enough to take
a dollar for a single cod fish, from men in their situation. This fact
has appeared in several Boston papers, with the names of the persons
concerned, and has never been contradicted or doubted. We give this as
the common report; and as the Boston newspapers circulated freely
through Nova Scotia and Canada, we infer, that had the story been void
of truth, it would have been contradicted. This has been amply
confirmed.

Those Americans who have no other knowledge of the English character,
but what they gather from books made in London; and from their
dramatic productions, and from their national songs, would believe, as
I myself once did, that _John Bull_, (by which name Dean Swift
personified the whole nation) was a humane, tender-hearted, generous
gentleman; but let him be once in the power of an Englishman, or what
is still worse, of a Scotchman, and it will correct his erroneous
notions. An Englishman is strongly attached to his king and country;
and thinks nothing on earth can equal them, while he holds all the
rest of the world in comparative contempt. Until the days of
Bonaparte, the people of England really believed that one Englishman
could flog six Frenchmen. They, at one time, had the same idea of us,
Americans; but the late war has corrected their articles of belief.
The humanity of the British is one of the most monstrous impositions,
now afloat in the world.

The most glaring feature in the English character is a vain glorious
ostentation, as is exhibited in their elegant and costly steeples,
superb hospitals, useless cathedrals, _lying_ columns; such as the
monument near London bridge, which as Pope says of it,

"Lifts its tall head and _lies_."

But if you wish to learn their real character, look at their bloody
code of laws, read their wars with Wales, with Scotland, and with
Ireland. Look at India, and at their own West India Islands. Look at
the present "border war" carried on by associating themselves with our
savages; look into this very prison, ask the soldiers just brought
into it, what they think of British humanity or British bravery. A
reliance on British veracity and honour caused these poor fellows to
surrender, when they found them worse than the Indians. These things
may be forgiven, but they ought never to be forgotten.

NOVA SCOTIA, or _New Scotland_, was formerly called _Chebucto_ by the
native Indians. It is a dreary region. The country, for many miles
west of H