INCHIQUIN, 
 THE JESUIT S LETTERS, 
 
 DURING A LATE RESIDENCE IN 
 
 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA : 
 
 BEING 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 A PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED 
 
 IN EUROPE ; 
 
 CONTAINING A FAVOURABLE VIEW OF THE MANNERS, LITERA 
 TURE, AND STATE OF SOCIETY, OF THE UNITED STATES, AND 
 A REFUTATION OF MANY OF THE ASPERSION S CAST UPON THTS 
 COUNTRY, BY FORMER RESIDENTS AND TOURISTS. 
 
 BY SOME UNKNOWN FOREIGNER. 
 
 Veduti Ubaldo, in giovinezza e cerchi 
 Varj costumi avea, varj paesi, 
 Percgrinaiido dai piu f< eddi cerchi 
 Del nosiro mondo agli Etiopi accesi : 
 .B come uom che virtute e sen no merchi, 
 Le favelle, le usanze, e i riti appresi. 
 
 Tasso La Gierusalemme Liberata, 
 Canto decimoquarto, 
 
 Printed nnd published by 1. Riley. 
 1810. 
 
D1ST1UCT Oi NEW-YOliK, ss. 
 
 T3E IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-second day of December, 
 JO in the thirty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of Ame 
 rica, ISAAC KILEY of the said district, hath deposited in this office 
 the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words 
 following, to wit : 
 
 " Inchiquin, the Jesuit s Letters, during a late residence in the United 
 " States of America : being a fragment of a private correspondence, acci- 
 * dentally discovered in Em*ope ; containing a favourable view of the 
 " manners, literature, and state of society, of the United States, and a re- 
 " futation of many of the aspersions cast upon this country, by former re- 
 "sidents and tourists. By some unknown foreigner. 
 
 c Veduti Ubaldo, in giovinezza e cerchi 
 1 Varj costumi avea, varj paesi, 
 Peregrinando dai pin freddi cerchi 
 Del nostro mondo agli Etiopi accesi : 
 E come uom che virtute e senno merchi, 
 * Le faveile, le usanze, e i riti appresi. 
 
 " Tasso La Gierusalemme Liberata, 
 " Canto decimoquarto." 
 
 IN CONFORMITY to the act of the Congress of the United States, en 
 titled, " An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies 
 " of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, 
 * during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to an act, entitled, "An 
 " act, supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of 
 " learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors 
 " and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and 
 " extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and 
 " etching historical and other prints." 
 
 CHARLES CLINTON, 
 
 Clerk of the District of New-York. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE JESUIT S LETTERS. 
 
 Some Letters, supposed to have been written by, and to, an Irish Jesiti( f 
 during his residence in the United Stales of America. 
 
 THE letters here published, were bought at a bookseller s 
 stall in the street, in Antwerp, for the humble consideration 
 of a French crown. They were tied up together in an en 
 velope, on which was written, " Letters from America." 
 From internal evidence, and as a more saleable designation, 
 they have been denominated " The Jesuit s Letters." They 
 are given to the world by the American editor, precisely as 
 he has been assured they were found in manuscript, without 
 any encroachments upon their disposition or matter. Where 
 * * occur, the words were carefully marked out with a pen, 
 beyond the possibility of restoration. The same method had 
 been pursued to conceal the names ; but with less success : 
 for though it cannot be pretended that they are unquestiona 
 bly reclaimed, yet great pains have brought them nearly to 
 light ; and, it is believed, those herein prefixed are almost, if 
 not quite, the same that were subscribed to the originals. 
 This, however, is a matter of no great moment, as it can 
 hardly be doubted the names are fictitious, and therefore 
 they afford no clew to the correspondents. 
 
 The purchaser from the bookseller at Antwerp, was not 
 an American, and had not the patience, though well acquaint 
 ed with the English language, in which they are written, 
 to decypher the whole MS. ; but he explored enough to 
 awaken a common curiosity to know something of the authors. 
 With this view, he returned to the stall, and inquired of 
 the bookseller, from whom he obtained the papers ; but could 
 collect nothing more, than that a mendicant, some weeks be 
 fore, offered them for sale, and parted with them readily for 
 three livres. 
 
 Their existence came accidentally to the ears of an Ameri 
 can, travelling in Flanders, to whom, on his expressing a 
 wish to have them, they were courteously presented by the 
 purchaser j and from whom we received them for publica 
 tion. 
 
 346803 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 It is evident, from several passages, that they were writ 
 ten by an Irishman, who must have resided some time in 
 this country, less biassed by prejudices, than most of our 
 European visitants. Indeed, the inducement to publish these 
 letters, arose not so much from any intrinsic merit they can 
 boast, as from the candid and favourable view they exhibit of 
 the United States. 
 
 As they might have tended to dispel some of the false me 
 dium, through which we are obscurely seen from the other 
 side of the Atlantic, it is to be regretted, they were not ori 
 ginally published there. But whether they were composed 
 for publication ; how many of them may have been suppress 
 ed or miscarried ; or, indeed, what their author s object was 
 in this country, are altogether matters of conjecture ; though 
 it is probable, that no more than a detachment from a larger 
 correspondence has fallen into our hands. 
 
 It is not necessary to detail the reasons which have led to 
 a belief, that the principal writer, if not some of the others, 
 must have been attached to the company of Jesuits. Inde 
 pendent of a positive declaration to that amount, in one of 
 the letters, there are other, though trivial, circumstances, 
 corroborative of such an opinion. The modern Charlemagne 
 lias many motives for re-establishing that order : and the 
 germs of another Paraguay may be intended for our soil. 
 Of this, however, every reader will be enabled to form his 
 own judgment; for, indeed, the very air of mystery in which 
 the correspondence is shrouded, may itself be counterfeit, 
 and put on to give a^false importance to things in themselves 
 insignificant. 
 
 As, however, the letters are ascribed to a Jesuit, it may 
 be proper to state briefly, that the order of Jesuits, after be 
 ing broken up, and the members successively expelled f^om 
 the different nations of Europe, was finally suppressed and 
 abolished by Pope Gregory XIV. in 1773. In addition 
 to the three vows of poverty, chastity and monastic ser 
 vitude, in order to obtain, in the first instance, a confirma 
 tion of their mysterious institution, they were obliged to 
 assume a fourth, that of obedience to the pope; binding* 
 themselves to go and to serve, without reward, in the cause 
 
PREFACE. \ 
 
 of religion, wheresoever he should command. The funda 
 mental maxim of the society was, that instead of being bu 
 ried in monkish sloth and solitude, they should devote 
 themselves to more active beneficence. In return for abso 
 lution from all pious austerities and mortifications, they de 
 clared themselves the champions of truth, and crusaders 
 against its enemies. To promote the service of religion in 
 all parts of the globe, the instruction of youth and the igno 
 rant, to observe the transactions of the world, to study the 
 characters and dispositions of persons in authority, to inform 
 themselves of the policy of governments and genius of na 
 tions, were the pursuits to which they dedicated their lives; 
 pursuits, in themselves, most laudable ; however they might 
 be perverted to improper purposes. In order to facilitate 
 and support their missions, the Jesuits were permitted to 
 trade with the countries they visited ; and formerly were 
 engaged in extensive and lucrative commerce, both in the. 
 East and West Indies. About the beginning of the 17th 
 century, they made a settlement on the river Plate, in the 
 province of Paraguay, in South America, where their em 
 pire was distinguished by wisdom and tranquillity. 
 
 For many years past, this once flourishing and influential 
 association, has been de graded, dispersed and diminishing. 
 Their name has become a designation for intrigue and du 
 plicity ; and the few that remain, have drained to the dregs 
 the chalice of humiliation. If it has been contemplated to 
 revive the order and restore its privileges, it is probable, 
 that for the vow of obedience to the pope, now no longer 
 necessary, another would be substituted, binding them to the 
 destinies of the extraordinary personage to whom their ele 
 vation would be owing ; who is incessantly rearing religious, 
 as well as political ramparts round his throne ; and who, 
 from such partisans, might derive, for himself and his dynas 
 ty, the most essential services. 
 
 But this is all surmise. And of its probability, as well as 
 of the object of the writer of these letters, whether political, 
 commercial, or ecclesiastical ; and whether in truth the whole 
 be not a fabrication, their readers, we repeat, must determine 
 for themselves- 
 
LETTER L* 
 
 CHARLEMONT TO INCHIQUIN. 
 
 Dated at Paris. 
 
 My dear preceptor and friend, 
 
 ACCORDING to promise I send after you the 
 notice of St. Pierre, which I procured from M. de 
 , too late to mould into the exercise you de 
 sired, before your departure from ***.( As it is 
 authentic, being in part communicated by the philo 
 sopher himself to M. de , and the rest having 
 
 passed under his observation, you are at liberty to 
 communicate it to our friends at Baltimore, or any 
 others, who may be desirous of learning particulars 
 concerning so distinguished and amiable a votary of 
 science. 
 
 James Henry Bernardin de St. Pierre was born in 
 the District of Caux, in the Province of Normandy, 
 of an ancient and respectable family : being a near 
 relation to the Abbe St. Pierre, celebrated for his 
 
 * This letter is a translation from the French, in which the 
 original is written E. 
 
 f One word is erased here. 
 
 A 
 
scientific acquirements, and especially for his project 
 of a perpetual peace ; with which the good Cardinal 
 Fleury was so well pleased, as to write to Fontenelle 
 that it would be happy for mankind if princes would 
 take a dose of the elixir of that excellent project. 
 The Author of the Studies of Nature resembles his 
 relation the Abbe in goodness of heart and depth of 
 knowledge, and surpasses him in genius and the 
 powers of elegant composition. At an early age, he 
 entered upon the profession of arms, and travelled 
 in Russia and Poland. Upon his return, he was sent, 
 in the capacity of an engineer, to the Isle of France ; 
 which useful colony owes its continued preservation 
 from capture by the English, during the protracted 
 maritime war, in which they have gained nearly all 
 the other French colonies, in great measure, to be 
 sure, to the natural ruggedness of its coast, but in no 
 inconsiderable degree to the excellent fortifications 
 constructed under the direction of St. Pierre. 
 
 On his return to France, he renounced his situa 
 tion in the army as too restrictive of the freedom for 
 study and contemplation he longed to enjoy. Being 
 thus deprived of his pay as an officer ; and having 
 generously relinquished what patrimonial estate he 
 had, in favour of a sister, his finances fell to a very 
 low ebb, his prospects were overcast with gloom, and 
 the fate of genius seemed to threaten to be his. But 
 he neither repined, nor abandoned himself to despair. 
 While thus struggling with want and uncertainty, he 
 formed an acquaintance with John James Rousseau, 
 whom he resembled in lofty talents, excessive sensi 
 bility, and devotion to retirement : though there was 
 
none of Rousseau s desponding and unsociable hu~ 
 mour about his friend St. Pierre. 
 
 Owing in part to the instances of M. de , he 
 
 was prevailed upon to shake off the scholastic diffi 
 dence, and the poverty under which he was sinking 
 into solitude, and to present himself to certain per- 
 sonages about the court of Louis XVI. distin 
 guished by their stations, and beneficence to men 
 of letters in indigence. The person, of all others, 
 who has now the honour to have interested herself 
 in favour of St. Pierre, was Madame Neckar, wife 
 of the great financier ; to whom he was indebted for 
 the patronage of the king, and several eminent cha~ 
 racters of his household. 
 
 It was at one time generally feared, that St. Pierre 
 had fallen a victim to the revolution. But he provi 
 dentially escaped the perils of that tempest, to live se 
 renely to a good old age, blessing and blessed by his 
 learning, cheerfulness and benevolence. 
 
 We observe, with pleasure, that Professor Barton, 
 of Philadelphia, whom, through his scientific re 
 searches, we know as one of the only men of letters 
 in America, has given his countrymen an edition of 
 the Studies of Nature. But it is to be regretted, that 
 he has not introduced his work with any biographi 
 cal sketch of the author ; because, independent of the 
 desire of most readers to know something of the life 
 of the writer they admire, the qualities of St. Pierre s 
 mind are so strongly reflected in his works, that all 
 persons must read them with greater pleasure and 
 instruction, from knowing that they faithfully repre- 
 
4 
 
 bent the virtues and simplicity of the author s cha 
 racter. 
 
 It is probable the world would have been gratified 
 with many other of St. Pierre s productions, had he 
 not, at rather a late day, sacrificed his additional 
 fame to marriage, and the tame enticements of do 
 mestic life. This sin against science he attempted 
 to extenuate to his friends, by the proverb " Better 
 late than never ;" to which with much greater pro 
 priety they might have replied, " Better never than 
 late. * Or early either, say I. For what has a being 
 dedicated to academic shades, and attenuated with 
 study, to do with the everlasting distractions of a fa 
 mily ? There are no more insurmountable barriers 
 to literary attainments, than chubby children and a 
 charming wife. Literary men are but indifferent 
 propagators of any other species than letters ; and 
 Madame Dacier herself would be no better than a 
 hindrance in the pursuit of learning. The emperor 
 showed his usual good sense in permitting the mar 
 riage of priests ; because it not only renders their 
 lives both happier and more exemplary, but serves 
 also to replenish population. But as the interest of 
 letters is one of the nearest his imperial heart, would 
 lie not, in return for this dispensation to the priest 
 hood, have done well by enjoining celibacy on all 
 academicians and philosophers ? 
 
 # # * * 
 
 The reign of Louis XIV. is called the Augustan 
 age of France. Yet all the pensions given by that 
 monarch to men of letters, amounted to no more than 
 
 * Line crossed out 
 
66,300 livres ; 52,300 to Frenchmen, and 14,000 to 
 foreigners. Whereas since his present majesty has 
 shone from the throne of France, I suppose sixty 
 thousand times that amount has been appropriated to 
 the same noble purpose. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Apropos of the sex. Pray do not fail to give us 
 details of their appearance, manners, and education 
 (if they have any) in America. Even the faces, 
 figures, and costume of the American females, if not 
 unworthy your pen, would be agreeable to our peru 
 sal. I presume they are infinitely mixed. What with 
 the original English leaven, the aboriginal Indian, the 
 Mulatto, the Creole, African, and other crosses, they 
 must be a most curiously heterogeneous and streaked 
 kind. From all these mixtures there can be no predo 
 minant complexion : few fair, and none ruddy. A tor 
 rid sun has gilded them with his cadaverous hues, 
 driving the rose from their cheeks, with the verdure 
 from their fields. I have always understood they 
 marry early, breed fast, fade soon, and die young. Do 
 the sexes meet freely at places of public resort ? Was 
 there ever such a thing as an intrigue in the United 
 States of America ? I think I should enjoy an amour 
 with a squaw, string her bow, feather her arrows, run 
 races with her, pick up her tomahawk, sharpen her 
 scalping knife, play with her long nose-bobs, and sing 
 guttural ditties with her. As to society I suppose it is 
 not of this present age in America. Even in En 
 gland, by all accounts, they live a melancholy sort of 
 routine, walking and riding of a morning, drinking 
 and picking their teeth of afternoons, putting each 
 
 * Line crossed out. 
 
other to route at night, lounging at watering-places, 
 and blowing their brains out at the regular seasons. 
 It is hardly therefore to be presumed, that the infe 
 rior species of English, who compose the gentry of 
 the United States, are gayer, more polished, or less 
 suicidical, than their progenitors of the mother 
 country. 
 
 The reigning president, unless fume belies him, is 
 much addicted to gallantry, and not very fastidious 
 in his loves. One of the vice-presidents was also, 
 it is said, of similar propensities, and as indiscrimi 
 nate in their indulgence. From such striking in 
 stances, is not a very general depravity inferrible ? 
 What an extraordinary race the medley of colours 
 will produce in the course of a century ! If polygamy 
 were permitted, (and I wonder that in so free a coun 
 try there should be any restraints,) a father of a fa 
 mily, happening to live to a green old age, might as 
 semble children of all colours round his own table. 
 
 Of the men of America, the less you write the 
 better. I shall have no objection to receive reports 
 of that sex, whose peculiarities must constitute your 
 chief and perhaps only entertainment. But of their 
 ignorant and sordid masters, absorbed in trade and 
 republicanism, who seem to know and desire no dis 
 tinctions, but such as are to be earned with the sweat 
 of their brows, I desire to hear as little as possible. 
 For I never could subscribe to a sentiment of your 
 favourite Dry den, that 
 
 Prodigious actions may as well be done 
 By weaver s issue, as by prince s son. 
 
 1 
 
Whatever statistical details you may think proper to 
 communicate, and whatever natural anomalies, I con 
 sent to brood over, for the benefit of human nature 
 and zoology. But spare me, I beseech you, spare 
 me, my worthy instructor, long stones of republi 
 can bipeds and commercial usages. 
 
 * * # * # 
 
 I have been in Paris ever since you left us, without 
 one summons to Liege ; and I do not think I should 
 depart without at least three. Porriget hora. During 
 part of the time, the emperor was gone to the wars ; 
 and we endeavoured to amuse ourselves as well as we 
 Gould in his good city, during his august absence. 
 Since his return, there has been nothing but rejoicing 
 and festivity. Half a dozen crowned heads are now 
 within our walls, each one holding a separate and 
 splendid court, so as to render it ample employment 
 for any one day, to pay our respects to all their ma 
 jesties. The garden of the Thuilleries, and wood 
 of Boulogne, are thronged with beauty, elegance, 
 and fashion. Frescati, the opera, and all the thea 
 tres, overflow every night. Masquerade s, public- 
 parades, and every imaginable refinement of specta 
 cle and amusement, are kept up in a perpetual round. 
 But his I. and R. M. leaves us soon, it is said, for 
 another campaign; when, of course, much of this 
 splendour will subside. Is it not a singular fact, 
 that Charlemagne, Charles V. of Spain, and Napo 
 leon, resemble each other, in being always on the 
 M ing, for a journey or a war ? * * * 
 
B 
 
 I am interrupted Good God . . . have only 
 time to add farewell ; a long, perhaps an eternal fare 
 well . . . my beloved friend and guide . * . 
 What I have written is ... Think not ^: .-. 
 I beseech you . . . 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 PHARAMOND TO INCHIQUIN, 
 
 Dated at Liege. 
 [The preceding letter was enclosed in this E.Q 
 
 POOR Charlemont! The enclosed letter was 
 forwarded to me open, from the prefecture of * * *, 
 with some strictures * * * * * 
 
 # # * # * 
 
 I have also received, by a private hand, a commu- 
 nicarion on the subject from O., with all the particu 
 lars. It seems, that on intelligence of an apprehend 
 ed descent near Cherbourg, he was forced to volun 
 teer to the conscription, without even drawing lots. 
 The day after his attachment to a company, he was 
 permitted to go to his lodgings, under a Serjeant s 
 guard, and in his regimentals, to secure his little ef 
 fects ; by which he had an opportunity to bid adieu to 
 O. and the rest. The tear glistened in his eye, and 
 farewell faltered on his tongue. But the drum sum 
 moned him away ; and, inspired with the sound, after 
 desiring his unalterable affection to be presented to 
 you and me, he flew to his comrades at the gate, 
 and marched away with them to his quarters. 
 
10 
 
 The feelings with which this amiable youth ap 
 pears to have been overcome at the moment of his 
 arrest, and indeed I will confess the dismay with 
 which I first heard of his being torn from us, led me 
 into a train of reflection on that prodigious engine of 
 state, the military conscription, which, I am happy 
 to say, has terminated in the removal of all my un 
 easiness, and my entire reconcilement to that most 
 useful and indispensable measure of state necessity. 
 Mankind are prone to immediate impressions, with 
 out lifting up their contemplation to results ; and they 
 suffer momentary actual privations to counterpoise 
 distant permanent advantages. But what can be more 
 contradictory to the first principles of a body politic, 
 than that one of its members, a muscle or a fibre, 
 should refuse its office in any way the whole body 
 may command it? The conscription is unpopu 
 lar, because the operations of superior upon inferior 
 minds are always incomprehensible and ill received. 
 But it is not a measure of to-day ; nor is it an offspring 
 of the revolution, fertile as that crisis was in hardy and 
 powerful creations. " I have seen, in my youth," 
 says one of the most unimpeachable of French his 
 torical writers,* these forced recruits led oft in chains 
 like malefactors." It is nothing more than the im 
 pressment of the English, without which their ablest 
 statesman openly declared, in parliament, that it was 
 
 * J*ai vu dans mons enfance ccs recrues forcees conduites 
 a lachaine commes des malfaiteurs. Duclos, Mem. Sec. vol. 
 1. p. 9. 
 
11 
 
 impossible to equip a fleet in time.* It is the militia 
 of the Roman repiublic, the military system of all 
 great nations, advanced to a degree of incredible per 
 fection, by the mighty master, who now, from the 
 throne of the Bourbons, wields the sceptre of Eu 
 rope. If you can procure a copy of Polybius in 
 America, I beg you to read the fragment of the se 
 venth book, which has been handed down to us : 
 where you will see that the Roman plan was severer 
 and less certain than the French. Every citizen, be 
 fore he attained to forty-six years of age, was com 
 pelled to serve ten years in the cavalry, or sixteen on 
 foot. In times of danger, and we know how often 
 the temple of Janus was shut, the period of service 
 was protracted to twenty years. No citizen could 
 aspire to the civil magistracy till he had served ten 
 campaigns. Once a year the whole country was as 
 sembled for consular inspection. No excuses were 
 accepted for non-attendance. No pretext of acci 
 dent or illness ; nothing less than absolute, unques 
 tionable impracticability, was listened to. Every in 
 dividual was sworn ; and when the selections were 
 made, a most rigid discipline went into immediate 
 operation. The severest corporal punishments, bas 
 tinado and decimation, were inflicted for offences. 
 No hospital for invalids, no half pay, no pensions 
 
 * I am myself clearly convinced, and I believe every man 
 who knows any thing of the English navy will acknowledge, 
 that without impressing, it is impossible to equip a respecta 
 ble fleet within the time in which armaments are usually 
 wanted. Lord Chatham s Sfiecr/t ow ffir Relations with Sfiain, 
 I l November* 1770. 
 
12 
 
 awaited the wounded and worn out ; but barren ho 
 nours, short-lived ovations, and allotments of lands 
 in foreign conquests. Should then the French com 
 plain of their service ? Is there any thing in the con 
 scription so rigorous, so lasting, so ungrateful ? 
 
 But if by comparison with the similar regulations 
 of ancient and of modern powers, we see reasons for 
 admiring the conscription, what must be our senti 
 ments of admiration and gratitude, when we behold 
 Its effects ! If your countryman, the boding Burke, 
 could see in France, before the revolution, so much 
 to awe and command his transcendant imagination,* 
 
 * Indeed when I consider the face of the kingdom of 
 France ; the multitude and opulence of her cities ; the useful 
 magnificence of her spacious high roads and bridges; the 
 opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations opening 
 the conveniences of maritime communication through a 
 solid continent of so immense an extent ; when I turn my 
 eyes to the stupendous works of her ports and harbours, and 
 to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or trade ; when 
 I bring before my view the number of her fortifications, con 
 structed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and 
 maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an armed 
 front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies on every side ; 
 when I recollect how very small a part of that extensive re 
 gion is without cultivation, and to what complete perfection 
 the culture of many of the best productions of the earth have 
 been brought in France ; when I reflect on the excellence of 
 her manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours, and in 
 some particulars not second ; when I contemplate the grand 
 foundations of charity, public and private ; when I survey the 
 state of all the arts that beautify and polish life ; when I 
 i-eckon the men she has bred for extending her fame in war, 
 her able statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers 
 and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her historians 
 
13 
 
 what would have been his reflections, had he lived to 
 see those harvests from the ashes of desolation he 
 foresaw those astonishing internal improvements 
 and blessings, which, no less than his unparalleled 
 victories, are the glories of that incomparable being, 
 to whose guidance the destinies of the French em 
 pire have since been committed by an omniscient 
 Providence under whose rapid genius the conscrip 
 tion works like the elements at the nod of cloud- 
 compelling Jove and the lightning of his counsel has 
 executed its commission, ere the thunder of his com 
 mand can report its progress. 
 
 Who are those Frenchmen that hope to resuscitate 
 the decayed and withered trunk of the house of Bour 
 bon whose few remaining branches are now scattered 
 before the winds ? Units among the millions that have 
 consigned that worn out stock to obscurity, whose: 
 reliance is in the aid of the deadly, prescriptive, in 
 veterate foes, both of the Bourbons and of France 
 the English nation. What are the motives of En 
 glish hostility to the new French dynasty? Their in 
 stinctive hatred of France, sharpened by the dire 
 spirit of impotent revenge, mixed up with the gall oi 
 defeat and disaster. Do they pretend to be fighting 
 the battles of the house of Bourbon? They, who 
 have grown up in hatred and abhorrence against that 
 family ; they, who since their own Harry V. over 
 ran the north of France, since their own Charles II. 
 
 and antiquaries, her poets and her orators, sacred and pro 
 fane, I behold in all this something which awes and com 
 mands the imagination, &c. Burke 9 s Reflections on the Re 
 volution in France^ p. 177. 
 
14 
 
 was the stipendiary, and their own William III. the 
 }>ersonal antagonist of Louis XIV. have waged one 
 continued current of hostilities, sometimes breaking 
 out in solemn war, and at others no less active in di 
 plomatic stratagem, against the well being, the very 
 existence of the French nation. Let us not be de 
 ceived by a subjugation of natural hate and a pre 
 tence of alliance, so monstrous, unreal, and unna 
 tural. It is not now eight years since one of the 
 ablest and most liberal of English statesmen, distin 
 guished among his country ijien for his want of British 
 antipathy toward the French, delivered, in the face of 
 the nation, a celebrated speech, in which this passage 
 occurs : " As an Englishman, and actuated by En 
 glish feelings, I surely cannot wish for the restoration 
 of the house of Bourbon to the throne of France. I 
 hope that I am not a man to bear heavily on any un 
 fortunate family. I feel for their situation ; I respect 
 their distresses : but as a friend of England, I cannot 
 wish for their restoration to the power which they 
 abused. It was not to be expected that the French, 
 when once engaged in foreign wars, should not en 
 deavour to spread ^destruction around them, and to 
 form plans of aggrandizement and plunder on every 
 .side. Men bred in the school of the house of Bour 
 bon could not be expected to act otherwise. They 
 could not have lived so long under their ancient mas 
 ters, without imbibing the restless ambition, the per 
 fidy, and the insatiable spirit of that race. They 
 have imitated the practice of their great prototype ; 
 and through their whole career of mischief and 
 
 crimes, have done no more than servilely trace the 
 
 1 
 
15 
 
 steps of their own Louis XIV. If they have over 
 run countries and ravaged them, they have done it 
 upon Bourbon principles ; if they have ruined and 
 dethroned sovereigns, it is entirely after the Bour 
 bon manner ; if they have even fraternized with the 
 people of foreign countries, and pretended to make 
 their cause their own, they have only faithfully follow 
 ed the Bourbon example. The whole history of the 
 last century is little more than an account of the- 
 wars, and the calamities arising from the restless am 
 bition, the intrigues, and the perfidy of the house of 
 Bourbon."* 
 
 This is the testimony of an honest enemy, of a 
 great English statesman, who has since been prime 
 minister of Great Britain, and who is now no more. 
 
 Let us not, therefore, deceive ourselves, nor mis 
 take the day, or the instrument of retribution. Let 
 not our reverence for the pageants, before which we 
 have been accustomed to bow the knee, be startled at 
 the amazing fact in the history of our times, that the 
 hereditary crowns of Europe are filled with foolish 
 heads, and that the only one on which wisdom and 
 valour, the legitimate attributes of royalty, now shed 
 their influence, was raised from the dust on the point 
 of a triumphant sabre. Let all Frenchmen remem 
 ber the treaty of Pilnitz, and let not their enemies 
 repine under the reaction of that accursed league. 
 
 When from . embarrassment and bankruptcy we 
 
 Mr. Fox. Speech delivered 3d February, 1800, on a mo 
 tion for an address to the throne, approving of the answers 
 returned to the communications from France, relative to ?. 
 negotiation for pracc. 
 
16 
 
 perceive the finances of France restored to compe 
 tency and system, and an annual disbursement of a 
 million millions provided for without extraordinary 
 imposts ; when we consider that poor, and poor rates 
 are pressures no longer existing ; that much more 
 land is cultivated, and divided among smaller pro 
 prietors, than before the year 1789 ; that corn and 
 wine, and all the great staples of subsistence, are 
 abundant and cheap ; that the interest of money is 
 reduced by the influx attendant on security from 10 
 and 12 to 3 and 4 per cent.; when we behold public 
 credit in full vigour and reputation ; national schools 
 organized in every department ; obsolete laws reject 
 ed or modified, and modern provisions ingrafted into 
 one great and comprehensive code ; learning munifi 
 cently endowed ; the sciences fostered and flourish 
 ing ; every station filled with appropriate and com 
 manding talents ; when we survey the fertile fields 
 where marshes were drained and mountains levelled ; 
 highways and canals, at the public charge, without 
 individual exaction, connecting distant provinces ; 
 when we contemplate the modern metropolis of the 
 world, adorned with the master works of all ages, and 
 resplendent with the most elegant and enlightened 
 society of the present ; and when we reflect that 
 all this is the performance of a few years and of 
 one man, can we withhold our homage from that 
 man, deny his right to a throne, or rebel against the 
 instrument with which he raised this scene! From 
 the obscurity and prostration of a political chaos, 
 under the auspices of Napoleon and the conscrip 
 tion, the French nation, realizing as it were in an 
 instant of time, the visions of ae;cs, has become an 
 
17 
 
 immense empire, tranquil within, terrible abroad; 
 new kingdoms have risen into being ; Christianity re- 
 turns to her pillaged sanctuaries ; and even Jerusalem 
 raises her bowed head from the earth ; the hardy 
 sciences, chemistry, mineralogy, mathematics and 
 astronomy, shoot up from a soil moistened with 
 blood and manured with bones, to spread their golden 
 fruitage over desolate regions ; while poetry, paint- 
 ing, sculpture and music, wanton under their shade, 
 and encourage their expansion. 
 
