Chapter 17

"Together towards the village then we walked,
And of old friends and places much we talked:
And who had died, who left them, would he tell;
And who still in their father's mansion dwell."

Dana

We leave the imagination of the reader to supply an interval of several
years. Before the thread of the narrative shall be resumed, it will be
necessary to take another hasty view of the condition of the country in
which the scene of our legend had place.

The exertions of the provincials were no longer limited to the first
efforts of a colonial existence. The establishments of New-England had
passed the ordeal of experiment, and were become permanent. Massachusetts
was already populous; and Connecticut, the colony with which we have more
immediate connexion, was sufficiently peopled to manifest a portion of
that enterprise which has since made her active little community so
remarkable. The effects of these increased exertions were becoming
extensively visible; and we shall endeavor to set one of these changes, as
distinctly as our feeble powers will allow, before the eyes of those who
read these pages.

When compared with the progress of society in the other hemisphere, the
condition of what is called, in America, a new settlement, becomes
anomalous. There, the arts of life have been the fruits of an intelligence
that has progressively accumulated with the advancement of civilization;
while here, improvement is, in a great degree, the consequence of
experience elsewhere acquired. Necessity, prompted by an understanding of
its wants incited by a commendable spirit of emulation, and encouraged by
liberty, early gave birth to those improvements which have converted a
wilderness into the abodes of abundance and security, with a rapidity that
wears the appearance of magic. Industry has wrought with the confidence of
knowledge, and the result has been peculiar.

It is scarcely necessary to say that, in a country where the laws favor
all commendable enterprise, where unnecessary artificial restrictions are
unknown, and where the hand of man has not yet exhausted its efforts, the
adventurer is allowed the greatest freedom of choice, in selecting the
field of his enterprise. The agriculturist passes the heath and the
barren, to seat himself on the river-bottom; the trader looks for the site
of demand and supply and the artisan quits his native village to seek
employment in situations where labor will meet its fullest reward. It is a
consequence of this extraordinary freedom of election, that, while the
great picture of American society has been sketched with so much
boldness, a large portion of the filling-up still remains to be done. The
emigrant has consulted his immediate interests; and,