404 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA : 
quently been enhanced much beyond its in¬ 
trinsic worth, and these persons have then 
taken the opportunity of selling what they had 
on hand at an enormous profit. The wealth 
that has been accumulated by particular per¬ 
sons in the United States,, in this manner, is 
prodigious; and numberless others, witnesses 
to their prosperity, have been tempted to make 
purchases of land, in hopes of realizing for¬ 
tunes in a similar way, by selling out small 
portions at an advanced price. Thus it is that 
the nominal value of waste land has been 
raised so suddenly in the United States; for 
large tracts, which ten years before were selling 
for a few pence per acre, have sold in num¬ 
berless instances, lately, for dollars per acre, an 
augmentation in price which the increase of 
population alone would by no means have 
occasioned. Estates, like articles of merchan¬ 
dize, have passed, before they have ever been 
improved, through the hands of dozens of 
people, who never perhaps were within five 
hundred miles of them, and the consumer or 
farmer, in consequence of the profits laid on by 
these people, to whom they have severally be¬ 
longed, has had frequently to pay a most exor^ 
bitant price for the little spot which he has 
* 
o 
* In the beginning of the year 1 79th this traffic was at 
its highest pitch, and at this time General Washington, s® 
