The wants of the poor have become known, at a time and under circumstances of great urgency. The humanity of the upper classes has been called into action, and most benevolently exerted. Legislative interference has been obtained to aid the public in putting a stop to the present calamity, and preventing its future recurrence. Enlarged views have been acquired respecting the progress and prevention of fever, and an evil which threatened formidable consequences has been at least comparatively mitigated. If such effects of the epidemic should gradually lead to an improvement in the habits, feelings, and condition of the whole community, that which to our narrow conceptions appears a calamity may thus become a signal benefit, and prove the means of introducing health and happiness in the place of disease and misery.'

Dr. B. is disposed to consider the epidemic fever as produced by contagion, imported from the continental countries suffering under the ravages of war: but he has only succeeded in shewing that war brings pestilence in its train, as the effect of the extreme privation and misery which it produces. The fever in Ireland did not appear first at the out-ports, and never prevailed to any extent among the troops stationed in that island.-The Doctor is a friend to the moderate use of the lancet in fever, but does not consider the disease as one of the Phlegmasia. He has given a very interesting statement. from Dr. Macartney, as the result of that gentleman's dissections of those who had died of typhus. In such cases, congestion and serous effusion were almost the only marks of disorganization in the viscera, which that eminent anatomist was able to detect.

A scale of the medium temperature in London and Dublin, during the spring, summer, and autumn of 1815 and 1816, is added to this volume, which shews that Ireland enjoys the more equable and milder temperature of the two, Scales have also been constructed by Dr. B., exhibiting the progress of the epidemic, drawn from the monthly lists of discharges from the Dublin hospitals, during nine months of 1817; and of the mortality during the same period. The greatest number of discharges occurred at the end of August, when they amounted to about 2750; and the highest mortality was in the end of September, when it rose to 114 in the month. The benevolence, sound judgment, and excellent spirit of observation, evinced throughout this report, lead us to look forwards with agreeable and anxious anticipation to the perusal of the work of Doctors Barker and Cheyne on the Epidemic of Ireland, which we have not yet found leisure to take up.

ART.

ART. XII. A Visit to North America, and the English Settlements in the Illinois, with a Winter-residence at Philadelphia, &c. By Adlard Welby, Esq., South Rauceby, Lincolnshire. 8vo. 224. and 14 Plates. 10s. 6d. Boards. Baldwin and Co.

pp.
1821.

POLISHED surfaces betray the slightest scratches, or rubs; and Mr. Welby is impatient of the little vexations which he encounters at inns and lodging houses. The waiter at an inn in England would open the door of his post-chaise and receive him with twenty bows, while the landlady's smiles and curtsies announce the warmth and sincerity of her welcome: but the tavern-keeper of America knows that his guests alight at his house for their own indispensable accommodation, and he feels that he confers advantage as well as receives it. His servants, too, are paid by him, and look not to his guests for an additional fee: so that, if the traveller obtains any thing more than common civility from them, it is purely gratuitous. A tavern-keeper at Pittsburg brought to Mr. W. some dirtywine-glasses, stinking of whiskey: out of a pitcher of water he poured some into a glass, shook it, threw the water into the tray on which the wine stood, and walked away satisfied with this proof of his cleanliness; and a female, in order to brush away the flies while Mr. W. was at supper, flourished over his head her well-used pocket-handkerchief. Complaints also of dirt, indifference of servants, and the frying of provisions in butter till the stomach turns even at the very smell,' fill too many pages of this volume. The author dislikes the Americans, and discourages emigration; but he makes this remark: it appears that the man who should emigrate to this country to spend an income might not gain by the change: it is equally evident that the individual who goes to make money may be benefitted.' We apprehend that this is an important concession: for those only who want to make money' are likely to emigrate from their own countries, not those who have enough to spend at home.

The sole object of Mr. Welby's visit to the Illinois was 'to ascertain the actual prospects of the emigrating agriculturist, mechanic, and commercial speculator.' It was a little discouraging that, before he had passed through the State of Ohio, on his way to "the Western Paradise," he met a large party of settlers returning to New York, which they had left a year and half before: who stated that they had purchased a fine fertile tract of land about 40 miles from the river Illinois, and near its confluence with the Mississippi, and had settled on it in the preceding summer: but that, having lost eight of their party by dysentery, fever and ague, the remainder had

taken

taken alarm, quitted their purchase, and returned home with. the loss of all their time, and almost all their money. The Americans, however, are of a very migratory character: "A river or a sea

Is to them a dish of tea,

And a kingdom bread and butter."

Before they have fairly given themselves time to settle in one place, they rove on to another, five hundred or a thousand miles distant; and, like flocks of sheep, they go in search of fresh pasture before the first is fed down. The price of land in Kentucky, in the neighbourhood of its very capital, Frankfort, and Lexington, is about one-sixth of what it was three years ago. Good land then sold for 600 dollars per acre, and may now be bought for 25; while very considerable tracts are to be had between these towns for five or six dollars per acre. In their search after gain, the Americans lose all considerations of comfort or attachment to home:

He makes a pig-inclosure of logs, a stable of the same, open to all the winds and to the poultry, and if his log-house will keep out the worst of the weather it is sufficient: and thus, with such buildings, with just as much corn and fother as will keep him, his family, and his stock, the settler passes his indolent days; smoking under the shed of his habitation, and waiting for some good offer for what he terms his improvement; when he immediately loads his waggon with his furniture and family, and without the shadow of regret leaves his abode to seek some other equally uncomfortable.'

