This, indeed, went far beyond my ideas. The city of London, though
handsomer than Paris, is not so handsome as Philadelphia. Their
architecture is in the most wretched style I ever saw, not meaning to
except America, where it is bad, nor even Virginia, where it is worse
than in any other part of America which I have seen. The mechanical arts
in London are carried to a wonderful perfection. But of these I need
not speak, because, of them my countrymen have unfortunately too many
samples before their eyes. I consider the extravagance which has seized
them, as a more baneful evil than toryism was during the war. It is the
more so, as the example is set by the best and most amiable characters
among us. Would a missionary appear, who would make frugality the basis
of his religious system, and go through the land, preaching it up as the
only road to salvation, I would join his school, though not generally
disposed to seek my religion out of the dictates of my own reason, and
feelings of my own heart. These things have been more deeply impressed
on my mind, by what I have heard and seen in England. That nation hate
us, their ministers hate us, and their King, more than all other men.
They have the impudence to avow this, though they acknowledge our trade
important to them. But they think, we cannot prevent our countrymen from
bringing that into their laps. A conviction of this determines them
to make no terms of commerce with us. They say, they will pocket
our carrying trade as well as their own. Our overtures of commercial
arrangements have been treated with a derision, which shows their firm
persuasion, that we shall never unite to suppress their commerce, or
even to impede it. I think their hostility towards us is much more
deeply rooted at present, than during the war. In the arts, the most
striking thing I saw there, new, was the application of the principle
of the steam-engine to grist-mills. I saw eight pair of stones which
are worked by steam, and there are to be set up thirty pair in the same
house. A hundred bushels of coal, a day, are consumed at present. I do