The English traveller in America, 1785-1835

Front matter

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Preface

In undertaking this study of conditions in the United States in the fifty-year period after the Revolution, as seen through the eyes of English travellers, the author has attempted to produce a book which will be useful and interesting alike to the student of history and of literature. The English attitude toward America has been variously and frequently determined; such widely different works, for instance, as Henry T. Tuckerman's "America and Her Commentators" (1864) and John Graham Brooks* **As Others See Us" (1908) are well-known examples of this type of interpretative literature. But books of this kind, while affording much bibliographical material, usually attempt to cover the whole field of foreign criticism of America and are necessarily superficial in their discussion of the various phases of American life. It is this difficulty that the present work attempts to obviate by the limitation of its subject.

The bibliography of English travel in America, appended to this book, includes the works which were drawn upon by the authors. The original spelling, punctuation, and capitalization of the books of travel have been preserved in the titles and in the quotations throughout the book. While the titles were secured from many fruitful sources, the most useful work in this connection was the bibliography of Professor Lane Cooper's chapter ''Travellers and Observers" in the Cambridge History of American Literature.

Grateful thanks are due to Dr. Carl Van Doren, Literary

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Vlll PREFACE

Editor of The Nation and Associate in English at Columbia University, who suggested this study and who read both the manuscript and the proof; to Professor William P. Trent of Columbia University, who read the proof; also to Professor Dixon Ryan Fox, Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University, whose careful criticism has been of great assistance. Acknowledgement must be made of the help given by the New York State Library at Albany, which generously lent its large collection of travel literature. The author is indebted, too, to her sisters, Maude M. Benson and Katharine M. Bennett, and to her friends, Mary Loomis Cook and Dr. Ruth Lansing, for practical aid in the inevitable drudgery which a book of this kind involves.

Chapter I Motives And Geography

We of the twentieth century shall perhaps experience no modern equivalent of the attitude which prompted the European interest in America in the early days of the Republic. If we could, we should find the outlook extremely interesting. Seldom shall we witness such a fascinating experiment in government in these sophisticated days when the world impresses us as having been conquered and re-conquered many times. Here was a startling venture in statecraft. The new nation was made up of a heterogeneous collection of more or less truculent colonies, each of which had already manifested a tendency to develop according to its own geographic and economic needs. The unassimilated confederation was staggering under an enormous public debt, with no prospects of immediate resources. When we add to these difficulties the great extent of territory, the disparity in race and language of the people, the lack of sympathetic religious and political relations, and the local jealousies, and survey the accumulated burden, we do not wonder that the question foremost in the mind of the American as well as of the European

^as, — what is to be the result of all this? or, how long will this union last? Some of the most interesting chapters of travel literature at the time deal with this question of the future of the United States.

Many optimistic European visitors saw in the young nation the nucleus of a future world power — a power which was destined to engage in a death grapple with England for the supremacy of the seas; others, judging by what they actually saw, foretold a speedy shipwreck on the rock of the slavery question, or of equal suffrage, or of the inability to populate such a vast tract of land. It was inevitable that, owing to the practical difficulties which prevented an easy communication between Europe and America, ignorance of the real state of affairs should prevail, and that preconceived ideas should govern the attitude of many a professedly truthful traveller. When we remember that even within the memory of our own generation the European mind has pictured the Indian stalking in blanket and war-paint through the streets of our large cities, we are likely to look with tolerant eye on the overdrawn and often prejudiced accounts of American life of more than a century ago. Significant, perhaps, of the knowledge of America which prevailed in England immediately after the Revolution is a statement in the preface of a curious little book published in 1789 — ''Historical Review of North America — by a gentleman immediately returned from a tour of that continent" (W. Matthews). *'It is a country hitherto little known. The perfidious French while they retained any power in North America, took every method to keep the English in ignorance, even by publishing false maps with false names and false accounts annexed to them; probably (says Carver) the greatest part is entirely unexplored. ' ' ^

