and all have the {21} means of assembling on the Sunday at our small
but neat place of worship. We read the _Reformed_ or _Unitarian_
Liturgy, the _Scriptures_, and _Sermons_ from our best English authors.
Our place of worship is likewise our library-room. Religion in the
outward form is by no means ostentatious, notwithstanding which, we
have a large portion of good, sober and industrious people amongst
us, who, I trust, by a virtuous example and keeping alive religious
feelings, will be ultimately successful in preserving true religion
amongst the people of the Illinois.
But to return from spiritual to temporal concerns: I imagine you
asking,--Are there then no inconveniences? There are. We have not
a sufficiency of female servants, on account of the frequency of
marriage, which is constantly depriving us of those we have; and
although I have hitherto been well off, yet I am fearful we may be as
others are, inconvenienced for want of them. Boys for either plough or
house work are scarce, but the entire absence of pauperism more than
amply compensates for these privations. How much I regret that more of
the overflowing population of England cannot find {22} their way here,
exchanging their poverty for plenty of employment and good fare.
We have East and West India produce in abundance; silks, crapes, &c.
such as you in England only can procure by a breach of the laws. On the
first day that I dined at the tavern which I had just finished building
in Albion, I drank bottled porter as cheap as in London, and had fine
English salt at half the price I paid for it in England. Thus I find I
have escaped the ruinous system of taxation which has reduced so many
thousands to beggary or the workhouse, and so many of the middling
classes to a state of pinching want, whom I have seen shivering through
the winter over a few coals called a fire, because their limited means
would not afford a cheerful blaze.
A great advantage in settling in the Illinois, rather than many other
parts of America, is the state of society amongst us. Most of the
persons who emigrate here, are those who have diminished their former
fortunes; persons who have received good education, but are unable to
sustain their stations in England. There is no arrogance in saying
our circle of society is far superior to that in most of the villages
in our native country. Except the parson, the {23} squire, and the
principal farmers, what is the society of many of the English hamlets
but rude and uncultivated? Here it is different; for within the circle
of a few miles, there is more good company (I mean well-educated
persons) than in the same circle in most parts of England.
We frequently find superior education and intelligence among the sons
of the plough and the axe, to those in like situations in England.
A person lately offered me his services to split boards for me: we
agreed for price. I observed a correctness in his pronunciation and
manner of speaking, apparently far above his situation. I attended him
to the woods; he had with him two younger men than himself. The first
singularity that appeared was, after taking off their clothes, (having
first ground their axes) a nail or two were driven into a tree, on
which were hung handsome _gold_ watches. These men were well educated,
understood geography, history, European politics, and the interesting
events that now so much excite the attention of mankind. I went into
my field the other day, and began a conversation with my ploughman:
his address and manner of speech, as well as his conversation {24}
surprised me. I found he was a colonel of militia, and a member of the
legislature; he was indeed a fit companion for men of sense; and where
will you find persons of this class in England with equal intelligence?
Of the particular news of this place, there is one piece of
intelligence that will surprise you; the author of "Letters from the
Illinois," (Mr. Birkbeck) has opened a place of worship at Wanborough;
he officiates himself, and reads the _Church of England Service_, so
that Wanborough is the seat of _orthodoxy_, and our place stands, as a
matter of course, in the ranks of _heresy_?
There is an opinion prevailing amongst many in England, that the
marriage ceremony in America is considered lightly of, and but loosely
performed; but there never was a greater mistake. A minor cannot marry
without the consent of his or her guardian or parent. A license must
be applied for at the county court, and a declaration accompanying it
from the parent, that it is with _his_ consent. This license is taken
to a magistrate who performs the ceremony, that is, the legal part of
it, at either his own house or that of the parties; which is simply
asking if they are willing to become man and wife, and their answer of
consent. This is registered at the magistrates, and recorded by him
at the county court: if {25} either neglect to make this register, a
heavy fine is the punishment of their negligence, and the marriage is
considered illegal. This is legal marriage in the Illinois; but both
the magistrates inquire of the parties, and the law allows of any
addition of a religious kind, that they may choose, and we adopt the
vows of the marriage service of the Church of England, which are as
solemnly put and answered, as if performed by a person in canonical
habits before the altar.
Marriages here take place so frequently, that _we_ are certainly in
want of female servants; even our Mrs. C., who lived with us upwards
of twenty-five years, and is turned of fifty, has not escaped; she
is married to a Mr. W., having first refused Monsieur R., an Italian
gardener, of very polite manners, and who may be said to have seen
a _little_ of the world, as he marched from Italy to Moscow with
Bonaparte, back to France, and proceeded from thence to this place: he
was tall and majestic in person, made very elegant bows to _Madame_ C.,
and spoke English enough to assure her he had the highest esteem for
her, and would marry her to-morrow if she would consent; but all in
vain, plain _John Bull_ {26} carried the day. We have had ten or twelve
marriages within three or four months. This, I think, is settling the
Illinois pretty fast, and a good proof that _Cobbett_ has not, as he
threatened, 'written us down;' nor is there any sign of abandonment,
but a good prospect, of increase of population, even if emigration
should diminish.
