80 Progress of Population and Wealth 



CHAPTER X. 



EMIGRATION. 



That emigration from the old world to the new, from which the 

 whole present population of the United States is directly or remotely 

 derived, still continues to make large annual additions to our num- 

 bers. After the political connexion with the parent country was 

 severed, foreign emigration, which had been suspended during the 

 war of independence, returned with unabated force ; and, what 

 was still less to have been expected, its subsequent increase has 

 been yet greater than that of the whole population which it helped 

 to swell. 



This tide of European emigration ceases to be an object of wonder, 

 when it is recollected that labour and skill are more than twice as 

 well rewarded in the United States as in Europe ; that capital 

 receives nearly twice the profits ; and, above all, that land can be 

 here purchased in absolute property at a smaller cost than would 

 there be its annual rent. In addition to these strong inducements, 

 which apply to nearly all Europeans, the British and Irish emigrants 

 find here the language, laws, usages, and manners to which they 

 have been accustomed. They, therefore, constitute the larger part of 

 the emigrants from Europe to the United States. Next to these, 

 the Germans are the most numerous ; for they, too, with the recom- 

 mendations of cheap land and high-priced labour, meet, in many of 

 the States, thousands whose language* and manners are the same 

 as those they have left behind. From the time that the first German 

 settlers came to this country, in 1682, under the auspices of William 

 Penn, there has been a steady influx of emigrants from Germany, 

 principally to the middle States, and, of late years, to the west. 



* As early as 1793, a journal, in the German language, was established at German- 

 town, in Pennsylvania. From that time to the present, the number of German news- 

 papers has continued to increase in that State. 