At any rate, with whatever eyes the European tourists surveyed America, survey it they did, and the bibliography of travel literature reveals an ever-increasing list of visitors to these shores, beginning directly after the Revolution, decreasing perceptibly during the war of 1812, and receiving a new stimulation after the independence of America was fully established by the peace of 1814. As it became more and more evident that the United States was becoming a power with which to reckon, European eyes were turned westward more curiously than ever. Correspondingly, books of travel multiplied and the list of works for the facilitation or the discouragement of emigration grew apace. Guide books for the new land were a natural consequence. Travellers vitally interested in some particular form of occupation, — agriculture, trade, etc., could not resist the temptation to tell of the new and promising field for such ventures.

The most obvious motive which led the British to seek America was relief from the state of affairs in Europe and especially in their own land. This cause operated less immediately after the Revolution than after the second war with Great Britain. In 1798, however, we find Isaac Weld writing in the preface to ''Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada": ''At a period when war was spreading desolation over the fairest parts of Europe, when anarchy seemed to be extending its frightful progress from nation to nation, and when the storms that were gathering over his native country in particular rendered it impossible to say how soon any one of its inhabitants might be forced to seek for refuge in a foreign land, the Author of the following pages was induced to cross the Atlantic, for the purpose of examining with his own eyes into the truth of the various accounts which had been given of the flourishing and happy condition of the United States of America, and of ascertaining whether in case of further emergency, any part of those territories might be looked forward to as an eligible and agreeable place of abode. ' ' ^

The wars which were ''spreading desolation over the fairest parts of Europe" had after-effects which the British Empire was to feel more deeply than it did the conflict itself. Not only was England left with a war debt of over eight hundred and thirty million pounds, but she was forced to face and to solve many domestic problems which had been held in abeyance during the Napoleonic struggles. Her ministry was inharmonious and weak ; her export trade was at a low ebb. The introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system were throwing thousands out of employment. The Corn Law of 1815 was a rankling grievance; the poor took to rioting and rickburning, and although sporadic attempts at rebellion were checked, discontent was general. This condition of affairs accounts for the vast number of British emigrants who yearly sought American shores. In 1817, Henry Bradshaw Fearon was deputed by thirty-nine English families to go to America '*to ascertain whether any, and what part of the United States would be suitable for their residence.'* In the ''Introductory Remarks" to his "Sketches of America" he makes a significant statement in regard to the condition of affairs in England. "Emigration had at the time of my appointment assumed a totally new character : it was no longer merely the poor, the idle, the profligate, or the wildly speculative who were proposing to quit their native country, but men of sober habits and regular pursuits; men of reflection who apprehended approaching evils; men of upright and conscientious minds to whose happiness civil and religious liberty were essential; and 2 Weld, Isaac I., Preface, pp. iii-iv.

men of domestic feelings who wished to provide for the future and prosperity of their offspring. ' ' ^

In 1830, Joseph Pickering published a book called "Inquiries of an Emigrant, being a narrative of an English farmer from the year 1824-30," in which he devotes his introduction to the discussion of the causes of emigration. *'The first and by far the most prominent one," he says, ''is privation and its consequent distress. The next, perhaps, is dissatisfaction under real or fancied political grievances; some few emigrate for a warmer, drier or healthier climate and others for no reason but a love of change."

The best known examples of those who sought a new home for themselves, and who encouraged imitation of their own example were Morris Birkbeck and George Flower. Birkbeck was a Quaker farmer who decided on account of troubles in England to emigrate to America. He inspired with enthusiasm his friend George Flower, who went before Birkbeck to investigate conditions. Birkbeck met Flower in 1817 in Virginia and together they made their way to the Ohio, and thence to the region of the Illinois. Here they assumed responsibility for a huge tract of land, 16,000 acres stretching northward from the Ohio. Farms were laid out, cabins built, and emigration encouraged to a district which, by its proximity to the Mississippi River, offered infinite possibilities for the transportation of produce to the markets of the world. Two optimistic books issued by Birkbeck in 1817 and 1818, "Notes on a Journey in America from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of the Illinois" and "Letters from Illinois" stimulated great enthusiasm among the discontented in England, and the "English Prairie," as it was called, was the scene of active colonization. It was also 8 Fearon, Introductory Remarks, pp. xi-xii.

