LETTERS
FROM
ILLINOIS,
BY MORRIS BIRKBECK,
author 6f ** NOTES ON A TOUR THROUGH FRANCK,” AND OF ** NOTES ON
A JOURNEY IN AMERICA,” &C.
VOX CLAMANTIS E DESERTO.”
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY,
93, FLEET STREET.
1818
London ; Printed by T. Millek,
5« Noble Street) Cheapstde.
PREFACE.
Most of these Letters were written to my
intimate friends ; others are in reply to ap-
plications made to me by entire strangers,
for advice or information, some directing
their inquiries to one point, and some to
another. In answering, I generally kept
pretty much to the tenor of the questions,
as there would have been no end of the
labour of communicating to every one, se-
parately, information on every topic ; yet,
to some or other of my correspondents, I
have had occasion to touch on most sub-
jects interesting to an emigrant.
TV
PREFACE.
This consideration has induced me to
publish the Letters, in the hope that, as a
collection, they may be useful to others, as
well as to the individuals to whom they
were severally addressed.
It has been the fashion, though now a
little out of date, for subh as myself to be
told that we were not fit to breathe the air
of Old England ; and, as we did not “ like ”
the way of being ruled and taxed by people
who had no more right to rule and tax us
than consisted in the power of doing it, the
land we lived in was too good for us, and
it would be well for us to “ leave it." At
length things improved so much and so ra-
pidly, that I began to think so too, and
determined to try this country.
It is no more than due to those gentle-
men and others, who were in the habit of
recommending this little remedy of exile
from the land of our fathers* as a cure for
PKEFACE.
V
our discontent, to inform them that, in my
case, it has succeeded to admiration.
This should double their zeal. If they
discover any of their neighbours weary and
heavy laden, and therefore dissatisfied with
our excellent constitution as now adminis-
tered, let them earnestly recommend the
same course to them which they recom-
mended to me.
And by way of testimonial of its effi-
cacy, I beg leave to offer the following
Ijetters to the perusal of those gentlemen,
and through them to their patients, who
may thus, by the combined operations of
leading and driving, be put in the way of
obtaining speedy relief, and many a bad
suited may become a good citizen.
There are, however, many of the rest-
less whom this prescription would suit but
badly. If low indulgence or unsated ava-
rice have soured their tempers, it is not in
VI
PREFACE.
a transfer from the old establishments of
society to the silent waste where it scarcely
is begun, that they will find a cure. Envy
or disappointed ambition — have these dis-
gusted them with the world? The wilds
of Illinois will yield no repose to their per-
turbed spirits. The fiends will migrate
with them.
As little would I encourage the emigra-
tion of the tribe of grumblers, people who
are petulant and discontented under the
every-day evils of life. Life has its petty
miseries in all situations and climates, to
be mitigated or cured by the continual
efforts of an elastic spirit, or to be borne,
if incurable, with cheerful patience. But
the peevish emigrant is perpetually com-
paring the comforts he has quitted, but
never could enjoy, with the privations of his
new allotment. He overlooks the present
good, and broods over the evil with ha-
PREFACE.
v»i
bitual perverseness ; whilst in his recollec-
tion of the past he dwells on the good only.
Such people are always bad associates, but
they are an especial nuisance in an infant
colony.
Lately published by the same Author,
NOTES on a JOURNEY in AMERICA, from the Coast
of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois. Fourth Edition, with a map,
price 6s,
The Map may be had separately, price Is,
NOTES on a JOURNEY through FRANCE from Dieppe
through Paris and Lyons to the Pyrennees, and back through Toulouse,
in July, August, and September, 1814; describing the Habits of the
People and the Agriculture of the Countiyr. Fifth Edition, price 4s. 6d.
CONTENTS.
LETTER I,
Reasons for going so far west.— Cheapness of land;^**'
choice of situation j easy communication with the At-
lantic by way of New Orleans.— Room for other
English emigrants, many of whom are likely to
follow us. — First cabin built on our settlement. —
Great value of capital in this country. — Prices of pro-
duce low 5 out-goings small in proportion. — Com-
parison between the condition of a proprietor in Illi-
nois and that of a renter in England. — Estimate of
money required for a liberal establishment on an
estate of 1440 acres, including expenses of voyage,
&c.-— Amount, 5,5001, sterling \
LETTER II.
Feelings produced by our great change of situation.— In-
creased scope for useful exertion. — Prospect of agree-
able society.— Agreeable views for the establishment of
CONTENTS.
children.— Arrival of a poor family from our old
neighbourhood in England— more expected.— Appli-
cation to Congress for a grant of land 3 no anxiety
about the success of the application. — Pressure of emi-
gration Avestward: Five hundred per week passed
through Albany.— No reflux.— Philadelphians igno-
rant about this country, and not aware of their in-
competency to give advice about it. — General pros-
pects, cheering
LETTER III.
Answer to numerous queries about prices, &c. with
opinions as to choice of situation : addressed to a
stranger applying on behalf of a number of English
families. — Advice as to their proceedings and mode
of travelling
LETTER IV.
Particular account of our own situation, our plans and
prospects. — Estimate of funds required for our estab-
lishment.— Great advantages to labourers, mechanics,
and people in general, who are in narrow circum-
stances, in removing into this country
LETTER V.
General character of first settlers j neither simple nor
ignorant. — Prospect as to my position in regard to
this new society j no tendency in it to create arro-
gant pretensions
CONTENTS.
xi
LETTER VJ.
Agreeable neighbours. — Adventurous and decisive cha-
racter of the people. — Freedom from the restraints
of false religion.— Whether religionists or indifferents,
all republicans. — The latter description most nume-
rous. — Baptisms. — Burials. — Marriages. — European
news three months after date
LETTER VII.
Self defence, on a charge of deserting tlie cause of free-
dom in England. — Reform hopeless, because not de-
sired by a majority, of the wretched excepted.— A
good cause for a family man to emigrate.— Abject
condition of the English nation. — All prisoners,
actually, or within the rules.”— The art of sinking
in society indispensable in England 3 in Am'erica
not so. — My own experience of it. — What is
country? .
LEITER VIII.
Proceedings on our new settlement.— Description and
cost of a cabin, our first erection. — Arrival at it.
Situation of our intended house. — State of the neigh-
bourhood and surrounding country. — Navigation.
Steam boat, the first up the Wabash. — One about to
be built at Harmony— Windmill in preparation.
Plans for farming, &c. the first year ......
CONTENTS.
xii
LETTER IX.
Value of capital .—Rate of interest.— Usury.— 1 he laws
on that subject attacked in Virginia. — Speculations
on the opinions of our old friends regarding our
proceedings. — The winter of this climate. — Bad
roads. — Houses uncomfortable. Sombre forests.-^
No verdure, even of the turf.— No evergreens of
any description. — Perennial grasses succeed when
sown. — Fruits of this country. — Sugar maple 5 pro-
cess of extracting sugar. — Wild turkeys twenty cents
a piece. — General government performs a miracle. —
Abolishes internal taxes. — Distributes sums for pub-
lic works
LETTER X.
To my son.— Estimate of expenditure and produce, on a
a section of land for his government j enabling him
to compare the condition of a renter in England with
that of a proprietor here, on a capital of 20001
sterling ^
LETI ER XI.
From an emigrant of small property — Sensible queries .
letter XIL
Queries answered .
CONTENTS,
xiii
LETTER XIII.
Prospect of a thriving settlement. — Evils of land jobbing, *****
and the investment of capital in land, to lie unculti-
vated. — Account of the voyage of the ship Marianne.
— Patriotic scheme; how baffled. — Prospects of ad-
vantage from farming 53
LETTER XIV. ^
Courts of law. — Judges and lawyers, their labours and
perils.— -Anecdotes of a judge. — Judge's salary.—
Anecdotes of a barrister
LETTER XV,
Advice to a friend with a large family and small means;
shewing how he might attain independence with in-
dustry and lOOl, sterling. — Particular instructions as
to his coming out
LETTER XVf.
*
To a friend in France,— Lithography, a valuable acqui-
sition for a new country.— Delightful feeling of
freedom.— Horrible iiyustice of personal slavery.
Most horrible when inflicted by free men.— Invita-
tion to a friend
69
CONTENTS.
xiv
LETTER XVII.
Answers to queries
Page
73
LETTER XVII I.
Answers to other queries, and advice about travelling . *6
LETTER XIX.
Declining a commission to purchase land. — Cob-houses.
Land speculations, and speculations on the enjoy-
ment of a good neighbourhood, cannot prosper to-
gether. — If you wish to see inhabitants, do not buy
up the land. — Scarcity and value of capital. — Two
dollars ready money better than an acre of land un-
cultivated.— Report of a committee to Congress on
advancing the price of public lands ...... 80
LETTER XX.
Reflections on our condition, past, and speculations on
the future.— Some interest felt for us by religious
people. — A disposition to recede on n»y part, rather
than to reject
LETTER XXL
Emigration will not restore a lost reputation.— Imprac-
ticable in this country to pass for an honest man.
Kentuckians mistaken for semi-barbarians by the
CONTENTS.
XV
citizens of the east.-rCharacteristics of first settlers.
— Kentucky penitentiary. — Western world about to
shew a successful result on the first large experiment
of self-government. — Anecdote of two Indians. —
Kentucky resolutions respecting the South Ameri-
cans. — Periodical publications as accessible here as
in England
LETTER XXII.
Application to Congress. — Copy of memorial. — Objec-
tions. — Observations on the objections. — The co$t of
slavery. — Labour of free men to be obtained by an
act of kindness, which costs not a cent. — Dedication 107
,: : I.. %!i'i i ,r ■..,
-: ».i W.-irtiji
.1- ■../jk;
LETTERS, Sec,
!-. .i-
LETTER I.
DEAR SIR, A^OU. 22 , 1817 .
I WROTE to you in June, soon after our
entrance into the western territory ; and now tliat
I am settled down, having reached the point I
aimed at on starting, and which seemed conti-
nually to recede as we advanced, I again take up
my pen.
You and our other friends have probably won-
dered at our having proceeded so far west ; and it
would be difficult to make intelligible, to any but
those who have seen this country, the motives
which have constantly impelled as well as at-
tracted us, as every step seems to you a further
departure from home, and to be attended by ad-
ditional privations.
4
2 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
This is in some degree true, as regards the
first ; hut though the absolute distance is increased,
the means of communication, by navigation to our
neighbourhood, more than compensates ; and in
regard to the latter (as to additional privations),
the case is far otherwise.
Had we remained in tiie state of Ohio, we
must have paid from twenty to fifty dollars per
acre for land which is technically called “ im-
proved,” but is in fact deteriorated ; or have pur-
chased, at an advance of 1000 or 1500 jier cent,
unimproved land from speculators : and in either
case should have laboured under the inconveni- •
dice of settling detached from society of our own
choice, and without the advantage of choice as to
soil or situation. We saw many eligible sites
and fine tracts of country, but these were precisely
the sites and the tracts which had secured the
attachment of their possessors.
It was in fact impossible to obtain for our-
selves a good position, and the neighbourhood of
our friends, in the state of Ohio, at a price which
common prudence would justify, or indeed at any
price. Having given up the Ohio, we found no-
thing attractive on the eastern side of Indiana ; and
situations to the south, on the Ohio river bound-
ing that state, were so well culled as to be in the
predicament above described ; ofFerii^ no room
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 3
for US without great sacrifices of money and
society. The western side of Indiana, on the
banks of the Wabash, is liable to the same and
other objections. The northern part of Indiana is
still in possession of the Indians.
But a few miles farther west opened our way
into a country preferable in itself to any we had
seen, where we could choose for ourselves, and to
which we could invite our friends ; and where, in
regard to communication with Europe, we could
command equal facilities, and foresee greater, than
in the state of Ohio, being so much nearer the
grand outlet at New Orleans.
I am so well satisfied with the election we
have made, that I have not for a moment felt a
disposition to recede ; and much as I should la-
ment that our English friends should stop short
of us, some amends even for that would be made
by the higher order of settlers, whom similar
motives bring constantly into our very track. So-
ciety we shall not want, I believe ; and with the
fear of that want every other fear has vanished.
The comforts and luxuries of life we shall obtain
with ease and in abundance: pomp and state will
follow but too quickly.
I hope you will have seen Mr before
this reaches you. My writing to you at all, when
you have the advantage of personal communica-
4 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
lion with him, may seem impertinent. Since he
left us I have built a temporary dwelling on my
intended settlement, and have spent some time
there. This has made me better acquainted with
our situation ; and as further knowledge conhrms
and increases my favourable view of it, my com-
munication may have its use. I would not per-
suade or invite any one to follow us, but I wish
my friends to know that my undertaking proceeds
to my entire content.
Mr.. is now writing a very just and in-
teresting detail of particulars, as to the present
condition of agriculture and trade, in a letter to
his father, which I hope you will see. The power
of capital here is great almost beyond calculation :
the difficulty seems to be in the choice of objects,
out of the various ways of doubling and redoubling
it, which present themselves to the cnterprizing.
These I do not much attend to ; my line is land
and cultivation. My intended settlement is a
square of a mile and a half each way, containing
1440 acres. I made an estimate a few days ago
for my own government merely, of the amount
required for my establishment on this estate, on a
liberal plan, which I shall copy faithfully, without
altering an item. This will enable you to compare
the situation and prospects of a farmer in England
with those of a proprietor in Illinois, at the outset.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 5
As to the annual profits here, I am not yet
prepared with data for a very particular statement.
The price of wheat may be reckoned at three shil-
lings and fourpence sterling per bushel, and of beef
ajid pork at twopence per pound. The land is fer-
tile and easy of tillage ; the wear of ploughshares
almost nothing, as they require sharpening by the
smith but once a year; and we shall have la-
bourers in plenty at a price not much exceeding
that of England : putting horse labour and man’s
labour together, they will be quite as cheap.
Then we have no rent, tithe, or poor’s rate, and
scarcely any taxes, perhaps one farthing per
acre.
But omitting the annual income, about which
I know enough to feel no anxiety, let ns consider
that at the end of fourteen years, when we may
suppose the lease of the most favoured English
farmers to terminate, a stock of various kinds, of
great value, will be accumulated by the proprietor
here ; the worth of his estate, in the regular course
of improvement, will be increased to the amount
of 6 or 8,000/. and no renewal wanted ; also, that
the capital required by the English farmer of such
an estate, is at least double to that required by the
Illinois proprietor at the outset of the under-
taking.
6
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Copy from my Memorandum- Book-
Estimate of money required for the comfortable establish-
ment of my family on Bolting-house, now English,
prairie; on which the first instalment is paid. About
720 acres of wood-land, and 720 prairie — tlie latter to
be chiefly grass :
DoHtrt*
Second instalment, August 1819# 720 dollars;
Third, Aug. 1820, 720 dollars ; Fourth, Aug.
1821, 720 dollars . . . .2,160
Dwelling-house and appurtenances . . 4,500
Other buildings • ... * 1,500
4,680 rods of fencing ; viz- 3,400 on the prairie,
and 1,280 round the wood-land . . 1,170
Sundry wells, 200 dollars; gates, 100 dollars;
cabins, 200 dollars .... 500
100 head of cattle, 900 dollars ; 20 sows, 8cc. 100
dollars ; sheep, 1 ,000 dollars . . 2,(X)0
Ploughs, waggons, &c. and sundry tools and im-
plements ..... 270
Housekeeping until the land supplies us . 1,000
Shepherd one year’s wages, herdsman one year,
and sundry other labourers . . .1 ,000
One cabinet-maker, and one wheelwright, one
year, making furniture and implements, SOO
dollars each .... 600
Sundry articles of furniture, ironmongery, pottery,
glass, Scc. ..... oOO
Sundries, fruit-trees, &c. . . .100
15,300
7
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS,
Dollar i.
