are." Such authority, then, is questionable and deceptive. Each individual destined never to return, wants, and tempts, his friends to follow; the motive, perhaps, is innocent, or venial, but the consequences are evil and disastrous.
My peregrinations, visits, and visitations, to many points and intersections of the compass, and {329} to all ranks of native and adopted citizens, on this continent, are little short of eight thousand miles. Of those visited, and added to the number of my acquaintance, exclusive of excellencies, honourables, generals, majors, captains, judges, and squires, are our two distinguished expatriates, Birkbeck and Flower, with whom I have spent days more interesting than fall to the lot of travellers in common. Of their success or failure, satisfaction or disappointment, I, at present, say nothing. By me, they were met with feelings of respect, and quitted with regret.
My inquiries have been, as promised, directed to one grand object; that of ascertaining, by first-rate means, the past and present condition, and future probable prospects, of British emigrants, and the consequent good or evil of emigration, in the hope of clearly defining and exposing its character, so that it may no longer remain a doubtful or desperate enterprize, a journey in the dark, alternately praised or blamed, but a cause, attaching to it certain consequences, which, for some persons to embrace, or shun, is become a visible, tangible, matter of duty.
To my countrymen disposed to emigrate, but who can, by encreased exertion, keep their unequalled comforts and honour unimpaired, I would say, in a voice which should be heard from shore to shore, "Stay where you are; for neither America, nor the world, have any thing
