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FEELING TOWARDS ENGLAND.
Chap. XIX.

rivalries have been encouraged, and national jealousies fomented. In travelling through the United States I expected to find a very strong anti-English feeling. In this I was disappointed. It is true that I scarcely ever entered a car, steamboat, or hotel, without hearing England made a topic of discussion in connexion with the war; but, except on a few occasions in the West, I never heard any other than kindly feelings expressed towards our country. A few individuals would prognosticate failure and disaster, and glory in the anticipation of a "busting-up;" but these were generally "Kurnels" of militia, or newly-arrived Irish emigrants. These last certainly are very noisy enemies, and are quite ready to subscribe to the maxim, "That wherever England possesses an interest, there an American wrong exists." Some of the papers likewise write against England in no very measured terms; but it must be borne in mind that declamatory speaking and writing are the safety-valves of a free community, and the papers from which our opinion of American feeling is generally taken do not represent even a respectable minority in the nation. American commercial interests are closely interwoven with ours, and "Brother Jonathan" would not lightly go against his own interests by rushing into war on slight pretences.

While I was dining at an hotel in one of the great American cities a gentleman proposed to an English friend of his to drink "Success to Old England." Nearly two hundred students of a well-known college were present, and one of them begged to join in drinking the toast on behalf of his fellow-students. "For," he added, "we, in common with the educated youth of America, look