1826.] [ 601 ] 



lii;i7;5^8,^ROM THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



' NO. iir. 



New-Yorh, Jan. 4, 1826. 



I HAVE been all along the sea-l)oard, my dear P, since I wrote you 

 last, from the prerty villages on the Kennebee River (Bath, Hallowell, 

 and Augusta, wliich are nigh the Canada frontier, in the new state of 

 Maine) to Norfolk, in Virginia ; from within a few leagues of Quebec, 

 therefore, to the heart of the slave country ; and the result of my obser- 

 vation, to say all in a word, is, that the people of these United Republics 

 do not know how to prize the advantages tliey enjoy, nor, indeed, a 

 fortieth part of those which naturally grow out of their safe and happy 

 situation ; that they are much too careless in their security ; and that, 

 after all — much as they have done for the world every where, and much 

 as they have done for that particular part of the world which they inhabit, 

 by their long course, of experimental philosophy in the science of poli- 

 tics — they have not done a fortieth part so much as they might have 

 done, with comparative ease ; nor a thousandth ])art so much as they 

 will do, if I may judge from what I now see, before this age has gone 



^y- . . . 



They require a better knowledge of other countries : they require to 

 know the truth, and the whole truth too, of themselves. They are now 

 vain to absurdity about things, which they have little enough cause to be 

 vain of, God knows ; and yet, so far as I can see, though their papers do 

 brag so much of what they are now, and of what they arc to be, here- 

 after, in the course of another generation or two, positively without a 

 fair and proper pride in those very matters, which are, to my view, most 

 worthy of praise ; nay, full of absurd veneration, or a sort of sneaking 

 partiality for things which are directly in the teeth of whatever is of 

 great value, or, in my opinion, worth bragging of, in their whole history 

 and character. Take one brief example — I have spoken of it before. 

 They profess to have done with titles ; and yet, if you take up a news- 

 paper — if you open a book — if j^ou go to hear a speech, you are sure to 

 meet with some of j'our British titles ; titles given without authority 

 here, and, in almost every case, in the teeth of a positive declaration by 

 law. A day or two ago, I saw a book lying on our table — " Holmes' 

 Annals" (a book of great worth, and re-published witji you, some years 

 ago, Ibelieve). I opened it, and the first thingi saw was a paragraph about 

 the " Hon. John Quincy Adams,* Professor of Oratory, &c. at Harvard 

 College," Sec. &c. The president you know is hardly ever spoken of or 

 alluded to by certian people but as His Excellency — so with all the 

 ambassadors, and so with all the secretaries ; and, if you look into the 4th 

 of July Orations for this year (a word or two of which, by the way, and of 

 tlieir growth and cause, before we part), you will find that the " Honour- 

 able Edward Everett" (as they call the orator in the outset of one of 

 the books), and that Professor Edward Everett, as they call him in the 

 outset of another speech of his, delivered someMhere — at Concord, if 

 I do not mistake (the place where the revolutionary war broke out some 

 fifty years ago), in giving a particular account of the individuals who 



* Now president of the United States. The b ok which he wTote while professor, 

 maybe regarded as one of the- two or three best native productions of this people ; and 

 quite a prize for tlie rhetorician of our age — whoever he may fee. 



