to memorable advantage. His manners, habits, and appear
ance, his character and conversation, seem to have em
bodied, in a remarkable manner, the idea of a rural citizen of
America as cherished by the republican enthusiasts of Eu
rope. The comfort, simplicity, self-respect, native resources,
and benign faith and feeling incident to a free country life,
religious education, and a new land, were signally manifest in
the home of the Quaker botanist. A Russian gentleman,
who visited him in 1769, describes these impressions in a let
ter. He was attracted to Bartram's house from knowTing him
as a correspondent of French and Swiss botanists, and even
of Queen Ulrica, of Sweden. Approaching his home, the
neatness of the buildings, the disposition of fields, fences,

380 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

and trees, the perfect order and the prosperous industry ap
parent, won the stranger's heart at a glance. Nor was he
less charmed with the greeting he received from " a- woman
at the door, in a simple but neat dress," in answer to his in
quiry for the master. " If thee will step in and take a chair,
I will send for him." He preferred walking over the farm.
Following the Schuylkill, as it wound among the meadows,
he reached a place where ten men were at work, and asked
for Mr. Bartram ; whereupon one of the group, " an elderly
man, with wide trousers and a large leather apron on, said,
" My name is Bartram ; dost thee want me ? " " Sir," .replied
the visitor, " I came on purpose to converse, if you can be
spared from your labor." " Very easily," he replied ; and,
returning to the house, the host changed his clothes, re
appeared, conducted his guest to the garden, and they passed
many hours in a conversation so delectable, that the foreign
visitor grows enthusiastic in his delight at this unique combi
nation of labor and knowledge, simplicity of life and study
of nature. One remark of Bartram's recalls a similar one of
Sir Walter Scott's, as to the best results of literary fame ;
and it is a striking coincidence in the experience of two of
nature's noblemen, so widely separated in their pursuits and
endowments : " The greatest advantage," observed the rural
philosopher to his Russian visitor, " which I receive from
what thee callest my botanical fame, is the pleasure which it
often procures me in receiving the visits of friends and for
eigners." Summoned to dinner by a bell, they entered a
large hall where was spread a long table, occupied, at the
lower end, by negroes and hired men, and, at the other, by
the family and their guest. The venerable father and his
wife " declined their heads in prayer " — which " grace before
meat," says the visitor, was " divested of the tedious cant of
some, and ostentatious style of others." Nor was he less
charmed with the plain but substantial fare, the cordial man
ners, the amenities of the household, and the dignity of its
head. Madeira was produced ; an ^Eolian harp vibrated me
lodiously to the summer breeze ; and they talked botany and

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 381

agriculture to their heart's content. The knowledge of Bar-
tram surprised his auditor. He found a coat of arms amid
all this primitive life, and learned that it was possible to unite
the simplicity of American with the associations of European
domiciles. To him, the scene and the character whence ema
nated its best charm, were a refreshing novelty; and he
endeavors to solve the mystery by frankly questioning his
urbane host, whose story was clear enough. " ' What a
shame,' said my mind, or something that inspired my mind,"
observed the latter, in explaining the first impulse to his
career, " ' that thou shouldst have employed so many years in
tilling the earth, and destroying so many flowers and plants,
without being acquainted with their structure and their
uses.' By steady application," he added, " for several years,
I have acquired a pretty general knowledge of every plant
and tree to be found on this continent." But it was the social
phenomena of Bartram's house that impressed " the stranger
within his gates," not less than the " pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties ; " the skilful method of the farming opera
tion ; the deference, without servility, of the workmen ; the
gentle bearing of the negroes, and the serene order and dig
nity, yet cheerfulness of the household, struck the habitue
of courts as a new phase of civilization. He became enam
ored of the Friends, attributing much of what he admired in
Bartram and his surroundings to their influence. He so
journed among them in the vicinity, attended their meetings,
and, after two months thus passed, declared " they were the
golden days of my riper years." Few and far between are
such instances of primitive character and association now
exhibited to the stranger's view in our over-busy and ex
travagant land. It is pleasant to look back upon those days,
and that venerable, industrious, benign philosopher ; to re
member his pleasant letters to and from Franklin, Bard,
Logan, Catesby, and Golden at home, and Gronovius, Sir
Hans Sloane, Collinson, and Fothergill abroad ; the medal
he received from "a society of gentlemen in Edinburgh;"
the seeds he sent Michaux and Jefferson ; the books sent him

AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOBS.

by Linnaeus. It is pleasant to retrace that peaceful and wise
career to its painless and cheerful close — the career of one
whose great ambition was the hope, as he said, " of discover
ing and introducing into my native country some original
productions of nature which might be useful to society;"
and who could honestly declare, " My chief happiness con
sisted in tracing and admiring the infinite power, majesty,
and perfection of the great Almighty Creator." Philosopher
as he was, he never coveted old age ; dreaded to become a
burden ; hoped " there would be little delay when death
comes;" and deemed the great rule of life "to do justice,
love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Cheerful and
active to the age of seventy-eight, he died content, Septem
ber 22, 1777. His name stands next to Franklin's in the
record of the American Philosophical Society. The war of
the Revolution shortened his days ; as the approach of the
royal army, 'after the battle of Brandy wine, agitated him
with fear that his " darling garden," the " nursling of half a
century," might be laid waste.

Bartram was a genuine Christian philosopher. His health
ful longevity was mainly owing to his temperance and out-of-
door life, the tranquil pleasures he cultivated, and the even
temper he maintained. Hospitable, industrious, and active,
both in body and mind, he never found any time he could not
profitably employ. Upright in form, animation and sensibil
ity marked his features. He was " incapable of dissimula
tion," and deemed " improving conversation and bodily exer
cise " the best pastimes. Meditative, a reader of Scripture,
he was born a Quaker, but his creed 'was engraved by his
own hand over the window of his study — a simple but fer
vent recognition of God.

It is as delightful as it is rare to behold the best tastes
and influence of a man reproduced and prolonged in his de
scendants ; and this exceptional trait of American life we
find in the career and character of John Bartram's son
William, who was born at the Botanic Garden, Kingsessing,
Pennsylvania, in 1739, and died in 1823. One of his early

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 383

tutors was Charles Thomson, so prominent in the Continental
Congress. He began life as a merchant, but was formed, by
nature, for the naturalist and traveller he became. A letter
from John Bartram to his brother, dated in 1761, alludes to
this son as if his success in business was doubtful : " I and
most of my son Billy's relations are concerned that he never
writes how his trade affairs succeed. We are afraid he doth
not make out as well as he expected." Having accompanied
his father in the expedition to East Florida, he settled on the
banks of the St. John River, after assisting in the explora
tion of that region. In 1774 he returned to his home in
Pennsylvania ; and soon after, at the instance of Dr. Fother-
gill, of London, made a second scientific tour through Flor
ida. His observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians
there made were written out in 1789, and have been recently
reprinted from the original manuscript, by the American Eth
nological Society. He aided Wilson in his ornithological
investigations, and Barton in his " Elements of Botany," of
which science he was elected professor by the university of
his native State. Dunlap the painter, and Brockden Brown
the novelist, refer to him with interest ; and the former has
left a personal description of him, as he appeared when vis
ited by the writer, whereby we recognize the identical sim
plicity of life, brightness of mind, industry, kindliness, and
love of nature which distinguished his father. " His counte
nance," says Dunlap, " was expressive of benignity and hap
piness. With a rake in his hand, he was breaking the clods
of earth in a tulip bed. His hat was old, and flapped over
his face. His coarse shirt was seen near his neck, as he wore
no cravat. His waistcoat and breeches were both of leather,
and his shoes were tied with leather strings. We approached
and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into con
versation with the ease and politeness of nature's nobleman."
A similar impression was made upon another visitor in 1819,
who informs us that the white hair of William Bartram, as
he stood in his garden and talked of Rittenhouse and Frank
lin, of botany and of nature, gave him a venerable look,

384: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

which was in keeping with his old-fashioned dress, his genial
manners, and his candid and wise talk. He was elected pro
fessor of botany in the University of Pennsylvania in 1782,
and " made known and illustrated many of the most curious
and beautiful plants of North America," as well as published
the most complete list of its birds, before Wilson. " The
latest book I know," wrote Coleridge, " written in the spirit
of the old travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the
Floridas." It was published in Philadelphia in 1791, and in
London the following year.* The style is more finished than
his father could command, more fluent and glowing, but
equally informed with that genuineness of feeling and direct
ness of purpose which give the most crude writing an inde
finable but actual moral charm. The American edition was
" embellished with copperplates," the accuracy and beauty
of which, however inferior to more recent illustrations of
natural history among us, form a remarkable contrast to the
coarse paper and inelegant type. These incongruities, how
ever, add to the quaint charm of the work, by reminding us
of the time when it appeared, and of the limited means and
encouragement then available to the naturalist, compared to
the sumptuous expositions which the splendid volumes of
Audubon and Agassiz have since made familiar. In the de
tails as well as in the philosophy of his subject, Bartram is
eloquent. He describes the " hollow leaves that hold water,"
and how " seeds- are carried and softened in birds' stomachs."
He has a sympathy for the " cub bereaved of its bear
mother ; " patiently watches an enormous yellow spider cap
ture a humblebee, and describes the process minutely. The
moonlight on the palms ; the notes of the mockingbird in
the luxuriant but lonely woods ; the flitting oriole and the

* " Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West
Florida, the Cherokee Country, the extensive Territories of the Muscogulges,
or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws ; containing an Ac
count of the Soil and Natural Productions of those Regions, together with
Observations on the Manners of the Indians," embellished with copperplates
(turtle, leaf, &c.), by William Bartram, Philadelphia, 1791, London, 1792.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 385

cooing doves ; the mullet in the crystal brine, and the moan
of the surf at night ; the laurel's glossy leaves, the canes of
the brake, the sand of the beach, goldfish, sharks, lagoons,
parroquets, the cypress, ash, and hickory, Indian mounds,
buffalo licks, trading houses, alligators, mosquitos, squirrels,
bullfrogs, trout, mineral waters, turtles, birds of passage,
pelicans, and aquatic plants, are the themes of his narrative ;
and become, in his fresh and sympathetic description, vivid
and interesting even to readers who have no special knowl
edge of, and only a vague curiosity about nature. The afflu
ence and variety in the region described, are at once apparent.
Now and then, something like an adventure, or a pleasant
talk with one of his hospitable or philosophical hosts, varies
the botanical nomenclature ; or a fervid outbreak of feeling,
devotional or enjoyable, gives a human zest to the pictures of
wild fertility. Curiously do touches of pedantry alternate
with those of simplicity ; the matter-of-fact tone of Robin
son Crusoe, and the grave didactics of Rasselas ; a scientific
statement after the manner of Humboldt, and an anecdote or
interview in the style of Boswell. It is this very absence of
sustained and prevalence of desultory narrative, that make
the whole so real and pleasant. The Florida of that day had
its trading posts, surveyors, hunters, Indian emigrants, and
isolated plantations, such as still mark our border settlements ;
but nowhere on the continent did nature offer a more " infi
nite variety ; " and the mere catalogue of her products, espe
cially when written with zest and knowledge, formed an
interesting work, such as intelligent readers at home and
abroad relished with the same avidity with which we greet
the record of travel given to the world by a Layard or a
Kane, only that the restricted intercourse and limited educa
tion of that day circumscribed the readers as they did the
authors.

In 1825 was published, from the original manuscript,
" The Private Journal kept by Madame Knight ; or, A Jour
ney from Boston to New York in the year 1704." This lady
was regarded as a superior person in character and culture.
17

386 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

She indulged in rhyme, and had a vein of romance, as is evi
dent from her descriptions of nature, especially of the effect
of moonlight, and the aspect of the forest at night. This
curious specimen of a private diary gives us a vivid and au
thentic description of the state of the country, and the risks
and obstacles of travel in a region now as populous, secure,
and easy of access and transit as any part of the world. A
fortnight was then occupied in a journey which is now per
formed several times a day in seven or eight hours. It seems
that the fair Bostonian, even at that remote period, tinctured
with the literary proclivities that signalize the ladies of her
native city to this day, had certain business requiring atten
tion at New Haven and New York, and, after much hesita
tion, formed the heroic resolution of visiting those places in
person. The journey was made on' horseback. She took a
guide from one baiting place to another, and was indebted to
the " minister of the town," to the " post," and relatives
along the route, for hospitality and escort. She often passed
the night in miserable inns — if such they can be called — and
was the constant victim of hard beds, indigestible or unsa
vory food, danger from fording streams, isolated and rough
tracks, and all the alarms and embarrassments of an " unpro
tected female " crossing a partially settled country. Narra-
ganset was a pathless wild. At New Haven she notes the
number and mischievousness of the Indians, and that the
young men wore ribbons, as a badge of dexterity in shooting.
She satirizes the phraseology of the people there, such as
" Dreadful pretty ! " " Law, you ! " and " I vow ! " and criti
cizes the social manners as faulty in two respects — too great
familiarity with the slaves, and a dangerous facility of di
vorce ; yet, she remarks, though often ridiculous, the people
" have a large portion of mother wit, and sometimes larger
than those brought up in cities." Pumpkin and Indian bread,
pork and cabbage, are the staple articles of food, varied, at
" Northwalk," by fried venison. Of Fairfield she says :
"They have abundance of sheep, whose very dung brings
them great gain, with part of which they pay their parson's

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 387

salleiy ; and they grudge that, preferring their dung before
their minister." She is charmed with the " vendues" at New
York, where they " give drinks ; " and mentions that the
" fireplaces have no jambs ; " and " the bricks in some of the
houses are of divers colors, and laid in checkers, and, being
glazed, look very agreeable." " Their diversions," she says
of the inhabitants, " is riding in sleys about three or four
miles out of town, where they have houses of entertainment
at a place called the Bowery."

Nor, among the early explorers of New England, can we
fail to remember the intrepid John Ledyard, Captain Cook's
companion and historiographer, and one of the bravest pio
neers of African travel. Born in 1751, he ran away from the
frontier college of Hanover, and fraternized with the abo
riginal Six Nations in Canada. Returning to his native
region, he cut down a tree, and made a canoe three feet wide
and fifty long, wherein, with bear skins and provisions, he
floated down the Connecticut River, stopping at night, and
reading, at intervals, Ovid and the Greek Testament. Inter
rupted in his lonely voyage by Bellows' Falls, he effected a
portage through the aid of farmers and oxen, and, continuing
his course, reached Hartford. This exploration of a river
then winding through the wilderness, was inspired by the
identical love of adventure and thirst for discovery which
afterward lured him to the North of Europe, around the
world with Cook, and into the deserts of Africa.

Captain John Carver traversed an extent of country of at
least seven thousand miles, in two years and a half, at a period
when such a pilgrimage required no little courage and pa
tience. He was induced to undertake this long tour partly
from a love of adventure, and, in no small degree, from pub
lic spirit and the desire to gain and impart useful informa
tion. Carver was to be seen at the reunions of Sir Joseph
Banks, where his acquaintance with the natural productions
of this continent made him a welcome guest ; and his strait
ened circumstances won the sympathy of that benign savant,
who promoted the sale of his " Travels," which were pub-

388 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

lished in London,* and passed through three editions. This
work contains many facts of interest to economists and sci
entific men not then generally known. The narrative refers
to the years 1766, '67, and '68. Carver also published a
" Treatise on the Culture of Tobacco." The region of coun
try described by this writer was then attracting great inquiry
on account of the prevalent theories regarding a Northwest
Passage. Carver went from Boston to Green Bay via Albany,
and explored the Indian country as far as the Falls of St.
Anthony ; following, in a great degree, the course of Father
Hennepin in 1680. He has much to say of the aborigines,
their ceremonies, character and vocabulary, of the phe
nomena of the great lakes, and of the birds, fishes, trees, and
reptiles ; although, as a reporter of natural history, some of
his snake stories excited distrust. Carver's enterprise, intel
ligence, and misfortunes, however, commend him to favor
able remembrance. He was born at Stillwater, Connecticut,
and was a captain in the French war. Dr. Lettsom wrote an
interesting memoir of him, which was appended to the
posthumous edition of his writings ; and it is a memorable
fact, that the penury in which this brave seeker after knowl
edge died, as described by his biographer, in connection with
his unrecognized claims as an employe of the English Gov
ernment, induced the establishment of that noble charity, the
Literary Fund.

One of the French legation in the United States, in 1781,
requested Jefferson to afford him specific information in re
gard to the physical resources and character of the country.
This course is habitual with the representatives of European
Governments, and has proved of great advantage in a com
mercial point of view ; while political economists and histori
cal writers have found in the archives of diplomacy invalu
able materials thus secured. M. Marbois could not have
applied to a better man for certain local facts interesting and

* " Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in 1766-'6S,"
by John Carver, Captain of a Company of Provincial Troops in the late
French War, 8vo., third edition, portrait, maps, and plates, London, 1781.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 389

useful in themselves, and as yet but partially recorded, than
Thomas Jefferson, who was a good observer of nature, as
far as details are concerned, and accurate in matters where
taste and opinion were not essential. His love of such inqui
ries had led him to record whatever statistical knowledge or
curious phenomena came under his observation. As a planter,
he had ample opportunity to observe the laws of nature, the
methods of culture, and the means of progress open to a cir
cumspect agriculturist. He had read much in natural history,
and was fond of scientific conversation ; so that, with the
books then at command, and the truths then recognized in
these spheres, he was in advance of most of his countrymen.
The inquiries of Marbois induced him to elaborate and
arrange the data he had collected, and two hundred copies of
the work were privately printed, under the title of " Notes
on Virginia," * a bad translation of which was soon after
published in Paris. The reader of Jefferson's collected
writings, whose taste has been formed by the later models
of his vernacular authors, will not be much impressed with
his literary talents or culture. In eloquence and argumenta
tive power he was far inferior to Hamilton. His memoir of
himself has little of the frank simplicity and naive attraction
that have made Franklin's Life a household book ; while the
fame of the Declaration of Independence wholly eclipses any
renown derived from the wisdom and occasional vivacity of
his correspondence, or the curious knowledge displayed in his
" Notes " on his native State. The eminence of the writer in
political history and official distinction, the extraordinary cir
cumstances amid which he lived and acted, the part he took
in a great social and civic experiment, his representative
character in the world of opinion, the coincidence of his
death with the anniversary of the most illustrious deed of his
life, and with the demise of his predecessor in the Presidential
office and political opponent, all throw a peculiar interest and
impart a personal significance to what his pen recorded ; so

* " Notes on the State of Virginia," 8vo., map, London, 1787.

390 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

that, although there is comparatively little of original scien
tific value in his " Notes on Virginia," they are a pleasing
memorial of his assiduous observation, and are characteristic
of his turn of mind and habits of thought. It has been
justly said of the work, that " politics, commerce, and manu
factures are here treated of in a satisfactory and instructive
manner, but with rather too much the air of philosophy."
The description of the Natural Bridge, and of the scenery of
Harper's Ferry and the Shenandoah Valley, as well as of
other remarkable natural facts, drew many strangers to Vir
ginia ; and the " Notes " are often quoted by travellers, agri
culturists, and philosophers.

Captain Imlay, of the American army, is considered the
best of the early authorities in regard to the topography of
the Western country. The original London edition of his
"Topographical Description of the Western Territory of
North America," * is the result of observations made be
tween 1792 and 1797. The third edition is much enhanced
in value as a reference, by including the works of Filson,
Hutchins, and other kindred material. In 1793, this author
embodied another and most interesting phase of his experi
ence in that then but partially known region, in a novel called
" The Emigrants," which contains genuine pictures of life.

The "Travels in New England and New York"f of
Timothy D wight are probably as little read by the present
generation as his poetry ; and yet both, fifty or sixty years
ago, exerted a salutary influence, and are still indicative of
the benign intellectual activity of a studious, religious, and
patriotic man, whose name is honorably associated with early
American literature, as well as with the educational progress

* " Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North Amer
ica," by Gilbert Imlay, second edition, with large additions, 8vo., with correct
maps of the Western Territories, 1793. Comprises a valuable mass of mate
rials for the early history of the Western country, embodying the entire works
of Filson, Hutchins, and various other tracts and original narratives.

