£90 APPENDIX. 
Europe. It is about a year since they have been fixed in this 
place. Last summer proved fatal to five or six, and few esca¬ 
ped the prevailing fever. They deny the place to be unheal¬ 
thy, and say that those who died were chiefly old men; the mea¬ 
ger diet, and scanty nourishment, which is taken by such as have 
made the vow, must certainly contribute. They first settled in 
Kentucky, afterwards came to Fiorisant near St. Louis, and 
from thence to their present residence. They are supposed 
to be an industrious well meaning people, and I should be 
willing to see them treated with respect, and even encourage¬ 
ment in all but one thing; the education of children. This is 
foreign from the original design of their institution, which is a 
total exclusion from the world. Such a place is for a thousand 
reasons not calculated for a school; a boy brought up here to the 
age of one and twenty, can never be fit for any thing but a Trap- 
pist. It may be said that an asylum is here offered to those in 
extreme distress—to those unfortunate wretches, who, aged and 
friendless, are in danger of perishing of want. Happily for our 
country such instances are rare indeed. Or for those unhap¬ 
py orphans, who may be exposed from their helplessness to be 
without support, and to whom, inhuman barbarity may have de¬ 
nied a home and a protection. I may safely say that these are 
as rare as the others. In America, it is not necessary as in Eu¬ 
rope, to give a fee with a boy who is bound apprentice to any 
particular calling; on the contrary there is scarcely any mecha¬ 
nic who will not gladly take him and teach him his trade for the 
service which he may render, before the expiration of the ap¬ 
prenticeship 
A brief history of this singular institution, may not be unen¬ 
tertaining. The monastery of La Trappe was situated in the 
province of Perche in France: in one pf the most solitary spots 
that could be chosen. It was founded in 1140 by Rotrou Count 
of Perche. This monastery had fallen into decay, and its dis¬ 
cipline much relaxed, when reformed by the Abbe Ranc6 1664. 
Ranee had met with some misfortune, which rendered life hate¬ 
ful to him, some assert the sudden death of madam Montbazor, 
whose favorite lover he was. He had been a man of fashion, 
and possessed some pretensions to literature j he is said to have 