 Next to these primary objects, while you remai" 
 on those shores, where pestilence and trade contend 
 the fate of a new empire, endeavour to penetrate, if 
 possible, the spirit and policy of that unaccountable 
 union of disjointed sovereignties, which seems so often 
 to hang on the brink of a rupture, and yet continues 
 integral. I never could be satisfied with your views 
 of that country, which perhaps may change on this 
 visit. The spirit of foreign traffic, which lighted 
 the flames of the last wars in Europe, and has for 
 sixteen years fed them with fresh fuel, predominates 
 to a fatal degree in the United States of America. 
 This appanage of their mother country, this huck 
 ster s heritance, will be a curse and not a blessing to 
 them. With the vast concatenation of lakes and ri 
 vers, which bounds, connects, fertilizes, and forti 
 fies their western frontier, why should they tempt the 
 troubled waters of the Atlantic ? 
 At the close of their revolution, they were a prudent 
 
 * Nearly half a page is erased here, 
 c 
 
18 
 
 and a warlike a characterized people. But have they 
 not become ignoble and rapacious, tame to foreign 
 insult and spoliation, and intractable to legitimate 
 authority ? As commerce is their national bond of 
 union, is not knavery their predominant national 
 characteristic ? That trade, which seems to be their 
 sole pursuit, unless disciplined, within due bounds, 
 will lead from base submission to bloody hostilities 
 and inevitable destruction. 
 
 It has long been a favourite opinion with several 
 distinguished men here, and particularly with Cardi 
 nal Maury, that it would not be impossible to substi 
 tute the Catholic religion for the deplorable deluge 
 of creeds that has flowed upon them with what they 
 call toleration ; and the French language for the 
 German, Irish, English, and other dialects that pre 
 vail. French is now the most general language of 
 the civilized nations of the world. The English co 
 lonies are the only parts of the globe, in which it is 
 probable the English tongue will be preserved : and 
 as it would contribute greatly to the facilities of inter 
 national intercourse, that at least the civilized por 
 tions of the earth should speak the same language, I 
 cannot consider it an unreasonable requisition of the 
 Americans to adopt French as their vernacular. DG 
 you believe the opposition to this change would be in 
 surmountable ? Their neighbours of Canada and 
 Louisiana have already this advantage, which the in 
 habitants of the states might easily acquire. I wish 
 ed to have conversed with you on this subject, and 
 some others of a similar kind ; but my indisposition 
 and your short stay in Liege, deprived me of the 
 opportunity. 
 
19 
 
 Not only the language and the church, but the 
 state and population being composed of such hetero 
 geneous and militant materials, it is absurd to sup 
 pose the continuation, for any considerable period, of 
 such a nation, especially when feebly held together 
 by a nerveless government. " Nothing," wrote Aris 
 totle two thousand years ago, and all subsequent expe 
 rience has made an axiom of what was at first but an 
 opinion " Nothing is more unfriendly to public 
 tranquillity than dissimilitude of character in the ci 
 tizens. A heterogeneous assemblage of mixed 
 tribes cannot speedily coalesce into a nation ; and 
 communities which have grown populous by sudden 
 accessions are commonly torn by sedition." This, 
 when applied to the American states, is prophecy ? 
 in the full train of verification. 
 
 The destructive fevers too, that prevail, are no less 
 fatal than faction. I have always thought with the 
 Abbe Raynal, that the population will never exceed 
 ten millions. But of all these things, and many 
 others, you will give us the results of your imme 
 diate observation ; and, as you know, for the best 
 possible reason, I most anxiously desire you may find 
 cause to assure us of our error. But remember 
 what reliance rests on your assurances, and be cau 
 tious accordingly. Almost as you advise we will 
 act. And I trust you duly appreciate the import 
 ance of your recommendation, and the momentous 
 consequences to which it may lead. 
 
 Adieu. You are never forgotten in our prayers. 
 Write daily, and write at large. Nevermind oppor 
 tunities. If a package comes together, so much the 
 
20 
 
 better. This letter should have been longer and bet 
 ter connected, if I held a pen with less difficulty. 
 Your best friends are all well, with their eyes fixed on 
 you. May God preserve and prosper you. Cras 
 ingens iterabimus. 
 
 

 LETTER III. 
 
 CLANRICKARD TO INCHIQUIN. 
 
 Dated at London. 
 
 Dear Brother, 
 
 WE received a few days ago, by an accidental 
 conveyance through Holland, your letter from Liege, 
 announcing your intended departure for America, 
 whither I now address myself, as I take it for granted 
 you must have arrived before this time. Your sister 
 received the intelligence with considerable uneasi^ 
 ness, as you know she always had a dread of the cli 
 mate in that unwholesome country. I regretted it 
 for that, and for other reasons, which I will take this 
 occasion to impart in the most unreserved manner ; 
 as I am sure , however we may differ in opinion, we 
 can exchange sentiments without offence. It was 
 your misfortune, at least I think so, to have been 
 brought up at St. Omer s, where you imbibed pre 
 possessions uncongenial with the habits and course of 
 life, to which from your birth and fortune you were 
 destined. You will do me the justice to admit that I 
 never did approve of your attachment to the Jesuits, 
 and to a single life. Pardon my frankness ; but it is 
 
22 
 
 time I should be explicit. Had you never left Ire 
 land until your ideas received a permanent cast, 
 I am now fully persuaded that we should both have 
 avoided those rocks, on which your fortunes were 
 dashed to pieces, and from which mine had so nar 
 row an escape. Be that however as it may, the 
 question at present is not to remedy the past, but 
 from its lessons to learn to provide for the future. It 
 has always been matter of poignant regret with your 
 family, that, whatever were your persecutions, you 
 should seek refuge among the natural, and at this 
 time the declared and cruel enemies of your coun 
 try ; among a people soiled with every crime as a 
 nation, and of the utmost depravity as individuals. 
 Mr. Burke s prophecies have been so dreadfully re 
 alized, and at the same time it has pleased an allwise 
 Providence to vouchsafe such incredible success to 
 their inhuman designs, that it truly may be said that 
 sacrilege, massacre and perfidy, pile up " the sombre 
 pyramids of their renown." All the iniquities in 
 history are transcended by the vices and degradation 
 of the modern French ; not in their revolutionary 
 excesses, which were popular ebullitions, capable, 
 perhaps, of some extenuation, and of which I own 
 that in common with many others, who are now 
 smarting under their effects, I caught the sanguinary 
 contagion. But their disregard of every religious 
 and moral obligation, their abject submission to the 
 most remorseless despot, at whose footstool an en 
 slaved people ever crouched, above all, their insidious 
 and barbarian persecution of Great Britain, a mag 
 nanimous and invulnerable foe, must render their 
 
.23 
 
 character so hateful in the eyes of all civilized man 
 kind, that I hold it one of a Briton s most sacred du 
 ties to loathe a Frenchman ; and I cannot reflect with 
 out shame and horror, that any person so near and 
 dear to me as you are, by the ties of blood, con 
 nection and friendship, should be a willing partici 
 pator of their dangers and depravity. This is strong 
 language ; but you must bear with me. What se 
 curity have you, my dear Inchiquin, that the mon 
 sters, who compose the police, may not at any mo 
 ment tear you from your bed, and plunge you in a 
 dungeon, or transport you to some remote and de 
 structive latitude ? Depend upon it, a foreigner must 
 always be a mark of suspicion. I cannot at this dis 
 tance think, without an involuntary shudder, of the 
 Temple, the Wood of Vincennes, and the many other 
 places appropriated to human immolation , How can 
 you be certain that the next conscription, breaking 
 through any immunities in which you may imagine 
 yourself entrenched, may not drag you in chains 
 like a malefactor to the frontier, and expose you to 
 an ignominious death ? for such it certainly would 
 be to fall in the cause of France. These are por 
 tentous, and you may think idle bodings. But I 
 urge them with the more zeal, because, while you 
 resided on the continent, I feared to expose you by 
 venturing an appeal, which, if discovered, (and the 
 French post-offices have no regard for the sanctity of 
 a private correspondence) might have not only de 
 feated its own purpose, but betrayed you at once 
 into the power of the police. Does not your late act 
 indeed attest the probability of the results I <Jepre- 
 
24 
 
 cate ? Why else have you left France, where at least 
 you might enjoy those social recreations to which 
 you are accustomed, to wander in the wilds of Ame 
 rica, where you must relinquish every such enjoy 
 ment ? Your letter is silent respecting the motives 
 for your voyage, which has set us adrift on an ocean 
 of anxious conjectures. I presume it is political ; 
 for though your resources must be narrow, I do not 
 suppose you can have launched into any mercantile 
 speculations, with a view to retrieving them. But 
 why have you gone at all ? My last advices, if they 
 ever reached you, gave you reason to expect that, 
 upon showing a proper contrition, government may 
 hereafter permit you to return to this, the only re 
 maining asylum of tranquillity and happiness. It is 
 now conceded, that you were not guilty of the crimes 
 charged against you ; and though it is too late to re 
 trieve the ruin in which we were all involved, a dis 
 position is entertained to forgive transgressions that 
 flowed rather from youth and enthusiasm, than the 
 judgment. But the first, and an indispensable step, 
 is the abandonment of the French and their domi- 
 nions. Nor will your voyage to the American states 
 be an acceptable proceeding, unless, as I sometimes 
 flatter myself, it should appear that in consideration 
 of the difficulties attending a direct transit, you have 
 gone there only preparatory to your return to En 
 gland. 
 
 In the meanwhile we have happier tidings to com 
 municate. I do not, you observe, date, as hereto 
 fore, from Killmallock. Since my last, every re 
 straint has been removed from our persons, and I 
 
25 
 
 have succeeded, through the influence of Lord 
 Moira, in obtaining a place in the Customs, which 
 yields about 1001. a year : a miserable pittance, to be 
 sure, compared with the affluence we fell from, but 
 still a great amelioration of our condition for the last 
 five years. Upon receiving the appointment, I re 
 paired immediately to London, without even taking 
 Dublin in my way, and entered with alacrity upon 
 the duties of a place, which formerly I should have 
 considered with much contempt. It requires, in 
 deed, my most assiduous attention ; and when I re 
 flect on what I was born to, all the philosophy I have 
 learned is requisite to enable me to dwell with com 
 posure on a reverse imposed upon me and my inno 
 cent family by an accusation so wicked and unjust. 
 As long as we were under any sort of confinement, 
 a principle of resistance suppressed the emotions of 
 despair. But now that there is no longer any pres 
 sure to create such a reaction, the firstlings of mis 
 fortune prove extremely bitter. We are, however, 
 tranquil, at least, if not contented. I have taken and 
 furnished, in the homeliest style, a small house in 
 Shugg Lane, where your sister has lately lain in with 
 our fifth daughter, two of whom (I may almost thank 
 God !) have been removed from this world of mourn 
 ing. The expense of living is enormous, especially 
 to us, who have all our economy to learn ; and no 
 one, who has not been in a similar situation, can 
 conceive the infinite petty impositions and exactions 
 of which we are the prey. The air of London, or 
 perhaps it is of this confined part of it, does not 
 agree with Jane. But she bears the inconveniences 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 and privations, to which we must submit, with a se 
 renity and fortitude, that administer to me perpetual 
 consolation. With such an example, whatever I may 
 feel, I should be ashamed to complain. During the 
 principal part of the day, I am necessarily from home. 
 We see no company whatever, and live in the ut 
 most privacy and retirement. I have no books ; but 
 there is a library in the neighbourhood, where I may 
 be furnished if I will. What leisure hours I have, 
 particularly the evening, I employ in educating my 
 children ; in which task, when she is not indisposed, 
 their mother is my assistant. 
 
 As if to reconcile us to our lot by proving how 
 much worse it might be, we have been already vi 
 sited with afflictions superadded to its ordinary and 
 unavoidable hardships. Soon after we were settled in 
 this house, a fire broke out one night in an adjoining 
 street, to which I ran in order to assist in putting it 
 out, while Jane and the children mounted up into the 
 garret to have a better view of the danger. The par 
 lour and chamber being thus deserted, some of those 
 harpies who are always on the alert in this city to 
 take advantage of confusion, found means to strip 
 our ill-fated habitation of every article of furniture. 
 Not a piece was left ; and we were put to the ex 
 pense, which we could but ill bear, of buying an en 
 tire new stock, or rather I should say another stock ; 
 for, far from being new, it was procured at second 
 hand, at a sale of the goods of some companion in 
 distress, which were brought to the hammer by an 
 execution. This accident caused us a great deal of 
 vexation and trouble ; and we had hardly repaired its 
 
ravages by pledging my unpaid salary for payment 
 of the debts thus contracted, when another inroad 
 was as unexpectedly made on our peace, which 
 threatened much more serious consequences. I was 
 walking along the wharves in a dress, as it should 
 seem, too indicative of my poverty, when a press- 
 gang seized on me, and, in spite of my resistance, 
 remonstrances and entreaties, hurried me on board a 
 guard ship, where I lay for two days in momentary 
 expectation of being taken before the mast of a man 
 of \var. My deliverance was owing to the resolution 
 and conduct of that incomparable woman, whom in 
 all my trials I have found a tutelary angel ; and whom 
 it is the keenest of my pangs to think I have re 
 duced to indigence and wretchedness. She locked 
 up our house, and with her daughters hanging on 
 her arms, flew to the admiralty, where, having made 
 her way through the contumely of underlings and 
 the repulses of their lords, she never ceased her suit 
 till an order was granted for my release. Even this 
 had nearly come too late ; for it was with no small 
 difficulty I satisfied the officers of the custom-house, 
 that my absence was accidental, and not owing to 
 some irregularity, which ought to deprive me of my 
 place. 
 
 But I shall tire you with these sorry details ; 
 which, melancholy as they are, I cannot but think 
 present an existence preferable to the vagabond ca 
 reer you follow. A few months will inure us to 
 lowliness, and clothe our humble fire- side with all 
 the ineffable charms of home. If you will but bring 
 the large accession of relief which your society 
 
28 
 
 would afford, I fondly persuade myself we could 
 forget the abundance in which we once flourished, 
 make a merit of adversity, and live on the hope of 
 better things. 
 
 When, as is sometimes the case of a Sunday, I 
 take a short leave of that gloomy part of this vast 
 metropolis in which we reside, and wander through 
 the magnificent squares and parks of the west, 
 thronged with gay equipages and smiling multitudes, 
 my breast swells with admiration at the unequalled 
 prosperity of Great Britain, whose inhabitants, re 
 posing under the shield of the mistress of the world, 
 can be thus secure and happy, while hosts of ene 
 mies in vain environ and beset them. At such a 
 moment I can chide my selfish misery, and almost 
 wish I had not been born an Irishman and bred a 
 catholic. How different is the scene that must strike 
 your observation among the demi- savages of Ame 
 rica ; where a weak and ignorant government is 
 idly engaged in framing laws for an uncivilized and 
 heterogeneous population. After all, the lion is the 
 noblest beast. Let France and Russia, with their 
 tributary potentates, conspire against him, and the 
 American eaglet too show his impotent talons ; the 
 lion shakes his imperial mane in dauntless defiance 
 of them all. The American federation, I suppose, 
 cannot maintain itself much longer. According to 
 the best judgment I can form of the prospects of 
 that distracted country, the crisis is not very distant, 
 when it will implore once more the protection of a 
 parent state, which it has ever studied to outrage. 
 Notwithstanding all the injuries that have been re- 
 
29 
 
 ceived from those despicable freebooters by this mag 
 nanimous nation, I believe the cup of reconciliation 
 is not yet exhausted. But let them beware the em 
 brace of France. After seeing so many allies hugged 
 to death by that perfidious power, they deserve their 
 doom if they accept the kiss of corruption. 
 
 Good night. It is now past twelve o clock, and I 
 have been kept from my bed to so unusual an hour 
 by the gratification I feel in pouring forth my feel 
 ings to you. If you will not come and live with us 
 in England, I am afraid we must go and die with 
 vou in America. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 FROM 1NCI1IQUIN TO PHAEAMOND. 
 
 Dated at Washington. 
 
 WHILE I was at Baltimore, the accidental cir 
 cumstance of our living in the same hotel made me 
 acquainted with a young Greek merchant, who has 
 since become my companion here, where we share 
 an uncomfortable chamber together. As he is to be 
 your correspondent, on this occasion, and perhaps 
 oftener, it is proper you should be generally inform 
 ed that he is a native of Athens, who received a mer 
 cantile education in the English factory at S ^rna. 
 Having finished his apprenticeship last year, in a 
 spirit of enterprise not usual in a modern Greek, he 
 resolved on accompanying a commercial adventure 
 to this country ; where he arrived a few weeks since 
 with an investment, which good luck has doubled 
 in profit. His amiable disposition, and the ideas 
 naturally excited by the presence of an Athenian, 
 together with such scanty intelligence as is to be 
 gleaned from his conversation, respecting his coun 
 try and language, both so idolatrously venerable in 
 my eyes, have attached me to his society. In con 
 sideration of the friendly relations exiting between 
 us, he sometimes reads to me his letters to a fellow 
 
31 
 
 apprentice at Smyrna ; and to-day granted my request 
 to take a copy of one, written, as they all are, in 
 Italian, in which he communicates his ideas of this 
 federal domain, or city, as it is called, propter dig 
 nitatem, I suppose, together with a narrative of the 
 mishaps that lately befel him in the sylvan suburbs of 
 Washington. As you will have received before this 
 the letter* containing my views of this singular capi 
 tal, I shall present my fellow traveller s without com 
 ment ; observing only, that I have no other reason 
 for believing his narrative to be fabulous, (as it is all 
 very possible,) than that with the fancy and vivacity 
 of an ancient Greek, and all a traveller s prejudices, 
 he does not unite a Turk s deliberation ; but notwith 
 standing a total ignorance of mankind, and indeed 
 of every thing, except half a dozen different lan 
 guages that seem to be equally familiar to him, he 
 commonly marches straight forward on his conclu 
 sions, and seizes them by storm, without the least 
 regard to the ordinary process of getting to them by 
 a course of reasoning. The truth is, that the foun 
 dations of this federal city have not been laid under 
 prosperous auspices; and it is the only part of the Uni 
 ted States of America I have ever seen on the decline. 
 Commenced on a huge, unwieldy scale, in a district 
 occupied by slave-holders, without the habits of in 
 dustry or the spring of commerce, instead of rising 
 like Carthage, instans operi, regnisquefutiiris^ the enor 
 mous joints fall asunder before they can be well knit 
 together ; and the symptoms of premature dilapida- 
 
 * This letter must have miscarried or been suppressed, as 
 it does not appear E. 
 
32 
 
 tion appear when the implements of construction 
 are not yet taken away. A few scattered hamlets, 
 many miles remote from each other, compose all that 
 has arisen of the promised metropolis ; while as 
 many vast half-finished piles of building, at great 
 distances apart, from commanding eminences, frown 
 desolate and despairing on the dreary wastes that se 
 parate and environ them. Till lately the city was 
 thickly wooded, and the American Numa might woo 
 his Egeria in a hundred groves. But much of this 
 ornament has been cut down for fuel, leaving, how 
 ever, enough for shooting grounds to amuse those 
 addicted to sports of the field. Not more than 
 7,000 souls are computed as the population, spread 
 over an immense area. Of these probably one half 
 are blacks ; and most of the remainder members of 
 congress, clerks, servants, innkeepers, or in some 
 way appurtenant to the government, prepared to fol 
 low its fortunes, if necessary, to the banks of the 
 Missouri, or the coast of California. 
 
 ***** 
 ***** 
 
 * Several lines are erased here E. 
 
FROM CARAVAN. 
 
 Dated at the federal city of Washington, in the 
 district of Columbia, state of Maryland, one 
 of the United States in North America. 
 
 IN my last, which I have not yet had an op 
 portunity of sending, I discussed the merits of the 
 American government ; a subject new to me, and 
 upon which, therefore, my reflections may not be 
 conclusive : though I must say, the more I see and 
 think, the fuller is my conviction, that this govern 
 ment, called republican, is not as popular as all go 
 vernments ought to be ; and instead of being ma 
 naged by the people, is too subservient to various 
 contradictory interests. The Turkish constitution, 
 under which happy and glorious empire we have thq 
 inestimable good fortune to live, is certainly much 
 more simple and popular. Our gengicheris, the mi 
 litia, as they are called here, or great body of the 
 people, immediately, and without any intervention, 
 choose, declare, and instal a sultan, or president, as 
 the chief magistrate is styled in this country ; who, 
 as he thus proceeds directly from the people, is di 
 rectly responsible to them ; and whenever he misbe 
 haves, or they are dissatisfied, is by them directly 
 removed, to make ropm for another object of their 
 immediate creation and image. It appears to me to 
 
 be absurd to talk of representing the people, when 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 in fact the representative, improperly so styled, is 
 chosen not by the people, but by a small number of 
 electors, who are themselves variously appointed, 
 many of them not by the people, but by other elec 
 tors, who again do not, in all instances, emanate di 
 rectly from the community at large, and who, for the 
 most part, never saw, and never may see, the object 
 of their selection. The Turkish constitution is un 
 doubtedly the lineal descendant and most precious 
 relic of the ancient Grecian republic, wherein the 
 mass of the people act in mass. A leader is called to 
 his post by acclamation ; and what is the difference 
 whether the instrument of his removal be an oyster 
 shell, or a bow-string ? Such at least is my opinion, 
 which, as it is considerably enlarged upon in my 
 last, I will not resume at full here, but submit to your 
 judgment. 
 
 Since I wrote that letter, many strange and truly 
 American adventures have befallen me, which fur 
 nish a fruitful subject for this, written, I am sorry to 
 say, in a sick chamber, to which my disasters in this 
 inhospitable country have confined me. 
 
 For several days after my arrival here, I did not 
 know I was in the city of Washington, the capital of 
 America, which fact I have now, however, ascer 
 tained beyond a doubt ; though, had I taken no 
 other evidence than that of my senses, I might still 
 be incredulous. This federal city is of great dimen 
 sions ; ten English miles square. But as it is the 
 head of the wildest and most immense territories any 
 where united under one empire, where every thing 
 affects to be representative, unlike Smyrna or Con- 
 
35 
 
 stantinople, or any other city I ever saw or heard 
 of, Washington is not built compact or in 
 streets, but, as an image of the federal dominion, 
 lies scattered over a wilderness, yet in a great mea 
 sure unreclaimed from a state of nature. The 
 parks and pleasure grounds, attached to the man- 
 sions of the principal officers of government, are 
 so extensive, that though I have been very indus 
 trious, I have not yet been able to see much of the 
 town ; detached portions of which, I understand, 
 are situated a few miles off, in different directions 
 from where I lodge. Within sight of my window, 
 there is a large castle, with a flag flying from the top, 
 in which two hundred congress-men, as they are call 
 ed, are confined, like muedhdkins in the minaret of 
 a mosque, preaching day and night for the salvation 
 of the people. Attached to the president s palace, as 
 there is to the sultan s, there is a garden stretching all 
 the way to the water s edge. But I believe he has 
 no harem, and but one wife ; what his religion is, I 
 have not yet discovered. Whatever I learn here 
 after, I shall take care to let you know. At present, 
 every thing appears to me to be on a great scale. The 
 barber, who shaves me of a morning, comes on 
 horseback with his razors ; and the physician, whom 
 I sent for in haste to examine my wounds, lives five 
 miles from my lodgings. 
 
 But alas ! at the thought of a physician my bones 
 ache anew ; and my heart sinks at the recollection of 
 my miraculous escapes. As the story of my adven 
 tures will sufficiently exhibit this American Palmyra, 
 I proceed to lay them before you, that you may de- 
 
36 
 
 cide whether, as you promised, you will still have 
 the courage to follow me to the new world. 
 
 Of a fine morning, three days ago, I sallied out 
 for a ramble before breakfast, thinking, perhaps, to 
 see something worthy of observation ; and as adven 
 tures were my object, I left the highway, or avenue, 
 as it is called, and struck into the moor, that com 
 poses a great part of the city. I had not walked a 
 mile, when I heard a gun go off, and saw the smoke 
 rising at a little distance. Not caring to encounter 
 fire-arms in so wild a place, I was turning back, 
 when I saw a dog hunting about among the bushes, 
 and close after him a young man, who came run 
 ning towards me, not to plunder, as I for an instant 
 apprehended, but merely to inquire if I had seen a 
 covey of quails flying that way. He had a powder- 
 horn and shot- bag over his shoulders, a liquor-flask 
 hanging on one side, and a pouch full of dead quails 
 on the other, was altogether rather coarsely capari 
 soned, and seemed to be intent on his game. Just 
 after he accosted me,, an officer, in a rich habit and 
 laced hat, but unarmed, came riding very fast over 
 the heath, leading a horse ready saddled and bridled, 
 and drawing up close to where we stood, pulled off 
 his hat, and said to the hunter, " Sir, there are des 
 patches just arrived." " When?" cried the hunter. 
 " Within this half hour by express two sets,* 
 Sir." " Give me the horse, and take my gun," 
 
 * This accidental exposition, from a disinterested quarter, 
 of a point that has been so unfortunately contested between 
 the U. S. and G. B. must place the fact beyond all future 
 controversy. 
 
37 
 
 added the hunter hastily ; and disencumbering him 
 self from his shooting accoutrements, he vaulted into 
 the saddle of the led horse, and galloped out of sight 
 in a minute. All amazed at this mysterious meeting, 
 " Pray, Sir, said I respectfully to the officer, as he 
 was gathering up the things the hunter had thrown 
 off, " Who is that ?" " That is the envoy," answer- 
 ed the officer, with an air of dignity. " But who is 
 the envoy?" replied I, " What is an envoy? That s 
 not the president, is it ?" " The president," retorted 
 the officer, with a sneer, " I believe not that s an 
 other guess sort of a person that s the envoy ex 
 traordinary." " But why is he extraordinary ?" said 
 I. " Why because," said he. " Because why ?" said 
 I. " Why because he is the British ambassador, 
 my master, and the king his master s servant, and I 
 am his servant, and neither he nor I cares a d -n 
 for the president, for the matter of that," said the 
 officer, and mounting his beast, he trotted away 
 whistling after the other. 
 
 And is it possible, thought I, that that young hunter 
 is the British ambassador, the representative of the 
 great merchant monarch, whose fleet forced the Dar 
 danelles, and threatened to batter down Constanti 
 nople. 
 
 With this sort of mental ejaculations I amused 
 myself, strolling along in a different direction from 
 that I had followed at first, and not paying much at 
 tention to which way I went, till I came to a thicket , 
 where I was roused from my reverie by the report 
 of another gun, and looking about, I saw a rabbit, 
 pursued by a couple of dogs in full cry. As I was 
 
38 
 
 always fond of the chase, you know, and used often 
 to amuse myself in this way on the hills near Ismir, 
 I joined instinctively in the pursuit, shouted to en 
 courage the dogs, and made the best exertions I 
 could to keep up with them. The rabbit doubled, 
 and made back for the cover. Just as she was 
 escaping into the thicket, another shot whizzed by 
 my head, and down dropped puss dead at my feet. 
 Casting around for the person from whom it came, 
 I presently descried a gentleman under a large tree, 
 leaning on his fowling-piece, and calling to the dogs 
 to come in. As I approached him, he accosted me 
 in French, telling me that I ran very well ; to which 
 I answered, also in French, that he shot very well. 
 Being thus mutually introduced by a slight compli 
 ment, we entered into conversation about the dogs, 
 the rabbits, the ground, the weather, and a variety 
 of such indifferent subjects, which lasted, I suppose, 
 for half an hour, when a carriage drove up on a road 
 a few paces distant, into which the Frenchman got 
 with his dogs and dead rabbit, and drove away. 
 
 By this time I began to think of my breakfast, and 
 of returning. But on reconnoitering my position, 
 perceived that I had lost all trace of the route. A 
 mussulman knows he is safe till his hour comes ; 
 but there may be situations in which it is no sin to 
 feel uneasy. There was no time to pause in such a 
 place, where I did not know but that the next thing 
 I met might be a carnivorous Indian, with his toma 
 hawk, riding post on a mammoth, and therefore, ac 
 cording to the best judgment I could form of my bear 
 ings, I took a fresh departure, walking on at a gait not 
 
39 
 
 a little accelerated by an increasing appetite, and the 
 dread of being lost or devoured in the federal city. 
 It never occurred to me to follow the carriage, in 
 which I might have found a conveyance or a pilot : 
 but in the exigency of my affairs, I pursued a course 
 as straight as the nature of the territory would admit, 
 without any prospect, or prominent object, to serve 
 as a beacon. Alter wandering a miserable time, and 
 thinking over all those lamentable thoughts, which 
 occur to one expecting to perish in an inhospitable 
 land, when I began almost to despair, I came to a 
 hovel inhabited by black slaves ; what is called a 
 negro quarter. It was a wretched log house, thatch. 
 ed with straw, with neither window nor chimney. 
 There was a mule at the door, making a meal off 
 the roof; a cat, three dogs, and a negro child, with 
 no other covering than a ragged shirt, through which 
 a dingy skin showed in many places. I asked the 
 way to my lodgings ; but getting no answer beyond 
 barking, purring and grinning, went into the house, 
 where I was more fortunate. There was an old wo 
 man, smoking a pipe, not more than an inch long, a 
 young one with a child in her arms, and a man, seat 
 ed on the ground, round a smoke rather than a fire, 
 eating cake made of Indian meal, and hominy, a 
 preparation of Indian corn. Upon repeating my 
 inquiry, as I entered, the man came to the door, and 
 showed me which way I should go the reverse of 
 that I had been travelling for an hour and more. 
 
 Finding them plentifully supplied with proven 
 der, such as it was, and my appetite rising as mr 
 apprehensions subsided, I joined the sombre err- 
 
40 
 
 cle, and partook of a luncheon of the cake, with some 
 hominy. It was now almost noon, and these poor 
 people were taking their dinner. As I plyed them 
 with a great many questions, which they answered as 
 well as they could, in their turn they put some to 
 me, and amon^ others one that led to an important 
 disclosure. " I guess massa belong to the French 
 bassador," said the young woman, showing all her 
 teeth. " What s that?" answered I. " Him that 
 shoots rabbits ;" and from a little more information 
 on this subject, interlarded between mouthfuls of 
 hominy, I was given fully to understand, that the 
 hunter, whom I last met, who went away in a carriage 
 freighted with rabbits, was no other than the plenipo 
 of another mighty monarch, who amuses himself 
 by field sports in the heart of the American capital. 
 Nothing ought to surprise in this country, or one 
 might be permitted to wonder at meeting two such 
 personages scouring the forests for recreation. But 
 I am surfeited with amazement ; and therefore, after 
 receiving very particular instructions from my black 
 hosts how to proceed in order to find the shortest cut 
 home, I gave them a fippenny bit, (a species of 
 American coin,) and set forward once more, deter 
 mined never again, whatever oddities I might mect 3 
 to try so early an excursion in a federal city. 
 
