y and sincerely, from the
convictions of my mind, and the dictates of my heart. When I first
published my former writings, it was with no hope of gaining favour in
English eyes, for I little thought they were to become current out of
my own country: and had I merely sought popularity among my own
countrymen, I should have taken a more direct and obvious way, by
gratifying rather than rebuking the angry feelings that were then
prevalent against England.

And here let me acknowledge my warm, my thankful feelings, at the
effect produced by one of my trivial lucubrations. I allude to the
essay in the Sketch-Book, on the subject of the literary feuds between
England and America. I cannot express the heartfelt delight I have
experienced, at the unexpected sympathy and approbation with which
those remarks have been received on both sides of the Atlantic. I
speak this not from any paltry feelings of gratified vanity; for I
attribute the effect to no merit of my pen. The paper in question was
brief and casual, and the ideas it conveyed were simple and obvious.
"It was the cause: it was the cause" alone. There Vras a
predisposition on the part of my readers to be favourably affected. My
countrymen responded in heart to the filial feelings I had avowed in
their name towards the parent country: and there was a generous
sympathy in every English bosom towards a solitary individual, lifting
up his voice in a strange land, to vindicate the injured character of
his nation. There are some causes sosacred as to carry with them an
irresistible appeal to every virtuous bosom; and he needs but little
power of eloquence, who defends the honour of his wife, his mother, or
his country.

I hail, therefore, the success of that brief paper, as showing how
much good may be done by a kind word, however feeble, when spoken in
season--as showing how much dormant good-feeling actually exists in
each country, towards the other, which only wants the slightest spark
to kindle it into a genial flame--as showing, in fact, what I have all
along believed and asserted, that the two nations would grow together
in esteem and amity, if meddling and malignant spirits would but throw
by their mischievous pens, and leave kindred hearts to the kindly
impulses of nature.

I once more assert, and I assert it with increased conviction of its
truth, that there exists, among the great majority of my countrymen, a
favourable feeling toward England. I repeat this asser