where cheap lands are yet available. He shows the sanitary disadvantages of this newer, more reeking soil, as against the possibilities it offers to the emigrant to secure the profits of his own industry. With keen indignation he condemns the unsound banking system of the West, deprecates the booming of town sites, and the "log-rolling" in state legislatures. But in the face of criticism, and as though eager to forestall unfavorable judgments, he contrasts American conditions with those of Great Britain, with no undue favor for the latter, reminding his English readers that here are no boroughs to monopolize business interests, no clergymen to control education, no nobility to exact special privileges. "I have never heard of any parson who acts as Justice of the Peace, or who intermixes his addresses to the Great Object of Religious Worship, with the eulogy of the Holy Alliance. . . . The farming interest has no monopoly against manufacturing: nor has the manufacturing any positive prohibition against the farmer." Free industry is the dominating factor of American life, the keystone of its prosperity.
In short, we have in Flint's Letters a remarkable study of American life in the beginning of its new era, at the close of the second war with England. Charitable, comprehending, thoughtful, he does not slur over national faults nor unduly praise local virtues. Dangers, both financial and political, are pointed out; but the basic principles of American society are distinctly and clearly laid bare, and the progress and possibilities of the New West revealed.
In the present reprint, the original edition, published in Edinburgh in 1822, has been followed; save that the Addenda given in the latter (pp. 303-330), have been
