CAUTION. 
 
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 and the Publisher is prepared to avail himself of the protection of that 
 Act in case of any infringement thereof.; 
 
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 of British authors, in which the copyright subsists, is totally prohibited. 
 Travellers will therefore bear in mind that even a single copy is contra - 
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’ L B T TERS 
 
 FROM 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ROBERT GODLEY. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1844. 
 

CHARLES BOWYER ADDERLEY, ESQ. M.l\, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING WORK, 
 
 FOR THE PUBLICATION OF WHICH HE IS CHIEFLY RESPONSIBLE, 
 
 IS 
 
 INSCRIBED BY TIIE AUTHOR, 
 
 AS 
 
 A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF A LONG AND INTIMATE 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
It must be confessed that the tone of most of our 
 English travellers in America is at least unfortu- 
 nate. While the subjects and the styles are varied 
 according to the opinions and pursuits ol the 
 authors, while we have grave books and gay books, 
 books political, statistical, agricultural, and aboli- 
 tionist, —books by Whigs and by Tories, by men 
 and by women, — books differing, in short, in almost 
 every conceivable way, we find but one character- 
 istic common to all, and that is satire . We com- 
 plain in England of the bad feeling that exists in 
 America towards us : if such be the case, can we 
 be surprised at it ? The great mass of Americans 
 • know us only through the medium of our popular 
 authors; and the observations of these upon 
 America are not, we must allow, of a nature to 
 conciliate a sensitive and irritable people. Take 
 the books of Americans upon England, the works 
 A 4 
 
VI 11 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 of Washington Irving, for instance, or those of 
 Willis, Miss Sedgwick, or even Cooper, and com- 
 pare the spirit and feeling which they evince with 
 that which animates the writings of Hall, Hamil- 
 ton, Trollope, or Dickens, and I venture to say 
 that the balance of good-nature and friendly 
 feeling (with which alone I have now to do) will be 
 found to be infinitely on the side of the former. I 
 do not mean (far from it) that a traveller should 
 dwell only on the bright side of tilings in the 
 country which he is describing — that he should 
 delight in drawing contrasts unfavourable to his 
 own country, or that he should not rather look 
 upon all that is hers with a partial eye, and — 
 
 “ Be to her faults a little blind, 
 
 Be to her virtues very kind ; ” — 
 
 I mean nothing of this: but I mean that he 
 
 should gravely and soberly, in a high spirit of 
 
 goodwill and friendly feeling, argue the points of 
 
 difference between his hosts and himself ; he 
 
 should try to convince them where he thought 
 
 © 
 
 them wrong, and adopt their suggestions where 
 lie approved of them ; and that, under no circum- 
 stances, should he run the risk of wounding their 
 feelings and mortifying their pride, by declamatory 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 vituperation or satirical bitterness. Upon many 
 (I may say, upon most) points my opinions are 
 diametrically opposed to those of the great ma- 
 jority of Americans, as regards their religious, 
 political, and social system; and on those points I 
 shall have no scruple in freely expressing myself, 
 :my more than in pointing out where they seem 
 to me to afford us an example for imitation. In 
 both their good and their bad qualities they are 
 generally only exaggerations of ourselves ; and it 
 is principally because we see the tendencies of 
 our own age and country carried out and deve- 
 loped in America more boldly than at home that 
 I consider her so interesting a subject of observa- 
 tion to us. Thus, in energy, enterprise, persever- 
 ance, sagacity, activity, and varied resources, — in 
 all the faculties, in short, which contribute to 
 produce what is now technically called material 
 civilisation, and which have always, in a peculiar 
 manner, distinguished the British from the con- 
 tinental Europeans, there is no disputing the 
 superiority of the Americans to ourselves. Wher- 
 ever they have a fair field for the exercise of them, 
 they beat us. Their ships sail better, and are 
 worked by fewer men; their settlers pay more 
 A 5 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 for their land than our colonists, and yet under- 
 sell them in their own markets; wherever ad- 
 ministrative talent is called into play, whether in 
 the management of a hotel, or a ship, or a prison, 
 or a factory, there is no competing with them : 
 and, after a little intercourse with them, I was 
 not surprised that it should be so ; for the more 
 I travelled through the country, the more was I 
 struck with the remarkable average intelligence 
 which prevails : I never met a stupid American ; 
 I never met one man from whose conversation 
 much information might not be gained, or who 
 did not appear familiar with life and business, and 
 qualified to make liis way in them. There is one 
 singular proof of the general energy and capacity 
 for business which early habits of self-dependence 
 have produced ; — almost every American under- 
 stands politics, takes a lively interest in them 
 (though many abstain under discouragement or 
 disgust from taking a practical part), and is 
 familiar, not only with the affairs of his own 
 township or county, but with those of the State 
 and of the Union ; almost every man reads about 
 a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to 
 you for hours (tant bicn que mat), if you will listen 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Xl 
 
 to him, about the tariff, and the bank, and the 
 Ashburton treaty. Now, any where else the 
 result of all this would be the neglect of private 
 business, — not so here ; an American seems to 
 have time, not only for his own affairs, but ibi 
 those of the commonwealth, and to find it easy to 
 reconcile the apparently inconsistent pursuits of a 
 bustling politician and a steady man of business. 
 Such a imion is rarely to be met with in England ; 
 never on the Continent. 
 
 As in many of our good, so in our evil, pecu- 
 liarities, our American children imitate and sur- 
 pass ourselves. Are not we too utilitarian and 
 materialistic ? Have we not, with some justice, 
 been called a nation of shopkeepers; and do we 
 not serve mammon with too blind an idolatry i 
 Have we not neglected too much the higher 
 branches of art and science, and the cultivation of 
 the aesthetic faculty ? Is it not characteristic of 
 modem England to reject authorities, both in 
 church and state, to look with contempt on the 
 humbler and more peculiarly Christian virtues of 
 contentment and submission, and to cultivate the 
 intellectual at the expense of the moral part of 
 our nature ? If these and other dangerous tendcn- 
 a 6 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 cies of a similar nature are at work among our- 
 selves (as they undoubtedly are), it is useful and 
 interesting to observe them in fuller operation 
 and more unchecked luxuriance in America ; 
 many of them aggravated by her peculiar physical 
 circumstances, and others by the absence of 
 those checks which the traditionary laws and 
 customs of ages, whose habits and faults were of 
 an opposite character, have left to us in England. 
 But in treating of these things we have no need 
 or right to point with the finger of scorn : if there 
 were no other reason, the beam in our own eye is 
 too large. 
 
 The very sensitiveness of the Americans to our 
 criticism proves the respect in which they hold 
 us ; and (if we did not irritate them by ridicule 
 and violence) the most salutary effects might be 
 produced by it. It is not to be denied that the 
 masses in America look with a far more friendly 
 feeling upon F ranee than upon England ; and 
 while I admit that this fact is accounted for, to a 
 great extent, by traditional recollections of the 
 revolutionary war, and a natural feeling of rivalry 
 towards a countiy engaged in the same pursuits 
 of industry and commerce as themselves, with 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Xlii 
 
 which there are infinitely more points of contact, 
 and therefore of probable dissension, — yet, at the 
 same time, I am inclined to think it is also in some 
 measure attributable to the more amicable and 
 sympathetic sentiments which (fully as much 
 as their more dignified and philosophical tone) 
 distinguish French travellers, as compared with 
 English, when writing on the subject of America. 
 If we turn to M. de Tocqueville, or M. Chevalier, 
 we must admit (whether we agree with them or 
 not) that at least they appreciate America better 
 than we do; their imaginations are filled with the 
 destinies of the mighty continent which they are 
 surveying, and their attention occupied with the 
 great experiment of republican institutions which 
 they find there, the results of which they antici- 
 pate as certainly reactive to an important extent 
 upon Europe ; and they have neither time nor in- 
 clination to laugh at and “ show up ” the manner 
 in which the Americans eat their meals, or the 
 posture in which they sit at the theatre, or any 
 such minor peculiarities as in their larger view 
 are lost in comparison with more important fea- 
 tures. Now there is no doubt that we have a 
 great many funny and amusing books about egg- 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 eating, and tobacco-chewing, and all the crambe 
 decks recocta , which Mrs. Trollope began, and on 
 which every succeeding traveller has been ringing 
 the changes ever since ; but I think I may fairly 
 ask, have we not enough of them ? These things 
 are very well in their way, because they are 
 symptomatic and illustrative, to a certain extent, 
 of national character ; but they should not be 
 allowed to take so prominent a position. We 
 want some Englishman to give us a counterpart 
 of the sketch which M. de Tocqueville has drawn, 
 in a spirit equally candid and dispassionate, but 
 with that difference in the aspect and the colouring 
 which would naturally be produced by the different 
 points of view from which an Englishman and a 
 Frenchman would regard America. If from this 
 exordium any reader should be led to suppose that 
 I am about to attempt supplying the deficiency 
 which I complain of, he will be sorely disappointed. 
 I have neither energy nor capacity for such a task ; 
 and even if I had, the visit which I paid to Ame- 
 rica was too short, and the materials at my com- 
 mand are too scanty, for me to attempt any thing 
 like a regular and systematic work. In publishing 
 the following letters, I aim at no more than humbly 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 to point out to others the path which I am unable 
 to tread myself ; and I shall be amply repaid if, 
 by enumerating and touching upon a few of the 
 topics which appear to me worthy of attention, I 
 may be the means of increasing the interest of my 
 readers in this great subject, and of suggesting a 
 matured and elaborate consideration of it to some 
 mind capable of treating it worthily and well. 
 My original letters were written without an idea 
 of publication to my relations in Ireland (most of 
 them to my father), during a tour through Canada 
 and the States ; and though I have somewhat 
 altered and remodelled them, I have retained the 
 epistolary form, both to save myself trouble, and 
 as well calculated, from its irregular and desultory 
 nature, for carrying out the idea which I have 
 attempted to explain above ; it enables me to turn 
 from one subject to another, as the place from 
 which, or the circumstances under which, I wrote, 
 may have happened to dictate or suggest, and to 
 touch upon without “ approfondissant a question, 
 in a manner wliich would appear otherwise frivo- 
 lous and impertinent. They contain, I know, 
 little that is new, and nothing that is strange or 
 amusing: I did not visit the more remote and 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 less frequented parts of America ; I met with no 
 accident or adventure of any kind ; and I had no 
 further means of becoming acquainted with the 
 country and the people than are within the reach 
 of any ordinary traveller with good introductions. 
 Under these circumstances I have, perhaps, no 
 right to publish at all ; and, I believe, my best 
 excuse for doing so is the hope that my specu- 
 lations, however uninteresting to the public, may 
 not be so to the circle of my own acquaintances 
 and friends. A large proportion of these letters, 
 however, may possess some additional interest at 
 this moment, as relating to Canada, in the con- 
 dition and progress of which I was naturally, as a 
 British subject, even more interested than in that 
 of the United States. Among the thousand “ in- 
 fallible remedies ” which are put forward as certain 
 to cure, if adopted, all the disorders of our social 
 state, that of “ systematic colonisation” appears 
 to have found the ablest advocates, and excited 
 the greatest attention ; so that, perhaps, at this 
 moment, the suggestions and the information which 
 even so superficial a traveller as myself can afford, 
 may not be unacceptable. But I have already said 
 too much about myself and my motives ; I cannot, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XY11 
 
 however, conclude these prefatory remarks with- 
 out bearing testimony to the remarkable kindness 
 and cordiality which, like all Englishmen properly 
 recommended, I met with, both in Canada and in 
 the States. In such cases all prejudice against 
 our country, all soreness upon the subject of 
 former travellers, is forgotten, and they throw 
 themselves, their houses, and their institutions at 
 once open to the stranger’s observation, with such 
 an honest and unsuspicious desire to give him all 
 the information which he requires, that one would 
 think it impossible for the most stem and un- 
 scrupulous book-maker to take advantage of their 
 kindness, and then proceed to laugh at and abuse 
 them. I trust that the most sensitive of my 
 American friends will not accuse me of having 
 done so, even where the differences between us 
 are widest and most irreconcilable. 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 less frequented parts of America ; I met with no 
 accident or adventure of any kind ; and I had no 
 further means of becoming acquainted with the 
 country and the people than are within the reach 
 of any ordinary traveller with good introductions. 
 Under these circumstances I have, perhaps, no 
 right to publish at all ; and, I believe, my best 
 excuse for doing so is the hope that my specu- 
 lations, however uninteresting to the public, may 
 not be so to the circle of my own acquaintances 
 and friends. A large proportion of these letters, 
 however, may possess some additional interest at 
 this moment, as relating to Canada, in the con- 
 dition and progress of which I was naturally, as a 
 British subject, even more interested than in that 
 of the United States. Among the thousand “ in- 
 fallible remedies ” which are put forward as certain 
 to cure, if adopted, all the disorders of our social 
 state, that of “ systematic colonisation” appears 
 to have found the ablest advocates, and excited 
 the greatest attention ; so that, perhaps, at this 
 moment, the suggestions and the information which 
 even so superficial a traveller as myself can afford, 
 may not be unacceptable. But I have already said 
 too much about myself and my motives ; I cannot, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XVII 
 
 however* conclude these prefatory remarks with- 
 out bearing testimony to the remarkable kindness 
 and cordiality which, like all Englishmen properly 
 recommended, I met with, both in Canada and in 
 the States. In such cases all prejudice against 
 our country, all soreness upon the subject of 
 former travellers, is forgotten, and they throw 
 themselves, their houses, and their institutions at 
 once open to the stranger’s observation, with such 
 an honest and unsuspicious desire to give him all 
 the information which he requires, that one would 
 think it impossible for the most stem and un- 
 scrupulous book-maker to take advantage of their 
 kindness, and then proceed to laugh at and abuse 
 them. I trust that the most sensitive of my 
 American friends will not accuse me of having 
 done so, even where the differences between us 
 are widest and most irreconcilable. 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 Halifax. — Atlantic Steam- Navigation. — Landing at Bos- 
 ton. — First Impressions. — Suburbs of Boston. — Lowell. 
 — American Factory System. — Comparison with that of 
 England. — Prospects for the Future. — Quantity of 
 “Wild Land” in New England. — Moral Effects of 
 continual Transmigration upon the Agricultural Class. 
 
 Page 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 Journey from Boston to New York. — Local Advantages 
 which New York possesses. — Prospects of Boston. — 
 Of the Atlantic Cities of the South. — French and En- 
 glish Colonial System. — Annexation of Texas. — Eccle- 
 siastical Architecture. — America represents exclusively 
 modern Habits and Feelings. — Mixed Nature of English 
 Institutions. — Rockaway. — American Travellers. 15 
 
 
XX 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 LETTER HL 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 Hotels. — The Hudson. — Washington Irving. — Emigra- 
 tion. — Albany. — Van Rennselaer Estate. — Saratoga. 
 
 Americans and English at Watering Places. — Modern 
 Female Costumes. — Church at Saratoga. — Duelling 
 
 Page 5 32 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 Journey from Saratoga. — Interesting Country. — Ame- 
 rican Stages. — Railroads. — Scenery. — Lake George. — 
 Ticonderoga. — Lake Champlain. — Last War between 
 the United States and Great Britain. — Probable Mode 
 of carrying on next. — Effects of Political Institutions 
 upon chances of A\ ar. — St. John’s. — American Custom- 
 houses. Canadian Population. — Army in Canada. — 
 Montreal. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 Steam-boat on the St. Lawrence. — Banks of the River. 
 
 Quebec and its Environs. — Condition of the “ Ha- 
 bitans.”— Causes of the late Rebellion. — Political Views 
 of the French Party. — Seignorial Tenures. — Manners 
 of the People. — Field-sports of Lower Canada. - 72 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 
 
 Irish Emigrants. — Their Loyalty.— Trade ofMontreal.— 
 Loss of the Shamrock. — Iligh-pressure Steam-boats. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXI 
 
 
 Scenery of the Ottawa. — Advantages possessed by 
 English Climate. — Its Effects on Health and Beauty. — 
 The Manor-house. — Prospects of Emigrant Farmers in 
 Lower Canada. — Village Church. — Wheat Crop. — The 
 “ Fly.” Page 92 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Bytown. — Chaudiere Falls. — “ Lumber” Trade. — Policy 
 of the late Alteration in the Tariff. — Rideau Canal. — 
 Voyage to Kemptville. — Forest Clearings. — Scenery 
 of the Woods. — The “ Thousand Islands.” — Kingston. 
 
 110 
 
 LETTER Vm. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Sporting Expedition. — Lobra Lake. — Farm-house in the 
 Interior. — A. U. E. Loyalist. — First Day’s Hunting. — 
 Mosquitoes. — Hard Bed. — Second Day’s Hunting. — 
 Chase of a Deer in the Water. — Return to Kingston. 
 
 122 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGABA FALLS. 
 
 Voyage on Lake Ontario. — The Falls. — Indian Manu- 
 factures. — Scenery on the Niagara River. — Going be- 
 hind the Falls. — Buffalo. — An “ Able Financier.” — 
 German Emigrants. — Land-sales in the United States. 
 
 — Lake Steamers. — The Legitimate Drama at Buffalo. 
 
 — Navy Island. — Hostilities with the Sympathisers. — 
 Indian and Negro Races compared. — Navigation on the 
 Welland Canal. — Irish at the Public Works. - 132 
 
XXII 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 A Labourer’s Account of liis first Four Years in Canada. — 
 Prospects afforded to a Gentleman-farmer. — Hamilton. 
 
 — Traveller from the Far-west. — Country between 
 Hamilton and Woodstock. — Brantford. — Indian Village. 
 
 — Divine Service in the Mohawk Language. — Progress 
 of Civilisation among the Red Men. — Oak-plains. — 
 Visit to a Gentleman-fanner settled in Western Canada. 
 
 — Manner of Life. — Advice to Emigrants. — Religious 
 Condition of the Population. — Woodstock Cricket-club. 
 
 Page 157 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 Uncomfortable Journey. — Toronto. — System of Land- 
 Sales in Canada. — Mr. Wakefield’s Plan. — Clergy Re- 
 serves. — The Bar in Canada. — The Talbot Settlement. 
 — Visits from Irish Emigrants. — Their Success. — 
 Upper Canada College. — The Medical Profession in 
 Canada. - - - - - - - -179 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 Leave Toronto. — Cobourg. — Heterogeneous Character of 
 Population in Upper Canada. — Ride to Peterborough. — 
 Townships of Cavan and Monaghan. — Irish Protestant 
 Farmers. — Peterborough. — Life of a Settler in the 
 Back- woods. — Occupations and Amusements. — Want of 
 Servants. — Cheapness of Living. - - - 1 99 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Journey to the Trent. — A Canadian Farmer’s Account of 
 the Western States. — Voyage to Kingston. — Canadian 
 Politics. — The “ Crisis.” — Arguments in favour of Sir 
 Charles Bagot’s Policy. — Cases of Ireland and Canada 
 compared. — Ultimate Advantage which the Principle of 
 “ Responsible Government” holds out to the British 
 Party. — Kingston Penitentiary. — Canadian Legisla- 
 ture. Page 212 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 Descent of the St. Lawrence Rapids. — Bill Johnson, the 
 Pirate. — Isle aux Noix. — Out-quarters in Canada. * 
 Desertion among the Soldiery. — Field-sports in Forest 
 Countries. — Chances of Employment for Labourers. — 
 Protestant and Roman Catholic Emigrants. — Love of 
 Money characteristic of the Population in a new Country. 
 — Necessity of counteracting it. — Law of Succession. — 
 Loyalty. — Reasons why the Canadians should desire a 
 Continuance of British Connection. — Flourishing Con- 
 dition of Canada. — Its Progress compared with that of 
 the United States. — Free Trade with England. — Tem- 
 porary Depression of Commerce. - 237 
 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FROM 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 HALIFAX. ATLANTIC STEAM-NAVIGATION. LANDING AT 
 
 BOSTON. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. SUBURBS OF BOSTON. 
 
 LOWELL. AMERICAN FACTORY SYSTEM. COMPARISON 
 
 WITH THAT OF ENGLAND. PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 QUANTITY OF WILD LAND ” IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 MORAL EFFECTS OF CONTINUAL TRANSMIGRATION UPON 
 THE AGRICULTURAL CLASS. 
 
 Boston, July 1842. 
 
 We arrived on the morning of the 20th, thank 
 God, all well, after a passage of fifteen days, 
 during which nothing remarkable occurred. We 
 saw one or two icebergs, though it is late in the 
 year for doing so. During the early part of the 
 summer, the channel between the two great 
 “ Banks” of Newfoundland is completely studded 
 with them, floating from the polar regions to the 
 
2 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 gulf stream, in which they melt ; and as fogs 
 are almost perennial in the same locality, there is 
 considerable danger of running foul of them : two 
 or three vessels have been lost in this way this 
 year. 
 
 We remained about twelve hours at Halifax, 
 and I had time to walk about the town, and 
 admire the view from the citadel of its beautiful 
 bay and harbour; the latter, especially, is mag- 
 nificent. The town itself is, I believe, not flou- 
 rishing ; it was made by the war ; and has, since 
 the peace, decreased in population. St. John’s, 
 New Brunswick, is (to use the nautical phrase) 
 “ taking the wind out of its sails and Picton, on 
 the northern coast, will probably also prove a 
 formidable rival to the capital, as being the depot 
 and port of the great and valuable Nova Scotia 
 coalfield. The coal is extremely good, and if it 
 were not subjected to a heavy duty by thd Ame- 
 rican government, would monopolise the market 
 of the north-eastern states. The appearance of 
 the coast about Halifax is bleak and inhospitable 
 enough, but I am told that the scenery in the 
 interior is beautiful, and in many places the soil 
 fertile. The great drawback to the trade and 
 progress of Halifax is the perpetual fog which 
 prevails outside the harbour during the summer 
 months. The Quebec steamer, which came for 
 
IrETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 3 
 
 Lady Bagot, spent two days at its mouth, un- 
 willing to venture while the fog was so thick 
 upon entering, for the coast is iron-bound, and 
 dangerous in the extreme. 
 
 I observed a great number of negroes in Hali- 
 fax : it seems there is a settlement of them in the 
 neighbourhood, which was established during the 
 war as a depot for the slaves who ran away from 
 the States, or were carried off in any of the 
 descents which were made on the American terri- 
 tory; and they breed and flourish in a manner 
 hardly to be expected, considering the uncongenial 
 nature of the climate to a race sprung from the 
 tropics. It certainly proves them to be more 
 capable of supporting extremes than white men 
 are. There are also a great number of Indians 
 still left in ova Scotia, and they constitute 
 the most degraded and corrupted part of the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 From Halifax to Boston the voyage takes about 
 forty hours; we arrived at the latter place at 
 about twelve o’clock on a beautiful moonlight 
 night, but did not land until the next morning. It 
 is curious and rather discouraging, after our anti- 
 cipations of the rapid progress of Atlantic steam- 
 navigation, to observe, that as a commercial 
 speculation it has proved a failure, and apparently 
 must do so, unless some method of condensing 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 fuel be discovered. As it is, the steamers are, as 
 far as freight is concerned, nothing but coal- 
 barges. The Acadia, whose measurement is 1200 
 tons, carries 600 tons of coal at starting, so that 
 when passengers and stores are stowed away, 
 there is hardly room for any thing but a few 
 parcels ; the consequence is, that, depending en- 
 tirely upon passage-money, and finding that this 
 is not sufficient to pay them, the company has this 
 year applied for, and obtained (upon good cause 
 shewn) a large addition to the grant from the 
 post-office; they receive now, I think, 80,000/. 
 per annum. Without this, it would be impossible 
 to maintain the line. The Great Western, though 
 the most fortunate of vessels, has (as I believe it 
 is generally understood) afforded a very small 
 return to her owners, and all the other steamers 
 which have been put upon the American station, 
 have gradually dropped off. Even as to passen- 
 gers, the “ liners,” at least the “ crack ” ships, are 
 said to fill better on an average than the steamers. 
 The prejudice in favour of their superior safety 
 still remains to a great extent, notwithstanding 
 the fact, which ought to be decisive upon this 
 point, that the insurance companies insure in the 
 steamers for half the premium which is required 
 in the case of the best packet-ships (21s. 6d. per 
 1 00/. instead of 1 /. 5s.). The former are as good sea- 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 boats, far more manageable, and cannot be driven 
 on a lee-shore. Almost all the accidents which 
 have happened to them, have been caused by bad 
 pilotage, (except in the case of the President, of 
 which we know nothing,) and yet we still find 
 people talking of the great danger of steam-navi- 
 gation, particularly in winter. I should prefer 
 trusting to the opinion of the insurance-office 
 agents, the business of whose lives is to calculate 
 risks. 
 
 I never enjoyed a day more than the first 
 which I spent at Boston : the mere fact, indeed, 
 of being settled upon terra firma again after such a 
 voyage, would make 
 
 The common air, the earth, the skies, 
 To me an opening Paradise. 
 
 But, independently of this, there was much to 
 interest and to please. The appearance of the 
 city and its inhabitants is quite as new and 
 strange to an Englishman as that of most con- 
 tinental towns ; and the circumstance of hearing 
 his own language among such foreign looking 
 scenes, from the apparent anomaly, rather adds to 
 than diminishes the contrast. The houses are 
 republican-looking, comfortable, but not hand- 
 some; nor are there any public buildings at all 
 remarkable or fine. The churches are peculiarly 
 B 3 
 
6 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter I- 
 
 grotesque, bidding utter defiance to every rule of 
 architecture, and generally painted all the colours 
 of the rainbow ; so that, except for their being 
 surmounted by steeples, it would be impossible to 
 guess at their destination. The countiy about 
 Boston very pretty, studded with green and 
 white villas, and a good deal of garden and dressed 
 ground. The public cemetery at Mount Auburn 
 is (with the exception of the tombs) perfect : it 
 presents every variety of surface and foliage, deep 
 dark glens and sunny glades, large fine trees and 
 beautiful shrubbery and underwood. Many of the 
 trees and shrubs were new to me except as rari- 
 ties and exotics, and very beautiful, particularly 
 the dark rich sumach, the butter-nut with its 
 parasol-shaped branches, the black walnut, and the 
 tulip-tree. The less said about the tombs the 
 better; they are generally very “ classical” and 
 very bad, few bearing, either in symbols or in- 
 scriptions, any reference to Christianity. 
 
 Near the cemeteiy is Fresh Pond, famous as 
 the reservoir of the purest and most beautiful ice 
 in the world. One great and universal luxury here 
 is the profusion of ice, which you see in every shop 
 and stall in the market, Everything iceable is iced; 
 and within the last few years. Fresh Pond ice has 
 become a large and valuable article of export, both 
 to the East and West Indies. Fancy it taking a 
 
JLETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 7 
 
 voyage round the Cape, and beating the Himalaya 
 ice in the Calcutta markets ! 
 
 I have been making, since my arrival, several 
 excursions in the neighbourhood ; amongst others 
 one (by railroad) to Lowell, a manufacturing town 
 on the Merrimac, twenty miles from Boston. It 
 has sprung up entirely within the last nineteen 
 years, and now contains upwards of 20,000 inha- 
 bitants, and produces about one sixth part of the 
 eotton manufacture of the whole Union : there is 
 also a considerable woollen manufacture carried on 
 there. The land on which it stands was taken by 
 a company with a view to this manufacturing spe- 
 culation in 1823, in consequence of their having 
 observed its peculiar advantages ; namely, a water 
 fall of thirty-one feet, and of sufficient power to 
 work all the mills now in operation, and a canal, 
 the oldest in the Union, by which, till the rail- 
 road was made, all the trade of Lowell was carried 
 on. The plan succeeded beyond the most san- 
 guine expectations of the projectors, who have 
 consequently realised large fortunes. 
 
 I went round one of the mills belonging to 
 Messrs. Lawrence, and was much pleased with the 
 comfort and cleanliness of the whole establish- 
 ment, as well as with the appearance of the work- 
 people. They were 700 in number (almost all 
 adults and unmarried); the wages of the men 
 B 4 
 
8 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 averaging about eighty cents (35. 6c?.), those of 
 the women half a dollar per day. They work 
 from five a. m. to seven p. m., with the intermis- 
 sion of half an hour for breakfast and three quar- 
 ters of an hour for dinner. They live in boarding 
 houses connected with the mill, belonging to the 
 master manufacturer, and kept by persons whom 
 he employs, and who are responsible to him for 
 the order and regularity of their establishment : a 
 strict police is enforced, and drunkenness and im- 
 morality punished by immediate dismissal. The 
 same system is pursued by the other mill owners, 
 and the result is such as they may justly be proud 
 of. At the same time, when the example of Lo- 
 well is quoted to show that the evils which have 
 in Europe universally attended the manufacturing 
 system are not inevitable in it, I cannot admit it 
 to be at all conclusive. The experiment has been 
 tried under eminently favourable circumstances, 
 and in a country where the working-class has ad- 
 vantages unknown elsewhere: nor can I conceive 
 that when it shall be fully peopled, when the 
 wages of labour shall have fallen, and when the 
 manufacturing shall come to bear an important 
 numerical proportion to the agricultural popula- 
 tion, the favourable contrast which the New Eng- 
 land factories now present to those of England, 
 France, and Germany, can possibly continue. 
 
LETTER L 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 9 
 
 At present the factories are supplied by a per- 
 petual immigration from the agricultural districts ; 
 farmers’ children come in from the surrounding 
 states, spend three or four years here, accumulate 
 a small capital, and go off to marry, settle, or em- 
 bark in other pursuits, leaving their places to be 
 supplied by a fresh influx of healthy rural blood. 
 Thus no permanent urban population has as yet 
 been formed, while the comparatively small size of 
 the town enables the capitalists to whom it almost 
 exclusively belongs, to manage and regulate its 
 police at will, and neither of these advantages 
 are likely to be other than local and temporary. 
 
 Again: there can be no physical destitution 
 while land is so cheap, and labour so dear as in 
 the case of America; and we all know how in- 
 timately connected are extreme poverty and that 
 kind of immorality, the absence of which is so 
 remarkable at Lowell. The circumstances of the 
 country enable the operatives to ask, and protec- 
 tive tariffs alone enable the manufacturers to give, 
 such wages as I have mentioned. If these were to 
 fall below a certain point, the former would betake 
 themselves to their homes and their fields, where 
 they would be sure of employment and subsistence 
 till it were worth their while to return to the 
 mills. It is obvious that under a high-pressure 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER T* 
 
 system of competition such as ours, where the 
 labourers are struggling to outbid each other, and 
 the manufacturers to undersell the rest of the 
 world, such a free-and-easy mode of proceeding 
 could not possibly exist. A stationary population, 
 devoted from their very childhood to the one pur- 
 suit which they are to follow through life, with 
 faculties sharpened by attention to it, thoroughly 
 impressed by its influences, and in possession of a 
 hereditary or at least traditionary aptitude for it, 
 will necessarily outbid one such as I have described 
 to exist in New England, and will therefore ulti- 
 mately (with the extension of the manufacturing 
 system and the depression of wages) prevail over 
 it. It cannot be supposed that all manufacturers 
 will be so conscientious and far-sighted as those 
 who have had the care of Lowell, or that they will 
 not generally look merely to the greatest possible 
 production upon the cheapest and easiest terms. 
 New England, from the traditional and habitual 
 observance of external morality and decency which 
 prevails, is the most favourable spot which could 
 be selected for the experiment of a well-disciplined 
 factory system ; yet even here I have been in- 
 formed by good authority that the evils character- 
 istic of manufacturing districts in Europe have 
 begun to appear, and that the example of Lowell 
 has not been adhered to elsewhere. If the factory 
 

 xjetter t BOSTON, 1 1 
 
 system were to be engrafted upon the undisciplined 
 habits and lax morality of the South, I feel con- 
 vinced that even now the worst results would 
 follow. The experience of all ages and countries 
 ought surely to outweigh that which rests upon 
 the solitary instance of this town. 
 
 Another day I went to Nahant, a small water- 
 ing-place a few miles from Boston, which is now 
 full of “ felicity-hunters ” from the latter place. 
 I must return to Boston after my tour in Canada, 
 to present my letters, and become acquainted with 
 its society. At this time of year not a soul is left 
 in the town; indeed, several houses at which I 
 have called are completely shut up; not even a 
 servant is left to take care of them, while the 
 family is gone off to the country or the sea-coast 
 for the hot months. 
 
 I was much struck by the quantity of uncleared 
 forest which extends up to the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of Boston. Though this country was 
 settled 230 years ago, and has been sending out 
 continually the most industrious and enterprising 
 population in the world to reclaim and conquer 
 the western wilds, the road between Boston and 
 Lowell (the most frequented in New England) is 
 bordered for the most part by a wilderness which 
 does not bear, apparently, a trace of man’s prox- 
 imity. Great part of the forest, however, has been 
 B 6 
 
 
12 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 cut, and wliat one now sees is the second growth. 
 In many places too the land has once been cleared 
 and cultivated. When the virgin soil was exhausted, 
 the farmer girded up liis loins, mustered his cara- 
 van, and started westward, to invest his capital 
 and labour in a more tempting field. Such has 
 ever been the case here, and such it will be, as 
 long as unoccupied land remains, accessible at less 
 tiouble and cost than must be employed in cul- 
 tivating the barren lands nearer home. When this 
 happens ; when the shores of the great lakes shall 
 be fully peopled, and land have become deal* in 
 the valley ot the Mississippi, the tide of emigration 
 will be stopped, and we shall see a fixed agricul- 
 tural population growing up in the Atlantic States. 
 I see in fact a sign already of this taking place to 
 some extent, in the fact that within the last few 
 years many settlers have gone from New England 
 to Virginia, and taken possession of land which 
 had undergone the process of which I have spoken, 
 having been cleared, exhausted (as it is called) 
 and deserted for years. These Yankees have now 
 found it worth their while to reoccupy it; and such 
 must in the ordinary course of things be the case 
 along the whole “ seaboard.” New England will 
 probably be the last region fully settled, as pre- 
 senting fewer inducements to the agriculturist 
 than the middle and southern states; indeed, it is 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 13 
 
 a fresh example of the paradoxical rule which has 
 so frequently obtained, that the prosperity and 
 greatness of a country will be in an inverse ratio 
 to its capabilities of soil and climate : but its turn 
 will also come, and a new and very important 
 element will be thereby infused into the American 
 population. 
 
 Of the two antagonist powers, or opposite in- 
 terests of a state, that of permanence has always 
 been connected with and represented by the landed 
 proprietary, as that of progression by (wdiat Cole- 
 ridge calls) the Personal Interest, that is, the mer- 
 cantile, manufacturing, and professional classes; 
 and, generally speaking, in proportion as the one 
 or the other of these influences is more or less 
 predominant, will the national character be con- 
 servative and orderly, or restless and innovating. 
 Now hitherto the conservative force resulting from 
 a fixed agricultural population has been compara- 
 tively weak in the United States; nobody can 
 doubt that the commercial element is decidedly 
 preponderant in the American character; nay, it 
 is remarkable that the “ go-ahead,” restless, money- 
 making spirit is fully as conspicuous in the fanner 
 as in the merchant: and the reason is obvious; 
 land is to him an investment, not a home; he 
 takes it one year to abandon it perhaps the next ; 
 it does not constitute a hereditary property, which 
 
14 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 connects him in feeling and interests with his an- 
 cestors, and which he hopes to transmit to a pos- 
 terity engaged in the same pursuits, and occupying 
 the same position as himself ; in short, he is on 
 the land, as much as the merchant on the sea, a 
 capitalist, a rover, a citizen of the world. But 
 when the period to which I have alluded shall be 
 reached, when the American farmer shall have 
 cast anchor, as it were, into the soil, it is reason- 
 able to suppose that the same influences will 
 operate in modifying his character, which have 
 determined the position of the agricultural popu- 
 lation in other parts of the world ; and we shall 
 find, perhaps at no very remote distance of time, 
 that in New England, as in Old England, the 
 soundest and most valuable class of the population 
 will consist in a sober and contented, a moral and 
 religious yeomanry. 
 
 When we look forward through the vista of 
 years, and reflect upon the evils with which they 
 are necessarily pregnant, the growth of large cities, 
 (those hotbeds of vice), the development of the 
 manufacturing interest with all its attendant dan- 
 gers, and the inevitable increase of pauperism, it 
 is consoling to reflect that the same lapse of time 
 will produce so powerful and beneficial a counter- 
 poise to those evils and dangers, as exists in a 
 stationary rural population. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 15 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 JOURNEY FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK. LOCAL ADVAN- 
 TAGES WHICH NEW YORK POSSESSES. PROSPECTS OF 
 
 BOSTON. OF THE ATLANTIC CITIES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 FRENCH AND ENGLISH COLONIAL SYSTEM. — ANNEXATION 
 
 OF TEXAS. ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE. AMERICA 
 
 REPRESENTS EXCLUSIVELY MODERN HABITS AND FEEL- 
 
 INGS. MIXED NATURE OF ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 ROCKAWAY. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS. 
 
 New York, July. 
 
 Between Boston and Norwich, a distance of 
 100 miles, which I travelled by railroad on my 
 way hither, the country is pretty and varied in 
 surface. In the quantity of forest, the nature of 
 the ground, and the wooden houses and fences, it 
 reminded me much of Sweden, and the tamer and 
 more populous parts of Norway, with the great 
 advantage, however, of possessing every variety, of 
 forest timber ; whereas, in Scandinavia, one gets 
 perfectly sickened with the monotony of the dull, 
 dark pines. 
 
 From Norwich to New York I took the steamer, 
 a very remarkable object to a foreigner, being to- 
 tally unlike in construction to any that one sees 
 in Europe — all above water, cabins, and ma- 
 chinery ; drawing very little water in proportion 
 
16 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER IL 
 
 to its tonnage, long, gaily painted, crowded, un- 
 comfortable, cheap, and fast. Some of the boats 
 on the Hudson are quite wonderful in their dimen- 
 sions (there is one, I think, 350 feet long), and do 
 not draw above four feet. Their pace is about the 
 same as that of our Gravesend and Herne Bay 
 boats, but they are infinitely larger and more 
 splendid in their equipments. On all the northern 
 rivers the steamers are upon the low-pressure 
 system, 'whereas in the South a low-pressure boat 
 is never seen. I never could obtain a satisfactory 
 explanation of so completely varying .a custom ; 
 the common one, that people are more careless of 
 their lives in the South, seems hardly sufficient. 
 
 The approach to New York from the East 
 River is not striking or picturesque ; but when one 
 gets into the harbour, the extraordinary advan- 
 tages of its situation begin to appear. The city 
 is situated on a long, narrow peninsula, formed by 
 the Hudson and the arm of the sea called East 
 River. The water is deep enough all round to float 
 a frigate by the very wharf, and in fact you walk 
 along the street under the bowsprits of the largest 
 merchantmen. 
 
 From the north flows down the Hudson, 
 broad, straight, and slow, without a rapid or a 
 “ snag,” and cutting through the very heart of 
 the mountains, as though on purpose to open a way 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 17 
 
 for the produce of the western country to flow 
 into the Atlantic. This it is which gives New 
 York her superiority over the other maritime 
 cities, and which will enable her to retain it. 
 
