one man, of a king, or a minister; it is the fruit of liberty, that mother of industry. Everything is rapid, everything great, everything durable with her. A royal or ministerial prosperity, like a king or a minister, has only the duration of a moment. Boston is just rising from the devastations of war, and its commerce is flourishing; its manufactures, productions, arts, and sciences offer a number of curious and interesting observations.

The manners of the people are not exactly the same as described by M. de Crevecœur. You no longer meet here that Presbyterian austerity which interdicted all pleasures, even that of walking; which forbade travelling on Sunday; which persecuted men whose opinions were different from their own. The Bostonians unite simplicity of morals with that French politeness and delicacy of manners which render virtue more amiable. They are hospitable to strangers, and obliging to friends. They are tender husbands, fond and almost idolatrous parents, and kind masters. Music, which their teachers formerly proscribed as a diabolic art, begins to make part of their education. In some houses you hear the fortepiano. This art, it is true, is still in its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it are so gentle, so complaisant and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no pleasure equal to what they afford. God grant that the Bostonian women may never, like those of France, acquire the malady of perfection It is never attained but at the expense of the do

mestic virtues. The young women here enjoy the liberty they do in England, that they did in Geneva when morals were there, and the republic existed; and they do not abuse it. Their frank and tender hearts have nothing to fear from the perfidy of men. amples of this perfidy are rare; the vows of love are believed; and love always respects them, or shame follows the guilty.

Ex

The Bostonian mothers are reserved. Their air is, however, frank, good and communicative. Entirely devoted to their families, they are occupied in rendering their husbands happy, and in training their children to virtue.

The law denounces heavy penalties against adultery, such as the pillory and imprisonment. This law has scarcely ever been called into execution. It is because families are happy ; and they are pure because they are happy.

Neatness without luxury is a characteristic feature of this purity of manners; and this neatness is seen everywhere at Boston, in their dress, in their houses, and in their churches. Nothing is more charming than an inside view of a church on Sunday. The good cloth coat covers the man; calicoes and chintzes dress the women and children, without being spoiled by those gewgaws which whim and caprice have added to them among our women. Powder and pomatum never sully the heads of infants and children: I see them with pain, however, on the heads of men: they invoke the art of the hair-dresser; for, unhappily, this art has already crossed the seas.

I shall never call to mind, without emotion, the pleasure I had one day in hearing the respectable Mr. Clarke, successor to the learned Dr. Chauncey, the friend of mankind. His church is in close union with that of Dr. Cooper, to whom every good Frenchman, and every friend of liberty, owes a tribute of grati tude for the love he bore the French, and the zeal with which he defended and preached the American independence. I remarked in this auditory the exterior of that ease and contentment of which I have spoken; that collected calmness, resulting from the habit of gravity, and the conscious presence of the Almighty; that religious decency which is equally distant from grovelling idolatry, and from the light and wanton airs of those Europeans who go to a church as to a theatre.

Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ.

But, to crown my happiness, I saw none of those livid wretches, covered with rags, who in Europe, soliciting our compassion at the foot of the altar, seem to bear testimony against Providence, our humanity, and the order of society. The discourse, the prayer, the worship, everything, bore the same simplicity. The sermon breathed the best morality, and it was heard with attention.

The excellence of this morality characterizes almost all the sermons of all the sects through the Continent. The ministers rarely speak dogmas: universal tolerance, the child of American independence, has banished the preaching of dogmas, which always leads to discussion and quarrels. All the sects admit nothing but morality, which is the same in all, and the only preaching proper for a great society of brothers.

This tolerance is unlimited at Boston, a town formerly wit

ness of bloody persecutions, especially against the Quakers, where many of this sect paid with their life for their perseverance in their religious opinions. Just Heaven! how is it possible there can exist men believing sincerely in God, and yet barbarous enough to inflict death on a woman, the intrepid Dyer, because she thee'd and thou'd men, because she did not believe in the divine mission of priests, because she would follow the Gospel literally? But let us draw the curtain over these scenes of horror; they will never again sully this new continent, destined by Heaven to be the asylum of liberty and humanity. Every one at present worships God in his own way, at Boston. Anabaptists Methodists, Quakers, and Catholics profess openly their opinions; and all offices of government, places, and emoluments are equally open to all sects. Virtue and talents, and not religious opinions, are the tests of public confidence.

The ministers of different sects live in such harmony that they supply each other's places when any one is detained from his pulpit.