•j- " Travels in New England and New York," by Timothy Dwight, illus
trated with maps and plates, 4 thick vols., 8vo., 1823.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 391

and theological history of New England. A descendant of
Jonathan Edwards, a chaplain in the army of the Revolution,
a member of the Connecticut Legislature, farmer, clergy
man, scholar, patriot, and bard, whether giving religious
sanction to his brave countrymen in their struggle for free
dom, toiling for the support of his family, teaching, rhyming,
talking, or rilling, with assiduous fidelity, the office of Presi
dent of Yale College, Dwight was one of the most useful,
consistent, and respected men of letters of his day in Amer
ica. Idolized by his pupils, admired by his fellow citizens,
and the favorite companion of Trumbull, Barlow, and the
elder Buckrninster, his simple style of life harmonized nobly
with his urbane self-respect, intellectual tastes, and public
spirit. His revision of the Psalms of Watts was a service
practically recognized by all sects. The conscientiousness
which formed the basis of his character, not less than the
exigencies of his life, promoted habits of versatile and in
domitable industry. In youth, his ardent nature found vent
in verse, much of which, especially some heroic couplets, have
the ring and emphasis of a muse enamored of nature and
fired with patriotism. His vacations, while President of
Yale, were devoted to travel, not in the casual manner so
usual at the period, but with a view to explore carefully and
record faithfully. It is true that, compared to the scientific
tourists ot our day, Dwight was but imperfectly equipped
for a complete and minute investigation of nature ; but,
keenly observant, intelligent, and honest, loving knowledge
for its own sake, and eager to diffuse as well as to acquire
practical information, we find in this voluntary choice of
recreation, at that period, a signal evidence of his superior
mind.

Many comparatively unknown regions of New England
and New York Dwight traversed on horseback, communica
ting the results of his journeys in letters, which were not
given to the public until several years after his death. We
know of no better reference for accounts of the prominent
men and the economical and social traits of the Eastern

392 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

States, at the period, than may be gleaned from Dwight's
Travels. They preserve some original features and facts
which a locomotive age has since swept away. They furnish
an interesting picture of life in New England and New
York, when the towns therein were scattered and lonely, the
agricultural resources but partially developed, and the primi
tive tastes and customs yet dominant. Although seldom
read, this early record of travel over scenes so familiar and
unsuggestive to us, will be precious to the future delineator
of manners, and even to the speculative economist and phi
losopher. A future Macaulay would find in them many ele
ments for a picturesque or statistical description ; for in such
details, when authentic and wisely chosen, exist the materials
of history. Among the earliest modern accounts, at all elab
orate, of the White Mountains, Lake George, Niagara, and
the Catskills, are those gleaned by Timothy Dwight, in his
lonely wanderings at a time when, to travel at all, was to
isolate oneself, and be inspired with an individual aim, and
the " solitary horseman " was a significant fact, instead of a
resource of fiction. It was Dwight's habit to take copious
notes and accumulate local facts, which he afterward wrote
out and illustrated at his leisure. His " Travels " were first
published in 1821. Their range would now be thought quite
limited; but, in view of the meagre facilities for moving
about then enjoyed, and the comparative absence of enter
prise in the way of journeys of observation, these intelli
gent comments and descriptions must have been very useful
and entertaining, as they are now valuable and agreeable.
Robert Southey, whose literary taste was singularly catholic,
and who had labored enough in the field of authorship to
duly estimate e'verything that contributes to the use or beauty
of the vocation, wrote of Dwight's " Travels," in the Quar
terly Review :

" The work before us, though the humblest in its pretences, is
the most important of his writings, and will derive additional value
from time, whatever may become of his poems and sermons. A
wish to gratify those who, a hundred years hence, might feel curios-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 393

ity concerning his native country, made him resolve to preserve a
faithful description of its existing state. He made notes, therefore,
in the summer vacation tours, and collected facts on the spot. The
remarks upon natural history are those of an observant and sagacious
man, who makes no pretensions to science ; they are more interest
ing, therefore, than those of a merely scientific traveller."

Here we have another striking illustration of the conser
vative worth of facts in literature over the fruits of specula
tion or of fancy, unless the latter are redeemed by rare
originality. Only the most gifted poets and philosophers
continue to be read and admired ; while the humblest gleaner
among the facts of life and nature, if honest and assiduous,
is remembered and referred to with gratitude and respect.

As Commissioner of the Revenue, Tench Coxe, of Philadel
phia, investigated and wrote upon several economical interests
of the country, and, in 1794, published his " View of the United
States of America," in a series of papers written in 1787-'94.*
There is much statistical information in regard to trade and
manufactures during the period indicated. The progress of
the country at that time is authentically described, and the
resources of Pennsylvania exhibited. Two chapters of the
work are curious — one on the " distilleries of the United
States," and the other giving " information relative to maple
sugar, and its possible value in some parts of the United
States." The facts communicated must have been useful to
emigrants at that period ; and, in summing up the condition
and prospects of the country, a remarkable increase of for
eign commerce, shipbuilding, and manufactures, in the ten
years succeeding the War of Independence, is shown. The
author congratulates his fellow citizens that " the importation
of slaves has ceased;" that "no evils have resulted from an
entire separation of church and state, and of ecclesiastical
from the civil power ;" that Europeans " have rather accom
modated themselves to the American modes of life, than pur
sued or introduced those of Europe ; " that no monarchy over

* " View of the United States of America," in a series of papers written
between 1787 and 1794, by Tench Coxe, Svo.j Philadelphia and London,
1795.

394 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

" an equally numerous people has been so well able to main
tain internal tranquillity;" and that the "terrifying reports
of danger from Indians" are unfounded. The work is a
valuable statistical landmark of national development.

In the year 1810, a book on America* by a native author
excited much attention, partly from the special facts it re
counted, and partly because of a humorous vein, wherein
European criticisms and travellers' complaints were met and
refuted. The volume was timely, in some respects quite able,
and often piquant. The literary artifice adopted served also
to win the curious. It wTas pretended that Inciquin, a Jesuit,
during a residence in the United States, had written numer
ous letters descriptive of the country, and in reply to current
aspersions by prejudiced visitors — a portion of this corre
spondence having been discovered on a bookseller's stall, at
Antwerp, and the "packet of letters" being published on
this side of the water as the work of some unknown for
eigner. A distinct account of political parties, about which
great misapprehensions then prevailed in Great Britain, is
given ; numerous falsehoods then prevalent regarding the
social condition and habits of the people are exposed ; and
the hypercritical and fastidious objections propagated by
shallow writers are cleverly ridiculed ; while a more kindly
and just estimate of American manners and culture is
affirmed. The idea of the book was excellent ; but its exe
cution is not commensurate therewith, being comparatively
destitute of that literary tact and graceful vivacity essential
to the complete success of such an experiment. It, however,
served a good though temporary purpose, more adequately
fulfilled by Walsh's " Appeal." In his account of American
literature, the author, at that date, had but a meagre cata
logue to illustrate his position, Marshall's " Life of Washing
ton " and Barlow's " Columbiad " being most prominent.
Perhaps the political information w^as the most important
element of the work; and the intimate acquaintance with our

* " Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters, during a late Residence in the United
States of America," New York, 1810, 8vo.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 395

system of government, and the appreciation of the social
condition of the republic manifest throughout, suggest that,
with the attraction of a more pleasing style, " Inciquin's Let
ters " might have claimed and won a more permanent inter
est. It soon became known that they were written by
Charles J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, a political litterateur
and well-known citizen, who has since figured in public life,
and died within a few years. The London Quarterly, with
characteristic unfairness, assailed the work, which malicious
criticism was promptly answered by Paulding.

The calumnies of the English bookwrights and reviewers
were ably confuted also by Irving, D wight, and Everett ; but
the most efficient and elaborate reply, at this time, emanated
from Robert Walsh, whose industry in the collection of
facts, practice as a writer, and familiarity with history and
literature, made him an able champion. He had long enter
tained the idea of a carefully prepared work — historical, eco
nomical, and critical — on the United States, and had arranged
part of the materials therefor. A peculiarly bitter and un
just article, ostensibly a review of " Inciquin's Letters,"
induced Mr. "Walsh to abandon, for the time, his intended
work, in favor of a less elaborate but most seasonable one.
He did not attach undue importance to these attacks, but, like
all educated and experienced men, perceived that the wilful
misrepresentations and vulgar prejudice with which they
abounded, insured their ephemeral reputation, and proved
them the work of venal hands ; yet, in common with the
best of his countrymen, he recognized, in the popularity of
such shallow and often absurd tirades, in the demand as a
literary ware of such aspersions upon the name, fame, and
character of the republic, a degree of ignorance and preju
dice in England, which it became a duty to leave without
excuse, by a clear and authentic statement of facts. Accord
ingly, his " Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain "

* " An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the Unit
ed States, &c., with Strictures on the Calumnies of British Writers," by
Robert Walsh, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1819.

396 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

appeared in 1819. Its political bias made it somewhat unac
ceptable to a portion of his countrymen ; and, with the more
full exposition of our intellectual resources which the growth
of American literature has subsequently induced, it is obvi
ous that he might have made the argument in this regard
more copious. But, as a whole, it was admirably done.
Much of the testimony adduced is English ; and the chapters
on the British maladministration of the colonies, on the hos
tility of the British Reviews, and on slavery, are of present
significance and permanent interest. It was a timely vindica
tion of our country, and so absolutely fixed the lie of malice
upon many of the flippant writers in question, and the bigotry
of prejudice upon their acquiescent readers, that an obvious
improvement was soon apparent, especially in the Reviews —
more care as to correctness in data, and less arrogance in
tone. The work is a landmark to which we can now refer
with advantage, to estimate the degree and kind of progress
attained by the United States at the period ; and it serves no
less effectually as a memorial of the literary, political, and
social injustice of England.

In addition to Irving, Ingersoll, Walsh, Everett, and
Cooper, many of our citizens have " come to the rescue "
abroad, in less memorable but riot less seasonable and efficient
ways. Through the journals of Europe, many a mistake has
been corrected, many a prejudice dispelled, and many a right
vindicated by public-spirited and intelligent citizens of the
republic. In Blackwoo&s Magazine, 1823-'6, for instance,
are several articles on American writers and subjects, wherein,
with much critical nonchalance and broad assertion, there are
many facts and statements fitted to enlighten and interest in
regard to this country. They were written by John Neal, of
Portland, whose dramatic but extravagant and rapidly con
cocted novels and poems, by their spirit and native flavor, had
won their author fame, and gained him literary employment
abroad ; where he became a disciple of Bentham, and aspired,
despite strong personal likes and dislikes, to be an impartial

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 397

raconteur and reporter of his country, in a British periodical
of wide circulation and influence.

No Southern State has been so fully described by early
and later writers, as Virginia. As the home of Washing
ton and Jefferson, it attracted visitors when the journey
thither from the East was far from easy or convenient.
The partially aristocratic origin of the first settlers gave
a distinctive and superior social tone to the region. Hunt
ing, political speculation, convivial courtesies, and the Epis
copal Church, were local features whereby the life of the
Virginia planter assimilated with that of English manorial
habits and prestige. Moreover, a certain hue of romance
invests the early history of the State, associated as it is with
the gallantry and culture of Sir Walter Raleigh and the self-
devotion of Pocahontas. The very name of " Old Domin
ion " endeared Virginia to many more than her own children ;
and that other title of " Mother of Presidents " indicates her
prominence in our republican annals. Novelists have de
lighted to lay their scenes within her borders — to describe
the shores of the Rappahannock, the ancient precincts of
Jamestown, the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, and the
picturesque attractions of the Blue Ridge ; as well as to
elaborate the traits of character and the phases of social life
fondly and proudly ascribed to the country. Lovers of
humor find an unique comic side to the nature of the Vir
ginia negro — one of whose popular melodies plaintively
evinces the peculiar attachment which bound the domestic
slave to the soil and family ; while the countless anecdotes
of John Randolph, and other eccentric country gentlemen,
indicate that the independent and provincial life of the
planter there was remarkably productive of original and
quaint characteristics. Naturalists expatiated on the wonders
of the Natural Bridge ; valetudinarians flocked to the Sulphur
Springs ; and lovers of humanity made pilgrimages to Mount
Vernon. 'There Washington, a young surveyor, became
familiar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, and passed
the crowning years of his spotless career ; there he was born,

398 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

died, and is buried ; there Patrick Henry roamed and mused,
until the hour struck for him to rouse, with invincible elo
quence, the instinct of free citizenship ; there Marshall drilled
his yeomen for battle, and disciplined his judicial mind by
study; there Jefferson wrote his "Political Philosophy" and
" Notes of a Naturalist ; " there Burr was tried, Clay was
born, Wirt pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton
massacre, Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown was hung,
Randolph bitterly jested, and Pocahontas won a holy fame ;
and there treason reared its hydra head, and profaned the
consecrated soil with vulgar insults and savage cruelty ; there
was the last battle scene of the Revolution, and the first of
the Civil War ; there is Mount Vernon, Monticello, and
Yorktown ; and there, also, are Manassas, Bull Run, and
Fredericksburg ; there is the old graveyard of Jamestown,
and the modern Golgotha of Fair Oaks ; there is the noblest
tribute art has reared to Washington, and the most loath
some prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on
patriotism ; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered
up their lives to conserve the national existence.

What Wirt, Kennedy, Irving, the author of " Cousin
Veronica," and others, have written of rural and social life
in Virginia, from the genial sports of " Swallow Barn " to
the hunting frolics at Greenway Court — what Virginia was
in the days of Henry and Marshall, she essentially appeared
to Chastellux and to Paulding. It is nearly fifty years since
the latter' s " Letters from the South " * were written ; and,
glancing over them to-day, what confirmation do recent
events yield to many of his observations ! This is one of
the unconscious advantages derived from faithful personal
insight and records. However familiar the scene and obso
lete the book, as such, therein may be found the material for
political inference or authentic speculation. " It seems the
destiny of this country," writes Paulding from Virginia, in
1816, "that power should travel to the West;" and again,
" the blacks diminish in number as you travel toward the
* " Letters from the South," by a Northern Man.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 399

mountains ; " and elsewhere, " I know not whether you have
observed it, but all the considerable States south of New
York have their little distrusts and separate local interests, or
rather local feelings, operating most vehemently. The east
and west section of the State are continually at sixes and
sevens. The mountains called the Blue Ridge not only form
the natural, but the political division of Virginia." Recent
events have confirmed emphatically the truth of this observa
tion ; and what Paulding says of the people, agrees with
previous and subsequent testimony — " gallant, high-spirited,
lofty, lazy sort of beings, much more likely to spend money
than to earn it." We have noted the evidence of earlier
travellers as to the decadence of slavery in Virginia, before
the invention of the cotton-gin made the institution profit
able ; and our own countryman, writing nearly fifty years
ago, quotes the remark of a farmer's daughter : " I want
father to buy a black woman ; but he says they are more
trouble than they are worth." Even at that period, the
primitive methods of travel continued through the Southern
country much as they are described by the French officers
who made visits to the South immediately after or during
the Revolutionary Avar. " Travellers' Rests," says Paulding,
" are common in this part of the world, where they receive
pay for a sort of family fare provided for strangers. The
house, in frequent instances, is built of square pine logs lap
ping at the four corners, and the interstices filled up wdth
little blocks of wood plastered over and cemented." The
ridges of mountain ribbed with pine trees, the veins of cop
per and iron revealed by the oxydated soil, the nutritious
" hoecake," the marvellous caves and Natural Bridge, the
comical negroes, the salubrious mineral springs, the occa
sional hunts such as cheered the hospitable manor of Fairfax,
the conclaves of village politicians, the horse racing, cock
fighting, the hard drinking, the famous " reel " of the dan
cers and turkey shooting of the riflemen, were then as charac
teristic of the Old Dominion as when the judicial mind of
her Marshall, the eloquence of her Henry, the eccentricities

400 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of her Randolph, or the matchless patriotism of her Wash
ington made her actual social life illustrious. The field of
Yorktown, the memorable " Raleigh tavern," and the ubiqui
tous " first family," had not ceased to be favorite landmarks
and jokes, any more than tobacco the staple or slavery the
problem of this fertile but half-developed region and incon
gruous community.

Paulding gave vent to his indignant patriotism, when the
second war with England broke out, in " The Diverting His
tory of John Bull and Brother Jonathan," * in the manner of
Arbuthnot. In this work, the two countries are made to
figure as individuals, and the difficulties between the two
nations are exhibited as a family quarrel. England's course
is the subject of a severe but not acrimonious satire. It was
republished abroad and illustrated at home, and the idea still
further developed in a subsequent story entitled " Uncle Sam
and his Boys."

A visit to Ohio from New England was formidable as
late as 1796, when Morris Cleveland, whose name is now
borne by the city where then spread a wilderness, accompa
nied the survey as agent of those citizens of Connecticut to
whom she gave an enormous land grant in Ohio, to indemnify
them for the loss of their property destroyed by the British
during the Revolution. The party ascended the Mohawk in
bateaux, which they carried over the " portage " of Little
Falls to Fort Stanwix, now Rome, where there was another
portage to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida Lake ;
thence they passed through its outlet and the Oswego River
into Lake Ontario, following the south shore thereof to the
mouth of the Niagara River ; crossing seven miles of port
age to Buffalo, and thence to the region of which Cleveland
now forms the prosperous centre. The descendants of these
landowners — some of whom yet may be found in the towns
that suffered from the enemy's incursions eighty years ago,
such as New London, Groton, and Fairfield — if they possess

* "John Bull in America; or, New Munchausen," second edition, 18mo.,
pp. 228. The original and genuine edition, New York, 1825.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 401

any record of the hardships thus endured and the time con
sumed, might find a wonderful evidence of progress and
growth, in the facility with which they can now reach the
same spot by a few hours of railway travel along the pic
turesque track of the Erie road.

We must revert to such memorials to appreciate what
" going West " implied forty or fifty years ago, and to under
stand the interest which the narratives of travellers there
then excited. Before this experience became familiar, there
were two writers who enjoyed much popularity in the North
and East, and were extensively read abroad, as pioneer de
lineators of life and nature in the Western States, when that
region fairly began its marvellous growth : these were Timo
thy Flint and James Hall.

