ter; not, that these tendencies had
already become the subject of political jealousies, but that they left
social impressions, which were singularly adapted to bringing the
colonists into contempt among a people predominant for their own
factitious habits, and who are so strongly inclined to view everything,
even to principles, through the medium of arbitrary, conventional
customs. It must be confessed that the Americans, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, were an exceedingly provincial, and in many
particulars a narrow-minded people, as well in their opinions as in
their habits; nor is the reproach altogether removed at the present day;
but the country from which they are derived had not then made the vast
strides in civilization, for which it has latterly become so
distinguished. The indifference, too, with which all Europe regarded the
whole American continent, and to which England, herself, though she
possessed so large a stake on this side of the Atlantic, formed no
material exception, constantly led that quarter of the world into
profound mistakes in all its reasoning that was connected with this
quarter of the world, and aided in producing the state of feeling to
which we have alluded. Sir Wycherly felt and reasoned on the subject of
America much as the great bulk of his countrymen felt and reasoned in
1745; the exceptions existing only among the enlightened, and those
whose particular duties rendered more correct knowledge necessary, and
not always among them. It is said that the English minister conceived
the idea of taxing America, from the circumstance of seeing a wealthy
Virginian lose a large sum at play, a sort of _argumentum ad hominem_
that brought with it a very dangerous conclusion to apply to the sort of
people with whom he had to deal. Let this be as it might, there is no
more question, that at the period of our tale, the profoundest ignorance
concerning America existed generally in the mother country, than there
is that the profoundest respect existed in America for nearly every
thing English. Truth compels us to add, that in despite of all that has
passed, the cis-atlantic portion of the weakness has longest endured the
assaults of time and of an increased intercourse.

Young Wycherly, as is ever the case, was keenly alive to any
insinuations that might be supposed to reflect on the portion of the
empire of which he was a native. He considered himself an Englishman, it
is true; was thoroughly