gentlemen! You are welcome home gentlemen!' Both citizens and soldiers shed mutual tears of joy."
The Duke La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, who
visited the United Sates in 1796, after the
Revolution, when the people had in great
measure recovered from its effects, was as
extravagant in his praise of the people of
Charleston as Josiah Quincy had been. The
enthusiastic Frenchman wrote:
"I cannot close this long article on South Carolina
without mentioning with deserved praise the kind
reception I experienced in Charleston. This is a duty
which I owe to the inhabitants of all the parts of America
which I have traversed, but especially to this place.
In no town of the United States does a foreigner experience
more benevolence or find more entertaining society
than in Charleston. . . . They keep a greater number
of servants than those of Philadelphia. From the hour
of four in the afternoon, they rarely think of aught but
pleasure and amusement. . . . Many of the inhabitants
of South Carolina having been in Europe, have in
consequence acquired a greater knowledge of our
manners and a stronger partiality to them than the
people of the Northern States. Consequently the
European modes of life are here more prevalent. The
women here are more lovely than in the North. They
are interesting and agreeable but not quite so handsome
as those of Philadelphia. They have a greater share in
the commerce of society without retaining for this the
loss of modesty and delicate propriety in their behavior."
