easy to imagine with what difficulty it is supported, & how short the duration of it is like to be; the Price of Labour is so great in this part of the World, that it will always prove the greatest obstacle to any Manufactures attempted to be set up here, and the genius of the People in a

Country where

it prevails every one can have Land to work upon over every other occupation. There can be no stronger Instances of this, than in the Servants imleads them so naturally into Agriculture, that

ported from Europe of different Trades; as soon as the time stipulated in their Indentures is expired, they immediately quit their masters, and get a small tract of Land, in settling which for the

first

three or four years they lead miserable lives, and in the most abject Poverty; but all this is patiently

TRADE AND MANUFACTURES OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW-YORK.

b«rne and submitted to with the greatest cheerfulness, the satifaction of being Landholders smooths every difficulty, & makes them prefer this manner of living to that comfortable subsistence which they could procure for themselves and their families by working at the Trades in which they were

brought up.

The Master of a Glass-house; which was set up here a few years ago now a Bankrupt, assured me that his ruin was owing to no other cause than being deserted in this manner by the Servants, which he had Imported at a great expence; and that many others had suffered and been reduced as he was, by the same kind of misfortune.