The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-10 00:00:00

-mile and a half broad. The tomb is a sad affair for
such a man; it has an inscription upon it denoting that
it was erected by John Strutters, marble mason! It is
placed under a glaring red building, something between
a coach-house and a cage; the Senate had once procured
the consent of the family to have it removed to the ca-
pitol, when a bricklayer, a labourer, and a cart arrived
to take it off one morning, at which their indignation na-
turally rose. There are few kings remarkable in the
house, except the key of the Bastille sent by General
Lafyyette to General Washington, and a sword sent to
him by Frederick the Great, with this address, " From
the oldest general of the age to the best." I
made a rapid journey, by steamboat and railroad,
through the states of Virginia and North Ca-
rolina; the country wore a universal impress of
exhaustion, desertion, slavery. I spent a fortnight
at Charleston, the capital of her more energetic
sister, South Carolina. This town and state may be
looked upon as the head-quarters of the slave-holding
interest. lam bound to say that I spent my time there
very pleasantly; there was much gaiety and unbounded
hospitality. I have made no disguise of what my opi-
nions upon slavery were, are, and ever must be; but it
would be uncandid to deny that the planter in the sou-
thern states has much more in his manner and mode of
intercourse that resembles the English country gentle-
man than any other class of his countrymen; he is more
easy, companionable, fond of his country life, and out of
door pursuits. While I was willing not to shut my eyes
to any of the more favourable external symptoms or mi-
tigations of slavery, other indications could not come
across my path without producing deep repugnance. On
the very first night c f my arrival I heard the deep sound
of a curfew bell; on inquiry I was told that after it had
sounded every night about nine o'cleck, no coloured per-
son, slave or free, mark that, must be seen in the
streets. One morning, accordingly, I saw a great crowd
of coloured persons in the sireet, and I found they were
waiting to see a large number cf their colour, who
had been taken up the night before on their return
from a ball, escorted in their ball dresses from the gaol
to the court-house. Indeed it was almost principally
with relation to the free blacks that the anomalous and
indefensible working of the system appeared there to de-
velop itself. I was told that the slaves themselves looked
down upon the free blacks, and called them rubbish. I
mast not omit to state that I saw one slave auction in
the open street, arising from the insolvency of the pre-
vious owner: a crowd stood round the platform, on
which sat the auctioneer; and beside him were placed
in succession the lots of from one to five negroes. The
families seemed to be all put up together, but I imagine
they artist often be separated; they comprised infants
and all ages. As far as I could judge, they exhiSited
great indifference to their changing destiny. I attended
is. meeting of the convention of the Episcopal Church of
Sete h Carolina. Whether it may be for encouragement
or warring to those who wish far the introduction or re-
vi.elef such synods at home, I raentiou the point then
reeler discussion. It was—How tar it was proper to show
deference for the opinion of the bishop. In point of
n: atnesit. cleanliness, and order, the slave-holding states
appeased to stand in about the same relation to the free
as Issiatal does to England. Everything appears
skaealy, ill-astanged. income it te. Windows do not
Slav, dears do not fastsn. There is a superahuall-
aace ot hands to do everything, and little is thoroughly
dyne. [llls Lordship having left Charleston arrives at
the Havannch after a voyage of 12 days.] How en-
chanting to the senses at least were the tares weeks I
spent in Cuba! How my memory turns to its pictu-
resque scenes and balmy ski, s. During ray whale stay,
the thesnaometar scarcely varied from 76 deg. to 78 deg.
in the shade. lam disposed to wonder that these re-
gions are net more resorted to by our countrymen fur
enjeyrnent of lila and escape from death. Nailing was
ever so unlike either Europe or America as the Ila-
veonah; sit least I hail never been in Spain, the mother
country, which I suppose it most resembles. The courts
of the gleaming white houses have a Moorish look, the
irsteriors aro much covered with arabesques, and on the
outside towards the street they have immense open
spaces for windows, in which they generally tied it
superfluous to put any glass; the carriages are called
saaaaaa, and look as it they had been intended to carry
Dee Quixote. Then how delicious it used to be, late in
the evening, under a moonlight we can scarcely imagine.
