therefore expected in the coming winter through excess of labourers. Messieurs Price, Krugg, Wardour, and Wilson, all distinct firms and personages, agree in opinion and evidence that the eastern states are the best for the employment of capital; yet they partially admit that New Orleans will or may be a market, a grand emporium for the western wilderness. Ships go there to buy produce; but, Mr. Wardour says, why should men of capital go to settle there, while fine cleared and improved land in the east, with every possible advantage can be bought any where, for the money it costs in fencing and enclosing. Western land must be enclosed and cleared, and at a much greater expense than the eastern, and then after all be without a market for surplus produce, or purchasers for the land and its improvements. Lands, even in the old and thickly settled state of Kentucky, are so depressed in price and so unsaleable, that a dollar cannot be raised upon or from them. Living is uncommonly cheap; {161} fowls 9s. sterling per dozen, and every thing in proportion. Housekeeping is cheaper by 100 per cent., and 30 per cent. for a genteel family, than at Philadelphia. Mr. R. Flower, in a recent letter, says that female servants and others are much wanted, as well as mechanics of all sorts. The females of every description have nearly all got married or engaged.
24th.—I returned to Washington city this day, after a journey of about 700 miles, during which I saw many situations inviting to emigrants both in Pennsylvania and in other states on the banks of rivers; but little or no good land elsewhere.
I feel some regret on quitting the purer air, the fairer scenes and better tables of Pennsylvania and New York, where, at almost every meal, rich and precious fruits gar-
