s and elegant houses,
extensive stores and mercantile conveniences, in public buildings for
ornament and utility, good roads and improved seats in the vicinity of
the sea-ports, with Churches, Kirks, Chapels, &c.: All these with many
other expectations would be but a matter of course. But here he would
not only be disappointed, but astonished at the rugged and uncouth
appearance of most part of this extensive county. There is not even a
place that can claim the name of a town. The wealth that has come into
it, has passed as through a thoroughfare to the United States, to pay
for labour or cattle. The persons principally engaged in shipping the
timber have been strangers who have taken no interest in the welfare of
the country; but have merely occupied a spot to make what they could in
the shortest possible time. Some of these have done well, and others
have had to quit the trade: but whether they won or lost the capital of
the country has been wasted, and no improvement of any consequence made
to compensate for it, or to secure a source of trade to the
inhabitants, when the lumber shall fail. Instead of seeing towns built,
farms improved, and the country cleared and stocked with the reasonable
returns of so great a trade; the forests are stripped and nothing left
in prospect, but the gloomy apprehension when the timber is gone, of
sinking into insignificance and poverty. Formerly the woods swarmed
with American adventurers who cut as they pleased. These men seeing the
advantages that were given them, and wishing to make the most of their
time, cut few but prime trees, and manufactured only the best part of
what they felled, leaving the tops to rot; by this mode more than a
third of the timber was lost. This with their practice of leaving what
was not of the best quality after the trees were felled, has destroyed
hundreds of thousands of tons of good timber: And when this was stopped
by permitting none but British subjects and freeholders to obtain
licenses, the business was not much mended as any person wishing to
enter into the trade could, by purchasing a small sterile spot for a
small trifle (provided he was a British subject) get in the way of
monopolizing the woods. These are some of the causes that have and
still do operate against the prosperity of the country. Men who take no
interest in the welfare of the province, continue to sap and prey on
its resources.

The other sea-ports in this county are Saint Peters,