Another thing which has displeased me, is the profusion and waste usually exhibited at meals. Except in the very best society, the plate is often loaded with a variety of viands, which are dismissed half-eaten. An Englishman is shocked at the liberal portions allotted to the young ladies, till he finds they afford no measure of the appetites of those to whom they are sent, who appear to be as abstemious as his own fair country-women. Still this exhibition of waste is always displeasing; and when viewed in connexion with the sufferings of so many of the population of our country, is also distressing. But the necessaries of life are here produced in abundance, and, with very few exceptions, are within the reach of every one. I only recollect seeing three beggars since I landed.

After touching on these points, I do not feel willing to conclude my letter without reminding you of the kindness and hospitality, the good sense and intelligence, which I have every where met with; and of that frequent exhibition of philanthropic and religious feeling which has given a peculiar interest to many of the scenes through which I have passed. The American character, to be estimated correctly, must be regarded as a whole; and as a whole it has been calumniated to a degree derogatory both to the intelligence and the generosity of my country. The Americans have been exasperated into unfriendly feelings by our real jealousy and apparent contempt; and their very sensibility to our good opinion, which they cannot conceal, has rendered the mis

representations of our travellers and journalists the more irritating. Americans have often asked me if we do not in England consider them a horde of savages; and when the question has been proposed to me by a fair lady, in a handsome drawing room furnished with every article of luxury which money could procure in London or Paris, I found no difficulty in acquiescing in the conclusion which she seemed to draw from a hasty glance around her, that such an idea would not be quite just. On such occasions I have often thought how many of my candid and liberal female friends would blush, if they could be introduced for the evening, to find how erroneous were their previous ideas of trans-Atlantic society. But it is when joining in religious worship with exemplary and eminent Christians, or witnessing the extent and variety of their benevolent efforts, that I most keenly feel the apathy with which in England we are accustomed to regard our American brethren. I really am not without hopes, that it may yet become the fashion for ladies of the two countries to reciprocate visits across the Atlantic. Then, and perhaps not till then, will my countrywomen learn to do justice to their Western sisters; and leaving it to us, their knights-errant, to maintain their own superiority, as in duty bound, will begin to think it possible at least that intelligence, refinement, and piety may combine, even on this side of the Atlantic, to form characters justly entitled to esteem and affection. The supercilious disdain with which, in many circles, the very idea of polished

society in America is rejected, would be suppressed by a more correct estimate of American manners; and prejudice would be succeeded by candour and liberality. Christian sympathy also would be awakened towards those unknown distant friends, who, sprung from the same stock, and speaking the same language, profess also the same religion; and who, strangers and pilgrims on the earth, like their Europeau brethren and sisters, are travelling a thorny road to that better country where all true Christians will be for ever united in one common family.

My very sensibility to the unrivalled excellencies of my fair country women makes me additionally solicitous that they, at least, should be exempt from those unchristian prejudices, which some of my countrymen appear to regard as proofs of pa

triotism.

The pleasure and exultation with which I have just been listening, in a large party, to warm eulogiums on Mrs. Hannah More and Mrs. Fry, and some other of our illustrious females, have rendered me at this moment peculiarly susceptible on this point; and you must excuse me if I write with corresponding earnestness. The conversation afterwards turned on the signs of the times in both countries; and on our rambles in Canada, where many of the party had spent the summer. It was very pleasant to compare our adventures and impressions. Montreal and Quebec are so much like old European towns, and differ so widely from the airy, expansive cities of the United States, that an American feels as far from home on his first arrival in a

Canadian city, as I did in the forests on the Mississippi. As he looks round him, he feels more and more in a foreign land; and the foreign language and gentle manners of the native Canadians confirm the impression. The pomp of monarchy, even when dimly seen in the regalia of a viceroy: the aristocratical distinctions apparent even in a colony: the vestiges of the feudal system to be traced in the surrounding seignories; the nunneries, and the Catholic churches, with their vesper and matin bells; the Catholic clergy walking in the streets; and the boards of plenary indulgence suspended from the walls, are all calculated to recall impressions connected rather with the old world, than with the newly discovered continent, where man still shares his divided empire with the beasts of the forest. Here no gray tower meets the eye, to call back the imagination to scenes and incidents of elder times; no monastic edifices, to revive the memory of ancient superstitions; no regalia, transmitted through a line of kings; no feudal magnificence; no baronial splendour; no sacred depositories of the ashes of generations who have slept with their fathers during a thousand years: all is new, fresh, and prospective; and if the mind will take a retrospective glance, it is but to expatiate in the regions of fancy, or to lose itself in the clouds which rest on the early history of the aborigines. But I shall have tired you.

LETTER XI.

Charleston, N. C. Feb. 19, 1820.

THE celebrated Missouri question continued the great subject of discussion, both in and out of Congress, as long as I remained at Washington. The debates, both on the constitutional difficulties involved in the question, and on the expediency of the proposed restrictions, were very interesting; the former, as developing the spirit of the constitution, and requiring a constant reference to the original principles of the confederation; the latter, as exhibiting the views of the most enlightened men in the country with regard to the probable effects of the admission of slavery into Missouri.

I left Washington on the 24th ult. proceeding only to Alexandria, six miles distant, where I slept, and where I had been not a little surprised to meet Joseph Lancaster a few days before. I set off the next morning at three o'clock, in what is called the mail-stage, the only public conveyance to the southward, and a wretched contrast to the excellent coaches in the north. It is a covered waggon, open at the front, with four horses; and although it was intensely cold, I was obliged to take my seat by the driver, in order to secure a view of the country during the remainder of the day. The road lay across woody labyrinths, through which the driver seemed to wind by in