Travels in North America, in the Years 1827 and 1828 by HALL, Captain Basil - 1829

Edinburgh: Cadell and Co, 1829. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 3 vols.: iv, ii, 421; 432; vii, 436 p. 20 cm. Hand-coloured fold-out map of Canada and U.S. in vol. I and fold-out table at rear of vol. III. Half black leather with marbled boards. Light wear to extremities. Bookplates for Humphrey St. John Mildmay on front pastedowns with overlying ones for Francis Reynolds Dickinson and Alice May Dickinson detached. Some foxing, mainly to first pages and last.

After retiring from the British Navy, Captain Hall (1788-1844) spent much of his time in private travel, visiting North America in 1827-8 and publishing this account in 1829. He visited the major cities of the eastern and southern states, commenting on education, politics, government, slavery, the judicial system, and manufacturing. His criticism of American customs, including "ungraceful" snake fences (Vol. I, p. 129), the treatment of African-Americans, even in the north (Vol. II, p. 77), and the lack of safety on steamboats (Vol. III, p. 312), caused much indignation in the U.S. Of the Americans he writes: "there is always a solemn sort of enigmatical assumption of the intricacy and transcendent grandeur of their whole system, not to be comprehended by weak European minds" (Vol. I p. 212). Chapters VI to XIV in Vol. I contain Hall's account of Upper and Lower Canada, describing military defences, canals, immigration, and settlement. He writes that "a more loyal or determined people never existed than the Canadian settlers" (Vol. I, p. 249). Former owner Humphrey St John Mildmay (1794–1853) was an English merchant banker and politician and Francis Reynolds Dickinson and his daughter Alice May were members of a prominent Chicago family.