146 STUDIES OF NATUIE. 



houfe, for the benefit of enjoying it's (hade ; to 

 hear them talk, they are all on the wing to depart, 

 next year at fartheft. If they aclually happen to 

 acquire a fortune, away they go, nay, frequently, 

 without having made any thing, and, on their re- 

 turn home, fettle, not in their native province or 

 village, but at Paris. 



This is not the place to unfold the caufe of that 

 national averfion to the place of birth, and of that 

 prediledion in favour of the Capital ,• it is an ef- 

 feâ; of feveral moral caufes, and, among others, of 

 education. Be it as it may, this turn of mind is 

 alone fufhcient to prevent for ever the indepen- 

 dence of our colonies. The enormous expence of 

 preferving them, and the facility with which they 

 are captured, ought to have cured us of this pre- 

 judice. They are all in fuch a ftate of weaknefs, 

 that if their commerce with the Metropolis were 

 to be interrupted but for a few years, they would 

 prefently be diflrelTed for want of many articles 

 effentially neceffary. It is even Angularly remark- 

 able, that they do not manufacture there a fingle 

 produdlion of the country. They ralfe cotton of 

 the very fineft quality, but make no cloth of it as 

 in Europe ; ihey do not fo much as praétife the 

 art of fpinning it, as the Savages do; nor do they, 

 like them, turn to any account the threads of 

 phiet of thofe of the banana, or of the leaves of 



the 



