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. In the city of New-York, through our intercourse with the Europeans, we follow the London fashions; though, by the time we adopt them, they become disused in England. Our affluence, during the late war, introduced a degree of luxury in tables, dress, and furniture, with which we were before unacquainted. But still we are not so gay a people as our neighbours in Boston, and several of the southern colonies. The Dutch counties, in some measure, follow the example of New-York, but still retain many modes peculiar to the Hollanders.

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The city of New-York consists principally of merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen, who sustain the reputation of honest, punctual, and fair dealers. With respect to riches, there is not so great an inequality amongst us as is common in Boston and some other places. Every man of industry and integrity has it in his power to live well, and many are the instances of persons who came here distressed by their poverty, who now enjoy easy and plentiful fortunes.

New-York is one of the most social places on the continent. The men collect themselves into weekly evening clubs. The ladies, in winter, are frequently entertained either at concerts of music or assemblies, and make a very good appearance. They are comely and dress well, and scarce any of them have distorted shapes. Tinctured with a Dutch education, they manage their families with becoming parsimony, good providence, and singular neatness. The practice of extravagant gaming, common to the fashionable part of the fair sex, in some places, is a vice with which my countrywomen cannot justly be charged. There

is nothing they so generally neglect as reading, and indeed all the arts for the improvement of the mind, in which, I confess, we have set them the example. They are modest, temperate, and charitable; naturally sprightly, sensible, and good-humoured; and, by the helps of a more elevated education, would possess all the accomplishments desirable in the sex. Our schools are in the lowest order-the instructors want instruction; and, through a long shameful neglect of all the arts and sciences, our common speech is extremely corrupt, and the evidences of a bad taste, both as to thought and language, are visible in all our proceedings, public and private.

The people, both in town and country, are sober, industrious, and hospitable, though intent upon gain. The richer sort keep very plentiful tables, abounding with great varieties of flesh, fish, fowl, and all kinds of vegetables. The common drinks are beer, cider, weak punch, and Madeira wine. For desert, we have fruits in vast plenty, of different kinds and various species.

Gentlemen of estates rarely reside in the country, and hence few or no experiments have yet been made in agriculture. The farms being large, our husbandmen, for that reason, have little recourse to art for manuring and improving their lands; but it is said, that nature has furnished us with sufficient helps, whenever necessity calls us to use them. It is much owing to the disproportion between the number of our inhabitants, and the vast tracts remaining still to be settled, that we have not, as yet, entered upon scarce any other manufactures than such as are indispensably necessary for our home convenience. Felt-making, which is perhaps the most natural of any we could fall upon, was begun some years ago, and hats were exported to the West-Indies with great success, till lately prohibited by an act of parliament.

The inhabitants of this colony are in general healthy and robust, taller but shorter lived than Europeans, and, both with respect to their minds and bodies, arrive sooner to an age of maturity. Breathing a serene, dry air, they are more sprightly in their natural tempers than the people of England, and hence instances of suicide are here very uncommon. The history of our diseases belongs to a profession with which I am very little acquainted. Few physicians amongst us are eminent for their skill. Quacks abound like locusts in Egypt, and too many have recommended themselves to a full practice and profitable subsistence. This is the less to be wondered at, as the profession is under no kind of regulation. Loud as the call is, to our shame be it

remembered, we have no law to protect the lives of the king's subjects from the malpractice of pretenders. Any man at his pleasure sets up for physician, apothecary, and chirurgeon. No candidates are either examined or licensed, or even sworn to fair practice.* The natural history of this province would of itself furnish a small volume; and, therefore, I leave this also to such as have capacity and leisure to make useful observations, in that curious and entertaining branch of natural philosophy.

CHAPTER III.

OF OUR TRADE.

THE situation of New-York, with respect to foreign markets, for reasons elsewhere assigned, is to be preferred to any of our colonies. It lies in the centre of the British plantations on the continent, has at all times a short easy access to the ocean, and commands almost the whole trade of Connecticut and New-Jersey, two fertile and well-cultivated colonies. The projection of Cape Cod into the Atlantic, renders the navigation from the former to Boston, at some seasons, extremely perilous; and sometimes the coasters are driven off, and compelled to winter in the West-Indies. But the conveyance to New-York, from the eastward, through the sound, is short and unexposed to such dangers. Philadelphia receives as little advantage from New-Jersey, as Boston from Connecticut, because the only rivers which roll through that province disembogue not many miles from the very city of New-York. Several attempts have been made to raise Perth Amboy into a trading port, but hitherto it has proved to be an unfeasible project. New-York, all things considered, has a much better situation, and, were it otherwise, the city is become too rich and considerable to be eclipsed by any other town in its neighbourhood.

