Isaac Weld

“ Instead of well cultivated fields, green with wheat, such as are met with along that rich track which runs contiguous to the mountains, large pieces of land, which have been worn out with the culture of tobacco, are here seen lying waste, with scarcely an herb to cover them. Instead of the furrows of the plough, the marks of the hoe appear on the ground; the fields are overspread with little hillocks for the reception of tobacco plants, and the eye is assailed in every direction with the unpleasant sight of gangs of male and female slaves toiling under the harsh commands of the overseer. ”

“ I venture, indeed, to assert, that the farmers do not raise more on their two hundred acres than a skilful farmer in Norfolk, Suffolk, or Essex, or in any well cultivated part of England, would do on fifty acres of good land there. The farmer also, who rents fifty acres of arable land in England, lives far more comfortably in every respect than the farmer in Pennsylvania, or in any other of the middle states, who owns two hundred acres of land, his house will be found better furnished, and his table more plentifully covered. ”

“ LAKE CHAMPLAIN. The people at the American farm houses will cheerfully lie three in a bed, rather than suffer a stranger to go away who comes to seek for a lodging. As all these houses, however, which we had visited, were crowded with inhabitants, we felt no great inclination to ask for accommodation at any of them, but determined to sleep on board our little vessel. We accordingly moored her at a convenient part of the shore, and each of us having wrapped himself up in a blanket, which we had been warned to provide on leaving New York, we laid ourselves down to sleep. ”

“ Party spirit is for ever creating dissentions amongst them, and one man is continually endeavouring to obtrude his political creed upon another. If it is found out that a stranger is from Great Britain or Ireland, they immediately begin to boast of their own constitution and freedom, and give him to understand, that they think every Englishman a slave, because he submits to be called a subject. ”

“ Winter in Canada is the season of general amusement. The clear frosty weather no sooner commences, than all thoughts about business are laid aside, and every one devotes himself to pleasure. The inhabitants meet in convivial parties at each other’s houses, and pass the day with music, dancing, card-playing, and every social entertainment that can beguile the time. At Montreal, in particular, 392such a constant and friendly intercourse is kept up amongst the inhabitants, that, as I have often heard it mentioned, it appears then as if the town were inhabited but by one large family. ”

“ The bird whose song it mocks generally flies away, as if conscious of being excelled by the other, and dissatisfied with its own powers. It is a remark, however, made by Catesby, and which appears to be a very just one, that the birds in America are much inferior to those in Europe in the melody of their notes, but that they are superior in point of plumage. I know of no American bird that has the rich mellow note of our black-bird, the sprightly note of the skylark, or the sweet and plaintive one of the nightingale. ”

“ From the Posaik to the North River the country is hilly, barren, and uninteresting, till you come very near the latter, when a noble view opens all at once of the city of New York on the opposite shore, of the harbour, and shipping. The river, which is very grand, can be traced for several miles above the city; the banks are very steep on the Jersey side, and beautifully wooded, the trees almost dipping into the water: numbers of vessels plying about in every part render the scene extremely sprightly and interesting. ”

“ In coming to this place from Lancaster I crossed the Susquehannah River, which runs nearly midway between the two towns, at the small village of Columbia, as better boats are kept there than at either of the ferries higher up or lower down the river. The Susquehannah is here somewhat more than a quarter of a mile wide, and for a considerable distance, both above and below the ferry, it abounds with islands and large rocks, over which last the water runs with prodigious velocity: the roaring noise that it makes is heard a great way off. ”

“ By the laws of America, no produce which has undergone any sort of manufacture, as flour, potash, tobacco, rice, &c. can be exported without inspection, nor even put into a boat to be conveyed down a river to a sea-port. The inspectors are all sworn, are paid by the states, and not suffered to take fees from any individual. This is a most politic measure; for as none but the best of each article can be sent out of the country, it enhances the price of American produce in foreign markets, and increases the demand. ”

“ The common people in this neighbourhood appeared to me to be of a more frank and open disposition, more inclined to hospitality, and to live more contentedly on what they possessed, than the people of the same class in any other part of the United States I passed through. From being able, however, to procure the necessaries of life upon very easy terms, they are rather of an indolent habit, and inclined to dissipation. Intoxication is very prevalent, and it is scarcely possible to meet with a man who does not begin the day with taking one, two, or more drams as soon as he rises. ”

