Aote was communicated to me by a gentleman who has the original advertisement in his poffeffion.

"When I tell you that people are fold in this manner, it is not to be understood that they are fold for ever, but only for a certain number of years; for two, three, four, or five years, according to their refpective merits. A good mechanic, that understands a particular kind of trade, for which men are much wanted in America, has to ferve a shorter time than a mere labourer, as more money will be given for his time, and the expence of his paffage does not exceed that of any other man. During their fervitude these people are liable to be refold at the caprice of their mafters; they are as much under dominion as negro flaves, and, if they attempt to run away, they may be imprifoned like felons. The laws refpecting redemptioners,' fo are the men called that are brought over in this manner, were grounded on thofe formed for the English convicts before the revolution, and they are very fevere. The Germans are a quiet, fober, and industrious fet of people, and are most valuable citizens. They generally fettle a good many together in one place, and, as may be fuppofed, in confequence, keep up many of the cuftoms of their native country as well as their own language. In Lancaster, and the neighbourhood, German is the prevailing language, and numbers of people living there are ignorant of any other. The Germans are fome of the belt farmers in the United States, and they seldom are to be found but where the land is particularly good; wherever they fettle they build churches, and are wonderfully attentive to the duties of religion. In thefe and many other refpects the Germans and their defcendants differ widely from the Americans, that is, from the defcendants of the English, Scotch, Irish, and other nations, who, from having lived in the country for many generations, and from having mingled together, now form one people, whofe manners and habits are very much the fame.

*

"The Germans are a plodding race of men, wholly intent upon their own business, and indifferent about that of others: a stranger is never molested as he paffes through their fettlements with inquifitive and idle queftions. On arriving amongst the Americans, however, a ftranger must tell where he came from, where he is going, what his name is, what his bufinefs is, and until he gratifies their curiofity on these points, and many others of equal importance, he is never fuffered to remain quiet for a moment. In a tavern he must fatisfy every fresh set that comes in, in the fame manner, or involve himfelf in a quarrel, efpecially if it is found out that he is not a native, which it does not require much fagacity to discover.

"The Germans give themselves but little trouble about politics; they elect their reprefentatives to ferve in congrefs and the state affem.

"In fpeaking of the Americans here, and in the following lines, it is thofe of the lower and middling claffes of the people which I allude to, fuch as are met with in the country parts of Pennsylvania.”

blies, and, fatisfied that deferving men have been chofen by the people at large, they truft that these men do what is beft for the public good, and therefore abide patiently by their decifion; they revere the conftitution, confcious that they live happily under it, and exprefs no wish to have it altered. The Americans, however, are for ever cavilling at fome of the public measures; fomething or other is always wrong, and they never appear perfectly fatisfied. If any great measure is before Congrefs for difcuffion, feemingly distrustful of the abilities or the integrity of the men they have elected, they meet together in their towns or districts, canvass the matter themselves, and then fend forward inftructions to their reprefentatives how to act, They never confider that any important question is more likely to meet with a fair difcuffion in an affeinbly where able men are collected together from all parts of the states than in an obfcure corner, where a few individuals are affembled, who have no opportunity of getting general information on the fubject, Party fpirit is for ever creating diffentions amongst them, and one man is continually endeavouring to obtrude his political creed upon another. If it is found out that a ftranger is from Great Britain or Ireland, they immediately begin to boaft of their own conftitution and freedom, and give him to understand that they think every Englishman a flave, because he fubmits to be called a fubject. Their opinions are, for the most part, crude and dogmatical, and principally borrowed from newspapers, which are wretchedly compiled from the pamphlets of the day, having read a few of which, they think themselves arrived at the fummit of intellectual excellence, and qualified for making the deepeft political researches.

