Again, as George grew to manhood, the struggle which ended in the disruption of the Church of Scotland was approaching its climax, and the sympathies of the Brown household were with those who declared that it "is the fundamental law of this Church that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people."
In 1838 reverses in business led the father and son to seek their fortunes in America. Arriving in New York, Peter Brown turned to journalism, finding employment as a contributor to the _Albion_, a weekly newspaper published for British residents of the United States. The Browns formed an unfavourable opinion of American institutions as represented by New York in that day. To them the republic presented itself as a slave-holding power, seeking to extend its territory in order to enlarge the area of slavery, and hostile to Great Britain as a citadel of freedom. They always regarded the slave-holding element in the United States as that which kept up the tradition of enmity to England. An American book entitled, _The Glory and Shame of England_, aroused Peter Brown's indignation, and he published a reply in a little volume bearing the name of _The Fame and Glory of England Vindicated_. Here he paid tribute to British freedom, contrasted it with the domination of the slave holders, and instanced the fact that in Connecticut a woman had been mobbed and imprisoned for teaching coloured girls to read. Further light is thrown upon the American experience of the Browns by an article in the _Banner_, their first Canadian venture in journalism. The writer is answering an accusation of disloyalty and Yankee sympathies, a stock charge against Reformers in that day. He said: "We have stood in the very heart of a republic, and fearlessly issued our weekly sheet, expressing our fervent admiration of the limited monarchy of Great Britain, though surrounded by Democratic Whigs, Democratic Republicans, Irish Repealers, slave-holders, and every class which breathes the most inveterate hostility to British institutions. And we are not to be turned from maintaining the genuine principles of the constitution because some of our contemporaries are taken with a fit of sycophancy, and would sacrifice all at the shrine of power."