University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

In offering to the public these volumes
on America, their author would rather be
considered as endeavouring to excite fresh
attention on a very important subject, than
as pretending to furnish complete information
upon it.

Although much has already been written
on the great experiment, as it has been
called, now making in government, on the
other side of the Atlantic, there appears to
be still room for many interesting details on
the influence which the political system of
the country has produced on the principles,
tastes, and manners, of its domestic life.

The author of the following pages has
endeavoured, in some degree, to supply this
deficiency, by carefully recording the observations
she had an opportunity of making
during a residence of three years and
six months in different parts of the United
States.

She leaves to abler pens the more ambitious
task of commenting on the democratic
form of the American government; while,
by describing, faithfully, the daily aspect
of ordinary life, she has endeavoured to
show how greatly the advantage is on the
side of those who are governed by the few,
instead of the many. The chief object she
has had in view is to encourage her countrymen
to hold fast by a constitution that
ensures all the blessings which flow from
established habits and solid principles. If
they forego these, they will incur the fearful
risk of breaking up their repose by

introducing the jarring tumult and universal
degradation which invariably follow the
wild scheme of placing all the power of the
State in the hands of the populace.

The United States of America contain a
considerable variety of interesting objects
in most branches of natural science, besides
much that is new, a good deal that is beautiful,
and some things that are wonderful.
Nevertheless, as it is the moral and religious
condition of the people which, beyond
every thing else, demands the attention
of the philosophical inquirer, the author
would consider her work as completely
successful, could she but awaken a more
general interest on this subject.