I fee in the public newspapers of different States frequent complaints of hard times, deadnefs of trade, farcity of money, &c. &c. It is not my intention to affert or maintain that thefe complaints are entirely without foundation. There can be no country or nation exifting, in which there will not be fome people fo circumftanced as to find it hard to gain a livelihood; people who are not in the way of any profitable trade, and with whom money is fcarce, becaufe they have nothing to give in exchange for it; and it is always in the power of a small number to make a great claBut let us take a cool view of the general ftate of our affairs, and perhaps the profpect will appear lefs gloomy than has been imagined.

mour.

The great bufinefs of the continent is agriculture. For one artifan, or merchant, I fuppofe, we have at least one hundred farmers, and by far the greateft part cultivators of their own fertile lands, from whence many of them draw not only food neceffary for their fubfiftence, but the materials of their clothing, fo as to need very few foreign fupplies; while they have a furplus of productions to dispose of, whereby wealth is gradually accumulated. Such has been the goodness of Divine Providence to thefe regions, and fo favourable the climate, that, fince the three or four years of hardship in the first fettlement of our fathers here, a famine or fcarcity has never been heard of amongst us; on the contrary, though fome years may have been more, and others lefs plentiful, there has always been provision enough for ourselves, and a quantity to fpare for exportation. And although the crops of last year were generally good, never was the farmer better paid for the part he can fpare commerce, as the publifhed price currents abundantly teftify. The lands he poffeffes are alfo continually rifing in value with the increase of population; and, on the whole, he is enabled to give fuch good wages to thofe who work for him, that all who are acquainted with the old world must agree, that in no part of it are the labouring poor fo generally well fed, well clothed, well lodged, and weli paid, as in the United States of America.

If we enter the cities, we find that, fince the revolution, the owners of houfes and lots of ground have had their intereft vallly augmented in value; rents have rifen to an afto

nifhing height, and thence encouragement to increase building, which gives employment to an abundance of workmen as does alfo the increafed luxury and fplendour of living of the inhabitants thus made richer. These workmen all demand and obtain much higher wages than any other part of the world could afford them and are paid in ready money. This rank of people therefore do not, or ought not, to complain of hard times; and they make a very confiderable part of the city inhabitants.

At the diftance I live from our American fifheries, I cannot speak of them with any degree of certainty, but I have not heard that the labour of the valuable race of men employed in them is worse paid, or that they meet with lefs fuccefs, than before the revolution. The whale-men indeed have been deprived of one market for their oil; but another, I hear, is opening for them, which it is hoped may be equally advantageous; and the demand is constantly increafing for their fpermaceti candles, which there bear a much higher price than formerly.

There remain the merchants and fhop-keepers. Of these, though they make but a small part of the whole nation, the number is confiderable, too great indeed for the business they are employed in; for the confumption of goods in every country has its limits; the faculties of the people, that is, their ability to buy and pay, is equal ouly to a certain quantity of merchandize. If merchants calculate amifs on this proportion, and import too much, they will of course find the fale dull for the overplus, and fome of them will fay that trade languifhes. They fhould, and doubtless will, grow wifer by experience, and import lefs. If too many artificers in town, and farmers from the country, flattering themselves with the idea of leading eafier lives, turn fhop-keepers, the whole natural quantity of that business, divided among them all, may afford too fmall a fhare for each, and occafion complaints that trading is dead; these may alfo fuppofe that it is owing to fcarcity of money, while in fact, it is not fo much from the fewness of buyers, as from the exceffive number of fellars, that the mischief arises; and, if every shop-keeping farmer and mechanic would return to the ufe of his plough and working tools, there would remain of widows, and other women, shop

keepers fufficient for the bufinefs, which might then afford them a comfortable maintenance.

Whoever has travelled through the various parts of Europe, and obferved how small is the proportion of people in affluence or eafy circumstances there, compared with those in poverty and mifery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject, rack-rented, tythe-paying tenants, and half-paid and half-ftarved ragged labourers; and views here the happy mediocrity that fo generally prevails throughout thefe ftates, where the cultivator works for himself, and fupports his family in decent plenty; will, methinks, fee abundant reafon to blefs Divine Providence for the evident and great difference in our favour, and be convinced that no nation known to us enjoys a greater share of human felicity.

