independent system of economy, but a cumbrous load of paper money
presses industry to the earth. It is found by experience that the
farmer cannot pay 125 cents per day to the labourer, and sell his
corn for 25 cents per bushel, nor can the labourer work for a small
hire while he pays two and a half, or three dollars a-week for his
board, and an extravagant price for his clothing. Similar obstacles
occur in almost every branch of industry that furnishes anything for
exportation, or comes into competition with the labour of foreign
artizans, so that the operations of this country now consist chiefly of
works of first necessity. A gentleman who has opportunities of being
well acquainted with the {248} business of Philadelphia, has computed
that in that county alone, there are at least 15,000 persons who are
either entirely idle or are engaged in unproductive labour. He stated
that he has had more than twenty applications for employment, when he
could give work only to one, and that several other manufacturers say,
that they cannot employ a tenth part of the applicants they meet with.
The same gentleman estimates that there are about 150,000 unemployed
persons along the Atlantic coast, and that there are 350,000 persons
of the same description in other parts of the country.[132] It is not
pretended that these enumerations are derived from accurate data, or
that they are even very close approximations to the real numbers; but,
taken in connection with other well known facts, they may be received
as satisfactory evidence that the evil exists to a very considerable
extent.[133]
{249} Want of employment is here viewed as a want of organization.
With you it is represented to be an indication of an overpeopled
country. The government of the United States does not attempt to get
rid of its people, but, on the contrary, it welcomes the stranger who
arrives on their shores. Your government pay for transporting their
subjects, or encourage their removal by giving them lands gratis.
Canada is wide enough to receive them, but its connection with England
does not admit of a free trade. Multitudes of emigrants find their
comforts as narrow as before, and remove into the United States. If
facts of this sort indicate any thing, it is that no extent of country
can compensate for mismanagement, or, in other words, a nation is more
easily overstocked from impolicy than from want of soil.
The habits and institutions of the American people are peculiarly
favourable to the adoption of manufacturing pursuits. They have no
corporations with exclusive privileges, and no laws which enact
any specific period of apprenticeship. Their well known spirit of
enterprise, and the circumstance {250} of almost every man’s being
acquainted with handling the axe, the hammer, the saw, and the
joiner’s plane, must give a facility to the acquisition of mechanical
labour. Besides, it is understood that a few weeks, or at farthest a
few months, are enough to communicate the knowledge of most of those
employments, and that the work can soon be reduced to practice by
subsequent application. The progress already made in several branches
of manufacture tend to inspire a strong hope as to future attainments.
The fabrication of coarse cotton cloths, called _domestics_, which
now undersell British goods of similar quality; the making of iron
articles, of leather-hats, paper, types, engravings, the construction
of steam-boats, and the building of ships, are mentioned as flattering
examples.
As the disposition to promote American manufactures is progressive,
and as popular opinion dictates the measures of the government, it may
be safe to infer that commerce with England is now in a deep decline,
and that the erection of workshops (though it should be on a moderate
scale) may be hailed as the liberation of the United States from
foreign monopoly.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Domestic Manufactures,
organized in 1803, with Stephen Girard as president, was incorporated
in 1805. A central warehouse was established, where articles of
American manufacture could be concentrated and sold, thus doing away
with the expense of middlemen. The society was active in advocating a
protective tariff.
The Cincinnati Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures,
and Domestic Economy was organized in 1819. Quarterly meetings were
held, and prizes offered for the best essays on subjects relating to
agriculture and domestic manufactures.--ED.
[131] “_1st._ We will not purchase, or suffer to be used in our
families, any imported liquors, fruits, nuts, or preserves of any kind,
unless they shall be required in cases of sickness.
“_2d._ Being convinced, that the practice which generally prevails of
wearing suits of black as testimonials of respect for the memory of
deceased friends, is altogether useless, if not improper, while it is
attended with a heavy expense; we will not sanction it hereafter in our
families, or encourage it in others.
“_3d._ We will not purchase, for ourselves or our families, such
articles of dress as are expensive, and are generally considered as
ornamental rather than useful.
