APPENDIX B.
The chapter on the disposition of the people of England towards the United States was written before, and not in anticipation of the coming of Kossuth to this country. The general discussion of the subject which that event has occasioned makes it proper for me to mention this. Opinions opposing the views I have presented having been expressed by several persons in honorable positions, for one at least of whom I entertain the highest respect, I wish to repeat that, during five months that I travelled in Great Britain, in almost every day of which time I heard the United States talked about with every appearance of candor and honesty, I do not recollect ever to have heard any expression of hostile feeling (except from a few physical-force Chartists, with regard to slavery) towards our government or our people, and only from a few stanch church-and-state men against our principles of government. Perhaps the highest eulogy on Washington ever put in words was written by Lord Brougham. The Duke of Wellington lately took part in a banquet in honour of American independence. I myself attended a Fourth-of-July dinner in an old palace of George III., and saw there a member of Parliament, and other distinguished Englishmen, drink to the memory of Washington, and in honour of the day. Having observed that Mr. Howard was threatened with a mob, for keeping an English ensign flying from a corner of the Irving House, I will add that I more than once saw the American ensign so displayed in England, without exciting remark; and I know one gentleman living in the country who regularly sets it over his house on the Fourth of July, and salutes it with gun-firing and festivities, so that the day is well known, and kindly regarded by all his neighbours, as “the American holiday.”