resistible. This
difference can, I fancy, be accounted for in two ways: first, much may
be fairly set down to climate, which limits the business months here to
about six; next, the revolution found here a sort of aristocratic
association of wealthy proprietors, the produce of whose estates
furnished them with ample means, but whose business habits were limited
to periodical settlements with their factors or brokers. The revolution,
and the changes consequent upon it, awoke the spirit and incited the
hope of every man to whom the absence of inherited wealth supplied an
impetus to labour; and the populated portions of these States became as
a hive thronged with an active, money-seeking swarm, by which the idle
and the inert were thrust aside before they became awake to their
changed condition, or heard a murmur of the tide whose waves were
encircling them about on every side.

The law of primogeniture having ceased to exist, estates became subject
to division and subdivision, until the growing families of the original
proprietors found themselves unable to continue planters with any
prospect of advantage. In such cases the property was sold, and the
proceeds divided according to law, or in conformity to the will of the
testator, and so passed into strange hands; whilst with straitened means
the members of the family of the once wealthy planter removed to some
city, and here clung to their original habits and prejudices; nor,
except in a few instances, ever turned their thoughts to trade, at once
the source and secret of their changed condition; and into the hands of
whose active agents, in fact, had passed the home and the inheritance of
their fathers.

Comparatively few of the old families now remain who are wealthy; but
happily these have mostly become aware of the effects certain to follow
the existing state of society and laws, as well as of the necessity of
providing their children with the means of warding off their worst
consequences. Now, therefore, the sons of the best men of the South are
wisely placed in counting-houses in the great trading cities; or,
however good their prospects may be, are bred up to some useful calling,
which in this country will, if pursued with industry, ensure decent
competence if not always wealth.

The condition of numbers of men, among those of the South who have never
been trained to this laudable course, is at this day one that excites
great commiseration. How many fine intellige