[5]. It is a pity that the proper spelling of the name of this brave man has not been preserved. As written here, it has not the appearance nor the sound of a French name. It was probably Molan, or Molant, or perhaps Moulin. Molang is evidently a corrupt spelling.—D.
[6]. The people of Connecticut are not more litigious than those of the other states, nor are lawyers more plentiful among them, or live more at the people’s expense. The members of the legal profession are as honourable, and as liberal, in this country, as in any part of the world, and the frequency of law suits which has induced the unfounded charge of litigiousness against the people of America, is not to be ascribed to their natural disposition, but to the confusion and uncertainty of the laws which the Normans introduced into England, and the English into this country. The fathers of this complicated code, the Normans, were stigmatized in France, before the Revolution, as a litigious people, and this character was produced by the same cause. In England, the excess of litigation is prevented by measures which we do not wish to see introduced among us. High and heavy taxes upon legal proceedings, effectually protect the rich against the litigation of the poor, and prevent the latter from entertaining suits against each other. The evil, however, has reached to such a height, that the government themselves are setting on foot a revision of the whole legal system. We have amended it here in a considerable degree; but much remains yet to be done, and will be done, by prudent and gradual steps, so that we may not be obliged, at a future day, like our brethren of England, to tear up the whole edifice from its foundation.
As to the excessive familiarity which is supposed to exist in some parts of New England and particularly in Connecticut, between young people before marriage, it has been at all times greatly exaggerated. However dangerous the custom alluded to might be considered in other countries, it is certain that in Connecticut, it seldom led to criminal intercourse, and when it did, the mischief was speedily repaired by the legal union of the parties. At present the custom has entirely disappeared, or if it ever exist, it is confined to the very lowest class of society. There is not a people on earth more truly moral and religious, than the people of that state, and illegitimate children are not more numerous in it proportionally, than in the other parts of the union.—D.
[7]. Historical, Statistic and Political Description of the United States, by Warden.
[8]. Our author evidently means here the Phi Beta Kappa society, which is an association of students, who meet together at stated times, to promote and encourage among each other classical learning and the study of the belles lettres. The denomination which they have assumed, consists of the first letters of three Greek words, the meaning of which none are supposed to understand but the initiated. The members of this association continue to belong to it, not only after the termination of their collegiate studies, but even after being raised to the first political honours of the country. The professors and the heads of the university make it a point to encourage this meritorious society by all the means in their power.—D.
[9]. The notions commonly entertained by Europeans relative to the aborigines of America, are principally derived from the exaggerated statements of early voyagers, or from the fantastic creations of romance writers, who, in representing these supposed “children of nature,” have endowed them with qualities they never possessed, and bestowed upon them ideas, sentiments, and expressions utterly unknown, as well as perfectly incomprehensible, to the race. An opinion of the character of our savages, formed from an examination of the miserable stragglers which still hang upon the out-skirts of civilization, would be quite as inadequate and inaccurate. The unvarnished truth is, that the best of the known tribes exhibit specimens of humanity in its extreme of degradation, from a more perfect condition of which but few, faint and almost obliterated traces, are occasionally to be discerned. Inevitably destined to extinction, they appear, like another coloured race, to be suffering under the infliction of a tremendous temporal punishment for some ancient national crime. Such a conclusion is at least strongly borne out by the history of this continent, and we have already lived to see Spain beginning to receive her reward for the part she played in the dreadful tragedies by which this history is dedecorated; must not the day of retribution for the United States also arrive?—T.
[10]. Warden, t. 2de.
[11]. See this letter in Franklin’s works.
[12]. The Bowery, and Lafayette theatres, the Mount Pitt Circus, and other places of public amusement, have been built since. Some of them have also been burnt down and rebuilt within a short time.
[13]. The writer was probably not acquainted with the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, which had been but lately established when General Lafayette arrived, and which is rapidly becoming an excellent school of music. It has already performed in public in a very creditable manner, several English and German oratorios, such as Handel’s Messiah, and Haydn’s Creation. Since Lafayette’s departure from this country, New York has had an Italian opera led by Garcia, Angrisani, Signorina Garcia, &c. &c. The New Orleans troop of Comedians has performed with great applause both at New York and Philadelphia. They have met with so much encouragement that a regular annual visit is expected from them.—D.