The inhabitants have no strong attachment to the place which
they inhabit. The hope of a great portion of them is to leave it; and
their great desire, to leave it soon. However useful they may be to the
parent state, how much soever they may add to the conveniences and
luxuries of life, these colonies are not favored spots for the expansion
of the human mind, for the progress of permanent improvement, or for
sowing the seeds of future independent empire.
Different, indeed, most widely different, from all these instances of
emigration and plantation, were the condition, the purposes, and the
prospects of our fathers, when they established their infant colony upon
this spot. They came hither to a land from which they were never to
return. Hither they had brought, and here they were to fix, their hopes,
their attachments, and their objects in life. Some natural tears they
shed, as they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and some
emotions they suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native country,
now seen for the last time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting,
however, upon a resolution not to be daunted. With whatever stifled
regrets, with whatever occasional hesitation, with whatever appalling
apprehensions, which might sometimes arise with force to shake the
firmest purpose, they had yet committed themselves to Heaven and the
elements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed to separate
them for ever from the region which gave them birth.
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