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 . MIS'
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 AND 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 COMPARISON 
 
 OF THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STATE OF 
 BOTH NATIONS. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET. 
 
 18 34.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages are intended for publication in 
 America as well as in England. They have been written 
 with two objects in particular : first, to lay before Ameri- 
 cans a sketch of the political condition of England, and 
 before the English an explanation of some peculiarities in 
 the social state of America ; secondly, to point out the 
 means of removing those causes which are productive of 
 great evils to both countries. 
 
 For the satisfactory performance of such a work, powers 
 are required which the author does not possess ; command 
 of language, a style calculated to engage the reader, and a 
 name which should give to every statement or suggestion 
 the weight of authority. But on the other hand, he has 
 had peculiar motives for examining the condition of Amer- 
 ica, and he is so far partly qualified to treat upon that sub- 
 ject ; he believes also that he is enabled to make Americans 
 comprehend the state of England, which hitherto has been 
 described to them only by Englishmen, writing, not for 
 America, but for England. The English and Americans 
 know very little of each other's affairs. Now, the present 
 writer has looked at America with English eyes, and at 
 England with American eyes. It was a consciousness of 
 this advantage, that prompted him to undertake the task of 
 describing to each nation the chief social peculiarities of the 
 other. 
 
 Another advantage which the writer fancies that he pos- 
 sesses over many Englishmen and Americans who might
 
 SJ PREFACE. 
 
 have written on these subjects, is the want of any patriotic 
 prejudice in favour of either country — of any motive for 
 concealing or perverting the truth. His opinions, he be- 
 jieves, have been formed, and are stated, without affection 
 or fear. Plain-speaking must nearly always be disagree- 
 able to somebody ; and in this case it will offend many, be- 
 cause large classes, both in England and America, are 
 mentioned without any regard for their selfish interests, 
 their mean passions, or even their honest prejudices. 
 
 The following Notes are not to be considered as so many 
 discussions on distinct subjects ; but each of them is more 
 or less connected with all the others. In fact, they all re- 
 late to the social state and political economy of England 
 and America. 
 
 What, it may be asked, has the political economy of Eng- 
 land to do with that of America, or that of America with 
 that of England ? What relation can there be between the 
 political prospects of the English, and the origin, progress, 
 and prospects of slavery in America? To such questions 
 these Notes supply an answer. Comparison is the easiest 
 way to truth. In many cases, the Americans and the Eng- 
 lish may have an equal interest in the same subject, though 
 they may have very different objects in view. Of this com- 
 mon interest with different objects, the subject of coloniza- 
 tion is a good example. Admitting that the three ele- 
 ments of production are land, capital, and labour ; suppo- 
 sing that the chief social evils of England arc owing to a 
 deficiency of land in proportion to capital and labour, and 
 those of America to an excess of land in proportion to 
 capital and labour (whatever great advantages she may 
 owe to a sufficiency of land), in that case, the Ameri- 
 cans and the English have a common interest in under- 
 standing the art of colonization, though the object of the 
 Americans should be to have less, and that of the Eng- 
 lish to have more, of one of the elements of wealth. So,
 
 PREFACE. 3 
 
 also, if it be for the interest of the English to buy cheap 
 corn of the Americans, and of the Americans to buy cheap 
 manufactured goods of the English, the two nations have a 
 common interest in the repeal of the English corn-laws and 
 of the American tariff. In every subject treated of in 
 these Notes, the Americans and the English have more or 
 less a common interest. 
 
 The statements and arguments contained in these Notes 
 might have been supported by reference to numerous au- 
 thorities ; but, though the writer wished, for his own sake, 
 to adopt that course, still he was afraid that, by doing so., 
 he might render his work too formal. To one book, how- 
 ever, he has referred pretty often ; Mr. Stuart's Three 
 Years in North America; a production which may be 
 termed a storehouse of facts concerning the United States. 
 If Mr. Stuart had seen fit to develop the causes of the 
 facts which he has collected, to give reasons for the chief 
 social peculiarities of America, these Notes, or at least such 
 of them as treat directly of the United States, would not 
 have been published.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 First signs of wealth observed by a foreigner — Proofs of wealth in L.ondon 
 — In the country — Superior enjoyments of the English — Large propor- 
 tion of the English who enjoy much wealth — Immense capital invested 
 — Abundance of capital ready to be invested — Overflow of capital — Causes 
 of the great wealth of England — Combination of power — Division of 
 capital and labour a cause of poverty — Effects of combination of product- 
 ive power on the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of England — 
 Some conclusions from the principle, that production depends on the 
 degree in which men help each other — Constant progress of wealth and 
 civilization in England Page 17 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Who are the bulk of the people — Misery of the bulk of the people a favour- 
 ite topic in England — Proofs of misery — What is a pauper — Factory chil- 
 dren — Irish wages — Increase of gin-shops — Cheapness of English chil- 
 dren — Trade in the Murder of parish apprentices — Other trades in 
 pauper children — Climbing boys — Prostitutes — Cheapness of women — 
 Degradation of the common people — The common people are too cheap 
 to be happy 39 
 
 NOTE III. 
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 Who compose the aristocracy — Particular distresses of the middle class 
 
 Uneasiness of farmers — Of manufacturers — Of dealers — Low profits 
 
 Uneasiness of professional men — Of several classes possessing the com- 
 mon run of knowledge, or superior knowledge — Of persons having fixed 
 incomes and families — Primary cause of prostitution — Domestic life 
 among the English middle class 60 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 COINCIDENCE OF OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH, WITH THE UNEASI- 
 NESS AND MISERY OF INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 Theories of the English economists — A dream of Robinson Crusoe's island 
 
 The field of production an element of wealth — Argument with the econo- 
 mists — Argument with the Archbishop of Dublin — America and England, 
 as to the field of production — Cases of various proportions amono- the ele- 
 ments of production — Peculiar case of England — As wealth increases 
 many individuals are less rich — Moral and strictly political effects of the 
 various proportions which the field of production bears to capital and 
 labour — Peculiar effects in the peculiar case of England 74
 
 b CONTENTS. 
 
 NOTE V. 
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Retrospect — The constitution of 1688 — Its merits and defects — Maintained 
 by corruption — Populace subservient to the ruling class — Ellects of 
 knowledge — On the middle class — On the poor — History of the late 
 change in the constitution — New constitution obtained by the physical 
 force — New constitution described — Not likely to last — Dangers in the 
 prospect of change — Democracy or worse, apparently inevitable — Dangers 
 of democracy — Possible means of avoiding the probable evils of change — 
 Christian legislation — Means of improving the physical condition of the 
 bulk of the people, and of removing the uneasiness of the middle class 90 
 
 NOTE VI. 
 
 FRKE TRADE IN CORN, AS A MEANS OF ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EM- 
 PLOYMENT FOR ENGLISH CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 
 
 Subject of this note stated — Wide difference between facts in America and 
 the English theory of rent — American theory of rent — Various kinds and 
 degrees of competition for the use of land — Facts — Effects of a free corn- 
 trade on the several kinds of competition for the use of land — With cheap 
 bread the rental of England must be greater — Gradual repeal of the corn- 
 laws hurtful for a time to land-owners and farmers, and not useful to any 
 class of labourers — Sudden repeal of the corn-laws beneficial to all 
 classes 131 
 
 NOTE VII. 
 
 CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN THE FOREIGN CORN-TRADK OF ENGLAND AND 
 THE FOREIGN TRADE OF CHINA. 
 
 Object of the English in a free corn-trade — Very cheap corn not raised ex- 
 cept by slaves — Why so — Direct trade between English manufacturers 
 and the producers of cheap corn must be very limited — Indirect trade for 
 procuring cheap corn, by means of direct trade with the Chinese em- 
 
 pire 
 
 150 
 
 NOTE VIII. 
 
 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 
 
 Interest of the Americans in this question — Chinese restrictions on trade — 
 The Chinese people more inclined to commerce than the English or 
 Americans — Chinese government dislikes foreign trade on political 
 grounds — Restrictions lead to a free trade - Description "I the free trade 
 which actually takes place in China— Obstacles i" the extension of ibis 
 
 free trade — Several modes of removing those obstacles- Hue mode will 
 
 endanger the trade between America and China Safest, cheapest, and 
 best mode, commercial stations near the coast of China To be tunned, 
 
 if Dot by Englislunen, then by Americans 169 
 
 NOTE l\. 
 
 BOMS SOCIAL I'K< i i.iAiiii ii OF TBI IMEBtOANS. 
 
 Peculiar slate of religion C • of superstition will I bigotry Or f'anali- 
 
 dam—Inquisitivenest— Rudeness of the backwoodsmen Bigotrj in pa- 
 triotism — Neglect of learning l'JO
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 NOTE X. 
 
 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 
 
 Declamation against slavery — History of the origin and progress of slavery 
 in America — Cause of slavery — Prospects of slavery in the British West 
 Indies — In the United States — Possible means of abolishing slavery in 
 the United States without a servile war 201 
 
 NOTE XI. 
 
 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 
 
 Opinions of Englishmen respecting the tariff — Moral advantages of the 
 tariff — Economical advantages of the tariff — Difference of feeling be- 
 tween the Southern and Northern States respecting the tariff — The 
 tariff good, upon the whole, for the people of America, and therefore a 
 work becoming democratic government — When the tariff may be repealed 
 with great advantage to America 224 
 
 NOTE XII. 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Introduction — Nature and limits of the subject — The ends of colonization as 
 respects the mother country — The extension of markets — Relief from 
 excessive numbers — Enlargement of the field for employing capital — 
 Ends of colonization as respects the colony — The means of colonization 
 — The disposal of waste land — The removal of people — Co-operation of 
 the mother country — The foundation of colonies — The government of 
 colonies 231 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Proofs of the industry, skill, and commercial disposition of the Chinese 
 people 383 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Proofs of the rapidity with which waste land rises in value, wherever people 
 congregate, in new colonies 346 
 
 No. III. 
 
 Part of a correspondence between the English government and a body of in- 
 dividuals desirous to found a colony 357
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 First signs of wealth observed by a foreigner — Proofs of wealth in London 
 — In the country — Superior enjoyments of the English — Large propor- 
 tion of the English who enjoy much wealth — Immense capital invested 
 — Abundance of capital ready to be invested — Overflow of capital — Causes 
 of the great wealth of England — Combination of power — Division of 
 capital and labour a cause of poverty — Effects of combination of product- 
 ive power on the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of England — 
 Some conclusions from the principle, that production depends on the 
 degree in which men help each other — Constant progress of wealth and 
 civilization in England. 
 
 An American citizen visits the continent of Europe, and 
 on his way home passes some time in England. Here he 
 finds the roads in every direction far better than any he 
 has seen before, and he sees more of them on a given space 
 than in France or America. The cross-roads are kept in 
 far better order than those of any other country. By the 
 side of nearly all the great roads, he sees, for the first time, 
 a well kept foot-path. In many places, the foot-paths across 
 fields are as dry, and smooth, and trim as walks in plea- 
 sure-gardens. All the carriages on the road are stronger 
 and lighter, more useful and sightly, than those to which 
 he is accustomed ; and the vast number of those carriages 
 strikes him with astonishment. The strength and beauty 
 of the horses, the quality and neatness of their harness, and 
 the very whips with which they are driven, excite his 
 wonder. The uncommon speed with which he travels 
 raises his spirits and inclines him to look favourably at 
 every thing. He exclaims, what magnificent crops — 
 what beautiful meadows — what fine cattle and sheep — what 
 skill and care in the mixture of wood, arable and grass 
 lands — what noble trees — what regularity and neatness in 
 the fences ! even the ditches and gate-posts are admirable ! 
 The mansions are palaces, the farm-houses mansions, the 
 merest village of cottages has an air of peculiar comfort ; 
 while the number of those mansions, farm-houses, and vil- 
 lages gives to the country the appearance of a scattered 
 town. But then the towns : many of them are so extensive, 
 the houses in them are so well built, the shops have such 
 
 3
 
 18 THE WEALTH OP ENGLAND. 
 
 a display of rich goods, the streets are so well paved, and 
 contain so large a proportion of good houses ; these towns 
 are so full of well-dressed people, that each of them might 
 be taken for a city. Even the smallest towns appear like 
 sections of a wealthy capital ; and the number of towns, 
 large and small, is so great that, together with the great 
 number of good houses by the road side out of town, one 
 seems to be travelling all day through one street. This, 
 the foreigner imagines, must be the most populous road in 
 England ; there must be something peculiar in this part of 
 the country which attracts rich people. By no means. 
 He is told that, so long as fourteen years ago, the length 
 of the paved streets and turnpike-roads of England and 
 Wales was about twenty thousand miles ; and he soon 
 learns that nearly all the great roads show marks of wealth 
 like those which he has so much admired. He therefore 
 supposes that the wealth of the country must bear a very 
 large proportion to that of the metropolis ; but on this point 
 he is undeceived on reaching London. Here the crowd is 
 so great, the objects which attract his attention are so many 
 and so different, that, for a while, he is bewildered and 
 incapable of arranging his thoughts so as to draw conclu- 
 sions from what he sees. At length he begins to observe 
 methodically, and to compare his observations with those 
 which he has made in other great cities. Until now he 
 has conceived New-York or Paris to be the place in which 
 the greatest amount of wealth was enjoyed by a given 
 number of people; but he is now convinced that the in- 
 habitants of London obtain a greater quantity of things 
 necessary, useful, or agreeable to man, than the inhabitants 
 of any other city in the world. The quantity of flour and 
 meat consumed, in proportion to people, he finds not much 
 greater in London than in Paris, and even less than in 
 New- York, where the working classes live better than in 
 London ; so also the proportion of looking-glasses he knows 
 to be greater in Paris, and the proportion of rum drank 
 to be greater in New- York than in London; but he cannot 
 doubl th '."li the whole, more good things are enjoyed in 
 London, by a given number of people, than any where else 
 out of England. It is not in his power, indeed, to compare 
 the quantities or rallies of all necessary, useful, or agreeable 
 things enjoyed in London, with the quantities or values of 
 inch things used in other gn at cities ; but he is convinced 
 of the superior wealth of London bj the same mode of 
 observation which has satisfied him that the people of
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 19 
 
 New- York drink more rum, and the people of Paris own 
 more looking-glasses than the people of London. In Lon- 
 don one meets with every thing the immediate produce of 
 agriculture, such as meat, bread, sugar and tea, of the very 
 finest quality. Of manufactured objects used in London, 
 scarce one can be mentioned which is not brought to 
 greater perfection than similar objects used in other 
 capital cities, while the variety of such objects is yet 
 more striking. The fittings and furniture of a third- 
 rate house in London are of a better quality than 
 those of a palace in France or Germany ; the doors and 
 windows answer their purpose better; the chairs are 
 stronger, lighter, and more convenient to sit upon ; the 
 tables, if not more useful, are far more beautiful ; the glass 
 is more transparent, the knives cut better, the fastenings of 
 all sorts, the corkscrew and the toasting-fork, are better 
 suited to their purpose, and composed of superior materials. 
 In every London house, excepting those of the poorest 
 order, one finds many useful and agreeable objects which 
 are either scarce or unknown in Paris, New- York, and 
 Vienna. The inhabitants of London pay, it has been reck- 
 oned, about 50,000/. a year, — being the fourth of 200,000/. 
 which the nation pays, — for what 1 for blacking advei tise- 
 ments — that is, for the faciiity of choosing between differ- 
 ent kinds of blacking. The number of kinds of horses 
 used in London, though very striking to a foreigner, is less 
 remarkable than the forethought, pains, and skill required 
 for making each variety — the Lincolnshire dray horse, for 
 example, the Cleveland coach horse, the high-bred nag, the 
 cob, and the trotting hackney — so obviously distinct from 
 all the others. The variety of carriages, whether for busi- 
 ness or pleasure, and the fitness of each sort for its peculiar 
 purpose, whether that purpose be determined by the wea- 
 ther, by the fortune of him who owns the carriage, or the 
 business of him who uses it, — are equally deserving of ad- 
 miration. At night, when other great cities are in darkness, 
 all London is brilliantly illuminated ; nay, the beautiful gas 
 lights extend for some miles into the country, in all direc- 
 tions. The pavements of London — but the list of exam- 
 ples might be continued through a volume. Still, the 
 foreigner is less surprised at the quantity, variety, and per- 
 fection of useful and agreeable objects used in London, 
 than at the great proportion of the people who enjoy in 
 abundance the most perfect of those objects. That the 
 houses of the high aristocracy should be large, fine, and
 
 20 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 richly furnished, is nothing strange ; but the houses in many 
 quarters which the aristocracy despise, are as large, fine, 
 and well furnished as those of the most aristocratic quar- 
 ters. The best houses, for instance, in Bloomsbury, Fins- 
 bury, and Lambeth, and in such villages or suburbs as High- 
 gate, Hornsey, Tottenham, Hackney, Peckham, and Clap- 
 ham, though a lord would disdain to live in one of them, are 
 as large, fine, and well furnished, as those of Mayfair, or of 
 such aristocratic villages as Roehampton and Wimbledon. 
 The shops, too, in many of those " low" quarters, though 
 stocked for the supply of persons engaged in some in- 
 dustrious pursuit, are as full, and as rich, as those of 
 Bond-street or Regent-street. The number of carriages, 
 also, kept for pleasure in those despised quarters greatly ex- 
 ceeds the number of such carriages kept by the high aris- 
 tocracy in and about London. In the quantity and quality 
 of good things which he uses, in his own dress, and that of 
 his family, in his table, furniture and books, or in whatever 
 mode of expense he may prefer, a prosperous lawyer or 
 merchant is not far behind the richest duke ; and the num- 
 ber of rich people in London who pursue an industrious 
 career is very much greater than the number of rich lords. 
 But it would be improper to measure the wealth of a so- 
 ciety by the enjoyments of its richest members alone. 
 Dividing the inhabitants of London and Paris into the same 
 number of ranks with respect to the consumption of wealth, 
 every London rank enjoys more good things than its cor- 
 responding Parisian rank. A second-rate merchant in Lon- 
 don spends at least twice as much a sa second-rate Pa- 
 risian merchant ; a third-rate London advocate spends, per- 
 haps, three times as much as a first-rate Parisian advocate ; 
 a fourth-rate London attorney spends six times as much as 
 a second-rate Parisian notary ; a physician in London, a 
 surgeon, a dentist, a tradesman of whatever description, a 
 servant from the butler to the scullion, a mechanic in what- 
 ever line, a porter, or a common labourer, spends more, and 
 in most casesa greal deal more, than one or a correspond- 
 ing rank in the Parisian scale. But this is not all. In Lon- 
 don there are more first-rate merchants, law yers, and trades- 
 men in proportion to Becond-rate ones, more second-rale 
 on<:-> in proportion to third-rate ones, and so on all down the 
 
 scale. In a word, turn which way \<>n will, London 
 
 abounds with proofs of its enormous wealth. 
 
 Tims th^ foreigner is apt to fall into another error; to 
 imagine that a very large proportion of the wealth of Eng-
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 21 
 
 land is collected in London. He is undeceived again by 
 visiting some great provincial towns of different descrip- 
 tions, such as Bath, Liverpool, and Leeds. Each of these 
 resembles a large section of the metropolis ; Bath being 
 like Marylebone, Leeds like manufacturing South vvark, and 
 Liverpool like the commercial Tower Hamlets. In point 
 of size and general character Liverpool bears some resem- 
 blance to Bordeaux or New-York, and Leeds to Lyons ; 
 but in America there is no town like Leeds, nor, either in 
 America or France, any town like Bath. England abounds 
 with such towns as Bath — mere pleasure towns, they may 
 be called — such as Leamington, Hastings, Margate, Chel- 
 tenham, and Brighton ; with more of the same kind, though 
 of smaller extent, such as Tunbridge Wells, Worthing, Har- 
 rowgate, Aberystwith, Southend, Lowestoft, and Sidmouth. 
 Of towns like Leeds, while in the United States there is not 
 one, and in France but few, there is in England a number 
 without end, such as Macclesfield, Sheffield, Nottingham, 
 Coventry, Birmingham, and Manchester. Of towns like 
 Liverpool, though there be several in the United States, 
 there are many more in the United Kingdom, while neither 
 in the United States nor in France are there any towns of 
 a mixed character, like Norwich and Glasgow. Again, 
 neither in France nor in the United States are there any 
 great provincial capitals like Edinburgh and Dublin. But 
 after all, that for which, in respect to towns, England is 
 most distinguished, — even more so than for the number and 
 size of her pleasure towns, — is the vast number and great 
 size of her smaller provincial capitals, which are neither 
 seaports nor the seats of manufactures ; such as York, 
 Canterbury, Gloucester, Exeter, Shrewsbury, Reading, 
 Colchester, and Bury St. Edmund's. And now, further, let 
 the wealth of any English town whatsoever, be compared 
 with that of a town of the same character in any other 
 country. With a single, and no doubt very important ex- 
 ception, England has greatly the advantage. In the United 
 States every labourer, not being a slave, obtains more and 
 better food, more and better clothes, as well as a better 
 lodging, than a labourer of equal skill in England. With- 
 out any further exception, the inhabitants of English pro- 
 vincial towns enjoy a greater quantity and variety of good 
 things, approach nearer to the inhabitants of the capital in 
 respect to the consumption of wealth, than people of a 
 similar rank in the provincial towns of other countries. A 
 merchant of Liverpool or Bristol, a manufacturer of Bir-
 
 22 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 mingham or Leeds, be he first, second, or third-rate, in- 
 dulges in expenses for his house, his table, the education 
 of his children and the amusement of his family, which, 
 to think of only, would frighten a Bordeaux merchant, 
 or Lyons manufacturer of the same rank. What a French 
 provincial doctor spends in a year, would not keep an 
 English provincial doctor in equal practice for three 
 months. Country attorneys in England get and spend, on the 
 average, ten times as much ps French country attorneys. 
 Common tradesmen in all English country towns, bakers, 
 butchers, cheesemongers, and linen-drapers, as well as me- 
 chanics, such as carpenters, builders, and glaziers, live 
 much better than a similar class of people in Paris ; they 
 have more rooms to live in ; their rooms are better fur- 
 nished ; they, their wives, and children are better dressed ; 
 they find it more easy to obtain comforts and indulge in 
 luxuries. Surely there are fifty country towns in England 
 which contain a good inn, that is a comfortable innkeeper, 
 for one French country town that contains a passable inn, 
 held by a man who does not live so expensively as the 
 keepers of most English alehouses. That English town is 
 reckoned poor in which there are not. some shops that would 
 be considered good in the best quarter of London ; and 
 there are hundreds of towns in England, in which you can 
 purchase almost every thing that is commonly for sale in 
 London. The number of booksellers' shops in the provincial 
 towns of England, and the stocks which they contain, pre- 
 sent a very striking contrast with the number and stocks of 
 French booksellers' shops out of Paris. In the number and 
 quality of horses and carriages kept for pleasure, English 
 country towns surpass, very far indeed, French country 
 towns of equal magnitude. Every town in England, that at 
 all bears the character of the capital oi a district, possesses 
 a circulating library, such as would be called good in Paris 
 or New- York; while most of such towns, as well as many 
 small towns, and indeed rural parts, miles away from any 
 town, have the inestimable advantage of a book club. No 
 English town containing 10,000 inhabitants is without foot 
 pavements or gas lights ; while many towns, with less than 
 5,000 inhabitants, are as well paved and well lighted as the 
 finest quarter of London. In their literary and scientific 
 institutions, such towns as Liverpool, Leeds, and Birming- 
 ham, appear to surpass the metropolis, allowing for the dif- 
 ference of numbers ; and in this respect they obviously 
 excel, beyond comparison, French or American towns ot
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 23 
 
 like magnitude. Another proof of the general diffusion of 
 wealth in England, is the large proportion of the sums in- 
 vested by savings-banks, which is subscribed out of Lon- 
 don ; the whole fund, amounting to about 14,000,000/., and 
 subscribed by persons little above the condition of labour- 
 ers, being a proof of the wealth of England. But finally, 
 the most striking proof of the wealth of the English, all 
 over England, is the facility with which, in any part of Eng- 
 land, funds are raised for any undertaking that offers the 
 least chance of profit. It is to this point, especially, that I 
 would draw the attention of Americans.* Though thou- 
 sands of millions have been spent in rendering England the 
 most habitable country in the world, in making bad land 
 good, on fences, farm buildings, roads, bridges, canals and 
 docks, on the opening of mines, the building of manufacto- 
 ries and warehouses, not to mention houses, still it appears 
 as if thousands of millions would be forthcoming for simi- 
 lar purposes, if there were but room for carrying such pur- 
 poses into effect. Abundance of capital invested, and 
 ready to be invested, is the most marked, nay the peculiar, 
 characteristic of England. By guessing at what it would 
 take to put France, or one of the American States, into the 
 same condition as England, with respect to the improve- 
 ment of land, to farm buildings, roads, bridges, canals, 
 wharves, docks, manufactories, warehouses, and machinery, 
 &c, we may form some idea of the degree in which the 
 fixed capital of the English exceeds that of the French or 
 Americans : and yet the French or Americans, who have 
 invested so small a capital in comparison with that invested 
 by the English, have far less than the English ready for in- 
 vestment.! Money makes money, says the proverb ; 
 which, translated into the language of modern science, 
 
 * " The great public work in this part of the United States in which the 
 people are engaged, is the canal between the Chesapeake and the Ohio 
 rivers, that is, between Georgetown and Washington on the one hand, and 
 Pittsburgh on the western side of the Alleghany ridge on the other. This 
 prodigious work, which is now in progress, is estimated by General Bernard, 
 at about twenty-two millions of dollars. The sum of fifteen hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, subscribed by the citizens of Washington, Georgetown, and 
 Alexandria, on the Potomac, has been obtained from Dutch capitalists, the 
 house of Messrs. Crommelin, of Amsterdam." — Three years m North Amer- 
 ica, by James Stuart, Esq. vol. ii, page 62. — Third Edition. 
 
 t " The canal (at Louisville), is two miles in the length, cut out of the 
 solid rock, and in some places forty feet deep, and is of sufficient width to 
 allow the largest class of steamboats to pass. Dry docks are to be con- 
 structed for the repairing of steamboats. There is at present a leant of 
 funds ; but the work is so far advanced that there is no risk of its not being 
 completed." — Stuart, vol. ii, page 290.
 
 24 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 means that capital creates capital. In America, where 
 there is so much room for the investment of capital, because 
 so little capital has been invested, innumerable works, hold- 
 ing out the certainty of large profits, are projected, but for 
 want of capital are not begun ; while in England, where, 
 by reason of the vast masses of capital already invested, 
 there seems but little room for the profitable investment of 
 more, millions accumulate so rapidly, that funds are never 
 wanted for even the most hazardous undertakings. How 
 to obtain capital is the question in America ;* what to do 
 with their capital is the puzzle of the English. In this diffi- 
 culty the English build Waterloo bridges, which yield no 
 profit, send goods to be sold in distant countries at less than 
 prime cost, squander millions on South American specula- 
 tions, lay out immense sums in the purchase of foreign se- 
 curities, and lend money, by tens of millions at a time, to 
 North American States, South American anarchies, and 
 European tyrants, great or small. If the wealth of a society 
 depend on the proportion which capital bears to numbers, 
 then it is clear the English are the richest people in the 
 world. 
 
 What are the causes of the enormous wealth of England ? 
 This question has never been answered to the satisfaction 
 of Americans ; who, descended from the English, using 
 their language, able to use their knowledge, paying fewer 
 taxes than the English, cultivating a much more fertile soil, 
 and as well protected, to say the least, in the enjoyment of 
 property, cannot perceive, in the reasons usually given for 
 the peculiar wealth of England, any circumstance peculiar 
 to the English. This question I propose to examine, with 
 a view to show, here, why the English are so much richer 
 than the Americans; and, further on, how the Americans 
 might become as rich as tin; English, if not richer. The 
 question is of n<> little importance to the English themselves, 
 and is full of the deepesl interest to all new societies; like 
 the American State-, and the English eolonics in America 
 and Australia. 
 
 All wealth being the produce of industry, it is evident 
 that the wealth of a society must depend on" the degree in 
 which tin- productive powers of industry are improved by 
 thai Bociety. What are the greatest improvements in the 
 productive powers of industry; improvements, I mean, be- 
 yond that simple exertion of power, which in two indi- 
 
 • The State of Louisiana has lately borrowed a great uurn of the English.
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 25 
 
 vfduals of equal strength, working separately in the same 
 way, would raise equal amounts of produce ? Adam 
 Smith has said that the greatest improvement in the pro- 
 ductive powers of industry is division of labour ; others 
 have dwelt on the great effects of machinery ; and some 
 again have taken pains to show, what is self-evident, that 
 the productive powers of industry are greatly increased by 
 the use of capital. Unquestionably capital, machinery, 
 which is capital, and " division of labour," tend to increase 
 the quantity of produce in proportion to the number 0i 
 hands employed ; but none of these improvements are 
 primary causes, as some of them, and especially " division 
 of labour," have been considered by political economists; 
 each of them, on the contrary, though an immediate cause, 
 is the effect of some antecedent cause. One cannot use 
 capital merely by wishing to use it, nor can a single work- 
 man practise " division of labour ;" but the use of capital 
 and " division of labour" result from some anterior improve- 
 ment. What, then, is the first improvement in the product- 
 ive powers of industry, that improvement on which others 
 depend ? 
 
 In the most simple operation of industry, — in that, for 
 example, which savages perform when they hunt for sub- 
 sistence, — two persons assisting each other would obtain 
 more game in a given time than two persons hunting each 
 by himself without concert; just as* two greyhounds, run- 
 ning together, will kill more hares than four greyhounds 
 running separately. The very first improvement, there- 
 fore, in the productive powers of industry, seems to be not 
 division, but combination of labour. Several individuals, 
 by combining their labour, procure more food than they 
 want : behold the second stage of social improvement ; the 
 society has obtained a capital. The possession of capital 
 leads to the institution of property : it also leads to the 
 division of employments. Some members of the society 
 still co-operate in the production of food ; others in making 
 instruments which facilitate the production of food ; and 
 between these two parties an exchange takes place of their 
 respective productions : commerce has begun ; the power 
 of exchanging, on which, all economists agree, depends the 
 division of employments. But now, as food is produced 
 with less and less labour, the wants of the society increase, 
 and a still further distribution of employments takes place : 
 some build houses, some make clothes, and some become 
 dealers. Thus far it is plain everv step in civilization, 
 
 4
 
 2G THE WEALTII OF ENGLAND. 
 
 every improvement in the productive powers of industry, 
 including distribution of employments, has rested on con- 
 cert or combination among all the members of the society. 
 
 But, thus fur, all the members of the society are supposed 
 to possess equal portions of capital. Such a state of things, 
 if it were to last, would not admit of much further improve- 
 ment in the productive powers of industry. No man would 
 find others willing to employ his capital for his advantage 
 as well as their own, rather than their own capital for their 
 own exclusive advantage : no man, consequently, would 
 have a motive for accumulating more capital than he could 
 use with his own hands. This is to some extent the case 
 in new American settlements, where a passion for owning 
 land prevents the existence of a class of labourers for hire ; 
 and where, consequently, half the crop is sometimes left to 
 rot upon the ground. In the next place, so long as the capi- 
 tal of the society was equally divided among all, it would be 
 impossible to undertake any of those works which require 
 the employment of many hands and a fixed capital. It 
 would be quite impossible, for instance, to build a ship or 
 a bridge ; for, even if a sufficient number of workmen to 
 admit of that division of employments which takes place 
 in building a ship or a bridge, should possess the right sort 
 of capital, and a sufficient quantity of it to enable them to 
 wait for distant returns, by what means could that scattered 
 capital be combined ? and how could the profits be divided X 
 Only, it would appear, by the institution of a joint stock 
 company ; a contrivance for the combination of capital in 
 particular works, which is used only in the advanced socie- 
 ties. Mankind have adopted a much more simple contriv- 
 ance for promoting the accumulation of capital, and the 
 use of capita], when required, both in large masses and in a 
 fixed shape : they have divided themselves into owners of 
 capital and owners of labour. But this division was, in 
 fact, the result of concert or combination. The capitals of 
 all being equal, one man saves because he expects to find 
 others willing to work for him ; other men spend because 
 they expect to find some men ready to employ them ; and 
 if it were not for this readiness to co-operate, to act in 
 concert or combination, the division of the industrious 
 classes into capitalists and labourers could not be maintained. 
 
 A baker and a tailor, who deal with each other, are said 
 to divide their labour: if they did so in reality, each of 
 them would make both the bread and the clothes which he 
 wanted, and there would be no intercourse between them.
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 27 
 
 Co-operating, dealing with, depending on each other, they 
 combine their labour : it is the employments which they 
 divide-; and, what is more, the division of their employ- 
 ments results from the combination of their labour. The 
 two men divide the whole work, which is to be performed 
 by their united labour for their common advantage. The 
 workmen of a pin- factory are said to divide their labour : 
 if they did so in reality, each of them would make all the 
 parts of a pin. As it is, each pin is the produce of many 
 persons' united labour; many persons whose labour is 
 united in order that the work, which it is to perform, may 
 be easily divided among them. In this case, also, division 
 of employments is an effect of combination of labour. In 
 what case is a work divided among many, without combin- 
 ing the labour of those who are to perform the work ? 
 
 But it may be said that this is a question of terms merely ; 
 that though there be a marked difference between the work 
 performed and the labour which performs it, still, as either 
 labour is divided among the several parts of a work, or the 
 several parts of a work are divided among several labourers, 
 it is indifferent whether we say division of work or division 
 of labour. If so, by what terms are we to express that mi- 
 nute division of labour which takes place among the cottiers 
 of Ireland, the small farmers of France, and most free 
 settlers in new colonies : a state of things, under which 
 each labourer works by himself, and for himself only, with 
 no larger capital than his own hands can employ, without 
 exchange, or nearly so, and producing, even in the most 
 favourable case — that of the settler — not much more than 
 enough for his own subsistence. If this be a dispute about 
 terms only, how are we to express that combination of labour 
 on an English farm, or a tobacco plantation in Virginia, 
 which enables the English workmen or American slaves to 
 raise so much more produce than they could possibly con- 
 sume ? The reader who may take the trouble to find an 
 answer to these questions, will, I cannot help thinking, per- 
 ceive, that " division of labour" is an improper term as 
 commonly used ; and, what is of far greater consequence, 
 that the use of this improper term has kept out of sight the 
 first great improvement in the productive powers of labour, 
 namely, combination of power. 
 
 As for building a ship or making a road, so in the manu- 
 facture of pins, it is necessary to employ a large capital. 
 A large capital, applied to one purpose, may be said to be 
 combined. A minute division of capital, such as takes
 
 28 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 place among the small farmers of France, the cottiers of 
 Ireland, and most settlers in new colonies, is as unfavoura- 
 ble to production as the minute division of labour practised 
 in those cases. 
 
 Combination of capital and labour, or combination of 
 productive power, seems to be of two distinct sorts ; first, 
 that general combination which, if there were no restrictions 
 on trade, would render mankind one vast co-operative 
 society ; general combination, on which depends that general 
 distribution of employments, or division of work, under 
 which some men grow tea, some dig for metals, and others 
 build ships, some are farmers, some manufacturers, and 
 others merchants ; secondly, that particular combination, 
 on which depends the use of large masses of capital and 
 labour in particular works, and the most beneficial division 
 of those particular works. 
 
 Turning to the sources of the wealth of England, her 
 agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, it will be seen 
 that all these display in the highest degree the advantages 
 of both sorts of combination of power. 
 
 First, as to agriculture. No part of the population of 
 America is exclusively agricultural, excepting slaves and 
 their employers, who combine capital and labour in particu- 
 lar works. Free Americans, who cultivate the soil, follow 
 many other occupations. Some portion of the furniture 
 and tools which they use is commonly made by themselves. 
 They frequently build their own houses; and carry to 
 market, at whatever distance, the produce of their own 
 industry. They are spinners and weavers ; they make 
 soap and candles, as well as, in many cases, shoes and 
 clothes for their own use. In America, the cultivation of 
 land is often the secondary pursuit of a blacksmith, a miller, 
 or a shopkeeper. In France a similar division of capital 
 and labour takes place among several employments, though 
 not to the same extent. The number of proprietors of land 
 in France is supposed to exceed 5,000,000 ; the number of 
 separate holdings or pieces of land is known to be about 
 10,000,000. But even supposing that, on the average, each 
 proprietor owns two separate pieces of land, still it does 
 not follow that two pieces of land are generally cultivated 
 by one person. On the contrary, while the large properties 
 are generally divided into several distinct farms, it does 
 not very often happen thai two or more of the smaller pro- 
 perties are united under a single farmer. Consequently, 
 after making a liberal deduction for land which is not culti-
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 29 
 
 vated, the number of farmers or cultivators, not being hired 
 labourers, probably exceeds 5,000,000. It is further esti- 
 mated, that the number of agricultural labourers who work 
 for hire amounts, with their wives and children, to about 
 5,000,000. Of these, however, not above two-fifths, 2,000,000, 
 can be men. If the number of farmers be 5,000,000, 
 and of farm-servants 2,000,000, there must be 3,000,000 
 farmers who employ no labourers at all. Suppose each of 
 the remaining 2,000,000 farmers to employ one labourer, 
 the agricultural capital and labour of France would be 
 divided into 5,000,000 parts, of which three-fifths would be 
 the smallest fractions into which capital and labour can be 
 divided, and the remaining two-fifths would consist of frac- 
 tions only twice as large as the smallest. Since, however, 
 some farmers employ more than one labourer, more than 
 3,000,000 farmers cannot employ any labourers ; and it 
 thus appears probable, that three-fourths, at least, of the 
 agricultural capital and labour of France are cut up into 
 the smallest possible fractions, into single pairs of hands, 
 and portions of capital such as one pair of hands can use. 
 Limiting the smallest fractions to three-fourths of the whole, 
 the remaining quarter will consist of 1,250,000 capitalists, 
 having among them 2,000,000 labourers. If 750,000 of 
 these capitalists employ two labourers each, 500,000 em- 
 ploy about one labourer each ; and for each of them, who 
 is supposed to employ more than two labourers, an addition 
 must be made to that number, each of whom employs only 
 one labourer. " II faut habiter un pays," says a modern 
 French writer,* " ou tout le monde est proprietaire, pour 
 se faire une idee juste des inconveniens et du malheur du 
 morcellement infini des biens territoriaux." The mischief 
 lies, however, in the division, not of the land, but of the 
 capital and labour employed on the land. 
 
 One of the evils resulting from the morcellement of agri- 
 cultural capital and labour in France is, that the farmers 
 and farm-labourers of that country, like those of the United 
 States not being slave owners or slaves, do not confine 
 themselves to one pursuit. In England, on the contrary, a 
 farmer is, generally speaking, nothing but a farmer, and an 
 agricultural labourer works nowhere but on the farm. 
 The English farm labourer is a miserable wretch, no doubt, 
 because he obtains but a very small share of the produce 
 
 * M. de Bonald (1826), quoted by Professor M'Culloch in note XIX. 
 {Division of Property by Will) of his edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations.
 
 30 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of his labour ; but this is a question, not of distribution, but 
 of production. In England, the agricultural class seems to 
 have come to an understanding with the other classes, to 
 separate its employment from those of the manufacturer 
 and dealer. Except in some of the wildest and worst cul- 
 tivated districts, the practice, which is so common in France 
 and America, of spinning wool by those who keep flocks, is 
 gone quite out of fashion. Whatever manufactured object 
 or mechanical work is required on an English farm, is pro- 
 cured at some shop in the nearest town, or performed by 
 some mechanic who lives in the town. The mixed pro- 
 duce of American or French agriculture is, for the most 
 part, sold in the nearest market, by those who raise it to 
 those who consume it ; while in England there is between 
 the producers and consumers a distinct class of dealers, 
 subdivided again into particular classes, such as cattle job- 
 bers, dealers in corn, in hops, and in wool. An English 
 farmer seldom deals, even with his own labourers, for any 
 part of the produce of his farm ; he pays for their labour 
 with money, which they lay out, either directly in the 
 nearest town, or through the medium of village shopkeep- 
 ers. Thus the farmer and his men are occupied almost 
 exclusively with the business of the farm. 
 
 English farming is also remarkable for a peculiar refine- 
 ment in the distribution of employments, according to 
 various circumstances of soil and climate. The county of 
 Kent is somewhat more congenial to the growth of hops 
 than the neighbouring county of Sussex ; the Sussex farmer, 
 therefore, abstains from growing hops, even for his own 
 use ; the beer which his family drink is made of hops grown 
 in Kent. There are some districts especially fit for the 
 growth of natural and artificial grasses for fattening cattle; 
 and the firmer of such districts is seldom a cattle-breeder, 
 but purchases lean c;ittle from jobbers, who have purchased 
 them from farmers in districts best suited to the breeding of 
 cattle. Though the inhabitants of Norwich require a great 
 deal of cheese, yet the farmers thereabouts do not attempt 
 to supply that demand. Their land is less suited to dairy- 
 farming than the land in Cheshire, from which county 
 comes great part of the cheese consumed in Norwich; 
 while then; are towns again in Cheshire 'which obtain the 
 greater part of their Hour from distant spots peculiarly 
 suited to the growth of corn. Examples without end might 
 be cited of this division of agricultural employments, which 
 seems to be carried to a much higher pitch in England than
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 31 
 
 in any other country. In France and the United States, 
 though much greater differences of climate occasion a more 
 marked separation of some agricultural employments, — 
 such as the production of sugar in the southern states for 
 the use of the northern states, and of oil in the south for the 
 use of the north of France, — still a French or American 
 cultivator generally seeks to raise whatever can be raised 
 on his own land, which he either wants himself, or for which 
 there is any demand in his own neighbourhood. The 
 division of agricultural employments in England is all the 
 more remarkable, because in England the differences of 
 soil and climate are not very remarkable. 
 
 The advantage which England derives from confining 
 her agriculturists to agricultural pursuits, and, in various 
 parts of the country, to that particular mode of agriculture 
 best suited to each district, becomes manifest in the supe- 
 rior skill of her farmers. The corn-growers of Essex, Suf- 
 folk, and Norfolk, the hop-growers of Kent and Worcester- 
 shire, the sheep-farmers of Sussex and Hampshire, the 
 dairy-farmers of Gloucestershire and Cheshire, the cattle- 
 breeders and cider-growers of Devonshire and Hereford- 
 shire, the breeders of horses in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire ; 
 all these, and many more which it would be tedious 
 to mention, apply to their several pursuits a wonderful 
 degree of knowledge, forethought, and calculation. It is 
 rather a science than an art which each of them pursues ; 
 storing up the facts which come to his knowledge, and 
 from a knowledge of those facts adopting, as a system, that 
 mode of proceeding from which he expects the most bene- 
 ficial results. Thinking of the pains which an English 
 farmer takes in draining and manuring his fields, in the dis- 
 position of his land for various crops, in the selection of 
 seeds, in the use of the best instruments, in keeping up or 
 improving his fruit trees, in the management of his working 
 cattle, in maintaining a peculiar and perfect race of cattle 
 or sheep, and in subdividing the work performed by his 
 united labourers, one might venture to call him a philoso- 
 pher ; though the term would excite ridicule in England, 
 where science is almost as much despised in the abstract 
 as in practice it is industriously cultivated. 
 
 But the superior knowledge of English farmers would be 
 of little avail — it could not have been acquired indeed — if 
 their capital and labour had been cut up into small frac- 
 tional parts, as happens generally in France and America. 
 In agriculture each farm is a particular work.
 
 3'2 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The most striking characteristic of English farming is 
 the combination of capital and labour in particular works. 
 Even in England, those districts in which the farms are 
 largest, and in which each farmer employs the largest capi- 
 tal and the greatest number of labourers, are known to 
 produce more, in proportion to the hands employed, than 
 those less civilized districts in which the three elements of 
 production, land, capital, and labour, are divided into smaller 
 portions. But agricultural capital and labour are more 
 combined in those parts of England, where the lowest 
 degree of combination occurs, than in those parts of France 
 or America (slave plantations excepted) which are distin- 
 guished for the highest degree of combination. In order to 
 observe in the United Kingdom the bad effects of that division 
 of capital and labour which takes place in France or Amer- 
 ica, one must travel to Ireland, where, in some districts, the 
 separate fractions of capital and labour are almost as nu- 
 merous as the cultivators. Well-informed Frenchmen are 
 satisfied that the division of capital and labour in their 
 country will, if it be carried much further, reduce the agri- 
 culture of France to a cottier system, like that of some 
 parts of Ireland, under which the produce of industry is 
 scarcely more than sufficient to ieed those who work. In 
 America, truly, the smallest fraction of capital and labour 
 obtains a considerable produce ; but then it should be re- 
 membered that in America the chief element of production, 
 the land, is not divided into small pieces as in France and 
 Ireland. Hereafter I shall have occasion to notice the 
 causes and effects of the division of capital and labour in 
 America. Recurring to the agricultui-e of England, the 
 large farms of that country exemplify the proverb — union 
 is force. The most scientific of English farmers, if he were 
 to apply his knowledge to the cultivation of a single field, 
 would not raise a much greater produce than the most 
 ignorant of Irish cottiers. The great extent of his farm 
 allows full scope for the exercise of his superior knowledge. 
 That of which he lias a superior knowledge, is the art of 
 cultivation on a targe scale : and for the practice of this 
 art, capital and labour in proportion to land are indispen- 
 sable. Holding a largo farm, and employing capital and 
 labour in proportion, he is able to wait lor distant returns, 
 
 to pursue the best course of crops, to adopt improvements 
 which at first bear the character of experiments, to employ 
 many hands in one field, at one time, in one work, and when 
 it is required] for a considerable period of time without
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 38 
 
 intermission ; finally is able to make that distribution of 
 employments among his labourers, which, after combination 
 of labour in single works, is the greatest improvement in 
 the productive powers of industry. The results are obvious. 
 By means of drainage and manure, an immense extent of 
 land in England which was once sterile, now possesses the 
 highest degree of fertility ; and in every part of the country 
 the fertility of land is carefully preserved. In France, on 
 the contrary, the practice of exhausting the natural fertility 
 of land is general, while in America it may be described 
 as almost universal.* But the grand result of the superi- 
 ority of English agriculture is, that while in France about 
 two-thirds, and in America probably three-quarters, of the 
 people are employed in agriculture, more than two-thirds, 
 it is believed, of the people of England, are fed by the agri- 
 cultural industry of less than one-third. The greatness 
 of England, notwithstanding laws which forbid her manu- 
 facturers to exchange the produce of their industry for the 
 surplus food of other countries, is incomprehensible to a for- 
 eigner until he observes the excellence of her agriculture. 
 That excellence consists in raising from a given extent of 
 land, without impoverishing the land, and with a given 
 number of hands, a far greater produce than results from 
 the labour of the same number of hands, on the same extent 
 of soil, in any other part of the w r orld.f 
 
 Less than one-third of the people being engaged in agri- 
 culture, more than two-thirds are set free, as it were, to 
 follow other pursuits. Of these a considerable proportion 
 are engaged in manufactures. The vastness of the pro- 
 duce of English manufacturing industry, in proportion 
 to the number of hands employed, may be roughly esti- 
 mated by three separate considerations : first, the power 
 of tens of millions of men is obtained from steam, which 
 produces without consuming ; secondly, notwithstanding a 
 load of English restrictions on trade, the English are, by 
 
 * The causes of the exhaustion of land in the United States are ex- 
 plained in the note on the Origin, Progress, and Prospects of Slavery in 
 America. 
 
 t " No one will presume to say that the agriculture of France is nearly 
 as well improved as that of Britain — that it is not indeed a hundred years 
 behind ours, and yet while there are more than two-thirds of the people of 
 France employed in this inferior cultivation, less than one-third of our 
 people suffice to carry on the infinitely superior system of cultivation adopted 
 in this country. It is in this single circumstance that the great superiority 
 of our domestic economy over that of the French chiefly consists." — Pro- 
 fessor M , Culloch"s Edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations — Note XIX. vol. iv. 
 page 475. 
 
 5
 
 34 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 means of their manufactures, the greatest commercial 
 people in the world ; thirdly, notwithstanding heavy taxa- 
 tion and the high price of food in England, objects of Eng- 
 lish manufacture are so cheap as to drive out of any market, 
 where fair competition is allowed, similar objects made any 
 where but in England. 
 
 As in agriculture, so in manufactures, every improve- 
 ment in the productive powers of industry may be traced 
 to general and particular combination of power, leading to 
 genera] and particular division of employment. 
 
 The same complete division of employments, which 
 makes the English farmer nothing but a farmer, makes all 
 the English people who are engaged in manufactures nothing 
 but manufacturers. Further, while in France and America 
 the capital of one man is frequently divided among several 
 different manufactures, the attention of the English manu- 
 facturing capitalist is confined almost exclusively to a 
 single object. Thus the English manufacturer is, as such, 
 a man of single purpose, " a man with one idea." Hence 
 that earnest, unremitting and successful pursuit of im- 
 provement, which is conspicuous in every branch of English 
 manufacture. 
 
 Another peculiarity in English manufactures seems 
 worthy of remark ; I allude to the congregation in one 
 place of vast numbers who are engaged in the same branch 
 of manufacture. In some cases, no doubt, the main scat 
 of a particular fabric is determined by natural circum- 
 stances, such as abundance of coal or iron, or falling water : 
 in other cases it appears to have been settled by accident. 
 In every case, however, that congregation of numbers en- 
 gaged in the same pursuit, by promoting the interchange 
 of many persons' thoughts on one all-engrossing subject, by 
 exciting the inventive powers, by preventing a fortunate 
 discoverer from monopolizing the us*' of his invention, and 
 above all, by stimulating competition, must have had a large 
 share in the progress of improvement. 
 
 The great effects of particular combination are still more 
 plain. For the success of some fabrics, a high and constant 
 temperature is required. This could no! be obtained by 
 any one of a number of small manufacturers: it is easily 
 obtained by him who employs a large capital, and collects 
 a greal many people under one roof. There is scarcely 
 any- fabric ot >• Iik-Ii the produce in proportion to the hands 
 employed, is nol greatly augmented by the use of Bteam 
 power; bul it is of the essence of steam power to 
 effect to the labour of united numbers. The general use
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 35 
 
 of steam power in England depends, therefore, on the com- 
 bination of capital and labour in particular works. The 
 distribution among many hands of the several parts of a 
 particular work is greatly facilitated by the congregation of 
 many hands under one roof. In England, accordingly, all 
 the most nourishing manufactures are carried on in large 
 factories, with large capitals, and by a great number of 
 hands, brought together for the purpose of distributing 
 among them the several parts of each work. Those manu- 
 factures which are conducted by small fractions of capital 
 and labour, such as the silk works of Spitalfields and the 
 lace works of Buckinghamshire, are rapidly perishing : that 
 is, they are in the course of being superseded by the use 
 of large factories ; those which have been mentioned, by 
 the large silk factories of Macclesfield and Manchester, and 
 by the large lace factories of Nottingham and Tiverton. 
 Universally, indeed, throughout all the branches of English 
 manufactures, as in all of them there is an obvious tendency 
 to improvement, so in all of them one observes a tendency 
 to increased combination of capital and labour in particular 
 works. 
 
 The commerce of England, both domestic and foreign, 
 exhibits, like her agriculture and manufactures, a high 
 degree of combination of power, both general and particu- 
 lar. The whole commercial work performed by the people 
 of England is so admirably distributed that one might 
 imagine it to be under the control of a single will ; while 
 no particular operation languishes for want of sufficient 
 force to carry it on. In vain might the state of New- York 
 have projected the Erie canal, if a supply of labour for 
 completing it had not been obtained from Ireland: that 
 great work was performed by Irishmen, and could not 
 have been performed with American free labour, which, 
 for reasons to be stated hereafter, can seldom be used in 
 combination.* The peculiar skill with which the English 
 
 * " The truth is," says Captain Basil Hall in a letter to Mr. Wilmot 
 Horton, published by the latter, " that there is no hired labouring class, 
 properly so called, in any part of America, excepting where the ground, is 
 tilled by negro slaves : I mean that there is no class of men who support 
 themselves permanently, by wages derived from labouring in the service of 
 others. There is, in fact, no labour to be had for hire, of such a sort, at 
 least, as to produce permanently a return greater than the wages which such 
 hired labourer requires. I speak now of agricultural labour; and I may 
 say that it is almost an axiom in those countries, that there is no productive 
 labour in the fields of a new country, except that ichich results from the sweat 
 of the proprietor's vicn brow. Canals and other casual public works, and 
 other menial service of the cities, and even the smaller towns, must, of course,
 
 36 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 apply capital and labour to the business of exchange, might 
 be proved by a thousand facts : four of the most remarkable 
 will suffice for this general notice. First, while in France 
 or America, the prices of the same commodity are often 
 very different at different but not very distant places, all 
 over England prices are nearly always on a level : secondly, 
 it is estimated that the rail-road between Manchester and 
 Liverpool saves 600,000/. a year on the cost of carriage 
 for goods and passengers between those two towns only : 
 thirdly, the best informed persons concur in supposing, that 
 twenty-nine thirtieths, at least, of the currency of the 
 northern manufacturing districts consist of bills of exchange, 
 which, though they circulate with much greater ease than 
 silver or gold, cost next to nothing : fourthly, the foreign 
 and domestic bills of exchange payable by bankers in Lon- 
 don, which often amount to some millions in one day, in- 
 stead of being presented for payment each bill to the house 
 on which it is drawn, are all carried to the same spot, 
 where a general exchange of bills takes place among the 
 several houses ; and in this way, one clerk from each house 
 performs in an hour or two, and without any money, a 
 work which, if each bill had been presented to the house on 
 which it was drawn, would have required the labour of 
 several clerks, from all the houses, during many hours, and 
 the use of some millions of money. 
 
 This brief notice of the sources of England's wealth shows 
 why that wealth is so great in proportion to the number of 
 people who enjoy it ; and the more the subject shall be ex- 
 amined, the more plainly, I feel assured, will it appear, that, 
 in all countries, the produce of industry must be in proportion 
 to the degree in which capital and labour are combined 
 and employments are divided. But it may be said that 
 this is an idle speculation, leading to no conclusions of prac- 
 tical utility ; that, whether or not the great wealth of Eng- 
 land be owing to combination of power, the English will 
 continue to pursue that course which tiny find so product- 
 ive ; and that other nations will not follow their example 
 one day sooner in consequence of perceiving the causes of 
 their wealth. To meet such observations, 1 offer the fol- 
 lowing conclusions, derived from the principle that, as re- 
 spects the produce of industry, union is force. 
 
 bo done by hireling!; l>ut I musl again and again remark, that it is the 
 character itic fi iture <>f ;ill kinds of labour in those countries to be for the 
 time only." 
 
 t' The workmen employed (in making a road in New-York ytate) nr« 
 chiefly Irish." — Stuart, vol. ii., page W.
 
 THE WEALTH OF EXGLAXD. 37 
 
 1. I have said that combination of power appears to be 
 of two distinct kinds, general and particular, leading to two 
 distinct kinds of division of employments. But this dis- 
 tinction has been drawn merely for the purpose of ex- 
 plaining a principle not hitherto noticed. Considering the 
 operation of industry throughout the world as one great 
 work, it will be seen that all the parts of the work, from so 
 great a part as the growth of tea in China, to so small a 
 one as the making of a pin's head in England, are product- 
 ive in proportion to the degree in which men help each 
 other. Here then we perceive exactly, how war between 
 nations, and restrictions on trade, interfere with the pro- 
 ductions of wealth ; how friendly intercourse among differ- 
 ent nations, by promoting concert or combination, on which 
 depends division of employments, adds to the general 
 powers of industry ; how facilities of communication 
 among different countries, and in each country, promote 
 the increase of wealth ; how a new road or canal enables 
 more people to live in comfort; and how millions owe all 
 their enjoyments, nay, their very existence, to the institu- 
 tion of the post for letters. 
 
 2. From considering the increase of productive power 
 derived from combination, one perceives how various ten- 
 ures of land in different countries, and in the same country, 
 influence the production of wealth. Three examples will 
 suffice. The poverty of French agriculture, — the large 
 proportion of the people of France who are engaged in 
 agriculture, leaving but a small proportion for other pur- 
 suits, — is owing to the law of division, which at a French- 
 man's death cuts up his estate into portions as numerous 
 as his children. In Ireland, again, it is the minute subdi- 
 vision of land, which causes a minute subdivision of capital 
 and labour, and renders the produce of agricultural industry, 
 in proportion to the hands employed, so much less than 
 that of the same kind of industry in England. Lastly, a 
 history of colonization would show, that all new colonies, 
 having a vast territory at their disposal, have prospered or 
 languished according as the governments by which they 
 were founded took care, or neglected, to dispose of the land 
 to be colonized with a view to combination of power 
 among the colonists. In the case of the last colony founded 
 by England, the greatest pains were taken to disperse the 
 colonists, to cut up their capital and labour into the small- 
 est fractional parts, whence a miserable failure with all the
 
 38 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 elements of success : but on this subject I have to dwell at 
 length in another place.* 
 
 3. By ascertaining how much the productiveness of Eng- 
 lish industry depends on the most artificial combination 
 of labour and division of employments; by perceiving the 
 extreme complication of the machine which produces the 
 wealth of England, and the close dependence of all its parts 
 upon each other, the English may learn the peculiar evils 
 which any serious political convulsion would inflict on 
 them. 
 
 After exhausting the language of admiration in a de- 
 scription of the actual wealth of England, one might suppose 
 that in this respect the English could make no further pro- 
 gress. This would be a mistake. It would be hard to 
 name a single instance of the wealth of England, which 
 does not exhibit, at this present time, a tendency to im- 
 provement. Though of late years the roads of England 
 have been reckoned the best in the world, yet on every 
 great road, and many cross-roads, some striking improve- 
 ment is now taking place. Though the carriage and foot 
 pavements of English towns have long been celebrated as 
 perfect, yet these are, as well in country towns as in Lon- 
 don, in the course of being greatly improved. The number 
 of good houses in London, and of people who can afford to 
 keep a carriage, astonishes a foreigner ; yet in every di- 
 rection new houses of this class are in the course of being 
 built ; and no soooner arc a hundred of them finished, than 
 they are all occupied, and each of them has a carriage at 
 the door. In ninety-nine out of a hundred old streets, all 
 over England, you will find new houses greatly superior to 
 those by their side. The difference in point of utility and 
 appearance between old houses which are pulled down in 
 London and those which take their place, is, universally, 
 almost as great as the difference between the old and new 
 London bridges; a difference which is striking to the Eng- 
 lish themselves, and is grateful even to such of them as, 
 hating innovation, love to talk of the wisdom of their an- 
 cestors. But a catalogue of those objects, which exhibit 
 the actual progress of improvement in England, would 
 comprise nearly all that is necessary, useful, or agreeable 
 to Englishmen : it would include everj useful or orna- 
 mental art, from the great arts of printing, architecture, en- 
 gineering, painting, and sculpture, down to the lowest 
 
 • Note XII.
 
 THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND. 39 
 
 occupation of human industry ; besides the whole list of 
 sciences, from the most important, such as chymistry, 
 medicine, and government, down to the meanest depart- 
 ment of human knowledge. In England, improvement is 
 everywhere. In England, advancement from good to 
 better is a universal principle. Where all this will end, 
 who will venture to predict? Sober imaginations are con- 
 founded by observing the very rapid progress which 
 wealthy and civilized England is at this time making in 
 wealth and civilization. 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Who are the bulk of the people — Misery of the bulk of the people a favour- 
 ite topic in England — Proofs of misery — What is a pauper — Factory chil- 
 dren — Irish wages — Increase of gin-shops — Cheapness of English chil- 
 dren — Murder of Parish apprentices — Other trades in pauper children — 
 Climbing boys — Prostitutes — Cheapness of women — Degradation of the 
 common people — The common people are too cheap to be happy. 
 
 Among our wise ancestors the bulk of the people was 
 slaves, as is still the case in Russia and the southern states 
 of North America. In modern states, which deserve to 
 be called civilized, a part of the people consists of the 
 labouring class ; that is, a class, whose only property is 
 their labour, and who live by the sale of that property to 
 the other classes. The proportion which the labouring 
 class bears to the other classes, is very different in several 
 of the most civilized modern states. In the northern states 
 of the American Union, it may be doubted whether so many 
 as a tenth of the people would fall under the description of 
 hired labourers.* In France, the morcelkment of land has 
 converted a very large portion of the people into the class 
 of proprietors of land. Deducting from the remainder 
 
 * " Although it is not a general practice for gentlemen in Mr. Verplanck's 
 situation in this part of the United States, in which I mean to comprehend 
 the populous parts of New-York, Pennsylvania, and New England, to 
 be thus actively employed in agricultural operations, I mean actually to 
 work with their farm-servants, nothing is more common in the United States, 
 taken as a whole, than for proprietors to work in the field at the same occu- 
 pation as their servants." — Stuart, vol. i., page 460.
 
 40 THE WEALTH OP ENGLAND. 
 
 the class of capitalists, those who live on government an- 
 nuities, soldiers, and indeed all who do not labour for wages, 
 the labouring class, properly so called, will not be esti- 
 mated at more than a third of the whole population. In 
 Ireland, the cottier system takes a great majority of the 
 people out of the class of hired labourers, and turns them 
 into something between capitalists and workmen. In Spain 
 and Portugal, if these may be called civilized nations, the 
 class of people who sell their labour, who live by wages, 
 seems to be very small indeed. In some of the Italian 
 states, hired labourers bear a small proportion to the other 
 classes. On the continent of Europe, the proportion of 
 hired labourers appears to be greatest in Holland. But in 
 England, where the system of large farms is established, 
 where a great part of the population is engaged in manu- 
 factures, and where, in every department of industry, a 
 complete separation has taken place between capitalists 
 and workmen, the labouring class compose the bulk of the 
 people, the great body of the people, the vast majority of 
 the people, — these are the terms by which English writers 
 and speakers usually describe those whose only property 
 is their labour. 
 
 If there be one subject in particular upon which English- 
 men love to dwell, it is the misery and degradation of the 
 bulk of the people. Every year that melancholy subject 
 forms the matter of numerous petitions to the legislature, of 
 many speeches in parliament, of discussion at public meet- 
 ings in all parts of the country, of some large volumes, of 
 innumerable pamphlets, and of frequent, one might say 
 constant, remarks in nearly all newspapers, and in all po- 
 litical magazines. There are some cheap newspapers, 
 writen expressly for the labouring class, which treat of 
 scarce any thing else ; and the political sect called Ovven- 
 ites talk of nothing else. But the writers of these cheap 
 newspapers, and these sectaries, differ from writers and 
 speakers of the conservative or lory party only as to the 
 way of curing the misery of the bulk of the people. The 
 Standard newspaper, Blacks ood's .Magazine, and the Quar- 
 terly Review, all high tory journals, dwell on the preva- 
 lence of misery with as much zeal as the Poor Man's Guar- 
 dian, and other radical publications. Mr. Owen, Mr. Car- 
 , and Mr. Cobbetl do not appear more anxious than 
 
 .Mr. Sadler and Dr. Southey to remove the misery of the 
 working classes. Mr. Sadler, who, by-the- way, has written 
 a large book on the causes and remedies of pauperism,
 
 MISERY OP THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 41 
 
 lately declared in the House of Commons that the working 
 classes in England are white slaves. It was a tory bishop 
 who first called the attention of the House of Lords to the 
 fact, that Englishmen are harnessed to carts like cattle. 
 Mr. Wilmot Horton, after Mr. Sadler the most industrious 
 writer and speaker on the subject of pauperism, who lately 
 delivered a course of lectures on that subject at the London 
 Mechanics' Institution, was a member of parliament, a privy 
 counsellor, and a tory. Concerning the misery and degra- 
 dation of the bulk of the people of England, men of every 
 order, as well as every party, unite and speak continually ; 
 farmers, parish officers, clergymen, magistrates, judges on 
 the bench, members on either side of both houses of parlia- 
 ment, the king in his addresses to the nation, moralists, 
 statesmen, philosophers ; and, finally, the poor creatures 
 themselves, whose complaints are loud and incessant. 
 
 "Of comprehensive words, the two most frequently used 
 in English politics are distress and pauperism. After these, 
 of expressions applied to the state of the poor, the most 
 common are vice and misery, wretchedness, sufferings, 
 ignorance, degradation, discontent, depravity, drunkenness, 
 and the increase of crime ; with many more of a like na- 
 ture. The measures which have been gravely proposed 
 as remedies for the misery of the English working classes 
 amount to at least nineteen ; namely, a fall of rent ; the 
 conversion of tythes to the use of the poor ; more pro- 
 tection for home manufactures ; the repeal of the corn 
 laws; abolition of the poor laws ; correction of the poor 
 laws ; poor laws for Ireland ; spade husbandry : home 
 colonization ; gardens and cows for the poor ; abolition of 
 the national debt ; other modes of lessening taxation ; a 
 more liberal expenditure by the government ; more paper 
 money ; emigration ; universal suffrage ; moral restraint, 
 or promiscuous intercourse ; and property in common, or 
 rather no property at all. Each of these specifics is 
 earnestly recommended by its partisans, and as vehe- 
 mently opposed by the partisans of nearly all the others ; 
 but on two points nearly all parties agree. They concur 
 in describing as excessive the evil which it is their object 
 to cure, and in expressing their solemn belief that, unless a 
 remedy be found for it, some dreadful convulsion must en- 
 sue. Upon the latter of these points I shall have to remark 
 in another place ; the former is the proper subject of this 
 note. 
 
 There are proofs without end of the misery of the bulk 
 
 6
 
 42 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of the English people. The late insurrection of the pea- 
 santry of the south of England, and the modern practice 
 of burning farm-produce, are universally attributed to the 
 misery and discontent of those unfortunate beings. If the 
 English had been a martial people, those forlorn men, once 
 roused as they were, would either have destroyed the 
 classes whom they consider their oppressors, or have per- 
 ished in a servile war. White slaves they have been 
 properly called. It was some of this class whom a bishop 
 described as being harnessed to carts like cattle. In 
 America, too, they harness men to carts ; but then they 
 treat them as valuable cattle ; give them plenty to eat ; 
 shelter them from the weather ; keep them in good heart ; 
 and bring up their little ones in clover. English slaves are 
 harnessed to carts, and ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and 
 variously ill-treated into the bargain. American slaves 
 live longer than their masters, while English slaves die 
 prematurely of hunger, wet, cold, and sorrow. In America 
 the increase of slaves, in one way only, that is, by births, 
 is more rapid than the increase of free people in three 
 ways — by births, by the emancipation of slaves, and by 
 immigration : and the proportion of slaves being a hundred 
 years old is 1 in 1400, while the same proportion of whites 
 is 1 in about 14,000 ; showing a difference of ten to one in 
 favour of the longevity of slaves. The peasant of the south 
 of England suffers nearly all the evils, but enjoys none of 
 the advantages, of slavery. He is not a freeman, nor is he 
 a slave ; he is a pauper. What a pauper is, Americans 
 may learn from the following description of the " bold pea- 
 santry of England," which I extract from one of the count- 
 less pamphlets on pauperism lately written by Englishmen. 
 " What is that defective being, with calHess legs and 
 stooping shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusil- 
 lanimous, and stupid, whose premature wrinkles and furtive 
 glance tell of misery and degradation I That is an English 
 peasant or pauper ; for the words are synonymous. His 
 sin- was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourish- 
 ment. From infancy his food has been bad, as well as 
 insufficient; and he now feels the pains of unsatisfied hun- 
 g» r nearly whenever he is awake. But half-clothed, and 
 never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his 
 Kanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him, 
 with the weather. He is married, of course; lor to this 
 he would have been driven by the poor laws, even if he 
 had been, as ho never was, sufficiently comfortable and
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 43 
 
 prudent to dread the burden of a family. But, though 
 instinct and the overseer have given him a wife, he has 
 not tasted the highest joys of husband and father. His 
 partner and his little ones being like himself often hungry, 
 seldom warm, sometimes sick without aid, and always sor- 
 rowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing ; so, 
 to use his own expression, he 'hates the sight of them,' 
 and resorts to his hovel only because a hedge affords 
 less shelter from the wind and rain. Compelled by parish 
 law to support his family, which means to join them in con- 
 suming an allowance from the parish, he frequently con- 
 spires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or pre- 
 vent its being diminished. This brings begging, trickery, 
 and quarrelling; and ends in settled craft. Though he have 
 the inclination, he wants the courage to become, like more 
 energetic men of his class, a poacher or smuggler on a 
 large scale ; but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his 
 children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner 
 towards his great neighbours shows that they treat him with 
 suspicion and harshness. Consequently he at once dreads 
 and hates them ; but he will never harm them by violent 
 means. Too degraded to be desperate, he is only thor- 
 oughly depraved. His miserable career will be short : 
 rheumatism and asthma are conducting him to the work- 
 house, where he will breathe his last without one pleasant 
 recollection, and so make room for another wretch, who 
 may live and die in the same way. This is a sample of one 
 class of English peasants. Another class is composed of 
 men, who, though paupers to the extent of being in part 
 supported by the parish, were not bred and born in extreme 
 destitution, and who, therefore, in so far as the moral de- 
 pends on the physical man, are qualified to become wise, 
 virtuous, and happy. They have large muscles, an up- 
 right mien, and a quick perception. With strength, energy, 
 and skill, they would earn a comfortable subsistence as la- 
 bourers, if the modern fashion of paying wages out of the 
 poor-box did not interfere with the due course of things, 
 and reduce all the labourers of a parish, the old and the 
 young, the weak and the strong, the idle and the industri- 
 ous, to that lowest rate of wages, or rather of weekly pay- 
 ment to each, which in each case is barely sufficient for the 
 support of life. If there were no poor laws, or if the poor 
 laws were such that labour was paid in proportion to the 
 work performed, and not according to a scale founded on 
 the power of gastric juice under various circumstances,
 
 44 MISERY OF THE BILK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 these superior men would be employed in preference to the 
 inferior beings described above, would earn twice as much 
 as the others could earn, and would have every motive for 
 industry > providence, and general good conduct. As it is, 
 their superior capacity as labourers is of no advantage to 
 them. They have no motive for being industrious or pru- 
 dent. What they obtain between labour and the rate is 
 but just enough to support them miserably. They are 
 tempted to marry for the sake of an extra allowance from 
 the parish : and they would be sunk to the lowest point of 
 degradation but for the energy of their minds, which they 
 owe to their physical strength. Courage and tenderness 
 are said to be allied : men of this class usually make good 
 husbands and affectionate parents. Impelled by want of 
 food, clothes, and warmth, for themselves and their families, 
 they become poachers wherever game abounds, and smug- 
 glers when opportunity serves. By poaching or smuggling, 
 or both, many of them are enabled to fill the bellies of their 
 children, to put decent clothes on the backs of their wives, 
 and to keep the cottage whole, with a good fire in it, from 
 year's end to year's end. The villains ! why are they not 
 taken up ? They are taken up sometimes, and are hunted 
 always, by those who administer rural law. In this way 
 they learn to consider two sets of laws — those for the pro- 
 tection of game, and those for the protection of home manu- 
 factures — as specially made for their injury. Be just to 
 our unpaid magistrates ! who perform their duty even to 
 the shedding of man's blood, in defence of pheasants and 
 restrictions on trade. Thus the bolder sort of husbandry 
 labourers, by engaging in murderous conflicts with game- 
 keepers and preventive men, become accustomed to "deeds 
 of violence, and, by living in jails, qualified for the most 
 desperate courses. They also imbibe feelings of dislike, or 
 rather, of bitter hatred, towards the rural magistracy, whom 
 they regard as oppressors and natural enemies; closely re» 
 lembling, in this respect, the defective class of peasants 
 from whom the) differ in so many particulars. Between 
 these two descriptions of peasantry then' is another, which 
 partakes of the characteristics of both classes, but in a 
 Blighter degree, except as regards their feaj and hatred of 
 die rural aristocracy, (n the districts where paupers and 
 garm; abound, it would be difficult to find many labourers 
 net coming under one of tin -so descriptions. I>v courtesy, 
 the entire body is culled the bold peasantry of England, 
 But is nothing done by the " nobility, clergy, and gentry,"
 
 MISERY OF THE BL'LK OF THE PEOPLE. 45 
 
 to conciliate the affection of the pauper mass, by whose 
 toil all their own wealth is produced ? Charity ! The 
 charity of the poor laws, which paupers have been taught 
 to consider a right, which operates as a curse to the able- 
 bodied and well-disposed, while it but just enables the infirm 
 of all ages to linger on in pain and sorrow. Soup ! Dogs'- 
 meat, the paupers call it. They are very ungrateful ; but 
 there is a way of relieving a man's necessities which will 
 make him hate you ; and it is in this way, generally, that 
 soup is given to the poor. Books, good little books, which 
 teach patience and submission to the powers that be ! With 
 which such paupers as obtain them usually boil their ket- 
 tles, when not deterred by fear of the reverend donor. Of 
 this gift the design is so plain and offensive, that its effect is 
 contrary to what was intended, just as children from whom 
 obedience is very strictly exacted are commonly rebels at 
 heart. What else 1 is nothing else done by the rural rich 
 to win the love of the rural poor? Speaking, generally, 
 since all rules have exceptions, the privileged classes of our 
 rural districts take infinite pains to be abhorred by their 
 poorest neighbours. They enclose commons. They stop 
 footpaths. They wall in their parks. They set spring- 
 guns and man-traps. They spend on the keep of high-bred 
 dogs what would support half as many children, and yet 
 persecute a labouring man for owning one friend in his cur. 
 They make rates of wages, elaborately calculating the mini- 
 mum of food that will keep together the soul and body of a 
 clodhopper. They breed game in profusion for their own 
 amusement, and having thus tempted the poor man to 
 knock down a hare for his pot, they send him to the tread- 
 mill, or the antipodes, for that inexpiable offence. They 
 build jails, and fill them. They make new crimes and new 
 punishments for the poor. They interfere with the mar- 
 riages of the poor, compelling some, and forbidding others 
 to come together. They shut up paupers in workhouses, 
 separating husband and wife, in pounds by day and wards 
 by night. They harness poor men to carts. They super- 
 intend alehouses, decry skittles, deprecate beer-shops, med- 
 dle with fairs, and otherwise curtail the already narrow 
 amusements of the poor. Even in church, where some 
 of them solemnly preach that all are equal, they sit on 
 cushions, in pews boarded, matted, and sheltered by cur- 
 tains from the wind and the vulgar gaze, while the lower 
 order must put up with a bare bench on a stone floor, which 
 is good enough for them. Everywhere they are ostentar
 
 46 MISERY OF THE BULK OF TUE PEOPLE. 
 
 tious in the display of wealth and enjoyment ; while, in 
 their intercourse with the poor, they are suspicious, quick 
 at taking offence, vindictive when displeased, haughty, over- 
 bearing, tyrannical, and wolfish ; as it seems in the nature 
 of man to be towards such of his fellows as, like sheep, 
 are without the power to resist." 
 
 In the parishes of the north of England the system of 
 pauperism has not been so generally established. This dif- 
 ference is commonly attributed to the prevalence of manu- 
 factures in the north. JJut then, the misery of the labour- 
 ing class employed in manufactures, though different in 
 some respects from the misery that attends the pauper 
 system, is equal to it in degree, if not more obvious and 
 deplorable. Last year a mass of evidence was laid before 
 parliament, touching the condition of children employed in 
 factories, which describes a system of torture, compared 
 with which the treatment of American slaves appears truly 
 benevolent. When this evidence was published, the whole 
 press of England repeated, day after day, that the worst 
 kind of slavery exists in England. Children of tender 
 years, it was shown, babies they would be called in Amer- 
 ica, are shut up in factories during 12, 14 and 16 hours 
 every week-day, and there compelled to work incessantly, 
 or as hard, at least, as their slight frames will permit, and 
 for wages which but just satisfy their ruined appetites. 
 The pale cheeks, parched lips, swoln stomachs, deformed 
 limbs, and melancholy looks of these little wretches will be 
 easily imagined. They die off with strange rapidity; but 
 the places of those who perish are instantly filled, and a 
 frequent change of persons makes no alteration in the 
 scene. 
 
 To remedy this evil a law is proposed, to fix within some 
 limit dictated by common humanity the number of hours 
 during which children shall be employed in factories. But 
 let us suppose that a law should be passed, of which the 
 humanity would not appear extravagant, to forbid altogether 
 the employment of young children in factories. The con- 
 sequence of such a law must be, thai the parents of chil- 
 dren who had been employed in factories would no longer 
 be able to support those children. No parent, no mother, 
 who has the means of supporting a child ;>t home, semis it 
 to be worked to death in a factory : unless we are to sup- 
 pose, what has, indeed, been asserted by some, that the 
 working class in the manufacturing districts are so deeply 
 degraded as to sell their children's labour, or lives, delibe-
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 47 
 
 rately for the sake of gin. Not believing this assertion, 
 though it may be true in a few cases, it appears to me that 
 the only choice of the parents lies between two evils ; on 
 the one hand the factory, with its probable result, death by 
 disease, of which the progress is hardly perceptible ; on the 
 other, immediate, palpable starvation at home. Such a law 
 as I have supposed would deprive the parents of this choice, 
 would compel them to suffer that evil which, since they seek 
 to avoid it, they appear to consider the greater of the two. 
 I make this remark, not to disparage the humanity of those 
 who would pass laws for the mitigation of English slavery, 
 but for the purpose of explaining, that the misery of these 
 factory children results from the misery of their parents : 
 they are all miserable, fathers, mothers, and children. 
 
 Though the remote causes of their misery form the sub- 
 ject of endless controversy, its immediate cause seems as 
 plain as that two and two make four. Their only property 
 is their labour. They take this property to market. They 
 find the market overstocked with labour : there are more 
 sellers than buyers. The sellers, in order to live, undersell 
 each other, till they reduce the market-price of their pro-, 
 perty to what political economists call the minimum of 
 wages, — to that sum, namely, which will barely supply the 
 labourer with necessaries according to his estimate of what 
 is necessary. In every condition of life an Englishman's 
 estimate of what is necessary rises above that which is 
 formed by people of the same rank in most other countries. 
 To a European labourer, clothes are necessary : to a Hin- 
 doo labourer they are not. The necessary clothes of an 
 English labourer are better than those of a French labourer. 
 An English workman considers bread necessary ; an Jrish 
 workman is content with potatoes. If, therefore, the Eng- 
 lish markets of labour were confined to Englishmen, and 
 if, above all, pains were taken to raise still higher the Eng- 
 lish labourer's estimate of what is necessary, the minimum 
 of wages in England would probably become sufficient to 
 support all labourers in a state of decency and comfort. 
 But the English markets of labour, and especially those of 
 manufacturing labour, are not confined to Englishmen : they 
 are full of Irish labourers, who fly from Ireland to escape 
 death by famine. These, whose estimate of necessary 
 wages is a hovel, rags, and potatoes, by underselling the 
 English workman, by consenting to work for the lowest 
 wages that will support life, compel the English labourer to 
 adopt the same course.and thus reduce the general minimum
 
 48 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of wages to a wretched pittance. The Irish workman is 
 content with his wretchedness ; the English workman is 
 not. Here lies the only difference between them. The 
 discontent of the English, if properly encouraged, might 
 soon lead to a higher minimum of wages, were it not for 
 the competition of the Irish. It is the competition of Irish 
 labour which ruins the manufacturing population of Eng- 
 land. In some difficult manufactures, truly, where the 
 labour of the barbarous and easily satisfied Irishman would 
 not be worth having at any price, we find a rate of wages, 
 high when compared with that which always attends Irish 
 competition. But improvements in the use of steam power, 
 rendering the work performed by man's labour more simple 
 and easy, have lately diminished, and wall still further 
 diminish, the number of those difficult manufactures, which 
 already must be considered as exceptions to the general 
 rule. In English manufactures, the general rule is Irish 
 wages. 
 
 English work and Irish wages ! " Peter Moreau," says 
 P. L. Courier in his Village Gazette — " Peter Moreau and 
 his wife are dead, aged twenty-live years. Too much work 
 has killed them ; and many besides. We say — work like a 
 negro,like a galley slave : we ought to say — work like a free- 
 man." I say, work like a Lancashire weaver. There is no 
 such work in France or America, even among slaves: all 
 day long, from Monday morning till Saturday night, week 
 after week, and year alter year, till the machine is worn 
 out. Talk of negroes and galley slaves: American slaves, 
 or convicts in New South Wales, are fat and happy com- 
 pared with very many free-born Englishmen. By-the-w ay, 
 it happens, not rarely so as to be matter of wonder, but so 
 often as to pass unnoticed, that Englishmen commit crimes 
 for the purpose of becoming galley slaves in New South 
 Wales. They do nol keep their purpose secret; they 
 declare, it loudly, with tears and passionate exclamations, 
 to the magistrate who commits them for trial, to the jury 
 
 who try them, and to the judge who passes sentence on 
 them ; and all this is published in the newspapers, but so 
 
 often that no one exclaims — Great God, am 1 in merry 
 England ! Well may judgeson the bench talk of the misery 
 ami d< gradation of the people ! 
 
 ( M' this misery and degradation, there are some who say 
 the ca n : it may be so, but lei us see. Every one 
 
 remarks the incre in-shops. in all those parts of 
 
 Leeds or Manchester, and ol London too, where the poorest
 
 MISEItY OP THE BULK OP THE PEOPLE. 49 
 
 people live, there you find, in almost every dirty street, not 
 one, but several fine houses, handsomely stuccoed, curiously 
 painted, ornamented with plate-glass and polished brass ; in 
 the windows, placards inviting custom by such expressions 
 as " mountain dew," and " cream of the valley !" inside, 
 great barrels of spirits gayly painted and disposed for show, 
 carved mahogany, and more polished brass, with men and 
 women, smartly dressed, smiling welcome to all who enter. 
 The doors of these splendid dens are carefully hung so as 
 to fly open with a touch and shut in an instant ; whether 
 for the convenience of those dram-drinkers who are ashamed 
 of their taste, or to give to the concern an air of mystery, 
 which pleases the ignorant, Messrs. Thompson and Fcaron 
 can best tell. These gentlemen, who, being rich, are highly 
 respectable, keep the largest gin-shop in England — in the 
 world. It is situated (I mention this as a guide to Americans 
 visiting London) on Holborn Hill, near to Saffron Hill ; a 
 quarter in which Irish wages prevail and pawnbrokers 
 abound. Here gin is served by young women dressed up 
 like the belle limonadiere of a Paris coffee-house, and the 
 establishment in all its parts is nearly as fine as Verey\s or 
 the Cafe de Paris. There is another great gin-shop, not 
 much inferior to it, a little further to the west, adjoining the 
 gate of Gray's Inn ; two or three close by in Chancery 
 Lane; and twenty or thirty not far off. In half an hour 
 you may visit a hundred. What a contrast between the 
 finery of the shops and the beggarly appearance of the 
 customers ! Among these are few really old people ; but 
 then plenty of the young people appear very old. Livid 
 cheeks, deep wrinkles, blood-shot eyes, brown teeth, or 
 white gums without teeth, skin and bone, snaking hands, 
 sore legs, creeping palsy, a hacking cough, rags, filth, and 
 stench ; these are marks by which to know the regular gin- 
 drinker. Nine out of ten of all who may enter the finest 
 gin-shop in Manchester of a Sunday morning, will show 
 one or more of these marks; counting women, boys, and 
 girls, as well as men, but not the children, who, of course, 
 are only beginners. In some great towns of the north, they 
 have low counters and small glasses on purpose for the 
 small children : in London the children stand on tiptoe to 
 pay for half a glass of gin ; but London will improve. As 
 to gin-shops, London is improving most rapidly, both in 
 number and in finery ; every week, almost every day, pro- 
 ducing a new gin-shop, fitted up with spring doors, plate- 
 glass, carved mahogany or rose-wood, and polished brass ; 
 
 7
 
 50 MISERY OF THE BULK OP THE PEOPLE, 
 
 all more " elegant," as they say in America, than the gin- 
 shops which sprung up the week before. But the quarter 
 of London in which the greatest increase of fine gin-shops 
 has lately taken place, is Spitalfields and its neighbourhood. 
 I have said before, that the silk manufacture of Spitalfields 
 is perishing. The most zealous enemy of gin-shops does 
 not pretend that the increase of gin-shops in Spitalfields has 
 ruined the Spitalfields manufacture ; but the ruin of the 
 Spitalfields manufacture may have caused the increase of 
 gin-shops in Spitalfields. This is my humble opinion, 
 founded on the considerations which follow. 
 
 Generally, a man understands his own affairs better than 
 other people understand them for him. The common 
 people of London have a saying, lately adopted, but now 
 proverbial — " To live, be a pawnbroker, or keep a gin- 
 shop." Here the increase of gin-shops is explained in ten 
 words. Pawnbrokers and keepers of gin-shops depend on 
 the common people : the common people are distressed, that 
 is, they find it hard to live : their distress drives them, first 
 to the pawnbroker, and then to the gin-shop ; they pawn 
 their goods to purchase — what, poison ? yes, in the long 
 run, but for the moment, oblivion of their misery. Misery 
 to the common people is wealth to pawnbrokers and 
 keepers of gin-shops. The common people are very mis- 
 erable, therefore the demand for gin is very great ; there- 
 fore the profits of selling gin are very high ; therefore gin- 
 shops increase. 
 
 This conclusion is supported by some who take pains to 
 know the sentiments of the common people, and who 
 earnestly advise them to abstain from gin ; I mean mem- 
 bers of the Temperance Societies, Quakers for the most 
 part, diligent in works of benevolence, gentle, patient, per- 
 severing, not proud, but feeling with the poor as well as for 
 them. These, addressing the common people in friendly 
 and common language, say — " Believe us, it is a mistake to 
 suppose that gin will keep the cold out of your stomach. 
 The more gin you drink, the more will you feel cold in 
 your stomach. What warms you to-day will not have that 
 effect a month hence: hy-and-by, in order to feel warm, 
 you must double the quantity. But twice the quantity, as 
 IOOD as you are used to it, will not. make you feel warm. 
 The more you drink, the more you must drink in order to 
 feel warm. At last, no quantity will warm you ; your 
 stomach will be destroyed, and you will die of drinking gin 
 to keep the cold out of your stomach." This is all very
 
 MISERY OF TilE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 51 
 
 true ; and it shows how well the Quakers understand those 
 feelings of the common people which lead to dram-drinking. 
 Cold in the stomach ! but neither the Spitalfields weavers, 
 nor their friends of the Temperance Societies, suppose that 
 cold is matter which enters the stomach. Cold in the 
 stomach is a figurative expression, meaning either hunger 
 or despair, or both. " Sir," says a Spitalfields weaver, in 
 reply to his friendly adviser, " all that you say is true. 
 The more gin we drink, the more we want ; but also the 
 less we drink gin, the more we feel the want of something 
 else. Give us bread, meat, beer, and fire ; then we should 
 feel warm without gin. I am not begging: we are all 
 ready to work. I work, God knows, morning, noon, and 
 night : work, work, work ; we have plenty of that. If we 
 did not work we should die outright. But what does our 
 work bring ? work and hunger, work and cold, work and 
 sorrow. I get about fourteen shillings a week, out of 
 which there's rent to pay — we can't lie in the street, — and 
 clothes to find, such as they are, — but we must be covered ; 
 what remains for fire and food among six of us, four chil- 
 dren, their mother, and me ? Enough to starve upon, and 
 that is all. The children cry for bread ; they must wait : 
 their mother cries because they cry ; she is sick with cry- 
 ing and what not, and wants some tea ; she must want. In 
 cold weather we all shiver for want of fire : the children 
 and their mother may lie in bed to keep themselves warm ; 
 but I, hungry and cold, must work on. I do work ; and 
 when I drink gin, it is to keep myself from going mad. I 
 allow it — my wife drinks gin sometimes, and the children, 
 too, poor things, now and then, to pacify them. If you 
 were as poor as we are, sir, and had to work as hard as I 
 have, without hope, you would be apt to learn that gin is 
 bread, and meat, and fire, and hope, all in one. Without 
 gin, I should not have heart to work ; and we must all go to 
 the poorhouse, or die, for the poorhouse is choke full, and 
 the rates are not paid. We say cold in the stomach ; but 
 we mean hunger in the belly and despair in the heart. 
 Gin cures both for a time ; but it kills, you say. Well, we 
 can but die, with gin or without ; and life such as ours, 
 without gin, is worse than death." Just so : those who 
 frequent gin-shops best know why. The gin-shops in 
 Spitalfields are many and magnificent, because the trade of 
 Spitalfields is going to ruin. In other parts of London the 
 poverty of the common people enriches pawnbrokers and 
 keepers of gin-shops. At Manchester, Bolton, and Black-
 
 52 MISERY OF THE BILK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 burn, the cause of gin-shops is Irish wages. Verily, the 
 life of the bulk of the people' of England is worse than 
 death. 
 
 In the slave-states of America, a strong, healthy boy or 
 girl is worth about 50/. In London, on the gates of poor- 
 houses, one reads — " Strong, healthy boys and girls, with 
 the usual fee : apply within." With, not for, the usual fee : 
 you do not pay the fee to obtain a boy or girl ; but the 
 parish officers pay you for taking one. The usual fee in 
 London is 10/. ; so that in America you pay five times as 
 much as you receive in England. To be sure, the boys 
 and girls in London are neither strong nor healthy : the 
 notice on the workhouse-gates says that they are both, to 
 invite customers, just as the keepers of gin-shops placard 
 their windows with " mountain dew" and " cream of the 
 valley." But a little, a very little care and kindness would 
 make" the English children as strong and healthy as young 
 negroes in America. It is not, therefore, the difference of 
 strength which causes the difference of value between 
 young people in Kentucky and young people in London ; 
 nor can it be the difference of colour : on the contrary, 
 one might suppose that a white boy or girl would be worth 
 more than a black one, instead of being, so to speak, worth 
 10/. less than nothing. 
 
 Ah, but, says a "respectable" Englishman, the young 
 Americans, who cost 50/. each, are born in slavery ; the 
 others are free-born English children. The buyer of an 
 American child can do what he likes with it : the English 
 children arc merely bound apprentice for a term of years, 
 and the parish pays with each of them an apprentice-fee, 
 as a recompense to the master for teaching them his trade. 
 The magistrate is a party to all the indentures of appren- 
 ticeship; he require the child's consent; he cancels the 
 bond if the child is ill-treated. English children are pro- 
 tected by our glorious, our Inimitable constitution, which 
 makes no difference between rich and poor: it is absurd to 
 
 compare English apprentices with American slaves. — I 
 answer : it is the whole press of England, not I, that calls 
 English children white slaves; hut, not to dispute about 
 words, let us come t<> facts. h\ the reign of George III., 
 One Elizabeth Brownrigg was hanged for beating and 
 starving to death her parish apprentices. About three 
 », another woman, Esther Hibner by name, was 
 hanged in London lor beating and starving to death a 
 parish apprentice. In both these cases, the constitution,
 
 MISERY OF TIIE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 53 
 
 the law, which makes no difference between rich and poor, 
 interfered on behalf of a pauper-girl : but when ? not before 
 the girl was murdered, but after. Does the law interfere 
 to prevent the murder of parish apprentices ? — this is the 
 question. The evidence in the case of Esther Hibner 
 proved, that a number of girls, pauper apprentices, were 
 employed in a workshop : that their victuals consisted of 
 garbage, commonly called hog's wash, and that of this they 
 never had enough to stay the pains of hunger ; that they 
 were kept half-naked, half-clothed in dirty rags ; that they 
 slept in a heap, on the floor, amid filth and stench ; that 
 they suffered dreadfully from cold ; that they were forced 
 to work so many hours together that they used to fall asleep 
 while at work ; that for falling asleep, for not working as 
 hard as their mistress wished, they were beaten with 
 sticks, with fists, dragged by the hair, dashed on to the 
 ground, trampled upon, and otherwise tortured ; that they 
 were found, all of them more or less, covered with chil- 
 blains, scurvy, bruises, and wounds; that one of them died 
 of ill-treatment; and — mark this, — that the discovery of 
 that murder was made in consequence of the number of 
 coffins which had issued from Esther Hibner's premises, 
 and raised the curiosity of her neighbours. For this mur- 
 der Mrs. Hibner was hanged ; but what did she get for all 
 the other murders which, referring to the number of coffins, 
 we have a right to believe that she committed ? She got 
 for each 107. That is to say, whenever she had worked, 
 starved, beaten, dashed, and trampled a girl to death, she 
 got another girl to treat in the same way, with 10/. for her 
 trouble. She carried on a trade in the murder of parish 
 apprentices ; and if she had conducted it with moderation, 
 if the profit and custom of murder had not made her grasp- 
 ing and careless, the constitution, which protects the poor 
 as well as the rich, would never have interfered with her. 
 The law did not permit her to do what she liked with her 
 apprentices as Americans do with their slaves ; oh no. 
 Those free-born English children were merely bound as 
 apprentices, with their own consent, under the eye of the 
 magistrate, in order that they might learn a trade and be- 
 come valuable subjects. But did the magistrate ever visit 
 Mrs. Hibner's factory to see how she treated the free-born 
 Englis hgirls ? never. Did the parish officers ? no. Was 
 there any legal provision for the discovery of the woman's 
 trade in murder ? none. That woman has not traded in 
 murder during the last three years ; but why not ? because
 
 54 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 she was hanged three years ago : but what hanged her ? 
 the glorious constitution, or the number of coffins? Plainly, 
 the number of coffins ; that is, the impunity, the security 
 with which she had murdered ; the forlorn state of her ap- 
 prentices ; the utter neglect of them by parish officers, 
 magistrates, laws, and constitution. 
 
 Since Mrs. Hibner was hanged, the inimitable constitution 
 has been greatly altered, but not with respect to parish appren- 
 tices. You still read on the gates of London poor-houses, 
 " strong, healthy boys and girls, &c. ;" and boys or girls 
 you may obtain by applying within, as many as you please, 
 free-born, with the usual fee. Having been paid for taking 
 them, and having gone through the ceremonies of asking 
 their consent and signing bonds before a magistrate, you 
 may make them into sausages, for any thing the constitu- 
 tion will do to prevent you. If it should be proved that 
 you kill even one of them, you will be hanged : but you 
 may half-starve them, beat them, torture them, any thing 
 short of killing them, with perfect security ; and using a 
 little circumspection, you may kill them too without much 
 danger. Suppose they die, who cares? their parents ? they 
 are orphans, or have been abandoned by their parents. 
 The parish-officers ? very likely indeed, that these, when 
 the poor-house is crammed with orphan and destitute chil- 
 dren, should make inquiries troublesome to themselves ; 
 inquires which, being troublesome to you, might deprive 
 them of your custom in future. The magistrate? he asked 
 the child whether it consented to be your apprentice ; the 
 child said " yes, your worship ;" and there his worship's 
 duty ends. The neighbours ? of course, if you raise their 
 curiosity like Esther Hibner, but not otherwise. In order 
 to be quite safe, I tell you, you must be a little circumspect. 
 But let us suppose that you are timid, and would drive a 
 good trade without the shadow of risk. In that case, half- 
 starve your apprentices, cull' them, kick them, torment 
 them till they run away from you. They will not go back 
 to the poor-house, because there they would be Hogged for 
 having run away from you : besides the poor-house is any 
 thing but a pleasant place. The boys will turn beggars or 
 thieves, and tin,' girls prostitutes: you will have pocketed 
 10/. for each of them, and may get more hoys and girls on 
 the name terms, to treat in the same way. This trade is as 
 safe as it. is profitable. 
 
 In Bngland there are many charitable institutions for 
 assisting orphan and destitute children. One of them, at
 
 MISERY OP THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 55 
 
 the head of which I observe the name of Lord Grosvenor, 
 informs the public that London contains, at all times, 15,000 
 orphan or destitute children, houseless, prowling about 
 the streets, and supported by begging or robbing. By dint 
 of zeal, advertisements, and public meetings, this society 
 has, I believe, found means to provide for 20 of these chil- 
 dren. Of the 14,980 which remain, how many are run- 
 away parish apprentices 1 A committee of parliament might 
 easily learn; but parliament represents only the payers of 
 poor-rates, to whom an exposure of the truth would not 
 be agreeable. Great things, however, are expected of the 
 reformed House of Commons. Should they wish for infor- 
 mation on this subject, I hereby undertake to put them in 
 the way of learning, for certain, that one-fourth, at least, of 
 the boys under fourteen years of age, who pass through the 
 prisons of London, are run-away parish apprentices. 
 
 The American reader must not suppose that London is 
 the only place in England where free-born boys and girls 
 may be obtained with the usual fee of 10/. for each. In 
 all great towns the parishes get rid of destitute children in 
 this manner ; and in most of them the usual fee is 10/. for 
 each child. In rural parishes the usual fee is from 5/. to 7/. ; 
 a difference explained by the smaller proportion which in 
 rural parishes destitute children bear to the rates, whence 
 less anxiety on the rJart of the rural overseer to get rid of 
 destitute children. 
 
 In all England there cannot be less than five millions of 
 chimneys. Suppose that on the average each chimney is 
 swept twice a year, and that a fifth of the whole number 
 are swept by machinery. If so, something like what I am 
 going to describe occurs eight million times every year in 
 England. A chimney requires to be swept, and the master 
 sweep attends, with a little boy. He fastens a blanket 
 across the fireplace to prevent any soot from falling into 
 the room. Now watch the child. Trembling, he draws a 
 black bag over his head and shoulders ; the master grasps 
 him by the arm and guides him to the fireplace : he dis- 
 appears up the chimney. Now watch the master. He is 
 motionless, his head on one side, listening attentively. Ask 
 him a question : " hush" is the answer, with his finger on 
 his lips. Presently a low, indistinct moaning is heard in 
 the chimney. "VVilliam," says the master, putting his 
 mouth to the edge of the fireplace, and speaking in a brisk, 
 cheerful tone, "that's right, VVilliam." Another moan: and 
 then " I say, William — brush it well out, I say." Down comes
 
 50 MISERY OF TIIE BULK OF THE FEOFLE. 
 
 a quantity of soot, and the child is heard scraping the sides of 
 the chimney. Presently, silence ; and then moaning again. 
 " William," exclaimed the master, " I say, Bill, you've al- 
 most done, ha'nt you?" No answer; the child's head being, 
 remember, in a thick bag : but the brush is heard once 
 more, and the master holds his tongue. Silence again ; 
 and the moan of the child returns. This time the master 
 shouts — " Bill, Bill, I say, Billy, how do you get on ;" and so 
 till the end of the work : whenever the child cries, or is 
 silent, his master shouts to him, " Billy, I say, Billy, my lad." 
 This is a mild case, without oaths, threats, or blows. Ask 
 the master why he tormented the half-smothered boy by 
 speaking to him while his head was in the bag up the 
 chimney : he will say, " for no reason that I know of." 
 Believing this answer to be false, you press for another, 
 when the master says, " We always speak to 'em when 
 they're up the chimney, for fear they should run sulky and 
 stick." Run sulky and stick ! droop, faint, and die of suf- 
 focation. Examine the boy when he comes from the chim- 
 ney. If his knees and elbows are not raw and bloody, they 
 are covered with horn like the knees of the mountain goat ; 
 his face, neck, and breast are wet with the water that 
 flowed from his eyes, which are red with inflammation; the 
 veins of his temples are swoln into cords ; and his pulse is 
 at high fever mark. In a word, he hak been tortured. 
 
 Every climbing-boy suffers great pain every time he 
 mounts a chimney ; and a good half of the climbing-boys 
 in England are parish apprentices, free-born, consenting, 
 recognised "by the constitution, engaged in learning a trade 
 which, as men, they could not follow, if by chance they 
 should grow to be men. Of those parish apprentices who 
 become thieves, a great many have first been climbing-boys, 
 tortured several times a day as long as they would bear it. 
 This, also, with the power to examine unwilling witnesses, 
 might be abundantly proved. 
 
 In England, any one who belongs to the ruling class may 
 be irreligious and immoral without so much punishment as 
 disgrace. The titled concubines of royalty have been envied 
 by numbers of their sex, and honoured when they appeared 
 in public; a lord high-chancellor, who keeps the king's con- 
 science, may also keep ;i mistress, or more than one, with- 
 out incurring the slightest odium ; any man of fortune may 
 change from prostitute to prostitute without forfeiting any of 
 the high respect which is paid to him as a man of fortune:
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 57 
 
 no one, in short, suffers any thing by encouraging prostitution, 
 provided he can afford the expense. Women, on thecontrary, 
 whose poverty drives them to sin against religion and 
 morality — prostitutes for bread — are regarded with that 
 sort of scorn which a Turk expresses when he says — " dog 
 of a Christian !" The English show profound respect for 
 their devil, in comparison with the way in which they treat 
 their women of the town. For these, such epithets as 
 wicked, vile, nasty, such terms as slut, strumpet, wretch, 
 are too good: you must not mention them at all in public, 
 and you cannot allude to them in a book without staining 
 your pages. Recommend that they should be treated like 
 fellow-creatures, as in the Netherlands : if you are not 
 prosecuted for blasphemy, many will say that you deserve 
 to be hanged. In America or Holland, if you strike a 
 woman of this class, she will take the law of you: in Eng- 
 land, her evidence might be rejected, or at all events would 
 not be believed. "Gentlemen of the jury," the counsel of 
 the accused would say, " this charge rests on the evidence 
 of a common" (meaning poor) " prostitute : faugh ! my res — 
 pec — table" rich) " client is already acquitted." I do not 
 pretend that such a speech was ever made, but assert, ad- 
 mitting the hypothesis to be absurd, that if, by chance, a 
 respectable Englishman were prosecuted for assaulting a 
 woman of the town, then this would be the way to get him 
 acquitted. The English constitution recognises parish 
 apprentices, but not poor prostitutes. Prostitution is one 
 thing ; the prostitutes another. The laws and customs of 
 England encourage prostitution, but do not even protect the 
 prostitutes. At the royal theatres, for instance, which are 
 managed by the king's servants, there are grand saloons, 
 built expressly for the encouragement of prostitution : but I 
 cannot hear of any law or regulation, like those which sub- 
 sist in France and Holland, intended to provide for the 
 health, the personal security, and the decent behaviour of 
 this unfortunate class. The laws and customs of England 
 conspire to sink this class of Englishwomen into a state of 
 vice and misery below that which necessarily belongs to 
 their condition. Hence their extreme degradation, their 
 troopers' oaths, their love of gin, their desperate reckless- 
 ness, and the shortness of their miserable lives. 
 
 But how, considering the very great mortality to which 
 they are subject, shall we account for their vast numerical 
 proportion to the other inhabitants of England ? In France, 
 and more especially in Holland, women of the town are 
 
 8
 
 58 MISERY OF THE BULK OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 frequently reformed, married, and respected in their new 
 condition. In England, where the mere idea of a reclaimed 
 prostitute, married and respected, would shock the least 
 fastidious, prostitution means speedy death. English women 
 of this class, or rather girls, for few of them live to be 
 women, die like sheep with the rot ; so fast that soon there 
 would be none left, if a fresh supply were not obtained 
 equal to the number of deaths. But a fresh supply is 
 always obtained without the least trouble : seduction easily 
 keeps pace with prostitution or mortality. Those who die 
 are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded by 
 new competitors for misery and death. One cannot prove, 
 indeed, by statistical tables, that the proportion of girls of 
 the town is greater in England than in other countries, be- 
 cause in England any deliberate inquiry concerning this 
 class would be considered shameful ; nor are statistical 
 tables required : the fact speaks for itself, is proved by the 
 swarms of prostitutes to be met with in every town, and 
 in every quarter of the great towns. To prove this, statis- 
 tical tables are not more necessary than to establish, what 
 no one denies, that in England there are more splendid 
 mansions and gin-shops than in any other country. But 
 the cause ; what is the cause of this excessive number of 
 prostitutes, notwithstanding so wonderful a rate of mor- 
 tality? 
 
 One cause of this evil is, of course, an excessive demand 
 for prostitutes. That demand is occasioned principally by 
 a custom now prevalent among the English middle classes ; 
 the custom of abstaining from marriage, the custom of 
 celibacy, vulgarly speaking ; of " moral restraint," in the 
 language of political economy. This cause is explained in 
 the next note: the other causes, the inducements to a life 
 of prostitution, are explained by the following story. 
 
 Some out-of-the-way people founded a refuge for prosti- 
 tutes; a charity of which the object was to reclaim a small 
 number of public women. One day a girl applied for ad- 
 mission to this retreat, saying, "Iain out of work, cold, 
 hungry, tired, houseless, and anxious to be saved from evil 
 courses." She was dismissed, not being qualified ; so the 
 story goes. This story may not be true ; but most Eng- 
 lishmen have laughed at it in private. The story passes 
 lor a good joke; and its currency proves two things; first, 
 thai the few English with bowels of compassion for prosti- 
 tutes are ridiculed as eccentric; and next, thai the English 
 themselves consider povert) the main inducement t<> a life 
 of prostitution. In America, where no class practises
 
 MISERY OF THE BULK OP THE PEOPLE. 69 
 
 " moral restraint," the demand for women of the town is 
 very small, and, such as it is, arises principally from the 
 sojourn of foreigners in seaport towns ; but if that demand 
 were doubled by a sufficient increase of foreign visiters, it 
 would not be supplied ; because in America every girl can 
 readily obtain an honest livelihood. In America, you may 
 travel a thousand miles, taking the towns in your way, and 
 not meet a prostitute : in England, you cannot walk a mile 
 upon pavement without meeting hundreds. In America, it 
 is as difficult for householders to get women-servants, as in 
 England for women-servants to get places. In America, 
 prostitution is a choice seldom made ; to English women, 
 thousands every year, — it is a dire necessity. In order to 
 reclaim the prostitutes of England, you must first find em- 
 ployment for them, which would be the harder task of the 
 two ; and when this was done, there would be as many as 
 before. Not vice and misery, Mr. Malthus, but misery and 
 vice is the order of checks to population. Charity, virtue, 
 happiness ! these are English words stili, but the meaning 
 of them appears to have settled in America. I wonder that 
 emigration is not more the fashion, and wish that Mrs. 
 Trollope would write a book on the domestic manners of 
 the English. 
 
 In England, the increase of crime is a common subject 
 of lamentation. About a hundred and twenty thousand of 
 the people, it is reckoned, are always in jail ; besides con- 
 victs, transported to comfort by way of punishment, and 
 debtors looking through prison-bars for the means of paying 
 their creditors. In England, the increase of fine jails is 
 nearly as striking as the increase of gin-shops. The new 
 jails, one in every county, and in some counties several, 
 would be thought grand in America ; noble buildings of 
 beautiful brick-work or handsome masonry, with imposing 
 fronts, bearing chains, emblematical, carved in stone. In 
 Lancashire the magistrates boast, that their county jail is 
 very like Windsor Castle, the finest of palaces. The in- 
 crease of fine lunatic asylums, also, may be noticed here; 
 since it has been lately ascertained that there are more mad 
 paupers, in proportion, than mad people of any other class, 
 except governesses. Poor-houses, gin-shops, mad-houses, 
 jails ; one almost sees them grow in numbers and magnifi- 
 cence, with the increase of paupers, parish-apprentices, 
 drunkenness, and crime. In England, those who compose 
 the bulk of the people are too cheap to be happy. If their 
 condition be such that it must be worse before it can be 
 better, the crisis is coming.
 
 (60) 
 
 NOTE III. 
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 Who compose the aristocracy — Particular distresses of the middle class — 
 Uneasiness of fanners — Of manufacturers — Of dealers — Low profits — 
 Uneasiness of professional men — Of several classes possessing the com- 
 mon run of knowledge, or superior knowledge — Of persons having fixed 
 incomes and families — Primary cause of prostitution — Domestic life 
 among the English middle class. 
 
 In America, it is a common mistake to suppose, that the 
 English aristocracy consists entirely of the nobility, squires 
 of good estate, wealthy churchmen, and highly-paid public 
 servants. The aristocracy means the privileged class. 
 Except the privilege of being born to make laws, there is 
 none in England that money will fail to procure ; and even 
 that one, any man, having abundance of money, may obtain 
 for his unborn, first-born son. A judge, a bishop, or a sec- 
 retary of state, does not consider the trouble of his vocation 
 a privilege ; his privileges consist of money, patronage, 
 power; the respect, the adulation, the devotion of his infe- 
 riors. In England, with plenty of the first of these privi- 
 leges, you have all the others in abundance. Any English- 
 man, being very rich, would find it hard, if such a whim 
 should take him, to avoid the respect, the adulation, the de- 
 votion of numerous parasites. Not the man, but the wealth 
 is worshipped. The man may be ignorant, stupid, selfish, 
 dishonest, in every way worthless ; but if he have £50,000 a 
 year, he will have fifty, nay, five bundled devoted friends, tell- 
 ing him continually that he is wise, just, generous, all over 
 noble. Poor lords, though of Norman descent, arc very little 
 esteemed, and would be quite despised, but that as heredi- 
 tary legislators they commonly obtain a good deal of the 
 public money. The money is given to them avowedly for 
 the purpose of maintaining their dignity. On the other 
 hancf, money will purchase the reputation of Norman de- 
 scent. Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wore wooden 
 shoes and made a million by cotton-spinning; Mr. Thistle- 
 thwaite, who has purchased o mansion called Thistlethwaite 
 Hall, intends, when he obtains a peerage, to take the title 
 of Tbiitlethwaite and Vermont (his mother's name was
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 61 
 
 Greenhill), in order to make it be believed that he descends 
 in the female line from the Norman lords of Vermont : and 
 this will be believed, religiously, on account of the million 
 of money. In short, there is nothing that the English will 
 not do to please him who can dispose of a great deal of 
 money, either his own or that of the public. All rich Eng- 
 lishmen, therefore, belong to the aristocracy quite as much 
 as any duke, minister, or archbishop; not excluding trades- 
 men, provided they be called great, like Calvert the great 
 brewer, Baring the great stockjobber, Crawshay the great 
 iron-founder, Mellish the great butcher, and Morrison the 
 great draper. Still, one cannot draw a very distinct line 
 between the aristocracy and the class next below them. 1 
 thought at one time of counting among the aristocracy all 
 who are called respectable ; but respectability has various 
 meanings in England ; with some it means to keep a car- 
 riage, with others a gig. I have it — the privileged class 
 consists of those who, whenever they are .wronged, or 
 would injure, can buy law without depriving themselves of 
 any other costly luxury ; those, in short, who, be their rank 
 what it may, have more money than they know how to 
 spend. Captain Basil Halt calls them the spending class. 
 After these comes the middle or uneasy class. Uneasi- 
 ness, according to Johnson, is care, trouble, perplexity. 
 By the uneasy class, I mean those who, not being labourers, 
 suffer from agricultural distress, manufacturing distress, 
 commercial distress, distress of the shipping interest, and 
 many more kinds of distress, of which the names and de- 
 scriptions have appeared over and over again during the 
 last fifteen years, in the journals of parliament, in pamphlets 
 without number, and in all political publications, quarterly, 
 monthly, weekly, and daily. In English politics, the word 
 distress is used more frequently than any other comprehen- 
 sive word, except pauperism. Distress, applied to any 
 particular class, signifies the trouble, care, perplexity of that 
 class, but not that the trouble, care, and perplexity are 
 unequal, or confined to any one set of people ; for each dis- 
 tress has lasted fifteen years, and all the distresses together 
 make permanent general distress. This steady national 
 distress is attributed to causes more numerous than the 
 several distresses of which it is composed ; to transition 
 from war to peace ; to the admission of foreign corn ; to 
 restrictions on the admission of foreign corn ; to taxation ; 
 to diminution of the public expenditure ; to inadequate pro- 
 duction ; to over-production ; to change in the currency ;
 
 62 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 to free trade, and restrictions on trade ; to political economy, 
 and the blunders of practical men ; and, finally, to rotten 
 boroughs. For an evil attributed to so many causes, it was 
 natural that numerous methods of cure should be proposed. 
 Accordingly, the business of English politicians, for about 
 fifteen years, has been to devise remedies for general dis- 
 tress or particular distresses. Some of these specifics will 
 be noticed hereafter, and especially reform of parliament, 
 from which the uneasy class expect the most happy results ; 
 but here the many alleged causes, and supposed remedies 
 of distress are alluded to, merely with a view to show that 
 the distress itself is real, extensive, severe, not imaginary, 
 as some of the spending class assert, nor confined, as in 
 former periods, to the idle and thriftless. In fact, the uneasy 
 class consists of three-fourths, or rather perhaps nine-tenths, 
 of all who are engaged in trades and professions, as well 
 as all who, not being very rich, intend that their children 
 should follow some industrious pursuit. The proof of this 
 assertion is very easy. 
 
 t There are some English farmers, though but few, so rich 
 as to be called great ; and these do not belong to the uneasy 
 class. Even these, however, complain of low profits. But 
 if he whose farming capital is, say, 30,000/., grumbles 
 because his annual profit is only two and a-half per cent, 
 or 750/., what must be the state of that farmer whose 
 capital is only 5,000/. ? Supposing his profits to be equal to 
 those of the great farmer, his annual income is only 125/. ; 
 not so much, allowing for the difference of prices, as the 
 income of a common labourer in America. Anywhere in 
 America, a farming capital of 5,000/. would return a profit 
 of fifteen per cent. ; so that taking the common rate of 
 farming profit in England to lie two and a-half per cent., 
 the American farmer possessing 5,000/. enjoys an income 
 equal to that of the English farmer possessing 30,000/. 
 But the common rate of farming profit in England, during 
 the last fifteen years, has not been so much as two and a 
 hull per cent.: on the contrary, the rule of loss has been 
 considerable. Impossible ! cries a bigoted political econo- 
 mist ; that is impossible, because if farming profits had 
 sunk very low, capital would have been withdrawn from 
 agriculture, and employed in other pursuits of which the 
 profits were higher. But what if the profits of other pur- 
 suits were not higher 1 Political economists frequently 
 suppose the ease of low profits in a particular trade : 
 surely, what takes place in one trade, may take place in all.
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. G3 
 
 But be this as it may, there can be no doubt that in England, 
 of late years, many farmers have employed capital with a 
 high rate of loss. Hundreds, thousands have lost their 
 whole capital, while all, with the exception of those whose 
 capital were so large that they could save out of very low 
 profits, have lost more or less. The number of farmers, it 
 might be supposed, has been diminished by the total or 
 partial ruin of so many : not at all. A farmer was ruined ; 
 had the landlord any difficulty in letting his farm ? On the 
 contrary, the ruin of a farmer has generally occasioned 
 wonder at the anxiety of other farmers to pay as high or a 
 higher rent for the ruinous farm. Except during a few 
 years before the close of the last war, the competition for 
 English farms was never more keen than it has been during 
 the long period of agricultural distress. There are very 
 many farms which have ruined two or three tenants since 
 1815. No one pretends that the rent of farming land is 
 lower ; every one knows that it is much higher, reckoned in 
 corn or cattle, than at any former time, except just before 
 the peace ; and at this time high rents are, by some, sup- 
 posed to be the cause, or at least one cause, of agricultural 
 distress. The distress continues without diminishing the 
 number of people who are distressed. As one farmer is 
 ruined, another takes his place ; but the change of persons, 
 as with children who are worked to death in factories, 
 makes no alteration in the scene. I do not say, that all the 
 farmers, or all farmers who begin with moderate capitals, 
 are ruined in a few years, and succeeded by others to be 
 ruined in like manner ; but every year sees the ruin of 
 many farmers of moderate capital, whose places are in- 
 stantly filled ; and all farmers, except only those who have 
 very large capitals, are constantly on the verge of ruin ; in 
 a state of care, trouble, and perplexity. 
 
 As in agriculture, so in manufactures ; with this differ- 
 ence, however, that the proportion of great capitals to 
 moderate or small ones being much larger in manufactures 
 than in agriculture, the proportion of manufacturers who 
 suffer trouble and perplexity is much less than among 
 farmers. There are many manufacturers, each of whom 
 employs a capital of more than 100,000/. These might be 
 content with a low rate of profit ; they are discontented, 
 but they are not care-worn, troubled, and perplexed, like 
 those smaller capitalists, to whom a low rate of profit 
 brings ruin, or, at least, the constant dread, of ruin. The 
 number of manufacturers who have been ruined since the
 
 64 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 peace, is perhaps as great as the number of farmers who 
 have been ruined in the same period. But has the amount 
 of capital employed in manufactures decreased ? On the 
 contrary, it has increased rapidly and steadily ever since 
 the peace. Has the number of master-manufacturers de- 
 creased ? On the contrary, it has increased, though in a less 
 proportion than manufacturing capital ; this difference being 
 explained by the constantly increasing proportion of large 
 capitals to moderate or small ones. In other words, suppo- 
 sing the whole number of master-manufacturers to have been 
 doubled, the number of those, each of whom employs above 
 100.000/., may have been quadrupled. But how could this 
 be, with a constant and universal low rate of profit? I 
 have endeavoured to answer that question in the next note. 
 Here it must be admitted, that ever since the peace, the 
 common rate of profit in English manufactures has been 
 extremely low ; that a great deal of capital has been 
 employed with loss instead of profit; that many of the 
 owners of capital so employed have been ruined ; and that 
 at this time a very low rate of profit condemns all manu- 
 facturers of small or moderate capital to uneasiness, 
 trouble, and perplexity. Great manufacturers, who possess 
 immense capitals, must not be counted among the uneasy 
 class. 
 
 In the commerce of England, since the peace, a low rate 
 of profit has produced the same effect as in agriculture and 
 manufactures. Great merchants, merchants who employed 
 very large capitals, have complained of very low profits, 
 and frequently of loss ; an immense number of merchants, 
 having only small or moderate capitals, have been ruined ; 
 and all owners of moderate or small capitals employed to 
 commerce are in a state of uneasiness. In commerce, which 
 admits of more speculation than manufactures or agricul- 
 ture, the loss of capital has caused uneasiness, and even 
 misery, to Dumbers v. ho owned very large capitals, and \\ h<», 
 impelled by the low rate of profit to seek out new channels 
 of trade, have employed their capitals in glutting distant 
 markets, and been ruined by such speculations. But has 
 the total ruin of these great capitalists, and of a much larger 
 number of small capitalists, diminished the number of mer- 
 chants, or the amount of capital employed in trade? On 
 the contrary, the increase of commercial capital has kept 
 
 pace with that of manufacturing capital, and the number 
 
 of merchants with the number <>f manufacturers. ' Millions, 
 
 tens of millions of English capital have been thrown away
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. G5 
 
 since the peace in supplying distant markets with goods at 
 less than cost price, and in other speculations, such as work- 
 ing, or pretending to work, the mines of South America; 
 but whenever capital was in this way abstracted and lost, 
 its place was immediately rilled ; or rather so large a waste 
 of capital seems not to have caused even a temporary 
 vacuum. Where all the capital came from, how it was so 
 rapidly accumulated, is a question; but that commercial 
 capital has been produced faster than it was thrown away, 
 is a plain fact, about which there can be no dispute. The 
 number of merchants employing large, moderate, and small 
 capitals, is very much greater than it w r as fifteen years 
 ago ;* more business is done ; new channels of trade have 
 been opened and filled : yet the profits of commercial 
 business are now so low that only the most wealthy mer- 
 chants are at ease ; all the others are troubled, perplexed, 
 uneasy, always on the verge of bankruptcy. 
 
