the remainder; and thus they are reduced to prodigality, thoughtlessness of future wants, profaneness, irreligion, immoderate drinking, and other ruinous habits.' Of the numerous persons employed in navigating the rivers, we are told that few collections of men are more dissolute,' and that the corruption which they: contribute to spread among the ordinary inhabitants, is a greater evil than a stranger can easily imagine. A picture equally unfavourable is given of the labourers, by which appellation Dr. Dwight designates that class of men who look to the earnings of to-day for the subsistence of to-morrow.' In New England, he says, almost every man of this character is either shiftless, diseased, or vicious.' And yet employment is found everywhere, and subsistence is abundant and easily obtained. The price of labour is also very high, a moderate day's work being usually pur+ chased at a dollar. Every healthy, industrious, prudent man, may therefore live almost as he wishes, and secure a competence for old age. Nevertheless he affirms, that few of these men are very industrious, fewer economical, and fewer still virtuous. The mechanics he describes as being, in all respects, of a different character. Perhaps it will be found, that up to a certain degree in society, morals, as well as manners, improve at every step of the ascent; for character becomes of more importance, when there is more to lose and more to hope; and men sometimes become respectable in proportion as they feel their own respectability. Another class, who are important missionaries of civilization in South America, and whose services cannot easily as yet be dist pensed with in many parts of the United States, are pourtrayed in dark colours. Speaking of the persons who are employed in peddling articles of small value about the country, Dr. Dwight says, the consequences of this employment, and of all others like it, are generally malignant, and that it has had an unhappy influence on both, the morals and manners of the people.' Men, he says, who begin life with bargaining for small wares, will almost invariably become sharpers. The commanding aim of every such man will soon be to make a good bargain; and he will speedily consider every gainful bargain as a good one. The tricks of fraud will assume in his mind the same place which commer cial skill and an honourable system of dealing hold in the mind of a merchant. Often employed in disputes, he becomes noisy, pertinácious and impudent.' Here the author imputes to a particular class of men, vices which certainly result less from their erratic course of business than from the pursuit of gain, or, in other words, the spirit of trade itself. The defect in the constitution of American society is, that there is so little to counteract them; and the worst danger which the United States have to apprehend is from the operation of those popular and most unwise laws, which, by preventing the accumulation of property, level men down to one mean standard, above which it would be the object of an enlightened policy to raise them. But you might as well expect a Catholic to give up the doctrines of transubstantiation and infallibility, or a Turk to renounce polygamy and predestination, as to make an American perceive, or at least acknowledge, the beneficial effects of the law of primogeniture. To the sure consequences of the opposite system Dr. Dwight appears totally blind. He contemplates with benevolent satisfac tion a present state of things, which is indeed in many respects pleasing. In these countries lands are universally held in fee simple. Every farmer, with too few exceptions to deserve notice, labours on his own ground, and for the benefit of himself and his family merely. This also, if I am not deceived, is a novelty and its influence is seen to be remarkably happy in the industry, sobriety, cheerfulness, personal inde pendence, and universal prosperity of the people at large. Great wealth, that is, what Europeans consider as great wealth, is not often found in these countries. But poverty is almost unknown. Comfortable subsistence is enjoyed everywhere, unless prevented by peculiar misfortunes or by vice. The feelings of a benevolent man are very imperfectly satisfied by the sight of opulence and splendour in the hands of a few, contrasted by want and suffering in the many; of palaces and villas, encircled by cottages and cabins. A succession of New-England willages, composed of neat houses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, meadows, and orchards, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, at least in my own opinion, one of the most delightful prospects which this world can afford. —vol. i. P. No: 事业 You are to understand, that every man in this country, almost without an exception, lives on his own ground. The lands are universally holden in fee simple; and descend by law to all the children in equal shares. Every farmer in Connecticut, and throughout New-England, is therefore dependent for his enjoyments on none but himself, his government, and his God; and is the little monarch of a dominion, sufficiently large to furnish all the supplies of competence, with a number of subjects as great as he is able to govern. In the cultivation of his farm he gratifies his reason, his taste, and his hopes; and usually finds the gratification at least sufficient for such a world as this. Here he can do every thing which is right, and no man can with impunity do any thing to him that is wrong. If he is not in debt, an event necessary only from sickness or decrepitude, he is absolutely his own master, and the master of all his possessions."-vol. i. p. 182. Dr. Dwight has not allowed himself to ask how long this happy and enviable state of things can continue. The system of gavel-kind is well adapted to colonial settlements, in their early stage; stage; perhaps it may even be their best, because their natural order. Large grants of territory are obtained, or wide domains purchased at a nihili price, and such estates, exceeding an ordinary English parish in extent, will bear to be divided and subdivided for several generations. But whatever mathematicians may predicate of the infinite divisibility of matter, estates are not infinitely divisible, and their division becomes injurious to the community even before it reaches that point at which it must be ruinous to the individual heritors. The process will not stop even at inheritances so humble as those of the Cumberland and Westmoreland statesmen. Chance cannot possibly counteract this perpetual tendency to diminution. The system aims always at levelling, and effects it only by lowering what it levels. An absolute equality, founded upon a community of lands-the Spencean system-the polity of the Jesuits in Paraguay, or the schemes of Owen of Lanark, would be more tenable in theory, and ultimately less injurious in practice. For woe be to that nation in which mere wealth shall become the sole object of ambition the single title of respect--the only acknowledged superiority! If there be any one question in politics which may be said to have been fully and fairly decided by experience, it is that concerning primogeniture. The strong opposition to it which prevails at this time among the Liberals of France is but a part of that system which aims at the