The truth is, that though there are in America few people of the defcription of the poor of Europe, there are also very few that in Europe would be called rich. It is rather, as before observed, a general ⚫ happy mediocrity that prevails. There are few great proprietors of the foil, and few tenants; most people cultivate their own lands, or follow fome handicraft or merchandife; very few are rich enough to live idly upon their rents or incomes, or to pay the high prices given in Europe for paintings, 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 in general quitted that country for Europe, where they can be more fuitably rewarded. It is true that letters and mathematical knowledge are in efleem there, but they are at the fame time more common than is apprehended; there being already existing numerous colleges or univerfities, for the most part furnished with learned profeffors, befides a number of fmaller academies. Thele educate many of their youth in the languages, and thofe fciences that qualify men for the profeffion of divinity, law, and phyfic. Strangers, indeed, are by no means excluded from exercising those profeffions; and the quick increafe of inhabitants every where gives them an almost certainty 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 States, that no office fhould be fo profitable as to make it defirable for the income. The thirty-fixth article of the conftitution of Pennfylvania runs exprefly in these words: "As every freeman, to preserve his "independence, if he has not a fufficient eftate, ought to have fome "profeffion, calling, trade, or farm, whereby he may honestly fub"fift, there can be no neceflity for, nor ufe in establishing offices of "profit; the ufual effects of which are dependence and fervility, un"becoming freemen in the poffeffors and expectants, faction, con"tention, corruption and diforder among the people. Wherefore, "whenever an office, through increase of fees or otherwife, becomes "fo profitable as to occafion many to apply for it, the profits ought "to be leffened by the legiflature." Thefe ideas prevailing more or lefs in all the United States, it cannot be worth any man's while to expatriate himself in hopes of obtaining a profitable civil office in America; and as to military offices, they ended with the war, the armies being disbanded and reduced to a national militia. Much lefs is it adviseable for a perfon to go thither who has no other quality to recommend him than his birth. In VOL. III. Europ? : Europe it has, indeed, its value; but it is a commodity that cannot be carried to a worfe market than to that of America, where people do not inquire concerning a stranger, What is he? or, Who is be? but What can he do? If he has any ufeful art he is welcome; and if he exercifes it, and behaves well, he will be refpected by all that know him but a mere man of quality, who on that account wants to live upon the public, by fome office or falary, will be defpifed and difregarded. The hufbandman is in honour there, and even the mechanic, because their employments are ufeful. The people have a faying, that "God Almighty is himself a mechanic, the greatest in the univerfe:" and a man is refpected and admired more for the variety, ingenuity and utility of his handyworks, than for the antiquity of his family. They are pleafed 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 bog. He de bog, no workee; he eat, he drink, he walk about, he go to fleep when he pleafe, be 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, fmiths, carpenters, turners, weavers, tanners, or fhoemakers, and confequently, that they were useful members of fociety; than if he could only prove that they were gentlemen, doing nothing of value, but living idly on the labour of others, mere fruges confumere nati,* and otherwife good for nothing, till, by their death, their estates, like the carcafe of the negro's gentleman-hog, come to be cut up. With regard to encouragements to ftrangers from the American government, they are really only what are derived from GOOD LAWS AND GENUINE 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 fufficiently, fo that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy fecurely the profits of his industry. But, if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious if he gains one. One or two years refidence give him all the rights of a citizen; but the government does not at prefent, whatever it may have done in *There are a number of us born WATTS. former former times, hire people to become fettlers, by paying their paffages, giving land, negroes, utenfils, ftock or any other kind of emolument whatfoever. In fhort, America is a land of labour, and by no means what the English call Lubberland, and the French, Pays de Cocagne. Those who defire to understand the state of government in America, fhould read the conftitutions of the feveral States, and the articles of confederation that bind the whole together for general purpofes, under the direction of one affembly called the Congress. These constitutions we have for the most part given at length, in our account of the different States in the Union; and where that is not done, the reader may reft affured there is no material variation. These constitutions convey, in the cleareft manner, the principles and practice of the American government, and furnish a body of political information fcarcely to be found in any other compofitions. MOTIVES TO EMIGRATION. If the above obfervations are confidered as truc, it may naturally be asked, WHAT ARE THE GENERAL INDUCEMENTS TO QUIT EUROPE FOR THE PURPOSE OF SETTLING IN AMERICA? SPECTING THE FUTURE SUCCESS OF A FAMILY. : To this query we fhall, without befitation, reply, that the first and principal inducement to an European to quit his native country for America, is THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF ANXIETY REThere is little fault, to find with the government of America, either in principle or in practice; they have very few taxes to pay, and those are of ac、 knowledged