408 EMIGRANTS SITUATION AND CHARACTER. 



riably praised. Virtue will ever be respected in civilized 

 society. 



In new and extensive territories the restraints of dishonesty 

 seem weaker, and the temptations to overreach stronger than 

 in densely peopled old countries. In new countries, local 

 attachments, family character, and many other feelings which 

 influence conduct, are unfelt. Individuals seldom remain 

 long in one place, and traffic with others similarly situated. 

 The laws are imperfectly put in force, and successful fraud is 

 sometimes considered clear gain, as the parties may never 

 hold farther intercourse, and in the event of exposure, a 

 change of residence obviates disgrace. Most of the people 

 are poor, and grasp at wealth. There are few prejudices of 

 birth or station in society, and no barrier in the field of enter 

 prise or ambition to the lowest individual. The reverse of 

 all this takes place in old countries, where other policy than 

 honesty commonly entails ruin in worldly matters. In both 

 situations the degree of moral principle may be the same. 

 But in Britain all is not virtue which appears on the surface 

 of society, and the fear of punishment, resulting from public 

 opinion and effective laws, has perhaps more influence than 

 the dictates of conscience in checking knavery. The inter 

 course of the people of Britain and certain parts of America, 

 seems to arise more from the different circumstances in which 

 they are placed than from religious and moral feeling. 



If the view which I have taken of the commercial inter 

 course of new countries is correct, the emigrant will soon dis 

 cover that the New Englanders are not the only sharpers in 

 America. A gentleman settled in the township of Hinchin- 

 brooke, Lower Canada, in writing to his friends in East 

 Lothian, states, &quot; although the inhabitants here are not 

 Yankees, yet all act on the Yankee system.&quot; And I shall 

 renounce all pretensions to discernment if many of the inhabi 

 tants of Upper Canada are not the most accomplished 

 Yankees on the other side of the Atlantic. The change 

 which sometimes takes place in the habits and morals of 

 people on reaching America is not confined to the modes of 

 acquiring property. In some parts of Upper Canada the 



