at
my ease.

"At dinner were the two sons of the Mr. Grant I mentioned above. They
are, perhaps, the most promising young men in the country, and you may
possibly one day hear of them as at the head of the nation. [One of these
young men was afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Glenelg.]

"After dinner I got into conversation with them and with Mr. Thornton,
when America again became the topic. They asked me a great many questions
respecting America which I answered to the best of my ability. They at
length asked me if I did not think that the ruling party in America was
very much under French influence. I replied 'No'; that I believed on the
contrary that nine tenths of the American people were prepossessed
strongly in favor of this country. As a proof I urged the universal
prevalence of English fashions in preference to French, and English
manners and customs; the universal rejoicings on the success of the
English over the French; the marked attention shown to English travellers
and visitors; the neglect with which they treated their own literary
productions on account of the strong prejudice in favor of English works;
that everything, in short, was enhanced in its value by having attached
to it the name English.

"On the other hand, I told them that the French were a people almost
universally despised in America, and by at least one half hated. As in
England, they were esteemed the common enemies of mankind; that French
fashions were discountenanced and loathed; that a Frenchman was
considered as a man always to be suspected; that young men were forbidden
by their parents, in many instances, to associate with them, they
considering their company and habits as tending to subvert their morals,
and to render them frivolous and insincere. I added that in America as
well as everywhere else there were bad men, men of no principles, whose
consciences never stand in the way of their ambition or avarice; but that
I firmly believed that, as a body, the American Congress was as pure from
corruption and foreign influence as any body of men in the world. They
were much pleased with what I told them, and acknowledged that America
and American visitors generally had been treated with too much contempt
and neglect.

"In the course of the day I asked Mr. Thornton what were the objects that
the English Government had in view when they laid the Orders in Council.
He told me in direct terms, '_the Universal monopoly of Commerce_