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HOSPITALITY.-Every foreigner who travels through the United States, especially in countries distant from the maritime towns, cannot help reflecting on the happiness of simple men, living amid the abundance of primitive things.*

Hospitality is the characteristic national trait of the native American, and is nearly as much so among the civilized inhabitants. You also find it exercised among several Indian tribes on the frontiers. When an European has smoaked in the calumet of one of their natives, he is as safe as the traveller who has caten salt with an Arab of the desert, or slept under his tent. This ancient virtue, which Mr. De Lile de Sales, calls the point of honour of the primitive ages, might furnish matter among the Americans for many anecdotes, calculated to reconcile the misanthrope with human nature. If a traveller applies to an inhabitant for any thing necessary to his subsistence or his comfort, and offers him money, he is often told, "We are not accustomed to make people pay for the pleasure they afford us." We will conclude by relating an ever memorable example of the sublime virtue by which the North Americans are distinguished. It is too honourable to human nature in general, and to those people in particular, not to be commemorated. Allow me therefore to avail myself of this opportunity to pay my just tribute of homage, as I was witness to the hospitality which excited the grateful admiration of all virtuous Frenchmen, and the particulars are too little known. Some poets would find in them a subject worthy of their pen. During the state of anarchy in which our colonies were thrown by the dreadful shock of the revolution, many colonists only found a safe asylum in the United States. The inhabitants of St. Domingo, who were the most numerous and the most unfortunate, exposed to all the horrors of anarchy and civil war, after seeing their property fall a prey to the flames, and themselves left destitute and pursued on every side, endeavoured to escape from fire and sword, by taking refuge on board of ship. But all had not the good fortune to reach the vessels.t

* Consult the Travels of Bayard, Crevecœur, Brissot, Liancourt, Weld; HISTO RICAL and POLITICAL RESEARCHES, by a Citizen of Virginia, 4 vols. 8vo. 1788, some Notes or letters in the BRITANNIC LIBRARY, and in the American Library, and what we have said in the Geography of the United States, forming a part of the two last French editions of that by Guthrie,

+ It was only after passing thirteen hours of agony away from home, that I escaped, as it were, by miracle, from the sword of assassins and from Cape François, amid a volley of shot. Obliged to take a circuitous road, I had many obstacles to surmount before I reached the coast, in traversing the mountains, exposed to the fire of the negro incendiaries; on the third day, however, of the

After the catastrophe of the Cape, in 1795, our misery had attained its zenith. We were cast almost naked, destitute of every thing, on the shores of North America, not by the fury of the waves, but by the violence and barbarity of man. If, as they fled from a land of desolation, imbrued in ruin and carnage, some few were provided with feeble resources to ward off the stroke of misery, they were robbed of their last hope by merciless English corsairs: few escaped their rapacity. Even women and infants at the breast were stripped! How dreadful was our situation! But what did we not afterwards owe to an all gracious Providence! From the horrors of civil war, we suddenly passed to a state of profound peace. After such a dreadful tempest, the bright day of hospitality and plenty arose to cheer us in the land of our allies and friends.

The inhabitants of towns and cities immediately availed themselves of every resource their benevolence could suggest to aid and console our wretched families. There you beheld different civil and religious communities, there every class of citizens, male and female, hasten to the sea shore, on board the ships, into the houses, and bring every kind of assistance to our companions in misfortune.

The maritime towns which signalized their humanity, were principally, Norfolk in Virginia, where we found the greatest affluence; Baltimore, Charlestown, Philadelphia, Wilming ton, New York and Boston. In some, considerable subscriptions were raised for the refugees; in others they were furnished with lodging, and provisions for six months were allowed. those who had neither trade nor profession.

Penetrated with gratitude for so many acts of beneficence, some among us having been enabled to parry the shafts of ill pillage, and that on which the town was set on fire, I reached the ship Jupiter, commanded by rear-admiral Cambis; but the crew had mutinied, put that offieer in irons, and threatened to blow up the ship if any attempt should be made to re-instate him in his command.

I was absolutely destitute of every thing; but I was less grieved at the total wreck of my fortune, than at the loss of my library, and a very valuable anatomical cabinet. These were the fruits of fifteen years labour, which I had removed in the year 1790, from Nancy to St. Domingo. Numerous collections of different kinds, made during a residence of nearly thirteen years in that colony, probably were destroyed by the flames.

What still more increased the horror of my situation, was the information I received of the supposed assassination of my wife: but the intelligence was false, for two months afterwards we mutually discovered that each other was in existence, through the medium of the advertisements she had published in a newspaper at New York, where she had taken refuge. Such re-iterated shocks had 10 powerful an effect on me, that in Virginia I was seized with a very pernicious fever, which in the end, considerably injured my health. 3 A

VOL. I.

fortune by their talents and laudable industry, wished to establish societies which might in the same manner succour other Frenchmen, whom similar misfortunes should induce to fly from the Antilles to these shores. We think our companions and successors may say to others in the words of Queen Dido: Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. (Eneid, Book i. v. 623-630.

