Supper was announced presently after we had sailed; and when we came to the table, it was full,and no one offered to stir, to make room for us. The captain, who was very careful of our comfort, arranged that we should be better served henceforth; and no difficulty afterwards occurred. At dinner, the next day, we had a specimen of how such personages as we had on board are managed on an emergency. The captain gave notice, from the head of the table, that he did not choose our party to be intruded on in the cabin; and that any one who did not behave with civility at table should be turned out. He spoke with decision and good-humour; and the effect was remarkable. Everything on the table was handed to us; and no more of the gentry came down into our cabin to smoke, or throw themselves on the cushions to sleep, while we sat at work.
Our fare was what might be expected on Lake Michigan. Salt beef and pork, and sea-biscuit; tea without milk, bread, and potatoes. Charley throve upon potatoes and bread: and we all had the best results of food,—health and strength.
A little schooner which left Chicago at the same time with ourselves, and reached Milwaukee first, was a pretty object. On the 29th, we were only twenty-five miles from the settlement; but the wind was so unfavourable that it was doubtful whether we should reach it that day. Some of the passengers amused themselves by gaming, down in the hold; others by parodying a methodist sermon, and singing a mock hymn. We did not get rid of them till noon on the 30th, when we had the pleasure of seeing our ship disgorge twenty-five into one boat, and two into another. The atmosphere was so transparent as to make the whole scene appear as if viewed through an opera-glass; the still, green waters, the dark boats with their busy oars, the moving passengers, and the struggles of one to recover his hat, which had fallen overboard. Wewere yet five miles from Milwaukee; but we could see the bright, wooded coast, with a few white dots of houses.
While Dr. F. went on shore, to see what was to be seen, we had the cabin cleaned out, and took, once more, complete possession of it, for both day and night. As soon as this was done, seven young women came down the companion-way, seated themselves round the cabin, and began to question us. They were the total female population of Milwaukee; which settlement now contains four hundred souls. We were glad to see these ladies; for it was natural enough that the seven women should wish to behold two more, when such a chance offered. A gentleman of the place, who came on board this afternoon, told me that a printing-press had arrived a few hours before; and that a newspaper would speedily appear. He was kind enough to forward the first number to me a few weeks afterwards; and I was amused to see how pathetic an appeal to the ladies of more thickly-settled districts it contained; imploring them to cast a favourable eye on Milwaukee, and its hundreds of bachelors. Milwaukee had been settled since the preceding November. It had good stores, (to judge by the nature and quality of goods sent ashore from our ship;) it had a printing-press and newspaper, before the settlers had had time to get wives. I heard these new settlements sometimes called "patriarchal;" but what would the patriarchs have said to such an order of affairs?
Dr. F. returned from the town, with apple-pies, cheese, and ale, wherewith to vary our ship-diet. With him arrived such a number of towns-people, that the steward wanted to turn us out of our cabin once more; but we were sturdy, appealed to the captain, and were confirmed in possession. From this time began the delights of our voyage.The moon, with her long train of glory, was magnificent to-night; the vast body of waters on which she shone being as calm as if the winds were dead.
The navigation of these lakes is, at present, a mystery. They have not yet been properly surveyed. Our captain had gone to and fro on Lake Huron, but had never before been on Lake Michigan; and this was rather an anxious voyage to him. We had got aground on the sand-bar before Milwaukee harbour; and on the 1st of July, all hands were busy in unshipping the cargo, to lighten the vessel, instead of carrying her up to the town. An elegant little schooner was riding at anchor near us; and we were well amused in admiring her, and in watching the bustle on deck, till some New-England youths, and our Milwaukee acquaintance, brought us, from the shore, two newspapers, some pebbles, flowers, and a pitcher of fine strawberries.
As soon as we were off the bar, the vessel hove round, and we cast anchor in deeper water. Charley was called to see the sailors work the windlass, and to have a ride thereon. The sailors were very kind to the boy. They dressed up their dog for him in sheep-skins and a man's hat; a sight to make older people than Charley laugh. They took him down into the forecastle to show him prints that were pasted up there. They asked him to drink rum and water with them: to which Charley answered that he should be happy to drink water with them, but had rather not have any rum. While we were watching the red sunset over the leaden waters, betokening a change of weather, the steamer "New York" came ploughing the bay, three weeks after her time; such is the uncertainty in the navigation of these stormy lakes. She got aground on the sand-bank, as we had done; and boats were going from her to the shore and back, as long as we could see.
The next day there was rain and some wind. The captain and steward went off to make final purchases: but the fresh meat which had been bespoken for us had been bought up by somebody else; and no milk was to be had; only two cows being visible in all the place. Ale was the only luxury we could obtain. When the captain returned, he brought with him a stout gentleman, one of the proprietors of the vessel, who must have a berth in our cabin as far as Mackinaw; those elsewhere being too small for him. Under the circumstances, we had no right to complain; so we helped the steward to partition off a portion of the cabin with a counterpane, fastened with four forks. This gentleman, Mr. D., was engaged in the fur trade at Mackinaw, and had a farm there, to which he kindly invited us.
On Sunday, the 3rd, there was much speculation as to whether we should be at Mackinaw in time to witness the celebration of the great day. All desired it; but I was afraid of missing the Manitou Isles in the dark. There was much fog; the wind was nearly fair; the question was whether it would last. Towards evening, the fog thickened, and the wind freshened. The mate would not believe we were in the middle of the lake, as every one else supposed. He said the fog was too warm not to come from near land. Charley caught something of the spirit of uncertainty, and came to me in high, joyous excitement, to drag me to the side of the ship, that I might see how fast we cut through the waves, and how steadily we leaned over the water, till Charley almost thought he could touch it. He burst out about the "kind of a feeling" that it was "not to see a bit of land," and not to know where we were; and to think "ifwe should upset!" and that we never did upset:—it was "a good and a bad feeling at once;" and he should never be able totell people at home what it was like. The boy had no fear: he was roused, as the brave man loves to be. Just as the dim light of the sunset was fading from the fog, it opened, and disclosed to us, just at hand, the high, sandy shore of Michigan. It was well that this happened before dark. The captain hastened up to the mast-head, and reported that we were off Cape Sable, forty miles from the Manitou Isles.
Three bats and several butterflies were seen to-day, clinging to the mainsail,—blown over from the shore. The sailors set their dog at a bat, of which it was evidently afraid. A flock of pretty pigeons flew round and over the ship; of which six were shot. Four fell into the water; and the other two were reserved for the mate's breakfast; he being an invalid.
We were up before five, on the morning of the 4th of July, to see the Manitou Isles, which were then just coming in sight. They are the Sacred Isles of the Indians, to whom they belong. Manitou is the name of their Great Spirit, and of everything sacred. It is said that they believe these islands to be the resort of the spirits of the departed. They are two: sandy and precipitous at the south end; and clothed with wood, from the crest of the cliffs to the north extremity, which slopes down gradually to the water. It was a cool, sunny morning, and these dark islands lay still, and apparently deserted, on the bright green waters. Far behind, to the south, were two glittering white sails, on the horizon. They remained in sight all day, and lessened the feeling of loneliness which the navigators of these vast lakes cannot but have, while careering among the solemn islands and shores. On our right lay the Michigan shore, high and sandy, with the dark eminence, called the Sleeping Bear, conspicuous on the ridge. No land speculators have set foot here yet. A few Indiandwellings, with evergreen woods and sandy cliffs, are all. Just here, Mr. D. pointed out to us a schooner of his which was wrecked, in a snowstorm, the preceding November. She looked pretty and forlorn, lying on her side in that desolate place, seeming a mere plaything thrown in among the cliffs. "Ah!" said her owner, with a sigh, "she was a lovely creature, and as stiff as a church." Two lives were lost. Two young Germans, stout lads, could not comprehend the orders given them to put on all their clothing, and keep themselves warm. They only half-dressed themselves: "the cold took them," and they died. The rest tried to make fire by friction of wood; but got only smoke. Some one found traces of a dog in the snow. These were followed for three miles, and ended at an Indian lodge, where the sailors were warmed, and kindly treated.
