CHAPTER IX. WESTWARD HO! PROLOGUE OF QUOTATIONS. "Even those who are forced to remain behind feel a melancholy restlessness, like a bird whose wing is crippled at the season of migration, and look forward to America as to the land of the departed, where every one has some near relation, or dear friend, gone before him. A voice like that heard before the final ruin of Jerusalem, seems to whisper to those who have ears to hear, "Let us depart hence." JAMES DOUGLAS.-Advancement of Society. "Too crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous globe have ye actually tilled and delved till it will grow no more? How thickly stands your population in the Pampas and the Savannah of America; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa; on both slopes of the Altaic chain in the central platform of Asia; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare? One man in one year, as I have understood it, will feed himself and nine others! Alas, where now are the Hengists and Alarics of our still glow. ing, still expanding Europe; who, when their home is grown too narrow, will enlist, and like Fire Pillars, guide onwards those superfluous masses of indomitable living valour; equipped, not now with the battle-axe and the war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and the ploughshare? Where are they? Preserving their game?" SARTOR RESARTUS. CHAPTER IX. REMEDIES FOR ENGLAND VAIN WITHOUT EMIGRATION-CAPABILITIES FOR POPULATION-THE AMERICAN CONTINENT-BENEFIT OF EMIGRATION TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY - THE MOVING PEOPLE-TERRITORIAL RESOURCES-COLONIZATION-PROBABLE DESTINIES OF THE NEW WORLD. Bur all that has hitherto passed in review before our eyes will seem ineffective to meet and to remedy the great social diseases of the people, resulting from the dense overcrowding, consequent upon our very ancient civilization. Population would seem, from the life we lead in the British Isles, to have pressed in the last degree upon the confines of production. We know, indeed, that this is not the case; we know that millions of untilled, but profitable land, exist in our country; long years must pass before they can be redeemed. Meantime, what is to be done with the destitute and wretched? What shall save the reputable and respectable middleman of scanty means from sinking to degradation in society? And the reply is, if he has moral courage let him husband his resources, and fly to the kindlier soil smiling and waiting to receive him. England is not, indeed, as yet overcrowded-her broad acres would maintain well, many a million more of inhabitants; but the prospect at present before the majority of the children of toil, agricultural or manufacturing, is indeed dark and stern; but in yonder old world of boundless woods and waters, labour need not be in vain—the acre and the farm are there to be easily obtained-to the oppressed of every clime, especially to the British race, to the Anglo-Saxon people; behind the encurtaining waters spread the soils of plenty, and it behoves every intelligent reformer to guide and hasten the stream of humanity pouring thither; let him swell the shouts of "WESTWARD, Ho!" We have been told, that in this land we indeed press too closely upon each other; yet the moors, and parks, and commons, and wastes, are extensive still, and with due cultivation 50,000,000 of persons could live at ease in England. But hasten across the Atlantic; there, in North America alone, is a platform on which 636,000,000 of souls may stand in comfort, and then be no more inconvenienced than now we are here; and South America would hold a population of 535,000,000 more, and we perish with hunger. All things are waiting for the emigrant; for him all things in season have been prepared; mountains are wasting and sprinkling their detritus over the plains ; trees are decaying and enriching to surpassing exuberance, an already kindly soil; rivers are winding their slow majestic way; and imagination finds no difficulty in picturing the time, when their banks, the banks of the Orinoko, the Amour, the St. Lawrence, shall be fringed with happy fields and farms. A solemn human silence broods over a great part of the earth and the ocean, while we, a festering and starving people, lie inanimate here. Yet nature is doubtless working still: forces there are, preparing beneath the waves the foundations of future homes; the coral insect builds, the volcanic fire pants and roars, the submerged continent pants, and throes, and heaves, the Deltas are forming at the mouths of mighty rivers; there, over those boundless prairies and woods, cornfields might wave; there roam millions of wild beings fit for food; the fish impede the solitary occasional canoe struggling through the waters; the clefts of the rocks are crowded with birds-and we here perish with hunger. Has the spirit of the ancient Northman Sea-king gone from us? There is "ample room and verge enough." Let the capable adventurous man leave a blessing on his fatherland, but let him bestir himself, and away. We shall hear the ringing of his hatchet in those far-off woods and wilds; we shall mark the trail of the keel of his vessel over those watery wastes; we shall hear the echoes startled by his gun, rumbling through the distant hills and mountains. Sad indeed is the condition of the man who cannot find wherewith to go. Going, he leaves many comforts behind; he leaves the churchyard where his dead are laid; he leaves the lecture-hall and the library, the city and the post-office; he also leaves taxation and a workhouse, jails and fashions; the living for appearances, the hopeless, aimless struggling with life, he leaves. There he goes to rear himself a home in the wilderness almost a beggar here he may be a person of great importance there; he will leave a heritage to his children. Questionless, he is going out to battle, to fight with forests and swamps, with |