If the slave states, as they are called, be out of the question, then the choice is left from Pennsylvania to Maine (including those two states) in which will be found great diversity of soil and climate. Along the line of sea coast, and for a considerable distance inland, the effects of the winds, blowing from the sea, are felt much more than they are further into the interior. This has some influence on the spring vegetation, which is earlier near the sea than in the same latitude more remote from it; but there are said to be more frequent changes of temperature, and the usual disorders, especially consumption, resulting from them, are more common than in the high lands remote from the influence of damp sea breezes. In New York and Boston nearly one fourth part of the deaths are from cases of consumption. In Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania there are many pleasant and fertile situations. By a reference to your map of the United States you will perceive that I overstep New Jersey. I would by no means advise a settlement farther to the north than these states; as the winters in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, are long and severe; however, taking the climate of the northern states, generally, I believe it will be found as healthy as is usual in most parts of the world.

I think I ought to have omitted Connecticut, as suitable to the views of emigrants, for being an early settled part of the country little or no land remains in its wild and uncultivated state: so that cheap lands are not to be procured. As for the other two states, New York and Pennsylvania, although many parts of them are thickly settled, yet there remain millions of acres in their native wildness. The eastern part of New York is hilly; in some places there are considerable ranges of mountains, among which are the sources of those rivers that fall into the Atlantic. The western portion of this state is much more level, and the land is of a superior quality to that eastward of the mountains; but the water through a considerable range of this district is impregnated with calcareous earth, which attaches to it the reputation of being unhealthy; and the inhabitants are subject to bilious and intermittent fevers, called in the idiom of the country "lake fevers." This character extends with little exception, over all that part called the Lake country, the Genesee country, and the lands in the vicinity of Lakes Erie and

S17

Ontario. The Hudson river which is navigable for a considerable
the Catskill
distance above the city of New York, (to Waterford) has some
passes
good lands on its borders; and in a part where it
mountains, displays very picturesque and romantic scenery. Of
this kind there is much less in America than might be expected,
owing, in some measure, to all the hills, mountains, and vallies,
being in their native state covered with a continuous forest, which
prevents, in a great degree, the variety and diversity of tints and
outline so pleasing to a painter's eye.

The soil near the sea coast is inferior to that in the interior, except in some few instances. Long Island, constitutes a part of New York state; but it is meagre, gravelly land, with very little to attract the notice of a farmer.

LETTER VI.

I recollect that just before I left England, our honest cobbler of O-, came to me with a long face, and intimated that he was quite tired of thumping his lapstone,-that having saved a small sum of money, he had been thinking of emigrating to America; there to invest his little all in a piece of low priced land, and so turn farmer; but having deferred his departure from time to time, he was afraid he was now too late; "for," added he, " I am inclined to think from the great numbers of persons that have gone out, within the last year or two, that every nook and corner, ere this, will have been occupied, so that I should hardly be able now to meet with a vacant situation.

Not knowing so much of this country then, as I do now, I forbore giving honest Crispin my opinion on the advantages or disadvantages of emigration, and as to replying to his doubts of want of room, an immoderate fit of laughter conveyed the whole of the information with which the good natured fellow returned to his home. I, therefore, will thank you to inform the ignoramus, when he brings home your shoes, that he might better his condition by emigrating to this country, where there is, even yet, an abundance of room; and further oblige me by stating to him the following dimensions, and I am sure you will be amused with the perfect astonishment, which I know the honest cobbler will not fail to exhibit. From the eastern extremity of Maine, not far from the

mouth of the river St. Lawrence, to the Pacific ocean in the west, the distance is two thousand seven hundred miles: and from the upper part of the northwest territory, to the mouth of the Mississippi river, it is one thousand six hundred and fifty miles; containing two and a half millions of square miles, or fifty times the extent of England and Wales. Now as the population of this vast country, is not equal to that of England alone, it is pretty clear that the honest cobbler may banish his apprehensions of finding it occupied. This is only one instance of the extreme ignorance of many of our countrymen as it regards America. I could recapitulate fifty others of a much grosser nature among persons that rank infinitely higher than poor Crispin. One individual, previous to my departure, addressed me with, "lord preserve us, what! you surely are not going amongst the Americans, for they are all cutthroats and savages! There were a few among them more enlightened and civilized, but of late years we have transported our thieves and robbers to Botany Bay, and the old stock have all died off!” Such are the opinions, and such the uncharitable and unjust notions harboured by many of the ignorant and the prejudiced of our countrymen.

