weld.
P.S. I must not forget to tell you that, while at Bristol, the doctor and I ran up to Windsor to see the royal agricultural exhibition, held this year in the Home Park. James stopped with our friends, and we were anxious to see the great show of England in her farming interest. The display was very great, and the cattle were wonderfully fine in all the departments—Durham, Hereford, Devons, and Channel Island. The last are very nice animals for a paddock, and give good milk. The horses were good; and I longed to bring home one or two that I saw, and felt strongly tempted. But the sheep and swine were the most remarkable things there. Really, we know little about sheep. They are monstrous, and yet very symmetrical and beautiful; whilst there are pigs, strange as you may think it, that have established high claims to beauty and perfection. I greatly preferred the Sussex breed to any other. Never was a town so crowded as this same Windsor. Thousands upon thousands were flocking into it; and how and where they fed I cannot divine. Money seemed useless, and waiters hardly looked at half crowns for retaining fees.
Letter 55.
New York, August 3,1851.
Dear Charley:—
We are, through the goodness of Providence, safely returned. We had a good voyage, in a capital ship, and under the charge of as good a captain as ever sailed the ocean. Our passengers were about one hundred and thirty in number, and very agreeable—some few were our old voyagers in the Arctic. With an exception or two, our way was as pleasant as it could have been; and there were some cheerful spirits that knew how to create sunshine at all hours. I cannot tell what travellers can desire in a steamer which they will not find in the Collins line. It seems to us that we have had the full worth of the money paid for passage. How different it is to come to New York in ten days, instead of being on the ocean for sixty-four days, as I have in a sailing packet! Well, this saving of time and feelings is worth the difference of the passage price. I am at a loss to understand how Americans who have to cross the ocean should think of supporting the English steamers in preference to our own superior ships. The influence of every English agent, of course, goes out in behalf of the old line; and all sorts of stories are told about winter passages, the importance of boats especially built for strength, and the advantages of experience. Now, the history of the American line is a perfect refutation of all this twaddle. The truth is, that all voyaging is connected with exposedness to some danger; and up to this moment the Americans have had, in all their ocean steam voyages, the full measure of success. They have lost no boat, they have sacrificed no lives, and they present a fleet of steamships the like of which the world cannot equal. Whenever an American citizen takes his passage in a foreign steamer, and an American one is at hand, he tacitly confesses the superiority of other lands, in ocean navigation, to his own country, and he contributes his full share to depress American enterprise, and aids so far as he can to insure its failure. The eyes of the English nation are upon our ships; and if we desire the spread of our national fame, we should, every man of us, labor to sustain our own steamers and propellers. And the government of our country should strenuously guard the interests of this available arm of national defence; and the country at large, would certainly sustain Congress in liberal support of this truly American enterprise.
Perhaps, Charley, you are ready to say to us, "Well, what do you think, after all you have been seeing in other lands?". I reply: We think that we return home with all our hearts more warmly attached to our beloved land than when we left her shores. We have seen lands, as fair, and fields as fertile, as our own. We have seen monarchies and republics; but nowhere have we seen man as erect and self-respecting as at home. Here we have equal laws, civil and religious liberty, no bishop to intimidate a day laborer who prefers to pass by his cathedral gates and worship his Maker in a humbler temple. Here our streets are not labelled with "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité," but the things signified are known and felt by every man that traverses these avenues of business. Here we have not thousands of armed men in this great city to preserve liberty; but every man enjoys it, and sees nothing of the government, which, though unseen, is all-powerful in the affections of the country.
We come home grateful that we have such a country; and though we love and admire much, very much, in England, yet we rejoice that we can call the United States our land. We hope we are better prepared than before we started to do her service. I am quite satisfied, Charley, that God has not done for any other people what he has for us. We know nothing of the restless anxiety which depresses men in England as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. We have our chief anxieties called out in reference to the obtaining the luxuries and embellishments of life; the necessaries are almost certain to every man who has health and character. But in England, toil is poorly requited; and a father and husband may, after unremitting labor, have to find his refuge, and his only one, in that petition of the Lord's Prayer, which you and I never employed in pure faith, "Give me this day my daily bread." We say so; but we know whence it is coming to us. He knows not; and what he knows not, he asks God after.