Chapter III: Letter II: To Capt. W. B. Shubrick, U. S. Navy

Early the following morning, on looking out of my window, I saw a gentleman in a scarlet coat, and a hunting-cap, mounting in the yard of the inn. He had been hunting the previous day, and had evidently made a night of it. Soon after we went to look at the metropolitan church of England. Canterbury itself is a place of no great magnitude, but it is neat. Coming from France the houses struck us as being diminutively low, though they are very much the same sort of buildings one sees in the country towns of the older parts of the middle states. Burlington, Trenton, Wilmington, Bristol, Chester, &c., &c., will give you a very accurate idea of one of these small provincial towns, as will Baltimore, its night-caps apart, of one of the larger. It is usual to say that Boston is more like an English town, than any other place in America, but I should say that the resemblance is stronger in Baltimore, as a whole, and in Philadelphia, in parts. There are entire quarters of the latter town, which, were it not for their extreme regularity, might be taken for parts of London, though there are others which are quite peculiar to Philadelphia itself. As for New York, it is a perfect rag-fair, in which the tawdry finery of ladies of easy virtue, is exposed, in the same stall, and in close proximity to the greasy vestments of the pauper.

As we walked through the streets of Canterbury, I directed the attention of my companions to the diminutive stature of the people. I feel certain that the average height of the men we have met since landing, is fully an inch below that of one of our own towns. And yet we were in the heart of Kent, a county that the English say contains the finest race of the island. Though short, and not particularly sturdy, the people had a decent air, that is wanting in the French of the same classes, with all their _manner_. Mrs. —— was delighted with this peculiarity in her own sex, which strongly reminded her of home. Even the humblest wore some sort of a hat in the streets, and a large proportion wore those scarlet cloaks that used to be so common among the farmer’s wives in America. In this particular, the common people had the appearance of having adhered to fashions that our own population dropped some forty years since.

The cathedral of Canterbury is a fine church, without being one of the best of its class. It is neither as large nor as rich as some others in England, even, and in both respects, it is much inferior to many on the continent. Still it is large and noble, its length exceeding five hundred feet. Like all the great English churches, this cathedral is free from the miserable adjuncts that clerical cupidity has stuck against the walls of similar edifices, in France. It stands isolated from all other buildings, with grass growing prettily up to its very walls. This, of itself, was a great charm, compared to the filthy pavements, and the garbage that is apt to defile the temple, on the other side of the channel.

We found the officials at morning prayers, in the choir. It sounded odd to us, to hear our own beautiful service, in our own tongue, in such a place, after the Latin chants of the deep-mouthed canons, and we stood listening with reverence, although without the skreen. These English cathedrals maintain so much of the Romish establishments as still to possess their chapters, but instead of the ancient cloisters, the protestants having wives, there is a sort of square of snug houses around the edifice, for the residences of the prebendaries and other officials. I believe this is called a _close_, a word that we do not use, but which has the same signification as place, or _cul de sac_, not being a thoroughfare. Perhaps the term _close fellow_ came from these churchmen; no bad etymology, since it has a direct reference to the pocket. It has always been matter of astonishment to me, that a man of liberal attainments should possess one of these clerical sinecures, grow sleek and greasy on its products, eat, drink, and be merry, and fancy, all the while, that he was serving God! Men become accustomed to any absurdity. Were Christ to reappear on earth, and preach again his doctrine of self-denial and humility, he who should attempt to practice on his tenets, according to modern notions would be regarded as not only a fool himself, but as believing others weak as himself; but time has hallowed the abuses that were begotten by cupidity on ignorance.

The cathedral of Canterbury was the scene of Becket’s murder. His shrine was here, and for centuries, it was the resort of pilgrims. It merited canonization to be slain at the horns of the altar. The building still contains many curious relicks of this nature, but mere descriptions of such things, are usually very unsatisfactory.

After passing most of the morning exploring, and taking a tea breakfast, _à l’Anglaise_, we proceeded. The road took us through Rochester, Sittingbourne, Chatham, the edge of Woolwich, and Gravesend. The distance was fifty-five miles, and we passed at least five towns, which contained, on an average, ten thousand souls. Although the day was windy and raw, I stuck to the box the whole time, preferring to encounter the marrow-chilling weather of an English February, to missing the objects that came within our view. In the course of the morning we saw a party of horsemen, with a pack of hounds, dashing through a turnip field, but what they were after could not be seen.