It is true, that in fome of the ftates there are parties and difcords; but let us look back, and ask if we were ever without them? Such will exift wherever there is liberty; and perhaps they help to preserve it. By the collifion of different fentiments, fparks of truth are ftruck out, and political light is obtained. The different factions, which at prefent divide us, aim all at the public good: the differences are only about the various modes of promoting it. Things, actions, measures, and objects of all kinds, prefent themselves to the minds of men in fuch a variety of lights, that it is not poffible we should all think alike at the fame time on every subject, when hardly the fame man retains at all times the fame ideas of it. Parties are therefore the common lot of humanity; and ours are by no means more mifchievous or lefs beneficial than thofe of other countries, nations, and ages, enjoying in the fame degree the great bleffing of political liberty.

Some indeed among us are not fo much grieved for the present state of our affairs, as apprehenfive for the future. The growth of luxury alarms them, and they think we are from that alone in the high road to ruin. They obferve, that no revenue is fufficient without economy, and that the moft plentiful income of a whole people from the natural productions of their country may be diffipated in vain and needlefs expences, and poverty be introduced in the place of affluence.---This may be poffible. It however rarely hap

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pens for there feems to be in every nation a greater proportion of industry and frugality, which tend to enrich, than of idleness and prodigality, which occafion poverty; fo that upon the whole there is a continual accumulation. Reflect that Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain were in the time of the Romans, inhabited by people little richer than our favages, and confider the wealth they at present poffefs, in numerous-well built cities, improved farms, rich moveables, magazines stocked with valuable manufactures, to say nothing of plate, jewels, and coined money; and all this, notwithstanding their bad, wafteful, plundering governments, and their mad destructive wars, and yet luxury and extravagant living has never fuffered much restraint in those countries. Then confider the great proportion of industrious frugal farmers inhabiting the interior parts of these American states, and of whom the body of our nation confifts, and judge whether it is poffible that the luxury of our fea-ports can be fufficient to ruin such a country.—If the importation of foreign luxuries could ruin a people, we should probably have been ruined long ago; for the British nation claimed a right, and practised it, of importing among us not only the fuperfluities of their own production, but those of every nation under heaven; we bought and confumed them, and yet we flourished and grew rich. At present our independent governments may do what we could not then do, difcourage by heavy duties, or prevent by heavy prohibitions, fuch importations, and thereby grow richer; if, indeed, which may admit of difpute, the defire of adorning ourfelves with fine clothes, poffeffing fine furniture, with elegant houses, &c. is not, by ftrongly inciting to labour and industry, the occafion of producing a greater value than is confumed in the gratification of that defire.

The agriculture and fifheries of the United States are the great fources of our increasing wealth. He that puts a feed into the earth is recompenfed, perhaps by receiving forty out of it; and he who draws a fish out of our water, draws up a piece of filver.

Let us (and there is no doubt but we fhall) be attentive to these, and then the power of rivals, with all their retraining and prohibiting acts, cannot much hurt us. are fons of the earth and feas, and, like Antæus in the fable,

We

if in wrestling with a Hercules we now and then receive a fall, the touch of our parents will communicate to us fresh ftrength and vigour to renew the conteft.

INFORMATION TO THOSE WHO WOULD REMOVE. TO AMERICA.

MANY perfons in Europe having, directly, or by lets

ters, expreffed to the writer of this, who is well acquainted with North America their defire of transporting and establishing themselves in that country; but who appear to him to have formed, through ignorance, mistaken ideas and expectations of what is to be obtained there; he thinks it may be useful, and prevent inconvenient, expensive, and fruitless removals and voyages of improper perfons, if he gives fome clearer and truer notions of that part of the world, than have hitherto prevailed.

He finds it imagined by numbers, that the inhabitants of North America are rich, capable of rewarding, and dis‐ posed to reward, all forts of ingenuity; that they are at the fame time ignorant of all the fciencies and consequently that ftrengers, poffeffing talents in the belles-letters, fine arts, &c. must be highly esteemed, and fo well paid as to become easi ly rich themselves; that there are also abundance of profita ble offices to be difpofed of, which the natives are not qualified to fill; and that having few perfons of family among them, ftrangers of birth must be greatly refpected, and of course eafily obtain the best of thofe offices, which will make all their fortunes; that the governments too, to encourage emigrations from Europe, not only pay the expence of their personal transportation, but give lands gratis to ftrangers, with negroes to work for them, utenfils of hufbandry, and stocks of cattle. These are all wild imaginations; and those who go to America with expectations founded upon them, will furely find themselves difappointed.

The truth is, that though there are in that country few people fo miferable as the poor of Europe there are alfo few that in Europe would be called rich; it is rather a general py mediocrity that prevails. There are few great pro

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