Letters from America

Front matter

LETTERS FROM AMERICA VOL. I. CAUTION. The Copyright of this work is protected by the Act 5 & 6 Victoria, c. 4S. ; and the Publisher is prepared to avail himself of the protection of that Act in case of any infringement thereof.; The introduction into England oi foreign pirated editions of the works of British authors, in which the copyright subsists, is totally prohibited. Travellers will therefore bear in mind that even a single copy is contra band, and liable to seizure at the English custom-houses. 50. Albemarle Street, Loridon. LETTERS FROM AMERICA. BY JOHN ROBERT GODLEY. IN two volumes. VOL. I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1844. TO CHARLES BOWYER ADDERLEY, ESQ. M.P., THE FOLLOWING WORK, FOR THE PUBLICATION OF WHICH HE IS CHIEFLY RESPONSIBLE, Is INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR, AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF A LONG AND INTIMATK FRIENDSHIP. A

Preface

. It must be confessed that the tone of most of our English travellers in America is at least unfortunate. While the subjects and the styles are varied according to the opinions and pursuits of the authors, while we have grave books and gay books, books political, statistical, agricultural, and abolitionist, — books by Whigs and by Tories, by men and by women, — books differing, in short, in almost every conceivable way, we find but one characteristic common to all, and that is satire. We complain in England of the bad feeling that exists in America towards us : if such be the case, can we be surprised at it ? The great mass of Americans know us only through the medium of our popular authors; and the observations of these upon America are not, we must allow, of a nature to conciliate a sensitive and irritable people. Take the books of Americans upon England, the works a

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. VIII of Washington Irving, for instance, or those of Willis, Miss Sedgwick, or even Cooper, and com pare the spirit and seeling which they evince with that which animates the writings of Hall, Hamil ton, Trollope, or Dickens, and I venture to say that the balance of good-nature and friendly feeling (with which alone I have now to do) will be found to be infinitely on the side of the former. I do not mean (far from it) that a traveller should dwell only on the bright side of things in the country which he is describing — that he should delight in drawing contrasts unfavourable to his own country, or that he should not rather look upon all that is hers with a partial eye, and — " Be to her faults a little blind, Be to her virtues very kind; " — I mean nothing of this : but I mean that he should gravely and soberly, in a high spirit of goodwill and friendly feeling, argue the points of difference between his hosts and himself; he should try to convince them where he thought them wrong, and adopt their suggestions where he approved of them ; and that, under no circumstances, should he run the risk of wounding their feelings and mortifying their pride, by declamatory

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. IX vituperation or satirical bitterness. Upon many (I may say, upon most) points my opinions are diametrically opposed to those of the great ma jority of Americans, as regards their religious, political, and social system; and on those points I shall have no scruple in freely expressing myself, any more than in pointing out where they seem to me to afford us an example for imitation. In both their good and their bad qualities they, are generally only exaggerations of ourselves ; and it is principally because we see the tendencies of our own age and country carried out and developed in America more boldly than at home that I consider her so interesting a subject of observation to us. Thus, in energy, enterprise, persever ance, sagacity, activity, and varied resources, — in all the faculties, in short, which contribute to produce what is now technically called material civilisation, and which have always, in a peculiar manner, distinguished the British from the con tinental Europeans, there is no disputing the superiority of the Americans to ourselves.

Wher ever they have a fair field for the exercise of them, they beat us. Their ships sail better, and are worked by fewer men; their settlers pay more A

PREFACE.

. X for their land than our colonists, and yet under sell them in their own markets; wherever ad ministrative talent is called into play, whether in the management of a hotel, or a ship, or a prison, e>r a factory, there is no competing with them: and, after a little intercourse with them, I was not surprised that it should be so ; for the more I travelled through the country, the more was I struck with the remarkable average intelligence which prevails: I never met a stupid American; I never met one man from whose conversation much information might not be gained, or who did not appear familiar with life and business, and qualified to make his way in them. There is one singular proof of the general energy and capacity for business which early habits of self-dependence have produced ; — almost every American under stands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part), and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or county, but with those of the State and of the Union ; almost every man reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for hours (tant bien que mal), if you will listen