During the bright morning of this day we passed the Fox and Beaver Islands. The captain was in fine spirits, though there was no longer any prospect of reaching Mackinaw in time for the festivities of the day. This island is chiefly known as a principal station of the great north-western fur trade. Others know it as the seat of an Indian mission. Others, again, as a frontier garrison. It is known to me as the wildest and tenderest little piece of beauty that I have yet seen on God's earth. It is a small island, nine miles in circumference, being in the strait between the Lakes Michigan and Huron, and between the coasts of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Towards evening the Wisconsin coast came into view, the strait suddenly narrowed, and we were about to bid farewell to the great Lake whose total length we had traversed, after sweeping round its southern extremity. The ugly light-ship, which looked heavy enough, came into view about sixo'clock; the first token of our approach to Mackinaw. The office of the light-ship is to tow vessels in the dark through the strait. We were too early for this; but perhaps it performed that office for the two schooners whose white specks of sails had been on our southern horizon all day. Next we saw a white speck before us; it was the barracks of Mackinaw, stretching along the side of its green hills, and clearly visible before the town came into view.
The island looked enchanting as we approached, as I think it always must, though we had the advantage of seeing it first steeped in the most golden sunshine that ever hallowed lake or shore. The colours were up on all the little vessels in the harbour. The national flag streamed from the garrison. The soldiers thronged the walls of the barracks; half-breed boys were paddling about in their little canoes, in the transparent waters; the half-French, half-Indian population of the place were all abroad in their best. An Indian lodge was on the shore, and a picturesque dark group stood beside it. The cows were coming down the steep green slopes to the milking. Nothing could be more bright and joyous.
The houses of the old French village are shabby-looking, dusky, and roofed with bark. There are some neat yellow houses, with red shutters, which have a foreign air, with their porches and flights of steps. The better houses stand on the first of the three terraces which are distinctly marked. Behind them are swelling green knolls; before them gardens sloping down to the narrow slip of white beach, so that the grass seems to grow almost into the clear rippling waves. The gardens were rich with mountain ash, roses, stocks, currant bushes, springing corn, and a great variety of kitchen vegetables. There were two small pierswith little barks alongside, and piles of wood for the steam-boats. Some way to the right stood the quadrangle of missionary buildings, and the white mission church. Still further to the right was a shrubby precipice down to the lake; and beyond, the blue waters. While we were gazing at all this, a pretty schooner sailed into the harbour after us, in fine style, sweeping round our bows so suddenly as nearly to swamp a little fleet of canoes, each with its pair of half-breed boys.
We had been alarmed by a declaration from the captain that he should stay only three hours at the island. He seemed to have no intention of taking us ashore this evening. The dreadful idea occurred to us that we might be carried away from this paradise, without having set foot in it. We looked at each other in dismay. Mr. D. stood our friend. He had some furs on board which were to be landed. He said this should not be done till the morning; and he would take care that his people did it with the utmost possible slowness. He thought he could gain us an additional hour in this way. Meantime, thunder-clouds were coming up rapidly from the west, and the sun was near its setting. After much consultation, and an assurance having been obtained from the captain that we might command the boat at any hour in the morning, we decided that Dr. F. and Charley should go ashore, and deliver our letters, and accept any arrangements that might be offered for our seeing the best of the scenery in the morning.
Scarcely any one was left in the ship but Mrs. F. and myself. We sat on deck, and gazed as if this were to be the last use we were ever to have of our eyes. There was growling thunder now, and the church bell, and Charley's clear voice from afar: the waters were so still. The Indians lighted a fire before their lodge; and we saw their shiningred forms as they bent over the blaze. We watched Dr. F. and Charley mounting to the garrison; we saw them descend again with the commanding officer, and go to the house of the Indian agent. Then we traced them along the shore, and into the Indian lodge; then to the church; then, the parting with the commandant on the shore, and lastly, the passage of the dark boat to our ship's side. They brought news that the commandant and his family would be on the watch for us before five in the morning, and be our guides to as much of the island as the captain would allow us time to see.
Some pretty purchases of Indian manufactures were brought on board this evening; light matting of various colours, and small baskets of birch-bark, embroidered with porcupine-quills, and filled with maple sugar.
The next morning all was bright. At five o'clock we descended the ship's side, and from the boat could see the commandant and his dog hastening down from the garrison to the landing-place. We returned with him up the hill, through the barrack-yard; and were joined by three members of his family on the velvet green slope behind the garrison. No words can give an idea of the charms of this morning walk. We wound about in a vast shrubbery, with ripe strawberries under foot, wild flowers all around, and scattered knolls and opening vistas tempting curiosity in every direction. "Now run up," said the commandant, as we arrived at the foot of one of these knolls. I did so, and was almost struck backwards by what I saw. Below me was the Natural Bridge of Mackinaw, of which I had heard frequent mention. It is a limestone arch, about one hundred and fifty feet high in the centre, with a span of fifty feet; one pillar resting on a rocky projection in the lake, the otheron the hill. We viewed it from above, so that the horizon line of the lake fell behind the bridge, and the blue expanse of waters filled the entire arch. Birch and ash grew around the bases of the pillars, and shrubbery tufted the sides, and dangled from the bridge. The soft rich hues in which the whole was dressed seemed borrowed from the autumn sky.
But even this scene was nothing to one we saw from the fort, on the crown of the island; old Fort Holmes, called Fort George when in the possession of the British. I can compare it to nothing but to what Noah might have seen, the first bright morning after the deluge. Such a cluster of little paradises rising out of such a congregation of waters, I can hardly fancy to have been seen elsewhere. The capacity of the human eye seems here suddenly enlarged, as if it could see to the verge of the watery creation. Blue, level waters appear to expand for thousands of miles in every direction; wholly unlike any aspect of the sea. Cloud shadows, and specks of white vessels, at rare intervals, alone diversify it. Bowery islands rise out of it; bowery promontories stretch down into it; while at one's feet lies the melting beauty which one almost fears will vanish in its softness before one's eyes; the beauty of the shadowy dells and sunny mounds, with browsing cattle, and springing fruit and flowers. Thus, and no otherwise, would I fain think did the world emerge from the flood. I was never before so unwilling to have objects named. The essential unity of the scene seemed to be marred by any distinction of its parts. But this feeling, to me new, did not alter the state of the case; that it was Lake Huron that we saw stretching to the eastward; Lake Michigan opening to the west; the island of Bois Blanc, green to the brink in front; and Round Island and others interspersed. I stood now atthe confluence of those great northern lakes, the very names of which awed my childhood; calling up, as they did, images of the fearful red man of the deep pine-forest, and the music of the moaning winds, imprisoned beneath the ice of winter. How different from the scene, as actually beheld, dressed in verdure, flowers, and the sunshine of a summer's morning!
