FR0M THE FVND INMEMORy OF
FRANKLIN BOWDITCH DEXTER.
SECRpTABy'LIBRARJAN'HISTORJAN OTYKLE

IMPORTANT WORKS
JUST PUBLISHED BY
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW-YORK.

The Works of Charles Lamb. To which are pre
fixed his Letters, and a Sketch of his Life, by Thomas Noon Tal
fourd. 2 vols. 12mo. Portrait.
A Journal of Travels on the Continent of Europe : viz.,
in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Switzerland, some
Parts of Germany, and the Netherlands, during the Years 1835
and '36. By Wilbur Fisk, D.D. 8vo. With Engravings.
Memoirs of Aaron Burr. With Miscellaneous Selec
tions from his Correspondence. 2 vols. 8vo. Portraits.
A New Hieroglyphical Bible, with 400 Cuts, by Ad
ams. lCmo.
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the
Holy Land. 2 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. With Engravings.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
Comprising the Details of a Mutiny and atrocious Butchery on
board the American Brig Grampus on her Way to the South Seta
in the Month of June, 1827, &c, &c, &c. 12mo. Engravings.
Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lem
uel Haynes, A.M. By Timothy Mather Cooley, D.D. With
some Introductory Remarks by Wm. B. Sprague, D.D. 12mo.
Portrait.
The Economy of Health; or, the Stream of Human
Life from the Cradle to the Grave. With Reflections, Moral,
Physical, and Philosophical, on the Septennial Phases of Human
Existence. By James Johnson, M.D. 18mo.
The Monk of Cimies. By Mrs. Sherwood. 12 mo.
Engravings. [Vol. XIV. of her Works.]
Henry Milner. Complete. [Vol. XV. of Mrs. Sher
wood's Works.]
Sacred History of the World. By Sharon Turner.
Vol. III. [No. 83 of the Family Library.]
Scenery of the Heavens. By Thomas Dick, LL.D.,
Author of " Christian Philosopher," &c. 18mo. Engravings.
Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam,
and Muscat. By Edmund Roberts. 8vo.
Zion's Songster. Compiled by Rev. T. Mason. 48mo.

2 New Works Published by Harper <f Brothers.
Leila ; or, the Siege of Grenada. By E. L. Bulwer;
Esq., Author of " Eugene Aram," &c. 12mo.
Ernest Maltravers. By the Author of "Pelham/'
" Rienzi," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Attila. By the Author of " Richelieu," " Philip Augus •
tus," " The Gipsy," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Pelayo : a Story of the Goth. By the Author of " Guy
Rivers," " Mellichampe," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Burton ; or, the Sieges. By the Author of " Lafitte,"
&c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Live and Let Live i or, Domestic Service Illustrated.
By the Author of " The Linwoods," " The Poor Rich Man," &c.
18mo.
A Love Token for Children. By the Author of " Live
and Let Live," &c. 19mo.
Cromwell : a Romance/ By the Author of " The
Brothers," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Recollections of a Southern Matron. By the Author
of " Recollections of a New-England Housekeeper." 12mo.
Falkner. By the Author of "Frankenstein," "Lo-
dore," &c. 12nlo.
Constance Latimer ; or, the Blind Girl. With othet
Stories. By Mrs. Emma C. Embury. 18mo.
Anthon1 s Series of Classical Works for Schools and CoU
leges, now in the course of publication.
IC? The following works, already published, may be regarded ai
specimens of the "wnole series, which will consist of about thirty
Volumes.Sallust's Jugurthine War and Conspiracy of Catiline,
with an English Commentary, and Geographical and Historical
indexes. By Charles Amhon, LL.D. Sixth Edition, corrected
and enlarged. 12mo. With a Portrait.
Select Orations of Cicero, with an English Commen
tary, and Historical, Geographical, and Legal Indexes. By
Charles Anthon, LL.D., &c. !2mo. Third Edition.
Cassar. With Notes) etc., by Professor Anthon. 12mo,
With a Map of Ancient Gaul, and Plans of Battles, Sieges, &c.
A Grammar of the Greek Language, for the Use o\
•Schools and Colleges, with Teutonic, Gothic, Sclavonic, Gaelic.
Sanscrit, and Zend Analogies. By C. Anthon, LL.D. 12mo.
A System of Greek Prosody and Metre, with Illustra
tions of the Csoral Scanning in the Dramatic Writer* By C
Airthon* l/L.D. I2mo.

RETROSPECT

WESTERN TRAVEL.

HARRIET MARTINEAU, m
AUTHOR OF " SOCIETY IN AMERICA," " ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY," ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON ;
PUBLISHED BY SAUNDERS AND OTLEY
NEW-YORK :
SOLD BY HARPER & BROTHERS
183 8.

PREFACE.

When I finished my late work on Society in America,
I had not the most remote idea of writing anything more
on the subject of the New World. I have since been
strongly solicited to communicate more of my personal
narrative, and ofthe lighter characteristics of men, and
incidents of travel, than it suited my purpose to give in
the other work. It has also been represented to me
that, as my published-book concerns the Americans at
least as much as the English, there is room for another
which shall supply to the English what the Americans
do not want — a picture of the aspect of the country,
and of its men and manners. There seems no reason
why such a picture should not be appended to an in
quiry into the theory and practice of their society ; es
pecially as I believe that I have little to tell which will
not strengthen the feelings of respect and kindness with
which the people of Great Britain are more and more
learning to regard the inhabitants of the Western Re
public. I have, therefore, willingly acceded to the de
sire of such of my readers as have requested to be
presented with my Retrospect of Western Travel.
H. Martineau.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

The Voyage . . . . .
First Impressions ....
The Hudson

fage
. 13
. 35
43

Pine Orchard House

. 57

Weddings
High Road Travelling .....
Fort Erie i . . . .

. 63
. 71
. 90

Niagara ......
Priestley .....
Prisons ... . .

. 96
. 109
. 123

First Sight of Slavery 
Life at Washington . ...
The Capitol . . .
Mount Vernon . ....

. 139
. .143 164
. 188

Madison .... . .

189

Jefferson's University ....
Country Life in the South ....

. 199
. 208

City Life in the South

. 223

Restless Slaves . .

. 242

New-Orleans . . ....

. 254

RETROSPECT

WESTERN TRAVEL.

THE VOYAGE.
" When the sun dawn'd, gay and glad,
We set the sail and plied the oar ;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore ;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
The helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death
We the voyagers from afar
Lay stretched." Paracelsus, Part iv.
The packet-ship in which my passage was taken, the
United States, Captain Nathan Holdrege, was to have sailed
from Liverpool on Friday, the 8th of August, 1834, at eleven
o'clock. At half past ten my fellow-traveller and I, with
our friends, were on the way to the dock, in some doubt
about our departure, from the wind being directly against
us, when we met a gentleman interested in the sailing of
the vessel, who told us that we might turn back, as the cap
tain had given up all hope of getting out of port that day.
This was uncomfortable news enough. We had bidden
farewell to many friends, half the pain of parting was over,
and there was little pleasure in having it all to go through
again. We resolved to proceed to the dock, to put our luggage
on board, and see for ourselves the true state of affairs. It
was not very agreeable. The deck was encumbered with
water-casks and chests ; the captain was fidgeting about,
Vol. I.— B

14 WESTERN TRAVEL.
giving his orders in a voice rather less placid than ordinary ;
a great number of inquiring persons, who had come down
to see us off, had to be told that we were not going to-day,
and why; and several ofthe American passengers were on
the spot, looking very melancholy. They had entered the
8th in their journals as the day of sailing, brought down
their portmanteaus, paid their bills at the hotel, and taken
leave of Boots and chambermaid. Here they were left with
four-and-twenty dreary and expensive hours upon their
hands, and who knew how many more than four-and-twenty ?
One declared that the wind appeared as if it had set in against
us, and he should not be surprised if it was a week before
we sailed. Their fate was so truly mournful, that I was
ashamed of feeling any discomfiture on my own account,
domesticated as I was in the nearest and dearest of homes
next to my own. Our disconsolate acquaintance among the
passengers were invited to dispose of their evening with us ;
and we returned to tell the children, and everybody whom
we met, that we were not gone, and wherefore. Of course,
we presently recollected several reasons why it was well
that we had another day. There were two letters which it
was highly desirable I should write from Liverpool rather
than from New-York; and the children had never before
found leisure to show me the cupboards and shelves where
they kept their playthings ; so that, if the wind had been
fair, I should actually have gone away without seeing them.
We sauntered all the afternoon in the Zoological Gardens,
and, as we returned, caught each other looking up at every
weathercock we passed. In the evening our visiters dropped
in, each ready with a speculation as to how the wind would
be to-morrow.
On the morrow the weathercock told no better news ; and
a note Was on the breakfast-table which informed us that
there was no chance of our sailing that day. I was now
really sorry. It was Saturday ; and I feared my host would
write no sermon if I remained to keep his household in an
unsettled state. Our seadresses, too, would not serve for
a Sunday in Liverpool, and our books and work were all on
board with our wardrobes. The tidings were therefore
welcome which were brought early in the forenoon, that the
captain had engaged a steamboat to tow us out to sea. By
eleven o'clock the carriage of a friend was at the door, with
bouquets of flowers, and baskets of grapes and other acid
refreshments, which it was thought might be welcome at sea.

THE VOYAGE. 15
"Have you no misgivings?" asked an intimate, before
whose imagination the Western World now rose tremen
dous in its magnitude. "Have you no misgivings now?"
I had none, and it was well. If I had had such as would
have made me draw back in the last moment, what a world
of good should I have foregone ! Not only what knowledge,
but what a store of imagery \ What intense and varied
enjoyment ! and, above all, what friendships ! When I npw
look back upon what I have gained, and at how small an
expense of peril and inconvenience, I cannot but regard my
setting foot on board ship as tfne of the most fortunate acts
of my life.
When we arrived at the dock we found there was really
to be no further delay. The knots of friends, the crowds
of gazers were gathering; the steamer was hissing and
puffing in the river, and the song of the sailors was heard,
as they were warping our ship out of the dock. In a few
minutes we and the other passengers were requested to step
on board. I first carried my flowers down to my state
room, intending to hide them there till we should be out of
eight of land, when an apparition of fresh flowers upon deck
might be more than commonly welcome. I then took my
station by a window of the roundhouse, whence I could see
all that passed on shore without being much seen. Thence
I could observe my brother and sisters speaking to each
other, and pointing out things which I could easily interpret.
It occurred to me that I could send them one more token,
by means of the little waves which rolled away from the
(sides of our ship, and washed the pier on which the crowd
was standing. I threw out a rose at a moment when I
caught a watchful eye ; and I saw it borne, after many va
garies, directly under their feet. Suddenly I missed them
from the spot where they were standing, and supposed they
were quite tired (as they well might have been), and had
gone home. But it was not so. They had withdrawn only
in order to secure front places at the extreme end of the
pier, whence they might watch us yet longer than from their
former station. There they stood, as long as we could dis
tinguish any forms from among the crowd. Then three
cheers were exchanged between the crew and the shore, and
the passengers strained their eyes no more.
The greater number then went below to make arrange
ments in their staterooms ; and afterward ensued the cere
mony of introducing the company to each other on deck.

16 WESTERN TRAVEL.
Our number was twenty-three, six of whom formed the party
to which I belonged ; or, rather, so it seemed to ourselves
before we went on board. The distinction was afterward
forgotten, for the company assembled was, with two or three
exceptions, so exceedingly agreeable and so wonderfully
congenial, considering how accidentally we were brought
together, that we mingled completely as one party. We
had among us a Prussian physician ; a New-England divine;
a Boston merchant, with his sprightly and showy young
wife ; a high-spirited young South Carolinian, fresh from a
German university ; a newly-married couple, whose station
was not exactly discoverable while on board, but who opened
a public-house soon after their arrival in New- York ; a
Scotch major, whose peculiarities made him the butt of the
young men ; an elderly widow lady ; two amiable young
ladies ; and a Scotch lady, " of no particular age," but of
very particular placidity and good-humour ; and a youth out
of Yorkshire, who was leaving his parents' roof for the first
time alone, and who was destined never to return to it. The
number was made up by English and American merchants ;
young men so accustomed to pass between Liverpool and
New-York, that the voyage was little more to them than an
expedition to Primrose Hill is to a cockney.
The cold dinner and drinking of healths customary on
the day of sailing succeeded. Then there was the library
to look over, and trial to be made of a seat on the rail,
whence we could see the dim shores as we glided smoothly
along in the wake ofthe steamer. By the time it was dusk
the latter had performed her engagement. We saw the
payment handed over, and the shaking of hands of the two
captains, and then she disengaged herself from us, and be
gan ploughing her way to the north coast of Ireland. We
felt very helpless when she was gone, the little wind there
was being unfavourable. There was so little, however, as
to allow us novices a night of sound sleep at the outset.
On Sunday we crept along in almost a calm, having a
glimpse of the dim outline of the Isle of Man in the morn
ing, and being still in sight of Holyhead in the evening.
To me it was a day of luxury ; for, jaded as I had been
with business and novelty, there was no circumstance of the
voyage that I valued so highly as the impossibility of receiv
ing letters or news for three weeks or a month. The gli
ding on thus in a calm, with time to think and be still, was
all that I wanted ; but the Americans, who had home on the

THE VOYAGE. 17
horizon before them, and longed to be at rest there, looked
grave on this inauspicious beginning of their transit. On
Monday, however, they felt, from another cause, a good
deal worse. The wind had freshened, but I believe nobody
cared which way or how fast it blew us. The only meal
at which I was not present was that of Monday's dinner.
I can testify to the breakfast and tea being quiet and sad
enough, with a sprinkling of languid passengers at table,
and a knowledge of how wretched all the rest were in their
rooms. On Tuesday began my experience of the pleasures of the
sea. The wind had freshened to a strong breeze, which had
so rocked us in our births that I rose miserably ill. I was
strongly persuaded of the necessity of exertion in seasick
ness, of having fresh air, and of getting out of the way of
the sights and sounds of the cabin ; and I therefore perse
vered in dressing and going up to the deck. There was the
captain, with only one passenger to talk with, and heartily
glad at the prospect of another being convalescent. He
seated me on the rail, where I kept my eyes away from the
helpless invalids who were strewed about the deck, and in
half an hour I was quite well. We were careering along in
most exhilarating style. The wind was so strong as to pnt
the wearing a bonnet out of the question. I had happily
been furnished with a sort of cap, which no lady should go
to sea without ; a black silk cap, well wadded. With the
head thus defended, and a large warm cloak, a lady may
abide almost any weather, and avoid the desagremens and
unwholesomeness of the cabin. My eye was never weary
of watching the dashing and boiling of the dark green waves,
from the gray horizon to the ship's side ; and I know of no
motion so gladsome as that of riding the high billows in a
brisk breeze. The captain pointed out to me the first of the
monsters of the deep that I ever saw ; a large blackfish,
tumbling about joyously by itself in the stormy sea, now
throwing its thick body forward in ungainly gambols, and
now rearing its forked tail perpendicularly as it prepared to
dive. My flowers did not disappoint my expectations. They
were still quite fresh on the Wednesday, when, as we were
out of sight of land, I carried them up to the deck, and gave
each passenger one, that being precisely my supply. I
never saw flowers give so much pleasure before, except in
B 2

IS WESTERN TRAVEL.
cases of long confinement from illness. Truly they were
very like a message from home. k
In two or three days more all but two ladies and one gen
tleman had settled themselves into the routine of sea life. It
was very desirable that they should do so, as on the 15th
we were still little more than three hundred miles from Liver
pool. It would have been dismal to add idleness and unset-
tledness to the discouragement caused by such a beginning of
our voyage. Our mode of life was very simple and quiet ; to
me, Very delightful. I enjoyed it so much that I delayed be
ginning my letters home till we had been a week at sea, lest
I should write some extravagance which I should afterward
have to qualify or retract. None of my subsequent experi
ence, however, has altered my feeling that a voyage is the
most pleasant pastime I have ever known.
The passengers showed themselves upon deck some time
between seven and nine in the morning. Each one either
made his way to the binnacle to see for himself what course
we were upon, or learned the important intelligence from
some obliging individual who held the fact at the general
service. We all asked the captain at first, but soon discon
tinued the practice when we found that favourable answers
were likely to be rare, and how it must vex him to tell us
every morning that we were scarcely getting on at all.
After a brisk morning's walk upon deck, no one was sorry
to hear the breakfast-bell. Breakfast was the most cheerful
meal of the day. If ever there was any news to tell, it was
then. The early risers could sometimes speak to the slug
gards of a big fish, of a passing sail, of a frolic among the
sailors. I was asked once by a passenger, in a lone whpse
laziness cannot be conveyed on paper, " What, did ye see
the whale this mornin' ?"
"No. It came at four o'clock, when I was asleep; but
the captain promises to have me called next time, whatever
the hour may be."
u What, d'ye want to see a whale V
" Yes, very much."
" Well, but I dare say you have seen a pictur' o' one."
It was not apparent to him that this was not an. equally
good thing.
After breakfast, the gentlemen who kept journals produced
their writing-cases in the cabin. The ladies sat in sunny
or shaded places on deck, netting, making table- mats, or
reading, or mounted the railing to talk or look abroad. I

THE VOYAGE. 19
had a task to do, which is a thing that should be avoided
on board ship. I had a long article to write ; and nothing
else would I do, on fine mornings, till it was finished. It is
disagreeable writing in the cabin, with people flitting all
about one. It is unwholesome writing in one's stateroom
in the month of August. The deck is the only place. The
first care, after breakfast, of my clerical friend the New-
Englander, was to find me a corner where the wind would
not blow my paper about, where the sun would not dazzle
me, and where I might be quiet ; and then he took his seat
behind the roundhouse, with a row of children from the
steerage before him to do their lessons. I wondered at first
how he would teach them without books, slates, or any other
visible implements of instruction ; but when I saw him get
a potato, and cut it into two and four parts, to show the
children what halves and quarters were, I was assured he
would prosper with them. And so he did. They went to
school to excellent purpose ; and I dare say they will send
back grateful thoughts all through their lives upon the kiad
gentleman who attended to them on the voyage.
For some time I was daily baffled in my purpose of wrr-
ting by the observation of persons who seemed not only en
tirely ignorant of the process of composition, but very anx
ious to learn it. Not only did the children from the steer
age spy from behind chests and casks, and peep over my
shoulder, but the inquirer about the whale was wont to place
himself directly in front of me, with his arms akimbo, and
his eyes fixed on the point of my pen. Somebody gave
him a hint at last, and I was left in peace. By two o'clock,
when the deck began to fill again after luncheon, my head
and eyes had had enough of writing, and I joyfully mounted
the rail. If I wanted to watch the sea undisturbed, I held a
Shakspeare in my hand. If I carried no book, somebody
came to talk. What fleets of Portuguese men-of-war did
we see at those hours ! I hardly know whether these little
mariners of the deep are most beautiful when gliding, rich in
their violet hues, along the calm sunny surface of the summer
sea, or when they are tossed about like toys by rough dark
waves. One day, when I was exclaiming on their beauty,
a young lady, industriously working at her table-mats, ob
served that it was very odd that she had crossed this ocean
three times, and had never seen a Portuguese man-of-war.
I concluded that she had never looked for them, and asked
the favour of her to stand by my side for one half hour.

20 WESTERN TRAVEL.
She did so, and saw three. I strongly suspect that those
who complain of the monotony of the ocean do not use their
eyes as they do on land. It seems to be the custom at sea
to sit on deck, looking abroad only when the sun is setting,
or the moon rising, or when there is a sail to be speculated
upon. Some of the most beautiful sights I caught were
when no one else was looking down quite into the deep, the
only way to see most of the creatures that live there. One
day I was startled, while thus gazing, with an excessive ra
diance, like an expanse of brilliant rainbow, far down in the
sunny deep under our bows. My exclamation brought one
witness to behold, as I did, the distinct form of a dolphin
come out of the light. It was a family of dolphins, the only
ones that were seen on the voyage. Many a flying fish
darted from the crest of one wave into another. Many a
minuet did Mother Carey's chickens trip, with their slender
web-feet, on the momentary calm left between two billows.
Many a shining visiter came up from the lowest deep to
exchange glances and be gone. I soon found it was in vain
to call people to look. These sights are too transient to be
caught otherwise than by watching. When a shoal of por
poises came to race with the ship, every one on board was
up on the rail to see ; and an exhilarating sight it is, when
the ship is going before the wind in a rough sea, and the
porpoises dart visibly through the midst of a billow, and
pitch, and rise, and cross each other's path, swiftly and or
derly, without ever relaxing their speed, till they are tired
of play. It is impossible to help having a favourite among
the shoal, and watching him with an interest and admiration
which, upon consideration, are really ridiculous.
The most generally interesting sight, perhaps, was a sail ;
and we were never a day without seeing one or more.
Sometimes three or four seemed to be peeping at us from
the horizon. Sometimes our ship and another were nearing
each other almost all day. Once or twice I was startled
with a sudden apparition of one close at hand, with all her
sails set, black in a streak of moonlight, when I went up to
bid the sea good-night. One morning early I found the
deck in a bustle, from a ship having made signals of dis
tress. " A ship in distress !" everybody began shouting.
" A ship in distress !" cried I to the ladies in the cabin, one
of whom came up muffled in a cloak, and another with her
nightcap under her bonnet, rather than miss the romance of
the scene. The hearts of the novices were all ready to

THE VOYAGE. 21
bleed ; the faces of the gentlemen began to wear, in antici
pation, an expression of manly compassion, as we hung out
our colours, shortened sail (one of the first times we had
been going right on our course), and wore round, while all
the people of both ships gathered on the decks, and the
^ captains brandished their trumpets. She was French, and
' her distress was that she had lost her longitude ! Our good
captain, very angry at the loss of time from such a cause,
said they ought to have lost their heads with it, shouted out
the longitude, and turned into our course again. The la
dies went back to finish their toilet in an ordinary mood of
sensibility, and the French went on their way, we may con
clude, rejoicing.
A distant sail was one day decided to be a merchant ship
from the south of France, to everybody's apparent satisfac
tion but mine. I had a strong persuasion that she wa3 not
French, but felt how presumptuous it would be to say so.
I watched her, however ; and, at the end of three hours, di
rected the captain's attention again to her. He snatched
his glass, and the next moment electrified us all by the ve
hemence of his directions to the helmsman and others ofthe
crew. It vvas a rival packet-ship, the Montreal, which had
left Portsmouth four days before we sailed. We were in for
a race, which lasted three days, after which we lost sight of
our rival, till she reached New- York after us. Our captain
left the dinner-table three times this first day of the race, and
was excessively anxious throughout. It was very exciting
to us all. We concluded, after fair trial, that she beat in a
light wind and we in a strong one. Some weeks after our
landing I fell in with two passengers from the Montreal, who
described the counterpart of the scene we had beheld as
having taken place on board their ship. There had been
the same start of surprise on the part of their captain, who
had also left the dinner-table three times ; the same excite
ment among the passengers ; and the same conclusion as to
the respective sailing merits of the two vessels.
From four to six we were dining. Some of us felt it rather
annoying to be so long at table ; but it is a custom estab
lished on board these packets, for the sake, I believe, of
those who happen to find the day too long. Such persons
need compassion, and their happier companions can afford
to sacrifice something to their ease ; so- no one objects
openly to devoting two of the best hours of the day to din
ner and dessert. The rush up to the deck, however, when

22 WESTERN TRAVEL.
they are over, shows what the taste of the majority is. One
afternoon the ladies were called down again, and found in
their cabin a surprise at least as agreeable as my flowers.
A dessert of pines and grapes had been sent in by a gentle
man who found that a friend had put a basket of choice fruits
on board for his use, but who preferred favouring the ladies
with them. He was sent for to preside at the table he had
thus spread, and was not a little rallied by his brother pas
sengers on his privileges. These things seem trifles on
paper, but they yield no trifling amusement on a voyage.
Our afternoons were delightful ; for the greater number of
the forty-two days that we were at sea, the sun set visibly,
with more or less tustre, and all eyes were watching his de
cline. There was an unusual quietness on board just about
sunset. All the cabin passengers were collected on one
side, except any two or three who- might be in the rigging.
The steerage passengers were to be seen looking out at the
same sight, and probably engaged as we were in pointing
out some particular bar of reddened cloud, or snowy mount
ain of vapours, or the crimsom or golden light spattered on
the swelling sides of the billows as they heaved sunward.
Then came the last moment of expectation, even to the
rising on tiptoe, as if that would enable us to see a spark
more of the sun ; and then the revival of talk, and the bustle
of pairing off to walk. This was the hour for walking the
deck ; and, till near teatime, almost the whole company
might be seen parading like a school. I never grew very
fond of walking on a heaving floor, on which you have to
turn at the end of every thirty paces or so ; but it is a duty
to walk on board ship, and it is best to do it at this hour, and
in full and cheerful company.
After tea the cabin was busy with whist and chess parties,
readers, and laughers and talkers. On damp and moonless
evenings I joined a whist party ; but my delight was the
deck at this time, when I had it all to myself, or when I could
at least sit alone in the stern. I know no greater luxury
than sitting alone in the stern on fine nights, when there is no
one within hearing but the helmsman, and sights of beauty
meet the eye whereverjt turns. Behind, the light from the
binnacle alone gleams upon the deck ; dim, shifting lights
and shadows mark out the full sails against the sky, and
stars look down between. The young moon drops silently
into the sea afar. In our wake is a long train of pale fire,
perpetually renewed as we hiss through the dark waves.

THE VOYAGE. 23
On such a quiet night, how startling is a voice from the
deck, or a shout of laughter from the cabin ! More than
once, when I heard the voices of children and the barking of
a dog from the steerage, I wholly forgot for the moment
that I was at sea, and, looking up, was struck breathless at
the sight of the dim, gray, limitless expanse. Never, how
ever, did I see the march of the night so beautiful over hill,
dale, wood, or plain, as over the boundless sea, roofed with its
complete arch. The inexpressible silence, the undimmed
lustre, the steady, visible motion of the sky, make the night
what it can nowhere be on land, unless in the midst of the
Great Desert or on a high mountain-top. It is not the clear
still nights alone that are beautiful. Nothing can be more
chilling to the imagination than the idea of fog, yet I have
seen exquisite sights in a night fog ; not in a pervading, du
rable mist, but in such a fog as is common at sea, thick and
driving, with spaces through which the moon may shine
down, making clusters of silvery islands on every side.
This was an entirely new appearance to me, and the
white archipelago was a spectacle of great beauty. Then,
again, the action of the ship in a strong night-breeze is fine,
cutting her steady way through the seething water, and
dashing them from her sides so uniformly and strongly, that
for half a mile on either hand the sea is as a white marble
floor gemmed with stars ; just like a child's idea of " the
pavement of the heavenly courts." Such are the hours
when all that one has ever known or thought that is beauti
ful comes back softly and mysteriously; snatches of old
songs, all one's first loves in poetry and in the phantasma
goria of nature. No. sleep is sweeter than that into which
one sinks in such a mood, when one's spirit drops anchor
amid the turbulence of the outward world, and the very
power -of the elements seems to shed stillness into the soul.
There must be many a set-off against such hours, how
ever, or the whole world would be rushing to sea. There
would be parties to the Azores as there now are to Rome, and
people would be doubling the Capes as they now cross the
Simplon. There are disagreeable hours and days at sea ;
whole days, when the ship rolls so as to stop employment in
the cabin, and tbe rain pours down 80 as to prevent any
weary passenger from putting out his head upon deck ; when
the captain is to be seen outside in his seacoat, with the
water streaming from nose, chin, hat, and every projection
of his costume ; when every one's limbs are aching with

24 WESTERN TRAVEL.
keeping himself from tumbling over his neighbour ; when
the tea and coffee are cold, and all that is liquid is spilled, and
everything solid thrown out of its place. The best thing to
be done on such days is to sit in the roundhouse, each one
well wedged in between two, the balustrade in front, and the
wall behind ; all as loquacious as possible, talking all man
ner of sense or nonsense that may occur ; those who can
joke, joking ; those who can sing, singing ; those who know
any new games, teaching them. This is better than the only
other thing that can be done, lying in one's heaving birth ;
better, not only because it is more sociable, but because
there is a fairer chance of appetite and sleep after the ex
ercise of laughing (be the laughter about anything or nothing)
than after a day of uncomfortable listlessness.
A calm is a much less disagreeable affair, though it is
not common to say so. A dead calm affords a fine oppor
tunity to the gentlemen for writing and reading, and to the
ladies for the repairs of the wardrobe. Sewing, which I
think a pleasant employment everywhere else, is trying to
the head at sea; and many omissions and commissions may
be observed in the matter of costume, which the parties would
be ashamed of on land. The difference after a calm is re
markable : the cap-borders are spruce ; the bonnets wear a
new air ; the gloves are whole ; the married gentlemen ap
pear with complete sets of buttons and rectified stocks.
The worst quality of a calm is that it tries tempers a little
too far. If there be an infirmity of temper, it is sure to
come out then. At such a time there is much playing of
shufHeboard upon deck, and the matches do not always end
harmoniously. " You touched mine with your foot." " I
did not, I declare." " Now, donH say so," &c, &c. "You
are eight." " No, weare ten." "I can show you you are
only eight." " We'll, if you can't count any better than that,"
and so on. After three days of calm there may be heard a
subdued tone of scolding from the whist party at the top of
the table, and a stray oath from some checkmated person
lower down ; and while the ladies are brushing their hair in
their cabin, certain items of information are apt to be given
of how Mr. A. looked when the lady's partner turned up
trumps, and how shockingly Mr. B. pushed past Mr. C. in
going up the cabin to dinner. The first breath of favourable
wind, however, usually blows all these offences away, and
tempers turn into their right course with the ship.
I had heard so much at home of the annoyances on board

THE VOYAGE. 25
ship, that I made a list of them at the time for the consola
tion of my friends at home, who were, I suspected, bestow
ing more compassion upon me than I had any title to. I
find them noted down as follows : —
Next to the sickness, an annoyance scarcely to be ex
aggerated while it lasts, there is, first, the damp clammy
feel of everything you touch. Remedy, to wear gloves con
stantly, and clothes which are too bad to be spoiled. In
this latter device nearly the whole company were so accom
plished that it was hard to say who excelled.
Next, want of room. The remedy fer this is a tight,
orderly putting away of everything ; for which there is
plenty of time.
Thirdly, the candles flare, and look untidy from running
down twice as fast as they burn. Remedy, to go out of the
way of them ; to the stern, for instance, where there are far
better lights to be seen.
Fourthly, the seats and beds are all as hard as boards : a
grievance where one cannot always walk when one's limbs
want resting with exercise. Remedy, patience. Perhaps
air-cushions may be better still.
Fifthly, warning is given to be careful in the use of water.
Remedy, to bathe in seawater, and drink cider at dinner.
Sixthly, the cider is apt to get low. Remedy, take to
soda-water, ale, hock, or claret.
Seventhly, the scraping of the deck sets one's teeth on
edge. For this I know" of no remedy but patience ; for the
deck must be scraped.
Eighthly, the rattling, stamping, and clattering overhead
when the sails are shifted in the night. Remedy, to go to
sleep again.
Ninthly, sour bread. Remedy, to eat biscuit instead.
Tenthly, getting sunburnt. Remedy, not to look in the
glass. These are all that I can allow from my own experience.
Some people talk of danger, but I do not believe there is
more than in travelling on land. Some have called a ship
a prison so often, that the saying seems to have become
current. But, in my idea, the evils of a prison are the
being coerced by another person's will ; the being disgraced ;
the being excluded from the face of nature ; and the being de
barred from society, employment, and exercise. None of
these objections apply to a ship as a residence. As for the
Vot. I.— C

26 WESTERN TRAVEL.
one point of resemblance, the being unable to walk a mile or
more out and back again, of how many persons is this the
voluntary choice, who were never either in a prison or a
ship ? I would never take the responsibility of recommend'
ing any elderly, or nervous, or untravelled persons to put
themselves into a place which will not keep still, nor any
thing in it, for a month or six weeks, and from which they
cannot get out; but I cannot think the confinement, by itself,
anything to be much complained of.
A bad captain must be the worst of annoyances, to judge
by contrast from the comfort we enjoyed under the govern
ment of an exceedingly good one. We had all great faith in
Captain Holdrege as an excellent sailor; and we enjoyed
daily and hourly proofs of his kindness of heart, and desire
to make everybody about him happy. It was amazing witli
what patience he bore the teazings of some who were per
petually wanting to know things that he could not possibly
tell them ; when we should be at New- York, and so forth.
The gentleman who unconsciously supplied the most mer
riment to the party waylaid the captain one busy morning;
one of the first when there had been anything for the cap
tain to do, and he was in such a bustle that nobody else
dreamed of speaking to him.
"Captain," said the gentleman, "I want to speak to
you." " Another time, sir, if you please. I am in a hurry
now." " But, captain, I want to speak to you very much."
"Speak, then, sir, and be quick, if you please."
" Captain, I am very glad you have a cow on board, be
cause of the milk."
" Hum," said the captain, and went on with his business.
One Sunday morning, when we were on " the Banks,"
this gentleman came to me with a doleful face, to tell me
that he thought we should have been at New-York to-day.
I found that he had actually expected this up to the night
be/ore, because he Irad been told, previous to sailing, that
we should probably spend our fourth Sunday at New-York.
It was proposed to tell him that we should probably be in the
Pacific by the next morning, to see whether he would be
lieve it ; but 4 believe the experiment was not ventured
upon. Some of the passengers, talking one day at dinner
of percussion caps, asked him whether they were used in a

THE VOYAGE. 27
regiment of which he had frequently spoken. He replied
that he did not know, as he had not inquired much into the
costume ofthe army.
By the 23d of August we were only about one hundred
and twenty miles N. W. of the Azores. On the 1st of Sep
tember, when our thoughts wandered homeward to the
sportsmen all abroad in the stubble, to the readers of monthly
periodicals in which we were interested, and to our families,
who were doubtless fancying us on the point of landing, we
were not far from where we were a week ago. We had had
beautiful weather, but every variety of westerly wind with
it. The passengers began to flag. The novels were all
read ; the ladies' work was all done ; and shuffleboard and
chess will not do for ever. The captain began to send up
an occasional whet of cherry bounce to the ladies before
dinner. For my own part, I was finishing my writing, and
finding my first leisure for books ; and I found myself for
getting New- York, and losing sight of all I expected to see
beyond it, in the pleasures of the sea. We were now
scarcely half way. The turning point of the voyage came
the next day in the shape ofa storm.
Before I went on board I had said that I should like to
behold a storm as fierce as we could escape from without
fatal damage. Some passenger repeated this wish of mine
(very common in persons going to sea for the first time) in
the hearing of the mate, who told the sailors; who, accord
ingly, were overheard saying one afternoon that I had better
come on deck, and see what I should see. My clerical friend
took the hint, and called me hastily, to observe the crew make
ready for a squall. I ran up, and perceived the black line ad
vancing over the water from the horizon, the remarkable in
dication of a coming squall. The sailors were running up
the shrouds to get the sails in. The second mate was aloft,
in the post of danger, his long hair streaming in the wind,
while with us below all was calm. The sails were got in
just in time. The captain did not come down to dinner.
Orders were given to " splice the main-brace ;" for the crew
had been handling the ropes since four in the morning. I
saw them come for their grog, and then wait for what might
happen next. By sunset the sky was tremendous ; the sea
rising, the wind moaning and Whistling strangely. When
I staggered to the stern, to bid the sea good-night, accord
ing to custom, the waters were splendidly luminous. Floods

28 WESTERN TRAVEL.
of blue fire were dashed abroad from our bows, and beyond,
the whole expanse sparkled as with diamonds.
All night the noises would have banished sleep if we
could have lain quiet. There was a roar of wind ; the
waves dashed against the sides of the ship as if they were
bursting in ; water poured into our cabin, though the skylight
was fastened down. A heavy fall was now and then heard
from the other cabin; some passenger heaved out of his berth.
After five hours I could hold in no longer, and a tremendous
lurch tossed me out upon the floor, where I alighted upon
my thimble and scissors, the ottoman I was working (and
which, I had felt confident, was far enough off), my clothes,
books, and the empty water-bottle. All these things were
lying in a wet heap. I traversed the ladies' cabin to ex
plore, holding by whatever was fastened to the floor. The
only dry place in which I could lie down was under the ta
ble, and standing was out of the question ; so I brought a
blanket and pillow, laid down with a firm hold of the leg of
the table, and got an hour's welcome sleep, by which time
the storm was enough to have wakened the dead. The state
of our cabin was intolerable ; the crashing of glass, the com
plaining voices of the sick ladies, the creaking and straining
of the ship ; and, above all, the want of air, while the winds
were roaring over head. I saw no necessity for bearing all
this ; so, sick as I was, I put my clothes on, swathed my
self in one cloak, and carried up another, wherewith to lash
myself to something on deck.
There, all was so glorious that I immediately stumbled
down again to implore the other ladies to come up and be
refreshed ; but no one would listen to me. They were too
ill. I got the captain's leave to fasten myself to the post of
the binnacle, promising to give no trouble, and there I saw
the whole of the never-to-be-forgotten scene.
We were lying in the trough of the sea, and the rolling
was tremendous. The captain wished to wear round, and
put out a sail, which, though quite new, was instantly split
to ribands, so that we had to make ourselves contented
where we were. The scene was perfectly unlike what I
had imagined. The sea was no more like water than it was
like land or sky. When I had heard of the ocean running
mountains high, I thought it a mere hyperbolical expression.
But here the scene was of huge wandering mountains —
wandering as if to find a resting-place — with dreary leaden

THE VOYAGE. 29
vales between. The sky seemed narrowed to a mere slip
overhead, and a long-drawn extent of leaden waters seemed
to measure a thousand miles ; and these were crested by
most exquisite shades of blue and green where the foam was
about to break. The heavens seemed rocking their masses
of torn clouds, keeping time with the billows to the solemn
music of the winds ; the most swelling and mournful music
I ever listened to. The delight of the hour I shall not for
get ; it was the only new scene I had ever beheld that I had
totally and unsuspectingly failed to imagine.
It was impossible to remain longer than noon, unless we
meant to be drowned. When two or three gentlemen had
been almost washed off, and the ship had been once nearly
half her length under water, it was time to go below, sad
as the necessity was. The gale gradually abated. In the
afternoon the ladies obtained leave to have their skylight
opened, their cabin mopped, and the carpets taken up and
carried away to dry.
The sailors got the mate to inquire how I liked the storm.
If I was not satisfied now, I never should be. I was satis
fied, and most thankful. The only thing that surprised me
much was, that there was so little terrific about it. I was
not aware till the next day, when the captain was found to
have set it down a hurricane in the logbook, how serious a
storm it was. The vessel is so obviously buoyant, that it
appears impossible to overwhelm her ; and we were a
thousand miles from any rocks. In the excitement of such
an hour, one feels that one would as soon go down in those
magnificent waters as die any other death ; but tliere was
nothing present which impressed me with the idea of danger
but the terrors of ,two of the passengers. Of the poor la
dies I can give no account; but one gentleman pulled his
travelling-cap forward over his eyes, clasped his hands on
his knees, and sat visibly shaking in a corner of the round
house, looking shrunk to half his size. The fears of an
other I regarded with more respect, because he tried hard to
hide them. He followed me throughout, talking in an artist-
like style about the tints, and the hues, and many other
things that were to be noted, but not talked about at the mo
ment. If he succeeded in covering up his fears from him
self, one may well excuse the bad taste of the means em
ployed. My clerical friend did better. He was on the
watch for others and for himself. In high exhilaration, he
C2

30 WESTERN TRAVEL.
helped everybody, saw everything, and will, to the end of
his days, I will answer for it, forget nothing of that glorious
time. After the storm we met with few delays. A calm of nine
hours enabled the crew to repair all damage sustained ; the
rest of the time we were making progress, though it was
sometimes very slow. We went south of " the Banks,"
and so missed something besides the fogs ; our hoped-for
treat of fresh cod, and the spectacle ofthe fishermen's boats.
Hereabout the dog in the steerage smelt land, and stood
snuffing, with his paws on the rail. A wild pigeon flew on
board, too, supposed to be from Newfoundland ; and the
air was sensibly colder, as it becomes on approaching the
shore. The lottery with which the gentlemen had amused
themselves became now very interesting. It consisted of
ten tickets, at a sovereign each, answering to the ten days
during which it had been thought probable that we should
land. The two earliest were now sold for a shilling and
eighteenpence ; and the ^aptain gave five pounds for the
last, which bore date the 11th. This seemed to indicate the
captain's expectation that our progress would still be slow ;
but we were scarcely more likely to land on the 11th than
on the 4th or 5th.
A passenger beckoned the captain out of the cabin one
evening about this time, and asked him to look down into
the hold, where a tallow candle, with a long wick, was seen
leaning over the side of a candlestick, which was standing
on a heap of loose cotton ! Such are the perils that care
less sailors will expose themselves and others to. The cap
tain took care to impress his crew with his opinion on the
matter. I believe a regular piece of amusement on board these
packet-ships is emptying the letter-bags out on the deck. A
fine morning is chosen for this ; and to a person who sits on
the rail it affords a pretty picture. The ladies draw their
chairs round the immense heap of letters ; the gentlemen
lie at length, and scarcely an epistle escapes comment. A
shout of mirth bursts forth now and then at some singular
name or mode of address ; commonly at some Irish epistle,
addressed to an emigrant in some out-of-the-way place, which
there is scarcely room to insert, though the direction runs
from corner to corner over the whole square.
About this time a pedler, who was among the steerage

THE VOYAGE. 31
passengers, appeared on deck with his wares. His pretence
was, that some of his silk handkerchiefs and gloves had got
slightly spotted at sea, and lhat he was not so anxious as be
fore to carry them to New- York. However this might be,
the merchant showed himself a shrewd man. He saw that
the pleasure of shopping, ailer being for some weeks out of
sight of land, would open to him the purse of many a pas
senger. It was most amusing to see the eagerness of both
gentlemen and ladies, and their pleasure in purchases which
they would have disdained on shore. For the next two or
three days the company was spruce in damaged handker
chiefs, and ribands, and mildewed gloves, rending in all di
rections ; while the pedler escaped duties, and stepped
ashore with a heavy purse and light pack.
On the 15th we were still between five and six hundred
miles from our port. A sheep had jumped overboard, and
so cheated us of some of our mutton. The vegetables were
getting very dry. It was found best not to look into the
dishes of dried fruits which formed our dessert. All was
done that care and cookery could do ; but who could have
anticipated such a length of voyage ? Open declarations of
ennui began to be made by not a few ; and I was almost
afraid to own, in answer to questions, that I was not tired of
the sea ; but I could not honestly say that I was. The gen
tlemen began to spar at table about the comparative merits
of England and America ; the Prussian could not find Eng
lish in which to bemoan himself sufficiently, and shrugged.
The cider, ale, soda-water, and claret were all gone, and we
were taking to porter, which must needs soon come to an
end. Some show of preparation to land was this day made,
and a lively bustle ensued on the first hint from the captain.
He went round to take down the names of the passengers
at length, in order to their being reported on arrival. The
ages had to be affixed to the names ; and as the captain
could not ask the ladies for their ages, he committed it to
the gentlemen to decide upon each. The ladies, who were
quilling, trimming, and sorting their things in their own cabin,
eould not conceive the meaning of the shouts of laughter
which came from the top of the gentlemen's table, till the
young Carolinian came and told what the fun was. The
standing joke is to make the young ladies many years too
old, and the old ladies ridiculously young ; and this was done
now, the ladies eonsidering the affair no business of theirs.

32 WESTERN TRAVEL.
One lady, who had frequently crossed, told me that ten years
before she had been set down as forty ; she stood now as
twenty-four. On the 17th we were surrounded with weed, and Mother
Carey's chickens began to disappear. Soundings were this
day taken, and I was called to see and touch the first
American soil, the thimbleful deposited on the lead. The
next day, Thursday, the wind continuing fair, we were
within one hundred miles of our port, and all was liveliness
and bustle.
The American divine was requested by all the passengers
to propose, after dinner, the health of Captain and Mrs.
Holdrege, using the opportunity to express our hearty thank3
to the captain for the whole of his conduct towards us. The
captain rose to speak in acknowledgment of the toast, but
was so taken by surprise with his lady's name being hailed
with our good wishes, that after two werds of thanks he shot
out of the cabin, every one understanding the cause of his
brevity. In the evening we were told that we should see
land on rising in the morning ; and some of us requested to
be called at five.
At five, on the morning of the 19th, I started up, and at
the foot of the companion-way was stopped by the Scotch
lady, who told me I might go back again, as we were be
calmed, and I might see the shore just as well two hours
hence. This was being a little too cool about such a matter.
I saw the dim shore ; a long line of the New-Jersey coast,
with distinguishable trees and white houses. By breakfast-
time our eyes were painfully strained, as only one could
have the glass at a time, and I did not like to snatch it from
those who were enjoying the pleasure of recognising familiar
objects ; tracing the first features of home. I was taken by
surprise by my own emotions. All that I had heard of the
Pilgrim Fathers, of the old colonial days, of the great men
of the Revolution, and of the busy, prosperous succeeding
days, stirred up my mind while I looked upon the sunny
reach of land on the horizon. All the morning I sat dream
ing, interrupted now and then by the smiling but tearful
young mother, who expected tidings of her child before the
day was over ; or by others, who had less cause for being
deeply moved, who came to describe to me the pleasures of
Long Branch (the bathing-place in view), or to speculate on
how long this tedious calm would last. All the morning I

THE VOYAGE. 33
sat on the rail, or played sister Anne to the ladies below,
when once the wind had freshened, and we glided slowly
along towards Sandy Hook. " Now I see a large white
house." " Now I see Neversink. Come up and see Never-
sink !" " Now I see a flock of sheep on the side of a hill ;
and now a fisherman standing beside his boat," and so forth.
What were the ladies below for ? They were dressing
for the shore. The gentlemen, too, vanished from the deck,
one by one, and reappeared in glossy hats, coats with the
creases of the portmanteau upon them, and the first really
black shoes and boots we had seen for weeks. The quiz
zing which was properly due to the discarded sea-garments
was now bestowed on this spruce costume ; and every gen
tleman had to encounter a laugh as he issued from the com
panion-way. We agreed to snatch our meals as we pleased
this day. No one was to remain at table longer than he
liked. Everything looked joyous. The passengers were
in the most amiable mood : we were in sight of a score of
ships crossing the bar at Sandy Hook ; the last company of
porpoises was sporting alongside, and shoals of glittering
white fish rippled the water. The captain was fidgety,
however. Those vessels crossing the bar might be .rival
packet-ships, and no pilot was yet to be seen. " Here he
is !" cried a dozen voices at once ; and an elegant little
affair of a boat was seen approaching. A curious-looking
old gentleman swung himself up, and seemed likely to be
torn in pieces by the ravenous inquirers for news. He thrust
an armful of newspapers among us, and beckoned the cap
tain to the stern, where the two remained in a grave consul
tation for a few minutes, when the captain called one of the
lady passengers aside to ask her a question. What the
pilot wanted to know was, whether George Thomson, the
abolition missionary, was on board. He was to have been,
but was not. The pilot declared that this was well, as he
could not have been landed without the certainty of being
destroyed within a week, the abolition riots in New- York
having taken place just before. What the captain wanted
to learn of the lady passenger was, what my opinions on
slavery were, in order to know whether he might safely land
me. She told hint that I was an abolitionist in principle ;
but that she believed I went to America to learn and not to
teach. So the good captain nodded, and said nothing to me
on the subject.

3-4 WESTERN TRAVEL.
Next arrived a boat from the newspaper office of the
Courier and Enquirer, whose agent would not hear of dinner
or any other delay, but shouldered his bag of news, got the
list of our names, and was off. The Ameriean passengers,
all by this time good friends of mine, came to show me, with
much mirth, paragraphs in the newspapers the pilot had
brought, exhorting their readers nof to chew tobacco or
praise themselves in my presence, under penalty of being
reported of in London for these national foibles.
After dinner we were off Sandy Hook, and the hills of
New-Jersey, Long Island, and Staten Island were growing
purple in the cloudy sunset, when a small shabby steam
boat was seen emerging from the Narrows. Oh, the specu
lations and breathless suspense as to whether she was com
ing to us ! In -a few minutes there remained no further
doubt. Then there was a rush to the side, and one of the
young ladies saw through her tears her two brothers, and
other passengers other relations showing themselves on the
bows of the steamer. They presently boarded us, we
strangers having all retired to the other side. I never liked
introductions better than those which followed. With broad
smiles my passenger friends came up, saying, " I have the
great pleasure of introducing to you my brother." " I am
snre you will be glad to hear that my family are all well."
These are occasions when sympathy is very sweet, and
when it is always ready.
Then was heard the captain's loudest voice, crying, " All
who wish to go up to the city to-night get ready directly."
We had all previously agreed how much better it was that
we should spend thre night on board, as the harbour would
be seen to much more advantage by the morning light ; but
we forgot all this in a moment, and nobody dreamed of being
left behind. Our little bundles were made up in a trice,
and we left our ship. The crew and steerage passengers
assembled on deck, and gave us three parting cheers,
which might be heard all over the harbour. Our gentlemen
returned them, and our hearts yearned towards our beautiful
ship, as she sat dark upon the evening waters, with all her
sails majestically spread. " Does she not look well now ?"
" Does she not show herself beautifully now?" exclaimed
one and another, in the hearing of the gratified captain.
The light was failing as we entered the Narrows. The
captain and several other friends pointed out to me every

FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 35
headland, bay, and fortification as we passed. We were
detained a long while at the quarantine ground. The doctor
was three miles off, and nearly an hour elapsed before the
great news reached him that we were all quite well, and we
were therefore allowed to proceed. It now rained heavily, and
we were obliged to crowd into the small cabin of the poorest
steamer in the bay. There, by the light of one dim and
dirty lamp, was the question first asked me, in joke, which
has since been repeated in so many moods, " How do you
like America ?"- The weather cleared up in another half
hour. We stood in the dark on the wet deck, watching the
yellow lights and shadowy buildings of the shore we were
rapidly nearing, till we felt the expected shock, and jumped
upon the wharf amid the warm welcomes of many friends,
who, in their own joy at alighting on their native shore, did
not forget to make it at once a home to us strangers.
This was at eight in the evening of the 19th of Septem
ber, 1834, after a long but agreeable voyage of forty-two
days.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
" Navigia, atque agri culturas, mcenia, leges
Arma, vias, vesteis, et caetera de genere horum
Prsemia, delicias quoque vitae funditus omneis,
Carmiua, picturas, ac daedala signa, politus
TJsus, et impigra simul ezperientia mentis,
Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredienteis." Lucretius, lib. v.
The moment of first landing in a foreign city is commonly
spoken of as a perfect realization of forlornness. My en
trance upon American life was anything but this. The spir
its of my companions and myself were in a holyday dance
while we were receiving our first impressions ; and New-
York always afterward bore an airof gayety to me from the
association ofthe early pleasures of foreign travel.
Apartments had been secured for us at a boarding-house
in Broadway, and a hackney-coach was in waiting at the
wharf. The moonlight was flickering through the trees of
the Battery, the insects were buzzing all about us, the caty-

36 WESTERN TRAVEL.
dids were grinding, and all the sounds, except human voices,
were quite unlike all we had heard for six weeks. One of
my companions took the sound ofthe catydid for a noise in
her head for many hours after coming into their neighbour
hood. As we rattled over the stones, I was surprised to find
that the street we were in vvas Broadway ; the lower and
narrower end, however ; but nothing that I saw, after all I
had heard, and the panorama of New-York ihat I had visit
ed in London, disappointed me so much as Broadway. Its
length is remarkable, but neither its width itor the style of
its houses. The trees with which it is lined gave it, this first
evening, a foreign air.
Our hostess at the boarding-house shook hands with us,
and ordered lea. While we were waiting for it, and within
ten minutes after I had crossed the first American threshold,
three gentlemen introduced themselves to me, one of whom
was the melancholy politician whom I have mentioned else
where* as having forewarned me of the total overthrow of
the United States' institutions which would certainly take
place while I was in the country. This gentleman after
ward became a dear and intimate friend ; and we found that
politics are, perhaps, the only subject on which we entertain
irreconcilable differences of opinion. We often amused ¦
ourselves with recurring to this our first meeting". This
gentleman afforded me an early specimen of the humour
which I think one of the chief characteristics of the Ameri
cans. In the few minutes during which we were waiting
for tea, he dropped some drolleries so new to me, and so
intense, that I was perplexed what to do with my laughter.
While we were at tea a few gentlemen dropped in, and
read the newspapers at the long table at which we were
seated. One fixed my attention at once. He had the car
riage ofa soldier, with an uncommonly fine countenance, bear
ing a general resemblance to the great men of the Revolution
with whose portraits the English are most familiar. I think
it is not a mere fancy that there is an air common to Wash
ington, Jefferson, and Madison. This gentleman reminded
me of them all ; and the quietness wilh which he made his
remarks, and his evident high breeding, piqued the curiosity
of a stranger. He was General Mason, the father of the
young governor of Michigan, and the most eminent citizen
* Society in America, vol. i., p. 10.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 37
of Detroit. From time to time, in my travels, I met various
members of his family, whose kindness always made me
thankful that accident had placed me in the same house with
them at the outset.
In our rooms we found beds with four posts, looking as
if meant to hang gowns and bonnets upon ; for there was
no tester. The washstand was without tumbler, glass, soap,
or brush-tray. The candlestick had no snuffers. There
was, however, trie luxury, sufficient for the occasion, that
every article of /furniture stood still in its place, and that
the apartment itself did not rock up and down. The first
few days after a voyage go far towards making one believe
that some things have a quality of stability, however one
may be metaphysically convinced that the sea affords a far
truer hint of the incessant flux and change which are the
law of the universe. If I had rejoiced in the emblem at sea,
I now enjoyed the deception on land.
At five in the morning I threw up my sash to see what I
could see. I cannot conceive what travellers mean by say
ing that there is little that is foreign in the aspect of New-
York. I beheld nothing at this moment that I could have
seen at home, except the sky and the grass of the courtyard.
The houses were all neatly and brightly painted, had green
outside blinds to every window, and an apparatus for drying
linen on the roof. A young lady in black silk, with her
hair neatly dressed, was mopping the steps of one house,
and a similar young lady was dusting the parlour of another.
A large locust-tree grew in the middle of the courtyard of
the house I was in, and under it was a truly American wood
pile. Two negroes were at the pump, and a third was car
rying muskmelons.
When the breakfast-bell rang the long and cross tables
in the eating-room were filled in five minutes. The cross
table, at which our hostess presided, was occupied by Gen
eral Mason's family, a party of Spaniards, and ourselves.
The long one was filled up with families returning south
ward from the springs ; married persons without children,
who preferred boarding to housekeeping ; and single gen
tlemen, chiefly merchants. I found this mode of living
rather formidable the first day ; and not all the good man
ners that 1 saw at public tables ever reconciled me to it.
From a trunk belonging to a lady of our party having been
Vol. I.— D

38 WESTERN TRAVEL.
put on board a wrong ship, we had some immediate shop
ping to do, and to find a mantuamaker. We suspected we
should soon be detained at home by callers, and therefore
determined to transact our business at once, though our lug
gage had not arrived from the custom-house, and we were
not "dressed for Broadway," as the phrase is.
In the streets I was in danger of being run down by the
fire-engines, so busy were my eyes with the novelties about
me. These fire-engines run along the side-pavement, stop
ping for nobody ; and I scarcely ever walked out in New-
York without seeing one or more out on business, or for an
airing. The novelties which amused me were the spruce ap
pearance of all the people ; the pervading neatness and bright
ness, and the business-like air of the children. The carmen
were all well dressed, and even two poor boys who were
selling matches had clean shirt-collars and whole coats,
though they were barefooted. The stocks of goods seemed
large and handsome, and we were less struck with the in
difference of manner commonly ascribed to American store
keepers than frequently afterward. The most unpleasant
circumstance was the appearance and manner of the ladies
whom we saw in the streets and stores. It was now the
end of a very hot summer, and every lady we met looked
as if she were emerging from the yellow fever ; and the lan
guid and unsteady step betokened the reverse of health.
The heat was somewhat oppressive. We were in the
warm dresses we had put on while yet at sea, as our trunks
had not made their appearance. Trains of callers came in
the afternoon and evening ; members of Congress, candidates
for state offices, fellow-passengers and their friends, and
other friends of our friends ; and still we were not " dressed
for Broadway." In the evening the luggage of my com
panions was brought up, but not mine. Special orders had
been issued from the custom-house that my baggage should
pass without examination ; and it was therefore at this mo
ment on board ship. To-night it was too late ; next morn
ing it was Sunday, and everything in the held was under
lock and key, and unattainable till Monday. There seemed
no hope of my getting out all day, and I was really vexed.
I wanted tp see the churches, and hear the preaching, and
be doing what others were doing ; but the heat was plainly
too great to be encountered in any gown but a muslin one.
\ lady boarding in the house happened to hear of the case,

FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 39
and sent her servant to say that she believed her dresses
would fit me, and that she should be happy to supply me
with a gown and bonnet till my trunks should arrive. I ac
cepted her kind offer without any scruple, feeling that a ser
vice like this was just what I should wish to render to any
lady under the same circumstances ; so I went to church
equipped in a morning-gown and second-best bonnet of this
neighbourly lady's.
The church that we went to was the Unitarian church in
Chamber-street. Its regular pastor was absent, and a pro
fessional brother from Philadelphia preached. We were
most deeply impressed by the devotional part of his service,
delivered in a voice which I have certainly never heard
equalled for music and volume. His discourse moved us no
less. We looked at one another in much delight. I warned
my companion not to be too certain that this preaching was
all we then felt it to be ; we had been six Sundays at sea,
and some of the impression might be owing to this being the
renewal of the privilege of social worship in a church. I
heard much of the same preaching afterward, however ; and
I am now of the same opinion that I was this first day ; that
it is the most true, simple, and solemn that I ever listened
to. The moment the service was over the minister eame
down from the pulpit, addressed me as an old friend, and re
quested me to accept the hospitality of his house when I
should visit Philadelphia. Under the emotions of the hour
it was impossible to help giving a glad assent ; and in his
house I afterward enjoyed many weeks of an intercourse as
intimate as can ever exist between members of the same
family. We kept up the most rapid and copious correspond
ence the whole time I was in America, and he and his
wife were my American brother and sister, the depositaries
of all those " impressions" on the mind of a stranger about
which American society is so anxious.
General Mason introduced me to Governor Cass, then
secretary-at-war, now ambassador at Paris. Governor
Cass is a shrewd, hard-looking man, the very concentration
of American caution. He is an accomplished and an honest
man ; but his dread of committing himself renders both his
solid and ornamental good qualities of less value to society
than they should be. The state of Michigan, which is un
der great obligations to him, is proud of her citizen ; and it
la agreed, I believe, on all hands, that his appointment is

40 WESTERN TRAVEL.
more satisfactory and honourable to his country than that
of many who have been sent as ministers to foreign courts.
I feel some doubt about giving any account of the public
men of the United States ; I do not mean scruples of con
science ; for when a man comes forward in political or
other kind of public life, he makes a present of himself to
society at large, and his person, mind, and manners become
a legitimate subject of observation and remark. My doubts
arise from the want of interest in the English about the great
men of America ; a want of interest which arises from no
fault in either party, I believe, but from the baseness of the
newspapers, whose revilings of all persons in turn who fill
a public station are so disgusting as to discourage curiosity,
and set all friendly interest at defiance. The names of the
English political leaders of the day are almost as familiar
in the mouths of Americans as of natives, while people in
London are asking who Mr. Clay is, and what part of the
Union Mr. Calhoun comes from. The deeds of Mr. Clay
and the aspirations of Mr. Calhoun would be at least as in
teresting in London as the proceedings of French and Ger
man statesmen, if they could be fairly placed under obser
vation ; but every man of feeling and taste recoils from wa
ding through such a slough of rancour, folly, and falsehood
as the American newspapers present as the only medium
through which the object is to be attained.
Mr. Gallatin's name is, however, everywhere known and
welcome. Mr. Gallatin did me the honour of calling on
me in New York, having heard that I desired to learn the
precise grounds of the quarrel which was agitating the
country about the bank. I was delighted to listen to his
full and luminous report of the question, and of many other
matters, on which he spoke with a freedom and courtesy
which would go far towards making the current of human af
fairs run smooth, if they were but general. He told me some
thing of the early part of his career, which began in 1787 ; de
scribed his three visits to England, and sketched the charac
ter of the reigns of our last two kings, of Louis Philippe, and
of President Jackson. He entered upon the philosophy of
the presidentship ; exhibited the spirit of the three great divis
ions of the United States, the north, south, and west ; ex
plained the principles on which the letting of land proceeds ;
described the Germans and other agricultural population of
the country, and showed the process by which the aristo-

FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 41
cratic class rises and is replenished in a democratic repub
lic. While he was talking I felt as if 'he was furnishing
me with new powers of observation; and when he was
gone I hastened to secure what he had told me, lest its
novelty and abundance should deceive my memory. I be
lieve Mr. Gallatin was at this time seventy-two ; but he did
not appear so old. He is tall, and looks dignified and cour
teous. He is a native of Switzerland, and speaks with a
very slight foreign accent, but with a flow and liveliness
which are delightful.
I was assured at the outset that the late abolition riots in
New- York were the work of the Irish emigrants, who feared
the increase of a free black population as likely to interfere
with their monopoly of certain kinds of labour. This I af
terward found to be untrue. Some Irish may have joined
in " the row," but the mischief originated with natives. It
is remarkable that I heard no more of abolition for many
weeks ; I think not till I was about leaving Philadelphia.
We obtained some " impressions" of the environs of New-
York to add to those we had of the city itself, by going to
spend an evening at Mr. Kings at High Wood, two miles
beyond Hoboken, on the New-Jersey side of the river. The
frame cottages, with their thatched verandahs, struck me as
very pretty. I could not say much for the beauty of the
corn, whose plants, long since stripped of their cobs, were
standing yellow and dry, and fast hastening to decay.
There were ridges of gray rock, interspersed with woods,
which still flourished in their summer greenness. Above
all was a sunset, which, if seen in England, would persuade
the nation that the end of the world was come. The whole
arch of the sky appeared lined with conflagration. It
seemed strange to see the wagon-driver talking with his
bullocks and the old Dutch dame spinning in the stoop as
quietly as if that scarlet sky had been of its usual summer
blue. I was shown on the way the spot where Hamilton re
ceived his death-wound from Colonel Burr. It was once
made a qualification for office that the candidate should
never have fought a duel. Duelling is an institution not to
be reached by such a provision as this. No man under
provocation to fight would refrain from fear of disqualifying
himself for office hereafter ; and the operation of the restric
tion was accordingly found to be this ; that duels were as
D 2

42 WESTERN TRAVEL.
frequent as ever, and that desirable candidates were exclu
ded. The provision was got rid of on the plea that prom
issory oaths are bad in principle. The cure of duelling, as
of every other encroachment of passion and selfishness on
such higher principles as, being passive, cannot be imbod-
ied in acts, must be the natural result of the improved moral
condition ofthe individual or of society. No one believes
that the legal penalties of duelling have had much effect in
stopping the practice ; and it is an injury to society to
choose out of the ample range of penalties disqualification
for social duty as one.
The view from Mr. King's garden at High Wood is
beautiful. From one opening a reach of twelve miles of
the Hudson is commanded, from the Narrows upward. A
soft red light was resting on the waters, the last tinge from
the late flaming sky. The dark sloops moored below were
thus rendered visible, while the twilight shrouded the rocks.
Opposite there was a flare in the woods from a glasshouse ;
and the lights of the city twinkled afar off, reflected in the
waters. One of the first impressions of a foreigner in New-York
is of the extreme insolence ahd vulgarity of certain young
Englishmen, who thus make themselves very conspicuous.
Well-mannered Englishmen are scarcely distinguishable
from the natives, and thus escape observation ; while every
commercial traveller who sneers at republicanism all day
long, and every impertinent boy, leaving home for the first
time, with no understanding or sympathy for anything but
what he has been accustomed to see at home, obtrudes him
self upon the notice, and challenges the congeniality of such
countrymen and countrywomen as he can contrive to put
himself in the way of. I was annoyed this evening, on my
return home, by a very complete specimen of the last-men
tioned order of travellers.
Need I say, after thus detailing the little incidents which
followed my landing in America, that my first impressions
of the country were highly agreeable ?

