Mr. Birkbeck advises his friends to bring with them a few simple medicines, and Dr. Johnson infers that the country must be dreadfully unhealthy, in which physic constitutes a necessary article of importation. As our author writes M, D., after his name, it might not be unfair to ask him to point out the country which is exempt from disease, or in which medicine is not considered essential to the preservation of life. A mad lover may cry, " throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it;" but for a sane physician to advocate such a doctrine, would be indeed a

paradox. It is evident, from the whole tenor of Mr. Birkbeck's writings, that he considered himself as settled in a perfect wilderness, and magnified the privations which he expected to encounter ; and it is true, that in his immediate neighbourhood there was no physician, nor apothecary, nor surgeon, nor even a surgeonbarber ; and knowing that of " all the ills that flesh is heir to," disease is one of the most inevitable, he thought fit to provide against its inroads. He had reared a large family, he was a man of science and observation, and to his various other attainments, added a respectable proficiency in the treatment of ordinary diseases. He needed no ghost from the grave to suggest to him the precariousness of health, to tell him that " in the midst of life we are in death," or to convince him of the propriety of being prepared to combat those evils which cannot be avoided. He, therefore, in pointing out to his friends the articles which would be found most useful, in a country svhere the arts had not yet been planted, enumerated medicine, for the same reason that he designated carpenter's tools, and some other articles which seem

equally misplaced in the outfit of a farmer. Would not that man be considered as guilty of a criminal neglect, who should carry his family into a wilderness where there was no physician, nor even a Lady Bountiful, without carrying with him such drugs as would be necessary to repel those ordinary diseases which assail the human frame in every climate ?

Every ship which is fitted out for a long voyage is provided with a medicine chest, and it would be just as fair to infer from this practice the unhealthiness of sea air, as to suppose that IlHnois is sickly, because emigrants are advised to adopt the same precaution. The reason in both instances is the same ; in both cases men carry with them that which may be necessary to preserve Ufe, and which they must otherwise be without.

A Mr. Lorain, though not a traveller, has written a book upon the same subject, and pretty much in the same strain as that of Doctor Johnson — they use the same ideas and arguments, and the difference between them is, that Johnson is the best writer, while Lorain is the best informed. The object of both is to

compare Illinois with Pennsylvania, and to refute Birkbeck. Strange ! that men should take such pains to compare countries so different in character, and so distinct in their interests— countries between which there is no rivalship, no contact, and no collision ! But it seems that a few straj Englishmen, who cannot be contented at home, and who probably would not be satisfied anywhere, may be allured to Illinois by Mr. Birkbeck's letters, leaving behind them the healthful mountains, and fertile vallies of Pennsylvania. If that be all, the controversy is needless — from this class of population Illinois has derived no benefit, and if the whole of it should be diverted to other channels, she would have no reason to complain. Of those already here, the few who have been honest and industrious have prospered ; but they bear so small a proportion to the whole, as to leave us but little cause to desire further importations from the same country.

Mr. Lorain, it would seem, has not visited Illinois, and does not pretend to speak from personal observation, but quotes largely from

Volney, and often directs the reader to " see my book on Agriculture.'' What may be the value of the last authority I cannot say, but that of Volney is less questionable. The author who asserts that in the Atlantic states, " the intense heats of the day are usually succeeded by a night of piercing cold" — that " there are few evenings in the year on which fire would not prove agreeable' — that in Philadelphia, " frosts occur, more or less, every month except July'' — and at Albany " every month of the twelve," can be entitled to but Httle credit, when testifying as to the climate of America.

From a long chapter, in which Mr. Lorain attempts to prove the unhealthiness of Illinois, the following passages are selected. " A country being new ' or unsettled, does not make it sickly, unless the causes that produce diseases prevail in it.'' This is a truism : for unless the causes that produce disease exist, no country, new or old, can be unhealthy; but the author's meaning may be gathered from the context. His idea seems to be, that a country is not rendered unhealthy by its being new or unsettled, but by some radical and permanent cause

which is independent of its new and unsettled state. Mr. Miner is more explicit on this subject: he says, "New countries are generally healthy ; when they are not so, when diseases make their appearance with the first settlers, the climate must be radically bad.' This doctrine is contrary to all philosophy, and all experience in relation to this subject. The miasma which creates our autumnal fevers, is supposed to be produced by the decomposition of vast quantities of vegetable matter, the undisturbed accumulation of ages, which lie buried in the forests, and in the channels of watercourses. Mr. Lorain admits this to be the theory ; and if it be so, it follows that every acre which is cleared, lessens the quantity of that matter, the putrefaction of which is alleged to be the primary cause of disease, because the deposition of such matter does not take place upon cleared land, and its accumulation ceases upon the portion cleared. Upon the first clearing and tilling of the land, there will be a more rapid decomposition ; and a greater quantity of that gaseous effluvia, which is supposed to be pernicious to the human system,

