AME- offered to the public by auction, and that which remains CA. unsold, which is generally a very large proportion, may be purchased at the land-office of the district, at litical two dollars per acre, one-fourth to be paid down, and the remaining three-fourths at several instalments, to be completed in five years. Moral late. ited rri "The poor emigrant, having collected the eighty dollars, repairs to the land-office, and enters his quarrants ter section, then works his way without another "cent" west in his pocket, to the solitary spot, which is to be his future abode, in a two-horse waggon, containing his family, and his little all, consisting of a few blankets, a skillet, his rifle, and his axe. Suppose him arrived in the spring; after putting up a little log cabin, he proceeds to clear, with intense labour, a plot of ground for Indian corn, which is to be their next year's support; but, for the present, being without means of obtaining a supply of flour, he depends on his gun for subsistence. In pursuit of the game, he is compelled, after his day's work, to wade through the evening dews, up to the waist, in long grass, or bushes; and returning, finds nothing to lie on but a bear's skin, on the cold ground, exposed to every blast through the sides, and every shower through the open roof of his wretched dwelling, which he does not even attempt to close, till the approach of winter, and often not then. Under these distresses of extreme toil and exposure, debarred from every comfort, many valuable lives have sunk, which have been charged to the climate. "The individual, whose case is included in this seeming digression, escaped the ague, but he lay three weeks delirious in a nervous fever, of which he yet feels the remains; owing, no doubt, to excessive fatigue. Casualties, doubly calamitous in their forlorn estate, would sometimes assail them. He, for instance, had the misfortune to break his leg at a time when his wife was confined by sickness, and for three days they were only supplied with water, by a child of two years old, having no means of communicating with their neighbours (neighbours ten miles off perhaps) until the fourth day. He had to carry the little grain he could procure, twelves miles to be ground; and remembers once seeing at the mill, a man who had brought his sixty miles, and was compelled to wait three days for his turn. Political and Moral State. United In another place he says, "From what I have seen, N. AMEand heard from others, of America, east of the Alleghany RICA. mountains, I judge that artisans in general will succeed in any part of it; and that labourers of every description will greatly improve their condition: in so much, that they will, if saving and industrious, soon lay by enough to tempt them to migrate still farther in quest of land, on which they may establish themselves as proprietors. That mercantile adventurers would be likely to succeed as well, but not better than in England; that clerks, lawyers, and doctors, would gain nothing by the exchange of countries. The same of master manufacturers in general."-Notes on a Journey in America, 8vo. In his Letters from Illinois, Mr. Birkbeck furnishes us with the following calculations: "Copy from my memorandum-book. "Estimate of money required for the comfortable esta- Estimate of Second instalment, August 1819, 720 dollars; Dwelling-house and appurtenances Other buildings Sundry articles of furniture, ironmongery, pot- Dolls. 2,160 4,500 1,500 1,170 500 2,000 270 1,000 1,000 600 500 100 720 300 Expence of freight and carriage of linen, bed- "Such are the difficulties which these pioneers have to encounter; but they diminish as settlements approach each other, and are only heard of by their successors. The number of emigrants who passed this way, was greater last year than in any preceding; and the present spring they are still more numerous than the last. Fourteen waggons yesterday, and thirteen to-day, have gone through this town. Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The waggons swarm with children. I heard to-day of three together, which contain fortytwo of these young citizens. The wildest solitudes are to the taste of some people. General Boon, who was Allow about 600 dollars more for seed chiefly instrumental in the first settlement of Kentucky, is of this turn. It is said, that he is now, at the age of seventy, pursuing the daily chase, 200 miles to the westward of the last abode of civilized man. He had retired to a chosen spot, beyond the Missouri, which, after him is named Boon's Lick, out of the reach, as he flattered himself, of intrusion; but white men, even there, incroached upon him, and two years ago he went back 200 miles farther." (June 11, 1817.) Manufactures. "Provisions are cheap of course. Wheat three and fourpence sterling per bushel. Beef and pork twopence per pound, groceries and clothing dear, building moderate, either by wood or brick. Bricks are laid by the thousand, at eight dollars or under, including lime. "Privations I cannot enumerate. Their amount depends on the previous habits and present disposition of individuals for myself and family, the privations already experienced, or anticipated, are of small account compared with the advantages. 