The Statesmen of America in 1846

In this book, first published in 1847, the English author Sarah Mytton Maury gives a personal and very positive account of her impressions of the United States upon arriving there in late 1845. Through marriage she gains access to many American statesmen of her day, and the book is dedicated to James Buchanan, later President of the United States. Maury portrays prominent senators, judges, officers, members of the clergy and Presidents John Adams and James K. Polk. Many of the descriptions are interspersed with extracts from speeches and letters by those portrayed. The book gives a great deal of attention to the early nineteenth-century dispute between Britain and the United States about territorial claims in the north-west, the so-called ‘Oregon Question’. On this question as in other matters of contention or cultural differences between the two countries, Maury maintains a position of neutrality.