INTRODUCTION. xvii 



great part of her industrious inhabitants. After spending a 

 day with our good friends and relatives, we continued our jour- 

 ney, and arrived at Boston. 



Boston ! Ah ! reader, my heart fails me when I think of 

 the estimable friends whose society afforded me so much plea- 

 sure in that beautiful city, the Athens of our Western World. 

 Never, I fear, shall I have it in my power to return a tithe of 

 the hospitality which was there shewn towards us, or of the be- 

 nevolence and generosity which we experienced, and which evi- 

 dently came from the heart, without the slightest mixture of 

 ostentation. Indeed, I must acknowledge that although I have 

 been happy in forming many valuable friendships in various 

 parts of the world, all dearly cherished by me, the outpouring 

 of kindness which I experienced at Boston far exceeded all that 

 I have ever met with. 



Who that has visited that fair city, has not admired her 

 site, her universities, her churches, her harbours, the pure mo- 

 rals of her people, the beautiful country around her, gladdened 

 by glimpses of villas, each vying with another in neatness and 

 elegance ? Who that has made his pilgrimage to her far- 

 famed Bunker's Hill, entered her not less celebrated Fanneuil 

 Hall, studied the history of her infancy, her progress, her indig- 

 nant patriotism, her bloody strife, and her peaceful prosperity — 

 that has moreover experienced, as I have done, the beneficence 

 of her warm-hearted and amiable sons — and not felt his bosom 

 glow with admiration and love? Think of her Adamses, 

 her Perkins, her Everetts, her Peabodys, Cushings, 

 QuiNCEYs, Storeys, Paines, Greens, Tudors, Davises, 

 and Pickerings, whose public and private life presents all that 

 we deem estimable, and let them be bright examples of what the 



