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people thus situated, especially so in the remote districts of the 

 United States in America. 



Such were the better sort of farmers in the Dutch colony when 

 I made my inquiries; I am sorry to add that another, and I fear 

 a much larger class, bore a different character; and perhaps a 

 more unprincipled, unlettered, and cruel race of people nowhere 

 existed. I do not make this assertion from my own experience ; 

 I travelled but little into the interior, and only occasionally saw 

 the farmers who brought their commodities to town ; but from 

 reports of its inhabitants, confirmed by the accounts of Barrow, 

 Pcrcival, and other intelligent travellers, who made long journies 

 amono - them, we know these colonists are, in many respects, no 

 better than savages, and in clemency, urbanity, and other social 

 virtues, far inferior to the Hottentots among whom they dwell. 

 The latter are a mild, amiable, gentle race, compared with the 

 Dutch boors and yeomanry of the Cape, composed of the lowest 

 classes of Dutch, French, and German emigrants, and their de- 

 scendants. Their cruelly to their slaves, cattle, and Hottentots, 

 has become proverbial, and has been fully detailed. Many of 

 these colonists have served in the ranks of the Dutch and German 

 regiments, from whence they became servants and overseers in 

 the farms, and marrying the farmers' daughters, have in time pur- 

 chased landed property for themselves; and without retaining the 

 virtues of a soldier, have introduced the vices of the army into a dif- 

 ferent order of society. 



Thus, far distant from the civilized manners and refinements 

 of the capital, deprived of the blessings of public worship, and 



