MR. BUCKINGHAM'S ADDRES.S 



TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



New- York, October 25, 1837. 

 Men, Bhethken, and Fellow-Chkistians : 



The numbers of human beings that every day approach your shores from all parts of 

 the old world, must so familiarize you with the arrival of strangers from every quarter of 

 the globe, as to justify your indifference toward all who do not ask your attention on some 

 special account, since it would be impossible for you to show it to every individual of so 

 countless a multitude, and without some grounds on which to establish exceptions, 

 none could be fairly expected to be made. This consideration, while it will fortify me 

 in the propriety of the step I am taking, will also, I trust, dispose you to lend a favora- 

 ble attention to a short statement of the circumstances which have driven me to your 

 shores, of the motives which impel me to the course I am pursuing, and of the objects 

 which I hope, under the blessing of Providence, and with your aid and protection, to 

 accomplish. 



A train of events, much too numerous to be narrated in detail, occasioned me very 

 early in life to leave my native country, England, and to visit most of the nations of 

 Europe — still more of the interior of Asia — many parts of the continent of Africa — 

 and some portions also of the two Americas. It was after an active life of some twenty 

 years thus devoted, in which it fell to my lot to traverse, I believe, a larger portion 

 of the earth's surface, and to visit a greater number and variety of countries, than 

 almost any man living of my age, that I settled as a resident in the capital of the Bri- 

 tish possessions in India, where I remained for several years. 



During the voyages and travels that I was permitted to make along the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, amidst the Isles of Greece, in Asia Minor, Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, 

 Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Assyria, Babylonia, Media, Persia, and India, I 

 had an opportunity of personally inspecting almost all the remarkable cities and monu- 

 ments of ancient greatness in the several countries named ; including the gigantic py- 

 ramids, colossal temples, stately obelisks, majestic statues, and gloomy catacombs and 

 sepulchres, which stud the classic banks of the Nile, from Alexandria and Grand Cairo 

 to the cataracts of Syene; the hoary mountains of Horeb and Sinai, and the Desert of 

 Wandering, across which the children of Israel were led from out of the land of Egypt, 

 to the promised Canaan; the plains of Moab and Amnion, with Mount Pisgah, the 

 valley of Jordan, and the Dead Sea ; the ruined cities of Tyre and Sidon ; the ports of 

 Joppa, Acre, and Cesarea; the villages of Nazareth and Cana of Galilee; the cities of 

 Sechem, Samaria, and Bethlehem; the mountains of Lebanon, Hermon, Tabor, and 

 Carmel; the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion; the holy city of Jerusalem, with all its 

 sacred localities, from the pools of Siloam and Bethesda, near the brook Kedron, in 

 the valley of Jehoshaphat, to the more touching and endearing spots of the Garden of 

 Gethsemane, the Rock of Calvary, and the sepulchre in which the body of our Lord 

 was laid. 



"While these were the objects of my inspection in Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, the 

 Scriptural countries of Syria and Mesopotamia were scarcely less prolific in the abun- 

 dance of the materials which they presented to my view. In the former were the sea- 



