William Priest

“ In the evening thou wert nothing; and the pallid complexion of death had taken place of the bloom of beauty.—And now thou art gone to sit down in the gardens that are found at the setting of the sun, behind the western mountains, where the daughters of the white men have a separate place allotted to them by the spirit of the hills. As much as the mind is superiour to the body, so much are those charming regions preferable to these which we now inhabit. Man is here but an image of himself, the representation of an idea that in itself is not subjected to a change. ”

“ A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusement, to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventurous; but this may proceed from want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present; when present, they do not go through it with more coolness and steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after the female; but love seems with them more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. ”

“ DEAR FRIEND, Upon my arrival here, I had once more the mortification to find myself in the neighbourhood of the yellow fever, which had lately been imported. The uncommon, early, and severe north-west winds entirely prevented it from spreading; a fortunate circumstance for the inhabitants of Boston, as, from the narrowness of their streets, great population, and other circumstances, it must have been very fatal, had it not been by this means destroyed. ”

“ Exclusive of the shad fishery, which is only two months in the year, there is not one individual, either in the city of Philadelphia, or it's vicinity, who procures a livelihood by catching fish in the Delaware, though that river abounds with sturgeon, perch, cat-fish, eels, and a vast variety of others, which would meet with a sure sale in the Philadelphia markets: but this is a trifle to their neglect of the greatest fishery in the universe; for such certainly is that on the banks of Newfoundland. ”

“ When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience. And it is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property, were not formed for him, as well as his slave, and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him, as he would slay one that would slay him? ”

“ But recollect, I do not include the New Town, or West Boston, in this description; which, as well as those houses that have lately been erected in the Old Town, are in the modern style.
The harbour is one of the best in the States; and, as a sea port, Boston possesses advantages superiour to any I have seen in America: being too far to the north to have any thing to fear from the worms (see a former letter from Annapolis) ; and so near the ocean, that the navigation is open, when the ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and others, three or four degrees more to the south, are entirely frozen. ”

“ It is not their interest to engage in manufactories; and when the country is sufficiently populous, it will be easier to conquer South America, and procure thence the means of purchasing commodities, than to go through the drudgery of their fabrication: but at present such is the cheapness of land, and the high price of wheat, and other produce, that it has raised the value of labour beyond the profits of almost any manufacture. If they could be established with effect in any part of America, it would be in the New England states, where the population is more than double those of the south ”

“ The soil had never submitted to the ploughshare, and the air that circulated through this domain of nature was replete with that balmy fragrance, which was breathed into the lungs of the long-lived race of men, that flourished in the first ages of the world. ”

“ The close iron stoves they have introduced among you are terrible enemies to beauty. Why you so obstinately persist in a custom so prejudicial to health, I cannot imagine. Your plea, that the coldness of the climate makes them indispensable, I can-not admit of; you know, that we are here three degrees to the north of you, and that the present is the coldest winter since the year 1780-81; and yet I have not seen a close stove since I left New York. The tavern bills in these states are near one hundred per cent under yours. ”

“ We never sit down, either to dinner, or supper, but the least noise spreads a general alarm, and prevents us from enjoying the comforts of our meals. The very appetite proceeding from labour and peace of mind is gone! Our sleep is disturbed by the most frightful dreams! Sometimes I start awake, as if the great hour of danger was come; at other times the howling of our dogs seems to announce the arrival of the enemy: we leap out of bed, and run to arms ”

“ Fear industriously increases every sound; we all listen; each communicates to each other his fears and conjectures. We remain thus, sometimes for whole hours, our hearts and our minds racked by the most anxious suspense! What a dreadful situation! A thousand times worse than that of a soldier engaged in the midst of a most severe conflict! Sometimes feeling the spontaneous courage of a man, I seem to wish for the decisive minute ”

“ Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expression of every passion by a greater or less suffusion of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, that immovable veil of black, which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference to them, as uniformly as is the preference of the oroonowtang for the black women over those of his own species? ”

“ Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet: their love is ardent; but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. ”

“ Next to Virginia, this state was the most famous for tobacco-plantations; but the people now find the culture of wheat more profitable, as well as less injurious to the soil. No plant impoverishes the earth so much by it's growth as tobacco; many plantations, owing to successive crops of this weed, are what is here called worn out; formerly, when their land was in this state, instead of endeavouring to bring it round by a few fallow years and manure, as in England, they immediately cleared a fresh tract. They now begin to use manure, and have discovered a very extraordinary kind ”

“ An american naturalist (Bartram) says, "Our turkey of America is a very different species from the meleagris of Asia and Europe. I have seen several that have weighed between twenty and thirty pounds, and some have been killed that have weighed nearly forty pounds."
Why do not the Americans domesticate this noble bird? They are much better adapted to bear this climate than the puny breed their ancestors imported from England. The few that are shot so far to the eastward as to be brought to our markets bear a great price.
The shooting of the back settlers is rather business than sport. ”

