casion; his answer generally is, "it is well," and he makes BOOK very little further inquiry about it. On the contrary, if LXXXI. you inform him that his children are slain or taken prisoners, he makes no complaints; he only replies, "It does not signify," and probably, for some time at least, asks not how it happened.* We mentioned before, (page 151,) that the number of Numbers. Indians in the territories of the United States, was estimated at 457,000. The following statement, however, is rather more recent, and is also obtained from Dr. Morse.† "In The proportion which the warriors bear to the whole population varies, but is on an average one to five. Indian countries where fish constitutes an article of food, the number in each family is about six; in other parts, where this article is wanting, it is about five." As no material change has taken place in the mode of living of the Indians beyond the Mississippi and in the western territories, while the acquisition of fire-arms has perhaps rather increased their resources for subsistence, we have reason to believe that the aboriginal population is nearly as dense in these countries as it was in the whole of North America before the English settlements commenced. Hence it is probable that when the Indians were lords *Carver's Travels, chap. III. † Hodgson's Letters from North America, vol. II. p. 394. BOOK of the continent from sea to sea, their number in the two LXXXI. millions of square miles, now claimed by the United States, did not exceed one million of souls, or was scarcely greater than that of the inhabitants of the three small states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, which occupy only the one hundred and sixtieth part of the surface. Even admitting that the use of spirits has deteriorated their habits, and thinned their numbers, we cannot suppose that the Indian population was ever more than twice as dense as at present, or that it exceeded one person for each square mile of surface. Now, in highly civilized countries like France and England, the population is at the rate of 150 or 200 persons to the square mile. It may safely be affirmed, therefore, that the same extent of land from which one Indian family derives a precarious and wretched subsistence, would support 150 families of civilized men in plenty and comfort. But most of the Indian tribes raise melons, beans, and maize; and were we to take the case of a people who lived entirely by hunting, the disproportion would be still greater. If God created the earth for the sustenance of mankind, this single consideration decides the question as to the sacredness of the Indian title to the lands which they roam over, but do not in any reasonable sense occupy. BOOK LXXXII. 225 THE DESCRIPTION OF AMERICA CONTINUED. United States continued.-Manufactures, Commerce, Government, Religion, Manners, and Literature. THE cheapness of land, and the great profits which farm- BOOK ing affords, check the growth of manufactures in the United LXXXII. States. Linen, woollen, and cotton articles for domestic Manufacuse, however, are made very generally in the farmers' houses, tures. and fabrics of a finer kind, including fancy and ornamental articles, are now manufactured in extensive works in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Cabinet ware, and the coarser species of iron work, are made in high perfection; and in ship-building, the construction of wooden bridges, and mill machinery, the Americans are probably superior to any nation in Europe. If not the actual inventors of steam navigation, they have the credit of giving the practical use of the invention to the world. According to the official returns in 1810, the whole value of the manufactures that year was 127,694,602 dollars, but allowing for articles omitted or under estimated, the true amount was computed to be 172,700,000 dollars. Supposing the growth of manufactures to have kept pace with that of the population, the amount, in 1823, would be about 240,000,000 of dollars, (£52,000,000 sterling.) The commerce of the United States is second in extent Commerce. only to that of Britain, and much greater than that of any state with an equal population. The principal articles of domestic growth or manufacture exported, are cotton, tobacco, wheat, and flour, lumber and naval stores, ashes, fish, beef, rice, and flax seed. The imports consist chiefly of woollens, cottons, linens, silks, iron ware, coffee, sugar, spirits, wines. The States that have the greatest quantity of shipping are New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Mary BOOK land, and Pennsylvania. A considerable proportion of the LXXXII. tonnage belonging to the northern States is employed in Canals. Banks. carrying away the produce of the southern, which have comparatively a small number of ships and mariners, though the cotton and tobacco raised in these States furnish fully onehalf of the exports of the Union. The vast number of navigable rivers in the United States, afford extraordinary facilities for communication by water; and hence their internal commerce, compared with that of other countries, is still greater than their foreign trade. The admirable invention of steam boats has had a most beneficial effect in North America in quickening and improving river navigation. The Americans have made great and spirited exertions to improve their inland water communication by the construction of canals. Besides the Middlesex canal, in Massachusetts, thirty-one miles long, the lake Champlain, the Dismal Swamp, the Santee and Cooper river canals, each twenty-two miles long, and several of smaller extent, a canal has been formed to connect the Hudson with lake Erie. It is four feet deep, forty feet wide at top, and twenty-eight at bottom; it has eighty-one locks, and an aggregate rise and fall of 654 feet; it is 362 miles long, and is estimated to cost about five millions of dollars. This great work is to be completed in 1824,(a) and has been executed entirely at the expense of the single state of New York, and within the short period of seven years.* Banks are extremely numerous in the United States; but the system of banking is bad. Of 400 of these establishments which existed in 1818, a great proportion had little or no real capital; and were merely a sort of gambling speculations, got up by knots of adventurers, and supported for a time by local influence or artifice, but ultimately falling down, and spreading distress and ruin among the industrious classes. Two-thirds or more of these banks stopped payment in the four years ending 1820, and the circulating medium which, in 1815, was estimated at 110 mil (a) It was completed in 1825.7-Am. ED. *Duncan's Travels, I. 324. lions of dollars, was reduced by these failures to forty-five BOOK millions in 1819. The American banks generally issue LXXXII. notes for so small a sum as one dollar, and some of them for fractional parts of that coin. To remedy the disorders arising from the unsound state of the currency, the national bank was instituted by Congress in 1816, with a capital of 35,000,000 of dollars, divided into shares of 100 dollars each. Some peculiar privileges were bestowed on this bank, which had branches established in the principal cities of the Union; but the value of its stock has fluctuated much; and it has neither prospered nor supplied an efficient correction to the evils of the currency.* By an act of Congress, passed in 1792, the only legal Money. tender in the United States is the dollar and its fractional parts. The dollar weighs 416 grains; and four dollars and forty-four cents are declared equal to a pound sterling. The national silver coins consist of the dollar, half, and quarter dollar; the first being equal to 100, the second to fifty, and the third to twenty-five cents. The gold coins are, the eagle, equal to ten dollars, and the half and quarter eagle, equal respectively to five and two and a half dollars. The gold coins of the United States are of the same quality with those of Britain and Portugal, the intrinsic value being at the rate of 100 cents for twenty-seven grains. The foot, yard, and acre, the gallon, pound avoirdupois, and pound troy, and the measures and weights of the United States universally, with some trifling local exceptions, are the same with those of England.t ment. The governments of the United States, local and general, Govern grew naturally out of the old colonial charters, which were founded on the constitutional law of England. The principles, therefore, of those harmonious and beautiful republican institutions of which America is justly proud, are the patrimonial gift of England; but it cannot be denied that the wisdom of American statesmen, and the free spirit of the * Flint's Letters, No. XVI. and XVII. Carey's Political Economy, p. 271, 425. Warden, III. 442. + Warden, III, 439. |