GLEANINGS
IN EUROPE.
BY AN AMERICAN.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY, LEA & BLANCHARD.
1837.
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by CAREY,
LEA & BLANCHARD, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court, for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
PREFACE.
It may seem to be late in the day, to give an account of the more
ordinary characteristics of Europe. But the mass of all nations can form
their opinions of others through the medium of testimony only; and as no
two travellers see precisely the same things, or, when seen, view them
with precisely the same eyes, this is a species of writing, after all,
that is not likely to pall, or cease to be useful. The changes, that are
constantly going on every where, call for as constant repetitions of the
descriptions; and although the pictures may not always be drawn and
coloured equally well, so long as they are taken in good faith, they
will not be without their value.
It is not a very difficult task to make what is commonly called an
amusing book of travels. Any one who will tell, with a reasonable degree
of graphic effect, what he has seen, will not fail to carry the reader
with him; for the interest we all feel in personal adventure is, of
itself, almost success. But it is much more difficult to give an honest
and a discriminating summary of what one has seen. The mind so naturally
turns to exceptions, that an observer has great need of self-distrust,
of the powers of analysis, and, most of all, of a knowledge of the
world, to be what the lawyers call a safe witness.
I have no excuse of haste, or of a want of time, to offer for the
defects of these volumes. All I ask is that they may be viewed as no
more than they profess to be. They are the _gleanings_ of _a harvest
already gathered_, thrown together in a desultory manner and, without
the slightest, or at least a very small, pretension to any of those
arithmetical and statistical accounts, that properly belong to works of
a graver character. They contain the passing remarks of one who has
certainly seen something of the world, whether it has been to his
advantage or not, who had reasonably good opportunities to examine what
he saw, and who is not conscious of being, in the slightest degree,
influenced “by fear, favour, or the hope of reward.” His _compte rendu_
must pass for what it is worth.
FRANCE.
LETTER I.
TO CAPTAIN SHUBRICK, U. S. N.
MY DEAR SHUBRICK—
“Passengers by the Liverpool, London and Havre packets, are informed
that a steam-boat will leave the White Hall wharf precisely at 11, A. M.
to-morrow, June 1st.” If to this notice be added the year, 1826, you
have the very hour and place of our embarkation. We were nominally of
the London party, it being our intention, however, to land at Cowes,
from which place we proposed crossing the channel to Havre. The reason
for making this variation from the direct route was the superior comfort
of the London ship; that of the French line for the 1st June, though a
good vessel and well commanded, being actually the least commodious
packet that plied between the two hemispheres.
We were punctual to the hour, and found one of the smaller steamers
crowded with those who, like ourselves, were bound to the “old world,”
and the friends who had come to take the last look at them. We had our
leave-takings too, which are sufficiently painful when it is known that
years must intervene before there is another meeting. As is always done
by good Manhattenese, the town house had been given up on the first of
May, since which time, we had resided at a hotel. The furniture had been
principally sold at auction, and the entire month had passed in what I
believed to be very ample preparations. It may be questioned if there is
any such thing as being completely prepared for so material a change; at
all events, we found a dozen essentials neglected at the last moment,
and as many oversights to be repaired in the same instant.
On quitting the hotel, some fifty or a hundred volumes and pamphlets lay
on the floor of my bed-room. Luckily you were to sail on a cruise, in a
day or two, and as you promised not only to give them a berth, but to
read them one and all, they were transferred forthwith to the Lexington.
They were a dear gift, if you kept your word! John was sent with a note,
with orders to be at the wharf in half an hour. I have not seen him
since. Then Abigail was to be discharged. We had long debated whether
this excellent woman should, or should not, be taken. She was an
American, and, like most of her country-women, who will consent to serve
in a household, a most valuable domestic. She wished much to go, but, on
the other side, was the conviction that a woman who had never been at
sea, would be useless during the passage, and then we were told so many
fine things of the European servants, that the odds were unfortunately
against her. The principal objection, however, was her forms of speech.
Foreign servants would of themselves be a great aid in acquiring the
different languages, and poor Abigail, at the best, spoke that least
desirable of all corruptions of the English tongue, the country dialect
of New England. Her New England morals and New England sense, in this
instance, were put in the balance against her “bens,” “_an_-gels,”
“doozes,” “nawthings,” “noans,” and even her “virtooes,” (in a family of
children, no immaterial considerations,) and the latter prevailed. We
had occasion to regret this decision. A few years later, I met in
Florence, an Italian family of high rank, which had brought with them
from Philadelphia, two female domestics, whom they prized above all the
other servants of a large establishment. Italy was not good enough for
them, however, and after resisting a great deal of persuasion, they were
sent back. What was Florence or Rome to Philadelphia! But then these
people spoke good English, better, perhaps, than common English nursery
maids, the greatest of their abuses in orthoepy, being merely to teach a
child to call its mother a “mare.”
It was a flat calm, and the packets were all dropping down the bay with
the ebb. The day was lovely, and the view of the harbour, which _has_ so
many, while it _wants_ so many of the elements of first rate scenery,
was rarely finer. All estuaries are most beautiful, viewed in the calm;
but this is peculiarly true of the Bay of New York—neither the colour of
the water, nor its depth, nor the height of the surrounding land being
favourable to the grander efforts of nature. There is little that is
sublime in either the Hudson, or its mouth, but there is the very
extreme of landscape beauty.
Experience will teach every one, that without returning to scenes that
have made early impressions, after long absences, and many occasions to
examine similar objects elsewhere, our means of comparison are of no
great value. My acquaintance with the Hudson has been long and very
intimate; for to say that I have gone up and down its waters a hundred
times, would be literally much within the truth. During that journey,
whose observations and events are about to fill these volumes, I
retained a lively impression of its scenery, and, on returning to the
country, its current was ascended with a little apprehension, that an
eye which had got to be practised in the lights and shades of the Alps
and Appenines, might prove too fastidious for our own river. What is
usually termed the grandeur of the Highlands was certainly much
impaired; but other parts of the scenery gained in proportion, and, on
the whole, I found the passage between New York and Albany to be even
finer than it had been painted by memory. I should think, there can be
little doubt that, if not positively the most beautiful river, the
Hudson possesses some of the most beautiful river scenery, of the known
world.
Our ship was named after this noble stream. We got on board of her, off
Bedlow’s, and dropped quietly down as far as the quarantine ground,
before we were met by the flood. Here we came to, to wait for a wind,
more passengers, and that important personage, whom man-of-war’s men
term the master, and landsmen the captain. In the course of the
afternoon, we had all assembled, and began to reconnoitre each other,
and to attend to our comforts.
To get accustomed to the smell of the ship, with its confined air, and
especially to get all their little comforts about them in smooth water,
is a good beginning for your novices. If to this be added, moderation in
food, and especially in drink; as much exercise as one can obtain;
refraining from reading and writing until accustomed to one’s situation,
and paying great attention to the use of aperients, I believe all is
said, that an old traveller and an old sailor, too, can communicate on a
subject so important to those who are unaccustomed to the sea. Can your
experience suggest any thing more?
We lay that night at the quarantine ground; but early on the morning of
the 2nd, all hands were called to heave-up. The wind came in puffs over
the heights of Staten, and there was every prospect of our being able to
get to sea, in two or three hours. We hove short, and sheeted home and
hoisted the three topsails; but the anchor hung, and the people were
ordered to get their breakfasts, leaving the ship to tug at her ground
tackle with a view to loosen her hold of the bottom.
Every thing was now in motion. The little Don Quixote, the Havre ship
just mentioned, was laying through the narrows, with a fresh breeze from
the south-west. The Liverpool ship was out of sight, and six or seven
sail were turning down with the ebb, under every stitch of canvass that
would draw. One fine vessel tacked directly on our quarter. As she
passed quite near our stern, some one cried from her deck—“A good run to
you, Mr. ——.” After thanking this well-wisher, I inquired his name. He
gave me that of an Englishman who resided in Cuba, whither he was bound.
“How long do you mean to be absent?” “Five years.” “You will never come
back.” With this raven-like prediction we parted; the wind sweeping his
vessel beyond the reach of the voice.
These words, “you will never come back!” were literally the last that I
heard on quitting my country. They were uttered in a prophetic tone, and
under circumstances that were of a nature to produce an impression. I
thought of them often, when standing on the western verge of Europe, and
following the course of the sun toward the land in which I was born; I
remembered them from the peaks of the Alps, when the subtle mind,
outstripping the senses, would make its mysterious flight westward
across seas and oceans, to recur to the past, and to conjecture the
future; and when the allotted five years were up, and found us still
wanderers, I really began to think, what probably every man thinks, in
some moment of weakness, that this call from the passing ship, was meant
to prepare me for the future. The result proved in my case, however, as
it has probably proved in those of most men, that Providence did not
consider me of sufficient importance to give me audible information of
what was about to happen. So strong was this impression to the last,
notwithstanding, that on our return, when the vessel passed the spot
where the evil-omened prediction was uttered, I caught myself muttering
involuntarily, “—— is a false prophet; I _have_ come back!”
We got our anchor as soon as the people were ready, and, the wind
drawing fresh through the narrows, were not long turning into lower bay.
The ship was deep, and had not a sufficient spread of canvass for a
summer passage, but she was well commanded, and exceedingly comfortable.
The wind became light in the lower bay. The Liverpool ship had got to
sea the evening before, and the Don Quixote was passing the Hook, just
as we opened the mouth of the Raritan. A light English bark was making a
fair wind of it, by laying out across the swash, and it now became
questionable whether the ebb would last long enough to sweep us round
the south-west spit, a _détour_ that our heavier draught rendered
necessary.
By paying great attention to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of
the dilatory school, succeeded, about 3 P.M. in getting us round that
awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of fair
ones, when the ship’s head was laid to the eastward, with square yards.
In half an hour the vessel had ‘slapped’ past the low sandy spit of
land, that you have so often regarded with philosophical eyes, and we
fairly entered the Atlantic, at a point where nothing but water lay
between us and the rock of Lisbon. We discharged the pilot on the bar.
By this time the wind had entirely left us, the flood was making strong,
and there was a prospect of our being compelled to anchor. The bark was
nearly hull down in the offing, and the top-gallant-sails of the Don
Quixote were just settling into the water. All this was very provoking,
for there might be a good breeze to seaward, while we had it calm
in-shore. The suspense was short, for a fresh-looking line along the sea
to the southward, gave notice of the approach of wind, the yards were
braced forward, and in half an hour we were standing east southerly,
with strong head-way. About sunset we passed the light-vessel which then
lay moored several leagues from land, in the open ocean, an experiment
that has since failed. The highlands of Navesink disappeared with the
day.
The other passengers were driven below, before evening. The first mate,
a straight-forward Kennebunk-man, gave me a wink, (he had detected my
sea education by a single expression, that of “send it an end,” while
mounting the side of the ship,) and said, “a clear quarter-deck! a good
time to take a walk, sir.” I had it all to myself, sure enough, for the
first two or three days, after which our land-birds came crawling up,
one by one; but, long before the end of the passage, nothing short of a
double-reefed-top-sail breeze, could send the greater part of them
below. There was one man, however, who, the mate affirmed, wore the heel
of a spare top-mast smooth, by seating himself on it, as the precise
spot where the motion of the ship excited the least nausea. I got into
my berth at nine, but hearing a movement over head, about midnight, I
turned out again, with a sense of uneasiness I had rarely before
experienced at sea. The responsibility of a large family, acted, in some
measure, like the responsibility of command. The captain was at his
post, shortening sail, for it blew fresher; there was some rain; and
thunder and lightning were at work in the heavens; in the direction of
the adjacent continent; the air was full of wild, unnatural lucidity, as
if the frequent flashes left a sort of twilight behind them; and objects
were discernible at a distance of two or three leagues. We had been busy
in the first watch, as the omens denoted easterly weather; the English
bark was struggling along the troubled waters, already quite a league on
our lee-quarter.
I remained on deck half an hour, watching the movements of the master.
He was a mild, reasoning, Connecticut man, whose manner of ministering
to the wants of the female passengers, had given me already a good
opinion of his kindness and forethought, while it left some doubts of
his ability to manage the rude elements of drunkenness and
insubordination which existed among the crew, quite one half of whom
were Europeans. He was now on deck in a south-wester,[1] giving his
orders in a way effectually to shake all that was left of the “horrors”
out of the ship’s company. I went below, satisfied that we were in good
hands, and before the end of the passage, I was at a loss to say whether
nature had most fitted this truly worthy man to be a ship-master, or a
child’s-nurse, for he really appeared to me to be equally skilful in
both capacities.
Footnote 1:
Doric—_sow_-wester.
Such a temperament is admirably suited to the command of a packet, a
station in which so many different dispositions, habits, and prejudices
are to be soothed, at the same time that a proper regard is to be had to
the safety of their persons. If any proof is wanting, that the
characters of seamen in general, have been formed under adverse
circumstances, and without sufficient attention, or, indeed, any
attention to their real interests, it is afforded in the fact, that the
officers of the packet-ships, men usually trained like other mariners,
so easily adapt their habits to their new situation, and become more
mild, reflecting, and humane. It is very rare to hear a complaint
against an officer of one of these vessels; yet it is not easy to
appreciate the embarrassments they have frequently to encounter from
whimsical, irritable, ignorant, and exacting passengers. As a rule, the
eastern men of this country, make the best packet-officers. They are
less accustomed to sail with foreigners than those who have been trained
in the other ports, but acquire habits of thought and justice, by
commanding their countrymen; for, of all the seamen of the known world,
I take it the most subordinate, the least troublesome, and the easiest
to govern, so long as he is not oppressed, is the native American. This,
indeed, is true, both ashore and afloat, for very obvious reasons: they
who are accustomed to reason themselves, being the most likely to submit
to reasonable regulations; and they who are habituated to plenty are the
least likely to be injured by prosperity, which causes quite as much
trouble in this world as adversity. It is this prosperity, too suddenly
acquired, which spoils most of the labouring Europeans who emigrate,
while they seldom acquire the real, frank, independence of feeling which
characterizes the natives. They adopt an insolent and rude manner as its
substitute, mistaking the shadow for the substance. This opinion of the
American seamen is precisely the converse of what is generally believed
in Europe, however, and more particularly in England; for, following out
the one-sided political theories, in which they have been nurtured,
disorganization, in the minds of the inhabitants of the old world, is
inseparable from popular institutions.
The early part of the season of 1826, was remarkable for the quantities
of ice that had drifted from the north into the track of European and
American ships. The Crisis, a London packet, had been missing nearly
three months, when we sailed. She was known to have been full of
passengers, and the worst fears were felt for her safety; ten years have
since elapsed, and no vestige of this unhappy ship has ever been found!
Our master prudently decided that safety was of much more importance
than speed, and he kept the Hudson well to the southward. Instead of
crossing the banks, we were as low as 40°, when in their meridian; and
although we had some of the usual signs, in distant piles of fog, and
exceedingly chilly and disagreeable weather, for a day or two, we saw no
ice. About the fifteenth, the wind got round to the southward and
eastward, and we began to fall-off more than we wished even, to the
northward.
All the charts for the last fifty years, have three rocks laid down, to
the westward of Ireland, which are known as the “Three Chimneys.” Most
American mariners have little faith in their existence, and yet, I
fancy, no seaman draws near the spot where they are said to be, without
keeping a good look-out for the danger. The master of the Hudson, once
carried a lieutenant of the English navy, as a passenger, who assured
him that he had actually seen these “Three Chimneys.” He may have been
mistaken, and he may not. Our course lay far to the southward of them,
but the wind gradually hauled ahead, in such a way as to bring us as
near as might be to the very spot where they ought to appear, if
properly laid down. The look-outs of a merchant ship are of no great
value, except in serious cases, and I passed nearly a whole night on
deck, quite as much incited by my precious charge, as by curiosity, in
order to ascertain all that eyes could ascertain, under the
circumstances. No signs of these rocks, however, were seen from the
Hudson.
It is surprising in the present state of commerce, and with the vast
interests which are at stake, that any facts affecting the ordinary
navigation between the two hemispheres, should be left in doubt. There
is a shoal, and I believe a reef, laid down near the tail of the Great
Bank, whose existence is still uncertain. Seamen respect this danger
more than that of the “Three Chimneys,” for it lies very much in the
track of ships between Liverpool and New York; still, while tacking, or
giving it a berth, they do not know whether they are not losing a wind
for a groundless apprehension! Our own government would do well to
employ a light cruiser, or two, in ascertaining just these facts (many
more might be added to the list,) during the summer months. Our own
brief naval history is pregnant with instances of the calamities that
befall ships. No man can say when, or how, the Insurgente, the
Pickering, the Wasp, the Epervier, the Lynx, and the Hornet,
disappeared. We know that they are gone, and of all the brave spirits
they held, not one has been left to relate the histories of the
different disasters. We have some plausible conjectures, concerning the
manner in which the two latter were wrecked; but an impenetrable mystery
conceals the fate of the four others. They may have run on unknown
reefs. These reefs may be constantly heaving up from the depths of the
ocean, by subterranean efforts; for a marine rock is merely the summit
of a sub-marine mountain.[2]
Footnote 2:
There is a touching incident connected with the fortunes of two young
officers of the navy, that is not generally known. When the Essex
frigate was captured in the Pacific, by the Phœbe and Cherub, two of
the officers of the former were left in the ship, in order to make
certain affidavits that were necessary to the condemnation. The
remainder were paroled and returned to America. After a considerable
interval, some uneasiness was felt at the protracted absence of those
who had been left in the Essex. On inquiry, it was found, that, after
accompanying the ship to Rio Janeiro, they had been exchanged,
according to agreement, and suffered to go where they pleased. After
some delay, they took passage in a Swedish brig bound to Norway, as
the only means which offered to get to Europe, whence they intended to
return home. About this time, great interest was also felt for the
sloop Wasp. She had sailed for the mouth of the British channel, where
she fell-in with, and took the Reindeer, carrying her prisoners into
France. Shortly after, she had an action with, and took the Avon, but
was compelled to abandon her prize by others of the enemies’ cruisers,
one of which (the Castillian,) actually came up with her and gave her
a broadside. About twenty days after the latter action, she took a
merchant brig, near the Western Islands, and sent her into
Philadelphia. This was the last that had been heard of her. Months and
even years went by, and no farther intelligence was obtained. All this
time, too, the gentlemen of the Essex were missing. Government ordered
inquiries to be made in Sweden, for the master of the brig in which
they had embarked. He was absent on a long voyage, and a weary period
elapsed before he could be found. When this did happen he was required
to give an account of his passengers. By producing his log book and
proper receipts, he proved that he had fallen in with the Wasp, near
the line, about a fortnight after she had taken the merchant brig,
named, when the young officers in question, availed themselves of the
occasion to return to their flag. Since that time, a period of
twenty-one years, the Wasp has not been heard of.
We were eighteen days out, when, early one morning, we made an American
ship, on our weather quarter. Both vessels had every thing set that
would draw, and were going about five knots, close on the wind. The
stranger made a signal to speak us, and, on the Hudson’s main-topsail
being laid to the mast, he came down under our stern, and ranged up
along-side to leeward. He proved to be a ship called the “London
Packet,” from Charleston, bound to Havre, and his chronometer having
stopped, he wanted to get the longitude.
When we had given him our meridian, a trial of sailing commenced, which
continued without intermission for three entire days. During this time,
we had the wind from all quarters, and of every degree of force from the
lightest air to a double-reefed-topsail breeze. We were never a mile
separated, and frequently we were for hours within a cable’s length of
each other. One night the two ships nearly got foul, in a very light
air. The result showed, that they sailed as nearly alike, one being deep
and the other light, as might well happen to two vessels. On the third
day, both ships being under reefed topsails, with the wind at east, and
in thick weather, after holding her own with us for two watches, the
London Packet edged a little off the wind, while the Hudson still hugged
it, and we soon lost sight of our consort in the mist.
We were ten days longer struggling with adverse winds. During this time,
the ship made all possible traverses, our vigilant master resorting to
every expedient of an experienced seaman to get to the eastward. We were
driven up as high as fifty-four, where we fell into the track of the St.
Lawrence traders. The sea seemed covered with them, and I believe we
made more than a hundred, most of which were brigs. All these we passed
without difficulty. At length a stiff breeze came from the south-west,
and we laid our course for the mouth of the British Channel under
studding-sails.
On the 28th, we got the bottom in about sixty fathoms water. The 29th
was thick weather, with a very light, but a fair wind; we were now quite
sensibly within the influence of the tides. Towards evening the horizon
brightened a little, and we made the Bill of Portland, resembling a
faint bluish cloud. It was soon obscured, and most of the landsmen were
incredulous about its having been seen at all. In the course of the
night, however, we got a good view of the Eddystone.
Going on deck early, on the morning of the 30th, a glorious view
presented itself. The day was fine, clear, and exhilarating, and the
wind was blowing fresh from the westward. Ninety-seven sail, which had
come into the channel, like ourselves, during the thick weather, were in
plain sight. The majority were English, but we recognised the build of
half the maritime nations of Christendom in the brilliant fleet. Every
body was busy, and the blue waters were glittering with canvass. A
frigate was in the midst of us, walking through the crowd like a giant
stepping among pigmies. Our own good vessel left every thing behind her,
also, with the exception of two or three other bright-sided ships, which
happened to be as fast as herself.
I found the master busy with the glass, and soon as he caught my eye, he
made a sign for me to come forward. “Look at that ship directly ahead of
us.” The vessel alluded to, led the fleet, being nearly hull down to the
eastward. It was the Don Quixote, which had left the port of New York,
one month before, about the same distance in our advance. “Now look
here, in-shore of us,” added the master. “It is an American, but I
cannot make her out.” “Look again: she has a new cloth in her
main-top-gallant-sail.” This was true enough, and by that sign, the
vessel was our late competitor, the London Packet!
As respects the Don Quixote, we had made a journey of some five thousand
miles, and not varied our distance, on arriving, a league. There was
probably, some accident in this; for the Don Quixote had the reputation
of a fast ship, while the Hudson was merely a pretty fair sailer. We had
probably got the best of the winds. But a hard and close trial of three
days had shown that neither the Hudson nor the London Packet, in their
present trims, could go ahead of the other, in any wind. And yet, here,
after a separation of ten days, during which time our ship had tacked
and wore fifty times, had calms, foul winds and fair, and had run fully
a thousand miles, there was not a league’s difference between the two
vessels!
I have related these circumstances, because I think they are connected
with causes that have a great influence on the success of American
navigation. On passing several of the British ships to-day, I observed
that their officers were below, or at least out of sight; and in one
instance, a vessel of a very fair mould, and with every appearance of a
good sailer, actually lay with some of her light sails aback, long
enough to permit us to come up with, and pass her. The Hudson probably
went with this wind some fifteen or twenty miles farther than this
loiterer, while I much question if she could have gone as far, had the
latter been well attended to. The secret is to be found in the fact,
that so large a portion of American ship-masters are also ship-owners,
as to have erected a standard of activity and vigilance, below which few
are permitted to fall. These men work for themselves, and, like all
their countrymen, are looking out for something more than a mere
support.