"The Germans, as I have faid, are fond of fettling near each other when the young men of a family are grown up, they gene rally endeavour to get a piece of land in the neighbourhood of their relations, and by their industry foon make it valuable: the Ame. rican, on the contrary, is of a roving difpofition, and wholly regardJefs of the ties of confanguinity; he takes his wife with him, goes to a diftant part of the country, and buries himself in the woods, hundreds of miles diftant from the rest of his family, never, perhaps, to fee them again, In the back part of the country you always meet num bers of men prowling about to try and buy cheap land; having found what they like, they immediately remove: nor, having once removed, are these people fatisfied; reftlefs and difcontented with what they poffefs, they are for ever changing. It is fcarcely poffible, in any part of the continent, to find a man, amongst the middling and lower claffes of Americans, who has not changed his farm and his refidence many different times. Thus it is that, though there are not more than four millions of people in the United States, yet they are scattered from the confines of Canada to the fartheft extremity of Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the banks of the Miffilippi. Thousands of acres of waste land are annually taken up in unhealthy and unfruitful parts of the country, notwithstanding that the best fettled and healthy parts of the middle states would maintain five times the number of inha

bitants

bitants that they do at prefent. The American, however, does not change about from place to place in this manner merely to gratify a wandering difpofition; in every change he hopes to make money. By the defire of making money, both the Germans and Americans, of every clafs and defcription, are actuated in all their movements; felf-intereft is always uppermost in their thoughts; it is the idol which they worship, and at its fhrine thousands and thousands would be found, in all parts of the country, ready to make a facrifice of every noble and generous fentiment that can adorn the human mind." Pp. 68–72.

We believe, that if the lower claffes are made acquainted with such circumftances, they will not be fo easily impofed upon for the future, by the mifreprefentations of the interested; and the defire of emigration will be diminished amongst the fuperior orders, if they will condefcend to perufe this volume. Travellers will not be anxious, furely, of vifiting a country, where they must expect to meet with "eleven beds in a room, and people fleep in pairs; where boors, lawyers, and a Judge, lie together, and all breakfast and dine together in a tavern," where the inhabitants of WASHINGTON are "under the neceflity of going through a deep wood, for two miles, to fee a next door neighbour, and in the fame city, is a curious, and, I believe, a novel circumstance;" and the roads are fo bad—

"That on going from Elkton to the Sufquehannah ferry, the driver frequently had to call to the paffengers in the ftage, to lean out of the carriage firft at one fide, then at the other, to prevent it from overfetting in the deep ruts with which the road abounds: Now, gentlemen, to the right; upon which the paffengers all stretched their bodies half way out of the carriage to balance it on that fide; Now, gentlemen, to the left;' and fo on. This was found abfolutely neceffary at least a dozen times in half the number of miles. Whenever they attempt to mend thefe roads, it is always by filling. the ruts with faplings or bufhes, and covering them over with earth. This, however, is done only when there are fields on each fide of the road. If the road runs contiguous to a wood, then, instead of mending it where it is bad, they open a new paffage through the trees, which they call making a road, It is very common in Maryland to fee fix or feven different roads branching out from one, which all lead to the fame place. A ftranger, before he is acquainted with this circumftance, is frequently puzzled to know which he ought to take. The dexterity with which the drivers of the ftages guide their horfes along thefe new roads, which are full of ftumps of trees, is aftonishing; yet, to appearance, they are the most awkward drivers poffible; it is more by the different noifes which they make, than by their reins, that they manage their horfes."

(To be continued.)

P. 22,

ART.

ART. XIII.

Subftance of Mr. Canning's Speech, in the Houfe of Commons, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 1798, on Mr. Tierney's Motion refpecting Continental Alliances. 8vo. Pp. 70. Price Is. 6d. Wright. 1799.

THE

HE object of Mr. Tierney's motion was to prevent his Majefty from forming any alliances with the leading powers on the Continent, with a view to fruftrate the machinations, and to defeat the projects, of the republic of France. To us it appears, that the adoption of fuch a measure would have been an unconstitutional interference with the lawful prerogative of the Crown, in whom the right of contracting alliances is exclufively vefted. If fuch prerogative be fo exercifed as to affect the interefts of the country, the Minifters, by whofe advice the Monarch is always fuppofed to act, are refponfible for fuch mifconduct, and fubject to impeachment. Du this ground, however, Mr. Canning expreffes no anxiety to meet his opponent; but, contenting himself with merely marking the motion as "extraordinary," fairly meets the arguments by which it was fupported, and, in our opinion, fuccefsfully confutes them all. The fpeech is, indeed, replete with able reafoning, pointed ridicule, and well-wrought irony.

