But, unless a person has some settled object of business, Buenos Ayres will not prove the most eligible place to speculate upon for employment.
Clerks, unless they possess strong recommendations, or come expressly engaged, had better not venture upon the voyage: they will, in all probability, meet with great disappointment. The mercantile houses have their clerks sent from the firms at home; little chance in that capacity, therefore, remains for others. Many have returned to England, finding that to continue here was only making bad worse.
It is professions of the first necessity that succeed. Mechanics are sure of employment, and with prudence can save money. A journeyman carpenter may earn, by piece-work, four to five dollars per day; their regular wages from the English masters are from forty to forty-five and forty-eight dollars per month. Braziers, blacksmiths, &c. do well: Englishmen have shops in all those branches. Labourers of all descriptions are in request.
Farming I do not conceive a profitable concern: labour is high, and the foreign farmer, from the sort of men he must employ, is continually exposed to petty thefts, the punishment of which causes great annoyance and trouble. English labourers generally manage to leave their master the moment they become useful. Several Englishmen have tried the system of farming, without much success; it is more adapted to the natives, and, from what I have heard, they make nothing extraordinary of it. It is possible that a man with a capital of 800 to 1000l. may more than live; but it ought to be a strong temptation to induce an individual with that property to leave his country, and to be well assured of the probable advantages of such an experiment. At the present moment a rapid fortune is not to be made as a farmer; he must be content to plod on for years, with great anxiety, and labour to boot. The soil, rich as it is, requires artificial aid.
It is in holding estancias, or grazing farms, that money has been made; and from the high price of hides, and the continual demand for them, this affords every prospect of advantage.
Emigrants will not find the conveniences they have at home, but as many comforts as they can possibly expect in a foreign land, including the favourable climate.
An English female, upon her first arrival in this country would not find herself very comfortable; it must take some time to reconcile her to the loss of home, dress, mode of living—every thing so different; the only alleviation is in the society of her country folks, and the kind behaviour of the people, which will soon soften those feelings, and when somewhat conversant in the language, she would become attached to Spanish society, from whom she may be assured of receiving the most delicate attentions that hospitality can prompt.
A person will not be long in Buenos Ayres without picking up acquaintances with its inhabitants; amongst whom are some very intelligent young men. I have sometimes thought it would give me pleasure to conduct one of them to England, to be—not exactly a Mentor (needing that myself), but a sort of escort to him in the modern Babylon, London; to explain its many varieties, from the mansions of the nobility, down to the fondas of St. Giles’s, where plates, knives, and forks, are chained to the tables, to prevent the customers walking off with them.
Common report asserts, that a strong French faction exists in Buenos Ayres. I will not pretend to offer an opinion upon this. Three years ago, I thought there was a decided leaning towards France: but I do not think there is so much now. If it were only for the sake of consistency, they must be ashamed of French politics, and the war in Spain, undertaken, as “an experiment to try the fidelity of the French army,” according to Monsieur Chateaubriand, who asserted that a few months campaigning had done more good for France than years of peace. That a portion of the inhabitants may be attached to the French, is probable; their manners and religion assimilate more than ours. An Englishman is looked upon as a strange creature, different from the rest of the world. Other nations have not that characteristic of country (excepting the North Americans): a Frenchman, Italian, &c. mixes in the crowd as one of the country in which he resides, and is scarcely recognized as a foreigner; but nature seems to have placed her peculiar mark upon us, and, in conjunction with our law against expatriation, seems to assert, that “once an Englishman, always an Englishman.” It would appear that strangers can almost discover us blindfold: often, on the darkest night, I have been accosted by boys and others as an Englishman.