American Notes | Page 3

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American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens Scanned
and proofed by David Price email [email protected]

American Notes for General Circulation

PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN
NOTES"

IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it,
unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it
expresses, are quite unaltered too.
My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any

existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves
whether there has been anything in the public career of that country
during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its present
position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and
tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, they will judge me. If
they discern any evidences of wrong- going in any direction that I have
indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If
they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.
Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United
States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a
stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America.
I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any length. I
have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth is the truth; and
neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make
it otherwise. The earth would still move round the sun, though the
whole Catholic Church said No.
I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the
country. To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity, or
partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is always a
very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight years, and could
disregard for eighty more.
LONDON, JUNE 22, 1850.

PREFACE TO THE "CHARLES DICKENS" EDITION OF
"AMERICAN NOTES"

MY readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, had, at that
time, any existence but in my imagination. They can examine for
themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that
country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences
and tendencies really did exist. As they find the fact, they will judge me.
If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, in any direction that I
have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote.
If they discern no such indications, they will consider me altogether
mistaken - but not wilfully.
Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favour of

the United States. I have many friends in America, I feel a grateful
interest in the country, I hope and believe it will successfully work out
a problem of the highest importance to the whole human race. To
represent me as viewing AMERICA with ill- nature, coldness, or
animosity, is merely to do a very foolish thing: which is always a very
easy one.



CHAPTER I
- GOING AWAY

I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths comical
astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of January
eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my head
into, a 'state-room' on board the Britannia steam- packet, twelve
hundred tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax and Boston, and
carrying Her Majesty's mails.
That this state-room had been specially engaged for 'Charles Dickens,
Esquire, and Lady,' was rendered sufficiently clear even to my scared
intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the fact, which was
pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin mattress, spread like a
surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf. But that this was the
state-room concerning which Charles Dickens, Esquire,