Part 3

The steam-boat, Chancellor Livingstone, is the largest and finest vessel of the kind perhaps ever built; she is 526 tons burden, length 165 feet, and breadth 50 feet. The power of the engine is estimated as being equal to that of eighty horses. The boiler is of copper, and weighs twenty tons. The cabin unites something like the horizontal dimensions of a church, and a degree of elegance not exceeded by any floating apartment. The Chancellor sails between New York and Albany.[15]

{22} _August 3._ The theatre has some degree of resemblance in its plan to that at Edinburgh, and is attended by a genteelly-dressed audience. To-night the celebrated Mr. Incledon completed his engagement.[16] He was highly applauded. The song, “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” was alike cheered by Scots and Americans.

During this season of the year, most people wear light cotton clothes; the jacket is in many cases striped, and the pantaloons of Indian nankin. A broad-brimmed straw-hat is commonly used, to prevent the face from being scorched by the rays of the sun. Draymen, and other labouring people, wear a sort of frock or hunting shirt of tow-cloth, that hangs down to the knees. A tall, thin, swarthy-countenanced man, with a frock, surmounted by a broad straw hat, is a figure somewhat new to the Briton.

One of the greatest inconsistencies among a people professing liberty and equality, is the degradation imposed on people of colour. In the church of the most popular preacher of New York, I looked in vain for a black face. There is a congregation of blacks in town, who have a preacher of the same colour, where (it is said) a white man would be equally singular. Blacks are not admitted into the public baths; and, at some places of amusement the hand-bills have a note of this kind, N.B. “A place is provided for people of colour.” I do not recollect of having seen or heard of a black person who is in any degree eminent in society, or who has acquired reputation in any mechanical or mercantile business. This depression appears to be produced partly by the aversion with which the white face looks on the black one, and partly by bad education and habits. Something more than mere emancipation is required, a moral change, {23} affecting both the black and the white, must take place, before the condition of the negro can be completely ameliorated.

The churches of New York are fifty-three in number, and are occupied by seventeen religious sectaries. None of these are peculiarly privileged by law, and none denied the common protection of citizens.

_August 4._ Now when about to leave New York, I feel a pleasure in stating my conviction of the civilization and moral honesty of the people. In the former respect, they may exult in any comparison with the mass of many European cities. And in regard to the latter, I have heard of no recent instance of housebreaking or riot. In hot weather, people leave their windows open during the night, and street doors are seldom closed during the whole of the evening; the inhabitants not thinking their hats and umbrellas in much danger. Such traits are perfectly unequivocal.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From the Dutch _Baas_, meaning master.--ED.

[3] New Utrecht was in Kings County, New York, seven miles from New York City.--ED.

[4] William Cobbett, a publicist known both in America and England, was born on a farm in Surrey, March, 1762. After serving for several years in the English army, he resigned and (1792) came to Philadelphia. Here, under the name of “Peter Porcupine,” he advocated the cause of the Federalists. Returning to London in 1800, he founded the _Weekly Political Register_. His influence with the workingmen was so great that the English government became alarmed, and he found it prudent to spend two more years in America (1817-19). He published his experiences as a Long Island farmer (1818), under the title _A Year’s Residence in the United States of America_. Vigorously opposing the plans of Morris Birkbeck and others to bring over colonies of British emigrants to the United States, his attacks and the replies that followed brought on a journalistic controversy which lasted until about 1825. (See volumes x, xi, and xii of our series.) Upon his return to England, he was elected to parliament as a Liberal in 1832, and served until his death (1835).--ED.

[5] This person was English.--FLINT.

[6] Admiral Lord Richard Howe, British general in the Revolutionary War, left Halifax with his fleet June 11, 1776, to effect a union with General Clinton at New York. He arrived at Sandy Hook June 29, and July 2 took possession of Staten Island.--ED.

[7] By act of legislation, 31st March, 1817, “Every Negro, Mulatto, or Mustee, within this State, born before the 4th day of July, 1799, shall, from and after the 4th day of July, 1827, be free.”--FLINT.

[8] The American Society for the Colonization of the Free People of Color of the United States, was organized at Washington, December, 1816. It rapidly gained favor, both North and South, and by February, 1820, sufficient money had been subscribed to send the first colony to Liberia. But the free negroes disliked it; the colonists suffered great hardships in Liberia; and the abolitionists soon opposed the project. William Lloyd Garrison began to denounce the Society in 1829, and thereafter it declined steadily in importance.--ED.

[9] Fort Diamond, later renamed Fort Lafayette, was the largest of the forts planned in 1812 for the defense of New York harbor. It became famous as a political state prison during the War of Secession, and was then protected by seventy-five heavy mounted guns.--ED.

