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William Priest - Travels in the United States of America
navigable upwards of two hundred miles, amply supplies the city with exports and provision. The
inhabitants boast of having the best fish-market in the United States; their own oyster-beds, and their
vicinity to the New England states, give them this advantage[Footnote: There are fish on the
coast of America which have certain boundaries, beyond which they never go; salmon, for instance, is
never found south of a river in Connecticut; and certain southern fish never visit the New England
coast.]. - The governor's house, new theatre, and tontine coffee house, are magnificent buildings; the
public walks well laid out, and pleasantly situate.
One advantage this city possesses peculiar to itself; you may be as much in the country as you can desire
for five farthings english money: the fare is no more to Long Island, where you may be conveyed, from
the heart of the city, in a few minutes, and meet with as great a variety of hill and dale, wood and water,
as in any part of the world. This island is ninety miles in length.
Sept. 19th. - I intended proceeding to Boston, by the way of Rhode Island, as I was informed the
passage through Hell Gates [Footnote: A dangerous strait, between stupendous rocks.] and the
Sound is very pleasant at this season; but the fear of being obliged to perform a quarantine at my arrival
prevented me. I set off this morning, in the stage. Our course lay the whole length of the island, which is
barren and rocky; affording some romantic situations, in several of which I observed (to use a cockney
phrase) snug little boxes; these, I was informed, belonged to the wealthy citizens; they
commanded a view of the city, the North River, the Sound, and adjacent islands.
At noon we entered Connecticut, the most southerly of the New England states. Slept at Fairfield.
On the night of the 20th we reached Hertford, the capital of the state. - About five miles from it, a house
was pointed out to me, where a very shocking circumstance took place a few years ago. - A merchant,
not being able to bear a change in his circumstances from affluence to extreme poverty, coolly and
deliberately shot his wife and five children, and afterward himself. He tried every means, for several
days, to send his wife away; but she preferred dying with him and the children. He left a paper on the
table, informing his friends, that his only motive for committing this rash action was to rescue his family
from a situation, which he himself found insupportable.
Sept. 21st. - We this afternoon entered the state of Massachusetts. I found New England very
different from any part of America I had before seen; the soil but very indifferent, rocky, and
mountainous, interspersed with some rich tracts of land in the valleys; the up lands are divided by means
of stone walls, as in Derbyshire, and some other parts of Great Britain.
They have few negroes, or european emigrants; so far from wanting the latter, as in the South, they send
great numbers every year to the new settlements in the South-west.
When we made any stay at a tavern on the road, I observed one of my fellow travellers (who was very
eloquent upon this subject) take every opportunity of singing forth the praises of New Virginia
[Footnote: A rich tract of country, west of the Allegany Mountains.]. - The north-west wind continuing,
the morning of the 22d was very cold; and we breakfasted with a number of strangers. Our orator did not
lose this opportunity of holding forth on his favourite topic. I recollect the latter part of his harangue was
to the following effect: - "There," says he, (while the New Englanders were staring with their
mouths open,) "when I clear a fresh lot of land on any of my plantations, I am obliged to plant it six
or seven years with hemp, or tobacco, before it is sufficiently poor to bear wheat! My indian corn
grows twelve or thirteen feet high; I'll dig four feet deep on my best land, and it shall then be sufficiently
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