least as in Canada; but it would require greater self-denial to impose the necessary severities on himself in New-York, than to submit to them when unavoidable in Canada. The general observations which I made concerning the classes to whom emigration to Canada would prove a real benefit, are equally applicable to emigration to the United States; but in a future letter I will endeavour to give you some idea of what farmers, who bring with them a few thousand, instead of a few hundred, pounds, may expect to do in different parts of the United States. I will, at the same time, tell you all I can learn respecting Mr. Birkbeck's settlement. I had not intended to confine this letter to such dry statistics; but it is too late to begin on any other subject.-James, I believe, is disposed to think, that he is better at home than in America ; except in his present capacity, in a city where his wages might be ten pounds per annum higher than in England, and where his wife's services as a dress-maker, fine washer, &c. would be productive. LETTER III. Norfolk, (Virginia,) Dec. 12, 1820. As engagements of various kinds begin to thicken upon me previously to embarking, and I have little chance of any opportunity of writing to you as I wish, I must continue to snatch little intervals as they present themselves, and write to you as I can. You are already in possession of our "personal narrative" to a late date. I will now continue my remarks, scanty and superficial as I know they are, on the subject of emigration. I do not recollect that I omitted any thing at all material which occured to me during my hasty progress through the country, with respect to the inducements offered to the poorer classes, who are anxious to obtain a little land, from which they may derive a subsistence for their families by personal exertion. On the more difficult subject of the advantages which agriculturists, with a capital of a few thousand pounds, would derive from coming to this country, I shall enter with greater reluctance; because it is one in the minutiae of which I feel still less at home, although I have taken pains to obtain such information as would lead me to conclusions on which I could rely. The fact is, that of the more recent settlements, (even of those less remote than Mr. Birkbeck's,) little is known on the coast, and the accounts which you receive from casual visiters are usually as vague and inaccurate as those derived from persons interested are exaggerated and partial. Opinions respecting all the settlements, is easy enough to collect; but facts, on which to found opinions entitled to any consideration, it is extremely difficult to obtain. - I have met with two persons only who have actually been at Mr. Birkbeck's settlement; one in the course of the last summer, the other less than eight weeks since. They both state, that he has now a very comfortable house, excellent fences, and from 60 to 80 acres of Indian corn; but that he has raised little or no wheat, finding it more desirable, on the whole, to purchase flour at Harmony, eighteen miles distant. I have not Mr. Birkbeck's book before me to refer to, in order to see whether this is his third or fourth year; but, in either case, the result differs so widely from his anticipations, as to render it difficult for him to elude the charge of being a wild and sanguine speculator. In one of his estimates, he states the following as the quantity of produce which a settler on 640 acres, may expect to raise in the first four years: 1st year, 100 acres of Indian corn. 100 ditto ditto. 100 ditto Wheat. 3d year, 200 ditto Indian corn. 100 ditto Wheat. 4th year, 200 ditto Indian corn. 200 ditto Wheat. This estimate was made not later, I believe, at any rate than in 1817, (you can refer to his book ;) and yet in the autumn of 1820, he has little or no wheat, and only 60 or 80 acres of Indian corn, though possessing unquestionably, in his skill and resources, more than the average advantages of new settlers, and stimulated to extraordinary exertions by a regard to his reputation. So much for quantity. With respect to price, in his estimate of profit, he takes wheat at seventy-five, and Indian corn at forty, cents per bushel. I cannot hear of any actual sales on the Wabash, to fix the prices on the spot; but in both Kentucky and Ohio, wheat is at twenty five to thirty-three, and Indian corn at twelve and a half cents per bushel: while the fact that he regards it as more desirable to buy and transport flour eighteen miles, than to raise it at home, furnishes a strong presumption that he can derive little profit from its cultivation. The gentleman whom I mentioned, as being there a few weeks since, told me that Mr. Birkbeck was preparing to sow a little wheat this winter; but that he regarded grazing as the most profitable object of his future attention. Of the price of labour, and of foreign articles of domestic economy, I could obtain no satisfactory information. I lately met a gentleman who has been travelling extensively through the western country. He did not visit Mr. Birkbeck's settlement, but saw two English families returning from it sickly and debilitated; their inability to preserve their health there being, as they alleged, their principal reason for leaving the colony. He also met an English gentleman of property who had been to examine the place, with a view of taking his family thither: he said, the sight of it, and a conviction that it was unhealthy, decided him at once to relinquish the idea; that he considered the selection a most unfortunate one for Mr. Birkbeck, and that the number of the colonists did not exceed two hundred. I have heard others speak rather favourably of the healthiness of Mr. Birkbeck's particular spot, to which his draining-fences will contribute; but all represent Illinois in general as a most unhealthy state, where the people for the most part are pallid and emaciated, and exhibit the languor and apathy which follow frequent or long-continued intermittents. I became sadly too familiar with this melancholy spectacle on my south-western route: scarcely one family in six in extensive districts in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, being exempt from fever and ague; and many of them exhibiting tall young men of eighteen to thirty moving feebly about the house, completely unfitted for exertion, after fifteen or eighteen months' residence, or rendered indolent or inefficient for the rest of their lives. In Georgia and Carolina, we were told in a jocular way, that it was not uncommon for a person who was invited to dinner on a particular day, Wednesday for instance, to begin reckoning "MondayTuesday-Wednesday-No; I cannot come to you on Wednesday, for that is my fever day."The two gentlemen who had visited Mr. Birkbeck agreed in stating, what has often been denied, that he has a well of excellent water. On the whole, I am disposed to think that Mr. Birkbeck's sanguine anticipations have been grievously disappointed, and would have been proved by the result to have been extravagant, independently of the recent changes in the circumstances of the country. At the same time, I have no doubt that even his present views of his situation and prospects, moderated as they must be by his |