 I was to go through a copse that lay on my right, 
 being several miles from my destination, and after 
 clearing the wood, to follow a foot-path I should see. 
 Into the wood I hastened ; but had not gone a hun 
 dred yards, when I heard two shots in quick succes 
 sion close to me. Nothing but riflemen and sharp 
 
41 
 
 bhooting in this country, thought I ; and turning an 
 angle of the track, I discovered a scene which I 
 could not comprehend at first, but which was soon 
 brought home to me in a terrible explanation. There 
 were two men standing a few paces apart, facing 
 each other ; two more at a little distance loading pis- 
 tols ; and two others farther off, standing together. 
 They all looked grave and anxious not a word was 
 said but a presentiment of what their business was, 
 chilled me with apprehension. In a few seconds, 
 each one of those loading pistols went to those that 
 stood opposed, and handed a pistol to each of them. 
 They then placed them precisely to a certain spot, 
 adjusted their postures so as to exhibit what, as I 
 have since learned, is called the feather edge, and 
 then withdrawing aside, one of the loaders asked, 
 " Are you ready ?" " Yes," said the other two, ad 
 vancing their pistols. " Fire when you please, v 
 cried the loader. At the word, one of them dis 
 charged his piece, and the other receiving the ball 
 in his body, fell to the ground, his pistol going oft* 
 into the air with the convulsive distortion of his fall. 
 Immediately all but the man who had perpetrated 
 the deed ran up to him who was expiring, and 
 I, springing over a fence against which I was leaning 
 almost petrified, flew to join the assistance. He was 
 weltering in the blood that streamed from his side, 
 and had fainted before any body could approach 
 him. The two, who had remained at a distance, 
 without taking any active part, and who now appear 
 ed to be surgeons, with as much despatch as they 
 , uncovered his body, and endeavoured, by cer- 
 
42 
 
 tain applications they had prepared, to stanch the 
 blood. In a short time the wounded revived from 
 his swoon, and was supported in the lap of one of 
 the assistants. His antagonist now drawing nigh, 
 shook hands with him with great emotion, hurried 
 off, and disappeared. The wounded man was then 
 laid on a blanket, and carried by the other three, 
 with my help, to a close carriage, that was waiting 
 near the place of action, into which he was put, the 
 ghastliness of death on his countenance, and the 
 whole party slowly drove away. 
 
 This was a duel a barbarian method of settling 
 trivial personal disputes, very prevalent in some parts 
 of America, of which, as I am told, there have been 
 several, and most of those fatal, this season, in this 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 My feelings were harrowed to a most painful de~ 
 gree by this rencontre ; and as soon as the carriage 
 was out of sight, I resumed my path, with a heavier 
 heart than I am in the habit of bearing. Frightful 
 images haunted my fancy, and I startled at every 
 bush that rustled. It was my fortune, however, on 
 this eventful day, to have my gloomy sympathies 
 dispelled by a spectacle of a very different kind. 
 
 After I left the wood, in which this melancholy 
 affair happened, I walked some two or three miles, 
 all the time in the purlieus of the federal city, with 
 out seeing habitation or human creature, when, from 
 the top of a hill I was passing, my attention was at 
 tracted, and I was induced to abandon the road I 
 was pursuing, together with all thoughts of imme 
 diately returning, by a tumultuous concourse of men, 
 
43 
 
 horses and carriages, which I could discern on a 
 distant plain. Glad of any opportunity of changing 
 the grave for the gay, especially when my mind was 
 so uncommonly dark, and wishing to see all that is 
 to be seen in this ridiculous country, I turned aside 
 from my path to follow the promise of so much no 
 velty and speculation. After all I had seen so lately, 
 I considered it no more than prudent to approach 
 with circumspection, and not to commit myself till I 
 could ascertain what was the purpose of a tumul 
 tuous assembly, from which clouds of dust, and a 
 confused din, were issuing forth. My conjectures 
 were various, and I should have remained undecided 
 all day, if my curiosity had not got the better of my 
 caution, and prompted me, at all events, to join the 
 throng. It proved to be the hippodrome, an amuse 
 ment to which the Americans are much addicted, 
 and in which, as in almost every thing else, they 
 vainly believe they excel. It is held in a large open 
 field, no more like the Atmeidan, than Washington is 
 like Constantinople. Persons of all descriptions, from 
 the president and chief officers of state down to their 
 negro slaves, were collected together, driving pell- 
 mell about the course, shouting, betting, drinking, 
 quarrelling and fighting. Booths and tents were 
 erected, in some of which refreshments were offered 
 for sale, and in others gambling tables were kept ; 
 and stages on which the judges of the course were 
 mounted. You must not be astonished at hearing 
 that a number of beautiful females were present, sit 
 ting exposed on the tops and boxes of carriages, and 
 in other conspicuous seats. Every line of separation 
 
44 
 
 is so entirely obliterated, that wherever there are 
 men you may be sure to meet women, in this coun 
 try ; and for my own part, I have no doubt that the 
 women in the end will ride uppermost. All was 
 uproar. The tramping and neighing of horses, the 
 din of bets, the jingle of glasses, and the dissonance 
 of disputes, filled the air. At last the horses des 
 tined for the contest were led out. But such horses 
 and such a contest ! Instead of noble rampant ani 
 mals, bearing their crests aloft, and pawing the 
 ground, all pride, phrensy and ambition, a couple of 
 miserable skeletons crawled tamely up to the goal ; 
 for in this perverse country, it seems, they reduce 
 instead of pampering their cattle for a race, and for 
 four and twenty hours beforehand, allow them no 
 thing to eat. The riders were dressed in parti 
 coloured clothes, with spurs on their heels and whips 
 In their hands, to excite the sorry beasts they rode. 
 Of these such unintermitting and merciless applica 
 tion was made, that the battered brutes bled faster 
 than they ran, and were scarcely able, much less 
 willing, to move, when brought up for the second 
 trial, after resting from the first. However, they 
 were goaded on for one or two rounds, when one of 
 them, overcome by debility and effort, fell down and 
 died on the ground. 
 
 Almost as exhausted as the horses, and having a 
 very long walk still before me, I threw myself into 
 a hackney-coach to ride to my lodgings. We crept 
 along, and it was almost dark before we got near the 
 inn. Hundreds of other carriages, horsemen, foot- 
 passengers, chaises, stages and carts crossed us, dust- 
 
45 
 
 ed us, and delayed us, so that I thought I was doom 
 ed never to arrive. At last we began to climb the 
 hill on which our inn stands, and I was felicitating 
 myself on my escape from the day s disasters, when 
 one of those hurricanes, to which Washington is 
 subject, began to blow like an Arabian sirocco, 
 whirling the dust in clouds about the road. I ex 
 perienced many a gale at sea, but never such a land 
 breeze as this. The horses could hardly stem it. 
 The old coach creaked to the blast. The coachman 
 lashed with all his might but in vain the tem 
 pest was irresistible; and we were blown, horses, 
 hack and all, off the road, into a deep ditch at the 
 side, where I lay till the horses were cut loose from 
 the harness, and the door loosened from the hinges, 
 as the only means of my extrication. 
 
 Before I was sufficiently recovered to help myself, 
 or know what had happened, the negro had crawled 
 away with his horses ; and the first moment of par 
 tial recollection found me sitting on the hub of one 
 of the wheels, that was lying apart from the carriage 
 on the ground, stupified, skinned, with one eye 
 closed up, bruised, mangled, dislocated, and more 
 dead than alive. It began to be dark. At any time 
 I should have been perplexed to find my way in this 
 desert ; but bewildered as my senses were, I got up 
 and moved on, as well as my lameness, blindness and 
 stupefaction would permit, not knowing whither. 
 Night gained on me apace, with all those apprehen 
 sions which the stoutest heart might own in an Ame 
 rican desert. I fancied I heard the growling of bears, 
 the howling of wolves, and the hissing of rattle- 
 
46 
 
 snakes. The melancholy muck-a-wiss, a bird that 
 delights in the dusk, flickered about my head, a flight 
 of bats flitted round my path, and a legion of mos- 
 chettoes, a sort of tarantula, whose bite no music 
 will cure, fastened on my face, hands and legs, raw 
 as they were, and unprotected from their venom. 
 After wandering an age of anxious minutes, groan- 
 ing with my hurts, praying for some relief, and 
 starting at the strange objects that perpetually danced 
 in every possible shape of terror before my remaining 
 eye, of a sudden I was roused from a momentary 
 forgetfulness of all other fears by a shout bursting 
 forth just beside me, as if a whole tribe of Mohawks 
 were putting up their whoop of destruction. Rivet- 
 ted to the spot, I never should have ventured to leave 
 it, had I not gradually discovered that the cause of 
 my immediate alarm was an innocent jack-ass, 
 browsing close by, whose braying I had mistaken for 
 an Indian war whoop. Reviving to something better 
 than my former level of despondency, I determined 
 to make this beast the instrument of my rescue. As 
 I found he had a bridle on, though no saddle or pan 
 niers, I clambered on to his bare back, and jerking 
 him into a jog, committed my fate to his superior 
 knowledge of the city, suffering him to carry me 
 which way he chose, and transported at even this, 
 change in my forlorn circumstances. The branches 
 flapped me in the face ; the briars and brushwood 
 scratched my lacerated legs ; but nevertheless I plod- 
 ded on with my ass, trusting to his instinct for being 
 brought to some human habitation. We had not 
 
 travelled far, when, from the top of an eminence, I 
 1 
 
47 
 
 saw a great light, towards which my ass seemed to di 
 rect his steps. Imagine my horror, as I approached, 
 at hearing the most piercing shrieks and yells, pro 
 ceeding from a multitude of voices, male and fe 
 male. With all my might I endeavoured to check 
 the ass, or make him change his direction, but to 
 no purpose ; he redoubled his speed, pressing on to 
 the fire, which now blazed full in view, exhibiting 
 the most dreadful spectacle that can be fancied. In 
 spite of all my efforts I was hurried close upon the 
 flames, and should have been carried into the midst 
 of the cannibals that were dancing around them, had 
 I not, finding all contest with my ass unavailing, 
 thrown myself off his back, as he galloped in full 
 charge, and, at the expense of a few more bruises, 
 fallen behind a bush, that served to conceal me. 
 There I lay, surveying the awful scene before me. 
 Good God! thought I, quivering more than the 
 leaves with the evening breezes, am I on earth or in 
 hell ? A huge fire of brushwood was crackling on 
 the ground, round which stood a number of ne 
 groes, clapping their hands, beating their breasts, 
 and uttering the most barbarous shouts, while a fe 
 male lay at their feet in convulsions, but unresisting, 
 and apparently in momentary expectation of being 
 roasted and devoured. If my limbs had been unin 
 jured, I could not have moved from the spot, such 
 was the terror that overcame me. The incantations 
 grew worse ; men and women, dressed to be sure 
 like the slaves in general of this country, and some 
 of them with books in their hands, but in all other 
 respects like ferocious and frantic savages, seemed to 
 
48 
 
 vie with each other in contortions of the face, and fury 
 of gesticulation. They writhed, bellowed, foamed 
 at the mouth, hung over the wretch on the ground, 
 and exhibited every sign of cannibals greedy for 
 their prey. Just at the fatal moment, when they all 
 huddled round the victim on the ground, and were 
 about to begin their accursed meal, a flash of sharp 
 lightning eclipsed their infenial light, followed by a 
 peal of thunder that broke over their heads : and 
 upon looking up, which I had not before ventured to 
 do, I perceived a storm on the point of breaking 
 loose. Never were the first streaks of a clear sky so 
 welcome to the shipwrecked mariner, as was this tre 
 mendous storm to me, which soon came down in 
 torrents of rain, with continued streams of lightning 
 and peals of thunder ; for it broke up the pandemo 
 nium, and snatched me from the most dreadful de 
 struction, as I had little hope of escaping being the 
 next victim. As soon as the rain interrupted their 
 orgies, the blacks ceased, though without any symp 
 toms of haste or trepidation. The woman on the 
 ground sprang on to her feet ; and the whole hell ? 
 some on jack-asses and mules, others on horseback, 
 and most of them on foot, marched off to the mea 
 sure of a kind of dirge, which they all joined in sing- 
 ing. After the last sounds died away amid the pelt 
 ing of the shower and reverberations of the thunder, 
 rolling from hill to hill around the amphitheatre that 
 surrounds the city, I once more crept out, drenched 
 with rain, but delighted ; forgetting my injuries, 
 blind and halt as I was, considering nothing but the 
 dangers I had miraculously escaped, and how to fly as 
 
49 
 
 far and as fast as possible, from this the most friglv. 
 ful purlieu in the whole city of Washington ; and 
 taking a direction opposite to that in which the can 
 nibals departed, hobbled along, till, to my inex 
 pressible joy, I heard a dog bark. Presently a little 
 glimmering light twinkled from no great distance, 
 such a one as I thought I might approach without 
 risk, and in a few minutes more I was welcomed 
 into a decent log farm-house, where a family of a 
 man and three women were seated round a table, 
 eating mush, another preparation of Indian corn ; of 
 which, after having the blood and dirt washed from 
 my face, I was presented with a bowl. It was now 
 late at night ; and I found I was further from my 
 lodgings than [ could possibly walk in my maimed 
 condition, in the dark, and without a guide. When, 
 therefore the man and his wife and their three boys, 
 went to bed in one of the beds there were in the room, 
 and the two young women in the other, the house 
 consisting of but one apartment, I took the liberty to 
 stretch my aching limbs upon the floor, where all my 
 cares were forgotten in a sound sleep till morning. 
 But when 1 awoke, and attempted to get up, my 
 bruises were so stiff, that I could scarcely stand, 
 much less walk a mile and a half to my lodgings. 
 In this emergency, my host; who was going to our 
 hotel, with a cart load of potatoes, generously gave 
 me a ride on the top of them ; and shot me down at 
 the inn door with the rest of his burthen. For three- 
 days I have not been out of my chamber. Blood-let 
 ting, fever, physic and aches, a cold room, and a hard 
 bed, continually call to mind the perils of a ramble in 
 
50 
 
 the city of Washington ; and I sigh once more, be 
 lieve me, Selim, for the cheerful crowds and fragrant 
 environs, the beautiful oay and beloved scenes of 
 Smyrna. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 VROM INCHIQUIN TO PHARAMOND. 
 
 Dated at Washington. 
 
 THE whole world of Washington is concentrated 
 in the capitol. In the absence of all other places of 
 public resort and recreation, the galleries of Con 
 gress are attended by those who have no better pas 
 time than political debates ; and, in common with the 
 rest, I pay my daily attendance on this school of na 
 tional oratory. 
 
 The apartments, in which the representatives of the 
 American people hold their assemblies, are all under 
 the same roof, and generally free of admission ; per 
 fectly appropriate and magnificent ; and though the 
 temple of republicanism, not unworthy to be 
 
 Monumenta regis 
 Templaque Vestae. 
 
 In no part of the world are there more noble edi 
 fices devoted to similar purposes ; and, compared to 
 that of the American commons, St. Stephen s cha 
 pel, in particular, is a most contemptible chamber* 
 The hall of the representatives is of spacious di- 
 
52 
 
 mensions ; an oval, surrounded by twenty-four Co 
 rinthian pillars, and surmounted by a lofty, painted 
 dome, through which the light is admitted by a 
 hundred apertures. The galleries and lobbies, situ 
 ated behind the pillars, are large and convenient, fes 
 tooned with scarlet drapery, that serves to prevent too 
 great a resonance of the voice, and at the same time 
 to give a compactness and finish to the apartment. 
 Over the grand entrance, there are emblematic bas 
 reliefs ; and, on the opposite side, a statue of liber 
 ty. The furniture, decorations and arrangement, are 
 becoming and elegant ; and during a night session, 
 when the hall is lighted by lamps, the whole effect is 
 fine and imposing. 
 
 The senate chamber is in the other wing of the ca- 
 pitol, which is yet in quite an unfinished state, of a 
 smaller size than the hall of the representatives, with 
 a double arched dome ; and Ionic pillars, the dra 
 pery, hangings and carpets, and indeed the whole 
 chamber finished in a superior style of splendour and 
 brilliancy. 
 
 Under the senate chamber is the hall of justice, 
 the ceiling of which is not unfancifully formed by 
 the arches that support the former. The judges, in 
 their robes of solemn black, are raised on seats of 
 grave mahogany ; and below them is the bar, sur 
 rounded by a Doric colonnade, somewhat elevated 
 above the bar, and behind that an arcade, still higher, 
 so contrived as to afford auditors double rows of 
 terrace seats, thrown in segments round the trans 
 verse arch, under which the judges sit. 
 
 c main body of the capitol has not been begun, 
 
53 
 
 and all these halls are in the wings. The whole pile, 
 when complete, will be enormous. The vestibules, 
 stairways, and galleries of communication, are de 
 signed and executed with great magnificence ; 
 though at present they arc disfigured by scaffolding 
 and patchwork ; and the three original orders of 
 Grecian architecture are displayed in the three halls,, 
 with perfect chastness and uniformity. 
 
 As public speaking in all its branches, parliament 
 ary, forensic, and of the pulpit, is exhibited in the 
 capitol, and this is really the only public spectacle of 
 Washington, I pass great part of my time there ; 
 and propose to give you some account of the state of 
 oratory in this country, as contrasted with others, 
 both ancient and modern, with a sketch of some of 
 the orators, who arc assembled, from various quar 
 ters, in this metropolis. 
 
 To begin with the pulpit : as there are very few, 
 and those very small, places of public worship in 
 the federal city, the representative hall, which, from 
 its spaciousness and form, is well adapted to such a 
 purpose, has been taken as the theatre for ecclesias 
 tical discourses ; and a scene, which wants no addi 
 tional interest from its originality, since my residence 
 here, has been rendered, by the presence of a cele 
 brated preacher from New- York, peculiarly striking 
 and memorable. Figure to yourself a magnificent 
 apartment, with no one appearance of a church, 
 crowded with an audience consisting of all descrip 
 tions of persons, of both sexes and colours, promis 
 cuously seated and standing ; the galleries, stairways 
 and entrances thronged, and everv avenue surfeited 
 
54 
 
 with spectators. No choir, no preparatory service 
 or solemnities, but a band of soldiers, with all " the 
 pride, pomp, and circumstance of war," file in, 
 marching to a martial air, sounded by drums and 
 warlike instruments, and take their stations. Soon 
 after the clergyman begins.f 
 
 When I went into the court of justice yesterday f 
 one side of the fine forensic colonnade was occupied 
 by a party of ladies, who, after loitering some time 
 in the gallery of the representatives, had sauntered 
 into this hall, and were, with their attendants, sacri 
 ficing some impatient moments to the inscrutable 
 mysteries of pleading. On the opposite side was a 
 group of Indians, who are here on a visit to the 
 president, (papa of the savages,) in their native cos 
 tume, their straight black hair hanging in plaits down 
 their tawny shoulders, with mockassins on their feet, 
 rings in their ears and noses, and large plates of silver 
 on their arms and breasts. 
 
 With silver flaming and barbaric gold. 
 
 In the center of the peristyle, stood a superannuated 
 officer of the American revolution, who passes his 
 few remaining winters in Washington, vainly peti 
 tioning congress for " that which should accompany 
 old age ;" his habit of the " olden time," edged with 
 tarnished lace ; his hair as white as snow ; his face 
 furrowed, but full of dignity, resting with one hand 
 
 t Here we regret to say several lines are scored out ^. 
 
on a cane, and with the other supporting himself 
 
 against a column. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Before this audience was the bench of reverend 
 judges, listening with constrained patience to a ruby- 
 faced spokesman ; who, with his hair in full powder, 
 but without any robe, which, like charity, might 
 have covered a multitude of improprieties, was chop 
 ping law-logic, in a voice so loud as to be almost 
 lost in its own reverberations. This was the third 
 day of his speech ; of which I heard nothing more 
 than the peroration. But that was enough; for 
 though, as well as I could catch the subject, there was 
 a pervading strength of argument, and some corus 
 cations of rhetoric, his gestures were so vehement, 
 countenance so angry, and his continual digressions 
 so entirely extra flammantia mcenia mundi, that it was 
 impossible to keep in view both the speaker and his 
 cause ; and indeed before he concluded, I suffered 
 all the torments of restlessness, and a jaded attention, 
 bewildered with vain efforts to sit still and under 
 stand. 
 
 ***** 
 
 But it is in the two houses of congress that we 
 should look for the orators of America, selected as 
 the members of those houses are, from all parts of the 
 country, for their talents and eloquence. To a cer 
 tain degree, an ability for good public speaking is very 
 common in the United States. Natural fluency, 
 characteristic fire, and a habit of public debating, 
 are almost universal. But there have been, and there 
 are individuals elsewhere, who, as their talents have 
 been corroborated by a more complete education, and 
 
56 
 
 matured under a less distracted attention, have attain 
 ed probably to higher grades of distinction than any 
 of the Americans, 
 
 There are others in congress, in whose orations the 
 smell of the camp is more perceptible ; but none to 
 be considered models of fine speaking. Indeed to 
 adopt either the congress, or the forum at Washing 
 ton, as types of the national oratory, would be doing 
 injustice to the country ; for there are at the bar, and 
 in the provincial assemblies of many of the states, or 
 at least there were, when I formerly resided in Ame 
 rica, men certainly superior to any whose exhibition 
 is confined to the capitol. 
 
 ***** 
 
 As language is the offspring of necessity, so elo 
 quence is the child of the passions, born in the bosom 
 of liberty, fostered by the love of glory. In the 
 early stages of society, a man endowed with supple 
 organs, a rich imagination, and an ardent soul, 
 uniting a firm and rapid enunciation with striking 
 gestures, and vehement intonations with pathetic ac 
 cents, would surpass, sometimes in great strokes, 
 and always in impression, an orator enlightened by 
 study, and disciplined by rule. But the scene is 
 changed, when society advances in civilization, when 
 manners become refined, ideas enlarged, objects com 
 plicated ; when sagacity rather than truth prevails 
 in debate ; when the arts and sciences, furnishing a 
 multitude of objects of comparison, render an au- 
 
 t We again express our regret that nearly half a sheet is 
 erased in this place, containing probably some personal stric 
 tures, not intended for the public eye. 
 
57 
 
 ciience more delicate in its sensations, and fastidious 
 
 in its decisions ; when it comes armed with doubt 
 / 
 
 and criticism, rebels against conviction, is desirous 
 of metaphorical scintillations, and weighs words be 
 fore it weighs reasons. Eloquence, which was at 
 first little more than the gift of announcing thoughts 
 with animation, without much regard to their dress, 
 becomes then devoted to their decoration. At such 
 a time, in an age of refinement, when the facilities of 
 printing render a whole nation one and the same au 
 dience, it is hazardous to give the reins to inspira 
 tion. Extemporary eloquence existed first in Greece, 
 where it survived the fall of freedom and decay of 
 taste ; but its genius changed with its objects, and it 
 fell to the lot of sophists and rhetoricians, who, wan 
 dering from place to place, offered to declaim a given 
 time on any given subject ; whose frivolous and in 
 sipid talent has reappeared in the improvisatoris of 
 modern Italy. 
 
 Such sacrifices, such self- interment in retreat and 
 study, to appear again after years of immolation, 
 masters of themselves and rulers of the universe, as 
 are related of Demosthenes and Cicero, certainly sur* 
 pass the modern labours of preparation. " The fa- 
 mous orators of Greece and Rome," says Boling- 
 broke,* " were the statesmen and ministers of those 
 commonwealths. But eloquence must flow like a 
 stream that is fed by an abundant spring ; and not 
 spout forth a little frothy water on some gaudy day* 
 and remain dry the rest of the year." 
 
 * Bolingb, Let. on the Spirit of Patriotism. 
 
 H 
 
58 
 
 But the ancients, however intense their study OP 
 their excellence, were only forensic and political ora 
 tors. That sublime species of moral eloquence, 
 which is universal and everlasting, was first intro 
 duced by the evangelical law.* Cicero defends a 
 client ; Demosthenes combats an adversary, or en 
 deavours to light the expiring flame of patriotism in 
 a degenerate nation. Their utmost efforts aim to ex 
 cite the passions, and their best hopes are fixed on 
 their agitation. But pulpit eloquence seeks its ends 
 in sublimer regions, wins by subduing the move 
 ments of the soul, and secures the passions by their 
 appeasement. It requires neither the cabals of fac 
 tion, popular commotions, nor extraordinary crises. 
 Its text is God and charity, always the same, always 
 inexhaustible. In the bosom of peace, over the bier 
 of the humblest citizen, its themes are more pathetic 
 than the noblest political subjects; and no conjuncture 
 of antiquity can parallel its ordinary occasions. 
 
 In most countries of modern Europe, such is the 
 form of government, as to afford few, if any, op 
 portunities for senatorial or popular eloquence ; which 
 is hardly known, except in Great Britain and the 
 United States. The palm of pulpit and academic 
 oratory, is due decidedly to France : Bourdaloue, 
 Flechier and Massillon, have no competitors ; and 
 the gratuitous harangues of Thomas are elaborated to 
 a degree of elegance and fascination unequalled in 
 their kind. To the English would be as decidedly 
 due the pre-eminence in forensic and parliamentary 
 
 * See Chateaubriand, Genie du Christ. 
 
59 
 
 speaking, were it not for the Americans, who are 
 their rivals in the latter, and greatly their superiors 
 in the former species. 
 
 The English are excellent reasoners, chaste wri 
 ters, and classical scholars, but seldom fine speakers, 
 A natural talent for extemporaneous elocution does not 
 seem to prevail among them, as it does among the 
 Americans. When the form of their government is ad 
 verted to, their revolutions, factions, and popular tu 
 mults, and the great number of their writers, of the 
 first impression, on every subject, both in poetry and 
 prose, it is matter for wonder, that so few distin 
 guished orators have appeared in England ; and that 
 such as have, were reserved for the present age of 
 peace and prosperity. Their pulpit is learned, di 
 dactic, but phlegmatic, and never eloquent ; their 
 bar almost universally addicted, as Sir James Macin 
 tosh has observed, to a bad style, and ungraceful 
 elocution ; and in parliament a sober and deliberate 
 course of reasoning seems to be preferred to any ef 
 forts of imagination, or blandishments of rhetoric. 
 Till Chatham s ascendancy, there is not one entitled 
 to the first rank for the powers of speech. Since his 
 demise, the mantle of eloquence has been borne by 
 more than in all their preceding history. But now 
 again the death of Pitt and Fox is succeeded by an 
 other interregnum. Not but that there are several 
 men in both houses of parliament, of respectable ta 
 lents for public speaking. But there is no orator. 
 There is no individual with the acknowledged pre 
 eminence of Demosthenes and Cicero among the an 
 cients, or Chatham and Burke, or even Pitt and Fox 
 
60 
 
 among themselves ; no one with the rank as a mere 
 public speaker, considered apart from his merits as a 
 statesman, which Ames once held, or which Mr. 
 Randolph now occupies in America. The orators of 
 England will probably very soon be reduced, unless 
 new ones arise, to Chatham and Burke, and, perhaps, 
 Sheridan. The few others who were eminent, were 
 nothing better than adroit debaters ; and the great 
 body of their public speakers, in parliament, at the 
 bar, and from the pulpit, with great good sense, and 
 extensive acquirements, are miserably deficient in all 
 the properties of eloquence ; to whom an audience 
 listens, by a sort of compulsion, compounding with 
 a dry diction, an uncouth gesticulation, and a 
 rough manner, for the acuteness and ability with 
 which they commonly manage their matter. Chat 
 ham and Burke must be admired, while the En 
 glish language endures. But Fox, though an ani 
 mated and persuasive reasoner, was no orator : and 
 his rival Pitt s greatest recommendation was the 
 bare merit of propriety : jus et norma loguendL 
 
 Does love of the land of my forefathers deceive 
 me when I think that Ireland, manacled and chained 
 as she is, has produced some of the finest orators of 
 the age. It was in Ireland Burke and Sheridan lisped 
 the first of those numbers, that were afterwards mo 
 dulated on the greater but less harmonious sphere 
 of England. It is in Ireland that Curran and Grat- 
 tan shine. It is there that a constitutional mercu- 
 rialism and frankness, beating against the shackles 
 of domination, have struck out some of the finest 
 flashes of an eloquence, sublime and pathetic, spon- 
 
61 
 
 taneous, perhaps irregular, but exuberant, gor 
 geous, intense and irresistible. 
 
 I will not say the Americans have exhibited a 
 Chatham or a Burke. I think their most excellent 
 speakers want the finish of oratory. But the nation 
 appears to me to enjoy a greater aptitude for public 
 speaking, more generally diffused, and more fre 
 quently displayed in flights of bold, nervous, and 
 sometimes beautiful eloquence, than any other what 
 ever. In their public bodies, congress, the state 
 assemblies, the bar of the several states, and their 
 numerous political, and academic associations, there is 
 a much greater number of agreeable speakers, than in 
 the similar assemblies of Great Britain, with whom, 
 from the identity of language and similarity in other 
 respects, it seems most natural to compare them. 
 There is no modern people, among whom the op 
 portunities of oratory are so numerous ; or the in 
 citements to oratorical excellence so strong. In 
 such a republic as that of the American states, an 
 orator may be a perpetual dictator, for reasons very 
 different from those which produced the same effect in 
 the ancient commonwealths. In them the populace 
 were moved, through their ignorance ; here the peo 
 ple may be roused through their universal intelligence. 
 A fertile and solid memory ; not that which retains 
 words, but in which ideas are classed, as it were, in 
 a great repository, waiting the orders of the judg 
 ment ; a rapid conception, which unites, while it 
 conceives ideas ; an intrepid and hardy logic, which 
 seizes analogies, without the process of comparison 
 or deduction ; a courage irritated rather than abated 
 
62 
 
 by interruptions and difficulties ; a happy facility to 
 feel, and yet to restrain the feelings, for passion, 
 which sometimes obscures the intelligence, always 
 fertilizes, when it does not disorder ; a mind enlar 
 ged by study, fortified by meditation, habituated by 
 writing to the concentration of thought, and rectitude 
 of expression ; consummated in any individual of 
 this country, would place its destinies at his disposal. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 FROM INCHIQUIN. 
 
 Dated at Washington. 
 
 THE inauguration of the new president took 
 place yesterday, when I was prevented witnessing the 
 ceremony by a cold, which confines me to my cham 
 ber. With this letter I have forwarded a newspaper, 
 containing an account of what little ceremonial there 
 was on the occasion, which I accompany with a 
 sketch of the characters of the American presi 
 dents. 
 
