these preliminary observations, we are now led to seek a proper choice of country, a choice which ought to be made with impartial and cautious deliberation. The removal of a family, even to a far distant country, is a matter of no trivial moment, when connected with the permanent establishment of that family in an advantageous or disadvantageous situation. There can be no retreat but at a calamitous loss, when the capital has been invested in an unpropitious allotment, or in a country whose manners and laws are quite at variance with the habits and native jurisprudence of the settler; therefore, it may not be unadviseable to notice the places to which our countrymen have generally been invited, or partially induced to settle.
A few years since the Editor met with a tract, which, in no high-flown panegyric, communicated the great advantages which were attendant upon an emigration to Poland, where excellent land was stated to be rented at 7s. an acre, in a fine and fruitful climate, where the Government held forth such encouraging terms to the stranger as to promise that himself and his grandchildren should be exempted from military duty, and the payment of taxes to the State. These unquestionably were great inducements and liberal offers; but, on the other hand, we must not forget that this excellent land is situated at a great distance from any market for the purchase of necessary articles, or for the disposal of its produce. That the climate is singularly healthy will not be denied, but a foreign language, difficult to learn, is spoken in the country, and the hatred of the Poles to the Government of Russia renders it more than probable that, as soon as an opportunity occurs, they will endeavour to throw off that yoke which they consider so galling and degrading;—and then—in the miseries and commotions of civil war, agriculture cannot flourish, nor the property of individuals remain secure; and if the Poles should ever succeed in their hopes of once more being an independent nation, has the stranger any security that the immunity from taxes and conscription, promised by the Russians, will be respected and confirmed by the Poles?
An investment of property in France for agricultural pursuits, has been very warmly recommended by some, who, it is more than probable, have never lived in that country, and are strangers to its manners, its views, and its laws; for it is unlikely that an Englishman can be pleased with the effeminate manners which so peculiarly distinguish a native of France, or that he who properly estimates his rights, his privileges, and his liberty, can, even in imagination, consent to live in a country, where he cannot travel from one town to another without a passport. But, if a person can willingly submit to those restrictions upon his liberty, I would most seriously ask him, whether, either as a religious or moral man, he can wish to reside in a country, where marriage is by many considered as the signal and passport for adultery—where infidelity is avowed without a blush, and true religion is scarcely known? There have been many •who, from an idea of the cheapness of living, have for a while taken up their abode there; but what must be their distress, when, in the unstable state of that country, revolutions suddenly spring up?—and fresh commotions are daily expected.
The Editor is not in possession of any satisfactory information relative to South Spanish Amemerica, and, consequently, he will not presume to form a judgment of the advantages which that exclusive country offers to the English emigrant, but he begs to remind the reader, that its various governments are in a very precarious and fluctuating state; that the country itself has not yet recovered from the ravages of a protracted and sanguinary war, in which all the evil passions of mankind were indulged without restraint. He need not remind the Protestant, that the Roman Catholic religion, in its greatest ignorance and most blinded superstition, flourishes there; and that, in one of the various governments in that vast country, an ordinance has been published, to declare that the Roman Catholic religion alone would be tolerated. And he would ask the sincere Christian—in what part of South Spanish America does he expect to receive the benefit of spiritual consolation and advice, from a minister of the pure and reformed religion to which he thinks it a blessing to belong.