[52] Humphrey Repton (1752-1818) was a well-known English landscape gardener.--ED.
It has been reported that we can get no servants: this is true in a degree, because the price of service is such, as soon to elevate the servant to a state of independance: but I have found no want of persons to work for hire, even in domestic stations; those that are most wanted are farming labourers; good ploughmen are in request, and can obtain twelve dollars per month and their board. Female servants from eight to ten dollars, according to their respective merits; these are in great request; and what perhaps is to them still more pleasing, their industry is the certain road to marriage. Our young females are almost all engaged in this way, and we certainly lose good servants, { 24} but have the pleasure of seeing them well settled.
Now, my dear Sir, as to the state of the settlement and the progress it has already made.
On a tract of land from the little Wabash to the Bonpar[53] on the Great Wabash, about seventeen miles in width, and four to six from north to south, there were but a few hunters' cabins, a year and a half since, and now there are about sixty English families, containing nearly four hundred souls; and one hundred and fifty American, containing about seven hundred souls, who like the English for their neighbours, and many of whom are good neighbours to us. We have nothing here like loneliness. In our circle of English acquaintance, as well as in that of American settlers, we find companions who are often found interesting and intelligent. In good deed and in truth, here is, to the industrious, a source of wealth more certain and productive than the mines of Golconda and Peru. Industry of every kind has its ample reward: but for the idle, the drunkard, and the vicious, there is no chance; spirits are cheap, and a short existence is their certain portion. All persons feeling anxieties that attend agricultural pursuits may be released { 25} from those anxieties by emigrating to the Illinois.
[53] A misprint for Bonpas. This stream flows almost directly south and forms the present eastern boundary of Edwards County. It joins the Wabash about forty-five miles below Vincennes.--ED.