moral or social, of the Americans. I visited their country with no antipathies to be overcome; and I doubt not you can bear testimony that my political sentiments were not such, as to make it probable that I should regard with an unfavourable eye the popular character of their government. In the United States I was received with kindness, and enjoyed an intercourse at once gratifying and instructive, with many individuals for whom I can never cease to cherish the warmest sen→ timents of esteem. I neither left England a visionary and discontented enthusiast, nor did I return to it a man of blighted prospects and disappointed hopes. In the business or ambitions of the world I had long ceased to have any share. I was bound to no party, and pledged to no opinions. I had visited many countries, and may therefore be permitted to claim the possession of such advantages as foreign travel can bestow.

Under these circumstances, I leave it to the ingenuity of others to discover by what probable-what possible temptation, I could be induced to write in a spirit of unjust depreciation of the manners, morals, or institutions of a people so intimately connected with England, by the ties of interest and the affinities of common ancestry.

It has been said by some one, that the narrative of a traveller is necessarily a book of inaccuracies. I admit the truth of the apophthegm, and only claim the most favourable construction for his mistakes. The range of a traveller's observations must generally be limited to those peculiarities which float, as it were, on the surface of society. Of the "sunless treasuries" beneath, he cannot speak. His sources of information are always fallible, and at best he can appeal only to the results of an imperfect experience. A great deal which necessarily enters into his narrative, must be derived from the testimony of others. In the common intercourse of society, men do not select their words with that scrupulous precision which they use in a witness-box. tails are loosely given and inaccurately remembered; events are coloured or distorted by the partialities of the narrator; minute circumstances are omitted or brought into undue prominence, and the vast and varied machinery by which truth is manufactured into fallacy is continually at work.

De

From the errors which I fear must still constitute the badge of all our tribe, I pretend to no exemption. But whatever be the amount of its imperfections, the present work is offered to the world without excuse of any

sort; for I confess my observations have led to the conclusion that a book requiring apology is rarely worth it.

Ever, DEAR WHITMORE,

RYDAL, 8th July 1833.

Very truly yours,

T. H.

MEN AND MANNERS IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

VOYAGE-NEW YORK.

On the morning of the 16th of October, I embarked at Liverpool, on board of the American packet-ship New York, Captain Bennet, bound for the port of the same name. There were twenty-six passengers, and, though the accommodations were excellent, the cabin, as might be expected, was disagreeably crowded. Our party consisted of about fifteen or sixteen Americans, some half-dozen countrymen of my own, two or three English, a Swiss, and a Frenchman.

Though the elements of this assemblage were heterogeneous enough, I have great pleasure in remembering that the most perfect harmony prevailed on board. To myself, the whole of my fellow-passengers were most obliging; and for some I contracted a regard, which led me to regret that the period of our arrival in port was likely to bring with it a lasting cessation of our intercourse.

The miseries of a landsman on shipboard have afforded frequent matter for pen and pencil. At best, a sea voyage is a confinement at once irksome and

A

2

MISERIES OF A VOYAGE.

odious, in which the unfortunate prisoner is compelled for weeks, or months, to breathe the tainted atmosphere of a close and crowded cabin, and to sleep at night in a sort of box about the size of a coffin for "the stout gentleman." At worst, it involves a complication of the most nauseous evils that can afflict humanity—an utter prostration of power, both bodily and mental-a revulsion of the whole corporeal machinery, accompanied by a host of detestable diagnostics, which at once convert a well-dressed and well-favoured gentleman into an object of contempt to himself and disgust to those around him.

Such are a few of the joys that await a landsman whom evil stars have led to " go down to the sea in ships, and occupy his business in the great waters." With regard to sailors, the case is different, but not much. Being seasoned vessels, they are, no doubt, exempt from some of those evils, and completely hardened to others, which are most revolting to a landsman. But their Pandora's box can afford to lose a few miseries, and still retain a sufficient stock for any reasonable supply. It may be doubted, too, whether the most ardent sailor was ever so hallucinated by professional enthusiasm as to pitch his Paradise-wherever he might place his Purgatory-afloat.

On board of the New York, however, I must say that our sufferings were exclusively those proceeding from the elements of air and water. Her accommodations were excellent. Nothing had been neglected which could possibly contribute to the comfort of the passengers. In another respect, too, we were fortunate. Our commander had nothing about him of "the rude and boisterous captain of the sea." In truth, Captain Bennet was not only an adept in all professional accomplishment, but, in other respects, a person of extensive information; and I confess, it was even with some degree of pride that I learned he had received his nautical education in the British navy. Partaking of the strong