180 



A VOYAGE TO 



soil, and flourished as they have done in a more rigid 

 climate, where necessity urged to a more laborious and 

 enterprising life? Would those principles of liberty, 

 carried with them by the colonists, from a stock which 

 had been maturing for ages, have withered when trans- 

 planted in this fertile soil, and under this warm sun? 

 Or would that liberty which is so much prized, have 

 lost her dominion in a country, whose rivers flow over 

 beds of diamonds, and whose sands are gold? The dif- 

 ferent result in the same situations on different peo- 

 ple, is exemplified in the conquest and possession of a 

 part of this country by the Dutch. Pernambuco is the 

 most populous province of Brazil, and has the most 

 extensive exports; and this may be accounted for, by 

 the simple fact of its having been so long in the pos- 

 session of a free and industrious people. With the 

 Dutch, commerce and agriculture were honorable acts; 

 not so with the Spaniards or Portuguese, who thought 

 of nothing but running about in search of mines, or at- 

 tempting to reduce to slavery, the very people whose 

 country they had violently seized. The first thing 

 that a free English population would have thought of, 

 would in all probability have been, the cultivation of 

 the earth, and the navigation of the seas; the discovery 

 of gold mines would have been the last. Would the 

 working of gold mines have proved more detrimental 

 to our national character, than those of tin or copper? 



It is difficult to say what would have been the effectsi 

 on a people, of the habits and character of those who 

 settled the United States. I am far from being con- 

 vinced, that climate alone would have been sufficient 

 to make the difference in favor of our country. Per- 

 haps what would be most to be feared; would be, that 



