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 or elsewhere, whom I knew to be men of strong minds or of much intelligence. Females seem to be more susceptible of the impressions than men are. A quality perhaps that is to be imputed to the greater sensibility of their feelings.

The awakenings in Kentucky that were some years ago hailed by the religious magazines of your country as the workings of the Divine Spirit, {238} must have been those that occurred at camp meetings of Methodists. These assemblages are now said to be on the decline in Kentucky; and when meetings were held on a grand scale there, many disorders were committed by immoral persons, tending to the great scandal of religion, and occasioning the precautionary measures already noticed in this detail.

LETTER XX

Circumstances that retard Manufacturing Industry, and Causes of its prosperity

Jeffersonville, (Indiana,) Aug. 15, 1820.

In my letter of the 26th of June last, I mentioned that mechanics were leaving the towns of the western country, becoming cultivators in the back woods. In many cases, their former habits are such as are not well calculated to reconcile them with their new situations. It appears evident that such people, placed in the forests, cannot for some time raise a quantity of produce sufficient to procure in exchange such foreign luxuries as they formerly con