THE HUDSON. 43

THE HUDSON.
" Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms : upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie." Bryant.
I went three times up the Hudson ; and, if I lived at
New- York, should be tempted to ascend it three times
a week during the summer. Yet the greater number of
ladies on board the steamboat remained in the close cabin
among the crying babies, even while we were passing the
finest scenery of the river. They do not share the taste of
a gentleman who, when I was there, actually made the
steamboat his place of abode during the entire summer
season, sleeping on board at Albany and New-York on al
ternate nights, and gazing at the shores all the day long
with apparently undiminishing delight.
The first time we went up the early part of the morning
was foggy, and the mist hung about the ridge of the Pali
sades, the rocky western barrier of the river. There were
cottages perched here and there, and trees were sprinkled
in the crevices, and a little yellow strand, just wide enough
for the fisherman and his boat, now and then intervened be
tween the waters and the perpendicular rock. In the shad
owy recesses of the shore wore sloops moored. Seagulls
dipped their wings in the gleams of the river, and the soli
tary fishhawk sailed slowly over the woods. I saw on the
eastern bank a wide flight of steps cut in the turf, leading to
an opening in the trees, at the end of which stood a white
house, apparently in deep retirement. Farther on the river
widened into the Tappan Sea, and then the hills rose higher
behind the banks, and wandering gleams lighted up a mount
ain region here and there. The captain admitted us, as
strangers (of course without any hint from us), into the wheel-
room, which was shady, breezy, roomy, and commanding
the entire view. Hence we were shown Mr. Irvings's cot
tage, the spot where Andre was captured, and the other in-

44 WESTERN TRAVEL.
teresting points of the scenery. Then the banks seemed to
close, and it was matter for conjecture where the outlet was.
The waters were hemmed in by abrupt and dark mountains,
but the channel was still broad and smooth enough for all
the steamboats in the republic to ride in safety. Ridges of
rock plunged into the waters, garnished with trees which
seemed to grow without soil ; above them were patches of
cultivation on the mountain sides, and slopes of cleared land,
with white houses upon them. Doves flitted among the
nearest trees, and gay rowboats darted from point to point
from one island to another.
West Point, beautiful as it is, was always visible too soon.
Yet to leave the boat was the only way to remain in sight
of the Highlands ; and the charms of the place itself are
searcely to be surpassed. The hotel is always full of good
company in the season. Mr. Cozens keeps a table for the
officers, and is permitted to add as many guests as his
house will hold; but, under such circumstances, he takes
pains to admit only such as are fit company for his perma
nent boarders. The views from the hotel are so fine, and
there is such a provision of comfort and entertainment, that
there would be no hardship in sitting within doors for a
week ; but we made the best use we could of our opportu
nities, and saw and achieved everything pertaining to the
place, except mounting the Crow's Nest; an expedition
which the heat ofthe weather prevented our undertaking.
In some solitary spots of this settlement the stranger can
not help meditating on the vast materials of human happi
ness which are placed at the disposal of the real administra
tors of this great country. How great is the apparatus to
be yet put to use ! Here, where life is swarming all around,
how few are the habitations of men ! Here are woods
climbing above woods to the clouds and stretching to the
horizon, in which myriads of creatures are chirping, hum
ming, and sporting ; clefts whence the waters gush out ;
green slopes ready for the plough and the sickle ; fiat mead
ows with a few haycocks lying at the foot of mountains as
yet untouched. Grasshoppers spring at every step one
takes in the rich grass, and many a blue dragon-fly bal
ances itself on the tips of the strongest blades ; butterflies,
green, black, white, and yellow, dazzle the eye that would
follow them ; yet how few men are near ! A gay group on
the steps of the hotel, a company of cadets parading on the

THE HUDSON. 45
green, the ferryman and his fare, and the owners of this, and
that, and the other house perched upon the pinnacles of the
hills ; these are all as yet visible in a region which will here
after be filled with speech and busy with thought.
On the steep above the landing-place I vvas introduced to
Mr. Irving, with whom I had a few minutes' conversation
before he stepped into the ferryboat which was to take him
over to the foundry to dinner. Many other persons with
whom I was glad to have the opportunity of becoming ac
quainted were at the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were our
guides to Fort Putnam after dinner ; walkers as active and
resolute as ourselves. The beauty from this elevated plat
form is really oppressive to the sense. One is glad to di
vert one's attention from its awful radiance by walking in
precipitous places, by visiting the cell in which it is said,
but doubtfully, that Andre was confined, or even by medita
ting on the lot of the solitary cow that has the honour of
grazing in the midst of the only ruins that adorn American
scenery. A lady in the hotel offered to meet me on the housetop at
five o'clock in the morning to see the sun rise. I looked
out at three ; there was a solitary light twinkling in the acad
emy, and a faint gleam out of a cloudy sky upon the river.
At five the sky was so thickly overspread with clouds that
the expedition to the housetop had to be abandoned. The
morning afterward cleared, and I went alone down to Kos
ciusko's Garden. I loved this retreat at an hour when I
was likely to have it to myself. It is a nook scooped, as it
were, out of the rocky bank of the river, and reached by
descending several flights of steps from the platform behind
the hotel and academy. Besides the piled rocks and the
vegetation with which they are clothed, there is nothing but
a clear spring, which wells up in a stone basin inscribed
with the hero's name. This was his favourite retreat ; and
here he sat for many hours in a day with his book and his
thoughts. After fancying for some time that I was alone,
and playing with the fountain and the leaves of the red beech
and the maple, now turning into its autumnal scarlet, I found,
on looking up, that one of the cadets was stretched at length
on a high projection of rock, and that another was coming
down the steps. The latter accosted me, offering to point
out to me the objects of interest about the place. We had a
long conversation about his academical life.

46 WESTERN TRAVEL.
The students apply themselves to mathematics during the
first and second years ; during the third, to mathematics,
chymistry, and natural philosophy ; and during the fourth, to
engineering. There is less literary pursuit than they or
their friends would like ; but they have not time for every
thing. Their work is from seven in the morning till four in
the afternoon, with the exception of two hours for meals.
Then come drill and recreation, and then the evening parade.
During six weeks (I think) of the summer they camp out,
which some of the youths enjoy, while others like it so much
less than living under a roof, that they take this time to be
absent on furlough. The friends of others come to see them
while the pretty spectacle of a camp is added to the attrac
tions of the place. Every care is used that the proficiency
should be maintained at the highest point that it can be made
to reach. The. classes consist of not less than one hundred
and forty, of whom only forty graduate. Some find the
work too hard ; some dislike the routine ; others are post
poned ; and by this careful weeding out the choicest are kept
for the public service. This process may go some way to
wards accounting for the present unpopularity of the institu
tion, and the consequent danger of its downfall. The number
of disappointed youths, whose connexions will naturally bear
a grudge against the establishment, must be great. There
is a belief abroad that its principle and administration are
both anti-republiean ; and in answer to an irresistible popular
demand, a committee of Congress has been engaged in in
vestigating both the philosophy and practice of this national
military academy; for some time previous to which there
was difficulty in obtaining the annual appropriation for its
support. I have not seen the report of this committee, but I
was told that the evidence on which it is founded is very unfa
vourable to the conduct ofthe establishment in a political point
of view. The advantages of such an institution in securing
a uniformity of military conduct in case of war, from the
young soldiers of all the states having received a common
education ; in affording one meeting point where sectional
prejudice may be dissolved ; and in concentrating the atten
tion of the whole union upon maintaining a high degree of
proficiency in science, are so great, that it is no wonder that
an indignant and honest cry is raised against those who
would abolish it on account of' its aristocratical tendencies.
I rather think it is a case in which both parties are more than

THE HUDSON. 47
commonly right ; that it is an institution which can scarcely
be dispensed with, but which requires to be watched with
the closest jealousy, that there may be no abuse of patronage,
and no such combination as could lead to the foundation of a
military aristocracy.
I saw the well-selected library, consisting of several thou
sand volumes, the spacious lecture-rooms, and students'
apartments. I often wonder whether students are at all
aware of the wistful longing, the envy, with which those
who are precluded from academical life view the arrange
ments of colleges. No library in a private house conveys
any idea of the power of devotion to study which is sug
gested by the sight of a student's apartment in a college.
The sight of the snug solitary room, the bookshelves, the
single desk and armchair, the larum, and even the flower
pot or two in the window, and the portrait of some favourite
philosophical worthy ; these things send a thrill of envy
through the heart of the thoughtful politician, or man of
business, or woman, who cannot command such facilities for
study. I know that the fallacy of attributing too much to
external arrangements enters here ; that many study to as
much advantage under difficulties as any academical mem
ber in his retirement ; I know, too, that the student shares
the human weakness of finding evil in his lot, and supposing
that he should be better in some other circumstances ; I
know this by a revelation once made to me by a college
student, for whose facilities I had been intensely thankful, a
revelation of his deep and incessant trouble because he was
living to himself, selfishly studying, and obliged to wait four
or five years before he could bestir himself for his race ; yet,
in spite of all this knowledge that the common equality of
pleasures and pains subsists here, I never see the interior of
a college without longing to impress upon its inmates how
envied and enviable they are. It is difficult to remember
that the stillness of the cell is of no avail without the in ten t-
ness of the mind, and that there is no efficacious solitude in
the deepest retirement if the spirit is roving abroad after
schemes of pleasure or ambition, or even of piety and be
nevolence, which are not the appointed duty of the time.
But I have wandered from my new acquaintance in Kos
ciusko's Garden.
I was suprised to learn the extraordinary high average of
health the place can boast of. The young men enter at the

48 WESTERN TRAVEL.
age of from fourteen to twenty, stay three or four years, and
number about three hundred at a time. The mortality in
the seventeen years preceding my visit was only five. For
eight years before the winter of 1834 there had been no
death. Within a few months after, the superintendent's
wife, a servant, and a cadet died ; and this was, of course,
considered an extraordinary mortality. I rather wondered
at this account, for the young men look anything but robust,
and the use of tobacco among them is very free indeed. It
is prohibited, but not the less indulged in on that account,
nor from the absence of evil example in their superintend
ents. My new acquaintance made very frank confessions
on this subject. He told me that he believed the free use
of tobacco had extensively and irreparably injured his health,
and that he bitterly mourned his first indulgence in it.
" Do not you mean to leave it off?" said I.
"No."" Do you think you could not ?"
" I could ; but it would take three weeks to cure myself ;
and during that time I could do nothing ; and I cannot afford
that. I could not learn my lessons without it, and the loss
of three weeks would injure all my prospects in life."
" Hardly so fatally as the ruin of your health, I should
think. Is your case a common one here ?"
" Too common. But I assure you I do all I can to pre
vent the bad consequences of my own example. I warn
my juniors, as they come in, very seriously."
" Do you find your warnings of much use ?"
" I am afraid not much."
" They have the usual fate of mere precept, I suppose ?"
41 Yes, I am afraid so."
The manners ofthe cadets are excellent. They are al
lowed, under restrictions, to mix with the company at Mr.
Cozens's, and thus to be frequently into ladies' society.
There is a book kept at the hotel, where every cadet must,
at each visit, enter his name at length, and the duration of
his stay.
The second time I was at West Point was during the
camping-out season. The artillery drill in the morning was
very noisy and grand to the ladies, who had never seen any
thing of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war."
Then the cadets retired to their tents, and the ladies flitted
about all the morning, making calls on each other. When

THE HUDSON. 49
we had discharged this first of a traveller's duties, we saun
tered to the cemetery. Never did I see such a spot to be
buried in. The green hill projects into the river so that the
monumental pillar erected by the cadets to the comrade
who was killed by the bursting of a gun in 1817 is visible
from twa long reaches. One other accident had occurred a
little while. before ; a cadet had been killed by a comrade in
fencing. The tombs are few, and the inscriptions simple.
Broad, spreading trees overshadow the long grass, and the
whole is so hemmed in, so intensely quiet, that no sound is
to be heard but the plash of oars from below and the hum
of insects around, except when the evening gun booms over
the heights, or the summer storm reverberates among the
mountains. Such a storm I had beheld the evening before from the
piazza of the hotel. 1 stayed from the parade to watch
it. As the thick veil of rain came down, the mountains
seemed to retire, growing larger as they receded. As the
darkness advanced, the scene became strangely compound.
A friend sat with me in the piazza, talking of the deepest
subjects on which human thought can speculate. Behind
us were the open windows of the hotel, where, by turning
the head, we might see the dancing going on ; the gallant
cadets and their pretty partners, while all the black servants
ofthe house ranged their laughing faces in the rear. The
music of the ballroom came to us mingling with the pro
longed bursts of thunder ; and other and grander strains
rose from the river, where two large steamboats, with their
lights, moved like constellations on the water, conveying a
regiment from Pennsylvania which was visiting the soldiery
of New- York State. They sent up rockets into the murky
sky, and poured new blasts of music from their band as they
passed our promontory. Every moment the lightning burst ;
now illuminating the interior of a mass of clouds; now
quivering from end to end of heaven ; now shedding broad
livid gleams, which suddenly revealed a solitary figure on
the terrace, a sloop on the waters, and every jutting point
of rock. Still the dance went on till the hour struck which
abruptly called the youths away from their partners, and
bade them hie to their tents.
On returning from the cemetery we found Mr. and Mrs.
Kemble, from the opposite side of the river, waiting to offer
us their hospitality ; and we agreed to visit them in the af-
Vol. I.— E

50 WESTERN TRAVEL.
ternoon. Mr. Kemble's boat awaited us at the landing-
place by three o'clock, and we rowed about some time be
fore landing on the opposite ban;:, so irresistible is the
temptation to linger in this scene of magical beauty. The
Catholic chapel of Coldspring is well placed on a point above
the river ; and the village, hidden from West Point by a
headland, is pretty. From Mr. Kemble's we were to be
treated with a visit to the Indian Fall, and were carried
within half a mile of it by water. We followed the brawl
ing brook for lhat distance, when we saw the glistening of
the column of water through the trees. No fall can be
prettier for its size, which is just small enough to tempt one
io climb. A gentleman of our party made the attempt ; but
the rocks were too slippery with wet weed, and he narrowly
escaped a tumble of twenty feet into the dark pool below.
The boys, after bringing us branches of the black cherry,
clustered with the fruit, found a safe and dry way up, and
appeared waving their green boughs in triumph at the top of
the rocks. The tide had risen so that the river was brim
ming full as we returned, and soft with the mountain shad
ows ; but we landed at West Point in time to see the sun set
twice, as it happened. At the landing-place we stood to see
it drop behind the mountain ; but just after we had bidden it
good-night, I saw that a meditative cadet, lying at length upon
a rock, was still basking in the golden light, and I ran up the
steep to the piazza. There, in a gap between two summits,
was the broad disk, as round as ever ; and once more we
saw it sink in a tranquillity almost as grand as the stormy
splendour of the preceding night. Then ensued the evening
parade, guitar music in the hotel, and dancing in the camp.
This evening a lady and her daughter steamed down from
Fishkill with a request to us to spend a few days there ; and
a clergyman steamed up from New-York with an invitation
from Doctor Hosack to visit him and his family at Hyde
Park. Wecould not do both ; and there was some difficulty
in contriving to do either, anxiously as we desired it ; but
we presently settled that Fishkill must be given up, and that
we must content ourselves with two days at Hyde Park.
The next morning I experienced a sensation which I had
often heard of, but never quite believed in ; the certainty
that one has wakened in another world. Those who have
travelled much know that a frequent puzzle, on waking from
sound sleep in new places, is to know where one is ; even in

THE HUDSON. 51
what country of the world. This night I Jeft my window
open close to my head, so that I could see the stars reflected
in the river. When I woke the scene was steeped in the
light of the sunrise, and as still as death. Its ineffable
beauty was all; I remarked no individual objects; but my
heart stood still with an emotion which I should be glad to
think I may feel again whenever I really do enter a new
scene of existence. It was some time before my senses
were separately roused ; during the whole day I could not
get rid of the impression that I had seen a vision ; and even
now I can scarcely look back upon the scene as the very
same which, at other hours, I saw clouded with earth-drawa
vapours, and gilded by the common sun.
At eleven o'clock we left West Point ; and I am glad
that we felt sure at the time that we should visit it again ;
a design which we did not accomplish, as the place was
ravaged by scarlet fever at the season of the next year that
we had fixed for our visit. Mr. Livingston, who had just
returned from his French mission, was on board the boat.
My letters of introduction to him were at the bottom of my
trunk ; but we did not put off becoming acquainted till I
could get at them.
Mr. Livingston's name is celebrated and honoured in
England (as over all Europe), through its connexion with
the Louisiana Code, this gentleman's great work. He was
bom and educated in the state of New-York. While pus-
suing his studies at Princeton College in 1779 and 1780,
he was subject to strange interruptions, the professors being
repeatedly driven from their chairs by incursions of the
enemy, and their scholars on such occasions forming a corps
to go out and fight. The library was scattered, the philo
sophical apparatus destroyed, and the college buildings
shared with troops quartered in the establishment; yet
young Livingston left college a good scholar. He was
a member of the fourth Congress, and there made himself
remarkable by his exertions to ameliorate the criminal code
of the United States, then as sanguinary as those of the Old
World. In 1801 he returned to the practice of his profes
sion of the law in New- York, but was not long; permitted to
decline public life. He was appointed attorney of the state
of New- York, and mayor of the city. He remained in the
city, in the discharge of his duties, while the yellow fever
drove away every one who could remove. He nearly died

52 WESTERN TRAVEL.
of the disease, and was ruined in his private affairs by his
devotion to the public service. In 1804 he resigned his
offices, and retired to Louisiana (then a new acquisition of
the United States) to retrieve his fortunes ; and from thence
he discharged all his obligations, paying his debts, with in
terest upon them, to the last farthing. He was deprived,
by a mistake of President Jefferson's, of an immense prop
erty which he had acquired there, and was involved in ex
pensive litigation of many years' duration. The law de
cided in his favour, and the controversy ended in a manner
the most honourable to both parties ; in a reciprocation of
hearty good-will.
During the invasion of Louisiana by the British Mr.
Livingston took a prominent part in the defence of the state ;
and, when it was over, undertook, with two coadjutors, the
formidable task of simplifying its laws, entangled as they
were with Spanish prolixities, and all manner of unnecessary
and unintelligible provisions. His system was adopted, and
has been in use ever since. In 1820 the system of mu
nicipal law was revised at New-Orleans under the superin
tendence of Mr. Livingston, and his amendments were put in
practice in 1823. He was at the same time engaged, without
assistance, in preparing his celebrated penalcode. When
it was all ready for the press, in 1824, he sat up late one
night to ascertain finally the correctness of the fair copy ; and,
having finished, retired to rest in a state of calm satisfac
tion at his great work being completed. He was awakened
by a cry of fire. The room where he had been employed was
burning, and every scrap of his papers was consumed. Not
a note or memorandum was saved.
He appeared to be stunned for the hour ; but, before the
day closed, he had begun his labours again, and he never
relaxed till, in two years from the time of the fire, he pre
sented his work to the legislature of Louisiana, improved by
the reconsideration which he had been compelled to give it.
Men of all countries who understand jurisprudence seem
to think that no praise of this achievement can be exces
sive. He afterward represented Louisiana in both Houses of
Congress; became Secretary of State in 1831 ; and, in 1833,
minister to France. His was a busy life, of doing, suffer
ing, and, we may confidently add, enjoying ; for his was a

THE HUDSON. 53
nature full of simplicity, modesty, and benevolence. His
industry is of itself exhilarating to contemplate.
During the whole preceding year 1 had heard Mr. Liv
ingston's name almost daily in connexion with his extremely
difficult negotiations between the United States and France,
or, rather, between President Jackson and Louis Philippe. I
had read his despatches (some of which were made public
that were never designed to be so), and had not been quite
satisfied as to their straightforwardness, but concluded, on
the whole, that he had done as much as human wits could
well do in so absurd, and perplexed, and dangerous a quarrel,
where the minister had to manage the temper of his own
potentate as well as baffle the policy of the European
monarch. A desire for peace and justice was evident through
the whole of Mr. Livingston's correspondence ; and under
all, a strong wish to get home. Here he was, now plough
ing his way up his own beloved river, whose banks were
studded with the country-seats of a host of his relations.
He came to me on the upper deck, and sat looking very
placid with his staff between his knees, and his strong, ob
serving countenance melting into an expression of pleasure
when he described to me his enjoyment in burying himself
among the mountains of Switzerland. He said he would
not now hear of mountains anywhere else ; at least not in
either his own country or mine. He gave me some opin
ions upon the government of the King of the French which
I little expected to hear from the minister of a democratic
republic. We were deep in this subject when a great hiss
ing of the steam made us look up and see that we were at
Hyde Park, and that Dr. Hosack and a party of ladies were
waiting for me on the wharf. I repeatedly met Mr. Living
ston in society in New- York the next spring, when a deaf
ness, which had been slight, was growing upon him, and im
pairing his enjoyment of conversation. The last time I saw
him was at the christening of a grand-niece, when he looked
well in health, but conversed little, and seemed rather out
of spirits. Within a month of that evening he was seized
with pleurisy, which would in all probability have yielded
to treatment ; but he refused medicine, and was carried off
after a very short illness. Dr. Hosack died some months
before him. How little did I think, as I now went from the
one to the other, that both these vigorous old men would be
E2

54 WESTERN TRAVEL.
laid in their graves even before my return home should call
upon me to bid them farewell !
The aspect of Hyde Park from the river had disappointed
me, after all I had heard of it. It looks little more than a
white house upon a ridge. I was therefore doubly delighted
when I found what this ridge really was. It is a natural
terrace, overhanging one ofthe sweetest reaches of the river ;
and, though broad and straight at the top, not square and
formal, like an artificial embankment, but undulating, sloping,
and sweeping between the ridge and the river, and dropped
with trees ; the whole carpeted with turf, tempting grown
people, who happen to have the spirits of children, to run
up and down the slopes, and play hide-and-seek in the hol
lows. Whatever we might be talking of as we paced the
terrace, 1 felt a perpetual inclination to start off for play.
Yet, when the ladies and ourselves actually did something
like it, threading the little thickets and rounding every
promontory, even to the farthest (which they call Cape
Horn), I felt that the possession of such a place ought
to make a man devout if any of the gifts of Providence
can do so. To hold in one's hand that which melts all
strangers' hearts is to be a steward in a very serious sense
of the term. Most liberally did Dr. Hosack dispense the
means of enjoyment he possessed. Hospitality is insepar
ably connected with his name in the minds of all who ever
heard it ; and it was hospitality of the heartiest and most
gladsome kind.
Dr. Hosack had a good library ; I believe, one of the best
private libraries in the country ; some good pictures, and
botanical and mineralogical cabinets of value. Among the
ornaments of his house I observed some biscuits and vases
once belonging to Louis XVI., purchased by Dr. Hosack
from a gentleman who had them committed to his keeping
during the troubles of the first French Revolution.
In the afternoon Dr. Hosack drove me in his gig round
his estate, which lies on both sides of the high road ; the
farm on one side and the pleasure-grounds on the other.
The conservatory is remarkable for America ; and the flower-
garden all that it can be made under present circumstances,
but the neighbouring country people have no idea of a gen
tleman's pleasure in his garden, and of respecting it. On
occasions of weddings and other festivities, the villagers
come up into the Hyde Park grounds to enjoy themselves ;

THE HUDSON. 35
and persons who would not dream of any other mode of
theft, pull up rare plants, as they would wild flowers in the
woods, and carry them away. Dr. Hosack would frequently
see some flower that he had brought with much pains from
Europe flourishing in some garden of the village below. As
soon as he explained the nature of the case, the plant would
be restored with all zeal and care ; but the losses were so
frequent and provoking as greatly to moderate his horti
cultural enthusiasm. We passed through the poultry-yard,
where the congregation of fowls exceeded in. number and
bustle any that I had ever seen. We drove round his
kitchen-garden too, where he had taken pains to grow every
kind of vegetable which will flourish in that climate. Then
crossing the road, after paying our respects to his dairy of
fine cows, we drove through the orchard, and round Cape
Horn, and refreshed ourselves with the sweet river views on
our way home. There we sat in the pavilion, and he told
me much of De Witt Clinton, and showed me his own Life
of Clinton, a copy of which he said should await me on my
return to New- York. When that time came he was no
more ; but his promise was kindly borne in mind by his
lady, from whose hands I received the valued legacy.
We saw some pleasant society at Hyde Park : among the
rest, some members of the wide-spreading Livingston family,
and the Rev. Charles Stewart, who lived for some years as
missionary in the South Sea Islands, and afterward pub
lished a very interesting account of his residence there. His
manners, which are particularly gentlemanly and modest,
show no traces of a residence among savages, or of the shifts
and disorder of a missionary life ; nor of any bad effects
from the sudden fame which awaited him on his return into
civilized life. I remember with great pleasure a conversa
tion we had by the river-side, which proved to me that he
understands the philosophy of fame, knowing how to ap
propriate the good and reject the evil that it brings, and
which deepened the respect I had entertained for him from
the beginning of our acquaintance.
The Livingston family, one of the oldest, most numerous,
and opulent in the States, has been faithful in the days of
its greatness to its democratic principles. In Boston it
seems a matter of course that the " first people" should be
federalists ; that those who may be aristocratic in station
should become aristocratic in principle. The Livingstons

56 WESTERN TRAVEL.
are an evidence that this need not be. Amid their splendid
entertainments in New- York, and in their luxurious retire
ments on the Hudson, they may be heard going further than
most in defence of President Jackson's idiosyncracy. Their
zeal in favour of Mr. Van Buren was accounted for by many
from the natural bias of the first family in the state of New-
York in favour of the first president furnished by that state ;
but there is no reason to find any such cause. The
Livingstons have consistently advocated the most liberal
principles through all changes ; and that they retain their
democratic opinions in the midst of their opulence and family
influence is not the less honourable to them for their party
having now the ascendency.
Dr. Hosack and his family accompanied us down to the
wharf to see Mr. Stewart off by one boat and our party by
another, when, on the third day of our visit, we were obliged
to depart. Our hearts would have been more sorrowful than
they were if we had foreseen that we should not enjoy our
promised meeting with this accomplished and amiable family
at New- York.
Dr. Hosack was a native American, but his father was
Scotch. After obtaining the best medical education he could
in America, he studied in Edinburgh and London, and hence
his affectionate relations with Great Britain, and the warmth
with which he welcomed English travellers. "He practised
medicine in New- York for upward of forty years, and filled
the Professorship of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia
College for some time. He distinguished himself by his
successful attention to the causes and treatment of yellow
fever. But his services out of his profession were as emi
nent as any for which his fellow-citizens are indebted to him.
He rendered liberal aid to various literary, scientific, and
benevolent institutions, and was always willing and inde
fatigable in exertion for public objects. One of the most
painful scenes of his life was the duel in which Hamilton
perished. Dr. Hosack was Hamilton's second, and, proba
bly, as well aware as his principal and others that the en
counter could hardly end otherwise than as it did. Dr.
Hosack was in New- York with his family the winter after
my visit to Hyde Park. He was one day in medical con
versation with Dr. M'Vickar of that city, and observed that it
would not do for either of them to have an attack of apoplexy,
as there would be small chance of their surviving it. With-

FINE ORCHARD HOUSE. 57
in two weeks both were dead of apoplexy. Dr. Hosack
lost property in the great fire at New-York ; he over-exerted
himself on the night of the fire, and the fatigue and anxiety
brought on an attack of the disease he dreaded, under which
he presently sank from amid the well-earned enjoyments of
a vigorous and prosperous old age. He was in his 67th
year, and showed to the eye of a stranger no symptom of
decline. His eye was bright, his spirits as buoyant, and his
life as full of activity as those of most men of half his years.
I always heard the death of this enterprising and useful
citizen mentioned as heading the list of the calamities of the
Great Fire.

PINE ORCHARD HOUSE.
" But the new glory mixes with the heaven
And earth. Man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things ; the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh ;
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss,
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell ; the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head.
******* The morn has enterprise ; deep quiet droops
With evening ; triumph when the sun takes rest ;
Voluptuous transport when the corn-fields ripen
Beneath a warm moon, like a happy face :
And this to fill us with regard for man,
Deep apprehension of his passing worth." Paracelsus, Part v.
However widely European travellers have differed about
other things in America, all seem to agree in their love of
the Hudson. The pens of all tourists dwell on its scenery,
and their affections linger about it like the magic lights
which seem to have this river in their peculiar charge. Yet
very few travellers have seen its noblest wonder. I may

58 WESTERN TRAVEL.
be singular ; but I own that I was more moved* by what I
saw from the Mountain House than by Niagara itself.
What is this Mountain House? this Pine Orchard House?
many will ask ; for its name is not to be found in most
books of American travels. "What is that white speck?"
I myself asked, when staying at Tivoli, on the east bank of
the Hudson, opposite to the Catskills, whose shadowy sur
face was perpetually tempting the eye. That white speck,
visible to most eyes only when bright sunshine was upon it,
was the Mountain House ; a hotel built for the accommoda
tion of hardy travellers who may desire to obtain that com
plete view of the valley of the Hudson which can be had
nowhere else. I made up my mind to go ; and the next
year I went, on leaving Dr. Hosack's. I think I had rather
have missed the Hawk's Nest, the Prairies, the Mississippi,
and even Niagara, than this.
The steamboat in which we left Hyde Park landed us at
Catskill (thirty-one miles) at a little after three in the after
noon. Stages were waiting to convey passengers to the
Mountain House, and we were off in a few minutes, expect
ing to perform the ascending journey of twelve miles in a little
more than four hours. We had the same horses all the
way, and therefore set off at a moderate pace, though the
road was for some time level, intersecting rich bottoms, and
passing flourishing farmhouses, where the men were milk
ing, and the women looked up from their work in the piaz
zas as we passed. Haymaking was going on in the fields,
which appeared to hang above us at first, but on which we
afterward looked down from such a height that the haycocks
were scarcely -distinguishable, lt was the 25th of July,
and a very hot day for the season. The roads were parched
up, and every exposed thing that one handled on board the
steamboat or in the stage made one flinch from the burning
sensation. The panting horses, one of them bleeding at the
mouth, stopped to drink at a house at the foot of the ascent ;
and we wondered how, exhausted as they seemed, they would
drag us up the mountain. We did not calculate on the
change of temperature which we were soon to experience.
The mountain laurel conveyed by association the first im
pression of coolness. Sheep were browsing among the
shrubs, apparently enjoying the shelter of the covert. We
scrambled through deep shade for three or four miles, heavy
showers passing over us, and gusts of wind bowing the tree-

PINE ORCHARD HOUSE. 59
tops, and sending a shiver through us, partly from the sud
den dullness, and partly from expectation and awe of the
breezy solitude. On turning a sharp angle of the steep
road, at a great elevation, we stopped in a damp green
nook, where there was an arrangement of hollow trees to
serve for water-troughs. While the horses were drinking,
the gusts parted the trees to the left, and exposed to me a
vast extent of country lying below, checkered with light and
shadow. This was the moment in which a lady in the
stage said, with a yawn, " I hope we shall find something
at the top to pay us for all this." Truly the philosophy of
recompense seems to be little understood. In moral affairs
people seem to expect recompense for privileges, as when
children, grown and ungrown, are told that they will be re
warded for doing their duty ; and here was a lady hoping
for recompense for being carried up a glorious mountain
side, in ease, coolness, leisure, and society, all at once. If
it was recompense for the evil of inborn ennui that she
wanted, she was not likely to find it where she was going
to look for it.
After another level reach of road and another scrambling
ascent I saw something on the rocky platform above our
heads like (to compare great things wilh small) an illu
mined fairy palace perched among the clouds in opera
scenery ; a large building, whose numerous window-lights
marked out its figure from amid the thunder-clouds and
black twilight which overshadowed it. It was now half
past eight o'clock and a stormy evening. Everything was
chill, and we were glad of lights and tea in the first place.
After tea I went out upon the platform in front of the
house, having been warned not to go too near the edge, so
as to fall an unmeasured depth into the forest below. I sat
upon the edge as a security against stepping over unawares.
The stars were bright overhead, and had conquered half the
sky, giving promise of what we ardently desired, a fine mor
row. Over the ether half the mass of thunder-clouds was, I
supposed, heaped together, for I could at first discern nothing
of the champaign which I knew must be stretched below.
Suddenly, and from that moment incessantly, gushes of red
lightning poured out from the cloudy canopy, revealing not
merely the horizon, but the course of the river, in all its
windings through the valley. This thread of river, thus il
luminated, looked like a flash of lightning caught by some

60 WESTERN TRAVEL.
strong hand and laid along in the valley. All the principal
features of the landscape might, no doubt, have been dis
cerned by this sulphurous light ; but my whole attention
was absorbed by the river, which seemed to come out ofthe
darkness like an apparition at the summons of my impa
tient will. It could be borne only for a short time ; this
dazzling, bewildering alternation of glare and blackness, of
vast reality and nothingness. 1 was soon glad to draw back
from the precipice and seek the candlelight within.
The next day was Sunday. I shall never forget, if I live
to a hundred, how the world lay at my feet one Sunday
morning. 'I rose very, early, and looked abroad from my
window, two stories above the platform. A dense fog, ex
actly level with my eyes, as it appeared, roofed in the whole
plain of the earth ; a dusky firmament in which the stars
had hidden themselves for the day. Such' is the account
which an antediluvian spectator would probably have given
of it. This solid firmament had spaces in it, however,
through which gushes of sunlight were poured, lighting up
the spires of white churches, and clusters of farm buildings
too small to be otherwise distinguished ; and especially the
river, with its sloops floating like motes in the sunbeam.
The firmament rose and melted, or parted off into the like
ness of snowy sky-mountains, and left the cool Sabbath to
brood brightly over the land. What human interest sancti
fies a bird's-eye view ! I suppose this is its peculiar charm,
for its charm is found to deepen in proportion to the growth
of mind. To an infant, a champaign of a hundred miles is
not so much as a yard square of gay carpet. To the rustic
it is less bewitching than a paddock with two cows. To
the philosopher, what is it not ? As he casts his eye over
its glittering towns, its scattered hamlets, its secluded homes,
its mountain ranges, church spires, and untrodden forests, it
is a picture of life ; an epitome of the human universe ; the
complete volume of moral philosophy, for which he has
sought in vain in all libraries. On the left horizon are the
Green Mountains of Vermont, and at the right extremity
sparkles the Atlantic. Beneath lies the forest where the
deer are hiding and the birds rejoicing in song. Beyond
the river he sees spread the rich plains of Connecticut ;
there, where a blue expanse lies beyond the triple range of
hills, are the churches of religious Massachusetts sending
up their Sabbath psalms ; praise which he is too high to

TINE ORCHARD HOUSE. 61
hear, while God is not. The fields and waters seem to
him to-day no more truly property than the skies which
shine down upon them ; and to think how some below are
busying their thoughts this Sabbath-day about how they
shall hedge in another field, or multiply their flocks on yon
der meadows, gives him a taste of the same pity which
Jesus felt in his solitude when his followers were contending
about which should be greatest. It seems strange to him
now that man should call anything his bdt the power which
is in him, and which can create somewhat more vast and
beautiful than all that this horizon encloses. Here he gains
the conviction, to be never again shaken, that all that is
real is ideal ; that the joys and sorrows of men do not spring
up out of the ground, or fly abroad on the wings of the wind,
or come showered down from the sky ; that good cannot be
hedged in, nor evil barred out ; even that light does not
reach the spirit through the eye alone, nor wisdom through
the medium of sound or silence only. He becomes of one
mind with the spiritual Berkeley, that the face of nature it
self, the very picture of woods, and streams, and meadows,
is a hieroglyphic writing in the spirit itself, of which the
retina is no interpreter. The proof is just below him (at
least it came under my eye), in the lady (not American) who,
after glancing over the landscape, brings her chair into the
piazza, and, turning her back to the champaign, and her
face to the wooden walls of the hotel, begins the study, this
Sunday morning, of her lapful of newspapers. What a
sermon is thus preached to him at this moment from a very
hackneyed text ! To him that hath much ; that hath the
eye, and ear, and wealth of the spirit, shall more be given ;
even a replenishing of this spiritual life from that which to
others is formless and dumb ; while from him that hath lit
tle, who trusts in that which lies about him rather than in that
which lives within him, shall be taken away, by natural de
cline, the power of perceiving and enjoying what is within
his own domain. To him who is already enriched with
large divine and human revelations this scene is, for all its
stillness, musical with divine and human speech ; while one
who has been deafened by the din of worldly affairs can
hear nothing in this mountain solitude.
The march of the day over the valley was glorious, and I
was grieved to have to leave my window for an expedition to
the Falls a few miles off. The Falls are really very fine, or,
Vol. I.— F

62 WESTERN TRAVEL.
rather, their environment ; but I could see plenty of water
falls elsewhere, but nowhere else such a mountain plat
form. However, the expedition was a good preparation for
the return to my window. The little nooks of the road,
crowded with bilberries, cherries, and alpine plants, and the
quiet tarn, studded with golden water-lilies, were a whole
some contrast to the grandeur of what we had left behind us.
On returning, we found dinner awaiting us, and also a
party of friends out of Massachusetts, with whom we passed
the afternoon, climbing higher and higher among the pines,
ferns, and blue-berries of the mountain, to get wider and
wider views. They told me that I saw Albany, but I was
by no means sure of it. This large city lay in the landscape
like an anthill in a meadow. Long before sunset I was
at my window again, watching the gradual lengthening of
the shadows and purpling of the landscape. It was more
beautiful than the sunrise of this morning, and less so than
that of the morrow. Of this last I shall give no descrip
tion, for I would not weary others with what is most sa
cred to me. Suffice it that it gave me a vivid idea of the pro
cess of creation, from the moment when all was without
form and void, to that when light was commanded, and there
was light. Here, again, I was humbled by seeing what such
things are to some who watch in vain for what they are not
made to see. A gentleman and lady in the hotel intended
to have left the place on Sunday. Having overslept that
morning's sunrise, and arrived too late for that on Saturday,
they were persuaded to stay till Monday noon ; and I was
pleased, on rising at four on Monday morning, to see that
they were in the piazza below, with a telescope. We met
at breakfast, all faint with hunger, of course.
" Well, Miss M.," said the gentleman, discontentedly, " I
suppose you were disappointed in the sunrise."
«¦ No, I was not."
«' Why, do you think the sun was any handsomer here
than at New- York ?"
I made no answer ; for what could one say ? But he
drove me by questions to tell what I expected to see in the
sun. " I did not expect to see the sun green or blue."
" What did you expect, then ?"
I was obliged to explain that it was the effect of the sun
on the landscape that I had been looking for.

WEDDINGS. 63
" Upon the landscape ! Oh ! but we saw that yester
day." The gentleman was perfectly serious ; quite earnest in all
this. When we were departing, a foreign tourist was heard
to complain of the high charges ! . High charges ! As if we
were to be supplied for nothing on a perch where the won
der is if any but the young ravens get fed ! When I consid
ered what a drawback it is in visiting mountain-tops that one
is driven down again almost immediately by one's bodily
wants, I was ready to thank the people devoutly for har
bouring us on any terms, so that we might ihink out our
thoughts, and compose our emotions, and take our fill of that
portion of our universal and eternal inheritance.

WEDDINGS.
" God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one !" Henry V.
I was present at four weddings in the United States, and
at an offer of marriage.
The offer of marriage ought hardly to be so called, how
ever. It was a petition from a slave to be allowed to wed
(as slaves wed) the nursemaid of a lady in whose house I
was staying. The young man could either write a little,
or had employed some one who could to prepare his epistle
for him. It ran from corner to corner of the paper, which
was daubed with diluted wafer, like certain love-letters
nearer home than Georgia. Here are the contents :
" Miss Cunningham il is My wishes to companion in your
Present and I hope you will Be peeze at it and I hope that
you will not think Hard of Me I have Ben to the Doctor
and he was very well satafide with Me and I hope you is
and Miss Mahuw all so
" thats all I has to say now wiheshen you will grant Me
that honour I will Be very glad.
« S. B. Smith."

64 WUSTERN TRAVEL.
The nursemaid was granted ; and as it was a love-match,
and as the girl's mistress is one of the tender, the sore-
hearted about having slaves, I hope the poor creatures are
as happy as love in debasement can make them.
The first wedding I saw in Boston was very like the
common run of weddings in England. It happened to be
convenient that the parties should be married in church : and
in the Unitarian church in which they usually worshipped
we accordingly awaited them. I had no acquaintance with
the family, but went on the invitation of the pastor who
married them. The family connexion was large, and the
church, therefore, about half full. The form of celebration
is at the pleasure of the pastor ; but, by consent, the admin
istration by pastors of the same sect is very nearly alike.
The promises of the married parties are made reciprocal,
I observed. The service in this instance struck me as
being very beautiful from its simplicity, tenderness, and
brevity. There was one variation from the usual method,
in the offering of one of the prayers, by a second pastor, who,
being the uncle of the bridegroom, was invited to take a
share in the service.
The young people were to set out for Europe in the af
ternoon, the bride being out of health, the dreary drawback
upon almost every extensive plan of action and fair promise
of" happiness in America. The lady has, I rejoice to hear,
been quite restored by travel ; but her sickness threw a
gloom over the celebration, even in the minds of strangers.
She and her husband walked up the middle aisle to the desk
where the pastors sat. They were attended by only one
bridesmaid and one groomsman, and were all in plain
travelling dresses. They said steadily and quietly what
they had to say, and walked down the aisle again as they
came. Nothing could be simpler and better, for this was
not a marriage where festivity could have place. If there
is any natural scope for joy, let weddings by all means be
joyous ; but here there was sickness, with the prospect of
a long family separation, and there was most truth in quiet
ness. The other wedding I saw in Boston was as gay a one
as is often seen. The parties were opulent, and in the first
rank in society. They were married in the drawing-room
of the bride's house, at half past eight in the evening, by Dr.
Channing. The moment the ceremony was over, crowds

WEDDINGS. 65
of company began to arrive ; and the bride, young and deli
cate, and her maidens, were niched in a corner of one of the
drawing-rooms to courtesy to all comers. They were so
formally placed, so richly and (as it then seemed) formally
dressed, for the present revived antique style of dress was
then quite new, that, in the interval of their courtesies, they
looked like an old picture brought from Windsor Castle. The
bride's mother presided in the other drawing-room, and the
bridegroom flitted about, universally attentive, and on the
watch to introduce all visiters to his lady. The transition
from the solemnity of Dr. Channing's service to the noisy
gayeties of a rout was not at all to my taste. I imagined
that it was not to Dr. Channing's either, for his talk with me
was on matters very little resembling anything that we had
before our eyes ; and he soon went away. The noise be
came such as to silence all who were not inured to the gab
ble of an American party, the noisiest kind of assemblage, I
imagine (not excepting a Jew's synagogue), on the face of
the globe. I doubt whether any pagans in their worship
can raise any hubbub to equal it. I constantly found in a
large party, after trying in vain every kind of scream that I
was capable of, that I must give up, and satisfy myself with
nodding and shaking my head. If I was rightly understood,
well and good ; if not, I must let it pass. As the noise thick
ened and the heat grew more oppressive, I glanced towards
the poor bride in her corner, still standing, still courtesying ;
her pale face growing paler ; her nonchalant manner (per
haps the best she could assume) more indifferent. I was
afraid lhat if all this went on much longer, she would faint
or die upon the spot. It did not last much longer. By
eleven some of the company began to go away, and by a
quarter before twelve all were gone but the comparatively
small party (including ourselves) who were invited to stay
to supper.
The chandelier and mantelpieces, I then saw, were
dressed with flowers. There was a splendid supper ; and,
before we departed, we were carried up to a well-lighted
apartment, where bride cake and the wedding presents were
set out in bright array.
Five days afterward we went, in common with all her ac
quaintance, to pay our respects to the bride. The court
yard of her mother's house was thronged with carriages,
though no one seemed to stay five minutes. The bride-
F 2

66 WESTERN TRAVEL.
groom received us at the head of the stairs, and led ns
to his lady, who courtesied as before. Cake, wine, and
liqueurs v/ere handed round, the visiters all standing. A few
words on common subjects were exchanged, and we were
gone to make way for others.
A Quaker marriage which I saw at Philadelphia was
scarcely less showy in its way. It took place at the Cherry-
street church, belonging to the Hicksites. The reformed
Quaker Church, consisting of the followers of Elias Hicks,
bears about the same relation to the old Quakerism as the
Church of England to that of Rome ; and, it seems to me,
the mutual dislike is as intense. I question whether reli
gious enmity every attained a greater extreme than among
the orthodox Friends of Philadelphia. The Hicksites are
more moderate, but are sometimes naturally worried out of
their patience by the meddling, the denunciations, and the
calumnies ofthe old Quaker societies. The new church is
thinking of reforming and relaxing a good deal farther, and
in the celebration of marriage among other things. It is
under consideration (or was when I was there) whether the
process of betrothment should not be simplified, and mar
riage in the father's house permitted to such as prefer it to
the church. The wedding at which I was present was,
however, performed with all the formalities.
A Quaker friend of mine, a frequent preacher, suggested,
a few days previously, that a seat had better be reserved
for me near the speakers, that I might have a chance of
hearing " in case there should be communications." I had
hopes from this that my friend would speak, and my wishes
were not disappointed.
The spacious church was crowded ; and for three or four
hours the poor bride had to sit facing the assemblage, aware,
doubtless, that during the time of silence the occupation of
the strangers present, if not of the friends themselves, would
be watching her and her party. She was pretty, and most
beautifully dressed. I have seldom pitied anybody more than
I did her, while she sat palpitating for three hours under the
gaze of some hundreds of people ; but, towards the end of
the time of silence, my compassion was transferred to tbe
bridegroom. For want of something to do, after suppressing
many yawns, he looked up to the ceiling ; and in the midst
of an empty stare, I imagine he caught the eye, of an ac
quaintance in the back seats ; for he was instantly troubled

WEDDINGS. 67
with a most irrepressible and unseasonable inclination to
laugh. He struggled manfully with his difficulty ; but the
smiles would come, broader and broader. If, by dint of
looking steadfastly into his hat for a few minutes, he attained
a becoming gravity, it was gone the moment he raised his
head. I was in a panic lest we should have a scandalous
peal of merriment if something was not given him to do or
listen to. Happily " there were communications," and the
course of his ideas was changed.
Of the five speakers, one was an old gentleman whose
discourse was an entire perplexity to me. For nearly an
hour he discoursed on Jacob's ladder ; but in a style so ram
bling, and in a chant so singularly unmusical as to set at
tention aiid remembrace at defiance. Some parenthetical
observations alone stood a chance of being retained, from
their singularity ; one, for instance, which he introduced in
the course of his narrative about Jacob setting a stone for a
pillow ; " a very different," cried the preacher, raising his
chant to the highest pitch, " a very different pillow, by-the-
way, from any that we — are — accommodated — with." What
a contrast was the brief discourse of my Quaker friend
which followed ! Her noble countenance was radiant as
the morning ; her soft voice, though low, so firm that she
was heard to the farthest corner, and her little sermon as
philosophical as it was devout. " Send forth thy light and
thy truth," was her text. She spoke gratefully of intellect
ual light as a guide to spiritual truth, and anticipated and
prayed for an ultimate universal diffusion of both. The cer
tificate of the marriage was read by Dr. Parrish, an elderly
physician of Philadelphia, the very realization of all my im
aginings of the personal appearance of William Penn ; with
all the dignity and bonhOmmie that one fancies Penn invested
with in his dealings with the Indians. Dr. Parrish speaks
with affection of the Indians, from the experience some an
cestors of his had of the hospitality of these poor people
when they were in a condition to show hospitality. His
grandfather's family were shipwrecked, and the Indians took
the poor lady and her children home to an inhabited cave,
and fed them for many weeks or months. The tree stump
round which they used to sit at meals is still standing ; and
Dr. Parrish says that, let it stand as long as it will, the love
of his family to the Indians shall outlast it.
The matrimonial promise was distinctly and well spoken

68 WESTERN TRAVEL.
by both the parties. At the request of the bride and bride
groom, Dr. Parrish asked me to put the first signature, after
their own, to the certificate of the marriage ; and we ad
journed for the purpose to an apartment connected with.the
church. Most ample sheets of parchment were provided
for the signatures ; and there was a prodigious array of
names before we left, when a crowd was still waiting to tes
tify. This multitudinous witnessing is lhe pleasantest part
of being married by acclamation. If weddings are not to
be private, there seems no question of the superiority of
this Quaker method to that of the Boston marriage I beheld,
where there was all the publicity, without the co-operation
and sanction.
The last wedding which I have to give an account of is
full of a melancholy interest to me now. All was so joyous,
so simple, so right, that there seemed no suggestion to evil-
boding, no excuse for anticipating such wo as has followed.
On one of the latter days of July, 1 835, 1 reached the village
of Stockbridge ; the Sedgwicks' village, for the second time,
intending to stay four or five days with my friends there.
I had heard of an approaching wedding in the family
connexion, and was glad that I had planned to leave, so as
to be out of the way at a time when I supposed the presence
of foreigners, though friends, might be easily dispensed with.
But when Miss Sedgwick and I were sitting in her room
one bright morning, there was a tap at the door. It was
the pretty black-eyed girl who was to be married the next
week. She stood only a minute on the threshold to say,
with grave simplicity, "I am come to ask you to join our
friends at my father's house next Tuesday evening." Being
thus invited, I joyfully assented, and put off my journey.
The numerous children of the family connexion were in
wild spirits all that Tuesday. In the morning we went a
strong party to the Ice Hole ; a defile between two hills, so
perplexed and encumbered with rocks that none but prac
tised climbers need attempt the passage. It was a good
way for the young people to work off their exuberant spirits.
Their laughter was heard from amid the nooks and hiding-
places of the labyrinth, and smiling faces might be seen be
hind every shrubby screen which sprang up from the crev
ices. How we tried to surpass each other ih the ferns and
mosses we gathered, rich in size and variety ! What skip
ping and scrambling there was ; what trunk bridges and

WEDDINGS. 69
ladders of roots ! How valiant the ladies looked with their
stout sticks ! How glad every one was to feast upon the
wild raspberries when we struggled through the close defile
into the cool, green, breezy meadow on the banks of the
Housatonic ! During the afternoon we were very quiet,
reading one of Carlyle's reviews aloud (for the twentieth
time, I believe, to some of the party), and discussing it and
other things. By eight o'clock we were all dressed for the
wedding ; and some of the children ran over the green before
us, but came back, saying that all was not quite ready ; so
we got one of the girls to sing to us for another half hour.
The house of the bride's father was well lighted, and
dressed with flowers. She had no mother ; but her elder
sisters aided her father in bidding us welcome. The draw
ing-room was quite full ; and while the grown-up friends
found it difficult to talk, and to repress the indefinable anxi
ety and agitation which always attend a wedding, the youn
ger members of the party were amusing themselves with
whispered mirth. The domestics looked as if the most
joyous event of their lives were taking place, and the old
father seemed placid and satisfied.
In a few minutes we were summoned to another room, at
the top of which stood the tall bridegroom, with his pretty
little lady on his arm ; on either side, the three gentlemen
and three ladies who attended them ; and in front, the Epis
copalian minister who was to marry them, and who has
since been united to one of the sisters. It was the first
time of his performing the ceremony, and his manner was
solemn and somewhat anxious, as might be expected.
The bridegroom was a professor in a college in the neigh
bouring State of New- York ; a young man of high acquire
ments and character, to whom the old father might well be
proud to give his daughter. His manners were remarkably
pleasing ; and there was a joyous, dignified serenity visible
in them this evening, which at once favourably prepossessed
us who did not previously know him. He was attended by
a brother professor from the same college. When the ser
vice was over, we all kissed the grave and quiet bride. I
trust that no bodings of the woes which awaited her cast a
shadow over her spirits then. I think, though grave, she
was not sad. She spoke with all her father's guests in the
course ofthe evening, as did her husband. How often have

70 WESTERN TRAVEL.
I of late tried to recall precisely what they said to me, and
•very look with which they said it 1
We went back to the drawing-room for cake and wine ;
and then ensued the search for the ring in the great wedding
cake, with much merriment among those who were alive to
all the fun of a festivity like this, and to none of the care.
There was much moving about between the rooms, and
dressing with flowers in the hall ; and lively conversation,
as it must needs be where there are Sedgwicks. Then
Champagne and drinking of healths went round, the guests
poured out upon the green, all the ladies with handkerchiefs
tied over their heads. There we bade good-night, and
parted off to our several homes.
When I left the village the next morning two or three
carriages full of young people were setting off, as attendants
upon the bride and bridegroom, to Lebanon. After a few
such short excursions in the neighbourhood, the young
couple went home to begin their quiet college and domestic
life. Before a year had elapsed, a year which to me seemed
gone like a month, I was at Stockbridge again and found
the young wife's family in great trouble. She was in a
raging fever, consequent on her confinement, and great fears
were entertained for her life. Her infant seemed to have
but a small chance under the circumstances, and there was
a passing mention of her husband being ill. Every one
spoke of him with a respect and affection which showed how
worthy he was of this young creature's love ; and it was our
feeling for him which made our prayers for her restoration
so earnest as they were. The last I heard of her before I
left the country was that she was slowly and doubtfully re
covering, but had not yet been removed from her father's
house. The next intelligence that I received after my re
turn to England was of her husband's death ; that he had
died in a calm and satisfied state of mind ; satisfied that if
their reasonable hopes of domestic joy and usefulness had
not been fulfilled, it was for wise and kind reasons ; and
that the strong hand which thus early divided them would
uphold the gentle surviver. No one who beheld and bless
ed their union can help beseeching and trusting, since all
other hope is over, that it may be even thus.

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 71

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING.
" How far my pen has been fatigued like those of other travellers in
this journey of it, the world must judge ; but the traces of it, which are
now all set o'vibrating together this moment, tell me it is the most fruitful
and busy period of my life ; for, as I had made no convention with my
man with the gun as to time — by seizing every handle, of what size or
shape soever which chance held out to me in this journey — I was always
in company, and with great variety too." — Sterne.
Our first land travelling, in which we had to take our
chance with the world in general, was across the State of
New-York. My account of what we saw may seem exces
sively minute in some of its details ; but this style of partic
ularity is not adopted without reasons. While writing my
journal, I always endeavoured to bear in mind the rapidity
with which civilization advances in America, and the de-
sirablness of recording things precisely in their present
state, iu order to have materials for comparison some few
years hence, when travelling may probably be as unlike
what it is now, as a journey from London to Liverpool by
the new railroad differs from the same enterprise as under
taken a century and a half ago.
To avoid some of the fatigues and liabilities of common
travelling, certain of our shipmates and their friends and
ourselves had made up a party to traverse the State of New-
York in an " exclusive extra ;" a stage hired, with the driver,
for our own use, to proceed at our own time. Our fellow-
travellers were a German and a Dutch gentleman, and the
Prussian physician and young South Carolinian whom I
have mentioned in the list of our shipmates. We were to
meet at the Congress Hall hotel in Albany on the 6th of
October. On our way from Stockbridge to Albany we saw a few
objects characteristic of the country. While the horses
were baiting we wandered into a graveyard, where the
names on the tombstones were enough to inform any ob
server what country of the world he was in. One inscrip
tion was laudatory of Nelson and Nabby Bullis ; another of
Amasa and Polly Fielding. Hiram and Keziah were there

72 WESTERN TRAVEL.
too. The signs in the American streets are as ludicrous for
their Confusion of Greek, Roman, and Hebrew names, as
those of Irish towns are for the arbitrary divisions of words.
One sees Rudolphus figuring beside Eliakim, and Aristides
beside Zerug. I pitied an acquaintance of mine for being
named Peleg, till I found he had baptized his two boys
Peleg and Seth. On a table in a little wayside inn I found
Fox's Martyr's ; and against the wall hung a framed sampler,
with the following lines worked upon it : —
" Jesus, permit thine awful name to stand
As the first offering of an infant's hand :
And as her fingers o'er the canvass move,
Oh fill her thoughtful bosom with thy love,
With thy dear children let her bear a part,
And write thy name thyself upon her heart."
In these small inns the disagreeable practice of rocking
in the chair is seen in its excess. In the inn parlour are
three or four rocking-chairs, in which sit ladies who are
vibrating in different directions, and at various velocities, so
as to try the head of a stranger almost as severely as the
tobacco-chewer his stomach. How this lazy and ungrace
ful indulgence ever became general, I cannot imagine ; but
the nation seems so wedded to it, that I see little chance of
its being forsaken. When American ladies come to live in
Europe, they sometimes send home for a rocking-chair. A
common wedding-present is a rocking-chair. A beloved
pastor has every room in his house furnished with a rocking-
chair by his grateful and devoted people. It is well that the
gentlemen can be satisfied to sit still, or the world might be
treated with the spectacle of the sublime American Senate
in a new position ; its fifty-two senators see-sawing in full
deliberation, like the wise birds of a rookery in a breeze.
If such a thing should ever happen, it will be time for them
to leave off laughing at the Shaker worship.
As we approached Greenbush, which lies opposite to
Albany, on the east bank of the Hudson, we met riding
horses, exercised by grooms, and more than one handsome
carriage ; tokens that we were approaching some centre of
luxury. The view of Albany rising from the river side,
with its brown stone courthouse and white marble capitol, is
fine ; but it wants the relief of more trees within itself, or
of a rural background. How changed is this bustling city,

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 73
thronged with costly buildings, from the Albany of the early
days of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, when the children used to
run up and down the green slope which is now State-street,
imposing from its width and the massiveness of the houses
seen behind its rows of trees ! A tunnel is about to be
made under the Hudson at Albany ; meantime we crossed,
as everybody does, by a horse ferryboat ; a device so cruel
as well as clumsy, that the sooner it is superseded the
better. I was told that the strongest horses, however kept
up with corn, rarely survive a year of this work.
We observed that, even in this city, the physicians have
not always their names engraved on brass doorplates. On
the most conspicuous part of their houses, perhaps on the
angle of a corner house, is nailed some glazed substance
like floorcloth, with " Dr. Such-an-one" painted upon it. At
Washington I remember seeing " Magistrate" thus affixed
to a mere shed.
As we surmounted the hill leading to our hotel, we saw
our two shipmates dancing down the steps to welcome us.
There certainly is a feeling among shipmates which does
not grow out of any other relation. They are thrown first
into such absolute dependance on one another, for better for
worse, and are afterward so suddenly and widely separated,
that if they do chance to meet again, they renew their inti
macy with a fervour which does not belong to a friendship
otherwise originated. The glee of our whole party this
evening is almost ridiculous to look back upon. Everything
served to make a laugh, and we were almost intoxicated
with the prospect of what we were going to see and do to
gether. We had separated only a fortnight ago, but we had
as much to talk over as if we had been travelling apart for
six months. The Prussian had to tell his adventures, we
our impressions, and the Southerner his comparisons of his
own country with Europe. Then we had to arrange the
division of labour by which the gentlemen were to lighten
the cares of travelling. Dr. J., the Prussian, was on all oc
casions to select apartments for us ; Mr. S., the Dutchman,
to undertake the eating department ; Mr. H., the American,
was paymaster ; and Mr. O., the German, took charge of
the luggage. It was proposed that badges should be worn
to designate their offices. Mr. S. was to be adorned with a
corncob. Mr. H. stuck a bankbill in front of his hat ; and,
next morning, when Mr. O. was looking another way, the
Vol. I.— G

74 WESTERN TRAVEL.
young men locked a small padlock upon his button-hole,
which he was compelled to carry there for a day or two, till
his comrades vouchsafed to release him from his badge.
The hotel was well furnished and conducted. I pointed
out, with some complacency, what a handsome piano we
had in our drawing-room ; but when, in the dark hour, I
opened it in order to play, I found it empty of keys ! a dis
appointment, however, which I have met with in England.
Mr. Van Buren and his son happened to be in Albany, and
called on me this afternoon. There is nothing remarkable
in the appearance of this gentleman, whom 1 afterward saw
frequently at Washington. He is small in person, with light
hair and blue eyes. I was often asked whether I did not
think his manners gentlemanly. There is much friendliness
in his manners, for he is a kind-hearted man ; he is also
rich in information, and lets it come out on subjects in which
he cannot contrive to see any danger in speaking. But his
manners want the frankness and confidence which are es
sential to good breeding. He questions closely, without
giving anything in return. Moreover, he flatters to a degree
which so cautious a man should long ago have found out to
be disagreeable ; and his flattery is not merely praise of the
person he is speaking to, but a worse kind still ; a skepti
cism and ridicule of objects and persons supposed to be dis
tasteful to the one he is conversing with. I fully believe
that he is an amiable and indulgent domestic man, and a •
reasonable political master, a good scholar, and a shrewd
man of business ; but he has the skepticism which marks the
lower order of politicians. His public career exhibits no
one exercise of that faith in men and preference of principle
to petty expediency by which a statesman shows himself to
be great.
The consequence is, that, with all his opportunities, no
great deed has ever been put to his account, and his shrewd
ness has been at fault in some of the most trying crises of his
career. The man who so little trusts others, and so intensely
regards self as to make it the study of his life not to commit
himself, is liable to a more than ordinary danger of judging
wrong when compelled, by the pressure of circumstances, to
act a decided part. It has already been so with Mr. Van
Buren more than once ; and now that he is placed in a po
sition where he must sometimes visibly lead, and cannot al
ways appear to follow, it will be seen whether a due reverence

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 75
of men and a forgetfulness of self would not have furnished
him with more practical wisdom than all his " sounding on
his dim and perilous way." Mr. Calhoun is, I believe, Mr.
Van Buren's evil genius. Mr. Calhoun was understood to
be in expectation of succeeding to the presidential chair
when Mr. Van Buren was appointed minister to Great Brit
ain. This appointment of President Jackson's did not re
ceive the necessary sanction from the Senate, and the new
minister was recalled on the first possible day, Mr. Calhoun
being very active in bringing him back. Mr. Calhoun was
not aware that he was recalling one who Was to prove a
successful rival. Mr. Calhoun has not been president ; Mr.
Van Buren is so ; but the successful rival has a mortal dread
of the great nullifier ; a dread so obvious, and causing such
a prostration of all principle and all dignity, as to oblige ob
servers to conclude that there is more in the matter than they
see ; that it will come out some day why the disappointed
aspirant is still to be propitiated, when he seems to be de
prived of power to do mischief. In " Society in America" I
have given an account of the nullification struggle, and of the
irritation, the mysterious discontent which it has left behind.*
Perhaps Mr. Van Buren may entertain the opinion which
many hold, that that business is not over yet, and that the
slavery question is made a pretext by the nullifiers of the
South for a line of action to which they are impelled by the
disappointed personal ambition of one or two, and the
wounded pride of the many, who cannot endure the contrast
between the increase of the free stales of the North and the
deterioration of the slave states of the South. However this
may be, to propitiate Mr. Calhoun seems to have been Mr.
Van Buren's great object for a long time past ; an object
probably hopeless in itself, and in the pursuit of which he is
likely to lose the confidence oi the North far faster than he
could, at best, disarm the enmity ofthe South.
In the spring of 1836, when Mr. Van Buren was still
vice-president, and the presidential election was drawing
near, Mr. Calhoun brought forward in the Senate his bill
(commonly called the Gag Bill) to violate the postoffice
function, by authorizing postmasters to investigate the con
tents of the mails, and to keep back all papers whatsoever
relating to the subject of slavery. The bill was, by con-
* Society in America, vol. i.f p. 91.