We perfectly agree with Mr. C. in his mode of eftimating the utility of a new measure of policy proposed for the adoption of the Houfe: "I hold it no bad teft to examine in what way it bears upon the interefts of France, and, to conclude, however unphilofophically or illiberally, that what is good for the enemy cannot be very good for us." (P. 10.) This argument was, of itself, conclufive against Mr. Tierney's motion; for, most certainly, however pure the mover's motives might be, it was a motion which the Executive Directory muft heartily approve.

In order to fhew the fallacy of arguing from the past conduct of the continental powers to fhew what their future conduct would be, in the event of a new confederacy, Mr. C. adduces the inftance of many individuals in this country, who have been induced, from recent events, to change "the whole courfe and current of their ideas" in refpect of France; and he then afks," by what rule, either of justice or of reafon, does the honourable gentleman propofe to limit the benefits of experience to his own countrymen alone?" We fhall extract fome paffages from this part of his fpeech, containing allufions to certain well-known events, and marked

by

by a pleasant strain of ingenious irony, as a fair fpecimen of the flyle and fpirit of the composition :

Is it not poffible that the statesmen of Auftria or of Pruffia may have caught fome light from what has paffed upon the continent of Europe? May not Baron Thugut or Count Haugwitz have declared (though not perhaps in a public tavern) at Berlin or Vienna, that France has thrown off the mask, if ever he wore it? Would not they be to be believed if they had made fuch a declaration? Is there any thing that fhould make their profeffion incredible, and their conviction fufpicious? Or is it to the enlightened wifdom, to the penetrating and perfpicacious fagacity, to the firm and inflexible virtue of our own patrriot ftatefmen alone, that we would confine the plea of credulity, and restrict the privilege of recantation?

"I, Sir, do not fee the justice of fuch a restriction and limitation : and I confess I should try the fincerity of fuch a recantation by one teft alone ;-by obferving whether or no it were followed by any act that correfponded with its fpirit and its meaning.

"It has been obferved by ancient philofophers, that if virtue could be brought to perfection and confummation in any human mind, the poffeffor of it would ftill be an imperfect creature, forafmuch as the confcioufnefs of his own excellence would weaken in him one of the first and most amiable qualities of human nature-the indulgence for the frailties of his fellow-creatures.-It is, I fuppofe, from fome fuch caufe as this, that the gentlemen on the other fide of the House shew themselves fo little indulgent to the failings and errors of our Allies. Confcious that nothing of French artifice, or French wickedness, could deceive or impofe upon them, they cannot forgive the folly and ftupidity of those who have fuffered themselves for a moment to be fo deluded: nay, they are hardly content to afcribe the delufion to folly; but are forward to infinuate a fufpicion of fympathy and fellow. feeling with France.

"We, Sir, who have not the fame consciousness of infallibility in ourfelves, are naturally averfe from fuch fufpicion, and more difpofed to make good-natured allowances. And I proteft, for one, that if the minifters whom I have mentioned, Baron Thugut and Count Haugwitz---nay, if even their masters, the Emperor and the King of Pruffia, had pledged themfelves yet deeper to a mistaken opinion of France ;---if the forms of the House had admitted of their being brought to your bar, and there, Sir, before God and the country, fwearing upon their oaths and upon their honour, that they believed--nay, fwearing that they always would continue to believe--that the government of France was the gentleft, quieteft, pureft, nableft, faithfulleft, beft of governments ;---that it abhorred and detefted, above all things, the idea of foreign interference with the government of other countries ;---that the character of the Directory had fomething in it of peculiar candour, ingenuity, and openness ;--that they (the witneffes) fpoke to these facts from their own certain knowledge,...for that they had lived upon terms of the most con

fidential