ism; nor famished by our poverty; nor devoured by disease. Now, it is really too much to be reproached with poverty by the loyal subject of a monarchy, who counts among his fellow subjects millions of paupers, maintained by an assessment on the community of nearly ten millions of pounds sterling. The author of this intrepid sentence must have looked around for an extraordinary burst of applause; and probably received it from his happy and more prosperous countrymen.

In the review given in this British Journal of the travels of the child "Frederick," there are several striking examples of English blindness to clear and unquestioned facts; and of a reckless audacity of assertion, in the very front of evidence and probability. It is our intention to notice some of these, because they come to the world under the sanction of an authority certainly much respected, and much entitled to respect, in its general bearing and character. Before we enter upon this duty, we have real pleasure in admitting, that the author of the article has not been backward in displaying the vast physical means of greatness enjoyed by the United States; and in acknowledging the industry and ability with which they have been, and continue to be, brought into operation and use. We and our doings, in this respect, are spread before the world; and have grown to a size not to be overlooked or safely misrepresented. The attack is made upon subjects not so important, so obvious, or extensively known and understood; but still sufficient to gratify, in a degree, the morbid English appetite. We have outlived a host of the slanders and slanderers that once annoyed us; and every year narrows the ground of attack; it is gradually washed away by the power of truth and time. The narration of De Roos, and the work of some anonymous pseudo-German, entitled "North America and the United States as they are," are placed at the head of the article in the Quarterly, to which we are about to draw the attention of our readers. With these profound and brilliant travellers we have nothing to do; our business is with the Reviewer, who has used them merely as an introduction to his own sagacious and veracious remarks upon our country.

The Reviewer passes leniently enough, but certainly without approbation, over the pert nonsense of De Roos, endeavouring to cover him by a truism which has no application to the labours of that distinguished tourist. "If," says the indulgent critic, "the book itself be good, and found to convey facts not known before," we should look at the shortness of the time in no other light than as a proof of the activity and industry of the traveller." This appears to us to be very like arrant nonsense. A traveller tells me that he jumped fairly over St. Peter's, at Rome; and "in common courtesy" I reply, if it is true, we should consider it" in no other light than as a proof of his activity." We have

thought there is a distinction between the possible and the impossible; and no courtesy requires of me to confound them, and give a qualified credence to what I know cannot be true.

We entirely concur with the Reviewer in rejecting the statements of "the Fearons and Fauxes," although we cannot perceive that their observations were "meant to be complimentary;" and we also adopt his opinion, that "we are still in want of a clear, expanded, and intelligent view of this great and growing republic, from the pen of a gentleman." The four men of rank and admitted talent, who "some two years ago traversed the greater part of the United States," we believe, had better opportunities and better dispositions to speak of us as we are, than any of "the superabundance of English travellers," who have become the organs of calumnious misrepresentations, to widen differences between nations that every just and liberal feeling ought to draw together; inflaming animosities which even self-interest would allay; and planting prejudices and hatreds to misguide and afflict posterity. If we repel such attacks resentfully; if we extend that resentment, beyond the immediate offenders, to the whole people by whom these vipers are cherished, and their poison greedily swallowed, we act but upon a natural feeling of self-defence, and a warranted retaliation. When English gentlemen, travelling through our country, shall render us more justice, and the English feeling be corrected on our subject, we shall cheerfully meet the conciliating spirit; and forbear from recriminations forced from us by goads and stings.

It is a truth, that there is among the people of the United States, no ungenerous hostility to those of England; we feel, in the midst of injury and insult, the influence of a common ancestry; a common language, religion and literature; and they will have our kindness and respect whenever they shall choose to deserve and value them. If we are rivals in science, ingenuity, and industry, we well may be so, with a just and generous emulation, and not with a persecuting, indignant hostility. In proof of the general prevalence of our kind disposition towards Englishmen, we may refer to their various travellers who have visited our country; who, with the exception of some that were entitled to no respect in any country, agree in strong acknowledgments of the good treatment they received every where. One of them, a British officer, says that he landed in America expecting neglect and even insult wherever he should be known. On leaving us, he declares with great sensibility, that from the moment he set his foot on our shore, to that of his departure, he met with nothing but the most gratifying attention, liberality, and kindness. It should not be overlooked, that he travelled through our roughest western population. The four gentlemen of rank and talent, alluded to by the Reviewer, will doubtless bear the same testi

mony, for they frequently did so; the most cordial hospitality was freely accorded to them; and their manner of receiving it, gave universal satisfaction. How often was it remarked, si sic omnes. We assure the Reviewer, that if our "national feeling," towards England, "has generally been considered as any thing but friendly," it is not our fault, but because Englishmen have, generally, manifested no disposition to engender or reciprocate a friendly feeling with us. Precisely in this spirit, we proceed to our remarks upon the review before us, eager to acknowledge every act or phrase which evinces any kindness; and equally determined to repel in plain terms every attempt to injure or degrade us.