 With retail dealers, there is the same complaint of low 
 profits, the same uneasiness as with farmers, manufac- 
 turers, and merchants. Until of late years most retail 
 trades were conducted by persons of small or moderate 
 capital. Of late years, however, very large capitals have 
 been embarked in several retail trades. The owners of 
 these large capitals act on the maxim — much business with 
 small profits is as good as little business with large profits. 
 They are satisfied, and as each of them possesses a large 
 capital they may well be satisfied, with low "profits. But 
 nothing is better established than the tendency of all capitals, 
 and especially of all capitals employed in the same business, 
 to an equal rate of profit. It was impossible, therefore, 
 that retail dealers of small capital should obtain high profits 
 while great capitalists engaged in the same retail trade were 
 satisfied with low profits. Still, a general low rate of 
 profit in retail trades must not be considered as an effect of 
 the employment of large capitals in retail trade. On the 
 contrary, large capitals have been employed in retail trade, 
 though, first, because the agricultural, manufacturing, and. 
 commercial fields were fully occupied, still, secondly, 
 because the fulness of the retail field offered to the great 
 capitalist some advantages over the small one ; such ad- 
 vantages as being better able to wait for distant returns, as 
 
 * In a late debate on " Distress" in the House of Commons (1833), Mr. 
 Grote, member for the city of London, a great capitalist, and a very accom- 
 plished gentleman besides, referred to the increase of names in the London 
 Directory as a proof that the number of traders had increased. 
 
 9
 
 66 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 being able to buy when the market price was low, and to 
 sell when it was high. The owners of a large capital can 
 save when the owners of a small- one cannot. The owners 
 of a large capital engaged in retail trade have increased 
 their capitals, notwithstanding a low rate of profit: a low 
 rate of profit has ruined many retail dealers of moderate 
 or small capital, and at this moment condemns all such 
 dealers to great uneasiness. In London, and throughout 
 England, retail dealers of moderate or small capital com- 
 plain of dulness of trade, stagnation of trade, and so forth. 
 Do they buy and sell less than formerly ? on the contrary, 
 except in special cases, which fall out of the general rule 
 and might be explained by some special circumstances, they 
 do more business than formerly : the profit, not the business, 
 is less. And further, more of them do business: in all towns 
 without exception, the number of retail dealers is greater 
 that it was at the close of the war ; and in most towns the 
 increase of retail dealers has kept pace with that striking 
 increase of houses which has been noticed before. As in 
 manufactures and in wholesale trade, so in retail business, 
 the number of persons who suffer trouble and perplexity 
 has greatly increased with the uneasiness occasioned by a 
 low rate of profit. 
 
 How a low rate of profit renders the middle class un- 
 easy, I will now try to explain. 
 
 The rate of interest is a pretty sure criterion of the rate 
 of profit. During the last war, the rate of interest was 
 very high. The lenders and borrowers of money practised 
 numerous tricks for evading the usury laws. One trick, 
 practised by noblemen who borrowed large sums, was to 
 give the lender a seat in parliament besides legal interest. 
 Ever since the peace, the common rate of interest has re- 
 mained below five per cent. Four per cent, has been a 
 common rate for large sums, which the borrowers were 
 entitled to hold for a fixed number of years. In other 
 cases, where the lenders exacted repayment within a short 
 ]m rind, three percent., two and a half per cent., and at times 
 even two per cent, has been the ordinary rate of interest. 
 Now let us suppose, though merely for ihc sake of illustra- 
 tion, that during the war the ordinary rate of profit was 
 twenty per cent., and that since the peace it has been five 
 per cent If so, during the wari which lasted near thirty 
 years, the income of him who employed a capital of 10,000/. 
 
 was 2,0002. a year, and has been, since the peace, f>()()/. a 
 year ; if so, the incomes derived from all capitals have.
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 67 
 
 since the peace, been only one-quarter of what they were 
 during the war. It would follow, that the means of every 
 man engaged in business, agricultural, manufacturing, or 
 commercial, wholesale or retail, his means of existence, of 
 supporting his family, of educating and establishing his 
 children, and, above all, of contending against unfavourable 
 accidents, such as bad seasons, changes of fashion, and the 
 bankruptcy of his debtors ; his power for doing all these 
 things, has been less by three-quarters since the common 
 rate of profit was five per cent, than when twenty per cent, 
 was the common rate of profit. The difference may be 
 more or less than from twenty to five per cent. ; at all 
 events, it is very considerable. But with a smaller power 
 for doing certain things, as large, or a larger power has been 
 required. In every branch and rank of industry, every one 
 conceives that a certain expenditure is necessary to main- 
 tain his rank, or as he might call it, his respectability. The 
 amount of expenditure which makes an Englishman respect- 
 able, in whatever condition or rank, has not been much less 
 since the. peace than during the war; the education of 
 children has not been much cheaper, while the desire to 
 give children an expensive education has greatly increased ; 
 the desire or obligation to establish children in the world is 
 the same as before, while the difficulty of accomplishing 
 that object is much greater, since beginners in trade require 
 a much larger capital than formerly to obtain the same 
 income as formerly ; unfavourable accidents happen as 
 before, while bankruptcies, complete or partial, are more 
 frequent than ever. All those, therefore, whose incomes 
 are derived from the employment of capital, except great 
 capitalists, who can easily save out of diminished incomes, 
 have smaller means of meeting heavier calls. Their exist- 
 ence is a continued struggle with difficulties. How to 
 make the two ends meet, which way to turn, how to pro- 
 vide for one claim without neglecting another, how to es- 
 cape ruin, or at least what they consider degradation, how on 
 earth to manage for their children ; these are the thoughts 
 which trouble and perplex them. The anxious, vexed, or 
 harassed class, would be a better name for them than the 
 milder term which I have used. These are the people 
 who in classes, or altogether, keep up the cries of agricul- 
 tural distress, manufacturing distress, commercial distress, 
 distress of trade, and national distress. 
 
 Distress is not confined to those who employ a material 
 capital. The learning, skill, and reputation, united, of a
 
 68 TNEASIXESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 professional man, may be called his capital. Great profes- 
 sional capitalists, those who possess all at once great 
 skill, great learning, and a high reputation, still make 
 large incomes : but none of those whose learning, or skill, 
 or reputation is small, make enough to live upon. The 
 very high prizes of the bar and the church have always 
 led to a keen competition in these professions ; so that at 
 all times there has been a large proportion of barristers 
 "without briefs, and of clergymen eager to obtain a miserable 
 curacy ; but at this time the proportion of briefless barris- 
 ters is greater than ever, as well as the number of clergy- 
 men eager to be curates. And, at this time, not only the 
 bar and the established church are crowded with hungry 
 competitors, but also every dissenting church, the attorney's 
 branch of law, and all the branches of the medical and surgi- 
 cal professions. Nay, full, overflowing as are all these pro- 
 fessions, the number of young people who hope to live by 
 them is far greater than ever ; witness the crowds of 
 students in the inns of court, of young men every year 
 admitted to practise as attorneys, of clerical students in the 
 universities and dissenting schools, and of students in the 
 schools of medicine and surgery. It seems impossible that 
 a third of them should ever live by the pursuits which they 
 intend to follow ; for even now two-thirds of the persons 
 engaged in those careers live by snatching the bread out 
 of each other's mouths. Two-thirds, therefore, at the 
 very least, of professional men, may be reckoned among the 
 uneasy class. 
 
 To these must be added a swarm of engineers, archi- 
 tects, painters, surveyors, brokers, agents, paid writers, 
 keepers of schools, tutors, governesses, and clerks. The 
 occupations of some of these classes permit the employ- 
 ment of a material capital. Engineers, for example, or 
 art hitects, who employ a material capital, must be excluded 
 from this list ; since whatever has been said of farmers, 
 , mid merchants, applies to them. Such of 
 them as employ a large capital increase their fortunes with 
 small profits; such of them as employ a small or moderate 
 capital live in trouble ami vexation. Some few also must 
 be taken out of this list, \\ ho, without employing a material 
 capital, mi' distinguished for learning, skill, and reputation 
 united. There are some painters, now ami then there is a 
 writer, who make large Incomes : but the great mass 
 of these two i who supply the ordinary, one 
 
 may aaj the necessary, demand for pictures and composi- 
 tion, rably poor. But was not this always the
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. G9 
 
 case ? Without a doubt ; the poverty of painters and 
 authors is proverbial ; moreover there can be no doubt, 
 that the aggregate of money earned by English painters 
 and authors since the peace has been very much greater 
 than during any former period of equal length ; but during 
 the last fifteen years the proportion of poor painters and 
 authors has greatly increased ; and never was it so great 
 as at this moment. Since the invention of printing and the 
 general spread of education, the common run of knowledge 
 has always been held cheap ; but now, in England, it is 
 the cheapest of all commodities, except Irish manual labour. 
 It is not, however, the smallness of the incomes earned by 
 a swarm of educated people that strikes one so much, as 
 the vast number of competitors for those very small in- 
 comes ; the hungry crowd of expectants watching to oust 
 the beggarly crowd in possession. What condition of life 
 is more detestable than that of an English governess ? In 
 England, where poverty is a crime, governesses, young, 
 beautiful, well-informed, virtuous, and, from the contradic- 
 tion between their poverty and their intrinsic merit, pecu- 
 liarly susceptible, are generally treated as criminals ; im- 
 prisoned, set to hard labour, cruelly mortified by the parents 
 and visiters, worried by the children, insulted by the ser- 
 vants ; and all for what? for butler's wages. Yet take up 
 any London newspaper, any day in the year, and you shall 
 find in it a string of advertisements for the hateful situation 
 of governess. There is an institution in England, of which 
 the object is to provide for decayed governesses, by means 
 of a small yearly subscription from those who are not yet 
 worn out; and the title of this benefit club is the "Govern- 
 esses' Mutual Assurance Society." Last year, a news- 
 paper, which is read principally by the aristocracy, by 
 Captain Hall's spending class, noticing the club in question, 
 proposed that it should be called " the governesses' mutual 
 impudence society." This blackguard joke was uttered to 
 please whom 1 the readers of the newspaper in which it 
 appeared ; a class who employ governesses, a class to 
 whom, in that very newspaper, numerous advertisements 
 for the situation of governess are continually addressed. 
 An eminent English physician, whose wife had been a gov- 
 erness, states that, of the inmates of madhouses, the largest 
 proportion consists of women who have been governesses. 
 Vet lor this dreadful and shabbily-paid office of governess, 
 there are, judging from the newspapers, more candidates, 
 in proportion to places, than for any other disagreeable em-
 
 70 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 ployment : not, however, that one observes any lack of 
 candidates for other subordinate employments which require 
 the common run of knowledge, or even superior knowledge. 
 They talk much in England of superabundance of labourers, 
 meaning common workmen ; but these are not more re- 
 dundant than governesses, keepers of schools, and clerks of 
 every description. 
 
 Superabundance is a relative term. Considering the 
 superabundance of capitalists, in proportion to the means of 
 employing capital with profit, and of professional men in 
 proportion to the demand for their services, there is a reason 
 why, of necessity, the subordinate classes should be redun- 
 dant: because the fields for the employment of capital in 
 agriculture, manufactures, and trade, and for the employ- 
 ment of professional learning and skill, being quite full, there 
 is no room in those fields for the progeny of the subordi- 
 nate classes; while the grown up children of capitalists and 
 professional men, who are either ruined, or can but just 
 make the two ends meet, instead of following the careers of 
 their fathers, increase the competition for subordinate em- 
 ployments. But is there less room for the subordinate 
 classes, than there was fifteen years ago ? Positively, no ; 
 relatively, yes. Subordinate employments are far more 
 numerous than they were fifteen years ago ; but then, 
 throughout the fifteen years, the classes wanting subordinate 
 employments have increased more rapidly than the demand 
 for their services. Suppose the field to have been doubled, 
 the cultivators have been quadrupled : with a greater field 
 than ever, never was there such a want of room. 
 
 Among the uneasy class must be included, finally, a large 
 body of people whose incomes are fixed, whose means of 
 existence are not subject to the rate of profit or the demand 
 for professional and subordinate services, — landowners, sine- 
 curists, public servants, and owners of government stock. 
 Great landowners, great sinccurists, highly paid public ser- 
 vants, and great stockholders, belong to the spending class, 
 together With greal fanners, manufacturers, merchants, 
 tradesmen, and lawyers. The owner of lO.OOO acres of land, 
 Lord Elledboroiagn with a patenl income of 10,000/. a year, 
 the iurd-ehanceJIor with an income lately cut down to 
 14,000/. a year, or the stockholder who receives 5,000/. or 
 even 2,0002, a year in regular half-yearly payments at the 
 bank, has no reason to complain Ol distress. Nor indeed 
 has anyone, apparently, whose income was fixed during 
 the war, and has been much increased by an alteration in
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 71 
 
 the value of money. Nevertheless, many thousands of 
 people, enjoying fixed incomes, suffer deep anxiety; anxiety 
 caused by the distress of those classes whose incomes are 
 not fixed: I mean landowners, sinecurists, public servants, 
 and fundowners, whose fixed incomes are not large, and 
 who have children to provide for. What is to become of the 
 sons and daughters ? No man likes that his son should fall, 
 or his daughter marry, into a circle much inferior to his 
 own ; especially in England, where this sort of degradation, 
 like absolute poverty, is disgraceful, if not criminal. Every 
 Englishman of property, moreover, likes that his eldest son 
 should inherit nearly the whole of his property. What then, 
 when there is property, must become of the younger sons 
 and the daughters? What of all the children, where the 
 property is only for life ? The father must save: good; 
 but the moment he proceeds to invest his savings, he feels 
 the low rate of profit and interest. During the war he 
 could, with a little management, have obtained ten, twelve, 
 perhaps fifteen per cent, for his money : now, no one pays 
 five per cent, with good security. He consults his banker 
 as to the best mode of investment. " Upon my word," says 
 the latter, " I cannot advise you : the funds are so high, and 
 so likely to fall through political agitation, there is so much 
 money with so much distress and discontent, that we know 
 not what to do with our money. I have 100,000/. in that 
 drawer ; and if you will tell me of a better place for it, I shall 
 be. very much obliged to you."* He is troubled, therefore, 
 to fix on a mode of investment, and when the choice is 
 made, annoyed because the interest is so low. But he can- 
 not save enough to prevent the degradation of his children, 
 without incurring degradation himself; without losing caste 
 by a great diminution of expenditure. His savings, there- 
 fore, when invested in the best way, that is, in an insurance of 
 his life, whereby he reaps the benefit of low profits in the 
 shape of a low premium, are but just sufficient to provide a 
 
 * "In the money market, the greatest torpor and want of enterprise pre- 
 vail. There has probably never existed a period at which so tittle employ- 
 ment for capital, at once safe and profitable, has presented itself; and it is 
 quite evident, that unless some change takes place, capitalists are on the 
 point of being forced into some wild and dangerous schemes, that must be 
 attended with ultimate loss, by the mere impatience of letting their money lie 
 idle. Whatever the cause of the low rate of interest may be, reflecting men 
 look at it with much alarm, especially as it has now been of long continuance ; 
 and if some legitimate employment for capital does not soon offer, we may- 
 expect soon to see a new influx of foreign loans and joint-stock schemes." 
 — City Article of the Times. Oclobcr 10th, 1832.
 
 72 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 maintenance for his wife and children after his death. What 
 are the sons to do when grown up, or if grown up ? The army? 
 — pay for a commission ; and then, unless you belong to the 
 spending class, look on promotion as hopeless. In the navy, 
 candidates for promotion are quite as redundant as in the 
 army. The church? — buy a living, or else your son must 
 struggle, and may struggle in vain too, with a host of needy 
 competitors for miserable curacies. The law, medicine, 
 trade ? — all full, overflowing ; while the last, whether agricul- 
 tural, manufacturing, or commercial, requires a large capital, 
 or it will bring uneasiness, perhaps bankruptcy. A place under 
 government ? — yes, perhaps, if you are the parasite of a 
 great man. I say perhaps, because the class of parasites 
 wanting places has greatly increased of late, like all the other 
 classes, while the number of places is become somewhat 
 less. At best, your son will obtain but a small place ; all 
 the great ones, both at home and in the colonies, being kept 
 for young people of the spending class. At any rate, the 
 pain of being a parasite brings you within the uneasy class. 
 There was a way, indeed, by which a man of moderate or 
 small income could obtain places for his sons without crin- 
 ging to anyone ; by connecting himself with a rotten borough, 
 as alderman, bailiff, returning officer or crier ; but the glory 
 of rotten boroughs has passed aw 7 ay ; and, if reform should 
 go no further, only the spending class and their parasites will 
 obtain places under government. 
 
 But if a man of lixed income, his income being small or 
 moderate, be troubled to provide for his sons, how to pro- 
 vide for his daughters is a more perplexing question. The 
 first, no, the second point, is to get them married ; the first 
 point is to prevent them from marrying into a fewer, which 
 commonly means a poorer, rank than that in which they 
 were born. The first point is generally effected during 
 childhood, when ever}' day, and almost every hour of the 
 day, something happens to impress them with a fear of such 
 degradation as attaches to imprudent marriages. The sc- 
 cond purpose, being subject to the first, becomes extremely 
 difficult. If the girl had a fortune, she would belong to 
 Captain Basil I [alls spending elass ; we suppose her to have 
 no fortune excepl beaut}, tenderness, modesty, and good 
 son-'-. Who will take her as a wife, that she will take as a 
 husband I She may b\ chance, or rather her mother may, 
 by dint of greal toil and managi mint, catch oik; of the spend- 
 in'/ clas : bul ties would be an exception to the general rule. 
 The general rule with the daughters of men of small income,
 
 UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 73 
 
 whether fixed or not, is a choice between celibacy and mar- 
 riage with one of the uneasy class. Now, a great propor- 
 tion of young men in the uneasy class dread marriage, unless 
 there be fortune in the case, as the surest means of increas- 
 ing their embarrassment. This is one of the most important 
 features in the social state of England. Among the middle 
 class, among all classes except the highest and the lowest, 
 " moral restraint" is a confirmed habit. Hence immorality 
 without a parallel in any other country. This is the cause 
 of that exuberant prostitution which shocks an American. 
 Another effect of " moral restraint" among the middle class 
 is, that a great proportion of the females in that class are 
 doomed to celibacy. One may well say doomed. Custom 
 forbids them to practise that sort of " moral restraint" to 
 which their brothers resort without disgrace ; and custom is 
 stronger than walls and bars. In this case, it has more 
 power than the strictest discipline of a convent. But why 
 do the English, Americans, French, Dutch, and Germans 
 regard with horror the legal institution of celibacy ? On 
 account of its unnatural cruelty. Well then, in England, a 
 certain state of political economy, pride, or prudence, and 
 custom, occasion more unnatural suffering than the villanous 
 theocracies of Italy and Spain. The proportion of English 
 women who pine in celibacy, is far greater than that of Span- 
 ish or Italian women who languish in convents ; and the Eng- 
 lish women suffer more than the others, because, living in 
 the world, they are more in the way of temptation, more 
 cruelly tantalized by their intercourse with happy wives and 
 mothers. There is not in the world a more deplorable 
 sight, than a fine brood of English girls turning into old 
 maids one after the other : first reaching the bloom of 
 beauty, full of health, spirits, and tenderness ; next striving 
 anxiously, aided by their mother, to become honoured and 
 happy wives ; then fretting, growing thin, pale, listless, and 
 cross; at last, if they do not go mad or die of consumption, 
 seeking consolation in the belief of an approaching millen- 
 nium, or in the single pursuit of that happiness in another 
 world, which this world has denied to them. The picture 
 may displease, even because it is correct. This, Americans, 
 you whose domestic manners an Englishwoman holds up to 
 the ridicule of her countrywomen ; this is a faithful sketch 
 from domestic life among the English middle class. 
 
 The misery of the working class of Englishmen is not, 
 perhaps, at this time, much greater in degree than at former 
 times, or so great as the misery of the bulk of the people in 
 
 10
 
 74 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 most other countries, except America. In this respect, the 
 difference between the past and the present seems to be ; 
 first, that with the increase of population there are more 
 people to be miserable, not more in proportion, but more 
 absolutely ; and secondly, that, with the increase of know- 
 ledge, one learns all about that misery which was formerly 
 concealed from the happy classes. But the great uneasiness 
 of the middle class in England is a new state of things ; 
 unexplained, and at first sight unaccountable, if one reflects 
 on the vast and rapidly increasing wealth of the English 
 nation. Competition for wages is, plainly, the immediate 
 cause of misery among the working class : but what 
 occasions that severe competition among people of capital 
 and education, that snatching at each other's means of ex- 
 istence, which renders the life of the English middle class 
 one struggle with difficulties ? This question is examined 
 in the following note. 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 COINCIDENCE OF OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH WITH 
 THE UNEASINESS AND MISERY OF INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 Theories of the English economists — A dream of Robinson Crusoe's island — 
 The field of production an element of wealth — Argument with the econo- 
 mists — Argument with the Archbishop of Dublin — America and England, 
 as to the field of production — Cases of various proportions among the ele- 
 ments of production — Peculiar case of England — As wealth increases, 
 many individuals are less rich — Moral and sirictlv political effects of the 
 various proportions which the Geld of production beaTS to capital and 
 labour — Peculiar effects in the peculiar case of England. 
 
 According to certain theories of the English political 
 economists, it is quite impossible thai my account of the 
 wealth, uneasiness, and misery of the English people should 
 lie true. Those philosophers would siy — If the capital of 
 England be so much greater in proportion to people than 
 thai of «>iIkt countries, wages must be higher in England 
 than elsewhere ;* for "Wages depend on the proportion 
 between population and capitaL"* Again, if the middle 
 
 • "i nr.i'i ally then we may affirm that, other things remaining the same, 
 If the ratio which capital and population bear to one another remains the 
 same, wages will remain the tame ; if the ratio w bich capital bears to popu- 
 lation increases, wagebill ris* ; if the ratio which population bears to
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 75 
 
 class suffered from the low profits of stock, the labouring 
 class would enjoy high wages ; and if the labouring class 
 suffered from low wages, the capital of the middle class 
 would yield high profits ; since " the profits of slock depend 
 upon wages, rise as wages fall, and fall as wages rise."f 
 This is called reasoning d priori, and though very sound 
 and profound, no doubt, to those who understand it, is sadly 
 puzzling to common intellects. Let us try, however, to 
 make it out. 
 
 The English people have accumulated afar greater capital 
 than the same number of people ever possessed, or dreamed 
 of possessing, since the world began: they have so much 
 capital that they know not what to do with it : though 
 during the last half century they have squandered, wasted, 
 utterly thrown away, more capital than most nations possess, 
 they still possess more capital than they ever possessed 
 before. Abundance of capital, in proportion to people, 
 always produces high wages. Therefore, wages are much 
 higher in England than they ever were among any other 
 people, or at any previous time among the English people. 
 Aristotle would not have quarrelled with the syllogism, and 
 that great logician and economist, the Archbishop of Dublin, 
 will find no fault in it, logically speaking. But there must 
 be an error somewhere, since the conclusion is directly at 
 variance with a known fact. Let us try again. 
 
 1. When capital is less in proportion to people, wages 
 
 are lower ; 
 
 2. The proportion of capital to people is far less in 
 
 America than in England ; 
 
 3. Therefore, wages are far lower in America than in 
 
 England. 
 The logic is still good ; but the conclusion is again directly 
 at variance with a known truth ; the fact being, that wages 
 are far higher in America than in England. Wherein lies 
 the error ? in one of the propositions, but in which of them, 
 my lord ? I put the question to the archbishop, and to Mr. 
 Mill, who, like his grace, is a great economist and logician. 
 
 capital increases, wages will fall. From this law, clearly understood, it is 
 easy to trace the circumstances which, in any country, determine the con- 
 dition of the great body of the people." — MiWs Elements of Political 
 Economy, pa^e 44, 3d edit. 
 
 • Mill's Elements of Political Economy, Section Wages, p. 41, 3d edit. 
 
 t Mill's Elements, Section Profits, p. 71, 3d edit. 
 
 " It must at once be seen," says Mr. Ricardo, that " profits would be 
 high or low, exactly as wages were low or high. ***** There could be 
 no rise in the value of labour,"without a fall of profits."
 
 7G OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 Now fur the question of profits ; according to the econo- 
 mists. 
 
 1. When profits are high, wages are low; 
 
 2. In America, profits are very high ; 
 
 3. Therefore, in America, wages are very low. 
 Again,— 
 
 J . When wages are low, profits are high ; 
 
 2. Wages are very high in America ; 
 
 3. Therefore, profits are very low in America. 
 Or thus, — 
 
 1. When profits are low, wages are high ; 
 
 2. In England, profits are very low ; 
 
 3. Therefore, in England, wages are very high. 
 And again, — 
 
 1 . When wages are low, profits are high ; 
 
 2. Wages are very low in England ; 
 
 3. Therefore, in England, profits are very high. 
 Deuse take the conclusion ! it always comes wrong, which 
 
 ever way one looks for it. 1 had been puzzling myself to 
 get over a difficulty in political economy by means of logic, 
 when growing more and more confused, I at last had the 
 good luck to fall asleep. Good luck, I say, because during 
 my sleep I had a dream, which explained to me why profits 
 and wages, both together, are so low in England and so high 
 in America. This was my dream : — 
 
 I was shipwrecked and cast into the sea. I heard the 
 shrieks of my shipmates who were drowning, and felt the 
 pain of having my own head struck against a rock. My 
 next impression was less disagreeable. 1 found myself 
 alone, but quite well, in Robinson Crusoe's island, walking 
 up the green slope from the creek to the cave. Robinson 
 came out by his ladder to meet me, and said with a smile — 
 "Welcome! countryman." For my part, [embraced him 
 tenderly, as an old and very dear friend. Presently, Friday 
 ran up to as, and though he made me laugh by bowing very 
 l<>w and kicking up bis legs, backwards, one after the other, 
 expressing respect and joy at the same time, still I could 
 not help snaking hands with him also, the faithful creature. 
 Robinson asked me to take something after my voyage ; 
 but I, not to be behind him in politeness, seeing that he was 
 in a hurry to show me all his fine things, said — t( Not at 
 nt, thank you; 1 should like to sec your improve- 
 ments." Hereupon he led me, first to his crops, which had 
 arance ; and then within the enelo*
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 77 
 
 sure, where I admired his goats, the tools which had cost 
 him so much trouble, and the great store of provisions and 
 seeds which he had laid up. At length, we sat down to a 
 very respectable dinner of fish and. roasted kid. ; chatting 
 as follows during the meal. 
 
 Dreamer. — Altogether, Mr. Crusoe, you seem quite at 
 your ease. 
 
 Robinson. — Why, yes, blessed, be God ! but I have had 
 my trials. It was a sore trial when I was obliged to sow 
 the seed that I would fain have eaten, and when I had no 
 Friday to help me ; but 1 have been very comfortable 
 since I got before the world, with a good stock of seeds, 
 tools, and goats : nay, since I lighted on Friday, I have 
 lived like a gentleman, quite at my ease, as you say. 
 D. You are a capitalist now, Robinson ? 
 R. Capitalist ! what is that ? 
 
 D. Why, seeds, tools, and goats are capital ; and as 
 you possess these, you are a capitalist. Friday works ; you 
 direct him, and give him a share of the produce : Friday 
 is a labourer. 
 
 R. A labourer ! yes, he works ; a share ! he takes what 
 he pleases. 
 
 D. Of course, high wages of labour, eh ; and high profits 
 of stock also, or you would not be so much at your ease, Mr. 
 Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 R. I have forgotten some of my English. High wages 
 of labour, high profits of stock ! what are they ? 
 
 D. In this island, high wages mean, that you can let 
 Friday take what he pleases without stinting yourself; and 
 high profits mean, that Friday takes what he pleases with- 
 out stinting you. Friday's labour, with the aid of your 
 seeds, tools, and goats, produces plenty for both of you. 
 
 R. Yes — but hark ! man Friday ! friend ! down upon 
 your knees ! here's another earthquake ! 
 
 And sure enough it was a terrible earthquake ; for though 
 it hurt none of us and did not last a minute, when we re- 
 covered ourselves and passed from the cave, through the 
 enclosure, and over the outer fence, behold, every part of 
 the island was covered with water, except the rock which 
 formed the cave, and about half an acre of land in front of 
 us. Robinson and his man knelt again, and returned 
 thanks to God for having preserved our lives ; while I 
 stood by, distressed to think of what would become of them 
 with only that half acre of land. Crusoe's calmness and 
 resignation were quite admirable. Rising, he embraced
 
 78 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 Friday, saying — " The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh 
 away ; blessed be the name of the Lord !" Poor Friday, 
 however, began to cry ; and I felt disposed to keep him 
 company, when Robinson pointing to the enclosure said — 
 " We have plenty left, food for a year, seeds, tools, and goats ; 
 capital, sir, I think you called them ?" 
 
 " But what," asked I, " is the use of capital without a 
 field to employ it on ? Your goats will be starved, and 
 with no more than this little bit of land you will be unable 
 to use half your tools, or a quarter of your seeds." 
 
 Robinson looked rather blank at this, but said — " We 
 must do with less ; there will be less for Friday and less 
 for me, but enough, I hope, to keep us alive." 
 
 " Low wages and low profits," said I ; " but that is a 
 shocking state to be in. Cannot you set Friday to make, 
 with the things that are left from your wreck, instruments 
 and ornaments for some neigbouring savages, who have 
 more food than they know what to do with ? In that way, 
 if Friday were expert and industrious, you might be better 
 supplied than ever." 
 
 " Our neighbours," answered Robinson, " would make 
 food of us if they could." 
 
 11 Oh !" said I, " I had forgotten that restriction on trade. 
 Well, you cannot enlarge your field of production in that 
 way, and it is a sad affair ; but 1 know what the English 
 political economists would advise ; for Friday's sake, at 
 least." 
 
 " Political economists !" exclaimed Robinson, " who are 
 they ?" 
 
 " They are," I replied, " a new 'sect, and have set up a 
 new god, which is called capital, and which they worship 
 devoutly." 
 
 "The wicked idolators ! but what would they advise?" 
 
 "Only for Friday's sake, mind, in order that his wages 
 mighl be higher, they would advise you (<> increase your 
 capital." 
 
 "What! when 1 have already more than Friday and I 
 Khali know how to use ?" 
 
 " Y'-s; with abundance of capital, they believe, wages 
 are sure to he high." 
 
 •• \nd my Bhare, tin- profits I think you called it, how is 
 that to !"• made high '" 
 
 "By diminishing your capital, so that wages may be 
 low ; for, say they, when wages are low, prolits are sure 
 to be high."
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 79 
 
 Here Robinson laughed so loud that I awoke ; saying 
 to myself — The only way in which Robinson and his man 
 could get bark to high profits and high wages, would be 
 by getting back the land that they have lost. 
 
 By this dream I was led to observe, that the modern 
 economists, in treating of the production and distribution 
 of wealth, have overlooked the chief element of production ; 
 namely, the field in which capital and labour are employed. 
 They have written volumes on capital and labour, and the 
 effect of the various proportions which these may bear to 
 each other, but have scarcely noticed the field of produc- 
 tion ; and this but incidentally when explaining what they 
 conceive to be the nature of rent. In their theory of rent, 
 indeed, they show, that as capital increases on a limited 
 field of production, it is employed with less and less pro- 
 ductiveness, whence the inference might be drawn that in 
 such a case profits must become lower and lower; but 
 of this the modern economists say not a word. In fact, to 
 have drawn such an inference would have placed them in 
 an awkward position ; since in order to support their views 
 of the omnipotence of capital without regard to the means 
 of investment, they have fallen upon Adam Smith for saying, 
 that "the mutual competition of capitalists naturally tends 
 to lower profit." Instead, therefore, of showing the effects 
 which arise from various proportions between capita] and 
 the field of production, they have taken some pains to 
 establish that there are not any such effects ; that the effects 
 which Adam Smith supposed to arise from an increase of 
 capital in proportion to the field, or from a decrease of the 
 field in proportion to capital, have never existed, save in 
 imagination of their great master. How far they are 
 right or wrong, is a question of great importance to the 
 English. 
 
 Bring all the people out of France into England ; w r ould 
 that make any difference in English profits and wages? 
 None, Messrs. Mill and M'Culloch would say, provided 
 the French should bring all their capital with them. But 
 what could they do with their capital in a field which is 
 already quite lull ? Employ it, would be the answer, in 
 manufactures, and so get food from other countries. 
 Good, I reply, if there were no corn laws ; but that means, 
 increase the field of production, lay hold of foreign fields, 
 in proportion to the increase of capital and people in Eng- 
 land. Field of production they would say, we acknowledge 
 no such term ; capital is all in all.
 
 80 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 Well, then, suppose that only the capitalists of France 
 should come to England, with all their moveable property ; 
 what effect would that have on English profits and wages? 
 Wages, according to the economists, would rise ; and, 
 through the rise of wages, but not other wise, profits would 
 fall. But in what way would this increase of capital raise 
 wages ? By causing, would be the answer, a greater 
 demand for labour. Truly, if the new capital were invested 
 productively, but not otherwise ; and how should it be in- 
 vested productively, or even at all, when already the capi- 
 tal of England is so great, in proportion to the means of 
 productive investment, that it overflows into France* and 
 other foreign fields of production ? Nonsense ! I hear them 
 exclaim, capital and production are synonymous. Let us 
 try them again. 
 
 Suppose the sea, for three hundred miles east and west of 
 England, to be turned into excellent land, and that every 
 one were at liberty to take as much of it as he could cultivate 
 in the most productive way, that is. with the greatest com- 
 bination of power, according to the English system of farm- 
 ing. What effect would that have on profits and wages ? 
 Answer not rashly; but think of America. Messrs. Mill 
 and M'Culloch, answering devoutly towards the god of their 
 idolatry, would say — No effect at all, provided the propor- 
 tion between capital and population remained the same. 
 Well, gentlemen, let us suppose that the proportion between 
 capital and population were not altered for some time ; that 
 a great mass of capital which is now lying idle, or about to 
 fly abroad in the shape of foreign loans and distant specu- 
 lations, were employed in cultivating the new land and 
 turned into food, which is capital ; would not the effect be, 
 supposing always that the mass of capita] now idle and so 
 to find cmploymenl were very great indeed ; in that ease, I 
 say, would not the effecl be a greal increase <>i the demand 
 for labour and a general rise of \\ ages ? They must answer 
 . — yes. Yes, gentlemen, in that case the mere conversion 
 of one s.»rt of capital into another sort, without any increase 
 of the quantity, would produce higher wages. Let us sup- 
 . further, that the new land were of so good a quality 
 that the gross produce of all capital employed on it should 
 
 be sufficient to replace thai capital, to pay high wages, and 
 
 to leave high profits for the capitalists; in thai case, bear- 
 ing in mind that, the extent of the new land is six hundred 
 
 • - etur II "• C 'iti'ii and 
 
 lace, in France, are carried on with English capital.
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 81 
 
 miles square, would not capital be withdrawn from pursuits 
 in which the profits are low, and employed in cultivating 
 this very productive land 1 and would 'not the effect be a 
 general rise of profits ? Inevitably, they must admit. Then 
 the case may be supposed in which wages and profits, both 
 together, would rise without any increase or decrease of 
 capital. 
 
 Supposed, yes, they might say, but you suppose a 
 miracle. And you, gentlemen, do not you illustrate all 
 your doctrines, true or false, by supposed cases ? But I will 
 soon come to the practical case : meanwhile, one more ques- 
 tion with regard to this miracle. Suppose that the eight 
 hundred millions which have been thrown away, in creating 
 your national debt, had been saved, had not been wasted 
 abroad, and were lying idle in any shape you please ; or 
 rather, for a much lower draft on the imagination will serve 
 my turn, suppose that the mass of English capital actually 
 either lying idle, or invested with very low profit, were 
 sufficient, when employed on this new and very product- 
 ive land, to create a demand for more labourers than Eng- 
 land could supply without delay ; and that, consequently, 
 labourers, tempted by the prospect of high wages, should 
 immigrate from Ireland and France. In that case ; no in- 
 crease, mind, but merely a conversion of capital is supposed ; 
 in that case, an enlargement of the field of production^ mere 
 increase in the productiveness of capital, would have caused 
 a change in the proportion between capital and labour, 
 would have made the labourers more in proportion to 
 capital. Here, you see, is a cause antecedent to your great 
 first cause, the proportion between capital and labour : and 
 observe, further, that the effect produced by enlarging the 
 field of production, namely, an increase of labourers, might 
 have no effect at all on the rate of wages ; or rather that 
 wages might rise while the number of labourers was in- 
 creasing, provided the amount of capital lately idle, and 
 now used productively, were more than sufficient to employ 
 the increasing body of labourers. 
 
 In America, profits and wages both are high, without a 
 miracle. In America, the land is so good, it returns so 
 large a produce to capital and labour, however unskil- 
 fully employed, that all who cultivate it obtain plenty, like 
 Robinson and his man in the first part of my dream ; the 
 share of the masters being called high profits, and that of 
 the servants high wages. Moreover, the good land in 
 America is so plentiful, that no one is forced to employ his 
 
 11
 
 82 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 capital or labour less productively than in agriculture. 
 Consequently, all the capital employed in America yields 
 high profits and high wages ; the high profits and wages of 
 agriculture being spent in giving high profits and wages to 
 capitalists and labourers engaged in other pursuits. The 
 productiveness of all capital and labour is very great, and 
 does not decrease with the increase of capital and labour ; 
 because, however rapid that increase, it is accompanied by 
 a corresponding increase of the very productive field. The 
 continued high profits and high wages of America, then, ap- 
 pear to rise from the large proportion which, in America, the 
 field of production continually bears to capital and labour. 
 
 In England, on the contrary, the field of production is 
 limited, first by nature, and next by the corn laws, which 
 decree that the people of the United Kingdom shall have no 
 bread but that which is grown in the United Kingdom. This 
 limited field, moreover, is so full of capitalists, that these, 
 by competing with each other, reduce profits to a very low 
 rate ; and so full of labourers, that these, by competing with 
 each other, reduce wages to a very low rate. If it were 
 not for this severe competition among capitalists, a greater 
 difference than actually exists between the prices of Eng- 
 lish and American corn would show the vast difference 
 between the natural fertility of land in England and land in 
 America: if it were not for this severe competition among 
 labourers, English labour, which from the mode in which it 
 is employed is so much more productive than American 
 labour, in proportion to the number of hands, would be 
 better paid, instead of being far worse paid than American 
 labour. In England, both classes, capitalists and labourers, 
 are fighting for room. Consequently, it may be said that, 
 in England, low profits and low wages are owing to the 
 small proportion which the held of production continually 
 bears to capital and labour. 
 
 But, the Archbishop of Dublin might say j but low profits 
 and low wages, together, have occurred in England before 
 now, w hen the proportion of capital and labour to the field, 
 as \on call it, was much less than it is a1 present. How 
 could that have occurred if, as you Bay, profits and wages 
 depend on the proportion which capital and labour hear to 
 the held of production ? Further, the cases have often hap- 
 pened of low wages with high profits, and high wages with 
 low profit . Such I variance with yourtheory. 
 
 So, m) lord; nor do I say thai profits and wages depend 
 solely on the proportion which capital and labour bear to
 
 COINCIDENT WITII INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 83 
 
 the field of production. But I will try to explain my theory 
 after the fashion of the economists : begging such readers 
 as find this note dull to pass on to the next, where they 
 will find some urgent reasons for turning back to this one. 
 
 Capital pays labour, and labour uses capital. Between 
 these, therefore, there is an intimate relation. The propor- 
 tion, also, which these bear to each other, is always of some 
 importance ; because, whatever the produce of industry, 
 the division of that produce between the two classes who 
 raise it, is regulated by the number of labourers in propor- 
 tion to the capital employed. I say employed, because 
 capital which cannot be employed, which lies idle for want 
 of employment, is as if it did not exist. When labourers 
 are few in proportion to capital for which there is employ- 
 ment, the labourer exacts a large share of the produce, 
 which leaves but a small share for the capitalist ; and when 
 capital is small in proportion to labour, the capitalist can re- 
 serve a large share of the produce for himself, leaving but a 
 small share for the labourers. So far the political economists ; 
 and so far both profits and wages depend on the proportion 
 between labour and capital. But all this relates to nothing 
 but the division of the produce. A far more important 
 question remains — what determines the amount of produce 
 to be divided ? Suppose the shares fixed at half and half: 
 now double the produce. Profits are doubled and wages 
 are doubled ; the capitalist who got ten per cent, now gets 
 twenty per cent. ; the labourer who got two shillings a day 
 now gets four shillings a day. Messrs. Mill and M'Culloch 
 would contend that wages had not been altered ; but your 
 friend Mr. Senior, and you, my lord, would say that wages 
 had been altered in amount, though not in share. Still, with 
 this remark you would rest satisfied ; and concerning the 
 effect on profits of doubling the produce of industry, you 
 would say nothing. 
 
 Now I venture to suggest, that the mere division of pro- 
 duce between capitalists and labourers is a matter of very 
 small moment, indeed, when compared with the amount of 
 produce to be divided ; that, whether the capitalist obtain 
 three-quarters and the labourers one-quarter, or the labour- 
 ers three-quarters and the capitalist one-quarter, the grand 
 question is, how much do the two parties divide between 
 them ? By discussing the question of shares only, all that 
 we can learn is, how one party may gain by the other 
 party's loss ; by discussing the question of amount, we may 
 discover what is that state of things most beneficial to both 
 parties. By dwelling altogether on the former question, we
 
 84 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 make bad blood between the two classes ; telling the 
 capitalist that he must suffer unless his labourers be misera- 
 ble ; assuring the labourer that his sufferings arise from his 
 master's prosperity : by examining the latter question we 
 may prove that masters and servants have one and the 
 same interest ; that, as there is a state of things bad for 
 both parties, so is there a state of things good for both 
 parties. And this latter question is of vast practical im- 
 portance to the English at this present moment ; when, as 
 I have endeavoured to show in the succeeding note, there is 
 every prospect of a desperate struggle between the two 
 parties, who have been set against each other by being told, 
 that the welfare of either party is incompatible with the 
 welfare of the other. 
 
 The productiveness of industry depends upon, first, the 
 agency of nature, that is, the natural quality of the land 
 from which subsistence is derived ; secondly, upon combina- 
 tion of power for distribution of employments, which, for 
 shortness, may be called skill. But these two regulators of 
 production have a tendency to act in opposite directions. 
 When a people cultivate land of very great natural fertility, 
 and without limit as to space, so that the people may in- 
 crease without resorting to inferior soils, they have no in- 
 ducement to employ their industry in the most skilful way. 
 On the contrary, they are strongly impelled to cut up their 
 capital and labour into small distinct fractions.* America 
 is the example, where the produce raised by a given amount 
 of capital and labour, though sufficient to yield high profits 
 and high wages, is not equal to a fourth, perhaps, of what 
 the same amount of capital and labour would produce on 
 the same land, if employed with English skill. To proceed 
 at once to the other example, a produce sufficient to feed 
 the actual population of England, could not have been raised 
 in England without the greatest skill in the application of 
 capital and labour. As population increased in a country 
 naturally stcril and of limited extent, industry was applied 
 With more and more skill to the cultivation of land ; and the 
 increase of skill counteracted thedecrease of natural product- 
 iveness when capital was applied to waste land of inferior 
 quality, or more capital was used on land already cultivated. 
 
 But though greater skill counteract the growing necessity 
 of employing capita] and labour with less and less assistance 
 from nature, still, in the long run, the produce obtained with 
 
 * Sv.c note an the origin, progrcKB, nnd ptDfpaoti of slavery in "America.
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 85 
 
 the maximum of skill and the minimum of natural fertility, 
 will not be more than sufficient to afford inducements for 
 continuing the work of production. The amounts of pro- 
 duce, indeed, raised by equal capitals will be very different, 
 because land varies in natural fertility and in circumstances 
 of position, such as vicinity to manure and a market ; but, 
 as those who cultivate land of superior qualityor position, 
 must pay to the owners of such land, as a premium for being 
 allowed to use it, all the excess of produce above what 
 suffices to replace capital with ordinary profits (they must 
 do this, because others would do so if they would not), the 
 whole produce to be divided between capitalists and labour- 
 ers is, notwithstanding the greatest skill, reduced to the 
 minimum. 
 
 The land, therefore, from which a society derives its food, 
 constitutes its field of production ; and the productiveness 
 of capital, subject to the temporary effect of increasing skill, 
 depends on the proportion which capital bears to the field 
 in which it is employed. 
 
 With this introduction, the four following cases will de- 
 scribe all the common conditions of society which exhibit 
 different rates of profit and wages. 
 
 First. The case in which capital bears a large propor- 
 tion to labour, and a small proportion to the field of pro- 
 duction. The United States and some new colonies are 
 the examples. In this case, wages are high in share and 
 in amount ; profits being, though low in share, high in 
 amount. 
 
 Secondly. The case in which capital bears a large pro- 
 portion to labour, and also a large proportion to the field of 
 production. High wages and low profits will be the result. 
 This was the case in France towards the close of the last 
 war, when the conscription had rendered labourers scarce : 
 more than once, it has been the case in England after a 
 pestilence. 
 
 Thirdly. The case in wdiich capital bears a small pro- 
 portion to labour, and also a small proportion to the field 
 of production. Low wages and high profits will be the 
 result ; the produce divided being great, but the labourers' 
 share small. This is the case of nearly all countries in 
 which, with superabundance of labourers, there is plenty 
 of room for the employment of more capital without any 
 decrease of productiveness. Bengal is a good example, 
 where wages are two-pence a day, and the rate of interest 
 twelve per cent.
 
 S6 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 Fourthly. The case in which capital bears a small pro- 
 portion to labour, and a great proportion to the field of pro- 
 duction. This case gives low profits and low wages also ; 
 the whole produce of industry to be divided among the pro- 
 ducers being reduced to the minimum. France may be an 
 example of this case. 
 
 But these are common cases. The present case of Eng- 
 land differs from all of these, in as much as we cannot say 
 that English capital bears a small proportion to English 
 labour ; seeing that, in consequence of the very high pro- 
 portion which English capital bears to the field of produc- 
 tion, great masses of capital lie idle, are invested unproduct- 
 ively, that is, wasted, and are exported to other countries, 
 not taking with them a corresponding amount, or any 
 amount, of English labour. The same thing appears to 
 have occurred formerly in Genoa, Venice, and Holland. 
 
 The case of England differs from all other actual cases in 
 a very important particular. Political economists have 
 described three states of society, the progressive, the sta- 
 tionary, and the retrograde. They call progressive that 
 state of society in which both capital and the field of pro- 
 duction increase as fast as population can possibly increase ; 
 so that profits and wages, both being constantly high, 
 whatever the division of produce, the people increase as 
 fast as possible. They call stationary that condition of 
 society in which there is no further room for the product- 
 ive employment of industry, in which case, profits and 
 wages are constantly as low as possible. They call the 
 retrograde state of society that in which, generally from 
 moral causes, the field of production constantly decreases; 
 in which case, not only are profits and wages constantly at 
 the minimum, but every year some capitalists arc reduced 
 to the state of labourers; and, yet the labouring class 
 becomes less and less numerous. The Venetian republic, 
 when she lost the trade between Europe and Asia, was an 
 example' of this case: was not Holland in political convul- 
 sions another ? 
 
 There appears to be a fourth state of society, which may 
 be called stationary as to profits and wages, but which is 
 progressive as to the amount of capital, the extent of the 
 field for employing industry, and the number of people. 
 
 The field, the capital, and the] pie, may increase ; ye1 if 
 
 the enlargement «»l the field be ool more rapid than the 
 increase of capital, do alteration of profits will occur; nor 
 any alteration of wages, unless the field be enlarged and
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 87 
 
 capital be increased, at the same time, more rapidly than 
 people shall increase. Though, in such a state of society, 
 both capitalists and labourers will increase in number, 
 though new means of communication will be opened, though 
 fresh towns will arise, though the increase of population 
 and of national wealth may be striking, nevertheless the 
 rate of profits may still be low, the rate of wages but just 
 sufficient to permit an increase of labourers, the majority of 
 capitalists in a state of uneasiness, and the whole body of 
 labourers miserable and degraded. This has been the case 
 of England since 1815. "War ceasing, great masses of cap- 
 ital were no longer wasted every year, but were accumu- 
 lated in England ; new channels of investment were opened ; 
 the number of capitalists was visibly augmented ; signs of 
 increasing wealth appeared ill all directions ; but as the 
 field of production was not enlarged so rapidly as capital 
 increased, more and more competition among capitalists 
 led to the lowest rate of profit, and made the condition of 
 the greater number worse than that of the smaller number. 
 So with respect to the labouring class ; with the peace, 
 which removed one check to the increase of people, came 
 great improvements in medicine, which removed other 
 checks ; and the common people increased faster than the 
 means of employment for increasing capital. In a word, 
 both the capital and the people increased faster than the 
 field of production was enlarged. This change of the pro- 
 portion between two of the elements of production and the 
 third or chief element, explains the coincidence of enormous, 
 nay, of rapidly increasing national wealth, with the uneasi- 
 ness of the middle class and the misery of the bulk of the 
 people. 
 
 The moral and strictly political effects of the various 
 proportions which the field of production bears to capital 
 and population, must now be briefly considered. 
 
 In the progressive state of society, capital has a tendency 
 to an equal distribution among all the people. In America, 
 notwithstanding high profits, individuals seldom accumulate 
 large fortunes. Though the produce divided between the 
 capitalist and the labourer be large, the labourer takes so 
 great a share that he soon becomes a capitalist. Under 
 this most progressive state of society, therefore, the increase 
 of capital is divided, pretty equally, among a number of 
 capitalists increasing at the same rate as the capital ; so 
 that while none are compelled to work as servants through 
 life, few, even of those whose lives are unusually long, can
 
 88 OVERFLOWING NATIONAL WEALTH 
 
 accumulate great masses of wealth. Moreover, in such a 
 state of things, the independence and self-respect of all be- 
 gets a love of equality, and thus conduces to the equal dis- 
 tribution of the capitalist's wealth among his children ; so 
 that an individual seldom inherits the savings of many 
 generations, or even the bulk of his father's property. In 
 this state of things, there is no idle class, no spending class, 
 as Captain Hall has remarked, no adoration of wealth, no 
 oppression of the poor, no reason for political discontent. 
 This appears to be the happiest state of society consistent 
 with the institution of property. 
 
 In those states of society which are cither retrograde or 
 stationary, as well as in that peculiar state which, though 
 advancing in the aggregate of wealth, gives low profits and 
 low wages, wealth inevitably accumulates in a few hands. 
 Wages being extremely low, the great body of the people 
 are unable to save; and profits being extremely low, small 
 capitalists consume the whole, or nearly the whole, of what 
 remains to them after replacing their capital. Some, indeed, 
 appear to be employed in diminishing their capital. Mr. 
 Mill has incidentally supposed the case, in which none but 
 large capitalists should be able to save, or even to live, on 
 the profits of capital : in which society should consist only 
 of labourers and great capitalists.* These last, whose con- 
 sumption is small when compared with the returns of their 
 large capitals, even with very low profits, are able to accu- 
 mulate in proportion to the amount of their wealth. In the 
 next place, when the common rate of profit is low, the 
 small capitalist is apt to be ruined by fluctuations in trade, 
 which are the periods of harvest to the great capitalist, who 
 can wait to buy when the market price is low, and to sell 
 when it is high. When, too, the common, rate of profits is 
 low, great capitalists are not always subject to the law of 
 competition. In some operations, such for example as the 
 distillation of spirits, porter brewing, tanning, and the pub- 
 lication of a daily newspaper heavily taxed, the amount of 
 capital required is so large, and the time when a return 
 may be expected so distant, that no small capitalists can 
 undertake one of them with a prospect of advantage. Such 
 operations can be conducted only by the owners of large 
 
 » " In proportion u capital is attended with less and less of annua] return, 
 the ownon of capital have leea and leai income. It the income from capital 
 be continually <ii ! ol time none but the owners of targe 
 
 mastex "f capital will derive from it the metau of .mhsittencc." — Milt's Ele- 
 ments 0/ Political Economy, pago 61, Jd edit.
 
 COINCIDENT WITH INDIVIDUAL UNEASINESS. 89 
 
 capitals, who thus establish monopolies whereby they ob- 
 tain profits somewhat above the common rate. Again, 
 when wages and profits are low in consequence of the large 
 proportion which capital and people bear to the field of 
 production, a part of the produce of industry falls to the 
 owners of land, both as landlords and capitalists ; a class 
 who, speaking generally, disdain the pursuits of industry, 
 and who in most countries have made laws for the descent 
 of land, and of capital fixed on land, which promote the 
 accumulation of wealth in a few hands. When, further, 
 low wages and low profits condemn the bulk of the people 
 to want, and all small capitalists to distress or vexation, 
 wealth obtains such inordinate respect and so many advan- 
 tages over and above what wealth will purchase in any 
 market, that slavishness on the one hand, and pride on the 
 other, become habitual. And to these evils must be added, 
 the corruption of idleness, grasping and gambling habits, 
 which lead to dishonesty among the middle class, and 
 savage discontent among those who are without hope. 
 Thus the retrograde or stationary condition presents at the 
 same moment gorgeous palaces and wretched hovels, com- 
 plete idleness and incessant toil, high mental cultivation 
 and the most barbarous ignorance : it cannot but produce a 
 general corruption of morals, nor end, sooner or later, but 
 in violent political convulsions. 
 
 Not only the coincidence of misery and uneasiness with 
 enormous wealth, but all the most striking social peculiarities 
 of England may be traced to a superabundance of capital 
 and population in proportion to the means of employing 
 capital and labour. Nay, it might perhaps be shown, by 
 reference to history, that the decline and fall of empires 
 have, in great measure, been owing to the excess of two of 
 the elements of production over the third ; which dispro- 
 portion throws great part of the national wealth into the 
 hands of an idle class, producing an extreme inequality of 
 conditions, and therefore an extreme corruption of morals, 
 with pride, insolence, and cruelty on the side of the wealthy 
 few, discontent and recklessness on the part of the suffering 
 many ; and resulting, finally, in jealousies, divisions, com- 
 motion, and civil wars, which dry up the very springs of 
 national greatness. 
 
 12
 
 (90) 
 
 NOTE V. 
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Retrospect — The constitution of 1688 — Its merits and defects — Maintained 
 by corruption — Populace subservient to the ruling class — Effects of 
 knowledge — On the middle class — On the poor — History of the late 
 change in the constitution — New constitution obtained by the physical 
 force — New constitution described — Not likely to last — Dangers in the 
 prospect of change — Democracy or worse, apparently inevitable- — Dangers 
 of democracy — Possible means of avoiding the probable evils of change — 
 Christian legislation — Means of improving the physical condition of the 
 bulk of the people, and of removing the uneasiness of the middle class. 
 
 In order to take a just view of the political prospects of 
 the English, we must look back a little ; besides observing 
 carefully by what means was brought about that peaceful, 
 but very difficult political change, that most pregnant rev- 
 olution which has just taken place in England. 
 
 The theory of the English government, as settled by the 
 revolution of 1688, was this : — three powers in one power ; 
 the king one power, the lords one power, and the commons 
 one power ; but the power of the king, of the lords, and of 
 the commons, is all one, co-existent and co-equal : the king 
 powerful, the lords powerful, and the commons powerful ; 
 and yet there are not three powers, but one power. And 
 in this trinity, none is afore or after the other, none is greater 
 or less than another ; but the whole three powers are co- 
 existent together and co-equal. Nevertheless, though all 
 laws must have the consent of king, lords, and commons, 
 the king cannot originate any laws, nor the lords any laws 
 relating to taxes ; while the king is the sole executor of the 
 laws. But the king can do no wrong; his ministers, alone, 
 being responsible for his acts. Furthermore, the king's 
 
 f)ower descends from father to son ; as does that of the 
 ords ; and the king can create lords without any limit as 
 to number. Lastly, the commons represent the whole 
 nation, save the king and lords, in parliament assembled. 
 
 This is the theory of the English constitution, as settled 
 in ic>s>. The practice of that constitution has been as 
 follows. 
 
 Since no operation of government can be conducted 
 without money, the commons, who hold the public purse,
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OP THE ENGLISH. 91 
 
 have been omnipotent. They have possessed the power 
 to make whatever laws they pleased, and to compel the 
 execution of such laws in whatever manner they pleased. 
 What things they have done by the exercise of that power, 
 or left undone by abstaining from the exercise of it, is quite 
 another question, depending on the motives by which they 
 were actuated. They may have chosen to agree with the 
 king and the lords, or occasionally to disagree with them, 
 to enlarge or curtail the royal functions, to restrict or ex- 
 tend popular rights ; but, whatever may have been their 
 inclinations, whatever their acts, they have never wanted 
 power to do as they pleased. 
 
 This is the first great difference between the theory and 
 practice of the English constitution. The next is, that the 
 commons, instead of representing the whole nation, save 
 the king and lords, have been partly self-elected, partly 
 nominated by individual lords, and partly chosen by certain 
 bodies of the people. The rights of self-election and of 
 nomination were bought and sold like an estate, and de- 
 scended along with estates ; while the open elections were 
 so costly to the candidates that none but rich men could be 
 chosen. The whole power, therefore, of the English gov- 
 ernment resided in a few hundred men, who had the incli- 
 nation and the wealth to buy seats in the House of Com- 
 mons, either for themselves or their dependents. That 
 government has been called the oligarchy of borough- 
 mongers. 
 
 Seeing how this oligarchy was constituted, its motives 
 for doing certain things, and for leaving other things 
 undone, become plain enough. This would have differed 
 from all other oligarchies, if the main object of its members 
 had not been to share among themselves the emoluments 
 and distinctions of government. Monarchy being a costly 
 form of government, requiring a great outlay to maintain 
 the dignity of the crown, opens a wide field of emolument: 
 the English boroughmongers, therefore, have always been 
 strongly attached to the monarchical form of government. 
 Titles of honour are among the distinctions enjoyed by a 
 governing class, and it is natural that he who has himself 
 delighted in a title of honour should wish to transmit it to 
 his posterity : the English boroughmongers, therefore, have 
 always been fond of an hereditary nobility. But a mere 
 title, such as lord, or three-tailed bashaw, or blue buttoned 
 mandarin, would not be much esteemed unless there were 
 attached to it, not only real power, but also the appearance
 
 92 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 of power. Now, of the English boroughmongers a good 
 proportion were peers, who exercised real power by means 
 of their dependents in the House of Commons; but, as this 
 was, as far as possible, to be concealed from the nation, 
 they could not appear to exercise power without a legisla- 
 tive assembly of their own : the English boroughmongers, 
 therefore, have always warmly approved of a noble cham- 
 ber, in which the appearance of making laws should de- 
 scend along with titles of honour. As wealth was the 
 source of each man's power in the government of borough- 
 mongers, each boroughmonger wished that his wealth should 
 go down to his posterity undiminished : hence the pro- 
 found attachment of English boroughmongers to entails and 
 the law of primogeniture. But rich men, like poor men, 
 have daughters and younger sons : how was the rich bor- 
 oughmonger to provide for these without diminishing his 
 wealth ? Out of the public purse, over which, either by 
 sitting in the House of Commons, self-elected, or by means 
 of his dependents who sat there, he exercised a large share 
 of control. Boroughs were dear and elections very costly : 
 a snug borough cost near 100,000/., and one man has spent 
 100,000/. on one county election : how were such vast sums 
 to be recovered ? The public purse was always at hand. 
 Hence one learns why the English people, who according 
 to the theory of their constitution were all represented by 
 the House of Commons, have, in practice, been so heavily 
 taxed by that assembly. 
 
 Oligarchy and faction are almost synonymous terms ; 
 first, as every oligarchy is a faction, and next, as oligarchies 
 have always been divided into opposing factions. From 
 1688 to 1830, the whig and tory factions of the English 
 oligarchy ruled by turns, one in and the other out, as the 
 force of either party prevailed in the House of Commons. 
 But their struggles for emolument and distinctions, instead 
 of weakening the government, added considerably to its 
 strength. The party that was out commonly found fault 
 with the party thai was in, took up national grievances and 
 made great professions of public virtue : whence, as one 
 party was always out, the nation always imagined that a 
 portion of the legislature was singly devoted to the national 
 welfare. When the party thai was out became the most 
 powerful in the House of Commons, and therefore got in, 
 the king appeared to side with thai party, and the nation 
 rejoiced in a patriotic monarch. Now and then, one faction 
 was strongest in the commons' house and the other in the
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 93 
 
 lords' house, whence differences between the two houses, 
 which gave to the lords' house an air of independence ; 
 an occasional appearance which assisted in holding the 
 nation to the constitutional faith. Such differences, how- 
 ever, could never be serious or of long duration, because the 
 faction which ruled in the commons could always exercise, 
 in the king s name, the power of creating peers. At other 
 times, the king disagreed with the ruling faction and dis- 
 solved the House of Commons, when a grand election 
 struggle took place between the two parties ; but which- 
 ever party bought the greater number of votes in the new 
 House of Commons, became master of the government, 
 or rather the government itself; so that, though the king 
 occasionally exerted a will of his own, his independence 
 was but momentary. A dissolution of the House of Com- 
 mons was always called an appeal to the nation : thus, 
 whenever the king exerted an independent will, the nation 
 appeared to do so likewise ; thus an occasional difference 
 between the king and the ruling faction, by giving an air 
 of independence to the king, and an air of power to the 
 people, tended to preserve the nation's belief in the reality 
 and beauty of the constitution. When a petty disagree- 
 ment occurred among the three estates, the nation admired 
 the beautiful balance of the constitution ; and when such a 
 disagreement ceased, the beautiful harmony of the constitu- 
 tion was the thing to be admired. By such fictions and 
 phrases, the real oligarchy of boroughmongers was made 
 to pass for an inimitable mixed government, the envy and 
 admiration of surrounding countries. 
 
 And in truth this counterfeit mixture of monarchy, aristo- 
 cracy, and democracy, was the best government ever estab- 
 lished in Europe. Though the powers of government 
 rested in the hands of a few, those few owed their power to 
 wealth, and any one who could acquire great wealth might 
 help to govern. The qualification for the enjoyment of 
 power being wealth, it was natural that the government 
 should take great care of the wealthy. Moreover, as at all 
 times many of those who governed had lately sprung from 
 an inferior class, it was natural that they should sympathize 
 with a class or two below them. The English government, 
 accordingly, ever since it became an oligarchy of borough- 
 mongers, has provided better than any other government of 
 Europe for the security of property and persons. 
 
 Security of property ! personal safety ! What more could 
 be asked of any government ? Not much ; for these
 
 94 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 are the chief ends of government. Why then were the 
 English dissatisfied with their glorious constitution ? why 
 have they lately made another of a very different character ? 
 These questions will be answered by stating in what respect, 
 chiefly, the constitution was not a good one ; secondly, by 
 describing the means of its preservation ; and thirdly, by 
 showing how the force on which it depended was gradually 
 destroyed. 
 
 The old English constitution gave security to property, 
 with safety to persons, according to a scale, by which the 
 security and safety were bestowed in proportion to wealth. 
 Justice was made exceedingly dear. Thus, though there 
 was justice for all who could buy it, there was none for 
 those who could not ; and among those who could pay for 
 it, there was most for him who could pay most. As between 
 two persons of equal wealth, law was justice, though dear ; 
 as between two persons of unequal wealth, law was in- 
 justice. In the attack and defence of persons and property, 
 law, miscalled justice, favoured the richer party, whether 
 he attacked another wrongfully or defended his own right ; 
 and was, to the same extent of course, unfavourable to the 
 poorer party, whether he were right or wrong. Down the 
 scale of wealth, there was an active principle of wrong, 
 and up the scale of wealth, a defensive principle of right. 
 He who was at the top of the scale could injure the others, 
 who could not injure him ; those who were at the bottom of 
 the scale could not injure the others, but might be injured 
 by them. These were the principles on which the old Eng- 
 lish constitution afforded protection to persons and property. 
 Recollecting how much the happiness of man in society 
 depends on the administration of law, it will appear that in 
 this respect the old English constitution was a very bad one. 
 
 That constitution bestowed upon superior wealth many 
 privileges, some hurtful to the majority and in themselves 
 odious, others odious merely as privileges bestowed upon 
 wealth. Under that constitution, the rich alone could obtain 
 the higher emoluments, distinctions, and other gratifications 
 of power; could receive titles of honour ; could make laws in 
 the House of Commons: could enjoy or give places, and re- 
 ceive or bestow pensions ; could administer rural laws, after 
 making them ; could manage roads at the public expense, 
 and stop roads convenient, to the public ; could build, fill, 
 and govern jails; could keep '.'.line, shoot other people's 
 game, and transport other people for shooting their game ; 
 could be married in a particular way, and be divorced from
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OP THE ENGLISH. 95 
 
 their wives ; could have their children educated at a par- 
 ticular place at the public expense ; could appoint religious 
 teachers ; could fix rates of wages, saying to the poor — 
 * You shall marry, and you shall remain asunder : you who 
 are married shall not live together ;" with many more pri- 
 vileges, so far of a like kind as to be obviously unfair. 
 What privilege, indeed, is free from injustice ? Whichsoever 
 of these privileges was most hurtful to the nation, all of 
 them were calculated to excite hatred towards the privileged 
 class ; and though that curious machine, the constitution, 
 would have been less productive, would not have worked, 
 perhaps, without them, they were very proper to bring 
 about a revolution sooner or later. 
 
 The existence of every government of the many by a 
 few must depend upon some kind of force, wherewith to 
 secure the obedience of the many. The most common 
 force of government has been a body of guards, assisted by 
 a body of spies. This, however, was not the force of the 
 old English constitution, which, out of regard to the liberty 
 of the subject having property, was always opposed to 
 standing armies and political police. The force of the old 
 English constitution was corruption ; an engine of great 
 power, and one admirably fitted in this case to the machine 
 that it was employed to work. The oligarchy, which under 
 the name of a mixed government was set up in France 
 eighteen years ago, has been worked by an engine of this 
 sort ; but not well. In material mechanism, simplicity is a 
 great merit ; in political machinery, having for object to 
 keep many in subjection to a few, the grand point is com- 
 plication. In the French oligarchy, there was a sad want 
 of entanglement ; and then the French corruption was all 
 of one sort, obvious to the most careless observer. In 
 France, political corruption was a species of force ; in 
 England, a genus, comprehending many species. Of that 
 kind of corruption which was unique in France, namely, 
 expenditure of public money by the government, there was 
 plenty in England ; but this, great as it appears when com- 
 pared with the expenditure of other governments, seems 
 small when compared with the great mass of jobs and 
 monopolies by which it was assisted. Small, however, as 
 it appears in this point of view, it was mighty by the man- 
 ner of applying it. The public income of France was 
 divided among the public servants on these two erroneous 
 principles ; first, that every one should work for his pay ;
 
 96 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 secondly, that all public servants should be paid sufficiently. 
 The principles, on the contrary, which directed the public ex- 
 penditure of England, were, first, that many should be paid 
 who did not work at all ; secondly, that those who worked 
 least should be paid the most, and those who worked most, the 
 least. The churches of the two countries give a good ex- 
 ample of the operation of these opposite principles. In the 
 French church, none were idle ; all the hard working clergy 
 received comfortable incomes ; and the income of a bishop 
 was not more than seven or eight times as much as that of 
 a curate. In the English church, large incomes were given 
 to clergymen who seldom entered a church, and never either 
 a pulpit or a cottage ; the hard working clergy were kept 
 in a state of want ; and the income of many a bishop was 
 equal to the united incomes of three or four hundred curates. 
 Thus, in the French church, there were no great prizes by 
 which strong and ambitious spirits might be attached to the 
 established order of things; nor were clergymen ot moderate 
 disposition and talents urged, either by poverty or the hope 
 of riches, to curry favour with the ruling class. The 
 strong and ambitious spirits of the French church, accord- 
 ingly, instead of supporting the Hartwell charter, spared no 
 pains to overturn it, while French clergymen of moderate 
 disposition and talents were content to vegetate, comfortably 
 indifferent touching questions of government. Now turn 
 to England : here the most able and ambitious of the clergy, 
 desiring either to keep or obtain great prizes in the church, 
 supported the constitution with all their might, while clergy- 
 men of moderate temper and abilities could obtain com- 
 fortable incomes only by siding with one or other of the 
 state factions, and zealously supporting the constitution, to 
 which both factions were equally attached. The contrast 
 is remarkable, and helps to explain why the charter of 
 William III. lasted a hundred and twenty-five years longer 
 than the charter of Louis XVIII. It does but help, how- 
 ever, towards this explanation ; as the clergy of England 
 did but help tn support the constitution. The two prin- 
 ciples of sinecures, and of much pay for little work and 
 much work for little pay, were adopted in every depart- 
 mriii of the public expenditure; in the military and civil 
 branches of the army and navy, and the distribution of 
 prize money, in the administration of law, in public educa- 
 tion, in the diplomatic service, in the collection of the 
 revenue, in all public offices, and in the management of the
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 97 
 
 colonies, not forgetting Ireland. Thus a great body of the 
 people were induced, some by the desire of gain and some 
 by the fear of loss, to stand by the glorious constitution. 
 If none had been paid who did not work, and all who 
 worked had received moderate but sufficient pay, those 
 who were able and ambitious might have longed for a 
 change, and the remainder might have wanted a motive for 
 zeal in support of things as they were. Inequality is the 
 soul of political corruption. 
 
 But the corruption depending on a judicious outlay of 
 public money in the way of pensions and places, was small 
 when compared with that which arose out of jobs and mo- 
 nopolies. This distinction may be drawn between a job and 
 a monopoly, that the one is a direct, the other an indirect, 
 robbery of the public. Under the old English constitution, 
 the public was robbed directly by several classes of jobs ; 
 jobs in respect to contracts for supplies, loans, and public 
 works, victualling jobs, slopping jobs, scrip jobs, building 
 jobs, harbour, road, bridge, and canal jobs, and other jobs of 
 the same class without end ; the effect of each of these 
 jobs being, that the government paid more than would have 
 sufficed if the contracts had been submitted to open com- 
 petition ; that the difference between the necessary and 
 actual expenditure was so much public plunder bestowed 
 on friends of the glorious constitution. Next, there were 
 more palpable jobs ; — such as when crown lands were sold 
 or let for much less than their value, when the government 
 purchased land for more than its value, when grants of 
 public money were made to reward, in name, public services, 
 in reality devotion to the constitution ; when public works 
 were undertaken, either useless or hurtful to the public, or 
 when commissioners were appointed to perform certain 
 acts, and handsomely paid for doing nothing. All these 
 are but a sample of the jobbing that took place under the 
 old English constitution. Now observe, if the whole of 
 what was stolen from the public, by means of all these jobs, 
 had been spent honestly in the public service, the constitu- 
 tion would have wanted the zealous support of a great 
 band of robbers, delighted with the present and fearful of 
 change. Really, the old constitution is to be admired more 
 for its roguery than its profusion. 
 
 Next come monopolies ; and, first, monopolies of trade, 
 exclusive power to deal with particular countries or in 
 particular articles, such as of late years, the East India 
 Company, the Bank of England, the West India planters' 
 
 13
 
 98 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 monopoly of the British market, and the corn monopoly of 
 the landlords, which is the greatest of all : secondly, mo- 
 nopolies of quite another kind, such as that of the bar, which 
 bestows on a particular class the privilege of pleading in 
 the courts, and that which almost forbids a barrister even 
 to practise in certain courts unless he can afford to pay for 
 chambers in certain spots, where, of course, chambers are 
 extremely dear ; that other monopoly of the law by which 
 1,200/. must be paid as an apprentice fee for liberty to prac- 
 tise in some very important courts ;* the military monopoly 
 arising from the system of purchasing commissions, and 
 very many more of which a naked list would fill several 
 pages. The principle of monopoly seems to be : — gain with 
 one hand and lose with the other ; you rob me, and I rob 
 you. Englishmen who gain by those monopolies in which 
 they had a share, lost by others in which they had no share. 
 But the gain was manifest, while the loss was imperceptible : 
 there was the pleasure of robbing, without the pain of know- 
 ing that you were robbed. So much for individual feeling ; 
 but now observe the political influence of monopolies. Of 
 the loss, which was hidden, no one took note ; but the gain 
 was felt, joyfully felt, and attributed, with gratitude, to the 
 inimitable constitution. Adding to the long list of simple 
 jobs and pure monopolies, a multitude of establishments, 
 half job, half monopoly, such as corporations enjoying ex- 
 clusive privileges, holding lands, levying taxes, administer- 
 ing charities, and bestowing offices, one begins to under- 
 stand the power of that corruption which moved the old 
 English constitution. It works well ! George Canning used 
 to exclaim : countless plunderers responded, — it works 
 well! 
 
 But corruption was not the sole support of the borough- 
 monger's oligarchy. Wherever there exist only two classes, 
 as in Russia and the slave-states of America, the ruling 
 class despise the slaves, and the slaves hate their rulers. 
 The wise ancestors of Englishmen and Americans lived in 
 such like enmity towards each Other, when their habitations 
 consisted only of huls and castles. But as a middle class 
 grows up, the highest and lowest classes generally conspire 
 to injure those by whom they are separated. England, 
 ever since tin; revolution, presents a striking instance of 
 combination between the aristocracy and the mob for the 
 
 • The court* which relate to marriage ami the descent of personal prop- 
 
 f riy.
 
 POLITICAL PRCSPECT3 OF THE ENGLISH. 99 
 
 purpose of harming the middle class. Until the late peace, 
 the physical force was always subservient to the ends of 
 the ruling class ; as when mobs assembled to the cries of 
 " no popery," and " church and king," when the poor de- 
 lighted in a victory over their " natural enemies," the 
 French jacobins. The old English constitution worked 
 well, as long as it was supported by the physical force. 
 How this support was obtained, is not a mystery. For 
 above a century, at least, after 1688, they who composed 
 the physical force, the bulk of the people, were kept in a 
 state of profound ignorance. Closely resembling working 
 cattle, so far as knowledge goes, they were patient under 
 oppression, as the horse, through ignorance of his own 
 strength, submits to the spur. To obedience they added 
 reverence. A lord or a bishop, a rich squire or beneficed 
 clergyman, a rich contractor or stockjobber, residing in 
 his mansion, surrounded by a park, or when in London 
 still in a mansion, surrounded by mansions, seldom met the 
 poor but on occasions of show or excitement, when a dis- 
 play of his wealth, and of the respect paid to him by the 
 middle class, led the ignorant poorest class to regard him 
 as a demigod. Thus elevated above the cir>wd, he could 
 treat them with familiarity, and yet preserve their respect, 
 while airs of condescension, from one so raised, were 
 grateful to those so abject. Rank and wealth, accordingly, 
 were higher recommendations to mob popularity than learn- 
 ing and virtue. In the next place, with regard to property, 
 the great cause of jealousy and contention among men, an 
 English aristocrat of the last century was supposed, by the 
 grossly ignorant poor, to derive his wealth from any source 
 but their labour; and he did actually divide among the 
 poor a portion of the money which he obtained from the 
 public purse. A general election used to cause a fall in 
 the funds, by the sale of stock for the purpose of bribing, in 
 one shape or other, all poor electors in the kingdom. Add 
 to this the fiction, by which a good many poor men appeared 
 to exert a voice in choosing the House of Commons, the 
 drunkenness, license, and riot which the ruling class encou- 
 raged at elections, the sham of humility and good-fellowship 
 by which the candidates used to cajole the populace ; 
 taking all these things into account, the only wonder is, that 
 the poor, ignorant, degraded mass should ever have had a 
 will of their own. 
 
 We have now to see how the force on which the consti- 
 tution depended, was gradually destroyed.
 
 100 POLITICAL FROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 It is not so very long since old Englishwomen were 
 burnt for witchcraft, to the great satisfaction of everybody, 
 save the old women. Why do they no longer burn old 
 women in England ? Because, in the course of a little 
 more than a century, public opinion respecting witchcraft 
 has undergone the greatest change. The same thing has 
 happened with respect to dear justice, privileges, jobs, mo- 
 nopolies, and the prestige of aristocracy. To examine fully 
 when this change of opinion began, and by what steps it 
 proceeded, would carry me too far ; but a few remarks on 
 the subject may not be unacceptable to Americans. 
 
 Fifty years ago, instruction was confined to a portion of 
 the highest class. The middle class, indeed, could read 
 and write ; but their reading did not extend beyond divinity, 
 novels, the racing calendar, Moore's prophetic almanac, 
 and, now and then, a newspaper adapted to their ignorance. 
 As for any interchange of ideas by means of writing and 
 printing, they never thought of such a thing; or rather they 
 would have thought it presumptuous, if not unnatural, in 
 them to form ideas upon subjects of general interest. Ex- 
 cept when one of their narrow superstitions was attacked, 
 as, for example, their fear of popish supremacy, they left all 
 public questions to the nobility, clergy, and gentry, whom 
 alone they supposed capable of understanding such mat- 
 ters. They ate, drank, attended to their business, went to 
 church, horse-races, and raree-shows, stared and wondered 
 when a great man passed, and believed that the whole pub- 
 lic duty of man consisted in honouring the king and loving 
 the rest of the royal family. The great French revolution 
 entirely changed their character. When they saw that 
 men of their own class in a neighbouring country had 
 undertaken to govern, their slothful and slavish propensities 
 gave way to political excitement. The very horrors which 
 succeeded the French revolution, had an excellent c licet on 
 them; Betting them to think, read, and even write on pub- 
 lic questions* and. forcing them, above all, to look into the 
 condition of their inferiors. During the long war that fol- 
 lowed, some of them sided with the aristocracy, and some 
 wished success to thai revolution against which the war 
 w.is directed ; but all of them took an earnest part in pub- 
 lie affairs, livery public question was now discussed by 
 . and for them too by then 1 superiors, who wanted 
 their assistance. Books, magazines, pamphlets, and news- 
 papers came to be reckoned necessaries of life : and the 
 quality of these improved with the greater demand fbj
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OP THE ENGLISH. 101 
 
 them. At length, towards the close of the war, when a 
 new generation had grown up, the middle class were better 
 instructed than the highest class, and the charm of aristoc- 
 racy was gone. Individual Englishmen still revere the 
 distinction of title, still bow and cringe to any one of supe- 
 rior rank ; but the English, in general, have lost all reverence 
 for nobility in the abstract ; just as each individual, who 
 shares in a monopoly, would preserve his own particular 
 means of robbing the public, while all, including monopo- 
 lists, loudly condemn monopolies in general. During the 
 war, however, while profits were hiu,h, while among the 
 middle class almost every man's condition improved year 
 by year,- a great majority of that class sided with the 
 government, and was opposed to any change in the con- 
 stitution. But with the peace came low profits, all sorts 
 of particular distresses and general distress. Thirty or 
 forty millions a year, instead of being squandered in foreign 
 subsidies and distant campaigns, were accumulated at home. 
 As the national capital increased, the now intelligent mid- 
 dle class became more numerous, in proportion to the other 
 classes ; but as capital was invested with less and less 
 profit, the state of each individual among the middle class 
 became more and more uneasy. Thus every year pro- 
 duced a great increase of the strength, and the discontent 
 of the middle class. Touching politics, distress has two 
 very different effects ; straining men's attention to their 
 own concerns, and yet disposing them to wish for change 
 in public affairs. In this case, for a long while at least, 
 those who compose each distressed class, when they could 
 think of any thing but how to make the two ends meet at 
 the close of the year, attended only to such public questions 
 as were interesting to their own class in particular. In 
 examining the petitions presented to the House of Commons 
 between the battle of Waterloo and the expulsion of Charles 
 X., it is curious to observe how few, of those which carne 
 from the middle class, asked for reform of parliament. 
 Relief from distress was the prayer of the greater part of 
 those petitions ; agricultural distress, manufacturing dis- 
 tress, commercial distress, and, at last, the distress of the 
 nation. These petitions were utterly neglected ; for the 
 spending class, represented in the House of Commons, felt 
 no distress. In the end, the middle class, thus insulted as 
 well as uneasy, came to suspect that there was some radi- 
 cal fault in the constitution. 
 
 A more important effect of the French revolution on tlie
 
 102 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 English middle class was the disposition which it produced 
 in some of them to improve the condition of the bulk of the 
 people. The slaves of a neighbouring country had revolted, 
 and had acted as slaves in revolt will always act. The 
 ferocious animals of Labruyere, " male and female, spread 
 over the country, black, livid, naked, and sun-burnt, fixed 
 to the earth which they stirred and turned with inconceiv- 
 able obstinacy, having an articulate voice, and showing, 
 when they stood upright, a human face, creeping at night 
 into dens, and living on black bread, water, and roots ;" 
 these despised brutes had proved what Labruyere had only 
 asserted doubtingly, namely, that they were men and 
 women. But what kind of human beings ! Devils, they 
 were called, in human shape, wretches, miscreants, mon- 
 sters. Till then, the English had not suspected that more, 
 a good deal, than half the people, were miserable and dan- 
 gerous, like starving wolves. Long before then, indeed, 
 l)efoe had shown that the condition of the labouring class 
 was as bad in his time as it has ever been since ; but who 
 cared? Out of evil cometh good. The burnings, drownings, 
 and massacres by which the French populace proved their 
 humanity, led to humanity, in the other sense, among the 
 English middle class. Selfishness, being scared, was turned 
 into benevolence. It now became an object with the 
 middle class to improve the physical and moral state of 
 their inferiors. But by what means ? This question was 
 not so easily settled. After much discussion, during which 
 some proposed one thing, some another thing quite different, 
 and some strove to prove, by reference to history, that the 
 attempt must fail, it was agreed that education should be 
 tried. The ruling class, however, and the great among 
 the clergy in particular, set their faces against this mode 
 of proceeding. What ! teach the slaves that they were 
 men ! it was a Jacobinical project. All the ploughmen 
 would want to be clerks, and the journeymen weavers gen- 
 tlemen. Who would work, slave for the «reat, cringe to 
 them, bow down and worship them ? Instruct all the 
 people, and we shall have helps instead of servants; teach 
 all men to respect themselves as men, and then what man 
 will be valet to another man, pull off his clothes, and 
 scratch his hack when required ? No, no — tench the people 
 this, but not more ; to honour and obey the king and all 
 that are put in authority under him, to submit to their gov- 
 ernors and spiritual pastors and masters, to order them- 
 selves lowly and reverently to all their betters, to labour 

 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OP THE ENGLISH. 103 
 
 for their own living (say nothing of ours), and to do their 
 duty in that state of servitude into which it has pleased 
 God to call them. All this teach them, but no more, unless 
 you would turn the world upside down. Such in substance 
 was the language held up by the ruling class (it would be easy 
 to quote chapter and verse for it) when some of the middle 
 class proposed to instruct all the people. But they were 
 not satisfied with pointing out the danger of educating the 
 populace ; those who sought to instruct the poor they 
 charged with revolutionary principles, and put a mark on 
 them as jacobins and levellers. Thus many, who wished 
 well to the education project, were deterred from assisting 
 it. A few, chiefly Quakers and other sectaries, persevered, 
 and established a limited number of schools for poor chil- 
 dren, on the plan suggested by Joseph Lancaster. The 
 inventer of the system of Mutual Instruction wished that 
 no Christians, except Catholics, should be excluded from 
 his schools by religious scruples ; wherefore, though he 
 used the Bible as a school-book, it was without note or 
 comment. The high church party now changed their tone. 
 Christian charity required that so great a blessing as edu- 
 cation should not be withheld from the poor. And then 
 the hypocrites established schools on the Lancasterian plan, 
 vowing that one of themselves, a Dr. Bell, had brought the 
 system of mutual instruction from India. In their schools, 
 however, which they called national, they added note and 
 comment to the Bible ; that is, they taught the church of 
 England catechism, which makes slavishness the first duty 
 of man. But this device of the aristocratic clergy was of 
 no avail. Instead of confining instruction, as was intended, 
 to those who should be brought up lowly and reverently 
 to the pastors and masters of the tythe church, it piqued 
 the dissenters, who now took more pains than ever to teach 
 reading and writing, at least, to those whom the clergy did 
 not teach. In the tythe schools, after all, more than this 
 was not taught. The result of all the teaching put 
 together is, that about half, perhaps near three-quarters, of 
 the English poor can read, and a tenth part of them write. 
 The writing was of no use to them, nor the reading 
 either, maybe, except as a step. For absolutely nothing 
 was done by any class of teachers to improve the physi- 
 cal condition of the poor. No pains were taken to assist 
 them in turning their limited knowledge, or rather their 
 means of knowledge, to the best account. Religious 
 tracts were given to them in abundance, but nothing else. 
 In all other respects, what they should learn by means of
 
 104 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE EIVGLISII. 
 
 reading was left to chance. Even had it been otherwise, 
 if the greatest pains had been taken to put useful knowledge 
 in their way, how should they have profited by the boon ? 
 they who were condemned to incessant toil and severe 
 physical want. They learned, consequently, little more 
 than what the antijacobins had foreseen that they would 
 learn, to be thoroughly discontented with their lot, and to 
 believe that their misery was owing to bad government. 
 This faith may be true or erroneous : it took root firmly 
 in the minds of the English working class ; and from that 
 time forward the physical force of the nation was at enmity 
 with the constitution. 
 
 Having stated why and how the English became disposed 
 to alter their constitution, I proceed to describe the manner 
 of the change. 
 
 The admirers of the old constitution say, that it had a 
 peculiar knack of adapting itself to new circumstances ; the 
 pliability, the elasticity of the constitution, they call this 
 alleged virtue. Probably the constitution had become 
 stiff from age ; but at all events, it did not adapt itself to 
 the new opinions with respect to it, which having sprung 
 up with the French revolution, were checked by the war 
 with revolutionary France, and have grown steadily and 
 rapidly ever since the battle of Waterloo. Those who 
 managed the constitution obstinately resisted every proposal 
 for altering the venerable machine. But from the moment 
 when a good many people thought of changing the consti- 
 tution, it no longer worked pleasantly. Instead of only two 
 factions struggling for the management of the constitution, 
 which both factions revered, there arose a third faction, 
 bent on overturning tories, whigs, constitution, and all. For 
 many years the reform party was divided into three parties ; 
 first, those who attacked the constitution itself; secondly, 
 those who attacked the power which worked the constitu- 
 tion ; thirdly, those who attacked both the constitution and 
 the power. The first class, nicknamed Radicals, consisted, 
 for the most part, of work-people in the towns, and was by 
 far the most numerous ; the second class, called Liberals, 
 was composed principally of clever men, belonging to the 
 ruling class, and warmly attached to the Constitution, but 
 
 who, lending an ear to the public outcry against jobs and 
 monopolies, thought that thej could stretch the constitution 
 to the length <>l their libera] opinions without even altering 
 its shape. ; the third class. ielf-called Utilitarians, comprising, 
 when that name was first heard, not so many perhaps as
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 105 
 
 five hundred individuals, were content to speculate, to 
 reason in the abstract, on all questions of government, 
 taking care, however, that their speculations should be 
 published. It would be hard to say which of these classes 
 of reformers was most dangerous to the constitution. The 
 radicals, very numerous and always contemplating the use 
 of physical force, were highly dangerous ; for though they 
 were kept down by the physical force of the government, 
 many an accident might any day have given them the ad- 
 vantage. It seems well to observe here, that ever since 
 the poor of England were taught to read, the English 
 have found a standing army absolutely necessary. The 
 liberals were very dangerous, because, not conscious 
 themselves, nor suspected by others, of intending any 
 harm to the constitution, they grubbed at its foundation, 
 blind and unseen, like moles. And the utilitarians were 
 not less dangerous ; for by exposing the fiction of three 
 equal powers, balance, and harmony, the injustice of dear 
 laws, the uselessness of privileges, the iniquity of jobs, and 
 the follies of monopolies, they took the very best method of 
 bringing the constitution into contempt. But whichever 
 of these three classes of reformers was most dangerous to 
 the constitution, no sooner did the whole body of reformers 
 acquire some importance, than there occurred a confusion of 
 parties among the ruling class such as may never perhaps be 
 thoroughly understood. Old whigs now leaned to toryism ; 
 young tories to liberalism ; along with the remainder of 
 the whigs, who happened to be out at the time ; while some 
 whigs declared for parliamentary reform, and a portion 
 of the tories took the title of conservatives, meaning that 
 they would defend the old constitution in all its parts against 
 all its enemies. In short, public opinion forced a new 
 question into the House of Commons : it was no longer 
 which shall be in, the whigs or the tories ? but shall the 
 constitution be altered or shall it be preserved ? From 
 that moment the constitution could not work well ; it was 
 in fact altered, or had began to break in pieces. Nothing 
 could have saved it but such a war as had saved it before. 
 At length unconstitutional opinions gained a majority of 
 the House of Commons; and the fact was made known when 
 that house, on the death of Lord Liverpool, chose that 
 George Canning should become prime minister. Canning, 
 who had been devoted to the constitution, was now a liberal. 
 His appointment was received with shouts of applause by 
 all classes of reformers, while the conservatives groaned in 
 
 14
 
 106 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH, 
 
 fear and anger. Still, as yet, the government had performed 
 no act in accordance with the new opinions of the nation. 
 Canning, who well understood his mission, began by some 
 liberal measures with respect to foreign countries ; but the 
 conservatives were not blind to this mode, however indirect, 
 of attacking their beloved constitution : they fell upon Can- 
 ning and killed him. Then came the Goderich ministry, 
 mixed and liberal, like that of Canning, but wanting an able 
 chief to keep together its heterogeneous materials : for 
 want of a better, it lasted some months, but disjointed and 
 despised ; and was then broken up, partly by the intrigues 
 of the conservatives, and still more by its own cowardice 
 and stupidity. One fine morning, the prime minister was 
 not to be found ; when the king, surprised no doubt at the 
 strange working of the constitution, charged his friend, 
 Arthur Duke of Wellington, to form a ministry. Many 
 supposed that the constitution was saved. 
 
 By habit, and perhaps by instinct, Wellington was a pure 
 conservative. He had been used to power, he delighted in 
 power, and valued the constitution as it gave power to a 
 few over the many ; but that a mere soldier, so ignorant 
 and even illiterate, should have understood the nature of 
 that most complex machine, it is very difficult to believe. 
 At all events, he humoured the liberal House of Commons, 
 by taking some liberal colleagues, and soon struck the con- 
 stitution a mortal blow. 
 
 By that constitution, no aboriginal Irishman, that is, 
 Catholic, could become a member of the House of Commons. 
 A vacancy having taken place in the representation, as it 
 was called, of an Irish county, the aborigines of that 
 county met, and in defiance of the law elected a native 
 Irishman. What was to be done? Thirty years sooner, 
 the armed Protestants, that is colonists, of Ireland, aided by 
 an English army, would have settled the question in double 
 quick time ; and Wellington, an Irish colonist, a soldier who 
 had once governed the native Irish on the spot, would have 
 been the man of all others to put down such a rebellion by 
 force of arms. The Irish, who as a people, seem deficient 
 in courage, would probably have submitted to force, as they 
 had often submitted before to a handful of English soldiers; 
 but this time there was something to manage iii England : 
 a thing thai never was managed by force. Public opinion, 
 acting on the House of Commons, had disposed that assem- 
 bly, as any corporal might see, to s\ mpathize with the Irish 
 rebels. The temper of the House of Commons putting a 
 maspacre of the Irish out of question, there remained foi
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 107 
 
 Wellington only a choice of evils ; on the one side, conces- 
 sion to rebels and a repeal of the law which excluded 
 Catholics from parliament, with a certainty that that great 
 monopoly-job, the English church establishment in Ireland 
 would be next destroyed ; on the other side, resignation, 
 loss of power, with the certainty that some other minister 
 would ere long carry a Catholic relief bill. Wellington 
 decided like a brave and ambitious man, as he is. All at 
 once he became more popular than Canning had ever been. 
 Himself had declared shortly before, that he must be mad 
 to think of being prime minister. To what special in- 
 capacity he referred we cannot tell : though all, save the 
 conservatives, agreed with him at the time, he now became, 
 except with the conservatives, the most humane, the most 
 liberal, the wisest of men. The conservatives had looked 
 to him for saving the constitution. When, therefore, he led 
 so outrageous an attack upon it, they were ready to devour 
 him ; but they could not break his heart, which is rather 
 hard, as they, aided by him, had broken poor Canning's, 
 which was of a fine texture. Nay, he converted the greater 
 part of them to his own views by saying — Support me, or 
 resign ; and as for the remainder, they were so few that he 
 thought he might safely despise them : a mistake, as it 
 turned out. 
 
 However, a relief bill was passed, large, complete, not 
 open to an objection from the revolutionists, except as it ex- 
 cluded from parliament, for one year, that popular Irishman, 
 whom the natives had elected against law. This personal 
 clause, being attributed to the spite of an underling, a violent 
 anti-catholic, who had supported the bill to keep his place ; 
 mean as this clause was, it did not detract from Wellington's 
 popularity. Humane, liberal, wise, when he proposed the 
 bill, he was now the greatest statesman of his age or any 
 age ; he had won a civic crown more durable than his 
 martial laurels ; his name would go down to posterity as 
 one of the greatest benefactors of his country and mankind. 
 These are some of the terms in which his grace was 
 thanked for his part in the first obvious blow given to the 
 old English constitution. 
 
 Revolutions are terrible, but in one point of view seem 
 better than great political changes conducted without 
 violence. After a revolution comes peace ; after a great 
 peaceful change comes, very often, revolution. The leaders 
 in great but peaceful political changes are, commonly, un- 
 willing actors, who act from necessity, all their opinions
 
 108 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 remaining unchanged ; who yield this, merely to preserve 
 that ; and who, therefore, proceed without regard to con- 
 sequences ; as if the single concession were to be a final 
 measure, were to have no consequences. It was just so 
 with those who managed the repeal of the Irish slave-code. 
 
 A breathing time followed that act ; a pause, during which 
 England was governed, not by a constitution, but by the 
 individual Duke of Wellington. If his rrraee had not been 
 blinded by his flatterers, he would have seen from the popu- 
 larity of the once haled Canning, from his own popularity, 
 and above all, from the confidence which the nation reposed 
 in him, the resolute, slashing reformer ; from all this, 1 say, 
 he would have perceived the absolute necessity of moving 
 on with the work of reform. The reformers, giving the 
 field-marshal credit for common discernment, believed that 
 he would move on, and thought it wise to let him alone ; the 
 House of Commons appeared to have abandoned its func- 
 tions to a dictator ; some of the conservatives merely 
 sulked ; and some, not knowing what to do, called out, for 
 what ? for a reform of the House of Commons.* 
 
 Rulers and nations have often deceived each other, but 
 never so completely as the English people deceived Wel- 
 lington, and Wellington deceived the English people, for 
 some time after the passing of the relief bill. Wellington 
 thought that the people were entirely satisfied with what 
 had been done ; and the people doubted not that Welling- 
 ton was hatching some grand plot against the constitution. 
 An accident suddenly opened the eyes of both parties. 
 
 At the end of 1830, the French constitution, which had 
 never worked well, stopped entirely for a few days. The 
 French king and the citizens of Paris came to blows ; the 
 king being beaten, was driven away ; his cousin, after 
 giving some faithless promises to alter the constitution, was 
 appointed king; and then the constitution of Waterloo, 
 slightly altered, creaked on ;is before. 
 
 The new French king, ami the French whigs, call this a 
 glorious revolution ; but it did not occupy a fortnight, and 
 it ended in no greater change than would have happened if 
 the old king had died in his bed without male issue. On 
 the face of it, there lore, one can sec nothing that should 
 have produced a great Bensation in England ; still less 
 
 ' An article in the Quarterly Review, published just before the expulsion 
 
 of Charles K.., and when the quest! if reform in parliament seemed io 
 
 posses* no interest for Englishmen, exposed very ably Mime of the greatest 
 defects of tlie House of Commons, an a legislative assembly.
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH 1 09 
 
 such violent political excitement as actually occurred. As 
 respects England, what new political principles were 
 brought to light by the Parisian " three days ?" The right 
 of resistance to tyrants ? no, for that principle was acknow- 
 ledged, nay consecrated, by the oligarchy of borough- 
 mongers. The right of tax payers to vote taxes, which 
 was the principle of the American revolution ? by no means. 
 The right to be without a government, which seems to 
 have been the principle of the first French revolution? cer- 
 tainly not ; for the Parisian workmen who expelled Charles 
 X., fought in the name of the Waterloo charter. Well, 
 then, why after the Parisian three days were the work- 
 people of the English towns so deeply agitated ? Why did 
 the ruling class exhibit so much terror ? Why did nine- 
 teen-twentieths of the press demand, all of a sudden, an 
 immediate and effectual reform of the House of Commons ? 
 Why did Mr. Brougham declare that he had prepared a 
 plan of reform in parliament ; he who had not mentioned 
 the subject for years, except to deride the radical reform- 
 ers? Why was he elected member for Yorkshire ? Why 
 was Mr. Hunt elected for Preston, spite of the house of 
 Stanley, in their own borough ? Why was parliament, 
 which for years had scarcely received a petition for reform, 
 now overwhelmed with such petitions ? Why did Welling- 
 ton utter his famous eulogy of rotten boroughs ? Why did 
 he, the popular dictator, resign in dudgeon, if not in a 
 fright? W T hy did Wellington and the conservatives make up 
 their quarrel '. What brought the whigs, the proud, careless, 
 lazy, and suspected whigs into office ? And why did those 
 whigs introduce a bill of reform, which was to cut through 
 the stem of the constitution? A single word answers all 
 these questions, — barricades ! The principle of the poor 
 dupes who conquered at Paris, was attachment to a con- 
 stitution, which gives all the powers of government to less 
 than two hundred thousand persons out of thirty-two mil- 
 lions; but then the three days of Paris made, and made 
 known, this very important discovery, — that there is a way 
 by which the populace of a large town may beat the best 
 of soldiers. Not one gentleman took part with the popu- 
 lace of Paris : a general, since a minister, and still a favourite 
 of the new king, being asked to lead them, said, — pooh ! the 
 rabble, the canaille ! Such was the opinion of military men, 
 of all men, concerning the relative force of mobs and house- 
 hold troops. All at once, opinion as to this matter ran into 
 the other extreme. In England, cannon balls became as
 
 110 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 nothing compared with pavement stones ; strapping guards- 
 men looked like dwarfs, and the smallest artisan was a 
 giant. This new faith produced the most general and 
 violent agitation ever known in England, without biood- 
 shed. The workmen of the towns used to shake hands 
 when they met in public, though they had parted not an 
 hour before, and expected to meet again during the day ; 
 and then, when one of their leaders did but talk of work- 
 men at Paris, tears ran down their unwashed cheeks, and 
 they shook hands again, this time with an earnest grasp. 
 The work-people in the country, not so well informed on 
 foreign affairs, and more secret in their ways, appeared 
 gloomy and savage. All the other classes, nobility, clergy, 
 gentry, placeholders, stockholders, manufacturers, mer- 
 chants, and tradesmen, were disturbed by one of two ex- 
 treme sentiments ; either fear amounting to terror, or hope 
 equal to joy. Such of them as admired the constitution 
 turned pale when you mentioned barricades, and used to 
 skulk about with downcast looks, as if some great misfor- 
 tune had befallen them. The others, if whigs, were in high 
 spirits ; that is, certain of coming in ; and, if downright 
 enemies of the constitution, of rotten boroughs, privileges, 
 dear law, jobs, and monopolies ; these, I say, never met but 
 with sparkling eyes, to laugh and brag over the prospect. 
 
 The effects of a given power may be small or great, ac- 
 cording to the susceptibility of the matter on which the 
 power acts. The discovery of barricades could not have 
 affected the whole English nation so deeply, or perhaps at 
 all, if that nation had been contented with its political in- 
 stitutions. The physical discovery of the Parisians led to 
 this great political discovery in England ; thai the nation 
 had outgrown its laws. What followed mighl have been 
 foretold, nay, as to its main features, was foretold, by careful 
 observers. 
 
 The rural paupers, the serfs of England, rebelled ; and 
 the farmers, who down 1<> thai time had been reckoned 
 warm friends of the constitution, notwithstanding their dis- 
 tress, appeared to sympathize with the rebels. Thus about 
 a third of England was more or less in a state of insurrec- 
 tion, without any physical means of restoring order. 
 While lii's were blazing and bs exacting higher wages 
 
 in the country, a new kin'/ met anew parliament; and 
 
 Wellington, the popular dictator, the wisest of statesmen, 
 wisely seized thai opportunity to declare solemnly in favour 
 of the most perfeel constitution ever framed by the ingenu-
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 1 1 1 
 
 ity of man. In one day all the duke's popularity was gone. 
 The most humane, liberal, clear-sighted of men, the great- 
 est statesman, the benefactor of his country and mankind, 
 became, all in one day, observe, hard-hearted, narrow- 
 minded, wooden-headed, every thing worthless. The sud- 
 denness of Wellington's fall in the public esteem shows the 
 extent to which he had deceived the nation, and they him. 
 
 While the shout of execration was at its height, the day 
 arrived when the king and his ministers had engaged to 
 dine at Guildhall with the citizens of London. Wellington 
 advised the king not to attend the feast. As the king was 
 very popular at the time ; and popular, be it said in passing, 
 because his bearing towards the populace presented a 
 striking contrast with the haughty reserve of his late bro- 
 ther ; this being the case, it was supposed by some, that 
 Wellington's advice to the king had been dictated by per- 
 sonal fear. This charge, brought against one who proba- 
 bly never was afraid, is not worth refuting. Why then 
 make the populace believe that the government was afraid 
 of them ? Because the government was afraid of the popu- 
 lace; not the ministers on account of their own persons, but 
 every member of the government on account of the con- 
 stitution ; terrified at the thoughts of barricades. Would 
 the presence of ministers in the city have raised barricades ? 
 There was great risk of it, to say the least ; and if barri- 
 cades had been raised, who shall tell where the insurrec- 
 tion would have stopped ? Considering the inflamed state of 
 the peasantry, and of the workmen in the towns throughout 
 England and Scotland : considering, further, the extremely 
 artificial state of English society, the great number of 
 people who live from hand to mouth by pursuits not agri- 
 cultural, the influence of confidence and credit in feeding 
 those people, and the crash that would have followed if any 
 thing had occurred to disturb seriously the ordinary course 
 of industry and trade ; bearing all this in mind, we shall 
 conclude, that Wellington acted prudently in avoiding the 
 city .feast. Still the breach of the king's engagement with 
 the citizens was treated as a great popular triumph, which 
 indeed it was; and Wellington, who till then had been 
 feared as much as hated, was now despised. I do not give 
 too much importance to the failure of a city feast. In the 
 progress of revolutions, great events seem to hinge upon 
 trifles. Some aldermen missed a dinner ; but this was the 
 first time when the friends of the old English constitution 
 showed any fear of its enemies.
 
 112 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The dinner things were hardly removed from Guildhall, 
 when the House of Commons objected to the new civil list, 
 which Wellington proposed for the new king. Owing to 
 the confusion of parties which had now taken place, about 
 fifty conservatives voted against the duke and the constitu- 
 tion : Quos Deos vult perdere prius dementat. They 
 would have voted for reform of parliament the next day, 
 when Mr. Brougham, moved by the barricades of Paris, 
 was to have brought forward a plan for mending the con- 
 stitution ; but Wellington resigned, Mr. Brougham's motion 
 fell to the ground, and the whigs came in, giving three great 
 pledges to the nation. They promised, first, to maintain 
 peace ; which, as there was no war, nor prospect of war, 
 meant that they would not get up a war to divert the nation 
 from its purpose of reform : secondly, they promised re- 
 trenchment, that is, to diminish the power which had moved 
 the constitution ; and thirdly, a full and effectual reform of 
 the House of Commons, meaning a great change in the con- 
 stitution itself. 
 
 The people were overjoyed, but not disposed to confide 
 implicitly in the whigs, who had often deceived the people, 
 and who, as members of the aristocracy, were suspected 
 of a strong attachment to the oligarchy of boroughmongers. 
 The people, therefore, formed themselves into societies for 
 promoting reform, and, partly by petitions, but still more by 
 means of the press, told ministers what the nation under- 
 stood by " full and effectual." Above all, they threatened 
 openly, in so many words, that if the whigs should offer 
 them a mock reform, they would take a revolution. At 
 length, on the memorable 1st of March, 1831, the whig 
 cabinet produced their bill, themselves alone being aware 
 of its contents until it was laid before the House of Com- 
 mons. 
 
 An abstract of the whig bill would not describe it so well 
 as an account of its reception by the three great parties 
 
 which then divided the country. 
 
 The conservatives, including those who had quarrelled 
 with Wellington <>n account ofCatholicrelief, were delighted 
 with the bill: they chuckled, and laughed, and clapped their 
 hands. Was then.- ever, said they, any thing so extrava- 
 gant! The whigs must be mad. Thank God, they had 
 ■one far enough. Such a bill ! revolutionary was too good 
 an epithet for it. So ridiculous, so preposterous a bill 
 would not be read a first time. The whigs must resign-, 
 they had cut their throats ; nothing could be better.
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 113 
 
 The feeling of the moderate reformers was expressed 
 by one of the richest men in England, a whig, but leaning 
 to utilitarian opinions.* He declared in the House of Com- 
 mons, that the bill took away his breath. Perhaps he was 
 affected, not so much by the bill itself, as by the evidence 
 which the introduction of such a bill by the cabinet furnished, 
 of the force of the popular will. 
 
 The decided enemies of the constitution having carefully 
 examined the bill, said — It is a good first step ; pass it, 
 pass it ! 
 
 In a week there were but two parties ; enemies of the 
 bill or anti-reformers, and friends of the bill or reformers. 
 The conservatives made up all their quarrels, seeking only 
 to throw out the bill : the whigs and reformers forgot all 
 their differences, bent only on passing the bill. But, what 
 is more remarkable, the conservatives now called them- 
 selves reformers, and the reformers swore that they were 
 conservatives. 
 
 The House of Commons, thinking with the conservatives 
 that the whigs had indeed gone too far, would not pass the 
 bill. The press, representing the nation, stormed for a 
 general election, and the whigs dissolved parliament. In 
 the general election, the conservatives were signally de- 
 feated. In vain did they, by pointing out that the bill would 
 disfranchise many poor men, try to enlist the physical force 
 on their side ; in vain did they declare for reform gene- 
 rally, pressing their hands on their hearts and vowing that 
 they had never been friendly to abuses ; in vain also did 
 they put forward images of revolution, confiscation, and 
 bloodshed : it was all in vain ; they were beaten, wherever 
 it was possible, by means of unions, subscriptions, the 
 king's name, brickbats, and a single pledge, — " the bill, the 
 whole bill, and nothing but the bill." 
 
 Parliament was already reformed. The new House of 
 Commons would have passed the bill in a month, if the whigs 
 had proposed such a course. In that case, probably, the lords 
 would have wanted courage to reject the bill, and the consti- 
 tution might have appeared to reform itself. But the whigs, 
 deliberately as it seems, managed matters so that the bill 
 was eventually carried by physical force. By encouraging 
 opposition to the bill in the commons, by carefully pro- 
 moting discussion and delay, the whigs restored the habitual 
 insolence of the conservatives, who had been subdued by 
 
 * Mr. John Smith, the banker, of London. 
 15
 
 114 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 the general election ; raid, when the bill found its weary 
 way into the lords, everybody, the whigs alone excepted, 
 knew that their lordships would reject it. 
 
 There was yet a way of passing the bill constitutionally ; 
 that is, by a creation of peers. Such a measure might even 
 have revived a belief in the beautiful harmony of the con- 
 stitution. But the whigs seem to have been bent on giving 
 importance to the physical force. Though all who wished 
 the inevitable revolution to take place without violence, 
 implored the whigs to create peers, they pursued their wil- 
 ful way : and the lords rejected the bill. 
 
 If the whigs, afraid of their own bill, imagined that its 
 rejection by the lords would enable them to satisfy the 
 people with a less effectual reform, they were soon unde- 
 ceived. The reformers now put forward images of revo- 
 lution, confiscation, and bloodshed ; political unions were 
 formed in London and the agricultural districts, where 
 hitherto they had not been thought of; the expediency, 
 rather than the lawfulness of refusing to pay taxes, was 
 now openly discussed at public meetings and by the press; 
 and the blindest might see that the people were about to take 
 the question of reform into their own hands. The whigs, 
 however blind, saw this, and promised that the bill should 
 pass unaltered. No one doubted that they had made up 
 their minds to create peers ; and the fury of the people 
 subsided. 
 
 As the rejected bill could not be brought forward again 
 in the same session, parliament was prorogued and re- 
 assembled. This time, a week might have sufficed for 
 passing the bill in the commons. The whigs thought lit to 
 discuss it all over again with the conservatives ; and this 
 farce, from which the people turned in disgust, lasted near 
 half a year. Still no peers were created ; and at length 
 suspicion began to fall upon the king, who till now had 
 been the most popular of English monarchs. 
 
 Once more the bill was taken to the lords, who boldly 
 declared that they would not pass it. Make peers ! peers 
 or a revolution ! was now the cry all over England, Scot- 
 land, ami Ireland. Some whigs hurried to Windsor and 
 advised the king to make peers. His majesty, who, there 
 no doubt, would have said, yes, if the proposal had 
 been made six months earlier, was pleased, in his royal 
 Wisdom, to Bay, no. The whigs, who were never wanting 
 in pnde, resign* d \ and 1 ield-marshal the I >uke of Welling-
 
 "POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 115 
 
 ton became once more, in name at least, prime-minister of 
 England. 
 
 The conservatives now thought to govern England by 
 the sword. For ten days England was governed by news- 
 papers and political unions. It was not an interregnum, 
 as some have said, but a «ood strong government, orderly 
 too, and, like that of the United States, a government which 
 gave immediate effect to the public will. How the king, 
 the lords, the new minister, and the ex-ministry settled the 
 matter among them, has never been told ; but after the 
 political unions and newspapers had governed vigorously 
 for ten days, the whigs got in again, and the lords, civilly, 
 humbly, in haste and without even a wry face, passed the 
 whole bill. In one word, the new constitution of England 
 was obtained by physical force. The conservatives said it 
 should be so ; and so it was. 
 
 I have dwelt so long on the manner of the late change 
 in the English constitution, because it appears more im- 
 portant with a view to the future than the change itself. 
 But, though the change itself, if it were to be judged by the 
 elections which have taken place according to the reform 
 bill, would not appear very important ; though it would 
 appear trifling if estimated by the paltry reforms of abuses 
 which have thus far resulted from it ; still it has, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, produced a new constitution, as will be 
 seen in the long run. Some of those to whom the reform 
 bill gives the right of voting for members of parliament, 
 were prevented by a trick* from exercising their franchise ; 
 others were deterred from voting by the fear of offending 
 their landlords and rich customers ; these two classes 
 together being so numerous, that fewer persons, it is be- 
 lieved, voted at the late election than at the last election of 
 an unreformed parliament. Some again, and not a few, 
 were induced by bribery or intimidation to vote for con- 
 servative candidates, while many would have voted for 
 better candidates, if better there had been. In fact, the 
 late general election took place when the nation, fatigued 
 with two years of violent excitement, was in a state of ex- 
 haustion. But, though the result of that election be a 
 House of Commons which does not appear to differ mate- 
 rially from the houses that were got together under the old 
 constitution, still there can be no doubt, that a majority of 
 
 * By fixing so early a day for the payment of taxes already due, such 
 payment being one qualification for voting, that many electors were taken 
 by surprise, and missed the right of voting at the next general election.
 
 116 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 its members are responsible to their constituents, or that 
 they will be made to feel their responsibility ; whether at 
 the next general election or sooner is not a very important 
 question, considering the certainty almost of a general 
 election within three or four years. But at all events, 
 whenever the class to which the reform bill gives the right 
 of voting for members of parliament shall choose to exert 
 themselves, they will direct the government of England. 
 The constitution is changed, howsoever little evidence of 
 the change may be furnished by the composition, or the 
 acts, of the first reformed parliament. The present, then, 
 is worth but little attention when compared with the future. 
 Those who, taking the narrowest view of affairs, treat the 
 present as if there were neither a past nor a future, may 
 be pleased or dissatisfied with things as they are ; but the 
 prospects of the English as a nation will not be discovered 
 by discussing present party politics. Let us, therefore, 
 having looked back, now look forward ; steadily, without 
 affection or fear, so as to form just opinions on a subject in 
 which are interested, not the English alone, but also the 
 French, the Germans, the Poles, trampled on and scattered ; 
 every one, of whatever country, who rejoices in the pro- 
 gress of civilization, every friend of liberty in the world, 
 every miserable slave if he did but know it, and all the 
 oppressors, as they may learn too late. 
 
 The new constitution is neither an oligarchy nor a de- 
 mocracy. In what then is to consist the force of the gov- 
 ernment? 
 
 An oligarchy may be maintained either by soldiers or 
 corruption. Soldiers are out of the case in England ; for 
 with no other force to maintain the government, hundreds 
 of thousands would be required, while it is hardly doubtful 
 that, ere long, those who can, when they please, direct the 
 government, will insist on a diminution of the army. And, 
 as to corruption, it is easy to see, first, that the jobs and 
 monopolies which were insufficient to preserve the old con- 
 stitution, would, if maintained, be entirely thrown away 
 upon the much greater number who can now vote for 
 members of parliament; secondly, that the new govern- 
 ment of the uneasy class will lose no time in cutting away 
 jobs and monopolies. The whig ministry lately declared, 
 thai the goverpmeni of England should no longer he carried 
 on by patronage: they will he made to keep their word, 
 
 mer or later. 
 
 A democracy requires neither guards nor corruption.
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 117 
 
 being supported by the affection of the whole people. But 
 the new constitution excludes from legislative power a 
 great majority of the people, the whole body, we may say, 
 of the working classes : it must want the force which main- 
 tains a democracy. 
 
 Thus, on the most general grounds, we may conclude, 
 that the new constitution will not last ; but let us come to 
 particulars. 
 
 By the new constitution, instead of three, there are but 
 two orders in the state. Power has been taken from what 
 was the highest class, and the mockery of power from what 
 was the lowest class. We must now speak only of two 
 orders, the higher and the lower, the rulers and the gov- 
 erned. 
 
 Who formed this mongrel government ? Who bestowed 
 the power of legislation upon too many for an oligarchy, too 
 few for a democracy ? Was it the class who now, on paper 
 at least, are omnipotent? Certainly not. Could they have 
 extorted the new charter, unaided by those whom it does 
 not acknowledge ? Certainly not. The reform bill was 
 carried by physical force ; and those who compose the 
 physical force know this, are proud of it, boast of it, and 
 will never forget it. Did they approve of the bill ? As a 
 step, yes ; but merely as a step, declaring that they had 
 rather no bill than this bill, if it were to be a final measure. 
 Universal suffrage, was, is, and will be the object of the 
 working classes. Assemble a body of them, and say — Is 
 a pauper, an ignorant, hungry, gloomy slave, qualified to 
 choose who shall make the laws ? No, they will answer ; 
 but with universal suffrage the law-makers will take care 
 that there be no paupers : universal suffrage we consider 
 a security, the only security, for universal ease, instruction, 
 and content. But, good people, with universal suffrage, 
 you, the working class, who form so great a majority, 
 would be the only class represented in parliament ; you 
 would make laws for the sake of your class alone, laws not 
 good, perhaps bad, for the other classes. — They reply: 
 That is the very point : your objection to universal suffrage 
 is our objection to a limited suffrage : the higher class, we 
 fear, will make laws for the sake of themselves alone, laws 
 not good, perhaps bad, for us. Besides, we are told con- 
 tinually by the classes above us, that what is good for 
 them must be good for us : we think so ; and therefore, say 
 we, let all vote for the good of all. Are we ignorant ? in- 
 struct us: discontented? mend our condition: dishonest,
 
 118 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 you say? give us rights and enjoyments to value. Univer- 
 sal suffrage, we believe, will do all this; but at any rate, we, 
 who know our strength, are resolved to try the experiment. 
 
 Such is the feeling of the working classes. Will the 
 middle or uneasy class attempt to preserve their monopoly 
 of power? Not without great dishonesty; for they owe 
 their charter to the working class, who won it for them on 
 a complete understanding, that it should be a step, and no- 
 thing but a step, in reform. The physical force, exhausted 
 by three years of excitement, has not yet asked for an cx- 
 tention of the suffrage. Until this demand shall be made, 
 nothing may happen to disturb the subsisting union be- 
 tween the middle and the working classes ; but when the 
 demand shall be made, if it be resisted, if the petitions of the 
 majority be met by counter-petitions from the select few, 
 then must a violent quarrel take place between the two 
 classes. Traitors and knaves would be the merited terms 
 bestowed on the minority. But minorities, when power is 
 in question, are deaf to the voice of reproach. If the new 
 constituency should have nothing to fear except bad names, 
 they would not, probably,* compel their representatives to 
 ■extend the franchise ; but we shall readily perceive, that 
 •the majority have a better assurance of good faith in the 
 minority, than the right to call the in traitors and knaves. 
 
 The rulers and the governed will no longer be separated 
 by an intervening class. Except in political power, the 
 Jess rich of the ruling order are on a level with the less 
 poor of the subject order. None of the circumstances can 
 exist, which formerly placed the physical force at the dis- 
 posal of those who made the laws. A daily and familiar 
 intercourse must take place between the two orders ; and 
 whatever the inferior order may suffer, they will attribute 
 to the selfishness or malice of the others. In the next place, 
 the property and persons of the new ruling order are at 
 the mercy of the new subject order. Nol that the position 
 of the pooresl class, as to the persons and property of the 
 other claa es, Is changed, but the pooresl class may now 
 have ;i motive for attacking persons and property which 
 were always a1 their mercy. By the old constitution, 
 power was given to individual wen lib ; by the new one, the 
 aggregate of wealth will be represented. Instead of one 
 vi-i y rich man possessing greal power, fifty persons of 
 moderate wealth will possess some power. Now the per- 
 son and property of a greal borougnmonger were not cn- 
 >rea bj any sudden anger of the poor towards him;
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 119 
 
 but a farmer, a manufacturer, a dealer of whatever kind 
 almost, to whom the new charter gives the suffrage, must 
 live by day and night in the midst of the excluded, and his 
 property must at all times be subject to attacks from them. 
 It is well known that the richer class of people at Preston 
 would have returned the heir of the house of Stanley at the 
 election of 1830, rather than that very ignorant and foolish 
 demagogue Mr. Hunt, if they had not been afraid of the 
 populace : they were afraid that their factories would 
 be burned if they should take part against the popular 
 candidate. In 1830, just q,[ter the three days of Paris, the 
 higher order at Preston had a foretaste of what the elective 
 bodies of all such towns may expect, whenever the lower 
 order shall be in a state of excitement. That the voters 
 for county members should be affected in the same way, 
 seems probable, when one reflects that in a good part of the 
 south of England wages have been raised and kept up by 
 means of stack burning. 
 
