'374 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



If any tendency to court a reunion with the old metropoUs 

 should make its appearance in Dutch Guyana, no doubt Cay- 

 enne would become the centre of intrigue. There, a powerful 

 neighbour has a footing, who is always willing to accept, and 

 as far as land -service goes, always able to support the allegi- 

 ance of the discontented. A fleet off the coast is not a defense 

 against troops marched through the interior. The French 

 have many people of talent at Cayenne, quite adequate to stir- 

 ring up sedition, and undertaking the administration of a co- 

 lony : they are less rich in merchants of capital, or in patient 

 and skilled agricuUurists. 



The civilization of countries is always proportioned to the den- 

 sity rather than to the number of the people. The same quan- 

 tity of individuals distributed over a narrow surface, will each 

 have more wants, and will each acquire a more various instruc- 

 tion, than if dispersed over a wide surface. Whatever disbands 

 and separates men, renders less necessary the acquirement of 

 education, the social arts, the showy comforts, the domestic 

 conveniences, and the cares of neatness. The natural indo- 

 lence of every individual is found to bring him a grade nearer 

 to savagism at every remove into a less thronged neighbour- 

 hood. No citizen can be long settled in the country without 

 rusticating. No colonist can migrate toward the back settle- 

 ments, without a sensible approxiniation of his habits to those 

 of the wild man of nature. At every successive generation the 



