I have felt great satisfaction in never having {29} invited any one to emigrate, and still greater in finding those who came here out of regard to my opinions, in such situations of ease and comfort, as not only to contribute to their own happiness, but to add greatly to mine. I may say that those who have asked and taken my advice have succeeded to their wishes; and in all cases which have come to my knowledge, where affairs have been conducted with industry and tolerable discretion, they have occasion to be thankful for the change they have made from the old world to the new. Our population increases. We want in particular more tailors and shoemakers: any one understanding the coarse earthen-ware manufactury would meet with great success.—I have just finished a flour mill on an inclined plane, which has given fresh spirit to agriculture. Distilleries are also building. It is a happy circumstance that while industry is attended with certain success, vice, drunkenness, and idleness are no better off than in Europe; the effect of this will be to give the virtuous that natural ascendancy over the vicious which they ought always to have. We read in the newspapers of all the bustle you have had about your queen;[62] but if it ends without the people regaining their long lost liberties, between the {30} collision of the different factions, you will only be worse off; and if the regaining of those liberties will not rouse the people to the same exertions for themselves as they have made for their queen, we must smile at their oppressions and say they deserve them.
LETTER IV
Park House, Albion, Aug. 20, 1821.
Dear Sir,
Some of my letters, written in 1819, appeared through the medium of the press; and some of the English Reviewers, after a candid criticism, observed, that they should be glad to hear from me at some future period. Several other persons also have expressed a strong desire to have an account of our present situation and future prospects. In compliance therefore, with their wishes, I most cheerfully resume my pen, with the assurance that what I have written may be relied upon as an impartial and candid statement of facts.
Various are the reports which have been circulated in the private circle, and by means of the press, concerning the state of this settlement; {31} and great has been the anxiety which many friends have expressed on our account. It is my purpose therefore, to examine the principal reports which travellers have given of us.
When any one returns to England, though he may have visited us but a few days, he obtains a credence far above those who have only hear-say reports to communicate; whether his visits were made during the winter, amidst rains or snows, or in the summer, when an unparalleled drought pervaded the whole western country. Is so transitory a view to be considered as a just description of the soil, the climate, the advantages or disadvantages of the British Settlement in the Illinois? Surely not. I am informed even of some accounts which have been written from settlements above fifty miles distant from us, where circumstances are so very different, that they bear no resemblance to the situation in which we have located. These statements have been brought forward in opposition to the indisputable facts which have been given by us, and they no more apply to this place, than a description of the lowlands of Essex and Lincolnshire can apply to the high and dry situations of Shooter's-hill or Blackheath. I therefore request the reader's {32} attention to a few observations on the various reports which travellers have circulated of the English settlements at the Illinois.
I must first be allowed to remark on the want of competency of some very confident writers to form any judgment of our real situation; they appear to be wholly unacquainted with the history of the new settlements, and from this defect are unfitted to form a right judgement of our comparative and relative advantages. Hence the incongruous and contradictory accounts which have been given of our soil, climate, and agricultural concerns. Of the many who have visited us there are two individuals whose reports I hear gain some credence amongst my country men; I shall therefore confine my attention chiefly to the accounts they have given of us, and then examine those reports which have been raised from deep-rooted enmity and determined self-interest. These, with a brief account of our present situation and future prospects shall be the remaining subject of this letter.
One of these travellers visited us when the snows were melting, and the rains descending: he reports us to be dwelling upon the swamps of the Wabash; and our lands to be so wet that they are unfit for either cattle or sheep to {33} thrive on; and on that account unsuitable for the purposes of an English farmer.
Another passed through our country in an unparalleled drought, and reported us to be in a sad situation for want of water. There was some degree of truth in this, but a very partial degree, owing to his not stating the circumstances of the case. Our town is situated very high, and till we had experienced some drought we knew not that we should want to dig deep for water, and of course could not provide for an exigency that was not known to exist. "Dig deep" I have said; but one hundred feet is thought, by a western American, to be a vast and dangerous enterprise; we have however with us Englishmen who have been far into the bowels of the earth in England, and have no sort of fear of there not being abundance of water in Albion; already have we experienced the benefit of these exertions; but while our dry-weather traveller was reporting our inconveniences, he should have stated it was an unusual season which pervaded the whole of the western country: that Kentucky and Ohio were worse than the Illinois; and that in Indiana, in the best watered districts, springs, rivulets, and wells were exhausted. Such an instance has never before occurred {34} during the memory of the oldest inhabitants. The same person (who I know would not willingly give a false account) has stated that so short was the water that we were obliged to send our cattle into Indiana.—That our herds were in Indiana is very true, but that they were sent there on account of want of water, is equally untrue. We have in Indiana about twelve miles distant, some high ground in the midst of low land, subject to be overflowed; on this low ground grows the most luxuriant cane, springing to an extraordinary height; the tender shoots of which, affording excellent food for cattle, we send them in the winter season, with the exception of milch cows and working oxen, to fatten. Our custom is somewhat similar to that of the farmers of the upland districts in England, who send their stock into the fens of Lincolnshire to fatten on coleseed and superabundant grass. So we dispose of our herds when the winter draws to a close. To this may be added, that the cane in the low river bottoms, growing naturally is the most luxuriant pasturage for summer feeding: and as we only pay the expense of the herdsman, the food either there or in the cane costing nothing: and the herdsman living there we leave our herds; so it was true that they {35} were in the cane, but were not sent there on account of the want of water. When this person reported that there was shortness of water amongst us, he should have added, that fine wells were no rarity in the vicinity of Albion; that he drank as fine water from our well as he ever tasted in his life; and that from the grounds of Richard and George Flower, Albion, and even a part of Wanborough were supplied.