nationalized. I have met with but too many in this country who have not advanced beyond the former. I must observe also, that the European farmer and mechanic are usually far behind the American in general and practical knowledge, as well as enterprise. You find in the working farmer of these states, a store of information, a dexterity in all the manual arts, and often a high tone of national feeling, to which you will hardly find a parallel among the same class elsewhere. His advice and assistance, always freely given to those who seek it, will be found of infinite service to a stranger; it will often save him from many rash speculations, at the same time that it will dispose him to see things in their true light, and to open his eyes and heart to all the substantial advantages that surround him.

It is amusing to observe the self-importance with which the European emigrant often arrives in these states. The Frenchman imagines, that he is to new-model the civic militia, or, at the least, the whole war department in the city of Washington; the Englishman, that he is to effect a revolution in agriculture by introducing the cultivation of the turnip and the planting of hedge-rows; the Scotchman, that he is to double the national produce by turning out the women to work in the fields; and even the poor German conceives, that he is to give new sinews to the state, heighten the flavour of

the Kentucky tobacco, and expand the souls of the citizens who smoke it. *

France and Ireland, the former from her political revolutions, and the latter from her misfortunes, have sent, among the crowd of poorer emigrants, many accomplished and liberal minded gentlemen, who have assumed a high place in this community; but, till very lately, Federal America has seen few of our countrymen except the vulgar and the illiterate. The exceptions to this rule, however, are now multiplying yearly; this will consequently make this nation better known, and therefore more esteemed in our island. A friend

I

The German self-importance has lately been most amusingly set forth in the work of a M. Von Fürstenwärther, entitled, The German in America. His observations, written after three months' residence in the United States, with scarcely a smattering of the English language, are truly entertaining. cannot forbear quoting a sentence. "If the Americans are justly proud of their civil freedom, and of their freedom in thinking, printing, and speaking, and in the social life, they still know not that higher freedom of the soul which is to be found only in Europe; — and, I say it boldly, most abundantly in Germany." I am indebted for all the acquaintance that I possess with this curious production to a paper in the North American Review. This work, conducted by Professor Everett, of the University of Cambridge, Boston, may be read with almost equal interest in either hemisphere. I pretend not to be able to appreciate all its merits; but those who are not qualified to do justice to its profound learning, must still admire its just and candid criticism, delivered with gentlemanly forbearance; its elegant diction, liberal views, and sound philosophy.

to the latter can perhaps hardly rejoice in this; to see England drained of her best citizens may justly excite the grief of her patriots, and the jealousy of her rulers; and yet what would the latter have; should these Hampdens stay, it might be to "push" them "from their stools," as their fathers did their predecessors: they depart, and the mighty are left to sit in state until their "stools" shall break down beneath them. It is idle for travellers to deface this Hesperia; they may deceive the many ignorant, and a few wise, but what then? Are the poor made richer, and the dissatisfied more content. The farmer complains that he sows and reaps for others; that the clergy, the state, and the parish, carry off the produce, and leave him the gleanings. "It is not thus," he observes, "in America." He is answered that, in America, "he will not meet with even an approach to simplicity and honesty of mind;" that "a non-intercourse act seems to have passed against the sciences, morals, and literature;" that "in Philadelphia the colour of the young females is produced by art; and that " every man in the United States thinks himself arrived at perfection.*" Now were all this nonsense true, what answer were it to the observation of the farmer? He objects to tythes, taxes, and poor-rates; and he is told of sciences and morals, and paint upon ladies' faces. I laugh, but truly there is more cause

*See Fearon's Sketches of America.

to sigh. Are the English yeomen kept to their sacred hearths only by such gossipping as this? Must they be frightened to stay at home with scare-crows that a child might laugh at? Truly the people who are thus cozened, are more insulted than the people who are thus libelled. Could the graves yield up their dead, how would the sturdy patriots of England's better days look upon these things?

268

LETTER XV.

MR. GOURLAY. UPPER CANADA.— POOR EMIGRANTS. DESCENT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.- MONTREAL AND LOWER

CANADA.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Montreal, September, 1819.

I SHALL send you few details respecting our route along the Canada frontier; both because I find little leisure for making notes, and because I can impart little that is new.

I was surprised to find much discontent prevailing among the poorer settlers in Upper Canada: I could not always understand the grounds of their complaint, but they seemed to consider Mr. Gourlay as having well explained them. Mr. Gourlay, you would see, was prosecuted, and his pamphlets declared libels: not having read them, I cannot pronounce upon either their merits or demerits; but they certainly appear to have spoken the sentiments of the poorer settlers, whose cause he had abetted against the more powerful land-holders, land-surveyors, and government agents. One ground of complaint, if just, should certainly be attended to, and might, one would think, without much difficulty,-that the emigrants are often sent so far into the interior, and at so great a distance one from another, as to be exposed