state than the former one had done. At the conclusion of Wayne's war, we had scarcely five thousand inhabitants, perhaps, not even that number. At the conclusion of the war of 1812, our numbers were probably three hundred thousand. The population increased, after this war, not rapidly, yet steadily, for two or three years, until, by a succession of untoward events, the state became stationary, for several years. But we will reserve our remarks on that portion of our civil history, for a separate article.

As a national affair, the war, which we have been considering, so far as Ohio was concerned in carrying it on, was conducted as well as could have been expected. Her citizens had no sailors impressed on the high seas, nor any ships or goods seized there, by England, yet our people never murmured that it was an eastern war, and ought to be borne by eastern men. Our citizens never objected to crossing an immaginary line, under any poor, frivolous excuse, but on the contrary, they complained that they were not led into the heart of the enemy's country instantly, and allowed to end the war on this frontier, at once and forever. Our citizen soldiers, patiently underwent all the hardships of warfare, without a complaint, and they cheerfully obeyed their officers, who were elected by themselves. The officers treated them as their neighbors and friends, even standing guard while their soldiers slept. Western members of congress served as privates in western campaigns. McArthur, Cass, and all the officers stood as sentinels, often, as if they had been privates. Desertions were rare, and not a volunteer was punished with death, for any crime, nor ever deserved it. There was no party opposed to the war, in Kentucky, Ohio, or Indiana. So far as these states are concerned, now, they are as true and faithful citizens to the nation as can be desired. We have stated facts within our own entire recollection, and cannot be wrong. Impartial truth is all we aim at in our relation of

events.

By the war of 1812, the nation might have been indirectly benefited, by gaining some little notice abroad. It might have

roused up the nation from a sort of torpor of the body politic, but impressment was left where we found it, unprovided for by treaty stipulations.

It is quite possible the governments of both countries got heartily sick of the war, and so made peace. On the part of Great Britain, it was certainly a poor, and very small business, and if continued, would have issued eventually greatly to her injury. England can never have any interest in quarreling with us whose trade is all she needs, and which war interrupts and if persisted in, and continued very long, would finally destroy. War long continued with England would make us a manufacturing nation, and independent of England. We have no interest in quarrelling with our old stepmother, whose language we speak, and whose institutions we have copied, and bid fair to extend and perpetuate over all North America.

To all human appearance, this nation is eventually destined to be the most powerful one that now is, ever was, or ever will be on the globe. At our present rate of national increase, in numbers, wealth and power, in one century to come, this nation will consist of more than one hundred millions of people, who will occupy the surface of all North America; whose commerce will encircle the globe, and whose power will be felt on every sea, and in every country of the whole earth. May her mercy and benevolence be coextensive with her power; protecting the weak, warring only on the unjust, and enlightning the ignorant. May she carry all the useful arts to every portion of mankind, and spread the benign principles of the gospel in all lands. Thus our nation may, if she will, become a blessing to all mankind.

GENERAL EVENTS.

PERIOD FIFTH.

THIS PERIOD COMPRISES THE HISTORY OF OHIO FROM 1815 TO 1825.

DURING the period of which we are about to treat, there was a stagnation of business of all sorts. To relieve the pressure in the midst of it, congress reduced the price of their lands in the west, from two dollars to one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. This reduction was extremely injurious to land owners, many of whom held large tracts, on which they had long paid taxes, until the taxes themselves, amounted to more than the lands were worth. The productions of the lands, meat and bread, no longer found a market near the place of their production. A want of good roads, either by land or water, on which our home productions could be transported, added to our far inland situation; operated severely on industry of all sorts, and palsied every manly effort, either of body or of mind, in Ohio. This stagnation of business, and this torpor of the body politic were increased, and greatly aggravated by the failure of a great number of little country banks. These had sprung up like mushrooms, in a night, during the war, when every article, which the farmer could spare, sold readily for cash at a high price. The eastern merchants, to whom we were greatly indebted, refused our western bank paper, except at a ruinous discount, in payment either of old debts or for goods. Our specie had been transported on pack horses over the Alleghanies. The vaults of our banks were emptied of their silver and gold, and all our banks either stopped

payment, or ceased to do business. The farmer was discouraged from raising much more, than what he really needed for his own immediate use; the trader feared to take bank paper, that might be of no value, before he could use it; and his old customers could no longer purchase any goods except mere necessaries of life. The people living in the towns, became idle, lazy, and of course, dissipated. Amidst this gloom, the national government brought suits in court on all the bonds due to them, for the internal duties on distilleries, &c., &c., and against the collectors of the revenue. United States lands had been sold to settlers on a credit, and these were forfeited for non-payment.

Universal ruin stared all in the face, and it seemed for awhile, as if the people of the west would retrograde into a state of barbarism.

Congress had chartered a national bank, but although this measure operated for a moment, auspiciously by throwing into circulation a sound currency, yet inasmuch as the balance of trade was greatly against the west, we received no lasting benefit from it.

Three-fourths of the state, all south of the summit which separates the waters of the Mississippi from those of the St. Lawrence, carried their produce to New Orleans for sale. This trade was very little better than no trade, only as it terded to keep men out of absolute idleness. The arks, or as they were called "New Orleans boats," cost about two hundred dollars each, where they were built, and as they were of little value at New Orleans, and could not be used by their owners, only for descending the river, the entire cost of the boats was lost. The hands employed in this long, tedious and expensive voyage, provided they escaped death by the yellow fever, or by some robber, were compelled to return home by land through the Indian country. In the interior where these boats were built along the Ohio, and its branches, after building the boats and loading them with flour, pork, lard, whisky, cider, apples, fowls, &c., the freshet must come before they could depart on their perilous voyage. And it might hap

pen, and often did happen, that all the streams in the state of Ohio were up, at nearly the same time. The flood came, and with it departed such an amount of produce, that the market was glutted. The best flour has been sold for three dollars a barrel, and pork for four or five dollars a barrel, in New Orleans, which amounted to a total loss of the cargo. Or the boat sunk on its voyage, and not merely were the boat and cargo lost, but every man on board it perished. If those who

left their property for sale in New Orleans, lost only all they thus stored in the agent's warehouse, and were not called on for a considerable amount, as the difference of value between the expenses of selling and what the sale produced to the owner he was truly fortunate, in those times. Or if a man, who had purchased and paid for twenty thousand dollars' worth of produce in Ohio, and had succeeded in making what was then considered a good sale of his property, in New Orleans-we say if such a man should have been taken sick at an inn, where he lodged, (and he was sure to be, if he put up at one of them) and should die there, among strangers, with his twentyfive thousand dollars, about his person, not a dollar was ever returned to his family, but in its stead a bill of several hundred dollars for funeral expenses, was forwarded to his widow, parents, relatives or friends, who generally paid the host all he demanded. Numerous cases of this sort, fell out within our entire recollection of them, and all their attendant circumstances.

Although taxes were levied on lands, for the support of the state government yet they were but poorly paid. And the sales, for taxes were so loosely, carelessly made, by the collectors, that a tax title to land was good for nothing. The more of them one had, the poorer he would be, in the same proportion.

At an early date of the state government, all the lands in the state, which had been sold by the United States over five years were divided, into three rates, first, second and third rates, and taxed accordingly, without any reference to their real value. Bottom lands, along the streams, and rich prairie