 The people of Boston are not without hopes 
 that the completion of the railway from Buffalo to 
 Boston may divert into their channel a consider- 
 able part of the commerce of the lakes, and thus 
 provide their foreign trade with a foundation of 
 indigenous productive industry ; but I hardly think 
 that such can ever be the case. Such a river as 
 the Hudson must always beat a railroad, even in 
 the transport of passengers, affording means of 
 communication equally speedy and far more eco- 
 nomical ; but for the transport of goods there can 
 be no comparison in the advantages, which are all 
 on the side of the water. A railroad is now in 
 progress running parallel with the Hudson, which 
 will prevent the communication between New 
 York and Albany from being stopped during the 
 winter, when the river is frozen over ; and New 
 York will, I am convinced, continue to be the 
 great emporium of agricultural produce. Boston 
 has no “ back country, ” as it is called : she ex- 
 ports manufactures, to be sure, but not to any 
 very great extent; nor is there any immediate pro- 
 spect of that export increasing largely, for America 
 is not yet, apparently, ripe for a great manufac- 
 
18 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letteb n. 
 
 turing development. Her dependence then is 
 principally on the carrying trade. New England 
 stands to the rest of the Union in the position 
 which Holland formerly occupied with respect to 
 Europe ; she has capital, enterprise, and a mari- 
 time population, and possesses, I believe, about 
 four-fifths of the shipping of the Union ; but can 
 this last? T\ill not the Atlantic States of the 
 South, in proportion as they find it impossible to 
 compete with the newer land in the West in the 
 production of the raw material, turn their labour 
 and their capital into the natural channel of carry- 
 ing for their inland neighbours ? The great sea- 
 ports of the South, which are now filled with the 
 shipping of Maine and Massachusetts, will perhaps, 
 at no great distance of time, find it cheaper and 
 more profitable to build and carry for themselves, 
 more especially as the Carolinas and Georgia 
 supply even now a large proportion of the timber 
 which is employed in shipbuilding ; and if this be 
 the case, the main-spring of the prosperity of 
 Boston will be broken. I cannot but look forward 
 to the time (highly as I think of the character and 
 qualities of her population), when she must vield 
 the superiority which she now holds to the natural 
 advantages of her southern rivals. There are, 
 however, two circumstances which give an advan- 
 tage to New England, and which may for a long 
 
JTEW TOUK. 
 
 19 
 
 rrmp keep her ahead; these are the absence of 
 aU n»TT and the p xee s g ioD 05 high commercial cha- 
 racter and credit : as long as these are distinctive 
 mapid of common, no local superiority will am- 
 
 weigh them in the balance. 
 
 I had a good deal of conversation the other 
 upon the subject of Texas, and the progres, 
 «*eneraZ~. of the Amri>- American race ewer the 
 western continent- I find the doctrine <£ what 
 mr r be political fatalism very generally 
 
 \*e\A ibonzh no: perhaj«s openly avowed or de- 
 fended: the doctrine. namely, that Providence 
 has so obriOTsJv oestined America for the Ang io- 
 Sax jns. the Angk*-Sax n§ for America, that 
 
 tkf- m«7s whereby its deagns are pr sed should 
 no; he too rkridiy scrutinised. Th >iign the 
 pemii tie that the end does not justify the mean* 
 is iiK>Ji3trt/vernLie- yet its aptci zasxm 
 
 to thk or that ra&ridnal case k cifian doolx&L 
 adndis of fisnsrir arguments « odea. 
 
 Whai oocej^ t and the right of pos- 
 
 paM xo a cccsny ? The fact of * rul i ng it as a 
 ^ynTinr - 2 — rr-. 1 xe iii |r in L\» years' In 
 
 what degree may the more jrusdy take ad- 
 
 rfthe more hrarr»s K?(«r. in driv- 
 tt>- ^ T*snrait of rtms and in.. ~ rs against midiams 
 nd ferescs r How far k it aBoarahie, who* real 
 * 2 >i jart gromis of qtsarrd arise- as will always 
 
20 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ii. 
 
 be the case where savage and civilised man come 
 in contact, to retaliate and punish aggressions by 
 confiscation of territory ? The solution of these and 
 many similar questions presents difficulty enough 
 to make the moralist pause before he pronounces a 
 sweeping censure upon the encroachments which 
 civilisation has always made and will always make 
 upon barbarism, whenever they come into collision. 
 Such has been the result in India, where really it is 
 difficult to point out more than one or two cases in 
 which the hostilities, wliich have from time to time 
 extended our empire, have not been commenced 
 by the native princes, who afterwards suffered from 
 their effects: nay, it is singular, that the very 
 governors and commanders who went out with the 
 most pacific intentions, and the firmest conviction 
 of the inexpediency of an aggressive policy, as 
 Lord Cornwallis and Lord Amherst*, were those 
 under whose auspices some of the greatest acces- 
 sions to our territory were made. And such 
 has been the result in America, where with more 
 or less reason and justice in individual cases of 
 conquest, both British and Americans have every 
 where displaced (to use a neutral term) the 
 aboriginal inhabitants: as they appear, the red 
 man melts away, like snow before the south wind. 
 
 And now Lord Ellenborough. 
 
LETTER H. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 21 
 
 M. Chevalier’s work upon America contains 
 some very interesting remarks, made in a most 
 candid and liberal spirit, upon the difference be- 
 tween the French and English principles of colo- 
 nisation, and upon the effects which the complete 
 victory of the latter has had upon the destinies of 
 America. The military advantages and extended 
 dominion, which were the primary objects of the 
 one nation present as complete a contrast to the 
 industrious, commercial, money-making schemes 
 of the other, as the centralised and monarchical 
 government of the French does to the popular and 
 independent constitution of the English colonies ; 
 ?tnd it would be difficult to supply a stronger illus- 
 tration of the superior energy and power which 
 habits of independence and self-government pro- 
 duce, than the ultimate success of the latter. In 
 unity and simplicity of political purpose, in the 
 military skill of the leaders, and the martial cha- 
 racter of the population ; above all, in the perfect 
 harmony which always existed between the colo- 
 nists and the mother country, the superiority of 
 the French would have led us to anticipate for them 
 an assured victory. But while they were extend- 
 ing their military posts, we had been improving 
 our internal resources. In commerce, agriculture, 
 wealth, and population, the British colonies 
 soon went far ahead. The habit of dependence 
 
22 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER II. 
 
 upon the mother-country had weakened among 
 the French the springs of native vigour ; and when 
 Quebec fell, there was not strength or courage left 
 to strike another blow, and the fabric of French 
 dominion in America fell at once to rise no more. 
 
 The occupation of Texas by English and Ame- 
 rican adventurers, and its dismemberment from 
 Mexico, involve a very important accession of 
 territory and influence to the dominant race ; nor 
 can there, I think, be any doubt, that at no very 
 distant time it will be annexed to the United 
 States. Unfortunately for its future prosperity 
 and peace, the institution of slavery has been 
 allowed to establish itself in this immense terri- 
 tory ; and this constitutes at present the principal 
 obstacle to the annexation, for which the Texans 
 are so anxious. The Northern States, who have 
 always looked with great jealousy upon the pre- 
 ponderance which the South has exercised in the 
 councils of the Union, are strongly adverse to the 
 admission of a country, equal, when fully peopled, 
 to five ordinary states, and bound to the southern 
 interest by the all-powerful tie of common slave- 
 holding institutions.* I cannot, however, believe 
 
 * I have read a speech delivered in September by Mr. 
 John Quincy Adams, in which he declares that the North 
 would sooner dissolve the Union, than consent to the an- 
 nexation of Texas 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 23 
 
 that this objection will ultimately prevail against 
 the measure, which would be too beneficial to the 
 material interests of the Union to be defeated, in 
 the present state of American feeling, by abstract 
 ideas about slavery. Texas must be either absorbed 
 into the Union, or prove a powerful political and 
 commercial rival. Her soil and climate are superior 
 to those of the cotton and sugar-growing states ; 
 so that, when once her relations with Mexico 
 are settled, her population must rapidly increase, 
 and drain, to a great extent, the resources of the 
 Union by the emigration of settlers and capital 
 The Americans know the danger which their in- 
 stitutions would incur from the growth of for- 
 midable neighbours, entailing as it would the 
 necessity of military and naval establishments ; and 
 they look forward, I am convinced, to the time 
 when the whole continent north of the isthmus 
 of Panama is destined to be theirs. Under these 
 circumstances, I cannot think that they will 
 long hesitate about taking so obvious and impor- 
 tant a step towards the consummation as the an- 
 nexation of Texas ; at present, however, I must 
 say, that the majority of American statesmen 
 seem to be not anxious for the measure, or care- 
 less about it. 
 
 I have not yet seen one church in this country 
 built in good ecclesiastical taste; but I am glad to 
 
24 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER II. 
 
 perceive that one on a larger scale, and with alto- 
 gether superior pretensions to any thing now 
 existing in the TJ nited States, is in course of 
 erection in Broadway. This church possesses the 
 only rich ecclesiastical endowment which exists in 
 the United States; it is derived from a grant of 
 land made to the Anglo-American Church before 
 the Revolution; which, in consequence of the 
 increase of the city, has become very valuable. 
 The funds derived from it have been most usefully 
 employed (after providing for the wants of the 
 New York district) in promoting the cause of the 
 church generally 'throughout the Union. A large 
 sum (I should think not less than 30,000/.) has 
 now been devoted to building the fabric which 
 I have alluded to. The work has already made 
 considerable progress, and promises to be “ facile 
 princeps” in American ecclesiastical architecture. 
 Its style is the decorative Gothic, but it will not, 
 as far as I can judge, be scrupulously and correctly 
 adhered to throughout the building. 
 
 We are sometimes inclined to laugh at Ame- 
 rican architecture : it would be well for us to ask 
 ourselves what ure have to shew at home that is 
 superior, and built within the last century. Before 
 the rc-action which has taken place within the last 
 ten years, the art (and especially the Christian 
 branch of it) had long remained at the lowest 
 
LETTER H. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 23 
 
 point of depression. All our beautiful ecclesiastical 
 buildings are of a date anterior to the time when 
 America was first heard of ; and it is not fair to 
 attribute to the peculiarities of society here what 
 is characteristic, not of the country, but of the 
 age. England is the only country which unites 
 the associations and monuments of the olden time, 
 memorials of the ages of faith and feudalism! 
 with the highest material civilisation of the nine- 
 teenth century. In points of social economy, 
 such as the division of labour, rapidity of com 
 munication, and perfection of physical science, 
 Germany is about where we were at the time of 
 the revolution of 1688, so that her abbeys, and 
 churches, and old town -houses, and palaces of 
 kings and nobles are all consistent and in keep- 
 ing. In America, on the other hand, bom since 
 these things went out of fashion, the aspect of 
 the country, as well as the framework of society, 
 is modelled accordingly, and “productive in- 
 dustry” reigns without a rival. But in Eng- 
 land the contrast between the old and the new 
 is strikingly represented, and full of matter for 
 reflection, cheerful or melancholy according to 
 the tone of the observer’s mind; the factory 
 chimney rears its head, as it were, in emulation 
 of the cathedral spire, and the railroad cuts 
 through the old ancestral park. 
 
 VOL. i. c 
 
26 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 letter u . 
 
 So it is with our political institutions ; they 
 have always been founded on a balance, a strug- 
 gle, an apparent inconsistency : the ancient mo- 
 narch, the feudal aristocracy, and the Catholic 
 church, are engaged in a continual struggle with 
 the torrent of democracy, which certainly (whe- 
 ther for evil or for good) is more in accordance 
 with the “ spirit of the age,” and which turns the 
 old popular institutions of the rural Saxons to 
 the purposes of anti-corn-law leagues and trades 
 unions. One or other of these influences has 
 always been predominant, and yet has always been 
 checked and modified by the operation of the 
 others. 
 
 And the mixed nature of our institutions has 
 produced a corresponding effect upon national 
 character. Even now the ancient loyalty and 
 respect for the church, and, still more, the aris- 
 tocratic or class feeling, mingle with and soften 
 the levelling and democratic spirit, whose turn of 
 ascendancy seems to have arrived. It is impos- 
 sible, perhaps, either for institutions or for national 
 character, of a mixed kind like ours, to remain 
 stationary, and difficult to say at what point the 
 just medium is attained ; but that difficulty does 
 not render it less the duty of the statesman to 
 observe whither the spirit of the age is tending, 
 and to administer, if need be, correctives to the 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 danger and evil of its too rapid progress. I can- 
 not too often repeat that American institutions, 
 society, and character, are but what ours would 
 be if it were not for the check of old associations — 
 a more powerful barrier than positive enactments 
 — and what it is not wholly impossible that ours 
 may at some future time become. It is therefore 
 most important to study them, with a view of 
 preserving those feelings and habits in our popu- 
 lation, which must form the only true preser- 
 vative against an undue preponderance of their 
 peculiar spirit. Without going as far as Lord 
 Bacon, who says, “ In the infancy of a state, amis 
 flourish ; in its prime, arts ; in its decline , manu- 
 factures, ” one may be allowed to look with some 
 apprehension upon a state of society where the 
 comfortable seems likely to take the place of the 
 beautiful, and where material civilisation (to use 
 the French expression) threatens to overpower 
 altogether the higher and more refined branches of 
 moral and intellectual cultivation. 
 
 The financial state of this country is most 
 extraordinary : there is absolutely no credit, and 
 very little money : in the state of New York, 
 where, in 1837, 4,000,000/. were in circulation, 
 there are now only 1,200,000/. In this town the 
 value of real property has fallen within five years 
 to less than one half ; tradesmen are paying their 
 c 2 
 
28 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter n. 
 
 workmen in produce for want of a currency ; and 
 on the public works in the state, the contractor is 
 distributing bonds redeemable three years hence, 
 which he gives in fractions, so that the men may 
 pay them at the stores for goods. If a merchant 
 wants raw produce from a farmer, or a retail shop- 
 keeper from a merchant, they must bring their 
 money in their hands. Paper is rapidly becoming 
 scarce, for the banks are afraid to discount ; and 
 the only way in which confidence is likely to be 
 restored is by the influx of specie, which is now 
 proceeding to a great extent ; and thus, in the nine- 
 teenth century, the Americans are returning to 
 the old, expensive, unwieldly, commercial medium, 
 which, in all civilised countries, credit has so exten- 
 sively superseded. In the mean time there is no 
 adequate revenue, and great difficulty is anti- 
 cipated by the federal government in getting the 
 loan taken up, which is to meet the deficiency of 
 the current year. 
 
 On the 26th I went with Mr. P. (an English 
 friend whom I met at New York) to Rockaway, 
 a favourite sea-bathing “ location” for the New 
 Yorkers. It is on the east coast, about twenty 
 miles from the city, and consists simply of a very 
 large hotel upon the beach. We found about one 
 hundred people there, living completely “en fa- 
 mille,” that is, all in the same rooms, keeping the 
 
LETTER IL 
 
 NEW YORK, 
 
 same hours, and even bathing together. The sea 
 is literally the only object of interest externally ; 
 but there are all sorts of gaiety, dancing, singing, 
 &c. going on within. For my part, I was too lazy 
 and oppressed by the heat to profit by Mr. P.’s 
 kind introductions. It is very difficult, and re- 
 quires a peculiar talent, to make acquaintances 
 rapidly, and enter freely into society with people 
 whom one has never seen before, and will pro- 
 bably never see again. An Englishman has great 
 advantages in doing so here from knowing the 
 language, and having a certain affinity in pursuits 
 and habits of thought with the Americans; but 
 how few profit by them! The only plan is to 
 travel alone, and then one is forced into society in 
 self-defence. An agreeable party travelling toge- 
 ther, or even two individuals fond of each other s 
 society, feel naturally disinclined to the trouble of 
 making temporary acquaintances in a strange 
 place ; and so they often travel for months through 
 a country, without presenting a letter of intro- 
 duction, or making any farther acquaintance with 
 the inhabitants than results from a casual proxi- 
 mity in travelling conveyances, or “ table d’hote.” 
 In America such a course is peculiarly unfa- 
 vourable to a fair estimate of the best aspect of 
 the national character. Here every body travels ; 
 and every body, except the labouring class, dresses 
 C 3 
 
30 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter n. 
 
 alike. A foreigner makes acquaintance (we w'ill 
 suppose in a steam-boat or railroad-car) with a 
 person who has, in all respects, the same ex- 
 ternal pretensions as those of his own class in 
 life ; he enters into conversation with him ; 
 finds him, perhaps, impertinent, prejudiced, con- 
 ceited, and ignorant of the common refinements 
 and courtesies of civilised life ; and after having 
 argued and disputed almost to the verge of a 
 quarrel, goes off and describes his fellow-tra- 
 veller in his journal (probably with a good deal 
 of exaggeration) as a fair specimen of the best 
 American society ; whereas the man was most 
 likely a shopkeeper’s apprentice, in no respect 
 different in point of refinement from a youth of 
 the same class out of St. Paul’s Church Yard. I 
 speak from experience, having often been tempted 
 to do so myself. The best people in America are 
 not accessible without good letters of introduc- 
 tion: when you meet them, as you do, in places of 
 public entertainment, they are silent and reserved. 
 I have often been disappointed by the coldness 
 with which my advances towards acquaintance 
 have been made, where such advances appeared 
 natural and allowable ; but, upon consideration, I 
 have remembered that a different mode of pro- 
 ceeding would, from the very promiscuous nature 
 of the company one meets with, lead to innumer- 
 
LETTER EL 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 31 
 
 able annoyances. On the other hand, I recollect 
 but one instance, in my own experience, (which 
 probably might have been satisfactorily accounted 
 for,) where an introduction met with the slightest 
 inattention or neglect ; on the contrary, in no 
 countiy have I ever met with such a real, cordial 
 desire to make a stranger feel at home, by avoiding 
 any thing like irritating or unpleasant subjects of 
 conversation, and by admitting him at once into 
 the family circle. In travelling , however, I must 
 confess that a foreigner must expect to meet with 
 much that is unpleasant and grating to his feel- 
 ings, and I am the more sorry when he is thereby 
 deterred from extending his acquaintance with the 
 better portion of American society. 
 
32 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER m. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 HOTELS. THE HUDSON. — WASHINGTON IRVING EMI- 
 GRATION. ALBANY. VAN RENNSELAER ESTATE. 
 
 SARATOGA. AMERICANS AND ENGLISH AT WATERING- 
 
 PLACES. MODERN FEMALE COSTUMES. CHURCH AT 
 
 SARATOGA. DUELLING. 
 
 Saratoga, August. 
 
 I left New York on the twenty-ninth, and came 
 up the Hudson in a beautiful steamer, at the rate 
 of fourteen miles an hour, against tide and stream. 
 Travelling is very cheap upon the frequented 
 routes in the northern states, in consequence of 
 the opposition, which starts invariably at the first 
 symptom of an opening. I only paid about 9s. 6</. 
 as my fare from Boston to New York (the dis- 
 tance is about 200 miles), and 6s. from New York 
 to Albany (160 miles). The hotels, too, are ex- 
 tremely cheap, considering the fare and accommo- 
 dation which they afford, unless, indeed, the tra- 
 veller requires the use of private apartments. The 
 highest price which I have heard of in the northern 
 states is two dollars (8s. f><7.), and at many excel- 
 lent hotels it is only 1| dollar per day. This 
 
LETTER m. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 33 
 
 includes board, lodging, and the payment of ser- 
 vants ; and I have never found an objection made 
 to the supply of meals at separate hours, nor an 
 additional charge in consequence, though of course 
 very few people require them, or it would be 
 objected to. The attendance of servants is suffi- 
 cient, and the “ cuisine” in the larger towns as 
 good as is to be met with in any countiy ; indeed, 
 the hotels are almost the only places, I am told, 
 where there is tolerable cookery in America. I 
 can well imagine the disgust of an American, who, 
 after enjoying the usual variety ! of an English 
 bill of fare — the greasy mutton chop and sodden 
 tart — finds a bill of 3s. 6d. brought in, besides 
 “the waiter, if you please, sir.” Regretfully 
 does he dwell in spirit upon the four meals a 
 day of the Astor House, or the Tremont, com- 
 prising every imaginable European and American 
 dish, in unlimited profusion, and the short and 
 itemless bill which follows them. For the com- 
 fort which an Englishman finds in the privacy 
 and solitude of his box in the coffee-room, his 
 muffin and his newspaper, the American cares 
 not. His idea of a luxurious breakfast is the 
 greatest possible variety of eatables, discussed in 
 the shortest possible space of time ; and this national 
 taste he certainly has the means here of gratifying 
 to any extent. Wines are dear (I know not why, 
 c 5 
 
34 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER IIL 
 
 for the duty is low), and very few people, com- 
 paratively speaking, drink them. Those that do, 
 drink madeira and champagne. Peninsular and 
 German wines are hardly ever called for. I have 
 been much surprised at the small quantity that is 
 drunk at dinner. Very often at a table, at which 
 fifty people are sitting, you see only one or two 
 bottles of wine, and no beer. The Americans 
 have not inherited our taste for malt, and water is 
 the universal beverage. Those who drink, do so 
 after dinner at the bar, where there is a perpetual 
 concoction of every kind of euphonious compound, 
 such as mint julep, sherry-cobler, egg-nog, &c. : 
 on the whole, however, in those hotels which I 
 have seen, the temperance in using spirituous 
 liquors is very remarkable ; I am told that it is 
 of recent date, and owing partly to the spread of 
 temperance societies, partly to the pecuniary em- 
 barrassment which prevails, and which necessitates 
 economy. 
 
 I was much and agreeably surprised by the beauty 
 of the Hudson ; I am so much accustomed to the 
 exorbitant terms in which most people (especially 
 Americans) praise their own country, that I made 
 more allowance for exaggeration in their enco- 
 miums than I need have done. There is nothing 
 grand or striking in its scenery, but it is peculiarly 
 soft and pleasing, and as a whole superior, I think, 
 
LETTER m. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 35 
 
 to the Rhine, though not perhaps equal to its best 
 points. During the entire distance of 160 miles, 
 there is not one point of view which can be called 
 ugly or uninteresting. Its chief faults are want of 
 variety and boldness of outline in the heights, and 
 a greater monotony in the scenery, though it is a 
 monotony of beauty, than one would expect in so 
 long a voyage: everywhere you have the same 
 broad, straight, calm river, and the same gently 
 swelling banks, covered with wood, or dotted with 
 white villas and farm-houses. While passing 
 through the Highlands the scenery is bolder, 
 though it never reaches the sublime; and from 
 West Point the view is really beautiful: it com- 
 mands a magnificent reach of the river, covered 
 with craft of all sorts and sizes ; the hills, too, 
 are more precipitous, and the forest which covers 
 them peculiarly dark and deep. 
 
 About twenty-five miles from New York was 
 pointed out to me Washington Irving’s house at 
 Sleepy Hollow, that classic spot which he has 
 immortalised. I looked at it with much interest, 
 for I am a great admirer of Irving. He seems to 
 me to have by far the most poetical mind which 
 America has yet produced, though I am not aware 
 that he has ever written in verse. But if a vivid 
 fancy, a keen sense of beauty, great power in 
 describing nature, and a melody of diction almost 
 C 6 
 
36 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter IIL 
 
 unsurpassed ; if a heart overflowing with the milk 
 of human kindness, and sympathising with all that 
 is old, and heroic, and super- sensual, be indicative 
 of a poetical character, certainly Irving is a poet. 
 With the prosaic, materialistic character of the 
 age, he has nothing in common ; he lives in a 
 world of his own — a world of romance and super- 
 stition, which is quite refreshing to those who are 
 accustomed to the dull, working-day realities of 
 common life. I do not think he is as much ap- 
 preciated in America as he ought to be, though 
 the president lately did himself great credit by 
 sending him to his favourite Spain as minister. I 
 should think, however, that literature and anti- 
 quities would rather throw his diplomatic duties 
 into the shade. 
 
 On board the steamer was an Englishman who 
 irritated me greatly by crying down and depre- 
 ciating England, saying, the sun of her prosperity 
 was set for ever, and that every man who could 
 wind up his affairs there, and scrape together a little 
 capital, was leaving her, like himself, for a more 
 favoured land. Of course he found plenty of his 
 fellow-passengers who applauded him to the echo ; 
 and as for himself, he seemed absolutely to glory 
 in the skill and capital which, he said, were daily 
 departing. Of such Englishmen, England is well 
 rid ; but, contemptible as they are, they do harm. 
 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 37 
 
 and give occasion to her enemies to triumph. It 
 seems to me that the man cannot be justified, who, 
 without absolute necessity, changes his country 
 and his allegiance. Not only does he employ his 
 industry and capital, whatever they may be, in 
 promoting the advancement of a foreign, perhaps 
 hostile, nation ; but he is actually liable, in case 
 of a war, to contribute to the attacks aimed at the 
 very existence of his father-land, and even to 
 fight in the opposite ranks to his countrymen, 
 friends, and relations. And yet how lightly people 
 think of all this, when considering the subject of 
 emigration. Surely the emigrant should refuse to 
 take upon himself the rights and duties of citizen- 
 ship in a foreign country ; he should consider him- 
 self merely as a stranger and a sojourner there, 
 and be ready to renounce his position, whenever it 
 becomes incompatible with his prior obligations : 
 his children, who will grow up free from the ties, 
 duties, and associations which affect their parents, 
 may lawfully become citizens of his adopted 
 country ; but I cannot think that he is justified, 
 under any circumstances, in doing so himself. 
 
 The true moral theory (if I may use the expres- 
 sion) of emigration is perhaps this — when a man, 
 after mature consideration, and due diligence, can 
 find for himself in his own country no work to 
 perform, no place to fill, he is justified in seeking 
 
38 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter m. 
 
 them, if possible, in another; nay, he is bound 
 to do so, for no man has a right to be a drone in 
 the hive — no man has a right, merely because he 
 may happen to have a ready-made competence of 
 worldly goods, to live a useless, aimless life. We 
 have all parts to play, and each in his calling is 
 bound to consider himself (in the words of Jeremy 
 Taylor) “ a minister of Divine Providence, a 
 steward of creation, a servant of the great family of 
 God ; ” and if a man be conscientiously convinced 
 that “ at nature’s board there is no place for him ” 
 at home, he should consider whether he has a bet- 
 ter chance in a less crowded society, and should 
 act accordingly. Under such circumstances we 
 fortunately need have no scruples or difficulties to 
 contend with. If we are at a loss for a field for 
 our labour, we have only to remove from one part 
 of the empire to another: in every quarter of 
 the world we shall find British subjects and 
 British institutions, and may still consider our- 
 selves at home. Still, how much there is of 
 natural and amiable feeling, of old associations, 
 of early habits, of attachment to the place of our 
 birth, and the scenes among which our happiest 
 years have been passed, which sensitive minds 
 must overcome before they can reconcile them- 
 selves to so complete a change as is involved in 
 the removal even from the mother countiy to a 
 
LETTER ni. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 39 
 
 colony. The motives must be very cogent which 
 should induce a man to do violence to such feel- 
 ings ; and I always felt my heart warm towards 
 those of my own countrymen (and they were many), 
 who expressed themselves as looking back, in the 
 midst of the comparative plenty and prosperity 
 which they enjoyed in America, with regret and 
 affection upon Ireland, and as expecting never to 
 be so happy again as before they left it. 
 
 Nothing has contributed more powerfully to 
 lower the standard of colonial character, and dimi- 
 nish the estimation in which colonial society is 
 held in comparison with that of old countries, than 
 the sordid motives which alone have influenced the 
 great majority of settlers. How small a number 
 has a philosophical desire of extended usefulness, 
 or even a manly consciousness of unemployed 
 energy and impatience of inaction, driven to swell 
 the tide of emigration ! Generally speaking, the 
 only object of colonists has been gain; and the 
 necessary consequence was to impart a low, ma- 
 terialistic tone to the community which they 
 formed. I am far from wishing to inculpate the 
 desire and effort to provide adequately for phy- 
 sical wants, but unless they be kept in subordina- 
 tion to higher aims, they are most pernicious in 
 their effects upon character; and in considering 
 the vices and failings which strike us as most pro- 
 
40 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter m. 
 
 minent in comparatively new countries, we should 
 recollect the hereditary influence transmitted by 
 the class of men who have formed the majority of 
 the first settlers, and which their descendants find 
 it for generations difficult to resist, particularly 
 as the nature of their situation generally tends to 
 perpetuate the money-getting habits which they 
 inherit, and which cannot but blunt in most in- 
 stances the finer feelings of the mind and heart. 
 
 Albany is a large straggling town, built upon a 
 very steep hill, overlooking the Hudson ; it is the 
 capital of the state of New York, and consequently 
 the seat of the law courts and representative 
 assembly. I heard a good deal of German talked 
 in the streets, and saw German inscriptions over 
 the shop-doors. There has been a large German 
 emigration this year, and they make very good 
 settlers, most of them having money, and being 
 besides moral, sober, and industrious, though with- 
 out the energy, activity, and resource which dis- 
 tinguish the Anglo-American race. The neigh- 
 bourhood of Albany has lately been the scene of 
 transactions of a singular nature, arising out of 
 circumstances connected with the tenure of land 
 on General Yan Rennselaer’s estate. When New 
 Amsterdam (now New York) was surrendered to 
 the English, one of the conditions of capitulation 
 was, that such of the Dutch colonists as chose to 
 
LETTER in. 
 
 SABATOGA. 
 
 41 
 
 t 
 
 remain should preserve tlieir estates, and that the 
 same law of inheritance to which they were at the 
 time subjected should continue to regulate them. 
 On several of these estates perpetual entails had 
 been created, and these continued consequently in 
 the same families till the Revolution, when a law 
 was passed providing that such entails should sub- 
 sist for three generations longer, after which the 
 same law of inheritance which was established in 
 the other revolted colonies should take effect upon 
 them. There are, I think, three subsisting, of 
 which General Van Rennselaer’s is the largest: it 
 embraces a great extent of valuable land, and has 
 been for some time parcelled out into farms, for 
 which rent was paid in produce, and certain ser- 
 vices, I believe, were also due. For a long time 
 these rents and services had been irregularly ren- 
 dered ; and about two years ago, upon a demand 
 being made for the payment of arrears, a general 
 resistance was opposed to it, upon the ground, 
 simply, that the tenants had paid long enough, 
 and that it was quite time that their occupancy 
 should be converted into possession. This move- 
 ment produced great excitement; the militia of 
 the state was called out, and a series of operations 
 commenced against the recusants, which goes now 
 by the name of the Helderberg war. The result 
 was, that after a nominal submission on the part 
 
42 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER m. 
 
 of the latter, they virtually succeeded in gaining 
 their point, and were universally permitted to 
 compound the matter, and purchase indemnity 
 against all present and future claims at a very 
 moderate price. 
 
 From Albany I proceeded by railroad to Sara- 
 toga, passing through an uninteresting country. 
 The principal timber is pine, of small and stunted 
 growth; the crops Indian com and oats. It is 
 long before an English eye becomes reconciled 
 to the lightness of the crops and the careless 
 farming (as we should call it) which is apparent. 
 One forgets that where land is so plentiful and 
 labour so dear, as it is here, a totally different 
 principle must be pursued to that which prevails 
 in populous countries, and that the consequence 
 will of course be a want of tidiness, as it were, 
 and finish about every thing which requires labour. 
 Here, too, a large proportion of the land is 
 dotted with stumps, which require an immense 
 time to rot out (some kinds of wood thirty or 
 forty years), and which impart a wild uncivilised 
 look to the fields. Saratoga, as every one knows, 
 is the Cheltenham or Baden of America: it is 
 now the height of the season ; and though they say 
 it is not so full as usual, in consequence of the 
 commercial distress and scarcity of money, it is 
 very unpleasantly crowded nevertheless. I am in 
 
LETTER m. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 43 
 
 a little room, of about the size and temperature of 
 an ordinary oven, in a lodging-house appendant 
 to the Congress Hall Hotel. I cannot say that I 
 enjoy Saratoga. Watering-places at all times and 
 every where are ennuy ant enough ; but this, I 
 think, beats in stupidity most that I have seen. 
 The fact is, that neither the Americans nor the 
 English are fitted for a watering-place life. They 
 are too fond of politics, of business, of excitement, 
 and soon weary of the simple routine which a 
 watering-place affords of vie en plein air — early 
 hours and gossipping familiarity — and which the 
 easy, sociable habits and manners of the con- 
 tinental nations, particularly the Germans, qualify 
 them to enjoy so thoroughly. I never saw an 
 Englishman at a foreign watering-place whose 
 chief resource did not consist in looking out for 
 the English mail, and reading the English papers; 
 and then we are so jealous, so distant, so afraid of 
 foreigners and of each other, that I never can help 
 feeling that an Englishman makes the worst and 
 most ungraceful lounger in the world, except an 
 American. Here we are all making believe to be 
 exceedingly gay, and looking as if we thought it 
 the greatest bore in the world. There is none of the 
 laissez-aller and deshabille , which is the redeeming 
 point about a German bath. One is obliged to 
 dress, with the thermometer at 90°, as though one 
 
44 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter m. 
 
 were in London or Paris (not that I do, but I 
 ouglit), or indeed more so, for I do not think I 
 ever saw so large a proportion of highly-dressed 
 men and women. The Parisian fashions of the day 
 are carried out to their extreme, detestably ugly 
 as they are. Really the modern European (and 
 American) costume gives a woman the appearance 
 of something between a trussed fowl and an hour- 
 glass; her elbows are pinioned to her sides by 
 what are facetiously called shoulder- straps, while 
 she is compressed in the waist, and puffed out 
 above and below it, to such an extent that one 
 expects her to break off in the middle at the slight- 
 est touch. It is perfectly wonderful that people 
 take so much pains to deform and disfigure their 
 natural proportions: they set up a false, because 
 unnatural, standard of beauty, and then attempt 
 to force their figures into a conformity with it. 
 How absurd it is, if we would but think so, to sup- 
 pose that a disproportionately slender waist, or small 
 hand or foot, is a beauty ; nay, that it is not a de- 
 formity, just as one disproportionately large would 
 be ; yet if an average sized woman can reduce by 
 dint of pressure any one of these within the limits 
 which would suit the size of a child six years old, 
 she fancies she has attained the ideal of grace and 
 beauty ; as if there could be beauty without fit- 
 ness and harmony of parts. If she would only 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 45 
 
 imagine how such a figure as she daily makes of 
 herself would look in marble or bronze, she would 
 perceive the manifest distortion of taste which it 
 evinces. I do not know why I have been drawn 
 into this “ tirade ” here, except that when travelling 
 in a foreign country one’s attention is more awake, 
 and one is led to observe things which perhaps 
 daily pass before one’s eyes unnoticed at home. 
 
 One day I attempted to vary the scene by going 
 out to look for woodcocks, but as I could not get 
 dogs — and beaters were of course out of the ques- 
 tion I was, as you may suppose, unsuccessful. 
 Birds, too, are very scarce, for the woodcock- 
 shooting begins in J une (as soon as ever the young 
 birds can fly, in fact), and there is so good a mar- 
 ket for them here that the neighbourhood is soon 
 pretty well cleared. The hunters (as all “ chas- 
 seurs ” are called in this country) are exclusively 
 professional; I have not yet met an American 
 amateur sportsman. 
 
 On Sunday I attended divine service in a small 
 church in the village; it was tolerably full, but 
 not of the higher classes, and I recognised none of 
 the faces which I had seen in the drawing-rooms, 
 though many of those, whose acquaintance I had 
 made there, professed to be “episcopalians.” The 
 bishop of New York preached an excellent ser- 
 mon — simple, well composed, practical, and Catho- 
 
46 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter ni. 
 
 lie in tone, and afterwards confirmed about twenty 
 persons, among whom were some with grey heads, 
 and one coloured girl, who had sat apart during 
 the service. The American liturgy differs but 
 slightly from ours. The most remarkable devia- 
 tions are the omission of the Athanasian Creed, 
 and the permission (which seems quite indefensible) 
 to leave out or not at discretion the words, “ He 
 descended into hell ” in the Apostles’ Creed. I 
 should be much disappointed at the non-attendance 
 of “ fashionables ” at church, if the company here 
 could be considered as at all adequately represent- 
 ing the average state of feeling and practice upon 
 these subjects. This, however, for obvious reasons, 
 is not likely to be the case ; yet, after making 
 every allowance, I cannot but think it is a bad 
 symptom. 
 
 Some noted duellists have been pointed out to 
 me here. There is one gentleman who wears a 
 green shade over his eye, in consequence of a con- 
 tusion which he received the other day from the 
 rebound of a bullet, in practising for an affair of 
 this kind. I had a good deal of conversation with 
 some American gentlemen upon the subject, and 
 heard some stories which astonished me not a little. 
 The American system of duelling is quite different 
 from ours, and far more consistent and rational : 
 they never think of apologies on the ground, or 
 
letter rrr. 
 
 SARATOGA. 
 
 47 
 
 firing in the air, or separating after a harmless in- 
 terchange of shots, which, in England, throw an 
 air of bombastic absurdity over most proceedings 
 of the kind. In America they “ mean business,” 
 not child’s play, when they fight duels, and never 
 separate till one is killed or wounded. The usual 
 plan is to fire at ten paces, and to advance one 
 pace each shot till the desired effect is produced 
 (the newspapers lately gave an account of a duel, 
 where the parties fired six times cadi). The chal- 
 lenged has the choice of weapons; and pistols, 
 muskets, or rifles are usually selected. Not long 
 since a well-known individual, who, I see, figured 
 as second in an affair that took place about a 
 month ago, challenged another man, who had ob- 
 jected to his vote at an election for personation 
 (which of course involved a charge of perjury), to 
 walk arm-in-arm from the top of the Capitol with 
 him. As this was declined, his next proposal was 
 to sit upon a keg of powder together, and apply a 
 match. However, even in this country, these were 
 considered rather strong measures; and through 
 the mediation of pacific friends, it was at length 
 amicably arranged that they should fight with 
 muskets at five paces. Each piece was loaded 
 with three balls, and of course both parties were 
 nearly blown to pieces: the challenger, however, 
 unfortunately recovered, and is now ready for fresh 
 
48 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter iil 
 
 atrocities. Of course such a case as this is rare ; 
 but I think I am right in stating that a bloodless 
 duel is almost unknown. Now there is some sense 
 in this, whatever one may say of its Christianity : 
 a man is injured by another, he wishes to be re- 
 venged upon him, and takes the only method of 
 effecting this which society will allow. In England 
 we superadd absurdity. Our duellist, generally 
 speaking, goes out upon the speculation that there 
 is hardly, without avoiding guilt, any chance of 
 a serious result : he commits what is confessedly 
 and notoriously a breach of every law, divine and 
 human; not at the instigation of overpowering 
 passion, which though of course it cannot excuse 
 the crime any more than it could that of assassin- 
 ation, at least reasonably accounts for its commis- 
 sion ; but at the command of a perverted public 
 opinion which he has not manliness or courage to 
 defy, or for the gratification of a miserable vanity, 
 which aims at obtaining (at a very cheap rate) the 
 reputation of a hero at Liunner s or the Saloon. 
 I think some late transactions have contributed to 
 cast upon the practice some of the ridicule which 
 it deserves : there is, too, a stricter feeling of mo- 
 rality and i*eligion growing up, so that I do not 
 despair of seeing this paltry caricature of a bar- 
 barous custom totally given up. 
 
letter IV. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 JOUBNEV FROM SARATOGA. —INTERESTS COUNTRY— 
 
 AMERICAN STAGES. — RAILROADS. — SCENERY LAKF 
 
 GEORGE. — TICONDEROGA LAKE CHAMPLAIN. — L AST 
 
 WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 PROBABLE MODE OF CARRYING ON NEXT. EFFECTS 
 
 OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS UPON CHANCES OF WAR.— 
 ST. JOHN S. — AMERICAN CUSTOM-HOUSES. — CANADIAN 
 POPULATION. -ARMY IN CANADA. - MONTREAL 
 
 # Montreal. 
 
 The road which I took from Saratoga runs north- 
 
 ward, through a country famous in Transatlantic 
 history and romance; for, as it formed the great 
 pass between French and English America, almost 
 every spot has been the scene of military opera- 
 tions. Glenn’s Falls, Fort William Henry, Lake 
 George, the “bloody pond,”— each has its name 
 duly recorded in the accounts of the Seven Years’ 
 War ; to me, as to most people, it is more familiar 
 as the ground where the best scenes in Cooper’s 
 
 best novel, the “ Last of the Mohicans,” are laid, 
 
 just as at Liege every tourist runs to look for the 
 scenes of Quentin Durward’s adventures, and at 
 El8ineur for the pond where Ophelia drowned 
 VOL. i. D 
 
50 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter iv. 
 
 herself, — and it is even now so little cleared and 
 settled, as to enable one, without any great effort 
 of imagination, to recall the days of Hawk-eye, 
 andUncas, and the Sagamore — of the tomahawk, 
 the rifle, and the birchen canoe. 
 