There are writers whose works lack the high finish and
the exhaustive scope which insures them permanent cur
rency ; and yet who were actuated by so genial a spirit and
endowed with so many excellent qualities, that the impres
sion they leave is sweet and enduring, like the brief but
pleasing companionship of a kindly and intelligent acquaint
ance met in travelling, and parted with as soon as known.
Those who, in youth, read of the West as pictured by Timo
thy Flint, though for years they may not have referred to his
books, will readily accord him such a gracious remembrance.
He wrote before American literature had enrolled the classic
names it now boasts, and when it was so little cultivated as
scarcely to be recognized as a profession. And yet a candid
and sympathetic reader cannot but feel that, however defec
tive the products of Flint's pen may be justly deemed when
critically estimated, they not only fulfilled a most useful and
humane purpose at the time they were given to the public,
but abound in the best evidences of a capacity for author
ship ; which, under circumstances more favorable to disci
pline, deliberate construction, and gradual development,
would have secured him a high and permanent niche in the
temple of fame. Flint had all the requisite elements for lit
erary success — uncommon powers of observation, a generous

402 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

tone of mind, habits of industry, a command of language,
imagination, scientific tastes, and a vein of originality com
bined with a kindliness of heart that would honor and ele
vate any vocation. On the other hand, it was not until the
mature age of forty-five that he fairly embarked in author
ship. That business was far from profitable, and, to make it
remunerative, he was obliged to write fast, and publish with
out revision. His health was always precarious. He had
few of those associations whereby an author is encouraged in
the refinements and individuality of his work by the exam
ple and critical sympathy of his peers. It is not, therefore,
surprising that his success varied in the different spheres of
literary experiment ; that the marks of haste, sometimes a
desultory and at others a crude style, mar the nicety and
grace of his productions ; and that many of these are more
remarkable for the material than the art they exhibit. Yet
such was the manly force, such the kindly spirit and fresh
tone of this estimable man and attractive writer, that he not
only gave to the public a large amount of new and useful
information, and charmed lovers of nature with a picturesque
and faithful picture of her aspects in the West, then rarely
traversed by the people of the older States, but it is conceded
that his writings were singularly effective in producing a bet
ter mutual understanding between the two extremes of the
country. For several years Timothy Flint was almost the
only representative of the American authorship west of the
Alleghanies. Travellers speak of an interview with him as
an exceptional and charming social incident. When that long
range of mountains was tediously crossed in stages ; wrhen a
visit to the West was more formidable than a passage across
the Atlantic now ; and when material well-being was the
inevitable and absorbing occupation of the newly settled
towns along the great rivers, it may easily be imagined how
benign an influence an urbane and liberal writer and scholar
would exert at home, and how welcome his report of per
sonal experience would prove to older communities. Accord
ingly, Timothy Flint was extensively read and widely be-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND .WRITERS. 4:03

loved. A native of Massachusetts, and by profession a
clergyman, he entered on a missionary life in the Valley of
the Mississippi in 1815 ; sojourning in Ohio, Indiana, Ken
tucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, now as a teacher
and now as a preacher ; at home in the wilderness, a favorite
in society, winning children and hunters by his wisdom and
eloquence, and endearing himself to the educated residents
of St. Louis, New Orleans, or Cincinnati, by his liberal and
cultivated influence. It is, perhaps, impossible to imagine
how different these cities and settlements were before facility
of communication had enlarged and multiplied their social
resources ; but we have many striking evidences of the
characteristics of each in Flint's writings. He wrote several
novels, which are now little considered, and, compared with
the present standard in that popular department of letters,
would be found indifferent ; yet, wherever the author has
drawn from observation, he leaves a vital trace. In " Fran
cis Berrian," which is a kind of memoir of a New Englander
who became a Mexican patriot, and in " Shoshonoe Valley,"
there are fine local pictures and touches of character obvi
ously caught from his ten years' experience of missionary
life. Flint wrote also lectures, tales, and sketches. He
edited magazines both in the North and West, and contrib
uted to a London journal. But the writings which are chiefly
stamped with the flavor of his life and the results of his
observations — those which, at the time, were regarded as
original and authentic, and now may be said to contain among
the best, because the most true, delineations of the West —
are his " Condensed Geography and History of the Missis
sippi Valley," * and his " Recollections of Ten Years "
(1826) residence therein. These works were cordially wel
comed at home and abroad. They proved valuable and inter
esting to savant, naturalist, emigrant, and general readers ;
and, while more complete works on the subject have since

* " History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, with tne Physical
Geography of the whole American Continent," by Timothy Flint, 2 vols. in 1,
8vo., Cincinnati, 1832.

404: AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES.

appeared, the period which gave birth to them, and the
character and capacity of their author, still endear and ren
der them useful. The London Quarterly was singularly
frank and free in its commendation of Flint, whom it pro
nounced " sincere, humane, and liberal " on the internal evi
dence of these writings ; declaring, also, that the author
indulged " hardly a prejudice that is not amiable."

In 1840, on his way to his native town — Reading, in Mas
sachusetts — Flint and his son were at Natchez, when the
memorable tornado occurred which nearly destroyed the
place, and were several hours buried under the ruins. The
father's health continued to decline, and, although he reached
his early home and survived a few weeks, the summons that
called his wife reached her too late.

The peculiar value of Timothy Flint's account of the
remarkable region of whose history and aspect he wrote,
consists in the fact that it is not the result of a cursory sur
vey or rapid tour, but of years of residence, intimate contact
with nature and man, and patient observation. The record
thus prepared is one which will often be consulted by subse
quent writers. The circumstances, political and social, have
greatly changed since our author's advent, nearly half a cen
tury ago ; but the features of nature are identical, and it is
pleasant to compare them with his delineation before modi
fied by the adorning and enriching tide of civilization.
There is one portion of these writings that has a perma
nent charm, and that is the purely descriptive. Flint knew
how to depict landscapes in words ; and no one has more
graphically revealed to distant readers the shores of the
Ohio, or made so real in our language the physical aspects
of the. Great Valley.

Of native travellers, the unpretending and brief record
called " The Letters of Hibernicus " * possesses a singular
charm, from being associated with the recreative work of an
eminent statesman, and with one of the most auspicious eco-

* " Letters on the Natural History and Internal Resources of the State
of New York," by Hibernicus, New York, 1822, 18mo.

AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 405

nomical achievements which ever founded and fostered the
prosperity of a State and city. When De Witt Clinton ex
plored the route of the Erie Canal, he communicated his
wayside observations in a series of familiar epistles, wherein
the zest of a naturalist, the ardor of a patriot, and the humor
of a genial observer are instinctively blended.

" This account of his exploration of Western New
York,* which originally appeared in one of the journals of
the day, oifers a wonderful contrast to our familiar experi
ence. Then, to use his own language, ' the stage driver was
a leading beau, and the keeper of a turnpike gate a man of
consequence.' Our three hours' trip from New York to
Albany was a voyage occupying ten times that period. At
Albany stores were laid in, and each member of the commis
sion provided himself with a blanket, as caravans, in our
time, are equipped at St. Louis for an expedition to the
Rocky Mountains. Here they breakfast at a tollkeeper's,
there they dine on cold ham at an isolated farmhouse ; now
they mount a baggage wagon, and now take to a boat too
small to admit of sleeping accommodations, which leads them
constantly to regret their ' unfortunate neglect to provide
marquees and camp stools;' and more than six weeks are
occupied in a journey which now does not consume as many
days. Yet the charm of patient observation, the enjoyment
of nature, and the gleanings of knowledge, caused what, in
our locomotive era, would seem a tedious pilgrimage, to be
fraught with a pleasure and advantage of which our flying
tourists over modern railways never dream. We perceive,
by the comparison, that what has been gained in speed is
often lost in rational entertainment. The traveller who
leaves New York in the morning, to sleep at night under the
roar of Niagara, has gathered nothing in the magical transit
but dust, fatigue, and the risk of destruction ; while, in that
deliberate progress of the canal enthusiast, not a phase of
the landscape, not an historical association, not a fruit, min
eral, or flower was lost to his view. He recognizes the be-
* From the author's " Biographical and Critical Essays."

406 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

nign provision of nature for sugar, so far from the tropics,
by the sap of the maple ; and for salt, at such a distance
from the ocean, by the lakes that hold it in solution near
Syracuse. At Geddesburg he recalls the valor of the Iro-
quois, and the pious zeal of the Jesuits ; at Seneca Lake he
watches a bald eagle chasing an osprey, who lets his captive
drop to be grasped in the talons of the king of birds ; the
fields near Aurora cheer him with the harvests of the ' finest
wheat country in the world.' At one place he is regaled
with salmon, at another with fruit, peculiar in flavor to each
locality ; at one moment he pauses to shoot a bittern,- and at
another to examine an old fortification. The capers and pop
pies in a garden, the mandrakes and thistles in a brake, the
bluejays and woodpeckers of the grove, the bullet marks in
the rafters of Fort Niagara, tokens of the siege under Sir
William Johnson, the boneset of the swamp, a certain remedy
for the local fever, a Yankee exploring the country for lands,
the croaking of the bullfrog and the gleam of the firefly,
Indian men spearing for fish, and girls making wampum —
these and innumerable other scenes and objects lure him into
the romantic vistas of tradition, or the beautiful domain of
natural science ; and everywhere he is inspired by the patri
otic survey to announce the as yet unrecorded promise of the
soil, and to exult in the limitless destiny of its people. If
there is a striking diversity between the population and facili
ties of travel in this region as known to us and as described
by him, there is in other points a not less remarkable identity.
Rochester is now famed as the source of one of the most
prolific superstitions of the age ; and forty years ago there
resided at Crooked Lane, Jemima Wilkinson, whose follow
ers believed her the Saviour incarnate. Clinton describes her
equipage — ' a plain coach with leather curtains, the back in
scribed with her initials and a star.' The orchards, poultry,
cornfields, gristmills noted by him, still characterize the
region, and are indefinitely multiplied. The ornithologist,
however, would miss whole species of birds, and the richly-
veined woods must be sought in less civilized districts. The

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 407

prosperous future which the varied products of this district
foretold, has been more than realized ; with each successive
improvement in the means of communication, villages have
swelled to cities ; barges and freight cars with lumber and
flour have crowded the streams and rails leading to the me
tropolis ; and, in the midst of its rural beauty, and gemmed
with peerless lakes, the whole region has, according to his
prescient conviction, annually increased in commerce, popula
tion, and refinement.

A more noble domain, indeed, wherein to exercise such
administrative genius, can scarcely be imagined than the
State of New York. In its diversities of surface, water,
scenery, and climate, it may be regarded, more than any
other member of the confederacy, as typical of the Union.
The artist, the topographer, the man of science, and the agri
culturist, can find within its limits all that is most character
istic of the entire country. In historical incident, variety of
immigrant races, and rapid development, it is equally a rep
resentative State. There spreads the luxuriant Mohawk Val
ley, whose verdant slopes, even when covered with frost, the
experienced eye of Washington selected for purchase as the
best of agricultural tracts. There were the famed hunting
grounds of the Six Nations, the colonial outposts of the fur
trade, the vicinity of Frontenac's sway, and the Canada wars,
the scenes of Andre's capture, and Burgoyne's surrender.
There the very names of forts embalm the fame of heroes.
There lived the largest manorial proprietors, and not a few
of the most eminent Revolutionary statesmen. There Ful
ton's great invention was realized ; there flows the most
beautiful of our rivers, towers the grandest mountain range,
and expand the most picturesque lakes ; there thunders the
sublimest cataract on earth, and gush the most salubrious
spas ; while on the seaboard is the emporium of the Western
world.

A poet has apostrophized North America, with no less
truth than beauty, as ' the land of many waters ; ' and a
glance at the map of New York will indicate their felicitous

408 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

distribution within her limits. This element is the natural
and primitive means of intercommunication. For centuries
it had borne the aborigines in their frail canoes, and after
ward the trader, the soldier, the missionary, and the emi
grant, in their bateaux ; and, when arrived at a terminus,
they carried these light transports over leagues of portage,
again to launch them on lake and river. Fourteen years of
Clinton's life were assiduously devoted to his favorite project
of uniting these bodies of water. He was the advocate,1 the
memorialist, the topographer, and financier of the vast enter
prise, and accomplished it, by his wisdom and intrepidity,
without the slightest pecuniary advantage, and in the face of
innumerable obstacles. Its consummation was one of the
greatest festivals sacred to a triumph of the arts of peace
ever celebrated on this continent. The impulse it gave to
commercial and agricultural prosperity continues to this hour.
It was the foundation of all that makes the city and State of
New York preeminent ; and when, a few years since, a thou
sand American citizens sailed up the Mississippi to commem
orate its alliance with the Atlantic, the ease and rapidity of the
transit, and the spectacle of virgin civilization thus created,
were but a new act in the grand drama of national develop
ment, whose opening scene occurred twenty-seven years be
fore, when the waters of Lake Erie blended with those of
the Hudson.

The immense bodies of inland water, and the remarkable
fact that the Hudson River, unlike other Atlantic streams
south of it, flows unimpeded, early impressed Clinton with
the natural means of intercourse destined to connect the sea
board of New York with the vast agricultural districts of
the interior. He saw her peerless river enter the Highlands
only to meet, a hundred and sixty miles beyond, another
stream, which flowed within a comparatively short distance
from the great chain of lakes. The very existence of these
inland seas, and the obvious possibility of uniting them with
the ocean, suggested to his comprehensive mind a new idea
of the destiny of the whole country. "Within a few years an

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 409

ingenious geographer has pointed out, with singular acumen,
the relation of his science to history, and has demonstrated,
by a theory not less philosophical than poetic, that the dispo
sition of land and water in various parts of the globe prede
termines the human development of each region. The copi
ous civilization of Europe is thus traceable to the numerous
facilities of approach that distinguish it from Africa, which
still remains but partially explored. The lakes in America
prophesied to the far-reaching vision of Clinton her future
progress. He perceived, more clearly than any of his con
temporaries, that her development depended upon facilities
of intercourse and communication. He beheld, with intui
tive wisdom, the extraordinary provision for this end, in the
succession of lake and river, extending, like a broad silver
tissue, from the ocean far through the land, thus bringing the
products of foreign climes within reach of the lone emigrant
in the heart of the continent, and the staples of those mid
land valleys to freight the ships of her seaports. He felt that
the State of all others to practically demonstrate this great
faot, was that with whose interests he was intrusted. It was
not as a theorist, but as a utilitarian, in the best sense, that
he advocated the union by canal of the waters of Lake Erie
with those of the Hudson. The patriotic scheme was fraught
with issues of which even he never dreamed. It was apply
ing, on a limited scale, in the sight of a people whose enter
prise is boundless in every direction clearly proved to be
available, a principle which may be truly declared the vital
element of our civic growth. It was giving tangible evidence
of the creative power incident to locomotion. It was yield
ing the absolute evidence then required to convince the less
far-sighted multitude that access was the grand secret of in
creased value ; that exchange of products was the touchstone
of wealth ; and that the iron, wood, grain, fruit, and other
abundant resources of the interior could acquire their real
value only through facilities of transportation. Simple as
these truths appear now, they were widely ignored then ; and
not a few opponents of Clinton predicted that, even if he did
18

410 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

succeed in having flour conveyed from what was then called
the ' Far West ' to the metropolis, at a small expense of time
and money, the grass would grow in the streets of New
York. The political economists of his day were thus con
verted into enemies of a system which, from that hour, has
continued to guide to prosperous issues every latent source
of wealth throughout the country. The battle with igno
rance and prejudice, which Clinton and his friends waged,
resulted in more than a local triumph and individual renown.
It established a great precedent, offered a prolific example,
and gave permanent impulse and direction to the public spirit
of the community. The canal is now, in a great measure,
superseded by the railway ; the traveller sometimes finds
them side by side, and, as he glances from the sluggish
stream and creeping barge to the whirling cars, and thence
to the telegraph wire, he witnesses only the more perfect de
velopment of that great scheme by which Clinton, according
to the limited means and against the inveterate prejudices of
his day, sought to bring the distant near, and to render
homogeneous and mutually helpful the activity of a single
State, and, by that successful experiment, indicated the pro
cess whereby the whole confederacy should be rendered one
in interest, in enterprise, and in sentiment.

Before the canal policy was realized, we are told by its
great advocate that ' the expense of conveying a barrel of
flour by land to Albany, from the country above Cayuga
Lake, was more than twice as much as the cost of transporta
tion from New York to Liverpool ; ' and the correctness of
his financial anticipations was verified by the first year's ex
periment, even before the completion of the enterprise, when,
in his message to the legislature, he announced that ' the
income of the canal fund, when added to the tolls, exceeded
the interest on the cost of the canal by nearly four hundred
thousand dollars.' Few, however, of the restless excursion
ists that now crowd our cars and steamboats, would respond
to his praise of this means of transportation when used for
travel. His notion of a journey, we have seen, differed essen-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 411

tially from that now in vogue, which seems to aim chiefly at
the annihilation of space. To a philosophic mind, notwith
standing, his views will not appear irrational, when he de
clares that fifty miles a day, ' without a jolt,' is his ideal of
a tour — the time to be divided between observing, and, when
there is no interest in the scenery, reading and conversation.
4 1 believe,' he adds, ' that cheaper or more commodious
travelling cannot be found.' "

James Hall wrote a series of graphic letters in the Port
folio — one of the earliest literary magazines, published in
Philadelphia — which were subsequently collected in a volume,
and were among the first descriptive sketches of merit that
made the West familiar and attractive to the mass of read
ers. Born in Philadelphia in 1793, the author entered the
army, and was engaged in the battle of Lundy's Lane, at the
siege of Fort Erie, and on other occasions during the war of
1812. Six years later he resigned his commission, and, in
1820, removed to Illinois, where he studied and practised
law, became a member of the legislature and judge of the
circuit court. In 1833 he again changed his residence to
Cincinnati, where he was long occupied as cashier of a bank,
and in the pursuits of literature. From his intimate ac
quaintance with the Western country, his experience as a
soldier and a legislator, habits of intelligent observation, and
an animated and agreeable style, he was enabled to write
attractively of a region comparatively new to the literary
public, and for many years his books were a popular source
of information and entertainment for those eager to know the
characteristics and enjoy the adventurous or historical ro
mances of the Western States first settled. He successively
published letters from and legends of the West, tales of the
border, and statistics of and notes on that new and growing

* " Legends of the West," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1833.
" Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West," 2 vols. 12mo.,
Philadelphia, 1835.

" Notes on the Western States," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1838.
" The Wilderness and the War Path," 12mo., New York, 1846.
" The West, its Soil, Surface, and Productions," Cincinnati, 1848.

412 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

With the progress of the country, and the leisure and its
consequent literary taste which peace and prosperity induce,
more deliberate works began to appear from native authors,
which, without being literally Travels, contain their best
fruits, and possess a more mature attraction. The same
causes led to critical observation and pleas for reform. Two
books especially won not only attention, but fame : they
were the productions of men of classical education, genial
tastes, and public spirit, but diverse in subject as their au
thors were in vocation — one an eloquent lawyer, and the
other an enterprising merchant. " Letters from the Eastern
States," by William Tudor, appeared in 1819. Their origi
nality and acuteness were at once acknowledged ; and,
although the discussion of some questions now seems too
elaborate, they are an excellent memorial of the times and
the region they describe. Tudor was an efficient friend of
the first purely literary periodical established in New Eng
land, one of the founders of the first public library, and the
originator of the Bunker Hill Monument. William Wirt, in
Virginia, at an early date exhibited the same love of elegant
letters, initiated a work similar in scope and aim to Addi-
son's Spectator, and was not only an eloquent speaker and
favorite companion, but a scholar of classic taste and literary
aspirations. In the winter of 1803 he published, in the
Argus — a daily journal of Richmond, Va., — "Letters of a
British Spy," which were collected and issued in a book
form.* Like Irving in the case of " Knickerbocker," he re
sorted to the ruse of a pretended discovery of papers left in
an inn chamber. The success of these " Letters " surprised

* " The British Spy ; or, Letters to a Member of the British Parliament,"
written during a tour through the United States, by a Young Englishman of
Rank, 18mo., pp. 103, Newburyport, 1804. — "The above is the original edi
tion of the now celebrated letters of the British Spy, written by the American
Plato, William Wirt. For the amount of what he has written, no American
author has won so permanent and widespread a reputation. His story of the
blind preacher is one of the most beautiful and affecting in the language.
This book has gone through fifteen editions, and is destined to go through as
many more." — (rowan's Catalogue.

AMERICAN TKAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 413

the author, as it would the reader of the present day unac
quainted with the circumstances. Superior in style to any
belles-lettres work of the kind, of native origin, that had yet
appeared, and analyzing the merits of several popular orators
of the time, the book had a charm and interest for its first
readers greatly owing to the rarity of an intellectual feast of
domestic production. Besides his remarks on the eloquence^
of the forum and bar, Wirt discussed certain physical traits
and phenomena with zest and some scientific insight, and
gave incidental but graphic sketches of local society and
manners. His reflections on the character of Pocahontas,
and his portrait of the " Blind Preacher," are familiar as
favorite specimens of descriptive writing. Although now
little read, the "Letters of a British Spy" are a pleasing land
mark in the brief record of American literature, and give us
a not inadequate idea of the life and region delineated. In
1812, an edition was published in London, with an apologetic
preface indicative of the feeling then prevalent across the
water in regard to all mental products imported from the
United States, aggravated, perhaps, by the nom de plume
Wirt had adopted. The publisher declares his " conviction
of its merit " induces him to offer the work to the public,
though " it is feared the present demand on the English
reader may be considered more as a call on British courtesy
and benevolence than one of right and equity."