 If it were to come to a trial of strength between the two 
 parties in open warfare (which God forbid !), the result 
 must inevitably be favourable to the great majority. Re- 
 trenchment, which among other things means fewer sol- 
 diers, is one of the great objects of the new ruling class. 
 Besides, the education, as some call it, of the poor, has had 
 this good effect, — that soldiers, though taken from the most 
 degraded class, have now some feeling for other people, as 
 well as some political notions, among which is a suspicion 
 that, in time, perhaps, officers may be taken from the ranks. 
 Already the new parliament has declared, in opposition to 
 the whig cabinet, against the flogging of soldiers. Without 
 flogging, degraded men cannot be made to observe military 
 discipline ; and with the end of flogging, therefore, must 
 come a better selection of men for soldiers. Thus, as the 
 moral character of the soldiers shall improve, as they shall 
 learn to respect themselves, they will learn also to respect 
 others ; and it will become more and more difficult to em- 
 ploy them in keeping down the bulk of the people. A 
 national guard has been talked of for the protection of the 
 new ruling order ; but a national guard, from which the 
 hardy poor were excluded, would be, as anti-jacobin Wind- 
 ham said to the armed shopkeepers forty years ago, a 
 great depository of panic. Moreover, there is the dis- 
 covery of barricades ; on which, however, I for one set less 
 value than most people, except as it will maintain the con- 
 fidence of the poorer order in their own strength.
 
 120 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Bat a trial of strength between the two orders is highly 
 improbable. The proceedings by which the reform bill 
 was carried show that the government of England is liable 
 to dictation from the physical force, whenever that force 
 chooses to exert itself. I say England, because the lia- 
 bility in question depends on a state of political economy 
 which is peculiar to England. In no country does so large 
 a proportion of the people live from hand to mouth by pur- 
 suits not agricultural. In America, in Ireland, in any of 
 the states of Europe, except Holland perhaps, a pretty 
 general insurrection of the poorer class might take place, 
 and might even last some time, without producing very 
 serious consequences. Supposing it to produce a temporary 
 stagnation, or even a stoppage, of credit and business, still 
 most of the people would have food at hand, while the re- 
 mainder, being few in proportion to the producers of food, 
 might be victualled without much difficulty. But in Eng- 
 land, where the proportion of rural population is so small, 
 where such great masses of the peopie are congregated out 
 of the way of obtaining food, save by the regular course of 
 industry, and where, by reason of the most comprehensive 
 combination of power and the most minute distribution of 
 employments, the regular course of industry depends so 
 much upon confidence and credit; there, I say, any social 
 convulsion, if it should last but a week, must produce a se- 
 ries of convulsions, one more violent than the other. Stop, 
 for but three days, the course of credit, trade, and industry 
 which feeds the population of the great towns in England, 
 and in three days more that population would be frantic : 
 it is needless to dwell on the consequences. But how easily, 
 does it appear, might such a stoppage occur, when one re- 
 flects on the sensitive nature of credit, on the misery and 
 discontent of the poorer order, on their common object, and, 
 above all, on their just apprehension of the means by which 
 tlic ur\v constitution \\;is torn from the old oligarch yi 
 During the interregnum, as it is called, of 1831, the walls 
 of London, Manchester, Birmingham, and oilier great 
 towns, were placarded in these words — " To stop the duke, 
 go forgold." The people, by means of their savings' banks, 
 did go for gold to the Bank of England ; and so did help, at 
 . to Btop the duke. Some of his friends, selfish mad- 
 men, who thought their own property in land secure at all 
 events, and some tory underlings whose obscurity was a 
 kind of protection to them, would have braved this attack 
 upon credit; but the new ruling order, whose daily bread
 
 POLITICAL TKOSPECTS OP THE ENGLISH. 121 
 
 rests upon industry, trade, and credit, to whom the right of 
 voting is as nothing when compared with peace and order* 
 will never, we may believe, provoke a serious disturbance. 
 
 From all these considerations, only one conclusion can be 
 drawn ; namely, that the new aristocracy have no existence 
 but on paper ; that if gratitude, and a sense of honour, 
 should not impel them to extend the suilrage, if they should 
 be deaf to reproach and to such reasoning as is here pre- 
 sented to them, they must yield, nevertheless, to force or 
 fear, sooner or later. 
 
 Let us suppose the new ruling class wise in time ; that 
 having wrested power from an oligarchy by means of the 
 physical force, they admit all men to an equal share in the 
 power of making laws. That would be a pure democracy. 
 In a democracy, the laws are made by the greatest number. 
 In England, the greatest number consists of labourers, poor, 
 discontented, and ignorant. The laws of England, then, 
 would be made for the supposed advantage of the poor. 
 To a very poor man, whose sole property was his labour, 
 who by constant labour was able to earn not more than 
 enough to support a miserable existence, whose only pros- 
 pect was want in his old age and a career of wretchedness 
 for his children ; to a man in this condition, laws, which 
 should cause a revolution of property, would appear the best. 
 Generous minds, full of sympathy for the miserable, and 
 a love of equality, may be blind to this conclusion ; others, 
 bigoted in attachment to democracy, may deny its truth, 
 which, however, is plain to those who think as well as feel, and 
 think without prejudice. Even now, some disposition is 
 shown, ay, even by the intelligent but uneasy class, to make 
 laws wdiich would be most unjust to the owners of some kinds 
 of property. I allude to the proposed depreciation of money, 
 which, in proportion to its extent, would diminish the 
 receipts of those who are entitled to fixed payments. Biit 
 if uneasiness put such notions into the heads of the new 
 ruling order, what may be expected from the misery of 
 those who would govern under the future democracy ? 
 The question is answered by reference to arguments used 
 in support of the plan for depreciating the value of money. 
 '• A great robbery," say the advocates of depreciation, "was 
 committed thirteen years ago by the vile boroughmongers, 
 who, by raising the value of money, enabled all creditors to 
 exact from their debtors more than was due : we now pro- 
 pose an act of justice, by returning to the standard in which 
 so many contracts were made, in which, above all, great 
 
 10
 
 122 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 part of the national debt was incurred ; but not of complete 
 justice, since this measure will not give back to its rightful 
 owners that which has been wrongfully taken from them 
 during thirteen years." Unquestionably, during thirteen 
 years, many receivers of fixed payments have obtained 
 more, and a great deal more, than they ever contracted to 
 receive ; but during the thirteen years, many new contracts 
 have been made ; and if the value of money were now re- 
 stored to the old standard, the creditors under these new 
 contracts would be cheated, just as debtors were cheated 
 before. To repair one great robbery, therefore, another 
 great robbery is proposed. That the robbery which has 
 been perpetrated was the work of the " vile boroughmon- 
 gers " may be true ; but see to what this argument leads. 
 "Every work of plunder performed by the vile borough- 
 mongers is liable to be overhauled ;" say you so ? Then 
 what becomes of the national debt? Was the capital, of 
 which the interest is now paid by the nation, spent for the 
 good of the nation ? Was it not squandered, or rather 
 cunningly laid out, for the preservation of boroughmonger- 
 ing ? Did the nation agree to replace that capital, or to 
 pay thirty millions a year for ever? When that debt, mis- 
 called national, was contracted, the nation had no voice in 
 public affairs. It follows, that the nation is not bound to 
 pay a debt which was incurred by a faction for anti-national 
 purposes. Nay, further, if every arrangement of the 
 boroughmongers is to be vitiated by proof of its injustice, 
 to whom belong those great estates, which have been kept 
 together by means of provisions out of the public purse, for 
 daughters and younger sons ? To the nation, which has 
 paid for them over and over again, by salaries to those 
 among whom they must otherwise have been divided. 
 Once acknowledge the principle on which some of the 
 uneasy class now propose to alter the- value of money, and 
 there would be no end of confiscation. Bu1 this principle] 
 which "men of property and education," being uneasy, are 
 not afraid to assert, would be all in all with a legislature 
 moved by the wretched. Nor can one deny, having regard 
 
 to nothing but the truth, thai many of those who actually 
 
 compose the poorer order in England, would gain im- 
 mensely by Bpunging out the national debt, abolishing 
 tythes, and converting all the greal estates into national 
 property, which should be sold piecemeal at the rate of 
 twenty shillings per acre. The example of Prance is 
 before us. At this time, indeed, the poorer order in France
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGUSII. 123 
 
 is very miserable ; but those who composed that order fifty 
 years ago, the wild animals of Labruyere, were deeply in- 
 debted to confiscation ; and I have spoken here only of that 
 portion of the English poor, who should obtain land, debt 
 free and tythe free, for twenty shillings per acre. 
 
 But now turn to the other side of the picture. How 
 many comfortable people must be made wretched by such 
 a transfer of property as would make some of the wretched 
 comfortable ! The general transfer of property from the 
 rich to the poor, which took place in France, may have 
 been consistent with the principle of utility, the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number ; but in the present social 
 state of England, any large measure of confiscation would 
 injure the majority. So barbarous was the state of industry 
 in France half a century back, so many checks to produc- 
 tion did the state of property occasion, that a general 
 transfer of property, by removing those checks and by 
 stimulating industry, led at once to an increase of produc- 
 tion : property had changed hands, but the nation was 
 richer than before. In England, on the contrary, where 
 millions of people have, one may say, been called into ex- 
 istence by machinery, where capital does so much more 
 than labour, where production has been carried so far, and 
 depends so closely on the use of large masses of capital in 
 combination, where the relations of industry are become so 
 complicated and delicate ; here any legislative attack upon 
 property would cause a decrease of production. If prop- 
 erty were rendered insecure in England, capital, that it 
 was possible to hoard, would be hoarded ; capital, that was 
 not fixed, would be moved to other countries. That very 
 skilful application of capital, that most productive applica- 
 tion of labour, which enables less than one-third of the 
 English people to raise food for the remainder, depends on 
 security of property. The great steam-power of England 
 would be next to annihilated, if property should become 
 insecure. Thus, with respect to England, confiscation is 
 synonymous with destruction. Make a scramble for prop- 
 erty in England, and the best part of the thing to be 
 scrambled for would disappear. One may imagine the 
 result ; the scenes of contention and suffering, which must 
 end in England's ruin ; which might make England a hunt- 
 ing field, or a place fit to receive convicts from America. 
 But I pass on, with a hope that some other, having words 
 at command, may describe the prospect as plainly as I own 
 I see it. Who is there that does not see it, clearly or
 
 124 POLITICAL TfiOSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 vaguely ? Why do we hear continually in England of ap- 
 prehensions for the future, all the more serious for not being 
 exactly defined ? And who, that will take the trouble to 
 think on this subject, but acknowledges the blackness of the 
 prospect ? 
 
 Still, fearful as is the prospect, great as the danger ap- 
 pears, there may be a way of escape. The danger being 
 thoroughly understood, some means of averting it may be 
 discovered. The English are not apt to despond. In know- 
 ledge, judgment, and moral courage, they surpass all other 
 nations, according to my humble opinion. But this occasion 
 will tax their best qualities to the uttermost. In England, 
 it is no longer a speculation whether democracy be consist- 
 ent with high civilization. This is the experiment which 
 the English are about to try. Who is there that does not 
 wish them success 1 If they should succeed, then all the 
 talk about the difference between old and new countries will 
 go for nothing, anywhere ; and, in time, the greatest hap- 
 piness of all will be everywhere secured : if they should 
 fail, misery and vice will be deemed the natural lot of the 
 greatest part of mankind ; and the world, save as England 
 may suffer by the experiment, must go on as before. A 
 single error may cause the failure of this great experiment. 
 It becomes, therefore, the duty of every man, who has re- 
 flected on the subject, to make known his view of the best 
 course of proceeding. 
 
 The misery and ignorance of the bulk of the English 
 people render them unfit to enjoy, or rather fit them to 
 abuse, a great extension of the suffrage. If their circum* 
 stances w r ere as easy as those of the working class in 
 America, they might be better instructed than American 
 workmen (w r hose solitary mode of life is very unfavourable 
 to learning), and therefore better qualified to take part in 
 choosing the legislature. In that case, there would be no 
 objection to universal suffrage, every thing in its favour re- 
 maining as at present 
 
 Admitting this, two practical questions arise. 
 
 First — Is it possible that arrangements should be made, 
 to render the English working class comfortable, satisfied, 
 and as wise, at least, as tin; working elass in America? 
 
 Secondly — Is it possible that such arrangements should 
 be made in time ? Or, in other words, may universal snl- 
 fra ••■ be po tponed until such arrangements shall have pro* 
 duced the desired effect; that is, until the whole people
 
 POLITICAL PROSPF.CTS OF TII3 ENGLISH. 125 
 
 shall be qualified, by ease, content, and knowledge, to vote 
 for members of parliament? 
 
 Let both of these questions be answered in the affirma- 
 tive ; and it will appear that democracy may be established 
 in England without the least check to civilization, without 
 the least injury to any, with the greatest benefit to all : 
 decide either of these questions in the negative, and England 
 becomes, first a field of battle, and then a waste, compared 
 with the present. 
 
 The latter of these questions, though by much the less 
 difficult to answer, takes precedence in the order of time. 
 The subject class may presently demand universal suffrage ; 
 and they have the means either of enforcing their demand 
 or of producing that convulsion to which universal suffrage 
 may lead, if it should come too soon. Resistance, then, to 
 the demand for universal suffrage might be the shortest and 
 the w r orst way to universal suffrage. Which is the longest, 
 and therefore the best way to the end of a journey that 
 must, at all events, be performed either quickly or slowly? 
 But, though delay, postponement be the object, there is not 
 a year to lose. To hesitate about taking the long and the 
 safe course, would be like a decision in favour of the short 
 and dangerous one. This is why the means of postponing 
 universal suffrage without serious disturbance, deserve to 
 be considered before measures for rendering universal suf- 
 frage safe, if not desirable. 
 
 Admitting that a demand for universal suffrage would be 
 irresistible if made in earnest, there appears but one way of 
 postponing universal suffrage ; namely, by preventing the 
 demand for it. Force being out of the question, may not 
 the bulk of the people be persuaded to abstain from de- 
 manding that, which, after a while, they might receive as 
 a matter of course ? Government, said lately a young 
 whig nobleman when speaking of Ireland, must be feared 
 in order to be loved. He meant, of course, in order to be 
 obeyed; and the sentiment was not so monstrous, consider- 
 ing the ignorance, cowardice, and slavishness of the long 
 oppressed people of Ireland. But the English have been 
 "educated ;" they are a brave, though not a martial race ; 
 and they are bent on moving onwards to democracy or ruin. 
 Their government may fear them ; but fear will not make 
 them submit to their government. For the first time in 
 Europe, the people must be guided, if at all, by persuasion 
 and kindness. What these may effect is now the question. 
 
 The actors in this case must be a majority of the reformed 
 House of Commons, as soon as that house shall truly
 
 126 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 represent property in the aggregate. Let us suppose the 
 House of Commons so constituted, anxious to persuade, not 
 force, the poorer orders to abstain from demanding univer- 
 sal suffrage. In that case, what would the house do? what 
 would it leave undone? what would be its principle of action? 
 In that case, the representatives of the richer order would 
 adopt this principle of action : — Such legislation as must 
 take place, if parliament had been chosen by universal suf- 
 frage, all the people being jit to exercise the right of voting. 
 Jeremy Bentham would have called it the postponement- 
 of-universal-suffrage principle : its efficiency will be seen by 
 noticing a few of its inevitable consequences. 
 
 1. Some radical member proposes, that buildings and 
 other objects of curiosity, the property of the nation, should 
 be open to the public without payment. How would the 
 house decide? Would they let the poor visit Westminster 
 Abbey, St. Paul's, and the Tower ? or would they, like 
 former parliaments, vote for the "vested rights" of deans 
 ^ind door-keepers ? According to the above principle, the 
 decision would be in favour of a right which has long been 
 withheld from the poor. If parliament had been elected by 
 universal suffrage, all the electors being lit to choose repre- 
 sentatives, a proposal to this effect would be adopted as soon 
 as made. Such a measure, paltry as it might seem to " great 
 statesmen," w r ould go some way in persuading the poor to 
 abstain from demanding universal suffrage. 
 
 2. Another radical observes, that the parks at the west 
 end of London are very pleasant to the rich who live near 
 them ; that the poor, who crowd the east end of London, 
 would find a park in their neighbourhood very pleasant ; and 
 that it would be easy to give them one, not an atom of enjoy- 
 ment being taken from the rich. Bya parliament in which all 
 were represented, the proposal would be received with accla- 
 mations. And why not a park for the smoke-dried people <>f 
 Manchester, who a1 present can breathe fresh air only by 
 tramping up and down a dusty <>r muddy road I Joseph 
 Hume complains of the expense. The abolition of a few 
 sinecures wpuld settle that point. If, however, public funds 
 may not be diverted to public purposes, if no public money 
 is to be spent for the comforl of any but the rich, then let 
 the rich pay for universal suffrage: you would find it a dear 
 
 mi, M r. I lumc. 
 ::. \ third democratic conservative suggests, that the 
 coil of postage for letters shall be defrayed by the govern- 
 ment ; mat the poor as well as the rich shall send and 
 receive letters free of postage. What! extend to all the
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 127 
 
 privilege of franking? Yes ; and because, for one reason, 
 you would destroy the privilege by extending it. In 
 America, universal suffrage promises to establish universal 
 freedom of postage ; and we are supposing the English 
 parliament to legislate as if it had been elected by univer- 
 sal suffrage. But the frightful expense ! The Americans are 
 not frightened at the expense ; but they have no great army 
 to support ; nor would the English have to support a great 
 army if the poorer order were gratified by such measures 
 as this. Moreover, one might easily prove that a remission 
 of taxes equal to the cost of this measure, would be far less 
 advantageous to the public than this measure, however 
 costly. But, at all events, as this measure would be ap- 
 proved by a parliament representing all, all being fit to be 
 represented, so therefore would a parliament, chosen only 
 by the richer order, approve of it, having regard to the 
 postponement-of-universal-suffrage principle. 
 
 This principle is not new : it is eighteen hundred years 
 old at least ; meaning, do as you icould be done by. For 
 proclaiming this principle, Christ was crucified, Paul striped, 
 and Sidney beheaded. For neglecting this principle, Eng- 
 land was punished by losing the affection of America, the 
 French nobility by the loss of their estates, Charles Stuart 
 and Louis Capet by the loss of their heads. Do, one might 
 say to those who will soon direct the House of Commons, 
 do unto the poorer class as you, being in their places, would 
 have them, in your place, do unto you. Honestly, steadily, 
 boldly abjuring deceit, hesitation, and fear, follow up this 
 generous principle of legislation ; and the poorer order will 
 wait for universal suffrage, though miserable for a time, still 
 with patience. 
 
 Supposing the reformed House of Commons compelled 
 to adopt this effectual method of postponing universal 
 suffrage, yet they might be troubled in their course by a 
 class of men, whose object seems to be mischief for mis- 
 chief's sake. Troubled indeed, but not more than troubled, 
 not checked, still less stopped. Even the mere annoyance 
 would not last six months. By passing a few bills, such as 
 a parliament elected by universal suffrage, content and in- 
 struction would surely pass, the reformed parliament would 
 destroy that power to tease, to create trouble and mischief, 
 which the feebleness and pride of a cabinet of lords has 
 bestowed upon two classes, the ignorant demagogues and 
 wild conservatives: harmless grumblers and broken jobbers 
 they would be called, if, indeed, they were not utterly for-
 
 1'2~S POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 gotten, after one year of genuine Christian legislation by 
 the reformed House of Commons. 
 
 The question that remains is by far more difficult. May 
 arrangements be made to qualify the bulk of the English 
 people for choosing representatives in parliament ? 
 
 Volumes have been written to prove, that arrangements 
 for that purpose could not have any permanent effect ; and 
 tons of books and pamphlets, reckoning but one copy of 
 each, to suggest various measures for the cure of poverty 
 and ignorance. Hitherto, those who contend that the 
 greatest part of mankind is doomed by nature to misery and 
 degradation, have had the best of the argument. It is not 
 necessary on this occasion to interfere between these two 
 parties. * The question on which they dispute must be 
 settled one day or other. Leaving it to be discussed in an 
 English parliament, chosen by the whole people, the present 
 object is to ascertain by what means the English poorer 
 order may be qualified to take a part in that discussion. 
 The present question, therefore, though more difficult than 
 that which has been just examined, is a small practical 
 question, when compared with that great abstract question 
 which divides the Malthusians and their opponents : it re- 
 lates only to one generation. Truly, if a way should be 
 found to bestow comfort and knowledge upon one genera- 
 tion of the poorer class, that might be a step to the perma- 
 nent cure of misery and vice ; but sufficient for the day is 
 the evil thereof: the present difficulty is great enough, 
 though trilling, it may be, when compared with the other. 
 Let us then limit the question. 
 
 May arrangements be made to bestow comfort and 
 knowledge on one generation of the English poorer class ? 
 
 Yes, without doubt, says a believer in the omnipotence 
 of education ; increase the number of schools for the poor, 
 and of mechancs' institutions; send teachers into the rural 
 districts ; take off the taxes od knowledge ; proceed — 
 
 St"]> friend; all this is supposed to have been done with 
 a view to the postponement of universal suffrage. 
 
 He continues ; Then you suppose the poor taught, that 
 their own comfort depends on themselves, thai their well- 
 being is in their own hands, that, by prudently keeping their 
 numbers under the demand lor their services, they may 
 ; high wages, — 
 
 Stop again: All this is good, maybe necessary for the 
 
 permanent well-being of \}v labouring class ; hut the 
 
 inable prudence, though made universal to-
 
 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 129 
 
 morrow, would have no effect on wages for twenty years 
 to come. Would you prudently get rid of children already 
 born ? If not, you propose to teach prudence, the highest 
 wisdom, to a miserable race, without leisure, over-worked, 
 anxious, and discontented ; to make the cart drag the horse ; 
 to produce a cause by means of its own effect. Prudence, 
 wisdom is the end ; the means, high wages, leisure, peace 
 of mind and instruction. A world of trouble has been 
 wasted in the endeavour to instruct the wretched. You 
 must begin at the beginning. Bestow ease on the working 
 class, and then, indeed, you may teach them to dread the 
 return of misery. The first step is to raise wages. " When 
 we deliberate about the means of introducing intellectual 
 and moral excellence into the minds of the principal portion 
 of the people, one of the first things which we are bound 
 to provide for is a generous and animating diet. The 
 physical causes must go along with the moral ; and nature 
 herself forbids that you should make a wise and virtuous 
 people out of a starving one. Men must be happy them- 
 selves before they can rejoice in the happiness of others : 
 they must have a certain vigour of mind before they can, 
 in the midst of habitual suffering, resist a presented pleasure ; 
 their own lives and means of well-being must be worth 
 something, before they can value, so as to respect, the life 
 or well-being of any other person. This or that individual 
 may be an extraordinary individual, and exhibit mental 
 excellence in the midst of wretchedness ; but a wretched 
 and excellent people never yet has been seen on the face of 
 the earth. Though far from fond of paradoxical expres- 
 sions, we are tempted to say that a good diet is a necessary 
 part of good education ; for in one very important sense, 
 it is emphatically true. In the great body of the people, 
 all education is impotent without it."* 
 
 The first step is to raise wages. But how shall wages 
 be raised, except either by increasing the amount of em- 
 ployment, or by diminishing the number of labourers ? In 
 no other way, beyond a doubt ; not by strikes at Man- 
 chester, nor by Swing fires in Kent ; not by spade hus- 
 bandry, nor by paper money ; not by giving books to hungry 
 paupers, half-starved weavers, and parish apprentices, nor 
 by accumulating more capital, and wasting it on foreign 
 loans and far off ruinous speculations ; but by increasing 
 
 * Art. Education, Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by James 
 Mill, Esq. 
 
 17
 
 130 POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 the proportion which employment bears to labour. How" 
 to raise immediately the proportion which employment 
 bears to labour, and to maintain the higher proportion for 
 twenty years or so ; this is the question on which, if I have 
 taken a just view of the political prospects of the English, 
 depends their existence as a wealthy and civilized nation. 
 
 Here I must refer to the note, in which 1 have sought to 
 explain the coincidence in England of overflowing wealth 
 with extensive uneasiness and wide-spread misery. In 
 order to raise wages immediately, the field for the employ- 
 ment of English capital and labour must be enlarged ; 
 whereby profits, and the rewards of many services not 
 called labour, would be raised at the same time as the 
 wages of labour. The whole world is before you. Open 
 new channels for the most productive employment of Eng- 
 lish capital. Let the English buy bread from every people 
 that has bread to sell cheap. Make England, for all that 
 is produced by steam, the work-shop of the world. If, after 
 this, there be capital and people to spare, imitate the an- 
 cient Greeks ; take a lesson from the Americans, who, as 
 their capital and population increase, find room for both by 
 means of colonization. You have abundance, superabun- 
 dance of capital ; provide profitable employment for it, and 
 you will improve the condition of all classes at once. In- 
 stead of lending your surplus capital to foreign states, or 
 wasting it in South American mines, whereby no additional 
 employment is given to English labour, rather, like the 
 Americans, invest it in colonization ; so that, as it flies off, 
 it may take with it, and employ a corresponding amount 
 of surplus labour, if there be any. How this might be 
 done, and how capital so invested might be recovered at 
 pleasure, is stated elsewhere, but cannot be thoroughly un- 
 derstood by Englishmen till they shall learn the causes of 
 certain peculiarities in the social condition of America. 
 These, also, I have endeavoured to explain in some of the 
 following notes. May the explanation assist to point out a 
 way, by which the English shall escape from that corrupt- 
 ing and irritating state of political economy, which seems 
 fit to precede the dissolution of empires !
 
 ( 131 ) 
 
 NOTE VI. 
 
 FREE TRADE IN CORN, AS A MEANS OP ENLARGING THE 
 FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT FOR ENGLISH CAPITAL AND 
 LABOUR. 
 
 Subject of this note stated — Wide difference between facts in America and 
 the English theory of rent — American theory of rent — Various kinds and 
 degrees of competition for the use of land — Facts — Effects of a free corn 
 trade on the several kinds of competition forthe use of land — With cheap 
 bread, the rental of England must be greater — Gradual repeal of the corn- 
 laws hurtful, for a time, to landlords and farmers; and not useful to any 
 class of labourers — Sudden repeal of the corn-laws beneficial to all classes. 
 
 With respect to the foreign corn-trade of England, there 
 is but one point left for examination. The risk of depend- 
 ing on foreigners for the staff of life, the wisdom of protect- 
 ing domestic agriculture, the folly of importing corn from 
 abroad when you can reap it on your own native soil, the 
 injustice of allowing foreign farmers, who are lightly taxed, 
 to compete in your own market with your own farmers, who 
 are heavily taxed ; all these fallacies having been thoroughly 
 exposed by English writers ; and the mischievous influence 
 of the corn-laws in limiting the English field of production 
 being felt, if not understood, by the new ruling order, no 
 one doubts that the reform parliament, as soon as it shall 
 truly represent the new class of voters, will establish a free 
 trade in corn. But an important question remains; whether 
 the corn laws ought to be repealed suddenly or by degrees. 
 Now the object of what follows is to show, and principally, 
 by correcting an error into which English political econo- 
 mists have been led by their ignorance of America, that the 
 repeal of the corn-laws, if gradual, would, for a time, be 
 injurious to farmers and landlords, without being very use- 
 ful to any class of labourers ; but if sudden, would be 
 beneficial to all those classes, and to the landlords in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 That whatever is good for a portion of society must be 
 good for all, is a general principle or rule ; and no one de- 
 nies that the repeal of the English corn-laws would be good 
 for some classes of Englishmen. On general grounds,
 
 132 FREE TRADE L\ CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 therefore, it would follow, that a free trade in corn must be 
 beneficial to all Englishmen. The fact may be at variance 
 with this prima facie conclusion ; but if so, it forms an ex- 
 ception to the general rule ; and those who maintain the 
 exception are bound to prove that it exists. Yet what has 
 been the course pursued by the friends and enemies of the 
 English corn-laws ? Both parties have taken for granted, 
 and have built all their arguments on the bare assumption, 
 that, in proportion as a free trade in corn must be bene- 
 ficial to owners of capital and labour, it would be injurious 
 to owners of land. As in stating that high wages must 
 necessarily cause low profits, that the prosperity of the 
 master depends on the misery of the workmen, so in this 
 case, the English economists have taken pains to set differ- 
 ent classes by the ears. The fifteenth edition of the cele- 
 brated Catechism on the Corn Laws, which contains all the 
 common arguments for and against free trade in corn, be- 
 gins thus : " For whose benefit are the corn-laws ? — Mani- 
 festly, of those who support them, the landlords." Those 
 Jaws are, no doubt, intended for the benefit of the landlords ; 
 but so close a reasoner as Colonel Thompson will admit, 
 that between the intention and the fact there may be a wide 
 difference. He concludes his very able work, as he begins 
 it, by asserting that "the landlords are kept at the public 
 expense." It may be so; but where is the proof? Take 
 it for granted, most of the economists and landlords would 
 answer. I venture to say, no : on the contrary, I notice 
 the bare assertion, which you would substitute for proof, in 
 order to show that an argument, having for object to estab- 
 lish that a free trade in corn would be good for the owners 
 of land as well as for the owners of capital and labour, is 
 not, upon the face of it, irrational. 
 
 The way in which, it is said, free trade in corn would 
 injure the landlords, is by a diminution of their rents. The 
 first step, therefore, in the inquiry, is to ascertain the nature 
 of rent. 
 
 This point is already settled by the English economists. 
 When, say they, the increase of capital and population 
 leads to the cultivation of inferior land, people are willing 
 to pay l'<>r the Use of superior land. This payment, which 
 is always equal to the difference between the greater and 
 less natural productiveness of more and less fertile soils, 
 constitutes rent Other things, they add, enter into rent, 
 vulgarly speaking, swell as the interest which the tenant 
 pays for the use of the landlord's capital fixed in buildings
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C. 133 
 
 and improvements ; but, speaking philosophically, rent is a 
 payment for leave to use land of superior natural fertility, 
 and nothing else is rent. 
 
 According to this statement, we should have to deduct 
 from the rental of England : — 
 
 1. The interest of hundreds of millions of capital, fixed 
 on the land, and the property of those who own the land : — 
 
 2. All that is paid for the superior position of some land; 
 that is, the greater vicinity to manure and a market. 
 
 3. All that is paid, over the payment for superior natural 
 fertility, for accommodation land in the neighbourhood of 
 towns and villages. 
 
 4. All that is paid for land used for purposes of plea- 
 sure and amusement, such as gardens and pleasure grounds, 
 the tenants of which look, not to profit, but to gratification. 
 
 5. All that is paid for the use of land as building ground. 
 But it may be, that all these payments under the name of 
 
 rent, amount to a great deal more than what is paid for the 
 superior natural fertility of land. If so, rent, philosophically 
 speaking, is but a small fraction of rent in the vulgar tongue. 
 
 The philosophical theory of rent is made to rest, by all 
 the English economists, on a statement directly at variance 
 with the truth ; namely, that little or no rent is ever paid in 
 countries where the most fertile land may be obtained for 
 a trifle in unlimited quantities. Before contradicting this 
 statement, it will be well to show, by two examples out of 
 hundreds, how emphatically it is made. 
 
 " So long," says Mr. Mill, "as a part only of the best 
 land is required for cultivation, all that is uncultivated 
 yields nothing; that is, nothing which has any value. It 
 naturally, therefore, remains unappropriated, and any man 
 may have it who undertakes to render it productive. Du- 
 ring this time land, speaking correctly, yields no rent."* 
 
 " On the first settlement," says Mr. M'Culloch, " of any 
 country abounding in large tracts of unappropriated land, 
 no rent is ever paid ; and for this obvious reason, that no 
 person will pay rent for what may be obtained in unlimited 
 quantities for nothing. Thus in New Holland, where there 
 is an ample supply of fertile and unappropriated land, rent 
 will not be heard of until the best lands are cultivated."^ 
 Again, " in New Holland, Indiana, and Illinois, and gen- 
 
 * Elements of Political Economy, sec. Rent, p. 31, 3d edit. 
 t Professor M'Gulloch's Principles of Political Economy, chap. Rent, p. 
 433, 2d edit.
 
 134 TREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OP 
 
 erally in all situations in which no rent is paid, and the 
 best of the good lands only are cultivated." 
 
 Statements to the like effect might be quoted from every 
 treatise on rent that has been published in England. 
 
 Now the fact is, that in the town of Sydney in New Hol- 
 land, the rent of land is nearly as high as in London ; that 
 a very high rent is paid for land in Hobart's Town, Van 
 Dieman's Land, in Montreal, in the new town of York, 
 Upper Canada, and in every town of the United States, not 
 excepting those which have been created within these two 
 years ; that in the immediate neighbourhood of all such 
 towns a considerable rent is paid for garden ground and 
 accommodation land ; and that in all new settlements, 
 whether American or Australian, where there are but few 
 roads, the competition for land in the neighbourhood of a 
 market, or of a road which leads to a market, is so great, 
 that all such land, unless it be utterly steril, is reckoned 
 more valuable than the most fertile land far from a market, 
 and either yields rent accordingly, or enables its owner to 
 take a greater produce to market, which comes to the same 
 thing. The most ample proof of this assertion will be found 
 in every published account of New South Wales and Upper 
 Canada, in the published histories of most of the United 
 States, and in every book of travels in America which 
 notices the value of land. There have been published, in 
 London and Edinburgh, certainly, not less than three hun- 
 dred volumes, each of which contains evidence of the 
 greatly superior value of some land in countries, where the 
 most fertile land may be obtained in unlimited quantities 
 for next to nothing; and showing too, that in all such 
 cases the value of land depends, hardly at all on superior 
 natural fertility, but almost entirely on greater vicinity to 
 labour for raising produce, and to a market for disposing of 
 it. There are so many witnesses to this fact, whose evi- 
 dence is so much alike, thai I should take from the force of 
 their united testimony by quoting a part of it.* All good 
 private libraries in England abound in such evidence, as Mr. 
 Mill and .\! r. M'( iulloch would acknov ledge after one hour's 
 search in honks relating to " new countries." If nature had 
 provided markets in waste countries, or if mankind could 
 fly, easily carrying greal weights through the air, then, in- 
 
 ■ For another purpose, there is collected in the Appendix, No. 2, a num- 
 ber of facte, wliicli eatabliah thai rent, and n high rent too, is paid in new 
 countries, whew unlimited auantitiei of fertile In ml may he obtained for a 
 trifle.
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C 135 
 
 deed, the value of land used in producing food for market 
 would depend on superior natural fertility, and where un- 
 limited quantities of the most fertile land might be obtained 
 for nothing, without flying too far, no rent would be paid 
 for the use of land in producing food for market. Even in 
 that case, however, rent would be paid for the use of land 
 in various other ways, as for gardens and buildings. As it 
 is, land speculators in Australia, Canada, and America, 
 calculate that, because, in new settlements, the difference 
 between different portions of land in respect to advantages 
 of position must necessarily be very great, therefore, in a 
 new settlement, the difference of value between different 
 portions of land must necessarily be very great. Thus it fre- 
 quently happens, that when one of the westerns tates of Ame- 
 rica, or some land-jobbing company, fixes on a spot in the 
 wilderness as fit for a town, marks out the future streets by 
 notches on the trees, and fixes a day for selling the district 
 in lots by auction, hundreds of people congregate, build 
 houses upon wheels, and make ready for the sale by esti- 
 mating the future different values of the different lots. Cap- 
 tain Basil Hall describes admirably one case of this sort, in 
 which twelve hundred people had assembled in the forest, 
 and built seventy moveable houses, weeks before the day 
 of sale. The different lots of land sold at such auctions, 
 are, generally, of pretty equal natural fertility, being equally 
 covered by dense forests of the same kind of trees ; yet 
 while still covered by the forest, they sell for very different 
 prices. And this is the case, not only with respect to town 
 lots, but also as to lots which it is foreseen will be, though 
 not in the future town, more or less distant from the future 
 market. In faet, the greatest trade in America, that of land, 
 jobbing, by which more fortunes have been made than by 
 any other: a trade in which three out of four Americans 
 engage at some period of their lives, either singly or in 
 companies; this trade, by which even a London company 
 has lately made immense profits in Canada, which last year 
 produced to the American government, the greatest of land- 
 jobbers, nearly 700,000/. ; this trade of land-jobbing, of 
 which it would seem that the English economists have 
 never heard, depends principally upon the superior value 
 which, in countries where unlimited quantities of the 
 most fertile land may be obtained for a trifle, land derives 
 from superior position. The English theory of rent, there- 
 fore, whether correct or not, is made to rest upon a great 
 misstatement of fact.
 
 13G FKEE TKADE Ed CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 Now the American theory of rent is this. Rent consists 
 of a yearly payment for the use of land. But much land, 
 which might be turned to all the purposes of man, yields 
 no rent. Land, for instance, on the south coast of New 
 Holland,* or far west of the Mississippi, which is still un- 
 inhabited, yields no rent; and never will yield a rent until 
 there shall be people desirous to use it. Indeed, no one 
 would pay for the use of land, which no other person was 
 desirous to use. Rent, therefore, arises from competition 
 for the use of land. 
 
 Competition for the use of land is of various kinds and 
 of various degrees. 
 
 First, touching the kinds of competition ; these are va- 
 rious, because land is used for various purposes. In Eng- 
 land land is used for growing corn, for breeding and fatten- 
 ing cattle, for producing milk, kitchen vegetables, and fruit, 
 for the growth of timber and other raw materials of several 
 manufactures, for the sites of warehouses, factories, houses 
 in towns, villas, and mansions, for pleasure-grounds, parks, 
 and game-preserves, besides an infinity of other purposes. 
 
 The degrees of competition vary with the various kinds of 
 competition. The highest degree of competition occurs 
 near the Exchanges of such towns as London, Liverpool 
 and New- York. In those spots land is measured, not by 
 the acre, but by the yard and foot ; and yields, oris worth, 
 a rent which may be called enormous, compared with the 
 highest rent ever paid for the use of land in producing food. 
 No competition whatever occurs in such spots as Dartmoor, 
 for example, or the tops of mountains in Wales, where 
 soil and climate are equally unlit for residence, for produc- 
 ing food, and for every other human purpose. 
 
 Such spots yield no rent ; and any oik. 1 might appropriate 
 them, if the actual proprietors were not induced to main- 
 tain their titles by a vague hope of mineral discoveries, or 
 for the vain pleasure of calling their own, though without 
 tlii- least advantage, bo much more <»l the earth's surface. 
 
 The lowest de'_ r P'<' of c petition occurs on these spots, 
 
 which are so distant from towns and roads as to be unfit 
 for any other purpose than the production of food, and of 
 which the produce, owing to a bad soil or climate, or both, 
 
 ' Though, ns in the mso of the iale described by < Inptain Hall, a London 
 company lately offered to the Brit iah govern menl 126,000/. for .'jOO.OOO acres 
 of land on Ll tat. The oner was made, with a view to profit by 
 
 (he nalc, al very enhanced prices, "i land in the neighbourhood of n future 
 market ; wh} the offer win refused, may be seen in the Appendix, iVo. 3.
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C. 137 
 
 as well as to distance from markets and manure, is little 
 more than sufficient to cover the expense of cultivation. 
 This lowest degree of competition may produce a rent of 
 some pence per acre ; while the highest degree of compe- 
 tition yields a rent of some thousand pounds per acre. 
 Between these two extremes, various amounts of rent are 
 produced by various degrees of competition. 
 
 This view of the subject will be made more clear by 
 reference to some facts. 
 
 1. Part of Dengy Hundred in Essex consists of land re- 
 claimed from the sea, and uniformly of the greatest natural 
 fertility ; not merely producing large crops, but, since the 
 soil is light as well as rich, producing them with a small 
 outlay of capital. Farther, between this land and the 
 metropolis there is easy water communication ; so that 
 manure is easily obtained and the produce is easily con- 
 veyed to the best market. Yet, for this land, the average 
 rent paid, deducting tithes, is not more than twenty-five 
 shillings per acre ; while for land not more fertile, in some 
 parts of Warwickshire, used only for producing food, and 
 not nearer than the Essex farms to manure and a market, a 
 rent of from two to three pounds per acre is obtained. That 
 the produce of the Essex land is greater even than that of 
 the land in Warwickshire, is shown by the higher amount 
 paid for composition of tithes in the former case. But 
 how are we to explain the difference of rent ? Of mere 
 theorists the most profound would be at a loss to account 
 for the lower value of the land in Essex : it is explained by 
 the unhealthiness of the Essex marshes, which indisposes 
 farmers to settle there ; so that when the lease of a farm 
 expires, either no one bids against the old tenant, or no one 
 bids more than the old rent. Many considerable fortunes, 
 accordingly, have been made by farmers in that part of 
 Essex, who retained as profit much of what they or others 
 would have paid for rent, if the competition for farms had 
 been as great in the thinly- peopled Essex marshes as it is in 
 the healthy and populous county of Warwick. This circum- 
 stance, though not bearing on any of the kinds of competi- 
 tion mentioned above, is remarkably illustrative of the 
 doctrine, that different kinds and degrees of competition 
 arise from various causes. 
 
 2. All the land for some miles south, east, and west of 
 Dunkirk (Downchurch) in France, consists naturally of 
 downs of loose sand, blown up from a gaining sea-shore on 
 to a deep subsoil of sand, without water, and as steril as 
 
 18
 
 138 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OP 
 
 the most naked rock. Yet in this district the rent of land 
 is considerably higher than in the very fertile district which, 
 on the opposite coast of England, divides the Isle of Thanet 
 from the rest of Kent. Why ? If rent be paid because, as 
 Mr. Mill says, in the beginning of his chapter on rent, 
 " land is of different degrees of fertility," we should go on 
 to say, because the English land is naturally steril, while 
 the French land is naturally rich. The fact, however, is 
 this ; at least this is the way in which the people about 
 Dunkirk account for the high rents yielded by their naturally 
 steril land. Time was when the district was uninhabited, 
 and then, of course, no rent was paid. But a church having 
 been built on the barren downs, and its patron saint, Eloi, 
 being in great repute, pilgrims flocked thither from all parts 
 of France and the Low Countries. By this means a town 
 was established. In time, the inhabitants of the town con- 
 structed a port ; roads were next made from the port 
 across the downs to the populous highlands which had once 
 formed the sea-shore, and afterward canals in various 
 directions ; the flatness and softness of the sandy district 
 offering great facilities lor canal-cutting. In the end, the 
 means of communication became more abundant in this 
 district than in any other part of France, as they are still : 
 and the result was, that the population of the district be- 
 came very great, towns and villages being built at a short 
 distance from each other ; that by means of canals, clay 
 and other manures were easily obtained, and being applied 
 to the sand, rendered it more productive than the ancient 
 highlands of chalk ; while those canals, again, afforded 
 great facilities for taking produce to market. In this way, 
 the cost of production in the market becoming less and less 
 by means of art, the naturally steril downs about Dunkirk, 
 which have never been used except for producing food, 
 became more valuable, subject to a higher degree of com- 
 petition, than the rid) marsh lands between Sandwich and 
 Reculver, on which the population is scanty, and of which 
 every acre, in comparison with any part of the French Low 
 Countries, is distant from market. 
 
 3. The garden grounds on the banks of the Thames, not 
 far from London, are worth four or five, and in some cases 
 ten times as much as alluvial land of equal natural fertility, 
 which is either more distant from manure and a market, or 
 which, though nearer to manure and a market, is not re- 
 quired to supply a demand for produce of a perishable 
 nature. Thousands of like cases might be cited.
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C. 139 
 
 4. Of late years, in England, many cases have occurred 
 in which the construction of a bridge between a town and 
 mere farm land on the other side of the river, having ena- 
 bled the inhabitants of the town to use such farm land for 
 gardens, for the keep of cows, for turning out horses, and 
 other purposes of utility or pleasure, has caused the rent of 
 such land to rise, with a corresponding fall in the rent of 
 accommodation land on the town side of the river. In 
 these cases a bridge, which has nothing to do with natural 
 fertility, causes a higher rent in one place, and a lower rent 
 in another, by means of higher and lower degree of com- 
 petition for the use of land. 
 
 5. Every one at all acquainted with rural affairs in Eng- 
 land or Scotland must know of cases in which the making 
 of a canal or a road has raised the rent of land throughout 
 the borders of the new line of communication. In such 
 cases, what the tenant saves by a decrease in the cost of 
 manure, and of taking produce to market, falls to the land- 
 lord in the shape of rent ; in such cases, a higher rent may 
 be paid with the same profit as before, and is paid because 
 a higher degree of competition has taken place. 
 
 6. But how much more striking is the increase of rent on 
 and around some parts of the borders of new lines of com- 
 munication, which are chosen for the sites of towns or 
 villages. In these cases ground rents, garden rents, and 
 accommodation rents, are now paid for land which before 
 yielded rent for only the second degree, perhaps, of natural 
 fertility ; such higher rents being paid because some of the 
 highest degrees of competition have been created where 
 only the lowest degree existed before. The land around 
 every English town which has much increased during the 
 last thirty years furnishes to numbers an example of this 
 kind with which they must be familiar ; a case in which, 
 through the increase of wealth and population, land which 
 formerly yielded only garden and accommodation rent now 
 yields building rent ; land, which formerly yielded only a 
 farming rent, now yields garden and accommodation rent ; 
 and land, still used for farming, is more productive with 
 the same cost, or as productive with less cost, and is there- 
 fore worth a higher rent, in consequence of more manure 
 and a greater demand for farm produce in the neighbour- 
 hood of such mere farming land. 
 
 7. On that part of the coast of the Mediterranean formerly 
 subject to the Genoese republic, very little corn and no 
 meat was ever produced : on the other side of the Appen-
 
 140 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 nines, in Piedmont, there are districts which produce scarce 
 any thing but corn and cattle ; and part of the produce of 
 those districts is consumed in the Genoese territory. Yet 
 the rent of land, on the mountainous coast of the Gulf of 
 Genoa was, a few years back, and probably still is, consid- 
 erably higher than in those very fertile districts of Pied- 
 mont, from which the Genoese derive a part of their food. 
 This difference of rent is easily explained. In Piedmont, 
 there was no competition for the use of land, except in 
 producing corn and meat. The soil of Genoa being un- 
 suited to the production of corn and meat, the Genoese 
 turned their industry into the channels of manufactures 
 and commerce, whereby they were enabled to obtain corn 
 and meat from foreign soils. Obtaining corn and meat 
 with an outlay of capital much less than would have been 
 required to raise the same produce on their own territory, 
 they created, by the increase of wealth and population, a 
 demand for productions, which were easily raised on their 
 own soil, such as garden vegetables, fruit, olive oil, silk, and 
 wine. Thus land which, if it had been used for growing 
 corn or feeding cattle, would at best have returned a pro- 
 duce not more than sufficient to replace capital with profit, 
 and for which therefore no rent could have been paid, now 
 yielded a rent equal to the difference between the value of 
 the produce and the cost of production. In this case, 
 land which was steril for one purpose, became fertile for 
 another. Then, as by means of importing corn and meat, 
 the wealth and population of the state increased, roads were 
 carried into narrow valleys which before had been shut 
 against competition, and thus the land of those valleys, 
 which before had been worth nothing, came to be valuable, 
 and to yield rent accordingly. Lastly, with the further in- 
 crease of wealth and population, owing entirely to the con- 
 tinued cheapness of corn and meat, there occurred an ex- 
 tensive demand for the use of land it) many ways besides 
 
 cultivation. Tin- inhabitants of Genoa the Magnificent 
 (magnificent, because withoul corn-laws) required, besides 
 houses, warehouses, and other buildings within the city walls, 
 country villas, pleasure gardens, and ornamented grounds. 
 For these, the Btaff of life being cheap, they could well 
 afford to pay without regard to profit. Thus much land 
 acquired .1 value far exceeding the difference between the 
 value and thecosl of things raised for sale. What had oc- 
 curred near the city of Genoa, to >k place more or less at 
 other places on the coast, where there arose such towns as
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C. 141 
 
 Spezia, Noli, Voltri, and Savona, and where some land, 
 steril for producing corn or meat, came to yield a rent 
 for the use of it in producing other things : while some land, 
 neither more nor less fertile for any purpose of cultivation, 
 yielded a rent much higher than was ever paid for the most 
 fertile land used in producing commodities for market. 
 The original cause of all, or nearly all the rent paid in the 
 Genoese territory, was the importation of corn and meat, 
 which produced all the higher degrees of competition for 
 the use of land on spots where, unless the staff of life had 
 been imported from foreign soils, the lowest degree of com- 
 petition could hardly have existed. How the Genoese 
 would stare if Mr. Mill, explaining to them the cause of 
 high rent in their steril country, were to begin with the 
 first sentence of his chapter on rent : " land is of different 
 degrees of fertility !" 
 
 From considering the above facts, it appears that rent is 
 produced by an infinite variety of causes: each cause, 
 however, operating by way of competition for the use of 
 land ; and that some kinds of competition are far more 
 powerful, produce a much higher rent than others. Let 
 us now see what, in England, are the main circumstances 
 that regulate the degrees of competition for the use of land. 
 
 First. Superior natural fertility. 
 
 Secondly. Superior productiveness arising from im- 
 provements, such as draining, fencing, building, &c. 
 
 Thirdly. Superior vicinity to manure, which is the same 
 as superior natural fertility. 
 
 Fourthly. Superior vicinity to markets, which reduces, 
 by so much, the cost of taking produce to market. 
 
 Fifthly. A demand for milk, fruit, and kitchen vegetables, 
 which will not bear long carriage. 
 
 Sixthly. A demand for pleasure gardens, pleasure 
 grounds, and ground for all the purposes of building. 
 
 Superior natural fertility alone produces some compe- 
 tition: add improvements, which are equal to greater natu- 
 ral fertility, but which must be called fixed capital, and a 
 higher degree of competition takes place ; superadd vici- 
 nity to manure and to markets, when a still higher degree of 
 competition occurs, with a still higher rent : produce a de- 
 mand for accommodation land, when competition takes 
 place in the highest degree but one : produce a demand for 
 pleasure gardens, pleasure grounds, and building ground, 
 when the result is the highest degree of competition and the 
 highest rent. How, in England, a free trade in corn would
 
 142 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 affect these several degrees of competition for the use of 
 land, and the aggregate rental of the country, is the practi- 
 cal question before us. 
 
 Let us suppose that if the English were free to buy corn 
 in the cheapest markets they could anywhere find, there 
 would no longer be any demand at all for English corn, 
 wheat, barley, and oats. In this case, competition for the 
 use of land in growing corn would cease altogether. 
 
 If this competition should cease altogether, bread not 
 becoming any cheaper, the general competition for the use 
 of land in producing food would be greatly reduced. But 
 since the object of free trade in corn is to obtain cheap 
 bread, we have a right to presume that, the corn-laws re- 
 pealed, bread would become much cheaper. Let us sup- 
 pose, taking the extreme case supposed by the landlords, 
 when they say that a free trade in corn would be ruinous 
 to them, that bread should be obtained at half its present 
 price. In that case, the demand for all other kinds of food 
 would increase with the cheapness of bread. But, even if 
 the demand for other kinds of food were doubled, it does 
 not follow, as a matter of course, that the new demand for 
 the produce of land would have the same effect on compe- 
 tition as the demand which had ceased. Whether or not 
 this would be the case, depends upon two proportions ; 
 first, the actual proportion between corn land and land used 
 for growing other kinds of food ; secondly, the proportion 
 which the demand for food not corn would bear to the pres- 
 ent demand for food not corn, if the price of bread were 
 reduced by half. These are points which might perhaps be 
 ascertained by a diligent government. Supposing that the 
 new demand for food not corn, would be equal in effect to 
 the present demand for corn and for food not corn, in that 
 case the corn-laws might be repealed without even a mo- 
 mentary decrease of demand for the use of land in pro- 
 ducing food ; and, at all events, after a while, the increase 
 of people and wealth, owing to the cheapness of the staff 
 of life, would raise the demand for food not corn up to the 
 present demand for all kinds of food. 
 
 How would this, cither presently, or before long, affect 
 the various degrees of competition? 
 
 l. Superior natural fertility would be as valuable as 
 
 ever. Might it not become more valuable? or rather, 
 
 might not much land, which has now but the fourth or third 
 
 eeoffertilit) for the growth of corn, become of the second 
 
 or first degree for the growth of other kinds of food ? As
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OP EMPLOYMENT, &C. 413 
 
 the Genoese soil is not fit for the growth of corn or meat, 
 but is fit for the growth of wine, silk, and oil, so the soil, or 
 rather climate of England is more fit for the growth of 
 food not corn, than for the growth of corn. Thus cheap- 
 ness of bread extending to some land, which is inferior for 
 its present purpose, a superior quality for new purposes, 
 would rather augment than decrease the effect of the low- 
 est degree of competition. Towards the increase of this 
 effect, also, the growth of raw materials for manufactures, 
 such as timber and wool, instead of the growth of corn, a 
 change which could not but ensue in many cases, if the 
 English were to buy their corn with manufactures, would 
 operate very considerably. 
 
 2. Capital fixed upon land, as w^ell as, we may add here, 
 the unfixed capital of the farmers, would be as valuable as 
 ever. Fifty years ago this would not have been the case ; 
 because at that time the art of producing animal food by 
 tillage had made little progress in England ; but at this 
 time, every English farmer knows how to raise meat with 
 the plough. If a demand for animal food, milk, butter, 
 cheese, and meat, should take the place of a demand for 
 home-grown corn, some farmers, no doubt, would convert 
 a portion of their corn land into meadow ; but considering 
 the great skill of the English in growing artificial food for 
 cattle, and how the power of growing such food would be 
 increased by the greater number of cattle kept, that is, the 
 greater quantity of manure, a large proportion of the present 
 corn lands would, it seems inevitable, be used for the 
 growth of turnips, potatoes, beetroot, clover, tares, lucern, 
 and such like food for cattle, which can be raised only by 
 the same sort of capital as is used in raising corn, and 
 which, on the score of climate, would be raised with less 
 expense than corn. 
 
 These two are the only kinds of competition for the use 
 of land that would be affected by cheapness of bread, so 
 long as wealth and population had not increased. But 
 inevitably, if bread were cheap, wealth and population 
 would very rapidly increase. Whatever the effect of 
 cheapness of bread on these two kinds of competition with- 
 out an increase of wealth or population, it would manifestly 
 be much greater after such increase. 
 
 But now we have to consider the influence of a great 
 increase of wealth and population on the four higher de- 
 grees of competition. 
 
 Let us suppose the population and wealth of the country
 
 144 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 to be doubled ; a supposition by no means extravagant, 
 after supposing that the staff of life had been very cheap 
 during one generation. In this case, the extent of roads, 
 though not doubled, would be greatly increased. On many 
 of the new lines of roads, as well as on those which exist 
 already, market towns would be built in spots where, at 
 present, neither manure can be obtained nor produce sold. 
 Jn the next place, a large proportion of the people called 
 into existence by cheapness of bread, would reside in 
 towns ; so that, with double the actual population, the 
 town population would be much more than doubled. In 
 this way, land, which is now of second or third rate quality 
 in respect to position, to manure, and a market, would 
 become first rate and second rate. Thus, also, the extent 
 of land required for producing perishable food, such as 
 milk, fruit, and kitchen vegetables, would be more than 
 twice as much as it is now. And, finally, the demand for 
 pleasure gardens, pleasure grounds, and for building ground, 
 would be more than doubled with the supposed increase 
 of wealth and population; Whatever the increase of wealth 
 and population year by year, all the higher degrees of com- 
 petition for land would be much more rapidly extended. 
 
 Thus, while a free trade in corn might extend to some 
 land, which is of inferior quality for the growth of corn, a 
 superior quality for the growth of other things, not lessen- 
 ing the value of any capital fixed upon land, but rather in- 
 creasing the power of such capital by spreading a mode of 
 cultivation more suited to the soil and climate of England ; 
 while competition for superior natural fertility, and the use 
 of fixed capital, might be rather increased than diminished, 
 the influence of all the higher degrees of competition would, 
 it seems quite plain, be extended incalculably. The aggre- 
 gate rental of the country must necessarily increase to the 
 same extent. All land-owners, indeed, would not derive 
 equal benefit, in proportion to their present rentals, from 
 such an extension of the higher degrees of competition. 
 The greatest increase of wealth and population would not 
 Cause any increase of competition lor land in the neighbour- 
 hood of the London exchange, ^ here already the verynighesl 
 degree of Competition exists, and the very highest rent is ob- 
 tained ; nor, probably, would the value of any land now used 
 as building ground be much increased by the greatesl increase 
 ot wealth and population. The eflfecl of greater wealth and 
 population would be to extend to land, now subject to one 
 of the lower degrees, a higher degree of competition; but
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT, &C. 145 
 
 already so large a portion of ihe surface of England is appli- 
 cable to those purposes which create the higher degrees of 
 competition, that but few landlords could miss reaping 
 some share of the great increase of aggregate rental which, 
 if this view of the subject be correct, must result from a free 
 trade in corn. If so, bread cannot, one should think, be 
 made too cheap, nor be made cheap too soon for the land- 
 lords. 
 
 But here a consideration arises, which is of great im- 
 portance to the landlords. Two ways of making bread 
 cheap are proposed ; that of suddenly repealing all the 
 laws which restrict the importation of corn ; secondly, that 
 of substituting for the present truly whimsical laws a fixed 
 duty on imported corn, and providing that the duty shall 
 decrease year by year until it cease altogether. The 
 ground of this latter suggestion is tenderness for the land- 
 lords, farmers, and farm labourers. Give them time, say 
 some of the advocates of cheap bread ; give the agricultu- 
 rists time, so that the transition from corn-growing to other 
 kinds of production being gradual, not even a passing injury 
 may be suffered by any of them. Now this gradual method 
 of proceeding appears to me to be the only way in which 
 the agriculturists may be injured by a repeal of" the corn- 
 laws ; and the only way, too, in which the other classes 
 could fail, for a time at least, to reap much advantage from 
 cheapness of bread. 
 
 First, as to the landlords. Let us suppose that twenty 
 years were allowed for the reduction of bread to half its 
 present price, and that a twentieth part of the whole reduc- 
 tion should take place in each of the twenty years. In that 
 case, each year would bring a fall in the price of bread 
 /equal to one-fortieth of the present price. With so slow a 
 decrease in the price of bread, little or no improvement 
 could take place in the condition of the bulk of the people, 
 because the number of labourers would increase as fast as 
 bread became cheaper ; and thus, though every year there 
 would be more labourers to eat bread, nay, even though all 
 the labouring class should eat more bread, the class of 
 labourers generally, who form the bulk of the people, would 
 not be able to purchase more animal food. The price of 
 bread being reduced by so slow a process as to give time 
 for a corresponding increase of people, money wages would 
 fall with the price of bread, and the quality of labourers' 
 food would not be raised. In this case, the increase of de- 
 mand for animal food would not be more rapid than the 
 
 19
 
 146 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 increase of population generally. But if, on the contraryy 
 bread were suddenly reduced to half its present price, 
 then, as the labouring population could not increase sud- 
 denly, the bulk of the people must be able to purchase a 
 great deal more than twice as much animal food as they 
 purchase now. At present, they buy very little animal 
 food. By giving to the bulk of the people the power to 
 buy animal food, the present demand for animal food might 
 be immediately doubled, trebled, or even quadrupled ; and 
 thus the transition from corn-growing to the production of 
 other kinds of food might not have to wait upon the increase 
 of population. If the slow process were adopted, a con- 
 siderable decrease of the demand for home-grown corn 
 might take place, before population had increased enough to 
 increase the demand for animal food : whereas, if the sud- 
 den process of repeal were adopted, the power of the whole 
 labouring class to buy animal food being thus suddenly and 
 greatly increased, then the increase of demand for animal 
 food would more or less correspond with the decrease of 
 demand for home-grown corn. In this way, the transition 
 from one kind to another kind of production might take 
 place without even passing loss to the owners of land. If, 
 then, bread is to be made cheap, the cheaper the better and 
 the sooner the better for the landlords. 
 
 Secondly, as to the farmers. These, like the landlords, 
 might suffer from a slow process of repeal, which should 
 cause a decrease in the demand for home-grown corn, 
 without a corresponding increase of demand for other things 
 which English farmers could raise. In fact, what has just 
 been said of the landlords ought rather to have been said 
 of the farmers, since the landlord could suffer only through 
 the farmer's loss. Supposing transition from corn-growing 
 to other kinds of production inevitable, the thing which the 
 farmers have to fear is temporary stagnation. The best 
 way to produce a temporary stagnation of farming business 
 seems to be, by enabling the bulk of the people to buy 
 foreign corn without enabling them to buy English milk, 
 butter, cheese, and meat : the only way to prevent such 
 nation, by Buddenly making bread very cheap, so that 
 ih, demand tor farm produce not corn should at once equal, 
 it it did not exceed, the present demand for corn and other 
 things together. 
 
 Ln two points of view more, the farmers appear to be 
 interested in a sudden repeal of the corn-laws; first as 
 capitalists, and secondly as holders of leases. " A farmer,"
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OP EMPLOYMENT, &C. 147 
 
 says the author of Cheap Corn best for Farmers,* " is as 
 much a capitalist as a shopkeeper or a manufacturer ; and 
 the profits of farming capital must be lowered by any cause 
 which lowers the profits of other capital. A farmer's gain 
 cannot be permanently greater than that of other capitalists. 
 He has, in common with other capitalists, a very strong in- 
 terest in high profits." Of course he has ; and is not one object 
 of free trade in corn to raise the profits of capital generally, 
 by enlarging the English field of production 1 If, by the 
 purchase of bread from other countries, the field of produc- 
 tion should be so much enlarged as to raise the common 
 rate of profit, farmers' profits could not but rise ; and the 
 sooner, of course, this change should take place, the better 
 for the farmer, as for the manufacturer and shopkeeper. 
 Secondly, supposing the aggregate value of land to be 
 raised, partly in consequence of land which was inferior for 
 one purpose becoming superior for other purposes, and still 
 more by the extension of all the higher degrees of com- 
 petition, many leases, which now are only contracts, might 
 become bonds for the landlord, and, for the tenant, securi- 
 ties worth a premium. Supposing the demand for other 
 things than corn to become suddenly greater than the 
 demand for corn and other things, and supposing, further, a 
 rapid increase of wealth and population, one can imagine 
 landlords envious of their tenants under lease. 
 
 Thirdly, what would be the influence of cheapness of 
 bread, obtained slowly or suddenly, on the condition of 
 agricultural labourers ? " Oh ! take pity on the poor labour- 
 ers," say some landlords; u if you put an end to the growth 
 of corn in England, you will diminish employment for that 
 unfortunate class, and so lower their wages." This pro- 
 fession of tenderness for the pauper herd means : Beware 
 of increasing the poor's-rate, which falls on us landlords. 
 And though a good part of the poor's-rate, levied in the 
 corn districts of England, be not borne by the landlords, all 
 that part, namely, with which the farmers pay wages, and 
 which must have been paid without poor-laws, still, since 
 paupers maintained in idleness are kept by the landlords, it 
 is true that, as agricultural labourers were thrown out of 
 employment, the landlords would have to keep more people. 
 But it does not follow, that the poor's-rate would increase 
 because the number of persons to be maintained in idleness 
 
 * Mr. Henry Drumrnond, who founded the professorship of Political 
 Economy at Oxford, and who, in this pamphlet, recognises the doctrine, 
 that profits depend on the proportion between capital and the field of produc- 
 tion.
 
 148 FREE TRADE IN CORN AS A MEANS OF 
 
 was greater. The rate payers would have the benefit of 
 cheap bread, like all other classes, except the paupers, 
 whose money allowance would be diminished as bread be- 
 came cheaper. Thus, even supposing a great decrease of 
 agricultural employment, in consequence of a great decrease 
 in the price of bread (and one could not take place without 
 the other) it might be as broad for the landlords as it was 
 long ; not to reckon their greater means of paying the 
 same amount, in consequence of the greater value conferred 
 upon their land by extending to it higher degrees of com- 
 petition. For three reasons, however, it appears probable, 
 nay certain, that cheapness of bread, if it should come 
 suddenly, would not throw any agricultural labourers out of 
 employment ; in which case, the difference between cheap 
 bread and dear bread would be so much pure gain to the 
 payers of poor's-rate. Because, first, as capital now used 
 in corn-growing could be easily used in producing other 
 kinds of food, so could corn-growing labour be easily turned 
 to the production of turnips, potatoes, beetroot, clover, 
 tares, lucern, &c, and to the management of sheep and 
 cattle. Transition, then, is not so much to be feared as 
 stagnation; and the way to prevent stagnation is to make 
 the transition suddenly ; a new and perhaps a greater de- 
 mand for the produce of farm labour arising at the moment 
 when the old demand should cease ; not waiting for the in- 
 crease of population. Because, secondly, if, which may be 
 doubtful, the various modes of cultivation substituted for 
 corn-growing should require fewer hands than are now em- 
 ployed in agriculture, still, all the cheap corn brought to 
 England must be purchased with English labour ; and this, 
 as it could not increase suddenly, would bear a less propor- 
 tion to employment, so soon as a free trade in corn had pro- 
 vided profitable investments for great masses of capital now 
 lying idle or about to go abroad. If any one should say 
 that agricultural labourers would not be fit for those occu- 
 pations by which cheap corn was purchased. 1 would ask 
 him, whether the wild Irish cottiers be fit for the great 
 quantity of manufacturing work which they perform in 
 England I and would tell him further, that during the last 
 war between America and Bngland, American husband- 
 men found no difficulty in turning their hands to all sorts of 
 manufacturing employments. Lastly, because the more 
 productive use of the national capital, without reckoning 
 any increase of it, would create a new demand for labour 
 in a hundred kinds of work, for which peasants are already
 
 ENLARGING THE FIELD OP EMPLOYMENT, &C. 149 
 
 quite fit ; such as, merely for example, in building factories, 
 warehouses, houses, and mansions, in making wharves, roads, 
 canals, bridges, gardens, and pleasure grounds, in cultiva- 
 ting kitchen vegetables and perishable fruit, in porterage 
 and domestic service ; which new demand could not, for 
 some time, be supplied by a corresponding increase of 
 people. 
 
 All these reasons for concluding, that cheapness of bread 
 would rather increase than diminish employment for agri- 
 cultural labourers, are so many reasons, likewise, why 
 bread cannot become too cheap, nor become cheap too 
 suddenly for the good of that miserable class. It must be 
 acknowledged, however, that a class already so abject, 
 would not be injured by that gradual repeal of the corn- 
 laws which, lowering the demand for English corn without 
 for some time raising the demand for other productions of 
 English land, would injure the present race of farmers and 
 landlords. In that case, some agricultural labourers who now 
 work for pauper's allowance, would receive pauper's allow- 
 ance without working for it ; and the difference would fall 
 upon the landlords, after, in some cases, falling on tenants 
 under lease. Cases might occur, in which the paupers would 
 become the landlords by eating the whole rent, though with- 
 out any change in their condition either for better or worse. 
 Verily, the more one reflects on the subject, the more plain 
 does it seem, that the lords of the soil are deeply interested in 
 making bread very cheap as quickly as possible. But this, 
 probably, they will never understand ; for do not they set 
 their faces against rail-roads : blind to the certainty of profit 
 and thoughtful only of their pheasants' tranquillity. 
 
 All the other classes, manufacturers, shipowners, mer- 
 chants, dealers, professional men, clerks, and workmen of 
 every kind, whose comfort depends on the rates of profit and 
 wages, that is, on the proportion which these classes and 
 their capital bear to the field of production; these classes, 
 though they and their capital would increase slowly with a 
 gradual fall in the price of bread, might not obtain higher 
 profits and wages unless the price of bread should fall more 
 rapidly than they and their capital should increase. If the 
 field of production were enlarged by slow degrees, capital 
 and labour might increase at the same rate ; in which case 
 there would be no change of proportion among the three 
 elements of production. In that case, the wealth and popu- 
 lation of England would increase, far more rapidly, perhaps, 
 than since the war ; there would be more capitalists and
 
 150 FOREIGN CORN-TRADE OF ENGLAND, 
 
 more labourers, more factories, warehouses, ships, roads, 
 and houses, more signs of wealth; but no improvement in 
 the condition of either capitalists or labourers. Whereas, a 
 sudden enlargement of the means for employing capital 
 with profit, so great an enlargement suddenly that capital 
 and labour should for some time bear a lower proportion to 
 the field of production, must raise profits and wages both 
 together. For the sake, then, of the industrious classes 
 generally, bread cannot be made too cheap, nor be made 
 cheap too soon. 
 
 Referring to the preceding note, all classes, and especially 
 the new ruling order, have a deep political interest in mak- 
 ing bread very cheap all at once. It will be impossible to 
 qualify the bulk of the people for taking a part in the gov- 
 ernment unless their wages be raised, unless they obtain 
 some leisure and peace of mind. Their wages will not be 
 raised, if they should increase in number as fast as bread 
 becomes cheaper. As respects them, the object is to make 
 the staff of life very cheap, without a fall, if possible with a 
 rise, of money wages : and this can be accomplished, if at 
 all, only by a* great and sudden fall in the price of bread. 
 For the sake of all classes and on every account, therefore, 
 it appears that, rather than get rid of restrictions on the 
 corn-trade by a slow process, which should begin to-mor- 
 row and end twenty years hence, the English would do far 
 better if they had sufficient patience to leave the corn laws 
 untouched for twenty years, and then repeal them at one 
 blow. 
 
 NOTE VII. 
 
 CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN THE FOREIGN CORN-TRADE OF 
 ENGLAND AND THE FOREIGH TRADE OF CHINA. 
 
 Object of the English in ;i free corn-trade — Very cheap corn not raised ex- 
 cept by slaves — Why so— Direcl trade between English manufacturers 
 and the producer! of cheap corn, must 1»- very limited — Indirect trade 
 for procuring cheap corn, by means of direcl trade with the Chinese 
 Empire. 
 
 The foreign oorn-tradeof England and th<' foreign trade 
 of the Chinese empire appear, ;tt 6rs1 si<_ r ht, to be subjects 
 notclosely related; but a \<n brief inquiry will show the 
 most intimate crrnne\H>n between them.
 
 AND FOREIGN TRADE OF CHINA. 151 
 
 A free trade in corn would be of but little service to the 
 English, if there were not plenty of people in the world 
 ready to buy English manufactured goods with cheap corn. 
 To every trade there must be two parties : he who sells 
 must buy, and he who buys must sell. The English can 
 produce very cheap cotton and woollen goods, and very 
 cheap hardware ; but of what service would it be to them 
 to produce more of these cheap things, without a market in 
 which they could be exchanged for cheap corn ? It is very 
 important, therefore, with reference to the foreign corn- 
 trade of England, to see who in the world are the produ- 
 cers of the cheapest corn. 
 
 Very cheap corn is not produced anywhere, in large 
 quantities, except by the labour of slaves, black or white, 
 called slaves or serfs. This is a fact so well known, that 
 as a fact one need not dwell on it ; but why is it, that serfs 
 in Poland, and slaves in America, produce cheaper corn than 
 freemen anywhere ? 
 
 More than one English economist would perhaps say, that 
 the peculiar cheapness of slave-grown corn is owing to the 
 cheapness of slave-labour ; the wages of such labour consist- 
 ing only of a bare subsistence for the labourer. But in what 
 country, except North America and some new colonies, do 
 the wages of free labour employed in agriculture much ex- 
 ceed a bare subsistence for the labourer ? Perhaps, speaking 
 generally, it might be shown, that slaves have more to subsist 
 on than free labourers employed in agriculture, as undoubt- 
 edly farm-horses in England, being a valuable property, are 
 better fed than English peasants. But, it might be said, the 
 subsistence of slaves, though more in quantity, is less in cost, 
 by reason of the cheapness of the produce of their labour on 
 which they live. To say this, however, would be to put the 
 effect for the cause. In the next place, considering the prime 
 cost of slaves, a very important point, their stupidity, the 
 cost of curing them when ill, and of maintaining them dur- 
 ing sickness, their carelessness, and the great cost of keep- 
 ing them in order, with the loss occasioned by the total 
 escape of some of them and the cost of getting back some 
 who escape ; taking all these points into consideration, it 
 will be seen that the labour of slaves is dearer than that of 
 freemen, though the produce of their labour be cheaper. If 
 labour were the only element of production, this contradic- 
 tion could not occur ; the labour being dear, the produce 
 could not be cheap. But land also is an element of pro- 
 duction. Wherever very cheap corn is produced, land is
 
 152 FOREION CORN-TRADE OF ENGLAND, 
 
 very cheap ; and though in such cases the corn be raised 
 by slaves, its cheapness seems attributable to the cheapness, 
 not of the labour which raises it, but of the land on which 
 it is raised. Still it will be asked, if this were the case, why 
 should not very cheap corn be raised by free labourers on 
 cheap land. Because, I answer, where land is very cheap 
 and all men are free, where every one who so pleases can 
 easily obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labour 
 very dear, as respects the labourer's share of the produce, 
 but the difficulty is to obtain combined labour at any price. 
 As the two greyhounds running together catch more hares 
 than four running separately, so the labour of slaves, though 
 dear compared with that of free labourers in most coun- 
 tries, is, being combined, much more productive, in propor- 
 tion to the number of hands employed, than the divided la- 
 bour of freemen wherever land is very cheap. This ex- 
 plains why slavery and great cheapness of land have gen- 
 erally existed together ; showing besides, that the cheap- 
 ness of corn raised by slaves is owing, not to the cheapness 
 of slave-labour, but to the cheapness of land ; that same 
 cheapness of land being also the cause of slavery. I have 
 dwelt fully on this point in a note on the origin, progress, 
 and prospects of slavery in America. 
 
 Now the master of slaves and serfs would not be apt to 
 produce cheap corn for the English market, if he had no 
 prospect of being paid for it except with English manufac- 
 tured goods. A Polish or Russian noble, or a slave-owner 
 in Virginia, if he were to exchange the produce of his land 
 directly with a Manchester manufacturer for the produce 
 of steam-engines, would hardly know what to do with his 
 purchase. The English will be able to obtain a great deal 
 of very cheap corn, only by an indirect trade ; selling their 
 manufactured goods where such things are in great request, 
 for things which are in great request with the producers of 
 cheap corn ; just as the Genoese buy corn and meat in Pied- 
 mont with salt-fish and hard money, which they first obtain 
 by means of trade with North and South America. By 
 what indirect, and perhaps very complicated traffic, cheap 
 corn would come to England in consequence of cheap 
 manufactured goods going from England, the English 
 government need not inquire: that is a point which may 
 gafely be left to the traders, and any meddling with it by 
 the government could not but be hurtful. But, whether 
 there be in the world a sufficient demand for manufactured 
 goods to enable the English to obtain cheap corn by some
 
 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE, &C. 153 
 
 indirect trade, is a question of the greatest moment to the 
 whole people. Further, if there be any foreign restriction 
 on the foreign demand for English manufactured goods, 
 restrictions which it is in the power of the English govern- 
 ment to remove, interference for that purpose is a proper 
 office, a bounden duty, of government. The nation who, 
 but for the existence of certain restrictions on trade, would 
 probably buy the greatest amount of English manufactured 
 goods, are the Chinese ; and it so happens that the Chinese 
 possess a good deal of that commodity which, being in 
 great request everywhere, would be readily exchanged for 
 cheap corn, namely, silver. Thus, between the question 
 examined in the following note and that of the English 
 foreign corn trade, there is a close and very important re- 
 lation.* 
 
 NOTE VIII. 
 
 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE TO THE WHOLE COAST 
 OF CHINA. 
 
 Interest of the Americans in this question — Chinese restrictions on trade-— 
 The Chinese people more inclined to commerce than the English or 
 Americans — Chinese government dislikes foreign trade on political 
 grounds — Restrictions lead to a free trade — Description of the free trade 
 which actually takes place in China — Obstacles to the extension of this 
 free trade — Several modes of removing those obstacles — One mode will 
 endanger the trade between America and China — Safest, cheapest, and 
 best mode, commercial stations near the coast of China — To be formed, 
 if not by Englishmen, then by Americans. 
 
 A great change in the English trade with the Chinese 
 is about to take place. The strict monopoly of that trade 
 by the holders of India stock will presently cease. The 
 English will soon be free, so far as their own government is 
 concerned, to trade with the Chinese ; but it does not follow 
 that the Chinese will be free tD trade with the English. 
 To every trade there must be two parties ; and the advan- 
 tages derived from trade depend on combination of power, 
 or concert, for the distribution of employments. How are 
 the English to obtain cheap silver, the produce of Chinese 
 labour, wherewith to purchase cheap corn, the produce of 
 
 * See, further, Note on the Art of Colonization. 
 20
 
 154 MEANS OF EXTENDING} FREE TRADE 
 
 Virginian labour, if the Chinese are not permitted to buy 
 hardware and cotton goods, the produce of English labour ? 
 The escape of the English from a certain restraint will not 
 of itself set the Chinese free. On the contrary, there ap- 
 pears some reason to fear that the removal of restraints on 
 the English may lead to greater restraints on the Chinese ; 
 and not merely as respects their trade with the English, but 
 also in their trade with the Americans and others. And, 
 at any rate, the trade between England and China could not 
 be much enlarged without removing the actual restrictions 
 on that trade, which are independent of the English, which 
 depend either on the Chinese government or on the habits 
 of the Chinese people. The nature of those restrictions 
 and the means of entirely removing them form the subject 
 of the following remarks, which are addressed to the 
 Americans as well as to the English ; seeing that both na- 
 tions are concerned in the establishment of a free and secure 
 trade with China, and that if the English will not establish 
 such a trade, the Americans may do it for them, as will be 
 shown presently. If I were to add, that some steps had 
 been taken with this view by Americans, not a few of the 
 English would be jealous of their " transatlantic brethren," 
 Good ! the sooner the two nations begin to rival each other 
 in undertakings of this kind, the better for both of them. 
 
 Much as the English and Americans are given to trade, 
 in that respect they are far surpassed by the people of 
 China. " The propensity to truck, barter, and exchange," 
 which Adam Smith describes as the original cause of wealth 
 and civilization (it is the first cause after a surplus produce 
 has been obtained by combination of power), is stronger and 
 much more general in China than in any other country. 
 Upon this point there is abundant evidence.* Yet the 
 Chinese have made less progress in the art of navigation 
 than any other people addicted to commerce ; and their 
 government exceeds all others, whether of pasl or present 
 times, in animosity to foreign trade. Upon these main 
 facts, the commercial disposition of the I Ihinese people, their 
 Ignorance of navigation, and the dislike of their government 
 to foreign trade, must turn every speculation on the present 
 subject 
 
 The people of China are most desirous to trade with 
 foreigners ; but their ignorance of navigation prevents them 
 
 * For tlif information of A nericana, tome curious e\ idence of i ho industry, 
 skiTl, iiml commercial disposition of the Chines'e people is printed in the 
 Appendix (No. li.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 155 
 
 from trading out of China. Their foreign trade, therefore, 
 is necessarily conducted in China, and depends on the pres- 
 ence of foreign dealers and foreign ships. This point should 
 be carefully borne in mind. Trade with the Chinese never 
 has been, and for ages to come never will be, conducted 
 without the presence of foreign dealers and foreign ships 
 on the coast of China. 
 
 But the Chinese government detests or rather dreads 
 foreigners, and lays all sorts of restrictions on their pres- 
 ence in China, confining them to a single port and subject- 
 ing them to many insults and injuries. If the propensity 
 of foreigners to trade with the Chinese, and of the Chinese 
 to trade with foreigners, were not stronger than the Chinese 
 government, there would be no foreign trade in China. 
 That government, however, has not much power over its 
 own subjects. The men who compose it are not Chinese, 
 but Tartars, who conquered China about two hundred years 
 ago. Like the Mohammedans who conquered India, and 
 the English who conquered and colonized Ireland, they are 
 perfectly distinct from the subject race. The weakness of 
 the rulers of China arises partly from their foreign origin, 
 and partly from the great extent of their empire. Such 
 power as they possess depends solely on the ignorance 
 and timidity of their subjects. Hence their dread of 
 foreigners and their apparent animosity to foreign trade. 
 If people could buy and sell without personal intercourse, 
 the Tartar government of China would, by all accounts, 
 encourage foreign trade for the sake of revenue. It is not 
 the trade which they dislike, but the traders. Nor is 
 their dread of foreigners surprising. " The history of 
 European commerce in the East is really nothing but the 
 history cf a continued series of usurpations ; nor can any 
 one acquainted with the subject feel surprised, that such 
 native princes as had the means excluded those from their 
 territories whose object was, not to maintain a fair and 
 friendly commerce, but to extort oppressive privileges and 
 to make conquests."* But, in addition to the fear lest for- 
 eigners should make conquests in China, the rulers of that 
 country, being themselves foreigners and conquerors, dread 
 lest their own subjects should be led, by intercourse with 
 other foreigners, to think of rebellion. We have it in evi- 
 dence that the mandarins of China were, like the mandarins 
 of England, terrified at the great French revolution. 
 Every restriction which the government of China imposes 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. CIV.
 
 156 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 on the intercourse between its subjects and foreigners, its 
 acuteness and diligence in limiting that intercourse to what 
 is indispensable for carrying on a very limited trade, the 
 strict enforcement of rules by which foreigners were pre- 
 vented from moving beyond a narrow spot set apart for 
 their use, and foreign women are excluded from China, the 
 care with which on such occasions as embassies to Pekin 
 foreigners have been guarded, watched, and led, as it were, 
 caged, through the empire ; all these, and many more prac- 
 tices of the same kind, may be traced to a political feeling; 
 to a nervous horror of revolutionary principles. The em- 
 peror and his mandarins are anti-jacobins ; not stout, like 
 George III. and his boroughmongers, but very timid, being 
 enervated by gluttony, excessive venery, and the use of 
 opium. 
 
 But the feebleness and cowardice of the Chinese govern- 
 ment have two opposite effects upon trade; producing 
 numerous legal restrictions, and encouraging the people to 
 set those restrictions at naught. Wheresoever trade is 
 restricted there are smugglers. On the coast of China, 
 where everybody, opportunity serving, is a trader, all the 
 people are smugglers; not excepting the officers employed 
 to prevent smuggling. Of the foreign trade of China but 
 a small part is carried on according to law. Moreover, 
 the legal trade, in which there are only seven Chinese 
 dealers, and which is confined to a small number of com- 
 modities, is a trade by which foreigners lose. The English 
 East India Company would have lost more than they have 
 gained by the legal trade, if they had traded to the same 
 extent without a monopoly of the British market. There 
 will be no legal trade in China when the Company's mono- 
 poly of the British market shall cease. My authority for 
 this statement is Mr. Marjoribanks, chief of the Company's 
 factory at Canton. The following question and answer 
 occur in his late examination before a committee of the 
 House of Commons: — " Q. If the tendency of the trade 
 in China is to get into the smuggling line, will not the 
 Company, acting on different principles, and being from its 
 circumstances unable to enter into that trade, be at a dis- 
 advantage against persons who have no scruples of that 
 description ? — A. If the question put to me contemplate 
 tlw subversion of the Company, I think we should be all 
 smugglers in China together, and there would be no legal 
 trade in China. 11 .lust so: when there shall not be any 
 body exclusively privileged to sell tea in England, nobody
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OP CHINA. 157 
 
 will buy tea of the seven privileged Chinese tea dealers. 
 The English monopoly supports the Chinese monopoly : 
 put down the one, and down goes the other. To some 
 extent, every witness examined by the House of Commons 
 helps to confirm this opinion; and none more effectually 
 than the servants of the Company, who seem to have over- 
 looked that an argument against their own privileges would 
 be drawn from their admission, that the Canton monopoly 
 depends on the monopoly in Leadenhall-street. On other 
 occasions the partisans of the Company have taken great 
 pains to conceal the importance of the illegal trade; per- 
 ceiving, of course, that if that illegal trade, in which they take 
 no direct part, should appear more important than the legal 
 trade, their monopoly of the English market and of the 
 coast of China as an English trading station, would be con- 
 sidered doubly unjust and injurious to the English people. 
 With this view they have spoken in sneering terms of the 
 illegal trade, calling it the smuggling trade, and swearing 
 that " respectable merchants" would not engage in it; the 
 fact being, all the while, that a large proportion of the 
 smuggling trade consists of the sale of opium to the Chinese ; 
 that the importation of opium is strictly prohibited by the 
 Chinese government, " on a moral principle," as Mr. Mar- 
 joribanks assures us ; and that the opium smuggled into 
 China is grown by the Company in India, sold by the Com- 
 pany, with a full knowledge of its destination, to those who 
 smuggle it into China, and smuggled into China by means 
 of licenses from the Company, without which the foreign 
 smuggler could not enter the Chinese seas. So much for 
 the delicacy of the most " respectable merchants" in mat- 
 ters of trade. But in truth, those who conduct the illegal 
 trade of China do not smuggle, properly speaking. They 
 buy and sell whatever they please, of whom and to whom 
 they please, without let or hindrance from the government. 
 The imperial edicts, which forbid the Chinese to quit their 
 own country for any purpose, and which declare that no 
 Chinese, save only the seven Hong merchants of Canton, 
 shall deal with foreigners ; these orders are all moonshine, 
 mere sham, as were the English laws against bribing at 
 elections. The Chinese mandarins, like the English bor- 
 oughmongers, are among the first to treat the law as a 
 dead letter. Thus, while legally trade is nowhere so 
 much restricted as in China, the Chinese enjoy greater 
 freedom of trade than any other commercial people ; as
 
 158 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 will appear by the following instructive, and, one may add, 
 entertaining account of what is called the smuggling trade. 
 
 Extracts from DobeJVs Residence in China. 
 
 "In defiance of an annual edict from the emperor, mak- 
 ing it death to smuggle opium, the enormous quantity of 
 nearly 4000 chests is imported every year to Macao and 
 Whampao. * * * * * It is a business that all the 
 inferior mandarins, and some of the higher ones, their pro- 
 tectors, engage in : so that opium is carried through the 
 streets of Macao in the most barefaced manner, in the 
 open day. Large boats, armed, having from thirty to 
 forty men, ply between Macao and Canton when that 
 market offers an advantageous price. 
 
 " I have known many persons send large sums of specie 
 by these boats to Macao, at a moderate rate, and never 
 heard of an accident happening to them in any way. All 
 metals are prohibited from being exported, except zinc; 
 there are, however, immense quantities smuggled into the 
 English East India cotton ships;, whenever they wish to 
 buy more than the portion allowed by government." — Vol. 
 ii. p. 148. 
 
 " The Chinese have an extensive foreign commerce 
 carried on by their own junks to Japan, Cochin China, 
 Siam, Tonquin, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Macassar, and 
 indeed to all the Indo-Chinese islands. The Chinese de- 
 clare this trade is the most important of any of their exter- 
 nal relations ;* and we may believe them when there are 
 said to be upwards of 40,000 tons of shipping occupied with 
 that and the salt trade. We know, also, that a Chinese 
 junk, bound to the islands, carried :i cargo of from 3 to 
 f>00,()0() dollars' value in China ware, nankeens, silks, 
 ready-made clothes, hooks, writing-paper, ironmongery, 
 tea, instruments of husbandry, iron, cloth, &C. &c." — Vol. 
 ii. p. 175. 
 
 '■ Nothing can be more barefaced than the manner in 
 which smuggling is conducted in open day at \\ nampao." — ■ 
 Vol. ii. p. ]::■.'. 
 
 * It is wholly contrary to law.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 159 
 
 Extracts from the Evidence delivered before the Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons, on the Affairs of 
 the East India Comjjany, §c. First Report. 
 
 Charles Marjoribanks, Esq., a servant of the East 
 India Company in their China factory for seventeen years, 
 the greater part of that time resident in China. 
 
 " Has any change taken place in the trade within your 
 recollection? — Yes, very considerable changes have taken 
 place in the foreign trade generally. One of the greatest 
 changes which has taken place, and which, in my own 
 opinion, will sooner or later affect the security of our trade, 
 
 is THE ENORMOUS EXTENT OF THE SMUGGLING TRADE NOW 
 
 carried on in China ; among the islands in the mouth of 
 the Canton river, to a very great extent indeed ; so much 
 so, that if the Chinese government had the inclination, I do 
 not imagine they possess the means of putting it down, at 
 least by any marine force which they have." 
 
 " Will you be good enough to state to the committee, if 
 you know, in what other articles, besides opium, the smug- 
 gling trade is carried on upon the coast of China? — I con- 
 ceive that at present it extends to nrticles, more or less, of 
 every description ; not on the coast of China, but among 
 the islands in the mouth of the Canton river." — " Articles 
 of British manufacture ? — I am not aware of any individual 
 instance where smuggling of articles of British manufacture 
 has existed ; bud 1 I; now nothing to preclude it." 
 
 " You have stated that the smuggling trade in China has 
 become very extensive ; has not the increase of that smug- 
 gling trade a tendency to injure the fair trade ? — I think it 
 has a tendency to do so, in as far as articles smuggled into 
 the country that evade duty can be sold at a profit, when 
 articles which pay government duties cannot." — " Is not 
 the opium trade in China, which you state to exist to the 
 extent of 13,000,000 or 14,000,000 of dollars a year, en- 
 tirely an illicit trade? — Entirely prohibited by the Chinese 
 government." 
 
 " Has not the Chinese government, in its conduct towards 
 foreigners, who have attempted to fix themselves in their 
 harbours, shown itself a shrewd government, acutely un- 
 derstanding its own interests ? — I think that the Chinese 
 are a highly intelligent people, remarkable for their industry 
 and perseverance ; but I think they are oppressed with one
 
 1G0 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 of the most corrupt governments that ever weighed down 
 the energies of a people." 
 
 " If it should be the case, that the American or foreign 
 merchant has carried on a trade of this (prohibited) de- 
 scription with profit, when the Company have been carry- 
 ing it on with loss, would not that prove that their trade 
 has been, in this article at least, better conducted than that 
 of the Company ? — It might not prove that it was better 
 conducted, for it might arise from the circumstances I have 
 stated, of some of those goods having been smuggled into 
 China, having evaded the Chinese duties." — " If the tend- 
 ency of the trade in China is to get into the smuggling 
 line, will not the Company, acting upon different principles, 
 and beinrr from its circumstances unable to enter into that 
 trade, be at a disadvantage against persons who have no 
 scruples of that description ? — If the question put to me 
 contemplates the subversion of the Company, / think we 
 should be all smugglers in China together, and there would 
 then be no legal trade in China" 
 
 " Would not the temptation to smuggling be irresistible 
 if the trade was carried on in small vessels ? — I imagine 
 that individuals who do not much respect the laws of the 
 country will not consent to pay duties which they can 
 evade by acting in opposition to those laws." — " Is the 
 smuggling carried on among the Chinese by what are 
 called outside merchants ? — This term is applied in com- 
 mon to all merchants not members of the Hong ; some of 
 them are smugglers, some mere shopmen." 
 
 John Francis Davies, Esq., a servant of the East India 
 Company in China, who travelled for six months through 
 the interior of the empire. 
 
 " What impression, in your opinion, would be produced 
 upon the Chinese generally by throwing open the trade to 
 British merchant* generally ? The whole body of smugglers 
 at Canton would rejoice. The government would, in the 
 first instance, view it with jealousy, as they view every 
 change; and when they came to lose their revenue, they 
 would view it with hostility. They have already, in con- 
 sequence of the extraordinary amount of smuggling (not 
 only relative to contraband articles, such as opium, but in 
 the case of articles that pay duty), lost so much that they 
 have issued edict after edict directed against those indi- 
 viduals and those nations who principally partake in this
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 161 
 
 smuggling trade ; and it is impossible to suppose that they 
 would go on ad infinitum in their endurance, or consent to 
 the conversion of the whole trade of Canton into a smug- 
 gling intercourse."* 
 
 " Can you state the probable amount of the tonnage em- 
 ployed in the country trade carried on between India and 
 China, with reference to the Company's tonnage ? — The 
 report on the table speaks to that fact? it is nearly equal, 
 at all events, to that of the Company. It arises, not from 
 there being so large a quantity of tonnage actually employed, 
 but from the quickness of the returns, and from the com- 
 parative smallness of distance, enabling one ship to make 
 two voyages in the year."—" Is that trade carried on with- 
 out the intervention or assistance of the Company's servants 
 at Canton at all ? — A very large portion of it consists of 
 smuggling trade, and therefore must be entirely out of the 
 Company's cognizance." 
 
 " Is there not a very considerable smuggling trade in 
 other articles imported into China from Europe 1 — I believe 
 that a great deal has been smuggled into China." 
 
 " Have the Hong merchants themselves taken part in 
 this smuggling trade ? — Far from it ; they were sold, not to 
 Hong merchants, but to outside shopmen." 
 
 " You were understood to state that some of the Hong 
 merchants have been ruined by their mixing with the 
 smuggling trade ? — Not at all ; they have been ruined by 
 the smuggling trade. They pay heavy duties and exactions 
 to the government, on account of the advantages which 
 their situation affords them in the monopoly of the regular 
 trade ; and, as the smuggling trade must necessarily be 
 carried on by persons who do not pay those heavy exac- 
 tions, and who in fact frequently evade the regular duties, 
 they must necessarily be ruined by the extension of such a 
 course of transactions." 
 
 "Have you any means of judging what proportion of the 
 whole imports into China consists of the smuggling trade ? 
 It is impossible to say exactly how much, because the 
 smuggling is secret, and therefore not so open to investiga- 
 tion : but with regard to opium, we know that the amount 
 of the annual importation into China is upwards of 10,000,000 
 of dollars." 
 
 " Were you at Canton in September, 1828 ? — I was." 
 
 " Did you hear that a ship called the Merope had returned 
 
 * It is a question of power, not of inclination, 
 21
 
 162 MEANS OF EXTENDING FKEE TRADE 
 
 to Canton after having been a voyage as high up as to 
 Ningpo, having made a very profitable voyage, and con- 
 verted the whole of her cargo, to a very large extent, into 
 specie? — It ?nust have been entirely surreptitious, if she did; 
 and I judge that her cargo was opium." 
 
 " Do you conceive that such a thing would be possible ? 
 I should say very improbable, until the fact spoke for it- 
 self; from surmise, I should say it was a thing that could 
 not easily occur, but that by smuggling a ship might manage 
 to introduce goods in that way." 
 
 " You have stated that the Chinese government have 
 issued many edicts against smuggling ; have those edicts 
 been carried into force or not ? — They certainly have, to 
 the utmost capability of the weak Chinese government. I 
 would say, that they have rather shown the hostility of the 
 Chinese government to the system, than that they have been 
 very effective in suppressing it." 
 
 " Do you consider that smuggling has been decreased by 
 them, or the contrary? — I should say that the xoeak and ill- 
 organized government of China cannot follow up its edicts by 
 a corresponding effectiveness ; and they have probably, in a 
 great measure, proved unavailing." 
 
 Charles Marjoribanks, Esq. 
 
 " Has not the smuggling trade in camlets increased ? — A 
 good many Dutch camlets have been imported by Dutch 
 ships ; and camlets have also been imported on private 
 account." 
 
 " Are the committee to understand, that although the 
 trade of opium is prohibited under very severe penalties, 
 yet that the quantity imported, and the prices at which it 
 is sold, are as regularly known as any other article which 
 is authorized and regularly imported ? — // is made no secret 
 of; it is generally known by the parties who deal in it. and 
 they communicate it to others. The prices of opium are 
 always given in the Canton Register, a public newspaper." 
 
 "Can you inform the committee how the trade of opium 
 is carried on ? — When I first went to China, the opium-trade 
 was at Macao, from which it went to Whampoa, and is 
 now confined to the islands at the mouth of the river. The 
 opium smuggling-boats go alongside the ships in the open 
 face of day, and the opium is delivered to them on their 
 presenting what is called an opium order from the agent in 
 Canton."
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 163 
 
 " Is this trade carried on within the view of the officers 
 of government and the men-of-war boats of the Chinese ? 
 — Frequently within the view of the men-of-war boats." 
 
 "Are these boats stationed on the part of the Chinese 
 authorities within reach and view of this trade? — Not 
 regularly stationed : they frequently go and come there. 
 They are constantly manoeuvring about, and often report to 
 the Canton authorities that they have swept the seas of all 
 smuggling ships. The ships remain there just the same." 
 
 " Then, in point of fact, it may be said that the smuggling 
 trade in opium is carried on with the connivance of the 
 Chinese authorities? — With the connivance of the lower 
 government authorities ; I am not prepared to say of the 
 higher authorities." — " Is that the case in the smuggling of 
 other articles ? — Yes, it is." 
 
 " Under what privilege is silver exported ? — The Chinese 
 laws prohibit the exportation of any metal : dollars are 
 allowed to be exported from China, but not bullion, but it 
 has always been exported to a large amount." 
 
 " Are not the smugglers of China a very powerful body ? 
 do not they move in considerable fleets upon the shore ? — 
 Not in fleets ; but their boats are very well manned and 
 armed." — "Do not they set the government at defiance? — 
 Entirely, I should say, when they have sea-room." 
 
 "Do you suppose that the government is capable of 
 keeping them under I — They possess no marine force capa- 
 ble, in my opinion, of suppressing them. 
 
 " Is the force of the smugglers upon the increase or upon 
 the decrease ? — The smuggling trade of China is materially 
 upon the increase." 
 
 "Are the transactions of the smuggling trade carried on 
 with as much fidelity and regularity on the part of the 
 Chinese as the transactions of the regular trade? — With 
 wonderful regularity, considering the nature of the trade ; 
 certainly not with the same regularity as those of the legal 
 trade." 
 
 Mr. John Aken, formerly master of the Investigator, 
 and afterward commander of the Exmouth, trading between 
 India and China. 
 
 " Is it not a fact, that they (the outside merchants) bring 
 the boats alongside, and then it is thrown out of the ship 
 into the boats ? — Yes : when I sold my opium I gave an 
 order upon the chief officer to deliver it ; but the person to
 
 164 MEANS OF EXTENDING? FREE TRADE 
 
 whom I sold it takes the risk entirely in taking it from the 
 ship; he pays me for it before he gets the order." — " What 
 does he generally pay you with ? — In dollars or sy-cee."* 
 
 " Do yon happen to know the method by which the opium 
 is smuggled into the country ? — They take it from alongside 
 in smuggling boats that are well manned and armed, and 
 there are a great many rivers, branches, and islands, and 
 different places, and they are off directly with it, and they 
 put all the government boats at defiance, I have seen that 
 myself. I have seen four mandarin boats surrounding my 
 ship when I had thirty chests of opium to smuggle, and I was 
 prevented from going to sea on account of the opium, and I 
 sold it to the people. I went down myself and saw the way 
 that they smuggled it; they stripped the chest entirely away, 
 and took nothing but the opium, and put it into bags; and we 
 opened the lower-deck port, and in one moment they put 
 the opium into the boat, and all hands were off in a moment ; 
 we did that in a very heavy shower of rain. There was 
 a cry out about three minutes afterward, but the boat was 
 gone like a shot." — " Were the mandarin boats lying near? 
 — One was lying a-head touching the ship, another was 
 lying at the stern, and another was lying upon the opposite 
 side." — " They were there to prevent smuggling ? — Yes." 
 
 " Do you obtain greater or less price for your opium in 
 proportion to the degree of vigilance of the mandarin boats ? 
 — No, I never knew any difference made on that account." 
 
 " If the mandarin boats had not been there, should you 
 have obtained a larger price ? — I do not think we should 
 have got more ; they a/trays make certain of it ; and it 
 always struck me, that there was an understanding between the 
 smugglers and the mandarin boats ; there is an apparent 
 vigilance kept up which has no existence in my opinion. I 
 have been told so by a number of peopled 
 
 " Might not other commodities, of small bulk, be intro- 
 duced into China by the same means? — / should think they 
 could, very easily." 
 
 " Do you happen to know whether it is a practice with 
 regard to any other commodities except opium I — Saltpetre, 
 which is a bulky article, is smuggled. / used to smuggle it 
 myself ; at least I Carried it /here, and it was smuggled by 
 the people to whom I sold it. 
 
 " Is saltpetre a prohibited article in China? — No, you 
 can sell it to the government if you please ; but we cannot 
 
 • Silver bullion, of which the exportation is prohibitri}.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 165 
 
 sell it so well to the government. We can generally get 
 about two dollars a pecul by smuggling it." 
 
 " Is that on account of the duty paid to government ? — I 
 think it is." — " Have you known of any other article being 
 smuggled? — I think, sometimes, broad-cloth is smuggled." 
 — " By the Americans or the English ? — By the English. 
 I once carried two bales of cloth, and it was smuggled, I 
 know, but wherefore I cannot say, because it did not belong 
 to me." 
 
 Second Report of Minutes of Evidence. 
 
 Mr. John Argyle Maxwell, who resided at Sinca- 
 pore for more than six years, and who went several times 
 to Canton. 
 
 " Do you know whether there is much smuggling in 
 China in the articles of export? — As far as my own ex- 
 perience went, I found the parties who were not Hong 
 merchants ready to make a bargain either vxiy, that is, to 
 deliver the article as a smuggled article at Lintin, or in the 
 usual way at Whampoa." 
 
 " Have you ever known of the country ships proceeding 
 to Chinese ports, north of Canton, and trading with the 
 natives? — I have heard of several of those adventures." 
 
 " Can you state what the cargoes were that they took ? — 
 The cargoes generally consisted of opium almost altogether ; 
 in some cases they took a little saltpetre, I believe." 
 
 " Did they find any difficulty in effecting sales with the 
 natives ? — I understood that they always effected sales ; I 
 did not hear that there were any extraordinary difficulties." 
 
 "What were the ports they went to? — Many of the 
 ports have escaped my recollection, but I remember the 
 port of Chingchoo, and Chusen, and the island of Formosa." 
 
 " Do you know where these ports were situated ? — Ching- 
 choo is in the province of Fokien." 
 
 " What reception did you understand the natives gave 
 those adventurers ? — I believe they gave a good reception. 
 A Spanish gentleman, who was a supercargo in one of the 
 expeditions, told me that he landed on Formosa, and walked 
 several miles. I recollect his mentioning particularly that 
 he observed the remains of European houses there, which 
 he considered to have been the#remains of those that were 
 occupied by the former Dutch factory at Formosa." 
 
 " Do you know how long it is since that factory was re- 
 moved? — I should think more than 100 vears."
 
 166 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 " Did you understand that the sales which were effected 
 at the northern ports were at a considerable advance above 
 the Canton prices? — I could not understand that there was 
 any great advance. I heard the parties mention that they 
 found the Chinese dealers there in possession of regular 
 price-currents from Canton, stating the stock on hand of 
 opium, and other circumstances connected with the market." 
 
 Captain Abel Coffin. 
 
 "Have you been at Sincapore and Siam? — I have." — 
 " Have you found any quantity of Chinese junks there ? — 
 At Siam a large quantity." 
 
 " What quantity have you ever seen there at one time ? 
 — I should think eighty." 
 
 "Of what size? — Some of them would carry 700 or 800 
 tons, and some others perhaps 200 or 300." — " Do these 
 junks carry on an extensive trade with different parts of 
 China besides Canton ? — They are principally from other 
 parts ; very few from Canton." 
 
 " Do thev import teas in any considerable quantities into 
 Siam ?— They do." 
 
 "Did you find any Chinese teas there? — A large quan- 
 tity. I should have had no difficulty at any time in loading 
 one, two, or three ships of the size that I had there." — 
 " What quantity of tea ? — Principally black teas : Souchong 
 and Congou of very good quality." 
 
 Extract from a. Statement delivered to the Parliamentary 
 Committee, by Mr. Crawfurd. Third Report. 
 
 " The Chinese junks, properly constructed, pay no 
 measurement duty, and do kumsha or present ; duties, how- 
 ever, are paid upon goods exported and imported, which 
 seem, however, to diner at the differepl provinces. They 
 are highest at Amoy, and lowest in the island of Hainan. 
 The Chinese traders of Siam informed me that they 
 carried on the fairest and easiest trade, subject to the feweil 
 restrictions in the ports of Ningpo and Sianghai in Chokian, 
 and Souchon in Kiannan* Great dexterity seems every- 
 where to be exercised by the ( Ihinese in evading the duties. 
 One practice, which is very often followed, will afford a 
 
 good example of this. The coasting trade of China is 
 nearly free from all duties and other imposts. The mer-
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OP CHINA. 107 
 
 chant takes advantage of this, and intending in reality to 
 proceed to Siam or Cochin China, for example, clears a 
 junk out for the island of Hainan, and thus avoids the pay- 
 ment of duties. When she returns, she will lie four or five 
 days off and on at the mouth of the port, until a regular 
 bargain he made with the custom-house officers for the reduc- 
 tion of duties. The threat held out in such cases is to pro- 
 ceed to another port, and thus deprive the public officers of 
 their customary perquisites. I was assured of the frequency 
 of this practice by Chinese merchants of Cochin China, as 
 well as by several commanders of junks at Sincapore. 
 From the last named persons I had another fact of some 
 consequence, as connected with the Chinese trade, viz. 
 that a good many of the junks carrying on trade with 
 foreign ports to the westward of China, often proceeded on 
 voyages to the northward in the same season. In this 
 manner they stated that about twenty considerable junks, 
 besides a great many small ones, proceeded annually from 
 Canton to Souchon, one of the capitals of Kiannan, and in 
 wealth and commerce the rival of Canton, where they sold 
 about 200 chests of opium at an advance of fifty per cent, 
 beyond the Canton prices. Another place where the Can- 
 ton junks, to the number of five or six, repair annually, is 
 Chinchoo, in the province of Shanton, within the Gulf of 
 Pechely, or Yellow Sea, and as far north as the 37th de- 
 gree of latitude." 
 
 Walter Stevenson Davidson, Esq.* a merchant, a 
 naturalized Portuguese, chief of a large mercantile house 
 at Macao. 
 
 " Have you any means of judging whether the trouble 
 attending the sale of opium is less now since the ships were 
 removed from Whampoa, and stationed themselves at Lin- 
 tin, outside the river 1 — I should say, that I do not believe 
 there is much difference in the trouble, but a vast difference 
 in the anxiety ; because, in the one case, they were liable 
 to seizure any day, in the other case they lie in a spot 
 where they can defend themselves against any power that 
 can come against them." 
 
 " You mean to say, that the trade in your time, while the 
 ships lay at Whampoa, was more difficult than it is now ? 
 — More full of anxiety ; there was no difficulty in it : it was 
 a very good business." 
 
 "Did you ever know of any other articles except opium 
 
 • Now a Banker in London.
 
 16S MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 being smuggled ? — I have heard of a great many, but I 
 never smuggled any other articles myself in the import 
 trade." 
 
 " With regard to the exports ? — In exports I smuggled 
 very largely of silver, because it ivas a prohibited article, as 
 well as opium, and so was tutenog, I believe ; and the rule 
 which guided me was, that I would smuggle the articles 
 which were prohibited, but not those upon which a direct 
 duty was laid." 
 
 " What responsibility did you consider to attach to you 
 as an agent, selling a prohibited article like opium ? — In a 
 pecuniary point of view I never considered it was a responsi- 
 bility that could be valued, nor did I ever charge, or pretend 
 to have a right to charge, any thing for it ; personally, of 
 course, every man who resides in China runs a great risk ; 
 the government, for instance, as I have stated, knew full 
 w r ell that a ship was at Whampoa with a quantity of opium, 
 that she was to my consignment; and they might have 
 imprisoned me any day, and said, till you pay 100,000 
 tales you shall not be released." 
 
 "Did that ever happen during vour residence there? — 
 Never." 
 
 " Did you ever hear of its happening ? — Never : I do not 
 think that in the history of trade there has been an instance 
 of it." 
 
 " What risk do you consider you ran in smuggling sil- 
 ver ? — None whatever beyond the seizure of the silver, with 
 which they are always exceeding well satisfied." — "Have 
 you known many seizures made ? — I have known some, 
 but very few indeed, the parties are so exceedingly expert." 
 
 " In your time did the Chinese undertake to put the sil- 
 ver on board for you? — Yes." 
 
 "What rate did you pay them for it? — I bought the sil- 
 ver of them, and they undertook to put it on board : it was 
 delivered on board, and 1 paid then sometimes before 
 and sometimes afU. r th< u brought me the captain!* ret* ipt 
 for it." 
 
 " Then your own risk was at an end ? — Entirely, except 
 wlunlchose to step out of the way ai:d trusted them, 
 which I have often done with all those parties, both in sil- 
 ver and in opium." 
 
 " Are you not aware that those Custom-house boats are 
 moored astern and on the quarter of every vessel ? — Cus- 
 tom-house boats are ; but I am not aware that the boats 
 whose duty it is to seize those parties are moored there ;
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 169 
 
 theij are far too weakly manned and armed" — " Are you 
 aware that those boats permitted the opium to be landed ? 
 Decidedly." — " Could they prevent it if they pleased ? — 
 That does not follow ; they may not be strong enough. I 
 have known instances of the Chinese opium boats overpower- 
 ing all force where it was a very large quantity, and it was 
 worth their while kitting and wounding men, but generally 
 they do not attempt it." — " On such an occurrence happening, 
 have you ever known any notice taken of it by the govern- 
 ment ? — Never." 
 
 Captain Charles Hutchinson, a commander in the 
 navy, who commanded the ship called the Bombay Castle, 
 from Liverpool to India, and remained in the latter place 
 for five years. He went three times to Canton, three 
 several years from Bombay, with cargoes of cotton and 
 other Indian articles. 
 
 " Supposing the Chinese were to put a stop to the export 
 of teas altogether, are you of opinion that the prohibition 
 would be effectually enforced, so as to prevent its being 
 sent to Sincapore ? — I think it is extremely probable that 
 they would be enabled still to bring it to Sincapore, but I 
 am not certain. 
 
 " What do you apprehend would be the effect in China 
 of a total prohibition of the export of teas ? — It would be 
 difficult to say. The Chinese government feel themselves 
 to be a very rotten soi't of government ; they know that the 
 people are ready to revolt in many of their provinces, and 
 they ivould therefore be very cautious how they gave any cause 
 of discontent to any part of their empire ; but whether they 
 are particularly afraid of that part of it situated near Can- 
 ton, I cannot tell. There are some of the provinces where 
 they are much more inclined to revolt and to resistance 
 than in that, particularly the province of Chingchoo. 
 
 " You are aware that tea can be exported from other 
 ports of China besides Canton, in Chinese junks? — Yes, be- 
 cause it is brought to Sincapore from other parts." — " Is it 
 brought from the tea provinces ? — It is brought by canals to 
 the coast, and then put on board the junks, who bring it to 
 Sincapore. 
 
 " Are the junks that come to Sincapore with tea loaded 
 at Canton, or at ports nearer the growth of the tea ? — At 
 pons nearer the growth of the tea, I believe ; I know they 
 are not loaded at Canton. 
 
 22
 
 170 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 " Are there any goods that are reckoned prohibited goods 
 in China exported by the country ships? — A large quantity 
 in almost every ship ; they chiefly consist of cassia and a 
 coarser kind of silk, upon which the duties are too heavy to 
 he taken in the regular way ; they are therefore bargained 
 for with the outnde merchants, to be smuggled on board the 
 ship, and it is done with as great facility as the regular 
 trade ; the mandarins being all feed and permitting it. 
 
 " Did you ever know of an interruption to this irregular 
 trade ? — None whatever ; it is as easily carried on as the 
 regular trade. 
 
 " Is a large portion of the assorted cargoes exported 
 from China articles prohibited or subject to such duties that 
 they are generally smuggled ? — Yes." — " And with the 
 knowledge and connivance of the mandarians? — Certainly. 
 There is an island near Whampoa called French Island, 
 where those smugglers live. Goods intended to be smug- 
 gled are sent to French Island, and you receive notice the 
 night before at what hour the cargo will be brought : the 
 mandarins then surround the ship, and wait for the smug- 
 gling boat; when it comes alongside they send a man in a 
 canoe to count the packages, that no more may be brought 
 to the ship than they have received their fee for. In fact, 
 their whole government is one system of corruption from top 
 to bottom. 
 
 " Do not you think that the facilities they afford to smug- 
 gling arise from an anxious desire to extend the foreign 
 commerce ? — Certainly, in the people ; not in the govern- 
 ment, of course. 
 
 " In the officers of the government, do you attribute it to 
 a desire to obtain a suitable remuneration in return for the 
 sum of money they have given for their offices ? — Cer- 
 tainly. 
 
 " ft being notorious that all those offices are paid for ? — 
 So I have always been told. 
 
 "Could not cotton goods be smuggled to other ports? — 
 There was a difficulty in smuggling ;it other ports when I 
 was in China, but sonic ships with opium succeeded to a 
 certain extent Since I left that country, I understand that 
 they have smuggled to a larger amount, and 1 suppose 
 Other goods as well as opium." — " Do you think that the 
 smuggling could be carried on with the same ease at those 
 Other ports as at Canton ? — 1 should think not, because at 
 ( '-anion k ?•» si/^tmalv^ed."
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 171 
 
 Third Report of Minutes of Evidence. 
 
 John Stewart, Esq. a member of the committee, who 
 went to China seven times, in the years 1800, 1803, 1804, 
 1805, 1800, 1807-8, and in 1817. " 
 
 "Is it your opinion that the Chinese government would 
 find it very difficult to put an end to the foreign commerce 
 with England ? — I think they could do it ; but I am of 
 opinion that if the Chinese government were to put an end 
 to that commerce, it would produce great misery in China, 
 and particularly at Canton, where it is carried on. 
 
 " Would the government, in your opinion, be strong 
 enough to accomplish the putting an end to the trade? — 
 My opinion is, that an edict of the Emperor of China might 
 be so enforced as to put a stop to all the regular foreign 
 trade carried on with China ; but I do not think that the 
 Chinese government could prevent smuggling being 
 continued fr03i the coast of china, even if they put 
 a stop to the regular trade. 
 
 " Then you do not mean to say that you think the Chinese 
 government would have power to put a final stop to the 
 progress of the trade ? — No ! I think that a smuggling trade 
 would be carried on on the coast of China to a very consider- 
 able extent, in spite of any act that the Chinese government 
 might adapts 
 
 Robert Richards, Esq., who resided in India twenty- 
 four years, being on the Bombay establishment, and had 
 during that time good opportunities of seeing what passed 
 in the trade between India and China. 
 
 "Are you aware of the peculiarities of the Chinese govern- 
 ment with regard to trade, and that a comparison cannot 
 therefore be fairly made between India and China as to any 
 expected increase? — I know that the Chinese government 
 have imposed restrictive regulations upon the foreign trade 
 of their own country; but I know at the same time that 
 these regulations are completely set at nought by the com* 
 mercial spirit of the people. 
 
 " If, therefore, English ships were prohibited going to 
 China, I conceive that supplies of tea and other Chinese 
 articles might just as easily be got from Sincapoix, or Java, 
 or other ports in the Eastern Archipelago, as they can now 
 from China itself. These then are the grounds of my belief, 
 that, under all circumstances, we have the means of con*
 
 172 MIAN? or EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 trolling the trade with China, even more effectually than the 
 Chinese government itself; for when the Chinese merchants 
 and the mass of the community find that they have an in- 
 terest in carrying on certain branches of trade, they will do 
 it, as is sufficiently manifest in their importation of opium 
 and export of silver, in spite of the most severe laws that can 
 be enacted by their men govrrnment. >, 
 
 John Cra weird, Esq., appointed parliamentary agent 
 to the inhabitants of Calcutta. He resided in the Upper 
 Provinces of the Bengal Presidency for five years, in Cal- 
 cutta one year, in Penang three years, and in Java six 
 years. One year he went on a mission to Siam and Cochin 
 China. He resided in Sincaporc about three years ; after- 
 ward was appointed commissioner by the governor-general 
 in the Birman empire ; then went as envoy from the gover- 
 nor-general to the court of Ava ; after which he returned 
 to Calcutta, and eventually to Europe. 
 
 " Supposing an interruption to take place in the European 
 trade of China, are you of opinion that a considerable quan- 
 tity of tea might be brought in Chinese vessels to Sinca- 
 pore or some other emporium in the Eastern Archipelago? 
 — I conceive so. I think it was a great point, during the 
 discussions respecting the former charter of the East India 
 Company, to establish that fact themselves. Mr. Drum- 
 mond, now Lord Strathallan, gave it distinctly in evidence, 
 that a very large quantity of tea might be imported into 
 Europe through such a channel. The evidence is to be 
 found upon the records of the Committee of the House of 
 Commons, I think in 1812. It seemed, indeed, to be a 
 settled point, especially in reference to the Philippine Islands 
 and others. I have a short entry on this subject, taken out 
 of a note-book that I kept at Sincaporc ; it is dated the 22d 
 of August, 1825, and is the result of a conversation with the 
 commanders of some junks. ' The tea consumed in Cochin- 
 China is brought from Tchaotchcn, on the confines of Canton 
 and Fokien, but in the jurisdiction of the former, to Hainan, 
 from which it comes to Saigun and other places. — It is 
 all the produce of fokien. Into Saigun there are annually 
 imported aboul 70,000 boxes of tea, of twenty catties each, 
 and into Hue about 10,000 boxes. It is impossible to con- 
 jecture the quantity brought into Tonquin, as a great part 
 of it is imported by land. The price of the ordinary quali- 
 ties at Tchaotchen and Canton is twenty-six dollars per 
 pecul. The same tea would be sold at Saigun for forty
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 173 
 
 dollars. My informants state that any quantity whatever 
 of tea may be imported into Sincapore, which the market 
 may demand, from Chaotcheou, Changlim, and other parts, 
 either black or green. The commanders of junks will do 
 this in spite of any regulations to the contrary,''" 
 
 John Stewart, Esq., M.P. 
 
 " Do you think the trade could be carried on in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Canton, in any of the islands? — Yes; I imagine 
 that tea might be conveyed, and in all probability would be 
 conveyed, to the islands on the coast of China; it might 
 be smuggled from thence, or it might be sent in Chinese vessels 
 to the Isla?ids of the Eastern Archipelago, and could be ex- 
 ported from thence. 
 
 " Would it be sufficient to supply the wants of this coun- 
 try? — If the Chinese permitted the export of tea in their 
 own vessels, I am decidedly of opinion that a sufficient 
 quantity might in that way be exported from China to supply 
 the wants of all Europe. 
 
