As long as the Temper and Intellects of Mankind shall remain in this wretched and disordered State, nothing truly good is likely to be done. We must therefore wait with Patience for better Times; hoping, that kind Providence will inspire one Part of the Community with sounder Understandings, and the other with better Hearts.

All over-grown Cities are formidable in another View, and therefore ought not to be encouraged by new Privileges, to grow still more dangerous; for they are, and ever were, the Seats of Faction and Sedition, and the Nurseries of Anarchy and Confusion. A daring, and desperate Leader, in any great Metropolis, at the Head of a numerous Mob, is terrible to the Peace of Society, even in the most despotic Governments:—But in London, where the People are the most licentious upon Earth,—In London, where the Populace are daily taught, that they have an unalienable Right to be self-governed;—and that their Rulers are no other than their Servants:—In London, where nothing is held sacred, but the Will of the People [blasphemously called, the Voice of God] what are you to expect from an Addition of Privilege and Power, but an Encrease of the most daring Outrages, and the Subversion of Law and Government? The audacious Villanies recently committed in June, 1780, are sufficient, one would think, to give any Man a Surfeit of the very Idea of adding still greater Influence and Power to a London Mob.

Once more, If a Man has any Sense of Rectitude and good Morals, or has a Spark of Goodness and Humanity remaining, he cannot wish to entice men into great Cities by fresh Allurements. Such Places are already become the Bane of Mankind in every Sense, in their Healths, their Fortunes, their Morals, Religion, &c. &c. &c. And it is observable of London in particular, that were no fresh Recruits, Male and Female, to come out of the Country, to supply those Devastations which Vice, Intemperance, Brothels, and the Gallows are continually making, the whole human Species in that City would be soon exhausted: For the Number of Deaths exceed the Births by at least 7000 every Year.

The U.P. is a forbidding place—dark,
endless winters, gloomy forests, hordes of biting insects, fearsome wildlife and desperate human inhabitants. Visiting the Upper Peninsula will be one of the worst mistakes of your life. I can guarantee that once you get here, your entire energy will be devoted to how to flee.

The local residents know all this but cannot or will not leave because they are addicted to suffering. Just consider these names of only a few locations in the U.P.: Misery Bay, Dismal Seepage, Germfask, Pine Stump Junction, Hog Island. Don’t those names conjure up beauty and tranquility? Paraphrasing Gertrude Stein, there is no here, here. Why would you want to visit 16,347 square miles of desolation?

The Upper Peninsula is beyond the end of the road. It is far away from any modern civilization, and the residents don’t like to follow any of your usual rules. If you want to have a good time on your vacation, don’t expect it up here—head for the Wisconsin Dells or Disney World instead.