When our national novelist returned to America, after a
residence of many years in Europe, he undertook to give his
countrymen the benefit of his experience and reflections in
the shape of direct censure and counsel. " The Monnikins "
— a political satire — " The American Democrat," " Homeward
Bound," " Home as Found," " A Letter to his Countrymen,"
and other productions in the shape of essays, fiction, and
satire, gave expression to convictions and arguments born' of
sincere and patriotic motives and earnest thought. In his
general views, Cooper had right and reason on his side.
What lie wrote of political abuses and social anomalies, every
candid and cultivated American has known and felt to be

414: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

true, especially after a visit to Europe. But the manner of
conveying his sentiments was injudicious. Description, not
satire, was his forte / action, and not didactics, had given
eclat to his pen ; hence his admirers believed he had mistaken
his vocation in becoming a social and political critic ; while
many were revolted by what they conceived to be a sweep
ing and unauthorized condemnation. Moreover, in offending
the editorial fraternity, by a caricature of their worst quali
ties, he drew around himself a swarm of virulent protests,
and thus was misjudged : the consequence was a series of
libel suits and a wearisome controversy. Now that the ex
aggerated mood and the gross misapprehensions therein in
volved, have passed away, we can appreciate the abstract jus
tice of Cooper's position, the manly spirit and the intelligent
patriotism of his unfortunate experiments as a reformer, and
revert to this class of his writings with profit, especially since
the crisis he anticipated has been reached, and the logic of
events is enforcing with solemn emphasis the lessons he un
graciously perhaps, but honestly and bravely, strove to im
press upon his wayward countrymen. If ever an American
had a right to assume the office of censor, it was Cooper.
He had, soon after his arrival in Europe, taken up his pen
in behalf of his country, and thenceforth advocated her
rights, defended her fame, and brought to reckoning her
ignorant maligners. His " Notions of the Americans " did
much to correct false impressions abroad ; and its author was
involved in a long controversy, and became an American
champion and oracle, whose services have never yet been
fully appreciated, enhanced as they were by his European
popularity as an original American novelist. Well wrote
Halleck :

" Cooper, whose name is with his country's woven,

First in her files, her pioneer of mind,
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven
His love for the young land lie left behind."

It requires a love of nature, an adventurous spirit, and an
intelligent patriotism, such as, in these days of complex asso-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 415

ciations and fragmentary interests, are rarely found in the
same individual, to observe and to write with effect upon the
scenes and the character of this republic — especially those
parts thereof that are removed from the great centres of
trade and society. Political economists there are who will
patiently nomenclate the physical resources ; sportsmen who
can discourse with relish of the bivouac and the hunt, and
their environment and incidents ; poetical minds alert and
earnest in celebrating particular local charms : but the Amer
ican of education who delights in exploring the country and
invoking its brief past in a historical point of view, while
dwelling con amore upon its natural features, so as to pro
duce an animated narrative — who delights in the life and
takes pride in the aspect, even when least cultivated, of his
native land, is the exception, not the rule, among our authors.
The reasons are obvious : for the scholar there is too little of
that mysterious background to the picture which enriches it
with vast human interest ; to the imaginative there is too
much monotony in the landscape and the experience ; to the
sympathetic, too little variety and grace of character in the
people ; and the man who can be eloquent in describing
Italy, and vivacious in his traveller's journal in France, and
speculative in discussing English manners, will prove com
paratively tame and vague when a traveller at home — always
excepting certain shrines of pilgrimage long consecrated to
enthusiasm. He may have profound emotions at Niagara,
confess the inspiration of a favorite seacoast, and expatiate
upon the White Mountains with rapture ; but find a tour in
any one section of the land more or less tedious and barren
of interest, or, at best, yielding but vague materials for pen
or talk. Exceptions to this average class, many and mem
orable, our survey of Travels in America amply indicates ;
but the fact remains, that the feeling that invests Scott's
novels, Wilson's sketches, the French memoirs, the German
poets, the intense partiality, insight, and sentiment born of
local attachment and national pride, has seldom impregnated
our literature, especially that of travel ; for the novels of

416 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES.

Cooper, the poems of Bryant, and other standard produc
tions in*nore elaborate and permanent spheres, do not invali
date the general truth. Among the native writers who, from
the qualities already mentioned, have known how to make the
narrative of an American tour pleasant and profitable, is
Charles Fenno Hoffman, whose " Winter in the West " is
quite a model of its kind. It consists of a series of letters
addressed to a New York journal, describing a journey on
horseback in 1835.* There was the right admixture of poet
ical and patriotic instinct, of knowledge of books and of the
world, and of the love both of nature and adventure, to make
him an agreeable and instructive delineator of an experience
which, to many equally intelligent travellers, would have
been devoid of consecutive interest. In his novels, tales, and
verses, there is a positive American flavor, which shows how
readily he saw the characteristic and felt the beautiful in his
own country. To him the Hudson was an object of love,
and the history of his native State a strong personal interest.
Unspoiled by European travel, and fond of sport, of the
freshness and freedom of the woods, and the independence
incident to our institutions, he, although infirm, bore discom
forts with cheerfulness, easily won companionship, and de
lighted in exercise and observation. Accordingly, he notes
the weather, describes the face of the country, recalls the
Indian legends, speculates on the characters and modes of
life, and discusses the historical antecedents, as he slowly
roams over Eastern Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Vir
ginia, and Illinois, with a lively tone and yet not without
grave sympathy. Scenery is described with a robust and
graphic rather than with a dainty and rhetorical pen, obvi
ously guided by an excellent eye for local distinctions and
charms ; men and manners are treated with an acute, gen
eralized, and manly criticism ; the animals, the river craft,
the flowers, the game, the origin and growth of towns, the
aspect and resources of the country, are each and all conge
nial themes. He so enjoys the observation thereof, as to put
* " A Winter in the West," by a New Yorker, 2 vols., New York, 1835.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 417

his reader in relation with himself, as he did the diverse
characters he encountered in tavern, log house, military out
post, and drawing room. He is neither revolted by coarse
ness nor discouraged by inconveniences. He takes us socia
bly along a route now familiar to thousands who trav
erse it on railways with scarce a thought of the latent inter
est more tranquil observation and patient inquiry would
elicit. At Detroit we are entertained by an historical epi
sode, and at Prairie du Chien with a veritable picture of
military life, character, and routine in America. A conver
sation here, an anecdote there, a page of speculation now,
and again one of description, something like an adventure
to-day, and of curious observation to-morrow, beguile us
with so cheerful and intelligent a guide, that, at the end of
the journey, we are surprised it yielded so many topics of
reflection and scenes of picturesque or human interest.

The statistics whereby the practical inquirer, and the
agencies and examples whereby the social philosopher, may
decide whether Cotton is king, may be found in the books
of Southern Travel in America written by Frederick Law
Olmsted. The actual economical results of slave labor upon
the value of property, the comfort and the dignity of life
and manners, mind, domestic economy, education, religion,
social welfare, tone and tendency, may there be found, co
pious, specific, and authentic. What nature is in the Cot
ton States, and life also, are therein emphasized discreetly.
How the solemn pine woods balmily shade the traveller ;
how gracefully dangle the tylandria festoons in hoary grace ;
how cheerily gleam the holly berries, and glow the negroes'
fires ; how sturdily are gnarled the cypress knees ; how mag
nificent are the liveoaks, and luxuriant the magnolias, and
desolate the swamps, and comfortless the dwellings, and reck
less the travel, and shiftless the ways, and rare the vaunted
hospitality, and obsolete the " fine old country gentleman ; "
and how proud and poor, precarious and unprogessive is the
civilization inwoven with slave and adjacent to free labor,
is narrated without dogmatism and in matter-of-fact terms,
18*

418 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS.

whence the economist, the humanitarian, the philosopher, the
Christian, the reasonable man may infer and elaborate the
truth, and the duty that truth involves and demands.*

More desultory in scope, but not less interesting as the
genuine report of calm observation, are Bryant's " Letters
of a Traveller," which are fresh, agreeable, and authentic
local descriptions and comments, superior in literary execu
tion, and therefore valuable as permanent records in the
literature of home travel.f

An important department of American Travels, and for
scientific and historical objects invaluable, is the record of
Government expeditions for military or exploring purposes,
from the famous enterprises of Lewis and Clark to those of
Simcoe, Stansbury, Kendall, Emory, Long, Marcy, Pike, Fre
mont, Bartlett, and others. Every new State and Territory
has found its intelligent explorer. The vast deserts and the
Rocky Mountains, the Great Salt Lake, Oregon, the Ca-
manche hunting grounds, Texas, the far Western aboriginal
tribes, the climate, soil, topography, &c., of the most remote
and uncivilized regions of the continent, have been thus ex
amined and reported, and the narratives are often animated
by graphic and picturesque scenes, or made impressive by
adventure, hardship, and intrepidity. Another remarkable
class of books is the long list of those devoted to California,
written and published within the last ten years, whereby the
life, aspect, condition, scenery, resources, and prospects of
that region are as familiar to readers in the old States as if
they had explored the new El Dorado.

* "The Cotton Kingdom, a Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Sla
very in the American Slave States," based upon three former volumes of Jour
neys and Investigations by the same author, by Frederic Law Olmsted, 2 vols.
12mo., with a colored statistical map of the Cotton Kingdom and its Depend
encies.

f " Letters of a Traveller in Europe and America," New York, 12mo. —
A discriminating critic observes of this work : " Mr. Bryant's style in these
Letters is an admirable model of descriptive prose. Without any appearance
of labor, it is finished with an exquisite grace. The genial love of nature
and the lurking tendency to humor which it everywhere betrays, prevent its
severe simplicity from running into hardness, and give it freshness and occa
sional glow in spite of its prevailing propriety and reserve."

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 419

The incidental records of American travel, such as may
be found in the letters, diaries, and memoirs of our own civic
leaders and military or political heroes, are not the least
characteristic or suggestive As a specimen, let us refer to
the notes of our peerless Chief in New England, when on his
Presidential tour.

Here is a glimpse of Connecticut as it appeared to the
practical eye of Washington in 1789. In his Diary, he says,
under date of October 16th of that year: "About seven
o'clock we left the widow Haviland's, and, after passing
Horse Neck, six miles distant from Rye, the road through
which is hilly and immensely stony, and trying to wheels
and carriages, we breakfasted at Stamford, which is six miles
farther, at one Webb's — a tolerable good house. In this
town are an Episcopal church and a meeting house. At Nor-
walk, which is ten miles farther, we made a halt to feed our
horses. « To the lower end of this town sea vessels come, and
at the other end are mills, stores, and an Episcopal and Pres
byterian church. From hence to Fairfield, where we dined
and lodged, is twelve miles, and part of it very rough road,
but not equal to Horse Neck. The superb landscape, how
ever, which is to be seen from the meeting house of the lat
ter, is a rich regalia. We found all the farmers busily em
ployed in gathering, grinding, and expressing the juice of
their apples. The average crop of wheat, they say, is about
fifteen bushels to the acre, often twenty, and from that to
twenty-five. The destructive evidences of British cruelty are
yet visible both at Norwalk and Fairfield, as there are the
chimneys of many burnt houses standing yet. The principal
export from Norwalk and Fairfield is horses and cattle, salted
beef and pork, lumber and Indian corn for the West Indies,
and, in a small degree, wheat and flour."

"Commenced my journey," he writes* on the 15th of
October, 1789, " about nine o'clock, for Boston and the East
ern States." He did not reach that city until noon of the

* " Diary from the 1st of October, 1789, until the 10th of March, 1790,"
printed by the Bradford Club from the original manuscripts, New York, 1858.

420 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

23d ; and it is curious to read of the frequent halts for meals,
to feed the horses, or to pass the night, on a route we are
accustomed to pass over in as many hours as days were then
employed. Washington makes agricultural and topographi
cal notes, and in many respects we recognize the same traits
of industry, and identify the face of the country ; while in
others the contrast is remarkable.

He notes a linen manufacture at New Haven, white mul
berry " to feed silkworms" at Wallingford, and remarks that
the silk culture, " except the weaving, is the work of private
families, without interference with other business, and is
likely to turn out a beneficial amusement."

At Hartford, Colonel Wadsworth showed him the wool
len factory, and specimens of broadcloth. " I ordered a
suit," he writes, u and of the serges a whole piece, to make
breeches for my servants." Continuing his journey, he ob
serves " the whole road from Hartford to Springfield is level
and good, except being too sandy in places, and the fields
enclosed with posts and rails, there not being much stone."
He is met often by mounted -escorts of gentlemen, is enter
tained by the local officials, and receives addresses from the
towns. Of his impressions of the State, we may form an
idea by the casual entries in his brief diary : " There is great
equality in the people of this State — few or no opulent men,
and no poor ; great similitude in their buildings, the general
fashion of which is a chimney always of stone or brick, and
door in the middle, with a staircase fronting the latter, and
running up the side of the former — two flush stones with a
very good show of sash and glass windows ; the size gen
erally is from thirty to forty feet in length, and from twenty
to thirty in width, exclusive of a back shed, which seems to
be added as the family increases. The farms, by the contigu
ity of the houses, are small, not averaging more than a hun
dred acres. They are worked chiefly by oxen, which have
no other food than hay."

At Portsmouth he " went in a boat to view the harbor.
Having lines, we proceeded to the fishing banks and fished

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 421

for cod, and only caught two. Dined at Mr. Langdon's, and
drank tea there with a large party of ladies. There are some
good houses here, but, in general, they are indifferent, and
almost entirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the coun
try is full of stone and good clay for bricks, I was told that,
on account of the fogs and damps, they deemed them whole-
somer."

At Exeter, he writes, " a jealousy subsists between this
town, where the legislature alternately sits, and Portsmouth ;
which, had I known it in time, would have made it necessary
to have accepted an invitation to a public dinner."

" In Haverhill is a duck manufactory upon a small but
ingenious scale."

At Boston he went to an oratorio, and was entertained at
Faneuil Hall, " dined in a large company at Mr. Bowdoin's,
and went to an assembly in the evening, where " there were
upward of a hundred ladies. Their appearance was elegant,
and many of them very handsome."

Another attractive branch of this subject may be found
in commemorative addresses — a peculiar and prolific occasion
of local reminiscences and comparisons in America. Com
pare, for instance, the descriptions of New York by Mrs.
Knight, Brissot, or Wansey, with those of Dr. Francis * or
General Dix f in their historical discourses ; or the pictures
of Albany by Mrs. Grant and Kalm, with the recollections
thereof in his boyhood so genially imparted by the late
Judge Kent ; J or Irving's epistolary account of his first
voyage up the Hudson with his last trip to the Lakes, and we
have the most complete historical contrasts and local transi
tions, and realize by wThat means and methods the vast social
and economical changes have taken place.

* " Old New York," a Discourse delivered before the New York Historical
Society, by John W. Francis, M. D., LL. D., in commemoration of the Fifty-
third Anniversary, New York, 1857.

f " The City of New York, its Growth, Destiny, and Duties," a Lecture by
John A. Dix, before the New York Historical Society, New York, 1853.

\ " An Address Delivered before the Young Men's Association of Albany,
February Y, 1854," by William Kent, New York, 1854.

422 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

Of the countless books of Western travel and adventure,
one of the most spirited and authentic is Mrs. Kirkland's
" New Home : Who '11 Follow ? " to which were subse
quently added her " Forest Life " and " Western Clearings."
The " delightful humor and keen observation " of the former
work made it an established favorite as a true reflection of
life in the West at its initiatory stage. As a picture of
travel in the same region, Washington living's " Tour on
the Prairies " is the most finished and suggestive. ' It is
an unpretending account, comprehending a period of about
four weeks, of travelling and hunting excursions upon the
vast Western plains. The local features of this interest
ing region have been displayed to us in several works of
fiction, of which it has formed the scene ; and more for
mal illustrations of the extensive domain denominated The
"West, and its denizens, have been repeatedly presented to the
public. But in this volume one of the most extraordinary
and attractive portions of the great subject is discussed, not
as the subsidiary part of a romantic story, nor yet in the des
ultory style of epistolary composition, but in the deliberate,
connected form of a retrospective narration. When we say
that the " Tour on the Prairies " is rife with the characteristics
of its author, no ordinary eulogium is bestowed. His graphic
power is manifest throughout. The boundless prairies stretch
out inimitably to the fancy, as the eye scans his descriptions.
The athletic figures of the riflemen, the gayly arrayed Indians,
the heavy buffalo and the graceful deer, pass in strong relief
and startling contrast before us. We are stirred by the bus
tle of the camp at dawn, and soothed by its quiet, or delighted
with its picturesque aspect under the shadow of night. The
imagination revels amid the green oak clumps and verdant
pea vines, the expanded plains and the glancing river, the
forest aisles and the silent stars. Nor is this all. Our hearts
thrill at the vivid representations of a primitive and excur
sive existence ; we involuntarily yearn, as we read, for the
genial activity and the perfect exposure to the influences of
nature in all her free magnificence, of a woodland and ad-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 423

venturous life ; the morning strain of the bugle, the excite
ment of the chase, the delicious repast, the forest gossiping,
the sweet repose beneath the canopy of heaven — how in
viting, as depicted by such a pencil !

Nor has the author failed to invigorate and render doubly
attractive these descriptive drawings, with the peculiar light
and shade of his own rich humor, and the mellow softness
of his ready sympathy. A less skilful draughtsman would,
perhaps, in the account of the preparations for departure
(Chapter III.), have spoken of the hunters, the fires, and the
steeds ; but who, except Geoffrey Crayon, would have been
so quaintly mindful of the little dog, and the manner in which
he regarded the operations of the farrier ? How inimitably
the Bee Hunt is portrayed ! — and what have we of the kind
so racy as the account of the Republic of Prairie Dogs,
unless it be that of the Rookery in Bracebridge Hall?
What expressive portraits are the delineations of our rover's
companions ! How consistently drawn throughout, and in
what fine contrast, are the reserved and saturnine Beatte, and
the vain-glorious, sprightly, and versatile Tonish ! A golden
vein of vivacious yet chaste comparison — that beautiful yet
rarely well-managed species of wit — and a wholesome and
pleasing sprinkling of moral comment — that delicate and
often most efficacious medium of useful impressions — inter
twine and vivify the main narrative. Something, too, of
that fine pathos which enriches his earlier productions, en
hances the value of this. He tells us, indeed, with com
mendable honesty, of his new appetite for destruction, which
the game of the prairie excited ; but we cannot fear for the
tenderness of a heart that sympathizes so readily with suffer
ing, and yields so gracefully to kindly impulses. He gazes
upon the noble courser of the wilds, and wishes that his free
dom may be perpetuated ; he recognizes the touching instinct
which leads the wounded elk to turn aside and die in retiracy ;
he reciprocates the attachment of the beast which sustains
him, and, more than all, can minister even to the foibles of
a fellow being, rather than mar the transient reign of human
pleasure.'

4:24: AMERICA AND HEE COMMENT ATOES.

A candid and earnest inquirer, one who seeks to under-
stand the facts and phases of nature, society, and life, past
and present, in North America, will find that native talent,
observation, and industry have done more to unfold and illus
trate them than is generally known even by educated men.
Our literature includes not only ample historical materials and
contributions to natural history, but aesthetic and artistic
writings, elucidating local scenery and character ; not only
economical and topographical books, but standard poems on
national themes, and many other generic illustrations of the
country and the people. No philosophical traveller, who aims
at a true knowledge of the country he explores, is satisfied
with a casual observation of its external features, but seeks
to realize its life and character, in history, biography, ro
mance, art, and poetry.

The lives and writings of the remarkable men who origi
nated and established the principles, while they illustrated
the spirit of America and her political aspirations, form the
most authentic and interesting sources of knowledge. Through
these the historical and social development of the country
may be not only understood, but felt as a conscious experi
ence and vital power. The best modern statesmen have
sought and found therein auspicious inspiration — from
Brougham in the days of his liberal proclivities, to Cavour
at the summit of national success. The lives and writings
of Washington, Franklin, Otis, Marshall, Jay, Hamilton,
Adams, Jefferson, Morris, Quincy, Sullivan, and others of
the Revolutionary era ; and, of a later, Livingston, Clinton,
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Jackson,* and other civic leaders,

* " The Writings of George Washington," being his correspondence,
addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and pub
lished from the original manuscripts, with a Life of the Author, notes and
illustrations, by Jared Sparks, 12 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1855. — " 'Far across the
ocean, if we may credit the Sibylline books, and after many ages, an exten
sive and rich continent will be discovered, and in it will arise a hero, wise and
brave, who, by his counsel and arms, will deliver his country from the slavery
by which she was oppressed. This shall he do under favorable auspices. And
oh ! how much more adorable will he be than our Brutus and Camillus.' This

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 425

reveal the principles of our institutions in their normal, an
tagonistic, and practical relations. These men incarnate
them, and their words illustrate and enforce what their ex
ample embodied. Representative men, their country's best
aims and elemental force and instincts find adequate and
memorable expression in their speeches, correspondence, con
troversies, policy, and character ; and whosoever grasps and
analyzes these, is alone equipped and authorized to comment
intelligently on America as a political entity and a social ex
periment. " Let the people of the United States," writes
Guizot, tc ever hold in grateful remembrance the leading men
of that generation which achieved their independence and
founded their Government ; influential by their property,
talent, or character ; faithful to ancient virtues, yet friendly
to modern improvement ; sensible to the splendid advantages

prediction was known to Accius the poet, who, in his ' Nyctegresia,' embel
lished it with the ornaments of poetry." — Cicero, Frag. XV., Mail ed., p. 52.

