Mr. Siebert, senior, opposed the former proposition with might and main, and produced the accounts which he had kept of freight and transport expenses, which, notwithstanding all the bargaining, alone amounted to a hundred and sixty dollars; so that the whole finances amounted only to about sixty dollars, while they were still twelve hundred miles from their new abode. There was not much to be objected to this--the matter was too clear; but new difficulties presented themselves when it came to raising a subscription in order to pay the passage-money of their fellow-travellers. The Oldenburghers formally opposed it, and declared that they, too, possessed nothing more, and wished also to be put upon the list. Mr. Siebert had behaved rather passively and indifferently hitherto, but now he came out, and requested all present to give him their attention for a short time. When all was silent, he turned towards his fellow-travellers, and, quiet and self-possessed, thus addressed them:-- "Gentlemen, we have come to that point in which our future fortunes, our future relations to each other, must be ascertained. What was our intention when we forsook our native land? We intended to found a new home for ourselves--we intended to buy a strip of land, and to become farmers. We have got the land--but more is required for farming besides land merely. We must, as soon as we reach our destination, procure, not provisions alone, but also utensils for the tillage of the soil, for the erection of warmer and more substantial habitations; we must purchase cattle; for however easily cattle may increase in this new country, still, above all things, the stock must first exist; we must have horses to draw the ploughs which are to prepare our fields. For all this, money is required--money, _much_ money; and if we are not in a condition to raise that, why, our settlement ceases at once, even before it has begun.