 " Do you suppose that they would do that under such 
 circumstances ? — I think they would ; the Chinese are a 
 people of great commercial enterprise, and I think they 
 would be disposed to send tea wherever they could find a 
 sale for it with advantage." 
 
 Captain John Mackie. 
 
 " You have resided in India several years ? — I have, for 
 ten years." — " From what period ? — From 1820 to the latter 
 end of 1829. 
 
 "Did you command a ship in the China trade? — I com- 
 manded a Spanish vessel on the coast of China. 
 
 " What was this vessel engaged in ? — In the opium trade." 
 — " She was sailing under Spanish colours ? — She was. 
 
 " What ports of China have you visited ? — I visited the 
 port of Amoy, and all the ports between that and Canton. 
 
 " Were you entirely engaged in the opium trade ? — En- 
 tirely; I carried also a little saltpetre. 
 
 "What was the name of the ship?— The St. Sebastian. 
 
 "Whom was she owned by? — Spaniards." — "Did any 
 part of the cargo belong to British merchants ? — Entirely 
 British." — " Can you state any other ports in China that you 
 touched at besides Amoy? — Not any other principal ports ; 
 I touched at all the ports between Amoy and Canton.
 
 174 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 " You lay off some ports, did not you ? — I lay off the 
 port called the Cape of Good Hope, and the Island of 
 Kamo. 
 
 "At what distance is the Cape of Good Hope from 
 Canton ? — About 300 miles to the north-east. 
 
 "Did you find good shelter for your ship? — Excel- 
 lent ; all those harbours are as safe as the port of Canton 
 itself. 
 
 " Was the trade you carried on authorized by the laws 
 of China ? — / understood it was not authorized, but it was 
 done quite openly. 
 
 "In the same way that the opium trade is carried on at 
 Canton ? — The very same. 
 
 " Have you ever experienced any difficulty in carrying 
 on the trade, although not formally sanctioned by the Chinese 
 laws ? — Never the least. 
 
 " Who were the parties with whom your trade was car- 
 ried on ? — The Chinese merchants. 
 
 " Resident at any particular points? — Some of them from 
 the city of Amoy, some from Ta-ho, and Namo, and some 
 from inland towns. 
 
 u Have you got better prices for those articles than could 
 be got at Canton? — Yes. 
 
 "What was the difference of the price? — About 100 
 dollars upon the chest of opium, or 125, and sometimes 
 150, or even higher. 
 
 " Is that (the port of the Cape of Good Hope) near any 
 t own ? — Yes, it is within fifteen miles of a very large city, 
 the city of Ty-ho. 
 
 " From the time of your arrival, how long were you 
 detained before you disposed of the whole of your cargo ? 
 — From fifteen to twenty days. 
 
 " Why did you make your returns in bullion only? — I 
 was particularly desired by the agents of the brig to take 
 nothing else. 
 
 "Could \'<>u have had returns in the produce of the 
 
 country? — Leonid have had returns in a ny produce of the 
 
 provinces, such as sugar, tea, castia, tortoise-shell, nankeens, 
 or ami thing thai could be had. 
 
 " You would have had no difficulty in completing your 
 
 , of tb''se articles '. — Not the least. 
 " In what manner is the produce of the north-eastern 
 provinces lent tO ('anion? — I presume it is principally sent 
 hv m;j, from the number of large junks always upon the 
 coast.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 175 
 
 " Have you seen tea sent by sea ? — Yes ; I have been on 
 board of two junks entirely loaded with tea. 
 
 " What was the size of them ? — They could not have 
 been less than 200 tons. 
 
 " From whence did they come ? — They came from Amoy, 
 and they were bound to Canton. 
 
 " Did you board the junks ? — I boarded both of them, and 
 sent letters by them to Canton." — " Were those letters 
 regularly received ? — They were received in due course. 
 
 " Do you think you could have loaded your vessel with 
 teas of good quality ? — / have no doubt I could of the very 
 best quality. I have no doubt I could have had any sort of 
 Chinese produce that I wished. 
 
 "What species of woollens do you think you could have 
 disposed of? — Principally long ells and fine broad-cloth ; 
 blankets and camlets also would have sold very well ; they 
 are in ready demand all along the coast of China. 
 
 " Were there any duties paid to the government upon 
 those cargoes? — I never paid any duties ; but I understood 
 that upon all opium that is taken away from the ships the 
 inferior officers of the government get about twenty dollars 
 for every chest ; the Chinese pay that themselves ; the 
 ships pay nothing. 
 
 " Did you ever pay any port-charges of any kind ? — 
 Never. 
 
 " Were you ever annoyed by any of the Chinese authori- 
 ties ? — No. I have been requested, as a favour, to shift my 
 situation, as the principal officer was coming ; and I have 
 gone away and come again, in one or two days. 
 
 "Perhaps a legitimate trade was not your object? — Not 
 at all : we were trading in prohibited articles 
 
 " Do you imagine that the contraband trade is more 
 profitable than the authorized trade ? — I have never been in 
 the authorized trade, and therefore cannot state that. 
 
 " Did any other British ships under the British flag pros- 
 ecute the same trade that you did at that time ? — Yes ; 
 there was an English ship, the Merope, belonging to Cal- 
 cutta ; the Velletta ; the Eugenia ; the Fanecena, and the 
 Dhaule schooner. 
 
 " What were those vessels ? — All English vessels belong- 
 ing to the port of Calcutta. 
 
 " Where were they trading to ? — To Formosa, and the 
 port of Nimpo, which is considerably to the north. 
 
 " Is not that in the province of Kiangnan ? — I believe 
 it is.
 
 176 HKAIffi OF EXTKIIDIfKl FRfcE TRADE 
 
 " Did those ships go to Amoy ? — One of them I think 
 did, but they did nothing ; they knew that nothing could 
 be done by the merchants ; the Merope touched off Amoy, 
 but did not go in, because she could not trade in opium. 
 
 " Had you any communication with the commanders of 
 those vessels ? — Frequently, although we had different in- 
 terests, all except the Merope. 
 
 " Was your interest the same as the Merope? — She had 
 an agent of ours. 
 
 " Did you understand from the commanders of those 
 vessels, that they carried on trade as easily as you did ? — 
 With the same facilities ; although I believe I was rather 
 more fortunate than they were, being engaged in the trade 
 earlier. 
 
 " At the ports you have named, do you know whether 
 the import and export duties are paid to the government? 
 — / am not aware of duties ; I never heard the duties men- 
 tioned. 
 
 " Did the Americans ever engage in this trade? — Amer- 
 ican vessels have gone to the coast, but I believe on British 
 account. 
 
 " Did the British vessels you have named visit any ports 
 besides those you have mentioned ? — The Merope traded 
 to the port of Chingchoo and the Island of Formosa. 
 
 " Did the Merope go to Nimpo and the Cape of Good 
 Hope ? — Yes ; she touched at every port on the coast. 
 
 " Which do you conceive is the best station for carrying 
 on the trade ? — The best station I ever found, was between 
 the Island of Namo and the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 " Why do you conceive that to be the better ? — Being 
 the centre between two very large towns. 
 
 " Have you ever been off the province of Fokien ? — Yes. 
 
 "What harbour did you go into there? — I went into one 
 of the ports of Chingch< n >. 
 
 "What was the spo-irs of cultivation you saw when 
 you landed there I — The only species of cultivation 1 have 
 seen was rice and sugar. 
 
 " Is the trade, which you have described as being carried 
 on when you were there, still carried on I — It is. 
 
 " In what year was this? — In 1823* and L8S4. After- 
 ward I lay as a depot-ship at Lintin." — "How long were 
 you altogether in < liina I — Pour years and a half. 
 
 "In what year were the British ships you have mentioned 
 there? — They were there in the same year as myself: and
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 177 
 
 I left some of them lying as depot-ships at Lintin ; they 
 are lying there now as depot-ships. 
 
 " Do you know of any ships having been there last year ? 
 — No; I do not know of any ship; there was one vessel 
 went up in 1828 when I was there, and delivered a cargo 
 upon the coast. 
 
 " What are the depot-ships ? — They are ships that lie 
 outside of the Is/and of Macao, to receive opium, or any 
 other goods that are wished to be deposited on board of 
 Oiem. 
 
 " Then you have no knowledge of any lawful trade carried 
 on there at all ?—Not the least. 
 
 " Were the others obliged to move sometimes as well 
 as you? — Yes; we moved as a favour to the mandarins; 
 the mandarins come down once or twice a year, and send 
 a person to warn you to shift yourselves. 
 
 " You were obliged to shift your station ? — We were 
 not obliged to do this, but it icas to favour them, that they 
 might make a report that it was all clear. 
 
 " What number of ships do you remember there at any 
 one time ? — I have seen as many as twenty ships at one 
 time. 
 
 " How many European ships? — I have seen 10 Euro- 
 pean ships, and a considerable number of American ships." 
 
 If this be not free trade, what is ? Establish a trade in 
 corn and Manchester goods on the same footing between 
 England and America ; in that case it would be quite 
 needless to repeal the English corn laws and American 
 tarilf. But here we must draw a distinction of first-rate 
 consequence. The foreign trade of China, though perfectly 
 free in its nature, is restricted in extent. Though free 
 from bonds, permits, and taxes, it cannot at present be ex- 
 tended beyond the Bocca Tigris, and even on that one spot 
 it is not secure. Upon this distinction the whole question 
 turns. The people of England, by paying an extravagant 
 price for tea, have enabled twenty-four men in London and 
 seven men at Canton to carry on a trade which is called 
 legal, but which ought to be called the losing trade. How 
 to increase this trade is not worth asking : the grand point 
 is to extend, not to alter, the free trade, which the Chinese 
 call Smug-pigeon, and which, though of limited extent, is 
 perfect in its kind. 
 
 What then is it that prevents the free trade from spread- 
 ing to the whole coast of China, and increasing beyond any 
 
 23
 
 178 MEAN'S OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 assignable limit? The political fears of the Chinese gov- 
 ernment. Therefore, says an Englishman, send another 
 embassy to Pekin ; instruct the ambassador to swear, like 
 Lord Amherst, that he has no commercial objects, that he 
 is sent across the world " to manifest the regard of his 
 Britannic majesty for his Imperial majesty, and to improve 
 the relations of amity that so happily subsisted between their 
 illustrious parents Kien-lung and George the Third :" but 
 this time do not trust altogether to the ambassador's skill 
 in the art of lying ; back him with armed ships; order him 
 to talk of English conquests in India ; tell him to frighten 
 the mandarins by a display of English power, and if ne- 
 cessary by the use of force : this is the way to calm the 
 political fears of the Chinese government. And to destroy 
 it likewise, we may add. No one who is acquainted with 
 that government can doubt, that such a mission, if given, 
 not to a priggish lord of the bedchamber, but to a man 
 (a man, said B >naparte, is wanted in China), would be 
 entirely successful ; that it would open the whole coast of 
 China "to the presence of Englishmen and English ships. 
 But this object accomplished in this way, what would be 
 the other consequences of thus exposing the weakness of 
 the Chinese government to its own subjects and to foreign 
 nations? Look to it, Jonathan! John Bull would have 
 gone to work in this way long ago, if the English Hong 
 had not been deeply interested in preserving every bar to 
 the extension of free trade in China. The English Hong 
 is at end- Be alive, Jonathan ! Your smug-pigeon with 
 the China-man is in danger. 
 
 Even mere threats from the English government, though 
 couched, as no doubt they would be, in the form of a de- 
 mand for redress of grievances, would, if they had for object 
 the particular advantage of English traders in China, be 
 viewed with jealousy by several governments of Europe, 
 and still more by the United States. Suppose, however, 
 that disregarding tin- jealousy of other nations, the English 
 had compelled the mandarins t<> establish the trade of Eng- 
 lishmen in China on a satisfactory basis, would not the 
 Dutch, the Russians, the French, and above all the Ameri- 
 . demand, each nation for itself, as with equal facility 
 they nil might obtain, similar concessions from the feeble 
 
 mandarins ' Such demands on the pari of s e, at least, 
 
 of those nations, would, it seems hardly doubtful, be the in- 
 evitable consequence of the successful use of force or threats 
 by the English government. Thus the weakness of the
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 179 
 
 government of China would be exposed in more than one 
 instance, to its own subjects and to other nations. Other 
 exposures of the same kind could not but ensue. For- 
 eigners of all nations would enter China, and further expose 
 to the people, not the weakness only, but the iniquity also, 
 of the government. Next, the foreigners of each nation, 
 having obtained some footing in China, would, if we con- 
 jecture from experience, seek to obtain privileges, each 
 party striving to gain more than its rivals, and to injure 
 them as much as possible. Either the nature of man is not 
 always the same, or the history of European settlements in 
 distant countries is false, if this would not be the case. 
 Considering also that each party of foreigners in China 
 would be so far removed from the control of its own gov- 
 ernment as to act almost without responsibility, there is 
 reason to expect that the rivalry among those foreign ad- 
 venturers would not be confined to trade, but would extend, 
 as soon as it had been shown that the mandarins were un- 
 able to resist aggression, to interference between the people 
 and their masters, to the excitement of revolt and civil war, 
 and finally to territorial acquisition. In this way, contests 
 must arise between some of those parties of foreign adven- 
 turers ; and by degrees each party would, probably, enlist 
 its distant government in the quarrel, until, at length, the 
 miserable government of China being dissolved, or rather 
 dissolving, as soon as its weakness had been made con- 
 spicuous, China would become, as Hindostan has been in 
 modern times, a theatre of war for foreign nations. What 
 has preserved China from the fate of India ? The con- 
 stancy of the mandarins in rejecting, as they would have 
 avoided contact with the plague, every proposal from for- 
 eigners for the establishment of friendly intercourse. 
 Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes has been the never-failing 
 answer of the Chinese government to offers of friendship and 
 advantage from other governments. In vain did the Dutch 
 ambassador Titzing, a fat man, crawl upon all fours into 
 the imperial presence, and remaining in that posture, beat 
 his head nine times upon the ground ; in vain did the lords 
 Macartney and Amherst exhaust the arts of their craft to 
 wheedle the lords of China into a belief that it w T as for the 
 advantage of the great emperor to be on terms of friend- 
 ship with the illustrious king; in vain have been self-abase- 
 ment, rich presents, flattery, coaxing, prayers, lies, and re- 
 monstrances, when employed by the governments of Europe 
 in order to obtain such a footinc; in China as micrht have
 
 180 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 furnished pretexts for measures of another kind. The ex- 
 istence of the government of China has been preserved by 
 the constancy of the mandarins in rejecting offers of foreign 
 friendship. The utter impracticability of the Tartars is 
 their only defence. Break through that single barrier, and 
 they must be swept away by a flood of internal revolt and 
 foreign pretension. 
 
 If the existing government of foreigners were destroyed, 
 it must be succeeded by another government of foreigners ; 
 since the ignorant, timid, and slavish people of China, 
 being incapable of governing themselves, would tacitly in- 
 vite foreigners to rule them, and w T ould find nation after 
 nation eager to undertake the task. In the end, probably, 
 the English, who command the sea, would govern China 
 as they govern India; and that the people of China would, 
 in the long run, gain incalculably by such a change, there 
 cannot be the least doubt. But what, in the meanwhile, 
 would become of the foreign trade of China? And what 
 could the people of England gain by ruling the Chinese 
 empire? Not reckoning the gratification of national pride 
 as an advantage, they would gain nothing beyond free com- 
 mercial intercourse with the Chinese people. But they 
 might miss this, aiming at it in this way ; not to mention 
 what they might lose in the confusion arising from the 
 jealousy of other states, and the destruction of the Chi- 
 nese government. 
 
 Still, if it w 7 ere possible to counteract the political fears 
 of the mandarins otherwise than by adopting measures of 
 compulsion under the name of diplomacy, such measures, 
 whatever the consequences likely to result from them, 
 might be 1 bought expedient. But considering the imme- 
 diate evils that might arise from measures of compulsion, 
 and the jealousy with which they would be viewed by the 
 Americans at least, such measures, however easy, however 
 sure of ultimate success, and however just when viewed 
 with a mercantile eye, will not be thought expedient by the 
 English, provided it be Bhown that a commercial inter- 
 course w iih the < Ihinese people, tree of its nature, and with 
 out limit as to extent, may be established without delay 
 permanently, at little cost, without making a demand or 
 even asking a favour of the trembling mandarins, and 
 lastly, without exciting any national jealousy. To show 
 all this, is the objed of what follows. 
 
 Sir Stamford Raffles founded the commercial station of 
 Sincapore, in the belief that the Chinese free traders would
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OP CHINA. 181 
 
 readily find their way to that port in their own ships. He 
 was mistaken by above twenty degrees. Near twenty 
 years' experience has shown that the distance between 
 Sincapore and the most commercial parts of the Chinese 
 coast is much too great for junk navigation. But Raffles, 
 who was a man, has pointed out the way to extend the 
 free trade of China without diplomacy or war ; not only 
 without further alarming the poor mandarins, but so that, 
 with the extension of free trade, their present terrors should 
 entirely subside. In order to give to the free trade of 
 China its utmost possible development, the only thing 
 wanted is a free market-place ; a place to which Chinese 
 dealers could easily resort ; where foreign ships might lie 
 undisturbed by wind or government, and where foreigners 
 might live in security ; a mere market-place, convenient 
 for Chinese dealers, and out of the control of the Chinese 
 government. 
 
 Along the whole coast of China there exist not less than 
 a thousand islands, some of which possess all the requisites 
 of a trading port ; good anchorage, shelter from all winds, 
 and plenty of fresh water. There are more habitable isl- 
 and snear the coast of China, than along any other coast in 
 the world of the same extent. But now observe another 
 peculiarity : those islands are not subject to the govern- 
 ment of the main land. Some of them are uninhabited ; 
 some are inhabited by a few wretched fishermen, who gov- 
 ern themselves ; and some by a race of pirates, who make 
 war against the Chinese government, occasionally putting 
 a stop to the coasting trade, murdering great numbers of 
 Chinese, levying tribute on the continent, and at times 
 making peace with the mandarins on very advantageous 
 terms. Some evidence on this point appears in a note be- 
 low.* The emperor of China claims dominion in England, 
 and makes his subjects believe that he receives tribute 
 
 * The Lion continued thus several days working off the China shore, with 
 out gaining a mile. She then stood over for Formosa, where there was less 
 current against her, and she made some progress ; hut the turbulence of the 
 weather was such, that she sprung both topmasts, and was obliged to return 
 to the Ladrones, in order to be in some degree of shelter, forthe purpose of 
 being refitted, and capable of renewing her efforts to get forward. Seve- 
 ral piratical vessels, filled with Chinese, were hovering in this neighbour- 
 hood, and had very lately taken several Chinese junks, and plundered the 
 adjacent islands. The practice of these pirates is to make slaves of such 
 able-bodied men as they take prisoners, to put the rest to death, and to sink 
 the junks, and burn the houses, after taking out whatever they deem valu 
 able." — Staunton's Embassy to C/rina,\o\. ii. p. 521. 
 
 " During the time the pirates infested the coasts, numbers of salt junks
 
 182 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 from that country ; but in fact, and in right too, his power is 
 limited by the waters edge of the Chinese coast. At sea, 
 the pirates are his masters, and neither lie nor his ancestors 
 ever conquered the islands. Those islands, therefore, are 
 open to be used by anybody for any purpose. If one of the 
 Ladrones or Pirate Isles, were turned into a market-place 
 for the traders of ail nations, the English and Chinese 
 Hongs, were they not in extremis, might complain that the 
 vested rights of the pirates had been attacked ; but who 
 else could find fault with the conversion of one of those 
 robbers' nests, to so excellent a use ? 
 
 Not the Chinese government, to whom the founders of 
 the market-place would say : — You dread foreigners ; we 
 keep out of your way. You forbid us to enter your ports, 
 Canton excepted: we withdraw from Canton. You trem- 
 
 were intercepted by them, and saltrose to an extravagant price. At length 
 the Company were obliged to negotiate with the admiral of the pirates, and 
 paid a certain sum for every vessel he furnished with a passport. 
 
 " After a while, the captains and crews of the salt junks became leagued 
 with the pirates, and used to convey to them, clandestinely, provisions, 
 stores, ammunition, &c. The government detected the connivance, and 
 laid an embargo, of a sudden, upon the returning salt junks. — The pirate ad- 
 miral, rinding his supplies cut olT, invaded the country about the inner pas- 
 sage, leading to Macao, where he cut all the ripe rice, and carried it off, as 
 well as a threat number of women, whom he presented to his followers. 
 His name ws Apo-Tsy, a very formidable robber, who had an immense 
 fleet of junks, and upwards of 20,000 men under his command. He at 
 length became so daring, that he intercepted the boats carrying cargoes to 
 the ships at Whampoa, and committed depredations on land within eighteen 
 miles of Canton. The viceroy became alarmed, for he had no army to op- 
 pose him, and was forced to employ an English armed country ship to drive 
 him out of tli" river. Many naval engagements took place between the 
 Chinese warships and the pirates; but the latter invariably obtained the vic- 
 tory. The Portuguese at Macao were also called upon, or rather told their 
 olfer would be accepted, to fit out ships against the pirates, and a sum of 
 money would be granted to them by the Canton government. However, very 
 little good resulted in the way of fighting; bul the Portuguese rendered 
 the viceroy an essential service, in the way of negotiation, as mediators be- 
 tween him and the pirates. Apo-Tsy positively refused to listen to the vice- 
 roy's promise of an amnesty, should the pirated ri turn to their allegiance, 
 without the Macao government becoming security tor tin' faithful perform- 
 ance of the contract. The Macao government, therefore, came forward, and 
 
 fj itself to the admiral, who immediately submitted with all his followers, 
 I, i made governor of the province of Fokiert, nod bis followers were all 
 pardoned. Dunn.' the wars w nli the < Ihinese, the pirates took a fleet, com- 
 manded by a lhai-tuk, or admiral, who was uncle to the present emperor. 
 Apo-Tsj bad some dislike to the ( Ihinese admiral; and when he took him, 
 ordered him to he beheaded. The present emperor (Tao-Kuang) mi com- 
 ing (.. the throne, sent the governor of IVkieii a polite message to say, that 
 
 ■. s of China required blood lor blood, and he therefore sent lor bis 
 head instead ol Ins uncle's. There was no excuse to be made, and Apo- 
 Tny' □ P( km." — DobelL, voL ii. p. 153.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 183 
 
 ble lest we should sow revolutionary principles among your 
 people by residing with them ; henceforth there shall be no 
 intercourse between them and us, save for the purpose of 
 exchanging goods ; and that intercourse shall not take 
 place within your dominions. Hitherto, between you and 
 us there have been frequent quarrels ; but now all grounds 
 of dispute is gone ; we demand no rights, ask no favours. 
 Well we know, that you cannot prevent your people from 
 coming to us for trade in this our new, our own market- 
 place ; and sure we are that if you could do so, you would 
 not ; because if you should do so, the present arrange- 
 ment, which ought to relieve you of all anxiety,-must be 
 superseded by diplomacy, which would frighten you ex- 
 tremely, and in the end, probably, realize your worst fears. 
 The step that we have taken was devised expressly for 
 your comfort ; tremble no more ; we bid you farewell for 
 ever. 
 
 Nor could the Americans object to an English, any more 
 than the English could object to an American trading sta- 
 tion near the coast of China ; provided that, in either case, 
 the market-place w r as free, that is, open to all nations on 
 perfectly equal terms. Why not so in an island used 
 merely for trade, as well as on the main land, where, if the 
 Chinese government permitted trade, they would, as far 
 as they might be able, treat all the foreign traders alike? The 
 English exclude the Americans from Sincapore. It so 
 happens that Jonathan suffers little by John Bull's mean- 
 ness in this affair ; Sincapore being, I repeat, more than 
 twenty degrees too far south for its intended purpose ; but 
 Jonathan has a right to his revenge, and may take it, over- 
 coming evil with good, by establishing a Sincapore in the 
 proper place, for the use of English as well as the Chinese 
 and Americans. Concert between two nations, w hose origin, 
 language, and real interests are one, would be better still, 
 and would not be difficult, if the English ministers, instead 
 of being proud, lazy, selfish lords, were, like the American 
 ministers, active men of business, liable to be removed for 
 neglecting the public good. 
 
 If, however, this happy change should not occur in time, 
 there are islands enough on the coast of China for all na- 
 tions to choose among, who may wish to establish a market- 
 place for trade with the Chinese ; and for two reasons it is 
 very desirable that more than one such trading station 
 should be established. Because in the first place, the more 
 numerous such stations, the more easy would be the total
 
 184 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 suppression of piracy on the coast of China ; and secondly, 
 because if there were but one station, nearly opposite the 
 mouth of the Canton river, snch free trade as now takes 
 place in that river, though it would go to that new market- 
 place, would not be extended to the northern maritime 
 provinces, where the greatest demand for foreign goods 
 exists and where the principal exports of China are raised. 
 To show how much would be saved by a direct trade with 
 the northern maritime provinces, and how extensive such 
 a trade would probably become, some conclusive evidence 
 is given below.* 
 
 * The Dutch ambassador and his suite, on their return from Pekin in 
 1796, passed through what may be considered the richest and most popu- 
 lous provinces of China ; and Van der Braam's account of the journey 
 abounds with information on the state of the maritime district in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the great Blue River, or Yang-tse Kiang, which rises in the 
 mountains of Thibet and traverses the Chinese provinces of Setchuen, 
 Konquang, and Kiang-man ; ami falls into the sea at no great distance 
 from the mouth of the Hoang-Ho or Yellow River, the second river of 
 China, and indeed of Asia. Van der Braam, one of the most phlegmatic 
 of Dutchmen, described what he saw at the moment of seeing it, and with- 
 out the least appearance of exaggeration : yet his journal, in that part of it 
 which relates to the temperate maritime provinces, becomes a mere cata- 
 logue of villages, towns, cities, canals, aqueducts, bridges, and other signs 
 of a dense, industrious, and wealthy population. Has the East India 
 Company any trade with this part of China ! No direct trade whatever, 
 and if some little indirect trade by means of internal carriage, still almost 
 without being conscious of it. Considering that this is the heart of the 
 Chinese Empire, that the climate requires woollen cloths, which area sta- 
 ple production of England, and that the entrances of two wide rivers would 
 afford great facilities for conducting the unauthorised trade, this, beyond all 
 comparison, appears to be the spot where the trading disposition of the 
 Chinese people ought to be cultivated. 
 
 "Can you," Mr. Marjoribanks is asked, " say whether the demand for 
 English woollen manufactures in China is capable of being increased accord- 
 ing to the increased supply !" and he answers — " I imagine that, if our 
 manufactures could be introduced into the northern provinces of the empire, 
 the demand for them would decidedly increase." — " Are there any insuper- 
 able obstacles to the introduction of our woollens into the northern 
 parts of China ! The ports ol China being hermetically sealed against us 
 for many years !" - — " What do \. ■ > 1 1 consider the impediments to a greater 
 extension of trade ' The limits which the Chinese have set to the foreign 
 trade ; ilwir confining it t<> one r< mote corner of one of the southern prov- 
 inces of the empin . The articles which we import into China are carried 
 to the northern provinces through the interior of the country." 
 
 " The black tea imported by the Easl India Company is grown and man- 
 red in the province of Pokien, with the exception ol about one-third 
 of thai sort called by ih Bohea, which third part is produced in the north- 
 i corner of the province of Canton, The green tea is all grown in 
 the provinces ol Kiang nan, Kiang-si, and Che-kiang, but chiefly in the two 
 former." 
 
 Mr. Daviee, like Mr. Marjoribanks, a servant of the Company, and of 
 course a friend to the monopoly, says u the tea trade would be more bene- 
 ficial, because. I conccivud it wuuld be larger, if it were n oar to tho centre ol
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 185 
 
 One word touching the cost of establishing the most 
 free, and perhaps most extensive trade in the world. The 
 reckless jobbing of those who managed the old English 
 constitution has", together with the uneasiness arising from 
 low profits, led to such a passion for retrenchment, that the 
 new English government will probably be denied funds for 
 many a useful purpose. But, in this case, no public funds 
 are required. The harbour dues of Sincapore (which is 
 little more than a stopping-place for English ships) the 
 mere harbour dues of that ill-chosen and merely English 
 port, are sufficient to defray the expense of maintaining it. 
 The trade of a well-chosen market-place on the coast of 
 China, open to all nations on equal terms, must produce, 
 from moderate harbour dues alone, more than enough to 
 cover the cost of establishing and preserving it ; supposing 
 the work performed in the American fashion, with a view 
 to utility, not in the old English fashion, with a view to 
 robbing the public. Besides, referring to the preceding 
 remarks on the causes of the value of land, to the value of 
 land at Sincapore, Penang, and Batavia ; a value produced 
 mainly by the competition of Chiuese settlers; and bearing 
 in mind that as many Chinese as could find room would 
 settle in a free market-place near the coast of China, it 
 would seem that great profits might be made by an outlay 
 of capital in the way proposed. The English are puzzled 
 to find investments for their capital. But iftheir expiring 
 Hong should for the present forbid them to lay out money 
 in this way, why do rot they lend money to the Americans ? 
 and who was it that lately negotiated a loan between Eng- 
 lish capitalists and the city of New-Orleans ? it was Joshua 
 Bates, himself an American, chief of the first commer- 
 cial firm in England, deeply engaged in American trade, 
 
 the empire ; that very great accession to the prices of tea which arises from 
 the long land-carriage would be avoided, if the trade were nearer to the tea 
 provinces. * * * * 
 
 "With all that has been done, the facilities" (of internal carriage) " are 
 in a very inferior slate to what they plight be. The river which brings the 
 tea to Canton from the frontier of t lie province, where it has to cross a high 
 mountain, is a mere trout-stream for a great portion of the way ; and foreign- 
 ers of all descriptions have been obliged to wait for months at Canton, on 
 account of there not being enough water in that river to float the vessels 
 that bring the teas." 
 
 On this head, more evidence of a conclusive nature might be brought for- 
 ward ; but what ha - been given will satisfy most readers. Those who wish 
 lor further information on the subject, will find it in Van der Braam's work 
 in the accounts of Lord Macartney's and Lord Amherst's embassies, in 
 Captain Hall's account of Loo Cboo, and in the Parliamentary Reports. 
 
 24
 
 186 MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE 
 
 and intimately acquainted with the trade of China. An 
 Anglo-American company could not, indeed, make money, 
 by extending free trade to the whole coast of China, with- 
 out the sanction of some government, without a flag and a 
 charter. Penn, who made money even by planting a colony 
 on the desert coast of America, had a charter from his 
 government, but beyond that piece of parchment, no assist- 
 ance. The present English ministers would not grant a 
 charter for the purpose in question, which they would dis- 
 like as a dangerous example of cheapness, without patron- 
 age, in the management of great public undertakings. They 
 would prefer a costly embassy to Pekin. Lord Amherst's 
 pocket-money, forming part of the great sum expended on 
 the last embassy, was 40,000/. ; more than six times the 
 yearly pay of his American majesty. The English minis- 
 ters, then, would spurn at a proposal for effecting a public 
 object with private funds; that is, carefully, cheaply, with- 
 out patronage, as they lately refused a charter to some of 
 the best men in England, who wished to employ private 
 funds in founding a Pennsylvania on the south coast of 
 New Holland. But their time is nearly up ; all the use- 
 fulness that was in them having been got out of them. 
 Meanwhile, before their successors shall be named by the 
 new ruling order, striped bunting would do as well as the 
 union jack ; and an Anglo-American company willing to 
 speculate on the establishment of market-places for free 
 teade with the Chinese, would not be rebuffed at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 At Washington, New-York, Boston, Baltimore, or Phila- 
 delphia, what follows may be read with interest. 
 
 Questions submitted to Mr. Ahn,' with his answers.' 
 
 1. What have been your means of becoming acquainted 
 with the foreign trade of China ? — I commanded the ship 
 Exmouth.of 725 tons, from Calcutta, and visited China under 
 a license from the East India Company in 1817, and spent 
 four months in the Canton river. In the following year I 
 again visited China in the same ship, and again spent four 
 months in the Canton river. In 1811) I made a similar 
 voyage. On all these occasions the whole of a mixed 
 
 * Mr. Akon resides in London. Groat, part ofbia lift lias boon spent nt 
 sen : there are but fftW cn:ists in the world thai lie lias not visited ; and bis 
 character an a navijraior is established by the work of t'.ipiain Flinders, who 
 appointed him maator of ihc Invest igtfrbr dUcr/rcty ship.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 187 
 
 cargo, worth as much as 60,000/., was consigned to myself; 
 and I had the entire disposal of it, as well as the charge of 
 reloading the ship, acting as captain and supercargo. 
 
 2. What do you conceive would be the effect on the un- 
 authorized trade, of establishing insular commercial stations 
 near the coast, and in the most favourable situations? — The 
 effect would be, that the Chinese would very readily enter 
 into all your views of trade. Great numbers of Chinese 
 would settle themselves in such stations, in order to conduct 
 trade. They ivould enter heart and soul into the spirit of a 
 free trade, which nothing could prevent them from establish- 
 ing. They have all kinds of craft along-shore, the junks 
 being from 20 to. 500 tons; and they would come with their 
 vessels to the commercial stations, bringing with them 
 Chinese products to be exchanged for European and other 
 products. The government has no power to prevent the 
 people from trading even in the Canton river, and could not 
 by any means interfere with a trade carried on at a short 
 distance from the main. My opinion of establishing such 
 stations for trade is, that it would be most advantageous, 
 and would cause a very great increase of the foreign trade 
 of China ; but it would destroy the trade of the Hong 
 merchants, and of the East India Company also, if Eng- 
 lishmen were not prevented from trading at the stations. 
 
 3. What in your opinion are the most proper places for 
 such stations ? on this point be so good as to furnish any 
 information that you may think calculated to be of use. — 
 On account of the unskilfulness of the Chinese as sailors, it 
 would be advisable to have more than one station, in order 
 to keep up a trade with a great extent of coast. Suppose 
 you had several stations ; 1 would begin with one island, 
 called Pulo Condore, in latitude about 8 deg. North, almost 
 within sight of the coast of Cambodia ; which island was 
 settled by the English 130 years ago; but they were cut 
 off by the Macassar soldiers whom they employed. I have 
 been close to this island and all round it. It is inhabited 
 by a few fishermen. The anchorage and shelter are good; 
 and I was assured by the people who came from the island 
 to my ship, that there was plenty of good water there. 
 The next situation would be one of the Great Ladrones, or 
 Pirate Isles, near the mouth of the Canton river ; and the 
 best of these islands appears to me to be Neong-kong-oa, 
 where there is good anchorage for a great number of ships, 
 and plenty of water. This island, on the north side of the 
 great Lema Channel, used to be inhabited by pirates of the
 
 188 MEANS OF EXTENDING I'REE TRADE 
 
 most ferocious character. The Chinese government could 
 not prevent a settlement from being formed there, nor in- 
 terfere with the settlers afterward. Another place for a 
 station, at which a great trade would soon spring up, is one 
 of the numerous islands in the neighbourhood of Amoy, in 
 latitude 24 deg. North. I have not visited this part of the 
 coast ; but from such charts as we have, and what I have 
 heard from those who have sailed further north than Canton, 
 I have not any doubt that several islands, well suited for 
 the purpose, would be found in the neighbourhood of Amoy. 
 The most important place for a station is still further north, 
 near the mouths of the great rivers ; but of this part of the 
 coast I know only that it has many islands ; as may be said 
 of the whole coast of China, which is more studded with 
 islands than any other coast in the world. 
 
 " Cette ile (Formosa), quoique situee vis a vis fa province 
 de Fokien, et a trente lieues de la cote,- n'etait pas soumise 
 h. l'empire de la Chine, qui n'a point la passion des conquetes, 
 et qui par une politique inhumaine et mal cntendue, aime 
 mieux laisser perir une partie de sa population que d'envoyer 
 la surabondance de ses sujets dans des tcrrcs voisines. Ou 
 trouva que Formose avait cent trente ou cent quarante 
 lieues de tour. Ses habitans a, en juger par leurs moeurs 
 et par leur figure, paraissaient descend us des Tartares de 
 la partie la plus septentrionale de l'Asie. Vraisemblable- 
 ment la Coree leur avait servi de chemin. lis vivaient, la 
 plupart, de pcche ou de chasse et allaient presque nus. 
 Les Hollandais, apres avoir pris sans obstacle toutes les 
 lumieres que la prudence exigent, jugerent que lc lieu le 
 plus favorable pour un etablissement etoit une petite tie 
 voisine de la grandc. lis trouvahnt dans cette situation 
 trois avantages considerables ; une defense aisee, si la 
 haine ou la jalousie cherchaient a les troubler; un port 
 forme par les deux ilea ; la facility d'avoir dans loutes les 
 moussons une communication sun avec In Chine. La nou- 
 velle colonic se fortifiait insensiblemenl sans eclat, lorsqu'elle 
 
 s'r/ri (i ton/ i/'iiii con/) ,i ii in pTOSpt rili </ui </oiniu tOUtt /' Asir. 
 
 Ce fut a la conqui te d<; La China par les Tartares (ju'elle 
 dut ce foonheur inespere : aiasi les torrens engraissent les 
 vallons de la substance des montagnes ravagees. Plus de 
 cent mille Chinois, qui ne voulaienl pas y soumettre ;iu 
 rainqueur, Be refugierenl ;i Formose. lis y porterent l'acti- 
 vit«'' qui leur est particuli re, la culture du riz el du Buere, 
 ct v dttirn-f ni rhs uaisseauti tana nombre de Li<r notion.
 
 TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. 189 
 
 Bientot Vile devint le centre de loutes les liaisons que Java, 
 Siam, les Philippines, la Chine, le Japan, et d\iutres contrees 
 vou la-rent former. En peu d'annees eue se trouva le 
 
 PLUS GRAND MARCIlfc HE l'InDE."* 
 
 * The Abbe" Raynal's Philosophical and Political History of the Establish- 
 ments and Commerce of Europeans in the two Indies. Vol. i. p. 286. 
 Paris Edition of Amable Costes & Co.
 
 ( 100 ) 
 
 NOTE IX. 
 
 SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES OF THE AMERICANS. 
 
 Peculiar state of religion — Causes of superstition without bigotry or fanati- 
 cism — Inquisitiveness — Rudeness of the backwoodsmen— Bigotry in pa- 
 triotism — Neglect of learning. 
 
 Most English travellers in America hurt their credit for 
 veracity by describing instances of the most violent religious 
 phrensy. In England, many people do not believe Mrs. 
 Trollope's story of the " anxious benches :" I do, not 
 doubting either, but satisfied, that throughout the less popu- 
 lous parts of the Union people often meet for the express 
 purpose of working themselves into a state of superstitious 
 madness. To overrate the crazy doings of a camp-meeting 
 in the back woods would be impossible. Bodies writhing, 
 arms swinging, legs dancing, eyes rolling ; groans, shouts, 
 howls, and shrieks ; men knocking their own heads against 
 trees, and women tearing the clothes off each other's backs ; 
 the congregation frantic with fear of the devil, and the 
 preacher drunk with his own gibberish ; it is all true, and 
 of common occurrence. Captain Hall would say, it arises 
 from the w T ant of a spending class to set an example of 
 decorum in public worship; or from the want of loyalty, 
 to which he attributes so many of Jonathan's peculiarities. 
 Mrs. Trollope would have the English believe, that super- 
 stition in America is owing to democratic government. 
 Some, again, find a cause for it in ihe want of a state re- 
 ligion ; adopting the notion of David Hume, and supposing 
 that "each ghostly practitioner, depending for subsistence on 
 the liberality of individuals, continually endeavours by some 
 novelty to excite the languid devotion of his audience, 
 without regard to truth, morals, or decency in the doctrines
 
 PECULIARITIES OF THE AMERICANS. 191 
 
 inculcated ; and that thus every tenet is adopted that best 
 suits the disorderly affections of the human frame, custom- 
 ers being drawn to each conventicle by new industry and 
 address in practising on the passions and credulity of the 
 populace." Another set of Englishmen, who, in their ab- 
 stract love of democracy, cannot bear to be told that some 
 things in America might be mended ; haters of church 
 establishments, too, who therefore disagree with David 
 Hume ; these, when asked to account for the excesses of 
 love feasts and camp meetings, lay all the blame on the 
 oppressors of those puritans who colonized New-England, 
 concluding that the fanaticism which arose from persecution 
 has been handed down to living Americans and spread over 
 the Union by emigration from the New-England states. 
 The doctrines of Mrs. Trollope and Captain Hall are not 
 worth, the others will not bear, examination. 
 
 Hume's argument in favour of church establishment sup- 
 poses the existence of a " populace," liable from their pro- 
 found ignorance to be deluded by needy speculators in reli- 
 gion. But there is no populace in America ; and those 
 congregations, whether under roofs or in the forest, which 
 most resemble the inmates of a madhouse are composed of 
 people whose knowledge goes beyond reading and writing; 
 shrewd, worldly-minded, calculating, industrious buyers 
 and sellers, and what is more, politicians represented in a 
 local parliament and in congress, who make the laws which 
 they have to obey; laws which, measured by the rule of 
 utility, show more practical wisdom in the makers than the 
 "greatest statesmen" of Europe can pretend to'. On the 
 other hand, the spirit of puritanism is. extinct in America. 
 The founders of New-England, as their hot zeal arose from 
 persecution, so were they, always excepting the Quakers, 
 persecutors in their turn, more cruel than the oppressors 
 from whom they had fled ; and far more bigoted, since 
 they persecuted as they had suffered for religion's sake, 
 while the churchmen who had hunted them out of England 
 were moved by a spirit altogether worldly. But that bitter, 
 that most vindictive religious zeal, which dictated the first 
 laws of the New-England colonies, is now unknown in 
 America. The odium theologicum did not descend to the 
 grandchildren of the puritans. Scenes have been latelv 
 acted at Exeter-Hall, in London, exhibitions of furious re- 
 ligious bigotry, such as it would be impossible to get up in 
 America ; where all sects are tolerant, and not one takes 
 half so much pains to make proselytes as several sects in
 
 192 SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES 
 
 England. Of the many religions that flourish in America, 
 one only, of course, can be true ; yet is there no one sect 
 which zealously declares all the others in the wrong. In 
 things spiritual, as there is neither favour nor persecution 
 from the government, so bigotry and fanaticism, in the 
 English sense of those words, have perished. In order to 
 describe the peculiar state of religion in America, one must 
 use words not commonly applied to the subject. 
 
 The Americans, speaking generally, are religious by 
 habit, but not constantly, not mixing up things spiritual with 
 things temporal ; not showing, 1 had almost said not feel- 
 ing, religious sentiments, except when they meet for public 
 worship. The custom of attending public worship is almost 
 universal ; and to neglect it would be considered indecent; 
 but so completely has custom taken the place of zeal in this 
 matter, that what form of worship a citizen preiers is per- 
 fectly indifferent to all the other citizens, like the colour of 
 his coat. Members of the same family, even, belong to 
 congregations of opposite tenets, without the slightest inter- 
 ruption of domestic peace. Moreover, avowed deists, who 
 in England would be scouted as infidels, are as much re- 
 spected as the most devout Christians, provided they belong 
 to a sect, and congregate once a week to profess their lim- 
 ited faith. Lukewarmness, indifference this would be called 
 in England, and has been called by English writers; but 
 some other expression must be found for it, since among the 
 most tolerant congregations in America are those which 
 occasionally work themselves into a state of religious 
 phrensy.* ' Sobriety in general, with occasional fits of in- 
 toxication, seems a more correct description of spiritual 
 matters in America. The general sobriety is explained by 
 a total separation between religion and politics; but this 
 does not account for the occasio mil drunkenness. Wbal is 
 the cause of that religious phrensy now and then exhibited 
 by people, whose ordinary religious feelings are so tolerant 
 aiid sober, so much the reverse of bigotry and fanaticism? 
 
 The terms of the question point to an answer which ex- 
 plains this curious moral phenomenon. Violent occasional 
 tmenl of the mind appears to be a physical want with 
 those, whose ordinary condition either does not require or 
 nts much mental exertion. None take such delighl in 
 getting drunk with spirits as the savage whose monotonous 
 lite keeps his mental faculties in a state of torpor. Rum in 
 America, whiskey in Ireland, gin at presenl in England, 
 opium in Turkey and China, and tobacco in Spain, are BUD-
 
 OP THE AMERICANS. 193 
 
 stitutes for moral stimulants. But where in the wide world 
 shall be found any considerable number of people, whose 
 minds are not actively employed by their common pursuits, 
 and who yet forego the use of extraordinary stimulants ? 
 Nowhere. The rule is universal, including those savages, 
 who ibr want of spirits, drugs, music, shows, romances, and 
 idols, are said to intoxicate themselves by twirling round 
 till they fall. The kinds of mental stimulants which it 
 seems in man's nature to require, differ with the infinite 
 variety of men's circumstances. The spirits of a water- 
 drinker are raised by one glass of wine, drank without com- 
 pany; while an habitual wine-drinker is not elated by a 
 dozen glasses, nor by two dozen, unless there be others to 
 drink with him. The solitary prisoner is exhilarated by 
 obtaining a single companion, drunk, he knows not why, 
 when he returns to society ; while on him who enjoys social 
 intercourse every day, it has no unusual effect. There 
 would be no end of examples to show that different circum- 
 stances or states of mind produce a craving for mental stimu- 
 lants very different in kind and degree ; that in this case, as 
 in so many more, what is one man's meat is another man's 
 poison. 
 
 Now, the dispersed inhabitants of America, and in parti- 
 cular of those new settlements where love-feasts and camp- 
 meetings are most common, pass a great part of their lives 
 in solitude ; not in absolute solitude, like that which, when 
 inflicted as a punishment, produces death or insanity, but 
 out of the way of social intercourse, each family being iso- 
 lated from all the others, except on rare occasions, when 
 they congregate in spite of distance and bad roads. The 
 effect on the mind of this lonely and monotonous existence, 
 can hardly be conceived by Englishmen generally, to whom 
 the stillness of the country gives fresh and pleasant feelings. 
 To a lone American family, there is nothing so delightful 
 as one of those occasions when many families meet for any 
 purpose ; and when thousands meet for a religious purpose, 
 the congregation, excited by a total change of scene, by the 
 unusual confluence of numbers, and by the novelty of an 
 impulse common to many, are easily intoxicated by elo- 
 quence, of which the object is to inflame their already heated 
 imaginations. The preacher may or may not be as sincere 
 as his audience ; but in either case he is not to be blamed 
 for their extravagance. Instead of causing the phrensy 
 over which he presides, he only helps to gratify a desire, 
 the desire for some violent mental excitement, which has
 
 194 SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES 
 
 resulted from sameness and solitude. A wandering preacher 
 in America does not create, but only supplies, a demand 
 for his services ; visiting thinly-peopled districts, not with a 
 view to delude the scattered inhabitants, but because he 
 knows that they already long for his presence, that they are 
 w r aiting for a dose of superstitious terror ; and that if he 
 should not help them to devil-worship, they would send for 
 some other dealer in that, to them, intoxicating drug. 
 
 It has been remarked, that on these occasions of self- 
 sought delirium, the women are wilder than the men. And 
 this might have been expected ; because as almost every- 
 where women lead a more lonely and monotonous life than 
 men, they are more susceptible of excitement from novelty 
 and crowds. They are so especially in the back-settle- 
 ments of America, where travelling, if not dangerous, re- 
 quires energy and bodily strength, not to mention how 
 much time. In such spots, men pass weeks together with- 
 out exchanging two ideas ; women, months, or even years, 
 without forming one. If the men did not attend markets, 
 fairs, and elections, they would probably be as wild as the 
 women at love-feasts and camp-meetings. The peculiar 
 extravagance of the women, on such occasions, helps to ac- 
 count for the extravagance of both sexes ; and this view of 
 the subject is confirmed by reflecting that they who com- 
 pose the wildest congregations of America, when they re- 
 turn home after a fit of superstitious intoxication, are as 
 diligent as ever in their ordinary pursuits, more contented 
 than before, and, touching religion, not less tolerant and 
 sober, not a whit less different from English bigots and 
 fanatics.* 
 
 * Mr. Flint, in his Geography and History of the Western Slates, after 
 showing the utility of camp-meetings, writes — " Nine-tenths of the religious 
 instruction of the country is given by people who itinerate, ami who are, with 
 very few exceptions, notwithstanding all that has been s;iul to the contrary, 
 men of.great seal and sanctity. These earnest men, who have little to ex- 
 pect from pecuniary support, and less from the prescribed reverence and in- 
 fluence, which can only appertain to a Btated ministry, find al mice that every 
 thing depends <>n the cultivation of popular talents. Zeal for the great 
 eauae, mixed imperceptibly with a spice of earthlj ambition, and the latent 
 emulation and j >ri< t< ■ of out nature, and other motives which unconsciously 
 inlliienei more or less, the most sincere and the most disinterested — the de- 
 sire of distinction among their contemporaries and their brethren — and a 
 reaching Btruggle for the fascination of popularity, goad them on to study 
 all the means and arts of winning the people. Travelling from month to 
 month through dark forests, with such ample time and range for deep 
 thought, as t he v a nd ile slow l \ on horseback through their peregrinations, the 
 men naturally acquire a pensive and romantic turn of thought ami expres- 
 rion, tucb as we think favourable to eloquence. Hence the preaching i s of a
 
 OF THE AMERICANS. 1U5 
 
 It would be a great mistake to suppose that obstacles to 
 social intercourse are confined to the newest settlements. 
 When the states were colonies, waste land was usually 
 given away by their governments, often in vast tracts to 
 persons who had no means of cultivating them, and who, 
 therefore, either left the land in a desert state, or disposed 
 of it to others at so very cheap a rate that individuals 
 readily obtained more land than they could possibly culti- 
 vate. In either case, the dispersion of the people was very 
 great ; for either the desert, wanting roads, was a bar to 
 intercourse among the people who surrounded it, or each 
 settler fixed on it was, still by want of roads, separated 
 from all the other settlers. But since the government of 
 the United States has, generally, instead of giving away new 
 land, sold it by auction to the highest bidder above a fixed 
 minimum price, some new states, which offered peculiar at- 
 tractions, have been more densely or rather less thinly 
 peopled than some of the old colonies, and far better pro- 
 vided with roads, which are more easily made in propor- 
 tion as they are less wanted, that is, in proportion as the 
 people are less dispersed. Still, above two-thirds of the 
 inhabitants of America pass the greater part of their lives 
 in comparative loneliness ; in a state which, if it could be 
 imagined by hill squires in Wales, even they would call un- 
 bearable solitude. It is a state of existence not readily 
 imagined by any Englishman, quite incomprehensible by 
 those who have always lived in towns ; but the English- 
 man, who shall conceive what it is, will be at no loss to ac- 
 count for many American habits and customs, besides that 
 peculiar kind of superstition which displeases English 
 travellers. 
 
 The officers of Captain Parry's second voyage, after 
 being cut off from the world for more than two years, landed 
 on one of the Shetland islands, and w r ere invited to dine 
 with a party of the inhabitants. At this meeting, I have 
 been told, questions and answers formed the whole conver- 
 sation ; the voyagers, though craving for news, being obliged 
 to gratify the habitual inquisitiveness of those secluded 
 islanders. In like manner, the curiosity of Americans is 
 not a vulgar trick, nor, as some will have it, a fruit of de- 
 mocratic government, but a result, natural and inevitable, 
 of a faulty mode of colonization, in which no thought was 
 
 highly popular cast, and its first aim is to excite the feelings. Hence too, 
 excitements, or in religious parlr.nce, * awakenings,' are common in all thi« 
 region." — Quoted by Stuart, vol. ii. p. 456.
 
 19G SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES 
 
 ever taken to keep a due proportion between people and 
 land.* 
 
 The American of the backwoods has often been described to 
 the English as grossly ignorant, dirty, unsocial, delighting in 
 rum and tobacco, attached to nothing but his rifle, adventu- 
 rous, restless, more than half-savage. Deprived of social en- 
 joyments or excitements, he has recourse to those of savage 
 life, and becomes (for in this respect the Americans degene- 
 rate) unfit for society. As the evils of society, misery, and 
 vice produced by misery, are unknown in America, as they 
 would have been quite as well avoided with a greater con- 
 centration of the people ; as, indeed, the produce of American 
 industry might have been greater if the people had been 
 less dispersed, the semi-barbarism of American backwoods- 
 men is an unnecessary evil ; and an evil, too, without the 
 least countervailing advantage ; but, though caused without 
 a motive, still it has been caused by all the governments 
 which have disposed of new land in America, from that of 
 Queen Elizabeth, which bestowed twenty-five millions of 
 acres upon an individual, to that of President Jackson, 
 which sells new land at the very low price of five shillings 
 per acre. 
 
 Americans are accused of presumption, conceit, and 
 gross national vanity. Allowing for exceptions in the more 
 populous parts of the Union, and especially in the great sea- 
 port towns, the people of America may, in this respect, be 
 likened to the Tartar conquerors of China, who, being 
 themselves barbarous, consider all but themselves barba- 
 rians. The least civilized Americans, those in a word who 
 despise the old country, make up, like the Chinese manda- 
 rins, for want of bigotry in religion, by excessive bigotry 
 in their patriotism. Some Creoles of Now South Wales 
 visiting England, thought London a miserable place when 
 compared with Sydney. The settlers of Now South 
 Wales and Van Dieman's Land, adjoining colonics, planted 
 by the same people, in the same way, and nearly at the 
 same time, cannot hear, if we may judge l>\ their .books 
 and newspapers, any comparison between the two very 
 similar sheep-walks, which does not represent one as greatly 
 superior to the other, according to which set of colonists 
 
 ' "I found them very inquisitive ; far more bo than Bny of the New« 
 Englanders I have ever mel with; but [afterward learned that these people 
 had lately come from a remote pail <>f the country, whore, probably, (lure 
 were no schooll "— Stuart, vol. it- [•• 846
 
 OF THE AMERICANS. 197 
 
 may bo addressed. Nearly all colonists, it is remarked, or 
 at least nearly all people born in dispersed colonies, are fan- 
 atically proud of their own wild country, and love to dis- 
 parage the rest of the world. This narrowness of mind, 
 arising from ignorance, seems proper to the barbarous con- 
 querors of China; but, in colonies planted by the most 
 civilized nations, it is a degenerate sentiment, a step back- 
 wards from civilization to barbarism, and out of the course 
 of nature, which seems favourable, stoppages reckoned, to 
 the improvement of mankind. In such cases, the ignorance 
 which "promotes conceit and mean pride, is a result of dis- 
 persion ; the original cause of it in America being not de- 
 mocracy, Captain Hall, but the low price of new land. 
 
 But the Captain Halls of England, when they contend 
 that democracy produces neglect of learning in America, 
 make out a case which has some show of truth. The 
 memory of Franklin, say they, honoured in Europe, is des- 
 pised in America, save by a few whose eccentricity goes 
 to prove the rule. Subject colonies produced scholars and 
 philosophers : the democratic Union depends on England 
 for literature, or rather for a supply of novels, the only 
 books suited to the American market. In all the United 
 States, there is not an observatory ; Copley and West could 
 not live in America ; Cooper and Irving publish in Europe. 
 Among nations called civilized, the Americans are the most 
 neglectful of fine arts, science, and philosophy ; and in 
 America the cultivation of learning has fallen off with the 
 progress of democracy. Therefore, in America, democracy 
 is unfavourable to the cultivation of learning. 
 
 This statement of facts is true ;* and the conclusion ap- 
 pears true to many in England, because English travellers 
 in the United States have carefully shut their eyes to a 
 circumstance by which they might have accounted for 
 most of the social peculiarities of America. Democracy, 
 that is, political equality, which lays open to all alike every 
 
 * " Men of science, too, and of literature, not a small body in England, 
 will rind but few persons in the United States not engaged in professional 
 business, and have not, in that country, the means of resorting to great 
 public libraries, which' they find in England indispensable for their pur- 
 suits. They find but few people disposal to sympathize with them i?i the ob- 
 jects which interest them. The United States do not otter a desirable asy- 
 lum for persons of this description, even if they are in straitened circum- 
 stances. It will be much more for their happiness to contract their style 
 of living in England than to make a voyage to America." — Stuart, vol. ii. 
 1*27.
 
 198 SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES 
 
 career of ambition, and makes usefulness the standard of 
 merit, must surely be very favourable to the cultivation of 
 learning ; more especially when accompanied, as it is in 
 the United States, by universal ease, which bestows lei- 
 sure upon all. The Americans are the only people in the 
 world blessed with leisure and equality. If political equal- 
 ity should be established in England, together with high 
 profits and wages, who can doubt that the English would 
 advance rapidly in every department of knowledge. Why 
 then have the Americans degenerated in this respect? why 
 do they set a lower value on knowledge than the colonists 
 of Franklin's time ? 
 
 " Though," says Adam Smith, " in a rude state of society 
 there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every 
 individual, there is not a great deal in those of the whole 
 society. Every man does or is capable of doing almost every 
 thing which any other man does or is capable of doing. 
 Every man has a considerable degree of knowledge, ingenu- 
 ity, and invention, but scarce any man has a great degree. 
 The degree, however which is commonly possessed, is gen- 
 erally sufficient for conducting the whole simple business of 
 society. In a civilized state, on the contrary, though there is 
 little variety in the occupations of the greater part of individ- 
 uals, there is an almost infinite variety in those of the whole 
 society. These varied occupations present an almost infi- 
 nite variety of objects to the contemplation of those few, 
 who, being attached to no particular occupation themselves, 
 have leisure and inclination to examine the occupations 
 of other people. The contemplation of so great a variety 
 of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless com- 
 parisons and combinations, and renders their understandings 
 in an extraordinary degree both acute and comprehensive." 
 But rudeness and civilization are effects as well as causes. 
 By going further back, by substituting dispersed for rude, 
 and concentrated for civilized, \\ arer, al least, to the 
 
 truth. In the history of the world, there is no example of 
 a society at once dispersed and highly civilized; while 
 there are instances without end, in the history of coloniza- 
 tion, of societies which, ivilizedj became barbarous 
 as soon as they were dispersed over an extensh e territory. 
 Thai division of each man's labour among several employ- 
 ments, which, says Adam Smith, is the immediate cau 
 ignorance, is an effect of dispersion ; and dispersion inter- 
 feres with the cultivation of knov ' : another way ; that
 
 OF THE AMERICANS. 190 
 
 is, by obstacles to social intercourse, to the interchange of 
 ideas, to the exercise of the mental faculties. By adding 
 to this consideration one fact, the difficulty may be solved. 
 The citizens of the United States are a more dispersed 
 society than the colonists of Franklin's time. When Jef- 
 ferson wrote the declaration of independence, the vast re- 
 gions west of the Allcghanies had scarcely been opened for 
 settlement. Washington became a soldier in contests with 
 the Indians on the western frontier of Virginia, which is 
 now the eastern frontier of states more extensive than the 
 dependent colonies. Even if the increase of people had 
 been equal to the acquisition of land, still the dispersion 
 would have been greater, because the interior settlements 
 are, by reason of their great distance from the sea, more 
 deficient in natural means of communication. Washing- 
 ton often foretold some of the evils that would result from 
 spreading towards the west, unless the eastern and west- 
 ern states were connected by canals and good roads. His 
 warning was neglected until lately, when the eastern 
 states became alarmed at the amount of emigration to the 
 west. In those eastern states, the dependent colonies that 
 were, they talk now of Washington's inspiration, and are 
 most anxious to establish means of intercourse with the 
 western settlements : they will find it difficult to remedy 
 their own error. The western wilderness was theirs, and 
 liable to be treated in the way most for their advantage. 
 They thought only of gratifying their national vanity, by 
 extending as much as possible the surface of the Union. 
 j\ot content with promoting emigration to the wilderness, 
 when their own population was so scanty that they ought 
 rather to have encouraged immigration from Europe, they 
 sent to Europe for the purpose of acquiring more wilder- 
 ness, and in one case actually paid hard money for an ac- 
 cession of mischief.* The result is, that population has 
 spread, not merely as fast as it has increased, but faster ; 
 that there are fewer people to the square mile than when 
 population was about a quarter of its present amount ; and 
 that this smaller number of people in proportion to land, 
 besides being separated from each other by greater dis- 
 
 * " The acquisition by the United States in 1803, of the territories be- 
 longing to France in North America, including New Orleans, Louisiana, 
 and the Mississippi, was a most important one. The negotiations resulted 
 in the cession of the French territory in North America, exceeding in extent 
 the whole land then belonging to the United Stales, for sixty millions of 
 francs."— Stuart, vol. ii. p. '
 
 200 SOME SOCIAL PECULIARITIES, &C. 
 
 tance, are not so well provided with the means of social 
 intercourse. Where there are markets, there the people 
 live together; but these are few and far between. When 
 the Americans would probably have been without markets, 
 and to what they are indebted for the existence of markets, 
 is shown in the following notes.
 
 (201 ) 
 
 NOTE X. 
 
 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS OF SLAVERY IN 
 AMERICA. 
 
 Declamation against slavery — History of the origin and progress of slavery 
 in America — Cause of slavery — Prospects of slavery in the British West 
 Indies — In the United Slates — Possible means of abolishing slavery in 
 
 ; the United States without a servile war. 
 
 " The existence of slavery," says Mr. Stuart,* " in its 
 most hideous form, in a country of absolute freedom in most 
 respects, is one of those extraordinary anomalies for which 
 it is impossible to account." 
 
 The writer of the declaration of American independence 
 has also written — " What an incomprehensible machine is 
 man ! who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, 
 and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the 
 next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power 
 supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-men 
 a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery 
 than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But 
 we must wait with patience the workings of an overruling 
 Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance 
 of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their 
 tears shall be full — when their tears shall have involved 
 heaven itself in darkness — doubtless a God of justice will 
 awaken to their distress, and, by diffusing a light and liber- 
 ality among their oppressors, or, at length, by his extermi- 
 nating thunder, manifest his attention to things of this world, 
 and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality." 
 
 " Every American," says an English writer,* — " every 
 American who loves his country should dedicate his whole 
 life, and every faculty of his soul, to efface the foul blot of 
 slavery from its character. If nations rank according to 
 their wisdom and their virtue, what right has the American, 
 a scourger and murderer of slaves, to compare himself with 
 the least and lowest of the European nations, much more 
 
 * Vol. ii. page 113. 
 
 t Edinburgh Review, Xo. LXI. Art. " Travellers in America" attributed 
 to Mr. (now Lord) Brougham. 
 
 26
 
 202 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 with this great and humane country, where the greatest lord 
 dare not lay a finger on the meanest peasant ? What is 
 freedom where all are not free ? where the greatest of God's 
 blessings is limited, with impious caprice, to the colour of 
 the body ? And these are the men who taunt the English 
 with their corrupt parliament, with their buying and selling 
 votes. Let the world judge which is the most liable to cen- 
 sure — we, who in the midst of rottenness, have torn the 
 manacles off slaves all over the world, or they who, with 
 their idle purity and useless perfection, have remained mute 
 and careless while groans echoed and whips clanked round 
 the very walls of their spotless congress. We wish well to 
 America — we rejoice in her prosperity — and are delighted 
 to resist the absurd impertinence with which the character 
 of her people is often treated in this country. But the ex- 
 istence of slavery in America is an atrocious crime, with 
 which no measures can be kept — for which her situation 
 affords no sort of apology — which makes liberty itself dis- 
 trusted, and the boast of it disgusting." 
 
 These passages describe the feeling of Englishmen gen- 
 erally, and of not a few Americans, with respect to slavery 
 in America. But when was any great evil cured by mere 
 declamation ? and what but mere declamation is there in 
 these passages? Like other evils, slavery in America has its 
 causes ; and until these be removed, the evil effect must con- 
 tinue. No Englishman, no American, as far as I know, has 
 taken the trouble to ascertain the causes of slavery in Amer- 
 ica. Had this been done, it might perhaps appear, that the 
 situation of America docs afford some sort of apology for the 
 foul slain upon her character. The causes of slavery in 
 America will be found in a brief history of its origin and 
 progress ; and, these ascertained, the prospects of slavery 
 may be examined with some chance of a useful result. 
 
 The first European colony in America was planted by 
 Spaniards in the island of St. Domingo, or, as it was origi- 
 nally called, Hispaniola. The first Spanish colonists of St. 
 Domingo received from the Spanish crown extensive grants 
 of the mosl fertile land. The settlers carried with them an 
 abundance of capital, and cadi settler obtained more good 
 land than he could |»>s>i!>ly cultivate. But land and capital 
 arc not the only elements of production. In order to pro- 
 duce wealth, the flrst colonists of St. Domingo wanted la- 
 
 bourers. If s e of them had laid out a portion of their 
 
 capital in convej ing labourers from Spain, the other settlers, 
 who had not -<> expended a portion of their capital, would
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 203 
 
 have been able to pay for the service of such labourers more 
 than those could have paid who had diminished their capi- 
 tal by conveying labourers from Spain. Those who had not 
 so diminished their capital, offering higher wages than those 
 who had, would have enjoyed what the former had expended 
 capital to procure. This does actually occur very often in 
 modern English colonies. Thus, unless all the settlers had 
 agreed that each should take out a number of labourers in 
 proportion to his capital, none of them could have had any 
 motive for laying out capital in that way. Moreover, if such 
 an agreement had been possible, and its execution practica- 
 ble, the labourers taken out by the capitalists, to a place 
 where every one could obtain plenty of good land for a 
 trifle, would have ceased to be labourers for hire ; they 
 would have become independent land-owners, if not com- 
 petitors with their former masters in the market of labour. 
 This also does actually occur every day in several modern 
 colonies. Consequently, the first Spanish settlers in St. 
 Domingo did not obtain labourers from Spain. But, with- 
 out labourers, their capital must have perished, or at least 
 must soon have been diminished to that small amount which 
 each individual could employ with his own hands. This has 
 actually occurred in the last colony founded by Englishmen 
 — the Swan River settlement — where a great mass of capi- 
 tal, of seeds, implements, and cattle, has perished for want 
 of labourers to use it ; and where no settler has preserved 
 much more capital than he can employ with his own hands. 
 The first settlers in St. Domingo remaining without labour- 
 ers, their only prospect was a solitary, wild, half-savage ex- 
 istence. Nay, they might have died for want. Of the colo- 
 nies planted in modern times, more have perished than have 
 prospered. Those settlers might have died of want, be- 
 cause their own labour, not being combined in any degree, 
 but being cut up into fractions as numerous as the individuals, 
 might not have produced enough to keep them alive. In 
 the colonies of modern times, thousands of people have died 
 from this cause, and some in the last colony founded by Eng- 
 land. Urged by this want of labourers, the first settlers in 
 St. Domingo persuaded the Spanish government to include 
 in each of its grants of land a proportionate grant of natives. 
 The most ancient grants of land in Hispaniola mention the 
 number of natives which each grantee was authorized to 
 treat as cattle. This was the origin of slavery in America. 
 
 The colonists, by means of the supply of labour thus ob- 
 tained, readily acquired wealth ; for they could now employ
 
 204 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 many hands in the same work, at the same time, and for a 
 long period of time, without intermission. Other Spaniards, 
 inflamed by the accounts which reached Spain of the suc- 
 cess of the first colonists, hurried to St. Domingo, and, ob- 
 taining grants of natives as well as land, prospered like those 
 who had gone before them. In the course of a few years, 
 the prosperity of Hispaniola excited, as that of the United 
 States does now, the envy and admiration of Europe. But 
 the colonists, regardless of the fable, killed the goose for its 
 golden eggs : they destroyed the feeble natives by over- 
 working them. The colony had hardly reached a very flour- 
 ishing condition when the source of its prosperity was dried 
 up. In this emergency, it occurred to the dejected settlers 
 that the neighbouring islands were inhabited. To those 
 islands some of them repaired, and seized the natives, whom 
 they sold to the planters of St. Domingo. This was the first 
 slave-trade carried on in America. 
 
 But the discovery of a supply of labour, which seemed 
 inexhaustible, was not calculated to teach the colonists either 
 caution or humanity. As they had overworked and de- 
 stroyed the natives of St. Domingo, so they worked to death 
 the slaves whom they procured from other islands. It has 
 been said that in religious and moral England, there are men 
 who make a practice of buying an old or diseased horse for 
 the value of its skin, and driving it without food till it dies ; 
 the motive assigned for such barbarity being the clear profit 
 obtained by the use of an animal, which costs nothing for 
 keep while in use, and yet sells, when dead, for as much as 
 it cost alive. Somewhat in like manner, the planters of St. 
 Domingo found it more profitable to work slaves to death, 
 and replace them, than to preserve their existence by suiting 
 their work to their strength. This wholesale murder of 
 stolen Indians produced a feeling of indignation in Europe. 
 Las Casas, the Clarkson or "Wilberforce of his time, founded 
 a sect of abolitionists ; a party closely resembling in many 
 points the European and American abolitionists of the pres- 
 ent day. They spared no pains lor the attainment of their 
 object. By exciting the besl feelings of human nature, by 
 spreading throughout Europe detailed accounts of the cruel- 
 toes to which Spanish slaves were subject, by circulating 
 tracts, by an extensive correspondence, by worming their 
 way into courts and councils, by enlisting on their side the 
 tender but powerful influence xa women, by extraordinary 
 watchfulness to Beize every opportunity, and diligence in turn 
 ing it to account, and still more by their unalterable con-
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 205 
 
 stancy of purpose, they at length made an impression on the 
 government of Spain. But although the king of Spain 
 listened to the abolitionists, he was unwilling to ruin the 
 planters: he consented to protect the Indians to the utmost 
 extent, using modern language, that was compatible with the 
 rights of property and the interests of slave owners : in 
 other words, he expressed compassion for the slaves, because 
 this was required by public opinion, but he would do nothing 
 for them. The question was in this state when the aboli- 
 tionists themselves proposed, that the planters might spare 
 the feeble natives of America by procuring hardy negro 
 slaves from Africa. The suggestion was adopted, and found 
 to answer its purpose. Red slavery was abolished, and 
 black slavery established ; and this was the beginning of a 
 slave-trade between Africa and America. 
 
 The first English setders in America obtained from Queen 
 Elizabeth a grant of land to the extent of two hundred 
 miles in every direction from the spot on which they might 
 establish themselves. They found a country which they 
 described as a paradise, and to which the queen, delighted 
 with their account of it, gave the name of Virginia. In- 
 stead, however, of proceeding without delay to cultivate a 
 very small part of the fertile territory at their disposal, they 
 were tempted by its very extent to wander up and down 
 upon it ; until the capital which they had taken with them 
 being consumed, they were reduced to famine, and gladly 
 seized an opportunity of returning to England. In the fol- 
 lowing year another settlement was made under the same 
 grant and on the same spot ; but though on this occasion the 
 settlers had an ample stock of seeds, implements, and cattle, 
 with provisions for two years, every one of them perished ; 
 by what means, indeed, can only be inferred, since the skele- 
 ton of one man was all that remained of this colony when a 
 third body of emigrants from England reached the place of 
 settlement. In two years this third body of emigrants had 
 disappeared like the second. Thus, three attempts to take 
 advantage of abundance of good land, "the sole cause," 
 says Adam Smith, " of the prosperity of new colonies," en- 
 tirely failed; attempts, too, directed by Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 a man eminently qualified to ensure their success. Why 
 those attempts failed may be conjectured from what hap- 
 pened to the first body of English settlers in America that 
 did not perish. 
 
 The first English colony in America that did not perish 
 was planted in Chesapeake Bay, under a grant from King
 
 20G ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSrECTS 
 
 James I., who bestowed good land upon the settlers, not by 
 the acre or the mile, but by degrees of latitu le, and without 
 limit as to longitude. In this case a few hundred persons, 
 amply provided with capital, and led too by men of experi- 
 ence and conduct, obtained more land of very great natural 
 fertility than existed in the densely-peopled country that 
 they had abandoned. In the course of twenty years they 
 were joined by nearly as many thousand emigrants ; yet at 
 the end of that period the population of the colony was less 
 than two thousand souls. This most uncommon decrease of 
 people was occasioned by extreme misery. Of the first 
 settlers, each was able to obtain as much good land as he de- 
 sired to call his own. From this great abundance of good 
 land, nothing being done to counteract it, there arose two evil 
 consequences in particular. In the first place, nearly every 
 one became independent of all the others, working by him- 
 self in solitude, and therefore dividing his labour among so 
 many occupations that he could bestow but little of his time 
 on the production of food, while that small portion of his 
 labour which was so employed produced but little, because 
 scarce any operation of agriculture is very productive unless 
 there be employed in it several pairs of hands in combina- 
 tion and constantly, in the same particular work, at the same 
 time and for a considerable period of time together. Sec- 
 ondly, as nearly every one took possession of a great deal 
 more land than he could possibly cultivate, the greater part 
 of what he possessed became, by becoming his, as a desert 
 which surrounded him. No roads were made, because, as 
 every settler did every thing for himself and by himself, that 
 combination of power which is indispensable to the con- 
 struction of a road was out of the case. Thus each settler 
 was surrounded, not merely by a desert, but by a desert 
 which was next to impassable. Further, much of the capi- 
 tal which had been taken out, such as cattle, seeds, and im- 
 plements, perished cither on the beach or in the forest, be- 
 cause the; owners of it could not preserve that well-regulated 
 labour without which it is impossible that capital should be in- 
 creased or even preserved. As every colonist was isolated, 
 so all wanted both the means and the motive for raising any 
 surplus produce; and any unfavourable accident, conse- 
 quently, Mich as a wet harvest time, or an incursion of the 
 Indians, reduced many to want, cut oil* some by famine, and 
 brought the colon] to the verge of destruction. Therecordi 
 and traditions of Virginia lea\e no doubt, that the first in-
 
 OP SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 207 
 
 habitants of that country suffered, during a long course of 
 years, every conceivable hardship. 
 
 The colony was on the point of being abandoned, when 
 five hundred emigrants, most of them of the labouring class, 
 arrived from England. He who is accustomed only to what 
 takes place in densely-peopled countries, may imagine that 
 this influx of labourers into a society, whose only want was 
 the want of labourers, must have produced the most happy 
 results. But this was not the case : the evil cause existed 
 still, and produced the same evil effect. The great plenty 
 of land led nearly all the newly arrived emigrants to be- 
 come isolated settlers; there were more colonists for a time, 
 but not one was in a better condition, or had a better pros- 
 pect, in consequence of an increase of numbers. At length, 
 the whole body of settlers, dispersed, and prevented from 
 helping each other, were unable to raise enough food for 
 their subsistence. Their bright hopes frustrated, general 
 disappointment produced discontent, selfishness, and a reck- 
 less disregard of all social ties. The founders of Virginia 
 were not more remarkable for their great disasters than for 
 their atrocious crimes. They are described as resembling 
 hungry wild beasts ; and if we must speak of them as hu- 
 man beings, it is not harsh to say, that they appeared to have 
 crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of cutting each other's 
 throats without restraint from any law. 
 
 Such was the deplorable state of this colony when a cir- 
 cumstance occurred, which, though accidental and appa- 
 rently trifling, has proved one of the most important events 
 in the history of America. A Dutch ship laden with slaves 
 made its appearance in James's River. Want of provisions 
 had induced the captain to put in there, and he was there- 
 fore ready to dispose of his living cargo for a trifle. These 
 slaves were bought ; and this was the beginning of slavery 
 in the United States. 
 
 The slaves were set to work, some in raising food, some 
 in cultivating tobacco. For the first time in this colony there 
 was combination of labour and division of employments. 
 Tobacco, although denounced by King James as a vile and 
 nauseous weed, was already prized in Europe ; and the soil 
 and climate of Virginia were peculiarly suited to its growth. 
 Those settlers, therefore, who by obtaining slaves were en- 
 abled to employ many hands constantly in one work, in pre- 
 paring the ground for tobacco plants, in watering the plants, 
 in preventing the growth of weeds, and in gathering, drying, 
 and packing the leaves, now raised a commodity exchange-
 
 208 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 able in the markets of Europe. In this way they obtained 
 various supplies, which they could not have obtained in any 
 other way. In this way also they found the means of pur- 
 chasing more slaves. As the number of slaves increased, the 
 cultivation of tobacco was extended ; some roads were 
 made, and solid houses were built. In the course of a few 
 years the face of the colony was changed, and the tobacco- 
 planters of Virginia became noted for their prosperity. 
 
 The frightful condition, both physical and moral, of the 
 settlers, up to the time when they obtained slaves, was 
 almost a bar to the emigration of women. It is supposed 
 that the proportion of males to females, who emigrated to 
 this colony during the first thirty years of its existence, was 
 above twenty to one. While the colony was in a state of 
 misery and disorganization, none of the settlers could have 
 desired, nor could any of them have easily procured, wives 
 to share their misfortunes. But when they had acquired the 
 means of comfort and order, they naturally longed to be 
 husbands and fathers. As that longing was created by the 
 combined and constant labour of slaves, so was it gratified. 
 The settlers offered to the captains of English ships two 
 hundred and lifty pounds of prime tobacco for each young 
 woman of pure health and good temper, whom the latter 
 should bring from England, harmless, and bearing a certifi- 
 cate of honest manners from the clergyman of her parish. 
 At that time, as at present, England abounded in young 
 women, beautiful, gentle, and virtuous, but without the least 
 prospect of happiness in marriage. The English captains, 
 therefore, easily fulfilled their commissions, and finally con- 
 ducted a very extensive commerce in tobacco and marriage- 
 able girls. From this curious traffic, which, considering the 
 abundance of good land in Virginia, could not have taken 
 place without slavery, sprung a large proportion of those; 
 illustrious Americans, who (hind the first trial of perfect 
 equality in government aiming whites. 
 
 The prosperity of Virginia led to the establishment of 
 more colonics, as well in the islands as on the mainland of 
 America. With the increase of white population in Amer- 
 ica, the number of American slaves inert used, in some mea- 
 sure by breeding, but for the most part by importation from 
 Africa. At length the horrors 01 the African slave-trade 
 raised up ;> new set of abolitionists. The value of slavery 
 to the while men of America would be proved, if by no- 
 thing else, by the great and manifold obstacles which the 
 abolitionists had to surmount before their object was even
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 209 
 
 partially effected. Their purpose was to abolish slavery in 
 America. With greater exertion and difficulty than attended 
 the establishment of some wide-spread religions, they have 
 accomplished no more than the abolition of a trade in slaves 
 between Africa and a part of America. 
 
 Las Casas probably knew how slavery began in America. 
 By his proposal to substitute black Africans for red Indians, he 
 seems to have acknowledged the difficulty, he may even have 
 perceived the impossibility, of combining the labour of free- 
 men, and raising a large net produce in countries where every 
 one may obtain more good land than he can possibly cultivate. 
 But Las Casas had lived in America, and witnessed the opera* 
 tion, first of abundance of good land, and next of slavery. 
 The modern project of abolition was conceived by a youth in 
 an English university ; and, though Clarkson visited the West 
 Indies, it was not till his feelings had been inflamed by contem- 
 plating from a distance the abominations of slavery. At all 
 events, Clarkson and Wilberforce expected that the abolition 
 of the African slave-trade would put an end to slavery in 
 America. Never was there a greater mistake. 
 
 The American and English slave-trade with Africa was not 
 abolished till the English in the West India islands and the 
 Americans on the continent had. procured an ample stock of 
 slaves. Their property, neither in these nor in the progeny of 
 these, was affected by the abolition of the trade with Africa. 
 In order to keep up their stock of slaves, in order to increase 
 that stock indefinitely, it was now required that, instead of re- 
 sorting to Africa for fresh supplies, they should breed slaves at 
 home. But in doing this they found no difficulty. Thus, 
 slavery in America, instead of being extinguished by the abo- 
 lition of the African trade, was placed on a surer foundation 
 than when it depended on that traffic. 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that the abolition of the 
 African trade has produced some mitigation of the evils of 
 slavery in America. While that trade continued, it was often 
 found more profitable to work slaves to death and replace 
 them, than to preserve them by suiting their work to their 
 strength. In order that they should not decrease, still more in 
 order that they should increase, it became necessary to treat 
 them with some consideration, with just so much consideration 
 as a stock farmer bestows upon his cattle. So far the slaves of 
 America owe to the abolitionists a decided improvement in 
 their condition. 
 
 But this improvement has not extended over all British 
 America. An important distinction must here be drawn be- 
 tween the islands and the mainland ; a distinction the more 
 necessarv, because Englishmen generally suppose that there is 
 
 27
 
 210 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 no great difference, if any, between the state of slavery in the 
 United States and the state of slavery in the West Indies. 
 The good land of the islands is of limited extent, while that of 
 the continent has no assignable limits. The same piece of land 
 will not produce sugar for many consecutive years without a 
 great increase of expense ; and nearly all the good land of the 
 islands has been exhausted by the cultivation of sugar. Since 
 that land was exhausted, the growers of sugar on the continent 
 have had a great advantage over the same class of people in 
 the islands. So great has been the advantage, that assuredly, 
 if the produce of the continent had been let into the markets 
 of Europe on equal terms with the produce of the islands, the 
 islanders would some time ago have ceased to produce sugar. 
 In the British islands especially, it is obvious that the cultiva- 
 tion of sugar has been preserved by means of a monopoly of 
 the British market. But as that monopoly was required by the 
 exhaustion of the soil of the West Indies, so it encouraged the 
 further exhaustion of that soil, till the profits of sugar growing 
 in the West Indies were reduced to that amount which, with 
 the monopoly, was just sufficient to prevent sugar-growing 
 from being abandoned. Consequently, since the abolition of 
 the African slave-trade, the planters of the West Indies have 
 not had a strong motive for increasing the number of their 
 slaves. It was not the abolition of the African trade, but the 
 exhaustion of all the good land at their disposal which de- 
 prived t-hem of this motive. Between those two events there 
 is no connexion, except parity of time. If the African slave- 
 trade had not been abolished, if it had continued to render un- 
 necessary the preservation of slaves, still the greater profit of 
 killing and replacing slaves would not have counteracted the 
 loss of profit arising from the necessity of cultivating land 
 which every year decreased in fertility. 
 
 But with a close monopoly of the finest market in the world, 
 the planters of the British West Indies might for ages have 
 continued to grow sugar with some profit, and might have re- 
 tained a motive for keeping up the number of their slaves. If 
 they had preserved ;i close monopoly of the British market, 
 the people of Britain would probably have made up for the 
 continued decrease in the fertility of insular land by contin- 
 ually paying a higher price for insular sugar. Though the 
 produce would have been less and less, the profit might have 
 remained the same, in consequence of the price becoming 
 higher and higher. But " the West India interest," as the 
 island planters are called, though tliey have long enjoyed very 
 great influence in the legislature of Britain, wen; not permitted 
 to flourish in tins way at the expense of the British people. 
 During the last war, the English took from the Dutch their
 
 OP SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 211 
 
 continental settlements in America ; and at the close of the 
 war they determined to keep those colonies, making a com- 
 pensation to the Dutch by agreeing to pay a vast sum to the 
 Emperor of Russia, provided (such is the complication of 
 European politics) the Belgians and the Dutch, who hated 
 each other, and had been united at the peace, should not 
 choose to separate. . The West India interest could easily have 
 prevented this acquisition ; but they were blind to its conse- 
 quences. It broke up their monopoly of the British market. 
 By bringing continental sugar into competition with insular 
 sugar, it prevented the island planters from raising the price of 
 their sugar in proportion to the decrease in the fertility of their 
 land. This acquisition was a mortal blow to the West India 
 interest. Ever since it took place, none of them have made 
 large profits, many of them have been ruined by the cultiva- 
 tion of sugar ; and the total ruin of the whole of them, in so 
 far as their West India property is concerned, seems inevita- 
 ble. These circumstances have had a peculiar effect on in- 
 sular slavery. What with the progressive exhaustion of insu- 
 lar land, and the opening of the British market to sugar pro- 
 duced on land that was not exhausted, the island planters have, 
 for some years past, been without a motive for keeping up the 
 number of their slaves, while they have had the strongest 
 motive for working them to death. The result is well known ; 
 a decrease of population such as if pestilence and famine had 
 done the work. 
 
 Turning to the United States, we 6nd that the abolition of 
 the African slave-trade has led to a striking improvement in the 
 condition of slaves. The increase of white population in 
 America did not increase the proportion of free labourers to 
 capitalists, and did not therefore diminish the value of slaves. 
 On the contrary, as every freeman could readily obtain land of 
 his own, with that increase of whites, of freemen, persons want- 
 ing labourers bore a greater proportion to labourers, and the 
 demand for slaves increased accordingly. As every one, not 
 being a slave, could obtain for a trifle more good land than he 
 could possibly cultivate, all capitalists felt the want of com- 
 bined labour. All those whites, consequently, who settled in 
 the slave states became anxious to procure slaves. The Afri- 
 can trade being abolished, those who wanted slaves could ob- 
 tain them only from those Americans who already possessed 
 them. This great demand for slaves, great in proportion to 
 the increase of whites in the slave states, and to the increased 
 demand in the other states for the produce of combined labour, 
 led to the establishment of a new trade in America ; the trade 
 of breeding slaves for sale. The extent and importance of 
 that trade may be estimated by reference to one or two facts.
 
 212 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 The black population of the slave states has increased much 
 more rapidly than the white population of those states ; and 
 the slave population has increased at a somewhat greater rate 
 than the free population of the whole Union. There are two 
 millions of slaves, and if we reckon the average value of a 
 slave at 60/., the capital invested in slavery is 120,000,000/. 
 Taking the yearly increase of slaves in the United States to be 
 at least 60,000, and the average value of a slave to be 60/., the 
 produce in money obtained by the breeders of slaves, merely 
 for breeding, is 3,600,000/. per annum.* These statements 
 will suffice, without further explanation, to show that the abo- 
 lition of the African slave trade has worked a great improve- 
 ment in the condition of American slaves. 
 
 But the abolition of the African slave-trade would not have 
 had this effect, if the original cause of slavery had not steadily 
 continued to operate. Considering how slavery arose, and in 
 what way it has progressed in America, its original and perma- 
 nent cause seems to be sMyjerabundance of land in proportion 
 to people. Other considerations come to the support of this 
 view of the' 'subject. 
 
 That superabundance of land to which the English econo- 
 mists, from Adam Smith downwards, attribute the prosperity 
 of new colonies, has never led to great prosperity without some 
 kind of slavery. The states of New-England, in which negro 
 slavery was never permitted, form no exception to the general 
 rule. Adam Smith, in his chapter on " the causes of the pros- 
 peritvof new colonies," tries to establish by a pretty long argu- 
 ment that the wonderful prosperity of the Greek colonies was 
 owing to " clearness of labour," to " high wages," which enabled 
 the bulk of the people to save and to increase as rapidly as pos- 
 sible : whereas the unquestionable fact is, that all the work 
 performed in those colonies, whether in agriculture or manu- 
 factures, was performed by slaves. All work in Brazil has been 
 performed by the labour of slaves. In New South \\ ales and 
 Van Diemcn's Land, prosperous colonies, capitalists are sup- 
 plied with slave-labour in the shape of convicts. That they set 
 the greatest value on ihis labour, is proved by (heir extreme 
 fear lest the system of transportation should be discontinued; 
 although the evils which it produces are too many to be 
 counted, and too greal to be believed in England. Finally, 
 
 though the puritans and the followers of Bonn, who founded 
 
 the colonic-, of New-England, flourished with superabundance 
 of land and w ithouf negro Blaves, they did not flourish without 
 slavery. Though tin ir religious sentiments prompted them to 
 
 * 200/ Mid 300/ are common pricea foi ;i well taught and able slave. Aa 
 much aa600 ii aometimea given for a young man ox aupexior skill in some 
 linen of industry. — Set Stuart, vol. 2, page 190.
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 213 
 
 abstain from the purchase of negroes, so severely did they, on 
 that very account, feel the want of constant and combined 
 labour, that they were led to carry on an extensive traffic in 
 white men and children, who, kidnapped in Europe, were vir- 
 tually sold to those fastidious colonists, and treated by them as 
 slaves. But the number of Europeans kidnapped for the pur- 
 pose of sale in those parts of America where negroes could not 
 be sold, though considerable, in proportion to the number of 
 settlers then wanting combined labour, was small when com- 
 pared with the number of Europeans, who, first decoyed to 
 America by the offer of a passage cost free, and the promise of 
 high wages, were then transferred for terms of years to colo- 
 nists who paid for their passage. These, under the name of 
 redemptioncrs, were, for a long period, the principal servants of 
 those colonies in which slavery was forbidden by law. Even 
 so lately as within the last twenty years, and especially during 
 the last war between England and America, which put a stop 
 to Irish emigration, vast numbers of poor Germans were de- 
 coyed to those states which forbid slavery, and there sold for 
 long terms of years to the highest bidder by public auction. 
 Though white and free in name, they were really not free to 
 become independent landowners, and therefore it was possible 
 to employ their labour constantly and in combination. Lastly, 
 even in those colonies which never permitted negro slavery, 
 negroes have always been considered, what indeed there 
 seems reason to conclude that they are by nature, an inferior 
 order of beings. A black man never was, nor is he now, 
 treated as a man by the white men of New-England.* There, 
 where the most complete equality subsists among white men, 
 and every white man is taught to respect himself as well as 
 other white men, black men are treated as if they were horses 
 or dogs. Thus, notwithstanding superabundance of land, black 
 men have always found it difficult to rise above the condition 
 of labourers for hire ; and thus such blacks as either escaped, 
 or were allowed to go free, from the slave states, to settle in 
 the other states, provided servants for the capitalists of those 
 other states. The large proportion of black servants in New- 
 England has always been remarked, and it is remarkable at this 
 moment in Philadelphia, the strong hold of Quakerism. f In 
 
 * " The freedmen of other countries have long since disappeared, having been 
 amalgamated in the general mass. Here there can be.no amalgamation. Our 
 manumitted bondsmen have remained already to the third and fourth generation, 
 a distinct, a degraded, and a wretched race." — President Nott, of Union College, 
 New-York — quoted by Mr. Stuart. 
 
 " Few people of colour in the churches, and such of them as are there, 
 assemble in a corner separate from the rest of the people." — Stuart, vol. i. p. 196. 
 
 t " It is computed that there are in Philadelphia 10,000 free coloured 
 people." — Journal of Travels in the United States of North America and in 
 Lower Canada, performed in the year 1817, by John Palmer. The number of 
 blacks in Philadelphia is very much greater than in 1817. By the Ia*l census
 
 214 ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 this way, the slavery of some states has, not very indirectly, 
 bestowed upon other states much of the good and some of the 
 evil that arise from slavery. 
 
 In another way, the states which forbid slavery have gained 
 by it immensely without any corresponding evil. The states 
 of America must be viewed as one country, in which there is 
 a considerable distribution of employments, and in which ex- 
 changes take place of the different productions raised in dif- 
 ferent parts of the Union. " The division of labour," says 
 Adam Smith, meaning the distribution of employments. u is 
 limited by the extent of the market." The great fishing estab- 
 lishments of the non-slaveholding colonies were set up for the 
 purpose of supplying the slaves of the West Indies, Maryland, 
 Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas, who were employed in 
 raising tobacco, rice, and sugar ; commodities exchangeable in 
 the markets of Europe; commodities which have never been 
 raised on any large scale in America except by the combined 
 labour of slaves. A great part of the commerce of the northern 
 states, of Boston, New- York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, has 
 always consisted of a carrying trade for the southern states ; 
 the one work of raising produce for the markets of Europe and 
 conveying it thither being so divided, that the produce was 
 raised by the southern and conveyed by the northern states ; 
 a division of employments which depended on the labour of 
 slaves, since, if a produce had not been raised fit for distant 
 markets, carriers would not have been required, and since such 
 produce could not* have been raised by labour, uncertain and 
 scattered as free labour always is with superabundance of good 
 
 of the American people it appears, that in 1931, there were in the state of 
 Pennsylvania 37,900 free coloured persons; in the state of New- York 44,869 ; 
 and in Ohio 37,930. 
 
 " The whole establishment (on board the ' North America' steam-boat, New- 
 York) of kitchen servants, waiters, and cooks, all people of colour, on a great 
 scale." — Stuart, vol. i. p. 40. 
 
 " Nothing can be more disgraceful to the people of the United States, nor 
 more inconsistent with' their professed principles of equality, than their treat- 
 ment of free people of colour. Tbey constantly subject them to indignities of 
 every kind, and refuse altogether to eat or drink With them." — Stuart, vol. i. 
 page 501 . 
 
 * "The following II Mr. Timothy Flint's account of a Louisiana plantation. 
 • If we could lay out of the question the intrinsic evils of the ease (he bad been 
 
 alluding t" the stair < . t the slaves), it would be a cheering Bight, thai which is 
 presented by a large Louisiana plantation -the fields are a* level and regular 
 within figures, as gardens, They sometimes contain :i >>r 4060 acres En otu 
 
 field; and I have seen Imina doztn (O tiniiii/ ploughs, all making their Straight 
 furrows through a field, a mile in depth, With B regularity which, it would be 
 
 supposed, could be obtained only by a line.' This description is quite correct. 
 
 The drills of the finest turnip In Ids in Norfolk, or even on Mr. Kemiie's, of 
 
 Pbantassies, beautiful farm in Last Lothian, are not more accurately drawn ; 
 nor u the whale management more admirable than the hues and the cultivation 
 of the cane on one of the great plantations of Louisiana." — Stuart, vol. ii. 
 page 215.
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 215 
 
 land. At the present time, which is the great market for the 
 surplus produce of farmers in the non-slaveholding states on 
 the western rivers ? New-Orleans. And how could that great 
 market have existed without slavery?* Capitalists again, na- 
 tives of the states which forbid slavery, reside during part of 
 every year in the slave states, and reap large profits by dealing 
 in rice, sugar, and cotton, exchangeable commodities, which, 
 it must be repeated, have never been raised to any extent in 
 America except by the labour of slaves. A New-Englander 
 may boast that slavery was never permitted in his state, as a 
 baker may pride himself on being less cruel than his neighbour 
 the butcher; but the dependence of the northern on the 
 southern states for a market for their surplus produce, for a 
 demand for the produce of their industry in a thousand shapes, 
 is as close as the dependence on each other of the baker and 
 the butcher who deal together. In the division of employ- 
 ments which has taken place in America, the far preferable 
 share, truly, has fallen to the northern states ; but that division 
 of employments did not precede, on the contrary it followed, 
 combination of labour in particular works, and the surplus ex- 
 changeable produce obtained by that first improvement in the 
 productive powers of industry. The states, therefore, which 
 forbid slavery, having reaped the economical benefits of slavery, 
 without incurring the chief of its moral evils, seem to be even 
 more indebted to it than the slave states. If those who forbid 
 slavery within their own legal jurisdiction should also resolve 
 to have no intercourse or concern with slave-owners, to do 
 nothing for them, and to exchange nothing with them, we 
 should see an economical revolution in America, that would 
 prove better than a thousand arguments the value of slavery 
 in a country where every free man can obtain plenty of good 
 land for a trifle. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment to those new countries in 
 which the people have had superabundance of good land with- 
 out slavery. Not a single one of these societies has greatly 
 prospered : many have perished entirely, and some remain in 
 
 * " He (Colonel Coleman) had come up the Appalachicola and Chattahooche 
 rivers, and was now on his way to New-Orleans to buy pork and provisions for 
 his slaves. He has only got forty slaves upon his property ; but he tells me 
 that twenty slaves are necessary for every 100 acres of sugar-cane land." 
 — Stuart, vol. ii. page 155. 
 
 *' One of our stopping places for wood, not far above the confluence of the 
 Mississippi and Ohio, was at Mr. Brox's farm on the west side of the river. He 
 has 700 acres of fine land, about 100 head of cattle, and an innumerable quan- 
 tity of pigs. He says he has no difficulty in selling all the produce of his farm ; 
 he disposes of his stock to the New-Orleans butchers, who go all over this coun- 
 try to make their purchases ; and there are merchants who have great depots 
 of grain, salted pork, and other agricultural produce, which they scour the coun- 
 try to collect, and afterward carry to New-Orleans." — Stuart, vol. ii. page 302. ^
 
 *216 0RIGIX, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS 
 
 a deplorable condition. From these last, two striking examples 
 may be selected. 
 
 It would be unfair to dwell here on the misery, in conjunc- 
 tion with superabundance of good land, which belongs to many 
 savage nations; but an allusion to such cases is not misplaced, 
 if made only for the purpose of explaining that the present in- 
 quiry is confined to the operation of superabundance of good 
 land on civilized societies, among whom private properly is 
 established, who possess some knowledge of the productive 
 arts, and who practise to some extent that division of classes 
 and employments which, on the principle of mutual assistance, 
 adds to the productive powers of industry. The most remark- 
 able instance, perhaps, of such a society, having at its disposal 
 an unlimited quantity of good land, is the Spanish colony of 
 Buenos Ayres. The vast plain which lies between the South 
 Atlantic and the mountains of Chili contains hardly any sterile 
 land. Nearly the whole of it consists of the most fertile soil, 
 which, though in a state of nature, exhibits vegetation more 
 luxuriant than could be produced in the greater part of Europe 
 by the most skilful cultivation. This land is naturally fit for 
 cultivation ; since throughout the pampas there are no dense 
 forests like those which once covered Pennsylvania, nor any 
 swamps like those which still remain on the shores of the Gulf 
 of Mexico. On a district extending one hundred and eighty 
 miles from the coast, nature produces the richest crops of 
 nothing but thistles and clover, and on another district, extend- 
 ing four hundred and fifty miles farther to the west, nothing but 
 a profusion of grass without a weed. The climate of the 
 whole plain resembles that of Italy, with this difference in its 
 favour, that it is not rendered unwholesome by malaria. This, 
 then, was the finest situation in the world, in which to take ad- 
 vantage of abundance of good land. The Spaniards, who got 
 possession of these fertile plains, emigrated from one of the 
 civilized European states. Yet, according to the best inform- 
 ation that can be obtained of a society now more than half- 
 barbarous, this colony never prospered, Capital has never 
 obtained high profits, nor labour high wages. On the contrary, 
 the colony seems t<> have languished throughout its career, and 
 though the people have increased, it has been less quickly than 
 people now increase in some <>f the oldest and most densely- 
 
 E copied countries of Europe. During some years, this colony 
 as been an independent state ; but the people, dispersed over 
 
 their vast and fertile plains, have almost ceased I" cultivate the 
 
 good land at their disposal ; they subsist principally, many of 
 
 them entirely, on the flesh of wild cattle ; they have lost most 
 of the arts of civilized life; not a few <»f them are constantly 
 in a state of deplorable misery; and if they should continue, as
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 217 
 
 it seems probable that they will, to retrograde as at present, 
 the beautiful pampas of Buenos Ayres will soon be fit for an- 
 other experiment in colonization. Slaves, black, red, or yel- 
 low, would have cultivated those plains, would have been kept 
 together, would have been made to assist each other; would, 
 by keeping together and assisting each other, have raised a sur- 
 plus produce exchangeable in distant markets ; would have 
 kept their masters together for the sake of markets ; would 
 by combination of labour have promoted division of employ- 
 ments ; would, cattle themselves, have preserved among their 
 masters the arts and habits of civilized life. That slavery 
 might have done all this, seems not more plain than that so 
 much good would have been bought too dear if its price had 
 been slavery. 
 
 The last colony founded by Englishmen has severely felt the 
 want of slavery. On the west coast of New Holland there is 
 abundance of good land, and of land too, cleared and drained 
 by nature. Those who have left England to settle there have 
 carried out, among them, more than enough capital to employ 
 such of them as were of the labouring class. The capital 
 taken out, in seeds, implements, cattle, sheep, and horses, can- 
 not have been less, in money value, than 200,000/. ; and the 
 labourers must have amounted to a thousand at the very lowest. 
 What is become of all that capital and all those labourers? 
 The greater part of the capital has perished ; some few of the 
 labourers have died of hunger ; some, falling into extreme want, 
 have been glad to escape to Van Diemen's Land, where there 
 are slaves ; and the remainder are independent land-owners, 
 isolated, not well supplied with even the necessaries of life, and 
 as wild as Englishmen could become in so short a time. This 
 colony may prosper in the course of years ; but for the present 
 it must be considered, when compared with the expectations 
 of those who founded it, a decided failure. Why this failure 
 with all the elements of success, a fine climate, plenty of good 
 land, plenty of capital, and enough labourers? The explana- 
 tion is easy. In this colony there never has been a class of 
 labourers. Those who went out as labourers no sooner reached 
 the colony than they were tempted by the superabundance of 
 good land to become land-owners. One of the founders of the 
 colony, Mr. Peel, who, it is said, took out a capital of 50,000/. 
 and three hundred persons of the labouring class, men, women, 
 and children, has been represented as left without a servant to 
 make his bed or fetch him water from the river.* The writer 
 of the first book concerning this colony states, that landing in 
 
 * My authority for this statement is a gentleman, lately in England, who 
 went to the Swan River as Mr. Peel's agent. 
 
 28
 
 21S ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND TROSPECTS 
 
 Cockburn Sound with goods taken from England, he did, with 
 some difficulty, procure workmen to place his goods under a 
 tent ; but that there, tor want of workmen to remove them, 
 they remained till they were spoiled, as the tent became rotten. 
 In such a state of things it was impossible to preserve capital. 
 While Mr. Peel was without servants his capital perished ; but 
 as soon as his capital had perished for want of servants, those 
 who hud been his servants insisted on his giving them employ- 
 ment. Having tried a life of complete independence, and felt 
 the pains of hunger, they now wanted to become labourers 
 again. At one time Mr. Peel was to be seen imploring his 
 servants to remain with him, at another escaping from their fury 
 at his not being able to give them work. The same thing hap- 
 pened in many cases. Jn each case, it was owing to the facility 
 with which people, labourers when they reached the colony, 
 became independent land-owners. Some of these independent 
 land-owners died of hunger:* and at a time too when, as it 
 happened, a large supply of food had just reached the colony 
 from Van Diemen's Land. Why were they starved? because 
 where they had settled was not known to the governor, or even 
 to themselves ; for, though they could say " we are here," they 
 could not tell where any one else was: such was the disper- 
 sion of these colonists in consequence of superabundance of 
 good land. Many of them, both capitalists and labourers, 
 capitalists without capital and labourers without work, have 
 removed to Van Diemen's Land ; the cost of passage for the 
 latter being defrayed by settlers in that slave-holding pros- 
 perous island. Some have wandered from the original place 
 of settlement towards King George's Sound, in search, say 
 they, of better land. Others, men of unusual courage and 
 energy, remain on the banks of the Swan River, knowing well 
 that the partial ruin of this colony is not owing to want of good 
 land. These, one of whose chief inducements to settling in 
 this colony was an undertaking from the English government 
 that no convicts should be sent thither, are now begging for a 
 supply of convict labour. They want Blaves. They want 
 labour which shall be constant and liable to combination in 
 particular works, I la\ ing this, they would raise a tiel produce, 
 and have division of emplo) ments. Not having convict labour, 
 they will long for African slaves ; and would obtain them, too, 
 if public opinion in England did not forbid it. Without either 
 convicts or Blaves, they may have hordes of wild cattle, which 
 supply food almost without labour: but they cannot have 
 much more. Considering the superabundance of capital and 
 labourers in England, the disposition of capitalists and labourers 
 
 * My authority is Mr. Peel's agent, Mr. Elmnlry.
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 219 
 
 to emigrate in search of new fields of employment, the great 
 natural advantages of this colony, and the false accounts of its 
 prosperity now and then received in England, we should won- 
 der that emigration to the Swan River had almost ceased, if 
 that very fact did not show that by settling in this colony no 
 well-informed man can expect to better his condition. But the 
 failure of this last experiment in colonization will have one good 
 effect, if it help to teach the English and Americans, that the 
 original and permanent cause of slavery in America is super- 
 abundance of good land.* 
 
 The prospects of slavery in the West Indies and the United 
 States may now be briefly considered ; and, the cause of 
 slavery being ascertained, with some chance of a useful 
 result. 
 
 The slaves of the West Indies have just been turned into 
 apprentices. As if on purpose that they should still be made 
 to work like slaves, the planters' monopoly of the British 
 market is preserved. Or, perhaps, since the negroes would 
 not be worth a farthing apiece without the monopoly, it is pre- 
 served as an excuse for giving compensation to the planters. 
 The monopoly being worth 2,000,000/. a year, the English 
 buy it for 20,000,000/., let the sellers keep it, and will pay 
 2,000,000/. a year as before, by way of bribing the planters to 
 make the apprentices work like slaves. This they call re- 
 formed legislation. It will probably be defeated by the ap- 
 prentices; but, at all events, in however bungling or, maybe, 
 bloody a way, slavery will soon cease throughout the British 
 West Indies. 
 
 If means be not soon found to abolish slavery in the United 
 States, gradually and peacefully, it seems more than probable, 
 that, what with the rapid increase of American slaves, already 
 more than two millions, and the emancipation of eight hundred 
 thousand English slaves in the neighbourhood of the United 
 States, the slaves of the continent will, at no distant day, right 
 themselves in the midst of Jefferson's thunder. " The Ameri- 
 cans," says Mr. Stuart, " conceive that the increasing numbers 
 
 * Miss Martineau, the most entertaining of writers on political economy, in 
 order to show how a society obtains wealth, has described the supposed case of 
 some English people Bettling in a waste country, living together, combining 
 their labour and dividing their employments. It is in this way, and only in 
 this way, no doubt, that wealth is ever obtained ; but any thing like the sup- 
 posed case hardly ever, perhaps never, existed. If Miss Martineau bad planted 
 her settlers in an island of such an extent in proportion to their numbers that 
 they should necessarily have lived together, her story would have been perfect; 
 but she places them in a vast wilderness of good land, in a situation which, if 
 we arc to judge by all experience, is inconsistent with the combination of labour 
 and the division of employments.
 
 220 OnifilN, PROGRESS, AND PKOSPECTS 
 
 of their slaves require more coercive laws nnd greater severity 
 of treatment ; and are proceeding on this principle, every year 
 increasing the hardships of their almost intolerable situation, 
 and adding new fetters to those which are already too heavy 
 for them to wear." But what will the Americans conceive 
 when the fetters worn by eight hundred thousand English 
 slaves shall have been broken by act of parliament, or by those 
 slaves themselves? Greater harshness in proportion to the 
 greater danger will doubtless be their policy. That policy, 
 which Mr. Stuart says, " no one unconnected with America 
 can wish may prove well-founded," is founded on experience. 
 Experience has taught all slave-owners, that education and 
 slavery, kindness and slavery, cannot go on together. As the 
 slaves of the United States shall become more numerous, and 
 as the danger of their learning that thev are men shall become 
 greater, either they must be set free, or greater pains must be 
 taken to maintain their ignorance, torpidity, and submissive- 
 ness ; to hold them, mentally, in the state of brutes. But this 
 policy may defeat its object, leading sooner perhaps than might 
 otherwise have happened to a great servile war. That the 
 slaves, once roused, would easily prove a match for their im- 
 mediate masters, may not be doubtful ; but if the force of the 
 whole Union were brought against them, ten millions of whites 
 
 DO * 
 
 to two millions of blacks, they would, almost certainly, be con- 
 quered, and for a time subdued as before. In either case, 
 there would be plenty of thunder-, in either case, the prospect 
 is as black as possible. 
 
 Will the Americans voluntarily set ^ree their slaves, not 
 having any substitute for the combined and constant labour of 
 slaves I The answer is, that they will not, of their own 
 accord, destroy property which they value at 1^0.000,000^., 
 and which is really worth that sum at market. 
 
 Is there any prospect of such a full in the value of slaves as 
 might render slavery not worth preserving ' Of this there is 
 not, at present, the slightest prospect : because the white popu- 
 lation wanting slaves increases as fast almost in number as the 
 slaves themselves, and faster in capital, for using which slaves 
 are wanted; because superabundance of good land will con- 
 tinue; to make slaves valuable, by enabling every freeman who 
 so pleas* a to become an independent land-owner. 
 
 But, considering that the Americans pay 3,600,000/. a year 
 
 for the increase of slave-labour, that the English pay about the 
 
 sruiK • sum for the maintenance of idle paupers, might not these 
 two Bums, making together ?,'J( )(),()( )()/.. be so employed in con- 
 veying to America the surplus labour of England, that, before 
 very long, free-labour should be substituted lor slave-labour in
 
 OP SLAVERY IN AMERICA, 221 
 
 America ? Supposing the cost of passage from England to 
 America to be 10Z.,* the yearly expenditure of 7,200,000/. in 
 this way would take from England to America 720,000 la- 
 bourers every year ; about twelve times as many as the yearly 
 increase of American slaves. In three years, the number of 
 labourers so taken to America would be 100,000 more than 
 the whole number of American slaves. In three years, then, it 
 might be supposed, this great amount of immigration would ex- 
 tinguish slavery in America by the substitution of free-labour. 
 But who would suppose this, that has observed the effects of 
 superabundance of good land.f The 2,100,000 labourers 
 taken to America might all of them, and would most of them, 
 cease to be labourers for hire soon after landing in the new 
 country ; they would become independent land-owners, com- 
 petitors with American capitalists in the market of labour, and 
 buyers of slaves. So vast an amount of immigration, there- 
 fore, instead of diminishing, would probably augment, the value 
 of American slaves, and render the abolition of slavery in 
 America still more difficult. 
 
 Still, as in America, the whites are ten millions and the blacks 
 but two millions ; and as the whites increase at nearly as great 
 a rate as the blacks ; as the twelve millions will, there can 
 hardly be any doubt, become twenty-four millions in the course 
 of twenty-five years or less, is there no prospect that land will 
 rise in value, so that every freeman shall no longer be able to 
 obtain for a trifle more good land than he can possibly culti- 
 vate ; so that the value of slaves shall fall ; so that the propri- 
 etors of slaves, being most of them proprietors of land, shall 
 be ready to liberate their slaves, gaining on the one hand as 
 much as they might lose on the other, or more 1 Of this there 
 is no prospect ; for three reasons. First, because, however 
 rapidly population may increase, the quantity of land appro- 
 priated by individuals will increase at the same rate ; because, 
 in short, the colonization of new wilderness will go on as fast 
 as population shall increase, so that every freeman will still be 
 able to obtain for a trifle more good land than he can possibly 
 cultivate. Secondly, because the land east of the Alleghany 
 Mountains has been exhausted to a considerable extent, not 
 merely for the growth of sugar, as in the West Indies, but fairly 
 worn out by unskilful cultivation ;J and thus, from this ex- 
 
 * The actual cost of a pauper's passage, with more and better food on the 
 voyage than he obtains in England, is about 71. 
 
 t See extract from Captain Basil Hall's letter to Mr. Wilmot Horton, in a 
 note to Note I. 
 
 % A writer in the Edinburgh Review (Professor M'Culloch, I suspect) attrib- 
 utes the exhaustion and abandonment of land, in the eastern states, to a want of 
 Animal manure, in-consequence of the work of cattle being performed by men. 
 Would not farms in England soon be exhausted if English farmers had no
 
 222 ORIGIN - , PROGRESS, AXD prospects 
 
 hausted district to new land in the w estern districts, emigration, 
 both of whites and slaves, has taken place to a great amount, 
 and is still going on rapidly ; so that in those exhausted dis- 
 tricts, a fall rather than a rise in the value of land may be ex- 
 pected. Thirdly, because where the moral evils of slavery 
 exist, there whites settle for one purpose only, that of gaining 
 by the combined labour of slaves. But the greater part of the 
 whiles of America are content to share from a distance the 
 economical advantages of slavery, without incurring its moral 
 evils by going to live among slaves. The new settler on the 
 Ohio can sell his honey, which may be raised without com- 
 bined labour in that particular work, for tobacco, which may 
 not, without hearing the smack of a slave-driver's whip, or the 
 
 manure but what is furnished by their working cattle ! There are many dis- 
 tricts of Europe, such as the mountainous coasts of Spain and Italy, not to 
 mention great part of China, where agricultural work is almost entirely per- 
 formed by men, and where, notwithstanding, land is kept in the higbest state 
 of fertility by means of animal manure. The exhaustion of land in America is 
 one of the evils, over and above slavery, resulting from superabundance of good 
 land. The single, independent land-owner and cultivator might not be able to 
 live, still less to raise any surplus produce, if he were fixed on the same piece of 
 land. He whose labour is already divided among so many occupations, would 
 act a foolish part in adding to them the occupation of fetching manure, from a 
 great distance perhaps, and the occupation of laying manure on his land, when 
 for a tritle be can obtain of land very rich by nature more than he can possibly 
 cultivate. His labour being an isolated fraction, and being divided again among 
 many employments, he must depend on nature for more than half the work. 
 Keep him isolated, so that none shall help him nor he help any, so that he shall 
 be obliged to do for himself all the many things required by him ; do this, and 
 prevent him from moving from one piece of land to another as the natural fer- 
 tility of each piece is exhausted, and the result must be poverty, like that of the 
 small French cultivator or Irish cottier. " We find all the farmers," says Mr. 
 Stuart, " perfectly aware of the importance of fallow and green crops, but gen- 
 erally of opinion that they dare not attempt that system, on account of the high 
 price of labour in this country in relation to the value of land ; nt siimplus 
 fructum stipcrct, according to the sound advice of Varro. The price" [scarcity 
 at any price] " of labour too, is the urcat obstacle to all sorts of ornamental im- 
 provements, such as the formation of gardens and keeping them up. n — Vol. i. 
 page 254. 
 
 " Let the settler be well advised, and not acquire land which has 0680 
 
 already impoverished by cropping, and winch has become foul and lost the 
 vegetable mould." Stuart, vol i. page 254. 
 
 '■ When vmi talk to them (the fanners) of the necessity of manuring with a 
 view to preserve the Fertility of the soil, they almost uniformly tell you that the 
 expense" [meaning scarcity at whatever expense] "of labour renders it far 
 more expedient for them, as soon as their repeated cropping very much dimin- 
 iahes the quantity of i lie grain, to lay down their land in yrass, or make a pur- 
 ol new land in the neighbourhood, or even to sell their cleared land and 
 / in qui St t'l 'i iii W S( It" /in ill, than to adopt a system of rotation of crops 
 
 i rj i'\ manure. There is urcat inconvenience, according to the notions of 
 
 the British, in removing from i farm to another; hut they make very light 
 
 id consider it to In' merely a question of finance, whether they 
 ihall remain mi then improved land, after having considerably exhaust I iii 
 acquirt and remove to Uu » *ot/."— iS/uar/, vol. i. p. 
 
 " If bi ad near his first farm after he hat worn it Ott/."-— Stuart, vol. ii. 
 
 page 359.
 
 OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 223 
 
 responding cry of slaves. If the white population of America 
 were to be doubled every five years, instead of five-and -twenty 
 years, the population of the slave states, where slave-owners 
 own land, would not become sufficiently dense to raise the 
 value of land, and lower the value of slaves. 
 
 Superabundance of good land ! If we have ascertained the 
 cause of slavery in America, a little declamation on the subject 
 may be allowed. The white Americans, speaking generally, 
 would rejoice to get rid of slavery. They are men with the 
 feelings of men ; they can feel compassion and fear ; they do 
 pity their miserable slaves, and they hear the not far distant 
 thunder, which threatens to steep half the Union in blood, and 
 to ruin the other half. A successful rebellion of the slaves 
 would more or less affect every white man in America, by 
 causing a total revolution in all the markets for the produce of 
 every kind of industry ; and this the Americans jn general 
 know full well. Knowing this, they must also know what is 
 the cause of slavery. Have they ever inquired whether it is 
 possible to remove that most evil cause ? They cannot alter 
 the proportion between people and land in America ; but the 
 proportion between people and land with a good title to it, is 
 within their control. It is not often in America that any one 
 uses land without a title ; and this might easily be prevented 
 altogether. The title to new land is given by the government. 
 The government, therefore, or the people acting upon their 
 government, are able to regulate the proportion between num- 
 bers and acres of appropriated land. In the colonies of old 
 that proportion depended on a thousand caprices, on the whims 
 of an English king, of his colonial minister, of the minister's 
 clerks or parasites, on the colonial governors, their clerks and 
 parasites ; all of whom bestowed grants of land pretty much; 
 as it pleased them ; but in the United States, which have 
 adopted a system nearly uniform in the disposal of new land, 
 the proportion between numbers and acres depends on the 
 price per acre which Congress thinks fit to require for all new* 
 land. The actual price is about five shillings per acre ; and the 
 sale of new land at this price yields near 700,000/. a year. 
 That amount of revenue is employed for the general purposes 
 of government. If it were employed in conducting pauper 
 emigration from Europe, it would convey every year to the 
 United States 80,000 persons of the labouring class ; more 
 than the yearly increase of slaves. If the price for new land 
 were raised, so as to prevent, those labourers from becoming 
 independent land-owners until others had followed to take their 
 place ; if the fund obtained by the sale of new land should 
 thus become greater every year, and should always be em- 
 ployed in fetching labour from Europe ; if by this increase in
 
 2*24 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN' TARIFF. 
 
 the price of new land, and this immigration of labour, the peo- 
 ple were less dispersed than they are, should help each other 
 more, should produce more with the same labour, should have 
 a higher rate of profit and a higher rate of wages; if, finally, a 
 greater proportion of people to land in the states already set- 
 tled, should raise the value of land by means of all kinds of 
 competition, over and above competition for superior natural 
 fertility, then might free labour take the place of slave labour, 
 then might the owners of slaves and of land set free their slaves 
 without loss, then miiiht slavery be abolished without injury to 
 anyone, with the greatest benefit to all. By means of some 
 plan of this kind, and by no other means, does it seem possible 
 that slavery in America should be peacefully and happily abol- 
 ished. Those Americans who would not prefer Jefferson's 
 thunder, may, I trust, think it worth their while to examine this 
 subject further in a subsequent note on the Art of Colonizatiosi. 
 
 NOTE XI. 
 
 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 
 
 Opinions of Englishmen respecting the tariff — Moral advantages of the tariff — 
 Economical advantages of the tariff — Difference of feeling between the 
 Southern and Northern States respecting the tariff — The tariff good, upon 
 the whole, for the people of America, and therefore a work becoming demo- 
 cratic government — When the tarill" may be repealed with great advantage 
 to America. 
 
