Mrs. WrighVs Travels in the United States. 631 
live; at present, therefore, the trade is 
placed under the jurisdiction of the 
American Congress, while the Penn¬ 
sylvania legislature appoint officers to 
see that the contracts between the emi¬ 
grants and the ship captains are faith¬ 
fully fulfilled. A ship, of whatever 
nation, arriving in port peopled beyond 
a rate prescribed by law, is forfeited to 
the national government. The captain 
of every ship is bound to support his 
emigrants, or redemptioners , as they 
are styled, for one month after (liedate 
of their arrival in port ; after which, 
he may add the charge of their support, 
as determined by law, to the debt of 
their passage. This debt, which is 
contracted in Holland, is paid accord¬ 
ing to the means of the emigrant. If 
he has money to defray his passage, 
and that of his family, he devotes it to 
this purpose; but this is rarely the 
case ; sometimes he pays half or a third 
part of the debt, and becomes bound 
to the captain for a term of service 
equivalent to the remainder, who is 
empowered to sell this indentureship 
to a resident citizen in Pennsylvania; 
more frequently he discharges the 
whole of the debt by the surrender of 
his liberty. Upon his arrival here, 
however, the laws effectually screen 
him from the results which might ac¬ 
crue from his own ignorance or rash¬ 
ness ; he, or rather the captain for him, 
cannot, under any circumstances, in¬ 
dent his person for a term longer than 
four years, nor can he be taken without 
his consent beyond the limits of the 
state of Pennsylvania. An officer is 
appointed and salaried by the Pennsyl¬ 
vania government, who inspects the 
redemptioners on their arrival, and 
witnesses and reports the agreement 
made between the captain and those 
who purchase their service. The pur¬ 
chasers must take the whole family, 
man,, wife, and children, unless the 
redemptioners themselves shall agree 
to the contrary; the masters being also 
bound by the law to provide the chil¬ 
dren with schooling and clothing. 
There are some minor regulations with 
which 1 am not accurately acquainted. 
This service, you will perceive, is liable 
to be not a little expensive to the em¬ 
ployers. It is attended, however, with 
fewer risks than might be expected; 
the Swiss and German peasants being, 
for the most part, simple, honest and 
industrious, and excellent servants in 
the farm and the dairy. This mode of 
indenture is so serviceable to these 
emigrants, that those who may have 
been able to defray their passage in 
money, usually bind themselves to 
some American family for a couple of 
years, where they may be initiated in 
the language and habits of their new' 
country. I have met with instances of 
this kind in Pennsylvania, and even in 
New York and Jersey, into which 
states the emigrants had consented to 
pass. After the expiration of the term, 
the redemptioners are often retained 
by their masters upon wages ; when, if 
they are frugal and ambitious, they 
may, in the course of time, lay up suffi¬ 
cient to purchase a few acres, and enter 
oil their own farm. 
It certainly cannot be expected that 
the American nation will submit to 
have their country turned into alazar- 
house for the suffering poor of Europe, 
who, with poverty, but too often bring 
its accompaniments, indolence and vice. 
Those states, probably, act wisely, who, 
by such regulations as 1 have mention¬ 
ed as adopted by New York, shut the 
door against them. That state, by the 
bye, receives, as it is, more than she 
finds agreeable, by the way of Canada; 
and her community are put to no small 
inconvenience and expense for their 
provision. 
BALTIMORE. 
This city is singularly neat and pret¬ 
ty; 1 will even say beautiful. It is 
possible that in the first gaze I threw 
upon it, it owed something to the hour, 
the season, and the just fallen shower 
of sweet spring rain; but what is there 
in life that owes not to time and cir¬ 
cumstance the essence of its evil or its 
good ? We looked forth from our ca¬ 
bin in the still grey dawn, and paced 
awhile up and down the spacious deck 
of the lordly steam-boat, to enjoy the 
scene, and the hour, to which the scene 
owed much. All was yet silent in the 
city—silent as the unpierced forests of 
the west; not a foot trod the quays, or 
was heard upon the pavement of the 
streets that branched from them ; not a 
figure was seen on the decks, or in the 
shrouds of the vessels that lay around 
us ; the very air was sleeping, and the 
shipping reposed on the waters ot the 
little bay (formed here by an inlet of the 
Potapsco,) which lay motionless as the 
thin wreaths of vapour which hung 
above them. There is something 
strangely impressive in such a death of 
sound and motion in the very heart and 
centre of the haunts of men. A con¬ 
densed population of thousands thus 
hushed 
