Dear Sir/
A bill flow before our house to regulate the
sale of the back territory, like all others of the kind, giving emiqration
"lighter wings to fly," brings this evil more home to my feelings This
fatal propensity might at all times be opposed with effect by truth and
reason, but truth and reason are not always obvious to common apprehensions,
and on this subject above all others, there are some who pretend even to think
others stand in need of being enlightened. Were I in the habit of addressing
the public a pamphlet should come out entitled "The folly of emigrating to the
western lands demonstrated" I would endeavour in familiar language to
shew to the meanest capacities that this desire proceeds either from the
neglect of calculations or bad calculations. I would go deeply into the
comparison of advantages between making a settlement on the western waters and
those on the Atlantic A particularity of facts on this point would
seize the senses more strongly than any general reasoning however good. I
would have lands producing for the Atlantic market cheaper at 10/ or 15/ per
acre than any others obtained by free grant. For example, the settler on the
Muskingum or Scioto 'tho he is to provide for no other expence than what will
purchase his implements of husbandry and transport him and them to his
plantation, yet he can never propose to himself any thing beyond runing a a
few hogs loose and scratching his ground for as much Indian corn and wheat as
will feed his ragged family. That Co attempt a surplus, will
would, even if he could get labourers for it which would be next to
impossible, be useless, for he could have no steady market for it. For it must
be considered that what little is can be sold is to the
nearest comers who being always at the edge of extending circle will be
supplied by those only who are but just within it If the Spanish demand
is talked of as a permanency of what importance will it be but to those
immediately bordering on their limits. So
circumstances Of what benefit would be the driving of cattle [lined
out] through such great space where, as has been found, they set out flesh and
come in bone. So circumstanced a poor man is to remain stationary in all his
prospects having nothing wherewith to purchase labour he can never
have the comfortable expectation of getting others to work for him his
lands will gain little additional value, his family may never change their
rags, nor his children, running wild, be able to pay the church or school
And this must be the case until a great internal society in the course
of time, as in Germany, shall be gradually formed. We see in all this no
advantage but in the exemption from the purchase money, overballanced greatly
by the advantages attending the other situation when A purchaser of
300 acres must indeed engage to pay £150 by 10 yearly instalments. in
ten years This would require only £15 per annum and the proportion of
interest; but to be raised with certainty by the cultivation of four or five
acres in which, beyond the family consumption, or the fattening of a few
cattle; and on extinguishing the debt, the term of which would be hastened in
proportion to the exertions of industry, he would find himself with a valuable
estate in the bosom of society and with the means of securing to his
childrens both morals and education. This statement applies even better to the
absolute poor than to others, for the expense of going to a settlement is in
proportion to distance. If either you or Mr. Coxe will take up the subject
numberless thought would occur to either of you that might escape me I
have said pamphlet, because a news paper dies with the day, and the other has
a more imposing influence A thousand two penny books given away might
make a thousand men useful to their country that would be otherwise lost to it
It being a common cause I would bear my share of the cost.
I am Dr.
Your most obedt. st.
Geo. Clymer
New York
Augt. 7. 1789
(Letter courtesy of Richard H. Kohn, George Curtis, and Kenneth R. Bowling)
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