Brought forward . . lo,3()0
First instalment already paid . , . 7^0
Five horses on hand, worth , . . 300
Expense of freight and carriage of linen, bed-
ding, books, clothing, &c. , . 1,000
Value of articles brought from England . . 4,500
Voyage and journey , . . . 2,000
Dollars 23,820
£ 5,359 Sterling.
Allow about 600 dollars more for seed
and com • • • .141
£ 5,500
I make no comment on the above: it would
be best to talk it over together. I hope to hear
from you at least, and remain sincerely yours.
LETTER 11.
DEAR SIR, 24, 1817-
I HAVE now been an inhabitant of this
place more than four months ; my plans of future
life have acquired some consistency ; I have chosen
8
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
a situation, purchased an estate, determined on
the positioa of my house, and have, in short, be-
come so familiar with the circumstances in which
I have thus deliberately placed myself and ray fa-
mily, that I feel qualified to give you a cool account
of iny experiences, — of the effect of this great
change of condition on ray mind, now that I may
be supposed but little under the influence of the
charm of-novelty, or the stimulus of pursuit.
Whilst I had the company of Mr , who,
I hope, is at this moment your welcome guest, it
might be well supposed that similarity of object
and mutual consultation, by dividing would dimi-
nish my anxiety as to the event of our speculation.
He left us on the sixth of September ; and such is
the uncertainty of all human affairs when time only
is interposed between os and our intentions, that
when in addition to time the distance of 5000 miles
twice passed, was to intervene between our part-
ing and re-union, I confess I have been apt to con-
sider his return to our settlement in the light
rather of a remote contingency, than as an event
to be calculated on.
Thus, on his departure, we naturally fell back
on our own resources. “ Well, Sir,” you will say,
“ and how did they sustain you?” I have not for a
moment felt despondency, scarcely discouragement,
in this happy country, this land of hope! Life
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
y
here is only too valuable, from the wonderful effi-
ciency of every well-directed effort. Such is the
field of delightful action lying before me, that I
am ready to regret the years wasted in the support
of taxes and pauperism, and to grieve that I am
growing old now that a really useful career seems
just beginning. I am happier, much happier, in
my prospects ; I feel that I am doing well for my
family ;• and the privations I anticipated seem to
vanish before us.
We shall have some English friends next sum-
mer ; and a welcome they shall experience. But
if not one had the resolution to follow the track
we have smoothed before them, we should never
wish to- retrace it, except perhaps as travellers. As
to what are called the comforts of life, I feel that
they are much more easily attainable here than
they have ever been to me ; and for those who
are to succeed me, I look forward with a pleasure
which can only be understood by one who ha^ felt
the anxieties of an English father.
I expect to see around me in prosperity many
of my old neighbours, whose hard fare has often
embittered my own enjoyments. Three of them
have already made the effort, and succeeded in
getting out to us. This delights us, but we have
by no means depended on it ; joyful as we are at
the prospect of giving them an asylum.
10
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Two more are waiting at Philafldphia for an
invitation which is now on its way. They wept at
parting with their companions who are now here,
but tiiey wanted faith, thinking they w'ould never
reac h our altode “ so Jar west.” And should faith
be wanting to all whom we so earnestly wish to
see, I believe not one of us would regret the step
we have taken.
I have transmitted to Congress a memorial so-
liciting a grant, by way of purchase, of a tract of
land. If it succeeds I shall be glad, because I
think it may afford hundreds of families the relief
we are now enjoying; but it does not promise
much particular advantage to us, for I am well
satisfied with our choice of situation; and this
might retard our settlement, or render it proper to
transfer ourselves to the proposed purchase. On
a more deliberate view of the land we have selected^
I am a little reluctant at the thought of being di-
verted from our first plan ; and at all events, I
would secure a good extent in our own neighbour-
hood.
I am, &c. &c.
P. S. If it were really so unwise to migrate
westward, out of the tens (I was going to say
hundreds) of thousands who move annually from
the eastern states into this western wilderness, we
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. J1
should hear of some, returning. Mr informs
me that he has given you a true account of things,
and told yon what you are to expect. He knows
as much about the matter as you do about the
wilds of Siberia. Tis but a little time since a
horse that had travelled through Kentucky was
a sight in Philadelphia: and Kentucky is an old
country.
I have just read a statement of 6ve hundred
emigrants per week passing through Albany west-
ward, counting from the first of September. This
occurred on one road, and that far to the north.
I sat down to write to you under an impression
that you would be deterred, and might be prevented
from following us, by difficulties, some real and
serious, others not so ; and I thought it might be
useful to you, as I knew it would he pleasant, to
find that I am satisfied as to my own undertaking.
It is for this reason that you are treated with so
much about myself. I wish I could put you in
possession of all my mind, my entire sentiments,
my daily and hourly feeling of contentment : not
that you would be warranted thereby to place your-
self and family along-side of mine. You might,
however, from your knowledge of me and my
baljits, which remain much the same, proceed in
your own estimate to some length.
12
LETTKRS FROM ILLINOIS.
LETTER II F.
SIR, iV<w. 29, 181-7.
It would give me much pleasure to af-
ford you satisfactory information on the several
particulars you mention, but I am, like yourself, a
stranger in this country, and can therefore only
communicate to you my opinions in answer to
your inquiries.
To tiie first, as to the most eligible part of the
United States for olitaining improved farms, or un-
cultivated lands for Englishmen, &c. 1 reply, that
with a view to the settlement of the number of fa-
milies you mention, it will be vain to look for im-
proved farms in any part that I have seen or heard
of. Probably a single family might be suited in
almost any large district, as the changes which are
continually occurring in human affairs, will occa-
sionally throw eligible farms into the market
every where. But you can have no choice of cul-
tivated lands, as those you would prefer are the
least likely to be disposed of ; and it is altogether
unlikely you should meet with a body of such
lands, for the accommodation of thirty or forty fa-
milies ; considering too, that, by travelling a few
days’ journey farther west, you may have a choice of
land of equal value at one-tenth of the price, where
13
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
they may settle contiguous, or at least near to each
other. I have no hesitation in recommending you
to do as I have done ; that is, to head the tide of
emigration, and provide for your friends where the
lands are yet unappropriated.
After traversing the states of Ohio and Indiana,
looking out for a tract suited to my own views, and
those of a number of our countrymen who have
signified their intentions of following our example,
I have fixed on this spot in Illinois, and am the
better pleased with it the more I see of it.
As to obtaining labourers. A single settler
may get his labour done by the piece on moderate
terms, not higher than in some parts of England ;
but if many families settle together, all requiring
this article, and none supplying it, they must ob-
tain it from elsewhere. Let them import English
labourers, or make advantageous proposals to such
as are continually arriving at the eastern ports.
Provisions are cheap of course. Wheat three
and fourpence sterling per bushel. Beef and pork
twopence per pound, groceries and clothing dear,
building moderate, either by wood or brick. Bricks
are laid by the thousand, at eight dollars or under,
including lime.
Privations I cannot enumerate. Their amount
depends on the previous habits and present dispo-
sition of individuals : for myself and family, the
14
14 LKTTKKS FEOM ILLINOIS.
privations already experienced, or anticipated, are
of small account compared with the advantages.
. Horses, 6’0 to 1 00 dollars, or upwards ; cows,
10 to 20 dollars; sows, 3 to 5 dollars.
Society is made up of new comers chiefly, and
of course must partake of the leading characters of
these. There is generally a little bias of attraction
in a newly settled neighbourhood, which brings
emigrants from some particular state or country
to that spot ; and thus a tone is given to the so-
ciety. Where we are settling, society is yet unborn
as it were. It will, as in other places, be made up
of such as come ; among whom English farmers,
I presume, will form a large proportion.
Roads as yet are in a state of nature.
Purchases of land are best made at the land-
offices : payments, five years, or prompt ; if the
latter, eight per cent, discount.
Mechanics’ wages, 1 dollar to I|. Carpenters,
smiths, shoemakers, hrickmakers, and bricklayers,
are among the first in requisition for a new settle-
ment : others follow in course ; — tanners, saddlers,
tailors, hatters, tin-workers, &e. &c.
We rely on good markets for produce, through
the grand navigable communication we enjoy with
the ocean.
Medical aid is not of difficult attainment. The
English of both sexes, and strangers in general, are
•1
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. J5
liable to some bilious attacks on their first arrival:
these complaints seem, however, simple, and not
difficult to manage if taken in time.
The manufactures yon mention may hereafter
be eligible ; cotton, woollen, linen, stockings, &c.
Certainly not at present. Beer, spirits, pottery,
tanning, are objects of immediate attention.
The minerals of our district are not much
known. We have excellent limestone ; I believe
we have coal : wood will, however, be the cheapest
fuel for some years.
Implements are cheap till you commence with
the iron. A waggon, 35 or 40 dollars, exclusive of
tier to wheels. A strong waggon for the road
complete will amount to 160 dollars or upwards,
The best mode of coming from England to this
part of the western country is by an eastern port,
thence to Pittsburg, and down the Ohio to Shaw-
nee-town. Clothing, bedding, household linen,
simple medicines of the best quality, and sundry
small articles of cutlery and light tools, are the
best things for an emigrant to bring out.
I can hardly reply to your inquiry about the
manner of trofcelling ; it must be suited to the
party. Horseback is the most pleasant and expe-
ditious ; on foot the cheapest: a light waggon is
eligible in some cases ; in others the stage is a ne-
cessary evil. I see I shall render you liable to
IG LKTTEKS FUOM ILLINOIS.
double postage, but I wished to reply to each ol
your inquiries as far as I could.
To serve you or your friends will be a pleasure
to, Sir,
Yours, &c. &c.
LETTER IV.
DEAR SIR, Nov. 30, 1817.
No doubt my son will have told you
what he has learnt of our proceedings from our
departure until our arrival here. By April next I
hope we shall be fixed in our cabins on the prairie ;
and, in two years, I hope to see a populous and
thriving neighbourhood, where in July last I could
not find a single inhabitant.
As we travelled along, viewing the country,
and anxiously seeking a place of rest, I took short
notes of occurrences and observations ; and having
added an account of our intended settlement, with
a sketch of our plans and prospects, I sent it to the
press. I directed' a copy to be delivered to you,
which you probably will have received before this
reaches you. Having described things just as they
appeared to me, I am in hopes my friends will
17
LETTERS EROM ILLINOIS.
collect from it a pretty clear idea of the state of
this remote country.
Beginning where that leaves off, you will sup-
pose me busy enough in planning and preparing
for our new farm. I have secured a considerable
tract of land, more than I have any intention of
holding, that I may be able to accommodate some
of our English friends. Our soil appears to be
rich, a fine black mould, inclining to sand, from
one to three or four feet deep, lying on sandstone
or clayey loam ; so easy of tillage as to reduce the
expense of cultivation below that of the land I
have been accustomed to in England, notwith-
standing the high rates of human labour. ' The
wear of plough-irons is so trifling, that it is a
thing of course to sharpen them in the spring
once for the whole year. Our main object will be
live stock, cattle, and hogs, for which there is a
sure market at a good profit. Twopence a pound
you will think too low a price to include a profit ;
but remember, we are not called upon, after re-
ceiving our money for produce, to refund a por-
tion of it for rent, another portion for tithe, a
third for poor’s rates, and a fourth for taxes ; which
latter are here so light as scarcely to be brought
into the nicest calculation. You will consider also,
that money goes a great deal farther here, so that
a less profit would suffice. Tlie fact is, however,
c
18
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
that the profits on capital employed any way in
this country are marvellous : in the case of live-
stock the outgoings are so small, that the receipts
are nearly all clear.
The idea of exhausting the soil by cropping,
so as to render manure necessary, has not yet en-
tered into the estimates of the western cultivator.
Manure has been often known to accumulate until
the farmers have removed their yards and build-
ings out of the way of the nuisance. They have
no notion of making a return to the land, and as
yet there seems no bounds to its fertility.
For about half the capital that is required for
the mere cultivation of our w’om-out soils in
England, a man may establish himself as a pro-
prietor here, with every comfort belonging to a
plain and reasonable mode of living, and with a
certainty of establishing his children as well or
better than himself — such an approach to certainty
at least as would render anxiety on that score un-
pardonable.
Land being obtained so easily, I had a fancy
to occupy here just as many acres as I did at
Wanborough; and I have added 160 of timbered
land to the 1,440 I at first concluded to farm.
I shall build and furnish as good a house as the
one I left, with suitable outbuildings, garden, or-
chard, &c. make 5,000 rods of fence, chiefly bank
19
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
and ditch, provide implements, build a mill, sup-
port the expenses of housekeeping and labour until
we obtain returns, and pay the entire purchase-
money of the estate, for less than half the capital
employed on Wanborough farm. At the end of
fourteen years, instead of an expiring lease, I or
my heirs will probably see an increase in the value
of the land equal to fifteen or twenty times the
original purchase.
In the interval my family will have lived hand-
somely on the produce, and have plenty to spare,
should any of them require a separate establish-
ment on farms of their own.
Thus I see no obstruction to my realising all
1 wished for on taking leave of Old England. To
me, whose circumstances were comparatively easy,
the change is highly advantageous ; but to labour-
ing people, to mechanics, to people in general who
are in difficulties, this country affords so many
sure roads to independence and comfort, that it id
lamentable that any, who have the means of
making their escape, should be prevented by the
misrepresentation of others, or their own timidity.
You will gather from this letter, that the pre-
dictions of some of my old neighbours, who said
I should be soon glad to return to Wanborough,
are not in the way of being fulfilled. Some who
do not know me so well as you do, will perhaps
20
LETTEKS FROM ILLINOIS.
now doubt my sincerity. It would be no allevia-
tion of my own troubles to lead others into the
like ; so that if I were disappointed, and had not
the manliness to acknowledge it, I should at least
hold my tongue.
My son never fails to mention, in his liters,
his obligations to you for your truly kind notice
of him in his fatherless condition. You find a re-
w’ard for this in your own kind heart. Wishing
you and yours all prosperity,
I remain, dear Sir,
sincerely yours.
' LETTER V.
MY DEAR FRIEND, DcC. 9 , 1817 .
And you would, I
am certain, give me your congratulations, almost
unmixed, had you a complete view of our com-
fortable situation and our prospects.
I enjoy the exchange more than you can con-
ceive — much more than I ever anticipated ; but not
exactly with feelings such as you, partly in raillery
and partly in seriousness, suppose, either with re-
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. <21
gard to the country I have quitted, and which I
shall never cease to love, or with regard to the
position 1 am to assume among my American
brethren.
In England we find great simplicity, or rather
ignorance, in the remote and little frequented dis-
tricts : the inhabitants of the villages are for the
most part the children of the former inhabitants,
to be succeeded by their children, ploughing the
same fields, and threshing in the same barns, from
generation to generation. But we in this new
country are a motley assemblage of adventurers ;
not one that is grown to man’s estate was born in
it. Coming hither mature in age and experience,
we bring and throw into a common stock the
knowledge of distant countries, and various cli-
mates ; and, when collected, a people of emigrants
is the last to which we would apply the epithet
of “ simple” or of ignorant.
Thus I am in no danger of setting op for an
arrogant instructor of “ the simple Americans:”
and yet the value of the little I know, and the
little I can do beyond the reach of the mere hus-
bandman, is greatly enhanced by transplantation.
I believe you cannot have an adequate notion of
the enlargement of the sphere of useful exertion
which I experience ; and I utterly despair, at pre-
sent, of convincing you that this most delightful
<M LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
acquisition costs so little as it does, in what are
deenjed, and properly, the enjoyments of social
life. “ Ah,” say you, “ happy enthusiast, his
dream is not yet over.” — ^There is, however, some-
thing real in the change from anxiety about the
future to perfect tranquillity, and from a life of
irksome toil to one of pleasurable exertion. There
is a difiFerence betwixt hope and fear that is not to
be despised, even in drtaming. This is indeed a
laud of liberty and hope, and I rejoice unfeignedly
that I am in it. Yet England was never so dear
to me as it is now in the recollection: being no
longer under the base dominion of her oligarchy,
I can think of my native country, and her noble
institutions, apart from her politics.
