48 . CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I. 



and consisting of rude materials. The 

 means, accumulated in the small house, 

 enabled a son to rear the large one ; and, 

 though, when pride enters the door, the 

 small house is sometimes demolished, few 

 sons in America have the folly or want of 

 feeling to commit such acts of filial in- 

 gratitude, and of real self-abasement. 

 For, what inheritance so valuable and so 

 honourable can a son enjoy as the proof 

 of his father's industry and virtue ? The 

 progress of wealth and ease and enjoy- 

 ment evinced by this regular increase of 

 the size of the farmers' dwellings is a 

 spectacle, at once, pleasing, in a very 

 high degree, in itself, and, in the same 

 degree, it speaks the praise of the system 

 of government, under which it has taken 

 place. What a contrast with the farm- 

 houses in England ! There the little farm- 

 houses are falhng into ruins, or, are 

 actually become cattle-sheds, or, at best, 

 cottages, as they are called, to contain a 

 miserable labourer, who ought to have 

 been a little farmer as his grand-father 

 was. Five or six tarms are there iiotv 

 levelled into one, in defiance of the law ; 

 for, there is a law to prevent it. The 

 mrmer has, indeed, -a fine house; but, 

 what a life do his labourers lead ! The 

 cause of this sad change is to be found in 

 The crushing taxes ; and the cause of 

 them, in the Borough usurpation, which 

 has robbed the people of their best right, 

 and, indeed, without which right, they 

 can enjoy no other. They talk of the 

 augmented populatio7i of England ; and, 

 when it suits the purposes of the tyrants, 

 they boast of this fact, as they are pleased 



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