 The road is execrable, — in fact, nothing but a 
 track in the sand, cut up by the rain (when I 
 travelled on it) into gullies or rather ravines, which 
 it seemed perfectly impossible to fathom with 
 impunity : nothing but the most wonderful dex- 
 terity on the part of the driver, and the steadiness 
 and strength of a team that would have done no 
 dishonour to the Tantivy in the days when Eng- 
 land was a coaching country, could have suc- 
 cessfully brought us through. The Americans 
 certainly understand their own material interests 
 exceedingly well ; and therefore when a foreigner 
 even hints at what he fancies a fault in their 
 management, he must do it with great diffidence ; 
 still I may be allowed to say, that I am surprised 
 at the immense amount of capital which they have 
 invested in railroads, while even in the most settled 
 and civilised parts of the Union, the horse-roads 
 are so bad after wet weather as to be almost 
 impassable.* How can a railroad be productive 
 that is not fed, if I may use the expression, by 
 
 * In this respect Mr. Dickens’s sketches are hardly 
 exaggerated. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 cross-country roads ? As it is at present in Ame- 
 rica, they merely serve as means of conveyance 
 from one large town to another, for there are no 
 omnibuses and private carriages waiting at the 
 intermediate stations, as with us, to carry passen- 
 gers in every direction into the interior (it is 
 actually said, that in England, since the con- 
 struction of railroads, the demand for coach and 
 post-horses has not diminished). Now, consi- 
 dering that it is still doubtful to what extent rail- 
 roads are applicable to the transport of raw produce 
 or heavy goods (generally speaking), and also the 
 extreme difficulty, at present, of getting to the 
 railroads from the adjacent country, I cannot 
 but think, that in many cases common roads 
 would conduce more to commercial movement and 
 exchange ; the canals too, which are now almost 
 forgotten in the complacency with which the 
 effects of the railroad mania are regarded, will per- 
 haps ultimately be found better adapted to the 
 present stage of agricultural and commercial de- 
 velopment. There is something very imposing 
 in the idea of 1300 miles of continuous railroad, 
 such as extends (with the exception of a few 
 steamboat “trajets”) from Portland in Maine to 
 Savannah in Georgia ; and I give the Americans 
 full credit for the energy and enterprise to which 
 the fact bears witness; but the question recurs, 
 
 D 2 
 
 SSHaS 
 
 lisa 
 
52 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iv. 
 
 are they ripe for it ? Have they not gone a-head 
 too fast ? I fear the books of many of the rail- 
 road companies would bear me out in an affirm- 
 ative answer. American railroads have been, in 
 most instances, constructed (notwithstanding the 
 dearness of labour,) at a much lower price than 
 ours; they have never more than a single line of 
 rails : the wood for “ sleepers ” is generally on the 
 spot, and above all there is no compensation to 
 be paid to proprietors whose farms and parks are 
 invaded by the locomotive (their course was 
 straight and unopposed through the forest) ; but 
 still when we consider the immense distances and 
 the scanty population, and above all the want of 
 cross-country ermmunications, I think we can 
 account for the facts, that out of 200,000,000 of 
 dollars which European capitalists have poured 
 into America in the last ten years, only one half is 
 now paying interest, and that, at this moment, the 
 public works of many of the states are put up for 
 sale to the highest bidder. 
 
 The country between Saratoga and Lake George 
 is undulating and covered with forest ; very pretty 
 at first, but after a little time monotonous in the 
 extreme. Tameness is the great fault of American 
 scenery. It is the last thing one expects. A 
 traveller comes from the old world filled with 
 ideas of the sublimity and majesty which the 
 
 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 53 
 
 boundless forests, and vast lakes, and mighty 
 rivers of the American continent must possess 
 and display. Nothing can be more unfounded. In 
 imagination, indeed, he may revel in the thought 
 of the immense solitudes that stretch on all sides 
 around him, and may moralize upon the littleness 
 of man in the presence of his Creator’s works, 
 and the trifling part he plays upon the mighty 
 scene ; but as far as regards the direct effect of 
 landscape upon the eye, all this, of course, does 
 not apply. Vision has but a limited range, and 
 if all within that range be tame and monotonous, 
 it is but a poor consolation to reflect upon the 
 geographical extent of country similarly charac- 
 terized. Now in the northern part of America 
 there are few striking features ; you hardly ever 
 see a bold rugged outline of mountain, or a naked 
 precipitous rock. The hills are generally round 
 and low, and covered with vegetation to the top ; 
 the colouring, too, is monotonous, except for a 
 brief season in autumn : you have not the variety 
 produced either by sterility or by cultivation ; for 
 the purple heather and the cold grey stone of 
 European mountain scenery are wanting (heath, 
 I believe, being absolutely unknown), and so, of 
 course, is the smiling richness of a fully-peopled 
 country. 
 
 The most remarkable exceptions to this general 
 D 3 
 
<34 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iv. 
 
 character are to he found in the White Moun- 
 tains of New Hampshire ; but on the whole I 
 have no doubt (speaking as well from the inform- 
 ation of others, as from what I have seen my- 
 self) that the traveller who expects striking or 
 sublime scenery in this part of America will be 
 much disappointed. On the other hand, he will 
 continually meet with scenes of calm and peaceful 
 beauty, where the deep woods and glassy water 
 suggest ideas of silence and solitude, and of living 
 the life of a hunter or a hermit — “ the world for- 
 getting, by the world forgot.” Such is the cha- 
 racter of Lake George (why would they cock- 
 neyfy its euphonious Indian name of Horican?) 
 and of the woods and hills which surround it ; it 
 is difficult to believe, till one recollects the vastness 
 of the country, that one is in the heart of the 
 wealthy, bustling, early-settled state of New York, 
 so unbroken is the solitude of the forest. Deer 
 are still sometimes, though rarely, seen ; and an 
 occasional bear comes down to feed upon the 
 crops. 
 
 Ticonderoga, which stands at the head of 
 Lake George, is classic ground ; it is situated on 
 a peninsula, commanding the communication with 
 Lake Champlain, and the navigation of the latter. I 
 thought, as I approached it, of the desperate fight- 
 ing which took place here in 1757, and of which 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 55 
 
 I remember reading a graphic account in Stewart’s 
 military history of the Highland regiments. The 
 only point at which the fort could be attacked was 
 defended by a high breastwork, with the open 
 space before it covered by felled oak-trees ; as the 
 leading battalions found these insurmountable, the 
 Highlanders were brought up from the rear, and 
 under a tremendous fire cut their way through the 
 chevaux de frise with their broadswords. It was 
 all to no purpose, however ; when they arrived, 
 after a terrible loss, at the breastwork, it was 
 found impossible to storm it, and the troops were 
 ordered to retreat, an order which the High- 
 landers did not obey till two-thirds of their 
 number were killed or wounded. 
 
 The remains of the fort and lines are still 
 plainly distinguishable, and their area, partially 
 cleared, though not cultivated, forms a good fore- 
 ground to one of the most beautiful views which 
 I have seen in America. There is much more 
 variety of surface and of colouring than usual, for 
 the hills are broken and irregular in outline, and 
 there is a good deal of cleared cultivated ground, 
 which was then yellow with crops, and contrasted 
 richly with the everlasting green of the forest. 
 For my part, I soon tire of the Salvator liosa 
 landscape, of wastes and wilds, of “antres vast 
 and deserts idle,” and long for images of human 
 d 4 
 
56 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 life and happiness. It is delightful to visit cata- 
 racts, and mountains, and forests, and enjoy the 
 strong sensations they give birth to; but to live in, 
 give me one of the agricultural districts of Eng- 
 land, with its parks and manor-houses, cottages 
 and gardens, cattle and cornfields, smiling faces 
 and peaceful homes. 
 
 The steamers on Lake Champlain are pre- 
 eminent among American lake and river boats for 
 regularity, speed, and accommodations, and having 
 thereby succeeded in deterring the opposition 
 which everywhere else keeps down profits to the 
 minimum point, pay better than those of any other 
 company. The one I travelled by on my way to 
 Canada, the Burlington, had a crew of forty- 
 two men, and all her ojierations, such as lowering 
 boats, &c., were conducted with the rapidity and 
 precision of a man-of-war. 
 
 We passed Plattsburgh, the scene of our dis- 
 comfiture under Sir George Prevost in 1813. We 
 certainly managed very badly during the whole of 
 that war ; for with infinitely greater resources than 
 those possessed by the enemy, we were always 
 inferior at the point of action, and before its close 
 the Americans had the entire command of Lakes 
 Erie and Champlain. The fact was, that the 
 imaginations of our people at home were filled 
 with the grandeur and importance of the trans- 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 57 
 
 actions which were going on in Europe, and did not 
 pay sufficient attention to what they only consi- 
 dered a colonial war ; and yet what a difference it 
 would have made to us, if the Americans had eot 
 possession of Canada, as they had fully made up 
 their minds to do, and would have done, but for the 
 courage and loyalty of the Canadians themselves ! 
 That war showed the extreme folly of hosti- 
 lities between England and the United States, and 
 the hopelessness of making any permanent impres- 
 sion, as far as the Northern States are concerned, 
 on each other’s territory. Ths Americans are 
 precluded by their peculiar institutions from organ- 
 izing or keeping in the field a force of any con- 
 siderable amount or efficiency (two of the New- 
 England States refused with impunity to supply 
 their contingent of militia, simply because they 
 did not approve of the war) ; and England is at 
 such a distance from the scene of action, and has 
 such a vast field of operations before her, that her 
 troops can do nothing but make predatory expedi- 
 tions, which are neither creditable nor advanta- 
 geous, without a hope of conquering any district 
 of country. 
 
 The effective plan for injuring the United States 
 would of course be, to land an army of free ne- 
 groes in the south, and proclaim liberty to the 
 slaves ; but the results of such a “ Jacquerie ” as 
 d 5 
 
58 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iv. 
 
 must ensue would be so terrible, in the plunder 
 and violence which the infuriated blacks would 
 commit, that a British statesman would find it 
 difficult to persuade his countrymen of the lawful- 
 ness of such a measure, however clear its policy 
 might be. The probability, however, that in 
 the event of hostilities such a measure would be 
 adopted, has, I see, been taken into consideration 
 by the American authorities, during the course of 
 the late misunderstanding between the countries. 
 The secretary- at-war says, in his report of De- 
 cember 1st, 1841, “ The works intended for 
 the more remote southern portion of our terri- 
 tory particularly require attention. Indications 
 are already made of designs of the worst cha- 
 racter against that region, in the event of hos- 
 tilities from a certain quarter, to which we cannot 
 be insensible.” And the secretary of the navy, 
 in his report of the same year, observes that, “ A 
 war between the United States and any consider- 
 able maritime power would not be conducted at 
 this day as it would have been twenty years ago. 
 The first blow would be struck at us through our 
 institutions. No nation, it is presumed, would 
 expect to be successful over us for any length of 
 time in a fair contest of anus on our own soil, 
 and no wise nation would attempt it. A more pro- 
 mising expedient would be sought in arraying 
 what are supposed to be the hostile elements of 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 59 
 
 our social system against each other. An enemy 
 so disposed, and free to land upon any part of our 
 soil, which might promise success to the enter- 
 prise, would be armed with a fourfold power of 
 annoyance. Of the ultimate result of such incur- 
 sions we need not be afraid, but even in the best event 
 war upon our own soil would be the more expen- 
 sive, the more embarrassing, and the more horrible 
 in its effects, by compelling us at the same time 
 to oppose an enemy in the field, and to guard 
 against attempts to subvert our social system.” 
 The above passage is quoted in a little pamphlet 
 which I have before me, written by Judge Jay of 
 New York (and in an extremely amiable and im- 
 partial spirit) with a view of showing the folly and 
 inexpediency of war in the abstract, the utter in- 
 adequacy of its most successful results to the ex- 
 pense and bloodshed which it entails, and (which 
 is the pith of the question) the possibility of its 
 utter “ abolition.” Ilis comparison of the sacrifices 
 with the results of almost all recent wars is strik- 
 ing and curious ; but when he proceeds to propose 
 as practicable the theory of a tribunal of arbitra- 
 tion for the differences between nations, 1 think 
 he forgets the difficulty of enforcing its decrees. 
 Nations, like individuals, will always be liable to 
 the operation of dishonest motives, and the rogue 
 will never submit to the decree of an arbitrator 
 d 6 
 
^ 0 $, »]!fi 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iy. 
 
 who decides against him, unless the arbitrator is 
 backed by sufficient force to compel him. 
 
 Nor does the apparent tendency towards demo- 
 cratic institutions make it more likely that pru- 
 dence will prevail over passion in international 
 concerns. Popular governments have always been 
 prompt to war, for mobs are governed by impulse, 
 they suffer less directly by the burdens which war 
 imposes, and the irresponsibility of individuals 
 removes the strongest barrier against caution. On 
 the other hand, the progress of commerce, and 
 the increasing power of the trading interest, have 
 a highly pacific tendency, and where predominant 
 will probably prevent any war from being of long 
 duration. Of all countries in the world, England 
 and America are the least likely to continue for a 
 long time at war with each other. The cotton- 
 planters of the south, and the manufacturers of 
 Manchester, the cutlers of Sheffield, and the 
 western farmers have too much need of each 
 other to allow it ; and though I must say I think 
 the sovereign people in America very bellicose, 
 and can well imagine the possibility of their 
 plunging into a war, upon some wholly in- 
 adequate cause, yet I have no doubt that a year 
 of hostilities would bring them to their senses, by 
 the immense depression which all interests would 
 suffer. On England the popular voice would be 
 
 — 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 61 
 
 slower in making itself felt, but equally effectual 
 in the end; the people feeling the burdens and 
 evils of the Avar, and not capable of appreciating 
 the (perhaps) greater evils attendant upon a dis- 
 honourable peace, exercise sufficient influence to 
 turn out any ministry who should persevere, as 
 Pitt did, in refusing to yield to their wishes. A 
 strong government, whether for good or for evil, 
 there is not (though it is by no means impossible 
 that such a one may be ultimately generated out 
 of the anarchical elements which are floating in the 
 political atmosphere), either in England or Ame- 
 rica ; the executive is not now a power external 
 and objective, curbing and directing the people, 
 but more or less directly their representative, in- 
 strument, and echo. If this state of things affords 
 us a security against war, it also has the disadvan- 
 tage of diminishing our moral influence, of impair- 
 ing the efficiency of our diplomatic, as well as our 
 military operations, and of emboldening other 
 countries to make aggressions, from which they 
 would be deterred by the fear of a strong execu- 
 tive. If England is more pacifically inclined than 
 other countries, it is because her policy is prin- 
 cipally controlled by the monied and middle 
 classes, and by those of the upper ranks who are 
 sufficiently enlightened to see the dangers and the 
 evils of Avar : America ought to avoid it as cau- 
 
62 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iv. 
 
 tiously, but would not , because the governing body 
 has not such comprehensive views. I have no doubt 
 that the Americans would have made such a pro- 
 ceeding as McLeod’s trial a casus belli , without 
 a moment’s hesitation. Among the continental 
 governments, on the contrary, where the military 
 class is all-powerful, and where the policy is 
 directed by an irresponsible head, who feels none 
 of the material suffering consequent upon war, 
 there must always be a chance, limited chiefly by 
 the poverty which most of them labour under, of 
 frequent and long-continued wars, because they 
 have comparatively little to lose by them. Demo- 
 cracy and despotism are both warlike, but the 
 former is only calculated for sudden efforts, unless 
 the internal state of the country be such that the 
 material interests of the masses would not be pro- 
 moted by peace : this was the case, perhaps, in 
 France, during the first decade of the French revo- 
 lution, but can very seldom occur. The influence 
 of property constitutes the pacific element of a 
 state ; it is only in so far as popular institutions 
 tend to the creation and diffusion of wealth that 
 they obviate war ; where they are of such a nature 
 as to drown its voice in that of the lowest class, 
 the “ proletaires,” they have a decidedly opposite 
 tendency. 
 
 Associations, as every body knows, are the rage 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 63 
 
 in America; we have seen abolition societies and 
 temperance societies, and now there are “ peace ” 
 societies exceedingly rife in New England, which 
 correspond, I believe, with a convention in Eng- 
 land. I fear till they have succeeded in bringing 
 all countries under the dominion of the Prince of 
 Peace, not only in name, but in truth, we shall 
 have fighting among nations as well as among 
 individuals ; and in the meanwhile these gentlemen 
 are wholly unjustifiable in abusing, as they some- 
 times do, our soldiers and sailors, whom they must 
 admit to be as yet necessary, and who are cer- 
 tainly only doing their duty, and may perfonn it 
 (as they often do) in a perfectly Christian and 
 peaceful spirit. 
 
 With respect to the hostile feeling which is said 
 to exist in America towards England, T think I 
 must confirm the impression, as far as regards the 
 masses of the population, if one may judge from 
 the newspaper press, and the character of the 
 speeches at public meetings ; both of which must, 
 to a great extent, be an index of popular feeling, 
 as well as exercise a powerful influence in directing 
 and fostering it in their turn. The statesmen of 
 America, and the educated and wealthy classes 
 generally, far from participating in this feeling, 
 appear to me to entertain and express more friendly 
 sentiments towards us than our countrymen in 
 
64 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter iv. 
 
 general reciprocate ; but the popular mind, feed- 
 ing as it does upon the absurd and exaggerated 
 accounts of the miserable and enslaved state ot 
 the lower classes in England, and the pride and 
 privileges of her aristocracy, and taught to con- 
 sider her as the unnatural parent, and as the only 
 powerful rival of America, politically and com- 
 mercially, is certainly disposed to detract from 
 her glory, and to exult in her misfortunes. 
 
 Towards the French, on the other hand, there 
 is a much less respectful, but much more friendly 
 disposition ; this is to be accounted for, partly by 
 the grateful recollection retained by America of 
 the services rendered to her by France in effect- 
 ing her independence, and which contrasts strongly 
 with the hereditary antipathy towards England 
 nourished by the perusal of American history, 
 partly also by the more sympathetic and hopeful 
 views expressed by French travellers on the sub- 
 ject of America, but chiefly, I have no doubt, 
 by the absence of causes of collision. The policy 
 of France, and that of America, like two parallel 
 lines, never meet ; they occupy different provinces 
 of action, and never excite any feelings of rivalry 
 or hostility. Again, the tone of society, and the 
 general habits of thought and expression are far 
 more aristocratic, i. e. far more repugnant to those 
 of an American, in England, than in France. I 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 65 
 
 hardly ever heard of an American residing per- 
 manently in England, except for purposes of 
 commerce; while, as every body knows, they 
 occupy a very prominent position in Paris. Paris, 
 not London, is the school of manners, as well as 
 dress, for the travelling Americans of both sexes : 
 its sentiments are imported with its fashions by 
 the young elegans of New York and New Or- 
 leans * ; and though these do not fill an important 
 position in American society, still they are not 
 wholly without influence in leavening the national 
 character. 
 
 It is very important to consider these elements 
 of popular feeling in America, as respects the 
 great European nations, because upon that feeling 
 depends American policy ; we must recollect that 
 whenever the masses raise their voices, so as not 
 to be mistaken, the federal government must obey 
 at once : whatever may be the opinion of states- 
 men, capitalists or judges, it is the popular feeling 
 which must be conciliated, if the American govern- 
 ment is to be our friend ; and believing, as I do, in 
 the importance to both countries of mutual good 
 feeling, I am sorry and angry when I see people 
 
 * I hardly ever saw an American whom I could have 
 mistaken for an Englishman ; whereas I saw hundreds 
 every day, whom, till they spoke, I should have passed by 
 in Paris without observation as Frenchmen. 
 
bb LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter it. 
 
 adding needlessly to the irritation for which there 
 already exist so many natural and inevitable causes, 
 for the sake of giving point to a story, and pro- 
 curing sale for a book 
 
 IVe arrived at St. John’s on the Richelieu, 
 soon after daylight, and had our baggage ex- 
 amined, or rather looked at by some sleepy-looking 
 custom-house officers. We might have smuggled 
 any amount of goods, as far as the capacity of 
 our trunks would allow, without a chance of 
 detection. This was also the case at the Ame- 
 rican custom-house at Boston, and in both in- 
 stances I cannot but think that the courtesy 
 which travellers may reasonably expect is carried 
 to an improper pitch. Nobody can detest more 
 than I do the inquisitorial and vexatious proceed- 
 ings which a traveller has to undergo at the 
 French and Gennan frontiers ; but surely there is 
 a medium between such offensive strictness, and 
 the carelessness of the American and Canadian 
 u douanes.” 
 
 There is a railroad from St. John’s to La 
 Prairie, fifteen miles long, the only one in the 
 province : if in the States they have been in too 
 great a hurry, constructing railroads without 
 ascertaining whether there was business for them 
 to do, in our provinces the contrary principle 
 has been carried to perhaps an equal extreme; 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 67 
 
 not so much, probably, from calculation, as from 
 the circumstance of possessing a smaller command 
 of capital, and of being less actuated by that spirit 
 of reckless and sanguine enterprise, which induces 
 an American to go boldly forward, at any risk, 
 and trust that the general progress which has 
 accomplished such miracles already will bear him 
 
 out 
 
 I found myself in the midst of a mongrel-looking 
 and mongrel-speaking population, who seemed to 
 talk French and English equally well, or rather 
 equally ill, and to exhibit tolerably equal propor- 
 tions of French and English, with a dash of Indian 
 blood. The admixture of aborigines is at once 
 observable when the border is crossed ; one might 
 travel for months through the Atlantic states of 
 the Union without meeting an Indian, except by 
 chance (I think the only one I have seen was 
 a wandering quack-doctor at Saratoga); but in 
 Canada, which is less thickly peopled, they are 
 still comparatively numerous. The French Cana- 
 dians, too, fraternise with them far more than the 
 English race ; indeed the extent of the intercourse 
 which exists is proved by the numbers of the half- 
 breeds, almost all of whom speak French and In- 
 dian promiscuously. These fonn an important 
 part of the population of Lower Canada, and com- 
 prise of course infinite gradations of colour and 
 
68 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER iv. 
 
 feature, from the dark copper hue, high cheek- 
 bones, and underlimbed figure of the full-blooded 
 Huron, to the pure white and muscular proportions 
 of the European race. An Indian is all bust , and 
 tapers gradually downwards, the loins and lower 
 limbs being thin and apparently weak; still his 
 speed and powers of endurance in walking and 
 running are unequalled. The keenest English 
 sportsmen and best pedestrians in the province 
 have acknowledged to me that they could not 
 compete with the Indians or half-breeds. 
 
 At La Prairie, where I staid for a day with the 
 74th, after some very bad races, we had an exhi- 
 bition of Indian ball-play ; a good deal of address 
 and great activity were shown, but of course there 
 was none of that keenness and spirit which are 
 described as characterising these contests in the 
 western prairies : the players came from Caugh- 
 nawauga, an Indian village about nine miles off, 
 and showed comparatively but little red blood. 
 
 I now found myself again among friends and 
 countrymen ; there is a very large force in Canada 
 (including embodied militia about 18,000 men), 
 and mess-hospitality is unbounded ; so that as long 
 as a man continues to travel on the main roads 
 and stop at the large towns he need never dine at 
 his hotel. This is rather fortunate, for the inns 
 in Canada are, it must be confessed, very inferior 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 69 
 
 to those of the towns in the States ; they arc ex- 
 ceedingly cheap, generally only charging one dollar 
 per day for lodging and servants and unlimited 
 meals (I forget how many) ; but they do not shine 
 either in cleanliness or cookery. At La Prairie 
 there are now two regiments, the 74th and the 7th 
 Hussars. I was much struck by the excellence 
 of the cavalry horses; indeed it is universally 
 allowed that the two cavalry regiments now in 
 Canada were never so well mounted before. Most 
 of the horses come from Vermont, the Yorkshire 
 of New England, and the price which is given by 
 the British (125 dollars) is large enough to secure 
 the pick and choice of the whole country ; indeed, 
 the Americans complain that they find it almost 
 impossible to get a good horse now in Vermont, 
 our soldiers having swept the market. The horses 
 are generally large strong bays, showing a good 
 deal of blood, and with high showy action, such as 
 would bring in London for a gig or cab from 
 forty to eighty guineas. The Canadian horse (or 
 punch, as he is called) is of a totally different 
 stamp — short, plain, and cobbish, but extremely 
 hardy and active ; they generally bring from fifty 
 to seventy-five dollars. 
 
 Fioni La I lairie I crossed the St. Lawrence, 
 here about six miles wide, to Montreal. The view 
 of the town from the water is very fine ; behind it 
 
70 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER IV. 
 
 rises the mountain from which it takes its name, 
 partly cultivated, partly covered with wood, and 
 dotted at intervals with cottages and gardens and 
 villas, belonging to the Montreal merchants. Under 
 the mountain is a picturesque old chateau, with 
 court-yard and turrets, reminding one of Nor- 
 mandy. It belongs to the Jesuits, who are, or 
 were, seigneurs of the whole island of Montreal. 
 Both here and in Quebec the roofs of the houses 
 are covered with tin plates, which produce a most 
 dazzling effect on a sunshiny day ; it is only in so 
 dry a climate as this, where you might leave a 
 razor out all night without its showing a spot of 
 rust, that such a plan could be practised. The 
 Roman Catholic cathedral at Montreal is hand- 
 some, as far as regards the exterior ; the interior 
 arrangements are very paltry, from want of funds, 
 probably, rather than of taste, for the architectural 
 design of the whole is extremely good. It is not 
 saying much for this church to call it the finest 
 ecclesiastical building in North America *; but that 
 so poor a people, comparatively speaking, as the 
 French Canadians, should have erected it, is very 
 curious and characteristic. With them churches 
 
 * I do not know, by the bye, whether there may not be 
 handsome churches in the south and west, at New Orleans 
 or St. Louis, where the population was originally Roman 
 Catholic. 
 
letter IV. 
 
 MONTREAL. 
 
 71 
 
 come flrst, milro.de .ftenrarde, wUeh appears 
 us a very paradoxical arrangement. So it is in 
 every par, „f fc Now World where the colonists 
 were Roman Catholic, as at Havana and Lima. 
 The first step taken by the colonists was to build 
 a tort for the necessary purpose of defence, the 
 second to build a church; and far from trusting to 
 the economical principle that the demand shoidd 
 precede and would produce the supply, they built it 
 on a scale quite incommensurate with the appa- 
 rent and actual wants of the inhabitants. We 
 point with exultation to the gratifying results of 
 our own plan, to the moral and religions, as well 
 as political superiority of the “Anglo-Saxon” 
 race ; there may be a question about that (it de- 
 pends upon our definition of morality and religion): 
 
 u a nutting that it is so, that superiority is attri- 
 butable to other things besides the fact that they 
 made the church they** object, and we the last; 
 
 7 V u er be our dlff erences, we should take a lesson 
 ii om them in this respect . 
 
 * 
 
72 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 STEA3I-B0AT ON THE ST. LAWRENCE BANKS OF THE 
 
 R IV EB QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. CONDITION OF 
 
 THE “ HABITANS.” CAUSES OF THE LATE REBELLION. 
 
 POLITICAL VIEWS OF THE FRENCH PARTY. SEIG- 
 
 NORIAL TENURES. MANNERS OF THE PEOPLE. FIELD- 
 
 SPORTS OF LOWER CANADA. 
 
 Quebec. 
 
 From Montreal I took the steamer for Quebec, 
 and I must confess that to a novice the voyage, as 
 at present conducted, is somewhat a nervous one. 
 Two steamers start at the same moment, and race, 
 literally neck and neck, the whole way. The 
 pace is, as you may suppose, tremendous ; one day 
 this year the Montreal, a new boat, has run the 
 180 miles to Quebec in nine hours and seven mi- 
 nutes, including stoppages; and up stream they 
 do it constantly in twelve hours.* The fires are 
 
 * This steamer, I may observe, burns English coal, 
 which may be had very cheap at Quebec ; it is brought as 
 ballast by ships returning from England, as they often do, 
 with a short cargo, or none. As yet, I believe, no coal- 
 field has been discovered in the province, but it is to be 
 hoped, that, when its geological formation shall be examined 
 and explored more minutely than has hitherto been the 
 case, this deficiency may be supplied. Coal is almost the 
 only element of wealth which Canada does not already 
 possess. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 73 
 
 kept up so fiercely that a continual rush of sparks 
 and burning cinders issues from the chimneys, pro- 
 ducing a singular and picturesque effect during 
 the night, and falling so thick upon the after-part 
 of the boats that it is wonderful they do not catch 
 fire oftener than is the case. The rival wharfs 
 where the boats stop to “ wood,” and which lie 
 close together, present a most busy and animated 
 scene during the ten minutes which it requires to 
 fill the holds and pile the decks, and then another 
 struggle takes place for the lead at starting. I 
 was in the oldest and worst boat on the line, and 
 found the accommodations miserably small and 
 dirty : but the new steamers are apparently quite 
 equal to those on the Hudson and Lake Champ- 
 lain, in every respect except cleanliness ; the mul- 
 titude of emigrants of the lowest class who travel 
 by them, fresh (?) from a long sea voyage, puts 
 that out of the question. The fare for a cabin 
 passage is only two dollars, and this includes one, 
 sometimes, in the case of a long passage, two 
 meals ; so that, as you get a night’s lodging, it is 
 hardly more expensive to travel these 180 miles 
 than to remain at your hotel. The deck passage 
 is only one shilling ! All this cheapness and rapidity 
 of communication is Lord Sydenham’s doing : when 
 he came out, one company had the monopoly of 
 the St. Lawrence steam navigation, charged any 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 price they pleased, and spent sometimes from 
 twenty-four to thirty-six hours en route . Lord 
 Sydenham proposed to them a reduction of time 
 and charge, and upon their refusal offered the 
 mail and the government patronage to another 
 company, to induce an opposition : the conse- 
 quence is the unexampled benefit to the public 
 which I have stated. Whatever may be the opi- 
 nion entertained of Lord Sydenham’s policy, all 
 parties agree in acknowledging his great admi- 
 nistrative talents, and the energy with which he 
 applied them ; the improvement of the provinces 
 received an impulse during his government which 
 could hardly have been conceived to be possible.* 
 
 * It seems to me that a tolerably close parallel, in many 
 respects, might he drawn between the administration of 
 Lord Strafford, in Ireland, and that of Lord Sydenham, in 
 Canada. Both the characters of the men, and the circum- 
 stances in which they were placed, present much similarity. 
 Each had to mediate between, and to mould to his pur- 
 poses a minority, bold, self-relying, and democratically 
 inclined, with a majority infinitely more manageable, 
 though by circumstances estranged ; each succeeded, by a 
 strong hand and a determined will, in carrying with ap- 
 parent unanimity measures which were at first distasteful 
 to both parties ; each was inflexible in purpose, and un- 
 scrupulous in the means which he employed for its accom- 
 plishment ; each united, in different proportions, enlarged 
 and comprehensive views of general politics, with minute 
 attention to, and knowledge of, commercial details. 
 If Lord Strafford had been in Canada, he would have 
 organised a system of internal communications ; if Lord 
 Sydenham had been in Ireland, he would have created the 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 75 
 
 Nothing can exceed the beauty of Quebec and 
 its environs ; till within ten miles of the town the 
 banks of the St. Lawrence are tame and low, but 
 the eye, accustomed to a wild, forest country, is 
 refreshed by the appearance of old civilisation 
 which meets it. I know of no parallel to the very 
 peculiar aspect of this country : along the banks 
 of the river, throughout the w^hole distance (180 
 miles), the houses form almost a continuous street, 
 from which the farms run backwards in long nar- 
 row strips, divided by zig-zag fences of unhewn 
 logs, about 300 yards in width, and from one to 
 four miles in length, marking the form of the first 
 concessions made to the censitaires, or occupiers, 
 by the seigneurs. Cultivation does not extend 
 above ten or twelve miles to the northward, where 
 it is bounded by the original forest, and you may 
 walk straight to the North Pole without meeting 
 with a human habitation, except an occasional 
 shanty, occupied by Indians hunting for the Ilud- 
 
 linen trade ; the former would have intimidated the Cana- 
 dian constituencies, the latter would have punished the 
 Connaught juries. One great and important difference 
 there is; the devotion to the interests of religion and the 
 church, which imparts on the whole such an elevating and 
 sanctifying tone to the character of Strafford (however 
 inconsistently he may on some occasions have acted), seems 
 to have had no influence upon Lord Sydenham’s public 
 career ; and this alone would be sufficient to establish the 
 commanding superiority of the older statesman. 
 
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76 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter y. 
 
 son’s Bay Company. As you approach Quebec, 
 the banks become bolder, more precipitous, and 
 varied with wood and rock ; and immediately 
 round the town the scenery is certainly magnifi- 
 cent, I hardly know its equal : rocks, woods, cul- 
 tivated fields, smiling villages, the broad blue river 
 covered with shipping, the steep picturesque town, 
 with its castled rock towering and frowning above 
 all, and towards the north an amphitheatre of 
 wood-covered hills forming the extreme boundary 
 of civilisation, complete a picture to which I have 
 seen nothing on this side of the Atlantic which 
 can for a moment be compared. The town is not 
 unlike the old part of Edinburgh, and though 
 architecturally detestable, is interesting on account 
 of the associations connected with it and its foreign 
 character, for it is as completely French as Rouen. 
 
 The neighbourhood presents a thousand objects 
 of picturesque and historical interest, each drive is 
 prettier than the last, and I felt quite sorry at 
 being obliged to allow myself so little time there. 
 The Heights of Abraham and Wolfe’s Cove, the 
 Lake St. Charles, a very beautiful piece of water 
 at the foot of the hills to the north, the Indian 
 village of Lorette, the falls of Montmorency, and 
 La Chaudiere — in short, all the lions chronicled in 
 the guide-books, have I duly perambulated, with- 
 out any drawback to my enjoyment except the 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 77 
 
 badness of the roads and the roughness of my 
 means of conveyance : a Quebec char-a-banc and a 
 Quebec road suit each other and nothing else. 
 In no part of the world have I seen a more beau- 
 tiful country, or a more happily-circumstanced pea- 
 santry ; they have no taxes whatever to pay, they 
 enjoy the free and undisturbed exercise of their 
 faith, and bear the support of their own clergy 
 only ; each man is the independent proprietor of 
 his own farm ; poverty and distress, in our sense 
 of the words, are unknown ; for if on any farm 
 there are too many hands for its cultivation, they 
 have only to occupy fresh land, which can be pro- 
 cured at a nominal price, or to go into the States, 
 or the Upper Province, during the harvest, where 
 an industrious man can earn a dollar a day at that 
 season ; (and the means of transport, as you have 
 seen, are unrivalled in rapidity and cheapness ;) in 
 short, in the utter absence of all real and one 
 would have thought imaginary grievances, it is at 
 first sight quite inexplicable that they could have 
 been induced to revolt, or indeed to wish for any 
 change whatever. It is a most remarkable ex- 
 ception to the rule that generally holds good; 
 namely, that the masses cannot be stirred into in- 
 surrection unless they labour under the pressure 
 of some great practical grievance, fancied or real, 
 which they hope to remove by revolt. I have 
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 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter V. 
 
 put the question, What did the “ habitans” want ? 
 to a hundred people, French and English, and 
 never could obtain a satisfactory answer. They 
 all said “ No one knows ; it was neither more nor 
 less than madness.” 
 
 The fact is, that a few intriguing lawyers and 
 political agitators, irritated by the growing ascen- 
 dency of the English race, and by not possessing 
 what they considered a due share of political in- 
 fluence and executive patronage, went about preach- 
 ing sedition among these simple “ habitans,” and 
 disseminating the wildest theories about their be- 
 coming “ une grande nation Canadienne,” in which 
 case gold woidd flow in upon them, and every 
 thing go well : one village revolted, because they 
 wanted to get rid of a toll-gate; another because 
 the seigneur’s mill was too far from them, and 
 so on. By working upon these grievances the 
 leaders encouraged disaffection to the government, 
 and thus kept up their own political power : they 
 did not, I believe, generally intend that an open 
 insurrection should take place, for they must have 
 known its hopelessness, but they had raised a 
 spirit which they could not lay; and when the 
 hour of danger came, most of them deserted the 
 followers whom they had misled. The movement 
 was abetted by a few republicans of English 
 race, but the general feeling was anything but 
 radical or American, and originated entirely in 
 
LETTER V* 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 79 
 
 jealousy of the English, absurd ignorance on the 
 part of the people, and ambition on that of their 
 leaders. They are bitterly sony for their folly 
 now ; but of course the burnings and executions 
 which took place during the rebellion, have not 
 tended to allay the bad feeling which existed 
 between French and English, and between the 
 people and the government, so that at this moment, 
 probably, the animosity of race is almost as bitter 
 as it is described to be by Lord Durham. He 
 satisfactorily proves his case, as far as regards the 
 utter separation of the races since the troubles 
 began; his mistake is in supposing that it has 
 always existed, and must be irreconcileable. 
 
