this journey, including every thing, not excepting the loss sustained by purchase and sale of my horse, amount to two hundred and seventy dollars and seventy cents. 572. As it is now about a twelvemonth since I have been settled in Philadelphia, or set foot in it, rather, with my family, I will take a look at my books, and add to this journal what have been the expenses of my family for this one year, from the time of landing to this day, inclusive. House-rent Fuel D. C. 600 137 Schooling (at day-schools) for my children 106 namely; for Thomas, fourteen years of age Peter and John, ages of twelve and ten Sarah, six years of age $40 48 18 Boarding of all my family at Mrs. Antho- Expenses of house-keeping (my family 80 2076 66 Priest, not a cent. $2999 66 : 573. "What! nothing to the Parson !" some of my old neighbours will exclaim. No not a single stiver. The Quakers manage their affairs without Parsons, and I believe they are as good and as happy a people as any religious denomination who are aided and assisted by a Priest. I do not suppose that the Quakers will admit me into their Society; but, in this free country I can form a new society, if I choose, and, if I do, it shall be a society having a chairman in place of a Parson, and the assemblage shall discuss the subject of their meeting themselves. Why should there not be as much knowledge and wisdom and common sense in the heads of a whole congregation as in the head of a Parson? Ah! but then there are the profits arising from the trade! Some of this holy order in England receive upwards of forty thousand dollars a year for preaching probably not more than five or six sermons during the whole year. Well may the Cossack Priests represent Old England as the bulwark of religion! This is the sort of religion they so much dreaded the loss of during the French Revolution; and this is the sort of religion they so zealously expected to establish in America, when they received the glad tidings of the restoration of the Bourbons and the Pope. END OF MR. HULME'S JOURNAL. ΤΟ MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. OF ENGLISH PRAIRIE, Illinois Territory. Letter I. North Hempstead, Long-Island, Dec. 10, 1818. MY DEAR SIR, 574. I have read your two little books, namely, the "Notes on a Journey in America" and the "Letters from the Illinois." I opened the books, and I proceeded in the perusal, with fear and trembling; not because I supposed it possible for you to put forth an intended imposition on the world; but because I had a sincere respect for the character and talents of the writer; and because I knew how enchanting and delusive are the prospects of enthusiastic minds, when bent on grand territorial acquisitions. 575. My apprehensions were, I am sorry to have to say, but too well founded. Your books, written I am sure without any intention to deceive and decoy, and without any even the smallest tincture of base self-interest, are, in my opinion, calculated to produce great disappointment, not to say misery and ruin amongst our own country people, (for I will, in spite of your disavowal, still claim the honour of having you for a countryman,) and great injury to America, by sending back to Europe accounts of that disappointment, misery and ruin. 576. It is very true, that you decline advising any one to go to the ILLINOIS, and it is also true, that your description of the hardships you encountered is very candid; but still, there runs through out the whole of your Notes such an account as to the prospect, that is to say, the ultimate effect, that the book is, without your either wishing or perceiving it, calculated to deceive and decoy. You do indeed describe difficulties and hardships; but, then, you overcome them all with so much ease and gayety, that you make them disregarded by your English readers, who, sitting by their firesides, and feeling nothing but the grip of the Boroughmonger's taxgatherer, merely cast a glance at your hardships and fully participate in all your enthusiasm. You do indeed fairly describe the rugged roads, the dirty hovels, the fire in the woods to sleep by, the pathless ways through the wildernesses, the dangerous crossings of the rivers: but, there are the beautiful meadows and rich lands at last there is the fine freehold domain at the end! There are the giants and the enchanters to encounter; the slashings and the rib-roastings to undergo; but, then, there is, at last, the lovely languishing damsel to repay the adventurer. 577. The whole of your writings, relative to your undertaking, address themselves directly to English Farmers, who have property to the amount of two or three thousand pounds, or upwards. Persons of this description are, not by your express words, but by the natural tendency of your writings invited; nay, strongly invited, to emigrate with their property to the Illinois Territory. Many have already acted upon the invitation. Many others are about to follow them. I am convinced, that their doing this is unwise, and that it is greatly injurious, not only to them, but to the character of America as a country to emigrate to; and, as I have, in the First Part of this work, promised to give, as far as I am able, a true account of America, it is my duty to state the reasons on which this conviction is founded and I address the statement to you, in order, that, if you find it erroneous, you may, in the |