which rolls between them should ever prove a pacific ocean." If, therefore, all or any of my attempts at a portraiture of the scenery or society of the United States of America, should seem to any to be somewhat too eulogistic, I can only deny the impeachment, refer to my motto, and declare, in the words of the immortal bard of Avon, that "All my reports go with the modest truth, Not more, nor clipp'd, but so." CHAPTER VII. "Where is the true man's fatherland? As the blue heavens-wide and free." AMERICANS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AMERICAN SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT-EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA IN GENERAL, AND TO THE UNITED STATES IN PARTICULAR. I AM now leaving the shores of America, and, save in so far as other subjects have presented themselves in natural connexion with the narrative of my journeyings, I have endeavoured to confine myself to what I personally saw, heard, and encountered, during my trip from Mobile Point to Boston; at the same time, and in as few words as I could convey my meaning in, endeavouring to give to my reader the impressions formed at the time by my experiences, modified and corrected by after reflection. In doing this, I have done all that was contemplated. If I have done it at all well, I have done as much as my ambition prompted me to attempt. But, nevertheless, I feel that I have not touched on many topics which the reader may very naturally expect to find treated of in a book of travels in the United States of America. In particular, I have not professed to give any opinion as to the general tone of society in America, either as regards mind or morals. Neither have I thought myself justified in characterising, or rather in caricaturing, the phraseology and conversational style of our Transatlantic brethren: and last, and certainly not least among my omissions, I have not said anything, either as to the past history, the present condition, or the future prospects of the slave question in the great republic. One or two remarks on each of these subjects will sufficiently explain at once the cause and the extent of these somewhat singular omissions in a European work which professes to treat of the United States of America. As to the general tone of male and female society in America, in relation to mind and manners, I may have formed -nay, I did form-my own opinions in the different places I visited; and it is but fair to say that, from what I saw, these opinions could not be otherwise than highly favourable. But still I have not professed to give the reader any information on the subject. My stay was too short, and my opportunities for judging too limited, to permit of my arriving at any general conclusions on questions lying so far below the surface of society. As regards the national manners in America, all I feel justified in saying is, that, in so far as I saw, the same principles of action prevail in private life, the same circumstances produce the same results, the same motives give rise to the same actions in America as in England; and that he or she who would be considered a lady or a gentleman in America, would be considered equally entitled to the distinction in England, and no more. In reference to the oft-quoted and much-caricatured peculiarities of our Transatlantic friends, I would say that I heard nothing of the alleged general use or misuse of words not in an Englishman's vocabulary, or of English words to mean things and ideas different from the things or ideas we would understand them to mean in Great Britain. No doubt there are, in the conversation, and even in the writings of some Americans, occasional uses of words which sound unwonted to the English ear; but, in most cases, it would be difficult to prove that the use so made of particular words or phrases was at variance with their etymological meaning and strict significance. Again, among the general travelling public of the United States, one frequently hears such words as "fix," "settle," "dander," "calculate," "guess," "reckon," &c., applied in a manner that it is of course impossible to justify or defend. But the conversation, in good society, is as little interlarded with expletives, or with solecisms in language, as is the conversation of similar society in Great Britain; and sure I am that, limited as was my stay in each place, I could point out domestic circles in Boston, and in several of the other cities of the American Union, where the use of the extraordinary words and sentences, which many my countrymen think to be ordinary characteristics of "Yankee phrase," would be viewed with as much surprise as they would be in the most courtly circles of queenly England. It is all very desirable to write agreeable, piquant, and readable books, but it is too bad to sacrifice truth at the shrine of effect, for the purpose of making them So. Equally laconic, but for a very different reason, has this book been on the great subject of American slavery. I cannot indeed say that slavery and the slave trade are subjects which I had not attempted to study—in truth they have occupied my thoughts, and been to me subjects of reflection, before I went, and also when in, as well as after I returned from the United States of America. But I have purposely refrained from entering on the large and important topic of American slavery at any length, or from adding to the much that has been written by other writers upon it-and that not only because of its magnitude and importance, but because of some other reasons which I shall shortly and honestly mention— even though I do so under the impression, if not the fear, that they may surprise and disappoint some of my friends on both sides of the Atlantic, if not on both sides of the question. It may sound strange to say, that too much has already been written and said on the subject of slavery in the United States of America. But, in a certain sense at least, such appears to me to be the fact. At |