the reason for which is, that they are not taught to respect themselves and value modesty. The white women of respectability take care to influence by their example and instructions those of their own colour, but seem very regardless of bringing to a proper sense of the value of reputation, those whose complexion is less fair than their own. This inattention on their part, is the cause of the seduction of a coloured girl being passed by as a harmless thing, while that of a white girl is regarded as a very heinous crime. A tradesman at Fredericsburg told me, that the seduction of a coloured girl was the almost invariable result of her settling in that town. A mulatto at Petersburg, by trade a barber, replied to my enquiry why he did not marry, that no white woman would consent to receive his addresses, and that amongst those of his own colour, there were only three in the town whose chastity was unimpeached. When making enquiry respecting the state of morals at Norfolk, I received an account nearly as bad. In the northern States on the contrary, the seduction of a coloured girl is as rare as that of a white, and prostitution in general is less conspicuous than in some parts of Maryland and Virginia.

Crimes of great magnitude, such as murder,

burglary and the like, are I believe as little to be dreaded by the peaceable inhabitants, as in most other countries. I take a pleasure in stating this, as from the accounts published by some of our countrymen, it might be inferred that America is the land of lawless rapine. During my whole journey, I heard of no alarming outrages except by some incendiaries in Philadelphia. The inhabitants in general seemed to be as little afraid of aggression, as were the people of the poetical Golden Age.

CHAPTER XXXII.

NATIONAL CHARACTER.

FROM the antecedent chapters of this work, a tolerably correct estimate of the national character of the Americans, may I believe be formed. But as some advantage may arise from a concentrated view, and as some traits have not yet been alluded to, I shall endeavour in this chapter to give such a sketch as may correspond with the plan hitherto adopted. I am very sensible of the mistakes into which writers prone to generalization are apt to fall; but as my opportunities of forming a right judgment were as considerable as could reasonably be expected in the time I had, and as candour will guide my pen, I trust that I shall be found in general to be correct. The repetition of a few particulars, will, under this consideration, be excused by the reader who has had the patience to accompany me regularly thus far. I must premise that considerable diversity prevails in the different districts of the country. Yet as the general outline is sufficiently correspondent to enable something of a common character to be applicable to them all, I do not

think that much inconvenience will arise from placing them in one group. It is however absolutely necessary to keep the blacks distinct from the whites, as the two races are not at present so incorporated as to be one people. as to be one people. In the first place therefore, let me attempt to describe the blacks.

Being chiefly in menial situations, and in all parts ranked below the whites, the blacks have had little opportunity of becoming polished and educated; and taking every thing into account connected with their comparative disadvantages, I think we ought rather to wonder that their character is so fair as it is, than that it is no better. So long as men are excluded from the society of those more refined and better informed than themselves, they cannot be expected to advance otherwise than slowly in the improvement of their minds and manners. In mental cultivation the blacks are particularly deficient. Of the thousands amongst them who possess a nominal freedom, I question whether there are half a dozen who have had a liberal, classical education. heard of only two who had been so fortunate, to neither of whom did I chance to get introduced. Several of those however with whom I conversed showed themselves equal to the whites in a simi

I

lar station, and two or three I thought rather superior. One man in particular who told me that he was born a slave, showed a degree of good sense and reason very pleasing. In their morals, they are nearly on a level with the whites, except the female coloured girls in the southern States who have certainly more lubricity than the white girls. As far as regularity in the attendance of public worship is a proof of being religious, the coloured people may safely be compared with the rest of the community, and pronounced as religious as any.

In the slave States they are very obsequious in their behaviour, scarcely daring to pass a white man on the road without making some token indicative of his superiority. I do not now allude to the slaves, but to those who have obtained their freedom, for the slaves seem to be as much afraid of their masters as Caliban of Prospero, and are treated in their turn as contemptuously as Shakspeare describes that hag-begotten monster to have been, with the exception however of such of them as are retained as domestic servants. In the free States, the blacks assume a freer deportment, and which to whites who travel from the south to the north is very annoying. I heard some persons from New Orleans complain loudly