She attributed the ill success of her husband's efforts to the
lack of concord at home; to the debts which her countrymen had
contracted in Europe and were unable to pay; to the expectation in
England that prohibitory acts and heavy duties would bring the Americans
back to British allegiance; and to the calumnies circulated by the
Tory refugees in England. Their departure was marked, in the opinion
of John Adams, by a dry decency and a cold civility, which made him
feel, in breathing the air of his own country again, as if he had just
escaped from prison.
CHAPTER II
THE PROBLEMS OF THE BACK LANDS
The ease with which the American domain had been permitted to extend
to the Mississippi in the peace negotiations with Great Britain did
not mean a freedom from future anxiety concerning the "back lands,"
lying to the west of the thirteen States. The entire domain contained
about 827,000 square miles, inhabited by about three million people,
very unequally distributed. Population was most dense near the coast
and gradually shaded off toward the interior. The front wave of
civilisation may be located by an irregular line passing through central
New Hampshire, skirting Lake Champlain, narrowing down to the Mohawk
valley, and across north-western New Jersey, whence it turned due west
across the mountains in a long arm reaching to Pittsburg.
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