[10] A series of metrical epistles purporting to be written in Paris by Thomas Moore.--ED.

[11] “The Brownie of Blednoch,” a folk-lore ballad, is the best known of William Nicholson’s poems. He was a Galloway peddler (1782-1849), who composed verses as he travelled from town to town.--ED.

[12] Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), experimental philosopher and editor of the _Edinburgh Encyclopedia_, invented the kaleidoscope about 1816. Throughout these letters, Flint portrays large acquaintance with the writings of the more noted of his fellow-countrymen.--ED.

[13] The “Washington” was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1814, being the second ship of seventy-four guns (not ninety-six, as Flint states) launched for the United States navy. She was the flagship of Commodore Chauncey in the Mediterranean, from 1816 to 1818. In 1843 she was broken up in New York harbor.--ED.

[14] This was the “Fulton,” the first steamship in the American navy. Robert Fulton directed her construction, and she made her trial trip June 1, 1815, a few months after his death. Her naval service was unimportant. While employed as a receiving-ship at the Brooklyn docks she blew up, June, 1829.--ED.

[15] The “Chancellor Livingstone,” built under Fulton’s direction, and named in honor of his friend and patron, was completed in 1816. She was one hundred and twenty-five tons larger than any boat then on the Hudson. Her average speed was eight and a half miles an hour. In 1832 she was put on the route between Boston and Portland, being broken up at Portland two years later.--ED.

[16] Benjamin Charles Incledon (1764-1826), a famous English vocalist.--ED.

LETTER III

Journey from New York to Philadelphia--Remarks on the country passed through--Notices of companions--Their conversation by the way--Observations on Philadelphia--Institutions--Manufactures--People.

_Philadelphia, December 19, 1818._

This letter will give you the details of my journey from New York to Philadelphia, and some particulars with regard to the latter city.[17]

{24} _August 5._ Got aboard of the Olive-Branch steam-boat for New Brunswick. This is a large vessel, wrought by an engine of forty-five horses’ power. She may at once be pronounced elegant and commodious. The passengers dine on board.

In a company so large, the traveller has it in his power to select the person with whom he would enter into conversation. The individual I fell in with, on this occasion, was a mercantile gentleman from England. He seemed to me a man of a good disposition, and one who possessed considerable knowledge of the principal towns, and of the different ways of transacting business in the United States. The American character, according to his report, is by no means a good one. He expressed himself as completely tired of the country, and proposed returning to England. He told me that he had met with considerable losses by villanous insolvencies. His account, instead of convincing me that the Americans were sinners above all others, just shewed me that he was a good-natured, credulous man, and that he had fallen into the hands of several artful rogues; a class, it would seem, not wanting in America.

The land on both sides of the strait, between Staten Island and the main land, is light and sandy, in some spots almost sterile. People in boats are busy with long wooden tongs, resembling forceps, taking up clams from the bottom, in six or seven feet of water.

The land on both margins of the Raritan is very low and flat, covered with a rank growth of reeds. These are cut for the cattle, and form a coarse but a very bulky crop. The swamps, being liable to inundation, are not made to yield any other herbage than their spontaneous produce.

{25} About four miles below New Brunswick, the red sandstone is met with. It is the first rock toward the coast, the interval being high alluvial land, containing vegetables and the bones of marine animals of tribes still existing; facts that establish without a doubt that the ocean has receded.

From New Brunswick to Trenton, travellers are conveyed by four-horse coaches. Six of these wait the arrival of the steam-boat. In one of these I took my seat, and found that only two gentlemen were to be along with me; one of them an American who had travelled in Britain, and the other an Englishman, who had just been out on an extensive tour in the United States. Both appear men of talent and education; the one a Virginian lawyer, and the other a person well acquainted with the state of science and manufacture in his own country; they are equally devoted to the representative form of government. Their only difference of opinion arose from drawing a comparison between the national characters of the two countries. The American claimed the superiority, _in toto_, while the Englishman asserted the higher excellence of the literary, the scientific, and the mechanical attainments of Britain; but, at the same time admitted, with apparent candour, the superior dexterity of Americans in traffic, and that, taken in a body, they are without some of the ruder qualities of John Bull. Thus, in one day, I have heard two intelligent Englishmen discuss the character of the American people, and each draw opposite conclusions: a fact, which proves how cautious we ought to be in forming an estimate of a community; as we are in continual danger of judging of the great stock from the small, and it may happen that an unfair sample may come within the narrow limits of a single person’s observation.