*The necessity of regulating the practice of physic, and a plan for that purpose, were strongly recommended by the author of the Independent Reflector, in 1753, when the city of New-York alone boasted the honour of having above forty gentlemen of that faculty.

Our merchants are compared to a hive of bees, who industriously gather honey for others-Non vobis mellificatis apes. The profits of our trade centre chiefly in Great Britain; and for that reason, methinks, among others, we ought always to receive the generous aid and protection of our mother country. In our traffic with other places, the balance is almost constantly in our favour. Our exports to the WestIndies are bread, peas, rye-meal, Indian corn, apples, onions, boards, staves, horses, sheep, butter, cheese, pickled oysters, beef, and pork. Flour is also a main article, of which there is shipped about 80,000 barrels per annum. To preserve the credit of this important branch of our staple, we have a good law, appointing officers to inspect and brand every cask before its exportation. The returns are chiefly rum, sugar, and molasses, except cash from Curacoa, and when mules, from the Spanish Main, are ordered to Jamaica, and the Windward Islands, which are generally exchanged for their natural produce, for we receive but little cash from our own islands. The balance against them would be much more in our favour, if the indulgence to our sugar colonies did not enable them to sell their produce at a higher rate than either the Dutch or French islands.

The Spaniards commonly contract for provisions with merchants in this and the colony of Pennsylvania, very much. to the advantage both of the contractors and the public, because the returns are wholly in cash. Our wheat, flour, Indian corn, and lumber, shipped to Lisbon and Madeira, balance the Madeira wine inported here.

The logwood trade to the bay of Honduras is very considerable, and was pushed by our merchants with great boldness in the most dangerous times. The exportation of flax seed to Ireland is of late very much increased. Between the 9th of December, 1755, and the 23d of February following, we shipped off 12,528 hogsheads. In return for this article, linens are imported, and bills of exchange drawn in favour of England, to pay for the dry goods we purchase there. Our logwood is remitted to the English merchants for the same purpose.

The fur trade, though very much impaired by the French wiles and encroachments, ought not to be passed over in silence.* The building of Oswego has conduced, more

*It is computed, that formerly, we exported 150 hogsheads of beaver and other fine furs per annum, and 200 hogsheads of Indian-dressed deer-skins, besides those carried from Albany into New-England. Skins undressed are usually shipped to Holland.

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than any thing else, to the preservation of this trade. Peltry of all kinds is purchased with rum, ammunition, blankets, strouds and wampum, or conque-shell bugles. The French fur trade at Albany was carried on till the summer 1755, by the Caghnuaga proselytes; and, in return for their peltry, they received Spanish pieces of eight, and some other articles which the French want to complete their assortment of Indian goods. For the savages prefer the English strouds to theirs, and the French found it their interest to purchase them of us, and transport them to the western Indians on the lakes Erie, Huron, and at the strait of Misilimakinac. Our importation of dry goods from England is so vastly great, that we are obliged to betake ourselves to all possible arts to make remittances to the British merchants. for this purpose we import cotton from St. Thomas's and Surinam; lime-juice and Nicaragua wood from Curacoa; and logwood from the bay, &c. and yet it drains us of all the silver and gold we can collect. It is computed, that the annual amount of the goods purchased by this colony in Great Britain, is in value not less than £100,000 sterling; and the sum would be much greater if a stop was put to all clandestine trade. England is, doubtless, entitled to all our superfluities; because our general interests are closely connected, and her navy is our principal defence. On this account, the trade with Hamburgh and Holland for duck, chequered linen, oznabrigs, cordage, and tea, is certainly, upon the whole, impolitic and unreasonable; how much soever it may conduce to advance the interest of a few merchants, or this particular colony.

By what measures this contraband trade may be effectually obstructed is hard to determine, though it well deserves the attention of a British parliament. Increasing the number of custom-house officers, will be a remedy worse than the disease. Their salaries would be an additional charge upon the public; for if we argue from their conduct, we ought not to presume upon their fidelity. The exclusive right of the East-India company to import tea, while the colonies purchase it of foreigners 30 per cent. cheaper, must be very prejudicial to the nation. Our people, both in town and country, are shamefully gone into the habit of tea-drinking; and it is supposed we consume of this commodity in value near £10,000 sterling per annum.

Some are of opinion that the fishery of sturgeons, which abound in Hudson's river, might be improved to the great advantage of the colony; and that, if proper measures were