Journal of Alexander Dick in America 1806-1809

Alexander Dick began his journal on August 28, 1806, upon departing his Edinburgh home to fulfill a Parliamentary commission in America to audit American mercantile accounts. He concluded the diary on September 28, 1809, upon returning to Scotland. Dick recorded his preparations for leaving Britain, his Atlantic voyage of almost two months and his three-year American tour. Landing in New York and traveling as far as Charleston, South Carolina, he visited both large coastal port cities and smaller inland towns and trading villages. With insight and wit, Dick described the towns, countryside, roads, lodgings, public buildings, people, customs and manners of early nineteenth-century America. The diary is interesting not only for its commentary on the new American nation but also for its British perspective on political events and Anglo-American relations during the tense years preceding the War of 1812.