perfectly right, I would never go to a barber's where a coloured man was cut!" Observe, these gentlemen were not from the south; they are residents of New York, and I believe were born there.'

pp. 58-60. The State of Virginia, we are informed, has supplied four of the five presidents of the United States, and also a liberal num'ber of occupants of every government office.'

The Virginians very modestly assert, that this monopoly does not proceed from corrupt influence, but is a consequence of the buoyancy and vigour of their natural talent. Without entering into the controversy, whether or not seventeen States can supply a degree of ability equal to that of Virginia single-handed, I must express my want of respect for a State in which every man is either a slave-holder, or a defender of slavery-a State in which landed property is not attached for debt-a State in which human beings are sold in the streets by the public auctioneer, are flogged without trial at the mercy of their owner or his agents, and are killed almost without punishment;-yet these men dare to call themselves democrats, and friends of liberty! from such democrats, and such friends of liberty, Good Lord, deliver us!' p. 290.

Mr. Birkbeck seemed to flatter himself that he had escaped beyond the prevalence of the slave-system, but Mr. F. gives us reason to fear that the state of society in the newly settled country does not promise to be free from this wide-spreading leprosy.

I should hope,' (he says) that Illinois-State constitution will not, when formed, authorize and legalize slavery; yet the Ohio practice will, I have no doubt, continue as it now is in Illinois,-indenturing negroes for a term of from 10 to 15 years. This baleful practice promises a perpetuation of practical slavery throughout America.'

What a foul stain upon the republic, professing, as it does, the principles of liberty and equal rights, that, out of twenty States, there should be eleven in which slavery is an avowed part of their political constitution; and that in those called free (New England excepted) the condition of blacks should practically amount to slavery! Like the Greeks of old, they talk of freedom, while the degraded Helot is within their doors.' p. 266.

But we must now proceed to give our readers an account of the general nature of the contents of Mr. Fearon's Volume, first, as they relate specifically to the question of Emigration, and secondly, as they contain further illustrations of the national character.

The Author's conclusions on many points, do not very widely differ from those of Mr. Birkbeck. He coincides with that gentleman in representing the prospect as by no means encouraging to any but capitalists, and to them only in particular branches. There is no great scope, he says, for mercantile

speculation; the ground is pre-occupied. Lawyers, doctors, clerks, shopmen, literary men, artists, and schoolmasters, 'would come to a bad market.' 'Professional men literally " swarm in the United States.' Mr. F. refers to an anecdote told at New York, of a gentleman who was walking in Broadway, and on seeing a friend passing, called, "Doctor:" im'mediately_sixteen persons turned round to answer to the 'name.' The mechanic who is not earning more than a guinea a week, would find, he thinks, his pecuniary affairs improved by becoming a citizen of the Republic. Weavers, stocking'makers and others, acquainted only with the cotton, woollen, hardware, and linen manufactures, would find employment very difficult to obtain.' An instance is given of the successful issue of the adventure of a fellow-countryman, which may be taken as a fair exemplification of the sweets of Emigration.

A few evenings since I saw a carpenter and his wife, who have been here but one month, from Hull, in Yorkshire. The husband stated, that in England he earned 21s. per week; that he now obtains 318. 6d.; that he finds great difficulty in getting his money from his employer; that, "taking one thing with another," the expense of living is as nearly like that in England as possible; that had he been acquainted with every thing which he at present knows, he would not have left home; but that, having done so, he is well satisfied; and has now saved some money-a thing which he had hardly ever before effected. I state this man's information, because I consider it deserving of your confidence. It is equally free from the wild rhapsodies of some persons, and the deplorable pictures which several Englishmen in this city, and in other parts of the Union, have given me of their disappointments, and of America in general. The carpenter's success is just what would attend any other industrious man of the same business, or of several others previously enumerated. His ideas of the difficulties which he had encountered are natural, as he has not been engaged sufficiently long in other pursuits to obliterate these impressions. Could I see him in twelve months from the present time, I think his condition would be, if I may judge from others, something like the following:-saved fourteen guineas; living in two small rooms; independent of his master, and his master of him; thinks the Americans a very dirty and disagreeable people, and hates them from his soul; would be delighted to see Old England again, and smoke his pipe and drink his pint, and talk politics with the cobbler, and abuse the taxes; and then he remembers that he is in America, where he cannot endure the thoughts of having his bones buried; thinks of returning to England, where his wife is also anxious to go, in order that she may drink tea and gossip with her old neighbours; then they both conjure up their former sea sickness, their fear of being drowned, the money that their passage would cost, and that when they got to Hull, his most laborious application would not more than provide them with a bare existence. He then determines to remain in America, keep the money which he has saved, add as

