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ART. VIII.Letters from North America, written during a Tour in the United States and Canada. By Adam Hodgson. 2 vols. 8vo. London,

1824.

An Excursion through the United States and Canada, during the Years 1822-23. By an English Gentleman. 8vo. pp. 511, London, 1824. THE institutions and condition of the United States attract

more and more attention in Europe, and especially in England, in proportion as the all-important subjects of government and political economy are gaining upon public notice. Every year adds something to our knowledge of the Great Republic; and every addition to our knowledge removes some portion of the ignorance and prejudice which have so long prevailed with regard to our American brethren. To assist in dispelling what remains of foolish national antipathy, misconception, and error, on both sides, will always be a leading object with us; and with this view we invite the attention of our readers to the volumes before us-not so much for the purpose of analysing their contents, for which we have but little space, as of noticing those subjects with respect to which the present works have contributed fresh information. For this purpose it will not be necessary to draw much on the reader's time.

A word or two with regard to the travellers themselves. Mr. Hodgson, we are given to understand, is a Liverpool merchant, trading to the United States. He seems to be a man of considerable literary reading, although not much given to political speculation; with the average portion of ignorance on political economy and politics; habitually attached to every thing English, from King, Lords, and Commons, to the corporation of Liverpool; of a religious turn of mind, bordering on fanaticism; but withal, a fair, candid, honest, and intelligent observer. The reader will not fail to remark the importance of such a man's testimony with regard to those great questions of religion, slavery, government, moral habits, and character of the American people, which have formed the chief points of difference between previous travellers. The "English Gentleman" is quite another sort of person. Bred at Eton and Cambridge, a mathematician and a scholar, he has since travelled over the greater part of Europe. He has picked up in the course of his reading and peregrinations, a great deal of. vague sentiment about liberty and equality, and is apt to treat many topics of common-place morals and religion in a manner which will acquire for him but little credit amongst the clerical members of his university. His book, though inferior to Mr. Hodgson's in many particulars, is not without merit on those subjects where his evidence is not weakened by his religious and political partialities.

In spite of this difference of character, the conclusions of our travellers, upon all the material points we intend to touch upon, are precisely similar. They entirely agree in their ultimate opinions as to the operation and effect of the government, and the state of the people.

The " English Gentleman" seems to have landed in America with the common expectation of being uncivilly received, by a coarse and unpolished people. These apprehensions were speedily done away with by the same friendly reception which we look for in civilized European countries. The general aspect of society in the large towns, both of the northern and southern States, and universally in the former, seems highly gratifying to those who, like ourselves, take a warm interest in the improvement of America. After an intimate intercourse of sixteen months, Mr. Hodgson expresses himself in strong terms of the politeness and good manners which prevail throughout the better classes, comprising the lawyers, merchants, and agriculturists." In a route of more than 7000 miles, of which I travelled nearly 2000 on horseback, and the rest in steam-boats and stages, I have found the various classes as accommodating and obliging as in England; sometimes, I confess, I have thought more so.' In this opinion his English servant, who accompanied him on his tour, and whose judgment, as respects his own class, is entitled to consideration, fully concurs: "He thought the Americans quite as ready to serve us and one ano ther as the English." Of course, no single description will suffice for the widely-extended population of the United States; but it is sufficiently accurate, to observe that there seems no particular exception to Mr. Hodgson's remarks throughout the three volumes before us. If the manners of the better classes are less polished and formal than those of the corresponding classes in England, and their education less regular and classical, it is observed" that their information is at least as general, although less scientific and profound." Of the ladies of this class Mr. Hodgson has given us a very agreeable character. He observes that they are lively and unreserved, easy in their manners, and gay and social in their dispositions; at the same time, they are very observant of the rules of female propriety; and if they ever displease, it is rather from indifference than from either bashfulness or effrontery. Their appearance is generally genteel and agreeable, and their figures and dress almost universally good. He sums up their character in a few words, as presenting" a very agreeable union of domestic habits and literary taste, and great kindness and simplicity of manners." His account of what are called the lower classes is still more

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flattering; they are distinguished from the corresponding classes of my countrymen (the little farmers, innkeepers, shopkeepers, clerks, mechanics, servants, and labourers) by greater acuteness and intelligence, more regular habits of reading, a wider range of ideas, and a greater freedom from prejudices, provincialism, and vulgarity.' "That such a people should feel sore at the absurd and unmannerly jokes and stupid misrepresentations which have so long been current in England, is not to be wondered at; and we are by no means surprised at Mr. Hodgson's remark that,

The Americans have been exasperated into unfriendly feelings by our real jealousy and apparent contempt; and their very sensibility to our good opinion, which they cannot conceal, has rendered the misrepresentations of our travellers and journalists the more irritating. Americans have often asked me, if we do not in England consider them a horde of savages; and when the question has been proposed to me by a fair lady, in a handsome drawing-room, furnished with every article of luxury which money could procure in London or Paris, I found no difficulty in acquiescing in the conclusion which she seemed to draw from a hasty glance around her, that such an idea would not be quite just.'

