218 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



of the king, it was precisely as our Whigs, who were opposed 

 to the measures that led to the war with Mexico, sustained, 

 with money and with blood, that war when it did come. Jt 

 is a remarkable thing, that I have noticed that there are many 

 men in England who were born at the time of, or shortly 

 subsequent to our revolutionary war, who are named after 

 the American heroes of that war, Washington, Jefferson, and 

 Franklin. 



This and other circumstances, early in my visit to En 

 gland, made me reflect that the hostile feeling of the people 

 had never been deeply engaged against us, while it soon be 

 came also evident that very much less of so much hostility as 

 they once had towards us, had descended to the present, than 

 we are in the habit of calculating for. 



The reason of the great difference in this respect of the 

 popular feeling in the two countries is evident, though it often 

 extremely puzzles and offends a liberal Englishman who has 

 been in the habit of looking with the greatest feeling of fra 

 ternity towards the people of the United States, to find him 

 self when he comes among them expected in all his opinions 

 and feelings to be either a traitor to his own country or an 

 enemy of ours. It is easily explained however. 



There is a love of hostility in our nature that wants some 

 object to direct itself towards. Seventy years ago, and forty 

 years ago, that object to us as a nation was the kingdom of 

 Great Britain. No other object until within a few years has 

 been offered to us to weaken that traditional hostility. All 

 our military and naval glory, the most blazing, though by no 

 means the most valuable, jewels of our national pride, have 

 been our victories in war with Great Britain. Almost our 

 only national holidays have been in a great part exultations 

 over our successful hostilities with Great Britain. &quot; The ene 

 my&quot; and &quot; the British,&quot; came to me from my fighting grand- 



