The third tide continues flowing, with variable volume, to this day.

It is the voluntary flow of companies of individual emigrants seeking to better the fortunes of themselves or their families.

But this voluntary migration has been unhealthily and sometimes dishonestly stimulated, from the beginning of it, by the selfish interests of those concerned in the business of transportation or in the sale of land.

It seems to have been mainly the greed of shipping merchants, at first, that spread abroad in the German states florid announcements of the charms and riches of America, decoying multitudes of ignorant persons to risk everything on these representations, and to mortgage themselves into a term of slavery until they should have paid the cost of their passage by their labor.

This class of bondmen, called "redemptioners," made no inconsiderable part of the population of the middle colonies; and it seems to have been a worthy part.