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. XI to him, about the tariff, and the bank, and the Ashburton treaty. Now, any where else the result of all this would be the neglect of private business, — not so here ; an American seems to have time, not only for his own affairs, but for those of the commonwealth, and to find it easy to reconcile the apparently inconsistent pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man of business. Such a union is rarely to be met with in England : never on the Continent. As in many of our good, so in our evil, peculiarities, our American children imitate and sur pass ourselves. Are not we too utilitarian and materialistic ? Have we not, with some justice, been called a nation of shopkeepers; and do we not serve mammon with too blind an idolatry ? Have we not neglected too much the higher branches of art and science, and the cultivation of the æsthetic faculty ?

Is it not characteristic of modern England to reject authorities, both in church and state, to look with contempt on the humbler and more peculiarly Christian virtues of contentment and submission, and to cultivate the intellectual at the expense of the moral part of our nature ? If these and other dangerous tendena

PREFACE.

. cies of a similar nature are at work among our selves (as they undoubtedly are), it is useful and interesting to observe them in fuller operation and more unchecked luxuriance in America ; many of them aggravated by her peculiar physical circumstances, and others by the absence of those checks which the traditionary laws and customs of ages, whose habits and faults were of an opposite character, have left to us in England. But in treating of these things we have no need or right to point with the finger of scorn : if there were no other reason, the beam in our own eye is too large. The very sensitiveness of the Americans to our criticism proves the respect in which they hold us ; and (if we did not irritate them by ridicule and violence) the most salutary effects might be producad by it.

It is not to be denied that the masses in America look with a far more friendly feeling upon France than upon England ; and while I admit that this fact is accounted for, to a great extent, by traditional recollections of the revolutionary war, and a natural feeling of rivalry towards a country engaged in the same pursuits of industry and commerce as themselves, with

PREFACE.

. XIII which there are infinitely more points of contact, and therefore of probable dissension, — yet, at the same time, I am inclined to think it is also in some measure attributable to the more amicable and sympathetic sentiments which (fully as much as their more dignified and philosophical tone) distinguish French travellers, as compared with English, when writing on the subject of America. If we turn to M. de Tocqueville, or M. Chevalier, we must admit (whether we agree with them or not) that at least they appreciate America better than we do ; their imaginations are filled with the destinies of the mighty continent which they are surveying, and their attention occupied with the great experiment of republican institutions which they find there, the residts of which they antici pate as certainly reactive to an important extent upon Europe ; and they have neither time nor in clination to laugh at and " show up " the manner in which the Americans eat their meals, or the posture in which they sit at the theatre, or any such minor peculiarities as in their larger view are lost in comparison with more important fea tures. Now there is no doubt that we have a great many funny and amusing books about egg-

PREFACE.

. eating, and tobacco-chewing, and all the crambc decies recocta, which Mrs. Trollope began, and on which every succeeding traveller has been ringing the changes ever since ; but I think I may fairly ask, have we not enough of them ? These things are very well in their way, because they are symptomatic and illustrative, to a certain extent, of national character ; but they should not be allowed to take so prominent a position. We want some Englishman to give us a counterpart of the sketch which M. de Tocqueville has drawn, in a spirit equally candid and dispassionate, but with that difference in the aspect and the colouring which would naturally be produced by the different points of view from which an Englishman and a Frenchman would regard America. If from this exordium any reader should be led to suppose that I am about to attempt supplying the deficiency which I complain of, he will be sorely disappointed.

I have neither energy nor capacity for such a task ; and even if I had, the visit which I paid to Ame rica was too short, and the materials at my com mand are too scanty, for me to attempt any thing like a regular and systematic work. In publishing the following letters, I aim at no more than humbly

PREFACE.

. XV to point out to others the path which I am unable to tread myself; and I shall be amply repaid if, by enumerating and touching upon a few of the topics which appear to me worthy of attention, I may be the means of increasing the interest of my readers in this great subject, and of suggesting a matured and elaborate consideration of it to some mind capable of treating it worthily and well. My original letters were written without an idea of publication to my relations in Ireland (most of them to my father), during a tour through Canada and the States ; and though I have somewhat altered and remodelled them, I have retained the epistolary form, both to save myself trouble, and as well calculated, from its irregular and desultory nature, for carrying out the idea which I have attempted to explain above ; it enables me to turn from one subject to another, as the place from which, or the circumstances under which, I wrote, may have happened to dictate or suggest, and to touch upon without " approfondissant " a question, in a manner which would appear otherwise frivo lous and impertinent. They contain, I know, little that is new, and nothing that is strange or amusing: I did not visit the more remote and

PREFACE.