“ I am told, that it is no uncommon thing there, to see gangs of negroes staked at a horse race, and to see these unfortunate beings bandied about from one set of drunken gamblers to another for days together. How much to be deprecated are the laws which suffer such abuses to exist! yet these are the laws enacted by people who boast of their love of liberty and independence, 151and who presume to say, that it is in the breasts of Americans alone that the blessings of freedom are held in just estimation. ”

“ CULTIVATION. What I have here said, respecting the condition and treatment of slaves, appertains, it must be remembered, to those only who are upon the large plantations in Virginia; the lot of such as are unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the lower class of white people, and of hard task-masters in the towns, is very different. In the Carolinas and Georgia again, slavery presents itself in very different colours from what it does even in its worst form in Virginia. ”

“ On a fine Sunday in the summer season such multitudes flock to it, that even the steps at the outside are covered with people, who, unable to get in, remain there kneeling with their hats off during the whole time of divine service. Nearly all the christenings, marriages, and burials of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Montreal are performed in this church, on which occasions, as well as before and during the masses, they always ring the bells, to the great annoyance of every person that is not a lover of discords ”

“ Stewart has given a proof of his great discernment and intimate knowledge of the human countenance; for although General Washington has been extolled for his great moderation and calmness, during the very trying situations in which he has so often been placed, yet those who have been acquainted with him the longest and most intimately say, that he is by nature a man of a fierce and irritable disposition, but that, like Socrates, his judgment and great self-command have always made him appear a man of a different cast in the eyes of the world. ”

“ I have repeatedly met with these people myself in Upper Canada, and have heard them express the utmost disappointment at not being able to get lands on such terms even for money; I have heard others in the States also speak to the same purport after they had been in Canada; it is highly probable, moreover, that many of the people, who leave Great Britain and Ireland for America, would then be induced to settle in Canada instead of the United States, and the British empire would not, in that case, lose, as it does now, thousands of valuable citizens every year. ”

“ If a Canadian were doomed to spend but six weeks only in the country parts of England, when the ground was covered with snow, I dare venture to say that he would be as heartily tired of the sameness which then pervaded the face of nature, and as desirous of beholding a green field once more, as any one of us. ”

“ Still, however, let the condition of a slave be made ever so comfortable, as long as he is conscious of being the property of another man, who has it in his power to dispose of him according to the dictates of caprice; as long as he hears people around him talking of the blessings of liberty, and considers that he is in a state of bondage, it is not to be supposed that he can feel equally happy with the freeman. ”

“ It appears to me, that there is no part of America where the climate would be more congenial to the constitution of a native of Great Britain or Ireland. The frost in winter is more regular, but not severer than commonly takes place in those islands. In summer the heat is, perhaps, somewhat greater; but there is not a night in the year that a blanket is not found very comfortable. Before ten o’clock in the morning the heat is greatest; at that hour a breeze generally springs up from the mountains, and renders the air agreeable the whole day. ”

“ Happy would it have been, if the man who stood forth the champion of a nation contending for its freedom, and whose declaration to the whole world was, “That all men were created equal, and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, amongst the first of which were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” ”

“ A good mechanic, that understands a particular kind of trade, for which men are much wanted in America, has to serve a shorter time than a mere labourer, as more money will be given for his time, and the expence of his passage does not exceed that of any other man. During their servitude, these people are liable to be resold at the caprice of their masters; they are as much under dominion as negro slaves, and if they attempt to run away, they may be imprisoned like felons. ”

“ On one side of the road there are large heaps of rocks above you, which seem to threaten destruction to any one that passes under them; on the other, a deep precipice presents itself, at the bottom of which is heard the roaring of the waters, that are concealed from the eye by the thickness of the foliage. ”

“ It is scarcely possible in any part of the continent to find a man, amongst the middling and lower classes of Americans, who has not changed his farm and his residence many different times. Thus it is, that though there are not more than four millions of people in the United States, yet they are scattered from the confines of Canada to the farthest extremity of Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the banks of the Mississippi. ”