The Americans, generally speaking, pride themselves upon the versatility of their skill. One plain countryman can perform almost every operation in the arts of common life, that a pair of hands are required to perform: I do not mean that he can execute all he attempts in a finished style of excellence. No; but he can transact in a respectable manner, as many different orders of work as we should consign to twenty different artificers. This arises from the peculiarity of their position. In a thinly inhabited country, no one knows what he may be compelled to do in passing through life, and therefore, every parent wisely prepares his offspring for the vicissitudes of fortune by a judicious course of manual instruction. Hence the use of the hands in the performance of any office not exactly menial, is here considered no more derogatory to the dignity of the highest character in the Union, than the exercise of the intellectual faculties. It is on this account, that they are apt to regard a stranger with some degree of contempt, who either from pride or ignorance, refuses to put his hand to any thing beyond the identical branch of business in which he has been regularly instructed. I could adduce some striking instances in illustration of this point; but I shall content myself by relating two that occurred within the sphere of my own knowledge.
My husband met with one of our countrymen at Tappan, in the state of New York, about ten days after Christmas. He was a wheelwright, had landed eight days since, and could obtain no employment. He seemed greatly disappointed and dejected and was just upon the eve of returning home. The absurdity of this step was pointed out to him. He was informed that he had landed upon a most inauspicious day—that the Americans make a general practice of doing no manner of work, for the three weeks following Christmas; and that, in order to give the country a fair trial, he should remain at least till the complete expiration of that period. To deal fairly with him, it was hinted, that even then, possibly, he might not find immediate employment in his own peculiar craft, and if so, he was advised to apply at the shops of carpenters and builders, where abundance of employment might be obtained by all who are acquainted with wood work. This friendly hint settled the matter at once. Evidently he thought it degrading to work as a rough carpenter, even for a few weeks, and although he was offered employment in wood work on the spot, he excused himself, observing, that he had seen quite enough of the country, and that he would e’en return home.
“Your countrymen are a lazy saucy crew,” was the evening’s salutation of our nearest neighbour, an opulent farmer of very industrious habits.—There is something so venerable in the appearance of three-score and ten, that it was not in our natures to ruffle the temper of the patriarch by an acrimonious rejoinder. We knew he would recover his proper feelings when he had delivered his sentiments, and till then it would cost us nothing to wait. He took the offered chair and explained himself in the following terms, as nearly as I can possibly recollect.
“My son and I were carting sand from the beach this morning, when up comes two strangers—a true born Englishman and a true born Irishman—they asked for work. The Englishman said he could do any thing, and the Irishman swore he could do every thing. We soon agreed; and I left these men with my son to cart sand, while I went up the fields to look after the blacks. At dinner time the strangers came and asked me to set them to better work. I said that must be finished first. In short, they abused the country, and said they did not come to America to cart sand. So I paid them their half day’s wages, and they are gone. Pray what kind of work do farming men do in your country? Does one man hold up the train of his mistress, and another water the roses?”
“Now,” continued the narrator, “here are a couple of men, one indeed has grown too big for his coat, and the coat of the other is too short, but they have a pair of hands each like ourselves, and yet they are too proud to use them!”
We assured our ire-fraught friend, that idleness is as commonly clothed with rags in Europe as in America; and we consoled his troubled spirit by predicting, that our countryman with a short coat, would find it long enough before he got a new one.
I believe it is generally conceded, that emigrants who bring over with them a considerable sum of money—say from two to ten thousand pounds, miss the road to prosperity much more frequently than those that land with comparatively nothing. This problem admits of an easy solution. The mode of doing business in the United States, partakes so strongly of the spirit of adventure, that commerce is fairly reduced to a species of gambling speculation. On landing, the aspiring stranger finds that money goes farther here than at home; hence he conceives himself to be a person of greater consequence. If he have fair letters of introduction, his society is courted by men of all shades and grades of property and reputation; some of these may be men of substance—others so only in appearance. Among these last, will be found a plentiful assortment of adventurers, all ready to conduct him, through the medium of some speculation or other, to the temple of Plutus. It generally follows, that he embarks his property in a variety of adventures, some of which may succeed. In this case, he extends his sphere of commercial enterprise, and thinks it incumbent upon him to enlarge his establishment also, and to support his pretensions to unbounded wealth by a display of fashionable ostentation. Sooner or later, he perceives that, through his ignorance of the thousand things that no foreigner is expected to know, he has been floated beyond his depth—no opportunity is afforded of retracing his steps, and he is at last engulphed in the quicksand of irremediable ruin.
Even in my limited sphere of observation, I met with several individuals who had landed, each with thousands at command; and it is a melancholy truth, that not one of these is now above the second order of commercial clerks. Truly they enjoyed one of the advantages of a republican government, for however they might differ with respect to their notions of political liberty, their circumstances presented a tolerable specimen of equality; and to the honour of the new world’s hospitality they freely acknowledged, that they had all been strangers and were all taken in!
I have elsewhere observed, that the inebriate must be so thoroughly weaned from his bad practices, as to be beyond the reach of temptation, before he can reasonably hope to derive any solid advantages from residing in a country, where firewaters are cheaper than milk.
The indolent form another class whom no change of country can benefit. The smart quick step, and the general alacrity of movement practised by operatives of all orders, would grieve the spirit of a lazy fellow who is compelled to earn his living by manual exertion. He would discover that the high price paid for labour, impelled the employer to look sharp after his men—then there is the contempt of his fellows, and a thousand other things that would combine to harrass the quiet mind of this poor persecuted man, while against this Pandora’s box full of evils, he has but one solitary comfort as a set-off—the distressing fever and ague which carries off its thousands, would find him too lazy to shake!