much more to it as he can, and make himself as contented and happy as lies in his power.' pp. 175-177.

Mr. Fearon went to Long Island for the purpose of visiting the celebrated Mr. Cobbett, at Hyde Park Farm, with whom he was soon familiar, although he had no previous acquaintance with him. He found the great man quite out of temper with his adopted country.

Mr. C. thinks meanly of the American people, but spoke highly of the economy of their government. He does not advise persons in respectable circumstances to emigrate, even in the present state of England! In his opinion, a family who can but barely live upon their property, will more consult their happiness by not removing to the United States. He almost laughs at Mr. Birkbeck's settling in the Western country. He complained of the difficulty of obtaining labourers at a price by which the agriculturist could realize a profit: so much so, that he conceives that a farmer in America cannot support himself unless he has sons who, with himself, will labour with their own hands. He had contracted with a man to do his mowing: the terms were, an equal division of the produce. The contractor complained that even half the hay, for merely his labour, was a hard bargain.'

The Author's impressions of Mr. Cobbett were, that those who know him would like him, IF they can be content to 'submit unconditionally to his dictation!?

"Obey me and I will treat you kindly; if you do not, I will trample on you," seemed visible in every word and feature. He appears to feel, in its fullest force, the sentiment,

"I have no brother, am like no brother,
I am myself alone."

Mr. C. had for an inmate, a sprightly, capering little Frenchman, who had been in the suite of Napoleon, and spoke of his late master with great affection. It must have been amusing to witness the contrast presented by personages of so opposite a character, but doubtless brothers in patriotism, and having one sentiment in common,-admiration of the ex-emperor.

To return from this digression. Mr. Birkbeck, besides coming in for his friend Cobbett's ridicule, is mildly censured by our Author for having, in his too obvious eagerness to advance his own settlement, pressed not only Great Britain, but also every part of America into the service of extolling Illinois. It is intimated that his "Letters" are less impartial, less philosophic, and less disinterested' than his "Notes." In particular, the marvellous profits' of capital, which he speaks of in his latter publication, are shewn to exist only in anticipation as probable results. These miraculous schemes,' remarks Mr. Fearon, belong more to the age of Sir Walter Raleigh, than to the sober character of the nineteenth century. Other mis

representations or over-coloured statements are pointed out, and the Author adverts to the consideration that the mass of those who read his book, unaware of the objections to the country concerning which he writes, can really have no conception of the entire change of life which is required—of the extreme 'difference which exists between an English residence and one in the back-woods of America.'

The following may be considered as a sort of summing up of the Author's opinion on the subject of emigration to America.

In going to America then, I would say generally, the emigrant must expect to find-not an economical or cleanly people; not a social or generous people; not a people of enlarged ideas: not a people of liberal opinions, or towards whom you can express your thoughts free as air;" not a people friendly to the advocates of liberty in Europe; not a people who understand liberty from investigation and from principle; not a people who comprehend the meaning of the words "honour" and "generosity." On the other hand he will find a country possessed of the most enlightened civil and political advantages; a people reaping the full reward of their own Labours, a people not paying tythes, and not subjected to heavy taxation without representation; a people with a small national debt; a people without spies and informers; a people without an enormous standing army; a people in possession of an extent of territory capable of sustaining an increase of millions and tens of millions of population; and a people rapidly advancing towards national wealth and greatness.