It was breakfast-time when we descended to the barracks; and we despatched a messenger to the captain to know whether we might breakfast with the commandant. We sat in the piazza, and overlooked the village, the harbour, the straits, and the white beach, where there were now four Indian lodges. The island is so healthy that, according to the commandant, people who want to die must go somewhere else. I saw only three tombstones in the cemetery. The commandant has lost but one man since he has been stationed at Mackinaw; and that was by drowning. I asked about the climate; the answer was, "We have nine months winter, and three months cold weather."
It would have been a pity to have missed the breakfast at the garrison, which afforded a strong contrast with any we had seen for a week. We concealed, as well as we could, our glee at the appearance of the rich cream, the new bread and butter, fresh lake trout, and pile of snow-white eggs.
There is reason to think that the mission is the least satisfactory part of the establishment on this island. A great latitude of imagination or representation is usually admitted on the subject of missions to the heathen. The reporters of this one appear to be peculiarly imaginative. I fear that the common process has here been gone through of attempting to take from the savage the venerable and the true which he possessed, and to force uponhim something else which is to him neither venerable nor true.
The Indians have been proved, by the success of the French among them, to be capable of civilisation. Near Little Traverse, in the north-west part of Michigan, within easy reach of Mackinaw, there is an Indian village, full of orderly and industrious inhabitants, employed chiefly in agriculture. The English and Americans have never succeeded with the aborigines so well as the French; and it may be doubted whether the clergy have been a much greater blessing to them than the traders.
It was with great regret that we parted with the commandant and his large young family, and stepped into the boat to return to the ship. The captain looked a little grave upon the delay which all his passengers had helped to achieve. We sailed about nine. We were in great delight at having seen Mackinaw, at having the possession of its singular imagery for life: but this delight was at present dashed with the sorrow of leaving it. I could not have believed how deeply it is possible to regret a place, after so brief an acquaintance with it. We watched the island as we rapidly receded, trying to catch the aspect of it which had given it its name—the Great Turtle. Its flag first vanished: then its green terraces and slopes, its white barracks, and dark promontories faded, till the whole disappeared behind a headland and light-house of the Michigan shore.
Lake Huron was squally, as usual. Little remarkable happened while we traversed it. We enjoyed the lake trout. We occasionally saw the faint outline of the Manitouline Islands and Canada. We saw a sunset which looked very like the general conflagration having begun: the whole western sky and water being as if of red flame and molten lead. This was succeeded by paler fires.A yellow planet sank into the heaving waters to the south; and the northern lights opened like a silver wheat-sheaf, and spread themselves half over the sky. It is luxury to sail on Lake Huron, and watch the northern lights.
On the 7th we were only twenty miles from the river St. Clair: but the wind was "right ahead," and we did not reach the mouth of the river till the evening of the 8th. The approach and entrance kept us all in a state of high excitement, from the captain down to Charley. On the afternoon of the 8th, Fort Gratiot and the narrow mouth of the St. Clair, became visible. Our scope for tacking grew narrower, every turn. The captain did not come to dinner; he kept the lead going incessantly. Two vessels were trying with us for the mouth of the river. The American schooner got in first, from being the smallest. The British vessel and ours contested the point stoutly for a long while, sweeping round and crossing each other, much as if they were dancing a minuet. A squall came, and broke one of our chains, and our rival beat us. In the midst of the struggle, we could not but observe that the sky was black as night to windward; and that the captain cast momentary glances thither, as if calculating how soon he must make all tight for the storm. The British vessel was seen to have come to an anchor. Our sails were all taken in, our anchor dropped, and a grim, silence prevailed. The waters were flat as ice about the ship. The next moment, the sky-organ began to blow in our rigging. Fort Gratiot was blotted out; then the woods; then the other ship; then came the orderly march of the rain over the myrtle-green waters; then the storm seized us. We could scarcely see each others' faces, except for the lightning; the ship groaned, and dragged her anchor, so that a second was dropped.
In twenty minutes, the sun gilded the fort, the woods, and the green, prairie-like, Canada shore. On the verge of this prairie, under the shelter of the forest, an immense herd of wild horses were seen scampering, and whisking their long tails. A cloud of pigeons, in countless thousands, was shadowing alternately the forests, the lake, and the prairie; and an extensive encampment of wild Indians was revealed on the Michigan shore. It was a dark curtain lifted up on a scene of wild and singular beauty.
Then we went to the anxious work of tacking again. We seemed to be running aground on either shore, as we approached each. Our motions were watched by several gazers. On the Canada side, there were men on the sands, and in a canoe, with a sail which looked twice as big as the bark. The keepers of the Gratiot light-house looked out from the lantern. A party of squaws, in the Indian encampment, seated on the sands, stopped their work of cleaning fish, to see how we got through the rapids. A majestic personage, his arms folded in his blanket, stood on an eminence in the midst of the camp; and behind him, on the brow of the hill, were groups of unclothed boys and men, looking so demon-like, as even in that scene to remind me of the great staircase in the ballet of Faust. Our ship twisted round and round in the eddies, as helplessly as a log, and stuck, at last, with her stem within a stone's throw of the Indians. Nothing more could be done that night. We dropped anchor, and hoped the sailors would have good repose after two days of tacking to achieve a progress of twenty miles. Two or three of them went ashore, to try to get milk. While they were gone, a party of settlers stood on the high bank, to gaze at us; and we were sorry to see them, even down to the little children, whiskingboughs without ceasing. This was a threat of mosquitoes which was not to be mistaken. When the sailors returned, they said we were sure to have a good watch kept, for the mosquitoes would let no one sleep. We tried to shut up our cabin from them; but they were already there: and I, for one, was answerable for many murders before I closed my eyes. In the twilight, I observed something stirring on the high bank; and on looking closely, saw a party of Indians, stepping along, in single file, under the shadow of the wood. Their simplest acts are characteristic; and, in their wild state, I never saw them without thinking of ghosts or demons.
In the morning, I found we were floating down the current, stern foremost, frequently swinging round in the eddies, so as to touch the one shore or the other. There seemed to be no intermission of settlers' houses; all at regular distances along the bank. The reason of this appearance is a good old French arrangement, by which the land is divided into long, narrow strips, that each lot may have a water frontage. We were evidently returning to a well-settled country. The more comfortable houses on the Canada side were surrounded by spacious and thriving fields: the poorer by dreary enclosures of swamp. We saw a good garden, with a white paling. Cows were being milked. Cow-bells, and the merry voices of singing children, were heard from under the clumps; and piles of wood for the steam-boats, and large stocks of shingles for roofing were laid up on either hand. The Gratiot steamer puffed away under the Michigan bank. Canoes shot across in a streak of light; and a schooner came down the clear river, as if on the wing between the sky and the water. I watched two horsemen on the shore, for many miles, tracing the bay pony and the white horsethrough the woody screen, and over the brooks, and along the rickety bridges. I could see that they were constantly chatting, and that they stopped to exchange salutations with every one they met or overtook. These, to be sure, were few enough. I was quite sorry when the twilight drew on, and hid them from me. I saw a little boy on a log, with a paddle, pushing himself off from a bank of wild roses, and making his way in the sunshine, up the river. It looked very pretty, and very unsafe; but I dare say he knew best. The captain and mate were both ill to-day. The boat was sent ashore for what could be had. The men made haste, and rowed bravely; but we were carried down four miles before we could "heave to," for them to overtake us. They brought brandy for the captain; and for us, butter just out of the churn. The mosquitoes again drove us from the deck, soon after dark.
