15O Emigration of the Peasantry. 



trade and manufactures. These would soon 

 operate as a check to a further increase of the 

 people, by introducing artificial wants among 

 them in food in dress in habitation and the 

 acquirement of those comforts, to which, as 

 human, rational beings, they must be considered 

 as entitled : but, while the potatoe alone shall 

 continue to be the food of the great bulk of the 

 people, I see no reason to doubt their present 

 number will be doubled in thirty years, and 

 consequently the wretchedness of the country 

 proportionably increased. 



' [ 'j ( I * $ j , i'i ;^t f_\ i j.*: ' ' i, n u >r< 5( i 



However melancholy and discouraging these 

 reflections may be, I fear they are but too well 

 founded ; yet as the evils which produce them 

 are all of a moral nature, let us hope that time 

 will teach to patriotism and opulence, that they 

 are not irremediable. 



A prevailing opinion of emigration, in the 

 event of a peace with America, has taken place. 

 Were there a prospect in any reasonable time of 

 employment being found at home for these 

 individuals, to whom well-founded hope is held 

 out of bettering their condition abroad, I should 

 concur in regretting the loss of a single British 

 subject: but to retain them, merely to fill up 



