That some of the leaders of the hostile party in America acted upon liberal and patriotic views, cannot be doubted. There were many, indeed, of whom the public good was the leading principle; and to these the cause was a noble one: yet even these little foresaw the result. Had they known what a cold selfish character, what a dereliction of religious principle, what furious factions, and wild unsettled notions of government, were to be the consequence of this utter alienation from the parent state, they would have shrunk back from the prospect. Those fine minds who, nurtured in the love of science and of elegance, looked back to the land of their forefathers for models of excellence, and drank inspiration from the production of the British muse, could not but feel this rupture as “a wrench from all we love, from all we are.” They, too, might wish, when time had ripened their growing empire, to assert that independence which, when mature in strength and knowledge, we claim even of the parents we love and honour. But to snatch it, with a rude and bloody grasp, outraged the feelings of those gentler children of the common parent. Mildness of manners, refinement of mind, and all the softer virtues that spring up in the cultivated paths of social life, nurtured by generous affections, were undoubtedly to be found on the side of the unhappy royalists; whatever superiority in vigour and intrepidity might be claimed by their persecutors. Certainly, however necessary the ruling powers might find it to carry their system of exile into execution, it has occasioned to the country an irreparable privation.

When the edict of Nantz gave the scattering blow to the protestants of France, they carried with them their arts, their frugal regular habits, and that portable mine of wealth which is the portion of patient industry. The chasm produced in France, by the departure of so much humble virtue, and so many useful arts, has never been filled.

What the loss of the Huguenots was to commerce and manufactures in France, that of the loyalists was to religion, literature, and amenity, in America. The silken threads were drawn out of the mixed web of society, which has ever since been comparatively coarse and homely. The dawning light of elegant science was quenched in universal dullness. No ray has broke through the general gloom except the phosphoric lightnings of her cold-blooded philosophers, the deistical Franklin, the legitimate father of the American ‘age of calculation.’ So well have “the children of his soul” profited by the frugal lessons of this apostle of Plutus, that we see a new empire blest in its infancy with all the saving virtues which are the usual portion of cautious and feeble age; and we behold it with the same complacent surprise which fills our minds at the sight of a young miser.

Forgive me, shade of the accomplished Hamilton^[25], while all that is lovely in virtue, all that is honourable in valour, and all that is admirable in talent, conspire to lament the early setting of that western star; and to deck the tomb of worth and genius with wreaths of immortal bloom.

fain would I add,

but alas!

His character was a bright exception; yet, after all, an exception that only confirms the rule. What must be the state of that country where worth, talent, and the disinterested exercise of every faculty of a vigorous and exalted mind, were in vain devoted to the public good; where, indeed, they only marked out their possessor for a victim to the shrine of faction? Alas! that a compliance with the laws of false honour, (the only blemish of a stainless life,) should be so dearly expiated!

Yet the deep sense expressed by all parties of this general loss, seems to promise a happier day at some future period, when this chaos of jarring elements shall be reduced by some pervading and governing mind into a settled form.

But much must be done, and suffered, before this change can take place. There never can be much improvement till there are union and subordination; till those strong local attachments are formed, which are the basis of patriotism, and the bonds of social attachment. But, while such a wide field is open to the spirit of adventure; and, while the facility of removal encourages that restless and ungovernable spirit, there is little hope of any material change. There is in America a double principle of fermentation, which continues to impede the growth of the arts and sciences, and of those gentler virtues of social life, which were blasted by the breath of popular fury. On the sea-side there was a perpetual importation of lawless and restless persons, who have no other path to the notoriety they covet, but that which leads through party violence; and of the want of that local attachment, I have been speaking of, there can be no stronger proof, than the passion for emigration so frequent in America.

Among those who are neither beloved in the vicinity of their place of abode, nor kept stationary by any gainful pursuit, it is incredible how light a matter will afford a pretext for a removal.

Here is one great motive, for good conduct and decorous manners, obliterated. The good opinion of his neighbours is of little consequence to him, who can scarce be said to have any. If a man keeps free of those crimes which a regard for the public safety compels the magistrate to punish, he finds shelter in every forest from the scorn and dislike incurred by petty trespasses on society. There all who are unwilling to submit to the restraints of law and religion, may live unchallenged, at a distance from the public exercise of either. There all whom want has made desperate, whether it be the want of abilities, of character, or the means to live, are sure to take shelter. This habit of removing furnishes, however, a palliation for some evils, for the facility with which they change residence, becomes the means of ridding the community of members too turbulent or too indolent to be quiet or useful. It is a kind of voluntary exile, where those whom government want power and efficiency to banish, very obligingly banish themselves; thus preventing the explosion which might be occasioned by their continuing mingled in the general mass.

It is owing to this salutary discharge of peccant humours that matters go on so quietly as they do, under a government which is neither feared nor loved, by the community it rules. These removals are incredibly frequent; for the same family, flying as it were before the face of legal authority and civilization, are often known to remove farther and farther back into the woods, every fifth or sixth year, as the population begins to draw nearer. By this secession from society, a partial reformation is in some cases effected. A person incapable of regular industry and compliance with its established customs, will certainly do least harm, when forced to depend on his personal exertions. When a man places himself in the situation of Robinson Crusoe, with the difference of a wife and children for that solitary hero’s cats and parrots, he must of necessity make exertions like his, or perish. He becomes not a regular husbandman, but a hunter, with whom agriculture is but a secondary consideration. His Indian corn, and potatoes, which constitute the main part of his crop, are, in due time, hoed by his wife and daughters; while the axe and the gun are the only implements he willingly handles.

Fraud and avarice are the vices of society, and do not thrive in the shade of the forest. The hunter, like the sailor, has little thought of coveting or amassing. He does not forge, nor cheat, nor steal; as such an unprincipled person must have done in the world, where, instead of wild beasts, he must have preyed upon his fellows; and he does not drink much, because liquor is not attainable. But he becomes coarse, savage, and totally negligent of all the forms and decencies of life. He grows wild and unsocial. To him a neighbour is an encroacher. He has learnt to do without one; and he knows not how to yield to him in any point of mutual accommodation. He cares neither to give nor take assistance, and finds all the society he wants in his own family. Selfish from the overindulged love of ease and liberty, he sees in a new comer merely an abridgment of his range, and an interloper in that sport on which he would much rather depend for subsistence than on the habits of regular industry. What can more flatter an imagination warm with native benevolence, and animated by romantic enthusiasm, than the image of insulated self-dependant families, growing up in those primeval retreats, remote from the corruptions of the world, and dwelling amidst the prodigality of nature. Nothing, however, can be more anti-Arcadian. There no crook is seen, no pipe is heard, no lamb bleats, for the best possible reason, because there are no sheep. No pastoral strains awake the sleeping echoes, doomed to sleep on till the bull-frog, the wolf, and the Quackawarry^[26] begin their nightly concert. Seriously, it is not a place that can, in any instance, constitute happiness. When listless indolence or lawless turbulence fly to shades the most tranquil, or scenes the most beautiful, they degrade nature instead of improving or enjoying her charms. Active diligence, a sense of our duty to the source of all good, and kindly affections towards our fellow-creatures, with a degree of self-command and mental improvement, can alone produce the gentle manners that insure rural peace, or enable us, with intelligence and gratitude, to “rejoice in nature’s joys.”