The next morning, the 10th, the deck was in great confusion. The captain was worse: the mate was too ill to command; and the second mate seemed to be more efficient in swearing, and getting the men to swear, than at anything else. After breakfast, there was a search made after a pilferer, who had abstracted certain small articles from our cabin; among which was Charley's maple-sugar basket, which had been seen in the wheel-house, with a tea-spoon in it. This seemed to point out one of the juniors in the forecastle as the offender; the steward, however, offered to clear himself by taking an oath, "on a bible as big as the ship," that he knew nothing of the matter. As we did not happen to have such a bible on board, we could not avail ourselves of his offer. A comb and tooth-brush, which had been missing, were found, restored to their proper places: but Charley's pretty basket was seen no more.
It was a comfortless day. We seemed within easy reach of Detroit; but the little wind we had was dead ahead; the sun was hot; the mosquitoes abounded; the captain was downcast, and the passengers cross. There was some amusement, however. Dr. F. went ashore, and brought us milk, of which we each had a draught before it turned sour. He saw on shore a sight which is but too common. An hotel-keeper let an Indian get drunk; and then made a quarrel between him and another, for selfish purposes. The whites seem to have neither honour nor mercy towards the red men.
A canoe full of Indians,—two men and four children,—came alongside, this afternoon, to offer to traffic. They had no clothing but a coarse shirt each. The smallest child had enormous ear-ornaments of blue and white beads. They were closely packed in their canoe, which rocked with every motion. They sold two large baskets for a quarter dollar and two loaves of bread. Their faces were intelligent, and far from solemn. The children look merry, as children should. I saw others fishing afar off, till long after dark. A dusky figure stood, in a splendid attitude, at the bow of a canoe, and now paddled with one end of his long lance, now struck at a fish with the other. He speared his prey directly through the middle; and succeeded but seldom. At dark, a pine torch was held over the water; and by its blaze, I could still see something of his operations.
The groaning of our ship's timbers told us, before we rose, that we were in rapid motion. The wind was fair; and we were likely to reach Detroit, forty miles, to dinner. Lake St. Clair, with its placid waters and low shores, presents nothing to look at. The captain was very ill, and unable to leave his berth. No one on board knew the channel of theDetroit river but himself; and, from the time we entered it, the lead was kept going. When we were within four miles of Detroit, hungry, hot, tired of the disordered ship, and thinking of friends, breezes, and a good dinner at the city, we went aground,—grinding, grinding, till the ship trembled in every timber. The water was so shallow that one might have touched the gravel on either side with a walking-stick. There was no hope of our being got off speedily. The cook applied himself to chopping wood, in order to lighting a fire, in order to baking some bread, in order to give us something to eat; for not a scrap of meat, or an ounce of biscuit, was left on board.
It occurred to me that our party might reach the city, either by paying high for one of the ship's boats, or by getting the mate to hail one of the schooners that were in the river. The boats could not be spared. The mate hoisted a signal for a schooner; and one came alongside, very fully laden with shingles. Fifteen of us, passengers, with our luggage, were piled on the top of the cargo, and sailed gently up to the city. The captain was too ill, and the mate too full of vexation, to bid us farewell; and thus we left our poor ship. We were glad, however, to pass her in the river, the next day, and to find that she had been got off the shoal before night.
As we drew near, Charley, in all good faith, hung out his little handkerchief to show the people of Detroit that we were come back. They did not seem to know us, however. "What!" cried some men on a raft, to the master of our schooner, "have you been robbing a steam-boat?" "No," replied the master, gravely; "it is a boat that has gone to the bottom in the lakes." We expected that some stupendous alarm would arise out of this. When we reached New York, a fortnight after, wefound that our friends there had been made uneasy by the news that a steam-boat had sunk on the Lakes, and that eight hundred passengers were drowned. Catastrophes grow as fast as other things in America.
Though our friends did not happen to see Charley's pocket-handkerchief from the river, they were soon about us, congratulating us on having made the circuit of the Lakes. It was indeed matter of congratulation.
I have now given sketches of some of the most remarkable parts of the country, hoping that a pretty distinct idea might thus be afforded of their primary resources, and of the modes of life of their inhabitants. I have said nothing of the towns, in this connection; town-life in America having nothing very peculiar about it, viewed in the way of general survey. The several departments of industry will now be particularly considered.
FOOTNOTES:[8]I know not why I should suppress a name that I honour.[9]Isaiah xvi. 3.[10]It is possible that this term may not yet be familiar to some of my English readers. It means summary punishment. The modes now in use among those who take the law into their own hands in the United States, are tarring and feathering, scourging with a cow-hide, banishing, and hanging. The term owes its derivation to a farmer of the name of Lynch, living on the Mississippi, who, in the absence of court and lawyers, constituted himself a judge, and ordered summary punishment to be inflicted on an offender. He little foresaw the national disgrace which would arise from the extension of the practice to which he gave his name.[11]I preserve the original name, which is that of the first French missionary who visited these parts. The place is now commonly called Juliet; and a settlement near has actually been named Romeo: so that I fear there is little hope of a restoration of the honourable primitive name.
[8]I know not why I should suppress a name that I honour.
[8]I know not why I should suppress a name that I honour.
[9]Isaiah xvi. 3.
[9]Isaiah xvi. 3.
[10]It is possible that this term may not yet be familiar to some of my English readers. It means summary punishment. The modes now in use among those who take the law into their own hands in the United States, are tarring and feathering, scourging with a cow-hide, banishing, and hanging. The term owes its derivation to a farmer of the name of Lynch, living on the Mississippi, who, in the absence of court and lawyers, constituted himself a judge, and ordered summary punishment to be inflicted on an offender. He little foresaw the national disgrace which would arise from the extension of the practice to which he gave his name.
[10]It is possible that this term may not yet be familiar to some of my English readers. It means summary punishment. The modes now in use among those who take the law into their own hands in the United States, are tarring and feathering, scourging with a cow-hide, banishing, and hanging. The term owes its derivation to a farmer of the name of Lynch, living on the Mississippi, who, in the absence of court and lawyers, constituted himself a judge, and ordered summary punishment to be inflicted on an offender. He little foresaw the national disgrace which would arise from the extension of the practice to which he gave his name.
[11]I preserve the original name, which is that of the first French missionary who visited these parts. The place is now commonly called Juliet; and a settlement near has actually been named Romeo: so that I fear there is little hope of a restoration of the honourable primitive name.
[11]I preserve the original name, which is that of the first French missionary who visited these parts. The place is now commonly called Juliet; and a settlement near has actually been named Romeo: so that I fear there is little hope of a restoration of the honourable primitive name.