 Of Washington what shall be said? Panegyric 
 cannot be exhausted on his name. The sovereignty 
 of his country was asserted by his energy, and se 
 cured by his moderation. His military successes 
 were more solid than brilliant, brilliant as they were ; 
 and judgment, rather than enthusiasm, regulated his 
 conduct in battle. In the midst of the inevitable disor 
 ders of camps, and the excesses inseparable from a civil 
 war, humanity always found refuge in his tent. In the 
 morning of triumph, and in the darkness of adversity, 
 he was alike serene; at all times tranquil as wisdom, 
 and simple as virtue. After the acknowledgment of 
 American independence, when the unanimous suf 
 frage of a free people railed him to administer their 
 
64 
 
 government, his administration, partaking of his cha 
 racter, was mild and firm at home, noble and pru 
 dent abroad. Born to opulence, he had nobly in 
 creased his patrimony, like the early heroes of Rome, 
 by the labours of agriculture : and though an enemy 
 to vain parade, he wished to environ the manners of 
 republicanism with a becoming dignity. His well 
 regulated mind repulsed every species of extrava 
 gance. No one of his fellow-citizens loved liberty 
 more ardently ; but no one heard, with a stronger 
 repugnance, the exaggerations of demagogues. In all 
 his negot^tions the heroic simplicity of the American 
 president dealt, without vainglory or abasement, 
 with the majesty of kings. His were not the fierce 
 and imposing features which strike all minds ; but 
 order and justice, truth, and above all, good sense, 
 were his characteristics: good sense, a quality as 
 rare as it is useful, and as useful in public stations as 
 in private life. Genius elevates, boldness destroys ; 
 good sense preserves and perfects. Genius is charged 
 with the glory of empires ; but good sense alone can 
 assure their repose and duration. When Washing 
 ton saw his country raised, in great measure by his 
 personal influence, from distraction and despondency, 
 to an honourable rank among independent nations, 
 actuated by neither fear nor ambition, but desirous 
 of enjoying in private the tranquillity he so greatly 
 contributed to affirm, he retired from the presidency, 
 to live and die a private citizen, when he might have 
 been monarch of the West. But though he relin 
 quished the first place, the first name in America 
 
65 
 
 continued and ever will be Washington. There are 
 prodigious men, who appear at intervals, with the 
 character of greatness and domination. An unknown, 
 supernatural cause sends them forth, when required, 
 to found, or repair the ruins of empires. In vain 
 do such men keep aloof, or mix with the crowd ; 
 the hand of fortune raises them suddenly, and they 
 are borne from obstacle over obstacle, from triumph 
 through triumph, to the summit of authority. Inspi 
 ration animates their thoughts ; an irresistible move 
 ment is given to their enterprises. The multitude 
 looks for them in itself, but finds them not* and lift 
 ing up its eyes, they are beheld in a sphere resplen 
 dent with light and glory. No monarch on his 
 throne was ever so great as Washington in his re 
 tirement. No founder of an empire had the same 
 pretensions, looking around on the national power 
 and prosperity he had created, to exclaim, Hte sunt 
 
 imagines, h&c nobilitas, non hercditate relicta, sed 
 
 ego plurimis labor ibus ct pcriculis 
 
 * The ancients would have deified such an individual as 
 Washington, and transmitted his name, thus rendered sa 
 cred, to the veneration ot" posterity. No political improve 
 ments or national institutions, no course of policy, no mere 
 system, however excellent, can tend so much to make a na 
 tion happy and great, as the disinterested exertions of indi 
 viduals, exalted by their superior talents and virtue. It ought 
 to be one of the first objects of a republican people to en 
 shrine the characters of those men, to whom their prosperity 
 may be even in part ascribed, and with whose names their 
 national character will be associated. Some of the ablest 
 statesmen and historians have pronounced their judgments 
 
 T 
 
66 
 
 The two succeeding presidents have also already 
 passed away politically, each of them with claims 
 much urged, and much contested, to applause. From 
 a long residence in the United States, and an inti 
 mate observation of their principal men, manners 
 and institutions, I hope I have collected the means 
 for appreciating them justly, without imbibing the 
 poison of their factions and personalities : And I 
 shall endeavour to delineate them, as if they were 
 no more, without bias or prejudice. 
 
 Perisse a jamais 1 affreuse politique, 
 
 Qui pretend sur les coeurs un pouvoir despotique. 
 
 The void left by Washington it was impossible 
 to fill ; and Mr. Adams, whose misfortune it was to 
 succeed him, proximns, sed longo intervallo, never 
 
 for men in preference to measures. Sallust, a warm admirer 
 of popular governments, and certainly enlisted on the popular 
 side, inquiring into the causes of Roman greatness, thus ex 
 presses his opinion : Mihi, mult a agitanti, constabat pauco- 
 nun civium egregiam -uirtutem cuncta patravisse ; eocjue fac- 
 tum uti di~uitias fiau/iertasj multitudinem paucitas sufieraret. 
 Sal. de Cat. s. 54. // ne s cst presque jamais^ says Voltaire, 
 rienfait de grand dans le monde que par le genie et la fermete 
 d un sen! homme, qui lutte contre les Jirejugcs de la multitude. 
 Es. sur les Meeurs. And the late Mr. Fox expresses a simi 
 lar sentiment in still stronger terms. " How vain," says he, 
 " how idle, how presumptuous is the opinion, that laws can 
 do every thing ! And how weak and pernicious the maxim 
 founded upon it, that measures, not men, are to be attended 
 to." Hist, of James II. Introd. p. 14. So too the philosophi* 
 
67 
 
 entered the mind in comparison with his predecessor. 
 At the commencement of the revolution, Mr. Adams 
 stood forth a zealous, resolute and useful patriot; 
 and though his services were confined to the civil de 
 partments, they were nevertheless steady, well direct 
 ed and important. Being afterwards vice-president 
 under Washington, of acknowledged abilities and ir 
 reproachable reputation, having had the honour of re- 
 presenting his country in Europe on several momen 
 tous missions, and being an individual of preponde 
 rating influence in the States of New-England, the 
 presidency devolved upon him after Washington s 
 retirement, as it were, rather as a matter of routine 
 and reward, than on account of his superior fitness 
 for the situation. No man can be great, who is not 
 greater than his fortune ; nor does any weakness 
 more deservedly incur contempt than the intoxica 
 tion of success. Elated by his election, Mr. Adams 
 lost the equanimity, which was, perhaps, the first re 
 quisite for his place. Wanting, besides, the personal 
 weight that a president should possess, when the 
 impulse that carried him into office subsided, as it 
 soon did with the infatuation that followed, it be- 
 came evident, that neither himself, his cabinet, nor 
 the people, were under his government, and that his 
 short-lived power was on the wane. A considerable 
 section of his own party were his opponents ; among 
 whom the most conspicuous and influential was Ge- 
 
 sing poet, dilating indeed the sentiment with a poet s license, 
 exclaims, 
 
 Of forms of government let fools contest ; 
 That which is best administered is best. 
 
68 
 
 neral Hamilton, a man of splendid and versatile ta 
 lents, of a romantic temper and noble sense of ho 
 nour, but imprudent, and hating and despising the 
 president. On the other hand, his antagonists were 
 managed by a leader of consummate skill, in whom 
 the whole opposition reposed implicit confidence, 
 and who was every way superior to Mr. Adams in 
 the arts of popularity. He suffered moreover from 
 comparisons with Washington. Of a grand and 
 graceful person, reserved, august and commanding, 
 the latter knew how to be gracious without relaxing 
 his native dignity, and to maintain an elevated offi 
 cial rank without the guards or glare of royalty. But 
 Mr. Adams had none of these advantages. His pre 
 sence was neither graceful nor imposing ; and his 
 manners were sometimes abrupt and repulsive. Thus 
 deficient in some of the qualifications for command, 
 though he undoubtedly enjoyed many others, thwarted 
 in his own party, and opposed by a skilful adversary, 
 he proved unequal for the task, and was superseded 
 on the expiration of the first term for w r hich he was 
 chosen. He had indeed to contend with no inconsi 
 derable difficulties, and the tide of popular opinion 
 was setting strong enough perhaps to have carried 
 him off, without any demerits of his own. 
 
 But Mr. Adams can hardly be accounted a man of 
 the first stamp. Integrity, industry, experience and 
 extensive information, qualifications of the first im 
 pression for public places, he certainly possessed ; 
 and had he been content to move in a sphere for 
 which he was fitted, elevated but not the most 
 
69 
 
 elevated, he might have lived prosperously, and 
 died with an enviable reputation. But seduced 
 into regions where he was incapable of shining, 
 he began to decline almost as soon as he trespass 
 ed on them. Towards the close of his period, 
 when the manifestations of dissatisfaction began to 
 be alarming, it was said he made unbecoming sa 
 crifices to propitiate popularity, which served only 
 to multiply his enemies, and hasten and confirm his 
 fall. In the administration of governments there not 
 unfrequently occurs a dilemma, where it is extreme 
 ly perplexing to determine whether to advance or re 
 cede. But there probably never was an exigency of 
 this sort, when a time-serving abandonment was not 
 more hazardous than an independent perseverance in 
 the unpopular measures. 
 
 In the relations of private life, Mr. Adams was al 
 ways amiable and exemplary ; affectionate in his fa 
 mily; steady and ingenuous in his friendships; 
 punctilious in the observance of his engagements ; 
 of religious habits, and few, if any vices ; incapable 
 of intrigue, and deficient even in that address, which 
 is often so necessary, and seldom amiss, in a person 
 called to act a distinguished part. His love of coun 
 try was ardent and high-toned. He had knowledge, 
 but more of books than men. He had seen a great 
 routine of public business; but his acquirements 
 were not practical. Vanity was his predominant fail 
 ing; and though his judgment was in general good, 
 a sort of imbecility hung about it, like ivy round an 
 oak, affecting all the measures of his administration. 
 
70 
 
 As Madame de Sevigne says of one of her friends^ 
 his good and bad qualities were mixed up pell-mell 
 together ; and these never could answer their design 
 without more or less thwarting from the others. 
 
 Yet his administration was more unfortunate for 
 himself and his party, than for his country : not so 
 ill advised, as unsteadily executed, ending as much 
 too low as it began too high. As his career was un 
 successful, his annals are obscured ; and indeed it 
 may be doubted, whether his party, as such, will 
 ever recover the defeat they sustained under his 
 auspices. But he must always feel the consolation 
 of having been governed by principles, the least 
 worthy of which was nothing worse than ambition ; 
 a fault, which one of the most celebrated ancient 
 writers and politicians designates as vitium propius 
 virtuti, the vice nearest to virtue. If, as has been 
 thought, the aggrandizement of his own family was 
 his favourite object, he at least associated their ex 
 altation with that of his country ; and as a great poet 
 has said, 
 
 When men aspire, 
 "Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire. 
 
 It is supposed Mr. Adams is relieving his leisure 
 by composing his own memoirs ; a donation which 
 all unfortunate statesmen, who survive their power, 
 owe to themselves, and all such as are fortunate to 
 their country. 
 
 The political demise of president Adams was 
 
 succeeded by a crisis that threatened to prove fatal 
 Q 
 
71 
 
 to the American union ; and which, though not 
 strictly incidental to my present subject, I cannot 
 omit, inasmuch as it tends to show the inconsiderable 
 effects of an ill-regulated ambition, though exerted 
 by an individual of rank and talents, upon the spirit 
 and institutions of the American people. One of the 
 two parties, who contested the presidency, gave their 
 votes for Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Burr, as president 
 and vice-president, but without designating which 
 was intended for the one office, and which for the 
 other. Burr was a man of unquestioned abilities, 
 but unbounded ambition. Brave, insinuating, mu 
 nificent and artful, fond of pleasure, but fonder of 
 glory ; accessible, affable and eloquent; like Rienzi 
 and some other eminent demagogues, studious and 
 laborious ; calm in success, undismayed at reverses; 
 poor, in debt, subtle, popular and intriguing. It was 
 well known that his party did not intend him for the 
 chief magistracy. But the confusion of suffrages 
 placed that dazzling object within his reach ; and, 
 unable to resist the temptation, he tampered with 
 the other party, in hopes of attaining it by their 
 voices. Like most double dealers, he wanted reso 
 lution to go all lengths; and the intrigue failed, 
 when, had he exercised the same influence that the 
 Vatican and all elective monarchies have so often 
 witnessed, in all probability he might have been 
 raised to the chair. What effect such a result would 
 have had on the federation, it is not now necessary to 
 imagine. After a violent and doubtful conclave, Mr. 
 Jefferson was elected president, and Colonel Burr, 
 
72 
 
 though appointed vice-president, (which place he 
 filled with unrivalled dignity and intelligence,) lost 
 the countenance of his own party, without having 
 ingratiated himself with the other ; and at the expi 
 ration of his four years, notwithstanding many strug 
 gles, was abandoned by both parties. Thus stripped 
 of his rank and emoluments, at a moment when his 
 affairs were involved, and his lust of power unap 
 peasable, mala res, spes multo asperior, and being 
 exiled from his State in consequence of killing Ge 
 neral Hamilton in a duel, he plunged at last into a 
 conspiracy for invading the Spanish provinces, or 
 severing the American States, or some other such 
 impracticable project, which he was so infatuated as 
 to imagine would raise him to an eminence, from 
 whence he might look down on his reverses and ene 
 mies. Whatever this mysterious scheme was, it was 
 so badly either planned or executed, as never to be 
 come sufficiently obnoxious to the law; and was 
 traced, detected and crushed by president Jefferson 
 with triumphant facility. Since this series of disas 
 ters, in which Burr has been implicated, many have 
 supposed that he never could have possessed the 
 vigorous understanding and character, generally at 
 tributed to him. But his conspicuousness was too 
 long perceived, and too extensively, to be decep 
 tive : and he is rather to be viewed as an instance 
 of the degradation consequent upon misapplied ta 
 lents. His country lost in him a citizen of mascu 
 line and aspiring spirit, of infinite address and ex 
 cellent acquirements, who, had he succeeded, might 
 
73 
 
 have been the American Cassar ; but as he failed is 
 hardly entitled to the infamous celebrity of Cati 
 line. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, to whom the reins were thus com 
 mitted, was always a leader ; and in fact was largely 
 instrumental in creating the party to which he be 
 longed. Under a gradual accumulation of fresh 
 points of controversy, he maintained this post with 
 pre-eminent ability and ultimate success ; and never 
 left it till he had accomplished the extremest trials 
 of the politics to which his life was devoted. While 
 out of place his opposition was incessant and per 
 vading ; and when invested with power to exercise 
 the principles he professed, his practice showed how 
 much he was in earnest in his professions. He made 
 his way to the executive magistracy through clouds 
 of imputations and every sort of obstacle. When 
 within reach of his grand object, when the beams of 
 authority began already to play on his brows, he had 
 nearly been dashed from it by the management of 
 Burr and his adversaries. Yet he entered on his of 
 fice with the utmost apparent serenity. While the 
 axe of innovation thundered from his strokes, oblivion 
 and conciliation were on his lips. His antagonists 
 dwindled in number as they became more inveterate. 
 His partisans increased in number and devotion ; 
 and though the opposition loaded him with charges 
 of the foulest dye, his influence augmented every 
 day, and seemed to brighten under corrosion. Whe 
 ther the gallantries and other irregularities of which 
 he was accused, were founded, it is not easy to de 
 
 K 
 
74 
 
 cidc, as he had the magnanimity or the policy never 
 to notice or contradict such accusations. If, as was 
 said, he wanted personal resolution, he certainly did 
 not want political firmness, which he evinced on 
 many occasions. Though supple, he could be in 
 flexible ; and though wary, he was determined. If 
 he stooped to unworthy acts for popularity, he had 
 at least the justification that arises from success ; for 
 probably no individual, without force, ever was en 
 throned in so predominant a personal influence. If 
 Jefferson was the idolater, he was also the idol, of 
 the people ; and even Washington, though more re - 
 vered, was not always more popular. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was a man of an original cast of 
 mind a freethinker on all subjects. With abun 
 dant experience in diplomacy and politics, he was a 
 master in intrigue. Though commonly too much 
 governed by events, his system was nevertheless well 
 settled; his mind penetrating, his judgment clear, 
 and he looked into events deep and dispassionately. 
 His enemies will not allow him to be any thing but a 
 philosopher : his friends extol him as a sage. The 
 tempestuous sea of liberty was his proper element, 
 on which he ventured to a dangerous latitude, but 
 without at least any personal misfortune. His man 
 ners were easy, though not elegant, his address un 
 assuming and agreeable. His colloquial talents were 
 considerable, and he understood perfectly the art of 
 managing an unwieldy majority of the representa 
 tives an art, without which a president of the Uni- 
 cd States will always be a cypher. He lived in one 
 corner of a half finished, half furnished palace, plain 
 
even to peculiarity in his appearance and establish 
 ment, accessible to every body at all times, affecting 
 the utmost republican simplicity, and as carefully 
 subversive of common forms, as most men in his 
 situation would have been carefully observant of them. 
 His conversation was free, his entertainments socia 
 ble ; and though all ostentation was avoided, it is 
 said few men understood the elegant arts of society 
 better than he did. He was well read in books, bur 
 better in mankind. Geography and natural philosophy 
 were his favourite studies: and being industrious, tem 
 perate and methodical, he never wanted leisure for 
 these pursuits, notwithstanding numerous official 
 avocations, a most extensive correspondence, and the 
 distractions of a perpetual liability to unceremonious 
 visits. But though geography and natural history 
 are beholden to his researches and patronage, politics 
 at last swallowed up all his ideas. As respected erno - 
 lument and power he was moderate and disinterested. 
 His conduct towards individuals, however, was too 
 often marked by vindictiveness and duplicity, and 
 the statesman frequently sunk in the politician. As 
 sagacity was his strongest talent, insincerity was 
 his most prominent defect. When he might have 
 been re-elected president, he retired to his farm : and 
 whatever were his motives to this resignation, it cer 
 tainly was in conformity with the principles he had 
 always professed, and an example that may be wor 
 thy of imitation by many of his successors. 
 
 His policy was extremely republican and imper- 
 turbably pacific. Whatever may be the permanent 
 effect of his measures on the welfare of America, 
 
76 
 
 and whatever may have been their immediate effect 
 on the spirit and character of the American people, 
 they were at any rate systematic and original. If they 
 were experiments, they were tried on a great scale, 
 and peace was their end. It seemed to be his am 
 bition, and the invariable aim of his policy, to prove 
 to the world that wars are not necessary to the pre 
 servation of peace, that a republican polity is sus 
 ceptible of the utmost freedom without anarchy, and 
 of combining with excessive liberty the utmost ex 
 ecutive vigour, without incurring a despotism. For 
 seven years of his administration, all his efforts ap 
 peared to aim at the diminution of his own authority, 
 and the reduction of government, which he effected to 
 such a degree, as to leave the people at last almost with 
 out any sensation of it. He had no talents for war, 
 no pretensions to military fame. For the trophies of 
 peace he contended, and withdrew before they could 
 fade on his brow. His administration was original , 
 pacific and mostly prosperous. It remains for a few 
 years to come to pass judgment on its wisdom. Proba 
 bly it will be least appro ved where he seemed anxious 
 it should be most, in its rudest democratic features ; 
 inasmuch as all extremes endanger the system they are 
 intended to improve. The reign of Numa, the ad- 
 rministration of Cardinal Fleury, and most other seras 
 of extraordinary peace have been succeeded by de. 
 structive wars. Time will show whether this first of 
 national blessings was purchased by Mr. Jefferson at 
 too dear a price. 
 
 A desire to serve their country according to the 
 best of their respective abilities, is almost the only 
 
77 
 
 point of resemblance between the presidents Adams 
 and Jefferson, once political rivals, now political 
 shades. When a little time shall have softened the 
 asperity of faction, it is probable that the imbecility 
 imputed to the one, and the hypocrisy charged to the 
 other, will be in a great measure forgotten, and the 
 patriotism of both be generally acknowledged. Mr. 
 Jefferson s character and administration each present 
 a larger field than those of Mr. Adams. They were 
 more original and better sustained. Mr. Jefferson s 
 nature was enthusiastic, but equable ; Mr. Adams s 
 dryer, but subject to gusts of temper. The one was 
 visionary, but never capricious: the other resolute, 
 but unstable. The deportment Mr. Adams affected 
 was difficult and invidious ; Mr. Jefferson s familiar 
 and popular. But the former was becoming, though 
 it failed ; and the latter too often contemptible, 
 though it succeeded. When the Spanish ambassa 
 dors found the Dutch deputies squatting on the 
 ground, eating herrings with their fingers, one of their 
 first impressions must have been disgust at the un 
 seemliness of this republican festival ; and the sen 
 timent of every mind favourable to republicanism, a^ 
 reading the account of this occurrence, which histo 
 rians have taken care to set forth in all its particulars, 
 must be a sentiment of contempt for so paltry an af 
 fectation of republican simplicity. 
 
 Jefferson s life was one continued course of ex- 
 perimental republicanism, conceived and executed 
 on so large a scale, that it must benefit or injure ex 
 tensively. Whereas Adams did little or no injury to 
 his country, though he lost himself and dismembered 
 
78 
 
 his party. His was a stormy course, now dazzling, 
 now overcast, shortlived, and setting in discomfiture 
 -and obscurity. After an eccentric, but, successful 
 career, Jefferson retired powerful, if not serene ; and 
 though partially shorn of his beams, yet leaving 
 the national horizon, even after his departure, marked 
 \vith the radiance of his influence. His defects arc 
 concealed in the glare of his success. Mr. Adams s 
 virtues obscured in the gloom of his fall. 
 
 A firm, but temperate adherence to the neutral 
 policy, which Washington practised and recommend 
 ed, would perhaps have maintained the first in the 
 presidency. A more manly assertion of that policy, 
 a less excursive departure from the established usages 
 of government, and a less extravagant experiment of 
 the elasticity of republicanism, would have rendered 
 the latter s administration more permanently useful. 
 They wandered both, particularly Jefferson, into ex 
 tremes, forgetting that politics have their ascertained 
 centre, to which, after all eccentricities, they invaria 
 bly must gravitate, and where alone they rest in 
 security. 
 
 As Mr. Madison has but just entered on the chief 
 magistracy, his probation is to come, and his estimate 
 can be conjectured only. The crisis is big with 
 peril and uncertainty. The civilized world has been 
 shaken from its ancient bases, by tremendous con 
 cussions, which the United States of America have 
 felt but in their remote vibrations. Mr. Madison 
 having distinguished himself as an accomplished 
 speaker, and an able writer, it remains to be seen 
 whether he will prove himself an enlightened executive 
 
79 
 
 statesman. To remove foreign embarrassments and 
 provide against aggressions, to conciliate the feuds 
 of faction, to concentrate without consolidating a 
 federal republican empire, to establish and maintain 
 a national character for patriotism and probity, to 
 encourage internal improvements, the arts and sci 
 ences, with imperial munificence, to guard fiscal dis 
 bursements with an honest economy, to cultivate 
 peace, and prepare for war, are the great duties he 
 has undertaken duties, whose accomplishment his 
 country expects from his zeal, moderation and 
 abilities. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 FROM INCHIQUIN, 
 
 Dated at Washington, 
 
 THOUGH the literature of this country seems to- 
 have incurred the scorn of Europe, there certainly 
 are two works, which as literary compositions on 
 national subjects, are at least comparable, if not su 
 perior to any that have appeared in Europe since the 
 independence of the United States : I mean Mr* 
 Barlow s epic and Mr. Marshall s history ; of which, 
 as they have been grossly misrepresented by what 
 are called the critics of Europe, I propose, in this 
 letter, to take a transient review. 
 
 To begin with the Columbiad, of which the 
 American press has just put forth a splendid edition, 
 ornamented with rich engravings, and executed al 
 together in such a style as to place it decidedly at 
 the head of American typography. The poet with 
 a venial, if not a laudable partiality, has himself con 
 tributed large sums from his private fortune to the 
 embellishment of this work, which does great honour 
 to its author and his country ; yet I cannot help re - 
 gretting that so excellent, dispassionate and benevo 
 lent a writer did not bestow the time, talents and 
 
81 
 
 expense appropriated to poetry, on some theme bet 
 ter suited to his genius, and which might have been 
 more extensively useful. Mr. Barlow is yet only a 
 living poet, and fame seldom gives the whole scope 
 of her clarion but to the dead. He has every reason 
 to be satisfied with his literary rank ; though his 
 pen is probably capable of productions superior to 
 the Columbiad. 
 
 Poetry is so much the language of nature, that 
 almost every youth of any fancy ventures a flight into 
 its realms ; 
 
 Tentavit in dulci jtiventa 
 Fervor, et in celeres lambos 
 Misit furentem. 
 
 but so exclusively the prerogative of a peculiar 
 genius, that from the age of Miriam down to these un- 
 harmonious days, the number of its elect is extremely 
 precious. 4t Many have been called but few chosen." 
 The facilities of printing have added to the number 
 of poets, without improving their melody or sub 
 limity. Smoothness of numbers, regularity of mea 
 sure, skilfuiness in short in the business of rhyming, 
 are more common since the invention of types : but 
 \vhen we see all these prerequisites so frequently com 
 bined without creating a captivating or lasting poem, 
 the inference is so much the stronger that genuine 
 poetry is the offspring of a native genius. Of the 
 great quantity of literary matter afloat good poetry 
 constitutes a small proportion. By poetry I mean not 
 generally the language of harmony or fiction, but n 
 
metrical disposition of articulate bounds varying 
 according to the taste of different nations, but so 
 distinguished from all other writings as to be univer 
 sally designated poetry. 
 
 Of all others the epic is that department of the 
 divine art, which fewest have successfully attempted. 
 Lyrical, dramatic, satiric, didactic, and other species, 
 have had their shrines crowded with votaries, and 
 with some, of almost all ages, who have been distin 
 guished. But the epic poem is universally allowed 
 to be of all poetical works most dignified, and at 
 the same time most difficult of execution.* An 
 epic poem, the critics agree, is the greatest work 
 nature is capable of, and genius is its first qualifica 
 tion. )" Many nations celebrated for learning and 
 refinement have flourished for centuries, without 
 producing an epic poem ; and one, perhaps the most 
 enlightened of modern nations, after remaining till 
 a very late aera without this honour, seems at last 
 to have made the effort, only to show its incapaci 
 ty to accomplish it. Critically speaking, Homer, 
 Virgil and Milton occupy exclusively this illustrious 
 quarter of Parnassus, and time alone can determine 
 whether Barlow shall, be seated with them. 
 
 The design of the Columbiad is vast and bold, 
 more so than any other except Milton s. The dis 
 covery of a new world, involving all the noble 
 images arising out of the first passage of the Atlantic 1 
 ocean, affords a broader foundation for the sublimt 
 than any poet, except Milton, ever built upon. And 
 the subject being national and even political, adds con 
 
 * Blair s Lectrres. 
 
 t Pope s recipe to make an epic 
 
83 
 
 biderable interest to its essential grandeur. The con* 
 quest of America, its magnificent rivers, stupendous 
 mountains, immense wealth, and the avulsion of these 
 states from their mother country, afford as fruitful 
 and fine an argument, as could be imagined for 
 epic operation. But the story of the Columbiad is 
 ;it once one of the noblest and the most arduous 
 that could have been essayed. To make men he 
 roes, they should be exhibited through the magnify 
 ing medium of time ; for familiar characters and 
 recent dates are hard to fashion to the epic standard. 
 The moral interwoven with the story is unexcep- 
 tionably beautiful ; and in respect to design and 
 moral, the poem may be pronounced perfect. It is 
 difficult for a lover of the Iliad and Eneid to sub 
 scribe to Mr. Barlow s opinion, that they are calcula 
 ted to provoke wars and sustain tyrannies ; though it 
 may be admitted that they are not such systematic 
 inculcations, as the Columbiad, of peace, virtue and 
 the amelioration of mankind. When we reflect that 
 Mr. Barlow has lived through the most tempestuous 
 epoch of politics, that he participated in the revolu 
 tion of his own country, and was a zealous coadju 
 tor to the revolution of France, that he has always 
 professed very decided sentiments relative to these 
 thorny topics, and that, like other men, he must have 
 his prepossessions and antipathies connected with 
 them, it is impossible to applaud too highly the can 
 dour and impartiality with which he has treated the 
 living personages and contested principles introduced 
 into his poem. In benevolence and liberality he is 
 pre-eminent. The good of mankind, much mor* 
 
84 
 
 than their pleasure, seems to have been the end of 
 his work : and with a strength of reason and abstrac 
 tion from all prejudice, worthy so glorious a purpose, 
 he pursues his aim in a strain purely and truly philo 
 sophical. There are many philosophising poets, and 
 those who blend the useful with the sweet : But 
 where shall we find a poem, in which the best inte 
 rests of humanity are as steadily kept in view, or 
 displayed with as much fascination, as in the Colum- 
 biad?" 
 
 This is great, but not extravagant praise. It is to 
 be hoped Mr. Barlow prizes his philosophy so far be 
 yond his poetry, that he will not be mortified to find 
 panegyric pausing here. As a moral vision, broadly 
 based in historical truth, with a due admixture of 
 fiction and poetic machinery, constructed of interest 
 ing incidents, intersected with agreeable episodes, and 
 conducted to an instructive catastrophe, the Colum- 
 biad will always be admired. If the words could be 
 so transposed as to remove every vestige of versifica 
 tion, without impairing the sense and beauty of this 
 composition, it would still be read, and read with 
 pleasure, as a chaste, moral, and elegant performance. 
 But its merits lie more in the moral of the design 
 and force of the argument, than in the poetic charms 
 of the execution. 
 
 It is evident the author is of a refined and con 
 templative mind; but a disciplined taste will not 
 make amends for a dearth of invention. Readers are 
 advertised in the preface that they will find the uni 
 ties in good preservation. But what great poet re 
 gards the unities ? A man of genius should as soon 
 
85 
 
 propitiate the fatal sisters. A writer who sets out 
 with the heathenish determination of adoring through 
 every chapter, these mummies of the schools, cre 
 ates for himself a most unnecessary and insurmounta 
 ble difficulty. If in the course of his flight, he im 
 perceptibly fall within their influence, he may derive 
 fresh lustre from their reflection : but if with unde- 
 viating wing he follow their faint light, he must often 
 grovel, when he ought to be soaring unchecked 
 through the zodiac of fancy. The unity of action 
 has still some followers, left, though the fame of the 
 Orlando Furioso proves how successfully even that 
 may be violated. The unity of place in an epic is 
 hardly practicable : and the unity of time is one of 
 those relics of dramatic barbarity, which no great 
 epic poet ever heeded, and which the first of dramatic 
 poets has trampled into scorn. As the Iliad and 
 Odyssey occupy several weeks each, the Eneid some 
 months, and Paradise more than the allotted time, why 
 should an American poet, breathing the air of li 
 berty, and proclaiming its high behests, fall down be 
 fore this calf of criticism ! 
 