neceffity, and moderate in amount: they have no animoties about religion; it is a fubject about which no questions are afked they have few refpecting political men or political measures: the present irritation of men's minds in Great-Britain, and the dif cordant state of fociety on political accounts, is not known there, The government is the government oF THE PEOPLE, and FOR THE PEOPLE. There are no tythes nor game laws; and excife laws upon fpirits only, and fimilar to the British only in name. There are no men of great rank, nor many of great riches. Nor have the rich there the power of oppreffing the lefs rich, for, as we have before obferved, poverty, fuch as is common in Great.Britain, is almost unknown; nor are their streets crowded with beggars; Mr. Cooper obferves, he saw but one only while he was there, and that was an Englishman. You fee no where in America the disgusting and me lancholy lancholy contraft, fo common in Europe, of vice, and filth, and rags, and wretchedness, in the immediate neighbourhood of the most wanton extravagance, and the most useless and luxurious parade. Nor are the common people fo depraved as in Great-Britain. Quarrels are uncommon, and boxing matches unknown in their streets. They have no military to keep the people in awe, nor hired fpies and informers to pierce the inmoft receffes of fociety, and to call forth one part of a family against another; thus deftroying domeftic quiet and public happiness. Robberies are very rare. There was not a burglary in Philadelphia during the fever there, though no one ftaid in the town who could leave it. All these are real advantages; but great as they are, they do not weigh with us fo much as the fingle confideration first mentioned. In England the young man flies to proftitution, for fear of the expenfe of a family establishment, and the, more than probable, extravagance of a wife; celibacy is a part of prudence; it is openly commended, and as steadily practifed as the voice of nature will allow. The married man, whose paffions have been stronger, whose morals have been lefs callous, or whofe intereft has furnished motives to matrimony, doubts whether each child be not a misfortune, and looks upon his offspring with a melancholy kind of affection, that embitters fome of the otherwife most pleasurable moments of his life. There are exceptions to this from great fuccefs in the pursuits of the father; there are exceptions from stronger degrees of parental af fection; and the more fanguine look forward with stronger hope: but we have seen too much not to be fatisfied of the perfect truth of this general pofition. We do not care what may be the fituation in life of the parents, or the rank to which they belong; from the labourer at fix or feven fhillings per week, and many thousands of fuch there are in Great-Britain, to the peer of twenty-five thoufand pounds per annum, through many intermediate ranks, we have had too frequent occafion to obferve this melancholy fact. In the former inftance, the labourer confoles himself, with tears in his eyes, for the lofs of his children, because he has one or more lefs to provide for; and in the fecond inftance his lordship retrenches his pleasures because he has a large family. In America, particularly out of the large towns, no man of moderate defires feels anxious about a family. In the country, where the mafs of the people dwell, every man feels the increase of his family to be the increafe, of his riches: and no farmer doubts about the facility facility of providing for his children as comfortably as they have lived, where land is fo cheap and fo fertile, where fociety is fo much, on an equality, and where the prodigious increase of population, from natural and accidental causes, and the improving state of every part of the country, furnishes a market for whatever fuperfluous produce he chufes to raife, without prefenting inceffantly that temptation to artificial expenfe and extravagant competition fo common and fo ruinous in European countries. In Great-Britain, PERPETUAL EXERTION, INCESSANT, UNREREMITTING INDUSTRY, DAILY DEPRIVATION OF THE COMFORTS OF LIFE, and anxious attention to minute frugality, are almost incumbent on a man of moderate fortune, and in the middle clafs of life and the probabilities of ultimate fuccefs are certainly against a large family. In England, no man has a right, calculating upon the common chances, to expect that five or fix children shall all fucceed, however virtuous or induftrious they may be. : In America it is otherwife; you may reasonably reckon upon a. comfortable settlement, according to your fituation in life, for every part of a family, however numerous. There is nothing in European countries equivalent to the taking off this weight upon the mind of a father of a family. It is felt in the occurrences of every day. Mr. Cooper remarks, he has feen with pleafure the countenance of an European emigrant, in America, brighten up on this very comfortable reflection; a reflection which confoles even for lofs of friends, and exile from a native country. To perfons in genteel life, and of the clafs which we call men of fortune, nearly the fame difficulties occur: with us every rank treads fo close on the heels of the rank above it, that an excess of expense above income, is general; and perhaps the difficultics of a family are ftill greater in the class last mentioned. Temptations to unneceffary expenfe, owing to the numerous gradations of rank in England, are perpetual, and almost unconquerable. With the Americans, man more equitably appreciated; he is estimated more at what he is, and lefs at what he feems. Something like European manners, and fomething of the ill effect of inequality of riches, may indeed be. found in the great towns of America, but nothing like what an inhabitant of the old country experiences; and the mass of the people in America are nearly untainted. Hence the freedom from artificial poverty, and the univerfal diffufion of the common comforts and conveniencies of life. |