ther, who has no other quality to recommend him than his birth. In Europe it has indeed its value; but it is a com modity that cannot be carried to a worse market than to that of America, where people do not enquire concerning a stranger, What is he? but What can he do? If he has any useful art, he is welcome; and if he exercises it, and behaves well, he will be respected by all that know him: but a mere man of quality, who on that account wants to live upon the public by some office or salary, will be despised and disregarded. The husbandman is in honor there, and even the mechanic, because their employments are useful. The people have a saying that God Almighty is himself a mechanic, the greatest in the universe; and he is respected and admired more for the variety, ingenuity, and utility of his handicraft works, than for the antiquity of his family. They are pleased with the observation of a negro, and frequently mention it, that Boccarorra (meaning the white man) make de black man workee, make de horse workee, make de ox workee, make ebery ting workee, only de hog. He, de hog, no workee; he eat, he drink, he walk about, he go to sleep when he please, he libb like a gentleman. According to these opinions of the Americans, one of them would think himself more obliged to a genealogist who could prove for him that his ancestors and relations for ten generations had been ploughmen, smiths, carpenters, turnes, weavers, tanners, or even shoemakers, and consequently that they were useful members of society: than if he could only prove that they were gentlemen, doing nothing of value, but living idly on the labor of others, mere fruges consumere nati,* and otherwise good for nothing, till by their death their estates, like the carcass of the negro's gentleman-hog, come to be cut up.

With regard to encouragements for strangers from government, they are really only what are derived froin good laws and liberty. Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect them sufficiently, so that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry.

But if he does not bring a fortune with him he must work and be industrious to live. One or two years residence give him all the rights of a citizen; but the government does not at present, whatever it may have done in former times, hire people to become settlers, by paying their passage, giving land, negroes, utensils, stock, or any other kind of emolument whatsoever. In short, America is the land of labor, and by no means what the English call Lubberland, and the French Pays de Cocague, where the streets are said to be paved with half peck loaves, the houses tiled with pancakes, and where the fowls fly about ready roasted, crying come eat me!

Who then are the kind of persons to whom an emigration to America may be advantageous? And what are the advantages they may reasonably expect?

Land being cheap in that country, from the vast forests still void of inhabitants, and not likely to be occupied in an age to come, insomuch that the property of a hundred acres of fertile soil, full of wood, may be obtained near the frontiers in many places for eight or ten guineas, hearty young laboring men, who understand the husbandry of corn and cattle, which is nearly the same in that country as in Europe, may easily establish themselves there. A little money saved of the good wages they receive there while they work for others, enables them to buy the land and begin their plantation, in which they are assisted by the good will of their neighbors and some credit. Multitudes of poor people from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany have by this means in a few years become wealthy farmers, who in the own countries, where all the lands are fully occupied, and the wages of labor low, could never have emerged from the mean condition - wherein they were born.

From the salubrity of the air, the healthiness of the climate, the plenty of good provisions, and the encouragement to early marriages, by the certainty of subsistence in cultivating the earth, the increase of inhabitants by natural generation is very rapid in America, and becomes still more so by the accession of strangers: hence there is a continual demand for more artisans of all the necessary and useful kinds, to supply those cultivators of the earth with houses, and with furniture and utensils of the grosser sorts, which cannot so well be brought from Europe. Tolerably good workmen in any of those mechanic arts are sure to find em

ploy, and to be well paid for their work, there being no restraints preventing strangers from exercising any art they understand, nor any permission necessary. If they ac poor, they begin first as servants or journeymen; and if they are sober, industrious, and frugal, they soon become masters, establish themselves in business, inarry, raise fainilies, and become respectable citizens.

Also, persons of moderate families and capitals, who, having a number of children to provide for, are desirous of bringing them up to industry, and to secure estates to their posterity, have opportunities of doing it in America which Europe does not afford. There they may be taught and practise profitable mechanic arts, without incurring disgrace on that account; but on the contrary, acquiring respect to such abilities. Their small capitals laid out in lands, which daily become more valuable by the increase of people, afford a solid prospect of ample fortunes thereafter for those children. The writer of this has known several instances of large tracts of land bought on what was then the frontiers of Pennsylvania, for ten pounds per hundred acres, which, after twenty years, when the settlements had been extended far beyond them, sold readily, without any improvement made upon them, for three pounds per acre. The acre in America is the same with the English acre, or the acre of Normandy.

