182G.] Letters from 4he United States of North America. 247 



English husbandmen, English manufacturers, and English mechanics ? 

 I, tor one, should consider it presumptuous, although we have produced 

 a multitude of mechanics, who would be thought highly of, any where, 

 in the pride of any age ; a multitude of merchants, who are thought 

 liighly of, in every part of the world; with a multitude of farmers, who, 

 if they are not altogether so good as the English farmer, in tliis or tliat 

 particular part of his trade, are quite his equal, if not something more, 

 in a variety of matters which do not belong to the culture of the earth. 

 Many of our people know that we are inferior to parts of the British, 

 when compared with them, class for class, in the way of trade ; but, 

 while they know this, they console themselves with an idea, that a 

 superiority in the manufacturing or mechanical arts, or in scholarship, 

 is rather equivocal proof, in our age, of true national prosperity ; and 

 that, after all, English husbandry, English manufacturing power, &c. &c., 

 arc inapplicable to the lands of America and to the liabits of the people ; 

 and so it appears : for, hitherto, most of tliose who have undertalien 

 to apply the one or the other, in this neighbourhood, having to employ 

 our American labourers while they were encountering our American 

 prejudices, at every step, have generally come out, as we say here, at 

 the little end of the horn."* So much for the testimony of our native. 



To conclude, my dear P., what your Doctor Johnson, with more wit 

 than justice, I believe, said of the Scotch, may, with a show of greater 

 justice, be said of the American people — those of the north, I mean. 

 Their knowledge is not like the knowledge of any other people ; their 

 learning, their intelligence, their wealth, are not like the learning, or 

 intelligence, or wealth of any other people ; ivhalever they have, is more 

 equally distributed ; they have a mouthful of every thing — a bellyful, 

 perhaps — but no superfluity. It would be a very difficult matter to say, 

 therefore, whether the Americans are or are not, as they are charged 

 with believing themselves to be, the most enlightened people on earth 

 — as a people. The sum of their intelligence we perceive to be lUf- 

 ferently distributed over the whole territory ; and it may or may not 

 be greater than that, which has been less equally distributed among the 

 people of other countries — the people together, high and low, rich and 

 poor, of other countries. 



The Americans do believe in their superiority to every other people, 

 as a people — Granted. So do the British, and so do every other 

 people. The very Laplander brags of the peculiar privileges that abide 

 with him ; while the poor African rejoices that God hath not made him, 

 as the buckra manf is made — of the shape and colour of the Evil Spirit. 



Your's heartily, A. B. C. 



* The manufactures of the coimtry arc increasing, however, at a prodigious rate. 

 Already are they supplying the whole of the Confederacy with a multitude of things, 

 which, not more than eight or ten years ago, were ntoa^s imported. Labour is high 

 in America; but \vater, fuel, and steam, with every sort of machinery, are dog cheap. 

 — X. X. 



+ The buckra man is the white man : — here, the master; there, tlie Devil of the poor 

 negro. 



•«* The handwriting of our excellent Transatlantic correspondent vras so new to us, 

 that we regret having, in a former letter, read sorry for saraj-writer, page 5 ; perfect 

 real for perpetual, page 6; them for him, and lotu lerritorij (speaking of land under 

 water) for law territory ; and request our readers to place these accidental mis-readings 

 to our account and not to his. 