66 Horses, 60 to 100 dollars, or upwards; cows, 10 to 20 dollars; sows, 3 to 5 dollars. "Society is made up of new comers chiefly, and "Roads as yet are in a state of nature. "Mechanics' wages, 1 dollar to 14. Carpenters, "We rely on good markets for produce, through the grand navigable communication we enjoy with the ocean. "Medical aid is not of difficult attainment. The English of both sexes, and strangers in general, are liable to some bilious attacks on their first arrival: these complaints seem, however, simple, and not difficult to manage if taken in time. "The manufactures you mention may hereafter be eligible; cotton, woollen, linen, stockings, &c. Cer and M must arise to mechanists, and encouragements, in N. AM At the period when the importation of all manufactures was lately stopped from Europe, and the Americans were actually forced into them, no less than a capital of $1,000,000,000 was employed in the manufactories of the United States; but no sooner did the external cause cease to operate, than the internal stimulus was also found deficient. The manufactories, although established quickly, broke up, and now not more than $500,000,000 are employed; so impossible has it been found to force this system upon the country. There is consequently no stated and continuous employ for any one man in the United States; he is successively a farmer, a lawyer, a clergyman, a merchant, a congress man, a soldier, and a diplomatist; he is, in fact, freed from all restraint as to his vocation, and may pursue any to which he may be propelled by his particular genius. The following list shows the annual value of manufactures in the United States, before the peace of 1815 had diminished them: tainly not at present Beer, spirits, pottery, tanning, And the exports may be seen by the following table: are objects of immediate attention. "The minerals of our district are not much known. We have excellent limestone; I believe we have coal: wood will, however, be the cheapest fuel for some years. "Implements are cheap till you commence with the iron. A waggon, 35 or 40 dollars, exclusive of tier to wheels. A strong waggon for the road, complete, will amount to 160 dollars or upwards. "The best mode of coming from England to this part of the western country is by an eastern port, thence to Pittsburg, and down the Ohio to Shawnee town. Clothing, bedding, household linen, simple medicines of the best quality, and sundry small articles of cutlery and light tools, are the best things for an emigrant to bring out." MANUFACTURES.-Though very great encouragement is everywhere given to ingenious European and other mechanics and handicraftsmen, the manufactures of America are yet in their infancy; but they have of late greatly improved. Whilst land, however, is so cheap, and wages are so high, continual impediments Exports of manufactures. Stat Expe manu tures IE d The manufactures from foreign materials are, at preA. sent, spirits from molasses, refined sugars, chocolate, gunpowder, brass and copper, and medicines. The cal manufacture of wool is thriving, and the Merino breed oral increases rapidly throughout the several states. In iron, and especially hemp, the United States will soon be independent of the rest of the world. Kentucky produced in one year to the value of $700,000, in a quantity of 120,000 cwt. In the same year, in the same state, were produced 40,000 cwt. of cordage, of the value of $400,000, making a total for both articles of $1,100,000. The cotton consumed, reckoning the average of the three years 1811, 1812, and 1813, exceeds 20,000,000 lbs. C In wood, the chief manufactures are household furniture, carriages of all kinds, ships, and pot and pearl ashes. The manufactures of leather are boots, shoes, harness, and saddles. Soap and tallow candles are manufactured in private families as well as in general establishments. Cotton, wool, and flax are also manufactured much in private families. Fifty thousand tons of bar-iron are annually consumed; 10,000 tons are exported in a rude state, for foreign completion, and the remaining 40,000 are manufactured at home. Sheet, slit, and hoop iron are almost wholly made at home; and cut nails are manufactured for home consumption, of which 300 tons are annually exported. Cutlery and fine hardware, and steel-work, are entirely imported from Britain. Of copper and brass works, almost all the zinc and all the copper is imported. Colours of red and white lead are imported largely; but lead for shot is found and made at home. Plated ware is made in the cities of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Charlestown. Gunpowder, coarse earthenware, window-glass, glass bottles, and white glass decanters, are manufactured there nearly in sufficient quantity for home consumption. About 1,000,000 bushels of salt are manufactured, and 3,000,000 are imported. The white crockeryware of Philadelphia will, it is asserted, compete with any in England. Saltpetre is made in Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and East and West Tennessee. Nearly 10,000,000 lbs. of maple-tree sugar is produced in Ohio, Kentucky, Vermont, and East Tennessee. Good copperas is produced in West Tennessee and Vermont. Twenty-five millions of gallons of ardent spirits are yearly distilled and consumed in the United States. Four hundred water and horse mills, which work 120,000 spindles for cotton-spinning, are employed. Fulling-mills 2,000, and 400,000 looms. One hundred millions of yards of cloth made from wool, cotton, and flax. For making gunpowder there are 300 mills, 600 furnaces, forges, and bloomeries; and for manufacturing paper there are 200 mills. In Vermont the manufactures are those of iron, lead, pipe-clay, marble, distilleries, maple-tree sugar, flour, and wool.