We hear news from England sufficient to appreciate the wretched
situation of our native country, and the disturbed state of Europe
in general. We see, or think we see most plainly, the phial of God's
wrath pouring forth on guilty nations; and England, notwithstanding its
pulpit flatterers, in the church and out of the church, is tasting of
that wrath. It appears to me that we have great cause for gratitude in
escaping divine judgments, and finding an asylum where we may, I hope,
rest in peace.
I see, on looking from my window, the golden harvest waving before me;
a beautiful field of wheat, the admiration of the country, the first
fruit of my son's industry in this kind of grain.
My wife and family enjoy excellent health, and spirits, and had not
the Almighty hand {27} smote me in my tenderest part, by sending his
awful messenger to call my dear son William away,[59] the days of my
emigration would have been the happiest of my life.
R. F.
[59] William Flower, second son of Richard, died at Lexington,
Kentucky, apparently of heart disease, in the winter of 1818-19. See
George Flower's "English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois," in
Chicago Historical Society _Collections_, i, p. 131.--ED.
LETTER III
_March 26, 1821._
As to the settlement in general, I consider it most prosperous, making,
comparing it with many new ones, the most rapid strides to comfort
and prosperity: our little town, now the capital of the English
Settlement[60] has a store which supplies us with luxuries. A market
with abundance of meat, poultry, and vegetables, so that persons with
very limited incomes might live here in comfort. A person with 100
per Annum would be in affluence, which you will say is owing to the
cheapness of provisions;[61] and freedom from tythes, taxes, poor's
rates, &c. The labourer or mechanic who is steady, can work himself
into plenty. {28} We are relieved entirely from the dreadful state of
pauperism witnessed before I left England. My wife, with others of our
acquaintance, have not had such good health for twenty years past. Mrs.
Flower rides twenty miles a day, on horse back, with ease. I wish you
could visit my old servant T. S. on one of the pleasantest situations
in the world, with his nice garden, his cows, pigs, and poultry about
him; his wife and children contented and happy. Perhaps were you to
come suddenly upon him, eggs and bacon with a hastily got up chicken
might be your fare; but if you gave him a day's notice, you would see a
haunch of venison, or a fine cock turkey on the table. How long would
Tom have fagged in England, although he had double his wages, before
he could have possessed himself of two hundred acres of good land, and
been placed in such affluence. Here, indeed, it may be truly said that
the hand of the diligent maketh rich. We have here and there an idle
person, but Providence has given them an industrious help-mate; and I
know two instances of females earning from six to eight dollars a week
by their needles; enough for them to keep comfortable tables.
[60] Albion was made the county seat of Edwards County in 1821.--ED.
[61] Flower's Letters from [Lexington and] the Illinois, 1819.--B.
FLOWER.
I have felt great satisfaction in never having {29} invited any one
to emigrate, and still greater in finding those who came here out of
regard to my opinions, in such situations of ease and comfort, as not
only to contribute to their own happiness, but to add greatly to mine.
I may say that those who have asked and taken my advice have succeeded
to their wishes; and in all cases which have come to my knowledge,
where affairs have been conducted with industry and tolerable
discretion, they have occasion to be thankful for the change they have
made from the old world to the new. Our population increases. We want
in particular more tailors and shoemakers: any one understanding the
coarse earthen-ware manufactury would meet with great success.--I have
just finished a flour mill on an inclined plane, which has given fresh
spirit to agriculture. Distilleries are also building. It is a happy
circumstance that while industry is attended with certain success,
vice, drunkenness, and idleness are no better off than in Europe; the
effect of this will be to give the virtuous that natural ascendancy
over the vicious which they ought always to have. We read in the
newspapers of all the bustle you have had about your queen;[62] but if
it ends without the people regaining their long lost liberties, between
the {30} collision of the different factions, you will only be worse
off; and if the regaining of those liberties will not rouse the people
to the same exertions for themselves as they have made for their queen,
we must smile at their oppressions and say they deserve them.
[62] Flower here refers to the excitement in England in favor of the
Queen, upon George IV's attempt to divorce her. See Walpole, _History
of England_, i, pp. 573-606.--ED.