I read in the Philadelphia papers, of which I
receive half a dozen per week, marvellous things
from England, about gold and the funds; and
melancholy accounts of the typhus fever in Ire-
land, and lately in Birmingham and Manchester,
and even in London : how stands the case ? I am
apt to fear the misery is real, and the prosperity
fallacious
I am, &c. &c.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
as
LETTER VI.
MY DEAR FRIEND, DcC. 25, 1817-
There are some truly estimable people
here, of gentle manners, warm hearts, and culti-
vated understandings, to whom we are growing
much attached. The decision of character which
prevails among the new settlers renders their so-
ciety very interesting ; and there is a spirit of fear-
less enterprise which raises even the vicious above
contempt. Not a family, hardly an individual,
whose adventures would not highly amuse and
astonish the groups assembled round the firesides
of our old country at this story-telling season.
But what think you of a community, not only
without an established religion, but of whom a
large proportion profess no particular religion, and
think as little about the machinery of it, as you
know was the case with myself? What in some
places is esteemed a decent conformity with prac-
tices which we despise, is here altogether unneces-
sary. There are, however, some sectaries even
here, with more of enthusiasm than good temper ;
but their zeal finds sufficient vent in loud preaching
and praying. The Court-house is used by all per-
suasions, indifferently, as a place of worship ; any
24
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
acknowledged preacher who announces himself
for a Sunday or other day, may always collect an
audience, and rave or reason as he sees meet.
When the weather is favourable. Few Sundays pass
without something of the sort. It is remarkable
that they generally deliver themselves with that
chauntlng cadence you have heard among the
tpiakers. This is Christmas day, and seems to be
kept as a pure holiday — merely a day of relaxation
and amusement: those that choose, observe it
religiously ; but the public opinion does not lean
that way, and the law is silent on the subject.
After this deplorable account, you will not wonder
when you hear of earthquakes and tornados
amongst us. But the state of political feeling is,
if possible, still more deplorable. Republican
principles prevail universally. Those few zealous
jjersons, who, like the ten faithful that were not
found by Abraham, might have stood between
their heathen neighbours and destruction, even
these are among the most decided foes of all
legitimacy, except that of a government appointed
by the people. They are as fully armed with car-
nal weapons as with spiritual ; and as determined
in their animosity against royalty and its appurte-
nances, as they are against the kingdom of Anti-
Christ ; holding it as lawful to use the sword of
the flesh for the destruction of the one, as that ot
the spirit for the other.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 25
Children are not baptized or subjected to any
superstitious rite ; the parents name them, and that
is all : and the last act oF the drama is as simple
as the first. There is no consecrated burial place,
or funeral service. The body is enclosed in the
plainest coffin ; the family of the deceased convey
the corpse into the woods ; some of the party are
provided with axes, and some with spades ; a
grave is prepared, and the body quietly placed in it;
then trees are felled, and laid over the grave to pro-
tect it from wild beasts. If the party belong to a
religious community, preaching sometimes follows ;
if not, a few natural tears are shed in silence, and
the scene is closed. These simple monuments of
mortality are not unfrequent in the woods. Mar-
riages are as little concerned with superstitious
observances as funerals : but they are observed as
occasions of festivity. We are not quite out of
hearing of the world and its bustle, but the sound
is rather long in reaching us. We receive the
Philadelphia daily papers once a week, about a
month after they are published ; in these we read
extracts from the English journals of the month
preceding ; so we take up the news as you forget
it ; and what happened three months ago in Europe
is just now on the carpet here.
As to society, comparisons are odious ; but, in
good faith, I think you would have nothing to
26
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
regret in exchanging such a circle as I fancy yours
to be, for any circle that would surround you in
'the inhabited part of these wild woods.
I am, my dear friend,
ever yours.
LETTER Vfl.
DEAR SIR, Jan. 7, 1818.
I AM not so sanguine as yourself about
our old and once glorious England : such a ra-
tional, honest, economical system, as a true par-
liament would produce, might, twenty-six years
ago, have done something for us. Economy and
order are good to prevent ruin, but when all is
spent they are of small avail : besides, who wishes
for the experiment to be made? Not the fund-
holders, nor the borough-holders, nor the army —
a few, a very few political characters, and the
distressed of all classes. The latter, you will say,
are a formidable number. So they are ; but they
are weak, and have nothing in common but their
misery. The “ friends of order,” that is, the bulk
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
27
of the people, who have as yet escaped pauperism,
hut ate shivering on the brink, and fearful that
the slightest change will plunge them into the
gulf — these are the enemies of reform, and all the
timid of every class.
Had I been an owner of land, I might possibly
have staid by my paternal acres ; or if I had been
a single man (that is, a childless man), 1 might
have remained in the hope of contributing to the
work of reformation, or, in pure hatred of tyranny,
to stand the brunt. But as I am circumstanced,
I thought it right to withdraw, with my family,
out of its reach ; and I have not repented a single
moment ; on the contrary, 1 have every reason to
rejoice in the change, for it is from gloom and
despondency to tranquillity and hope.
As to the comforts and accommodations of
life, we have our books, our music, our agreeable
and kind neighbours, good food and clothing, and
before two years are ended we expect to have as
good and well-fumished a house as that we left.
It is astonishing how small are the privations we
are subject to. I counted the cost beforehand, but
over-reckoned it ; and we are of course the better
satisfied.
It will be very long before travelling will be
pleasant, except in fine weather and on horseback:
this is the grand inconvenience of a new country ;
28 ' LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
but it is not to be compared to the inconvenience
of living at the mercy of a villainous aristocracy.
Why, Sir ! I must either have sneaked about, in
what you call my country, a prisoner at large, or
amused myself with counting the nails on the
door of my dungeon. And so mvist you; for
things will not mend without a dreadful crisis;
and until that liberates you, you will be free only
by sufl’erance, “ within the Rules.”
Here, I shall be employed in enlarging the
circle of our enjoyments there, I was contracting
it daily. My family had already made several
downward movements ; we had learnt to dispense
with the comfort of a carriage ; we mounted our
horses instead; this was no bad exchange; but
the cause of our making the exchange was irk-
some. From horseback, my daughters cheerfully
enough betook themselves to then feet . no great
harm in that, only it w'as by compulsion. So we
went down step by step.
Our friend Cobbett declaims about patriotism
in sounding phrases, but I adhere to the maxim
“ ubi libertas ibi patria.” What is country ? the
soil ? Of this I was only an occupant. The go-
vernment ? X abhorred its deeds and its principles.
The church ? I did not believe in its doctrines,
and had no reverence for the clergy. The army ?
No. The law? We have the same law here,
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 29
with some omissions and some improvements.
The people? Yes; but not the fund-holders, nor
the soi-disant House of Commons ; not the con-
sumers, nor the creators of taxes. My family and
friends I love wherever I meet them : I have
almost as many, and as strong ties of that sort,
on this as on the other side of the Atlantic — soon
I hope to have more, and then this will be my
country.
I own here a far better estate than I rented in
England, and am already more attached to the
soil. Here, every citizen, whether by birthright
or adoption, is part of the government, identified
with it, not virtually, but in fact ; and eligible to
every office, with one exception, regarding the
Presidency, for which a birthright is necessary.
I love this government ; and thus a novel sen-
sation is excited : it is like the developement of a
new faculty. I am become a patriot in my old
age; thus a new virtue will spring up in my
bosom.
so
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
LETTER VIII.
MY DEAR SIR, Jan. 17, 1818.
I WROTE to you early in September, since
which I hope you have received a copy of my
journal. Thus having made you of our party on
the journey, and introduced you to some acquaint-
ance with our Princeton affairs, I am now going
to take you to the prairies, to shew you the
very beginning of our settlement. Having fixed
on the north-western portion of our prairie for our
future residence and farm, the first act was build-
ing a cabin, about two hundred yards from the
spot where the house is to stand. This cabin is
built of round straight logs, about a foot in diame-
ter, lying upon each other, and notched in at the
comers, forming a room eighteen feet long by six-
teen ; the intervals between the logs chuncked,”
that is, filled in with slips of wood ; and mudded,”
that is, daubed with a plaister of mud : a spacious
chimney, built also of logs, stands like a bastion
at one end : the roof is well covered with four
hundred clap boards ” of cleft oak, very much
like the pales used in England for fencing parks.
A hole is cut through the side, called, very pro-
perly, the door, (the through,)” for which there
31
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
is a shutter,” made also of cleft oak, and hung
on wooden hinges. All this has been executed by
contract, and well executed, for twenty dollars. I
have since added ten dollars to the cost, for the
luxury of a floor and ceiling of sawn boards, and
it is now a comfortable habitation.
To this cabin you must accompany me, a
young English friend, and my boy Gillard, whom
you may recollect at Wanborough. We arrived
in the evening, our horses heavily laden with our
guns, and provisions, and cooking utensils, and
blankets, not forgetting the all-important axe. This
was immediately put in requisition, and we soon
kindled a famous fire, before which we spread our
pallets, and, after a hearty supper, soon forgot that
besides ourselves, our horses and our dogs, the
wild animals of the forest were the only inhabi-
tants of our wide domain. Our cabin stands at
the edge of the prairie, just within the wood, so
as to be concealed from the view until you are at
the very door. Thirty paces to the east the pros-
pect opens from a commanding eminence over the
prairie, which extends four miles to the south and
south-east, and over the woods beyond to a great
distance; whilst the high timber behind, and on
each side, to the west, north, and east, forms a
sheltered cove about five hundred vards in width.
It is about the middle of this cove, two liundred
32 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
and fifty yards from the wood each way, but
open to the south, that we' propose building our
house.
Well, having thus established myself as a resi-
dent proprietor, in the morning my boy and I
(our friend having left us) sallied forth in quest of
neighbours, having heard of two new settlements
at no great distance. Our first visit was to Mr.
Emberson,*who had just established himself in a
cabin similar to our own, at the edge of a small
prairie two milfes north-west of us. We found
him a respectable young man, more farmer than
hunter, surrounded by a numerous family, and
making the most of a rainy day by mending the
shoes of his household. We then proceeded to
Mr. Woodland’s, about the same distance south-
west : he is an inhabitant of longer standing, for
he arrived in April, Mr. E. in August. He has
since built for us a second cabin, connected with
the first by a covered roof or porch, which is
very convenient, forming together a commodious
dwelling.
In our walk we saw no game but partridges,
and a squirrel. We found plenty of grapes, which
I thought delicious. The soil seemed to improve
in fertility on closer inspection, and the country
appeared more pleasant : in fact, my mind was at
ease, and this spreads a charm over external ob-
LETTERS fROxM ILLINOIS. Sfi
jects. Our township is a square of six miles each
side, or thirty-six square miles; and what may
properly he called our neighbourhood, extends
about six miles round this township in every di-
rection. Six miles to the north is the boundary
of surveyed lands. Six miles to the east is the
Bonpas, a stream which joins the Big Wabash
about six miles south ol us, where the latter river
makes a bold bend to the west, approaching within
six miles of the Little Wabash : this river forms
our western boundary, at about the same distance
up to the northern line of survey above-mentioned.
The centre of this tract is our prairie, containing
about 4,000 acres.
There are many other prairies, or natural mea-
dows, of various dimensions and qualities, scat-
tered over this surface, which consists of about
two hundred square miles, containing perhaps
twelve human habitations, all erected, I believe,
within one year of our first visit — most of them
within three months. At or near the month of
the Bonpas, where it falls into the Big Wabash,
we project a shipping port : a ridge of high land,
without any intervening creek, will afford an easy
communication with the river at that place.
Th(> Wabash, as you know, is a noble stream,
navigable several hundred miles from its junction
with the Ohio, and receiving other navigable rivers
D
34
letters from ILLINOIS.
in its course ; VV^hite River in particular, opening a
communication with the most fertile region of
Indiana, will at a future day hold a distinguished
rank among rivers. The country above, both on
the Wabash and White River, is peopling rapidly ;
and there is, through the Ohio, a great natural
channel of intercourse between this vast country
and the ocean. Steam boats already navigate the
Wabash: a vessel of that description has this
winter made its way up from New Orleans to
within a few miles of our settlement. They are
about building one' at Harmony, twenty miles be-
low, as a regular trader, to carry off the surplus
produce, and bring back coffee, sugar, and other
groceries, as well as European manufactures.
There are no very good mill-seats on the
streams in our neighbourhood, but our prairie
affords a most eligible site for a windmill ; we are
therefore going to erect one immediately: the
materials are in great forwardness, and we hope
to have it in order to grind the fruits of the ensu-
ing harvest.
Two brothers, and the wife of one of them, ^
started from the village of Puttenham, close to
our old Wanborough, and have made their way
out to us : they are carpenters, and are now very
usefully employed in preparing the scantlings for
the mill, and other purposes. You may suppose
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
35
how cordially we received these good people.
They landed at Philadelphia, not knowing where
on this vast continent they should find ns : from
thence they were directed to Pittsburg, a weari-
some journey over the mountains of more than
300 miles ; at Pittsburgh they bought a little boat
for six or seven dollars, and came gently down the
Ohio, 1,200 miles, to Shavvnee-town ; from thence
they proceeded on foot till they found us. On
their way they had many flattering offers ; but
true to their purpose, though uninvited and un-
looked for, they held out to the end, and I believe
they are well satisfied with their reception and
prospects.
By the first of March I hope to have two
ploughs at work, and may possibly put in 100
acres of corn this spring. Early in May, I think,
we shall be all settled in a convenient temporary
dwelling, formed of a range of cabins of ten
rooms, until we can accomplish our purpose of
building a more substantial house. My young
folks desire to be most kindly remembered to you :
they are full of life and spirits ; not one of them,
I believe, having felt a symptom of repentance
from the commencement of our undertaking.
I remain, dear Sir,
ever yours.
56
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
LETTER IX.
PEAR SIR,
, . . . Money will go surprisingly
fiir in this country, yet capital is as necessary to
the full here as in England ; indeed more so, be-
cause few persons have money to lend. Legal
interest is 6 per cent, but it is worth 1 2^ per cent,
to put in trade ; and somehow or other this, like
other articles, finds its value in spite of the maxi-
mum established by law.
Efforts are now making in some parts of the
union, particularly in Virginia and North Carolina,
to do away the restraints on usury, which operate
merely as a tax on the needy borrower : should
this liberal principle succeed here, I think it will
he generally adopted ; and will afford a new in-
stance of the plain Americans doing right, whilst
the philosophers of Europe are reasoning about
it
All the letters we have yet received from
England, were written before our friends had
heard of our establishment here, and we are be-
coming very anxious to know what you now think
of us, when our pilgrim state no longer calls for
your sympathy. The most zealous approvers of
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
S7 '
the enterprise felt, I dare say, some little diffidence
about it — some small misgivings as to our final
success ; but these will receive our professions of
satisfaction cordially and with entire credence:
others, still hesitating, will fancy they discover in
all our accounts symptoms of latent discontent,
concealed possibly from ourselves for the present,
by our anxiety to make the best of things as we
find them : others again, more positive of course
in proportion as they recede from the truth, will
see in our favourable reports of the country, its"
institutions, and people, a design to mislead, as we
have been misled ; or, overlooking those favour-
able views, they will dwell on the dark shades of
the description, and rise from our account of
America with a fresh stock of prejudice. Thus
we are apt to speculate on your opinions about
our proceedings ; and you, the while, are probably
too fully occupied with your own aftkirs to spare
much attention to us and ours.
Winter is here, on the whole, an agreeable
season ; we have many days, and even weeks, which
are truly delightful. Extreme cold does not seem
to belong to us ; but we have some very severe
paroxysms of it when the wind sets in from the
north-west, the thermometer falling rapidly to 7°
or 8° below Zero : but when it shifts to any other
quarter mild weather returns, and we have clear
S8
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
sunshine, with the thermometer frequently above
50® in the shade. Good roads, however, and good
houses, are as yet wanting to render the winters of
this country pleasant.
