They Have Been An Useful Acquisition To This Continent, And
To Pennsylvania In Particular; To Them It Owes Some Share Of Its
Prosperity:
To their mechanical knowledge and patience it owes the
finest mills in all America, the best teams of horses, and many
other advantages.
The recollection of their former poverty and
slavery never quits them as long as they live.
The Scotch and the Irish might have lived in their own country
perhaps as poor, but enjoying more civil advantages, the effects of
their new situation do not strike them so forcibly, nor has it so
lasting an effect. From whence the difference arises I know not, but
out of twelve families of emigrants of each country, generally seven
Scotch will succeed, nine German, and four Irish. The Scotch are
frugal and laborious, but their wives cannot work so hard as German
women, who on the contrary vie with their husbands, and often share
with them the most severe toils of the field, which they understand
better. They have therefore nothing to struggle against, but the
common casualties of nature. The Irish do not prosper so well; they
love to drink and to quarrel; they are litigious, and soon take to
the gun, which is the ruin of everything; they seem beside to labour
under a greater degree of ignorance in husbandry than the others;
perhaps it is that their industry had less scope, and was less
exercised at home. I have heard many relate, how the land was
parcelled out in that kingdom; their ancient conquest has been a
great detriment to them, by over-setting their landed property.
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