HISTORY OF VERMONT. 465 



perished in these services were unavoidably great. 

 If we may judge from the course of things in 

 the colonies, nine out of ten of these young meri 

 >vould have been fathers of families. Cut off 

 and wasted away by an incessant scene of war, 

 the population of the whole country was checked 

 and prevented. At the end of fifty years, for 

 every young man slain in the wars the loss oc- 

 casioned to the country was nearly four inhabi- 

 tants ; so many more would probably have been 

 found in the country at the end of that period, 

 had the colonies remained in a state of peace 

 and tranquility. 



On the agriculture^ the settlement and culti- 

 vation of the country, the eifect of war was still 

 more pernicious. The most important of all 

 pursuits to the colonies, was the settlement of 

 their country. On this depended their defence, 

 their strength and their lexistence. In the most 

 peaceable and quiet times, this was a matter of 

 much difficulty, hardship, labor and suffering. 

 To collect together a company qualified and 

 disposed for such enterprise ; to quit the ease 

 and enjoyments of domestic peace and abun- 

 dance ; to carry their families through the woods, 

 mountains, rivers and swamps, where there was 

 no road or track ; to construct huts of logs and 

 the bark of trees, to cut down the woods and 

 open the lands to the influence of the sun and 

 the air ; to fence, sow, reap and gather tlieir 

 crops ; this was the beginning of the scene, and 

 a series of difficulties which must in some meas- 

 ure be gone through the first year of their re- 

 moval. They had then to watch and guard the ir 

 ©attle and their crops against the ravages of ilici 



