earnest man could be attached as "colporteur to each clerical station, what countless benefits could be attained with ease! A people rescued from the temptations of poverty and bad company, encouraged by the example of their employers, instructed during their abundant leisure by wellchosen books, and strengthened by the exhortations of their ministers of religion, might soon make the wilderness to blossom as the rose. A short sketch has been drawn of the present position and the future prospects of the colony, the inhabitants, and their social condition in these favoured lands. How many men, disappointed in an over-crowded profession, would do well to realize their substance, and find there occupation and comfort? How many, restrained by prudence from yielding to the best feelings of our nature, would thus be enabled to find a happy home? What numbers of Irish gentry of decayed fortunes, who may receive by the sale of their encumbered estates a small remnant of their nominal patrimony, while they retain all their old feelings and associations, would thus find means to escape the mortification of altered circumstances, to shun the proud man's con tumely, and to place their otherwise beggared families in the midst of plenty, if not in affluence. Let them contrast the prospect of a few thousands, the remnant of a large fortune, invested in the 3 per cents., or in some trade or agricultural pursuit in Ireland, with the foregoing statements, and they will see that they are not invited to abdicate their position in society, but that while it is yet time, the means of still retaining it are pointed out. "Res hodie minor here quam fuit, atque eadem eras Deteret exiguis aliquid, proponnius ire.” The pangs of parting from the friends and associations of youth, are, and ought to be, great. The spirits no doubt will sink at times before unanticipated obstacles, and at disappointments arising from misconceptions which must exist in the minds even of the best informed. We scarcely ever yet knew an instance where the emigrant did not at first bewail his lot, regret his country, and even at the entrance of the promised land, wish that he had died in Egypt, lamenting the flesh-pots, the luxurious habits of an older nation. But we have seldom known any, who finally did not rejoice that they had freed themselves from the trammels of an artificial state of society; that they had rescued themselves from the sea of troubles in which so many of their companions had remained immersed; that they had not shrunk from encountering difficulties, but had risen superior to the slings and arrows of fortune. If any should be induced by what has been advanced, to adopt this more manly course, let them first count the cost; regrets and dissatisfaction will probably encompass their first efforts. In their disappointment, probably, they may bitterly reproach the writer of this sketch. He will not blame them: such were his own feelings, and will probably be the experience of thousands. He is content to know that hereafter they will own the truth of this representation, when they will look back with pity, not only on the starving thousands of their fellow-countrymen, but also on the idle listless dependants upon others; assuming a position they are unable to hold; affecting a refinement unsuited to their means; ashamed of digging rather than of begging; living in ambitious poverty; vainly struggling to obtain in their native country what they might secure elsewhere. |