Letters from an American Farmer

Letters from an American Farmer

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur

Who would have thought that because I received you with hospitality

and kindness, you should imagine me capable of writing with

propriety and perspicuity? Your gratitude misleads your judgment.

The knowledge which I acquired from your conversation has amply

repaid me for your five weeks' entertainment. I gave you nothing

more than what common hospitality dictated; but could any other

guest have instructed me as you did? You conducted me, on the map,

from one European country to another; told me many extraordinary

things of our famed mother-country, of which I knew very little; of

its internal navigation, agriculture, arts, manufactures, and trade:

you guided me through an extensive maze, and I abundantly profited

by the journey; the contrast therefore proves the debt of gratitude

to be on my side. The treatment you received at my house proceeded

from the warmth of my heart, and from the corresponding sensibility

of my wife; what you now desire must flow from a very limited power

of mind: the task requires recollection, and a variety of talents

which I do not possess. It is true I can describe our American modes

of farming, our manners, and peculiar customs, with some degree of

propriety, because I have ever attentively studied them; but my

knowledge extends no farther. And is this local and unadorned

information sufficient to answer all your expectations, and to

satisfy your curiosity? I am surprised that in the course of your

American travels you should not have found out persons more

enlightened and better educated than I am; your predilection excites

my wonder much more than my vanity; my share of the latter being

confined merely to the neatness of my rural operations.

My father left me a few musty books, which his father brought from

England with him; but what help can I draw from a library consisting

mostly of Scotch Divinity, the Navigation of Sir Francis Drake, the

History of Queen Elizabeth, and a few miscellaneous volumes? Our

minister often comes to see me, though he lives upwards of twenty

miles distant. I have shown him your letter, asked his advice, and

solicited his assistance; he tells me, that he hath no time to

spare, for that like the rest of us must till his farm, and is

moreover to study what he is to say on the sabbath. My wife (and I

never do anything without consulting her) laughs, and tells me that

you cannot be in earnest. What! says she, James, wouldst thee

pretend to send epistles to a great European man, who hath lived

abundance of time in that big house called Cambridge; where, they

say, that worldly learning is so abundant, that people gets it only

by breathing the air of the place? Wouldst not thee be ashamed to

write unto a man who has never in his life done a single day's work,

no, not even felled a tree; who hath expended the Lord knows how

many years in studying stars, geometry, stones, and flies, and in

reading folio books? Who hath travelled, as he told us, to the city

of Rome itself! Only think of a London man going to Rome! Where is

it that these English folks won't go? One who hath seen the factory

of brimstone at Suvius, and town of Pompey under ground! wouldst

thou pretend to letter it with a person who hath been to Paris, to

the Alps, to Petersburg, and who hath seen so many fine things up

and down the old countries; who hath come over the great sea unto

us, and hath journeyed from our New Hampshire in the East to our

Charles Town in the South; who hath visited all our great cities,

knows most of our famous lawyers and cunning folks; who hath

conversed with very many king's men, governors, and counsellors, and

yet pitches upon thee for his correspondent, as thee calls it?

As you are the first enlightened European I have ever had the

pleasure of being acquainted with, you will not be surprised that I

should, according to your earnest desire and my promise, appear

anxious of preserving your friendship and correspondence. By your

accounts, I observe a material difference subsists between your

husbandry, modes, and customs, and ours; everything is local; could

we enjoy the advantages of the English farmer, we should be much

happier, indeed, but this wish, like many others, implies a

contradiction; and could the English farmer have some of those

privileges we possess, they would be the first of their class in the

world. Good and evil I see is to be found in all societies, and it

is in vain to seek for any spot where those ingredients are not

mixed. I therefore rest satisfied, and thank God that my lot is to

be an American farmer, instead of a Russian boor, or an Hungarian

peasant. I thank you kindly for the idea, however dreadful, which

you have given me of their lot and condition; your observations have

confirmed me in the justness of my ideas, and I am happier now than

I thought myself before. It is strange that misery, when viewed in

others, should become to us a sort of real good, though I am far

from rejoicing to hear that there are in the world men so thoroughly

wretched; they are no doubt as harmless, industrious, and willing to

work as we are. Hard is their fate to be thus condemned to a slavery

worse than that of our negroes. Yet when young I entertained some

thoughts of selling my farm. I thought it afforded but a dull

repetition of the same labours and pleasures. I thought the former

tedious and heavy, the latter few and insipid; but when I came to

consider myself as divested of my farm, I then found the world so

wide, and every place so full, that I began to fear lest there would

be no room for me. My farm, my house, my barn, presented to my

imagination objects from which I adduced quite new ideas; they were

more forcible than before. Why should not I find myself happy, said

I, where my father was before? He left me no good books it is true,

he gave me no other education than the art of reading and writing;

but he left me a good farm, and his experience; he left me free from

debts, and no kind of difficulties to struggle with.--I married, and

this perfectly reconciled me to my situation; my wife rendered my

house all at once cheerful and pleasing; it no longer appeared

gloomy and solitary as before; when I went to work in my fields I

worked with more alacrity and sprightliness; I felt that I did not

work for myself alone, and this encouraged me much. My wife would

often come with her knitting in her hand, and sit under the shady

trees, praising the straightness of my furrows, and the docility of

my horses; this swelled my heart and made everything light and

pleasant, and I regretted that I had not married before.

I felt myself happy in my new situation, and where is that station

which can confer a more substantial system of felicity than that of

an American farmer, possessing freedom of action, freedom of

thoughts, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little

from us? I owe nothing, but a pepper corn to my country, a small

tribute to my king, with loyalty and due respect; I know no other

landlord than the lord of all land, to whom I owe the most sincere

gratitude. My father left me three hundred and seventy-one acres of

land, forty-seven of which are good timothy meadow, an excellent

orchard, a good house, and a substantial barn. It is my duty to