The following is a description of Nantucket from De Crevecoeur’s Letters From An American Farmer, a literary account of the political principles informing the Declaration of Independence and Paine’s Common Sense:

“My simple wish is to trace them throughout their progressive steps from their arrival here to this present hour; to enquire by what means they have raised themselves from the most humble, the most insignificant beginnings, to the ease and the wealth they now possess; and to give you some idea of their customs, religion, manners, policy, and mode of living.

This happy settlement [Nantucket] was not founded on intrusion, forcible entries, or blood, as so many others have been; it drew its origin from necessity on the one side and from good will on the other; and ever since, all has been a scene of uninterrupted harmony. Neither political nor religious broils, neither disputes with the natives, nor any other contentions, have in the least agitated or disturbed its detached society. Yet the first founders knew nothing either of Lycurgus or Solon; for this settlement has not been the work of eminent men or powerful legislators forcing nature by the accumulated labours of art.

This singular establishment has been effected by means of that native industry and perseverance common to all men when they are protected by a government which demands but little for its protection, when they are permitted to enjoy a system of rational laws founded on perfect freedom. The mildness and humanity of such a government necessarily implies that confidence which is the source of the most arduous undertakings and permanent success. Would you believe that a sandy spot of about twenty-three thousand acres, affording neither stones nor timber, meadows nor arable, yet can boast of an handsome town consisting of more than 500 houses, should possess above 200 sail of vessels, constantly employ upwards of 2000 seamen; feed more than 15,000 sheep, 500 cows, 200 horses; and has several citizens worth 20,000L. sterling! Yet all these facts are uncontroverted. Who would have imagined that any people should have abandoned a fruitful and extensive continent filled with the riches which the most ample vegetation affords; replete with good soil, enamelled meadows, rich pastures, every kind of timber, and with all other materials necessary to render life happy and comfortable, to come and inhabit a little sand-bank to which nature had refused those advantages, to dwell on a spot where there scarcely grew a shrub to announce, by the budding of its leaves, the arrival of the spring and to warn by their fall the proximity of winter?

Had this island been contiguous to the shores of some ancient monarchy, it would only have been occupied by a few wretched fishermen, who, oppressed by poverty, would hardly have been able to purchase or build little fishing barks, always dreading the weight of taxes or the servitude of men-of-war. Instead of that boldness of speculation for which the inhabitants of this island are so remarkable, they would fearfully have confined themselves within the narrow limits of the most trifling attempts; timid in their excursions, they never could have extricated themselves from their first difficulties. This island, on the contrary, contains 5,000 hardy people who boldly derive their riches from the element that surrounds them and have been compelled by the sterility of the soil to seek abroad for the means of subsistence. You must not imagine, from the recital of these facts, that they enjoyed any exclusive privileges or royal charters or that they were nursed by particular immunities in the infancy of their settlement. No, their freedom, their skill, their probity, and perseverance have accomplished everything and brought them by degrees to the rank they now hold.…”

“Letters From an American Farmer,” by J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur (1735-1813) reprinted from the original ed., with a prefatory note by W.P. Trent and an introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn. New York, Fox, Duffield, 1904.