destined to become later the point of dispute in a literary war. It is quite natural that many of Birkbeck's emigrants should have been disappointed in their expectations, and equally natural that they should in that case have tried to prevent other people from following their unfortunate example; on the other hand many considered the venture a successful experiment and were loud in their praises of it. William Blane, after travelling through Birkbeck's settlement in 1822, says, "While in Albion I read all the books and reviews that had been written both for and against this settlement. One traveller described it as an earthly paradise, another as a miserable, unhealthv swamp ; the truth is midway between these extremes. ' ' *

Many travellers whose interest was not primarily philanthropic and who cared nothing for the cause of emigratic in the abstract, nevertheless looked upon it in the light - their personal needs. Such a one was Thomas Cooper who, as early as 1794, came ' ' to determine whether America and what part of it was eligible for a person like myself with a small fortune and a large family to settle in — and having completely satisfied my own mind upon the subject, I left part of my family there and have returned (probably for the last time) to fetch away the rest."**

One of the most amusing accounts of those who sought a personal refuge from England's evils is that of the Eev. Isaac Fidler who, dissatisfied with ecclesiastical conditions at home, crossed the ocean confidently expecting to find an Episcopal benefice waiting for him on this side. He found not only that two years' residence was required for an alien to hold such a benefice, but that his secondary

* Blane, William, "An Excursion Through the United States and Canada During the Years 1822-1823," p. 157.

5 "Some Information Respecting America, Collected by Thomas Cooper, Late of Manchester," Preface, p. iii.

scheme of disseminating knowledge of Sanscrit and other ancient tongues was not more practicable. His disgust knew no bounds, and the resulting diatribe against American stupidity constitutes an interesting though unreliable source of information concerning the condition of religious affairs in America.^

A limited number of travellers came to investigate certain specialized fields of activity such as trade or commerce or manufacture. One of the most important and authoritative of these visitors was John Melish, who in 1806 tried to open a line of cotton trade with Savannah, Georgia. At the accession of Charles James Fox as the head of the

inistry in 1805, Melish deemed the time ripe for friendly commercial relations between England and America, and |:^barked on his new enterprise. Later, in 1812, he writes, u /laving occasion to travel extensively through the interior of Georgia, I extended my remarks, and found an opinion forced upon me, that should the restrictions of commerce be of long duration, America would become a manufacturing country and consequently would be in a great measure independent of Europe. That opinion received strength and confirmation during a residence in New York in 1810, when I was fruitlessly employed in looking for mercantile employment." ^

With the knowledge gained in a month 's leave of absence from his ship in Halifax, Lieutenant the Honorable F. Fitzgerald de Roos of the Royal Navy ventured to publish in 1827 a *' Personal Narrative of Travels in the United States and Canada." His purpose was to inspect the

6 "Observations on Professions, Literature, Manners, and Emigration in the United States and Canada." By the Rev. Isaac Fidler (1833).

7 "Travels in the United States of America in the Years 1806 and 1807, and 1809, 1810 and 1811." By John Melish, I, Preface, p. viii.

dockyards with a view to establishing certain facts in regard to the American navy, facts which he makes clear — namely, that the reports of the naval powers of the United States have been greatly exaggerated, that the new country will never ''cope with Great Britain in maritime warfare — far less dispute with her the Dominion of the Seas."«

A much more charming personality, a man blessed with a singular openness of mind, was John Bernard, a popular English comedian who became one of the first American stage managers. Driven from England in 1797 *'by the failure of two or three managerial speculations and the patronage of an extensive circle of fashionable acquaintances," he sought a new field for the propagation of his beloved art. "On reaching Boston," he says, ''I met many London acquaintances at the theatre there who varied in the reception they gave me. One said I had come too late by five years; another that I was a great fool to come at all ; a third, that as I looked a florid habit, there was every chance of my being packed in a black box before the spring. The better tempered cheered me in the way an army agent does a cadet in war time. 'The yellow fever,' said they, 'thins the Green Room of at least twenty every summer, so that in a short time the field will be your own.' "^

