rather, less, because it would be unknown. Without scholars to give it substance and duration, modern glory would be equally a shadow. If this be true,—and we do not believe that the enlightened and the virtuous will be inclined to question it,―our author must himself rank with the worthies whose portraits he has so faithfully drawn, and whose stories he has so ably and eloquently told. In both works his object is strictly national, and might be aptly enough defined, an exposition of the literary and intellectual statistics of the United States. As already intimated, he as clearly contends for, and as strenuously maintains, what is the right, and interest, and glory of the country, as the warrior does in the field, the diplomatist in the cabinet, or the statesman and orator in the hall of legislation. For public reputation, of every description, is as high and sacred a concern of the nation, and ought to be as vigilantly and resolutely protected, as the liberty, property, and lives of the citizens. If either individuals or communities neglect reputation, or supinely trust it to the keeping of others, they will lose it; and not it alone, but the influence also which they exercised by means of it, whether for good or evil. He, therefore, who, in any way, successfully vindicates his country's good name, is a public benefactor, and should be not only greeted but rewarded as such. No one is ignorant of the discourteous and offensive practice,—not to affix to it harsher epithets,-of British writers, especially in their Reviews, Journals, and Books of Travels, in representing the American people as a degenerate race. Nor has their perseverance in it been less stubborn, than their purpose was unfriendly. In the face of the most conclusive evidence of its falsehood, the charge was reiterated by hundreds of hireling presses, and thousands of profligate tongues, until letters were polluted by it, ignorance believed it, and intelligence and virtue turned from it, in all its varying shapes, with indignation and loathing. But although the calumny is still repeated by too many, its organs and advocates are comparatively so reduced in number, as to indicate that its final overthrow is near, and that truth and justice will flourish on its ruins. And to the consummation of those events, our author has ably contributed in the works we are considering. Shall we be told, that the evil of British calumny, being so near its end, will now expire of an incurable decay, and should be therefore forgotten, or at least no further resisted by us? We think otherwise. The "snake" is indeed "scotched," but not killed; and the sooner its writhings and misery are terminated, the better. Passing over various other grounds, our opinion to the effect here stated might rest on a recent manifestation of British feeling. In a late number of the London Quarterly Review, we find the following extraordinary paragraph : "With due deference and all tenderness to our transatlantic brethren, as they are miscalled, we beg leave to remark, that the rest of the world are pretty well agreed that, in almost every thing material, they have been progressing stern foremost, ever since they took the helm into their own hands, and their velocity in this wrong direction is likely to increase just in proportion as their exclusively democratic system shall be brought into more intense operation." * "The United States have advanced in nothing but population and the cultivation of the soil." "From the hour that in an excess of passion, they chose to fling away from their king, and to relinquish the immense benefits arising from a government checked by a powerful aristocracy, and allied with a church estab lishment, and trusted exclusively to the democratical branch of the community, # * they have done nothing but propagating the species, and chopping down forest timber, without advancing the cause of good government, or of any branch of human knowledge, science, or art, one jot.” Such is the language in which we are spoken of, by a people who boast of their taste and refinement. To be sure, from the consummate folly and impudence of the passage, to say nothing of its premeditated violation of truth, and the vulgar sea and land patois which forms its diction, we believe it to be from the pen of Capt. Basil Hall; and, in his individual capacity, he is as notorious for his trashiness and mendacity as a writer, as he is for his discourtesy and ingratitude as a man-a standard of comparison which his productions and behavior prove to be lofty. But no matter from whose pen it comes. It holds a place in the London Quarterly, which is a national work. We are authorized, therefore, to consider it a national sentiment; and we conscientiously believe that it is so. Legitimately considered, a majority of the people, in every free country (and Britain professes to be free) constitutes the nation. But that a great majority of the British people have been so deceived by gazetteers, journalists, pamphleteers, tourists and others, as to credit the sentiment expressed in the Review, we are forbidden to doubt. In fact, the case cannot be otherwise. For every single publication, telling truth of our country, that the people of England, as a body, have ever looked into, they have read fifty, intentionally defamatory of it. From the well-known principles of human nature, therefore, they must consider us in a state of ignorance and degeneracy. From some acquaintance, moreover, with different parts of England, we have reason to know that they do so. We speak of the great mass of the population; not of the few who are better informed. Yet, as relates also to the latter, we have often had occasion to be greatly surprised at their profound