Your humblest servant and Fellow-citizen, FRANCIS J. GRUND. London, May 10th, 1839. PREFACE. I herewith submit to the British Public a work principally intended for the benefit of the American. Both people, however, are so intimately connected by the ties of friendship and consanguinity, and so many errors and faults of the Americans--as, indeed, most of their virtues--are so clearly and distinctly to be traced to their British origin, that the perusal of the following pages may, perhaps, be not altogether uninteresting to the readers of both countries. As individuals may study their own character by carefully examining and observing that of their fellow-creatures,--for it is only in comparing ourselves with others that we become acquainted with ourselves,--so may a correct knowledge of one nation, and the tendencies of its institutions, enable another to form a proper estimate of itself, and to set a right value on its own laws and government. Such is the object of the following publication; the Public must decide whether it has been attained. THE EDITOR. London, May 10th, 1839. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PART I. CONTAINING THE ADVENTURES OF A DAY SPENT AMONG THE BLOODS IN NEW YORK. Introduction.--Character of the Author. Page 3 CHAPTER I. Walk to the Battery.--The Breakfast.--Conversation of young travelled Americans.--Their Notions of Politics, Negroes, and Women. 16 CHAPTER II. Return to the City.--Arrival of the London Packet.--Reception of the Passengers.--American Speculations on an English Lord.--Introduction to a Fashionable Boarding-house.--A New England Minerva.--A Belle.--A Lady from Virginia.--Conduct of Fashionable Young Ladies towards Gentlemen of an inferior Standing.--Confusion produced by the Dinner-bell. 49 CHAPTER III.