Although it is true, as we have seen, that many of America's visitors came to her with a definite purpose in mind, by far the largest class was made up of those who were actuated by the same motives that impel many of us today to visit foreign countries — they sought pleasure and

8 See De Roos, pp. 218-219; Boardman (Preface, p. v) also came for commercial reasons.

9 "Retrospections of America, 1797-1811." By John Bernard (edition of 1887), p. 23, also pp. 25-26.

the gratification of their curiosity. How great that curiosity was is difficult to comprehend. Aside from the interesting political experiment that America represented, there was also the novelty of strange manners and customs, the mystery of the fast dying-out race of Indians, the lure of unexplored depths of forest and prairie. Curiosity drew to America some of the most interesting of her commentators and some of the most bigoted of her detractors. Actuated, at least in the case of many, by no serious purpose, they let their imaginations run riot, and the result was often a tale worthy of the Arabian Nights.

One of the most delightful embodiments of the spirit of adventure came to America in 1798 in the person of John Davis. Professedly literary in his inclinations, he wandered from New York to South Carolina, acting as tutor to earn his living. In his pedestrian travels he covered fifteen states, jotting down in his journal interesting though sometimes unreliable information about the people with whom he was associated, and particularly, many facts concerning the literary conditions of the time. The vivacity of his descriptions, the spirit of the writer, and his racy mixture of fact and fiction make the book a landmark on the oftentimes monotonous road of travel literature. ^°

In 1856, there appeared the posthumous journal of Francis Baily, at one time president of the Royal Astronomical Society. Baily had as a young man of twenty-two undertaken a tour of two years' duration (1796-7) through the unsettled parts of North America. Impelled by the spirit of adventure, he intended to make this journey serve as an apprenticeship to later travels, preferably in Africa, in the exploration of which he hoped to equal Mungo Park.

10 "Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America, During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802." By Jonn Davis.

Taking time to satisfy his curiosity, he drifted leisurely through most of the explored regions of the Middle West and through vast tracts of virgin forests as well. His experiences are always interesting, some of them intensely so, as for instance, when he passed from Pittsburg to New Orleans in an open boat occupying in transit about fifty days and nights ''not reckoning landings." ^^

There are, in the history of travel in America, three or four especially notorious names — notorious in the sense that they represent authors whose accounts of American life were either so scathing as to provoke indignation and frequent reprisals on the part of the natives, or so imaginative that no value could be attached to some of their statements. In this latter class is the name of Thomas Ashe who, driven by curiosity which took the form of an interest in archaeology, made a journey in 1806 in the region of the rivers Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi. As we thrill with anticipation while he is uncovering an Indian mound, or while we take with him the chute of the falls of the Ohio, we forget that he was everywhere advertised as an impostor, and that such marvellous descriptions, as that of the falls of the Ohio in a thunder storm, had little, if any, foundation of fact.^^

If we consult a table of dates of travel in this country, we find, as has been said before, that there is a decided gap in the records of the years during which occurred the second war with Great Britain. As relations with the latter country became strained, travel decreased ; especially is this true of the type now under discussion, that is, that undertaken from motives of curiosity. In the six years

11 See Baily, Francis, Preface, p. viii.

12 See, for instance, Ashe, Thomas, "Travels in America Performed in 1806, . . ." pp. 238-239.

from 1810-1816, there were few Englislimen who evinced enough temerity to travel in the United States for pleasure. About 1816 or 1817, we see the beginning of the great western movement which was destined to receive its first real check in the circumstances of the World War. The impetus was manifold; the removal of the embargo of 1807, the growing appreciation of the possibilities of the New West, and the increased facilities in the shape of canals and highways, led Europeans to turn to America, and drove forth the settlers already there to seek fresh fields along the Ohio and in the Mississippi valley.

