I mentioned in my previous post that Dr. Samuel Johnson hated Americans in general. Here are some examples of the things he said about them:
He once wrote in a letter that “the planters [that is, plantation owners] of America” were “a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble.”
Another time, while talking with someone about the Americans, he said, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”
And while dining with some friends and acquaintances one evening about three years after the Revolutionary War started, he somehow got onto the subject of America and said:
“I am willing to love all mankind except an American:” and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he “breathed out threatenings and slaughter;” calling them, “rascals — robbers — pirates;” and exclaiming, he’d “burn and destroy them.”
One of the other dinner guests criticized him a little bit for this outburst, which irritated him, and he “roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic.” He was a big man, and I imagine that he could roar pretty loud.
He was an interesting man, and I find it very interesting that America seemed to be the only subject that always made him angry. Maybe sometime I’ll go into one of the pamphlets that we wrote in response to the Americans’ complaints about taxes; it was titled “Taxation No Tyranny”.
Source
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by James Boswell, Esq.; vol. 1, pp. 304, 484; vol. 2, p. 194.