confequently the inhabitants will for a long time be cultivators.

Those whom ambition, thirft of gain, or ignorance should incline to establish manufactures, will, from that moment be disbanded from it, by the dearness of workmanship. This dearness is already very confiderable,* and may become still more fo, as the cause which occafions it must naturally become more extended.

What is the cause? It has already been intimated fo as to be foreseen.

Cities are built in all quarters; lands are cleared and establishments made every where. In the County of Kentucket for inftance, where in 1771, there were scarcely one hundred inhabitants, there are

"emigrate to Kentucket."-By this advertisement there are offered to fale, " 25,000 acres of land, fituated in the County of Northamp“ton, State of Pensylvania, upon the Delawar. A public road, a "navigable river, fertile foil, excellent for culture-meadows"places for mills-great forefts-plenty of fifh-ponds, &c. at half a guinea an acre.

66

"Another quantity of 25,000 acres, upon the Sufquehannah, "with equal and even greater advantages, at the fame price."Good title deeds,facilites of payment.-A referve of three hun"dred acres only will be required in each district for the main"tenance of the clergyman of the parish;-one hundred guineas "when there fhall be fifty families, to build a parfonage house-"ten guineas a year for five years, and provifion for the school"mafter.

* Three, four, and five livres, are frequently paid in the cities of United States, for the day's work of a carpenter, locksmith, &c.

This is a great evil, as will be hereafter proved, and which will contribute more than any other to the ruin of republican fpirit.

now

now nearly thirty thousand; and thefe men have emigrated from inhabited coafts or countries. Thus hands are taken from the commerce and agriculture of these laft, which is confequently the cause of the encreased price of workmanship.

From this dearness it has been concluded in Europe that the people in America were wretched; a contrary conclufion ought to have been drawn, Wherever workmen govern; wherever they are paid a high price, the people are neceffarily happy; for it is of them that the various claffes of workmen are compofed.

On the contrary, wherever workmanship is at a low price, the people are wretched; for this cheapnefs proves, that there are more workmen than there is work to execute, more want of employ than can be fupplied. This is what the rich defire,.that they may govern the workmen, and buy the fweat of their brows at the loweft rate poffible.*

It is the reverse in America, the workmen gives the law, and fo much the better, he receives it too often every where else.

This dearnefs of workmanfhip is prejudicial to manufactures, and ftill fo much the better. Thefe establish

D 4

*To be convinced of this truth, look at England and France; workmanship is very dear in London but cheap in Paris. The workman in London is well fed, cloathed and paid; in Paris he is quite the contrary.

"It frequenly happens," faid an American one day to me, “that I meet in the United States a ploughman, conducting his plough and

establishments are so many tombs which fwallow up generations entire.* Agriculture, on the contrary perpetually encreases population.

By preventing, or at least retarding the rife of manufactures within their provinces, the Americans will stop the decadency of morals and public fpirit: for if manufactures bring gold into the States, they bring at the same time a poison which undermines them. They resemble a number of individuals whofe nature and morals are at once corrupted: they form and accustom men to fervitude, and give in a republic a preponderance to Aristocratical principles, and by accumulating riches in a small number of hands, they cause republics to incline to Ariftocracy.

Therefore the independent Americans will do wifely to leave to Europe the care of manufacturing for them, because fhe is irresistibly dragged into manufactures; and as their population and consumption must rapidly encrease, it is not impoffible that Europe may one day confine herself to

and horfes, and eating a wing of a turkey and a piece of good. white bread. I have feen added he, a veffel arrive at New York, full of Scotchmen, not one of whom was unhired or unemployed the next day.

* There are several manufactures at Amiens, and it is remarked, that the hofpitals are more filled with manufacturers than with mafons or other like artizans. A manufacturing life makes more people ill and their complaints more dangerous; it is because this kind of workmen becomes fooner debauched, and goes fooner to the hofpital, being moftly fingle, and without any domeftic attachment.

this kind of occupation, and that America may one day become her ftorehouse of grain and raw materials, of which fhe will not be in need. In this cafe, nothing will be feen in Europe but cities and workshops; in independent America, nothing but fields well cultivated. I will leave it to be decided which country would have the most happy fate.

Under the fame point of view, the independent Americans will still act wifely by leaving it to the Europeans to furnish them with neceffary articles; and in feldom frequenting the cities and fea ports of the antient continent. In effect, an European transported to independent America is in the proportion of one to one hundred, and sometimes to a thousand. His example has therefore but very little influence, the luxury of which he makes a parade in paffing by, excites lefs confideration or respect than contempt and ridicule. If he leaves a remembrance of himself it is foon effaced by the general motion: there are, moreover, fome Europeans, who, struck and edified by the manners and customs of free America, have good fenfe enough to refpect and conform themselves to them.

It is the reverse when an American goes on fhore in Europe, almost alone, with his fimplicity of manners in the midst of a vortex of men who esteem the eclat of exterior appearance only; who, agitated and led by the general ton, facrifice every thing to the furor of making a great figure by the brilliance of drefs, equipage and pomp: this American must,

at

7

at first be torn down and tormented, because he finds himself thrown into a circle of habitudes contrary to his own. Afterwards he becomes familarized by little and little, and if he does not quite get a tafte for them, at least his attachment to a fimplicity of life and manners is neceffarily weakened. Carrying back with him to his own country this difpofition of mind, he introduces it infenfibly into the minds of thofe who are about him, upon which it has fome influence-upon the minds of his children and friends. Their tafte for fimplicity becomes lukewarm by his example, and the following age fees public virtues fall into indifference.

It will be lefs dangerous to the public spirit of the independent Americans to admit the Europeans into the United States, than to go themselves into Europe; from which it refults that it would be very impolitic to encourage the former to become the carriers of their exterior Commerce.

I have infifted upon this reflection becaufe there feems to have appeared in fome States a disposition to give premiums for diftant navigation. They ought to reflect that they have but few hands, and that as few as poffible should be taken from culture. They are in the fituation I have spoken of in my principles of exterior Commerce, where a nation gains by making carriers of others having lefs foil or employ. They should also recollect, that republican morals are better preserved in the bofom of agriculture than upon the fea and in foreign voy

ages,