76 WESTERN TRAVEL.
sent, read the first and second times without debate ; and
the Senate was to be divided on the question whether it
should go to a third reading. The votes were equal, 18
to 18. " Where's the vice-president ?" shouted Mr. Cal
houn's mighty voice. The vice-president was behind a
pillar, talking. He was compelled to give the casting vote,
to commit himself for once ; a cruel necessity to a man of
his caution. He voted for the third reading, and there was
a bitter cry on the instant, "The Northern States are sold."
The bill was thrown out on the division on the third read
ing, and the vice-president lost by his vote the good- will
of the whole body of abolitionists, who had till then sup
ported him as the democratic and supposed anti-slavery can
didate. As it was, most of the abolitionists did not vote at
all, for want of a good candidate, and Mr. Van Buren's
majority was so reduced as to justify a belief, that if the
people had had another year to consider his conduct in, or
if another democratic candidate could have been put for
ward, he would have been emphatically rejected, liaving
once committed himself, he has gone further still in pro
pitiation of Mr. Calhoun. On the day of his presidential
installation he declared that under no circumstances would
he give his assent to any bill for the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia. This declaration does not arise
out of a belief that Congress has not power to abolish
slavery in the District ; for he did, not long before, when
hard pressed, declare that he believed Congress to possess
that power. He has therefore hazarded the extraordinary
declaration that he will not, under any circumstances, assent
to what may become the will of the people constitutionally
imbodied. This is a bold intimation for a "non-committal
man" to make. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Cal
houn, if really dangerous, can be kept quiet by such fawn
ing as this ; and whether the will of the people may not be
rather stimulated than restrained by this sacrifice of them to
the South, so as either to compel the president to retract
his declaration before his four years are out, or to prevent
his re-election.
How strange it is to recall one's first impressions of public
men in the midst of one's matured opinions of them ! How
freshly I remember the chat about West Point and Stock-
bridge acquaintances lhat I had that afternoon at Albany,
with the conspicuous man about whom I was then ignorant

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 77
and indifferent, and whom I have since seen committed to
the lowest political principles and practices, while elected
as professing some of the highest ! It only remains to be
said, that if Mr. Van Buren feels himself aggrieved by the
interpretation which is .commonly put upon the facts of his
political life, he has no one to blame but himself; for such
misinterpretation (if it exists) is owing to his singular re
serve ; a reserve which all men agree in considering incom
patible with the simple honesty and cheerful admission of
responsibility which democratic republicans have a right to
require of their rulers.
Before breakfast the next morning we walked down to
the Padroon's house, known by reputation, with the his
tory of the estate, to everybody. We just caught a sight
of the shrubbery, and took leave to pass through the court
yard, and hastened back to breakfast, immediately after
which we proceeded by railroad to Schenectady. There
we at once stepped into a canalboat for Utica. I would
never advise ladies to travel by canal, unless the boats are
quite new and clean ; or, at least, far better kept than any
that I saw or heard of on this canal. On fine days it is
pleasant enough sitting outside (except .for having to duck
under the bridges every quarter of an hour, under penalty of
having one's head crushed to atoms), and in dark evenings
the approach of the boatlights on the water is a pretty
sight ; but the horrors of night and of wet days more than
compensate for all the advantages these vehicles can boast.
The heat and noise, the known vicinity of a compressed
crowd, lying packed like herrings in a barrel, the bumping
against the sides of the locks, and the hissing of water
therein like an inundation, startling one from sleep ; these
things are very disagreeable. We suffered under an addi
tional annoyance in the presence of sixteen Presbyterian
clergymen, some of the most unprepossessing of their
class. If there be- a duty more obvious than another on
board a canalboat, it is to walk on the bank occasionally in
fair weather, or, at least, to remain outside, in order to air
the cabin (close enough at best) and get rid of the scents
of the table before the unhappy passengers are shut uplo
sleep there. These sixteen gentlemen, on their way to a
Convention at Utica, could not wait till they got there to
begin their devotional observances, but obtruded them upon
the passengers in a most unjustifiable manner. They were
62

78 WESTERN TRAVEL.
not satisfied with saying an almost interminable grace be
fore and after each meal, but shut up the cabin for prayers
before dinner ; for missionary conversation in the afternoon,
and for scripture reading and prayers quite late into the
night, keeping tired travellers from their rest, and every one
from his fair allowance of fresh air.
The passengers were all invited to listen to and to question
a missionary from China who was of the party. The gentle
man did not seem to have profited much by his travels, how
ever ; for he declared himself unable to answer some very
simple inquiries. " Is the religion of the Christian mis
sionaries tolerated by the Chinese government?" "lam
not prepared to answer that question." " Are the Chinese
cannibals ?" " I am not prepared to answer that question."
One requested that any brother would offer a suggestion as
to how government might be awakened io the sinfulness of
permitting Sunday mails ; during the continuance of which
practice there was no hope of the Sabbath being duly sanc
tified. No one was ready with a suggestion, but one offered
a story, which every head was bent to hear. The story
was of two sheep-drovers, one of whom feared God; and
the other did not. The profane drover set out with his
sheep for a particular destination two hours earlier than
the other, and did not rest on Sunday like his pious com
rade. What was the catastrophe ? The Godfearing drover,
though he had stood still all Sunday, arrived at his destina
tion two hours earlier than the other. " Ah !" " Ah !" re
sounded through the cabin in all conceivable tones of con
viction, no one asking particulars of what had happened on
the road ; of how and where the profane drover had been
delayed. Temperance was, of course, a great topic with
these divines, and they fairly provoked ridicule upon it. One
passenger told me that they were so strict that they would
not drink water out of the Brandywine river ; and another
remarked that they partook with much relish of the strong
wine-sauce served with our puddings.
In addition to other discomforts, we passed the fine
scenery of Little Falls in the night. I was not aware what
we had missed till I traversed the Mohawk valley by a bet
ter conveyance nearly two years afterward. I have de
scribed this valley in my other work on America,* and must
* " Society in America," vol. ii., p. 188.

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 79
therefore restrain my pen from dwelling on its beauties
here. The appearance of the berths in the ladies' cabin was so
repulsive, that we were seriously contemplating sitting out
all night, when it began to rain so as to leave us no choice.
I was out early in the misty morning, however, and was
presently joined by the rest of my party, all looking eagerly
for signs of Utica being near.
By eight o'clock we were at the wharf. We thought
Utica the most extempore place we had yet seen. The
right-up shops, the daubed houses, the streets running into
the woods, all seemed to betoken that the place had sprung
up out of some sudden need. Hew much more ancient and
respectable did it seem after my return from the West, where
I had seen towns so much newer still ! We were civilly
received and accommodated at Bagg's hotel, where we knew
how to value cold water, spacious rooms, and retirement,
after the annoyances of the boat.
Our baggage-master was fortunate in securing a neat,
clean stage to take us to Trenton Falls (14 miles), where
we promised each other to spend the whole day, on condi
tion of being off by five the next morning, in order to ac
complish the distance to Syracuse in the course of the day.
The reason for our economy of time was not merely that it
was late in the season, and every day which kept us from
the Falls of Niagara, therefore, of consequence, but that
our German friend, Mr. 0», was obliged to be back in New-
York by a certain day. We all considered a little extra
haste and fatigue a small tax to pay for the privilege of his
companionship. We clapped our hands at the sight of the " Rural Retreat,"
the comfortable, hospitable house of entertainment at Tren
ton, standing in its garden on the edge of the forest, so un
like hotels on the high road.
As no other company was there, we could choose our own
hours. We ordered a late dinner, and proceeded to the
Falls. We had only to follow a path in the pine forest for
a few paces, and we were at the edge of the ravine which
encloses the cascades.
It is a pity that the Indian name is not retained. Trenton
Falls are called Cayoharic by the Indians. They are oc
casioned by the descent of West Canada Creek through a
ravine, where it makes a succession of leaps from platforms

80 WESTERN TRAVEL.
of rock, six of these falls being pretty easily accessible by
travellers. Much has been said of the danger of the enter
prise of ascending the ravine ; but I saw no peril to persons
who are neither rash nor nervous. The two accidents
which have happened have, I believe, been owing, the one
to extreme rashness, and the other to sudden terror.
From the edge of the ravine the black water, speckled
with white foam, is seen rushing below with a swiftness
which already half turns the head of the stranger. We
descended five flights of wooden steps fixed against the steep
face of the rock, and at the bottom found ourselves at the
brink of the torrent. I never was in so dark and chill a
place in the open air ; yet the sun was shining on the op
posite face of the rock, lighting the one scarlet maple which
stood out from among the black cedars and dark green elms.
We selected our footing with a care which we were quite
ready to ridicule when we came back ; and were not above
grasping the chain which is riveted into the rock where the
shelf which forms the pathway is narrowest, and where the
angles are sharpest. The hollow is here so filled with the
voice of many waters, that no other can be heard ; and after
many irreverent shouts had been attempted, we gave up all
attempts to converse till we reached a quieter place. Being
impatient to see the first fall, I went on before the rest, and
having climbed the flight of wooden steps, so wetted with
the spray of the fall as to be as slippery as ice, I stood on
the platform under a covert of rock foaming wilh the thunder
of the waters, and saw my companions, one by one, turn the
angle of the path, and pause in front of the sheet of liquid
amber sprinkled with snow. The path on wliich they stood
seemed too narrow for human foot ; and when, discerning
me, they waved their hands, I trembled lest, disregarding
their footing, they should be swept away by the furious
torrent. When we found our heads turning with the rush
of the dark waters, we amused ourselves wilh admiring the
little wells in the rock, and the drip from the roots of a cedar
projecting from the top of the ravine, a never-failing, glitter
ing shower. Between the fifth and sixth fall there is a long
tranquil reach of water ; and here we lingered to rest our
bewildered senses before entering upon the confusion of
rocks through which the sixth forces its way. We seesawed
upon a fallen trunk, sent autumn leaves whirling down the
stream, and watched the endless dance of the balls of foam

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 81
which had found their way into the tiny creeks and bays
opposite, and could not get out again.
Gay butterflies seemed quite at home in this ravine.
They flit through the very spray of the falls. It seemed
wonderful that an insect could retain its frail life in the midst
of such an uproar. When the sun, in its course, suddenly
shone full into the glen through a chasm in its rocky wall,
how the cascade was instantly dressed in glory ! crowned
with a rainbow, and invested with all radiant hues 1 How
the poor banished Indians must mourn when the lights of
their Cayoharic visit their senses again in the dreams of
memory or of sleep ! The recollection of these poor exiles
was an ever-present saddening thought in the midst of all
the most beautiful scenes of the New World.
When we had surmounted the sixth fall, we saw indeed
that we could go no farther. A round projection of rock,
without trace of anything that I could call a foothold,
barred us out from the privacy of the upper ravine. The
falls there are said to be as beautiful as any that we saw,
and it is to be hoped that, by blasting a pathway or by some
other means, they also may be laid open to the affections of
happy visiters.
They have been seen and reported of. A friend of mine
has told me, since I was there, how Bryant the poet and
himself behaved like two thoughtless boys in this place.
Clambering about by themselves one summer day, when
their wives had gone back to the house, they were irresisti
bly tempted to pass the barrier, and see what lay beyond.
They got round the rock, I cannot conceive how, by ine
qualities in its surface. They met with so many difficulties
and so much beauty higher up, that they forgot all about
time, till they found themselves in utter darkness. They
hastened to grope their way homeward through the forest,
and were startled, after a while, by shouts and moving
lights. Till lhat moment they never recollected how alarm
ed their wives must be. It was past ten o'clock, and the
poor ladies had been in a state of uneasiness half the
evening, and of mortal terror for the last two hours. They
had got people from the neighbourhood to go out with
torches, little expecting to see their husbands come walking
home on their own feet, and with nothing the matter with
them but hunger and shame. I hope the ladies were ex
ceedingly angry when their panic was over.

82 WESTERN TRAVEL.
The forest at the top of the ravine was a study to me,
who had yet seen but little forest. Moss cushioned all the
roots of the trees ; hibiscus overspread the ground ; among
the pine stems there was a tangle of unknown shrubs ; and
a brilliant bird, scarlet except its black wings, hovered about
as if it had no fear of us. I could learn nothing more about
it than that the people call it the red robin. Before we re
turned the moon hung like a gem over the darkness of the
ravine. I spent another happy day among these falls some
months after, and was yet more impressed with their singu
larity and beauty.
When we had exchanged our wet clothes, an excellent
dinner was served, and our host himself waited upon us,
sitting down by the window when nothing was wanted. In
the course of dinner Mr. H. related to me some particulars
of the slave insurrection at Charleston a few years before,
when upward of thirty slaves were hanged at once. Some
circumstance which he told led me to observe that I should
have done as the thirty did in their place. " Oh," said he,
" so should I." I thanked him for his response, saying
that no defence he could now make of slavery would stand
against such an admission. He did not retract, but a long
argument ensued, in which our host became deeply inter
ested. He moved his chair forwarder and forwarder, till I
saw him leaning over the table between two of the gentle
men to listen. Everybody had long done eating, and every
dish on the table was quite cold, and the debate concluded,
before our host remembered that we had not had our pud
ding, and started up to serve us.
We soon retired to our rooms, being in need of rest after
the discomforts of the canalboat and the fatigues of the
day ; but it was not too late for the neighbours to offer their
hospitable welcomes. Just after I was undressed, the cards
of visiters were brought me, with a friendly message ; but it
was too late to do more than send a message in return.
We left the place at a little after five in the morning, in
a dismal rain. While breakfasting at Utica, we engaged an
" exclusive extra" to carry us to Buffalo for eighty dollars,
the precise route being agreed upon, and the choice of times
and seasons to remain wilh us. On going out to our car
riage we found the steps of the hotel occupied by a number
of persons, some from Boston, who offered me welcome to
the country, and any information or assistance I might need.

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 83
One gentleman put into my hand a letter of introduction to
an influential friend of his at Cincinnati, as it was understood
that I was going there. So from this strange place, where
I had not spent above two hours, we drove off amid a variety
of friendly greetings.
This day I first saw a loghouse, and first felt myself ad
mitted into the sanctuary of the forest. These things made
the day full of interest to me, though the rain scarcely ceased
from morning till night. Well-settled farms were numerous
along the road, but in the intervals were miles of forests ;
dark thronging trees with their soft gay summits. Till now
the autumn woods had appeared at a distance too red and
rusty ; these, when looked into, were the melting of all
harmonious colours. As for the forms, some were droop
ing, some towering, their tall bare stems wreathed with
crimson creepers. The cleared hollows and slopes, with
the forest ever advancing or receding, are as fine to the
imagination as any natural language can be. I looked for
an Indian or two standing on the forest verge, within a shade
as dusky as himself; but for this I had to wait another day.
Just after dark we arrived at Syracuse, in time for the
common supper. I was surprised at the size and style of
the hotel. Land and building material being cheap, and
there being no window-tax, there is little inducement to econ
omize space in the American houses, and the new hotels
have the ambitious air which is given by spaciousness. The
deficiency lies in furniture, and yet more in attendance ; but
I really think, that if travellers will trouble themselves to
learn a little of the ways of the house, so as not to run into
opposition to other people's convenience, much more com
fort may be enjoyed in these places than unaccommodating
tourists will believe. Our chambers were quite sufficiently
furnished here ; and I never in any place found difficulty in
obtaining as large a supply of water as I wished by simply
asking for it in good time. I observed that the hotel parlours
in various parts of the country were papered with the old-
fashioned papers, I believe French, which represent a sort
of panorama of a hunting-party, a fleet, or some such diver
sified scene. I saw many such a hunting-party, the ladies
in scarlet riding-habits, as I remember the landlord of the
inn at Bray, near Dublin, to have been proud of in his best
parlour. At Schenectady, the bay of Naples, with its fish
ing-boats on the water and groups of lazzaroni on the shore,

84 WESTERN TRAVEL.
adorned our parlour walls. It seems to be an irresistible
temptation to idle visiters, English, Irish, and American, to
put speeches into the mouths of the painted personages ; and
such hangings are usually seen deformed with scribblings.
The effect is odd, in wild places, of seeing American witti
cisms put into the mouths of Neapolitan fishermen, ancient
English ladies of quality, or of tritons and dryads.
There is taste quite as bad as this in a matter of far more
importance, the naming of places. Syracuse in the State
of New- York ! I often wonder whether it is yet too late to
revert to the Indian names, to undo the mischief which has
been done by boys fresh from their smattering of the clas
sics, who have gone intol the forest to hew out towns and
villages. I heard many Americans say that the State of
New-York ought to be called Ontario, and the city Man
hattan. But, so far from bringing back the nomenclature to
a better state, we not only find Utica, Syracuse, Manlius,
and Camillus, and the village of Geneva on Seneca Lake,
with Ithaca at its other extremity, but the village of Chitten-
ango actually baptized into Sullivan ; and all this in the
neighbourhood ofthe lakes Onondago, Cayuga, and Owasco.
It is as bad as the English in Van Diemen's Land, who, if
I remember rightly, have got Palmyra, Richmond, and Jeri
cho all in a line.
Some curious associations arise from a new nation using
the language of the old. While speculating sometimes on
what the classical conceptions can be in the minds of youths
who hear every day, in the most sordid connexion, of Rome,
Utica, Carthage, Athens, Palmyra, and Troy, it occurred to
me that some of our commonest English writing must bear
a different meaning to the Americans and to us. All that
is written about cornfields, for instance, must call up pic
tures in their minds quite unlike any that the poets intended
to create. " Waving corn" is not the true description to
them ; and one can scarcely bring one's tongue to explain
that it means " small grain." Their poetical attachments
are naturally and reasonably to their Indian corn, which is
a beautiful plant, worthy of all love and celebration. . But
the consequence is, that we have not their sympathy about
our sheaves, our harvest wain, our gleaners ; for though
they have wheat, their harvest, par excellence, is of corn
cobs, and their " small grain" bears about the same relation
to poetry with them as turnips with us. Then, again, there

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 85
is the month of May, about which we lose their sympathy.
Over a great proportion of the country May is one of their
worst months, damp, drizzly, with intervals of biting winds,
as little fit for the climate of a poem as our windy and dusty
March. Many other such particulars might be mentioned,
which it would be a new employment to trace out.
When I traversed New- York State at a subsequent period
with another party of friends, we saw many Indians before
reaching Syracuse. It was at Oneida Castle, a village on
the borders ofthe Oneida territory, which was once fortified
after the Indian fashion, whence its formidable name. We
saw in such close neighbourhood as to cause many strange
reflections, the Episcopalian church built for the Indians of
the vicinity, who are declared to be reclaimed from idolatry
and their ancient Council Grove, where they met to think
their own thoughts and say their own saying3. This grove
is a fine clump of twenty-seven butternut-trees. We passed
through the village on the day when the Indians had all
come in to receive their annual government allowance of
seven dollars a head. Two men were drunk; the rest
looked sober enough. The squaws were neatly dressed in
blue pantaloons edged with white, and had clean blankets
over their shoulders. The babies looked fat and lively.
One squaw had her infant lashed to a board at her back.
When we stopped to water the horses we saw several boys
with bows and arrows, and Dr. F. made them understand by
signs that any one who could strike a quarter dollar which
he would fix on a post should have it. He made a notch in
the post of a shed, and placed his coin, and forthwith the
arrows flew like hail. One struck deep into a post, and we
saw how easily fatal this weapon might be. An old Indian
or two watched the sport, and assumed the superintendence.
The coin fell, and Dr. F. was going to deliver it to the
claimant, when an old Indian came forward with " No, no."
He showed by signs that the coin had fallen, not from its
being struck, but from the post having been shaken. The
quarter dollar was put up again, and soon after struck and
bent in the middle by the arrow of a youth, who looked as
happy with his prize as if he had regained a tract of his
native wood. The party gave us some very bright looks as
we drove away.
In a hotel on this road I found a Sabbath-school history
of Lady Jane Grey, compiled obviously for the purpose of
Vol. I.— H

86 WESTERN TRAVEL.
prejudicing the reader's mind against the Catholics. Among
other wise things in it there was an explanation that the
heroine was called " Lady" because she was related to the
king; and people are sometimes called so in England. A
clear idea to give the American youth of our English peer
age !
We left Syracuse at dawn; and this was the morning
when, finding ourselves too hungry to proceed to Skaneatles
without food, we were treated to that abundant breakfast,
so characteristically served, which I have described in my
other book.* No one likes to breakfast twice over in de
scription any more than in reality ; and I therefore say
nothing about Elbridge here. The greater part of this day,
and some of the next, was spent at Auburn in viewing the
prison, walking about the town, and driving down the shores
of the pretty Owasco Lake.
The cultivation of the country now began to show the
improvement which increases all the way to Buffalo. At
the head of Cayuga Lake we travelled over the longest
bridge I ever saw, even a mile and eight rods long. It is
wooden, of course, laid upon piles, and more conspicuous
for usefulness than beauty. The great ornament of this
route is the village of Geneva, reared on a terrace which
overhangs Seneca Lake. The Northern States abound in
beautiful villages ; but I know none more captivating than
this. A long row of handsome white and red houses, each
with its sloping garden, fronts the lake ; and behind the
dwellings the road is bordered with locust-trees, which seem
to imbower the place. The gardens are more carefully
cultivated than is at all common in America, and they well
repay the trouble bestowed on them. There is a college
standing on high ground above the lake, to which a natural
lawn steeply descends from the open space in front of the
building. Holstein, aiddecamp to Bolivar, was professor
of modern languages in this college when I was first at Ge
neva. Before my second visit he had removed to Albany.
To crown the temptations of Geneva as a place of residence,
it has rather a choice society. It has been charged with not
being healthy, but I believe this is not true. It seems to
be well and speedily supplied with literature. I saw a pla
card outside a bookseller's store, " Two Old Men's Tales,
* " Society in America," vol. iii., p. 87.

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 87
price 80 cents," that is, four shillings. One of my last in
terests, before I left England, had been watching over the
publication of this work ; and now here it was selling at four
shillings, in the back of the State of New- York! I re
marked two things more about this village ; that all the
women 1 saw were pretty, and that a profusion of azalea
grew wild in the neighbourhood.
The road to Canandaigua ascends for a considerable dis
tance after leaving Geneva, and the last view of the place
from above was exquisite, imbosomed as it lay in the au
tumn woods, and with its blue lake stretched behind it in the
sunny atmosphere. One element in the exhilaration of
such scenes in America is the universal presence of compe
tence. The boys who gather about the stage do not oome
to beg, or even to sell, but to amuse themselves while eating
their bread and meat, or on their way to the field. The
young women all well dressed, the men all at work or
amusement, the farms all held in fee-simple, the stores all
inadequate to their custom; these things are indescribably
cheering <o behold, and a never-failing source of pleasure
to the traveUer from Europe. It may be a questionable
comfort, but it is a comfort to think, " if these people are not
happy, it is their own fault." Whether their minds are as
easy as their fortunes, it may not be safe to affirm ; but at
least the sin and sorrow of social injustice in regard to the
first necessities of life are absent.
The moon was gleaming over Canandaigua Lake when
we came in sight of it, and a golden planet dropped be
neath the horizon when we took the turn towards the vil
lage. We found that Blossom's hotel did not answer to
the favourable description which had been given us of it.
This had been a training day, and the house was so noisy
with drunken soldiers, that, when we had attained the draw
ing-room, we locked ourselves in till the house should be
cleared, which happened as early as nine o'clock ; but we
still found the inn less comfortable than most upon the
road. The pretty village of Canandaigua is noted for its good
society. It would have given me pleasure to have been
able to accept the kind invitation of some of its inhabitants
to prolong my stay now, or to revisit it the next year ; but
we had promised Mr. 0. to cause no delay in getting to
Niagara ; and we engaged, in return for his agreeing to stop

88 WESTERN TRAVEL.
this day, to travel all night; and I never was able to allot
any future time to this place. We saw as much of it, how
ever, as we could in one day.
There are many families of Scotch extraction at Canan
daigua, and to this the village owes its superiority in gardens
to almost any place in the country. We spent the greater
part of the day with a gentleman who was born in Scot
land, but had settled at Canandaigua thirty-four years be
fore, when the place was almost a desert. He now sees
himself surrounded by handsome dwellings, trim gardens,
and a highly-cultivated society, able to command resources
of books and other intellectual luxuries to almost any ex
tent, from the directness and ease of communication with
New-York. He had just taken possession ofa splendid new
dwelling, and had presented his old one to the Episcopalian
church for a parsonage. He showed me from the top of the
house, where his dwelling had stood, where it stood now,
and how it had been moved entire in a day and a half. I
think the distance could not have been much under a mile.
After our early breakfast we were engaged till church-
time in receiving and making calls, as there was no time to
be lost. We went to the Episcopalian church with our
friends, and heard a sermon which could not please us, it
was so full of dogmatism and bitterness. Our friends in
sisted on entertaining the whole of our large party, and in
vited some agreeable guests in addition, so that we spent a
very profitable as wel) as pleasant afternoon. We walked
over the grounds, enjoyed the view of the lake from the
house-top, and picked up a good deal of information about
the place and neighbourhood, which might seem to the in
habitants scarcely worthy of the name of knowledge, but
which is inestimable to the stranger as opening new depart
ments of inquiry, and explaining much which he did not
understand before.
The stage was ordered for nine, and we returned to Blos
som's for an hour's rest before setting out on our rough
night's journey.
We reached Batavia to breakfast, and soon after found
ourselves on the first piece of corduroy road we had en
countered in the country. I mention this because corduroy
roads appear to have made a deep impression on the ima
ginations ofthe English, who seem to suppose that American
roads are all corduroy. I can assure them that there is a

HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING. 89
large variety in American roads. There are the excellent
limestone roads which stretch out in three directions from
Nashvil'e, Tennessee, and some like them in Kentucky, on
which the tourist might sketch almost without difficulty
while travelling at a rapid rate. There is quite another sort
of limestone road in Virginia, in traversing which the stage
is dragged up from shelf to shelf, some of the shelves slo
ping so as to throw the passengers on one another, on either
side alternately. Then there are the rich mud roads of
Ohio, through whose deep red sloughs the stage goes slowly
sousing after rain, and gently upsetting when the rut on the
one or the other side proves to be of a greater depth than
was anticipated. Then there are the sandy roads of the pine-
barrens, of an agreeable consistency after rain, but very
heavy in dry weather. Then there is the ridge road, run
ning parallel with a part of Lake Ontario, and supposed to
be the edge of what was once its basin. The level terrace
thus provided by Nature offered the foundation of an ad
mirable road, one of the best in the states. Lastly, there is
the corduroy road, happily of rare occurrence, Jwhere, if the
driver is merciful to his passengers, he drives them so as to
give them the association of being on the way to a funeral,
their involuntary sobs on each jolt helping the resemblance ;
or, if he be in a hurry, he shakes them like pills in a pill
box. But the American drivers are a class of men marked
by that merciful temper which naturally accompanies ge
nius. They are men who command admiration equally by
their perfection in their art, their fertility of resource, and
their patience with their passengers. I was never upset in a
stage but once during all my travels ; and the worse the
roads were, the more I was amused at the variety of devices
by which we got on, through difficulties which appeared in
surmountable, and the more I was edified at the gentleness
with whieh our drivers treated female fears and fretfulne.ss.
By this time a solitary Indian might be frequently seen
standing on a heap of stones by the roadside, or sleeping
under a fence. There is something which rivets the eye of
the stranger in the grave gaze, the lank hair, the blanket-
wrapped form of the savage, as he stands motionless. We
were generally to be seen leaning out of every opening in
the stage as long as the figure remained in sight.
We issued from the corduroy road upon one on which
we could easily have performed twelve miles an hour,
H2

90 WESTERN TRAVEL.
Houses with porches of Ionic pillars began to be scattered
by the roadside. We were obviously approaching Buffalo.
Soon the lake was visible, and then we entered the long
main street, and stopped at the entrance of the Eagle hotel.

FORT ERIE.
" That night a child might understand
The de'il had business on his hand." Burns.
On consulting a good map, a little promontory may be
seen jutting out into Lake Erie on the Canada shore, nearly
opposite to Black Rock. Perhaps it may be marked Fort
Erie, for there Fort Erie stood.
A lady of Buffalo, who happens to be a good walker,
proposed that she and I should indulge in a ramble to Fort
Erie one fine day towards the end of October. She showed
me that she was provided with stout boots, in case of our
having to cross swampy ground ; and she said she believed
we might trust to getting some sort of a dinner on the Can
ada side, and might therefore go unencumbered with pro
visions. We set out from Buffalo soon after breakfast, and made.
our way over a waste, through brush, over fences, along a
natural terrace once planted with guns, down to the ferry
at Black Rock. On the way I saw one of the less pre
possessing abodes of settlers so frequently described ; its
desolate appearance on the verge of the wood ; its un
tidy garden, and the cool, uncomfortable manners, and the
lank hair, and pale, dingy countenance of its mistress. I
also heard, during our walk, some things which make me
think that Buffalo is as undesirable a place of residence as
any in the free States. It is the rendezvous of all manner of
persons ; the passage through which fugitives pass from the
States to Canada, from Canada to the States, and from Eu
rope and the Eastern States into the wild West. Runa
way slaves come here, and their owners follow in hopes of
recapturing them. Indian traders, land speculators, and
poor emigrants come here, and the most debased Indians,

FORT ERIE. 91
the half-civilized, hang about the outskirts. No influence
that the mass of respectable inhabitants can exert can neu
tralize the bad effects of a floating population like this ; and
the place is unavoidably a very vicious one. A sufficient
proof of this is, that ladies cannot walk beyond the streets
without the protection of a gentleman. Some excellent
English ladies opened a school in Buffalo, and, not being
aware of the peculiarities of the place, followed, with their
pupils, the English practice of taking country walks. They
persevered for some time, hoping to obtain countenance for
the wholesome practice ; but were compelled, after a time,
not only to give up walking, but to leave the place. It will
be understood that I do not give this as any specimen of
American towns. The corruption of Buffalo is owing
chiefly to its frontier position, and consequent liability to a
vicious, transient population.
After crossing the ferry at Black Rock we pursued our
walk in a southwest direction, sometimes treading a firm
sand and sometimes a greensward washed by the fresh
waters of the lake. Though we were on British ground,
we were entertained by an American woman who lived on
the lake shore close by the fort. She treated us with ne
gus and cake while preparing to get a dinner for us, and
amused us with accounts of how butter and eggs are smug
gled into Buffalo from her neighbourhood, these articles not
being allowed to pass the custom-house. My eyes never
rested on the Canada shore without my feeling how absurd
it was that that poor country should belong tous, its poverty
and hopeless inactivity contrasting, so much to our disgrace,
with the prosperous activity of the opposite shore ; but here
was the climax of absurdity, the prohibition of a free traffic
in butter and eggs ! What a worthy subject of contention
between two great nations, the one breaking the laws to
provide Buffalo with butter and eggs, and the preventive
force of the other exercised in opposition !
Our hostess was sewing when we went in, amusing her
self meanwhile with snatches Of reading from " Peter Par
ley," which lay open before her. She put away her work
to cook for us, conversing all the while, and by no means
sorry, I fancy, to have the amusement of a little company.
She gave us tea, beefsteak, hot rolls and butter, honeycomb,
and preserved plums and crab-apples. Immediately after
dinner I went out to the fort, my friend promising to fol
low.

92 WESTERN TRAVEL.
The thickness of the remaining fragments of the walls
shows the fort to have been substantially built. It was held
by the Americans to the last extremity in the war of 1814,
and then blown up by a brave man to prevent its falling into
the hands of the British. He remained alone in the fort to
do the deed ; and as I now beheld the desolation of the
solitude in which it stands, I felt as if I could enter into what
his feelings must have been on the last day of his life. At
one moment all had been dead silence ; at the next the win
dows in Buffalo were blown out by the explosion.
I sat alone beside a pool in the middle of the fort. Frag
ments of the building lay tumbled around, overgrown with
tall grass, and bristling with shrubbery. Behind me was the
grim forest, with the ruins of a single deserted house stand
ing within its shadow. Before me lay the waste of waters,
with gulls dipping and sailing. A single birch overhung the
pool beside me, and a solitary snipe, which seemed to have
no fear of me, vibrated on the top of a bulrush. I do not
know that I was ever so oppressed with a sense of solitude ;
and I was really glad soon to see my friend standing on a
pinnacle ofthe ruined wall, and beckoning me to come up.
This afternoon she told me her wonderful story ; a part
of which, that part in which the public may be said to have
an interest, I am going to relate.
At the time of the war of 1812 Mrs. W. lived in Buffalo
with her father, mother, brothers, and sisters. In 1814,
just when the war was becoming terrific on the frontier, her
father and eldest brother were drowned in crossing the neigh
bouring ferry. Six months after this accident the danger
of Buffalo was so great that the younger children of the
family were sent away into the country with their married
sister, under the charge of their brother-in-law, who was to
return with his wagon for the mother and two daughters who
were left behind, and for the clothes of the family. For
three weeks there had been so strong an apprehension of a
descent of the Indians, the barbarous allies of the British,
that the ladies had snatched sleep with their clothes on, one
watching while the others lay down. It was with some
difficulty, and after many delays, that the wagon party got
away, and there were still doubts whether it was the safer
course to go or stay. Nothing was heard of them before
night, however, and it was hoped that they were safe, and
that the wagon would come for the remaining three the next
morning.

FORT ERIE. 93
The ladies put out their lights early, as they were desired ;
and at eight two of the three lay down to sleep, Mrs. W.,
then a girl of sixteen, being one. At nine she was called
up by the beating of a drum, the signal that the Indians
were at hand. No description can give an idea of the loath
ing with which these savages were then regarded ; the min
gled horror, disgust, dread, and hatred. The Indians were
insidious, dangerous, and cruel beyond example, even in the
history of savage warfare. These poor ladies had been
brought up to hate them with a deadly hatred ; they were
surrounded with persons burning with the injuries inflicted
by Indian revenge and barbarity ; for weeks they had lived in
hourly dread of death by their hands; their streugh was
worn, and their nerves shaken by the long suspense ; and
now the hoarse drum woke them up with news that the hour
was come. A deadly sickness overspread their hearts as
they started from their beds. They looked from their win
dows, but could see nothing through the blank darkness.
They listened, but they knew that if the streets had been
quiet as death, the stealthy tread of the savages would have
been inaudible. There was -a bustle in the town. Was
the fight beginning ? No. It was an express sent by the
scouts to say that it was a false alarm. The wornout
ladies composed their spirits, and sank to sleep again. At
four they were once more awakened by the horrid drum,
and now there was a mustering in the streets which looked
as if this were no false alarm. In the same moment the
sister who was watching what passed in the street saw by
torchlight the militia part asunder and fly ; and Mrs. W.,
who was looking through the back window, perceived in the
uncertain glimmer that a host of savages was leaping the
garden fence ; leaping along the walks to the house like so
many kangaroos, but painted, and flourishing their toma
hawks. She cried out to her mother and sister, and they
attempted to fly ; but there was no time. Before they could
open the front door the back windows came crashing in, and
the house was crowded with yelling savages. With their
tomahawks they destroyed everything but the ladies, who
put on the most submissive air possible. The trunks con
taining the clothing of the whole family stood in the hall,
ready to be carried away when the wagon should arrive.
These were split to fragments by the tomahawk. These
wretches had actually met the wagon with the rest of the

94 WESTERN TRAVEL.
family, and turned it back ; but the brother-in-law, watching
his opportunity, wheeled off from the road when his savage
guards were somehow engaged, and escaped.
The ladies were seized, and, as Mrs. W. claimed protec
tion, they were delivered into the charge of some squaws to
be driven to the British camp. It was unpleasant enough
the being goaded on through such a scene by savage wo
men, as insolent as the men were cruel ; but the ladies soon
saw that this was the best thing that could have happened
to them ; for the town was burning in various directions,
and soon no alternative would be left between being in the
British camp and in the thick of the slaughter in the burn
ing streets. The British officer did not wish to have his
hands full of helpless female prisoners. He sent them home
again with a guard of an ensign and a private, who had or
ders to prevent their house being burned. The ensign had
much to do to fulfil his orders. He stood in the doorway,
commanding, persuading, struggling, threatening ; but he
saved the house, which was, in two days, almost the only
one left standing. The whole town was a mass of smoking
ruins, in many places slaked with blood. Opposite the
door lay the body of a woman who, in her despair, had drunk
spirits, and then defied the savages. They tomahawked
her in sight of the neighbours, and before her own door, and
her body lay where it had fallen, for there were none to
bury the dead. Some of the inhabitants had barricaded
themselves in the jail, which proved, it was said, too damp
to burn ; the rest who survived were dispersed in the
woods. Before the fire was quite burned out the Indians were
gone, and the inhabitants began to creep back into the town,
cold and half dead with hunger. The ladies kept up a large
fire (carefully darkening the windows), and cooked for the
settlers till they were too weary to stand, and one at a time
lay down to sleep before the fire. Mrs. W. often, during
those dreary days, used to fasten a blanket, Indian fashion,
about her shoulders, and go out into the wintry night to
forage for food ; a strange employment for a young girl in
the neighbourhood of a savage foe. She traced the hogs in
the snow, and caught many fowls in the dark. On the third
day, very early in the morning, six Buffalo men were en
joying a breakfast of her cooking, when the windows were
again broken in, and the house once more full of savages.

FORT ERIE. 95
They had come back to burn and pillage all lhat was left.
The six men fled, and, by a natural impulse, the girl with
them. At some distance from the house she looked be
hind her, and saw a savage leaping towards her with his
tomahawk already raised. She saw that the next instant it
would be buried in her scull. She faced about, burst out a
laughing, and held out both her hands to the savage. His
countenance changed, first to perplexity ; but he swerved
his weapon aside, laughed, and shook hands, but motioned
her homeward. She was full of remorse for having left
her mother and sister. When she reached her door the
house was so crowded that she could neither make her way
in nor learn anything of their fate. Under the persuasion
that they lay murdered within, she flew to some British dra
goons who were sitting on the ground at a considerable dis
tance, watching the burning of the remainder of the town.
They expressed their amazement that she should have made
her way through the savages, and guarded her home, where
they procured an entrance for her, so that she reached the
arms of her patient and suffering mother and sister. That
house was, at length, the only one left standing ; and when
we returned Mrs. W. pointed it out to me.
The settlers remained for some time in the woods, steal
ing into a midnight warming and supper at the lone abode
of the widow and her daughters. The ladies had nothing
left but this dwelling. Their property had been in houses
which were burned, and their very clothes were gone. The
settlers had, however, carried off their money with them
safely into the woods. They paid the ladies for their hos
pitality, and afterward for as much needlework as they
could do ; for every one was in want of clothes. By their
industry these women raised themselves to independence,
which the widow lived some tranquil years to enjoy. The
daughter who told me the story is now the lady of a judge.
She never boasts of her bravery, and rarely refers to her
adventures in the war ; but preserves all her readiness and
Btrength of mind, and in the silence of her own heart, or in
the ear of a sympathizing friend, gratefully contrasts the
perils of her youth with the milder discipline of her riper
age.

96 WESTERN TRAVEL.

NIAGARA. " Look back !
Lo ! where it comes like an eternity,
As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread !" Byron.
It is not my intention to describe what we saw at Ni
agara so much as to relate what we did. To offer an
idea of Niagara by writing of hues and dimensions is
much like representing the kingdom of Heaven by images
of jasper and topazes.
I visited the falls twice : first in October, 1834, in com
pany with the party with whom we traversed the state of
New- York, when we stayed nearly a week ; and again with
Dr. and Mrs. F., and other friends, in June, 1836, when we
remained between two and three days. The first time we
approached the falls from Buffalo, the next from Lewistown
and Queenstown.
I expected to be disappointed in the first sight ofthe falls,
and did not relish the idea of being questioned on the first
day as to my "impressions." I therefore made a law, with
the hearty agreement of the rest of the party, that no one
should ask an opinion of the spectacle for twenty-four hours.
We stepped into the stage at Buffalo at half past eight in
the morning on the 14th of October. At Black Rock we
got out to cross the ferry. We looked at the green rushing
waters we were crossing, and wondered whether they or
we should be at the falls first. We had to wait some
minutes for the stage on the Canada side, and a comely
English woman invited us into her kitchen to warm our
selves. She was washing as well as cooking ; and such a
log was blazing under her boilers as no fireplace in England
would hold. It looked hke the entire trunk of a pine some
what shortened. I could not help often wishing that some
of the shivering poor of London could have supplies of the
fuel which lies rotting in the American woods.
The road is extremely bad all the way from the ferry to

NIAGARA. 97
the falls, and the bridges the rudest of the rude. The few
farms looked decaying, and ill-clad children offered us au
tumn fruit for sale. We saw nothing to flatter our national
complacency ; for truly the contrast with the other side of
the river was mournful enough. It was not till we had
passed the inn with the sign of the "Chippeway Battle
Ground" that we saw the spray from the falls. I believe
we might have seen it sooner if we had known where to
look. " Is that it ?" we all exclaimed. It appeared on the
left-hand side, whereas we had been looking to the right ;
and instead of its being suspended in the air like a white
cloud, as we had imagined, it curled vigorously up, like
smoke from a cannon or from a replenished fire. The
winding of the road presently brought this round to our
right hand. It seemed very near ; the river, too, was as
smooth as oil. The beginning of the Welland canal was
next pointed out to me, but it was not a moment to care for
canals. Then the little Round Island, covered with wood
and surrounded by rapids, lay close at hand, in a recess of
the Canada shore. Some of the rapids, of eight or ten feet
descent, would be called falls elsewhere. They were glit
tering aHd foamy, with spaces of green water between. I
caught a glimpse of a section of the cataract, but not any
adequate view, before we were driven briskly up to the door
of the hotel. We ran quickly from piazza to piazza till we
reached the crown of the roof, where there is a space railed
in for the advantage of the gazer who desires to reach the
highest point. I think the emotion of this moment was
never renewed or equalled. The morning had been cloudy,
with a very few wandering gleams. It was now a little
after noon ; the sky was clearing, and at this moment the sun
lighted up the Horseshoe Fall. I am not going to describe
it. The most striking appearance was the slowness with
which the shaded green waters rolled over the brink. This
majestic oozing gives a true idea of the volume of the floods,
but they no longer look like water.
We wandered through the wood, along Table Rock, and
to the ferry. We sat down opposite to the American Falls,
finding them the first day or two more level to our compre
hension than the Great Horseshoe Cataract ; yet through
out, the beauty was far more impressive to me than the
grandeur. One's imagination may heap up almost any
degree of grandeur ; but the subtile colouring of this scene,
Vol. I.— I

98 WESTERN TRAVEL.
varying with every breath of wind, refining upon the soft
ness of driven snow, and dimming all the gems of the mine,
is wholly inconceivable. The woods on Goat Island were
in their gaudiest autumn dress ; yet, on looking up to them
from the fall, they seemed one dust colour. This will not
be believed, but it is true.
The little detached fall on the American side piqued my
interest at once. It looks solitary in the midst ofthe crowd
of waters, coming out of its privacy in the wood to take its
leap by itself. In the afternoon, as I was standing on
Table Rock, a rainbow started out from the precipice a hun
dred feet below me, and curved upward as if about to alight
on my head. Other such apparitions seemed to have a
similar understanding with the sun. They went and came,
blushed and faded, the floods rolling on, on, till the human
heart, overcharged with beauty, could bear no more.
We crossed the ferry in the afternoon. Our boat was
tossed like a cork in the writhing waves. We soon found
that, though driven hither and thither by the currents, the
ferryman always conquers at last, and shoots his boat into
the desired creek ; but the tossing and whirling amid the
driving spray seems a rather dubious affair at first. To be
carried down would be no better than to be sucked up the
river, as there is a fatal whirlpool below which forbids all
navigation as peremptorily as the falls.
I still think the finest single impression of all is halfway up
the American Fall, seen, not from the staircase, but from the
bank on the very verge of the sheet. Here we stood this
first evening, and amid the rapids above. In returning, we
saw from the river the singular effect of the clouds of spray
being in shadow, and the descending floods in light ; while
the evening star hung over one extremity of the falls, and
the moon over the other, and the little perpetual cloud, amber
in the last rays from the west, spread its fine drizzle like a
silver veil over the scene.
There is nothing like patient waiting in a place like this.
The gazer, who sits for hours watching what sun and wind
may be pleased to reveal, is sure to be rewarded, somewhat
as Newton described himself as being when he set a thought
before him, and sat still to see what would come out of it.
It is surprising what secrets of the thunder cavern were dis
closed to me during a few days of still watching ; disclosed
by a puff of wind clearing the spray for an instant, or by

NIAGARA. 99
the lightest touch of a sunbeam. The sound of the waters
is lulling, even on the very brink ; but if one wishes for
stillness, there is the forest all around, where the eyes may
become accustomed to common objects again. It is pleas
ant, after the high excitement, to stroll in the wild woods, and
wonder what this new tree is and what that ; and to gossip
with the pigs, slim and spruce while fed on forest nuts and
roots ; and to watch the progress of a loghouse, sitting the
while on a stump or leaning over a snake-fence ; and then
to return, with new wonder, to the ethereal vision.
The first evening the gentlemen were all restless under
the prohibition to ask about impressions ; every one of them
was eager to tell, but too proud to pour out till others did
the same. What an outpouring it was when it did happen !
One morning we found an old man, between seventy and
eighty years old, gazing from Table Rock. He was an
American. Being on a journey, he had walked from Queens-
town to see the falls. He quietly observed that he was
ashamed to think there had been wars near such a place,
and that he hoped the English and Americans were grown
wiser now, and would not think of fighting any more. This
came in echo of my thought. I had been secretly wishing
that all the enemies in the world could be brought together
on this rock ; they could not but love as brethren.
An English family at the hotel seemed marvellously
skilled in putting away all trie good influences of the place.
The gentleman was so anxious about where he should set
tle, so incessantly pettish, so resolutely miserable, as to be
speak the compassion of all the guests for the ladies of his
family, one of whom told me that she had forgotten all
about the falls in her domestic anxieties. As this gentle
man found fault with everybody and everything, and ostenta
tiously proved that nothing could give him any pleasure* it
was not surprising that the cataraet itself failed to meet his
approbation ; yet I was not prepared for the question he put
to me across the table, in the presence of both Canadians
and Americans," whether I did not think the natives made a
very silly fuss about the falls, and whether the Falls of the
Clyde were not much finer. Such are the persons by whom
foreigners suppose themselves made acquainted with the
English character. Such i9 the way in which not a few
English study to mortify the inhabitants, and then come
home and complain of American conceit. I told this gen-

100 WESTERN TRAVEL.
tleman that I perceived he was speaking of the rapids, and
had not seen the falls.
We wished, while we were in the neighbourhood, to ob
tain a glimpse of Lake Ontario, as we were not sure of
being able to visit Canada at a future time. We took the
opportunity of two of our party going northward, to ac
company them as far as Queenstown, seven miles off, where
we intended to see Brock's monument, satisfy ourselves with
the view from the top of it, and walk home through the
woods in the afternoon. In the stage were an Irish gentle
man and his wife. The lady amused me by the zeal with
which she knitted all the way, just as if she were in a dark
parlour in the Old Jewry ; and the gentleman with some
sentiments which were wholly new to me r, for instance, he
feared that the independence of the Americans made them
feel themselves independent of God. This consequence of
democratic government had not struck me before, and I
never perceived any traces of its existence ; but if it should
occur, there will probably soon be an epidemic or a bad sea
son to bring them to their senses again.
Before the door of the wretched, foul inn at Queenstown,
we sorrowfully shook hands with our Prussian and Dutch
companions, hoping to meet them again in the course of our
travels ; which, indeed, happened more than once. We pro
vided ourselves here with cider, cakes, and sandwiches ;
»'. e., beefsteak laid between thick dry bread. With this
provision we ascended the hill to the foot of Brock's monu
ment, and found the portress, an active little Irishwoman,
waiting to let us in. She was delighted to meet ladies from
the old country, and heartily invited us to spread our dinner
in her cottage below. She told us all her affairs, and seemed
unwilling to leave us when we told her we meant to stay a
long while on the top of the monument, and would not de
tain her from her washtub, but would come down to her by-
and-by. She and her husband have, for showing the
monument, sixty dollars a season (that is, while the boats
run), and all that they happen to take in the winter. They
were soon to have a cottage built for them nearer the monu
ment. When we went down to her cottage she had spread
plates, knives, and pickles, and had her head full of ques
tions and communications. She was grateful for a small
payment for her trouble, and gave us the impression of her

NIAGARA. 101
biing a very amiable, contented person, whom we should
like to see again.
Sir Isaac Brock fell at the battle of Queenstown, in Octo
ber, 1812, near the base of this monument. It is 145 feet
high, and, being built on a pretty steep hill, commands a fine
view. To the left a prodigious sweep of forest terminates
in blue Canadian hills. On the right is the American shore,
at this time gaudy with autumn woods. There stands the
village of Lewistown, with hs winding descent to the ferry.
At our feet lay Queenstown, its sordidness being lost in dis
tance, and its long street presenting the appearance of an
English village. The green river rushes between its lofty
wooded banks, which suddenly widen at Queenstown, caus
ing the waters to spread and relax their speed while making
their way, with three or four bends, to the lake. We saw
the white church of Niagara rising above the woods some
miles off where the junction takes place ; and beyond, the
vast lake spreads its waters, gray on the horizon. There
was life in this magnificent scene. The ferryboat was
buffeted by the waves ; groups were in waiting on either
side the ferry, and teams were in the fields. The Irish
woman was grieved that she had no telescope wherewith to
enable us to see what was doing on the lake. She and her
husband had provided one for the accommodation of visiters.
Some travellers (English) had thrown it down from the top
of the monument, and when she asked for payment only bul
lied her ; and her husband had not been able to afford to
get another.
After dinner we sat on the top of the precipitous wooded
bank of the river, looking down into its green eddies, and
watching the family of white birds which hovered far be
neath us, but yet high over the stream. Meditating, as we
were, that we were now sitting on the spot where the falls
were pouring down their flood ages before Babylon was
founded or the Greek Mythology had arisen out of the ele
ments of universal conviction, it was not surprising that we
had no thoughts to spare for the weather.* We did not ob-
* It is familiar to all that the cataract of Niagara is supposed to have
worn its way back from the point of the narrowing of its channel (the
spot where we now sat), and that there is an anticipation of its con
tinuing to . retire the remaining twelve miles to Lake Erie. Unless
counteracting agencies should in the mean time be at work, the inun
dation of the level country which must then take place will be almost
12

102 WESTERN TRAVEL.
serve how the sky had been darkening. Two wagons
driven by lads stopped in passing, and their drivers offered
us seats to Niagara. We at first declined, being bent upon
walking ; but feeling heavy drops of rain at the moment,
we retracted our refusal, and jumped into one of the ve
hicles. It was a mere box upon wheels ; a barbarous
machine, but of great service to us in the ensuing storm.
Before we reached our hotel we were thoroughly wet, but
had obtained a good deal of information from our driver
about the condition of the Canadian settlers in the neigh
bourhood. He was the son of a Canadian father and Scotch
mother, who were doing well in the world, as he said the
English settlers do who set the right way to work. The
land is not the best near the road ; so that what is seen
there is no fair specimen of the state of the settlers. The
farms hereabout consist of about 100 acres generally, and
are all the property of the residents. Labourers live with
tbe farmers, and receive, besides their board and lodging,
about 120 dollars a year. A gentleman, a farmer and phy
sician, from some distance, called on me one day when I was
out, and left messages for me with one of our party. He
said he wished me to see and do justice to Canada. People
go, he believes, with wrong expectations, and se are disap
pointed. He, his wife and daughters, went expecting ease
and comfort, and they bave found it ; but they have not
wealth and luxury. . He declared that civility and cheerful
ness would always command good manners and service.
As I had no opportunity of " seeing and doing justice to
Canada," I give this gentleman's testimony. It is very agree
able, and I do not doubt its justness.
Another visiter of a very different kind came to our par
lour as I was preparing for our departure. I looked up from
my packing, and saw an extraordinary apparition in the
doorway ; a lady bridling, winking, and attitudinizing in a
wonderful manner. On my asking her to come in and sit
down, she said she was deputed by a gentleman to ask my
address, in order to his communicating with me before I
should publish my account of the falls. She seemed
deeply grieved at finding that I did not contemplate any such
boundless. The period is, however, too remote for calculation. An
American told me, smiling, that the apprehension has not yet affected
the title to land. And no one knows what secret barriers may be
building up or drains opening.

NIAGARA. 103
publication, saying that it would be a serious disappointment
to the gentleman, who hoped I might have been of essential
service to him — by recommending his hotel ! It appeared
that a sharp competition was going on about the letting of
this hotel, and the gentleman in question was in hopes of
getting it. He seemed to have one great qualification, the
determination to leave no stone unturned.
The second time I visited Niagara I accomplished the
feat of going behind the fall. In October it was too cold ;
on a sunny 8th of June there was no imprudence in it.
When I descended the staircase wilh Dr. and Mrs. F. after
breakfast, we had no such intention ; but we were all tempted
farther and farther over the rocks, nearer and nearer to the
sheet, till the puffing away of the spray gave us glimpses of
what was behind, and made us feel that this was the right
day and hour. Mrs. F.'s chest was not very strong, and
this was no enterprise for a child ; so Dr. F. and I were to
be the favoured ones. We ascended to the guide's house,
and surveyed the extraordinary costume in whieh we were
to make the expedition. Stout socks and shoes (but I would
recommend ladies to go shod as usual), thick cotton garments
reaching to the feet, green oilskin jackets and hats ; in this
mountaineer sort of costume is the adventure to be gone
through. As the guide's wife was assisting me, she hoped
I had enjoyed myself since I was last at the falls.
" Were you aware that I had been here before ?"
" Yes, madam, I remember you well."
" Why, how is it possible that you should remember me
among the thousands of people who have been here in two
seasons ? We were not acquainted, were we ?"
" No, madam ; but one evening you stopped and admired
my cow."
" Did not this trumpet help you to remember me ?"
" No, madam ; I never saw it before."
How many ways there are to people's hearts ! I now
remembered having remarked to a companion on the beauty
and docility of a cow which a woman was rndking. The
good wife had treasured up my observation as a personal
compliment. Mrs. F. and Charley accompanied us to the edge of the
spray, when we sent them back, charging them not to ex
pect us too soon, as we meant to look about us a while.
We had a stout negro for a guide. He took me by the

104 WESTERN TRAVEL.
hand, and led me through the spray. I presently found the
method of keeping myself at my ease. It was to hold down
the brim of my hat, so as to protect my eyes from the dash
ing water, and to keep my mouth shut. With these pre
cautions I could breathe and see freely in the midst of a
tumult which would otherwise be enough to extinguish one's
being. A hurricane blows up from the caldron ; a deluge
drives at you from all parts ; and the noise of both wind and
waters, reverberated from the cavern, is inconceivable. Our
path was sometimes a wet ledge of rock just broad enough
to allow one person at a time to creep along ; in other places
we walked over heaps of fragments both slippery and un
stable.* If all had been dry and quiet, I might probably
have thought this path above the boiling basin dangerous,
and have trembled to pass it ; but amid the hubbub of gusts
and floods, it appeared so firm a footing that I had no fear
of slipping into the caldron. From the moment that I per
ceived that we were actually behind the cataract, and not in
a mere cloud of spray, the enjoyment was intense. I not
only saw the watery curtain before me like tempest-driven
snow, but by momentary glances could see the crystal roof
of this most wonderful of Nature's palaces. The precise
point where the flood left the rock was marked by a gush
of silvery light, which, of course, was brighter where the
waters were shooting forward than below where they fell
perpendicularly. There was light enough to see one anoth
er's features by, and even to give a shadow to the side of
the projecting rock which barred our farther progress.
When we came within a few paces of this projection, our
guide, by a motion of his hand (for speaking was out of the
question), forbade my advancing farther. But it was no
time and place to be stopped by anything but impossibilities.
I saw that though there was no regular path on the other
side of the guide, there were two pieces of rock wide enough
for my feet, by standing on which I might touch the wall
which limited our walk. I made the guide press himself
back against the rock, and crossed between him and the
caldron, and easily gained my object — laying my hand on
Termination Rock. When I returned to my place Dr. F.
passed both the guide and myself for the same purpose. In
returning my hat blew off, in spite of all my efforts to hold
* A rope has since been stretched along the rock to serve for a hand
rail. This must render the expedition far less formidable than before.

NIAGARA. 105
it on. The guide put his upon my head, and that was car
ried away in like manner. I ought to have been instructed
to tie it well on, for mere holding will not do in a hurricane.
It is a proof that we were well lighted in our cavern, that
we all saw the outline of a hat which was jammed between
two stones some way beneath us. The guide made for this,
looking just as if he were coolly walking down into destruc
tion ; for the volumes of spray curled thickly up, as if eager
to swallow him. He grasped the hat, but found it too much
beaten to pieces to be of any use.
Mrs. F. says we looked like three gliding ghosts when
her anxious eye first caught our forms moving behind the
cloud. She was glad enough to see us ; for some one pass
ing by had made her expect us at least two minutes before
we appeared. Dripping at all points as we were, we scudded
under the rocks and up the staircase to our dressing-rooms,
after which we wrote our names among those of the adven
turers who have performed the same exploit, and received a
certificate of our having visited Termination Rock. I was
told that a fee and a wetting in the spray may secure such a
certificate at any time. Be this as it may, ours were honest.
When we came down in our own likeness, Mrs. F. had
found a glorious seat for us on a rock which jutted outward
and upward, commanding the entire range of the falls, with
every advantage of light, and also of solitude ; no inconsid
erable gain in a place where tourists may be heard discussing
on Table Rock the probability of there being chickens for
dinner. I felt some pain in my chest for a few hours, but
was not otherwise injured by the expedition. When the
other members of our party joined us, they were somewhat
surprised to hear what we had done ; and one of them fol
lowed our example another day.
I look back upon this morning as the very best of the
many I spent at the falls. We found several new points
of view, and the weather was divine. We clambered down
to the water's edge, where men were gathering spars and
other "curiosities." We sat long amusing ourselves with
watching the vain attempts of the tree-trunks, which had
been carried over from above, to get any farther down the
river. They were whisked about like twigs in the boiling
waters, and sometimes made a vigorous shoot as if to get
free of the eddies ; but as often as they reached a particular
spot they were sure to be turned back, and sucked up the

106 WESTERN TRAVEL.
stream to try again. I think they must be doing penance
there still, unless, enormous logs as they are, they have been
dashed to pieces. When the 3un became too hot to be borne
below, we came up to the foot of the staircase and sat in
the shade, drinking from the drip the soft shower which
could not make itself beard amid the solemn roar of the
floods. Here Charley stood, placing spouts of reed which
might convey water from the drip wherewith to wash his
spars. Not a word of wonder had we from him. He gloried
in the scene, and feared nothing, climbing, with the help of
his father's strong hand, wherever it waa practicable to set
his little foot ; but there was no wonder. The age of won
der has not arrived to children, savages, and other ignorant
persons. They know too little of purposes, means, and ob
structions to be aware of what either divine or human
achievement is. A child believes you if you promise to take
him into the moon ; and a savage supposes that you eclipse
the sun by firing a musket. An ignorant person annoys
Mr. Babbage, after much praise of his machine, by asking
to know one thing more : " If you put a question in wrong,
will the answer come out right ?" Charley would hardly
have asked this question, child as he was ; but he did not
share our wonder at the cataract. He enjoyed the climbing,
and the rainbows, and the emerald pillars based on clouds,
which was the form the floods bore this sultry noon ; but he
went on washing his spars as tranquilly as if he had been
beside our favourite brook in the wood at Stockbridge. His
pity was stirred up this morning, however, with a story of a
bird which I saw perish. It had got bewildered in the cir
cuit of the Horseshoe Fall. I saw it driving and fluttering
about for a minute or two in the spray, when it flew directly
into the sheet, and was swallowed up.
The next day was devoted to Goat Island. Dr. F., who
learned English to the last degree of perfection in little
more than two years, happened to say one day that there
was one English word whose exact meaning he did not un
derstand, dawdle. We promised to afford him an exem
plification of it this day. There was also a joke against
me. I was now a practised traveller ; and having found
how the pleasures of travelling are economized by business
like habits of arrangement, I was the prompter of our some
what inexperienced party about ordering dinner, packing at
convenient times, and so contriving as to have our thoughts

NIAGARA. 107
at perfect liberty for pleasure while we were out of doors,
instead of having to run or send to our lodgings about busi
ness which might have been settled while we were there.
They asked me whether I could spend a whole day without
thinking of time, meals, or the fitness of things in any way.
No one was better pleased with such liberty than I ; so we
left behind us even our watches. It appears, however, that
somebody must have carried money, for food was brought to
us, and, doubtless, honestly paid for.
At some unknown hour of a bright morning, therefore, we
set forth from our hotel, and in due time reached the ferry.
The entire party paid sufficient attention to business to sit
properly in the boat, which is no place for freak and frolic
while bobbing about among the eddies. We dawdled long
about the American Fall. I had never before been fully
aware of its power over the senses. To-day I saw a lady
who was sitting on the bank — as safe a seat as an armchair
by the fireside — convulsively turn away from the scene and
clasp the ground. Yet the water flows so tranquilly that I
should not be afraid to stand in the flood near the bank
where it takes the leap. I tried the force ofthe water there,
and found it very moderate. After completing the ascent,
Mrs. F. and I were standing looking at the rapids, when a
letter was handed to me. Somebody had actually been
mundane enough to remember the postoffice, and to go to it !
I was glad it was not I. Further sins against the spirit of
the day were presently committed. Of course, I cannot say
what time it was, but, by the heat, probably about the mid
dle of the day, when the ladies were sitting on the stem of a
tree, in a tiny island amid the roaring rapids — an interesting
love-story being their topic — and the gentlemen were seen
approaching with bread, biscuits, cheese, ale, and lemonade.
They had not even forgotten glasses. We ate our dinner on
a bench under the trees, all except Charley, who niched him
self in an ash which parted from the root into many stems.
The boy looked like a beautiful fairy, and, for his own pari,
declared that this was far better than dining in any house.
AVe dawdled hours away in Goat Island ; now lying on
the grassy bank with our feet almost into the rapids ; now
fanning ourselves in the translucent green shades of the
wood, among rabbits and goats, and then gathering new
wild-flowers from ihe multitude which blossomed under our
feet, the roar of the falls solemnizing all. The timid ones

108 WESTERN TRAVEL.
sat in the alcove erected above the Horseshoe Fall, while
the rest went down to the Terrapin Bridge and Tower. The
tower, forty feet high, is built on rocks in the midst of the
rapids, and its summit affords an absolutely complete view
of the scene. The bridge is built on logs which extend
from rock to rock in the rapids to the edge of the precipice,
the flood gushing beneath in a dizzying whirl. At my first
visit this bridge had been complete, and, to all appearance,
secure. I had stood on its extreme point, which projected
over the precipice. There I hung suspended above the fall,
standing in the air on the extremity of a beam, and without
any suspicion that I was not perfectly safe. It was there
that I learned some of the secrets of the cataract. I saw
there what can be seen nowhere else, the emerald columns
broken and forced up, and falling again in gushes of dia
monds, which again were melted into wreaths of dazzling
snow. It was now too late to see this any more. The
bridge had broken down some way from the end ; the
handrail was gone ; and the brink of the precipice was
no longer accessible. We got to the tower, however, and
farther ; and Charley and his father stepped down from the
bridge among the rocks, and stood amid the water very near
the brink of the great fall ! Their position was shown to
be perfectly safe by the verdure of these rocks. Slight
shrubs, rooted in their crevices, were full of leaf. Their
smallest twigs were tossed in the never-dying breeze with
out being snapped. Yet we were glad when our friends
were safe on the bridge again.
We descended the Biddle staircase — the spiral staircase
fixed against the perpendicular rock in Goat Island — and
pursued a narrow path from its foot back to the fall, where
we found a glacier ! An enormous pile of snow and ice lay
against the rock, so solid, under this intense June sun, that
Charley climbed to tbe top of it. Here every successive
pulse of the cataract was like a cannon shot a few yards
off, so that there was no standing it long; there was
much yet to do ; and the party probably observed, though no
one chose to mention it, that the sun was going down. We
crossed the detached American Fall by ita rustic bridge,
and hunted it back to its retreat in the wood. Our faces
were now turned homeward ; but we lingered long in the
shades, and afterward at Bath Island, where some one ob
served that it would be dusk before we could reach tbe ferry,

PRIESTLEY. 109
and that the walk home on the Canada side was not of a
kind to be prosecuted in the dark. The sun disappeared
before we reached the ferry-house, and the panorama from
the river was seen in the magnitude and majesty of twilight.
In the dark woods on the Canada side we made ourselves
visible to each other by catching fireflies and sticking them
in our bonnets. They sat very still among our bows of rib
and, and really served our purpose very well.
Bad news awaited us at home ; news of Mr. Van Buren's
casting vote in favour of the third reading of the Gag Bill,
and of a fresh breaking out of the dreadful Creek war in
Georgia ; but now that that atrocious bill has long been
thrown out, and the Creek war ended (though with grievous
suffering and humiliation to the poor Creeks), this day of
delicious dawdling (a word which Dr. F. by this time com
pletely understood) stands out bright enough to be worthy
ofthe scene and of our human life.

