That such men should give prejudicial accounts of America, is not
a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation, are
too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national
character is yet in a state of fermentation: it may have its
frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and
wholesome; it has already given proofs of powerful and generous
qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something
substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to
strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable
properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; who are
only affected by the little asperities incident to its present
situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of
things; of those matters which come in contact with their private
interests and personal gratifications. They miss some of the snug
conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old,
highly-finished, and over-populous state of society; where the
ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful and
servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices of appetite
and self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are
all-important in the estimation of narrow minds; which either do
not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than
counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused
blessings.

They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonable
expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to
themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the
natives were lacking in sagacity, and where they were to become
strangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen but easy manner.