MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. 



first proposed, in the English Ministry, to drop quietly the title of 

 King of France in the enumeration of our king s titles, and, when 

 it was stated to be an expedient likely to tend to a peace, Mr. 

 WINDHAM, who was then a member of the Cabinet, said : &quot; As 

 &quot; this is a measure of safety, and as, doubtless, we shall hear of 

 &quot; others of the same cast, what think you of going under ground 

 &quot; at once ? &quot; It was a remark enough to cut the liver out of the 

 hearers ; but Pitt and his associates had no livers. I do not 

 believe, that any twelve Journeymen, or Labourers, in England 

 would have voted for the adoption of this mean and despicable 

 measure. 



985. If, indeed, the Illinois were the only place out of the reach 

 of the Borough-grasp ; and, if men are resolved to get out of that 

 reach ; then, I should say, Go to the Illinois, by all means. But, 

 as there is a country, a settled country, a free- country, full of kind 

 neighbours, full of all that is good, and when this country is to be 

 traversed in order to get at the acknowledged hardships of the 

 Illinois, how can a sane mind lead an English Farmer into the 

 expedition ? 



986. It is the enchanting damsel that makes the knight encounter 

 the hair-breadth scapes, the sleeping on the ground, the cooking 

 with cross-sticks to hang the pot on. It is the Prairie, that pretty 

 French word, which means green grass bespangled with daisies 

 and cowslips ! Oh, God ! What delusion ! And that a man 

 of sense ; a man of superior understanding and talent ; a man of 

 honesty, honour, humanity, and lofty sentiment, should be the 

 cause of this delusion ; I, my dear Sir, have seen Prairies many 

 years ago, in America, as fine as yours, as fertile as yours, though 

 not so extensive. I saw those Prairies settled on by American 

 Loyalists, who were carried, with all their goods and tools to the 

 spot, and who were furnished with four years provisions, all at 

 the expence of England : who had the lands given them : tools 

 given them : and who were thus seated down on the borders of 

 creeks, which gave them easy communication with the inhabited 

 plains near the sea. The settlers that I particularly knew were 

 Connecticut men. Men with families of sons. Men able to do 

 as much in a day at the works necessary in their situation as so 

 many Englishmen would be able to do in a week. They began 

 with a shed : then rose to a log-house : and next to a frame- 

 house : all of their own building. I have seen them manure their 

 land with Salmon caught in their creeks, and with pigeons caught 

 on the land itself. It will be a long while before you will see such 

 beautiful Corn-fields as I saw there. Yet nothing but the danger 

 and disgrace which attended their return to Connecticut prevented 

 their returning, though there they must have begun the world 

 anew. I saw them in their log-huts, and saw them in their frame- 

 houses. They had overcome all their difficulties as settlers ; 

 they were under a government which required neither tax nor 

 service from them ; they were as happy as people could be as to 



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