I do not believe one half of the British emigrants, when they land in this country, have any fixed motive in view, or marked line of proceeding; while a still greater portion of them know no more of this country, its geography, climate and soil,-its people, their habits and dispositions, than did the patriarchs who lived before the flood. Is it any wonder then, that many of them should be disappointed, having foolishly calculated on mountains of cheese, rivers of milk, and luxuriant meadows of bread and butter: that to be an Englishman was to be admired as a being of superior order, and reading and writing were acquirements that would confound and astonish. To be sure here are mountains, but as sterile and barren as our hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland;-rivers, numerous and large, but not more lactiferous than the streams of our little island;-fields and meadows, that will produce the necessaries of life in abundance, but not without the aid of that abhorred compound-toil and the sweat of the brow. The mere term Englishman is no passport to honour or fame, for American citizen is the magical watchword among all classes. As for education

amongst the lower orders, the balance I believe is in the favour of this country; for an American who is not master of reading, writing, and the simple rules of Arithmetic, would be considered as ignorant indeed! Why then boast so much of our superiority. Are we, generally, further removed from want and beggary? Are we happier as a nation? Or are we more free? Until these and similiar questions are affirmatively answered, I would advise all vilifyers of the American people to look around them and begin at home.

However, all this does not prove that here are none to be met with but the polite, the accomplished, and the well informed; for although the lower orders are tolerably well acquainted with their own country, its constitution and affairs; many of them are extremely ignorant as regards foreign nations. As for us " English," they imagine we are all slaves, and are astonished how it happens that so many of us continue to escape from bondage; and their knowledge of other countries is, perhaps equally correct.

From the magnitude of the United States it becomes difficult to describe the climate; for should I tell you that the cold in the north is severe in March, and the ground buried in snow; a correspondent writing from the south at the same date, might probably inform you, and with equal correctness, that their woods and meadows were green, and their pastures covered with flowers. The weather is, altogether, much more variable than I expected to find it; for I had been taught to consider the climate of Great Britain as changeable as any in the world; but my instructor being a disciple of the old school, the probability is, that his geographical knowledge did not extend to the new world. In England we have thunder storms from the south-west, and snow storms from the north-east; but here, thunder storms, and frost, are all borne on the pinions of the north-west wind.

LETTER VII.

I am glad to find that you have read Mr. Birkbeck's publications; nor am I at all surprised at the favourable impression they appear to have left on your mind, with respect to the ding-dong "western country." His books are written in a taking style, and to persons totally unacquainted with this quarter of the globe, ap

pear fair and unsuspicious. But Mr. B. was an enthusiast. He came to this country with a determined disposition to admire it in all its main bearings; while he seems almost frantic with joy at his escape from the land of his forefathers, which he fails not to lash with his severest sarcasms, whenever an opportunity occurs. He is a man after the breed of our thorough-going radicals, and of this he has taken an advantage; but I believe he acts from principle, consequently his exertions, however ill directed, are the less to be condemned.

Before I proceed to give you some accounts of the western states, I must not omit to introduce to you more particularly the flourishing state of Pennsylvania. This state is, generally, healthy. The little flat land in it is principally confined to the vicinity of the tide waters of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. The Alleghany mountains cross the state nearly through its centre; the waters on the west side of them falling into the Ohio; those on the east side joining the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers. These mountains, for the most part, are sterile, but some small fertile vallies are to be found amongst them. The most noted counties east of the mountains have taken the old English names of Chester, Lancaster, and York, where may be found many valuable farms, and good farmers. Several parts of Pennsylvania, especially Lancaster county, were settled by Germans, whose steady industry, and prudent economy, have made them, and their descendants, wealthy. On the west side of the mountains is also to be found much good land; but its situation renders it of considerable less value than that, lying on the east side. Pittsburgh, on the Ohio river, is the principal town in this part of the state, from whence the produce is sent to New Orleans to market, a distance of more than two thousand miles. One consequence of this is, that the produce of a farm on the western waters, (as they are here called) is comparatively of but little value. I saw a statement of the Pittsburg prices, a few days ago, in which superfine flour was quoted at one dollar and seventy-five cents per barrel of one hundred and ninety-six pounds, or seven shillings and ten pence half penny; or at the rate of nearly one half penny per lb. Other kinds of grain are in the same proportion, as are also other kinds of farm produce. There can be no doubt that the most eligible situation for