AND RELIGION 



right to complain ; but, for my present purpose, it is sufficient^, 

 to shew, that they have nothing to do with retigion^ 



434. If, indeed, the Americans were wicked^ disorderly, criminal 

 people, and, of course, a miserable and foolish people : then we 

 might doubt upon the subject : then we might possibly suppose, 

 that their wickedness and misery arose, in some degree, at least, 

 from the want of tithes. But, the contrary is the fact. They are 

 the most orderly, sensible, and least criminal people in the whole 

 world. A common labouring man has the feelings of a man of 

 honour ; he never thinks of violating the laws ; he crawls to 

 nobody ; he will call every man Sir, but he will call no man 

 master. When he utters words of respect towards any one, they 

 do not proceed from fear or hope, but from civility and sincerity. 

 A native American labourer is never rude towards his employer, 

 but he is never cringing. 



435. However, the best proof of the inutility of an established 

 Church is the absence of crimes in this country, compared to the 

 state of England in that respect. There have not been three 

 felonies tried in this country since I arrived in it. The Court 

 house is at two miles from me. An Irishman was tried for forgery 

 in the summer of 1817, and the whole country was alive to go and 

 witness the novelty. I have not heard of a man being hanged in 

 the whole of the United States since my arrival. The Borough- 

 mongers, in answer to statements like these, say that this is a 

 thinly inhabited country. This very country is more thickly 

 settled than Hampshire. The adjoining country, towards the city 

 of New York is much more thickly settled than Hampshire. 

 New York itself and its immediate environs contain nearly two 

 hundred thousand inhabitants, and after London, is, perhaps, the 

 first commercial and maritime city in the world. Thousands of 

 sailors, ship -carpenters, dock-yard people, dray-men, boat-men, 

 crowd its wharfs and quays. Yet, never do we hear of hanging ; 

 scarcely ever of a robbery ; men go to bed with scarcely locking 



their doors ; and never is there seen in the streets what is called 

 in England, a girl of the tozvn : and, what is still more, never is 

 (there seen in those streets a beggar. I wish you, my old neigh 

 bours, could see this city of New York. Portsmouth and Gosport, 

 taken together, are miserable holes compared to it. Man s 

 imagination can fancy nothing so beautiful as its bay and port, 

 from which two immense rivers sweep up on the sides of the point 

 of land, on which the city is. These rivers are continually covered 

 with vessels of various sizes bringing the produce of the land, while 

 the bay is scarcely less covered with ships going in and out from 

 all parts of the world. The city itself is a scene of opulence and 

 industry : riches without insolence, and labour without grudging. 



436. What Englishman can contemplate this brilliant sight 

 without feeling some little pride that this city bears an English 

 name ? But, thoughts of more importance ought to fill his mind. 

 He ought to contrast the ease, the happiness, the absence of crime 



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