Salem Gazette, April 26, 1791.
What Mr. Welby, an English gentleman, saw when he was in the United States in 1821. A very flattering picture of the West.
More Travellers' Stories.
From the National Gazette.
A new book of Travels in America has been recently issued in London which rivals the volumes of our old friends Weld, Ashe, Fearon, &c. It is entitled "A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois, with a winter residence in Philadelphia; solely to ascertain the actual prosperity of the Emigrating Agriculturist, Mechanic, and Commercial Speculator"—by Adlard Welby, Esquire, of South Rauceby, Lincolnshire. This esquire has said enough, should he be believed, to settle ultimately the point of the truth or falsehood of Godwin's notable doctrine, that we owe the increase of our numbers chiefly to emigration. No sane European would venture among us after having read Mr. Welby's book. He discovered that, in Philadelphia, living was very dear, comfort very uncommon, and good manners still more rare. Throughout his journey he found in the taverns "a system of impertinence, rudeness, rascality, and filth, rendered more intolerable by an antipathy to the English, in the brutal manifestation of which most of the Colonel, Doctor, and Squire, keepers of the taverns, were pleased to indulge." When he asked an hostler to call him early in the morning, he was answered that—he might call himself and be d——d. In the Western country he found no symptoms of hospitality—witnessed only idleness and licentiousness, and experienced every where brutal rudeness and unbounded extortion. The western people usually combine in cheating all travellers, and sometimes "rifle," that is shoot residents among them who do not choose to descend to their own level. In Illinois "a party proposed to each other coolly to go and shoot neighbour *****, who had behaved ill to them sundry times; it was agreed upon; they went to his field, found the old man at plough, and, with unerring aim, laid him dead." And Mr. Welby adds that the country would be desirable to live in, did not the folks shoot each other thus, and were they not half savages. The shooting case reminds us of a traveller's story which we heard at a dinner table abroad. A gentleman and esquire of strict veracity, like Mr. Welby, related, in order to shew how common was the calamity of the coup de soleil, or stroke of the sun, in the Island of Java, that sitting once in the house of an opulent merchant of Batavia, drinking a cool glass of Madeira after dinner, with the merchant's wife in the room, the lady was, in the twinkling of an eye, reduced to a heap of ashes by a coup de soleil; when the husband observed to his guest, "don't be alarmed—we are accustomed to this;" then rang the bell with great composure, and on the appearance of the servant, coolly said—"Boy—sweep your mistress out, and bring us clean glasses."
In the neighborhood of Mr. Birbeck's settlement in Illinois, Mr. Welby could obtain neither eggs, milk, sugar, salt, nor water; and when he and his party sent a request to Mr. Birbeck for some water, the answer returned was, he made it a general rule to refuse every one. Mr. Birbeck is represented as having deceived and disappointed most of the English who were lured to his settlement by his "Journal." Mr. W. could discover none of "the snug cottages, with adjoining piggeries, cowsteads, gardens and orchards," which Mr. B. had introduced into his canvass. He found nothing but the primitive log building, that served the whole family—"for parlour, for kitchen, and hall." "The strange heterogeneous mixture of characters," says Mr. W. "which are collected here by the magic pen of Morris Birbeck, is truly ludicrous. Among many others, a couple now attend to the store at Albion who lately lived in a dashing style in London, not far from Bond-street; the lady brought over her white satin shoes and gay dresses, rich carpets, and everything but what in such a place she would require—yet I have understood that they have accommodated themselves to their new situations, hand out the plums, sugar, whiskey, &c., with tolerable grace, and at least 'do not seem to mind it.'"
In one of the principal literary journals of London, Mr. Welby's book is recommended as "carrying on its front the stamp of plain dealing, truth and candor, and entitled, from internal evidence, to the highest authority amid the conflicting statements and opinions respecting emigration to America." The reviewer adds:—"From a country so destitute of moral beauty as the author depicts it, so disgusting in its human externals, and so low in the scale, not merely of refinement, but of good principles, we are happy to withdraw." As Mr. Welby spent a winter in Philadelphia, and had acquaintance here, it is probable that such of the latter as have not seen his book will be pleased to know the complexion of its contents.
Salem Register, May 18, 1822.