" The Life of George Washington," by Washington Irving, New York,
1860.

" The Works of Benjamin Franklin," with notes, and a Life of the Au
thor, by Jared Sparks, in 10 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1856.

" Life and Works of John Adams," by his grandson, Charles Francis
Adams, 9 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1851-'60.

" Works of Alexander Hamilton," comprising his correspondence and his
official and political writings, 7 vols. 8vo., New York, 1851.

" The Life of Gouverneur Morris," \vith selections from his correspond
ence, &c., edited by Jared Sparks, 3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1852.

" The Public Men of the Revolution," including events from the Peace of
1783 to the Peace of 1815, by William Sullivan, Philadelphia, 1847.

" Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr.," Boston, 1825.

" Life of John Jay, with Selections from his Correspondence," by William
Jay, New York, 1833.

Tudor's "Life of Otis;" Amory's "Life of Sullivan;" Hunt's "Life of
Livingston ; " Wirt's " Life of Patrick Henry ; " Austin's " Life of Gerry ; "
Wheaton's " Life of Pinckney ; " Parton's " Life of Jackson ; " Kennedy's
"Life of Wirt;" The Naval Biographies of Cooper and Mackenzie;
" Lives of American Merchants," edited by freeman Hunt ; " Life of Chief
Justice Story," by his son ; Sparks's series of American Biographies ; the
Lives of Schuyler. Rittenhouse, Fulton, Madison, Reed, Clay, Calhoun, &c. ;
and the historical and biographical contributions of William L. Stone, Branta
Mayer, George W. Greene, Frothingham, Headley, Moore, and others. :

426 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

of civilization, and yet attached to simplicity of manners ;
high toned in their feelings, but of modest minds, at the same
time ambitious and prudent in their impulses ; men of rare
endowments, who expected much from humanity, without
presuming too much upon themselves." The later generation
of statesmen elaborated the system and illustrated the prin
ciples of these peerless men ; and the combined writings and
memoirs of both constitute an essential and complete expres
sion and indication of all the vital? ideas and political sympa
thies of which America has been the free arena. To these
personal data, so emphatic and illustrious, the philosophic in
quirer will add the history of the country, whether unfolded
with bold generalizations and effective rhetoric, and through
extensive and minute research, as by Bancroft, tersely chroni
cled by Hildreth, drawn from personal observation by Kam-
say, or treated in special phases by Curtis, Cooper, Dunlap,
Lossing, Sparks, and others.*

The local histories, also, are in many instances full of im
portant details and illustrative principles : such are Theodore
Irving's " Conquest of Florida," Palfrey's " New England,"
Belknap's " New Hampshire," Williams's " Vermont," Ar
nold's "Rhode Island," Dwight's "Connecticut," Dr. Hawks's
" North Carolina," Butler's " Kentucky," Drake's " Boston,"
Bolton's " Westchester County," and the contributions of the
religious annals of the country in the history of Methodism

* Cooper's " Naval History of the United States ; " Curtis's " History of
the Constitution ;" Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac." " Dunlap's " His
tory of the American Theatre, and of the Arts of Design in the United States."
Lossing's " Field Book of the Revolution."

" Thirty Years' View ; or, A History of the Workings of the American
Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850," by Thomas H. Benton.

" The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," published from original manu
scripts, by order of Congress, Washington, 1853, 9 vols. 8vo.

" The Works of Daniel Webster," Boston, 1857, 6 vols. 8vo.

" Correspondence of the American Revolution," edited by Sparks.

" Diplomacy of the Revolution," by W. H. Trescott.

" Correspondence and Speeches of Henry Clay," edited by C. Colton, New
York, 3 vols. Svo., 1851.

Upham's " Salem Witchcraft."

Thatcher's " Military Journal during the Revolution."

AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 427

by Abel Stevens, of the Presbyterian Church by Hodge,
of Universalism by Whittemore, of Episcopacy by Meade,
Hawks, and Jarvis ; and the history of manufactures, inven
tions, and educational institutions and public charities.

It is instructive to consult the county and town histories
of the Eastern and Middle States, because they unfold in
detail the process and method of municipal organization, the
means of popular education, the initiation of manufacturing
and commercial enterprise, and the religious and social
arrangements, which have built up small and isolated com
munities into flourishing cities ; and, if we compare the
French and Spanish accounts of Florida and Louisiana with
the American, a still more striking illustration is afforded of
the practical superiority of free institutions. One of the
latest historians of the latter State (where secession was so
lately rampant) closes his narrative, in allusion to the foreign
colonial rule, thus :

" There were none of those associations — not a link of that mys
tic chain connecting the present with the past — which produce an
attachment to locality. It was not when a poor colony, and when
given away like a farm, that she prospered. This miracle was to be
the consequence of the apparition of a banner which was not in
existence at the time, which was to be the labarum of the advent of
liberty, the harbinger of the regeneration of nations, and which was
to form so important an era in the history of mankind." *

Specific information is now attainable through a series of
standard works of reference. Authentic statistical and offi
cial information in regard to North America may be gleaned
from the American Almanac, Hunt's Merchant's Magazine,
and Colton's " Atlas." The natural resources, geographical
and political history, • and remarkable public characters of
each State and section are thoroughly chronicled in the
" New American Cyclopaedia," a work specially valuable for
its scientific and biographical data. Putnam's "American
Facts " is a copious and authentic work. The literary and

* Gayarre's " History of Louisiana,"

428 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

educational history of the country is elaborately unfolded in
Duyckinck's " Cyclopaedia of American Literature." *

General literature offers a various and creditable cata
logue of American works, wherein independence of investiga
tion or originality of thought attests the impulse which free
institutions give to private culture. In the department of
pure literary labor, where faithful mastery of subjects for
illustration must be sought afar, and with constant labor and
care, the histories of Prescott, Ticknor, and Motley may be
cited as of standard European interest and value. In juridi
cal literature, Marshall, Kent, Story, Wheatou, Livingston,
Webster, and other names are of established authority ; and
while, in the philosophy of our vernacular, Marsh, and, in its
lexicography, Webster and Worcester, have achieved signal
triumphs, the number and excellence of American educa
tional manuals are proverbial. Of the political treatises, the

* Niles' s " Weekly Register " commenced being published September 7,
1811, and ended June 27, 1849; making, in all, 76 volumes. The first 50
volumes were edited by Hezekiah Niles ; vols. 51 to 57 were edited by
William Ogden Niles. Jeremiah Hough bought out, and was editor to the
end of vol. 73. The publication was then suspended for one year, and re
commenced, and ended with the editorship of George Beattie, in 1849.
This information I have from the celebrated bibliopolist of periodical litera
ture, S. G. Dceth, late of Georgetown, D. C., who was the highest authority
on subjects of this kind. — Gowans* Catalogue.

"American Facts, Notes, and Statistics relative to the Government, Re
sources, &c., of the United States," by George P. Putnam, 8vo., portrait of
Washington, and map, London, 1845.

"American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge," from 1830 to
1860, both inclusive, forming a complete set, paper covers, Boston, 1830-'60.
— " The abovenamed series of volumes forms the only consecutive annals of
the United States for the last thirty-one years. They possess intrinsic value
to all who would desire accurate information concerning the country during
that period."

"National Almanac," Philadelphia, 1863-'4.

" The Census of the United States ; " Reports of the Patent Office and
Agricultural Bureau.

" New American Cyclopaedia : A Popular Dictionary of General Knowl
edge," edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, in 16 vols., New York,
D. Appleton & Co., 1862.

" Cyclopaedia of American Literature," by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, 2
vols., New York, Charles Scribner, 1855.

AMERICAN TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 429

Federalist * has become a classic memorial of the foundation
of the American Government. The prescience and per
spicacity as well as comprehensiveness of the writers thereof
have been signally demonstrated by the whole history of
the Slaveholders' Rebellion ; and the political discussion inci
dent to its suppression.

The archives of American oratory contain, for the saga
cious explorer, clear reflections of and genuine emanations
from the life, the discipline, and the physical and moral con
ditions peculiar to the country. Indeed, to understand how
democratic institutions act on individual minds, and in what
light the duties of the citizen are viewed by select intelli
gences, the foreign inquirer should become familiar with the
eloquence of Otis, Henry, Rutledge, Marshall, Adams, Clay,
Ames, Hamilton, Webster, and Everett.

It requires no great effort of the imagination to behold in
the distant future a literary apotheosis for the orations of
Daniel Webster, at Bunker Hill, Plymouth, and in the Sen
ate, akin to that which has rendered those of Cicero patriotic
classics for all time. Even we of the present generation
seem to hear the oracle of history as well as of eloquence,
when we revert, in the midst of the base mutiny that rends
the Republic, to the pregnant and prescient defence of the
Union which identifies Webster's name and fame with the
glory and love of his country.

Everett's Addresses, which form three substantial octavo
volumes,! and will doubtless extend to four, constitute the
most complete and eloquent record of the social and political
development of our country. Their scope and value, in this
regard, would have been more emphatically acknowledged
but for the desultory association which identifies all spoken
history and criticism with temporary occasions. Yet, when
we consider that these discourses were studiously prepared to

* " The Federalist : A Collection of Essays written in favor of the New

Constitution, as agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787."

f " Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions," 3 vols. 8vo., Boston,

1850.

430 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

celebrate anniversaries of settlements and battles, to do honor
to national benefactors, to inaugurate great movements in
education and charity, being thus equally commemorative of
the past and indicative of the future, it is obvious that their
subjects include the most salient facts and inferences of our
origin, growth, and tendencies as a people, and bring attrac
tively into view many local and personal incidents that other
wise would have been overlooked. Accordingly, apart from
any rhetorical merit, we know of no single work which will
convey to an intelligent foreigner, a better general idea of the
memorable phases of our national development, and the prin
ciples whereby it has been inspired, sustained, modified, and
characterized, than the orations and speeches of Edward
Everett.*

Indeed, to specify the kind and degree of information and
illustration which native writers have contributed, would re
quire an elaborate critical essay. They form a mine of sug
gestive knowledge or subtile revelation to those who have the
insight and sympathy to seek from original sources, the truth
of history, nature, and character as regards this country.
They are, to the mass of American Travels, what the finished
picture is to the desultory series of offhand sketches from
nature ; or what the musical composition is to the casual airs
or keynote of the maestro. However the authenticity of
Cooper's aboriginal ideals may be questioned, or with what
ever justice his nautical descriptions may be criticized, no
true observer of nature, familiar with the scenes of his sto
ries, can fail to recognize a minute and conscientious limner
of local and natural features and facts in his pictures of the
woods and waters of his native land. No American reader of
sensibility and perception can ponder the poems of Bryant, in a
foreign land, without a new, vivid, and grateful consciousness
of the pure and truthful mirror his verse affords, not only to
the forms, hues, and phenomena, but to the very spirit of

* A glance at the titles of these Addresses will indicate how completely
they cover the entire range of American subjects — historical, educational,
economical, and social.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 431

American seasons and scenery. There is an undercurrent of
pathos and psychology in the New England romances of
Hawthorne, which seizes on the inmost soul of her primitive
life, and philosophically explains the normal traits of her
actual character. It has been objected to his writings, that,
with all their artistic truth and delicacy, they are morbid in
tone. This is the natural consequence of the element to
which we refer. Analysis like his, implies going beneath the
vital superficies to the inward function ; and what such an
experiment loses in art, it gains in metaphysical power. The
" Blithedale Romance " illustrates the enthusiasm for reform
and of transcendentalism in New England. " The House
of the Seven Gables " and " Twice-Told Tales " contain the
psychological essence of primitive New England life. In the
" Scarlet Letter " there is a profound though indirect protest
against the inhumanity of Puritanism, as it was developed in
the old Bay State — a demonstration of the unchristian system
and sentiment that fail to temper justice with mercy, and to
recognize the blessed efficiency of forgiveness. No native
writer has gone so near the latent significance of New Eng- •
land life, in its moral interest and historical relations.

Numerous, also, are the less finished and more casual but
often striking and true glimpses of the primitive character or
normal traits of life, manners, and natural influences in dif
ferent sections and at various periods, which the published cor
respondence, the memoirs and reminiscences, and the literary
efforts of our public men, scholars, and patriotic citizens,
yield. The unartistic but deeply wrought romance of " Mar
garet," by Judd, is a kind of Balzac anatomy and analysis of
a once singular human experience in the Eastern States.
The exquisite and original illustrations with which this remark
able story inspired the pencil of Darley, are its best praise.

Many of the historical episodes, the transition eras, and
much of the local character and scenery and life of the coun
try, have been pictured with memorable truth and vividness
by our romance writers. Irving and Paulding have thus
illustrated New York colonial times, the legends and the pic-

432 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

turesque scenes as well as social traits of the State ; Simms
those of the South ; Kennedy has thus illustrated Virginia ;
Dr. Bird, Kentucky ; Hoffman, the Valley of the Mohawk ;
Miss Sedgwick, primitive New England; Mrs. Stowe, Sar
gent, Trowbridge, and others, slavery ; Flint, the Valley of
the Mississippi ; McConnell, Texas ; Mayne Reid, frontier
life ; Major Winthrop, the Rocky Mountains ; Miss Warner,
Miss Chesebro', and others of their sex, the rural and charac
teristic life of the Eastern States ; and we might indefinitely
extend the catalogue. Nor should the peculiar veins of
humor indigenous to the country be forgotten as character
istic of the people — its Western, Yankee, negro, and Dutch
phases ; nor the fact be ignored that, coincident with this and
similar rude and extravagant development, we have the fin
ished romances of Ware and Poe, and the refined critical and
aesthetic writings of Dana, Hillhouse, Allston, Greenough,
and Madame d'Ossoli, and the bold humanitarian speculations
of Emerson, Dewey, James, Calvert, and others. Personal
memoirs and reminiscences are a rich mine of facts and influ-
ences, whereby the true life and significance of America may
be realized. Of the former, such biographies as those of the
heroes of our history conserved in the series of Sparks ; *
such lives as those of Buckminster and Chief- Justice Parsons,
of Irving and Prescott, indirectly exhibit the spirit of our
institutions and society ; while curious details thereof abound
in such memoirs as Graydon's, and such recollections as
Watson of Philadelphia, Manlius Sargent and Buckingham
of Boston, and Dr. Francis of New York, and Thomas,
Alden, Goodrich, Valentine, and the " Croakers," have re-
corded.f

* Sparks's " American Biography," containing the Lives of Alexander
Wilson, Captain John Smith, John Stark, Brockden Brown, General Mont
gomery, and Ethan Allen, 2 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834.

Sparks's "American Biography," first series, 10 vols., second series, 15
vols., in all, 25 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834-'50.

f Watson's "Annals;" "Dealings with the Dead," by an Old Sexton;
Buckingham's " Eecollections of Editorial Life ; " " Old New York," by J. W.

\

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 433

Such works preserve social incidents and vigorous chap
ters of individual experience, wherein the philosopher will
discover salient evidences of what is peculiar to this land and
life ; and the poet may sometimes learn what were the con
servative elements that moulded the mental and kept alive
the emotional character, the traits of natural scenery, climate,
and domestic love and duty, as well as the struggles, guides,
and glamours through and by which here grew or were
grafted whatsoever of originality redeem the social and civic
history of the New World. Pamphlets, newspapers, and
sermons, ballads, playbills, diaries and letters, schoolbooks,
holidays, old houses, gardens, portraits, and costumes, to the
eye of science and the heart of wisdom, each and all convey
their lesson of character, history, and life.

We have spoken of Cooper in prose, and Bryant in verse,
as standard authorities in the description and illustration of
American scenery ; but, throughout our native literature, the
most graphic pictures of individual landscapes, of the sea
sons in the Western world, and the most glowing exhibition
of the traits and triumphs of life, character, and history,
may be found by the discerning and sympathetic reader.
The spirit of reform, of labor, of freedom, and of faith, as
well as the characteristics of nature as here developed, have
been truly and melodiously recorded by Whittier and Holmes,
by Dana and Pierpont, by Sprague and Street, by Longfel
low and Lowell, by Drake, Percival, Halleck, and a score of
other bards. Theology, as intensified or chastened by the
social life and political institutions of the country, is elabo
rated in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton, Mayhew,
Stiles, Dwight, Witherspoon, Emmons, White, Mason, Hop
kins, Miller, Woods, Alexander, Breckenridge, Wayland,

Francis, M. D. ; Thatcher's " Military Journal ; " Thomas's " History of Print
ing in America ; " Alden's " Collection of American Epitaphs ; " " Recollec
tions of a Lifetime," by S. G. Goodrich ; " Manuals of the Common Council
of New York," by D. T. Valentine ; " The Croakers," by J. R. Drake and
Fitz Greene Halleck (annotated), first complete edition, printed by the Brad
ford Club, New York, 1860.
19

434 AMERICA AJSTD HEK COMMENTATORS.

Murray, Parks, Walker, Bethune, Chapin, Hodge, Bushnell,
Bush, Channing, Dewey, Parker, and many other representa
tive men ; and its every dogma and modification through free
dom, conservatism, and speculation, exhibited in the published
discourses of these and other of the leading clergy of all de
nominations, whose biographies,* also, written by Dr. Sprague
and others, incidentally reveal the most interesting and charac
teristic details of clerical and parish life as well as domestic
traits. To appreciate intimately the picturesque, social, or tra
ditional local features of the country, we have a group of authen
tic and graceful or vigorous and sympathetic writers, who have
sketched the scenery and life of the land with memorable
emphasis : Brown, Dennie, Tudor, Wirt, Irving, and Wilson
have been succeeded by Audubon, Kennedy, Fay, Longfel
low, Hoffman, Sands, Willis, Curtis, Mitchell, Street, Prime,
Ellet, Poe, Neal, Elliot, Hammond, Lowell, Shelton, Mil-
burn, Thorpe, Baldwin, Cozzens, Kettell, Bard, Mackie,
Headley, Parkman, Mrs. Gilman, Starr King, Strothers, Tay
lor, Webber, the Countess d'Ossoli, Whitehead, Kimball,
Holland, Lanman, Mrs. Childs, Thoreau, Higginson, Miss
Cooper, Dr. Holmes, and many others.f

Perhaps there is no class of books more characteristic of
the American mind than the numerous records of modern
exploration and travel. Herein even British critics acknowl
edge a peculiar freshness and vigor ; and this is chiefly owing
to the independent point of view, the natural spirit of ad
venture, and facility of adaptation incident to the freedom,
self-reliance, and elasticity of temper fostered by our institu-

* "Annals of the American Pulpit," by William B. Sprague, D. D.,
0 vols. 8vo., New York, 1857.

f Among the graphic landscapes, portraits, and incidents thus eliminated
from life and observation by these writers, we may mention, as significant and
illustrative, the American papers in "The Sketch Book" and "Idle Man,"
"Kavanagh," "Letters from Under a Bridge," "Up the River," "Woods
and Waters," "The Adirondack," "Rural Letters," "The Bee Hunter,"
"The Axe, Rifle, and Saddle Bags," "My Farm of Edgewood," "Wild
Scenes of the Forest and Prairie," " Lotus Eating," " A Summer Tour to the
Lakes," " The White Mountains," " At Home and Abroad," " Fireside Trav-

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 435

tions and social discipline. Europe kindles the enthusiasm,
Central America excit^| the speculative hardihood, and the
Arctic regions inspire the adventurous heroism of our coun
trymen. What they see they know how to describe, and
what they feel they can express with courage and animation ;
so that, in the memorials of other lands, the native mind
often reflects itself with singular force and fervor.* He
would miss a great source of knowledge, who, intent upon
seizing the true significance of American life and character,
or even the influences of nature and government, of trade
and travel, should ignore the journalism of the country,
wherein the immediate currents of opinion, tendencies of
society, and tone of feeling, both radical and conservative,
reckless and disciplined, find crude and casual yet authentic
utterance.