PRIESTLEY.
" Ingrata Patria !" Dante's Epitaph.
" Que l'homme done s'estime son prix : il a en lui la capacite de
connoitre la ve>ite, et d'etre • heureux : mais il n'a point de verite, ou
constante, ou satisfaisante. Je voudrois done porter l'homme a desirer
d'en trouver ; a etre pret et degage des passions pour la suivre ou il la
trouvera." — Pascal.
Among the select classes of men to whom the common
race looks up with the heart-throb of mingled reverence and
sympathy, none is perhaps so eminent as that of sufferers
for opinion. If ever we are conscious of a breathing of the
Godhead in man, it is in the sanctified presence, actual or
ideal, of martyrs to truth. Such men, as a class, are liable
to particular faults, are usually marked by the imperfections
which attend their virtues, as shadows are a consequence of
sunshine. But in no case are. men in general so tolerant of
faults as in theirs ; I do not mean in their own day, when
they are not commonlv recognised as confessors and mar
tyrs, but when they stand out from the records of time,
Vol. I.— K

110 WESTERN TRAVEL.
complete characters in history. The turbulence, jealousy,
and self-will of such men are allowed for more liberally
than the same faults in other orders of men ; more slightly
noticed; more eagerly extenuated. And why? Because,
of all men, they most infallibly and extensively command
sympathy. As truth is the one eternal good, the single
pursuit of truth is the one eternal virtue which wins and
elevates all human souls. But when, as in some rare
instances, this devotion to truth is seen purified from the
failings whicb elsewhere seem its natural accompaniments ;
When the hero is seen holy, harmless, and undefiled as the
sage ; when no regrets need mingle with the admiration of
the disciple, as delicious a contemplation is afforded to the
moral taste as the moral creation yields.
Such was Priestley, the singled-minded martyr, but the
meek inquirer ; the intrepid confessor, but the humble
Christian ; the gentle philosopher, the sympathizing friend.
Circumstances have been unfavourable to a wide, but not to a
full knowledge of his character. The comparatively few to
whom his mind and heart have been absolutely laid open,
regard him wilh a love which is only not idolatrous because it
is perfectly reasonable. The many know him as a man who
was driven away from Birmingham by a mob who destroyed
his house, papers, and philosophical apparatus, burned his
church, and sought his life ; and that he took refuge in
America, and died there. Some go on to believe what was
said at the time ; that he was a turbulent man, a mischief-
maker, and either a conceited smatterer in theology and
philosophy, or a deep malignant infidel, they do not know
which. Others hold him to have been a good kind of man,
who rashly drew upon his own head the tempests of his time,
and had to bear only the natural though hard consequences
of his own imprudence. But those whose knowledge of
him is complete can tell that his imputed turbulence was
intellectual activity ; his conceit a simplicity too lofty for
the apprehension of his enemies ; his infidelity a devout con
stancy to truth. His depth was all of wisdom ; his hatreds
were of cant, hypocrisy, and designed obstruetion of truth.
He exposed himself to tribulation as innocently and uncon
sciously as he bore it meekly and heroically. He never
sought martyrdom, for he loved life and its comforts in the
bosom of his family and friends ; he valued repose for his
philosophical pursuits, and thought his daily probation suffi-

PRIESTLEY. IU
cient for every man's strength. He was playing backgam
mon with his wife after supper when the mob came upon
him ; he was so wholly unprepared that his MSS. and pri
vate letters lay all exposed to the rioters ; and the philoso
pher suffered — calmly and bravely suffered — the anguish of
feeling himself a hated and an injured man. Yet, thus ta
ken by surprise, his emotions were not for himself, or for
the many near and dear friends who were being overwhelmed
with him. While he stood looking over a garden hedge
where he could see the flames devouring his church, and
hear the shouts of the mob which was demolishing his house,
he dropped a natural expression of pity for the misery of
those poor people when they should discover what mischief
they had done. No word was ever heard from him about
the effect which the sufferings of the day would have upon
anybody's mind or upon any future time. He simply did
the duty, and bore the probation of the hour, leaving uncon
sciously an example of sublime patience which has raised
and kindled more minds than the highest order of good men
ever dream of influencing, and whose force will not be spent
while men are moved by disinterestedness or thrilled by
heroism. Of his retirement in America we have many particulars,
but still not enough. Enough can never be learned of the
course of life of one whose more homely virtues were now
put to the severest test, after those which are commonly es
teemed more lofty had well stood their trial. The follow
ing passage delivers over to us the impression ofthe philos
opher's latter days, whieh Priestley's own correspondence
and the notices of his friends leave on the mind of an affec
tionate admirer of the man.
"There, in one of its remote recesses, on the outer mar
gin of civilization, he who had made a part of the world's
briskest activity, who had led on the speed of its progress,
whose mind had kept pace with its learning, and overtaken
its science, and outstripped its freedom and its morality,
gathered together his resources of philosophy and devotion ;
thence he looked forth on the vicissitudes and prospects of
Europe with melancholy but hopeful ' interests, like the
prophet from his mount on the land whose glories he was
not to see. But it was not for such an energetic spirit as
his to pass instantaneously into the quietude of exile without
an irrecoverable shock. He had not that dreamy and idle

112 WESTERN TRAVEL.
pietism which could enwrap itself in the mists of its own
contemplations, and believe Heaven nearer in proportion as
earth became less distinct. The shifting sights aud busy
murmurs that reached him from afar reminded him of the
circulation of social toils which had plied his hand and heart.
Year after year passed on, and brought him no summons of
duty back into the stir of men ; all. that he did he had to de
vise and execute by his own solitary energies, apart from
advice and sympathy, and with no hope but that of bene
fiting the world he was soon to leave. The effort to ex
change the habits of the city for those of the cloister was
astonishingly successful. But his mind was never the
same again ; it is impossible not to perceive a decline of
power, a tendency to garrulity of style and eccentricity of
speculation in his American publications. And yet, while
this slight though perceptible shade fell Over his intellect,
a softened light seemed to spread itself over his character.
His feelings, his moral perceptions were mellowed and
ripened by years, and assumed a tenderness and refinement
not observable before. Thanks to the genial and heavenly
clime which Christianity sheds round the soul, the aged
stem burst into blossom. And so it will always be when
the mind is really pervaded by so noble a faith as Priest
ley's. There is no law of nature, there are no frosts of
time to shed a snowblight on the heart. The feelings die
out when their objects come to an end ; and if there be no
future, and the aims of life become shorter and shorter, and
its treasures drop off, and its attractions are spent, and a
few links only of its hours remain in the hand, well may
there be no heart for effort and no eye for beauty, and well
may love gather itself up to die. But open perfection to, its
veneration and immortality to its step ; tell it of one who is
and always will be the inspirer of genius, the originator of
truth, the life of emotion ; assure it that all which is loved
shall live for ever ; that that which is known shall enlarge
for ever ; that all which is felt shall grow intenser for ever,
and the proximity of death will quicken instead of wither
ing the mind ; the eye will grow dim on the open page of
knowledge ; the hand will be found clasping in death the
instruments of human good ; the heart's last pulse will beat
with some new emotion of benignity. In Priestley's case
there was not merely a sustainment, but a positive advance
ment of character in later years. The symptoms of rest-

PRIESTLEY. 113
lessness gradually disappear without abatement of his ac
tivity ; a quietude as of one who waits and listens comes
over him ; there are touches of sentiment and traces of tears
in his letters, and yet an obvious increase of serenity and
hope ; there is a disposition to devise and accomplish more
good for the world, and ply himself while an energy re
mained, and yet no anxiety to do what was beyqnd his
powers. He successively followed to the grave a son and
a wife ; and the more he was left alone, the more did he
love to be alone ; and in his study, surrounded by the books
which had been his companions for half a century and over
half the earth, and sitting beneath the pictures of friends
under the turf, he took his last survey of the world which
had given him so long a shelter ; like a grateful guest before
his departure, he numbered up the bright and social, or the
adventurous hours which had passed during his stay ; and
the philosophers, who had welcomed him in his annual
visits to London, the broad, sagacious face of Franklin,
the benignant intelligence of Price, rose up before him,
and the social voices of the group of heretics round the fire
side of Essex-street floated on his ear ; and as the full
moon shone upon his table and glistened in his electrical
machine, his eye would dream of the dining philosophers of
the Lunar Society, and glisten to greet again the doughty
features of Darwin, and the clear, calculating eye of Walt.
Yet his retrospective thoughts were but hints to suggest a
train of prospective far more interesting. The scenes which
he loved were in the past, but most of the objects which
clothed them with associations of interest were already
transferred to the future : there they were in reserve for
him, to be recovered (to use his own favourite phrase,
slightly tinged with the melancholy spirit of his solitude)
' under more favourable circumstances ;' and thither, with
all his attachment to the world, whose last cliffs he had
reached, and whose boundary ocean already murmured be
neath, he hoped soon to emigrate."*
Priestley had much to suffer in America. His severest
woes befell him there. There he lost his beloved son
Harry ; then his wife departed ; and trials which exceeded
even these put his Christian acquiescence to the fullest
proof. To an intimate friend he writes, " From how much
* " Monthly Repository," New Series, vol. vii., p. 235.
K2

114 WESTERN TRAVEL.
trouble has my wife been relieved ! She had a great mind,
but the events that have taken place since her death would
have affected her deeply. My trials, now towards the close
of life, are as great as I can bear, though I doubt not that a
wise and good Providence overrules all events, and I have
daily a more habitual respect to it. Nothing else could
support me. . . . We are frail, imperfect beings, and
our faith is at best but weak, and requires to be strengthened
by reading and reflection. I never omit reading, and 1 do it
with more satisfaction than ever, a considerable portion of
scripture every day, and by this means my mind is much
relieved." This is not the device of the devotee, the refuge of the
disappointed man, who takes to religion as the only resource
left him. This is the declaration of a philosopher, whose
youth and whose riper years were given to the close .study
of the book which was now the pillow of his age.
I know not how it may appear to persons less familiarized
than myself with the spirit of the man and the eloquent
moderation of his language, but I have always regarded the
letter on the death of his son Harry as an exquisite revela
tion ofa healthy mind in sorrow : —
" TO THE REV. T. LINDSEY.
" Northumberland, Dec. 17, 1795.
"Dear Friend,
" I think that, in my last of the 7th instant, I mentioned
Harry's being indisposed, in consequence, we imagined, of
his attending his limekiln in the night. It proved to be a
more serious illness than we or the physician imagined. He
grew worse till the 11th, when he died, it is now almost
certain, of an inflammation and mortification ofthe stomach.
Having had little or no apprehension of danger till near the
time of his death, the shock, you may suppose, was very
great ; and, being the first event of the kind, I am affected
more than I thought I should have been, though I have un
speakable consolation in believing that nothing can befall us
without the appointment of the best of Beings, and that we
shall meet our departed children and friends in a better
state. " He had recovered from an ague which was common in
this part of the country this summer ; but, after this, he had
frequent colds from exposing himself to cold and wet, and

PRIESTLEY. 115
not taking proper care of himself afterward, which certainly
laid the foundation of his subsequent and last illness.
" Had he been bred a farmer, he could not have been
more assiduous than he was. He was admired by every
body for his unremitting labour, as well as good judgment,
in the management of his business, though only eighteen
years old. With respect to his ardour in his pursuits, he
was more like what I was at his age than any of my children,
though our objects were very different. He was strictly vir
tuous, and was uncommonly beloved by all that worked under
him ; and it was always said that he was better served than
any other farmer in this country. He had a sense of honour
and generosity which, I am sorry to say, is not common
here. I hope, therefore, that he had the foundation of some
thing in his character on which a good superstructure may
be raised hereafter. We thought his temper, and even his
looks, altered for the worse by the severe illness he had at
Hackney ; but it is remarkable, that some time before his
death (as his mother, who never left him, says), and very
visibly afterward, he had the same sweet, placid, and even
cheerful countenance that he had when he was young ;
much like that of his sister, whom, at that time, he greatly
resembled. I never saw the countenance of a dead person
so pleasing ; and so it continued till he was buried. Even
this seemingly trifling circumstance gives me much satisfac
tion. I know you and Mrs. Lindsey will excuse my writing
so much about myself and family. I could not write so
much to anybody else.
* * * # *
"My wife is much affected, as you will suppose, by the
death of Harry ; but, at the same time, discovers proper for
titude. By her constant attendance upon him she has made
herself ill, but seems to be getting better."*
This is the man whom Johnson dared to execrate. At a
chymical lecture he knit his brows, and was displeased with
the lecturer for citing so often the discoveries of Dr. Priest
ley. When excuse was made that chymioal lectures could
not be faithfully given without citing Priestley's discoveries,
"Well," said the moral Johnson, " I suppose we must give
even the devil his due." Th<"s may even great men revile
* Rutt's Life, Correspondence, and Works of Priestley, vol. i., part
ii., p. 327.

116 WESTERN TRAVEL.
greater, denouncing those to whom it would be well for
them to kneel.
There are some who are as blind to Priestley's merits as
Johnson, without half his excuse. Before I went to Amer
ica I was aware that the Unitarians there, who ought to know
everything about the apostle of their faith who took refuge
in their country, were so far in the dark about him, as that
they misapprehended his philosophy, and misrepresented its
tendencies in a way and to a degree which seemed irrecon
cilable with the means of information within their reach.
I knew that Dr. Channing's celebrated note on Priestley re
mained unretracted, though rebuked on the spot* with much
spirit and tenderness by a then young divine, who better un
derstood the Christian sage. I knew that the tendency of
this sect in America to lean upon^authority, with some other
causes, must indispose them to do justice to Priestley. But,
till I was among them, I had no idea that it was possible
for those of them who were not ignorant of the character of
the philosopher to allow their fear and dislike of some of
his convictions to render them so insensible as they are to
the majesty ofthe man. They themselves would deny the
insensibility, and point to this and that testimony to Priest
ley being a well-meaning man, which may be found in their
publications. But facts show what the insensibility is.
Dr. Channing speaks of him now in a tone of patronage,
admitting that he is under obligations to him for one or two
detached sermons which breathe the true spirit. Another
clergyman puts forth a small volume of selections from
Priestley's works, with an apologetical preface, which states,
that whatever Priestley's doctrines and writings may have
been as a whole, there are portions which may be picked
out for people to profit by. Such facts show that the char
acter and mission of the man are not understood. Priestley
was, above most men, one who came at a right point of time
to accomplish a particular service ; to break up the reliance
on authority in matters of opinion and conscience, and in
sensibly to show, in an age when prejudice and denial were
at fierce war, how noble and touching is the free, and fer
vent, and disinterested pursuit of truth. His character is to
everlasting ; but his writings are, for the most part, suitable
to only a particular position of affairs, a critical social state.
* In the " Christian Disciple."

PRIESTLEY. 117
Those who, like the Americans, are unprepared for — aliena
ted from — his philosophy, and who are remarkable for their
dependance on authority in matters of opinion, cannot possibly
sympathize with Priestley's convictions, and a full appre
ciation of him ought not to be expected of them. But they
had better, in such a position of circumstances, let his works
alone. It is not necessary or desirable that they should
Btudy writings to which no impulse of sympathy or admira
tion leads them ; but it is most desirable that they should
not speak and write apologetically and patronisingly of one
of the largest-minded and most single-hearted of sages. In
the transition which the religious and philosophical society
of America has to make from reliance on authority to a
state of individual research and conviction, the philosopher
may or may not yet become an apostle to them. In their
present condition he cannot be so. The warmest friends
of both see that it cannot be so. They only desire that his
reputation should be left unvisited as his remains ; arid that,
while no traveller is drawn aside from his path to seek the
philosopher's tomb, no presumptuous hand should offer to
endorse his merits, or push the claims to partial approbation
of one who was created to command reverent discipleship ;
reverent discipleship in the pursuit of truth, if not in the re
ception of doctrine.
The first point of my travels fixed in my intentions was the
retreat of Priestley, and my pilgrimage thither was accom
plished within a few weeks after I landed. From Pittsburg
we crossed the AUeghanies by the road through Ebensburg,
and in four days reached Youngmanstown, eighteen miles
from Northumberland. We breakfasted at Lewisburg on
the 11th of November, and were very glad to leave behind
us the most fretful stage company we were shut up with in
all our travels. We crossed the Susquehanna in peace
and quiet ; and could freely enjoy our meditations, as every
mile brought us nearer the philosopher's resting-place. I
wish I could communicate to others of his disciples the har
mony between the scenery and the man which now exists,
and ever will exist, in my own mind. Priestley himself
wrote, " I do not think there can be, in any part of the world,
a more delightful situation than this and the neighbourhood ;"
and I revolved this in my thoughts as I gazed upon the broad,
shoaly, and gleamy river bordered with pines, and the swell
ing hills and sloping fields which sometimes intervened be-

118 WESTERN TRAVEL.
tween us and the river. The morning was one of lustrous
clouds and mild gleams, and the whole scene was of the
tranquil character, and dressed in the soft light which is
most accordant with the mood of those traversing the scen
ery with such reasons as mine. I was full of stronger emo
tions than when I found myself in sight of the spray of Ni
agara. There is nothing so sanctifying as the ideal presence
of the pure in spirit ; and not all the thronging images of
what Niagara had witnessed since the earliest worship of an
extinct race was paid there, before the ancient empires of
the earth were heard of, affected me so much as the thought
of the sage who came hither to forgive his enemies and hope
all things for the world, in the midst of his hourly privations
and daily regrets.
Abrupt wooded rocks dignify the river banks near the
town ; and nothing can be much more beautiful than the sit
uation of the place, in the fork of the Susquehanna. The
town itself, however, would delight an improvement-hater.
It has scarcely advanced at all since Priestley's time. Some
of the inhabitants complain that this stagnation is owing to
the want of enterprise among their capitalists ; but there
would be enterprise there as elsewhere, if there was an
average prospect of reward. Others allege that the place
is not healthy. It is certainly subject to fever and ague, but
the causes are thought to be removable. Sunbury, on the
other shore of the eastern branch of the river, is a rival, a
thriving competitor of Northumberland, but the growth of
neither is to be compared with that of most American towns.
The only interest connected with Northumberland still is
its being Priestley's city of refuge.
We were hospitably received at the clean little inn, and I
presently discovered that our hostess could give me more
information about Priestley than anybody else in the place.
Her father had been intimately acquainted with the philoso
pher; had been his confidant in his latest and severest trials ;
and she herself remembered him well, and could relate many
little incidents which delighted me as giving life to objects
that were before my eyes. No words can convey the pas
sionate admiration, the devoted love with which this good
lady spoke of him. A power went out of him which melted
his enemies, and converted those who came with hatred
into his presence ; and it exalted the love of his friends to
the highest pitch that human affection can reach. " All

PRIESTLEY. 119
that I have formerly said of Dr. Priestley is nonsense," de
clared a stiff religious bigot after an accidental interview
with the philosopher. " I have now seen him for myself,
and yon must let me see more of him." Our good hostess
told me how unequalled bis preaching was, so simple, and
earnest, and tender, quite unlike any other person's preach
ing, and his looks so bright : she dwelt on his goodness to
his neighbours, and how inexhaustible were his charities ;
so thoughtful, so steady, so perpetual. She laughed again
at the remembrance of his childlike gayety, bursting out in
the midst of his heart-soreness, and declared that he was
never long depressed ; he was so sure that all was right in
reality, that he could never be dismayed at its seeming
otherwise for a time. She remembered that " he was
much thought of when he first came," yet she never felt
afraid of him. She was present at the only time when he
was seen wholly overcome with grief, and will never forget
the oppression of heart, the anguish of seeing tears stream
ing down his face when no one could do anything to help
him. But her recollections of him are chiefly joyous ; of
his eagerness about his philosophical pursuits ; the cheerful
tone of his preaching ; his sympathy with young people.
Never was a lovelier picture of old age given— -of its virtues,
nor, alas ! of its privileges — -than by this affectionate ob
server. Her testimony is confirmed by every other that
exists. I saw the gentleman who was with him when he re
ceived his Voltaic pile, and who told me how eagerly he point
ed out the wire dissolving, and made his friend take a shock
in his forefinger. All who conversed with him mentioned
that his feelings became more sensitive towards the end of
his life ; his eyes were frequently seen to glisten in conver
sation, and he smiled oftener. A gentleman, now well
known as an unbeliever of the last degree of bigotry, who
shrinks with as much hatred and fear from the very mention
of religion as persons of an opposite character from infidel
ity, bore a singular testimony to the state of Priestley's mind
in his latter days. This gentleman was observing to me
that it was strange, considering how irritable Priestley's
temper was by nature, and that he died of a harassing and
depressing disease, thai he was eminently placid during the
last few months of his life. 1 observed that his religion was
of a sustaining nature, being no superstition, but a firmly-
grounded, long-tried faith ; and that the natural explanation

120 WESTERN TRAVEL.
of his tranquillity was, that he was in a thoroughly religious
state of mind. "Religious! bless me, no!" cried the gentle
man ; "he was always very cheerful whenever /saw him."
At the house of his grandson, cashier of the bank at Nor
thumberland, 1 saw a delightful portrait of him. It is from
a copy of this picture that the engraving in the " Gallery of
Portraits," published by the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge, is taken. The face and air are worthy
of the man ; gentle and venerable. The philosopher's
house we found occupied by a judge and his lady, who are
Quakers, while their children are orthodox ; but this double
difference of religious opinion does not impair their respect
for the former inhabitant of their dwelling. They preserve
with an honourable reverence every vestige of him and his
pursuits. They show the willows that were planted in his
time in the garden, and have preserved the round hole he
made in the window-shutter of his study for the advantage
of his optical experiments, and even the bit of wainscot
which he scorched with his burning glasses. They took
me to the corner of the library where he breathed his last,
and to the balustrade on the top of the roof where he went
up to meditate at eventide. It commands a beautiful pros
pect ofthe course ofthe two branches ofthe Susquehanna,
and of their junction.
Priestley's Hill is so called from its vicinity to the lands
held by his family. It is pleasant to know that he was pos
sessed of abundance during the last years of his life. His
own wants were few, almost all his expenditure being in
charity and in his philosophical pursuits. He had enough
for these, and to settle his sons on good farms. No man
bestowed and accepted money with a better grace than he ;
his generous English friends, who had the best reasons for
being aware of this, had the satisfaction of knowing that no
pecuniary anxieties mingled with the trials of his closing
years. The tombs of the three — of Priestley, his excellent wife,
and his son Harry — are in a family graveyard which is on
the outskirts of the little town, and some way from the fam
ily residence. It is walled round, and has an iron gate. I
was familiar with the account of Harry's funeral, written at
the time, and could not understand how it happened that he
lay in this place. It is clear, from the testimony of persons
on the spot, that his body had never been moved ; and as

PRIESTLEY. 121
the place of interment is described as being woodland, we
must suppose that the bare place where he lies was within
the verge of the forest in 1795. A resident in the neigh
bourhood wrote thus : " I attended the funeral to the lonely
spot, and there I saw the good old father perform the ser
vice over the grave of his son. It was an affecting sight,
but he went through it with fortitude, and, after praying, ad
dressed the attendants in a few words, assuring them that,
though death had separated them here, they should meet
again in another and a better world."
How little did I think when, some years ago, I read and
reread the narrative of Harry's death — striving to extract
from it something more, and yet something more to throw
light on the character of father and son — that I should stand
by that very grave and plant a rose upon it ! Few feet
have wandered that way, and no hands seem to be bu
sied about those graves ; but I was thankful to have been
there among the first of many pilgrims who will yet see the
spot. For another pupil of the philosopher's, whose hom
age I carried with my own, I planted a snowberry on
Priestley's grave. When that other and I were infants,
caring for nothing but our baby plays, this grave was being
dug for one who was to exert a most unusual influence over
our minds and hearts, exercising our intellects, and winning
our affections like a present master and parent, rather than
a thinker who had passed away from the earth. Here I
now stood by his grave, listening to tales which seemed as
fresh as if he were living and walking yesterday, instead of
having been wept before I knew any ofthe meanings of tears.
The inscription on Priestley's tomb is singularly inappro
priate : " Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath
dealt bountifully with thee. I will lay me down in peace,
and sleep until I awake in the morning of the resurrection."
Phrases from the Old Testament and about the soul on the
grave of Priestley !
I remained in the neighbourhood several days, and visited
as many of the philosopher's haunts as I could get pointed
out to me ; and when I was at length obliged to resume my
journey down the Susquehanna, it was with a strong feeling of
satisfaction in the accomplishment of my object. These are
the places in which to learn what are the real, in distinction
from the comparatively insignificant, objects of regard ; of ap
probation and hatred ; of desire and fear. This was the place
Vol. I.— L

122 WESTERN TRAVEL.
to learn what survived of a well-exercised and much-tried
man. He made mistakes ; they are transient evils, for
others have been sent to rectify them. He felt certain of
some things still dubious ; this is a transient evil, for he is
gone where he will obtain greater clearness ; and men have
arisen and will arise to enlighten us, and those who will
follow us. He exploded errors ; this was a real, but sec
ond-rate good, which would have been achieved by another,
if not by him. He discovered new truths ; this is a real
good, and as eternal as truth itself. He made an unusual
progress towards moral perfection ; this is the highest good
of all, and never ending. His mistakes will be rectified ; the
prejudices against him on their account will die out ; the
hands that injured him, the tongues that wounded him, are
all, or nearly all, stilled in death ; the bitter tears which these
occasioned have long since been all wept. These things
are gone or going by ; they have reached, or are tending to
the extinction which awaits all sins and sorrows. What
remains ? Whatever was real of the man and of the work
given him to do. Whatsoever truth he discovered will
propagate itself for ever, whether the honour of it be as
cribed to him or not. There remain other things no less
great, no less real, no less eternal, to be reckoned among
the spiritual treasures of the race ; things of which Priestley,
the immortal, was composed, and in which he manifestly
survives ; a love of truth which no danger could daunt and
no toil relax ; a religious faith which no severity of proba
tion could shake ; a liberality proof against prejudice from
within and injury from without ; a simplicity which no ex
perience of life and men could corrupt ; a charity which
grew tenderer under persecution and warmer in exile ; a
hope which flourished in disappointment and triumphed in
the grave These are the things which remain, bearing no
relation to country or time ; as truly here as there, now as
hereafter. These realities are the inheritance of those who sit at
home as well as of those who wander abroad ; yet it may
be forgiven to the weak, whose faith is dimsighted and whose
affections crave a visible resting-place, if they find their
sense of privilege refreshed by treading the shores of the
exile's chosen Susquehanna.

PRISONS. 123

PRISONS.
" In the prison of Coldbath Fields, in which the silent system is be
lieved to be brought to the greatest degree of perfection, under the
management of a highly intelligent and able governor, who has at his
command every possible advantage for working the system, there were
in the year 1836 no less than 5138 punishments ' for talking and swear
ing.' " — Second Report of the Inspectors of Prisons of Great Britain,
1837. " Silence and Secrecy ! . . . Do thou thyself but hold thy tongue
for one day ; on the morrow how much clearer are thy purposes and du
ties ! what wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee
swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out !" — Sartor Resartus.
I have shown in my account of Society in America that,
after visiting several prisons in the United States, I was con
vinced that the system of solitary confinement at Philadel
phia is the best that has yet been adopted.* So much has
been heard in England of the Auburn prison, its details look
so complete and satisfactory on paper, and it is so much a
better system than the English have been accustomed to see
followed at home, that it has a high reputation among us.
But I think a careful survey of the institution on the spot
must lessen the admiration entertained for this mode of pun
ishment. The convicts are, almost without exception, pale and
haggard. As their work is done either in the open air or in
well-ventilated shops, and their diet is good, their unhealthy
appearance is no doubt owing chiefly to the bad construc
tion of their night-cells. These cells are small and ill-ven
tilated, and do not even answer the purpose of placing the
prisoners in solitude during the night. The convicts con
verse with nearly as much ease, through the air-pipes or
otherwise, at night, as they do by speaking behind their
teeth, without moving the lips, while at work in the day.
In both cases they feel that they are transgressing the laws
of the prison by doing an otherwise innocent and almost
necessary act ; a knowledge and feeling most unfavourable
to reformation, and destructive of any conscientiousness
* << Society in America," part iii., chap. iv.

124 WESTERN TRAVEL.
which retribution may be generating in them. Their anx
ious and haggard looks may be easily accounted for. They
are denied the forgetfulness of themselves and their miseries
which they might enjoy in free conversation ; and also the
repose and the shelter from shame which are the privileges
of solitary confinement. Every movement reminds them
that they are in disgrace ; a multitude of eyes (the eyes of
the wicked, too) is ever upon them ; they can live neither to
themselves nor to society, and self-respect is rendered next
to impossible. A man must be either hardened, or restless
and wretched under such circumstances ; and the faces at
Auburn are no mystery.
The finishing of the day's work and the housing for the
night are sights barely endurable. The governor saw my
disgust, and explained that he utterly disapproved of stran
gers being allowed to be present at all this ; but that the
free Americans would not be debarred from beholding the
operation of- anything which they have decreed. This is
right enough ; the evil is in there being any such spectacle
to behold. The prisoners are ranged in companies for the
march from their workshops into the prison. Each fills his
pail and carries it, and takes up the can with his supper as
he passes the kitchen; and, when I was there, this was
done in the presence of staring and amused strangers, who
looked down smiling from the portico. Some of the pris
oners turned their heads every possible way to avoid meet
ing our eyes, and were in an agony of shame ; while the
blacks, who, from their social degradation, have little idea
of shame, and who are remarkable for exaggeration in all
they do, figured away ridiculously in the march, stamping
and gesticulating as if they were engaged in a game at
romps. I do not know which extreme was the most pain
ful to behold. It is clear that no occasion should be afforded
for either ; that men should not be ignominiously paraded
because they are guilty.
The arrangements for the women were extremely bad at
that time ; but the governor needed no convincing of this,
and hoped for a speedy rectification. The women were all
in one large room, sewing. The attempt to enforce silence
was soon given up as hopeless ; and the gabble of tongues
among the few who were there was enough to paralyze any
matron. Some rather hopeful-looking girls were side by
side with old offenders of their own colour, and with some

PRISONS. 125
most brutish-looking black women. There was an engine
in sight which made me doubt the evidence of my own eyes ;
stocks of a terrible construction ; a chair, with a fastening
for the head and for all the limbs. Any lunatic asylum
ought to be ashamed of such an instrument. The governor
liked it no better than we ; but he pleaded that it was his
only means of keeping his refractory female prisoners quiet
while he was allowed only one room to put them all into.
I hope these stocks have been used for firewood before this.
The first principle in the management of the guilty seems
to me to be to treat them as men and women ; which they
were before they were guilty, and will be when they are no
longer so ; and which they are in the midst of it all. Their
humanity is the principal thing about them ; their guilt is a
temporary state. The insane are first men, and secondarily
diseased men ; and in a due consideration of this order of
things lies the main secret of the successful treatment of
such. The drunkard is first a man, and secondarily a man
with a peculiar weakness. The convict is, in like manner,
first a man, and then a sinner. Now, there is something in
the isolation of the convict which tends to keep this order
of considerations right in the mind of his guardians. The
warden and his prisoner converse like two men when they
are face to face ; but when the keeper watches a hundred
men herded together in virtue of the one common character
istic of their being criminals, the guilt becomes the promi
nent circumstance, and there is an end of the brotherly faith
in each, to which each must mainly owe his cure. This, in
our human weakness, is the great evil attendant upon the
good of collecting together sufferers under any particular
physical or moral evil. Visiters are shy of the blind, the
deaf and dumb, and insane, when they see them all together,
while they would feel little or nothing of this shyness if they
met each sufferer in the bosom of his own family. In the
one case, the infirmity, defying sympathy, is the prominent
circumstance ; in the other, not. It follows from this, that
such an association of prisoners as that at Auburn must be
more difficult to reform, more difficult to do the state's duty
by, than any number or kind of criminals who are classed
by some other characteristic, or not classed at all.
The wonderfully successful friend of criminals, Captain
Pillsbury, of the Weathersfield prison, has worked on this
principle, and owes his success to it. His moral power
L 2

126 WESTERN TRAVEL.
over the guilty is so remarkable, that prison-breakers who
can be confined nowhere else are sent to him to be charmed
into staying their term out. I was told of his treatment of
two such. One was a gigantic personage, the terror Of the
country, who had plunged deeper and deeper in crime for
seventeen years. Captain Pillsbury told him when he came
that he hoped he would not repeat the attempts to escape
which he had made elsewhere. " It will be best," said he,
" that you and I should treat each other as well as we can.
I will make you as comfortable as I possibly can, and shall
be anxious to be your friend ; and I hope you will not get
me into any difficulty on your account. There is a cell in
tended for solitary confinement, but we have never used it,
and I should be sorry ever to have to turn the key upon any
body in it. You may range the place as freely as I do if
you will trust me as I shall trust you." The man was
sulky, and for weeks showed only very gradual symptoms
of softening under the operation of Captain Pillsbury's
cheerful confidence. At length information was given to
the captain of this man's intention to break prison. The
captain called him, and taxed him with it ; the man pre
served a gloomy silence. He was told that it was now ne
cessary for him to be locked in the solitary cell, and desired
to follow the captain, who went first, carrying a lamp in one
hand and the key in the other. In the narrowest part of
the passage the captain (who is a small, slight man) turned
round and looked in the face of the stout criminal. " Now,"
said he, " I ask you whether you have treated me as I de
serve ? I have done everything I could think of to make
you comfortable ; I have trusted you, and you have never
given me the least confidence in return, and have even
planned to get me into difficulty. Is this kind? And yet I
cannot bear to lock you up. If I had the least sign that you
cared for me . . . ." The man burst into tears. " Sir,"
said he, " I have been a very devil these seventeen years ;
but you treat me like a man." " Come, let us go back,"
said the captain. The convict had the free range of the
prison as before. From this hour he began to open his
heart to the captain, and cheerfully fulfilled his whole term
of imprisonment, confiding to his friend, as they arose, all
impulses to violate his trust, and all facilities for doing so
which he imagined he saw.
The other case was of a criminal of the same character,

PRISONS. 127
who went so far as to make the actual attempt to escape.
He fell, and hurt his ankle very much. The captain had
him brought in and laid on his bed, and the ankle attended
to, every one being forbidden to speak a word of reproach
to the sufferer. The man was sullen, and would not say
whether the bandaging of his ankle gave him pain or not.
This was in the night, and every one returned to bed when
this was done. But the captain could not sleep. He was
distressed at the attempt, and thought he could not have fully
done his duty by any man who would make it. He was
afraid the man was in great pain. He rose, threw on his
gown, and went with a lamp to the cell. The prisoner's
face was turned to the wall, and his eyes were closed, but
the traces of suffering were not to be mistaken. The cap
tain loosened and replaced the bandage, and went for his
own pillow to rest the limb upon, the man neither speaking
nor moving all the time. Just when he was shutting the
door the prisoner started up and called him back. " Stop,
sir. Was it all to see after my ankle that you have got
up ?"
" Yes, it was. I could not sleep for thinking of you."
" And you have never said a word of the way I have used
you !"
" I do feel hurt with you, but I don't want to call you un
kind while you are suffering as you are now."
The man was in an agony of shame and grief. All he
asked was to be trusted again when he should have recov
ered. He was freely trusted, and gave his generous friend
no more anxiety on his behalf.
Captain Pillsbury is the gentleman who, on being told
that a desperate prisoner had sworn to murder him speedily,
sent for him lo shave him, allowing no one to be present.
He eyed the man, pointed to the razor, and desired him to
shave him. The prisoner's hand trembled, but he went
through it very well. When he had done the captain said,
" I have been told you meant to murder me, but I thought I
might trust you." " God bless you, sir ! you may," replied
the regenerated man. Such is the power of faith in man !
The greatest advantage of solitary confinement is that it
presents the best part of a prisoner's mind to be acted upon
by his guardians ; and the next is, that the prisoner is
preserved from the evil influences of vicious companionship,
of shame within the prison walls, and of degradation when

128 WESTERN TRAVEL.
he comes out. I am persuaded that no system of secondary
punishment has yet been devised that can be compared with
this. I need not, at this time of day, explain that I mean
solitary imprisonment with labour, and with frequent visits
from the guardians of the prisoner. Without labour, the
punishment is too horrible and unjust to be thought of. The
reflective man would go mad, and the clown would sleep
away his term, and none of the purposes of human existence
could be answered. Work is, in prison as out of it, the
grand equaliser, stimulus, composer, and rectifier ; the
prime obligation and the prime privilege. It is delightful to
see how soon its character is recognised there. In the
Philadelphia penitentiary work is forbidden to the criminal
for two days subsequent to his entrance ; he petitions for it
before the two days are out, however doggedly he may have
declared that he will never work. Small incidents show
what a resource it is. A convict shoemaker mentioned to
a visiter a very early hour of the winter day as that at
which he began to work. " But how can you see at that
time of a winter's morning ? it must be nearly dark." " I
hammer my leather. That requires very little light. I get
up and hammer my leather."
On his entrance the convict is taken to the bathroom,
where he is well cleansed, and his state of health examined
into and recorded by the physician and warden. A hood is
then put over his head, and he is led to his apartment. I
never met with one who could in the least tell what the form
of the central part of the prison was, or which of the radii
his cell was placed in, though they make very accurate obser
vations of the times at which the sun shines in. At the end
of two days, during which the convict has neither book nor
work, the warden visits him, and has a conversation with
him about the mode of life in the institution. If he asks for
work, he is offered a choice of three or four kinds, of which
weaving and shoemaking are the chief. He is told that if
he does a certain amourit of work, he will have the full diet
provided for hard labourers ; if less, he will have what is
sufficient for a moderate worker ; if more, the price of it
will be laid by to accumulate, and paid over to him on his
leaving the prison. He is furnished with a Bible ; and
other books, provided by the friends to the institution,
circulate among the convicts. Some who have books at
home are allowed to have them brought, A convict gentle-

PRISONS. 129
man whom I visited had a fine library at home, and was plen
tifully supplied from thence. It was difficult to find occu
pation for this unhappy man, who had never been used to
labour. He was filling bobbins when I saw him, and he
wrote a great deal in various languages. His story was a
dreadful one, too horrible to be related. His crime was
murder, but committed under such intense provocation, real
or imaginary, that he had the compassion of every one who
knew his history. He had been justice of the peace for twen
ty years ; and his interest was so strong that he had little
doubt of being able to obtain a pardon, and for some years
was daily racked with expectation. He told me that it was
opposed by political enemies only ; and this belief did not,
of course, tend to calm his mind. Pardon came at last,
when nine years of the twelve for which he was sentenced
had expired. He was released a year and a half after I saw
him. In his case there were peculiar disturbing influences, and
his seclusion was doubtless more painful and less profitable
than that of most prisoners. His case was public ; his sta
tion and the singularity of the circumstances made it ne
cessarily so ; and the knowledge of this publicity is a great
drawback upon reformation and upon repose of mind. The
most hopeful cases I met wilh were those of men who came
from a distance, who were tried under a feigned name, or
whose old connexions were, from other circumstances, una
ware of their present condition. Of course I cannot publicly
relate facts concerning any of these. They disclosed their
stories to me in confidence. I can give nothing but general
impressions, except in a few cases which are already no
torious, or where death has removed the obligation to se
crecy, by rendering it impossible for the penitent to be in
jured, while his reputation may be benefited by its being
known what were the feelings of his latter days.
After a general survey of the establishment, which fur
nished me with all that the managers had to bring forward,
I entered, by the kind permission of the board, upon the yet
more interesting inquiry of what the convicts had to say for
themselves. I supposed that, from their long seclusion
from all society but that of their guardians, they would be
ready to communicate very freely ; and also, judging from
my own feelings, that they could not do this in the presence
of any third person. I therefore requested, and was allowed

130 WESTERN TRAVEL.
to go entirely alone, the turnkey coming at the end of a spe
cified time to let me out. No one of them, except the gen
tleman above mentioned, had any notice whatever of my
coming. Their door was unlocked at an unusual hour, and
I stepped in. My reception was in every case the same.
Every man of them looked up, transfixed with amazement,
one with his shuttle, another with his awl suspended. I
said that if my visit was not agreeable, I would call the turn
key before he was out of hearing, and go away. If the con
trary, perhaps I might be favoured with a seat. In an in
stant the workman sprang up, wiped his stool with his apron
for me, and sat down himself on his workbench. In a few
cases I had to make a further explanation that I did not
come for prayer and religious discourse. The conversa
tion invariably took that turn before I left, as it naturally
does with the anxious and suffering ; but two or three rushed
at once into such shocking cant, that I lost no time in telling
them the real object of my visit ; to learn what were the
causes of crime in the United States. I also told them all
that I could not give them news from the city, because this
was against the rules of the prison. They were glad to
converse with me on my own conditions, and I am confident
that they presented me faithfully with their state of mind as
it appeared to themselves. I have never received confidence
more full and simple than theirs, and much of it was very
extraordinary. All, except two or three, voluntarily ac
knowledged their guilt ; the last point, of course, on which
I should have chosen to press them. It seemed a relief to
them to dwell on the minutest particulars relating to their
temptation to their crime, and the time and mode of its com
mission. One man began protesting his innocence early in
our conversation ; following the practice common among
felons, of declaring himself a guilty fellow enough, but in
nocent of this particular crime. I stopped him, saying that
I asked him no questions, and had no business with his in
nocence or guilt, and that I did not Uke such protestations
as he was making : we would talk of something else. He
looked abashed, and within half an hour he had communi
cated his first act of dishonesty in life ; the festering wound
which I have reason to believe he never before laid open to
human eye.
Several incidents of this nature which occurred persuade
me that almost anything may be done with these sufferers

PRISONS. 131
by occasional intercourse and free sympathy. Each time
that I went I was amazed at the effect of words that had
passed, lightly enough, days or weeks before. I found them
all expecting a pardon ; and the most painful part of my
duty to them was undeceiving them about this. It was
dreadful to see the emotion of some ; but I knew they would
have no repose of mind, so necessary in their case, while
racked with this hope ; I therefore took pains to explain
what punishment was for, and how rarely pardon could be
justified. On my subsequent visits it was cheering to see
how completely they had understood me, and how they had
followed out the subject to their own entire conviction.
" Well, J.," said I to a young man who had been rather
languid about his work, making only three shoes a week
while expecting a pardon, " how have you been since I saw
you?" " Very fairly indeed, madam. I make seven shoes a
week now."
" Ah ! then you have left off fretting yourself about a
pardon. You have made up your mind to your term, like
a man." " Yes, I have been thinking about that, and something
more. I have been thinking that perhaps it is well that I
am here now ; for, madam, I got that that I took so easily,
that I believe, if I had not been caught, I should have gone
back to the same place and taken more, and so have come
in for ten years instead of five."
Twenty months afterward I heard of this man from the
warden. He was in health, cheerful, and industrious. I
have no doubt of his doing well when he comes out.
A negro, in for a very serious offence, which he acknowl
edged, told me of another committed long before, which,
since his imprisonment, had weighed much more heavily on
his mind, perhaps because no one knew it or suspected
him ; it was a theft of sixteen dollars, committed with some
treachery. This subject had been entirely dismissed, and
had even gone out of my mind when we talked over the ex
piration of his term and his prospects in life. " Where do
you mean to go first ?" said I. " Stay in Philadelphia till I
have worked for those sixteen dollars, and paid them," said
he. This was without the slightest leading on my part.
Several told me more about their mothers than about any
thing else in their former lives ; and those who were tried

132 WESTERN TRAVEL.
under false names seemed more afraid of their mothers
knowing where they were than of any other consequence.
In every case some heartsore was at the bottom of the guilt.
Many were as ignorant as Americans ever are, and had
sought to get rid of their griefs, as ignorant people do, by
physical excitement. First passion, then drink, then crime :
this is the descent. Most declared that the privation of to
bacco was the first tremendous suffering within the prison ;
then the solitude ; then the vain hope of pardon. The mid
dle part of their term is the easiest. Near the end they
grow restless and nervous. Every one that I asked could
promptly tell me the day of the month.
" May I ask," said I to one for whom I had much regard,
" may I ask what all these black marks on your wall are
for ?" I was not without a conjecture, remembering that he
was to go out on the 17th ofthe next August, this being the
1st of December.
He looked down, and said he had no secret in the matter,
only that I should think him very silly. I told him that I
did not think any amusement silly to one who had so few.
" Well, madam, I have been trying to find out what day
of the week the 17th of next August will be ; but I can't
quite make it out, because I don't know whether the next is
leap year."
The holding out my hand to them at parting brought every
one of them to tears ; yet there was nothing unmanly in their
bearing ; there was no lack of health, no feebleness of spir
its, though a quietness of manner such as might be antici
pated in men under punishment and subject to remorse.
There was a degree of contentment (when the expectation
of pardon was removed) which I did not look for. They
spoke (such as were qualified) of other prisons with horror,
and with approbation approaching to thankfulness of the
treatment they met with in this, where they were not degraded
as if they had done nothing but crime, as if they were not
still men. I was much moved by the temper of one, and
much humbled (as I often was) at thinking for how little
guilt some are heavily visited, when there is not one of us,
perhaps, who may not justly feel that, however safe and
honoured he may appear, he has done worse, and deserved
a more fearful retribution.
A friend of mine, who knew that I was visiting the peniten
tiary, asked me to see two brothers who were in for forging

PRISONS. 1 33
and coining. The case was notorious, the elder brother being
an old offender. I agreed to inquire for them ; and upon
this my frieod somewhat imprudently told the mother of the
convicts and the wife of the younger one what I had prom
ised, and sent them to see me. I soon perceived> that the
wife was telling me a number of family particulars in the
hope that 1 should communicate them to her husband. I
felt myself obliged to put a stop to this, as I was upon hon
our, and could not think of violating any of the rules of the
prison, one of which was that the convicts should receive no
intelligence from without. The wife's reply was heart-
wringing. She said she did not wish to show disrespect to
any rules ; there was but one thing that she implored me to
convey to her husband. He had expected a pardon in three
months from his conviction ; five months had now passed,
and he would be wondering. She only wanted him to know
that it was through no want of exertion on her part that he
was still in prison. I was compelled to refuse fo communi
cate anything, and even to let the young man know that I
had seen any of his family. But in my own mind I resolved
not to see the convict till the warden, who was absent, should
return to Philadelphia, and to tell him the whole, that he
might communicate what he thought proper. By these
means I believe the prisoner heard some comfortable tidings
after I saw him, and I am sure he had never a hard thought
of his good wife. I promised her a most minute account of
her husband's situation, to which there could be no objection.
She had done nothing wrong, and was not to be punished,
though it appeared that some of the ladies of Philadelphia
thought otherwise, as they took from her the needlework
she had undertaken for the support of herself and her chil
dren during her husband's imprisonment. These virtuous
ladies could not think of countenancing anybody connected
with forgers and coiners.
I found the young man weaving. After some talk about
the work, during which I saw that his mind was full of
something else, I obviated all danger of his putting questions
which I could not answer by asking him whether he had
relations in the city. This put an end to all reserve. He
mentioned his father, and the brother who had led him into
crime, with a forbearance and delicacy of forgiveness which
were extremely touching. He was not aware that I knew
how different a tone might have been excused, might have
Vol. I.— M

134 WESTERN TRAVEL.
been almost justified. But he spoke most of his wife. He
told me that he had always been weak, too easily persuaded,
from being afraid of some people about him ; and that his
wife, who had a nobler mind, always kept him up, yet man
aging to do it when they were alone so as never to expose
his weakness. He had unfortunately come to Philadelphia
two days before her, and in lhat interval he had been threat
ened and persuaded into endeavouring to pass two counter
feit five-franc pieces. This was all. But he himself did
not extenuate his offence or appear to think it a trifle. He
observed, indeed, that at that time he was not aware what
sins against property were ; he used lo think, that if some
people had so much more than they wanted, there was no
great harm in those who have too little taking some from
them. He had had much time for thought since, and now
saw so plainly how necessary it was that men should be
protected while living in society, that he believed no com
pulsion could now make him break the laws in any such way.
But the mischief was done. He had made his wife wretch
ed, and all was over. I convinced him that it was not.
His term was five years ; and when it was fulfilled he would
still be a young man, and might cherish his wife for a good
many years. It was well that we thought so at the lime,
for the hope gave him substantial comfort. He lifted up his
head from his loom, where it had sunk down in his bitter
Weeping, and began to talk upon the subject I dreaded, par
don. I saw what kind of mind I had to deal with, reasoning
and reflective. I led him to consider, as he had found out
the purposes of law, the purposes of punishment ; and, at
length, put the question to him whether he thought he ought
to be pardoned. Trembling from head to foot, and white as
the wall, he bravely answered " No." I asked him whether
it would not be better to settle his mind to his lot than to be
trembling for four years at every footstep thai came near his
cell, expecting deliverance, and expecting it in vain. He
did not answer. I told him that when he was heartsick with
expecting in vain, perhaps some hard thought of his wife —
that she had not done all she could — might rise up to trouble
him. "Oh no, no, never!" he cried. I had now obtained
what I wanted for her.
I told him I should endeavour to see his wife. He de
sired me to tell her that he was in health, and had brought
himself to own to me what he had done, and that he should

PRISONS. 135
be pretty comfortable but for thinking how he had used her ;
but he would try to make up for it one day. He was quite
cheerful when I left him.
The wife called on me the next day. She said she could
not stay long, as she was about to set off, with her children,
for a remote part of the country. It was a dreadful thing to
her to leave her husband's neighbourhood ; but she had been
deprived of the means of support by her work being taken
from her, and no resource remained but going to her father's
house. She was surprised, and seemed almost sorry (no
doubt from a jealousy for his reputation), that her husband
had acknowledged his offence. She said he had not ac
knowledged it when he went in. I told her every particular
about his cell and employments, as well as his looks and
conversation, till, when I had done, she started up, saying
that she was forgetting her children, and her journey, and
everything. When we had parted she came back again
from the door to ask " one thing more ;" whether I thought
there would ever be anything in the world that she could do
for me. I thought it very possible in a world of change like
this, and promised to rely upon her if she could ever serve
me or mine.
She settled herself at her father's, and after a while
drooped in spirits, and was sure something would happen.
When bad news came she cried, " There ! I knew it !"
As the turnkey passed her husband's cell one day he heard
some noise and looked in. The young man was just falling
from his loom in a fit of apoplexy. There was no delay in
doing all that can be done in such cases ; but in a few hours
he died. There is no reason to suppose that his imprison
ment had anything to do with the attack. It was probably
a constitutional tendency, aggravated by anxiety of mind.
The prison must be tried some years longer before a com
plete comparison of it with others can be made ; but it ap
pears at present, that if there be some few diseases which
may possibly be aggravated by the silence and thoughtful-
ness attendant on solitary confinement (which I do not know
to be the case), there are many more which disappear under
the regularity of temperature and of hours, and the good diet
of the establishment. There was certainly less sallowness
and anxiety in the faces of the inmates than struck me in
the other prisons. One man amazed me by calling the four
years he had passed here the most comfortable he had ever

136 WESTERN TRAVEL.
known ; but when he told me the wretchedness of his pre
vious life, I fully believed him.
I found, on visiting the elder of the brothers, how complete
is the secrecy preserved in the prison. I had been repeat
edly told that these brothers came in together, and, there
fore, had no hesitation in mentioning the one to the other.
I was thunderstruck with the vehemence with which the
elder turned upon me with the question, " Is my brother in
this prison ?" " I was told you came in together," replied
I. " Then they put him in just after me," cried he. " What
did they find him guilty of? What part of the prison is he
in? What work does he do?" and a number of other ques
tions ; none of which, of course, I would answer. I was
not very sorry that he was accidentally made acquainted
with what he had led his young brother into. I fear he
could bear it only too well. When I told the warden the
mistake I had made, I found that the younger brother came
in three weeks after the elder.
The cases I became acquainted with were not all hopeful.
Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon,
more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (al
ways in connexion with their cant) so certain that they should
never sin more, that I have every expectation that they will
find themselves in prison again some day. One fellow, a
sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than probably
any man in the United States, was quite confident that he
should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never
touch anything stronger than tea, or lift his hand against
money or life. I told him I thought he could not be sure of
all this till he was within sight of money and the smell of
strong liquors ; and that he was more confident than I should
like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and
glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all
about it, as he had been the worst of men, and Christ had
had mercy on his poor soul. When I had got him away
from his cant, and upon subjects on which he could talk
with some simplicity, I found that even this man preferred
this prison to others that he had been in. It so happened
that no conviction for murder had ever been procurable
against him ; his imprisonments were all for theft. His ac
count of the old Walnut-street prison was dreadful. He
there daily heard stories of crimes, from four in the winter
afternoons till daylight. " Poor boasting ! for the crimes

PRISONS. 137
they bragged of were never done." I asked him how he
got into that prison. " For a couple o' larcenies, a grand
and a little," said he, with the most business-like noncha
lance. He was waylaid by two old burglars on his coming
out, and on the spot agreed upon an enterprise for the next
night. His mother died in his arms ; he went and commit
ted the burglary, was caught, and before midnight was in
prison again. His accounts of his deeds were too scientific
for my understanding ; but I made out enough to be ready
when he asked my advice what to do when he came out. I
answered as if he were in earnest, advising him to leave
Philadelphia and all towns, and settle in the woods, out of
the way of grogshops, bad company, and other people's
property. But his keepers expect that he will end his days
with them, and this is the hope of that part of society which
fears his ferocity.
As the system of solitary imprisonment gains ground, I
trust that the practice of prison-visiting will gain ground too.
It is most desirable that it should not be left wholly in the
hands of proselyting religionists, but be shared by those
who better understand human nature and command a greater
variety of influences. For the sake of religion itself this is
desirable, to rescue it from becoming a mere prison solace ;
an excitement seized when no other can be had, and to be
laid aside when old pursuits offer themselves for resumption.
Kind-hearted persons will have an opportunity of doing ex
tensive and unquestionable good by keeping up the social
affections of the prisoners, giving them new ideas, making
them cheerful, and investing with pleasant associations
whatever things are honest, pure, lovely, and of good report.
In other prisons much might thus be done, though not, I
think, with such extraordinary effect as under the system of
solitary confinement. I was struck with something I saw
at the Charlestown prison (Massachusetts). Several con
victs, black and white, who had behaved well, were practi
sing singing, which is allowed as an indulgence. It seemed
strange to hear " The heavens are telling" from such lips ;
but 1 listened to it with more pleasure than in some far finer
places. Any kind person who can introduce a new innocent
pursuit into a prison as a solace to its inmates cannot fail
to be doing an important good.
This reminds me that a service may be rendered, not so
much to the convicts as to society, by any persons who can
M 2

138 WESTERN TRAVEL.
supply the prisons where stonecutting is going on with a
good set of epitaphs. At Auburn they are wanted, and much
more at Nashville (Tennessee), where the stonecutting de
partment is superintended by an honest Englishman, whose
stock of epitaphs is small and of miserable quality. We
half undertook to prepare and collect some for him, but found
it a less easy task than we had supposed. We got out our
pencils at three o'clock one summer morning, when our stage
had broken down on a bad Tennessee road ; but one of our
party observing that this was the first time he had ever heard
of making epitaphs for amusement, there was an end of the
attempt ; and the Nashville prison remains unsupplied, unless
somebody else has done better than we.
I suspect the fault lies in the supposition that epitaphs of
general application cannot be made at all. An epitaph should
be the breathing of emotion arising out of a particular case ;
and none made for stonecutters' use can have much life or
truth. Still, they may have grammar and general propriety,
so as to be an advantageous substitute for some at present
in use, if only persons can be found to compose them on such
considerations. I saw at the Charlestown prison a sight more impressive
to me than all else that the walls contained ; a man of might,
but whose power has taken a wrong direction; his hand
being against every man, and every man's against him. He
is a prison-breaker so formidable as to be regarded and
treated as if he were of Satanic race, and not as made up of
flesh and blood, and emotions that may be roused, and af
fections subject to the touch. He seems, indeed, to have
become somewhat of the Satanic kind, for he is now piqued
to do all the harm he can. His pride is in for it ; his repu
tation stands upon it. I was shown an enormous block of
stone which he had displaced by the aid of a " gentleman"
outside, who, for fear of the prison-breaker's blabbing, com
mitted suicide on his recapture. The strong man was heavily
fettered, confined in a different cell every night, and conducted
to it by a procession of turnkeys. As we stood aside in the
echoing passage to let the array go by, there was something
really grand in the air ofthe man who had virtually said to
himself, " Evil, be thou my good !" He stepped slowly,
clanking his chains, and looking us full in the face as he
passed. He cannot but have a calm sense of power when
he nightly sees the irons, the bars and locks, and the six

FIRST SIGHT OF SLAVERY. 139
fellow-men, all in requisition to keep him from working his
will. As we saw him slowly turn into his cell, and heard
lock after lock shot behind him, I could not help thinking
that there was much true monarchical feeling within those
four narrow walls.

FIRST SIGHT OF SLAVERY
" Ed io, ch'avea di riguardar desio
La condicion, che tal fortezza serra,
Com' i fu dentro, l'occhio intorno invio,
E veggio ad ogni man grande campagna
Piena ad duolo, e di tormento rio." ,
Dante
From the day of my entering the States till that of my
leaving Philadelphia I had seen society basking in one
bright sunshine of good-will. The sweet temper and kindly
manners of the Americans are so striking to foreigners, that
it is some time before the dazzled stranger perceives that,
genuine as is all this good, evils as black as night exist
along with it. I had been received with such hearty hos
pitality everywhere, and had lived among friends so consci
entious in their regard for human rights, that, though I had
heard of abolition riots, and had observed somewhat of the
degradation of the blacks, my mind had not yet been really
troubled about the enmity of the races. The time of
awakening must come. It began just before I left Phila
delphia. I was calling on a lady whom I had heard speak with
strong horror of the abolitionists (with whom I had then no
acquaintance), and she turned round upon me with the
question whether I would not prevent, if I could, the mar
riage of aJwhite person with a person of colour. I saw at
once the beginning of endless troubles iu this inquiry, and
was very sorry it had been made ; but my determination
had been adopted long before, never to evade the great ques
tion of colour ; never to provoke it ; but always to meet it
plainly in whatever form it should be presented. I replied
that 1 would never, under any circumstances, try to sep-

140 WESTERN TRAVEL.
arate persons who really loved, believing such to be truly
those whom God had joined ; but I observed that the case
she put was one not likely to happen, as I believed the
blacks were no more disposed to marry the whites than the
whites to marry the blacks. " You are an amalgama-
tionist!" cried she. I told her that the party term was new
to me ; but that she must give what name she pleased to
the principle I had declared in answer to her question.
This lady is an eminent religionist, and denunciations spread
rapidly from her. The day before I left Philadelphia my
old shipmate, the Prussian physician, arrived there, and
lost no time in calling to tell me, with much agitation, that
I must not go a step farther south ; that he had heard on all
hands, within two hours of his arrival, that I was an amal-
gamationist, and that my having published a story against
slavery would be fatal to me in the slave states. I did not
give much credit to the latter part of this news, and saw
plainly that all I had to do was to go straight on. I really
desired to see the working of the slave system, and was
glad that my having published against its principles divested
me altogether of the character of a spy, and gave me an
unquestioned liberty to publish the results of what I might
observe. In order to see things as they were, it was neces
sary that people's minds should not be prepossessed by my
friends as to my opinions and conduct ; and 1 therefore for
bade my Philadelphia friends to publish in the newspapers,
as they wished, an antidote to the charges already current
against me.
The next day I first set foot in a slave state, arriving in
the evening at Baltimore. I dreaded inexpressibly the first
sight of a slave, and could not help speculating on the lot
of every person of colour I saw from the windows the first
few days. The servants in the house where I was were
free blacks.
Before a week was over I perceived that all that is said
in England of the j hatred of the whites to the blacks in
America is short of the truth. The slanders that I heard of
the free blacks were too gross to injure my estimation of
any but those who spoke them. In Baltimore the bodies
of coloured people exclusively are taken for dissection,
" because the whites do not like it, and the coloured people
cannot resist." It is wonderful that the bodily structure can
be (with the exception of the colouring ofthe skin) thus as-

FIRST SIGHT OF SLAVERY. 141
sumed to be the pattern of that of the whites ; that the ex
quisite nervous system, the instrument of moral as well as
physicial pleasures and pains, can be nicely investigated,
on the ground of its being analogous with that of the whites ;
that not only the mechanism, but the sensibilities of the
degraded race should be argued from to those ofthe exalted
ordor, and that men come from such a study with contempt
forthese brethren in their countenances, hatred in their
hearts, and insult on tlieir tongues. These students are the
men who cannot say that the coloured people have not
nerves that quiver under moral injury, nor a brain that is
on fire with insult, nor pulses that throb under oppression.
These are the men who should stay the hand of the rash
and ignorant possessors of power, who crush the being
of creatures, like themselves, " fearfully and wonderfully
made." But to speak the right word, to hold out the help
ing hand, these searchers into man have not light nor
strength. It was in Baltimore that I heard Miss Edgeworth de
nounced as a woman of no intelligence or delicacy, whose
works could never be cared for again, because, in Belinda,
poor Juba was married, at length, to an English farmer's
daughter ! The incident is so subordinate that I had en
tirely forgotten it; but a clergyman's lady threw the volume
to the opposite corner of the floor when she came to the
page. As I have said elsewhere, Miss Edgeworth is wor
shipped throughout the United States ; but it is in spite of
this terrible passage, this clause of a sentence in Belinda,
which nobody in America can tolerate, while no one else
where ever, I should think, dreamed of finding fault with it.
A lady from New-England, staying in Baltimore, was one
day talking over slavery with me, her detestation of it being
great, when I fold her I dreaded seeing a slave. " You
have seen one," said she. " You were waited on by a
slave yesterday evening." She told me of a gentleman -who
let out and lent out his slaves to wait at gentlemen's houses,
and that the tall handsome mulatto who handed the tea at
a party the evening before was one of these. I was glad it
was over for once ; but I never lost the painful feeling
caused to a stranger by intercourse with slaves. No famil
iarity with them, no mirth and contentment on tlieir part,
ever soothed the miserable restlessness caused by the
presence of a deeply-injured fellow-being. No wonder or

142 WESTERN TRAVEL.
ridicule on the spot avails anything to the stranger. He
suffers, and must suffer from this, deeply and long, as surely
as he is human and hates oppression.
The next slave that I saw, knowing that it was a slave,
was at Washington, where a little negro child took hold of
my gown in the passage of our boarding-house, and entered
our drawing-room with me. She shut the door softly, as
asking leave to stay. I took up a newspaper. She sat at
my feet, and began amusing herself with my shoestrings.
Finding herself not discouraged, she presently begged play
by peeping at me above and on each side the newspaper.
She was a brighteyed, merry-hearted child ; confiding, like
other children, and dreading no evil, but doomed, hopelessly
doomed, to ignorance, privation, and moral degradation.
When I looked at her, and thought of the fearful disobe
dience to the first of moral laws, the cowardly treachery, the
cruel abuse of power involved in thus dooming to blight a
being so helpless, so confiding, and so full of promise, a
horror came over me which sickened my very soul. To
6ee slaves is not to be reconciled to slavery.
At Baltimore and Washington again I was warned, in va
rious stealthy ways, of perils awaiting me in the South. I
had no means of ascertaining the justness of these warnings
but by going on, and turning back for such vague reasons
was not to be thought of. So 1 determined to say no word
to my companions (who were in no danger), but to see the
truth for myself. The threats proved idle, as II suspected
they would. Throughout the South I met with very can
did and kind treatment. I mention these warnings partly
because they are a fact connected with the state ofthe coun
try, and partly because it will afterward appear that the stran
ger's real danger lies in the North and West, over which the
South had, in my case, greatly the advantage in liberality.

