Extract of a letter from Philadelphia, July 22.
“Trade is brisk at present, from the high prices and great sales of grain to Europe. Our farmers and giving above 6 s. currency (about 3s. sterling) to workmen per day and their meat, to enable them to take in new grounds, which is a great discouragement to our rising manufactories, which are obliged to give high wages to their journeymen on that account.
“A Mr. Doylden from Europe has lately purchased two millions of acres of lands from Congress, Mr. Scriba, merchant in New York, has purchased four millions of acres, all from Congress, a society of gentlemen, with whom, it is said, some Dutch houses in Amsterdam are concerned, have purchased from the State of Georgia about fifteen millions of land on the frontiers of that State. The very highest price paid for any of these purchases has been twenty cents per acre, (about ten-pence British money) payable by installments at different periods, and that in Congress money.”
Citation: Glasgow Advertiser (Glasgow, United Kingdom), 04 October 1790, available at the Scissors and Paste Database, http://www.scissorsandpaste.net/346.