dividual who has curiosity and good humour enough to travel among strangers with his eyes in his head, and his heart in his hand; but how much more highly are they indebted to him who, to curiosity and good humour, unites every gift of the understanding, possesses all the wide range of knowledge, and inspires a foreign nation not only with respect for his own high merits, but for the country which gave him birth. Would a few more such individuals as General Bernard visit this republic, more would be done towards setting the seal of amity between the two hemispheres, than was effected by the treaty of Ghent, or than could be effected by any treaty by official authorities. It is governments that make war, and the same governments that make peace; but the peace they make is only a cessation of hostilities by fleets and armies ; they do not make friends, and I know not how it is that they contrive that the people under them shall never make friends either. In this country, however, you will remember that the government is identified with the people, it is their free voice and their efficient will; and to offend the one is to outrage the other. In the minds of no European people, therefore, can the abuses of malignity, or the misrepresentations of ignorance, rankle more deeply than in those of the Americans. They cannot say the misrepresentations made of our character and our laws have been drawn upon us by the acts of a government in which we had no share; on the contrary, they are ready to exclaim, "The vast Atlantic separates us from Europe-from "its clashing interests, its strifes, and its ambitions. "In peace, we have established our laws; in the spirit "of liberty and good will to man, we have framed "our constitution. The arms of our country have "been open to the unfortunate of every nation on "the earth. The stranger comes to us, and we re"ceive him, not as a stranger, but a brother. He sits "down among us a fellow-citizen, and in 66 peace and security gathers the fruits of his industry, professes "his opinions, and leaves a free inheritance to his "children." If the American thus speaks, who shall gainsay him. If he thus speaks, where is the generous European, the fair, the honourable man that will not acknowledge that he speaks justly, and that will not blush, if any of his countrymen have been found among the traducers of his nation? These observations have been drawn from me by a passage in your last letter. Had you not alluded to the little volume that lately found its way hither, neither should I. The credit that your letter and the letters of other trans-Atlantic friends lead me to think that Mr. Fearon has found in England, could alone have induced me to advert to him. When a friend put this little book in my hand, and told me with a smile to study his nation, I glanced at a few pages here and there, and smiled too. "It is to be regretted," said my friend, "that our country is visited by so many travellers of this description, and so few of any other kind. We are a young people, and therefore perhaps despised; we are a people fast growing in strength and prosperity, and therefore perhaps envied. We have doubtless errors; I never yet saw the nation that had them not; but it is equally certain that we have many virtues. virtues. An An enemy will see only the former; the friend who would wisely point out both, "nothing extenuating, nor setting down ought in malice," would do as kindly by us, as honourably by himself. Will no such man ever come from your country?" "I often lament," he again observed, "that we should be visited only by the poor or the busy, the prejudiced or the illiterate of the English nation. Their reports are received for lack of better, and form the texts from which the European journalists draw their reports of our character and our institutions. “All this were very ridiculous, if it were not very mischievous. Cutting words cut deep; and I fear that we are human enough to feel ourselves gradually estranged from a nation that was once our own, and for which we so long cherished an affection, that I am sure would have grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength, had not the pen yet more than the sword destroyed it." I have given you my friend's observations rather more in the form of an harangue than they were delivered, but I saw no reason for breaking them to introduce my own, which were not half so well worded, or so much to the purpose. : 48 LETTER V. VISIT TO THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA. PENAL CODE. - DR. RUSH. REMARKS ON ABOLITION OF THE FRIENDS. -LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS OF WILLIAM OF THE SLAVES CONDITION OF THE NEGRO IN THE NORTHERN STATES. Philadelphia, May, 1819. MY DEAR FRIEND, THE rapidity of our motions since our arrival in this city, and the kind attentions of those families to whom our New-York and Jersey friends had supplied us with letters, and of others who, without the receipt of such credentials, sought us in our character of strangers and foreigners, has left me little leisure, not for remembering my friends in the old world, but for affording them written proofs of remembrance. I had been led to expect that the citizens of Philadelphia were less practised in courtesy to strangers than those of New-York. Our experience does not confirm the remark. We have only to bear testimony to their civility. There is at first something cold and precise in the general air and manner of the people, particularly so when compared to the cheerfulness and open-heartedness of the natives of New-York; perhaps too we unfairly contrasted them with those of the amiable |