Having been forced
to make railroads, it has been deemed impossible that we should make
verse." But here was Saint-John de Crevecoeur writing, in the
eighteenth century, his idyllic Letters, while, if he did not build
railways, he interested himself in the experiments of Fitch and
Rumsey and Parmentier, and organised a packet-line between New York
and Lorient, in Brittany. This Crevecoeur should from the first have
appealed to the imagination - especially to the American imagination-
-combining as he did the faculty of the ideal and the achievement of
the actual. It is not too late for him to appeal to-day; in spite of
all his quaintness, Crevecoeur is a contemporary of our own.
WARREN BARTON BLAKE.
BRADFORD HILLS, WEST CHESTER,
PENNSYLVANIA.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Letters from an American Farmer (London), 1782, 1783; (Dublin),
1782; (Belfast), 1783; (Philadelphia), 1793; (New York), 1904;
(London), 1908; translated into French (with gratuitous additions)
as Lettres d'un cultivateur Americain (Paris), 1784 and 1787; into
German as Briefe eines Amerikanischen Landmanns (Leipzig), 1788,
1789. Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie et dans l'etat de New York
(Paris), 1801.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Warren Barton Blake
LETTER
I. INTRODUCTION
II. ON THE SITUATION, FEELINGS, AND PLEASURES OF AN AMERICAN
FARMER
III. WHAT IS AN AMERICAN
IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET, WITH THE MANNERS,
CUSTOMS, POLICY, AND TRADE OF THE INHABITANTS
V. CUSTOMARY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE INHABITANTS OF
NANTUCKET
VI. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF MARTHA'S VINEYARD, AND OF THE
WHALE FISHERY
VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS AT NANTUCKET
VIII. PECULIAR CUSTOMS AT NANTUCKET
IX. DESCRIPTION OF CHARLES-TOWN; THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY; ON PHYSICAL
EVIL; A MELANCHOLY SCENE
X. ON SNAKES; AND ON THE HUMMING BIRD.
XI. FROM MR. IW - N AL - Z, A RUSSIAN GENTLEMAN, DESCRIBING THE
VISIT HE PAID AT MY REQUEST TO MR. JOHN BERTRAM, THE
CELEBRATEDPENNSYLVANIA BOTANIST
XII. DISTRESSES OF A FRONTIER MAN
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER;
DESCRIBING CERTAIN PROVINCIAL SITUATIONS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS, NOT
GENERALLY KNOWN; AND CONVEYING SOME IDEA OF THE LATE AND PRESENT
INTERIOR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INFORMATION OF A FRIEND IN ENGLAND,
By J. HECTOR ST. JOHN, A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA
ADVERTISEMENT
[To the first edition, 1782.]
The following Letters are the genuine production of the American
Farmer whose name they bear. They were privately written to gratify
the curiosity of a friend; and are made public, because they contain
much authentic information, little known on this side the Atlantic;
they cannot therefore fail of being highly interesting to the people
of England, at a time when everybody's attention is directed toward
the affairs of America.
That these letters are the actual result of a private correspondence
may fairly be inferred (exclusive of other evidence) from the style
and manner in which they are conceived:
