abuses in the interior of many madhouses. A great deal has been done for prisons; but the order of benevolence has been broken through by this preference; for the voice of misery may sooner come up from a dungeon, than the oppression of a madman be healed by the hand of justice. The Society of Friends have been extremely fortunate in the choice of their male and female superintendents at the asylum, Mr. and Mrs. Jephson. It is not easy to find a greater combination of good sense and good feeling than these two persons possess: — but then the merit of selecting them rests with their employers. AMERICA. (E. REVIEW, 1818.) 1. Travels in Canada and the United States, in 1816 and 1817. By Lieutenant Francis Hall, 14th Light Dragoons, H. P. London. Longman & Co. 1818. 2. Journal of Travels in the United States of North America, and in Lower Canada, performed in the Year 1817, &c., &c. By John Palmer. London. Sherwood, Neely, & Jones. 1818. 3. A Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States of America; contained in Eight Reports, addressed to the Thirty-nine English Families by whom the Author was deputed, in June 1817, to ascertain whether any and what Part of the United States would be suitable for their Residence. With Remarks on Mr. Birkbeck's 'Notes' and 'Letters.' By Henry Bradshaw Fearon. London. Longman & Co. 1818. 4. Travels in the Interior of America, in the Years 1809, 1810, and 1811, &c. By John Bradbury, F.L.S. London. 8vo. London. Sherwood, Neely, & Jones. 1817. THESE four books are all very well worth reading to any person who feels, as we do, the importance and interest of the subject of which they treat. They contain a great deal of information and amusement; and will probably decide the fate, and direct the footsteps, of many human beings, seeking a better lot than the Old World can afford them. Mr. Hall is a clever, lively man, very much above the common race of writers; with very liberal and reasonable opinions, which he expresses with great boldness, -and an inexhaustible fund of good humour. He has the elements of wit in him; but sometimes is trite and flat when he means to be amusing. He writes verses, too, and is occasionally long and metaphysical; but, upon the whole, we think highly of Mr. Hall; and deem him, if he is not more than twenty He is five years of age, an extraordinary young man. not the less extraordinary for being a Lieutenant of Light Dragoons-as it is certainly somewhat rare to meet with an original thinker, an indulgent judge of manners, and a man tolerant of neglect and familiarity, in a youth covered with tags, feathers, and martial foolery. Mr. Palmer is a plain man, of good sense and slow judgment. Mr. Bradbury is a botanist, who lived a good deal among the savages, but worth attending to. Mr. Fearon is a much abler writer than either of the two last, but no lover of America, -and a little given to exaggeration in his views of vices and prejudices. Among other faults with which our government is chargeable, the vice of impertinence has lately crept into our cabinet; and the Americans have been treated with ridicule and contempt. But they are becoming a little too powerful, we take it, for this cavalier sort of management; and are increasing with a rapidity which is really no matter of jocularity to us, or the other powers of the Old World. In 1791, Baltimore contained 13,000 inhabitants; in 1810, 46,000; in 1817, 60,000. In 1790, it possessed 13,000 tons of shipping; in 1798, 59,000; in 1805, 72,000; in 1810, 103,444. The progress of Philadelphia is as follows: Now, it is computed there are at least 120,000 inhabitants in the city and suburbs, of which 10,000 are free coloured people.'- Palmer, p. 254, 255. The population of New York (the city), in 1805, was 60,000; it is now 120,000. Their shipping, at present, amounts to 300,000 tons. The population of the state of New York was, at the accession of his present Majesty, 97,000, and is now near 1,000,000. Kentucky, first settled in 1773, had, in 1792, a population of 100,000; and in 1810, 406,000. Morse reckons the whole population of the western territory, in 1790, at 6000; in 1810 it was near half a million; and will probably exceed a million in 1820. These, and a thousand other equally strong proofs of their increasing strength, tend te extinguish pleasantry, and provoke thought. We were surprised and pleased to find from these accounts, that the Americans on the Red River and the Arkansas River have begun to make sugar and wine. Their importation of wool into this country is becoming also an object of some consequence; and they have inexhaustible supplies of salt and coal. But one of the great sources of wealth in America is and will be an astonishing command of inland navigation. The Mississippi, flowing from the north to the Gulf of Mexico, through seventeen degrees of latitude; the Ohio and the Alleghany almost connecting it with the Northern Lakes; the Wabash, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red River, flowing from the confines of New Mexico;- these rivers, all navigable, and most of them already frequented by steamboats, constitute a facility of internal communication, not, we believe, to be paralleled in the whole world. One of the great advantages of the American government is its cheapness. The American king has about 5000l. per annum, the vice-king 1000l. They hire their Lord Liverpool at about a thousand per annum, and their Lord Sidmouth (a good bargain) at the same sum. Their Mr. Crokers are inexpressibly reasonable, somewhere about the price of an English door-keeper, or bearer of a mace. Life, however, seems to go on very well, in spite of these low salaries; and the purposes of government to be very fairly answered. Whatever may be the evils of universal suffrage in other countries, they have not yet been felt in America; and one thing at least is established by her experience, that this institution is not necessarily followed by those tumults, the dread of which excites so 1 much apprehension in this country. In the most democratic states, where the payment of direct taxes is the only qualification of a voter, the elections are carried on with the utmost tranquillity; and the whole business, by taking votes in each parish or section, concluded all over the state in a single day. A great deal is said by Fearon about Caucus, the cant word of the Americans for the committees and party meetings in which the business of the elections is prepared-the influence of which he seems to consider as prejudicial. To us, however, it appears to be nothing more than the natural, fair, and unavoidable iufluence, which talent, popularity, and activity, always must have upon such occasions. What other influence can the leading characters of the democratic party in Congress possibly possess? Bribery is entirely out of the question-equally so is the influence of family and fortune. What then can they do, with their caucus or without it, but recommend? And what charge is it against the American government to say, that those members of whom the people have the highest opinion meet together to consult whom they shall recommend for president, and that their recommendation is successful in their different states? Could any friend to good order wish other means to be employed, or other results to follow? No statesman can wish to exclude influence, but only bad influence;--not the influence of sense and character, but the influence of money and punch. A very disgusting feature in the character of the present English government is its extreme timidity, and the cruelty and violence to which its timidity gives birth. Some hot-headed young person, in defending the principles of liberty, and attacking those abuses to which all governments are liable, passes the bounds of reason and moderation, or is thought to have passed them by those whose interest it is to think so. What matters it whether he has or not? You are strong enough to let him alone. With such institutions as ours he can do no mischief; perhaps he may owe his celebrity to your opposition; or, if he must be opposed, write against him,-set Candidus, |