It will therefore appear that this person, as well as many others, told the truth, but very partially, and not the whole truth, and on that account are not to be depended on. At the very time he was visiting us a person from Kentucky, assured us that we were better off than they were at Kentucky and Ohio.[63]
Another person who visited us on purpose to examine and spy out the land of evil report, went back to Baltimore and brought his family, stating in his travels that he had not met with such good water as at this place. This same traveller has reported our soil to be poor, and our inability to raise a sufficient quantity of provisions for ourselves, and that we are still dependant on the Harmonites: in this he only shews his {36} want of knowledge of the history of new settlements and their progress. Every person knows that the second year is the most unprofitable: the first year being spent in building and fencing, little produce is raised: but then all settlers of property bring a supply with them to make up for this certain deficiency; but capital being somewhat exhausted, and an increase of population still continuing, must of necessity keep a new settlement short of self-supplies; but when to this was added an extraordinary drought, is it a matter of surprise that the crops should in some degree have been scanty; but at the time I am writing, almost every thing these travellers have said of the Illinois, is happily reversed: they are the remarks of very superficial observers; though they may be in some degree true at the moment they were written, they are no fit representations [of] the Illinois; either as to its soil, climate, or general character; could I but set these very travellers down here at this moment, how would their astonished senses give contradiction to their own accounts!
We have now what the Americans tell us is a usual specimen of the seasons of the Illinois. Frequent rains, with the heat more moderate than the last year. Agriculture is beaming forth {37} in its glory. If some of our travellers to whom I have alluded were now here, they would see some of the finest wheat crops their eyes ever beheld: they would witness the most luxuriant crops of natural grasses, now gathering for the supply of winter food; also fine plants of artificial grasses well set in our inclosures; they would acknowledge that the corn crops were as abundant, or more so than any they had before witnessed in the United States; but as they are not here I must inform you that our corn crops upon good tillage have the appearance of from sixty to eighty bushels; and in some instances the Americans, who are the best judges, say one hundred bushels per acre. If this is the usual season of the Illinois, which can scarcely be doubted, as it answers the character given by those longest resident, then is the Illinois one of the finest countries under heaven for human beings to dwell in; one of the most delightful given to man for his residence.
Another traveller has stated that the Illinois is in general low and swampy, but that Mr. Flower's family, with one or two others, had placed their houses upon rising ground. This gentleman must either be naturally or willfully {38} blind. He might have found, within a circuit of five miles round Albion, numerous pleasing elevations, all so inviting that the beauty which they presented to the admiring eye of the settler, would be the only difficulty in the way of instant decision.
Then comes another objector, armed with an un answerable question?—"But what will you do with your produce?" This objection only needs to be examined to be refuted. The answer is, that for the present our home market will take all we raise, and if our population increases in future as it has done during the present year, and the probability is that, it will increase much faster, no foreign market will be wanted for ten or a dozen years to come. Our infant town has taken root, and is growing luxuriantly. It has increased one hundred in the number of inhabitants since last September, and its vicinity has added seventy to their number. Our mill is at work, and can grind the produce now raised; and a distillery and brewery will shortly be at work, so that the su[r]plus of several years will not raise more than a sufficiency for the population. We have also in the settlement some small plantations of tobacco, hemp, and cotton, articles which we {39} at present import; it will therefore be a work of some time to raise a sufficiency for our own consumption.
Another article of produce is wool. Since I have been here I have turned my attention to an important object which engaged much of my attention in my native country—the breeding of sheep, and have succeeded to the utmost of my wishes and expectations. My flock consists of about four hundred sheep and lambs; and although the first winter there were unexpected difficulties to encounter, I can assure my countrymen that it has been more healthy this last year than any I ever had, or ever heard of in England; but as I intend giving an account of my success in this branch of agriculture in some future letter, it will be sufficient to say, that although I can grow in the Illinois a profitable export, at present its produce is wanted, and all that can be raised for years to come, will be wanted at home. We have therefore not only a market for our extra produce around us, but we have also a foreign market at New Orleans, and through it to the market of the world. If it be said that owing to our situation, we labour under peculiar disadvan[ta]ges, all is reduced to the price of land carriage, of about nine miles to the Wabash, {40} at sixteen cents per hundred pounds. If therefore it is said that our surplus produce cannot be disposed of, it is not applicable to local circumstances alone; but to all America. Whenever the United States in general can dispose of their produce advantageously, the Illinois can do the same; and we are more contiguous to navigation than the great proportion of the interior of America.
The report which has injured us most is the want of that blessing, without which all that this world can give is but of little avail—Health. Reports of sickness which never existed, and of deaths which happily never took place, have been most industriously circulated; the fact is, that there has seldom been a new settlement which has suffered so little loss by death; or which has been so free from sickness. The number of deaths has been in the ratio of four in ninety-five each year, and this is a smaller number than in most places in the habitable globe, where the records of such events have been preserved. Many of its inhabitants have with myself, enjoyed far better health, than in their native country; so that I may safely conclude, after two years residence, with the information of those who were here a year and a half before me, that {41} there scarcely existed in the habitable globe, a place where the inhabitants have enjoyed so large a share of this invaluable blessing.
As to our future prospects they are truly flattering, in the probability of increasing population, now the clouds and mists which malignity has spread abroad are disappearing, before the light of truth, as the mists of morning disappear before the light and the heat of the sun: the well-grounded hopes of future harvests, arising from the rich abundance of the present; the perseverance and industry of a large portion of our settlers; the excellent materials for building, and the increasing number of fine wells of water, all present a most encouraging and delightful prospect.
Another testimony in favour of our situation is, that some of our countrymen who have settled in other places, have visited us, expressing their surprise and regret that they had been the dupes of false reports, and had stopped short of the Illinois. While others more prudently came down from Cincinnati, and even Baltimore to visit this land of evil report, minutely examined for themselves, returned to bring their families, and are contented with their lot.
Another remark was made by certain writers, {42} that although we had improved our situation as to animal enjoyments, we had sacrificed intellectual pleasures, because I stated, in one of my letters, that there were no booksellers here, and that the necessary business which could not be avoided in a new settlement, left us but little time for reading. Hasty conclusion! Many of us brought out ample libraries of our own, and we have also a standing library in our little town; which is supplied with newspapers and periodical publications. Those who emigrated to the Illinois were not altogether illiterate; a majority of them were quite of a contrary description; and as to agricultural knowledge, there are very few spots on the face of the earth, where it is so much concentrated, as at the Illinois, having farmers from almost all the different counties in England. There are likewise, several American, Dutch, and French farmers, gardeners, and vine dressers in our neighbourhood.