On seeing men think so differently on matters of religion, and yet possess such virtues, it may be concluded that one may be very honest, and believe, or not believe, in transubstantiation, and the word. They have concluded that it is best to tolerate each other, and that this is the worship most agreeable to God.

Before this opinion was so general among them they had established another: it was the necessity of reducing divine worship to the greatest simplicity, to disconnect it from all its superstitious ceremonies, which gave it the appearance of idolatry; and, particularly, not to give their priests enormous salaries, to enable them to live in luxury and idleness; in a word, to restore the evangelical simplicity. They have succeeded. In the country, the church has a glebe; in town, the ministers live on collections made each Sunday in the church, and the rents of pews. It is an excellent practice to induce the ministers to be diligent in their studies, and faithful in their duty; for the preference is given to him whose discourses please the most, and his salary is the most considerable; while, among us, the ignorant and the learned, the debauchee and the man of virtue, are always sure of their livings. It results, likewise, from this that a mode of worship will not be imposed on those who do not believe in it. Is it not a tyranny to force men to pay for the support of a system which they abhor?

The Bostonians are become so philosophical on the subject of religion that they have lately ordained a man who was refused by the bishop. The sect to which he belongs have installed him in their church, and given him the power to preach and to teach; and he preaches, and he teaches, and discovers good abilities; for the people rarely deceive themselves in their choice. This economical institution, which has no example but in the primitive church, has been censured by those who believe still in the tradition of orders by the direct descendants of the Apostles. But the Bostonians are so near believing that every man may be his own preacher that the apostolic doctrine has not found very warm advocates. They will soon be, in America, in the situation where M. d'Alembert has placed the ministers of Geneva.

Since the ancient puritan austerity has disappeared, you are no longer surprised to see a game of cards introduced among these good Presbyterians. When the mind is tranquil, in the enjoyment of competence and peace, it is natural to occupy it in this way, especially in a country where there is no theatre, where men make it not a business to pay court to the women, where they read few books, and cultivate still less the sciences. This taste for cards is certainly unhappy in a republican state. The habit of them contracts the mind, prevents the acquisition of useful knowledge, leads to idleness and dissipation, and gives birth to every malignant passion, Happily, it is not very considerable in Boston: you see here no fathers of families risking their whole fortunes in it.

There are many clubs at Boston. M. Chastellux speaks of a particular club held once a week. I was at it several times, and was much pleased with their politeness to strangers, and the knowledge displayed in their conversation. There is no coffee-house at Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. One house in each town, that they call by that name, serves as an exchange.

One of the principal pleasures of the inhabitants of these towns consists in little parties for the country among families and friends. The principal expense of the parties, especially after dinner, is tea. In this, as in their whole manner of living, the Americans in general resemble the English. Punch, warm and cold, before dinner; excellent beef, and Spanish and Bordeaux wines, cover their tables, always solidly and abundantly

served. Spruce beer, excellent cider, and Philadelphia porter precede the wines. This porter is equal to the English: the manufacture of it saves a vast tribute formerly paid to the English industry. The same may soon be said with respect to cheese. I have often found American cheese equal to the best Cheshire of England, or the Rocfort of France. This may with truth be said of that made on a farm on Elizabeth Island, belonging to the respectable Governor Bowdoin.

After forcing the English to give up their domination, the Americans determined to rival them in everything useful. This spirit of emulation shows itself everywhere; it has erected at Boston an extensive glass manufactory, belonging to M. Breck and others.

This spirit of emulation has opened to the Bostonians so many channels of commerce, which lead them to all parts of the globe.

Nil mortalibus arduum est;
Audax Japeti genus.

If these lines could ever apply to any people, it is to the free Americans. No danger, no distance, no obstacle, impedes them. What have they to fear? All mankind are their brethren: they wish peace with all.

It is this spirit of emulation which multiplies and brings to perfection so many manufactories of cordage in this town; which has erected filatures of hemp and flax, proper to occupy young people, without subjecting them to be crowded together in such numbers as to ruin their health and their morals; proper, likewise, to occupy that class of women whom the long voyages of their seafaring husbands and other accidents reduce to inoccupation.

To this spirit of emulation are owing the manufactories of salt, nails, paper and paper-hangings, which are multiplied in this state. The rum distilleries are on the decline since the suppression of the slave trade, in which this liquor was employed, and since the diminution of the use of strong spirits by the country people.

This is fortunate for the human race; and the American industry will soon repair the small loss it sustains from the decline of this fabrication of poisons.

Massachusetts wishes to rival, in manufactures, Connecticut