 The following passage from an article in the Times news- 
 paper on the late dispute between Scuth Carolina and the 
 United States, describes fully the opinions which are prevalent 
 in England on the subject of the American tariff. " All politi- 
 cal writers in this country have visited with censure the pres- 
 ent policy of the American general governm nt in attempting 
 by high protecting duties t<> force the establishment, or to en- 
 courage the extension <>f manufactures in the United States. 
 With the high pine of labour that exists in the United States, 
 with their scanty supply of moneyed capital, with their unlimited 
 range of uncultivated or half-improved soil, it. was almost a 
 < against society to divert human industry from the fields; 
 and tl <• forests to iron forges and cotton factories. Nature 1 had 
 
 f pointed out the course which they oughl to pursue for perhaps 
 ialf a century to come, till the plough and the spade had fol- 
 lowed tin: axe of the woodcutter into their 'primeval wilder- 
 uesses of shade," and till happy plantations had been formed on
 
 APOLOGY roil THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 225 
 
 the deserted domains of the Indian huntsman, from the Atlan- 
 tic to the Ohio, and from the Mississippi to the Pacific. She 
 had directed them to cling to the bosom of mother earth as to 
 the most fertile source of wealth and the most abundant reward 
 of labour. She had told them to remain planters, farmers, and 
 wood-cutters — to extend society and cultivation to new regions 
 — to practise and improve the arts of the builder, the carpen- 
 ter, and the naval architect ; to facilitate every means of inter- 
 nal communication — to promote every branch of internal trade 
 — to encourage every variety of landed produce — but not to 
 waste the energies of their labour, or 1o interrupt the course of 
 their prosperity, by forcing at home the manufacture of arti- 
 cles which foreigners could supply at half the price for which 
 they could be made in America." 
 
 Englishmen who lean to democratic opinions are, most of 
 them, if well-informed, advocates of free trade. To these the 
 American tariff is a very sore subject. If let alone they would 
 say nothing about it ; and as it is they do not say much. But 
 they are not let alone. The conservatives place them in this 
 dilemma — If, say those friends of the old commercial system, 
 as of every thing old ; if democratic government be good for 
 a people, conducive to the benefit of all, and so forth, then pro- 
 tection of domestic industry is for the public good, since the 
 American tariff was established by a democracy ; not pre- 
 served, mind, but begun and brought to perfection, deliberately, 
 carefully, and in spite of arguments to the contrary : if, on the 
 other hand, the exclusion of foreign goods be hurtful to a peo- 
 ple, what becomes of your government by all for the benefit of 
 all ? In this case, you cannot defend both free trade and de- 
 mocracy ; which do you give up? 
 
 The question is galling to an English liberal, puzzles, and 
 therefore irritates him. Hang the Americans with their tariff, 
 one hears such a one complain, their stupidity is unaccounta- 
 ble. Another, admitting the stupidity, lays the blame on those 
 governments of Europe which have set the Americans a bad 
 example ; as if precedent were an excuse for indulging mean 
 and malignant passions. These terms are applicable to the 
 grasping, selfish, and jealous spirit which dictated the commer- 
 cial system of Europe ; but they are quite inapplicable to those 
 who established the American tariff; as I will now endeavour 
 to prove, by showing that a prohibitory system is, upon the 
 whole, useful to the people of America, and therefore a work 
 becoming democratic government. 
 
 One motive with some supporters of the English corn-laws 
 is a fear lest the free importation of cheap corn should cause a 
 great increase of town population ; artisans, living together, 
 talkers, readers of newspapers, intelligent, given to politics, un- 
 
 29
 
 226 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN* TARIFF. 
 
 manageable, radical ; " fierce democrats." If, say they, you 
 sacrifice the agricultural to the manufacturing and commer- 
 cial interests, the glory of England will pass away ; mean- 
 ing, if you repeal the corn-laws, the number of our stupid coun- 
 try paupers will perhaps be less, while the number of knowing 
 people, living in towns, independent of us, will surely be 
 greater. No doubt but the free importation of cheap manu- 
 factured goods would have a contrary, a precisely opposite 
 effect in America ; that is, would cause a decrease of town 
 population and an increase of rural population. If English 
 manufactured goods were let into the United States duty free, 
 that portion of the capital and labour of America which is now 
 employed in making goods of that kind, would be devoted to 
 agriculture. Upon this point there can be no dispute. Let us 
 further admit, that the Americans might obtain better and 
 cheaper manufactured goods by raising corn for the English 
 market than by making such goods themselves ; just as the 
 English might obtain better and cheaper corn with steam en- 
 gines than with ploughs. If so, the Americans lose by the 
 tariff, speaking economically ; but now turn to the political side 
 of the account. 
 
 Is it desirable that a very large proportion of the people 
 should consist of husbandmen, such as the English term clod- 
 hoppers ; carth-scratchcrs* they ought to be called in America? 
 Yes, without doubt, provided this be the only way in which 
 every member of the society may obtain plenty ; but in Amer- 
 ica, profits and wages both are so high, that if an economical 
 sacrifice for a political gain be made, it is not felt. Not being 
 felt it is not a sacrifice ; while the gain is palpable. Supposing 
 that American industry is less productive than it might be, still 
 it produces enough ; and in order to make it produce more 
 than enough, a great political advantage must be sacrificed ; the 
 advantage of so much town population as would have con- 
 sisted of mere husbandmen if the tariff had not excluded for- 
 eign manufactured goods.*)' In America, whatever tends to 
 keep |» ople together is of inestimable advantage. Camp- 
 meetings are very useful, as they bring people together, though 
 
 * "An English farmer," Bays Washington, writing to Arthur Young, 
 " ought to bave a horrid idea <>t the state •>! our agriculture, or of the nature of 
 our soil, when be ia informed that one acre with us only produces eight or tea 
 bushels. Hut ii must be kepi in mind, thai where land is t -1 1 • -:i [ ► Bnd labour 
 are fonder of cultivating much than cultivating well. 
 Much ground has been scratched, and none cultivated as it ought to be." 
 
 man told me that the firs) child bora ;ii Rochester (New- York 
 i the settlement "i theplace, eighteen >, was lii^ son. The 
 
 pi. nlj contained 1,000 inhabitants, and now (1828), about 18,000. There 
 
 itton works, pc i r-l is, woollen factories, blhvbh ploUb kills, as 
 
 oa seven i mm iu.s." — Stuart, vol. i , pnge 81.
 
 APOLOGY FOIt THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 2'27 
 
 but now and then. The tariff, by inducing so many people to 
 become manufacturers, has prevented so many people from 
 becoming backwoodsmen; has created and maintains so many 
 towns, with roads between them ; has bestowed upon all the 
 people in and near those towns the great advantage of social 
 intercourse ; has checked emigration from old settlements to 
 the western wilderness, fixing so much population as would 
 otherwise have rolled on towards the Pacific. The tariff, there- 
 fore, counteracts in some degree the barbarising tendency of 
 dispersion ; and for that most useful quality is well worth some 
 economical sacrifice, if there be any. 
 
 I say, if there be any ; for the economical sacrifice is not so 
 plain. Supposing that if there were no tarilT, the manufactu- 
 rers of America would employ their capital and labour in agri- 
 culture, skilfully, like the English, with sufficient combination 
 to obtain the greatest produce with the least number of hands ; 
 in that case* capital and labour being applied with the utmost 
 skill to the very fertile soil of America, corn of all kinds would 
 be raised so as to be sold for a lower price than the lowest price 
 for which corn was ever sold ; and in this way the Americans 
 would obtain from the English (the English tariff being re- 
 pealed), the cheapest manufactured goods. Under that sup- 
 position the economical loss resulting from the tariff might be 
 reckoned very great. But capital and labour would not be so 
 applied to the soil of America. Judging, at least, from all ex- 
 perience, the capital and labour which were diverted from 
 manufactures to agriculture would, because it was agriculture, 
 because land teas in the case, be divided into small separate 
 parts, and employed in the least skilful manner, trusting for little 
 to skill, to nature for much,* and obtaining, even with that most 
 generous nature, but a small produce in proportion to the num- 
 
 * " All the unburnt new lands in the northern, middle, southern, and west- 
 ern states have been, and still are, uniformly valued beyond their real worth. 
 When the tract on the Green Mountains of Massachusetts was first settled, the 
 same luxuriant fertility was attributed to it which has since characterized Ken- 
 tucky. About the same time it was ascribed to the valley of Housatonnuc in 
 the county of Berkshire. From these tracts it was transferred to the lands in 
 New-Hampshire and Vermont, on the western side of the Green Mountains. 
 From these regions the paradise lias travelled to the western part of the State of 
 New-York, to New-Connecticut, to Upper Canada, to the countries on the Ohio, 
 to the south-western territory, and is now making its progress over the Missis- 
 sippi into the newly purchased regions of Louisiana. The accounts given of 
 all these countries successively was extensively true ; but the conclusions which 
 icerc deducted from, them were in a great measure erroneous. So long as this 
 ■mould remains, the 'produce will regularly be \ hat with very imperfect 
 
 cultivation ; but this mould, after a length of time, will he dissipated ; where lands 
 are continually ploughed it is soon lost ; on those which are covered with grass 
 from the beginning, it is preserved through a considerable period. At length, 
 however, every appearance of its efficacy, and even of its existence, vanishes." 
 — Dr. Dwight — quoted by Stuart, vol. i., page 264.
 
 228 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 
 
 ber of hands employed ; just as in America, capital and labour 
 (slaves excepted) are now employed in agriculture. In this 
 case, many who do now obtain plenty of manufactured goods, 
 though dear, might not be able to obtain any at whatever price. 
 The tariff, besides, is an act of combination ; an agreement 
 among the people for distribution of employments. Those 
 farmers for whom the tariff, by creating towns, has created 
 markets* near to their own farms, would, by a repeal of the 
 tariff', lose those markets, and must convey their net produce to 
 more distant markets, if such there were, and if the cost of 
 such longer conveyance did not deter them from raising food 
 for market. Either then their industry would be less product- 
 ive, the cost of its produce at market being greater ; or they 
 would be less industrious, like hundreds of thousands of settlers 
 far away from a market for net produce, who loiter away one 
 half of their time, and waste a good deal of the other half by 
 dividing their labour among several employments. Division of 
 employments, says Adam Smith, meaning the reverse of di- 
 vision of labour, is limited by the extent of the market ; he 
 might have added, and so is industry itself, f Each manufac- 
 turer then, and each of those farmers who now live near to a 
 town, becoming isolated cultivators, without a motive for rais- 
 ing more than should supply their own wants, would soon be 
 contented with a rude house, coarse food, and rough clothes as 
 necessaries, with tobacco, rum, a rifle, and ammunition as lux- 
 uries. This does nearly always happen to those, who impelled 
 by a spirit of adventure settle far away from any market. In 
 this way the American demand for manufactured goods would 
 be less, the wants of so many people would decrease, and the 
 sum total of things useful or agreeable to man enjoyed in Amer- 
 ica would be less ; a loss, economically speaking, or I have yet 
 
 * "lie (a farmer near Springfield in Illinois) has advantages, too, in 
 point of situation, being nearer to the Galena lead vines, to which be las) year 
 sold 8,000 wooden posts at three dollars per hundred. He had been in Scot- 
 land; but there v I in that countrj to be compared (he said), to that of 
 hie farm. Finding him so much disposed to |>r;iis<>, I asked him how be w as off 
 jwer was marked ; 'you have hit the nail on the head — it 
 is dili'. iii- here, aad more difficult to get good ones. 1 " — Stuart, 
 vol. ii . 
 f««The power "i exchanging is the vivifying principle of industry. It 
 dates agriculturists to adopt tht best systi atum, and to raise the 
 ii enables them to exchange whatever .portion of the 
 produce ol their lands exceeds their own consumption! for other commodities 
 conducive to their comforts or enjoyments ; and it equally stimulates manufac- 
 to improve the quantity and variety of their goods, that they may therebj 
 bled i" ol tain a greater quantity of r;m produce. A spirit of industry 
 ix thus universally diffused ; ana thai apathy and languor, which arc character- 
 irtic of b rude state ol society, entirely disappear. - Professor AFCulloch's 
 n of Smith 1 Nations. Ifott 19, vol. n , page Vt 1.
 
 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 229 
 
 to learn the alphabet of political economy. The loss, morally 
 or politically speaking, need not be mentioned again. 
 
 But, an English economist may ask, why should not the 
 Americans combine with the English for a division of employ- 
 ments, between the two nations, which would be equally useful 
 to both parties ? Because, I answer, general combination of 
 power, which leads to general division of employments, is use- 
 less, or rather impossible, without combination of capital and 
 labour, and division of employments in particular works. Ex- 
 change to any great extent cannot take place unless two parties 
 raise a surplus produce, unless the produce of both parties be 
 great in proportion to the hands employed ; and in America 
 particular combination of power, with particular division of 
 employments, will not take place so long as any quantity of 
 good land may be obtained by anybody for the low price of 
 five shillings per acre. Evils resulting from the very low price 
 of waste land meet one at every turn in America. 
 
 With slaves, however, this particular combination of capital 
 and labour is possible in America. The whites of the southern 
 states are able to raise cheap commodities ; much, that is, in 
 proportion to the hands employed ; commodities which being 
 cheap would be exchangeable in the English market. To the 
 whites of the southern states, therefore, the tariff is injurious, 
 limiting their foreign market for the sale of corn, rice, tobacco, 
 cotton, and sugar. This accounts for their dislike of the tariff. 
 But the northern states, wanting slaves, want besides those 
 southern markets which slavery and the tariff combined pro- 
 vide for the various products of their industry, other markets, 
 nearer to their own particular works ; a demand for the pro- 
 duce of much divided capital and labour, for dear commodities 
 which wouid not bear the cost of conveyance to very distant 
 markets ;* and this want of domestic markets is to some extent 
 
 * " Potatoes, turnips, ruta-baga, peas, lucern, &c, are all to be seen here 
 (New-York state), in small quantities, but not so well managed as in well cul- 
 tivated districts of Britain. The high price [scarcity] of labour is the great 
 obstacle to the management which those crops require. It is not because the 
 farmer does not understand, his business that such crops are apparently not suffi- 
 ciently attended to, but because he, in all cases, calculates whether it will not 
 be more profitable fur him to remove his establishment to a new and hitherto 
 unimpoverished soil, than to commence and carry on an extensive system of 
 cultivation by manuring, and fallow, or green crops. Such a system may be 
 adopted in the neighbourhood of great totems, where many green crops are easily 
 disposed of, and where manure can be had in large quantities and at a cheap 
 rate ; but it is in vain to look for its adoption generally, or to expect to see 
 agricultural operations in their best style until the land even in the most distant 
 states and territories be occupied, so that the farmer may no longer find it more 
 for his interest to begin his operations anew, on land previously uncultivated, 
 than to ma i n according to the method ichich will render it mosi pro- 
 
 ductive." * * •■ From what I have been told, I suspect it will be found 
 
 that, after the effect of the vegetable matter on the surface of the land cleared,
 
 230 APOLOGY FOR THE AMERICAN TARIFF. 
 
 supplied by the tariff. The affection of the northern states for 
 the tariff is thus fully explained. As in the southern states 
 slavery, so in the northern states the tariff, is an expedient, a 
 shift, for correcting the mischievous influence of dispersion. 
 
 Well then, it may be said, if the two divisions of the union 
 have such different interests, in consequence of the difference 
 between their respective shifts for correcting the mischievous 
 influence of dispersion, why should they not have separate 
 governments, a northern and a southern union ; one with, and 
 the other without a tariff? For several reasons. First, be- 
 cause the expedient of the south is useful to the north, pro- 
 viding extensive, though distant markets for the products of 
 northern industry, — for the manufactures, ships, steamboats, 
 cattle, and very many things besides, which are produced in the 
 states that forbid slavery, which would not be produced if 
 there were no demand for them, and for which there would be 
 less demand if the southern states, having free trade, should 
 buy what they required in the cheapest market they could any- 
 where find.* Secondly, because the special expedient of the 
 south could not be maintained without assistance from the 
 north ; the force of the whole union being required to preserve 
 slavery, to keep down the slaves. If the southern states, urged 
 by hatred of the tariff, should declare themselves independent, 
 they would presently lose that power of raising exchangeable 
 commodities which is the groundwork of their dislike to the 
 tariff. Losing their slaves, they too, like the northern states, 
 would want a tariff to counteract dispersion, to preserve some 
 combination of capital and labour, and some division of em- 
 ployments ; or, at the least, to create domestic markets ; a de- 
 mand for the produce of scattered capital and labour. Give 
 and take, live and let live, is a maxim everywhere understood. 
 In order to preserve their own special expedient, slavery, the 
 southern states must put up with the special expedient of the 
 northern states, which is the tariff. Upon the whole, therefore, 
 the tariff appears useful to the people of America ; and, as the 
 people of America govern themselves for their own good, it 
 will not probably be repealed, though it may be altered in 
 various ways, until the price of land shall rise considerably 
 through the increase of people a century hence, or earlier by 
 
 is at an end, tin' average crops of all sorts of grain are, according to the pre- 
 vailing system of management in this state, a half, or nearly a half, less than on 
 oil i ■■ l', ,/,,■ i i.' 1 Sin ■" /, \ • ill i, page 1 62. 
 • Mr. stuart, speaking ol s district in the state of Illinois, says, " There is 
 never an] want of a market. Every thing is bought by /the merchants for New* 
 Orleans or for Galena, where a vast dumber of workmen are congregated, who 
 are employed in the lead mines <'n the north-western parts of tins state." 
 New-Orlearj at market, because of slavery ; Galena, because of the 
 
 tariff
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 231 
 
 the will of the people, who can put what price they please 
 upon grants in the desert. If the price of new land were 
 such that free labour should always be obtainable for combina- 
 tion in farming, then, with a greater produce from capital and 
 labour, with higher profits and higher wages, the Americans 
 would raise cheaper corn than has ever been raised ; and, no 
 longer wanting a tariff, might drive with the manufacturers of 
 England the greatest trade ever known in the world. 
 
 NOTE XII. 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Introduction — Nature and limits of the subject — The ends of colonization as 
 respects the mother-country — The extension of markets — Relief from ex- 
 cessive numbers — Enlargement of the field for employing capital — Ends of 
 colonization as respects the colony — The means of colonization — The dis- 
 posal of waste land — The removal of people — Co-operation of the mother- 
 country — The foundation of colonies — The government of colonies. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Considering that the world has been peopled by the re- 
 moval of people from old societies to settle in new places, and 
 that the large portion of the earth which is still a desert will 
 probably become inhabited by the same means, but certainly 
 by no other means ; seeing, therefore, that the art of coloniza- 
 tion is one of vast importance to mankind, it does appear 
 strange that this subject should not have been thoroughly ex- 
 amined by any writer on political economy. Under the head 
 of Colonies we have, indeed, many treatises ; but not one, as 
 far as I know, in which the ends and means of colonization 
 have been fully described, or even noticed, with so much as a 
 show of method and accuracy. Of those treatises, some are 
 confined to a mere history of the Greek colonies ; while in 
 others, which profess to embrace the whole subject of colonial 
 policy, not only is the subject examined superficially and care- 
 lessly, but whenever the writer appears to be in earnest, he 
 either dwells on points which are foreign to the matter in hand, 
 or mixes the plainest misstatements of facts with the o-rossest 
 errors of reasoning. Two examples will suffice to prove this 
 assertion. 
 
 Professor M'Culloch, in a note appended to Adam Smith's 
 chapter on the " Foundation of Colonies," after yiving a list of 
 works on colonial policy, says, " The article Colony, in the
 
 232 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britunnica, written by Mr. 
 Mill, is one of the ablest of the recent disquisitions on the sub- 
 ject." A most able disquisition it is truly, on several subjects, 
 but not on colonization. It contains the shortest and clearest 
 explanation ever given of the symptoms of poverty in old 
 countries ; some very good reasons why transportation is a 
 very bad mode of punishing criminals, and some very conclu- 
 sive arguments against commercial restrictions and bounties; 
 but of colonization, its objects and means, Mr. Mill says next 
 to nothing. He says, indeed, that "colonization, with a view 
 to the relief of the mother-country by a diminution of num- 
 bers, deserves profound regard ;" and then proceeds to recom- 
 mend, as " the best means of checking the progress of popula- 
 tion," that " the superstitions of the nursery should be dis- 
 carded," in order to the adoption of a physical check to the 
 procreation of children. Returning to colonization with a view 
 to relief from excessive numbers, he disposes of the whole sub- 
 ject in a few lines ; saying, that on two conditions, but not 
 otherwise, " a body of people may be advantageously removed 
 from one country for the purpose of colonizing another;" 
 when, first, " the land which they are about to occupy should 
 be capable of yielding a greater return to their labour than the 
 land which they leave;" and secondly, "when the expense of 
 removal from the mother country to the colony, which is 
 usually created by distance, should not be too great." This is 
 all. The " Conclusion'" of Mr. Mill's essay, accounts for his 
 having been content with uttering a pair of mere truisms on a 
 subject which, he says, deserves profound regard. Here he 
 asserts the " tendency of colonial possessions to produce or 
 prolong bad government," and emphatically condemns coloniza- 
 tion as a fruitful source of jobs, monopolies, and wars. Be it 
 so ; but is this the only matter of bad government ? would 
 there have been no wars, monopolies, or jobs, without colonies? 
 is every thing bad, including the wealth of nations, which has 
 formed the matter of jobs, monopolies, and wars? are we to 
 regret the existence of the United States because they were 
 not founded without some great evils? has not colonization 
 been a source of much good, as well as of some harm to man- 
 kind I may not the evils be avoided in future, more good than 
 ever being obtained ' i> there not in the founding of new slates, 
 ;i> in the government of old ones, a way of proceeding better 
 than all the others f ll Mr. Mill had asked himself these ques- 
 tions before he wrote on colonies, his essay would probably 
 have deserved Mr. M'Culloch's adniir.it ion. In that case he 
 
 would have told us something, at least, about the United Slates, 
 which still receive from other countries, and pour forth to re- 
 claim the wilderness, great streams of population; about the
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 233 
 
 ihfluence of this gradual increase of land in proportion to the 
 increase of people, in rendering a people fit to enjoy self-gov- 
 ernment or democratic institutions ; about the increased enjoy- 
 ments of Europe, arising from the discovery of new produc- 
 tions in her colonies; about the stimulus given to European 
 industry and skill by the formation of new markets ; about the 
 reasons why, since the time of the ancient Greeks, at least, 
 colonization has not been made useful for relieving an old 
 
 \ o 
 
 country from excessive numbers ; and perhaps, about the best 
 means of reclaiming desert countries with that all-important 
 object. As it is, his essay may be called a treatise, and a very 
 able one, on population, punishment, monopolies, and patron- 
 age, with a few careless remarks on colonization. 
 
 Adam Smith has written at great length on Colonies, but not 
 with much more care than Mr. Mill ; as the reader will per- 
 ceive who shall take the trouble to examine the following state- 
 ment of "the Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies."* 
 
 " The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession 
 either of a waste country, or of one so thinly inhabited that 
 the natives easily give place to the new settlers, advances more 
 rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society." 
 
 This assertion does not rest on facts. Some few new colo- 
 nies have advanced very rapidly in population ; but scarce any 
 have advanced rapidly to wealth and greatness ; while, as I 
 have had occasion to observe before, the greater number of 
 colonies have perished, or at least have remained for a long 
 while less prosperous and civilized than their mother-countries. 
 Among bodies of people who take possession of a waste coun- 
 try, the general rule seems to be, very slow progress towards 
 wealth and greatness, with an exception now and then. The 
 exceptions are not very striking. The only exceptions that 
 strike one at all are the United States, Upper Canada (for 
 Lower Canada was never a prosperous colony), and the penal 
 settlements of the English in Australia. An increase of popu- 
 lation, taken by itself, proves nothing ; since in Ireland, one of 
 the most miserable countries in Europe, people have increased 
 of late years almost as fast as in the United States. The pro- 
 gress of the United States in wealth, since they became inde- 
 pendent, has not been nearly so great as that of England during 
 the same period. No one pretends that the settlers of Upper 
 Canada are a wealthy people ; and their prosperity, such as it is, 
 seems to be owing mainly to an amount of immigration, both of 
 capital and people, from a rich old country, far greater than 
 ever occurred before in the history of colonization. As for the 
 
 * See Professor M'Culloch's Edition of the Wealth of Nations, vol. ii rt pane 
 460.
 
 234 THE ART OF COLOXIZATION. 
 
 penal settlements of the English in Australia, they are societies 
 altogether unnatural ; having been founded, and being main- 
 tained by the government of England with the produce of taxes 
 paid by the people of England. Some persons, not convicts, 
 are established there. These the English government supplies 
 with slaves free of prime cost. The convict labourers, being 
 forced to work in combination, raise more produce than they 
 consume. But of what use would be surplus produce without 
 a market in which to dispose of it ? Such a market the Eng- 
 lish government provides for the farmers of New' South Wales, 
 by maintaining a civil and military establishment, which costs 
 300,000/. a year. The local government buys the surplus pro- 
 duce of the settlers, either with bills drawn on the English 
 treasury, or with specie sent from the English mint. With 
 these bills and this money the settlers obtain various articles of 
 comfort and luxury ; manufactured goods from England, wine 
 from Spain and France, sugar from the Isle of France, tobacco 
 from Brazil, spices from the Indian archipelago, and tea from 
 China. The government first supplies the settlers with labour, 
 and then buys, with exchangeable commodities, the surplus 
 produce of that labour. In this way a great trade has been 
 maintained ;* great, that is, in proportion to the people who 
 were there to conduct it. That trade could not but be very 
 profitable so long as the demand of the government exceeded 
 the supply of the colony ; and this excess of demand over sup- 
 ply continued until lately. The high profits of that trade, and 
 the high wages also, which every free labourer who chose to 
 take part in it could obtain, have induced the colonists to keep 
 together ; while the management of that trade called for a di- 
 vision of employments, such as I believe never occurred before 
 in any colony so lately established. The unnatural causes of 
 the prosperity of this colony show, in a striking manner, that 
 new colonies in generalare not apt to be prosperous. The 
 only new colonies that have been remarkably prosperous arc 
 those of the ancient Greeks. Here follows Adam Smith's 
 statement of the cause of their prosperity. 
 
 "The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of agricul- 
 ture and other useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its 
 
 • When tli«' English colonial minister boasts in parliament of the revenue 
 raided by duties "I customs in New-Sooth Wales, be seems to forget that the 
 trade on which those duties .'ire levied is nothing l>m a certain mode of expen- 
 diture by the English government. He might es well boast <>f having got a 
 nsvi nue by taxes on the stone and wood used in building the palace ;tt rimlico. 
 A portion "I the money which the English paj for keeping convicts at New- 
 South Wales, i- mad< to pass, and not by a ver) indirect process, through the 
 bands of the custom-house officers at Sydney : whereupon the English colo- 
 nial minister, who has :ill the patronage attendant on that distant and moat 
 costly jail, nxclitims, — Here's a flourishing colony for you !
 
 TIIE ART OF COLONIZATION. 235 
 
 own accord in the course of many centuries among savage and 
 barbarous nations. They carry out with them too the habit of 
 subordination, some notion of the regular government which 
 takes place in their own country, of the system of laws which 
 support it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they 
 naturally establish something of the same kind in the new set- 
 tlement. But among savage and barbarous nations, the natural 
 progress of law and government is still slower than the natural 
 progress of arts after law and government have been so far 
 established as is necessary for their protection. Every colonist 
 gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, 
 and scarce any taxes to pay. No landlord shares with him in 
 its produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a 
 trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a 
 produce which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his 
 land is commonly so extensive, that with all his own industry, 
 and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to 
 employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth part of what 
 it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect 
 labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most 
 liberal wages. Those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and 
 cheapness of land, soon make those labourers leave him, in 
 order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with 
 equal liberality other labourers, who soon leave them for the 
 same reason that they left their first master. The liberal re- 
 ward of labour encourages marriage. The children, during 
 the tender years of infancy, are well taken care of; and when 
 they are grown up, the value of their labour greatly overpays 
 their maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price 
 of labour and the low price of land enable them to establish 
 themselves in the same manner as their fathers did before them. 
 In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two 
 superior orders of people oppress the inferior one. But in 
 new colonies, the interest of the two superior orders obliges 
 them to treat the inferior one with more generosity and hu- 
 manity ; at least where that inferior one is not in a state of 
 slavery. Waste lands of the greatest natural fertility are to 
 be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the pro- 
 prietor, who is also the undertaker, expects from their improve- 
 ment, constitutes his protit ; which in these circumstances is 
 commonly very great. But this great profit cannot be made 
 without employing the labour of other people in clearing 
 and cultivating the land ; and the disproportion between the 
 great extent of the land and the small number of people, which 
 commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for 
 him to get this labour. He does not therefore dispute about 
 wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price. The high
 
 23G 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and 
 plenty of good land encourage improvement, and enable the 
 proprietor to pay those high wages. In those wages consists 
 almost the whole price of the land : and though they are high 
 considered as the wages of labour, they are low considered as 
 the price of what is so very valuable. What encourages the 
 progress of population and improvement encourages that of 
 real wealth and greatness. The progress of many of the 
 Greek colonies towards wealth and greatness, seems accord- 
 ingly to have been very rapid. In the course of a century or 
 two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even to have 
 surpassed their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in 
 Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in 
 Lesser Asia, appear, by all accounts, to have been at least equal 
 to any of the cities of ancient Greece." 
 
 This passage contains a curious mixture of truth and error. 
 It is the error that concerns us here. With respect to the colo- 
 nies of Greece, there is not a word of truth in the whole pas- 
 sage. The remarkable prosperity of those colonies is attributed 
 to superabundance or extreme cheapness of land, and todear- 
 ness of labour, or high wa»es. But the emigrants from Greece 
 did not, most certainly, obtain great tracts of land over which 
 to spread at will. There is no instance of their having ad- 
 vanced far from the seashore. Wherever they landed they 
 had to displace warlike tribes, who, abandoning the coast after 
 a struggle, continued to watch the intruders, and to confine 
 them within very narrow limits ; within a short stripe of land. 
 The first occupation of a Greek colony seems to have been to 
 build a fortress, into which the whole body of colonists might 
 retire when attacked. Some of those strong places became 
 very soon great towns ; but the quantity of land required to 
 feed the inhabitants of one great town, formed, in most cases, 
 the whole territory of a Greek colony from the beginning to 
 the end of its career. Abundance and consequent cheapness 
 of land, therefore, was not a cause of the prosperity of the Greek 
 colonies. In the in xt place, clearness of labour, or high wages, 
 are terms winch emigrants from Greece would not have under- 
 stood even. In no Greek colony did anyone ever sell his 
 labour : or any one pay wanes, high or low ; for all the works 
 of those societies, the cultivation of their small territory, the 
 building of their houses, tin 1 making of their tools, clothes, fur- 
 niture, roads, carriages, and ships, and also the exchanges 
 which took place either within a colony, or between a colony 
 and other states: all these works, so far as respects labour, 
 wen performed exclusive!) by slaves. 
 
 The account, therefore, which the father of the English 
 economists has given of the causes of the prosperity of those
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 237 
 
 colonies whose prosperity is the most remarkable, is obviously, 
 nay, grossly incorrect. From these two examples of careless 
 writing about colonies, by the first and the last distinguished 
 Englishmen who have professed to examine the subject, it may 
 be inferred that the subject has never been carefully examined. 
 They are noticed by way of apology for conducting this inquiry 
 with a degree of method, care, and fullness, which would have 
 been pedantic or impertinent if such a course had ever been 
 pursued before. 
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 The word colony is used to express very different ideas. A 
 conquered nation, among whom the victors do not settle, even 
 a mere factory for trade, has commonly been termed a colony ; 
 as, for example, the English factories in India, and the actual 
 dominion of the English in that country. 'Mere stations, also, 
 for military or trading purposes, such as Malta or Heligoland, 
 go by the name of colonies. In like manner the penal settle- 
 ments, or distant jails of the English, are superintended by their 
 colonial ministers, and were called colonies even when their 
 whole population consisted of prisoners and keepers. Two 
 societies more different than the people of India ruled by the 
 servants of a London trading company, and the convicts of 
 New South Wales, before Englishmen not criminals began to 
 settle there, could not well be imagined. But the difference 
 between the ideas often expressed by the term colony is 
 matched by the caprice with which that term is used. The 
 settlements of the Greeks in Sicily and Asia Minor, indepen- 
 dent states from the beginning, have always been termed colo- 
 nies : the English settlements in America were termed colo- 
 nies, though in local matters they governed themselves from 
 the beginning, so long as England monopolized their foreign 
 trade and managed their external relations ; but from the time 
 when England attempted to interfere with their domestic gov- 
 ernment, and happily lost both the monopoly of their foreign 
 trade and the management of their foreign relations, they have 
 not been reckoned as colonies. According to the loose way 
 in which this term has been used, it is not dependence that con- 
 stitutes a colony ; nor is it the continual immigration of people 
 from distant places, since in this respect the United States sur- 
 pass all other countries. In order to express the idea of a 
 society which continually receives bodies of people from dis- 
 tant places, and sends out bodies of people to settle perma- 
 nently in new places, no distinctive term has yet been used. 
 This, however, is the idea which will be expressed whenever 
 the term colony is used here ; the idea of a society at once
 
 238 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 immigrating and emigrating, such as the United States of 
 America and the English settlements in Canada, South Africa, 
 and Australia. 
 
 For the existence of a colony two things are indispensable ; 
 first, waste land, that is, land not yet the property of individu- 
 als, but liable to become so through the intervention of govern- 
 ment ; and secondly, the migration of people ; the removal of 
 people to settle in a new place. Further, it will be seen at 
 once, that this migration must be of two kinds ; first, the re- 
 moval of people from an old to a new country; secondly, the 
 removal of people from a settled part to a waste part of the 
 colony. Colonization, then, signifies the removal of people 
 from an old to a new country, and the settlement of people on 
 the waste land of the new country. As in this there is more 
 to be done than to be learned, this is an art rather than a 
 science. In every art the means to be employed ought to be 
 regulated strictly by the ends in view. The first point, there- 
 fore, in this inquiry, is the ends of colonization. 
 
 Two very different societies may have a common interest in 
 colonization, though with objects widely different in some re- 
 spects. The English, for example, may have a deep interest 
 in removing people to America for the sake of relief from ex- 
 cessive numbers ; while the Americans, cursed with slavery, 
 might gain incalculably by receiving numbers of people from 
 England. The ends of colonization, therefore, may be divided 
 into two classes ; those which belong to the old country and 
 those which belong to the colony. Each class of objects will 
 be best ascertained by being examined separately. 
 
 THE ENDS OF COLONIZATION AS RESPECTS THE MOTHER- 
 COUNTRY. 
 
 It maybe questioned whether, in modern times at least, any old 
 state has founded or extended a colony with any definite object 
 whatever. The states of ancient Greece are supposed by Mr. 
 Mill to have sent forth bodies of emigrants deliberately, with a 
 view to relief from excessive numbers : and he has Bhown in a 
 very clear and forcible manner, thai the rulers of those states 
 had a strong motive for seeking that relief in that way, while 
 no such motive was likely to occur to the rulers of modern 
 Europe.' The rulers of modern Europe, however, have had 
 
 •"A curious phenomenon here preterits itself. A redundancy of population 
 in tin- states "l ancient Greece made itself visible even to vulgar eyes. A re- 
 ,!,,,,, laocj "I population in modern Europe never makes itself visible to any but 
 tin- most enlightened eyes. Ask an ordinary man, ask almost any man, if the 
 population of this country be too great; if the population of any country in 
 Europe is, or ever was too great : so fur, he will tell you, is it from being loo
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 239 
 
 a motive of affection for colonies. " Sancho Panza," says 
 Mr. Mill, " had a scheme for deriving advantage from the gov- 
 ernment of an island. He would sell the people for slaves, 
 and put the money into his pocket. The Few, in some coun- 
 
 great, that good policy would consist in making it, if possible, still greater; and 
 he might quote in his own support the authority of almost all governments, 
 who are commonly at pains to prevent the emigration of their people, and to 
 give encouragement to marriage. 
 
 The explanation of the phenomenon is easy ; but it is also of the highest 
 importance. When the supply of food is too small for the population, the de- 
 ficiency operates, in modern Europe, in a manner different from that in which 
 it operated in ancient Greece. In modern Europe the greatest portion of the 
 food is bought by the great body of the people. What the great body of the 
 people have to give for it is nothing but labour.- When the quantity of food is 
 not sufficient for all, and when some are in danger of not getting any, each man 
 is induced, in order to secure a portion to himself, to give better terms for it 
 than any other man ; that is, more labour. In other words, that part of the 
 population who have nothing to give for food but labour, take less wages. 
 This is the primary effect, clear, immediate, certain. It is only requisite 
 further to trace the secondary or derivative effects. 
 
 When we say, that in the case in which the supply of food has become too 
 small for the population, the great body of the people take less wages, that is, 
 less food, for their labour ; we mean that they take, less than is necessary for 
 their comfortable subsistence ; because they would only have what is necessary 
 for comfortable subsistence in the case in which the supply of food is not too 
 small for the whole. 
 
 The effect, then, of a disproportion between the food and the population is, 
 not to feed to the full measure that portion of the population which it is suffi- 
 cient to feed, and to leave the redundant portion destitute ; it is to take, accord- 
 ing to a certain rate, a portion of his due quantity from each individual of that 
 great class who have nothing to give for it but ordinary labour. 
 
 What this state of things imports is most easily seen. The great class, who 
 have nothing to give for food but ordinary labour, are the great body of the peo- 
 ple. VV'hen every individual in the great body of the people has less than the 
 due quantity of food, less than would fall to his share if the quantity of food 
 were not too small for the population, the state of the great body of the people 
 is the state of sordid, painful, and degraded poverty. They are wretchedly fed r 
 wretchedly clothed, have wretched houses, and neither time nor means to keep 
 their houses or their persons free from disgusting impurity. Those of them' 
 who, either from bodily infirmities, have less than the ordinary quantity of labour 
 to bestow, or, from the state of their families, need a greater than the ordinary 
 quantity of food, are condemned to starve ; either wholly, if they have not 
 enough to keep them alive ; or parti illy, if they have enough to yield them a 
 lingering, diseased, and after all, a shortened existence. 
 
 What the ignorant and vulgar spectator sees in all this, is not a redundant 
 population : it is only a poor population. He sees nobody without food who 
 has enough to give for it. To his eye, therefore, it is not food which is want- 
 ing, but that which is to be given for it. When events succeed in this train, 
 and are viewed with those eyes, there never can appear to be a redundancy of 
 population. 
 
 l'.M'iits succeeded in a different train in the states of ancient Greece, and ren- 
 dered a redundancy of population somewhat more visible, even to vulgar and 
 ignorant eyes. 
 
 In ancient Greece the greatest portion of the food was not bought by the 
 great body of the people ; the state of whom, wretched or comfortable, legis- 
 lation has never yet been wise enough much to regard. All manual labour, or, 
 at least, the far greater portion of it, was performed, not by free labourers serv- 
 ing for wages, but by slaves, who were the property of the great men. The de-
 
 240 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 tries, find in colonies a thing which is very dear to them ; they 
 find, the one part of them, the precious matter with which to 
 influence ; the other, the precious matter with which to be in- 
 fluenced ; — the one, the precious matter with which to make 
 political dependents ; the other, the precious matter with which 
 they are made political dependents : — the one, the precious mat- 
 
 ficiency of food, therefore, was not distributed in the shape of general poverty 
 and wretchedness over the great body of the population by reduction of wages ; 
 a case which affects with very slight sensations those who regard themselves as 
 in no degree liable to fall into that miserable situation. It was felt, first of all 
 by the great men, in the greater cost of maintaining their slaves. And what is 
 felt as disagreeable by the great men is sure never to continue long without an 
 effort, either wise or foolish, for the removal of it. This law of human nature 
 was not less faithfully observed in the states of ancient Greece, for their being 
 called republics. Called republics, they in reality were aristocracies ; and aris- 
 tocracies of a very bad description. They were aristocracies in which the peo- 
 ple were cheated with an idea of power, merely because they were able, at cer- 
 tain distant intervals, when violently excited, to overpower the aristocracy in 
 some one particular point ; but they were aristocracies in which there was not 
 one efficient security to prevent the interests of the many from being sacrificed 
 to the interests of the few ; they were aristocracies, accordingly, in which the in- 
 terests of the many were habitually sacrificed to the interests of the few ; mean- 
 ing by the many, not the slaves merely, but the great body of the free citizens. 
 This was the case in all the states of Greece, and not least in Athens. This is 
 not seen in reading the French and English histories of Greece. It is not seen 
 in reading Mitford, who has written a history of Greece for no other purpose 
 but that of showing that the interests of the many always ought to be sacrificed 
 to the interests of the few ; and of abusing the people of Greece, because 
 every now and then, the many in those countries showed that they were by no 
 means patient under the habitual sacrifice of their interests to the interests of 
 the few. But it is very distinctly seen, among other occasions, in reading the 
 Greek orators, in reading Demosthenes, for example, in reading the Oration 
 against Midias, the Oration on Leptines, and others ; in which the license of the 
 rich and powerful, and their means of oppressing the body of the people, are 
 shown to have been excessive, and to have been exercised with a shameless 
 atrocity, which the gentleness and modesty of the manners of modern Europe, 
 even in the most aristocratically despotic countries, wholly preclude. 
 
 In Greece, then, any thing which so intimately affected the great men, as a 
 growing cost of maintaining their slaves, would not long remain without serious 
 attempts to find a remedy. 
 
 It was not, however, in this way alone, thai a redundant population showed 
 itself in Greece. As not many of the free citizens maintained themselves by 
 manual labour, they bad but two resources more, — the bind and profits of stock. 
 Those who lived mi profits of stock, did so, commonly, by employing slaves in 
 some of the known a rt s and manufactures! and of course were affected byjtho 
 growing cost of maintaining then slaves. Those who lived on lbs produce of 
 a certain portion of the land, could nol but exhibit, very distinctly, the redun- 
 dancy ol their numbers, when, by the multiplication of families, portions came 
 to be so far subdivided, that what belonged to each individual was insufficient 
 for his maintenance. 
 
 In this manner, then, it is very distinctly seen why, lo vulgar eyes, there 
 
 never appears, in modern Europe, to be any redundancy of population, any do* 
 1 1 1 .- 1 1 1 ' i for relieving the country by carrying away b portion of the people ; and 
 why, in ancient Greece, that redundancy made Itself to be very sensibly per- 
 ceived ; and created, at various times, B perfectly efficient demand for removing 
 to distant places a considerable portion of the people." — Article Colony, in tht 
 Supplement to the Encyclvpadia Brttanmca.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 241 
 
 ter by which they augment their power ; the other, the precious 
 matter by which they augment their riches. Both portions of 
 the ruling Few, therefore, find their account in the possession 
 of colonies. There is not one of the colonies but what aug- 
 ments the number of places. There are governorships, and 
 judgeships, and a long train' of et ceteras ; and, above all, there 
 is not one of them but what requires an additional number of 
 troops and an additional portion of navy. In every additional 
 portion of army and navy, besides the glory of the thing, there 
 are generalships, and colonelships, and captainships, and lieu- 
 tenantships ; and in the equipping and supplying of additional 
 portions of army and navy, there are always gains which may 
 be thrown in the way of a friend. All this is enough to account 
 for a very considerable quantity of affection maintained towards 
 colonies." For the affection of the rulers this is enough, but 
 not for that of the nations. The nations of modern Europe 
 have had a very different motive of affection for colonies ; a 
 sense of the benefits derived from the discovery of new pro- 
 ductions and the creation of new markets. Those Englishmen, 
 for instance, who, during the last century and a half have 
 shouted, " Ships, Colonies, and Commerce !" were good po- 
 litical economists. If they did not know scientifically, that all 
 improvements in the productive powers of industry, that indus- 
 try itself is limited by the extent of the market, still they felt 
 that every new colony, or every enlargement of an old one, 
 increased by so much the means of exchanging the produce of 
 English labour, and by so much increased the wealth of Eng- 
 land. Who that produces does not feel, though he may be 
 unable to account for it, the advantage of having some other 
 ready to deal with him for the surplus produce of his labour ? 
 A desire for new markets has, indeed, scarcely ever been the 
 deliberate motive for establishing a colony ; nor perhaps did any 
 government ever establish a colony deliberately for the sake of 
 patronage. But, colonies having been established, sometimes by 
 the adventurous spirit of individuals, sometimes by religious 
 persecution, the governments and nations of modern Europe 
 had strong motives of affection towards them ; the govern- 
 ments, for the sake of patronage; the nations, for the sake of 
 markets. Hence the. anxiety of the governments of modern 
 Europe to retain dominion over their colonies, and their attacks 
 upon each other's colonies : hence too, the Colonial System, as 
 it is called ; the system of trading monopolies, which took its 
 rise in a mistaken desire in each nation to monopolize as much 
 as possible of that trade between Europe and her colonies, 
 which would have been more valuable to all the nations if it 
 had been perfectly free. Let us distinguish between the exist- 
 ence and the dominion of a colony ; between the existence 
 
 31
 
 242 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 and the monopoly of a colonial market. " There is no neces- 
 sity," says Mr. Bentham, " for governing or possessing any 
 island in order that we may sell merchandise there." But in 
 order to sell merchandise in a colony it is necessary that the 
 colony should exist. If Mr. Bentham had drawn this distinc- 
 tion, if he had separated the question of dominion from the 
 question of existence, he would not have been led, by dwelling 
 on the evils of colonial monopoly, to undervalue the benefits of 
 colonial trade. His disciple, Mr. Mill, likewise, if he had 
 drawn this distinction, would not have deprecated colonies be- 
 cause they have been made improperly a ground for jobs, 
 monopolies, and wars : he might have condemned the wars, 
 monopolies, and jobs, of which colonies have been the matter ; 
 but perceiving that the real source of those evils was not the 
 colonies, but the badness of the European governments, he 
 would probably have seen also, along with Adam Smith, the 
 " natural advantages" which Europe has derived from her 
 colonies, in spite of the tricks which those governments have 
 played with them. The uses and abuses of colonization are 
 very different things. While some philosophers have con- 
 demned colonization on account of its abuses, the nations of 
 Europe, even when they promoted the abuses, had, one can- 
 not say a knowledge, but a deep sense of the usefulness. That 
 such " unscientific knowledge," to use terms employed by 
 Bentham, should have been attended with very " unartificial 
 practice," is just what might have been expected. 
 
 The objects of an old society in promoting colonization 
 seem to be three ; first, the extension of the market for dis- 
 posing of their own surplus produce ; secondly, relief from 
 excessive numbers ; thirdly, an enlargement of the field for 
 employing capital. Referring, however, to a previous Note on 
 the coincidence of overflowing national wealth with the un- 
 easiness and misery of individuals, it will be seen, presently, 
 that these three objects may come under one head ; namely, 
 an enlargement of the field for employing capital and labour. 
 But first, each object must be considered separately. 
 
 I. The extension of marhtiti. 
 
 Why does any man ever produce of any thing more than he 
 can himself consume ? Solely because he expects that some 
 other man will take from him thai portion of the produce of 
 his labour which he does not want, giving him in exchange 
 something which he wauls. From the power of exchanging 
 comes every improvement in the application of labour, and 
 every atom of the produce of labour, beyond that rude work 
 and that small produce which supply the wants of savages. It
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 243 
 
 is not because an English washerwoman cannot sit down to 
 breakfast without tea and sugar, that the world has been cir- 
 cumnavigated ; but it is because the world has been circum- 
 navigated that an English washerwoman requires tea and sugar 
 for breakfast. According to the power of exchanging are the 
 desires of individuals and societies. But every increase of 
 desires, or wants, has a tendency to supply the means of grati- 
 fication. The savage hunter, enabled to exchange his furs for 
 beads, is stimulated to greater energy and skill. The sole 
 ground on which it is supposed that the blacks of the West 
 Indies will work for wages as soon as they shall be set free, is 
 their love of finery. They will produce sugar, it is said, in 
 order to buy trinkets and fine clothes. And who ever worked 
 hard, when was an improvement made in any useful art, save 
 through the impulse of a passion for some kind of finery ; for 
 some gratification, not absolutely necessary, to be obtained by 
 means of exchange? As with individuals, so with nations. In 
 England, the greatest improvements have taken place continu- 
 ally, ever since colonization has continually produced new 
 desires among the English, and new markets wherein to pur- 
 chase the objects of desire. With the growth of sugar and 
 tobacco in America, came the more skilful growth of corn in 
 England. Because, in England, sugar was drank and tobacco 
 smoked, corn was raised with less labour, by fewer hands ; and 
 more Englishmen existed to eat bread, as well as to drink 
 sugar and smoke tobacco. The removal of Englishmen to 
 America, and their industry in raising new productions not fit 
 for the support of life, led, in England, to more production for 
 the support of life. Because things not necessary had been 
 produced, more necessaries were produced.* If the French 
 
 * " Rich subjects make a rich nation. As the former increase, so will the 
 means of filling the coffers of the latter. Let contemporary nations lay it to 
 their account that England is more powerful than ever she was, notwithstand- 
 ing her debt and taxes. This knowledge should form an element in their 
 foreign policy. Let them assure themselves that instead of declining she is 
 advancing; that her population increases fast ; that she is constantly seeking 
 new fields of enterprise in other parts of the globe, and adding to the improve- 
 ments that already cover her island at home, new ones that promise to go far 
 beyond them in magnitude : in fine, that instead of being worn out, as at a dis- 
 tance is sometimes supposed, she is going a-head with the buoyant and vigorous 
 effort of youth. * * Britain still exists all over the world in her colonies. 
 These alone give her the means of advancing her industry and opulence for ages 
 to come. They are portions of her territory more valuable than if joined to her 
 island. The sense of distance is destroyed by her command of ships ; while 
 that very distance serves as the feeder of her commerce and marine. Situated 
 on every continent, lying in every latitude, these, her out dominions, make her 
 the centre of a trade already vast and perpetually augmenting, — a home trade 
 and a foreign trade, — for it yields the riches of both as she controls it at her 
 will. They take off her redundant population, yd make her more populous ; 
 and are destined, under the policy already commenced towards them, and which
 
 244 TJIE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 should know how to colonize North Africa, they may overtake 
 the English in the skilful application of domestic capital and 
 labour ; but if they do this, it will be through the impulse 
 arising from new markets, in which to sell the surplus produce 
 of their industry. It thus appears, that the removal of people 
 from an old society to a new place, may be of the greatest use 
 to that old society, even when the people removed occupy 
 themselves in raising objects of mere luxury, and when the 
 mother-country has yet many steps to make in the career of 
 wealth and civilization. 
 
 But now comes the more interesting case of a society, which, 
 stimulated by the extension of its markets, has cultivated all 
 that part of its territory which is fit for cultivation ; a society 
 in which the utmost skill in the application of capital and labour 
 to agriculture is counteracted by the necessity of cultivating 
 inferior land ; a society, consequently, in which food is dear, 
 and in which there exist the strongest motives for importing 
 food from other countries by means of manufactures and ex- 
 change ; a society, in short, which requires new markets in 
 which to purchase the staff of life. This is pre-eminently the 
 case of England. Imagine a country in which the quantity of 
 air for breathing were limited, and were not more than suffi- 
 cient to keep alive the actual number of its inhabitants ; while 
 of that actual number the larger portion by much obtained less 
 than enough air ; was half suffocated for want of air ; in a state 
 between life and death. Conceive further, that in this country 
 an inexhaustible supply of food might be obtained without 
 labour, as air is everywhere obtained. Now suppose that this 
 society should be able to obtain air from other countries by 
 means of manufactures and exchange. If this ability were 
 allowed its free exercise, the population of that country would 
 go on increasing continually, all the people being at ease, so 
 long as the ability should last. But if the rulers of this country, 
 ha\ inir a property in the atmosphere, should forbid the people 
 to get air from other countries, the bulk of that people must 
 .in half suffocated, notwithstanding their natural ability to 
 obtain plenty of tln % means of life. Substituting bread for air, 
 this is the case of England with her stilling corn-laws. The 
 lish corn-laws will be repealed, As the present inquiry 
 ■ - toa country like England, but without corn-laws, we 
 may, lor the sake of more ready illustration, speak of England 
 as if her corn-laws were, repealed. When that shall happen, 
 the English will hunt over the world in search of cheap 
 
 in time she will more extensively pursue, to expand licr empire, commercial, 
 mam I ml maritime, i" < i" which it would nol be <;iKy to 
 
 fix liir ' art o) / ndon; );i ilu Hon. Mr. Rush, l'lnr. 
 
 t mi: 'l Slales in England,
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 5245 
 
 corn. But where will they find any ? Not in countries sit- 
 uated like England ; not in any country where land is dear. 
 They will find cheap corn only in countries where land 
 is cheap ; in countries where the proportion which land 
 bears to people is so great as, first, to render unnecessary 
 the cultivation of inferior land, and secondly, to encourage 
 a large proportion of the people to occupy themselves with 
 the growth of corn. But is not this the description of a 
 colony, according to the sense in which the term colony is here 
 used ? a country having room for more people, with more room 
 at hand for the greatest increase of people. Poland is such a 
 country ; as was England when the bulk of Englishmen were 
 serfs. But there are three reasons why such a country as Eng- 
 land was then, is not the most fit to provide cheap corn for 
 such a country as England is now : first, because in the then 
 barbarous and despotic state of the English government, no 
 dependence could have been placed on English industry for a 
 regular supply of corn : secondly, because in the then barbar- 
 ous condition of the English people, capital and labour were 
 not applied to the growth of corn with that skill which renders 
 the produce great in proportion to the hands employed : 
 thirdly, because the savage ancestors of the English would not 
 have cared to buy such objects as those, with which alone the 
 English of this day could buy foreign corn. The market would 
 have been very insecure ; the corn brought to it not very 
 cheap ; and of that corn, whether cheap or dear, but a small 
 quantity would have been brought to market. This is pre- 
 cisely the case of Poland, where the market is liable to be shut 
 up by the whim of a tyrant ; where the produce of agricul- 
 tural capital and labour, though, by means of slavery, greater 
 than it would be if the capital and labour were cut up into 
 fractions as numerous as the cultivators, is much less than it 
 would be if the same number of Poles should cultivate the 
 same land with English skill ; and where the demand for Eng- 
 lish goods is by no means equal to the supply that could be 
 afforded, nor likely to become so. Whereas in a colony planted 
 by Englishmen, civilized and well-governed, the highest skill in 
 the application of capital and labour to the growth of corn, 
 might conspire, with great cheapness of land, to the raising of 
 cheaper corn than has ever yet been raised ; while so cheap a 
 market for the purchase of corn would not only be as secure 
 as any distant market ever was, but might be extended con- 
 tinually with the progress of colonization. Why such very 
 cheap corn has not been raised in any English colony, is a dif- 
 ferent question, slightly noticed before ;* and the means of rais- 
 ing very cheap corn in a colony, without slavery, will be care- 
 * See Note VII.
 
 24G THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 fully examined among the means of colonization. Here my 
 object has been to show, that for such a country as England, 
 a chief end of colonization is to obtain secure markets for the 
 purchase of cheap corn ; a steady supply of bread, liable to be 
 increased with an increasing demand. 
 
 The trade which the English should conduct for obtaining 
 cheap bread from their colonies might be of two kinds ; direct 
 and indirect. Supposing that very cheap corn were raised in 
 Canada, the English might buy such corn with the manufac- 
 tured goods of Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham ; this 
 "would be a direct trade. But it might very well happen, that 
 the Canadians should be able to raise, not more corn than the 
 English should be able to buy, but more than they should be 
 able to buy icith manufactured goods. In other words, the 
 demand of the Canadians fur English goods might be much 
 less than the demand of the English for Canadian corn. But 
 the Canadians would require many things, besides English 
 goods, which are not producible in Canada : they would re- 
 quire tea and silver, for instance. The English, then, might 
 first buy tea and silver of the Chinese with manufactured 
 goods, and then buy corn of the Canadians with tea and silver. 
 But the demand, again, of the Chinese for English goods might 
 not be sufficient to supply in this way the demand of the Eng- 
 lish for Canadian corn. For one thing, however, the demand 
 of the Chinese is very urgent, and would be without limit ; for 
 food in every shape ; for the means of life. Here, then, is the 
 groundwork of the most extensive commerce that ever existed 
 in the world. Supposing that cheap food were raised in the 
 English colonies of Australia, which, though far from England, 
 are near to China, the English might buy such food with man- 
 ufactured goods ; with that food buy tea and silver of the Chi- 
 nese ; and with that tea and silver buy cheap corn of the 
 Canadians. In this case, combination of capital and labour for 
 division of employments among four different nations, would 
 be of the greatest service to all pf them ; to the Australian 
 colonists, the Chinese, the Canadian colonists, and the English. 
 A great number of cases like tins might be reasonably sup- 
 posed. From this ease, which, though supposed, is very likely 
 to occur, it will be seen that a colony, at the antipodes even of 
 its mother country, might help to supply that mother country 
 with cheap corn ; and by means of the cheapness of land 
 which is an attribute of colonies. Both by a direct and an in- 
 direct trade, colonies might, according to then- Dumber and ex- 
 tent, enlarge the field for employing capital and labour in the 
 mother country, at home, without reference to the emigration 
 of people or the removal of capital into distant fields oi em- 
 ployment. The warmest imagination could hardly exaggerate
 
 THE AUT OF COLOMZATION. 247 
 
 the benefits which a country like England might derive from 
 such enlargements of her domestic field of production ; could 
 hardly reckon at too much the new demand for labour at 
 home, in building, machinery, and manufactures; for the pro- 
 duce of domestic agriculture, corn alone excepted ; for ships ; 
 for the use of mercantile capital ; and for all kinds of services 
 not usually called labour. 
 
 But, it may be said, a country like England, having no corn- 
 laws, might obtain all these benefits without colonies. "The 
 possession of colonies," Sir Henry Parnell would say, "affords 
 no advantages which could not be obtained by commercial 
 intercourse with independent states."* Here, again, the ques- 
 tion of dominion is mixed up with the question of existence. 
 Independent states ! which are the independent states that 
 could produce very cheap corn for the English market? The 
 United States : truly ; but the United States are as much 
 colonies as were the never dependent colonies of Greece. 
 Canada, on the other hand, being dependent, is neither more 
 nor less fit than the United States to produce cheap corn for 
 the English market. Let us banish altogether, for the present, 
 the idea of monopoly or dominion. Of him who has done 
 this, I would ask, What country, in which land is cheap, is 
 most fit, on other accounts, to provide the English with cheap 
 corn ? Not Poland ; because there property is insecure, 
 industry unskilful, and the people barbarous : not Buenos 
 Ayres, where land is cheaper than in any other country, being 
 obtainable in unlimited quantities for nothing, of the richest 
 quality, already cleared and drained by nature ; not Buenos 
 Ayres, because the people of this colony are barbarously un- 
 skilful, and have no desire for English goods ; not Ceylon, be- 
 cause, though that country be improperly called an English 
 colony, its inhabitants are not anxious to obtain English goods : 
 none of these, but the United States, Canada, and the English 
 settlements in South Africa and Australia ; because, in all of 
 those countries, corn might be raised on cheap land, with 
 English skill, by people anxious to buy English goods. If the 
 English should buy cheap corn of the Canadians with Chinese 
 tea and silver, it might be by means of selling English goods 
 to the growers of cheap food in Australia. If cheap corn 
 were brought to England, whether by the most straight and 
 simple, or by the most round-about and complicated traffic, the 
 original purchase-money of such corn must be manufactured 
 goods, the produce of capital and labour employed in England ; 
 and it could be nothing else. Whence it follows, inevitably, 
 that the number or extent of the markets, in which the English 
 
 * Financial Reform, page 251, 3d. edit.
 
 248 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 might buy very cheap corn, must depend upon the number or 
 extent of countries raising cheap corn and requiring English 
 goods. An English colony, whether dependent like Canada, 
 or independent like the United States, might do both : it might, 
 both raise the corn and want the manufactured goods. We 
 may conclude then, that with a view to the greatest market for 
 buying cheap corn, a people like the English would plant or 
 extend colonies; nations of Englishmen born, and their de- 
 scendants; using the English language; preserving English 
 skill and English tastes ; and, therefore, both able and willing 
 to purchase English goods with cheap corn. 
 
 II. Relief from excessive numbers. 
 
 In modern times, no old country has ever obtained relief 
 from excessive numbers by means of colonization. In no case 
 has the number of emigrants been sufficient to diminish, even 
 for a year, the ruinous competition of labourers for employ- 
 ment ; much less to produce any lasting improvement in the 
 condition of the bulk of the people. More than once, how- 
 ever, this has been the object, or has been called the object, of 
 an old state in promoting colonization. Twice since their 
 late war with the French, the English have sent out bodies of 
 people to colonies under the rule of the English government, 
 for the declared purpose of checking pauperism at home : first 
 to the Dutch colony of South Africa, and next to the English 
 colony of Upper Canada. On neither of these occasions was 
 the object attained even in the slightest degree. Both these 
 attempts were called experiments. This year, the English 
 government is making, to use the expression of Lord Goderich,* 
 another " experiment" of the same kind, by providing the funds 
 wherewith to convey to South Africa a number of destitute 
 children ; the prodigious number of twenty. Considering that 
 the population of England is fourteen millions, this experiment 
 maybe justly called child's play. The previous experiment In 
 South Africa, and the outlay of60,000Z in taking English pau- 
 pers to Upper Canada, at the suggestion of Mr. (now Sir 
 Robert) Wiimot Horton and the Emigration Committees of 
 the House of Commons., were hardly less preposterous, if we 
 are tO believe that any benefit to the labouring class at home 
 was Beriously expected from them. To call experiments mea- 
 sures so futtle, so obviously inadequate to the <'nd in view, is 
 an abuse of language, and one calculated to be mischievous; 
 since, if these childish attempts had really been experiments, 
 
 • In ;i letter add] for th rphai aftd d< mute
 
 TUB ART OF COLONIZATION. 219 
 
 the signal failure of them would have been a fact, tending to 
 establish that colonization, with a view to relief from excessive 
 numbers, must necessarily fail of its object. 
 
 Two classes of men in England, classes of the most opposite 
 turn of mind, have decided against colonization with this view, 
 and on grounds equally unreasonable : first, those unreasoning 
 men who would determine questions in political economy by 
 quoting Scripture ; secondly, men who possess in a high degree 
 the faculty of reason, but who, having mnde a religion for 
 themselves, are often under the influence of a kind of bigotry ; 
 1 mean those political economists who worship capital. Speak 
 of emigration to one of the former class, and he will exclaim, 
 " Dwell in the land, and verily ye shall be fed ;" to one of the 
 latter, and he will say, — The question deserves profound re- 
 gard ; but as employment for labour is in proportion to capi- 
 tal, as emigration would cost money and diminish capital, 
 therefore it would diminish employment for labour, and do 
 more harm than good. 
 
 Whether right or wrong in their dislike of emigration, those 
 who swear by David, and those who worship capital, are 
 equally contradicted by facts. The people do dwell in the 
 land, but verily they are not fed. Though no labour be em- 
 ployed save by capital, still millions upon millions of capital 
 are accumulated, not to employ domestic labour, but, for want 
 of employment/or capital, either to lie idle, or to be wasted in 
 distant and ruinous speculations. The quotation from Scrip- 
 ture may be disposed of by another: "Increase and multiply, 
 and replenish the earth, and subdue it" But those who object 
 to emigration on the score of its expense deserve, on account 
 of their reputation and authority, that their argument should 
 be carefully examined. 
 
 The argument is stated as follows by Mr. Mill. a It has 
 been often enough, and clearly enough explained, that it is 
 capital which gives employment to labour : we may, therefore, 
 take it as a postulate. A certain quantity of capital, then, is 
 necessary to give employment to the population, which any 
 removal for the sake of colonization may leave behind. But 
 if, to afford the expense of that removal, so much is taken from 
 the capital of the country that the remainder is not sufficient 
 for the employment of the remaining population, there is, in 
 that case, a redundancy of population, and all the evils which 
 it brings. For the well-being of the remaining population, a 
 certain quantity of food is required, and a certain quantity of 
 all those other things which minister to human happiness. 
 But to raise this quantity of other things, a certain quantity 
 of capital is indispensably necessarv. If that quantity of 
 
 32
 
 250 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 capital is not supplied, the food and other things cannot be 
 obtained."* 
 
 Though the argument stated thus hypothetic-ally, thus 
 guarded by ifs, amounts to the statement of a mere truism, 
 still the " postulate" which runs through the argument is an 
 assumption, that emigration would take away too much capital ; 
 so much as to leave too little for the remaining people. Mr. 
 Bentham assumes this without any ifs. " Colonization,"' he 
 says,f " requires an immediate expense, an actual loss of 
 wealth, for a future profit, for a contingent gain. The capital 
 which is carried away for the improvement of the land in the 
 colonies, had it been employed in the mother country, would 
 have added to its increasing wealth, as well as to its population, 
 and to the means of its defence, while, as to the produce of 
 the colonies, only a small part ever reaches the mother country. 
 If colonization is a folly when employed as a means of enrich- 
 ment, it is at least an agreeable folly." 
 
 Now upon what rests this assumption ? It rests upon two 
 other assumptions, one of which is true, the other false ; first, 
 that no labour is employed save by capital ; secondly, that all 
 capital employs labour. If it were true that every increase 
 of capital necessarily gave employment to more labour ; if it 
 were true, as Professor M'Culloch has said,J that " there is 
 plainly only one way of effectually improving the condition of 
 the great majority of the community or of the labouring class, 
 and that is by increasing the ratio of capital to population? 
 then it might be assumed that colonization would, on account 
 of its expense, do more harm than good. But it is not true that 
 all capital employs labour. To say so is to say that which a 
 thousand facts prove to be untrue. Capital frequently in- 
 creases without providing any more employment for labour. 
 That this docs actually happen in England, 1 have endeavoured 
 to show else where. § It follows, that capital, for which there 
 is no employment at home, might be spent on emigration with- 
 out diminishing employment for labour to the slightest extent. 
 I use the word spent instead of invested, in order to save the 
 trouble of explaining at length, that if capital so employed were 
 utterly lost, that loss of capital need not diminish employment 
 for labour. No one pretends that employment for English 
 labour was diminished, to the extent <>f a single pair of hands, 
 bv the loans which the English lately made to the republics, so 
 railed, <>l South America, to the Spanish ( Sortes, to Don Miguel, 
 or Don Pedro; or by the late waste of English capital in pre- 
 
 * Article Colony. Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannic*, ] 
 t Rationale ol Keward, l>. iv. chap< M. 
 
 t Introductory Discourse, in lu« edition of the Wealth of Nations. 
 $ Note IV.
 
 TUG ART OF COLONIZATIOX. 251 
 
 tending to work mines in South America, or in glutting distant 
 markets with English goods, sold for less than the cost of pro- 
 duction ; or by the waste of English capital in founding the 
 Swan River settlement. Still less has employment for English 
 labour been diminished by late investments of English capital, 
 in foreign countries, which yield some return ; such as loans to 
 the emperors of Austria and Russia, to the kings of Prussia, 
 Naples, the Low Countries, and France ; purchases lately 
 made in the- securities of foreign governments, amounting at 
 one time in the French funds alone to near 40,000,0(10/. ; in- 
 vestments of English capital in the iron and cotton works of 
 France, the Low Countries, and Germany ; and finally, loans 
 to the North American States. If all the capital removed 
 from England in all these ways during the last seventeen years, 
 amounting to some hundreds of millions, had been lost in con- 
 ducting emigration, employment for labour in England would 
 not have been less than it is at present. 
 
 A recent fact illustrates this view of the subject still more 
 forcibly. During the last year (1832), it is supposed, about 
 125,000 people, men, women, and children, emigrated from 
 Biatain to the United States, Canada, and Australia. Of these 
 a considerable number carried property w T ith them, varying 
 in amount from 5000/. to a few pounds over the cost of pas- 
 sage. The passage of the whole of them must have cost, at 
 the lowest estimate of 5/. for each person, not less than 
 625,000/. Supposing that they took with them a capital of 
 5/. each, upon the average, which seems a very low estimate, 
 emigration from Britain carried off during the last year a capital 
 of 1,250,000/. Does any one pretend that this abstraction of 
 capital has diminished, to the extent of a single pair of hands, 
 the amount of employment for labour in Britain ? Might we 
 not rather expect, if England had no corn-laws, that these 
 125,000 emigrants, employing their capital and labour in a 
 wide and rich field, would create a new demand for the produce 
 of capital and labour employed in Britain ? Let these ques- 
 tions be answered carefully, and it will appear that much of 
 the capital of such a country as England may be used in pro- 
 moting emigration, without diminishing, to sav the least, the 
 
 DO ' O' * ^ ml 
 
 amount of employment for domestic labour. Whether capital 
 might be so used with profit to the owners of it, whether, by 
 such a use of capital, effectual relief from excessive numbers 
 might be obtained, are questions which belong rather to the 
 means than to the ends of colonization. Here, my sole object 
 is to show how groundless is the objection to emigration on 
 the score of its expense ; how futile is that a priori reasoning, 
 by which some conclude, that the cost of emigration would 
 necessarilv diminish, according to its amount, the amount of
 
 252 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATIOX. 
 
 employment for labour at home. I have dwelt so long on this 
 objection, not with a view to recommend emigration by means 
 of an outlay of English capital (for I shall endeavour to show 
 hereafter that it would be greatly for the advantage of colo- 
 nies to provide a fund for the immigration of labour), but in 
 order to remove a prejudice against colonization, on the ground 
 of the mischievous loss of capital which it might occasion to 
 the mother country ; a prejudice which stops him who enter- 
 tains it on the very threshold of this subject.* 
 
 Supposing that, whether by means of English capital about, 
 at all events, to My off to foreign countries, or by means of a 
 fund raised in the colonies, such an amount of labour should 
 emigrate from England as considerably to diminish the propor- 
 tion which, in England, labour bears to employment ; then 
 would the wages of labour be higher, then would the state of 
 the bulk of the people be improved, then would relief be ob- 
 tained from excessive numbers. This great end of colonization 
 has never been so much as seriously contemplated by the 
 ruling class in England. On the contrary, taught by certain 
 economists to believe, that profits rise when wages fall, and fall 
 when wages rise, that the prosperity of the capitalist is con- 
 sistent only with the misery of the labourer, the late ruling 
 
 * This prejudice was once entertained by Mr. Bentham. It depended upon 
 a nan scquitur which had got possession of his mind. In the fourth book, of 
 the Rationale of Reward, M. Dumont has a chapter entitled " Bentham and 
 Adam Smith," where he draws a comparison between the views of political 
 economy, taken by the English and Scotch philosophers. " Mr. Bentham," 
 he says, " has simplified his subject, by referring every thing to one principle ; 
 namely, the limitation of product/an anil trade by the limitation of capital ; a 
 principle which brings all his reasonings into a very small circle, and which 
 serves to unite into one bundle those observations which cannot be so easily 
 grasped when they are disunited." This one principle is stated as follows in 
 the first paragraph of Bentham's Manual of Political Economy. " No kind of 
 productive labour of any importance can be carried on without capital, from 
 hence it follows, that the quantity of labour, applicable to any object, is limited 
 by the quantity of capital which can lie employed in it." Doubtless; but then 
 the principle is, " the limitation of production and trade by the limitation of 
 capital" for which there it employment. The words which I have added, in 
 
 . make all the difference. It does not follow that, because labour is em- 
 ployed by capital, capital always finds a field in which to employ labour. This 
 i-. the nun tequitUT always taken for ^ r;n it 11 1 h\ I Sen than), Kicanlo, Mill, M'Cul- 
 loch, and Others. Adam Smith, on the contrary, saw that there were limits to 
 the employment of Capital, and then- fore limits, besides the limit of capital, to 
 the employment of labour ; the limits, namely, of the field of production, and of 
 the market in which to dispose of surplus produce. During the .summer of 
 L831, Mr. Bentham's attention was called to this subject. At lirst ho urged the 
 objection to colonization which has been here examined, but finally abandoned 
 it. Then, immediately, notwithstanding hi^ great age and bodily infirmities, he 
 proceeded to Btudj the whole subject of colonization, and even to write upon it 
 
 ie length. Ilis written remarks upon the subject, now in my possession. 
 
 nh<>w that he lived i" consider colonization I "an agreeable folly," but ■ 
 
 work oi the greatest utility. I am proud to add, that the form of the present 
 In nine was suggested by one of the wineyt and beat ol mankind.
 
 TIIE ART OP COLONIZVTIOX. 2*>3 
 
 dass in England would have set their faces against any project 
 of colonization which had seemed fit to raise wages. Late 
 events have produced some change of feeling on this subject ; 
 and coming events, probably, will soon produce a greater 
 change. "What," says Mr. Mill, "is felt as disagreeable by 
 the great men, is sure never to continue long without an effort, 
 either wise or foolish, for the removal of it." The new ruling 
 class of England, those whom late events have made the great 
 men of England, are placed in a situation which may render 
 excess of numbers highly disagreeable to them. They may be 
 glad to pay high wages for the security of their property ; to 
 prevent the devastation of England through commotions arising 
 from discontent in the bulk of the people. Even before the 
 late change, while the fears of the great men were urging them 
 to bring about that change, while fires were blazing and mobs 
 exacting higher wages in the south of England, a dread of the 
 political evils likely to come from excessive numbers, induced 
 the English government to form a Board of Emigration, with 
 the avowed purpose of improving the condition of the labour- 
 ing class, by removing some of them to the colonies. A more 
 foolish, or rather futile, effort by great men to remove what 
 they felt as disagreeable, was, perhaps, never made ; but the 
 effort, feeble and puerile though it were, tends to point out that 
 for a country, situated like England, in which the ruling and 
 the subject orders are no longer separated by a middle class, 
 and in which the subject order, composing the bulk of the 
 people, are in a state of gloomy discontent arising from exces- 
 sive numbers ; that for such a country, one chief end of colo- 
 nization is to prevent tumults, to keep the peace, to maintain 
 order, to uphold confidence in the security of property, to hin- 
 der interruptions of the regular course of industry and trade, 
 to avert the terrible evils which, in a country like England, 
 could not but follow any serious political convulsion. 
 
 For England, another end of colonization, by means of relief 
 from excessive numbers, would be relief from that portion of 
 the poor's-rate which maintains workmen in total or partial 
 idleness ; an object in which the ruling order have an obvious 
 interest. 
 
 For England again, a very useful end of colonization would 
 be to turn the tide of Irish emigration from England to her 
 colonies ; not to mention that the owners of land in Ireland, 
 most of them being foreigners by religion, might thus be taken 
 out of the dilemma in which they are now placed ; that of a 
 choice between legally giving up a great part of their rental 
 to the hungry people, and yielding to the people's violence the 
 land which was taken by violence from their fathers. 
 
 Finally, comprised in relief from excessive numbers is the
 
 -54 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 relief to many classes, not called labourers or capitalists, from 
 that excessive competition for employment which renders them 
 uneasy and dissatisfied. Of the L25,000 persons who quitted 
 England last year to settle in colonies, not a few were pro- 
 fessional men ; surgeons, clergymen, lawyers, architects, engi- 
 neers, surveyors, teachers, and clerks : some few of them were 
 governesses. It will be seen, when we shall come to the 
 means of colonization, that, if colonies were properly managed, 
 they would furnish, according to the continual progress in their 
 number or extent, a continually increasing demand for the ser- 
 vices of all those classes. 
 
 III. Enlargement of the field for cjnploijing capital. 
 
 This end of colonization is distinct from that enlargement of 
 the field for employing capital, which would come by the crea- 
 tion of extensive markets for the purchase of cheap corn with 
 the produce of domestic industry. It may be best explained 
 by reference to some facts. Since England began to colonize, 
 how many Englishmen have quitted their country with small 
 fortunes, and returned with large ones, made by means of high 
 profits in the colonies! In the West India islands alone, mil- 
 lions upon millions of English capital have been employed with 
 verv great profit; millions upon millions, which, we maybe 
 sure, would not have been removed to the West Indies if they 
 could have been invested at home with equal profit. An ex- 
 isting London Company has more than doubled its capital in a 
 few years, besides paying a handsome dividend to the share- 
 holders, by the purchase and sale of waste land in Upper 
 Canada. In 1829, the Dutch firm of Crommelin, of Amster- 
 dam, advanced 1,500,000 dollars to some colonists in America, 
 for the purpose of making a canal. This money is securely 
 invested, and yields a higher interest or profit than it would 
 have done had it remained in Holland ; a country in which, as 
 in England, capital appears to increase faster than the fit-id of 
 production. The loan lately made by the London house of 
 Baring Brothers, to the Stale of Louisiana, is a secure and 
 profitable investment of English capita] in the improvement of 
 a colony. While 1 write, the firm of Thomas Wilson and Co. 
 II negotiating in London a loan of 'A, 500,000 dollars to the State 
 of Alabama. One condition of this loan, evidently devised to 
 tempt the capitalists of London, is, that the lenders shall not 
 be paid off for thirty years. Examples without end might be 
 adduced of profitable investments made by the people of old 
 
 states in new Colonies; and made, too, without any perma- 
 nent abstraction of capital from the old country. That great 
 masses of English capital have been wasted in colonies is also
 
 THE AKT OF COLONIZATION. !255 
 
 true. Of such a case, the absurd proceedings of the London 
 Australian Agricultural Company, and the capital wasted in 
 foundingthe Swan River settlement, are good examples. But 
 those sums were as well wasted in that way, as if they had 
 been lent to Don Miguel or Don Pedro. To say that because 
 English capital has been wasted in colonies, no more capital 
 ought to be invested in that way, would be like saying, that 
 because Waterloo bridge yields no profit to those who built it, 
 no more bridges ought to be built. How English capital might 
 be securely invested in colonies without loss, with certain 
 profit ; what would be the most secure and profitable mode 
 of investing English capital in colonies ; these are questions 
 which belong to the next division of this subject. Here it is 
 sufficient to have shown, by the above examples, that colonies 
 may open a rich and. wide field for employing that capital of 
 a mother country, for which there is no very profitable em- 
 ployment at home. 
 
 All these ends of colonization, the extension of markets, re- 
 lief in several ways from excessive numbers, and new invest- 
 ments for capital, may now be brought under one head ; 
 namely, a progressive enlargement, partly domestic, and partly 
 colonial, of the field for employing capital and labour. The 
 vast importance of this object, to a country situated like Eng- 
 land, is more fully explained in some of the foregoing notes. 
 
 THE ENDS OF COLONIZATION, AS RESPECTS THE COLONY. 
 
 The United States are still colonies, according to the sense 
 in which the word is used here. They receive people from 
 old states, and send out a much greater number of people to 
 settle in new places. For promoting the immigration of capi- 
 tal and people, the motive of these states seems to be precisely 
 opposite to that of an old country in promoting the emigration 
 of capital and people. The old country wants an enlargement 
 of its field for employing capital and labour: the colonies want 
 more capital and labour for cultivating an unlimited field. By 
 pouring capital and labour into England, you would augment 
 the competition and uneasiness of capitalists, as well as the 
 competition and misery of labourers : by pouring capital and 
 labour into America, you would increase the wealth and great- 
 ness of that great colony. By pouring labour only into Eng- 
 land, you would not increase the capital of that country, be- 
 eati9e the increase of labour would not find employment ; but, 
 as labour creates capital before capital employs labour, and as, 
 in America, there is capital enough for the employment of 
 more labour and room for the employment of more capital, 
 therefore, by pouring labour only into America, you would
 
 25G THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 provide more capital for the employment of still more labour. 
 It follows, that colonies situated like the United States, colo- 
 nies, that is, which already possess more capital than labour, 
 have a greater interest in obtaining labour than in obtaining 
 capital from old countries : just as a country situated like Eng- 
 land has a greater interest in procuring relief from excessive 
 numbers, than from the competition of capital with capital. As 
 the main object of an old country in promoting emigration is to 
 send forth continually all that portion of the constantly in- 
 creasing labouring class for which there is not employment 
 with good wages, so the main object of a colony in promoting 
 the immigration of people is to obtain as much labour as can 
 find employment with good wages. A like difference of ob- 
 jects occurs with respect to new markets, and especially to 
 those in which corn should be bought or sold. The object of 
 the colony is to buy manufactured goods with raw produce 
 and corn ; that of the old country to buy raw produce and 
 corn with manufactured goods : the object of the colony is to 
 obtain more labour, wherewith to raise the means of buying 
 manufactured goods ; that of the old country to obtain cheap 
 corn wherewith to support more labourers at home. But, 
 though two persons in different places cannot meet without 
 proceeding in opposite directions ; though, if they intend to 
 meet, the object of one is to go in one direction, and the object 
 of the other to go in an opposite direction ; still they have a 
 common object, that of meeting. Just so in colonization, 
 though the immediate object of an old state be to send out 
 people, and that of a colony to receive people, though the 
 colony want to sell, and the old country want to buy, the 
 means of life ; still they have a common object, that of increas- 
 ing the number and enjoyments of mankind. Their common 
 object is to give full play to the principle of population, so 
 long as any habitable part of the colony remains uninhabited. 
 This community of interest becomes still more plain, when 
 we reflect on the object of a colony in removing people from 
 the settled to the waste parts of the colony. Here the imme- 
 diate object of the colony is the very same as that of the 
 mother country : an enlargement of the general field of pro- 
 duction in proportion to the general increase of capital and 
 labour. The object of the old country is, that room should he 
 made for more people ; that of the colony to make room for 
 more people. These truisms are repeated, because it will be 
 
 Useful to bear tin in in mind when we shall come to the 
 
 means of colonization; and because, hitherto, those who have 
 
 had the menus of colonization at their disposal would seem 
 
 never to have heard of these men; truisms. 
 
 With a view also to saving time when we shall come to the
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 257 
 
 means of colonization, it will be well to notice here, in a more 
 particular way, some of the special objects of a colony in pro- 
 moting the immigration of people. 
 
 I have attempted to prove elsewhere, that want of free 
 labour is the cause of slavery in America ; not the clearness of 
 labour, but the want of free labour at any price. Why do the 
 settlers in New South Wales, having capital, dread above all 
 things that the English government should cease to pour into 
 that colony a stream of population utterly depraved and irre- 
 claimable ? The criminal code of England is more bloody 
 than that of any other country which has a code of laws ; but 
 in New South Wales, the proportion of public executions to 
 public executions in England is, I believe, allowing for the dif- 
 ference of numbers, in the ratio of 325 to 1. This is partly 
 accounted for when we reflect, that, of the convicts sent to 
 New South Wales, nine out often are men, brought to that 
 pass, most of them, by the violence of their passions ; nine 
 men to one woman ; men accustomed to unbridled indulgence 
 and reckless of all social ties. The result need not be de- 
 scribed. Nor is it difficult to account for the attachment of 
 the English government to this system of reformation. If 
 English convicts were punished by imprisonment at home, 
 though the English aristocracy would have to bestow upon 
 their dependents more places, such as that of jailer or turnkey, 
 they would miss the disposal of a number of places such as 
 gentlemen will accept. The governor of New South Wales 
 is a jailer ; but, being called Your Excellency, and paid accord- 
 ingly, he is thankful for his place ; as thankful as any one ever 
 is for a place which he has obtained by electioneering services. 
 But how are we to account for the attachment of the richer 
 colonists to this horrid system of transportation ? By their 
 want of free labour ; by their anxiety to keep that slave- 
 labour, without which each of them could use no more capital 
 than his own hands could employ. They say, and with per- 
 fect truth, that if the supply of convicts were stopped the colony 
 would be ruined. Assuredly the colony would be ruined, un- 
 less the richer settlers should find the means of obtaining either 
 free labour, or that kind of slave-labour which they have in 
 America. 
 
 But even with the convict system, there is a deficiency of 
 labour. In Van Dieman's Land it is common to see one, two, 
 or three thousand sheep all in one flock, the old and the young, 
 the strong and the weak, all mixed together. While feeding, 
 the strongest of a flock, so mixed, always take the van, the 
 weakest always bringing up the rear. Thus a great number of 
 the lambs, or weaker sheep, are starved to death ; and of course, 
 the profits of the owner of the flock are by 60 much dimin-
 
 258 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 ished. Why is this loss incurred ? for want of more shep- 
 herds ; of more labour. If there were in Van Dieman's Land 
 shepherds enough to manage all the flocks in the best way, the 
 increase of produce would give higher wages to the greater 
 number of labourers, besides augmenting the profits of the 
 flock owners. The soil and climate of New South Wales 
 appear admirably suited to the growth of tobacco, olive oil, 
 silk, and wine. A London company has spent near 300,000/. 
 with an intention, declared by its prospectus, of growing all 
 these things in New South Wales. Why has it not grown any 
 of these things ? Because for the growth of any of these 
 things constant and combined labour is required; an element 
 of production wanting in New South Wales. Convict labour, 
 though constant when compared with such labour as is got by 
 the occasional immigration of free workmen, is very inconstant 
 when compared with the labour of negro slaves. The convict 
 works only so long as his term of punishment lasts, and for one 
 master only so long as the governor pleases, or the secretary of 
 the governor, or the superintendent of convicts, or some mem- 
 ber of the colonial council ; any one of whom may suddenly, 
 and without rhyme or reason, deprive a settler of his convict 
 servants. While slave labour may be combined in quantities 
 proportioned to the capitalist's means of buying slaves, convict 
 labour can never be combined in large quantities; because, as 
 the government bestows this labour, if any one settler should 
 obtain more than his due share of convicts, all the others would 
 complain of gross partiality ; and because the proportion of 
 convicts to settlers is so small, that without gross partiality no 
 one settler can have more than a few pairs of convict hands. 
 Favoured settlers, those who find favour with the governor and 
 his officers, do often obtain more than a fair share of convicts ; 
 but, as the favour of governors is uncertain, no motive is fur- 
 nished, even in these cases of gross partiality, for the com- 
 mencement of works which require the constant employment of 
 many hands, at the same time, in the same place, and for a 
 period of consecutive years. How, says Mr. Blazland, a great 
 land proprietor of New South Wales; how should our settlers 
 undertake to plant vineyards, when years must pass before any 
 win*' could be got : \«',irs during which much labour must be 
 
 employed in tending the vines; when, for gathering the grapes 
 ami turning them into wine, much more labour would be re- 
 quired ; and when, in this colony, the supply of labour is 
 always not only small, but uncertain?* This is why the 
 Australian agricultural company has not raised any exchange- 
 
 • 1 quota from recollection <>r ;i paper printed by Mr. Wilmol ll<>rion, con- 
 taining Minutes of a Conversation between himself and Mr. Blazland.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 259 
 
 able produce ; save wool, which, in a country like New South 
 Wales, naturally clear and dry, may be raised with very little 
 labour: this is why the greater part of the 300,010/. spent by 
 that company has been utterly wasted ; is gone to nothing. 
 
 Why has so much of the capital perished that was taken to 
 the Swan River ? for want of labour wherewith to preserve it. 
 Why do the few settlers that remain in that colony wish for a 
 supply of convict labour ? because they have no free labour. 
 
 In Canada, as in the United States, there is a want of free 
 labour for works which require the combination of many hands 
 and division of employments. The canals which the English 
 government has lately formed in Canada could not have been 
 finished, or perhaps begun, without a supply of labour from 
 Ireland. The great Lake Erie canal, a work of which the 
 public advantage, and the profit to the undertakers, was made 
 manifest upon paper long before the work was begun, could not 
 perhaps have been begun, most certainly could not have been 
 finished, without a great supply of Irish labour. Capital from 
 Amsterdam and London, and labour from Ireland, have lately 
 been of infinite service to the United States. Theirs is the 
 most favourable case. In all the more favourable cases, the 
 difficulty is for masters to get servants. In the less favourable 
 cases, such as Buenos Ayrcs and the Swan River, the difficulty 
 would be for servants to find masters. In the worst cases want 
 of labour leads to want of capital, and condemns the people to 
 a state of poverty and barbarism : in the best cases the people 
 would be more wealthy, would produce and enjoy more, if 
 they were more numerous in proportion to capital. All the 
 more favourable cases are maintained by some expedient, which 
 more or less counteracts the want of labour ; in the United 
 States by slavery and the immigration of people ; in New 
 South Wales and Van Dieman's land by the convict system ; 
 in Canada by a constant immigration of labour by sea, greater 
 than ever took place before in the history of colonization. If 
 the means by which the United States, Canada, and New 
 South Wales obtain labour, should be taken away, no others 
 being supplied, then must those colonies soon fall into the mis- 
 erable state of other colonies which have never had any means 
 of obtaining labour. In a word, from whatever point of view 
 we look at this subject, it appears that the great want of colo- 
 nies is labour, the original purchase-money of all things. 
 
 THE MEANS OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 The elements of colonization, it is quite obvious, are waste 
 land and the removal of people. If there were no waste land, 
 no people would remove ; if no people would remove, waste land
 
 2G0 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 must remain in a desert state. Waste land is cultivated by the 
 removal of people, and people are removed by means of the 
 motive to removal furnished by the existence of waste land. 
 Capital for the removal of people, and for the settlement of 
 people on waste land, being included in the ideas of removal 
 and settlement ; the means of colonization, it follows inevitably, 
 will resolve themselves into the disposal of waste land for the 
 removal of people. A notice of some facts will illustrate this 
 proposition. 
 
 The moving power for founding the first English colony in 
 America that did not perish, was a grant by James I., to the 
 London Company, of five degrees of waste land in Virginia. 
 The power of the king to dispose of waste land induced the 
 company to form the project of founding a colony : the power 
 thus obtained by the company to dispose of waste land, en- 
 abled them to find people willing to emigrate, and capital for 
 their removal and settlement. Just so, in the case of the last 
 colony founded by England, those who founded the colony 
 were induced to remove by receiving grants of waste land from 
 the English government. Mr. Peel's motive for removing to 
 the Swan River with a capital of 50,000/. and some hundred 
 people, was a grant of 500,000 acres of waste land ; and the 
 motive with which thosr> poople accompanied him was the hope 
 of high wages for cultivating waste land, or the prospect of 
 obtaining waste land of their own. So also, last year, when 
 an English company offered Lord Goderich 125,000/. for 
 500,000 acres of land at Spencer's Gulf, on the south coast of 
 Australia, intending to lay out 375,000/. more in planting a 
 colony on that desert spot, the motive of those projectors was 
 to obtain waste land. Of the 125,000 people who are sup- 
 posed to have emigrated from Britain last year to settle in the 
 United States, Canada, and Australia, the greater number were 
 induced to remove by the prospect of obtaining waste land, 
 and the remainder by a prospect of benefits to result to them 
 from the disposal of waste land in the countries where they 
 should settle. The greatest emigration of people that ever 
 took place in the world occurs from the eastern states to the 
 outside of the western states of America; and here tho sole 
 object in removing is either to obtain waste land, or to reap 
 ben. iii- iii some other shape from the late disposal of waste 
 land. It seems needless to multiply such examples. 
 
 The disposal of waste land lor the removal of people might 
 Ih- considered in two different points of -\ lew : first, as that ele- 
 ment of colonization is liable to be used by an old state; and 
 mdly, as it is liable to he used by a colony. Both 
 these ways of examining the subject would lead to the same 
 conclusion. For instance, we should determine the best mode
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 2GI 
 
 of treating waste land, either by ascertaining how the United 
 States might best dispose of waste land for the removal of 
 people, or how the English, with the same object, might best 
 dispose of waste land in Canada or Australia. But considering 
 that the removal of people is a secondary means of coloniza- 
 tion, depending on the disposal of waste land ; seeing that it is 
 waste land which draws people from the settled to the waste 
 parts of the colony, and so makes room for the arrival of peo- 
 ple from an old country, and that this prime mover, or point of 
 attraction, exists in the colony, it will be found much more con- 
 venient to look at the means of colonization from a colonial 
 position. If this course had been pursued before, the English 
 would not have been as ignorant as they are of the political 
 economy of new countries. Their economists, in treating of 
 colonies, have worked with no other tools than those which 
 they were accustomed to use in explaining the phenomena 
 of an old country ; have reasoned from principles, that were 
 true in the old country, to facts that never existed in the 
 colony. They remind one of an Englishman who, having 
 been used to the luxury of music, carried a grand upright piano 
 to the Swan River, and then, finding nobody to make a cup- 
 board for him, was fain to gut the musical instrument, and use 
 it for holding his crockery; or of that English colonial minister, 
 who, knowing that in Europe the seas are salt, sent w T ater-butts 
 from England for the use of the English fleet on a fresh water 
 sea in America. By looking at this subject from a colonial po- 
 sition, we shall proceed from facts to conclusions. Whatever 
 course it would be best for the United States to pursue for 
 drawing people from England to America, would be the best 
 course that the English could pursue for sending people to 
 Canada or Australia. Having ascertained what this best course 
 is it will be easy to apply to our conclusions the foundation of 
 colonies ; and to show how an old state might best co-operate 
 with a colony for giving to the means of colonization their 
 greatest possible effect. 
 
 1. The disposal of waste land. 
 
 It is not because land is uncultivated, nor even because it is 
 uninhabited, that it forms an element of colonization. The 
 greater part of Prince Edward's Island, in the Gulf of St. 
 Lawrence, though neither cultivated nor inhabited, still, being 
 the private property of two English lords,* is not liable to be 
 used for the removal of people : nor, indeed, is any land, to 
 which no government can give a title of possession ; since the 
 
 * Melville and Westmoreland.
 
 2G2 
 
 TIIL ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 motive for removing to waste land is the prospect of obtaining 
 a property in the land. Considering how much land in Amer- 
 ica, South Africa, and Australia, is open to be used by indi- 
 viduals without a title to the possession of it, it would be sur- 
 prising that so few people should ever have used land without 
 a title, if we did not reflect, also, on the influence of that " charm 
 of property," which, says M. Dumont, " is the spur of youth 
 and pillow of old age." Those Americans who, under the 
 name of squatters, use land without a title, are exceptions to 
 the general rule. Their motives for acting differently from 
 people in general will be noticed hereafter. But while, speak- 
 ing generally, people will not use land without a title, they will 
 obtain a title to land without using their property, or to more 
 land than they can possibly use. The English company which 
 founded Virginia would have preferred a grant of all America 
 to a grant of five degrees. Lower Canada is not the only 
 English colony in which English lords have obtained great 
 tracts of land, without using, or even intending to use, their 
 property. An Englishman, calling himself the Earl of Stir- 
 ling, lately took much pains to make out a property in all the 
 land of Upper Canada. The clergy of the political church in 
 Upper Canada have obtained a property in vast tracts of land 
 which they cannot use. General Lafayette lately accepted 
 from the United States 3(10,000 acres of waste land which he 
 cannot or will not use. In 1824, the Australian Agricultural 
 Company and the Van Dieman's Land Company, both of Lon- 
 don, obtained, the one, 1,000,000, the other, 500,000 acres of 
 waste land, when it was impossible they should turn a fourth 
 part of those great tracts to any useful purpose. The first im- 
 migrants to the Swan River obtained more land than a thou- 
 sand times as many people could have cultivated. In all these 
 cases and in a countless number more, so much of the chief 
 element of the primary means of colonization was annihilated 
 Nay, further, in most of them, the destruction was extended for 
 a time to land that was not granted ; as, for instance, at the 
 Swan River, where a broad stripe of the coast, not being used, 
 being almost without inhabitants, and <|uite without roads, he- 
 came, when it became the property of individuals, a bar to the 
 disposal of land more in the interior; land which, if the coast 
 were inhabited and easily passable, might be disposed of for the 
 removal of people. For the Bame reason, General Lafayette 
 ha- been requested to sell his grant to people who will use it ; 
 because, thai is, being at once desert and private property, it 
 is a bar to the progress of settlement in all directions towards 
 its centre. This again is the case w ith the lands of the clergy 
 
 in Canada; and with a still more absurd kind of property 
 created in that colony ; namely, tracts of land " reserved" by
 
 THE AUT OF COLONIZATION. 203 
 
 the crown in the midst of land which has become the property 
 of individuals. In this last case the government behaves 
 worse than the dog in the manger, who only prevented others 
 from using that which he could not use himself. Besides doing 
 this, the government of Canada injures all the people who sur- 
 round its reserves of land, by interposing deserts among them : 
 it is as if the dog had bitten the cattle, besides hindering them 
 from eating the hay. As flour is an element of bread, so is 
 waste land an element of colonization ; but as flour, which has 
 been turned into pie-crust, will not make bread, so neither is 
 waste land, which has become private property, an element of 
 colonization. It is the disposal of waste land in a certain way, 
 which is the primary means of colonization; and when the 
 land has been disposed of in another way, the power to dis- 
 pose of it in the right way no longer exists. Land, to be an 
 element of colonization, must not only be waste, but it must be 
 public property, liable to be converted into private property for 
 the end in view. In the art of colonization, therefore, the first 
 rule is of a negative kind : it is, that governments, having power 
 over waste land, and seeking to promote the removal of people, 
 should never throw away any of that power ; should never 
 dispose of waste land except for the object in view, for the re- 
 moval of people, for the greatest progress of colonization. 
 
 This rule has never been strictly observed by any colonizing 
 government : it has been grossly neglected by all such govern- 
 ments, excepting only the United States, which, since they be- 
 came entirely independent, have been more cautious than any 
 other colonizing government ever was about the disposal of 
 waste land. One or two examples of this neglect, and this cau- 
 tion, will assist us in determining in what way a government 
 ought to dispose of waste land with a view to colonization. 
 
 The most striking instance of the neglect of this rule has 
 occurred in the Dutch colony of South Africa. Here, we are 
 informed by Mr. Barrow, in the account of his travels through 
 that colony, the colonial government, having absolute control 
 over all the land in that country, disposed of that land in the 
 following way. They first declared that any one desirous to 
 obtain land should be at liberty to do so on one condition; 
 namely, that of taking a hundred times, at least, more land than 
 he could possibly cultivate. The whole district to be granted 
 was marked out in cjrcles, the diameter of each circle beino- 
 some miles ; and any one who undertook to live in the centre 
 of one of those circles obtained a title to all the land within 
 the circle. What became of the land between the circles is 
 not stated ; but all these interstices must necessarily have been 
 son uny "crown reserves." The object of this system was 
 to separate those who should become proprietors ; to separate
 
 264 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 them all from each other, by a distance equal to the diameter 
 of the circles ; and the motive for this object was fear lest, if 
 the colonists were not so separated, they might, as union is 
 force, be strong enough to think of self-government. This 
 object was fully accomplished, and the colony was effectually 
 ruined. All the land so granted, though scarcely inhabited, 
 still less cultivated, ceased, by this manner of disposing of it, 
 to be an element of colonization. That such a disposal of the 
 land had no tendency to promote the removal of people, save 
 only that of the few persons thus scattered over the colony, 
 becomes plain when we reflect, that there can be but one mo- 
 tive for emigrating to a place where all the land has become 
 private property, namely, the hope of obtaining high wages ; 
 and that a few scattered settlers were necessarily prevented, 
 even by their dispersion, from accumulating capital wherewith 
 to pay high wages to immigrant labourers. If they had not 
 obtained some slaves, that is, some combination of labour in i lie 
 particular works of their farms, they would, being so scattered, 
 and prevented from combining their own labour, have degene- 
 rated into the state of those savage descendants of Spaniards, 
 who inhabit the plains of Buenos Ayres. As it was, a more 
 ignorant and brutal race of men than the boors or farmers of 
 South Africa never, perhaps, existed. The poverty and bar- 
 barism of that country, the unfitness of the greater part of it 
 for the work of colonization, are owing, not as has been sup- 
 posed, for the want of a better reason, to the badness of its 
 soil and climate (for these very much resemble those of Spain), 
 but to the neglect, by its early governments, of the first rule in 
 the art of colonization.* 
 
 * "The white population at present (1S23), is estimated at about 70,000. In 
 1806, it was not more than 27,000. From a variety of causes, some permanent, 
 others accidental, they have hecn scattered over a larger space than was < i nsistent 
 with mutual aid and support. Thisretarded i ho progressive division of labour, 
 and exposed the solitary settler to many dangers and privations, which did not 
 operate beneficially on his habits of Industry. Instead of trying how much 
 produce of cvcr\ kiml they could raise, they were rather led i" consider on how 
 little they could subsist. The Limits of the settlement being, perhaps, too rapidly 
 extended, rendered defence, rather than cultivation, the chief objeel of public 
 attention. It is no) meant that the settlers should have been crowded together. 
 Tin- nature ofthecolonj rendered thai impossible. Itut for Bome time no 
 moderation ww observed mthis rrvjin-i ; and /' of capital, and mis- 
 
 applieatioi ' . were the consequence. The increase of 
 
 population, provided the boundaries lie now 6xed and adhered to, will gradually 
 correcl iliis evil, and bring both labour and a markePnwre and mure within the 
 1 1 these views oJ the colony be near the truth, it will be 
 worth considering whether, when new settlers are to It provided for, it would 
 not be better to select locations lor them in detail, as near the villages, and Cape 
 Town found, than to set them down in masses i>\ themselves 
 
 on the outskirts hi the colony, or beyond its peopled limits. In such situ. -it inns 
 they an doI mi ■ oul ;i burthi n to tin- 1 ommunity lor many yean — 
 
 requiring new and expensive establishments for their protection, besides tmtt»
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 265 
 
 If the first Dutch governor of New- York had been able, lie 
 would probably have been willing enough to ruin that colony 
 by planting each of the first settlers in the centre of a ircle 
 nine or twelve miles round ; but here, fortunately, the warlike 
 temper of the natives, and the extreme denseness of the 
 forests, made it impossible to execute such a contrivance for 
 ruining the colony. Though, in this case, the first settlers 
 were allowed to appropriate much more bind than they could 
 possibly use, still they were allowed to settle whereabouts they 
 pleased. In fear of the natives, and checked by the density 
 of the forests, they settled not very far from each other, and 
 were thus enabled to hold some intercourse with each other, 
 to assist each other in some degree, to accumulate some capital, 
 to preserve in some degree the arts and civilization of their 
 mother country. In this case, circumstances independent of 
 the government created a sort of rule for the disposal of waste 
 land. This case is not, therefore, an example of attention in 
 a government to the first rule in the art of colonization : it is 
 mentioned by way of contrast with the preceding case ; a con- 
 trast the more remarkable, since the miserable colony of South 
 Africa and the prosperous colony of New- York were founded 
 by the same industrious, skilful, and thrifty nation. 
 
 Two examples of some caution on the part of colonial 
 governments in disposing of waste land may now be cited, in 
 contrast with examples of reckless profusion. 
 
 1. Up to the year 1822, thirty-four years after the first set- 
 tlement in New South Wales, and when the prosperity of the 
 free settlers in that colony was a subject of great admiration 
 in England, the quantity of waste land disposed of by the gov- 
 ernment was 381,466 acres; less than the one grant obtained 
 by Mr. Peel before he left England for the Swan River. 
 Shortly afterward, Lord Bathurst, the English colonial minis- 
 ter, living in London, and knowing as much about New South 
 Wales as about Japan or the moon, disposed of a million of 
 
 ing their own money in fruitless undertakings, begun from mere ignorance of 
 the resources of the country. There appears to be abundance of unappropriated 
 land, or at least of unoccupied, or at all events, of uncultivated land, in most of 
 the settled districts, on which many thousands of industrious people might be 
 placed, most advantageously to the old inhabitants, and with much surer pros- 
 pect of providing for themselves and their families all the necessaries of life, 
 than in the remote places to which M< stream of emigration is too often directed. 
 It is true, the best places in those districts have fallen to the lot of the first 
 settlers. But locations of the second, third, or foinlh quality, as regards soil, 
 &c. near a good road or a town, may exceed in value, a thousand-fold, those of 
 the Jirst description, which possess no such advantages." — Extract from the 
 South African Commercial ,-li/r. i tiscr ; a Journal conducted by an Englishman 
 of great intelligence and ability ; a politic. 1 economist too, who, until he saw a 
 new country, would have commenced an explanation of the English theory of 
 rent, saying with Mr. Mill — " Land is of different degrees of fertility." 
 
 31
 
 266 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 acres in a single grant. In one day, then, twice as much land 
 was granted as had been granted in thirty-four years. Up to 
 1S22, all the land in New South Wales, except less than 
 400,000 acres, was liable to be disposed of as a means of 
 colonization. In 18*28, when the population of the colony was 
 little more than in 1822, the number of acres rendered not 
 liable to be disposed of for the removal of people was nearly 
 3.000,000. That the greater part of this land was not used by 
 any one, appears from an official return, which states that only 
 a forty-first part of it, or 71,523 acres, was cultivated. Al- 
 lowing for the very slight interference with nature, which is 
 termed cultivation in New South Wales, and for the turn of 
 colonial governments to exaggerate the prosperity of the people 
 ruled by them, we may perhaps conclude that not so much as 
 a forty-first part of these 3,000,000 acres was used beneficially. 
 If so, in 1828, more than forty parts out of forty-one, of the 
 land granted by the government of New South Wales, had 
 been disposed of so as to render them no longer an element of 
 colonization, without rendering them useful to any other pur- 
 pose. The profusion of the government after 1822, arose 
 from the publication of Mr. Went worth's book on New South 
 Wales. Mr. Wentworth informed people in England, that 
 land in New South Wales was worth something; that of the 
 400,000 acres then granted, thousands of acres, being near to 
 a market, yielded rent; that an estate in New South Wales 
 was a good thing to have, especially if it could be got for 
 nothing. All at once, the colonial office in London was be- 
 Bieged by applicants wanting land in New South Wales. 
 What way so easy of gratifying a friend of government, 
 or the friends and relatives of the friends and members of 
 government ? Immense grants, accordingly, were made ; 
 some, indeed, to people who emigrated, but some to lords and 
 members of parliament who never thought of emigrating. In 
 this way the colony would have been ruined, but for the pecu- 
 liar circumstances before alluded to, which supply the colonists 
 with labour, keep them together, and provide them with a 
 market. 
 
 2. Between the modes of granting land on the Canadian and 
 American sides of the line, which divides Upper Canada from 
 the Slate of New- York, there has existed until lately a very 
 remarkable contrast. On the Canadian side, crown and clergy 
 " reserves ;" unconditional grants of vast tracts to any one who 
 could find favour with the English minister or colonial gover- 
 nor : grants of smaller tracts, but still without conditions, to 
 disbanded Boldiers, military pensioners, and pauper immi- 
 grants; in a word, the greatest prolusion: on the American 
 side, n system, nearly fixed and uniform, one general and un-
 
 THE AUT OP COLONIZATION. 2G7 
 
 varying rule, with few exceptions, for the granting of land ; an 
 act of congress, which decrees that no waste land shall be dis- 
 posed of except by a special grant of Congress, or upon pay- 
 ment b^ the grantee to the government of a dollar and a 
 quarter per acre. The special grants by Congress are few 
 and far between ; while the price put upon all other waste 
 land operates as a check, almost as a bar, to the appropriation 
 of land by persons not able, or not willing, to use their prop- 
 erty. Mr. Stuart, after describing various marks of industry 
 and growing wealth on the American side of the line, says : 
 " We crossed the river * * * * * The country we 
 passed through (on the Canadian side) was greatly over- 
 cropped, with little appearance of industry or exertion to re- 
 claim it. Whenever the stage stopped to water the horses, 
 the doors were crowded with children, offering apples and 
 plums for sale ; and we saw, for the first time on this side of 
 the Atlantic, several beggars."* The following account of the 
 difference between the American and Canadian sides of the 
 line, in point of industry and wealth, is given by Mr. Picker- 
 ing; a careful observer, with strong prejudices against the 
 Americans. "I am once again under the jurisdiction of the 
 British government and laws, and therefore feel myself no 
 longer an alien. Though the Americans, in general, are civil 
 and friendly, still an Englishman, himself a stranger among 
 them, is annoyed and disgusted by their vaunts of prowess in 
 the late puny war, and superiority over all other nations ; and 
 they assume it as a self-evident fact, that the Americans sur- 
 pass all others in virtue, wisdom, valour, liberty, government, 
 and every other excellence. Yet, much as the Americans de- 
 serve ridicule for this foible, still 1 admire the energy and en- 
 terprise everywhere exhibited, and regret the apathy of the 
 British government with regard to the improvement of this 
 province. A single glance down the banks of the Niagara 
 tells on which side the most efficient government has resided. 
 On the United States side, large towns springing up : the 
 numerous shipping, with piers to protect them in harbour; 
 coaches rattling along the road ; and trade evidenced by 
 wagons, carts, horses, and people on foot, in various directions. 
 On the Canadian side, although in the immediate vicinity, an 
 older settlement, and apparently better lanel,ihere are only two 
 or three stores, a tavern or two, a natural harbour with- 
 
 * " I never observed land more in want of manure than this part of Canada 
 (near Montreal), originally of indifferent soil, and now totally worn out by over- 
 cropping, and in the most wretched state of agriculture. Yet the manure in a 
 great stable-yard, belonging to the hotel where we lodged, is thrown into the 
 river; and obviously little use is made of it anywhere." — Stuart, vol. i. p. 163.
 
 268 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 out piers, but few vessels, and two temporary landing- 
 places."* 
 
 To what is owing this striking difference between the pros- 
 perity of two sets of people, cultivating the same soil, under 
 the same climate, with the same degree of knowledge, and 
 divided only by an imaginary line ? What has caused the 
 second immigration into the State of New- York, of a large pro- 
 portion of the poorer emigrants from Britain to Upper Canada ? 
 These questions will be answered presently. Meanwhile, 
 enough has been stated to show, that there must be some one 
 way better than all the others of treating waste land for the 
 removal of people, for the greatest progress of colonization ; 
 and that every disposal of waste land in any way but the best 
 way diminishes by so much the power of a colonizing state to 
 proceed in the best way. 
 
 What is the best way in which to dispose of waste land 
 with a view to colonization? It may be supposed, that in 
 some one colony, at least, for some short time, this best way 
 of proceeding has been adopted, if only by accident. On the 
 contrary, as far as I can learn, in no one colony of modern 
 times, has any uniform system been adopted even for a week: 
 while in nearly all colonies several ways of proceeding, the 
 most different and often contradictory, have been pursued 
 either within a short period or at the same time. 
 
 The nearest approach to a uniform system is that of the 
 United States ; the sale of waste land by public auction, at a 
 fixed upset price, except as to special grants by congress. 
 The exceptions, however, are so important as to defeat the 
 rule. Among these exceptions are the grant of 300,000 acres 
 to General Lafayette ; grants to the amount of 6,528,000 acres 
 to disbanded soldiers,f and enormous grants for the support 
 of schools and colleges, as well as to the undertakers of public 
 works, such as roads and canals. All these grants so far re- 
 semble the crown and clergy reserves of Upper Canada, that 
 they have diminished, according to their extent, the field of 
 colonization, and injured the settlers round about those special 
 grants. For neither the French general, nor the disbanded 
 soldiers, nor the BChools and colleges, nor the undertakers of 
 canals, attempted to cultivate the land which they so obtained 
 for nothing. I>nt Genera] Lafayette may sell his land for less 
 than the minimum price per acre required by Congress from all 
 buyers of waste land. This the disbanded soldiers have actu- 
 
 it's Guide to Canada, 1830. 
 t "'I'll'' great Military Bounty tract, reserved by Congress for distribution 
 among the loldiei "i the late war, commences in tin 1 neighbourhood of Lower 
 Alton. It comprehends the norlh-wesl corner of the Stele — about 170 miles 
 long and 80 miles broad." — Stuart, vol. ii ]>. 3 i>.
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 269 
 
 ally done :* thus counteracting whatever rmiy have been the 
 object of Congress in adopting that price. In several ways, 
 therefore, the special grants by Congress are, not merely in ex- 
 ception, but in downright contradiction, to the general way of 
 proceeding. 
 
 As soon as the French settlement in Lower Canada, which 
 was established by private adventurers, became of sufficient 
 importance to deserve the attention of the mother country, the 
 court of Versailles proceeded to grant all the land within reach 
 of emigrants, and much that was beyond their reach, to certain 
 courtiers or creatures of courtiers. Each of these grantees 
 obtained an immense tract, on two conditions ; first, that neither 
 he nor his descendants should ever part with the property; 
 secondly, that he should grant leases, on condition of receiving 
 services like those required from the holders of land under the 
 worst feudal system of Europe. In this case, court favour, 
 than which nothing is much more irregular, was the means of 
 obtaining property in land ; or, if we are to consider the second 
 condition attached to these seignetiries as leaving them open 
 to use by settlers, then the means of obtaining land were as 
 irregular and whimsical as the feudal services required from 
 tenants. Upon the whole, however, it will seem that the 
 establishment of these absurd lordships in the wilderness was, 
 after the Dutch plan in South Africa, the best way to ruin the 
 colony, by means of the restrictions thereby imposed on the 
 useful appropriation of waste land. In the French colony of 
 Louisiana, on the contrary, "lands," says the Abbe Itaynal, 
 " were granted indiscriminately to every person who applied 
 for them, and in the manner in which he desired them." Here, 
 then, instead of a system, land was disposed of according to 
 the irregular fancies of individuals. This might be called a 
 rule for the disposal of waste land, if it were not clear that 
 every gratification of an individual fancy, as to the extent and 
 situation of grants, was calculated to prevent the gratification 
 of other individual fancies. The historian of French Louisiana, 
 one of the many colonies that has perished, goes on to say — 
 " Had it not been for this original error, Louisiana would not 
 have languished for so long a time ; immense deserts would not 
 have separated the colonists from each other. Being brought 
 near to a common centre, ihey would have assisted each other, 
 and would have enjoyed all the advantages of a well regulated 
 
 ■ " Most of those lands have heen sold by the soldiers to other individuals, and 
 are now owned in great quantities hy gentlemen in the eastern States. * * * 
 They have heen sold by the soldiers for about 50 dollars for a quarter section, 
 containing 100 acres." Letter from Mr. Duncan, of Vandalia. — Stuart, vol. ii. 
 p. 396. 
 
 This is at the rate of 31} cents per acre ; while the upset price of land sold 
 by Congress is 125 cents per acre.
 
 270 THE ART OF COLOXIZATIO*. 
 
 society. Instead of a few hordes of savages, we should have 
 seen a rising colony, which might in time have become a 
 powerful nation, and procured infinite advantages to France." 
 
 In Upper Canada, hind has been granted, at the same time, 
 to favourites of the colonial court, tor nothing ; to others, for 
 bribes paid to colonial officers :* to some, on condition of pay- 
 ing a quit-rent to the government, which quit-rent was exacted 
 in some cases and not in others ; to some, for nothing, because 
 they were American royalists ; to others, for so much money 
 per acre, paid openly to the government, and disposed of in 
 various jobs of which the note below gives an example ; to the 
 political clergy for nothing, as we have seen before ; and even 
 to the grantor, to the crown itself, in the preposterous shape of 
 crown reserves. In this colony too, while all these ways of 
 granting land were pursued at once, during the very period of 
 this irregularity in granting land, grants were refused with equal 
 irregularity ; because the applicant had offended the governor ; 
 because he asked for land in a favourable situation reserved 
 by the governor, in his excellency's mind, I mean, for some 
 relative or dependent ; because he wanted land, in a situation 
 which his excellency, in his wisdom, thought not fit for settle- 
 ment, and, in his power, resolved should continue desert; 
 because this spot was intended for the site of a town, and that 
 for some military purpose ; because this district had not been 
 surveyed, or this was, in the governor's opinion, too thickly 
 peopled ; or that required more people, and was, on that day, 
 the only spot in which a grant would be made. Such are not 
 all, but only a few, of the very different and often contradic- 
 tory grounds on which, at one and the same time, waste land 
 was granted and withheld in this colony down to last year. 
 
 In New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, colonies not 
 fifty years old, land has been granted and refused on all sorts 
 
 * " Will you inform the committee of the sums that have been paid by the 
 Canada Company, and their appropriation ! * Thirdly, 
 2,566/., as an minimi compensation, for the period of Seven \e:irs, to those olli- 
 cers of the land-granting department in I pper Canada, who, by the adoption 
 of the new regulation! for granting lands, are deprived "I their emolumentt.''* 
 See > ridence ol the Righl Honourable K. Wilmot Horton, M. P. and under- 
 secretary of state for the colonies, delivered before a select < imiuee of the 
 
 House ol Commons, on the civil government of Canada, 1828. The report of 
 this committee, which tills a thick folio volume, is crowded with examples of 
 jobbing in the disposal of h aste land. 
 
 "The surveyor! receive their compensation in land, and generally secure the 
 dons. \\ ben I was in Canada, thej would sell their best lots 
 
 1". »r one dollar per acre ; while I3i. 10*., the lee on one hundred acres, amount 
 to more than halt a dollar per acre. I never mi t with any one person, among 
 
 all those with whom I conversed on the subject, who did no) agree, that, if a 
 settler had but a very little money, it would be much more to Ins advantage to 
 buy land than to receive it from the government." — Letters from North America, 
 try Afinm H'ld^'on. Vol. ii. p. 47.
 
 THE AHT OF COLONIZATION. 271 
 
 of different and contradictory grounds ; granted by favour, for 
 money, for public services, real or pretended, to English lords 
 and members of parliament, because they were lords and 
 members of parliament ; to the political clergy, to schools, and 
 other institutions ; granted unconditionally and with conditions ; 
 conditions fulfilled in some cases, but much oftener neglected ; 
 granted on account of the applicant's wealth, that is, because 
 he was able to invest capital on the land, and on account of 
 his poverty, that is, on the score of charity : refused according 
 to every whim of every successive governor, always a sailor 
 or a soldier, as fit to manage a great work of public economy 
 as Adam Smith was fit to navigate a ship or command a regi- 
 ment. To save the reader's lime, in order that he may be 
 able to imagine the excessive irregularity with which land has 
 been granied and withheld in these colonies, I shall state two 
 facts, out of hundreds, which tend to establish that here, as to 
 the disposal of new land, the government has been regular in 
 nothing but irregularity. 
 
 1. About four years ago, General Darling being governor 
 of New South Wales, the colonial office in London used to 
 distribute a " regulation," by which it was declared that any 
 person in England wishing to settle in New South Wales, 
 would obtain, on reaching the colony, a grant of land exten- 
 sive in proportion to the capital that he was prepared to invest 
 on it. On the faith of this regulation, people used to emigrate 
 with their capital. One of them, with the regulation in his 
 hand, waits upon the governor, and begs for a grant of land 
 still at the disposal of government, in the county of Cumber- 
 land ; as near, that is, to the town of Sydney as the previous 
 disposal of waste land would allow. Has he brought a letter 
 of recommendation to the governor, or the treasurer, or the 
 secretary, or some member of council ? If yes, if the letter 
 come from a powerful man or woman in England, the grant is 
 made out. If no, then says the governor or his deputy — we 
 wish to promote settlements in Wellington Valley, two hundred 
 miles from Sydney, on the western side of the Blue Mountains. 
 Take a grant there, or do without a grant : in other words, go 
 back to England or bury yourself and utterly waste your capital 
 in a distant wilderness. What, it may be asked, could be the 
 governor's motive for this cruel injustice? a desire to spread 
 his dominion, to make the colony appear wide upon the map, 
 to be able to boast of new settlements far apart (this is the 
 merit), far apart from each other ! Some of the evils of this 
 ignorant desire are well described in the following extract from 
 a letter addressed, in 1832, by General Clausel to Marshal 
 Soult. " Tout devenait facile, si on eut suivi le systeme de 
 colonization que j'avais etabli. N'ayant plus a, m'occuper de
 
 2?'2 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Constantine et d'Oran.j'aurais porte tous mes soins, toute mon 
 attention, sur la ville d'Alger et les environs. Notre etablisse- 
 ment sur ce point, aisement surveille, cut pris, peu a peu, et 
 sans exiger presque aucun frais, une extension suffisante. A 
 mesure que des colons Europeens seraient arrives, on aurait 
 gagne du terrain ; et lorsque les besoins de la colonie Feussent 
 exige, on aurait pris une partie suffisante du territoire d'Oran 
 et de Constantine. V ouloir colonizer en mime temps la regence 
 toute entiere, vouloir mettre des garnisons sur tous les points, 
 avoir la pretention de tout retenir des aujourd'hui sous notre 
 domination immediate, tout cela me parait etre un projet chi- 
 merique : en faire meme L'essai serait de compromettre le 
 succes de notre etablissement en Afrique, et entrainer l'etat, 
 en pure perte, dans des depenses ruineuses." 
 