LIFE AT WASHINGTON 143

LIFE AT WASHINGTON.
" With studious thought observed the illustrious throng,
In Nature's order as they pass'd along ;
Their names, their fates." Dbyden's Mneid.
Washington is no place for persons of domestic tastes.
Persons who love dissipation, persons who love to watch
the game of politics, and those who make a study of strong
minds under strong excitements, like a season at Washing
ton ; but it is dreary tO-those whose pursuits and affections
are domestic. I spent five weeks there, and was heartily
glad when they were over. I felt the satisfaction all the
time of doing something that was highly useful ; of getting
knowledge that was necessary to me, and could not be oth
erwise obtained ; but the quiet delights of my Philadelphia
home (though there half our time was spent in visiting) had
spoiled me for such a life as every one leads at the metrop
olis. I have always looked back upon the five weeks at
Washington as one of the most profitable, but by far the least
agreeable, of my residences in the United States.
Yet we were remarkably fortunate in our domestic ar
rangements there. We joined a party of highly esteemed
and kind friends : a member of the House of Representa
tives from Massachusetts, his wife and sister-in-law, and a
senator from Maine. We (the above party) had a drawing-
room to ourselves and a separate table at Mrs. Peyton's
boarding-house ; so that we forjjned a quiet family group
enough, if only we had had any quiet in which to enjoy the
privilege. We arrived at Washington on the 13th of January, 1835,
the year of the short session of Congress wliich closes on
the 4th of March, so that we continued to see the proceed
ings of Congress at its busiest and most interesting time.
The approach to the city is striking to all strangers from
its oddness. 1 saw the dome ofthe Capitol from a consid
erable distance at the end of a straight road ; but, though I
was prepared by the descriptions of preceding travellers, I
was taken by surprise on finding myself beneath the splen
did building, so sordid are the enclosures and houses on its

144 WESTERN TRAVEL.
very verge. We wound round its base, and entered Penn
sylvania Avenue, the only one ofthe grand avenues intended
to centre in the Capitol which has been built up with any
completeness. Our boarding-house was admirably situated,
being somejittle way down this avenue, a few minutes' walk
only from the Capitol, and a mile in a straight line from the
White House, the residences of the heads of departments
and the British legation.
In Philadelphia I had found perpetual difficulty in remem
bering that I was in a foreign country. The pronunciation
of a few words by our host and hostess, the dinner-table,
and the inquiries of visiters were almost all that occurred to
remind me that I was not in a brother's house. At Wash
ington it was very different. The city itself is unlike any
other that ever was seen, straggling out hither and thither,
with a small house or two a quarter of a mile from any
other ; so that, in making calls " in the city," we had to cross
ditches and stiles, and walk alternately on grass and pave
ments, and strike across a field to reach a street. Then the
weather was so strange ; sometimes so cold that the only way
I could get any comfort was by stretching on the sofa drawn
before the fire up to the very fender (on which days every
person who went in and out of the house was sure to leave
the front door wide open) ; then the next morning, perhaps,
if we went out muffled in furs, we had to turn back and ex
change our wraps for a light shawl. Then we were waited
upon by a slave appointed for the exclusive service "of our
party during our stay. Then there were canvass-back
ducks, and all manner of other ducks on the table, in greater
profusion than any single article of food, except turkeys,
that I ever saw. Then there was the society, singularly
compounded from the largest variety of elements : foreign
ambassadors, the American government, members of Con
gress, from Clay and Webster down to Davy Crockett, Benton
from Missouri, and Cuthbert, with the freshest Irish brogue,
from Georgia ; flippant young belles, " pious" wives duti
fully attending their husbands, and groaning over the frivoli
ties of the place ; grave judges, saucy travellers, pert news
paper reporters, melancholy Indian chiefs, and timid New-
England ladies, trembling on the verge of the vortex ; all
this was wholly unlike anything that is to be seen in any
other city in the world ; for all these are mixed up together
in daily intercourse, like the higher circle of a little village,

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 145
and there is nothing else. You have this or nothing ; you
pass your days among these people, or you spend them
alone. It is in Washington that varieties of manners are
conspicuous. There the Southerners appear to the most ad
vantage, and the^New-Englanders to the least; the ease
and frank courtesy ofthe gentry ofthe South (with an occa
sional touch of arrogance, however) contrasting favourably
with the cautious, somewhat gauche, and too deferential air
of the members from the North. One fancies one can tell a
New- England member in the open air by his deprecatory
walk. He seems to bear in mind perpetually that he can
not fight a duel, while other people can. The odd mortals
that wander in from the western border cannot be described
as a class, for no one is like anybody else. One has a
neck like a crane, making an interval of inches between
stock and chin. Another wears no cravat, apparently be
cause there is no room for one. A third has his lank black
hair parted accurately down the middle, and disposed in
bands in front, so that he is taken for a woman when only
the head is seen in a crowd. A fourth puts an arm round the
neck of a neighbour on either side as he stands, seeming
afraid of his tall wirebung frame dropping to pieces if he tries
to stand alone ; a fifth makes something between a bow
and a courtesy to everybody who comes near, and proses
with a knowing air : all having shrewd faces, and being
probably very fit for the business they come upon. ___.
Our way of life was so diversified that it is difficult to
give an account of our day ; the only way in which one
day resembled another being that none had any privacy.
We breakfasted about uine, surrounded by the heaps of news
papers, documents, and letters which the post and newsmen
brought to the parliamentary members of our party. We
amused ourselves with the different versions given by the
Globe and the Intelligencer — the administration and oppo
sition papers — to speeches and proceedings at which we
had been present the day before ; and were kindly made ac
quainted by our representative friend vvith the nature of much
of his business, the petitions he had to present, (he dilemmas
in which he was placed by his constituents of different parties,
and his hopes and fears about favourite measures in prog
ress. The senator happened, from a peculiar set of cir
cumstances, to be an idle man just now. He taught me
many things, and rallied me on my asking him so few ques-
Vol. I.— N

146 WESTERN TRAVEL.
tions, while, in fact, my head was already so much too full
with what vvas flowing in upon me from all sides, that I
longed for nothing so much as to go to sleep for a week.
This gentleman's peculiar and not very agreeable position
arose out of the troublesome question of Instructions to
Representatives. Senators are chosen for a term of six
years, one third of the body gojng out every two years ;
the term being made thus long in order to ensure some sta
bility of policy in the Senate. If the government of the
state from which the senator is sent changes iis politics
during his term, he may be annoyed by instructions to vote
contrary to his principles, and, if he refuses, by a call to
resign, on the ground of his representing the opinions of the
minority. This had been the predicament of our compan
ion ; and the question of resigning or not under such cir
cumstances had become generally a very important and in
teresting one, but one which there was no means of settling.
Each member in such a scrape must act as his own judg
ment and conscience dictate under the circumstances of the
particular case. Our companion made a mistake. When
the attempt to instruct him was made, he said he appealed
from the new legislature of his state to the people who chose
him. He did appeal by standing candidate for the office of
governor of the state, and was defeated. No course then
remained but resigning ; which he did immediately, when his
senatorial term was within half a session of its close. He
had . ithdrawn from the Senate Chamber, and was winding
up his political affairs at the time when we joined his
party. At a little before eleven we usually set out for the Capi
tol, and passed the morning either in the Senate Chamber
or the Supreme Court, unless it was necessary to make
calls, or to sit to the artist who was painting my portrait, or
to join a party on some excursion in the neighbourhood.
We avoided spending the morning at home when we could,
as it was sure to be entirely consumed with callers, and we
became too much exhausted before the fatigues of the even
ing began. Much amusement was picked up in the artist's
apartment in the Capitol ; members and strangers dropped
in, and the news of the hour circulated ; but the Senate
Chamber was our favourite resort. We returned home to
dinner some time between four and six, and the cloth was
seldom removed before visiters entered. The stream con-

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 147
tinued to flow in during the whole evening, unless we were
all going out together. We disappeared, one by one, to
dress for some ball, rout, levee, or masquerade, and went
out, more or less willingly, according as we left behind us
visiters more or less pleasant. The half hour round our
drawing-room fire after" our return was the pleasantest time
of the day, weary as we were. Then our foreigners' per
plexities were explained for us ; we compared impressions,
and made common property of what had amused ns indi
vidually ; and, in some sort, set our overcharged minds in
order before we retired to rest.
Our pleasantest evenings were some spent at home in a
society of the highest order. Ladies, literary, fashionable, or
domestic, would spend an hour with us on their way from
a dinner or to a ball. Members of Congress would repose
themselves by our fireside. Mr. Clay, sitting upright on
the sofa, wilh his snuffbox ever in his hand, would dis
course for many an hour in his even, soft, deliberate tone,
on any one of the great subjects of American policy which
we might happen to start, always amazing us with the
moderation of estimate and speech which so impetuous a
nature has been able to attain. Mr. Webster, leaning back
at his ease, telling stories, cracking jokes, shaking the sofa
With burst after burst of laughter, or smoothly discoursing
to the perfect felicity of the logical part of one's constitu
tion, would illuminate an evening now and then. Mr. Cal
houn, the cast-iron man, who looks as if he had never been
born and never could be extinguished, would come in some
times to keep our understandings upon a painful stretch for
a short while, and leave us to take to pieces his close, rapid,
theoretical, illustrated talk, and. see what we could make of
it. We found it usually more worth retaining as a curiosity
than as either very just or useful. His speech abounds in
figures, truly illustrative, if that which they illustrate were
but true also. But his theories of government (almost the
only subject on which his thoughts are employed), the
squarest and compactest that ever were made, are composed
out of limited elements, and are not, therefore, likely to
stand service very well. It is at first extremely interesting
to hear Mr. Calhoun talk ; and there is a never-failing evi
dence of power in all he says and does which commands
intellectual reverence ; but the admiration is too soon turned
<nto regret, into absolute melancholy. It is impossible to

148 WESTERN TRAVEL.
resist the conviction that all this force can be at best but
useless, and is but too likely to be very mischievous. His
mind has long lost all power of communicating with any
other. I know of no man who lives in such utter intellect
ual solitude. He meets men, and harangues them by the
fireside as in the Senate ; he is wrought like a piece of ma
chinery, set a going vehemently by a weight, and stops
while you answer ; he either passes by what you say, or
twists it into a suitability with what is in his head, and be
gins to lecture again. Of course, a mind like this can have
little influence in the Senate, except by virtue, perpetually
wearing out, of what it did in its less eccentric days ; but its
influence at home is to be dreaded. There is no hope that
an intellect so cast in narrow theories will accommodate
itself to varying circumstances ; and there is every danger
that it will break up all that it can, in order to remould the
materials in its own way. Mr. Calhoun is as full as ever of
his nullification doctrines ; and those who know the force
that is in him, and his utter incapacity of modification by
other minds (after having gone through as remarkable a
revolution of political opinion as perhaps any man ever
experienced), will no more expect repose and self-retention
from him than from a volcano in full force. Relaxation is
no longer in the power of his will. I never saw any one
who so completely gave me the idea of possession. Half an
hour's conversation with him is enough to make a necessa
rian of anybody. Accordingly, he is more complained of
than blamed by his enemies. His moments of softness in
his family, and when recurring to old college days, are
hailed by all as a relief to the vehement working of the in
tellectual machine ; a relief equally to himself and others.
Those moments are as touching to the observer as tears on
the face of a soldier.
One incident befell during my stay which moved every
body. A representative from South Carolina was ill, a
friend of Mr. Calhoun's ; and Mr. Calhoun parted from us
one day, on leaving the Capitol, to visit this sick gentleman.
The physician told Mr. Calhoun on his entrance that his
friend was dying, and could not live more than a very few
hours. A visiter, not knowing this, asked the sick man how
he was. " To judge by my own feelings," said he, " much
better ; but by the countenances of my friends, not." And
he begged to be told the truth. On hearing it, he instantly

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 149
beckoned Mr. Calhoun to him, and said, " I hear they are
giving you rough treatment in the Senate. Let a dying friend
implore you to guard your looks and words so as that no un
due warmth may make you appear unworthy of your princi
ples." " This was friendship, strong friendship," said Mr.
Calhoun to me and to many others ; and it had its due effect
upon him. A few days after, Colonel Benton, a fantastic
senator from Missouri, interrupted Mr. Calhoun in a speech,
for the purpose of making an attack upon him, which would
have been insufferable if it had not been too absurdly worded
lo be easily made anything of. He was called to order ;
this was objected to ; the Senate divided upon the point of
order, being dissatisfied with the decision of the chair ; in
short, Mr. Calhoun sat for two full hours hearing his ve
racity talked about before his speech could proceed. He
sat in stern patience, scarcely moving a muscle the whole
time ; and, when it was all settled in his favour, merely ob
served that his friends need not fear his being disturbed by
an attack of this nature from such a quarter, and resumed
his speech at the precise point where his argument had been
broken off. It was great, and would have satisfied the
" strong friendship" of his departed comrade if he could
have been there to see it.
Our active-minded, genial friend, Judge Story, found time
to visit us frequently, though he is one of the busiest men in
the world ; writing half a dozen great law-books every year ;
having his full share of the business of the Supreme Court
upon his hands ; his professorship to attend to ; the District
Courts at home in Massachusetts, and a correspondence
which spreads half over the world. His talk would gush out
for hours, and there was never too much of it for us ; it is so
heartfelt, so lively, so various ; and his face all the while,
notwithstanding his gray hair, showing all the mobility and
ingenuousness of a child's. There is no tolerable portrait
of Judge Story, and there never will be. I should like to
bring him face to face with a person who entertains the com
mon English idea of how an American looks and behaves.
I should like to see what such a one would make of the
quick smiles, the glistening eye, the gleeful tone, with pass
ing touches of sentiment ; the innocent self-complacency,
the confiding, devoted affections of the great American law
yer. The preconception would be totally at fault.
With Judge Story sometimes came the man to whom he

150 WESTERN TRAVEL.
looked up with feelings little short of adoration — the aged
Chief-justice Marshall. There was almost too much mu
tual respect in our first meeting ; we knew something of his
individual merits and services ; and he maintained through
life, and carried to his grave, a reverence for woman as rare
in its kind as in its degree. It had all the theoretical fervour ,
and magnificence of Uncle Toby's, with the advantage of
being grounded upon an extensive knowledge of the sex.
He was the father and the grandfather of women ; and out
of this experience he brought, not only the love and pity
which their offices and position command, and the awe
of purity which they excite in the minds of the pure,
but a steady conviction of their intellectual equality with
men ; and, with this, a deep sense of their social injuries.
Throughout life he so invariably sustained their cause, that
no indulgent libertine dared to flatter and humour ; no skep
tic, secure in the possession of power, dared to scoff at the
claims of woman in the presence of Marshall, who, made
clearsighted by his purity, knew the sex far better than
either. How delighted we were to see Judge Story bring in the
tall, majestic, brighteyed old man ! old by chronology, by
the lines on his composed face, and by his services to the re
public ; but so dignified, so fresh, so present to the time,
that no feeling of compassionate consideration for age dared
to mix with the contemplation of him. The first evening he
asked me much about English politics, and especially
whether the people were not fast ripening for the abolition
of our religious establishment ; an institution which, after a
long study of it, he considered so monstrous in principle,
and so injurious to true religion in practice, that he could not
imagine that it could be upheld for anything but political
purposes. There was no prejudice here on account of
American modes being different ; for he observed that the
clergy were there, as elsewhere, far from being in the van of
society, and lamented the existence of much fanaticism in
the United States ; but he saw the evils of an establishment
the more clearly, not the less, from being aware of the faults
in the administration of religion at home. The most ani
mated moment of our conversation was when I told him I
was going to visit Mr. Madison on leaving Washington.
He instantly sat upright in his chair, and with beaming eyes
began to praise Mr. Madison. Madison received the men-

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 151
tion of Marshall's name in just the same manner ; yet these
men were strongly opposed in politics, and their magnani
mous appreciation of each other underwent no slight or brief
trial. Judge Porter sometimes came, a hearty friend, and much
like a fellow-countryman, though he was a senator of the
United States, and had previously been, for fourteen years,
Judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. He was Irish
by birth. His father was vindictively executed, with cruel
haste, under martial law, in the Irish rebellion ; and the
sons were sent by their noble-minded mother to America,
where Alexander, the eldest, has thus raised himself into a
station of high honour. Judge Porter's warmth, sincerity,
generosity, knowledge, and wit are the pride of his constit
uents, and very ornamental to the Senate. What their
charm is by the fireside may be imagined.
Such are only a few among a multitude whose conversa
tion filled up the few evenings we spent at home. Among
the pleasantest visits we paid were dinners at the president's,
at the houses of heads of departments, at the British lega
tion, and at the Southern members' congressional mess. We
highly enjoyed our dinings at the British legation, where
we felt ourselves at home among our countrymen. Once,
indeed, we were invited to help to do the honours as English
ladies to the seven Judges of the Supreme Court, and seven
great lawyers besides, when we had the merriest day that
could well be. Mr. Webster fell chiefly to my share, and
there is no merrier man than he ; and Judge Story would
enliven a dinner-table at Pekin. One laughable peculiarity
at the British legation was the confusion of tongues among
the servants, who ask you to take fish, flesh, and fowl in
Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Irish, or French. The
foreign ambassadors are terribly plagued about servants.
No American will wear livery, and there is no reason why
any American should. But the British ambassador must
have livery servants. He makes what compromise he can,
allowing his people to appear without livery out of doors
except on state occasions ; but yet he is obliged to pick up
his domestics from among foreigners who are in want of a
subsistence for a short lime, and are sure to go away as soon
as they can find any employment in which the wearing a
livery is not requisite. The woes of this state of things,
however, were the portion of the host, not of his guests ;

152 WESTERN TRAVEL.
and the hearty hospitality with which we were ever greeted by
the minister and his attaches, combined with the attractions
of the society they brought together, made our visits to
them some of the pleasantest hours we passed in Wash
ington. Slight incidents were perpetually showing, in an amusing
way, the village-like character of some ofthe arrangements
at Washington. I remember that some of our party went one
day to dine at Mr. Secretary Cass's, and the rest of us at
Mr. Secretary Woodburys'. The next morning a lady ofthe
Cass party asked me whether we had candied oranges at
the Woodburys'. " No." " Then," said she, " they had
candied oranges at the attorney-general's." " How do you
know?" " Oh, as we were on the way, I saw a dish car
ried ; and as we had none at the Cass's, 1 knew they must
either be for the Woodburys or the attorney-general."
There were candied oranges at the attorney-general's.
When we became intimate some time afterward with some
Southern friends, wiih whom we now dined at iheir congres
sional mess, they gave us an amusing account of the prepar
ations for our dinner. They boarded (from a really self-de
nying kindness) at a house where the arrangements were of a
very inferior kind. Two sessions previous to our being there
they had invited a large party of eminent persons to dinner,
and had committed the ordering of the arrangements to a gen
tleman of their mess, advising him to engage a French cook
in order to ensure a good dinner. The gentleman engaged a
Frenchman, concluding he must be a cook, which, however,
he was not ; and the dinner turned out so unfortunately, that
the mess determined to ask no more, dinner-company while
they remained in that house. When we arrived, however,
it was thought necessary to ask us to dinner. There was
little hope that all would go rightly ; and the two senators of
the mess were laughingly requested, in case of any blunder,
to talk nullification as fast as possible to us ladies. This
was done so efficaciously, that, when dinner was over, I
could not have told a single dish that vvas on the table, ex
cept that a ham stood before me, wliich we were too full of
nullification to attack. Our hosts informed us, long after
ward, that it was a bad dinner badly served ; but it was no
matter. At the president's I met a very large party, among whom
there was more stiffness than I saw in any other society in

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 153
America. It was not the fault ofthe president or his family,
but of the way in which the company was unavoidably
brought together. With the exception of my party, the
name of everybody present began with J, K, or L ; that is
to say, it consisted of members of Congress, who are invited
alphabetically, to ensure none being left out. This princi
ple of selection is not, perhaps, the best for the promotion of
ease and sociability; and well as I liked the day, I doubt
whether many others could say they enjoyed it. When we
went in the p esident was standing in the middle of the room
to receive his guests. After speaking a few words with me,
he gave me into the charge of M ajor Donelson, his secretary,
who seated me, and brought up for introduction each guest
as he passed from before the president. A congressional
friend of mine (whose name began with a J) stationed him
self behind my chair, and gave me an account of each gen
tleman who was introduced to me ; where he came from,
what his politics were, and how, if at all, he had distin
guished himself. All this was highly amusing. At dinner
the president was quite disposed for conversation. Indeed,
he did nothing but talk. His health is poor, and his diet of
the sparest. We both talked freely of the governments of
England and France ; I, novice in American politics as I
was, entirely forgetting that the great French question was
pending, and thai the president and the King of the French
were then bandying very hard words. I was most struck
and surprised with the president's complaints of the Ameri
can Senate, in which there was at that time a small majority
against the administration. He told me that I must not
judge of the body by what I saw it then, and that after the
4th of March I should behold a Senate more worthy of the
country. After the 4th of March there was, if I remember
rightly, a majority of two in favour of the government. The
ground of his complaint was, that the senators had sacrificed
their dignity by disregarding the wishes of their constituents.
The other side of the question is, that the dignity of the
Senate is best consulted by its members following their own
convictions, declining instructions for the term for which they
are elected. It is a serious difficulty, originating in the very
construction of the body, and not to be settled by dispute.
The president offered me bonbons for a child belonging
to our party at home, and told me how many children (of
his nephew's and. his adopted son's) he had about him, with

154 WESTERN TRAVEL.
a mildness and kindliness which contrasted well with his
tone upon some public occasions. He did the honours of
his house with gentleness and politeness to myself, and, as
far as I saw, to every one else. About an hour after din
ner he rose, and we led the way into the drawing-room,
where the whole company, gentlemen as well as ladies, fol
lowed to take coffee ; after which every one departed, some
homeward, some to make evening calls, and others, among
whom were ourselves, to a splendid ball at the other ex
tremity of the city.
General Jackson is extremely tall and thin, with a slight
stoop, betokening more weakness than naturally belongs to
his years. He has a profusion of stiff gray hair, which
gives to his appearance whatever there is of formidable in it.
His countenance bears commonly an expression of melan
choly gravity ; though, when roused, the fire of passion
flashes from his eyes, and his whole person looks then for
midable enough. His mode of speech is slow and quiet,
and his phraseology sufficiently betokens that his time has
not been passed among books. When I was at Washing
ton albums were the fashion and the plague of the day. I
scarcely ever came home but I found an album on my table
or requests for autographs ; but some ladies went much fur
ther than petitioning a foreigner who might be supposed to
have leisure. I have actually seen them stand at the door
of the Senate Chamber, and send the doorkeeper with an
album, and a request to write in it, to Mr. Webster and other
eminent members. I have seen them do worse ; stand at
the door of the Supreme Court, and send in their albums to
Chief-justice Marshall while he was on the bench hearing
pleadings. The poor president was terribly persecuted ;
and to him it was a real nuisance, as he had no poetical re
source but Watts's hymns. I have seen verses and stanzas
of a most ominous purport from Watts, in the president's
very conspicuous handwriting, standing in the midst of the
crowquill compliments and translucent charades which are
the staple of albums. Nothing was done to repress this
atrocious impertinence of the ladies. I always declined
writing more than name and date ; but senators, judges, and
statesmen submitted to write gallant nonsense at the request
of any woman who would stoop to desire it.
Colonel Johnson, now Vice-president of the United
States, sat opposite to me at the president's dinner-table.

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 155
This is the gentleman once believed to have killed Tecum
seh, and to have written the Report on Sunday Mails, which
has been the admiration of society ever since it appeared ;
but I believe Colonel Johnson is no longer supposed to be
the author of either of these deeds. General Mason spoke
of him to me at New- York with much friendship, and with
strong hope of his becoming president. I heard ihe idea so
ridiculed by members of the federal party afterward, that I
concluded General Mason to be in the same case with
hundreds more who believe their intimate friends sure of
being president. But Colonel Johnson is actually vice-
president, and the hope seems reasonable; though the
slavery question will probably be the point on which the
next election will turn, which may again be to the disadvan
tage ofthe colonel. If he should become president, he will
be as strange-looking a potentate as ever ruled. His coun
tenance is wild, though'with much cleverness in it; his hair
wanders all abroad, and he wears no cravat. But there is
no telling how he might look if dressed like other people.
I was fortunate enough once to catch a glimpse of the in
visible Amos Kendall, one of the most remarkable men in
America. He is supposed to be the moving spring of the
whole administration ; the thinker, planner, and doer ; but
it is all in the dark. Documents are issued of an excellence
which prevents their being attributed to persons who take
the responsibility of them ; a correspondence is kept up all
over the country for which no one seems to be answerable ;
work is done, of goblin extent and with goblin speed, which
makes men look about them with a superstitious wonder;
and the invisible Amos Kendall has the credit of it all.
President Jackson's Letters to his Cabinet are said to be
Kendall's ; the Report on Sunday Mails is attributed to
Kendall ; the letters sent from Washington to appear in re
mote country newspapers, whence they are collected and
published in the Globe as demonstrations of public opinion,
are pronounced lo be written by Kendall. Every mysteri
ous paragraph in opposition newspapers relates to Kendall ;
and it is some relief to the timid that his having now the
office of portmaster-general affords opportunity for open at
tacks upon this twilight personage ; who is proved, by the
faults in the postoffice administration, not to be able to do
quite everything well. But he is undoubtedly a great genius.
He unites with his " great talent for silence" a splendid au-

156 WESTERN TRAVEL.
dacity. One proof of this I have given elsewhere, in the ac
count of the bold stroke by which he obtained the sanction
ofthe Senate to his appointment as postmaster-general.*
It is clear that he could not do the work he does (incred
ible enough in amount any way) if he went into society like
other men. He did, however, one evening ; I thirik it was
at the attorney -general's. The moment I went in, intima
tions reached me from all quarters, amid nods and winks,
" Kendall is here :" " That is he." I saw at once that his
plea for seclusion (bad health) is no false one. The ex
treme sallowness of his complexion, and hair of such perfect
whiteness as is rarely seen in a man of middle age, testified
to disease. His countenance does not help the superstitious
to throw off their dread of him. He probably does not de
sire this superstition to melt away ; for there is no calcula
ting how much influence was given to Jackson's administra
tion by the universal belief that there was a concealed eye
and hand behind the machinery of government, by which
everything could be foreseen, and the hardest deeds done.
A member of Congress told me this night that he had watch
ed through four sessions for a sight of Kendall, and had
never obtained it till now. Kendall was leaning on a chair,
with head bent down, and eye glancing up at a member of
Congress with whom he was in earnest conversation, and in
a few minutes he was gone.
Neither Mr. Clay nor any of his family ever spoke a word
to me of Kendall except in his public capacity; but I heard
elsewhere and repeatedly the well-known story of the con
nexion of the two men early in Kendall's life. Tidings
reached Mr. and Mrs. Clay one evening, many years ago, at
their house in the neighbourhood of Lexington, Kentucky,
that a young man, solitary and poor, lay ill of a fever in the
noisy hotel in the town. Mrs. Clay went down in the
carriage without delay, and brought the sufferer home to her
house, where she nursed him with her own hands till he re
covered. Mr. Clay was struck with the talents and knowl
edge of the young man (Kendall), and retained him as tutor
to his sons, heaping benefits upon him with characteristic
bounty. Thus far is notorious fact. As to the causes of
their separation and enmity, I have not heard Kendall's side
of the question, and therefore say nothing ; but go on to the
* " Society in America," vol. i., p. 60.

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 157
other notorious facts, that Amos Kendall left Mr. Clay's po
litical party some time after Adams had been, by Mr. Clay's
influence, seated in the presidential chair, and went over to
Jackson ; since which time he has never ceased his persecu
tions of Mr. Clay through the newspapers. It was exten
sively believed, on Mr. Van Buren's accession, that Kendall
would be dismissed from office altogether; and there was
much speculation about how the administration would get on
without him. But he appears to be still there. Whether
he goes or stays, it will probably be soon apparent how
much of the conduct of Jackson's government is attributable
to Kendall's influence over the mind of the late president,
as he is hardly likely to stand in the same relation to the
present. I was more vividly impressed with the past and present
state of Ireland while I was in America than ever I was at
home. Besides being frequently questioned as to what was
likely to be done for the relief of her suffering millions — suf
fering to a degree that it is inconceivable to Americans lhat
freeborn whites should ever be — I met from time to time
with refugee Irish gentry, still burning with the injuries they
or their fathers sustained in the time of the rebellion. The
subject first came up with Judge Porter ; and I soon after
ward saw, at a country-house where I was calling, the
widow of Theobald Wolfe Tone. The poor lady is still
full of feelings which amazed me by their bitterness and
strength, but which have, indeed, nothing surprising in. them
to those who know the whole truth of the story of Ireland
in those dreadful days. The descendants of " the rebels"
cannot be comforted with tidings of anything to be done for
their country. Naturally believing that nothing good can
come out of England — nothing good for Ireland — they pas
sionately ask that their country shall be left to govern her
self. With tears and scornful laughter they beg that no
thing may be " done for her" by hands that have ravaged
her with gibbet, fire, and sword, but that she may be left to
whatever hopefulness may yet be smouldering under the
ashes of her despair. Such is the representation of Ireland
to American minds. It may be imagined what a monument of
idiotcy the forcible maintenance of the Church of England in
Ireland must appear to American statesmen. " I do not
understand this Lord John Russell of yours," said one of the
most sagacious of them. " Is he serious in supposing that
Vol. I.— 0

158 WESTERN TRAVEL.
he can allow a penny of the revenues, a plait of the lawn-
sleeves of that Irish Church to be touched, and keep the
whole from coming down, in Ireland first, and in England
afterward ?" We fully agree in the difficulty of supposing
Lord John Russell serious. The comparison of various,
but, I believe, pretty extensive American opinions about the
Church of England yields rather a curious result. No one
dreams of the establishment being necessary or being de
signed for the maintenance of religion ; it is seen by Chief-
justice Marshall and a host of others to be an institution
turned to political purposes. Mr. Van Buren, among many,
considers that the church has supported the state for many
years. Mr. Clay, and a multitude with him, anticipates the
speedy fall of the establishment. The result yielded by all
this is a persuasion not very favourable (to use the American
phrase) "to the permanence of our institutions."
Among our casual visiters at Washington was a gentle
man who little thought, as he sat by our fireside, what an
adventure was awaiting him among the Virginia woods. If
there could have been any anticipation of it, I should have
taken more notice of him than I did ; as it is, I have a very
slight recollection of him. He came from Maio£, and in
tended before his return to visit the springs of Virginia,
which he did the next summer. It seems that he talked in
the stages rashly, and somewhat in a bragging style — in a
Btyle, at least, which he was not prepared to support by a
harder testimony — about abolitionism. He declared that abo
litionism was not so dangerous as people thought ; that he
avowed it without any fear ; that he had frequently attended
abolition meetings in the North, and was none the worse for
it in the slave states, &c. He finished his visit at the Springs
prosperously enough ; but, on his return, when he and a
companion were in the stage in the midst of the forest, they
met at a crossroad — Judge Lynch ; that is, a mob with hints
of cowhide and tar and feathers. The mob stopped the
stage, and asked for the gentleman by name. It was useless
to deny his name, but he denied everything else. He denied
his being an abolitionist ; he denied his having ever | attended
abolition meetings, and harangued against abolitionism from
the. door of the stage with so much effect, that the mob al
lowed the steps to be put up, and the vehicle to drive off,
which it did at full speed. It vvas not long before the mob
became again persuaded that this gentleman was a fit object

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 159
of vengeance, and pursued him ; but he was gone as fast as
horses could carry him. He did not relax his speed even
when out of danger, but fled all the way into Maine. It
was not on the shrinking at the moment that one would ani
madvert so much as on the previous bragging. I have seea
and felt enough of what peril from popular hatred is, in this
martyr age ofthe United States, to find it easier to venerate
those who can endure than to despise those who flinch from
the ultimate trial of their principles ; but every instance of
the infliction of Lynch punishment should be a lesson to
the sincerest and securest to profess no more than they are
ready to perform.
One of our mornings was devoted to an examination of
the library and curiosities of the -State Department, which
we found extremely interesting. Our imaginations were
whirled over the globe at an extraordinary rate. There
were many volumes of original letters of Washington's and
other revolutionary leaders bound up, and ordered to be
printed, for security, lest these materials of history should
be destroyed by fire or other accident. There were British
parliamentary documents. There was a series of the Mon-
iteur complete, wherein we found the black list of executions
during the reign of terror growing longer every day ; also
the first mention of Napoleon ; the tidings of his escape
from Elba ; the misty days immediately succeeding, when
no telegraphic communication could be made ; his arrival at
Lyons, and the subsequent silence till the announcement be
came necessary that the king and princes had departed du
ring the night, and that his majesty the emperor had arrived
at his palace of the Tuileries at eight o'clock the next even
ing. Next we turned to Algerine (French) gazettes, pub
lishing that Mustaphas and such people were made colonels
and adjutants. Then we lighted upon the journals of Arnold
during the Revolutionary war, and read the postscript of his
last letter previous to the accomplishment of his treason, in
which he asks for hard cash, on pretence that the French
had suffered so much by paper money that he was unwilling
to offer them any more. Then we viewed the signatures of
treaties, and decreed Metternich's to be the best ; Don Pe
dro's the worst for flourish, and Napoleon's for illegibility.
The extraordinary fact was then and there communicated
to us that the Americans are fond of Miguel from their dis
like of Pedro, but that they hope to " get along" very well

160 WESTERN TRAVEL.
with the Queen of Portugal. The treaties with oriental po
tentates are very magnificent, shining, and unintelligible to
the eyes of novices. The presents from potentates to Amer
ican ambassadors are laid up here ; gold snuffboxes set in
diamonds, and a glittering array of swords and cimeters.
There was one fine Damascus blade, but it seemed too blunt
to do any harm. Then we lost ourselves in a large collec
tion of medals and coins — Roman gold coins, with fat old
Vespasian and others — from which we were recalled to find
ourselves in the extremely modern and democratic United
Slates ! It was a very interesting morning.
We took advantage of a mild day to ascend to the skylight
of the dome of the Capitol, in order to obtain a view of the
surrounding country. The ascent was rather fatiguing, but
perfectly safe. The residents at Washington declare the
environs to be beautiful in all seasons but early winter, the
meadows being gay with a profusion of wild flowers ; even
as early as February with several kinds of heart's-ease. It
was a particularly cold season when I was there ; but on
the day of my departure, in the middle of February, the
streets were one sheet of ice, and I remember we made a
long slide from the steps of our boarding-house to those of
the stage. But I believe that that winter was no rule for
others. From the summit of the Capitol we saw plainly
marked out the basin in which Washington stands, sur
rounded by hills except where the Potomac spreads its wa
ters. The city was intended to occupy the whole of this
basin, and its seven theoretical avenues may be traced ; but
all except Pennsylvania Avenue are bare and forlorn. A
few mean houses dotted about, the sheds of a navy-yard
on one bank of the Potomac, and three or four villas on the
other, are all the objects that relieve the eye in this space
intended to be so busy and magnificent. The city is a grand
mistake. Its only attraction is its being the seat of govern
ment, and it is thought that it will not long continue to be
so. The far-western states begin to demand a more central
seat for Congress, and the Cincinnati people are already
speculating upon which of their hills or tablelands is to be
the site of the new Capitol. Whenever this change takes
place all will be over with Washington ; " thorns shall
come up in her palaces, and the owl and lhe raven shall
dwell in it," while her sister cities of the east will be still
spreading as fast as hands can be found to build them.

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 161
There was a funeral of a member of Congress on the 30th
of January ; the interment of the representative from South
Carolina, whose death I mentioned in connexion with Mr.
Calhoun. We were glad that we were at Washington at
the time, as a congressional funeral is a remarkable spec
tacle. We went to the Capitol at about half an hour before
noon, and found many ladies already seated in the gallery
of the Hall of Representatives. I chanced to be placed at
the precise point of the gallery where the sounds from every
part of the house are concentred; so that I heard the
whole service, while I was at such a distance as to com
mand a view of the entire scene. In the chair were the
President of the Senate and the Speaker of the Represent
atives. Below them sat the officiating clergyman; imme
diately opposite to whom were the president and the Heads
of departments on one side the coffin, and the judges of the
Supreme Court and members of the Senate on the other.
The representatives sat in rows behind, each with crape
round the left arm ; some in black ; many in blue coats
with bright buttons. Some of the fiercest political foes in
the country ; some who never meet on any other occasion —
the president and the South Carolina senators, for instance —
now sat knee to knee, necessarily looking into each others'
faces. With a coffin beside them, and such an event await
ing their exit, how out of place was hatred here !
After prayers there was a sermon, in which warning of
death was brought home to all, and particularly to the aged;
and the vanity of all disturbances of human passion when in
view of the grave was dwelt upon. There sat the gray-
headed old president, at that time feeble, and looking
scarcely able to go through this ceremonial. I saw him
apparently listening to the discourse ; I saw him rise when
it was over, and follow the coffin in his turn, somewhat
feebly; I saw him disappear in the doorway, and im
mediately descended with my party to the Rotundo, in
order to behold the departure of the procession for the
grave. At the bottom of the stairs a member of Con
gress met us, pale and trembling, with the news that the
president had been twice fired at with a pistol by an as
sassin who had waylaid him in the portico, but that both
pistols had missed fire. At this moment the assassin
rushed into the Rotundo where we were standing, pursued
and instantly surrounded by a crowd. I saw his hands and
02

162 WESTERN TRAVEL.
half-bare arms struggling above the heads of the crowd in
resistance to being handcuffed. He was presently over
powered, conveyed to a carriage, and taken before a magis
trate. The attack threw the old soldier into a tremendous
passion. He fears nothing, but his temper is not equal to
his courage. Instead of his putting the event calmly aside,
and proceeding with the business of the hour, it was found
necessary to put him into his carriage and take him home.
We feared what the consequences would be. We had
little doubt that the assassin Lawrence was mad ; and as
little that4 before the day was out, we should hear the crime
imputed to more than one political party or individual.
And so it was. Before two hours were over, the name of
almost every eminent politician was mixed up with that of
the poor maniac who caused the uproar. The president's
misconduct on the occasion was the most virulent and pro
tracted. A deadly enmity had long subsisted between Gen
eral Jackson and Mr. Poindexter, a senator of the United
States, which had been much aggravated since General
Jackson's accession by some unwarrantable language which
he had publicly used in relation to Mr. Poindexter's private
affairs. There was a prevalent expectation of a duel as
soon as the expiration of the president's term of office should
enable his foe to send him a challenge. Under these cir
cumstances the president thought proper to charge Mr.
Poindexter with being the instigator of Lawrence's attempt.
He did this in conversation so frequently and openly, that
Mr. Poindexter wrote a letter, brief and manly, stating that
he understood this charge was made against him, but that
he would not believe it till it was confirmed by the presi
dent himself; his not replying to this letter being under
stood to be such a confirmation. The president showed
this letter to visiters at the White House, and did not an
swer it. He went further ; obtaining affidavits (tending to
implicate Poindexter) from weak and vile persons whose
evidence utterly failed ; having personal interviews with
these creatures, and openly showing a disposition to hunt
his foe to destruction at all hazards. The issue was, that
Lawrence was proved to have acted from sheer insanity ;
Poindexter made a sort of triumphal progress through the
states, and an irretrievable stain was left upon President
Jackson's name.
Every one was anxiously anticipating the fierce meeting
of these foes on the president's retirement from office, when

LIFE AT WASHINGTON. 163
Mr. Poindexter last year, in a fit either of somnambulism
or of delirium from illness, walked out of a chamber window
in the middle of the night, and was so much injured that he
soon died.
It so happened that we were engaged to a party at Mr.
Poindexter's the very evening of this attack upon the presi
dent. There was so tremendous a thunder-3torm that our
host and hostess were disappointed of almost all their
guests except ourselves, and we had difficulty in merely
crossing the street, being obliged to have planks laid across
the flood which gushed between the carriage and the steps
of the door. The conversation naturally turned on the event
of the morning. I knew little of the quarrel which was
now to be so dreadfully aggravated ; but the more I afterward
heard, the more I admired the moderation with which Mr.
Poindexter spoke of his foe that night, and as often as I sub
sequently met him.
I had intended to visit the president the day after the
funeral ; but I heard so much of his determination to con
sider the attack a political affair, and I had so little wish to
hear it thus treated, against the better knowledge of all the
world, that I stayed away as long as I could. Before I
went I was positively assured of Lawrence's insanity by
one of the physicians who were appointed to visit him.
One of the poor creature's complaints was, that General
Jackson deprived him of the British crown, to which he was
heir. When I did go to the White House, I took the brief
est possible notice to the president of the " insane attempt"
of Lawrence ; but the word roused his ire. He protested,
in the presence of many strangers, that there was no in
sanity in the case. I was silent, of course. He protested
that there was a plot, and that the man was a tool, and at
length quoted the attorney-general as his authority. It was
painful to hear a chief ruler publicly trying to persuade a
foreigner that any of his constituents hated him to the death ;
and I took the liberty of changing the subject as soon as I
could. The next evening I was at the attorney-general's,
and I asked him how he could let himself be quoted as say
ing that Lawrence was not mad. He excused himself by
saying that he meant general insanity. He Believed Law
rence insane in one direction ; that it was a sort of Ravaillac
case. I besought him to impress the president with this
view of the case as soon as might be.

164 WESTERN TRAVEL.
It would be amusing, if it were possible to furnish a com
plete set of the rumours, injurious (if they had not been
too absurd) to all parties in turn, upon this single and very
common act of a madman. One would have thought that
no maniac had ever before attacked a chief magistrate. The
act might so easily have remained fruitless ! but it was made
to bear a full and poisonous crop of folly, wickedness, and
wo. I feared on the instant how it would be, and felt that,
though the president was safe, it vvas very bad news. When
will it come to be thought possible for politicians to have
faith in one another, though they may differ, and to be jeal
ous for their rivals rather than for themselves ?

THE CAPITOL.
"... You have unto the support of a true and natural aristocracy
the deepest root of a democracy that hath been planted. Wherefore
there is nothing in art or nature better qualified for the result than this
assembly." — Harrington's Oceana.
The places of resort for the stranger in the Capitol are
the Library, the Supreme Court, the Senate Chamber, and
the Hall of Representatives.
The former library of Congress was burnt by the British
in their atrocious attack upon Washington in 1814. Jeffer
son then offered his, and it was purchased by the nation. It
is perpetually increased by annual appropriations. We did
not go to the library to read, but amused ourselves for many
pleasant hours with the prints and with the fine medals
which we found there. I was never tired of the cabinet of
Napolean medals ; the most beautifully composed piece of
history that I ever studied. There is a cup carved by Ben-
venuto Cellini, preserved among the curiosities ofthe Capitol,
which might be studied for a week before all the mysteries
of its design are apprehended. How it found its way to so
remote a resting-place I do not remember.
Judge Story was kind enough to send us notice when any
cause vvas to be argued in the Supreme Court which it was
probable we might be able to understand, and we passed a
itw mornings there. The apartment is less fitted for its

THE CAPITOL. 165
purposes than any other in the building, the court being
badly lighted and ventilated. The windows are at the back
of the judges, whose countenances are therefore indistinctly
seen, and who sit in their own light. Visiters are usually
placed behind the counsel and opposite the judges, or on
seats on each side. I was kindly offered the reporter's
chair, in a snug corner, under the judges, and facing the
counsel ; and there I was able to hear much of the plead
ings and to see the remarkable countenances of the attor
ney-general, Clay, Webster, Porter, and others, in the
fullest light that could be had in this dim chamber.
At some moments this court presents a singular specta
cle. I have watched the assemblage while the chief-justice
was delivering a judgment ; the three judges on either hand
gazing at him more like learners than associates ; Webster
standing firm as a rock, his large, deep-set eyes wide awake,
his lips compressed, and his whole countenance in that in
tent stillness which easily fixes the eye of the stranger;
Clay leaning against the desk in an attitude whose grace
contrasts strangely with the slovenly make of his dress, his
snuffbox for the moment unopened in his hand, his small
gray eye and placid half-smile conveying an expression of
pleasure which redeems his face from its usual unaccount
able commonness ; the attorney-general, his fingers playing
among his papers, his quick black eye, and thin tremulous
lips for once fixed, his small face, pale with thought, con
trasting remarkably with the other two; these men, absorbed
in what they are listening to, thinking neither of themselves
nor of each other, while they are watched by the groups of
idlers and listeners around them ; the newspaper corps, the
dark Cherokee chiefs, the stragglers from the Far West, the
gay ladies in their waving plumes, and the members of either
house that have stepped in to listen ; all these I have seen at
one moment constitute one silent assemblage, while the mild
voice of the aged chief-justice sounded through the court.
Every one is aware that the wigs and gowns of counsel
are not to be seen in the United States. There was no
knowing, when Webster sauntered in, threw himself down,
and leaned back against the table, his dreamy eyes seeming
to see nothing about him, whether he would by-and-by take
up his hat and go away, or whether he would rouse himself
suddenly, and stand up to address the judges. For the
generality there was no knowing ; and to us, who were fore-

166 WESTERN TRAVEL.
warned, it was amusing to see how the court would fill after
the entrance of Webster, and empty when he had gone back
to the Senate Chamber. The chief interest to me in Web
ster's pleading, and also in his speaking in the Senate, was
from seeing one so dreamy and nonchalant roused into strong
excitement. It seemed like having a curtain lifted up
through which it was impossible to pry ; like hearing auto
biographical secrets. Webster is a lover of ease and pleas
ure, and has an air of the most unaffected indolence and
careless self-sufficiency. It is something to see him moved
with anxiety and the toil of intellectual conflict ; to see his
lips tremble, his nostrils expand, the perspiration start upon
his brow ; to hear his voice vary with emotion, and to watch
the expression of laborious thought while he pauses, for
minutes together, to consider his notes, and decide upon the
arrangement of his argument. These are the. moments
when it becomes clear that this pleasure-loving man works
for his honours and his gains. He seems to have the de
sire which other remarkable men have shown, to conceal
the extent of his toils, and his wish has been favoured by
some accidents ; some sudden, unexpected call upon him for
a display of knowledge and po war, which has electrified the
beholders. But on such occasions he has been able to bring
into use acquisitions and exercises intended for other occa
sions, on which they may or may not have been wanted.
No one will suppose that this is said in disparagement of
Mr. Webster. It is only saying that he owes to his own
industry what he must otherwise owe to miracle.
What his capacity for toil is was shown, in one instance
among many, in an affair of great interest to his own state.
On the 7th of April, 1830, the town of Salem, Massachu
setts, was thrown into a state of consternation by the an
nouncement of a horrible murder. Mr. White, a respect
able and wealthy citizen of Salem, about eighty years of
age, was found murdered in his bed. The circumstances
were such as to indicate that the murder was not for com
mon purposes of plunder, and suspicions arose which made
every citizen shudder at the idea of the community in which
he lived containing the monsters who would perpetrate
such a deed. A patrol of the citizens was proposed and
organized, and none were more zealous in propositions and
in patrolling than Joseph and John Knapp, relatives of the
murdered man. The conduct of these young men on the

THE CAPITOL. 167
occasion exposed them to dislike before any one breathed
suspicion. Several acquaintances of the family paid visits
of condolence before the funeral. One of these told me,
still with a feeling of horror, how one of the Knapps pulled
his sleeve, and asked, in an awkward whisper, whether he
would go up stairs and see " the old devil." The old gen
tleman's housekeeper had slept out of the house that par
ticular night ; a back window had been left unfastened, with
a plank placed against it on the outside ; and a will of the
old gentleman's (happily a superseded one) was missing.
Suspicious circumstances like these were found soon to
have accumulated so as to justify the arrest of the two
Knapps, and of two brothers of the^jame of Crowninshield.
A lawyer was ready with testimony that Joseph Knapp,
who had married a grand-niece of Mr. White, had obtained
legal information, that if Mr. White died intestate, Knapp's
mother-in-law would succeed to half the property. Joseph
Knapp confessed the whole in prison, and Richard Crown
inshield, doubtless the principal assassin, destroyed himself.
The state prosecutors were in a great difficulty. Without
the confession, the evidence was scarcely sufficient ; and
though Joseph Knapp was promised favour from govern
ment if he would repeat his evidence on the side of the
prosecution in court, it was not safe, as the event proved, to
rely upon this in a case otherwise doubtful. The attorney
and solicitor-general of the state were both aged and feeble
men ; and, as the day of trial drew on, it became more and
more doubtful whether they would be equal to the occasion,
and whether these ruffians, well understood to be the mur
derers, would not be let loose upon society again, from bad
management of the prosecution. The prosecuting officers
of the government were prevailed upon, within three days
of the trial, to send to seek out Mr. Webster and request
his assistance.
A citizen of Salem, a friend of mine, was deputed to
carry the request. He went to Boston : Mr. Webster was
not there, but at his farm by the seashore. Thither, in
tremendous weather, my friend followed him. Mr. Webster
was playing checkers with his boy. The old farmer sat by
the fire, his wife and two young women were sewing and
knitting coarse stockings ; one of these last, however, be
ing no farmer's daughter, but Mr. Webster's bride, for this
was shortly after his second marriage. My friend was first

168 WESTERN TRAVEL.
dried and refreshed, and then lost no time in mentioning
" business." Mr. Webster writhed at the word, saying that
he came down hither to get out of hearing of it. Ife next
declared that his undertaking anything more was entirely
out of the question, and pointed, in evidence, to his swollen
bag of briefs lying in a corner. However, upon a little fur
ther explanation and meditation, he agreed to the request
with the same good grace with which he afterward went
through with his task. He made himself master of all that
my friend could communicate, and before daybreak was off
through the woods, in the unabated storm, no doubt medita
ting his speech by the way. He needed all the assistance
that could be given him, of course ; and my friend consti
tuted himself Mr. Webster's fetcher and carrier of facts for
these two days. He says he was never under orders before
since his childish days ; but in this emergency he was a
willing servant, obeying such laconic instructions as " Go .
there ;" " Learn this and that ;" " Now go away ;" and so
forth. At the appointed hour Mr. Webster was completely ready.
His argument is thought one of the finest, in every respect,
that he has produced. I read it -before I knew anything of
the circumstances which I have related ; and I was made
acquainted with them in consequence of my inquiry how a
man could be hanged on evidence so apparently insufficient
as that adduced by the prosecution. Mr. Webster had
made all that could be made of it ; his argument was inge
nious and close, and imbued with moral beauty ; but the
fact was, as I was assured, the prisoners were convicted
on the ground of the confession of the criminal more than
on the evidence adduced by the prosecutors ; though the
confession could not, after all, be made open use of. The
prisoners had such an opinion of the weakness of the case,
that Joseph, who had been offered favour by government,
refused to testify, and the pledge of the government was
withdrawn. Both the Knapps were hanged.
The clearness with which, in this case, a multitude of
minute facts is arranged, and the ingenuity with which a
long chain of circumstantial evidence is drawn out, can be
understood only through a reading of the entire argument.
Even these are less remarkable than the sympathy by which
the pleader seems to have possessed himself of the emo
tions, the peculiar moral experience, of the quiet, good peo-

THE CAPITOL. 169
pie of Salem, when thunderstruck with this event. While
shut up at his task, Mr. Webster found means to see into
the hearts which were throbbing in all the homes about him.
" One thing more," said he to my friend, who was taking
his leave of him on the eve of the trial. " Do you know
of anything remarkable about any of the jury ?" My friend
had nothing to say, unless it was that the foreman was a
man of a remarkably tender conscience. To this we doubt
less owe the concluding passage ofthe argument, delivered,
as I was told, in a voice and manner less solemn than easy
and tranquil.
" Gentlemen — Your whole concern should be to do your
duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves.
You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it
is true, may endanger the prisoner's life ; but, then, it is to
save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown
and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict
him. If such reasonable doubts still remain, you will acquit
him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a
duty to the public as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You
cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a
plain, straightforward one. Doubtless, we would all judge
him in mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law
inculcates no hostility ; but towards him, if proved to be a
murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public
justice, demand that you do your duty.
" With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty,
no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we
cannot face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disre
garded. " A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent,
like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the seas, duty
performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness
or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in
the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.
We cannot escape their power nor fly from their presence.
They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close ;
and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet
farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by
the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been
violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us
grace to perform it."
Vol. I.— P

170 WESTERN TRAVEL.
How must the mention of the tremendous " secret" have
thrilled through the hearts of citizens who had for weeks
been anxiously searching every man's countenance to find it
out. The picture given as from the pleader's imagination
was, as every man knew, derived from the confession of the
criminal. " The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession
and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was
planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence,
spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had
fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A
healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound
slumbers of the night held in their soft but strong embrace.
The assassin enters through the window, already prepared,
into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he
paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds
up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the
chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued
pressure, till it turns on its hinges, and he enters, and be
holds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly
open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent
sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the
moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed
him where to strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the
victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose
of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assassin's purpose
to make sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it
was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the
bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not
fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the
wounds of the poniard. To finish the picture, he explores
the wrist for the pulse ! he feels it, and ascertains that it
beats no longer ! It is accomplished. The deed is done.
He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out
through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the
murder ; no eye has seen him, no ear heard him. The se
cret is his own, and it is safe ! Ah, gentlemen, that was a
dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The
whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where
the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of
that Eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds
everything as in the splendour of noon, such secrets of guilt
are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is,

THE CAPITOL. 171
generally speaking, that ' murder will out.' True it is that
Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that
those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's
blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in
a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must
come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes
turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every cir
cumstance connected with the time and place ; a thousand
ears catch every whisper, a thousand excited minds intensely
dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to
kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.
Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is
false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of
conscience to be true to itself. It labours under its guilty
possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human
heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant.
It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it does not
acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and
it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or
earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon
comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of«which we
read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will.
He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and de
manding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in
his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings
in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his
master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his cour
age, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from with
out begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to
entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater
violence to burst forth. It must be confessed ; it will be
confessed ; there is no refuge from confession but suicide ;
and suicide is confession."
Mr. Webster was born in 1782, in New-Hampshire. His
father was a farmer who had retreated into the wilderness,
and, as his son says, " had lighted his fire nearer to the North
Pole than any other citizen of the States." The good man
had, however, come down into the meadows at the foot of the
hills before his second son Daniel wa6 born. By the means
which are within reach of almost every child in his country
— the schools and colleges of easy access — Daniel became
qualified for an apprenticeship to law ; and by industry,
great intellectual power, and some few fortunate accidents,

172 WESTERN TRAVEL.
rose into notice, employment, and eminence. He has for
some years been considered the head of the federal party,
and he is therefore now on the losing side in politics. His
last great triumph was his exposure of the nullification
doctrine in 1833. Since that time he has maintained his
influence in Congress by virtue of his great talents and
former services ; but, his politics being in opposition to those
ofthe great body ofthe people, he is unable to do more than
head the opposition in the Senate. He was an unsuccess
ful candidate in the last presidential election ; and there
seems little probability of his attainment of office, unless by
his taking the lead of the abolition movement. For this it
is probably now too late. The abolitionists have done the
most difficult part of the work in rousing the public mind ;
they are chiefly of the democratic side in politics ; and they
do not entertain, I believe, that faith in the great leader of
the federalists which would induce them to support his claims
as the anti-slavery candidate for the next presidentship.
Mr. Webster owes his rise to the institutions under which
he lives ; institutions which open the rqce to the swift and
the battle to the strong ; but there is little in him that is con
genial with them. He is aristocratic in his tastes and habits,
and but little republican simplicity is to be recognised in
him. Neither his private conversation nor his public trans
actions usually convey an impression that he is in earnest.
When he is so, his power is majestic, irresistible ; but his
ambition for office, and for the good opinion of those who
surround him, is seen too often in alternation with his love
of ease and luxury to allow of his being confided in as he is
admired. If it had been otherwise, if his moral had equalled
his intellectual supremacy, if his aims had been as single as
his reason is unclouded, he would long ago have carried all
before him, and been the virtual monarch of the United
States. But to have expected this would have been unrea
sonable. The very best men of any society are rarely or
never to be found among its eminent statesmen ; and it is
not fair to look for them in offices which, in the present con
dition of human affairs, would yield to such no other choice
than of speedy failure or protracted martyrdom. Taking
great politicians as they are, Mr. Webster's general consist
ency may be found not to have fallen below the average,
though it has not been so remarkable as to ensure on his
behalf a confidence at all to be compared with the universal
admiration of his talents.

THE CAPITOL. 173
Mr. Webster speaks seldom in the Senate. When he
does, it is generally on some constitutional question, where
his reasoning powers and knowledge are brought into play,
and where his authority is considered so high, that he has
the glorious satisfaction of knowing that he is listened to as
an oracle by an assemblage of the first men in the country.
Previous to such an exercise he may be seen leaning back
in his chair, not, as usual, biting the top of his pen, or twirl
ing his thumbs, or bursting into sudden and transient laugh
ter at Colonel Benton's oratorical absurdities, but absent and
thoughtful, making notes, and seeing nothing that is before
his eyes. When he rises, his voice is moderate and his
manner quiet, with the slightest possible mixture of embar
rassment ; his right hand rests upon his desk, and the left
hangs by his side. Before his first head is finished, how
ever, his voice has risen so as to fill the chamber and ring
again, and he has fallen into his favourite attitude, with his
left hand under his coat-tail, and the right in full action. At
this moment the eye rests upon him as upon one under the
true inspiration of seeing the invisible and grasping the im
palpable. When the vision has passed away, the change is
astonishing. He sits at his desk, writing letters or dream
ing, so that he does not always discover when the Senate is
going to a division. Some one of his party has not seldom
to jog his elbow, and tell him that his vote is wanted.
There can scarcely be a stronger contrast than between
the eloquence of Webster and that of Clay. Mr. Clay is
now my personal friend ; but I have a distinct recollection
of my impression of his speaking while he was yet merely
an acquaintance. His appearance is plain in the extreme,
being that of a mere west-country farmer. He is tall and
thin, with a weather-beaten complexion, small gray eyes,
which convey an idea of something more than his well-
known sagacity, even of slyness. It is only after much
intercourse that Mr. Clay's personal appearance can be dis
covered to do him any justice at all. All attempts to take
his likeness have been in vain, though upward of thirty
portraits of him, by different artists, were in existence when
I was in America. No one has succeeded in catching the
subtile expression of placid kindness, mingled with astute
ness, which becomes visible to the eyes of those who are in
daily intercourse with him. His mode of talking, deliberate
and somewhat formal, including sometimes a grave humour
P2

174 WESTERN TRAVEL.
and sometimes a gentle sentiment, very touching from the
lips of a sagacious man of ambition, has but one fault, its ob
vious adaptation to the supposed state of mind of the person
to whom it is addressed. Mr. Clay is a man of an irritable
and impetuous nature, over which he has obtained a truly
noble mastery. His moderation is now his most striking
characteristic ; obtained, no doubt, at the cost of prodigious
self-denial on his own part, and on that of his friends of some
of the ease, naturalness, and self-forgetfulness of his man
ners and discourse. But his conversation is rich in informa
tion, and full charged with the spirit of justice and kindli
ness, rising, on occasion, to a moving magnanimity. By
chances, of some of which he was totally unaware, I became
acquainted with several acts of his life, political and private,
which prove that his moderation is not the mere diffusion of
oil upon the waves, but the true stilling of the storm of pas
sion and selfishness. The time may come when these acts
may be told ; but it has not yet arrived.
Mr. Clay is sometimes spoken of as a " disappointed
statesman," and he would probably hot object to call himself
so ; for it makes no part of his idea of dignity to pretend to
be satisfied when he is sorry, or delighted with what he
would fairi have prevented ; but he suffers only the genuine
force of disappointment, without the personal mortification
and loss of dignity which are commonly supposed to be in
cluded in it. He once held the balance of the Union in his
hand, and now belongs to the losing party ; he more than
once expected to be president, and has now no chance of
ever being so. Thus far he is a disappointed statesman ;
but, at the same time, he is in possession of more than an
equivalent for what he has lost, not only in the disciplined
moderation of his temper, but in the imperishable reality of
great deeds done. No possession of office could now add
to his dignity any more than the total neglect of the present
generation of the people could detract from it. The fact
that Mr. Clay's political opinions are not in accordance with
those now held by the great body of the people is no dis
grace to him or them, while the dignity of his former ser
vices, supported by his present patience and quietness, places
him far above compassion, and every feeling but respect and
admiration. This admiration is exalted to enthusiasm in
those who know how difficult it is to a man of Mr. Clay's
nature, who has lived in public all his life, to fall back into

THE CAPITOL. 175
obscurity ; an obscurity not relieved, alas ! by the solace of
a cheerful home. Few spectacles can be more noble than
he is in that obscurity, discoursing of public men and affairs
with a justice which no rivalship can impair, and a hopeful
ness which no personal disappointment can relax.
Mr. Clay is the son of a respectable clergyman in Vir
ginia, and was born in April, 1777. His father died when
he was quite young ; and he was, in consequence, left to
the common educational chances which befriend all the
young citizens of the United States. He studied law after
leaving the common school at which his education began,
and settled early at Lexington, in Kentucky, where his resi
dence has ever since been fixed. His first important act was
labouring diligently in favour of a plan for the gradual aboli
tion of slavery in Kentucky, which was proposed in 1 798.
His exertions were, however, in vain. In 1803 he entered
the legislature of his state, a..d in 1806 was sent, with the
dignity of senator, to Washington, having not quite attained
the requisite age. In 1809 he found occasion to advocate
the principle of protection to domestic manufactures, which
he has since had the very questionable honour of imbodying
in his famous American System. In 1811 he became
Speaker of the House of Representatives, and for three years
exercised in that situation a powerful influence over the
affairs of the country. In 1814 he was appointed one of
the commissioners who negotiated the treaty of Ghent ; and
when that business was concluded, he repaired to London
with his colleagues, Messrs. Adams and Gallatin, and there
concluded the commercial convention which was made the
basis of all the subsequent commercial arrangements be
tween the United States and Europe. In 1825 Mr. Clay
accepted the appointment of Secretary of State under Mr.
Adams, an act for which he is still extensively and vehe
mently blamed, but with how much or how little reason I do
not pretend, from want of knowledge of the party politics of
the time, to understand. While in this office he did a great
deal in procuring, with much labour and difficulty, a recog
nition of the independence of the Spanish colonies in South
America ; a recognition which had the all-important effect
of deterring the great European powers from their contem
plated intervention on behalf of Spain. Mr. Clay's speeches
were read at the head of the armies of the South American
republics ; and if his name were forgotten everywhere else,

176 WESTERN TRAVEL.
it would stand in the history of their independence. Mr.
Clay has since been a powerful advocate of internal im
provements, and the framer of " the American System ;" the
founder ofthe protective policy, which I believe he is more
proud of than of any act of his public life, while many others
are justly amazed that a man of his sagacity should not see
the unsoundness of the princip'e on which the whole system
is based. Much more honour is due to him for the Com
promise Bill, by which he virtually surrendered his system,
and immediately put an end to the nullification struggle.
Mr. Webster victoriously exposed the badness of the nulli
fication principle, and Mr. Clay removed the present cause
of its exercise. The one humbled South Carolina to the
dust on her nullification ground, the other left her in tri
umphant possession "of her principle of free trade, while
disarming her by a wise and well-principled compromise.
The one act of Mr. Clay's public life for which he must
be held to require pardon from posterity, is that by which
he secured the continuance of slavery in Missouri, and, in
consequence, its establishment in Arkansas and Florida ;
the one an admitted state, the other a territory destined to
be so. Mr. Clay is not an -advocate of slavery, though, in
stead of being a friend to abolition, he is a dupe of coloniza
tion. When he held the destinies of American slavery in
his hand, he had, unhappily, more regard for precedent in
human arrangements than for the spirit of the divine laws
in the light of which such arrangements should be ever re
garded. He acted to avert the conflict which cannot be
averted, lt was still to take place ; it is now taking place,
under less favourable circumstances ; and his measure of
expediency is already meeting with the retribution which
ever follows upon the subordination of a higher principle to
a lower. For many of his public acts Mr. Clay will be
permanently honoured; with regard to others, the honour
will be mingled with allowance for error in philosophy ; for
this one he will have to be forgiven.
Mr. Clay married an excellent woman, who is still living,
the surviver of six daughters, taken away, some of them in
the bloom of promise, and one in the maturity of virtue.
The great stateman's house is very desolate. He must
seek in his own strength of soul, and in the love and honour
with which his friends regard him, that good which has been

THE CAPITOL. 177
denied to him in the latter days of his political and domestic
life. His recollections of Europe are very vivid and pleasu
rable. We spent many an hour of my visit to him in Ken
tucky in talking over our mutual English friends, till we
forgot the time and space we had both traversed since we
parted from them, and looked up surprised to find ourselves,
not at a London dinner-table, but in the wild woods of the
West. Mr. Clay has not kept up his knowledge of British
life and politics so accurately as some of his brother-stales-
men ; but he is still full of the sayings of Castlereagh and
Canning, of Lords Eldon and Stowell, of Mackintosh and
Sydney Smith.
The finest speech I heard from Mr. Clay in the Senate
was on the sad subject of the injuries of the Indians. He
exposed the facts of the treatment of the Cherokees by
Georgia. He told bow the lands in Georgia, guaranteed
by solemn treaties to the Cherokees, had been surveyed
and partitioned off to white citizens of the state ; that, though
there is a nominal right of appeal awarded to the complain
ants, this is a mere mockery, as an acknowledgment of the
right of Georgia to divide the lands is made a necessary
preliminary to the exercise of the right ; in other words, the
Indians must lay down their claims on the threshold of the
courts which they enter for the purpose of enforcing these
claims ! The object of Mr. Clay's plea was to have the
Supreme Court open to the Cherokees, their case being, he
contended, contemplated by the Constitution. A minor prop
osition was that Congress should assist, with territory and
appliances, a body of Cherokees who desired to emigrate
beyond the Mississippi.
It was known that Mr. Clay would probably bring for
ward his great topic that day. Some of the foreign ambas
sadors might be seen leaning against the pillars behind the
chair, and many members of the other house appeared be
hind and in the passages ; and one sat on the steps of the
platform, his hands clasped, and his eyes fixed on Mr. Clay,
as if life hung upon his words. As many as could crowd
into the gallery leaned over the balustrade ; and the lower
circle was thronged with ladies and gentlemen, in the centre
of whom stood a group of Cherokee chiefs, listening im-
moveably. I never saw so deep a moral impression pro
duced by a speech. The best testimony to this was the

178 WESTERN TRAVEL.
disgust excited by the empty and abusive reply of the sena
tor from Georgia, who, by-the-way, might be judged from
his accent to have been about three months from the Green
Island. This gentleman's speech, however, showed us one
good thing, that Mr. Clay is as excellent in reply as in prop
osition ; prompt, earnest, temperate, and graceful. The
chief characteristic of his eloquence is its earnestness.
Every tone of his voice, every fibre of his frame bears testi
mony to this. His attitudes are, from the beginning to the
close, very graceful. His first sentences are homely, and
given with a little hesitation and repetition, and with an
agitation shown by a frequent putting on and taking off of
the spectacles, and a trembling of the hands among the
documents on the desk. Then, as the speaker becomes
possessed with his subject, the agitation changes its char
acter, but does not subside. His utterance is still deliberate,
but his voice becomes deliciously winning. Its higher
tones disappointed me at first ; but the lower ones, trembling
with emotion, swelling and falling with the earnestness of
the speaker, are very moving, and his whole manner be
comes irresistibly persuasive. I saw tears, of which I am
sure he was wholly unconscious, falling on his papers as
he vividly described the woes and injuries of the aborigines.
I saw Webster draw his hand across his eyes ; I saw every
one deeply moved except two persons, the vice-president,
who yawned 6omewhat ostentatiously, and the Georgian
senator, who was busy brewing his storm. I was amazed
at the daring of this gentleman ; at the audacity which could
break up such a moral impression as this Cherokee tale, so
told, had produced, by accusing Mr. Clay of securing an
interest in opposition to Georgia " by stage starts and the
atric gesticulations." The audience were visibly displeased
at having their feelings thus treated, in the presence even of
the Cherokee chiefs ; but Mr. Clay's replies both to argument
and abuse were so happy, and the Georgian's rejoinder was
so outrageous, that the business ended with a general burst
of laughter. The propositions were to lie over till the next
day ; and, as I soon after left Washington, I never learned
their ultimate fate.
The American Senate is a most imposing assemblage.
When I first entered it I thought I never saw a finer set of
heads than the forty-six before my eyes : two only being
absent, and the Union then consisting of twenty-four states.

