* * * * *
"I Have Presumed To Think That These Hasty Letters, Destitute As They
Are Of All Literary Merit, Written During A
Visit to the 'New World,'
may be, just now, worth presenting to 'every-day sort of people,' like
Myself, who have little time to travel; and, unable to do both, would
rather watch the free growth of a new country, than observe the
decadence and decrepitude of old ones. For just now, when a large part
of our labouring population is strangely awakening to the impression,
that a dollar a-day and a vote at elections in the United States are
better than eightpence a-day in Ireland; the New Home to which our
fellow-countrymen are thus flocking - and in which, somehow or other,
they prosper and are independent - is especially interesting.
"Steam navigation and railways have so far reduced the difficulties and
uncertainties of Western travel, that it is now as easy and as cheap to
spend one's autumn holidays, as I have done, in a trip to America of
some eleven thousand miles out-and-home, as fifteen years ago it was to
get to John o' Groats and back by land conveyance, or to go a-shooting
in Sutherlandshire - which, by-the-bye, is an out of the way and dismal
sort of county even yet.
"Every one ought to know how easy it is, and how pleasant and
instructive, to travel in the States. But, though many people do know
this, the plague of English travellers which annually overspreads
Europe, from July to December, and disturbs even the quiet of the Nile,
has hardly touched America. And while one cannot enter the drawing-room
of any decent house without hearing descriptions of scenery and manners
in Germany, Italy, or Russia, - to have visited America almost involves
the suspicion of some commercial connection with that country. Yet no
other land in the world has so close an alliance with our own; and,
while we are culpably ignorant of almost everything but its
peculiarities and its vices, no other country studies our history, and
watches our progress, with greater interest or more solicitude. Any
English youngster will tell you that Americans speak through their
noses, spit, and hold slaves; but how few, even of the most
intelligent, know that better English is spoken by the mass of
Americans, than by the majority of English citizens, and that education
is practically an institution of the United States, and universal;
though at home it hardly exists as a system, and can never be extended
in any truly national direction without exciting a war of parties! Be
the reason what it may, we have been in the habit of looking down on
America. We shall soon perhaps have to look up to it.
"It is but sixty-two years since the foundation of the Republic. It
then consisted of thirteen small States. It now comprises twenty-nine
States; without reckoning the new dominions of Oregon, California, New,
Mexico, and Texas. Ten years ago its area was 2,000,000 square miles,
or more than 1,300,000,000 acres. That area has become, in 1850,
3,252,689 square miles, or 2,081,717,760 acres. It is thus nearly
thirty times the size of Great Britain and Ireland.
"The Republic now possesses an ocean coast of 5,140 miles, viz., - l,920
on the Atlantic, 1,620 on the Pacific, and 1,600 on the Gulf of Mexico.
"Its population in 1790 was less than 4,000,000; in 1840 it stood at
17,000,000; it is now 25,000,000. And if its vast territory, with a
more productive soil, and greater resources of all kinds, should some
day become as thickly peopled as our own island, it will then contain a
population of 800,000,000 of souls speaking the English tongue. If the
Federation hold together in peace, why should this result, though
distant, be doubtful? For it now comprises almost every variety of
soil, climate, vegetable productions, and mineral wealth.
Its 20,000 miles of river and lake navigation - its 10,000 miles of
railway - its 4,000 miles of canal - and its 11,000 miles of telegraphic
wire - connect every part of its vast territory together, and give to an
interminable continent the compactness of a small island. The
facilities of communication, too, place at the command of the people of
one part of the country the climate of every other. When the
thermometer is below zero at New York, a journey of three days will
bring the traveller to Savannah, where a genial temperature of 60
degrees, clear skies, and verdant nature, await him. And when a
scorching sun is filling New Orleans with fever, the cool weather of
the North, and upon the great lakes, is healthy and delightful. The
apple bloomed at Natchez, in 1850, as early as the 24th March; while at
Montpelier, in Vermont, it bloomed on the 10th June. The distance
between the two places is but three or four days' travel.
"One can hardly name a staple article of production which some part or
other of the States will not grow - not as a mere garden curiosity, but
as an article of profitable cultivation. The champagne of Cincinnati is
beginning to be noted, and tea is under experimental cultivation in
South Carolina.
"The mineral resources of the country are enormous; and their
development is only limited by the present want of capital to work them
more efficiently. The coal of Pennsylvania - the iron in various parts
of the Union - the copper of Lake Superior - the lead about Galena on the
Mississippi; and lastly, the gold of California, which has already put
in circulation a coinage of 15,000,000l. sterling - all these are
but the first tapping of almost boundless resources.
"In 1791, the public debt of the United States was $75,000,000. It is
now, with six times the population, only $64,000,000; and in the same
period, the imports of the country have increased from a value of
$52,000,000 to $147,000,000; the exports from $19,000,000 to
$145,000,000; and the tonnage of shipping from 500,000 tons to
3,300,000 tons.
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