The absurdity of these calumnies might have been presumed from the acknowledged prosperity and information of the people. We have scarcely any idea, in Europe, of a population so instructed as that of the United States. The following is an extract from a speech of Mr. Webster, a distinguished member of Congress :

It is said, that in England not more than one child in fifteen possesses the means of being taught to read and write; in Wales, one in twenty; in France, until lately, when some improvement was made, not more than one in thirty-five. Now it is hardly too strong, to say, that in New England every child possesses such means. That which is elsewhere left to chance or charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property; and we look not to the question, whether he himself have or have not children, to be benefited by the education for which he pays.'

Such is the case in New England generally. In Connecticut, one of the New England States, the amount of the fund set aside for the purpose of general education, according to the commissioners' report in 1821, exceeds 1,800,000 dollars, which, at 5 per cent, would yield 25,0007. per annum for the purposes of education. The new states have made immense appropriations of land for the same purpose, which, although of little value at present, will shortly yield more than enough for the great object of universal instruction. The consequences of these wise pro

visions are abundantly apparent. Every citizen of the States can read. Our " English Gentleman" borrowed a volume of the Waverley novels from one of the sailors in the vessel which took him to America [p. 4]. Mr. Hodgson observes the universal prevalence of reading. In Vermont and Maine he found schools in every township. There were books in every inn and cottage. "At one place, where we changed horses, was the Life of Harriet Newell, Whitfield's Sermons, Young, &c.; at another, the poems of Walter Scott, the Pastor's Fireside, Blair's Lectures, Paley's Moral Philosophy, Darwin's Botanic Garden, Grammar, English Dictionary, and this in one room at a country inn." At an inn in another of the New England States he found “ Doddridge's Rise and Progress, other religious books, and the poems of Young and Walter Scott." To the west and south the literary taste changes, though the same love of reading prevails. Thus, at an inn in Tennessee Mr. Hodgson found amongst other books, Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Cicero, Dugald Stewart, Adam Smith, Ferguson's Astronomy, Rees's Encyclopadia, &c. which belonged to the landlord's son; and at the house of a farmer in Georgia, "whose wife was a half-bred Cherokee, and whose children were well-behaved, and better educated than those of many of our respectable farmers," he observed Robertson's America, the Spectator, and several periodical publications, together with the Bible, and other religious works. In the library of his landlord, in Alabama, he saw the Bible, the Koran, Nicholson's Encyclopaedia, Sterne, Burns, Cowper, and the acts of the Alabama legislature. "I mention these books," he observes, " as they form a sort of average of those which you generally find lying about in the country inns, and which are frequently mere stragglers from no despicable library in the landlord's bed-room. We extract a singular passage respecting the nation of the Creek Indians, amongst whom some active and benevolent missionaries are endeavouring to introduce the blessings of civilization :

Of the three districts or towns into which the 15,000 or 20,000 souls of this nation are divided, one has appropriated to the use of schools its annuity for seventeen years, of 2,000 dollars per annum, received from the United States for ceded lands; another, its annuity. of 1,000 dollars per annum, with the prospect of 1,000 more ; and one has requested the United States, not only to forbid the introduction of ammunition into the nation, that the hunter may be compelled to work, but to send their annuity in implements of husbandry. At a recent general council of the chiefs, 1,300 dollars in money, and upwards of eighty cows and calves, were subscribed for the use of schools, and the total contribution of the Choctaws to this object exceeds 70,000 dollars.

The state of morals varies so much in different parts of America, that no general description could be applicable to the whole. A habit of drinking prevails too extensively throughout the Union:

The habitual use of ardent spirits is, indeed, very general. Even in the eastern States it is not uncommon; but in the middle, and still more, in the southern States, it prevails to a lamentable extent. Under the denominations of anti-fogmatics, mint julep, and gin sling, copious libations are poured out on the altars of Bacchus, by votaries who often commence their sacrifices at an early hour in the morning, and renew them at intervals during the day; and yet I have not seen six instances of brutal intoxication since I landed in America,-nor, except among the poor corrupted frontier Indians, twenty cases in which I had reason to believe the faculties were in any degree disordered.'

With regard to the irregularities of sex, from Boston, a town of more than English puritanism, to New Orleans, a city of more than French laxity, every degree of restraint and indulgence may be found, which are prevalent in European countries. Pilfering, house-breaking, high-way robbery, and murder, are far less common than in England. Duelling, except in the eastern States, is more frequent, and far more barbarous and fatal. The use of profane language varies with the latitude; being very rare in the northern States, but prevailing" to an awful degree" on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

On the important topic of emigration we have little to add from our present authorities. The back settlements, if not the United States generally, are the Canaan, not of the capitalist, but the labourer. The condition of the latter seems prosperous throughout the Union. Our "English Gentleman" observes, that he " never saw a beggar in any part of the United States; nor was he ever asked for charity, but once, and that was by an Irishman." The unhealthiness of the rich soils in the southern States must be regarded as a great drawback upon their other advantages. According to Mr. Hodgson,

Scarcely one family in six, in extensive districts, in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, was exempt from fever and ague; and many of them exhibited tall young men, of eighteen to thirty, moving feebly about the house, completely unfitted for exertion, after 15 or 18 months' residence, or rendered indolent or inefficient for the rest of their lives. In Georgia and Carolina, we were told, in a jocular way, that it was not uncommon for a person, who was invited to dinner on a particular day, Wednesday for instance, to begin reckon. ing " Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-No; I cannot come to you on Wednesday, for that is my fever day.'

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With respect to Canada, Mr. Hodgson's book contains some valuable information, which claims the early and serious atten

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