Who would have
imagined that any people should have abandoned a fruitful and
extensive continent, filled with the riches which the most ample
vegetation affords; replete with good soil, enamelled meadows, rich
pastures, every kind of timber, and with all other materials
necessary to render life happy and comfortable:
To come and inhabit
a little sandbank, to which nature had refused those advantages; to
dwell on a spot where there scarcely grew a shrub to announce, by
the budding of its leaves, the arrival of the spring, and to warn by
their fall the proximity of winter. Had this island been contiguous
to the shores of some ancient monarchy, it would only have been
occupied by a few wretched fishermen, who, oppressed by poverty,
would hardly have been able to purchase or build little fishing
barks; always dreading the weight of taxes, or the servitude of men-
of-war. Instead of that boldness of speculation for which the
inhabitants of this island are so remarkable, they would fearfully
have confined themselves, within the narrow limits of the most
trifling attempts; timid in their excursions, they never could have
extricated themselves from their first difficulties. This island, on
the contrary, contains 5000 hardy people, who boldly derive their
riches from the element that surrounds them, and have been compelled
by the sterility of the soil to seek abroad for the means of
subsistence. You must not imagine, from the recital of these facts,
that they enjoyed any exclusive privileges or royal charters, or
that they were nursed by particular immunities in the infancy of
their settlement. No, their freedom, their skill, their probity, and
perseverance, have accomplished everything, and brought them by
degrees to the rank they now hold.
From this first sketch, I hope that my partiality to this island
will be justified. Perhaps you hardly know that such an one exists
in the neighbourhood of Cape Cod. What has happened here, has and
will happen everywhere else. Give mankind the full rewards of their
industry, allow them to enjoy the fruit of their labour under the
peaceable shade of their vines and fig-trees, leave their native
activity unshackled and free, like a fair stream without dams or
other obstacles; the first will fertilise the very sand on which
they tread, the other exhibit a navigable river, spreading plenty
and cheerfulness wherever the declivity of the ground leads it. If
these people are not famous for tracing the fragrant furrow on the
plain, they plough the rougher ocean, they gather from its surface,
at an immense distance, and with Herculean labours, the riches it
affords; they go to hunt and catch that huge fish which by its
strength and velocity one would imagine ought to be beyond the reach
of man. This island has nothing deserving of notice but its
inhabitants; here you meet with neither ancient monuments, spacious
halls, solemn temples, nor elegant dwellings; not a citadel, nor any
kind of fortification, not even a battery to rend the air with its
loud peals on any solemn occasion.
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