The Fourth of July - The View of a British Lady

The following excerpt is taken from Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans. Frances, the mother of novelist Anthony Trollope, lived in the United States for three years, chiefly in Cincinnati. Her book created a storm on this side of the Atlantic as Americans felt they were portrayed as ill-mannered boors, but it laid the foundation for her career.

And now arrived the 4^th of July, that greatest of all American festivals. On the 4^th of July, 1776, the declaration of their independence was signed at the Statehouse in Philadelphia.