Yet, By What Stern Necessity Were We Driven Forth To Seek A New
Home Amid The Western Wilds?
We were not compelled to emigrate.
Bound to England by a thousand holy and endearing ties, surrounded
by a
Circle of chosen friends, and happy in each other's love,
we possessed all that the world can bestow of good - but WEALTH.
The half-pay of a subaltern officer, managed with the most rigid
economy, is too small to supply the wants of a family; and if of
a good family, not enough to maintain his original standing in
society. True, it may find his children bread, it may clothe them
indifferently, but it leaves nothing for the indispensable
requirements of education, or the painful contingencies of sickness
and misfortune. In such a case, it is both wise and right to
emigrate; Nature points it out as the only safe remedy for the
evils arising out of an over-dense population, and her advice is
always founded upon justice and truth.
Up to the period of which I now speak, we had not experienced much
inconvenience from our very limited means. Our wants were few, and
we enjoyed many of the comforts and even some of the luxuries of
life; and all had gone on smoothly and lovingly with us until the
birth of our first child. It was then that prudence whispered to the
father, "you are happy and contented now, but this cannot always
last; the birth of that child whom you have hailed with as much
rapture as though she were born to inherit a noble estate, is to
you the beginning of care.
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