“_4th._ We will abstain from the use of imported goods of every
description, as far as may be practicable, and we will give a
preference to articles that are of the growth and manufacture of our
own country, when the latter can be procured.
“_5th._ We will not purchase any articles, either of food or dress, at
prices that are considered extravagant, or that the citizens generally
cannot afford to pay; but will rather abstain from the use of such
articles until they can be obtained at reasonable prices.
“_6th._ We will observe a rigid economy in every branch of our
expenditures, and will, in all our purchases, be influenced by
necessity rather than convenience, and by utility rather than ornament.
“_7th._ We believe that the prosperity of the country depends in a
great degree on a general and faithful observance of the foregoing
declaration; we therefore promise that we will adhere to it ourselves,
and that we will recommend it to others.”--_Farnsworth’s Cincinnati
Directory._--FLINT.
[132] Letter to the President of the United States, by John Melish,
Esq. Phil. 1818.--FLINT.
[133] From the paucity of the circumstances attended to in statistical
inquiries, the most superficial observer might infer that national
pride is sufficiently gratified by the number of human beings, without
regard to that of useful or efficient citizens, and that governments
are satisfied with knowing little more of their people than that they
die, and that they were born. It were to be wished that enumerations
were made annually, instead of at the usual long intervals of time;
and in addition to the particulars ordinarily ascertained, such were
embraced as, the number of those who can show that they procure their
subsistence by lawful means; those who have fixed residences; those
who have received a moral education; the nature of employments; the
duration and immediate causes of their avocations; bankruptcies;
convictions for specified crimes; the known or proximate causes of
deaths; cases of lunacy; _felo de se_; epidemy and meteorological
registers made in every department of the country. The collection of
information of this kind might be conducted in a manner that would
operate as a beneficial supervision of society. It would furnish the
police department with a new insight into the sources of delinquency.
Taken in connection with coexistent laws which effect trade and
revenue, and criminal laws, and the state of markets, political economy
would be furnished with new instruments for investigation. The approach
of misery might frequently be anticipated and arrested without being
exhibited on the poor’s list, in the workhouse, or in the shape of
inability to pay taxes. Crimes might be prevented, and better criteria
obtained for discriminating between offences committed _against_
law, and those perpetrated _by_ law. A new light would be thrown on
several branches of physical science, and particularly on agriculture,
climate, and the healing art. It is but too easy to discover that the
desideratum is not in unison with the affairs of the age, but it is
probable that another Alfred, or a Lycurgus must arise before it can be
remedied.--FLINT.
{251} LETTER XXI
Circuit Court of Indiana--Lawyers--Presiding Judge--Trial and Whipping
of a Thief--Lands--Crops--Fourteen-Mile-Creek--Salt Springs--Town
of Corydon--Drought-Barrens-Caves-Effects of a Tornado--Formation
of the Higher Alluvial Bottom Lands of the Ohio--More
Barrens--Salt River--Large Trees--Wild Vines--Steam-Boats--The
Falls of the Ohio--Prevalence of Bilious and Intermittent
Fevers--Taciturnity--Americanisms.
_Jeffersonville, (Indiana,) Sept. 8, 1820._
Since writing my last letter to you, I have made several short
excursions into the country.--I was at Charlestown, the seat of justice
in Clark county,[134] while the circuit court sat there, and had
opportunities of hearing the oratory of several barristers, which was
delivered in language at once strong, elegant, and polite. A spirit of
emulation prevails at the bar, and a gentleman of good taste informed
me, that some young practitioners have made vast progress within two or
three years past. The United States certainly open an extensive school
for eloquence. The number of cases of litigation before the various
courts of justice is very great; and there are numerous opportunities
for exerting popular talent, as at elections, where the harangues are
called stump-speeches, from the practice of candidates mounting the
stumps of trees, and there addressing themselves to the people, and in
State Assemblies.
