If You Recede
Still Farther From The Sea, You Will Come Into More Modern
Settlements; They Exhibit The Same Strong Lineaments, In A Ruder
Appearance.
Religion seems to have still less influence, and their
manners are less improved.
Now we arrive near the great woods, near the last inhabited
districts; there men seem to be placed still farther beyond the
reach of government, which in some measure leaves them to
themselves. How can it pervade every corner; as they were driven
there by misfortunes, necessity of beginnings, desire of acquiring
large tracts of land, idleness, frequent want of economy, ancient
debts; the re-union of such people does not afford a very pleasing
spectacle. When discord, want of unity and friendship; when either
drunkenness or idleness prevail in such remote districts;
contention, inactivity, and wretchedness must ensue. There are not
the same remedies to these evils as in a long established community.
The few magistrates they have, are in general little better than the
rest; they are often in a perfect state of war; that of man against
man, sometimes decided by blows, sometimes by means of the law; that
of man against every wild inhabitant of these venerable woods, of
which they are come to dispossess them. There men appear to be no
better than carnivorous animals of a superior rank, living on the
flesh of wild animals when they can catch them, and when they are
not able, they subsist on grain. He who would wish to see America in
its proper light, and have a true idea of its feeble beginnings and
barbarous rudiments, must visit our extended line of frontiers where
the last settlers dwell, and where he may see the first labours of
settlement, the mode of clearing the earth, in all their different
appearances; where men are wholly left dependent on their native
tempers, and on the spur of uncertain industry, which often fails
when not sanctified by the efficacy of a few moral rules.
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