GREATER ENERGY OF NEW SETTLERS. 119 



BruDSwIck as a whole, the regularly settled inhabitants did 

 not appear to work so hard as the same classes do at home. 

 From that fact, however, I did not feel myself justified, 

 as some did, in concluding that the native-born are natu- 

 rally or absolutely indolent ; my conclusion was rather 

 that a living was easier got in the province than in the 

 home islands, and that, therefore, they did not require to 

 work so hard to obtain it as we do at home. 



At the same time, the absence of the strong spur of 

 necessity does tempt poor human nature to indolence in 

 America as it does in Europe. It is remarked among the 

 free Blacks in the middle states of the Union, that those 

 who have bought their own freedom are far more energetic 

 and industrious men than the coloured people who have 

 inherited their freedom. In Boston, it is observed that 

 the sons of rich men rarely succeed as merchants ; and no 

 doubt there must be some truth in the statement, that 

 the sons and grandsons of British settlers do not display 

 the same energy as their emigrant fathers. 



Whether such differences are greater or more obser- 

 vable in America than they are in Europe is at least open 

 to question, though it is a point of much interest in con- 

 nection with the impossibility, alleged by some, of the 

 Anglo-Saxon race ever becoming permanently fixed and 

 acclimatised in the New World. 



The excessive heat of the season was here injuring the 

 buckwheat, blighting what was not set, and ripening too 

 fast that which had begun to fill. To this evil, buckwheat 

 is subject occasionally all over Northern America. In 

 the State of New York, I obtained a sample of a variety, 

 the excellence of which v»^as said to consist in its not 

 being subject to blight from the midsummer sun. 



Leaving Nixon's after breakfast, we were about to enter 

 the forest again at the distance of about a mile, when we 

 were brought up by a burned bridge, the embers of 

 which were still smoking. The fire had communicated 



