Were I to relate one-tenth part of the dishonest transactions recounted to me by Americans, of their fellow-citizens and friends, I am confident that no English reader would give me credit for veracity it would, therefore, be very unwise to repeat them, but I cannot refrain from expressing the opinion that nearly four years of attentive observation impressed on me, namely, that the moral sense is on every point blunter than with us.  Make an American believe that his next-door neighbour is a very worthless fellow, and I dare say (if he were quite sure he could make nothing by him) he would drop the acquaintance; but as to what constitutes a worthless fellow, people differ on the opposite sides of the Atlantic, almost by the whole decalogue.  There is, as it appeared to me, an obtusity on all points of honourable feeling.

“Cervantes laughed Spain’s chivalry away,” but he did not laugh away that better part of chivalry, so beautifully described by Burke as “the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, that chastity of honour, which feels a stain as a wound, which ennobles whatever it touches, and by which vice itself loses half its evil, by losing all its grossness.”  The better part of chivalry still mixes with gentle blood in every part of Europe, nor is it less fondly guarded than when sword and buckler aided its defence.  Perhaps this unbought grace of life is not to be looked for where chivalry has never been.  I certainly do not lament the decadence of knight errantry, nor wish to exchange the protection of the laws for that of the doughtiest champion who ever set lance in rest; but I do, in truth, believe that this knightly sensitiveness of honourable feeling is the best antidote to the petty soul-degrading transactions of every day life, and that the total want of it, is one reason why this free-born race care so very little for the vulgar virtue called probity.

CHAPTER 24

Journey to Philadelphia—­Chesapeak and Delaware Canal—­City of Philadelphia—­Miss Wright’s Lecture

In the latter part of August, 1830, we paid a visit to Philadelphia, and, notwithstanding the season, we were so fortunate as to have both bright and temperate weather for the expedition.  The road from Washington to Baltimore, which was our first day’s journey, is interesting in summer from the variety of luxuriance of the foliage which borders great parts of it.

We passed the night at Baltimore, and embarked next morning on board a steam-boat for Philadelphia.  The scenery of the Elk river, upon which you enter soon after leaving the port of Baltimore, is not beautiful.  We embarked at six in the morning, and at twelve reached the Chesapeak and Delaware canal; we then quitted the steam-boat, and walked two or three hundred yards to the canal, where we got on board a pretty little decked boat, sheltered by a neat awning, and drawn by four horses.  This canal cuts across