192 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



among other important nations as their enemy, it would be a very 

 different feeling towards us that it would lead to, from the remem- 

 brance of us as their old and only enemy ; so that not only was 

 our original share of the hostile feeling of the people of England 

 a very small one, being principally confined to the king and his 

 sycophants, and the idolaters of the divine right, but the pugna- 

 cious element in the nature of an Englishman, of our day, is 

 directed by much more vivid remembrances towards France, or 

 Spain, or Germany, than towards us. 



Altogether, considering the exceedingly queer company English 

 travelers seem usually to keep when in the United States, and the 

 atrocious caricatures in which, with few exceptions, they have 

 represented our manners and customs to their countrymen, I was 

 surprised at the general respect and the degree of correct appre- 

 ciation of us that I commonly found. There is no country, not 

 covered by a British flag, in the world that the British of 1850 

 have any thing like the degree of sympathy with, and affection 

 for, that they have for the United States. 



On the other hand, it is happily evident, that since our war 

 with Mexico has given us a new military glory, it has also di- 

 verted our national combativeness, in a degree, from our old 

 enemy ; and since the general intercommunication between the 

 countries has been made so much more frequent and speedy, and 

 cheaper than it used to be, the disposition of our people towards 

 the British has been much less suspicious, guarded, and quarrel- 

 some than it very naturally, if not very reasonably, was, until 

 within a few years. 



OPINIONS differing with the views I have presented having 

 been lately expressed by several persons in honorable positions, 

 for one at least of whom I entertain the highest respect, I wish 



