APPENDIX C
RECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S BOOK IN THE UNITED STATES
HAVING now arrived nearly at the end of our travels,
I am induced, ere I conclude, again to mention what I consider
as one of the most remarkable traits in the national character
of the Americans; namely, their exquisite sensitiveness and
soreness respecting everything said or written concerning them.
Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I can give is
the effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the
appearance of Captain Basil Hall's 'Travels in North America.'
In fact, it was a sort of moral earthquake, and the vibration it
occasioned through the nerves of the republic, from one corner
of the Union to the other, was by no means over when I left
the country in July 1831, a couple of years after the shock.
I was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it
was not till July 1830, that I procured a copy of them.
One bookseller to whom I applied told me that he had had a few
copies before he understood the nature of the work, but that,
after becoming acquainted with it, nothing should induce
him to sell another. Other persons of his profession must,
however, have been less scrupulous; for the book was read
in city, town, village, and hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach,
and a sort of war-whoop was sent forth perfectly unprecedented
in my recollection upon any occasion whatever.
An ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under censure,
have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of character;
but the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall's work threw
the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to excess,
produce a weakness which amounts to imbecility.
It was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects,
were of some judgment, utter their opinions upon this.
I never heard of any instance in which the commonsense generally
found in national criticism was so overthrown by passion.
I do not speak of the want of justice, and of fair and
liberal interpretation: these, perhaps, were hardly to be expected.
Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens
of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a
breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation.
It was not, therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible
observations of a traveler they knew would be listened to should be
received testily. The extraordinary features of the business were,
first, the excess of the rage into which they lashed themselves;
and, secondly, the puerility of the inventions by which they
attempted to account for the severity with which they fancied they
had been treated.
Not content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth,
from beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly
as often as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work
to discover the causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States,
and why he had published his book.
I have heard it said with as much precision and gravity
as if the statement had been conveyed by an official report,
that Captain Hall had been sent out by the British Government
expressly for the purpose of checking the growing admiration
of England for the Government of the United States,—
that it was by a commission from the treasury he had come,
and that it was only in obedience to orders that he had found
anything to object to.
I do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persuaded that it
is the belief of a very considerable portion of the country.
So deep is the conviction of this singular people that they cannot
be seen without being admired, that they will not admit the possibility
that any one should honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove
in them or their country.
The American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known in England;
I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes wondered
that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's
curse into classic American; if they had done so, on placing
(he, Basil Hall) between brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah)
it would have saved them a world of trouble.
I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at length
to peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to my
surprise at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggerated
statement throughout the work is by no means saying enough.
It is impossible for any one who knows the country not to see that
Captain Hall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend.
When he praises, it is with evident pleasure; and when he finds fault,
it is with evident reluctance and restraint, excepting where motives
purely patriotic urge him to state roundly what it is for the benefit
of his country should be known.
In fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible advantage.
Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to the most
distinguished individuals, and with the still more influential
recommendation of his own reputation, he was received in full
drawing-room style and state from one end of the Union to the other.
He saw the country in full dress, and had little or no opportunity
of judging of it unhouselled, unanointed, unannealed, with all its
imperfections on its head, as I and my family too often had.
Captain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making
himself acquainted with the form of the government and the laws;
and of receiving, moreover, the best oral commentary upon them,
in conversation with the most distinguished citizens.
Of these opportunities he made excellent use; nothing important met
his eye which did not receive that sort of analytical attention
which an experienced and philosophical traveler alone can give.
This has made his volumes highly interesting and valuable;
but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equal penetration
to visit the United States with no other means of becoming
acquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day
intercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely lower idea
of the moral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears
to have done; and the internal conviction on my mind is strong,
that if Captain Hall had not placed a firm restraint on himself,
he must have given expression to far deeper indignation than any he has
uttered against many points in the American character, with which
he shows from other circumstances that he was well acquainted.
His rule appears to have been to state just so much of the truth
as would leave on the mind of his readers a correct impression,
at the least cost of pain to the sensitive folks he was writing about.
He states his own opinions and feelings, and leaves it to be
inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them; but he spares
the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the circumstances
would have produced.
If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve
millions of strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must
bear it; and were the question one of mere idle speculation,
I certainly would not court the abuse I must meet for stating it.
But it is not so.
. . . . . . .
The candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mistake for irony,
or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain to persons from
whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject as affectation,
and although they must know right well, in their own secret hearts,
how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to betray;
they pretend, even to themselves, that he has exaggerated the bad points
of their character and institutions; whereas, the truth is, that he has
let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quite suitable
for him to exercise, however little merited; while, at the same time,
he has most industriously magnified their merits, whenever he could possibly
find anything favorable.