mation, they judged of her from the degree of improvement, from the character, and the external appearance of the individuals, whom they were accustomed to see landing on their shores, of whom the mass certainly was not calculated to give them a favourable opinion of their country The number of Germans of education who have visited this country or settled in it was always very small It is finally undeniable, that the irregularities! and abuses in the emigration of the last years, the wretched condition of the greater part of those who arrived here, and their still more wretched moral condition, tended highly to strengthen these unfavourable impressions.' pp. 68, 69. The emigration from Germany to Pennsylvania began very early. In the time of Penn, Germantown was founded by a colony of emigrants from Griesheim in the Palatinate. In 1717 the emigration was so great, that the governor of the province expressed his apprehensions of the evil consequences, which might result fro:n having too many foreigners contiguous to each other, or, on the other hand, too many scattered separately among the Indians. In 1754, there landed 5000 emigrants in Philadelphia; but we apprehend our author to have been misled by his authorities, when he supposes that half the population of Pennsylvania is German or of German descent. The German language is fast disappearing, particularly in the large towns, and no person is allowed to sit on a jury in Pennsylvania, who cannot understand English. According to our author, the children of German parents are commonly ashamed of the country and language of their fathers, so that in the third generation, at the present day, the traces of their origin disappear. This disinclination is greater in the higher than in the lower orders of society, and in this respect, says M. de Fürstenwärther, the German society at Philadelphia is. unworthy at least of its name, as a greater part of its members are desirous of having its transactions in English. Our author complains that the German language is not kept up in its purity in America, but is fast passing over into a corrupted English dialect. We doubt not this remark is just, but we take the liberty to observe that it comes with no very good grace from M. de Fürstenwärther, whose own pages teem with words unacknowledged by the present standards of his native language. In the very sentence, in which he announces the transition of the German into a corrupt English dialect, he uses a barbarous word himself, and his pages are full of such terms as details, prekær, supponirt, disponibel, progressive and nivellirend, none of which ought to find admittance into the works of a correct writer of the German language. There are nineteen German newspapers in Pennsylvania, and two in Ohio and Maryland. Under the head of religion, M. de Fürstenwärther informs us, that there are eight hundred German churches in America. He complains of the gradual encroachments of the English language upon the pulpit. The Germans in America, according to this statement, evince much piety and religious zeal. The preachers complain that the brethren from their native country, who have arrived within the last thirty years, are deficient in this respect, and set their faces against preaching three times a day. His remark that there is no theological faculty at the American universities, is singularly unfortunate, since it has been perhaps the fault of these establishments, a fault, if it be one, growing out of the nature of things, to have given a disproportionate share of attention to theological education. M. de Fürstenwärther, whom we have observed in a contemporary German paper, the Deutscher Freund, published by Dr. Schæffer of New York, to be charged with a little aristocratical feeling. seems to hint with no great complacency at the political notions of his countrymen in America. • The German in America, particularly in the country, distinguishes himself for a trait of character not known at home, and for which he is there not thought calculated, I mean as a zealous democrat, though still as a quiet citizen. I cannot but add, that this new trait in his character, by being associated with certain other old and permanent features, is far from rendering him more amiable. The Hessians who, in the war of the revolution, served in the English army, and of whom the greater part remained in America, are said, in this respect, to distinguish themselves in a peculiar manner by their strong democratic politics, rudeness, coarseness, and obstinacy.' p. 79. Our author, p. 79, &c. gives an account of the colonies founded on a large scale by foreign emigrants. That of Harmony under Rapp is curious, but is well known to our readers from Melish's travels, Birkbeck's letters, and other sources. The Swiss colony called Vevay on the Ohio was founded in 1813. In 1814, the spot where the little town of Vevay stands, was covered with wood. In February of that year the first house was built, and there are now (1817) more than eighty houses, with several publick buildings. A newspaper also is printed here. This colony, as well as that of New Switzerland, also on the banks of the Ohio, has cultivated the vine with success. Their wine is placed by the side of the best claret.' [?] M. de Fürstenwärther, after a residence of four months in America, to which he probably came unacquainted with the language, as we infer from the delight with which he scatters about his English words when his own tongue affords those which are perfectly synonymous, and after having travelled throughout the whole of America from Philadelphia to Washington, a distance of full one hundred and fifty geographical miles, closes his report in the following highly pungent and philosophical strain. With such advantages, on the part of the United States, which every impartial man will recognize with me, and with all the facility, particularly of the material life, I cannot conceal some defects and dark sides. In this country there is no idea, nay not a distant suspicion, of a higher and finer existence, at least on this carth. There is a want of every thing which can adorn and ennoble it, of every variety of