 The main root of all the difficulties that have 
 occurred in Canada of late years, lies in the mis- 
 take made by Mr. Pitt, when he gave the Cana- 
 dians a representative constitution in 1791. Of 
 all people in the world they were the most un- 
 fitted for, and the least desirous of it; they 
 were unenterprising, contented, ignorant ; they 
 were accustomed to the unquestioned authority of 
 a governor sent from home, and possessed none of 
 those local and municipal institutions, which to an 
 Englishman and an American serve as training 
 schools for political business ; they were, in short, 
 the best subjects that could be desired for a 
 monarchy, and the worst possible citizens for a 
 E 4 
 
80 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 democratic commonwealth. Lord Durham himself 
 does them the justice to confess, that they are 
 “mild, kindly, frugal, industrious, and honest, 
 very sociable, cheerful; and hospitable, and dis- 
 tinguished for a courtesy and real politeness, which 
 pervades every class of society.” He goes on, 
 indeed, to speak of the “freedom and civilisation” 
 to which they would have been “elevated” by 
 popular institutions ; — by “ freedom,” meaning 
 “ political power ; ” and by “ civilisation,” the pro 
 gress of material prosperity ; — but surely it may 
 well be questioned, whether these are not too 
 dearly purchased, if at the price of the milder and 
 more Christian virtues, of the character which he 
 has described. It was decided, however, that they 
 should not be happy in their own way ; that they 
 should enjoy the dignity of self-government, at 
 least in theory and in name. Now the peculiar 
 infirmity of the character of the French Canadians 
 is one intimately connected with its best and most 
 amiable points, namely, a contented ignorance and 
 consequent inclination to rely too implicitly upon 
 those in whom nature or circumstances have in- 
 duced them to place confidence : this, no doubt, 
 was expected to disappear under the “ elevating ” 
 influence of a representative constitution ; but un- 
 fortunately no such result has taken place: the 
 Canadians have ceased, indeed, to be the peace- 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 81 
 
 able and loyal subjects of a mild and strong cen- 
 tralised government, but it has been in order to 
 become the blind though effective tools of poli- 
 tical agitators. They did not become so at once 
 or speedily ; it was long before they were taught 
 to use the weapons with which they had been 
 armed: they long returned English representa- 
 tives to the Assembly, and continued careless of 
 political matters, and undisturbed in their loyalty 
 and affections to the British crown. In 1813, 
 they saved the province by their military exer- 
 tions, nor till within the last twenty years has any 
 thing like a systematic opposition to government 
 appeared among them. 
 
 From whence then did this opposition arise? 
 It appears to me that it was the natural conse- 
 quence of the course of policy pursued by Great 
 Britain after the concession of the “ constitution. 
 The Canadian constitution was to have the form 
 and similitude of the British; but the most im- 
 portant element of the original was to be left out. 
 Great political power was given to them : but 
 hey were forbidden to use it in the manner 
 which had come to be considered every where 
 as natural and just; namely, as the means of 
 acquiring for themselves control over the ex- 
 ecutive administration of public affairs. It is out 
 of the question, in the nineteenth century in 
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82 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 the midst of a growing democratic feeling, and 
 with the working of the British and American 
 constitutions before men’s eyes, to maintain a re- 
 presentative legislative assembly, without what is 
 called “responsible government.” It is of no 
 avail to draw a distinction between a colony and 
 an independent state: the imperial authority is 
 represented in the province by the governor ; and 
 his veto upon measures which would compromise 
 imperial interests, backed as it is by the military 
 power of the mother country, is sufficient to secure 
 the dependence and subordination of the colony : 
 the “ responsibility” of which I speak is that which 
 the heads of departments employed exclusively in 
 colonial matters should be under to the colonial 
 parliament. Till a colony is fitted for exercising 
 this power, it is not fit for a representative consti- 
 tution ; the former is now the necessary corollary 
 of the latter. Without harmonious co-operation 
 between the makers and administrators of the law, 
 no government can work well. I fully admit the 
 advantage of checks and precautions, lest the 
 popular cry of the moment may prevail to effect 
 ill-considered and unnecessary changes; I speak 
 of the permanent and habitual relations which 
 ought to exist. Reason would make one expect 
 this ; experience has proved it, and in no case more 
 completely than in the history of Lower Canada. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 83 
 
 The leaders of the French party, commanding 
 a permanent majority in the Assembly, and de- 
 barred at the same time from participation in the 
 official patronage, and from a control over the ad- 
 ministrative policy of the state, threw themselves 
 into a system of determined hostility towards a 
 government with which they were not allowed to 
 have sympatliies and interests in common, and used 
 the power which had unwisely and inconsistently 
 been put into their hands, so as to bring the affairs 
 of the province to a “ dead lock.” 
 
 It is really difficult to see how we should have 
 extricated ourselves from the embarrassments of 
 such a situation, had it not been for the suicidal in- 
 surrection which took place, and which gave to the 
 British government a good excuse for altering the 
 constitution altogether, and providing, by the 
 union of the provinces, for a gradual establish- 
 ment of British predominance in the whole. At 
 the same tune responsible government has been 
 conceded ; and though for some time its operation 
 may be inconvenient, from the animosity and dis- 
 affection which the rebellion has left behind it, 
 and the power which is still possessed by those 
 whom such feelings actuate, still I have no doubt 
 that both these sources of trouble will pass away 
 under the operation of natural causes, and that the 
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84 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 majority of the Assembly will* at no distant tune, 
 be “ British,” both in race and sentiment.* 
 
 Though I am disposed to deny the existence of 
 any “ deep-rooted, irreconcileable animosity” to 
 England among the French population generally, 
 there can be no doubt that causes, other than poli- 
 tical, have long had a tendency to produce a 
 jealousy and uneasiness with respect to British 
 influence, and consequently to predispose them, in 
 some decree, to listen to the evil counsels of dema- 
 gogues. In the first place, their priests, who 
 have (as is natural among a simple, religious 
 people) great influence over them, have a direct 
 and positive interest in opposing the increase and 
 advance of the British population. In defiance of 
 every principle which we have been maintaining 
 at home (as well as of the essential idea of a reli- 
 gious endowment), the payment of tithes with 
 which we found the land burdened, and of which 
 we guaranteed the assured possession, as of right, 
 has been made dependent upon the religion of the 
 
 * I made the acquaintance at Quebec of some of the 
 most eminent among the leaders of the French Canadian 
 party (an advantage seldom enjoyed by English travellers), 
 and as I afterwards associated largely both with members 
 of what is called the British party in Lower Canada, and 
 with the Tories of the Upper Province, I cannot at any 
 rate accuse myself of coming to a conclusion upon exparte 
 evidence. I conversed freely and unreservedly with all, 
 and endeavoured to elicit the truth from a comparison of 
 the opposing arguments. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 85 
 
 occupier; L c. a Roman Catholic may be com- 
 pelled by law to pay : but if he becomes a Pro- 
 testant, or a Mahometan, or an Atheist, he escapes 
 payment, though he bought his land subject to 
 the burden, and paid so much less in consequence. 
 The same result of course takes place if a Roman 
 Catholic sells to a Protestant, &c., so that there is 
 a direct premium upon such a conversion or sale, 
 and the priests are proportionably losers by it. I 
 will not enlarge upon the unjust and disorganizing 
 tendency of the principle involved in tliis system, 
 and the enormous inconsistency which it presents 
 with our European practice ; I am now only con- 
 cerned in pointing out the effect which it must 
 have in producing an anti-British spirit among the 
 clergy. They have always, it is true, been con- 
 sidered loyal to British connection , indeed it is 
 still very much their interest to be so, for if 
 Canada were to become incorporated with the 
 United States, they well know what the result 
 would be with respect to tithes ; but it is impos- 
 sible for them not to look with an evil eye upon 
 the growing preponderance of the British race 
 in the province. Their religious feelings, as well 
 as their temporal interests, forbid it, and induce 
 them to exert all their influence in preserving the 
 exclusively Freucli character of the country. It 
 is difficult to reconcile the statements of the great 
 
 i 
 
86 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 influence and unsullied loyalty of the clergy, with 
 the universal disaffection of their flocks; and I 
 can only account for it on the supposition that 
 that influence was neutralized to a great extent 
 by the inconsistent nature of the interests which it 
 was exerted to support: the anti-English spirit 
 which they had cultivated, was too strong for the 
 loyalty to Great Britain which they would have 
 wished to accompany it; and the people were 
 found to listen more willingly to those who di- 
 rected their attacks against the British govern- 
 ment as well as the English race, than to their 
 spiritual advisers. 
 
 Another source of disaffection was the fear of 
 interference on the part of the government with 
 their laws and customs respecting tenure ; these 
 are, as you know, peculiar, and of a feudal nature. 
 Grants were originally made by the crown of large 
 tracts of land on the banks of the rivers, called 
 seigneuries, on condition that the seigneurs shoidd 
 regrant them in subdivisions to any body who 
 would emrao’e to clear and cultivate them. The 
 rent which the seigneur is allowed to demand for 
 these “ concessions ” is very moderate, sometimes 
 almost nominal, and the principal part of his 
 income consists in a duty called lods et ventes, 
 of one thirteenth of the purchase-money upon 
 every transfer by sale (not by devise or de- 
 
LETTER v. QUEBEC. 87 
 
 scent) of pi’operty within his seigneurie : this, of 
 course, operates to a certain extent as a dis- 
 couragement to the investment of capital in im- 
 proving land, as the toll which the seigneur is 
 entitled to claim rises in proportion to the rise in 
 its value ; being a tax upon sales, too, it neces- 
 sarily tends to keep land out of the market, and 
 is peculiarly distasteful to the English, as being 
 the aggressive, or purchasing interest. In other 
 respects the occupier is, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, the proprietor of his farm, as the rent can 
 never be raised ; and he may keep it, or dispose of 
 it, as he pleases. The seigneurs were empowered 
 to reserve a certain “domaine” in each seigneurie, 
 in their own hands, generally about half a league 
 square ; the water-powers also belong to them, 
 which occasionally turn out very profitable. On 
 the other hand, the seigneur is bound to make 
 roads, and build mills at prescribed distances, at 
 which his tenants are bound to grind their corn. 
 Upon the sale of a seigneurie, one fifth of the 
 purchase-money goes to the crown as seigneur 
 suzerain ; and to preserve this source of revenue, 
 it is forbidden by law to dismember them, by 
 compounding with the tenants for rents and in- 
 cumbrances. The old seignorial families have 
 almost all gone to decay ; and but for the tax 
 upon sales, I suppose nearly all the seigneuries 
 
 I 
 
88 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 would, ere now, have passed into the hands of 
 merchants and capitalists. A commission is sitting 
 in order to report upon the expediency of re- 
 moving that tax, and a commutation of all seigno- 
 rial rents and dues is also under discussion; it 
 has already taken place in the island of Montreal, 
 by special enactment, and the English population 
 are very anxious to have it made compulsory 
 every where. The Canadians, on the contrary, 
 wish tilings to remain as they are ; and I confess I 
 cannot see the justice or expediency of irritating 
 them by cramming reform down their throats. 
 The whole system, though certainly inconsistent 
 with the strict principles of political economy, and 
 consequently pro tanto unfavourable to material 
 progress, is not, by any means, really burden- 
 some : the occupiers are far more independent of 
 their landlords than is the case in any European 
 country ; and it is only the neighbourhood of the 
 United States and Upper Canada, where the 
 tenant is ahnost always owner in fee simple, 
 which makes the English colonists discontented 
 with the tenure which they found, bought the land 
 subject to, and voluntarily submitted to hold by. 
 It is quite right to afford facilities for commuting, 
 when both parties wish it ; but I greatly dislike 
 the fashion which prevails of disregarding habits, 
 and feelings, and vested rights, in the pursuit of 
 
LETTER V. QUEBEC. 89 
 
 what is called “ the good of the whole,” that is, 
 generally speaking, the increased wealth of a noisy 
 minority. 
 
 I confess I have a strong sympathy for the 
 French Canadians; they are “ si bons enfans.” I 
 remember canvassing at Boston with an American 
 gentleman the expression used with regard to 
 French Canada, by a late English traveller, that 
 it was “a province of Old France, without its 
 brilliancy or its vices.” My friend’s remark was, 
 “ What remains after so large a subtraction ? ” 
 But I thought, and still think, the expression 
 graphic and just. There remains a “fonds”of 
 contentment, gaiete de cceur , politeness springing 
 from benevolence of heart, respect to their supe- 
 riors, confidence in their friends, attachment to 
 their religion — a character, in short, resembling 
 what Madame de Larochejaquelein describes as 
 existing among that part of the French popu- 
 lation which had not been poisoned by the age of 
 Louis the Fifteenth and the Revolution. If the 
 Americans get hold of them, however, they will 
 soon, to use an expressive phrase of their own, 
 “ improve them off the face of the earth,” for they 
 look upon them simply as obstacles to the ne- 
 cessary march of the times. Improvement, no 
 doubt, in agriculture, road-making, commercial en- 
 terprise, and “ economical ” progress of all kinds. 
 
90 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter v. 
 
 they are much in want of; but there are ten- 
 dencies in modern society to many things so much 
 worse than bad roads and bad farming, that it 
 would not, by any means, grieve me to see them 
 remain as they are. The shortest and surest way 
 to spoil them, was to give them political power, 
 throw them into the hands of demagogues, and 
 then force those demagogues into opposition and 
 disaffection. Hicfons et origo malorum est. 
 
 Quebec is full of guardsmen, most of whom are 
 very anxious to get out of the country, of which 
 they are heartily tired. At first, I can fancy a sejour 
 here presenting a very agreeable variety, but men 
 accustomed to London can seldom bear to live 
 so long away from it as four years. The field- 
 sports are tolerable; there is pretty good snipe 
 and duck shooting, and on the Saguenay, about 
 seventy miles down the river from Quebec, excel- 
 lent salmon fishing. I have heard of performances 
 there which quite surpass anything to be met 
 with in Norway, as far as regards the number of 
 fish caught, but the average size was not so good. 
 In winter the only sport is moose hunting ; and 
 last year these animals were so numerous, and the 
 state of the snow so favourable for running them 
 down, that the officers of one battalion killed, 
 I think, fifty during the season. They describe it 
 as rather tame work; no skill is required, and 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 91 
 
 sometimes very little trouble, for if the snow is 
 soft and deep the moose gets knocked up imme- 
 diately, and you have only to despatch him at your 
 leisure : however, when the snow is hard, he gives 
 a long and exciting run (upon snow shoes too, 
 which are any thing but a pleasant chaussure ), 
 and the hunters have to bivouac very often in the 
 woods. I wonder why the skidor or snow-skates, 
 which are used in Norway and Sweden, have never 
 been introduced here.* I suppose, however, the 
 ground is seldom open enough here for any con- 
 siderable distance to use them with effect. There 
 are also a few of the carriboo (the American 
 name for reindeer) to be met with as far south as 
 Quebec, but they are very difficult to get at. I 
 only heard of one being killed last winter. 
 
 The society at Quebec is not on a pleasant 
 footing for military men quartered there, being 
 divided so strictly into French and English, and 
 the former, who predominate, not mixing nearly 
 so willingly with the latter here as at Montreal. 
 For the sake of the field-sports, however, I think 
 the officers generally prefer it. 
 
 * An experienced performer will run with them on 
 favourable ground at from six to eight miles an hour. 
 There used to be a corps in the Norwegian army practised 
 in the use of the skidor, and taught to go through their 
 evolutions on them. 
 
92 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 
 
 IRISH EMIGRANTS. THEIR LOYALTY. TRADE OF MON- 
 TREAL. LOSS OF THE SHAMROCK. HIGH-PRESSURE 
 
 STEAMBOATS. SCENERY OF THE OTTAWA. ADVAN- 
 TAGES POSSESSED BY ENGLISH CLIMATE. ITS EFFECTS 
 
 ON HEALTH AND BEAUTY. THE MANOR-HOUSE. 
 
 PROSPECTS OF EMIGRANT FARMERS IN LOWER CANADA. 
 VILLAGE CHURCH. — WHEAT CROP. — — THE t( FLY.” 
 
 From Quebec I returned by the steam- boat to 
 Montreal. We had a number of emigrants on 
 board, and all the evening there was wonderful 
 fiddling and dancing of jigs among the Canadian 
 boatmen and the Irish emigrant girls. The former 
 are quite French in their love of festivity : there 
 used, I am told, to be a good deal of drunkenness 
 among them, but almost every individual is now 
 a member of a temperance society, and conse- 
 quently very little drinking goes on. My coun- 
 trywomen, too, seemed nothing daunted by the 
 effects of their sea-voyage, or the thoughts of the 
 change of scene and fortunes which they were 
 undergoing, and the merriment and noise were 
 unbounded. There has been an immense emkrra- 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 
 
 93 
 
 tion this year already, and it is not near over yet: 
 37 , 000 * have been entered at the port of Quebec, 
 besides a large number (which I have heard 
 variously stated at from 5000 to 20 , 000 ) who 
 have come over from the United States, not find- 
 ing employment there in consequence of the dis- 
 continuance of public works, and the general 
 stagnation which prevails. When an emigrant 
 ship anives, those who are in want of servants or 
 labourers go down to the wharf, so that a man is 
 often hired within five minutes of his landing. 
 Generally, however, they refuse to stop in the 
 lower province, very foolishly as it often turns 
 out: but Upper Canada is their Eldorado ; besides, 
 the climate here is so severe that they are afraid 
 of it. There are a good many Irish about Mon- 
 treal and Quebec, but very few go out into the 
 country; indeed there is not the same demand 
 for them here as in the Upper Province and the 
 States, for the French Canadian population form 
 (what is there altogether wanting) a permanent 
 labouring class. The British never look upon 
 
 * The total return at the end of the year was 45,000, 
 which was the greatest increase to the population of the 
 province that ever took place in one year. In 1832 (I 
 think) the number entered at Quebec was 52,000, but at 
 that time the current of transmigration ran into, not out 
 of, the United States, and carried away perhaps a fourth of 
 that number. 
 
94 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter VI. 
 
 service or labour in any other light than as a 
 means of saving sufficient money to buy and 
 stock land with ; so that as they go off, there is a 
 continually recurring demand to be supplied. It 
 is singular that in the late rebellion there were no 
 instances, I believe, of the Irish Homan Catholics 
 joining the insurgent Canadians ; this circum- 
 stance shows that the war possessed nothing of a 
 religious character, but was the result entirely of 
 national or generic influences. 
 
 At Montreal I met D , who has got leave 
 
 of absence for a month, and is going up to the 
 Falls with me. Our present abode is the manor- 
 house of a seigneurie on the banks of the Ottawa, 
 where we have been most kindly and hospitably 
 received by a gentleman to whom w T e had letters 
 of introduction, and who is agent to the pro- 
 prietor. We came by stage to La Chine, to avoid 
 the rapids; there is also a canal, which serves 
 the same purpose for the small steamers which ply 
 on the Rideau, and carry on the principal part of 
 the provision trade between the Upper Province 
 and Montreal ; a trade, of the extent of which I 
 had no idea before. The town itself is rich and 
 flourishing, though at the present moment suffer- 
 ing under a temporary depression, similar to, and 
 partly consequent upon, that which prevails at 
 home. Commercial distress, liow r ever, here as in 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 
 
 95 
 
 the States, exhibits a very different aspect from 
 that which is presented by a similar state of things 
 in Europe. Capitalists fail, and incomes are re- 
 duced perhaps one half; but what we call desti- 
 tution, that is, starvation, is unknown. There is 
 still a sufficient disproportion between the demand 
 for and the supply of labour, to leave a wide 
 margin round the minimum rate of wages, — that 
 namely, which enables the labourer to purchase 
 the necessary articles of subsistence for himself 
 and his family. A traveller would observe no 
 difference in the apparent occupation of the 
 people ; their wages fall, indeed, though not in pro- 
 portion to the fall of profits, but they are still 
 high as compared to our rates, and no individual 
 is ever thrown on the community for support. 
 There are neither beggars nor poor-laws in Canada, 
 and though both must eventually come, I trust 
 that time is yet distant. 
 
 From La Chine we came up the Ottawa or 
 Grand River by steam. Close to the mouth of 
 it we passed the wreck of the Shamrock, a small 
 high-pressure steamer or “ puffer” as they are 
 called here, which blew up some time ago on her 
 passage from Montreal to Kingston. Sixty-three 
 lives were known to be lost; in fact, the boat 
 flew all to pieces, and shattered, besides, two 
 barges which she was towing. Almost all the 
 
96 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vi. 
 
 sufferers were English agricultural emigrants, 
 many of them small capitalists (the class of all 
 others which makes the best colonists), who had 
 all their money with them. Thirty or forty were 
 saved, and the scenes which took place after their 
 landing are described as heart-rending: in one 
 case a family of young children were left orphans 
 and penniless, the father and mother having been 
 killed ; wives had lost their husbands, and parents 
 their children ; in fact, I think there was but one 
 family which escaped without the loss of a mem- 
 ber — they happened to have taken their position 
 all together close to the stem, the only part of the 
 boat which held together, and they only escaped 
 (to use the scriptural phrase), “ with the skin of 
 them teeth;” all their property was lost. This 
 terrible accident has naturally created a great 
 sensation, and produced strong representations to 
 the government as to the expediency of prohibit- 
 ing the use of high-pressure boats, and of checking 
 the reckless emulation which opposition is pro- 
 ducing on the St. Lawrence. For my part, if 
 people with their eyes open like to run the chance 
 of being blown up for the sake of cheapness and 
 speed, I do not see that it is at all the province 
 of government to interfere ; if there were a 
 demand for slower pace and greater care, it would 
 no doubt be supplied ; and it is far better to let 
 
i-etter v,. MANOR-HOUSE, A- 
 
 -L. 
 
 97 
 
 ma,,^ 1 WithV"" i,S 0 ™ intCrcS * ” 
 
 atters. With the em, grants, however, perhaps this 
 1 nc lp le does not apply ; f or , f rom the £ ignor;incc 
 
 'J “ ex P« nence ^ they can hardly be said to be free 
 «„ents and always take the cheapest route, with- 
 
 be taken e to nqUiry X 1<!aSt ° VCry means sh °uld 
 be taken to warn them of the risk they incur 
 
 It is only within the last year or two that hiX 
 
 pressure steamers have been introduced into t 
 
 Canadian waters at all, and they swarm now upon 
 
 ideau, for the canal navigation of which 
 
 they are peculiarly well achnfprl 
 
 o ,, y " cu aUa P ted, on account of 
 
 Ac smaller apace which their 
 
 Z jJT " S “" Chc *P in “esc P^, ao ^ 
 
 not , q ””‘ ity ' Vhich ‘'W consume i, 
 
 ot of so much importance; anil they arc spared 
 
 b.“hT„T'; ,hc “ nd0Mi "c ~ 
 
 both m first cost and subsequent repairs. 
 
 The ornery thc Ottawa i, pretty, th „„ gh 
 
 " by morc or leas steep 
 
 and intricate. It i« p 
 
 at , 18 * ae scei *e, you know of 
 
 Moore s song, beginning, — 
 
 “ Ottawa’s tide, the trembling moon,” & c . 
 
 And St Ann's, where the boatmen hoped to 
 mg them evening hymn," fc ah„„t hatf-wav 
 
 between , hl8 pla c 0 a „d u Chine: y 
 
 ° f ° M,iMioa “ Ais direction ; 
 
 F 
 
98 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vi. 
 
 and at the church there, those who started on, or 
 returned from, a voyage through the wilderness, 
 performed their devotions. 
 
 This is a complete specimen of a “ settlement” 
 of the better order : the house is prettily situated 
 in a small clearing on the banks of the river, and 
 is surrounded by beautiful forest sceneiy, from 
 which it derives, by the way, an unlimited supply 
 of mosquitoes. 
 
 In comparing the advantages of our climate 
 with those of others, we do not, I think, lay suffi- 
 cient stress upon the absence of this most detest- 
 able of plagues. Where there is much wood and 
 water, they wholly prevent walking in the sum- 
 mer with any degree of comfort, for the moment 
 you get under the shade of the trees they attack 
 you ; and a new-comer, unaccustomed to their 
 attacks, soon becomes absolutely “meconnoissable” 
 from the effects of them. The moment the 
 candles are lighted of an evening, they swarm into 
 the house : in vain you strive to exclude them by 
 shutting windows and doors; the only result of 
 your precautions is to keep out the fresh air ; the 
 mosquitoes laugh at them ; and then at night ! 
 — but the misery of a mosquito-haunted night 
 surpasses so far my powers of description that I 
 will not attempt it. It is curious that with old 
 settlers mosquito bites do not swell or inflame, as 
 
LETTER VL 
 
 in the case of novices ; but even the most ex- 
 perienced hunters suffer enough to make them 
 “ taboo” the woods in the hot season, unless driven 
 into them by necessity. 
 
 Not only in this, but in other respects, the more 
 I travel the more reconciled I become to our own 
 much-abused climate, both because it permits (as 
 Charles the Second said) out-of-door exercise for 
 more hours in the day, and more days in the 
 year, on an average, than any other, but also 
 because I feel sure that its temperate, moist cha- 
 racter is more favourable to the production of a 
 vigorous robust habit of body. If the superiority 
 in breadth and depth of chrst, strength of limb, 
 and general development of muscle which dis- 
 tinguishes the upper class in England from that 
 of other countries were peculiar to that class, one 
 might attribute it to the practice of field sports, and 
 other habits of life, which perhaps depend as much 
 upon the structure of society as upon climate; but 
 it certainly appears to me that the same difference 
 in favour of England is observable among the 
 commercial and labouring classes, the former of 
 which must be equally sedentary, the latter pretty 
 equally the reverse, in all countries ; or at least, if 
 there be a difference, that difference is attributable 
 to climate, and may fairly be set down among its 
 A very able and intelligent traveller, 
 F 2 
 
 advantages. 
 
 
100 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vi. 
 
 Mr. Laing, who is well acquainted with con- 
 tinental Europe, remarks that such men as form 
 our household troops and the grenadier companies 
 of our regiments of the line, hardy, muscular, 
 broad-shouldered, well-limbed men, are hardly to 
 be met with abroad ; and my own observation, both 
 there and in America, induces me to agree fully 
 in his view. In America, particularly, no man 
 who can help it ever walks any distance, and very 
 few ride on horseback. You see young men 
 driving about in carriages and waggons every 
 where, both in town and country, and nothing 
 surprises them more than the proposal of a long 
 walk, either for purposes of sport or exercise. 
 In summer, the weather is too hot and relaxing ; 
 in winter, the cold is too great, and the snow is on 
 the ground, which makes walking, except on 
 beaten roads, disagreeable ; and in spring, the 
 country is all cut up with rain and melting snow, 
 so that the latter part of the autumn is the only 
 season of the year which really suits for active 
 exercise on foot. 
 
 Between American and English women the 
 difference in apparent health, vigour, and embon- 
 point is as remarkable as among the men; this 
 indeed is universally admitted ; and most Ameri- 
 can patriots consider the difference as in favour of 
 the American style of beauty : but surely those 
 
LETTER VI. MAXOR-IIOUSE, A- 
 
 L. 
 
 101 
 
 who do so, lose sight of the true principles of 
 taste. The pleasure which the sight of beauty 
 produces, like that which is derived from the 
 sound of music, depends (whether we know it or 
 not at the time) upon the associations which its 
 character suggests to the mind; and in proportion 
 as it indicates the existence of more or fewer of 
 those endowments, spiritual and physical, which 
 contribute to make the individual a perfect speci- 
 men of the kind, it approaches more or less nearly 
 to perfection itself. Now if this theory be sound 
 — and I think it can hardly be disputed — how 
 can those peculiarities of form or feature — such 
 as extreme delicacy or paleness of complexion, 
 unnatural transparency of skin, or disproportionate 
 slenderness of waist or limb — which indicate 
 more or less plainly weakness or disorder, that is, 
 defect and imperfection of some part of the 
 animal organisation, be otherwise than repugnant 
 to the true “idea” of beauty, by marring the 
 completeness and harmony which is of its essence ? 
 I fully admit that the effect of a highly spiritual- 
 ised, though sickly — or as it is, euplionice gratia, 
 called — delicate countenance, may and ought to 
 be most pleasing, and of a far higher character than 
 that produced by one which exhibits the most robust 
 health icithout intellectuality. I only contend 
 against the idea, which I hear constantly put for- 
 F 3 
 
102 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter vi. 
 
 ward, that beauty may be absolutely enhanced by 
 appearances which suggest the absence of health 
 and vigour in all their fulness and perfection. 
 But this is a digression. That the acknowledged 
 deficiencies in this respect, which affect female 
 beauty and its early decay, are attributable, in a 
 great measure, to the dryness of the climate, and 
 its extremes of heat and cold, I am confirmed in 
 believing, by the opinion of a very intelligent 
 American physician, who told me that in many 
 instances he had known American ladies recover 
 flesh, complexion, and youthful appearance, by a 
 residence in England, after having lost them here, 
 apparently for life. The converse, that is, the 
 deterioration of those characteristics among emi- 
 grants, is obvious, and nearly universal. 
 
 Our hosts complain a good deal of the want of 
 society, and still more of the want of servants : 
 the last is a serious grievance to people accus- 
 tomed to be waited upon. They never can get 
 any but raw labourers, such as 
 
 “ Dali’ alte selve irsuti manda 
 La divisa dal mondo ultima Irlanda ” — 
 
 just landed, and wholly unaccustomed to indoor 
 work ; and by the time the employers have suc- 
 ceeded in training them a little, they have pro- 
 bably saved some money, and go off to try their 
 fortune in taking land, which is the great object 
 
letter vi. MANOR-HOUSE, A 
 
 L. 
 
 103 
 
 of every body’s ambition here. I was a good 
 
 deal amused by discovering in Mr. ’s present 
 
 menial a fellow -county man, from the mountains 
 of Leitrim, very lately caught. 
 
 There is a good demand for labour here, at two 
 shillings for a day’s wages ; and the supply from 
 emigration is, as in all the agricultural districts of 
 Lower Canada, by no means so large as one 
 would expect. Provisions are cheap — Is. per 
 bushel for oats; Is. Sd. per bushel for barley; 
 from 2d. to 3 d. per lb. for beef and mutton, and 
 not above three farthings per lb. for pork, are the 
 common prices. Wheat will be this year pro- 
 bably not more than 3s. per bushel ; building, too, 
 is very cheap, from the abundance of material, 
 but all articles of luxury are dear, particularly 
 manufactures. I am inclined to think that in the 
 mania for Upper Canada people injudiciously 
 neglect the Lower Province. The climate is cer- 
 tainly far more severe here, and consequently as 
 an agricultural country it can never rival Upper 
 Canada ; but on the other hand, cleared land here 
 does not cost more than wild land farther west, in 
 consequence of the unpopularity of the seignorial 
 tenures, and the desire that the British emigrants 
 have to be among their countrymen. In the 
 mean time, the French Canadians, who have no 
 idea of manuring or succession of crops, are ready 
 F 4 
 
104 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vi. 
 
 to sell their farms for a very small sum when 
 they have “ exhausted” them, as they call it. 
 It takes three or four years to get the land into 
 heart again ; but it is then veiy good, and generally 
 more convenient to markets than is the case in 
 the Upper Province. A respectable English 
 farmer told me the other day that he had bought 
 ninety acres of land, which would be worth 30 s. 
 a year, per acre, in England, all cleared, and free 
 from rent and eveiy encumbrance, for 560/. 
 There have been hitherto obstacles to such pur- 
 chases, produced not only by the tax upon sales, 
 which I mentioned before, but by the difficulty 
 of discovering the mortgages and other charges 
 affecting the land, and consequently of getting 
 a secure title ; but now the latter will be 
 removed: for under Lord Sydenham’s adminis- 
 tration registry offices have been established 
 every where, at which all encumbrances must 
 be registered before the 1st of January next, 
 and after that time it is expected that a great 
 deal of property will change hands. For this 
 very reason, in addition to motives of more 
 general applicability, the measure, so obviously 
 desirable in an economical point of view, has 
 always been more or less avowedly opposed by 
 the French Canadians, from an instinctive reluc- 
 tance to facilitate the acquisition of property by 
 
letter vi. MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 105 
 
 individuals of British race ; nor would there, I 
 am told, have been a chance of carrying it through 
 the House of Assembly, as formerly constituted. 
 
 One of the chief disadvantages attending the 
 position of English emigrants in Lower Canada 
 is the want of educational establishments con- 
 ducted on the principles of the Church of England. 
 I am glad to hear that this deficiency is about to 
 be supplied by the establishment of a grammar- 
 school and college at Lenoxville, in the eastern 
 townships. The government has made a consi- 
 derable grant towards it, and all the shares which 
 were left in the market (of 2 51 . each) have been 
 taken up. The Bishop of Montreal is to be the 
 principal, and the model of our universities is to 
 be followed as far as circumstances will admit. 
 All the pupils will board and lodge within the 
 walls, so as to be subject to the rules and dis- 
 cipline of the institution, and it is to have the 
 power of conferring degrees of Law, Divinity, 
 and Medicine. I hear the buildings are in pro- 
 gress, and will soon be ready for the reception of 
 students. 
 
 Most part of this seigniory is peopled by 
 English and Scotch settlers ; there are also some 
 Americans, who are as usual the most active and 
 prosperous farmers on the estate, and invariably 
 prosper, and a colony of Irish, who are very much 
 F 5 
 
106 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter vi. 
 
 the reverse. Mr. tells me they are all 
 
 deeply in debt, even at the very low rent which 
 they are liable to pay (1/. 45. per lot of ninety 
 acres), and cannot be prevailed upon to exert 
 themselves, or improve their condition. 
 
 On Sunday we went to church at a neighbour- 
 ing village, where we saw a congregation of very 
 well-dressed and respectable-looking people : they 
 almost all came on horseback or in the waggons 
 of the country, which during service were tied to 
 the railings of the churchyard. As in all the 
 American villages, there are here places of worship 
 for more varieties of Protestantism than Bossuet 
 ever dreamed of. After service, we visited some 
 of the farmers’ and peasants’ houses. The latter 
 were French Canadians, and delighted me much 
 by the courteous, respectful — I was going to 
 say gentlemanlike — manner with which they 
 received, and talked to us. Their language is of 
 course not Parisian, but perfectly intelligible to 
 any one who is a tolerably good French scholar, 
 much more so indeed than is the case in many of 
 the provinces of old France. The houses are 
 generally good-sized, tolerably furnished, and 
 clean ; the beds particularly comfortable-looking, 
 and there is invariably a large stove. The cos- 
 tume of both men and women is picturesque, from 
 the variety of colours which they make use of. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 MANOR-HOUSE, A 
 
 •L. 
 
 107 
 
 Tlie former wear a light grey jacket and trousers, 
 invariably a red sash round the waist, and a blue 
 woollen cap ; the latter a dark bodice, blue or red 
 petticoat, and high head-dress, like that which is 
 worn in the south of France — ribands and hand- 
 kerchiefs to a dazzling amount : both sexes wear 
 moccasins instead of shoes. These Canadian 
 labourers live in a kind of rustic plenty, eating 
 meat every day except “jours maigres,” and having 
 always barley and oaten meal ad libitum. Till 
 within the last three or four years they always 
 had wheaten bread, each man growing enough for 
 his own consumption ; but latterly they have 
 almost ceased to sow any on account of the “ fly,” 
 of which we have been hearing so much, and are 
 reduced to live on the inferior grain, which is 
 considered a great hardship. This fly has come 
 up, like all barbarous invaders, from the east- 
 ward, and having ravaged Maine, New Bruns- 
 wick, and the Quebec district, is now threatening 
 the frontiers of C ppcr Canada. No preservative 
 has been discovered against its attacks; but in 
 those districts where it first appeared they got 
 rid of it, I am told, by ceasing to sow any wheat 
 for two or three years, so that it died out, for 
 want of nourishment, and this plan will pi-obably 
 be adopted by common consent throughout this 
 
 F 6 
 
108 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter vi. 
 
 province. The Upper Canadians look upon the 
 approach of the fly with great dread, as it almost 
 entirely destroys the wheat crop. The wheat 
 grows up and shoots into ear, the ear fills, and 
 apparently ripens, and an inexperienced eye might 
 fancy that the crop was quite healthy and pro- 
 mising ; but a closer examination will show the 
 heart of each grain completely eaten away, so that 
 nothing is left but the husk and the fly within it. 
 I examined several fields in this neighbourhood, 
 and found them all more or less infected. The 
 wheat sown in the autumn has, it seems, the best 
 chance of escaping, as much of it ripens before 
 the fly makes its appearance ; but the winter of 
 Lower Canada is considered too severe to admit 
 of this plan being generally adopted ; all the old 
 settlers, at least, sow their wheat in spring. 
 
 Yesterday we drove to another village on the 
 seigniory about nine miles off, where the seignior 
 has a mill, according to one of his privileges, or 
 duties. The drive through the woods and clear- 
 ings was pretty, and the weather lovely in the 
 extreme. For the last week it has been hot, but 
 not oppressive, and with a peculiar haze in the 
 atmosphere, such as I have never seen at home, 
 which tempers the glare of the sun, and produces 
 a beautiful softening effect upon the scenery. 
 
letter vi. MANOR-HOUSE, A L. 
 
 109 
 
 D went out with his gun in a canoe with a 
 Canadian, and brought home two wild ducks. 
 We have been bathing occasionally from a raft in 
 the river, but find the enjoyment hardly worth 
 the trouble of undressing and dressing under a 
 burning sun. 
 

 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter vn. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 BYTOWN. CHAUDIERE FALLS. “ LUMBER*' TRADE. 
 
 POLICY OF THE LATE ALTERATION IN THE TARIFF. 
 
 RIDEAU CANAL. VOYAGE TO KEMPT VILLE. FOREST 
 
 CLEARINGS. SCENERY OF THE WOODS. THE “ THOU- 
 SAND ISLANDS.” KINGSTON- 
 
 Walmsley, August. 
 
 After leaving our friend Mr. ’s hospitable 
 
 roof, we proceeded by stage round the rapids to 
 Grenville, and from thence by steam to Bytown, 
 altogether some eighty miles, a night’s work, 
 arriving there at four o’clock in the morning. By- 
 town is a very singular-looking place, situated on 
 the top of a high rocky hill, the sides of which 
 are covered with brushwood, principally cedar, and 
 very precipitous : it might be made, I should 
 think, a second Gibraltar, in point of strength ; 
 for which reason, as well as from its central posi- 
 tion, it has been suggested, that the seat of go- 
 vernment, for the United Canadas, should be 
 established there. From the highest point, where 
 the barracks are placed, there is a beautiful view 
 of the Ottawa, studded with islands and broken 
 by rapids, and especially of a fine fall, called (like 
 
LETTER Vn. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Ill 
 
 many others in Lower Canada) the Chaudiere, 
 about half a mile above the town, which places a 
 bar to the further navigation of the river. Above 
 the falls the river is again navigable, and there is 
 steam all the way up to the head of the Lake des 
 Chats, which is now the principal seat or channel 
 of the 66 lumber ” trade. Formerly the fur traders 
 took this route in starting upon their annual trips 
 into the wilderness ; but since that time the ad- 
 jacent regions have been so thoroughly hunted 
 out, that they find it better to penetrate at once 
 into the far north-west by way of Lake Superior 
 and the Red River. In those days Montreal was the 
 chief depot of the fur trade ; now, for the reasons 
 which I have stated, they all go northward, and 
 are embarked from Hudson’s Bay for England; 
 so that the very furs, which are sold in Quebec 
 and Montreal, have made a voyage across the 
 Atlantic, and been dressed in England. This 
 sounds strange to us, who naturally suppose that 
 buffalo and racoon skins, &c. must be far cheaper 
 in their native country than in Europe, whereas 
 the reverse is the case. 
 
