448 REMARKS ON EMIGRATION.

received and acknowledged by them. But this sti- pulation, although I formerly thought otherwise, would be highly impolitic. That an industrious settler would be able at the expiration of five, or, at the most, six years, particularly if received in agri- cultural produce, to repay the money expended on his account by government, I certainly admit ; but w0uld not the obligation to pay such money be a sort of premium to disregard their allegiance ? for pauper emigrants would not, it is believed, be inclined to repay what they received from the public funds ; but would rather consider such a debt in the same light that they do parish relief in England. The vexation of collecting the money expended in removing emi- grants, would also produce discontent, and probably many evil consequences.

As the order and peace of society is indispensably connected with the prosperity of all communities, local regulations, to be strictly adhered to, would be necessary in establishing new settlements ; and from the general character of pauper emigrants, and the nature of the country, it would be proper to have them enrolled and trained as a regular militia.*

* Several leading men in the colonies have remarked to me, that as the Irish emigrants, (as is well known,) after landing in America, rather than proceed at once to the cultivation of a farm, prefer lin- gering behind, and clinging to the towns and old settlements for employment, and, not unfrequently, after they settle on a wood farm, straggle away, it cannot be too strongly impressed on those who may have the direction of settling them in America, to send as V many as possible of them at once to the remote districts. This,

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