obstacle to an intimate acquaintance between two nations intervenes, viz. some thousand miles of the Atlantic.

Even those rapid improvements in the means of communication anticipated by some* sanguine authors will not so speedily overcome this natural bar to an intimate acquaintance with the American continent, as not to allow for many years to come a wide field for speculation and theoretical discussion, founded on partial and exaggerated statements, and unintentional or wilful misrepresentation.

While one party, zealously admiring the system of America, represents the United States as a political Utopia, and would wish to transplant her institutions and particularly her financial economy to England, forgetful of the many circumstances rendering such a form of government or any such practical adoption of her scale of expenditure undesirable or impossible in this country,-another set of men are unceasing in their condemnation of every thing American, describing manifold evils as the present effects, and predicting convulsion and ruin as the future results, of the mode of government which the people of the United States have adopted. In either case the ignotum pro magnifico accounts for the

* Vide M'Gregor's British America, M’Taggart's work, &c.

exaggerated opinions so frequently, and often conscientiously, expressed on the subject.

But the opinions of travellers in the United States, however speculative, deserve more attention than those of men who write by their firesides strictures upon countries of which they have no practical knowledge, and whose impressions are coloured by the prejudices of a party, or their own misapprehensions. Unfortunately, those who have published descriptions of America have not generally remained there long enough to be enabled to use their judgment uninfluenced by prepossessions against or in favour of the theory or practice of the American system; they consequently apply a scale of their own, adapted to a country widely different in circumstances, manners, and institutions, in forming opinions of the government and people of the United States. The traveller who on first arriving in any foreign country should unreservedly commit to paper his impressions and opinions of its usages or political institutions, and endeavour to explain and account for its peculiar customs, from his own observations and knowledge, and then lay aside his notes during a year's residence in the same place, would probably be surprised on a reperusal of them at the mistaken views that he had in many instances taken; at least I have found it so. And if this be true of European

countries, having generally many features of resemblance, it is particularly so in the judgments passed by Europeans on the United States. I am speaking now more especially of the political institutions of America, but the same remarks are even more strikingly applicable to the social system of that country. It should be recollected that many provisions of the constitution of the United States, which to an Englishman appear at first sight fraught with danger, will perhaps on a nearer examination be found well adapted to the American Union; for we are prone unconsciously to apply the arguments that would be good in England to a country extremely dissimilar; and thus contemplating, with views and ideas suited to a very different state of things, particular measures or modes of government, it is not surprising that our judgments and predictions of their consequences should be erroneous. Americans say that we look at their republican institutions through our "monarchical spectacles," and that it requires some apprenticeship to so different a state of things to see them in their true light.

Let us look at the converse of this proposition. When an American arrives in England for the first time, he is apt to jump at conclusions equally unfounded respecting our country. I know what were the impressions of some individuals from the

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United States, and men of sagacity and experience, on first witnessing the practical workings of our constitutional monarchy, and the results of our social system. And if most Americans were honestly to confess their real opinions (formed after only a short residence in England) at any period during the last thirty years, I am convinced that there are few who would not avow a conviction of their astonishment at the possibility of our government having continued to work with any success for five years together; but after a residence of greater duration, they perceive the existence of counteracting causes preventing many of the bad effects which they anticipated, and even begin to think that the transition to a form of government like their own would neither be so easy nor so advantageous as they previously believed. Americans are eminently practical men; all their undertakings, and generally all the measures, whether of governments or individuals in that country, are stamped with utility as their object, and dicated by sound practical good sense and prudence. They consequently quickly detect the wildness and absurdity of many of the republican theories of those Europeans, who would seek to adopt forms of government totally unfitted for the circumstances of their country; and soon adapt their views to the peculiarities of the political atmosphere in which they find themselves.

Englishmen do not, I think, so readily divest themselves of their preconceived ideas when reflecting on the situation of America, and are apt to continue bigoted in their own hypotheses, notwithstanding the frequent contradictions from facts and practical results to which they are continually subjected. It would be difficult otherwise to account for the erroneous views that are so often taken of the American republic; and for the condemnation of a system pursued with such remarkable success in one country, because it is not adapted to the circumstances of another.

As all human institutions carry with them from the first moment of their origin the seeds of their own decay or dissolution, it would be folly to expect that the American constitution should not share in the general imperfection of our nature. But so far from considering the political system of the United States as peculiarly fraught with danger to its own existence, and built upon imprudently slight foundations, I conceive it to be better adapted for the security, good government, and welfare of the American people, than any which could perhaps, under their peculiar circumstances, have been conceived; indeed this opinion is supported by the authority of writers by no means friendly to popular