Ixxviii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
were upon the top of a miserable barren mountain, several 
miles from a house. It is in vain to reason with the people 
on the impropriety of this — custom makes every absurdity 
proper. There is scarcely any currency in this country but 
paper, and I solemnly declare that I do not recollect having 
seen one hard dollar since I left New York. Bills even of 
twenty-five-cents, of a hundred different banks, whose very 
names one has never heard of before, are continually in circu- 
lation. I say nothing of the jargon which prevails in the 
country. Their boasted schools, if I may judge by the state of 
their school-houses, are no better than our own. 
“ Lawyers swarm in every town, like locusts; almost every 
door has the word Office painted over it, which, like the web 
of a spider, points out the place where the spoiler lurks for his 
prey. There is little or no improvement in agriculture; in 
fifty miles I did not observe a single grain or stubble field, 
though the country has been cleared and settled these one hun- 
dred and fifty years. In short, the steady habits of a great 
portion of the inhabitants of those parts of New England 
through which I passed, seem to be laziness, law bickerings 
and * * * *. A man here is as much ashamed of being seen 
walking the streets on Sunday, unless in going and returning 
from church, as many would be of being seen going to a * * * 
■ 5 ^ * * 
“ As you approach Boston the country improves in its ap- 
pearance; the stone fences give place to those of posts and rails; 
the road becomes wide and spacious; and every thing an- 
nounces a better degree of refinement and civilization. It was 
dark when I entered Boston, of which I shall give you some 
account in my next. I have visited the celebrated Bunker’s 
Hill, and no devout pilgrim ever approached the sacred tomb 
of his holy prophet with more awful enthusiasm, and profound 
veneration, than I felt in tracing the grass-grown intrench- 
ments of this hallowed spot, made immortal by the bravery of 
those heroes who defended it, whose ashes are now mingled 
