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cally coercive; that it is managed by corruption, as much or more than ours; that places are sought for with the same eagerness, and bestowed with the same partiality as among us; and as to the freedom of the press, it is asserted, on the one side, to be gross licentiousness, and on the other, greatly restricted when it resists the popular will. The impulses of your mobs are said to be more exclusive than the influence of our throne, even when defended by the decrees of the star chamber.

As to the state of religion in your country, we hear strange representations. It is said that, released from the decency and order of a legalized establishment, it is bursting out in the excesses of fanaticism, and in the wildness of ungoverned feeling. Instead of a religion, growing up from the mild principles of Christianity in the heart, and acting on a moral life, we hear of periodical convulsion; of passions substituted for reason and inflamed to excess; of the heat of enthusiasm and the cold reaction of indifference; of fire and frost; of the ebbs and flows of popular feeling; of camp-meetings and protracted meetings; scenes where religion is deformed, because decency is violated. In short, your church is represented as being broken into sects which are daily breaking into new divisions; as if the edifice of the sanctuary were crumbled into the powder and dust of individuality; with no unity, no consistency, and no hold on the human mind. We hear that there are whole villages, whole regions, who are not supplied with teachers of the gospel, because their choice is left to a popular election, and there are not ten men who can agree.

In short, it is represented that both in church and in state, the cords of liberty have become so excessively loosened, that they cannot much longer hold an organized system together.

Even your manners have been assailed by some. It is said, that while the definite lines drawn by the different ranks of men among us, in which each knows his station, and is bound by prescription to keep it, prevents encroachments, and softens the jealousies and evils of competition, with you it is very different. The beggar does not even take off his hat when he asks for charity; and the servant approaches his master with a look of insolence and independence. All the civilities of life, instead of being the soft emanation of politeness and humanity, become harsh and repulsive. Social intercourse with you is a dispute for place; a jealousy of encroachment; a vain attempt to settle shadowy distinctions; and a contest between presumptuous pride and wounded modesty. Republics do not extinguish the ambition of men; but set them scrambling for indefinite shadows and visionary rewards, and are thus very unfriendly to private virtue and domestic peace.

With us, a nobleman knows his place; he knows that his rank and precedence are undisputed; and

therefore nothing remains for him, but to win the good will of his inferiors by apparent condescensions, softness of manners, and those lighter acts of friendship, which throw silken chains around collected hearts, and improve the facilities of social life. With you, it is all contest of rough and umble. The rich man is austere, because he fears his prerogatives are invaded; and the poor man is soured, because he is crowded from his station, by one whom he deems no better than himself.

On the other hand, it is said by a sanguine party among us, that your experiment in giving to a whole people self-government, is eminently successful. America is represented as the home of the virtuous, and the paradise of the free; the generous nature of man is said to be there expanding under institutions, sufficiently strong to regulate, but too feeble to cramp his powers; your roughness of manners is said to be only the flashes of sincerity; and your prostrate church, is only religion freed from its outward forms, and putting on the patchwork robe, whose variegated colors only increase its beauty. Even the railing and severity which fill the electioneering articles in your papers, are represented as the flumes, through which the black waters flow away from the field and leave the soil and atmosphere healthful and pure. It is a smoke that indicates but little fire. In short, it is said, that you are the first people, who knew how to build up the edifices of liberty on their lasting foundations, by trusting human nature according to the perfectibility of its powers.

My dear friend, I am no dogmatist in philosophy or religion, and I have written to you for your testimony on this subject. Write to me carefully, for your words will have a bearing on my uture conduct. You will assist me, I hope, in fixing the middle point between conservative toryism, and headlong innovation. I want your testimony, rather than your opinion; still, as the one can scarcely come without some tinge of the other, I would not debar you from a free use of your pen, and full communication of your heart.

Should I say, that I pay very little attention to the representation of those travellers, whose prejudices have galled your countrymen so much, I should only convey a superfluous piece of information. But no nation exists for itself; its moral and political attraction will be felt, as certainly as, in a physical sense, our solar system would be affected, should a new planet be rolled into its compass. America is to act an important part in advancing or retarding the common welfare; and her example, bright or pernicious, will be felt in the last destinies of mankind.

Yours,

J. FLEETWOOD.

THE PURITAN.

No. 27.

Ten thousand follies through Columbia spread,
Ten thousand wars her darling realms invade.
The private interest of each jealous State;
Of rule the impatience, and of law the hate.
But ah! from narrow springs these evils flow,
A few base wretches mingle general wo.

Dwight to the Continental Convention.

REPLY.

Bundleborough, 1835.

REALLY, my friend, you have set me a severe task; your questions open a field which it would require a life to explore. You not only ask me to estimate the influence of republicanism in church and state, on our manners and social happiness, but you want a testimony, which is to modify the proceedings of the whole island of Great Britain. This is too much for one who hardly dares to adopt the responsibility of forming opinions for himself.

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