Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/385

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 145 own, at the reduced price. But, indulgence creates wan tonness, and the very men who receive the highest favours from the post-offices of this country, in which a letter is carried five-and-twenty hundred miles for ten cents, pene trating, through some fourteen or fifteen thousand offices, into every cranny of a region large as half Europe, kicks and grows restive because he has not the liberty of doing a few favoured portions of the vast enterprise for himself; while he imposes on the public the office of doing that which is laborious and unprofitable! Such is man; such did he become when he fell from his first estate; and such is he likely to continue to be until some far better panacea shall be discovered for his selfishness and cupidity, than what is called self-government. But the Craterinos were thankful when they found that the Martha was set to running regularly, from place to place, carrying passengers and the mails. The two busi nesses were blended together for the sake of economy, and at the end of a twelvemonth it was found that the colony had nothing extra to pay. On the whole, the enterprise may be said to have succeeded ; and as practice usually improves all such matters, in a few months it was ascer tained that another very important step had been taken ori the high-road of civilization. Certainly, the colonists could not be called a letter-writing people, considered as a whole, but the facilities offered a temptation to improve, and, in time, the character of the entire community received a beneficial impression from the introduction of the mails. It was not long after the two brigs were sold, and just as the Martha came into government possession, that all the principal functionaries made a tour of the whole set tlements, using the sloop for that purpose. One of the objects was to obtain statistical facts ; though personal ob servation, with a view to future laws, was the principal motive. The governor, secretary, attorney-general, and most of the council were along; and pleasure and business being thus united, their wives were also of the party. There being no necessity for remaining in the Martha at night, that vessel was found amply sufficient for all other purposes, though the &quot; progress&quot; occupied fully a fortnight. As a brief relation of its details will give the reader a full VOL. II. 13