THE CAPITOL. 179
Mr. Calhoun's countenance first fixed my attention; the
splendid eye, the straight forehead, surmounted by a load of
stiff, upright, dark hair ; the stern brow ; the inflexible
mouth ; it is one of the most remarkable heads in the coun
try. Next him sat his colleague, Mr. Preston, in singular
contrast ; stout in person, with a round, ruddy, good-humoured
face, large blue eyes, and a wig, orange, to-day, brown
yesterday, and golden to-morrow. Near them sat Colonel
Benton, a temporary people's man, remarkable chiefly for
his pomposity. He sat swelling amid his piles of papers
and books, looking like a being designed by nature to be a
good-humoured barber or innkeeper, but forced by fate to
make himself into a mock-heroic senator. Opposite sat
the transcendant Webster, with his square forehead and
cavernous eyes ; and behind him the homely Clay, with the
face and figure of a farmer, but something of the air of
a divine, from his hair being combed straight back from
his temples. Near them sat Southard and Porter ; the
former astute and rapid in countenance and gesture ; the
latter strangely mingling a boyish fun and lightness of man
ner and glance with the sobriety suitable to the judge and
the senator. His keen eye takes in everything that passes ;
his extraordinary mouth, with its overhanging upper lip,
has but to unfold into a smile to win laughter from the
sourest official or demagogue. Then there was the bright
bonkommie of Ewing of Ohio, the most primitive-looking of
senators ; and the benign, religious gravity of Freling
huysen ; the gentlemanly air of Buchanan ; the shrewdness
of Poindexter ; the somewhat melancholy simplicity of
Silsbee ; all these and many others were striking, and for
nothing more that for their total unlikeness to each other.
No English person who has not travelled over half the world
can form an idea of such differences among men forming
one assembly for the same purposes, and speaking the same
language. Some were descended from Dutch farmers,
some from French Huguenots, some from Scotch Puritans,
some from English cavaliers, some from Irish chieftains.
They were brought together out of law-courts, sugar-fields,
merchants' stores, mountain farms, forests, and prairies.
The stamp of originality was impressed upon every one,
and inspired a deep, involuntary respect. I have seen no
assembly of chosen men, and no company of the highborn,
invested wilh the antique dignities of an antique realm, half

180 WESTERN TRAVEL.
so imposing to the imagination as this collection of stout-
souled, full-grown, original men, brought together on the
ground of their supposed sufficiency, to work out the will of
their diverse constituencies.
In this splendid chamber, thus splendidly inhabited, we
spent many hours of many weeks. Here I was able to gain
no little knowledge of the state, political and other, of vari
ous parts of the country, from my large acquaintance among
the members of the Senate. When dull official reports
were read, and uninteresting local matters were discussed,
or when the one interminable speaker, Benton, was on his
legs, one member or another of the body would come and
talk with us. I have heard certain of the members, stalking
from their seats towards those of the ladies, compared to
cranes in search of fish. The comparison is not a bad one.
I wished every day that the ladies would conduct them
selves in a more dignified manner than they did in the Sen
ate. They came in with waving plumes, and glittering
in all the colours of the rainbow, causing no little bustle in
the place, no little annoyance to the gentlemen spectators,
and rarely sat still for any length of time. I know that
these ladies are no fair specimen of the women who would
attend parliamentary proceedings in any other metropolis.
I know that they were the wives, daughters, and sisters of
legislators, women thronging to Washington for purposes of
convenience or pleasure, leaving their usual employments
behind them, and seeking to pass away the time. I knew
this, and made allowance accordingly ; but I still wished
that they could understand the gravity of such an assembly,
and show so much respect to it as to repay the privilege of
admission by striving to excite as little attention as possible,
and by having the patience to sit still when they happened
not to be amused, till some interruption gave them opportu
nity to depart quietly. If they had done this, Judge Porter
would not have moved that they should be appointed seats
in the gallery instead of below ; and they would have been
guiltless of furnishing a plea for the exclusion of women,
who would probably make a better use of the privilege, from
the galleries of other houses of parliament.
I was glad of an opportunity of hearing both the South
Carolina senators soon after my arrival in Washington.
They are listened to with close attention, and every indica
tion of their state of feeling is watched with the interest

THE CAPITOL. 181
which has survived the nullification struggle. Mr. Cal
houn on this occasion let us a little into his mind ; Mr.
Preston kept more closely to the question before the body.
The question was whether a vote of censure of the presi
dent, recorded in the minutes of the proceedings of the Sen
ate the preceding session, should be expunged. The motion
for the expunging was made by Colonel Benton, and rejected,
as it had been before, and has been since ; though it was
finally carried, to the agony of the opposition, at the end of
last session (February, 1837).
Mr. Preston was out of health, and unable to throw his
accustomed force into his speaking ; but his effort showed
us how beautiful bis eloquence is in its way. It is not solid.
His speeches, if taken to pieces, will be found to consist
of analogies and declamation ; but his figures are some
times very striking, and his manner is as graceful as any
thing so artificial can be. I never before understood the el
oquence of action. The action of public speakers in Eng
land, as far as I have observed (and perhaps I may be al
lowed to hint that deaf persons are peculiarly qualified to
judge of the nature of such action), is of two kinds ; the in
voluntary gesture which is resorted to for the relief of the
nerves, which may or may not be expressive of meaning, and
the action which is wholly the result of study ; arbitrary, and
not the birth of the sentiment ; and, therefore, though pleas
ing, perhaps, to the eye, perplexing to the mind of the listener.
Mr. Preston's manner unites the advantages of these two
methods, and avoids most of their evils. It is easy to see
that he could not speak without an abundant use of action,
and that he has therefore done wisely in making it a study.
To an unaccustomed eye it appears somewhat exuberant ;
but it is exquisitely graceful, and far more than commonly
appropriate. His voice is not good, but his person is tall,
stout, and commanding, and his countenance animated.
Mr. Calhoun followed, and impressed me very strongly.
While he kept to the question, what he said was close, good,
and moderate, though delivered in rapid speech, and with a
voice not sufficiently modulated. But when he began to re
ply to a taunt of Colonel Benton's, that he wanted to be
president, the force of his speaking became painful. He
made protestations which it seemed to strangers had better
have been spared, that he would not turn on his heel to be
president ; and that he had given up all for his own brave,
Vol. I.— Q

182 WESTERN TRAVEL.
magnanimous little State of South Carolina. While thus
protesting, his eyes flashed, his brow seemed charged with
thunder, his voice became almost a bark, and his sentences
were abrupt, intense, producing in the auditory that sort of
laugh which is squeezed out of people by the application of
a very sudden mental force. I believe he knew little what
a revelation he made in a few sentences. They were to us
strangers the key, not only to all that was said and done by
the South Carolina party during the remainder of the session,
but to many things at Charleston and Columbia which would
otherwise have passed unobserved or unexplained.
I was less struck than some strangers appear to have
been with the length and prosy character of the speeches in
Congress. I do not remember hearing any senator (always
excepting Colonel Benton) speak for more than an hour. I
was seldom present in the other house, where probably the
most diffuse oratory is heard ; but I was daily informed of
the proceedings there by the representative who was of our
party, and I did not find that there was much annoyance or
delay from this cause. Perhaps the practice may be con
nected with the amount of business to be done. It is well
known that the business of Congress is so moderate in
quantity, from the functions of the general government being
few and simple, that it would be considered a mere trifle by
any parliament in the Old World ; and long speeches, whieh
would be a great annoyance elsewhere, may be an innocent
pastime in an assembly which may have leisure upon its
hands. The gallery of the splendid Hall of Representatives is
not well contrived for hearing, and I rarely went into it for
more than a passing view of what was going on ; a view
which might be taken without disturbance to anybody, as
the gallery was generally empty, and too high raised above
the area of the hall to fix the eye of the members. My
chief interest was watching Mr. Adams, of whose speaking,
however, I can give no account. The circumstance of this
gentleman being now a member of the representative body
after having been president, fixes the attention of all Eu
ropeans upon him with as much admiration as interest. He
is one of the most remarkable men in America. He is an
imbodiment of the pure, simple morals which are assumed
to prevail in the thriving young republic. His term of office
was marked by nothing so much as by the subordination of

THE CAPITOL. 183
glory to goodness, of showy objects to moral ones. The
eccentricity of thought and action in Mr. Adams, of which
his admirers bitterly or sorrowfully complain, and which
renders him an impracticable member of a party, arises from
the same honest simplicity which crowns his virtues, mingled
with a faulty taste and an imperfect temper. His hastiness of
assertion has sometimes placed him in predicaments so un
dignified as almost to be a set-off against the honours he
wins by pertinacious and bold adherence to a principle which
he considers sound. His occasional starts out of the ranks
of his -party, without notice and without apparent cause,
have been in vain attempted to be explained on suppositions
of interest or vanity ; they may be more easily accounted
for in other ways. Between one day and another, some
new idea of justice and impartiality may strike his brain,
and send him to the house warm with invective against his
party and sympathy with their foes. He rises, and speaks
out all his new mind, to the perplexity of the whole assem
bly, every man of whom bends to hear every syllable he
says ; perplexity which gives way to dismay on the one
hand and triumph on the other. The triumphant party be
gins to coax and honour him ; but, before the process is well
begun, he is off again, finding that he had gone too far ; and
the probability is, that he finishes by placing himself be
tween two fires. I now describe what I actually saw of
his conduct in one instance ; conduct which left no more
doubt of his integrity than of his eccentricity. He was
well described to me before I saw him. " Study Mr.
Adams," was the exhortation. " You will find him well
worth it. He runs in veins ; if you light upon one, you will
find him marvellously rich ; if not, you may chance to meet
rubbish. In action he is very peculiar. He will do ninety-
nine things nobly, excellently ; but the hundredth will be so
bad in taste and temper, that it will drive all the rest out of
your head, if you don't take care." His countrymen will
"take care." Whatever the heats of party may be, how
ever the tone of disappointment against Mr. Adams may
sometimes rise to something too like hatred, there is un
doubtedly a deep' reverence and affection for the man in the
nation's heart ; artd any one may safely prophesy that his
reputation, half a century after his death, will be of a very
honourable kind. He fought a stout and noble battle in Con
gress last session in favour of discussion of the slavery

184 WESTERN TRAVEL.
question, and in defence of the right of petition upon it ; on
behalf of women as well as of men. While hunted, held
at bay, almost torn to pieces by an outrageous majority —
leaving him, I believe, in absolute unity — he preserved a bold
ness and coolness as amusing as they Were admirable.
Though he now and then vents his spleen with violence
when disappointed in a favourite object, he seems able to
bear perfectly well that which it is the great fault of Ameri
cans to shrink from, singularity and blame. He seems, at
times, reckless of opinion ; and this is the point of his char
acter which his countrymen seem, naturally, least to com
prehend. Such is the result of the observations I was able to make
on this gentleman when at Washington. I was prevented
seeing so much of him as I earnestly desired by his family
circumstances. He had just lost a son, and did not appear
in society. It is well known in America that Mr. Adams
will leave behind him papers of inestimable value. For
forty years (I was told) he has kept a diary, full and exact.
In this diary he every morning sets down not only the events
of the preceding day, but the conversations he has had with
foreigners, and on all subjects of interest. This immense
accumulation of papers will afford such materials for his
tory as the country has never yet been blessed with. Per
haps no country has ever possessed a public man, of great
powers, and involved in all the remarkable events of its most
remarkable period, who has had industry enough to leave
behind him a similar record of his times. This will proba
bly turn out to be (whether he thinks so or not) the greatest
and most useful of his deeds, and his most honourable
monument. Those whose taste is the contemplation of great and
original men may always have it gratified by going to Wash
ington. Whatever may be thought of the form and adminis
tration of government there ; however certain it may be that
the greatest men are not, in this age of the world, to be
found in political life, it cannot be but that, among the real
representatives of a composite and self-governing nation,
there must be many men of power ; power of intellect, of
goodness, or, at least, of will.

MOUNT VERNON. 185

MOUNT VERNON.
" He might have been a king
But that he understood
How much it was a meaner thing
To be unjustly great than honourably good."
Duke of Buckingham, on Lord Fairfax.
On the 2d of February I visited Mount Vernon, in com
pany with a large party of gentlemen and ladies. Of all
places in America, the family seat and burial-place of Wash
ington is that which strangers are most eager to visit. I
was introduced by Judge Story to the resident family, and
was received by them, with all my companions, with great
civility and kindness.
The estate of Mount Vernon was inherited by General
Washington from his brother. For fifteen years prior to
the assembling of the first general Congress in Philadel
phia, Washington spent his time chiefly on this property,
repairing to the provincial legislature when duty called him
there, but gladly returning to the improvement of his lands.
The house was, in those days, a very modest building, con
sisting of only four rooms on a floor, which form the centre
of the prssent mansion. Mrs. Washington resided there
during the ten years' absence of her husband in the wars of
the Revolution ; repairing to headquarters at the close of
each campaign, and remaining there till the opening of the
next. The departure of an aiddecamp from the camp to es
cort the general's lady was watched for with much anxiety as
the echoes ofthe last shot ofthe campaign died away ; for the
arrival of '*Lady Washington" (as the soldiers called her)
was the signal for the wives of all the general officers to
repair to their husbands in camp. A sudden cheerfulness
diffused itself through the army when the plain chariot,
with the postillions in their scarlet and white liveries, was
seen to stop before the general's door. Mrs. Washington
was wont to say, in her latter years, that she had heard the
first cannon at the opening and the last at the close of every
campaign of the revolutionary war. She was a strong-
Q 2

188 WESTERN TRAVEL.
minded, even-tempered woman ; and the cheerfulness of
her demeanour, under the heavy and various anxieties of
such a lot as hers, was no mean support to her husband's
spirits, and to the bravery and hopefulness of the whole
army, whose eyes were fixed upon her. She retired from
amid the homage of the camp with serene composure when
the fatigues and perils of warfare had to be resumed, and
hid her fears and cares in her retired home. There she
occupied herself industriously in the superintendence of her
slaves, and in striving to stop the ravages which her hus
band's public service was making in his private fortunes.
After the peace of 1783 she was joined by her husband,
who made a serious pursuit of laying out gardens and
grounds round his dwelling, and building large additions to
it. He then enjoyed only four years of quiet, being called
in 1787 to preside in the conventiori which framed the Con
stitution, and in 1789 to fill the presidential chair. Mrs.
Washington was now obliged to leave the estate with him,
and it was eight years before they could take possession of
it again. In 1797 Washington refused to be made president
for a third term, and retired into as private a life as it was
possible for him to secure. Trains of visiters sought him
in his retreat, and Mrs. Washington's accomplishments as
a Virginia housewife were found useful every day ; but
Washington was at home, and he was happy. In a little
while he was once more applied to to serve the state
at the head of her armies. He did not refuse, but request
ed to be left in peace till there should be actual want of his
presence. Before that time arrived he was no more. Two
years after his retirement, while the sense of enjoyment of
repose was still fresh, and his mind was full of such schemes
as delight the imaginations of country gentlemen, death
overtook him, and found him, though the call was somewhat
sudden, ready and willing to go. In a little more than two
years he was followed by his wife. From the appearance
of the estate, it would seem to have been going to decay
ever since.
Our party, in three carriages, and five or six on horse
back, left Washington about nine o'clock, and reached Alex
andria in about an hour and a half, though our passage over
the long bridge which crosses the Potomac was very slow,
from its being in a sad state of dilapidation. Having ordered
a late dinner at Alexandria, we proceeded on our way, occa-

MOUNT VERNON. 187
sionally looking behind us at the great dome of the Capitol,
still visible above the low hills which border the gray, still
Potomac, now stretching cold amid the wintry landscape.
It was one of the coldest days I ever felt, the bitter wind
seeming to eat into one's very life. The last five miles of
the eight which lie between Alexandria and Mount Vernon
wound through the shelter of the woods, so that we recov
ered a little from the extreme cold before we reached the
house. The land appears to be quite impoverished ; the
fences and gates are in bad order ; much of the road was
swampy, and the poor young lambs, shivering in the biting
wind, seemed to look round in vain for shelter and care.
The conservatories were almost in ruins, scarcely a single
pane of glass being unbroken ; and the house looked as if it had
not-been painted on the outside for years. Little negroes peep
ed at us from behind the pillars of the piazza as we drove up.
We alighted in silence, most of us being probably occupied
with the thought of who had been there before us ; what
crowds ofthe noble, the wise, the good, had come hither to
hear the yet living voice of the most unimpeachable of pa
triots. As I looked up I almost expected to see him stand
ing in the doorway. My eyes had rested on the image of
his remarkable countenance in almost every house I had
entered ; and here, in his own dwelling, one could not but
look for the living face with something more than the eye of
the imagination. I cared far less for any of the things that
were shown me within the house than to stay in the piazza
next the garden, and fancy how he here walked in medita
tion, or stood looking abroad over the beautiful river, and
pleasing his eye with a far different spectacle from that of
camps and conventions.
Many prints of British landscapes, residences, and events
are hung up in the apartments. The ponderous key of the
Bastile still figures in the hall, in extraordinary contrast
with everything else in this republican residence. The
Bible in the library is the only book of Washington's now
left. The best likeness of the great man, known to all
travellers from the oddness ofthe material on which it is pre
served, is to be seen here, sanctioned thus by the testimony
of the family. The best likeness of Washington happens
to be on a common pitcher. As soon as this was discovered,
the whole edition of pitchers was bought up. Once or
twice 1 saw the entire vessel locked up in a cabinet, or in

188 WESTERN TRAVEL.
some such way secured from accident ; but most of its pos
sessors have, like the family, cut out the portrait and had it
framed. The walk, planned and partly finished during Washing
ton's life, the winding path on the verge of the green slope
above the river, must be very sweet in summer. The beauty
of the situation of the place surprised me. The river vvas
nobler, the terrace finer, and the swelling hills around more
varied than I had imagined ; but there is a painful air of
desolation over the whole. I wonder how it struck the
British officers in 1814, when, in passing up the river on
their bandit expedition to burn libraries and bridges, and
raze senate chambers, they assembled on deck, and uncov
ered their heads as they passed the silent dwelling of the
great man who was not there to testify his disgust at the
service they were upon. If they knew what it was that
they were under orders to do, it would have been creditable
to them as men to have mutinied in front of Mount Vernon.
The old tomb from which the body of Washington has
been removed ought to be obliterated or restored. It is too
painful to see it as it is now, the brickwork mouldering,
and the paling broken and scattered. The red cedars still
overshadow it, and it is a noble resting-place. Every one
would mourn to see the low house destroyed, and the great
man's chamber of dreamless sleep made no longer sacred
from the common tread ; but anything is better than the
air of neglect which now wounds the spirit of the pilgrim.
The body lies, with that of Judge Washington, in a vault
near, in a more secluded but far less beautiful situation than
that on the verge of the Potomac. The river is not seen
from the new vault, and the erection is very sordid. It is
of red brick, with an iron door, and looks more like an
oven than anything else, except for the stone slab, bearing
a funeral text, which is inserted over the door. The bank
which rises on one side is planted with cedars, pines, and a
sprinkling of beech and birch, so that the vault is overshad
owed in summer, as the places of the dead should be. The
president told me that the desolation about the tomb was a
cause of uneasiness to himself and many others ; and that
he had urged the family, as the body had been already
removed from its original bed, to permit it to be interred in
the centre of the Capitol. They very naturally clung to
the precious possession ; and there is certainly something

MADISON. 1 89
much more accordant with the spirit of the man in a grave
under the tiles of his own home than in a magnificent
shrine ; but, however modest the tomb may be — were it
only such a green hillock as every rustic lies under — it
should bear tokens of reverent care. The grass and shade
which he so much loved are the only ornaments needed ;
the absence of all that can offend the eye and hurt the spirit
of reverence is all that the patriot and the pilgrim require.
Before we reached the crazy bridge, which it had been
difficult enough to pass in the morning, the sweet Potomac
lay in clear moonshine, and the lights round the Capitol
twinkled from afar. On arriving at our fireside, we found
how delightful a total change of mood sometimes is . Tea,
letters, and English newspapers awaited us ; and they were
a surprising solace, chilled or feverish as we were with the
intense cold and strong mental excitement of the day.

MADISON.
" For neither by reason nor by her experience is it impossible that a
commonwealth should be immortal ; seeing the people, being the mate
rials, never die ; and the form, which is motion, must, without op
position, be endless. The bowl which is thrown from your hand, if
there be no rub, no impediment, shall never cease ; for which cause the
glorious luminaries, that are the bowls of God, were once thrown for
ever." — Harrington's Oceana.
While I was at Washington I received a kind invitation
from Mr. and Mrs. Madison to visit them at their seat,
Montpelier, Virginia. I was happy to avail myself of it,
and paid the visit on my way down to Richmond. At six
o'clock in the morning of the 18th of February my party
arrived at Orange Courthouse, five miles from Montpelier ;
and while two proceeded to Charlottesville, where we were
to join them in three or four days, a friend and I stopped,
first to rest for a few hours, and then to proceed to Mr.
Madison's. After some sleep, and breakfast at noon, we
took a carriage for the five miles of extremely bad road we
had to travel. The people of the inn overcharged us for
this carriage, and did not mention that Mr. Madison had de-

190 WESTERN TRAVEL.
sired that a messenger should be sent over for his carriage
as soon as we should arrive. This was the only occasion
but one, in our journey of ten thousand miles in the United
States, that we were overcharged ; while, I suspect, the un
dercharges, where any literary reputation is in the case, are
more numerous than can be reckoned.
It was a sweet day of early spring. The patches of snow
that were left under the fences and on the rising grounds
were melting fast. The road was one continued slough up
to the very portico of the house. The dwelling stands on
a gentle eminence, and is neat and even handsome in its ex
terior, with a flight of steps leading up to the portico. A
lawn and wood, which must be pleasant in summer, stretch
behind ; and from the front there is a noble object on the
horizon, the mountain-chain which traverses the state, and
makes it eminent for its scenery. The shifting lights upon
these blue mountains were a delightful refreshment to the
eye after so many weeks of city life as we had passed.
We were warmly welcomed by Mrs. Madison and a niece,
a young lady who was on a visit to her ; and when I left
my room I was conducted to the apartment of Mr. Madison.
He had, the preceding season, suffered so severely from
rheumatism, that, during this winter, he confined himself to
one room, rising after breakfast, before nine o'clock, and sit
ting in his easy-chair till ten at night. He appeared per
fectly well during my visit, and was a wonderful man of
eighty-three. He complained of one ear being deaf, and
that his sight, which had never been perfect, prevented his
reading much, so that his studies " lay in a nutshell ;" but
he could hear Mrs. Madison read, and I did not perceive
that he lost any part of the conversation. He was in his
chair, with a pillow behind him, when I first saw him ; his
little person wrapped in a black silk gown ; a warm gray
and white cap upon his head, which his lady took care should
always sit becomingly ; and gray worsted gloves, his hands
having been rheumatic. His voice was clear and strong,
and his manner of speaking particularly lively, often playful.
Except that the face vvas smaller, and, of course, older, the
likeness to the common engraving of him was perfect. He
seemed not to have lost any teeth, and the form of the face
was therefore preserved, without any striking marks of age.
It was an uncommonly pleasant countenance.
His relish for conversation could never have been keener.

MADISON. 191
I was in perpetual fear of his being exhausted ; and at the
end of every few hours I left my seat by the arm of his
chair, and went to the sofa by Mrs. Madison on the other
side of the room ; but he was sure to follow and sit down
between us ; so that, when I found the only effect of my
moving was to deprive him of the comfort of his chair, I re
turned to my station, and never left it but for food and sleep,
glad enough to make the most of my means of intercourse
with one whose political philosophy I deeply venerated.
There is no need to add another to the many eulogies of
Madison; I will only mention that the finest of his charac
teristics appeared to me to be his inexhaustible faith ; faith
that a well-founded commonwealth may, as our motto de
clares, be immo1 al; not only because the people, its con
stituency, never die, but because the principles of justice in
which such a commonwealth originates never die out of the
people's heart and mind. This faith shone brightly through
the whole of Mr. Madison's conversation except on one sub
ject. With regard to slavery he owned himself almost to be
in despair. He had been quite so till the institution of the
Colonization Society. How such a mind as his could derive
any alleviation to its anxiety from that source is surprising.
I think it must have been from his overflowing faith ; for the
facts were before him that in eighteen years the Colonization
Society had removed only between two and three thousand
persons, while the annual increase of the slave population
in the United Si tes was upward of sixty thousand.
He talked more on the subject of slavery than on any
other, acknowledging, without limitation or hesitation, all
the evils with which it has ever been charged. He told me
that the black population in Virginia increases far faster than
the white ; and that the licentiousness only stops short of
the destruction of the race ; every slave girl being expected
to be a mother by the time she is fifteen. He assumed from
this, I could not make out why, that the negroes must go
somewhere, and pointed out how the free states discourage
the settlement of blacks ; how Canada disagrees with them ;
how Hayti shuts them out ; so that Africa is their only ref
uge. He did not assign any reason why they should not
remain where they are when freed. He found, by the last
returns from his estates, that one third of his own slaves were
under five years of age. He had parted with some of his
best land to feed the increasing numbers, and had yet been

192 WESTERN TRAVEL.
obliged to sell a dozen of his slaves the preceding week.
He observed that the whole Bible is against negro slavery ;
but that the clergy do not preach this, and the people do not
see it. He became animated in describing what I have
elsewhere related* ofthe eagerness of the clergy ofthe four
denominations to catch converts among the slaves, and the
effect of religious teaching of this kind upon those who,
having no rights, can have no duties. He thought the con
dition of slaves much improved in his time, and, of course,
their intellects. This remark was, I think, intended to apply
to Virginia alone, for it is certainly not applicable to the
southwestern states. He accounted for his selling his slaves
by mentioning their horror of going to Liberia, a horror
which he admitted to be prevalent among the blacks, and
which appears to me decisive as to the unnaturalness of the
scheme. The willing mind is the first requisite to the emi
grant's success. Mr. Madison complained of the difficulty
and risk of throwing an additional population into the colony,
at the rate of two or three cargoes a year; complained of it
because he believed it was the fault of the residents, who
were bent upon trading with the interior for luxuries, instead
of raising food for the new comers. Thi3 again seems fatal
to the scheme, since the compulsory direction of industry,
if it could be enforced, would be almost as bad as slavery
at home ; and there are no means of preventing the emi
grants being wholly idle, if they are not allowed to work in
their own way for their own objects. Mr. Madison admit
ted the great and various difficulties attending the scheme,
and recurred to the expression that he was only " less in
despair than formerly about slavery." He spoke with deep
feeling of the sufferings of ladies under the system, declaring
that he pitied them even more than their negroes, and that
the saddest slavery of all was that of conscientious Southern
women. They cannot trust their slaves in the smallest par
ticulars, and have to superintend the execution of all their
own orders ; and they know that their estates are surrounded
by vicious free blacks, who induce thievery among the ne
groes, and keep the minds of the owners in a state of per
petual suspicion, fear, and anger.
Mr. Madison spoke strongly of the helplessness of all
countries cursed with a servile population in a conflict with
* " Society in America," vol. ii., p. 160.

MADISON. 193
a people wholly free ; ridiculed the idea of the Southern
States being able to maintain a rising against the North ;
and wondered that all thinkers were not agreed in a thing so
plain. He believed that Congress has power to prohibit
the internal slavetrade. He mentioned the astonishment of
some strangers, who had an idea that slaves were always
whipped all day long, at seeing his negroes go to church one
Sunday. They were gayly dressed, the women in bright-
coloured calicoes ; and, when a sprinkling of rain came, up
went a dozen umbrellas. The astonished strangers veered
round to the conclusion that slaves were very happy ; but
were told of the degradation of their minds ; of their care
lessness of each other in their nearest relations, and their
cruelty to brutes.
Mrs. Madison's son by a former marriage joined us before
dinner. We dined in the next room to Mr. Madison, and
found him eager for conversation again as soon as we had
risen from table. Mrs. M. is celebrated throughout the
country for the grace and dignity with which she discharged
the arduous duties which devolve upon the president's lady.
For a term of eight years she administered the hospitalities
of the White House with such discretion, impartiality, and
kindliness, that it is believed she gratified every one and of
fended nobody. She is a strong-minded woman, fully capa
ble of entering into her husband's occupations and cares;
and there is little doubt that he owed much to her intellectual
companionship, as well as to her ability in sustaining the
outward dignity of his office. When I was her guest she
was in excellent health and lively spirits ; and I trust that
though she has since lost the great object of her life, she
may yet find interests enough to occupy and cheer many
years of an honoured old age.
Mr. Madison expressed his regret at the death of Mr.
Malthus, whose works he had studied with close attention.
He mentioned that Franklin and two others had anticipated
Malthus in comparing the rates of increase of population and
food ; but that Malthus had been the first to draw out the
doctrine, with an attempt at too much precision, however, in
determining the ratio of the increase of food. He laughed
at Godwin's methods of accounting for the enormous increase
of population in America by referring it to emigration, and
having recourse to any supposition rather than the obvious
one of an abundance of food. He declared himself very
Vol. I.— R

194 WESTERN TRAVEL.
curious on the subject of the size of the Roman farms, and
that he had asked many friends where the mistake lies in
the accounts which have come down to us. Some Roman
farms are represented as consisting of an acre and a quarter,
the produce of which would be eaten up by a pair of oxen.
The estate of Cincinnatus being three times this size, he
could scarcely plough after having lost half of it by being
surety. Either there must be some great mistake about our
notion of the measurement of Roman farms, or there must
have been commons for grazing and woods for fuel, the im
portation of grain from Sicily and other places not having
taken place till long after. He asked by what influence our
corn-laws, so injurious to all, and so obviously sov to the
many, were kept up, and whether it was possible that they
should continue long. He declared himself in favour of
free trade, though believing that the freedom cannot be com
plete in any one country till universal peace shall afford op
portunity for universal agreement.
He expressed himself strongly in favour of arrangements
for the security of literary property all over the world, and
wished that English authors should be protected from piracy
in the United States without delay. He believed that the
utterance of the national mind in America would be through
small literature rather than large, enduring works. After
the schools and pulpits of the Union are all supplied, there
will remain an immense number of educated sons of men of
small property who will have things to say ; and all who
can write, will. He thought it of the utmost importance to
the country, and to human being's everywhere, that the brain
and the hands should be trained together ; and that no dis
tinction in this respect should be made between men and
women. He remembered an interesting conversation on this
subject with Mr. Owen, from whom he learned with satis
faction that well-educated women in his settlement turned with
ease and pleasure from playing the harp to milking the cows.
The active old man, who declared himself crippled with
rheumatism, had breakfasted, risen, and was dressed before
we sat down to breakfast. He talked a good deal about the
American presidents and some living politicians for two hours,
when his letters and ne wspapers were brought in. He gayly
threw them aside, saying he could read the newspapers every
day, and must make the most of his time with us, if we would
go away as soon as we talked of. He asked me, smiling,

MADISON. 195
if I thought it too vast and anti-republican a privilege for the
ex-presidents to have their letters and newspapers free, con
sidering that this was the only earthly benefit they carried
away from their office.
I will not repeat his luminous history of the nullification
Struggle ; nor yet his exposition, simple and full, of the in
tricate questions involved in the anomalous institution of the
American Senate, about its power of sanctioning appoint
ments to office, and whether its weight should be increased
by making its sanction necessary to removal from office ; to
which increase of power he was decidedly opposed. This
part of his conversation, though very instructive to me at the
time, would be uninteresting to tbe English reader in this
connexion. He declared himself perfectly satisfied that there is in the
United States a far more ample and equal provision for pas
tors, and of religious instruction for the people* than could
have been secured by a religious establishment of any kind ;
and that one of the greatest services which his country will
be hereafter perceived to have rendered to the world, will be
the having proved that religion is the more cared for the
more unreservedly it is committed to the affections of the
people. He quoted the remark of Voltaire, that if there
were only one religion in a country, it would be a pure des
potism ; if two, they would be deadly enemies ; but half
a hundred subsist in fine harmony. He observed that
this was the case in America, and that so true and pregnant
a remark as this ought to be accepted as an atonement for
many that would die of untruth. He went on to notice the
remarkable fact that creeds which oppose each other, and
which, in concatenation, would seem to be most demoral
izing, do, by virtue of some one common principle, agree in
causing the moral elevation of those who hold them. He
instanced Philosophical Necessity, as held by Hume, Kaimes,
Edwards, and Priestley. He told me how he had once been
prejudiced against Priestley, and how surprised he was, when
he first met the philosopher at Philadelphia, to find him ab
solutely mild and candid.
The whole of this day was spent like the last, except
that we went over the house looking at the busts and prints,
which gave an English air to the dwelling, otherwise wholly
Virginian. During all our conversations, one or another
slave was perpetually coming to Mrs. Madison for the great

196 WESTERN TRAVEL.
bunch of keys ; two or three more lounged about in the
room, leaning against the doorposts or the corner of the
sofa ; and the attendance of others was no less indefatigable
in my own apartment.
The next morning we found our host in fine spirits. He
described, with much vivacity, the variety of visits from
strangers that he was subject to, saying that some were
taxes and others bounties. He laughed about the ludicrous
effect sometimes produced by an utter failure of sympathy
in matters of grave pursuit ; and told us of a ride he took
with a young English geologist who was on a visit to him,
and who spurred up to him in a fit of transport, holding a
stone almost into his eyes, and exclaiming, " Graywacke,
sir ! graywacke, graywacke !" the host all the time being
quite unable to understand or sympathize with this vehement
rapture. I glanced at the newspapers when they came in, and
found them full of the subject of the quarrel with France,
the great topic of the day. Mr. Madison gave me an ac
count of the relations of the two countries, and of the
grounds of his apprehensions that this quarrel might, in
spite of its absurdity, issue in a war. This is .all over now,
but some of his observations remain. He said it would be
an afflicting sight if the two representative governments
which are in the van of the world should go to war ; it
would squint towards a confirmation of what is said of the
restlessness of popular governments. If the people, who
pay for war, are eager for it, it is quite a different thing from
potentates being so who are at no cost. He mentioned that
George the Fourth, as prince regent, was a large gainer in
the last war, from his share of the Droits of the Admiralty,
amounting to 1,000,0002. per annum ; a pretty premium,
Mr. Madison observed, to pay a king for going to war. He
told me about the formation of the philosophical and humane
agreement between Franklin and Frederic of Prussia, that
merchant ships, unarmed, should go about their business as
freely in the war as in peace. The Salem merchants, who
were formerly in favour of war, and who suffered from cap
tures in the course of it, were, on the present occasion, pe
titioning against war and for reprisals.
Franklin was near seventy when Mr. Madison first knew
him. He went to the Hall of Congress in a sedan, and sat
all the time, writing what he had to say, and getting it read,

MADISON. 197
because he could not stand. He was soon afterward bed
ridden, when Madison was his frequent visiter. He had
much self-command ; and, when seized by severe pain, soon
roused himself to converse almost as if it did not exist.
One of the most striking points about him was his dislike of
argument. He would listen to his adversary, and then over
throw him with an anecdote.
After avowing a very unfashionable admiration of Dar
win's poetry, and declaring that the splendour of the diction
put his imagination into a very gay state, Mr. Madison went
into a speculation about what would eventually become of
all existing languages and their literature ; declaring that he
had little hope of the stability of languages when terms of
even classical derivation are perpetually changing their
meanings with time. Then, by some channel, now forgotten,
we got round to the less agreeable subject of national debts
and taxation, when, as might be expected, Mr. Madison ex
pressed his horror of the machinery necessary under a sys
tem of indirect levy, and his attachment to a plan of mod
erate expenditure, provided for by direct taxation. He re
marked upon Pitt's success in obtaining revenue when every
other man would rather have surrendered his plans than
used the means he employed. He observed that king, lords,
and commons might constitute a government which would
work a long while in a kingdom no bigger than Great
Britain, but that it would soon become an absolute govern
ment in a country as large as Russia, from the magnitude of
its executive power ; and that it was a common but serious
mistake to suppose that a country must be small to be a re
public, since a republican form, with a federal head, can
be extended almost without limits, without losing its propor
tions, becoming all the while less, instead of more, subject
to change. In a small republic there is much noise from
the fury of parties ; while in a spreading but simply work
ing republic, like that of the Union, the silent influence of
the federal head keeps down more quarrels than ever ap
pear. We were compelled to leave Montpelier while our inter
course was thus in full flow. Mr. Madison would not say
farewell seriously, he was so confident that we should visit
him again on our return from the South and West. I need
not say that we earnestly wished to do so ; but we never
saw him again, not having an opportunity in the summer
R2

198 WESTERN TRAVEL.
to diverge from our route so as to approach his residence.
We heard excellent reports of him from time to time ; of
his vigour and cheerfulness, and of his application to political
and literary pursuits. In the spring of the following year,
however, he declined, and died on the 28th of June, 1836.
I have written of him under a strong desire to say nothing
that he would have objected to have repeated, suppressing
whatever he dropped relating to private persons or to public
men yet living, while attempting to afford what gratification
I could to the strong interest felt in England about this vir
tuous statesman. It is something that, living under institu
tions framed by the few for the subordination of the many,
the English feel the interest they do about such men as Jeffer
son and Madison ; men inspired by the true religion of state-
manship, faith in men, and in the principles on which they
combine in an agreement to do as they would be done by.
This political religion resembles personal piety in its effect
of sustaining the spirit through difficulty and change, and
leaving no cause for repentance, or even solicitude, when,
at the close of life, all things reveal their values to the medi
tative sage. Madison reposed cheerfully, gayly, to the last,
on his faith in the people's power of wise self-government.
As for Jefferson, he has left, in his last letter to Madison, a
few sentences which we may be thankful for, as golden links
added to the chain by which the glorious memories of these
two good men are indissolubly connected : —
" The friendship which has subsisted between us, now
half a century, and the harmony of our political principles
and pursuits,, have been sources of constant happiness to
me through that long period. It has been a great solace to
me to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to pos
terity the eourse we have pursued for preserving to them, in
all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we
had assisted, too, in acquiring for them. If ever the earth
has beheld a system of administration conducted with a sin
gle and steadfast eye to the general interest awd happiness
of those committed to it ; one which, protected by truth,
can never know reproach, it is that to which our lives have
been devoted. To myself, you have been a pillar of sup
port through life. Take care of me when I am dead, and
be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections."*
* Jefferson's Memoir and Correspondence, toI. iv„ p. 428. Date-
February 17, 1826. *

Jefferson's university. 199

JEFFERSON'S UNIVERSITY.
"That the legislator should especially occupy himself with the edu
cation of youth, no one can dispute ; for when this is not done in states,
it is a cause of damage to the polity. For a state must be administered
with reference to its polity ; and that which is the peculiar character
istic of each polity is that which preserves and originally constitutes it 4
as, for instance, the democratical principle in a democracy, and the
oligarchical in an oligarchy ; and that which is the best principle always
constitutes the best polity." — Aristotle, Politik., book viii.
The existence of the University of Virginia is scarcely
recognised by British travellers. I was welcomed there as
the first who had ever visited it. Charlottesville lies out of
the ordinary route of tourists ; but Monticello, the seat of
Jefferson, is within sight of his favourite institution, and Mr.
Madison's residence is only about thirty-five miles off; and
it seems surprising that such a combination of interesting
objects should not have drawn more pilgrim feet that way.
It was between five and six in the morning when we
entered the stage at Orange Courthouse, which was to de-
posite us at Charlottesville before an early dinner. The
snow had wholly disappeared, and I looked out eargerly to
see what aspect the far-famed Virginia wore. For the
greater part of the way all looked very desolate ; the few
dwellings were dingy ; large mansions, with slave-dwellings
clustered near. The trees were bare, the soil one dull red,
the fences shabby. The eye found a welcome relief in the
woods of stone-pine, and in an occasional apparition of
the beautiful bluebird, perching upon a stump or flitting over
the fallows. We breakfasted at a farm a little way off the
road, whither we had to pick our way by a fieldpath, which
was a perfect slough. The hostess was friendly, and
served an excellent breakfast to the stage-passengers in a
bedchamber. From this point the road improved. The mountains were
before us ; and, as we approached them, the undulating
surface of the country presented many beauties. It was
Sunday. We mounted an eminence all grown over with
stone-pine, and on the top we found, in the heart of the

200 WESTERN TRAVEL.
grove, a small church where worship was going on, while
seventeen horses, two of them with sidesaddles, were
fastened to the trees around. This church was free to all
sects, but at present used by the Presbyterians, they being
the most numerous sect in the neighbourhood.
We arrived at Charlottesville, at the foot of the mount
ains, by one o'clock, and joined the friends whom we found
awaiting us at dinner at the hotel. A Unitarian clergyman
was to preach in the courthouse in the afternoon : a rare
event, I imagine ; for we heard afterward that one of the
professor's ladies could not sleep the night before from the
idea of a Unitarian being so near. We attended the ser
vice, which was very spiritless. The whole burden fell
upon the minister, there being no preparation for singing,
and apparently no interest beyond mere curiosity. Two
long rows of students from the University were there, and I
thought I never saw so fine a set of youths. Their de
meanour was gentlemanly to the last degree, except in the
one particular of spitting, and the seriousness of their man
ner must have been gratifying to the preacher.
After the service we walked to the University, at the dis
tance, I think, of a little more than a mile from the town.
The singular ranges of college buildings are visible from a
considerable distance, as they advantageously crown an
eminence, presenting the appearance of a piazza surround
ing an oblong square, with the professors' houses rising at
regular intervals. We found that the low buildings con
necting these larger dwellings were the dormitories of the
students ; ground-floor apartments opening into the piazza,
and designed to serve as places of study as well as sleep.
The professors' houses are inconveniently small. Jefferson
wished, in the first instance, that the professors should be
young men ; and this fact and the smallness of the dwell
ings have given rise to the ridiculous belief, entertained by
some people, that Jeflerson made celibacy a condition of
holding professorships in his university. Instead of this,
ladies' faces may be seen at many* windows, and plenty of
children tripping along in the piazzas. At one end of the
quadrangle is the Rotunda, containing the lecture-rooms,
library, and other apartments ; and outside the other end a
Gothic chapel was about to be erected. Well-kept grass-
plats and gravel-walks fill up the quadrangle.
The number of students at the time of my visit was 206.

Jefferson's university. 201
They are not admitted under the age of sixteen, except in
the case of a younger brother accompanying one above that
age. Each dormitory is designed to accommodate two
students ; but, when there is room, any student may rent a
whole one if he chooses. The ordinary expenses are so
moderate as to be worth specifying : —
Board, including furniture, washing, and
attendance  $100
Fuel and candles  15
Rent of half a dormitory  8
Use of the library and public rooms . . 15
Fees to professors, say  75
Total  $213
exclusive of books and stationary, clothing and pocket-
money. The students wear a uniform which is very becom
ing and not at all conspicuous, being merely a coat of par
ticularly simple fashion and dark colour.
Of the two hundred and six students whom I had the
pleasure of seeing, one hundred and fifty-one belonged to
the state, five came from tlie Northern States, and the rest
from the South and West ; six from South Carolina, though
there are colleges both at Charleston and Columbia. Pro
fessor Patterson spoke of the youths among whom he was
living as being as steady and promising a set of young men
as could be met with. We heard afterward a somewhat
different account in a stagecoach ; but, of course, the testi
mony of a professor is worth much more than that of two
chance travellers ; and all that I saw of the appearance and
manners ofthe students was very creditable to the institution.
Every student visits each professor's house twice in the ses
sion, once to dinner and once to a ball'; and, I suppose, as
much oftener as he may be asked. The session lasts ten
months, the vacation being in the hot months of July and
August. The distinctive principle of this University is that each
student is free to attend the schools of his choice, and no
others ; provided that, being under twenty-one years of age,
he shall attend at least three professors. The professors
highly approve of this arrangement, finding that it enables
young men to qualify themselves rapidly and effectually for
particular callings, in cases where time is valuable; and

202 WESTERN TRAVEL.
that the youths put vigour into their pursuits, in proportion
as they are free, within a reasonable limit, to gratify their
tastes and fulfil their own purposes in the choice of their
studies. There are nine professorships, and in each school there
are three regular lectures a week, besides the instructions
suited to the several classes into which the school is divided.
The professors when I was there were —
Professor Harrison, Ancient Languages and History.
This gentleman must find himself fully occupied. He was
the sole instructer that session of seventy-five young men in
Latin and Greek, and, of such as desired it, in Hebrew.
His qualifications are understood to be of a very high order.
Professor Blcettermann had sixty-four pupils in Modern
Languages, viz., French, Spanish, Italian, German, and
Anglo-Saxon ; and was ready to teach, moreover, the Da
nish, Swedish, Dutch, and Portuguese languages.
Professor Bonnycastle (Mathematics) had a large attend
ance, consisting of one hundred and nine, divided into five
classes, beginning with the theory of Arithmetic, and con
cluding the course of Pure Mathematics with the Integral
Calculus.. There is, moreover, a class of Mixed Mathe
matics for such of the more advanced students as choose to
pursue it, and another of Civil Engineering.
Professor Patterson undertakes the Natural Philosophy,
having an attendance of seventy-three pupils. The appa
ratus provided for the use of this school is very extensive
and complete ; and an observatory, with the necessary as
tronomical instruments, is open to the students.
Professor Emmet, Chymistry and Materia Medica, eigh-
ty-niqe pupils.
Professor Magill, Medicine, forty-one pupils.
Professor Warner, Anatomy and Surgery, forty-four pupils.
An extensive museum is attached to the Medical Depart
ment, and the anatomical school is regularly supplied with
subjects, from which the lectures are delivered. The ad
vantage claimed for this, above all other medical schools in
the country, is that its session lasts ten months instead of
four. Professor Tucker, Moral Philosophy, sixty-seven pupils,
who are divided into two classes ; the examinations of the
junior class being in Rhetoric, Belles Lettres, Logic, and
Ethics, from the professor's lectures, Blair's and Campbell's

Jefferson's university. 203
Rhetoric, and Stewart's " Active and Moral Powers." The
senior class studies Mental Philosophy and Political Econ
omy ; and the examinations are from the professor's lectures,
Brown's Lectures, Say's and Adam Smith's Political Econ
omy. Professor Davis, Law, forty-eight pupils. The students
of this school have instituted a Law Society, at whose meet
ings the professor presides, and where the business of every
branch of the profession is rehearsed.
Three honorary distinctions are conferred in this Univer
sity ; a certificate of proficiency, conferred by the faculty on
any proficient in a particular branch of study ; that of grad
uate in any school, for proficiency in the general studies of
any school ; and the third, of Master of Arts of the Univer
sity of Virginia, is obtained by graduation in the schools of
Ancient and Modern Languages, Mathematics, Natural Phi
losophy, Chymistry, and Moral Philosophy. All these are
obtained when deserved, and not in consequence of any pre
scribed term of study having been gone through. The title
of Doctor of Medicine is conferred on the graduate in the
Medical Department. The certificates and diplomas are
delivered in the presence of all the members of the Univer
sity and of the public on the last day of the session, in the
Rotunda, amid many observances and rites.
It will be observed that there is no Theological Professor
ship. It was noticed by the religious North at the time of
the foundation of the University, that this was probably the
first instance in the world of such an establishment exhibit
ing this kind of deficiency, and the experiment was denounced
as a very hazardous one. The result seems to have been,
that while theological instruction has been obtainable else
where, a greater number and variety of young men, of differ
ent religious persuasions, have been educated at this institu
tion than would have been likely to resort to it if it had, by
the choice of a theological professor, identified itself with
any single denomination. The reasons for the omission of
a Professorship of Divinity are stated in the first Report of
the Commissioners who met in August, 1818, at Rockfish
Gap, on the Blue Ridge, for the purpose of organizing the
plans of this institution. Jefferson was understood to be the
author of the report, which contains the following passage :
"In conformity with the principles of our constitution,
which places all sects of religion on an equal footing ; with

204 WESTERN TRAVEL.
the jealousy of the different sects, in guarding that equality
from encroachment and surprise ; and with the sentiments
ofthe legislature, in favour of freedom of religion, manifested
on former occasions, we have proposed no Professor of
Divinity ; and the rather, as the proofs of the being of a
God, the Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Ruler of the
universe, the Author of all the relations of morality, and of
the laws and obligations these infer, will be within the
province of the Professor of Ethics ; to which, adding the
developments of those moral obligations, of those in which
all sects agree, with a knowledge of the languages of He
brew, Greek, and Latin, a basis will be formed common to
all sects. Proceeding thus far without offence to the con
stitution, we have thought it proper at this point to leave
every sect to provide, as they think fittest, the means of
further instruction in their own peculiar tenets."
There are no daily public prayers at this institution, but
there are regular services on Sundays, administered by
clergymen of the four denominations, in turns of a year
each. These clergymen officiate on the invitation of the
professors, officers, and students. The attendance upon
public worship is purely voluntary ; and, as might be ex
pected as a consequence, it is regular and complete.
This institution may well be called Jefferson's University.
The first conception was his ; the whole impulse and direc
tion ; the scheme of its studies, and the organization of its
government. His letters to his intimate friends during the
last five years of his life breathe a rational ardour about
this enterprise which is very animating to those connected
with the university, and which affords a fine stimulus to the
students, who are daily reminded of what they owe to him,
and what were his expectations from them. " I fear not
to say," he writes, " that within twelve or fifteen years
from this time (1825), a majority of the rulers of our state
will have been educated here. They shall carry hence
the correct principles of our day ; and you may count as
suredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of
sound respectability it has never known, either in our days
or those of our forefathers. I cannot live to see it. My
joy must only be that of anticipation." In his last letter
to Madison, a few months later, he says, " And if I remove
beyond the reach of attentions to the university, or beyond
the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to

Jefferson's university. 205
leave that institution under your care, and an assurance that
it will not be wanting."
The following passage in the same letter renders stran
gers curious to learn the politics of the university. " In the
selection of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously at
tentive to his political principles. You will recollect that,
before the Revolution, Coke-Littleton was the universal
elementary book of law students ; and a sounder whig never
wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines
of the British constitution, or in what were called English
liberties. You remember, also, that our lawyers were then
all whigs. But when his black-letter text, and uncouth but
cunning learning got out of fashion, and the honeyed Mans-
fieldism of Blackstone became the student's hornbook, from
that moment that profession (the nursery of our Congress)
began to slide into toryism, and nearly all the young brood
of lawyers are now of that hue. They suppose themselves,
indeed, to be whigs, because they no longer know what
whigism or republicanism means. It is in our seminary
that that vestal flame is to be kept alive ; it is thence to
spread anew over our own and the sister states." On in
quiry I found that, out ofthe 206 students, seven held the prin
ciples of the democratic party. There seemed to be little
or none of the federalism of the North, but a strong attach
ment to Calhoun on the part of the majority in the estab
lishment. The evil influences of slavery have entered in
to taint the work of the great champion of freedom. The
political attachments of this once democratic institution are
to the leader who, in order to uphold slavery, would, to
judge him by himself, establish a Lacedaemonian govern
ment throughout the South ; making every white man a
soldier, in order to preserve a false idea of honour, and to
obviate danger from the oppressed servile class. To ob
serving eyes it appears plain that the hour is approaching
when these young men must, like all other American men,
choose their part, and enter decisively into struggle to main
tain or overthrow the first principles of freedom. It will
then be seen whether " the vestal flame" has been kept
alive, or whether the name of him who cherished it has been
honoured wilh mere lip-worship, while the labours of his
latter years have been despised and undone. The eyes of
the world will be fixed on Jefferson's University during the
impending conflict between slaveholders and freemen.
Vol. I.— S

206 WESTERN TRAVEL.
To return to our Sunday afternoon. It was known that
we should soon arrive at the University with our letters of
introduction, aud a truly hospitable welcome was prepared
for us. We called first at Professor Patterson's, where we
found ourselves, in half an hour, as much at home as if we
had been acquainted for months. We were obliged to de
cline taking up our abode there at once, but promised to re
turn the next morning, and remain for as long a time as we
could spare. Professor Tucker, long known in England,
and at present more extensively so through his very ac
ceptable Life of Jefferson, was recovering from an illness
which confined him to his room, and sent to ask me to visit
him there. I was glad that he was well enough to see me,
and that I had thus the benefit of a good deal of his lively,
sensible, and earnest conversation.
A great disappointment awaited our rising on the Monday
morning. On the Sunday afternoon the sun had been so
hot that we threw off our shawls. The next morning we
looked out upon a snowstorm. There was, from the begin
ning, no hope of our getting to Monticello. Jefferson's
house upon the mountain was actually in sight, and there
was no possibility of our reaching it, and we were obliged
to satisfy ourselves with the traces we found of him about
the University. Professor Patterson's carriage came for us
early, and we passed a morning of the liveliest gossip with
the ladies and children of the family, while the professors
were engaged in their duties. The frankness of the whole
society was particularly winning, and so was the cordiality
among themselves ; a degree of mutual good understanding
which is seldom found in the small society of a college, vil
lage-like in its seclusion and leisure, with added tempta
tions to jealousy and censoriousness. The ladies of Pro
fessor Patterson's family gave me a spirited and amiable
description of their arrival as strangers at the University,
and of the zeal and kind consideration with which they were
welcomed and aided on every hand. Two facts struck me
in the course of our feminine talk on the subject of house
keeping ; that chickens are there to be had for a dollar a
dozen, plump fowls ready for the fire ; and that Mrs. Pat
terson's coachman, a slave, could read. These ladies, see
ing apparently only domestic slaves kindly treated like their
own, spoke lightly on the great subject, asking me if I did
not think the slaves were happy ; but their husbands used a

Jefferson's university. 207
very different tone, observing, with gloom, that it was a dark
question every way.
Four of the professors and two or three students, fine,
well-mannered young men, joined us at dinrter, and many
ladies and others of the professors in the evening. I was
amused and gratified by the interest shown in the living au
thors of England, especially the ladies. Every particular
that I could tell about Mrs. Somerville and Mrs. Marcet was
eagerly listened to. The Herschel family, Mr. Malthus,
and many more, were fully and affectionately discussed.
The great treat of the evening to me was a long conversa
tion with Professor Hamilton on the German language and
literature, and on the mutual criticism of the Germans and
the English. He offered a comparison of the genius of the
Greek and German languages, which, for want of sufficient
learning, I do not pretend to appreciate, but which impressed
me strongly with admiration of his powers of conversation.
One of the ladies took an opportunity of asking me pri
vately to request leave to attend a lecture with the Natural
Philosophy class in the morning. Ladies are excluded by
rule ; but she thought that the rule might for once be in
fringed without injury in the case pf foreign ladies. The
professor kindly made no difficulty, and my prompter highly
enjoyed her single opportunity.
We breakfasted before eight, and went immediately to sur
vey the large building, the Rotunda. First we saw the li
brary, a well-chosen collection of books, the list of which
was m.ade out by Jefferson. The students read in the
Rotunda, and take out books by order. In the gallery above
the books, the mineralogicat collection, belonging to Pro
fessor Patterson, is arranged, and open to observation.
Higher up still is a whispering gallery. The lecture to
which we were admitted was on Heat. It was clear, fluent,
and entertaining. The young men appeared to be good
listeners ; some wrote down almost all they heard, and many
asked questions of the professor at the conclusion of the
lecture. Mr. Tucker begged us to go to his chamber to luncheon,
as he was still unable to venture out of it. We had a de
lightful hour there. The sick gentleman's room was crowded
with guests, all busy with question and remark, our time
being short, and the quantity we had to say, like old friends
in a brief meeting, being inexhaustible. A serious request

208 WESTERN TRAVEL.
was made to us that we would stay a month, giving up a
portion of our southern journey in exchange for the good
offices of the University. We could not possibly do this ;
but there can be no doubt of what our enjoyment would
have been during a whole month of intimate intercourse
with such stirring people as this graceful, kindly little so
ciety is composed of. Having said all that so many tongues
could, in an hour's time, about the Theory of Rent, Colonel
Thompson, and Mr. Malthus ; the value of public censure
and eulogy ; Mrs. Somerville again, Philadelphia ale, Amer
ican politics, and a hundred other things, we were obliged to
go. Keepsakes of the ladies' work were put into our hands,
and packets of sandwiches into the carriage ; and a party
escorted us to our inn, bad as the weather was. Letters of
introduction were hastily prepared and sent after us, and
during our whole visit nothing was omitted which could con
cern our comfort or enhance our pleasure. As I cast my
last look from the window of the stage towards the Uni
versity, it was with less regret than pleasurable astonishment
at my own experience of the speed with which it is possible
for foreign minds to communicate, and lasting regard to be
established.