 From this fundamental error, spring others, all 
 conspiring to debilitate the poem. For the preser 
 vation of the unities, as it should seem, the structure 
 is but a conversation, and of course the interest to be 
 excited in the characters is made distant and faint, 
 in proportion to the duplicity of the fiction. 
 
 Segnius irritant animos demisse per aurcm. 
 
 Every page of the Columbiad reminds us that it is 
 but a conversation piece between Hesper and Colum- 
 
 
86 
 
 bus, in which all is past or future, and nothing pre 
 sent or striking. The transactions indeed are recent, 
 and the personages familiar. But this, which might 
 enhance the interest, destroys the dignity of the poem. 
 
 It is clear not only from the boast of the preface, 
 but also from a variety of internal evidences, that Mr. 
 Barlow is devoted to the critical proprieties of his art. 
 Yet at the threshold he falls into a fatal error, against 
 which all critics, from Aristotle to Voltaire, have 
 warned epic composers : that is, the narrative style. 
 And after studying and analyzing his art for twenty 
 years, he adopts the exploded unities. 
 
 The faintness of his characters and the prevalence 
 of preceptive dissertation is another fault not less de 
 trimental, which casts a chilling mistiness over the 
 narrative. It is said one of the Corneilles preferred 
 the Pharsalia to the Eneid, because of its abounding 
 in stoical sentiments ; which is probably one of the 
 many reasons why the Eneid is generally preferred to 
 the Pharsalia. No man has yet appeared possessing 
 the superlative art of making his heroes more enga 
 ging in reflection than action ; and Mr. Barlow dared 
 greatly in the cause of truth, when he attempted to 
 render his verse subservient to his moral. 
 
 This tenuity of interest is beaten out to a degree 
 of languor, by the absence of all those objects of huge, 
 deep-lined, disgusting depravity, which poets have 
 properly introduced to render virtue by the contrast 
 more lovely and attractive. There is a want of moral 
 antithesis. The American poet does not seem to have 
 reflected that mere virtue is apt to prove insipid, and 
 
 requires the contrast of vice in odious shades to set 
 
 4 
 
it oft to advantage. In his praiseworthy pursuit of 
 good, by an effort of benevolence, he leaves iniquity 
 out of view ; and the original blast of his poetry ap 
 pears to have been refined down to the mould of phi 
 losophy. 
 
 Such are the constitutional defects of the Colum- 
 biad: defects which, however they may affect its 
 poetic reputation, weigh little against its constitu 
 tional moral excellence. , 
 
 As to the superstructure, whether it be that the 
 author is not endowed with that fine phrensy, which 
 is indispensable to the production of poetry of the 
 first order, or whether it be that an overstrained sub 
 serviency to critical rules has cramped his native 
 powers, I cannot determine : but it appears to want 
 the fire and sublimity naturally expected in an epic. 
 It is well planned and well executed ; but we do not 
 feel the master touches, which genius alone suggests, 
 and no art can supply. There is great sweetness 
 in the cadence and equality of numbers, an affluence of 
 imagery and general chastness of sentiment. It is 
 what the ancients termed attic: calm, elegant and 
 refined. But we look in vain for that august and 
 gorgeous majesty, appropriate to epic song, that 
 sublimates our ideas as we read: or for those 
 rapturous inspirations of genius, that possess the 
 reader as they evidently did the writer, with a sort 
 of delirium, which causes the soul, as it were, to 
 rush into the brain, and overflow at the eyes. For 
 these, and indeed all the attributes of lofty untamed 
 genius, breathing celestial fire into the language of 
 man, without which the most mellifluous versification 
 
88 
 
 scarcely deserves to be entitled poetry, we look in 
 vain through the passages of the Columbiad. 
 
 There is besides a deficiency of the pathetic. Pa 
 thos is doubly necessary in an epic. Independent 
 of the immediate sympathies it rouses, it serves 
 moreover to prepare for and palliate those extrava 
 gancies into which poetry sometimes plunges ; and 
 which, unless fortified with surrounding beauties, 
 that master the feelings, excite all the effects of ludi 
 crous hyperbole. 
 
 Non satis est pulchra esse poemata: dulcia sunto 
 Et quocunque volent, animum auditoris agunto. 
 
 Hor. Ars Poet. 
 
 Que dans tons vos discours la passion emue, 
 Aille chercher le coeur, rechauffe etle remue. 
 
 Boil. Art Poet. 
 
 Mr. Barlow never betrays a want of fancy, percep 
 tion or sentiment. He is seldom harsh or prosaic. 
 His learning, benevolence, elegance, taste, in short 
 his eminent qualifications of many kinds, dignify and 
 adorn every part of his performance, which has been 
 carefully elaborated after the best models, and is as 
 near perfection perhaps as art can render it. But it 
 wants the ether of poetic creation, the genius of epic 
 poetry. We are pleased, not fascinated : rarely 
 shocked at ruggednesses ; but never charmed with 
 unexpected recreations. The Columbiad is all serene, 
 agreeable and instructive ; never delightful, pathetic or 
 sublime. The couplets meander smoothly along, 
 flowing in a natural current, without apparent effort or 
 retrenchment ; frequently swelled and rippled with the 
 breath of farcy, and in almost every respect pictu- 
 
89 
 
 resque and inviting ; but where do they gush with ge 
 nius, or foam with the liquid fire of immortal song ? 
 
 There are minor blemishes, which would not 
 escape a critic : and indeed this work has been 
 shamefully criticised, especially in this country, to 
 whose glory it is so purely dedicated. The faults to 
 which I allude are, an inflation of language and 
 proneness to alliteration. The choice of words is 
 a matter of much nicety with poets. They have 
 always been indulged in the use of such as prose 
 writers dare not meddle with. Obsolete terms, 
 verbs transmuted into nouns, and nouns into verbs, 
 with many other such liberties they have never been 
 grudged. But these indulgences are not to be 
 abused with impunity. The adaptation of sound to 
 sense is a leading excellence of the ancients, and 
 has sometimes been attempted with partial success 
 by later poets. But the Columbiad teems with words 
 that are unusual, technical, and unmusical, without 
 any perceptible reason or apology for their introduc 
 tion. " Words too remote, or too familiar, defeat 
 the purpose of a poet ;"* for when the application is 
 forced, the effect will be absurd. 
 
 To allege that a poem wants invention is to be 
 sure denying it the first of poetical merits: but 
 awarding it every other, is rendering a homage that 
 few are entitled to. Mr. Barlow is now occupied, 
 I understand, upon a work,f for which more undi 
 vided suffrages may be predicted ; and what country 
 
 * Johnson s Life of Drydcn. 
 
 * A History of America. 
 
 K 
 
90 
 
 can boast an epic on the national history equal to 
 the Columbiad ? 
 
 Let us next consider Mr. Chief Justice Marshall s 
 Life of Washington, another great national work. 
 When we reflect that the Greeks had no historian till 
 the 80th Olympiad, more than a thousand years from, 
 their earliest ages ; that Fabius Pictor, the first Ro 
 man who wrote an account of his country, did not 
 write till 540 years after the foundation of Rome ; 
 that Gregory of Tours is the earliest of what are 
 termed modern historians ; and that many great na 
 tions, like the Carthaginians, have flourished and 
 passed away without ever having had an historian to 
 transmit their annals to posterity ; and when we ad 
 vert moreover to the doubts that overcast all our best 
 histories, while we render what is due for their mul 
 tiplication and improvement of late years to the dis 
 covery of printing and progress of science, we can 
 not deny that the American history is a very early 
 national production ; nor when we consider its mate 
 rials and author, can we any more deny the pre-emi 
 nence of its authenticity. 
 
 During the war of the revolution, the present chief 
 justice accompanied the American forces in the ca 
 pacity of deputy judge advocate, which situation 
 afforded him the best means of becoming practicallv 
 conversant with the details of that contest, its diffi 
 culties and resources, the characters and views of 
 those on whom it mainly devolved, and the construc 
 tion, movements and engagements of the armies, 
 In process of time he attained to situations of more 
 importance, and successively filled several of the first 
 
91 
 
 offices.* Possessed of these advantages, endowed 
 with a masculine, versatile and discriminating ge 
 nius, and holding a place calculated to stamp weight 
 on whatever he should publish, he was selected to 
 compile from the manuscripts of Washington, and 
 from the public records and papers, the joint annals of 
 Washington and his country. 
 
 The objects of the work thus confided to his crea 
 tion were to perpetuate a correct and honourable me 
 morial of national events, and to immortalize Wash 
 ington. The hero is therefore introduced with a full 
 
 * The various public stations which the present chief jus 
 tice of the United States has held, may be thought to indicate 
 an early stage of society. During the war he served in the 
 army, and to this clay is as well known by the title of gene 
 ral as by that of judge. There are numerous instances of 
 this combination, or rather perhaps confusion of civil, mili 
 tary and judicial functions. Mr. Marshall is the third chief 
 justice, who has been within the same twelvemonth a judi 
 cial officer and a foreign ambassador. The most improved 
 nations of the ancients knew no distinction between the 
 performance of civil and military services. Caesar was high 
 priest before he commanded an army ; nor was it till so late 
 as the reign of Constantine that the Romans drew a line of 
 separation. Glanville, a renowned justiciary of England 
 in the reign of Henry II. was a great captain, and gain 
 ed a signal victory over the forces of Scotland. This to 
 be sure was in an age of rudeness. But at a later epoch, at 
 the Assembly of the States of Orleans, in France, during the 
 minority of Charles IX. the functions of justice and of 
 war, theretofore indiscriminately administered, were for the 
 first time formally set apart, as distinct professions, one to 
 the Baillis of the long robe, the other to the Baillis of the 
 short robe. 
 
92 
 
 account of the discovery and improvement of North 
 .America down to the period when he appears upon 
 the scene. After which period till his death, his 
 biography is naturally interwoven with the transac 
 tions of the revolution which his achievements so 
 largely contributed to effect, and with the formation 
 of the government at the head of which he was 
 placed. 
 
 As great expectations were entertained of this per 
 formance, considerable disappointment has been ex 
 pressed at some of its alleged defects : particularly 
 by those who, vitiated by the malevolent system ot 
 criticism that prevails in England and this country, 
 are never satisfied with nature and plain sense, but 
 incessantly crave the amazing and romantic. The 
 press has rendered a modicum of learning so cheap 
 and attainable, that in the subdivision of literary oc 
 cupations, criticism has been seized upon as a sepa 
 rate handicraft, whose business it seems to be to dis 
 sect great books for the amusement of those who 
 have not minds to embrace them entire. This new- 
 mystery has its new canons and models. The doc 
 trine of passive assimilation is proclaimed through 
 out the realms of letters. Every book, before it cir 
 culates, is submitted to the ordeal ; and if it cannot 
 endure the morsel of execration, its sale is preceded 
 by sentence of combustion. The groundwork and 
 substance of literature are no longer to be regarded ; 
 but readers are taught to rest with fastidious inquiry 
 on the superstructure and decorations. Like other 
 tilings, learning seems to grow w r eak and vitious with 
 its spread and refinement ; and that primeval age to 
 
93 
 
 be returning, when history will be unpalatable unless 
 preserved in poetry, ethics in apothegms, and philo 
 sophy in fables. In every department of letters, 
 standards are erected, to which fresh publications are 
 referred for their estimate. But is it fair to condemn 
 an American historian to oblivion, because he is less 
 entertaining than Hume or Gibbon, or an epic poet, 
 because he falls short of Milton ? Extend the test. 
 Compare Marshall with Smollet, Bissett or Fox, and 
 Barlow with the metremongers of the day, the pre 
 sent masters of the song in England, and neither 
 they nor their country need fear the comparison. 
 
 When critics carp at Marshall s history, because, 
 as has been averred, it moves heavily along under a 
 load of provincial documents, a propensity to con 
 demnation must pervert their faculties. None but a 
 trading critic could reprehend an annalist for giving de 
 tails instead of a retrospect, and the speeches of his 
 personages precisely as they were delivered, instead 
 of cutting them down to his own condensation. The 
 great end of historical writing is the dissemination of 
 moral truth : subsidiary, but subordinate to which 
 purpose, are the attributes of composition, distribu 
 tion and reflections. One of the best informed of 
 late writers has ventured to assert that ancient history 
 is like the cabbage as big as a house, and the pot as 
 big as a church, that was made to boil the cabbage.* 
 Without subscribing to this homely sarcasm, which 
 strikes at the root of the tree of much of our most 
 useful knowledge, it cannot be denied that history, 
 
 ? Volt. Es. suv !cs ]\I<rurs, Disc. Prelim, 194. 
 
94 
 
 both ancient and modem, is too often and palpably 
 fabulous ; and that mankind are of late more than 
 ever disposed to postpone authenticity to composition- 
 The public documents of which the American chiei 
 justice had the disposition, would be inestimable , 
 even if arranged by inferior hands, without any at 
 tempt at shaping them into a connected narrative. 
 But wrought, as they have been by him, into a clear, 
 manly, systematic and philosophical history, without 
 a grain of merit on the score of composition, they 
 would outweigh the most beautiful composition that 
 ever was formed. There is not another national his 
 tory extant, which is composed entirely of authentic, 
 public materials, by a cotemporary and a partici 
 pator. 
 
 Nor is the composition unworthy of the subject. 
 The commentaries and reflections are simple, natural 
 and just. The style and language plain, rapid, ner 
 vous, unsophisticated, perhaps too bare of ornament 
 and sometimes liable to the imputation of peculiarity; 
 but never rough, irksome or inelegant. The poet 
 and the orator may melt in cadences or bristle with 
 antitheses. But the historian must hold an iron pen, 
 and march with a measured step. He profanes his 
 function, whenever the slightest fiction colours his 
 descriptions, or wit flaunts in his observations. Fine, 
 writing, says Addison, consists in the expression of 
 sentiments, that are natural, without being obvious : 
 or as Boiicau, with (if possible) still greater felicity 
 defines it, " des idees bien eclaircies et misc dans un 
 beau jour," which may be translated, a pleasing ex 
 position of clear ideas. It is this that constitutes the 
 
95. 
 
 secret charm of prose composition; not the novelty 
 of the sentiments, the polish of the style, or the scin 
 tillations of fancy. 
 
 As simplicity is the first beauty of style, so is au 
 thenticity the chief recommendation, the sun of his 
 tory, before whose effulgence all secondary merits 
 fade away, and without which a constellation of fac 
 titious lights casts but a feeble and unwholesome lus 
 tre. The historian, who sacrifices his inquiries after 
 facts to burnish up his periods, or who, with an abun 
 dance of authentic materials, appears too frequently 
 through the solid texture of his work, in episodes, 
 animadversions, and characteristics, exposes himself 
 lo the malevolence of his cotemporaries and the con 
 tradiction of posterity. Gibbon sinks through his 
 " luminous and luxuriant pages" into the partisan of 
 infidelity. And Hume provokes doubts and opposi 
 tion, that might have been avoided, by sparing his 
 readers some of his own deistical opinions, and what 
 Mr. Fox calls " his childish admiration of princes." 
 These indeed are regal banquets. But we rise from 
 them with less satisfaction, than from the homelier 
 fare of the American : for we are certain of imbibing 
 truth alone from the one, and poison is to be sus 
 pected in the other s golden cups. The latter does 
 not indeed present us with an occasional appendix of 
 disquisition or a cabinet of historical curiosities. It 
 is easy to entertain ordinary readers with Julian the 
 Apostate s beard, or Thomas-a-Becket s castigation. 
 But the American historian had neither anomalies 
 nor miracles to deal with. The recent discovery of 
 \ new world ; the still more recent struggles of an 
 
m 
 
 infant people to shake oft the trammels of coloniza 
 tion ; late events, of little except moral interest ; par 
 tial, procrastinated, and seldom signalized warfare ; 
 the adjustment of treaties and formation of republi 
 can institutions, though highly interesting to moral 
 contemplation, are much less malleable, than remote 
 and doubtful traditions of astonishing transactions into 
 that magazine of entertainment, which seems to be 
 looked for in a modern history. But whatever the 
 present age may desire, facts soon become vastly 
 more important than dissertation ; nor can moral re 
 sults ever be fairly taken, unless readers may impli 
 citly rely on the truth of the details. 
 
 The narrative of the Life of Washington might 
 perhaps have been enlivened with more biographical 
 and characteristic sketches. But it must be remem 
 bered that to draw living characters is an arduous 
 and invidious task. And when the whole subject 
 matter is well considered, the author will be found 
 entitled to our approbation for the caution he has ex 
 ercised in this particular. As to Washington him 
 self, the uniformity of his life, and taciturnity of his 
 nature precluded any sufficient funds for this minor 
 scene: though I cannot refrain from observing that 
 his unaffected and warm piety, his belief in the Chris 
 tian religion, and exemplary discharge of all its 
 public and private duties, might have been enlarged 
 upon with more emphasis and advantage. 
 
 At such a -period as the present, when the press, 
 instead of enlightening the community, is converted 
 into a most powerful engine of falsehood, proscrip- 
 
97 
 
 tion and confusion, when letters are perverted to the 
 most treacherous and unworthy purposes, when his 
 tories, state papers, public records and official com 
 munications are mutilated, suppressed or published, 
 as it suits the object of the moment, to distort or dis 
 guise, and not to make known facts ; and when es 
 pecially a usurpation of hypercriticism is subsisting 
 on the excoriation of literature, it behoves every 
 American, who admires the history of his country, 
 it behoves indeed every man, who loves truth, to 
 uphold an authentic national work, like Marshall s, 
 against its malignant enemies and lukewarm friends, 
 and to cherish it as a performance whose subject and 
 authenticity alone, independent of any other merits, 
 will preserve and magnify it for ever. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 FROM INCHIQUIN. 
 
 Dated at Washington. 
 
 YOUR short letter of the 20th October, which I 
 received a few days ago by a vessel from Amsterdam, 
 imposes a harder task than I had prepared to per 
 form. Though I have never been inattentive to the 
 national characteristics of the American people, it 
 was not my intention to write a separate account of 
 them; but rather that you should glean these parti 
 culars from my communications generally. Non hoc 
 pollicitus. As, however, you enjoin it, I will cheer 
 fully endeavour, from the scanty materials, and little 
 time I can command, to sketch their character ; pre 
 mising that I enter on the subject with more than or 
 dinary diffidence, from the assurance I feel of its in 
 trinsic difficulty, and the many prejudices I know 
 I must encounter. To be as perspicuous as possible, 
 I shall pursue the inquiry under the separate consi 
 derations of, 1. Their origin and population ; 2. 
 Their provincial diversities; 3. Their natural and 
 political association ; 4. Its moral results ; and, last 
 ly, their resources and prospects. 
 
99 
 
 1. History affords no instance of a nation formed 
 originally on such principles, or of such materials, 
 as the American. It is a common opinion, that these 
 materials were of the worst species ; vagabonds, 
 mendicants, and convicts. But the fact is, that the 
 first settlers were mostly of reputable families and 
 good character, who came to America under the au 
 spices of intelligent and distinguished individuals, 
 in the language of their own epic, " braving the dan 
 gers of untra versed seas," in an honourable and sa 
 cred cause. From these sources, the great currents 
 of American population have proceeded, increased 
 much more partially than is commonly supposed, 
 from foreign streams.* 
 
 The indigenous stocks of nations are patriarchal; 
 but time, conquest, and migration, have successive 
 ly engrafted so many exotic species on almost every 
 original stock, that there are few people, if any, whose 
 descent is unadulterated from their primeval ances- 
 
 * After the battle near Worcester, where Charles I. was 
 defeated by Cromwell, 7,000 Scotch and Dutch, who were 
 taken prisoners, were sent to London, there sold as slaves, 
 and thence transported to work the American plantations. 
 But though these men had the misfortune to be treated igno- 
 miniously, contrary to the laws of war and society, as now 
 acknowledged, they are not to be accounted infamous, and 
 superadded to the imaginary hordes of bondsmen and convicts, 
 that are, by the vulgar in Europe, supposed to have been 
 the original and most numerous occupants of the American 
 states. It is indeed of very little consequence to the present 
 inhabitants of this country, who the settlers of it were two 
 hundred years ago. But if this point were worth an inquiry, 
 it might be shown that the vulgar opinion is as erroneous as 
 it is absurd. 
 
100 
 
 tors. Without extending our view to Asia or Africa* 
 where their ancestry is much purer than in Europe, a 
 slight examination of European pretensions to ori 
 ginal nationality, will serve to show how little there 
 is to boast of. The barbarian aborigines of most 
 European countries, have been mixed with Roman 
 conquerors, and thus blended, received the compul 
 sory accessions of northern savages, who, at later pe 
 riods, overran nearly all the continent. The ancient 
 Romans, a highly national, were not an original peo 
 ple, but a band of freebooters, whose first national 
 act was forcibly uniting themselves with foreign 
 women, and who, during the first centuries of their 
 existence, were almost perpetually employed in the 
 subjugation of foreign nations, that were.successively 
 embodied with the Roman empire. Modern Europe 
 is composed of mixed nations, whose broadest dis 
 tinctions have appeared since their resurrection from 
 the darkness of the middle ages, and are ascribablc 
 more to the influence of laws, than to the difference 
 of climate or natural constitution.* 
 
 The white population of North America is of 
 European extraction, with scarcely any admixture 
 with the Indian aborigines. At least three-fourths of 
 the people of the United States derive their descent 
 and national sympathies, through a tradition varying 
 from one to two centuries, from neither conquerors, 
 colonization, adventurers, nor savages, but from 
 
 * The origin of nations is buried in fable. Father Lafiteau 
 traces the genealogy of the Americans, some of them, to the 
 ancient Greeks, Volt. Es. sur les Mceurs> Disc. Prelim. 29. 
 
101 
 
 sects of respectable exiles, by whom the basis of 
 the population was broadly laid in principles and ha 
 bits of virtue, independence and toleration. Nor 
 were the American provinces properly colonies, 
 though they yielded obedience to the mother coun 
 tries. The governments of Europe at first interested 
 themselves very little in their settlement or success. 
 The earliest and most important settlements were 
 achieved, not by individual adventurers, or indivi 
 dual families, but by the united enterprise of sects 
 and congregations, actuated by -motives t>f piety and 
 freedom, associated by common sentiments and 
 common hardships ; and it was not till these attempts 
 were in a prosperous train, that mother countries, as 
 they entitled themselves, assumed any active juris 
 diction over them. The eastern section of North 
 America, called New England, was originally set 
 tled by English puritans, the companions of Crom 
 well, Hazlerig, and Hampden, who were them 
 selves inhibited from a similar design, after every 
 arrangement was completed for carrying it into effect.* 
 The occupation of Carolina was effected by French 
 Huguenots, whose emigration was promoted and pa 
 tronised by Coligny.t The followers of Penn pos 
 sessed themselves peaceably of Pennsylvania, about 
 
 * Brit. Emfi. in Amer. i>ol. 2. Roberts. Amer. vol. 4. c. 10. 
 It is matter of curious speculation what might have been the 
 consequences, both in England and America, if the restless 
 genius of Cromwell had been expelled from the theatre 
 where it afterwards operated such astonishing effects, and 
 unfettered on the desert shares f America. 
 
 t 5 Rayn.fl, 93. 
 
102 
 
 the same time that Baltimore and his persecuted En 
 glish and Irish Catholic associates were seated in 
 Maryland. These expeditions were composed of 
 pilgrims, from different countries and of various 
 creeds; but all Christians, all enthusiasts, fly ing from 
 persecution, and conducted by leaders eminently fit 
 ted to be the founders of new empires. Excepting 
 the colonization of Virginia under Raleigh, the 
 most numerous white proprietors of the American 
 soil were religious exiles, from whom the greater 
 part of the present race are sprung. If, as is sup 
 posed, an illustrious national ancestry be of any ef 
 fect in forming and invigorating a national character, 
 the origin of this nation was noble and auspicious. 
 The most intractable part of that fierce and enthusi 
 astic devotion to certain principles, in religion and 
 politics, which expelled from France a large division 
 of its most useful inhabitants, which revolutionized 
 England, and impressed upon that kingdom an ener 
 getic spirit of freedom and boldness of maritime ad 
 venture, that laid the groundwork of all its subse 
 quent greatness, sought vent in an uncivilized hemi 
 sphere, where its ardency has hitherto met with no 
 obstacle that could restrain it, where it has been di 
 lated but not diminished by time and prosperity, and 
 infused the fanatical morality, the factious repub 
 licanism, and the general enthusiasm, for which, I 
 think, the Americans are remarkable. 
 
 From this origin the augmentation has been pro 
 digious ; so much so, as to confound the calculations 
 of those who did not make allowance for the extra 
 ordinary circumstances of the country, but chose to 
 1 
 
103 
 
 apply the ordinary and established rules of political 
 arithmetic to determine the increase of a country not 
 within their principles.* An exuberant and inex 
 haustible territory, healthy occupations and tempe* 
 rate lives have impelled population at an incredible 
 rate, notwithstanding the devastations of pestilence, 
 which seems to be incidental to a new country. Where 
 nature is bountiful of the inducements to marriage, 
 the increase will be great, even in spite of the wars 
 and follies of man.f And where subsistence is scarce, 
 it is to little purpose to legislate for a census. The 
 spring of population lies beyond the reach of politi 
 cians ; and can neither be relaxed materially by wars, 
 nor forced by artificial bounties. In some parts of 
 Europe two children are reckoned from a marriage. 
 In England it is said there are four. 
 
 In the United States the average is nearly six. So 
 long as the soil can bear a large multiplication, the 
 momentum will increase. I have no data by which 
 to ascertain the American census at an early period. 
 But Dr. Franklin, who was attentive to statistical in 
 quiries, estimated it, in 1753, at little more than one 
 million. 5 The augmentation varies in different places, 
 but on a general average is double in about twenty 
 
 * Brit. Emfi. in Amer. -vol. 1. fi. 227. Rayn. vol. 6. p. 351. 
 The Abba s maximum of ten millions as the ne plus ultra of 
 North American population, is almost attained already, ar* 5 
 will doubtless be exceeded before the year 1816. 
 
 t Malth. b. 2. c. 11. 
 \ Blodg. Econ. 58. 
 
 Marsh, -vol. \.p. 373. Blodg. Econ. 73. Malth. b. 2. c. 
 11. states the population of New England at 21,200 in 164H. 
 and half a million in 1760, 
 
104 
 
 years. Allowing between one and two millions fifh 
 years ago, and between seven and eight millions now 
 the natural duplications yield about that amount 
 which proves that the accessions from foreign countrie 
 are by no means so considerable as is generally ima 
 gined. But of this there are still more decisive proofs 
 It has been ascertained by actual enumeration* tha 
 the importations of foreigners for ten years preceding 
 1805 did not exceed four thousand. Many of thes( 
 are certainly the refuse of Irish, German and Englisl 
 populace, who have mostly taken up their residence ir 
 the cities on the Atlantic side of the continent. But th< 
 interior, especially the new lands, is principally settlec 
 by native Americans, the course of whose migratior 
 Is from east to west. In and about the towns on the 
 seabord, in the middle and southern states, there an 
 many emigrants from Europe, some of whom are 
 ignorant and turbulent ; but their proportion in the 
 community is not considerable, and the inhabitants 
 of New England universally, with the yeomanry in 
 general throughout the United States, are natives. 
 
 2. In point of origin the people of this country are 
 less homogeneous than many others. But the pri 
 mary causes of their migration hither were the same ; 
 the liberality of their institutions, their intelligence 
 and common interests, together with external pres 
 sure, have tended to approximate them ; and though 
 so small a population is scattered over so extensive a 
 territory, including many varieties of climate, their 
 provincial diversities are fewer and less striking, than 
 might be expected. About nine tenths speak pre- 
 
 * Blodg. Econ. 7$. 
 
105 
 
 cisely the same language, which is a national unity 
 probably not to be found, without some variation of 
 dialect, among the same number, so largely diffused, 
 in any other quarter of the world. The German* is 
 the only tongue spoken, that forms an exception to 
 this unity of language. That is gradually losing 
 ground ; and unless some unforeseen calamity should 
 check the progress of natural increase, it is probable, 
 that in one century, there will be one hundred millions 
 of people in America, to whom the English speech, 
 in its purity, will be vernacular, f 
 
 * The provincialisms of most countries are notorious. The 
 Grecian dialects are preserved to this day. A Parisian can 
 not understand the Patois of the southern, departments of 
 France. In Great Britain, where, from the circumscription 
 of the territory, the diversity is more remarkable, the inha 
 bitants of different counties are almost unintelligible to each 
 other. If a Londoner, a Yorkshireman, and a Cornishmanj 
 a Welshman, a Scotsman and an Irishman were cast together 
 upon a desert island, they might be at a loss for a medium 
 of oral communication. So various, in so small a space, are 
 the tongues of the British empire. In America there is no 
 difference of dialect. There is a hardness of pronunciation 
 in the north, and an indolent mellowness in the south ; but 
 no striking or positive variation. The Prince of Benevento^ 
 (M. Talleyrand,) in his Memoir on the United States, read 
 before the National Institute in the year 5, declares identity 
 of language one of the most binding relations, that can exist 
 among men. 
 
 f To the admirers of the fulness and majesty of the En 
 glish language, it may be consolatory to reflect, that while 
 French arms and the French tongue are pervading every 
 section of Europe, to such an extent as to threaten the ex- 
 tinction of the English, there is on this side the Atlantic a 
 nation capable of preserving and transmitting it to future ge- 
 
 o 
 
 
106 
 
 The laws, manners, interests, religion and opi 
 nions of the inhabitants of the different states, while 
 they differ somewhat in detail, essentially correspond, 
 and coincide in principle : and it is rather from phy 
 sical than moral circumstances, that their diversities 
 arise. 
 
 That demarcation, which the hand of Heaven has 
 every where traced between natives of northern and 
 those of southern latitudes, is aggravated here by the 
 pernicious influence of subordinate slavery, with 
 which the southern Americans indulge their constitu 
 tional indolence. A transposition of labour upon 
 slaves is incompatible with industry and morals, the 
 most certain wealth of nations. Man will not labour, 
 where he can substitute slaves ; and wherever man 
 does not labour, he will abuse his time and faculties. 
 Plutarch makes Alexander the Great say to his volup 
 tuous officers, that nothing is so royal as to work;* and 
 certainly it may be said with emphatic propriety that 
 nothing is so republican. Not that there is any thing 
 in inferior servitude militant with republicanism. On 
 the contrary, "where there is a vast multitude of slaves, 
 as in Virginia and the Carolinas, those who are free, 
 are by far the most proud and jealous of their free 
 dom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, 
 but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there 
 that freedom, as in countries where it is a common 
 blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be 
 
 Derations. Supposing the French to supersede all others in 
 Europe, yet a century hence the English will be spoken by 
 the greatest numbers. 
 
