Now I tell you, dear ——­, as I told my Vevaisan, that this case is a very fair example of the manner in which, for seven years, I have now been an attentive observer of the unworthy arts used to bring us into disrepute.  The power to injure, in order to serve their own selfish views, which old-established and great nations possess over one like our own, is not fully appreciated in America, nor do we attach sufficient importance to the consequences.  I am not conscious of a disposition to shut my eyes to our own peculiar national defects, more especially since the means of comparison have rendered me more sensible of their nature and existence; but nothing can be more apparent to any man of ordinary capacity, who has enjoyed the opportunities necessary to form a correct judgment, than the fact, that the defects usually imputed to us here, such as the want of morals, honesty, order, decency, liberality, and religion, are, in truth, as the world goes, the strong points of American character; while some of those on which we are a little too apt to pride ourselves,—­intelligence, taste, manners, and education, for instance, as applied to all beyond the base of society,—­are, in truth, those on which it would most become us to be silent.  Others may tell you differently, especially those who are under the influence of the “trading humanities,” a class that is singularly addicted to philanthropy or vituperation, as the balance-sheet happens to show variations of profit and loss.

I told my Swiss that one of the reasons why Europe made so many blunders in her predictions about America, was owing to the fact that she sought her information in sources ill qualified, and, perhaps, ill disposed to impart it.  Most of the information of this nature that either entered or left America, came, like her goods, through two or three great channels, or sea-ports, and these were thronged with the natives of half the countries of Europe; commercial adventurers, of whom not one in five ever got to feel or think like Americans.  These men, in some places, possess even a direct influence over a portion of the press, and by these means, as well as by their extended correspondence, they disseminate erroneous notions of the country abroad.  The cities themselves, as a rule, or rather the prominent actors in the towns, do not represent the tone of the nation, as is proved on nearly every distinctive political question that arises, by the towns almost uniformly being found in the minority, simply because they are purely trading communities, follow the instinct of their varying interests, and are ready to shout in the rear of any leader who may espouse them.  Now these foreign merchants, as a class, are always found on the side which is the most estranged from the regular action of the institutions of the country.  In America, intelligence is not confined to the towns; but, as a rule, there is less of it there than among the rural population.  As a proof of the errors which obtain on the subject