{26} The land between New Brunswick and Princeton is chiefly of a poor sand. The road is composed of the same material, with plank bridges over ravines, where most of the streams are now dried up. The woods, to a Briton, seem more remarkable for their height, than for the diameter of the trees. The stems, even by the road side, where many are felled, stand closely together, and their tops form a continued canopy, that sheds a gloom over the surface of the ground. When proximity to the two greatest cities in the Union is considered, it seems surprising that the arm of man has effected so little. The farms by the road side are neither numerous, nor are the cleared patches large. The passenger has no way of knowing how the country is peopled or improved beyond the first clearing; and where no opening occurs, he cannot see the light more than about 200 yards into the woods. Rail fences, however, and cattle amongst the trees, indicate that the whole is appropriated.

The cows are small, and of little value; and the few sheep which I have seen, are long-legged and thin, perhaps the worst breed in existence.

Princeton College is a large brick house, situated in a grass field. The edifice has a retired, if not a gloomy appearance. It was here that Dr. Witherspoon,[18] the author of the “Characteristics of Scottish Clergy,” found an asylum, and the means of prosecuting useful labours. By the way side stands a row of very large weeping willows, that are highly ornamental to this small town. Their long slender twigs hang down almost perpendicularly, and wave with every wind, displaying, as it were, a sort of vegetable drapery.

From Princeton onward, the land is much better than that observed to the north, and the {27} surface is finely diversified, but dusk prevented me from seeing a part of the country next to Trenton.

The arrival of six four-horse coaches produced considerable stir in the Inn at Trenton. No sooner had the passengers entered, than a pile of trunks and portmanteaus was reared in the bar-room, that would make a good figure in the warehouse of a wholesale merchant. The party at supper was very large. There being three lines of conveyance between New York and Philadelphia, the aggregate of the intercourse must be great. Betwixt New Brunswick and this place, a distance of twenty-five miles, we have not seen a single pedestrian. The heat of the weather may in some measure account for this.

Trenton is beautifully situated at the head of the tide water of the river Delaware. The orchards are luxuriant, and the pasture grounds richer than any that I have hitherto seen in the country.

_August 6._ Trenton is celebrated by one of the most dexterous feats of generalship on record. I shall take the liberty of stating some particulars of the affair. On the 1st of January, 1777, the term of enlistment amongst the American troops expired, and that day brought on a dissolution of the best part of the army. General Howe, aware of the occurrence, pressed forward on the 2d, with an army vastly superior. The head of their column arrived at Trenton about four o’clock, and attempted to cross Sanpink creek, which runs through the town, but finding the fords guarded, halted and kindled their fires. The American army was drawn up on the other side of the creek. In this situation the latter remained till dark, cannonading the enemy, and receiving the fire of their field pieces.

{28} Washington having discovered that the enemy designed to surround his little army, ordered the baggage to be removed after dark. At twelve o’clock, having renewed his fires, he decamped with his army, unperceived by the enemy, and marched against Princeton by a circuitous route, where he arrived by the rising of the sun, defeated the troops there, and captured their stores.[19]

The Delaware is a delightful river, with many magnificent windings. The convex shore of one extensive curve, is so imposing, that it is called Point-no-Point, an apparent cape being always in sight, but which recedes as the observer advances. The grounds adjacent to the river are flat, and covered with a rich verdure; but the beach is of a height sufficient to prevent a person from seeing far inland from the river. Many large farm houses are to be seen, with extensive orchards, and beautiful weeping willows adjoining. The last form large spreading masses without any erect or principal top, the main or leading branches rear themselves upwards, after acquiring a considerable degree of strength; and the shoots immediately younger, are elegantly bent, as if in the act of getting erect; while the youngest of all are completely pendulous. The whole is singularly picturesque.

On approaching Philadelphia, I felt disappointed in seeing the shipping so very inferior to that at New York; and the houses fronting the river are old and irregularly placed, so that the idea of a port declining in trade immediately occurred.

Philadelphia is situated between the rivers Delaware {29} and Schuylkill. The streets are laid off agreeably to the cardinal points, and cross one another at right angles, the principal ones running in the east and west direction, crossing the neck of land between the two rivers.

The streets, as at New York, are lined with trees; they are cleaner kept, and are wider, and more regular, so that gaseous exhalations are much less felt in them than in the other city. Most of the houses are of brick, and many of them have the doors and windows surrounded by white marble. Several public edifices are built of that material.

_August 7._ The general aspect of the city is more pleasant, and a freer circulation of air is felt than in New York; of course the natural inference is that Philadelphia must be the more salubrious of the two. Dr. Mease, of the American Philosophical Society, has deduced the same conclusion from the bills of mortality.[20] The daily average of deaths being 5²⁄₃ in this place, and 6¹⁄₃ at New York. At the time this computation was made, the population of Philadelphia was the greater of the two, consequently something more is to be allowed in favour of the relative healthfulness of Philadelphia.