Those who desire to understand the state of government in America, would do well to read the Constitutions of the several States, and the articles of confederation which bind the whole together for general purposes, under the direction of one Assembly, called the Congress. These constitutions have been printed by order of Congress in America; two editions of them have been printed in London; and a good translation of them into French has lately been published at Paris.

Several of the Princes of Europe having of late, from an opinion of advantage to arise by producing all commodities and manufactures within their own dominions, so as to di minish or render useless their importations, have endeavor ed to entice workmen from other countries, by high salaries, privileges, &c. Many persons pretending to be skilled in various great nianufactures, imagining that America must be in want of them, and that the Congress would probably

be disposed to imitate the princes above mentioned, have proposed to go over on condition of having their passages paid, lands given, salaries appointed, exclusive privileges for terms of yeais, &c. Such persons, on reading the arti cles of confederation, will find that the Congress have no power committed to thein, or money put into their hands, for such purposes; and that, if any such encouragement is given, it must be by the government of some separate state. This, however has rarely been done in America; and when it has been done, it has rarely succeeded, so as to establish a manufacture, which the country was not yet so ripe for as to encourage private persons to set it up; labor being generally too dear, and hands difficult to be kept together, every one desiring to be a master, and the cheapness of land inclining many to leave trades for agriculture. Some, indeed, have met with success, and are carried on to advantage; but they are generally such as require only a few hauds, or wherein great part of the work is * performed by machines. Goods that are bulky, and of so small a value as not well to bear the expense of freight, may often be made cheaper in the country than they can be imported; and the manufacture of such goods will be profitable wherever there is a sufficient demand. The farmers in America produce indeed a good deal of wool and flax, and none is exported-it is all worked up: but it is in the way of domestic manufacture, for the use of the family. The buying up quantities of wool and flax, with the design to employ spinners, weavers, &c. and form great establishments, producing quantities of linen and woollen goods for sale, has been several times attempted in different provinces; but those projects have generally failed, goods of equal value being imported cheaper. And when the governments have been solicited to support such schemes by encouragements in money, or by imposing duties on importation of such goods, it has been generally refused, on this principle, that if the country is ripe for the manufacture, it may be carried

by private persons to advantage: and, if not, it is folly to think of forcing nature. Great establishments of manu facture require great numbers of poor to do the work for small wages; those poor are to be found in Europe, but will not be found in America, till the lands are all taken up and cultivated, and the excess of people who cannot get land

want employment. The manufacture of silk, they say, is natural in France, as that of cloth in England, because each country produces in plenty the first material; but if England will have a manufacture of silk as well as that of cloth, and France of cloth as well as that of silk, these unnatural operations must be supported by mutual prohibitions, or high duties on the importation of each other's goods; by which means the workmen are enabled to tax the homeconsumer by greater prices, while the higher wages they receive makes them neither happier nor richer, since they only drink more and work less. Therefore the governments in America do nothing to encourage such projects. The people by this means are not imposed on either by the merchant or mechanic: if the merchant demands too much profit on imported shoes, they buy of the shoemaker; and if he asks too high a price, they take them of the merchant: thus the two professions are checks on each other. The shoemaker however has, on the whole, a considerable profit upon his labor in America, beyond what he had in Europe, as he can add to his price a sum nearly equal to all the expenses of freight and commission, risk or assurance, &c. necessa rily charged by the merchant. And the case is the same with the workmen in every other mechanic art. Hence it is that the artisans generally live better and more easily in America than in Europe; and such as are good economists make a comfortable provision for age, and for their chil dren. Such may, therefore, remove with advantage to America.

In the old, long-settled countries of Europe, all arts, trades, professions, fanns, &c. are so full that it is difficult for a poor man who has children to place them where they may gain, or learn to gain, a decent livelihood. The artisans who fear creating future rivals in business, refuse to take apprentices, but upon conditions of money, maintenance, or the like, which the parents are unable to comply with. Hence the youth are dragged up in ignorance of every gainful art, and obliged to become soldiers, or servants, or thieves, for a subsistence. In America the rapid increase of inhabitants takes away that fear of rivalship, and artisans willingly receive apprentices from the hope of profit by their labor, during the remainder of the time stipulated, af ter they shall be instructed. Hence it is easy for poor fami