they must all be healthy by perpetual temperance and exercise; if
so, they are amply rewarded for their poverty. Could they have
obtained but necessary food, they would not have left it; for it was
not in consequence of oppression, either from their patriarch or the
government, that they had emigrated. I wish we had a colony of these
honest people settled in some parts of this province; their morals,
their religion, seem to be as simple as their manners. This society
would present an interesting spectacle could they be transported on
a richer soil. But perhaps that soil would soon alter everything;
for our opinions, vices, and virtues, are altogether local: we are
machines fashioned by every circumstance around us.

Andrew arrived at my house a week before I did, and I found my wife,
agreeable to my instructions, had placed the axe in his hands, as
his first task. For some time he was very awkward, but he was so
docile, so willing, and grateful, as well as his wife, that I
foresaw he would succeed. Agreeably to my promise, I put them all
with different families, where they were well liked, and all parties
were pleased. Andrew worked hard, lived well, grew fat, and every
Sunday came to pay me a visit on a good horse, which Mr. P. R. lent
him. Poor man, it took him a long time ere he could sit on the
saddle and hold the bridle properly. I believe he had never before
mounted such a beast, though I did not choose to ask him that
question, for fear it might suggest some mortifying ideas. After
having been twelve months at Mr. P. R.'s, and having received his
own and his family's wages, which amounted to eighty-four dollars;
he came to see me on a week-day, and told me, that he was a man of
middle age, and would willingly have land of his own, in order to
procure him a home, as a shelter against old age: that whenever this
period should come, his son, to whom he would give his land, would