The doctor has also compared the mortalities of Philadelphia and Liverpool, and it appears that the deaths in the former city are, to those in the latter, as 33 to 50. The comparison was made between the number of deaths in 1810 for Philadelphia, and on another year for Liverpool. This must have been occasioned from a want of data applying to the same year in both places. My very short acquaintance with the doctor gives me the utmost confidence in his candour, and in the accuracy of his calculations.

{30} It is not to be kept out of view, that the mortality in Philadelphia is considerably greater in summer than in winter, the deaths in August, for example, may be fairly stated at twice the number in December. This fact, not to mention the epidemical diseases with which Philadelphia is sometimes visited, must give a decided preference to Liverpool.

The religious sects of Philadelphia are eighteen in number; they have thirty-four places of worship. The whole may be exhibited thus: Swedish, three churches; Quakers, three; Free Quakers, one; Episcopal, three; Baptist, one; Presbyterian, two; Catholic, four; German Lutheran, two; German Calvinist, two; Associate Reformed Church, one; Moravians, one; Associate Church, (Antiburghers,) one; Presbyterian Covenanters, one; Methodists, four, (two for whites and two for blacks;) Universalists, one; Unitarians, one; Independents, one; Jewish Synagogues, two.

There are four state law courts in the city; four Banks, and eleven Insurance offices.

The other institutions would be too tedious to enumerate separately, probably the following includes most of them. Thirteen charitable institutions, eight free school societies, three patriotic societies, about twenty mutual benefit societies, five associations for the relief of foreigners and their descendants, seven literary institutions, three libraries, the American Philosophical Society,[21] the Society of Artists, the Pennsylvanian Academy of Fine Arts, and a museum of natural history.[22]

The American Philosophical Society meets frequently, and is well attended. When I visited the institution, three of the foreign ministers were {31} present. Professor Cooper[23] read very interesting papers on the bilious fever, on a new mordant to be used in dyeing, and on a new test for detecting arsenic where administered as a poison. There is still zeal and talent in the association once distinguished by a Franklin and a Rittenhouse.[24]

The Franklean library contains about 24,000 volumes; almost every scientific work of merit may be seen. Strangers are allowed to read and even to write in the great hall. On leaving a small deposit they may carry books out of the library. The building belongs to the institution, and has a herculean bust of the founder over the entrance; and the following lines, by Alexander Wilson[25] the ornithologist, hang in a frame in the great room.

“Ye who delight through learning’s paths to roam, Who deign to enter this devoted dome; By silent awe and contemplation led, Survey these wonders of the illustrious dead! The lights of every age--of every clime, The fruits of science, and the spoils of time, Stand here arranged, obedient to your nod; Here feast with sages, and give thanks to God. Next thanks to him; that venerable sage, His country’s boast,--the glory of the age! Immortal Franklin, whose unwearied mind, Still sought out every good for all mankind; Search’d every science, studious still to know, To make men virtuous, and to keep them so-- Living, he reared with generous friends this scene; And dead, still stands without to welcome in.”

The Atheneum is another excellent institution.[26] Here a great number of American and foreign newspapers are read, and there is also a collection of the reviews, periodical publications, and scientific journals, of Britain and America. Strangers are introduced by the subscribers.

The United British Emigrant Society meets frequently, and its business in conducted with zeal{32} and ability. A book is kept open, in which are inserted notices of labourers, &c. &c. wanted, with the names and residences of the persons to whom they are to apply. On looking over this record, I observed that many of the situations offered were in the western country. Although the members of this society merit the utmost credit for their benevolent exertions, the most cautious strangers will always hesitate to undertake long journies, incurring a great expense, the risk of meeting only with a trifling employment, and that of cheapening their labour by the sacrifices which they make. Artifices of this kind are not to be imputed to the society.

The museum contains a considerable collection of objects; and among the rest a skeleton of an entire mammoth. Around the upper part of the wall are arranged the portraits of several hundreds of the personages who have distinguished themselves in the revolution, or in the legislature of America. The design is praiseworthy, but the execution of the pictures is bad.

The state prison does honour to the jurisprudence of the country. The culprit is not made a burden on the community, but is put to work, and the first of his earnings applied to his support, a part of the remainder is given to him at his dismissal; by this means he is not under the necessity of resorting immediately to robbery or theft. Habits of industry are acquired, and trades learned, by persons who previously were pests to society. The strict order, and even silence, that is maintained in the establishment, is conceived to be the peculiarity that has produced the effects that distinguish it above every institution of the kind. The provisions given to the inmates are said to be plentiful and good, though furnished at the low rate of {33} fourteen cents, or about seven-pence-half-penny English, per day.