 * Plut. de Dae. Vie tf Alex andre* torn, 9./z. 89- 
 
10? 
 
 united with much abject toil, with great misery, with 
 all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, amongst 
 them, like something that is more noble and liberal. 
 The people of the southern colonies are much more 
 strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spi 
 rit, attached to liberty than those of the northern. 
 Such were all the ancient commonwealths ; and such 
 will be the masters of slaves, who . are not slaves 
 themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of 
 domination combines with the spirit of freedom, 
 fortifies it, and renders it invincible."* But it re 
 laxes the sinews of industry, corrupts the morals^ and 
 checks amelioration. Fallow lands, in the titular 
 possession of a few opulent individuals, defended 
 from creditors by feudal tenures, the menial, the 
 agricultural, and even the mechanic offices performed 
 by unrewarded bondsmen, education, except among 
 the rich, much neglected, religious exercises little 
 attended to, commerce, as an unworthy employment, 
 consigned to strangers, large fortunes and expensive 
 establishments, 4 are some of the disadvantageous pecu 
 liarities, by which the southern are distinguished from 
 the eastern states. Equality of possessions, general 
 information, simplicity of manners, sagacity, indus 
 try, frugality, enterprise, a rigorous observance of 
 Presbyterian rites, a strong pervading tincture of pu 
 ritanical tradition, are prominent features of the latter 
 features, which have expanded with their growth, but 
 retain all the marked character of their original cast. 
 
 * Burkc s Sfieech on conciliation with America. See to the 
 same effect, Monf$g. Grand, " D^ad, d?. n Rom. c. 13. p. 147. 
 
108 
 
 The resemblance to England is strongest in the east, 
 and weakens proceeding south, till it totally disap 
 pears.* 
 
 The division, characteristic and territorial, into 
 which the Americans themselves have separated their 
 country is that of the southern, northern or middle,, 
 and eastern states. The western, or those separated 
 by the great intersecting ridge of mountains, from the 
 Atlantic states, is a natural allotment, scarcely yet 
 acknowledged, exhibiting no moral varieties from the 
 others ; and formed by migrations from the east and 
 the Atlantic side. 
 
 The eastern and southern sections of the union are 
 inhabited chiefly by natives. The population of the 
 
 * The inhabitants of New England are to the other Ameri 
 cans, what the Scotch are to the English, and what at a late 
 period of the Roman empire, the Greeks were to the Romans- 
 Their population heing full, they leave home poor but well 
 instructed, shrewd and indefatigable, and in almost every 
 quarter of the union succeed in the attainment of many of 
 the most lucrative and influential situations. This, as the 
 same thing does in England, and did in Rome, excites a 
 jealousy on the part of the other Americans. One of Juve 
 nal s most animated satires is addressed to Umbritius, on this 
 subject. But the complaint itself is an acknowledgment of the 
 superior adroitness of the Greeks. 
 Jngenium velox, audacia perdita, sermo 
 Promptus, et Isae torrentior, ede, quid ilium 
 Esse putes ? quemvis hominem secum attulit ad nos, 
 Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, 
 Augur, schcenobates, medicus, magus omnia novit. 
 Grseculus escuriens in coelum, jusseris, ibit 
 Ad summam non Maurus erat, neque Sarmatanequc Thrax* 
 Qui sumsitpcnnas, mediis sed natus Athenis. 
 
 Ju-v. Sat. 3. r. 72. 
 
109 
 
 middle states is more heterogeneous, partaking to a 
 certain degree of the properties of the east and south, 
 blended in different proportions with its own. Less 
 profuse or fierce than those of the south, less hospi 
 table or amiable than either ; without the romantic 
 lassitude, the lofty prejudices and haughty republi 
 canism of the southern gentlemen, or the invincible 
 enterprise of the eastern people, without that boldness 
 of characteristic, and inveterate provincialism, that 
 are displayed in both ;* but richer, less prejudiced, 
 more contented, and more thriving in population, 
 agriculture, commerce, manufactures and resources 
 than either ; their capitals being the emporia of the 
 continent, the seat of its empire and its arts, the in 
 habitants of what are called the middle states differ 
 more from each other, and less from those of the 
 
 * Without even excepting the English, the eastern and 
 southern inhabitants of the United States are the most rovinp; 
 of any civilized people. They wander much from home, in 
 pursuit of education, trade, and pleasure, are gregarious 
 when abroad, and generally desirous of returning. Patriot 
 ism, as a broad attachment distinguished from provincialism;, 
 prevails as much in the middle, as in the southern or eastern 
 states. But the latter are more national. They have each a 
 stronger unity of characteristic. The feelings expressed in 
 the reminiscltur Argos of the Latin poet, and in the Ranz 
 des Vachcs of the modern Swiss, are strongly implanted in 
 their breasts. The Prince of Benevento expresses his opi 
 nion that the occupation of fishing weakens the love of country. 
 But in the people of New England, who are mostly fishermen, 
 whom Brissot styles audax lafieti genus and upon whom 
 one of Burke s most splendid flights is bestowed, a perpetual 
 existence at sea is associated with an invincible attachment f> 
 *he shores of their nativitv. 
 
110 
 
 east and south, and exhibit in our present view a 
 much less interesting spectacle. 
 
 3. The lien of this " mighty continental nation"* 
 is commercial liberty : not mere political liberty, but 
 positive freedom ; geographical absolution from all but 
 the slightest restraints ; the inherent and inalienable 
 birthright of this adolescent people, upon the enjoy 
 ment of which they entered by a lineal title, the mo 
 ment they felt strength enough to cast off the trammels 
 of infancy : a heritage as natural as the air they 
 breathe, which, whether it sweeten the toil of New 
 England, where the same farmer who sows and 
 reaps his own field, is also the mariner, who attends 
 his produce on distant ventures, or inflate the pride 
 of the south, where the poor black sows the ground 
 and the rich white reaps the harvest, is still and every 
 where the same " brave spirit," pervading the whole 
 republic, and binding it together by an influence, 
 not the less powerful, because its current is propelled 
 by an animating contrariety. The American people, 
 dispersed over an immense territory, abounding in 
 all the means of commercial greatness, to whom an 
 opportunity was presented at an early period of adapt 
 ing their government to their circumstances, follow 
 ed the manifest order of nature, when they adopted 
 a free, republican, commercial federation. 
 
 The course and catastrophe of the French revolu 
 tion have cast a gloom over republicanism, which 
 perhaps it may never shake off ; and which, at least 
 for the present, renders it in Europe repulsive and 
 
 * Lord Chatham s Sfifeck delivered IQth January, 1775- 
 1 
 
in 
 
 discreditable. But the American republic is the 
 natural fruit of the American soil : the spirit of its 
 freedom is impassioned, perhaps factious, but not 
 furious or bloody. It is in vain to attempt, and ab 
 surd to desire, the introduction of the republican 
 polity as a general melioration of the lot of nations. 
 Many causes, that are beyond the reach of man, 
 must concur to its establishment; and there have 
 been few countries predisposed, as they should be, 
 for its reception. The English loathed the adul 
 teration they endured during the sera of their com 
 monwealth, when hypocritical lowliness, ferocious fa 
 naticism, and overstrained economy, were substituted 
 for the generous and munificent patriotism which 
 ennobled and perpetuated the ancient republics. 
 Yet short as was its duration, and perverted as were 
 its principles, such is the natural vigour of a free 
 commonwealth, that the English received from theirs 
 an impulse, which while it darkened their character, 
 greatly increased their power, and gave it the direc 
 tion it has ever since followed. The French had 
 none of the ideas or propensities suited to freedom : 
 3nd whatever may have been the effects of their revo 
 lution in deracinating abuses, and regenerating their 
 national energies, it was not to be supposed that a 
 republican government would endure in France. The 
 French had not the raw material. But the American 
 federation is the natural offspring of commerce and 
 liberty, whose correlative interests will bind it to- 
 gether in principle, even after its formal dissolution. 
 What are the merits of those institutions which have 
 been framed by the people of this country it is not 
 
112 
 
 necessary here to inquire, or whether the government 
 be calculated for strength and durability. The 
 states, as now organized, may be consolidated or dis 
 membered, may fall asunder by the weight and weak- 
 ness of the union, or may separate in a convulsion. 
 But it is the perfection of polity, when it rests on 
 natural bases ; and a disunion of the American states, 
 whatever might be its political consequences, could 
 not destroy or materially change their mutual com 
 mercial dependence, and would not probably dimi 
 nish the almost universal attachment of the people to 
 republican institutions. The empire, in point of 
 extent, is unwieldy. The east and the south are 
 already jealous of each other, and the west regards 
 them both with suspicion. But a community of 
 language, of laws, of political attachments, and a reci 
 procity of interests are strong bonds of union, So 
 many theories have been projected on the excellence 
 of a federal republic, and so much disgrace has of 
 late been cast upon republicanism by both its advo 
 cates and enemks, that the American experiment 
 must be regarded with no small anxiety : for certain 
 it is that an enlightened and predominant republic, 
 such as those of Greece, Carthage and Rome, is the 
 most rational and glorious object the mind can con 
 template. 
 
 4. The prevailing character of these national ele 
 ments is the natural result from their geographical 
 and political combination. It is natural that a peo 
 ple descended so lately from pilgrims and sectaries 
 should be enthusiasts that a commercial people 
 should be enterprising and ingenious that a repub- 
 
113 
 
 lican people, whose press is free, and whose govern- 
 ment is a government of laws and opinion, should 
 be intelligent and licentious that an adolescent and 
 prosperous people should be aspiring, warlike and 
 vainglorious. This is not the character the Ameri 
 cans bear in Europe. The question there is whether 
 they have any national character at all ; and the com 
 mon impression is that they have not. 
 
 There is a great proneness to misrepresent national 
 character, which is a consideration extremely ob 
 scured by gross prejudices.* That verisimilitude of 
 
 * See Hume s Essay on National Character. 
 
 Statesmen have studied to render patriotism, which ought 
 to be one of our noblest sentiments, a narrow, cowardly and 
 illiberal prejudice. What has it been but a blind and narrow 
 principle producing in every country a contempt of other 
 countries ? Dr. Price s Discourse on Love of our Country. 
 
 What are the characteristic traits of modern nations ? 
 The Germans are a people, among whom the profound cor 
 ruption of the great has never influenced their inferiors, who 
 love their country, notwithstanding the indifference of their 
 masters a people, among whom the spirit of revolt and 
 fidelity, of independence and servility, has never changed since 
 the days of Tacitus. The Batavians are still industrious, 
 phlegmatic and rational. Italy, with her hundred princes, 
 and magnificent recollections, is still the contrast of obscure 
 and republican Switzerland. Spain, separated from other na 
 tions, exhibits a character of isolated originality. The stag 
 nation of manners in Spain may preserve that nation, after 
 all other Europeans shall have declined in corruption. 
 
 A mixture of the blood of Germany and blood of France, 
 the English perpetually display their twofold origin : their go 
 vernment formed of royalty and aristocracy; their religion 
 Jess pompous than the Catholic, more brilliant than the Ln- 
 
114 
 
 habits, manners and propensities, indicative of the 
 inhabitants of ancient countries, is not an infallible 
 index to the national character : there are vulgar fea- 
 
 Iheran ; their military at once ponderous and active ; their lite 
 rature, arts, language, features, and the very forms of their 
 bodies, partake of the two sources from whence the na 
 tion proceeds. To the simplicity, calmness, good sense, and 
 slowness of the Germans, they join the glare, fury, folly, vi 
 vacity and elegance of the French. 
 
 The English excel in public spirit ; the French in national 
 honour. Eldest sons of antiquity, theFrench, Romans in genius, 
 are Greeks in character. Restless and volatile in prosperity ? 
 constant and invincible in adversity ; formed for all arts ; ci 
 vilized to excess during a period of tranquillity ; brutal and 
 savage in political troubles ; floating, like vessels without bal 
 last, at the breath of passion, now in the clouds, a moment 
 after in the abyss ; enthusiasts in good and evil ; rendering 
 the one without expecting a return, and perpetrating the 
 other without remorse ; forgetful alike of their crimes and 
 their virtues ; pusillanimous lovers of life during peace, pro 
 digal of it in battle ; vain, sarcastic, and ambitious ; despising 
 whatever is not theirs; amiable individuals; disagreeable in 
 bodies; charming in their own country ; insupportable else 
 where ; by turns more gentle and innocent than the lamb 
 that is slaughtered, more remorseless and ferocious than the 
 tiger that devours such formerly were the Athenians, and 
 such now are theFrench. Chateaubriand Genie du Christianisme - 
 
 In this beautiful picture we perceive to be sure a strong- 
 tinge of national partiality; but we perceive also the touches 
 of a master. Some of the features of the French have been 
 forced forward in most striking lights, by the late revolu 
 tion : and others are exactly true to the life. But what is 
 principally evident throughout the whole is the original im- 
 pres:-l .;ns, which ages of refinement have not worn away or 
 improved. 
 
115 
 
 tures, striking, but deceptive. Heroes, poets and 
 historians will adapt national greatness to a poor and 
 enslaved people. Peace, plenty and a certain degree 
 of obscurity render a people happy ; and if they are 
 happy, they will commonly be virtuous.* But virtue 
 
 Among the ancients the Greeks are a more eminent people 
 than their conquerors the Romans, who did not achieve their 
 conquest till the former were distracted and exhausted ; and 
 who even then, and ever after continued in all things but arms? 
 the imitators and slaves of the Greeks. There were compara" 
 lively more great men in Greece than in Rome; particularly 
 during the periods of their decline respectively. When 
 Greece began to totter, a succession of heroes appeared to her 
 relief. But after a short though glorious struggle, Rome 
 was enslaved, and declined, without effort or interruption. 
 There was in the character of the Grecian people that alacrity 
 which is the spring of so many great actions; to which the 
 French now lay claim. 
 
 * If indeed we subscribe to Voltaire s dogma on this sub 
 ject, we should deprive most nations of any character at all. 
 La populace, says he, doit etre en tout pays uniquement oc- 
 cupee du travail des mains. L esprit d une nation reside 
 toujours dans le petit nombre qui fit travailler le grand, qui 
 le nourrit, et le gouverne. Es. sur les Maura, torn. 3. c. 
 47. /i. 319. But Dr. Johnson pronounces a very different 
 opinion. The true state of every nation, says he, is the state 
 of common life. The manners of a people are not to be 
 found in the schools of learning, or the palaces of greatness 
 where the national character is obscured or obliterated by 
 travel or instruction, by philosophy or variety : nor is public 
 happiness to be estimated by the assemblies of the gay, or the 
 banquets of the rich. The great mass of nations is neither 
 rich nor gay. They, whose aggregate constitutes the people, 
 are found in the streets and villages, in the shops and farms, 
 and from them collectively considered must the measure of 
 
116 
 
 and happiness are not so imposing as greatness, in the 
 national, or in the individual estimate. The same 
 principle that induces a preference of the great to the 
 good, bears admiration from the wise and peaceable 
 commonwealth to the belligerent empire. We prize 
 military renown beyond civil or pacific distinction, 
 following the blaze of glory rather than the sober light 
 of wisdom. We eulogize for its national character, 
 a warlike empire, composed of the most despicable 
 materials, with no common spirit but implicit obe 
 dience to chiefs, through whose merits alone it is emi 
 nent; and deny the same homage to a country com 
 posed of a virtuous -- and intelligent population, go 
 verned by one common sentiment of policy, but 
 whose policy happens to be peace. No excellence in 
 the arts, no morals, no refinement, no intelligence, no 
 literary fame, will give national importance, without 
 an ability for war, and a high martial rank among 
 sovereign states. The Chinese, in many respects a 
 wise and original people, consisting of three hundred 
 millions of souls under one head, are despised by 
 the pettiest nation in Europe. The Swiss and the 
 Dutch, the only powers of modern Europe that ne vet- 
 wage foreign wars, acquired the only national reputa 
 tion they ever enjoyed, not by any peculiarity of 
 
 general prosperity betaken. As they approach to delicacy a na 
 tion is refined; as their conveniences are multiplied, a nation? 
 at least a commercial nation, must be denominated wealthy. 
 Tour to the Hebrides^ p. 32, 33. To the meridian of what 
 nation in Europe is Voltaire s language suitable ? Certainly 
 not to that of the gay and amiable people, of whom he was 
 one. 
 
117 
 
 manners, or wise institutions, but by their capacity 
 for resistance to hostile encroachment. Reflecting 
 men in Europe regard the American revolution as 
 a period when the American character shone forth 
 with considerable distinction. Yet the same nation, 
 in part the same men, after thirty years of peace and 
 prosperity, are supposed to have lost the energy of 
 patriotism they then displayed. An expansion of 
 population, of resources, of territory, of power, of in 
 formation, of freedom, of every thing that tends to 
 magnify man, is supposed to have degenerated the 
 Americans. Is this the course of nature? All things 
 are said to tend from their origin to a certain degree 
 of perfection, and thence to decline and dissolution. 
 But can the time be so soon arrived for the tide of 
 American declension? According to the common 
 course of events, the genius of the American people 
 should be enhanced, not deteriorated, by the peace 
 and prosperity they have enjoyed since the period of 
 their birth as a nation. By sketches of the present 
 state of their religion, legislation, literature, arts and 
 society, with an aspect never turned from their na 
 tional characteristics, and embracing no further details 
 than are necessary for their exposition, I propose to 
 endeavour to refute the false opinions inferred from 
 their tranquillity, and at the same time to exhibit 
 their national character. 
 
 In this age of infidelity and indifference, to call 
 any people a religious people, is a license, which no 
 thing but a comparative view of the state of religion 
 in this and in other Christian countries, can uphold. 
 It is, however, true, that the number of persons de- 
 
118 
 
 voted to pious exercises, from reflection, independ 
 ent of education and habit, is greater in the United 
 States, than in any other part of the world, in pro- 
 portion to the population ; and religious morality is 
 more general and purer here than elsewhere. The 
 political ordinance of religious toleration is one of 
 those improvements in the science of politics, for 
 which mankind will acknowledge their obligations to 
 America : and the divorce of church and state is an 
 inestimable pledge for the purity and stability of re 
 publican government. Religious toleration, says 
 the Prince of Benevento, is one of the most power 
 ful guaranties of social tranquillity ; for where liber 
 ty of conscience is respected, every other right can 
 not fail to be so. As Christianity and civilization have 
 hitherto been inseparable companions, it is probable 
 that where the practice of the former is most accept 
 able, the influence of the latter will be the most per 
 vading. One of the first acts of Penn and Baltimore 
 in their respective provinces, was the absolute sepa 
 ration of ecclesiastical from secular concerns : a ca 
 tholic and a quaker,^ the extremes of the Christian 
 creed, thus signalizing their administrations by a li 
 berality equally wise and magnanimous, the benefi 
 cial effects of which will be felt to the latest genera 
 tion. In New England, where presbyterianism is 
 the predominant faith, fanaticism expired slowly, 
 and proscription blazed up more than once, after it 
 
 * It is worth remarking, that Chesterfield calls the quakers 
 the best behaved men, and that Voltaire considered them the 
 most catholic Christians. 
 1 
 
119 
 
 was believed and ought to have been extinguished.* 
 But at this time persecution is impracticable. Laws, 
 and opinions stronger than laws, prevent it. The 
 churches of Rome, of England, of Luther, of 
 Wesley and of Fox, in all their various subdivisions 
 and modifications, subsist in peace and harmony, 
 worshipping without molestation, according to their 
 different tenets. Universal toleration has produced 
 numberless particular sects, each maintained by en 
 thusiastic proselytes. Thus the Americans are a na 
 tion of freethinkers ; and having moreover not only 
 no established church, but being perfectly unrestrain 
 ed in their belief, those persuasions are most follow 
 ed, which involve the utmost refinements of enthu 
 siasm, and rejection of ceremonial. After shaking 
 off entirely the shackles of superstition, it is not easy 
 to avoid the phrensy of fanaticism ; for one begins 
 where the other ends. But it is the advantage of 
 the latter, that whereas superstition binds the soul in 
 sloth and fear, fanaticism sets it free from their mor 
 tification; and though for a time it may float in an 
 unsettled medium, it will settle at last on the right 
 base.f 
 
 * Alors n admettant plus d autorite visible, 
 Chacun fut de la foi cense juge infaillible ; 
 Et sans etre approuve par le clerge Remain, 
 Tout protestant fut Pape, une bible a la main. 1 
 f These observations on the state of religion in the United 
 States, are meant to be confined to its national effects ; foras 
 much as the multiplication and freedom of sects may affect the 
 genius of the people. It is far from my intention to pronounce 
 any opinion upon their respective merits. ThusnwcK however, 
 
120 
 
 The civil institutions of this country conduce 
 equally with religious toleration to habits of intelli 
 gence and independence. Natural equality perhaps 
 does not exist. Birth, affluence and talents create 
 distinctions, notwithstanding political regulations to 
 the contrary. The pride of family, the vanity of 
 wealth, and other adventitious advantages, are not 
 without their sensation in society, even in this young 
 republic. But patrician and plebeian orders are un 
 known, and that third or middle class, upon which 
 so many theories have been founded, is a section 
 that has no existence here. Luxury has not yet 
 corrupted the rich, nor is there any of that want, 
 which classifies the poor. There is no populace.* 
 All are people.f What in other countries is called 
 the populace, a compost heap, whence germinate 
 mobs, beggars, and tyrants, is not to be found in the 
 towns; and there is no peasantry in the country. 
 Were it not for the slaves of the south, there would 
 be but one rank. By the facility of subsistence and 
 high price of labour, by the universal education and 
 universal suffrage, almost every man is a yeoman or 
 a citizen, sensible of his individual importance. Not 
 more than 350,000 of the seven millions composing 
 the population of the American states, reside in large 
 towns. The remainder live on farms or in villages. 
 
 I may be permitted to say, that toleration seems more likely 
 than coercion to make catholics. The fire of free thinking 
 will burn itself out. Nor is it a " fond and fantastical prophecy" 7 
 to foretel, that free inquiry will in time accomplish what ana- 
 theraas and inquisitions in vain endeavoured to compel, 
 
 * Plebs. f Populus. 
 
Most of them are proprietors of the soil ; and many 
 of them the wealthiest and most influential natives.* 
 This great repartition of estate has necessarily a great 
 and beneficial influence on the morals and sentiments 
 of the people, which the laws are in general contrived 
 to aid and confirm. The abolition of the rights of 
 primogeniture, and of entails, and the statutes for re 
 gulating the transmission of property, are calculated 
 to prevent the accumulation of the fortune of a fami 
 ly in the hands of any one of the children ; and by 
 distributing it equally among them all, serve to exalt 
 those sentiments of individual independence, which 
 are the roots of patriotism. They are most attached 
 
 * Not that I by any means subscribe to the sentiment of 
 Mr. Jefferson, that husbandmen are God s chosen people. 
 Far from it. They are more prone to intoxication, litigation., 
 gambling and turbulence, than the inhabitants of cities. 
 The popular insurrections that have threatened the 
 peace of this government since the establishment of the 
 present constitution, have broken out in the interior, remote 
 from any large towns. The late attempt by Burr, was to 
 have been perpetrated not by means of town mobs, but frontier 
 settlers, or what are known here by the denomination of back - 
 v/oodsmen. In countries where the peasants are so ignorant 
 and poor as to be wholly under the influence of superiors, 
 their laborious simplicity may be more useful to the state and 
 more conducive to their own happiness, than the occupations 
 of the lower classes in great towns ; especially in catholic 
 countries, where the lawfulness of innocent recreations pre 
 vents a recurrence to vitious amusements. But, in the United 
 States, the people are neither ignorant, poor, nor catholic ; 
 and the virtues of contentment, industry and sobriety, are at 
 least as common (if not more so) in cities as in the coun 
 tr. 
 
122 
 
 to the soil, who own a part of it ; from which attach* 
 ment spring love of country, glory, and that fine union 
 of public with private feelings, which constitutes the 
 strength and ornament of republics.* In monarchies, 
 these sentiments are confined to the great. The mass 
 of the people to be sure instinctively love the spot of 
 their nativity, but are seldom animated with that 
 noble, personal, and selfish and obstinate zeal, which 
 citizens feel for what they call their own. Hard la 
 bour and low wages stupify and vitiate the lower 
 classes of most countries. But in the United States 
 wages are very high, and hard labour is altogether op 
 tional. Three days work out of seven yields a sup 
 port. The lassitude and dissipation, which might be 
 expected from so much leisure, are provided against 
 by natural circumstances. On one side the sea, and 
 on the other rich waste lands, present inexhaustible 
 fields of adventure and opulence. The inducement 
 to labour, the recompense, is so great, that the Ame 
 ricans, with the utmost facilities of subsistence, are 
 a most industrious people. As in higher life, learning 
 and assiduity are certain passports to preferment and 
 celebrity, so in the occupations of trade, agriculture, 
 and the sea, persevering industry, almost without a 
 risk of disappointment, leads to comfort and conse 
 quence. The proportion of persons of large fortune 
 is small ; that of paupers next to nothing. Every 
 one is a man of business ; every thing in the pro 
 gress of emulation and improvement. Universality 
 of successful employment diffuses alacrity and happi- 
 
 * Sec Montesq. Grand, et Decad. des Rom. c. 5. 
 
123 
 
 ness throughout the community. No taxes, no mili 
 tary, no ranks, remove every sensation of restraint. 
 Each individual feels himself rising in his fortunes ; 
 and the nation, rising with the concentration of all 
 this elasticity, rejoices in its growing greatness. It 
 is the perfection of civilized society, as far as respects 
 the happiness of its members, when its ends are ac 
 complished with the least pressure from government ; 
 and if the principle of internal corruption, and the 
 dangers of foreign aggression, did not render neces 
 sary a sacrifice of some of this felicity, to preserve 
 and perpetuate the rest, the Americans might conti 
 nue to float in undisturbed buoyancy. The happi 
 ness, the virtue, and the most desirable character of 
 a people at such a time, and under such circum 
 stances, are most perfect, and should be most dis 
 tinguished. But a dash of licentiousness already 
 disturbs this happy equilibrium, and it must be 
 overthrown by foreign or domestic violence, unless 
 it be retrenched and protected. 
 
 From ignorance and bigotry, the common fea 
 tures of common people, the Americans have less to 
 fear than from the opposite evils of faction and fa 
 naticism. Propensities to the bottle, to conventicles, 
 and to popular assemblies, are founded in enthusiasm, 
 and fomented by freedom. A free and prosperous 
 people will be infected with the lust for novelty ; a 
 passion more easily diverted than subdued. It 
 would be practicable for the American government to 
 give such encouragement to public festivals and re 
 creations, as might tend to allay popular restlessness, 
 and to give the popular feeling an. innocent and even 
 
124 
 
 a patriotic direction. But at present, with all their 
 fondness for public meetings, which is indulged in 
 a numberless variety of associations, religious, poli 
 tical, convivial and social, greatly exceeding that of 
 any other country, the Americans have few national 
 festivals, and they are falling into disuse.* 
 
 Perhaps this is not the scene for science, literature 
 and the fine arts. Business and tranquillity are not 
 their elements. The poets, painters, architects or phi 
 losophers of America are as yet neither very nume 
 rous nor eminent. But the Americans are by no means, 
 as is often asserted in Europe, so absorbed in ignoble 
 pursuits, as to be insensible to the arts that polish 
 and refine society. The natural genius of man is very 
 similar in all climates, and literary excellence has had 
 charms for all civilized men in their turn. Why then 
 should a free, richand rising nation be lost to the noblest 
 attractions, the groundwork for whose attachment 
 to literature is broadly laid in a far more general disse 
 mination of common learning, than any other people 
 enjoy ? There are few Americans, who cannot read 
 and write > and who have not a competent knowledge 
 of figures. Education is more a public concern here 
 than in any other country. In the little state of Con 
 necticut alone, there are not less than 1200 public 
 
 * Peace and plenty have already somewhat infatuated the 
 people of the United States, 
 
 Whose only grievance is excess of ease. 
 Freedom their pain and plenty their disease ; 
 
 which verse of Dryden s is much more applicable to then;; 
 than it ever was to the nation for whom it was made. 
 
125 
 
 schools, which contain about 40,000 scholars at a 
 time.* The course of education, however, is in ge 
 neral short and superficial : adapted rather to the oc 
 casions than the perfection of the student. There is 
 less of that minute division of employment, which 
 obtains in older nations, and which has great ten 
 dency toward the extent and certainty of acquire 
 ments. But the number of schools is unequalled 
 elsewhere : and in the several colleges there are 
 probably about 2,000 scholars at a time. 
 
 For plain rudimental learning, and general, prac 
 tical good sense, the Americans surpass all other peo 
 ple. The lower classes in England, and even in 
 Scotland, are in this most important respect much 
 their inferiors. 
 
 But the national character, in this point, is rather 
 that of an almost universal mediocrity, than any par 
 ticular intensity of acquirement. The literature of 
 
 * See Miller s Retrospect for the number of public schools 
 and scholars. For the circumstance I am about to relate, I 
 cannot refer to such authority, but it may be relied upon as 
 authentic ; and is certainly most curiously indicative of the 
 character of the people of New England their fondness for 
 learning and ardency of enterprise. In some of the colleges, 
 the course of education is extremely cheap ; so much so as to 
 excite the ambition of many farmers and labourers sons, 
 v/hose funds would not be adequate to any expensive under 
 taking. The avenues of the law, the church, physic and ad 
 vancement in public life, are all laid open to the bachelors of 
 arts. But many who attain to this degree, commence their 
 studies without a farthing in their pockets, and defray the 
 charges of a collegiate education by funds earned at day labour 
 during the vacations, or before they had entered upon their 
 Titudies. 
 
