LETTER IV.

LONDON, AUGUST 10th.

ONE can know nothing of this people without mixing with them, they seem most of them to have two characters; one repellant, especially to strangers, the other, quite accommodating and disposed to confidence, if you are willing to shew them a little deference. Nothing is lost by this, for they generously disclaim that superiority which is granted.

I have also discovered a remarkable desire in those who affect to rank among the better sort, to pass themselves off in the presence of strangers for gentlemen of fortune and consequence. morning I visited Kensington Garden, but one person was there before me.

and repassed each other many times;

Last Sunday

so early, that

We passed

but he dis

covered no disposition to speak, or to be spoken to : at length I ventured to accost him; and to whom do you think I had the honour to address myself? It appeared in the sequel that he was a member of parliament, possessed of an immense landed property in Kent, and that he had frequently been offered a

pension by Mr. Pitt, if he would support the ministry, which had been as frequently refused from a motive of patriotism. He said he had foreseen, and advised Mr. Pitt of the termination of the war. I observed he must also have known Mr. Burke. "Poor fellow," said he, "Burke lost his senses a long time before he died: he quarrelled with me at last, after an intimacy of thirty years." This man might possibly have been a member of parliament, notwithstanding the attrition of time had effected one considerable breach in his hat and two others in his

coat.

The English are said to hold all other people in contempt-the usual fault of islanders. But the English indulge a sentiment of disdain arising from comparison, rather than from any other cause.

I am led to the above remark, from an occurrence which lately happened to myself. In travelling to London in a stage coach, I had become so intimate with one of the passengers, that just before the journey was finished, he politely gave me his address. I told him, I could not in return give him mine, for being a stranger in the country, I knew not where I should take lodgings. I thought the man was suddenly taken ill, so altered was his countenance in a "Are you not an Englishman ?" he asked, with a tone which partly betrayed mortification

moment.

that he should have made such a mistake, and partly regret that he should have done me so much honour as to have taken me for an Englishman.

"No, I

am a citizen of the United States." He seemed to

say,

so much the worse," wrapped himself up in a reverie, and was silent the remainder of the passage.

This repelling trait of character, for which the English are noted, does not arise, in my opinion, entirely from their dispositions. In a country like this, a commercial country, where the interest of each individual interferes in some form or other, with his neighbour's, where, the people mutually thrive at each other's expense, and where, even the pious, if they put up a prayer in the morning for a blessing on the day, the substance of it must be the overreaching of their fellows. Among such, there is no room for cordiality, and when attentions are proffered, their motive ought to be suspected. All will be suspicious of those with whom they are unacquainted; especial. ly in such a city as this, to which rogues of all descriptions resort, either to hide their infamy, or sell it for a higher price. Hence the first maxim should be to know nobody by whom they are not likely to profit. An apostle among such people would command no more attention than a ballad singer, and would afford speculation to no one but a Jew clothesman.

D

How far these observations apply to our own country, I leave you to judge. I believe commerce preserves the same character in all countries and in all ages. The merchant of Alexandria who arrived in a time of famine at Rhodes with a cargo of cornthe bankers of Syracuse who sold Cannius the Roman knight a farm, with a fish pond in it-the merchants of Amsterdam who cut down the cinnamon trees in the East-the Hamburghers who betrayed Napper Tandy-the merchants of Liverpool who pray God, not to change the colour of the negroes, and certain merchants of Boston who dream of wars in Europe as the greatest blessing which Providence can send, are all allied to the same family. How applicable to to the present is the following remark, made nearly nineteen centuries since. Quod si qui proscribunt Villam bonam, beneque edificatam, non existimantur fefellisse etiam si illa nec bona est, nec ædificata ratione. Cicero de Officiis.

Thank God, the United States are rather an agricultural, than a commercial, country; otherwise, in spite of the constitution, our republic would soon be lost in an odious aristocracy, and what is still worse, a commercial aristrocracy, which experience proves to be the most inexorable, relentless, and coldblooded of all tyrannies: whose maxims are founded in cautious speculation, and acted on in all the varieties of

monopoly: maxims which, fortified by law, fortify the powerful at the expense of the weak. Fortunate for us, the citizens, lords of their farms, will have interests different from the merchants, and will be forever a check on the spirit of commerce. Were it not for this last circumstance, there would not be virtue sufficient in the country to support our form of government, but for a very short period. I know not if these sentiments meet yours, but from what I have already observed here, I am confirmed in them it is neither the king, nor the nobles, nor the commons, who govern England; but stockjobbers, commercial companies and monopolizers. ment is only a sort of attorney to draw up their rulés and regulations, and ratify them according to law.

:

Parlia

Adieu.