“ I have often thought, if an enthusiastic cockney, of weak nerves, who had never been out of the sound of Bow bell, could suddenly be conveyed from his bed, in the middle of the night, and laid, fast asleep, in an american swamp, he would, on waking, fancy himself in the infernal regions: his first sensation would be from the stings of a myriad of mosquitoes; waking with the smart, his ears would be assailed with the horrid noises of the frogs ”

“ About forty years ago the two towns of Baltimore, and the Point, contained only two brick houses, and a few wooden ones: in a late edition of Salmon's Geography, I find Baltimore described as consisting of a few straggling houses, scarcely deserving the name of a town. Within these fifteen years it has increased in size and population beyond all precedent. It now contains nearly twenty thousand inhabitants; and, in point of trade, Baltimore is the fourth town in America. ”

“ The public, I presume, will not be wholly disappointed; the extracts I have made from Jefferson, Belknap, and other american writers, are worthy their attention: I have no other merit than having placed them in a tolerable point of view.
"The God of Truth, and all who know me, will bear testimony that, from my whole soul, I despise deceit, as I do all silly claims to superior wisdom, and infallibility, which so many writers, by a thousand artifices, endeavour to make their readers imagine they possess." ”

“ In British America this amusement may be followed nearly all the winter; but so far to the south as Pennsylvania, the snow seldom lies on the ground more than seven or eight days together. The consequence is, that every moment that will admit of sleighing is seized on with avidity. The tavern and inn-keepers are up all night; and the whole country is in motion. When the snow begins to fall, our planter's daughters provide hot sand, which at night they place in bags at the bottom of the sleigh. Their sweethearts attend with a couple of horses, and away they glide with astonishing velocity ”

“ Indian corn is also the best food for horses employed in agriculture in this climate: black cattle, deer, and hogs are very fond of it, and fatten better than on any other grain. It is also excellent food for turkies, and other poultry.
When this harvest is in, he provides himself with a cow, and a few sheep and hogs; the latter run wild in the woods. But for a few years he depends chiefly on his rifle, and faithful dog; with these he provides his family with deer, bear, racoon, &c.; but what he values most are the black, and gray squirrels ”

“ The inhabitants boast of having the best fish-market in the United States; their own oyster-beds, and their vicinity to the New England states, give them this advantage [Footnote: There are fish on the coast of America which have certain boundaries, beyond which they never go; salmon, for instance, is never found south of a river in Connecticut; and certain southern fish never visit the New England coast.] .—The governor's house, new theatre, and tontine coffee house, are magnificent buildings; the public walks well laid out, and pleasantly situate. ”

“ The first difference that strikes us is colour. Whether the black of the negro reside in the reticular membrane, between the skin and scarf skin, or in the scarf skin itself; whether it proceed from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if it's seat and cause were better known to us. ”

“ When his land is properly registered, his next care is to provide himself with a horse, a plough, and other implements of agriculture; a rifle, a fowling piece, some ammunition, and a large dog of the blood-hound breed, to hunt deer. We will suppose him arrived at the place of his destination in spring, as soon as the ground is clear of frost. No sooner is the arrival of a new settler circulated, than, for many miles round, his neighbours flock to him: they all assist in erecting his hut; this is done with logs; a bricklayer is only wanting to make his chimney and oven. ”

“ I have been in the midst of these roaring lions, and savage bears, that neither fear God, man, nor devil, by day and night, alone, and in company, sleeping all sorts together, and yet not one of them offered me the least abuse of unchastity, in word or action! ”

“ The buildings in this city are about two thirds of brick, and the rest of wood. The foundations of the former are in general of a species of marble; the bricks are uncommonly well manufactured; and these buildings are more firmly constructed than in Europe. Those of wood are the reverse, which you will easily credit, when I inform you, that when a house of this description is offered for sale, it is by no means understood, as in England, that the land on which it stands is included in the purchase. They have a method of removing these buildings entire. ”

“ My present intention is to give you some conception of the family of a planter, whose ancestors had in some degree gone through all the difficulties I described in my last.
We will suppose them descended from the original english emigrants, who came over with Penn; like them, to possess a high sense of religion; and that this family are now in the quiet possession of about three hundred acres of land, their own property [Footnote: There are very few farms properly so called in the United States.] , situate in Pennsylvania, about seventy or eighty miles from Philadelphia. ”

“ The manner of living I have been describing is that of people in moderate circumstances; but this taste for relishes with coffee and tea extends to all ranks of people in these states. Soon after my arrival at this city, I went on a party of pleasure to a sort of tea-garden and tavern [Footnote: By the word tavern, in America, is meant an inn or public house of any description.] , romantically situate on the bank of the Scuylkill. At six in the evening we ordered coffee, which I was informed they were here famous for serving in style. ”