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PENNSYLVANIA ROAD
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supper, without any distinction of fare. If our table were spread with all the profusion of American luxury, such as ham, cold beef, fried chicken, &c. &c., (which are not uncommon for breakfast in this part of the world), or whether we sat down to a dish of tea and hoe-cake, our charge was all the same. The accommodations we met with on the road were pretty well, considering the short time this country has been settled, and the character and disposition of its inhabitants, which are not those of the most polished nations, but a character and disposition arising from a consciousness of independence, accompanied by a spirit and manner highly characteristic of this consciousness. It is not education alone that forms this character of the Americans: it stands upon a firmer basis than this. The means of subsistence being so easy in the country, and their dependence on each other consequently so trifling, that spirit of servility to those above them so prevalent in European manners, is wholly unknown to them; and they pass their lives without any regard to the smiles or the frowns of men in power.