{252} The circuit court consists of a presiding judge, who makes a
progress over the whole State, and who meets with two associate judges
at the several seats of justice. Associate judges are local, and
only act in their respective counties. One of these gentlemen opened
the court at Charlestown last year in the absence of the presiding
judge.--A large jug, for holding cold water, that stood on the bench,
had a caricature portrait of a judge painted on it, and several
lawyers, on coming forward to open their cases, bowed to the figure,
and directed their eyes to it during their speeches, occasioning much
laughter in the house. It was not till the arrival of the presiding
judge that the contempt was checked. Freedoms on the part of lawyers
seem to be promoted in the back-country, in consequence of the bench
being occasionally filled with men who are much inferior to those at
the bar. The salary of the presiding judge (I have been told) is only
seven hundred dollars a-year. As he is engaged in public business and
in travelling nearly the whole of his time, that sum can only defray
his expenses, even under the most economical management, so that
there can be no great error in supposing that he acts gratuitously.
The present presiding judge is a man who has distinguished himself in
Indian warfare.[135] Whatever opinion you may form of the bench here,
you may be assured that it is occupied as a post of honour.
Amongst the business of the court, the trial of a man who had
stolen two horses excited much interest. On his being sentenced
to suffer thirty stripes, he was immediately led from the bar to
the whipping-post. Every twitch of the cowhide, (a weapon formerly
described,) drew a red line across his back. This was the second
infliction of the kind that had been sanctioned by {253} court in
the State, since my coming into it. I do not notice the infrequency
of punishments as wishing to occasion a belief that misdemeanours
are seldom committed. Indeed, were it not for the absolute impunity
obtained in most cases, we might soon see the partial development of a
new system of physiognomy, one not founded on the features of the face,
but on the striped lineaments of the back. Never, till now, did I so
much value the usage of Scotland, where the inhabitant, on removing
from one parish to another, carries with him the testimonial of the
church.
The surface of the land in the neighbourhood of Charlestown is
beautifully diversified, varying between gently undulated and steep of
broken ground. The soil is of the first rate quality, and covered with
luxuriant crops of Indian corn. The crops of wheat are what you would
call a second rate crop, and several fields of oats, which I saw, were
headed out, and were as bulky as any that I have seen in Mid-Lothian;
but, for a reason formerly stated, the grain cannot be expected to
arrive at fine quality. The banks of Fourteen-Mile-Creek, (which joins
the Ohio at the distance of fourteen miles above the falls,) are cliffs
of limestone that are overtopped by tall woods, and form, by their
windings, many romantic scenes, of which I can convey no adequate idea.
The stream is at present almost entirely dried up, but the extent of
its bed, and the marks of inundation by its margin, convince me that
its floods are nearly equal to those of the Clyde at Glasgow. Some
salt springs that percolate through the rocks in the bottom, have
been discovered during the present dry season: the existence of these
were first surmised by an ingenious gentleman, with whom I am well
acquainted. He proceeded by introducing a small tube into a {254} deep
and still part of the river, and drew water from the bottom that was
perceptibly saline. He has now some people engaged in boring, by which
means the discharge of water has been considerably augmented, and
has commenced evaporating on a small scale. This process is usually
performed by filling a number of iron kettles, of about three feet in
diameter, and six inches deep, with the water, and placing them on
loose stones, or over a trench that is dug in the ground for receiving
the fuel. Boring for salt water is a work that is occasionally
accompanied with a considerable degree of difficulty. Where the bore
communicates with a fresh water spring, on a higher level than the
saline one, a tube of tinned iron is let down to exclude the former.
At the salt-works by Kanhaway River, perforations have been made in
the limestone rocks to the depth of two hundred feet. There a hundred
gallons of water are said to yield a bushel of salt; but there are
waters evaporated in other parts of the country that do not yield more
than a fourth, or even a sixth part of that quantity.
Corydon,[136] the capital of the State of Indiana, is a small village,
situated in an obscure valley of Indian Creek, and is surrounded by
high and broken wooded lands. The weeds which cover the clear parts
of the town plot are withered to whiteness by the drought, as is most
of the ground in this part of the country, swamps and lands under
crop excepted. The site of a new capital for the State is determined
to be on the east branch of White River, where the lands are still in
the hands of the government. Future convenience, and the prospect of
promoting the sale of land in the late Indian purchase, seem to have,
on this occasion, triumphed {255} over private interest.--No name has
yet been assigned to this inland metropolis.