Oh! Americans! You who have granted me an asylum, and you generous Virginians, who during five years honoured me with your confidence, accept this feeble testimony of gratitude! May your hospitable shores long maintain peace, that invaluable blessing, which you now almost alone on earth enjoy!

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHILANTHROPIST.

"O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd-
Lands, intersected by a narrow frith,

Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.-
Thus man devotes his brother and destroys-
Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?"

COWPER.

As the professed object of the Philanthropist is "to encou rage benevolent feelings," (for the performance of which object I believe it to be eminently calculated,) permit me to offer, through its respectable medium, a few remarks on a subject which must more or less have engaged the attention of its various readers: I allude to the subject of WAR. A time like the present, when the palm of victory seems allotted to British bravery, and the emblazoned deeds of the warrior are extolled in almost every publication of the day, is but ill suited for any observations on this head but such as savour of praise or flattery. The following, however, will not be found of that description. My aim in these remarks is, to

moderate and in some degree to damp the public joy on the late victories which we have gained; by shewing them that this glory, how much soever they may rejoice at it, is very dearly bought-has been obtained at the expense of the blood of thousands of our fellow-creatures, who have either been spitted on the bayonet or hewn down by the sword-who have left parents, wives, or offspring to lament, in tears, their untimely dissolution. Surely, when the reflection of these melancholy facts has its due weight on the mind, the veriest politician must shudder at the consideration of them; and how highly soever he may prize the laurels of victory, will be brought to confess, that glory thus acquired, is an overpurchase; that we had better live without this empty shadow of renown, than that so many of our fellow mortals should finish their earthly existence by such unnatural means. Yet what a number of lives have been lost in our late conquests :— In the battle of Busaco how many thousands fell! In the battle of Almeida how many thousands fell! In the battle of Albuera how many thousands fell!

Here I wish to arrest the attention, and arouse the feelings of an enlightened public to the horrors and devastation of war; for the honour, the glory, and the propriety of which, however the statesman may strive to plead, yet the man of true feeling, with justice, humanity, and mercy on his side, will surely be able to foil every attempt of the former to justify a proceeding as replete with iniquity as it is with bloodshed. I am well aware that when sitting over the newspaper, or when bestowing panegyrics on the present administration, and praising the sentiments and principles of its members, we may recount with rapturous delight the laurels that our armies have lately obtained-the conquests they have made, and the victories they have gained-we may then, perhaps, declare war to be noble and honourable, and assert that we have been fighting in a good cause; have been restoring freedom to an unhappy country, and rescuing it from the grasp of an ambitious and insatiable usurper.-But waving these political reflections, and looking a little deeper into things, our opinions will, I trust, be entirely changed.-Let us come into the field-let us imagine a whole army drawn up in order of battle;-what a spectacle do we behold! hundreds of human beings-Christians!-assembled together for the sole purpose of murdering one another, and falling, one after another, by the edge of the sword, or the point of the bayonet; while numbers of the wounded, gasping with

difficulty their expiring breath, on the blood-stained ground, lie crushed and trampled upon by their comrades, who have hitherto kept the field; yet who, perhaps, stand but to fall, and to share the dreadful fate of these unhappy sufferers.—Is not this enough to cause the tear of pity to flow down the cheek of the most unfeeling of mankind? Every military honour acquired under the banners of war, seems dyed--indelibly dyed, in human gorc.

Does it not appear somewhat strange to the contemplative mind, that war-a system in its nature so cruel, and in its effects so dire; at the same time so repugnant to every principle of humanity and justice-should receive the sanction of an enlightened and civilized people, while in direct violation of some of the plainest precepts contained in the christian code, and of none more so, than of that positive and unequivocal injunction of our blessed Lord, "Love your enemies?"

After what has been hinted, let every true patriot, instead of unwisely blaming the government or ministers for what, in the present state of things they perhaps cannot avoid-instead of this, I say, let every one consider wAR in itself, and unconnected with any individuals therein concerned, as a grand and growing evil, which ought to be done away, as one complete system of misery and injustice; and though it may not be in our power to do much towards remedying the evil in question, let us imbibe and endeavour to diffuse these benign sentiments;-let us foster in our bosoms a love of, and a desire for peace, and we shall, I am persuaded, be materially serving its glorious cause. While, therefore, we do not accuse any particular nation or government as the cause of war, considering that until people become more individually improved this lamentable practice of shedding human blood will not easily be abolished-let us all live in earnest expectation, and reverent belief of the fulfilment of that prophetical declaration, that the time will assuredly come, and the Gospel precept makes it our bounden duty to contribute all in our power to hasten that day, when mankind "shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks;" when "nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Brighton.

PHILOPACIS.

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