In 1763, according to Dr. Belknap, ibid. 198, there was 1 black to every 45 whites in Massachusetts; in 1776, 1 to every 65; in 1784, 1 to every 80. The whole number, in the latter year, 4377 blacks, 354,133 whites.
It appears, by a census, taken by order of Government, in the last month of 1754, and the first month of 1755, that there were then in the Province of Massachusetts Bay 2717 negro slaves of and over 16 years of age. Of these, 989 belonged to Boston. This table may be found in M. H. C., xiii. 95.
No. XLVIII.
Of all sorts of affectation the affectation of happiness is the most universal. How many, whose domestic relations are full of trouble, are, abroad, apparently, the happiest of mortals. How many, after laying down the severest sumptuary laws, for their domestics, on the subject of sugar and butter, go forth, in all their personal finery, to inquire the prices of articles, which they have no means to purchase, and return, comforted by the assurance, that they have the reputation of fashion and wealth, with those, at least, who have, so deferentially, displayed their diamonds and pearls!
Who would not be thought wealthy, and wise, and witty, if he could!
Happiness is every man’s cynosure, when he embarks upon the ocean of life. No man would willingly be thought so very unskilful, as that ill-starred Palinurus, who made the shores of Norway, on a voyage to the coast of Africa. Whether wealth, or fame, or fashion, or pleasure be the principal object of pursuit, no one is willing to be accounted a disappointed man, after the application of his best energies, for years. The man of wealth—the man of ambition, for example, are desirous of being accounted happy. It would certainly be exceedingly annoying to both, to be convinced, that they were believed, by mankind, to be otherwise. Their condition is rendered tolerable, only by the conviction, that thousands suppose them happy, and covet their condition accordingly. There is something particularly agreeable, in being envied, of course. Now, it is the common law of man’s nature—a law, that executes itself—that possession makes him poor as Horace says, Sat. i. 1, 1.
————“Nemo, quam sibi sortem,
Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illi,
Contentus vivat.”————
All experience has demonstrated, that happiness is not to be bought, and that what there is of it, in this present life, is a home-made article, which every one produces for himself, in the workshop of his own bosom. It no more consists, in the accumulation of wealth, than in snuffing up the east wind. The poor believe the rich to be happy—they become rich, and find they were mistaken. But they keep the secret, and affect to be happy, nevertheless.
Seneca looked upon the devotion of time and talent to the acquirement of money, beyond the measure of a man’s reasonable wants, with profound contempt. He called such, as gave themselves up to the unvarying pursuit of wealth, short lived; meaning that the hours and years, so employed, were carved out of the estate of a man’s life, and utterly thrown away. There is a fine passage, in ch. 17, of Seneca’s book, De Brevitate Vitæ.