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you better, I suppose. They would sooner die than part with one of these ornaments, unless you pay them well for it. At the same time, they live upon nothing. A rasher of pork is a feast for them, even on holidays. Their favourite drink is nothing but switchel or molasses and water, which, they tell you, is better than burgundy or champaign. They are, however, better taught than fed, and make the finest, boldest sailors in the world. They can sail to the North Pole and back in an egg-shell, if the ice does not break it. Indeed, they are seamen by birth, and box the compass in their cradles. You know our genteel laziness unfits us (Virginians) for the drudgery of commerce : so we leave it all to the Yankees. These crafting part of them come here at all seasons in their sloops and schooners, bringing a miscellaneous cargo of all sorts of notions, not metaphysical, but material, such as cheese, butter, potatoes, cranberries, onions, beets, coffins ;-you smile, but it is a fact, that, understanding some years ago, that the yellow fever was raging here with great violence, some of them very charitably risked their own lives to bring us a large quantity of ready-made coffins, of all sizes, in nests, one within another, to supply customers at a moment's warning; an insult which we have hardly forgiven them yet. You will see them sailing up into all our bays, rivers, and creeks; wherever the water runs. As the winter comes on, they creep into some little harbour, where they anchor their vessels, and open store on board, retailing out their articles of every kind to the poor countrymen who come to buy. Towards the spring, they sail away with a load of planks or shingles, which they often get very cheap. Indeed, the whole race of Yankee seamen are certainly the most enterprising

people in the world. They are in all quarters of the globe where a penny is to be made. In short, they love money a little better than their own lives. What is worst, they are not always very nice about the means of making it, but are ready to break laws like cobwebs, whenever it suits their interest." *

"This," remarks Lieutenant Hall, (from whose pages we take the citation,)" is confessedly a caricature, but its distorted lineaments may help us to some of the true features of the New-Englanders. They are the Scotchmen of the United States. Inhabiting a country of limited extent, and incapable of maintaining its own population, their industry naturally and successfully directed itself to commercial pursuits; but, as even these became gradually insufficient to maintain their growing numbers, they began, at an early period of their history, to seek for settlements among their neighbours to the South and West.......They were far from acceptable guests. The plodding Dutch and Germans of New York and Pennsylvania held them in particular abhorrence, and, as far as they could, hunted them from their neighbourhood, whenever they attempted to gain a footing in it. It is,' says the Author of the Olive Branch,+ within the memory of those over whose chins no razor has ever mowed a harvest, that Yankee and sharper were regarded as nearly synonymous. And this was not among the low and the illiberal, the base and the vulgar: it pervaded all ranks of society. In the Middle and

"Letters from Virginia," lett. vi.

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+ This political publication, by William Carey, of Philadelphia, is supposed to have had a greater run than any work of the sort, since Paine's" Common Sense," seven editions having been called for in thirteen months.

Southern States, traders were universally very much on their guard against Yankee tricks, when dealing with those of the Eastern.'

"It is, therefore, to this class of adventurers and emigrants we are to look for the least favourable traits of the New England character. Patient, industrious, frugal, enterprising, and intelligent, it cannot be denied that they are frequently knavish, mean, and avaricious, as men who make gain the master-spring of their actions. Here we perceive the force and meaning of the Virginian satire; but here, too, its application must be restricted. Even emigration seems to be so far moulded into a system, that it is no longer the resource merely of rogues and vagabonds, but is embraced as an eligible mode of bettering their condition, by the young and enterprising of all classes. It is a wholesome drain to the exuberance of population, and preserves at home that comparative equality on which public happiness and morals depend.

"The New Englanders should be seen at home, to be correctly judged of: as far as testimony goes, it is universally in their favour. I feel a pride and pleasure,' says Mr. Carey, 'in doing justice to the yeomanry of the Eastern States: they will not suffer in a comparison with the same class of men in any part of the world. They are upright, sober, orderly, and regular; shrewd, intelligent, and well-informed; and I believe there is not a greater degree of genuine native urbanity among the yeomanry of any country under the canopy of heaven.' + This is the character

* Whether the first Yankee emigrants peculiarly deserved this character, may reasonably be questioned; but the prejudice against them then existed in all its strength.

† Olive Branch, p. 275.

my own experience recognised in the inhabitants of the beautiful Genesee country, which has been entirely cleared and settled by New Englanders.

"Their religion is scarcely more their glory in their own eyes, than (it is) their opprobrium in those of their neighbours. Pretensions to superior sanctity are always received with jealousy, especially by a people among whom devotion is in repute. The contrast too, betwixt the pious seeming and substantial knavery of many of the New England adventurers, naturally brings these pretensions into still greater discredit, and extorts a wish that they had either a little more morality or a little less religion. There is, however, no reason to doubt, that, in the bulk of the inhabitants, religion is not merely a show and pretext, but a belief and practice. Men tire of mutual hypocrisy, when it has grown too common to impose."*

"Education," remarks Mr. Duncan, "which prevails much more universally throughout the New England States, than in any other portion of the Union, and is frequently accompanied with religious instruction, has given to the natives a very decided cast of national character, resembling, in many respects, that for which the Scots among Europeans have long been distinguished. The kind of education also in the two countries, is remarkably similar: it is more general than accurate, and more useful than elegant, imparted by means of district or parochial schools, and, in this country, almost entirely without expense to those who receive it. The characteristics

* F. Hall's Canada, pp. 339-343. These remarks come with at least the grace of impartiality from a writer who has taken care, by a virulent and ignorant tirade against Calvinism, and a high compliment to the Unitarians, to let us know that the religion of the New Englanders is little to his taste,

of a New Englander are, intelligence, sobriety, enterprise, perseverance. When he finds his range at home too limited to admit of a sufficiently successful application of these qualities, he betakes himself to distant regions, and traverses one State after another, till he finds some nook in which he can establish himself with advantage. In the Southern and Western States, many of the most successful merchants, the most industrious farmers, the most money-making land-speculators, are natives of New England; and scarcely is there a station in society, or a mode of obtaining a livelihood, in which there will not be found a full proportion of them. If you meet a waggon in some remote country-road, with a cheerful-looking family, and a tall, slender figure whistling along with an axe over his shoulder,-it is a Yankee backwoodsman on his march for the wilderness of Illinois or Tennessee; where he will build a log-house, clear a few acres of land, sell the whole at a profit to the next comer, and start with the waggon a second time, to penetrate some hundreds of miles further into the woods, and repeat the process. If you see at the turnpike-gate of a country town, a light carriage resembling a British taxed-cart, built up all round with a pile of assorted packing-boxes and trunks,—it is the travelling-store of a New England pedlar, who is marketing his wares, swopping, or selling, or buying, as he and his customers can agree about it; guessing away with every one he meets, but turning all to good account in the end. In all those bye-ways of getting on in the world for which America affords unexampled facilities, none are found to succeed like the natives of New England.

"The consequence of this adventurous spirit is, that they attract, along with their prosperity, a con

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