CHAP. XXXVI. ] ANTI-BRITISH ANTIPATHIES. i&amp;gt;\7 



table, he has returned again and again to work, and can always 

 command high wages. He has read up the history of the 

 American revolution, and at an election can harangue a mob of 

 newly come emigrants with great effect, and with all the author 

 ity of a native, assuming a tone of intense nationality. On other 

 occasions I had met with a naturalized Englishman of a different 

 stamp, who might equally be described as &quot;ipsis Americanis Ame- 

 ricanior,&quot; one who, having been born in the middle classes, has 

 gone over early in life to the New World, where he has succeeded 

 in business, risen to a good social position, and given his children 

 an excellent education. He then goes back to visit the &quot; old 

 country,&quot; and see his friends and relatives, and is surprised and 

 mortified that they are separated by so great a gulf from the 

 higher classes, greater than exists between the humblest and 

 most elevated in his adopted country. He finds, also, the 

 religious sect to which he and his kindred belong, only tolerated, 

 and not standing on the same footing of &quot;gentility&quot; as the domi 

 nant church. His sectarian zeal, his feelings of social pride, and 

 his political principles are all up in arms, and he comes back to 

 America far more patriotic and more of an optimist than any 

 native. If he then ventures to enter on the political arena, his 

 opponents warn the electors against one who is an alien by birth 

 and feeling, and, in his efforts to disprove such imputations, he 

 reaches the climax of anti-British antipathy. 



Such citizens were unaffectedly incapable of comprehending 

 that I could have seen so much of the Union, and yet have JLO 

 wish whatever to live there. Instead of asking, &quot; Would you 

 not like to settle here ?&quot; it would be more prudent for them to 

 shape their question thus : &quot; If you were to be born over again, and 

 take your chance, by lot, as to your station in society, what coun 

 try would you prefer ?&quot; Before choosing, I should then have to 

 consider, that the chances are many thousands to one in favor of 

 my belonging to the laboring class, and the land where they are 

 best off, morally, physically, and intellectually, and where they 

 are most progressive, would be the safest one to select. Such 

 being the proposition, the Free States of the Union might well 

 claim a preference, 

 VOL. ii. K 