better enjoyment and entertainment. Coarse materialism and interest are the character and leading principle of the inhabitants :-A want of sociality, contemptible pride, reserve, and coarseness, discover themselves in the multitude, and repel the European of education and feeling. Such an one will of course feel himself at first extremely unhappy and solitary in this country; it cannot please him. Although there be much in Europe, that he cannot and ought not praise, comparisons, which he will have daily occasion to make, will force from him the silent or open confession, that still much is better there. If the Americans are justly proud of their civil freedom, and of their freedom in thinking, speaking, and printing, and in the social life, they still know not that higher freedom of the soul, which is to be found only in Europe, and I say it boldly, most abundantly in Germany. With all their freedom, they are still slaves of their narrow views, of their ignorance of every thing but what is local and practical, and of their national prejudices. "Such are the impressions of all on their arrival in this country, such are the coinciding feelings and judgments of all, even long after their arrival. By degrees only do they get used to the country, after they have formed to themselves a sphere of their own, or after their gradually awakening pride as free citizens extinguishes the recollections of the advantages of their native land." pp. 90, 91. On the first perusal of these spirited remarks, we were, to use an expressive vulgarism, at a loss to know what the author would be at. We felt, to be sure, a becoming sympa- J thy with M. de Fürstenwärther, in the distressing necessity in which we supposed he found himself of making a flourish, and softening to himself the bitter pill of freedom in thinking, speaking, printing, and social life,' which must have been so oppressive to a native of the Palatinate. Still, however, we did not exactly understand, why America should pay so heavily the penalty of his annoyance; when it would have been quite as eloquent and sentimental to abuse the French or the English, who have, it seems, but an inferior portion of that higher freedom of the soul,' which is for the most part only found in Germany.' But we are helped to the key of these fine sentences, in the publication of a countryman (in descent and language at least) of M. Fürstenwärther, the Deutscher Freund, to which we have already alluded. The passage is worth translating. After quoting the sentences which we have ourselves just given, the respectable editor of the Deutscher Freund adds, Indeed "where such defects and dark sides exist," things must, to be sure, be in a bad condition. But how thankful ought not we Americans to be, that after all we are no such moles, as the author would make us. It is some comfort to us poor beings, that there are also just descriptions of the American character in Germany. They know very well there," that there is a want" of a nobility in America, but at the same time they have proofs enough there that we have in this country some ideas and suspicions of a higher and finer existence." God be thanked we have much here, on this American "earth," calculated to adorn and ennoble life." An order of nobility to be sure we have not. In American the little word von is not necessary to make a man noble.' 6 Au appendix of twenty or thirty pages, concluding with a pompous epilogue from M. de Gagern, closes this work. We have but a few remarks to make on the general subject. The first is, that we cannot but wish our government might find it politically expedient, to hold out all fair and reasonable encouragement to European, particularly Swiss 1 and German emigration. We somewhat doubt M. de Fürstenvärther's authority for his especially,' attached to the German princes, when he says Mr. Adams mentioned an unwillingness to offend the foreign powers, as the cause why emigration is not encouraged by our government. So that England, and France, and Russia took no offence, we ima gine little anxiety would be felt by Mr. Adams, about what might be said of his policy at Stuttgard or Carlsruhe. But we cannot suppose that any of the German princes, surely that any one who has read M. de Fürstenwärther's book, could object to those measures at least being taken by our government, which would save the thousands of their poor loving subjects, which emigrate, from roting on the passage or starving in the streets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. We are willing to go farther, and to say that we think our country a gainer by this emigration. We have land enough to support, and government enough to rule millions more than our country yet contains ;-and though we are far from thinking very highly of that finer freedom of the soul,' which the German redemptioners bring with them, we do not know but they will stand a tolerably fair comparison with our own domestic emigrants. They will want to be sure the Yankee enterprize and industry, which M. de Fürstenwärther well assigns as a reason, why they should not attempt to serve as pioneers, on the great march of population toward the west but they are labourers, orderly labourers, and bring with them a better agriculture than they find. It has sometimes occurred to us that German redemptioners might be made the means of gradually rooting out negro slavery from among us. Every one, who has speculated on the great problem of emancipation, has felt that the case in America presents a difficulty unknown in the abolition of English villeinage, or the ancient Roman servitude, viz. that of procuring a regularly and gradually increasing supply of white labour, to take place of the gradually diminishing amount of black labour. We suppose that no free white would labour on a plantation, certainly not in a field, partly tilled by negroes. And thus it is impossible to take the first step. But here is a practicable mode of obtaining a supply of labour, to which this difficulty would not apply, and which is likely to be much more productive and efficient, than the purely involuntary labour of slaves. A supply of this kind would tend to |