Families descended from the earliest settlers inhabit the banks of the Hudson. Their furniture, manners, and affairs, conduct the mind back to the days of the pilgrim fathers. But nothing is declining here; new houses are building, the forest is daily yielding to the axe, and all things are in a state of active improvement. It is not in America, that Sultan Mahmoud’s owls can endow their sons and daughters with ruined villages.
The farmer here spins his own wool and flax, and generally weaves his own cloth; he mends his own farming implements, consumes the produce of his own land, and barters the remainder for other necessaries. As he has neither rent, tithes, nor taxes to pay, it is no wonder that his industry enables him to live in a state of absolute profusion.
Avowedly, I have never read any work completely through that has appeared on the United States of America, but have formed my judgement of the character of some from common report, and the few extracts that have fortuitously fallen in my way. It appears to me, that the observations of the Americans, respecting many of these publications are nearly correct, viz. That they are penned to please some particular party, and not to promulgate a true representation of facts.
I will just state one instance, which I copy from a work that I never saw, till my attention was called to it this very hour. The authoress is giving an account of the American farmers, whom she honours with the designation of “Small landed proprietors, who farm their own freehold estates.”
“When in Maryland, I went into the houses of several of these small proprietors, and remained long enough, and looked and listened sufficiently, to obtain a tolerably correct idea of their manner of living. One of these families consisted of a young man, his wife, two children, a female slave, and two young lads, slaves also. The farm belonged to the wife, and I was told, consisted of about three hundred acres of indifferent land, but all cleared. The house was built of wood, and looked as if the three slaves might have overturned it, had they pushed hard against the gable end. It contained one room of about twelve feet square; and another, adjoining it, hardly larger than a closet: this second chamber was the lodging-room of the white part of the family. Above these rooms was a loft without windows, where, I was told, the “staying company” who visited them, were lodged. Near this mansion was a “shanty,” a black hole, WITHOUT ANY WINDOW, which served as a KITCHEN and all other offices, and also as the lodging of the blacks!!!
We were invited to take tea with this family, and readily consented to do so.(!) Her female slave set out the great table, and placed upon it cups of the very coarsest blue ware, a little brown sugar in one, and a tiny drop of milk in another; no butter, though the lady assured us she had a “deary” and two cows. Instead of butter, she “hoped we would fix a little relish with our crackers,” in ancient English, eat salt meat and dry biscuits. Such was the fare!”
This lady must have been dreaming of a witches den. Only think of two black boys and one man, and he the owner, to do the work on a farm comprising three hundred acres of cleared land! And what premises! Where could the men live, while engaged in the long and arduous employment of clearing the land? There are no workhouses here, whence gangs of paupers may be hired at pleasure. Reflecting on what I have seen, I much question whether such a place as this could be found, as an abode for human beings, in any part of the Union. Consider the fare—salt fish and biscuits—and for English visiters too! Why, the very mice would desert such a dwelling! The whole affair assumes such an air of improbability, that if it contain even one single atom of truth, that atom is buried in falsehood.
But the worst feature is, that this is advanced as a sample of farm-house fare and farm-house hospitality in the United States. Verily, I have lived in an American farm-house, I have dined and taken tea in several, perhaps scores, in various directions from, and within a hundred miles of New York; yet, I never saw any thing like this! The farmers are much more censurable for their extravagant profusion than for their meanness. And when they entertain European visiters, they are so fond of displaying their abundance, that it is a very rare thing for them to allow such guests to depart destitute of substantial tokens of their liberality. In fact, many among them take care that their male guests shall not leave their dwellings either sorrowful or sober.
Most freely do I admit, that persons of pure intentions may be mistaken in trivial matters, and thus innocently mislead others; but truth is quite as easily written as spoken, and should be particularly regarded in a narrative on the domestic manners of a foreign nation. Here, all fictitious descriptions, isolated cases, and every thing calculated to mislead, should be entirely discarded.