FEELING- TOWARDS THE UNITED STATES. 217 



positioned, sub-aristocratic, super-sensible people, that swear 

 by the Times, and have taken their cue from Trollope, follow 

 in their wake. But the great mass of the educated classes 

 regard us very differently ; not with unqualified respect and 

 unalloyed admiration, but much as we of the Atlantic States 

 regard our own California a wild, dare-devil, younger 

 brother, with some most dangerpus and reprehensible habits, 

 and some most noble qualities, a capital fellow, in fact, if he 

 would but have done sowing his wild oats. 



This may be well enough understood in the United States, 

 but further, there is not in the English people, so far as I 

 have seen them, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, high or 

 low, the slighest soreness or rancorous feeling on account of 

 our separation from them, or our war of separation. Of our 

 success as a republic many of their aristocratic politicians 

 are no doubt jealous ; and many having naval and military 

 tastes, do not feel quite satisfied to hear our everlasting boast 

 ing about the last war, and would like to have another round or 

 two with us to satisfy themselves that they know how to fight 

 a ship, if they don t know how to build her, as well as we. 

 There is also a party of &quot; aged women of both sexes,&quot; that 

 worship the ghost of that old fool, &quot; the good king George,&quot; 

 who, I suppose, look upon us with unaffected horror, as they 

 do equally upon their own dissenters and liberals. Yet it 

 never happened to me, though I met and conversed freely 

 with all classes, except the noble, while I was in England, to 

 encounter the first man who did not think that we did exactly 

 right, or who was sorry that we succeeded as we did in de 

 claring and maintaining our independence. 



The truth is that, at that time, the great mass of thinking 

 men in England were much of that opinion. Our war was 

 with king George and his cabinet, not with the people of En 

 gland, and if they did reluctantly sustain the foolish measures 



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