interest in the prosperity of a commonwealth of which he knows himself
to form a part. The expedients of the pioneers who first broke ground
in the settlement of this country are succeeded by the permanent
improvements of the yeoman who intends to leave his remains to moulder
under the sod which he tills, or perhaps of the son, who, born in the
land, piously wishes to linger around the grave of his father. Only
forty years * have passed since this territory was a wilderness.

* Our tale begins in 1793, about seven years after the commencement of
one of the earliest of those settlements which have conduced to effect
that magical change in the power and condition of the State to which
we have alluded.

Very soon after the establishment of the independence of the States by
the peace of 1783, the enterprise of their citizens was directed to a
development of the natural ad vantages of their widely extended
dominions. Before the war of the Revolution, the inhabited parts of
the colony of New York were limited to less than a tenth of its
possessions, A narrow belt of country, extending for a short distance
on either side of the Hudson, with a similar occupation of fifty miles
on the banks of the Mohawk, together with the islands of Nassau and
Staten, and a few insulated settlements on chosen land along the
margins of streams, composed the country, which was then inhabited by
less than two hundred thousand souls. Within the short period we have
mentioned, the population has spread itself over five degrees of
latitude and seven of longitude, and has swelled to a million and a
half of inhabitants, who are maintained in abundance, and can look
forward to ages before the evil day must arrive when their possessions
shall become unequal to their wants.