subversion of all ancient usages and established institutions. The prejudice against it in America is explained by General Hamilton, when he admits that the existing constitutions of the several states were all formed during the prevalence of an unusual ardour for new and opposite forms, produced by an universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government;' and that they bear very strong marks of the haste, and still stronger of the inexperience under which they were framed.' If the present well-intentioned writer has shut his eyes to the consequences of partitioning estates at every descent, he has clearly seen the end of those subdivisions of states and counties, and even of townships and parishes, which are popular measures in America,---where the people have none to withstand them. Formerly Connecticut was divided into six counties. The distribution into eight was injudicious, as well as unnecessary. Great counties have a sense of importance and dignity which is eminently useful. It prompts to honourable and beneficial conduct, and prevents much of that which is little, degrading, and of course mischievous. The same things are true, mutatis mutandis, of subdivided townships and parishes, Where men are impatient to become judges, sheriffs, and county clerks, to be representatives, select men, or even parish com mittees, mittees, these unfortunate subdivisions will, however, be pushed so earnestly and so long, as in the end to be accomplished. This spirit of subdividing has produced, and is still producing, unhappy consequences in the state of society in New-England. Offices are multiplied to a useless degree, and beyond the ability of the country to fill them with advantage. Yet the fact, that so many of these subdivisions have been made, becomes a powerful reason for making more. He, who voted for the last, claims the suffrage of him, who has been profited by that vote, in his own favour. In this manner a silly and deplorable ambition becomes a source of multiplied mischiefs to the community. Small parishes are unable, without serious inconvenience, to keep their churches in repair, and support their ministers. Small towns are often obliged to send diminutive representatives, because they can send no other. Small counties have often very imperfect courts, because they have no materials out of which to constitute better. Representatives also are in this manner multiplied beyond every rational limit. In most of the New-England states the number is twice, and in Massachusetts at least three times as great as either experience or common sense would justify.'-vol. i. p. 146. The county of Hampshire, after having existed as a fine Doric column of industry, good order, morals, learning, and religion, in Massachusetts for more than a century, was by an unwise legislature broken into three parts. Of its ruins were formed the three counties, of Franklin on the north, Hampshire in the middle, and Hampden on the south; each of them extending through the original breadth of the county of Hampshire. One political purpose, intended to be accomplished by this disruption, was to destroy the firm order and sound principles of the inhabitants. How far this plan will succeed time alone can discover. From analogy it may be concluded, or at least rationally feared, that the inhabitants will lose some part of their elevation of character. Little counties almost of course have little officers, and little concerns; and the existence of these is but too commonly followed by a contraction of views, a diminution of measures, a destruction of influence, and a deterioration of character.'—vol. ii. p. 258. The motives for which the separation of states is promoted or opposed, are stated by Dr. Dwight without disguise, and though they belong to human nature such as it every where exists where the principle of selfishness is in full action, they throw some light upon the constitution of society in America. It was proposed to erect the district of Maine into a state; and Massachusetts, from which it was to be dismembered, declared its readiness to consent, resistance being of no avail in a country where the will of the people carries with it the power. The people of Maine, however, were divided in opinion. On the one hand, ambitious men, who felt their own apprehended merit to be neglected, and their rivals unwarrantably preferred, looked forward with eagerness to this separation, as opening a field of action more auspicious to their wishes, and promising an undoubted harvest of ho VOL. XXX. NO. LIX. C nours nours and profits. The number of such men, he tells us, was 'not small.' On the other hand, men possessed of offices under the existing government wished to retain them, and did not feel sufficiently assured that they should possess offices of equal importance under the government which was proposed. Many of them also had long been accustomed to spend the winter amid the bustle, amusements, luxuries, and eminently social intercourse of Boston; and felt unwilling to lose those enjoyments, or the personal consequence of appearing there as representatives or senators.' Other interests, besides those of pride, were involved. Great part of their mercantile business was so connected with Boston, as to depend upon that connection for its very existence. With regard to any better and more disinterested feeling, the author tells us, that men of purer minds, more enlarged views, and more correct principles, 'dreaded a separation, lest, at so early and fluctuating a period, the system of government resolved upon should be so loose and feeble, as to promote the purposes of public and private justice, peace and safety, in a very imperfect and ineffectual manner. They believed,' (he adds,) and I think justly, that a state of society established on an unfirm foundation and unhappy principles, would extend a malignant influence through a series of generations.' The people at large were influenced by considerations better adapted to their temper and comprehension. They were told that the new government would be more expensive than the old; for that, if Maine were made a state, many new officers must be appointed, and their maintenance must fall upon the inhabitants. The opinion of the author himself is clearly shown; yet he says, the population of the district was so rapidly increasing, that the question might be asked whether Maine will be separated from Massachusetts, or Massachusetts from Maine. And many of the most respectable inhabitants desired a measure to which they were otherwise averse, because they believed that Maine, in its present state of population, becoming one state, might long continue so; whereas, if the separation were delayed for a considerable time, it would then be divided into two. A few years after Dr. Dwight had thus described the state of opinion upon the subject, the separation took place. The effect of all such divisions is to weaken a government which stands in need of strength, and to loosen the bands of an union which is already too relaxed. The unexceptionable witness before us affirms that the respective states before their revolt from the mother country, 'felt themselves to be as widely separated as communities, situated as they were, could be;' that their views and wishes were in every respect not only opposed but |