 On one side of the Chaudiere falls an inclined 
 plane has been constructed for the descent of 
 timber-rafts, and while we were there we saw one 
 go down it with great rapidity : it seemed plea- 
 sant and safe, but occasionally, we were told, lives 
 
112 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vn. 
 
 are lost by the breaking up of a raft in the de- 
 scent. Bytown owes its origin to the Rideau 
 canal, which here strikes the Ottawa, completing the 
 line of communication between Lake Ontario and 
 the St. Lawrence : it was made by the direction, 
 and at the expense, of the Imperial government, 
 subsequently to the late war, for the purpose of 
 affording a secure military communication be- 
 tween the provinces, in case the navigation of the 
 St. Lawrence should be in the power of the Ame- 
 ricans. In the mean time it serves a very impor- 
 tant commercial purpose, pending the completion 
 of the St. Lawrence canal. The level of the 
 Rideau is here eighty feet above that of the 
 Ottawa, with which it is connected by eight 
 magnificent locks, each ten feet high. I am not 
 engineer enough to appreciate the full merit of 
 these works, which have immortalised Col. By, 
 their constructor; but even to my unscientific 
 eye they appear wonderful, covering the face of 
 the hill like a gigantic flight of steps. Fifteen 
 years ago there was not a tree cut in the forest 
 where Bytown stands, and it now, I am told, 
 numbers upwards of 3000 inhabitants. The effect 
 of this rapid growth is very curious (as regards 
 the appearance of the place) — it is, in fact, half 
 a town and half a wood: the stumps are scattered 
 through the gardens of the houses, and pine-trees 
 
LETTER Vn. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 113 
 
 through the streets, so that points of view might 
 actually be selected in the middle of the town 
 where you would almost lose sight of buildings 
 altogether, and might fancy yourself in the pri- 
 meval forest. When we arrived, there were no 
 less than five steamers at the wharf, and many 
 more arrived and departed in the course of the 
 day, though trade is unusually stagnant, and 
 every body is complaining. 
 
 There is hardly a person in or about By town who 
 is not connected with the lumber (i. e. timber) 
 trade, which, by the recent alterations in the tariff, 
 reducing the protection of colonial against foreign 
 timber from 45s. to 24s. per load, has been, for the 
 present at least, almost annihilated*, for, owing to 
 the enormous supply which has been poured into 
 the market for the last two years, and the sudden 
 check given to the demand by the expectation of 
 getting cheap timber, when the new duties come 
 into operation, and of a large supply from the Bal- 
 tic, there is now at Quebec alone a quantity said 
 to be sufficient for the whole expected consumption 
 of the next year, even if not another tree be cut. 
 It is impossible but that when so important an 
 alteration is made there must be much individual 
 suffering, before capital and labour can be divert- 
 ed into new channels ; and, perhaps, a sufficient 
 time was not allowed, nor sufficient warning 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vn. 
 
 given to those whose interests were at stake : but 
 there is no subject on which I find well-informed 
 and disinterested people so unanimous as they 
 are in considering the enormous protection and 
 encouragement given to the colonial lumber trade 
 as not only wasteful on the part of England, but 
 absolutely prejudicial to the colony. 
 
 The plan pursued in the trade is this : the 
 “ lumberer,” generally a settler up the country, who 
 has little or no capital of his own, contracts with 
 a merchant in Quebec or Montreal for the sup- 
 ply of a certain quantity of timber ; the latter 
 then advances to him large quantities of pork, 
 flour, &c., for winter supplies, and he proceeds to 
 hire axemen, to the number which he requires, 
 from ten to fifty ; with these he plunges into the 
 woods about October ; and when he has arrived at 
 the place which he has selected, and v/here he 
 has obtained leave from the crown to cut timber, he 
 begins operations by constructing “ shanties,” or 
 log huts, where the men live during the time tliat 
 they are at work. They “ chop ” all the winter, 
 drawing the logs, as they cut them, to the rivers, 
 and laying them, after being marked, upon the 
 ice, so that when the thaw comes they are floated 
 down to certain points where booms are placed, 
 and where the respective owners collect their own 
 logs, form them into large rafts, and float them 
 
 I 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 115 
 
 down to Quebec, where the current price at the time 
 is paid by the contractor, the value of his advances 
 being deducted. Now though in good years this 
 current price may not only repay all charges, but 
 leave a large profit to the lumberer, yet at other 
 times the price, dependent on the demand in 
 England, may be so low as to leave him unable 
 to repay the advances which have been made to him, 
 and discharge the wages of the woodmen ; in which 
 case he “ breaks, ” and there is an end of him. 
 A peculiarly gambling and irregular character is 
 thus given to the trade, and constitutes one of the 
 great objections to it ; but another and still more 
 important one is, the moral effect which it pro- 
 duces upon the axemen employed, (whose numbers 
 are so great as to leaven, to a very important 
 extent, the character of the whole population,) and 
 the impediment thrown in the way of agricultural 
 operations by the immense wages which they earn. 
 These men, generally Canadians, half-breeds, and 
 Irish of the lowest description, have actually been 
 in the habit of receiving eighteen and twenty dol- 
 lars per month, besides their “ keep ” while in 
 “ shanty.” This is paid to them all at once, at the 
 end of their six or eight months’ work, when the 
 timber is disposed of, and the consequence is, that 
 becoming suddenly possessed of, perhaps, 30/., 
 and thrown among the temptations of a large 
 town, after a long sojourn in the woods, they 
 
116 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vn. 
 
 plunge Into every kind of debauchery and extra- 
 vagance, and frequently at the end of a fortnight 
 are as penniless as when they arrived. In the 
 mean time, the premium offered by the lumberers 
 is so high, that it is impossible, in any of the 
 neighbouring districts, for the farmer to get 
 an able-bodied labourer under twelve or four- 
 teen dollars per month (besides “ keep ”) ; the 
 consequence is, that he cannot, in general, af- 
 ford to attempt the cultivation or clearing of 
 more land than the labour of himself and his 
 family is sufficient to deal with. England, there- 
 fore, was paying an immense sum annually for 
 inferior timber into the pockets partly of a very 
 bad species of gambling speculators, and partly of 
 these demoralised lumber-men; to the latter of 
 whom, at least, it was of hardly any advantage, 
 from the way in which they usually spent it, 
 and who would have been employed with far 
 more profit, ultimately, both to themselves and 
 to the country, in bringing wild land under the 
 plough. Each year, too, as the forest recedes, 
 and the expense, consequently, of bringing timber 
 to market increases, the greater is the risk of 
 loss, and the amount of protection required, 
 and the smaller the proportion which the gain 
 of the producer bears to the loss of the con- 
 sumer. We are apt to forget that the only advan- 
 tage, in a commercial point of view, which colonies 
 
LETTER Vn. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 117 
 
 afford to us, is the possibility of securing free 
 trade with them. If there were free trade all over 
 the world, we should derive from them no profit 
 whatever; so that if we voluntarily give up that 
 advantage and tax ourselves to an immense amount 
 for the benefit of those colonies, by means of dif- 
 ferential duties, the sooner they cease to possess a 
 claim for such favour the better for the English 
 manufacturer and consumer. I have been rather 
 long on this topic, but I think it will interest 
 you to hear of the mode of proceeding in this busi- 
 ness; and also, because a great outcry is raised 
 both here and at home against the discouragement 
 which has been given to it; and it is necessary 
 to understand how it works, before one can jud^e 
 of the policy of the change. They say nearly 
 20,000 men have been employed in this trade for 
 some years upon the Ottawa and its tributaries. 
 It is curious to see them floating down upon the 
 huge rafts : they build huts of birchen bark upon 
 them, hoist sails if the wind is favourable, and 
 use their oars when it is not, singing all the time 
 at the top of their voices. We had as many as 
 seven of them, with their streamers flying, within 
 sight at one time, as we came up the river. 
 
 After spending a day at Bytown, we started in 
 a miserable little steamer to go up the Rideau 
 canal as far as Kemptville, where we met a stage- 
 
118 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vii. 
 
 waggon, which took us across to Prescott on the 
 St. Lawrence. We took this line, as it is very 
 tedious to go up the whole way to Kingston by 
 the Rideau : there are such a number of locks to 
 be passed, and the steamers are so much retarded 
 by towing barges, that their rate of speed is not 
 more than three miles an hour on an average. 
 Though the heat was great I enjoyed tliis jour- 
 ney very much. The banks of the canal and river 
 are not pretty, but the country is interesting, as 
 it exhibits the progress of “ clearing” in every 
 stage, from the actual chopping with which oper- 
 ations are commenced to the fully-cultivated 
 farm. The wild land on the banks sells at from 
 two to five dollars an acre, and is bought freely. 
 I saw one settlement where an Irishman, who 
 began to chop in March, and employed only one 
 pair of hands besides his own, had been able to 
 sow between three and four acres of wheat in 
 May, besides nearly as much more of potatoes 
 and other things, and all his crops looked most 
 promising as we passed. The settlers neither dig 
 nor plough the land the first year ; but as soon as 
 they have cleared it of wood and burnt the use- 
 less logs, they sow the grain on the surface , and 
 “ drag ” or harrow it in : the decayed vegetable 
 matter which has accumulated on the ground, and 
 become a loose soft mould, produces a good crop 
 
letter vir. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 119 
 
 without further preparation. On the h i , 
 
 potash of it. Peaces they make 
 
 We saw a good number of wild 
 plover as we came nr. ^ hicks and 
 
 i C Camc ll P’ an d were told tJ.i+ « 
 
 ya caitridges from the deck Ti 
 crew were delighted with this feat • ami I T 
 » Vcnkee, pah, lno tke 
 
 phment of sayino-, j, , J ocaI com- 
 
 » i «H„pieee,L;>Jt 7 ;” a wr e r> 
 
 cur waggon „ Kempt ^ e ^ f* 
 
 execrable road, leadiug thm ^ gh ^ 011 « 
 
 land scenery, for the great river. The . i'"" ~ 
 
 the interior is much finpr i l . unber in 
 
 streams, where the best trees V" * r ° f tIle 
 ''«% any where d^ L “1 b "‘ 
 
 in an English park, they are very JwT T* “ 
 
 »f them branchless nesrfy to Zip ^ 
 generally in this par, of .X 
 bass-wood, maple, and hemlock <<h„ , i ■ 
 and oak, having Wien long a^bcl” ^ 
 throughout the settled township)- ,„d 
 
 -f ““ is «** wbich^ i h ;:x 
 
 graceful, and produces a delightful perfult 
 
120 
 
 LETTERS from AMERICA, letter vii. 
 
 A drive through these forests, especially in the 
 evening, is very enjoyable in this weather, the 
 temperature being delightful, and the air abso- 
 solutely vocal with the hum and buzz of innu- 
 merable insects of every variety : for the last few 
 days, too, we have not suffered from mosquitoes 
 or any other mordacious species, as I should have 
 expected. These forests, however, like those of 
 Scandinavia, are totally destitute of singing-birds. 
 
 At Prescott we met the steamer carrying the 
 mails from Montreal, a well-appointed and power- 
 ful boat, and took our passage in her to Kingston. 
 The voyage up the St. Lawrence by the mail 
 route is very disagreeable now, there are so manj 
 “portages” to avoid the rapids, and consequent 
 changes of conveyance ; the roads, too, are very 
 bad, I hear, and the stages uncomfortable ; so we 
 congratulated ourselves on striking the river at a 
 point above all these annoyances. The scenery 
 between Brockville and Kingston, a distance of 
 about fifty miles, is very curious and beautiful. 
 This part of the St. Lawrence is called the “ Lake 
 of the thousand Islands;” among these islands 
 the channel winds, being sometimes so narrow 
 that you might throw a biscuit on shore at each 
 side, and the branches of the trees almost over- 
 hang the deck, at other times widening almost 
 into a lake: some of the islets are partially 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 121 
 
 cleared and settled, others covered with wood; 
 some, again, mere rocks, fringed however with 
 shrubbery and underwood, like those on the lower 
 Lake of Ivillarney. There are a good many deer 
 among them, and the people on board told me 
 they took one the other day with a boat, as it was 
 swimming from one island to another, as the 
 steamer came up. When you arrive at Lake 
 Ontario itself, the features of the landscape be- 
 come tame and uninteresting enough, and I have 
 rarely seen a place which appears more entirely 
 devoid of objects of interest than Kingston and 
 its neighbourhood. It is, however, advancing 
 just now faster than any town in Canada, not 
 only m consequence of having been fixed upon as 
 the seat of government, but also as being the head 
 of the navigation of the St. Lawrence and liideau, 
 
 . and the depot of the “forwarding” business of 
 the lakes. Between 200 and 300 houses have 
 been built within two years, and it is still increaa- 
 ing every day. 
 
 vol. i. 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter viii. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 SPORTING EXPEDITION. LOBRA LAKE. FARM-HOUSE IN 
 
 THE INTERIOR. A U. E. LOYALIST. FIRST Day’s 
 
 HUNTING. MOSQUITOES. HARD BED. SECOND DAy’s 
 
 HUNTING. CHASE OF A DEER IN THE WATER. RE- 
 
 TURN TO KINGSTON. 
 
 August. 
 
 I must now give you an account of a rather un- 
 
 successful expedition which D and I have 
 
 been making into the woods in pursuit of deer. 
 It is, in fact, much too early in the season for any 
 
 thin g of the kind ; but as D ’s period of leave 
 
 is limited, there is for him no choice, it being not 
 easy to meet with deer within a reasonable dis- 
 tance of the settled districts along the lake, par- 
 ticularly in localities where they can be driven so 
 as to get shots. As yet, however, the country 
 north of Kingston has been but little settled or 
 cleared, and there are a good many deer to be 
 met with along the chain of small lakes which 
 runs in that direction, and communicates, I be- 
 lieve, with the Upper Ottawa. We had heard, 
 too, of a hospitable farmer, of the name of Knapp, 
 who lives on Lobra lake, has hounds, is well 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 123 
 
 acquainted with the country and the sport, and 
 to whom we had been recommended by our mili- 
 tary friends at Kingston. We started, then, to 
 look for his settlement, having packed our guns, 
 bags, &c., in a hired waggon, with a small pro- 
 vision of tea, sugar, candles, and soap. The best 
 part of the road was “corduroy” (that is, com- 
 posed of unhewn trunks of trees laid side by side 
 across the track); the rest of it was generally a 
 mere cut through the forest, in the midst of 
 which the stumps were still left standing, the 
 surface being further diversified by holes, in 
 which our equipage might almost have been 
 buried bodily. We had only eighteen miles of 
 it, however, and arrived after several narrow 
 escapes of overturning, at about 3 o’clock in the 
 afternoon, at Mr. Knapp’s. Having made known 
 our names and purposes to him, we were most 
 hospitably received, and promised all the help 
 which he could afford us in procuring sport. 
 Figurez-vom a comfortable-looking wooden house, 
 on the very shore of a beautiful lake, twenty 
 miles long, but narrow, and studded with hun- 
 dreds of small, rocky, pine-covered islets; said 
 house occupied by a sturdy old woodsman of about 
 sixty, his wife, three stout, good-natured sons, 
 two daughters, and four hounds (of the English 
 dwarf foxhound breed, I should think). 
 
 G 2 
 
124 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vm. 
 
 The old gentleman is son of aU.E. loyalist (as 
 those Americans were called who adhered to the 
 British cause during the revolutionary war, and 
 emigrated from the United States after it was 
 over), and preserves intact an hereditary antipathy 
 to the Yankees ; his house has often been visited 
 by officers upon shooting parties, and he remem- 
 bers all their names and doings wonderfully, so 
 that between sporting topics and mutual acquaint- 
 ances, we are at no loss for conversation. They 
 soon got us some fish just caught for dinner, which, 
 with brown bread and spring water, constituted a 
 fare simple enough for a hermit’s taste. We had a 
 pull on the lake, and got a few shots at wild 
 ducks, a bathe, a cup of tea, and so to bed. And 
 now comes the dark side of the picture : that 
 night was indeed a night of horrors I had not 
 got into bed, but wrapped myself in my plaid and 
 lay down on it ; not, however, to sleep. I verily 
 believe there is no species of creeping, crawling, 
 or flying insect which had not its representative, 
 on my person, nor was there one quarter of an 
 hour’s intermission of (saving your presence) itch- 
 ing and scratching. Most eagerly did I long for 
 daylight, and as soon as it appeared, and before the 
 sun rose, I rushed out of the house into the lake, 
 where, damp and cold as was the atmosphere, I 
 absolutely luxuriated in the idea of ridding myself 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 125 
 
 Of my tormentors. D , who had been in bed, 
 
 was, if possible, worse off than myself; however, 
 we soon forgot our misfortunes, and at half-past 
 six o’clock on a most lovely morning we were off, 
 vowing that that day a stag should die. 
 
 I will not bore you with the details of our 
 “ chasse ; ” suffice it to say that it was not very un- 
 successful: one buck was killed, but neither of us 
 had any hand in his death. We were placed in 
 “ runways,” as they call them, in the woods, while 
 t le men hunted the cover with the hounds, and 
 
 drove the deer towards us. D saw one, but 
 
 was not quick enough to fire ; one of Knapp’s sons 
 got a capital chance, but his gun missed fire at a 
 doe within ten yards of him: another took the 
 water, and was shot by a man who had remained 
 m the boat for the purpose. The beauty of the 
 scenery, however, the cry of the hounds, and the 
 excitement of expectation, would have sufficed 
 to make the day enjoyable to me, if it had not 
 been for the usual drawback in this country 
 to any excursion into the woods in summer, 
 namely, the plague of mosquitoes. We saw plenty 
 of wild-ducks, and water-fowl of many species 
 which were new to me, but were afraid to fire for 
 fear of frightening the deer; also several marks 
 (some pretty recent) of bears which had been 
 climbing the trees, and indenting the bark with 
 G 3 
 
126 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter vni. 
 
 their claws; and the Knapps told ns that they had 
 often seen, and occasionally killed them. There 
 are snipes too, black squirrels, and pigeons (the 
 two latter important objects of an American chasse), 
 and immense quantities of fish in the lake, prin- 
 cipally black bass, which somewhat resemble large 
 roach, and are caught of three or four pounds’ 
 weight ; altogether it must be, when there are no 
 mosquitoes , a most desirable sporting u location. 
 
 On the second night of our stay at Knapp s, I 
 lay down on the table, and 13 on a bench in 
 the kitchen, but in vain did we endeavour to escape 
 from our relentless persecutors, and this manoeuvre 
 had only the effect of adding hard lying to our 
 other discomforts. I thought daybreak would 
 never arrive, and at the first sign of it jumped up, 
 roused old Knapp, called for breakfast, and pro- 
 ceeded to bathe. D was too “ abattu by 
 
 the night’s misery to accompany me, and conse- 
 quently missed the delicious feeling of refreshment 
 which almost compensated for it all. 
 
 At about seven o’clock we got under weigh 
 again, and began hunting. We had beaten an 
 immense extent of forest without success, our old 
 friend Knapp showing extraordinary vigour and 
 “ pluck,” and only found two deer, at which we 
 could not get a shot, though one of them must 
 have passed close to us in the thick cover ; when 
 
LETTER Vm. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 127 
 
 late In the evening the hounds started a young doe, 
 and opened upon her at full cry. She passed 
 within thirty yards of me in a fine open part of 
 the wood, and I was fortunate enough to bring 
 her down. This proved a most welcome prize, 
 though not a very large or valuable one, and 
 cheered us greatly ; indeed we required cheering, 
 for we were almost exhausted by the extreme heat 
 of the weather, and the intense torture inflicted 
 by the mosquitoes, who have not left to either of us 
 a sound spot on any part of our persons exposed to 
 their attacks ; they even bite through one’s clothes. 
 By the time we had performed the necessary 
 offices of woodcraft upon our game, it was nearly 
 dark, so we wended our way homewards. We 
 found that the old lady, in compliment to our 
 country, had prepared an Irish stew of the buck 
 which we had killed the day before; and though 
 it was pretty dry and stringy, we were well pro- 
 vided with the best of sauces by twelve hours’ 
 fasting, and did ample justice to it. We were so 
 sleepy after two nights’ wakefulness and two days’ 
 walking, that the third night, though equally bitten, 
 we were enabled to get a little more rest; besides, 
 like the eels, we were becoming used to it, and, I 
 have no doubt, in a very short time would have 
 thought as little of the creeping things as our 
 worthy hosts seemed to do. 
 
 G 4 
 
128 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter vni. 
 
 The next morning, off again as usual, and tills 
 day we had hardly any fatigue or mosquitoes, 
 having been posted in boats, at some distance 
 apart, to watch the deer, in case they should take 
 the water when roused by the dogs, a most 
 tame and “ cocktail” mode of sporting, which 
 nothing but curiosity would have induced me to 
 adopt. After waiting ineffectually for about three 
 hours without hearing dogs or seeing deer, I 
 determined to vary the scene by a swim, so I 
 undressed and jumped out of the boat. I had 
 not been a minute in the water when the boat- 
 man called out, “ Quick, quick, the deer ’s in the 
 lake ! ” Imagine my dismay and excitement ! 
 My clothes were on an island at a little distance, 
 for which I made, and catching up my trousers 
 in one hand and my gun in the other, I jumped 
 into the boat, seized a paddle, and pushed off in 
 pursuit. The deer saw us and turned before we 
 had got far, and we had a capital race ; she swam 
 very fast, and had a long start; however, we 
 gained on her so much that I thought at one time 
 we could have got within shot ; but, alas ! just as 
 I was thinking of dropping my paddle and taking 
 to my gun, she reached the shore. I fired two 
 despairing shots at her as she scaled the rocks, 
 but the range was too great, and we saw her no 
 more. My chance of sport was now over, and I 
 
LETTER vm. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 129 
 
 was brought to my senses by finding myself, naked 
 as I was, a prey to every sort of venomous insect, 
 and with the prospect of a long pull back to the 
 island where I had left my clothes, under a broil- 
 ing sun, before I could get any covering. There 
 was no help for it, however, and fortunately a 
 little breeze sprung up, which served in some 
 degree to disperse my enemies. After another 
 hour’s watch-keeping, my boatman decided that 
 we had no further chance, as the deer and dogs 
 seemed, after being repulsed upon the lake, to 
 have made straight away into the hills; so we 
 
 pulled to where D had been stationed (who 
 
 had not even seen a deer), took him into the boat, 
 and returned without trophy of any kind to the 
 house. 
 
 W e had bespoken a vehicle, a common timber- 
 waggon, to meet us, and by eight or nine o’clock 
 got back to Kingston, after a drive, which those 
 who know what a Canadian waggon and a Cana- 
 dian road are, will not be disposed to envy us. 
 Tiius ended our expedition, wliich though not 
 productive of much result in the way of game, I 
 thought well worth the trouble it cost us, as 
 giving me a specimen of the life of a farmer in a 
 half-settled district, and an idea, at least, of what 
 deer-hunting ought to be. In October, when the 
 deer are on the move, the chance of sport is 
 G 5 
 
 / 
 
130 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter viii. 
 
 greater, as the hounds are more likely to strike 
 upon their track, and the wild-fowl are far more 
 numerous, being on their way to the south at 
 that time ; the weather is generally as fine, with- 
 out the intolerable heat of this season ; above all, 
 there are no mosquitoes, whose attacks, I assure 
 you, it requires no ordinary keenness to brave. 
 The country in Knapp’s neighbourhood is now in 
 process of being settled very fast, in consequence 
 of the improvement of Kingston, so that I sup- 
 pose the deer will soon retreat as usual before the 
 advance of civilisation, and leave the woods to 
 man. As it is, there is much better shooting of 
 all kinds to be had by following the chain of lakes 
 farther to the northward ; but it is necessary to 
 be prepared for bivouacking, as house accommo- 
 dation is not to be found. 
 
 Our host lives very well, i. e. plentifully, but in 
 the most primitive manner. He is not much of 
 a farmer, and produces no more than is necessary 
 for the consumption of his family ; his live stock 
 consists of six cows, two horses, and a good 
 number of pigs and poultry ; the visits of sports- 
 men like ourselves, and occasional speculations in 
 lumber, give him what money he requires for 
 clothes, &c., and he has venison and fish for the 
 taking. AVhat more does he want, as far as 
 worldly goods are concerned ? The whole family 
 
 - 
 
132 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter is. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 VOYAGE ON LAKE ONTARIO. THE FALLS. INDIAN MA- 
 NUFACTURES. SCENERY ON THE NIAGARA RIVER. 
 
 GOING BEHIND THE FALLS. BUFFALO. AN “ ABLE 
 
 FINANCIER/* GERMAN KMIGRANTS. LAND-SALES IN 
 
 THE UNITED STATES. LAKE STEAMERS. THE LEGI- 
 TIMATE DRAMA AT BUFFALO. NAVY ISLAND. HOS- 
 TILITIES WITH THE SYMPATHISERS. INDIAN AND NE- 
 GRO RACES COMPARED. NAVIGATION ON THE WEL- 
 LAND CANAL. IRISH AT THE PUBLIC WORKS. 
 
 Niagara, September. 
 
 Where did I leave off? 1 am so much be- 
 wildered just now by the sight and sound of the 
 cataract, that I almost forget what I have been 
 doing for the last two days. Not that, to speak 
 the truth, the sound is near so great as I expected; 
 I do not think we heard it till we were within 
 half a mile ; and at this moment, though every 
 pane of glass in the house is rattling, and every 
 article of furniture is shaking, still the noise of 
 the falls, which are only distant about three 
 hundred yards, is by no means aggressive or over- 
 powering ; on the contrary, it is a kind of deep, 
 massive boom, like distant thunder, so you may 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 133 
 
 consider the beginning of this letter as chiefly 
 exaggeration. 
 
 We came up Lake Ontario by steam from 
 Kingston, and landed on the American side of 
 the Niagara river at Lewiston. Thence an hour 
 of railroad work brought us to the village called 
 Manchester, close to the Falls, but not command- 
 ing a view of them. After dinner (what do you 
 think of our dining./?™/ ?) we crossed the bridge 
 leading into Goat Island, and in five minutes stood 
 on the rock overlooking the British or . Horse- 
 shoe Fall. Now I am not going to do any thing 
 so foolish as to attempt a description of the Falls, 
 nor would you be much wiser if I did. I will 
 only say that if I was disappointed at the first 
 glance , it was my own fault, for instead of getting 
 the first view from the Table Eock on the British 
 side, — where you stand opposite to, and at a 
 sufficient distance from the Great Fall,— we were 
 misled into taking up a position quite close to one 
 corner of it, and absolutely overlooking the abyss, 
 so that the cloud of spray and foam wliich is con- 
 tinually rising, hid the true shape and extent of 
 the cataract from us. When I did afterwards 
 come to see it thoroughly, I could not imagine 
 anybody being disappointed, at least I cannot 
 conceive what such a person could have expected 
 to see : but after all, what is the impression which 
 
134 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 Niagara makes on us, who have all our lives been 
 reading accounts, and seeing pictures and models 
 of it, compared to that which it must have made 
 on the first civilised, or at least white man, pro- 
 bably some hunter or trader, who suddenly, and 
 unprepared perhaps, came upon it in the solitude 
 of the forest, and feasted his eyes upon its won- 
 ders ? I should think astonishment and awe 
 must almost have deprived him of his senses. 
 Imagine his attempts to describe it afterwards to 
 those who had never heard of any thing of the 
 8or t, — for the peculiarity of Niagara is, that there 
 is “ nihil simile aut secundum,” nothing near it, 
 or like it in the world ! My mind has been con- 
 tinually reverting to this idea. 
 
 There is certainly no object in nature which so 
 forcibly impresses me as a cataract ; there is 
 something apparently so resistless, so inexhaustible 
 in the power of a great body of water, when it 
 has acquired momentum from descent; and the 
 impression of power is certainly the true source 
 of the sublime. Accordingly, it is the body of 
 water in a fall, not the height, which is important 
 in producing effect. At Niagara the river only 
 falls one hundred and forty feet, but then it is a 
 quarter of a mile broad, and deep enough to float 
 a frigate, above and below. The colour, as it 
 rolls over, and before it changes into snow-white 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 135 
 
 foam, is a beautiful pale sea-green, and above 
 that again there is a constantly varying play of 
 literally every colour in the rainbow, as the breeze 
 blows the spray in different directions, so as to 
 intercept the rays of the sun. One great defect 
 in all the pictures of the Falls consists in giving 
 to the lesser or American Fall a disproportionate 
 importance ; indeed it must be very difficult to 
 avoid doing so, for it is as high and almost as 
 broad, so that at first sight it quite “ takes you 
 in ; ” but as probably not one fourth of the river 
 takes that course, and as I said before the true 
 effect of a fall consists in the volume of water, 
 by degrees, after being accustomed to the con- 
 templation of its rival, one comes to regard it 
 with equally unjust contempt, and to consider it 
 as little better than an overgrown mill-dam, 
 though any where else it would of course be 
 thought most beautiful, and justly so. 
 
 The morning after our arrival we crossed the 
 ferry, which is not more than 200 yards below 
 the Falls, and are now established on the British 
 side in a large hotel, which commands a fine view 
 of them. In the village of Manchester I saw by 
 far the most beautiful Indian work, in beads, por- 
 cupine quills, and bark, that I have met with in 
 America. It is done by the squaws of the 
 Seneca tribe, who have a large settlement near 
 
136 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 Buffalo, and who from finding, I suppose, so good 
 a market among the visitors here, take more than 
 usual pains about their work. It seems this is 
 the only approach to a regular trade which they 
 can be induced to adopt ; the men are entirely 
 given up to hunting and fishing, just as before 
 the country was settled by Europeans; and 
 though I am told they are very profligate and 
 demoralised, they come nearer in appearance and 
 habits to the idea which I had formed of the red 
 man, than I expected to find in a country so full 
 of whites. They paddle up the rivers in their 
 bark canoes, under which they sleep at night, and 
 hunt where they please, no one hindering them ; 
 the laws which regulate the season at which 
 game may be killed, are (in tacit recognition of 
 their prior rights) not enforced against them. 
 Drunkenness is their besetting sin, but, of late, 
 many of those who live among the whites have 
 become members of Temperance societies. 
 
 There is a pretty little village called Drum- 
 mondville, with civilised park-like scenery about 
 it, on the British side of the river, which has here 
 on the whole the advantage of the American in 
 appearance. We went to church this morning, and 
 found a very small congregation. I suppose the 
 heat kept them away, for the weather is intensely 
 hot (the thermometer is now at 72° in the open air, 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 137 
 
 and the sun has long set). As one of the sol- 
 diers said to me the other day, t€ What a dread- 
 ful place Canada must have been before the 
 invention of linen shooting-jackets.” 
 
 There is a fine regiment of Canadian Rifles 
 (as they are called) quartered here; it is composed 
 of volunteers from the Line, who must have 
 served more than thirteen years, and who con- 
 sequently, as looking forward to their pensions, 
 and having also extra pay and allowances, are 
 not likely to desert. They are always stationed 
 on the frontier, where the line regiments lose 
 half their numbers. A short time ago four men 
 (of the 93d, I think), in attempting to swim to 
 the American side, were carried over the Falls, 
 and their bodies, being caught in the whirlpool 
 below, remained for a long time in sight on the sur- 
 face — in fact, till decomposition took place. The 
 scenery both above and below the Falls would be 
 considered beautiful, and well worth visiting of 
 itself, if it were not for the absorbing interest 
 which they command. There are mills on the 
 American side; but Goat Island, which is just 
 above the Falls, and divides them into two 
 unequal parts, has, I hope owing to the good 
 taste of the proprietor, been left in its natural 
 state. I should have expected villas and water 
 privileges, and all kinds of horrors. The shores 
 
138 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter IX. 
 
 all about the Falls are historic ground, having been 
 the scenes of actions innumerable in all our wars 
 with the Americans, down to the late campaigns 
 against the sympathisers, and the affairs of Navy 
 Island and the Caroline. 
 
 We have been foolish enough to go behind the 
 Falls, which is a most disagreeable operation, 
 involving a complete change of dress, a thorough 
 wetting, and a probable cold ; and which does not 
 « pay” in the least. You blunder along a narrow 
 pathway, with your head down, in the midst of a 
 tremendous shower of spray, till you get to “ Ter- 
 mination Rock;” short of which your inexorable 
 guide will not let you turn. It is all very well to 
 talk of the magnificent sensation produced by 
 reflecting on the huge curtain of waters which is 
 hung between you and the world. I can only 
 say that they must have a very lively imagination 
 indeed who can enjoy “ strong sensations” while 
 under a blinding shower of cold water ; and as 
 there is, unfortunately, not the slightest danger 
 (except of rheumatism), we had not even the 
 consolation of flattering ourselves that we were 
 heroes. As a climax of absurdity, the guide 
 offered us, on our return, tickets ! forsooth, which 
 we might keep to back our assertion, that we had 
 reached Termination Rock. In spite of warnings, 
 however, people will continue to “ do ” this “ lion,” 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 139 
 
 ✓ 
 
 that they may be able to say they have clone it, 
 the main motive which sets most people upon 
 travelling and sight-seeing. 
 
 In the afternoon we crossed the river a^ain, 
 and went by railroad to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, 
 about twenty miles from the Falls. The town is 
 well worth seeing ; and its history is curious and 
 characteristic. It is not above twenty years old, 
 yet it contains (I believe) 18,000 inhabitants, and 
 covers a vast extent of ground. It was cre- 
 ated by the Erie canal, which connects the ocean 
 with Lake Erie (through the Hudson) ; and con- 
 sequently this port is the depot for all the com- 
 merce of the north-west. Great part of the town, 
 including the best public buildings, was erected by 
 a Mr. Rathbun, whom you may call an able 
 financier, or an enormous rogue, according to your 
 notions of talent and morality. He started with- 
 out any capital at all , bought lands, built streets, 
 and had sometimes a thousand workmen in his 
 employment. The funds were supplied by a most 
 daring and gigantic system of forgery : he forged 
 acceptances in the names of all the merchants of 
 the best credit in the country, taking care to have 
 fresh bills ready to take up those which became 
 due, and speculating upon the transactions re- 
 maining unknown to the parties concerned till his 
 operations should be finished, and his rents enable 
 
 
140 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 him to clear himself. By mere chance, after this 
 had gone on for some years, one of the merchants, 
 whose name he had forged, heard from his banker 
 that a bill of his (the merchant’s) had just been 
 discounted : inquiry was immediately set on foot, 
 Rathbun was arrested, and the bubble burst. He 
 is now in the state prison ; but may say to the 
 stranger in Buffalo, “ Si monumentum quaeris, 
 circumspice.” 
 
 One third of the population of the town is 
 composed of Germans. I went out, as is my 
 custom of a morning, into the market-place, to see 
 and talk to the people coming in with produce 
 from the country, and I met several who have emi- 
 grated this year. The greater number, especially 
 those of the poorer class, are from Bavaria : these 
 occupy at Buffalo the position which the Irish do 
 at New York. Those who come from Hanover 
 and Hesse have generally capital, and go on to 
 the west for the purpose of buying land. I met 
 one who liad just come from Wisconsin, on Lake 
 Michigan, where there is a large settlement of his 
 countrymen. Government land can be had there 
 of the best quality for one and a quarter dollar 
 per acre, but he told me that the best “ locations ” 
 had been bought up by speculating individuals 
 on the spot ; so that a foreigner has to pay an 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA PALLS. 
 
 141 
 
 advanced price for them.* The practical working 
 of the United States system of land-sales, how- 
 ever, though of course liable to abuse, has been 
 on the whole judicious and profitable ; but it is 
 singular, that its efficiency has been the result less 
 of positive law than of the custom and feeling 
 wliich prevails among the settlers. The usual 
 plan is, after selecting a “ location,” to “squat” 
 in the first instance, that is, settle, clear, and im- 
 prove, and at the next land-sale to attend and bid 
 the upset price (one and a quarter dollar inva- 
 
 I feel convinced that no farmer, fresh from the old 
 f U ’?, t , ry ./ a L nd stl11 less a gentleman), should buy “wild 
 land tf he can avoid it. Such men are generally bad 
 pioneers, know little of the use of an axe, and nothing of 
 the shifts and privations which a new settler is exposed to 
 m the woods : they should try to buy farms ready cleared 
 in comparatively civilised districts, which are generally 
 just in the condition to be made profitable by the applica- 
 tion of the science and capital of a Lothian or Northum- 
 berland farmer; while the old settler, or perhaps his sons, 
 shoulder their axes and go deeper into the woods, to buy 
 larger tracts of wild land, and pursue the occupation (which 
 habit has made familiar to them) of backwoods-men and 
 pioneers. A man may buy land close to the great markets 
 and water-communications, which is what the old settlers 
 m their ignorance call exhausted {i.e. in want of manure 
 and tillage) for very little more than wild land in similar 
 situations (from two to five dollars per acre) ; and there 
 he may really find himself in command of most of the 
 conveniences of life at once : whereas I am sure no man 
 who has not been in the woods can have an idea of the 
 miseries attendant upon a first settlement. 
 
142 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 riably). Now, I believe, there is nothing (in 
 point of law) to prevent anybody else from 
 bidding against the squatter, and becoming owner 
 of his property ; but, in fact , a prescriptive right 
 of pre-emption has been established in his favour, 
 in consequence of the difficulty which would arise 
 in valuing his improvements, and, above all, the 
 invidiousness (not to say impossibility in most 
 cases) of getting him out. 
 
 Thus the two great objects which every system 
 of land-sales should aim at have been in a great 
 measure attained: namely, that of encouraging 
 settlers, and that of discouraging extensive specu- 
 lation on the part of land-jobbers, who do not 
 mean to occupy the land they buy : the former is 
 effected by the lowness of the price ; the latter by 
 the virtual right of pre-emption possessed by 
 actual occupants. A large direct revenue, too, 
 has flowed from this source, averaging nearly two 
 millions and a half of dollars per annum. The more 
 remote north-western states, Iowa and Wisconsin, 
 are now filling fast, and offer, in one respect at 
 least, great inducement to European emigrants ; 
 namely, that fever and ague are comparatively 
 unknown there. Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, on 
 the contrary, unsurpassed in advantages of soil 
 and situation, are found so unhealthy, that (as I 
 have heard from many who have lived there) it 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 143 
 
 is almost impossible to meet with a family which 
 is not more or less affected. This dreadful evil, 
 however, becomes mitigated as settlement and 
 cultivation advance ; at present, I should tliink 
 its existence a decisive reason for avoiding those 
 states : they are, however, colonized to a great extent 
 by English farmers, particularly the neighbour- 
 hood of Chicago in Illinois, — tempted by the pro- 
 ductiveness of the land, and the facility of culti- 
 vating it. It is commonly said that those who 
 are born in these alluvial countries believe, judging 
 from their own particular induction, that all man- 
 kind “shake” periodically. In all of these the 
 plenty of produce is such, that, in the present 
 state of the internal communications, it is not 
 worth bringing to market, and may be had for 
 the asking. I have been informed by good 
 authority that, in many parts of Ohio, pork, fed at 
 large m the woods, costs now but a cent (£tf.) per 
 lb., and wheat twenty-five cents (1«.) per bushel. 
 
