The Wilmingtonian, And Delaware Register

From the Richmond Compiler.

The following is an extract of a letter to a gentleman in this city, from an Englishman now travelling in the United States. It was not written for publication; but the sentiments which it breathes are so liberal; it shows so distinctly that there are English travellers among us, who will not misrepresent us, as Faux, Fearon and others have done, that it is at your service, to use it, if you think proper. I do it with the more pleasure, because I am persuaded the sentiments which are here expressed in a private letter are likely to be ushered forth in a more public form: and because, the writer who is the admirer of our institutions has already been publicly and absurdly denounced as their reviler and calumniator. It is perhaps a justice due him, as well as ourselves, to lay this extract before your readers. I ought to add, that although the extract is principally confined to Mr. Jefferson, yet the same liberality of sentiment runs through all his correspondence, and all his conversations.

Extract of a letter from an English gentleman now in the United States:

"We arrived at Charlottesville on the evening of the 11th, and were greeted immediately on our arrival with a mountain thunder storm. The next day we visited Monticello. We spent about an hour with the venerable Statesman, and then finding that he had an engagement, took our leave. The next morning we had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to dinner, which you may suppose we did not decline. I was highly delighted with Mr. Jefferson, as every man who loves science must be, whatever be his political sentiments. But to one like myself, who considers Mr. Jefferson as the Apostle of those doctrines, and the author of those practices, which have tended to demonstrate the fact, that "man can govern himself," because he has governed himself—that a State religion is useless: because there are States where its abolition produces no bad consequences—to one, who looks upon him as one of the main pillars of that sacred edifice erected on the Western Continent to equal rights, social liberty, and christian principles; to one, who admires him as the opponent of tyranny in the old world, and, the successful combattant of its germs from the old roots in the new; to a man who has all these principles in common with Mr. Jefferson, and who considers that in future times his name will be pronounced second only among the glorious founders of free states, populous beyond all present conception; to me, he must appear as a truly great man. I was highly delighted to see the profound and perfect acquaintance which he had with every science; and how he could converse with equal ease on the pyramids of Egypt and the mountains of Virginia, on the Parthenon at Athens and the Capitol at Washington. Long may his aged life be spared to enjoy the pleasure of seeing the American Republic spread wide and strike root deeper with every year!

"Mr. Jefferson seems almost absorbed in the University of Virginia. I hope it will be crowned with success, and that Virginia Statesmen in abundance may grow up and flourish under the auspices of such a seminary. We took a sketch of it for our future use.

"Mr. J. persuaded us to visit the Natural Bridge: We did so—and thence, went along the Valley west of the Blue Ridge to Harper's Ferry. Hence on our tour to the north. I can assure you, I was much delighted with my Virginian tour, and that I crossed the Potomac with very different feelings from those, with which I had embarked on its broad bosom some months before on my way to Richmond. Then I felt like one embarking for a new state in which I knew no one, and I emphatically said to—, that we were once more going from home. When I returned, I felt the same sensation, for in no place had I met with any thing but home, while I was in Virginia: but at Richmond and Charlottesville, this was peculiarly the case. I contrived the last evening before we left that place, to sup with three different families. I had sometimes managed it twice in England, but never three times before.

"I should have liked to see your La Fayette reception in Richmond. It must have been delightful. I met with La Fayette at Cambridge Commencement; and was present at the delivery of the powerful and eloquent Oration of Professor Everett. Its effect was beyond any thing I ever witnessed in the old world."