"Thus at the peace, this Island found itself with little or no trade; little or no disposable revenue; no attraction for visitors, no inducement for the affluent to continue their abode, and no prospect of employment for the poor. No wonder, therefore, if emigration became the object of the rich in search of those good roads, carriages and other comforts which they could not find at home, and the only resource of the other classes, whose distress was likely to be aggravated by the non-residence of the former. Misery and depopulation appeared inevitable, from the peace to the year 1819 inclusive, more than five hundred native and other British subjects embarked for the United States, and more prepared to follow. "It is said, the powers of the human mind in society lie at times torpid for ages; at others, are roused into action by the urgency of great occasions, and astonish the world by their effects. This has, in some measure, been verified in this Island, for though nothing done in so small a community can cause a general sensation, its exertions may yet produce wonderful results, within its own sphere. It is the duty of the States to show that, roused by the deplorable situation above described, they took, and have since pursued the steps best adapted to meet the exigency of the case, and that those steps have been attended with complete success. "To increase the revenue was an indispensable preliminary, but to do so, no other means lay within the power of the States than a tax on the several parishes according to the rates at which they were respectively assessed, and to this tax there were insuperable objections....