will be created by the operation of tillage, and the uninterrupted action of the sun and air, and by these means the cause of disease is daily decreased. Every furrow ploughed by the farmer, every beam shot from the sun, every breeze and every shower, accelerates the process of fermentation, and contributes to neutralize, and evaporate, and at last to destroy the noxious qualities of that deposit so fertilizing to the earth, and so poisonous to man. But a new country has other causes of unheal thiness, such as are attendant upon a Jirst settlement of the soil, or were pre-existent, and which time will remove : of these I shall treat more at large in a separate letter.

"People born and brought up in healthy countries," says Mr. Lorain, " commonly much better withstand repeated attacks of diseases, and live longer in sickly cUmates, than the natives." This, with the accompanying remarks, in which the author endeavours to refute the idea that people may become seasoned to the sickly cUmate, as he pronounces it, of the west, is founded in a plausible, but erroneous theory. The idea is, that the vigorous consti-

TALES OF TRAVELLERS. tijl

tution formed in a healtliy atmosphere, will resist the attacks of disease longer, and more forcibly, than the debilitated frame reared in a sickly climate. The premises may be granted that a strong man may possess a greater tenacity of life than a weak one, that the one may be able to resist the same force of disease which would subdue the other, and still we do not arrive at the conclusion assumed by the author ; for the doctrine of those who contend that the human system becomes acclimated to a foreign, or even a deleterious atmosphere, is founded upon the theory that diseases originating in the climate do not attack the native, or the person long resident, with the same force which they exert upon a stranger. It is a wise law of that Providence which ordained diversities of climate, which created man with the power of loco-motion, and adapted him to various spheres of action and modes of existence, that the human system shall conform itself to the circumstances under which it is placed. The infant born under the equator, receives a different constitution from that of the inhabitant of the frigid zone ; inhabitants of different countries, in the same quarter

of the globe, differ in their corporeal powers and physical habits ; and it is well known that while sudden transitions from one climate to another, or violent changes of employment or mode of life, produce fatal consequences, men not only become naturalized to foreign climates, but acquire habits foreign from their nature by the gradual force of long continued custom. A backwoodsman will live for a month in the forest, without seeing a human habitation or a human face, sleeping every night upon the ground, with no shelter but the canopy of Heaven, no protection from cold, but his campfire, no bed but the leaves, subsisting upon game, sometimes eaten raw, and sometimes half-roasted, without bread or salt, drinking often the unwholesome water of rivers, saturated, as has been described, with the juices of putrid vegetables, and often enduring thirst as long as the camel in the desert. It is hardly necessary to inquire whether the husbandman, accustomed to a regular life, wholesome food and comfortable shelter, could sustain life long under such circumstances ? The hunter would imbibe nourishment from the diet which would disgust

his more civilized fellow creature : the one would enjoy refreshing sleep, while the other would inhale disease with every feverish aspiration ; like insects of different tribes, the same food which would afford honey to the one, would yield only poison to the other.

I must now revert for a moment to Dr. Johnson, for the purpose of shewing another specimen of his style of argument. " The versatility of disposition, and facility with which an American passes from one thing to another, has been remarked by every one who has visited their country. This versatility is very conspicuous in their naval officers. Captain MDonough, who took the British fleet on Lake Champlain, was a merchant ; Captain Laurence, who, in the sloop Hornet, sunk the Peacock, was a lawyer ; Captain Jones, who in the Wasp, took the Frolic, was a doctor ; and probably most of the others commenced with some business or profession equally discordant with their present pursuit." I do not mean to deny ' the versatility of disposition," which is here very justly attributed to my countrymen, and which I have elsewhere remarked

upon, as the national characteristic ; but I do intend to shew the falsity of the proofs by which this writer attempts to support his positions, and his utter ignorance of American affairs. Few of our institutions have been so permanent as the navy : in none has there been so few departures from long established usage. Its improvement, though great, has been gradual ; and its excellence has been achieved, rather by bringing existing principles to their highest perfection, than by any novel discoveries, or bold innovations. That many valuable improvements have been introduced, is true, but they have been built upon immutable bases ; the primary maxims of navigation and naval tactics, the rules of discipline and etiquette, have been tenaciously adhered to.

Among these, no principle has been held more inviolably sacred, than that which obliges every officer to endure a long probation, and to exhibit proofs of merit, previous to his rising into command. To get into the line of promotion, an officer can only enter the navywith the rank of midshipman, and he can only rise by regular gradation. No man has ever risen to the