be rendered more probable, than if a host of idle, decrepit, and ignorant persons, attempt to plant a settlement. This was perceived by John Smith, in Virginia, as early as the year 1608, just as clearly as by any person at the present day; and they who were careful to send out young, handsome, and "incorrupt" maidens, were well aware of the benefit resulting from well-selected emigrants.

But inhabitants are not all that is required, as the very statement allows which insists upon the necessity of selection and concentration. Let us illustrate this, and then judge of the wisdom of insisting upon the application of the whole of the land-fund to the sending out inhabitants. Suppose, when the first sales have been made, there is in the bank, paid to the account of the settlement, say the round sum of 10,000l. Apply this fund, says this new system, to emigration—use it all, and place upon the strand of the new settlement as many settlers, well chosen, as the money will enable you to export. Is this a wise proceeding? The moment the colony begins to exist the moment a new community is formed there are wants which at once arise, and are felt by every man in the community. These wants must be provided for at the common expense. First-and I place it in the very front-there is the want of a government. You need security to be established immediately; for without security there will be no steady labour, and without steady labour there will be no success. Let any one who wishes to learn the influence of government, in this sense, upon the fortunes of a new community, read the early history of Virginia and the New

England States. Not only was security needed for their success, but the stimulus of individual interests, which could only be created by the institution of private property, was needed also. They (the colonists of Virginia and Massachusetts) began with having all things in common, and could never advance; the right of private property was afterwards established, and from that moment the colonies began to prosper. But the right of private property means, that there is somewhere a power which will protect each individual, and insure him the privilege, unmolested, of enjoying his own-his private property. This power is the government.

But government costs money; and, I ask, would it not be wise to limit the number of your settlers, and apply some of your funds to the maintenance of a government which will insure security? This should be, indeed, a frugal government, and there is no means of making it effectually a frugal government but intrusting it to the people themselves.

But I have not by any means exhausted my catalogue of wants. No new settlement can succeed without roads; but roads are expensive. Bridges are equally necessary; these also are expensive. A wharf will be needed. Now these are common wants that is, wants which all feel-but it is not wise, particularly in a new settle. ment, to throw the burthen of making roads, bridges, &c., upon private enterprise; and no application of the common money could be devised more conducive to the common weal, than the making good roads at the very commencement of the settlement.

A court-house, a jail, are absolutely needed, and they

who seek to frame successful colonies will limit the number of the inhabitants, and supply all their absolute necessities, rather than send out double the number of selected emigrants without any provision of the kind.

But if here it is said:-"No such thing as employing all the money derived from the sale of land in sending out emigrants was ever intended or proposed; all that you have said, we mean;"-if this be so, then I answer, Let us reduce this supposed great discovery to its true dimensions. You mean merely this:-"It is wise to sell the wild land of the colony, and apply some of the money to sending out a certain number of selected emigrants."

Even this statement, narrowed to this insignificant condition, must be received with many saving considerations. In the very infancy of the colony, the government of the colony may find it a wise policy, not simply to attract emigrants, by offering great facilities and advantages to the settler, who seeks to procure for himself and his family a comfortable home, and the means of subsistence, and a chance of advancement in life;- It may be, I say, a wise policy in the government of the colony to go beyond this at the very outset, and not only attract, but actually to take out, a number of selected emigrants: But this will, and must, soon cease to be wise policy. If the colony be well conducted, fertile, and enjoying a good climate, such attractions will quickly bring out voluntary emigrants in large numbers. There will be no need to swell the tide of emigration to such a country; you will have enough, and more than enough. The application of the country's

wealth ought to be left to the prudence of the people themselves. If to them it seems the wisest application to bring out emigrants, we may be assured that they will act upon this opinion; and if it should not seem the wisest course, I, in that case, would rather put my faith in the wisdom of the community most interested in the matter, than in the opinions of any person who cogitates upon the question, without experiencing one of the difficulties which have to be dealt with.

There is, however, something which is kept back and veiled in this proposed and vaunted scheme-a thing understood, but never openly avowed. This plan is proposed to the rulers of England as a useful scheme, by means of which the population of this our own country may be kept down. This may be a useful end for England; but we are not justified in attempting to attain it at the expense of the colonies. If England need this thing -which for my part I doubt-let England pay for it; and not shabbily, by a device, shift the expense on others; and let her not lend her ear to those who come with a scheme of gain in their hands, as a temptation for her to quit the straight plain path, and follow the crooked ways of a policy that cannot be called honest.

Great stress has also been laid upon the evils of allowing a population to be scattered over the country; upon the misery resulting from high wages of servants, their insolence; the horrors of an American aid, or help; the loss of harvests from the want of hands to gather it; and all the many mischiefs attendant upon what the Americans, quite alive to the inconveniences of the thing, call a sparse population. Upon all these things

the same class of politicians have descanted; and in opposition to this dismal picture have placed a rhetorical description of the benefits of concentration. And having thus properly possessed the hearer's mind with a horror of one condition of things, and delight when contemplating the other, a scheme is proposed for his approbation-a scheme for the purpose of preventing this mischievous scattering, and by compulsion producing concentration and all its attendant benefits. The scheme consists of a rule by which a high upset price is affixed to all the wild land offered for sale in the colony. I own that I look with great suspicion upon every attempt by a government to direct men in the application of their capital, and in their pursuit of wealth and happiThe interest of the parties themselves to take the wisest course, whatever that may be, is so strong, that I would rather trust to its influence than to the wisdom of any government, were it composed of philosophers the wisest the world ever saw. Philosophers, too, are very apt to make terrible mistakes when they deal with men, in place of propositions. Locke failed egregiously when he attempted to frame a constitution for Carolina; but the settlers themselves devised one of great practical worth-one which has made the people of Carolina a very happy community.

ness.

We, also, living in the midst of the most complicated state of civilization which the world ever beheld, are apt to judge very erroneously when we look at men in a society surrounded by circumstances of so novel and peculiar a character as that of the new States of North America. The pleasures which that state of society