MR. proctor's address. 43 



with a milder sun, and regaled with ambrosial breezes, 

 if these rights are insecure ? Have we not still ringing 

 in our ears, from the favored paradise of the atlantic 

 shores, the city of brotherly love, and from the fertile 

 prairies of the west, rumors that make our nerves rigid 

 with horror, and chill the blood within us ? Who for 

 a moment would exchange the peaceful security of the 

 New England farmer's cottage, for the splendor of a 

 palace thus surrounded ? Be content then, with the lot 

 assigned you, and avail yourselves of all the means at 

 your command for its improvement. Who but the far- 

 mer did the poet contemplate, when he wrote 



" Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, 

 Lie in three words, health peace, and competence." 



Contrast for one moment, the condition of the Massa- 

 chusetts farmer with the farmer in England, as given 

 by Mr. Colman in his report just published. There, 

 rarely if ever, does he own a rod of the soil that he cul- 

 tivates ; — burdened with an annual rent that would al- 

 most purchase the acres here, — subject to the whim 

 and caprice of an aristocratic landlord, whom he dare 

 not approach, except by gracious permission, — the won- 

 der is, that he has a heart to labor at all, — or even to 

 superintend the labor of others. I now speak of the 

 higher class of farmers, who rent the lands of the lords 

 above them. If you look at those who actually do the 

 labor, you there find the ditcher^ ditcher for life ; — the 

 ploughman, incapacitated for any other employment, — 

 with a mind as void of intelligence as the horses he 

 drives ; — and all with such limited means of sustenance 

 and support, as never for a moment to indulge the hope 

 of a shelter from the storm, that they may call their own. 

 Such things maybe endured where better are not known. 

 But such things will not be endured by those who have 

 inhaled the breezes that wave, over our rock-bound 

 shores. 



England, who boasts of her abhorrence of enslaving the 

 Africans, to her honor be it ever remembered, at the same 

 time degrades her own sons with a more servile slavery. 



