ng the utility of such arrangements, imperfect as they were, had
a sort of post-offices for their use, which have reached down to our own
times, in the shape of government messengers. There can be little doubt
that the man who found he could get a letter safely and promptly
conveyed five hundred miles for a crown, after having been obliged
previously to pay twenty for the same service, felt that he was the
obliged party, and never fancied for a moment, that, in virtue of his
_patronage_, he was entitled to give himself airs, and to stand upon his
natural right to have a post-office of his own, at the reduced price.
But, indulgence creates wantonness, 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, penetrating,
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 businesses 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 ascertained that another very important step had been
taken on 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 settlements, using the sloop for that purpose.
One of the objects was to obtain statistical facts; though persona