"Plus un peuple nombreux se rapproche, moins le gouvernement peut usurper sur le Souverain. L'avantage d'un gouvernement tyrannique est donc en ceci, d'agir à grandes distances. A l'aide des points d'appui qu'il se donne, sa force augmente au loin, comme celle des léviers. Celle du peuple, au contraire, n'agit que concentrée: elle s'évapore et se perd en s'étendant, comme l'effet de la poudre éparse à terre, et qui ne prend feu que grain à grain. Les pays les moins peuplés sont ainsi les plus propres à la tyrannie. Les bêtes féroces ne règnent que dans les déserts."Rousseau.
"Plus un peuple nombreux se rapproche, moins le gouvernement peut usurper sur le Souverain. L'avantage d'un gouvernement tyrannique est donc en ceci, d'agir à grandes distances. A l'aide des points d'appui qu'il se donne, sa force augmente au loin, comme celle des léviers. Celle du peuple, au contraire, n'agit que concentrée: elle s'évapore et se perd en s'étendant, comme l'effet de la poudre éparse à terre, et qui ne prend feu que grain à grain. Les pays les moins peuplés sont ainsi les plus propres à la tyrannie. Les bêtes féroces ne règnent que dans les déserts."
Rousseau.
The pride and delight of Americans is in their quantity of land. I do not remember meeting with one to whom it had occurred that they had too much. Among the many complaints of the minority, this was never one. I saw a gentleman strike his fist on the table in an agony at the country being so "confoundedly prosperous:" I heard lamentations over the spirit of speculation; the migration of young men to the back country; the fluctuating state of society from the incessant movement westwards; the immigration of labourers from Europe; and the ignorance of the sparse population. All these grievances I heard perpetually complained of; but in the same breath I was told in triumph of therapid sales of land; of the glorious additions which had been made by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, and of the probable gain of Texas. Land was spoken of as the unfailing resource against over manufacture; the great wealth of the nation; the grand security of every man in it.
On this head, the two political parties seem to be more agreed than on any other. The federalists are the great patrons of commerce; but they are as proud of the national lands as the broadest of the democrats. The democrats, however, may be regarded as the patrons of agriculture, out of the slave States. There seems to be a natural relation between the independence of property and occupation enjoyed by the agriculturist, and his watchfulness over State Rights and the political importance of individuals. The simplicity of country life, too, appears more congenial with the workings of democratic institutions, than the complex arrangements of commerce and manufactures.
The possession of land is the aim of all action, generally speaking, and the cure for all social evils, among men in the United States. If a man is disappointed in politics or love, he goes and buys land. If he disgraces himself, he betakes himself to a lot in the west. If the demand for any article of manufacture slackens, the operatives drop into the unsettled lands. If a citizen's neighbours rise above him in the towns, he betakes himself where he can be monarch of all he surveys. An artisan works, that he may die on land of his own. He is frugal, that he may enable his son to be a landowner. Farmers' daughters go into factories that they may clear off the mortgage from their fathers' farms; that they may be independent landowners again. All this is natural enough in a country colonised from an old one, where land is so restricted in quantity as to be apparently the same thing aswealth. It is natural enough in a young republic, where independence is of the highest political value. It is natural enough in a country where political economy has never been taught by its only effectual propounder—social adversity. And, finally, it falls out well for the old world, in prospect of the time when the new world must be its granary.
The democratic party are fond of saying that the United States are intended to be an agricultural country. It seems to me that they are intended to be everything. The Niagara basin, the Mississippi valley, and the South, will be able to furnish the trading world with agricultural products for ever,—for aught we can see. But it is clear that there are other parts of the country which must have recourse to manufactures and commerce.
The first settlers in New England got land, and thought themselves rich. Their descendants have gone on to do the same; and they now find themselves poor. With the exception of some Southerners, ruined by slavery, who cannot live within their incomes, I met with no class in the United States so anxious about the means of living as the farmers of New England. In the seventeenth century, curious purchases of land were made, and the fathers were wealthy. In those days, a certain farmer Dexter bought the promontory of Nahant, which stretches out into Massachusetts Bay, of Black Willey, an Indian chief, for a suit of clothes; the part of the promontory called Great Nahant measuring a mile and a half in circuit. Others, who held land in similar or larger quantities, divided it equally among their children, whose portions had not been subdivided below the point of comfort, when the great west on the one hand, and the commerce of the seas on the other, opened new resources. From this time, the consolidation of estates has gone on, nearly as fast as the previousdivision. The members of a family dispose of their portions of land to one, and go to seek better fortunes elsewhere than the rocky soil of New England can afford. Still, while the population of Massachusetts is scarcely above half that of London, its number of landowners is greater than that of all England.
The Massachusetts farmers were the first to decline; but now the comparative adversity of agriculture has extended even into Vermont. A few years ago, lenders of money into Vermont received thirty per cent. interest from farmers: now they are glad to get six per cent.; and this does not arise from the farmers having saved capital of their own. They have but little property besides their land. Their daughters, and even their sons, resort to domestic service in Boston for a living. Boston used to be supplied from Vermont with fowls, butter, and eggs: but the supply has nearly ceased. This is partly owing to an increased attention to the growth of wool for the manufacturers; but partly also to the decrease of capital and enterprise among the farmers.
In Massachusetts the farmers have so little property besides their land, that they are obliged to mortgage when they want to settle a son or daughter, or make up for a deficient crop. The great Insurance Company at Boston is the formidable creditor to many. This Company will not wait a day for the interest. If it is not ready, loss or ruin ensues. Many circumstances are now unfavourable to the old-fashioned Massachusetts farmer. Domestic manufactures, which used to employ the daughters, are no longer worth while, in the presence of the factories. The young men, who should be the daughters' husbands, go off to the west. The idea of domestic service is not liked. There is an expensive family at home, without sufficientemployment; and they may be considered poor. These are evils which may be shaken off any day. I speak of them, not as demanding much compassion, but as indicating a change in the state of affairs; and especially that New England is designed to be a manufacturing and commercial region. It is already common to see agriculture joined with other employments. The farmers of the coast are, naturally, fishermen also. They bring home fish, manure their land with the offal; sow their seed, and go out again to fish while it is growing. Shoemaking is now joined with farming. In the long winter evenings, all the farmers' families around Lynn are busy shoe-making; and in the spring, they turn out into the fields again. The largest proportion of factory girls too is furnished by country families.
The traveller may see, by merely passing through the country, without asking information, how far New England ought to be an agricultural country, if the object of its society be to secure the comfort of its members, rather than the continuance of old customs. The valleys, like that of the Connecticut river, whose soil is kept rich by annual inundations, and whose fields have no fences, gladden the eye of the observer. So it is with particular spots elsewhere, where, it may be remarked, the fences are of the ordinary, slovenly kind, and too much care does not seem to have been bestowed on the arrangements and economy of the estate. Elsewhere, may be seen stony fields, plots of the greenest pasture, with grey rocks standing up in the midst, and barberry bushes sprinkled all about: trim orchards, and fences on which a great deal of spare time must have been bestowed. Instead of the ugly, hasty snake-fence, there is a neatly built wall, composed of the stones which had strewed the fields: sometimes the neatest fence of all; a wall of stones and sods, regularly laid, with a single railalong the top: sometimes a singular fence, which would be perfect, but for the expense of labour required; roots of trees, washed from the soil, and turned side upwards, presenting a complete chevaux-de-frise, needing no mending, and lasting the "for ever" of this world. About these farm-houses, a profusion of mignonette may be seen; and in the season, the rich major convolvulus, or scarlet runners, climbing up to the higher windows. The dove-cotes are well looked to. There has evidently been time and thought for everything. This is all very pretty to look at,—even bewitching to those who do not see beneath the surface, nor know that hearts may be aching within doors about perilous mortgages, and the fate of single daughters; but, it being known that such worldly anxieties do exist, it is not difficult to perceive that these are the places in which they abide.
