Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/124

 show how adroitly they can cheat and wrong each other. Few look upon knavery with disgust, but rather with a smile of approbation. It is indeed difficult to trade with the people in an old plain honest way. Knavery damns the North, and slavery the South. Free blacks without a certificate are here seized, put into our city gaol, advertised a month, and then sold for gaol fees, when they become slaves for life. Who would {107} expect to find a certificate always in the pocket of a poor wandering African, who has become free?

16th.—Introduced to Mr. Wm. Elliott of the Patent office, the contents of which constitute a splendid monument to the ingenuity and mechanical genius of this country. Many models appear which have never been copied. Mr. Elliott is an Englishman, descended from a noble family, and was a neighbour of, and known to Archdeacon Paley. He is, too, an eminent mathematician and astronomer, philosopher, and public orator. By him I was introduced to Mr. Adams, a learned, highly intelligent, and honourable Yankee. Republicans affect to be no respecters of persons merely, but they cannot conceal the effect and influence of property and authority.

I met again Mr. Adam Lyon, late of Chatteris, Isle of Ely, now a butcher in this city. He states, that farming at Honey, near his native town, is better than any here, although he knows of some farmers in Maryland who net great profits. A dollar in trade here is said to be equal to a guinea in England, but business not so easily or respectably managed. I received from Mr. Edw. Dumbleton, an experimental brewer, a statement of brewing porter in this country, by which it is clear to him, that by a capital of 1,400l. 700l. or 50l. per cent. is to be netted by