Identified, too, with those persons who represent the principles of the
old Puritans and Nonconformists in England, he would survey the growth
and spread of those principles in their new soil and climate with a
more than common interest. New England, especially, on whose sods the
foot-prints of the Pilgrims had been impressed, and on whose rocks
their early altars had been reared, would be to him hallowed ground.
Travelling, leisurely, as he did, at his own expense, northward from
New Orleans to Boston, and westward as far as Utica,--making a tour of
more than four thousand miles, sometimes known and sometimes unknown,
just as inclination prompted,--representing no public body, bound to no
party, a "Deputation sent by himself,"--he was completely free and
independent in thought and action, and enjoyed advantages for
observation which do not often meet.
It was natural that he should wish to tell his friends in Great
Britain, and in the West Indies, what he had seen and heard. To
denounce what is evil and to commend what is good is at all times
gratifying; in doing which, he sought to describe the men and the
manners of America just as they appeared to him.
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