There is, of course, a knowledge of the difficulty on the spot; but not always a clear view of coming events, which include a remedy. The commonest way of venting any painful sensibility on the subject, is declamation against luxury; or rather, against the desire for it in those who are supposed unable to afford it. This will do no good. If the Pilgrim Fathers themselves had had luxury before their eyes, they would have desired to have it; and they would have been right. Luxury is, in itself, a great good. Luxury isdelicious fare,—of any and every kind: and He who bestowed it meant all men to have it. The evil of luxury is in its restriction; in its being made a cause of separation between men, and a means of encroachment by some on the rights of others. Frugality is a virtue only when it is required by justice and charity. Luxury is vicious only when it is obtained by injustice, and carried on into intemperance. It is a bad thing that a Massachusetts farmer should mortgage hisfarm, in order that his wife and daughters may dress like the ladies of Boston; but the evil is not in the dress; it is rather in his clinging to a mode of life which does not enable him to pay his debts. The women desire dress, not only because it is becoming, but because they revolt from sinking, even outwardly, into a lower station of life than they once held: and this is more than harmless; it is honourable. What they have to do is to make up their minds to be consistent. They must either go down with their farm, for love of it, and the ways which belong to it: or they must make a better living in some other manner. They cannot have the old farm and its ways, and luxury too. Nobody has a right to decide for them which they ought to choose; and declaiming against luxury will therefore do no good. It is, however, pretty clear which they will choose, while luxury and manufactures are growing before their eyes; and, in that case, declaiming against luxury can do little but harm: it will only destroy sympathy between the declaimers and those who may find the cap fit.
One benevolent lady strongly desires and advises that manufactures should be put down; and the increased population all sent away somewhere, that New England may be as primitive and sparsely peopled as in days when it was, as she supposes, more virtuous than now. Whenever she can make out what virtue is, so as to prove that New England was ever more virtuous than now, her plans may find hearers; but not till then. I mention these things merely to show how confirmed is the tendency of New England to manufactures, in preference to agriculture.
There is one certain test of the permanent fitness of any district of country for agricultural purposes; the settlement of any large number of Germans in it. The Germans give any price for good land, anduse it all. They are much smiled at by the vivacious and enterprising Americans for their plodding, their attachment to their own methods, and the odd direction taken by their pride.[12]The part of Pennsylvania where they abound is called the Bœotia of America. There is a story current against them that they were seen to parade with a banner, on which was inscribed "No schools," when the State legislature was about establishing a school system. On the other hand, it is certain that they have good German newspapers prepared among themselves: that their politics do them high honour, considering the very short political education they have had: and that they know more of political economy than their native neighbours. They show by their votes that they understand the tariff and bank questions; and they are staunch supporters of democratic principles.
Nothing can be more thriving than the settlements of Germans, when they have once been brought into order. Their fields are well fenced; their implements of the most substantial make; and their barns a real curiosity. While the family of the farmer is living in a poor log-house, or a shabby, unpainted frame-house, the barn has all the pains of its owner lavished upon it. I saw several, freshly painted with red, with eleven glass windows, with venetian blinds, at each end, andtwelve in front. They keep up the profitable customs of their country. The German women are the only women seen in the fields and gardens in America, except a very few Dutch, and the slaves in the south. The stores of pumpkins, apples, and onions in the stoup (piazza) are edifying to behold. Under them sits the old dame of the house, spinning at her large wheel; and her grand-children, all in grey homespun, look as busy as herself.
The German settlers always contrive to have a market, either by placing themselves near one, or bestirring themselves to make one. They have no idea of sitting down in a wilderness, and growing wild in it. A great many of them are market-gardeners near the towns.[13]
It is scarcely possible to foresee, with distinctness, the destination of the southern States, east of the Alleghanies, when the curse of slavery shall be removed. Up to that period, continual deterioration is unavoidable. Efforts are being made to compensate for the decline of agriculture by pushing the interests of commerce. This is well; for the "opening" of every new rail-road, of every new pier, is another blow given to slavery. The agriculture of Virginia continues to decline; and her revenue is chiefly derived from the rearing of slaves as stock for the southern market. In the north and west parts of this State, where there is more farming than planting, it has long been found that slavery isruinous; and when I passed through, in the summer of 1835, I saw scarcely any but whites, for some hundreds of miles along the road, except where a slave trader was carrying down to the south the remains that he had bought up. Unless some new resource is introduced, Virginia will be almost impoverished when the traffic in slaves comes to an end; which, I have a strong persuasion, will be the case before very long. The Virginians themselves are, it seems, aware of their case. I saw a factory at Richmond, worked by black labour, which was found, to the surprise of those who tried the experiment, to be of very good quality.
The shores of the south, low and shoaly, are unfavourable to foreign commerce. The want of a sufficiency of good harbours will probably impel the inhabitants of the southern States to renew their agricultural pursuits, and merely confine themselves to internal commerce. The depression of agriculture is only temporary, I believe. It began from slavery, and is aggravated by the opening of the rich virgin soils of the south-west. But the time will come when improved methods of tillage, with the advantage of free labour, will renew the prosperity of Virginia, and North and South Carolina.
No mismanagement short of employing slaves will account for the deterioration of the agricultural wealth of these States. When the traveller observes the quality of some of the land now under cultivation, he wonders how other estates could have been rendered so unprofitable as they are. The rich Congaree bottoms, in South Carolina, look inexhaustible; but some estates, once as fine, now lie barren and deserted. I went over a plantation, near Columbia, South Carolina, where there were four thousand acres within one fence, each acre worth fifteen hundred dollars. This land has been cropped yearly with cotton since 1794, and is nowbecoming less productive; but it is still very fine. The cotton seed is occasionally returned to the soil; and this is the only means of renovation used. Four hundred negroes work this estate. We saw the field trenched, ready for sowing. The sowing is done by hand, thick, and afterwards thinned. I saw the cotton elsewhere, growing like twigs. I saw also some in pod. There are three or four pickings of pods in a season; of which the first gathering is the best. Each estate has its cotton press. In the gin, the seed is separated from the cotton; and the latter is pressed and packed for sale.
There seems nothing to prevent the continuance or renovation of the growth of this product, under more favourable circumstances. Whether the rice swamps will have to be given up, or whether they may be tilled by free black labour, remains to be seen. The Chinese grow rice; and so do the Italians, without the advantage of free black labour. If, in the worst case, the rice swamps should have to be relinquished, the loss would be more than compensated by the improvement which would take place in the farming districts; land too high for planting. The western, mountainous parts of these States would thus become the most valuable.