. less frequented parts of America ; I met with no accident or adventure of any kind ; and I had no further means of becoming acquainted with the country and the people than are within the reach of any ordinary traveller with good introductions. Under these circumstances I have, perhaps, no right to publish at all ; and, I believe, my best excuse for doing so is the hope that my specu lations, however uninteresting to the public, may not be so to the circle of my own acquaintances and friends. A large proportion of these letters, however, may possess some additional interest at this moment, as relating to Canada, in the con dition and progress of which I was naturally, as a British subject, even more interested than in that of the United States. Among the thousand " in fallible remedies " which are put forward as certain to cure, if adopted, all the disorders of our social state, that of " systematic colonisation" appears to have found the ablest advocates, and excited the greatest attention ; so that, perhaps, at this moment, the suggestions and the information which even so superficial a traveller as myself can afford, may not be unacceptable. But I have already said too much about myself and my motives ; I cannot.

PREFACE.

. XVII however, conclude these prefatory remarks with out bearing testimony to the remarkable kindness and cordiality which, like all Englishmen properly recommended, I met with, both in Canada and in the States. In such cases all prejudice against our country, all soreness upon the subject of former travellers, is forgotten, and they throw themselves, their houses, and their institutions at once open to the stranger's observation, with such an honest and unsuspicious desire to give him all tlie information which he requires, that one would think it impossible for the most stern and un scrupulous book-maker to take advantage of their. kindness, and then proceed to laugh at and abuse them. I trust that the most sensitive of my American friends will not accuse me of having done so, even where the differences between us are widest and most irreconcilable. CONTENTS OP THE FIRST VOLUME.

Letter I. Boston

Halifax. — Atlantic Steam-Navigation. — Landing at Boston. — First Impressions. — Suburbs of Boston. — Lowell. — American Factory System. — Comparison with that ot England. — Prospects for the Future. — Quantity of "Wild Land" in New England. — Moral Efi'ects of continual Transmigration upon the Agricultural Class. Page 1

Letter II. Hew York

Journey from Boston to New York. — Local Advantages which New York possesses. — Prospects of Boston. — Of the Atlantic Cities of the South. — French and English Colonial System. — Annexation of Texas. — Ecclesiastical Architecture. — America represents exclusively modern Habits and Feelings. — Mixed Nature of English Institutions. — Rockaway. — American Travellers. CONTENTS. XX

Letter III. Saratoga

Hotels. — The Hudson. —Washington Irving. — Emigration. — Albany. — Van Rennselaer Estate. — Saratoga. — Americans and English at Watering Places. — Modern Female Costumes. — Church at Saratoga. — Duelling. Page 3*2

Letter IV. Montreal

Journey from Saratoga. — Interesting Country. — American Stages. — Railroads. — Scenery. — Lake George. — Ticonderoga. — Lake Champlain. — Last War between the United States and Great Britain. — Probable Mode of carrying on next. — Effects of Political Institutions upon chances of War. — St. John's. — American Custom-houses. — Canadian Population. — Army in Canada. — Montreal. 49

Letter V. Quebec

Steam-boat on the St. Lawrence. — Banks of the River. — Quebec and its Environs. — Condition of the " Habitans." — Causes of the late Rebellion. — Political Views of the French Party. — Seignorial Tenures. — Manners of the People. — Field-sports of Lower Canada. - 72

