hese authors
will be received with caution. The Americans, therefore, are not only
not to blame, but would prove themselves very deficient in a proper
respect for themselves, if they again admitted into their domestic
circles those who eventually requited them with abuse.

Admitting this, of course I have no feelings of ill-will toward them for
any want of hospitality toward me; on the contrary, I was pleased with
the neglect, as it left me free, and unshackled from any real or fancied
claims which the Americans might have made upon me on that score.
Indeed, I had not been three weeks in the country before I decided upon
accepting no more invitations, even charily as they were made. I found
that, although invited, my presence was a restraint upon the company;
every one appeared afraid to speak; and when anything ludicrous
occurred, the cry would be--"Oh, now. Captain Marryat, don't put that
into your book." More than once, when I happened to be in large
parties, a question such as follows would be put to me by some "free and
enlightened individual":--

"Now, Captain Marryat, I ask you before this company, and I trust you
will give me a categorical answer, Are you, or are you not about to
write a book upon this country?" I hardly need observe to the English
reader, that, under such circumstances, the restraint, became mutual; I
declined all farther invitations, and adhered to this determination as
far as I could without cause of offence, during my whole tour through
the United States.

But if I admit, that after the usage which they had received, the
Americans are justified in not again tendering their hospitably to the
English, I cannot, at the same time, but express my opinion as to their
conduct toward me personally. They had no right to insult and annoy me
in the manner they did, from nearly one end of the Union to the other,
either because my predecessors had expressed an unfavourable opinion of
them before my arrival, or because they expected that I would do the
same upon my return to my own country, I remark upon this conduct, not
from any feeling of ill-will or desire of retaliation, but to compel the
Americans to admit that I am under no obligations to them: that I
received from them much more of insult and outrage than of kindness;
and, consequently, that the charge of ingratitude cannot be laid to my
door, however offensive to them some of the remarks in this work may
happen to be.

And here I must