 2. During the rule of this same governor of New South 
 Wales, it was proposed to make a road between Sydney and 
 Hunter's River, a spot where some settlements had been formed, 
 but between which and Sydney there was no communication 
 except by the sea and Hunt r's River. This road was to pass 
 through a district, the whole of which, though of course nearer 
 to Sydney than the settlements on Hunter's River, remained 
 in the hands of government. Now, before the government 
 began to make the road, two or three applications were made 
 for grants of land in this district ; small grants of less than a 
 hundred acres each ; modest applications, considering that the 
 applicants were persons of high official rank in the colony, and 
 near connexions of the governor to boot. The applications 
 were successful, of course. Somehow or other, the new road 
 took the direction of these grants ; over or by the side of which, 
 therefore, all travellers by land, between Sydney and Hunter's 
 River, necessarily passed. On each of these grants a house 
 was built ; a house, which, being licensed (for they have a 
 licensing system in New South Wales) became an inn. These 
 inns, then, were the only places on the line of road at which tra- 
 vellers could stop for rest and Refreshment. (M course, such a 
 monopoly caused the prices of real and refreshment to be very 
 high; gave very high profits to the inn-keepers. Other per- 
 son-, desirous to share m these high profits, now applied for 
 grants of land on the line of road. No» said the governor, or 
 one of these inn-keepers, von may have land on Hunter's River 
 or in Wellington Valley : but along this line of road no more 
 land will be granted at present. Thus the powerof the gov- 
 ernor to grant or withhold waste land was used in this case 
 with the edict, and one can hardly doubt for the purpose, of 
 turning two or three of Ins excellency's favourites iiit < > highway* 
 mi ii ; of enabling them to rob all travellers between Sydm y 
 and Hunter's River ; to rob them of bomewhat less than the
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 273 
 
 difference between the cost of going round by sea and the cost 
 of travelling on a straight road open to the competition of inn- 
 keepers. It would not be easy to find, even in Ireland, a match 
 for this job ; but many to match it have taken place in New 
 South Wales. My authority for this statement is Mr. Potter 
 Macqueen, late member of parliament for Bedfordshire ; him- 
 self the proprietor of a large tract of land in New South Wales, 
 and, as such, an instance of the shameful irregularity with which 
 new land has been disposed of in that colony. 
 
 For granting land at the Swan River settlement, regulations 
 made by Sir George Murray and Mr. Horace Tvviss, the chief 
 and under-secretaries of state for the colonies, were published 
 in England ; but not till after Sir George Murray had granted 
 500,000 acres to the cousin of his colleague, Sir Robert Peel. 
 This grant to Mr. Peel was obtained by means of a letter, 
 which has been published, from Sir Robert to Sir George. 
 Some member of the House of Commons having said that this 
 transaction was a job, Sir Robert Peel defended it ; and Mr. 
 (now Lord) Brougham, the author of a book on colonial policy, 
 rising after the right honourable baronet, declared, that for the 
 first time the right honourable baronet had made an " unneces- 
 sary speech ;" so complete, or so unnecessary was the vindi- 
 cation of his conduct. The grant, however, to Sir Robert's 
 cousin, of more land than had been granted in New South 
 Wales during thirty-four years, and the outcry that was raised 
 against it, compelled the government to give land to other 
 people in the same way ; that is, with the most reckless pro- 
 fusion. Thus the only advantage obtained by Mr. Peel over 
 other settlers was his being allowed to mark out his grant upon 
 the map in England, and to choose what he considered the very 
 best situation. But this, though it has proved of no advantage 
 to Mr. Peel, was very injurious to all the other settlers ; because, 
 as he had selected his grant round about the port or landing- 
 place, so great an extent of land in the very best situation 
 became private property as to render all the other situations 
 very bad in comparison. If Mr. Peel had been compelled to 
 make roads through his grant, or had obtained only such an 
 extent of land as might easily have had roads made through it 
 by the government, the case would have been different. As it 
 was, his property became as a desert between the port or 
 landing-place and the land beyond that property. Beyond 
 that desert, however, it was declared, that all the world should 
 be entitled to unlimited grants, on either one of two conditions, 
 as the grantee should prefer ; either an outlay of 1.9. 6d. per acre 
 in conveying labourers to the settlement, or the investment of 
 capital on the land at the rate of \s. 6d. per acre. The second 
 of these conditions was flatly at variance with the first. The 
 
 35
 
 214 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 object of the first condition was to promote the emigration of 
 labourers in proportion to the land granted ; but as those who 
 had obtained land on the second condition wanted labourers, 
 and, not having spent capital on the immigration of labourers, 
 were able to offer higher wages than those who had, the 
 labourers brought out by one set of capitalists were taken from 
 them by another set ; and thus it came to happen that no one 
 had a motive for obtaining land on the first condition. One of 
 the conditions made the other a nullity : just as, elsewhere, the 
 profusion of one governor and the caution of his successor, or 
 the profusion of one and the caution of his predecessor, or the 
 profusion and caution of the same governor either at different 
 times, or with respect to different parts of the same colony at 
 the same time, have had opposite tendencies ; have tended to 
 increase, and, as the people were increasing, to decrease the 
 proportion between the inhabitants of a colony and the land 
 open to cultivation. 
 
 All these cases pretty well establish, that in no modern colony 
 has the best way, or indeed any one way, of treating waste 
 land been pursued systematically : to these cases it would be 
 easy to add several hundreds of different and often contra- 
 dictory modes, in which the governments of modern Europe 
 have disposed of the chief element of colonization. 
 
 What is the best mode in which to dispose of waste land 
 with a view to colonization ? In order to ascertain this, we 
 must first determine what is, or ought to be, the immediate 
 object of a colonizing government in exerting its power over 
 waste land. The accomplishment of that immediate object 
 would be a way to ultimate ends. 
 
 Why should any government exert power over waste land 
 either by giving or withholding? Why not let individuals 
 judge for themselves as to the situation and extent of new hind 
 that each individual should like to call his own ? This course 
 has been recommended by some English economists ;* on the 
 ground that individuals are the best judges of what is for their 
 own interest, and that all unnecessary interference of government 
 with the affairs of individuals is sure to do more harm than 
 good. But in this case, the government must necessarily inter- 
 fere to some extent ; that is, it must establish or confirm a title 
 to the land of which individuals had taken possession. Or, 
 perhaps, those English economists, who deprecate the inter- 
 ference of government in the disposal of waste land, would 
 have each settler on new land to be a " squatter ;" a settler 
 wit hunt any title, liable to be ousted by any other man who 
 was stronger, and who, being the best judge of his own interest, 
 
 * Especially by Mr Mill ; in a letter to Mr VVilmot Horton, not printed, but 
 industriously nrculated by the latter.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 275 
 
 should think it worth while to oust the first occupier. Passing 
 by so absurd a conclusion from the principle of non-interfer- 
 ence, let us now suppose the case, in which a colonizing govern- 
 ment should confine its interference to securing a property in 
 that land of which individuals had taken possession. In this 
 case, all the land to which it was possible that government 
 should afterward give a title would immediately be taken 
 possession of by a few individuals; good judges of their own 
 interest, consulting their own advantage. But what, in this 
 case, would become of all the other individuals who, in pursuit 
 of their own advantage, might be desirous to obtain some waste 
 land ? This question settles the point. For the good of all, 
 the interference of government is not less necessary to prevent 
 a few individuals from seizing all the waste land of a colony 
 than it is necessary to prevent robberies. As it is for the good 
 of all that no one should be allowed to take any other one's 
 property, so it is for the good of all that no individual should 
 be allowed to injure other individuals by taking more than the 
 right quantity of waste land. In the former case, government 
 enforces a compact among all the members of a society ; an 
 agreement that any one who takes the property of another 
 shall be punished : so, in the latter case, the interference of 
 government with respect to waste land is nothing but the en- 
 forcement of a compact among all who are interested in the 
 disposal of waste land ; an agreement that none shall be allowed 
 to injure the others, that the greatest good of all shall be con- 
 sulted. This point settled, what, for the greatest good of all, 
 is the immediate object of a colonizing government in exerting 
 its power over waste land '? Its ultimate object being the 
 greatest progress of colonization, its immediate object is, that 
 there should exist in the colony those circumstances which are 
 best calculated to attract capital and labour, but especially 
 labour, from an old country. The advantage of the immigrants, 
 though one of the ends, is also an essential means of coloniza- 
 tion. For the greatest advantage of immigrants to a colony, 
 it is necessary that the colonial profits of capital, and wages of 
 labour, should be as high as possible. High profits, then, and 
 especially high wages, are the immediate object of a colonizing 
 government in exerting its power over waste land. 
 
 In order to create and maintain a very high rate of wages 
 in the colony, it is necessary, first, that the colonists should 
 have an ample field of production ; ample, that is, in propor- 
 tion to capital and labour ; such an extent of land as to render 
 unnecessary the cultivation of inferior soils, and as to permit a 
 large proportion of the people to be engaged in agriculture ; a 
 field, large from the beginning, and continually enlarged with 
 the increase of capital and people. But, in the second place,
 
 276 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 it is quite as necessary that the field of production should never 
 be too large ; should never be so large as to encourage hurtful 
 dispersion ; as to promote that cutting up of capital and labour 
 into small fractions, which, in the greater number of modern 
 colonies, has led to poverty and barbarism, or speedy ruin. 
 For securing the first condition of high profits and wages, the 
 power of the government over waste land must be exerted 
 actively, in bestowing upon individuals titles to the possession 
 of land : for the second object, that power must be exerted 
 negatively, in refusing titles to waste land. The action of the 
 two exertions of power together may be compared to that of 
 an elastic belt, which, though always tight, will always yield to 
 pressure from within. 
 
 But as the belt which should press more in one place than 
 in another, or should be more tight at one time than at another, 
 would be defective, so would any system for granting and 
 refusing waste land be defective which should not be both 
 uniform and lasting. 
 
 It is easy to grant land, and easy to refuse applications for 
 grants: the difficulty is to draw a line between the active and 
 negative exertions of power, so as to render the proportion 
 which land bears to people neither too small nor too great for 
 the highest profits and wages. 
 
 With a view, not deliberate, certainly, but rather instinctive, 
 to maintaining a due proportion between people and land, 
 three methods of proceeding have been adopted by several 
 colonial governments : first, that of attaching conditions to 
 grants of land ; secondly, that of imposing a tax on the land 
 granted, and in case the tax was not paid, seizing and selling 
 the land for arrears of taxes; thirdly, that of requiring payment 
 in money for waste land before the grant was made out. 
 
 In the first mode of proceeding, the grantee obtained his 
 land on such conditions, for example, as that of cultivating it, 
 or that oi" paying a quit-renl ; and in either case the granl was 
 liable to be recalled provided the condition was not observed. 
 But grants of land have scarcely ever been recalled because the 
 land had not been cultivated, or the quit-rent had not boon paid. 
 
 Why smli conditions have nearly always been a dead letter is 
 
 plain enough : because the term M cultivation" is so general and 
 vague that no tribunal could decide whether or not that condi- 
 tion had been fulfilled ; While all the holders of land obtained 
 on that condition, including frequently the members of the only 
 tribunal to which the question could be submitted, have made 
 common cause i<> prevent the question from being raised:* 
 
 * The granti at the Swan River wen declared liable to be forfeited unless 
 Uicy should. Ihi " ouliioatod to the Batisfaction of the governor;" a gentleman
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 277 
 
 because, as to quit-rents, all who obtained land on condition of 
 paying them, including the favorites of governments, and fre- 
 quently the officers of government themselves, have made 
 common cause to prevent the recall of grants for non- payment 
 of quit-rent. Thus, while such conditions were sure to be 
 neglected, the certainty of being able to disregard them led so 
 many people to acquire more property than they could possibly 
 use, that the grantees would not have been able, supposing them 
 willing, to have observed the conditions; would not have been 
 able to cultivate so much more land than there were labourers 
 to employ, or to have paid quit-rent for so much land which 
 yielded nothing. Judging from these cases, and from very- 
 many more in which conditions have been attached to grants 
 without an attempt to enforce them, it seems impossible to 
 devise any after-condition, in the nature of a promise, which 
 would hinder people from taking more land than they ought to 
 take ; which would render the belt always tight, while always 
 sufficiently elastic. 
 
 Secondly. Though by imposing a tax on granted land which 
 remains in a desert state, and selling the land for arrears of 
 taxes, some check would be put to the misappropriation of 
 new land, still this plan is open to the same objections as the 
 one just examined : the execution of the plan would be difficult 
 or next to impossible : it is but another mode of attaching to 
 grants the after-condition of cultivation. In some of the United 
 States, truly, this plan has been successfully pursued with 
 respect to deserts of private property, which had become pri- 
 vate property before the plan of taxing and seizing was adopted. 
 But why was this plan devised ? Not to prevent, but to cure, 
 the evils of deserts interposed among the settlers. Act upon 
 this plan with respect to all desert land now private property, 
 
 deserving, on many accounts, very great respect ; but, nevertheless, a naval 
 captain, whose knowledge of " cultivation" must necessarily be small, and who, 
 besides, owns in the colony a hundred, perhaps a thousand times as much land 
 as it is possible that he should cultivate. Is it to be expected that he will 
 declare his own land to be forfeited for want of cultivation 1 
 
 Mr. Ellice, now war-minister of England, was asked by the committee of the 
 House of Commons on the civil government of Canada, whether escheats of land 
 had taken place under the 6th of George IV., which empowered the government 
 to seize and sell lauds, as to which certain conditions had not been performed. 
 He answered, '• None, that I am aware of." But then, he had just before 
 informed the committee, that "grants had been most inconsiderately and 
 wantonly made, in large masses, to people connected with government, to the 
 great detriment of the country and the great nuisance of the inhabitants around ;" 
 that land had been so granted " in large masses, since it was the fashion for 
 every councillor or officer connected with I lie government, to get a grant of from 
 5000 to 20,000 acres ;" that many of " those grantees were absentees ; and 
 some governors of the colony." The evidence of Mr. Ellice before this com- 
 mittee*, and especially that part of it which relates to the disposal of waste land, 
 is full of instruction for colonizing governments.
 
 278 THE ART OF C0L0MZAT10N. 
 
 still what is to be done with the land so seized, or recovered, 
 by the government? Is it to be granted again in such a way 
 as to cull for a second seizure, and a third grant of the same 
 lots of land 1 This plan may be good for the cure of an evil, 
 but is plainly quite insufficient to prevent the evil. It has 
 been successful, as a cure in some of the United States, only 
 because, since the evil arose which it was intended to cure, 
 another plan had been adopted to prevent the evil as to all 
 new grants. 
 
 But, thirdly, it is obvious that a government may put any 
 degree of restraint on the acquisition of waste land, by means 
 of conditions to be performed before the grant is bestowed ; 
 by making the grant itself conditional on some previous act by 
 the grantee. Of this nature was a part of the plan for granting 
 land at the Swan River; that part by which he, who had paid 
 for the conveyance of labourers to the colony, was entitled to 
 waste land in proportion to his outlay. Not less strictly of this 
 nature, though somewhat more obviously, is the plan now pur- 
 sued by the United States ; that of requiring payment in 
 money for new grants. This appears to be the most sure and 
 most simple way to prevent the improper acquisition of waste 
 land. For, though many expedients might be suggested for 
 rendering the grant conditional (in the performance of some act 
 by the grantee, such as withholding the title until the land was 
 cultivated, still in all of these ways of proceeding much room 
 would be left for favour, for disputes, and evasions, as well as 
 for miscalculation on the part of the grantee ; not to mention 
 that, if time were required for the performance of the condi- 
 tion of title, all new land must pass through a state of uncer- 
 tainty as to its ownership ; being used in some way by indi- 
 viduals with a view to gaining a title, and yet not the property 
 of individuals, but liable to be resumed by the government in 
 case the condition of a title were not thoroughly performed. 
 The great merit of the system pursued by the United States 
 consists in its simplicity, and the certainty of its operation. 
 
 Still the object of the government, or rather of the com- 
 munity, would be missed, if the payment required for waste 
 land were not so high as to deter individuals from taking more 
 land than, for the benefit of the whole society, they ought to 
 take. If the price were so low that great tracts should be 
 attainable by paying a trifle of money, individuals, speculating 
 vaguely on BOme distant benefit to arise from the increase of 
 population, would acquire great tracts without being willing, 
 or even able, to use them; would interpose great deserts 
 among the Bettlers ; would produce an extreme degree of dis- 
 persion, reducing the power of capital and labour to the mini- 
 mum, and rendering out of the case both high profits and high
 
 •ME ART OF COLONIZATION. 279 
 
 wages. Thus, at the Swan River, though some grantees paid 
 money for their land, when they paid for the passage of emi- 
 grant labourers, still as the rate of payment was two hundred 
 acres for each labourer, or Is. Qd. per acre, they were not pre- 
 vented from taking a great deal more land than they could 
 use. In this case, the object of requiring money for land 
 would not have been attained, even if the system had been 
 uniform ; if none had been allowed to acquire land save by 
 paying money for it. So, in the United States, where, for 
 want of combinable free-labour, slavery is, one may say, a 
 necessity ; where restrictions on foreign trade and bounties on 
 home manufactures are, not in opposition to, but in strict 
 agreement with, the first principles of political economy, being, 
 after slavery, the chief means by which the people are kept 
 together, and induced to keep each other; where, notwith- 
 standing these expedients for promoting combination of power, 
 it is a general practice to exhaust the fertility of land, trusting 
 to nature for nearly all, and to skill for hardly any thing ; 
 where, though not half of the appropriated land be cultivated, 
 the people are moving on, leaving great gaps of desert be- 
 hind them, in search of more land to be treated in the same 
 way ; there, it seems evident, the price put upon waste land 
 is too low for the object in view. And this conclusion is sup- 
 ported by particular facts. In the newest settlements, univer- 
 sally, we find much land, which is become private property 
 without being used in any way ; not even cleared of the forest ; 
 taken out of the control of the public, and yet of no service to 
 any individual ; while all such land interposes so much desert, 
 or so many deserts, among the settlers, increasing the distance 
 by which they are separated, interfering with the construction 
 of roads, and operating as a check to social intercourse, to con- 
 cert, to exchange, and to the skilful use of capital and labour. 
 On the other hand, it is equally plain that too high a price 
 might be required for waste land. If it be for the good of all 
 that no waste land should be granted without being used bene- 
 ficially, it is equally for the good of all that none should be 
 withheld from individuals able and willing to use it in the best 
 way. In order to make the belt elastic as well as tight, in 
 order that the field of production should increase gradually 
 along with the increase of capital and labour, it would be 
 necessary to require for new land a price not more than suf- 
 ficient to prevent the improper acquisition of land ; it would be 
 necessaiy to make the price so low, that the acquisition and 
 use of new land should be one of the most productive employ- 
 ments of capital. To make the price so high, that the acqui- 
 sition and use of new land should not be one of the most pro- 
 ductive employments of capital, would be equal to a decree
 
 280 THE AltT OF COLON IZATIOW. 
 
 that no more land should be used in any way ; would encom- 
 pass the settled parts of the colony, not with an elastic belt, 
 but with " a wall of brass ;" would, as soon as capital and 
 labour had reached an excessive proportion to land, cause low 
 profits and low wages; would prevent the immigration of 
 people ; would inevitably defeat the objects of colonization : 
 just as if all the land of a colony were granted suddenly to a 
 few persons neither able nor willing to use it, but willing and 
 able to prevent others from using it. The golden mean, a 
 term often misapplied to some degree between right and very 
 wrong, reallv signifies the right degree and nothing else : for 
 this case, in which contrary powers are to be exerted, the power 
 of granting and the power of withholding, the golden mean is 
 all in all. Some remarks will be offered presently on the class 
 of facts which a colonizing people would take as their guide 
 for ascertaining the best price of new land. 
 
 Meanwhile, we have to dispose of two questions hardly less 
 important than the question of price. 
 
 First, supposing the best price ascertained, the beneficial 
 operation of it might be checked, nay, altogether prevented in 
 two different ways ; either by opposing obstacles to the acqui- 
 sition of land at that price, or by granting land on other terms. 
 Thus, in New South Wales, where the English government has 
 been persuaded to adopt the plan of selling new land instead 
 of giving it away,* the governor's caprice still determines 
 
 * Ever since May, 1829, the Colonial Department in London has been urged, 
 in various ways, to adopt the American plan of selling waste land, instead of 
 jobbing it according to the English plan. For a long while, this suggestion 
 was either fiercely opposed or treated with ridicule, by persons connected with 
 the colonial office, and especially by Mr. Wilmot Ilorton and Mr. Hay, one of 
 them lately, and the other still under-secrctary of state for the colonies. This 
 suggestion having been pressed upon the government by a society established 
 for the purpose of promoting systematic colonization, Mr. Wilmot Horlon, 
 jealous, it would seem, of any interference with a subject, part of which had 
 employed his thoughts for some years, became a member of the society, and 
 then broke, it up by getting into the chair at a public meeting, and zealously 
 
 condemning the objects of ill with whom be had professed to unite himself. 
 
 But, at the same time, he greatly promoted the objects of the society by attnek- 
 
 ing their views, and thus causing those \ iewa to be examined. \s an example 
 of the assistance which be thus mve to the dispersed members of the society, I 
 
 may mention, thai he persuaded < lol I Toi r. us to join him in conducting a 
 
 written controversy with two of those gentlemen, ami that, in the end, Colonel 
 
 Torrens became one of the warmest advocates of the measure to which he had 
 
 ted when it was first submitted to him. Not the least impression, how* 
 aver, was made upon the government while the Duke of Wellington's adminis- 
 tration lasted. But, soon after the change of ministry which followed the three 
 ,! i o| Pari . toon after Lord rlowick succeeded Mr, Horace Twiss as under- 
 secretary for the colonies, the measure suggested by the Colonization Society 
 was, in part, adopted by the government. Defective as is that part of a mea- 
 sure; defective because incomplete; still it cannot fail to he of great service to 
 the colonies Whatever the people of Canada ami of the English settlements 
 in Australia inuy gain by the check which has tints been put upon olliciul job-
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 281 
 
 whereabouts land shall be surveyed and granted. Though any- 
 one may wait upon the governor with the new regulations in 
 
 bing in the disposal of waste land, they owe, not very remotely, to the workmen 
 of Paris or M. de Polignac. For this great improvement they are more imme- 
 diately obliged to Lord Howick ; to the leading members of the Colonization 
 Society, Mr. John Sterling, Mr. Hutt, now M.P. for Hull, and Mr. Charles Ten- 
 nant, then M.P. for St. Alban's ; and more especially to Mr. Robert Gouger, 
 the secretary of the society, whose efforts to procure the adoption of its whole 
 plan have been unceasing for several years. The successful issue of Mr. Gou- 
 ger's long contest with the judgments of ignorance, the insults of pride, and the 
 delays of idleness, should be a lesson of encouragement to the advocates of 
 useful projects. Here follows the most correct list that I have been able to 
 obtain of the members of the Colonization Society. 
 
 Woronzow Greig, Esq. Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. 
 
 W. S. O'Brien, Esq. M.P. Clayton Brown, Esq. 
 
 ft. H. Innes, Esq. T. Kavanagh, Esq. M.P. 
 
 John Hutt, Esq. James Talbot, Esq. 
 
 I. H. Thomas, Esq. Charles Tennant, Esq. 
 
 I. W. Buckle, Esq. Lucius O'Brien, Esq. M.P. 
 
 John Sterling, Esq. John Mill, Esq. 
 
 Edward King, Esq. G. S. Tucker, Esq. 
 
 Robert Scott, Esq. (of New South Col. Torrens. 
 
 Wales). J. E. Bicheno, Esq. 
 
 Howard Elphinstone, Esq. R. Trench, Esq. 
 
 Saml. Humphreys, Esq. William Hutt, Esq. 
 
 Charles Buller, Esq. Rev. G. V. Sampson. 
 
 C. Holte Bracebridge, Esq. Lawrence Marshall, Esq. 
 
 John Young, Esq. Right Hon. R. W. Horton. 
 
 E. Barnard, Esq. John Gore, Esq. 
 
 Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Ban. M.P. Arthur Gregory, Esq. 
 
 John Gibson, Esq. Richard Heathfield, Esq. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney. Erskine Humphreys, Esq. 
 
 Hyde Villiers, Esq. T. Potter Macqueen, Esq. M.P. 
 
 John Buckle, Esq. Colonel Talbot, M.P. 
 
 Hon. Secretary, Robert Gouger, Esq. 
 
 The views of the society were first published in a supplement to the Spec- 
 tator newspaper, and afterward reprinted in a pamphlet, entitled A Statement 
 of the Principles and Objects of a proposed National Society for the Cure and 
 Prevention of Pauperism by means of Systematic Colonization. Ridgway, 
 1830. Those views have been further explained in the following publications. 
 
 Sketch of a Proposal for colonizing Australasia ; printed and circulated, but 
 not sold, in 1829. 
 
 A Letter to the Right Honourable Sir George Murray on Systematic Colo- 
 nization, by Charles Tennant, Esq. M.P. Ridgway, 1830. This pamphlet 
 contains a Report of the Society, and a Controversy between Mr. Hutt and Mr. 
 Sterling on one side, and Mr. Wilmot Horton and Col. Torrens on the other. 
 
 Letters forming Part of a Correspondence with Nassau William Senior, Esq., 
 concerning Systematic Colonization, &c, by Charles Tennant, Esq. M.P. 
 Ridgway, 1831. 
 
 A Letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia, edited by Robert 
 Gouger. Joseph Cross, Holborn, 1829. Reprinted from the Morning Chron- 
 icle newspaper. 
 
 Eleven Letters in the Spectator newspaper, signed P. 1830 and 1831. 
 
 A Lecture on Colonization, delivered before the Literary Association, at the 
 London Tavern, on December 5, 1831 : by R. Davies Hanson, Esq. Ridgway 
 and Sons. 1S32. 
 
 Proposal to His Majesty's Government for founding a Colony on the South 
 Coast of Australia. Printed and circulated, but not sold, in 1831. 
 
 36
 
 •282 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 his hand, saying, — I want so many acres in such a spot : take 
 my money, — the governor may reply, No ; that spot is re- 
 served : you must choose elsewhere. Nay, until the governor 
 have declared a spot open for settlement, until it please him to 
 offer land lor sale, no one can now obtain new land anywhere 
 on any terms. Here, then, is the restriction of price, without 
 liberty subject to that restriction. If the price fixed on land 
 had been the right one, sufficient, that is. for the purpose of 
 restraint, all further restraint could not but have been hurtful ; 
 could not but have interfered with the due operation of the 
 proper price. From this example we may gather, what indeed 
 no fact was required to establish, so obvious is the conclusion ; 
 that, along with the best price for waste land, there ought to be 
 the most perfect liberty of appropriation at that price. This is 
 secured in the United States by very simple regulations. 
 
 But this secured, what if there should be exceptions to the 
 system ? what if some portions of new land should be granted 
 on some other condition than purchase, or for less money than 
 the general price, or for nothing ? The result is plain ; the 
 object sought by the best price would be defeated in propor- 
 tion to the extent of exceptional grants. If land were given, 
 as in the United States, to schools and colleges, deserts would 
 still be interposed among the settlers ; and either this would 
 happen, or waste land would be sold for less than the price 
 generally required by government, if new land were given for 
 nothing by way of reward for public services. Every special 
 grant, besides, made for nothing, or for less than the general 
 price, would be an act of gross injustice towards those who 
 had paid the general price : unless, indeed, the government 
 should proclaim, before taking money from any one, that it 
 intended to grant land for nothing in special cases. Such a 
 declaration, however, by the government, though it would be a 
 fair warning to individuals, and would thus prevent any injus- 
 tice, could not but greatly interfere with the sale of land at the 
 best price; for it would amount to saying, Beware, land buy- 
 ers, of paying to us, the government, more than will suffice to 
 buy land from individuals on whom we mean to bestow grants 
 for nothing. Whereat, if the plan of selling at a fixed price 
 were the only one, if the system were uniform, the due Opera- 
 Plan of a Company to be established for founding a Colony in Southern 
 A usl r.-ilui Ridgway and Sons. 1831. 
 
 Article in the Literary Gazette. 1831. 
 
 Emigration and Colonization. A Speech delivered at a general meeting of 
 the National Colonization Society in June, 1830, l>y William Unit, Esq. M.P. 
 Wibon, Royal Exchange, 1833. 
 
 Emigration l"r the Relief of Parishes, practically considered, by Robert 
 (Joii^cr. Ridgwaj and Sont, Piccadilly ; and Effingham Wilson, Royal Ex- 
 change. 1833.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 283 
 
 tion of the best price would be perfectly secured ; no deserts 
 would be interposed among the settlers ; no one would sell 
 land for less than the government price ; every buyer would 
 make his calculations accordingly ; and no one would suffer the 
 least injustice. 
 
 Still, notwithstanding the force of all these reasons in favour 
 of a uniform system, a colonial government would always be 
 strongly tempted to make exceptional grants; a bad colonial 
 government, by the wish to favour individuals, by all the mo- 
 tives which any where lead to government jobs; a good colonial 
 government, by finding this the easiest way to reward public 
 services and to provide for public education. In both cases, 
 the temptation to go wrong would become very powerful in- 
 deed after the plan of selling had been acted on for some time ; 
 after it had given to waste land outside of the settled districts, 
 or still within them, a greater value than waste land ever pos- 
 sessed before. Suppose the people so far kept together, so far 
 in a condition to help each other, that their industry was more 
 produetive than colonial industry has ever been ; in that case 
 all their land would be subject to some of those advantages, 
 over and above superior natural fertility, for which rent is paid ; 
 and all the land adjoining the settled districts would be in a 
 state to become very soon, with the increase of wealth and 
 people, subject to the higher degrees of competition. Pres- 
 ents, therefore, of new land would now be worth more than 
 such presents have ever been worth : the temptation to make 
 such presents would be greater in proportion to their greater 
 value ; while that greater value of the thing desired would whet 
 the ingenuity of parasites and jobbers, in devising new pretexts 
 for an improper use of the power of government. In the case 
 of a good colonial government, even in the case of a govern- 
 ment strictly representing all the colonists, the temptation to go 
 wrong would become stronger with an increase in the value of 
 new land : it would be more easy than it ever has been to re- 
 ward public services and provide for public education by means 
 of gifts of new land. And why not, some would ask, do in the 
 easiest way that which ought to be done ? The question may 
 be answered by another. Since the easiest way to prevent a 
 criminal from committing more crimes is to hang him, why 
 not hang all criminals? why not do in the easiest way that 
 which ought to be done ? Because more harm would come to 
 society by making the law hateful, than would be prevented by 
 preventing criminals from committing more crimes ; because 
 that very easy mode of hindering some from committing crimes 
 would encourage others to commit crimes, by rendering con- 
 viction, or even detection impossible in ninety-nine cases out of 
 a hundred. Just so, in colonization, by providing for so great
 
 284 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 a good as public education in the easiest way, that is, by ex- 
 ceptional grants of land, more harm than good would be done 
 to society. But if, as may easily happen, this should be denied 
 by those who are not familiar with the evils resulting to colo- 
 nies from a profuse exercise by the government of its power 
 over waste land, I would remind these, that the choice does not 
 lie between knowledge and ignorance, but between two modes 
 of securing education : just as in jurisprudence, the choice is, 
 not between the prevention and non-prevention of crimes by 
 persons already criminal, but between two modes of preven- 
 tion, the easiest mode, hanging, and a troublesome mode, the 
 reformation or confinement of the criminals. If all the waste 
 land, without exception, were sold at the right price, then might 
 public education be provided for out of the money paid for 
 land ; or, the people being richer, because kept more together, 
 by means of contributions from the public in the shape of 
 taxes. A moderate land tax, for example, would take from 
 each proprietor of land less than would be bestowed upon him 
 by a uniform system of selling new land at the best price. If, 
 on the contrary, the great good of public education were 
 sought by means of exceptional grants, a door would be left 
 open for other exceptions. Those, for example, who think a 
 political church very good, would demand exceptional grants 
 for that purpose : if real public services were rewarded by ex- 
 ceptional grants, such grants might be made for pretended pub- 
 lic services. Once allow, by admitting a single exception, that 
 the facility of doing good in this way is a sufficient reason for 
 taking this way to do good, and pretexts would never be want- 
 ing for doing harm in so easy a way ; harm of two sorts, that 
 which might arise from giving land for improper purposes, and 
 that which must arise from counteracting the desired effect of 
 requiring the proper price for every addition of territory. 
 
 The importance of complete uniformity in any system for 
 treating the chief element of colonization is so great, that I am 
 tempted, at the risk of tiring the reader, to illustrate; my view 
 of the subject by a supposed case, which will be readily under- 
 stood, even by those who ha\ e ne\ er w itnessed the mischievous 
 effects on a colony of irregularity in granting and withholding 
 new land. 
 
 Suppose that the English government had found amass of 
 pure gold in Middlesex, close to the surface of the ground, and 
 weighing some thousands of millions of pounds; and further, 
 that it was an object of great moment to the people of Eng- 
 land to keep up the present value of gold, neither more nor 
 less. In thai case, how would the government, supposing it 
 bent on the advantage of the people, use its power over this 
 rich mine? Here would be a very easy way of paying offthe
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. L'85 
 
 national debt ; but if this were done in this way, more evil 
 would come to the people than if their debt had been doubled. 
 Supposing, as we do, that the object was to preserve the actual 
 value of gold, then would the government supply the people 
 with enough gold to make up for the wear and tear of the cur- 
 rency, and to maintain, if the people and their money transac- 
 tions were increasing, the actual proportion between the de- 
 mand and supply of gold. But in order to issue gold enough, 
 without issuing too much, some rule must be adopted ; would 
 it ever, in any case, be departed from ? Clearly not ; because 
 a general plan with exceptions would be, not a rule, but several 
 plans working at the same time, and perhaps in opposite direc- 
 tions. The rule, to be worth any thing for its object, must be 
 complete : th;it is, whatever the mode of issuing gold adopted 
 by way of rule, it must be strictly observed, or it would be no 
 rule at all. In such a case, there would not be wanting people 
 to ask for gold, as a reward for public services, real or pre- 
 tended, as a support for religion, as a fund for charity, or for 
 public education. Our object, each set of applicants would 
 say, is so very, very important, and the facility of accomplishing 
 it in this way is so very, very great, that we are entitled to an 
 exception from the general rule. But to all of these applicants 
 a good government would answer : obtain gold according to 
 the rule ; in no other way will we issue a single ounce, seeing 
 that our first duty in this matter is to maintain the value of 
 money by strictly observing the rule. But now suppose this 
 case with a careless or corrupt government. Here, if any rule 
 were adopted in appearance, the exceptions would be so many 
 as to make the rule a nullity. If the members of this careless 
 or corrupt government had sense enough to perceive, that ex- 
 treme profusion in the issue of gold must soon render the 
 mine worthless, they would, for their own sake, issue gold with 
 some caution, but still with shameful injustice, favouring some 
 at the expense of others, granting at one time and refusing at 
 another, causing violent fluctuations in the value of money, and 
 in time ruining every one of their richer subjects, one after 
 the other. If the government were very ignorant as well as 
 careless and corrupt, it would be tempted, by the facility of 
 doing favours and complying with urgent requests, to issue so 
 much gold, that the mine would soon be worth nothing, and 
 there would be an end of the mischief. Colonizing govern- 
 ments being, nearly all of them, careless and corrupt, have, 
 most of them, had sense enough to perceive, that there was a 
 degree of profusion in granting waste land which would render 
 worthless their power over this element of wealth. Not so 
 the government which founded the Swan River colony. 
 There the profusion has been so great that waste land is not
 
 286 THE AKT OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 worth the trouble of accepting it :* the rich mine of gold is 
 worth nothing. But, allowing for some caution in colonial 
 governments, the evils which it is in their power to inflict on 
 their subjects, by the capricious exercise of their power over 
 waste land, are greater than those which would be inflicted on 
 the English by a very ignorant government, having power over 
 an immense quantity of gold. It is the very caution of those 
 colonizing governments, for their own ends, which preserves 
 their power to do mischief. How much mischief they have 
 done, and may yet do, by retaining power over waste land, and 
 exerting that power capriciously, may be conceived, even by 
 the inhabitant of an old country, who will reflect on this sup- 
 posed case of a very rich gold mine at the disposal of a care- 
 less and corrupt government, and who will further bear in mind 
 how much the value of land, of capital, and of labour, depend 
 upon the proportion between land and people. 
 
 The last condition of a good rule for the disposal of waste 
 land is permanency. One rule at one time, and another rule 
 at another time, would be nearly as bad as no rule at all. The 
 Swan River settlement has not existed five years ; but already 
 three quite different plans have been adopted in that colony for 
 the disposal of new land. In the description of the first plan 
 issued by the English government, it was stated, in so many 
 words, that another plan, which was not described, would be 
 adopted in a year or two : another plan was adopted within 
 less than two years after the first expedition sailed ; and then, 
 with the change of ministry in England, came a third plan : all 
 within three years. The first and the last plan were as differ- 
 ent as possible. According to the first plan, any one might ob- 
 tain an unlimited quantity of land for nothing; according to 
 the last, no one could obtain new land except by paying five 
 shillings, at least, per acre. Until 1831, grants were obtainable 
 for nothing in Van Dieman's Land, New South Wales, and 
 Canada: this year.no land will be granted except to pur- 
 chasers : next year the plan of gratuitous grants may be re- 
 vived. The last change of system in the English colonies was 
 brought about, not by an act of the legislature, but simply by 
 means of letters from the English colonial minister to the colo- 
 nial governors, saying hi effect: — This is the way in which you 
 will dispose of waste land until 1 change my mind, or you hear 
 from my successor. Here, says an anonymous paper issued 
 from Downing-Street on the fust of March, 1831 ; here is "a 
 
 r * Lad year, a hundred thousand acre* of picked land, near the Swan Rivatfe 
 was offered fur sale at the rate of leas than a farthing per acre; but no buyer 
 could be found. At the tame time, watte land was sola by the government In 
 New Bool h Wales and Van Dieman's Land at prices varying from five to twenty 
 ■hillings per acre.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 287 
 
 summary of the rules which it has been thought fit to substitute 
 for those dated the 20th of July, 1830." Here, says another 
 anonymous publication from Downing-street, dated January 20, 
 1831, is M a summary of the rules which it has been thought jit 
 to lay down for regulating the sales of land in New South 
 Wales and Van Dieman's Land." Who thought fit ? thought 
 fit to make such very important changes in the political econ- 
 omy of these colonies ? The English colonial minister : but 
 his successor may think fit to change back again to the old plan, 
 or to adopt some entirely new plan ; and whatever an igno- 
 rant, lazy English lord shall please to call " a summary of rules," 
 to that must the colonists submit without appeal. Allow that 
 the last change is good for the colonists ; that the plan now fol- 
 lowed is far better than the irregular and corrupt practices for 
 which it has been substituted ; still, what security have the 
 buyers of land, according to the new plan, against being cheated 
 of their purchase-money by the revival of old practices ? The 
 new plan is hateful to the colonial governments, from whom it 
 takes their most valuable privilege ; the privilege of jobbing in 
 the disposal of waste land. It is hateful, likewise, to those in 
 England, who belong to what has been called " the red tape 
 school of politics," or " the Peel and Dawson crew."* At 
 present, the home minister might give his cousin a letter of in- 
 troduction to the colonial minister, without getting for that 
 cousin 500,000 acres of waste land. The new plan, which was 
 suggested to the government by a society in London, came upon 
 the colonial governments by surprise. Had they been con- 
 sulted about it, they would probably, assisted by a strong party 
 in the colonial office at home, have induced Lord Goderich to 
 abstain from writing those letters by which the new plan has 
 been set on foot. As it is, human nature will be at fault, if 
 they do not exert themselves to get the old practices revived ; 
 and they will be zealously backed by cunning allies in Down- 
 ing-street. The successor of Lord Goderich, a traveller in 
 America, is not likely to revive the old English jobbing plan or 
 practices ; but he may, if it please him, by a stroke of his pen ; 
 as may his successor. Whatever dependence, then, the colo- 
 nists may place on the American knowledge, the industry, and 
 maybe the pride of Mr. Stanley, they have no security, worth 
 the name, for the continuance of the present system. That 
 the new plan, that any plan should work well, while so liable 
 to be changed or overturned, is quite impossible. They man- 
 age these things better in America. There, the disposal of 
 waste land is a separate department of government. The 
 
 * See that clever organ of the political church, and of the tory party in Eng- 
 land, the Standard newspaper.
 
 283 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 general plan of selling has been established by congress : when 
 the price has been altered, it was congress that decided on the 
 change : congress alone can make exceptional grants. The 
 system is upheld by the united legislature of all the states, and 
 is administered by persons chosen for their fitness, responsible 
 to the people, and compelled, not only to publish an account 
 of all their proceedings, but to proceed, step by step, in the face 
 of the public. Here, then, are the best securities against 
 change ; an act of the legislature with constant publicity. The 
 result is, that in America, every buyer of waste land knows 
 what he is about, makes his calculations on sure grounds : and 
 that the government obtains, by the sale of waste land, 3,000,000 
 dollars a year. If the congress of America were to raise the 
 price of waste land up to that point, which would prevent any 
 hurtful dispersion of the people, without causing any hurtful 
 density of population, and should also cease to make excep- 
 tional grants, then would their rule for the disposal of waste 
 land be quite perfect ; of the right measure, uniform and last- 
 ing ; operating like a belt, tight but elastic, all round and at all 
 times. This is the mode of proceeding suggested by the Eng- 
 lish Colonization Society. 
 
 In any colony where this perfect rule for treating the chief 
 element of colonization should be adopted, colonization would 
 proceed, not as everywhere hitherto, more or less, by the scat- 
 tering of people over a wilderness, and placing them for ages 
 in a state between civilization and barbarism, but by the exten- 
 sion to new places of all that is good in an old society ; by the 
 removal to new places of people, civilized, and experienced in 
 all the arts of production ; willing and able to assist each other ; 
 excited to the most skilful application of capital and labour by 
 ready markets for disposing of surplus produce ; producing, by 
 means of the most skilful industry in the richest field, more than 
 colonial industry has ever produced; obtaining the highest 
 profits of capital and the highest wages of-labour ; offering the 
 strongest attraction for the immigration of capital and people; 
 increasing rapidly ; enjoying the advantages of an old society 
 without its evils ; without any call for slavery, or restrictions on 
 foreign trade: an old society in everything save the uneasi- 
 ness of capitalists and the misery of the bulk of the people. 
 Colonization, as hitherto conducted, may be likened to the 
 building of a bridge 1 ; a work, no part of which is complete 
 until the whole be completed: according to the method here 
 proposed, colonization would be like the making of a tunnel ; a 
 work, in the progress of which each step must be complete 
 before another step can be taken. 
 
 Two objections to this system remain to be noticed. 
 
 1. It has been said: If the price of new laud were high
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 289 
 
 enough to prevent any one from legally acquiring more land 
 than, for the good of the whole society, he ought to acquire, 
 people would use land without a title ; the beneficial compact 
 among the colonists, implied by a uniform and fixed rule for 
 the disposal of new land, would not be observed by all the peo- 
 ple : some would become squatters, that is, settlers on new 
 land without a title. The answer to this objection places the 
 merits of the system in a strong point of view. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that in the history of American 
 colonization, there is but one instance of a person having settled 
 totally out of the reach of markets ; the case of the celebrated 
 Daniel Boon, who is known, for what ? for his eccentricity. 
 Invariably, then, it may be said, when people use land without 
 a title, they keep within reach of some market in which to ob- 
 tain, by the sale of what their own labour produces, something 
 which their own labour will not produce. They do not intend 
 to cut themselves off from all social intercourse ; they use land 
 so near to the settled districts that it is liable to be taken from 
 them as colonization advances. In many cases, squatting has 
 been encouraged by a regulation, which awarded to the holder 
 of land without a title, when the land should be taken from him, 
 compensation for the improvements which he had made upon 
 the land. But, in every case, the squatter expects that his land 
 will be taken from him : nay, in most cases, he intends to abandon 
 it as soon as he has exhausted its natural fertility. The object 
 of the squatter, then, is merely to get a few crops from a virgin 
 soil, and then to remove for the purpose of exhausting another 
 spot of virgin soil. But this, Americans know, and Mr. Stuart 
 informs the English, is a general practice in America ; not only 
 with squatters, but with those who have paid for land. Why this 
 practice ? Because, as I have explained before,* of the minute 
 division of labour in America ; because labour, so minutely 
 divided, would not, perhaps, even support the isolated labourer, 
 unless the unproductiveness of his labour were counteracted 
 by the great productiveness of a virgin soil. It is the extreme 
 cheapness of new land which causes this minute division of 
 labour. At all events, calculates the squatter, I must work by 
 myself: if I must work by myself, I must, in order to live, use 
 and exhaust a virgin soil : where's the use of paying for land 
 when one's only object is to destroy its fertility 1 Here is the 
 squatter's motive for using land without a title. If the price of 
 new land were such as to keep the people together, so that 
 they might combine their labour, it would be for the interest of 
 every one to remain where he could be assisted and give as- 
 sistance : the motive of the squatter would entirely cease. As 
 it is. no one goes beyond the reach of markets : in that case, 
 
 * See Note X. 
 
 37
 
 290 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 
 
 we have a right to presume, no one would go out of the way 
 of all the great advantages which belong to combination of 
 labour. It appears, therefore, that, by putting a sufficient 
 price upon new laud, squatting, instead of being encouraged, 
 would be prevented. This will be still more clear, when we 
 shall see with what great rapidity colonization would advance ; 
 how very soon a squatter, it' there were one, not going out of 
 the reach of markets, would be overtaken by society, provided 
 the purchase-money of all new land were employed in accel- 
 erating the progress of colonization. 
 
 2. The second objection is, that into a colony, where new 
 land was not obtainable except by purchase, neither capitalists 
 nor labourers would be disposed to immigrate ; but that, on 
 the contrary, from such a colony both classes would be dis- 
 posed to emigrate to other colonies not far off, where new land 
 was obtainable for nothing. 
 
 We cannot decide this point by reference to facts ; because 
 in no colony has that price ever been required for new land 
 which, together with perfect liberty of appropriation, would 
 ensure the greatest productiveness of industry, or, in other 
 words, the highest profits and wages. But there are some 
 facts which tend to show, that the attractive power of a colony 
 would be increased by putting a sufficient price upon all new 
 land. Why have so many English and Irish labourers, who 
 had emigrated to Canada, removed from Canada to the United 
 States ? from a colony where land was cheaper to one where 
 it was dearer. The only rational answer is, because employ- 
 ment was more regular, with higher wages, where the people 
 were in some degree kept together than where they were care- 
 fully dispersed. Why is not the Swan River colony, where, 
 under a fine climate, land is so very cheap ; why is not this a 
 favourite colony with English emigrants, both capitalists and 
 labourers? Why have so many people, both labourers and 
 capitalists, emigrated from the Swan River to colonies where 
 land was dearer? Why does it happen, when a lame tract of 
 new land is bought by an American company, and resold by 
 them in lots with great profit, thai to this spot people (lock, 
 both capitalists and labourers, and here congregate lor the ad- 
 vantages which come from mutual assistance. In this last, case, 
 as to a great tract of country, the company take the place of 
 government, and will not part with any land except at a higher 
 price than that which they have paid t<> the government. In 
 all these cases, people are attracted from a worse to a better 
 proportion between land and people; from lower to higher 
 profits and wanes. That it should he so, is consistent with the 
 principles of human nature and political economy. True it is, 
 that people now and then go from a better to a worse propor-
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 291 
 
 tion between land and people ; as when citizens of the United 
 States emigrate to Canada : but these are exceptions to the 
 general rule ; just as those who ruin their fortunes and destroy 
 their health by excessive debauchery, do that which is contrary 
 to their own interest, and therefore contrary to a law of politi- 
 cal economy and human nature. The case of those capitalists 
 who emigrate from an old country, led on by the hope of 
 acquiring wealth, by obtaining for little or nothing immense 
 tracts of wilderness, arises from profound ignorance. If this 
 case support the objection under review, then, when a child is 
 poisoned by mistaking night-shade berries for red currants, it 
 goes to prove that children have no sentiment of self-preserva- 
 tion. These men act like the colonial minister of England, 
 who sent butts for holding fresh water to ships that were float- 
 ing on a fresh water sea. Judging of a desert country by what 
 they see in one thickly peopled, they dream of domains and 
 millions till they awake, having lost their all. But the people 
 of a colony, in which there existed the advantages of a proper 
 decree of concentration, could not be ignorant of those ad- 
 vantages ; and the existence, for the first time, of those great 
 advantages would surely become known both in other colonies 
 and in the mother country. Such a colony, then, would be 
 highly attractive : how much more attractive, both to capital- 
 ists and labourers, than colonies have ever been, will be seen in 
 the following section of this treatise ; where it is explained, that 
 if all the purchase-money of waste land were properly disposed 
 of, capitalists in the colony would always be supplied with 
 labour, and every labourer reaching the colony might surely 
 become not only a land-owner, but, something more grateful 
 to one of his class, a master of other labourers. The first 
 colony in which labour was plentiful, though dear, and in which 
 labourers might be sure to become masters as well as land- 
 owners ; the first colony in which there was the good without 
 the evil of an old society, would probably attract people, both 
 capitalists and labourers, from colonies in which, along with 
 the good, there was all the evil of a new society. 
 
 II. The removal of the people. 
 
 In a colony where new land was supplied in proportion to 
 the wants of a people increasing rapidly in wealth and numbers ; 
 where the produce of industry was so great as to give high 
 profits and high wages, where, consequently, all should possess 
 the means of removal, and where, moreover, the land newly 
 become the property of individuals should increase very rapidly 
 in value, by very soon becoming subject to the higher kinds of 
 competition which produce rent ; in such a colony, there would
 
 292 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 
 
 be motives in plenty for the removal of people from the settled 
 to the waste parts of the colony. Colonization would go on 
 of itself, through the increase of people, by births in the colony. 
 But more quickly than in proportion to such increase, coloni- 
 zation could not go on, unless means were found to remove 
 people from some old country. For the immigration of people 
 from an old country, the inducement, we have seen already, 
 would be high profits, and especially high wages. Those who 
 would come in search of high profits may be supposed to pos- 
 sess the means of coming. But those who would most desire 
 to come in search of high wages, are the poorest of the poor 
 in old countries ; so poor as to be unable to move from one 
 to another part of their own country ; people who live from 
 hand to mouth, never having any property save their own 
 thews and sinews. This, however, is the class of people 
 whose immigration into a colony it would be most useful to 
 promote ; a class who, as labourers should become capitalists 
 and land-owners, would fill their place in the market of labour ; 
 becoming themselves, in time, capitalists and land-owners, and 
 having their place filled, in turn, by immigrants of the same 
 class. These, however strong their inducement to emigration, 
 cannot move without assistance. If they are to move at all, 
 the cost of their passage must be defrayed, or at least advanced, 
 by somebody. It might be greatly for the advantage of the old 
 country to defray the cost of their passage ; but here we are 
 considering only the means which a colony possesses of pro- 
 moting immigration without the aid of an old country. The 
 question then is, — How may a colony advantageously pay for 
 the immigration of labour? that is, build a bridge, as it were, 
 toll free, Tor the passage of poor labourers from an old country 
 to the colony ? 
 
 Reflecting on the urgent want of labour that occurs in all 
 colonies which prosper, we may be sure, that great pains have 
 been taken by people in colonies to devise some means of 
 obtaining a regular supply of labour from old countries. The 
 supplies of labour obtained by kidnapping in the old English 
 colonies of America, by the late immigration of poor Germans 
 into the United Stales; poor Germans who, ignorant of the 
 laws and of tin' language of America, were liable to be held in 
 a state of bondage ; and by the transportation system in New 
 South Wales and Van Dienian's Land: all these supplies of 
 labour depended on a kind of slavery. Every scheme of the 
 sort, that did not establish a kind of slavery, has failed the 
 moment it was tried. On the principle of the redemptioner 
 system, thai of payment by a capitalist for the poor immigrant's 
 pass;ig<\ re-payment being obtained by the immigrant's labour, 
 many schemes have been tried, and havo failed, in Canada,
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 293 
 
 New South Wales, Van Dieraan's Land, and South Africa ; not 
 to mention the Swan River. And yet nothing can be more 
 plain than that the capitalists of a colony and the labourers of 
 an old country would rind it for their mutual advantage to act 
 on this principle. About the advance by the capitalist there is 
 no sort of difficulty ; so much greater would be to him the 
 value of the poor immigrant's labour for a few years, even at 
 high wages, than the cost of the immigrant's passage. Nor is 
 there any difficulty in finding poor labourers willing, nay eager, 
 to engage with colonial capitalists for a certain term of service 
 in the colony. The difficulty lies in this ; that without some 
 kind of slavery, the capitalist has no security for repayment of 
 his outlay : that the labourer, as soon as he reaches the colony, 
 laughs at his engagement ; that what the capitalist brings to the 
 colony in the shape of labour, ceases to be labour the moment 
 it reaches the colony ; or, at all events, is never labour over 
 which he who paid for it has any control. During the last 
 fifteen years, some thousands of poor labourers, to speak within 
 compass, have been conveyed from England to English colonies 
 at the expense of colonial capitalists, and under engagement to 
 work for those who had paid for their passage. " There is no 
 instance on record," says Mr. M'Arthur, the greatest capitalist 
 of New South Wales, " where settlers have been able to pre- 
 vent their indented servants, hired in England, from becoming 
 dissatisfied, and then leaving them after their arrival." At the 
 Swan River, the first settlers had hardly landed before the 
 governor was required to punish indented labourers for refusing 
 to work for those who had brought them from England. In 
 Canada, universally, labouring servants taken from England and 
 Ireland by capitalists, under engagement to repay with labour 
 the cost of their passage, have quitted those to whom they 
 were bound, to work for others, who, not having laid out money 
 in that way, could afford to pay higher wages than those who 
 had. If it had been possible to enforce such contracts, what 
 Canadian would have written : " Place us on an equal footing 
 with New South Wales, by giving us a share in those benefits 
 which must, more or less, accrue from convict labour ?"* In 
 vain have severe laws been passed to enforce the observance 
 of such contracts by the labourer, and to prevent such immi- 
 grants from being employed except by those who had paid for 
 their immigration. It has been all so thoroughly in vain, that 
 the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of conducting immigra- 
 tion in this way, seems to be established. 
 
 * Suggestions on the propriety of re-introducing British Convict Labour into 
 British IN'orth America. By a Canadian, 1824.
 
 294 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 To meet this difficulty, an ingenious writer in the Quarterly 
 Review* has proposed to create a colonial fund for the immi- 
 gration of labour, by means of a tax on wages. Thus the 
 poor labourer brought to the colony would repay the cost of 
 his passage by a deduction from his wages ; and the fund so 
 raised would be employed in bringing more labourers, who, in 
 their turn, would repay the cost of their passage, and provide 
 a fund for the immigration of other labourers. The principle 
 of this suggestion is excellent ; but is the execution of it more 
 practicable than the enforcement of contracts for service, 
 which are based on the same principle ? Unless the price of 
 new land were raised up to the golden mean, there would be 
 scarce any hired labour to tax ; scarce any wages from which 
 to make a deduction. But supposing the poor immigrants 
 should, during a certain period, work for high wages, how is 
 the tax-gatherer to distinguish workmen, whose passage had 
 been paid for them, from those who had paid for their own 
 passage, or from those born in the colony? If very severe 
 laws have failed to hold immigrant labourers to their engage- 
 ments, what law could be devised that would induce them to 
 remain subject to a deduction from their wages ? In a word, 
 the scheme appears to be impracticable. 
 
 This scheme may have been suggested to its author by the 
 proposal of the Golonization Society.^ Their proposal was, 
 That, no waste land being disposed of by the government ex- 
 cept by public sale at a fixed upset price, all the purchase-money 
 should be employed in bringing poor labourers to the colony. 
 As labourers brought to the colony in this way would in time, 
 ninety-nine out of a hundred of them, purchase land with 
 savings from their wnges ; and as this deduction from their 
 wages would be employed to bring more labourers, who in 
 their turn would save money and buy land, the proposal of the 
 society may be said to be founded on the same principle as 
 the suggestion of the Quarterly Review : namely, the repay- 
 ment by the immigrant's labour of the cost of his passage. 
 But over that suggestion the proposal of the society has some 
 great advantages, which will become manifest as we examine 
 the plan more closely. 
 
 J. This plan would be very easily carried into effect. The 
 experience of the I r nited States shows, that it is very easy to 
 raise a fund by the sale of waste land- Not to reckon how much 
 larger the fund raised in that way by the United States would 
 
 l'n ranted t" be Mr. Powlett Serope. 
 t The number of the Quarterly Junta-, in which iliis scheme was proposed, 
 appeared not long after the publication of A Letter from Sydney ; in which the 
 impoi ■ apprenticed labourers to their engagements wai ex- 
 
 plained at length.
 
 THE AttT OF COLONIZATION. 295 
 
 be, if the price of new land were brought up to the golden 
 mean, and if no exceptional grants were made, the Americang 
 do actually raise by the sale of waste land near 700,000/. a 
 year. What could be more easy than for the United States 
 to spend this income in fetching labour to America? We have 
 only to suppose that congress should choose to do this, and 
 we suppose the plan of the English Colonization Society 
 carried into effect without any sort of difficulty.* 
 
 2. Pursuing this case, for the sake of more ready illustration, 
 the disposal of this fund in this way would bring to the United 
 States in the first year (reckoning the cost of each immigrant's 
 passage to be 71.) 100,000 labourers. But as the income 
 which the United States obtain by the sale of waste land has 
 been steadily increasing for years, along with the increase of 
 people by births and immigration, so would that fund increase 
 much more rapidly, if each year's income were employed in 
 bringing to the United States people who must otherwise have 
 remained at home. The added labour of 100,000 persons in 
 one year would provide the means of purchasing land to meet 
 the wants of a population so growing in numbers ; would pro- 
 vide a fund for the next year's immigration, corresponding with 
 the additional demand for labour arising from the increase of 
 capital, and of land the property of individuals. According to 
 the extent of land sold, would be the increase of demand for 
 labour wherewith to cultivate the new land ; and according to 
 the extent of land sold, would be the amount of the fund for 
 
 * The most simple method of laying out the Immigration fund would, proba- 
 bly, be the formation of a Board of immigration, instructed to make open con- 
 tracts with ship-owners for the passage of labourers from Europe to America ; 
 to the amount in each year of the immigration fund obtained in the previous 
 year ; and at a certain rate for each labourer landed in good health at the port 
 named in the contract. When the English government first sent convicts to 
 New South Wales, they used to contract with ship-owners for the passage of 
 convicts, at the rate of so much per head for the number embarked. As the 
 captain was to feed the convicts during their voyage, it was for his interest that 
 they should be sickly, or that they should die. Under these contracts, accord- 
 ingly, half: and sometimes two-thirds, of the inmates of a convict ship used to 
 die during the voyage. The punishment of transportation was, in at least half 
 the cases, the punishment of death. It was not till this murderous system had 
 been pursued for some years, that the English government discovered the faulty 
 nature of those contracts. At present, the rate of mortality on board convict 
 ships is said to be lower than the rate of mortality among the English nobility. 
 How was this change brought about ? Simply by contracting, instead of for 
 the number embarked, for the number landed in the colony. As the captain or 
 ship-owner is now paid only for those who reach their destination, it is greatly 
 for his interest to keep all the passengers in good health. Contracts under 
 which the ship-owner was paid only for those who were landed in good health, 
 the state of each passenger's health being ascertained by medical officers in the 
 colony, would be a better security for the well-being of the immigrants during 
 their passage, than all those minute enactments which the English parliament 
 has made for the regulation of emigrant ships.
 
 296 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 procuring fresh labour. Supposing a fund for immigration to 
 be got up in some other way than by the sale of new land ; as, 
 for example, by a tax in the old country, or by a tax on wages 
 in the colony, there would be no measure for suiting the supply 
 of labour to the demand. Too much immigrant labour might 
 be introduced at one time, and too little at another. If the 
 supply were not in some way regulated by the demand, all 
 kinds of evils would ensue. Unless the supply were regular, 
 unless those who should become land-owners were replaced 
 immediately by new comers, the same obstacles would exist 
 that exist now, to the commencement of works which require 
 the constant employment of many hands ; and thus, when a 
 great supply of labourers should arrive, employment for them 
 might be wanting. Gluts of labour, arising from uncertain im- 
 migration, do frequently happen in Canada and the State of 
 New- York. The cause of these gluts is explained by Mr. 
 Tennant in a letter to Mr. Senior. He says — " I have con- 
 versed upon this point with capitalists both of Quebec and 
 New-York ; and I have often heard them explain the circum- 
 stance in this way, ' Notwithstanding' (say they) 'our having 
 capital wherewith to employ labour, we have found such immi- 
 grations of labour a great evil ; because we felt that it would 
 be impossible to retain such labour if we had hired it. Our 
 capital was ready for many operations which require a con- 
 siderable period of time for their completion ; but we could 
 not begin such operations with labour which, we knew, would 
 soon leave us. If we had been sure of retaining the labour of 
 such emigrants, we should have been glad to have engaged it 
 at once, and for a high price : and we should have engaged it, 
 even though we had been sure it would leave us, provided we 
 had been sure of a fresh supply whenever we might need it.' 
 From these and other facts," says Mr. Tennant, " it may be 
 safely inferred, that the cause of the gluts of labour in Canada 
 and New-York might be removed by rendering the supply 
 constant and regular ; thus permitting a much greater supply 
 in the course of ten years, without, distress, than lias ever yet 
 taken place in a similar period with distress." Now, by the 
 plan of tin- Colonization Society, the supply of labour must be 
 constant and regular : because, fust, as no labourer would be 
 able to procure land until he had worked for money, all immi- 
 grant labourers, working for a time for wages and in combi- 
 nation, would produce capital for the employment of more 
 labourers; secondly, because every labourer who Kit oil' work- 
 ing for wages and became a laud-owner, would, by purchasing 
 
 land, provide a fund lor bringing fresh labour to the colony. 
 
 Still, it may be said, this rule lor avoiding at all times any 
 glut of labour would be obtained, even if the fund lor inunigra-
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 297 
 
 tion were raised by the old country, provided no land were 
 granted save upon payment of the proper price ; because, in 
 that case, all labourers would be employed lor a time in creat- 
 ing capital tor the employ merit of more labourers, and thus the 
 demand for fresh labour in any given year would always be 
 equal to the supply of immigrant labour in the previous year. 
 Agreed ; but here there would be no rule for a sufficient sup- 
 ply of labour : the evil of too great a supply would be avoided, 
 but not the evil of too small a supply ; because nothing would 
 show plainly to what extent the demand for labour had in- 
 creased. Nothing, at least, would show this half so distinctly 
 as the amount of land sold. We might, indeed, regulate the 
 supply of labour by the amount of land sold, even if the labour 
 were brought by a fund raised out of the colony : that is, the 
 old country might spend, on the emigration of labour to the 
 colony in one year, a sum precisely equal to the sum raised in 
 the previous year by the sale of colonial land. But the object 
 of so measuring one fund by the other would be secured, as a 
 matter of course, if the whole fund obtained by the sales of 
 land were spent in procuring labour. One of the greatest 
 merits of this plan, therefore, seems to consist in its self* 
 regulating action. 
 
 3. We have seen already, that it would be greatly for the 
 advantage of a colony to put one price upon all new la'nd with- 
 out exception, if merely with a view to the increase of the first 
 element of wealth, land, in clue proportion to the increase of the 
 other elements, capital and labour ; that by requiring this price, 
 as a rule for the supply of new land, the colonists, being suffi- 
 ciently kept together, would raise more produce, would get 
 higher profits and wages, would have more physical enjoy- 
 ments, to say nothing of their escape from the moral evils of 
 great dispersion ; and that, consequently, it would he well to 
 put the best price upon all new land, even though the money 
 so raised should not be employed in any useful way. Under 
 the supposition of the money being wasted, the buyer of land 
 would pay for justice and uniformity in the disposal of land, 
 and for a free choice as to the situation and extent of his grant ; 
 he would pay also for the assurance that no other could obtain 
 land by favour, without payment, for the certainty of not being 
 undersold by land-owners who had obtained their property for 
 nothing ; he would pay for all the advantages of that system, of 
 which his individual payment was a part. But if the money 
 were not wasted, he would pay, besides, though paying no 
 more, for whatever useful purpose the money might serve. If 
 the money were spent in procuring labour, he would pay, not 
 merely for his title to the land bought, but also for justice and 
 uniformity in the disposal of new land, for a free choice, for the 
 
 38
 
 298 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 value conferred upon all land by a due concentration of the, 
 people, for a system which must hinder ruinous fluctuations 
 in the value of land ; and further, he would pay for labour 
 wherewith to cultivate his land ; for markets in which to sell the 
 produce of that labour ; for population, which must render the 
 whole of his land subject to one or more of those higher kinds 
 of competition which lead to the payment of rent. Nominally, 
 he would receive for his outlay — laud, or the title to hold and 
 sell land : in reality, he would obtain the land for nothing ; 
 paying for a great number of other things, without any of which 
 his land might be worthless ; along with all of which, it must, 
 no sooner than it was bought, be worth more than he had paid 
 for it. This paradox may be explained away in a moment. 
 Mr. Peel required to invest 1*. tirf. per acre on his grant of 
 500,000 acres, appeared to pay 37,500Z. for that tract of land. 
 But he made the investment, which was to secure his title, in 
 taking labourers to the settlement. Whether the government 
 had bestowed the land on the condition that the grantee should 
 spend 37,000Z. in conveying labourers to the settlement, or had 
 sold the grant for 37,000/., spending the money in that way, 
 would have been perfectly indifferent: in either case, the 
 grantee would have paid, not for land, but for labour; he 
 would have received the land for nothing, but subject to the 
 condition of buying so much labour wherewith to cultivate it. 
 The average cost of clearing waste land in Canada and the 
 northern parts of the United States, is about 4/. per acre. No 
 land, it is plain, ought to be granted to remain uncleared. 
 Now, suppose that the government should require 41. per acre 
 for such land, using the money to clear the land : in this case, 
 for what would the grantee pay ? not for the land, but for 
 having it cleared. So in the case before us, the grantee^would 
 pay for the means of cultivating his land, and for the value 
 which that disposal of his purchase-money must bestow upon 
 his land, rather than lor the land itself. 
 
 4. It follows that, in justice to :ill the buyers of land, in order 
 that the supply of labour should correspond exactly with the 
 quantity of land granted, in order to give to ail of the grantees 
 the greatest return for their purchase-money, it would he neces- 
 sary to employ the whole <>l the fund, obtained by sales of land, 
 in fetching labour to the colony. If any part of that fund 
 v\ ere employed in any other way, neither would there be a rule 
 for suiting the supply of labour to the demand, nor would the 
 purchasers of land receive as much as possible lor their money. 
 The necessity, in order to make the system perfect, of avoiding 
 any exceptional disposal ol" this money, is as clear as the neces- 
 sity of refusing exc< ptional grants for the sake of a good rule 
 by which to gruut und withhold land. This will be still inoro
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 299 
 
 clear when we shall look at the circumstances which would 
 guide the government in fixing on the best price for land ; a 
 consideration reserved till now, for the reason that will appear 
 in the next paragraph. 
 
 5. According to the value of the thing purchased, ought to 
 be the purchase-money. The land bought would be more, 
 much more valuable, if the purchase-money were employed in 
 adding to the colonial population, than if it were used for any 
 other purpose whatever. By how much more valuable we 
 cannot determine exactly ; but this is quite plain, that for land, 
 of which all the purchase-money was devoted to the increase 
 of colonial population, a higher price might properly be re- 
 quired than for land, Of which the purchase-money was wasted, 
 or was used in any way less calculated, than the use of it as 
 an immigration fund, to increase the value of land. Thus, in 
 America, those who last year paid 700,000/. for new land, 
 might, with greater advantage to themselves, have paid twice 
 the amount, or 1,400,000/. for the same extent of land, if the 
 larger sum had been employed in adding 200,000 souls to the 
 population of the United States. Thus the Canada Company, 
 which has paid, or engaged to pay, to the English government 
 304,000/. for waste land in Upper Canada, might have paid 
 twice as much for the same land with greater profit, if all their 
 purchase-money had been employed in adding to the popula- 
 tion of the colony ;* and if no land^had been granted to other 
 people save for money, and all the money so obtained had been 
 employed in the same way. Let us suppose that by this em- 
 ployment of the purchase-money of new land, the cost of clear- 
 ing land were reduced from 4/. to 2/ s per acre, without any 
 fall of wages, merely from the greater facility of employing 
 many hands in combination. In this case, which would be 
 better for the American settler, to pay 4/. 5.9. per acre for his 
 land when cleared, that is 5s. for the title and 4/. for the clear- 
 ing; or to pay 2/. 10s. for the land when cleared, that is 10s. 
 instead of 5s. for the title, and 2/. instead of 41. for the clear- 
 ing? Like illustrations of the advantage which the buyer 
 would derive from paying more, if his purchase-money were 
 used in the way proposed, will occur to every one. This, then, 
 is a most important consideration, with a view to determining 
 the best price for new land. Some others appear scarcely less 
 important. 
 
 To clear the land of wood, a certain amount of labour per 
 acre is required. The purchase-money of the land, then, 
 
 * The money hitherto paid by this Company has been disposed of in various 
 jobs ; for some account of which, sec the evidence of Mr. Wilmot Horton, who 
 helped to dispose of the money, before the committee of the House of Com- 
 mons on the Civil Government of Canada.
 
 300 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 ought to be sufficient to provide such an addition to the labour- 
 ing population as would enable the proprietor to clear his land 
 without causing a deficiency of labour in any other part of the 
 colony : it ought to be sufficient to provide a fresh supply of 
 labour, corresponding with the new demand which the acqui- 
 sition of so much new land had produced. 
 
 If the waste land were already clear of wood, and naturally 
 in a state fit for cultivation, as throughout the plains of Buenos 
 Ayres, the prairies of North America, and a great part of Aus- 
 tralia, the cost of clearing would be saved : the land would be 
 worth more, by the cost of clearing, than land which required to 
 be cleared. The produce of any given amount of capital and 
 labour on the clear land would be greater, or would begot sooner 
 than the produce of the same amount of capital and labour em- 
 ployed on thickly-wooded land. It would appear, therefore, 
 that for land clear by nature, a higher price might properly be 
 required than for thickly-wooded land ; a price higher by the 
 cost of clearing. On the same ground, we shall conclude that a 
 higher price might be required for land naturally rich than for 
 land naturally poor: and if all the land in each colony were of 
 the same quality, this consideration might be a guide towards 
 ascertaining the best price (breach colony. But the land of all 
 countries is more or less of difierent qualities; and yet it is 
 hard to learn with any precision, concerning waste land, which 
 parts will prove, on being cultivated, more or less fertile. If 
 this distinction could be made with precision, then might there 
 be two or more prices for land in the same colony, without 
 any departure from the rule of uniformity ; just as gold of dif- 
 ferent degrees of fineness might, under one standard, be made 
 to pass for different values. But, unable to make this distinc- 
 tion, how would the government require for each different por- 
 tion of land its proper price? how avoid requiring too little for 
 the rich land, or too much for the poor land? The following 
 is one way, suggested by the practice of the United States, by 
 which, it appears to me, this object might be accomplished. 
 Take the richer land ;s the guide ^ ascertain whal would be 
 the best price if all the land were of the same quality as the 
 richer portions \ and let this be the lowest upset price at which 
 any land should be Bold. Thru open tin. land to buyers. The 
 first buyers in any district would neglect the poorer land, would 
 select the richer lots; which, being put up to auction at the 
 minimum price, would fetch whatever competition should de- 
 termine. \ ery soon, however, if the upset price of men 
 richer lots had been high enough, the poorer lots, which had 
 been neglected, would acquire, from circumstances of position* 
 from the neighbourhood of roads and markets, from competi- 
 tion for the use of land on other accounts than on account of
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 301 
 
 superior natural fertility, a value equal to that of the richer 
 lots when they belonged to the desert. By then, buyers would 
 apply for those poorer lots at the minimum price; and they 
 would be put up to auction, fetching the upset price, or what- 
 ever competition might determine. 
 
 In all cases there would be, though a general, still an un- 
 erring guide, by which to avoid requiring too high a price ; 
 namely, the rates of profit and wagea in the colony. If these 
 should be falling, and it should be seen that the fall arose from 
 the competition of capital with capital, and of labourers with 
 labourers, then might the government see that the price re- 
 quired was too high. If, on the contrary, it were seen that the 
 fall arose from the less productiveness of capital and labour, in 
 consequence of less skill in the application of capital and 
 labour, in consequence of the weakness arising from greater 
 dispersion, then it would be plain that the price of new land 
 was not high enough. The most ignorant government could 
 hardly fail to distinguish between these two mischievous altera- 
 tions in the proportion among the elements of production ; be- 
 tween these two opposite causes of a fall in the rates of profits 
 and wages. 
 
 Though it appear difficult to say which would be w r orse, so 
 excessively high a price as should inflict on the colony the evils 
 of an old country, or so excessively low a price as, along with 
 perfect liberty of appropriation at that very low price, would 
 scatter the people so as to render them poor and barbarous ; 
 although there be little room to choose between these two ways 
 of stopping colonization, still on one ground it would appear 
 better to make the upset price too low rather than too high. If 
 it were made too high, it could not be reduced without injus- 
 tice to those who had paid the highest price ; but if it were too 
 low, it might be raised, not only without injustice to previous 
 buyers, but with great advantage to them. If the price were 
 too high, and were gradually lowered down to the golden mean, 
 there would be mischievous fluctuations in the value of land : 
 if the price, being too low, were gradually raised up to the 
 golden mean, there would be a constant increase, but no fluc- 
 tuation, in the value of land. An important rule, therefore, for 
 getting at the best price, is to begin with a price obviously too 
 low ; taking care, however, that it be not so low as to defeat 
 all the objects with which any price is required.* 
 
 * The English government makes five shillings per acre the upset price of 
 waste land in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land. With perfect lib- 
 erty of appropriation at this price, it may be doubted whether the new plan, in- 
 stead of checking, will not rather promote the appropriation of more land than 
 is good for the whole society. In those colonies, the caution of the local gov- 
 ernments in the disposal of new land, if that may be termed caution which had
 
 302 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 6. When the fund for removing people is provided by the 
 mother-country, the difference between the cost of a short and 
 a long passage naturally directs the stream of emigration to 
 the colonies which are nearest ; but if an immigration fund 
 were provided by the sale of colonial land at the proper price, 
 colonies at a great distance from their mother-country would 
 be as well supplied with labour as those which were less dis- 
 tant. In that case, the only effect of the difference between 
 the cost of a short and a long passage, would be a difference, 
 not in the manner, but in the rapidity, of colonization. For 
 instance, supposing the cost of passage from England to Canada 
 to be 11. , and from England to Australia to be 1?/., and that 
 the price of new land in both colonies were 1/. per acre, the 
 sale of 100 acres in Canada would provide for the passage of 
 14 immigrants, while the sale of 100 acres in Australia would 
 provide for the passage of all but 6 immigrants. A dif- 
 ferent proportion, then, between land and people, would exist in 
 these two colonies. But if the price of 1/. per acre, with 11. 
 for the cost of passage, should give the right proportion be- 
 tween land and people, then it would be clear that, with 1?/. 
 for the cost of passage, 1/. per acre was too low a price for 
 new land. In order that there should be, in the two colonies, 
 one proportion between land and people, it would be necessary 
 either to reduce the price of new land in Canada, so that for 
 each 100 acres sold there should be only 6 immigrants, or to 
 raise the price of new land in Australia, so that there should be 
 14 immigrants for each 100 acres sold. We are to presume, 
 that in both cases the price of land would be such as to main- 
 tain a due proportion between land and people. If so, though 
 the price of land would be higher in the more distant colony, 
 that colony would be as well supplied with labour as the nearer 
 colony, as well supplied, that is, in proportion to the demand 
 for labour; colonization would go on as well as in the nearer 
 colony; and the only difference would be, as the result of 
 greater distanec and greater cost <>f passage, that the waste 
 land of the distant colony would not be bought and cultivated 
 quite so rapidly as that of the nearer colony. 
 
 This difference, however, would not be inevitable in all cases. 
 C:i- s mighl happen, in which colonization should proceed as 
 rapidly in the more distant, colony as in the nearer one. This 
 would happen if, the land of the two colonies being of equal 
 
 a corrupt object; the exertion of their power in withholding new land, so that 
 they might exert their power in granting new land with advantage to their fiv> 
 vonrite*! ha i operated as a restriction on the appropriation of new land. This 
 restriction ii re red by the plan of selling at :\ fixed price i" all who apply ; 
 
 and, though ibis plan will put an end t" injustice, it will, it" the price In' too 
 low, caube a WOTtet iiiblcad of a better, proportion between land and people.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 303 
 
 natural fertility, that of the nearer colony were thickly wooded, 
 and that of the more distant colony were already fit for cultiva- 
 tion ; as is actually the case with respect to Canada and Aus- 
 tralia. If waste land were sold at the proper price in both 
 colonies, a higher price being required for the land which, being 
 clear of timber, was more valuable, then what the more dis- 
 tant colony should save, in consequence of her land being clear 
 by nature, would go to swell her immigration fund. The differ- 
 ence might be so great as that the more distant colony should 
 have a greater immigration fund, and a stronger power of 
 attraction, than the nearer colony. 
 
 7. Another part of the proposal of the Colonization Society 
 remains to be examined. Supposing the money obtained by 
 the sale of land to be spent on immigration, this fund ought, 
 clearly, to be spent in the most economical way ; in the way 
 by which the good to be obtained by that outlay should be as 
 great as possible. If the object were to procure, at the least 
 cost, the greatest amount of labour for immediate employment, 
 it would appear, at first sight, that the immigrants brought to 
 the colony ought to be, all of them, males in the prime of life. 
 But it is only at first sight that this can appear ; because on 
 reflection it will be seen, that two men having to perform each 
 for himself all the offices that women usually perform for men ; 
 to cook his own victuals, to mend his own clothes, to make his 
 own bed, to play the woman's part at home as well as the man's 
 part in the field or workshop; it will be seen, I say, that two 
 men, each of whom should be obliged so to divide his labour 
 between household cares and the work of production, would 
 produce less than one man giving the whole of his lime, atten- 
 tion, and labour, to the work of production. If the two men 
 should combine their labour and divide their employments, one 
 occupying himself solely with household cares for both, and 
 the other solely with earning wages for both, then might the 
 produce of their united labour be as great as that of one 
 married man ; but in no case could it be more. In new 
 colonies, men have often made this unnatural arrangement \ 
 because all modern colonies, at least, have been founded by a 
 number of men iireatly exceeding the number of women who 
 accompanied them. We need not stop to look at the moral 
 evils of this excess of males. Economically speaking, it seems 
 quite plain, the poor immigrants brought to a colony by the 
 purchase-money of waste land, ought to be men and women in 
 equal numbers ; and if married, so much the better. 
 
 If they were old people their labour would be of little value 
 to the colony ; not only because it would soon be at an end ; 
 but also because they would be weak, and because they would 
 not readily turn their hands to new employments, to employ-
 
 304 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 merits very often quite different from those in which they had 
 worked from their childhood to old age. In order that the poor 
 immigrants brought to a colony should be as valuable as pos- 
 sible, they ought to be young people, whose powers of labour 
 would last as long as possible, and who would readily turn their 
 hands to new kinds of work. 
 
 But would there be any objection to a mixture of children ? 
 To this there would be four objections. First, if the children 
 were the offspring of grown-up immigrants, it would follow that 
 the latter were not of the best age ; that if old enough to have 
 children, they were too old to come under the description of 
 the most valuable labourers. Secondly, children are less fit than 
 old people, even, to undergo the confinement and other troubles 
 of a long sea voyage.* Thirdly, when children first reach a 
 colony, they necessarily incumber somebody. Fourthly, they 
 cannot for some time be of any use aslabourers: they cannot pro- 
 duce capital wherewith to attract and employ other labourers. 
 To whatever extent, then, the colonial fund should be employed 
 in bringing children, instead of grown-up people, the value re- 
 ceived by the colony for its outlay would be less than need be. 
 By bringing none but young grown-up persons, the maximum 
 of value would be obtained for any given outlay. 
 
 But this is not all. The greatest quantity of labour would be 
 obtained more easily than a less quantity. The natural time of 
 marriage is a time of change, when two persons, just united for 
 life, must, nearly always, seek a new home. The natural time 
 of marriage too is one, when the mind is most disposed to hope, 
 to ambition, to undertakings which require decision and energy 
 of purpose. Marriage produces greater anxiety for the future, 
 and a very strong desire to be belter off in the world for the 
 
 * To be convinced of this, let any one visit a ship full of emigrants, in the 
 Thames or the .Mersey, bound to Canada, lie will find those who are parents 
 troubled and anxious, fearful of accidents to their children, restless, starting at 
 every noise ; if paupers, glad to see their little ones Btuffing themselves with 
 the ship's rations, dainties to them, poor little w retches-, who have plenty to eat 
 for the first time in their lives; if paupers, looking back without affection, and 
 with hope to the future, but, being parents, with apprel I in the dis- 
 
 tant and unknown land of promise, the chiidn n Bhotild Buffer more than they 
 red at home, lie will see the children, if paupers, delighted at meal 
 mg with greasj lips, their • ng over the butcher's meat, 
 
 but, at other times, sick of the confinement, tired of having nothing to do, 
 wanting a play-place, always in the Way, driven from pillar to post, fretful, 
 quarrelsome, thoroughly unhappy, and exposed to serious accidents. Those 
 .nit.-, on the contrary, who are n nts nor children, young men 
 
 and women without any incumbrance; these be will Gnd quite at their ewe, 
 ing the luxurj ol idleness, pleased with the noveltj ol their situation, 'in 
 a state ol p excitement, building castles in the air, glorying in the 
 
 prospect ol independence, thanking God thai they are still without children, 
 and il In- knows how to make them apeak out, delighted to talk of the new 
 country, in which, as they have heard) children, instead of being a burthen, 
 are the greatest of blebsings.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 305 
 
 sake of expected offspring. Of what class are composed those 
 numerous streams of emigrants, which flow continually from 
 the eastern to the outside of the western states of America, by 
 channels longer and rougher than the sea-way from England 
 to the eastern states 1 Not of single men, nor of old people, 
 nor of middle-aged parents dragging children along with them, 
 but, for the most part, of young couples, just married, seeking 
 a new home, fondly assisting and encouraging each other, 
 strong in health and spirits ; not driven from their birth-place 
 by fear of want, but attracted to a new place by the love of 
 independence, by a sentiment of ambition, and most of all, per- 
 haps, by anxiety for the welfare of children to come. This, 
 then, is the class of people that would be most easily attracted 
 to a colony by high wages and still better prospects. Others 
 would be willing to come if, the old country co-operating with 
 the colony, all in the old country were well informed of the 
 advantages of emigration : but these would be the most willing ; 
 these would be, not merely willing, but anxious to come. 
 
 Of these, however, there might not exist in an old country a 
 sufficient number to meet the colonial demand for labour. 
 For example, if the United States should propose to lay out 
 1,400,000/. a year in bringing young couples from Ireland, this 
 would produce a demand for 100,000 young Irish couples ; 
 but in Ireland there are not so many as 100,000 couples of the 
 same age. There are not, perhaps in Ireland, more than 
 60,000 grown up young couples who were born in the same 
 year. As the constant emigration of all, or maybe of half 
 the couples, who every year reach the age of puberty, must 
 very soon depopulate any country, we may be sure that a por- 
 tion only of this class would ever be disposed to emigrate. 
 Whenever a number sufficient to meet the colonial demand 
 for labour should not be disposed to emigrate, it would be right 
 to offer a passage cost free to couples older by one, two, or 
 three years, but always giving a preference to those who had 
 most lately reached the age of puberty. Indeed, as to those 
 of the best possible age, we can only say that it would be right 
 to give them a preference. 
 
 Supposing all the people brought to the colony with the pur- 
 chase-money of waste land to be young men and women, in 
 equal numbers, let us see what the effect would be on the 
 colonial population. At the end of twenty years after the 
 foundation of Virginia, the number of colonists w T as about 
 1800 ; though, during the twenty years, near 20,000 persons 
 had reached the settlement. This rapid decrease of popula- 
 tion was, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere,* owing 
 
 * See Note X 
 
 39
 
 308 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 chiefly to the misery of the colonists ; but it was partly owing, 
 also, to this ; that of the 20,000 immigrants a very small pro- 
 portion only consisted of females. So that, even if the colony 
 had prospered from the beginning, the number of colonists 
 would probably have been less at the end of twenty years 
 than the number of immigrants during that period. The set- 
 tlement of New South Wales has so far prospered from the 
 beginning, that no one has ever found it difficult to maintain a 
 family : yet the population of the colony is nothing like as great 
 as the number of immigrants. But why ? simply because, of 
 those persons, by far the greater number were men, and that, 
 of the women, who composed the smaller number, many were 
 past the age of child-bearing. Had those persons consisted of 
 men and women in equal proportions, but of a middle age, the 
 population of the colony might not have been much greater 
 than it is: but if they had consisted entirely of young couples, 
 who had just reached the age of puberty, the population of the 
 colony would have advanced with surprising rapidity. Reck- 
 oning the number of immigrants in each year at '2,000, there 
 seem to be grounds for believing* that, if all these had been 
 young couples just arrived at the age of puberty, the popula- 
 tion of the colony would by this time have amounted to nearly 
 500,000, instead of its actual amount, less than 50,000 ; that 
 the progress of population and, we may add, of colonization, 
 would have been ten times as great as it has been, with the 
 same outlay for bringing people to the colony. At present, 
 too, the proportion of young people in New South Wales is 
 rather under than over the usual rate ; whereas, in the sup- 
 posed case, the proportion of young people would have been 
 very much greater than it has ever been in any human society. 
 According, of course, to this great proportion of young people 
 would have been the prospect of future increase. If all the 
 people who have removed from Europe to America had been 
 young couples, just arrived at the age of puberty, slavery in 
 North America must long since have died a natural death : 
 no part of North America, no part of South America,! perhaps, 
 would have been open for colonization. Considering what 
 must, almost inevitably, hare happened in this case, it seems 
 hard to overrate the advantages within reach of the United 
 
 * Among these grounds are the very healthy climate "I' New South Wales, 
 ami the great fecundity of women in that country. Mr. Cunningham 
 thai in tin' settlement of I3athurst Plains, a new colony, west of the Blue 
 
 M i ttains, "ills one natural death occurred in twelve years. 
 
 t As it is, there arc some iv. i DIM for expecting thai South America, where 
 
 the greatest paint have been taken to disperse the people, and render them aa 
 barbarous as the Indiana, will be colonized over again bj emigrants fin 
 
 north, who, kc|rt together by the density of the natural forest, have preserved 
 the power of civilization.
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 307 
 
 States, by means of colonizing their waste territory in the way 
 proposed. 
 
 In any colony, the immediate effect of selecting young 
 couples for immigration would be to diminish very much the 
 ordinary cost of adding to the population of the colony. The 
 passage of young couples would not cost more than that of any 
 other class, or of all classes mixed ; but, along with the young 
 couples, the colony would obtain, at the ordinary cost, the greatest 
 possible germ of future increase. The settlers in New South 
 Wales who, in the course of a few years, have made that colony 
 to swarm with sheep, did not import lambs or old sheep ; still less 
 did they import a large proportion of rams. They have imported 
 altogether a very small number of sheep, compared with the 
 vast number now in the colony. Their object was the produc- 
 tion in the colony of the greatest number of sheep by the im- 
 portation of the least number, or, in other words, at the least 
 cost ; and this object they accomplished by selecting for im- 
 portation those animals, which, on account of their sex and age, 
 were fit to produce the greatest number of young in the 
 shortest time. If a like selection were made of the persons 
 to be brought to a colony with the purchase-money of waste 
 land, the land bought, it is evident, would become as valuable 
 as it could ever become, much more quickly than if the immi- 
 grants should be a mixture of persons of all ages. In the 
 former case, not only would the immigrants be, all of them, of 
 the most valuable class as labourers, but they would be of a 
 class fit to produce the most rnpid increase of people in the 
 colony ; to create, as soon as possible, in places now desert, a 
 demand for food, for the raw materials of manufactures, for 
 accommodation land, and for building-ground. The buyer of 
 new land, therefore, would have his purchase-money laid out 
 for him in the way best of all calculated to be of service to him. 
 It would be well to consider this, in seeking to determine the 
 proper price for new land, of which the purchase-money was 
 to be thus laid out for the greatest advantage of the purchaser. 
 
 It must be seen, further, that if the immigration fund were 
 laid out in this way, the progressive increase of that fund, by 
 means of the increase of people wanting land, would be much 
 more rapid than if the immigrants brought to the colony were 
 of all ages mixed. By adopting this mode of immigration, all 
 the means of colonization would be used with their greatest 
 possible effect.* 
 
 * By the importunity of some members of the Colonization Society, the Eng- 
 lish governpaent was induced to adopt this principle of colonization. While 
 their board of emigration was sitting in Downing-street, a mere name for want 
 of funds, they were persuaded to devote the money obtained by the sale of 
 waste land in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land to the sending of poor
 
 30S THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 The moral advantages of such a selection of immigrants 
 would not be few. Each female would have a special protec- 
 tor from the moment of her departure from home. No man 
 would have any excuse for dissolute habits. All the evils, 
 which have so often sprung from a disproportion between the 
 sexes, would be avoided. Every pair of immigrants would 
 have the strongest motives for industry, steadiness, and thrift. 
 In a colony thus peopled, there would scarcely ever be any 
 single men or single women : nearly the whole population 
 w T ould consist of married men and women, boys, and girls, and 
 children. For many years, the proportion of children to grown- 
 up people would be greater than was ever known since Shem, 
 Ham, and Japhet were surrounded by their little ones. The 
 colony would be an immense nursery, and, all being at ease 
 without being scattered, would offer the finest opportunity that 
 ever occurred, to see what may be done for society by univer- 
 sal education. That must be a narrow breast in which the last 
 consideration does not raise some generous emotion. 
 
 This is the way in which the Colonization Society proposed 
 
 females to those colonies. It was high time to do something towards correct- 
 ing the disproportion between the sexes which exists in those colonies. Several 
 ship loads of poor females have, in this way, been provided with a passage to 
 the penal settlements. But with what result I The number of female immi- 
 grants is not, by any means, sufficient to cause an equal proportion between the 
 sexes. So long as the proportion shall remain unequal, all females, not pro- 
 tected by a higher station, must be subject to a kind of persecution which one need 
 not describe. It is enough to say, that the government, sending so few, has 
 sent a certain number of women from England to become prostitutes in Austra- 
 lia. While the government was sending these women, it sent, side-by-sidc with 
 tbese women, though not in the same ships, a greater number of men ; as if 
 determined to miss the object with which the women were sent. At first, the 
 colonial office declared in print, that the passage of the women was to be paid 
 for with the money obtained by selling waste land. This was acknowledging 
 a new and important principle. Whether alarmed at finding themselves con- 
 nected with something new and important, something not common-place, some- 
 thing out of the routine of office; or whether they discovered that the fund to 
 be obtained by selling waste land would be very handy for their own private 
 purposes; with what motive I know nut ; but by a new regulation of the colo- 
 nial office, it is declared that the cost of Bending women to the penal settle- 
 ments will be defrayed out of the trait. Tims the fund obtained by 
 the sali' of waste land l>:is Itch carried to the governor's account ; and the prin- 
 ciple of using that fund foT bringing labour to the colony has been abandoned. 
 Mr. Wilmol Horton used to contend, that whatever " the crown" might obtain 
 by the sale of waste land was the property of "the crown •" and that touching 
 the dii posal of it, no one had any business to inquire, any more than about the 
 disposal oi secret service money voted by parliament. The change has taken 
 place' since Lord Bowick, who in parliament thought lit to acknowledge the 
 sit'.im - • f the Colonization Society, gave up the "Australian department" of 
 the colonial office to his colli ague Mr, Hay ; once the colleague of Mr. Morton, 
 and always, it I am nol greatly mistaken! one of that party whom the Standard 
 paper calls " tin- Peel and Dawson crew." 11 Air. Hay he the author of 
 this change, Ins motives for bringing it about may, perhaps, he discovered in a 
 com ■ printed in the Appendix, No. 3.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 309 
 
 that the purchase-money of waste land should be employed. 
 The sum of the measures suggested by them, having regard to 
 the objects and means of the colonies alone, is : The sale of all 
 waste land by public auction at a fixed upset price, with the 
 most perfect liberty of appropriation at that price : and the 
 employment of the whole of the fund so obtained in bringing 
 people to the colony ; a preference being always given to young 
 couples who have just reached the age of puberty. How the 
 mother country, the country, that is, from which the immigrants 
 should come, might usefully co-operate with the colony, re- 
 mains to be considered. 
 
 CO-OPERATION OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY. 
 
 The subject has been thus divided for two reasons ; first, 
 because, as observed already, it was more convenient to take 
 a colonial view of means which exist in the colony ; secondly, 
 in order to show clearly, without any long explanation, that 
 under a good system of colonization, by whatever government 
 administered, people would be drawn to the colony, not driven 
 from the mother country. By examining the subject in this 
 way, any one may see distinctly that the advantage of those 
 who shall remove from the mother country is a necessary con- 
 dition of emigration ; that emigration to any considerable ex- 
 tent could not take place without benefit to the emigrants. 
 This, however, is not the general impression in England. A 
 different impression has been made on the English vulgar, high 
 and low. Never having heard of emigration, save, according 
 to Mr. Wilmot Horton's views, as a means of relief from the 
 pressure of the poor's-rate, they have supposed that, whether 
 or not the object was attained, the poor emigrants must be 
 driven away for the good of those who should remain behind, 
 instead of being drawn away for their own good. This im- 
 pression, which renders the word emigration distasteful to the 
 English, seems to have been caused by three circumstances in 
 particular. 
 
 First. By various attempts to raise in the mother country a 
 fund for pauper emigration, not the good of the emigrants, but 
 that of the subscribers to the fund, was made prominent. Thus, 
 when the government advanced 60,000/. for sending some poor 
 people to Canada, it was supposed that the government wished 
 to get rid of those people, not for their sake, but for the sake 
 of those to whom the people were a burthen. So also, when 
 Lord Howick brought a bill into parliament for enabling 
 parishes to raise an emigration fund by mortgaging their 
 poor's-rate, the advantage, not of the paupers, but of the rate- 
 payers, was supposed to be his object. If the money employed
 
 310 
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 in the first case had been provided under the name of a grant 
 to Upper Canada, for supplying that colony with labour, the 
 English government would have appeared to consult, not its 
 own advantage, but that of the colony ; and the advantage of 
 the poor emigrants, the certainty of their obtaining high wages, 
 would have been set in a prominent light : the low and high 
 vulgar would have seen that labour was wanted in the colony: 
 and thus it would have appeared, not that the emigrants were 
 driven from home, but that they were invited to another place. 
 As it was, the simple truth, that when, in the natural progress 
 of colonization, people quit their birth-place, they must neces- 
 sarily be invited by the prospect of advantage to themselves ; 
 this evident truth was kept out of view ; and in its room an 
 impression w r as made that the poor emigrants might suffer by 
 their removal. 
 
 Secondly. Under the experiments in pauper emigration made 
 by the English government, poor emigrants have suffered by 
 their removal. To say nothing of what happened to the poor 
 people whom the English government sent to South Africa, 
 the poor people whom they sent to Canada suffered great 
 privations and hardships. They consisted of families, men, 
 women, and swarms of children ; and, what is more important, 
 instead of being allowed to proceed in a natural course, that is, 
 to remain in the settled parts of the colony, working for wages, 
 getting assistance when required from their employers and 
 neighbours, and learning by degrees how to settle in the forest; 
 instead of this, they were planted at once beyond the settled 
 parts of the colony, in the midst of the forest, far apart from 
 each other, without experience, assistance, or advice ; and even 
 without houses in which to shelter their families. Those Eng- 
 lish paupers, becoming suddenly colonial landlords, not hard- 
 ened to the climate, placed on new land where ague generally 
 prevails, not accustomed to use the hatchet, which is the first 
 tool used by a settler ; thus placed, like fish out of water, they 
 suffered from heat, cold, and wet, from sickness, from wounds, 
 and finally from a sentiment of despair. Not a tew of the 
 children died. The misery which these poor people suffered, 
 though great pains were taken to conceal it by the author of 
 the experiment, became known in England ; and thus a well- 
 founded prejudice was created against emigration; well- 
 founded, that is, as against this sort of emigration. 4 Uut along 
 with a dislike; to this sort of emigration, there arose, as might 
 have been expected, a dislike to all emigration. 
 
 • The absurdity of Mr. Wilmot Horton'a Bcheme for locating English 
 pauper* in the forest of Canada Was exposed by thi I ition Society : and 
 
 in the emigration bill which Lord Howies soon afterward brought in parlia- 
 ment, ili«- uatural mode of pauper emigration was adopted ; that ol alio 
 
 poor labourers to be attracted by tho high wages of the colony.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 311 
 
 Thirdly. The English government goes out of its way to 
 strengthen in the common people their natural sense of the 
 evils of emigration. As it is painful to quit for ever the country 
 of one's birth and one's affections, so is emigration necessarily 
 attended with some evil; but this evil, it is plain, will never be 
 incurred voluntarily, that is, if there be no sort of interference 
 by government, without so much good as turns the scale in 
 favour of emigration. The balance of the account must 
 necessarily be in favour of the voluntary emigrant. But what 
 says the English government? While Lord Ho wick was 
 vainly begging the House of Commons to pass his emigration 
 bill, imploring them to mend the condition of the peasantry in 
 the south of England, to prevent another insurrection of that 
 class by enabling some of them to remove to the colonies ; at 
 this very time, the judges at Winchester, and elsewhere, ad- 
 dressed language to the following effectto peasants convicted of 
 rioting for better wages : — Unhappy men ! your crime is enor- 
 mous, and your punishment must be great. The sentence of the 
 law is, that you be transported beyond seas for the term of your 
 natural lives. You are going to a far country, to a country so far 
 off", that neither will you ever hear of those whom you love best, 
 nor will they ever hear of you. Though the law does not per- 
 mit me to pass on some of you the sentence of transportation 
 for life, still I can assure such of you, that you will never be 
 able to return. You may have heard, from wicked men like 
 yourselves, that it is a fine country ; and you may expect to do 
 well there. But oh, unhappy prisoners ! you will suffer all the 
 pain of being for ever banished from the country of your birth 
 and your affections. May God, in his mercy, give you forti- 
 tude to bear so dreadful a punishment, which, however, is no 
 more than your atrocious crime deserves. — Hereupon, some of 
 the prisoners, single men, who had, indeed, heard that New 
 South Wales is a very fine country, and that they could hardly 
 fail to do well there ; these put their tongues into their cheeks, 
 and set the judge at defiance. But the wives and children of 
 the others shed tears, shrieked, or fainted ; and all through 
 those rural districts there was weeping and lamentation. 
 These are the districts in which, especially, it was intended 
 that Lord Howick's bill should be of use ; districts in which, 
 among the class who were to be persuaded to emigrate, a strong 
 impression had been made, that emigration is the greatest pun- 
 ishment next to death. Are we, then, to be surprised that the 
 English generally should look upon every attempt by their 
 government to promote emigration as an attempt to hurt the 
 emigrants ? So long as criminals shall be punished by trans- 
 portation, there must necessarily exist in England a strong pre-
 
 312 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 judice against any interference by the government for promot- 
 ing emigration. 
 
 But why should the government of an old country ever un- 
 dertake to promote emigration from that country, when all the 
 ends, which an old country seeks in colonization, may be 
 reached by promoting immigration to her colonies 1 Whether 
 the colony be dependent or independent, all that the govern- 
 ment of the mother country has to do at home for promoting 
 colonization, is to take care that the poorer class at home be 
 well informed of the advantages of going to a colony ; taking 
 care also that the necessary evil of going from home be not 
 made to appear greater than it is, through forcing people to 
 emigrate by way of punishment. It would be very easy, in- 
 deed, supposing either that there was co-operation between 
 the old couatry and the colony, or that both were under the 
 same government, to keep the poorer class in the old country 
 well informed of the advantages of going to a colony. The 
 great emigration from England which took place last year was 
 caused mainly by the publication of letters from poor emigrants 
 to their friends in England.* But in order that such letters 
 should be published, it is necessary that they should be written 
 and received. Why not, in order to promote the receipt of 
 such letters among the poorer class in the mother country, 
 allow poor emigrants, during some years after their arrival in 
 the colony, to send letters by the post, but free of postage, to 
 the friends whom they had left behind ; just as, in many coun- 
 tries, soldiers are allowed this privilege '( To such an arrange- 
 ment there appears no obstacle that might not be got over with 
 very little trouble. - )* In this way, not only would the neces- 
 sary evil of going to a colony be diminished ; that is, the emi- 
 grants would depart with the pleasant assurance of being able 
 to communicate with their friends at home ; but the poorer 
 class in the mother country would always hear the truth as to 
 the prospects of emigrants ; and not only the truth, hut truth 
 in which they would not suspect any falsehood. The state- 
 ments as to the high wages obtainable in the la iglish colonies, 
 lately published by ■ board of emigration sitting in Downing- 
 strcct, though perfectly true, have not been received with im- 
 plicit faith by the harassed and therefore suspicious class to 
 
 • Thousands, probably, were induced to emigrate by reading one publication 
 of this sort ; a collection of letters from poor emigrants, printed ami circulated 
 by one of the best friends of the English poor, and we may add of the rich, Mr. 
 Poulett Scrope. 
 
 t An officer at the colonial port might give to each poor immigrant a certifi- 
 cate, which should authorise post-masters throughout the colony to frank N itters 
 for the mother-country that were brought to a pout-office by the bearer of the 
 certificate.
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 313 
 
 whom they were addressed ; nor would any statements made 
 by the government ever obtain so much credit as letters from 
 the emigrants themselves. In this way, moreover, the attract- 
 ive power of the colony would be made apparent to the high 
 vulgar of the mother country ; and those preachers would be 
 silenced whose text is, " Dwell in the land, and verily ye shall 
 be fed." 
 
 With respect to the mother country, two points remain to be 
 examined ; first, the effect of the proposed selection of emi- 
 grants in producing relief from excessive numbers ; secondly, 
 the means by which the overflowing capital of an old country 
 might find secure and profitable employment through this system 
 of colonization. 
 
 First — If it be true that 125,000 persons emigrated from 
 Great Britain and Ireland last year, still this abstraction of 
 people has not caused the least perceptible relief from exces- 
 sive numbers. That great body of emigrants consisted of a 
 mixture of all classes ; masters and servants, old and young. 
 The poorest class was composed, in great measure of families, 
 men, women, and children, for whom a passage was provided 
 by their parishes, with a view to get rid of them. By the re- 
 moval of the children, nothing was taken from the present 
 market of English labour ; nor indeed by the removal of any 
 but workmen. Of these last, the number removed were too 
 small for any effect on wages. The only effect of their re- 
 moval was to make room for others quite ready to take their 
 place. But if this great body of emigrants had consisted en- 
 tirely of workmen and their wives, it seems probable that con- 
 siderable relief would have been obtained from excessive num- 
 bers ; that more room would have been made than could have 
 been immediately filled by other workmen. The conscription 
 in France, during the late war, did not, perhaps, carry off so 
 many workmen, year by year, in proportion to the then popu- 
 lation of France, as the proportion which 60,000 bears to 
 24,000,000 : yet it certainly had the effect of keeping the sup- 
 ply of labour so much within the demand, that the condition 
 of the labouring class in France was, during the war, very 
 comfortable compared with what it has been since the peace. 
 One of the causes of Napoleon's great popularity was the easy 
 state of the labouring class in France during his reign : one of 
 the causes of the late revolution in France was the uneasy state 
 of the working class who effected that revolution : and the 
 miserable state of that class, in the greater part of France at 
 this time leaves but small hope that the revolution which they 
 effected will be of any service to them. In France, the work- 
 ing people now say, commonly : — Oh ! if we could get back 
 Napoleon, we should soon be better off. "Without knowing it, 
 
 40
 
 314 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 they want so much war as should again cause the fields to be 
 tilled by women. If, for every young man carried off by 
 Napoleon's wars, a young woman also had been carried off, 
 though the immediate effect on the state of the working class 
 would have been the same, the conscription would have had a 
 more lasting effect on the condition of the working class. 
 Millions, perhaps, who have been born in France since 1814, 
 would not have been born there ; and this, though many 
 would have lived, who have been born to die since 1814, 
 if not of hunger, of disease produced by all sorts of privations, 
 still the good effect of the conscription might have lasted till 
 now. These considerations, will direct us to a right estimate of 
 the influence, which a proper selection of emigrants would 
 have on the population of a country like England. 
 
 It has been reckoned,* that in England the number of mar- 
 riages which take place in a year is in the proportion of 1 to 
 about 134 souls. Assuming this calculation to be right, and the 
 population of England to be 14,000,000, the yearly number of 
 marriages in England is 104,477^4. Whatever would be the 
 effect on population of preventing all the marriages, would be 
 the effect of removing all who were about to marry. The re- 
 moval, therefore, of about 209,000 persons every year for a 
 few years would very soon depopulate England. But this 
 effect would occur through the removal of a much smaller num- 
 ber. It would occur by the yearly removal of all who in each 
 vear should reach the age of puberty. How many persons in 
 England every year reach the age of puberty has never been 
 calculated. But it is reckoned, that the yearly births are, to 
 the whole population, in the proportion of 1 to about 31. 
 Taking the yearly births, then, to be 451,G12ff, or, for round 
 numbers, 450,000, and assuming that not above one-third of 
 these, or 150,000, reach the age of puberty, it appears, that 
 England might soon be depopulated by the yearly abstraction, 
 for some years, of a number of persons not much greater than 
 the number who did actually emigrate last year. Supposing 
 the emigration of each of these persons to cost 7/., the cost of 
 entirely depopulating England would be a yearly outlay, for 
 some years, of L,Q50,000Z. ; very little more by the year than 
 a seventh part of the English poor's-rate ; not much more than 
 the supposed cost of emigration from Great Britain and Ireland 
 during the last year. But there is a way by which, with a still 
 smaller yearly outlay, England might be depopulated: by 
 taking away every year a number of young couples sufficient 
 to reduce the whole number in after yean : so that the num- 
 ber of young couples would, in time, be reduced to one. Sup- 
 
 » 8*6 ProfeMOr M'Culloch 1 . nlinmi of the Wealth 
 
 of Nation*, which is full oi valuable infor..-. uibjeet
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 315 
 
 posing that this might be effected, though not so quickly as if 
 all were removed, by removing every year half of the young 
 couples who had in that year reached the age of puberty, then 
 might England be depopulated by the yearly removal for some 
 years of 75,000 persons, at a yearly cost of 525,000/. The 
 question, however, is, not how might England be depopulated, 
 but what is the smallest proportion of young couples, whose 
 yearly removal would prevent any hurtful increase of the pop- 
 ulation of a country like England ; would put the bulk of the 
 people at ease ; enabling all to marry when nature should 
 prompt them to marriage ; preventing the death of many 
 through want ; and giving full effect to the principle of popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Still this question is not of much, perhaps it is not of any, 
 practical importance. By the proposed selection of emigrants, 
 all that could be done would be done, towards procuring relief 
 from excessive numbers ; and in no event could too many 
 people be removed ; because, when relief from excessive num- 
 bers was obtained, emigration would stop, until the prospect 
 of misery from excessive numbers should again render the evil 
 of quitting home less than that of remaining at home. 
 
 By the proposed selection of emigrants, moreover, as the 
 greatest quantity of relief from excessive numbers would be 
 comprised in the removal of the least number of people, the 
 maximum of good from emigration would be obtained, not only 
 with the minimum of cost, but, what is far more important, with 
 the minimum of painful feelings. All that old people and young 
 children suffer more than other people from a long voyage 
 would be avoided. Those only would remove, who were 
 already on the move to a new home : those only, to whom, on 
 account of their youth and animal spirits, separation from birth- 
 place would be least painful ; those only, who had just formed 
 the dearest connexion, and one not to be severed, but to be made 
 happy by their removal. And this, the least degree of painful 
 feeling, would be suffered by the smallest possible number of 
 people. 
 
 To make this selection, no interference would be required 
 from the government of an old country. Supposing the at- 
 tractive power of the colony applied to the immigration of 
 young couples, then ship-owners and others, who had con- 
 tracted with the colonial government for bringing young couples 
 to the colony, would make known in the mother country that 
 they were ready to convey to the colony, free of cost, persons 
 of that description, but not of any other description. Suppose 
 that a young single man should apply for a passage ; he would 
 be told that for the passage of a single man there was no fund, 
 but that there was a fund for the passage of a married man and 
 his wife ; that whenever he should please to return with a
 
 316 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 young wife, they might both go to the colony cost free. Con 
 it be "doubtful that he would soon return with a young wife? 
 The experiment has been thus far tried ; that when, last year, 
 the South Australian Land Company received applications for 
 a passage to New Holland, from young single men out of work, 
 and answered, " Yes, if you get married, and for your wife 
 also," the common reply was, " So much the better ;" with a 
 snap of the fingers, a laugh, or swimming eyes, that spoke more 
 than the words.* In order that this selection should be made 
 without any difficulty, all that would be required from the 
 government of an old country is, that it should be so good as 
 to do nothing ; that it should have sense enough to abstain from 
 meddling with the attractive power of the colony. 
 
 Secondly — There are two ways in which this system of 
 colonization seems calculated to give secure and profitable 
 employment to the overflowing capital of a mother country. 
 
 In the first place, it is clear that, to whatever extent this 
 system was pursued, the colonies would be more extensive ; 
 that under this system, they would be extended as rapidly as 
 possible ; and that as every new colony, or increase of an old 
 one, would be the extension of an old society to a new place ; 
 as the colonists would produce more with the same number of 
 hands than colonists have ever produced, and would retain the 
 habits and wants of their mother country ; so would this mode 
 of colonization very rapidly increase the markets in which the 
 mother country might buy raw produce and cheap corn with 
 manufactured goods. One end of colonization being to enlarge 
 the field for employing capital and labour within the mother 
 country, that great' object would be obtained most easily and 
 most quickly by these means of colonization. 
 
 But, in the next place, in order that this most useful process 
 should begin as soon as possible, colonies already established 
 might require some assistance, not from the government, but 
 from the capitalists of the mother country. Suppose that the 
 Americans, having resolved to dispose of their fund, obtained 
 by the sale of waste land, in bringing labour to the United 
 States, should, with a view to the extinction of slavery, with 
 a view to obtaining immediately a sufficient supply of free 
 labour, be willing to anticipate, that fund ? to borrow money 
 on that security? Could a better security for overflowing 
 English capital be readily imagined I In this way, capital 
 which is now lying idle in England, or is about to fly off, 
 taking no labour with it, would fly oil', indeed, but only for 
 a time, and would take with it, or draw after it, a correspond* 
 
 * Whoever persuaded Lord Goderich to depart from Ins engagement with 
 this company, little Knows how much bitter disappointment he occasioned. 
 Bui whal an the hope • ol paupei to i state ?
 
 THE AliT OF COLO.M'/ATION. 317 
 
 ing amount of surplus labour. We have only to suppose, 
 farther, that in Canada, South Africa, and Australia, the Ame- 
 rican plan of selling land had been adopted with improvements ; 
 we have only to suppose, in short, that the legislature of Eng- 
 land had attended to this subject, and we suppose the opening 
 of three more great fields for the secure and profitable employ- 
 ment of English capital in the work of colonization. 
 
 The enlargement of the field, however, need not stop here. 
 While a portion of the capital of the mother country was em- 
 ployed in anticipation of the sales of waste land, other portions 
 would be employed in the purchase of waste land. Immense 
 capitals, belonging to people in the eastern states of America, 
 are constantly employed in the purchase of new land on the 
 western frontier, and invariably, I believe, with profit to the 
 capitalists. The profit of such purchases would be much more 
 certain, and would be obtained much sooner in a colony where 
 no new land was obtainable save by purchase, and where all 
 the purchase-money of new land was employed in bringing 
 selected labourers to the colony. How great and rapid might 
 be the profit of such undertakings, may be partly conceived 
 from the success of the Canada Company, of whose proceed- 
 ings a brief summary appears below.* This company bought 
 land of the government, without any assurance that land would 
 not be given for nothing to other people ; and the money which 
 they have paid to the government has been wasted ; all of it 
 in some way, most of it in shameful jobs. Nearly all the great 
 and successful purchases of waste land in the United States are 
 conducted by companies residing in the eastern towns. This 
 kind of investment seems peculiarly suited to companies. The 
 whole operation consists of paying and receiving money; pay- 
 ing a small sum, waiting, and then receiving a large sum. The 
 time for waiting would be very short, if all the money paid 
 were employed in adding to the colonial population, according 
 to a fixed rule, and so that the greatest amount of population 
 was added at the least cost. It would be difficult for com- 
 panies to make any serious blunder : scarce any thing would be 
 left to the neglect of agents ; for there would be scarce any 
 thing to do : and, lastly, a company, by the employment of a 
 large capital, might take so much land in one lot or block as 
 
 Xominal capital, 1,000,000/. 
 
 Capital actually invested, 151,555/. 
 
 Dividend of 4 per cent, per annum, regularly paid. 
 Assets of the company (December, 1832): 1st. Dills given by purchasers of 
 their land, bearing interest at 6 per cent., with payment by instalments effec- 
 tually secured, 113,0252. 2d. Land paid for by the company, but not yet sold, 
 including the town lots of Guelph and Goderich, 460,000 acres, estimated at 15*, 
 per acre, or 345,000/. 3d. Land remaining to be paid for, 1,658,000 acres, at 
 the rate of 2?. Wd. per acre, estimated to sell for los. per acre, or 1,243,500/.
 
 318 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 would ensure the formation of a town on their property : not 
 by them, but by others for their good. Becoming the proprie- 
 tors of a large extent of land, there would necessarily occur 
 upon some parts of their property those kinds of competition 
 for the use of land, over and above competition for land of 
 superior natural fertility, which lead to the payment of rent : 
 every sale by them would add to the value of land adjoining 
 that which had been sold ; and the whole business of selling 
 might be conducted by one or two agents of common intelli- 
 gence. To show how great and how sure would be the profit 
 of such investments, under the proposed system of colonization, 
 I have collected a number of facts which establish that, even 
 now, wherever people congrcgrate, new land invariably rises in 
 value soon after it becomes private property.* All surplus 
 capital invested in this way would, of course, take off with it a 
 corresponding amount of surplus labour. Every investment of 
 this kind would tend, in proportion to its amount, to diminish in 
 the mother country the competition of capital with capital, and 
 of labour with labour. 
 
 How this system of colonization would tend to enlarge the 
 field of employment for those classes, who are not called either 
 capitalists or labourers, is very evident. As all the emigrant 
 labourers would retain the habits and wants of their mother 
 country, so would they, having plenty in the colony, create a 
 demand for the services of those classes whose only property 
 is their knowledge ; and the progressive increase of this demand 
 would keep pace, exactly, with the very rapid progress of 
 colonization. Colonies that were brisk markets for the sale of 
 goods manufactured in the mother country, must necessarily 
 afford employment to persons, having the common run of 
 knowledge, or superior knowledge, who should emigrate from 
 the mother country. Touching this point, it is only necessary 
 to repeat, that a colony, founded or extended in the way pro- 
 posed, would be the extension of an old society to a new place, 
 with all the good, but without the evils, which belong especially 
 to old countries. 
 
 This exposition of the views of the Colonization Society 
 may be properly concluded by a quotation from their own 
 statement of their principles and objects. 
 
 " To conclude : We have purposely abstained from dwelling 
 on the improvement which this system of colonization might 
 effect in the moral condition of the poorer classes in Britain, 
 or on the wonderful rapidity with which, by calling millions 
 and hundreds of millions into existence, it might people the 
 desert regions of the globe. Such speculations, however 
 
 ' See Appendix, No. ".
 
 THE AUT OF COLONIZATION. 319 
 
 grateful, are unsuited to the present occasion. We have 
 confined ourselves to statements and arguments which may be 
 submitted to the test of rational inquiry. Any man, inquiring 
 with a single desire to find the truth, may readily convince 
 himself whether or not the proposed selection of emigrants 
 would prevent all undesirable increase of people in the mother 
 country, and, at the same time, cause the greatest possible 
 increase of people in the colonies ; whether or not the proposed 
 concentration of the colonists would tend to their wealth and 
 civilization ; would furnish the greatest amount of employment 
 for labour, and the greatest fund for conveying labour to the 
 market. These are questions in the science of public economy 
 which must be speedily decided. If they should be decided 
 in the affirmative, it must inevitably follow, that the measure in 
 question, being well administered, would save the greater part 
 of the poor's-rate of England, and prevent, in Ireland, the 
 greater evil of pauperism without poor laws ; that it would 
 occasion a great and constant increase of the demand for 
 British manufactures ; that it would extinguish slavery in South 
 Africa, by the substitution of free labour ; and that it would 
 enable the more extensive British colonies to defray the entire 
 cost of their own government and protection. Moreover, if 
 the principles of the suggested measure be sound, the measure 
 may be adopted, not only upon any scale, that is, by degrees, 
 so as to render its adoption perfectly easy, — but also without 
 harm to any, and with benefit to all ; without the least injury 
 to a single person, and with definable and manifest advantages 
 to the poor, both those who should remove and those who 
 should remain ; to the landlords, farmers, manufacturers, mer- 
 chants, and ship-owners of Britain ; to the colonists of every 
 class, but more especially to the land-owners and merchants ; 
 and finally, to both the domestic and colonial governments. 
 We beg the reader to observe that these conclusions are stated 
 hypothetically. The accuracy of the conclusions depends on 
 the truth of the principles, which it is our wish rather to sub- 
 mit for examination than to assert with confidence. But if 
 those conclusions should turn out to be founded on reason and 
 truth, it will be acknowledged, that objects more important 
 were never sought by more simple means."
 
