92 



NEW ENGLAND PARMER. 



Feb. 



found it bcyoud his expectations a strongly forti- which is the geographical centre of the island and 

 ficd place — after strolling an hour or two among 

 the long guns of its ramparts, and surveying the 

 naval station at Gosport, and looking out upon 

 Britain's wooden walls, floating majestically on 

 the neighboring waters of the Spithead, he was 

 impressed more strongly than an American well 

 can be at home witli the desirableness of perpet- 

 ual peace and amity between England and Amer- 

 ica. 



A subsequent visit to "Woolwich, Chatham and 



other military stations served but to deepen this 

 impression ; not that America has anything to 

 fear from England or from any other quarter ; for 

 80 long as she pursues her mission of developing 

 the resources of a new world justly and peacea- 

 bly, she has nothing to fear from abroad, nothing 

 out of herself ; but you no sooner set your foot on 

 the soil of England than you begin to feel at 

 home; on the l)road ocean you had felt that you 

 was fur awaj', but in England you feel at home ; 

 it is impossible not to recognize the people there 

 as brethren ; you look at a name over a door, it 

 is the name of your nearest neighbor ; you look 

 over the next door, there is the name of your best 

 friend ; you look over a third, and see your own 

 name, over a fourth is the maiden name of your 

 wife ; something very like this had happened to 

 the speaker again and again. It was impossible 

 not to feel at home and among brethren in Eng- 

 land ; and then again so kind and respectful are 

 the feelings of Englishmen towards Americans, 

 that, if one has anything in the shape of a heart 

 in him, he cannot help praying that there may be 

 peace and friendship forever between usand them. 

 War would be n family quarrel — the worst of all 

 quarrels to heal. It would be fratricide. If any 

 gentleman here does not feel this, he could not 

 see England's power, or enjoy her hospitality 

 without feeling it. 



The speaker could not forbear from stating, 

 that Englishmen had often said to him; "we 

 hear that your school-books are full of revolution- 

 ary talcs calculated to inspire hatred against us." 

 They said "ire are not tlie men who sent armies to 

 burn your cities and slaughter the inhabitants ; 

 we no more approve the counsels of Lord North , 

 or the weakness of George III. or the brutality of 

 some of his officers than you do." The charge 

 with regard to our school-books is partly true, and 

 the evil should be remedied at once. 



At 12 o'clock on the same day of landing, he 

 took the ferry-boat for the Isle of Wight ; land- 

 ed at Rye seven miles from Portsmouth ; found 

 this a beautiful and thrifty town ; fell in here 

 ■with an old friend from America, and agreed to 

 take a pedestrian tour with him over the island, 

 consid(!ring that, however, as a pedestrian tour 

 which consists in riding on coaches and walking 

 alternately. From Rye we went to Newport, 



the largest town on it. Here we spent the Sab- 

 bath ; and after twice attending church as we 

 would have done at home, we visited East alid 

 West Cowes, ship-building stations on the north 

 side of the island. In this visit we passed down 

 the east tank of the Medina. This led us by the 

 Queen's palace Osburne House, and the residen- 

 ces of many of the English gentry on this island. 

 From East Cowes we crossed the river to West 

 Cowes, and returned to Newport by the west 

 bank of the river. On ^Monday morning we visit- 

 ed the house where the last effort was made to 

 treat with the unfortunate Charles II — an inter- 

 view in which English loyalists would say, he 

 completely outwitted his enemies, but in which 

 English freemen would say that he exhibited such 

 a dogged hostility to the people's rights as ren- 

 dered him worthy of his fate. From this old 

 building, now used as an academy, we went to 

 Carisbrooke Castle, an immense structure, the 

 residence of royalty, at times,for tome fifteen hun- 

 dred years. Here we were shown the room in which 

 Charles I. was long imprisoned, and from which 

 he was taken to London, where he was condemned 

 and beheaded. Wherever you go in England, 

 you find reminiscences of this unfortunate king; 

 and everywhere you find the conflicting opinions 

 of him before alluded to. From Carisbrooke, we 

 continued our tour far towards the west end of 

 the island, turning thence south, and passing 

 along the southern coast and the eastern hack to 

 Rye. This took us through the best agricultu- 

 ral parts of the Island, as good perhaps as any in 

 the British Islands, if not in the world. 



The land in this island, amounting to perhaps 

 100,000 acres,is all beautiful, much of it eminently 

 good. The scenery is exquisitely fine, alternating 

 lieautifully cultivated vales with gently swell- 

 ing hills there called downs and fed by almost 

 numberless southdown sheep. The land is divided 

 into farms of from fifty to seven or eight hundred 

 acres, and some larger, embracing several thousand 

 acres. The staple vegetalile products are turnips, 

 barley and wheat ; the animal products are beef, 

 mutton, wool and pork. The Isle of Wight is 

 often called the garden of England. Its exquisite 

 beauty entitles it to the name ; and in addition to 

 feeding a population of some sixty thousand peo- 

 ple, it sends immense amounts of produce to Lon- 

 don. 



The farms in this island are generally divided in- 

 to large fields. The plow-share of reform has been 

 driven through the old, wide-spread hedges, cutting 

 fixrms into many small lots, and thus covering, as 

 in many parts of England, yet unreformed in this 

 respect, one acre in twenty-five of the land, and 

 sheltering game enough to consume a large per 

 cent, of the crops. Nothing can be conceived 

 more beautiful than the cultivation of this island. 