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
" For Nature here
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will
Her virgin fancies." MlLTOH.
" These views of the degradation of the Southern States receive a
melancholy and impressive confirmation from the general aspect and
condition of the country, viewed in contrast with its former prosperity.
With natural advantages more bountiful than were ever dispensed by a
kind Providence to any other people upon the surface of the globe,
there is, from the mountains to the seacoast, one unbroken scene of
cheerless stagnation and premature decay." — Southern Review, vol ii
p. 513. There was no end to the kind cautions given me against
travelling through the Southern States, not only on account
of my opinions on slavery, but because of the badness of

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 209
the roads and the poverty of the wayside accommodations.
^There was so much of this, that my companion and I held
a consultation one day, in our room at Washington, spread
ing out the map, and surveying the vast extent of country
we proposed to traverse before meeting my relatives at
New-Orleans. We found that neither was afraid, and after
ward that there was no cause for fear, except to^ persons
who are annoyed by irregularity and the absence of com
fort. The evil prognostications went on multiplying as we
advanced ; but we learned to consider them as mere voices
on the mountain of our enterprise, which must not deter us
from accomplishing it. We had friends to visit at Charles
ton and Columbia, South Carolina ; Augusta, Georgia ;
Montgomery, Alabama ; and Mobile. At Richmond we
were cautioned about the journey into South Carolina ; at
Charleston we were met with dreadful reports of travelling
in Georgia ; in Georgia people spoke of the horrors of
Alabama, and so on ; and, after all, nothing could well be
easier than the whole undertaking. I do not remember a
single difficulty that occurred all the way. There vvas much
fatigue, of course. In going down from Richmond to Charles
ton with a party of friends,, we were nine days on the road,
and had only three nights' rest. Throughout the journey
we were obliged to accommodate ourselves to the stage
hours, setting off sometimes in the evening, sometimes at
midnight ; or, of all uncomfortable seasons, at two or three
in the morning. On a journey of many days, we had to in
form ourselves of the longest time that the stage would stop
at a supping or breakfasting place, so that we might manage
to snatch an hour's sleep. While the meal was preparing,
it was my wont to lie down and doze, in spite of hunger ;
if I could find a bed or sofa, it was well ; if not, I could
wrap myself in my cloak, and make a pillow on the floor
of my carpet-bag. I found that a sleep somewhat longer
than this, when I could go to bed for two hours, was more
fatiguing than refreshing. The being waked up at two,
when I had lain down at midnight, was the greatest discom
fort 1 experienced. But little sleep can be obtained in the
stage from the badness of the roads. It was only when
quite wearied out that I could forget myself for an hour or
two amid the joltings and rollings of the vehicle. In Ala
bama, some of the passengers in the stage were Southern
gentlemen coming from New- York, in comparison with
S 2

tlO WESTERN TRAVEL.
whose fatigues ours were nothing. I think they had then
travelled eleven days and nights with very short intervals of
rest, and the badness of the roads at the end of a severe
winter had obliged them to walk a good deal. They looked
dreadfully haggard and nervous, and we heard afterward
that one of them had become incessantly convulsed in the
face after we had left them. It is not necessary, of course,
to proceed without stopping in such a way as this ; but it
is necessary to be patient of fatigue to travel in the South
at all.
Yet I was very fond of these long journeys. The trav
eller (if he be not an abolitionist) is perfectly secure of good
treatment, and fatigue and indifferent fare are the only evils
which need be anticipated. The toils of society in the cities
were so great to me that I generally felt my spirits rise
when our packing began ; and, the sorrow of parting with
kind hosts once over, the prospect of a journey of many
days was a very cheerful one. The novelty and the beauty
of the scenery seemed inexhaustible ; and the delightful
American stages, open or closed all round at the will of the
traveller, allow of everything being seen.
The American can conceive of nothing more dismal than
a pine-barren on a rainy day ; but the profound tranquillity
made it beautiful to me, whose rainy days have been al
most all spent in cities, amid the rumbling of hackney-
coaches, the clink of pattens, the gurgle of spouts, and the
flitting by of umbrellas. It is very different in the pine-bar
rens. The sandy soil absorbs the rain, so that there is no
mud ; the pines stand meekly drooping, as if waiting to be
fed ; the drip is noiseless ; and the brooks and pools are
seen bubbling clear, or quietly filling, while not a wing
cleaves the air, each bird nestling in the covert of its do
mestic tree. When the rain ceases towards evening, the
whole region undergoes a change. If a parting ray from
the west pierces the woods, the stems look lilach in the
moist light ; the vines glitter before they shake off their last
drops ; the redbird startles the eye ; the butterflies come
abroad in clouds ; the frogs grow noisy, and all nature
wakens up fresh as from her siesta. The planter may be
seen on his pacing white horse in a glade of the wood, or
superintending the negroes who are repairing the fence of
his estate. One black holds the large dibble, with which
the holes for the stakes are made ; others are warming their

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 211
hands at the fire which blazes on the ground ; many hands
to do slovenly work. While any light is left, the driver is
apt to shorten his road by cutting across a knoll instead of
winding round it ; and then the wheels are noiseless on the
turf; the branches crash as the vehicle is forced between
the trees ; and the wood-pigeons, frightened from their roost,
flutter abroad.
When the sun has gone down all is still within the stage ;
the passengers grow drowsy unless hunger keeps them
awake. Each one nods upon his neighbour's shoulder, till
a red light, gradually illuminating all the faces, and every
moment growing brighter, rouses the dullest. Each* tells
somebody else that we are coming to a fire in the woods.
First there are lines of little yellow flames on each side the
path ; the blazing up of twigs too dry to have been made in
combustible by the morning's rain. Then there is a pond of
red fire on either hand, and pillars of light rising from it ;
tall burning stems, throwing out jets of flame on all sides, or
emitting a flood of sparks when touched by the night breeze.
The succeeding darkness is intense. The horses seem to
feel it, for they slacken to a footpace, and the grazing of a
wheel against a pinestem, or the zigzag motion of the ve
hicle, intimates that the driver's eyes have been dazzled.
Presently the horses set off again, and the passengers sink
once more into silence. They are next roused by the dis
cordant horn of the driver, sending out as many distinct
blasts as there are passengers, each blast more of a screech
than the last, and the final flourish causing a shout of laugh
ter in the coach ; laughter animated a little, perhaps, by the
prospect of supper. Right or left soon appears the log-
house, its open shutters and door giving token that a large
fire is blazing within. The gentlemen hand out the ladies
at the door, and then stand yawning and stretching, or draw
to the fire while they can, before the ladies take possession
of the best places. The hostess, who is busy cooking,
points to a lamp, with which the ladies light themselves to
her chamber, to put up their hair under their bonnets for the
night. Little impish blacks peep and grin from hehind the
stove or shine in the heat of the chimney-corner. If any
one of them has ever received a compliment on his dexterity,
he serves with most ostentatious bustle, his eyes wide open,
his row of white teeth all in sight, and his little body twist
ing about with every affectation of activity. An observer

212 WESTERN TRAVEL.
may see some fun going on behind the mistress's back ; a
whisk of a carving-knife across a companion's throat, or a
flourish of two plates like cymbals over the head.
At last supper is ready ; the broiled venison, the ham col-
lops and eggs, and apple-sauce ; the infusion which is called
tea or coffee ; and the reeking corn-bread. Before the
clatter of knives has ceased, the stage, with its fresh horses,
is at the door ; the ladies snatch a final warming while the
driver finishes his protracted meal, their eyes being now at
liberty to study the apartment, looking round for some other
object than the old story, the six presidents who smile from
the walls of almost every Ioghouse in America, and the
great map of the United States, with a thumbmark, amount
ing to an erasure, on the spot of the very territory where this
particular Ioghouse happens to be. If we wanted to consult
a map in a hurry in such places as these, we never had to
hunt out our present situation. There was always the worn
spot to serve as the centre to our investigations. The pas
sengers, however wearily they might have descended from
the stage, are pretty sure to enter it again with a spring ;
warm and satisfied, with a joke on their tongues, and a good
supper to sleep or muse upon.
The sleep seldom lasts long, however. You are sure to
come to a creek, where nobody has ever erected a bridge,
or where a freshet has carried one away, and no measures
have been taken to rebuild it. With drowsy groans, the
passengers rouse themselves, and get out at the driver's bid
ding under the cold stars or the drifting clouds. The ladies
slip on their India-rubber shoes, for their first step may be
into soft mud. They stand upon a bank if there be one, in
order not to be run over in the dark ; while the scow shows
by the reflection of the light at her bow where the river is.
When she touches the bank the driver calls to everybody to
keep out of the way, cracks his whip, and drives his lum
bering carriage down the bank and into the scow ; the pas
sengers follow ; the scow is unchained, and the whole load
is pushed across the stream, or pulled, if it happens to be a
rope-ferry. When the expected shock tells you that you
have arrived at the other side, the driver again cracks his
whip, and the horses scramble. If they should refuse to
mount the steep bank, and back a step upon the passengers
instead, every one would infallibly be driven into the river.
A delicate coaxing is therefore employed ; and I imagine the

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 213
animals must be aware what a ticklish thing any freak of
theirs would be in such a situation, for I never knew them
decline mounting the bank without a single back step.
If the teambolt or other fastening of equal consequence
should happen to break, there is a chance of two hours' rest
or so. Something snaps ; the vehicle stops ; the gentlemen
get out ; the ladies gaze from the windows, while somebody
half-dressed comes out with a lantern from any dwelling that
may be in sight, and goes back again for hammer and nail,
or, at worst, a piece of cord, and you proceed at a slow foot
pace to the nearest hotel. There the slaves, roused from
the floor, where they are lying like dogs, go winking about,
putting fresh logs on the smouldering fire, and lighting a
lamp or two. After repeated inquiries on the part of the
ladies, who feel the first minutes of their two hours slipping
away without any promise of rest, a female slave at last ap
pears, staring as if she had never seen anybody before.
The ladies have already taken out nightcap, soap, and towel
from their carpet-bags. They motion the woman up stairs,
and follow her. They find the water-jug, if there be one,
empty, of course. With infinite coaxing they get the attend
ant to fill it. Long after they are undressed it comes,
clear or " sort o' muddy," as may be. If there are no
sheets or yellow ones, the ladies spread their dressing-
gowns over the bed, and use their cloaks for a covering.
As soon as they have lain down, a draught begins to blow in
the strangest way on the top of their heads. They ex
amine, and find a broken window behind the bed. They
wrap up their heads and lie down again. As soon as they
are fairly dreaming that they are at home, and need not get
up till they please, the horn startles them ; they raise their
heads, see a light under the door, and the black woman
looks in to drawl out that they must please to make haste.
It seems like a week since they lay down ; but they are not
rested, and turn away sick and dizzy from the flickering
light. In the morning you wonder where your fatigue is gone.
As the day steals through the forest, kindling up beauty as it
goes, the traveller's whole being is refreshed. The young
aloes under the fallen trunks glitter with dew ; the gray
moss, dangling from the trees, waves in the breath of the
morning. The busy little chameleons run along the fences,
and the squirrel erects his brush as you pass. While the

214 WESTERN TRAVEL.
crescent moon and the morning star glittered low down in
the sky, you had longed to stay the sun beneath the horizon ;
but, now that he is come, fresh vigour and enjoyment seem
to be shed down with his rays.
At such an hour you often come up with a family depart
ing from the spot where they had " camped out" for the
night. I never had the pleasure of camping out, but I know
exactly what it must be like, for I have seen establishments
of this sort in every stage of the process, from the searching
out a spot blessed with a running stream, a shelter to wind
ward, a dry soil, and plenty of fuel, to the piling the wagon
with the pots, pans, and children previous to Starting at
dawn. There is a striking air of cheer about the family
when beginning their new day ; leaving behind the desolation
they have made ; the scorched turf, the scattered brush
wood, chips, and meat-bones, and setting forth in renewed
strength in the fresh morning. I owe to these people many
a picture such as will never meet my eye in the galleries
of art.
Our stationary rural life in the South was various and
pleasant enough ; all shaded with the presence of slavery,
but without any other drawback. There is something in
the make-shift, irregular mode of life which exists where
there are slaves, that is amusing when the cause is for
gotten. The waking in the morning is accomplished by two or
three black women staring at you from the bedposts. Then
it is five minutes' work to get them out of the room. Per
haps, before you are half dressed, you are summoned to
breakfast. You look at your watch, and listen whether it
has stopped, for it seems not to be seven o'clock yet. You
hasten, however, and find your hostess making the coffee.
The young people drop in when the meal is half done, and
then it is discovered that breakfast has been served an hour
too early, because the clock has stopped, and the cook has
ordered affairs according to her own conjectures. Every
body laughs, and nothing ensues. After breakfast a farmer
in homespun — blue trousers and an orange-brown coat, or
all over gray — comes to speak with your host. A drunken
white has shot one of his negroes, and he fears no punish
ment can be obtained, because there were no witnesses of
the deed but blacks. A consultation is held whether the

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 215
affair shall go into court ; and, before the farmer departs, he
is offered cake and liqueur.
Your hostess, meantime, has given her orders, and is
now engaged in a back room, or out in the piazza behind
the house, cutting out clothes for her slaves ; very laborious
wprk in warm weather. There may be a pretence of les
sons among the young people, and something more than pre
tence if they happen to have a tutor or governess ; but the
probability is that their occupations are as various as their
tempers. Rosa cannot be found ; she is lying on the bed
in her own room reading a novel ; Clara is weeping for her
canary, which has flown away while she was playing with
it ; Alfred is trying to ascertain how soon we may all go out
to ride ; and the little ones are lounging about the court,
with their arms round tbe necks of blacks of their own size.
You sit down to the piano or to read, and one slave or
another enters every half hour to ask what is o'clock.
Your hostess comes in at length, and you sit down to work
with her; she gratifies your curiosity abou*. her "people,"
telling you how soon they burn out their shoes at the toes,
and wear out their winter woollens, and tear up their sum
mer cottons ; and how impossible it is to get black women
to learn to cut out clothes without waste ; and how she
never inquires when and where the whipping is done, as it
is the overseer's business, and not hers. She has not been
seated many minutes when she is called away, and returns
saying how babyish these people are, that they will not take
medicine unless she gives it to them ; and how careless of
each other, so that she has been obliged to stand by and see
Diana put clean linen upon her infant, and to compel Bet to
get her sick husband some breakfast.
Morning visiters next arrive. It may be the clergyman,
with some new book that you want to look at ; and inquiries
whether your host sees any prospect of getting the requisite
number of professors for the new college, or whether the
present head of the institution is to continue to fill all the
chairs. It may be a lank judge from some raw district,
with a quid in his cheek, a swordcane in his hand, and a
legal doubt in his mind which he wants your host to resolve.
It may be a sensible woman, with courtesy in her counte
nance and decision in her air, who is accustomed really to
rule her household, and to make the most of such human ma
terial and such a human lot as are pressing around and upon

216 WESTERN TRAVEL.
her. If so, the conversation between her and your hostess
becomes rapid and interesting ; full of tales of perplexity
and trouble, of droll anecdotes, and serious and benevolent
plans. Or it may be a lady of a different cast, who is de
lighted at the prospect of seeing you soon again. You look
perplexed, and mention that you fear you shall be unable
to return this way. Oh, but you will come and live here.
You plead family, friends, and occupation in England, to say
nothing of England being your home. Oh, but you can
bring your family and friends with you. You laughingly
ask why. She draws up and replies, " for the honour and
glory of living in a republic."
Meantime Clara has dried her tears, for some one has
recovered her canary, and the door ofthe cage is shut. The
carriage and saddle-horses are scrambling on the gravel be
fore the door, and the children run in to know if they may
ride with you. Cake, fruit, and liqueurs, or perhaps tea,
are brought in, and then the ladies depart. The clergyman
thinks he will ride round with your party, hearing that you
are going to inspect Mr. A.'s plantation. He warns you
that it will not be " pleasant to see even the best plantations,"
and your trembling heart fully agrees.
You admire the horsemanship of your host on his white
horse, and the boys on their black ponies. The carriage
goes at good speed, and yet the fast pace of the saddle-horses
enables the party to keep together. While you are looking
out upon a picturesque Ioghouse, peeping forth from a blos-
somy thicket, or admiring a splendid hedge of the Cherokee
rose in straggling bloom, Rosa rouses herself from a revery,
and asks you to tell her all about Victoria.
« What shall I tell you ?"
" What religion is she 1 A Unitarian, I suppose, like you."
Church of Englandism and dissent being explained, Rosa
resumes, in a plaintive voice, " Is she betrothed yet."
"Not that I know of."
" Oh, I hope she is ! I wish I knew ! When will she be
queen ? When she is eighteen, won't she ? Oh ! I thought
she was to be of age, and be made queen at eighteen. How
long will she be a queen ?"
"As long as she lives."
" As long as she lives ! Why I thought  "
Rosa has no idea of rulers not being changed every four

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 217
or eightyears. Even her imagination is almost overpowered
at the idea of being set above everybody else for life.
The carriage stops, and you are invited to step out, and
view the ravages of a tornado a season or two ago ; you see
how clear a path it made for itself in the forest, and how it
swept across the river, tearing down an answering gap
through the tall canebrake on the opposite bank. The
prostrated trees lie sunk in swamp, half hidden by flowering
reeds and bright mosses, while their stumps, twice as tall as
yourself, are all cropped off, whatever may be their thickness,
precisely at the same height, and so wrenched and twisted
as to convince you that you never before conceived of the
power of the winds. The boys show you a dry path down
to the river side, that you may see the fishtraps that are laid
in the stream, and watch the couples of shad-fishers — dark
figures amid the flashing waters — who are pursuing their
occupation in the glare of noon. The girls tell you how
father remembers the time when there were bears in that
canebrake, and there was great trouble in getting them to
come out of their thick covert to be killed. When father first
came here, this side of the river was all canebrake too. Is
not a canebrake very ugly ? It may not have any pictu
resque beauty ; but your eye rests upon it with satisfaction,
as a tropical feature in the scene.
You proceed, and point out with admiration a beautifully-
situated dwelling, which you declare takes your fancy more
than any you have seen. The children are amused that
you should suppose any one lives there, overshadowed with
trees as it is, so that its inhabitants would be devoured by
moschetoes. Your hostess tells you that it is called Mr.
B.'s Folly. .He spent a good deal of money and much taste
upon it, but it is uninhabitable from being rather too near
the river. The fever appeared so immediately and decisively
that the family had to leave it in three months, and there it
stands, to be called B.'s Folly.
Your host paces up to the carriage window to tell you
that you are now on A.'s plantation. You are overtaking a
long train of negroes going to their work from dinner. They
look all over the colour of the soil they are walking on :
dusky in clothing, dusky in complexion. An old man,
blacker than the rest, is indicated to you as a native African ;
and you point out a child so light as to make you doubt
whether he be a slave. A glance at the long heel settles the
Vol. I.— T

218 WESTERN TRAVEL.
matter. You feel that it would be a relief to be assured that
this was a troop of monkeys dressed up for sport, rather
than that these dull, shuffling animals should be human.
There is something inexpressibly disgusting in the sight
of a slave woman in the field. I do not share in the horror
of the Americans at the idea of women being employed in
outdoor labour. It did not particularly gratify me to see the
cows always milked by men (where there were no slaves) ;
and the hay and harvest fields would have looked brighter
in my eyes if women had been there to share- the whole
some and cheerful toil. But a negro woman behind the
plough presents a very different object from the English
mother with her children in the turnip-field, or the Scotch
lassie among the reapers. In her pre-eminently ugly cos
tume, the long, scanty, dirty woollen garment, with the
shabby large bonnet at the back of her head, the perspiration
streaming down her dull face, the heavy tread of the splay
foot, the slovenly air with which she guides her plough, a
more hideous object cannot well be conceived, unless it be
the same woman at home, in the negro quarter, as the cluster
of slave dwellings is called.
You are now taken to the cotton-gin, the building to your
left, where you are shown how the cotton, as picked from
the pods, is drawn between cylinders so as to leave the
seeds behind ; and how it is afterward packed, by hard
pressure, into bales. The neighbouring creek is dammed
up to supply the water-wheel by which this gin is worked.
You afterward see the cotton-seed laid in handfuls round
the stalks of the young springing corn, and used in the cot
ton field as manure.
Meantime you attempt to talk with the slaves. You ask
how old that very aged man is, or that boy ; they will give
you no intelligible answer. Slaves never know, or never
will tell their ages, and this is the reason why the census
presents such extraordinary reports on this point, declaring
a great number to be above a hundred years old. If they
have a kind master, they will boast to you of how much
he gave for each of them, and what sums he has refused
for them. If they have a hard master, they will tell you
that they would have more to eat and be less flogged, but
that massa is busy, and has no time to come down and
see that they have enough to eat. Your hostess is well
known on this plantation, and her kind face has been rec
ognised from a distance ; and already a negro woman has

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 219
come to her with seven or eight eggs, for which she
knows she shall receive a quarter dollar. You follow her
to the negro quarter, where you see a tidy woman knitting,
while the little children who are left in her charge are bask
ing in the sun, or playing all kinds of antics in the road ;
little shining, plump, cleareyed children, whose mirth makes
you sad when you look round upon their parents, and see
what these bright creatures are to come to. Y ou enter one
ofthe dwellings, where everything seems to be ofthe same
dusky hue : the crib against the wall, the walls themselves,
and the floor, all look one yellow. More children are
crouched round the wood fire, lying almost in the embers.
You see a woman pressing up against the wall like an idiot,
with her shoulder turned towards you, and her apron held
up to her face. You ask what is the matter with her, and
are told that she is shy. You see a woman rolling herself
about in a crib, vvith her head tied up. You ask if she is ill,
and are told that she has not a good temper ; that she struck
at a girl she was jealous of with an axe, and the weapon
being taken from her, she threw herself into the well, and
was nearly drowned before she was taken out, with her head
much hurt.
The overseer has, meantime, been telling your host about
the fever having been more or less severe last season, and
how well off he shall think himself if he has no more than so
many days' illness this summer : how the vegetation has
suffered from the late frosts, pointing out how many of the
oranges have been cut off, but that the great magnolia in
the centre of the court is safe. You are then invited to see
the house, learning by the way the extent and value of the
estate you are visiting, and of the " force" upon it. You
admire the lofty, cool rooms, with their green blinds, and the
width of the piazzas on both sides the house, built to com
pensate for the want of shade from trees, which cannot be
allowed near the dwelling for fear of moschetoes. You visit
the icehouse, and find it pretty/ full, the last winter having
been a severe one. You learn that, for three or four sea
sons after this icehouse was built, there was not a spike of
ice in the state, and a cargo had to be imported from Massa
chusetts. When you have walked in the field as long as the heat
will-allow, you step into the overseer's bare dwelling, within
its bare enclosure, where fowls are strutting about, and re-

220 WESTERN TRAVEL.
fresh yourself with a small tumbler of milk ; a great luxury,
which has been ordered for the party. The overseer's fish
ing-tackle and rifle are on the wall, and there is a medicine
chest and a shelf of books. He is tall, sallow, and noncha
lant, dropping nothing more about himself and his situation
than lhat he does not know that he has had more than his
share of sickness and trouble in his vocation, and so he is
pretty well satisfied.
Your hostess reminds the party that they are going out to
dinner, and that it is quite time to be returning to dress. So
you go straight home by a shorter road, stopping no more,
but looking out, now at a glorious trumpet honeysuckle
dangling from a branch, now at a lofty, spreading green tree,
red hot close to the ground, while a sheet of flame is spread
ing all about its roots, the flames looking orange and blue in
the bright sunshine.
You are glad to find, on arriving at home, that you have
half an hour to lie down before you dress, and are surprised,
on rising, to feel how you are refreshed. You have not yery
far to go to dinner ; only to Mr. E.'s cottage on the Sand
Hills. The E.'s have just come for the summer, the distant
city being their winter residence. If you find the accom
modations poor, you must excuse it in consideration of their
recent removal. The E.'s live in very good style in the
city. The cottage is half way up a gentle ascent, with a
deep, sandy road leading to the wooden steps of the front
piazza, and pine forests in the rear. The entertainment to
day is not solely on your account ; it is a parting dinner to
young Mr. and Mrs. F., who are going to reside farther
We^st. They are leaving their parents and friends, and the
family estate, and are to live in a Ioghouse till a proper
dwelling can be built. Mrs. F. is rather low in spirits, but
her mother means to send the old family nurse with her, so
s that she will have one comfort, at/any rate, and will be able
to trust her infant out of her sight now and then. As for
Mrs. E., she informs you that she has corne out to the cot
tage sooner than she usually does, as she is expecting her
confinement. She has all her five children in her presence
always ; and as she cannot trust them for an hour with her
"people," their noise and the heat would be intolerable in
town ; but here, where her room opens upon the piazza, she
can have the children always in her sight or hearing with
less fatigue than in the city. You ask whether such a

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 221
charge be not too much for her. Certainly ; but there is no
use in complaining, for it cannot be helped. She never had
a nurse that was not more plague than use. It is not only
that the servants tell the children improper things, and teach
them falsehood, but it is impossible to get the little boys'
faces washed without seeing it done ; and the infant may,
as likely as not, be dropped into the fire or out of the win
dow. Ladies must make the best of their lot, for they can
not help themselves.
The dinner is plentiful, including, of course, turkey, ham,
and sweet potatoes ; excellent claret, and large blocks of
icecream. A slave makes gentle war against the flies with
the enormous bunch of peacocks' feathers ; and the agitation
of the air is pleasant while the ladies are engaged in eating,
so that they cannot use their own fans, which are hung by
loops on the backs of their chairs. The afternoon is spent
in the piazza, where coffee is served. There the ladies sit,
whisking their feather fans, jesting with the children, and
talking over the last English poem or American novel, or
complaining bitterly of the dreadful incendiary publications
which Mr. E. heard from Mr. H., who had heard it from
Mr. M., that Judge R. had said that somebody had seen cir
culated among the negroes by some vile agent of the horrid
abolitionists of the North.
You go in to tea, and find the table strewed with prints, and
the piano open, and Mrs. F. plays and sings. The gentle
men have done discussing the French war and the currency,
and are praising the conduct ofthe Committee of Vigilance;
frankly informing you, as a stranger, of the reasons of its
formation, and the modes of its operation in deterring abo
litionists from coming into the neighbourhood, in arresting
them on any suspicion of tampering with the negroes, and
in punishing them summarily if any facts are established
against them. While you are endeavouring to learn the
nature of the crime and its evidence, you are summoned.
There is going to be a storm, and your party must get
home, if possible, before it comes on. In such a case Mrs.
E. will say nothing in opposition to your leaving her so
early. She would not be the means of exposing you to the
storm. You hasten away, and reach home during the first
explosion of thunder.
You find there a bouquet, sent to you with Miss G.'s
compliments ; a splendid bunch of quince, yellow jessamine,
T2

222 WESTERN TRAVEL.
arbor vitae, hyacinths, cherry, and other blossoms. It is
not nearly bedtime yet ; and you sit on the sofa, fanning
yourself, with the table-lamp dimmed by the momentary
glare of blue lightning. Your hostess learns from the ser
vants that poor Miss Clara went to bed in great grief, the
cat having killed her canary in the afternoon. It has been
a sad day for poor Clara, from the adventures of her bird ;
but she is now fast asleep.
Your host amuses you with anecdotes of South country
life. He asks you how you were struck with Mrs. L.,
whose call you returned yesterday. You reply that she
seems a cheerful, hearty personage, who makes the best of
a poor lot ; and you relate how pleased you were at the
frankness with which she owned, pointing to the stocking
she was darning, that she knew little of books nowadays,
or of music, as she was making shirts and darning stockings
for her sons all the year round. You were sorry to see
such evidences of poverty ; chairs with broken backs, and
a piano with three legs, and a cracked flute ; but glad that
Mrs. L. seemed able to look on the bright side of things.
Your host throws himself back, and laughs for three
minutes ; and, when he recovers, informs you that Mrs. L.
is the wealthiest widow in the state. You protest that you
looked upon her with respect as a meritorious widow, doing
her best for a large family. Your host repeats that she is
the richest widow in the state, and that she and all her
family are odd about money. She has a sister in a neigh
bouring state, Mrs. M., who is even more bent upon econ
omy. Last year Mrs. L. visited this sister, who lives in a
country town. The sisters went out in Mrs. M.'s carriage,
to make calls and do shopping. Mrs. L. observed that
her sister's carriage was attended by a little mulatto girl,
who let down the steps, and put them up, and mounted be
hind very dexterously. " The child is clever enough," said
Mrs. L. ; " but, sister, your carriage should have a proper
footman. You should not be seen in town with a girl be
hind your carriage." Mrs. M. promised to consider the
matter. The next day a spruce mulatto lad was in waiting,
of whom Mrs. L. fully approved. When she looked in his
face, however, as he was letting down the steps at the en
trance of a store, she was struck by his remarkable like
ness to the girl of yesterday, and observed upon it. Mrs.
M. laughed, and owned 6he had got a suit of boy's clothes

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 223
made since yesterday for the girl to wear during morning
drives, and she thought this an excellent plan. Many such
a story does your host amuse you with ; observing that,
though America has fewer humourists than England, they
may be met wilh in abundance in rare settlements and re
tired districts, where they can indulge their fancies without
much suffering from public opinion.
The storm abates. You are the oracle as to what o'clock
it is ; and, as you are confident that it is near elevfen, the
chamber lights are brought. You dismiss your dusky at
tendants, and throw yourself on your ample sofa for half an
hour, to recall what you have seen and heard this day, and
meditate on the scope and tendencies of Country Life in the
Southern States.

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH
" Ye thus hospitably live,
And strangers with good cheer receive.' Prior.
" Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness." Shakspeare.
The disasters of our railroad joumey to Charleston have
been described elsewhere.* We were to have arrived at
the city about six P.M. of the 10th of March, when every
object would have looked bright in the sunshine of a spring
evening. As it was, we reached the railroad station at ten
minutes past fouf the next morning. There was much delay
in obtaining our luggage and getting away from the station.
We could not think of disturbing the slumbers of the friends
whose hospitality we were about to enjoy, and we therefore
proceeded in the omnibus which was in waiting to the Plant
er's Hotel. We were all hungry, having scarcely tasted
food since noon the day before ; and very weary, having
travelled the whole of two nights, and enjoyed no sufficient
rest since we left Richmond, nine days before. Every little
* Society in America, vol. ii., p. 183.

224 WESTERN TRAVEL.
event became a great one to persons so exhausted. The
omnibus jolted and stopped, and we were told that an acci
dent had happened. The gentlemen got out, but the dark
ness was total. A light was brought from a private house,
and it appeared that a wheel had touched the kerbstone !
It seemed as if horses were never backed in Charleston, so
long were we in proceeding. When I afterward saw what
the streets of Charleston are like, I do not wonder at any
extreme of caution in a driver. The soil is a fine sand,
which, after rain, turns into a most deceptive mud ; and there
is very little pavement yet. The deficiency of stone is,
however, becoming supplied by importation, and the inhab
itants hope soon to be able to walk abput the city in all
weathers, without danger of being lost in crossing the streets.
They told me, as an on dit, that a horse was drowned last
winter in a mudhole in a principal street.
At the hotel all was dark and comfortless. We made a
stir among the servants ; the gentlemen got two men to light
a fire, and fetch us wine and biscuits ; and we persuaded
two women to make up beds and warm some water. We
were foolish enough to be tempted to take wine and water,
as we could have neither tea or coffee ; and when we rose
from our unrefreshing sleep an hour after noon, we formed
such a dismal group of aching heads as could hardly be
matched out of a hospital.
Two of us proceeded, in a light pretty hack-carriage, to
the friend's house where we were expected. Nothing could
be more considerate than our reception. A pile of English
and American letters and newspapers awaited us, and our
hostess knew that we must be fatigued ; a fire was therefore
immediately lighted in my chamber, and we were told that
the day was our own ; that our dinner would be sent up to
us, and that we should not be expected in the drawing-room
till we chose to join the family. I shall not soon forget the
refreshment of lingering over family letters and London
newspapers ; of feeling that we were not liable to be called
up in the dark for a fortnight at least ; and of seeing my
clothes laid in drawers, /for the first time, I think, since I
landed. A chest of drawers is seldom to be seen in the
chambers, or, at least, in the guest-chambers of American
houses. We were favoured in the article of closets with
rows of pegs, but I believe I had the use ofa chest of draw
ers only two or three times during my travels.

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 225
A circumstance happened this day which, as being il
lustrative of manners, may be worth relating. The day be
fore I left Richmond, Virginia, two companions and myself had
employed a hack-carriage, driven by a black, for some hours ;
and, on dismissing it, had paid the fare, which we thought
reasonable, two dollars and a half. The proprietor of the
carriage and master of the driver had by sbme means heard
who it was that had been his customer. Finding that I had
left Richmond, he took the trouble to send the two dollars
and a half down to Charleston, five hundred miles, with a
message that it was not for tbe honour of Virginia that I
should pay carriage hire ! and the money was awaiting me
on my arrival.
I had soon reason to perceive that Charleston deserves
its renown for hospitality. A lecturer on phrenology sent
us tickets for his course ; six carriages were immediately
placed at my disposal, and the servants came every morning
for orders for the day. The difficulty was to use them all
and equally ; but, by employing one for the morning drive
and another for the evening visiting, we contrived to show
our friends that we were willing to avail ourselves of their
kindnesses. I believe there was scarcely a morning during
our stay when some pretty present did not arrive before I
rose ; sometimes it was a bouquet of hyacinths, which were
extremely rare that year, from the lateness and severity of
the frosts ; sometimes it was a dish of preserve or marma
lade ; sometimes a feather fan, when the day promised to
be hot ; sometimes a piece of Indian work ; sometimes of
indigenous literary production. One morning I found on my
window-seat a copy of the Southern Review, and a bouquet
of hyacinths from General Hayne ; and the next a basket of
wafers from Mrs. P. ; and the third a set of cambric hand
kerchiefs, inimitably marked with complimentary devices,
from Mrs. W.
In the midst of all this there was no little watchfulness,
among a totally different set of persons, about my proceed
ings with regard to the negroes. I had not been in the city
twenty-four hours before we were amused with ridiculous
reports of my championship on behalf of the blacks ; and,
long after I had left the place, reported speeches of mine
were in circulation which were remarkably striking to me
when I at length heard them. This circumstance shows
how irritable the minds of the people are upon this topic.

226 WESTERN TRAVEL.
I met with no difficulty, however, among my associates. I
made it a rule to allow others to introduce the subject of
slavery, knowing that they would not fail to do so, and that
I might learn as much from their method of approaching
the topic as from anything they could say upon it. Before
half an hour had passed, every man, woman, or child 1 might
be conversing with had entered upon the question. As it
was likewise a rule with me never to conceal or soften my
own opinions, and never to allow myself to be irritated by
what I heard (for it is too serious a subject to indulge frail
ties with), the best understanding existed between slavehold
ers and myself. We never quarrelled, while, I believe, we
never failed to perceive the extent of the difference of opin
ion and 'feeling between us. I met with much more cause
for admiration in their frankness than reason to complain of
illiberality. The following may serve as a specimen of this
part of our intercourse : —
The first time I met an eminent Southern gentleman, a
defender of slavery, he said to me (within the half hour),
" I wish you would not be in such a hurry away. I wish
you would stay a year in this city. I wish you would stay
ten years, and then you would change your opinions."
" What opinions ?"
" Your opinions, on slavery."
" What do you know of my opinions on slavery ?"
"Oh, we know them well enough: we have all read
'Demerara.'" " Very well : now we shall understand each other ; for I
must tell you that I think about slavery exactly as I did when
I wrote that story. Nothing that I have seen shows me
that I have anything to qualify of what is said there. So
now you do know my opinions."
," Oh yes. I don't want to know anything more of your
opinions. I want you to know mine."
" That is exactly what I want. When will you let me
have them ?"
We had engaged to dine with this gentleman the next
week ; it was now arranged that our party should go two
hours earlier than the other guests, in order to hear this gen
tleman's exposition of slavery. He was well prepared, and
his statement of facts and reasons was clear, ready, and en
tertaining. The fault was in the narrowness of his premises ,
for his whole argument was grounded on the supposition

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 227
that human rights consist in sufficient subsistence in return
for labour. ( Before he began I told him that I fully under
stood his wish not to argue the question, and that I came to
hear his statement, not to controvert it; but that I must
warn him not to take my silence for assent. Upon this un
derstanding we proceeded, with some little irritability on his
part when I asked questions, but with no danger of any
quarrel. I never found the slightest difficulty in establishing
a similar clear understanding with every slaveholder I met.
In the drawing-room of the boarding-house at Richmond,
Virginia, three gentlemen, two of whom were entire stran
gers, attacked me in the presence of a pretty large com
pany one afternoon. This was a direct challenge, which I
did not think fit to decline, and we had it all out. They
were irritable at first, but softened as they went on ; and
when, at the end of three hours, we had exhausted the sub
ject, we were better friends than when we began.
Some of the reports of my championship of the negroes
arose from a circumstance which occurred the day after my
arrival at Charleston. Our host proposed to take us up a
church steeple, to obtain a view of the city and its environs.
The key of the church was at the Guardhouse opposite,
and our host said we might as well go for it ourselves,
and thus get a sight of the Guardhouse. One of the city
authorities showed us over it, and we stayed a few moments
in a room where a lady was preferring a complaint against
two negro boys for robbing a henroost. They were proved
guilty, and sentenced to be flogged at the place of punish
ment at the other end of the city.
The view from the church steeple was very fine ; and the
whole, steeped in spring sunshine, had an oriental air which
took me by surprise. The city was spread out beneath us
in a fanlike form, in streets converging towards the harbour.
The heat and moisture of the climate give to the buildings
the hue of age, so as to leave nothing of the American air
of spruceness in the aspect of the place. The sandy streets,
the groups of mulattoes, the women with turbaned heads,
surmounted with water-pots and baskets of fruit ; the small
panes of the house windows ; the yucca bristling in the gar
dens below us, and the hot haze through which we saw the
blue main and its islands, all looked so oriental as to strike
us with wonder. We saw Ashley and Cooper rivers, bring
ing down produce to the main, and were taught the principal

228 WESTERN TRAVEL.
buildings — the churches and the Custom-house, built just
before the Revolution — and the leading streets, Broad and
Meeting streets intersecting, and affording access to all that
we were to see. It would be wise in travellers to make it
their first business in a foreign city to climb the loftiest point
they can reach, so as to have the scene they are to explore
laid out as in a living map beneath them. It is scarcely
credible how much time is saved aud confusion of ideas ob
viated by these means. I gained much by mounting the
State House at Boston, Pennsylvania Hospital at Philadel
phia, the new hotel at Baltimore, the Capitol at Washing
ton, the high hills about Cincinnati, the college at Lexington,
the hill where the Statehouse is to be at Nashville, the
Cotton-press at New Orleans, and this church steeple at
Charleston. Another care of the traveller should be to glance at the
local newspapers. This first morning I found a short news
paper article which told volumes. It was an ordinance for
raising ways and means for the city. Charitable and reli
gious institutions were left free from taxation, as were the
salaries of the clergy and schoolmasters. There was a
direct levy on real property, on slaves, and on carriages,
and a special tax on free people of colour ; a class who,
being precluded from obtaining taxable property and luxu
ries, were yet made to pay by means of a polltax.
Our mornings were divided between receiving callers and
drives about the city and in the country. The country is
flat and sandy, and the only objects are planters' mansions,
surrounded with evergreen woods, the gardens exhibiting
the tropical yucca, and fenced vvith hedges of the Cherokee
rose. From the lower part of the city glimpses of the main
may be had ; but the intervening space is very ugly, except
at high tide ; an expanse of reeking slime over which large
flocks of buzzards are incessantly hovering. On the top
of each of the long row of stakes discovered at low water
sits a buzzard. A fine is imposed for killing one of these
birds, the unsalaried scavengers ofthe moister districts ofthe
city. The houses which we visited in returning calls were gen
erally handsome, wilh capacious piazzas, rich plants and bou
quets, and good furniture. The political bias of the inhab
itant was often discoverable from the books on the table, or
the prints and casts on the walls. In no society in the world

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 229
could the division of parties be more distinct, and their
alienation more threatening than in Charleston at the time I
was there.* The Union gentlemen and ladies were dispir
ited and timid. They asked one another's opinion whether
there was not some mysterious stir among the nullifiers ;
whether they were not concerting measures for a new defi
ance of the general government. This anxious watchful
ness contrasted strangely with the arrogant bearing of the
leading nullifiers. During my stay Mr. Calhoun and his
family arrived from Congress ; and there was something
very striking in the welcome he received, like that of a chief
returned to the bosom of his clan. He stalked about like a
monarch of the little domain ; and there was certainly an
air of mysterious understanding between him and his fol
lowers, whether there was really any great secret under it
or not. One lady, who had contributed ample amounts of
money to the nullification funds, and a catechism to nulli
fication lore, amused vvhile she grieved me by the strength
of her political feelings. While calling on her one morn
ing, the conversation turned on prints, and I asked an expla
nation of a strange-looking one which hung opposite my
eye ; the portrait of a gentleman, the top of the head and
the dress visible, but the face obliterated or covered over.
She was only too ready to explain. It was a portrait of
President Jackson, which she had hung up in days when
he enjoyed her favour. Since nullification she had covered
over the face, to show how she hated him. A stranger hardly
knows what to think of a cause whose leaders will flatter
and cherish the perpetrators of a piece of petty spite like
this ; yet this lady is treated as if she were a main pillar of
the nullification party.
Some of our mornings were spent in going with the
Hayne and Calhoun families to the public library, to a pano
rama, and to the arsenal. The library is supported by pri
vate subscriptions, and is very creditable to the city, whose
zeal about its books might well have been exhausted by the
repeated destruction of the library by fire and in the war.
We amused ourselves vvith files of newspapers which have
survived all disasters ; old London Gazettes and colonial
papers extending as far back as 1678.
We visited the arsenal twice ; the second time with Mr.
* For an explanation of nullification, and a short history of the strug
gle of the nullifiers, see " Society in America," vol, i., p. 92-109,
Vol. I.— U

230 WESTERN TRAVEL.
Calhoun and Governor Hayne, when we saw the arms and
ammunition, which were not visible the first time, because
" the key was not on the premises ;" a token that no inva
sion was immediately expected. There were two bombs
brought in by Governor Hayne, and all the warlike appara
tus which was made ready during the nullification struggle.
It is difficult to believe that Mr. Calhoun seriously meant to
go to war with such means as his impoverished state could
furnish ; but there is no doubt that he did intend it. The
ladies were very animated in their accounts of their State
Rights Ball, held in the area of th0 arsenal, and of their
subscriptions of jewels to the war fund. They were cer
tainly in earnest.
The soldiers were paraded in our presence, some eleven
or twelve recruits, I believe ; and then Mr. Calhoun first,
and Governor Hayne afterward, uncovered and addressed
them with as much gravity and effusion of patriotic senti
ment as if we had been standing on the verge of a battle
field. Some of our party were of Union politics, and they
looked exceedingly arch during the speechifying. It will
be too sad if this child's play should be turned into blood
shed after all, for the gratification of any man's restless am
bition, or in the guilty hope of protracting slavery under the
reprobation of the whole of society except a small band of
mercenaries. My chief interest in these expeditions was in the person
ages who accompanied me. Governor Hayne's name is
well known in England from his having furnished the prov
ocation to Webster's renowned speech, exhibiting the con
stitutional argument against nullification ; and from his be
ing afterward the leader of the struggle in South Carolina,
while Mr. Calhoun fulfilled the same function in Congress.
He is descended from the Haynes whose cruel sufferings
in the Revolutionary War are notorious, to the disgrace of
the British ; one of the two brothers having perished
through the miseries of a British prison-ship, and the other
having been hanged by Lord Rawdon and Colonel Balfour,
under circumstances which, I believe, justify the horror and
reprobation with which the act is viewed by all who have
heard the story. It is one of the most dreadful tales of the
Revolutionary War, and the English have not been behind
the Americans in their feeling with regard to the case. The
circumstances are brief! v these : —

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 231
Colonel Isaac Hayne was a peaceful planter at the time
of the breaking out of the war. He lived upon his estate
all the year round, and was remarkably quiet and domestic
in his temper and habits. He served in the American army
during the siege of Charleston ; and, on the fall of the city,
returned to his plantation, under the guarantee of security
to person and property shared by all who had capitulated at
Charleston. The smallpox broke out in his family ; all his
children had it ; one was dead, and his wife dying, when
Colonel Hayne received peremptory orders to repair to the
British standard, to take up arms as a British subject, or
to surrender himself prisoner at Charleston. He declared
that no force should separate him from his dying wife and
children, and asserted his inviolability under the capitulation
of Charleston. The British officer, Colonel Bellingall, who
brought the order, assured him of his immediate return
home if he would repair to Charleston, to give an assu
rance that he would " demean himself as a British subject
while the country should be covered with a British army."
Colonel Hayne went, with the written agreement of Colonel
Bellingall in his hand. He was, however, detained, and
offered the alternative of lasting imprisonment or of signing
an unconditional promise to obey orders as a British sub
ject. He declared that he never would bear arms against
his country, and was assured that this act would never be
required of him. There were several witnesses to his hav
ing signed under this protest and assurance. He returned
to his family, finding another of his children dead, and his
wife just expiring.
He observed the strictest neutrality while the promise
under which he signed was kept. His house was alternately
occupied by English and American troops, when the pros
pects of the republicans began to improve ; and he is known
to have refused to let his horses be used by friends in the
American force ; in short, to have kept his engagement like
a man of honour. His position was, however, considered
too perilous a one, and he was summoned to join the British
standard. He considered that this was such a violation of
a promise on the part of the British officers as set him free.
He joined his countrymen, fought, and was captured. He
was imprisoned at Charleston for some weeks till Lord
Rawdon came to town, and then, after two days' notice,
brought hefore a court of inquiry, consisting of four general

232 WESTERN TRAVEL.
officers and five captains. Having no idea that this was
anything more than a preliminary measure, and finding that
the members of the court were not sworn, nor the witnesess
examined on oath, Colonel Hayne called no witnesses, and
the proceedings closed without his being aware that he had
gone through an affair of life or death. He was wholly
taken by surprise, therefore, at the news conveyed to him
by letter that he was to die on the gibbet the next day but
one. He was respited for forty-eight hours, in order that
he might see his children, and in consideration of the " hu
mane treatment shown by him to the British prisoners who
fell into his hands," and he spent the interval in the dis
charge of business and affectionate intercourse with his
friends. His chief regret was, that this act would probably
provoke retaliation, and so lead to the shedding of much in
nocent blood. He required his eldest son, a boy of "thirteen,
to be present at his execution, in order to receive his body,
and see that it was laid in the family burial-place. The boy,
frantic with grief, declared that he should not long survive
him ; and it is not surprising that he shortly became insane
and died. Colonel Hayne met his fate with a tranquillity
which convinced his enemies that (to use their own words),
" though he did not die in a good cause, he must, at least,
have acted from a persuasion of its being so."
Such stories are very painful, but they ought not to be
forgotten. The horrors of colonial war may not be over ;
and it is well that the conflicts of duty and affection which
can take place only in wars of this character should be re
membered, while Great Britain has colonies which she may
oppress, and noble subjects, like Colonel Hayne, whom she
may be even now alienating, and whose contrariety of affec
tions she may be yet again driven or tempted to solve in
blood. The present representative of the family was made
speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives at
the age of twenty-seven. He was afterward attorney-gen
eral of the state, a senator in Congress, and governor of the
state. During the preparations for war in 1832, he was the
soul of every movement. He is now considered to be deeply
involved in the Southern transactions relating to the acquisi
tion of Texas, whatever these may in reality be, and to have
linked his fortunes with the slavery question. When I saw
bim he was forty-four years of age, with a robust, active

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 233
frame, a lively, pleasant countenance, and very engaging
manners, with much of the eagerness of the schoolboy mixed
with the ease of the gentleman. He can do everything bet
ter than reason, as appeared in the senatorial conflict, in
which he was ground to powder by the tremendous weight
and force of Webster's constitutional argument and sound
declamation. Governor Hayne can state clearly, enforce
ardently, illustrate gracefully, and boast magnificently, but
he cannot reason. His best friends are probably the most
anxious to admit this ; for there is such want of reason in
his present course of opposition to the first principles on
which society is founded, and in his attachment to wornout
feudal institutions, that the observer, however friendly, finds
himself reduced to the alternative of supposing this busy
mind perverted by unholy passions or by an unbalanced im
agination. Governor Hamilton is less known at a distance, but he is,
perhaps, a yet more perfect representative of the Southern
gentleman. He is handsome, and his manners have all the
grace without much of the arrogance of the bearing of his
class. I was much struck, too, with his generous apprecia
tion of the powers and virtues of the great men of every
party at Washington ; a moral grace which I should have
been glad to see shared in a greater degree by some of his
neighbours. Governor Hamilton has done what he could to
impair the favourable impressions he makes upon all who
know him by the atrocious report he issued in 1835, as
chairman of a committee of the South Carolina Legislature
appointed to consider what steps should be taken in defence
of " the peculiar domestic institutions of the South." This
report is unconstitutional in its requisitions, and savage in
its spirit towards the abolitionists.
With these gentlemen, their friends, and the ladies of their
families, we saw many sights and passed many pleasant
hours ; and with gentlemen and ladies of the opposite party
we spent other portions of our leisure. I was told much of
the Poorhouse, rather in a tone of boasting ; and I was anx
ious to see what a poorhouse could be in a region where all
labourers were private property, and where pauperism would
therefore seem to be obviated. Infirmity, vice, and orphan
hood keep up a small amount of pauperism even here, re
ducing capitalists to a state of dependance. There were
about one hundred and twentyjnmates when I visited the
cu2;

234 WESTERN TRAVEL.
institution, and the number was soon to be reduced by the
periodical clearance made by sending the children to the
Orphan-house, and the insane to the State asylum at Co
lumbia. The intemperate and vagrants were employed in
coffin-making and stone-breaking. By a slight stretch of
the law, persons found drunk are sent here and locked up
for a month. We saw two respectable-looking men who
had been brought in intoxicated the day before, and who
looked duly ashamed of their situation.
The Orphan-house has been established about forty years,
and it contained, at the time of my visit, two hundred chil
dren. As none but whites are admitted, it is found to be no
encouragement to vice to admit all destitute children, whether
orphans or not ; for the licentiousness of the South takes
the women of colour for its victims. The children in this
establishment are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and the girls sewing ; but the prejudice against work appears
as much here as anywhere. No active labour goes on ; the
boys do not even garden. No employment is attempted
which bears any resemblance to what is done by slaves.
The boys are apprenticed out to trades at fourteen, and the
girls to mantuamaking, almost the only employment in which
a white Southern woman can earn a subsistence. The chil
dren are taken in from the age of two years, but they gen
erally enter at the ages of four, five, or six. I was rather
surprised to see them badged, an anti-republican practice
which had better be abolished ; but I wondered the less
when I observed the statue of Pitt still standing in the court
yard, with the right arm shot off in the war, however.
There is a good-sized church connected with this establish
ment, which was well filled on the afternoon when I went
with the family of a friend, who was taking his turn with
his brother clergy to preach.
Charleston is the place in which to see those contrasting
scenes of human life brought under the eye which moralists
gather together for the purpose of impressing the imagina
tion. The stranger has but to pass from street to street, to
live from hour to hour in this city, to see in conjunction the
extremes between which there is everywhere else a wide
interval. The sights of one morning I should remember if
every other particular of my travels were forgotten. I was
driven round the city by a friend whose conversation was
delightful all the way. Though I did not agree in all his

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
views of society, the thoughtfulness of his mind and the Oe-|
nevolence of his exertions betokened a healthy state of feel
ing, and gave value to all he said. He had been a friend of
the lamented Grimke ; and he showed me the house where
Grimke lived and died, and told me much of him ; of the
nobleness of his character, the extent of his attainments, and
how, dying at fifty-four, he had lived by industry a long life.
My mind was full of the contemplation of the heights which
human beings are destined to reach, when I vvas plunged
into a new scene ; one which it was my own conscientious
choice lo visit, but for which the preceding conversation had
ill-prepared me. I went into the slave market, a place which
the traveller ought not to avoid to spare his feelings. There
was a table on which stood two auctioneers, one with a ham
mer, the other to exhibit " the article" and count the bids.
The slaves for sale were some of them in groups below, and
some in a long row behind the auctioneers. The sale of a
man was just concluding when we entered the market. A
woman, wilh two children, one at the breast, and another
holding by her apron, composed the next lot. The restless,
jocose zeal of the auctioneer who counted the bids was the
most infernal sight I ever beheld. The woman was a mu
latto ; she was neatly dressed, with a clean apron and a
yellow head-handkerchief. The elder child clung to her.
She hung her head low, lower, and still lower on her breast,
yet turning her eyes incessantly from side to side, with an
intensity of expectation which showed that she had not
reached the last stage of despair. I should have thought
that her agony of shame and dread would have silenced the
tongue of every spectator ; but it was not so. A lady chose
this moment to turn to me and say, with a cheerful air of
complacency, " You know my theory, that one race must
be subservient to the other. I do not care which ; and if the
blacks should ever have the upper hand, I should not mind
standing on that table, and being sold with two of my chil
dren." Who could help saying within' himself, " Would
you were ! so that that mother were released !" Who could
help seeing in vision the blacks driving the whites into the
field, and preaching from the pulpits of Christian churches
the doctrines now given out there, that God has respect of
persons ; that men are to hold each other as property, in
stead of regarding each other as brethren ; and that the
right interpretation of the golden rule by the slaveholder is,

236 WESTERN TRAVEL.
" Do unto your slaves as you would wish your master to do
unto you if you were a slave 1" A little boy of eight or
nine years old, apparently, was next put up alone. There
was no bearing the child's look of helplessness and shame.
It seemed like an outrage to be among the starers from
whom he shrunk, and we went away before he was dis
posed of.
We next entered a number of fine houses, where we were
presented with flowers, and entertained with lively talk
about the small affairs of gay society, which to little minds
are great. To me every laugh had lost its gayety, every
courtesy had lost its grace, all intercourse had lost its inno
cence. It was a relief to think of Grimke in his grave, es
caped from the hell in which we were pent. If there be a
scene which might stagger the faith of the spirit of Christi
anity itself; if there be an experience which might overthrow
its serenity, it is the transition from the slavemarket to the
abodes of the slavemasters, bright with sunshine, and gay
with flowers, with courtesies, and mirth.
If~the moral gloom which oppresses the spirit of the
stranger were felt by the residents, of course this condition
of society would not endure another day. Much trouble is
experienced, and there are many sighs over the system ; but
the anxiety is not to any great number what it was to the
sisters of Grimke ; such a poisoner of life as to induce them
to sacrifice property, home, friends, and repose, in order to
obtain ease of mind for themselves, and to do something
towards destroying the curse by which their native region is
blighted. Every day shows how many mansions there are
in this hell ; how variously the universally allowed evil vis
its minds of different strength and discernment. All suffer,
from the frivolous and sophisticated child to the far-seeing
and disciplined saint. The difficulty is to have patience
with the diversity, and to wait, as God waits, till the moral
gloom strikes upon every heart, and causes every eye to
turn for light where some already see it. At the same hour
when the customary sins of the slavemarket were being
perpetrated, hundreds of the little people of Charleston were
preparing for their childish pleasures — their merry dancing-
schools, their juvenile fancy balls — ordering their little
slaves about, and allowing themselves to be fanned by black
attendants while reposing in preparation for the fatigues of
the evening ; ministers of the Gospel were agreeing to de-

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 237
prive persons of colour of all religious education ; a distant
Lynch mob was outraging the person of a free and innocent
citizen ; elegant ladies were administering hospitality, and
exchanging gossip and sentiment ; and Angelina Grimke
was penning the letter which contains the following passa
ges, a private letter to a friend who was shortly to undergo
the strengthening process of being mobbed : —
" I can hardly exr is to thee the deep and solemn inter
est with which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the
last few weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was
not prepared for it so soon ; it took me by surprise, and I
greatly feared abolitionists would be driven back in the first
onset, and thrown into confusion. So fearful was I, that,
though I clung with unflinching firmness to our principles,
yet I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers, lest I
should see some indications of compromise, some surrender,
some palliation. Under these feelings I was urged to read
thy appeal to the citizens of Boston. Judge, then, what
were my feelings on finding that my fears were utterly
groundless, and that thou stoodst firm in the midst of the
storm, determined to suffer and to die rather than yield one
inch. " Religious persecution always begins with mobs. It is
always unprecedented in the age or country in which it com
mences, and, therefore, there are no laws by which reformers.
can be punished ; consequently, a lawless band of unprinci
pled men determine to take the matter into their own hands,
and act out in mobs what they know are the principles of a
large majority of those who are too high in church and state
to condescend to mingle with them, though they secretly
approve and rejoice over their violent measures. The first
Christian martyr was stoned by a lawless mob ; and if we
look at the rise of various sects, Methodists, Friends, &c,
we shall find that mobs began the persecution against them,
and that it was not until after the people had spoken out their
wishes that laws were framed to fine, imprison, or destroy
them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of laws,
even in our free states, against abolitionists. And how ar
dently has the prayer been breathed, that God would pre
pare us for all that he is preparing for us !
" My mind has been especially turned towards those whoi
are standing in the forefront of the battle, and the prayerf
has gone up for their preservation ; not the preservation of

238 WESTERN TRAVEL.
their lives, but the preservation of their minds in humility
and patieuce,'faith, hope, and charity. If persecution is the
means which God has ordained for the accomplishment of
this great end, emancipation, then, in dependance upon
him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could say, ' Let it
come ;' for it is my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction, that
this is a cause worth dying for.
" At one time I thought this system would be overthrown
in blood, with the confused noise of the warrior ; but a hope
gleams across my mind that our blood will be spilt instead
of the slaveholders' ; our lives will be taken, and theirs
spared. I say ' a hope,' for, of all things, I desire to be
spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated
with the horrors of a servile war."
The writer of this letter was born into the system, under
the same circumstances with the ladies who repeatedly
asked me if I did not find that the slaves were very happy.
So widely different are the influences of the same circum
stances upon different minds !
Our evening engagements were as strangely contrasted
! as those of the morning. We were at parties where we
j heard loud talk of justice and oppression ; appeals to the
I eternal principles of the one, when the tariff was the sub
ject, and expressions of the most passionate detestation of
the other, which might, but for the presence of black faces
in the rooms, lead a stranger to suppose that he was in the
very sanctuary of human rights. We were at a young
heiress's first ball, where every guest was presented with a
bouquet on entering ; where the young ladies waltzed, and
the young gentlemen gave a loose to their spirits, and all
who were present had kindly greetings for the stranger.
Nothing could be gayer than the external aspect of these
entertainments ; but it is impossible for the stranger to avoid
being struck with the anxiety which shows itself through it
all. I think I never was in society in any of the Southern
cities without being asked what I would do if I had a legacy
of slaves, or told, in vindictiveness or sorrow, that the pros
perity of the North was obtained at the expense of the
South. I was never in Southern society without perceiving
that its characteristic is a want of repose. It is restlessly
gay or restlessly sorrowful. It is angry or exulting ; it is
hopeful or apprehensive. It is never content; never in
such a state of calm satisfaction as to forget itself. This

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 239
peculiarity poisons the satisfaction of the stranger in the
midst of the free and joyous hospitality to which he would
otherwise surrender himself with inconsiderate delight.
While everything is done that can be conceived of to make
you happy, there is a weight pulling at your heartstrings,
because you see that other hearts are heavy, and the nobler
the heavier. While the host's little child comes to you at
first sight, and holds up her mouth for a kiss, and offers to
tell you a story, and poiirs out all her mirth and all her gen
erosity upon you, the child's father fells you that there is a
dark prospect before these young creatures, and Heaven
knows what lot is in store for ihem. Your vigilance is kept
active by continual suggestions that society is composed of
two classes, which entertain a mortal dread of each other.
If ever you forget this for an hour, it is recalled by the sight
of a soldier at the corner of a street, ofa decaying mansion
or deserted estate, or of some anti-republican arrangement
for social or domestic defence. You reproach yourself be
cause you are anxious and cannot be deceived ; and feel as
if it were ingratitude to your entertainers not to think them
the secure and happy people which, in alternation with
their complaints of all the external world, they assure you
they are.
Our evenings were diversified with attendance upon
phrenological lectures — which, however, soon ceases to be
a variety, from the absolute sameness of all courses of lec
tures on that subject — vvith readings at home, and with a
visit to a scene which I was strongly urged not to omit, the
Saturday night's market held by the slaves.
\ I should have been sorry to miss this spectacle. The
islaves enjoy the amusement and profit yielded by this
market. They sit in roWs, by lamplight, some with heaps;
of fruit and vegetables before them, or surrounded by articles
of their own manufacture : boxes, bedsteads, baskets, and
other handiworks, very cheap, and of good workmanship. ¦
Thfe bananas, pines, imported apples, and oranges, which
are seen in great abundance, are usually the property of the ;
master ; while the manufactured articles, made at spare,
hours, are nominally the slave's own. Some are allowed-;/
to make use of their leisure in preparing for the market, on;
condition of bringing their masters six dollars each pen
week, retaining whatever surplus they may gain. I could
not learn the consequence of failing to bring in the six dollar**

240 WESTERN TRAVEL.
per week. They enjoy the fun- and bustle of the market,
and look with complacency on any white customers who
will attend it. Their activity and merriment at market
were pointed out to me as an assurance of their satisfaction
with their condition, their conviction that their present posi
tion is the one they were made for, and in which their true
happiness is to be found.
At the very same moment I was shown the ruins of the
church of St. Philip, destroyed by fire, as they frowned in
the rear ofthe lamplight ; and I vvas informed that the church
had once before been on fire, but had been saved by the ex
ertions of a slave, who " had his liberty given him for a re
ward." " A reward !" said I. " What ! when the slaves are con
vinced that their true happiness lies in slavery T"
The conversation had come to an awkward pass. A lady
advanced to the rescue, saying that some few, too many,
were haunted by a pernicious fancy, put into their heads by
others, about liberty ; a mere fancy, which, however, made
them like the idea of freedom.
" So the benefactor of the city was rewarded by being
indulged, to his own hurt, in a pernicious fancy ?"
"Why . . . yes."
My impressions of Charleston may easily be.igathered
from what I have said. It seems to me a place of great
activity, without much intellectual result ; of great gayety,
without much ease and pleasure. I am confident that, what
ever might be the reason, the general mind was full of mys
tery and anxiety at the time of my visit ; and that some
hearts were glowing with ambitious hopes, and others sink
ing in fears, more or less clearly defined, of the political
crisis which seems to be now at hand. These are the in
fluences which are educating the youth of Charleston, more
powerfully than all schools and colleges, and all books ; in
ducing a reliance on physical rather than moral force, and
strengthening attachment to feudal notions of honour and of
every kind of good ; notions which have no affinity with
true republican morals. The prospects of the citizens are
" dark every way," as some declared ; for the rising genera
tion must either ascend, through a severe discipline and pro
digious sacrifices, to a conformity with republican princi
ples, or descend into a condition of solitary feudalism,
neither sanctioned by the example nor cheered by the sym-

CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH. 241
pathy of the world ; but, on the contrary, regarded with
that compassion which is precisely the last species of regard
which the feudal spirit is able to endure.
. We left Charleston in company with Mr. Calhoun and
his family. The great nullifier told me many and long sto
ries of his early days. Not being aware of my strong im
pressions respecting his present views and purposes, he
could have no idea of the intense interest with which 1 lis
tened to his accounts of the first kindling of his burning
mind. He vvas five years old, standing between his father's
knees, when his first political emotions stirred within him,
awakened by his parent's talk of the colony and of free times
just after the Revolution. If some good angel had at that
moment whispered the parent, inspiring him to direct that
young ambition to the ultimate grandeur of meek service,
to animate that high spirit to a moral conflict with all human
wrongs, we might already have owed to a mind so ener
getic the redemption of the negro race from the affliction,
and of the republic from the disgrace of slavery, instead of
mourning over the dedication of such powers to the propa
gation and exasperation of the curse. I feared how it would
be ; what part he would take in the present struggle be
tween the two principles of greatness, physical force with
territorial conquest, and moral power shown in self-con
quest. I feared that Mr. Calhoun would organize and head
the feudal party, as he has done ; but I never had any fears
that that party would prevail. When we parted at Branch-
ville he little knew — he might have been offended if he had
known — with what affectionate solicitude those whom he left
behind looked on into his perilous political path. I am glad
we could not foresee how soon our fears would be justified.
Mr. Calhoun is at present insisting that the pirate colony of
Texas shall be admitted into the honourable American
Union ; that a new impulse shall thereby be given to the
slave-trade, and a new extension to slavery ; and that his
country shall thereby surrender her moral supremacy among
the nations for a gross and antiquated feudal ambition. He
vows, taking the whole Union to witness, that these things
shall be. The words have publicly passed his pen and his
lips, "Texas shall be annexed to the United States." His
best friends must hope that the whole world will say, " It
shall not."
Vol. I.— X

242 WESTERN TRAVEL.

RESTLESS SLAVES.
" O ! das Leben, Vater,
Hat Reize, die wir nie gekannt. Wir haben
Des schonen Lebens ode Kiitse nur
Wie ein umirrend Raubervolk befahren.
Was in den innern Thalern KSstliches
Das land verbirgt, O !¦ davon — davon ist
Auf unsrer wilden Fahrt uns nichts erschienen." Schiller.
" We ask
But to put forth our strength, our human strength,
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, and eagle-eyed, true-hearted." Paracelsus.
The traveller in America hears on every hand of the fond
ness of slaves for slavery. If he points to the little picture
of a runaway prefixed to advertisements of fugitives, and
repeated down whole columns of the first newspaper that
comes to hand, he is met with anecdotes of slaves who have
been offered their freedom, and prefer remaining in bondage.
Both aspects of the question are true, and yet more may be
said on both sides. The traveller finds, as he proceeds,
that suicides are very frequent among slaves ; and that there
is a race of Africans who will not endure bondage at all,
and who, when smuggled from Africa into Louisiana, are
avoided in the market by purchasers, though they have great
bodily strength and comeliness. When one of this race is
accidentally purchased and taken home, he is generally
missed before twenty-four hours are over, and found hanging
behind a door or drowned in the nearest pond. The Cuba
slaveholders have volumes of stories to tell of this race,
proving their incapacity for slavery. On the other hand, the
traveller may meet with a few negroes who have returned
into slaveland from a state of freedom, and besought their
masters to take them back:
These seeming contradictions admit of an easy explana
tion. Slaves are more or less degraded by slavery in pro
portion to their original strength of character or educational
discipline of mind. The most degraded are satisfied, the

RESTLESS SLAVES. 243
least degraded are dissatisfied vvith slavery. The lowest
order prefer release from duties and cares to the enjoyment
of rights and the possession of themselves ; and the highest
order have a directly opposite taste. The mistake lies in
not perceiving that slavery is emphatically condemned by
the conduct of both.
The stories on the one side of the question are all alike.
The master offers freedom — of course, to the worst of his
slaves — to those who are more plague than profit. Perhaps
he sends the fellow he wants to get rid of on some errand
into a free state, hoping that he will not return. The man
comes back ; and, if questioned as to why he did not stay
where he might have been free, he replies that he knows
better than to work hard for a precarious living when he can
be fed by his master without anxiety of his own as long as
he lives. As for those who return after having been free,
they are usually the weak-minded, who have been persuaded
into remaining in a free state, where they have been car
ried in attendance on their masters' families, and who want
courage to sustain their unprotected freedom. I do not re
member ever hearing of the return of a slave who, haying
long nourished the idea and purpose of liberty, had absconded
with danger and difficulty. The prosecution of such a pur
pose argues a strength of mind worthy of freedom.
The stories on this side of the question are as various as
the characters and fortunes of the heroes of them. Many
facts of this nature became known to me during my travels,
most of which cannot be published, for fear of involving in
difficulty either the escaped heroes or those who assisted
them in regaining their liberty. But a few may be safely
related, which will show, as well as any greater number,
the kind of restlessness which ia the torment of the lives of
" persons held to labour," the constitutional description of
the slave-class of the constituents of government.
Slavery is nowhere more hopeless and helpless than in
Alabama. The richness of the soil and the paucity of in
habitants make the labourer a most valuable possession;
while his distance from any free state — the extent of country
overspread with enemies which the fugitive has to traverse —
makes the attempt to escape desperate. All coloured per
sons travelling in the slave states without a pass — a certifi
cate of freedom or of leave — are liable to be arrested and
advertised, and, if unclaimed at tlie end of a certain time,

