Assembly of that province had appropriated a large fund for bounties to foreign Protestants, and such poor people of Great Britain and Ireland as should resort thither. And we are informed that besides foreign Protestants, several emigrated from England and Scotland, and great multitudes from Ireland, in consequence 2. But, the emigrations from the latter country, connected as they were with questions of deep national interest, have usually attracted the most specific notice. Thus, in the two years 1771 and 1772, Macpherson informs us, that there sailed from the northern parts of Ireland for North America, sixty-two vessels, measuring 17,350 tons, and it is supposed these vessels carried as many passengers as they measured tons. Most of the emigrants paid for their passage £3. 10s. each3. The same author subsequently says; "the spirit of emigration from the "north of Ireland last year still continued. The

highland part of Scotland was also infected with "the same eagerness of change, and great numbers "of people from Glengary, Ross, and Sutherland, "and from the islands of Sky, Lewes, &c. broke "through the strong attachment to the land of their

fathers, which had been for ages their distinguishing "characteristic," (he should have said, their inexorable landlords broke it asunder,) "and crossed the Atlantic, "to cultivate the waste lands, and augment the miliઃઃ tary force of America, where such an accession of population, at such a critical moment, was welcomed "with joy and astonishment." But, referring to the note below for further proofs of the general emigra

1 Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. ii., p. 224. They are at the expense of 40007. a-year, in bounties given for the importation of foreign Protestants. (1769.) Bartram, Descrip. of East Florida, p. 31.

2 Hist. of South Carolina and Geòrgia, vol. ii., pp. 268. 274.

3 Macpherson, History of Commerce, vol. ii.

4 Ibid., vol. iii., p. 546.

tion from the highlands at this period', I return to Ireland. In the year 1784, there appeared an accurate statement of the numbers who emigrated to America in the years 1771, 1772, and 1773. It was as follows:

These make a total number of 28,600 persons, or an annual average of 9532 emigrants'. From another quarter we learn, that so vast was the emigration from Ireland in the last year, "that there landed in Phila"delphia, from only two ports, not less than 12,000 "families."

(3) These statements receive confirmation from an official document of the highest authority. A Report of a Committee of the Irish Parliament states, that from the port of Belfast, 3541 persons embarked for America, between Oct. 1771 and Oct. 1773. About 6000 shipped at Derry at the same time; and the whole emigration from the province of Ulster was estimated to amount to, at least, 30,000 people, whereof 10,000 were weavers, many of whom carried their weaving utensils with them. But the Report alluded to was upon the state of the linen manufac ture of Ireland, which, it is well known, is almost entirely limited to that province, to which the notice of these emigrations was consequently also confined. We are not to conclude, therefore, that accounts regarding the amount of emigration throughout the whole island, which exceed the foregoing numbers, are exaggerations. Commencing with the year 1771, we find "the "number of emigrants from five ports in Ireland, for "five years, estimated at 43,720;" but to this document is added a remark, highly pertinent to the full view of the subject,-"it were to be wished we had "an estimate of the other parts of Ireland'; whence we know from other sources, that there were perpetual, though not such extensive, emigrations3. In

Newenham, Statis. Inq. concerning the Population of Ireland, pp. 58, 59, 60. 2 Gent. Mag., vol. xliv., p. 332. Arthur Young, Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., p. 6.

a document, which has the appearance of correctness, we meet with the entire number of emigrants, which arrived in six of the colonies, during a period of less than four months only, namely, from the 3d of August, 1773, to the 29th November following; the amount was 7678 individuals, of whom 6222 were Irish1. Indeed, it is impossible to turn to documents at all bearing upon the question, whether historical or statistical, in which the vast emigration to the colonies, and especially from Ireland, is not recorded. Even the daily papers of that period are constantly noticing the fact2.

(4) If the American war gave a temporary check to emigration to the then colonies of America, at least as far as it regarded the mother country, the event of that contest, which constituted them an united and independent country, has unquestionably promoted it to a degree previously unparalleled. One of its first

210 passengers; ship Needham, from Newry, with 500; ship Betsey, from Newry, with 360; snow Penn, from Cork, with 80. Within the first fortnight in August, 3500 passengers ar rived in Pennsylvania from Ireland. In October, a snow arrived at Philadelphia, from Galway, in the north of Ireland, with 80 passengers; a ship from Belfast, with 170 passengers; and a ship from Holland, with 140 passengers. In December, a brig from Dornock, in Scotland, arrived at New York, with about 200 passengers, and lost about 100 on the passage. Some emigrants settled in the more southern colonies. In August, 1773, 500 arrived at North Carolina from Ireland. In September, a brig arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, from Ireland, with 120 settlers.” — President Styles, M. S.— quoted from Dr. Holmes's Amer. Ann., vol. ii., p. 255.

The above extract is given to shew, that the emigration was not confined, at this period, to Ulster, nor yet to Ireland.

fruits was the settling of the Hessian troops there, almost to a man'. But it is almost frivolous to mention such an accession, after an event which had entirely removed one of the greatest remaining barriers against continental emigration, and had constituted America, as one of her best writers expresses it, “the colony of Europe." Henceforth, the tide of emigration set in from almost every quarter of the old world, and threatened to overwhelm, instead of replenishing, the New. So great, indeed, did these accessions become, that some of the most influential of her public characters took reasonable alarm. Mr. Jefferson, for instance, does not argue, as if he supposed these accessions "immaterial," in a political point of view; how they could have been deemed so, in an arithmetical one, is, indeed, astonishing. They "will," will," says he, "share with us the legislation. They will inspire "into it their spirit; warp and bias its direction, and "render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted

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"" mass. He adds, and it is a direct proof of the presence of a vast mass of emigrants, at the period at which he wrote, "I may appeal to experience, for a "verification of these conjectures 2." It is a great doubt, nevertheless, whether he, any more than Dr. Franklin, adverted to accessions from the mother country, in his objections to such unlimited emigrations, which had been encouraged from "the desire "of America to produce rapid population, by as great importations as possible;" on the contrary, one of his strongest objections to such immense foreign importations is," that they will transmit their language to their children." These views, founded doubtless upon obvious facts, whether those of sound policy or otherwise, prevailed: and the legislature of the United

1 See Carey and Lea's America. * Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, pp. 141, 142.