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 himfelf, 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 fhare of human felicity. It is true, that in fome of the flates there are parties and difcords; but let us look back, and afk if we were ever without them? Such will exift wherever there is liberty; and perhaps they help to preferve 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, meafures, and objects of all kinds, prefent themfelves to the minds of men in fuch a variety of lights, that it is not poffible we fhould all think alike at the fame time on every fubject, 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 mischievous or lefs beneficial than thofe of other countries, nations, and ages, enjoying in the fame degree the great blefing of political liberty. Some indeed among us are not fo much grieved for the present ftate 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 most plentiful income of a whole people from the 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 happens: for there feems to be in every nation a greater proportion of industry and frugality, which tend to enrich, than of idlenefs and prodigality, which occafion poverty; fo that upon the whole there is a continual accumulation. Reflect what 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 prefent poffefs, in numerous well-built cities, improved farms, rich moveables, magazines ftocked with valuable manufactures, to fay nothing of plate, jewels, and coined money; and all this, notwithstanding their bad, wafteful, plundering governments, and their mad, deftructive wars and yet luxury and extravagant living has never fuffered much reftraint in thofe countries. Then confider the great proportion of induftrious frugal farmers inhabiting the interior parts of these American ftates, 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 fuch a country.-If the importation of foreign, luxuries could ruin a people, we fhould probably have been ruined long ago; for the British nation claimed a right, and practifed it, of importing among us not only the fuperfluities of their own production, but tofe of every nation under heaven; we bought and confumed them, and yet we flourished and grew rich. At prefent 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 adorning ourselves with fine clothes, poffeffing fine furniture, with elegant houses, &c. is not, by ftrongly inciting to labour and induftry, the occafion of producing a greater value than is confumed in the gratification of that defire. The agriculture and fisheries of the United States are the great fources of our increafing wealth. He that puts a feed into the earth is recompenced, perhaps, by receiving forty out of it; and he who draws a fifh out of our water, draws up a piece of filver. Let us (and there is no doubt but we fhall) be attentive to thefe, and then the power of rivals, with all their reftraining and prohibiting acts, cannot much hurt us. We are fons of the earth and feas, and, like Antæus in the fable, 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. INFOR INFORMATION TO THOSE WHO WOULD MANY perfons in Europe having, directly or by letters, 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, miftaken ideas and expectations of what is to be obtained there; he thinks it may be useful, and prevent inconvenient, expensive, and fruitlefs removals and voyages of improper perfons, if he gives fome clearer and truer notions of that part of the world than appear to have hitherto, prevailed. He finds it is imagined by numbers, that the inhabitants of North-America are rich, capable of rewarding, and difpofed to reward, all forts of ingenuity; that they are at the fame time ignorant of all the fciences, and confequently that ftrangers, poffeffing talents in the belleslettres, fine arts, &c. muft be highly esteemed, and fo well paid as to become eafily rich themfelves; that there are alfo abundance of profitable 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 easily obtain the beft of those offices, which will make all their fortunes: that the governments too, to encourage emigrations from Europe, not only pay the expence of perfonal transportation, but give lands gratis to ftrangers, with negroes to work for them, utenfils of hufbandry, and ftocks of cattle. Thefe are all wild imaginations; and those who go to America with expectations founded founded upon them, will furely find themselves disappointed. The truth is, that though there are in that country few people fo miferable as the poor of Europe, there are alfo very few that in Europe would be called rich: it is rather a general happy mediocrity that prevails. There are few great proprietors of the foil, and few tenants; moft people cultivate their own lands, or follow fome handicraft or merchandife; very few rich enough to live idly upon their rents or incomes, or to pay the high prices given in Europe for painting, ftatues, architecture, and the other works of art that are more curious than ufeful. Hence the natural geniuses that have arisen in America, with fuch talents, have uniformly quitted that country for Europe, where they can be more fuitably rewarded. It is true that letters and mathematical knowledge are in esteem there, but they are at the fame time more common than is apprehended; there being already exifting nine colleges, or univerfities, viz. four in New-England, and one in each of the provinces of New-York, New-Jerfey, Pennfylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, all furnished with learned profeffors; be fides a number of smaller academies: these educate many of their youth in the languages, and thofe sciences that qualify men for the profeffions of divinity, law, or phyfic. Strangers indeed are by no means excluded from exercising those profeffions; and the quick increafe of inhabitants every where gives them a chance of employ,: which they have in common with the natives. Of civil offices, or employments, there are few; no fuperfluous ones as in Europe; and it is a rule established in fome of the ftates, that no office fhould be fo profitable as to make it defirable. The 36th article of the conftitution of Pennfyl vania |