 There are steamers almost every day running 
 between Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago : I went 
 on board one, and found her a magnificent vessel, 
 of < 80 tons, and 300-horse power, i. e. about the 
 size of the Dublin and Liverpool mail-boats, with 
 three tiers of cabins above water, so that one is 
 sure at least of plenty of air; but I should think 
 she must be top-heavy, and not calculated to stand 
 
144 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter IX. 
 
 much sea : there is sometimes very heavy weather 
 
 on these great lakes too.* 
 
 We went to the play on the evening of the 
 day we spent at Buffalo (the “ legitimate drama” 
 at Buffalo!— what think you of that?), and found 
 a good house, but a scanty and disreputable- 
 looking audience. The performance was a curious 
 medley ; viz., one act of “ King Lear,” two of 
 “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” with a farce 
 and a melo-drame, and two comic songs between 
 the acts of the tragedy and tragi-comedy. The same 
 actor, like a second Garrick, played the principal 
 part in all. We had not patience to sit it out, though 
 he was really not so bad as we had expected, — a 
 ranter of the first water, of course, but with a good 
 melo-dramatic figure and voice : I suspect he was 
 a travelling “ star.” At the inn our old friends 
 the Rainer family, or at least a party calling 
 themselves by that name, had a concert the same 
 evening, which perhaps may account for the ab- 
 sence of the “beauty and fashion” from the 
 theatre. But only imagine such proceedings at 
 such a place 1 The hotel is the best I have seen 
 since I left Boston. 
 
 From Buffalo we returned by steam-boat down 
 
 * Before I left America there were terrific gales on 
 Lake Erie, ami a great number of vessels lost between 
 Cleveland (Ohio) and Buffalo. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 145 
 
 the Niagara river to Chippewa, getting a fine 
 view of Lake Erie as we came out of the har- 
 bour, with several steamers and schooners in sight 
 We passed the classic ground of Schlosser, where 
 the Caroline was cut out, and Captain Usher’s 
 house, where he was shot at his own door by 
 Lett the sympathiser. This man was afterwards 
 arrested in the States for trying to blow up a 
 British steamer, and escaped by jumping out of’ 
 a railroad car while at full speed. He was at 
 large for two years, but was retaken last summer, 
 and is now in Auburn penitentiary. I had no 
 idea till I came to this country of the extent to 
 which the operations of the sympathisers were 
 carried at the time of the troubles in Canada; 
 from all parts of the Union adventurers flocked 
 to the border (literally in thousands), fully per- 
 suaded that the scenes of Texas were to be acted 
 over again, and that the British dominion in 
 America was at an end. Notliing could exceed 
 their surprise and disappointment at finding the 
 mass of the Upper Canadian population attached, 
 as they undoubtedly are, to British, and, above all 
 things, indisposed to American connexion. After 
 tills must have been perfectly ascertained, and all 
 hopes consequently given up of obtaining per- 
 manent footing in Canada, these vagabonds per- 
 severed for a long time in predatory expeditions, 
 YOL. i. H 
 
146 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter IX. 
 
 taking advantage of the scarcity of troops in the 
 Upper Province, and of the facilities of escape 
 afforded by the river. The account I hear of the 
 transactions which took place in 1838 and 1839 
 along the frontier, reminds me of the raids and 
 forays of Elliotts and Armstrongs on the debate- 
 able land of the Scottish border; with this im- 
 portant difference, however, that neither Scotch 
 nor English had the least scruple in retaliating and 
 exacting, when they had the power, ample interest 
 for the losses which they had suffered: whereas, 
 here, the British for a long time confined them- 
 selves entirely to the defensive ; nor did I hear of 
 more than one or two instances where they fol- 
 lowed their enemies over the border, still less did 
 they ever take the initiative, and commit unpro- 
 voked aggression. 
 
 On the whole, I look upon these border troubles 
 as having been useful, in preventing, far more 
 effectually than any political reasoning or even 
 abstract feelings of patriotism could do, all undue 
 “ sympathy” between the Canadians and the 
 Americans *, a sympathy which might otherwise 
 
 * It is, as has been often remarked, very inconvenient 
 that no term but “Americans” exists, by which one can 
 characterise the citizens of the United States, as distin- 
 guished from Canadians, Mexicans, &c. I read the other 
 day a proposal for altering the name of the continent to 
 Columbia, and leaving them in undisturbed possession of 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 147 
 
 have become dangerous to British connexion. 
 Reflecting men, too, might read a lesson useful 
 to themselves in so close an observation as was 
 then forced upon them of the weakness under 
 which the American executive government labours, 
 and of the loose and disorganised frame of society, 
 of wliich the “ sympathetic ” movement was a 
 symptom. The attack upon the Caroline was, 
 without doubt, strictly speaking, a violation of 
 the letter of national law, but one which, equally 
 without doubt, the necessity of the case justified ; 
 so that Lord Ashburton was perhaps right in 
 apologising for the invasion of the American 
 territory upon that ground. The crews of the 
 boats that took the Caroline were principally com- 
 posed of volunteers from the higher class of 
 settlers; and the service was one of no small 
 danger. The stream is very rapid, and the proxi- 
 mity of the Falls is such that an accident would 
 certainly be fatal ; even the loss of one or two of 
 the oars, or a mistake of the steersman, might 
 probably involve losing command of the boat, 
 
 “ America.” This would certainly be easier and more 
 convenient than it would be to give a new name to the 
 republic, and besides would be an act of tardy justice to 
 the great discoverer. As it is, one finds it difficult to 
 avoid using the word Yankees, (which, by-the-bye, is the 
 Indian corruption of English, Yengeese,) though it is 
 both offensive and incorrect as applied to any but New 
 Englanders. 
 
 II 2 
 

 
 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 and consequent destruction ; yet they had to pull 
 round Navy Island, and under command of its 
 guns, and then to return after cutting out and 
 setting fire to the steamer, when of course the 
 attention of both parties was called to their pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 It is humiliating to think that a band of 
 ruffians, never exceeding a thousand in number, 
 should have been allowed to hold an island within 
 musket-shot of the mainland for a whole month ; 
 firing away continually, interrupting the com- 
 munications, and keeping the whole frontier in 
 hot water : a nearer acquaintance, however, with 
 circumstances and localities diminishes one’s sur- 
 prise, and serves to excuse, at least partially, the 
 inactivity of the British. The island is, as I said 
 before, peculiarly difficult of access, if tolerably 
 defended, from its situation : the number of its 
 defenders, and their resources, were unknown, and 
 of course greatly exaggerated ; there were also 
 no regular troops in the province ; and Sir Francis 
 Head was naturally reluctant to peril the lives of 
 his gallant volunteers, whose loss would have been 
 so severely felt throughout the province, in an 
 enterprise of which the solid advantages would 
 hardly have compensated for the risk. They at 
 last dispersed, upon being threatened by the 
 American commandant with the stoppage of their 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 149 
 
 supplies. The island is about a mile long, and 
 covered with wood ; there was a little cultivation 
 on it, and one settlement, but the farmer was 
 obliged to “ clear out” in 1839, and never re- 
 turned. 
 
 From Chippewa we returned by railroad (on 
 cars drawn by horses) to our old quarters at the 
 
 Clifton Hotel, close to the Falls. D has 
 
 just left me on his way back to Montreal, by the 
 St. Lawrence; my route lies westward into the 
 London district. 
 
 I have been induced to remain longer than I 
 originally intended at the Falls, having been for- 
 tunate enough to meet with some most agreeable 
 and valuable acquaintances there; one in parti- 
 cular, from whose knowledge of the country, and 
 kindness in imparting that knowledge, I have 
 derived more information upon the topics which 
 chiefly interest me than I could have obtained 
 during months of ordinary touring. This is a 
 favourite place of summer resort for the inhabi- 
 tants of Toronto and the Upper Province gene- 
 rally : people come and stay for a month or six 
 weeks at this hotel; others have villas on the 
 banks of the river, between the Falls and the 
 town of Niagara : there is consequently a good 
 deal of Canadian society, besides the variety of 
 perpetual tourists ; so that, independently of the 
 H 3 
 
150 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 interest attached to the Falls, a week or two may 
 be spent here by a traveller pleasantly as well as 
 profitably. 
 
 One of our party has just returned from the 
 Sault St. Marie, at the entrance to Lake Superior, 
 whither he had accompanied the superintendent of 
 Indians on his annual expedition to the Mani- 
 toulin islands, with presents from the government 
 to the natives. I was very sorry to have been too 
 late to join it, which I could easily have done. 
 Lord Morpeth and the Bishop of Toronto were 
 of the party this year ; they went up Lake Huron 
 in canoes, paddled by Indians, and encamped at 
 night on the shores or islands. The British go- 
 vernment has been trying to prevail upon the 
 north-western tribes to settle down and become 
 steady artisans and husbandmen, and has really 
 behaved very liberally to them, establishing 
 seminaries for their instruction, building houses 
 and supplying tools : but all is in vain ; there is a 
 curse upon the race, and by all accounts the 
 attempt to reclaim or civilise them is utterly 
 hopeless ; so that they must recede and gradually 
 disappear, like the wild beasts they hunt, as the 
 white man advances. Even those who remain 
 among our settlements (until by continual cross- 
 sing of the breed they almost lose their dis- 
 tinctive nationality) lead the same life of hunters 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 151 
 
 and fishermen as before the white man came into 
 their country. 
 
 The Indian and the Negro races, both fated as 
 it seems to yield the supremacy to the whites , 
 present in every other particular a curious con- 
 trast to each other. The red man appears to 
 have received from Nature every quality which 
 contributes to greatness except — I have no other 
 word for it — tameability ; he has shown in many 
 remarkable instances intellectual capacity, talents 
 for government, eloquence, energy, and self-com- 
 mand. Tecumseh, who fell at the battle of the 
 Thames, was a second Arminius ; and among 
 the annals of Indian warfare are to be found the 
 names of chiefs, who, under more favourable cir- 
 cumstances, might have attained the summit of 
 military and political fame : but they had to do 
 with subjects and followers who were all but 
 strangers to the elementary principles of society, 
 to mutual co-operation, subordination, industry, 
 and division of labour ; so that the extraordinary 
 insulated efforts of individuals sank before the 
 organised and persevering hostility of their enemies. 
 Still there is something noble and striking, some- 
 thing that commands respect and admiration, in 
 the Indian character, irreconcileable though it be 
 with advanced civilisation and the operation of 
 Christian influences. 
 
 H 4 
 
152 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 The Negro, on the contrary, has precisely what 
 the Indian wants ; he is a domestic animal; and it 
 requires a sacrifice of what appears natural feel- 
 ing to religion and philosophy to persuade one’s self 
 that, as he is an immortal being, equal in the sight 
 of God to those whose yoke he seems fated to 
 bear on earth, so he should be considered equal in 
 the sight of man. The Indian avoids his con- 
 queror ; the Negro bows at his feet. The Indian 
 loves the independence and privations of liis soli- 
 tude better than all the flesh-pots of Egypt ; the 
 Negro, if left to himself, is helpless and miserable; 
 he must have society and sensual pleasures ; if he 
 be allowed to eat and drink well, to dance, to 
 sing, and to make love, he seems to have no 
 further or higher aspirations, and to care nothing 
 for the degradation of his race. With the single 
 exception of Toussaint, I know no instance of 
 a negro distinguishing himself in politics, or arms, 
 or letters; and though I make every allowance 
 for the difficulties and obstacles to his doing so 
 which his situation imposes upon him, I cannot 
 allow that these account for the fact that, not- 
 withstanding the excellent education which many 
 negroes receive, and the stimulus afforded by 
 constant intercourse with whites, not one of 
 them has yet, either here or in the West Indies, 
 with the above-named exception, taken the lead 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 153 
 
 among his countrymen, or made a name for him- 
 self. And this natural superiority of the Indian is, 
 perhaps unconsciously, recognised, and illustrated 
 in a singular manner, by the white man, in the dif- 
 ferent feelings which he exhibits upon the subject 
 of amalgamation with the two races. Some of the 
 best families in the United States are proud to 
 trace their origin to Indian chiefs ( e . g . the Ran- 
 dolphs of Virginia boast that they come of the 
 lineage of Powhattan) ; and I have myself met 
 with half-breeds, who were considered (and most 
 justly) in every respect equal in estimation with 
 full-blooded whites. It is needless to observe, that 
 with respect to the negroes the precise converse 
 is the case. Cateris paribus , we seem naturally to 
 receive the red man as our equal. Can it be alto- 
 gether the effect of educational prejudice that we 
 find it impossible to do so with the black ? I feel 
 a difficulty in coming to such a conclusion. 
 
 One day I drove with a party of friends to the 
 town of Niagara, fourteen miles from the Falls, 
 through a very pretty country, stretching along 
 the bank of the river : this is the oldest and most 
 civilised part of Upper Canada, having been first 
 settled by old soldiers after the American war. 
 The whole road is lined with farms and villas 
 worthy of some of the remoter parts of England ; 
 and the district would be a most desirable " loca- 
 n 5 
 
154 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 tion ” were it not for the dangerous proximity of 
 the American border, and the consequent risk of 
 suffering annoyance and injury in times of either 
 war or “ sympathy.” 
 
 At Niagara there are considerable ship-building 
 docks, and a steam-engine manufactory, and the 
 town appears prosperous and advancing. Near it 
 is the mouth of the Welland canal, which forms 
 the communication between Lake Erie and Lake 
 Ontario : schooners of 1 60 tons register, and 
 drawing 8^ feet water, can now navigate it ; and 
 the government is employed in enlarging the 
 locks, so as to admit those of 200 tons. The 
 great object of the Canadians and British is to 
 divert as much as possible the great and increas- 
 ing commerce of the Upper Lakes into the chan- 
 nel of the St. Lawrence ; that of the Americans 
 to keep it in the Erie canal and the Hudson. 
 When the ship-canal now in progress round the 
 St. Lawrence rapids is completed, and the Wel- 
 land enlarged, it is hoped that sea-going vessels 
 may be enabled to navigate this line of communi- 
 cation the whole way from Lake Michigan to 
 the Atlantic, and thus, by saving all expense of 
 trans-shipment, monopolise the trade. There are 
 now generally two trans-shipments, one at King- 
 ston and the other at Montreal or Quebec ; and 
 the former at least will ultimately be saved. As 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 155 
 
 it is, the tolls of the Welland canal have consi- 
 derably increased during this and last year, while 
 those of the Erie canal have diminished ; and the 
 Americans are in some alarm at the prospect 
 of losing so important a trade: but the diffi- 
 cult navigation of the mouth of the St. Law- 
 rence, and the length of time during which it 
 is closed, are in their favour. Hitherto all the 
 navigation on the Welland canal has been 
 performed by horse-power; but they are now 
 trying to introduce the system of fitting up the 
 lake schooners with small high-pressure steam- 
 engines, which only take up 10 feet of the vessel’s 
 length, do not interfere with her sailing capa- 
 bilities, and ensure four miles an hour in average 
 weather, at the expense of three or four dollars per 
 day in firewood. There are three of these running 
 now, and I believe they answer very well; they 
 are not worked with paddles, but with the screw or 
 propeller, which projects from behind, like a tail, and 
 acts upon the water in some measure as the wheel 
 of a windmill (which it resembles in conforma- 
 tion) does upon the air. This takes up, of course, 
 less room than paddles do, and also does not, like 
 them, wash away or injure the banks of the canals. 
 The chimney is very small, and at a little dis- 
 tance you would not observe any peculiarity about 
 the schooner. Great opposition is made to these. 
 
 n 6 
 
156 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter ix. 
 
 professedly on the ground of the danger from 
 their high-pressure engines : I cannot but think, 
 however, that they will succeed. 
 
 A good deal of fighting has been going on 
 among the Irish labourers, of whom 600 or 700 
 are employed on the Welland canal; two lives 
 were lost, and many are now in prison, charged 
 with having been engaged in the disturbance, the 
 cause of which was merely anxiety to monopolise 
 the work on the part of the first comers. It is to 
 these government works that all the Irish emi- 
 grants of the labouring class crowd upon landing, 
 so that there always appears to be a superabun- 
 dant supply of labour near them, while, perhaps, 
 fifty miles farther up the country far better w r ages 
 may be obtained, and there may be an ample 
 demand for hands. The . Irish Homan Catholics 
 behaved very well in the late troubles in Upper 
 as well as Lower Canada : this is attributable in 
 a great measure to the influence of their bishop, 
 who is a very worthy man, and a steady friend to 
 British connexion. 
 
u 
 
 LETTER x. WOODSTOCK. 157 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 a labourer’s account of his first four years in 
 
 CANADA. PROSPECTS AFFORDED TO A GENTLEMAN- 
 
 FARMER. HAMILTON. TRAVELLER FROM THE FAR- 
 
 WEST. COUNTRY BETWEEN HAMILTON AND WOOD- 
 
 STOCK. BRANTFORD. INDIAN VILLAGE. DIVINE 
 
 SERVICE IN THE MOHAWK LANGUAGE. PROGRESS OF 
 
 CIVILISATION AMONG THE RED MEN. OAK-PLAINS. 
 
 VISIT TO A GENTLEMAN-FARMER SETTLED IN WESTERN 
 
 CANADA. MANNER OF LIFE. ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE POPULATION. WOOD- 
 
 STOCK CRICKET-CLUB. 
 
 Woodstock, near London, September. 
 From Queenstown, on the Niagara river, I went 
 by steam-boat to Hamilton, the westernmost port 
 of Lake Ontario ; the distance is fifty miles, and 
 the time occupied five hours. On board I met 
 with an Irishman from Derry, employed as a com- 
 mon sailor ; the result of whose experience I will 
 give you, as a fair specimen of his class of emi- 
 grants. He came out five years ago, a single man, 
 with nothing but his passage-money, his health, 
 and his hands. He got immediate employment at 
 Montreal, and afterwards came on to the Upper 
 Province, where wages were higher: he has re- 
 ceived on an average, (working generally in sum- 
 
158 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter X. 
 
 mer on a farm or on board a lake-steamer, where 
 no skill is required, and lumbering in winter,) 
 twelve dollars per month besides his keep, which 
 he values at six or eight dollars more (the ordinary 
 price at one of their boarding-houses), and has never 
 been idle for a single day. This year he has in- 
 vested his savings, which amount to 400 dollars, in 
 100 acres of wild land, lying close to the lake and 
 about ten miles from Hamilton ; and intends after 
 this fall to build a shanty on his farm and com- 
 mence chopping. He says he can clear (alone) 
 about an acre per week ; so that by spring he will 
 have about twelve or fifteen acres ready for crop- 
 ping : after the first year all will be plain sailing, 
 and he must get on if he continues healthy and 
 industrious. 
 
 I found Hamilton in great confusion, being 
 filled with people from all parts of the country, 
 who are come to welcome, with a kind of proces- 
 sion, Sir Allan McNab on his return from Eng- 
 land. He lives near the town, and seems to be 
 amazingly popular here. At Hamilton I had the 
 pleasure of meeting with a travelling companion, 
 whose acquaintance I had made at the Falls, and 
 who, like myself, was on his way to Woodstock. 
 He has just come out from England, and his ob- 
 ject is to look about him in different parts of the 
 country previous to buying a farm and settling ; 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 159 
 
 and as he has obtained a good deal of information 
 on the subject, and consulted the best authorities 
 in different parts of the countiy, I think it may 
 not be uninteresting to give you the result of his 
 calculations as to the prospects of a gentleman- 
 emigrant. Let us suppose him to possess a capital 
 of 1,500/. Of tliis he may invest 300/. in land, 
 for which he will get a farm pretty well cleared, 
 and in the best situation, of 150 acres, with a log 
 cabin, where he can live for a year or two, ready 
 built, and 200/. more in stocking it ; their remains 
 1000/., which, at 8 per cent., will be worth 80/. a 
 year. Out of the produce of his farm he ought, 
 according to the calculation, to pay three servants 
 or labourers (two men and a woman), who will 
 cost in wages about 75/. per annum, keep himself 
 and them in provisions, and pay ordinary farm 
 expenses, such as seed, &c. ; leaving his whole re- 
 maining income to spend upon clothes, sundries, 
 and improvements : if he finds himself getting on 
 well, he may by degrees invest more of his prin- 
 cipal in land; but 100 or 150 acres are undoubtedly 
 quite enough to begin with. To reduce the cal- 
 culation to its lowest term, he may expect for the 
 present to get board and lodging for the interest 
 of the 500/. which he has expended, and his own 
 labour ; but then every year his land is rising in 
 value, not only in consequence of his own exer- 
 
160 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 tions but from the operation of external causes, as 
 the country advances, and railroads, canals, &c. 
 are opened. Such are my friend’s conclusions : 
 I am not qualified to judge of their reasonableness ; 
 but I cannot help thinking that a gentleman, that 
 is, a man inexperienced in practical farming, and 
 unable or unwilling to work with his own hands, 
 can hardly hope to pay and keep his labourers and 
 himself out of the produce of his farm, at least 
 at the present rate of prices. 
 
 We met at Hamilton with a traveller from the 
 coast of the Pacific ; he was the son of a trader on 
 the Columbia river, had been born and bred 
 beyond the Pocky Mountains, and had crossed the 
 prairies with a caravan in the spring, with the view 
 of seeing something of the Oriental scenery and 
 manners, and advanced civilisation of Canada. 
 I should have been glad of an opportunity of 
 extracting some information from him about the 
 Oregon territory (a3 the country about the Co- 
 lumbia is called), and that part of the continent 
 generally : the Americans and English are quarrel- 
 ling about it already, and with some reason, for it 
 is likely to be very valuable at some future time, 
 both in a commercial and an agricultural point of 
 view. The fur-trade is now altogether in the 
 hands of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who have 
 this year extended their operations by purchasing 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 161 
 
 from the Russian F ur Company the exclusive trade 
 of their territory in America for, I believe, twenty 
 years. The Americans are very jealous of this mo- 
 nopoly, as they have till lately enjoyed a consider- 
 able share of the trade ; and as they are pouring 
 settlers over the mountains much faster than we 
 are, there will probably be some fighting in those 
 parts ere long, under the pretence of respectively 
 asserting rights to the disputed territory. The 
 country is fertile, intersected by rivers, and enjoys 
 a temperate and moist climate, produced, as in our 
 own case in England and Ireland, by the preva- 
 lence of westerly winds, which have swept over 
 a vast extent of ocean ; just as, on the other 
 hand, the climates of Pekin and Quebec (which 
 are situated in about the same latitude, at the 
 eastern extremities of their respective continents) 
 resemble each other in their extremes of heat and 
 cold. At Hamilton we hired a spring waggon, and 
 drove twenty-five miles to Brantford, a thriving 
 village, which it is contemplated to make a port 
 of, by opening the navigation of the Grand River, 
 on which it stands, to Lake Erie. The works are 
 now in progress, and will soon be completed ; and 
 thus a fine grain country will be thrown open to 
 the British market. Within two miles of Brantford 
 (which is called after Brandt the Indian chief ) is a 
 village which may be termed the head-quarters of 
 
162 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 the Mohawk tribe of Indians. They lost their pos- 
 sessions in the States by adhering to Great Britain 
 in the revolutionary war, and received in com- 
 pensation a settlement here of 160,000 acres: 
 since that tune they have decreased considerably, 
 and now consist of not more than 2200 souls. 
 I went over to the Indian village on Sunday 
 morning, and attended Divine service in their 
 church ; it was performed according to the forms 
 of the English church, but in the Mohawk lan- 
 guage, with the exception of the sermon, which 
 the clergyman delivered in English, and which 
 was translated with wonderful fluency, sentence 
 after sentence, by an Indian interpreter who stood 
 beside him. It was good, practical, and well 
 adapted to the audience, who listened with the 
 most unfailing attention, though the plan of pro- 
 ceeding made it necessarily very long : the Indian 
 language, too, is far more prolix than ours, at 
 least the sentences, as translated, were at least three 
 times as long as in the original delivery : the sing- 
 ing was particularly good in point of time and 
 harmony, but the airs were somewhat monotonous. 
 Two children were baptised during the service, 
 one of them ensconced in a bark cradle, which fitted 
 it accurately, and was attached in a curious man- 
 ner to a board so as to be carried easily upon the 
 mother’s back. There were about 120 Indians 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 163 
 
 present; the men, with one or two exceptions, 
 dressed like Europeans, but the women wearing 
 their native costume, which is rather becoming : it 
 consists of a calico or linen tunic, reaching to the 
 knee, below which appears a petticoat of blue 
 cloth, generally embroidered with red and white 
 bead-work ; the legs are covered with a kind of 
 buskin of blue cloth, and the feet with moccasins ; 
 over all is a large robe or mantle, of blue 
 cloth also, thrown loosely round the shoulders; 
 completing a dress which, at this time of year, 
 must be dreadfully hot and heavy : the head is 
 without any other covering except very thick 
 black shining hair. Those of the men who have 
 not adopted the European costume wear instead 
 of trowsers a tunic, and leggings which reach half- 
 way up the thigh. 
 
 I had some conversation with the clergyman 
 after service : he is employed by the “ New Eng- 
 land Society,” has been for a long time among 
 the Indians, and knows them well: he has a 
 better opinion of them, and of their capacity for 
 acquiring domestic and industrious habits, than 
 most white men to whom I have spoken upon the 
 subject have expressed. The society support a 
 school in the village, where about forty children 
 are boarded, educated, and instructed in trades ; 
 and they learn, Mr. N. says, as fast as Europeans : 
 
164 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 as yet, however, they are not fit to be trusted in 
 making bargains with the whites, nor can they at 
 all compete in matters of business with them: 
 much of their original grant has been trafficked 
 away to settlers, at prices wholly inadequate ; and 
 though such transactions are altogether illegal, 
 they have been overlooked so long that it is now 
 impossible to annul them. A superintendent lives 
 close to the village, who is paid by Government 
 for the express purpose of protecting the Indian 
 interests and managing their affairs ; yet encroach- 
 ments upon their rights are still perpetually made, 
 which, however advantageous they may appear to 
 a political economist, are neither reconcileable with 
 equity, nor with the real wishes and intentions 
 of Government. Mr. N. is by no means without 
 hopes that in a generation or two these Indians 
 may become quite civilised : they are giving up 
 their wandering habits, and settling rapidly upon 
 farms throughout their territory; and in conse- 
 quence, probably, of this change in their mode of 
 life the decrease in their numbers, which threat- 
 ened a complete extinction of the tribe, has ceased 
 of late years : if it turn out as he expects, this 
 will form the sole exception to the general law 
 which affects their people. They are very much 
 attached (as well they may be) to the British 
 government; and, in 1837, turned out under their 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 165 
 
 chiefs, to the number of 500, and offered their 
 services to it : they wished to attack Navy Island in 
 their canoes, but those who w ere in command thought 
 the enterprise too hazardous. The cliiefs (whose 
 office is, as among the ancient Gothic nations, 
 partly hereditary and partly elective, i. e. ordina- 
 rily transmitted from father to son, but liable to 
 be transferred in cases of incapacity) have still a 
 good deal of authority among them, but, as it is 
 of course not recognised by law, they are gra- 
 dually losing it; in fact the race is assimilating 
 itself here far more than anywhere else to the 
 habits and manners of the surrounding Europeans, 
 while at the same time there is perhaps hardly any 
 settlement where the red blood is preserved with 
 less mixture, owing, of course, to their superior 
 morality. Mr. N. tells me there are about eighty 
 communicants, and that as many of them appear 
 to be sincerely under the influence of religion as 
 could be expected out of a similar number of 
 whites. He is strict in his discipline, excluding 
 from the Lord’s table all who have been guilty of 
 intemperance, or any other open sin, till they have 
 confessed their guilt, and showed satisfactory signs 
 of amendment. 
 
 In the evening we returned to Brantford, where 
 we found a good deal of alarm prevailing, and the 
 magistrates swearing in special constables, in con- 
 
166 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 sequence of a riot which has taken place among 
 the Irish labourers upon the Grand Iiiver canal, 
 about three miles from hence. Wherever these 
 countrymen of mine are, they must and will fight. 
 
 At Brantford we hired another waggon, and 
 drove thirty miles over a bad road to Woodstock, 
 from whence I am writing. The country through 
 which we passed is well cleared and civilised, with 
 some comfortable houses and good farms; the 
 road passes through one flourishing village called 
 Paris. The most remarkable feature in this dis- 
 trict is what arc called the oak-plains; these 
 extend for about ten miles along the road, and 
 are the most desirable lands in the country : the 
 oaks are small, and grow so far apart that it only 
 costs about half as much to clear them off' as in 
 the case of ordinary forest ; so that wild land of 
 this nature fetches a very high price, viz. from 
 fifteen to twenty dollars. Sometimes the trees 
 arc only “ girdled,” which consists in cutting the 
 bark all round the trunk while the sap is running 
 (about June); the tree dies in a couple of months 
 after the operation, and the crop can be put in at 
 once as soon as the “under-brush” is removed, 
 without the trouble of cutting and carrying away 
 or destroying the timber: this plan cannot be 
 adopted when the trees grow close together. The 
 soil in this part of the province, particularly when 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 167 
 
 first cleared, is extraordinarily fertile; I have 
 been told that it often yields wheat-crops for 
 fifteen or twenty years in succession , producing 
 from twenty to twenty-five bushels per acre, 
 before the “ virtue ” is extracted from the vege- 
 table mould which covers it ; after that time, of 
 course, the productiveness is immensely reduced ; 
 and this is an element worthy to be considered in 
 a calculation of the permanent supply of grain 
 which Canada is likely to furnish : the virgin soil, 
 with its attendant cheapness and abundance, is 
 rapidly becoming exhausted, so that against im- 
 proved communications is to be set increased diffi- 
 culty of production. The oak-plains are very 
 pretty, being full of glades and dells and vistas, 
 which remind one of English forest-scenery, only 
 that the trees which grow upon them are not fine. 
 There has been a most disagreeable change in the 
 weather: on Saturday we had very heavy rain, 
 the first (of any consequence) which I have seen 
 for six weeks, and last night there was a frost ; so 
 I suppose the summer, properly speaking, is gone : 
 the sun, however, is hot again to-day. 
 
 I am domiciled in the house of a gentleman to 
 whom I brought letters of introduction, and who, 
 with the usual hospitality of the country, has 
 made me feel completely at home ; so that I have 
 an opportunity of seeing a most favourable speci- 
 
168 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 men — too favourable, in fact, to be a fair one — of 
 a Canadian settler’s establishment. His farm 
 consists now (having been added to from time 
 to time) of about 400 acres, of which 130 are 
 cleared. For this a man and a boy are required 
 (besides what the owner does himself — no slight 
 addition in this case) all the year round, and addi- 
 tional hands at harvest-time. Mr. D. tells me he 
 has no trouble at all about servants (as is the usual 
 complaint throughout North America) : one has 
 lived six years and another three years with him ; 
 and he says, he would be able without difficulty to 
 supply their places if they went away. This is, 
 I fancy, the most aristocratic settlement in the 
 province, and contains within ten miles scions of 
 some of the best English and Irish families ; in 
 fact, I should say, the society is quite as good 
 as that of an average country neighbourhood at 
 home. For that very reason, however, I should 
 think it is not a good district for a man who looks 
 merely to the investment of capital to buy in ; for 
 land bears what may be called a fancy price, and the 
 chances of advance in value are not so great as in 
 many other places. About Brantford, for instance, 
 the average price of land is not much higher than 
 what is generally paid here, cceteris paribus (viz. 
 about 4/. sterling per acre for cleared, and from 
 1/. to 1/. 1 Os, for wild land), though there they 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 169 
 
 will soon have steam navigation up to their doors, 
 and a macadamized road to Hamilton; whereas 
 here there is nothing of the kind, and no apparent 
 prospect of early improvement in communications. 
 A friend of mine, who has just bought a farm 
 close to this place, gives 480/. for sixty cleared, 
 and 100 uncleared acres; but then it is very 
 prettily and advantageously situated, and has a log- 
 house, barn, and fences upon it. Gentlemen farm- 
 ers here do not ever aim at more than making their 
 land keep themselves, their servants, and cattle, 
 and pay the occasional labourers whom they em- 
 ploy ; and it requires considerable management to 
 effect this : those only can make money of a farm 
 (in this district) who have no labour to pay. 
 
 I have procured from men of practical informa- 
 tion and experience in these matters calculations 
 as to the various expenses and prospects of a set- 
 tler in this part of the country, and they have 
 proved to me, conclusively, that it is under ordi- 
 nary circumstances impossible for a gentleman to 
 make money by farming. Even in the instances 
 where land has been bought cheap, and become 
 unexpectedly profitable, in consequence of the 
 opening of new communications, it has been found 
 the best plan to sell it at an advanced price to the 
 small farmer, who labours for himself, lives econo- 
 
 VOL. I. i 
 
170 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. LETTER x. 
 
 mically, and, if sober and industrious, is sure to 
 get on. Wheat is the only crop for which, at 
 some price or other, there is a sure market in this 
 district : it is now very cheap, only bringing 3s. 
 per bushel, but the average price is a dollar. The 
 wheat crop has not been “ first-rate ” in the 
 western part of Canada this year ; indeed the 
 farmers say, not an average ; but the immense pro- 
 duce of Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, which is now 
 admitted duty-free, keeps down the price. A single 
 man, who has been accustomed to the comforts and 
 luxuries of a gentleman’s life at home, and expects 
 to live conformably to the same standard here, ought 
 to have 1007. a year, besides what he sinks in his 
 farm. With smaller means he ought certainly not 
 to buy land at first ; but should stay for a year or 
 two at a farmer’s, in order to see his way. In this 
 neighbourhood he could get board and lodging, 
 with two rooms for his sole use, and his meals at 
 his own hours, for two dollars per week (about 217. 
 per annum), and a farmer would keep a horse for 
 him at a dollar per week ; and you may imagine 
 from this how cheap provisions and forage must 
 be. In order to get experience in Canadian fann- 
 ing (a very different sort of thing from British), he 
 might rent land from year to year at two dollars 
 per acre in this neighbourhood (tliis is now be- 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK, 
 
 171 
 
 coming not uncommon * ; but the rent is as 
 yet generally low in proportion to the produce, 
 from the prejudice that exists against the tenure) ; 
 and thus, without tying himself down, he might 
 see whether he could make farming pay, and, 
 perhaps, save some money to add to his capital, 
 before he became a purchaser. It would not be a 
 bad plan even for a man who bought land to place 
 himself thus, “ en pension ” at first, while a bache- 
 lor, for he would certainly save money by doing 
 so, besides avoiding the trouble of housekeeping ; 
 all, however, are anxious to have houses of their 
 own when they come out, and from their inex- 
 perience they suffer accordingly. 
 
 The bane of this province is “ brandy and wa- 
 
 * I was surprised to find this practice (of renting land) 
 by no means uncommon in the United States, though, of 
 course, checked both by the habits of the people and the 
 facility of acquiring the fee-simple of new land ; nor is it 
 likely to become very extended or influential from the 
 effect of the American law of inheritance. The contracting 
 parties usually “ go shares " in the crop, instead of agree- 
 ing upon a fixed money rent ; the former seems certainly, 
 at first sight, the more natural and equitable plan, as making 
 the owner of the land bear the uncertainty to which its 
 productiveness is liable, but presents great difficulties in 
 practice, as it is nearly impossible to obtain a bond fide 
 valuation of the produce, and a correct average of the mar- 
 ket price each year, both of which are necessary to its ope- 
 ration. It is pretty nearly the metayer system of France, 
 except that the tenant provides capital as well as labour. 
 
 I 2 
 
172 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter X. 
 
 ter;” at least half of the young settlers fall into 
 the habit of drinking, more or less, and many have 
 been pointed out to me who came from England 
 with the most gentlemanlike habits, and apparently 
 good principles, but from bad company and ennui 
 have been led to excess, and have finally gone to 
 utter ruin from habitual intemperance. For this 
 reason, if there were no other, I should earnestly 
 dissuade any man who has been accustomed to 
 society from going upon wild land in the back 
 woods, remote from the haunts of men. Many 
 liave conceived, perhaps, a highly poetical idea of 
 such a life, which utterly vanishes when they at- 
 tempt to realise it, and the consequences are often 
 disgust and despair : if they can, they probably re- 
 turn to England, and tell every body " what a 
 detestable place Canada is ; ” if they remain, they 
 become boors and sots, unless gifted with stronger 
 principles and happier dispositions than fall to 
 the lot of ordinary men. On the contrary, I can 
 imagine no happier or more wholesome life, both 
 for mind and body, than that which a young man 
 who, like my host, has civilised and intellectual 
 tastes, as well as physical energy, may live in the 
 thickly-settled and cultivated districts of the pro- 
 vince, that is, if he have a sufficient income to be 
 above depending altogether upon his land for sub- 
 sistence : if he have emigrated as one of a family, 
 
JL.ETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 173 
 
 or have been accompanied by friends or relations 
 from home, of course he is still better off. He has 
 constant, yet not harassing, occupation ; the con- 
 sciousness that while providing for himself and his 
 family (present or future), he is also performing a 
 most important part in the economy of God’s pro- 
 vidence, by “ replenishing the earth and subduing 
 it ; ” the opportunity of becoming exceedingly useful 
 locally and generally, in a moral point of view, by 
 exerting himself in the cause of religion and edu- 
 cation ; and (if inclined to politics) a sphere within 
 his reach, the extent and importance of which is 
 daily increasing, and which even now affords full 
 scope for energy and talent. He must not be an 
 epicure, certainly, that is, require a French cuisine, 
 but, nevertheless, he may live, as we live here, ex- 
 ceedingly well. I have never seen better meat, but- 
 ter, bread, or milk, and groceries also are very cheap. 
 The average price of meat is about 2 gd. per lb., of 
 bread M. for the 21b. loaf, but all the farmers 
 live upon the produce of their own land. e 
 have had also very good wild venison, which, how- 
 ever, is inferior to that fed in parks ; for, like all 
 other animals, deer, in their wild state, are almost 
 destitute of fat. There are a good many deer in 
 this neigbourhood still. The other day, on my way 
 from Brentford, I saw two in the road, who let us 
 approach within 100 yards in the waggon: un- 
 I 3 
 
174 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter X . 
 
 fortunately I had left my gun behind me (for the 
 first time since I landed in America), or I could, 
 without doubt, by stalking, have got within thirty 
 or forty yards, and made sure of one. There ought 
 also to be good quail-shooting : I went out to look 
 for some the other day, but having no dog, and 
 being lame besides, the result of my chasse was 
 very small ; I only found one bevy, and shot one 
 bird. If I were living here, I should try to make 
 an annual excursion to the prairie country : — one 
 goes to Scotland for grouse- shooting at home. It 
 could be done without much expense of time or 
 money, by means of steamers from Detroit to 
 Chicago. 
 
