business extended by enterprising mechanics and merchants from the New-England States; and its wealth greatly augmented. The old part of St. Louis has a very different aspect from that of Cincinnati, where every thing appears neat, and new, and tasteful; as their public buildings, their theatre, and spacious hotels, not forgetting Madam Trollope's bazar, or, as it is commonly called, "Trollope's Folly,"[1] as well as its spacious streets, numerous coaches, and other [24] marks of rapid wealth, and growing luxury. As St. Louis has advanced in wealth, magnitude, and importance, it has gradually changed the French language and manners, and assumed the American. It however contains, I am told, many of the old stock that are very respectable for their literary acquirements and polished manners.
We shall avoid, as we have avowed, any thing like censure of Captain Wyeth's scheme during his absence; but when we arrived at St. Louis, we could not but lament his want of information, respecting the best means of obtaining the great objects of our enterprise. Here we were constrained to sell our complicated wagons for less than half what they originally cost. We were convinced that they were not calculated for the rough roads, and rapid streams and eddies of some of the rivers we must necessarily pass. We here thought of the proverb, "that men never do a thing right the first time." Captain Wyeth might have learned at St. Louis, that there were two wealthy gentle-
- ↑ Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863), an Englishwoman of note, came to the United States in 1827 with Frances Wright. She established herself in Cincinnati, and attempted to recuperate the family fortunes by the opening of a bazaar for the sale of small fancy articles. The experiment failed, and the Trollope family returned to England (1831), where Mrs. Trollope issued Domestic Manners of Americans (London, 1832), a criticism of our national customs that gave great umbrage to our forebears in the West. She later became a novelist of note, dying in Florence in 1863. Her sons were Anthony and Adolphus Trollope, well-known English authors.—Ed.
