farmers think of this, and how would they like it? If however, Mr. {32} Birkbeck and others must emigrate, why should they go into our wilderness, far from society, or at best mixing up with the refuse of our population, with men of stained names, thieves, and insolvents, who go thither to hide themselves; voluntary exiles, of whom society is well rid, because unable to endure them. The Caucus which you attended on Sunday night, embodies the respectable part of the citizens, federalists, and democrats, who differ but little in real principle: the former are always most favourable to England, and think a war with her always unnecessary, and an evil to be avoided, the latter prefer France and the French." My host seems to regret that his freehold and other large estates give to him no more power than that of the humblest citizen, and says that my countryman, Joseph Lancaster, will be forbidden to instruct the black people of the South, it being indispensably necessary that they should remain in ignorance.[1]
9th.—Agreeably to promise, I this morning visited the Honourable Wm. Gray, a moderate democrat, a hoary honest patriotic chronicler of America long before the revolution. He is, in other respects, a kind-hearted, intelligent, grandee of this republic, highly influential both in commerce and politics, filling and having filled the most responsible stations in the state of Massachusetts. He seems the exact reverse of Mr. Lyman, in state matters
- ↑ Joseph Lancaster, born in London in 1778, entered the ministry at the age of sixteen; but soon turning his attention to educational matters, he became the founder of the "Lancastrian system," a method of mutual instruction wherein the more advanced pupils taught those below them. In 1818 he came to America, and under the name of the National Lancastrian Society, associations were formed for the purpose of introducing his system in the principal cities of the United States. Many schools were established, but the founder remained poor, and was accidentally killed in New York city (1838).—Ed.
