University of Virginia Library

6. CHAP. VI.
NEW-YORK.

One of the first things that disgusts a pious man,
as all Englishmen, particularly English travellers,
are, is the horrible profanation of the Sabbath in
this town. This contempt of religion and its observances
arises partly out of the turbulent spirit of
democracy, and partly from the want of a privileged
church establishment, such as has made Great-Britain
the bulwark of religion in all ages. There
is in the first place such a natural and indivisible
association between a king reigning over his peopel

by divine right, and divinity itself, that it is
next to impossible a true subject should not be a
true believer. On the contrary, the pure spirit of
democracy, which rejects the divine right of kings,
will naturally resist every other divine right, and
thus it has happened that impiety and rebellion have
ever gone hand in hand. Every person versed in the
history of England must be familiar with innumerable
examples of this truth. Waving a reference
to all others, it is sufficient to recollect the total
relaxation of religion and morals which prevailed
among the Puritans who rebelled against Charles
the martyr, and the brilliant revival of piety and
the church on the accession of his son. In fact, it
is a maxim with all orthodox writers, that a pious
people will always be obedient to their sovereign,
not so much because he governs well, as because
he governs by divine right.

A few obvious positions will in like manner demonstrate
the absolute necessity of a liberally endowed,
exclusively privileged church establishment,
like that of England. Money is universally
held to be the sinew of war; and inasmuch as money
is essentially necessary to enable the sovereign
to defend and maintain the rights and interests of
the government, so is it equally necessary to enable
the bishops and dignitaries of the church to defend
the consciences of the people against the dissenters,
and all other enemies of the church. It is a
pure democratic absurdity to suppose that men

will fight for their country from mere patriotic
feelings, or that they will preach for nothing.
Hence it is essentially necessary, that both should
be equally well paid; for as the promise of the
plunder of a city stimulates the soldier to acts
of heroism, so in like manner will the promise of
a good living of ten or fifteen thousand sterling a
year, equally stimulate the dignitary of the established
church to fight the good fight of faith the
more manfully.

In fact, as the Quarterly says, “the want of
an established church has made the bulk of the people
either infidels or fanatics.” There will never
be any pure religion here until they have an
archbishop of Armagh with 60,000 acres of glebe,
and a bishop of Derry with 150,000. It is these
and similar noble establishments in Ireland that
have made the people of that country so orthodox,
and so devoted to the king.

This mode of stimulating the zeal of pious dignitaries
by wealth and honours, is accompanied with
other special advantages. In proportion as the
hierarchy is enriched by the spoils of the people,
the latter becoming comparatively poor, are precluded
by necessity from indulging in vicious extravagance
and corrupt enjoyments. They will
practise per force, abstinence, economy, self denial,
and the other domestic virtues so essential
to the welfare of the lower orders. Hence it is
sufficiently obvious that in proportion as you curtail
the superfluities of the commonalty by taxes,

tithes, high rents, and poor rates, you guaranty to
them the practice of almost all the cardinal virtues.
Again: In proportion as the people become poor,
they will necessarily pay less attention to the education
of their children; and I fear no denial, except
from radicals, democrats, and atheists, when I
assert, that considering the mischievous books now
in circulation on the subject of liberty and such
impieties, the greatest blessing that could possibly
happen to the lower orders would be the loss
of the dangerous faculty of reading. In no age of
the world were this class of people so devoted to
the honour of the priests, and the glory of their
kings, and consequently to the interests of religion
and human rights, as when a large portion of them
could not read, and were without any property
they could call their own. I appeal to the whole
history of mankind for proof of the maxim, that
ignorance and poverty are the two pillars of a privileged
church, and the divine right of kings.

It may be urged by radicals, democrats, and unbelievers,
that the same rule which ordains the
diminution of certain vices by the absence, equally
ordains their proportionate increase by the multiplication
of the means of their gratification. That
consequently the rich prelates and nobility must
necessarily become corrupt in proportion to the
increase of their wealth. But even admitting this
to be true, the people are gainers by the arrangement,
since, by this means, their sins and transgressions
are shifted upon their superiors, who answer

the end of a sort of scape-goats, or peace offerings,
under cover of which the poor entirely
escape. It is therefore plain, that the more rich
and wicked the privileged few become, the more
will the lower orders be exempt from both. Let
us hear no more then of the impious slang of democracy,
as the Quarterly says, which would persuade
poor deluded innocence and ignorance that
equal rights and a general diffusion of knowledge,
answer any other end than to make people thieves,
murderers, gougers, bundlers, unbelievers, blasphemers,
rowdies, and regulators, and, to sum up
all in one word, republicans.

When it is recollected, therefore, that the essence
of the turbulent spirit of democracy consists
equally in the rejection of the divine right of the
king, and the equally divine right of the bishops,
and deans, and arch-deacons, to their thousands a
year, it will readily be conceded that a pure republican
cannot possibly have any religion. Accordingly,
as I before observed, the first thing that
strikes a stranger who is used to the exemplary
modes of keeping the Sabbath in London and all
other parts of England, is the total neglect of that
day in all parts of the United States. In New-York,
indeed, there are plenty of churches, but
they were all built before the millennium of democracy,
as the Quarterly says, and under the pious
auspices of our established church. The first thing
these blessed republicans did when they returned
to the city, on the conclusion of the peace, was to

