I Do Not Mean To Insinuate National Reflections, God Forbid!
It Ill Becomes Any Man, And Much Less An American;
But as I know men
are nothing of themselves, and that they owe all their different
modifications either to government
Or other local circumstances,
there must be some powerful causes which constitute this great
national difference.
Agreeable to the account which several Scotchmen have given me of
the north of Britain, of the Orkneys, and the Hebride Islands, they
seem, on many accounts, to be unfit for the habitation of men; they
appear to be calculated only for great sheep pastures. Who then can
blame the inhabitants of these countries for transporting themselves
hither? This great continent must in time absorb the poorest part of
Europe; and this will happen in proportion as it becomes better
known; and as war, taxation, oppression, and misery increase there.
The Hebrides appear to be fit only for the residence of malefactors,
and it would be much better to send felons there than either to
Virginia or Maryland. What a strange compliment has our mother
country paid to two of the finest provinces in America! England has
entertained in that respect very mistaken ideas; what was intended
as a punishment, is become the good fortune of several; many of
those who have been transported as felons, are now rich, and
strangers to the stings of those wants that urged them to violations
of the law: they are become industrious, exemplary, and useful
citizens. The English government should purchase the most northern
and barren of those islands; it should send over to us the honest,
primitive Hebrideans, settle them here on good lands, as a reward
for their virtue and ancient poverty; and replace them with a colony
of her wicked sons.
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