heir literature and
the fine arts, and that, in short, they are still dependent upon
England. I have before observed, that this hostile spirit against us is
fanned by discontented emigrants, and by those authors who, to become
popular with the majority, laud their own country and defame England;
but the great cause of this increase of hostility against us is the
democratical party having come into power, and who consider it necessary
to excite animosity against this country. When ever it is requisite to
throw a tub to the whale, the press is immediately full of abuse;
everything is attributed to England, and the machinations of England;
she is, by their accounts, here, there, and everywhere, plotting
mischief and injury, from the Gulf of Florida to the Rocky Mountains.
If we are to believe the democratic press, England is the cause of
everything offensive to the majority--if money is scarce, it is England
that has occasioned it--if credit is bad, it is England--if eggs are not
fresh or beef is tough, it is, it must be, England. They remind you of
the parody upon Fitzgerald in Smith's humorous and witty `Rejected
Addresses,' when he is supposed to write against Buonaparte:

Who made the quartern loaf and Luddites rise,
Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies
With a foul earthquake ravaged the Carraccas,
And raised the price of dry goods and tobaccos?

Why, England. And all this the majority do steadfastly believe, because
they wish to believe it.

How, then, is it possible that the lower classes in the United States,
(and the lower and unenlightened principally compose the majority,) can
have other than feelings of ill-will towards this country? and of what
avail is it to us that the high-minded and sensible portion think
otherwise, when they are in such a trifling minority, and afraid to
express their sentiments? When we talk about a nation, we look to the
mass, and that the mass are hostile, and inveterately hostile to this
country, is a most undeniable fact.

There is another cause of hostility which I have not adverted to, the
remarks upon them by travellers in their country, such as I am now
making; but as the Americans never hear the truth from their own
countrymen, it is only from foreigners [see note 2] that they can. Of
course, after having been accustomed to flattery from their earliest
days, the truth, when it does come, falls more heavily, and the injury
and insult which they co