20. Dickens sailed for home and prepared to publish his observations of America
On June 7, 1842, after five months of travels in America and interactions with its inhabitants, Dickens embarked for the journey to Great Britain and home. Nearly all of his fellow passengers were immigrants who had arrived in America “expecting to find its streets paved with gold’, and had found it to be wanting. They were returning to Europe, poorer than when they had begun their journey to the United States. All of them blamed their failure on the empty promises of the United States, rather than their arrival ill-equipped to engage in any trade or profession, according to Dickens.
Dickens kept a journal during his travels across the United States. When he was invited, as he frequently was, to address various organizations during the trip he for the most part confined his remarks to the issue of international copyright. He avoided aligning himself with the temperance movement, the abolitionist movement, the issue of a national bank, and other political and social issues which marked American society. Those comments he prepared, beginning on his voyage home, for publication in his next work. When they were published they rattled American society, and cost him much of the goodwill he enjoyed during his tour.