Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. 1797.—Boston and New England.—Reasons for Emigration.—Exercise on Board; Attack by Pirates.—Reception at Boston.—Hodgkinson; an Improvised Tragedy.—Boston's Resemblance to Old England.—Why New England Goes Ahead ; its Method of Progress; not Undetstood by the English.—The New England Stage ; its Driver.—Roads.—Mosquitoes Promote Patriotism.—The Yankees ; the Swapper; the Jobber ; the Pedler.—Anecdotes of Yankee Cuteness.—New England Seamen ; a Profitable Cargo. The causes which led me to make one of the band who were bold enough to face the perils of swamps, snakes, tomahawks, and Yankees in far-off America can be told in very few words. They were the failure of two or three managerial speculations (to one of which I had been advised by my gracious friend the late king) and the patronage of an extensive circle of fashionable acquaintances. In London I was indeed being "killed with kindness." Enjoying the fatal honor of being secretary to the famous Beefsteak Club, of which the prince regent was a member, and treasurer or secretary to half a dozen others, in that most convivial of eras when the cry of " Clubs " was raised in every street in London, though in a far different spirit from that which sounded it in the days of James I., it became a matter of official necessity that I should keep open house, and for those, too, for whom only the best was ever good enough. Better judges than my brother members of port-wine, mock-turtle, coats, guns, dogs, or horses did not exist. The consequences were inevitable. I had to retreat while I could do so with honor. The habits of an active life prompted me perhaps tosomething like restlessness on board the vessel in which I made the voyage, drawing forth a very characteristic observation from an Irish fellow-passenger. He ...