INTRODUCTION. 21 



in that country, when they are in the 

 highest distress there, buy or take up lands 

 in the back countries, to pay the money at 

 some future time ; and then either come 

 here themselves, or hire what may fairly be 

 termed their counsellors to plead for them ; 

 — these agents to be paid out of the money 

 raised out of the emigrants' pockets, as 

 neither the man who is the pretended land- 

 owner nor his agent have any money to 

 support themselves. This is a mere specu- 

 lation all the way through ; and the men 

 that say so much in favour of the land, 

 know no more of land than a horse — 

 nor perhaps so much, as they do not eat 

 grass : which is the only excuse they have 

 to make for their conduct. A great many 

 of them, I can prove, have never been within 

 five or eight hundred miles of the place 

 where the land lies. 