to sit in the square called the Place of Arms, where, in
a space flanked by some gleaming palm trees and four
small fountains, a gay crowd listened to excellent
music from a Spanish military band. It is certainly the
handsomest town I saw in the new world, and gives e
great idea of the luxury and splendour of Spain in her
pantry days. The billiard-rooms and ice-saloons streamed
with light; the great theatre is as large and brilliant as
almost any in Europe. Again, how full of interest were
some visits I paid in the interior both to Spanish and
American households. I cannot condense my impres-
sions of the scenery batter than by repeating some short
stanzas which, with such influences around me, I could
. nut help perpetrating. I hope that, while they bear
witness to the iatoxicating effects of the landscape and
the climate, they du not wholly leave out of view the at-
tendant moral:—
Ye tropic forests cf unfailing green,
Where the palm tapers, and the orange glows,
Where the light bamboo weaves her feathery screen,
And her tall shade the matchless seyba throws:
Ye cloudless ethers of unchanging blue,
Save as its rich varieties give way
To the clear sapphire of your midnight hue,
The burnished azure of your perfect day.
Ye tell me not my native skies are bleak,
That, flashed with liquid wealth, no cane-fields wave;
For Virtue pines, and Manhood dares not speak,
And Nature's glories brighten round the Slave.
A meog the country house,. I visited was the sugar estate
of one of the chief creole nobles of the island--(I do not
knew whether my hearers will he aware that the proper
meenirg of a creole is a persen of European descent
born in America). I was treated there with the most
retired and courteous hospitality; and what a view it
was from the terrace of goblets corn-fields, and fringing
woods, and azure sea! The treatment of the domestic
slaves eppeared kind and affectionate, and all the negro
children on the estate repeated their catechism to the
priest, and were then brought in to dance and romp in
the drawing-room. Generally there does not appear to
be the same amount of repulsion between the white and
coloured races as in the United States, and there is the
pleasant spectacle of their being mixed together in the
churches. Still the crying conclusive fact remains, that
the average negro population died off in ten years, and
had to be recruited by continuous importations, which
are so many breaches of the solemn treaties between
Spain sand us. On one coffee estate which I visited—
and generally the coffee cultivation is far lighter than
that of the sugar cane—a still darker shade was thrown
upon the system, as I was told from a most authentic
source that there was great difficulty in preventing
mothers from killing their offspring. General Valdez,
who was captain-general of the island during my
visit, is thought to have exerted himself ho-
nestly in putting down the slave trade. I
believe it has been as much encouraged as ever
under some of his successors. [Lord Carlisle, after al-
luding to the state of political parties in Cuba, describes
his departure from the island and arrival at New
Orleans.] The good I have to say of New Orleans
must be chiefly confined to the St. Charles Hotel, which
is the most splendid of its kind that I saw even in the
United States. When it is at its full complement 560
dine there every day-350 of whom sleep in the house;
there are 160 servants, 7 French cooks; all the waiters
whites, Irish, English, French, German, American. The
very intelligent proprietor of the hotel told me he thought
the Irish made the best; he has them all together every
day at noon, when they go through a regular drill, and
rehearse the service of a dinner. I went from New
Orleans to Louisville, on board the Henry Clay steamer.
1,500 miles, which lasted six days. The first 1,100 1
miles were on the Mississippi. (After a voyage of 400
miles up the Ohio his Lordship describes a visit that he
paid to Mr. Clay, at his residence in Kentucky.) The
qualities which rivet the Senate and captivate his al-
herents seemed to me both heightened and softened by
his frank, courteous, simple intercourse. He lives with
his family in a modest house, among fields of deep red
soil and the most luxuriant grass, growing under very
thriving and varied timber—the oak, sycamore, locust
tree, cedar, and that beautiful ornament of American
woods, the sugar maple. He likes showing
some English cattle. His countrymen seem to
be in the habit of calling upon him without any
kind of previous introduction. Slavery, generally mild
in the pastoral state of Kentucky, was certainly seen
here in its least repulsive guise; Mr. Clay's own negro
servant, Charles, was much devoted to him ; he took
him with him on a tour into Canada, and when some
Abolitionists there wanted him to leave his master, " Not
if you were to give me both your provinces," was the reply.