Freneau's ballads should not be thought beneath the no
tice of the candid investigator, nor even Barlow's " Hasty
Pudding ; " nor can the historical student safely neglect the
aboriginal eloquence of Red Jacket and Tecumseh, nor the
early periodical literature initiated by Dennie. He may con
sult with benefit the first scientific essays of Catesby, Ram
say, Williamson, Golden, and Mitchell ; Espy and Redfield on

els," " Walden, or Life in the Woods," " A Week on the Concord and Mer-
rimac Rivers," "The Moravian Settlement at Bethlehem, Pa.," "Carolina
Sports," " Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds," " Excursions in
Field and Forest," "Life in the Open Air," "At Home and Abroad,"
" Blackwater Chronicle," " Out-of-Door Papers," " Letters from New York,"
" Wild Sports of the South," " Rural Hours," " Letters from the Alleghany
Mountains," "The Oregon Trail," "Poetry of Travel in New England,"
" Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," " From Cape Cod to the Tropics, " &c.

* Indirectly, the literature of America illustrates the original enterprise
that, with free and bold aspiration, seeks new and laborious fields of research
or creation : as instances of which, in the most diverse spheres, may be noted
the translation of the great work of Laplace, by Bowditch, Dr. Robinson's
" Biblical Researches in Palestine," Kane's " Arctic Expedition," Allibone's
" Dictionary of Authors," that picturesque memorial of the Fur Trade,
Irving's " Astoria," and Dr. Rush on the " Human Voice ; " while the litera
ture of Travel in our vernacular has been enriched by the contributions of
Stephens, Brace, Fletcher, Wise, Melville, Mackenzie, Dana, Mayo, and
Taylor.

436 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

Climatology ; Hitchcock and Rogers on Geology ; Barton,
Nuttall, arid Grey and Torrey on Botany ; Davis, Squier, and
others on the Mounds ; Schoolcraft on the aborigines; Carey
on economical subjects ; the newspaper and diary literature,
familiar letters, and controversial pamphlets, which more than
highly finished productions bear the fresh stamp of civil and
social life, and have been wisely collected by local and State
associations, to facilitate inquiries into the past of America.*
Nor have our institutions and social tendencies lacked the
highest native criticism. One of the most consistent, lucid,
and able ethical authors in the language — William Ellery
Channing — has left, in his writings,! the most eloquent pro
tests and appeals, based on the application of religion and
philosophy to American life, character, and politics. No
writer has more perfectly demonstrated the absolute wrong
and the inevitable consequences of slavery ; and, at the same
time, no social reformer has more justly appreciated the
claims, difficulties, and duties of the slaveholder. We seek
in vain among the most renowned foreign critics of our
national character for a more unsparing, earnest, yet humane
analyst. Channing rebuked emphatically "the bigotry of
republicanism ; " continually pointed out the inadequacy of
government, in itself, to elevate and mould society; he
warned his countrymen, in memorable terms, against the
tyranny of public opinion, and advocated the rights, respon
sibilities, and mission of the individual. When slavery ex
tension was sought through the annexation of Texas ; when
the repudiation of State debts drew obloquy upon the na
tional honor ; when popular vengeance burned a Roman

* Among the early pamphleteers were James Otis (1725-'83), Josiah
Quincy, Jr. (1744-'75), John Dickinson (1732-1808); Joseph Galloway
(1730-1803), a Tory writer; Richard Henry Lee (l732-'94), Arthur Lee
(1740-'92), William Livingston (1723-'90), William Henry Drayton (1742-
'99), John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Timothy
Pickering (1748-1829).

f "Complete Works," with an Introduction, 6 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1849.

" Memoirs of, by W. H. Channing," 3 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1843, London,
1848.

AMERICAN TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 437

Catholic convent, and sought to suppress journals that pro
mulgated obnoxious views in religion and politics — this elo
quent friend of humanity seized the opportunity to show
how essential is the dependence of government, order, social
progress, and peace upon Christianity ; and how, in the last
analysis, the individual citizen alone could sustain and con
serve the freedom and the faith upon which human society
rests. He referred great public questions to first principles ;
solved political problems by spiritual truths ; recognized'
human rights as the foundation of civic rule ; justice as the
one vital element of government ; and made his hearers and
readers feel that the " forms of liberty do not constitute its
essence." Were we to select a single illustration of the
divine possibilities incident to free institutions, — liberty of
conscience and of the press, the presence of nature in her
most grand aspects of ocean, forest, and heavens, and an
equal scope for social and personal development, — considering
these national privileges in their influence upon intellectual
development and religious aspirations, — we should point to the
example, the influence, and the written thought of Chan-
ning ; for therein we find the most unfettered expression of
private conviction united to the deepest sense of God and
humanity ; the freshest expansion of freedom combined with
the most profound consciousness of individual responsibility.

CHAPTEE XI.

CONCLUSION.

FOR many years after the earlier records of travel in
America, the local and social traits therein described lin
gered ; so that those who look back half a century, find
many familiar and endeared associations revived by these
casual memorials of an antecedent period. Two principal
agencies have caused the rapid transition in outward aspect
and social conditions which make the present and the past
offer so great a contrast even within the space of an average
American life — immigration, and locomotive facilities. The
first has, in a brief space, quadrupled the population of cities,
and modified its character by a foreign element ; and the
second, by bringing the suburban and interior residents con
stantly to the seaboard, has gradually won them to trafiic and
city life. What was individual and characteristic, exclusive
and local therein, becomes thus either changed or superseded.
There is no longer the reign of coteries ; individualities are
lost in the crowd ; natives of old descent are jostled aside in
the thoroughfare ; the few no longer form public opinion ;
distinctions are generalized ; the days of the one great states
man, preacher, actor, doctor, merchant, social oracle, and
paramount belle, when opinion, intercourse, and character
were concentrated, localized, and absolute, have passed away ;
and the repose, the moderation, the economy, the geniality
and dignity of the past are often lost in gregarious progress

CONCLUSION. 439

and prosperity. A venerable reminiscent may lead the curious
stranger to some obscure gable-roofed house, a solitary and
decayed tree, or border relic strangely conserved in the heart
of a thriving metropolis, and descant on the time when these
represented isolated centres of civilization. Standing in a
busy mart, he may recall there the wilderness of his youth,
and, before an old, dignified portrait by Copley, lament the
fusion of social life and the bustle of modern pretension ; or,
dwelling on the details of an ancestral letter, argue that, if
our fathers moved slower, they felt and thought more and
realized life better than their descendants, however superior
in general knowledge. Except for the purpose of literary art
and historical study, however, the past is rarely appreciated
and little known ; hence the curious interest and value, as
local illustrations, of some of these forgotten memorials of
how places looked and people lived before the days of steam,
telegraphs, and penny papers.

Sir Henry Holland, writes Lockhart to Prescott, " on his
return from his rapid expedition, declares, except friends, he
found everything so changed, that your country seemed to
call for a visit once in five years." The truth is, that, owing
to the transition process which has been going on here from
the day that the first conflict occurred between European
colonists and the savage inhabitants, to the departure of the
last emigrant train from the civilized border to the passes
of the Rocky Mountains ; and owing, also, to the incessant
influx of a foreign element in the older communities, to the
results of popular education and of political excitements and
vicissitudes, there is no country in the world in regard to
which it is so difficult to generalize. Exceptions to every
rule, modifications of every special feature and fact, oblige
the candid philosopher to reconsider and qualify at every
step.

One vast change alone in the conditions and prospects —
political, social, and economical — of this continent, since the
records of the early travellers, would require a volume to
describe and discuss — the increase of territory and of immi-

440 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

gration, with the liberal character of our naturalization laws.
Whole communities now are nationally representative ; each
people finds its church, its fetes, its newspaper, costume, and
habits organized in America. Every convulsion or disaster
abroad brings its community of exiles to our shores. After
the French Revolution, nobles and people flocked hither ;
after the massacre at St. Domingo, the Creoles who escaped
found refuge here ; famine sends thousands of Irish annually,
and in the West is a vast and thrifty German population ;
Hungarians make wine in Ohio ; Jenny Lind found her coun
trymen on the banks of the Delaware ; an Italian regiment
was organized in a few days, when New York summoned her
citizens to the defence of the Union ; and in that city, the
tokens of every nationality are apparent — the French table
d'hote^ the Italian caffe, the German beer garden, image
venders from Genoa and organ grinders from Lucca, theatres,
journals, churches, music, and manners peculiar to every peo
ple, from the Jewish synagogue to the Roman convent, from
the prohibited cavatina to the local dish, from the foreign
post-office clerk to the peculiar festival of saint or municipal
ity, betoken the versatile and protected emigration.

It is when, with the horrors of Spielberg vivid to his
fancy, such an observer beholds the industrious and cheerful
Italian exile in America ; when he notes the Teutonic crowd
grouped round the German post-office window at Chicago,
and thinks of the privations of the German peasant at home ;
when he watches the long ranks of well-fed and hilarious
Celts, in procession on St. Patrick's Day in New York, and
compares them with the squalid tenants of mud cabins in Ire
land ; when he listens to the unchecked eloquence of the
Hungarian refugee, and thinks of the Austrian censors and
sbirri / when he beholds Sisters of Charity thridding the
crowd on some errand of love ; placidly clad Friends flock
ing to yearly meeting ; Fourier communities on the Western
plains ; here a cathedral, there a synagogue ; in one spot a
camp meeting, in another a Unitarian chapel ; to-night a
political caucus, to-morrow a lyceum lecture ; here rows of

CONCLUSION. Ml

carmen devouring the daily journal, there a German picnic ;
now a celebration of the birthday of Burns, wherein the
songs and sympathies of Scotland are renewed, and now a
Gallic ball, the anniversary fete of St. George, the complacent
retrospections of Pilgrims' Day, or the rhetoric and roar of
the Fourth of July ; — it is when the free scope and the mu
tual respect, the perfect self-reliance and the undisturbed
individuality of all these opposite demonstrations, indicative
of an eclectic, tolerant, self-subsistent social order, combina
tion, and utterance, pass before the senses and impress the
thought, that we realize what has been done and is doing on
this continent for man as such ; and the unhallowed devotion
to the immediate, the constant superficial excitements, the
inharmonious code of manners, the lawlessness of border and
the extravagance of metropolitan life, the feverish ambition,
the license of the press — all the blots on the escutcheon of
the Republic, grow insignificant before the sublime possibili
ties whereof probity and beneficence, tact and talent, high
impulse and adventurous zeal may here take advantage.

An English statesman, on a visit to New York, expressed
his surprise at the spirit of accommodation and the absence
of violent language during a deadlock of vehicles in Broad
way, whence his conveyance was only extricated after long
delay. The fact made a strong impression, from its con
trast to the brutal language and manners he had often wit
nessed, under like circumstances, in London. After reflect
ing on the subject, he attributed the self-control of the baffled
carmen to self-respect. " They hope to rise in life," he said,
" and, therefore, have a motive to restrain their temper and
improve their character." There was much truth and sagacity
in this reasoning. An artist fresh from Europe and the East
observed that the expression of self-reliance was astonishing
in the American physiognomy. These spontaneous remarks
of two strangers, equally intelligent but of diverse experi
ence — the one a social and the other an artistic philosopher —
include the rationale of American civilization. The prospect
of ameliorating his condition elevates man in his own esteem,
19*

44:2 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

while self-dependence gives him confidence ; but the latter
feeling is apt to make him indifferent to public duty : hence
the gross municipal corruption and legislative abuses which
are directly owing to neglect of the duties of the citizen.
Not until there is a " rising of the people " in the cause of
national reform, as earnest and unanimous as that which ral
lied to the national defence, may we hope to see those ame
liorations, the need of which all acknowledge, to purify the
elective franchise and the judicial corps, make the centripe
tal force in political affairs dominate the centrifugal, and
bring the best men in capacity and honor to the highest
positions.

To the eye and mind of an American, when disciplined
by study and foreign observation, while the incongruities of
our social and physical condition, as a nation, are often start
ling, the elastic temper, the unsubdued confidence of the
national character, reconcile discrepancies and console for
deficiencies, by the firm conviction that these are destined to
yield to a civilization whose tendency is so diffusive. There
are, indeed, enough signs of amelioration to encourage the
least sanguine. Within a few years, the claims of genius
and character, of taste and culture, have been more and more
practically recognized. The refinements in domestic econo
my, the popularity of art, the prevalent love and cultivation
of music, the free institutions for self-culture, the new appre
ciation of rural life, the tempered tone of religious contro
versy, the higher standard of taste and literature, and the
more frequent study of the natural sciences, are obvious indi
cations of progress in the right direction, since the severe
comments upon American life and manners were partially
justified by facts. Even the specific defects noted by travel
lers half a century ago, are essentially lessened or have quite
disappeared.

A living and candid French writer alludes to the United
States as " une terre plus separee de nous par les nuages de
nos prejuges que par les brouillards de 1'Atlantique." Not a
few of these prejudices had their origin in facts that no

CONCLUSION. 443

longer exist. It is almost impossible for a European to make
due allowances for the changes that occur on this side of the
water. But while some of the minor faults and dangers re
corded by tourists are obsolete, the chief obstacles recognized
by all thoughtful observers to our national welfare, are only
so far diminished that they are more clearly apprehended and
more candidly acknowledged. The crisis foretold as regards
slavery, has arrived, and taken the form of an unprovoked
rebellion against the Federal Government, whereby the na
tional power and virtue have been confirmed and elicited.
The double term of the Presidential office, the almost indis
criminate right of electoral suffrage, in connection with the
vast emigration of ignorant and degraded natives of Europe,
the facility in making and consequent recklessness in spend
ing money, the extension of territory, the decadence in public
spirit, the increase of unprincipled political adventurers, and
the license of the press, have, each and all, as prophesied and
anticipated, worked out an immeasurable amount of political
and social evil. Irreverence and materialism have kept pace
with success ; abuses in official rule, neglect in civic duty,
convulsions in finance, crises of political opinion and parties
— a kind of mechanical, unaspiring, self-absorbed prosperity,
have resulted from so many avenues to wealth thrown open to
private enterprise, and such a passion for gain and office as
the unparalleled opportunity inevitably breeds. Yet, withal,
there have been and are redeeming elements, auspicious signs,
hopeful auguries ; and those who are least cognizant of these,
should never forget that our social life and political system
bring everything to the surface ; and it is the average
character of a vast nation, and not the acts of a few exclu
sive rulers, that the daily journals of the United States re
veal. The Government is always behind and below what it
represents ; the facts of the hour that are patent, and taken
as significant of the national life, are bu£ partial exponents
of private use, beauty, faith, freedom, progress, and peace,
which eternal blessings the individual is more free to seek

44:4: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

here and now, than under any institutions the record whereof
is concealed in royal cabinets.

It has long been an accepted proposition, that the peculiar
interest, importance, and moral significance of the United
States in the family of nations, rests exclusively on a practical
realization of the " greatest good of the greatest number ; "
in other words, Europe has represented the idea of culture
and of .society — America of material prosperity, the paradise
of- the masses, the one place on earth where nourishment and
shelter can be had most certainly in exchange for labor :
hence the manners of the country have been invariably criti
cized, and physical resources magnified ; and hence, too, the
cant whereby a few general facts are made to overshadow
countless special details of life, of character, and of civiliza
tion. Never was there a populous land whose inhabitants
were so uniformly judged en masse, or one about which the
truth has been more generalized and less discriminated. We
find it quite easy to imagine the far different conclusions to
which an observant and perspicacious student of life in Amer
ica might arrive, with ample opportunities and sympathetic
insight. To such a mind, the individual of adequate endow
ments, born and bred or long resident here, would offer traits
and triumphs of character or experience, directly resulting
from the political, social, and natural circumstances of the
country, which, to say the least, would impress him with the
originality and possible superiority thereof in a psychological
or ethnological view. To group, define, or analyze these
peculiarities, would require not only an artist's insight and
skill, but a much broader range than a traveller's hasty jour
nal or a reviewer's flippant commentary. There is one branch
of the subject, however, to which every thinking observer is
irresistibly led — the remarkable diversities of tone and tact,
of vigor and adaptation, of personal conviction and individual
careers, which the life of the prairies and the mart, and the
plantation, the seaboard, and the interior, the scholar of the
East, the hunter of the West, the agriculturist of the South,
and the manufacturer of the North, mould, foster, and train ;

CONCLUSION. 44:5

the rare and rich social combination thence eliminated ; the
occasional force and beauty, bravery and influence thus de
veloped in a way and on a scale unknown to Europe : such
possibilities and local tendencies being furthermore infinitely
modified and tempered, intensified or diffused, by the extra
ordinary degree of personal freedom and range of specula
tion and belief, experiment and inquiry — religious, scientific,
political, and economical ; — perhaps not the least striking evi
dence whereof is to be found in the modification of national
traits observed in foreigners who become Americanized — the
sensitive and capricious native of Southern Europe, often
attaining self-reliance and progressive energy ; the English
solidity of character becoming " touched to finer issues" by
attrition with a more liberal social life and a less humid cli
mate ; and even Gallic vivacity reaching an unwonted practi
cal and judicious equilibrium : for it is a curious fact, that the
student of character can nowhere detect in solution so many
of the influences of all climes and the idiosyncrasies of all
nations, as in this grand rendezvous and arena — obnoxious,
indeed, to the evils that attend extravagance, superfluity, in
congruity, the wilfulness and the wantonness of gregarious
prosperity ; but none the less radiant and real with the hope
and the health of abundant human elements, and the abey
ance of caste, despotism, and conformity ; so that, more and
more, the great lesson of moral independence comes home to
personal conviction. From early learning to work and think
for themselves, and to feel for others, our people grow in the
intimate conviction that here and now, if nowhere else in
God's universe, men and women can, by the just exercise of
their will and the wise use of their opportunities, live accord
ing to their individual wants, capacities, and belief; rise
above circumstances ; assert their individuality ; cultivate
their powers in faith and freedom ; enjoy their gifts ; and
become, however situated, true and benign exemplars of
manhood and womanhood. And in all these natural and civic-
agencies that excite and eliminate and intensify, ay, and
often prematurely wear out and unwisely concentrate the

446 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS.

energies and the life of humanity here, we behold an arena,
a series of influences, a means and medium of experience and
experiment, designed by Infinite Wisdom for a special pur
pose in the vast economy of the world ; and before this con
viction the pigmies of political prejudice and the venal critics
of the hour sink into contempt.

In a broad view and with reference to humanity, as such,
it is Opportunity that distinguishes and consecrates American
institutions, nationality, nature, and life. No microscopic or
egotistical interpretation can do justice to the country. A
narrow heart, a conventional standard, are alike inapplicable
to test communities, customs, resources, as here distributed
and organized. Berkeley as a Christian, Washington as a
patriotic and De Tocqueville as a political philosopher, recog
nized Opportunity as the great and benign distinction of
America. The very word implies the possible and probable
abuses, the periods of social transition, the incongruities,
hazards, and defects inevitable to such a condition. Com
merce, science, and freedom are the elements of our prosper
ity and character ; and it is no Utopian creed, that, by the
laws of modern civilization, they work together for good ;
but the dilettante and the epicurean, the rigid conservative,
the exacting man of society, and the selfish man of the
world, find their cherished instincts often offended, where the
generous and wise, the noble and earnest soul is lost in " an
idea dearer than self," when, with disinterested acumen and
sympathy, regarding the spectacle of national development
and personal success.

To the eye of a historical and ethical philosopher, no pos
sible argument in favor of liberal institutions can be more
impressive than the insane presumption which has led men of
education and knowledge of the world to stir up and lead an
insurrection to secure, in this age and on this continent, the
perpetuity and political sanctity of human slavery. So des
perate a moral experiment argues the irrationality as well as
the inhumanity of " property in man " with trumpet-tongued
emphasis. And this solemn lesson is enforced by the new

CONCLUSION. 447

revelation, brought about by civil war, of the actual influence
of slavery upon character. The ignorance and recklessness
of the " poor whites " became fanatical under the excitement
to passion and greed, which the leaders fostered to betray
and brutalize the " landless resolutes." Under no other cir
cumstances, by no conceivable means, except through the
unnatural and inhuman conditions of such a social disorgani
zation, could a white population, in the nineteenth century,
on a flourishing continent and under an actually free Gov
ernment, be cajoled and maddened into hate, unprovoked by
the slightest personal wrong, and exhibiting itself in blas
phemy, theft, drunkenness, poisoning, base and cruel tricks,
barbarities wholly unknown to modern civilized warfare ;
such as bayoneting the wounded, wantonly shooting prison
ers, desecrating the dead to convert their bones into ghastly
trophies, and leaving behind them, in every abandoned camp,
letters malign in sentiment, vulgar in tone, and monstrous in
orthography — patent evidences of the possible coexistence
of the lowest barbarism and ostensible civilization, and the
moral necessity of anticipating by war the suicidal crisis of
a fatally diseased local society.

