to the United States. 33 



them know on what footing they must stand on their arrival. 

 We have neither lords spiritual nor temporal in this coun- 

 try, with seventy thousand pounds sterling a year at their 

 back ; and who, to assist them in spending so much money, 

 must employ perhaps thirty horsemen, a hundred labourers, 

 and, it may be, thirty gardeners. Every tub here stands on 

 its own bottom, and ahuost every man is his own gardener; 

 and perhaps not in all America are there three gentlemen 

 who employ two gardeners for the twelve months round. 

 While our present system of government continues, as we 

 have no hereditary estates, and property is consequently 

 always shifting, we never shall have what are called overgrown 

 fortunes. No man is able to -employ ten gardeners in this 

 country ; therefore, while the present system continues in 

 Britain, gardeners will meet better encouragement there than 

 in America. Such a thing as head-gai'derier, ^grieve [bailiff], 

 or overseer^ is not known in this country, except some of the 

 latter in the southern states, among the blacks.* But, not- 

 withstanding all this, a gardener may live very comfortably 

 in America; single men (that is, such as are not married) 

 are generally engaged by the year, and receive from twelve to 

 fifteen dollars a month, bed, board, and washing. It is ex- 

 pected from them to raise vegetables sufficient to supply the 

 family, to take the care of a few flower-beds, and sometimes 

 a small green-house. If they are careful of their money, by 

 attending church on Sunday, instead of travelling about in 

 steam-boats, chairs, or frequenting ice-cream gardens, they in 

 a few years will have enough to hire a few acres near the city, 



* Some of the young cockneys who have visited this country, with 

 more money in their purses than v^it in their heads, have returned and got 

 some one to write for them a book, or, as they generally style it, A Journal 

 of their Journey overland in America. These would-be authors, almost 

 without an exception, describe in lively colours (and it is generally the 

 only lively paragraph in the book) the inconsistency of the people and 

 government of America keeping slaves in the south. This charge is true 

 in the abstract ; but these men forget, or perhaps they never knew (as they 

 are not deep read), that these slaves were introduced into America under 

 the reigns of George I., II., and III. : rather an inconsistent act of a govern- 

 ment composed of lords s[)iritual as well as temporal, and kings by the 

 grace of God, defenders of the faith, &c. ! So, v/hen the Americans were 

 old enough to govern themselves, they found they were saddled with this 

 last curse of the European dark ages. But there is no way to get quit of 

 them, except they do as the Hessians and other white slaveholders do in 

 Europe; that is, sell them from one master to another, to be shot at for 

 so much per head. However, they are now sending them back to their 

 own country as fast as practicable ; and, in the mean time, they eat better, 

 sleep better, are clothed better, and have less hard v/ork, than the white 

 slaves in Birmingham, Manchester, &c. Another generation, I confidently 

 trust, will not find a slave from one end of the Union to the other — G. T. 



Vol. IX. — No. 42. d 



