[ 640 ] [JUNE, 



KOTES ON AMERICA, NO. I. 



71979 10 



Charleston, S. Carolina. 



'tiion bmr 



NOTWITHSTANDING the great number and variety of works on 

 American manners, politics, and statistics, with which the British public 

 has lately been treated, in the shape of sketches, travels, and dissertations, 

 still the subject appears to have lost none of its interest ; but, on the 

 contrary, each new publication is read and quoted with greater avidity 

 than its predecessor. 



The reception which even Mrs. Trollope's work has experienced 

 amongst us, is a proof of the untired interest which Englishmen feel in all 

 that concerns their Transatlantic brethren. There is nothing in this scandal- 

 loving-lady's book very novel or profound. It is in fact no more than a 

 caricature, of the ill-educated Americans. A clever " yankee " would find no 

 great difficulty in producing an equally ludicrous effect, by an exaggerated 

 display of the vulgarity of the corresponding classes in England. The 

 Broughtons in " Evelina," the Grimshaws in "Sketches of Character," and 

 the heroes of Mr. Theodore Hook's Tales, are just as fair representations 

 of the respectable middle classes in England, as the worthies who figure 

 in Mrs. Trollope's pages, are of the merchants, farmers, and lawyers of 

 the United States. Hand inexpertus loquor. A residence of several 

 years in America has afforded me ample opportunity of scrutinising the 

 manners and character, public and domestic, of all classes, from the Pre- 

 sident at Washington to his slave at Tenessee. 



My design, however, in these sketches, is not to review the works of 

 others, but to relate such occurrences, and describe such scenes and pecu- 

 liarities of character, as fell under my personal observation, and would be 

 most likely to convey to the reader a correct idea of the actual state of 

 society in various parts of the United States : and it must be recollected 

 that some account of what may be called the foreign, or emigrant popula- 

 tion, will necessarily hold as conspicuous a place in any description of the 

 inhabitants of a country, which has, for so many years, been the asylum 

 of the discontented, unfortunate, and enterprising exiles from every other 

 part of the globe. For the shelter which modern Rome has ever 

 afforded to deposed monarchs, their oppressed subjects have found in the 

 United States. The affrighted fugitive from Scio, the fiery Neapolitan 

 noble, the haughty Spanish and Portuguese constitutionalist, and the 

 heartbroken exile or Erin, all meet there, to mourn over blighted pros- 

 pects, and meditate on fresh enterprizes. There too may be seen the 

 desperate slave trader, privateer, and pirate from Cuba and the Spanish 

 main, the keen Jew from Poland, and the keener Scotchman from the 

 Clyde, the dashing comedian and impudent journalist from London, 

 Turks, West Indians, Chinese, Negroes, and Hindoos, fill up the more 

 prominent parts of the varied picture, in which the native Americans seem 

 only to occupy the back ground. 



This mixture and jostling together of men of all classes and nations is 

 particularly observable in Charleston, the principal city, though not the 

 capital of South Carolina. 



Some years have elapsed since I first visited Charleston, but I recollect 



