American labourers here, as usual, are very villainous; one, a preacher, took a piece of land to clear for my friend, and received, before he began, forty dollars on account, but refused to perform his contract. To sue him was idle. My friend, in the presence of the fellow's son, called him a right reverend rascal and thief. "Call him so again," said the son, doubling his fist ready to strike. My friend repeated it, and taking up an axe, said. "Now strike, but if you do, as I was never yet afraid of a man, I'll chop you into rails." Money rarely procures its value in labour. He deems that as much money is to be made from 200 acres of land here, as in England, while here the land is made your own. {237} To do that in England, is the top of a farmer's ambition. Here, a man can make all that he cultivates his own. He says that he shall live and gain money this first year, though only sixteen acres are in cultivation. Mrs. Ingle, maid, and children, suffered much in crossing the sea and mountains. They slept on the floor, in a hole, with waggoners, and other male blackguards, where the stench, both by sea and land, was little short of pestilential.
Sunday, 7th.—More than half last night, Mr. and Mrs. Ingle, and maid, were out in the woods extinguishing the wide spreading fires, which threatened to consume their fences, houses, and corn-fields. The whole horizon was brilliantly illuminated. These fires, if not arrested, or watched, sweep away houses, stacks of corn and hay, and every thing within reach. So fared Mr. Grant, late of Chatteris, who is now dead. The sound of the axe, splitting fire-wood, salutes the ear every morning, instead of the birds' song. I was smoked to death all night: our friends rested all day absent from meeting, but still the