My next halt was at the White Sulphur Springs, in the
western portion of Virginia. The season had not yet
commenced, early in May, so I was in sole possession of
the place. One of my southern friends had kindly
placed a delightful little cottage at my disposal, and I
enjoyed in the highest degree the unwonted repose in the
solitee of virgin forests, and the recesses of the green
Alleghenies. Hero were my brief farewell lines to the
small temple-like cupola over the bright sulphur-well
from which I used to drink many times in the day :
" Hail dome, whose lanpresuming circle guards
Virginia's flowing fountain; still may health
Hover about thy crystal urn, and bring
To cheeks unused their bloom! may beauty still
Dwell on thy billowy swell of wooded hills,
And deep ravines of verdure; may the axe,
Improvement's necessary pioneer,
Mid forest solitudes, still gently pierce,
Not bare their leafy bowers! This votive lay,
Like wreath of old, on thy white columns hums
Albeit of scentless flowers from foreign soil, b'
Scorn not, and bid the pilgrim pass in peac."
I again turned my face to- the- west,a and passed Cincin-
nati, which, together with all that
of Iseawuonf. the State of
Ohio seemed to me the
where, if
obliged to make the choice, I should like Ibest to fix my
abode. It has a great share of all the
and
appliances of the old settled states of the easti,sawtli°thn
the
richer soil, the softer climate, the fresher spring of life,
which distinguish the west. It had besides to me the
great attraction of being the first free state which I
reached on my return from the region of slavery,
and the contrast in the appearance of prosperity
and progress is just what a friend of freedom would
always wish it to be. I embarked at Chicago on the
great lakes; but here I must desist from pursuing my
devious wanderings on those large inland seas, and on the
opposite shore of Canada. Many thousands of miles
him I steamed away over Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie,
Ontario; the Rideau Canal, the St. Lawrence and Ot-
tawa rivers. Some of these I traversed twice, and they
supplied some of the most interesting and picturesque
features of my long jonrneyings. I should have scru-
pled in any case to touch upon the politics of Canada,
anotiadeed my pauses at any fixed spot were too short
to trattlffy sere for the attempt,*ven if it had been de-
sirable. It is a magnificent region, especially its
western_ portion—happy in climate, soil, and scenery.
I Willy however, only attempted to dash off two slight
sketches from my Canadiaarecollectiona. Here is the
firs), "::Istood in a :terraced garden on the summit of

high promontory, running with a steep angle into the
basin made by the River St. Lawrence, of which it is no
exaggeration to say that the water is as clear, bright,
and above all, green as any emerald; here, upon I be-
lieve the most imperial site in the world, stand the cita-
del and city of Quebec; the shipping was lying in great
quantity close under the rocky steep, and was dotted for
a considerable way along the shining river; in front was
the island of Orleans, well-shaped and full-peopled;
ridge upon ridge beyond, ending with Cape Tourment,
descended on the river; the shore en either side gleamed
with white villages, and the town below seemed to climb
or almost leap up the straight precipice, broken with
high cement roofs and glittering tinned spires. The flag
of England waved upon the highest bastion that crowned
the rock, the band of the Queen's Guards was playing in
the garden, the clearest blue of western skies was above
my head, and rising above the whole glowing scene was
the commemorative pillar to that General Wolfe, who on
this spot transferred to usEnglishmen, by his own victory
and death, and with the loss of 45 men, the mastery of a
continent. [Lord Carlisle here sketched another scene,
which he witnessed in the centre of Lake Huron, on
one of its countless islands.] Entering the United
States again, I made a rapid journey by Lakes Champ-
lain and George, by Ticonderoga and Saratoga, historic
names; spent four very delightful days in most attrac-
tive society in a New England village, reviewed the
beauteous impressions of the Hudson, and taking leave
of friends not soon to be forgotten, on the quay of New
York, left the hospitable shores. You will have per-
ceived that in these desultory notes I have not attempted
to pronounce any formal judgment upon the American
people, or the great experiment they are conducting in
the face of de world. The extreme diversity of habits,
manners, opinions, feelings, race, and origin, in the se-
veral parts of the wide extent of country I traversed,
would render the difficulty, great in any case, of such an
undertaking, still more subtle and complicated. The
striking contrasts in such a shifting and variegated as-
pect of society make me feel that any such general and
dashing summary could only be attempted after the
fashion of a passage which I have always much admired
in es nibon, where, wishing to give a fair view of the
poetical character of Malian, he sums up separately
his merits and defects, and leaves his reader to strike
the just balance. In some such mode it might be
stated that North America, viewed at first
with respect to her natural surface exhibits a
series of scenery, various, rich, and, in some
of its features, unparalleled ; though she cannot, on the
whole, equal Europe in her mountain elevations, how
infinitely does she surpass her in her rivers, estuaries,
and lakes. This variegated surface of earth and water
is seen undi r a sky warm, soft, and balmy in summer,
clear, blue, and brilliant in all its latitudes, with a trans-
parency of atmosphere which Italy does not reach, with
varieties of forest growth and foliage unknown to
Europe, and with a splendour of hues in autumn before
which painting must despair. With respect to the
moral aspect, I naturally feel the difficulty of any suc-
cinct or comprehensive summary infinitely heightened.
