general stock of Letters, little to our stock of Science, and scarcely any thing of importance to that of the Fine Arts; while, according to all our views of the matter, they had actually made a retrograde movement in the principles and practice of government. Neither do I think it will be contended, even by themselves, that they added much to what was already known in Europe, as to the philosophy of manners, of morals, or of any other branch of intellectual refinement. Thus, they cannot, or, when brought to close quarters, they seldom deny, that they have done scarcely any thing as yet to attach us to them, by the ordinary means through which other nations have been cemented' together in cordial alliance of kindred sentiment, however torn apart, occasionally, by political con-tests. In the case of France, for example, though it has long been the popular fashion to call us natural enemies, there exists permanently, through the hottest wars, a spirit of generous rivalry and of cordial international respect, which both parties delight to cherish-but of which, alas! there are but feeble traces in our relations with America and not the slightest spark, I greatly fear, in theirs with us.

- What might have been the result at this day had their form of government, and its practical operation, together with the frame-work of their society,

been less repulsive to English feelings and habits of thought on such matters, I do not say-nor is it my purpose now to enquire whether or not they are to blame for having contributed so little to our knowledge, or for having taken so small a share in the struggles for the cause of liberty in which we were engaged. The well-known facts above stated, are all I wish to dwell upon at present. They are as undeniable, as their consequences have been inevitable; and as long as things remain in America in their present state, the circumstances I have referred to will be, as I conceive, also quite irremediable. The artificial structure of society in the two countries is, besides, so dissimilar in nearly all respects; and the consequent difference in the occupations, opinions, and feelings of the two people, on almost every subject that can interest either, is so great, and so very striking, even at the first glance, that my surprise is not why we should have been so much estranged from one another in sentiment, and in habits, but how there should still remain-if indeed there do remain-any considerable points of agreement between us.

It will place this matter in a pretty strong light to mention, that during more than a year that I was in America-although the conversation very often turned on the politics of Europe for the last thirty years-I never, but in one or two solitary

instances, heard a word that implied the smallest degree of sympathy with the exertions which England, single-handed, had so long made to sustain the drooping cause of freedom.

It will be obvious, I think, upon a little reflec tion, how the same causes have not operated in America to keep her so entirely ignorant of England, as we in England are of America.

Nearly all that she has of letters, of arts, and of science, has been, and still continues to be, imported from us, with little addition or admixture of a domestic growth or manufacture. Nearly all that she learns of the proceedings of the other parts of the world, also comes through the same channel, England-which, therefore, is her chief market for every thing intellectual as well as commercial. Thus, in a variety of ways, a certain amount of acquaintance with what is doing amongst us is transmitted, as a matter of course, across the Atlantic. After all, however, say what they please, it is but a very confused and confined sort of acquaintance which they actually possess of England. There was, indeed, hardly any thing in the whole range of my enquiries in the United States, that proved more different from what I had been led to expect, than this very point. At first I was surprised at the profundity of their ignorance on this subject; though I own it is far short of our ignorance of

them. I was also wellnigh provoked at this sometimes, till I recollected that an opinionated confidence in our own views, all the world over, is the most prominent characteristic of error. The Ame→ ricans, of course, very stoutly, and I am sure with sincerity, assert their claims to infallibility on this point, and accordingly, they receive, with undisguised incredulity, the more correct accounts, which a personal familiarity with both countries enables foreigners to furnish.

I learnt in time to see that similar causes to those already stated, though different in degree, in addition to many others, were in action in America, to render England as ungrateful a topic with them, as America is undeniably with us. The nature of the monarchical form of government, with its attendant distinctions in rank, we may suppose, is nearly as repugnant to their tastes as Democracy is to ours. The eternal recollections, too, of all the past quarrels between us, in which-probably for want of any other history-they indulge not only as an occasional pleasure, but in.pose upon themselves as a periodical duty, and celebrate accordingly, with all sorts of national rancour, at a yearly festival, render the Revolutionary war in which they succeeded, nearly as fertile a source of irritation to them, with reference to poor Old England, though the issue was successful, as its disasters formerly

were to us, who failed. But there is this very material, and, I take the liberty of saying, characteristic difference between the two cases:—we have long ago forgotten and forgiven-out and out-all that has passed, and absolutely think so little about it, that I believe, on my conscience, not one man in a thousand amongst us knows a word of these mat→ ters, with which they are apt to imagine us so much occupied. Whereas, in America, as I have said before, the full, true, and particular account of the angry dispute between us-the knowledge of which ought to have been buried long ago—is carefully taught at school, cherished in youth, and afterwards carried, in manhood, into every ramification of public and private life.

If I were asked to give my countrymen an example of the extent of the ignorance which prevails in America with respect to England, I might instance the erroneous, but almost universal opinion in that country, that the want of cordiality with which, I grant, the English look upon them, has its source in the old recollections alluded to. And I could never convince them, that such vindictive retrospections, which it is the avowed pride and delight of America to keep alive in their pristine asperity, were entirely foreign to the national character of the English, and inconsistent with that hearty John Bull spirit, which teaches them to for