I have not seen one Indian, although there have been several at Wanborough at different times, since I have resided there, but I have always been from home at the time.
I see the American settlers understand the culture of this country better than the Europeans, and I mean generally to follow the rules of the former, unless where { 289} I see a great defect in their practice; and should I depart from their plan, I shall do it at first on a small scale, to try if my method is preferable to theirs; as I always observed in England, that when a person removed from one part of the country to another, he almost always adopted the practice of that neighbourhood, however different to the one he had before been accustomed to.
An agricultural society was established last year, in the State of Illinois, and Mr. Birkbeck made president. It held its first meeting at Kaskaskia; but whether there has been any other meeting I do not know.
I have just received the patents of my farms, from the city of Washington, where they had been sent for the president's signature. They are complete titles, of a short and simple form. The following is a copy of one of them:--
{ 290} "269. JAMES MONROE, President of the United States of America,
"To whom these presents shall come, greeting.
"Know ye, that John Woods, assignee of Hugh Collins, of White county, Illinois, having deposited, at the general land office, a certificate of the register of the land office at Shawneetown; whereby it appears, that full payment has been made, for the south-east quarter of section nineteen; in township, two south; of range, ten east; containing 160 acres of the lands directed to be sold at Shawneetown, by the acts of Congress relative to the disposal of the public lands in Illinois. There is granted to the said John Woods, the quarter section of land above described; to have and to hold the said quarter section of land, with the appurtenances, unto the said John Woods, his heirs and assigns, for ever. In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto { 291} affixed. Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, and of the independence of the United States, the forty-fourth.