The sombre appearance of the forests, without
a single evergreen to relieve the eye, and the total
deficiency of verdure on the surface of the earth
(for even the pastures hardly retain a trace of
green), give a doleful aspect to the scenery at this
season. The natural turf, in those spots where
the shade is not too deep to allow a turf to be
formed, is composed chiefly of annual grasses, or
of such as wither down to the root in autumn : yet
the perennial or evergreen species, which clothe
the rich pastures of more northern climates with
perpetual verdure, thrive here to admiration when
sown even casually, and take entire possession of
the soil, to the exclusion of the indigenous grasses.
Where the little caravans have encamped as they
crossed the prairies, and have given their cattle
hay made of these perennial grasses, there remains
ever after a spot of green turf for the instruction
and encouragement of future improvers — a fact
which, I think, is conclusive against the prevailing
notion that the natural grasses, as they are called,
are the best adapted to every soil and climate.
Indeed, this opinion is at variance with experience
in regard to almost every plant cultivated by man ;
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. S9
many of the grass tribe in particular, as wheat,
barley, and oats, are every where exotics, or, more
properly, such as we now see them, the creatures
of art.
The wild grapes of this country are pleasant
enough to invite us to introduce better, and denote
a climate well adapted to the vine. The crab is
inferior in size and flavour to ours in England;
yet the cultivated apple exceeds any thing I have
seen : in proof of the perfection which this fruit
attains here, I have taken sixteen full-grown
plump pippins from one apple. Pears also suc-
ceed very well. The peach bears fruit the third
year from the stone ; but the trees are short-lived
and liable to blight. We have gooseberries and
currants in perfection ; and, in general, the vege-
table productions of our old country, that have been
introduced here, are improved by the change.
The season for sugar-making is now com-
mencing; some has already been made in this
neighbourhood. There are several species of the
maple, from which 'sugar may be extracted. The
hickery, and I believe some other trees, contain
sugar of excellent quality ; but the acer-sacchari-
num, or sugar-maple, aftbrds the great supply of
this article. In a favourable season (calm wea-
ther, frosty nights, and sunny days) I understand
one hundred pounds of sugar may be collected
40 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
from fifty trees ; and one man, with great assi-
duity, may perform the work in about eight days,
where the trees stand conveniently near to each
other. Auger-holes are bored through the bark
into the wood, about three feet from the OTound,
from which a tube, formed perhaps^ of cane, con-
veys the limpid and slightly sweet liquor into
small trouglis. Hard by, a range of iron kettles
are steaming away; in these the “ sugar water”
is evaporated to a syrup of proper consistency.
When in this state it is placed in a tub with holes
in the bottom, and the process of graining (an
imperfect chrystalization) is performed very hand-
somely, and a delicious molasses runs off through
the holes. It is, however, generally grained very
imperfectly in the kettles, by stirring it tiUjitJs
cool. The great consumjjtion of this article in
Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, has been chiefly
derived from the sugar-maple; but the cane is
now cultivated with success in Louisiana, and cane-
sugar in large quantities is brought up the river,
and can be afforded cheaper, I believe, than that
from the maple. The price this season, of the
latter, is tweny-five cents per pound.
We are now feasting on wild turkeys. We
have not sat down to dinner for the last month, I
believe, without a line roast turkey. They weigh
about twelve pounds, and are sold five for a dollar.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
41
Some weigh twenty-five pounds — I have heard of
thirty. They are fat and tender ; better, I fancy,
than Norfolk turkeys : but I must not be too
positive oil this nice point.
You see the subjects which interest us Back-
woods men, and they answer the purpose very
well, in the rqom of the important matters that
used to agitate us in England, grown still more
important since we quitted, I suppose. I hear of
loans to government, to pay the interest of which,
I presume, you must have new taxes ; I hear also
of loans to parishes in aid of the poor-rates. Here
we have now no taxes, excepting what are raised
on the principle of our country rates, and they are
hardly perceptible. The whole system of internal
taxation is done away by a late act of Congress.
Think of a country without excisemen, or as-
sessors, or collectors, or receivers-general, or
informers or paupers !
I ought to apologise for trifling at such a
length, but this would add to the fault.
I am, &c.
P. S. I forgot to remark on the subject of our
privations, as to all I had been used to know about
government in our old country, that Congress, to
save itself from total oblivion among the people,
has, at the same time that it abolished taxes, de-
4«
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
creed the distribution of certain sums for the im-
provement of the country, in canals, bridges, turn-
pikes, &c.
LETTER X.
MV DEAR SON, Jon. 31, 1818.
I HAVE not, in any of my letters, given
you more than a general view of the advantages
attending a change, from your situation, for that of
an American farmer. This general knowledge of
the subject was all I had obtained myself; and
anxious as I am to communicate to you what I
know, I am still more so, to avoid misleading
you.
I have now, however, so far entered into the
details of our own establishment, that it would be
wrong any longer to withhold from you some par-
ticulars of our Illinois farming, as they lie practi-
cally before me. I shall give you an estimate of
expenditure and produce, on a section of land
such as I have now under my eye. The expenses
are put higher than the rates actually paid in this
country, and the produce on the whole, I believe,
43
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
within the average ; so that you may rely on its
being a safe statement.
When you have given it your attention, look
around you for the cheapest and most eligible farm
within your observation ; make your calculations
of capital employed, and of proht and loss, and
then compare. It will soon he time for you to de-
cide on your future settlement. I certainly wish
that you may join us. What I feel on that point
as your father ; what we all feel when we indulge
the hope of again embracing you ; your own cor-
responding emotions of affection ; — in making your
decision, keep these considerations out of view;
but if you conclude to follow us, give them full
scope ; and they will bear you up through the dif-
ficulties and discouragement which you will doubt-
less experience.
The course of cultivation which I have made
the groundwork of the following calculations, may
not turn out to be the best; but it is the most
likely to succeed, under “ existing circumstances,”
of any that has occurred to me.
It is customary to plant Indian corn on the
first ploughing on newly broken up prairies, and
the crop is left to struggle with the grass, which
springs up abundantly between the furrows. Our
method of skim-ploughing, I expect, will be found
of great advantage, not only as regards this first
44 LETTJLRS FROM ILLINOIS.
crop, but to the wheat which follows. Should it
prove that I am too sanguine in this particular,
the produce of the first crop is set too high ; but
by way of compensation, you will observe that I
have entirely omitted the profits on live stock ;
and it is on the boundless scope for rearing and
fattening hogs and cattle, that the farmers place
their chief reliance.
You will also observe, that the balance always
comes out an evai sum ; this is owing to the last
line of the list of expenses, which is merely an
allowance for incidents ; and to ease the calcula-
tion, 1 have put that at such a sum as makes up
the whole number.
The farm is a section, or 640 acres, and con-
sists of 240 acres wood, and 400 prairie. The
site of th(,‘ house and farin-huildings, with garden,
orchard, and sundry other convenient inclosures,
are to be included in the 240 acres. The ])lan is
to break up 1 00 acres per annum ; after which it
may be laid down to grass, or continued partly or
wholly arable, under this or any other course of
crops, as may be found expedient. The 100 acres
is to he planted with Indian corn in May, and
with wheat in October, after the Indian corn : thus
the whole 400 acres of prairie will be brought
into cultivation in four years.
A capital of <£’2,000 sterling (8,889 dollars)
L&TTEUS FROM ILLINOIS.
45
may be invested on a section of such land, in the
following manner : viz.
Purchase of the land, 640 acres, at 2 dollars per
acre
Doiiart.
House and buildings, exceedingly convenient and
comfortable, may be built for
A rail fence round the woods, 1,000 rods, at 25
cents per rod ....
About 1,800 rods of ditch and bank, to divide the
arable into 10 fields, at 834
Planting 1,800 rods of live fence
Fruit-trees for orchard, &c.
Horses and other live stock
Implements and furniture
Provision for one year, and sundry incidental
charges .....
Sundry articles of linen, books, apparel, imple-
ments, &c. brought from England .
Carriage of ditto, suppose 2,000 lb. at 10 dollars
per cwt. . ...
Voyage and travelling expenses of one person,
suppose .....
Dollars 8,889
I
'Note. — The first instalment on the land is 320 dollars,
therefore 960 dollars of the purchase-money remain in
hand, to be applied to the expenses of cultivation, in ad-
dition to the sums above stated.
46
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Expenditure of first year.
Breaking up 100 acres, 2 dollars per
acre
Dollan,
200
Indian com for seed, 5 barrels (a
bushels)
barrel is 5
10
Planting ditto
.
25
Horse-hoeing ditto, 1 dollar per acre
• •
100'
Harvesting ditto, Ij dollar per acre
•
150
Ploughing the same land for wheat,
acre
1 dollar per
« •
100
Seed wheat, sowing, and harrowing
• •
175
Incidental expenses •
•
240
1,000
Produce of first year.
100 acres Indian com, 50 bushels (or 10 barrels)
per acre, at 2 dollars per barrel • . 2,000
Net produce 1,000
Expenditure of second year.
Breaking up 100 acres for Indian corn, with ex-
penses on that crop
485
Harvesting and threshing wheat, 100 acres
350
Ploughing 100 acres for wheat, seed, &c.
. 275
Incidents ....
290
1,400
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
47
Dollars^
Second year's expenditure brought forward . 1,400
Produce of second year.
100 acres Indian corn, 10 barrels per
acre, 2 dollars per barrel . 2,000
100 acres wheat, 20 bushels per acre,
3 dollars 73 cents per barrel . 1,500 . 3,500
Net produce 2,100
Expenditure of third year.
Breaking up 100 acres as before, with expenses
on crop of Indian corn . . , 485
Ploughing 100 acres wheat stubble for Indian
corn • • • • « 100
Horse-hoeing, harvesting, &c. ditto . . 285
Harvesting and threshing JOO acres wheat • 350
Dung-carting 100 acres for wheat, after second
crop of Indian com • . . 200
Ploughing 200 acres wheat, seed, 8cc. . . 550
Incidents . * . . . . 330
2,300
^ Produce of third year.
200 acres Indian com, 10 barrels per j}oiiarg,
acre, 2 dollars per barrel . 4,000
100 acres wheat, 20 bushels per acre,
3 dollars 75 cents per barrel . 1,500 . 5,500
Net produce 3,200
48
LETTEKS FROM ILLINOIS.
Expenditure of fourth year.
Dollars'
As the third ..... 2,300
Harvesting and threshing 100 acres more wheat . 350
Additional incidents . • . .50
2,700
Produce of fourth year.
Dollars.
200 acres Indian corn, as
above
. 4,000
200 acres wheat
•
. 3,000 . 7,000
Net produce 4,300
Summary.
Expenses.
Produce.
Dollars.
Dollars.
First year
1,000
. 2,000
Second . •
1,400
. 3,500
Third • . .
2,300
. 5,500
Fourth .
2,700
. 7,000
Housekeeping and other
18,000
expenses, four years .
4,000
11,400
Dollars
1 1,400
6,600
Net proceeds per ann. . . 1,650
Increasing value of land by cultivation
and settlements, half a dollar per ann.
on 640 acres . • • 320
Annuai:ciear profit 1,970
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS, 49
Housekeeping and other expenses being paid,
there remains a profit of 22 per cent, on the capi-
tal, and you are improving your own estate.
Our market at the above prices, or exceeding
them, I think is sure. The demand for grain will
probably fully equal the produce for some years,
owing to the influx of new settlers ; • and the
southern states, down the Mississippi to New Or-
leans, will be an’ increasing and sure market for
our surplus of every kind : vast quantities of pork
and beef are shipped for New Orleans from Ken-
tucky and Indiana. In this shape, that is, when
applied to fattening cattle and hogs, we may insure
two dollars per barrel for Indian corn.
LETTER XI.
(from an engush emigrant.)
SIR, Philadelphia, Dec. 25, 1817.
Having perused your publication of a
Tour through part of the United States, I am in-
duced to write to you on the subject, being myself
an English em^rant.
E
50 Letters from Illinois.
I wish particularly to be informed what an
indigent emigrant will be paid for his labour, in-
dependent of what yon propose to supply him with
on his arrival at the new settlement ; that is, what
will his earnings be on the average annually ? and
what will be the annual rent of one of the cabins
yon propose building, with a cow and hog at-
tached, and pasture for the same ?
I have a wife and three children in England,
which I intend sending for the ensuing spring. 1
had intended settling in the state of Ohio before
seeing your publication, but am now more in
favour of joining your proposed settlement, which
appears to me very practicable.
I now wish to be informed which would be
the most economical way of travelling with my
family. Would it be possible for me to take a
light waggon and one horse?
I calculate on being able to leave Philadelphia
w'ith 500 dollars. 1 am at present in the employ
of Mr Philadelphia, where you will
have the goodness to address a letter to me.
I am. Sir, &c. &c.
P, S. I omitted informing you what profession
I am : it is perhaps unnecessary ; but I have from
my infancy been reared a fanner.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
5 1
LETTER XII.
(answer to the preceding.)
SIR, 30, 1818.
Owing to some interruption in the
mails, your letter did not reach me till this morn-
ing.
The large undertaking mentioned at the con
elusion of my journal, is not yet in the way of
execution. Proposals have been laid before Con-
gress, (or at least transmitted to Washington for
that purpose) but I expect no proceedings can
be had without considerable delay, should they
even be favourably reedved, which is extremely
doubtful.
I am therefore going on steadily with my own
settlement, without reference to that plan. Yet,
in a smaller way, I shall make provision for the
ease of settlers at the commencement of their
labours, on the same principle.
I shall keep one or more cabins in readiness
for new comers, and provide immediately for their
employment. I cannot state to you with precision
the earnings of a labouring man: I should sup-
pose 230 dollars a year, from what I learn of
.52 LETTERS EROM ILLINOIS.
prices now paid. I have abundant means of fur-
nishing employment at that rate.
A cow and calf may cost from twelve to six-
teen dollars ; a breeding sow two or three dollars ;
these may be paid for out of their labour, by those
'who have not the means of purchasing. But their
taking these, or any other necessaries which I may
provide, will be altogether optional on their part.
The rent of a cabin, with cow-house, pig-stye,
well, and garden of one acre, with a right in a
common meadow, and common pasture, equal to
two acres in each, will not exceed twenty dollars
a year ; the tenant keeping the fence of his garden
and his buildings in repair.
You might make your way from Philadelphia
to Pittsburg with a light waggon ; but from thence
to the neighbourhood of our settlement, by far the
cheapest and most easy mode of travelling is
down the Ohio to Shawnee-town. At that place,
which is fifty miles south of us, yon would either
take some land conveyance, or possibly might
proceed up the Wabash to Harmony, or the mouth
of Bonpas ; which latter is about six miles from
the south end of our prairie. You would, how-
ever, obtain at Shawnee-town information and
advice as to your proceeding.
You may purchase a skiff at Pittsburg for six
or seven dollars, which will bring you down the
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS
Ohio in safety, with snch instructions as you may
collect on your passage.
If you conclude to join our settlement, you
will, of course, write to me again before you leave
Philadelphia.
Y ou mention your having been reared a farmer,
and your qualifications are of course well suited to
our common occasions : but, above all, bring good
morals, and then, with industry, barring the acci-
dents to which we are ever liable, you must
prosper.
I am. Sir,
your friend and well-wisher.
LETTER XIII.
DEAR SIR, Feb. Q,, 1818.
I HAVE not received a line from Eurojie
from any of our friends, since they have been ap-
prized of our establishment in the Illinois, so that
whether you have quite given us up as wild ad-
venturers, whom none but wild people will follow,
or whether my explanation of our motives and
views has produced a corresponding interest, and a
54 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
cordial sympathy in our success, is matter of specu-
lation in our family circle, and adds no little to the
eagerness with which we anticipate packets that no
doubt are on their way. But however that may be,
our countrymen on this side of the Atlantic, many
of whom are now exploring this vast expanse of
wilderness, uncertain where to pitch their tents,
are becoming sensible of an attraction to this
point. I have numerous applications, both per-
sonal and by letter, and I think we have good
ground to expect that we may soon enjoy our-
selves in a thriving neighbourhood.