 There is much to lament in the religious condi- 
 tion of most of the rural districts, as must always 
 be the case where the population is much scat- 
 tered, and allowed to outgrow the supply of eccle- 
 siastical ministration. From never having the 
 subject forced upon them, they begin to forget it, 
 gradually neglect the observance of the Lord’s 
 Day, or else employ it as a day simply of bodily 
 relaxation and amusement, omit to have their 
 children baptized, and end by living as though 
 they had no religion at all. No one conversant with 
 the state of newly-settled countries can fail to 
 recognise the truth of Dr. Chalmers’s well-known 
 proposition, “ that in the matter of religious in- 
 
iETTEU X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 175 
 
 struction, the demand is in an inverse ratio to the 
 necessity of supply;” so that even granting the 
 monstrous assumption implied in the arguments ot 
 those who maintain that the matter may be left 
 to the ordinary operation of economic laws (the 
 assumption, namely, that the amount of religion 
 is the only thing to be considered, and that the 
 quality signifies nothing) ; granting even this, I 
 boldly maintain, that if the state so leaves it, the 
 thinly-peopled districts will remain totally and 
 contentedly destitute, and subside into unconscious 
 perhaps, but practical, atheism. Even in Canada, 
 where the government, and above all, the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel, have done much, 
 there is great danger of this result taking place 
 in many districts ; but in the States it is infinitely 
 worse ; and I cannot help referring the unpunished 
 outrages, the Lynch-legislation, the lawlessness, 
 in short, of which these are symptoms, which have 
 given an infamous distinction to so many of the 
 border states, and from which our colonies have 
 happily been free hitherto, more to the want of 
 religious ministration than to the weakness of the 
 executive, the prevalence of slavery, or any of 
 the other causes to which the admitted evil has 
 been attributed. Even in a political point of 
 view, that government is wrong which does not 
 endeavour to connect the colonies with the parent 
 I 4 
 
176 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter x. 
 
 state by the strong tie of a common faith. This 
 was clearly shown in the late rebellion in Canada, 
 as well as in the revolutionary war; for it is an 
 undoubted fact, that in both cages all the members 
 of the Church, almost without exception, remained 
 loyal. But the great, the all-important question 
 is, whether a government, to which the care of 
 its people has been entrusted, and which is respon- 
 sible for their welfare in its largest sense, is 
 justified before God if it leave a population, breed- 
 ing and spreading on all sides, to the chance that 
 their own fancies and cravings will supply a suffi- 
 cient amount of orthodox religious instruction 
 and ordinances, — in short, if it suffers them to 
 become, at hap-hazard. Churchmen, Dissenters, or 
 infidels. 
 
 We have been exceedingly gay all this week. 
 On Tuesday we dined with Mr. A., the judge of 
 the district, whose office is analogous to that of 
 an Irish assistant-barrister. On W ednesday we had 
 a cricket match at the Woodstock club ground. 
 
 I am delighted to see the old English games intro- 
 duced into the colonies: they carry with them 
 associations of the old time and the old country, 
 which are worth a thousand political enactments, 
 in keeping up among emigrants the feeling that, 
 though half the globe may divide them from their 
 native land, they are Britons still. In a new 
 country, time is generally too valuable, in a 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 WOODSTOCK. 
 
 177 
 
 pecuniary point of view, for play ; but where it 
 can be spared from necessary business, I cannot 
 think it unprofitably employed in preserving the 
 national sports, which have had so much influence 
 in forming the national character. In America 
 they have never appeared, and in England they 
 are everywhere going out — a pregnant symptom ol 
 the radical change which our character, habits, and 
 institutions are in process of undergoing. We are 
 becoming American a vuecPceil To return to Wood- 
 stock : on Thursday we went to see Admiral \ an- 
 sittart, whose place is near the town. He has done 
 wonders here ; built an immense house ; cleared a 
 great extent of ground for a park, and surrounded 
 it with a regular English park-paling ; in short, he 
 has spent a large fortune upon his Canadian pro- 
 perty, which it has been his great object to trans- 
 mute as rapidly as possible into an English 
 country-seat. Though it has not turned out a 
 profitable speculation to himself, he has produced, 
 by his operations, a most civilising effect upon the 
 appearance of the country, and has certainly given 
 a great stimulus to the prosperity of Woodstock. 
 In his son I was delighted to meet an old school- 
 fellow, who recognised me immediately, notwith- 
 standing the lapse of years: tills sort of unex- 
 pected meeting with friends is very refieshing to 
 solitary traveller. Very few tourists, I am 
 i 5 
 
 a 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 told, visit this part of Canada; indeed I only 
 heard the name of one (Lord Prudhoe), who had 
 been lately at Woodstock. The usual plan is to 
 go down by steam from Niagara, touching at 
 Toronto, Kingston, and Montreal, to Quebec; 
 and then, having seen precisely so much of the 
 country as forms the left bank of the St. Law- 
 rence, to draw elaborate comparisons between 
 Canada and the United States. 
 
LETTER XL 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 UNCOMFORTABLE JOURNEY. — TORONTO. SYSTEM OF LAND 
 
 SALES IN CANADA. MR. W AKEFIELD*S PLAN. CLERGY 
 
 RESERVES. THE BAR IN CANADA. THE TALBOT SET- 
 TLEMENT. VISITS FROM IRISH EMIGRANTS. THEIR 
 
 SUCCESS. UPPER-CANADA COLLEGE. THE MEDICAL 
 
 PROFESSION IN CANADA. 
 
 September. 
 
 On Friday I bade farewell to my kind friends at 
 Woodstock, and started per stage for Hamilton, 
 by the same road which I had travelled before ; 
 but, alas ! how different was its condition. The 
 roads in America are dependent upon the weather, 
 and the weather has now completely broken up. 
 It rained unceasingly from Thursday morning to 
 Friday evening, and the mud-holes in consequence 
 had increased alarmingly — and a mud-hole is, as 
 Mrs. Clavering says, a serious thing in the west ; 
 a thing to be contemplated and consulted about, 
 measured and sounded, before the final and often 
 fatal plunge is taken ; and the sand track, which 
 they call a road, had become so deep, that for 
 miles together we proceeded at a crawling walk. 
 I thought the day would never end. There were 
 i 6 
 
180 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter XL 
 
 two drunken Americans of the lowest class oppo- 
 site to me, one of whom quarrelled with me out- 
 right because I would not “ trade ” with him for 
 a coat, which was “ too little for him, but would 
 fit me fust-rate;” a squalling child beside me; 
 the pouring rain above and around, and such a 
 carriage, and such a road beneath I On our 
 arrival at Hamilton at about nine o’clock at night, 
 having occupied thirteen or fourteen hours in 
 travelling fifty-five miles, we found the inns full 
 to overflowing. There must be a wonderful traffic 
 through this place, for it was just the same thing 
 when I was here before ; and at the principal inn 
 they told me they had been full continually for 
 the last month. After running about the town 
 in the rain and mud for some time, breaking my 
 head against scaffolding, and tumbling into over- 
 flowed drains, (for of course Hamilton does not 
 boast of lamps, and is “ going ahead ” so fast, 
 that it is one mass of rubbish and liquid dirt,) I 
 was fortunate enough to get a dirty bed -room 
 without any window, where I managed to sleep 
 pretty well in spite of the fleas, and dressed and 
 shaved in the passage. Next morning rain again ; 
 and as we had a mile to go to the w T harf at which 
 the Toronto steamer was lying, and there were 
 not carriages enough for the crowd of passengers, 
 a great many were late, and we started at eight 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 181 
 
 o’clock without them. Travelling in Canada 
 makes one look out pretty sharply for number 
 one (he who trusts to “boots” or chambermaid 
 is lost), and as Iliad learned that lesson, I got my 
 seat. 
 
 We arrived at Toronto, which is about forty- 
 five miles from Hamilton, at about one o’clock, 
 having touched at Oakville, the Credit, and 
 another village or two along the shore. The view 
 coming out of Hamilton Bay was beautiful : it is 
 surrounded by an amphitheatre of wooded hills . 
 and Sir Allan M'Nab’s castle, the most “ ambi- 
 tious” building that 1 have seen in Canada, looks 
 well enough at a distance, overhanging the water on 
 a high cliff. The approach to Toronto is tame, the 
 shores being low, but about the town are a good 
 number of tolerable villas and gardens : the streets 
 appear wide, and the shops handsome. Since I 
 arrived here I have been so unwell, that I have 
 hardly been able to leave the house ; for the first 
 two days I was at a bad inn, where I had a 
 wretched little room without a bell, a serious in- 
 convenience to an invalid, and noise and dirt with- 
 out limit ; since then, however, my circumstances 
 have materially improved, for Mr. S., to whom 1 
 brought a letter of introduction, called upon me, 
 and has insisted upon my removing to his house. 
 I am now established in capital bachelor’s quar- 
 
182 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 ters, with a little study opening upon a nice 
 garden, and full of English books and papers. 
 I enjoy complete quiet too, which, after so much 
 inn-work, is inestimable ; so I lie on the sofa all 
 day, and console myself amazingly well for my want 
 of locomotive power. The only thing that annoys 
 me is, that I have lost a good deal of time, which 
 ought to have been spent in seeing the country 
 north of Toronto, about Lake Simcoe, and joarti- 
 cularly the townships of Caledon and Chingacousa 
 — -I probably spell it wrong — where a number of 
 Irish Protestants, who have come out from our own 
 neighbourhood in Ireland, are settled. I wanted 
 very much to see them, and inquire into their 
 state and prospects, but this part of my plan is 
 now knocked on the head. I am told that the 
 countiy on each side of Yonge Street, as the road 
 from Toronto to Lake Simcoe is called, is fine, and 
 well cultivated ; there is a steamer, too, on the 
 lake, and the principal part of the consumption and 
 trade of Toronto is supplied from that district, so 
 that I was sorry not to be able to see it. 
 
 One day I drove in a cab, notwithstanding my 
 doctor’s prohibition, to dine with my Niagara 
 friends, and had, as usual, a great deal of agree- 
 able and useful conversation. The subject of 
 land sales is one which naturally excites much 
 interest here, and I may as w^ell take this oppor- 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 183 
 
 tunity of giving you the result of my inquiries 
 upon this subject. Some of the most able and 
 experienced of the Canadian politicians object to 
 the government system of making the sale of 
 land a source of revenue : they say it can be so at 
 best but to a very limited extent, and that it 
 would be better to grant land to settlers bringing 
 out proper testimonials of character, on condition 
 of their clearing a given quantity in a given time 
 (subject to revocation of the grant if they did not 
 fulfil the condition, or if they disposed of the land 
 to others). Now against this plan the first ob- 
 vious answer is, that, under good management, a 
 large fund may be derived from land sales, which 
 if applied to the importation of labourers will 
 have a doubly good effect, that of relieving the 
 labour market of the mother-country, and supply- 
 ing that of the colony: this is proved by the 
 example of South Australia, where the system of 
 Mr. Wakefield has been long in operation, and 
 where great advantages have resulted from it. 
 The fault there has been the high price of land. 
 The fever of speculation rose to such a height, that 
 men bid against each other to a point at which a 
 profitable return from their investment was im- 
 possible ; and the consequence was much indi- 
 vidual ruin and distress : but this mistake in the 
 administration does not affect the principle of the 
 

 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xi. 
 
 system, namely, the sale of land, and application 
 of its produce to assisting immigration. In the 
 United States, where that part of Mr. Wake- 
 field’s system, which relates to immigration, 
 does not apply, the other (that relating to sales) 
 has operated admirably. Where land is given 
 gratuitously (great as are the benefits of in- 
 creasing cultivation on any terms) there will al- 
 ways be, in the first place, vast jobbing and 
 favouritism ; in the second, impossibility of ascer- 
 taining whether the grantees are of a proper de- 
 scription, from the absence of any sufficient test, 
 and above all, a sacrifice of the funds from which 
 a supply of labour might be obtained. A low fixed 
 price will not be injuriously felt as a check to the 
 occupation of land by desirable emigrants: it will 
 operate as a partial, I do not say effectual, check 
 to the land-jobbing which is so common and so 
 pernicious in new colonies; and if properly applied, 
 it will supply the farmer with what he wants, viz. 
 laboui. There must, however, be in any good 
 plan for land sales some measure analogous to 
 the custom (which I have spoken of as prevailing 
 in the United States) of prescriptive right of 
 pre-emption by actual occupants. Upon this point 
 all are agreed: bona fide occupation ought to be 
 the condition of sale; if this be not insisted upon, 
 the whole country, or rather all the desirable 
 “locations” in it, must become the property of 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 18.5 
 
 large capitalists, who will either keep it lying 
 waste, in the hope of an advanced price, or sell it 
 by auction at an exorbitant rate, thereby entailing 
 all the evils attendant upon the government auc- 
 tion system, without the benefit of an application 
 of the proceeds to public purposes. Stringent 
 regulations as to occupation and clearance must 
 go along with the gratuitous or low-fixed-price 
 system; and, though I know the difficulties at- 
 tending upon the enforcement of conditions, and 
 the arrangement of the right of pre-emption, I 
 cannot but think they may and ought to be over- 
 come. The auction-system throws so many ob- 
 stacles in the way of extensive settlement, by the 
 disadvantages under which it places small capital- 
 ists, and the subtraction of so much capital from 
 agricultural purposes, that, notwithstanding its 
 superior productiveness, I think it is on the whole 
 justly objected to. If occupants, not speculators, 
 save the money which is lost to the Government, 
 the colony is not a loser, but a gainer to the 
 amount of the difference, but that is the turning- 
 point of the whole question. The gratuitous 
 system, as formerly practised, when Govern- 
 ment gave immense tracts to single individuals, 
 who probably never went near them, nor thought 
 of any thing but how to get the best price at their 
 6ale, was the most ruinous of all. Thus the 
 
186 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 Canada company would, if tlieir speculations had 
 prospered, have intercepted, for the profit of the 
 English shareholders, money which would other- 
 wise have either remained in the pockets of actual 
 settlers, or been paid into the treasury, and which, 
 in either case, would, or ought to have been 
 applied productively for colonial purposes ; as it is, 
 they have not succeeded, and probably would be 
 content to receive back the price which they 
 originally paid, for the immense tracts which they 
 purchased, and the money they have since spent 
 upon the province, without reckoning interest 
 upon their capital at all. Thus their operations, 
 though based upon a defective principle, and 
 though producing in many localities an injurious 
 effect, may probably, on the whole, be beneficial to 
 the colony, and certainly have done far less harm 
 than individual speculations would do. They have 
 assisted largely in the opening of communications, 
 and the improvement of the country in various 
 ways, and are at this moment offering for sale 
 allotments in a fine district, on the banks of Lake 
 Huron, upon very advantageous terms, allowing 
 the purchase money to be paid gradually by 
 moderate instalments, and assisting the emigrants 
 to arrive at then* destination. In every respect 
 I should say that, at present, purchases can be 
 made from the Company more advantageously 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 187 
 
 than from the Government (and, a fortiori , more 
 so than from individuals), but there is no reason 
 why tills superiority should be allowed to remain 
 with them. 
 
 Lord Durham, and all the mere political econo- 
 mists, object strongly to the principle upon which 
 one seventh of every township was reserved for 
 ecclesiastical purposes ; and no doubt, if one looks 
 solely to the material prosperity of the country, 
 these reserves are objectionable, not only as keep- 
 ing so large a proportion of the territory in an un- 
 cultivated state, but as impeding the formation of 
 internal communications between settled districts. 
 If by any other plan the religious wants of the 
 province could have been adequately provided for, 
 it ought to have been adopted ; and I confess that 
 I fear the apparent advantage to be derived from 
 the present one — namely, that of securing an 
 increased value of church property in proportion 
 to the increasing demand for its application — will 
 hardly be realised. The lands must be sold with- 
 in a limited time to provide for present necessities : 
 till they are sold they produce nothing, and do 
 more harm than good ; for it is of course wholly 
 out of the question that the clergy should occupy 
 and clear them, and leasing wild land is unknown, 
 so that it is merely a question of time, as to how 
 long the church can do without the proceeds of 
 
188 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter XI. 
 
 their sale, and allow them to increase in value, as 
 the adjoining country improves. The “ Clergy- 
 Reserves Act ” directs that these lands shall be 
 sold at the discretion of the Governor in Council, 
 with the proviso, that not more than 100,000 
 acres shall be sold in each year : the object of the 
 friends of the Church is to prevent them from 
 being sold at the price which they could now com- 
 mand. 
 
 I have just received an immense packet of 
 letters from England and Ireland. Thank God ! 
 all well at home, and good news of the harvest in 
 both countries ; which news are more acceptable 
 to me than to my Canadian friends, whose market 
 depends upon the price of agricultural produce 
 with you. Provisions must be very cheap here, 
 when it can pay a man to charge (as is done at the 
 best hotel in Toronto) only one dollar per day for 
 board and lodging. For this, which would not do 
 more than pay for dinner and waiter at an English 
 provincial town, they give you four tolerable 
 meals, as good as “ coach meals ” at home, with 
 meat at every one, a bed-room, and attendance of 
 servants, for “ vails ” are unknown here, as well 
 as in the United States. If it were not for 
 Mr. S.’s library I should be very badly off, for my 
 travelling stock of books is pretty nearly read 
 through, and I am tired of the heaps of trash 
 which one finds in the cheap American novels: 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 189 
 
 these are sold in vast quantities throughout the 
 province ; and as they cost only about 6d. or Is. 
 for a three- volume novel, can be bought, read, and 
 thrown away without scruple. 
 
 I have been asking my friends here about the 
 chance of success which an English or Irish 
 barrister would have at the colonial bar, and find 
 them all agree in saying that there is not an in- 
 stance of such a venture turning out well. Many 
 have tried and all failed. This is accounted for 
 by the operation of two causes; first, connection 
 is all-powerful here, and it would require great 
 superiority of learning and talent to divert business 
 out of the established colonial channel ; secondly, 
 it is very difficult for men brought up with high 
 and mighty notions of professional dignity, “honor- 
 aria” & c., to reconcile themselves to the mode of 
 practice which prevails. Lawyers are here both 
 barristers and attornies, there being in theory no 
 division of labour ; but business is managed much 
 more after the fashion of the latter branch of the 
 profession than after that of the former. In the 
 first place, they send in their bills regularly for 
 work and labour done, and a cause pleaded in 
 court, or an opinion upon title, is charged in the 
 same way as the drawing of a brief or a convey- 
 ance ; then, they generally work in firms or part- 
 nerships, in which, though the parties are nominally 
 
190 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 presumed to be ready and qualified to undertake 
 any department of the profession, and actually do 
 so on emergencies, yet the ordinary practice is, 
 that one should devote himself particularly to con- 
 veyancing and chamber practice, and the other 
 (the Mercurius) to court- work and circuit. It is 
 consequently a young man’s great object to get 
 into a good partnership, and if he does so his for- 
 tune is made ; for as his seniors die, or get pro- 
 moted, he succeeds to their business as a matter of 
 course, if qualified. Sometimes a man with con- 
 nection and interest will join with another who 
 has talents and information, but wants an opening; 
 and their respective shares of the profits are made 
 matters of preliminary bargain. 
 
 I am, in some respects, unlucky in the time of 
 my visit to Toronto, the judges being on circuit, 
 and the bishop engaged in a visitation to the 
 western part of the province. I have, however, 
 been fortunate enough to meet Colonel Talbot, to 
 whom I had a letter of introduction, and who is 
 here on his way from Kingston, where he has been 
 paying his respects to the new governor-general. 
 He has very kindly invited me to Port Talbot, 
 but as my route is henceforth southward and east- 
 ward, I shall not be able to visit him. Colonel 
 Talbot has been in Canada now about forty years, 
 and during the whole of that time has hardly left 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 191 
 
 the log-house which he originally built, and which 
 he still lives in. He obtained a grant of about 
 50,000 acres of wild land for himself from Govern- 
 ment, upon condition of settling a certain extent 
 of country with old-world emigrants : this he has 
 done, but of his own property he has never sold 
 an acre, though it is now very valuable, being 
 situated on the northern bank of Lake Erie, in 
 the heart of the most rapidly advancing district of 
 the province, and uniting all sorts of natural ad- 
 vantages. I am told it would sell for upwards of 
 100,000Z. in the market. About 700 acres only 
 are cleared, and these Colonel Talbot keeps in his 
 own hands, employing (which is rare here) a con- 
 siderable number of labourers; the rest of his 
 estate, of course, yields him no return whatever in 
 its present condition. I must say that, strong as 
 is my propensity for Canada, and great as are the 
 charms for my imagination of a country where 
 there is “ plenty of room,” I cannot conceive re- 
 conciling myself to such complete isolation as this 
 — 100 miles is rather too great a distance from 
 one’s nearest neighbour. 
 
 This morning I have received several visits of 
 “ friends from the old countrie,” who having heard 
 of my arrival in these pails came to pay their 
 respects, and inquire after their relations in Ireland. 
 Among the first was my old servant S., who came 
 
192 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 out about two months ago, and got a place, he tells 
 me, three days after he landed, as coachman in 
 the family of one of the judges. He likes the 
 country very much : his wages are twelve dollars 
 a month (without livery), out of which he hopes, 
 in a very few years, to save money enough to get 
 a farm, the grand desideratum here. He says this 
 is a “ fine Protestant country,” and that there was 
 “ a great walk on the twelfth.” My next visit 
 was from a young lady, who officiated some years 
 ago in the distinguished capacity of under-house- 
 maid at : the transformation of the grub into 
 
 the butterfly is not more complete than that which 
 has taken place in her appearance and manners. 
 She walked in with her brother, whom I also re- 
 membered : both were exceedingly well dressed, so 
 much so as to make me almost blush for the des- 
 habille in which I received them; shook hands 
 with me, sat down, and proceeded to converse on 
 the current topics of the day. Seriously speak- 
 ing, they seem to have prospered amazingly, and 
 though their “ abord ” was rather too American 
 
 o 
 
 for our prejudices, I must say that neither in 
 them nor in any other of my old acquaintances 
 have I met with the slightest disposition to pre- 
 sume upon the change in our relative positions ; 
 on the contrary, they all seem to be not only de- 
 lighted to see me, but to preserve all their former 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 193 
 
 class-feeling (as the Americans call it) of respect 
 and deference. The brother told me he got twenty 
 dollars a month as clerk at a wholesale store. The 
 sister is unmarried, lives with him, and gets con- 
 stant and lucrative employment by taking in 
 needlework : a dollar, for instance, is the price of 
 making a shirt, and other things in proportion. 
 They have been telling me about all the people 
 from our neighbourhood who are out here : gene- 
 rally speaking, they have succeeded very well, and 
 occupy farms, of which the purchase-money is 
 either partly or altogether paid. One man ( J. B. ) 
 they mentioned to me as having gone this year 
 into the Caledon township, where all our friends 
 are settled, with a view of becoming a school- 
 master — an occupation which pays very well, I am 
 told, in the better-settled districts. A woman, who 
 told me she was a cousin of one of my father’s 
 tenants, amused me very much (while giving me 
 an account of her situation and circumstances) by 
 the apologetic manner in which she told me, half 
 asliamed, with respect to her husband — “ Indeed, 
 sir, lie’s just a Yankee ; but he’s a good churchman 
 for all that.” All these people seem to feel the 
 strongest interest about their friends in Ireland, and 
 many speak regretfully of having left it ; “ es ist 
 doch sclion im fremden Lande.” And yet I cannot 
 imagine their being satisfied to live at home in the 
 VOL. i. K 
 
194 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 same line of life as before, after being in America ; 
 they have so much better eating and drinking here 
 (if it were nothing else), which must be a great 
 desideratum with the mass. 
 
 I have just had a long visit from Dr. M‘Caul, 
 Principal of Upper Canada College, and may as 
 well take this opportunity to give you some 
 account of the nature of that institution, and the 
 system pursued there. It is now a school only, 
 but before long a university will be established, 
 at which the boys may finish their education: 
 they will be parts of the same foundation, and 
 under the same management. There are now 
 one hundred and sixty boys in course of educa- 
 tion, of whom about sixty are boarders : the latter 
 pay only 247. per annum for board, lodging, and 
 education; the day boys, 77. 10s. There is an 
 excellent staff of masters, as must indeed be the 
 case where the emoluments are so good : they get 
 3007. per annum, and a hoijse each. The four 
 principal masters are M. A.’s of Cambridge, and 
 the head master a member of Trinity College, 
 Dublin, where he was, I believe, distinguished. 
 The course of study is framed upon the model of 
 Eton, except that the study of French is abso- 
 lutely required, (tliis is very useful here, from 
 its facilitating intercourse with the French Ca- 
 nadians), and also an attendance upon lectures in 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 195 
 
 mechanics. There is, however, an exception made 
 in compliance with the utilitarian tendency of a new 
 country, which I think objectionable in theory, 
 though Dr. M‘Caul tells me that in practice it 
 does but little harm, as hardly any avail them- 
 selves of it : tills consists in the existence of what 
 they call a “ partial class,” where those boys 
 whose parents wish it are instructed, not in the 
 regular routine of the school education, but in 
 those practical branches only which the parents 
 may think likely to be useful (in the material 
 sense of the word) to the boys in after-life, such 
 as mathematics, surveying, mechanics, &c. I 
 hear this institution universally well spoken of ; 
 and all the best colonial families have sons in it. 
 It has been considered advisable to modify the 
 original charter by which subscription to the 
 articles was made necessary on the part of the 
 masters and professors: they are now only re- 
 quired to declare their belief in the canonical 
 Scriptures, and the Trinity. The governor of the 
 province, who is ex officio chancellor, has the 
 nomination to all the offices : and as it seems to be 
 thought right to select men from the English and 
 Irish universities to fill them, the probability is 
 that, generally at least, the more important will 
 continue to be filled by churchmen ; but there is 
 no provision for that purpose. Divine worship 
 K 2 
 
 

 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 is performed, and the Scriptures read, morning 
 and evening, at which the attendance is compul- 
 sory, notwithstanding repeated demands for an 
 alteration of the rules in this particular. On 
 Sunday the church children are instructed in 
 the Catechism and other books of doctrine, and 
 required to attend divine service ; the others have 
 no religious instruction given them, and arc 
 allowed to attend their own places of worship 
 respectively, as they or their parents choose. 
 There is a large endowment annexed to the insti- 
 tution, consisting of, I think, 70,000 acres of 
 land : the management of its affairs is conducted 
 by a council, of which the bishop is px’esidcnt, 
 the chief functionaries of the province and the 
 principal, ex officio members, and five others 
 nominated by the crown. On the whole, con- 
 sidering the difficulties under which government 
 labours here in matters of this nature, from the 
 prevailing hostility to anything like exclusiveness 
 or establishment, and the absence of all reverence 
 for old institutions as models, I must say I am 
 surprised and pleased to find a system with so 
 much orthodoxy about it, employed in forming 
 the minds of the rising generation; and I trust 
 when the crying want of a university is supplied, 
 this part of the colony will be as well off as can 
 reasonably be expected in its provision for a 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 
 197 
 
 literary education. This school, however, must 
 be enlarged considerably, for even now there is 
 not room enough ; and of course the number of 
 applicants will increase yearly. It appears to me 
 also that the cost of the education given, which 
 is now exceedingly low, might be increased with- 
 out hardship or inconvenience, so as to admit of 
 applying part of the original endowment to the 
 establishment of schools, to be conducted upon 
 the same system in other places. I drove, yester- 
 day, to see the site of the intended university ; it 
 is beautifully placed outside the town, at the top 
 of an avenue a mile long, planted with all sorts of 
 trees and shrubs, and very well kept : the build- 
 ing will, I am told, be very extensive, and in the 
 Grecian style : till it is finished, the business of 
 the university will go on in the ci-devant Parlia- 
 ment House. 
 
 Upon dismissing my doctor (which I am happy 
 to say I did to-day) I asked him his charge ; and 
 he informed me it was a dollar for each visit. The 
 system here is very different from that which 
 prevails at home with respect to medical attend- 
 ance ; and the tendency of it, as in the case of 
 the lawyers, is to lower very much the dignity of 
 the learned professions. When a doctor is in the 
 habit of attending upon a resident family, lie 
 sends in his account at the end of the year, like 
 K 3 
 
198 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xi. 
 
 the tailor or shoemaker ; and then, as my medical 
 friend complained very bitterly, ensues generally 
 a scene of bargaining and beating down, and dis- 
 puting the number of visits, which must be 
 annoying enough; for he does not supply medicines, 
 as the English country doctors do, but deals in 
 the variable and intangible commodities of opera- 
 tions and visits only : and as there is no fixed tariff 
 of charges, his own estimate of the value of his 
 skill and labour generally differs very considerably 
 from that formed by his patients. In the case of 
 casual attendance the same system is pm sued, 
 only that of course the bill is sent in immediately. 
 There is no doubt, in short, that a man of refined 
 and fastidious habits will meet with rubs and 
 crosses at every turn in this country, and had far 
 better remain at home. 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 199 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 LEAVE TORONTO. COBOURG. HETEROGENEOUS CHA- 
 RACTER OF POPULATION IN UPPER CANADA. RIDE TO 
 
 PETERBOROUGH. TOWNSHIPS OF CAVAN AND 3IONAGHAN. 
 
 IRISH PROTESTANT FAR3IERS. PETERBOROUGH. 
 
 LIFE OF A SETTLER IN THE BACK-WOODS. OCCUPATIONS 
 
 AND AMUSEMENTS. WANT OF SERVANTS. CHEAPNESS 
 
 OF LIVING. 
 
 Cobourg, September. 
 
 I left Toronto on the 17th, having remained a 
 week there, almost entirely in my friend S.’s 
 study, where I was certainly as comfortable as 
 was possible under the circumstances ; still a week 
 of inactivity is too much to lose out of my limited 
 time. And now once more for noise and bustle, 
 and perpetual motion — for changing my bed every 
 night, and packing every morning. In this country 
 all the world is in a whirl and fizz, and one 
 must be in the fashion ; every thing and every 
 body seem to go by steam : if you meet an ac- 
 quaintance in the street, he is sure to have “just 
 arrived ” from some place three or four hundred 
 miles off, and to be “just starting” upon a si- 
 milar expedition in some other direction. After 
 K 4 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 200 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xii. 
 
 a short experience of this mode of life one quite 
 forgets that there is such a thing as repose or 
 absence of noise, and begins to think that the 
 blowing of steam is a necessary accompaniment 
 and consequence of the ordinary operation of the 
 elements — a Yankee music of the spheres. 
 
 At twelve o’clock I sailed in the Kingston boat, 
 which touches at several places on the northern 
 shore of the Lake ; amongst others at Cobourg, 
 where I now am. I called on the evening of my 
 arrival upon a gentleman to whom I had an intro- 
 duction, and settled to ride with him to Peter- 
 borough, a village about forty miles “back” (as 
 they say here) beyond the “ Rice Lake,” close to 
 which is the settlement of those Irish whom the 
 government brought out some fifteen years ago as 
 an experiment in state colonisation. There is a 
 curious feature about Upper Canada which I do 
 not remember having mentioned to you, and which 
 strikes a stranger very much, and that is, the 
 exceedingly heterogeneous and exotic character of 
 its population : it is much more remarkable here 
 than in the States, because the country has not 
 been settled long enough for a generation born in it 
 to have sprung up to any extent ; so that there 
 appears to be no groundwork of native popula- 
 tion at all : every body is a foreigner here ; and 
 “ home,” in their mouths, invariably means another 
 
ETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 201 
 
 country. Then you have the provincial peculiarities 
 of every part of the British Islands contrasted 
 with those of European and American foreigners : 
 one man addresses you in a rich Cork brogue, 
 the next in broad Scotch, and a third in unde- 
 niable Yorkshire ; the Yankee may be known by 
 his broad-brimmed hat, lank figure, and nasal 
 drawl : then you have the French Canadian, 
 chattering patois, in his red cap, blue shirt, sash, 
 and moccasins ; the German, with his blue blouse 
 and black belt ; and the Italian, following the 
 usual trades of his country, image-making and 
 confectionery, and as easily distinguishable as at 
 home. Most foreigners go to the States, but 
 there they amalgamate to a certain extent with 
 the native-born population, or at least are swal- 
 lowed up in it: here, though of course the vast 
 majority are British, all are foreigners ; nor does 
 any fixed, definite character appear to have yet 
 arisen in the province, which might absorb and 
 remodel that of the new-comers. The Canadians 
 are neither British nor American : the local cir- 
 cumstances and situation of the country (which 
 are among the most powerful of the influences 
 which form national character) tend towards 
 the latter ; and the tendency is increased by the 
 vicinity of, and intercourse with, the States : on 
 the other hand, early habits and associations, com- 
 ic 5 
 
202 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xii. 
 
 munication with their friends in the old country, 
 political and ecclesiastical institutions, and the 
 antipathy produced by rivalry and collision with 
 their American neighbours, unite them to Great 
 Britain. I think they are more American than 
 they believe themselves to be, or would like to be 
 considered ; and in the ordinary course of things, 
 as the emigrants cease to bear so large a propor- 
 tion as they do now to those born in the province, 
 they must become more so • still it is very im- 
 portant to recollect that here is a national cha- 
 racter in process of formation, and that now is 
 the time to infuse into it, as far as possible, those 
 elements which we are accustomed to consider 
 valuable in our own ; above all, to consider deeply 
 the momentous question, upon the determination 
 of which I do not hesitate to say the future wel- 
 fare of Canada, as well as its connection with 
 Great Britain, depends — namely, that of the main- 
 tenance and encouragement of a national church. 
 
 The sympathisers came over to Cobourg at the 
 time of the disturbances, but were fortunately 
 anticipated in their designs. The chance of these 
 inroads is certainly a very serious objection to 
 settling near the frontier or shores of the boundary 
 waters. If wars were likely to be as common as 
 in the middle ages, we should find the “ peels ’ 
 and watch-towers of the debateable land rising 
 
LETTER XH. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 203 
 
 along the Canadian border : as it is, the victory 
 of the commercial over the military spirit is sig- 
 nalised by the fact that, with very few exceptions, 
 fortified places seem to be considered unnecessary 
 on both sides of the lines ; nor is there any thing 
 to prevent us from walking into Buffalo, or the 
 Americans from occupying Toronto, any fine 
 morning in the year : both took place during 
 the last war. 
 
 On the 19th I rode from Cobourg to Peter- 
 borough, thirty-five miles, over a pretty, or at least 
 a good country : but beauty here consists not in 
 forest, but in clearing. In the eye of a Canadian 
 absence of trees is the first element of the pic- 
 turesque. My companion had been member of 
 the legislature for the county through which we 
 passed, and gave me a great deal of information 
 about its condition and circumstances. We passed 
 between the townships of Cavan and Monaghan, 
 settled, as you may suppose from the names, prin- 
 cipally by Protestants from the North of Ireland ; 
 and I was very much gratified by seeing the pro- 
 gress which they have made. I visited the houses 
 of several ; and the result of my inquiries was every 
 where the same : all were doing well. One man 
 from Drum, near Cavan, who came out without a 
 dollar, lias now a capital house and 1200 acres of 
 land; another from Wattle-bridge is also very 
 k 6 
 
. .. 
 
 
 
 
 204 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter XII' 
 
 flourishing, and has been member of the legisla- 
 ture. Two brothers from Clones, who came out 
 almost paupers, have excellent houses (better than 
 Mr. P.’s), and every appearance of wealth and 
 abundance. Those whom I have mentioned were 
 all visited by chance, as they happened to live 
 within reach of the road; and their stories are 
 almost all the same. They began by day-labour, 
 or taking land “on shares” (that is, the occupier 
 giving the owner half the produce), and very soon 
 made money enough to go upon wild land and 
 begin to clear. When a man buys land he is 
 seldom expected to pay all the money down at 
 once; and many have not a farthing when they go 
 into the bush — trusting to each year’s crop to pay 
 the year’s instalment. This, however, is of course 
 not so good a plan as to earn a little money to 
 begin upon. I was by no means prepared by any 
 thing that I had heard in the old country to see 
 so many instances of signal success so near to each 
 other as I have seen among these Irish Protestants: 
 at the same time it must be recollected that those 
 whom one secs on the land must naturally be in a 
 great proportion the successful among the settlers. 
 When a man fails, or even when he does not get 
 on well, he generally goes away to try his luck in 
 the States, or subsides again into a labourer. As 
 far as I can gather from the clergymen and others 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOUltG. 
 
 20 5 
 
 whom I have inquired of, they have not suffered, 
 generally speaking, in this district, that moral and 
 religious deterioration which is the great danger 
 to settlers in a thinly-peopled country. They 
 are tolerably well supplied with spiritual ministra- 
 tion ; and have greatly improved, like the rest of 
 the province, in attention to religious ordinances 
 of late years. I hope by degrees the country will 
 be well supplied with clergy, and then the grand 
 evil connected with the state of society here will 
 be in a great measure removed : at present I look 
 upon it as a very serious one indeed; and the 
 worst of it is, that in the mean time habits of care- 
 lessness or schism are formed anions the crow in 
 population, which the church, however efficiently 
 she may hereafter be represented, will find it very 
 difficult to eradicate. 
 
 In the course of our ride we passed close to a 
 curious tower, built on the banks of the Rice Lake 
 by an eccentric individual, a Mr. B. Having met 
 with very severe domestic misfortunes, and become 
 disgusted with the world, he selected this as the 
 place of his retreat, and lived for several years in 
 complete retirement, without even a track through 
 the woods leading to his house, and occupying 
 himself entirely in literary pursuits. One day lie 
 suddenly departed as mysteriously as lie had come, 
 with the view, it is said, of spending the rest of 
 
LETTER XTI. 
 
 his life in the East ; and his tower remains un- 
 tenanted and unclaimed, as a memorial of his 
 strange eventful history. lie seems to have been 
 quite a realisation of the character of Basil Mer- 
 toun in Scott’s “ Pirate.” 
 
 Peterborough is the result of a government set- 
 tlement made seventeen years ago, when a large 
 body of emigrants were brought out from the 
 South of Ireland, and provided with food for a 
 year, stock and house : in fact, as a gentleman told 
 me, who came out at the same time, they had a 
 great deal too much done for them ; and whether 
 in consequence of that, or from being naturally a 
 less energetic and industrious race, they have not 
 prospered near so rapidly or universally as the 
 Protestants of Cavan and Monaghan. However, 
 though there are some exceptions, most of these 
 also have got on, more or less. At the same time 
 a number of half-pay officers, who had received 
 grants of land, came out ; and these have almost 
 invariably done badly. They came to the country 
 with habits totally unfitted for the life they were 
 to lead, spent all their money, and ended generally 
 by leaving the country with broken spirits and 
 fortunes. A few naval men are exceptions to this 
 account, certainly. But I cannot too often repeat 
 that this is the country for a labourer, not for a 
 gentleman, that is , as far as the back-woods and 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 207 
 
 farming, as a speculation , are concerned. If a man 
 has an independent income, and chooses to live in 
 a town, or in an old settled part of the country, it 
 is quite a different thing. 
 