-In Massachusetts, duck, cotton, woollen, cut nails (which are made by a newly-invented machine, capable of cutting 200,000 a day), paper, cotton and wool cards, playing-cards, shoes, silk and thread lace, wire, snuff, oil, chocolate and powder-mills, mills for sawing timber, iron-works and slitting-mills, mills for grinding grain, fulling-mills, distilleries and glassworks. In Rhode Island, cotton, linen, and tow cloth, iron, rum, spirits, paper, wool and cotton cards, sper RICA. Political and Moral State. United States. Manufac tures. maceti, sugar, machines for cutting serews, and fur- N. AMEnaces for casting hollow ware.-In Connecticut, silk, wool, card-teeth, (made by a machine at the rate of 86,000 an hour), buttons, linen, cotton, glass, snuff, powder, iron, paper, oil, and well-wrought firearms.-In New York are manufactured wheel carriages of all kinds, refined sugar, potters'-ware, umbrellas, musical instruments, glass, iron, and steamboats.-In New Jersey we find tanneries, leather-manufactories, iron-works, powder-mills, cotton, paper, copper-mines, lead-mines, stone and slate quarries. In Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh river, are some good collieries, distilleries, rope-walks, sugar-houses, hairpowder-manufactories, iron-founderies, shot-manufactories, steam-engines, and mill-machinery; the pneumatic cock for tapping air-tight casks; hydrostatic blow-pipe manufactories, type-founderies, improvements in printing, and a carpet-manufactory. In Delaware are found cotton, and bolting-cloth and powder manufactories; fulling, snuff, slitting, paper, grain, and saw mills.-In Maryland are iron-works, collieries, gristmills, glass-works, stills, paper and cotton mills.-In Virginia, abundant lead-mines, iron-mines, coppermines, vast collieries, and marble-quarries.-In Kentucky, cotton, wire, paper, and oil, are made.-In Ohio, ship-building is pursued to a vast extent, and this branch of manufacture is spread indeed throughout all the United States.-In North Carolina, the pitch pine produces excellent pitch, tar, turpentine, and lumber. Here are iron-works, and a gold-mine producing virgin gold.-In South Carolina are found gold, silver, lead, black-lead, copper and iron mines; coarse cornelian stones, and some other semi-pellucid stones of various hues; variegated marble, nitrous stones and sand, red and yellow ochres, potters'-clay, fullers'-earth, dyestuffs, chalk, crude alum, sulphur, nitre, and vitriol.Indigo, silk, and sago in Georgia.-Cotton, wool, cordage, shot, and hair-powder, are manufactured in Louisiana. FINANCE. The Washington administration, with Finance. Mr. Hamilton as secretary, founded an internal revenue by taxation, which Mr. Jefferson abolished; and the public revenue depended entirely upon the customs. Mr. Maddison pursued the same policy, until the last war expenditure forced the country again to impose a taxation on land, houses, and manufactures, which, however, did not, on the whole amount to $10,000,000; but even this, small as it is, has been to a considerable degree repealed since the termination of the war. Mr. Monroe has, in his message, 2d December, 1817, recommended to congress the repeal of the whole internal taxation This must be followed by the reduction of the regular army; and such is the jealousy existing with regard to every subject connected with the independence of the country, that the prevalent fear at present is, lest the standing army, which consists of only 10,000 men, spread all along the Atlantic coast, may become dangerous to the liberties of the American citizens, the whole of whom are armed, or trained to the use of arms, and have besides a disciplined body of militia of nearly 1,000,000 men. Previous to the late war with this country, the revenues of the United States were derived from duties and taxes on imports, tonnage of ships and vessels, spirits distilled within the United States, and stills; postage of letters, taxes on patents, dividends on bank United States. National debt. Sinking fund. The report of the secretary of the treasury (Mr. Dallas) for the year 1816, states, that on the 12th of February of that year, the whole of the public debt, funded and floating, was $123,630,692; but, on the 1st of January, 1817, it did not exceed $109,748,272. The actual receipts of the treasury for 1816 were $65,702,628 gross. The history of this debt is, in brief, as follows: The debt contracted during the revolutionary war exceeded $135,000,000; about one-half of which was collected by means of taxes levied during the war, and for the remainder the United States continued indebted in 1783, when peace and independence were ratified. The American treasury, during the struggle for that independence, advanced little else than paper, which was called continental money, and which at last suffered so considerable a depreciation, that 1,000 paper dollars would not purchase more than one silver dollar. The specie value of the debt, in April 1783, not calculating upon the paper depreciation, amounted to $42,000,375, and its interest annually to $2,415,956. This interest was not paid under the old confederation, and