nothing to warp {269} my judgment in favour of those countries: and yet, I have as little in the Atlantic States to warp my judgment in their favour. I am perfectly impartial in my feelings, and am, therefore, likely to be impartial in my words. My good wishes extend to the utmost boundary of my adopted country. Every particular part of it is as dear to me as every other particular part.

I have recommended most strenuously the encouraging and promoting of Domestic Manufacture; not because I mean to be engaged in any such concern myself; for it is by no means likely that I ever shall; but, because I think that such encouragement and promotion would be greatly beneficial to America, and because it would provide a happy Asylum for my native, oppressed, and distressed countrymen, who have been employed all the days of their lives in manufactures in England, where the principal part of the immense profits of their labour is consumed by the Borough tyrants and their friends, and expended for the vile purpose of perpetuating a system of plunder and despotism at home, and all over the world.

Before I conclude this Introduction, I must observe, that I see with great pain, and with some degree of shame, the behaviour of some persons from England, who, appear to think that they give proof of their high breeding by repaying civility, kindness, and hospitality, with reproach and insolence. However, these persons are despised. They produce very little impression here; and, though the accounts they send to England, may be believed by some, they will have little effect on persons of sense and virtue. Truth will make its way; and it is, thank God, now making its way with great rapidity.

I could mention numerous instances of Englishmen, coming to this country with hardly a dollar in their pocket, and arriving at a state of ease and plenty and even riches in a few years; and I explicitly declare, that I have never known or heard of, an instance of one common labourer who, with common industry and economy, did not greatly better his lot. Indeed, how can it otherwise be, when the average wages of {270} agricultural labour is double what it is in England, and when the average price of food is not more than half what it is in that country? These two facts, undeniable as they are, are quite sufficient to satisfy any man of sound mind.

As to the manners of the people, they are precisely to my taste; unostentatious and simple. Good sense I find every where, and never affectation. Kindness, hospitality and never-failing civility. I have travelled more than four thousand miles about this country; and I have never met with one single insolent or rude native American.

I trouble myself very little about the party politics of the country. These contests are the natural offspring of freedom; and they tend to perpetuate that which produces them. I look at the people as a whole; and I love them and feel grateful to them for having given the world a practical proof, that peace, social order, and general happiness can be secured, and best secured, without Monarchs, Dukes, Counts, Baronets, and Knights. I have no unfriendly feeling towards any Religious Society. I wish well to every member of every such society; but, I love the Quakers, and feel grateful towards them, for having proved to the world, that all the virtues, public as well as private, flourish most and bring forth the fairest fruits when unincumbered with those noxious weeds, hireling priests.

THOMAS HULME

{271} THE JOURNAL

Pittsburgh, June 3.—Arrived here with a friend as travelling companion, by the mail stage from Philadelphia, after a journey of six days; having set out on the 28th May.7 We were much pleased with the face of the country, the greatest part of which was new to me. The route, as far as Lancaster, lay through a rich and fertile country, well cultivated by good, settled proprietors; the road excellent: smooth as the smoothest in England, and hard as those made by the cruel corvèes in France. The country finer, but the road not always so good, all the way from Lancaster, by Little York, to Chambersburgh; after which it changes for mountains and poverty, except in timber. Chambersburgh is situated on the North West side of that fine valley which lies between the South and North Mountains, and which extends from beyond the North East boundary of Pennsylvania to nearly the South West extremity of North Carolina, and which has limestone for its bottom and rich and fertile soil, and beauty upon the face of it, from one end to the other. The ridges of mountains called the Allegany, and forming the highest land in north America between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, begin here and extend across our route nearly 100 miles, or rather, three days, for it was no less than half the journey to travel over them; they rise one above the other as we proceed Westward, till we reach the Allegany, the last and most lofty of all, from which we have a view to the West farther than the eye can carry. I can say nothing in commendation of the road over these mountains, but I must admire the drivers, and their excellent horses. The road is every thing that is bad, but the skill of the drivers, and the well constructed vehicles, and the capital old English horses, overcome {272} every thing. We were rather singularly fortunate in not breaking down or upsetting; I certainly should not have been surprized if the whole thing, horses and all, had gone off the road and been dashed to pieces. A new road is making, however, and when that is completed, the journey will be shorter in point of time, just one half.8 A fine even country we get into immediately on descending the Allegany, with very little appearance of unevenness or of barrenness all the way to Pittsburgh; the evidence of good land in the crops, and the country beautified by a various mixture of woods and fields.

Very good accommodations for travellers the whole of the way. The stage stops to breakfast and to dine, and sleeps where it sups. They literally feasted us every where, at every meal, with venison and good meat of all sorts: every thing in profusion. In one point, however, I must make an exception, with regard to some houses: at night I was surprized, in taverns so well kept in other respects, to find bugs in the beds! I am sorry to say I observed (or, rather, felt,) this too often. Always good eating and drinking, but not always good sleeping.

June 4th & 5th.—Took a view of Pittsburgh. It is situated between the mouths of the river Allegany and Monongahela, at the point where they meet and begin the Ohio, and is laid out in a triangular form so that two sides of it lie contiguous to the water. Called upon Mr. Bakewell, to whom we were introduced by letter, and who very obligingly satisfied our curiosity to see every thing of importance. After showing us through his extensive and well conducted glass works,9 he rowed us across the Monongahela to see the mines from which the fine coals we had seen burning were brought. These coals are taken