word BANK on a fine slab of maple, which was green and growing when
I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers, in my own
currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds of
the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans; so that
my notes are the representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I
am accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people
here know very well that I ran away from London; but the most of
them have run away from some place or other; and they have a great
respect for me, because they think I ran away with something worth
taking, which few of them had the luck or the wit to do. This
gives them confidence in my resources, at the same time that, as
there is nothing portable in the settlement except my own notes,
they have no fear that I shall run away with them. They know I am
thoroughly conversant with the principles of banking, and as they
have plenty of industry, no lack of sharpness, and abundance of
land, they wanted nothing but capital to organise a flourishing
settlement; and this capital I have manufactured to the extent
required, at the expense of a small importation of pens, ink, and
paper, and two or three inimitable copper plates. I have abundance
here of all good things, a good conscience included; for I really
cannot see that I have done any wrong. This was my position: I
owed half a million of money; and I had a trifle in my pocket. It
was clear that this trifle could never find its way to the right
owner. The question was, whether I should keep it, and live like a
gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and commissioners of
bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill. If I could have
thought that the said lawyers, etc., had a better title to it than
myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent
to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour, the
right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question