[‘On the Subject of Emigration’]

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 15 March 1828, p. 356. Never reprinted. The article appears as the second of three short articles, in the usual place reserved for last-minute reflections on the news from London. It is possible that De Quincey wrote all three pieces, but only this middle one has strong signs of his presence. The article seems continuous with De Quincey’s known work for the Post on three counts: first, in jousting with the London Sun, secondly in its interest in the Edinburgh Review, and thirdly in its argument against government subsidy of emigration. The italics, dashes, and exclamation marks, and the sentence beginning with ‘And’, sound De Quinceyan. In the first paragraph, the interjection, ‘fifteen millions!’ echoes similar ejaculations, such as ‘Rolls! What Rolls?’ and ‘Expected! what insolence!’ (see above, p. 58, and Vol. 6, p. 237); these exclamations are fairly common to De Quincey, but would be foreign to the more formal styles of the other writers for the Post.