Our district affords many eligible situations,
but it is unequal in quality of soil ; and we have
such strong hold on the most desirable part of it,
that I flatter myself it will not be found suflUciently
inviting to land jobbers, who traverse this fine
country like a pestilent blight. Where they see
the promise of a thriving settlement, from a cluster
of entries being made in any neighbourhood, they
purchase large tracts of the best land, and lock it
up in real mortmain, for it is death to all improve-
ment.
One of the greatest calamities to which a
young colony is liable is this investment of tlie
property of non-residents, who speculate on their
prosperity, whilst they are doing all they can to
impede it.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS
Tlie wealth of the American merchants, col-
lected as it is from the labours of their fellow-
citizens of the wilderness, seldom returns to make
that wilderness rejoice by converting it into a
fruitful field, but is too commonly employed in
retarding that happy change. This holding back
from cultivation millions ot acres, tends to scatter
the population of these new countries ; increasing
the difficulties of settlers manifold ; and occasion-
ing the habits of savage life to be retained much
longer. The western states are suffering greatly
under this evil. .
I have this day had the pleasure ot a visit from
a Kentish farmer, who will probably make one of
our colony. He is returning to England via New
Orleans, to fetch his family. His name is Clarke.
I give him directions which I hope will enable
him to find you. He appears to he of the right
sort, and you will have pleasure in communicating
advfce or assistance to him, should he need it, on
re-shipping himself for this country. He left
England in August last, in the ship Marianne of
London, of 560 tons burthen. Captain James
.Johnson; Thomas and James Fitzgerald, brokers,
St. Catharine’s, Iron-gate Stairs ; Gardiner, of Ed-
monton, owner. I am thus particular in names,
on account of the patriotic proceedings I am going
to relate to yon.
1
66 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Tins vessel was fitted up commodiously for
J)as5engers5 especially of the steerage class. She
was advertised as to sail for New York and
Philadelphia, and printed bills to that effect were
distributed. She took in two hundred passengers
at twelve guineas a head, for a birth, fire, and
water. Captain Johnson conducted her down the
river and through the British Channel ; he then
found himself much indisposed, quitted the ship
at Lymington, and Captain Jackson, who was
there in readiness, took the command. About
two days lifter Captain Jackson assumed his office,
when they were off Scilly, he addressed his pas-
sengers, with My honest friends ! I suppose you
know where you are going ; we are bound to New
Brunswick.” You will imagine the rage and asto-
nishment of these poor people ; they would have
proceeded to acts of immediate revenge and despe-
ration, but were happily restrained by the influence
of a few wise heads among them. When they
had been a fortnight at sea, these same wise heads
put them in the way of a remedy which proved in
a great measure effectual. They presented to the
captain, by common consent, a paper, which they
called a petition, with which he thought it ex-
pedient to comply, so far as to carry them to
Boston instead of New Brunswick. At Boston
they laid their complaint before the British consul,
LETTKRS FROM ILLINOIS. .57
Mr. Skinner, demanding redress for the injury
they sustained by being landed at that port, in-
stead of New York or Philadelphia. Mr. Skinner
declared himself incompetent, hnt advised them to
repair to New Brimmick, where they might a])ply
to real British authority and obtain ample justice ;
and moreover assured them, that on their arrival
there they would each of them receive two hun-
dred acres of land, and other advantages.
The kind of justice administered by the go-
veiTior of New Brnnswick in such cases, may be
guessed from the practice of his neighbour at Hali-
fax. Two vessels, under similar pretexts with the
above, had just before obtained a living cargo of
unfortunate persons, and actually landed them at
that place, instead of the United States’ port for
which they had shipped themselves. They applied
to the governor, but he was as incompetent as Mr.
Skinner of Boston, and referred them to their
mother-country. “ Return to England” said he,
“ there you will obtain ample justice."
I call these transactions patriotic ; and if I am
correct in the use of that epithet, the stamp of
patriotism is on some or all of the names I have
mentioned, and on the government, if it counte-
i\ances such deeds. I had used another epithet ;
but I think patriotism, as exemplihed in the prac-
tice of legitimate politicians, is sufficiently appro-
priate. It is safe too, as here explained: for I
• 58
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
would by no uicans impute to these fientlemen, or
to the government, patriotism of the American, or
French, or even of tlie oIjI English school.
We aie waiting with some impatience for the
season of commencing our farming operations.
The horses are ready, and the ploughs and har-
ness in a state of lorw ardness. We hope to begin
work in March, and to be settled in May. Farm-
ing will be as good a business here, I think, as in
England, with this difference, that instead of pay-
ing rent for our land, our land will pay rent to us,
by its increasing value. There are a few other
circumstances of difference with which you are
acquainted, regarding tithes, taxes, and poor-rates.
Labour, including that of horses, is somewhat
lower than in England. Seventy-five cents, three
shillings and fourpence halfpenny sterling, per day,
is about the wages of a labouring man, boarding
himself: but a man and two horses may be hired
to plough at a dollar a day.
As I proceed to practice, I shall not fail to send
you a lair, that is a true account. It will give me
great pleasure to hear from you, and to have con-
firmed, under your hand, my hope of embracing
you as a friend, a neighbour, and a fellow-citizen.
We arc all in excellent health : pray communicate
our best wishes to the .... circle, and believe me
truly yours.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
59
LETTER XIV.
MY DEAR SIR, Fcb. 15, 1818.
I HOPE you have received a long letter
which I despatched about four months ago, and
that the next mail will bring me one from you in
return. It is thus that by the glorious invention
of writing, of which I never before so fully felt
the value, the immensity of space which divides us
from our friends may be reduced to its original
nothing: for if I were re-established in my old
armed-chair at Wanborough, and you remaining
in yours, we should, in point of fact, be separated
as completely as we are at this moment.
We shall not be entirely settled in our own
home, beyond the Wabash, before the beginning
of May, a period which we anticipate with much
pleasure. The Indiana side of that river has the
start of the Illinois about three years, which makes
a vast difference in the state of things to a near
observer, but to you it is one and the same coun-
try ; and a residence of seven months, on one side
or the other, has now given me some title to be
accounted an inhabitant. The interest I feel in
every person and thing that surrounds me is
naturally very great, not only from the novelty of
00 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
the situation, but because it is that in which I
hope and believe I am to pass the remainder of niy
days. We have just had our assizes : the circuit
court, similar to our court of assize, was held last
week, the second time since our arrival. I wish I
could introduce you to “ his honour” the judge; to
the gentlemen of the jury ; to the leanied brethren
who fill the parts both of solicitor and counsel ; to
the assemblage of spectators, all males, for women
never attend the courts except on business; and
even to the accomplished villains who are here ex-
posed to public indignation, far more terrific than
the vengeance of the law.
In this early stage of society, where the country
is savage, and many of the people but just emerg-
ing from that condition, much intrepidity of mind
and hardihood of body are indispensable requisites
in the administration of justice. Brass for the
face w'ont suffice, they must be steel from head to
foot.
Your military or fox-hunting experience has,
I dare say, furnished adventures similar to those
•which are constantly occurring here to the gentle-
men of the long robe, on their progress from court
to court. The judge and the bar are now working
their way to the next county seat, through almost
trackless woods, over snow and ice, with the ther-
mometer about Zero. In last November circuit
LETTEUS FROM ILLINOIS.
61
the judge swam his liorse, I think, seven times in
one day ; how often in the whole circuit is not in
the record. What would our English lawyers say
to seven such ablutions in one November day ?
and then to dry their clothes on their back by
turning round and round before a blazing fire, pre-
paratory to a night’s lodging on a cabin floor
wrapped in their blankets ; which, by the by, are
the only robes used by the profession here.
I have an anecdote of a judge with whom I am
well acquainted, and therefore I believe it. I
give it you as an instance of intrepidity, as well as
of that ferocious violence which occurs but too
frequently ; by no means, however, as a specimen
of the judicial character. A few years ago, before
he was advanced to his present dignity, the foreman
of a grand jury insulted him outrageously, out of
court of course. The man had a large knife in his
hand, such as hunters always carry about them,
and well know the use of ; but the enraged bar-
rister, with a hand-whip, or cow-hide as they are
called, laid on so keenly that he actually cut his
jacket to ribbons in defiance of the knife; and
when the beaten and bleeding juryman made his
piteous case known to his brethren, they fined him
a dozen of wine for his cowardice.
Another anecdote. A notorious offender had
escaped from confinement, and, mounted on a
02 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
caj)ital horse, paraded the town where the judge
resided,- with a brace of loaded pistols, calling at
the stores and grog-shops, and declaring he would
shoot any man who should attempt to molest
him. The judge hearing of it, loaded a pistol,
walked deliberately up to the man to apprehend
him, and on his making show of resistance shot
him immediately. The ball entered the breast and
came out behind, but did not prove mortal. He
fell, was reconducted to gaol, escaped a second
time, and was drowned in crossing the Ohio.
Judges are appointed by the legislature for the
term of seven years. Salary, seven hundred dollai s
per annum ; a sum which is certainly inadequate,
even in this cheap country. It will, however, be
increased as wealth and population increase : the
office is honourable to a man of talents and in-
tegrity, and may open the road to more lucrative
appointments.
My personal knowledge of the gentlemen of
the law is not, I fear, a fair criterion of their
general character. I have seen many proofs of
candour, high principle, and correct judgement.
There are lawyers here whom no sum would bribe
to undertake a mean business ; but I hear of chi-
canery in some, and have perceived strong symp-
toms of vice and dissipation in others.
'I’he tendency of the profession, here as in
I.ETTKRS FROM ILLINOIS.
63
England, and 1 suppose every where, is to in-
crease the baseness of little, cunning, avaricious
minds ; and the pestilent example and society of
the idle and corrupt, have the same baneful in-
fluence over inexperienced young men who are
exposed to it.
As companions to my anecdotes of the judge,
I must give you some traits of an honest young
lawyer of my acquaintance. Three years ago he
made his appearance as a candidate for practice,
in a home-spun coat, and probably without a
dollar in his pocket. He was called “ the home-
spun lawyer.” His father, a plain farmer, had
given him as good an education as he could afford,
and on his quitting the parental roof to commence
his professional career, wishing him to make a
figure suitable to his new character, he desired
him to call at the store where he usually dealt,
and furnish his wardrobe to his own liking. The
young man thought of his brothers and sisters, and
of the expense which had been incurred in his edu-
cation, and supposed he might have already re-
ceived his share ; so passing the store, he resolved
to rub on in home-spun clothes until he had earned
better, which soon happened — and they xtx»'c zvell.
His practice increased, and his reputation with
it : the second year, he obtained the office of state-
attorney for the county, with the salary of one
64
LETTIiUS FUOM ILLINOIS.
Ijundred dollars ! In the course of the year, his
exertions in bringing to justice an offender merited
a further recompense, in the opinion of a man in-
terested in the case, and who could well afford to
give it. This gentleman offered him fifty dollars
as a present. The young man hesitated : he had
done no more than his duty in cjuality of attorney-
general, and for that he was paid by the public.
He examined the law : no prohibition appeared to
his accepting an additional fee. The sum was
tempting; it was as much as £500 to the man
who receives a salary of £ 1 000 ; still he could
not be satisfied that it was his due, and he finally
refused it.
This year he was chosen by his fellow-citizens
to represent them in the state-legislature, from
which duty he has just returned ; and, if prosperity
does not spoil him, the home-spun lawyer will be
an honour to his father, and useful to his country.
I shall spare you, for the present, an introduc-
tion to any of the remaining personages who com-
posed our court. Our friend to whom I
would be most kindly remembered, will be amused
at the amount of the judges’ and attorneys’ salaries.
Should his ambition be excited, I am sorry to say
he M ould have but a poor chance of success, for I
believe, from one end of the union to the other,
every depcurtment of law is crowded almost to suf-
focation.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
65
We have had an unusually severe winter: the
mercury has once been 12° below Zero, and seve-
ral times approaching that extreme. At present
the weather is delightful, the thermometer just
above freezing, and the air clear and serene. We
are told that there will be but little more cold
weather.
I I’emain sincerely yours.
LETTER XV.
ft '?'■
DEAR SIR, » Feb. 1818.
When a man gives advice to his friends,
on*affairs of great importance to their interest, he
takes on himself a load of responsibility, from
which I have always shrunk, and generally with-
drawn. My example is very much at their service,
either for imitation or warning, as the case may
be.
I must however in writing to you, step a little
over this line of caution, having more than once
been instrumental in helping you, not out of your
difficulties, but from one scene of perplexity to
another ; I cannot help advising you to make an
(56 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
effort more-, and extricate yourself and family,
completely, by removing into this country.
When I last saw you, twelve months ago, I
did not think favourably of your prospects : if things
have turned out better, I shall be rejoiced to hear
it, and you will not need the advice I am preparing
for you. But, if vexation and disappointments
have assailed you, as I feared ; and you can ho-
nourably make your escape, with the means of
transmitting yourself hither, and one hundred
pounds sterling to spare, — don’t hesitate.
In six months after I shall have welcomed you,
barring accidents, you shall discover that you are
become rich, for you shall feel that you are inde-
pendent; and I think that will be the most de-
lightful sensation you ever experienced ; for you
will receive it multiplied as it were by the num-
ber of your family, as your troubles now are.
It is not, however, a sort of independence that
will excuse you from labour, or afford you many
luxuries, that is, costly luxuries. I will state to you
what I have learnt, from a good deal of observa-
tion and inquiry, and a little experience ; then you
will form your own judgment.
In the 6rst place, the voyage. — That will cost,
to Baltimore or Philadelphia, provided you take
it, as no doubt you would, in the cheapest way,
twelve guineas each, for a birth, fire, and water, for
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
67
yourself and wife, and lialf price or less for your chil-
dren ; besides provisions, which you M'ill furnish.
Then the journey. — Over the mountains to
Pittsburgh, down the Ohio to Shawnee-town, and
from thence to our settlement, fifty miles noiTh,
will amount to five pounds sterling per head.
If you arrive here as early as May, or even
June, another five pounds per head will carry you
on to that point, where you may take your leave
of dependence on any thing earthly hut your own
exertions.
At this time I suppose you to have remaining
one hundred pounds (borrowed probably from
English friends, who rely on your integrity ; and
who may have directed the interest to he paid to me
on their behalf, and the principal in due season).
We will now, if you please, turn it into dol-
lars, and consider how it may he disposed of. A
hundred pounds sterling will go a great way in
dollars. With eighty dollars you will “ enter a
quarter section of land that is, you will pur-
chase at the land-oflfice one hundred and sixty
acres, and pay one-fourth of the purchase-money ;
and looking to the land to reward your pains with
the means of discharging the other three-fourths
as they become due, in two, three, and four years.
You will build a house with fifty dollars ; and
you will find it extremely comfortable and con-
venient, as it will be really and truly yours.
f)8 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Two horses will cost, with harness and plough,
one hundred.
Cows, and hogs, and seed corn, and fencing,
with other expenses, will require the remaining
two hundred and ten dollars.
This beginning, humble as it appears, is afflu-
ence and splendor, compared with the original
outfit of settlers in general. Yet no man remains
in poverty, who possesses even moderate industry
and economy, and especially of time.
You would of course bring with you your sea-
bedding and store of blankets, for you will need
them on the Ohio ; and you should leave England
with a good stock of wearing apparel. Your
luggage must be composed of light articles, on ac-
count of the costly land-carriage from the eastern
port to Pittsburg, which will be from seven to ten
dollars per 100 lb. nearly sixpence sterling per
pound.
A few simple medicines of good quality are
indispensable, such as calomel, bark in powder,
castor oil, calcined magnesia, and laudanum : they
may be of the greatest importance on the voyage
and journey, as well as after your arrival.
