kills him if he can.'. The high perfection' of duelling, as we collect it from the farmer's pages, is to go out with rifles—not to satisfy the point of honour,' but to gratify revenge.

Mr. Faux visited the University, of which a Dr. Maxwell is at the head.

'There are here 125 students, who are very disorderly, frequently disturbing congregations on the Sunday, because the doctor is too idle to preach, and thereby keep them together. Saw several of these learned young gentlemen stretched on a table, with their learned legs carelessly hanging out of their chamber windows, which seemed nearly all broken. Want of discipline is here too palpable, but there is no lack of whiskey.'—p. 54.

In this 'want of discipline' originates that insolent demeanour, that impatience of controul, that majesty of freedom,' as the 'Constitutional Librarian' calls it, which are mistaken for tokens of high-minded independence. Boys,' says Mr. Faux, look grave, and talk, act and dress like men-they fear nothing, care for nothing, and never blush.' The once notorious Joseph Lancaster expected to make a fortune by the instruction of youth in this free and independent republic, where no questions would be asked him on the subject of religion. Mr. Faux met him at Baltimore, sinking fast into poverty and contempt, and teaching a few small children.'

Our farmer next visited the supreme court, and thought the speeches of the lawyers' jargon and little short of nonsense.' Two men were sentenced to die; one for the murder of a white man, and the other for stealing a negro. A man,' says Mr. Faux, may here murder a negro almost with impunity, or by paying a paltry fine to the state; but if he steals one, he must be hanged for it.' 'About three weeks ago, a gentleman planter caused one of his slaves, a strong fellow, to be whipped to death for stealing; the owner and the executioners were all drunk, which is here admitted as a sufficient excuse for murder.'

Though many of the planters treat their slaves well, and allow them as much indulgence as is consistent with their situation, yet negroes being, in the eye of American law, a degraded class, and denied the enjoyment of equal rights, their well-being is entirely dependent on the personal character of their owner; and however humane their treatment may be, we cannot agree with farmer Faux in his conclusion, which, after the terrible stories of more than brutal cruelty which he has laid before us, we should rather have expected from Mr. Tell Harris or Miss Wright, that their condition in any, much less in many, respects is better than that of the paupers in his native land." In Charleston not only the negroes, but all who have the least tinge of colour, are con

sidered

sidered as degraded beings; the ladies, Mr. Faux says, will not look at a dark man, lest he should have a dash of black blood in him. A black man, even though free and wealthy, is not allowed here to ride his own horses, or use his own carriage, but may let them out for hire; nor can he remain abroad after ten at night, when the sentinels go round and clear the streets of all men, women or children stained with negro blood. This regulation may be necessary; it is a trifle compared with what follows.

The Carolinians keep and train up large dogs for hunting and finding runaway or concealed negroes, who are easily scented and found by them, if they be in the woods. The mode of training is thus: set a young negro daily to strike a pup, and then run from it. This is dogtraining. My cousin, Captain H. Rugeley, in my presence, ordered a young negro to strike a half-grown cur, which immediately seized the boy, who was worried a little for my amusement and instruction. Hence these dogs, though generally docile and gentle to well-dressed whites, instantly seize on any strange black man who approaches the plantation, just as an English greyhound flies upon a hare.'—pp. 115, 116.

Nor is this all-but our heart sickens at the horrid detail, and we can go no farther.

We were somewhat amused with the following memorandum,— though we cannot much commend the delicacy of the disclosure. 'Sunday, 22. Slept at the captain's'—the cousin mentioned in the last extract; (for Mr. Faux finds relations everywhere in America, the adopted country, as he calls it, of his dearest friends)— 'a good bed, curtainless, alongside the one in which the captain himself, and lady, and children slept, all in one room, the only one in the house, with a fine negro wench, on the floor, at my feet. Thus patriarchally did I and my cousins dress and undress, talk and sleep. What lovely simplicity'! (p. 64.) Ah, Farmer Faux, -we suspect you to be something of a wag after all. The 'patriarchs,' however, take our word for it, never slept in this way. But we forgive you, and should have forgiven you, had you slept with ten fine negro wenches at your feet, instead of one, for the noble stand you made against hypocrisy and brutality in the scene which follows:

Mr. Faux had the misfortune to be present at the digging up of the body of a slave, who had been wantonly whipped to death, and buried privately, by the hands of his master. Indignant at such an atrocious deed, and determined to expose it, he procured all the particulars of the horrid transaction, which he published in a Letter, signed with his name, in the Charleston Courier. The same day he received a message from the Governor, desiring him to wait on the Attorney General, to make an affidavit of the facts

he

he had stated. He accordingly waited on Mr. Attorney General, who, after a short lecture on the imprudent step he had taken, as staining the character of South Carolina,' asked him if he could give personal evidence? Having replied in the negative, the visit ended by the Attorney General promising to get Kelly (the perpetrator of the murder) indicted;-but the learned gentleman has not yet redeemed his promise.

This Letter, as might be supposed, brought all Charleston about his ears; among others he was assailed in the street, and in no small risk of being stung by a Mr. Bee, who catechized him rather rudely:-'this tart republican defender of slavery seemed disposed,' he says, to quarrel with me, but I declined his invitation;' upon which he exclaimed, Go and do justice to injured Carolina!'-(p. 79.) Judge King, (whose Scottish name of Kinggo had been thus euphonized, as it smacked a little negroish,) and indeed all his friends, regretted his imprudence, and cautioned him against being out in the evening-' take care of yourself, for dirking is the fashion.' This state of irritation in a free country, for the exposure of a simple fact, this 'dirking,' and 'duelling,' and 'frequent funerals,' and 'frogs innumerable,' did not quite suit the taste of our farmer, and he therefore took an early opportunity of bidding a willing adieu and final farewel to Charleston city, and to all its bugs, mosquitoes, negroes and alligators, and a race of people, many of whom seem not much better than they.'

Our traveller says little of Philadelphia, which he visited while the roaring of cannon, the ringing of bells, and a thousand joyous sounds were announcing brother Jonathan's immortal festival,' the anniversary of his independence, which fell out this year (1819) on a Sunday. He was pleased, however, with the roastbeef at Judd's hotel, which he thought equal to that of old England. The appearance, too, of the negroes gratified him; one might see, he says, that they were free and happy, in their faces and their erect statures, which had nothing negro-like in them except the colour. He found, however, that all was suspicion and mistrust among the people of Philadelphia; and his love of the place was not increased by being told that the high sheriff of the state of Delaware had been obliged to perform the duty of Jack Ketch, and hang his own nephew, for the murder of his own mother, the sheriff's sister.-p. 423.

Arrived at Baltimore, Mr. Faux again found himself in negroland, surrounded by all the comforts of slavery; all was homage and black attention; he was now quite satisfied of the truth of what an honest quaker told him, that, if blindfold, one might tell when entering a slave state. I can smell them,' says he, the

moral

moral air is putrid.' In Philadelphia I seemed a man, but here a god for negroes to worship.' Having no relish for such adoration, he decamped as speedily as possible in Uncle Sam's Mail' (a cant term for the president, we suppose) for Washington city, that is to be.' Bad land during the whole long journey all seems exhausted, worn out, rusty, and hung up to dry, or rather to bake, in the sun.'

Every thing is Roman or Grecian at Washington; 'the streets a mile or two in length, with houses a quarter of a mile apart. Little as Philadelphia had proved to his liking, the capital pleased him still less he found, he says, every thing mean, both morally and physically; all the bogs and swamps in and round the city are full of melody, from the big bellowing bull frog, down to the little singing mosquito; while rotten carcases and other nuisances perfume the warm southern breezes.' A common hot day at Washington is thus described.