You probably know that a principal naval station is at Sheerness, on the Medway. We did not pass immediately through this town, though Chatham forms almost a part of it. The river was full of ships, as was the Thames in a reach above Gravesend. Most of the vessels in the latter place, were frigates. They lay in tiers, and appeared to be well cared for. These ships were chiefly of the class of the old thirty-eights, or vessels that we call thirty-sixes, mounting eight-and-twenty eighteens below, and two-and-twenty lighter guns above.

It may be known to you, that after our last war, the English admiralty altered its mode of rating. The old thirty-eights are now called forty-sixes, though why, it is not easy to see. The pretext that we under-rated our ships, because we did not number the guns, is absurd, since we derived the usage directly from the English themselves; nor do their changes meet the difficulty, as no large vessel is now probably rated exactly according to her armament. The number of the guns, moreover, is no criterion of the force of a vessel, since the metal and powers of endurance make all the difference in the world. An old-fashioned English thirty-two, mounted twenty-six twelves below, with as many light guns as she could conveniently carry on her quarter-deck and forecastle, differing from the thirty-six merely in the weight of metal, which in the latter was that of eighteens. I have seen a thirty-two that carried as many guns as a thirty-six, and yet the latter was at least a fourth heavier, if not a third. Fetches of this nature, are every way unworthy of two such navies as those England and America, nor can they mislead any but the extremely ignorant. In my estimation the Duke of Wellington deserves more credit for the frank simplicity of his account of the battles he has fought, than for the victories he has gained; other men having been successful as well as himself, though few, indeed, are they who have been content with the truth.

It is a point of honour with the post-boys, on an English road, to pass all the stage-coaches. For this purpose they use cattle of a different mould; animals that possess foot rather than force. The loads are lighter, usually, and in this manner they are able to carry their point. I was pleased with the steady, quiet, earnest, manner in which this essential object was always attained, every thing like the appearance of strife and racing being studiously avoided.

The terrible Shooter’s Hill offered no longer any terrors, and as for Blackheath, it had more the air of a village green than of a waste. The goodness of the roads, the fleetness of the cattle, and, more than all, the system of credits, have rendered highwaymen and footpads almost unknown in England. Robberies of this nature are now much more frequent in France than in this island, for several flagrant instances have lately occurred in the former country. A single footpad is said to have rifled a _diligence_, sustained by a platoon of _paddies_, armed with sticks, and arrayed by moonlight! The story is so absurd, that one wishes it may be true.

In travelling along these beautiful roads, at the rate of ten or eleven miles the hour, in perfect security, we are irresistibly led to recall the pictures of Fielding, with his carriers, his motley cargoes, and his footpads!

London met us, in its straggling suburbs, several miles down the river. I cannot give you any just idea of our _carte de route_, but it led us through a succession of streets lined by houses of dingy yellow bricks, until we suddenly burst out upon Waterloo Bridge. Crossing this huge pile, we whirled into the Strand, and were set down at the hotel of Mrs. Wright, Adam street, Adelphi. Forty years since we should have been in the very focus of the fashionable world, so far as hotels were concerned, whereas we were now at its _Ultima Thule_. The Strand, as its name signifies, runs parallel to the river, and at no great distance from its banks, leaving room, however, for a great number of short streets between it and the water. Nearly all these streets, most of which are in fact “places,” having no outlets at one end, are filled with furnished lodging-houses, and, in some of the best of them, I believe it is still permitted to a gentleman to reside. When, however, I mentioned to a friend that we were staying in Adam street, he exclaimed that we ought, on no account, to have gone east of Charing Cross. These were distinctions that gave us very little concern, and we were soon refreshing ourselves with some of worthy Mrs. Wright’s excellent tea.

