any,

of

to break through the ties of every former association -forget the friendship of early or matured yearsto quit the comforts, if fortunately they have their former homestead, for perhaps the dissonant, uncongenial, and it may be to them, uncomfortable habits of a foreign land, in the vague pursuit of objects, they are told are within their immediate grasp, though in fact far removed beyond the means of their actual attainment. True it is, that there is land in abundance in America; but surrounded and overrun with those difficulties to its speedy and early reclamation-those natural barriers of a young and unexplored country, that to a poor man is almost insurmountable in his efforts at cultivation. Labour too, is well provided at those particular periods of the year, limited as they are to a few months in the spring and summer season, for which there is any demand, at least in the more laborious out-door occupations, which are those exclusively set apart for the negro, the emigrant, and stranger; and appropriated to him, for the sole reason, that no native white American could be found, even at considerably advanced wages, to assume their duties; at the same time that the demands upon the pecuniary resources of the emigrant are multiplied in a ratio fully equal to any increased means he may acquire, which are absorbed by the additional expenditure to which he is exposed in the purchase of those essentials that he would heretofore have considered as mere superfluities in his mode of living, but which a change of climate, and the inroad it frequently

makes upon European constitutions, has established as of the first necessaries of life; leaving him at the end of a laborious struggle, with scarcely any better prospects than when he first started; and certainly without making any very rapid advance in that independence, and increased wealth, which he was so confidently promised as a corollary to his labours at the outset.

But we must not be supposed from this, to set our face against emigration under every imaginary circumstance, or to close our eyes to the manifest advantages that we have known to result on many occasions from its adoption. We condemn the deliberate promulgation of opinions for which there is no just foundation; the confident assurance of fact, with the deductions to be taken from them, that never had existence, as an unworthy device—a discreditable mode of influencing the thousands who are induced by such means to give up the certainty of a maintenance, however scanty and parsimonious in its kind in their own country, to trust their fortunes in the precarious and difficult procurement of a mere subsistence in a stranger land, in the confident anticipation of securing-by no other than the contracted, the ordinary and adventitious means, the labour to which they were wont in their early years-both riches and independence. We condemn that indiscriminate approval, that would hold forth to all classes, the same measure of advantage, the restless and abandoned, as the good and moral citizen-the wasteful and extravagant, as the in

dustrious and prudent-the man of idle and uncertain habits, as the hard-working and persevering artizan, who may confidently expect to find in America, as in any other portion of the world, the full reward of his assiduity and exertions.

It has been remarked by a late intelligent writer, whose opportunities of observing has given considerable weight to his opinions, "that of the emigrants from the various countries in Europe, how much wiser the German, than almost all other Europeans. They hire themselves out to some wealthy landsman, and in that apprenticeship, learn every thing that is necessary. They attentively consider the prosperous industry of others, which strongly impresses them with a desire of possessing the same advantages; by dint of sobriety, rigid parsimony, and the most persevering industry, they speedily succeed. The Scotch and Irish do not commonly succeed so well; for it has been remarked, out of twelve families of each nation who have emigrated, generally seven Scotch, nine German, and only four Irish will succeed. The Scotch are frugal and industrious, but their wives cannot work so hard as the German women, who share with their husbands the severest toil and labour of the field, which they understand better. The Irish do not succeed so well; they love to drink and quarrel; they are litigious, and soon take to the gun, which is the ruin of all industry and saving."

This we really believe to form a more favourable estimate of the comparative success attending emi

TO THE UNITED STATES.

43

gration to the United States, than even that which the facts themselves will warrant. Yet what a tale does it reveal, what a lamentable disclosure does it bring before us--the disappointment and wretchedness entailed on thousands who seeking emigration as a panacea for the many probable and perplexing difficulties of their situation in the world, have with an earnest confidence of success

"Set their all upon the cast,"

and embarked their fortunes in the chance attainment of a mere and precarious subsistence.

From the last report of the Secretary of State made to Congress in 1837, it will appear that the number of passengers who arrived in the United States from foreign countries during the preceding year amounted to 80,952.

The foregoing may be taken as a fair average of other years, from which we deduce that of the whole number of European emigrants from the United States, Great Britain sends out about 45,000 annually, or very nearly two-thirds of the entire. Supposing, then, instead of seven in every twelve of Scotch, and four in every twelve of Irish, who constitute at least four-fifths of the whole number of British Emigrants, that half of the entire who emigrate actually succeed, we have the lamentable fact presented to us, of twenty thousand luckless and disappointed beings annually expatriated from their early homes, and thrown helpless upon the surface of American society, to eke out a wretched and miserable life, and to contend in their humble efforts, as we have often known them to do, against the most malignant prejudices, the most unreasonable hostility of the great mass of the American people.

To such an extent has this ignoble and ungenerous feeling against the European stranger been of late carried, that associations have been organized in