244 WESTERN TRAVEL.
sold in the market. Yet slaves do continue to escape from
the farthest corners of Alabama or Mississippi. Two slaves
in Alabama, who had from their early manhood cherished
the idea of freedom, planned their escape in concert, and la
boured for many years at their scheme. They were allowed
the profits of their labour at over-hours ; and, by strenuous
toil and self-denial, saved and hid a large sum of money.
Last year they found they had enough, and that the time
was come for the execution of their purpose. They engaged
the services of " a mean white ;" one of the extremely de
graded class who are driven by loss of character to labour in
the slave states, where, labour by whites being disgraceful,
they are looked down upon by the slaves no less than the
slaves are by the superior whites. These two slaves hired a
" mean white man" to personate a gentleman ; bought him a
suit of good clothes, a portmanteau, a carriage and horses, and
proper costume for themselves. One night the three set off
in style, as master, coachman, and footman, and travelled
rapidly through the whole country, without the slightest
hinderance, to Buffalo. There the slaves sold their car
riage, horses, and finery, paid off their white man, and es
caped into Canada, where they now are in safety.
They found in Canada a society of their own colour pre
pared to welcome and aid them. In Upper Canada there
are upward often thousand people of colour, chiefly fugitive
slaves, who prosper in the country which they have chosen
for a refuge. Scarcely an instance is known of any of them
having received alms, and they are as respectable for their
intelligence as for their morals. One peculiarity in them is
the extravagance of their loyalty. They exert themselves
vehemently in defence of all the acts of the executive, what
ever they may be. The reason for this is obvious : they
exceedingly dread the barest mention of the annexation of
Canada to the United States.
It is astonishing that, in the face of facts of daily occur
rence like that ofthe escape of these men, it can be pleaded
in behalf of slavery that negroes cannot take care of them
selves, and that they prefer being held as property. A lady
of New-York favoured me with some of her recollections of
slavery in that state. She told me of a favourite servant
who had been her father's property for five-and-twenty years.
I believe the woman was the family nurse. She was treated
with all possible indulgence, and was the object of the at-

RESTLESS SLAVES. 245
lachment of the whole household. The woman was never
happy. During all these dreary years she was haunted with
the longing for freedom, and at last fell ill, apparently from
anxiety of mind. From her sickbed she implored her master
so movingly to make her free, and her medical attendant was
so convinced that her life depended on her request being
granted, that her master made the desired promise, but very
unwillingly, as he thought freedom would be more of a care
than a blessing to her. She immediately recovered, and in
spite of all entreaty, pecuniary inducement, and appeals to
her gratitude, left the family. She shed many tears, mourned
over parting with the children, and thanked the family for all
the favour with which she had been treated, but declared
that she could not remain. Everything savoured too strongly
of the bondage she had been unable to endure. She took a
service not far off, deposited her earnings with her old mas
ter, and frequently visited the family, but, to the last, shrank
from all mention of returning to them.
While I was in the United States, a New- York friend of
mine was counsel for a native African who sued his mistress
for his earnings of many years. This man had been landed
in the South after the year 1808, the date fixed by the Con
stitution for the cessation of the importation of negroes. He
was purchased by a lady to whom he proved very profitable,
his services being of a superior kind. She let him out, and
he paid over to her all the money he earned. After many
years she visited New-York, bringing this man with her, not
anticipating that, in that free city, he would gain new lights
as to his relation to her. He refused to return, and brought
his mistress into court to answer his demand for the repay
ment of all the money he had earned abroad, with interest,
and compensation for his services at home during his illegal
bondage. As a knowledge of the law was necessarily sup
posed on both sides, the counsel for the slave made compul
sion his plea. This was not allowed. The slave's main
tenance was decided to be a sufficient compensation for his
services at home, and he was decreed to receive only the
earnings of his hired labour, without interest. His counsel
had, however, the pleasure of seeing him, in the strength of
his manhood, free, and in possession of a large sum of money
to begin life vvith on his own account.
A woman once lived in Massachusetts whose name ought
to be preserved in all histories of the State as one of its hon-
X2

246 WESTERN TRAVEL.
ours, though she was a slave. Some anecdotes of her were
related in a Lyceum lecture delivered at Stockbridge in
1831. Others were told me by the Sedgwicks, who had
the honour of knowing her best, by means of rendering her
the greatest services. Mum Belt, whose real name was
Elizabeth Freeman, was born, it is supposed, about 1742.
Her parents were native Africans, and she was a slave for
about thirty years. At an early age she was purchased,
with her sister, from the family into which she was born, in
the State of New York, by Colonel Ashley, of Sheffield,
Massachusetts. The lady of the mansion, in a fit of pas
sion, one day struck at Mum Bett's sister with a heated
kitchen shovel. Mum Bett interposed her arm and received
the blow, the scar of which she bore to the day of her death.
" She resented the insult and outrage as a white person
would have done," leaving the house, and refusing to return.
Colonel Ashley appealed to the law for the recovery of his
slave. Mum Bett called on Mr. Sedgwick, and asked him
if she could not claim her liberty under the law. He in
quired what could put such an idea into her head. She re
plied that the " Bill o' Rights" said that all were born free
and equal, and that, as she was not a dumb beast, she was
certainly one of the nation. When afterward asked how
she learned the doctrine and facts on which she proceeded,
she replied, " By keepin' still and mindin' things." It was
a favourite doctrine of hers, that people might learn by keep
ing still and minding things. But what did she mean, she
Was asked, by keeping still and minding things ? Why, for
instance, when she was waiting at table, she heard gentle
men talking over the Bill of Rights and the new constitution
of Massachusetts ; and in all they said she never heard but
that all people were born free and equal, and she thought
long about it, and resolved she would try whether she did
not come in among them.
Mr. Sedgwick undertook her cause, which was tried at
Great Barrington. Mum Bett obtained her freedom, and
compensation for her services from twenty-one years of age.
"What shall I do with all this money of yours ?" said Mr.
Sedgwick. " Fee the lawyers handsomely ; pay 'em well,"
said she, " and keep the rest till I want it." She was offered
every inducement to return to Colonel Ashley's, but she
recoiled from all that reminded her of slavery. She begged
the Sedgwicks to take her into their family, which they did ;

RESTLESS SLAVES. 247
and with them she spent twenty years of great comfort.
Her example was followed by many slaves ; and from the
day of her emancipation in 1772, more and more claimants
were decreed free under the Bill of Rights, till slavery was
abolished in Massachusetts.
Her services to the Sedgwick family are gratefully re
membered by them. She is believed to have saved her
master's life by following her own judgment in his treatment
when she was nursing him in a dangerous fever. When
her master was in Boston, and the rural districts were liable
to nightly visitations from marauders after Shay's war (as
an insurrection in Massachusetts was called), the village of
Stockbridge, in the absence of the gentlemen, depended on
Mum Bett for its safety, so general was the confidence in her
wisdom and courage. The practice of the marauders was
to enter and plunder gentlemen's houses in the night, on pre
tence of searching for ammunition and prisoners. Mum Bett
declared that she could have no cowards in the village ; as
many as were afraid had better go up the hills to sleep.
Several children and a few women went up the hills in the
evening to farmhouses which were safe from intrusion. All
brought their valuables of small bulk to Mum Bett for secu
rity. Everybody's watches, gold chains, rings, and other
trinkets were deposited in an iron chest in the garret where
Mum Bett slept.
The marauders arrived one night when Mrs. Sedgwick
was very ill, and Mum Bett was unwilling to admit them.
She quietly told her mistress that her pistols were loaded,
and that a few shots from the windows would probably send
the wretches away, as they could not be sure but that there
were gentlemen in the house. Her mistress, however, pos
itively ordered her to let the people in without delay. Mum
Bett obeyed the order with much unwillingness. She ap
peared at the door with a large kitchen shovel in one hand
and a light in the other, and assured the strangers that they
would find nothing of what they asked for ; neither Judge
Sedgwick, nor ammunition and prisoners. They chose to
search the house, however, as she had expected. Her great
fear was that they would drink themselves intoxicated in the
cellar, and become unmanageable ; and she had prepared
for this by putting rows of porter bottles in front of the wine
and spirits, having drawn the corks to let the porter get flat,
and put them in again. The intruders offered to take the

248 WESTERN TRAVEL.
light from her hand, but she held it back, saying that no one
should carry the light but herself. Here was the way to the
cellars, and there was the way to the chambers : she would
light the gentlemen wherever they chose to go, but she would
not let the house be set on fire over her sick mistress's head.
" The gentlemen" went down to the cellar first. One of
the party broke the neck of a bottle of porter, for which she
rebuked him, saying, that if they wished to drink, she would
fetch the corkscrew, and draw the cork, and they might
drink like gentlemen ; but that, if any one broke the neck of
another bottle, she would lay him low with her shovel.
The flat porter was not to the taste of the visiters, who
made wry faces, and said, if gentlemen liked such cursed
bitter stuff, they might keep it, and praised spirits in com
parison ; upon which Mum Bett coolly observed that they
were " sort o' gentlemen that lived here that did not drink
spirits." At the foot of the cellar stairs stood a barrel of pickled
pork, out of which the intruders began helping themselves.
In a tone of utter scorn Mum Bett exclaimed, " Ammunition
and prisoners, indeed ! You come for ammunition and pris
oners, and take up with pickled pork !" 'They were fairly
ashamed, and threw back the pork into the barrel. They
went through all the chambers, poking with their bayonets
under the beds, lest Judge Sedgwick should be there. At
last, to Mum Belt's sorrow, they decided to search the gar
rets. In hers the iron chest came into view. She hoped in
vain that they would pass it over. One of the party ob
served that it looked as if it held something. Mum Bett put
down the light, kneeled on the chest, and brandished her
weapon, saying, " This is my chist, and let any man touch
it at his peril." The men considered the matter not worth
contesting, and went down stairs. They were actually de
parting without having met with a single article of value
enough to carry away, when a young lady, a niece of Judge
Sedgwick's, wishing to be civil to the wretches, asked them,
at the hall door, whether they would like to see the stables.
They were glad of the hint, and stole one horse (if I re
member right), and ruined another with hard riding. Mum
Bett's expression of wrath was, " If I had thought the pesky
fools would have done such a thing, I would have turned the
horses loose over night in the meadow ; they would have
come back at my call in the morning."

RESTLESS SLAVES. 249
She was considered as connected vvith Judge Sedgwick's
family after she had left their house for a home of her own.
By her great industry and frugality she supported a large
family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There
was nothing remarkable about her husband, and her descend
ants do not appear to have inherited her genius. Mum
Bett lies in the Stockbridge graveyard, in the corner where
the people of colour lie apart. Her epitaph, written by a
son of Judge Sedgwick, is as follows : —
ELIZABETH FREEMAN,
Known by the name of
Mum Bett,
Died December 28, 1829. Her supposed age was 85 years.
She was born a slave, and remained a slave for nearly thirty years :
she could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she
had no superior nor equal : she neither wasted time nor
property : she never violated a trust, nor failed to
perform a duty. In every situation of domes
tic trial, she was the most efficient helper
and the tenderest friend.
Good Mother Farewell.
As far as energy and talent are concerned, I should not
hesitate to say that in her own sphere Mum Bett " had no
superior nor equal ;" and the same may be said about the
quality of fidelity. I know of a slave in Louisiana who
picked up a parcel containing 10,000 dollars, and returned
it, with much trouble, to its owner. I know of a slave in
South Carolina, belonging to a physician, who drives his
master's gig, and has made a wonderful use of what he sees
in the course of his morning's duty. While waiting for his
master at the doors of patients, this slave occupied himself
with copying in the sandy soil the letters he saw on signs.
When he believed he had caught the method, he begged a
slate, or paper and pencil, and brought home his copies,
coaxing the boys of the family to tell him the names of the
letters. He then put them together, and thus learned to
read and write, without any further help whatever. Having
once discovered his own power of doing and learning, he
went on in the only direction which seemed open to him.
He turned his attention to mechanism, and makes miniature
violins and pianos of surprising completeness, but no use.
Here he will most likely stop ; for there is no probability of
his ever ceasing to be a slave, or having opportunity to

250 WESTS RN TRAVEL.
turn to practical account a degree of energy, patience, and
skill which, in happier circumstances, might have been the
instruments of great deeds.
The energies of slaves sometimes take a direction which
their masters contrive to render profitable, when they take
to religion a3 a pursuit. The universal, unquenchable rev
erence for religion in the human mind is taken advantage of
when the imagination of the slave has been turned into the
channel of superstition. It is a fact, that in the newspapers
of New-Orleans may be seen an advertisement now and
then of a lot of " pious negroes." Such " pious negroes"
are convenient on a plantation where the treatment is not
particularly mild ; as they consider nonresistance a Chris
tian duty, and are able to inspire a wonderful degree of pa
tience into their fellow-sufferers.
The vigour which negroes show when their destiny is
fairly placed in their own hands, is an answer to all argu
ments about their helplessness drawn from their dulnes3 in
a state of bondage. A highly satisfactory experiment upon
the will, judgment, and talents of a large body Of slaves was
made a few years ago by a relative of Chief-justice Mar
shall. This gentleman and his family had attached their
negroes to them by a long course of judicious kindness.
At length an estate at some distance was left to the gentle
man, and he saw, with much regret, that it was his duty to
leave the plantation on whieh he was Hving. He could not
bear the idea of turning over his people to the tender mer
cies or unproved judgment of a stranger overseer. He
called his negroes together, told them the case, and asked
whether they thought they could manage the estate them
selves. If they were. willing to undertake the task, they
must choose an overseer from among themselves, provide
comfortably for their own wants, and remit him the surplus
of the profits. The negroes were full of grief at losing the
family, but willing to try what they could do. They had
an election for overseer, and chose the man their master
would have pointed out ; decidedly tbe strongest head on
the estate. All being arranged, the master left them, with
a parting charge to keep their festivals, and take their ap
pointed holydays as if he were present. After some time
he rode over to see how all went on, choosing a festival day,
that he might meet them in their holyday gayety. He was
surprised, on approaching, to hear no merriment ; and, on

RESTLESS SLAVES. 251
entering his fields, he found his " force" all hard at work.
As they flocked round him, he inquired why they were not
making holyday. They told him that the crop would suffer
in its present state by the loss of a day, and that they had
therefore put off their holyday, which, however, they meant
to take by-and-by. Not many days after an express arrived
to inform the proprietor that there was an insurrection on his
estate. He would not believe it ; declared it impossible, as
there was nobody to rise against ; but the messenger, who
had been sent by the neighbouring gentlemen, was so confi
dent of the facts, that the master galloped, with the utmost
speed, to his plantation, arriving as night was coming on.
As he rode in a cry of joy arose from his negroes, who
pressed round to shake hands with him. They were in
their holyday clothes, and had been singing and dancing.
They were only enjoying the deferred festival. The neigh
bours, hearing the noise on a quiet working day j had jumped
to the conclusion that it was an insurrection.
There is no catastrophe yet to this story. When the
proprietor related it, he said that no trouble had arisen ;
and that for some seasons, ever since this estate had been
wholly in the hands of his negroes, it had been more pro
ductive than it ever was while he managed it himself.
The finest harvest-field of romance perhaps in the world
is the frontier between the United States and Canada. The
vowed student of human nature could not do better than take
up his abode there, and hear what fugitives and their friends
have to tell. There have been no exhibitions of the forces
of human character in any political revolution or religious
reformation more wonderful and more interesting than may
almost daily be seen there. The impression on even care
less minds on the spot is very strong. I remember observ
ing to a friend in the ferry-boat, when we were crossing the
Niagara from Lewistown to Queenstown, that it seemed
very absurd, on looking at the opposite banks of the river,
to think that, while the one belonged to the people who lived
on it, the other was called the property of a nation three
thousand miles off, the shores looking so much alike as they
do. My friend replied with a smile, " Runaway slaves see
a great difference." " That they do !" cried the ferryman,
in a tone of the deepest earnestness. He said that the leap
ashore of an escaped slave is a sight unlike any other that
can be seen.

252 WESTERN TRAVEL.
On other parts of the frontier I heard tales which I grieve
that it is not in my power to tell, so honourable are they to
individuals of both races, friends of the slaves. The time
may come when no one will be injured by their being made
public. Meantime, I will give one which happened many
years ago, and which relates to a different part ofthe country.
A., now an elderly man, was accustomed in his youth to
go up and down the Mississippi on trading expeditions ; and
both in these and in subsequent wanderings of many years —
to Hayti among other plaees — he has had opportunity to
study the character of the negro race ; and he is decidedly
of opinion that there is in them only a superinduced inferi
ority to the whites. In relating his experiences among the
coloured people, he told the following story : —
When he was a young man, he was going down the Mis
sissippi in a boat with a cargo of salt, when he stopped at a
small place on the Kentucky shore called Unity, opposite to
a part of Arkansas. While he was there a slavetrader came
up with his company of upward of two hundred slaves,
whom he was conveying to the New-Orleans market.
Among these A. remarked a gigantic mulatto — handsome in
countenance and proud in bearing — who was nearly naked,
and fettered. He had an iron band round his waist and
round each vvrist, and these bands were connected by chains.
The trader observed to A. that this man was the most valu
able slave he had ever had on sale. I think he said that he
would not take two thousand dollars for him ; he added that
he was obliged to chain him, as he was bent on getting
away. When the trader's back was turned, the mulatto
looked at A. as if wishing to talk with him.
"Why are you chained in this way 1" asked A.
" Because my master is afraid of losing me. He knows
that I am the most valuable slave he has, and that I mean
to get away."
" Have you told him so ?"
" Yes."
" And how do you mean to get away ?"
" I don't know ; but I mean it."
After a pause, he said in a low voice to A.,
" Could not you give me a file 1"
" No," said A., decidedly. " Do you think I don't know
the law ? Do you think I am going to help you away, and
get punished for it ? No ; I can't give you a file."

RESTLESS SLAVES. 253
As A. went back to his boat he saw the slave looking
wistfully after him, and his heart smote him for what he had
said . He bethought himself that if he could manage to put
an instrument of deliverance in the man's way without
touching it, he might keep within the letter of the law, and
he acted upon this notion. He looked about his boat, and
found a strong three-sided file, which he put between his
coat and waistcoat, so that it would be sure to drop out
when the coat was unbuttoned. He sauntered back on
shore, and the mulatto, who watched all his movements,
came up to him, eagerly whispering,
"Have you got a file? Are you going to .give me a
file?" " No," said A. " I told you that I knew better than to
give you a file."
The slave's countenance fell.
" However," continued A., " I should not wonder if I can
tell you where to get one. If you look about by yonder
woodpile, I think, perhaps, you may find a file. No, not
now. Go back to your company now, and don't look at
me ; and, when I am gone on board my boat, you can wan
der off to the woodpile."
A. unbuttoned his coat as he appeared to be picking up
the scattered wood round the pile, and presently returned to
his boat, whence he saw the mulatto presently walk to the
woodpile, and stoop down just at the right spot. A. watch
ed all day and late into the night, but he saw and heard
nothing more.
In the morning the slavetrader came on board the boat,
exclaiming angrily that A. had a slave of his concealed
there. A. desired him to search the boat, which he did,
looking behind every bag of salt. He was confident that
A. must have helped the man away ; chained as he was,
he could not have got off without help. As for himself, he
had rather have lost thousands of dollars than this man ;
but he always knew it would be so ; the fellow always said
he would get away.
Thus grumbling, the trader departed to make search in
another direction. In an hour he returned, saying that the
slave must either be drowned or have got over into Arkan
sas. His irons and a strong file were lying on a point of
land projecting into the river about a mile off, and the marks
were visible where the fugitive had taken the water. A.
Vol. I.— Y

254 WESTERN TRAVEL.
went, and long did he stay, questioning and meditating ; and
during all the years that have since elapsed, it has been his
frequent daily and nightly speculation whether the mulatto
escaped or perished. Sometimes, when he remembers the
gigantic frame of the man, and the force of the impulse
which urged him, A. hopes that it may have been possible
for him to reach the opposite shore. At other times, when
he thinks of the width of the Mississippi at that part, and
of the tremendous force of the current, which would war
rant the assertion that it is impossible for a swimmer to
cross, he believes himself convinced that the fugitive has
perished. Yet still the hope returns that the strong man
may be living in wild freedom in some place where the
sense of safety and peace may have taught him to forgive
and pity his oppressors.

NEW-ORLEANS.
" Though everybody cried ' Shame !' and ' Shocking !' yet every
body visited them." — Miss Edgeworth.
When we arrived at the extreme southwest point of our
journey, it was amusing to refer to the warnings of our kind
friends about its inconveniences and dangers. We had
brought away tokens of the hospitality of Charleston in the
shape of a large basket of provision which had been pre
pared, on the supposition that we should find little that we
could eat on the road. There was wine, tea, and cocoa ;
cases of French preserved meat, crackers (biscuits), and
gingerbread. All these good things, except the wine and
crackers, we found it expedient to leave behind, from place
to place. There was no use in determining beforehand to
eat them at any particular meal ; when it came to the point,
we always found hunger or disgust so much more bearable
than fhe shame of being ungracious to entertainers who
were doing their best for us, that we could never bring our
selves to produce our stores. We took what was set before
us, and found ourselves, at length, alive and well at New-
Orleans.

NEW-ORLEANS. 255
At Mobile I met some relatives, who kindly urged my
taking possession of their house at New-Orleans during my
stay of ten days. I was thankful for the arrangement, as
the weather was becoming hot, and we could secure more
leisure and repose in a house of our own than in a boarding-
house or as the guests of a family. With the house we
were, of course, to have the services of my friend's slaves.
He told me something of their history. He had tried all
ways to obtain good service, and could not succeed. He
had attempted wages, treating his people like free servants,
&e., and all in vain. His present plan was promising them
freedom and an establishment in a free state after a short
term of years in case of good deserU He offered to take
care Of the money they earned during their leisure hours,
and to pay them interest upon it, but they preferred keeping
it in their own hands. One of them sewed up 150 dollars
in her bed ; she fell ill, and the person who nursed her is
supposed to have got the money ; for, when the poor slave
recovered, her earnings were gone.
We left Mobile for New-Orleans on the 24 th of April.
The portion of forest which we crossed in going down from
Mobile to the coast was the most beautiful I had seen.
There was fresh grass under foot, and the woods were
splendid with myrtles, magnolias, and many shrubs whose
blossoms were new to me and their names unknown. We
had plenty of time to look about us ; for the hack which
carried the four passengers whom the stage would not con
tain broke down every half hour, and the stage company
had to stop till it could proceed. We had an excellent din
ner in the gallery of a Ioghouse in the midst of the forest,
where we were plentifully supplied with excellent claret.
There had been showers all day, with intervals of sunshine,
but towards sunset the settled gloom of the sky foreboded
a night of storm. I was on the watch for the first sight of
the Gulf of Mexico. I traced the line where the forest re
tires to give place to the marsh, and the whole scene as
sumes a sudden air of desolation. At this moment the
thunder burst, sheets of lightning glared over the boiling
sea, and the rain poured down in floods. Our umbrellas
were found to be broken, of course ; and we had to run
along the pier to the steamboat in such a rain as I was
never before exposed to ; but it was well worth while getting
wet for such a first sight of the Gulf of Mexico . It soon grew

256 WESTERN TRAVEL.
dark ; and, before morning, we were in Lake Pontchar
train, so that this stormy view of the gulf was the only one
we had.
We amused ourselves in the morning with tracing the
dim shores of the State of Mississippi to the north, and of
Louisiana to the west. About nine o'clock we arrived in
sight of the long piers which stretch out from the swamp
into the lake, the mudcraft, the canoes, with blacks fishing
for crabs ; the baths, and the large Washington hotel, with
its galleries and green blinds, built for coolness, where gen
tlemen from New -Orleans go to eat fish and bathe. Next
we saw the train of railroad cars waiting for us ; and, with
out the loss of a moment's time, we were whirled away to
the city, five miles in a quarter of an hour. I have expressed
elsewhere* my admiration of the swamp through which our
road lay ; an admiration which faded as we traversed the
lower faubourg, and died away in the Champs Elysees.
Before ten o'clock we were breaking the seals of our Eng
lish letters in the drawing-room of our temporary home.
When we had satisfied ourselves with home news, un
packed, dressed, and lunched, we took our seats by the win
dow in the intervals of visits from callers. All was very
new, very foreign in its aspect. Many of the ladies in the
streets wore caps or veils instead of bonnets ; the negroes
who passed shouted their very peculiar kind of French ; and
everything seemed to tell us that we had plunged into the
dogdays. I never knew before how impressions of heat can
be conveyed through the eye. The intensity of glare and
shadow in the streets, and the many evidences that the fear
of heat is the prevailing idea of the place, affect the imagi
nation even more than the scorching power of the sun does
the bodily frame.
1 was presented with a pamphlet written by a physician,
which denies the unhealthiness of New-Orleans as strenu
ously as some of its inhabitants deny its immorality. To
me it appears that everything depends on what is understood
by Morals and Health. As to the morals of the city, I have
elsewhere stated the principal facts on which my unfavour
able judgment is founded.! In regard to another department
of morals, the honourable fact of the generous charity of
New-Orleans to strangers should be stated. Great numbers
* " Society in America," vol, ii., p. 179. t Ibid, p. 326.

NEW-ORLEANS. 257
of sick and destitute foreigners are perpetually thrown upon
the mercy of the inhabitants, and that mercy is unbounded.
I have reason to believe that the sick are not merely nursed
and cured, but provided with funds before departing. When
I visited the hospital, it contained two hundred and fifty pa
tients, not above fifty of whom were Americans. As to the
health of the place, I believe the average is good among that
portion of the population which can afford to remove north
ward for the hot months ; but very low if the total white
population be included. The pamphlet which I read argues
that, though the fever is very destructive during a portion of
the year, mortality from other diseases is much below the
common average ; that the variations of temperature are
slight, though frequent ; and that the average of children
and old persons is high. All this may be true ; but a place
must be called peculiarly unhealthy whose inhabitants are
compelled, on pain of death, to remove for three or four
months of every year. Instead of arguing against such a
fact as this, many citizens are hoping and striving to put an
end to the necessity of such a removal. They hope, by
means of draining and paving, to render their city habitable
all the year round. Plans of drainage are under considera
tion, and I saw some importations of paving-stones. The
friends of the New-Orleans people can hardly wish them a
greater good than the success of such attempts ; for the per
petual shifting about which they are subjected to by the
dread of the fever is a serious evil to sober families of an
industrious, domestic turn. It is very injurious to the minds
of children and to the habits of young people, and a great
hardship to the aged. I was struck with a remark which
fell from a lady about her children's exercise in the open
air. She said that she always took them out when the
wind blew from over the lake, and kept them at home in
warm weather when it blew from any other quarter, as it
then only made them " more languid" to go out. This did
not tend to confirm the doctrine of the pamphlet ; but I was
not surprised at the remark when I looked abroad over the
neighbouring country from the top of the hospital. Thence
I saw the marsh which was given to Lafayette, and which
he sold, not long before his death, to a London firm, who
sold it again. On this marsh, most of which was under
water, the city of New-Orleans was begun. A strip of
buildings was carried to the river bank, where the city spread.
Y2

258 WESTERN TRAVEL.
In the midst of the flooded lots of ground stood the gas
works ; surrounded by stagnant ponds lay the Catholic cem
etery. The very churches of the city seemed to spring
up out of the water. The blossomy beauties of the swamp
could not be seen at this height, and all looked hideously
desolate in the glaring sun. The view from the turret of
the Cotton-press is much more advantageous. It commands
many windings of the majestic river, and the point where
it seems to lose itself in the distant forest ; while below ap
pears everything that is dry in all the landscape : the ship
ping, the Levee, the busy streets of the city, and the shady
avenues of the suburbs.
The ladies of New-Orleans walk more than their country
women of other cities, from the streets being in such bad order
as to make walking the safest means of locomotion. The
streets are not very numerous ; they are well distinguished,
and lie at right angles, and their names are clearly printed up ;
so that strangers find no difficulty in going about, except when
a fall of rain has made the crossings impassable. The heat is
far less oppressive in the streets than in the open country, as
there is generally a shady side. We were never kept within
doors by the heat, though summer weather had fairly set in
before our arrival. We made calls, and went shopping and
sight-seeing, much as we do in London ; and, moreover,
walked to dinner visits, to the theatre, and to church, while
the sun was blazing as if he had drawn that part of the
world some millions of miles nearer to himself than that in
which we had been accustomed to live. It is in vain to at
tempt describing what the moonlight is like. We walked
under the long rows of Pride-of-India trees on the Ramparts,
amid the picturesque low dwellings of the Quadroons, and
almost felt the glow of the moonlight, so warm, so golden,
so soft as I never saw it elsewhere. We were never tired
of watching the lightning from our balcony, flashing through
the first shades of twilight, and keeping the whole heaven in
night-long conflagration. The moschetoes were a great and
perpetual plague, except while we were asleep. We found
our moscheto-curtains a sufficient protection at night ; but
we had to be on the watch against these malicious insects
all day, and to wage war against them during the whole
evening. Many ladies are accustomed, during the summer
months, to get after breakfast into a large sack of muslin
tied round the throat, vvith smaller sacks for the arms, and

NEW-ORLEANS. 259
to sit thus at work or book, fanning themselves to protect
their faces. Others sit all the morning on the bed, within
their moscheto-curtains. I wore gloves and prunella boots
all day long, but hands and feet were stung through all the
defences I could devise. After a while the sting ofthe mos-
cheto ceases to irritate more than the English gnat-sting ;
but, to strangers, the suffering is serious ; to those of fever
ish habit, sometimes dangerous.
Sunday is the busiest day of the week to the stranger in
New-Orleans. There is first the negro market to be seen
at five o'clock. We missed this sight, as the mornings were
foggy, and it was accounted unsafe to go out in the early
damp. Then there is the Cathedral to be attended, a place
which the European gladly visits, as the only one in the
United States where all men meet together as brethren. As
he goes, the streets are noisy with traffic. Some of those
who keep the Sunday sit at their doors or windows reading
the newspapers or chatting with their acquaintance. Mer
chants are seen hastening to the counting-house or the
wharf, or busy in the stores. Others are streaming into the
church doors. There are groups about the cathedral gates,
the blacks and the whites parting company as if they had
not been worshipping side by side. Within the edifice there
is no separation. Some few persons may be in pews ; but
kneeling on the pavement may be seen a multitude, of every
shade of complexion, from the fair Scotchwoman or German
to the jet-black pure African. The Spanish eye flashes
from beneath the veil ; the French Creole countenance,
painted high, is surmounted by the neat cap or the showy
bonnet ; while between them may be thrust a gray-headed
mulatto, following with his stupid eyes the evolutions ofthe
priest ; or the devout negro woman telling her beads — a
string of berries — as if her life depended on her task. Du
ring the preaching, the multitude of anxious faces, thus vari
ous in tint and expression, turned up towards the pulpit, af
forded one of those few spectacles which are apt to haunt
the whole future life of the observer like a dream. Several
Protestants spoke to me of the Catholic religion as being a
great blessing to the ignorant negro, viewing a ritual reli
gion as a safe resting-place between barbarism and truth.
Nothing that I saw disposed me to agree with them. I saw
among Catholics of this class only the most abject worship
of things without meaning, and no comprehension whatever

260 WESTERN TRAVEL.
of symbols. I was persuaded that, if a ritual religion be
ever a good, it is so in the case of the most, not the least,
enlightened ; of those who accept the ritual as symbolical,
and not of those who pay it literal worship. I could not but
think that, if the undisguised story of Jesus were presented
to these last as it was to the fishermen of Galilee and the
peasants on the reedy banks of Jordan, they would embrace
a Christianity, in comparison with which their present reli
gion is an unintelligible and effectual mythology. But such
a primitive Christianity they, as slaves, never will and never
can have, as its whole spirit is destructive of slavery.
Half a year before my visit to New-Orleans, a great com
motion had been raised in the city against a Presbyterian
clergyman, the Rev. Joel Parker, on account of some ex
pressions which he had been reported to have used, while
on a visit in New-England, respecting the morals of New-
Orleans, and especially the desecration of the Sunday.
Some meddlesome person had called a public meeting, to
consider what should be done with the Rev. Joel Parker for
having employed his constitutional freedom of speech in de
claring what almost everybody knew or believed to be true.
Many gentlemen of the city were vexed at this encroach
ment upon the liberty of the citizen, and at the ridicule which
such apparent sensitiveness about reputation would bring
upon their society ; and they determined to be present at the
meeting, and support the pastor's rights. Matters were pro
ceeding fast towards a condemnation of the accused and a
sentence of banishment, when these gentlemen demanded
that he should be heard in his own defence, a guarantee for
his personal safety being first passed by the meeting. This
was agreed to, and Mr. Parker appeared on the hustings.
Unfortunately, he missed the opportunity — a particularly
favourable one — of making a moral impression which would
never have been lost. A full declaration of what he had
said, the grounds of it, and his right to say it, would have
turned the emotions of the assemblage, already softened in
his favour, towards himself and the right. As it was, he did
nothing wrong, except in as far as that he did nothing very
right ; but there was a want of judgment and taste in his
address which was much to be regretted. He was allowed
to go free for the time ; but the newspapers reported all the
charges against him, suppressed his replies, and lauded the
citizens for not having pulled the offender to pieces ; and

NEW-ORLEANS. 261
Mr. Parker's congregation were called upon, on the ground
of the resolutions passed at the public meeting, to banish
their pastor. They refused, and appealed to all the citizens
to protect them from such oppression as was threatened.
No further steps were taken, I believe, against the pastor
and his people ; his church flourished under this little gust
of persecution ; and, when I was there, a handsome new
edifice was rising up to accommodate the increased number
of his congregation. I wished to hear this gentleman, and
was glad to find that his flock met, while the building was
going on, in the vestry of the new church ; a spacious crypt,
which was crowded when he preached. I had not expected
much from his preaching, and was therefore taken by sur
prise by the exceeding beauty of his discourse ; beauty, not
of style, but spirit. The lofty and tender earnestness of
both his sentiments and manner put the observer off his
watch about the composition of the sermon. I was sur
prised to perceive in conversation afterward tokens that Mr.
Parker was not a highly-educated man. I was raised by
the lofty tone of his preaching far above all critical vigi
lance. I had much opportunity of seeing in the United States
what is the operation of persecution on strong and virtuous
minds, and I trust the lesson of encouragement will never be
lost. As it is certain that the progression of the race must
be carried on through persecution of some kind and degree ;
as it is clear that the superior spirits to whom the race owes
its advancement must, by their very act of anticipation, get
out of the circle of general intelligence and sympathy, and
be thus subject to the trials of spiritual solitude and social
enmity — since thus it has ever been, and thus, by the laws of
human nature, it must ever be — it is heart-cheering and
soul-staying to perceive that the effects of persecution may
be, and often are, more blessed than those of other kinds of
discipline. Many quail under the apprehension of perse
cution ; some are soured by it ; but some pass through the
suffering, the bitter suffering of popular hatred, with a
strength which intermits less and less, and come out of it
with new capacities for enjoyment, with affections which
can no longer be checked by want of sympathy, and with an
object in life which can never be overthrown. Mr. Parker's
case was not one of any high or permanent character;
though, as far as his trial went, it seemed to have given

262 WESTERN TRAVEL.
calmness and vigour to his mind. (I judge from his manner
of speaking of the affair to me.) The abolitionists are the
persons I have had, and always shall have, chiefly in view
in speaking of the effects of persecution. They often re
minded me of the remark, that you may know a philanthro
pist in the streets by his face. The life, light, and gentle
ness of their countenances, the cheerful earnestness of their
speech, and the gayety of their manners, were enough to
assure the unprejudiced foreign observer of the integrity of
their cause and the blessedness of their pilgrim lives.
The afternoon or evening Sunday walk in New Orleans
cannot fail to convince the stranger of the truth of the say
ings of Mr. Parker, for which he afterward was subjected
to so fierce a retribution. Whatever may be thought of the
duty or expediency of a strict observance of the Sunday, no
one can contend that in this city the observance is strict.
In the market there is traffic in meat and vegetables, and
the groups of foreigners make a Babel of the place with
their loud talk in many tongues. The men are smoking
outside their houses ; the girls, with broad coloured ribands
streaming from the ends of their long braids of hair, are
walking or flirting ; while veiled ladies are stealing through
the streets, or the graceful Quadroon women are taking their
evening airing on the Levee. The river is crowded with
shipping, to the hulls of which the walkers look up from a
distance, the river being above the level of the neighbouring
streets. It rushes along through the busy region, seeming
to be touched with mercy, or to disdain its power of mis
chief. It might overwhelm in an instant the swarming in
habitants of the boundless level ; it looks as if it could
scarcely avoid doing so ; yet it rolls on within its banks so
steadily, that the citizens forget their insecurity. Its breadth
is not striking to the eye ; yet, when one begins to calculate,
the magnitude of the stream becomes apparent. A steam
boat carries down six vessels at once, two on each side and
two behind ; and this cluster of seven vessels looks some
what in the proportion of a constellation in the sky. From
the Levee the Cathedral looks well, fronting the river,
standing in the middle of a square, and presenting an ap
pearance of great antiquity, hastened, no doubt, by the mois
ture of the atmosphere in which it stands.
The Levee continues to be crowded long after the sun has
set. The quivering summer lightning plays over the heads

NEW-ORLEANS. 263
of the merry multitude, who are conversing in all the tongues,
and gay in all the costumes of the world.
Another bright scene is on the road to the lake on a fine
afternoon. This road winds for five miles through the swamp,
and is bordered by cypress, flowering reeds, fleurs-de-lis of
every colour, palmetto, and a hundred aquatic shrubs new
to the eye of the stranger. The gray moss common in
damp situations floats in streamers from the branches.
Snakes abound, and coil about the negroes who are seen
pushing their canoes through the rank vegetation, or towing
their rafts laden with wood along the sluggish bayou. There
is a small settlement, wholly French in its character, where
the ancient dwellings, painted red, and with broad eaves,
look highly picturesque in the green landscape. The wind
ing white road is thronged with carriages, driven at a very
rapid rate, and full of families of children, or gay parties of
young people, or a company of smoking merchants, going to
the lake to drink or to bathe. Many go merely as we did,
for the sake ofthe drive, and of breathing the cool air ofthe
lake, while enjoying a glass of iced lemonade or sangaree.
It was along this road that Madame Lalaurie escaped
from the hands of her exasperated countrymen about five
years ago. The remembrance or tradition of that day will
always be fresh in New-Orleans. In England the story is
little, if at all, known. I was requested on the spot not to
publish it as exhibiting a fair specimen of slaveholding in
New-Orleans, and no one could suppose it to be so ; but it
is a revelation of what may happen in a slaveholding country,
and can happen nowhere else. Even on the mildest sup
position that the case admits of, that Madame Lalaurie was
insane, there remains the fact that the insanity could have
taken such a direction, and perpetrated such deeds nowhere
but in a slave country.
There is, as every one knows, a mutual jealousy between
the French and American Creoles* in Louisiana. Till
lately, the French Creoles have carried everything their own
way, from their superior numbers. I believe that even yet
no American expects to get a verdict, on any evidence, from
a jury of French Creoles. Madame Lalaurie enjoyed a long
impunity from this circumstance. She was a French creole,
and her third husband, M. Lalaurie, was, I believe, a French-
* Creole means native. French and American Creoles are natives
of French and American extraction.

264 WESTERN TRAVEL.
man. He was many years younger than his lady, and had
nothing to do with the management of her property, so that
he has been in no degree mixed up with her affairs and dis
graces. It had been long observed that Madame Lalaurie's
slaves looked singularly haggard and wretched, except the
coachman, whose appearance was sleek and comfortable
enough. Two daughters by a former marriage, who lived
with her, were also thought to be spiritless and unhappy-
looking. But the lady vvas so graceful and accomplished,
so charming in her manners and so hospitable, that no one
ventured openly to question her perfect goodness. If a
murmur of doubt began among the Americans, the French
resented it. If the French had occasional suspicions, they
concealed them for the credit of their faction. " She was
very pleasant to whites," I was told, and sometimes to blacks,
but so broadly so as to excite suspicions of hypocrisy.
When she had a dinner-party at home, she would hand the
remains of her glass of wine to the emaciated negro behind
her chair, with a smooth audible whisper, " Here, my friend,
take this ; it will do you good." At length rumours spread
which induced a friend of mine, an eminent lawyer, to send
her a hint about the law which ordains that slaves who can
be proved to have been cruelly treated shall be taken from
the owner, and sold in the market for the benefit of the
State. My friend, being of the American party, did not ap
pear in the matter himself, but sent a young French Creole,
who was studying law with him. The young man returned
full of indignation against all who could suspect this amiable
woman of doing anything wrong. He was confident that
she could not harm a fly, or give pain to any human being.
Soon after this a lady, living in a house which joined the
premises of Madame Lalaurie, was going up stairs, when
she heard a piercing shriek from the next courtyard. She
looked out, and saw a little negro girl, apparently about
eight years old, flying across the yard towards the house,
and Madame Lalaurie pursuing her, cowhide in hand. The
lady saw the poor child run from story to story, her mis
tress following, till both came out upon the top of the house.
Seeing the child about to spring over, the witness put her
hands before her eyes ; but she heard the fall, and saw the
child taken up, her body bending and limbs hanging as if
every bone was broken. The lady watched for many hours,
and at night she saw the body brought out, a shallow hole

NEW-ORLEANS. 265
dug by torchlight in the corner of the yard, and the corpse
covered over. No secret was made of what had been seen.
Inquiry was instituted, and illegal cruelty proved in the case
of nine slaves, who were forfeited according to law. It af
terward came out that this woman induced some family con
nexions of her own to purchase these slaves, and sell them
again to her, conveying them back to her premises in the
night. She must have desired to have them for purposes of
torture, for she could not let them be seen in a neighbour
hood where they were known.
During all this time she does not appear to have lost caste,
though it appears that she beat her daughters as often as
they attempted in her absence to convey food to her misera
ble victims. She always knew of such attempts by means
of the sleek coachman, who was her spy. It was necessary
to have a spy, to preserve her life from the vengeance of her
household ; so she pampered this obsequious negro, and at
length owed her escape to him.
She kept her cook chained within eight yards of the fire
place, where sumptuous dinners were cooked in the most
sultry season. It is a pity that some of the admiring guests
whom sh'e assembled round her hospitable table could not
see through the floor, and be made aware at what a cost
they were entertained. One morning the cook declared
that they had better all be burned together than lead such a
life, and she set the house on fire. The alarm spread over
the city ; the gallant French Creoles ah ran to the aid of
their accomplished friend, and the fire was presently extin
guished. Many, whose curiosity had been roused about the
domestic proceedings of the lady, seized the opportunity of
entering those parts of the premises from which the whole
world had been hitherto carefully excluded. They per
ceived that, as often as they approached a particular out
house, the lady became excessively uneasy lest some prop
erty in an opposite direction should be burned. When the
fire was extinguished, they made bold to break open this
outhouse. A horrible sight met their eyes. Of the nine
slaves, the skeletons of two were afterward found poked into
the ground ; the other seven could scarcely be recognised
as human. Their faces had the wildness of famine, and
their bones were coming through the skin. They were
chained and tied in constrained postures, some on their
knees, some with their hands above their heads. They had
Vol. I.— Z

266 WESTERN TRAVEL.
iron collars with spikes which kept their heads in one posi
tion. The cowhide, stiff with blood, hung against the wall ;
and there was a stepladder on which this fiend stood while
flogging her victims, in order to lay on the lashes with more
effect. Every morning, it was her first employment after
breakfast to lock herself in with her captives, and flog them
till her strength failed.
Amid shouts and groans, the sufferers were brought out
into the air and light. Food was given them with too much
haste, for two of them died in the course of the day. The
rest, maimed and helpless, are pensioners of the city.
The rage of the crowd, especially of the French Creoles,
was excessive. The lady shut herself up in the house with
her trembling daughters, while the street was filled from
end to end with a yelling crowd of gentlemen. She con
sulted her coachman as to what she had best do. He ad
vised that she should have her coach to the door after din
ner, and appear to go forth for her afternoon drive, as usual ;
escaping or returning, according to the aspect of affairs. It
is not told whether she ate her dinner that day, or prevailed
on her remaining slaves to wait upon her. The carriage
appeared at the door ; she was ready, and stepped into it.
Her assurance seems to have paralyzed the crowd. The
moment the door was shut they appeared to repent having
allowed her to enter, and they tried to upset the carriage, to
hold the horses, to make a snatch at the lady. But the
coachman laid about him with his whip, made the horses
plunge, and drove off. He took the road to the lake, where
he could not be intercepted, as it winds through the swamp.
He outstripped the crowd, galloped to the lake, bribed the
master of a schooner which was lying there to put off in
stantly with the lady to Mobile. She escaped to France,
and took up her abode in Paris under a feigned name, but
not for long. Late one evening a party of gentlemen called
on her, and told her she was Madame Lalaurie, and that she
had better be off. She fled that night, and is supposed to
be now skulking about in some French province under a
false name.
The New-Orleans mob met the carriage returning from
the lake. What became of the coachman I do not know.
The carriage was broken to pieces and thrown into the
swamp, and the horses stabbed and left dead upon the road.
The house was gutted, the two poor girls having just time

NEW-ORLEANS. 267
to escape from a window. They are now living, in great
poverty, in one of the faubourgs. The piano, tables, and
chairs were burned before the house. The feather-beds
were ripped up, and the feathers emptied into the street,
where they afforded a delicate footing for some days. The
house stands, and is meant to stand, in its ruined state. It
was the strange sight of its gaping windows and empty
walls, in the midst of a busy street, which excited my won
der, and was the cause of my being told the story the first
time. I gathered other particulars afterward from eyewit
nesses. The crowd at first intended to proceed to the examination
of other premises, whose proprietors were under suspicion
of cruelty to their slaves ; but the shouts of triumph which
went up from the whole negro population of the city show
ed that this would not be safe. Fearing a general rising,
the gentlemen organized themselves into a patrol, to watch
the city night and day till the commotion should have sub
sided. They sent circulars to all proprietors suspected of
cruelty, warning them that the eyes of the city were upon
them. This is the only benefit the negroes have derived
from the exposure. In reply to inquiries, I was told that it
was very possible that cruelties like those of Madame La
laurie might be incessantly in course of perpetration. It
may be doubted whether any more such people exist ; but
if they do, there is nothing to prevent their following her
example with impunity as long as they can manage to pre
serve that secrecy which was put an end to by accident in
her case.
I could never get out of the way of the horrors of slavery
in this region. Under one form or another, they met me in
every house, in every street ; everywhere but in the intelli
gence pages of newspapers, where I might read on in per
fect security of exemption from the subject. In the adver
tising columns there were offers of reward for runaways,
restored dead or alive ; and notices of the capture of a fugi
tive with so many brands on his limbs and shoulders, and
so many scars on his back. But from the other half of the
newspaper, the existence of slavery could be discovered
only by inference. What I saw elsewhere was, however,
dreadful enough. In one house, the girl who waited on me
with singular officiousness was so white, with blue eyes and
light hair, that it never occurred to me that she could be a

268 WESTERN TRAVEL.
slave. Her mistress told me afterward that this girl of
fourteen was such a depraved hussy that she must be sold.
I exclaimed involuntarily, but was referred to the long heel
in proof of the child's being of negro extraction. She had
the long heel, sure enough. Her mistress told me that it is
very wrong to plead in behalf of slavery that families are
rarely separated ; and gave me, as no unfair example of the
dealings of masters, this girl's domestic history.
The family had consisted of father, mother, and four
children, this girl being the eldest, and the youngest an in
fant at the breast. The father was first sold separately,
and then the rest of the family were purchased in the market
by the husband of my friend, the mother being represented
to be a good cook and house servant. She proved to be
both ; but of so violent a temper that it was necessary to
keep her own children out of her way when she had a knife
in her hand, lest she should murder them. The anxiety of
watching such a temper was not to be borne, and the wo
man was sold with her infant. Here was the second divis
ion of this family. The behaviour of the eldest girl vvas so
outrageously profligate, that she was about to be disposed
of also. And yet she was only a fair illustration of the re
sults of the education by circumstance that slaves receive.
When detected in some infamous practices, this young
creature put on air of prudery, and declared that it gave her
great pain to be thought immodest ; that, so far from her
being what she was thought, she had no wish to have any
other lover than her master. Her master was so enraged
at this — being a domestic Northern man, and not a planter —
that he tied her to the whipping-post and flogged her severe
ly with his own hands. The story of this dispersed and
wretched family has nothing singular in it. With slight
variations, it may be found repeated in every Southern set
tlement the traveller visits.
Just about the time that this was happening, a family in
the neighbourhood was poisoned by a slave. I think one
died, and the others had a narrow escape. The poisoner
was sold in the market, as the proprietor could not afford to
lose his human property by the law taking its course.
About the same time the cashier of a bank in New-Or
leans sent one of his slaves out of the way, in order to be
undisturbed in the violence which he meditated against the
negro's attached wife. The negro understood the case, but

NEW-ORLEANS. 269
dared not refuse to go where he was bid. He returned un
expectedly soon, however ; found his home occupied, and
stabbed the defiler of it. The cashier was the stronger
man, and, in spite of his wound, he so maltreated the negro
that he expired on the barrow on which he was being con
veyed to jail. Nothing ensued on account of this affair;
though, when the cashier was some time after found to be
a defaulter, he absconded.
I would fain know what has become of a mulatto child in
whom I became much interested at New-Orleans. Ailsie
was eight years old, perfectly beautiful, and one of the most
promising children I ever saw. She was quick, obedient,
and affectionate to a touching degree. She had a kind
master and mistress. Her mistress's health was delicate,
and the child would watch her countenance wistfully, in the
constant hope of saving her trouble. She would look very
grave if the lady went up stairs with a languid step, take
hold of her gown, and timidly ask, " What, an't ye well ?"
I used to observe her helping to dress her mistress's hair,
her little hands trembling with eagerness, her eye following
every glance of the eye which ever looked tenderly upon
her. Her master declared he did not know what to make
of the child, she looked so scared, and trembled so if she
was spoken to-; and she was, indeed, the most sensitive of
children. As she stood at the corner of the dinner-table to
fan away the flies, she was a picture from which it was dif
ficult to turn away. Her little yellow headdress suited well
with her clear brown complexion and large soft black eyes ;
nothing that she could at all understand of the conversation
escaped her, while she never intermitted her. waving of the
huge brush of peacock's feathers. Her face was then com
posed in its intelligence, for she stood by her mistress's
elbow ; a station where she seemed to think no harm could
befall her. Alas ! she has lost her kind mistress. Amid
the many sad thoughts which thronged into my mind when
I heard of the death of this lady, one of the wisest and best
of American women, I own that some of my earliest regrets
were for little Ailsie ; and when I think of her sensibility,
her beauty, and the dreadful circumstances of her parent
age, as told me by her mistress, I am almost in despair
about her future lot ; for what can her master, with all his
goodness, do for the forlorn little creature's protection?
Z 2

270 WESTERN TRAVEL.
None but a virtuous mistress can fully protect a female
slave, and that too seldom.
Ailsie was born on an estate in Tennessee. Her father
is a white gentleman not belonging to the family, her mother
the family cook. The cook's black husband cherished such
a deadly hatred against this poor child as to be for ever
threatening her life, and she was thought to be in such dan
ger from his axe that she was sent down the river to be
taken into the family where I saw her. What a cruel
world, what a hard human life must Ailsie find that she is
born into !
Such facts, occurring at every step, put the stranger on
the watch for every revelation of the feelings of the masters
about the relation of the two races. Some minute circum
stances surprised me in this connexion. At the American
Theatre in New-Orleans, one of the characters in the play
which my party attended was a slave, one of whose speeches
was, " I have no business to think and feel."
At a dinner-party where three negroes were waiting, and
where Ailsie stood fanning, a. gentleman of very high official
rank told a facetious story, at which everybody laughed
heartily (being, indeed, quite unable to help it, the manner
of the narrator was so droll) except a gentleman next me
who had once been a slavetrader. The senator told us of
a couple from the Green Island, Pat and Nancy, who had
settled on the Mississippi, and, in course of time (to use the
language of the region), " acquired six children and nine ne
groes." Pat had a mind to better his fortunes, and to go
unencumbered higher up the river; and he therefore ex
plained his plans to Narfcy, finishing with, " and so, my dar-
lin', I'll lave you ; but I'll do my best by you ; I'll lave you
the six dear, nate, pretty little childer, and I'll take the nine
nasty dirty negroes." While every other American at the
table laughed without control, I saw my neighbour, the for
mer slavetrader, glance up at the negroes who were in at
tendance, and use a strong effort not to laugh.
The stranger has great difficulty in satisfying himself as
to the bounds of the unconsciousness of oppression which
he finds urged as the exculpatory plea of the slaveholder,
while he mourns over it as the great hinderance in the way
of social reformation. It has been seen that an audience at
the theatre will quietly receive a hit which would subject

NEW-ORLEANS. 271
the author to punishment if he were an abolitionist. When
I listened to the stories told by ladies to each other in their
morning calls, showing the cleverness of their slaves, I often
saw that they could not but be as fully convinced as I was that
their slaves were as altogether human as themselves. I
heard so many anecdotes — somewhat of the character of
the following — that I begaii to suspect that one use of slaves
is to furnish topics for the amusement of their owners.
Sam was sadly apt to get drunk, and had been often re
proved by his master on that account. One day his master
found him intoxicated, and cried out, " What, drunk again,
Sam ? I scolded you for being drunk last night, and here
you are drunk again." " No, massa, same drunk, massa ;
same drunk."
But enough of this dark side of the social picture. I find
myself dwelling long upon it, and frequently recurring to it,
because all other subjects shrink into insignificance beside
it ; but these others must not be forgotten.
The gay visiting season at New-Orleans was over before
we arrived, but we were in several parties. The division
between the American and French factions is visible even in
the drawing-room. The French complain that the Ameri
cans will not speak French ; will not meet their neighbours
even half way in accommodation of speech. The Ameri
cans ridicule the toilet practices of the French ladies ; their
liberal use of rouge and pearl powder. If the French ladies
do thus beautify themselves, they do it with great art. I
could not be quite sure of the fact in any one instance,
while I am disposed to believe it from the clumsy imitation
of the art which I saw in the countenance of an American
rival or two. I beheld with strong disgust the efforts of a
young lady from Philadelphia to make herself as French as
possible by these disagreeable means. She was under
twenty, and would have been rather pretty if she had given
herself a fair chance ; but her coarsely-painted eyebrows,
daubed cheeks, and powdered throat inspired a disgust
which she must be singularly unwise not to have anticipated.
If this were a single case it would not be worth mentioning ;
but I was told by a resident that it is a common practice for
young ladies to paint both white and red, under the idea of
accommodating themselves to the French manners of- the
place. They had better do it by practising the French lan
guage than by copying the French toilet. New-Orleans is

272 WESTERN TRAVEL.
the only place in the United States where I am aware of
having seen a particle of rouge.
Large parties are much alike everywhere, and they leave
no very distinct impression. Except for the mixture of lan
guages, and the ample provision of ices, fans, and ventila
tors, the drawing-room assemblages of New-Orleans bear a
strong resemblance to the routs and dinner-parties of a coun
try town in England. Our pleasantest days in the great
Southern city were those which we spent quietly in the
homes of intimate acquaintances. I vividly remember one
which I was told was a true Louisiana day. We ladies car
ried our workbags, and issued forth by eleven o'clock, calling
by the way for a friend, Ailsie's mistress . The house we were
to visit was a small shaded dwelling, with glass doors open
ing into a pretty garden. In a cool parlour we sat at work,
talking of things solemn and trivial, of affairs native and for
eign, till dinner, which was at two. We were then joined
by the gentlemen. We left the dinner-table early, and the
gentlemen trundled rocking-chairs and low stools into the
garden, where we sat in the shade all the afternoon, the la
dies working, the gentlemen singing Irish melodies, telling
good native stories, and throwing us all into such a merry
mood, that we positively refused the siesta which we were
urged to take, and forgot what a retribution we might expect
from the moschetoes for sitting so long under the trees.
After tea we got to the piano, and were reminded at last by
the darkness of the number of hours which this delightful
Louisiana visit had consumed. We all walked home to
gether through the quiet streets, the summer lightning quiv
ering through the thick trees in singular contrast with the
steady moonlight.
We should have liked to spend every day thus, with friends
who always made us forget that we were far from home ;
but a traveller's duty is to see every variety of society which
comes within his reach. I was sought by some, and met
accidentally with other persons who were on the eve of de
parture for Texas. Attempts were made to induce me to go
myself, and also to convince me of the eligibility of the
country as a place of settlement for British emigrants, in
the hope that the arrival of a cargo of settlers from England
might afford fo the Texans a plea of countenance from the
British government. The subject of Texas is now so well
understood, that there is no occasion to enlarge upon the

NEW-ORLEANS. 273
slate of the question as it was two years and a half ago ;
and besides, if I were to giVF~a precise account of the con
versations between myself and the friends of the Texan ag
gression, my story would not be believed. The folly and
romance of some of the agents employed, and the villany
which peeped out of every admission extorted from the ad
vocates of the scheme, would make my readers as astonished
as I was myself, that any attempts should be made in the
neighbourhood of the scene to gain the sympathy of stran
gers who were at all above the rank of knaves and fools.
Suffice it that one class of advocates told me that I should
be perfectly safe there, as the inhabitants were chiefly per
sons who could fight bravely against the Mexicans, from
having nothing to lose, and from their having been compelled
to leave the United States by their too free use of arms :
while the opposite species of agent enlarged, not only on the
beauty of the sunsets and the greenness of the savannahs,
but on the delightful security of living under the same laws
as the people of the United States, and amid a condition of
morals kept perfectly pure by Colonel Austin's practice of
having every person whom he conceived to have offended
whipped at the cart's tail ; the fact being carefully concealed
that Colonel Austin was at that time, and had been for two
years, in jail in the Mexican capital.
Our friends indulged us in what they knew to be our fa
vourite pleasure, in country drives. There can be no great
choice of drives in the neighbourhood of a city which stands
in a swamp ; but such places as were attainable we reached.
One was a ropewalk, 1200 feetlong, under a roof. It look
ed picturesque, like every other ropewalk that I ever saw ;
but what struck me most about it was the sudden and pro
found repose we plunged into from the bustle of the city.
The cottages of the negroes were imbowered in green, and
the whole place had a tropical air, with its thickets of fig and
catalpa, and its rows of Pride-of-India trees. This last tree
looks to my eye like a shrub which has received mistaken
orders to grow into a tree. Its fragrance is its great charm.
The mixture of its lilach flowers with its green leaves im
pairs the effect of the foliage, as far as colour is concerned ;
and the foliage is, besides, not massy enough. A single
sprig of it is beautiful ; and, probably, its fragrance propi
tiates the eyes of those who plant it, for I found it considered
a beautiful tree. The dark shades of these thickets are en-

274 WESTERN TRAVEL.
livened by a profusion of roses, and the air is fanned by
myriads of insects' wings. How the negroes make friend
ship with the tribes of insects which drive the white man to
forego the blessing of natural shade, I could never under
stand ; but the black never looks more contented than when
he shrouds himself in rank vegetation, and lives in a concert
of insect chirping, droning, and trumpeting.
We were taken to the Battle-ground, the native soil of
General Jackson's political growth. Seeing the Battle
ground was all very well ; but my delight was in the drive to
it, with the Mississippi on the right hand, and on the left gar
dens of roses which bewildered the imagination. I really
believed at the time that I saw more roses that morning than
during the whole course of my life before. Gardens are so
rare in America, from want of leisure and deficiency of la
bour, that, when they do occur, they are a precious luxury
to the traveller, especially when they are in their spring
beauty. In the neighbourhood of Mobile, my relative, who
has a true English love of gardening, had introduced the
practice ; and I there saw villas and cottages surrounded
with a luxuriant growth of Cherokee roses, honeysuckles,
and myrtles, while groves of orange-trees appeared in the
background ; but not even these equalled what I saw, this
warm 4th of May* °n our way to the Battle-ground. One
villa, built by an Englishman, was obstinately inappropriate
to the scene and climate ; red brick, without gallery, or even
eaves or porch ; the mere sight of it was scorching. All
the rest were an entertainment to the eye as they stood,
white and cool, amid their flowering magnolias, and their
blossoming alleys, hedges, and thickets of roses. In re
turning, we alighted at one of these delicious retreats, and
wandered about, losing each other among the thorns, the
ceringas, and the wilderness of shrubs. We met in a grot
to, under the. summer-house, cool with a greenish light, and
veiled at its entrance with a tracery of creepers. There we
lingered, amid singing or silent dreaming. There seemed
to be too little that was real about the place for ordinary
voices to be heard speaking about ordinary things.
The river was rising, as we were told in a tone of con
gratulation. The eddies would be filled, and our voyage
expedited. The canes in the sugar-grounds were showing
themselves above the soil ; young sprouts that one might
almost see grow. A negro was feed to gather flowers for

NEW-ORLEANS. 275
us, and he filled the carriage with magnolia, honeysuckle,
and roses, grinning the while at our pleasure, and at his own
good luck in falling in with us.
The Battle-ground is rather more than four miles from
the city. We were shown the ditch and the swamp by
which the field of action was bounded on two sides, and some
remains of the breastwork of earth which was thrown up.
There has been great exaggeration about the cotton-bags, of
which there were only a few in a line with the earthen de
fence, instead of an entire breastwork, as has been supposed
in all the jokes and all the admiration which have been ex
pended on the expedient. It was a deadly battle-field. It
makes the spectator shudder to see the wide open space,
the unsheltered level, over which the British soldiers were
compelled to march to certain destruction. Never was
greater bravery shown by soldiers ; and never, perhaps, was
bravery more abused by the unskilfulness of leaders. The
result proves this. The British killed were nearly 3000 :
the Americans had six killed and seven wounded. By all
accounts, General Jackson showed consummate ability
throughout the whole brief campaign, and the British leaders
an imbecility no less remarkable.
I was shown a house on a plantation where, twelve days
before the battle, the son of the proprietor was quietly dining
at one o'clock, when a slave ran in and told him that some
men in red coats were in the yard. The young man in
stantly comprehended that the British had captured the
American scouts. He bolted through the window, and into a
canoe, and crossed the river amid a shower of balls, seized
a horse, and galloped to the city. The troops, dispersed on
different points, were collected by drum and bell ; and, be
tween two o'clock and eleven at night, the city was made
ready to abide the enemy's approach. It is still incompre
hensible to the Americans why the British, who actually did
throw a party over the river, did not all step ashore on the
opposite side of the Mississippi, and quietly march the four
miles up to the city, and into it. It could have offered no
defence, nor was there any impediment by the way.
The headquarters of both generals are very conspicuous
on the plain. Sir Edward Pakenham and a party of his
officers were spied by the Americans standing in the bal
cony of the house they inhabited. A gunner was ordered
to take aim at them. Seeing the importance of the shot, he

276 WESTERN TRAVEL.
was flurried, and struck the river a mile off. He was or
dered to retire. He knew that this was the crisis of his pro
fessional fate, and implored that he might be granted one
more chance. He then hit the pillar which supported the
balcony, immediately under the feet of the group of officers,
who hurried pellmell into the house.
After eleven days of housekeeping in New-Orleans we
were obliged to depart, having been fortunate enough to se
cure berths in a capital boat which started northward on the
6lh of May. The slaves in our temporary abode had served
us intelligently and well. Wishing to see what they could
do, we did not give any orders about our table. We were
rarely at home at dinner, but our breakfasts and occasional
dinners were more luxurious than if we had provided for
ourselves. Excellent coffee, French bread, radishes, and
strawberries at breakfast ; and at dinner, broth, fowls, beef
steak, with peas, young asparagus, salad, new potatoes, and
spinach, all well cooked ; claret at dinner, and coffee worthy
of Paris after it ; this wa3 the kind of provision with which
we were favoured. Everything was done to make us cool.
The beds were literally as hard as the floor. We had a
bath of the coldest water prepared morning and night ; all
the doors and windows were kept open, and the curtains
drawn, to establish draughts and keep out the sun. There
was ice in the water-jug, ice on the lump of butter, ice in
the wineglass, and icecream for dessert.
Abroad, all was, as in every other American city, hospi
tality and gayety. I had rather dreaded the visit to New-
Orleans, and went more from a sense of duty than from in
clination. A friendship that I formed there, though already
eclipsed by death, left me no feeling but rejoicing that I had
gone ; and I also learned much that was useful in helping
me to interpret some things which met my observation both
previously and subsequently. But my strongest impression
of New-Orleans is, that while it affords an instructive study,
and yields some enjoyment to a stranger, it is the last place
in which men are gathered together where one who prizes
his humanity would wish to live.

END OF VOL. I.