Letters from an American Farmer | Page 8

from the first have appealed to the
imagination--especially to the American imagination- -combining as he
did the faculty of the ideal and the achievement of the actual. It is not
too late for him to appeal to-day; in spite of all his quaintness,
Crevecoeur is a contemporary of our own.
WARREN BARTON BLAKE.
BRADFORD HILLS, WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Letters from an American Farmer (London), 1782, 1783; (Dublin),

1782; (Belfast), 1783; (Philadelphia), 1793; (New York), 1904;
(London), 1908; translated into French (with gratuitous additions) as
Lettres d'un cultivateur Americain (Paris), 1784 and 1787; into German
as Briefe eines Amerikanischen Landmanns (Leipzig), 1788, 1789.
Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie et dans l'etat de New York (Paris),
1801.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Warren Barton Blake
LETTER
I. INTRODUCTION
II. ON THE SITUATION, FEELINGS, AND PLEASURES OF AN
AMERICAN FARMER
III. WHAT IS AN AMERICAN
IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET, WITH
THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, POLICY, AND TRADE OF THE
INHABITANTS
V. CUSTOMARY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE
INHABITANTS OF NANTUCKET
VI. DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF MARTHA'S VINEYARD,
AND OF THE WHALE FISHERY
VII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS AT NANTUCKET
VIII. PECULIAR CUSTOMS AT NANTUCKET
IX. DESCRIPTION OF CHARLES-TOWN; THOUGHTS ON
SLAVERY; ON PHYSICAL EVIL; A MELANCHOLY SCENE

X. ON SNAKES; AND ON THE HUMMING BIRD.
XI. FROM MR. IW--N AL--Z, A RUSSIAN GENTLEMAN,
DESCRIBING THE VISIT HE PAID AT MY REQUEST TO MR.
JOHN BERTRAM, THE CELEBRATEDPENNSYLVANIA
BOTANIST
XII. DISTRESSES OF A FRONTIER MAN

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER;
DESCRIBING CERTAIN PROVINCIAL SITUATIONS, MANNERS,
AND CUSTOMS, NOT GENERALLY KNOWN; AND
CONVEYING SOME IDEA OF THE LATE AND PRESENT
INTERIOR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN
NORTH AMERICA.
WRITTEN FOR THE INFORMATION OF A FRIEND IN
ENGLAND,
By J. HECTOR ST. JOHN, A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA
ADVERTISEMENT
[To the first edition, 1782.]
The following Letters are the genuine production of the American
Farmer whose name they bear. They were privately written to gratify
the curiosity of a friend; and are made public, because they contain
much authentic information, little known on this side the Atlantic; they
cannot therefore fail of being highly interesting to the people of
England, at a time when everybody's attention is directed toward the
affairs of America.
That these letters are the actual result of a private correspondence may
fairly be inferred (exclusive of other evidence) from the style and
manner in which they are conceived: for though plain and familiar, and

sometimes animated, they are by no means exempt from such
inaccuracies as must unavoidably occur in the rapid effusions of a
confessedly inexperienced writer.
Our Farmer had long been an eye-witness of transactions that have
deformed the face of America: he is one of those who dreaded, and has
severely felt, the desolating consequences of a rupture between the
parent state and her colonies: for he has been driven from a situation,
the enjoyment of which the reader will find pathetically described in
the early letters of this volume. The unhappy contest is at length,
however, drawing toward a period; and it is now only left us to hope,
that the obvious interests and mutual wants of both countries, may in
due time, and in spite of all obstacles, happily re-unite them.
Should our Farmer's letters be found to afford matter of useful
entertainment to an intelligent and candid public, a second volume,
equally interesting with those now published, may soon be expected.

ADVERTISEMENT
[To the Second Edition, 1783.]
Since the publication of this volume, we hear that Mr. St. John has
accepted a public employment at New York. It is therefore, perhaps,
doubtful whether he will soon be at leisure to revise his papers, and
give the world a second collection of the American Farmer Letters.

TO THE ABBE RAYNAL, F.R.S.
Behold, Sir, an humble American Planter, a simple cultivator of the
earth, addressing you from the farther side of the Atlantic; and
presuming to fix your name at the head of his trifling lucubrations. I
wish they were worthy of so great an honour. Yet why should not I be
permitted to disclose those sentiments which I have so often felt from
my heart? A few years since, I met accidentally with your Political and

Philosophical History, and perused it with infinite pleasure. For the first
time in my life I reflected on the relative state of nations; I traced the
extended ramifications of a commerce which ought to unite but now
convulses the world; I admired that universal benevolence, that
diffusive goodwill, which is not confined to the narrow limits of your
own country; but, on the contrary, extends to the whole human race. As
an eloquent and powerful advocate you have pleaded the cause of
humanity in espousing that of the poor Africans: you viewed these
provinces of North America in