Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/20

14 in good society, he respects honorable reserves, and uses less offensive familiarity with the facts he observes than does Faux. Welby's dislike for America arises from his conservative disposition. Accustomed to the conditions of life encountered by the upper middle class in England, he had formulated for himself a standard of comfort as yet not attainable in the United States; and lacking imagination, he failed to perceive that the crudeness in American life evidenced the lack of opportunity rather than signified deterioration. Travelling westward in his own carriage, with a valet to attend him, he stoutly inveighs against the bad roads, poor inns, high charges, and indifferent food, as well as the crudity and license of American manners, and the extravagance, uncleanliness, and rudeness of American living. His irritation reaches a climax when he exclaims, "To a rough untutored set of savages, another race of little less than savages (clothed savages) has succeeded."

In palliation for Welby's discontent, and as a partial excuse for the bad treatment he alleges, it should be remembered that just then Englishmen were in high disfavor in the West, and every patriotic frontiersman regarded it almost in the light of a national duty to take advantage of any transient traveller of that nation. Welby, therefore, saw life in the West through pessimistic spectacles. Ohio was a wilderness, the abode of the land shark; Kentucky lands had decreased in value, and its population was moving away; the Illinois settlement was a failure, its founders at variance, its people longing for their old home. He remarks upon sectional divergencies, moralizes upon duelling, and deprecates an oligarchy founded merely upon wealth and good clothes. His aristocratic prejudices are exhibited in his preference for the society