About noon we got a Cowes pilot. He brought no news, but told us the
English vessel, I have just named, was sixty days from Leghorn, and that
she had been once a privateer. We were just thirty from New York.
We had distant glimpses of the land all day, and several of the
passengers determined to make their way to the shore, in the pilot boat.
These channel craft are sloops of about thirty or forty tons, and are
rather picturesque and pretty boats, more especially when under low
sail. They are usually fitted to take passengers, frequently earning
more in this way than by their pilotage. They have the long sliding
bowsprit, a short lower mast, very long cross-trees, with a taunt
top-mast, and, though not so “wicked” to the eye, I think them prettier
objects at sea, than our own schooners. The party from the Hudson had
scarcely got on board their new vessel when it fell calm, and the master
and myself paid them a visit. They looked like a set of smugglers
waiting for the darkness to run in. On our return we rowed round the
ship. One cannot approach a vessel at sea, in this manner, without being
struck with the boldness of the experiment, which launched such massive
and complicated fabrics on the ocean. The pure water is a medium almost
as transparent as the atmosphere, and the very keel is seen, usually, so
near the surface, in consequence of refraction, as to give us but a very
indifferent opinion of the security of the whole machine. I do not
remember ever looking at my own vessel, when at sea, from a boat,
without wondering at my own folly in seeking such a home.
In the afternoon, the breeze sprang up again, and we soon lost sight of
our friends, who were hauling in for the still distant land. All that
afternoon and night, we had a fresh and a favourable wind. The next day,
I went on deck, while the people were washing the ship. It was Sunday,
and there was a flat calm. The entire scene admirably suited a day of
rest. The channel was like a mirror, unruffled by a breath of air, and
some twenty or thirty vessels lay scattered about the view, with their
sails festooned and drooping, thrown into as many picturesque positions
by the eddying waters. Our own ship had got close in with the land; so
near, indeed, as to render a horse, or a man, on the shore distinctly
visible. We were on the coast of Dorsetshire. A range of low cliffs lay
directly abeam of us, and as the land rose to a ridge behind them, we
had a distinct view of a fair expanse of nearly houseless fields. We had
left America verdant and smiling; but we found England brown and
parched, there having been a long continuance of dry easterly winds.
The cliffs terminated suddenly, a little way ahead of the ship, and the
land retired inward, with a wide sweep, forming a large, though not a
very deep bay, that was bounded by rather low shores. It was under these
very cliffs, on which we were looking with so much pleasure and
security, and at so short a distance, that the well known and terrible
wreck of an Indiaman occurred, when the master, with his two daughters,
and hundreds of other lives, were lost. The pilot pointed out the
precise spot where that ill-fated vessel went to pieces. But the sea in
its anger, and the sea at rest, are very different powers. The place had
no terrors for us.
Ahead of us, near twenty miles distant, lay a high hazy bluff, that was
just visible. This was the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, and
the end of our passage in the Hudson. A sloop of war was pointing her
head in towards this bluff, and all the vessels in sight now began to
take new forms, varying and increasing the picturesque character of the
view. We soon got a light air ourselves, and succeeded in laying the
ship’s head off shore, towards which we had been gradually drifting
nearer than was desirable. The wind came fresh and fair about ten, when
we directed our course towards the distant bluff. Every thing was again
in motion. The cliffs behind us gradually sunk, as those before us rose,
and lost their indistinctness; the blue of the latter soon became gray,
and ere long white as chalk; this being the material of which they are,
in truth, composed.
We saw a small whale, (it might have been a large grampus) floundering
ahead of us, and acting as an extra pilot, for he appeared to be
steering, like ourselves, for the Needles. These Needles, are fragments
of the chalk cliffs, that have been pointed and rendered picturesque, by
the action of the weather, and our course lay directly past them. They
form a line from the extremity of the Isle of Wight, and are awkwardly
placed for vessels that come this way in thick weather, or in the dark.
The sloop of war got round them first, and we were not far behind her.
When fairly within the Needles the ship was embayed, our course now
lying between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, through a channel of no
great width. The country was not particularly beautiful, and still
looked parched, though we got a distant view of one pretty town,
Lymington, in Hampshire. This place, in the distance, appeared not
unlike a large New England village, though there was less glare to the
houses. The cliffs, however, were very fine, without being of any
extraordinary elevation. Though much inferior to the shores of the
Mediterranean, they as much surpass any thing I remember to have seen on
our own coast, between Cape Anne and Cape Florida; which, for its
extent, a part of India, perhaps, excepted, is, I take it, just the
flattest, and tamest, and least interesting coast in the entire world.
The master pointed out a mass of dark herbage, on a distant height,
which resembled a copse of wood that had been studiously clipped into
square forms, at its different angles. It was visible only for a few
moments, through a vista in the hills. This was Carisbrooke Castle,
buried in ivy.