break all the church windows, and so they have
remained ever since. One of them has a ring of
eight copper kettles, instead of bells, which being
rung by the old deaf sexton, gives singular satisfaction
to the commonalty—I beg pardon—the sovereign
people—who assemble on Sundays to dance
to the music in front of the church. As to going
to church to hear divine service, nobody pretends
to such anti-republican foolery. The shops are all
kept open on Sundays, so that one can see no difference
between that and any other day, except
that the good folks drink twice as much whiskey,
and put on their Sunday suits, in which they stagger
about with infinite dignity, until finally they
generally tumble into the gutter, spoil their finery,
and sleep themselves sober. Such are the genuine
habits of the turbulent spirit of democracy, as
the Quarterly says. My worthy landlord assured
me that the African church was the only one in
which there was a chance of hearing a sermon,
and that even there, the whole congregation was
sometimes taken up and carried to the watch-house,
under pretence that they disturbed the neighbourhood
with their groanings, howlings, and other
demonstrations of genuine piety. The true reason
was, however, that these bundling, gouging democrats,
as the Quarterly calls them, have such a bitter
hostility to all sorts of religion, that they cannot
bear even the poor negroes should sing psalms.
However, as it is the first duty of a christian to
hide the faults, and draw a veil over the transgressions
of his fellow-men, I shall abstain from any
further comments on the horrible depravity of republicanism
in general, and Yankee republicanism
in particular. I must not omit to mention, however,
that in this, as well as every other town in
the United States, there is a society for the propagation
of unbelief, secretly supported by the government,
most of the principal officers of which
are members. Their exertions were inveterate
and unceasing, and they displayed the same zeal
in making an atheist of a devout christian that we
do in the conversion of a Jew. Of late these societies
have remitted their labours in consequence
of there being no more christians to work upon.

The love of dress, glitter, and finery, is one of
the characteristics of a rude and republican people;
of course we see it displayed here in all its barbarous
extravagance. Every thing they can beg,
borrow, hire, or steal, is put on their backs, and a
fine lady somewhat resembles a vessel dressed in
the colours of all nations. It is impossible to tell
what flag she sails under. This finery is for the
most part hired by the day of the milliners and
pawn-brokers, and there are dresses which can be
had at from two shillings to a dollar a day. The
first young ladies of the city, who never know
their own minds, but alway “guess” at it, as the
Quarterly says, principally figure in these hired
dresses; and it is by no means uncommon for one
of them to be hauled out of the city assembly or a
fashionable party by a pawn-broker, in consequence

of having kept the dress longer than the time specified.
One might suppose such an accident would
disturb the harmony of the company, but the other
young ladies continue to dance away without takking
any notice of the unfortunate Cinderella, thus
stript of her finery, or perhaps content themselves
with guessing what the matter may be. I ought
to mention here, that though the young ladies always
“guess,” the young gentlemen are commonly
given to “reckoning” upon a thing, a phrase
which becomes exceedingly familiar by a long habit
of running up scores at taverns.

Notwithstanding all the cant and boasting of
these turbulent democrats about the necessity of
education to self-government, the general diffusion
of intelligence, and all that sort of thing, it is most
amazing to see the ignorance of the best educated
people here. A young lady of the first fashion,
who can read writing, is considered a phenomenon;
while she who has read Lord Byron is held
a blue stocking, and avoided by all the dandies for
fear she should puzzle them with her learning.
Such, indeed, is the natural antipathy of genuine
republicanism to all sorts of literature, that the only
possible way of teaching the little children their
a, b, c, is by appealing to their inordinate appetites
in the shape of gingerbread letters well sweetened
with molasses. The seduction is irresistible,
for no genuine Yankee republican can make head
against treacle. I one night, at a literary party,
happened to mention some opinion from Lord Bacon

to a young lady who had the reputation of being
rather blue. “Bacon—Bacon,” replied she
briskly—“O! I guess we call it gammon. But
we don't put `Lord' to it, because it's anti-republican.”
I took occasion to apprize her with as little
appearance of contempt as possible, that our
Bacon was not gammon, nor ham, but no less a
personage than the present Lord Chancellor of
England, the sole inventor and propounder of human
reason, and the noble art of philosophy. “I
guess he must have made a power of money by
it,” said the learned lady. “Did he get a patten
for his invention. We always get pattens for any
great discoveries in Amerrykey.” Upon this she
started up, ran giggling over to some of her set,
and continued the whole evening laughing at me,
thus joining ill manners to ignorance. But what
can you expect from a gang of barbarians, among
whom learning is considered anti-republican, as the
young lady said; where, to be able to read, is an
insuperable obstacle to promotion, and where the
present Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United
States, who is considered as one of their best
scholars, signs his name with a fac-simile, that is,
by deputy? This deputy they were obliged to
send to England for, on account of the few persons
who could write being all engaged in forging the
signatures of bank notes. Even the house of representatives,
where all the wisdom and learning of
the nation assembles, is obliged to employ a clerk
to read the papers, messages, &c., for the edification
of the country members, whose education has
been neglected in that respect.

To sum up my remarks on the subject of literature
here, I may say with perfect truth and impartiality,
that the education of youth consists in
learning to drink whiskey, eat tobacco, love dirt
and debauchery, despise religion, and hate kings.
An English lady attempted to establish a boarding-school
for young ladies a few years ago, but the
genius of democracy would not submit to her salutary
restrictions. The young ladies first pouted,
then broke into the kitchen, where they devoured
all they could find, and came very near
eating up the black cook, and finally set fire to the
house, and ran away by the light of it; since
then, nobody has been hardy enough to set up a
school for young ladies, except two or three desperate
Frenchmen. These confine themselves to
teaching them to dance, which being an art congenial
to savages, they acquire with considerable docility.
They sometimes, to be sure, pummel the
poor Frenchmen black and blue with the heels of
their shoes; but candour obliges me to say, that I
never heard of their tearing the dancing master in
pieces, or eating him up alive.