The uncertainty in the minds of Europeans concerning the real state of affairs in the United States called forth such works as Bristed's ** Resources of America" (1818). In it, the author discusses the various opinions of travellers of all nations, their conflicting accounts, and the true state of affairs in various lines of activity, such as commerce, manufacture, government, literature, etc. Again and again were lovers of America forced to refute in print what was published in London and Edinburgh, and if it was true, as even Captain Basil Hall admitted, that the Americans were uniformly forbearing in their attitude toward the discontented and fault-finding wayfarer, their patience often came to a sudden end when they were able to set down their grievances on paper.

Lieutenant Francis Hall's book of travels in 1816 is one of the first signs of re-awakened interest in American affairs. After an extended tour through Canada, he entered the United States on the Niagara frontier, from which he penetrated through New York and Pennsylvania down as far as Charleston. His work is distinctive because of its organization. It is no hastily scrawled journal, as are so many of the accounts, but adds to the separate chapters for the different localities appendixes in which such subjects as slavery and traits of American character are discussed fully and dispassionately.^^

The next writer of any note, who enjoys too the added distinction of being the first Englishwoman who wrote down her impressions of America, was Madame Frances Wright D'Arusmont, or Fanny Wright, as she was more familiarly known. She visited America in 1818 and again five years later, when she became interested in the slavery question and founded a colony of free negroes near Memphis. Her book, ''Views of Society and Manners in America," a highly laudatory account of travels through the East and South, appeared in London in 1821.

It was in the second and third decades of the century that pleasure-seekers began to visit America in noticeably large numbers, and at that time too, began in earnest the literary war between those who wrote scoffingly of America and those who defended her. William Blane, who wrote a sympathetic account, came in 1822. Isaac Candler in 1824 published a ''Summary View of America" in which he set forth concisely and clearly his observations during a trip through the New England, Middle Atlantic, and Southern states. His book met with praise from both English and American reviewers. Captain Basil Hall, a visitor in 1827-8, was the arch-traitor to American hospitality in the opinion of those who had tried to endure his fault-finding during his leisurely journey with his family over most of the known territory of the United States. Around his book, "Travels in North America in the years 1827 and 1828," there sprang up a young growth of literature that repeated or attacked his views.

After 1830, the travel literature increased as rapidly as did the number of the curious. This is the decade of Mrs.

13 "Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817." By Lieut. Francis Hall.

Trollop e, who journeyed to the banks of the Illinois ostensibly from motives of the ordinary sight-seer, in reality for the benefit of a private business venture. Her book ''Domestic Manners of the Americans" was estimated by her son Anthony Trollope to be "the first of a series of books of travel of which it was probably the best and certainly the best known." ^* In this period too, belongs Henry Tudor, an English barrister, who came to see the only quarter of the globe he had never visited and especially to behold ''the magnificent cataract of Niagara." ^^ Appreciative accounts of American life were written by Tyrone Power the actor^^ (1836), and by Harriet Martineau, the latter of whom was welcomed everywhere as a celebrity. ^^ Godfrey Vigne, an English barrister, in 1832 came "alone, unbewifed and unbevehicled, as a man ought to travel, and with the determination of being, as far as an Englishman can be, unprejudiced." His intention was to see all he could of the United States in the space of about six months, and after reading his succinct, straightforward, almost curt account, one does not wonder that he covered as much ground as he did in the comparatively short space of time.^^

It is impossible to individualize all the books of this class, especially those that were written in the twenties and thirties. Yet one hesitates to omit at least a bare mention of the books by such men as Charles Augustus

14 See Trollope, Anthony, "Autobiography," Chap. II, for discussion I'' of her work.

15 Tudor, Henry, "Narration of a Tour in North America, in a Series of Letters Written in the Years 1831-2." (1834.)

16 Power, Tyrone, "Impressions of America Ihiring the"Tears 1833, 1834, and 1835." (1836.)

iTMartineau, Harriet, "Society in America." (1837.) 18 Vigne, Godfrey, "Six Months in America." (1832.)

