must qualify this remark by adding -- in all cases in which
individual interests are not concerned. There is less perhaps of the
'spirit of dealing' in this colony than in any other of the British
empire. Ours is not a mercantile community, and the farm-settlers
generally are young men of good birth and gentlemanly spirit. Still,
even here, beyond all question, exists the same odious tendency
(though less apparent) which prevails more or less in all colonies,
to advance self-interest on every possible occasion, without being
deterred by any scruples whatsoever.

When men become emigrants, they leave behind them their relations,
friends, connexions, and all their old associations, and appear upon
a new theatre of action, where they have no feelings to consult
beyond their own personal wishes and interests.

They find themselves suddenly emancipated from all those restraints
which formerly acted with a salutary influence upon their natural
inclinations; and having no one near them whose opinion they regard,
or whom they care to conciliate, they fall rapidly into the belief
that they have no one to live for but themselves, and, consequently,
make self the sole guide of all their actions, and sole god of their
idolatry.

This spirit of 'Yankeeism' is the prevailing spirit of colonies. It
is the natural consequence of the isolated state in which men feel
themselves to exist, when they have no longer those less selfish
motives of action that influenced and regulated their conduct under
other circumstances. The eye of a parent no longer watches over them
with approbation or anxiety; and what has a still more powerful
influence upon their conduct, they are now beyond the observation of