They were hungry and naked; but they held to their ancient
traditions, and they built on them great hopes for the future. The old
family names, the time-honored memories of place, the famous deeds
of ancestors, made an ideal existence powerful enough to exclude the
pressure of actual daily evils; and they argued from what had been to
what might be, with a persistency of hope it seemed almost cruel to
destroy. So deeply were these thoughts engrained into their natures,
they felt him but half their friend who ventured to despise them. The
relief of present poverty, the succor of actual suffering, became in
their eyes an effort of mere passing kindness. They looked to some great
amelioration of condition, some wondrous change, some restoration to an
imaginary standard of independence and comfort, which all the efforts
of common interference fell sadly short of; and thus they strained their
gaze to a government, a ruling power, for a boon undefined, unknown, and
illimitable.

To expectations like these advice and slight assistance are as the mere
drop of water to the parched tongue of thirst; and so I found it. I
could neither encourage them in their hopes of such legislative changes
as would greatly ameliorate their condition, nor flatter them in the
delusion that none of their misfortunes were of home origin; and thus,
if they felt gratitude for many kindnesses, they reposed no confidence
in my opinion. The trading patriot, who promised much while he pocketed
their hard-earned savings; the rabid newspaper writer, who libelled
the Government and denounced the landlord,--were their standards of
sympathy; and he who fell short of either was not their friend.

In a word, the social state of the people was rotten to its very core.
Their highest qualities, degraded by the combined force of poverty,
misrule, and superstition, had become sources of crime and misery. They
had suffered so long and so much, their patience was exhausted; and they
preferred the prospect of any violent convulsion which might change the
face of the land, whatever dangers it might come with, to a slow and
gradual improvement of condition, however safe and certain.

To win their confidence at the only price they would accord it, I never
could consent to; and without it I was almost powerless for good.
Here again, therefore, did I find closed against me another avenue for
exertion; and the only one of all I could have felt a fitting sphere
for my labor.