Letter VI. Manor-house

A L. Irish Emigrants. — Their Loyalty. —Trade of Montreal.— Loss of the Shamrock. — High-pressure Steam-boats. — CONTENTS. XXI Scenery of the Ottawa. — Advantages possessed by English Climate. — Its Effects on Health and Beauty. — The Manor-house. — Prospects of Emigrant Farmers in Lower Canada. — Village Church. — Wheat Crop. — The " Fly." Page 92 LETTER VU. KINGSTON. Bytown. — Chaudiere Falls. — " Lumber" Trade. — Policy of the late Alteration in the Tariff. — Rideau Canal. — Voyage to Kemptville. — Forest Clearings. — Scenery of the Woods. — The " Thousand Islands." — Kingston. 110 LETTER VHI. KINGSTON. Sporting Expedition. — Lobra Lake. — Farm-house in the Interior. — A. U. E. Loyalist. — First Day's Hunting. — Mosquitoes. — Hard Bed. — Second Day's Hunting. — Chase of a Deer in the Water. — Return to Kingston. 122

LETTER IX. NIAGARA FALLS.

Voyage on Lake Ontario. — The Falls. — Indian Manufactures. — Scenery on the Niagara River. — Going behind the Falls. — Buffalo. — An " Able Financier." — German Emigrants. — Land-sales in the United States. — Lake Steamers. — The Legitimate Drama at Buffalo. — Navy Island. — Hostilities with the Sympathisers. — Indian and Negro Races compared. — Navigation on the Welland Canal. — Irish at the Public Works. - CONTENTS. XXII

LETTER X. WOODSTOCK.

A Labourer's Account of his first Four Years in Canada. — Prospects afforded to a Gentleman-farmer. — Hamilton. — Traveller from the Far-west. — Country between Hamilton and Woodstock. — Brantford. — Indian Village. — Divine Service in the Mohawk Language. — Progress of Civilisation among the Red Men. — Oak-plains. — Visit to a Gentleman-farmer settled in Western Canada. — Manner of Life. — Advice to Emigrants. — Religious Condition of the Population. — Woodstock Cricket-club. Page 157

LETTER XI. TORONTO.

Uncomfortable Journey. — Toronto. — System of Land- Sales in Canada. — Mr. Wakefield's Plan. — Clergy Reserves. — The Bar in Canada. — The Talbot Settlement. — Visits from Irish Emigrants. — Their Success. — Upper Canada College. — The Medical Profession in Canada. 179

LETTER XII. COBOURG.

Leave Toronto. — Cobourg. — Heterogeneous Character of Population in Upper Canada. — Ride to Peterborough. — Townships of Cavan and Monaghan. — Irish Protestant Farmers. — Peterborough. — Life of a Settler in the Back-woods. — Occupations and Amusements. — Want of Servants. — Cheapness of Living. - .. - ] CONTENTS. XXIII LETTER XEU. KINGSTON. Journey to the Trent. — A Canadian Farmer's Account of the Western States. — Voyage to Kingston. — Canadian Politics. — The " Crisis." — Arguments in favour of Sir Charles Bagot's Policy. — Cases of Ireland and Canada compared. — Ultimate Advantage which the Principle of " Responsible Government" holds out to the British Party. — Kingston Penitentiary. — Canadian Legislature. Page 212

LETTER XIV. ISLE AUX NOIX.

Descent of the St. Lawrence Rapids. — Bill Johnson, the Pirate. — Isle aux Noix. — Out-quarters in Canada. — Desertion among the Soldiery. — Field-sports in Forest Countries. — Chances of Employment for Labourers. — Protestant and Roman Catholic Emigrants. — Love of Money characteristic of the Population in a new Country. — Necessity of counteracting it. — Law of Succession. — Loyalty. — Reasons why the Canadians should desire a Continuance of British Connection. — Flourishing Condition of Canada. — Its Progress compared with that of the United States. — Free Trade with England. — Temporary Depression of Commerce. ... LETTERS FKOM. AMERICA.

Letter I. Boston

HALIFAX. ATLANTIC STEAM-NAVIGATION. LANDING AT BOSTON. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. SUBURBS OF BOSTON. LOWELL. AMERICAN FACTORY SYSTEM. COMPARISON WITH THAT OF ENGLAND. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE. QUANTITY OF " WILD LAND " IN NEW ENGLAND. MORAL EFFECTS OF CONTINUAL TRANSMIGRATION UPON THE AGRICULTURAL CLASS. Boston, July 1842. We arrived on the morning of the 20th, thank God, all well, after a passage of fifteen days, during which nothing remarkable occurred. We saw one or two icebergs, though it is late in the year for doing so. During the early part of the summer, the channel between the two great " Banks " of Newfoundland is completely studded with them, floating from the polar regions to the VOL. I. B gulf stream, in which they melt ; and as fogs are almost perennial in the same locality, there is considerable danger of running foul of them : two or three vessels have been lost in this way this year.