It was amusing to hear the praises of corn (Indian corn) in the midst of the richest cotton, rice, and tobacco districts. The Indian looks with silent wonder upon the settler, who becomes visibly a capitalist in nine months, on the same spot where the red man has remained equally poor, all his life. In February, both are alike bare of all but land, and a few utensils. By the end of the next November, the white settler has his harvest of corn; more valuable to him than gold and silver. It will procure him many things which they could not. A man who has corn, may have everything. He can sow his land with it; and, for the rest, everythingeats corn, from slave to chick. Yet, in the midst of so much praise of corn, I found that it cost a dollar a bushel; that every one was complaining of the expenses of living; that, so far from mutton being despised, as we have been told, it was much desired, but not to be had; and that milk was a great rarity. Two of us, in travelling, asked for a draught of milk. We had each a very small tumbler-full, and were charged a quarter-dollar. The cultivation of land is as exclusively for exportable products, as in the West Indies, in the worst days of their slavery; when food, and even bricks for building, were imported from England. The total absence of wise rural economy, under the present system, opens great hope of future improvement. The forsaken plantations are not so exhausted of their resources as it is supposed, from their producing little cotton, that they must be. The deserted fields may yet be seen, some day, again fruitful in cotton, with corn-fields, pasturage, and stock, (not human,) flourishing in appropriate spots.
Adversity is the best teacher of economy here, as elsewhere. In the first flush of prosperity, when a proprietor sits down on a rich virgin soil, and the price of cotton is rising, he buys bacon and corn for his negroes, and other provisions for his family, and devotes every rod of his land to cotton-growing. I knew of one in Alabama, who, like his neighbours, paid for his land and the maintenance of his slaves with the first crop, and had a large sum over, wherewith to buy more slaves and more land. He paid eight thousand dollars for his land, and all the expenses of the establishment, and had, at the end of the season, eleven thousand dollars in the bank. It was thought, by a wise friend of this gentleman's, that it was a great injury, instead of benefit to his fortune, that his labourers were notfree. To use this wise man's expression, "it takes two white men to make a black man work;" and he was confident that it was not necessary, on any pretence whatever, to have a single slave in Alabama. Where all the other elements of prosperity exist, as they do in that rich new State, any quality and amount of labour might be obtained, and the permanent prosperity of the country might be secured. If matters go on as they are, Alabama will in time follow the course of the south-eastern States, and find her production of cotton declining; and she will have to learn a wiser husbandry by vicissitude. But matters will not go on as they are to that point. Cotton-growing is advancing rapidly in other parts of the world where there is the advantage of cheap, free labour; and the southern States of America will find themselves unable to withstand the competition of rivals whom they now despise, but by the use of free labour, and of the improved management which will accompany it. There is already a great importation of mules for field work from the higher western States. Who knows but that in time there may be cattle-shows, (like those of the more prosperous rural districts of the north,) where there are now slave markets; or at least agricultural societies, whereby the inhabitants may be put in the way of obtaining tender "sheep's meat," while cotton may be grown more plentifully than even at present?
I saw at Charleston the first great overt act of improvement that I am aware of in South Carolina. One step has been taken upwards; and when I saw it, I could only wish that the slaves in the neighbourhood could see, as clearly as a stranger could, the good it portended to them. It is nothing more than that an enterprising gentleman has set up a rice-mill, and that he avails himself to the utmost of its capabilities; but this is made much of in thatland of small improvement; as it ought to be. The chaff is used to enrich the soil: and the proprietor has made lot after lot of bad land very profitable for sale with it, and is thus growing rapidly rich. The sweet flour, which lies between the husk and the grain, is used for fattening cattle. The broken rice is sold cheap; and the rest finds a good market. There are nine persons employed in the mill, some white and some black; and many more are busy in preparing the lots of land, and in building on them. Clusters of houses have risen up around the mill.
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, present the extreme case of the fertility of the soil, the prosperity of proprietors, and the woes of slaves. I found the Virginians spoke with sorrow and contempt of the treatment of slaves in North and South Carolina: South Carolina and Georgia, of the treatment of slaves in the richer States to the west: and, in these last, I found the case too bad to admit of aggravation. It was in these last that the most heart-rending disclosures were made to me by the ladies, heads of families, of the state of society, and of their own intolerable sufferings in it. As I went further north again, I found an improvement. There was less wealth in the hands of individuals, a better economy, more intelligent slaves, and more discussion how to get rid of slavery. Tennessee is, in some sort, naturally divided on the question. The eastern part of the State is hilly, and fit for farming; for which slave labour does not answer. The western part is used for cotton-planting; and the planters will not yet hear of free labour. The magnificent State of Kentucky has no other drawback to its prosperity than slavery; and its inhabitants are so far convinced of this that they will, no doubt, soon free themselves from it. They cannot look across the river, and witness theprosperity of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, without being aware that, with their own unequalled natural advantages, they could not be so backward as they are, from any other cause.
Kentucky is equally adapted for agriculture and commerce. She may have ports on the rivers, along her whole northern and western boundary; and she has already roads superior to almost any in the United States. She is rich in stone, and many other minerals; in mineral waters, and in a soil of unsurpassed fertility. The State is more thickly settled than is evident to the passing traveller; and the effect will appear when more markets, or roads to existing markets, are opened. In one small county which I visited, my host and his brother had farms of fifteen hundred acres each; and there were two hundred and fifty other farms in the county. Sometimes these farms are divided among the children. More commonly, all the sons but one go elsewhere to settle. In this case, the homestead is usually left to the youngest son, who is supposed likely to be the most attached to the surviving parent.
The estates of the two brothers, mentioned above, comprising three thousand acres, were bought of the Indians for a rifle. We passed a morning in surveying the one which is a grazing farm. There is a good red-brick house for the family: and the slave-quarter is large. Nothing can be more beautiful than the aspect of the estate, from the richness of its vegetation, and the droves of fine cattle that were to be seen everywhere. I never saw finer cattle. The owner had just refused sixty dollars apiece for fourteen of them. Fifteen acres of the forest are left for shade; and there, and under single oaks in the cleared pasture, were herds of horses and mules, and three donkeys; the only ones I saw in the United States.
We passed an unshaded meadow, where the grass had caught fire every day at eleven o'clock, the preceding summer. This demonstrates the necessity of shade.
We passed "a spontaneous rye-field." I asked what "spontaneous" meant here; and found that a fine crop of rye had been cut the year before; and that the nearly equally fine one now before us had grown up from the dropped seed.
We enjoyed the thought of the abundance of milk here, after the dearth we had suffered in the South. Forty cows are milked for the use of the family and the negroes, and are under the care of seven women. The proprietor declared to me that he believed his slaves would drive him mad. Planters, who grow but one product, suffer much less from the incapacity and perverse will of their negroes: the care of stock is quite another matter; and for any responsible service, slaves are totally unfit.
Instead of living being cheaper on country estates, from the necessaries of life being raised on them, it appears to be much more expensive. This is partly owing to the prevailing pride of having negroes to show. One family, of four persons, of my acquaintance, in South Carolina, whose style of living might be called homely, cannot manage to live for less than three thousand dollars a year. They have a carriage and eleven negroes. It is cheaper in Kentucky. In the towns, a family may live in good style for two thousand five hundred dollars a year; and for no great deal more in the country. A family entered upon a good house, near a town, with one hundred and twenty acres of land, a few years ago, at a rent of three hundred dollars. They bought house and land, and brought their slaves, and now live, exclusive of rent and hire of servants, for two thousand dollars a year, ingreater numbers and much higher style than the South Carolina family.