Change of climate and situation will produce
temporary indisposition, but with prompt and ju-
dicious treatment, which is happily of the most
simple kind, the complaints to which new comers
are liable are seldom dangerous or difficult to
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
69
overcome, provided due regard has been had to
salubrity in the choice of their settlement, and to
diet and accommodation after their arrival. With
best regards,
I remain, See.
LETTER XVI.
(to a FRIBND in FRANC&)
MY DEAR SIR, Fel>. 28, 1818.
I LEFT England a month earlier than I
had calculated on. The importance of the under-
taking had rendered me proportionably industri-
ous in preparing for it ; thus I found myself in a
state of forwardness with my little arrangements,
that enabled me to accept the offer of an agree-
able captain, with the entire accommodations of a
fine vessel. This made the voyage easy, and even
pleasant^ to the females of our party. Before my
departure I put your commission in good train, as
I hope you discovered.
It was not until I arrived in this remote region
that I saw the great utility of the lithographic art.
V
70 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
and, when it was too late, I regretted tliat we did
not bring out such a knowledge of it as might be
applied to practice : if we had the art in detail, we
should find artists. Many objects of natural his-
tory are constantly presenting themselves, which
this would enable us to preserve by drawings, and
communicate ad libitum to our distant friends. It
is peculiarly adapted to the state of things here,
and I shall avail myself of your friendship in order
to obtain it for our infant colony.
You will receive this through my bookseller
in London, with a small volume, giving some par-
ticulars of this country, and of our pilgrimage.
From it you will learn where we are, and I hope
you will, as early as possible, put it in my power
to aid your economical museum. The catalogue
and list of desiderata you promised me, must now
be forwarded by way of Philadelphia.
We are here in the substantial enjoyment of
those rights, which have been torn from you be-
fore you well understood their value ; and which
my unhappy country has relinquished one by one,
under the fond hope of saving the remainder : like
the crew of a sinking ship throwing overboard the
cargo.
Liberty is no subject of dispute or speculation
among us Back-woods men : it is the very at-
mosphere we bre^ithe. I now find myself the fel-
letters from ILLINOIS.
low-citizen of about nine millions of persons, who
are affording a sober and practical confutation ot
those base men, who would pass for philosophers?
and have dared to call this unalienable birthiight
of every human being a visionary scheme.
In passing from theory to practice, I have ex-
perienced no diminution of my love for freedom ;
hut I hate tyranny more cordially, and I want
language to express the loathing I teel for per-
sonal slavery : practised by fi’eemen it is most de-
testable. It is the leprosy of the United States ;
a foul blotch which more or less contaminates the
entire system, in public and in private, from the
president’s chair to the cabin of the hunter.
It is not the states alone where slavery is
established by law, that are suffering under this
outrageous insult upon humanity ; the bitter in-
heritance of former injustice exists in all, in the
profligacy of the black population, the free people
of colour, degraded in public opinion (and there-
fore degraded and depraved in character) by the
complexion which the God of nature has given
them. It is also exemplified even in the eastern
states, as I am informed, where the practice of
keeping slaves has been long discontinued, in er-
roneous notions of the relations of master and
servant, in a way which interferes greatly with
domestic comfort.
72 LETTERS EROM ILLINOIS.
In the slave states, the negro is not the only
object of commiseration : I have learnt, from the
most unc|uestionahle testimony, that every class
of the wliite population is more or less corrupted
by idleness, extravagance, and debauchery. These
evils are generally acknowledged and deplored,
and it is probable that, ere many years have
passed, a remedy, mild as the case will adftiit,
must be applied by a wise and strong legislature ;
or some dreadful eruption will bring about a cure,
arising out of the evil itself.
When my thoughts turn towards Europe,
which you may well suppose to be their prevail-
ing bias, it is not this lamentable flaw in the poli-
tical and domestic system of our republic which
can prevent my longing to see around me, and
partaking of the good which so much prepon-
derates, many estimable friends who remain under
difficulties far greater than those we have escaped
from.
How fare those friends whom I had the plea-
sure of seeing first at your house, and from whom
I afterwards experienced so much kindness ? How
gladly would I prepare a refuge for them here!
These are not words of course, meaning nothing,
or nothing beyond civility. I have both the will
and the means of providing a home for them,
should they need it ; and at all events, I could aid
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
73
them in establishing^ themselves. And our excel-
lent friend the Abb^ , and the family at the
Grange: how admirably this climate would suit
them. You would gratify me much by giving me
their news, and also by presenting to them my
most cordial remembrances. Great distance, in-
stead of slackening, draws tighter the attachments
of good men, a rank which it is baseness not to
aspire to : allow me, therefore, to consider my
acquaintance with you in Europe to be improved
into friendship, now that I am an Illinois farmer.
Under this impression I not only tax you with
this long letter, but I beg to hear from yon when
you can find a conveyance for Philadelphia. Four
of my family are with me, two sons and two
daughters, who will all be Americans.
I am yours sincerely.
LETTER XVII.
(to a gentleman of PHILADELPHIA.)
SIB, March 2, 1818.
I HAVE only this day received your letter
of December 25, owing to interruptions in the
74
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
carriage of the mails, which iiave incommoded us
greatly.
I shall reply to your inquiries as they occur.
The first materials for the buildings on a new set-
tlement in this country are, almost without excep-
tion, logs.
The plan generally adopted, by those who pro-
pose eventually to establish themselves in brick,
is to construct such log cabins for their temporary
abode, as may afterwards be applicable to other
useful purposes.
The • xpense of these, as of all other buildings,
is in a great degree optional ; you may make them
snug and agreeable dwellings.
A range of cabins I am now preparing for my
family will contain ten apartments. The mere
building is performed by contract for two hundred
and fifty dollars ; when finished they will cost about
eight hundred dollars ; but the doors and windows,
and the floors and ceilings (both of plank), are to
form a part of our future habitation.
We have lime-stone and sand-stone suitable
for building, and plenty of brick earth ; thus we
abound in excellent materials. Labourers may
now be procured at from seventy-five cents to one
dollar per day ; but I presume, the number is so
small, that new comers must not rely on obtain-
ing them at that price, unless emigrants of that
description accompany them.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 75
Houseliold funiiture is to lie procured at a
moderate price, and pretty well made. The woods
famish cherry and black walnut, and probably
various other kinds of timber suitable for cabinet-
making ; and workmen of that description are not
very rare. Beds and bedding should be brought
out. Kitchen furniture is found at the stores.
Groceries in general have been received from your
city or Baltimore, now they come from New Or-
leans : coffee is about forty cents per pound ; sugar,
from twenty-two to fifty cents ; tea, two dollars
fifty cents ; salt is found or made in abundance,
and of good quality, in various parts of the western
country. Vast (juantities of pork and beef are
cured for the southern market.
The demand for all the necessaries of life in-
creases so rapidly, that the supply does not always
keep pace with it ; and those who want money or
foresight are sometimes compelled to pay high
prices. High prices stimulate the producer, sup-
ply is increased, and the articles soon recover their
due level, until a similar cause operates in again
occasioning a temporary scarcity. Thus salt, which
might be afforded at seventy-five cents per bushel,
now sells at two dollars and upwards.
On the subject of lands in our neighbourhood,
my engagements to my friends preclude my offer-
ing you any that I have taken up, but I shall be
70
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
happy to give you such information, on your visit
into this country, as I have obtained.
I would certainly advise you, as you suggest,
to bring with you store of garden seeds, they are
light and not bulky ; and though many useful
vegetables are met with in the gardens here, their
seeds are not to be got with so little trouble as
bringing them.
Steam-boats are beginning to ply on the Wa-
bash; and before many months, our river will
probably turn out one or more of her own.
If you have serious intentions of settling in
this part of the western country, you will first
visit it of course. You may rely on my desire to
give you every assistance which my situation will
allow.
I am. Sir,
your obedient servant.
LETTER XVIII.
(TO AN ENGUSH GENTLEMAN NOW IN AMERICA.)
SIR, March 2, 1818.
I HAVE only this day received your lett^
of the 24th December, owing to an excessive de-
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 77
rangemcnt in the mail department of this western
country, which, however, is now likely to meet
with adequate correction.
Though a stranger to you, I am greatly in-
terested in the account you give of your senti-
ments and views, and shall feel sincere pleasure in
promoting the latter.
For this end, I recommend your visiting our
infant settlement as early as you can this spring.
You may go from Philadelphia by stage to Pitts-
burg, from thence the Ohio will conduct you to
Shawnee-town, where you will be directed to us.
The distance from Shawnee-town to our prairie is
about fifty miles.
There are continual opportunities of passing
down the Ohio, which is certainly the easiest and
cheapest mode of travelling ; but you may perhaps
prefer taking the journey from Pittsburg on horse-
back as we did, in which case I would advise you
to take the same route ; viz. by Wheeling to Chi-
licothe and Cincinnati, from thence through In-
diana to Vincennes.
This would afford you an extensive view of
the country, and enable you to form comparisons
that might contribute to your final satisfaction
and contentment in the choice that you shall
make. This is a consideration worthy your at-
tention.
78
LETTEKS FROM ILLINOIS.
Every situation on this globe, I believe, has
its disadvantages, a something which you would
wish otherwise. There are, moreover, as you are
well aware, very many small privations insepa-
rable from the condition of early settlers ; and a
journey of five hundred miles through the woods
of Ohio and Indiana is excellent discipline for an
inhabitant of an old country, preparatory to his
assuming that character. He will be capable of
appreciating his advantages of situation, and will
not be so apt to attribute inconveniences, which
he could escape no where, to local evils of his
own (as he w’ould then deem it) unhappy lot.
Many people spend the best part of their lives
in roaming over this vast country in quest of a
happy spot, which they never find; flying from
nuisances which might be removed, or obviated,
or even supported with half the labour and suffer-
ing they experience in making their escape from
them, into circumstances probably as bad or
worse.
I invite you to see the spot where we have
pitched our tent ; and I sincerely hope that you
may fix yours in our neighbourhood, and that we
may be serviceable and agreeable to each other,
finding a cheerful retreat from the bustle of the
world, of which I am as weary, I presume, as you
are. Taking all things into consideration, I prefer
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
79
it to any I have seen oi heard of, and looking
at it now with a favourable eye, as I wish to
do, I see new advantages continually arising be-
fore me.
In reply to your inquiry about the disposal of
part of the lands I have entered, I think you may
suit yourself as well at the land-office as by taking
sueh as I could spare, even at the government
price.
I have sons to settle, for whom I wish to re-
serve farms near to mine ; and I have made par-
ticular engagements with some few other indivi-
duals whom I expect from England, which I think
will leave nothing very eligible at present in ray
power to offer you.
The earlier your visit, the better will be your
opportunity of selection, as the public attention is
turned considerably towards our district.
Should you, as you hint, come round by New
Orleans, Shawnee-town is still your landing-place.
Your voyage up from New Orleans, by steam,
will be about a month. Steam-boats are passing
continually. A gentleman, who is just come down
the Ohio, saw ten new ones on the stocks at dif-
ferent ports on the river.
You inquire what commission I should charge
if I purchased land for you? If funds are pro-
vided, I dare say the commission is moderate ; no
80
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
doubt there is a customary charge, but I have not
heard it. It would be a task I should undertake
with reluctance, to choose a situation for another,
but my opinion you shall have gratis. If I pur-
chase for you, being a matter of business, I should
make the customary demand upon you for my
services ; and on this point I shall take care to
inform myself and you of the amount before a
step is taken.
I am. Sir,
your friend and servant.
LETTER XIX.
DEAR SIR, March 18, 1818.
I HAVE received from Mr. , of Phi-
ladelphia, a credit for six hundred pounds sterling
on your account ; and by a letter from Mr. ,
I learn that it is your wish that I should invest
that sum in land for you in the neighbourhood of
our settlement : it is very agreeable to me to re-
ceive this commission, though (for reasons which
I shall explain to you on some part of this large
sheet) I shall not execute it. ,
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 81
It shews me that your heart is with us, and
that you will follow in due season, when that tic
shall be loosened which filial duty will not allow
you to sever. In the mean time there will be col-
lecting, on and around our “ English prairie,” a
society which I am already enjoying by anticipa-
tion.
In this country they build “ cob houses;” a
“ coh ” is the interior part of a head of Indian corn
after the grains are stripped off ; with these cobs,
w’hich are lying about every where, structures are
raised by the little half Indian brats, very much
like our “ houses of cards,” whose chief merit lies
in their tumbling down before they are finished;
or like castles in the air, which are built by most
people in every country under the age of fifty.
But my anticipations regarding our English
prairie, are neither cob houses, nor card houses ;
nor, I think, castles in the air, for the last weighty
reason, the age of the architect; and for a reason
still more substantial, viz. our social building is
begun on a firm and good foundation, and with
good materials.
And now I come (quitting all metaphor) to
your commission. I will purchase for you a sec-
tion of laud, 640 acres, for which I shall give, by
paying the whole amount down, only 1036 dollars,
or I dollar 62 cents per acre; and the remain-
82 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
jtler of your remittance I shall hold at your dis-
posal, to purchase land if you please where we do
not desire to see inhabitants. This section I shall
reserve for you, in the full belief that you will
come and settle amongst us. If I were to lay out
the whole six hundred pounds in the usual way of
entering land, by paying the first instalment ot
half a dollar per acre, it would cover more than
eight square niiles; and on your arrival a few yeai-s
hence to take possession of your estate, instead ot
finding yourself in a circle of perhaps thirty jiros-
perous families, you would have to settle in a de-
sert of your own creating. Had I executed half
the commissions of this kind which have been pro-
posed to me, I must have contented myself with
“ cob houses,” instead of those delightful and rea-
sonable hopes of a happy society round our Eng-
lish prairie, in which I believe uo one can sympa-
thize more fully than yourself.
I don’t want an Agrarian law to define the limit
of every man’s estate ; but it is plain that if we
prc-occupy the land, we must live by ourselves.
Our colony must, to be prosperous, or indeed to
have an existence worthy the name, be composed
of persons who own the land they cultivate, and
cultivate the lands they own. If any of us have
funds to spare, and choose to invest them in land,
it must not be on our own settlement. I have
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
83
taken up far more than I have any intention of
retaining, merely to exclude speculations which
would frustrate our views.
If Mr. , has not embarked before this
reaches you, I request you to inform him that I
decline compliance with his wish, which was
communicated to me at the same time with yours,
for the same reasons. On his arrival he will, I
doubt not, see the propriety of my conclusion,
which is formed on the supposition of his and your
intention being to hold these large tracts as perma-
nent estates. If he thinks differently from me,
he will of course pursue his own plan, and also
communicate to you his reasons, and then if you
choose you can do the like.
Our application to Congress has not succeeded,
which renders it more desirable to make room for
our countrymen, many of whom are directing their
steps to this place.
I wrote to you in June, in November, and
again in January. The November letter gave you
a pretty circumstantial detail of my own plans,
and in particular I informed you of the size of my
intended farm, which would seem inconsistent with
the sentiments I have just expressed. But I hope
soon to be reduced within moderate limits, by pro-
viding farms out of that tract for some of my
sons ; when I have laid off good farms for them.
84 LETTERS EROM ILLINOIS.
my actual occupation will be confined, as I now
wish it to be, to a very moderate extent.
A naval establishment occupies our attention
at present. We Americans must have a navy.
Vl'^e are forming two pirogues out of large poplars,
W’ith which we propose to navigate the Wabash;
by lashing them together, and laying planks across
both, we shall have a roomy deck, besides good
covered stowage in both, and take a bulky as well
as a heavy cargo. And we hope to have a ship-
ping port at the mouth of Bonpas, a considerable
stream which falls into the Wabash at the point
where the latter makes a bold bend to the
west, and approaches within a few miles of our
prairie.
The subject of advanciug tbe price of public
lands has been before Congress.
I shall annex the report of a committee, to
which it was referred, and which was acceded to.
It contains interesting details, and general infor-
mation of great importance.
