Democracy in America

by Alexis de Tocqueville

Beverley was originally from Virginia, which makes him commence by saying, “If I might be so happy, as to settle my credit with the reader, the next favour I wou’d ask of him, shou’d be, not to criticize too unmercifully upon my style. I am an Indian, and don’t pretend to be exact in my language.”†1 Despite this modesty of a colonist, the author gives evidence throughout the whole course of his book that he tolerates with impatience the supremacy of the mother country. One also finds in Beverley’s work numerous traces of that spirit of civil freedom that henceforth animated the English colonies of America. One also encounters in it a trace of the divisions that have existed for so long in their midst and that delayed their independence. Beverley detests his Catholic neighbors of Maryland even more than the English government. The style of this author is simple; his accounts are often full of interest and inspire confidence. The French translation of Beverley’s history is found in the Bibliotheque Royale.