1805.] 
Great Britain wielded a force not inferior 
to that of the Roman empire under Tra- 
jan, fuddenly-aftonifhed “Europe beheld a 
feeble people, till then unknown, ftand 
forth and defy this giant to the combat. 
It was fo unequal, all expected it would 
be fhort. The events of that war were fo 
many miracles, that attracted, as much 
pethaps as any war ever did, the wonder 
of mankind. Our final fuccefs exalted 
their admiration to its highelt point:— 
they allowed to Washington all that is 
due to tranfcendant virtue, and to the 
Americans more than is due to human 
mature. They confidered us as a race of 
Wathingtons, and admitted that Nature 
in America was fruitful only in prodigies. 
Their books and their travellers, exagge- 
rating and diftorting all their reprefenta- 
tions, aflitted to eftablifh the opinion, that 
this'is a new world, with a new order of 
men and things adapted to it ; that here 
we practife induftry amidit the abundance 
that requires none ; that we have morals 
fo refined that we do not need laws ; and 
though we have them, yet we ought to 
confider their execution as an infult anda 
wrong ; that we have virtue without 
weaknefles, fentiment without patffions, 
and liberty without factions. Thefe illu- 
fions, in fpite of their abfurdity, and, 
perhaps, becaufe they are abfurd enough 
to have dominion over the imagination 
only, have been received by many of the 
malcontents againft the governments of 
Europe, and induced them to emigrate. — 
Such illufions aré too foothing to vanity 
to be entirely checked in their currency 
among Americans. They have been per- 
nicious, as they cherifh falfe ideas of the 
rights of men and the duties of rulers.— 
They have led the citizens to lock for 
liberty where it is not, and to confider the 
government, which is its caftle, .as its pri- 
fon.” 
This opinion of the Americans them- 
felves, is 1o extremely worthy of the notice 
of Europeans, as to appear to me to need 
no apology for giving it to your readers. 
My intention in doing it, fo far as re{pects 
mylelf, is to account for the difference 
they will find betwixt my account and 
thofe of preceding writers on American 
affairs. They haye given the reveries of 
a fanciful, if not wicked, imagination: I 
fliall confine myfelf to plain -matters of 
fa&. 
To proceed :—The lands of the weftein 
continent are reprefented under three 
ftriking heads : . 
a. As fertile to Juxuriance. 
2. As exceflively cheap. 
Obfervations refpeéiing Emigration to America. 
231 
3. As offering advantages not to be 
parajleled on the eaftern continent. 
Thefe heads will embrace the whole 
extent of the nature of American lands 
and land-jobbing, and each will be confi- 
dered in its place. 
1. The American lands are fertile to 
luxuriance.—This is a faét, fo far as re- 
fpects the uncultivated lands, which can 
be no fubje&t of wonder to any perfon 
who has the leaft knowledge of natural 
philofophy. In fpite of the quaint ex- 
preflions of European writers, who affect 
to call America the younger filter of the 
three other grand divifions of the habi- 
table part of the globe, it {trikes many 
that it will se no difficult matter to prove 
them to have been twins ;* and if we 
confider the face of the country when it 
was firft difcovered by us, which was’ al- 
moft totally covered by forett-trees (the 
aborigines only inhabiting fpots which 
nature had left bare, and never deftroying 
the forefts, which fheltered their game, 
and were denominated their hunting- 
grounds), we muft be, at once, convin- 
ced, that the annual fall of the leaves, and 
the decay of vegetation upon the ground, 
heaped up for fo many ages, and quickly 
rotted by the immenfe falls of fnow and 
confequent fummer-heats of the climate, 
muft have rendered the greateft part of the 
fuperficies of the level grounds or vallies 
one’ continued heap of {trong natural ma- 
nure. his is fo much the cafe, that 
every production found there is exceflively 
rank, and the ground muft be abfolotely 
impoverifhed by tobacco, hemp, or other 
weeds, as rank as the foil itfelf, before it 
will be fit for any kind of grain. For 
this reafon we find that tobacco, which 
was formerly fo much cultivated on the 
Atlantic fhores, is now to be feen: there 
no more. By a continual fucceffion of 
cr¢éps of tobacco, the lands are grown too 
poor to bear any more, and is fill rich 
enough for crops of grain; but even for 
thofe the old lands begin to require artif- 
cial manure, and mutt, in procefs of time, 
be managed with as much care and atten- 
tion as the old lands in Furope. The 
culture of tobacco thus gradually recedes 
from the fhores of the Atlantic, nearer to, 
and beyond, the Allegany mountains, to- 
* This may be the fubject of another 
Paper. It is really aftonifhing that Ameri- 
cans, as well as Europeans, ihould have been 
fo long infenfible to a fubjeét which would 
afford the greateft infight into natural philfo- 
phy, and might prove the touchftone of the 
Mofaic account of the creation. » 
Gg2 wards 
