I reached the City of Philadelphia at ten this morning, just twenty-eight days after I left it, since which time I have travelled about 2,000 miles, and rested eleven days.
Sunday, 7th.—I was present when Dr Storton, [414] administered the rites of baptism to a large, respectable auditory. He is rather pompous in his expressions, and theatrical in his action and manner, but certainly an accomplished man. He has said that there is no preaching talent in America but what is imported; but this is not strictly true.
11th. I wrote the following epistle to Mr. Day, of St. Ives in England, by the ship Electra, bound for London.
May 11, 1820.
Dear Sir,
At this distance of time and place, the recollection of you is replete with all that is good and pleasant to me; while the esteem and regard always professed and felt for you demand, at least, one epistle, as a thing not to be withheld. I should have had great pleasure in your correspondence, but it is now too late, as my duties here are nearly at an end, and by the time this reaches you, I hope, under the guidance of gracious Providence, that the compass, in unison with my heart, will be pointing me towards my own home and country.
The inducements to emigrate, and the facilities of living here, are neither so great nor so many as I wished and expected to find them. The majority of those who come are without capital and above useful labour. Of this kind seem our friends —— and ——, and others known to you, whose [415] prospects are, I assure you, very shadowy. I speak impartially. Even capital, I believe, can any where be better employed than here. And as to labourers, there are more than can be paid. By the late report of this city, it appeared that 11,000 within these walls were in a state of unemployed pauperism; while in one prison only, are 600 thieves and incendiaries, the natural fruits of increasing poverty.
Land, generally, is not property in this country, because there is infinitely more than enough; the surplus, therefore, is worth nothing. What is already in cultivation by hired hands lessens, rather than augments capital. Even potatoes, you know, cannot be produced from one without the agency of the other. The markets are all glutted, and without foreign demand, a surplus produce is not desirable, because unsaleable and perishable.
All travel is restless labour, and "vanity and vexation of spirit." Its idea was once so supremely fascinating to my ambition, that I thought I never could have enough of it, and therefore wished myself doomed to perpetual travel. I have my wish, or something like it, and it disappoints me. During the last two years I have indeed found "no continuing city;" it is well if I seek and find one to come. I fly from city to city, from town to town, state to state, climate to climate, with the velocity of an eagle. I have frigid and tropical latitudes, polar cold and equinoxial heat, wintry desolation, [416] and the summery foliage of oranges and myrtles, all in the short space of one week, or less. For although this beautiful city of William Penn lies in an Egyptian latitude, winter has not long been over; whereas, it never enters the city of Charleston, which I have just quitted, where
"Blossoms and fruits and flowers together rise,
And all the year in rich confusion lies."