LETTER IV
_Park House, Albion, Aug. 20, 1821._
DEAR SIR,
Some of my letters, written in 1819, appeared through the medium of the
press; and some of the English Reviewers, after a candid criticism,
observed, that they should be glad to hear from me at some future
period. Several other persons also have expressed a strong desire to
have an account of our _present_ situation and future prospects. In
compliance therefore, with their wishes, I most cheerfully resume my
pen, with the assurance that what I have written may be relied upon as
an impartial and candid statement of facts.
Various are the reports which have been circulated in the private
circle, and by means of the press, concerning the state of this
settlement; {31} and great has been the anxiety which many friends have
expressed on our account. It is my purpose therefore, to examine the
principal reports which travellers have given of us.
When any one returns to England, though he may have visited us but a
few days, he obtains a credence far above those who have only hear-say
reports to communicate; whether his visits were made during the
winter, amidst rains or snows, or in the summer, when an unparalleled
drought pervaded the whole western country. Is so transitory a view
to be considered as a just description of the soil, the climate, the
advantages or disadvantages of the British Settlement in the Illinois?
Surely not. I am informed even of some accounts which have been written
from settlements above fifty miles distant from us, where circumstances
are so very different, that they bear no resemblance to the situation
in which we have located. These statements have been brought forward
in opposition to the indisputable facts which have been given by
us, and they no more apply to this place, than a description of the
lowlands of Essex and Lincolnshire can apply to the high and dry
situations of Shooter's-hill or Blackheath. I therefore request the
reader's {32} attention to a few observations on the various reports
which travellers have circulated of the _English_ settlements at the
_Illinois_.
I must first be allowed to remark on the want of competency of some
very confident writers to form any judgment of our real situation;
they appear to be wholly unacquainted with the history of the new
settlements, and from this defect are unfitted to form a right
judgement of our comparative and relative advantages. Hence the
incongruous and contradictory accounts which have been given of
our soil, climate, and agricultural concerns. Of the many who have
visited us there are two individuals whose reports I hear gain some
credence amongst my country men; I shall therefore confine my attention
chiefly to the accounts they have given of us, and then examine those
reports which have been raised from deep-rooted enmity and determined
self-interest. These, with a brief account of our present situation and
future prospects shall be the remaining subject of this letter.
One of these travellers visited us when the snows were melting, and
the rains descending: he reports us to be dwelling upon the swamps of
the Wabash; and our lands to be so wet that they are unfit for either
cattle or sheep to {33} thrive on; and on that account unsuitable for
the purposes of an English farmer.
Another passed through our country in an unparalleled drought, and
reported us to be in a sad situation for want of water. There was some
degree of truth in this, but a very partial degree, owing to his not
stating the circumstances of the case. _Our_ town is situated very
high, and till we had experienced some drought we knew not that we
should want to dig deep for water, and of course could not provide for
an exigency that was not known to exist. "_Dig deep_" I have said;
but one hundred feet is thought, by a western American, to be a vast
and dangerous enterprise; we have however with us Englishmen who
have been far into the bowels of the earth in England, and have no
sort of fear of there not being abundance of water in Albion; already
have we experienced the benefit of these exertions; but while our
dry-weather traveller was reporting our inconveniences, he should
have stated it was an unusual season which pervaded the whole of the
western country: that Kentucky and Ohio were worse than the Illinois;
and that in Indiana, in the best watered districts, springs, rivulets,
and wells were exhausted. Such an instance has never before occurred
{34} during the memory of the oldest inhabitants. The same person
(who I know would not willingly give a false account) has stated that
so short was the water that we were obliged to send our cattle into
Indiana.--That our herds were in Indiana is very true, but that they
were sent there on account of want of water, is equally untrue. We have
in Indiana about twelve miles distant, some high ground in the midst
of low land, subject to be overflowed; on this low ground grows the
most luxuriant cane, springing to an extraordinary height; the tender
shoots of which, affording excellent food for cattle, we send them in
the winter season, with the exception of milch cows and working oxen,
to fatten. Our custom is somewhat similar to that of the farmers of
the upland districts in England, who send their stock into the fens
of Lincolnshire to fatten on coleseed and superabundant grass. So we
dispose of our herds when the winter draws to a close. To this may be
added, that the cane in the low river bottoms, growing naturally is the
most luxuriant pasturage for summer feeding: and as we only pay the
expense of the herdsman, the food either there or in the cane costing
nothing: and the herdsman living there we leave our herds; so it was
true that they {35} were in the cane, but were not sent there on
account of the want of water. When this person reported that there was
shortness of water amongst us, he should have added, that fine wells
were no rarity in the vicinity of Albion; that he drank as fine water
from our well as he ever tasted in his life; and that from the grounds
of Richard and George Flower, Albion, and even a part of Wanborough
were supplied.
