either rich or well to do. There are not above four houses in Philadelphia able to import goods into it. I am declining the business myself, it being far better to do no business than to do it unsafely. As to slave states, if I were blind, I could tell when I was entering any of them. I can smell them; the moral air is putrid. {158} Management and every thing else tells a slave state. The beautiful small rich favourite farms with complete houses and offices on them, all of stone, with the mail road and river Delaware in front, sold this summer at 85 dollars an acre, though worth 100 dollars. They average 25 bushels of wheat per acre, and sometimes produce 40 bushels. Your Mr. Long from Lincolnshire, and others, have bought excellent lands in Pennsylvania within 40 miles of this city, and nearer other markets, with all improvements, cleared and inclosed, having complete house and buildings, at only 15 and 18 dollars an acre, the cost only of the buildings, or perhaps only of the fence, but which land three years ago sold at 60 dollars an acre. One dollar a bushel here is a living profit, and better than two in England. Mr. Long, though of an unsettled turn, has bought his land well and must do well. He has waited long, though not in vain. There is much fine land in and all over the eastern states, particularly in this state, and in New York, to be bought well (as much must be sold by the sheriff) and with a fine market for every kind of produce, and not in a slave state. The western-country labourers return here, unable to get paid in any way for their work, it being impossible to sell, any where or at any price, the wheat which they receive in lieu of cash. One poor fellow, after threshing a month, returned quite unable to sell his share or bring it away; and if the farmer has 20 {159} miles to carry it to the river, it is not worth his while to grow it, for