One of the merits of England is the perfect order in which every thing is kept, and the perfect method with which every thing is done. One sees no cracked cups, no tea-pots with broken noses, no knives thin as wafers, no forks with one prong longer than the other, no coach wanting a glass, no substitute for a buckle, no crooked poker or tongs loose in the joint, no knife that wont cut, no sugar cracked in lumps too big to be used, no hat unbrushed, no floor with a hole in it, no noisy servants, no bell that wont ring, no window that wont open, no door that wont shut, no broken pane, nor any thing out of repair that might have been mended. I now speak of the eyes of him who can pay. In France, half of these incongruities are to be met with amid silken curtains and broad mirrors, though France is rapidly improving in this respect; but, at home, we build on a huge scale, equip with cost, and take refuge in expedients as things go to decay. We are not as bad as the Irish are said to be, in this respect, but he who insists on having things precisely as they ought to be, is usually esteemed a most unreasonable rogue, more especially in the interior. We satisfy ourselves by acknowledging a standard of merit in comforts, but little dream of acting up to it. We want servants, and mechanical labour is too costly. The low price at which comforts are retailed here, has greatly surprised me. I feel persuaded that most of the common articles of English manufacture come to the consumer in America, at about thrice their original cost.

The second night we were in London, a party of street musicians came under the window and began to play. They had tried several tunes without success, for I was stretched on a sofa reading, but the rogues contrived, after all, to abstract half a crown from my pocket, by suddenly striking up _Yankee Doodle_! It is something, at all events, to have taught John Bull that we take pride in that tune. You can scarcely imagine the effect it produced on my nerves to hear it in the streets of London, though you and I have heard it “rolling off for grog” so often with perfect indifference. I have since been told by a music-master, that the air is German. He touched it for me, though with a time and cadence that completely changed its character. The English took the tune of an old song beginning with “Miss Nancy Locket lost her pocket,” and adapted their words of derision to it; but there is strictly no such thing as an English school of music. Most of their songs, I believe, have the _motives_ of German airs. The prevalent _motive_ of all English music, however, is gold.

I cannot tell you how many furnished apartments and lodging-houses London contains, but the number is incredible. They can be had at all prices, and with nearly every degree of comfort and elegance. The rush of people to town is so great, during the season, that there are periods when it is not easy to have a choice, notwithstanding, though we were sufficiently early to make a selection. In one thing I was disappointed. The English unquestionably are a neat people, in all that relates to their houses, and yet the furnished lodgings of London are not generally as tidy as those of Paris. The general use of coal may be a reason, but after passing a whole day in examining rooms, we scarcely met with any that appeared sufficiently neat. The next morning I tried a new quarter, where we did a little better, though the effects of the coal-dust met us everywhere.

We finally took a small house in St. James’s Place, a narrow _inlet_ that communicates with the street of the same name, and which is quite near the palace and the parks. We had a tiny drawing-room, quite plainly furnished, a dining-room, and three bed-rooms, with the use of the offices, &c., for a guinea a-day. The people of the house cooked for us, went to market, and attended to the rooms, while our own man and maid did the personal service. I paid a shilling extra for each fire, and as we kept three, it came to another guinea weekly. This, you will remember, was during the season, as it is called; at another time the same house might have been had, quite possibly, for half the money.

Many people take these furnished houses by the year, and more still, by the quarter. I was surprised to find those in our neighbourhood gradually filling with people of condition, many of the coaches that daily stood before their doors having coronets. Perhaps more than half of the peers of the three kingdoms lodge in this way when in town, and I believe a smaller proportion still actually own the houses in which they reside. Even in those cases in which the head of a great family has a townhouse of his own, the heir and younger children, if married, seldom reside in it, the English customs, in this respect, being just the reverse of those of France.

There is a great convenience in having it in one’s power to occupy a house that is in all respects private, ready furnished, and to come and go at will. Were the usage introduced into our own towns, hundreds of families would be induced to pass their winters in them, that now remain in the country from aversion to the medley and confusion of a hotel, or a boarding-house, as well as their expense. We have a double advantage for the establishment of such houses, in New York at least, in the fact that we have two seasons, yearly, the winter and the summer. Our own people would occupy them during the former portion of the year, and the southern travellers in the warm weather. The introduction of such houses would, I think, have a beneficial influence on our deportment, which is so fast tending towards mediocrity, under the present gregarious habits of the people. When there is universal suffrage at a dinner-table, or in the drawing-room, numbers will prevail, as well as in the ballot-boxes, and the majority in no country is particularly polite and well bred. The great taverns that are springing up all over America, are not only evils in the way of comfort and decency, but they are actually helping to injure the tone of manners. They are social Leviathans.