The classes of British society who would be benefited by an exchange of country, are, I conceive, first, that large and much injured body of men, who are here chained to the country and the political system, which oppresses and grinds them to the earth,-I mean our extreme poor. They would not be in America a week, before they would experience a rapid advance in the scale of being. Instead of depending for subsistence upon charity soup, occasional parochial relief, and bowing with slavish submission to the tyrant of the poor-house; they would, if industrious and willing to labour, earn 4s. 6d. to 6s. 9d. a day, have meat at least seven times in the week, and know "no one who could make them afraid." The second class would be the mechanics, in branches of first necessity, with the general exclusion, however, of those acquainted with the British staple manufactures of cotton and woollen only; but for others, whose earnings here are under 30s. a week, or whose employment is of that precarious nature, that they cannot reasonably calculate, by the exercise of prudence and economy, on laying by any thing for what is called "a rainy day," or on making a provision for old agefor such persons as these, particularly if they have, or anticipate the having a family, emigration to America will certainly advance their pecuniary interests, though it may not enlarge their mental sphere of enjoyments. To these two classes, I would further add that of the small farmer who has a family, for whom he can now barely provide the necessaries of life, and concerning a provision for whom, when

his own grey hairs are approaching to the grave, he can look forward with but little confidence or satisfaction; to such a man, if he should have one hundred pounds clear, that is, after paying all his expenses of removal, &c. America decidedly offers inducements very superior to those afforded by this country. Such a father would there feel himself relieved from a load of anxiety, the weight of which upon his spirits, and its influence in repressing his exertions, he is perhaps himself scarcely aware of, till he feels the difference by comparison when he has shaken it off in the New World;-but still to every proposed emigrant, even of these classes, I would say, that he must not expect to find either the country full of gold, or its inhabitants as agreeable or as sociable as the perhaps unequalled people of England. He must prepare too for very many privations, and should previously have the mind of his family, particularly that of the mother of his children, so entirely in unison with his own, that they can all have the fortitude and good sense necessary to bear under the numerous privations they will certainly be subjected to, keeping in mind the substantial advantages they will enjoy, and setting off present evil against their future and increasing prosperity, which, in such a country, with a soil yet uncultivated, and in the infancy of its resources, may be considered as almost insured to them.

The man of small fortune, who cares little about politics, to whom the comforts of England are perhaps in some degree essential, but who wishes to curtail his expenditure, would not act wisely by emigrating to America. Indeed, should such a man make the attempt, he would return as expeditiously as did a family who arrived at New York in the Pacific, on the 25th March, with the intention of continuing, but who took a passage back in the same vessel the following week; they went to America in the cabin, they departed from it in the steerage.' pp. 437-440.

It would be a narrow policy that should altogether discourage emigration from a full peopled country; and it would be as unfeeling as it would be unwise, to overlook the circumstances which, pressing with the force of necessity upon the lower classes, have induced so many of them to migrate. Aye, aye, Bob,' said a fellow- Englishman at Pittsburgh to one of the grumblers, you forget that you were starving in England. Say what you will, this after all, is the poor man's countryit is the poor man's country, Bob.' 'Yes,' was the reply, it may be well enough for getting pork, and whiskey, and wages, ' and all that,—it would be a good country enough if it was free from dirty, cheating Yankies.' The reasoning is irresistible, that to emigrate is better than to starve at home; and numbers, we believe, have had no other alternative. Whether, under such circumstances, colonization might not with advantage to the mother country, obtain the assistance and direction of its Governinent, is a question too wide for us at present to enter upon. But we cannot but advert to the fact, as deeply to be Jamented, that the only vent of the kind which is afforded to