Although New York is a very extensive city, containing a numerous population, and annually receiving at least 30,000 foreigners, great disorders are unknown to it, and the slightest crimes but rarely escape the vigilance of the police, which is not less surprising for its activity than for the quietness of its proceedings; from the perfect order which reigns by day and night, it appears to be every where present, and yet it is no where seen in operation. The security which it guarantees to strangers, as to citizens, is not as at Paris the result of the odious combination of assassin soldiers and disgusting spies; the traveller is not obliged on entering to declare his name, rank and business to obtain the protection due to all; in short, after having resided for some time in New York, one is forced to admit that its government, like a good genius, makes its benign influence every where felt, without allowing itself to be any where seen.
Europeans for a long time accustomed to submit to one man or several men, who under the name of government, trammel at their pleasure the exercise of the natural rights of other men, their subjects, with difficulty conceive of a nation, in which all individuals without exception may travel in every direction and for the greatest distances, enter all cities and sleep tranquilly in all the inns, without being obliged to carry with them that ridiculous and tyrannical permission of the government written upon a scrap of paper, called a passport. This unbounded liberty of travelling in all directions causes them a surprise which sometimes amounts to incredulity. The following anecdote which is warranted as true, is a pleasant proof of the foregoing assertion.
Proscribed in 1815 by the restoration, General C. had been obliged to quit Paris precipitately, and seek an asylum near Havre with a friend, whence he hoped to have an opportunity of passing without danger to some land less inimical to him than his country. An opportunity was soon offered; an American ship captain moved by his sad situation, willingly received him on board and conveyed him to the United States. The joy which General C. experienced at being out of the reach of danger, was the sentiment which at first entirely absorbed him; he forgot that he was flying, perhaps forever, his country, family and friends; the vast ocean and the coming thirty days which separated him from New York, gave him a security, which was not disturbed but by the sight of the new land whose hospitality he came to seek. He then remembered with affright, that he had left Paris so precipitately, that he had not brought a paper with him. Without authentic documents, without a passport, what was to become of him. However, he landed and the custom house officer who questioned him politely as to the contents of his portmanteau, caused him a degree of fear he had never before felt, except when his master the Emperor Napoleon looked at him with an air of dissatisfaction; at the end of a few minutes the custom house officer allowed him to proceed without demanding his passport! doubtless it must have been through inadvertancy, by which he resolved to profit. Our general officer much lighter by half, had his baggage speedily conveyed by a porter to one of the hotels in Broadway; there a servant received him and shewed him into a chamber containing four or five beds, on several of which were lying articles which indicated that they had been taken possession of; he inquired with uneasiness if he could not have a private room. There was but one which contained two beds, which was given him, with a promise that no one else should be introduced there. Once alone, he breathed more freely, and thanked his happy star that he had so fortunately passed so many dangers. The next packet from Havre would bring him letters of credit; he could then make himself known and obtain protection. It was then only necessary to avoid being arrested as an adventuring vagabond or suspected person, to pass fifteen days in his retreat, and to this he was resigned. He had already passed three days in his solitary confinement, when on the morning of the fourth day, his landlord presented himself and with an air of politeness without obtrusion, and of interest without curiosity, said “I am not naturally indiscreet sir, nor am I in the habit of troubling my guests with impertinent questions, but I fear that the severe seclusion to which you appear to have condemned yourself since you have been in my house is provoked by chagrin or by some unfortunate embarrassment, and I come to offer you without ceremony my services, which I wish you to accept in the same manner.” The simple and cordial manner in which this was said, encouraged our poor hermit. “You appear to be a good man,” said he to his host, “and I will confide in you; my situation is unfortunate, as you shall judge.” Then casting an uneasy glance around the chamber and lowering his voice, continued, “I am a French officer, forced in consequence of the great events which you know to have happened, to quit my country, and to seek a refuge from proscription. The Americans and their government are hospitable I know, but here, as well as every where else, the police which watches over the safety of the citizens, demand without doubt that strangers shall make themselves known, and how can I do it, as I have not even a passport? How can I then obtain permission to reside in this city, or to go to another? You offer your assistance; be then my security to the police, that I may reside in and move about without interruption, and my gratitude shall be unbounded.” From this disclosure and the agitation which accompanied it, the American thought the French officer must be mad, and he would have remained in this belief, if the other had not explained to him the indispensable importance and necessity of a passport to a traveller in Europe. He then hastened to quiet his fears by saying, “that the authority which governs us emanates from ourselves, and we have not been so senseless as to give it the absurd power of paralyzing our most natural faculties, as those of going in any direction, or as far as we please. Foreigners landing on our soil are allowed to enjoy all their faculties, which do not interfere with the rights of other men. Go then wherever you wish, from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Huron, or remain an inhabitant of New York, and I guarantee you the most perfect security, the most absolute liberty.” The general could scarcely believe the assertion, but experience soon convinced him, and in his first excursions he was less struck by the beauties of nature and the aspect of an entirely new country, than by the happiness of not being obliged at the entry of every town, or at every change of horses, to show his passport to a police officer.
