d established a very flourishing bank. The notes of Touchandgo
and Company, soft cash, are now the exclusive currency of all this
vicinity. This is the land, in which all men flourish; but there are
three classes of men who flourish especially, methodist preachers,
slave-drivers, and paper-money manufacturers; and as one of the latter,
I have just painted the word BANK, on a fine slab of maple, which was
green and growing when I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers,
in my own currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds
of the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans; so that
my notes are the representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I am
accordingly a capitalist of the first magnitude. The people here know
very well that I ran away from London; but the most of them have run
away from some place or other; and they have a great respect for me,
because they think I ran away with something worth taking, which few of
them had the luck or the wit to do. This gives them confidence in my
resources, at the same time that, as there is nothing portable in the
settlement except my own notes, they have no fear that I shall run away
with them. They know I am thoroughly conversant with the principles of
banking; and as they have plenty of industry, no lack of sharpness, and
abundance of land, they wanted nothing but capital to organize a
flourishing settlement; and this capital I have manufactured to the
extent required, at the expense of a small importation of pens, ink, and
paper, and two or three inimitable copperplates. I have abundance here
of all good things, a good conscience included; for I really cannot see
that I have done any wrong. This was my position: I owed half a million
of money; and I had a trifle in my pocket. It was clear that this trifle
could never find its way to the right owner. The question was, whether I
should keep it, and live like a gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers
and commissioners of bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill. If I
could have thought that the said lawyers, &c. had a better title to it
than myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent
to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour; the right
owners, as I have already said, being out of the question altogether. I
have always taken scientific views of morals and politics, a habit from
which I derive much comfort under existing circumstances.

I hope y