"It is very remarkable, that the Indians among whom we have endeavoured to promote the arts of civil life, have very generally abandoned the use of ardent spirits; population is evidently encreasing with them, from this change in their way of life. They appeared to enjoy good health; and it is manifest, that there is in the natives an encouraging improvement in agriculture and some of the mechanic arts, as well as in the regularity of their lives and

manners."

FRANKLIN.

Dr. Franklin, in his memoirs, is particularly anxious to inculcate the duties of industry, in order that his posterity may know the use of a virtue, to which he was so largely indebted. Throughout the whole of his long life, his precept was strengthened by an example of the most remarkable industry, of which he furnishes many instances. When a printer, he was engaged in a work of forty sheets, on which he worked exceeding hard, for the price was low. "I composed," says he, "a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work; for the little jobs sent in by our other friends, now and then put us back. But so determined was I to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night when having imposed my forms, and I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages was reduced to pie [a printer's term for the type getting mixed and in confusion], I immediately distributed and composed it over again before I went

to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbours, began to give us character and credit; particularly I was told, that mention being made of the new printing office, at the merchants' every-night club, the general opinion was, that it must fail, there being already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford; but Dr. Baird, a native of St. Andrew's in Scotland, gave a contrary opinion. For the industry of that Franklin,' said he, is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbours are out of bed.' This struck the rest, and we soon after had offers from one of them to supply us with stationery; but as yet we did not choose to engage in shop business."

FLETCHER OF SALTOUN.

The celebrated Fletcher of Saltoun, who distinguished himself so remarkably by his political hostility to the tyranny of the last two princes of the House of Stuart, by his zeal for the revolution under King William, and by his opposition to the legislative union between England and Scotland, by which the separate importance of the latter was for ever lost, and its prosperity, notwithstanding, wonderfully promoted, was the principal proprietor of a large district in Haddingtonshire, in which are situated the villages of Saltoun East and West. When Mr. Fletcher saw the union fully established, and his own political career at a close, he appears to have directed his active spirit to the improvement of his country in the useful arts Accordingly the Scotch owe to him the

F

fanners and the mill for making pot or hulled barley. Having resided a considerable time in Holland, along with other British malcontents, before the revolution, he had observed there the two instruments already mentioned; and at a future period of his life, he contrived to import them into his native country. With this view, in 1710, he carried James Meikle, a millwright in his neighbourhood, to Holland. Mr. Meikle went to Amsterdam, and Mr. Fletcher took up his residence at the Hague. The correspondence between them is said to be still in existence; and from thence it appears, that the iron work of the barley mill was purchased in Holland. As the Dutch were always extremely jealous of the exportation or introduction to foreign countries of any of their manufactures or instruments, Mr. Meikle is said to have been under the necessity of disguising himself as a menial servant of his employer's lady, and in that character obtained permission to see the instruments which he wished to imitate, by attending the lady on pretended visits of curiosity. Mr. Meikle, on his return to Saltoun, erected a barley mill there, and made and sold the instrument called the fanners, now universally used. The barley mill had constant employment, and Saltoun barley was written upon almost every petty shop in the Scottish villages.

BARBARA GILMOUR.

It has hitherto been one of the misfortunes of mankind, that in consequence of a false taste, they have bestowed more attention and applause upon great talents or ingenuity, when exerted in the arts of

destruction, than when employed in devising the means of giving plenty and felicity to nations. The writings of historians and poets are filled with the actions of men, who, under the influence of insatiable lust of dominion, have wasted cities and provinces, and have defaced the finest monuments of human genius and industry, while the beneficent enterprises and efforts of those persons are neglected or forgotten, who invented the instruments of agriculture; who selected or imported into their country the plants most worthy of cultivation; or who drained morasses, gave fertility to barren wastes, and pointed out the best modes of preserving and augmenting the value of the productions of the soil. Mankind have suffered severely from their absurd admiration of successful ambition, and the applause which they bestow upon it; tempting thereby restless individuals, in every age, to lay schemes for their destruction, and to glory in the extent of the mischief which they produce. It seems to be the duty of men of letters, as friends of humanity, to endeavour, in the distribution of renown, to call from obscurity those persons, however humble their stations may have been, who have successfully laboured in promoting the substantial prosperity of their country. Among the number, none is more deserving of this service than Barbara Gilmour, whose good sense and industry first produced in Ayrshire what is now celebrated through all Scotland by the name of Dunlop cheese.

Barbara had gone to Ireland to avoid the religious persecution which was conducted with such atrocity in the west of Scotland, under the last princes of the House of Stuart. Having returned after the revolution,

and become the wife of a farmer in the parish of Dunlop, she introduced the manufacture of cheese, which, since that period, has been the great business of this part of Ayrshire, and has been the means of covering the country with a number of industrious, happy, and prosperous small farmers. The people, sensible that the climate and soil were more favourable for grazing, than for any other purpose, bestowed upon it their greatest care. They have enclosed their farms, have but a third or fourth of their land in tillage, and the rest in grass, which is always a plentiful crop, and of the finest quality.

The rapidity with which the manufacture of Dunlop cheese was introduced into the northern part of Ayrshire, is a striking instance of the readiness with which farmers are always disposed to follow the example of one of their own rank. When an equal, depending like themselves for subsistence upon success in industry, prospers by means of a new project or plan of management, the whole neighbourhood eagerly imitates the example set before them, and the change becomes universal; while, on the contrary, if the improvement is attempted to be introduced by some proprietor, from motives of caprice as they suppose, and with means which they cannot so well command, it always makes its way slowly, and with difficulty. It is thus that Providence sometimes puts it in the power of a person in the humblest station, to become most extensively useful to society. The example of his successful ingenuity and industry, by rapidly communicating a spirit of activity and of enterprise, proves the source of riches to the whole community.