Star.
London, England, 1817-07-15 00:00:00

EMMRATION TO AMERICA.

We subjoin a letter of Mr. Cobbett'e on emigra-
tion to Amerka, upon which subject he may be
called an experimentalist, and it will be found that
he is rather adverse. There is, no doubt, a feeling
of irritation in his mind against England, which
would prompt him to speak as well of America as
he could. Where he has neither interest to serve, nor
passion to gratify, instances of which to a man of
his mind can but rarely occur, we suppose he may
be believed like any other person :
" On Wednesday evening, the 27th of March, we
embarked on board the ship Importer, I) Ogden,
master, bound to New York, where we arrived on
the sth of May, with about forty steerage passengers,
farmers and tradesmen, who were fleeing from ruin
and starvation. In all respects that can be named
our passage was disagreeable, and, upon one occa-
sion, very perilous from lightning, which struck the
ship twice, shivered two of the masts, killed a mar.,
struck several people slightly, between two of whom I
I was sittins., without at all feeling the blow.
44 Some of our feliow-passengers have found great
disappointment; and it is stated in some of the pub-
lic papers here, that many hundreds have, during
the last year, accepted of the offer of our Consul at
New York to go and settle in Canada. You know
that 1 have never advised any body to emigrate. I
have always said that it is no place for manufacturers;
no place for man to live without work; no place for
a farmer who does not work himself; no place, in
short, for any one who is not able and willing to
work at the ordinary sorts of work; but fur such
men there is every where a plentiful, happy, and
easy life. None should come, however, woo hare
any views of idleness; and even for the industrious
poor, I see no reason why they should expend their
last shilling, and undergo all the miseries and dan-
gers of a sea voyage, in order to save those who eat
the taxes the expense of their share of Poor-rates.
A man and his wife, and a child or two, cannot come
under an expense of ‘..i5 guineas at least: a single
man about 20 guineas before he gets into work aga,n;
and, as I always said, I never would, it I were is.
the place of such a man, expend my earnings on a
sea-voyage, and endure all its hardships, in order to
remove one eye-sore out of the way of corruption.
Besides, there is the climate, which is not so good as
ours, though it is not bad, and though people often
live to an old age. The country is good, but it will
easily be conceived that new laces, an entire new
scene, a separation from every friend, work done in
quite a different way from what it is in England—it
will easily be conceived, that all this makes such a
dislocation in a mm's mind, as to make him very
unhappy for a while. Then, be cannot expect to
find work the first day. He must ask first, at any
rate. Englishmen are sheepish ; and, it they meet
with any little rebut, they are disgusted at once with
the whole country ; and they are sure to find rascals
enough here to foster their disgust, merely for the
sake of serving the cause of corruption at home. In
short, I advise nobody to emigrate, but I will truly
describe the country and the people. As to emi-
grating with a view of settling and farming in tti
new countries, it is neither more nor less than down-
right madness. It is what our English farmers know
nothing at all sbout ; it is what they are not at all
fit for ; and the far greater part of all such specula-
tions end in disappointment, if not in ruin and pre-
mature death. I hope that our beloved country will
shortly be fit for an honest and industrious man to
live in ; bnt if any farmers come with money in their
pockets, my advice is, not to give way either to en-
chusiastic
admiration, or to instant disgust; but, to
stop a little ; to look about them ; to see not only
after good land, but a good market for its products.
The western romance writers tell us, that the land
in the Ohio is too good; but Mr. Mellish, in his va-
luable book, tells us, that beef and pork sell for three
half-pence a pound ;—an excellent country for people
who want to do nothing but eat. Give me Long
Island, where the land is not too good; but where
.beet and pork sell for about bd. a pound (I speak
of English money) ; where good bay sells for £5 a
ton ; and where there is a ready market for every
species of produce. One thing above all, if an Eng-
lish farmer (I mean by English people the whole of
the United Kingdom) comes here with money in his
pocket, let him resolve to keep it there for a year,
and then he will be sure to do well. All that I see
around me here is well calculated to attract the at-
tention and to plea* the sight of one like myself,
brought up in the country, always greatly delighted
with, and somewhat ..killed in, its various and pleas.
ing and healthful pursuits. The people are engaged
busily in planting their Indian corn. The cherry-trees.
of which there are multitudes, planted in long ave-
nues or rows, round the fields, have dropped their
blossom, and begin to shew their loads of fruit.
The apple and pear orchards, in extent from one to
twenty acres on each farm, are in full and beautiful
bloom.

" The farms are small in extent; no appearance
of want amongst the labourers, who receive, in the
country, about r.s. J. (our money) a day, with
board and kdging, and which board consists of
plenty of excelie:a meat and fish of all sorts. the ben,
of bread, butter, cl:eese, and eggs. That you may
form some idea as to prices of living, I will state a
few facts which have already come within my own
knowledge. We are at present at an inn, 13 miles
from New York. It is on the main road to that city.
Scarcely an hour in the day passes without a carriage
vt some sort offering for going thither, and to go by
the regular stage casts Ss. Mind, I shall always
tpegic in English money when I do not speak of dol-
lars. We lodge an 4 board in this inn, have each a
bed-room and good bed, have a room to sit in to
ourselves; we eat by ourselves, and it really is eating.
We have smoked Esh, chops, butter, and eggs, for
[ breakfast, with bread (the very finest I ever saw),
crackers, sweet cakes; and, when I say we have had
such and such things, I do not mean that we have
them for shew, or just enough to smell to, but in
loads. Not an egg, but a dish full of eggs. Not a
snip of meat or ut Esh, but a plate full. Lintsp sugar
for our tea and coffee; not broke into little bits the
site of a hazie nut, but in good thumping pieces.
For dinner we have the finest of fish, bass, mackerel,
lobsters) of meat, lamb, veal, Lam, &c. Asparagus
in plenty ; apple pies
,(though in the middleof May).
The supper is like the breakfast, with preserved
peaches and other things. And with all this. an ex-
cellent cider to drink, with tht kind and mast

'obliging treatment, on the part or the landkrd a•-• I
landlady, and their sons and daughters, we pn• rm
more than 225. 6d. per week each. In E0g1.i..!
same food and drink and lodging at an inn
cost us nearly the same sum every day. But t!:
are two things which no ny•ney can purchase ail
where: the fitst is, no grumbling on the pats :lie
landlady, except on account of our amine ..n
drinki.ig too little ; and the other is. that Mr
gins has no fastening hut a bit of a chip tut, I • err
the latch of the door, to a house which, is fpit
luable things of all tons, and about which we k •v•
all our things much more Carelessly than we shon;tl
do in our own house in any pail of England. Hint,
then, are we able to live at an hid, one the to
respectable in the whole country, at the rate i gs,.)
a year, while the pay of a tauring ntla I.
not much short of that sum."