Diary in America, Series One | Page 4

Power's and Mr Grund's most decidedly so; and Miss Martineau's, filled as it is with absurdities and fallacies, was intended, at all events to be favourable.
In opposition to them, we have Mr Cooper's remarks upon England, in which my countrymen are certainly not spared; and, since that publication, we have another of much greater importance, written by Mr Carey, of Philadelphia, not, indeed, in a strain of vituperation or ill-feeling, but asserting, and no doubt to his own satisfaction and that of his countrymen, proving, that in every important point, that is to say, under the heads of "Security of Person and Property, of Morals, Education, Religion, Industry, Invention, Credit," (and consequently Honesty,) America is in advance of England and every other nation in Europe!! The tables, then, are turned; it is no longer the English, but the Americans who are the assailants; and such being the case, I beg that it may be remembered, that many of the remarks which will subsequently appear in this work have been forced from me by the attacks made upon my nation by the American authors; and that, if I am compelled to draw comparisons, it is not with the slightest wish to annoy or humiliate the Americans, but in legitimate and justifiable defence of my own native land.
America is a wonderful country, endowed by the Omnipotent with natural advantages which no other can boast of; and the mind can hardly calculate upon the degree of perfection and power to which, whether the states are eventually separated or not, it may in the course of two centuries arrive. At present all is energy and enterprise; everything is in a state of transition, but of rapid improvement--so rapid, indeed, that those who would describe America now, would have to correct all in the short space of ten years; for ten years in America is almost equal to a century in the old continent. Now, you may pass through a wild forest, where the elk browses and the panther howls; in ten years, that very forest, with its denizens, will, most likely, have disappeared, and in their place you will find towns with thousands of inhabitants; with arts, manufactures, and machinery, all in full activity.
In reviewing America, we must look upon it as showing the development of the English character under a new aspect, arising from a new state of things. If I were to draw a comparison between the English and the Americans, I should say that there is almost as much difference between the two nations at this present time, as there has long been between the English and the Dutch. The latter are considered by us as phlegmatic and slow; and we may be considered the same, compared with our energetic descendants. Time to an American is everything, [Note 2] and space he attempts to reduce to a mere nothing. By the steamboats, rail-roads, and the wonderful facilities of water-carriage, a journey of five hundred miles is as little considered in America, as would be here a journey from London to Brighton. "Go ahead" is the real motto of the country; and every man does push on, to gain in advance of his neighbour. The American lives twice as long as others; for he does twice the work during the time that he lives. He begins life sooner: at fifteen he is considered a man, plunges into the stream of enterprise, floats and struggles with his fellows. In every trifle an American shows the value he puts upon time. He rises early, eats his meals with the rapidity of a wolf, and is the whole day at his business. If he be a merchant, his money, whatever it may amount to, is seldom invested; it is all floating--his accumulations remain active; and when he dies, his wealth has to be collected from the four quarters of the globe.
Now, all this energy and activity is of English origin; and were England expanded into America, the same results would be produced. To a certain degree, the English, were in former times, what the Americans are now; and this it is which has raised our country so high in the scale of nations; but since we have become so closely packed--so crowded, that there is hardly room for the population, our activity has been proportionably cramped and subdued. But, in this vast and favoured country, the very associations and impressions of childhood foster and enlighten the intellect and precociously rouse the energies. The wide expanse of territory already occupied--the vast and magnificent rivers-- the boundless regions yet remaining to be peopled--the rapidity of communication--the dispatch with which everything is effected, are evident almost to the child. To those who have rivers many thousand miles in length, the passage across the Atlantic (of 3,500 miles) appears