ered from the fatal delusion they labored under, and restored to their reason.

I shall very briefly, and without much attention to order or regularity, consider these positions. They are not entitled to a serious refutation, but merely as they have been made the instruments of producing so much mischief.

Before I touch upon the commercial points, I shall offer a few observations on the high and exalted pretensions of the people of the eastern states, to superior morality and religion, over the rest of the union. There has not been, it is true, quite so much parade with these exclusive claims as on the subject of commerce. Perhaps the reason is, that there was no political purpose to be answered by them. But that the people of that section of the union are in general thoroughly persuaded that they very far excel the rest of the nation in both religion and morals, no man who has been conversant with them can deny. This folly of self-righteousness, of exalting ourselves above others, is too general all over the world; but no where more prevalent, or to greater extent, than in the eastern states. To pretend to institute a comparison between the religion and morals of the people of Boston and those of Philadelphia, NewYork, or Baltimore, would be regarded as equally extravagant and absurd, with a comparison of the gambols of a cow to the sprightly and elegant curvetings of an Arabian courser. The Rev. Jedediah Morse has in some degree devoted his geography to, and disgraced it by, the perpetuation of this vile prejudice. Almost every page that respects his own section of the union is highly encomiastic. He colours with the flattering tints of a partial and enamoured friend. But when once he passes the Susquehannah, what a hideous reverse!-Almost every thing is there frightful caricature. Society is at a low and melancholy ebb, and all the sombre tints are employed to elevate, by the contrast, his favorite Elysium, the eastern states. He dips his pen in gall when he has to pourtray the manners, or habits, or religion, of Virginia, or Maryland, either of the Carolinas or Georgia, or the western country.

I should enter far into the consideration of this procedure of Mr. Morse, but that it has been ably discussed by a superi or pen. The editor of the Port Folio, himself a decided fed eralist, reprobates, and pronounces a just and eternal condem. nation on the illiberality of making a school, or indeed any other book, a vehicle to excite animosities between fellow-citizens of different portions of the same nation.

The character of the eastern states for morality has been various at various times. Not long since it was at a very low

6

ebb indeed. It is within the memory of those over whose chins no razor has ever mowed a harvest, that Yankee and sharper were regarded as nearly synonimous. And this was not among the low and illiberal, the base and vulgar. It pervaded all ranks of society. In the middle and southern states traders were universally very much on their guard against Yankee tricks when dealing with those of the eastern.

They now arrogate to themselves (and, for party purposes, their claims are sometimes admitted by their political friends) to be, as I have stated, a superior order to their fellow citizens.. They look down upon those of the southward with as much contempt, and with as much foundation too, as did the Pharisee of old on the despised Publican.

Both of those views are grossly erroneous. They never, as a people, merited the opprobrium under which they formerly labored. There were, it is true, many worthless miscreants among them, who, on their emigratien to the other states, were guilty of base tricks, which, by an illiberality disgraceful to our species, but nevertheless very common, were charged to the account of the entire people of the eastern states, and brought them under a most undeserved odium.

I feel a pride and pleasure in doing justice to the yeomanry of the eastern states. They will not suffer in a comparison with the same class of men in any part of the world. They are upright, sober, orderly, and regular-shrewd, intelligent, and well-informed-and I believe there is not a greater degree of genuine native urbanity among the yeomanry of any country under the canopy of heaven. And it is lamentable and unaccountable how they have allowed themselves to be so egre giously duped as they have been. I have known them long: and my respect for them has gradually increased in proportion. as my knowledge of them has extended. But I shall never admit any exclusive or supereminent claim to the virtues which I know they possess. And I have no hesitation in averring, that although Boston, or Hartford, or Newhaven, may exhibit rather more appearance of religion and piety, than New-York, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore, yet the latter cities possess as much of the reality. It would astonish and frighten many of the pious people in New-York or Philadelphia, to he informed -but they may nevertheless rely upon the information as indubitably true-that a large portion of the clergy of the town of Boston, are absolute Unitarians; and scout the idea of the divinity of Jesus Christ as completely and explicitly as ever Dr.. Priestly did. This is a digression. I did not intend to introduce it. But since it is here, let it remain. And let me add

that the present principal of Harvard College was known to he an Unitarian when he was elected. This fact establishes the very great extent and prevalence of the doctrine.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Arrogance of the claims of the eastern states on the subject of Statistical tables. Comparison of the exports of

commerce.

the several states.

THE high and sounding pretensions of the eastern states on the subject of commerce have been almost universally admitted. No person has ever thought it worth while to examine into the actual state of the facts. It has been presumed, that, in a matter where falsehood and deception were so easily detected, such confident assertions would not be hazarded, unless they rested on a strong foundation. And in drawing the line of demarca

tion between the eastern states and the rest of the union, in the minds of the mass of the community, all to the north and east of the line was regarded as devoted exclusively to commerce; all to the south and west, chiefly to agriculture.

It is hardly possible to conceive a greater mistake. The reader will be astonished at the view I shall lay before him.— I have been inexpressibly surprised myself, and even now can hardly credit my own statements. They are nevertheless indisputable.

TABLE A.

Table of Exports from the United States, of FOREIGN and domestic preductions and manufactures, from 1791 to 1802. Carefully extracted from the treasury returns.

1800 11,326,000 14,045,000 11,949,000 10,663,000 12,264,000 1801 14,870,000 19,851,000 17,438,000 14,504,000 12,767,000 1802 13,492,000 18,792,000 12,677,000 10,639,000

7,914,000

$98,770,000 129,941,000 124,744,000 83,631,000 101,026,000

8,915,000

6,994,000 12,746,000

12,431,000

8,729,000 16,299,000

N. B. In the preceding table of exports, the figures below thousands are uniformly omitted, as not material to the calculation-and affecting equally both sides of the question.

Comparative views of the exports from the different states, of foreign and domestic articles, from 1791 to 1802, inclusively.See Table A.

I. Maryland exported eight times as much as Connecticut; seven times as much as Rhode Island; two per cent. more than "the great commercial state" of Massachusetts; and very nearly as much as Massachusetts, Newhampshire, and Vermont united.

Connecticut

Rhode Island

12,328,000 14,113,000

II. Maryland exported above 330 per cent. more than New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

III. South Carolina exported nearly six times as much as Rhode Island; nearly seven times as much as Connecticut; above twenty times as much as Newhampshire; five hundred times as much as Vermont; and 170 per cent. more than those four states.

IV. Virginia exported 73 per cent. more than the four minor

eastern states.

Virginia

N. Hampshire, Vermont, &c. See No. 2.

53,125,000

30,435,000

V. Virginia and South Carolina exported 8 per cent. more

than the five "great commercial eastern states.”

VI. North Carolina exported 70 per cent. more than New

Hampshire and Vermont,