Part III.] Morris Birkbeck, Esq. 305 



Atlantic States ? Why should an English Farmer and 

 his family, who have always been jogging about a snug 

 home-stead, eating regular meals, and sleeping in warm 

 rooms, push back to the Illinois, and encounter those 

 hardships, which require all the habitual disregard ot" 

 comfort of an American back-woodsman to overcome ? 

 Why should they do this ] The undertaking is hardly 

 reconcileable to reason in an Atlantic American Farmer 

 who has half a dozen sons, all brought up to use the 

 axe, the saw, the chisel and the hammer from their in- 

 fancy, and every one of whom is ploughman, carpenter, 

 wheelwright and butcher, and can work from sun-rise 

 to sun-set, and sleep, if need be, upon the bare boards. 

 What, then, must it be in an English farmer and his 

 family of helpless mortals ? Helpless, I mean, in this 

 scene of such novelty and such difTiculty ? And what 

 is his icife to do ; she who has been torn from all her 

 relations and neighbours, and from every thing tliat she 

 liked in the world, and who, perhaps, has never, in all 

 her life before, been ten miles from the cradle in which 

 she was nursed ? An American farmer mends his 

 plough, his Magon, his tackle of all sorts, his household 

 goods, his shoes; and, if need be, he makes them all. 

 Can our people do all this, or any part of it? Can 

 they live without bread for months ? Can they live 

 without beer 1 Can they be otherAvise thiin miserable, 

 cut off, as they must be, from all intercourse with, and 

 hope of hearing of, their relations and friends f The 

 truth is, that this is not transplanting, it is tearing it jJ 

 and flinging axcay. 



581. Society ! What society can these people have ? 

 'Tis true they have nobody to envy, for nobody can 

 have any thiug to enjoy. But there may be, and there 

 must be, mutual complainings and upbraidings ; and 

 every unhappiness will be traced directly to him who 

 has been, hoAvever unintentionally, the cause of the 

 imhappy person's removal. The very foundation of 

 your plan necessarily contained the seeds of discontent 

 and ill-will. A colony all from the same country was 

 the very worst project that could have been fallen upon. 

 You took upon yourself the charge of Moses without 

 being invested with any part of his authority ; and 