There was another little castle, on a low point of land, which was
erected by Henry VIII., as a part of a system of marine defence. It
would scarcely serve to scale the guns of a modern twenty-four pounder
frigate, judging of its means of resistance and annoyance by the eye.
These things are by-gones for England, a country that has little need of
marine batteries.
About three, we reached a broad basin, the land retiring on each side of
us. The estuary to the northward is called Southampton Water, the town
of that name, being seated on its margin. The opening in the Isle of
Wight is little more than a very wide mouth to a very diminutive river,
or creek, and Cowes, divided into East and West, lines its shores. The
anchorage, in the arm of the sea off this little haven, was well filled
with vessels, chiefly the yachts of amateur seamen, and the port itself
contained little more than pilot boats and crafts of a smaller size. The
Hudson brought up among the former. Hauling up the fore-course of a
merchant ship, is like lifting the curtain again on the drama of the
land. These vessels rarely furl this sail; and they who have not
experienced it, cannot imagine what a change it produces on those who
have lived a month, or six weeks, beneath its shadow. The sound of the
chain running out was very grateful, and I believe, though well
satisfied with the ship as such, that every body was glad to get a
nearer view of our great mother earth.
It was Sunday, but we were soon visited by boats from the town. Some
came to carry us ashore, others to see that we carried nothing off with
us. At first, the officer of the customs manifested a desire to make us
all go without the smallest article of dress, or any thing belonging to
our most ordinary comforts; but he listened to remonstrances, and we
were eventually allowed to depart with our night bags. As the Hudson was
to sail immediately for London, all our effects were sent within the
hour to the custom house. At 3 P. M. July 2nd, 1826, we put foot in
Europe, after a passage of thirty-one days from the quarantine ground.
LETTER II.
TO MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.
We were no sooner on English ground, than we hurried to one of the two
or three small inns of West Cowes, or the principal quarter of the
place, and got rooms at the Fountain. Mr. and Mrs. —— had preceded us,
and were already in possession of a parlour adjoining our own. On
casting an eye out at the street, I found them, one at each window of
their own room, already engaged in a lively discussion of the
comparative merits of Cowes and Philadelphia! This propensity to
exaggerate the value of whatever is our own, and to depreciate that
which is our neighbours’, a principle that is connected with the very
ground-work of poor human nature, forms a material portion of the
travelling equipage of nearly every one who quits the scenes of his own
youth, to visit those of other people. A comparison between Cowes and
Philadelphia, is even more absurd than a comparison between New York and
London, and yet, in this instance, it answered the purpose of raising a
lively controversy, between an American wife and a European husband.
The consul at Cowes had been an old acquaintance at school, some
five-and-twenty years before, and an inquiry was set on foot for his
residence. He was absent in France, but his deputy soon presented
himself with an offer of services. We wished for our trunks, and it was
soon arranged that there should be an immediate examination. Within an
hour, we were summoned to the store-house, where an officer attended on
behalf of the customs. Every thing was done in a very expeditious and
civil manner, not only for us, but for a few steerage passengers, and
this, too, without the least necessity for a _douceur_, the usual _passe
partout_ of England. America sends no manufactures to Europe; and, a
little smuggling in tobacco excepted, there is probably less of the
contraband in our commercial connexion with England, than ever before
occurred between two nations that have so large a trade. This, however,
is only in reference to what goes eastward, for immense amounts of the
smaller manufactured articles of all Europe, find their way, duty free,
into the United States. There is also a regular system of smuggling
through the Canadas, I have been told.
While the ladies were enjoying the negative luxury of being liberated
from a ship, at the Fountain Inn, I strolled about the place. You know
that I had twice visited England, professionally, before I was eighteen;
and, on one occasion, the ship I was in, anchored off this very island,
though not at this precise spot. I now thought the people altered. There
had certainly been so many important changes in myself, during the same
period, that it becomes me to speak with hesitation on this point; but
even the common class seemed less peculiar, less English, _less
provincial_, if one might use such an expression, as applied to so great
a nation; in short, more like the rest of the world, than formerly.
Twenty years before, England was engaged in a war, by which she was, in
a degree, isolated from most of Christendom. This insulated condition,
sustained by a consciousness of wealth, knowledge, and power, had served
to produce a decided peculiarity of manners, and even of appearance. In
the article of dress, I could not be mistaken. In 1806, I had seen all
the lower classes of the English, clad in something like _costumes_. The
channel waterman wore the short dowlas petticoat; the Thames’ waterman,
a jacket and breeches of velveteen, and a badge; the gentleman and
gentlewoman, attire such as was certainly to be seen in no other part of
the Christian world, the English colonies excepted. Something of this
still remained, but it existed rather as the exception, than as the
rule. I then felt, at every turn, that I was in a foreign country;
whereas, now, the idea did not obtrude itself, unless I was brought in
immediate contact with the people.
