A system “too bare and meagre for human nature to love”: America in The American Claimant Manuscripts

A mere coincidence of names, . . . a suppositious pedigree, a silver mug on which an anciently engraved coat-of-arms has been half scrubbed out, a seal with an uncertain crest, an old yellow letter or document, in faded ink, the more scarcely legible the better—rubbish of this kind . . . has been potent enough to turn the brain of many an honest Republican, especially if assisted by an advertisement for lost heirs, cut out of a British newspaper. (5: 19-20)