A space exceeding, perhaps tenfold, the amount
of lands in cultivation, still remains unappropri-
ated ; and such is the natural anxiety to possess
land, and the facility with which that inclination
may be satisfied in tins country (a state of things
likely to remain much the same for ages), that
here will always be a scarcity of efficient circu-
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 85
lating capital, wliich is valuable in proportion to
its scarcity.
The merchant invests his prohts, and the
professional man his savings, in the purchase of
uncultivated lands. The farmer, instead of com-
pleting the improvement of his present posses-
sions, lays out all he can save in entering more
land. In a district which is settling, this spe-
culation is said to pay on the average, when
managed with judgment, fifteen per cent. Who
then will submit to the toils of agriculture, fur-
ther than bare necessity rec|nires, for fifteen per
cent? Or who would loan his money, even at
fifteen per cent, when he can obtain that interest
by investing it in land? Thus every description
of men, almost every man, is poor in convertible
property,
I think this country affords abundant oppor-
tunities of applying capital more profitably, as
well as more agreeably, than in the possession of
large tracts of uncultivated land. Take as much
of it as you can use and enjoy, but no more.
Keep your capital in activity, and within your
power ; and you will soon see that two dollars of
ready money are worth more than an acre of wil-
derness.
These are impressions made on my mind by
surrounding circumstances, and if they prove cor-
86
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
reel, it will be good for us in our new settlement
to be influenced by them.
I remain, dear Sir,
sincerely yours.
Report of the Committee on Public Lands, on the
subject of increasing the price at which the
lands of the United States shall hereafter be
sold.
Jan. 5, 1818.
The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom
was referred a resolution instructing them to in-
quire into the expediency of increasing the price
at which the public lands shall be sold hereafter,
have had the same under consideration, and re-
♦
spectfully report : —
That the lands of the United States are care-
fully surveyed, and divided into sections of 640
acres, quarter sections, and in certain cases eighths
of sections ; that they are advertised for, and set
up at public sale, and disposed of to the highest
bidder at any price above two dollars per acre ;
if they are not sold they are returned to the
register’s office, and may be entered for, in the
office, at two dollars per acre, with a credit, after
the payment of one-fourth, of two, three, and four
LETTEIIS EROM ILLINOIS.
87
years ; the effects t)f this part of the system has
been heretofore deemed beneficial, both to the
public and to individuals. It is beneficial to indi-
viduals, because the price is so moderate, that the
poorest citizen may place himself in the most
useful and honourable situation in society, by be-
coming a cultivator of his own land : — and the
fixed value is so high, connected with the abun-
dance of our vacant territory, as to ])revent indivi-
duals from purchasing, with a hope of advantage,
unreasonably extensive and numerous tracts, to be
held for purposes of speculation. That this is the
case, that lands sold by the United States are not
held by speculators, may be fairly inferred by a con-
sideration of the following facts From the open-
ing of the land offices in the north-west territory,
as it was then called, to the 30th September, 1810,
3,167,829 acres of land were sold; this amount,
compared with the population in 1810, is in the
ratio of something less than twelve acres for each
individual ; the free white inhabitants of Virginia
in 1800 amounted to 518,674, the lands of the
state valued in 1798 amounted to 40,458,644
acres; this divided among the inhabitants, gives to
each individual upwards of 76 acres of land : but
it will not be contended that the lands of Virginia
are held by speculators ; and with much less truth
can it be so said of the lands north-west of the Ohio.
88 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Again, to shew by inference that the public lands
are not disposed of at too low a price, the com-
mittee have thought proper to inquire into the es-
timated value of the lands in several of the states ;
and they find, that in the year 1788 the lands of
New Hampshire, amounting to 3,749>06l acres,
were valued at ]9,0£8,108 dollars, or 5 dollars, 7
cents per acre.
In Pennsylvania, 11,959,865 acres were va-
lued at 62,824,852 dollars, or 6 dollars, 9 cents
per acre.
In Maryland, 5,444,272 acres, were valued at
21,634,004 dollars, or 3 dollars, 77 cents per acre.
In Virginia, 40,458,644 acres, were valued at
59,976,860 dollars, or 1 dollar, 48 cents per acre ;
and finally, in the sixteen states, at that time
composing the United States, the land amount-
ed to 163,746,686 acres, valued at 479,293,263
dollars, or 2 dollars, 92 cents per acre. Now if the
lands of the United States, settled and peopled as
they were, have been thus valued, it may safely be
concluded that the uninhabited wilds of our forests
are not disposed of at too low a price.
Indeed the Committee feel somewhat appre-
hensive that the United States, so far from being
enabled to increase, will find themselves compel-
led to lessen the price of the public lands, or to
forego the golden dreams they indulge in of enor-
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. S9
mous revenoe to arise from their sale. It will
be recollected by the house, that heretofore the
public has been the monopolist of land ; that not-
withstanding this advantage, not more than eight
or nine millions of acres have been disposed of
for a sum less than 19,000,000 of dollars, and
that too during a space of eighteen or twenty
years.
They will now take into consideration the fact,
that five or six millions of acres have been given
as bounty to the soldiers of the late u’ar, and now
are, or soon will be, in the market, to meet the de-
mands which the United States alone could here-
tofore supply. The committee will not obtrude
upon the house the deductions or reflections
which grow out of this state of things ; they con-
tent themselves with the justification it afibrds of
the resolution which they respectfully submit.
Resolved, that it is inexpedient at the present
time to increase the price at which the public lands
are required to be sold.
00
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
LETTER XX.
MY DEAR FRIEND, MoVCh 23 , 1818 .
As the spring comes on, our colony be_
gins to assume a most encouraging aspect. I am
employed with delight inexpressible in preparing
a place of refuge for many a one, “ of whom” —
shall I say it ? — “ the world,” such a world as %ve
have escaped from, “ was not worthy.”
Our English friends are gathering round us ;
and so far from being solitary, and doleful, and
desolate in this remote region, you must reverse
all this to form any notion of our condition.
The toil and the difficulty, and even the dangers,
attending the removal of a family from the hills
of Surrey to the prairies of Illinois are consider-
able : and the responsibility is felt at every step, a
load upon the spirits of a father, for which his
honest intentions are not at all times a sufficient
counterpoise. To have passed through all this
harmless, and even triumphantly, to have secured
a retreat for ourselves, and then, turning our
backs upon care and anxiety, to be employed in
smoothing the way, and preparing a happy rest-
ing place for other weary pilgrims, is an enjoy-
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
91
ment which I did not calculate upon when we
quitted our old home.
“ A lodge in some vast wilderness” was the
exchange we contemplated ; fortifying our minds
against the privations we were to experience, by a
comparison with the evils we hoped to retire from :
and now, instead of burying ourselves in a bound-
less forest, among wild animals, human and brute,
we are taking possession of a cheerful abode, to
be surrounded by well informed and prosperous
neighbours. How sincerely do I wish you
and yours could be among them, without the pain
of moving and the perils of the journey ! Foolish
as it is, to wish for what we know cannot be ac-
complished.
It is a matter of curious speculation, collecting
as we are from the four winds of Heaven as it
were, what our society is to be in regard to reli-
gious demonstrations. In the region we are to in-
habit, “ the sun shineth” not “ upon the just, and
upon the unjust;” but upon the earth, and the
trees, and the wild animals, as it shone before man
was created.
There is nothing in the spirit of the govern-
ment, nor in the institutions of this western coun-
try, nor in the habits of the people, which gives
jjrcponderancy to any sentiment on this subject of
social religion, but thaL of abhorrence of priestly
92
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
domination, and of all assumption of authority in
these matters.
Now, having this “ upward road” thus clear
before us, when we shall have settled ourselves
in our cabins, and fixed ourselves to our minds as
to this world, what sort of a garb, think you,
shall we assume as candidates for the next ? — To
my very soul I wish that we might assume none,
— but the character of men who desire to keep
their conscience void of offence towards God and
towards man : — “ Nil comcire sibi, mild pallescere
culpd.” Another foolish wish ! you will say.
We shall have people among us, I dare say, who
will undertake to teach religion; the most arro-
gant of all pretensions, I should he apt to call it>
had not frequent observation convinced me that
it has no necessary connection with arrogance of
character. But however that may be, teachers,
no doubt, will arise among us. — This most sensi-
tive nerve has been touched, and already I have
had the pleasure of two communications on the
subject of religious instruction ; both from stran-
gers.
One of them, who dates from New Jersey,
writes as follows. “ I have read your notes on a
“ journey from the coast of Virginia to the Illi-
“ nois territory ; and I sincerely wish you success
“ in every laudable undertaking. — ^The religion oi
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
93
Jesus Christ, disentangled from the embarrass-
“ nients of every sect and party, I hope you will
encourage to the utmost of your power and abi-
“ lities. In the genuine, uncorrupted, native, and
“ pure spring of the Gospel, you view the world
“ as your country, and every man as your brother.
“ In that you will find the best secmlty and gua-
“ I'antee of virtue and good morals, and the main
“ spring of civil and religious liberty,” &c. &c. —
As this gentleman’s good counsel was not coupled
with any tangible proposition, his letter did not
call for a reply ; in fact, the writer did not favour
me with his address.
My other zealous, though unknown friend,
who dates still more to the north than New Jer-
sey, informs me that many are coming west, and
that he wants to come himself if he can “ pave the
way.” “ We must,” he says, “ have an Unitarian
“ church in your settlement, wherever it may be,
“ and I will, if I live, come and open it. I am using
“ every means in my power to promote the prin-
“ ciples in and ultimately to raise a congre-
“ gation, and give, if possible, a mortal stab to infi-
“ delity and bigotry.” To this gentleman I replied
as follows : — ‘ As to your idea of coming out in the
‘ character of a minister, I have not a word to say,
‘ dissuasive or encouraging. For myself I arn of
‘ no sect, and generally in my view those points
94
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
‘ by which sects are distinguished are quite
‘ unimportant, and might be discarded without
* affecting the essence of true religion. I am, as
‘ yourself, a foe to bigotry ; but it is a disease for
‘ which I think no lemedy is so effectual as letting
‘ it alone, especially in this happy country, where
‘ it appears under its mildest character, without
* the excitements of avarice and ambition.’ — So
endeth the first chapter, of the first hook, of our
ecclesiastical history.
' A third foolish wish is at the very point of
my pen ; but I withhold it, or I don’t know
what might come to pass
I remain, my dear friend,
ever affectionately yours.
LETTER XXI.
MV DEAR , J/flrcA 26, 1818.
It is too long an interval between the de-
parture of a letter, and the arrival of a reply, for
me to refrain from writing to you. In truth.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 95
qwestions and answers six months apart can rarely
meet properly ; so it is as well to give up the idea
of dialogue in our correspondence, except as to
plain substantial matter of fact, I hardly look
forward now to seeing you here ; yet I am to have
that pleasure, though it seems put off to a distance
beyond my ken ; but being deferred by causes in
which I most cordially rejoice, I cannot wish it
otherwise
Difficulties and privations — on these we reckoned ;
but we trust the rudest are past, and we foresee
much satisfaction in overcoming and supplying
the remainder. For myself, so busy am I in plans
and preparations, that I fancy young hope has vi-
sited njy age, for life seems again new to me. My
daughters give you all our family history; so,
now let me chat with you on subjects that will
suffer nothing by a month or two of delay. — Old
General Scott, the late governor of Kentucky,
whose name is coupled with many a pleasant anec-
dote, to cap the marvellous tales of some boast-
ing youths, said he had once met with a log so
crooked, that it could not lie still ! I think there
are many such logs in England. But let them
alone ; they are unworthy of notice, — those crook-
ed, calumniating tempers ! We are happily beyond
their reach. I trust our good name will not suf-
letters from ILLINOIS.
96
fer by their malevolence, and if we deserved a bad
one it would be sure to follow us ; for “ it is
hard,” as we say in this country, “ tor a bird to
fly away from its tail.”
Emigration to the extreme limits of tin's
western America will not repair a bad charactei •
If a man would recover a lost reputation, let him
reform, and remain at home. In no part of the
world, I believe, is it more difficult to asstmte the
position of an honest and correct man, with a
tainted reputation. There are people in England
so uninformed of the state of society here, as to
imagine that men may abscond for their misdeeds
in that country, and be received in this as though
nothing had happened ; but the best they can hope
for is obscurity, and that is a privilege they very
rarely obtain.
Ignorant as they are in Europe of the inhabi-
tants of the western states, they are fully as much
so on the eastern side of this republic. Although
Kentucky has long filled the chair of Speaker in
Congress, in a style which admits of no competi-
tion, and the office of clerk is retained by the unri-
valled qualifications of another gentleman of that
state; the Kentuckians in general are supposed
by their fellow citizens of the east to be semi-
barbarians.
There is nothing that I anticipate with so
tETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 97
much satisfaction and security, as the rapid de-
velopement of society in our new country. Its
elements are rude certainly, and heterogeneous.
The first settlers, unprotected, and unassisted amid
dangers and difficulties, have been accustomed
from early youth to rely on their own powers ;
and they surrender with reluctance, and only by
halves, their right of defence against every aggres-
sion, even to the laws which themselves have con-
stituted.
They have been anxiously studious of mild-
ness in the forming of these laws, and when, in
practice, they seem inefficient, they too frequently
proceed with Indian perseverance to acts of
vengeance, inconsistent with the duty of for-
bearance essential to social man. Hence deeds
of savage and even ferocious violence are too
common to be viewed with the abhorrence due to
them.
This disposition is evinced continually, and
acted on without any feeling of private or personal
animosity.
If a man, whom the public voice has proclaim-
ed a thief or a swindler, escapes from justice for
want of a legal proof of his guilt, though the law
and a jury of his fellow citizens have acquitted
him, ten to one but he is met with before he can
quit the neighbourhood, and, tied up to a sapling,
98
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
receives a scourging that marks him for the rest
of his life.
In Kentucky, whose institutions have acquired
greater maturity, such events haxe taken place
some years ago ; but now they would scarcely be
tolerated, and they will soon be matter of history
only, in Indiana and Illinois.
No crime but murder “ of the first degree” is
punished with death, in any of the western states,
nor, I believe, in the Union. In Kentucky there
is a general penitentiary, for the punisliment of
other offences by imprisonment and labour. A
few weeks ago I read in the proceedings of that
legislature, a report of a committee appointed to
examine the state of this institution, by which it
appears that only forty-six individuals are in con-
finement. How many of this number were com-
mitted during the last year I do not know, but I
presume only a small proportion.
As this is the sole deposit of the criminals of
a state containing probably half a million of inha-
bitants, (and a state where slavery is tolerated,
though by no means universal) spread over a sur-
face exceeding that of England and Wales, — where
the laws being mild, arc consequently executed
with strictness, ^v•e must conclude that its insti-
tutions are wise and good, and favourable to mo-
rality.
tETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. gg
The inhabitants of this western world will,
tnul do afford a practical demonstration, that a
n ell constituted society is not composed of gover-
nors by prescription, and a populace, or mob, their
natural and proper subjects ; but of men who
have collected by delegation, in a common centre,
the knowledge and power of the community to
which th(?y submit, as the only lawful govern-
ment; all others being usui’pations, whether ad-
ministered by many or by few.
Our frontier position affords us many oppor-
tunities of obtaining information, which is highly
interesting, on Indian manners and customs, from
])ersons intimately acquainted with them by an
intercourse of many years. Men who have fought
with them and traded with them. A gentleman
with whom I am in habits of frequent intercourse,
a respectable neighbour of ours, has just returned
from a trading expedition up the Red river, about
seven hundred miles south-west of this place,
among the lotans, Cados, and Choctaws. He re-
lates an event which occurred about Christmas
last, at a place he visited, highly illustrative of the
virtues and the vices of this untameable variety of
the human family. Their simple necessaries of
food and clothing arc supplied as heretofore by
the chase; but the skins of the various animals
they kill have acquired, since their intercourse
with the Avhites, a new value, and they have ac-
100
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
quired a taste for one fatal luxury, ardent spirits.