amounted, in 1790, to $54,124,464; the state debts, and its interest, were $25,000,000. The general government took to themselves only $21,500,000 of the debts of the several states, although Mr. Hamilton advised the assumption of the whole of the debt, both state and continental. The sum total due in December 1794, was $76,096,468. For the liquidation of this debt and its interest, certain import duties, and duties on distilled spirits, were imposed. The sum of $600,000, for the national defence and support of government, was appointed out of these imposts; the remainder of which, after payment of the interest of the debt, was to be appropriated to the establishment of a sinking-fund, under direction of certain commissioners, for the liquidation of the whole debt. On the 31st of March, 1794, the commissioners of this sinking-fund had purchased stock amounting to $2,265,022. In March, 1795, congress again made other provisions for this sinking-fund, in trust to commissioners, as before, until the whole debt should be liquidated. The whole debt of the United States, funded and temporary, on the 1st of January, 1800, amounted to $79,433,820 The war with the Indians; the expences attending the suppression of two insurrections in Pennsylvania on account of the whiskey-tax; the sums employed in the negociations with the Barbary powers; and the disputes with revolutionary France in 1798-99, produced this augmentation of the debt. In 1802, on the 28th of April, congress enacted, that $7,300,000 annually should be added to the sinkingfund, for the purposes already mentioned. The amount of the debt in 1803 was something more than $70,000,000, of which $32,119,211 were claimed by foreigners, $5,603,564 by particular states, $ 10,096,398 On the 10th of November, 1803, $700,000 annually were added to the sinking-fund; so that its annual Politics income then amounted to $8,000,000. From 1800 to 1812, a large portion of the debt was paid off, owing to the increased prosperity of the nation; and on the United 1st of January, 1812, the debt was found to amount only to $45,154,489; and an ad valorem import-duty of only two and a half per cent. was laid on during that period. : States On the 14th of March, 1812, congress, contemplating Loans. a war with England, authorized a loan of $11,000,000, of which $8,034,700 was funded. In 1813 the sum of $324,200 of this stock was redeemed by the sinking-fund. On the 8th of January, 1813, another loan of $16,000,000 was authorized this loan being raised by individuals, every $88 paid in silver, entitled the lender to a certificate of $100 in stock. The stock, therefore, issued to supply this loan amounted to $18,109,377, allowing a premium to the lenders of $2,109,377. On the 2d of August, 1813, another loan of $7,500,000 was decreed, and raised by issuing stock amounting to $8,498,583. On the 24th of March, 1814, a loan of $25,000,000 was authorized; but of this only $11,400,000 was raised; for which stock was issued amounting to $14,262,351. To supply the deficiency of these loans treasury notes were issued, it being found that 30 per cent. depreciation had taken place on the latter loans. The total amount of stock issued was $ 48,905,012, while the actual money received by government was only $42,934,700. The states of New York and Philadelphia also lent money to government, for which $1,100,009 stock was issued; so that the total funded on these loans was $50,105,022. But this disadvantageous system of borrowing was soon discontinued, and treasury notes were given, as already mentioned, to supply the demands, to the amount of $18,452,800. On the 20th of February, 1815, the whole debt of the United States amounted to $121,688,805, including the expence of the last war, the old debt, and the other out-standing debts. Since that time, on the 24th of February, in the same year, $25,000,000 was issued in treasury notes; and on the 3d of March following another loan of $18,452,800 was authorized, in the same treasury notes. The sinking-fund is made first out of an annual appropriation of $8,000,000 from the interest of the debt already redeemed, which amounted, in 1813, to $1,932,107; from the sale of public lands, which amounted, in that same year, to $830,671; and from import and tonnage duties. On the 1st of January, 1814, the sinking-fund had Present discharged of the national debt, $33,873,463. In state of March 1817 the sinking-fund amounted to $10,000,000. On the 12th of February, 1816, the public debt, as we have seen, amounted to $123,630,692; and on the 1st of January, 1817, was reduced to $109,748,272; making a saving, in about one year, of $13,882,420. We beg to subjoin the following explanatory tables: The appropriations and payments for 1816 were Demands on the treasury for that year by appropriations $32,475,303 debt, & . 12,337,825 43 The cash balance in the treasury (ex cluding treasury notes), 1st Ja- Customs, for seven months, from Receipts in revenue, from the 1st $6,298,652 of March, 1815, 2,337,058 21 $222,530,374 56 9,016,342 24 4,476,826 53 3,864,000 The expenditures, during the same period, were 127,025 For pay and subsistence of the army Fortifications of ports and harbours Fabrication of cannon 4,374,805 26 263,611 54 676,710 cannon of January to the 1st of August, 1816 Detachment of militia 170,000 . $36,035,093 Loans, by funding and issuing treasury notes |