Murray, S. A. Ferrall, and Thomas Hamilton. Murray's interest led him to spend a summer with the Pawnee Indians in the remote Missouri Territory ;^^ Ferrall 's long *' ramble" of 6,000 miles was undertaken through the sheer love of novelty,^^ while Hamilton as an ''independent observer" seems to have found in American institutions and experience only a dangerous precedent for possible imitation by England.^^

When we turn to the consideration of the motives which prompted these travellers to put down on paper what they saw and how it impressed them, we find that few were thinking of the writing of the book as a literary exercise. Many of them were careful to disclaim any pretense to literary ability, and there are indeed, very few whose excellence of style is so marked that it distracts our attention from the facts and the writer's point of view. It is amusing to see how many of the authors have ''yielded to the solicitations of friends," having kept their journal of travels with no thought of publishing it. So numerous are these modest writers that one is in a humor to appreciate a statement like the following with which Charles Augustus Murray prefaced his book: "It is very seldom that the journal of a traveller appears before the public unaccompanied by a prefatory declaration that it was not his original intention to publish, and that he had been reluctantly induced by the importunities of his friends to inform the world of the extent and particulars of his travel. A statement of this kind meets with as much credit as the laboured impromptu of a wit: or the professions of dif-

19 Murray, The Hon. Charles Augustus, "Travels in North America During the Years 1834, 1835, and 1836." (1839.)

20 Ferrall, S. A., "A Ramble of 6,000 Miles through the United States of America." (1832.)

21 Hamilton, Thomas, "Men and Manners in America." (1834.)

fidence made by a practised speaker: as it is a matter in which the public are so little interested, I am surprised that authors should take so much pains in attempting to explain it. Most travellers keep a record of the scenes through which they pass without having at the time definite intentions as to publication, leaving their after-decisions to be determined by circumstances ; this is generally the case with persons who travel without any scientific object and is probably applicable to the following narrative." ^^

Many Englishmen, having travelled more or less extensively with professedly unbiased judgment, felt that it was their duty to enlighten their fellow countrymen on the subject of the evils of emigration. An enthusiastic detractor of this type was Thomas Brothers, who signed himself a resident in the United States for fifteen years and who gave his book the beguiling title of ''The United States as They Are, not as They Are Generally Described : Being a Cure for Radicalism." The American system of government was his point of attack. Others exposed the faults of American society and domestic manners, as Mrs. TroUope and William Faux,^^ the latter of whom was designated by Blackwood's reviewer as ''a simpleton of the first water,. . . .a capital specimen of a village John Bull, for the first time roaming far away from his native valley — staring at everything and grumbling at most. ' ' ^*

The influence of these men was offset by that of a group of writers who looked at the United States through rosy spectacles and who encouraged emigration thither. Many

22 Murray, C. A., Preface, p. v.

23 Faux, William, "Memorable Days in America." (Thwaites, XI, XII.)

24 See Blackwood's Magazine, XIV, 562, 565. (Novembe?, 1823.)

of these had a favorite place of residence, the superior advantages of which they enthusiastically set forth.

Many writers had no other aim than to produce an account of the unusual things that they had witnessed. Inveterate observers and travellers like Isaac Candler or Francis Baily took notes on ''those things which attracted attention either by their novelty or importance," notes which were published later for their intrinsic value. Some made a special appeal to young people, with the hope of administering the wholesome pill of useful information disguised by the jelly of amusing or exciting adventures.^' To many of the English travellers, publication was evidently a safety valve, the result of a natural desire to narrate their personal adventures or to publish their diaries or part of their correspondence. Especially is this true in the case of many of the women writers on America, Fanny Wright, Frances Kemble, and Harriet Martineau; it is also true of two of the most famous actors who visited America, John Bernard and Tyrone Power.