For these they barter tljeir skins and furs. They
indulge in them to dreadful excess ; and thousands
on thousands perish through intoxication, and the
frantic broils which it continually occasions. In
one of these frays a Cado bit off the under-lip of
a Choctaw, both young men ; the latter was so
drunk, that he did not know who had been his an-
tagonist : he lost his lip, got sober, and returned
to the chase as usual. Some time after as he was
attending his beaver-traps with a comrade of his
own tribe, his companion divulged the secret, and
told the name of the Cado w'ho had disfigured
him.
The Choctaw could not sustain the disgrace
when vengeance was practicable. He immediately
sold his whole property, his beaver-traps, his rifle,
and his horse ; for these he obtained forty bottles
of whiskey. Thirty-nine bottles he consumed with
his fiiends, lotans, Cados, and Choctaws, indif.
ferently, in a grand debauch which lasted a week
but reserved one bottle secreted for a special pur-
pose. After this, when again sufficiently sober,
he joined a party, among whom was his devoted
foe — fell upon him with his knife, and dispatched
hiin. He then coolly took from his pouch some
red paint, and smeared himself with it prej)aratory
to his death, which was a matter of course, as
blood must be avenged by blood, saying he should
LETTEUS EUOM ILLINOIS. , ]01
be ready to die by ten o’clock the next day, but
he wished to he shot by one of his own nation.
The Cados were merciful ; they told him he should
not be shot by one of them, but by one of his
own tribe, a friend of his own selection. He
chose his friend, and he desired them to accom-
pany him to a certain spot in the woods : they
did so, and he directed them to dig a grave for
him there. The next day he was missing : they
sought for him at the appointed hour, and found
him sitting at his grave, his bottle of whiskey by
him. He drunk a part of it, and told them he
was ready. His friend was also ready. He kept
his seat, and holding up his arm, pointed to the
place on his side where the ball should enter.
The friend took aim — the gun missed fire; he
gave a slight start, but said nothing. Again he
raised his arm — again the gun snapped : he
jumped up with some exclamation, took another
draught of- whiskey, and seated himself in the siime
place. The flint being chipped and all ready, once
more he presented his side, and the fatal ball sent
this brave man to an untimely grave.
Some time after they were talking over the
melancholy affair, and the friaid declared he was
glad to shoot him, for he was not his friend in
reality. The spirit of savage justice was roused
again: one of his companions immediately fired
102
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
at him, but missed — thanks to the whiskey both
for the danger and the escape. However they
confined the false friend one whole week, whilst
they sat in council on the case. At length he was
acquitted of murder, and liberated, as he had only
taken a devoted life, though with the heart of a
traitor to his friend.
Since writing the above, I have found the
newspaper containing the account of the Ken-
tucky penitentiary, and I give you a copy of the
statement as far as it relates to the employment of
the convicts :
In the cut nail manufactory , . , . . ] 9
In the wrought nail ditto 7
Blacksmith’s department 4
Shoe-makers 7
Chair-makers
Stone-cutting 6
Cooking and washing 2
Unfit for doty in consequence of disease . 3
46
Thus you see forty-six delinquents, of whom
forty-three are useful to the state.
In the same paper, “ the Western Citizen,”
printed at Paris, Kentucky, Feb. 10, 1 8 1 8, is an-
other document, which I cannot forbear transcrib-
ing, because it shews that the citizens of Kcu-
LETTERS PROM ILLINOIS. 103
tucky are sensible that to be in the possession and
exercise of the rights of self-government is a bles-
sing ; and that their hearts are enlarged by it, and
inflamed, not by jealousy of their neighbours
welfare, but with zeal to promote it.
Resolved by the General Assembly of the Com-
monwealth of Kentucky :
First: That the liberty of nations is derived
from God and nature, and is not the gift of kings
and potentates.
Second : That all just power is derived from
the people, and the choice of forms of govern-
ment belongs of right to them, and those (or
their successors) who constitute a form may ab-
rogate it.
Third : That in all just governments the good
of the governed is the end to be accomplished ;
and the people upon whom each particular go-
vernment' operates are the only fit judges of the
performance, to the ends for which the govern-
ment was instituted.
Fourth: That the general revolt of a na-
tion against oppression, and in vindication of
their own liberty, cannot be justly called a rebel-
lion.
Fifth: That the struggle of the patriots of
South America for the right of self-government
104 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
is justified by the laws of God and nature, and
sanctified by the unalienable rights of man.
Sixth : That the success of those who are
struggling for the liberty and independence of
South America is a consummation devoutly to be
wished, highly interesting to the friends of free-
dom and humanity in general, and calls for the
deepest sympathy and accordance , on the part
of the people of the United States of North
America.
Seventh : That it is the opinion of this General
Assembly, that such of the provinces of South
America as have declared themselves free and in-
dependent, and have shown reasonable ability to
maintain their independence, ought forthwith to
be acknowledged, by tbe general government of
these United States of North America, sovereign
and independent powers, to be treated as such, and
introduced to the other sovereign powers of the
earth : and generally, that all the rights of coun-
tenance and hospitality should be given by these
United States to those so acknowledged sovereign
powers of South America, which may, by tbe
laws of nations, be Justly and peaceably aflorded
by the people and magistracy of one neutral na-
tion, to the people and magistracy of another na-
tion, in war or in peace.
Resolved, That a copy of the foregoing reso*
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS. 105
lutions be transmitted to the President of the
United States, and to each of the senators and re-
presentatives of this state in the congress of the
United States ; and that the acting government
be requested to transmit the above accordingly.
These resolutions are indicative of a good
spirit, and thus are in accordance with the general
feeling, as far as I can gather, of the citizens of all
the states of the Union. You will not think highly
of the composition : it has the prevailing fault of
the American style, a redundancy of words ; and
it smells too strong of parchment.
It is extremely enlivening to perceive from
our remote station, secluded as we seem from the
busy theatre of life, that we have as good a view
of what is passing, and are as warmly interested
in the performance, as when we were seated in a
side box at the very edge of the stage. In this
wild spot I see my table strewed with newspapers,
and registers, and reviews, in greater profusion
than ever you saw it at Wanborough. We have
daily papers from New York, and Philadelphia, at
nine dollars a year; the National Intelligencer
from Washington, three times a week, at six dol-
lars ; the weekly papers of the western country,
at two dollars; Edinburgh and American Re-
views, Monthly Magazines, Cobbeti’s Register, and
]06 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
Niles’s from Baltimore, &c. &c. Not a nerye is
touched in the remotest corner of the Union but
it vibrates in Washington, the sensmiuvi of this
immense and truly living body. From this centre
of feeling intelligence, the impression is returnetl
to the extremities with a freshness that is as asto-
nishing as it is delightful, through the unwearied
activity of an unshackled press. Thus we have
little solitude, or detachment from the great social
system, to complain of in our retirement. We
feel an interest, not at all diminished by our change
of position, in the commercial, and political, and
intellectual world; nay, for myself, if my sensi-
bility is not increased for what I conceive to be
the welfare of the great family, it is certainly more
pleasurable : it is a feeling of health and vigour,
instead of soreness and dejection. That my indus-
try remains unimpaired, I prove to your full satis-
faction by this immoderately long letter; of my
unabated regard and friendship you will need no
proof, whilst I can subscribe myself
unchangeably yours.
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
107
LETTER XXII.
MV DEAR SIR,
March £4, IS lb.
I TRUST you have received several
letters from me, although I have not yet had the
pleasure of hearing from you since we parted.
Those letters, and my printed journal, which I
directed to be sent to you as soon as published,
have made you of our party down to a very late
period. You find that we are in a good country,
are in no danger of perishing for want of society,
and have abundant means of supplying every other
want.
But I am sorry to inform you that our plan of
colonising extensively, with a special view to the
relief of our suffering countrymen of the lower
orders, is not at present successful. A good
number may be benefited by the arrangements
we are making for their reception on a contracted
scale ; but the application to Congress, alluded to
in my journal, which was calculated principally
for the service of that class, has, I fear, proved
abortive. I have transmitted to Congress, through
108
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
the bands of our member for Illinois, the follow-
ing memorial :
To the Representatives of the United States in
Congress assembled, the Memorial of Morris
Birkbeck, an English farmer, lately settled in
the territory of Illinois, respectfully states —
lliat a number of his countrymen, chiefly
yeomen farmers, farming labourers, and rural
mechanics, are desirous of removing with their
families and their capital into this counti'y, pro-
vided that, by having situations prepared for
them, they might escape the wearisome and ex-
pensive travel in quest of a settlement, which has
broken the spirits and drained the purses of many
of their emigrant brethren, terminating too fre-
quently in disappointment.
Many estimable persons of the classes above
mentioned have reposed such a degree of confi-
dence in the experience of your memorialist, as
would attract them to the spot w’hieh he has
chosen for himself. Their attention has accord-
ingly ’been directed with- some anxiety to his
movements ; and when, after a laborious journey
through the states of Ohio and Indiana, he has
at length fixed on a situation in the Illinois
adapted to his private views, settlements are niul-
LETTKRS FROM ILLINOIS.
109
tiplying so rapidly around it, that it does not
afford a scope of eligible unappropriated land, to
which he could invite any considerable number of
his friends.
There are, however, lands as yet unsurveyed
lying about twenty miles north of this place, on
which sufficient room might be obtained ; and the
object of this memorial is to solicit the grant by
purchase of a tract of this land, for the purpose of
introducing a colony of English farmers, labourers,
and mechanics.
Feeling, as does your memorialist, that the
people of England and the people of America are
of one family, notwithstanding the unhappy poli-
tical disputes which have divided the two coun-
tries, he believes that this recollection will be suf-
ficient to insure, from the representatives of a free
people, a favourable issue to his application in
behalf of their suffering brethren.
(Signed) Morris Birkbeck.
Nffc. 20, 1817.
•
My proposal in the above memorial was in-
definite, designedly, that if acceded to, it might
be on a general principle, to be extended as fiu' as
would be found beneficial ; and might be guarded
from abuse by provisions arising out of the prin-
ciple itself. I entertained a hope that it would be
110 letters from ILLINOIS.
referred to a committee, who would hai'e per^
mitted me to explain my A’iews ; and possibly I
may yet have an opportunity of doing so, as I
have not yet learned that it has been absolutely
rejected. Other petitions for grants of land in
favour of particular descriptions of emigrants have
been rejected during this session, for reasons
which my friends give me to understand will be
fatal to mine. The following I consider to be the
tenor of these objections :
That no public lands can be granted or dis-
posed of but according to the general law on that
subject, without a special act of legislation.
That although in certain cases such special
acts have been made in favour of bodies of foreign
emigrants, it has always been on the ground, and
in consideration of, a gcncT'ol public benefit accru-
ing; such as the introduction of the culture of
the vine by the Swiss colony at Vevay, Indiana,
and the olive in Louisiana.
That it is not agreeable to the general policy
of this government to encourage the settlement of
foreigners in distinct masses, but rather to pio-
inote their speedy amalgamation with the com-
munity of American citizens.
And that all such grants are liable to be
ahired by speculators for private emolument.
LETTKRS FROM ILtiNOTS. uJ
Taking these objections in an inverted order,
I think I could shew that the last would not
Apply to this case, where no indulgence is sought
for in point of price. It would be sufficient for
our purpose that certain lands, %vhich are yet not
surveyed, and of course unproductive, might be
opened to us as an asylum, in which English emi-
grants with capital might provide for English
emigrants without it. The title of these lands
might remain in the United States until the pur-
chase should be completed by actual settlers, pay-
ing the price on entiwi
The nationality in some pai’ticulars which
might be retained by such a settlement, would not
surely be found to weigh against its usefulness.
When it is considered that the men with capi-
tal who emigrate as farmers are republicans to the
core ; that to such meii, and the sons of such, the
republic whose protection they now solicit, owes
its existence — wdiat is this nationality? is it not
American in its essential qualities ?
The poorer order of emigrants from England,
what they have ot politics is of the same cast ;
but the ignorance, the nullity, of a great propor-
tion of the rural Englisli population on these
subjects, is wholly incomprehensible in this
country.
Humanity, interest, necessity, will call for the
112
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
interference of the general government on behalf
of those unfortunate persons who are cast desti-
tute on the eastern shores, and on behalf ot those
cities and states which are burthened by them.
But their countrymen, themselves citizens of the
United States, or becoming so, would anticipate
this interference, and crave permission to provide
for them on some unappropriated spot, to which
they would instantly give a value which it may
not otherwise attain for ages.
That there is wanting the dignus vindicc
nodus;''" that the object of this measure is not
such as to warrant a solemn act of legislation >
that it is not of equal importance with the vine-
yards at Vevay, or the olive-grounds projected in
Louisiana — when the several conditions oi Great
Britain, of the eastern states, and of this western
country, are viewed in connexion with it — will
hardly be maintained.
I have not the means of reference at hand,
but I think it was about the year 1530 that the
Portuguese brought from the old world the first
ca^o of muscles and sinews for the cultivation ot
the new. Nearly three hundred years has this
dreadful export, with ail that belongs to it, been
sustained by Africa, until half America, with her
islands, is peopled, not by freemen, but by over-
seers and slaves. If those muscles and sinews.
\
V
LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
ns
clothed as they were in sable, had come hither
animated by willing minds ; if the men who con-
dueted, instead of staining themselves with atro*
cities which no pen can describe, had been em-
ployed in deeds of kindness ; if the masters who
received them had paid them for their labours in-
stead of torturing them — but as all this was impos-
sible, why if about the matter? — ^That you may
for a moment glance over Africa, over the inter-
vening ocean, and over that large portion of the
new world which Africa has peopled with un-
willing labourers, and think of the miseries and
the crimes that would have been spared to hu-
manity during this period of three hundred years :
think what America and her islands would be
now, and how different their prospects, if involun-
tary servitude had never defiled her soil.
America yet needs muscles and sinews — Eu-
rope offers them. They would come animated by
willing minds; deeds of kindness alone, eosting
not a cent, are looked for from America. If th«y
come in groups and remain so, they will be groups
of freemen. Why does America love her govern-
ment ? Will not these men love it for the same
reason, and more intensely, from the recollection
of the bondage they have quitted ?
Thus I should talk to you were you here ; but
you are distant five thousand miles, and still I talk
114 LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS.
to you. Would that those who have most influ-
ence in this my adopted country could hear me
with the same mind that you will read this !
Adieu,
I am yours most truly.
P. S. I am just sending these letters to the
press, and I seize the occasion of dedicating them
to you.
TO
JOHN GALE, ESQ.
STERT, NEAR DEVIZES,
OLD ENGLAND.
September, 1818.
BOOKS JUST PUBLISHED
BY
TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
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Monthly Magt April, 1817.
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and the regulation of the conduct, without didactic formality, or
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New Monthly Mag, Aug, 1817*
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Eclectic Reo, Aug, 1816.
^ESSAYS IN RHYME, on Morals and Manners. By Jane
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Eclectic Review, Sept, 1816.
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shrewdness, and of humorous observation, seldom exceeded; several
specimens of It are to be found in the volume before us. We
lament that we have not room to give a specimen of sufficient
length to do the serious observations full Justice; but they arc
dictated by good sense, and flow from an observing mind, that
draws knowledge from the most ordinary occurrences.”
Critical Rev/ew, Sept, 1816.
Bwks published by Taylor and Hessey,
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British RevieWt Feb, 1816.
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** The duties of a wife, a mother, and a mistress of a family, are
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The short religions portion at the conclusion is warm, affectionate,
and Just, but not tinged with the slightest spirit of fanaticism.”
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THE PRESENT of a MISTRESS to a YOUNG SER-
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correct, is so unaffected and simple, that every word will be un-
derstood by the class of readers for which it is designed,”
Monthly Review, Match, 1816. x
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" The volume before os {» one of considerable merit, and in a
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The discourses which it contains are clear, simple and persuasive.
British Critic, Feb. 1817.
A second Volume will shortly be published.
A MOTHER’S ADVICE to her ABSENT DAUGHTERS.
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