The prospects of agriculture in the States north-west of the Ohio are brilliant. The stranger who looks upon the fertile prairies of Illinois and Indiana, and the rich alluvions of Ohio, feels the iniquity of the English corn laws as strongly as in the alleys of Sheffield and Manchester. The inhuman perverseness of taxing food is there evident in all its enormity. The world ought never to hear of a want of food,—no one of the inhabitants of its civilised portions ought ever to be without the means of obtaining his fill, while the mighty western valley smiles in its fertility. If the aristocracy of England, for whom those laws were made, and by whom they are sustained, could be transported to travel, in open wagons, the boundless prairies, and the shores of the great rivers which would bring down the produce, they would groan to see from what their petty, selfish interests had shut out the thousands of half-starved labourers at home. If they could not be convinced of the very plain truth, of how their own fortunes would be benefited by allowing the supply and demand of food to take their natural course, they would, for the moment, wish their rent-rolls at the bottom of the sea, rather than that they should stand between the crowd of labourers and the supply of food which God has offered them. The landlords of England do not go and see the great western valley; but, happily, some of the labourers of England do. Far off as that valley is, those labourers will make themselves heard from thence, by those who have driven them there; and will teach the brethren whom they have left behind where the blame of their hunger lies. Every British settler who ploughs a furrow in the prairie, helps to plough up the foundations of the British Corn Laws.
There is a prospect, not very uncertain or remote, of these prairie lands bringing relief to a yet more suffering class than either English labourers or landlords; the sugar-growing slaves of the south. Rumours of the progress of sugar-making from beet in France have, for some time past, been interesting many persons in the United States; especially capitalists inclined to speculate, and the vigilant friends of the slave. Information has been obtained, and some trials made. Individuals have sown ten acres and upwards each, and manufactured sugar with a small apparatus. The result has been encouraging; and a large manufactory was to be opened in Philadelphia on the 1st of November last. Two large joint-stock companies have been founded, one in New Jersey and the other in Illinois. Their proceedings have been quickened by the frosts of several successive seasons, which have so cut off the canes in the south, as that it cannot supply one quarter of the domestic consumption: whereas it had previously supplied half. Some of the southern newspapers have recommended the substitution of beet for canes. However soon this may be done, the northern sugar planters, with their free labour, will surely overpower the south in the competition. This is on the supposition that beet will answer as well as canes; a supposition which will have Bern granted whenever the south begins to grow beet in preference to canes.
A heavy blow would be inflicted on slavery by the success of the beet companies. The condition of the cane-growing slaves cannot be made worse than it is. I believe that even in the West Indies it has never been so dreadful as at present in some parts of Louisiana. A planter stated to a sugar-refiner in New York, that it was found the best economy towork offthe stock of negroes once in seven years.
The interest excited by this subject of beet-growing is very strong throughout the United States. Some result must ensue which will be an instigation to further action. The most important would be the inducing in the south either the use of free labour in sugar-growing, or the surrender of an object so fatal to decent humanity.
The prettiest amateur farm I saw was that of the late Dr. Hosack, at Hyde Park, on the Hudson. Dr. Hosack had spared no pains to improve his stock, and his methods of farming, as well as the beauty of his pleasure-grounds. His merits in the former departments the agricultural societies in England are much better qualified to appreciate than I; and they seem to have valued his exertions; to judge by the medals and other honourable testimonials from them which he showed to me. As for his pleasure-grounds, little was left for the hand of art to do. The natural terrace above the river, green, sweeping, and undulating, is surpassingly beautiful. Dr. Hosack's good taste led him to leave it alone, and to spend his pains on the gardens and conservatory behind. Of all the beautiful country-seats on the Hudson, none can, I think, equal Hyde Park; though many bear a more imposing appearance from the river.
Though I twice traversed the western part of the State of New York, I did not see the celebrated farm of Mr. Wadsworth; the finest, by all accounts, in the United States. The next best thing to seeing it was hearing Mr. Wadsworth talk about it,—especially of its hospitable capabilities. This only increased my regret at being unable to visit it.
The most remarkable order of land-owners that I saw in the United States was that of the Shakers and the Rappites; both holding all their property in common, and both enforcing celibacy. The interest which would be felt by the whole of societyin watching the results of a community of property is utterly destroyed by the presence of the other distinction; or rather of the ignorance and superstition of which it is the sign.
The moral and economical principles of these societies ought to be most carefully distinguished by the observer. This being done, I believe it will be found that whatever they have peculiarly good among them is owing to the soundness of their economical principles; whatever they have that excites compassion, is owing to the badness of their moral arrangements.
I visited two Shaker communities in Massachusetts. The first was at Hancock, consisting of three hundred persons, in the neighbourhood of another at Lebanon, consisting of seven hundred persons. There are fifteen Shaker establishments or "families" in the United States, and their total number is between five and six thousand. There is no question of their entire success, as far as wealth is concerned. A very moderate amount of labour has secured to them in perfection all the comforts of life that they know how to enjoy, and as much wealth besides as would command the intellectual luxuries of which they do not dream. The earth does not show more flourishing fields, gardens, and orchards, than theirs. The houses are spacious, and in all respects unexceptionable. The finish of every external thing testifies to their wealth, both of material and leisure. The floor of their place of worship, (the scene of their peculiar exercises,) the roofs of their houses, their stair-carpets, the feet of their chairs, the springs of their gates, and their spitting-boxes,—for even these neat people have spitting-boxes—show a nicety which is rare in America. Their table fare is of the very best quality. We had depended on a luncheon among them, and were rather alarmedat the refusal we met, when we pleaded our long ride and the many hours that we should have to wait for refreshment, if they would not furnish us with some. They urged, reasonably enough, that a steady rule was necessary, subject as the community was to visits from the company at Lebanon Springs. They did not want to make money by furnishing refreshments, and did not desire the trouble. For once, however, they kindly gave way; and we were provided with delicious bread, molasses, butter, cheese and wine; all homemade, of course. If happiness lay in bread and butter, and such things, these people have attained thesummum bonum. Their store shows what they can produce for sale. A great variety of simples, of which they sell large quantities to London; linen-drapery, knitted wares, sieves, baskets, boxes, and confectionary; palm and feather fans, pin-cushions, and other such trifles; all these may be had in some variety, and of the best quality. If such external provision, with a great amount of accumulated wealth besides, is the result of co-operation and community of property among an ignorant, conceited, inert society like this, what might not the same principles of association achieve among a more intelligent set of people, stimulated by education, and exhilarated by the enjoyment of all the blessings which Providence has placed within the reach of man?
The wealth of the Shakers is not to be attributed to their celibacy. They are receiving a perpetual accession to their numbers from among the "world's people," and these accessions are usually of the most unprofitable kind. Widows with large families of young children, are perpetually joining the community, with the view of obtaining a plentiful subsistence with very moderate labour. The increase of their numbers does notlead to the purchase of more land. They supply their enlarged wants by the high cultivation of the land they have long possessed; and the superfluity of capital is so great that it is difficult to conceive what will be done with it by a people so nearly dead to intellectual enjoyments. If there had been no celibacy among them, they would probably have been far more wealthy than they are; the expenses of living in community being so much less, and the produce of co-operative labour being so much greater than in a state of division into families. The truth of these last positions can be denied by none who have witnessed the working of a co-operative system. The problem is to find the principle by which all shall be induced to labour their share. Any such principle being found, the wealth of the community follows of course.