ignorance of America and its concerns. Even they have no correct knowledge of our character, as individuals, or, our condition as a people. To these views respecting the people of Great-Britain, we know that there are many very honorable exceptions. Nor ought they to be all passed by, without the notice and acknowledgement they merit. It is gratifying to us, therefore, to record the following, in justice to the enlightened Editor of the "Scotsman," one of the ablest papers in the dated kingdom. From that excellent Journal, Vol. XIII. No. 1014, September 26th, 1829, we extract a brief editorial paragraph, expressive of the writer's views of our country. "A friend who has lately been making an extensive tour in the United States, has put into our hands a number of books and pamphlets which he brought home with him. Such publications are always acceptable to us. The United States are alive with the spirit of improvement, beyond every other country in the world, our own not excepted, and we find more pleasure in chronicling the march of society, and the triumphs of the useful arts, than the achievements of the warrior, or the troubles and convulsions which spring from vice and misery in old and crowded communities. From the prodigious strides which industry and enterprise are now taking in the United States, that new country already offers useful lessons in many points to the most ancient aud improved States of Europe." Could this paragraph, correct and liberal as it is, be permitted to circulate through the same channels with that we have extracted from the London Quarterly, the antidote might, in some measure, counteract the poison. But it is not to be expected, that a work, which, for the attainment of an end resolved on, gives currency to premeditated slander, will intentionally do any thing to frustrate its purposes. . We have deemed it our duty, therefore, to aid in making the liberality of the "Scotsman" better known in the United States. But to return to our more immediate subject. The points of inferiority which our calumniators have charged on us are numerous. Nor, in relation to several of them, do we hesitate to repeat, that the ignorance they exhibited was no less striking than their open hostility and disregard of truth. A faithful representation of these slanders, and of the changes they underwent, to suit the policy, and gratify the evil passions of their propagators, were it not for its odiousness, would be an amusing picture. At one time we were pronounced inferior to our European ancestors in size, strength, symmetry, and activity of person, although observation has long since proved, that, in these respects, the descendants of British emigrants are almost universally superior to their parents. Even Captain Hall, who, in mind and body, is himself no bad specimen of cockneyism, had the effrontery to repeat a portion of this falsehood; and the slander here uttered is in correct keeping with his whole pasquinade on a people, who treated him with distinguished courtesy and kindness, and, if his manners "speak the man," received him into the first well-bred society he ever entered. As respects the charge of personal degeneracy, it has not been confined to the male population of our country. In equal violation of gallantry and truth, it has been extended to our females, who are among the most beautiful women of the world. For proof of this, we have only to refer to the testimony of all enlightened travelers, and to the productions of the pencil and the chisel, wherever they have appeared. Scarcely if at all does the beau ideal of foreign beauty, not excepting that of ancient Greece, surpass the reality we find at home. Who does not know that the beauty of American women has been the admiration of courts, and has received the homage of nobles, princes, and sovereigns? The empress Josephine, the most fascinating woman of the age, was in truth an American; for the West India islands belong as really to the American continent, as Great-Britain and Ireland do to the European. Besides, their natives have lain, in common with ourselves, under the charge of degeneracy. Although we believe the fact is not generally known, it is notwithstanding true, that the monarch who occupies at present the Ottoman throne, is the son of an American lady. His mother, like Josephine, was a West-Indian creole. Bound for Italy, to complete her education in a nunnery, she was captured in the Mediterranean, by a Turkish cruiser, and carried to Constantinople. When conveyed to the harem, her beauty so attracted the reigning chief, that he made her his second Sultana, and she became the mother of the present Sultan. It is believed that the superior liberality and kindness the latter has shown to Christians are owing to early impressions received from his mother; a beginning, which may lead, if not to the conversion of the Turkish people, at least to an incalculable amelioration of their condition. Such has been already the influence, and such may be yet the glorious fruit of the beauty and virtue of an American woman! As to the intellect of the females of our country, it needs no commendation from us. Its productions are its eulogy. In relation to the stature, form, and strength of Americans, we might point to our hill-country in general, but more especially to that of Virginia and Vermont, and challenge the whole eastern hemisphere to match the population of those regions. But on this, as on every other subject, facts are preferable to general assertions. We trust, therefore, that a few of them will not be unacceptable. When Dr. Franklin was minister in Paris, he dined, with his diplomatic family and several other Americans, all fine looking men, at a public table where the Abbe