The movement of the port of New York is one of the most animated and varied pictures that can be imagined. Scarce a half hour elapses without a ship quitting or arriving at the wharves. The wharves are constantly covered by groups of travellers arriving or departing; the variety of their dresses and languages prove that there are few parts of the globe with which the United States have not intercourse. In the midst of the crowd which is animated by various sentiments of surprise or regret, it is easy to distinguish the Americans by their calm, I might almost say their indifference, on returning to or quitting their natal soil, and their friends which accompany them to, or receive them on the shore. Accustomed from infancy to compare together the vast distances which separate the different points of their country, the American is less affected at the moment of sailing from New York to China, than a citizen of Paris would be in going to view the sea at Dieppe. We may perceive the facility with which Americans travel abroad, by glancing at the tables of the number of passengers landed at the different ports of the union: we shall find that the citizens of the United States form a prodigious proportion, in the ratio of their population.
The following table which contains the number of passengers landed at the single port of New York from March 1st 1818, to the 11th of December, 1819, will enable one to judge approximatively of the proportion of passengers which each nation furnishes to the travellers of the United States.
| Americans | 16,628 |
| English | 7,629 |
| Irish | 6,067 |
| Scotch | 1,492 |
| French | 930 |
| Belgians | 590 |
| Germans | 499 |
| Swiss | 372 |
| Spaniards | 217 |
| Hollanders | 155 |
| Italians | 103 |
| Danes | 97 |
| Portuguese | 54 |
| Prussians | 48 |
| Swedes | 28 |
| Africans | 5 |
| Sardinians | 3 |
| Norwegians | 3 |
CHAPTER IX.
Departure from New York: journey from New York to Trenton: battles of Trenton and Princeton: visit to Joseph Bonaparte: state of New Jersey.
On the 22d of September we left New York for the third time. The profound silence of the crowd which filled the streets, and the sadness impressed upon all countenances, indicated that this third absence of Lafayette was to be prolonged. How much this departure contrasted with our arrival. At present not one cry of joy, not one acclamation; but how much of expression in the very silence of the people and soldiers, who stood in double ranks from our hotel to the shore where the steam-boat awaited us. The general wished to go on foot through the long space we had to traverse, and sent away the carriages which had been provided; but when he appeared at the door he was so much crowded by those who wished still to see him once more, that it was impossible for some moments to disengage him, and open him a passage by which he might move onwards. At every step he was retarded by the most touching farewells; persons threw themselves before him, took his hand and squeezed it with tenderness, and then abruptly quitted him with averted countenances, to conceal the tears they could not restrain.
Accompanied by a large deputation from the city, we went on board the steam-boat Kent, which was to convey us to the state of Jersey, from which we were only separated by the North river, which at this place is of prodigious width. At the moment we pushed off, the cannon thundered forth farewell! but its sounds appeared to us to be mournful! it appeared to be harmonious with the adieus of the crowd which stood sadly on the shore. We participated in this sadness, and perhaps we should have yielded to our feelings, had we not suddenly been struck by a contrast, which soon changed the nature of our sensation. On the left bank of the river we had left a bereaved family mourning the departure of a father; while on the right bank we heard shouts of joy from men who were waiting to receive their liberator. We were soon among them, and their frank and cordial reception lessened the pain of our recent separation.