I know perfectly well that there is, in that
country, a numerous class of well-intentioned
persons prone to be dissatisfied with all
accounts of the Republic whose citizens they
are, which are not couched in terms of exalted
and extravagant praise. I know perfectly well
that there is in America, as in most other
places laid down in maps of the great world, a
numerous class of persons so tenderly and
delicately constituted, that they cannot bear
the truth in any form. And I do not need the
gift of prophecy to discern afar off, that they
who will be aptest to detect malice, ill will,
and all uncharitableness in these pages, and to
show, beyond any doubt, that they are
perfectly inconsistent with that grateful and
enduring recollection which I profess to
entertain of the welcome I found awaiting me
beyond the Atlantic--will be certain native
journalists, veracious and gentlemanly, who
were at great pains to prove to me, on all
occasions during my stay there, that the
aforesaid welcome was utterly worthless.

"But, venturing to dissent even from these high
authorities, I formed my own opinion of its
value in the outset, and retain it to this
hour; and in asserting (as I invariably did on
all public occasions) my liberty and freedom of
speech while I was among the Americans, and in
maintaining it at home, I believe that I best
show my sense of the high worth of that
welcome, and of the honourable singleness of
purpose with which it was extended to me. From
first to last I saw, in the friends who crowded
round me in America, old readers, over-grateful
and over-partial perhaps, to whom I had happily
been the means of furnishing pleasure and
entertainment; not a vulgar herd who would
flatter and cajole a stranger into turning with
closed eyes from all the blemishes of the
nation, and into chaunting its praises with the
discrimination of a street ballad-singer. From
first to last I saw, in those hospitable hands,
a home-made wreath of laurel; and not an iron
muzzle disguised beneath a flower or two.

"Therefore I take--and hold myself not only
justified