 320 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF COLONIES. 
 
 After so full a notice of the other parts of the subject, this 
 part of it may be disposed of in few words. 
 
 If the purchase of waste land in a colony already established 
 were a profitable mode of employing capital, so would be the 
 purchase of the first grant in a new colony. Nay, as the first 
 purchasers of land in a new colony would naturally select the 
 spot on which the first town, or the capital of the colony, the 
 seat of government, and the centre of trade, was likely to be 
 formed, their land must necessarily, if the colony prospered at 
 all, soon become extremely valuable. Their purchase-money 
 would provide the colony with labour of the most valuable 
 kind, and in due proportion to the land granted. Here, there 
 would be no motive for anticipating by a loan the sales of 
 waste land ; because, in this case, there would never be any 
 hurtful disproportion between land and people. The certainty 
 of obtaining labour in the new colony would be the strongest 
 inducement to the emigration of capitalists, ambitious to take 
 part in laying the foundation of an empire. Thus would all 
 the elements of wealth be brought together, with no further 
 trouble to the government of the mother country than what 
 should be required for establishing in the colony a fixed and 
 uniform system in the disposal of waste land. It was the hope 
 of being able to persuade the English government to establish 
 such a system for the south coast of Australia, that lately in- 
 duced a body of Englishmen* to project the foundation of a 
 colony in that desert part of the world. A body of capitalists, 
 sure of a rapid increase in the value of land, if all land were 
 sold and all the purchase-money employed in procuring labour, 
 was ready to buy a part of that wilderness; another body of 
 capitalists, depending on a constant supply of labour, was ready 
 to embark for that desert; the most numerous, wealthy, and 
 estimable body of Englishmen that, ever proposed to found a 
 colony : and labourers in abundance were anxious to accom- 
 pany them, expectim: to have their ; paid for with the 
 purchase-money of the desert land. In order to carry this pro- 
 ject into effect, nothing more was required than sonic engage- 
 ment from the English government, that the proposed system 
 for the disposal <>l waste land should be firmly established in 
 the intended colony; some law, or something like a law, tO 
 prevent a colonial governor, and the clerks in Downing-stn. t, 
 
 * See in the Appendu (No, I), t Ret "i i!"- Provisional Committee of the 
 Booth A" tralian Land i lompany, with! Wei ' 
 
 ( \ i, count Goderich.
 
 THE AiiT OV COLONIZATION. 321 
 
 from meddling with the disposal of waste land in this colony. 
 The best security for this object would have been an act of 
 parliament ; but those who intended to found the colony re- 
 quired no more than a charter from the king ; a something to 
 bind the compact into which those individuals were desirous to 
 enter. This piece of parchment was applied for, promised, 
 and ultimately refused ; on what grounds applied for, how 
 promised, and how cruelly refused, may be seen by a cor- 
 respondence between the government and those who intended 
 to found the colony. Part of this correspondence is printed 
 in the Appendix. To those who are curious about the motives 
 which may induce the government of an old country to prevent 
 the foundation of colonies, as well as to those who would 
 ascertain the motives with which, under a good system of colo- 
 nization, individuals would found colonics, scarcely assisted by 
 their government, the correspondence in question will prove 
 highly instructive. 
 
 The old English colonies in America, now the eastern States 
 of the Union, were not founded by any government. They 
 were founded by individuals, not even aided by any govern- 
 ment, save as the compact, into which each of those bodies of 
 individuals entered, was bound by a charter from the crown 
 of England. At that time, it had not been discovered that the 
 disposal of waste land in a colony may furnish matter for favour 
 and jobs : at that time, probably, a charter to prevent favour 
 and jobbing in the disposal of waste land would not have been 
 refused by the government of England. But, at that time, 
 also, none of the great advantages of a fixed and uniform sys- 
 tem in the disposal of waste land were understood by any one. 
 The evils of profusion and irregularity have been made appa- 
 rent by the good resulting from some degree of caution and 
 regularity. What is a new state formed in the western deserts 
 of America, if it be not a new colony? Yet how marked is 
 the contrast between the immediate prosperity of one of those 
 new colonies, and the early misery of one of those which were 
 planted on the eastern coast of America ! To whatever extent 
 we may suppose that the prosperity of the newest colonies 
 arises from caution and regularity in the disposal of waste 
 land, so far shall we attribute the early misery of the oldest 
 colonies to profusion and irregularity. If some degree of 
 caution and regularity in the disposal of waste land ensure the 
 immediate prosperity of a new colony, it seems clear, that the 
 prosperity of a new colony would be much greater, and much 
 more rapid, under the proposed system of selling all new land 
 and converting all the purchase-money into the most product- 
 ive labour. An old country, then, by applying this system to 
 desert countries at her disposal, may create stronger motives 
 
 41
 
 322 THE AUT OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 th;in ever yet existed for the foundation of colonies by bodies 
 of individuals. This subject well deserves the attention of the 
 EnMish, who have more desert land at their disposal than any 
 other nation, not excepting the North Americans, and who, 
 more than any other nation, require that their field of produc- 
 tion should be enlarged.* 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF COLONIES. 
 
 The advocate of systematic colonization, addressing the 
 corrupt government of an old country, and actuated by that 
 short-sighted policy which attends only to immediate objects, 
 and has no faith in the power of truth, would say : Proceed in 
 such a way that your colonies may be richer than colonies have 
 ever been, more taxable, better worth governing. But the 
 corrupt government of an old country would not be cajoled 
 by this sort of language : it would see, what must be plain to 
 every one, that, if colonies were so many extensions of an old 
 society, they would never submit to be governed from a dis- 
 tance.' Truly, if the colonists were kept together by a good 
 system for the disposal of waste land, they would be richer 
 than colonists have ever been, better able to pay taxes, better 
 worth keeping in subjection : but, so likewise, would they be 
 more intelligent, and, as union is force, very much stronger. 
 The scattered, poor, and ignorant inhabitants of South Africa 
 could not but submit patiently to the oppression, the sportive 
 injustice, and fantastic cruelty of an English lord, sent across 
 the world to do with them as he pleased. They were inca- 
 pable of governing themselves, and therefore quite unable to 
 resist a foreign tyrant. With the capacity for self-government 
 comes the power to exercise it. A people entirely fit to manage 
 themselves will never long submit to be managed by others, 
 much less to be managed by an authority residing at a gr^tt 
 distance from them. "Government from a distance," suvs 
 Bentham, " is often mischievous to the people submitted to it. 
 Government is almost always, as respects them, in a state either 
 of jealousy or indifference. They are cither neglected or pfl- 
 
 * Mr. Stuart, <mp of the sohcrest. and most moderate of writers, supposes tliat 
 the United States will obtain, by the sale ofwaste land, even under the present 
 defective system, "some thousand millions oj dollars." The national debt of 
 England unounta to between three and four thousand millions of dollars. 
 
 With Canada, South Africa, Eastern, Western, and Southern Australia, New 
 
 Zealand (a country admirably lit for colonization), part of the north-west const 
 of America, Oeylon (which in many respects is quite lit for colonization), Mada* 
 r perhaps, some desert islands in the Pacific, and great tracts of desert 
 l; :r „l i n [ndia under a tine climate ; with all these fields of colonization open to 
 them, the Englii h, surely, might o enlarge their field of production as to laugh 
 at their national dl bt.
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 323 
 
 laged ; they are made places of banishment for the vilest part 
 of society, or places to be pillaged by minions and favourites, 
 whom it is desirable suddenly to enrich. The sovereign at 
 two thousand leagues' distance from his subjects can be ac- 
 quainted neither with their wants, their interests, their manners, 
 nor their character. The most legitimate and weighty com- 
 plaints, weakened by reason of distance, stripped of every 
 thing that might excite sensibility, of every thing which might 
 soften or subdue the pride of power, are delivered, without 
 defence, into the cabinet of the prince, to the most insidious 
 interpretations, to the most unfaithful representations. The 
 colonists are still too happy if their demand of justice is not 
 construed into a crime, and if their most moderate remon- 
 strances are not punished as acts of rebellion. In a word, little 
 is cared for their affection, nothing is feared from their resent- 
 ment, and their despair is contemned."* But why is their an- 
 ger despised ? Because it is not dangerous ; because they are 
 helpless ; because they are, what is called, new societies. Let 
 colonies be old societies in new places, and they will have the 
 power to choose between self-government and government 
 from a distance. That they would choose to govern them- 
 selves cannot be doubted by any one who is at all acquainted 
 with the evils of being governed from a distance. 
 
 Bentham well describes how difficult it is for subject colonies 
 to obtain any redress of grievances ; but he says little of the 
 grievances of which such colonies must necessarily have to 
 complain. If one were ill, it would be a hard case when the 
 physician resided thousands of miles off, and months must elapse 
 before one could hear from him by return of post ; but the 
 degree of hardship would greatly depend on the nature of the 
 disease. It is not very easy for people, who have never been 
 governed from a distance, to understand the nature of the evils 
 which are thus inflicted on dependent colonies. Every govern- 
 ment must be supported by some kind of force. The distant 
 government seldom maintains in the colony an armed force 
 sufficient to preserve its authority. Some other means, then, 
 must be adopted to make the colonists obey laws which are 
 enacted by persons at a distance, knowing little of the colony 
 and caring less for it ; laws too, administered by strangers, not 
 fixed in the colony, nor in any degree responsible to the subject 
 people. The way in which this object is commonly attained, 
 is by dividing the colonists ; by getting up hostile factions 
 among them ; by allowing some of them to share with the 
 strangers in all kinds of jobs and monopolies. In order that 
 the strangers may pillage the colony, some of the colonists are 
 
 * Rationale of Reward, b. iv. chap. 14.
 
 324 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 allowed to pillage it. In all the more extensive colonies which 
 are governed from Downing-street, London, there is a strong 
 party of colonists attached to the government, and among the 
 worst enemies of the colonial people. The machinery whereby 
 misgovernment thus supports itself, is generally a council in 
 the colony, composed partly of strangers, partly of colonists, 
 all named by the governor ; by which mockery of a legislative 
 assembly, the people of the mother country, when by chance 
 they think of the colonies, are led to suppose that the colonies 
 are pretty well governed ; while, in truth, the governors council 
 is a most efficient means of misgovernment, since it enables 
 his excellency to perform, or to authorize, acts of oppression, 
 which he would never have dared to do, or authorize, on his 
 own single responsibility. If a governor of New South Wales 
 should ever be called to account for acts of cruel oppression 
 in that colony, those acts would be defended on the ground that 
 they were approved by the council, an assembly consisting 
 partly of settlers, having an interest in common with the whole 
 body of colonists. That would be the defence ; whereas the 
 truth is, that the colonial members of the governor's council in 
 New South Wales have been deeply interested in that mis- 
 government of which they shared the profits, in the shape of 
 contracts, undue supplies of convict labour, and immense grants 
 of land. In Upper Canada, says Mr. Ellice,* "it was the 
 fashion for every counsellor to get a grant of from 5,000 to 
 20,000 acres, to the great detriment of the country and the 
 great nuisance of the inhabitants around." This is only a 
 sample of the numerous ways in which some of the inhabitants 
 of subject colonies are bribed to lend their assistance in hurt- 
 ing the other inhabitants ; to lend their names to the strangers, 
 so that the acts of those strangers may be glossed over with the 
 semblance of being approved by the colonists ; to lend their 
 voices, and in case of need, their arms, to the strangers, so that 
 to the force of the strangers there may be added that of a 
 strong colonial faction. Hence more pillage than would have 
 satisfied the strangers ; hence the most bitter feuds among the 
 colonists themselves; hence, more or less, the peculiar evils 
 which Ireland has Buffered by being governed from a distance 
 through the instrumentality of a strong domestic faction. The 
 evil of having to obey laws made at a distance would be great, 
 but less than the evils inflicted in order to procure obedience 
 to laws so made. The government of colonies from a distance 
 involves both kinds of evil. 
 
 S<> much evil would never long be borne by a colony which 
 had been founded, or which was extended in the way here 
 proposed. The colony being fit. would he able to govern itself. 
 
 .• English miniitex ;tt war.
 
 THE ART OP COLONIZATION. 3 k i5 
 
 It must be confessed, therefore, that the ruling class of an old 
 country, looking only to immediate and selfish ends, has an in- 
 terest in preventing systematic colonization : a double interest ; 
 first, as for every colony fit to govern itself there would be less 
 room for colonies liable to be governed from a distance : 
 secondly, as the example of systematic colonization and colonial 
 self-government in one place, might lead to the systematic ex- 
 tension, and then to the self-government of colonies, which 
 were founded, and have hitherto been extended, without any 
 regard to the ends and means of colonization. Here, perhaps, 
 we may discover why, last year, the English government pre- 
 vented the foundation of a colony which, in local matters, was 
 to have governed itself as soon as the population should amount 
 to 50,000 souls. 
 
 In this respect, the English have reason to be proud of the 
 wisdom of their ancestors. All the early colonies of the Eng- 
 lish were allowed to govern themselves from the beginning ; 
 with this single exception, that the mother country reserved to 
 herself a monopoly of the foreign trade of the colony. In 
 every case, the colonial laws were made by an assembly of 
 colonists, elected by the colonists ; and in some cases those laws 
 were executed by officers, including the governor, who were 
 appointed by the colonists. The charters, in a word, under 
 which bodies of Englishmen planted colonies in America, laid 
 the foundation of democracy in that part of the world. At 
 that time, the English ruling class had not discovered how to 
 profit by the exercise of dominion over distant colonies. No 
 sooner, however, did the English take possession of colonies, 
 which had been founded by other nations without any provis- 
 ion for local sell-government, than the aristocracy of England 
 found out the advantage of holding colonies in subjection. This 
 advantage became still more clear when the English govern- 
 ment had made a settlement in New Holland ; had established 
 a jail there ; a society, which, of course, could not be allowed 
 to govern itself. 
 
 As to that colony, the system of transportation is a good 
 excuse for withholding from the free settlers the advantage of 
 self-government, and will be maintained on that account, as 
 well as on account of its great expense, until the new ruling 
 class of England shall please to exert their authority. Well- 
 informed as the English aristocracy now are of the many ad- 
 vantages to themselves attendant on holding colonies in subjec- 
 tion, they will always be ready with excuses for not reverting 
 to the system of colonial self-government. They seek to deny, 
 that the system of governing colonies from Downing-street is 
 a modern innovation.* 
 
 * See Correspondence in Appendix, No. 3.
 
 3*26 THE AIIT OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Those English colonies which govern themselves in local 
 matters, are distinguished by the name of chartered colonies, 
 while the others are called crown colonies. The crown colonies, 
 such as New South Wales, Van Diemairs Land, and South 
 Africa, being governed in local matters from Downing-street, 
 London, and affording a vast deal of patronage to the noble- 
 men and gentlemen who live in that street, are most sincerely 
 preferred by the English government. But, notwithstanding 
 this partial affection for crown colonies, it is a fact, 1 believe, 
 that never, till last year, did the English government refuse to 
 bestow a charter of incorporation and local self-government 
 upon individuals ready to found a colony at their own expense : 
 it is a fact, also, that the only colony founded by Englishmen 
 without such a charter is the miserable Swan River settlement, 
 the last colony founded by Englishmen. 
 
 The chartered colonies of England, governing themselves 
 from the beginning, in local matters, have usually defrayed the 
 whole cost of their local government : the cost, on the con- 
 trary, of governing the crown colonies has generally fallen 
 upon England. Here are two reasons against crown colonies : 
 first, the expense which they occasion to the country whose 
 rulers hold them in subjection ; secondly, the absence of any 
 motive in the government of the colony for letting the colo- 
 nists be rich enough to bear taxation. 
 
 The difference between the cost of governing crown and 
 chartered colonies is very much in favour of the latter. " All 
 the different civil establishments in North America," says Adam 
 Smith, " exclusive of Maryland and North Carolina, of which 
 no exact account has been got, did not, before the commence- 
 ment of the present disturbances, cost the inhabitants above 
 64,000/. a year ; an ever-memorable example at how small an 
 expense three millions of people may not only be governed, 
 but well governed." The yearly cost of governing fifty thou- 
 sand people in New South Wales was lately about 23 1,000/., 
 the salaries of officers alone being 53,468/. ; an ever-memo- 
 rable example at how great an expense a colony may be, not 
 only governed, but very ill governed.* The crown colony of 
 
 • Specimen of the salaries in New South Wales. 
 
 G emoi 4,200/. 
 
 Colonial Treasurer l,D00 
 
 Colonial Secretary and Registrar 2,uoo 
 
 His compensation foi loss of pension .... 750 
 
 Naval Officei 2,585 
 
 Chief Justice 2,000 
 
 i t;mt Judge ......-- 1,500 
 
 Ditto 1,600 
 
 Attorney-general 1,400 
 
 BharifT and Provost Marshal 1,000 
 
 Archdeacon 8,000 
 
 Sum .1 ... . . 1,000
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 327 
 
 the Swan River, with about fifteen hundred inhabitants, already 
 costs England near 7000/. a year : the local government of the 
 chartered colony, which it was proposed to found at Spencer's 
 Gulf, was to have cost, not England, but the inhabitants, 5000/. 
 a year, and no more, until the population should reach 50,000 
 souls. Chartered colonies, those which conduct and pay for 
 their own local government, are sure to be very moderate in 
 their public expenses ; while the expense of governing colo- 
 nies from a distance is sure to be as great as the people of the 
 ruling country, who find the money, will allow. The cheap- 
 ness of local self-government is sure to present a striking con- 
 trast with the dearness of government from a distance ; a con- 
 trast painful to those who profit by governing colonies from a 
 distance. 
 
 Of two other reasons in favour of local self-government, 
 one is obvious ; the other requires some explanation. First, a 
 body of colonists, who should manage their own affairs, in their 
 own way, for their own advantage, would be sure to manage 
 better than any foreign government, whether on the spot or at 
 a distance ; the local government, unless very ill constituted, 
 would have the deepest interest in the prosperity of the colony. 
 But, secondly, the form and substance of the local government 
 would very much depend upon the character of the first 
 settlers. Magna viruni mater ! exclaims Adam Smith, when 
 he gives to England the credit of having furnished the men fit 
 to establish empires in America. But would those superior 
 men have quitted England for that purpose, without a prospect 
 of self-government ? would such a man as William Penn have 
 crossed the Atlantic, knowing that, when in America, he should 
 be subject to a minister like Horace Twiss,* residing in Eng- 
 land ? The greater number, it is true, of the founders of the 
 United States fled from persecution ; but some of them did 
 not ; and all of them may be supposed to have been moved, in 
 part, by a sentiment of ambition. The founders of a colony, 
 which is to be governed by the colonists, are sure to enjoy a 
 greater degree of consideration and importance among their 
 companions, than they could reasonably have hoped to attain in 
 the old society. By the mere act of removing, they become 
 legislators and statesmen ; the legislators and statesmen of a 
 new country too, created, as it were, by themselves. In the 
 charters, under which the old English colonies in America 
 were planted, we find recited the names of the men who pro- 
 
 * This gentleman, Americans ought to be told, is an English barrister, prac- 
 tising in the courts of chancery and bankruptcy. The Duke of Wellington 
 made him under-secretary of state for the colonies : he was concerned in the 
 foundation of the Swan River settlement ; and spoke, first, against the reform 
 bill in the House of Commons.
 
 328 THE AUT OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 jected and accomplished those great undertakings. It was 
 thus, that men of a superior order were induced to run the risk 
 of failure in those enterprises ; men who, by their energy, judg- 
 ment, patience, and resolution, were especially qualified to 
 make those enterprises succeed. As a colony fit to manage its 
 own affairs would not submit to have them managed from a 
 distance, so a colony allowed to manage its own affairs would 
 attract men fit to manage them. In the Swan River colony, 
 which was founded by a minister, scarce any provision has 
 been made for good government : in the plan of an intended 
 colony at Spencer's Gulf, a plan formed by individuals, pro- 
 vision was carefully made for legislation, for the administra- 
 tion of justice, for the support of religion,* for the education 
 of all classes, and for the defence of the colony. This differ- 
 ence is explained by the difference between a crown colony 
 and a chartered one. In the latter case, the charter of incor- 
 poration and self-government attracted to the undertaking men 
 of a superior order ; men knowing what they were about, 
 having definite objects and a clear conception of the means for 
 accomplishing them. Would such men have gone to a crown 
 colony? The answer is, that they would not ; for. when Lord 
 Goderich wanted these men to go to the Swan River, they 
 answered, that nothing would induce them to settle " in a col- 
 ony where there is no security for the inestimable advantage 
 of local self-government." 
 
 But, though it should be allowed, that new colonies founded 
 by charter of incorporation, and local self-government, would 
 put the mother country to no expense for their internal gov- 
 ernment, still an objection to new colonies, which rests on the 
 necessity of protecting them from foreign violence, remains 
 untouched. That necessity would certainly exist in every 
 case where the colony was unable to defend itself. But colo- 
 nies which governed themselves, have commonly been able to 
 defend themselves. The colonies of Greece were able, not 
 
 ' * The provision for the BUpporf of n of :i very 
 
 religious lum of mind, who intended to settle in the colony, «:is an article in 
 the proi i ed charter, which declared thai in this colon; there should lie no po- 
 litical church. This provision led a number of d > join the body of 
 intended colonists. The dii raise a subscription among them- 
 and their Men Is for building :> church, in whioh their mode of worship 
 was to ho followed; when the the Church of England) who in- 
 tended to emigrate, immediately began to raise u subscription for establishing 
 their mode of worship in the colony. The present bishop of London, be ii said 
 to his honour, having I" ed ab tut th< < Ihurch of England subscription, 
 found no fault with th" pr political church, but engaged to 
 • the intended settlers of his persuasion money for a church oi 
 their own. 01 course, however, both these incipient subscriptions fell to the 
 ground, when Lord Goderich refoi i d to grant the < barter which Ids lordship had 
 promi i Corresj
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 329 
 
 only to defend themselves, but to assist their parent states in 
 resisting foreign violence. The chartered colonies of North 
 America were able to defend themselves against their mother 
 country, when she had the folly to attack their local independ- 
 ence. Dependence teaches colonies to lean upon their mother 
 country: independence from the beginning teaches them to 
 provide for self-defence ; not to mention that a colony which 
 manages its own affairs has more, infinitely more, to defend 
 than a colony whose affairs are shamefully managed from a 
 distance. Thus, while at the Swan River no provision what- 
 ever has been made for self-defence, it was proposed by those 
 who intended to found a colony at Spencer's Gulf, that the 
 whole body of settlers should be formed into a militia ; and as 
 the sum of 125,000/. offered to the government for the first 
 grant of land would have conveyed to the settlement about 
 4000 young couples, this colony would have had from the be- 
 ginning an armed force of 4000 men ; a greater force, perhaps, 
 than was ever maintained by any mother country in any new 
 colony. In that case, too, not only would colonization have 
 proceeded with unexampled rapidity, but the colonists, instead 
 of being enfeebled by dispersion, would always have been 
 strong in proportion to their numbers. Accustomed to the use 
 of arms, choosing their own leaders, defending the work of 
 their own hand:?, which is the foreign government that would 
 have thought it worth while to attack them ? A subject 
 colony may not be harmed, may be benefited, by a change of 
 masters. Subject colonies accordingly have, over and over 
 again, submitted to foreigners ; but when did a colony, that 
 flourished at all, and was independent from the beginning, 
 yield up the main cause of its prosperity, its precious independ- 
 ence? Judging from past facts, we may conclude, that if the 
 art of colonization were skilfully pursued, if colonies were in- 
 dependent, and were founded, or extended, so as to be. not new 
 societies, but old societies in new places, the defence of them 
 from foreign violence would not require any outlay by the 
 mother country. Nay more, says Adam Smith, " they might 
 be disposed to favour their mother country in icar as well as 
 in trade ; and, instead of turbulent and factious subjects, to 
 become her most faithful, affectionate, and generous allies ; with 
 the same parental affection on the one side, and the same filial 
 respect on the other, which used to subsist between the colonies 
 of ancient Greece and the mother city from which they de- 
 scended." 
 
 Passing by the exploded notion, that an old country is inter- 
 ested in preserving a monopoly of the trade with her colonies, 
 we have still to inquire whether it be advantageous to colonies 
 to enjov privileges in the market of their mother countrv. 
 
 42
 
 330 THE ART OF COLONIZATION, 
 
 Supposing that the monopoly of the English sugar-market/ 
 enjoyed by the planters of the West Indies, takes out of the 
 pockets of the English, and puts into the pockets of the plant- 
 ers, 2,000,000/. a year, this would seem to be a case in which 
 colonists gain by the sort of monopoly in question. In like 
 manner, the Canadians appear to gain what the English lose, 
 by the Canadian monopoly of the English timber trade. Nay, 
 in the former case, the very existence of the colonists seems to 
 depend on their monopoly of the English sugar-market ; for 
 every one allows that, if the English were permitted to buy 
 sugar in the cheapest market they could anywhere find, there 
 would soon be an end to the growth of sugar in the West 
 Indies. But has not this monopoly, on which the existence of 
 the colonists now depends, been the cause of that unnatural 
 state of things, under which the monopoly is of such vast im- 
 portance to the colonists ? If the West Indians had never pos- 
 sessed any privilege in the market of England, it seems proba- 
 ble that, warned by the decrease of their profits, arising from 
 the exhaustion of their land, they would have diverted their 
 capital from the growth of sugar to some other employment : 
 they might even, from the moment when sugar grown on virgin 
 soils came into competition with their sugar, have seen that it 
 was for their advantage to set free their slaves, so as to convert 
 these human cattle into competitors for the use of land. One 
 must say, perhaps ; because it is doubtful whether slaves, very 
 numerous in proportion to their masters of a different colour, 
 can ever be set free without a period of anarchy. But, how- 
 ever this may be, what have the West Indies become with the 
 monopoly ? They have become, with and by means of the 
 monopoly, societies so monstrously unnatural as to depend for 
 their very existence on the patience of a distant people, who 
 do not love them, in submitting to pay 2,000,000/. to keep their 
 heads above water. In like manner, though we should acknow- 
 ledge that the Canadians gain what the English lose by thedif- 
 ference between the price or quality of Canadian timber and 
 Baltic timber in the English market] still the ( lanadian monop- 
 oly produces in Canada an unnatural state <>|* things : artificially 
 turning to the lumber trade more capital than would naturally 
 be employed iii it, and exposing the Canadians to lit; ruined by 
 bo proper an acl on the part of the English government as that 
 of letting the English people buy timber of whom they please. 
 If colonies Lf.i in lor a time by monopolizing some trade in the 
 
 market of their mother Country, their condition is unnatural and 
 dangerous in proportion to their gains. Such a monopoly, if 
 
 its continuance depended altOg< t her On the colonists themselves, 
 might perhaps be defended, as t he American tariff may be de- 
 fended, on the icore of its ten lency to promote combination of
 
 THE ART OF COLONIZATION. 231 
 
 labour and division of employments among the colonists ; but 
 the continuance of such a monopoly must always depend upon 
 the good pleasure of the mother country. For every colony, 
 therefore, such monopolies are bad ; and bad just in propor- 
 tion as they seem good. For colonies founded or extended so 
 that the colonists should combine labour and divide employ- 
 ments, not only among themselves, but with the people of their 
 mother country ; for colonies that should naturally raise ex- 
 changeable commodities, such monopolies or privileges would 
 not even appear to be good. In the intended colony at Spen- 
 cer's Gulf, accordingly, it was proposed that trade, both of im- 
 port and export, should be entirely free. Port Lincoln was to 
 have been a port without a custom-house. Is this why Lord 
 Goderich, the eloquent advocate of free-trade, willed that it 
 should remain without ships? 
 
 For it must be confessed, that colonial monopolies of trade 
 in the mother country are of very great use, indeed, for holding 
 dependent colonies in subjection. A dependent colony, brought 
 into an unnatural and dangerous state by such a monopoly,dares 
 not to offend the rulers of its mother country. The colonists 
 of South Africa with their wine monopoly, of Canada with 
 their timber monopoly, and of the West Indies with their sugar 
 monopoly, are far more subservient to Downing-street, than 
 they would be if the people of England were free to buy wine, 
 timber, and sugar in the cheapest markets they could any- 
 where find. In this way, the people of England pay magnifi- 
 cently to enable their rulers to profit in another way by the 
 dependence of colonies. It would be much cheaper for the 
 people of England, and quite as profitable to the English 
 aristocracy, if, the colonies being left to themselves, a sum 
 equal to the actual cost of holding and misgoverning them 
 were placed at the disposal of the English cabinet, under the 
 honest name of a fund for Corruption. Thus would all the 
 cost of the monopolies be entirely saved, without any decrease 
 of ministerial patronage. But then, it may be said, the cor- 
 ruplion would be too plain to be borne. Doubtless ; and here 
 is seen one " public inconvenience"* that might have arisen 
 from the establishment of a colonial port without a custom- 
 house ; the inconvenience of an example, which, if generally 
 followed, would have taken from the English aristocracy one of 
 their chief instruments for holding, harassing, and depressing 
 colonial possessions. 
 
 * See Correspondence in the Appendix, No. 3
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 ' PROOFS OF THE INDUSTRY, SKILL, AND COMMERCIAL DISPOSITION 
 OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE. 
 
 Sir George Staunton, in his account of Lord Macartney's em- 
 bassy, thus describes the Chinese emigrants at Batavia. 
 
 " Great numbers of Chinese come constantly to Batavia with 
 exactly the same views that attract the natives of Holland to it — the 
 desire of accumulating wealth in a foreign land. Both generally 
 belonged to the humbler classes of life, and were bred in similar 
 habits of industry in their own country : but the different circum- 
 stances that attend them after their arrival in Batavia put an end to 
 any further resemblance between them. The Chinese have, there, 
 no way of getting forward but by a continuance of their former 
 exertions in a place where they are more liberally rewarded, and 
 by a strict economy in the preservation of their gains. They have 
 no chance of advancing by favour ; nor are public offices open to 
 their ambition : but they apply to every industrious occupation, and 
 obtain whatever care and labour can accomplish. They become, in 
 town, retailers, clerks, and agents : in the country they are farmers, 
 and the principal cultivators of the sugar-cane. They do, at length, 
 acquire fortunes, which they value by the time and labour required 
 to earn them. So gradual an acquisition makes no change in their 
 disposition or mode of life. Their industry is not diminished, nor 
 their health impaired. 
 
 " The Chinese are said to be now as numerous as ever again in 
 and about Batavia ; for however imminent the danger to which the 
 Dutch allege that they are exposed by the intended former insurrec- 
 tion of this people, and however cruel and unjustifiable the Chinese 
 consider the conduct of the Dutch towards them at that time, the 
 occasion they have for each other has brought them again together; 
 and it is acknowledged by the latter that the settlement could 
 scarcely exist without the industry and ingenuity of the former." 
 
 In Mr. Barrow's Voyage to Cochin China the following passages 
 occur : — 
 
 " The next description of inhabitants of Batavia, who in number 
 and opulence exf-eeds the former, is the Chinese. These people, 
 as appears by their records, first obtained a settlement in Java about
 
 334 APrrxDix, xo. i. 
 
 the year 1412. As intruders, but not conquerors, it is probable that 
 they have at all times been subject to harsh and oppressive treat- 
 ment ; but the restrictions and extortions under which they at pres- 
 ent (1793) labour seem as unnecessary and impolitic as they are 
 unjust. That they should consent to the Mahomedans, Malays, and 
 Javanese exercising their devotions in the same temple, which they 
 built at their own expense, and consecrated to the god of their own 
 worship, is by no means an unfavourable feature in their character ; 
 but on the part of the Dutch, who enforce the measure, it is one of 
 the greatest insults that could well be offered. The Chinese hos- 
 pital or infirmary, which was erected by voluntary contributions from 
 their own community, and is supported by legacies arising from the- 
 atrical exhibitions and fireworks, and by a small tax on marriages, 
 funerals, and the celebration of public festivals, is equally open for 
 the benefit and reception of those who have not contributed towards 
 the establishment, and who do not belong to the society. Into this 
 admirable institution are indiscriminately admitted the infirm and the 
 aged, the friendless and the indigent, of all nations. Towards the 
 support of those institutions, the temple and the infirmary, their con- 
 tributions are voluntary ; but exclusive of these, their industry is 
 severely taxed by the Dutch government. Every religious festival 
 and public ceremony, every popular amusement, as well as every 
 branch of individual industry, are subject to taxation. They are even 
 obliged to pay for a license to wear their hair in a long plaited tail, 
 according to the custom of their country ; for permission to bring their 
 greens to market, and to sell their produce and manufactures in the 
 streets. Yet to the industry and exertions of those people arc the Dutch 
 wholly indebted for the means of existing with any tolerable degree of 
 comfort in Batavia. Every species of vegetable for the table is raised 
 by them in all seasons of the year, and at tunes when the most indefati- 
 gable attention and labour are required. They are masons, carpen- 
 ters, blacksmiths, painters, upholsterers, tailors, and shoemakers. 
 They are employed in the arts of distilling, sugar-refining, potti />/, 
 time-burning, and every other trade and profession that is indispt n- 
 sably necessary for making the state of civilized society tolerably com- 
 fortable. They are, moreover, the contractors for supplying the 
 various demands of the civil, military, and marine establishments in 
 the settlement ; they arc the collectors of the rates, the customs, and 
 the taxes; and, in short, arc the monopolizers of the interior eommt ree 
 of the island ; and, With the Malays, carry on the principal part of the 
 coastmj 1 1 tab 
 
 "Tht: influence which would naturally follow from the manage- 
 ment of concerns so important and so extensive could not long be 
 regarded by a weak and luxurious government, without jealousy. 
 Those arts which the Europeans have usually followed with success 
 in establishing themselves in foreign countries, and which the Dutch 
 have not been backward in carefully studying and effectually carry- 
 ing into practice, with regard to the natives of .lava, could not be 
 applied with the least hope of success to the ( 'hinese settlers. 
 These people had DO sovereign to dethrone, by opposing to him the
 
 APPENDIX, NO. B< 335 
 
 claims of a usurper ; nor did the separate interests of any petty chief 
 allow them, by exciting jealousy, to put in execution the old adage 
 of divide tt impera, — divide and command. With as little hope of 
 success could the masters of the island venture to seduce an indus- 
 trious and abstemious people from their temperate habits by the 
 temptation of foreign luxuries; and their general disposition to so- 
 briety held out no encouragement for the importation of spirituous 
 liquors and intoxicating drugs. For, though the Chinese who are 
 in circumstances to afford it make use of opium to excess, yet this 
 is a luxury in which the common people of this nation rarely think. 
 of indulging. The Dutch, therefore, who are weak in point of num- 
 bers, had recourse to a more decisive and speedy measure for get- 
 ting rid of a redundancy of population, which had begun to create 
 suspicion and alarm: they put them to the sword. 
 
 ****** * 
 
 " This extraordinary affair took place on the 9th of October ; the 
 whole of the 10th was a day of plunder ; and on the 1 1th they began 
 to remove out of the streets the dead bodies, the interment of which 
 occupied them eight days. The number said to have perished, ac- 
 cording to the Dutch account, amounts to more than twelve thousand 
 souls. Having thus completed one of the most inhuman and appa- 
 rently causeless transactions that ever disgraced a civilized people, 
 they had the audacity to proclaim a public thanksgiving to the God 
 of Mercy for their happy deliverance from the hands of the heathen. 
 While the Dutch, in their public records, endeavour to justify this 
 atrocious act on the plea of necessity, they make the following 
 memorable observation : — ' It is remarkable that this people, not- 
 withstanding their great numbers, offered not the least resistance, 
 but suffered themselves to be led like sheep to the slaughter !' For 
 my own part, when I reflect on the timid character of the Chinese, 
 their want of confidence in each other, and their strong aversion to 
 the shedding of human blood : and when I compare their situation 
 in Batavia to that of the Hottentot in the colony of the Cape of 
 Good Hope, where every little irregularity is magnified into a plot 
 against the government, I cannot forbear giving a decided opinion 
 that these people were innocently murdered. The consequences to 
 the Dutch proved much more serious than at first they seemed to 
 have been aware of. The terrified Chinese, who escaped the mas- 
 sacre, fled into the interior of the island ; a scarcity of rice and every 
 kind of vegetables, succeeded ; and the apprehensions of a famine 
 induced them to offer terms to the fugitives, and to entreat their 
 return." 
 
 Sir Stamford Raffles, in his History of Java, writes as follows : 
 
 "Besides the natives, whose number, circumstances, and charac- 
 ter I have slightly mentioned, there is in Java a rapidly-increasino 
 race of foreigners, who have emigrated from the different surround- 
 ing countries. The most numerous and important class of these is 
 the Chinese, who already (1815) do not fall short of a hundred 
 thousand ; and who, with a system of free trade, and free cultivation.
 
 336 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 would soon accumulate tenfold, by natural increase within the 
 island and gradual accessions of new settlers from home. They 
 reside principally in the great capitals of Batavia, Semarang, and 
 Surabaya, but they are to be found in all the smaller capitals, and 
 scattered over most parts of the country. A great proportion of them 
 are descended from families who have been many generations on 
 the island ; — additions are gradually making to their numbers. They 
 arrive at Batavia from China to the amount of a thousand or more 
 annually, in Chinese junks, carrying three, four, and five hundred 
 each, without money or resources ; but by dint of their industry soon 
 acquire comparative opulence. There are no women in Java who 
 come directly from China, but as the Chinese often marry the 
 daughters of their countrymen by Javan women, there results a 
 numerous mixed race which is often scarcely distinguishable from 
 the native Chinese." 
 
 Mr. Finlayson, in his account of the mission to Siam Hue, in 
 1822, speaks as follows of the Chinese emigrants at Penang and 
 Sincapore. 
 
 " We had not proceeded far (at Penang) before a more interesting 
 and gratifying scene was expanded to our observation. Industry* 
 active, useful, manly, and independent, seemed here to have found a 
 congenial soil and fostering care. The indolent air of the Asiatic 
 was thrown aside. Every one laboured to produce some useful 
 object, and every countenance teeming with animation, seemed, as it 
 were, directed to a set task. With the air, they had lost even the 
 slender frame of the Asiatic ; and the limbs, and muscularity, and 
 symmetry were those of another and more energetic race. These 
 were Chinese, a people highly valuable as settlers, by reason of their 
 industrious and regular habits, who had established on this spot the 
 mechanical arts, on a scale which might even vie with that of the 
 European artists, but which we look for in vain in any other part of 
 India. It was a pleasing and gratifying spectacle — so much are we 
 in India accustomed to the opposite — to see a numerous, very mus- 
 cular, and apparently hardy race of people, labouring with a degree 
 of energy and acuteness, which gave to their physical character a 
 peculiar stamp, and placed them in a highly favourable point of view, 
 when compared with the habits of the nation around them. Their 
 manner of using their instruments! so different from the puerile style 
 of Indian artists, had in it roach of the dexterity of the Europeans: 
 while their condition bespoke them a flourishing and wealthy tribe. 
 All the principal Bhops, all important and useful employments, and 
 almost all the commerce oftlu island, were in their hands. 1 nderthe 
 patronage of the British government they soon acquire riches; they 
 meet with entire protection of property and person, and are cherished 
 by the government, which, in return, derives benefits from their in- 
 dustry, and from the commercial and profitable speculations in which 
 
 ihey usually en 
 
 " The neatness, the industry, and the ingenuity displayed in plan-
 
 APPENDIX, NO. I. 337 
 
 tations of this sort (at Sincapore) afford a very gratifying spectacle, 
 and attest the great progress which the Chinese nation has made 
 in agricultural science. The Chinese may be considered as the sole 
 
 cultivators of the soil. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " The most prominent feature in the character of the Chinese 
 emigrant, is industry: the best and highest endowment which he 
 has attained. He is mechanically uniform and steady in the pursuit 
 of what he conceives to be his immediate and personal interest, in the 
 prosecution of which he exerts a degree of ingenuity and of bodily 
 labour and exertion, which leave all the Asiatics at a distance. He 
 labours with a strong arm, and is capable of great and continued ex- 
 ertion. He is not satisfied to bestow the quantity of labour neces- 
 sary for the mere gratification of his immediate wants. Profusion 
 and indulgence claim a share of the produce of his toils. Next in 
 the catalogue of his virtues may be reckoned general sobriety, hon- 
 esty, a quiet, orderly conduct, obedience to the laws of the country 
 in which he resides ; and, as is affirmed, a strong and unalterable 
 sense of the important duties which parental affection inculcates. 
 ****** * 
 
 " It must be confessed, however, that the Chinese are, in a political 
 point of view at least, by far the most useful class of people to be 
 found in the Indian seas or Archipelago. Their robust frames, their 
 industrious habits, and their moderate conduct place them beyond 
 competition. They furnish the best artizans, the most useful 
 labourers, and the most extensive traders. Their commercial spec- 
 ulations are often extensive, and often of the most adventurous 
 nature." 
 
 Mr. Dobell, who resided in China for several years, and whose 
 lately-published account of that country abounds with valuable in- 
 formation, says — 
 
 " The reader must excuse this digression on the subject of the 
 Chinese foreign commerce, as many have asserted China to be 
 a country wholly agricultural and manufacturing, while real expert 
 ence proves the contrary. After giving this imperfect account of it, 
 which might have been extended to a volume, and given more in 
 detail, no one will, I think, believe that the Chinese are locked up at 
 home. It may, indeed, be safely asserted, that they are one of the 
 most commercial nations of the globe."* 
 
 The above descriptions of the Chinese people are confirmed by 
 several witnesses before the select committee on the affairs of the 
 East India Company ; from whose evidence the following statements 
 are extracted. 
 
 Captain Charles Hutchinson, a commander in the navy, who 
 commanded the Bombay Castle, from Liverpool, and went to India ; 
 and remained there five years. 
 
 •Residence in China, vol. ii. page 159. 
 43
 
 238 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 " As you were three times at Canton engaged in those transactions 
 of commerce, what should you say, from your opportunities of ob- 
 serving the character and habits of the people of China, as to their 
 disposition with respect to intercourse with other countries and car- 
 rying on trade generally ? — They have a very great avidity to trade 
 with everybody they are permitted to trade with. • The merchants 
 of China are extremely eager to trade with every one that comes 
 into the country ; more so than any people I have seen. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that they are a speculative, trading, enter- 
 prising country ? — \ ery much so ; beyond any other I have seen. 
 
 " Should you think it is a just distinction, speaking of the Chinese 
 nation, to say that the people are speculative, and much disposed to 
 foreign trade, although the government is professedly adverse to 
 communication with foreigners ? — Yes, certainly ; the government 
 may be said to be so far adverse to trade, that it is jealous of you, 
 knowing what you have done in India, and it is apprehensive of your 
 intrusion ; but so long as they may be secure that nothing else would 
 be attempted, they are as desirous of carrying on the trade as the 
 people themselves. 
 
 " Did you happen to hear whether the British manufacturers found 
 their way into the interior of China, or whether they were confined 
 to districts adjacent to Canton? — They find their way into the inte- 
 rior, so far as the carriage of them will allow without rendering 
 them too dear. They are very desirous of obtaining them, I under- 
 stand, in all parts of China, particularly in many northern districts, 
 where they require the woollens for warm clothing. 
 
 " Do you think that if there were an open trade, the Chinese would 
 consume British cotton manufactures to any great extent? — The 
 Chinese admitting them only at one port, of course the consumption 
 could not be extended so far as if they were admitted at other 
 ports, but as far as they could be carried with advantage, the Chinese 
 would be glad to buy them and use them." 
 
 Mr. Charles Everett, a commission merchant, who was en- 
 gaged for eleven years, since the year 1818, in purchasing goods 
 for the China market, on account of American merchants. 
 
 "Have you any doubt, from the experience you have had, that if 
 the existing restrictions were removed, the trade to China in British 
 manufactures might be materially increased ? — I have no doubt the 
 trade alight he increased to a considerable extent by proper manage- 
 ment, if the restrictions were removed." 
 
 Joshua. Batfs, Esq., an American ; agent for an American house 
 connected with the East India trade; then partner of the firm of J. 
 Bates and John Baring, and lastly, partner of the house of Baring, 
 Brothers and Co.; both of which houses had the management of the 
 business of an American house particularly connected with the 
 China trade. 
 
 " You have expressed an opinion, that in the event of the China 
 trade being thrown open, it would probably centre in this country ;
 
 APPENDIX, NO. I. 239 
 
 would that arise from cheaper purchases of tea, or from cheaper 
 supplies in this country, or from cheaper shipping being engaged, or 
 from what other cause ? — There would be a great export of manu- 
 factures to those regions, and of course something would be wanted 
 for returns. They would bring back teas, and every description of 
 produce they could find in those countries ; and not only would they 
 bring back such, but perhaps increase them by the very act of car- 
 rying manufactures, as many of the inhabitants of those countries, 
 who have hitherto not laboured at all, seeing such beautiful things 
 brought out from this country, would be desirous of possessing them, 
 and proceed to labour to get something to buy them with ; and this 
 course of trade would bring, perhaps, more tea here than is wanted ; 
 and the price being reduced, it would either be bought for smuggling 
 into the continent, or for exporting to those places to which it would 
 go legally. 
 
 " Do you consider the trade in China susceptible of any great 
 increased stimulus ? — I see nothing to prevent it increasing very 
 much." 
 
 Mr. John Deans, a resident in the Eastern Archipelago for 
 twenty years. 
 
 " What is their (the Chinese people) character as traders, speak- 
 ing generally ? — They are keen, enterprising traders, extremely 
 expert in their dealings, and understand the nature of the trade of 
 those countries in which they are settled, perhaps better than any 
 other people. 
 
 " Have they information that enables them to carry on their com- 
 mercial transactions with advantage ? — They seem to have very 
 accurate information, and receive it very quickly too. 
 
 " What is their character as merchants, with reference to the punc- 
 tuality of their dealings and the mode of transacting business? — Those 
 who have obtained a high reputation are extremely tenacious of it, 
 and they are very punctual in all their dealings. 
 
 "Do they appear to possess more or less of the characteristics 
 which are requisite for the business of a merchant than the natives 
 of other oriental countries ? — I do not think they are exceeded by the 
 natives of any country as a commercial people. 
 
 "Do you include European countries? — I do. 
 
 "Is it difficult to transact business with them ? — Not the least ; 
 — I have never had any difficulty with the Chinese. 
 
 " Have you, in point of fact, transacted much business with them ? 
 — I have, very extensive business. 
 
 " Will you state what that business was ? — I imported largely 
 British manufactures to Java, and the medium of communication with 
 the natives was generally through the Chinese, who purchased from 
 me in whole cases or bales, and retailed to natives, giving me their 
 simple notes of hand for payment, and being always punctual in 
 meeting those demands. 
 
 " Have you any reason to form an opinion whether the taste for 
 European manufactures which exists among the Chinese inhabitants
 
 340 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 of Java, is peculiar to them, or whether it extends also to the inhab- 
 itants of the empire itself? — I cannot exactly state this ; the settlers 
 are Chinese ; their habits are the same in the Archipelago as 
 in their native country, I believe, and they readily adopt our manu- 
 factures in preference to their own, when those are cheaper and 
 better. When I first went to Java, in 1811, they were almost ex- 
 clusively clothed in Chinese manufactures, and I witnessed a revolu- 
 tion, which almost clothed them in European manufactures, during 
 the time I was there. 
 
 " Have you reason to know in what light the European imports 
 into China are considered by the Chinese people, or whether they 
 could easily be dispensed with by them ? — 1 know that the imports 
 to China are of far more importance to that empire than perhaps the 
 tea is to this country, great as it is considered. 
 
 " Can you state to the committee any instance of the discovery 
 of a new article, or the extension of the production of an old one, 
 which has added to the value of the imports into China ? — I can 
 state one, perhaps not of great importance, but it would show that 
 there are many others with respect to which the same thing might 
 be done. The large glasses or rummers which are used in their 
 houses for burning a light before their gods, opposite their front 
 door ; I noticed them on one occasion as being made of imperfect 
 Cluna-glass. I asked die Chinese if they would have any objection 
 to British manufacture, if the same patterns were preserved, and 
 they gave me patterns of thern, which I brought home, and had 
 manufactured at Birmingham. I took them out, and had them sold 
 for a considerable price, and they have since continued to be sup- 
 plied from different places to a great extent. 
 
 Mr. John Argyle Maxwell. 
 •" Supposing the trade in tea to be thrown open, do you conceive 
 that tea might be imported into Sincapore of a quality fit for the 
 European market, and in sufficient quantity ? — I have no ground for 
 speaking positively on that subject: but several of the Chinese there 
 have frequently offered to contract with me for the supply of black 
 teas from Fokien. 
 
 Robert Richards, Esq. 
 
 " Have you had any communication or information enabling you 
 to form an opinion of the anxiety of the Chinese to extend their 
 trade? — I believe that the Chinese are a perfectly commercial 
 people. Wherever the ( iiinese have been established in Sincapore, 
 in Java, in Borneo, and in the other eastern islands where they are 
 settled in great numbers, they are found to be the principal trailers, 
 and the must, industrious people in the country. I therefore take the 
 Chinese, generally speaking, to he a perfectly commercial people, 
 and exceedingly anxious to extend their eoinmereial dealings, in 
 spite of any restrictive regulations that may be imposed upon them 
 by the Chinese government. 
 
 * Have you had any specific examples brought to your notice of
 
 APPENDIX, NO. I. 341 
 
 the desire on the part of the Chinese, in other ports than Canton, to 
 open a communication with English merchants ? — Yes. I have in 
 my possession an extract of a letter from a European merchant 
 who had visited China, to his friend and correspondent in Calcutta. 
 It is dated Canton, 19th September, 1823 ; and the extract is as 
 follows : 
 
 " ' The Manilla people only are allowed liberty to trade with 
 Amoy, which would have been granted to us could we have waited. 
 A mandarin followed us seven miles from the port of Amoy, to en- 
 treat our return, which however our plans would not admit of. 
 We experienced civil treatment, even from mandarins of rank, and 
 the complaisance of the inhabitants generally formed an agreeable 
 contrast to the haughty demeanour of the lowest here (Canton). 
 The single circumstance of foreigners not being denied women (as 
 they are most rigidly here, Canton) speaks volumes. No foreigner 
 is allowed to remain after the departure of his ship. As far as we 
 could learn, no charge similar to measurement-duty is levied on 
 foreign ships. The government revenue is derived from an export- 
 duty, which the foreigner pays on his export cargo ; but this duty 
 appears to be not fixed : and I suspect the injudiciousness of the 
 mandarins in increasing it beyond bounds, is the cause of the dis- 
 continuance of the trade by the Manilla people. It is probable that, 
 with a view to bring it back, the mandarins would now be more 
 reasonable. They seem to say, that the Hong merchants of Amoy 
 are pretty much in the bankrupt situation of those here (Canton). 
 They inquired much the most for the articles from the eastern isles 
 imported in their junks ; and also for nee, for which they rely mainly 
 on Formosa ; but we could form no idea of the price to be obtained 
 for them. The prices of the European articles we saw in the shops 
 were not so much above the Canton rates as was to be expected. I 
 am very keen for an adventure to Amoy, for the purpose of opening 
 new channels for opium in that quarter, the chief mart of its consump- 
 tion ; but it is too weighty a concern for us to undertake singly ; 
 and I have contented myself with writing to Manilla for information, 
 and with sounding our friends there on the subject. As you have 
 already adventured in a Chinese bottom, you will, I hope, give a 
 lift to our plans also. The foreign trade in junks is not contraband 
 in China, since the accession of the present family (about 1660). It 
 is connived at by the government, and is, I believe, even licensed at 
 Amoy. I do not see why a junk could not load goods at Amoy 
 or elsewhere, as if for a foreign port (Manilla, Batavia, &c), and 
 afterward trans-ship them to a foreign vessel waiting in the neigh? 
 bourhood.' " 
 
 John Crawfurd, Esq. 
 " From your intercourse with those Chinese, do you conceive them 
 to be an intelligent, active, and commercial people '? — Eminently so. 
 They are a very industrious people in every way ; they are a busi- 
 ness-like people ; their manners more resemble Europeans in that 
 part of their character than they do those of Asiatic nations.
 
 242 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 "In industry and intelligence do you conceive them to be superior 
 to other Asiatic nations ? — For all useful and practical purposes I 
 think they are. There are perhaps a few points in which they are 
 inferior to one or two other Asiatic nations, but those points are of 
 very little moment." 
 
 John Stewart, Esq. a Member of the Committee. 
 " Will you state what opinion you have formed of them as a com- 
 mercial people, or an ami-commercial people ? — From the inter- 
 course I have had with the Chinese at Canton, I certainly consider 
 them a people of very great commercial enterprise, although I believe 
 the policy of the Chinese is against extending the foreign commerce 
 of the country." 
 
 Captain John Mackie. 
 
 " Are you of opinion that the Chinese in the places you visited are 
 anxious for the extension of commerce ? — I should conceive that 
 they were, because / have always found the Chinese inclined to buy 
 any thing that was at all useful, of any description. 
 
 " You conceive them to be any thing but an anti-commercial 
 people ? — I should consider them to be quite otherwise." 
 
 John Francis Davies, Esq. 
 " The Chinese, if left by their rulers to themselves, would perhaps 
 be the most industrious people in the world." 
 
 Mr. Crawfurd's Statement. 
 [Extracted from the Third Report of the Select Committee on the 
 Affairs of the East India Company.) 
 " Have you prepared a statement for the information of the com- 
 mittee upon the subject of the Chinese emigrations ? — I have. 
 " Will you have the goodness to read it?" 
 
 {The witness then read the same, as follows :) 
 
 " A view of the Emigrations of the Chinese to the various countries 
 adjacent to China. 
 
 " The emigrations of the Chinese take place from the same prov- 
 inces which conduct the foreign trade ; viz. Canton, Fokien, Che- 
 kien, and Kiannan. Emigrations from the two latter, however, are 
 not frequent, and seem to he confined to Tonquin and the Philippine 
 Islands. The emigrants direct their course to every country in the 
 neighbourhood of China where there is any probability of finding 
 employment and protection; in softie countries, however, they are 
 excluded or restrained, from political motives, and in others, distance 
 or want of room allbrds them no encouragement to settle. Like the 
 
 European nations, they are excluded altogether from Battling in 
 Japan, on political "rounds; the government of Cochin China also 
 affords them no great encouragement* from the same reason, and the 
 Dutch ami Spanish governments of .lava and the Philippines have 
 always looked upon them with a considerable share of suspicion.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. I. 243 
 
 Distance, but above all, the existence of a dense and comparatively 
 industrious population, excludes them from the British dominions in 
 Hindostan, where we find only a few shoemakers and other artisans, 
 and these confined to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. A few, I 
 understand, have lately proceeded to the Mauritius. 
 
 "Every emigrant who leaves China does so with the intention of 
 returning to it, although comparatively few are able to accomplish 
 this object. The expense of emigration to the countries to which 
 the Chinese usually resort, amounts to but a mere trifle. The pas- 
 sage-money in a Chinese junk from Canton to Sincapore is but six 
 Spanish dollars ; and from Fokien but nine. Even these slender 
 sums, however, are commonly paid from the fruits of the emigrant's 
 labour on his arrival, and are seldom paid in advance. The emi- 
 grants, I think, are invariably of the labouring classes, and their 
 whole equipment lor the voyage in ordinary cases consists of little 
 else than the coat on their backs, a bundle of old clothes, and a dirty 
 mat and pillow to sleep on. They no sooner land than their condi- 
 tion is prodigiously improved ; they meet their countrymen, and 
 probably their friends or relatives ; they find immediate employment 
 in a congenial climate, and in countries where the wages of labour 
 are perhaps three times as high as in China, and the necessaries of 
 life perhaps by one-half cheaper. 
 
 " The Chinese are not only intellectually, but physically superior 
 to the nations and tribes among whom they settle. A Chinese is at 
 least two inches taller than a Siamese, and by three inches taller 
 than a Cochin Chinese, a Malay, or a Javanese : and his frame is 
 proportionably strong and well built. Their superiority in personal 
 skill, dexterity, and ingenuity is still greater. All this is evinced 
 in a very satisfactory manner, by the simple criterion of the compar- 
 ative rates of wages of the different classes of inhabitants or sojourn- 
 ers at any given place where they all meet. At Sincapore, for 
 example, the wages of ordinary labour for the different classes of 
 labourers are as follow : A Chinese, eight dollars a month ; a native 
 of the Coromandel coast, six dollars ; and a Malay, four ; making 
 the work of the Chinese by one-third better than that of the first, and 
 by 100 per cent, better than that of the second. When skill and 
 dexterity are implied, the difference is of course wider ; a Chinese 
 house-carpenter will earn twelve dollars a month, while an Indian 
 will earn no more than seven ; and a Malayan thalcher or wood- 
 cutter, for among this class there are no carpenters, but five. 
 
 " The different classes of Chinese settlers not only live apart, and 
 keep distinct from the settlers of other nations, but also from each 
 other. There is a very wide difference between the character, 
 habits, and manners of the Chinese settlers, according to the parts 
 of China from which they proceed. The natives of Fokien have a 
 claim to a higher tone of character than any of the rest. Among the 
 emigrants from the province of Canton there are three classes ; viz. 
 those from the town of Canton and its neighbourhood ; the natives of 
 Macao and other islands in the river ; and the natives of some moun- 
 tainous districts of the same province. The first of these, besides
 
 344 APPENDIX, NO. I. 
 
 being addicted to mercantile pursuits, are the best artisans, and are 
 much disposed to enter into mining speculations. It is they who 
 are chiefly engaged in working the silver mines of Tonquin, the gold 
 mines of Borneo, and the Malay peninsula, and the tin mines of the 
 latter country and of Banca. The Chinese of Macao and the other 
 islands are held in very little repute among the rest of their country- 
 men ; but the third class, who are numerous, are the lowest in rank. 
 Their most frequent employment is that of fishermen and mariners ; 
 and it is from among their ranks that the European shipping, when 
 in want, have occasionally received hands to assist in their naviga- 
 tion. Of all the Chinese these are the most noisy and unruly. 
 There is still another class of Chinese, the settlers in the Birman 
 dominions, who differ very remarkably from all that I have just 
 enumerated. With the exception of a small number of emigrants 
 from the province of Canton, who find their way to Ava by sea, they 
 are all from the province of Yunan, and in point of industry and in- 
 telligence seemed, as far as I could judge, much superior to the col- 
 onists from Canton and Fokien. From all these again, the mixed 
 races are to be distinguished by their superior knowledge of the 
 language, manners, and customs of the countries in which they 
 reside, and by some inferiority in industry and enterprise. It is 
 from this class that European merchants are supplied with brokers, 
 money-counters, &c. and they are seldom to be seen in the condi- 
 tion of day-labourers or artisans. The Chinese settlers, of what- 
 ever class, engage with much eagerness in agricultural employ- 
 ments, seldom, however, when they can avoid it, as mere day-labour- 
 ers. They conduct almost exclusively the cultivation and manufac- 
 ture of the catechu or terra-japonica in the Straits of Malacca, the 
 pepper cultivation of Siam, and the culture of the cane and manufac- 
 ture of sugar in Java, Siam, and the Philippines. Differing mate- 
 rially from each other in manners, habits, and almost always in 
 language or dialect, and entertaining towards each other provincial 
 prejudices and antipathies ; broils and quarrels, sometimes even 
 attended with bloodshed, frequently break out among them. These 
 are occasionally subjects of embarrassment in the European settle- 
 ments, the authorities of which have never, I am persuaded, any thing 
 to apprehend from their combination or resistance ; and 1 may add, 
 that of all the Asiatic settlers in our eastern settlements, the Chinese 
 are most obedient to the laws, and notwithstanding the superior 
 amount of their property, and even of their numbers, afford the 
 least employment to the courts of justice. 
 
 "The Chinese population settled in the various countries adja- 
 cent to China, may be roughly estimated as follows: — 
 
 The Philippine islands - - - 15,000 
 Borneo 120,000 
 
 Java 45,000 
 
 The Dutch settlement of Khio, Straits of 
 
 Malacca 18,ooo 
 
 Sincapore ----- 0,200
 
 APPENDIX, \o. r. 
 
 
 Malacca .... 
 
 2,000 
 
 Penang - 
 
 8,500 
 
 Malayan Peninsula ... 
 
 - 40,000 
 
 Siam - 
 
 - 440,000 
 
 Cochin China - 
 
 - 14,000 
 
 Tonquin 
 
 - 25,000 
 
 Total 
 
 - 734,700 
 
 345 
 
 " The population mentioned here is of a peculiar description, con- 
 sisting, for the most part, of adult males, and of very few women or 
 children, a circumstance easily explained. The laws of China, 
 which prohibit emigration in general, are a dead letter, as far as the 
 men are concerned, but it is imperative with respect to women and 
 children, or perhaps, more strictly, the manners and feelings of the 
 people themselves prevent the latter from quitting the country. I 
 have never seen or heard of a female among the emigrants, and never 
 saw a Chinese woman, except at Hue, the capital of Cochin China, 
 where two or three were pointed out to me as objects of curiosity, who 
 had been kidnapped and brought there when children. The emigrants 
 however, without scruple, form connexions with the females of the 
 country, and the descendants of these repeatedly intermarrying with 
 Chinese, are in time not to be distinguished from the genuine Chinese 
 either in features or complexion. In all the countries where the 
 Chinese have been established, there exists a considerable Creole 
 population of this description, such as Java, Siam, Cochin China, and 
 the Philippines. But in countries where they have been only 
 recently established, the disproportion of the sex is immense. Thus, 
 out of the 6,200 Chinese inhabitants of Sincapore, the number of 
 females is about 360, and even of these the greater part are Chinese 
 only by name. The extent of the annual emigrations from China 
 may be judged from the fact, that the number which arrived at Sin- 
 capore in 1825 amounted to above 3,500; and in 1826, to upwards 
 of 5,500. The annual number of emigrants which arrived in Siam, 
 was rated to me, when I was in that country, at 7,000. A single 
 junk has been known to bring 1,200 passengers ; indeed, I have my- 
 self seen one bring 900 to Sincapore. The number who return to 
 China is considerable, but very small indeed in comparison to the 
 arrivals. Even of these the greater number come back again ; and 
 I have known men of property, who have visited China, and returned 
 with titles." 
 
 44
 
 No. II. 
 
 proofs of the rapidity with which waste land rises in 
 valve, wherever people congregate, in new colonies. 
 
 Mr. Stuart. 
 
 "The population of Troy has increased from 3,000 in 1810, to 
 12,000 in 1830. Property is very valuable. A tenement 65 feet 
 by 25 feet, was pointed out to me as having been lately sold for 
 4,000 dollars." 
 
 " Mr. Sloat has lately sold 200 acres of wood-land (near New- 
 burg on the Hudson), which he bought from the state in 1801 for 
 50 cents the acre, at an immense advance." 
 
 " Colonel Colman gives a very favourable account of Florida, 
 where the soil is good by the river side. He himself has purchased 
 900 acres on the banks of the Apalachicola, all of excellent land, 
 for which he paid 9,000 dollars." 
 
 (On the Mississippi about 300 miles from New Orleans) " we 
 had excellent buttermilk at one of our stopping places for wood, 
 occupied by a tenant, who pays 4 dollars an acre of yearly rent for 
 a few acres of ground." 
 
 " In many places on the banks of the Ohio, a great deal of fine 
 alluvial land, which, I was informed, sold for 10 or 12 dollars per 
 acre." 
 
 "Large fortunes have been made (at Rochester, which in 1818 
 contained 1,000 inhabitants, and in 1828, 13,000) by the purchase 
 and side of building lots." 
 
 "A million of acres, which are rapidly increasing in value." 
 
 "The appropriation of land for schools, many of which have 
 become very valuable." 
 
 " Real property of all kinds at New-York brings great prices. 
 The site of a house, at the corner of two central streets, 29 feet in 
 one street and 130 in the other, was lately sold for 38,100 
 dollars." 
 
 " To those who would purchase land with a view to profit, I would 
 rather recommend the banks of the Hudson, within 80 or 50 miles 
 of V iw STork, where the farmers have succeeded in establishing 
 steamboats, to carry their produce daily to the city. n 
 
 •■ It may, however, be worth while to mention, that plenty of im- 
 proved Land is to be had in the neighbourhood of Cincinnati, vary- 
 ing in price according to its distance from the town" 
 
 ••In fact, the extent of country winch the I nitcd States have 
 
 acquired Bince the treat} of L 78 3, far exceeds three hundred millions 
 
 of acres in the verj heari of their territory, besides the boundless 
 
 . i he north and north-west A greal proportion of this pro- 
 
 digio 'i Land r< ns with the general government, and
 
 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 347 
 
 must in the course of years produce to the United States some 
 thousand millioris of dollars."* 
 
 The Reverend J. Fidler, 
 Author of Observations on the United States and Canada. 
 
 " The value of land in Canada is increasing regularly and rapidly. 
 For instance, Younge-street was settled thirty-seven years ago. At 
 that time land on it was given to any one who applied. A few years 
 after land was worth from fifty to one hundred dollars. A lot of 
 about two hundred acres is now worth from 1,000Z. to 2,000Z. on 
 many parts of Younge-street. In the beautiful township of Oro, 
 lately settled, land a short time ago was one dollar per acre : it is 
 now worth from four to five, and increases in value from half a dollar 
 to a dollar every year. On the Huron tract, it is now selling at from 
 one to two dollars. Emigration is setting in that way ; and the 
 probable consequence will be that land there, in two or three years, 
 will be double that sum. Land has generally been found to double 
 itself every three or four years." 
 
 " In the towns of Kingston, Brockville, &c. land is almost as high 
 as in many parts of England ; while at a small distance from these 
 towns it can be purchased, usually good, at two or three dollars. 
 In York-town, an acre is sometimes worth 1,000/. or 1,200Z. A 
 little remove from this, uncleared land is worth six or eight dollars ; 
 and a few miles further off, not perhaps above two dollars. If rail- 
 roads be formed, plans of which have been laid before the legislature, 
 and acts passed to legalize them, the land now selling at two dollars 
 would soon be worth 10/. 
 
 Communicated by Mr. Cattermole, of York, Upper Canada, and 
 published in an Account of the South Australian Land Company. 
 
 " When the town of York was founded, much of the contiguous 
 land was given away to favourites, who expected that the increase 
 of population by natural means, and by immigration, would give it 
 value. They have not been disappointed. A person named Elmsley 
 possessed some of this land, and when King's College was founded, 
 the site (about five acres) was purchased by government of Mr. Elm- 
 sley for 1,200/. Fifteen years previously, this land would not have 
 sold for two dollars per acre." 
 
 " Mr. John Masson, a tinman, living in King-street, York, took in 
 1830, a lease for 21 years, of a piece of land in York, measuring 23 
 feet in front by 80 feet deep, at a ground rent of 17/. 10s. currency, 
 per annum ; and on 40 feet being added to the depth, the ground 
 rent was raised to 22Z. per annum. Fifteen years before, this land 
 would not have sold for more than three or four dollars per acre." 
 
 " Mr. Francis Collins, editor of the Canadian Freeman, purchased 
 by public auction in July, 1831, a quarter of an acre of waste land 
 in York for 600/. currency." 
 
 * Say one thousand millions of pounds sterling ; or more, by a fourth, than 
 the English national debt.
 
 348 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 "Mr. M'Cullum sold in July, 1831, a village lot, situated on Dun- 
 das-street, nineteen miles from York, at the rate of 300/. per acre 
 of currency." 
 
 " In the last seventeen years, the land within fourteen miles of the 
 Erie canal has risen from twenty-five cents (quarter of a dollar) to 
 sixteen dollars." 
 
 Mr. Pickering (late of Fenny Stratford), 
 Author of the Emigrant's Guide to Canada, 1830. 
 
 "Been to ask the price of land to rent (near Baltimore, U. S.). 
 One lot of fifty acres, only half cleared, four miles from town, eigh- 
 teen shillings per acre per annum : another of rich meadow land, 
 several miles off, near the river, I was asked twelve dollars or 21. 
 14*. per acre rent." 
 
 " Building lots of land (in York), within the last year or two, have 
 risen in value very fast, on account of the seat of government being 
 decided to remain here for some years to come." 
 
 " Niagara to Queen's-town, and indeed round the head of the lake 
 to Dundas, Ancaster, and Hamilton, a fine country, genial air, healthy, 
 well watered and settled, land is from thirty shillings to 41. 16s. 
 per acre." 
 
 " Farms sell here (on the banks of the Detroit river) from forty- 
 five shillings to 3/. 10*. per acre: a house and some buildings in- 
 cluded." 
 
 Mr. Wentworth (of New South Wales), 
 Author of an Account of Australasia. 1823. 
 
 " The price of land, it is almost needless to observe, is entirely 
 regulated by its situation and quality. In the towns, it is as various 
 as in the country ; nor is there any place in which the variation in 
 value is so great as in the town of Sydney itself. There it ranges 
 from 50/. an acre to 1,000/." 
 
 "With respect to the value of what is termed forest land, when 
 in a state of nature, and not possessing any advantageous locality, it 
 may generally be taken thus : In the county of Cumberland" (the 
 county in which Sydney is placed), " fifteen shillings per acre ; in 
 the county of Camden, including the district of Qlawarra, or Five 
 Islands" (farther from market), " tea shillings per acre ; on the banks 
 of the Coal River" (still farther from market), "five shillings per 
 acre : in parts more remote, two shillings and sixpence per acre." 
 
 " In the course of thirty years, the tract of land in question (the 
 banks of the Hawkesbury), taking the unimproved land as our crite- 
 rion, has evidently risen to this enormous price from having been of 
 no value whatever; <>r, in other words, each acre of land has in- 
 ed in value, during the interval which has elapsed since the 
 foundation of the colony, at the rate of three shillings and 2 .',</. per 
 annum; and thai too, tinder the most impolitic and oppressive 
 system (of government) to which any colony perhaps was ever sub- 
 jected."
 
 APPENDIX, NO. II. 3 1 9 
 
 Mr. Boucher (of New South Wales), 
 Communicated to Mr. Robert Gouger. 
 
 "In the year 1831, Mr. Wentworth sold near two acres of land, 
 situated in the main street, and near the king's wharf custom-house, 
 Sydney, for 7,800/., the whole of which, ten years previously, might 
 have been bought for 350/." 
 
 "In 1828, Mr. Unwina bought six acres of land on the Surrey 
 Hills, about one mile from Sydney, for 650/. ; and in 1830 the same 
 land was resold for 1,800/." 
 
 "In 1829, Mr. Bettington purchased a piece of land situated at 
 Cockle Bay, Sydney, comprising a frontage of about one hundred 
 and fifty feet, and a depth of about two hundred feet, adapted for a 
 wharf, &c. for 609'. This land in 1831 would have realized, ex- 
 clusive of the buildings, about 2,000/." 
 
 "In 1830, Mr. Simeon Lord received from the local government 
 6,000/. as an arbitration award for about two acres of land situated 
 near Government House, Sydney. He would gladly have sold it 
 ten years previously for 250/. or 300/." 
 
 " Early in 1828, Madame Kens bought at auction a piece of ground 
 in the main street of Sydney, on the site of the old Orphan School, 
 comprising a frontage of one hundred and fifty feet, and depth of 
 eighty feet, for 1,200/. ; and in 1829 sold half of the same plot to 
 Mr. Horton James for 1,800/." 
 
 " In the latter end of 1827, Messrs. Cooper and Levey purchased 
 from Captain Piper, for 25,000/. the estate of Point Piper, situated 
 four miles from Sydney town. This estate consisted of five hun- 
 dred acres of land, having an extensive frontage to part of Sydney 
 harbour, with a large house, pleasure-grounds, &c. It would now 
 readily fetch 150,000/., if divided into allotments of two or three 
 acres each (for villas), and sold by auction at a moderate credit." 
 
 " Building allotments in Sydney town, in a fair situation, compri- 
 sing a frontage of sixty feet and a depth of eighty feet, could be 
 readily purchased in 1825 for from 70/. to 150/. In 1830 they 
 usually brought at auction from 600/. to 1,500/., according to their 
 situation." 
 
 " On the Paramatta road, at from two to five miles from Sydney, 
 land, having a frontage to the road, could be purchased in 1825 for 5/. 
 to 12/. per acre: it now fetches from 30/. to 150/. per acre." 
 
 "On the South Head Road, at from one to three miles from Syd- 
 ney, similar land could have been bought for 3/. to 10/. per acre: 
 it now fetches from 30/. to 100/. per acre." 
 
 " In the township of Maitland, Hunter's River (seventy miles from 
 Sydney), uncleared land could be readily purchased for 1 . or 2 . per 
 acre in 1825 : it is now worth from 5/. to 100/. per acre, according 
 to situation." 
 
 "Land having a frontage to the main road, in Maitland, and not 
 far from the court-house, is now sold for building on at from 30/. to 
 150/. per acre, which in 1825 would not have produced from 3/. to 
 5/. per acre."
 
 350 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 " In 1827, Mr. John Smith purchased a small farm of sixty acres 
 from Mr. Allen, situated near the town of Maitland, Hunter's River, 
 for 250/. This farm has a frontage to the main road of about ten 
 acres ; and these ten acres would now sell for 1,200/., or 120/. 
 each." 
 
 From Mr. Curr's Account of Van Dieman's Lared. 1824. 
 
 " The value of uncultivated land in the colony varies much accord- 
 ing to situation and quality. Until of late, grants of land were sold 
 and exchanged very currently, without being actually located by the 
 settler (buyer) : and- the price varies from ten to twenty shillings per 
 acre." 
 
 " The rent of houses in Hobart's-town is very high. A cottage, 
 consisting of four to six rooms, lets for 60/., 70/. and 80/. per annum : 
 a house of two floors, containing eight or ten rooms, for 120/. to 150/. 
 per annum : and if in an advantageous situation, 200/. will be given 
 for it." 
 
 " Farms are very frequently rented in Van Dieman's Land." 
 
 " Other persons are induced to make unequal exchanges : giving 
 their uncultivated lands for smaller farms in more populous sit- 
 uations." 
 
 Captain Sutherland, 
 Communicated to the South Australian Land Company. 
 
 " Captain Sutherland, twelve years ago, received from Governor 
 Macquarie a grant of one thousand acres, within four miles of Laun- 
 ceston, in Van Dieman's Land. He has expended upon it no money 
 whatever in roads, buildings, or other improvements. Being obliged, 
 however, to stock it, he expended 200/. in horned cattle and sheep, 
 and put them upon it. It is now worth 21. per acre ; the value being 
 given by the increase of population in the neighbourhood." 
 
 " Captain Barclay received at the same time with Captain 
 Sutherland a free grant of four thousand acres of land, about seven 
 miles from Launceston: He has expended in building and improve- 
 ments about 4,000/. ; and he has let it on lease for ten years at 1000/. 
 a year." 
 
 Practical Notes made (hiring a Tour in ( 'anada in 1831, by Adam 
 I i k<;i bson, of Woodhill. 
 
 •■ Much baa beep said of the rapid advances which the Upper 
 Province is making, and of the rising value of property there. I was 
 told of a case which occurred about thirty years ago, where a lieu- 
 tenant in the army, being 601. in airear to a Montreal merchant, 
 insisted, along with his promissory note, on handing over a lot of 
 land assigned to biro Bomewhere in the then Western wilderness, a 
 iiiv which the poor merchant regarded as much upon a par 
 
 with the subaltern's note, who was about to leave Canada to join his 
 regiment. The allotment consisted of one thousand two hundred
 
 APPENDIX, NO. II. 351 
 
 and fifty acres upon the Lake Ontario, of which seven hundred were 
 sold last year for seven hundred pounds, and^/z're hundred and fifty 
 acres of the best quality reserved. Such are the changes which 
 time effects, without the aid of any other agent, and such cases, I 
 was assured, are by no means rare." Page 69. 
 
 " Emigrants, unable or unwilling to purchase, will have little diffi- 
 culty in providing themselves with a farm to rent, either for money 
 or on shares, which means half the clear produce as rent. I 
 was told by a gentleman of a friend of his, who was very comfort- 
 ably settled in this way near York, upon a farm of two hundred 
 acres. Eighty acres are cleared, the remainder in wood pasture. 
 He pays only 25/. of rent, and clears 200/. per annum, besides keep- 
 ing his family. 
 
 " To show how land is advancing in value, this farm, a few years 
 ago, might have been purchased for 200/., but is of course worth a 
 great deal more now." Page 275. 
 
 " In the afternoon we reached Brandtford, a pretty considerable 
 village, belonging to the Indians, a tract of land in this quarter having 
 been reserved for their behalf. It is managed by government, who 
 account for rents and sales to the chiefs. There had been a sale of 
 village lots this day, and for the first time I saw the Indians assem- 
 bled in any numbers. The lots sold for 25/., one-fourth of an acre, 
 which is an immense price in Canada, and argues an expectation of 
 Brandtford continuing to prosper." Page 286. 
 
 M The first farm which I visited was in the immediate vicinity of 
 Albany, forming part of the princely estate of Mr. Van Rensselaer. 
 It contained six hundred acres of fine mellow loam along the banks 
 of the river, divided into fields by rail-fences, which cost here 4s. 6d. 
 for sixteen feet, including boards, nails, and work ; four rails and 
 about five feet high. 
 
 " The farm was let some years ago at two thousand dollars, or 
 450/., which, in America, seems to be a very high rent ; but it must 
 be recollected that its situation is particularly favourable from its 
 close contact with the thriving city of Albany." Page 293. 
 
 In the year 1817, Mr. Robert Gourlay* circulated through Canada 
 a number of queries, for the purpose of ascertaining facts relative 
 to the state of that colony, among which the following question was 
 submitted. — " the price of wild land at the first settlement 
 
 OF THE TOWNSHIP ; ITS PROGRESSIVE RISE AND PRESENT PRICE ; 
 ALSO OF LAND SO FAR CLEARED ; STATING CIRCUMSTANCES AS TO 
 BUILDINGS, PROPORTION CLEARED, OR PECULIARITY, IF ANY, OF 
 LOCAL SITUATION ; REFERRING IN EVERY INSTANCE TO ACTUAL 
 SALES ?" 
 
 This question was answered by committees formed from among 
 the resident owners in various townships. The answers follow : — 
 
 * See Gourlay's Historical Account of Upper Canada, vo! i., page 269, 
 et seq.
 
 352 APPENDIX, XO. II. 
 
 TOWNSHIP OP SANDWICH. IN THE WESTERN DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1750, and contains at present (1817) about 
 1,000 souls. 
 
 "The price of wild land about twenty years ago was Is. 3d. to 
 2s. 6d. per acre, and its progressive rise about 2*. 6d. for every five 
 years. The present price of land is from 10*. to 15*., except in 
 particular situations, such as lie on the strait. No lands have 
 been recently sold in the township ; the settlement has long been at 
 a stand. Improved farms on the border of the strait, with a com- 
 mon farm-house, barn, and out-houses, orchard, and about fifty acres 
 within fence, would rate from 21. 10s. to 61. 5s. per acre, and more, 
 according to the situation and value of the improvements." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF WALDEN, IN THE WESTERN DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1784 ; p?'cscnt population 675 persons. 
 "At first settlement the price of land was from 1*. to 3*. per 
 acre ; the present price is 25,?. per acre ; some land, partly cleared, 
 has been lately sold at 40s. per acre. 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF RALEIGH, WESTERN DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1792; present population 273 persons. 
 
 " At the commencement of the settlement, lots of two hundred 
 acres, situated on the banks of the Thames, were sold at 25/. In 
 1804 they sold for 131/. 5s. The same lands are now selling for 
 250/. without improvements. Back lands of the best quality may 
 be fairly estimated at one-third of these prices. 
 
 TOWNSHIPS OF DOVER, EAST AND WEST CHATHAM, CAMDEN, OXFORD, 
 HOWARD, AND HARWICH, ON THE RIVER THAMES. 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1794 ; inhabited houses 133. 
 
 " Some farms in good local situations, with tolerable buildings 
 and orchards thereon, well cultivated, containing two hundred acres 
 of land, sold for 690/. The average price of lands from the first 
 settlement of these townships, was from 2s. Od. to 20s. per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIPS OF DORCIIFSTI-.U, DELAWARE, AND WESTMINSTER, ON THE 
 
 UI\ BR I IIA.Ml.S. 
 
 " The flats on the Thames have always sold high, and arc now 
 worth '.il. per arrr." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OP OXFORD, IN Tin: LONDON DIBTRICT. 
 
 "A two hundred acre lot, with thirty acres cultivated land, a log 
 house ami frame bam thirty by forty feet, is worth 500/." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF WINDHAM, IN THE LONDON DISTRICT. 
 
 "At our first settlement, wild land sold for 5s. per acre; at prcs-
 
 APPENDIX, NO. Hi 353 
 
 ent the wild land in the unsettled parts of the township will sell for 
 10*. per acre; but there is wild land in the settlement that cannot 
 be bought for 1/. 5*. per acre ; and some improved farms are held 
 at 3/. 15*. per acre, where there is not above sixty acres improved ; 
 but there have been actual sales of farms from 1/. 5s. to 3/. per 
 acre, according to the improvement made in them." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF CHARLOTTEVILLE, IN THE LONDON DISTRICT. 
 
 " About the first settlement of the township, land sold for 5*. per 
 acre, but will now average about 1/. A farm of two hundred acres 
 of land, with a log-house and barn, with fifty acres cleared and 
 fenced, and a small orchard of bearing trees, might be purchased for 
 about 700/. and occasionally less." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF NORWICH, IN THE LONDON DISTRICT. 
 
 A few families arrived in 1808, but very little progress was made 
 
 till 1811. 
 
 " About 6s. 3d. was at our commencement the price of land, and 
 has progressively risen in value to 13*. per acre ; one sale lately 
 made of an improvement, one hundred acres, thirty-five cleared, 
 frame barn, log-house, good fence, price 375/." 
 
 TOWNSHIPS OF WEST FLAMBORO, AND BEVERLY, GORE DISTRICT. 
 
 "Wild lands, at first settling, sold for 10/. two hundred acres; 
 and now sell from 10*. to 1/. 10*. and 21. per acre. Cleared land 
 sells from 21. to 12/. 10*. per acre, according to its situation and 
 advantages." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF ANCASTER, IN THE GORE DISTRICT. 
 
 " Wild lands at the first settling of this township sold at 6/. 5*. 
 per lot of two hundred acres; now sell from 12*. 6d. to 1/. 10*. 
 and 5/. per acre. Cleared lands sell from 21. 10*. to 12/. 10*. per 
 acre, according to its situation and advantages. 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF BARTON, IN THE GORE DISTRICT. 
 
 "In 1792, land sold at 1*. 3d. per acre; in 1800, 5*.; in 1806, 
 15*.; in 1810, 1/. 10*.; in 1817, about 21. 10*. On an average 
 about 5/. per acre, for an improved farm of two hundred acres, with 
 small farms, or log-house and barn, and other out-houses. Improved 
 farms have sold from 61. 5*. to 71. 10s. per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF SALTFLEET IN THE GORE DISTRICT. 
 
 " The price of new land in this township, at the first settlement 
 thereof, rated so low as to make it no object with many. A lot of 
 one hundred acres might be purchased for 51. to 61. 5s., and large 
 quantities were actually bought and sold at these prices : it has 
 
 45
 
 354 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 gradually rose from that time to the year 1812, since which time it 
 seems stationary for want of purchasers. But the average price 
 of wild land may be rated at 1Z. 5s. per acre. A farm of 
 about three hundred acres of land, one third cleared, and a comfort- 
 able house and good barn, with a bearing orchard of one or two 
 hundred apple trees, the whole premises being in good repair, may 
 be purchased from 1,000/. to 1,500/. according to situation. A farm 
 nearly answering to this description was actually sold for the highest 
 sum here mentioned." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF HUMBERSTON, NIAGARA DISTRICT. 
 
 " At the first settlement, when much land was held on location 
 tickets, lots of two hundred acres could be bought for twenty dollars. 
 The price has gradually increased, and of late years sales have 
 been effected at 2^ dollars per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF AVILLOUGHBY, IN THE NIAGARA DISTRICT, 
 
 Surveyed and laid out by order of government in 1787. 
 
 "A farm of two hundred acres, one half under cultivation, with 
 tolerable farm buildings and orchard, now sells for 625/. to 700/. 
 Farms, however, upon the Niagara or Chippewa rivers, will sell 
 much higher, according to their situation." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF GRANTHAM, IN THE NIAGARA DISTRICT. 
 
 "Farms of two hundred acres, situate on the most public roads, 
 of a good quality, comfortable house, good barn, orchard, &c. from 
 one hundred to one hundred and fifty acres improved, will sell for 
 6/. to 71. 10*. per acre. Farms of one hundred acres, small house 
 and barn, sixty acres improved, will sell from 5/. to 6/. per acre. 
 Lands in the village of St. Catharine (the only one in township), in 
 1809-10 and 11, sold for 6/. 5s. per acre, now sell from 30/. to 
 200/. for building lots." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF PELHAM, NIAGARA DISTRICT. 
 
 " When the settlement of this township commenced, wild land 
 was selling at 6/. 10*. for one hundred acres ; in the year 1800, at 
 10*. per acre ; the present price is 40*. per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OS ("ROWLAND, NIAGARA DISTRICT. 
 
 U A farm of one hundred acres, nearly contiguous to mills, with 
 about forty acres cleared, and very neat buildings, was sold for 
 
 :',!•;/. io.y." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF HAI.DIMAN, NEWCASTLE DISTRK I . 
 
 Settlement commenced in 17D7. 
 " At the first settlement of the township, lands were worth 5*. 

 
 APPENDIX, NO. II. 355 
 
 per acre; at the present time, in good situations, 15*. and in ordi- 
 nary situations, 10*. per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF KINGSTON, MIDLAND DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1783 ; population, including the town of 
 Kingston, 2,850. 
 
 " Few or no actual purchases of land were made by the original 
 settlers, as their situation entitled them to grants from government. 
 
 Farms of two hundred acres, with perhaps sixty or 
 
 eighty acres cleared, with a house and barn, and within a range of 
 ten miles of the town, may be worth from 21. to 51. per acre." 
 
 "At the first settlement, many persons sold their two hundred 
 acre lots for the value of a few shillings ; twelve years ago, land' a 
 few miles from Kingston sold for 2s. 6d. per acre; and lately, in 
 the same situations, from 30*. to 40*. ; but the fire-wood alone will 
 soon be worth as much as that per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF EARNEST TOWN, IXC TAPING AMHERST ISLAND, MIDLAND 
 
 DISTRICT. 
 
 " At the first settlement the value of wild lands was merely nomi- 
 nal. They have progressively risen, and their present price may 
 be computed at 1/. 5s. per acre. The average price of one hundred 
 acres of land, one half improved, with tolerable buildings thereon, 
 may be valued at 31. per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF ADOLPHUS TOWN, MIDLAND DISTRICT. 
 
 " At the first settlement of this township, land could be purchased 
 at 1*. per acre. It rose gradually to 5s., 10s., 15s., 20*., &c. At 
 this moment there is no land in the township could be procured for 
 less than 41. per acre, and it is believed few would sell at that 
 price." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF SOPHIASBERG, MIDLAND DISTRICT. 
 
 "At the first settlement, land was about 1*. per acre; there is 
 little wild land for sale here ; best sales made from three to five 
 dollars per acre." 
 
 TOWNSHIP OF LANSDOWN, JOHNSTOWN DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1788. 
 
 " Price of wild land, at the first settlement, it was sold at 5/. for 
 two hundred acres, and has gradually risen in value to one dollar 
 per acre, at a distance from the settlement ; but on the road or river 
 it may be valued at three dollars per acre, and that without any im- 
 provement ; in the centre of the town, from three to six dollars per 
 acre."
 
 356 APPENDIX, NO. II. 
 
 TOWNSHIP OP CHARLOTTEXBURGH, EASTERN DISTRICT, 
 
 Settlement commenced in 1784. 
 
 " The price of wild land, for the first period, say six years of the 
 settlement, was from 1*. to 5s. per acre ; and at present, is from 20*. 
 to 30*. the acre. A lot of two hundred acres, with thirty acres 
 cleared, under good cultivation, with a farm-house and barn with 
 sheds, <fec. is worth from 500/. to 600/. 
 
 Travels in America in the years 1794, 1795, and 1796, by the 
 Duke of llochefoucault Liancourt. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 6. Land in this neighbourhood (Philadelphia) is worth 
 eighty dollars per acre ; six years ago it was only worth forty-two. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 77. General Haud bought five years ago the estate 
 on which he resides, two miles from the town, for twenty-five dollars 
 per acre ; and has lately refused one hundred dollars, which were 
 offered him. The price of land has risen in the same proportion 
 throughout America, as land in the cultivated parts. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 98. The price of ground-shares in the town of Har- 
 risburg (founded eight years before) is from one hundred and fifty 
 to two hundred dollars per acre, the land in the surrounding country 
 is from thirty-two to forty-eight dollars per acre. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 195. The inhabitants only settled here (Painted-post, 
 State of New-York) four years ago. The soil is good, especially 
 near the town, where from fifteen to eighteen dollars is the price for 
 an acre. 
 
 Vol. 1. p. 261. Metcalf, three years ago, purchased his estate 
 for 1*. per acre: of the thousand acres he then bought, he has 
 already sold five hundred and upwards, at from one to three dollars 
 per acre, and some have fetched twenty-five dollars. The profits 
 which are made by speculations in land, all over America, and 
 especially in this neighbourhood (Gennessee), are great beyond cal- 
 culation. 
 
 Vol. 2. p. 10. W. Shorten bought his estate here (Oswego) 
 three years ago, at 3d. per acre, and can now sell it for 12.?.: only 
 ten acres are cleared. 
 
 Vol. 2. p. 39. The land here (Schuylerton), which in 1785 cost 
 a few pence per acre, and three years ago not more than five dollars, 
 is now sold, not merely in the vicinity of the town, but also fifteen 
 miles beyond it, for nineteen or twenty dollars per acre. 
 
 Vol. 3. p. 212. The settlement of the country between Har- 
 per's Ferry aud Coosooky Mountains is just beginning. Land 
 fetches from seven to eight dollars tin; acre. 
 
 Vol. 4. p. 161. Pelvidere consists of about twenty houses, but 
 the number of inhabitants is annually increasing, and the neighbour- 
 hood is populous. The lands in the neighbourhood are sold at from 
 forty to forty-eight dollars the acre. The town lots, which are a 
 quarter of an acre, being at present from one hundred to one hundred 
 and twenty-five dollars
 
 No. III. 
 
 PART* OF A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH GOVERN- 
 MENT AND A BODY OF INDIVIDUALS DESIROUS TO FOUND^ A 
 COLONY. 
 
 PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE 
 
 Of the South Australian Land Company. 
 
 W. Wolryche Whitmore, Esq., M.P., Chairman. 
 
 George Fife Angas, Esq. W. A. MacKinnon, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Dominic Browne, Esq., M.P. J. A. S. Mackenzie, Esq., M.P. 
 
 H. L. Bulwer, Esq., M.P. Samuel Mills, Esq. 
 Walter F. Campbell, Esq., M.P. John Melville, Esq. 
 
 Henry Drummond, Esq. Sir R. Mnsgrave, Bart., M.P. 
 
 Captain Cowan. Richard Norman, Esq. 
 
 Richard Heathfield, Esq, J. E. Strickland, Esq. 
 
 Samuel Hoare, Esq. Colonel Torrens, M.P. 
 
 William Hutt, Esq. George Trail, Esq., M.P. 
 
 J. Jephson, Esq., M.P. R. Throckmorton, Esq., M.P. 
 
 C. Shaw Lefevre, Esq., M.P. Sir H. Williamson, Bart., M.P. j 
 Lord Lumley, M.P. 
 
 Copy of a Letter from Mr. R. W. Hay, Under-Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, to Mr. Wolryche Whitmore, M.P. for Bridge- 
 north. 
 
 Downing-Street, 30th May, 1832. ; 
 Sir, 
 
 Lord Goderich has received the note which you addressed to him 
 on the 28th instant, with its enclosure, containing "A Proposal for 
 founding a British Colony in South Australia, between the degrees 
 of longitude 132 and 141, both inclusive, to extend northward to 
 latitude 20, inclusive, and to include Kangaroo Island and the other 
 islands on the south coast, under a royal charter ;" and I am directed 
 to acquaint you that after having given to the subject his best con- 
 sideration, he has come to the determination of withholding the sanc- 
 tion of his majesty's government to the undertaking.! 
 
 * During the late session of Parliament, Mr. Hutt, one of the members for 
 Hull, requested Lord Howick to agree to a motion for a return of the whole of 
 this correspondence. His lordship said that he should oppose the motion, on 
 account of the expense of printing. On the same account, I can give here only 
 a part of the correspondence : but this part of it is enough to show the animus 
 on both sides ; and it leaves the government with the last word. 
 
 t It would appear by the terms of this paragraph, as if Lord Goderich had 
 decided the question in two days, between the 28th, the date of Mr. Whitmore's
 
 358 APPENDIX, NO. HI. 
 
 Independently of the objections which he should feel himself 
 called on to make to several of the propositions which are brought 
 forward, as well from their novelty as from the difficulty which he 
 foresees in regard to their practical operation, he cannot but consider 
 that great public inconvenience would arise from the circumstance 
 of a new colony being placed so near to the penal settlements at 
 Sydney and in Van Dieman's Land, as that proposed. 
 I have the honour to be, sir, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) R. W. Hay. 
 
 W. W. Whitmore, Esq., M.P., $c, <$c. 
 
 Copy of a MEMORIAL addressed to Viscount Goderich, his 
 majesty'' s principal Secretary of State for the Colonies; in 
 answer to the above. 
 
 Office of the South Australian Land Company, ) 
 8, Regent-Street, June 4, 1832. ) 
 
 The undersigned, being members of a Provisional Committee 
 formed for the purpose of founding a colony on the south coast of 
 Australia, persons desirous to settle in the proposed colony, and 
 others taking a deep interest in the matter, have perused, with sur- 
 prise and sorrow, a letter addressed by Mr. Hay to Mr. Whitmore, 
 dated May 30 ; wherein it is stated, that " Lord Goderich has come 
 to the determination of withholding the sanction of his majesty's 
 government from their undertaking:" and they now take the liberty 
 of submitting to Viscount Goderich a statement of the grounds on 
 which they are led to hope and trust that his lordship will be pleased 
 to reconsider his decision in this matter, confident that, when all the 
 circumstances of the case shall be examined, Viscount Goderich will 
 not persist in his present determination. 
 
 T. That the proposal submitted to Viscount Goderich by Mr. 
 Whitmore, as chairman of the Provisional Committee, on the 28th 
 ultimo, is not a new proposal, but was submitted to Viscount Code- 
 rich in much greater detail, and in a printed form,* during the autumn 
 of last year ; when a deputation, consisting of Colonel Torrens, Mr. 
 Bacon, Mr. Conger, and Mr. Graham, wailed upon Viscount Gode- 
 rich for the purpose of ascertaining his lordship's Opinion of that 
 proposal. Thai the members of the deputation were so well pleased 
 with the opinion which Viscount ( roderich expressed of their under- 
 taking, that they thought it needless to ask for any written reply to 
 
 letter, and the 80th, llie <hitc of -Mr. Hay's. Let us do his [oidship justice : the 
 
 ■abject had been before him for a whole, year, aa will be seen further on; but 
 why should Mr. rlej omit all notice of the fact, and write a> if Lord Goderich 
 had nerer heard of the subject till the 28th of May, 1832 '. 
 
 * Proposal i" hia majesty's government for founding a colony on the southern 
 coaut of Australia. 188L
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 359 
 
 their proposal, but advised the persons whom they represented to 
 proceed with the undertaking, by submitting the intended charter to 
 the law-officers of the crown, and raising the necessary capital. 
 
 II. That a notice of the proposed colony having appeared in a 
 newspaper, in which it was stated that his majesty's government 
 had given their unqualified sanction to the undertaking, Viscount 
 Howick, Under-Secretary of State for the colonies, then superintend- 
 ing the Australian department,* addressed to Mr. Bacon a memo- 
 randum in the following words : — 
 
 Colonial-Office, 13th October, 1831. 
 
 " I was surprised to see in the Spectator newspaper of yesterday, 
 an assertion that the government had given its sanction to the plan 
 for the establishment of a chartered colony in Australia. This state- 
 ment is not strictly correct. It is a mistake to suppose that any 
 official sanction has been given to the plan. The only approbation 
 which has been expressed was conveyed by myself,! verbally, to 
 Major Bacon ; and in the conversation I had with him, I distinctly 
 informed him that I was authorized to promise nothing ; and that I 
 merely expressed my own opinion, being ignorant of that which Lord 
 Goderich might entertain,! as I did not consider the scheme suffi- 
 ciently matured for his decision. 
 
 " The substance of what I said in this unofficial manner was this, 
 that I myself thought very favourably of the project; and that doing 
 so, I was anxious that it should be laid before Lord Goderich in 
 such a shape as to be most likely to meet with his approbation. § 
 For this purpose, I advised the modification in the original project, 
 with respect to the number of inhabitants who should be considered 
 sufficient for the introduction of a representative government, and 
 with respect to the nomination of the governor, which have since 
 been made.|| I further suggested that the draft of the charter, which 
 it was desired to obtain, should be prepared and submitted to the 
 attorney-general ;F and I stated that if this draft, approved by him 
 
 * The Australian department was soon afterward taken from Lord Howick, 
 and given to Mr. Hay. 
 
 t This is not strictly correct. The deputation had had a long interview with 
 Lord Goderich, whom they found reading their printed proposal, and who sug- 
 gested two alterations in it, which were immediately adopted. What Lord 
 Goderich said of the plan at that interview, and how far he spoke officially, will 
 be seen further on. 
 
 % Just so ; but Lord Goderich had very distinctly expressed his own opinion, 
 unknown to Lord Howick ; and the notice in the Spectator referred, not to the 
 opinion of the under-secretary, but to that of his chief. 
 
 (j It had been already, unknown to Lord Howick, laid before Lord Goderich, 
 in the shape of a printed pamphlet of 31 pages. 
 
 II Both these alterations were also suggested by Lord Goderich to the deputa- 
 tion which waited on his lordship ; and it was these suggestions, by the principal 
 secretary of state, which, among other things, led the deputation to conclude 
 that he approved of their enterprise. 
 
 1T Lord Goderich himself had made the very same suggestion.
 
 360 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 and accompanied by a respectable list of subscribers, were brought 
 under the consideration of Lord Goderich ; and if it should be clearly- 
 made to appear that the government would be put to no expense, I 
 had little doubt that Lord Goderich would recommend that the 
 charter should be issued.* With respect to the difficulty that was 
 stated to exist about obtaining subscriptions without havin° received 
 the sanction of government to the scheme, I said that, in my opinion, 
 what would be the fairest for all parties would be, that the draft of 
 the charter should be submitted to Lord Goderich, with a list of 
 subscriptions conditional upon the sanction of the government being 
 granted ; and that, upon the draft being approved by Lord Goderich, 
 the sum subscribed for should be actually paid up, or at least a cer- 
 tain proportion, before the charter should actually issue ; that thus 
 the subscribers would run no risk of being drawn in to contribute to 
 an unsanctioned project, and the government would equally avoid 
 all danger of giving their countenance to a scheme which there were 
 not funds to support. 
 
 (Signed) H." 
 
 III. That the document recited above was considered as confirm- 
 atory of the opinion of the undertaking expressed by Viscount Gode- 
 rich to the deputation which had waited on his lordship, and as in- 
 tended only to provide that the conditions, on which the sanction of 
 his majesty's government had been required, should be strictly ful- 
 filled before such sanction should be officially expressed. 
 
 IV. That on the 16th of April last, a deputation, headed by Mr. 
 Whitmore, waited upon Viscount Goderich for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining whether his lordship continued to entertain a favourable 
 opinion of the enterprise ; and that the impression left on the minds 
 of the deputation by Lord Goderich's reception of them was, that his 
 lordship continued to entertain a favourable opinion of the project 
 generally, though there might be points of detail requiring modifi- 
 cation. 
 
 V. That the parties interested in the undertaking further held 
 several conversations with Viscount Howick and other gentlemen 
 of the Colonial Department, and especially with Mr. Stephen, the 
 counsel of that department, whereby they were led to believe that 
 his majesty's government viewed their undertaking, not merely with 
 approbation, but with a very warm interest. t 
 
 VI. That in consequence of the belief arising from Viscount Gode- 
 rich's reception of the deputations above-mentioned, from Viscount 
 
 * This caution and modesty were very becoming in a young nobleman new 
 to office ; but Lord Godcricb, an experienced statesman, bad already sunken for 
 himself in decisive terms; one of tbe grounds on which he thought so well of 
 the plan bong that, upon the face "I it, tin gOYernmenl was not to be put to the 
 expense of a singb- I -.billing for any purpose whatever. 
 
 t Thus far Mr. Hay had not been concerned with this affair.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. in. 361 
 
 Howick's memorandum, and from the conversations just alluded to, 
 the parties interested in the undertaking have been constantly occu- 
 pied, for great part of a year, in measures, having for object the ful- 
 filment of conditions which they conceived to be required by his 
 majesty's government ; such as circulating pamphlets, with a view 
 to bring the subject before the public, raising the necessary capital, 
 procuring evidence as to the soil and climate of the south coast of 
 Australia, preparing a draft of the proposed charter, and forming the 
 company under whose auspices the proposed colony was to be 
 founded. 
 
 VII. That their progress in these measures was greatly retarded, 
 and on two occasions entirely suspended, by the votes of the House 
 of Lords on the reform-bill ; but that by dint of the constant labour 
 of a considerable number of persons, the whole of whose time has 
 been devoted to this object, they had, as they imagined, overcome 
 every difficulty ; and that the late communication from Mr. Whitmore 
 to Viscount Goderich, whereby the original proposal* was briefly 
 repeated, was made for the purpose of informing his lordship of their 
 success,! and of obtaining that official sanction to their enterprise, 
 without which it was impossible that they should adopt any final 
 step. 
 
 VIII. That, though the want of an official expression of the sanc- 
 tion of his majesty's government necessarily prevented them from, 
 opening shares to the public, still that, of the 500,000/. which it is 
 propped to raise, the persons who intended to settle in the colony 
 proposed to subscribe 100,000/.; and that many of them, in order 
 to carry this their purpose into effect, as well as to provide them- 
 selves with capital for use in the colony, have disposed of real and 
 other property in this country to a considerable amount ; that several 
 of them have abandoned trades and professions in which they were 
 engaged ; have purchased outfits and other goods for exportation to 
 the colony; and will be subject to a very serious loss of property 
 (not to mention the loss of their time) in case the hope on which 
 they have acted should, at the eleventh hour, be frustrated by his 
 majesty's government. 
 
 IX. That persons, who do not propose settling in the colony, 
 have intimated their intention of subscribing 100,000/. of the capital. 
 
 X. That, with reference to Mr. Hay's letter to Mr. Whitmore of 
 the 30th ultimo, it must be acknowledged that the proposal sub- 
 mitted to Viscount Goderich is distinguished by some novelty; since 
 never before did a body of capitalists offer to any government so 
 
 " With the alterations that Lord Goderich had suggested. 
 
 + After this, Mr. Hay's mention of the proposal, as if it had been entirely new, 
 eeems unaccountable. Was it a joke! or, as the proposal was indeed new to 
 Mr. Hay, did he speak sincerely enough, meaning himself when he said " Lord 
 Goderich ?" 
 
 46
 
 362 appendix, no. m. 
 
 large a sum as 125,000/. for 500,000 acres of land, completely waste 
 and in a country absolutely desert. 
 
 XI. That in two other respects the plan is distinguished by 
 novelty: in the first place, as it promises a continually increasing 
 fund for the purpose of pauper-emigration ; and secondly, as it pro- 
 vides, though but in one case, against the evils which, in all the 
 colonies of modern times, have resulted from the want of any fixed 
 or rational system in the disposal of waste land.* 
 
 XII. That in other respects, the proposal submitted to his 
 majesty's government, instead of being distinguished by novelty, is 
 founded on precedent ; the English government having invariably, 
 it is believed, except in the case of the late Swan River colony, 
 adopted the principle of self-government in' the formation of colonies. 
 That in the case of every colony, properly so called, founded by this 
 country, the home government gave its sanction to that compact 
 among the first settlers, which led to the foundation of the colony; 
 a compact of which the essence was, that the colonists should govern 
 themselves in local matters, and provide for the expenses of local 
 self-government.t 
 
 XIII. That although no public announcement has yet been given 
 of the intention of the proposed company to convey poor settlers to 
 Australia, a mere rumour of that intention has led poor persons 
 (nearly all of them without employment, and many of them in a 
 state of great destitution), who together with their families amount 
 to upwards of six thousand, to apply for the benefit which the mere 
 sanction of his majesty's government would enable the company to 
 bestow on them.:}; 
 
 XIV. That the proposed undertaking is not open to the objection 
 against the establishment of colonies, which is held by many enlight- 
 ened persons ; viz. an objection to the expense which colonies often 
 occasion to the mother country, and to the great amount of patron- 
 age which they place at the disposal of a minister at home : since, 
 in the present case, it is provided that all the public expenses at- 
 tendant on the colony should be borne by the colonists themselves ; 
 and that the officers, so to be paid for administering the government 
 
 * These gentleman may have known how to found a colony; but it is evi- 
 dent thai they did not know bow to ileal with a corrupt old government Their 
 
 HOXOeU in dwelling on two points, which would have rendered impossible all 
 
 jobbing with new land, or with the purchase-money of it, is almost laughable. 
 
 • Here, again, the simplicity of Mr. \\ bitm 're and his coadjutors is almost 
 
 ing. Governments love precedent, when it makes in their favour: in this 
 ■ could nut hut be offensive to notice those precedents, of which the memory 
 
 is held indialike at the English colonial office; ami to notice them, too, for the 
 
 purpose i,t vetting tin 1 best ofthe argument with a minister. 
 
 One • i tht ■ , having been told thai tin government had changed its mind. 
 
 and that tin scheme was at an end, said, W'h.u ! the reform government? Yes, 
 
 was the answer ; even the rrfmm government !
 
 APPENDIX, no. in. 363 
 
 of the colony, should not, the governor excepted, be appointed by 
 the secretary of state.* 
 
 XV. That, with reference to Mr. Hay's letter to Mr. Whitmore 
 of the 30th ultimo, in which it is stated that " Great public inconve- 
 nience would arise from the circumstance of a new colony being 
 placed so near to the penal settlements of Sydney and Van Dieman's 
 Land," it is acknowledged that the proposed colony would present a 
 remarkable contrast with the penal settlements of Australia; a con- 
 trast of all that is good in colonization with all that is bad ; local 
 self-government instead of arbitrary rule ; a rational and fixed 
 system in the disposal of waste land (one of the elements of coloni- 
 zation), instead of a system which, though based on the plan devised 
 by the projectors of the proposed colony,f is rendered almost nuga- 
 tory by previous want of system, and is dependant for its duration 
 on the pleasure of the secretary of state for the time being ; a society 
 concentrated by that rational system in the disposal of waste land, 
 and enabled to employ their capital and labour with the greatest ad- 
 vantage, instead of a society dispersed by the profusion of the govern- 
 ment in granting waste land, and so prevented from raising com- 
 modities which require combination of capital and labour; a moral 
 society, or at least a society plaeed under circumstances the most 
 favourable to morality, instead of a society pre-eminently vicious, in 
 which the most disgusting depravity prevails, and in which such 
 vices are becoming national habits. The contrast would, no doubt, 
 have been most striking. But the undersigned are at a loss to 
 see in what way the establishment of so much good by the side of 
 so much evil could be productive of " public inconvenience." On 
 the contrary, they submit to Viscount Goderich, that the want of a 
 costless, concentrated, and. civilized colony in Australia, furnishes a 
 very strong reason why the home government, not being called on to 
 incur any expense or to create any patronage,! should enable the 
 undersigned to establish such a settlement in that part of the world ; 
 so that there may be one British colony at least, in a favourable 
 climate, to which persons of all classes may resort, without incurring 
 political, social, or moral degradation. 
 
 XVI. That the only "public inconvenience" which the under- 
 signed can imagine to be alleged as likely to result from the estab- 
 lishment of a self-governed colony in Australia, is, that the settlers 
 in the penal colonies, not being convicts, would thereby be led to 
 ask of the home government the advantage of self-government in 
 local matters. But in answer to this supposed allegation, the under- 
 
 * Worse and worse. What else could they expectjbut to be treated as they 
 were 1 Why did they not rather dwoll on their confidence in the secretary of 
 state, as shown in their having given up to him, at his own suggestion, the ap- 
 pointment of the governor 1 
 
 t The plan of the Colonization Society, just then adopted by the government, 
 as to New South Wales and Van TJieman's Land. 
 
 X There again : always touchio g the sore place.
 
 364 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 signed venture to remark, that already the free settlers of the penal 
 colonies earnestly beg for, and are bent on obtaining, the advantage 
 in question ; that, for any thing that has been stated to the contrary, 
 they are entitled to this advantage ; and that they might enjoy it 
 without hinderance to the penal system. If, however, it were clear 
 that the establishment of a self-governed colony near to the penal 
 colonies, would create a demand for self-government among the 
 settlers of those penal colonies ; and if it were further proved that 
 self-government, in local matters, is incompatible with the penal 
 system, still the undersigned would take the liberty of reminding 
 Viscount Goderich, that the whole system of penal transportation is 
 condemned by some jurists and politicians as being not less costly 
 than ineffectual as a punishment ; and that in all probability, and in 
 accordance too with the views of the present government, that system 
 of pretended punishment and colonial depravity will not much longer 
 be followed. Consequently, it appears to the undersigned that, if 
 the objection which they presume to be alleged by Mr. Hay's letter 
 to Mr. Whitmore were not removed, it would amount, on the part of 
 his majesty's government, to a decision, That, because some public 
 inconvenience might by possibility arise, and, if at all, for but a short 
 time, by contrasting the best with the worst mode of colonization in 
 Australia, therefore, none but the worst system should be adopted in 
 any part of that vast region. 
 
 That the vicinity of the proposed colony to the penal settlements 
 is calculated to remove an objection, which was stated by Viscount 
 Goderich to the deputation beaded by Mr. Whitmore on the 16th of 
 April ; namely, that the establishment of a colony at such a distance 
 from the penal colonies might be injurious, by extending the line to 
 be protected in case of war. But, if the latter objection should be 
 urged, the undersigned would observe that since the formation of the 
 Swan River colony, the whole of the south coast of Australia ought 
 to be defended in case of war ; and that the establishment of a 
 colony in the centre of that coast, midway between Van Dieman's 
 Land and the Swan River, would greatly facilitate such defence. 
 
 XVII. That if the above considerations should not remove Vis- 
 count Goderich's objection to the new colony, which is founded on 
 the possibility of public inconvenience, the undersigned would further 
 point out to his lordship, that a British settlement, not penal, 4 and 
 one to which it appears inevitable that the advantage of self-govern- 
 ment, in Local matters, will be accorded as soon as the settlers are 
 sufficiently numerous, already exists in Australia ; namely, the Swan 
 River colony, which extends to King George's Sound. 
 
 WW. Finally, the undersigned submit to Viscount Goderich, 
 that when a number of persons are disposed to incur the risks and 
 hardships of planting a colony in a desert country, the social arrange- 
 ments under which they shall exist are, and have always been eon- 
 
 • But cotrtly, they didwdll not to add.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 365 
 
 sidered by the British government, matters in which the settlers 
 alone are deeply interested, and of which they are the best judges ; 
 that, in the present case, the intended settlers have formed a plan of 
 colonization, whiclf, if it succeed, must inevitably be productive of 
 great advantage, not merely to themselves, but to this nation at large, 
 by opening a great field for the employment of our surplus labour and 
 capital ; and that, in order to carry into effect this purpose of un- 
 qualified good, the utmost extent of their request to his majesty's 
 government is, that it will exercise one of the functions for which 
 governments exist, by binding, under a charter from the crown, the 
 compact into which those individuals are desirous to enter. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 W. W. Whitmore, M.P. 
 
 Robert Torrens, M.P. 
 
 J. E. Strickland. 
 
 Richard Heathfield. 
 
 W. A. Mackinnon, M.P. 
 
 J. A. Stewart Mackenzie, M.P. 
 
 Win, Gowan, Upper Baker-street 
 
 J. Melville, Upper Harley-streer* 
 
 F. Place, Charing-cross. 
 William Hutt, 54 Conduit-street. 
 Thomas Hoskyns, M.P. 
 Thomas Rudge, Hereford. 
 
 Robert Gouger, Casde-street, Falcon-square. 
 
 Benjamin Hanson, Bruton-street. 
 
 D. Elston, Bridge-House, Limehouse. 
 
 Robert Price, M.P. 
 
 Henry Drummond, Charing-cross. 
 
 Samuel Hoare, Lombard-street. 
 
 C. Lushington, Edgeware. 
 
 G. Long, Tanfield-court, Temple. 
 Samuel Mills, 20 Russel-square. 
 L. Thomas, Cheapside. 
 
 A. Bacon, North-Bank. 
 R. Sadlier, Fulham. 
 
 D. Munro, Kensington. 
 D. Wakefield, Gray's Inn. 
 
 G. A. Angas, Jeffrey-square, St. Mary Axe. 
 
 G. S. Tucker, Birchin-lane. 
 
 G. J. Graham, Gray's Inn. 
 
 R. Phillips, M.P., Portland-place. 
 
 George Vardon, Charles-street, Westminster. 
 
 H. L. Bulwer, M.P., Albany. 
 
 Samuel Brookes, Islington. 
 
 R. D. Hanson, Hackney. 
 
 Richard Borrow, Stepney. 
 
 William Borrow, do 
 
 William Currie.
 
 366 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 John Cobden, Canterbury. 
 
 J. Rhodes, Bankside. 
 
 J. Evans. 
 
 G. Morrison, Soho-square. • 
 
 E. C. Richards, George-yard, Lombard-street. 
 D. Browne, M.P. 
 
 Charles Hanson, Hackney. 
 
 John Cunnold. 
 
 R. Throckmorton, M.P. 
 
 R. Heathfield, jun., Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 H. Surman, Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 W. H. Surman, do. 
 
 Erskine Humphreys, Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 J. H. Rice, North-Bank, Regent's Park. 
 
 J. Harding. 
 
 M. Racster. 
 
 Alex. M'Math. 
 
 Andrew Smith, Birchin-lane. 
 
 Joshua Storrs. 
 
 F. B.-Robinson. 
 
 W. Wanson, Hackney. 
 
 Joshua Brookes. 
 
 George Drury. 
 
 John Bowes, 54 Conduit-street. 
 
 G. S. Rutherford, Welbeck-street. 
 G. C. Hawkins, Regent-street. 
 
 J. S. Luraley, M.P., Park-street. 
 
 To the above memorial, no answer was returned. Two inter- 
 views, however, took place between Lord Goderich and deputations 
 from the society. 
 
 At the first of these meetings, Lord Goderich urged several new 
 objections to the undertaking. The letter, accordingly, of which a 
 copy follows, was addressed to his lordship by Mr. Strickland, who, 
 during Mr. Whitmore's absence from town, acted as chairman of the 
 Provisional Committee. 
 
 South Australian Land Company's Committee-Room, ) 
 8 Regent-street, June 16, 1832. J 
 
 My Lord, 
 As chairman of a meeting of the South Australian Land Company, 
 held this day, I have the honour to addross your lordship on the sub- 
 ject which was discussed between your lordship and a deputation 
 from that committee on Friday last.* 
 
 * At this meeting there were present, besides the Provisional Committee, a 
 
 eoneiderable amnbei of the gentlemen who had made arrange nts t< >r settling 
 
 in the proposed colony They were in a state of anxious urcitament, such as 
 can I"' imagined by him only who knows after how painful a struggle people, 
 having etrong tiee a) borne, make up (heir mihda to emigrate; ana how earn- 
 estly, when they have come to that decision, they think, to the exclusion of all
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 367 
 
 Before noticing the objections to the proposed colony which were 
 urged by your lordship on that occasion, I would venture once more 
 to remind your lordship, that the proposal now before you is by no 
 means a new one ; but that it was submitted to you so long as nearly 
 twelve months ago. This assertion will be borne out by the follow- 
 ing relation of facts. 
 
 Early in the month of June last year, Mr. Gouger, in consequence 
 of a conversation with Viscount Howick, delivered to his lordship a 
 paper, entitled Proposal for establishing a new colony in South Aus- 
 tralia. On the 1 1th of the same month, Viscount Howick addressed 
 a letter to Mr. Gouger, of which I have the honour to enclose a copy 
 marked A, and by which Mr. Gouger was directed to renew the pro- 
 posal in a different form. Consequently, another proposal was 
 drawn up, printed, and forwarded to Viscount Howick, who sub- 
 mitted the same to your lordship ; and your lordship was pleased to 
 appoint a time when you would receive a deputation from the persons 
 interested in forming the intended colony, for the purpose of giving 
 them some answer to the proposal in question. The deputation, 
 which consisted of Colonel Torrens, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Graham, and 
 Mr. Gouger, waited on your lordship, and read a paper, containing 
 the heads of the printed proposal, which, however, they found in 
 your lordship's hands, and of which you were pleased to say that 
 you had read it with much interest, and that its subject matter was 
 of so much importance as to deserve your immediate and serious at- 
 tention. One objection* your lordship made to the proposal, viz. to 
 the proposed appointment of the governor by tbe company. f In all 
 other respects it appeared to the deputation, not merely that your lord- 
 ship assented to the proposal generally, but that you felt a consider- 
 able interest in the undertaking, which, if successful, was calculated 
 to effect so much good. So satisfied were the deputation with your 
 lordship's feeling on the subject, that, upon subsequent consultation 
 among the parties interested, they recommended that your lordship 
 should not be asked for any written answer to the proposal ; on the 
 ground that such a request would be ungracious to your lordship, as 
 
 other thoughts, upon their prospects of happiness in the new country. It was 
 a scene for Wilkie to have painted : the minister seated, cross-legged, with an 
 air of official gravity and importance ; the under-sccretary standing behind a 
 high desk, a sort of apology for not being seated in the presence of his chief; 
 the petitioners watching every expression of the great man's face ; their own 
 faces lighted up when he uttered a word that seemed favourable to them, and 
 pulled lengthwise when he spoke of objections ; the little-great man suggesting 
 objections from behind the high desk ; and when the would-be settlers stared as 
 if they would eat him, looking down steadily upon a bundle of papers tied with 
 red tape. 
 