Raynal was also a guest. Each of these distinguished individuals was seated in the midst of his own countrymen, on the opposite sides of the table. The Abbe, who was a firm believer in American degeneracy, addressed himself on that subject, with his usual eloquence, to our great compatriot. The latter, somewhat to the disappointment and chagrin of his friends around him, waited in silent patience, until the harangue was closed. He then replied to the following purport. "You, M. Abbe, are surrounded by Frenchmen, I by Americans. Please to rise from your seat, with the six friends who are nearest to you, and I will do the same with an equal number of my countrymen who are nearest to me." The invitation was accepted, to the merriment of the table and the utter overthrow of the Abbe's hypothesis. The Americans were, on an average, six feet high, and built in proportion; while the Frenchmen were not more than five feet seven or eight inches, and correspondingly slender. The Abbe, joining in the laugh, acknowledged his defeat; but proRounced it accidental. For this anecdote, we are indebted to Mr. Jefferson. A few years ago, we ourselves met, by accident, near the door of a hotel, in the state of Kentucky, seven persons, all known to each other, and engaged in conversation, whose aggregate weight amounted to near two thousand pounds. The height of the lowest individual was six feet two inches, and that of the tallest six feet six. The heav iest weighed near three hundred and forty pounds, and the lightest two hundred and fifty-five. They were all Americans, and most of them natives of the state in which we saw them. One fact more on this topic, and we have done. As we were walking for amusement, some years ago, in company with five other Americans, who had met accidentally in the saloon of Drury-lane theatre, we observed ourselves gazed at in a manner deemed exceptionable. On inquiring into the cause, we found it to be our inordinate size. The writer of this article, whose height is nearly six feet two inches, was the smallest of the party. From matter of supposed offence, the fact was changed into a subject of diversion. And yet we have been pronounced a diminutive people! In fine, the average height of Americans surpasses that of the people of England, France, and most other European countries, by two inches at least; some observers make the difference greater. In consequence of this, we understand that the military step of the troops of the United States, is, by order, longer than that of the military of other nations. Again; our prowess and firmness were once called in question. Yet history has recorded it, and both the land and the ocean testify to its truth, that these have been proved, in chastisement, on the persons of our revilers, as often as we have met them on equal terms, in gen eral battle, or single combat. That error, therefore, has been beaten down by the most suitable weapon of logic, the argumentum baculinum. We have been pronounced not only an enfeebled, but a short-lived race, entirely destitute of instances of longevity. Mr. Godwin, an English author now living, and enjoying the confidence of a great body of his fellow subjects, has asserted, in his late "Reply to Malthus on Population," that in most parts of the United States (and he has specified one of the healthiest of them, the state of Pennsylvania) the inhabitants begin to feel the decrepitude of years, at the age of thirty. Nor is this all. He has further asserted, that were it not for the constant tide of migration to them, from the north and from Europe, the states of the South and West would be soon depopulated, owing to their insalubrity, and the shattered constitutions of those who reside in them. His obvious meaning is, that the southern Americans are so near a state of impotency, as to be disqualified to people the earth by their descendants. Such, we say, are some of the specific charges preferred from abroad, denying us longevity and vigor of constitution. Let recorded facts in our own country answer them. They will be found abundantly in our bills of mortality, and our grave-stone inscriptions. Consult them, and they will prove, that, some parts of Russia excepted, no country in Europe furnishes, in proportion to its population, a greater number of octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians, than the United States. Nor is this true, as some allege, of New-England alone. The middle and southern states, not excepting South-Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, abound in instances of great longevity. From our late census it appears that North-Carolina, containing a population of 738,470, numbers 304 persons who have reached and passed the age of one hundred years. As far as we are informed, this instance of popular longevity is unequalled. The western states have been too recently populated, by white inhabitants, to testify on the subject. But many of the Indians in them have lived to a very advanced age, and appearances promise that the Caucasians will do the same. Being in correspondence with a friend in England, in 1822, on the subject of American longevity, we applied to the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, and were obligingly furnished by him with the following document, accompanied by others to substantiate its accuracy. "A statement of the number of non-commissioned officers, and privates of the regular troops furnished by the several states, at the close of the revolutionary war, showing how many each furnished. New-Hampshire, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 733 4,370 372 1,740 1,169 675 1,598 235 Maryland, 974 Virginia, 629 North-Carolina, 697 South-Carolina, 139 Georgia, 149 Total, 13,476 |