While strolling about with pleasure, and only regretting that my dear daughters were not with me to enjoy the morning’s walk, I saw the gardener on his way to the garden.  I followed him, and was soon feasting my eyes upon the richest specimens of garden scenery.  There were the peaches hanging upon the trees that were fastened to the wall; vegetables, fruit, and flowers were there in all their bloom and beauty; and even the variegated geranium of a warmer clime, was there in its hothouse home, and seemed to have forgotten that it was in a different country from its own.  Dr. Lee shows great taste in the management of his garden.  I have seldom seen a more splendid variety of fruits and flowers in the southern States of America, than I saw at Hartwell House.

I should, however, state that I was not the only guest at Hartwell during my stay.  Dr. Lee had invited several others of the American delegation to the Peace Congress, and two or three of the French delegates who were on a visit to England, were enjoying the Doctor’s hospitality.  Dr. Lee is a staunch friend of Temperance, as well as of the cause of universal freedom.  Every year he treats his tenantry to a dinner, and I need not add that these are always conducted on the principle of total abstinence.

During the second day we visited several of the cottages of the work people, and in these I took no little interest.  The people of the United States know nothing of the real condition of the labouring classes of England.  The peasants of Great Britain are always spoken of as belonging to the soil.  I was taught in America that the English labourer was no better off than the slave upon a Carolina rice-field.  I had seen the slaves in Missouri huddled together, three, four, and even five families in a single room not more than 15 by 25 feet square, and I expected to see the same in England.  But in this I was disappointed.  After visiting a new house that the Doctor was building, he took us into one of the cottages that stood near the road, and gave us an opportunity, of seeing, for the first time, an English peasant’s cot.  We entered a low whitewashed room, with a stone floor that showed an admirable degree of cleanness.  Before us was a row of shelves filled with earthen dishes and pewter spoons, glittering as if they had just come from under the hand of a woman of taste.  A Cobden loaf of bread, that had just been left by the baker’s boy, lay upon an oaken table which had been much worn away with the scrubbing brush; while just above lay the old family bible that had been handed down from father to son, until its possession was considered of almost as great value as its contents.  A half-open door, leading into another room, showed us a clean bed; the whole presenting as fine a picture of neatness, order, and comfort, as the most fastidious taste could wish to see.  No occupant was present, and therefore I inspected everything with a greater degree of freedom.  In front of the cottage was