f England
only prevailed because, _originally_, the majority of settlers were
English; but that since the revolution, the whole number of emigrants from
the other countries of Europe greatly exceeded the proportion from England
and Ireland. Their temperament, organisation, and independent spirit,
appear to bear them out in this assertion.

In England we have all the grades and conditions of society that are to be
found in America, with the addition of two others, the highest and the
lowest classes. There is no extensive class here equivalent to the English
or Irish labourer; neither is there any class whose manners are stamped
with that high polish and urbanity which characterises the aristocracy of
England. The term _gentleman_ is used here in a very different sense from
that in which it is applied in Europe--it means simply, well-behaved
citizen. All classes of society claim it--from the purveyor of old bones,
up to the planter; and I have myself heard a bar-keeper in a tavern and a
stage driver, whilst quarrelling, seriously accuse each other of being "no
gentleman." The only class who live on the labour of others, and without
their own personal exertions, are the planters in the south. There are
certainly many persons who derive very considerable revenues from houses;
but they must be very few, if any, who have ample incomes from land, and
this only in the immediate vicinity of the largest and oldest cities.

English novels have very extensive circulation here, which certainly is of
no service to the country, as it induces the wives and daughters of
American gentlemen (alias, shopkeepers) to ape gentility. In Louisville,
Cincinnati, and all the other towns of the west, the women have
established circles of society. You will frequently be amused by seeing a
lady, the wife of a dry-goods store-keeper, look most contemptuously at
the mention of another's name, whose husband pursues precisely the same
occupation, but on a less extensive scale, and observe, that "she only
belongs to the third circle of society." This species of embryo
aristocracy--or as Socrates would, call it, Plutocracy--is based on wealth
alone, and is decidedly the most contemptible of any. There are,
notwithstanding, very many well-bred, if not highly polished, women in the
country; and on the whole, the manners of the women are much more
agreeable than those of the men.

Early in the summer I proceeded to Maysville, in Kentucky, which lies
about