past experience, embraces advantages which in his estimate far outweigh the privations and sacrifices attending his removal hither, and lead him still to congratulate himself warmly on his change of country. And, indeed, in possession of all the substantial comforts of physical life: removed beyond the sphere of those invidious comparisons which would render him sensible to artificial wants; exempt from present anxieties, and with a reasonable prospect of leaving every member of his family independent and prosperous, his situation, in a worldly point of view, is a very comfortable one. I am inclined however to think, that independently of his ambition to found a colony, and his apparent anxiety while on the move to get as far as possible from his native country-an anxiety for which true English feeling finds it difficult to account-he might have invested his property in some of the Atlantic States, with as much or more advantage to at least one or two generations of his family, and with a far less sacrifice of present comfort. Should his family, however, retain any large quantity of land, a growing density of population in the western country, and even in Illinois, notwithstanding its present unhealthiness, may render it a source of wealth in future years.

In the ordinary course of things, without a European market, agricultural profits in this country must be extremely small; among other reasons, because so large a proportion of the population, compared with most other countries, will be land proprietors, and so small a proportion dependent

on others for their agricultural produce; and because the great fertility of the soil will leave an unusually large supply, after maintaining the labourers employed in its cultivation. It appears to me that the natural tendency of this state of things among an industrious and enterprising people, is to encourage domestic manufactures; I mean manufactures really domestic-made in the family-the produce of that labour which higher agricultural profits would retain in the field, but which there appears to be no inducement to employ in the cultivation of produce which will sell for little or nothing when raised. This is a species of manufacture in a great measure independent for its prosperity on governments or tariffs; for it is of little importance to the small farmer, that foreign manufactures are tolerably low, if his produce will neither command them, nor money to buy them. He can obtain his clothing in exchange for his leisure hours; but then it must be by employing those hours in actually making his clothing, and not through the intervention of agricultural produce. I am surprised to find to how great an extent this species of manufactures is carried, and how rapidly the events of the last two years have increased it. In some parts of the state of New-York, I was told the little farmers could not make a living without it. In Pennsylvania, it is perhaps still more general; some of the lower descriptions of East India goods having almost entirely given place to a domestic substitute actually made in the family; and the importations of Irish linens having been

most seriously checked by the greatly increased cultivation and manufacture of flax in the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia. In Virginia and North Carolina, I had opportunities of seeing these domestic manufactures as I passed in the stage: and on my horseback route it was a constant source of surprise-to you I may add, without danger of being suspected to be a Radical, and of gratification; for this combination of agriculture and manufacture in the same family appears to me to form a state of society of all others the best adapted to produce a happy, independent, and domestic population. If I mistake not, America will exhibit this combination in a greater degree than any nation with which I am acquainted, unless the permanent removal of our corn laws should give a new stimulus to her agricultural labour; and even then, the immensity of her fertile territory might enable her to supply our wants without checking her in any material degree in the career I have anticipated for her.—But I did not intend to enter on these speculations. I have sometimes wished you could see what a pretty family picture a mother and two daughters make; the mother spinning, and keeping a daughter on each side most actively occupied in carding for her. In the hope that this picture will play around your imagination, and lead you to forget how dry a letter you have been reading, I will conclude for the present, especially as I am arriving at the end of my paper. I intend, if I have time, that another letter shall accompany this.

LETTER IV.

Norfolk, (Virginia,) Dec. 13, 1820.

THE little digression into which I was insensibly led in my letter of yesterday, prevented me from completing my remarks on Mr. Birkbeck. I have already mentioned some of my reasons for supposing that, in the ordinary course of things, agricultural profits will be generally low in this country. Nor am I aware of any peculiarities in Birkbeck's situation which would form an exception in his favour in this particular. It must not be forgotten, that while the imminent danger of flour turning sour at New Orleans, his principal market, is to be set against the advantages he may possess over the farmers in the Atlantic States; in his competition with the graziers of Ohio, his great distance from the Atlantic cities may more than counterbalance the benefit of a readier access to extensive prairies. At present I am told, that the expense of conveying flour from Illinois, and selling it at New Orleans, would leave little or nothing for the grower of the wheat; and I have been assured, on the authority of several persons who have passed through Kentucky and Ohio this autumn, that in many cases the farmers would not cut their wheat, but turned their cattle into it; and that in others, the tenants would hardly accept of the landlord's moiety of the produce which they had stipulated to give him for rent.

Mr. Mellish, the traveller and geographer, whom I frequently saw in Philadelphia, showed me a letter from Mr. Birkbeck, in which he says; "There is an error of some importance in my Letters; and I wish that a correction of it could accompany the publication. In my estimate of the expenses of cultivating these prairies, I have not made sufficient allowance of time for the innumerable delays which attend a new establishment in a new country. I would now add to the debtor side a year of preparation, which will of course make a material deduction from the profits at the commencement of the undertaking."

On the whole, I am disposed to believe that experience will suggest to Mr. Birkbeck some mode of making money, though far more slowly than he expected; and I think the general estimate of the merits of his situation, by the natural reaction of his exaggerated statements, is at present a little below the truth.

I should not be surprised if a new and extensive market were gradually opened to the western farmers among a population employed or created by manufacturing establishments beyond the mountains. Wool may be raised on the spot with tolerable facility; and I have already mentioned the low rate of freight at which, in Ohio, they can obtain cotton from Louisiana and Mississippi in exchange for wheat, which will scarcely grow at all in the southern countries.

As the Waltham factory, near Boston, can sustain itself so well against foreign competition, I do not know why cotton mills should not flourish