The Reviewer, after giving a cursory account of the improvements now in progress in the United States; and some well deserved compliments to the patriotism and long-sighted sagacity of the "great and good" Washington on that subject; offers his speculations on the probable permanency of our republican, united government. This is a favourite topic with foreign politicians, although it is the one of which they have the least knowledge. The foundation and structure of the European monarchies are so unlike those of our government; their political principles and social institutions so dissimilar; the modus operandi of political power in its practical application to the rights and business of the community, is so peculiar to ourselves, that a stranger, especially the subject of a monarchy, will always reason from false premises in his conjecture about the future condition of the United States. It is even useless to attempt an explanation to such a listener; we must trust to time and events to refute the prognostications of our disunion, as we have as to other confident prophecies of our ruin since our first existence; and we have no fears on this subject; and with the knowledge we have of the fixed and growing attachment of our people to their happy and prosperous government, we feel no more alarm from the gloomy forebodings of European theorists, than from the occasional menaces of some of our own heated politicians. We understand exactly how the machine works-what is its strength, and how it is balanced and regulated; and the experience of half a century has confirmed our confidence in its fitness for all the purposes of a just, wise, and efficient administration of our affairs at home and abroad. The anticipations of the enemies of our republic have been utterly dissipated, and the best hopes of its friends more than realized.

The Reviewer has taken upon himself to furnish his readers with a piece of information, so important, that he should have favoured them with the authority from which he has derived it; and he has presumed too much on their credulity, when he offers nothing to support it, but the assertion that "it is well

known." He says, "The Confederacy, it is well known, was on the very verge of being dissolved, when, at the conclusion of the late general war, from a generous feeling, and, we must say, a heroic spirit of forgiveness, England held out favourable terms of peace; what England might at that time have done most justly, she could have done with all imaginable ease; namely, crushed the whole fabric of the federal government." We challenge the Reviewer to produce, even from their Fearons and Fauxes, a grosser example of careless audacity; of English gullibility and nonsense, than is found in this sentence. That there was much disaffection in the United States, to the late war with England, is most true; but not more than in England, in her war with revolutionary France; and that, towards the close of that war, the federal finances were exceedingly embarrassed, and straightened, and the public credit alarmingly reduced, is also true; but that a dissolution of the confederacy was contemplated, or even feared, by any party, or considerable body of men, is without evidence, as it is without truth. It may have been "well known" in England, where probably it was devoutly desired, notwithstanding her boasted generosity, and heroic forgiveness; but here it was never seriously apprehended; on the contrary, that war has always been considered, and truly was, an infallible test of the strength of our Union, and the devotion of our citizens to their Constitution, under a deep and wide spread difference of opinion, on the policy of the administration, in their declaration of war. If, to be sure, the Reviewer may be allowed to justify his assertion by the prophecies, anticipations, and denunciations of party journals, during a period of great political violence and heat; or by speeches made, under the same excitement, on the floor of Congress; then we reply to him, that the British government has been ruined and dissolved, a hundred times, by the same testimony; and we could turn to scores of pamphlets, and volumes of parliamentary arguments and harangues, by some of England's greatest men, and most approved patriots, to show her Constitution overthrown, her liberties annihilated, and all the political relations and compacts, between the government and the people, broken and gone. But all this is nonsense; and the Reviewer, who receives it so graciously, in condemnation of our country, would laugh it to scorn, if applied to his own.

But even this is not the most ridiculous part of the paragraph we have quoted. England, it seems, more sharp-sighted to our interests, than we were ourselves; anxiously perceiving our danger, and alarmed at the prospect of our impending dissolution, "from a generous feeling, and heroic spirit of forgiveness," held out to us favourable terms of peace; "forbearing to do what she could have done most justly, and with all imaginable ease;" namely, "crushed

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the whole fabric of the federal government." To cap the climax of this sublime absurdity, it is averred, that "ten thousand of the men that had fought at Waterloo, would have marched through North America." Every body remembers the like boast made by Burgoyne, about fifty years ago; and how it was verified, by the capture of himself, and his ten thousand! We will say nothing of the folly of talking of nations giving a favourable peace to an enemy, from motives of generosity and heroic forgiveness; of the greater folly of believing that England would give peace to us from such motives; and that she would give a favourable peace to a "feeble enemy," wholly at her mercy, only to preserve that enemy from absolute ruin; and that she would do all this without requiring from the prostrate foe a single sacrifice, or securing for herself a single benefit, as the reward of her generosity. No indemnity asked for her enormous expenditures; no security for the future, on the points of controversy; no surrender of a principle or pretension; but a peace as fully and fairly reciprocal, in all its terms and circumstances, as ever was made between two equal nations, standing on equal ground, equally independent and secure. Who is this Reviewer? In what obscure corner was he dozing, during the war of which he speaks so flippantly, that he is so ignorant of its events? Has he read nothing of its history; or has he forgotten all he has seen and read about it? Is he now to be told, for the first time, that England formed a new era on the ocean, and was defeated in almost every naval combat; that her frigates, believed to be invincible, fell, one after another, before the pine ships of the despised republic; that her sloops of war were captured by vessels of the same force and equipment; that her proud, and until now, unyielding flag, dropped from its towering height at the feet of the conqueror; that two English fleets were annihilated on the lakes; that two British armies, Wellington armies, were irretrievably beaten and repulsed; while her triumphs were principally confined to predatory excursions on our coast; to burning edifices, hitherto held safe from the rage of civilized warfare; to the capture of a single frigate, which threw the English nation into an ecstacy of joy? With all this unquestioned history before his eyes, this Reviewer asserts, we suppose seriously, that ten thousand Waterloo soldiers could have marched through America. The armies beaten at Plattsburgh and NewOrleans, will hardly thank their countryman for sinking them so far below the Waterloo soldiers.

The Reviewer gives us some credit for the extensive and magnificent communications forming between the distant parts of our vast empire, by roads and canals; not, however, without a reproach for suffering "year after year to pass away, before the attempt was made." He ought to have recollected, that a new coun