emigrant, and the knowledge of such living created for this type
remaining in England a sort of halo of industrial prosperity surrounding
America. But there was a second testimony brought out by Horton's
Committee, less general, yet to be picked up here and there as evidence
of another argument for emigration to America. The labourer did not
dilate upon political equality, nor boast of a share in government,
indeed generally had no such share, but he did boast to his fellows at
home of the social equality, though not thus expressing it, which was
all about him. He was a common farm hand, yet he "sat down to meals"
with his employer and family, and worked in the fields side by side with
his "master." This, too, was an astounding difference to the mind of the
British labourer. Probably for him it created a clearer, if not
altogether universal and true picture of the meaning of American
democracy than would have volumes of writing upon political
institutions. Gradually there was established in the lower orders of
British society a visualization of America as a haven of physical
well-being and personal social happiness.

This British labouring class had for long, however, no medium of
expression in print. Here existed, then, an unexpressed public opinion
of America, of much latent influence, but for the moment largely
negligible as affecting other classes or the Government. A more
important emigrating class in its influence on opinion at home, though
not a large class, was composed about equally of small farmers and small
merchants facing ruin in the agricultural and trading crises that
followed the end of the European war. The British travellers' books
from 1810 to 1820 are generally written by men of this class, or by
agents sent out from co-operative groups planning emigration. Generally
they were discontented with political conditions at home, commonly
opposed to a petrified social order, and attracted to the United States