We remained about twelve hours at Halifax, and I had time to walk about the town, and admh*e the view from the citadel of its beautiful bay and harbour ; the latter, especially, is mag nificent. The town itself is, I believe, not flou rishing ; it was made by the war ; and has, since the peace, decreased in population. .St. John's, New Brunswick, is (to use the nautical phrase) " taking the wind out of its sails ;" and Picton, on the northern coast, will probably also prove a formidable rival to the capital, as being the depot and port of the great and valuable Nova Scotia coalfield. The coal is extremely good, and if it were not subjected to a heavy duty by the Ame rican government, would monopolise the market of the north-eastern states. The appearance of the coast about Halifax is bleak and inhospitable enough, but I am told that the scenery in the interior is beautiful, and in many places the soil fertile.

The great drawback to the trade and progress of Halifax is the perpetual fog which prevails outside the harbour during the summer months. The Quebec steamer, which came for BOSTON. 3

LETTER I.

Lady Bagot, spent two days at its mouth, un willing to venture while the fog was so thick upon entering, for the coast is iron-bound, and dangerous in the extreme. I observed a great number of negroes in Hali fax : it seems there is a settlement of them in the neighbourhood, which was established during the war as a depot for the slaves who ran away from the States, or were carried off in any of the descents which were made on the American territory ; and they breed and flourish in a manner hardly to be expected, considering the uncongenial nature of the climate to a race sprung from the tropics. It certainly proves them to be more capable of supporting extremes than white men are. There are also a great number of Indians still left in Nova Scotia, and they constitute the most degraded and corrupted part of the popu lation.

From Halifax to Boston the voyage takes about forty hours; we arrived at the latter place at about twelve o'clock on a beautiful moonlight night, but did not land until the next morning. It is curious and rather discouraging, after our anticipations of the rapid progress of Atlantic steam navigation, to observe, that as a commercial speculation it has proved a failure, and apparently must do so, unless some method of condensing B fuel be discovered. As it is, the steamers are, as far as freight is concerned, nothing but coal barges. The Acadia, whose measurement is 1200 tons, carries 600 tons of coal at starting, so that when passengers and stores are stowed away, there is hardly room for any thing but a few parcels ; the consequence is, that, depending en tirely upon passage-money, and finding that this is not sufficient to pay them, the company has this year applied for, and obtained (upon good cause shewn) a large addition to the grant from the post-office; they receive now, I think, 80,000/. per annum.

Without this, it would be impossible to maintain the line. The Great Western, though the most fortunate of vessels, has (as I believe it is generally understood) afforded a very small return to her owners, and all the other steamers which have been put upon the American station, have gradually dropped off. Even as to passengers, the " liners," at least the " crack " ships, are said to fill better on an average than the steamers. Tlie prejudice in favour of their superior safety still remains to a great extent, notwithstanding the fact, which ought to be decisive upon this point, that the insurance companies insure in the steamers for half the premium which is required in the case of the best packet-ships (21*. 6d. per 1 00/. instead of 1 /. 5s. ). The former are as good sea-

LETTER I. BOSTON.

boats, far more manageable, and cannot be driven on a lee-shore. Almost all the accidents which have happened to them, have been caused by bad pilotage, (except in the case of the President, of which we know nothing,) and yet we still find people talking of the great danger of steam-navigation, particularly in winter. I should prefer trusting to the opinion of the insurance-office agents, the business of whose lives is to calculate risks. I never enjoyed a day more than the first which I spent at Boston : the mere fact, indeed, of being settled upon terra firma again after such a voyage, would make The common air, the earth, the skies, To me an opening Paradise. But, independently of this, there was much to interest and to please. The appearance of the city and its inhabitants is quite as new and strange to an Englishman as that of most con tinental towns ; and the circumstance of hearing his own language among such foreign looking scenes, from the apparent anomaly, rather adds to than diminishes the contrast.

