*

Of Emigration.

adequate remedy it will appear but a slight palliative.

In the accounts which we have of the peopling of new countries, the dangers, difficulties, and hardships, with which the first settlers have had to struggle, appear to be even greater than we can well imagine they could be exposed to in their parent state. The endeavor to avoid that degree of unhappiness arising from the difficulty of supporting a family might long have left the new world of America unpeopled by Europeans, if those more powerful passions the thirst of gain, the spirit of adventure, and religious enthusiasm, had not directed and animated the enterprise. These passions enabled the first adventurers to triumph over every obstacle; but in many instances in a way to make humanity shudder, and to defeat the true end of emigration. Whatever may be the character of the Spanish inhabitants of Mexico and Peru at the present moment, we cannot read the accounts of the first conquests of these countries without feeling strongly, that the race destroyed was in moral worth as well as numbers superior to the race of their destroyers.

The parts of America settled by the English, from being thinly peopled, were better adapted to

Of Emigration.

the establishment of new colonies; yet even here, the most formidable difficulties presented themselves. In the settlement of Virginia, begun by Sir Walter Raleigh, and established by lord Delaware, three attempts completely failed. Nearly half of the first colony was destroyed by the savages, and the rest consumed and worn down by fatigue and famine deserted the country, and returned home in despair. The second colony was cut off to a man in a manner unknown; but they were supposed to be destroyed by the Indians. The third experienced the same dismal fate; and the remains of the fourth, after it had been reduced by famine and disease in the course of six months from 500 to 60 persons, were returning in a famishing and desperate condition to England, when they were met in the mouth of the Chesapeak bay by lord Delaware, with a squadron loaded with provisions, and every thing for their relief and defence.'

The first puritan settlers in New England were few in number. They landed in a bad season, and were only supported by their private funds.

1 Burke's America, vol. ii. p. 219. Robertson, b. ix. p. 85, 86.

Of Emigration.

The winter was premature and terribly cold; the country was covered with wood, and afforded very little for the refreshment of persons sickly with such a voyage, or for the sustenance of an infant people. Nearly half of them perished by the scurvy, by want, and the severity of the climate; yet those who survived were not dispirited by their hardships, but supported by their energy of character, and the satisfaction of finding themselves out of the reach of the spiritual arm, reduced this savage country by degrees to yield

them a comfortable subsistence.'

Even the plantation of Barbadoes, which increased afterwards with such extraordinary rapidity, had at first to contend with a country utterly desolate, an extreme want of provisions, a difficulty in clearing the ground unusually great from the uncommon size and hardness of the trees, a most disheartening scantiness and poverty in their first crops, and a slow and precarious supply of provisions from England.

2

The attempt of the French in 1663, to form at once a powerful colony in Guinea, was attended

1 Burke's America, vol. ii. p. 144.

2 Id. p. 85.

Of Emigration.

with the most disastrous consequences. Twelve thousand men were landed in the rainy season, and placed under tents and miserable sheds. In this situation, inactive, weary of existence, and in want of all necessaries, exposed to contagious distempers which are always occasioned by bad provisions, and to all the irregularities which idleness produces among the lower classes of society, almost the whole of them ended their lives in all the horrors of despair. The attempt was completely abortive. Two thousand men, whose robust constitutions had enabled them to resist the inclemency of the climate and the miseries to which they had been exposed, were brought back to France, and the 25,000,000 of livres which had been expended in the expedition were totally lost.'

In the late settlements at Port Jackson in New Holland, a melancholy and affecting picture is drawn by Collins of the extreme hardships with which, for some years, the infant colony had to struggle before the produce was equal to its support. These distresses were undoubtedly aggravated by the character of the settlers; but those

'Raynal, Hist. des Indes, tom. vii. liv. xiii. p. 43. 10 vols. 8vo. 1795.

Of Emigration.

which were caused by the unhealthiness of a newly cleared country, the failure of first crops, and the uncertainty of supplies from so distant a mother country, were of themselves sufficiently disheartening, to place in a strong point of view the necessity of great resources, as well as unconquerable perseverence, in the colonization of savage

countries.

The establishment of colonies in the more thinly peopled regions of Europe and Asia would evidently require still greater resources. From the power and warlike character of the inhabitants of these countries, a considerable military force would be necessary to prevent their utter and immediate destruction. Even the frontier provinces of the most powerful states are defended with considerable difficulty from such restless neighbors; and the peaceful labors of the cultivator are continually interrupted by their predatory incursions. The late empress Catharine of Russia found it necessary to protect by regular fortresses, the colonies which she had established in the districts near the Wolga; and the calamities which her subjects suffered by the incursions of the Crim Tartars furnished a pretext, and perhaps a just one, for taking possession of the whole of the