The feature which is the most ()billow, and probably the
most enviable, is the nearly entire absence, certainly of
the appearance, and in a great degree of the reality of
poverty; in no part of the world, I imagine, is there so
much general ease and comfort among the great bulk of
the people, and a gushing abundance struck me as the
prominent characteristic of the land. It is not easy to
describe how far this consideration goes to brighten the
face of nature, and give room for its undisturbed enjoy-
ment. Within a mere span of time, as compared with
the general growth and prcgress of nations, the industry
at once steady and persevering, of the in-
habitants, Lae cleared enormous tracts of fo-
rest, reared among their untrodden glades spa-
ei ons and stately cities, opened new highways
through the swamp and the desert, covered their un-
equalled rivers with fleets of steam-boats and craft of
every form, given an extension to canals beyond all
previous experience, and filled land and water with lasting
miracles of successful enterprise. The traveller, wafted
with marvellous ease by steamboats and railways over
prodigious spaces, carnet but indulge in what may ap-
pear a mere sup., rficial satisfaction at the accommodation
he meets with in the hotels of e principal cities, which
ere regulated on a scale and with a splendour and even
cleanliness which he will find scarcely rivalled in the
capitals of Europe. However absorbed in the pursuits
of business, agriculture, and trade the citizens of these
young Republics may be, and though it would seem to
be their obvious vocation in life to cultivate almost bound-
less wastes, and connect almost interminable distances,
circles are nevertheless to be found among them in which
in point of refined and agreeable intercourse, of literary
taste and general accomplishment, it would be difficult
for the great capitals of the elder world to surpass; the
bench and bar, as well as other professions, can boast
well of the solid and brilliant qualities by which they are
adorned; and while much occurs in Congress that must
be deemed rough and unteemly, the chords of high and
generous feeling are frequently struck within its walla
to accents of noble eloquence : in the universal fluency
of their public speaking they undoubtedly surpass our-
selves. In rural life I doubt whether the world can
produce more examples of quiet simplicity and prospe-
rous content than would be found, I might say most
prominently, in the embowered villages of New Eng-
18rid, or of the sunny valleys of Pennsylvania. lam
sure that I am not wanting in respect for the operative
classes of the district, but I cannot conceal from myself
that the appearance of the female factory population of
Lowell presents some points of favourable contrast.
Among the more opulent portion of society, an idle man
without regular profession or fixed pursuit is the excep-
tion which excites observation and surprise. The pu-
rity of the female character stands deservedly high, and
society hes been deemed by some to be rendered less
agreeal,le by the rigid devotion of the young married
women to their households and nurseries. It is some-
thiefr to have travelled nearly over the whole extent of
the Union without having nuountered a single specimen
either of servility or incivility of manner—by the last I
intend to denote intentional rudeness. Elections may
seem the universal business, topic, and passion of life, but
they are, at least with but few exceptions, carried on
without any approach to tumult, rudeness, or disorder ;
those which I happened to see were the most sedate, un-
impassioned processes I can imagine. In the free states,
at least, the people at large bear an active, and, I believe
on the whole, a useful part in all the concerns of internal
government and practical daily life; men of all classes,
and especially of the more wealthy and instructed, take
a zealous share in almost every pursuit of usefulness and
philanthropy; they visit the hospitals and asylums, they
attend the daily instructions of the schools, and give
lectures at lyceums and institutes. I am glad to think
that I may be treading in their footsteps on this oeca-
sion. I have already mentioned with just praise the
universal diffusion and excellent quality of popular edu-
cation, as established especially in the states of New
England, the powerful empire state of New York, and I
may add the prosperous and aspiring state of Ohio.
