part of a £45,000 tax laid in 1755, the proportions settled by an act of assembly stood thus:~~~

THIS province is not so populous as some have imagined. Scarce a third part of it is under cultivation. The colony of Connecticut, which is vastly inferior to this in its extent, contains, according to a late authentic enquiry, above 133,000 inhabitants, and has a militia of 27,000 men; but the militia of New-York, according to the general estimate, does not exceed 18,000. The whole number of souls is computed at 100,000.

Many have been the discouragements to the settlement of this colony. The French and Indian irruptions, to which we have always been exposed, have driven many families into New-Jersey. At home, the British acts for the transportation of felons, have brought all the American colonies into discredit with the industrious and honest poor, both in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The mischiev

ous tendency of those laws was shown in a late paper, which it may not be improper to lay before the reader.*

"It is too well known that, in pursuance of divers acts of parliament, great numbers of fellows who have forfeited their lives to the public, for the most atrocious crimes, are annually transported from home to these plantations. Very surprising one would think, that thieves, burglars, pickpockets, and cut-purses, and a herd of the most flagitious banditti upon earth, should be sent as agreeable companions to us! That the supreme legislature did intend a transportation to America, for a punishment of these villains, I verily believe : but so great is the mistake, that confident I am, they are thereby, on the contrary, highly rewarded. For what, in God's name, can be more agreeable to a penurious wretch, driven, through necessity, to seek a livelihood by breaking of houses, and robbing upon the king's highway, than to be saved from the halter, redeemed from the stench of a gaol and transported, passage free, into a country, where, being unknown, no man can reproach him with his crimes; where labour is high, a little of which will maintain him; and where all his expenses will be moderate and low. There is scarce a thief in England, that would not rather be transported than hanged. Life in any condition, but that of extreme misery, will be preferred to death. As long, therefore, as there remains this wide door of escape, the number of thieves and robbers at home will perpetually multiply, and their depredations be incessantly reiterated.

But the acts were intended, for the better peopling the colonies. And will thieves and murderers be conducive to that end? What advantage can we reap from a colony of unrestrainable renegadoes? will they exalt the glory of the crown? or rather, will not the dignity of the most illustrious monarch in the world be sullied by a province of subjects so lawless, detestable, and ignominious? Can agriculture

*The Independent Reflector.

be promoted, when the wild boar of the forest breaks down our hedges and pulls up our vines? Will trade flourish, or manufactures be encouraged, where property is made the spoil of such who are too idle to work, and wicked enough to murder and steal?

Besides, are we not subjects of the same king, with the people of England; members of the same body politic, and therefore entitled to equal privileges with them? If so, how injurious does it seem to free one part of the dominions from the plagues of mankind, and cast them upon another? should a law be proposed to take the poor of one parish, and billet them upon another, would not all the world, but the parish to be relieved, exclaim against such a project, as iniquitous and absurd? Should the numberless villains of London and Westminster be suffered to escape from their prisons, to range at large and depredate any other part of the kingdom, would not every man join with the sufferers, and condemn the measure as hard and unreasonable? And though the hardships upon us, are indeed not equal to those, yet the miseries that flow from laws, by no means intended to prejudice us, are too heavy, not to be felt. But the colonies must be peopled. Agreed: and will the transportation acts ever have that tendency? No; they work the contrary way, and counteract their own design. We want people 'tis true, but not villains, ready at any time, encouraged by impunity, and habituated upon the slightest occasions, to cut a man's throat for a small part of his property. The delights of such company is a noble inducement, indeed, to the honest poor, to convey themselves into a strange country. Amidst all our plenty, they will have enough to exercise their virtues, and stand in no need of the association of such as will prey upon their property, and gorge themselves with the blood of the adventurers. They came over in search of happiness; rather than starve will live any where, and would be glad to be excused from so afflicting an antepart of the torments of hell. In reality, sir, these very laws, though otherwise designed, have turned out, in the end, the most

effectual expedients that the art of man could have contrived, to prevent the settlement of these remote parts of the king's dominions. They have actually taken away almost every encouragement to so laudable a design. I appeal to facts. The body of the English are struck with terror at the thought of coming over to us, not because they have a vast ocean to cross, or leave behind them their friends; or that the country is new and uncultivated: but from the shocking ideas, the mind must necessarily form, of the company of inhuman savages, and the more terrible herd of exiled malefactors. There are thousands of honest men, labouring in Europe, at four pence a day, starving in spite of all their efforts, a dead weight to the respective parishes to which they belong; who, without any other qualifications than common sense, health, and strength, might accumulate estates among us, as many have done already. These, and not the others, are the men that should be sent over for the better peopling the plantations. Great Britain and Ireland, in their present circumstances, are overstocked with them; and he who would immortalize himself, for a lover of mankind, should concert a scheme for the transportation of the industriously honest abroad, and the immediate punishment of rogues and plunderers at home. The pale-faced, half-clad, meagre, and starved skeletons, that are seen in every village of those kingdoms, call loudly for the patriot's generous aid. The plantations too, would thank him for his assistance, in obtaining the repeal of those laws which, though otherwise intended by the legislature, have so unhappily proved injurious to his own country, and ruinous to us. It is not long since a bill passed the commons, for the employment of such criminals in his majesty's docks, as should merit the gallows. The design was good. It is consistent with sound policy, that all those, who have forfeited their liberty and lives to their country, should be compelled to labour the residue of their days in its service. But the scheme was bad, and wisely was the bill rejected by the lords, for this only reason, that it had a natural tendency

to discredit the king's yards: the consequences of which must have been prejudicial to the whole nation. Just so ought we to reason in the present case, and we should then soon be brought to conclude, that though peopling the colonies, which was the laudable motive of the legislature, be expedient to the public, abrogating the transportation laws must be equally necessary."

The bigotry and tyranny of some of our governors, together with the great extent of their grants, may also be considered among the discouragements against the full settlement of the province. Most of these gentlemen coming over with no other view than to raise their own fortunes, issued extravagant patents, charged with small quit-rents, to such as were able to serve them in the assembly; and these patentees, being generally men of estates, have rated their lands so exorbitantly high, that very few poor persons could either purchase or lease them. Add to all these, that the New-England planters have always been disaffected to the Dutch; nor was there, after the surrender, any foreign accession from the Netherlands. The province being thus poorly inhabited, the price of labour became so enormously enhanced, that we have been constrained to import negroes from Africa, who are employed in all kinds of servitude and trades.

English is the most prevailing language amongst us, but not a little corrupted by the Dutch dialect, which is still so much used in some counties, that the sheriffs find it difficult to obtain persons, sufficiently acquainted with the English tongue, to serve as jurors in the courts of law.

The manners of the people differ as well as their language. In Suffolk and Queen's county, the first settlers of which were either natives of England, or the immediate descendants of such as begun the plantations in the eastern colonies, their customs are similar to those prevailing in the English counties from whence they originally sprang. the city of New-York, through our intercourse with the Europeans, we follow the London fashions; though, by the

In