Here it is thought nothing of: for in this neighbourhood there has just been a "prize fight," well attended by noblemen and gentlemen, who were on the most friendly terms with all the gamblers, blacklegs, and rascals that frequent these disgusting exhibitions." Such a journal would form a worthy counterpart to many of those which Englishmen have written about America. Had no other description of travellers visited the Continent of Europe, the people of England would have had about the same idea of the French and Italians, that they have at present of the Americans, Prejudice and former habits give a great bias to the accounts even of the most enlightened; and we rarely find that the reports of any two men who have seen the same country agree in every point. Thus when I was in the Western States, if any. thing occurred which obliged me to stop for a day or two at the log-cabin of a settler, I always found plenty of amusement and occupation, in hunting, or in collecting subjects of Natural History. But if any one had been in the same situation, who could not use the rifle, who cared nothing about natural history, and whose only object was to look for a spot where an emigrant could fix himself, he would of course have found it almost impossible to get through the day, and, without intending to draw an unfair picture, would have said, that of all horrid places none could be so intolerable as a cabin in the Backwoods. But many of our travellers have, I am sorry to say, been guilty of intentional mistatements. Finding themselves disappointed, either in their pecuniary speculations, or in their ideas of the advantages of emigration, they have wilfully calumniated the people of the country. Moreover there are still in England a few miscreants who detest free institutions, and who maintain with all their might "the right divine to govern wrong." To these men the rising power and importance of the United States is gall and wormwood; and accordingly they have echoed back with redoubled clamour, all the calumnies that have been uttered against the Americans, and with a hatred unworthy of the believers in a Religion of peace, have laboured to excite enmity between us and our Transatlantic brethren. On this subject the intelligent author of the Sketch Book very properly observes: "The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven around us, are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume of refutation." * Sketch Book, page 108. The whole of this excellent chapter entitled English writers on America, should be read by every one. It is lamentable to see that such writers, as those Mr. Irving alludes to, have but too well succeeded in exciting feelings of hostility against America. Insult has provoked retaliation, and has consequently produced many works, in which Great Britain is held up to ridicule and detestation. I will mention as instances" Old England by a New England man," and "the address delivered, on the anniversary of the declaration of independence, by John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State." These amiable productions of national hatred deserve to be placed on the same shelf with the works of Ashe, Fearon, and Welby. The people of England are however beginning to view the United States in a fairer light, and in common with the Americans themselves, seem at last disposed to treat all such calumnious publications with merited contempt. For my own part, although I went to America full of prejudice against the nation, yet I returned with very different impressions, having been always treated with the most unbounded hospitality and kindness. I am confident, that when many enlightened travellers have visited that great Republic, Englishmen will begin to esteem and respect, a people, connected with them, not only by lan This, which is a disgrace to the secretary both in point of language and matter, was printed at Washington in July, 1821; and would afford a fine treat to the Quarterly. guage, manners, and laws, but also, by that strongest of all ties, Mutual Interest. In contemplating the grand spectacle afforded by this rising, though as yet only infant nation, every unprejudiced Englishman must rejoice, when pointing to it he can exclaim-This was founded by my countrymen ! C. Baldwin, Printer, THE END. OE A A^ |