fpectors, male and female, of the different divifions of the fociety, which are five in number;the young men unmarried; the unmarried fifters ; the widows; the married brethren and fifters, and the fchools. The intendant has the exclufive administration of the property of the fociety; but he must advife with a committee, compofed of from eight to ten members, and chofen by the brethren at large. In the name of the intendant they carry on all their tranfactions, grant leafes of houfes and lands, fecurities for borrowed money, difcharges, &c. All the houses, however, erected in the town of Bethlehem, and the four thoufand acres belonging to it, are not the property of the fociety, nor even the greater part of them; they belong to brethren, who have built upon land for which they pay rent to the fociety. The amount of this rent is two-pence the foot in front, by twenty feet in depth. The houfe built by the brother is his abfolute property; he can leave it to his wife or his children, in the fame way as he can his other effects, or he can fell it; only he cannot convey it but to a brother, who has obtained from the directory permiffion to purchafe it, with the burthen of the rent attached to it, and which perpetually remains.

The directors having the government of the fociety, muft admit into their territory thofe only

who they think will not difturb the fociety. In the contracts of leafe made by the intendant, with the advice of the committee, to thofe intending to build a houfe, or to thofe who purchafe a houfe, it is always ftipulated, that if the proprietor fhall be defirous of quitting it, and cannot find a purchafer who may be agreeable to the fociety, the fociety is to purchase it at a price declared by a law, which alfo fixes the terms of payment. Garden ground, or land in the country, is let at fix fhillings the acre. Befides the government farm appropriated to the benefit of the fociety, there are fix or feven fmaller farms belonging to it. Thefe are let to tenants who pay a third part of their produce, and who alfo pay fix fhillings of rent for their garden grounds. Thefe tenants are all at prefent Moravians; but this condition is nowife indifpenfable. Sometimes the farms are let to other perfons, only the focietyimuft be fatisfied as to their character and behaviour; and they will not receive as tenants thofe of whom they have not received a fatisfactory account.

The fociety could eafily procure a higher price, and might at once clear two thousand five hundred acres, which still remain in wood, if they would admit strangers, or at least not referve to themselves this choice of those who offer to take

their farms; but they are defirous beyond every thing of preferving what they call good order, union, and morality; and to this they facrifice the augmentation of their revenues.

The town of Bethlehem is inhabited by between five and fix hundred perfons, all of the brother or fifterhood. They have workmen of every kind; but thefe cannot fettle there without the permiffion of the directors, who fuffer no workmen of the fame bufinefs, but as far as they are neceffary for the inhabitants. If more were to be permitted, they could not live by their trade. At the fame time, the price of all kinds of work is fixed, to prevent the want of rivalship from putting it in the power of the workmen to make exorbitant demands; but the prices of the country around regulate thofe of the town. Beyond that the workmen are independent of the fociety in conducting their bufinefs. They purchafe with their money what articles they haye occafion for; they fell them as they think proper; the profits belong to them, without their accounting to the fociety, or even paying any tax. The only tax indeed which is levied, and which is common to all the inhabitants of the town, is for keeping up the roads, lamps, feats in the church, pumps, and refervoirs. This tax is every four or five years impofed upon each fa

mily by name, according to the opinion of the committee of his means; but it is fo moderate, that the families confidered the richeft in the town do not pay above thirty fhillings or four dollars a year. This tax is paid every fix months; and if it happen that, at the end of the year, the committee find that the money raised is not fufficient to cover the expences, they demand double or treble of the laft payment; and on the other hand, they demand nothing, when the expence is not fo great as the tax fixed.

As to the public taxes, which in Pennfylvania, as I have already repeatedly obferved, are only the taxes of the county, the fociety pays thefe out of its funds. Thefe funds proceed from the lands, and the profits of the reserved branches of manufactures or commerce. Each of the brethren put at the head of thefe different cftablishments receives a falary from the fociety, to which he pays in the profits, after the expence of his own and family's living and cloathing. The committee requires no detailed account of his management he has received fo much moneythere remains fo much in his hands. Such is the account given in by the tavern-keeper, the farmer, the miller, the ftore-keeper, &c. When the directors are told of the poffibility of fuch perfons cheating the fociety, they will not ad

mit

mit it; because, fay they, all their characters are known to us; their actions are fo public, that if they were dishoneft they could not be fo long without being difcovered, and they would then be difmiffed. They confider that unlimited confidence as benevolence, brotherly charity, &c. They add to the defence of this motive-that a man narrowly watched is more excufable in robbing, than one in whom confidence is placed; and they affirm, that they never have had reafon to repent of this rule of confidence. It appcars, however, that their different branches bring them in very little. The fociety does not draw a dollar an acre free from their farms. The store, extremely well fupplied, which fells a great deal in the neighbourhood, does not produce annually above eight hundred dollars. The tavern, although it has a great deal of custom, does not clear more than fourfcore dollars; and the fame is the cafe with refpect to all the other branches in their hands. Industry is naturally flackened, when it is not excited by intereft. The whole of the revenues of the fociety of Bethlehem does not amount to eight thousand dollars a year upon an average, and their expences are nearly equal to that income. In the first place, they have to pay to the direction of the Unity refident in America, one-fixteenth part of their reve