ment.

government and others have been collecting this legal tender I.e. friends of for several mo's [months] past, expecting that in those royal governplaces in the possession of the British Army it will be of equal value with gold and silver. But from the enemies of the British constitution among ourselves, who give out their hard money for goods, from the almost universal preference of private interest to the public good, and from a deficiency of public virtue, it is highly probable the paper money will fall, and those newcomers having extracted all our hard money, will leave us in a situation not long to survive our Ruin.

Diary of Robert Morton, in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Philadelphia, 1877), 1, 31-33.

63. A Ballad on Cornwallis (1781)

WHEN British troops first landed here,

WHE

With Howe commander o'er them,
They thought they'd make us quake for fear,

And carry all before them;

With thirty thousand men or more,

And she without assistance,

America must needs give o'er,

And make no more resistance.

But Washington, her glorious son,
Of British hosts the terror,
Soon, by repeated overthrows,
Convinc'd them of their error;
Let Princeton, and let Trenton tell,
What gallant deeds he's done, sir,

And Monmouth's plains where hundreds fell,
And thousands more have run, sir.

ANONY

This

MOUS.
is one among

a number of
songs com-
posed to

commemorate Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. It was published soon after that

event and sung to the air of "Mag gie Lauder," at that time very popular in both armies.

For Yorktown, see Contemporaries, II,

ch. xxxiv.

Cornwallis, too, when he approach'd

Virginia's old dominion,

Thought he would soon her conqu'ror be;

And so was North's opinion.

From State to State with rapid stride,

His troops had march'd before, sir,
Till quite elate with martial pride,
He thought all dangers o'er, sir.

But our allies, to his surprise,

The Chesapeake had enter'd;
And now too late, he curs'd his fate,
And wish'd he ne'er had ventur'd,
For Washington no sooner knew
The visit he had paid her,
Than to his parent State he flew,
To crush the bold invader.

When he sat down before the town,

His Lordship soon surrender'd;

His martial pride he laid aside,

And cas'd the British standard;

Gods! how this stroke will North provoke,
And all his thoughts confuse, sir!
And how the Peers will hang their ears,
When first they hear the news, sir.

Be peace, the glorious end of war,
By this event effected;
And be the name of Washington,

To latest times respected;
Then let us toast America,

And France in union with her ;

And may Great Britain rue the day

Her hostile bands came hither.

Frank Moore, Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution (New York, 1856), 367–369.

CHAPTER X-THE CONFEDERA-
TION AND THE CONSTITUTION

I'

64. What is an American? (1782)

WISH I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands

on this continent [America]. . . Here he sees the industry

of his native country displayed in a new manner. . . Here
he beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields,
an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads,
orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years
ago all was wild, woody and uncultivated! . . . He is
arrived on a new continent; a modern society offers itself
to his contemplation, different from what he had hitherto
seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who
possess every thing, and of a herd of people who have noth-
ing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings,
no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power
giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers
employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The
rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as
they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all
tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida.
are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense terri-
tory, communicating with each other by means of good roads
and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild gov-
ernment, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power,
because they are equitable. We are all animated with the

We

Forty years later these

shores had a

spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself. . . . A pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles our towns afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country. . . . Here man

is free as he ought to be; nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are. Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor large popula- the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain? for no European foot has as yet travelled half the extent of this mighty continent !

tion.

The next wish of this traveller will be to know whence came all these people? they are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen.

By what invisible power has this surprising metamorphosis been performed? By that of the laws and that of their industry. The laws, the indulgent laws, protect them as they arrive, stamping on them the symbol of adoption; they receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure them lands; those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require. This is the great operation daily performed by our laws. From whence proceed these laws? From our government. Whence that government? It is derived from the original genius and strong desire of the people ratified and confirmed by the crown. This is the great chain which links us all, this is the picture which every province exhibits. . . .

. . . He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the

new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit. The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children, who before in vain demanded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicksome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord. Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. - This is an American.

J. Hector St. John [de Crèvecoeur], Letters from an American Farmer (London, 1782), 45–53 passim.