126 
 
 the country, to advance our view a grade higher, is 
 rather solid than shining. But the vast number of 
 newspapers, and periodical* publications, the im- 
 
 * It will not be lost sight of, that whatever is stated, is not 
 intended as an abstract opinion, but merely with reference to 
 effects on the genius and character of the American people. 
 What temporal influence the subdivision of religious sects may 
 have on the nation, as a nation, is endeavoured to be explain 
 ed, without entering upon an examination of more serious 
 results : and in like manner the effect of the number of news 
 papers and other periodical publications, on the genius and 
 character of the people, is considered, without approving that 
 efifect, or rejoicing at the augmentation. I consider rational 
 liberty, useful learning, and solid science, more endangered 
 from what is called the freedom of the press, than from all 
 the hosts of ignorance and tyranny. The discovery of print 
 ing has been incalculably beneficial to the mass of mankind, 
 but like all other benefits this is susceptible of corruption and 
 abuse. The magazines, reviews, and newspapers that are 
 spreading over the face of Europe and North America, threat 
 en to deface and obliterate every vestige of the good sense 
 and information to be derived from well chosen reading and 
 unprejudiced inquiry. In the United States particularly, 
 where the people in general are so well informed, there is less 
 occasion than in any other country, for these little lights ; 
 and more occasion and a better atmosphere, than in any other, 
 for the great luminaries of science and instruction. A male 
 volent system of uncandid criticism, dictated by no principle 
 of impartiality or improvement, but directed with a single 
 eye to circulation, sale and profit, is the ill-suited vehicle upon 
 which most modern performances in letters are* ushered into 
 the world. And the newspapers of England and the United 
 States, almost without exception, from being the repositories 
 of politics and intelligence, have become the mere base or 
 gans of faction, ribaldry and sedition. Any obnoxious indivi 
 dual, however fair his character, may be written down with 
 impunity, and consigned to obscurity, perhaps the grave- i 
 1 
 
127 
 
 mense importations from Europe of books of every 
 description, and their continual sale at very high 
 prices, the printing presses, the public libraries, the 
 philosophical and literary institutions, and, above all^ 
 the general education and intelligence of the commu 
 nity, most effectually refute the charges of indifference 
 to literature and science. Germany and England are 
 the only countries where more books are annually 
 published ; and in neither of these, though their ori 
 ginal writers are more numerous, is the number of 
 readers so great as in the United States. Nor in ei 
 ther of those or any other country whatever, is a ge 
 nius for writing or speaking a more useful or corn- 
 any meritorious work, before the public can pass its judg 
 ment, may be destroyed by reviewers, who fatten on the dis 
 section, while the author perishes for want. Criticism w r as 
 once accounted the most difficult of all arts, to which none pre 
 tended but the few whom great experience, profound knowledge 
 and imposing abilities had created censors ; who applauded to 
 encourage, and corrected to improve. But now it is become the 
 trade and mystery of those who have not capacity or industry 
 for any other ; who approve as they are paid or propitiated, and 
 condemn from motives of faction, malice and ignorance. To 
 be the editor of a newspaper it was once thought necessary to 
 possess some information and character, and to practise some 
 candour and liberality. But this respectable occupation has 
 become the last resort of broken fortunes or a blasted fame. 
 That free political inquiry is indispensable to republican liber 
 ty, I am far from denying : but I venture to predict that a 
 licentious press will prove fatal to the constitution of any 
 [country in which it is tolerated. Letters and liberty are alike 
 endangered from this corruption of the greatest improvement 
 dispensed to man. It is an alloy, which must never be suffer. 
 ed to exceed its due proportion, however difficult the separr 
 don may prove : or the metal is not worth preserving. 
 
128 
 
 manding endowment than in this. The talents dis 
 played in the American state papers, both for com 
 position and legislation are seldom contested. Inde 
 pendent of several public literary works, of sterling and 
 of brilliant merits, almost every state has its historian 
 and other writers : and statistical, professional, com 
 mercial, scientific and especially political treatises, arc 
 the offspring of every day, and, multiply at a prodi 
 gious rate. It is not every year, in any country, that 
 produces the moeonii car minis alite y which blooms, 
 like the aloe, hardly once an age. 
 
 In all the useful mechanic arts, in common and in 
 dispensable manufactures, as well as in not a few of 
 the more curious and costly fabrications, in agricul 
 ture both practically and scientifically, in the construe- 
 tion of houses and ships, they rank with the most 
 advanced nations of Europe, and very far surpass 
 some, who upon no better pretension than a higher 
 national ancestry, presume to consider the Ameri 
 cans as totally unacquainted with refinements, which 
 in fact they understand and enjoy much better than 
 themselves. Their architecture is always neat and 
 commodious, often elegant, and in some instances, 
 grand and imposing. In their labour- saving ma 
 chinery, in their implements of husbandry, and do 
 mestic utensils, they are a century more improved 
 than the inhabitants of France and Spain. 
 
 When we leave the province of utility, and ap~ 
 proach the regions of elegance, or the depths of eru 
 dition, it is true they are in a state of minority, when 
 compared with the most improved nations. Some 
 
 
129 
 
 arts and studies require leisure and patronage, per 
 haps luxury, to foster them into maturity. Though 
 of these the American soil is not entirely unproduc 
 tive, yet such shoots as have appeared, are rare and 
 spontaneous. There are few individuals with the 
 means and inclination to be patrons : and the govern 
 ment has hitherto afforded little protection or coun 
 tenance to such improvements. 
 
 Most foreigners impute this barbarian niggardli 
 ness on the part of the government to the spirit of a 
 republican people, and the policy of their rulers ; and 
 I fear there are not wanting native Americans who 
 consider the fine arts and republicanism incompatible. 
 But how rude and false is such a sentiment ! How 
 offensive to the history and genius of republics ! 
 
 Certain it is, however, that there is almost a total 
 absence from this country of those magnificent me 
 morials and incentives of distinction, which the fine 
 arts, particularly those of statuary and painting, 
 create and sanctify. There is scarcely a statue, 
 structure or public monument to commemorate the 
 achievements of their war for independence. The 
 ground where the principal battles were fought, re 
 mains unconsecrated the ashes of the patriots who 
 died for liberty, uninurned and every disposition 
 toward a suitable emblazonment of those events and 
 characters, which should be perpetually present to 
 the nation, in every captivating form, has been re 
 pressed as inimical to the thrifty policy of repub 
 licanism. Thousands of pens indeed, and tens of 
 thousands of tongues, vie with each other in their 
 
130 
 
 panegyric. And more than one native pencil too has 
 been dedicated to their immortalizing* But these arc- 
 private effusions. The nation has not the honour of 
 their creation ; and remains to this day with scarcely 
 one of those great and splendid edifices, obelisks 
 and monuments, which should be scattered over the 
 land with munificent profusion, to attach and inspire 
 its inhabitants, and embody, identify, and preserve 
 their national feelings and character. Patriotism must 
 have shrines, or its ardour will relent. Permanent 
 public memorials serve not only to invigorate the 
 character of a country, and incite the best emotions of 
 its citizens, but to embellish, civilize and make it 
 happy. Scilicet, non cemm illam, neque figuram, 
 tantam vim in sese habere ; sed memoria rerum gesta- 
 rum earn Jlammam egregiis viris, in pectore crescere ; 
 neque prius sedari quam virtus eorum famam atquc 
 gloriam adtequaverit. 
 
 In those efforts which are the production of genius 
 rather than erudition, particularly in the accomplish 
 ment of public speaking, the Americans have attain- 
 ed to greater excellence than other modern nations, 
 their superiors in age and refinement. In the preva 
 lence of oratory, as a common talent, in the number 
 of good public speakers, in the fire and captivation 
 of their public harangues, parliamentary, popular, 
 forensic and of the pulpit, the English are the only 
 modern people comparable with the Americans, and 
 the English are far from being their equals. Popular 
 representation and freedom of speech, several sove 
 reignties, each one represented in a debating assem- 
 
131 
 
 bly, always rivals and sometimes directly opposed 
 to each other, cultivate and call forth the most striking 
 powers of oratory ; whose conceptions are facilitated 
 by the grandeur of surrounding scenery, and sub 
 limity of the images of nature. Not only oratory, 
 but all the arts and sciences are said to flourish in a 
 fresh soil : and Greece will ever remain an illustrious 
 instance, that a cluster of commercial republics is 
 eminently adapted to their propagation and perfec 
 tion. 
 
 But there are circumstances both natural and 
 moral, promotive or prejudicial to the interests of 
 letters and the fine arts, that have operated on differ 
 ent nations and ages, which baffle research, and are 
 indicated only in effects, not to be traced to any cer 
 tain cause. Thus Sallust observes of the Greeks, 
 that owing to their great genius for writing, their 
 acts are more celebrated than they deserved to be : 
 whereas the Romans did not write enough for their 
 own renown. At popuh Romano numquam ea cop>a 
 fiat : quia prudentissimus quisque negotiosus maxims 
 erat : ingeninm nemo sine corpore exercebat : optu- 
 inus quisque facer e, quam dicere ; $ua ab aliis benefacta 
 laudari, quam ipse aliorum narrare, malebat.* It is 
 common in Europe to regard the American states 
 with contempt, because, among other defects, of 
 their supposed inaptitude for literary refinements : 
 and the nonproduction of famous performances, is 
 adopted as a proof of the poverty of their taste for 
 
 * SaH. de Caul. s. 8. 
 
literature, which is ascribed to commercial and re 
 publican habits and laws. I have endeavoured to show 
 the falsehood of these premises. But admitting 
 their correctness, does the inference follow ? The 
 Romans, who, as I have just shown, wrote very little, 
 who were not a commercial people, and who, above 
 all others, were addicted to theatrical spectacles, 
 never had a tragic poet ; and their few comic writers 
 are inferior to those of Greece. Spain has been 
 said to have produced but one excellent book, and 
 that ridicules most others. Yet how mistaken our 
 conclusions would be, if we inferred from the non- 
 existence of tragic poets at Rome, that the Romans 
 had no taste for tragedy, or from reading Don 
 Quixotte, that the Spaniards were an ignorant or a 
 lively nation. 
 
 There is no subject on which a liberal judgment 
 should proceed so cautiously to condemnation, as that 
 of the literary character of a cotemporaneous nation.* 
 The most distinguished scholars have been the most 
 prejudiced, when they came to weigh the comparative 
 merits of their own and other nations in this respect. 
 Voltaire, notwithstanding all his learning and impar 
 tiality in the abstract, and Johnson, take their stations 
 at the head of the prejudices of their respective coun 
 tries. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that the 
 English deny the charms of French poetry, or that 
 the French cannot relish Shakespeare or blank verse. 
 
 * Aucun peufilc rfest en droit de se moquer d un autre, sayr> 
 Voltaire, in Disc. Prelim, p. 129. Es. sur IGS Mceurs, 
 
133 
 
 When a young people, not yet half a century ad 
 vanced, have already exhibited a genius for oratory 
 and legislation, and their general intelligence is so un 
 rivalled as that of the Americans, we should be slow 
 to conclude, from the paucity of their original wri 
 ters, that they want an aptitude for composition, or 
 a taste for literature and the arts. Since the invention 
 of printing, and the improvements in commerce, the 
 antiquated principles of gradual amelioration are no 
 longer applicable to any people, especially not to the 
 Americans. Rudiments are obsolete. As the dis 
 covery and first settlement of America were the re 
 sults of, and simultaneous with, the reappearance of 
 the arts and sciences during the 15th and 16th cen 
 turies, and as the inhabitants of this country have ever 
 since, by the means of commerce and free presses, 
 been intimately connected with all the most polished 
 nations of the older world, their imitation of succes 
 sive improvements has been close and constant, some 
 times enlivened with distinguished discoveries and 
 useful inventions of their own. While the shackles 
 of a mother country laid upon their genius, it was 
 necessarily somewhat restricted and mortified. The 
 revolution called it forth to action, with all the ardour 
 incident to such occasions. During the short period 
 that has elapsed since their independence, freedom, 
 prosperity and ambition have stimulated its powers ; 
 and setting aside two, or perhaps three, of the most 
 enlightened empires of Europe, the literature, arts 
 and sciences of the people of the United States 
 of America, are equal, and their general information 
 and intelligence superior, to those of any other nation. 
 
134 
 
 A people so lately sprung from Europe, so closely 
 connected with it, and so much younger in the an- 
 iials of civilization, naturally adopts European cus 
 toms. At the same time there being few rich, and 
 no poor, there is less disparity, little luxury, and mo 
 rals predominate over manners in this country. As 
 civilized society rests on reciprocal concessions, its 
 structure is most harmonious when they are best 
 regulated ; for, perhaps, the most we can say of hu 
 man nature is, that it is capable of being rendered 
 amiable by a reciprocity of good offices. The arts 
 of hospitality and politeness, the alternation of bu 
 siness and pleasure, social assemblies, innocent re 
 creations and good breeding, while they give zest to 
 existence, undoubtedly tend to refine and cement so 
 ciety, and to render mankind more virtuous as well 
 as more elegant. Up to the period of enervation, 
 refinements mend the affections as well as the man- 
 ners : but it is the misfortune of society, that civili 
 zation, after a certain point, begins to lose its seem- 
 liness ; morals give way to manners, and character 
 has no weight against rank, appearance or beha 
 viour. 
 
 Though there are few men of very large fortunes 
 in the United States, a great proportion are in easy 
 circumstances, and hospitality and politeness are 
 common virtues. Commercial people are said to be 
 inhospitable.* The English and the Dutch are the 
 least hospitable people of modem Europe. But, in 
 the United States, abundance overcomes the calcu 
 lating spirit of trade, and the east and the south vie 
 
 * Montesq. JSsfi, dcs Loix, 
 
135 
 
 with each other in unbounded hospitality. Even 
 this, by some of those Europeans who are prepos 
 sessed against this country, may be accounted a 
 remnant of simplicity at least, if not of barbarity. 
 Savages are always hospitable. The Romans found 
 it necessary to prohibit the lavish dispensation of this 
 duty among the Germans. But in the exercise of 
 such a virtue, we admire the vanquished more than 
 their conquerors in its extinction. 
 
 The amusements of the Americans are gayer and 
 less ferocious than those of the English. They are 
 more addicted to dancing, for instance, and less to 
 boxing, bull- baiting, and cock-fighting. Not that 
 there is more ferocity in the English than in the 
 American character. But the Americans have had 
 opportunities, of which they have availed themselves, 
 to lay aside certain savage attachments, which un 
 broken custom still maintains in England. The 
 atrical exhibitions, the sports of the field, and the 
 pleasures of the table, are found by the Americans not 
 incompatible with serious and lucrative occupations, 
 and are followed with a general and increasing relish. 
 Gaming and vitious dissipation are not unpractised, 
 but more commonly by inferior than the better sort 
 of people. 
 
 The prevailing vice is inebriety ; induced by the 
 relaxing heats of the climate in the southern and 
 middle states, by the absence of all restriction, and 
 the high price of wages. From this odious impu 
 tation New England is exempt. But in every other 
 part of the Union, the labourers, and too many of 
 
136 
 
 the farmers, are given up to a pernicious indulgence 
 in spirituous liquors.* 
 
 Marriages in the United States are contracted 
 early, and generally from disinterested motives. With 
 very few exceptions they are sacred. Adultery is 
 rare, and seduction seldom practised. The inter 
 course of the sexes is more familiar, without vice, 
 than in any other part of the world ; to which cir 
 cumstance may, in great measure, be attributed the 
 happy footing of society. This intercourse, in some 
 countries, is confined, by cold and haughty customs, 
 almost to the circles of consanguinity ; in others, 
 from opposite causes, it is unrestrained, voluptuous, 
 and depraved. In the United States, it is free, 
 chaste and honourable. Women are said to afford a 
 type of the state of civilization. In savage life they 
 are slaves. At the middle era of refinement, they 
 are companions. With its excess they become mis 
 tresses and slaves again. North America is now at 
 that happy mean, when well educated and virtuous 
 women enjoy the confidence of their husbands, the 
 reverence of their children, and the respect of socie 
 ty, which is chiefly indebted to them for its tone and 
 embellishments. The unobtrusive and insensible 
 influence of the sex is in meridian operation at this 
 time ; and as the company of virtuous women is the 
 
 * The prevailing drink of some nations affords a partial in 
 dex to their characters. The champaigne of the French, the 
 malt liquor of the English, the whiskey of the Irish, the gin 
 of the Dutch, the rum of the southern, and the cyder of the 
 eastern Americans, are respectively somewhat indicative of 
 their national temperaments. 
 1 
 
137 
 
 best school for manners, the Americans, without as 
 high a polish as some Europeans acquire, are distin 
 guished for a sociability and urbanity, that all nations, 
 even the most refined, have not attained. 
 
 Commerce, which equalizes fortunes, levels ranks; 
 and parade and stateliness can be kept up only where 
 there is great disproportion of possessions. Expen 
 sive establishments, splendid equipages, and magni 
 ficent entertainments, are sometimes copied after Eu 
 ropean models. But they are neither common nor 
 popular. It is difficult and invidious to be magnifi 
 cent in a republican country, where there is no po 
 pulace, and so many members of society have where 
 withal to be generous and hospitable. A plentiful 
 mediocrity, a hearty hospitality, a steadier and less 
 ostentatious style of living, are more congenial with 
 the habits and fortunes of the Americans.* 
 
 * The United States of America seem to have incurred the 
 obloquy of Europe, in proportion as their happiness and power 
 have increased ; and now that they are the happiest and least 
 depraved people in the world, others are industriously taught 
 to despise them as the most vidous and miserable. Most coun 
 tries have suffered in their estimate from the ignorance and 
 antipathies of others, and the misrepresentations of prejudi 
 ced travellers and voyage writers. But on this in particular 
 the overflowing phial of falsehood and opprobrium has been 
 emptied. That the genius and character of the people should 
 be misconceived and underrated, is, perhaps, less to be won 
 dered at, than the pictures, alternately fulsome and disgust 
 ing, which have been drawn of the state of society, morals 
 and manners ; because these can hardly be mistaken by an 
 actual observer ; and none other, it might be supposed, would 
 attempt them. When Buffon and D Aubenton exhibit nature 
 as niggardly, and her offspring as dwarfish and thwarted in 
 
 s 
 
138 
 
 Having thus sketched the situation of this coun 
 try, religious, political and social, let me hasten to 
 such results as have not appeared in the course of the 
 
 America, compared with their species in Europe, such egre 
 gious errors are easily assigned to no uncommon cause a 
 deficiency of practical knowledge. And when the Abbe Ray- 
 nal, erring from the same cause, on the opposite extreme, 
 taking it for granted that a young and agricultural commu 
 nity must be industrious and virtuous, unpractised in the lux 
 urious refinements of cities and higher civilization, fills a 
 page or two with flattering delineations of their primeval and 
 bucolic characteristics ; grouping the swains of Florida, Vir 
 ginia, and Canada altogether in the same paragraph, dress 
 ed out in the florid colours of his own imagination, in defi 
 ance of all truth, and without the least appearance of even 
 geographical propriety, while we smile, we cannot be sur 
 prised at his blunders. But when writers, with the advan 
 tages of actual observation, portray the society of these 
 states in the disgusting shades of vulgar, unrelieved depra 
 vity, those, whom similar opportunities have made acquaint 
 ed with the glaring falsehood of these pretended likenesses, 
 are at a loss to account for the motives of their creation ; 
 and can ascribe them to nothing but the operation of national 
 prejudice on minds charged with an unusual portion of that 
 popular and universal jealousy. Europe, unwilling to admit 
 that a region so lately peopled from its superabundant popu 
 lation, should be any thing more than a feeble scion from the 
 parent stock, unworthy to be considered as an equal, much 
 less a rival, destined one day to surpass and overshadow 
 the parent stock itself, has disregarded the evidence of na 
 ture and history with respect to this country, and received all 
 her impressions from the most perverted and unfounded in 
 telligence. Would such monstrous absurdities be tolerated 
 else as the visions of Brissot and the cumbersome tattle of 
 Liancourt ; the ridiculous stories of Weld ; the singsong 
 wanderings of Anacreon Moore ; and the numberless equally 
 
139 
 
 retrospect, and to some brief reflections on that com 
 mercial spirit, whose infusion is supposed to debili 
 tate and debase the whole. It must always be borne 
 
 preposterous accounts and opinions that are perpetually 
 issuing forth, in various shapes, from different quarters 
 of Europe, pouring their ignorance and arrogance on 
 America ? It is not surprising that the lower orders of 
 Europe generally believe the Americans to be copper-colour 
 ed, when the communications of statesmen, and the disqui 
 sitions of literati, are the first to proclaim and sanction all 
 the narrow prejudices that prevail there on this subject. One 
 of the last and most contemptible of those who have endea 
 voured to defray the expenses of a tour through the United 
 States, by the publication of a volume of travels, is an indi 
 vidual distinguished for his genius and erudition, a scholar 
 and a poet, over whose mind, therefore, illiberal preposses 
 sions should have less sway, than over the mere itinerants and 
 travel-wrights of the age. I allude to Anacreon Moore, who 
 is so entirely the slave.of prejudice. when his pen is exercised 
 on this country, that it is bereft of all its magic, and he dwin 
 dles into a poor epitome of common-place calumnies. He. 
 left England to take upon him some little office in the " still- 
 vex d Bermoothes ;" and not liking the situation, came friend 
 less and pennyless to the American continent, with no other 
 recommendation than his enchanting talents for music ; with 
 which passport he sang his way through some of the chief 
 towns, loitering where he was bidden, and almost piping foi 
 a meal; of course without any means of knowing or appre 
 ciating the inhabitants. Yet, on his return, necessity drove 
 him to manufacture a paltry, malignant duodecimo, disgrace 
 ful alike to his head and his heart ; in which, after dealing 
 out his ingratitude in as much prose as he could produce on 
 the occasion, he falls away into rhyme, as grovelling as his 
 usual strains are lofty, and spits the remainder of his con 
 temptible venom in doggerel and recitative. Goldsmith, who 
 travelled over Europe on foot, with a wallet on his shoulders. hn c 
 
140 
 
 in mind, that estimates of national character are to be 
 formed from that class of the community, whatever 
 it may be in different nations, which is the largest, 
 
 declared that to be the only plan of becoming conversant with 
 the real manners of a nation. But certainly a pauper or hurdy 
 gurdy grinder, who is seldom admitted beyond the outer 
 gates of the better sort, and then not as a guest or an equal, 
 but as a part of their entertainment, however intimate he may- 
 become with the kitchens and the ale-houses, cannot be a very 
 competent judge of the state of society ; and it is natural 
 that his accounts should be limited by his experience, or 
 wherever they exceed it, be arbitrary and untrue. 
 
 The labours of this class of writing travellers in America 
 have been seconded by those of another, who, as their wri 
 tings are confined to bills of exchange and accounts current, 
 have contented themselves with being oral haberdashers of 
 small stories and retailers of ribaldry. Swarms of noxious 
 insects swept from the factories and spunging houses of Eu 
 rope, after enjoying a full harvest of emolument and import 
 ance in the cities of this country, return to their original in 
 significance at home, to buzz aspersions through their " little- 
 platoons of society," and then come back again to bask in the 
 sunshine they feign to slight. Apprentices and understrap 
 pers, mongrel abbes, and gens d industrie, in the course of 
 their flight over the Atlantic, are transmuted into fine gen 
 tlemen and virtuosi, shocked at the barbarian customs of this 
 savage republic ; the hospitality of whose citizens they con 
 descend to accept, while they commiserate and calumniate 
 their hosts, and consider it their especial errand and office to 
 vilify, disturb, and overturn the government. The time was: 
 when these sturdy beggars walked without knocking into 
 every door, taking the chief seats in the synagogue, and the 
 uppermost rooms at feasts, devouring widows houses, reviling 
 with impunity the food they fed on. But so many ludicrous, 
 and so many serious explosions have gone off of these trans 
 atlantic bubbles, so many individuals have been put to shame, 
 
141 
 
 and constitutes the most important portion of the po- 
 pulation ; especially when the Americans are the sub 
 ject ; inasmuch as they have, in fact, but one clasr, 
 
 so many respectable families to ruin, by their polluting con 
 tact, that the delusion is broke, and they begin to be seen in 
 their essential hideousness. Persons of condition from abroad 
 have so often proved to be ostlers and footmen, and men of 
 learning mountebank doctors, that the Americans find it ne 
 cessary to shake these foreign vermin from their skirts, and 
 to assert a dignity and self respect, which are the first steps 
 to that consideration from others, hitherto by this excrescent 
 usurpation repelled from their society. 
 
 Hie nigra succus loliginis) h<ec est 
 Erugo mera. - 
 
 At the inn, where I lodged on my first arrival, it was my 
 fortune to be assorted at every meal with half a dozen agents 
 from the manufacturing towns of England, some Frenchmen, 
 exiled from St. Domingo, a Dutch supercargo, a Chinese man 
 darin, as a caitiff from Canton entitled himself, the young Greek, 
 a copy of one of whose letters I sent you some time ago, and a 
 countryman of mine ; all of whom, after a plentiful regale, 
 and drinking each other s healths till their brains were addled 
 with strong liquors, would almost every day chime into a 
 general execration of the fare, climate, customs, people, and 
 institutions of this nether region. One of the Englishmen, a 
 native of Cornwall, who never was out of a mist in his life 
 till he left the parish of his birth, complained of the varia 
 bleness of the weather ; another of the badness of the beef; 
 and a third of the porter, alleviations, without which they 
 pronounced existence insupportable ; taking care to accom 
 pany their complaints with magnificent eulogiums on the 
 clear sky, cheap living, and other equally unquestionable ad 
 vantages of their own country, with occasional intimations 
 hrovn in of their personal importance at home. The Crc- 
 
142 
 
 of society. But in any nation a few individuals, of 
 either the higher or lowest class, are not to be adopt 
 ed as national types, nor the impressions they com- 
 
 ole French, in a bastard dialect, declaimed at the dishonesty 
 and fickleness of the Americans, the demureness of their 
 manners, and provoking irregularity of the language ; wind 
 ing up their phillippic with a rapturous recollection of the 
 charms of Paris ; where, in all probability, no one of them 
 ever was, except to obtain passports for leaving the kingdom 
 
 They talk of beauties that they never saw, 
 And fancy raptures that they never knew. 
 
 The Chinese, who never was free from a sweat till he doubled 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and who, when in Canton, never 
 forgot in his prayers to implore the blessings of a famine or 
 pestilence, catching the contagion of the company, and me 
 chanically imitative, though he could not speak so as to be 
 understood, endeavoured by signs and shrugs to show that ho 
 suffered from the heat, and gave us to understand that an an 
 nual plague must be inevitable in such a climate. The Irish 
 man, who swallowed two bottles of claret with a meal, be 
 sides brandy and malt liquors, swore the intemperate weathei 
 gave him fevers. The Hollander smoked his phlegmatic pipe 
 In silence, looking approbation ; and the complying Greek 
 nodded assent, while at table, to every syllabic that was ut 
 tered ; though he afterwards coincided with me in a contra 
 diction of the whole. When I was formerly in America, I 
 knew several foreigners, then well stricken in years, who 
 had resided here since the peace of 1783, always grumbling 
 over the privations of this country, and sighing for the mo 
 ment that should once more present them to the enjoyments 
 of their own ; most of whom I have seen since my present 
 visit, living exactly where and as they were, grumbling and 
 sighing as usual ; but fat and satisfied, and indulging not the 
 least expectation of ever exchanging their forlorn slate here 
 for their brilliant nrospecfs elsewhere. Like a well-fed cu- 
 1 
 
143 
 
 municate, received as the national character. Our opi 
 nions of the French or English would be greatly er 
 roneous, if our inquiries were circumscribed to Pa 
 ris or London. 
 
 rate, they dwell for ever on the fascinations of futurity, as 
 contrasted with the wretchedness of mortality, recommend 
 ing all good men to hasten from the one to the other, but 
 without any wish for themselves to leave this world of tribu 
 lation. 
 
 But the arrant misrepresentations of this country, which 
 philosophers and historians, travellers and talebearers seem 
 to have conspired to impress on the ignorance and prejudices 
 of others, would not have had the permanent and extensive 
 effect they have had, both here and in Europe, had they not 
 been adopted, patronised and disseminated by those native 
 Americans, of whom, the number, though daily diminishing, 
 is still too great ; who, awed by perpetual comparisons with 
 the superior refinement, power, intelligence, and happiness 
 of Europe, have been rebuked into concessions of their own 
 inferiority. That involuntary feeling of respect, with which 
 the American colonists were accustomed to regard Europe? 
 particularly their mother country, it will require a generation 
 or two to wear out. By European individuals it is asserted on 
 all occasions ; by many American individuals it is almost as 
 often, sometimes unconsciously, acknowledged, on one side 
 enforced, on the other conceded, to such a degree, as to mark* 
 not indeed the character of the country, for the country in 
 general neither feels nor avows it, but the characters of many 
 respectable and influential individuals, with a tameness and 
 .subserviency they themselves are not aware of; which per 
 vade every department, particularly those of social life and 
 t he higher classes ; and carry abroad among the many 
 who adopt these individuals as types of the nation, those opi 
 nions which are so prevalent of its want of an original national 
 
 genius and character. It is this colonial spirit which causes 
 Incessant struggles between an instinctivf love of country 
 
 and an habitual veneration for what is European : in which 
 
144 
 
 A republican federation, a free press, generai edu 
 cation, abundant subsistence, high price of labour, a 
 warm climate, habits of intemperance, a variety of 
 
 struggle the latter feeling too often predominates ; and with 
 many native Americans of education and affluence, who are 
 by no means deficient in personal independence, the first 
 emotion toward what is American is contempt, the first emo 
 tion toward whatever proceeds from that nation of Europe, to 
 \vhich they happen to be most attached, is reverence and ad 
 miration. If a custom, production, or institution be Ame 
 rican, it costs them an effort to approve ; but if foreign, they 
 submit to it with implicit faith. They depreciate not only 
 the politics, literature, science and language, but the morals, 
 manners, and state of society, according to the reduced scale 
 of foreign detraction. But this is not the spirit of the people, 
 but of those small sections, who claim to be their betters. A 
 servile postponement of their own natural and manly habits to 
 the most preposterous European usages, a thirst after the 
 company and alliance of foreigners in preference to their own 
 countrymen, an affected reluctance to live and die where 
 they were born, are some of the symptoms of this miserable 
 disease, infinitely more miserable and less pardonable than its 
 opposite la maladie du pays. A state of society in the meri 
 dian of refinement and virtue, midway between simplicity and 
 corruption ; gay and polite, without being profligate ; shed 
 ding the selectest influence of domestic comfort and public 
 tranquillity ; to the eye of depravity may present but a home 
 ly and insipid scene ; but to such as love manly employment 
 and rational recreation, is an enviable state, whose unequalled 
 blessings they do not deserve to partake, who are not grate 
 ful for being born in the country where they flourish. Sen 
 timents of repugnance in the natives of such a country are 
 only tolerable, while they remain passive and latent. When 
 ever they break out into declared opposition, they become 
 obnoxious to detestation and punishment. Such as eannot 
 subdue them, are to be pitied ; such as encourage them, ab* 
 
145 
 
 feligious creeds, and the universal sensation of im 
 provement and increase, naturally concur to the con- 
 stitution of a well informed, ardent, enthusiastic, en- 
 terprising and licentious people. Where every man 
 is a citizen, every citizen a freeholder, able and al 
 lowed to think, speak, and act for himself, the empire 
 of opinion must be omnipotent : and it is impossible 
 that a free and thinking people can be without a cha- 
 
 horred. They are guilty of the most fatal species of treason- 
 not that which boldly devotes a country to stratagem, blood 
 and destruction but that more insidious and more certain 
 hostility, which flows in unseen perennial channels, traducing, 
 betraying and assassinating. Of such as these there can be, 
 I trust, but few in this happy country. Wretches, who have 
 no God, household, or supreme- the creeping things of the 
 earth, who feed on the offals of foreigners who lick the foot 
 that tramples on them who are despised by all others, even 
 those they worship, and must despise themselves. 
 
 Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said 
 
 This is my own, my native land ! 
 Whose heart hath ne er within him burned, 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned, 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand I 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
 For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name, 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
 Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
 The wretch, concentred all in self, 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
 And, dgubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung. 
 Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. 
 T 
 
146 
 
 racter. Enterprise, public spirit, intelligence, faction 
 and love of country are natural to such a people. No 
 series of ages is requisite to form or consolidate their 
 character. At the earliest date the legend is most de 
 cided ; and though it may be aggravated, is seldom 
 improved by years or refinements. 
 
 Wherever we find foreign commerce, there also 
 we find polished manners.* It is commerce that 
 harmonizes the intercourse and dissipates the preju 
 dices of nations ; softens their native peculiarities, and 
 approximates their national characters to , one com 
 mon standard. t Commerce, and trade, and manufac 
 tures, grew under the same shade in which learning 
 flourished. J 
 
 Such opinions, from such authority, are unanswer 
 able. It is to North America only that their justice 
 is denied. In Europe at least it is a prevailing notion 
 to associate the commercial habits of the United 
 States, with sordid fraud, a distaste for noble pur 
 suits, and a dread of war : and the Americans have 
 incurred the odium and contempt, which will be the 
 lot of any nation that is considered by others to be 
 tame, mercenary and base-spirited. But the polic) 
 of the government has been mistaken for the genius 
 of the people. Alert, impetuous, alive to news anc 
 public discussions, the vibrations of popular sym 
 pathies are in no country so rapid and pervading 
 
 *Montesq. Esp. des Loix, I. 20. c. 1. 
 
 t Robert. Charles V. vol. 1. s. 1. p. 97. 
 
 J Burke s Reflect, on the French Rev. p. 115, 
 
147 
 
 As individuals, and as a community, they have ex 
 hibited and continue to exhibit every day, the most 
 decided proofs of courage and impetuosity. 
 
 The appeal to duels for the decision of private 
 disputes is more frequent in the United States than 
 in any other country whatever : and these private 
 combats are conducted with a scientific ferociousness, 
 and terminate in general with a fatality unknown 
 elsewhere. The severest statutes have in vain point 
 ed their artillery against this chivalric custom, which 
 seems to be inveterate among impassioned and opini- 
 ated freemen. It is certain that men have become 
 less free, less courageous, less disposed for great en- 
 terprises, than they were in the days of Rome and of 
 suicide, when, as Montesquieu expresses it, they ap 
 pear to have been born with a greater aptitude for 
 heroism,* and by exerting this inconceivable power 
 over themselves, could bid defiance to all other hu 
 man power. The modern duel is an offspring of this 
 heathen sacrifice, in which similar causes lead to nearly 
 the same effect. The prevalence of the Catonis no- 
 bile lethum of the Romans may not be an evidence 
 of their good sense or their fortitude ; nor the fre 
 quency of fatal duels in this country of the superior 
 bravery of its inhabitants. But they prove at least 
 the sensibility of both to that romantic and inexpli 
 cable point of honour, which, however indefensible 
 its votaries may be in the eyes of both God and ra 
 tional man, has ever been a shrine sacred to the brave 
 and high minded. 
 
 * Montesq. Grand, et Decad. c. 12. p. 134. 
 
148 
 
 As a community, the Americans have always 
 shown themselves no less forward, than as indivi 
 duals, to face their enemies and aggressors. In 
 most countries it is the government that provokes, 
 declares and maintains wars. But the United States 
 have exhibited continual struggles between the 
 government and the people, in which the latter have 
 been clamorous for hostilities, at one time with one 
 foreign power, at another time with another, while 
 all the influence and forbearance of their rulers has 
 been exercised to restrain this martial intoxication. 
 The revolution was lighted up by a national instinct 
 for independence, called early into action by the al 
 lurements of liberty and republicanism ; when cer*. 
 tainly no incapacity for war was evinced. How illus 
 trious indeed should the conduct and terminati6n of 
 that contest render the Americans, when contrasted 
 with the pusillanimous facility with which the most 
 compact and warlike nations of Europe have lately 
 fallen under the arms of their invaders ! The Ameri 
 can colonies would not have ventured a war single- 
 handed with the first maritime power of the world, 
 about a trifling tax on tea, had not that military im 
 pulse, which inflamed alike the sturdy east, and the 
 impatient south, prompted them to unite for the as 
 sertion of their independence. It was not oppression 
 that goaded them upon emancipation. But their in 
 stinct for liberty : as the author of their epic, with his 
 peculiar propriety of expression, describes their feel 
 ings at the time, 
 
 " Fame ftr d their courage, freedom edg d their swords." 
 
149 
 
 A long interval of profound tranquillity and mul 
 tiplied commerce may have tarnished the fame, per 
 haps relaxed somewhat the tone of this people. But 
 it was the government, not the nation, who com 
 promised with endurance for emolument; and the 
 same spirit which was once displayed, is still ready 
 to show itself when summoned into action. The 
 same valour, good faith, clemency and patriotism 
 still animate the bosoms of America, as the first burst 
 of their hostilities, whenever it takes placr, will con 
 vince their calumniators. 
 
 Legitimate commerce, instead of demoralizing or 
 debasing a community, refines its sentiments, mul 
 tiplies its intelligence, and sharpens its ingenuity. 
 Where are the evidences to the contrary in this coun 
 try ? The Americans, far from being a sordid or 
 venal, are not even a thrifty people. Subsistence is 
 so easy, and competency so common, that those nic*: 
 calculations of domestic economy which are a branch 
 almost of education in Europe, are scarcely attended 
 to in America ; and that long, disgusting catalogue 
 of petty offences, through which the lower classes of 
 other nations are driven by indigence and wretched 
 ness, has hardly an existence here, though death is 
 almost proscribed from the penal code. Native Ame 
 ricans are very seldom to be met with in menial or the 
 laborious occupations, which are filled by blacks and 
 foreigners, mostly Europeans, who are also the com 
 mon perpetrators of the smaller crimes alluded to. 
 Though the government is supported by the cus 
 toms, and the punishments for their contra vendor* 
 are merely pecuniary, yet such delinquencies are infi- 
 nitely less frequent than in Eurooe or even Asia. Tk". 
 
1*0 
 
 salaries of the public officers are very inconsiderable : 
 yet * malversation is a crime of rare occurrence ; and 
 that essential venality, which pervades almost every 
 department of government in other countries, is al 
 together unpractised in this. 
 
 In their foreign traffic the Americans have been ex 
 posed to all the contumelious indignities which supe 
 rior power and rapacity could inflict. But have the 
 accusations charged upon them been substantiated ? 
 When a young and unarmed people have no other 
 reliance for their advancement than their industry and 
 acuteness, and nevertheless, owing to these and their 
 territorial advantages, succeed against the jealous re 
 strictions and overwhelming maritime strength ol 
 older states, it is as natural for the latter to stigmatize 
 them with dishonesty and encroachment, as it was 
 for Rome, when Carthage was half subdued, to pro 
 claim the instability of Punic faith. But the charge 
 contradicts itself: for how could the Americans 
 pursue a successful and augmenting commerce, if their 
 frauds were as numerous as they are declared to be, 
 after the whole world are put on their guard, and in 
 arms, to suppress them ? The American merchant 
 can have no other convoy than his neutrality and fair 
 ness : and if he have common sense, must perceive 
 that honesty is his only policy. The unfairness with 
 which the trade of these states is charged, is ascriba- 
 ble, not to the American, but to the many desperate 
 foreigners, who assume a neutralized citizenship for 
 the designs of dishonest speculation, and in too many 
 instances abuse the privilege by simulation and ini 
 quity. 
 
 1 
 
151 
 
 While universal occupation, agricultural, mercan 
 tile and professional, imbues society with its spirit of 
 punctuality and exactitude, poverty does not vitiate 
 the lower, nor profligacy distinguish the higher 
 classes. The laws of honour, as we have seen, have 
 been adopted in their fullest rigour ; and infractions 
 of good faith or propriety are liable to the loss of 
 character, of fortune, and of life itself: nor is there 
 any community, among whom the temptations to de 
 basement are less powerful, or where the laws and 
 morals combine to oppose a more effectual restraint 
 on those crimes that cause it. 
 
 5. A view of the resources and prospects of the 
 United States necessarily involves some considera 
 tion of that commercial capacity, by which they are 
 connected, as regards their intercourse with the rest 
 of the world, and as it affects them with the policy 
 and revolutions of other great commercial empires. 
 I have endeavoured to show that trade does not im 
 poverish, deteriorate or demoralize. But this must be 
 understood with reference to spontaneous trade, the 
 offspring of superfluous agriculture, or superior arts. 
 The commerce which furnishes a national revenue, 
 which cultivates an inexhaustible territory, and may 
 at any moment be modified or suspended with no 
 heavier grievance than a temporary deprivation of 
 -profit, should not be confounded with that exotic 
 traffic, for whose products a nation neglects its agri 
 culture, which is protected by navies that cost eter 
 nal wars, and impoverishes the people that it may mag 
 nify the state. It is natural for an exuberant country 
 to throw oft its annual superfluities, whose revenue is 
 
152 
 
 the harvest of the river, and who is a mart of nations ; 
 but it is as unnatural as fatal to stretch every sinew 
 till it cracks, in commercial efforts. 
 
 With the benignant influence of free trade, nothing 
 is more militant than the baneful spirit of monopoly. 
 The latter, like all other systems founded on injus 
 tice, is of temporary advantage and ultimate ruin to 
 its supporters. A warlike nation may extend their 
 dominion by arms, in defiance of the opposition of 
 others. But commercial aggrandizement to the 
 prejudice of the rest of the world, attempted by any 
 one people, is a position that cannot possibly be long 
 maintained. Exclusive restrictions, with whatsoever 
 art and power fortified, may for a time attract an 
 excessive proportion of traffic and grandeur to any 
 particular state ; but they inevitably draw upon it, at 
 the same time, the jealousy and hostility of all others. 
 It is the fate of national monopolies that by the time 
 they have completely succeeded, the whole world is in 
 league to beat them down ; and the state which wa 
 ges war for their perpetuation, must either surrender 
 them when they are most productive, or sink at last, 
 exhausted by its own exertions, overcome by its 
 multiplied enemies. Independent of the reasoning 
 that suggests itself in support of this opinion from 
 the common operation of cause to effect, an historical 
 examination of monopolies, as they have been succes 
 sively attempted by different empires, will show that 
 there is scarcely one, which, after a short and spe 
 cious show of greatness, has not recoiled destructive, 
 ly on its contrivers. Venice, Portugal, Holland, Spain 
 and England are fatal testimonies of the disaster and 
 
153 
 
 destruction, in which these flattering expedients must 
 terminate. England indeed is still a great power : 
 but however successfully she may resist subjugation, 
 it is impossible she can hold for ever the pretensions 
 she sets up against all the world. The cruel impoli 
 cy of the Spanish commercial system was long ex 
 emplified in the impoverishment and decline of the 
 peninsula, and the ignorance and retardment of South 
 America. And Spain is now undergoing the results of 
 her parsimonious sequestration of those immense re* 
 sources, which, under proper government, would have 
 enriched and made happy all her extended re alms . 
 Smuggling, contraband, blockades, searches, are the 
 immediate offspring of monopoly. Commercial frauds 
 increase in proportion to the belligerent prohibitions 
 opposed to them. Simulation on the one hand be 
 comes as indispensable as rapine on the other, till at 
 last the maritime intercourse of states will become so 
 distorted, as to exhibit one universal scene of tolera 
 ted piracy. 
 
 A war for commerce destroys the very object it is 
 waged to maintain. Europe has been drenched in 
 desolation for commercial advantages, which have 
 taken refuge in the pacific policy of the United 
 States. While the incalculable resources of so large 
 a portion of Asia, Africa, and South America, re 
 main unemployed, the dreadful havoc that has been 
 committed during the last 20 years for the produce 
 of a West- India island, or a little carrying or colonial 
 trade, is an awful rebuke to the boasted scientific 
 and geographical improvements of modern times. 
 Three fourths of the globe, and all their superfluities 
 
154 
 
 are scarcely known to the remaining fourth, which, 
 with the lights of pre-eminent civilization, is wasting 
 itself in wars for the comparatively inconsiderable re 
 mainder. The richest regions of the most extensive 
 quarters of the globe are suffered to lie unexplored, 
 while every endeavour is making to limit and prevent 
 the extension of that commerce, which would bring 
 the whole into active beneficence. Millions of lives 
 have been uselessly and wickedly sacrificed, millions 
 of happy and industrious beings thrown out of em 
 ployment into idleness and want, millions of irre 
 deemable debts contracted, all the pernicious conse 
 quences of using men to unjust laws and rapacious 
 avocations incurred, and military despotisms made 
 more common and tremendous than they were in the 
 dark ages, by the infatuation which would establish 
 national greatness on the perverted and tottering 
 basis of navigation projects of exclusive aggrandize- 
 ment. 
 
 Fortunately for America, and for the world in ge 
 neral, this state of things is not ascribable to the 
 spirit of trade, but to the delusion of monopolists ; 
 and many indications appear of its approaching dis^ 
 solution. It is probable that before the lapse of halt 
 a century mankind will look back with wonder and 
 contempt to the narrow confines of that traffic, they 
 are now destroying each other to restrain. We do 
 not recur with more scorn to the awe with which the 
 ancients regarded the Straits of Gibraltar, as the 
 ultimate verge of the earth, than a succeeding, and 
 probably the next, generation will to our strife for 
 objects of such inferior moment, while others of in- 
 
155 
 
 finitely greater magnitude were within our attainment. 
 The ancients were withheld by an ignorance of those 
 scientific discoveries, that have enabled the present 
 race to traverse the remotest latitudes. But the lat 
 ter are blinded by the common fatuity of avarice, 
 which destroys lest others might possess. 
 
 Commerce, as thus permitted, is a pestilence and 
 a scourge. We can hardly presume to despise the 
 Chinese, while their impenetrable isolation shuts out 
 the wars, as well as the arts, of more refined com 
 munities. But when it shall embrace the round of 
 nations in a general commercial pacification, founded, 
 not so much in treaties, as in those primordial princi 
 ples of mutual convenience, which constitute the only 
 permanent basis of national intercourse, the barba 
 rous and the civilized will alike have reason to re- 
 joice. 
 
 It seems probable that an entire change in the com 
 mercial machinery of the globe is at hand. Without 
 a particular reference to the policy or the power of any 
 one state, it is evident that so many have been driven 
 to a due appreciation of the advantages of foreign 
 trade, that they must finally compel a relinquishment 
 of its monopoly by any one. The fourth dynasty 
 of France may be precarious ; but the impulse and 
 policy it has originated will continue. In the north 
 of Europe a great empire, and on this side of the 
 Atlantic a powerful republic, are yet but developing 
 those resources and principles, every eftbrt of which 
 will be directed, by a natural concert, infinitely 
 stronger than any national compact, to the removal of 
 ill obstacles to the freedom of the seas. 
 
156 
 
 Whenever this is accomplished, the uttermost 
 ends of the earth will be unlocked to the researches 
 of Christianity and civilization. They will unbar 
 the crowded regions of China and India, knock off 
 the golden fetters of South America, and penetrate 
 the almost fabulous regions in the interior of Africa. 
 We shall be amazed to find that more than one half of 
 the globe has been shut out from the benefit of com 
 mercial intercourse with the other, not by oceans and 
 mountains, but by the perverse and sanguinary usur^ 
 pation of monopolies. The wars, the frauds, the 
 wretchedness, the demoralization, which have been 
 falsely ascribed to the magnitude of trade, will ap 
 pear to have proceeded from its restriction, and will 
 disappear with the removal of their causes. The 
 great source of bloodshed will be dried up; and, 
 under the auspices of universal peace, ten thousand 
 times the traffic, for which so many climes have been 
 ravaged, will cover every sea, connecting and ame 
 liorating all nations. 
 
 As the United States of America will have been 
 among the principal promoters of this general ame 
 lioration, so will they be one of its largest parta 
 kers. For whatever may be thought of their national 
 character or legislation, that they are eminently situ 
 ated to become a great commercial people can hardly 
 be denied. The extent and variety of their territo 
 ries, the fruitfulness of their different soils, the pro 
 digious structure of their internal navigation by 
 means of the immense lakes and western waters, the 
 reciprocal dependence of the different parts of the 
 
 continent on each other, the capacity of all parts to 
 1 
 
157 
 
 supply other countries with those superfluities they 
 require, their remoteness and natural protection from 
 the only powers that can injure them, their industry, 
 freedom and affluence, insure a rapid augmentation of 
 population, strength and prosperity. 
 
 Should the great events transacting in Europe lead 
 to the independence of South America, new and in- 
 calculable advantages must accrue to both these por 
 tions of the western world. A vast natural alliance 
 might be formed, capable of plans the most glorious 
 and beneficial ; an alliance that may set Europe at de 
 fiance. 
 
 It was the opinion of an eloquent and philanthropic 
 historian,* after considering the situation and pros 
 pects of this country, " that the only way to prevent 
 disturbances among the people would be to leave 
 upon their frontiers a powerful rival, always disposed 
 to avail himself of their dissensions. Peace and se 
 curity, says he, are necessary for monarchies; agi 
 tation and a formidable enemy for republics. Rome 
 stood in need of Carthage, Venice, perhaps, would 
 have lost her government and her laws four hun 
 dred years ago, had she not at her gates, and almost 
 under her walls, powerful neighbours, who might 
 become her enemies or her masters." In like man- 
 ner, the Romans, says one of their most judicious 
 writers, were free from faction and vice, while they 
 had to make head against hostile neighbours : mctus 
 civilis in bonis artibus civitatem retmebat. And where a 
 population is so dispersed as that of America, foreign 
 
 * RaynaL 
 
158 
 
 pressure certainly contributes to the tone of the na 
 tional character and exertions. 
 
 But the speculations of statesmen and historians, 
 the wisdom and experience of ages, the opinions of 
 antiquity, the prejudices that were planted in our ve 
 neration, have all been swept away by the torrent of 
 revolution and war that has lately rushed over the na 
 tions of Europe. The " temperate and undecisive 
 contests,"* which, it was foretold, would long pre 
 serve the many balanced sovereignties of that conti 
 nent, have been superseded by a warfare more furious 
 and overwhelming than had been supposed possible. 
 New and bolder ideas of government and of tactics 
 will prevail hereafter; and the American republic 
 must endeavour to keep pace with the genius of the 
 age, or sink under its expansion. It must not be for 
 gotten, that as business is transacted for the attain 
 ment of pleasure, so occasional wars are necessary to 
 the security and permanency of peace. As long as 
 a people refrain from offensive hostilities, a military 
 genius is an attribute deserving encouragement ; and 
 It is especially the interest of the United States to cul 
 tivate so much of a warlike spirit, as may not be in 
 compatible with their republican institutions. They 
 are not in a situation to desire conquests. Their ter 
 ritories rather need concentration than acquisitions. 
 The seat of government is so remote from the scene 
 where armies would be required, that the republic 
 has little to fear from the ambition of commanders. 
 And despotism is less to be dreaded from the regular 
 maintenance of a suitable establishment, than from 
 its sudden creation, in case of emergency, when die- 
 * Gibbon s Rom. Emp. vol. 6, p. 415, 
 
159 
 
 tatorial powers are almost indispensable. Every ge 
 neral may not have the integrity of Washington, 
 
 In a most important respect the American repub 
 lic has a vast advantage over all others that have pre 
 ceded it; that is, in the extent of dominion, apid 
 dispersion of population. Athens, Rome, Venice, 
 Carthage, most of the republics that have been, 
 were at first confined almost to a single city, and al 
 ways entirely influenced by the capital. So that pre- 
 torian guards, or ambitious men, by mastering the 
 head, were sure of the extremities. But the same 
 danger does not exist here. And as long as Canada 
 and Louisiana remain even virtually under foreign in 
 fluence, the same or a greater inducement exists for 
 maintaining that most dignified of all national atti 
 tudes, the armed neutrality of a powerful republic. 
 A military despotism, whether monarchical or repub 
 lican, is the most odious and oppressive, the most 
 disgraceful and destructive form of polity. In fact 
 it is not a form, but a subversion of government, 
 which, after destroying every thing else, at kst de 
 stroys itself. It is a colossus, which falls as soon 
 as its arm is no longer uplifted ; from whose ruins 
 petty tyrannies spring up ; whose slaves are not en 
 titled to enjoy till they assert the immunities of men, 
 and which does not become a government till the su 
 premacy of the law is re-established. But a domi 
 nant republican empire, with military force enough to 
 defend its rights, without so much as to instigate ar? 
 ambition to subvert them ; just and respectable 
 abroad, free and just at home ; forms the most glc 
 rious consummation of national prosperity. 
 
160 
 
 Lastly, have the United States of America re 
 sources for this attitude ? Their resources have been ? 
 if possible, more underrated than their character. 
 Their population now falls but little short of ten mil- 
 lions. With an inexhaustible territorial fund of 
 wealth, without debts or taxation, with every abun 
 dance of munition and requisite for war, they have a 
 greater strength in men with arms in their hands, than 
 the Roman empire ever maintained at any one time^ 
 than the force with which Louis XIV. terrified all the 
 powers of Europe combined, or with which the Duke 
 of Marlborough and his auxiliaries drove Louis XIV. 
 into the recesses of his palace. A militia of six hun 
 dred thousand men, undisciplined indeed, unofficer- 
 ed, and uninured to the tactics and hardships of a 
 state of hostility, but hardy, athletic, adroit, and in 
 vincibly attached to their country and its liberties, 
 are the raw materials at least for forming a formidable 
 barrier to invasion. Much of the contumelious ag 
 gression the Americans have experienced from the 
 European belligerents, is ascribable to their reliance 
 on the defenceless and unprepared posture of this 
 country.* But a free and martial people, accustomed 
 
 * The American navy is at once the glory and the shame of 
 the American nation : the nursery of its martial genius, the 
 chancery of its fame, the vestal guard of that spark, which how 
 ever it may fade or darkle, can never expire without carry- 
 Ing with it all that ennobles, embodies and preserves a people. 
 Among so small a number of individuals as compose the 
 officers of this little navy, never did nor does there exist a 
 more glorious spirit of chivalnc valour and enterprise, supe 
 rior nautical skill, and proficiency, discipline, subordination 
 and concert in time of service, more gentleman-like deport- 
 
161 
 
 to the use of arms, from whom the riflemen and 
 sharp shooters that have become the most efficacious 
 divisions of the armies of Europe, learned their 
 manual, can never be totally unprepared for war. 
 
 ment, urbanity and unexceptionable conduct in society. There 
 is no body of men so well deserving to be entitled the flower 
 of the country. But the affair of the Chesapeake has drench 
 ed their laurels with more ignominy than all the waters of 
 the Chesapeake can wash out : not only those implicated in 
 that indelibly shameful transaction but every officer in the 
 navy nay, every individual in the nation and above all, the 
 nation itself, still smarting unrevenged under such an inflic 
 tion. Blood, blood alone can wash out that stain. An occa 
 sion, presenting itself, as if on purpose, to signalize their 
 courage and capacity, which might have been the means oif 
 wiping off, in one memorable hour, all the aspersions flung 
 from all quarters on the national reputation, and of stamping 
 their name in the foremost file of courageous people, was 
 suffered to sound the tocsin of their disgrace, carrying 
 through all regions the lugubrious reverberations of then- 
 cowardice and incapacity. 
 
 If it were for no other purpose than to contradict and repel 
 the foul consequences all the world must infer from this 
 unspeakably infamous discomfiture, the American nation 
 should apply all their zeal and efforts to the immense re 
 sources they enjoy for creating a respectable, a formidable 
 navy not such a navy as might alarm the jealous dominion 
 of other powers a navy of ships of the line but such a navy 
 as might serve to convoy and protect their universal com 
 merce, preventing those infinite petty impositions and larce 
 nies, that are perpetual provocations, without even being- 
 sufficient motives to war, as would render it always unneces 
 sary to arm their merchant ships, thus putting arms into the 
 hands of the inexperienced, rash and interested, as might at 
 a moment s warning be ready to sweep the commerce of their 
 enemies from every sea, as would serve to guard their cr 
 
162 
 
 Difficulties and enthusiasm have already made offi 
 cers in America, and may again ; and officers can 
 make soldiers. 
 
 Like the vast wastes that were kept as a frontier 
 by the ancient Gauls, the Atlantic ocean forms a 
 perpetual natural protection of America from the in- 
 
 from daily insult and aggression, and their national character 
 from habitual degradation a navy of numerous, swift sailing, 
 well appointed frigates. 
 
 If the expense of such an armament be objected to, I 
 would ask what can be too expensive for the immense re 
 sources of this country, hitherto not half developed, and hus 
 banded with miserlike timidity ? If the risk of war, what is 
 the end of deferring, of buying off, of bartering honour, right, 
 property, every thing for procrastination and reprieve ? War 
 must come with power and destruction must follow, unless 
 some preparation be on foot for the exigency. 
 
 While the rage of innovation lasts, this visionary self-aban 
 donment may endure. But whenever the policy of the coun 
 try shall be settled, a navy must enter into, and constitute & 
 principal part of that policy. It is indispensable. The power, 
 the resources, the sources of subsistence, the honour, the 
 character, the national existence of the American nation call 
 aloud for this safeguard. 
 
 A navy of frigates would have effectually enforced the 
 embargo : nor can the ordinary revenue laws of the United 
 States be sustained without one. When, if ever, peace shall 
 return in Europe, the ocean will swarm with pirates in fact 
 it does now with little cockboat marauders but at the re 
 turn of peace, bucaniers and Blackbeards will infest every 
 ocean and ransack every sail. No commerce will be safe 
 without a navy to protect it : and the Americans must sub 
 mit to be robbed and plundered, burned, sunk and destroyed 
 in every latitude, or to be convoyed by the English, or some 
 other friendly power, which will excite more jealousies, and 
 prove in the end more expensive, than a navy of their own 
 
163 
 
 vasions of Europe ; a barrier sufficient in itself at 
 present, while the only power that could become an 
 invader is unable to keep the sea, which is ruled by 
 a power unable to invade. At no distant day the 
 stationary strength of Europe may be counterpoised 
 by the increased strength of America ; and the cur- 
 rent of irruption, which for so many thousand years 
 has proceeded from east to west, having reached the 
 limits of its action, may recoil, and trace back its 
 steps from the populous and mighty west to the re 
 duced and prostrate east. 
 
 From commercial depredations the United States 
 may not, for some years, be exempt. But their pre 
 sent ability is more than a match for any force that 
 can be sent over sea for their invasion. In both an 
 cient and modern times, large military expeditions, 
 which depended on naval cooperation, have almost 
 always been unsuccessful. As they exhaust the na 
 tion that assembles them, it is impossible to repair 
 disasters by fresh succour. If any one part be lost 
 or destroyed, the others being more or less depend 
 ent upon each other, cannot act thus mutilated. The 
 unavoidable slowness of such enterprises gives an 
 opportunity for preparation to the other party. And 
 tempests of the sea are perils of daily occurrence and 
 insurmountable difficulty. Admitting, however, that 
 by an uncommon coincidence of fortunate accidents, 
 an invasion were effected, and that all North America 
 might be overrun by an experienced, well appointed 
 army, it would nevertheless be impossible to over- 
 come the inhabitants, or reconcile them to a yoke. 
 The means of escape, of subsistence, and of sove- 
 
164 
 
 reignty, are without bounds, and no force or priva 
 tion that an enemy could apply, would force a sub- 
 mission. War might ravage their fields, conflagrate 
 their villages, sack their towns, and slaughter a part 
 of their population ;* but those who remained would 
 avoid subjugation by dispersion, or retirement to the 
 seat of some new empire. 
 
 Thus at considerable length, and I fear little to 
 your satisfaction, have I attempted to communicate 
 those ideas of the American people, which have 
 been formed from long acquaintance and deliberate 
 examination. You may think my retrospect has too 
 much the appearance of apology or panegyric. Into 
 what errors I may have been betrayed by a partiality, 
 which I am proud to acknowledge, I cannot deter 
 mine ; though a strict regard to the unexaggerated 
 truth has guided my pen. Probably they are not the 
 fewer from a feeling, which all along accompanied 
 me, that I was repelling prejudices, the demolition of 
 which was to be the first step toward my object. Ar 
 affectation of contempt for America, is one of the 
 only prejudices in which all the nations of Europe 
 seem to concur. . The soil, climate, productions, and 
 creatures of this enviable country have been stigma 
 tized as altogether inferior to those of Europe. And 
 the gravest philosophers of the old world have led the 
 way in these ignorant, absurd prejudices, against the 
 new. The soil has been represented as parsimonious 
 and abortive ; the climate as froward and pernicious ; 
 the creatures as stunted, stupid, and debased below 
 their species ; the manners, principles, and govern- 
 ment, as suited to this universal depravity. These 
 1 
 
165 
 
 absurdities appeared engraved with the stamp of 
 knowledge and authority ; their circulation was ge 
 neral and accredited ; and it is amazing how current 
 they continue to this day, notwithstanding the proofs 
 that have successively adduced themselves of their 
 falsification and baseness. But it is time such opinions 
 were called in, and a new seignorage issued, less al 
 loyed with prejudice ; that Europe may be unde* 
 ceived respecting a people, in many respects the first, 
 and in none the lowest on the scale of nations. 
 

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