men in this country as correctly as he could; endeavoring, at the same time, to avoid too high a coloring on the one side, and too dark a shade on the other. Truth compelled him, in his delineations, to depict their defects as well as their excellencies, that the character might be consistent with nature. The editor admits that the author may have erred in these sketches, as he could not be so intimately acquainted with the gentlemen he describes as to evolve the minute and almost imperceptible shades of their character; but, on the whole, he thinks it will be conceded by all who know them that they are correct and satisfactory ;-and that the likenesses he has given will be found accurate not only in the outline, but in the toute ensemble. The editor conceives that the author's remarks on the constitution, &c. of this country, will be deemed satisfactory, as a & 2 commentary, to the foreigner as well as the citizen, and that his frequent references will be found beneficial to those who wish to become better acquainted with the science of government. LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, ON THE CONSTITUTION, LAWS AND PUBLIC CHARACTERS OF THE UNITED STATES, BY A FOREIGNER. LETTER I. WASHINGTON, 1818. LORD B...... You have imposed on me, my lord, a task which I fear will be neither edifying to you nor agreeable to myself; but as you have required it, friendship will not suffer me to refuse, and I hasten to comply with your request, as far as my ability and limited means of information will enable me. It is necessary for me to premise, that the object which brought me to Washington has entirely failed. The American government, though young, is too wary and cautious to yield an advantage to another that does not result beneficially to itself. Experience, it is said, is the best school of wisdom; but here is a nation in its infancy, and without that knowledge which age gives to the governments of the old world—as subtle, and cautious and circumspect as any in Europe. One would think that like the Minerva of the ancients, the American people had sprung, at once, into full and vigorous maturity, without the imbecility o. Sinfancy, or the tedious process of gradual progression. They possess. none of the thoughtless liberality and inconsiderate confidence of youth; but are, already, distinguished by the cold and cautious policy of declining life, rendered suspicious by the imposing plausibility and blasting villainy of the world. We have been deceived, my lord, by the ignorance and misrepresentations of men who called themselves travellers; and who, I find, were wholly unacquainted with the American character, and totally ignorant of the American Constitution. On such sources as these you must not depend for correct information ;they are fallacious and deceitful, false and exaggerated. Those who have furnished this information are men, you know, my lord, who have either been bribed to calumniate and detract, for an object with which you cannot now be unacquainted, or the refuse of society, ejected from our prisons, without intellect, without knowledge, and without honor. I have thought it my duty, merely to mention these things to you, that you may hereafter give to the information which those travelling ephemera afford, that credit only to which it is entitled, and that the character of the American government and people may be seen by you through a medium less obscured by prejudice and falsehood than the one you have been constrained previously to employ. I cannot, from my observation of this government, accord in sentiment with our countryman, Pope, who in the fine didactic poem which is said to have been suggested to him by the eloquent, but mistaken Bolingbroke, observes, "For forms of government let fools contest, There is a peculiarity in the organization of some * Beaujour's sketches of the United States. 1 |