These are three considerations of great importance to the emigrant, and quite peculiar to this colony: added to which the value of the produce of this gratuitous land and labour is three times as great as in the Illinois, as will be seen by a comparison of the prices of produce there as given by Messrs. Birbeck and Fearon, and the prices of similar produce as stated in the first part of this work. It is true that there is not the same unlimited market as in America; but it must be evident, that, if the price of labour were even equal, the colonist who could dispose of one third of his crops, would be in a better condition than if he were established in the Illinois, and could find vent for the whole. The market, however, has never been circumscribed to this degree in periods of the greatest abundance; and the immense arrivals of convicts, that have been daily taking place for the last three years, have increased the consumptive powers of the colony so considerably, that there has at most been but a very trifling surplus in the barns of the farmers at the close of the year. On the other hand, all articles of foreign growth and manufacture are in general much cheaper than in the Illinois, and the other remote parts of the American Union, provided the purchaser has ready money, and is not under the necessity of having recourse to secondary agents for goods on long credit.
Here, then, are many powerful reasons why persons bent on emigration should prefer this colony to America. The only point is whether the latter can throw any weightier arguments into the opposite scale. What may be urged on the other side of the question, may, I apprehend, be comprised under these two heads: first, the greater contiguity of the United States to this country, and the consequent ease and cheapness with which emigration thither may be effected; and, secondly, the superiority of their government.
The first of these points merits very little consideration, except in the instance of those who have not the means of choosing between the two countries. If a person only possess the power of removing to that which is the more contiguous, eligibility is out of the question: he is no longer a free agent. But the difference in the cost of emigrating is far from being so considerable as might be imagined on a mere view of their comparative distances from this country. I understand that a gentleman of great experience and respectability in the commercial world, has presented a calculation to the committee of the House of Commons, which is now occupied with an inquiry into the state of this colony, from which it appears that a family, consisting of a man, his wife and two children, with five tons for their accommodation and for the reception of their baggage, might emigrate to the colony for one hundred pounds, inclusive of every contingent expense, provided a sufficient number of families could be collected to freight a ship. The same gentleman calculates that a single man might be taken out thither for thirty pounds.* The difference, therefore, in the mere cost of emigrating to the two places is so trifling, that the superior locality of the one cannot be admitted as any sort of set off against the superior advantages of the other. With respect, however, to the last plea, that has been adduced in favour of emigration to the United States, the superiority which they possess in a free government, it must be admitted, that this is a decisive ground of preference, and a blessing to which the greatest pecuniary advantages cannot be considered a sufficient counterpoise. And if it be imagined that the present arbitrary system of government is not drawing to a conclusion; if it be apprehended that it has not yet reached its climax of oppression and iniquity, and that it will be enforced until all who are within the sphere of its influence are reduced to a state of moral degradation and infamy, and the colony becomes one vast stye of abomination and depravity; the emigrant will do well to discard from his mind every mercenary consideration, and to turn away with disgust from all prospects of gain; so long as they are only to be realized by entering into so contagious and demoralizing an association. But if he believe that the hour is at hand when the present system is to be abolished; when oppression is to be hurled from the car in which it has driven triumphantly over prostrate justice, virtue, and religion; and when the dominion of right and morality is to be asserted and established; then I have no hesitation in recommending him to give a preference to this colony. In the agonies of approaching dissolution, the efforts of tyranny will be feeble and impotent. Moral corruption, though the inevitable result of a voluntary submission to the will, is not the consequence of an indignant and impatient sufferance of its rule for a season; and the chance of personal injury would be still more precarious and uncertain. Under the most arbitrary governments the vengeance of the despot has seldom been known to extend beyond the circle of his court; his victims have been among the ambitious candidates for power and distinction. The retired pursuits of unobtrusive industry have proved a sanctuary, which has remained inviolate in all ages.
[* See a calculation in the Appendix made by an eminent merchant in the city; from which it appears that a single man, on the ration allowed sailors on board of a king's ship, might be conveyed to the colony at a still cheaper rate.]
"The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from pow'r but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own."