Without venturing to weigh the preponderating recom-
mendations or deficiencies of the voluntary system, l may
fairly ask what other communities are so amply sup-
plied with the facilities of public worship for all their
members; the towns, old and young, bristle with
churches; they are almost always well filled; the
Sabbath, in the eastern and northern states at
least, is scrupulously observed, and with the most
unbounded freedom of conscience, and a nearly
complete absence of polemical strife and bitter-
ness, there is apparently a close unity of feeling
and practice in rendering homage to God. Though
it would appear difficult, and most certainly be un-
grassious, to paint the reverse side of such a country
and such a people, a severe observer would not be long
at fault. With respect to their scenery itself, while ho
could not deny that within its vast expanses it contained
at times both sublimity and beauty, he might establish
against a charge of monotony, to which the immense con-
tinuances of the same surfaces, whether of hill, valley,
wood, lake, or river—the straght unbroken skirt of
forest, the entire absence of single trees, the square
parallelograms of the cleared spaces, the uniform line
of zig-nag fences, the staring squareness of the new
wooden towns, all powerfully contribute. In regard to
climate, without dwelling on such partial influences as
the malaria, which desolates the stunted pine-barrens of
North Carolina, and banishes every white native
of South Carolina from their rich-plains during the
entire sugnmep, the hot damps winch festoon the trees
on the stet4theru!nomt with a funeral drapery of grey
moss, the y which decimates the quays of
2 • -earQ4' fever
New Orleans, and the feverish 'agues which line the
banks of the Mississippi, it would
,he impossible to deny
the violent alternations of temperature which have a
more general prevalence, and it is certain that much fewer
robust forms and ruddy complexions are to be seen
than in our own more even latitudes. Passing from the
physical to the moral atmosphere, amidst all the vaunted
equality of the American freemen, there seemed to be a
more implicit deference to custom, a more passive sub-
mission to what is assumed to be the public opinion of
the day or hour, than would be paralleled in many
aristocratic or even despotic communities. This quiet
acquiescence in the prevailing tone, this complete abne-
gation of individual sentiment, is naturally most percep-
tible in the domain of politics, but I thought that it also
in no inconsiderable degree pervaded the social circle,
biassed the decisions of the judicial bench, and even
infected the solemn teachings of the pulpit. To this
source may probably in some measure be traced the re-
markable similarity in the manners, deportment, conver-
sation, and tone of feeling, which has so generally struck
travellers from abroad in American society. Who that
has seen can ever forget the slow and melancholy silence
of the couples who walk arm-in• arm to the tables of
the great hotels, or of the unsocial groups who gather
round the greasy meal of the steam-boats, lap up the
five minutes' meals, come like shadows, so depart? One
of their able public men made an observation to me,
which struck me as pungent, and perhaps true, that it
was probably the country in which there was less misery
and less happiness than in any other of the world. There
are other points of manners on which I am not inclined
to dilate, but to which it would at least require time to
be reconciled. I may just intimate that their native
plant, tobacco, lies at the root of much that we might
think objectionable. However necessary and laudable
the general devotion to habits of industry, and the prac-
tical business of life may be, and though there are
families and circles in which no grace, no charm, no ac-
complishment are wanting, yet it cannot be denied, that
among the nation at large, the empire of dollars, cents,
and material interests, holds a very preponderating
sway, and that art and all its train of humanities exer-
cise at present but an enfeebled and restricted influence.
If we ascend from social to political life, and from man-
ners to institutions, we should find that the endless
cycles of electioneering preparations and contests,
although they may be carried on for the most part
without the riotous turbulence or, overt bribery by
which they aro sometimes but too notoriously disgraced
among mirselves, still leave no intermission for repose in
the public mind; enter into all ththeerierlaptinobnisicomf existence;
subordinate
ost malignant pander
subordinate to themselves every other question of in-
ternal and foreign policy; la
not say their best, but the average of them, tmo
worst prejudices, the meanest tastes, the
resentments of the people; at each change of adroinig.