America, in my time, at least, has always had an active and swift
communication with the rest of the world. As a people, we are, beyond a
question, decidedly provincial, but our provincialism is not exactly one
of external appearance. The men are negligent of dress, for they are
much occupied, have few servants, and clothes are expensive, but the
women dress remarkably near the Parisian _modes_. We have not sufficient
confidence in ourselves to set fashions. All our departures from the
usages of the rest of mankind, are the results of circumstances, and not
of calculation, unless, indeed, it be one that is pecuniary. Those,
whose interest it is to produce changes, cause fashions to travel fast,
and there is not so much difficulty, or more cost, in transporting any
thing from Havre to New York, than there is in transporting the same
thing from Calais to London; and far less difficulty in causing a new
_mode_ to be introduced, since, as a young people, we are essentially
imitative. An example or two, will better illustrate what I mean.
When I visited London, with a part of my family, in 1828, after passing
near two years on the continent of Europe, Mrs. —— was compelled to
change her dress—at all times simple, but then, as a matter of course,
Parisian—in order not to be the subject of unpleasant observation. She
might have gone in a carriage attired as a French woman, for they who
ride in England, are not much like those who walk. But to walk in the
streets, and look at objects, it was far pleasanter to seem English than
to seem French. Five years later, we took London on our way to America,
and even then, something of the same necessity was felt. On reaching
home, with dresses fresh from Paris, the same party was only in the
_mode_; with _toilettes_ a little, and but very little, better arranged,
it is true, but in surprising conformity with those of all around them.
On visiting our own little retired mountain-village, these Parisian-made
dresses were scarcely the subject of remark to any but to your
_connoisseurs_. My family struck me as being much less peculiar, in the
streets of C——, than they had been, a few months before, in the streets
of London. All this must be explained by the activity of the intercourse
between France and America, and by the greater facility of the
Americans, in submitting to the despotism of foreign fashions.
Another fact will show you another side of the subject. While at Paris,
a book of travels in America, written by an Englishman, (Mr. Vigne,)
fell into my hands. The writer, apparently a well-disposed and sensible
man, states that he was dancing _dos-à-dos_ in a _quadrille_, at New
York, when he found, by the embarrassment of the rest of the set, he had
done something wrong. Some one kindly told him that they no longer
danced _dos-à-dos_. In commenting on this trifling circumstance, the
writer ascribes the whole affair to the false delicacy of our women!
Unable to see the connexion between the cause and the effect, I pointed
out the paragraph to one of my family, who was then in the daily
practice of dancing, and that too in Paris, itself, the very court of
Terpsichore. She laughed, and told me that the practice of dancing
_dos-à-dos_, _had gone out at Paris a year or two before_, and that
doubtless the newer _mode_ had reached New York before it reached Mr.
Vigne! These are trifles, but they are the trifles that make up the sum
of national peculiarities, ignorance of which lead us into a thousand
fruitless and absurd conjectures. In this little anecdote we learn the
great rapidity with which new fashions penetrate American usages, and
the greater ductility of American society in visible and tangible
things, at least; and the heedless manner with which even those who
write in a good spirit of America, jump to their conclusions. Had Capt.
Hall, or Mrs. Trollope, encountered this unlucky _quadrille_, they would
probably have found some clever means of imputing the _nez-à-nez_
tendencies of our dances, to the spirit of democracy! The latter, for
instance, is greatly outraged by the practice of wearing hats in
Congress, and of placing the legs on tables; and, yet, both have been
practised in Parliament from time immemorial! She had never seen her own
Legislature, and having a set of theories cut and dried for Congress,
every thing that struck her as novel, was referred to one of her
preconceived notions. In this manner are books manufactured, and by such
means are nations made acquainted with each other!
Cowes resembles a toy-town. The houses are tiny, the streets, in the
main, are narrow and not particularly straight, while every thing is
neat as wax. Some new avenues, however, are well planned, and long ere
this, are probably occupied: and there were several small marine villas
in, or near, the place. One was shown me, that belonged to the Duke of
Norfolk. It had the outward appearance of a medium-sized American
country house. The bluff King Hal caused another castle to be built
here, also, which I understood was inhabited at the time, by the family
of the Marquis of Anglesey, who was said to be its governor. A part of
the system of the English government-patronage is connected with these
useless castles, and nominally fortified places. Salaries are attached
to the governments, and the situations are usually bestowed on military
men. This is a good, or a bad, regulation, as the patronage is used. In
a nation of extensive military operations, it might prove a commendable
and a delicate way of rewarding services; but, as the tendency of
mankind is to defer to intrigue, and to augment power rather than to
reward merit, the probability is that these places are rarely bestowed,
except in the way of political _quids pro quos_.