'The wind southerly, like the breath of an oven; the thermometer vacillating between 90 and 100; the sky blue and cloudless; the sun shedding a blazing light; the face of the land, and every thing upon it, save trees, withered, dusty, baked, and continually heated, insomuch that water would almost hiss on it; the atmosphere swarming with noxious insects, flies, bugs, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers, and withal so drying, that all animal and vegetable life is exposed to a continual process of exhaustion. The breezes, if any, are perfumed by nuisances of all sorts, emptied into the streets, rotting carcases, and the exhalations of dismal swamps, made vocal and alive with toads, lizards, and bellowing bull-frogs. Few people are stirring, except negroes; all faces, save those of blacks, pale, languid, and lengthened with lassitude, expressive of any thing but ease and happiness. Now and then an emigrant or two fall dead at the cold spring, or fountain; others are lying on the floor, flat on their backs; all, whether idle or employed, are comfortless, being in an everlasting steam-bath, and feeling offensive to themselves and others. At table, pleased with nothing, because both vegetable and animal food is generally withered, toughened, and tainted; the beverage, tea or coffee, contains dead flies; the beds and bedrooms, at night, present a smothering unaltering warmth, the walls being thoroughly heated, and being withinside like the outside of an oven in continual use. Hard is the lot of him who bear the heat and burthen of this day, and pitiable the fate of the poor em grant sighing in vain for comforts, cool breezes, wholesome diet, and the old friends of his native land. At midnight, the lightning-bugs and bull-frogs become luminous and melodious. The flies seem an Egyptian plague, and get mortised into the oily butter, which holds them like bird-lime.'-pp. 438,439.

He was told that dirking' was as common here as at Charleston, and that' gouging still flourished.' He had a specimen too of their roguery, having lent a person of the name of Jones 150

dollars

dollars which he denied having ever had; and when sued for it, defeated the farmer, because the debt did not appear in his (said Jones's) ledger. By way of consolation, he was told that a 'pro pensity to cheat and deceive pervades all classes, from the lowest mechanic up to nearly the first officer of government;' that 'knavery damns the north, and slavery the south.' Here, too, at the very fountain head of this free and humane government, 'white men sell their own yellow children in the way of business,' and free blacks of course follow the example. Indeed, moneygetting appears to be the life and soul of Washington; those families who keep chariots send them daily for hire as hackney coaches, either to whites or blacks.'

Our farmer had a contrast of what he calls, two natural characters,' exemplified in an old Scotchman, and an elegant and mighty fine' American lady. The former had bought some cloth which, on measuring at home, was found to contain several yards more than he had bargained and paid for; he brought it back to the tradesman. 'What!' exclaims the lady, bring it back because it is over measure? well, I guess, I would not have done so!' In hearing and seeing such things, our honest English farmer can scarcely believe his eyes or his ears, and finds himself reluctantly compelled to give up certain notions which he had previously entertained respecting the character of the gallant and highminded people who inhabit the capital of America.' Nor were the reports he received of their character furnished only by disappointed emigrants. Doctor Thornton, of the Post Office, observed to him that this city, like that of ancient Rome, was peopled with thieves and assassins; and that during his residence in it, he had found more villains than he had seen in any other part of the world.'

Washington holds out no encouragement for emigrants. I called,' says the farmer, ' on my townsfolk Jack Bellcare and his wife; both are disappointed. Jack left a comfortable home and dairy behind him, and now works bare-headed on the road, cursing the hot climate.' (p. 112.) Friend John Steed, from Wisbeach, was 'grievously disappointed; nearly broken in spirit and pocket, he finds charity cold and friends few or none.' Several stone-masons, willing and able to work, were unable to get employment at half a dollar a day, and to find themselves. English labourers and first-rate mechanics are seen working at the capital for the low price of half-a-dollar a day.' Very few English farmers succeed; the best of them scarcely hope for more than a bare subsisst ence, consisting chiefly of bacon and Indian corn, and villainous whiskey, without any of the little comforts they were accustomed to in England. The states of New York and Pensylvania are best

for