"Everywhere, the spirit of equality prevails"
Henry Hulton was Boston’s Commissioner of Customs before the revolution. A foreigner (he was English) and a tax collector, he was persecuted by colonial radicals. In a 1771 letter home he set down his impressions of New England. This poem is based on that letter. You may judge for yourself whether the people he portrays deserve our admiration.
(This is part of American Independence in Verse. Note that poetry is best read in a browser on a larger screen.)
"Everywhere, the spirit of equality prevails"
In early spring I journeyed with my wife
Throughout this Province, and became convinced
That nothing less than the enthusiasm
And violent spirit of independency
That animated the first settlers
Could move a people to the arduous
Subduing of these lands to cultivation.
Although this land will never make them rich
Yet they increase wonderfully; and everywhere
The spirit of equality prevails.
Regarding social differences, they’ve no
Notion of rank, and will show more respect
To one another than to those above them.
They’ll ask a thousand strange impertinent
Questions, sit down when they should wait at table,
React with puzzlement when you do not
Invite your valet to come share your meal.
I met few who may be called Gentlemen—
Few men of property, and education,
And liberal mind. I guess that when the first
Arrived, they built a shed, and ate salt pork,
And their descendants have not got much further.
A traveler finds no fresh provisions; he
Must drink their sour cider and New England
Rum. They feel no oppression from above,
See nothing to excite their envy or
Raise admiration, and what is human nature
If passions such as these are not aroused?
They take up lands without authority,
Live without law, or government; nor priest,
Nor magistrate; and with the least disturbance
Will easily tip into an insurrection.