In 1814, the London Quarterly began a series of articles aimed at ridiculing all things American in order to discourage English emigration to the United States. William Faux's tour of America played a prominent role in this series. Although he was considered a simpleton by the British reviewers who quoted him, his writings have some value in revealing conditions of "murder, deceit, inhumanity, defects of justice and barbarities" that other writers may have concealed, and in giving an "unwilling testimony to the vigor and energy of the young West, the vitality and freedom of its people, their prosperity and progress, and above all to the opportunity offered the poor but industrious emigrant to acquire a home and a competence in this land of promise." His journey includes stops in Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Philadelphia; Washington; the Shenandoah country; New York; Wheeling, in what is now West Virginia; Vincennes, Indiana; the English Prairie; Zanesville; Maysville; Lexington; Louisville; the state of Illinois; Baltimore and Alexandria before returning to England. The value of this volume is the contrast it provides to the volumes featuring the Michauxs, Cuming, Flower, Woods, and Flint, "a drastic corrective to what in the others is sometimes over-praise."
Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.
(1905), 2007, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe v6, PC or Mac, 306 pp.
ISBN: 9780788444289
101-CD4428
