Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/273

 most dishonest." He says, Mr. Birkbeck maintained his father during the last six years of his life. I returned to sup and sleep at Birkbeck's, who, on hearing where we spent the day, said, "You have heard much falsehood. Hanks is a bad man, having quarreled with me, and nearly all around him."

Cobbett now became the theme; I said he had {286} sent the bones of Tom Paine to be enshrined at Botley. "He cannot be such a fool?" "His writings have been useful, and extensively read," said I. "Yes, that is true, but he sticks not to truth; he is a caricaturist, and a dishonest man." He then showed me his manuscript reply to Mr. Cobbett's attack. In giving my opinion of it, I pointed out what I conceived to be a grand omission, that of not noticing "no market for a surplus produce," and said, "he will fasten upon that." "Yes, he probably will, but that is a general question applicable to the whole western country." "He will," said I, "have a rejoinder for you." "Well, I must write again."

His opinion of Rapp and Harmony is unfriendly to such a community. It is not firm as to temporals, and as to spirituals, it is a priestly tyranny, interested in enslaving body and conscience, in order that a few may some day divide the spoil. They keep no accounts, and as the land is conveyed to Rapp and his followers, those followers, by good management, may become very few; then Harmony will be divided. "No pleasurable feelings possess a man who contemplates this community."

26th.—At breakfast, this morning, the young Birkbecks said they had seen a general employed in pig-killing, and a judge driving his own waggon. I asked the young ladies how they relished the rattle-snake. They said, as it was of a prodigious size and tough and old, it