Between Corydon and the river Ohio, (about twenty-five miles,) the
surface is of a rolling structure, and the soil good. Grass, at all
times scanty on account of the small quantity of cleared ground, is now
withered. The surface, where closely shaded by large trees, scarcely
exhibits any thing that is green; rotten logs, and the leaves of last
autumn, are strowed over the ground, presenting the most gloomy picture
of desolation. Where large trees are thin, a growth of underwood
prevails. Grounds called barrens are interspersed with the woods in
this part of Indiana.--These are covered over with small copsewood,
as hazel and briars, also with grasses, and an immense variety of
deciduous plants.--The name _barrens_ must have arisen from the lands
so denominated not producing such a large growth of vegetable matter
as the forests, rather than from sterility. They are, in reality, much
better pasturages than the woodlands, and, when cultivated, produce
the best crops of wheat. I found travelling through the barrens to be
somewhat uncomfortable, on account of exposure to the rays of the sun,
and the dust of the road, which was continually raised, in a little
cloud, by the motion of the horse’s feet. This sort of ground is dry,
and without the vast quantity of decaying vegetable matters to be seen
in the woods, and for these reasons it is probably more conducive to
health.
A great portion of the soil of western America lies immediately over
immense strata of horizontal limestone, in which are numerous fissures.
I have often seen the presence of these indicated in Ohio, Kentucky,
and Indiana, by hollows in the {256} ground in the form of inverted
cones, which are here called sink holes. Some of these fissures have
openings to the surface. A stupendous one in Kentucky,[137] known by
the name of the great cave, has been explored to the distance of nine
miles from its entrance.[138] The nitrate of potash has been found
in some of these caves, and the sulphate of magnesia in others. Many
of them abound in stalactites of calc sinter; and copious streams of
water pass through some of them. One of these in Kentucky turns a
subterraneous mill, to which access is obtained by a sink-hole; and a
Colonel C---- of Indiana told me that a settler in his neighbourhood,
on digging a well, penetrated into a stream of water, and found blind
fishes in it.[139]
During the last and the present summer, this country has suffered
droughts, which the inhabitants consider extraordinary. Between Corydon
and the Ohio the water was very muddy. Some people in that part are
obliged to carry water from a distance of two miles. It is not uncommon
now to see mill streams entirely dried up. I have seen several peach
trees, with the fruit nearly ripened, almost dried up by the scorching
heat; and, in some instances, the woods assuming the appearance of
autumn prematurely, from the same cause. The disadvantage of the want
of water will be thought less appalling, when it is recollected that
the clearing of the ground has a tendency to increase springs; and when
it is considered that {257} the dryness of rivers is not occasioned
by the total want of springs, but by the evaporation from the bottoms
of water-courses; and farther, that water in most situations may be
procured by digging wells.
Immediately on the north bank of the Ohio, and about thirty miles below
the falls, I crossed an avenue in the woods, 600 or 700 yards wide,
which had been devastated by a tornado that had passed from west to
east, and in its way cleared the ground almost entirely. The largest
trees were either torn up by the roots or broken. In the part that I
observed, nothing but underwood and the shattered fragments of trees
remained. On making inquiries as to the hurricane, I was informed that
it swept over the country to the length of several hundred miles; and
that, on the Kentucky side of the river, it totally obstructed a road
with timber which has not yet been removed.
