ESTIMATE OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 417 



power giving to a few a very visible one ; no great man- 

 ufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of 

 luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed 

 from each other iis they are in Europe. Some few towns 

 excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova 

 Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, ouVpr^e^*"' 

 scattered over an immense territory, communicating with Pe°p'e 

 each other by means of good roads and navigable rivers, 

 united by the silken bands of mild government, all re- 

 specting the laws, without dreading their power, because 

 they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit 

 of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, be- 

 cause each person works for himself. ... A pleas- 

 ing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout 

 our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry 

 and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are 

 the fairest titles our towns afford ; that of a farmer, is the 

 only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country. 

 . . . Here man is free as he ought to be ; nor is this 

 pleased equality so transitory as many others are. Many 

 ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished 

 with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North 

 America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it ex- 

 tends ? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will 

 feed and contain ? for no European foot has as yet trav- 

 ersed half the extent of this mighty continent ! 



"The next wish of this traveller will be to know 

 whence came all these people ? They are a mixture of a eiood 



Mixture 



English, Scotch. Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and 

 Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now 

 called Americans has arisen. ... 



" By what invisible power has this surprising meta- Metamor- 

 morphosis been performed ? By that of the laws and that ^^d ub'/rt'y "^ 

 of their industry. The laws, the indulgent laws, protect 

 them as they arrive, stamping on them the symbol of 

 adoption ; they receive ample rewards for their labours ; 

 these accumulated rewards procure them land j those 



