SECOND POSTSCRIPT 



and not a single draw-back. A hearty, unostentatious welcome 

 from me and my sons. A breakfast such, probably, as the fello\ 

 will never eat again. I leave the public to guess, whether it 

 be likely, that I should give a chap like this my opinions about 

 government or people ! Just as if I did not know the people. 

 Just as if they were new to me ! The man was not in 

 the house half an hour in the morning. Judge, then, what 

 he could know of my manners and character. He was a long time 

 afterwards at New York. Would he not have been here a second 

 time, if I had been familiar enough to relate anecdotes to him ? 

 Such blades are not backward in renewing their visits whenever 

 they get but a little encouragement. He, in another part of the 

 extracts that I have seen, complains of the reserve of the American 

 Ladies. No &quot; social intercourse,&quot; he says between the sexes. That 

 is to say, he could find none ! I ll engage he could not ; amongst 

 the whites, at least. It is hardly possible for me to talk about the 

 public affairs of England and not to talk of some of my own acts ; 

 but is it not monstrous to suppose, that I should praise myself, 

 and show that I believed myself destined to be the Atlas of the 

 British nation, in my conversation of a few minutes with an utter 

 stranger, and that, too, a blade whom I took for a decent tailor, 

 my son William for a shop-keeper s clerk, and Mrs. Churcher, 

 with less charity, for a slippery young man, or, at best, for an 

 Exciseman ? As I said before, such a man can know nothing of 

 the people of America. He has no channel through which to get 

 at them. And, indeed, tohy should he ! Can he go into the 

 families of people at home ! Not he, indeed, beyond his own low 

 circle. Why should he do it here, then ? Did he think he was 

 coming here to live at free quarter ? The black woman s hut, 

 indeed, he might force himself into with impunity ; sixpence 

 would insure him a reception there ; but, it would be a shame, 

 indeed, if such a man could be admitted to unreserved intercourse 

 with American ladies. Slippery as he was, he could not slide into 

 their good graces, and into the possession of their fathers soul- 

 subduing dollars ; and so he is gone home to curse the &quot; nasty 

 &quot; guessing Americans.&quot; 



WM. COBBETT. 