When the English replied to John Adams's defence of
the American Constitution, their chief argument against it
was, that, in war, the Executive had not adequate power.
This supreme test has now been applied in a desperate civil
conflict. An educated people have sustained the Government
in extending its constitutional authority to meet the national
exigency, without the least disturbance of that sense of pub
lic security and private rights essential to the integrity of our
institutions. Nor is this all. The war for the Union has, in a
few months, done more to solve the problem of free and slave
labor, to do away with the superstitious dread of servile in
surrection in case of partial freedom, to expose the fallacies
of pro-slavery economists, to demonstrate the identity of
prosperous industry with freedom, to mutually enlighten dif
ferent populations, to make clear the line of demarcation
between, the patriot and the politician, to nationalize local

448 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

sentiment, to make apparent the absolute resources of the
country and the normal character of the people, and thus to
vindicate free institutions, than all the partisan dissensions
and peaceful speculation since the Declaration of Indepen
dence. Moreover, the war has developed original inventive
talent in ordnance and camp equipage, afforded precisely the
discipline our people so " disinclined to subordination " need
ed, won our self-indulgent young men from luxury to self-
denial, evoked the generous instincts of the mercantile classes,
called out the benign efficiency of woman, confirmed the
popular faith, fused classes, made heroes, unmasked the selfish
and treacherous, purified the social atmosphere, and, through
disaster and hope deferred, conducted the nation to the high
est and most Christian self-assertion and victory. The his
tory of the Sanitary Commission, the improvements in mili
tary science, the letters of the rank and file of the Union
army preserved in the local journals, the topographical reve
lations, personal prowess, vast extent of operations, new
means and appliances, and momentous results, will afford the
future historian not only unique materials, but fresh and sur
prising evidence of the elements of American civilization as
exhibited through the fiery ordeal of civil war. The Procla
mation* of the President of the United States at the close

* "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

" We, of this Congress, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

" No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another
of us.

" The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or
dishonor to the latest generation.

" We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that
while we say this, we do know how to save the Union. The world knows we
do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the
responsibility.

" In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable
alike in what we give and what we preserve.

" We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of the earth.

" Other means may succeed. This could not fail.

" The way is plain — peaceful, generous, just ; a way which, if followed,
the world will ever applaud, and God must forever bless.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

CONCLUSION. 44:9

of the year 1862, betokens a new and advanced charter of
American progress.

" Will anybody deny," asks John Bright, in a recent
speech to his constituents, " that the Government at Wash
ington, as regards its own people, is the strongest Govern
ment in the world at this hour ? And for this simple reason,
because it is based on the will of an instructed people. Look
at its power. I am not now discussing why it is, or the cause
which is developing this power ; but power is the thing which
men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe
mainly to European institutions. But look at the power
which the United States have developed ! They have brought
more men into the field, they have built more ships for their
navy, they have shown greater resources than any other na
tion in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the
order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you
see by the papers, 50,000, or 100,000, or 250,000 persons
voted in a given State, with less disorder than you have seen
lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England — Barn-
stable, Windsor, and Andover. Look at their industry. Not
withstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their
manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted
success. They are ruled by a President chosen, it is true,
not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the
people, and one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have
gained him universal praise. And now the country that
has been vilified through half the organs of the press in
England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too,
as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen, —
that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home
for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the
old Governments of Europe. And, when this mortal strife is
over, when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when
the Union is cemented afresh — for I would say, in the lan
guage of one of our poets addressing his country,

' The grave 'a not dug where traitor hands shall lay,
In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away ' —

450 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS.

then Europe and England may learn that an instructed de
mocracy is the surest foundation of government, and that
education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness
and true happiness among any people."

When the new scientific methods of historical writing are
applied to the annals of our own country, some remarkable
coincidences and a dramatic unity in the sequence of memo
rable events will illustrate the chronicle. To subdue the wil
derness ; to colonize with various nationalities a vast conti
nent ; to vindicate, by the ordeal of battle, the supremacy
among them of the Anglo-Saxon element ; to raise and purify
this into political self-assertion, by establishing free institu
tions ; under their auspicious influence to attain the great
est industrial development and territorial expansion ; and,
finally, in these latter days, to solve, by the terrible alterna
tive of civil war, the vast and dark problem of slavery — this
is the momentous series of circumstances whereby it has
pleased God to educate this nation, and induce moral results
fraught with the highest duties and hopes of humanity ; and,
deeply conscious thereof, we cannot but exclaim, with our
national poet :

u 0 country^ marvel of the earth !

0 realm to sudden greatness grown !
The age that gloried in thy birth,

Shall it behold thee overthrown?
Shall traitors lay thy greatness low ?
No ! land of hope and blessing, no ! "

INDEX.

INDEX.

A BU8E of America, English, 252.

2i Addison, writings of, compared with
those of Washington Irving, 288.

Address of eminent Frenchmen to loyal
Americans, 154.

Addresses, commemorative, 421.

Adrian!, Count, 340; "Washington's opin
ion of his book, 340.

Adventure, spirit of Americans for, 434.

Agassiz, on the priority of the. formation
of the American continent, 14.

Albany, sketch of society at, by Mrs.
Grant, 172 : Peter Kalm's picture of, in
1749, 296.

Alessandro, Pietro d', 342; his letters from
Boston, 343 ; visits Cambridge, 349 ; the
Boston Athenaeum, 351.

Allouez, Father Claude, narrative of, 44.

Allston, Washington, on the affinity which
should exist between the United States
and England, 259.

Alyaco, Petrus de, " Imago Mundi,"
Washington Irving's remarks on, 23.

America, similarity of, to Italy in furnish
ing subjects of interest to authors, 2 ;
general sameness of writings of travels
in, 4 ', European writers of travels in,
each interested in a different theme, 4 ;
toleration in, the source of its attraction
to foreign exiles, 7; natural features
also interest, 7 ; early discoverers and
explorers of, 13 ; its natural features
conduce to the spread of civilization,
15 ; its antiquities compared with those
of the Old World, 16 ; conjectures in
regard to the primitive inhabitants of
America, 17 ; claimed by the Welsh to
have been discovered by Madoc in 1170,
18 ; early pictorial representations of
manners and customs or its inhabitants,
23 ; the fifteenth and sixteenth centu
ries prolific in works on, 24 ; curious re
lics of annals of discovery in, 26 ; mis
cellaneous publications relating to, 33 ;
English abuse of, 252 ; book collectors
in, 317 ; deceptions practised upon trav
ellers in, 341 ; self-respect of its people,
441.

American travellers and writers, 371.

Ampere, J. J.," Promenade enAmerique,"
142; notes carelessness of Americana,
143 ; versatility of his descriptions, 144 .

Anbury, Thomas, "Travels in the Inte
rior of America," 186 ; description of
Cambridge, Mass., 187 ; notices the de
fective teeth of Americans, 188 ; regrets
that he cannot visit Boston, 188 ; anx
iety to return to England, 188.

Antiquities, American, compared with
those of the Old World, 16.

Asho, Thomas, 202; his travels in Amer
ica, 203 ; his peculiar opinions of Amer
icans, 204.

Athenaoum, the Boston, described by Pie
tro d'Alensandro, 350.

•HACKWOODSMEN, American, TaJ-

1) leyrand's opinion of, 114.

Bancroft, George, visit of John G. Kohl to,
at Newport, 324.

Barre, Col., on English of America before
the Revolutionary war, 254.

Bartlett, John R., " Dictionary of Amer
icanisms,1' 286 ; similarity between tho
provincialisms of New England and
those of Great Britain, 286.

Bartram, John, 372 ; his botanical labors,
372 ; his travels, 374 ; Peter Collinson'a
opinion of him, 374; his close observ
ance of nature, 376; description of Os-
wego, 377 ; appointed botanist and nat
uralist to the king of England, 378 ; ex
plores Florida, 379 ; his homo life, 380. .

Bartram, William, 382 ; his study of na
ture, 384.

Beaumont, Gustavo de, his " Marie," 189 ;
women of America and France com
pared, 141.

Belknap, Dr., the foremost primitive lo
cal historian of America, 3 ; founder of
tho Massachusetts Historical Society,
3 ; his description of the White Moun
tains, 3.

Beltrami, J. C., " Pilgrimage in Europe
and America," 342.

Benton, Thomas H., sketch of, 322.

Berkeley, Bishop G., 166 ; obtains a char
ter for erecting a college in Bermuda,

454

INDEX.

157 ; his letters, 157 ; Walpole and, 158 ;
lines of, 159 ; marries and embarks for
America, 159 ; his friendship for Smi-
bert the painter, 161 ;his sacrifices, 161 ;
arrives at Newport, R. I., 162 ; religious
condition of Rhode Island in 1714,162;
his reception at Newport, 163 ; letter
describing the town, 164 ; is delighted
with American scenery, 165 ; his muni
ficence to Yale College, 167 ; memorials
of his residence in America, 169.

Biography, American, 424, 432.

Blackwooffs Magazine, remarks of, on
Harriet Martineau's book, 225 ; its ridi
cule of Yale College and New England-
era, 263.

Bonaparte, Joseph, resides in seclusion in
New Jersey, 122.

Book collectors, American, 317.

Books of travel, diversity of treatment of, 4.

Boston, notes of Marquis de Chastellux
on, 74 ; described by L'Abbe Robin in
1781, 76 • its people, 77 ; commerce, 78 ;
visit of Brissot de Warvilie to, 83 ; com
mercial intercourse of, in 1729, 166 ; John
G. Kohl's impressions of, 313 ; book col
lectors of, 317 ; Luigi Castiglione's im
pressions of, 339 ; Pietro d'Alessandro's
description of its people, 345.

Botany, promoters of the science of, in
America, 372.

Botta, Carlo, 334.

Bradford, Governor, poetical description
o'f New England, 33.

Breckinridge, Dr., on the necessity of the
maintenance of the American Union, 277.

Bremer, Fredrika, her novels, 298 ; her
reception in America, 298 ; her compari
sons of Swedish and American scene
ry, 299 ; her curiosity, 299.

Bright, John, on the strength of the
United States Government, 449.

Brillat-Savarin, " Physiologic du Gout,"
125 ; wild-turkey shooting, 126 ; visit to
the family of M. Bulow, 127.

Brissot de Warvilie, 82 ; visits Boston,
83 ; journeys to New York, 84 ; Phila
delphia, 84 •, visits Washington at Mount
Vernon, 85 ; Whittier's lines on, 86 ; his
anti-slavery sympathies, 86 ; admiration
of Americans, 87 ; sketch of New York
city in 1788, 87 ; smoking in New York,
88.

Bristed, Rev. John, 205 ; his " America
and her Resources," 205 ; opinion of Lon
don Quarterly Review on his work, 206.

British authors, writings of, compared
with those of America, 288.

British colonists in America described by
Charlevoix, 49.

British travellers and writers on America,
156; desirableness and feasibility of a
compilation of their works, 215 ; miscel
laneous works of, on America, 218, 219,
220, 222, 224, 229.

Brown, Charles Brockden, translates Vol-
ney's work on America, 97.

Browning, Elizabeth, on British illiber-
ality, 290.

Bryant, William Cullen, his " Letters of a
Traveller," 418 ; his poems, 430.

Bulow, M., visit of Brillat-Savarin to the
family of, 127.

Burke, Edmund, " Account of the Euro
pean Settlements in America," 181.

Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 173 ; his descrip
tion of Virginians, 173 ; visits Philadel
phia, 174 ; New York, 174 ; opinion of
Long Island, 175 ; visits Rhode Island,
175 ; opinion of its people, 175 ; his de
scription of Bishop Berkeley's residence
at Newport, 176 ; visits "Boston and
Cambridge, 177 ; strict observance of
the Sabbath in New England, 178 ; his
opinions in regard to the American
colonies, 179.

Byrd, William, expeditions of, described
in the Westover Manuscripts, 32.

Byron, 211 ; his apostrophe to America,
212.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., described by Tho-

\J mas Anbury, 187 ; Pietro d'Alessan
dro's visit to, 349.

Canonicut Island, Bishop Berkeley lands
at, 162.

Capobianco, Raffaolle, 358 ; ridiculous
statements of his hook, 359.

Carli, Le Comte, " Lettres Americaines,"
5.

Carlisle, Earl of, his lecture at Leeds on
the United States, 231.

Carver, Capt. John, 387 ; his •' Travels,"
388.

Castiglione, Luigi, 338 ; his impressions of
Boston, 339 ; visit to Mount Vernon, 339.

Catholic missionaries the pioneer writers
of American travels, 37.

Charming, William Ellery, 436 ; his influ
ence on free institutions in America,
437.

Charlevoix, P. F. X., travels in Canada
and the Northwest, 47 ; his letters, 49;
account of New Englatid and other
British provinces, 49 ; description of the
Missouri and Mississippi, 50 ; review of
the scene of his labors, 51 ; his " His-
toire de la Nouvelle France," 57.

Chastellux, Marquis de, 58; a friend of
Washington, 59; his "Voyages dans
1'Amerique Septentriona1e,60 ;""romance
of his style and comparisons, 60 ; opin
ions of his writings, 61 ; his " Travels "
translated into English, 61 ; justness of
his criticisms, 62; visits Providence,
R. I., 63 ; Hartford, 64; sketch of Gov.
Trumbull, 64 ; visits the Hudson High
lands, 65 : interview with Washington
and his officers, 65 ; visits Philadelphia,
66 ; Mrs. Bache, 66 ; Robert Morris, 66 ;
social customs of Frenchmen and Qua
kers compared, 66 ; his description of
Northern New York, 67 ; journey into
Virginia, 68 ; describes Jefferson, 69 ;
minuteness of his observation, 71 ; traits
of different sections, 72 ; visits Ports
mouth, N. H., 73; attends a ball at
Boston, and describes the " prettiest of
the women dancers." 74 ; other Boston
celebrities, 74 ; takes leave of Washing
ton at Newbunrh, 74 ; his description of
Washington, 75 ; translates Col. Hum-

INDEX.

455

phrey's " Address to the American Ar
mies," 76.

Chateaubriand visits the United States,
118 ; visits Washington, 119 ; impressed
with American scenery, 120.

Children, American, Anthony Trollope
on the precocity of, 239.

Civilization, natural features of America
conduce to the spread of, 15.

Cleveland, Morris, his visit to Ohio from
New England in 1796, 400.

Clinton, De Witt, his " Letters of Hiber-
nicus," 404 ; his exploration of Western
New York, 405 ; impressed with the ne
cessity and feasibility of a great canal,
408 ; realization of his project, 410.

Cobbett, William, 208 • praises farm life in
America, 209; his bluntness, egotism,
and radicalism, 210 ; Heine's apostrophe
to, 211.

Cobden, Richard, his opinion of the Lon
don Times, 291.

Collinson, Peter, his opinion of John Bur-
tram, 374.

Columbus, Christopher, familiar with the
writings of Petrus de Alyaco, 23.

Commemorative Addresses, 421.

Congress, Continental, Jacob Duche,
chaplain of, 81.

Connecticut, a glimpse of, in Washing
ton's Diary, in 1789, 419.

Cooper, J. Fonimore, his romances com
pared with those of Scott, 288 ; endea
vors to censure and counsel, 413 ; Elal-
leck's lines on, 414 ; accuracy of his
descriptions, 430.

Cooper, Thomas, 197; his opinions of
America, 198.

Coxe, Tench, his " View of the United
States of America," 393.

Crevecceur H. St. John, settles in New
York in 1754, 89 ; Hazlitt's opinion of his
work, 89 ; his misfortunes, 90 ; his " Let
ters of an American Farmer," 90 ; taste
for rural life, 92 ; birds, 92 ; his human
ity rewarded, 93.

DABLON, Father, superior of the Otta
wa Mission, 44.

Davis, John, 200 ; his " Travels in the
United States," 201.

De Bry, " Voyages and Travels to Amer
ica," 23.

Deceptions practised upon travellers in
America, 341.

DePradt, "L'Europeet 1'Amerique," 149.

Dickens, Charles, 221; his remarks on
American slavery, 221 ; ridicules Eng
lish writers on America in " Pickwick,"
264.

Domenech, Abbe Em., his " Seven Years'
Residence in the Great' American Des
erts" ridiculed by a London journal, 6.

Douglas?, Dr. William, his work on the
" British Settlements in North America,
183 ; Adam Smith's opinion of him, 185,

Duche, Jacob, remarks of, on America
before the Revolution, 81 ; treachery of,
81.

Duval, Jules, his opinion of the advan
tages of emigration, 283.

Dwight, Timothy, " Travels in New Eng
land and New York," 390 ; Robert
Southey's opinion of his " Travels" in
the Quarterly jReview, 392.

EARLY discoverers and explorers of
America, 13.
Early travellers, accounts of, most to be

J referred, 1.
iis, William, " Letters from America,"
186.

Education, Anthony Trol'lope's opinion of
the American system of, 236.

Elliot, Rev. Jared, becomes acquainted
with Bishop Berkeley, 167.

Emigrants, European, freedom of action
enjoyed by, in America, 440.

English abuse of America, 252 ; their ig
norance of America before the Revolu
tion, 254.

English and French writers on the War
for the Union contrasted, 153.

English, brutality of the, 281; their want
of consideration for woman, 282; the
debasement of their poor, 282 ; furnish
frequent subjects for caricature, 284 ;
their ridicule of Yankeeisms, 2S6 ; Mr?.
Browning on the illiberality of the, 290 ;
Voltaire's comparison of the, 290 ;
change of feeling of Americans toward
the, 291.

English periodicals, misrepresentations of,
260.

English publisher, venality of an, 260.

European Governments, facilities offered
by, for the diffusion of knowledge re
lating to early explorations, 26 ; writers,
northern, 293 ; French literature in, 293.

Everett, Edward, his opinion of Cap
tain Basil Hall's book, 200; visit of
John G. Kohl to, 318 ; his Addresses,
429.

Expeditions, U. S. Government, 418.

Eyma, Xavier, "Vie dans le Noveau
Monde," 151.

FAUX, an English farmer, 222 ; his ab
surd calumnies, 223.

Fearon, Henry B., Sydney Smith's opinion
of, 200.

Female writers, British, on America, 222.

Fiddler, Rev. Isaac, remarks of North
American Review on his " Observa
tions," 201.

Fisch, Georges, " Les Etats Unis en
1861," 149 ; first impressions of New
York, 150 ; opinion of H. W. Beecher,
151; religion, art, etc., 151.

Flint, Timothy, 401 ; his pictures of the
West, 402 ; his " History and Geography
of the Mississippi Valley," 403 ; opinion
of the London Quarterly upon, 404.

Florida, a paradise for the naturalist, 379 ;
explored by John Bartram, 379.

Force, Peter, writings and compilations
of, 36 ; a collector of works relating to
America, 318.

Foster, John Retranslates Peter Kalm'n
" Travels in North America," 295.

French and Americans, cause of their af
finity, 153.

456

INDEX.

French and English writers on the "War
for the Union contrasted, 153.

French economical works on America, 146.

French missionaries the initiators of travel
literature in the New "World, 24; ex
plorations of, 37.

French Protestant clergy, books of, on
United States, 149.

French travellers and writers, 58.

French writers on America, their supe
rior candor, 269.

Frenchmen, American opinions of, de
scribed by L' Abbe Robin, 79 ; eminent,
address of, to loyal Americans, 154.

Furstenwatber. Baron, first impressions on
America, 303.

r\ ALE, Ludwig, " My Emigration to the

VJ United States," 306.

Gasparin, Count de, his " Uprising of a
Great People," 153.

Germans, interest of the, in the United
States, 301 ; their literature on the
United States," 302.

Goldsmith, Oliver, his ignorance of Amer
ica, 254.

