Page:Reflections, on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States.pdf/21

 granted when population requires it; and if one of the conditions of the grant were, that the grantee should make a permanent settlement thereon; all the lands in the country which are capable of cultivation and improvement would be settled, cultivated and improved: and population and the price of lands would be advanced accordingly. More especially if in addition to the condition of a permanent settlement upon the lands granted, no single grant should be made for more lands than might be sufficient for the occupation of one wealthy farmer. Let those who are disposed to set at nought these observations compare the state of agriculture and population in the New-England states with those of Virginia and North Carolina. In the former, barren spots are made productive, whilst in the latter vast tracts of arable lands lie wholly waste and uncultivated; and five miles square in the first, can often produce as many hardy militia for the defence of their country, as five and twenty miles square can furnish in the latter. Invite the inhabitants of a compact township in Connecticut to disperse over an equal extent of country; they would immediately find the difference in all the comforts and conveniences of life, domestic and political. Let them remove themselves into the howling wildernesses of Louisiana, and all the advantages which the United States might derive from their removal thither, would not recompense an hundredth part of the loss. And if the spirit of migration thither should seize the people of the New-England states generally, it might prove of fatal consequence not only to their agriculture, but to their commerce. For if once that hardy race of men who are now engaged in navigation in those states, should be allured by bounties in land, or by the cheapness of it, to turn their attention from the ocean to this new land of promise, it might change the face of their native country altogether; and even their most flourishing commercial seaports