 * This is a mistake : there were two objections ; one to the appointment of 
 the governor by the colonists ; the other to the number of people (5,000 male 
 adults) who, it was proposed, should have a legislative assembly. Both points 
 were conceded : Lord Goderich was to appoint the governor ; and for 5,000 
 male adults, 10,000 was substituted by Lord Goderich's desire. 
 
 t The appointment of the governor was vested in the colonists by the charters 
 of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, Rhode-Island, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and 
 Maryland.
 
 358 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 savouring of a suspicion, which was most distant from the thoughts 
 of the deputation, that your lordship's favourable reception of them 
 mi^ht not have been sincere.* 
 
 Within a few days of the interview in question, Mr. Bacon, who 
 happened to be at the Colonial-Office on other business, was called 
 aside by Viscount Howick (who at that time, it should be remem- 
 bered, conducted the Australian department), when a conversation 
 occurred, of which a minute in writing was immediately made by 
 Mr. Bacon, and communicated to the persons with whom he was 
 acting. Of that paper I have the honour to enclose a copy, marked 
 B. The next communication between the Colonial-Office and the 
 intended colonists was made by Viscount Howick's memorandum, 
 dated October 31st, 1831, which was copied into the memorial pre- 
 sented to your lordship on the 4th instant. 
 
 After this long, and I fear, tiresome recital, your lordship will, I 
 trust, acknowledge, that I am correct in representing the proposal 
 before your lordship as by no means a new one, but as one which 
 was formally submitted to you, in a complete shape, last year, and 
 which did then obtain your serious attention. If this had not been 
 the conviction of the intended colonists, or if they had imagined tluit 
 your lordship had entertained any one serious objection to their 
 project, instead of occupying themselves, as they have done, with 
 other measures for carrying the project into effect, they would either 
 have sought to convince your lordship that any objections held by 
 you were ungrounded, or would have requested your lordship to 
 suggest alterations in their place, calculated to make it entirely agree- 
 able to you. Indeed, on the two points which did occur to your 
 lordship as objectionable, viz. the appointment of the governor by the 
 company, and the amount of population which should be entitled to 
 local self-government, they immediately altered their plan to meet 
 your lordship's views ; and all their subsequent publications have 
 contained those alterations. • 
 
 Your lordship will, therefore, be able to appreciate the great dis- 
 appointment which they have suffered at finding that now, when 
 they have laboured for a year to fulfil the conditions on which they 
 had every reason to be confident that a charter would be given to 
 them, numerous and grave objections have been for the first time 
 mentioned ; objections which, had they occurred last year, would 
 
 * There can be no doubt thai Lord Goderich'a favourable reception of these 
 gentlemen was perfect!; sincere. lint it may be doubted whether, at that time, 
 be had looked to the consequences which might result from the example of a very 
 cheap colony in Australia. CJne, who is well acquainted with the English 
 government, having been told of the success of this deputation, said, "They do 
 
 not understand your plan : as s i as they understand it they will oppose it. 
 
 I f you want the sanction of government, you must put a good deal of patronage 
 
 into yuvir plan*: this plan is t heap, altogether too good, ever to be liked by 
 
 our government, [nstead of 5,000*. a year for governing the colony, say 
 •jo, noil/, a year; and give all the appointments to the Colonial-Office. If you 
 do this, you w ill gel the charter without trouble : it' you bold to the present plan, 
 you will never get a charter, except by appealing to the House of Commons; 
 and not then until there shall have been twaor three elections under the reform 
 bill."
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 389 
 
 either have been removed, or would have saved the trouble, the loss 
 of time, the loss of property, and the pain of frustrated hopes, which 
 must ensue unless they be now removed. 
 
 I proceed to notice the objections which were stated by your lord- 
 ship on Friday last, or at the interview on the 16th of April last. 
 
 First in importance is that which supposes, that a number of in- 
 telligent men should have wildly neglected to ascertain whether the 
 spot on which they desire to settle and pass the remainder of their 
 lives be sufficiently fertile for the purposes of colonization. On this 
 head, I have to remark that your lordship never so much as hinted 
 at any doubt concerning the fertility of the soil, until such a doubt 
 was expressed by Mr. Whitmorc on the 16th of April last ; that the 
 doubt which had occurred to Mr. Whitmore has been entirely re- 
 moved, as is shown by a resolution of the Provisional Committee,* 
 passed unanimously on the 21st of May last (of which I have the 
 honour to enclose a copy maked C); that this is a point which, if 
 his majesty's government had been about to found the colony, they 
 ought to have ascertained from the beginning; but that, whereas, in 
 point of fact, the colony, if founded, will be altogether (according to 
 ancient and most successful practice) the work of individuals, not 
 his majesty's government, but the individuals concerned are deeply 
 interested in the question : that the individuals concerned have 
 examined this question with the deepest anxiety, and have arrived at 
 the conclusion, that they run no risk of meeting with a soil not fit 
 for colonization : that, even if such risk existed, it would involve no 
 greater possible evil than the disappointment of those individuals, 
 since the vicinity of the site of the proposed settlement to the settle- 
 ments of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, where food is 
 not merely plentiful but superabundant, puts out of question the pri- 
 vations which have occurred to the founders of many new colonies ; 
 the proposed settlement being, as relates to food, not a new colony, 
 but a new settlement in an old colony over-supplied with food ;| and, 
 finally, that the objection urged by your lordship would, if main- 
 tained, be an objection to the foundation of a colony anywhere ; 
 
 , * "At a meeting of the Provisional Committee, 21st May, 1832 ; present, 
 
 W. Wolryche Whitmore, Esq., in the chair. 1 
 Colonel Torrens, M.P. G. Fife Angas, Esq. 
 
 William Hutt, Esq. J. Jephson, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Samuel Mills, Esq. John Melville, Esq. 
 
 After considering the evidence contained in the printed pamphlet, entitled— 
 Evidence relating to the soil, climate, and productions of the south coast of Aus- 
 tralia; hearing the evidence of Dr. Rutherford and Mr. Riley ; reading that of 
 Mr. Mearing ; reading a Sydney Gazette, wherein is set forth the contract 
 prices of meat and,bread in Sydney, viz. beef, |rf. per lb., mutton, licL per lb., 
 and bread, \\d. per lb. ; also reading extracts from Captain Stuart's Journal: 
 it was resolved, unanimously, That the evidence this day submitted to the com- 
 mittee, in respect of the soil, climate, and productions of Kangaroo Island, and 
 the shores of the Murray River, and Lake Alexandrina, is sufficient to warrant 
 the formation of a colony on those lands with all possible despatch." 
 
 t With animal food, which is become a drug in New South Wales and Van 
 Dieman's Land, as it is in Buenos Ayres. 
 
 47
 
 370 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 since it would be hard to obtain a body of evidence as to the soil of 
 any desert country so favourable as that of which I have the honour 
 to enclose a copy marked Q.* Of tbe capacity of any desert soil 
 for colonization there must always exist a doubt until the experiment 
 be made : but to say that the existence of such a doubt furnishes a 
 reason for not making the experiment, appears directly contrary to 
 reason.f 
 
 And here I venture to request your lordship's particular attention 
 to a point which has been made prominent in every step taken by 
 the projectors of the colony; which appears in the proposal sub- 
 mitted to your lordship last year, in the published plan of the com- 
 pany, and in the prospectus lately submitted to your lordship ; viz. 
 that the iirst outlay of the company is to be by wap of experiment, 
 the sum to be employed not to exceed 5/. on each share of the capital 
 subscribed, or, in the whole, 50,000/. In confirmation of this state- 
 ment, I venture to quote the following passage from the published 
 plan of the company. " The plan pursued by it will be to send out 
 in the first instance a small expedition, for the purpose of examining 
 whether the site proposed for the new colony offers the advantages 
 which have been supposed to attach to it. This may be done at a 
 moderate expense. If the result should be favourable, the agents of 
 the company will select for the first settlement the spot which seems 
 to them the most suitable." Thus your lordship will sec, that the 
 doubt, which must exist in every case as to the fertility of the soil 
 of a desert country has not been lost sight of in the present instance, 
 but has led to arrangements which render the first intended expe- 
 dition nothing more than a sufficient experiment. 
 
 Nevertheless, as those who have the deepest interest in the 
 experiment trust and believe that it will prove successful, so were 
 tiny bound to provide for its success. The case of failure is pro- 
 vided for by the vicinity of other settlements superabounding in land, 
 in food, and in demand for labour. The case of success is provided 
 for by the proposed charter ; in order that if a colony be founded, it 
 may not be left without any social regulations; in order that if a 
 settlement be planted on the shores of Spencer's Gulf, the settlers 
 paying for the land, those first settlers may not be ruined by subse* 
 quent gifts of land to others who may follow them ; in order, briefly, 
 that if the first settlement succeed, as to the question of soil, it may 
 not prove a miserable failure in all oilier respects. 
 
 The next objection urged by your lordship was, the evils that 
 might arise from the reson to the new colony of run-away convicts 
 from the penal settlements; Now, the fact, is, that Kangaroo Island 
 has been lor many years, and is at this time, a place ofrefuge for 
 
 run-away COnvicU ; that in that island such persons have formed a 
 
 lociety remarkable lor existing without any social ties, and for tin' 
 
 prevalence of the most horrid crimes; thai com ids iii the penal 
 
 thus invi i • cape, no power existing to prevent 
 
 ■ Thi • i • •■' printed pamphlet. 
 
 ■t ff for a doub cfil, we read h doubl as to the convenience o! 
 
 ioI roverhment, this "objection, coming from 
 the colonial minister, will seem iati [h.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 371 
 
 Jhem from inhabiting the south coast of Australia ; and that if a 
 settlement were formed on that coast, instead of any evil so to be 
 caused, an effectual stop would be put to the evil which already 
 exists.* In illustration of the state of the people who are settled on 
 Kangaroo Island, I venture to mention the following fact, which is 
 stated by Dr. Barnes, a gentlemen of great respectability, now resi- 
 dent in London. 
 
 Dr. Barnes, being in New Zealand, met with an Englishman who 
 some years before had, in a fit of madness, attempted to destroy 
 himself. His lower jaw was shot away in the attempt. Recovering 
 his senses, ashamed of what he had done and of his frightful appear- 
 ance, he sought to hide himself from the sight of civilized men, and 
 to pass the remainder of his life in a state of savage excitement. 
 With this view he selected as a place of refuge Kangaroo Island, 
 where he could obtain the society of men more degraded than him- 
 self. It should be further remarked, that the savage settlers of 
 Kangaroo Island seize native women from the mainland, whom they 
 treat as slaves, and by whom they have children ; so that there is 
 every prospect, unless some counter measure be adopted, of the 
 existence of a band of dangerous pirates in the spot, which it is 
 now proposed to convert into a civilized colony. 
 
 The third objection, which appeared to weigh with your lordship, 
 was the apparent want of any motive for founding a new settlement 
 in Australia, when three settlements are already established there. 
 In answer to this objection, if it may be so termed, I am requested 
 to refer your lordship to the signatures appended to our memorial 
 of the 4th instant, and to say, that many of the gentlemen who 
 signed that document intend to settle in the proposed colony; but 
 that no consideration would induce them to settle in New South 
 Wales, where, such is the state of society, there are, allowing for 
 the difference of population, 325 public executions for one in Eng- 
 land ; and where, moreover, nameless crimes prevail, and are be- 
 coming, as in Turkey, national habits. Those gentlemen also re- 
 quest me to say, that the accounts which they have received of the 
 Swan River settlement, of the ruin and misery which have befallen 
 the more wealthy emigrants to that colony, render it impossible that 
 they should settle in a colony where, by the profusion of the govern- 
 ment in granting land, the people are dispersed and pauperised ; 
 and where there is no security for the inestimable advantage of local 
 self-government. 
 
 Finally, your lordship was pleased to dwell on the responsi- 
 bility which his majesty's government might incur, by giving its 
 sanction to the proposed undertaking. To this objection there would 
 be no answer, if his majesty's government had originated the under- 
 taking, or were called upon to take active measures for promoting 
 and conducting it. But the fact is, that, as in the case of our oldest 
 
 * Acting upon this lesson, the government has, I am told, ordered a crown 
 settlement to be made on this coast, where it was proposed to found a chartered 
 colony. If it be so, and they should now be asked to enable individuals to 
 found a colony there, without expense to the mother-country, the reform govern- 
 ment may say, Oh, dear, no : the country is already settled.
 
 372 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 and most successful colonies, as in the case, it is believed, of every 
 colony founded by Englishmen, the Swan River colony only ex- 
 cepted, the undertaking originates with, and is to be wholly con- 
 ducted by, certain individuals deeply interested in every step that 
 they may take, fully conversant with the subject, and influenced by 
 the strongest sense of responsibility ; which body of individuals ask 
 no more of his majesty's government than that it will enable them to 
 carry into effect their own purpose, by their own means, and on 
 their own responsibility. For the partial failure of the Swan River 
 settlement, the government, who founded the settlement without any 
 provision for success, is no doubt responsible ; but the Plymouth 
 Company and William Penn, not the governments of the time, were 
 responsible for the success of the colonies of Virginia and Pennsyl- 
 vania. And it may be said further, recurring to principles which 
 have often been eloquently advocated by your lordship, that the two 
 last named colonies flourished so greatly, because, not a distant 
 government, but the individuals most deeply concerned, were respon- 
 sible for every act performed. It is true that, in the present case, 
 the individuals concerned can perform no act without a charter from 
 the crown ; but your lordship will allow me to observe, that the 
 crown is impowered to grant charters for the express purpose of 
 enabling bodies of men to act in concert in matters which involve no 
 evil to the public. Consequently, it appears to me, and in saying 
 so I speak the expressed opinion of many of my coadjutors, that un- 
 less there be upon the face of the proposed undertaking some pros- 
 pect of evil, such as it is the business of government to prevent, his 
 majesty's government could not incur any responsibility by merely 
 enabling a number of men to act in concert, for the accomplishment 
 of their own purposes, by their own means, and, I repeat, on their 
 own responsibility. 
 
 But 1 venture humbly to suggest to your lordship, that the respon- 
 sibility of frustrating so great and good an object, by refusing so 
 small a boon, is one deserving consideration. 
 
 Referring to what fell from your lordship as to the propriety of 
 submitting so important a question to his majesty's ministers, I have 
 to state, that, except on the score of delay and suspense, which are 
 most distressing to many of the persons interested in this question, 
 we should be gratified to learn that your Lordship had laid the ques- 
 tion before the cabinet ; confident that the more our plan shall be 
 examined, the more will it be thought worthy of support by an 
 enlightened and liberal administration.* 
 
 In conclusion, I am instructed to say, that if there be any modifi- 
 cation of the plan which would render it more agreeable to your 
 lordship, the parties concerned will readily adopt the same, unless 
 it would interfere with the main principles of their scheme : but they 
 are unable to suggest any alteration, because no part of the plan has 
 
 • Like the hungry workman, who had set his heart on getting fat in the 
 new colony, these gentlemen lettn to have placed too much deppndanct on a 
 reform government.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 373 
 
 been adopted by them without much inquiry and reflection ; nor 
 could any part of it, in their sincere opinion, be changed without an 
 alteration for the worse. 
 
 (Signed) J. E. Strickland. 
 
 To the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Goderich, 
 
 His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 
 4-c, £c.j 4c. 
 
 To the above letter no answer was returned ; but Lord Goderich 
 intimated his wish that any further discussion should be carried on 
 verbally. At the interview, when the objections were made to which 
 the above letter was intended as an answer, Mr. Hay was present, 
 and suggested most of the objections. An interview now took place, 
 at which Mr. Hay was not present, between Lord Goderich and a 
 deputation from the committee. On this occasion (of which a par- 
 ticular account has been preserved) Lord Goderich suggested some 
 alterations in the plan, and these being agreed to by the deputation, 
 appeared to abandon all his objections. His manner was courteous, 
 and he appeared to feel for the many families then waiting in the 
 most painful suspense for his decision. He desired that a draft ol 
 the proposed charter, with the alterations then proposed and agreed 
 to, might be forwarded to him without delay; and the deputation re- 
 ported to their constituents that, as far as they could judge from his 
 lordship's manner and language, the charter would be speedily 
 granted. On the 9th of July, accordingly, a draft of the proposed 
 charter was delivered at the colonial-office, together with a letter 
 from Colonel Torrens to Lord Goderich. To this letter, the follow- 
 ing curious answer was returned by Mr. Hay : — 
 
 Downing-street, 17th July, 1832. 
 Sir, 
 lam directed by Lord Goderich to acknowledge the receipt of 
 your letter dated the 9th instant, enclosing the draft of a charter for 
 the incorporation of the South Australian Land Company, and to 
 acquaint you, for the information of the gentlemen of the Provisional 
 Committee, that his lordship has bestowed the most careful attention 
 upon the various provisions of that instrument. As the transmission 
 of the proposed charter affords the first occasion which has pre- 
 sented itself during the discussions on this subject, for taking a clear 
 and comprehensive view of the plan of the company in all its bear- 
 ings,* Lord Goderich has entered on the inquiry with a full convic- 
 tion, that nothing which has hitherto occurred can be supposed by 
 the parties more immediately concerned to preclude his majesty's 
 government from their free and unfettered discretion on the general 
 principles and the particular details of the scheme, f Whatever de- 
 
 * The great convenience of making this mistake may be some excuse for 
 having made so great a one. 
 
 t That is, translating these fine gitt-paper terms into plain English, all 
 which had gone before was to be counted for nothing. This, certainly, was not 
 "supposed by the parties more immediately concerned." From the tone of the 
 government, after Mr. Hay became its organ, one should be led to suppose, that 
 these' petitioners, instead of asking for a piece of parchment, had been request- 
 ing Mr. Hay and Lord Goderich to emigrate along with them.
 
 374 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 liberations may have intervened between the original suggestion of 
 the measure and the delivery at this office of the draft of a charter, 
 they have all taken place upon the assumption, that the proposal, 
 when drawn out in its ultimate form, would be found compatible 
 with the fundamental principles, to which it is the duty of the king's 
 government to adhere in every grant which they may advise his 
 majesty to pass under the great seal ; and it is of course obvious 
 that this condition must at all times have been distinctly under- 
 stood.* 
 
 On examining the draft which you have transmitted, Lord Gode- 
 rich finds that in many important particulars it goes far beyond the 
 proposition as he originally understood it to be conceived ;t that it 
 would virtually transfer to this company the sovereignty! of a vast 
 unexplored territory, equal in extent to one of the most considerable 
 kingdoms of Europe ;§ that it would encroach on the limits of the 
 existing colonies of New South Wales and Western Australia ;|| 
 that it is proposed to throw open the settlement to foreigners as well 
 as to British subjects, in such a manner as at once to place them 
 upon a complete equality ;lf that the objects of the corporation are 
 defined with such latitude of expression as to exclude no conceivable 
 employment of their capital ;** that the actual investment of that 
 capital, or any part of it even, is not necessarily to precede the 
 issuing of the charter ;ft that the charter would invest the company 
 with a power of legislation, and would even enable thorn to delegate 
 to others the exercise of that trust, without taking the very least 
 
 * Of course : but it was also understood that, when Lord Goderich expressed 
 his approval of the fundamental principles, &c, he knew what they were, and 
 really meant what he said. 
 
 t "Beyond;" in which direction? towards liberalism or toryisml The 
 draft of a charter imbodied the less liberal provisions as to the governor and 
 the legislative assembly, which Lord Goderich had suggested. 
 
 t It had always been proposed that the company should govern the colony 
 until the settlers were numerous enough to govern themselves. 
 
 $ This is a mistake. The only creatures, over which sovereignty could be 
 transferred, are a few savages and a great many kangaroos and emues. It is 
 true, that the space within which all Waste land was to be sold, and the colonists 
 were to govern themselves in local matters as soon as there should be colonists, 
 was very large. But the charter mentioned exactly the same space as the ori- 
 ginal proposal. 
 
 II This is a mistake : those colonies have no defined limits. The nearest 
 part of the outside of the proposed colon; to any settlement in Australia would 
 have been some hundreds of miles distant. 
 
 IT I am not aware thai "foreigners" were over mentioned either in writing 
 or verballv by any one connected with the colony ; but it was eertainU pro- 
 vided in the charter, that all the p I people taken to the colony w it li the pur- 
 chase-money of waste land should be British subjects. 
 
 ** What the company should do with its Capital was stated distinctly. 
 Would Mr. May have bad the charter recite all the things which tile company 
 should nol do with its capital. 
 
 ft The committee had been imploring Lord Goderich to promise, only to 
 
 promise, the ch;iiier officially, in order that subscriptions for the capital might 
 in- received. Lord Goderich had been told, too, thai the intended settlers were 
 ready to subscribe L00,000f. of that capital, and that they had disposed of real 
 and other property with that view.
 
 APPENDIX, NO. III. 375 
 
 security against the possible abuse of so high an authority ;* that the 
 company would enjoy the right of erecting courts, and of appointing 
 and removing judges and other officers (f that they claim the power 
 of raising and commanding the militia ; that they would exclude the 
 king from the exercise of that power of imposing duties of customs 
 which parliament has entrusted to him throughout the Eastern 
 colonies ;| that a freedom of trade is claimed, to which the naviga- 
 tion and trade acts, as they now stand, are opposed ;§ that all the 
 powers of the company, extensive as they are, and involving in their 
 practical effect the sovereign dominion of the whole territory, are 
 ultimately to be transferred to a popular assembly,|| which would 
 be to erect in the British monarchy a government purely republi- 
 can ;*|[ and that the company would be the receivers of large sums 
 of public money,** for the due application of which they do not pro- 
 pose to give any security. ft 
 
 Other objections might be stated to the plan proposed in this 
 draft; but for the present Lord Goderich forbears to enter on any 
 discussion of them. . His lordship deems it sufficient to have pointed 
 out those which 1 have already referred to ; and directs me to say 
 that, if the various departments of government which must be con- 
 sulted should concur in a scheme involving such extensive conse- 
 quences, as would follow from the adoption of that which is pro- 
 posed,;^ they could not legally carry it into effect without the express 
 sanction of parliament;^ but his majesty's government could not 
 
 * In this respect, the draft of a charter was a copy from the charters, under 
 which companies founded colonies in America. At one of the interviews with 
 Lord Goderich, his lordship had been requested to examine those charters, copies 
 of which probably exist in the colonial-office. A printed copy of them was in 
 the hands of the committee. 
 
 t Of course, if the company were to govern for a time, like the London Com- 
 pany, and the Plymouth Company, and William Penn, and even the company 
 which founded a colony at Sierra Leone, it was, during that time, to have the 
 authority necessary for governing. 
 
 t Not the king, but the clerks in Downing-street, who legislate for New 
 South Wales and the Swan River. Every provision, however, as to trade, was 
 subject to existing laws ; and of course a charter could not affect an act of 
 parliament. That very power which parliament has given to the king, his 
 majesty was requested to exercise in this case. 
 
 § A great mistake. This charter could not have applied to any ports, save 
 those of the colony ; and even there, could not have interfered with any act of 
 parliament. 
 
 II Of course; since one chief object of the plan was, according to ancient and 
 approved practice, to establish local self-government in the colony. 
 
 H If the company should revive their project, they would do well to put a 
 House of Lords into it ; with a Baron Blackswan, a Viscount Kangaroo, a 
 Marquis of Morrumbio^gee, and a Bishop of Omithoryncus. 
 
 ** Only for repayment of their private money, with which they proposed to 
 defray all the cost of government and defence, until the colony should be able 
 to repay them. 
 
 tt The application of the money was clearly denned : it was to be applied in 
 repayment to the company of their advances for the government and defence of 
 the colony. 
 
 ttThe admission is worth notice, that the plan was calculated to accomplish 
 the objects of those who formed it. 
 
 §§ Very many English colonies have been founded by charter : not one, it- is 
 believed, by act of parliament.
 
 376 APPENDIX, NO. III. 
 
 recommend to parliament a measure so entirely subversive, in one 
 part of his majesty's dominions* of those royal prerogatives, which, 
 for the common benefit of all his subjeets, it is his majesty's duty to 
 maintain.! 
 
 I am, sir, 
 Your obedient humble servant, 
 Colonel Torrens, M.P. (Signed) R. W. Hay. 
 
 Extract from the Morning Chronicle of September 23d, 1832. 
 
 " We invite attention to a letter of Mr. Gouger upon the subject 
 of the South Australian Land Company, which will be found in 
 another column. Upon the merits of the proposed company we 
 shall abstain from remarking at large now ; as, it seems, a pamphlet 
 is to be published, containing the whole of the correspondence with 
 government upon the subject, accompanied by a sketch of the original 
 plan. It is, however, clear that any proposition supported by such 
 men as formed the provisional committee, and of which the object 
 was to provide a place of refuge for six thousand poor persons, 
 ought not to have been rejected by the colonial office without very 
 good reasons. No one will say that the committee was not suffi- 
 ciently influential, and high in character, to support any wise mea- 
 sure they chose to commence : neither are they men from whom 
 we should be led to expect any other than a practical and attainable 
 project. 
 
 "From the fact of the difficulties occurring only after the Austra- 
 lian colonies were placed under the control of Mr. Hay, the tori/ 
 under-secretary of state for the colonies, it may be inferred that the 
 plan was opposed by Mr. Hay, and was therefore abandoned. We 
 have more than once had occasion to reprobate the practice of the 
 present ministry, in keeping about them men whose principles are 
 diametrically at variance with their own. A tory of principle and 
 honour will naturally object to measures founded upon liberal prin- 
 ciples : an unprincipled tory will lose no opportunity to serve his 
 partyj by bringing his opponents in politics into disrepute ; although 
 he may, at the same time, be eating the bread of liberal employers. 
 Both classes, therefore, should be avoided equally. Mr. Hay is a 
 tory. Educated in the school of Lord Melville, he has been the 
 constant attendant of all succeeding ministers. If it should turn out 
 that a spice of liberalism, in the shape of self-government, appeared 
 in the plan of the company or colony, wc have no doubt the ministers 
 will have to thank their tory urnler-secretary for any odium or un- 
 popularity they may experience from the reject ion of the measure in 
 question.* 1 
 
 \ complete desert, save ;>s to the runaway convicts, over whom, certainly, 
 Bzercieei no dominion, 
 idge ! 
 
 1 IIL L'ND.
 
 CATALOGUE 
 
 VALUABLE WORKS, 
 
 EMBRACING 
 
 HISTORY, MATHEMATICS, NATURAL HISTORY, 
 
 THEOLOGY, MEDICINE, POETRY AND FICTION, 
 
 BIOGRAPHY, PHILOSOPHY, VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED 
 BY 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST. 
 
 NEW-YORK. 
 
 Oct. 1833.
 
 THE FAMILY LIBRARY. 
 
 " The Family Library — A title which, from the valuable and entertaining matter 
 the collection contains, as well as from the careful style of its execution, it well de- 
 serves. No family, indeed, in which there are children to be brought up, ought to 
 be without this Library, as it furnishes the readiest resources for that education which 
 ought to accompany or succeed that of the boarding-school or the academy, and is 
 infinitely more conducive than either to the cultivation of the intellect."— Monthly 
 Review. 
 
 " We have repeatedly bome testimony to the utility of this work. It is one of the 
 best that has ever been issued from the American press, and should be in the library 
 of every family desirous of treasuring up useful knowledge." — Boston. Statesman. 
 
 " The Family Library presents, in a compendious and convenient form, well- 
 written histories of popular men, kingdoms, sciences, &c, arranged and edited by 
 able writers, and drawn entirely from the most correct and accredited authorities." — 
 Charleston Gazette. 
 
 FAMILY CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 " The Family Classical Library is another of those cheap, useful, and elegant works 
 which we lately spoke of as forming an era in our publishing history." — Spectator. 
 
 "This work, published at a low price, is beautifully got up. Though to profess to 
 be content with translations of the Classics has been denounced as ' the thin disguise 
 of indolence,' there are thousands who have no leisure for studying the dead lan- 
 guages, who would yet like to know what was thought and said by the sages and 
 poets of antiquity. To them this work will be a treasure." — Sunday Times. 
 
 "We see no reason why this work should not find its way into the boudoir of the 
 lady, as well as into the library of the learned. It is cheap, portable, and altogether 
 a work which may safely be placed in the hands of persons of both sexes. - ' — Weekly 
 Free Press. 
 
 This work cannot fail to be acceptable to youth of both sexes, as well as to a large 
 portion of the reading community, who have not had the benefit of a learned educa- 
 tion." — Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 BOY'S AND GIRL'S LIBRARY. 
 
 This course of publications will mere especially embrace such works hs are 
 adapted, not to the extremes of early childhood or of advanced youth, but to that 
 intermediate space which lies between childhood and the opening of maturity, 
 when the trifles of the nursery and the simple lessons of the school-room have 
 ceased to exercise their beneficial influence, but before the taste for a higher order 
 I of mental pleasure has established a fixed ascendency in their stead. In the selec- 
 tion of works intended for the rising generation in this plastic period of their exist- 
 ence, when the elements of future character are receiving their moulding impress, 
 the publishers pledge themselves that the utmost care and scrupulosity shall be ex- 
 ercised. They are fixed in their determination thai nothing of a questionable tend- 
 ency on the score of sentiment shall find admission into pages consecrated to the holy 
 purpose of instructing the thoughts, regulating the passions, and settling the princi- 
 ples of the young. Several interesting numbers of this Library are now before the 
 public. 
 
 LIBRARY OF SELECT NOVELS. 
 
 Fictitious composition is now admitted to form an extensive and important por- 
 tion of Literature. Well-wroughi novels l ike their rank by the side of real narratives, 
 and are appealed to ;.s evidence in all questions concerning man. In them the cus- 
 toms of countries, the transitions and shs'les oi i fctaracter, and even the very pecu- 
 liarities of costume and dialect are curiously preserved. 
 
 This " Library of Select Novels" will embrace none but such as have received the 
 impress of genera] approbation, or have been wriltt n b) authors ol established char- 
 acter; and tii'- publishers hope to receive such encouragement from the public 
 patronage as will enable then; m i ol tun' to pioduce :i series of works of 
 
 uniform appearance, and including most oi (he really valuable novels and romances 
 that havi ill be issued from the modern English and American press. 
 
 thmtetn works, bj eminent authi dready been published in this Library, 
 
 which are sold separately 01 in i omplete set*.— For the titles tee the Catalogue.
 
 HISTORICAL WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 J. & J. HARPER, No. 82 CLIFF-STREET, NEW-YORK. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE 
 ROMAN EMPIRE. By Edward Gibbon, Esq. Complete in 4 vols. 8vo. 
 With Engravings. 
 
 This Stereotyped Edition of Gibbon's Rome is well printed on a good sized type, 
 and contains the necessary Mips, and is, in all respects, perfect. These facts are 
 stated, because most of the London editions new offered for sale in this country are 
 without the necessary. Maps, &c, and are printed on a type so small that it is in- 
 jurious to the eyes to read them. Yet, with all these disadvantages, they are sold at 
 a higher price than this American Edition. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE ; with a View of 
 
 the Progress of Society, from the Rise of the Modern Kingdoms to the Peace 
 of Paris, in 1763. By William Russell, LL.D. : and a Continuation of the 
 History to the Present Time, by William Jones, Esq. With Annotations 
 by an American. In 3 vols. 8vo. With Engravings. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLE- 
 MENT OF AMERICA. By William Robertson, D.D. With an Account 
 of his Life and Writings. To which are added Questions for the Examination 
 of Students. By John Frost, A.M. Complete in 1 vol. 8vo. With a Por- 
 trait and Engravings. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR 
 
 CHARLES V. With a View of the Progress of Society in Europe, from the 
 Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. 
 By William Robertson, D.D. To which are added Questions for the Exam- 
 ination of Students. By John Frost, A.M. Complete in 1 vol. 8vo. With 
 Engravings. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND during the Reigns of Queen 
 
 Mary and of King James VI. till his Accession to the Crown of England. 
 With a Review of the Scottish History previous to that Period ; and an Appen- 
 dix containing Original Letters. To which is alhxed 
 
 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION CONCERNING THE 
 KNOWLEDGE THE ANCIENTS HAD OF INDIA ; and the Progress 
 of Trade with that Country prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the 
 Cape of Good Hope. With an Appendix containing Observations on the Civil 
 Policy, the Laws and Judicial Proceedings, the Arts, the Sciences, and Reli- 
 gious Institutions of the Indians. By William Robertson, D.D. Complete 
 in 1 vol. 8vo. With Engravings. 
 
 Robertson's works are also sold in sets 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE. By 
 
 William Dunlap, Vice President of the National Academy of Design. In 1 
 vol. 8vo. 
 
 ANNALS OF TRYON COUNTY ; or, the Border Warfare of 
 New-York, during the Revolution. By Wm. W. Campbell. 8vo.
 
 HISTORY OF THE JEWS. From the Earliest Period to 
 the Present Time. By the Rev. H. H. Milman. In 3 vols. l8mo. With 
 .Maps and Engravings. 
 
 Until the appearance of Professor Milman's admirable work, there was no History 
 of the Jews, deserving of the name, except that of Josephus : and he lived at a period 
 too remote, and too limited in its knowledge, to enable him to do justice to the sub- 
 ject. The notices to be found in various Universal Histories are meager and un- 
 satisfactory ; and a narrative at once Christian and liberal in its tone, spirited and 
 elegant in its language, and adequately depicting the manners, wars, religion, and 
 policy of the most remarkable of nations, was still wanting. The nature of the 
 present work is strictly historical — not theological — yet it elucidates many obscure 
 passages in the Old Testament, employs with great skill the casual evidence of heathen 
 writers, and throws new light on the manners and customs of the Hebrews by fre- 
 quent references to the pages of the oldest travellers. 
 
 LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 18mo. With an Engraving. 
 
 This is a very curious and interesting work, containing as it does the results of 
 much thought and great research upon one of the most exciting topics of human in- 
 quiry. Most of Sir Walter Scott's unrivalled novels betray the predilection for the 
 supernatural with winch his mind was tinged, and the extent of his reading in works 
 which treat of "the history of that dark chapter of human nature" to which this 
 volume is devoted. In it he has laid open the stores of his memory, and strikingly 
 condensed and elucidated the subject ; in many cases explaining, by most ingenious 
 theories, occurrences which 6eem to lie beyond the boundaries of natural action. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig, 
 
 M.A. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Map of Palestine. 
 
 These volumes do not, as from their title one might imagine, contain merely an 
 account of the origin and contents of the Sacred Volume : the object of the writer 
 has extended far beyond tins. He has produced, perhaps, the most elaborate and able 
 examination of the various objections urged against the Scriptures that has ever been 
 written ; and, at the same time, one of the clearest and most satisfactory expositions 
 of the whole Bible, not only as the foundation of our faith, but also as a history. In 
 the performance of his task, Mr. Gleig has exhibited equal piety and learning, and 
 his work is calculated to facilitate to a remarkable degree both the comprehension 
 and enjoyment of the inspired writings. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN 
 
 THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS. With Illustrations of their Climate, 
 Geology, and Natural History, and an Account of the Whale-Fishery. By 
 Professors Leslie and Jameson, and Hugh Murray, Esq. 18mo. With 
 Maps and Engravings. 
 
 No person's education can be considered complete without a certain degree of at- 
 tention to the most recent improvementa and diacoverii a in every branch of scii 
 In none have greater advances been made, in the present a ntury, than m geography 
 ami the knowledgi oi the earth which we inhabit: the Polar Seas and Regions 
 have been moel fertile in results through the enterprise and perseverance of a Rosa, 
 Parry, and this work, in which tnoii investigations are described, 
 is one of most interesting and instructive character. 
 
 II I.I, WNALS OF THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 
 1830. To which is added a Particular Account of the Celebration of said 
 Revolution in the City of New-York, on the 25th November, 1830. By 
 Mvkii Moses. 12m0i
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN 
 
 AFRICA. From the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. With Illustrations 
 of the Geology, Mineralogy, and Zoology. By Professor Jameson, and 
 James Wilson and Hugh Murray, Esqrs. 18mo. With a Map and En- 
 gravings. 
 
 In this volume is recorded every thing that is known of the interior of that danger- 
 ous continent which has been for so many ages a terra incognita, and proved the grat e 
 of so many enterprising travellers, except what has been revealed to us by thi 
 investigations of John and Richard Lander. The plan of the work consists oi 
 condensed abstracts of the narratives of all the modern African travellers, in which 
 every thing important or interesting is preserved, while the unessential details have 
 been so abbreviated as to bring the substance of each account within convenient 
 limits. 
 
 HISTORY OF CHIVALRY AND THE CRUSADES. By 
 
 G. P. R. James, Esq. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 No modern writer is, perhaps, so well qualified to write upon this subject as the 
 author of " Richelieu," and of the " Life and Times of Charlemagne ;" unquestionably, 
 since the death of Sir Walter Scott, the best informed historical antiquary of the age. 
 The present work contains, in a small compass, a clear and concise account of that 
 celebrated institution which, in process of time, became the foundation of the modern 
 European systems of government and jurisprudence, with a vivid description of those 
 amazing ebullitions of national enthusiasm which poured such immense multitudes 
 of warlike pilgrims upon the plains of Asia, and produced such extraordinary changes 
 in the condition of mankind. The work is eminently curious, interesting, learned, 
 and philosophical. 
 
 VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT. With an 
 
 Outline of its Natural History. By the Rev. M. Russell, LL.D. 18mo. 
 With a Map and Engravings. 
 
 In this volume is contained a distinct and well arranged account of all that is 
 known with certainty respecting the ancient history, as well as the present condition 
 of that extraordinary country whose antiquity baffles the research of the most per- 
 severing explorers, and to which both Rome and Greece were indebted for at least 
 the rudiments of those arts and sciences which were brought in them to such per- 
 fection. The stupendous remains of Egyptian architecture, and the treasures of 
 knowledge ihat still remain locked up in the far-famed hieroglyphics, have long en- 
 gaged the attention of the most accomplished scholars, and every thing relating to 
 them and the land in which they exist is in the highest degree interesting to the 
 inquiring mind. ■ 
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. From the Earliest Period to the 
 
 Present Time. By James Fletcher, Esq. With a Narrative of the Recent 
 Events, obtained from a Polish Patriot Nobleman. 18mo. With a Portrait 
 of Kosciusko. 
 
 The recent unsuccessful effort of the gallant and unfortunate Poles to break their 
 yoke of bondage has fixed the attention and awakened the sympathies of every lover 
 of freedom and every friend to humanity. The writer of this history has brought to 
 his undertaking much learning, great industry and patience in research, and the 
 most unbiased candour. The volume is full of interest and useful information, 
 drawn from an immense variety of sources, many of which are not accessible to the 
 mass of readers, particularly in America. 
 
 LUTHER AND THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION. By 
 
 the Rev. John Scott. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Portraits.
 
 Historical "Works Published by J. Sf J. Harper. 
 
 FESTIVALS, GAMES, AND AMUSEMENTS. Ancient and 
 Modern. By Horatio Smith, Esq. 18mo. With Additions By Samuel 
 Woodworth, Esq., of New-York. 
 
 "Laws, institutions, empires pass away and are forgotten, but the diversions of a 
 people, being commonly interwoven with some immutable element of the general 
 feeling, or perpetuated by circumstances of climate and locality, will frequently 
 survive when every other national peculiarity has worn itself out and fallen into 
 oblivion." This extract shows the spirit in which this captivating volume v. as 
 designed, and its pretensions to utility. The information imbodied in its pages is 
 curious and extensive, and not the least attractive portion is the account of the 
 amusements, &c. peculiar to different sections of the United States, added by Mr. 
 Woodworth. 
 
 PALESTINE, OR THE HOLY LAND. From the Earliest 
 
 Period to the Present Time. By the Rev. M. Russell, LL.D. 18mo. With 
 a Map and Engravings. 
 
 The early history of that most interesting portion of the globe — the theatre of 
 those wonderful events from which our religion is derived — as well as its present 
 state, is described in this volume with the greatest accuracy. The places of many of 
 the incidents recorded in the Bible are pointed out, and the changes that have occurred 
 in the lapse of ages are carefully delineated. The work may be read with advan- 
 tage in connexion with the Sacred History which it confirms and illustrates. 
 
 SACRED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, as displayed in (lie 
 
 Creation and subsequent Events to the Deluge. Attempted to be Philo- 
 sophically considered, in a Series of Letters to a Son. By Sharon Turner, 
 F.S.A. 18mo. 
 
 To exhibit the Divine Mind in connexion with the production and preservation, and 
 with the laws and agencies of visible nature, and to lead the inquirer to perceive 
 the clear and universal distinction which prevails between the material and imma- 
 terial substances in our world, both in their phenomena ami their principles, is the 
 main object of this admirable volume. In it religious and scientific instruction are 
 skilfully and strikingly blended, and facts and principles are so made to illustrate each 
 other that the mind and heart are equally improved by its perusal, and the cause of 
 science is, as it were, identified with that of religion. The information contained in 
 it chiefly relates to Natural History, and it is extremely copious, accurate, and 
 interesting, while the reflections are eminent for their depth, wisdom, and piety. 
 
 HISTORICAL and DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT of BRITISH 
 
 INDIA; from the most Remote Period to the Present Time. Including a 
 Narrative of the earlv Portuguese and English Voyages, the Revolutions in the 
 Mogul Empire, and the Origin, Progress, and Establishment of the British 
 Power; with Illustrations of the Zoology, Botany, Climate, Geology, and 
 Mineralogy. Also Medical Observations, an Account of the Hindoo Astronomy, 
 the Trigonometrical Surveys, and the Navigation of the Indian Seas. By HoQH 
 Murray, Em., James Wilson, Esq., R. K. GrBBYiLLB, LL.D., WHITELAW 
 Ainsi.ik, M.D., William Rhind, Esq., Prof. Jameson, Prof. Wallace, and 
 Capt. Clarence DalBYMPLE. In 3 vols. 18mo. With a Map and En- 
 gravings. 
 
 A history of India iii a convenient form, and in an easy and familiar style, has long 
 bsen considered B desideratum. Tins work commences with the early annals of the 
 
 Hindoos, traces the progress and decline ol the Mohammedan power, and brings the 
 
 history of the British dominion in India down to the tune of the permanent estab- 
 lishment of the India Company and the foundation ol that stupendous empire. It is 
 divided into departments comprising the history, literature, arts, and manners of the 
 Hindoos, and ■ description of the country, its climate, soil, diseases, productions, and 
 ares : these departments have bean committed to distinct writers ol emi- 
 nence, and inlly qualified to treal of them with distinguished ability, and the result 
 has been the production of a body "i accurate and complete information, such as 
 to be (bund collected in any other work in the English language.
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. From the Anglo-Norman Invasion 
 
 till the Union of the Country with Great Britain, by W. C. Taylor, Esq. 
 With Additions. By William Sampson, Esq. In 2 vols.l8mo. With En- 
 gravings. 
 
 Before its republication, this work was submitted for examination to several gen- 
 tlemen resident in New-York, natives, or the descendants of natives, of the country 
 whose history it contains, and distinguished for their attachment to the unhappy land 
 to which they trace their origin, and for their talents and acquirements. Their 
 opinion was unanimous, and highly favourable, and each of them expressed in strong 
 terms the pleasure it would afford him to see republished in the United States a 
 work so fair, so copious, and so accurate. The public at large has confirmed their 
 sentence, and stamped this history with the seal of approbation. The value of the 
 history as originally published has been greatly enhanced by the additions of William 
 Sampson, Esq., whose reputation is too well known in the country of his adoption to 
 require eulogy. 
 
 HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOV- 
 ERY ON THE MORE NORTHERN COASTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
 From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By P. F. Tytler, Esq. 
 With Descriptive Sketches of the Natural History of the North American 
 Regions. By Prof. Wilson. To which is added an Appendix, containing 
 Remarks on a late Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, with a Yindication of Hakluyt. 
 18mo. With a Map and Engravings. 
 
 Among the most remarkable occurrences of the nineteenth century are the various 
 expeditions of discovery to the northern coasts of the western continent, so important, 
 although not perfectly satisfactory in their results. In no other portion of the earth's 
 surface has the navigator to contend with such formidable difficulties, and in none 
 does he behold so peculiar an aspect of nature : it follows, therefore, of course, that 
 expeditions to no other part of jhe world furnish to the historian such ample and 
 interesting materials. The present volume exhibits a full and accurate view of all 
 that is important in modern knowledge of the most remote territories of North 
 America, and may be considered as forming a sequel to the " Polar Seas and Regions," 
 and as furnishing all that was wanting to a complete account of the whole series of 
 northern discoveries by land and water. 
 
 HISTORY OF CHARLEMAGNE. To which is prefixed an 
 
 Introduction, comprising the History of France from the Earliest Period 
 to the Birth of Charlemagne. By G. P. R. James, Esq. 18mo. With a 
 Portrait. 
 
 The age of Charlemagne may be considered as the period to which the origin of 
 most of the nations of Europe as they at present exist, can alone be traced with suf- 
 ficient certainty ; beyond this epoch, the researches of the historian are often fated to 
 end in disappointment and obscurity. In tracing the fortunes of the several powers 
 into which that continent is divided, from the earliest attainable facts to the present 
 time, it is indispensable that the inquirer shotild possess a clear and accurate under- 
 standing of the actual state as well of France as of the surrounding countries, at the 
 period when, by the successes and achievements of that remarkable monarch, his 
 kingdom became the dominant power of the European continent. Until the appear- 
 ance of Mr. James's History, this clear and accurate understanding was of exceedingly 
 difficult attainment ; the materials from which it was to be drawn were scattered 
 through various historical works, and all the labour of arrangement, condensation, and 
 comparison was to be performed by the student himself. Such is no longer the case ; 
 light has been shed upon the darkness of that remote age ; and the world of Science 
 is indebted to Mr. James for the means of readily acquiring a complete and satisfactory 
 knowledge in all its details, of the first great epoch in European History. In the 
 numerous commendations of this work that have appeared in the Reviews and 
 periodicals both of England and the United States, the highest terms of eulogy have 
 been employed ; and all have noticed w ith strong expressions of praise, the singular 
 perspicuity of the style, and the remarkable absence of prolixity and confusion in the 
 progress of the narrative.
 
 SKETCHES FROM VENETIAN HISTORY. By the Rev. 
 
 E. Smedley, M.A. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 Few have the knowledge, the time, or the means to explore for themselves the 
 treasures of the Italian chronicles. The author of this work has laid open their 
 stores for the benefit of those to whom the language in which they are written renders 
 them a sealed book — gleaning from them the most characteristic incidents, amusing 
 stories, and anecdotes, while, at the same time, he has sustained all the dignity of 
 historical research ; passing lightly over events of minor importance, and reserving 
 himself for those momentous and interesting transactions which require to be more 
 fully displayed. The beauty of the style has been very generally noticed, and has 
 gained the applause of the most competent judges. 
 
 LNDIAN TRAITS; BEING SKETCHES OF THE MAN- 
 NERS, CUSTOMS, AND CHARACTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN 
 NATIVES. By B. B. Thatcher, Esq. In 2 vols. 18mo. With numerous 
 Engravings. 
 
 The appearance, character, and habits of the North American Indians have long 
 been a favourite and fertile theme for writers as well as readers, and accurate 
 descriptions of them are equally instructivo and agreeable. These form the subject 
 of the present volumes, and they are admitted to contain much correct and interest- 
 ing information. A larger work, by the same author, entitled " Indian Biography," 
 treats of the history of those remarkable members of the human family : the work 
 now under consideration makes no pretensions to that character, but is entirely de- 
 scriptive ; and it is entitled to high praise, not only as being the first attempt to 
 render the subject attractive to general readers, but also for the ability with which 
 the object is accomplished. 
 
 NUBIA AND ABYSSINIA. Comprehending their Civil History, 
 
 Antiquities, Arts, Religion, Literature, and Natural History. By the Rev. M. 
 Russell, LL.D. 18mo. With a Map and Engravings. 
 
 There is no country in the world more interesting than that which was known to 
 the ancients as " Ethiopia above Egypt," the Nubia and Abyssinia of the present day. 
 It was universally regarded by the poets and philosophers of Greece as the cradle 
 of those arts which at a later period covered the kingdom of the Pharaohs with so 
 many wonderful monuments, as also of those religious rites which, after being 
 slightly modified by the priests of Thebes, were adopted by the ancestors of Homer 
 and Virgil as the basis of their mythology. A description of this remarkable nation, 
 therefore, by the well-known author of the " View of Ancient and Modern Egypt," 
 cannot be othenvise than instructive and highly interesting. 
 
 TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY. By the Author of 
 
 " American Popular Lessons." In 3 vols. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 The writer of these Tales has had in view two chief purposes,- the one to con- 
 vey to the juvenile reader a genera] i i connected with the discovery 
 and subsequent histon ol the American continent; the othei to excite an interest 
 in the subject which sha >r rnon minute ami extensive information. 
 These purposes have Keen effected with much success, and the volumes will lie 
 found instructive and entertaining. In the iiiajoiil) "t instances, the Tales have 
 
 I. ccn selected with refi ie illustration of some moral principle; and the 
 
 frequent opportunities afforded lor theintro reflections leading to the cul- 
 
 tivation ot p , moii have been ablj and zealousl\ improved. \s .i school- 
 
 book this collection nt Historical Tales is calculated to be eminently servici 
 and there can be no doubt that their introduction into seminaries will be attended 
 with both pleasure and advantage to the scholars. 
 
 HLISTORYOFTHEREFORMFDRI'.LKilOiN IN FRANCE. 
 
 By the Rev. E. Smkdlbt, M.A. In 2 vols. l8mo. With Portraits.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS. 
 
 LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON; with 
 Notices of his Life. By Thomas Moore, Esq. In 2 vols. 8vo. With a Por- 
 trait. 
 
 By unbiased critics Byron's Letters have been pronounced equal, if not superior, in 
 point of vigour, interest, variety, and liveliness, to any that have yet adornpd this 
 branch of our Literature. The present edition is printed on large type and good 
 paper, and in a convenient form. 
 
 THE LIFE OF NELSON. By Robert Southey, LL.D. 
 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 This Biography has been pronounced one of the Laureate's most successful efforts : 
 the enthusiastic and romantic character of Nelson furnished a congenial subject, and 
 he has treated it with consummate ability. The errors of the fortunate and gallant 
 admiral are fairly and fearlessly exposed ; while the nobler elements of his mind, his 
 heroic courage, his perseverance, and his insatiable appetite for glory, as well as the 
 great actions in which thoy are displayed, are described and illustrated with a happy 
 choice of language and most felicitous effect. 
 
 LIFE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. By Henry Glass- 
 ford Bell, Esq. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 It is now generally admitted that great injustice has been done to the character of 
 Mary, and that there is good reason to believe her, to say the least, guiltless of the 
 darker offences charged against her. Mr. Bell has undertaken her vindication, and, 
 having investigated the facts with uncommon industry and patience, he has succeeded 
 in establishing a conviction of her entire innocence. The sympathy excited by the 
 story of her beauty and her misfortunes is now heightened by the assurance of her 
 wrongs. Mr. Bell's is considered the most affecting, as well as the most impartial 
 life of Mary that has been written. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. By John 
 S. Memes, LL.D. 18mo. With Portraits. 
 
 Amid the turmoils, the vast achievements, the ambitious aspirings, and the com- 
 plicated intrigues which mark the era of Napoleon's greatness, it is refreshing to pursue 
 the elegant and gentle course of Josephine, whose affection for the conqueror and 
 native goodness of heart were so often made the instruments of mercy, and whose 
 persuasive voice was ever ready to interpose between his wrath and its trembling 
 object. Placid in situations peculiarly trying, Josephine preserved her character 
 unsullied, and the story of her life abounds with occasions for the respect and admi- 
 ration of the reader. The author has performed his task with great ability, and the 
 public is indebted to him for one of the most delightful biographies. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF CELEBRATED FEMALE SOVEREIGNS. 
 
 By Mrs. Jameson. In 2 vols. 18mo. 
 
 The intention of this work is to illustrate the influence which a female government 
 has had generally on men and nations, and that which the possession of power has 
 had individually on the female character. The didactic form of history or biography 
 has not always been adhered to ; incidents and characters are treated rather in a 
 moral than in a political or historical point of view ; and public affairs and national 
 evrnts are not dwelt upon, except as connected with the destiny, or emanating from 
 the passions or prejudices of the individual or sovereign. The Lives form an admi- 
 rable illustration of the female character, and the lessons they furnish abound with 
 instruction, while the. incidents recorded are interesting, not only in themselves, but 
 as authentic details of remarkable personages whom circumstances or personal quali- 
 ties have invested with claims to our attention. 
 
 RECORDS OF MY LIFE. By the late John Taylor, Esq. 
 Author of " Monsieur Tonson." Complete in one volume, 8vo.
 
 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. By J. G. 
 
 Lockhart, Esq. With Portraits. In 2 vols. 18mo. 
 
 This celebrated work contains an epitome of all that has been proved to be true con- 
 cerning the character and actions of the most extraordinary man of the last thousand 
 years. The English language possesses no other authentic epitome of his history ; 
 and, notwithstanding the smallness of the limits within which it is compressed, the 
 narrative throughout is clear, distinct, and copious. The life of Napoleon, doubly in- 
 teresting when relieved of the tediousness of useless detail, has never been better told. 
 The work is written with commendable impartiality, and the author has been care- 
 ful to interweave with his narrative nil the new illustrations and anecdotes furnished 
 by Bourrienne, and other French writers, whose memoirs have appeared since the 
 publication of the great work of Sir Walter Scott, from which a large portion of his 
 materials was derived. As an evidence of the amazing popularity of this History, it 
 is stated that more than 27000 copies of it have been disposed of in Great Britain 
 alone. 
 
 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE SECOND, King of 
 Prussia. By Lord Dover. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 Frederick II. lived in an age among the most remarkable in the annals of the 
 world. He was one of those men who constitute an epoch ; who, by their paramount 
 influence upon the events of a particular period, impress it, in a degree, with character- 
 istics resulting from their own peculiar sentiments, habits, and proceedings ; who may 
 be considered monuments on the road of ages to designate certain divisions of time. 
 But, apart from the character of Frederic, the great incidents in the midst of which 
 he lived and moved, and in which he was a prominent actor, render this period of 
 European history one of the most interesting and important; and it has been ably 
 delineated by the modern historian of the Prussian monarch. Lord Dover has long 
 been favourably known as the Hon. Mr. Ellis, and his Life of Frederic has much 
 enhanced his reputation. It is honourable to him, considering the irreligious character 
 of Frederic, that he has nowhere rendered vice attractive, and that his pages are 
 studiously guarded from the slightest contamination of infidelity. 
 
 THE LIFE AND ACTIONS OF ALEXANDER THE 
 
 GREAT. By Rev. J. Williams. With a Map. 18mo. 
 
 This volume fills a blank in the historical library, and furnishes an excellent manual 
 for the student. It is not confined to the mere exploits and adventures of the Mace- 
 donian hero, although they constitute the leading topic, but contains a masterly view 
 of the times in which he lived, and of the manners, arts, and sciences of the Greeks, 
 Persians, Egyptians, Arabs, and Indians, and other nations whom he visited or con- 
 quered. The story is well and elegantly told, and conveys a more distinct and 
 accurate idea of the ancient Napoleon than is to be found in any other history. In the 
 perusal, the curiosity of the reader is gratified as well as stimulated, and his mind is 
 moved to profitable reflection. 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. AViih 
 
 Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons of the last Fifty Years. By Rev. George 
 Crolv. 18 mo. 
 
 The regency and reign of this monarch occupied one of the most eventful and in- 
 terest] ol English history, not only from the magnitude and importance of 
 their political occurrences, bul also from the vast improvements in science and the 
 arts by which they were distinguished, and the number of eminent individuals who 
 flourit i The character of George himself was not the least re- 
 ile among those ol the principal personages of the time, and it has been 
 handled by Mr. Croly with a just ami fearless, bul nol uncharitable spirit. His per 
 captions are close, keen, and accurate, and his language singularly terse and energetic. 
 His work will be of the highest value to the future hist. man. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE DUCHESS D'ABRANTES (Madame 
 
 Junot). In one volume, 8vo. With a Portrait.
 
 J 
 
 Biographical Works Published by J. fy J. Harper. 9 ' 
 
 LIFE of LORD BYRON. By J. Galt, Esq. 18mo. (40 cents.) 
 
 Thfi splendour of Lord Byron's fame, and the interest attendant upon the story of 
 his eventful life and early death, have combined to render his biography a work of 
 more than usual attraction. Mr. Gait enjoyed the advantages consequent upon a 
 long and intimate acquaintance with the noble poet, and has given a striking and 
 satisfactory description of his mind and character. One of the greatest merits of the 
 work is its strict impartiality : the writer is evidently free from prejudice either fa- 
 vourable or adverse to his subject, and tells what he knows or believes to be the truth, 
 without any bias from envy, ill-will, or affection. 
 
 THE LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. By Sir David 
 
 Brewster, K.B., LL.D., F.R.S. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 This is the only extended Life of the greatest of English philosophers ever given 
 to the public. In attempting to supply a vacancy in philosophic and scientific htera- 
 ture,»Sir David Brewster, himself one of the most profound and eminent savans of the 
 age, has not only sought out from resources hitherto unknown and inaccessible to 
 previous writers every fresh and novel particular of Newton's lite, but has given the 
 most lucid explanations of his great discoveries, and the steps by which they were 
 accomplished ; and has been remarkably successful in rendering these intelligible to 
 all classes of readers. 
 
 THE LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT BRITISH PAIN- 
 
 TERS AND SCULPTORS. By Allan Cunningham. In 5 vols. 18mo. 
 With Portraits.* 
 
 The author has collected, in these small volumes, a history of art in England, and 
 the lives, characters, and works of its most eminent professors, — the materials of 
 which were previously scattered through many volumes, inaccessible and uninviting 
 to the mass of readers. The critical observations profusely scattered through these 
 biographies will render them useful to the student, while the personal anecdotes 
 with which they abound make them equally alluring to the ordinary reader. The 
 labours and struggles of genius, the success of perseverance, and the inutility of 
 talent unallied to prudence, as exemplified m these narratives, afford a useful moral 
 lesson, while the incidents which illustrate them become the source of pleasure and 
 entertainment. 
 
 THE LIVES OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS. By 
 James Augustus St. John. In 3 vols. ISmo. 
 
 Every man whose mind can sympathize with human nature under all its various 
 aspects, and can detect passions, weaknesses, and virtues like his own through the 
 endless disguises effected by strange religions, policies, manners, or climates, must 
 peruse the relations of veracious travellers with satisfaction and advantage. The 
 author of these volumes has with great industry and judgment compiled a series of 
 highly interesting narratives, containing the most striking incidents in the lives and 
 wanderings of all the celebrated travellers that have flourished within the last eight 
 centuries, taking them up in their regular order of succession, presenting only the 
 attractive portions, and omitting all useless and unnecessary details. The reader 
 will find in these volumes the substance of many ponderous tomes, most of winch 
 are rare, and only to be found in the extensive European libraries. 
 
 A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM LIVINGSTON ; 
 
 Member of Congress in 1774, 1775, and 1776; Delegate to the Federal Con- | 
 vention in 1787, and Governor of the State ot New-Jersey from 1776 to 1790. 
 With Extracts from his Correspondence, and Notices of Various Members 
 of his Family. By Thlodore Sedgwick, Jun. 8vo. With a Portrait. 
 
 This work embraces a clear and interesting account of the life and character of an 
 eminent and excellent man, distinguished for learning and talents, and the most ex- 
 emplary and patriotic devotion to the liberties and independence of his country. It 
 is written in an unpretending manner, and with a commendable freedom from the sin 
 of exaggeration, which is so apt to beset biographers, and is highly valuable as an 
 acquisition to our revolutionary annals.
 
 LIFE OF MOHAMMED ; Founder of the Religion of Islam, 
 and of the Empire of the Saracens. By Rev. George Bush, A.M. With an 
 Engraving. 18mo. 
 
 The objects of the writer in the preparation of this volume have been condensation, 
 elf amess, and accuracy. It was written expressly for the publishers by an American 
 author, and, in addition to the numerous and highly flattering commendations bestowed 
 upon it by the press, it has received the testimonial of republication in England. In 
 one respect, the plan adopted by the author presents an improvement upon preceding 
 memoirs of the great impostor, in the careful collocation of the chapters of the Koran 
 with the events of the narrative, — a method by which the history is illustrated in a 
 remarkable degree. The appendix, containing a series of prophetic investigations, 
 is peculiarly curious, learned, and valuable. 
 
 THE LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. By Rev. M. Rus- 
 sell, LL.D. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 These volumes contain a popular History of one who, it is allowed, was, in many 
 respects, the most extraordinary man that England has ever produced. It has been 
 the study of the author, while he availed himself of the labours of all of his prede- 
 cessors, to give an unbiased view of Cromwell's conduct : in his early life ; at his first 
 entrance upon public business ; in his achievements as a soldier ; in his rise to 
 political power; and, finally, in his government of those kingdoms which he was the 
 first to conquer. The reverend gentleman is certainly entitled to the most unquali- 
 fied praise for bis exertions, and for the new, curious, and important information 
 which he has collected and arranged ; and those who peruse his work will be re- 
 warded by much valuable information. 
 
 INDIAN BIOGRAPHY: or, an Historical Account of those 
 Individuals who have been distinguished among the North American Natives 
 as Orators, Warriors, Statesmen, and other Remarkable Characters. By B. B. 
 Thatcher, Esq. In " vols. ISnio. With a Portrait. 
 
 The extensive popularity of these Biographies is one of the strongest evidences of 
 their merit : within a very few months after the publication a large edition was dis- 
 posed of, and the work was at once established as a standard. Until its appearance 
 there was no authentic or satisfactory account of the Indians : notices of a few of 
 the most distinguished among them in earlier times were to be found scattered through 
 the pages of various historical works, but the number was very limited, and it might 
 be said that all knowledge of their true character, and of the traits for which they were 
 remarkable, was locked v.\> in manuscripts or in obsolete publications. The writer 
 of these volumes has, with great industry and perseverance, explored thoso almost 
 unknown stores of information, and produced a work of the highest character for 
 candour, extent, and accuracy. It has been truly said, that until .Mr. Thatcher took 
 upon himself the office of their historian, full justice had never been done to the 
 characters and actions of the aborigines. 
 
 LIVES of the APOSTLES and EARLY MARTYRS 01 the 
 
 CHURCH. By the Author of "The Trial of Skill." 18mo. Juvenile. 
 
 The style is beautifu ind the narrative it ed with comments 
 
 anil i remarkable for their devout spirit, and for the clearness with which 
 
 they elucidate whatever might appear to the mind either contradictory or unintelli- 
 1 1 is impossible for any child to read these effecting histories without becoming 
 interested ; ana the interest is so directed and improved as to implant and foster the 
 purest princi ion and morality. The most esteemed religious publications 
 
 throughout the Union have joined in cordial expressions of praise to this work. 
 
 THE LIFE AND REMAINS OF EDWARD DANIEL 
 CLARKE; Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge. Il\ 
 Rkv. William < >ttkr, A. M. Complete in ono volume, 8vo.
 
 Biographical Works Published by J. fy J. Harper. 11 f 
 
 THE LIFE OF WICLIF. By Charles Webb Le Bas, A. M. 
 
 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 The object of the author has been to produce, within a reasonable compass, the 
 substance of the information which has been preserved to us relative to this very ex- 
 traordinary man, — a man whose strength of character made an impression on the 
 mind of his country which h;is never been effaced. The volume embraces, it is 
 believed, all the important information contained in the works of Vaughan, For, 
 Lewis, James, and other writers on the subject, and is certainly among the first 
 specimens of beautiful composition in the English language. 
 
 LUTHER AND THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION. By 
 
 John Scott, A. M. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Portraits. 
 
 This work is designed to present, in a more popular and convenient form, the sub- 
 stanco of the information collected by Milner and others relative to the most remark- 
 able period, and the most important event, which has occurred in the history of the 
 church since the apostles' days. To exhibit an account of "the blessed Reforma- 
 tion" which may be deemed just and adequate, which may show what the Reformers 
 really contended for, and in what spirit and for what reasons they contended for it, 
 and which, at the same time, may prove attractive to the public, must be judged an 
 object highly seasonable and of great consequence. Such a work Mr. Scott has 
 supplied. 
 
 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. By Charles 
 
 Webb Le Bas, A. M. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 Mr. Le Bas has collected into a compendious and interesting narrative the sub- 
 stance of more voluminous compilations ; and has presented to the public a work, ele- 
 gantly written, which will enable them duly to estimate their obligations to the great 
 master-builder of the Protestant Church of England. 
 
 LIVES AND VOYAGES OF DRAKE, CAVENDISH, AND 
 
 DAM PIER ; including an Introductory View of the earlier Discoveries in the 
 South Sea, and the History of the Bucaniers. 18mo. With Portraits. 
 
 The relation of the voyages, discoveries, and adventures of early and celebrated 
 English navigators is, in so far, a history of the rise of her naval power. In this 
 volume are contained the lives of three of the most eminent ; and, from the very 
 nature of the subject, it presents much curious and valuable information, gleaned 
 from many sources, and in every instance verified by scrupulous examination and 
 reference to original documents. Early Spanish Discovery in the South Seas, and 
 the first circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan, form a subordinate but appro- 
 priate branch of the work ; and the subject is completed by the History of the 
 Bucaniers, — those daring rovers whose wild adventures afford so much to charm 
 the youthful mind, and form one of the most interesting chapters in the annals of 
 mantime enterprise and adventure. 
 
 SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED FE- 
 MALES. Written for Girls, with a view to their Mental and Moral Improve- 
 ment. By an American Lady. 18mo. With a Portrait, &c. 
 
 As example acts more forcibly upon female youth than on the other sex, it is pecu- 
 liarly important that the biography which is placed in the hands of young females 
 should be either carefully selected, so as to give them no examples but those that are 
 unexceptionable, or else that it should be accompanied by such remarks as will 
 enable them to discriminate between the excellences to be imitated and the eccen- 
 tricities to be avoided. With such views these sketches have been prepared. They 
 will be found peculiarly instructive, and are written in a style which cannot fail to in- 
 terest. The volume is embellished with a portrait of Mrs. Judson, &c., and em- 
 braces biographical sketches of several of the most distinguished females of our own 
 country.
 
 THE LIFE OF JOHN JAY : with Selections from his Cor- 
 respondence and Miscellaneous Papers. By his Son William Jay. In 2 vols. 
 8vo. With a Portrait. 
 
 It would be doing injustice to the American public to suppose that they do not take 
 an interest in knowing the characters and actions of those to whom they are in- 
 debted for the liberty and prosperity they now enjoy. Mr. Jay, ii will be remembered, 
 stood high among those who devoted themselves to the service of their count rv, and 
 acquired a title to its gratitude. The present work, casting much new and valuable 
 light on our early history, and being, in all respects, worthy ol its great subject, 
 cannot, therefore, fail to prove highly interesting and valuable ; and such, in fact, it 
 has been pronounced by aM who have perused it. 
 
 LIFE OF THE REV. ROBERT HALL. By Olinthus 
 
 Gregory, LL.D. &c. 8vo. With a Portrait. (Embraced in the third volume 
 of Hall's complete works.) 
 
 Dr. Gregory has traced Mr. Hall from childhood to maturity, from maturity to his 
 death, and, throughout, has presented a plain, simple, accurate, and full account 
 of him. He has also traced him in his social and moral t elations, and has showed 
 how his fine talents and acquirements became subordinated to the power of Divine 
 grace, and devoted to the promotion of the glory of God and the happiness of man. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WILLIAM WIRT, ESQ. 
 
 With a Portrait. 12mo. (Prefixed to " The Letters of the British Spy.") 
 
 Of such men as Mr. Wirt our countrymen cannot know too much. He is one 
 of the great and good men who live for their country. 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE LATE ROBERT C. 
 
 SANDS, Esq. In 2 vols. Svo. With a Portrait. 
 
 THE LIVES AND EXPLOITS OF BANDITTI AND ROB- 
 BERS in all Parts of the World. By C. Macfarlane, Esq. In 2 vols. 
 
 12mo. 
 
 MY IMPRISONMENTS: MEMOIRS OF SILVIO PEL- 
 
 I LICO DA SALUZZO. Translated from the Italian. By Thomas Roscoe. 
 12mo. 
 
 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF LORD EDWARD FITZ- 
 GERALD. By Thomas Moore. In 2 vols. 12nio. With a Portrait. 
 
 WONDERFUL CHARACTERS. Comprising Memoirs and 
 
 Anecdotes of the most-Remarkable Persons of every Age and Nation. Col- 
 lected from the most Authentic Sources. In 2 vols. 8vo. (In Press.) 
 
 ECCENTRICITIES AND SKETCHES OF COL. DAVID 
 CROCKETT OF WEST TENNESSEE. 12mo. 
 
 (£r Well-written sketches of tho Lives of Gibbon, Robertson, 
 Brown, Wesley, President Davies, Dr. CouJ, Oapt. Momrii Ac, 
 are prefixed t < > their respective works.
 
 VOYAGES, TRAVELS, &c. 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF FOUR VOYAGES, TO THE SOUTH 
 
 SEA, NORTH AND SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN, CHINESE SEA, 
 ETHIOPIC AND SOUTHERN ATLANTIC OCEAN, INDIAN OCEAN, 
 AND ANTARCTIC OCEAN. From the year 1822 to 1831. Comprising 
 Critical Surveys of Coasts and Islands, with Sailing Directions. And an ac- 
 count of some new and valuable discoveries, including the Massacre Islands, 
 where thirteen of the Author's Crew were massacred and eaten by Cannibals. 
 To which is prefixed, a Brief Sketch of the Author's early Life. By Capt. 
 Benjamin Morrell, Jun. 8vo. With a Portrait. 
 
 " We are bold in saying that everybody will want to read this book, and our com- 
 munity will not be slow in ranking the author as the American Cook or Parry." — 
 N. Y. Weekly Messenger. 
 
 " It does not often fall to our lot to be able to commend a book of this kind with as 
 much confidence as we can Morrell's ' Four Voyages.' ... It may go in company 
 with Stuart's Voyages, and Tyerman and Bennett's Journal." — Christia?i Advocate 
 and Journal. 
 
 " This work is among the first, if not the first, of the respectable contributions 
 of American navigators to the general stock of knowledge relative to the condition 
 of man. Its author has traversed almost every sea, and visited every important place, 
 in the southern hemisphere ; and, with an eye ever watchful for interesting facts, 
 and a happy talent in recording them, he has succeeded in producing a most in- 
 structive volume. . . . We have no doubt that it will find its way into every library in 
 our country, and secure a perusal from many a 'fireside traveller' who desires an 
 acquaintance with the world without venturing the perils of the deep." — The 
 Presbyterian. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE ETHIOPIC AND 
 SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, INDIAN OCEAN, CHINESE SEA, 
 NORTH AND SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN, in the Years 1829, 1830, and 
 1831. By Abby Jane Morrell, who accompanied her Husband, Capt. Benja- 
 min Morrcll, Jun., of the Schooner Antarctic. 12mo. Portrait. 
 
 The scenes and adventures of which Mrs. Morrell was a witness were highly in- 
 teresting in their nature, and it is believed that an account of them, divested of 
 nautical technicalities and descriptions purely maritime, will be read with pleasure, 
 especially by readers of her own sex and country. 
 
 THE TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES OF ALEXANDER 
 
 VON HUMBOLDT; being a condensed Narrative of his Journeys in the 
 Equinoctial Regions of America, and in Asiatic Russia : together with Analyses 
 of his more important Investigations. By W. MacgillivraYj A.M. 18mo. 
 With Engravings. 
 
 The celebrity enjoyed by Baron Humboldt, earned by a life of laborious investigation 
 and perilous enterprise, and by the most extensive contributions to science, renders 
 his name familiar to every person whose attention has been drawn to statistics or 
 natural philosophy ; and his works are ranked among the very first for the splendid 
 pictures of scen°ry which they contain, the diversified information which they afford 
 respecting objects of universal interest, and the graceful attractions with which he 
 has invested the majesty of science. The present volume contains an abridged ac- 
 count of all the travels and researches of this eminent observer of nature, in which 
 nothing is omitted that can be either interesting or useful to the general reader, while 
 the several narratives are sufficiently condensed to bring them within the compass of 
 a convenient volume. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN 
 AFRICA, from the earliest Period to the Present Time. By Hugh Murray, 
 Esq. 18mo. With Engravings.
 
 14 Voyages, Travels, tfc. Published by J. 6f J. Harper. 
 A DESCRIPTION OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND AND ITS 
 
 INHABITANTS. With an Authentic Account of the Mutiny of the Ship 
 Bounty, and of the subsequent Fortunes of the Mutineers. By John Barrow, 
 Esq. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 The author of this volume has brought into one connected view what had here- 
 tofore appeared only in detached fragments, and some of these even not generally 
 accessible. The story is replete with interest. We are taught by the Book of Sacred 
 History that the disobedience of our first parents entailed upon our globe a sinful 
 and suffering race ; in our own time there has sprung up from the most abandoned 
 of this depraved family — from pirates, mutineers, and murderers — a little society 
 which, under the precepts of that Sacred Volume, is characterized by religion, mo- 
 rality, and innocence. The discovery of this happy people, as unexpected as it was 
 accidental, and every thing relating to their condition and history, partake so much 
 of the romantic as to render the story not ill-adapted for an epic poem. 
 
 JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE THE 
 COURSE AND TERMINATION OF THE NIGER. With a Narrative 
 of a Voyage down that River to its Termination. By Richard and John 
 Lander. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Portraits, Maps, &c. 
 
 With encouragement and assistance of a very limited description these adventurous 
 young men embarked in an enterprise which in every previous instance had terminated 
 fatally ; and all who knew the nature of the climate, and the grievous hardships they 
 must encounter, predicted that the only intelligence ever received of them would be 
 some obscure rumour of their destruction. The narrative shows how often these 
 predictions were on tho point of being verified. They were assailed by sickness, 
 imprisoned in filthy huts, sold as slaves, plundered, abused, and nearly sacrificed to 
 the cupidity and revenge of the ferocious savages. In spite of all these obstacles, by 
 means of patience, perseverance, enthusiasm; and courage, they finally triumphed 
 over every difficulty and completely gained the object of their mission, thus effecting 
 the most important and apparently the most hopeless geographical discovery of the 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN 
 
 THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS. By Hugh Murray, Esq. 18mo. 
 Engravings. 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF THE EARLY PORTUGUESE AND 
 
 ENGLISH VOYAGES TO INDIA, and an Account of the Navigation of 
 the Indian Seas. By Huoh Murray, Esq. and Captain Clarence Dalrym- 
 i>le. [Nos. 47, 48, & 49 of the Family Library.] 18mo. Engravings. 
 
 LIVES AND VOYAGES OF DRAKE, CAVENDISH, AND 
 
 DAMPIER ; including an Introductory View of the earlier Discoveries in the 
 South Sea, and the History of the Bucaniers. 18mo. With Portraits. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY ON THE 
 
 MORE NORTHERN COASTS OF AMERICA, from the earliest Period 
 to the Present Time. Including the early Voyages of Cabot, the French, &c, 
 and the Travels of Hearne, Mackenzie, Franklin, and others. By Patrick 
 Fraser Tytler, Esq. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 \AKR\TIVK OF VOYAGES UNDERTAKEN TO EX- 
 PLORE THE SHORES OF AFRICA, AKARIA, AND MADAGASCAR, 
 hy command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. By Cant. W. F. 
 W. Owkn. Iii a vols. 12mo.
 
 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES during a Residence of nearly 
 
 Eight Years in the Society and Sandwich Islands. By William Ellis. In 
 4 vols. 12mo. Engravings. 
 
 " This is the most interesting work, in all its parts, we have ever perused." — Quar- 
 terly Review. 
 
 "The simplicity of the narrative, — the graphic beauty of many of the descriptions 
 — and the moral grandeur of the whole subject of these volumes, are calculated to 
 produce the most powerful and salutary impression on every religious and cultivated 
 mind." — Orme's Discourse on t!ie South Sea ^Iission.. 
 
 " Mr. Ellis's volumes are replete with the most interesting details, illustrative as 
 well of the former condition and history, as of the present state of the South Sea 
 Islanders. They comprise a mass of curious and highly entertaining information re- 
 specting their manners, customs, and traditions." — Eclectic Review. 
 
 "The world is much indebted to Mr, Ellis for the information which he has com- 
 municated in these volumes ; and every person of taste and piety must be highly 
 gratifipd with their lively and beautiful descriptions of scenery and natural history, 
 as well as with the extraordinary and more than romantic narratives, which no one 
 could be better qualified to relate than the author himself." — Congregational Magazine. 
 "We promis-s our readers a high degree of intellectual and Christian gratification 
 in the perusal of these entertaining volumes. The author has addressed himself to 
 the consideration of every question which in general interests the enlightened trav- 
 eller. He has aimed at promoting the advancement of science and commerce, as 
 well as religion. By the happiest narratives, and the introduction of the most strik- 
 ing incidents, he has preserved his work from every approach of dullness and insip- 
 idity. The whole production is worthy of the author and the cause." — Evangelical 
 Magazine. 
 
 "They are full of incident and information on missionary, literary and scientific 
 topics, in connexion with Polynesia. The author's style of writing is engaging, his 
 statements are authentic, and derived from personal observation, and he is always 
 the Christian and the missionary, as well as the traveller." — Baptist Magazine. 
 
 " We take this opportunity of strongly recommending to our readers Mr. Ellis's 
 Polynesian Researches. They are highly honourable to the talents and piety of 
 their author ; who, amidst arduous missionary labours, has been able to collect large 
 stores of information, literary, scientific, and popular; which, render his volumes 
 both useful and entertaining." — Christian Observer. 
 
 "To the naturalist, to those who have a taste for the picturesque of scenery, to 
 the philosopher, and the general observer of human nature, these volumes will afford 
 subjects of entertainment and reflection : but by the Christian, and by those especi- 
 ally whose zeal and hopes have been most engaged by missionary exertions, they 
 will be read with the deepest attention. We recommend these volumes to the Chris- 
 tian public, whose thanks Mr. Ellis will universally receive. He has, at least ours ; 
 and with him we devoutly exclaim, ' What hath God wrought !' " — Methodist Magazine. 
 " Mr. Ellis has here compiled, and presented to the public, a mass of valuable and 
 interesting information, every way deserving of general perusal." — Christian Guar- 
 dian. 
 
 PERILS OF THE SEA ; being Authentic Narratives of Re- 
 markable and Affecting Disasters upon the Deep. With Illustrations of the 
 Power and Goodness of God in wonderful Preservations. 18mo. With En- 
 gravings. 
 
 This collection of remarkable disasters and preservations has been compiled with 
 great care from authentic sources. In making the selection attention has been paid 
 to the combination of interest, with illustrations of piety and fortitude in suffering, 
 and of the power and goodness of Providence in rescuing from destruction when, to 
 all appearance, there were no means or prospect of deliverance. The collection em- 
 braces narratives of the loss of the Kent, the Empress, the Lady Hobart, the Essex, 
 the Halsewell East Indiaman, the steam-packet Rothsay Castle, of five Wesleyan 
 missionaries, &c. &c. 
 
 THE LIVES OF 
 Jambs Augustus St. John. 
 
 CELEBRATED 
 
 In 3 vols. ISmo. 
 
 TRAVELLERS. By
 
 16 Voyages, Travels, <§-c. Published by J. Sf J. Harper. 
 
 SKETCHES OF TURKEY IN 1831 AND '32. By an Ameri- 
 can. 8vo. With numerous Engravings. 
 
 " We do not hesitate to recommend it as one of the most entertaining books of 
 travels which have fallen in our way for a long time." — N. Y. American. 
 
 '■ This is truly a work of a superior order, which may be transmitted to Europe 
 with confidence." — The National Gazette. 
 
 "A most entertaining and instructive work, written with spirit and ease, and, we 
 doubt not, with perfect candour. Such a book was much wanted." — N. Y. Standard. 
 
 " We are happy to see that the high opinion we expressed of this work is more than 
 confirmed by the united voice of the press as well as by the multitude of its readers." — 
 N. Y. Traveler. 
 
 SIR EDWARD SE AWARD'S NARRATIVE OF HIS SHIP- 
 WRECK, and consequent Discovery of certain Islands in the Caribbean Sea: 
 with a Detail of many Extraordinary and highly Interesting Events in his Life. 
 Edited by Miss Jane Porter. In 3 vols. 12mo. 
 
 " We have finished the perusal of this most agreeable work, and almost regret that 
 the pleasure of a first perusal has gone by; though it is one of those books which 
 will bear reading again and again." — Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 CAROLINE WESTERLEY ; or, the Young Traveller from 
 Ohio. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 This work will prove instructive as well as attractive to young persons. In its 
 pages genius, nature, morality, and religion have been brought into happy combina- 
 tion. It is replete with sound and rational piety, judicious remark, and right feeling. 
 
 THE LIFE AND REMAINS OF EDWARD DANIEL 
 
 CLARKE. By Rev. Daniel Ottkr, A.M. 8vo. 
 
 A SUBALTERN'S FURLOUGH : descriptive of Scenes in 
 
 various Parts of the Lnited Stales, Upper and Lower Canada, New-Brunswick, 
 and Nova-Scotia, during the Summer and Autumn of 1832. By Lieut. E T. 
 Coke. In 2 vols. L2mo. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON PROFESSIONS, LITERATURE, 
 MANNERS, AND EMIGRATION, IN THE UNITED STATES AND 
 CANADA, made during a Residence there in 1832. By the Rev. Isaac Fid- 
 ler. 12mo. 
 
 THREE YEARS IN NORTH AMERICA. By James Stuart, 
 Esq. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF GREECE IN 1827 AND 1828; 
 
 being an Exposition <>l" tli" Poverty, 1 >i>.t r.-^.-, and Misery to which the Inhabi- 
 tants have been reduced by the Destruction of iheir Towns and Villages, and 
 
 the R their Country by I irciless Turkish Foe. By Col. Jonathan 
 
 P. Millek, of Vermont. With-a .Map. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE yEGEAN. By James Emerson, Esq. 
 
 8vo. 
 
 DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE AMERICANS. By Mrs. 
 
 Trolloi'i.. Fourth Edition, Complete in One Volume, 8vo. Plates.
 
 WORKS ON THEOLOGY, &c. 
 
 THE WORKS OF THE REV. ROBERT HALL, A.M. 
 
 With a brief Memoir of his Life, by Dr. Gregory, and Observations on his 
 Character as a Preacher, by Rev. John Foster. Edited by Olinthus Greg- 
 ory, LL.D. In 3 vols. 8vo. With a Portrait. 
 
 • "We cannot too highly commend this work to the notice of the public, whether we 
 regard the pure and elevated principles it contains, or the intellectual vigour with 
 which they are expressed. Robert Hall was no ordinary man. His mind com- 
 muned with eternal truth, and, drawing from this fountain, he was able to rivet the 
 attention of his hearers; and he yet speaks, by his writings, in a language which 
 cannot fail to interest and delight both the scholar and the Christian." — New-York 
 Journal of Commerce. 
 
 " To praise the writings of Robert Hall would be as presumptuous as it is unne- 
 i cessary. . . . This complete edition of Hail's works is under the superintendence 
 t of editors fully competent to their task, and worthy of the writer. . . . Every advan- 
 tage arising from judicious arrangement and scrupulous correction will belong to it, 
 while the original matter, historical and critical, will greatly enhance its value." — 
 The Churchman. 
 
 A DICTIONARY OF THE HOLY BIBLE. Containing an 
 
 Historical Account of the Persons ; a Geographical and Historical Account of 
 Places ; a Literal, Critical, and Systematical Description of other Objects, 
 whether Natural, Artificial, Civil, Religious, or Military ; and an Explanation 
 of the Appellative Terms mentioned in the Old and New Testaments ; the 
 whole comprising whatever important is known concerning the Antiquities of 
 the Hebrew Nation and Church of God ; forming a sacred Commentary, a 
 Body of Scripture History, Chronology, and Divinity ; and serving in a great 
 measure as a Concordance to the Holy Bible. By the Rev. John Brown, of 
 Haddington. With a Life of the Author, and an Essay on the Evidence of 
 Christianity. Complete in One Volume, 8vo. 
 
 It may not be improper to inform the public that the present is the only perfect edi- 
 tion of this work published in the United States. 
 
 A CONCORDANCE TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES OF 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. By John Brown, of Hadding- 
 ton. 32mo. 
 
 The smallest form in which this concordance has ever been printed. It is perfect, 
 however, and the type is so clear that it can be easily read. 
 
 EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 RELIGION, derived from the iiteral Fulfilment of Prophecy. By Rev. Alex- 
 ander Keith. 12mo. 
 
 Of the estimation in which this volume is held in England evidence is afforded by 
 the following remark : " Few more satisfactory works in confirmation of the inspira- 
 tion of Scripture have appeared within our own tune than that of Mr. Keith." The 
 writer whose testimony is thus given is the Rev. Dr. Shuttleworth, Warden of New 
 College, Oxford. The work is so justly appreciated in Edinburgh that it has passed 
 through six editions ; and parts of it have been published in tracts in English, French, 
 and German. 
 
 THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, as displayed 
 in the Creation and Subsequent Events to the Deluge. By Sharon Turner, 
 Esq. 18mo. 
 
 HISTORY of THE REFORMED RELIGION IN FRANCE 
 
 By Rev. Edward Smedley, M.A. In 2 vols. 18mo.
 
 ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY BY THE DIF- 
 FUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. By Thomas Dick, LL.D. 18mo. With 
 Engravings. 
 
 The author of the Christian Philosopher, the Philosophy of Religion, and the Phi- 
 losophy of a Future State, has earned for himself a title to the name of a benefactor 
 of mankind. For years he has been successfully engaged in the improvement of his 
 fellow-beings, by the dissemination of useful knowledge, and correct ideas upon sub- 
 jects of the highest importance. In the present masterly treatise he has gathered 
 together an almost inconceivable mass of established and striking facts having relation 
 to every department of science connected and improved by sound and judicious obser- 
 vations, at once tending to illustrate the advantages of knowledge, to enlarge and direct 
 the mind, and to facilitate the acquisition as well as the employment of useful truths. 
 In the progress of his work he explains and removes the causes of numberless errors, 
 concerning the phenomena of the mental and physical world ; points out the true, path 
 and the most effectual means of inquiry ; exemplifies the pleasures and benefits of 
 mental cultivation: and exalts the strongest desire for the improvement of the 
 faculties, by the singularly familiar and beautiful course of his reasoning, which in 
 itself furnishes to the reader an ample source of enjoyment. The book is one which 
 cannot be laid aside unfinished ; it enchains the attention with all the force of the 
 most highly wrought incidents of fiction, while it impresses the mind'with an exalted 
 sense not only of the truth, but of the intrinsic and measureless value of its revelations. 
 
 THE COMFORTER ; or, Extracts selected for the Consola- 
 tion of Mourners, under the Bereavement of Friends and Relations. By a 
 Village Pastor. 12mo. 
 
 This work is intended to suggest topics of religious consolation to the afflicted ; 
 and the Christian community are assuredly under great obligations to the " Village 
 Pastor" for his successful attempt to exhibit to them at once the comforts which flow 
 in upon the bereaved and distressed believer. In the happy selections he has made, 
 he has had particular regard to the writings of such men as were experienced in the 
 ways of affliction, and over whom it has shed its sanctifying influence. It has been 
 warmly recommended by clergymen of different denominations, as well as by the re- 
 ligious periodicals. 
 
 SUNDAY EVENINGS . or, an easy Introduction to the Read- 
 ing of the Bible. [Designed for Sunday Reading and Sunday-School Libra- 
 ries.] 3 vols. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 The title of this excellent little work sufficiently explains its object. As an intro- 
 duction to the knowledge of Scripture History, and an incentive to the study of the 
 Sacred Volume, it is calculated to produce the most happy effects upon the minds of 
 children ; and the simplicity of the language preserves to the story all those charms 
 which are inherent in the narrative, but are sometimes lost to very youthful readers 
 by their want of a perfect understanding of the words they read. Besides a developed 
 and connected view, in easy language, of the Scripture story itself, the author has 
 endeavoured to intersperse in the narrative such notices of the countries spoken of, 
 together with such references to the New Testament and practical remarks, as would 
 tend to make the book either more interesting, more intellectually improving, or more 
 valuable in a moral and religious light : and ii cannot lail of obtaining the approbation 
 of all judicious and |>i< his parents, and of proving, bj the blessing of God, an assistance 
 to the Christian mother, in giving to her children an early knowledge and love of his 
 Sacred Word. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. By Rev. II. II. Milman. 
 In 3 vols. L8mo. With Engravings. 
 
 A TREATISE ON THE MILLENNIUM; in which the pre- 
 
 vailing Theories OB that Subject are carefully examined ; and the true Scrip- 
 tural Doctrine attempted to be elicited and established. By GcOBfll BuiH, 
 A.M- 19mo.
 
 Works on Theology, $c. Published by J. $ J. Harper. 19 
 
 LUTHER AND THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION. By 
 
 John Scott, A.M. In 2 vols. ISmo. With Portraits. 
 
 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. By Charles 
 
 Webb Le Bas, A.M. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 THE LIFE OF WICLIF. By Charles Webb Le Bas, A.M. 
 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 THE CONSISTENCY OF THE WHOLE SCHEME OF 
 
 REVELATION with Itself and with Human Reason. By Philip Nicholas 
 Shuttleworth, D.D. 18mo. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. By Rev. G. R. Gleio, 
 A.M. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Maps. 
 
 SERMONS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. By Rev. John 
 
 Wesley, A.M. Containing a Number of Sermons never before published in 
 this Country. In 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTIANITY, and of the Mis- 
 sionary Establishments for its Propagation in all Parts of the W T orld. Edited 
 by Frederic Shoberl. 12mo. 
 
 KEY TO THE REVELATION. In thirty-six Lectures, tak- 
 ing the whole Book in course. By Ethan Smith. 12mo. 
 
 MATHEMATICS. 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. Trans- 
 
 lated from the French of M. Boucharlat. With Additions and Emendations, 
 designed to adapt it to the Use of the Cadets of the U. S. Military Academy. 
 By Professor Edward H. Courtenay. 8vo. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY, with their 
 
 Application to Spherical Trigonometry, Spherical Projections, and Warped 
 Surfaces. By Professor Charles Davies. Plates. 8vo. 
 
 A TREATISE ON SHADES AND SHADOWS, AND LIN- 
 EAR PERSPECTIVE. By Professor Charles Davies. 8vo. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF SURVEYING. With the necessary Tables. 
 
 By Professor Charles Davies. 18mo. 
 
 GIBSON'S SURVEYING. New and Improved Edition. By 
 
 J. Ryan. 8vo. 
 
 A TABLE OF LOGARITHMS, of Logarithmic Sines, and a 
 Traverse Table. 12mo.
 
 NATURAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE INTELLECTUAL POW- 
 ERS, AND THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH. By John Aber- 
 crombie, M.D., F.R.S. 18mo. [With Questions.] 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS. By 
 
 John Abercrombie, M.D., F.R.S. 18mo. 
 
 In the performance of his undertaking the accomplished author exhibits the posses- 
 sion of a mind thoroughly versed in the details of the science to which his attention is 
 directed, and familiar with abstract inquiry. His descriptions of the mental phenom- 
 ena are singularly lucid, precise, and interesting, and his reasonings sound, original, 
 and perspicuous. Above all, he has exhibited philosophy as the handmaid of re- 
 ligion, and made it manifest that all the rays of knowledge naturally converge 
 towards that one point in which is situated the throne of heavenly and eternal truth. 
 
 The most able and influential reviews, both of England and the United States, 
 have given the strongest encomiums to this admirable work, and it has been 
 extensively adopted in our colleges and higher establishments for education. 
 
 LETTERS OF EULER ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS IN 
 
 NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. Addressed to a German Princess. Translated 
 by Hunter. With Notes and a Life of Euler, by Sir David Brewster, LL.D. 
 With additional Notes, by John Gkiscom, LL.D. With a Glossary of Scientific 
 Terms. In 2 vols. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 Of all the treatises on Natural Philosophy that have been published in the various 
 languages of Europe there is none that has enjoyed a more extensive and permanent 
 celebrity than that of the famous mathematician and philosopher Leonard Euler, 
 contained in his letters to the Princess of Auhalt. They have been translated into 
 several tongues, and edition alter edition has been published in Europe with still 
 increasing reputation. The most eminent savans of England and France have 
 repeatedly borne testimony to their excellence, not only by the strongest expressions 
 of approbation, but by assuming the task of editing the work : the latest who has 
 bestowed this mark of commendation was Sir David Brewster, from whose edition 
 this now published was printed. The notes added by him are copious and valuable ; 
 and the publishers of the American edition, still more to enhance the merit of the 
 work, have secured the assistance of Professor Griscom, whose notes will be found 
 numerous and of great utility. 
 
 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. Addressed to Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott, Bart. By Sir David Brewster, K.H., LL.D. 18mo. With En- 
 gravings. 
 
 The author of this volume passes under review the principal phenomena of nature, 
 and the leading contrivances of art which hear the impress ot a supernatural charactet . 
 and more especially those singular illusions of sense in which I he mest perfect organs 
 fail to perform their functions, or perform them unfaithfully. These are themes full of 
 interest, and worthy of the labour bestowed upon them b\ Che philosophic writer. 
 
 The eye and ear are, of course, thechifil 01 iption, and, accordingly, 
 
 optical illusions occupy a con ortionoi the volume. Those depending on 
 
 the ear succeed, and, aitet been described and explained, we are entertained 
 
 with amusing accounts "f feal >, "I mechanical automata, and ol bod 
 
 the more popular wondsrc ol chj mistry. Under inch ol these divisions anecdotes <>i 
 the most interesting kind illustrati I he author's explanations, and no subject in itscli 
 grave and important was ever treated in a more captivating manner. 
 
 ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY BY THE DIF- 
 FUSION OF KNOWLEDGE: or, an Illustration of the Advantages which 
 would result from a more General Dissemination of Rational and Scientific In- 
 formation among ull Hanks. By Thomas Dick, LL.D. lSino. With 
 Engruvings.
 
 NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 THE BOOK OF NATURE. By John Mason Good, M.D., 
 
 F.R.S. To which is now prefixed, a Sketch of the Author's Life. Complete 
 in one volume, 8vo. 
 
 " This work is certainly the best philosophical digest of the kind which we have 
 seen." — Monthly Review. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY ; or, Uncle Philip's Conversations with 
 
 the Children about Tools and Trades among the Inferior Animals. 18mo. 
 With numerous Engravings. 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY of INSECTS. With numerous 
 
 Engravings. 18mo. 
 
 The study of Natural History is at all times, and to almost every person, eminently 
 pleasing and instructive : the object in this admirable volume has been to render it 
 doubly captivating by the plain and simple style in which it is treated, and by the 
 numerous engravings with which the text is illustrated. There is no branch of this 
 delightful science more pleasing than that which exhibits the wonderful goodness and 
 wisdom of the Creator, as they are displayed in the endless varieties of insect life — 
 their forms, habits, capacities and works — and which investigates the nature and 
 peculiarities of these diminutive tribes of animated existence. 
 
 A POPULAR GUIDE TO THE OBSERVATION OF NA- 
 TURE. By Robert Mudie, Esq. 18mo. With Engravings. 
 
 AN OUTLINE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 
 EGYPT. By Rev. Michael Russell, LL.D. [No. 23 of the Family Li- 
 brary.] 18mo. 
 
 AN OUTLINE of THE~NATURAL HISTORY of PALES- 
 TINE. By Rev. M. Russell, LL.D. [No. 27 Fam. Lib.] ISmo. 
 
 AN OUTLINE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NU- 
 BIA AND ABYSSINIA. By Rev. M. Russell, LL.D. 18mo. No. 61 
 of the Family Library.] Engravings. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES OF THE NATURAL HIS- 
 TORY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REGIONS. By James Wilson, 
 Esq. 18mo. [No. 53 of the Family Library.] Engravings. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CLIMATE, GEOLOGY, AND 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE POLAR SEAS AND REGIONS ; with 
 an Account of the W hale-Fishery. By Professors Leslie and Jameson. With 
 Engravings. [No. 14 of the Family Library.] 18mo. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, CLI- 
 MATE, GEOLOGY, AND MINERALOGY OF BRITISH INDIA. By 
 James Wilson, Esq. R. K. Grevii.le, LL.D. and Professor Jameson. 18mo. 
 [Nos. 47, 48, & 49 of the Family Library.] Engravings. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY, 
 
 AND ZOOLOGY OF AFRICA. By Professor Jameson and James Wilson, 
 I Esq. [No. 16 of the Family Library.] 18mo.
 
 CLASSICAL WORKS. 
 
 XENOPHON. The Anabasis : Translated by Edward Spel- 
 man, Esq. The Cyrop^dia : Translated by the Hon. Maurice Ashlt Coo- 
 per. In 2 vols. 18mo. With a Portrait. 
 
 SALLUST. Translated by William Rose, M.D. With Notes. 
 18mo. Portrait. 
 
 CiESAR. With Hirtius's Continuation. Translated by Wil- 
 liam Duncan. 2 vols. 18rno. Portrait. 
 
 CICERO. The Orations Translated by Duncan, the Offices by 
 Cockman, and the Cato and Lcelius by Melmofh. In 3 vols. 18mo. With a 
 Portrait. 
 
 THE WORKS OF HORACE, translated literally into English 
 Prose. By C. Smart, A.M. In 2 vols. 18mo. 
 
 THE ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES. Translated by 
 Thomas Leland, D.D. In 2 vols. 18mo. Portrait. 
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
 
 LEXICON MEDICUM; OR, MEDICAL DICTIONARY; 
 
 Containing an Explanation of the Terms in Anatomy, Botany, Chemistry, Ma- 
 teria Medica, Midwifery, Mineralogy, Pharmacy Physiology, Practice of Physic, 
 Surgery, and the Various Branches of Natural Philosophy connected with Me- 
 dicine. By Robert Hooper, M.D. With Additions from American Authors, 
 by Samuel Akerly, M.D. Two volumes in one, 8vo. 
 
 A DICTIONARY OF PRACTICAL SURGERY : compre- 
 
 hending all the most Interesting Improvements, from the earliest Times down 
 to the Present Period ; an Account of the Instruments and Remedies employed 
 in Surgery ; the Etymology and Signification of the Principal Terms ; and 
 Numerous References to Ancient and Modern Works. By Samuel Cooper, 
 M.D. With numerous Notes and Additions, embracing all the Principal Im- 
 provements and Greater Operations introduced and performed by American 
 Surgeons. By David Mlrkdi tii Reesk, M.D. In 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 THE STUDY OF MEDICINE. By John Mason Good, M.D. 
 
 New and Improved Edition. In press. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR [NVIGORATING WD PROLONGING 
 LIFE; OR, THE INVALID'S ORACLE. Containing Peptic Precepts, 
 pointing out agreeable and effectual Melhodi to prevent and relieve Indigeution, 
 and to regulate and strengthen the Action of the Stomach and Dowels. By 
 William Kitchener, M.D. Revised and Improved, by Thomas S. Barrett, 
 M.D. lt)mo.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
 
 THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON ; or, Adventures of a 
 
 Father and Mother and Four Sons on a Desert Island. The Progress of the 
 Story forming a clear Illustration of the first Principles of Natural History, 
 and many Branches of Science which most immediately apply to the Business 
 of Life. In 2 vols. 18mo. Engravings. 
 
 The purpose of this pleasing story is to convey instruction in the arts and Natural 
 History, and, at the same time, to inculcate by example principles which tend to the 
 promotion of social happiness. Every one has heard of Robinson Crusoe, and the 
 unrivalled and long-continued popularity of that admirable narrative, proves that 
 the tastes and feelings to which it addresses itself are among the strongest and most 
 universal which belong to human nature. The adventures of the Swiss family are 
 somewhat similar in character, and, of course, in interest; and they illustrate, in the 
 most forcible and pleasing manner, the efficacy of piety, industry, ingenuity, and good- 
 temper, in smoothing difficulties and procuring enjoyments under the most adverse 
 circumstances. The story abounds with instruction and entertainment, and well 
 deserves the high encomium that has been passed upon it, of being one of the best 
 children's books ever written. 
 
 THE SON OF A GENIUS. A Tale, for the Use of Youth. 
 
 By Mrs. Hofland. ISnio. Engravings. 
 
 This admirable story has been too long familiar to the public — at least to that portion 
 of it which has advanced beyond the period of childhood — to require either eulogy or 
 description. It has for many years maintained its place among the best and most 
 esteemed juvenile works in the English language ; and its popularity is easily 
 accounted for by the touching interest of the incidents, and the purity of the principles 
 it inculcates both of wisdom and religion. The publishers were induced to reprint 
 it, partly by the advice and solicitations of many of their friends, and their own 
 knowledge of its merits, and partly by the consideration that it has long been out 
 of print, and that it was very difficult to procure a copy. 
 
 THE YOUNG CRUSOE ; or, the Shipwrecked Boy. Contain- 
 ing an Account of his Shipwreck, and Residence for Several Months alone upon 
 an Uninhabited Island. By Mrs. Hofland. 18mo. Engravings. 
 
 Mrs. Hofland, the admirable author of the " Son of a Genius," and other excellent 
 juvenile productions, is also the writer of this pleasing story. In its plan and 
 objects it is somewhat similar to the " Swiss Family Robinson ;" and, like it, 
 will be read with delight by every little boy or girl who can sympathize in the mis- 
 fortunes, or rejoice in the comforts and enjoyments of another. The style, the in- 
 cidents, and the pervading spirit are all in the highest degree excellent, — as, indeed, 
 are all the writings of this accomplished and amiable author. The culture of the 
 youthful mind requires talents of a peculiar character ; and, when accomplished with 
 ability, reflects the highest credit upon the successful teacher. None have been more 
 successful than Mrs. Hofland ; and her name alone is a sufficient warrant for the 
 merits of any book to which it is appended. 
 
 THE CLERGYMAN'S ORPHAN, and Other Tales. By a 
 
 Clergyman. For the Use of Youth. ISmo. Engravings. 
 
 The author of the " Clergyman's Orphan" informs us that with most of the char- 
 acters whose romantic history is here recorded he was personally acquainted ; and 
 vouches that it is substantially a narrative of facts. The object of the work is to 
 strengthen in the minds of young persons the conviction of a special superintending 
 Providence. 
 
 DISCOURSES AND ADDRESSES ON SUBJECTS OF 
 AMERICAN HISTORY, ARTS, AND LITERATURE. By Golian C. 
 
 Vkrplanck. 1-iiiu.
 
 24 Miscellaneous Works Published by J. <y J. Harper. 
 
 COURT AND CAMP OF BONAPARTE. 18mo. With a 
 
 Portrait of Prince Talleyrand. 
 
 This volume has been carefully prepared as a suitable and indispensable com- 
 panion to the Life of Napoleon. It contains the substance of the many hundred 
 volumes of Memoirs, Lives, Narratives, anecdotes, &c, connected with the career 
 of Napoleon, with which the press of France has been so prolific during the last fifteen 
 years. It presents rapid but vigorously drawn sketches of the emperor's brothers, 
 wives, sisters, ministers, marshals, and generals; and those who wish to gain a 
 competent knowledge of " Xnpoleon and his times" 1 will find no work in any language 
 which conveys so much information in so little space or in a more lively and agreeable 
 manner. 
 
 THE ORNAMENTS DISCOVERED. By Mrs. Hughs. 
 
 ISmo. Engravings. 
 
 The reputation of Mrs. Hughs (of Philadelphia) as an agreeable and instructive 
 writer is already firmly established. She has done much for youth, and the present 
 volume will add to the obligations they owe her. It is written with plainness, yet 
 elegance; and the story, while it inculcates useful lessons in morality and religion, 
 will be found exceedingly interesting. 
 
 THE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF THE REV. JOHN 
 
 WESLEY. In 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 THE LETTERS OF THE BRITISH SPY. By William 
 
 Wirt, Esq. To which is prefixed, a Biographical Sketch of the Author. 12mo. 
 With a Portrait. 
 
 THE PERCY ANECDOTES; Revised Edition. To which 
 is added, a Valuable Collection of American Anecdotes, #riginal and selected. 
 Illustrated with Portraits. Svo. 
 
 ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.. By the Author of "Pel- 
 ham," "Devereux," and " Eugene Aram." In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 THE COOK'S ORACLE, AND HOUSEKEEPER'S MAN- 
 UAL. Containing Receipts for Cookery, and Directions for Carving. Also, 
 the Art of composing the most simple and most highly finished Broths, Gravies, 
 Soups, Sauces, Store Sauces, and flavouring Essences ; Pastry, Preserves, 
 Puddings, Pickles, &c. With a complete System of Cookery for Catholic 
 Families. By William Kitchener, M.D. Adapted to the American Public 
 by a Medical Gentleman. 12mo. Willi Engravings. 
 
 MODERN AMERICAN COOKERY: Containing Directions 
 for making Soups, Roasting, Boiling, Baking, Dressing Vegetable*, Poultry, 
 Fish, Made Dishes, Pies, Gravies, Pickles, Puddings, Sick Cookery, Sec. With 
 a List of Family Medical Receipts, and a Valuable .Miscellany. By Miss Pru- 
 dence Smith. lGmo. 
 
 LIVES OF THE APOSTLES AND EARLY MARTYRS 
 
 OF THE CHURCH. 18mo. With an Engraving. 
 
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 ENGLISH SYNONYMES, with Copious Illustrations and Ex- 
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 No person who has not seen Mr. Crabb's work can conceive the number of 
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 just perception and full enjoyment of the innumerable charms that lie scattered so 
 lavishly around us in every form of animate and inanimate existence. In the accom- 
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 originality and for the extent and accuracy of the information it conveys, than for the 
 novelty of its views, the infinite variety and wisdom of its reflections, and the singular 
 interest with which it fills the mind of the delighted reader To the tyro this guide is 
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 DOMESTIC DUTIES ; or, Instructions to Young Married La- 
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 RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES. By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 
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 THE FAMILY LIBRARY.— Embracing the Following Works 
 in 18mo. With Plates, &c. 
 
 Nos. 1, 2, 3, containing Milman's History of the Jews. — 4, 5. Lockhart's Life of Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte. — C. Southey's Life of Nelson. — 7. Williams's Life of Alexander the 
 Great. — 8. Natural History of Insects. — 9. Gait's Life of Lord Byron. — 10. Bush's 
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 Bell's Life of Mary Queen of Scots. — 23. Russell's Ancient and Modern Egypt. — 24. 
 Fletcher's History of Poland. — 25. Smith's Festivals, Games, and Arnusements. — 26. 
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 Ijand. — 28. Memes' yiemoirs of the Empress Josephine. — 29. The Court and Camp 
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 of Celebrated Female Sovereigns. — 35, 36. Landers' Africa. — 37. Abercrombie on the 
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 Lord Dover's Life of Frederic II. King of Prussia. — 43, 44. Sketches from Venetian 
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 Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic. — 51,52. Taylor's History of Ireland — 53. Dis- 
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 of Society. — 60. James's History of Charlemagne. — 61. Russell's History of Nubia 
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 CLASSICAL SERIES. — Nos. 1, 2, containing Xenophon. (Anabasis and Cyro- 
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 Indian Traits. — 9, 10, 11. Tales from American History. — 12. The Young Crusoe. — 
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 the Trees of America. 
 
 LIBRARY OF SELECT NOVELS.— Embracing the Following 
 
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 The Smuggler.— 15, 16. Fugene Aram.— 17, 18. Evelina.— 19, 20. The Spy.— 21, 22. 
 Westward Ho!— 23, 24. Tales of Glauber-Spa. — 25, 26. Henry Masterton.— 27, 28. 
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 THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.— Embracing the Following 
 
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 No. 1. Life of Wiclif.— 2. Consistency of Revelation. — 3, 4. Life of Luther. — 5, 6. 
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 0^7" Any one of the above Works may be obtained separately.
 
 A TREATISE ON THE MILLENNIUM, &c. By George Bush, 
 
 A. M. Author of" Life of Mohammed," and " Questions and Notes upon Genesis 
 and Exodus," p. 277. 
 
 "Were it only as a writer, Mr. Bush deserves distinction. Our literary journals 
 and our current works of fancy might be searched in vain for finer specimens of rich 
 and nervous English than we have met in this slender duodecimo. If his style ever 
 languishes it is not from debility, but from plethora. He often wastes enough in one 
 distended paragraph to furnish, if adroitly spun and woven, the entire material of a 
 tolerable Annual ; and we sometimes find more poetry in one of his expressive sole- 
 cisms, than falls to the lot of many a poet by profession. The cardinal excellence of 
 Mr. Bush's style is, that it has a soul. It is sometimes heavy, but never dull. What 
 he writes is not a lifeless carcass, every now and then convulsed by the galvanic 
 impulse of affected animation. There is a quickening influence pervading all its 
 parts, which makes it always readable, and almost always interesting. Indeed we are 
 aware of no contemporary writer more remarkable for uniform and unremitted vigour. 
 We cannot conclude without an expression of our satisfaction, that on this occasion 
 we have found our countryman as much superior to the "prophetic school" of 
 England in sobriety and sense, as in the graces of his style. We take leave of him 
 with unfeigned wishes for his rich success in this delightful occupation, and shall look 
 with some impatience for the maturer fruits of his attempt to rend the veil of the 
 Apocalypse." — Biblical Repertory. 
 
 "This is a work of great research, the fruit of long-continued lucubration, and will 
 repay the attention even of those who entirely dissent from the author's conclusions. 
 Indeed it may be regarded as a highly valuable book, if we have reference only to the 
 history which it presents of all the opinions concerning the Millennium which have 
 prevailed in the church. Mr. Bush is master of a style which can invest with intense 
 interest the most abstruse speculations ; and though he has seldom consulted the 
 popular taste in the choice of his subjects, we should find it difficult to name a writer 
 who has more ready access to the stores of rich and copious English, or who better 
 understands the pomp and majesty of language. * * Let the book be read by all 
 those who prize the oracles of God. It is of stirring interest, and pregnant with 
 instruction, apart from the main theory which it advocates; and it would be matter 
 of just regret if the few who are qualified and willing to enter upon these perplexing 
 walks, should be frowned upon by prejudice, and denied that public countenance 
 without which their labours cannot be prosecuted." — Presbyterian. 
 
 " Mr. Bush brings to his task the result of much reflection and of extensive reading. 
 His pages evince an ardour of research, a closeness and continuity of argument, a 
 fulness of biblical and historical lore, a familiarity with the idiom of Scripture, and a 
 certain tact of apposite and striking annotation, in a high degree creditable to himself 
 and to the theological literature of our country. The work is written throughout in 
 an elegant style, occasionally rising into true eloquence." — New-York Observer. 
 
 " In the line of accurate and thorough-going interpretation, it is a production of 
 standard character. No man can read u without gaining more new and interesting 
 and striking ideas on the subject of prophecy, than from any book of the same size 
 which is accessible to the ordinary American reader. And in addition to the intrinsic 
 interest of the subject, the author has invested it with the graces of so captivating a 
 style that the reader is carried forward, particularly in the few last chapters, with the 
 pleasure of a traveller over a fine country in a fair day. * * It is much to be 
 regretted that a work so distinguished for talent, taste, erudition, and sound reasoning 
 should be buried in the deluge of books now issuing from the press." — Roch. Observer. 
 
 "The view taken by Mr. Bush deserves attention, and the arguments by which he 
 attempts to establish his positions are not to be passed over lightly. The volume is 
 ably, and in some parts eloquently written, and we heartily recommend it to our 
 readers." — Boston Recorder. 
 
 " We commend this book to the attention of the Christian public, both for its pecu- 
 liar views, and for the instructive historical sketch of opinion concerning the Millen- 
 nium. We are not at all prepared to deny his conclusions without investigating his 
 premises ; on the contrary, we feel grateful to the author for his labours, and believe 
 they will conspire to promote research, and lead to a more thorough understanding of 
 this inU-resting subject." — Verm. Chronicle.
 
 WORKS OF FICTION. 
 
 The TALES, NOVELS, &c. of MARIA EDGEWORTH. 
 
 New and Complete Edition. Illustrated with Elegant Engravings on Steel, 
 in a series of .Nine Volumes, 12mo. Either of which may Lie had separately. 
 
 Vol. I. contains — Castle Rackrent — Essay on Irish Bulls — Essay on Self-Justifi- 
 cation — Foresier — The Prussian Vase — The Good Aunt. 
 
 Vol. II. contains — Angelina — The Good French Governess — Mademoiselle Pa- 
 nache — The Knapsack — Lame Jervas — The Will — The Limerick Gloves — Out of 
 Debt out of Danger — The Lottery — Rosanna. 
 
 Vol. III. contains — Murad the Unlucky — The Manufacturers — The Contrast — 
 The Grateful Negro — To-Morrovv — Ennui — The Dun. 
 
 Vol. IV. contains — Manoeuvring — Alunra — Vivian. 
 
 Vol. V. contains— The Absentee — Madame de Fleury — Emily de Coulanges — 
 The Modern Griselda. 
 
 ^ ol. VI. contains — Belinda. 
 
 Vol. VII. contains — Leonora — Letters on Female Education — Patronage. 
 
 Vol. VIII. contains — the Remainder of Patronage — Comic Dramas- 
 
 Vol. IX. contains — Harrington — Ormond, &c. &c. 
 
 HZ? Miss Edgeworth's new work, now in press in England, will be published uni- 
 form with the above as early as possible after its arrival in this country. 
 
 THE CLUB-BOOK. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 Contents — Bertrand de la Croix, by G. P. R. James : Hadad ben Ahad, The 
 Fatal Whisper, The Painter, The Unguarded Hour, The Book of Life, by John 
 Galt: The Gipsy of the Abruzzo, by Tyrone Power: Eisenbach, The Deer- 
 Stalkers of Glenskiach, The Three Kearneys, by Andrew Picken : The Sleep- 
 less Woman, by William Jf.rdan-: Dramatic Scenes, by Lord F. L. Gower : 
 Gowden Gibbie, by Allan Cunningham: The Bridal of Borthwick, by D. M. 
 Moir: The Laidlaws and the Scotts, The Bogle o' the Brae, by The Ettrick 
 Shepherd: The Cheaterie Packman, by Leitch Ritchie. 
 
 TALES OF GLAUBER-SPA. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 Contents — Le Bossu, by Miss Sedgwick : Childe Roeliffe's Pilgrimage, and 
 Selim, by J. K. Paulding, Esq. : The Skeleton's Cave, and Medrield. by W. C. 
 Bryant, Esq.: The Block-House, by Wm. Leggett, Esq.: The Introduction, 
 .Mr. Cireen, and Boyuca, by the late R. C. Sands, Esq. 
 
 By E. L. Bulwer, M.P. 
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 THE DISOWNED. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 DEVEREUX. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 EUGENE ARAM. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 CONVERSATIONS WITH AN AMBITIOUS STUDENT 
 
 IN [LL HEALTH: wilh Other Pieces. 12mo. 
 
 FALKLAND. 12mo. 
 
 THE DUTCHMAN'S FIRESIDE. By James K. Paulding, 
 
 Esq. In 2 vols. l2mo. 
 
 WESTWARD HO! A Tale. By James K. Paulding, Esq. 
 
 In 2 vt.U. 12mo.
 
 28 Works of Fiction Published by J. df J. Harper. 
 
 By G. P. R. James, Esq. 
 RICHELIEU. A Tale of France. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 DARNLEY. A Novel. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 DE L'ORME. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 PHILIP AUGUSTUS ; or, the Brothers in Arms. In 2 vols. 
 
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 HENRY MASTERTON; or, the Adventures of a Young Cav- 
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 MARY OF BURGUNDY ; or, the Revolt of Ghent. 2 vols. 
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 THE YOUNG DUKE. By Benjamin D'Israei.i, Esq. In 2 
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 CONTARINI FLEMING. A Psycological Auto-biography. 
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 THE SMUGGLER. A Tale. By J. Banim, Esq. In 2 vols. 
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 THE DENOUNCED. By J. Banim, Esq. In 2 vols. 
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 THE ADVENTURES OF CALEB WILLIAMS. By Wil- 
 
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 CLOUDESLEY. By William Godwin, Esq. In 2 vols. 
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 JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND. By Thomas Colley Grattan, 
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 THE HEIRESS OF BRUGES. By Thomas Colley Grat- 
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 TRAITS OF TRAVEL. By Thomas Colley Grattan, Esq. 
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 TALES OF THE EARLY AGES. By Horace Smith, Esq. 
 
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 WALTER COLYTON. By Horace Smith, Esq. In 2 vols. 
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 THE NEW FOREST. By Horace Smith, Esq. In 2 vols. 
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 LA WRIE TODD ; or, the Settlers in the Woods. By John Galt, 
 
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 SOUTHENNAN. By J. Galt, Esq. In 2 vols. 12mo.
 
 Works of Fiction Published by J. <$f J. Harper. 29 
 
 WAVERLEY ; or, 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE. By Sir 
 
 Walter Scott. In 2 vols. 12mo. Revised, corrected, and enlarged by the 
 Author. 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. By Sir Walter 
 
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 TALES OF MY LANDLORD. Fourth Series. Comprising 
 
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 THE REFUGEE IN AMERICA. By Mrs. F. Trolxope. 
 
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 THE ABBESS. By Mrs. Trollope. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 ANASTASIUS ; or, Memoirs of a Greek. By T. Hope, Esq. 
 In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 THE YOUTH AND MANHOOD OF CYRIL THORNTON. 
 
 By Hamilton, Author of " Peninsular Campaigns." 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 EVELINA ; or, the History of a Young Lady's Introduction to 
 
 the World. By ?4iss Burney (Madame D'Arblay). 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 DE VERE. By R. P. Ward, Esq. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 THE SPY. By J. F. Cooper, Esq. In 2 vols. 12mo. 
 AFFECTING SCENES ; being Passages from the Diary of a 
 
 late Physician. In 2 vols. 18mo. 
 
 THE INCOGNITO ; or, SINS AND PECCADILLOES. By 
 
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 RO M ANCE OF HISTORY : SPAIN. By Don T. De Trueba. 
 
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 ROMANCE OF HISTORY : FRANCE. By Le itch Ritchie, 
 
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 ROMANCE OF HISTORY: ITALY. By C. Macfarlane. 
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 DREAMS AND REVERIES OF A QUIET MAN. By T. 
 
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 ROXOBEL. By Mrs. Sherwood. In 3 vols. 18mo. 
 HAVERHILL. By J. A. Jones, Esq. 2 vols. 12mo. 
 ADVENTURES OF A YOUNGER SON. By E. Trelaw- 
 
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