Gorges, Fernando, " America Painted to
the Life," 28 : his American enterprises,
29.

Gorges, Sir Ferdinand, remarks of Win-
throp and Bancroft on, 29.

Government expeditions, U. S., 418.

Grant, Mrs., 170 ; her " Memoirs of an
American Lady," 171 ; sketch of society
at Albany, 172.

Grassi, Padre Giovanni, 341 ; his " Notes,"
341 ; extravagant statements of, 341.

Grattan, Thos. Colley, " Civilized Amer
ica," 229 ; his animadversions, 230.

Grund, Francis J., his books on America,
308 : his opinion of the writings of Basil
Hall and Hamilton, 309 ; business habits
of Americans, 309; interests of the peo
ple connected with the Government,
310 : necessity of concord between Eng
land and America, 310.

Guroweki, Adam, 300 ; his book on Amer
ica, 300.

HAERNE, Le Chanoine de, " La Ques-
tione Americaine," 301.

Hakluyt, Richard, 24 ; his works, 25.

Hall, Capt. Basil, remarks of Edward
Everett on his book, 200 ; criticized by
Blackwootfs Magazine, 200.

Hall, James, 411.

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, lines of, on Cooper,
414.

Hamilton, C.ipt. Thomas, "Men and Man
ners in America," 223 ; his prejudices,
223 • appreciates natural beauty, 223.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his book reviewed
by the London Daily News, 275 ; his hits
at British tendency to stagnation, 275 ;
his romances, 431.

Hazlitt, Wm., his opinion of Crevecoeur's
" Letters of anAmerican Farmer," 89.

Heine apostrophizes Wm. Cobbett, 211 ;
his estimate of English blockheads, 255 ;
on the exultation of the English at dis
sensions in America, 267.

Hennepin, Louis, 39 ; explores the Mis
sissippi. 40 ; returns to France, and in
1683 publishes his " Descriptions," 41.

Henry, Alexander, his " Travels and Ad
ventures," commended by Chancellor
Kent, 185.

Historical romances, American writers of,
431.

Histories, local, 426 ; general, 428.

Hodgson. Adam, 217 ; Jared Sparks's opin
ion of his book, 218.

Hoffman, Charles Fenno, his " Winter in
the West," 416 ; his geniality and versa
tility, 416.

Holland, Sir Henry, on the mutability of
everything in America, 439.

Honyman, Rev. James, receives a letter
from Berkeley, 162.

Humboldt, Alexander Von, remarks of
Prescott on, 19 : remarks of, on Amer
ica, 303.

TLLINOIS, early history of, 52 ; natural

JL features of, 53 ; commercial facilities
of, 54 ; rapid increase of population in,
54 ; Jesuit missionaries in, 55 ; Father
Marest's account of, 56.

Imlay, Gilbert, 390.

Immigration, 440.

" Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters," 394.

Ingersoll, Charles J., 395.

Inns, number of, in America, 216 ; Priscil-
la Wakefield's description of, 216.

Irving, Washington, remarks on the
" Imago Mundi" of Petrus de Alyaco,
23 ; extract from a letter from Moore to,
211 ; accounts for the abuse of English
writers of travel in the United States,
258 ; his writings compared with thoso
of Addison, 288.

Italian travellers in America, 334.

Italy and America alike interesting to
authors, 2.

JANSON, C. W'., " The Stranger in
America," 218.

Jefferson, Thomas, visit of Marquis do
Chastellux to, 69.

Jenks, Rev. Wm., D. D., account of Ma-
doc's Voyage to America in 1170, 18.

Jesuits, the, in Illinois, 55.

Jews, a number of, in Rhode Island, 168.

Johnson, Rev. Samuel, becomes acquaint
ed with Bishop Berkeley, 167.

Josselyn. John, " New England's Rarities
Discovered," 32.

Judd, Sylvester, his " Margaret," 431.

Juridical literature, 428.

KALM, Peter, 295 ; his works on Amer
ica, 295 ; notes of his diary on Phila
delphia, 295 ; his picture of Albany in
1749, 296 ; visit to Niagara Falls, 297.

Kay, Joseph, " Social Condition and Edu
cation of the People in England," 283.

Kemble, Mrs., on the affinity between the
Americans and the French, 153 ; John
G. Kohl's opinion of, 316.

Kendall, E. A., " Travels through the
Northern Parts of the United States,"
206.

INDEX.

457

Kent, Chancellor, commends cc Travels and
Adventures of Alexander Henry," 185.

Kirkland, Mrs. C. M., her books on the
West, 422.

Knight, Madame, her " Private Journal,"
385 ; her journey from Boston to New
York, 386.

Kohl, J. G-., " History of Discovery in
America from Columbus to Franklin,"
36 ; sketch of his writings, 311 ; his
impressions of Boston, 313 ; sketch of
Mrs. Kemble, 316 ; Edward Everett,
318 ; Prescott, 320 ; John Lothrop Mot
ley, 321 ; Thomas H. Benton, 322 ; visit
to Newport, 324 ; Bancroft, 324; Sumrier,
325 ; Southern hato of New England,
326.

T ABOULATE, Edouard, " Paris dans

Jj 1'Ainerique, 153.

Lafayette, on the necessity of the perpetu
ation of the American Union, 11 ; his
love of the people and institutions of
America, 148.

La Salle embarks for Canada in 1675, with
Father Hennepin, 39 ; explores the great
lakes, 39 ; gives the name to Louisiana,
40.

Lauznn, Duke de, charmed with the so
ciety at Newport, 147-

Law, writers on American, 428.

Lecomte, Col. Ferdinand, " The "War in
the United States," 300.

Lederer, John, the first explorer of the
Alleghanies, 32.

Ledyard, John, 387.

Lenox, James, a collector of books and
documents relating to America, 318.

Libraries, American private, ignorance of
British writers concerning, 274.

Lieber, Dr. Francis, 305 ; his " The Stran
ger in America," 305.

Lincoln, Abraham, Proclamation of, 448.

Literature, American, considered beneath
contempt by British writers fifty years
ago, 287 ; claimed to be made up of imi
tations of British authors, 287.

Literature, juridical, 428.

London Quarterly Review, its opinion
of Rev. John Bristed's "America and
her Resources," 206.

Lowell, factories of, compared with those
of Manchester, Eng., by Anthony Trol-
lope, 237.

MADOC, Rev. "Wm. Jenks's account
of his voyage to America in 1170, 18.

Marbois, 388 ; his "Notes on Virginia," 389.

Marest, Father, travels in Illinois, 56.

Marquette and Joliet, explorations of, 45 ;
death of Father Marquette. 45.

Martinean, Ilarri.et, 224 ; her fairness as a
writer, 224 ; Blackwoocfs opinion of her
book, 225.

Mather, Cotton, "Magnalia Christ! Amer
icana," 7, 33.

McSparren, Rev. James, letters of, 170.

Meier, K., " To the Sacramento," 300.

Menard, Father R4ne, plans an expedition
iu search of, the Mississippi in 1660, 44.

20

Michaux, Dr. F. A., risitg the country
west of the Alleghanies in 1802, 121 : his
descriptions of natural productions,

121 ; passion of Western people for spir
ituous liquors, 122.

Michelet, his opinion of America, 265.

Montalembert, discourse in the French
Academy on America, 10.

Moore, Thomas, projects emigrating to
America, 211 ; extract of letter from, to
Washington Irving, 211 ; arrives at NOT-
folk, Va., 213 ; meets Jefterson at Wash
ington, 213 ; his remarks on New York
scenery, 213; his prejudices regarding
America, 214.

Morris, Robert, description of, by Marquis
de Chastellux, 66.

Motley, John Lothrop, John G. Kohl's
sketch of, 321.

Mount, Vernon, visit of Luigi Castigliono
to, 339.

Murat, Achille, settles in Tallahassee,Fla.,

122 ; his work on the United States, 123 ;
his pro-slavery ideas, 124.

"VTATURAL features of America con-

il duce to the spread of civilization, 15.

Naturalists, interest of America to, 295.

Neal, John, writes articles on America
for Blackwootfs Magazine, 396.

New England, religious character of her
primitive annaln, 24 ; strict observance
of the Sabbath in, 178 ; Southern hate of,
326.

Newfoundland, fisheries of, long the only
attraction to European adventure, 21.

New Netherlands, Van der Dock's ac-
eount of, in 1659, 27.

Newport, R. I., its society attractive to
French officers, 148; Bishop Berkeley
arrives at, 163 ; Berkeley's discription of,
164 ; Dr Burnaby's remarks on the com
merce of, 175 ; sketch of, by John GK
Kohl, 324.

New World, the effects of ita discovery
and settlement upon maritime progress
and interests, 22.

New York Bay, Verrazzano's description
of, 338.

New York, Northern, described by Mar
quis de Chastellux, 67 ; sketch of, by
Brissot in 1788, 87 ; varied nationalities
represented in, 440.

Niagara Falls, visit of Peter Kalm to, 297.

North America, continent of, its extent
and area, 15 ; its climate, soil, and pro
ductions adapted to the tastes and wants
of European emigrants, 15; its produc
tions confounded with those of South
America by ignorant Europeans, 22 ; a
refuge from persecution in early colonial
times, 193.

North American Review, remarks of the,
on Rev. Isaac Fiddler's "Observations,"
201 ; exposes the ignorance of British
writers on America, 262.

OLMSTED, Frederick Law, his travels
in the South, 417.

Opportunity the characteristic distinction
of America, 446.

458

INDEX.

Orators, American, 429.
Oswego, John Bartram's description of,
877.

"PALMETTO tree, description of, by

1 Priscilla Wakeficld,216.

Paulding, James K., "Letters from the
South," 398 ; description of Virginia and
Its people, 399 ; his "John Bull in Amer-"
Ica," 400.

Poabody, George, his gift to tho London
working class, 280.

Pinchln, Mr., one of the first settlers of
Springfield, Macs., 29.

Pisani, Licut.-Col. Ferri, 365 : his impres-
slons on the patriotism of the American
people, 366 ; visits tho Union and Rebel
armies, 369 ; pleased with Bohton and its
society, 370.

Poets, American, 433.

Political treatises, American, 428.

Portsmouth. X. H., visit of Marqnll de
Chastelhix to. 73.

Pn-nti.-<-, Archibald, " A Tour in tho Uni
ted States," 246 ; his appreciation of
American character, 246 ; compares
American to Scotch scenery, 246 ; Amer-
iean dislike to " John Bull," 247.

Prescott,William II. .sketch of, by John G.
Kohl, 320.

Press, the Paris, on tho War for tho
Union, 152; tho British, its general un
fairness on the American question. 244 ;
the British, blinded by self-love In dis
cussing American institutions, 280.

I'rimiiivo inhabitants of America, conjec
tures in regard to the, 17.

Providence, R. I., sketch of, by Marquis do
Chastellux, 62.

Purchas, Rev. Samuel, 25.

QUAKERS, prevalence of in Rhodo
Island, 168.

|)AFN, Carl Christaln, claims tho dls-

lt covery of America by tho Scandi
navians in tho tenth century, 13 ; his
"Northern Antiquities," 294.

Raumer, Frcidrich von, "America and Un-
American People," 304.

Raynal, tho Abbe, writings of, on Ameri
ca, 107.

Rebellion, tho Slaveholders', literature
arising from, 8 ; Anthony Trollope'H
view of, 242.

Reference, American works of, 427.

Religious Annals of America, 420.

Religious sects in America, writers on, 420.

Rovuo des Deux Mondes, the, on French
disinterestedness, 272.

Rhode Island, Bishop Berkeley Kettles in,
168; religious toleration in, 168: preva
lence of Quakers in, 108 ; Jews In, 168 ;
Dr. Burnaby's opinion of the people of,
175; Major Robert Rogers'* oplnori of,181.

Ritter, Prof. Carl, "Geographical Stud
ies," 1ft.

Robin, L'Abbo, describes Boston in 1781,
76 ; customs of its people, 77 ; its com
merce, 78 ; American ideas of French
men, 79.

Robinson, Mrs. (Talvi), 329.

Rochambeau, Count, arrives at Newport,
R. I., In 1780, 111 ; his " Memolres," 111;
opinion of American women, 112 ; de
scription of a settlement, 112; church
and state in America, 113 ; popular re
spect for law, 113; 10 impressed with the
patriotism of the people, 114.

Rochefoncault, Duke de La, visits
America, 94 ; his minuteness of detail,
95 ; traits of American character, 96.

Rogers, Major Robert, 181 ; his opinion of
people of Rhode Island, 181.

Romances, American historical, 431.

RuppiuB,()tto, the novels of, on the United
States, 310.

Rush, Richard, on the fall of tho naval su
premacy of Great Britain, 256.

PABBATII, strict observance "of the, in

O New England, 178.

Salvatore Abbate e MiKllorl, 302.

San Domingo, connection of Columbus
with, 20.

Kaxc-Weimar-Eisenac-h, Bernhard, Duko
of, his "Travels in North America," 304.

Scenery and local features of America,
writers on the, 434.

Sclinff, Dr. Philip, 330 ; his " Sketch of tho
Political, Social, and Religious Character
of the United States," 330 ; respect for
law in America, 332 ; relation of Ameri
ca to Europe, 333.

Sobultz, Christian, "Travels," 806; his de
scription of locomotive facilities in the
United States in 1807-'8, 300.

Science, American writers on the various
branches of, 435.

Scotch writers on America, 245.

Seatsfleld, Charles, novels of, on tho Unit
ed States, 310.

Sects, religious, writers on, in America,
426.

Segur, Count, arrives in America in 1783,
115 ; becomes attached to the Quakers
of Philadelphia, 116; is favorably im
pressed with the American people, 116 ;
dines with Washington, 116 : prophetic
significance of his observations on the
future of America, 117 ; his remarks on
embarking for the West Indies, 117.

Sicily, ignorance of its people concerning
America, 361.

Slavery, American, Dickens's remarks on,
201; its debasing and brutalizing influ
ence, 447.

Srnibert, the painter, embarks for Amer
ica with Bishop Berkeley, IfiO ; paints
portraits of Berkeley and his family,
100 ; Horace Walpole'l opinion of, 160 ;
bis contributions to art in New England,
160 ; Berkeley's lasting regard for. 101 ;
notices identity of race between Narra-
ganset Indians and Siberian Tartars,
167.

Smith, .Captain John, his explorations iu
America, 27; his writings on America,
28.

Smith, Sydney, hli opinion of Henry B.
Fearon, 2(X).

Kmytho, J. F. D., his "Tour in the United

INDEX.

459

States of America, 188 ; his opinion of
Washington, 191 ; views of Americans,
192.

Smythe, Prof., remarks on the collections
of Hakluyt and Purchas, 26.

Society. Northern European writers on, in
the United States, 307.

Southern hate of New England, 326.

Southey, Rebert, his opinion of Timothy
Dwight's " Travel!*," 392.

Spanish and Portuguese the pioneers in
voyaging westward, 21.

Springrield, Mass., account of the first set
tlement of, 29 ; its appearance in 1645, 30.

Statistical works, Ami-rican, 427.

Stirling, James, " Letters from the Slave
States," 247 ; respect and affection due
from England to America, 250.

Sumner, Charles, visited by John G. Kohl,
325.

Sweden, writers of, on America, 293 ; colo
ny of, on the Delaware, 297.

TALLEYRAND, his opinion of Amer
ican backwoodsmen, 114.

Theology, writers on, in America, 433.

Times, the London, its inimical spirit to
ward America. 291: Cobden's opinion of,
291.

Tocqueville, Alexis De, sent to Amer
ica in 1830, 129 ; his " Democracy in
America," 130 ; his philosophical view
of American institutions, 132 ; his death,
134 ; notices a similarity of American
tastes and habits, whether in the city or
the wilderness, 136 ; his idea of State
sovereignty, 13S ; considers the probable
future supremacy of America and Rus
sia over each haff of the globe, 139 ; on
English selfishness, 268 ; remarks on re
ligion in America, 270 ; English opinion
of his writings on America, 272.

Toleration in America the source of its
attraction to foreign exiles. 7.

Travel, books of, enduring in interest, 1 ;
general sameness of writings of,in Amer
ica, 4 ; miscellaneous French works of,
on America, 146, 147.

Trollope, Anthony, 232; his "North
America," 232 ; his candor as a writer,
232 ; his ignorance of previous writings
on America, 234 ; his egotism, 234 ; im
pressed with the beauty of American
scenery, 236 ; education and labor in the
United States and England contrasted,
236 ; dislikes " Young America," 238 ;
American women met in public convey
ances, 239 : spoiled children, 239; versa
tility of the Americans, 240 ; mania of
Americans for travel, 241 ; opinion of
the rebellion, 241.

Trollope, Mrs., 225 ; her <: Domestic Man
ners of the Americans," 225 ; her pow-
i-rs of observation, 225 ; superficiality of
her judgment, 226 ; is pleased with
American scenerv, 228 ; her want of
di scrim i nation, 228.

Tudor. William, " Letters from the East
ern States," 412.

Turrel, Jane, "An Invitation to the Coun
try," 33.

UNION, the war for the, changes of
opinion wrought by, 447 ; its influ
ence on society, 448,

United States, the earliest descriptions and
associations connected with its territory
tinctured with tradition, 19 • extent of
the, 276; John Bright on the strength
of the Government of the, 449.

VAN DER DOCK'S account of New
Netherlands in 1659, 27.

Verrazzano, 338 ; his description of New
York Bay in 1524, 338.

Virginia, the name given to the Jamestown
colony, 21; provincial egotism of, 30;
jouriH^ of Marquis de Chastellux into,
68; the people of, described by Rev. An
drew Burnaby, 173 ; number of early
descriptions of, o97 ; its associations,
397.

Volney, C. F.,work of, on America, 97;
his earlv passion for travel, 9S ; a victim
of the French Revolution, 99 ; his phi
losophy, 100; dilliculties as an emi
grant, 101 ; his death, 101 ; review of
his life and writings, 102 ; recollections
of by Dr. Francis of New York, 105 ;
his visit to Warrentown, 105 ; scientific
vein of his writings, 106.

Voltaire,his comparison of the English,290.

WAKEFIELD, Priscilla, her com
pilation from the works of
early writers on America, 215; de
scription of the Palmetto Royal,
216; number of inns met with in
America, and independence of inn
keepers, 216.

Walpole, Horace, his opinion of Bishop
Berkeley's scheme, 158 ; his sketch of
Smibert, the painter, 160.

Walsh, Robert, 395 ; his " Appeal," 395.

Wansey, Henry, 194 ; his " Excursion to
the United States," 194 ; breakfasts with
Washington at Philadelphia, 194 ; his
impressions of Washington, 194 ; re
marks the general contentment of the
people, 195 ; journeys through New En
gland, 195; meets distinguished persons
at New York, 196.

Washington, George, first interview of
Marquis do Chastellux with, 65 ; takes
leave of De Chastellux at Newburgh, 74;
described by De Chactellux, 75 ; visited
by Brissot de Warville at Mount Ver-
non, 85 ; J. F. D. Smythe's opinion of,
191 ; breakfasts with Henry Wansey,
194 : his opinion of Count Adriani's
book, 340 ; a glimpse of Connecticut,
419 ; visits Boston, 421.

Webster, Daniel, imperishability of the.
record of his eloquence, 429.

Weld, Isaac, "Travels in America," 207.

Welsh, the, claim to be early explorers ol
America, 17.

Western travel and adventure, books of,
422.

Whcaton, Henry, " History of the North
men," 19.

White, Rev. James, on British prejudices.
266.

460

INDEX.

Wied, Prince Maximilian von, "Journey
through* America.'1 305.

Williams, Roger, liberal spirit of, 168.

Wilson, Alexander, 199 ; his " American
Ornithology," 199.

Winterbotham, his authorities in compi
ling his " View of the United States," 3.

Wlnthrop, John, journal of, 31 ; on the de
basement of the poor in England, 282.

Wirt,Wm., "Letters of a British Spy," 412.

Women, American, Anthony Trollope's
remarks on, 239.

Wood, William, " New England Pros
pect," 32.

VALE College, gifts of Bishop Berke-
1 ley to, 167.

yENGER, John P., printer of the New
Li York Weekly Journal, narrative of

his trial for libel, 7.

Zimmerman, E. A. W., "France and it D
Free States of North America," 306.

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