The houses are republican-looking, comfortable, but not hand some; nor are there any public buildings at all remarkable or fine. The churches are peculiarly B 1. grotesque, bidding utter defiance to every rule of architecture, and generally painted all the colours of the rainbow; so that, except for their being surmounted by steeples, it would be impossible to guess at their destination. The country about Boston very pretty, studded with green and white villas, and a good deal of garden and dressed ground. The public cemetery at Mount Auburn is (with the exception of the tombs) perfect : it presents every variety of surface and foliage, deep dark glens and sunny glades, large fine trees and beautiful shrubbery and underwood. Many of the trees and shrubs were new to me except as rari ties and exotics, and very beautiful, particularly the dark rich sumach, the butter-nut with its parasol-shaped branches, the black walnut, and the tulip-tree.

The less said about the tombs the better ; they are generally very " classical " and very bad, few bearing, either in symbols or in scriptions, any reference to Christianity. Near the cemetery is Fresh Pond, famous as the reservoh* of the purest and most beautiful ice in the world. One great and universal luxury here is the profusion of ice, which you see in every shop and stall in the market, Everything iceable is iced ; and within the last few years, Fresh Pond ice has become a large and valuable article of export, both to the East and West Indies. Fancy it taking a

LETTER I. BOSTON.

voyage round the Cape, and beating the Himalaya ice in the Calcutta markets ! I have been making, since my arrival, several excursions in the neighbourhood ; amongst others one (by railroad) to Lowell, a manufacturing town on the Merrimac, twenty miles from Boston. It has sprung up entirely within the last nineteen years, and now contains upwards of 20,000 inhabitants, and produces about one sixth part of the cotton manufacture of the whole Union : there is also a considerable woollen manufacture carried on there. The land on which it stands was taken by a company with a view to this manufacturing speculation in 1823, in consecpience of their having observed its peculiar advantages ; namely, a water fall of thirty-one feet, and of sufficient power to work all the mills now in operation, and a canal, the oldest in the Union, by which, till the railroad was made, all the trade of Lowell was carried on.

The plan succeeded beyond the most san guine expectations of the projectors, who have consequently realised large fortunes. I went round one of the mills belonging to Messrs. Lawrence, and was much pleased with the comfort and cleanliness of the whole establishment, as well as with the appearance of the work people. They were 700 in number (almost all adults and unmarried); the wages of the men B Iaveraging about eighty cents (Ss. 6d.), those of the women half a dollar per day. They work from five A. M. to seven p. M., with the intermis sion of half an hour for breakfast and three quarters of an hour for dinner. They live in boarding houses connected with the mill, belonging to the master manufacturer, and kept by persons whom he employs, and who are responsible to him for the order and regularity of their establishment : a strict police is enforced, and drunkenness and im morality punished by immediate dismissal.

The same system is pursued by the other mill owners, and the result is such as they may justly be proud of. At the same time, when the example of Lo well is quoted to show that the evils which have in Europe universally attended the manufacturing system are not inevitable in it, I cannot admit it to be at all conclusive. The experiment has been tried under eminently favourable circumstances, and in a country where the working-class has ad vantages unknown elsewhere: nor can I conceive that when it shall be fully peopled, when the wages of labour shall have fallen, and when the manufacturing shall come to bear an important numerical proportion to the agricultural popula tion, the favourable contrast which the New Eno* land factories now present to those of England, France, and Germany, can possibly continue. BOSTON.

LETTER I.

At present the factories are supplied by a per petual immigration from the agricultural districts; farmers' children come in from the surrounding states, spend three or four years here, accumulate a small capital, and go off to marry, settle, or em bark in other pursuits, leaving their places to be supplied by a fresh influx of healthy rural blood. Thus no permanent urban population has as yet been formed, while the comparatively small size of the town enables the capitalists to whom it almost exclusively belongs, to manage and regulate its police at will, and neither of these advantages are likely to be other than local and temporary. Again: there can be no physical destitution while land is so cheap, and labour so dear as in the case of America ; and we all know how in timately connected are extreme poverty and that kind of immorality, the absence of which is so remarkable at Lowell.