An

Tavern-keepers are frequently representatives in congress, colonels, majors, 'squires, captains, and physicians. American, says Mr. W., may be proud of his liberty, but the pride of a gentleman never stands in the way of a profitable speculation; idleness only is here a disgrace, and if a man of a liberal education finds that his profession will not suf ficiently remunerate him, it is thought right that he should seek profit in trade.' This compliment to the good sense of the Americans will wear well, and comes from one who is not disposed to think very highly of them.

Mr. Welby is angry at being cheated by a blacksmith, who charged him ten dollars for eight new horse-shoes, steel toes, and eight removes,' as if travellers, and par ticularly foreigners, were not overcharged in all countries. Then he tells a story of a man who was murdered by some of his neighbours, an occurrence not very uncommon in England or Ireland; and because he happened not to hear that any punishment was ever talked of,' he exclaims, such is the

state

state of things in this Western Paradise, a beautiful garden from the hands of nature, and with but a little industry a most desirable country to dwell in .... with a people who do not shoot each other! Yet within ten pages we find Mr. W. so excessively irritated at one of his guides, who had deceived him about the character of a road which was very rough instead of being smooth, and which jolted his carriage, that he says, I became so enraged at the man's deception, that had he given me the least provocation I should have shot him? The poor fellow seems to have known with whom he had to deal, and luckily avoided this, — by keeping a little in advance, and mildly calling out, now and then, to direct the way.' (p. 103.)

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Of the English settlement at Illinois, this writer's account is just such as any one would expect from a traveller whose touchy temperament breaks forth at every turn of the wheel. He pretends to be disappointed, though it is clear that he expected nothing: but every thing disgusts and annoys him. From Mr. Flower, whose account of the settlement we shall presently notice, who has resided there some years, and gives a very different representation of it, he received every attention and hospitality; and to his exertions its very existence through the winter of 1818 is ascribed. Mr. Birkbeck, on the contrary, is represented as having even declined to give him a little water, (p. 111.), and is accused of having published direct and wilful falsehoods about its prosperity, (pp. 117, 118, &c.); of having made plausible representations to induce others to seek fortune and independence where they are not to be found; and of having led people into this wilderness, where, for any thing he has done, they may in vain look around for the expected shelter.... in short he seems only to have thought of himself, and to have falsified his public promises,' (pp. 119, 120.) These and others of a similar nature are very heavy charges, which it is out of our power either to corroborate or rebut. We can only say that, in addition to the natural repugnance to credit such accusations against a man of character and talent, we have not seen these allegations urged by others whom we consider as better authorities than Mr. Welby, namely, those residents in the settlement who have favored us with their accounts of it.

Returning with disgust from his western excursion, the traveller passed a winter at Philadelphia; and he properly expresses much satisfaction at seeing the various sectaries moving towards their respective places of worship on Sundays, in the most perfect amity with each other; thus forming an exception to the rest of the globe.' (P. 177.) Yet in the very

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1

next page we have the following remark, equally illiberal and insulting: while they (the people of the United States) talk of the moral and religious principle; of true liberty, honesty, &c.; their actions belie their words, and make them appear a nation of unprincipled Atheists; by the bye, a description of people, perhaps, more general over the world than we might be inclined to allow; people who outwardly profess belief in a Creator and future Judge of our actions, yet whose daily acts contradict their professions.' Of what religious sect Mr. Welby may be, we know not: but the benignant spirit of true Christianity certainly did not guide the pen of him who could outrage the feelings of a whole people, by uttering the calumnious paragraph which we have just transcribed. Let him read the beautiful chapter of Mr. Irving's " Bracebridge Hall"* intitled "The Author's Farewell," and blush for his offence against America.

ART. XIII. Two Years' Residence in the Settlement of the English Prairie, in the Illinois Country, United States, &c. &c. By John Woods. 8vo. pp. 310. 10s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1822.

IN

ART. XIV. Letters from the Illinois, 1820, 1821, containing an Account of the English Settlement at Albion and its Vicinity, and a Refutation of various Misrepresentations. By Richard, Flower. With a Letter from M. Birkbeck; and a Preface and Notes by Benjamin Flower. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Ridgway. 1822. N the first of these tracts, we have the plain unornamented journal of a man who seems to have had no object in view but to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:"- he does not disgust us with any affectation of sentiment, or attempt at high-flown description; but all is sober narrative. Mr. Woods emigrated with his family to the western wilds of America in the hope and expectation, doubtless, of improving his condition, but without indulging in those idle visions of unalloyed felicity, which have terminated in the frightful realities of misery and disappointment to many hapless adventurers.

Mr. W. pitched his tent in the Illinois, one of the youngest of the American States: the Ohio washing its southern border for 160 miles from the mouth of the Wabash to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, and separating it from Kentucky: the Mississippi bounding it for 600 miles on the west, and dividing it from the state of Missouri; and the Wabash flowing

* See Art. X. of this Review.

round