It is also about thirty miles below the falls that the range of high
land, called the knobs, intersects the river. This is the ridge that
crosses the lower part of Indiana, and part of Kentucky, which the
late M. Volney noticed under the name of the Silver Creek hills; and
by him supposed to have once formed a dam, that retained a lake in the
valley of the Ohio, extending from the ridge just mentioned, to the
place where Pittsburg now stands. That philosopher attempted to show
that the higher bottom lands, which are above the level of the present
inundations, were deposited in the bottom of the lake; and that, on
the water’s making a gap in the barrier, the lake was drained, and the
Ohio withdrawn into its present lower and less capacious bed. That the
knobs once formed a dam I am forced to admit, from having seen marks
on a high level on the limestone rocks in the gap, which {258} clearly
indicate the action of a cataract: but I am, notwithstanding, led to
agree with Dr. Drake’s hypothesis, which explains the formation of
the higher bottom land, as being the alluvion of the Ohio at a time
when that river was much larger than at present. The facts relating to
this subject that have come within the reach of my own observation,
may perhaps be inserted in a well-known scientific journal. In the
meantime, it may be sufficient to say, it is now ascertained, that the
waters of Erie, and other great lakes, formerly flowed southward into
the valley of the Ohio; and that a cataract, more tremendous than the
falls of Niagara, raged among the rocks of Silver Creek hills.
In the neighbourhood of Salt River and Green River, in Kentucky, there
are extensive tracks of barren wastes. Small hazel bushes from two to
three feet in height abound in these; and the quantity of nuts produced
exceeds any thing of the kind which I have ever seen. The soil of
these wastes seems to be very similar to that of the adjoining woods;
and on account of the trees diminishing gradually in size, from the
forest toward the waste, it is sometimes impossible to discover a line
where the one stops and the other begins. This, together with the fact
told by an old settler, that some small saplings which stood on his
farm twenty years ago, are now become tall trees, leads me to adopt
the opinion entertained by some, that the wastes or barrens owe their
characteristic form to the Indians, who set fire to dried grass and
other vegetables with the design of facilitating their hunting.
Salt River is between 100 and 150 yards wide where it unites with the
Ohio, and is navigable for about sixty miles. The name is derived from
salt springs in its vicinity that are now wrought. Opposite to the
mouth of this river, on the north {259} bank of the Ohio, stands a
sycamore tree of stupendous size, which is hollow within. I measured
the cavity, and found one diameter to be twenty-one feet, and the other
twenty feet. In one side of it, a hole is cut sufficiently large to
admit a man on horseback. It was probably a sycamore considerably less
than this that is noticed in the Pittsburg Navigator, (edition printed
in 1818, p. 29,) in the following words: -- “There is one of these huge
trees in Sciota county, Ohio, on the land of a Mr. Abraham Miller,
into whose hollow thirteen men rode on horseback, June 6, 1808; the
fourteenth did not enter, his horse being skittish, and too fearful to
advance into so curious an apartment, but there was room enough for two
more.” [140]
There is perhaps no vegetable in this country that strikes the mind
with greater surprise than the wild vine. I have seen one with a stem
nine inches in diameter, and heard of others measuring eleven inches.
Some detached trees have their tops closely wreathed with the vines
in a manner that forms an elegant and umbrageous canopy, into which
the eye cannot penetrate. In the woods they overtop the tallest trees,
and from thence hang their pendulous twigs almost to the ground, or
pass their ramifications from the branches of one tree to others,
overshadowing a considerable space. In many instances their roots are
at the distance of several feet from any tree, and their tops attached
to branches at the height of sixty or eighty feet, without coming into
contact with the trunks of trees, or any other intermediate support.
To make the case plain, I have only to say, that the positions of some
of these vines have a near resemblance to the stays, and some other
ropes of a ship. The question, how they have erected themselves in this
manner? is frequently put. Boats that descend the {260} Ohio are often
moored without any other cable than a small vine. If a notch is cut
in the stem of a vine in the spring season, clear and tasteless water
runs out, not in drops, but in a continued stream. I have several times
quenched my thirst from sources of this kind.
For upwards of two months, the Ohio has been low; steam-boats cannot
now pass from the falls at this place to the Mississippi, nor can
boats, descending with produce, get down the same rapids without
unloading the greater part of their cargoes. The trade of the country
is of consequence much interrupted. In spring, 1818, there were
thirty-one steam-boats on the Mississippi and Ohio; at present there
are sixty on these waters. This increase of craft, together with the
decreasing quantity of goods imported, has lowered the freight from
New Orleans to the falls of the Ohio, from six cents to two cents per
pound. The rates paid by passengers, however, are not reduced in the
same proportion.