It will therefore appear that this person, as well as many others, told
the truth, but very partially, and not the whole truth, and on that
account are not to be depended on. At the very time he was visiting us
a person from Kentucky, assured us that we were better off than they
were at Kentucky and Ohio.[63]
[63] See _Note_ A.--B. FLOWER.
Another person who visited us on purpose to examine and spy out the
land of evil report, went back to Baltimore and brought his family,
stating in his travels that he had not met with such good water as
at this place. This same traveller has reported our soil to be poor,
and our inability to raise a sufficient quantity of provisions for
ourselves, and that we are still dependant on the Harmonites: in
this he only shews his {36} want of knowledge of the history of new
settlements and their progress. Every person knows that the second year
is the most unprofitable: the first year being spent in building and
fencing, little produce is raised: but then all settlers of property
bring a supply with them to make up for this certain deficiency;
but capital being somewhat exhausted, and an increase of population
still continuing, must of necessity keep a new settlement short of
self-supplies; but when to this was added an extraordinary drought,
is it a matter of surprise that the crops should in some degree have
been scanty; but at the time I am writing, almost every thing these
travellers have said of the Illinois, is happily reversed: they are
the remarks of very superficial observers; though they may be in
some degree true at the moment they were written, they are no fit
representations [of] the Illinois; either as to its soil, climate, or
general character; could I but set these very travellers down here at
this moment, how would their astonished senses give contradiction to
their own accounts!
We have now what the Americans tell us is a usual specimen of the
seasons of the Illinois. Frequent rains, with the heat more moderate
than the last year. Agriculture is beaming forth {37} in its glory. If
some of our travellers to whom I have alluded were now here, they would
see some of the finest wheat crops their eyes ever beheld: they would
witness the most luxuriant crops of natural grasses, now gathering
for the supply of winter food; also fine plants of artificial grasses
well set in our inclosures; they would acknowledge that the corn crops
were as abundant, or more so than any they had before witnessed in the
United States; but as they are not here I must inform you that our corn
crops upon good tillage have the appearance of from sixty to eighty
bushels; and in some instances the Americans, who are the best judges,
say one hundred bushels _per_ acre. If this is the usual season of the
Illinois, which can scarcely be doubted, as it answers the character
given by those longest resident, then is the Illinois one of the finest
countries under heaven for human beings to dwell in; one of the most
delightful given to man for his residence.
Another traveller has stated that the Illinois is in general low and
swampy, but that Mr. Flower's family, with one or two others, had
placed their houses upon rising ground. This gentleman must either
be naturally or willfully {38} blind. He might have found, within a
circuit of five miles round Albion, numerous pleasing elevations, all
so inviting that the beauty which they presented to the admiring eye
of the settler, would be the only difficulty in the way of instant
decision.
Then comes another objector, armed with an _un answerable_
question?--"But what will you do with your produce?" This objection
only needs to be examined to be refuted. The answer is, that for the
present our home market will take all we raise, and if our population
increases in future as it has done during the present year, and the
probability is that, it will increase much faster, no foreign market
will be wanted for ten or a dozen years to come. Our infant town has
taken root, and is growing luxuriantly. It has increased one hundred in
the number of inhabitants since last September, and its vicinity has
added seventy to their number. Our mill is at work, and can grind the
produce now raised; and a distillery and brewery will shortly be at
work, so that the su[r]plus of several years will not raise more than
a sufficiency for the population. We have also in the settlement some
small plantations of tobacco, hemp, and cotton, articles which we {39}
at present import; it will therefore be a work of some time to raise a
sufficiency for our own consumption.
Another article of produce is wool. Since I have been here I have
turned my attention to an important object which engaged much of
my attention in my native country--the breeding of sheep, and have
succeeded to the utmost of my wishes and expectations. My flock
consists of about four hundred sheep and lambs; and although the first
winter there were unexpected difficulties to encounter, I can assure
my countrymen that it has been more healthy this last year than any
I ever had, or ever heard of in England; but as I intend giving an
account of my success in this branch of agriculture in some future
letter, it will be sufficient to say, that although I can grow in the
Illinois a profitable export, at present its produce is wanted, and all
that can be raised for years to come, will be wanted at home. We have
therefore not only a market for our extra produce around us, but we
have also a foreign market at New Orleans, and through it to the market
of the world. If it be said that owing to our situation, we labour
under peculiar disadvan[ta]ges, all is reduced to the price of land
carriage, of about nine miles to the Wabash, {40} at sixteen _cents_
per hundred pounds. If therefore it is said that our surplus produce
cannot be disposed of, it is not applicable to local circumstances
alone; but to all America. Whenever the United States in general can
dispose of their produce advantageously, the Illinois can do the same;
and we are more contiguous to navigation than the great proportion of
the interior of America.