 The town of Peterborough is very prettily situ- 
 ated in a valley surrounded by hills, through 
 which a river called the Otanobec flows. It is 
 large and straggling, containing nearly 2000 in- 
 habitants; yet the intervals between the houses 
 are filled with pine-stumps still, and the boundary- 
 line between town and forest (raw material and 
 manufacture) is hardly distinguishable as you pass 
 it. On the morning after my arrival at Peter- 
 borough I walked two miles to a seven-o’clock 
 breakfast with Mr. S., the first settler who came 
 to this township twenty years ago. He gave me 
 an amusing account of his troubles and difficulties 
 at starting ; but says they are all over now, and 
 that his only feeling at present is (such as Cooper 
 describes Leather-stocking as expressing) that popu- 
 lation is surrounding him too thickly and rapidly, 
 and breaking in upon his solitude. When he first 
 came out it required more time to come from 
 Montreal to wdiere he lives than it does now from 
 London : there was not a stick cut in the forest ; 
 and Mr. S. was empowered almost literally to 
 pitch his tent (or rather his log-hut) where he 
 liked. It is curious that under these circumstances 
 
208 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xn. 
 
 be should have selected a situation so judiciously, 
 that after twenty years’ experience he is now 
 building a new frame-house within ten yards of 
 the original log-hut. His solitude was first in- 
 vaded by the government settlement of Irish which 
 I mentioned before : he was at first a good deal 
 alarmed, as the new settlers bore no very good 
 character ; but he told me liis fears proved ground- 
 less, and that he has never suffered any annoy- 
 ance from them. I saw one or two of them, who 
 appeared very well satisfied with their condition. 
 One, a mason, told me he got as much work during 
 the summer as he could do, at six shillings a day 
 and his board: he and his sons had a grant of 
 300 acres, and have bought 300 more. A black- 
 smith gets six shillings and sixpence for shoeing a 
 horse; and the profits of other trades are proportion- 
 ably high. Mr. S. told me there was a good deal 
 of society to be had in this district. Whiter is the 
 gay season, and then sleighing-parties, dances, and 
 reunions of all kinds are the order of the day. His 
 family appeared perfectly satisfied with the mode 
 of life which they are accustomed to : and he said 
 that many of their neighbours who had returned 
 from hence to England regretted very much that 
 they had done so, and were longing for the “ life 
 in the woods ” again. There is a great drawback, 
 however, felt by those who, like most of the upper 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 209 
 
 classes at home, have been accustomed to so much 
 attendance of servants as to be quite helpless when 
 thrown upon their own resources in domestic mat- 
 ters: it is impossible to keep servants here. Mrs. S. 
 brought out several from her own neighbourhood in 
 Ireland, but they have hardly ever remained above 
 six months or a year : a man is considered what 
 the Germans call “ kind des hauses ” (a child of 
 the house) after eighteen months’ service ; they 
 are sure to leave you too at the most awkward 
 moment. A cook will perhaps inform you, two 
 hours before you expect a large party to dinner, 
 that she intends to leave you ; and you have no 
 sort of hold upon them, for they do not care a 
 farthing about getting a character, being sure of 
 a place, if qualified, without any thing of the sort. 
 The young ladies of an emigrant’s family must be 
 prepared to cook the dinner and sweep the house 
 upon emergencies ; and I am quite convinced that 
 they may do so consistently with the utmost re- 
 finement of mind and manners. This inconveni- 
 ence, of course, decreases, and will continue to de- 
 crease, as the population of the country goes on, 
 and the field for labour diminishes. 
 
 Every fortnight Mr. S. gets a parcel from home, 
 with books, newspapers, and letters, which keeps 
 his family quite “ au courant du jour:” indeed they 
 are not a bit farther, in point of time, from London 
 

 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xii. 
 
 than many parts of Scotland and Ireland weie one 
 hundred years ago. There is a difficulty in many 
 localities about primary education; for though there 
 is a government school in each township, yet the 
 distances must be often too great for insulated 
 settlers to avail themselves of it ; and besides, the 
 superintendence of the schools and the appoint- 
 ment of masters being now in the hands of the 
 municipal councils established by Lord Sydenham, 
 and which are not, generally speaking, composed 
 of the best-qualified persons for such purposes, 
 there are in many places loud, and, I believe, well- 
 founded complaints of the administration of this 
 department, particularly with regard to the qua- 
 lification of masters. After a certain age, the 
 college at Toronto appears to offer a very good 
 education, and at a much cheaper rate than that 
 at which any thing approaching to it could be 
 procured at home. That institution must, how- 
 ever, be enlarged considerably, as I said before, 
 or others must be established. 
 
 Land may be had tolerably cheap about Peter- 
 borough now. There was a rush made in this 
 direction eight or nine years ago of half-pay 
 officers and others, who spent their money foolishly, 
 ruined or disgusted themselves, and have foimd it 
 impossible to sell their “improvements” at any 
 tiling like a remunerating price. In fact, as my 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 COBOURG. 
 
 211 
 
 landlady at Peterborough, a very nice Yorkshire 
 woman, observed to me, “ This is a country where 
 the rich get poor, and the poor rich.” At the 
 same time this is only true where the rich have 
 gone foolishly to work: they generally want to 
 build good houses, and make fine places, all at once 
 in the heart of the forest, — an undertaking, at 
 the present price of labour, absolutely ruinous, of 
 course : but if a man goes prudently to work, I 
 think he can live at about half the expense which 
 is required in England. Meat, vegetables, wheat, 
 oats, tea and sugar, are all at about half the En- 
 glish price, and wine at little more; house-rent 
 (as far as one can calculate where circumstances 
 vary so much) pretty much the same in or near 
 the towns*; clothes are dearer (but then you may 
 wear what you like) ; and the wages of servants, 
 particularly men, much higher than would be 
 given to individuals possessing equal qualifications 
 at home: good servants are rarely to be found, 
 yet they are not proportionably appreciated. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day I returned to 
 Cobourg by the same road which I had travelled 
 before. 
 
 * There are houses in King Street, Toronto, occupied 
 by tradesmen, for which 200/. per annum is paid, — a 
 higher rent, I should say, than similar houses would bring 
 in Sackville Street, Dublin. 
 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiii. 
 
 LETTER XIII.* 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE TRENT. A CANADIAN FARMER S AC- 
 COUNT OF THE WESTERN STATES. VOYAGE TO KINGSTON. 
 
 CANADIAN POLITICS. THE “ CRISIS.” ARGUMENTS 
 
 IN FAVOUR OF SIR CHARLES BAGOt’s POLICY. CASES OF 
 
 IRELAND AND CANADA COMPARED. ULTIMATE ADVAN- 
 
 TAGE WHICH THE PRINCIPLE OF “ RESPONSIBLE GOVERN- 
 
 SIENt” HOLDS OUT TO THE BRITISH PARTY. KINGSTON 
 
 PENITENTIARY. - — CANADIAN LEGISLATURE. 
 
 
 Kingston, September. 
 
 From Cobourg I proceeded by stage to the mouth 
 of the Trent, which is the outlet of the lakes north 
 of Ontario, and stopped at a small tavern there 
 with an agreeable companion, whom I had picked 
 up en route . We were greatly amused in the 
 course of the evening by the account which a 
 Canadian farmer, who was at the inn, gave us of a 
 visit which he had paid to some relations of his in 
 Illinois and Michigan (U. S.). He described, in 
 the most quaint and graphic manner, the commer- 
 cial distress and universal distrust, the “ bagus,” 
 and “ shin-plasters,” and “ wild-cat money,” and 
 
 * A considerable part of the following Letter (that 
 which treats of Canadian politics) appeared in the Dublin 
 Evening Mail (in a somewhat abridged form), under the 
 form of a letter, signed “ A Traveller/* 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 213 
 
 all the other equal ly-expressive denominations of 
 false coin and bad notes, which are so well known 
 in the West: he told us how the people would 
 flock round him when he produced a sovereign, 
 and bid against each other for it in the trumpery 
 paper of their respective banks ; and how produce 
 is so plentiful, and cash so scarce, that in the 
 interior farmers will sell a bushel of wheat for 
 sixpence. “Well, he would not live in such a 
 country, he expected , if they gave him half the 
 state : they managed to hook eighteen dollars out 
 of him ; and he was glad enough to clear with what 
 he had left.” I had just been reading Mrs. 
 Clavering’s excellent sketches of the same courn 
 try ; so that I was doubly amused by our friend’s 
 very original view of it. Making allowances for 
 his anti- American prejudices (which struck me 
 the more from his own exceedingly American 
 manners), he confirmed her account completely. 
 
 The next morning we started between four and 
 five o’clock on a bitterly-cold morning, in a lum- 
 ber-waggon, for Belleville, where we met the 
 steamer bound for Kingston. Our route lay 
 down the Bay of Quinte, the shores of which are 
 considered quite the garden of the province : one 
 of the oldest settlements of the U. E. loyalists was 
 made there. It is a very pretty inlet, reaching 
 about sixty miles into the country, and averaging 
 

 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xm. 
 
 about two or three miles in breadth ; the shores 
 are low, but wooded to the water’s edge, and well 
 diversified with clearings and farm-houses. Land 
 is, however, comparatively cheap, and the influx of 
 emigrants smaller than I should have expected: 
 it is out of the main westward route; and the 
 great object with them always is to go straight on 
 in that direction as far and as fast as steam will 
 carry them, or their money hold out : whereas the 
 true plan evidently is to push off from the lakes 
 and rivers into the country, where settlements are 
 growing up, where labour is at a premium on 
 account of the deficient supply, and land cheap on 
 account of the deficient demand. Fortunately, a 
 friend at Kingston had secured a room for me, so 
 that I am comfortably settled, though there is a 
 great crowd in the place ; for the legislature is sit- 
 ting, and the town offers very insufficient accom- 
 modation at such times. 
 
 On Saturday I dined at the Governor-Gene- 
 ral’s : he lives a couple of miles from the town, in 
 a pretty villa on the banks of the lake. There 
 are only two or three acres of “ plcasance” how- 
 ever ; and the roads are so bad in the neighbour- 
 hood, that to drive on them, except in the 
 country-waggons, is impossible, and even riding is 
 difficult and disagreeable; so that, for ladies, I can 
 hardly imagine a less agreeable residence than 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 215 
 
 Kingston. For men there are a good many out- 
 of-door “resources,” such as boating and shooting; 
 besides which, the easy access by steam to all 
 parts of the frontier is very convenient. 
 
 Hie present is rather an important crisis in 
 Canadian policy. Sir Charles Bagot having just 
 changed his executive council, thrown himself 
 unreservedly into the hands of the French and 
 Reforming party (as it is called), and committed 
 to M. Lafontaine, the leader of that party, the 
 task of forming a new cabinet. As I have occu- 
 pied myself, while here, principally in discussing 
 the subject with people of different political views, 
 I may as well give you a short outline of the 
 state of affairs, as it appears to a disinterested 
 observer, and of the grounds upon which I think 
 Sir Charles Bagot’s policy may be successfully 
 defended. 
 
 The circumstances which preceded his adminis- 
 tration were as follows : — After the suppression of 
 the late rebellion the Queen’s government intro- 
 duced a bill for uniting the two Canadian pro- 
 vinces, giving to each an equal share in a common 
 legislature: this bill, framed expressly for the 
 purpose of neutralising the preponderance of 
 h rench influence in the Lower Province, was, by 
 the whole French party, vigorously opposed; they 
 considered it as indicative that their wishes and 
 
216 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xm. 
 
 interests were to be invariably sacrificed to those 
 of the British province; they complained that 
 they were saddled with a share of the Upper 
 Canadian debt, at a time when they had none 
 themselves ; and that they were only allowed to 
 return an equal number of members, while the 
 proportion of their population to that of Upper 
 Canada was that of eight to four and a half. 
 Their complaints, however, were disregarded, and 
 the measure passed into a law : the elections took 
 place under it for the first united provincial par- 
 liament ; and it then soon appeared that the calcu- 
 lations of both the advocates and opponents of the 
 union had been erroneous. Notwithstanding the 
 unscrupulous use which was made of Government 
 influence, the French Canadians succeeded in 
 returning such a body of representatives favour- 
 able to their views as to give them, with the 
 assistance and co-operation of the (so-called) Re- 
 formers of Upper Canada, a virtual preponderance 
 in the Lower House. As long as Lord Syden- 
 ham lived, he succeeded, by the influence of his 
 talents, and the terror (for such it literally was) 
 of his name, in carrying on the government as 
 he pleased, and browbeating the parliament into 
 acquiescence. His ministers were men of con- 
 siderable administrative talent, but were combined 
 without reference to unanimity of political senti- 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 217 
 
 ment, commanding the cordial support of no 
 party, and dependant upon him alone for their 
 political existence. This state of things could 
 not last : defections were daily taking place, iso- 
 lated elections invariably ended in the defeat of 
 Goveniment candidates; and, even before Lord 
 Sydenham’s death, it was admitted by all parties 
 that a change was inevitable. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs which awaited Sir 
 Charles Bagot on his arrival, and which it was 
 necessary that his policy should be shaped to meet. 
 Three courses were open to him: — 1st. To form 
 his cabinet of the British or Tory party ex- 
 clusively; 2dly. To select the moderates of 
 both parties; and 3dly. To throw himself alto- 
 gether into the hands of the French Canadians 
 and their allies. Now I am convinced that 
 the last of these was the one which presented 
 fewest difficulties, and was most likely to conduce 
 to the general good; at the same time, I fully 
 admit that this course, too, has difficulties — that 
 it is open to plausible, nay, real and grave objec- 
 tions ; but I maintain that greater difficulties and 
 stronger objections present themselves to the ad- 
 vocates of any other. 
 
 Let us then consider, first, the policy of form- 
 ing an exclusively British cabinet. By the 
 adoption of this course the Governor must have 
 
 VOL. i. l 
 
218 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xui. 
 
 given up all hopes of commanding a majority in 
 the House of Assembly: I consider the division 
 which took place upon the address presented to 
 him immediately after the change of ministry as 
 decisive upon this point : it was to the effect that 
 the house approved of such a policy as would 
 admit the French Canadians to a fair share of the 
 executive, and was carried by a majority of fifty- 
 one. Now this division, considering the juncture 
 at which it took place, must fairly, I think, be 
 construed to indicate a qualified approval on the 
 part of the House of the measures which had just 
 been adopted, and is at the very least a proof that 
 nothing like an exclusively British cabinet would 
 have been tolerated; indeed, there can be no 
 doubt that the large majority which the present 
 ministry commands would have been in opposition 
 to one composed of Tories. Nor would the case 
 have been mended by a dissolution, as far as I can 
 ascertain; the present parliament was elected under 
 the pressure of an influence strongly unfavourable 
 to the French, and the best-informed persons are 
 of opinion, that the latter would be still more 
 powerful in a new one. Now it would be an 
 extreme, a dangerous, nay, without strong military 
 support, an impracticable undertaking, to cany on 
 the government of Canada in opposition to a per- 
 manent majority of the House of Assembly. 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 219 
 
 Even though it should be contended that the 
 principle of “responsible government,” admitted 
 by Lord John Russell and Lord Durham, is not 
 to be considered as inviolable, (and a retrograde 
 policy — the retracing of a step taken in the 
 popular direction is very invidious and difficult in 
 these democratic times,) still no reasonable man 
 would, I think, wish to see it violated, except 
 from obvious and extreme necessity. Without 
 unanimity between the legislative and executive 
 bodies (where a representative constitution exists), 
 the whole machinery of government is obstructed, 
 the most useful and necessary measures are re- 
 jected, constant irritation is kept up, and a plau- 
 sible ground is afforded for persuading the people 
 that their wishes expressed through their repre- 
 sentatives are systematically disregarded, and that 
 they are to look upon the Governor and his 
 ministers as the organs of a foreign and hostile 
 power. Such a plan was long and systematically 
 tried in Lower Canada, and we all know the 
 result: I cannot think that it would have been 
 wise for Sir Charles Bagot to decide upon the 
 adoption of a similar one for the United Pro- 
 vinces. 
 
 But, secondly, an objector may say, « If I con- 
 cede that it is impossible to govern Canada by 
 means of a cabinet, from which the French partv 
 L 2 
 
220 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xm. 
 
 is excluded, I have still a right to ask, why shall 
 men so notorious for their hostility to British con- 
 nection as MM. Lafontaine, Girouard, and Bald- 
 win be selected? Why did not Sir Charles Bagot 
 take men of French extraction but unquestioned 
 loyalty, and by forming a ministry composed of 
 these, united with moderate Tories, secure the 
 confidence of the House, without giving encourage- 
 ment to disaffection?” The answer is simple — 
 because it was impossible ; the men were not to 
 be found — the object could not have been at- 
 tained. It most unfortunately happens that all 
 the leaders of the French Canadians, all those who 
 possessed the confidence, or could command the 
 support of their party, were (perhaps in many in- 
 stances from that very circumstance) suspected, 
 with more or less justice, of being concerned in 
 the proceedings which led directly to open rebel- 
 lion. The fact is, that immediately upon the out- 
 break, in the exercise of what was perhaps a wise 
 and necessary precaution, the Governor in council 
 suspended the Habeas Corpus Act, and arrested, or 
 offered a reward for the arrest of, all those whom, 
 either from the prominent part which they had 
 taken in opposition, or from private information, he 
 had reason to suspect of being engaged in insti- 
 gating it. This was the extent of the “ proscrip- 
 tion ” so much insisted upon in the cases of M. 
 
LETTER Xm. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 221 
 
 Lafontaine and M. Girouard ; neither of them was 
 ever tried, much less convicted; and though I 
 admit that a suspicion so grave, and so publicly 
 evinced, constituted a reason, and a good reason, 
 for not employing them so soon afterwards in the 
 public service, I deny that it ought to be deemed 
 one so decisive as to outweigh all considerations 
 of public benefit under any conceivable circum- 
 stances, and to doom those who were the objects 
 of it to irredeemable ignominy. At any rate, if it 
 had been so deemed by the Governor-general, he 
 would thereby have determined to forfeit the sup- 
 port of the French Canadians, and with it all 
 chance of a majority in the House of Assembly. 
 To have promoted unpopular or insignificant indi- 
 viduals, with the view of conciliating the party to 
 which they had been attached, would have been 
 as hopeless as if the Queen, professing a personal 
 objection to Sir Robert Peel or Lord Stanley, had 
 selected some obscure Tory members to supply 
 vacancies in Lord Melbourne’s cabinet, for the 
 purpose of commanding for that cabinet the sup- 
 port of the Conservative party in the House of 
 Commons. Sir Charles Bagot cannot be supposed 
 to have any abstract preference for men of sus- 
 pected loyalty : if he could have found unobjection- 
 able men to answer his purpose, there can be no 
 doubt that he would have chosen them, and it is 
 L 3 
 

 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiii. 
 
 therefore fair to argue that he felt the impossi- 
 bility of so doing. The fact is that in all countries 
 which possess popular constitutions there must 
 and will be parties, or schools of opinion, to some 
 one of which every man who thinks to any pur- 
 pose must attach himself, more or less strictly ; 
 by means of one or other of these parties the go- 
 vernment of such countries must be carried on, 
 and the leaders of that party must be the repre- 
 sentatives and organs of the executive. I conceive 
 that, whether in England or in Canada, the theory 
 of those who advocate the promotion of " no party” 
 men, who inveigh against “ class-legislation ” (I 
 mean, of course, in the vulgar acceptation of the 
 term), and profess to make “ measures not men ” 
 their watch-word, is perfectly chimerical and Uto- 
 pian ; and I am sure that Sir Charles Bagot was 
 right in not attempting to act upon any such 
 theory here. 
 
 Having thus shown, as I think, the great, the 
 almost insurmountable difficulties, which attended 
 the adoption of the two first mentioned plans, I 
 will proceed to consider those which applied to 
 the third : namely, the formation of an exclusively 
 French and Reforming ministry. These may be 
 reduced to two ; first, the evil effects produced in 
 the province by the discouragement of loyalty, and 
 the stimulus to revolutionary principles thereby 
 
LETTER Xm. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 223 
 
 given ; and secondly, the example which it holds 
 out to Radicals at home, and particularly in Ire- 
 land. Now as to the “ discouragement of loyalists,” 
 as it is called, which consists in telling the persons 
 who supported the government during the re- 
 bellion that they are not to have a permanent 
 monopoly of office, whatever may be the public 
 detriment resulting therefrom, I confess I do not 
 look forward with much apprehension to its effects. 
 Such an argument cannot of course apply to those 
 of the British party who are loyalists in the true 
 sense of the term (and I rejoice in testifying that 
 even my limited experience has made me ac- 
 quainted with many such), men whose loyalty is 
 not dependent upon the possession or expectation 
 of place, but is shown in promoting the general 
 good of the country, and facilitating the admini- 
 stration of government, even though they may 
 consider themselves individually as ill-treated. 
 And as to those men who talk of leaving the go- 
 vernment to shift for itself in the event of another 
 emergency, because, forsooth, they have not gained 
 by their support of it all the personal advantages 
 which they expected, while I abhor their princi- 
 ples, I have no fear of their seriously acting upon 
 them ; the same feeling of ^elf-interest which, upon 
 their own showing, prompted their attachment to 
 the British crown, will still ensure their adhesion 
 L 4 
 
224 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiii. 
 
 to the government in difficulties, so long as it is 
 generally recognised among them that the con- 
 nection with England is beneficial to Canada. 
 While England provides markets and enacts dif- 
 ferential duties for the wheat and timber of her 
 colony, while she maintains a military force for 
 its protection, and lends the assistance of her credit 
 for the negotiation of its loans, so long may she 
 count upon the loyalty of the class of politicians 
 which I refer to ; it is by no means necessary to 
 secure it by the additional bribe of office. I be- 
 lieve tliis class, though noisy, not to be numerous ; 
 I am sure it is not formidable. 
 
 At any rate it is not too much to set against 
 the chance of their defection the hope of conciliat- 
 ing the French Canadians ; it may be too late to 
 do so, but the experiment is well worth trying. 
 I see nothing in them position and circumstances 
 which leads me to conclude that their hostility to 
 England is irreconcileable ; I do not perceive the 
 existence of a body of leaders analogous to the 
 Romish priests in Ireland, whose natural and ob- 
 vious interest it is to get rid of British connection, 
 as the sole obstacle to their undisputed supremacy, 
 nor do I see, as at home, a deep-rooted and per- 
 manent hostility between those who have , and 
 those who want , which, connected as it is with the 
 past history of Ireland, and the transfers of pro- 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 225 
 
 perty which have so repeatedly taken place, forms 
 such an important element in the desire of revo- 
 lution which prevails there. If it were so, if there 
 were such materials, and such leaders of agitation, 
 I should despair of conciliating French Canada 
 by the concession of political privileges: but the 
 contrary is the case ; if ever there was a people 
 fitted by nature to be good and loyal subjects of a 
 monarchical government, it is the French popula- 
 tion of Lower Canada ; nor can any thing be con- 
 ceived more repugnant to all their feelings and 
 principles than opposition and disaffection to the 
 powers that be. A dread of the restless, innovating, 
 progressive spirit of the British population (who 
 are daily gaining upon them and pushing them 
 out), strengthened by a systematic neglect on the 
 part of government of their natural claims, habits, 
 and prejudices, have led them to look upon British 
 connection and authority as an evil, and united 
 them in a temporary alliance with the Upper 
 Canada reformers, who are the very antipodes of 
 themselves, and with whom common opposition to 
 the government forms their only bond of union. 
 Let their leaders, who, like all clever and ambitious 
 men, wish for power, have their fair chance of at- 
 taining to it in the ordinary constitutional way, 
 and they will have no inducement whatever to 
 transfer their allegiance from Great Britain to the 
 
 L 5 
 
226 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xm. 
 
 United States. Let tlie people be convinced that 
 the mother-country means to act fairly by them, 
 and that their laws, usages, and language are not 
 to be proscribed, and we may hope that they will 
 again show the loyalty and devotion which pre- 
 served the province in 1776 — 1780; and again 
 in 1812—1814. 
 
 But again — it is said that the example wliich 
 Sir Charles Bagot’s policy exhibits to those who 
 are disaffected at home, is of so pernicious a 
 tendency as to justify him in disregarding its 
 apparent advantages. Now, what does this 
 “ example ” amount to ? I think it will be found 
 upon consideration that the principle which Sir 
 Charles acted upon here is one which is clearly 
 and unquestionably incorporated into the practice 
 of the British Constitution ; namely, the principle 
 of “ responsible government ; ” or, in other words, 
 the principle that upon the deliberative and per- 
 manent sense of the nation, expressed in the con- 
 stitutional manner through their representatives, 
 the political existence of a ministry shall depend. 
 Such is the only inference which the alleged 
 resemblance between the circumstances of the two 
 countries can possibly suggest ; and as I think no 
 reasonable man can doubt that if Mr. O’Connell 
 himself could unfortunately command a decisive 
 majority in the British House of Commons, a 
 
LETTER XU!. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 227 
 
 majority which would follow and support no other 
 leader. Her Majesty would commit to his hands 
 the administration of affairs, it does seem to me 
 most unfair to accuse Sir Charles Bagot and Sir 
 Robert Peel of having introduced by their Cana- 
 dian policy a novel and dangerous principle into 
 our constitutional practice. It is obvious that the 
 essential, all-important distinction between the 
 cases of Ireland and Canada is, that the former is 
 not a colony, but part and parcel of the mother- 
 country, possessing her proportionate voice in the 
 Imperial Legislature, and consequently her share 
 in the desired controul over the Imperial execu- 
 tive. The whole justification of Sir Charles 
 Bagot’s policy resting upon its preserving the 
 analogy to one existing system, it is totally im- 
 possible to wrest it into a precedent for departing 
 from that system. 
 
 If it be said that this state of things supplies 
 the Irish with an argument for the Repeal of the 
 Union, for the purpose of acquiring that control 
 over the nomination of their ministers which the 
 Canadians enjoy, I answer, of course it does. 
 Those who think that the other benefits resulting 
 from the Union, including a share in the power 
 and privileges of the British Legislature, do not 
 counterbalance the fact that Irish appointments 
 not necessarily made in accordance with the 
 L 6 
 
 are 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 wishes of the majority of Irish representatives, 
 must consistently wish for its repeal ; but it 
 needed no Canadian 66 example ” to tell them that ; 
 they knew it perfectly well before. If Ireland 
 had an independent Parliament, it would as a 
 matter of course claim and exercise what are now 
 the usual and prescriptive privileges of a repre- 
 sentative body ; as she has not, she can no more 
 fairly ask to act as though she had, than the 
 members for the boroughs and county of Lancaster 
 can claim a control over the appointment to the 
 Chancellorship of the Duchy. For a considerable 
 period before the late change of ministry took 
 place, the Whigs preserved their majority in the 
 House of Commons entirely by means of the 
 Irish and Scotch members ; the majority of 
 English members was opposed to them ; and yet 
 I never heard of English members founding upon 
 this indisputable fact an argument for the repeal 
 of the two unions. The privileges possessed by 
 the different component parts are — in theory at 
 least, for I do not enter into the question of re- 
 presentation — strictly equal and reciprocal, and 
 surely, even in point of dignity, it is preferable 
 to exercise the influence which we possess in the 
 Imperial Parliament, than to have the exclusive 
 management of affairs in a province or a colony. 
 
 Again, it may be said that the principle of 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 229 
 
 responsible government, though necessary at home, 
 is not so in the colonies. Now my object has 
 been to show that it was, if not absolutely neces- 
 sary, at least — what comes to the same thing in 
 practice — pre-eminently expedient to act upon 
 that principle in Canada, and if I have succeeded 
 in doing so, the argument founded upon the 
 evil effects of the example falls to the ground ; 
 that example can have no effect except in so far as 
 it is novel and unprecedented ; if the analogy of 
 our ordinary practice be preserved, it is in fact 
 nugatory. But the truth is, that the very nature 
 of colonial government admits of the appointment 
 to office of those with whose principles the supreme 
 government does not concur, with peculiarly trifling 
 risk of pernicious results; because the Governor 
 can always, backed by the power of authorities at 
 home, exercise a control over the policy of liis 
 subordinates, and place a veto, if necessary, upon 
 measures which may appear to him of a revolu- 
 tionary or injurious tendency. In fact, a determin- 
 ation to do so, boldly and firmly, whenever there 
 may arise a dignus vindice nodus , is quite consistent 
 with the system of ordinary non-interference, and 
 must necessarily go along with it, if the colony is 
 to be permanently preserved. For instance, an at- 
 tack upon the church, or an attempted alteration 
 of the fundamental laws of property, would justify 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiii. 
 
 the mother-country in asserting and exercising 
 her right of general superintendence, and refusing 
 to permit such measures to be entertained, and if 
 the result of doing so were the resignation of the 
 provincial ministers, and the refusal of the Par- 
 liament to support those appointed in their room, 
 she would probably be driven to adopt the invi- 
 dious and coercive course of governing without 
 them, and in spite of them. But, in the first 
 place, I do not think they would throw down the 
 gauntlet in such a case, after having tasted the 
 sweets of office ; and in the next place I believe 
 that the democratic policy of the party now in 
 power was rather the effect than the cause of their 
 opposition to government, and that it will be — as 
 far as regards the French, at least — neutralised by 
 their accession to power. At any rate the ex- 
 periment was worth trying, and if things came 
 to the worst, there would remain the appeal to 
 coercion whenever it might be thought necessary 
 to make it. 
 
 Another important consideration which has not, 
 I think, had due weight with the party who 
 impugn the present policy of government is, that 
 the evil effects of it which they deplore, will, 
 upon their own showing, be probably but tem- 
 porary. Whatever may have been, on the whole, 
 the policy of the Union, one beneficial result of 
 
LETTER Xni. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 231 
 
 it at least they will acknowledge ; namely, that 
 in the course of a few years the British popula- 
 tion will so far outnumber the French, as to 
 ensure to the former party an immense prepon- 
 derance in the legislature; it is only by their 
 union, not by their numbers, that the latter hold 
 their ground at present, and every year must 
 diminish the amount of their influence. Let the 
 British only bide their time, and the game is in 
 their own hands; the very principle which is now 
 conceded will guarantee their accession to, and 
 continuance in power. So much for Canadian 
 politics, of which all the world is talking here, 
 and which will of course form a fertile theme of 
 discussion and recrimination at home. * 
 
 * The events which have lately taken place in Canada, 
 and led to a change of the provincial ministry, do not, in 
 the slightest degree, alter my opinion, as to the policy of 
 the measures adopted by Sir Charles Bagot, though M. 
 Lafontaine and hfs friends have certainly not exhibited 
 that moderation which I hoped for. 
 
 There is, of course, a limit to concession ; there is, as I 
 always said, a point at which the Imperial Government 
 must take its stand in opposing unreasonable pretensions ; 
 and it will do so with incalculably better grace, with in- 
 calculably greater moral force, and support of public opi- 
 nion both at home and abroad, if it have shown itself 
 ready to satisfy, what may fairly be called the legitimate 
 expectations of a free people. 
 
 I am not without hope that these considerations may, 
 even among the French population of Canada, have suffi- 
 cient weight to prevent them from supporting the late 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xrn. 
 
 I went on Monday to see the Penitentiary, 
 which is framed on the model of the United 
 States prison at Auburn. The convicts are kept 
 continually employed at different trades or at 
 labour in the building, wliich is not yet finished. 
 It is calculated that with two hundred inmates 
 they can defray the expenses of the establish- 
 ment; it is possible that it may be so — though 
 even here I doubt it — in a country where the 
 dearness of labour ensures a high price for its 
 produce ; but wherever the rate of wages ap- 
 proaches nearly to the minimum of subsistence, 
 the superior energy and industry produced by 
 competition will effectually prevent the prison 
 manufactures from being sold at a profit. It is 
 slave labour against free, and the former is pro- 
 verbially the dearer, under ordinary circumstances. 
 Another strong objection to the system, as ap- 
 plied to a country where the supply of labour 
 is greater than the field for its employment, is, 
 that it interferes with the means of subsistence 
 
 ministry in their overweening and unconstitutional con- 
 duct. 
 
 Strong symptoms may already be observed of a differ- 
 ence of opinion on this subject, in the party which has 
 hitherto acted in concert, many of the liberals perceiving 
 that now is their last chance of proving that the principle 
 of “ responsible government ” is reconcileable with the 
 connection between a mother-country and a colony. 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 233 
 
 of the working classes, so that against the amount 
 saved to the community by the labour of the 
 prisoners, is to be set the distress of the artisans 
 who are met in the market by its produce. I 
 mention these things because there is an inclina- 
 tion in England and Ireland to adopt the Ameri- 
 can system, and I am quite convinced that it is 
 not adapted to our circumstances ; it will seldom 
 pay for the machinery of instruction, and for 
 the loss in materials, and it will contribute to 
 depress the condition of the artisans, whose mar- 
 ket is kept down, for whether at a loss or not the 
 prisoner’s produce must be sold. 
 
 I went round and saw them at work in the 
 different rooms and yards ; the cooking, washing, 
 every thing in fact, is done by them, so that, 
 except guards and clerks, there are no servants or 
 officials at all ; the work is carried on in perfect 
 silence, so far as it can be enforced, and any 
 word or sign passing between the convicts is 
 punished either by bread and water, or by the 
 whip. Corporal punishment is resorted to con- 
 tinually, at the discretion of the keepers, but 
 subject to an appeal to the warden; and they told 
 me that in cases of resistance the rest of the 
 convicts, actuated probably by a wish to gain 
 favour, are always prompt and willing to assist the 
 keeper; the consequence is, that resistance is 
 
234 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xm. 
 
 
 hardly ever attempted. From six in the evening 
 to six in the morning they are alone in their cells, 
 and also during the whole of Sunday ; and they 
 invariably say upon being questioned — as was the 
 custom at the end of their stay — that this was the 
 real hardship of their situation, particularly the 
 Sunday’s idleness. In other respects the punish- 
 ment seems to me far too lenient for the class of 
 offences for which it is intended ; the convicts are 
 exceedingly well fed and clothed, have plenty of 
 occupation, and those who can read are allowed to 
 have their bibles and prayer-books, and such reli- 
 gious tracts as the chaplain chooses to give them. 
 The shortest period for which they are imprisoned 
 is seven years, which certainly make a great hole in 
 a man’s life, to be spent as they are in silence and 
 monotony, and without hearing from friends or 
 the world without. Still it looks so tolerable, 
 indeed, I may say, comfortable, as not to be a 
 good “ in terror em ” punishment. The convicts 
 are very healthy ; indeed it is a curious statistical 
 fact, that out of one hundred and sixty-five pri- 
 soners, many of them old and diseased at their 
 admission, there has not been a single deatli 
 during the past year. 
 
 I attended one day in the House of Assembly, 
 and was, I confess, disappointed — even with the 
 British House of Commons in my mind’s eye — 
 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 235 
 
 with the appearance of the members, generally 
 speaking, and the character of the speeches which 
 I heard. There was nothing of the slightest 
 importance going on, nor any scope for talent or 
 eloquence, so that the general tone and manner 
 are all that I had an opportunity of judging of. 
 At the same time, I am told that this is not a 
 fair specimen of a Canadian parliament; a large 
 proportion of the gentry in Upper Canada having 
 been averse to the union, and to Lord Sydenham s 
 measures generally, he determined to keep them 
 out of the House, and being extremely able, and 
 not very scrupulous in his use of means, he 
 generally succeeded ; the result has been the in- 
 troduction of an undue proportion of members 
 from the lower ranks of society. They are paid 
 two dollars a day for their expenses during the 
 session, and one of the discussions which I heard 
 was upon a motion made by a member for sitting 
 on Saturday, on the ground that the members 
 have no right to give themselves an additional 
 holiday in the week when they arc paid by the 
 day, including days on which business is not 
 transacted. I thought there was a good deal of 
 truth in what he said ; but, as you may suppose, 
 his motion was unanimously scouted. 
 
 I have been holding a regular levee ever since 
 I arrived at Kingston, of emigrants from the 
 
236 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiu. 
 
 parishes of C and K . Several of them 
 
 are not only sentimental about the old country, 
 but inclined to grumble about want of employ- 
 ment here. I tell them all to go “ back,” and 
 not remain in the crowded ports ; if they have not 
 energy enough for that, they should go to Toronto 
 or Hamilton, which are much better places than 
 Kingston. If the seat of government be removed 
 to Montreal, and the St. Lawrence canal com- 
 pleted, both of which are likely to take place 
 soon, the forced and rapid progress which Kingston 
 has lately been making, will be stopped at once ; 
 sea-going vessels will then run direct to the lakes, 
 without the necessity of transhipment, and having 
 no important “back country,” to depend upon, 
 it will be left almost entirely on one side by the 
 great commercial stream. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 237 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 DESCENT OP THE ST. LAWRENCE RAPIDS. BILL JOHNSON, 
 
 THE PIRATE. ISLE AUX NOIX. — OUT-QUARTERS IN 
 
 CANADA. DESERTION AMONG THE SOLDIERY. FIELD- 
 
 SPORTS IN FOREST COUNTRIES. CHANCES OF EMPLOY- 
 MENT FOR LABOURERS. PROTESTANT AND ROMAN 
 
 CATHOLIC EMIGRANTS. LOVE OF MONEY CHARACTERISTIC 
 
 OF THE POPULATION IN A NEW COUNTRY. NECESSITY 
 
 OF COUNTERACTING IT. LAW OF SUCCESSION. LOYALTY. 
 
 REASONS WHY THE CANADIANS SHOULD DESIRE A 
 
 CONTINUANCE OF BRITISH CONNECTION. FLOURISHING 
 
 CONDITION OF CANADA. ITS PROGRESS COMPARED 
 
 WITH THAT OF THE UNITED STATES. FREE TRADE 
 
 WITH ENGLAND. TEMPORARY DEPRESSION OF COM- 
 
 MERCE. 
 
 Isle aux Noix, October. 
 
 On Monday at 2 o’clock I embarked on board 
 the Charlotte steamer, a wretched little flour- 
 boat, with an engine of fifteen horse power and 
 twenty five years old, to go down the St. Law- 
 rence rapids. This route, though now the ordinary 
 one, was never taken by steamers till this year ; 
 there is now a line of small boats which make the 
 entire round, starting from Montreal, going up the 
 Ottawa to Bytown, thence by the Rideau to King- 
 ston, and then down the St. Lawrence to Mon- 
 treal. The mail still goes by the large steamers. 
 
238 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv. 
 
 which correspond with a line of stages at every 
 portage, but passengers generally prefer going 
 down the rapids, as being quicker, less trouble- 
 some, and cheaper, besides the excitement attend- 
 ing upon a “ feat.” By going down the last rapid 
 at La Chine, the steamers forfeit their insurance ; 
 consequently only one or two do so, and these 
 do not insure ; the others go by the La Chine 
 canal to Montreal. 
 
 There were but two cabin passengers besides 
 myself, both of whom I was slightly acquainted 
 with ; the weather was beautiful, and altogether 
 it would have been impossible to have had a 
 pleasanter voyage. The rapids are four in num- 
 ber, the Long Sault, the Cedars, the Cascades, 
 and La Chine : all of them are to a novice very 
 formidable-looking ; at the last, in particular, 
 there is a pitch which fairly lifts the stern of the 
 boat, and plunges her bow into the spray, so as 
 to cover the deck with water ; but it having been 
 once ascertained that she will live through it, 
 there is no farther danger than that of missing 
 the channel, which is narrow, and running on the 
 rocks at either side of it. We took in an Indian 
 pilot at each rapid : these fellows have been in the 
 habit of taking down timber rafts and bateaux, and 
 are now employed by the steamers. A barge was 
 lost last week from the foolhardiness of the cap- 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 239 
 
 tain, who refused to take in a pilot ; and indeed 
 there is no water to spare even hi the channel at 
 this time of year : our boat, which only drew 
 three feet ten inches, is the largest that attempts 
 it, and though provided with the best possible, 
 pilotage, we struck once slightly ; I confess to a 
 momentary palpitation, when I felt the bump, for 
 we were going at [the rate of twenty-five miles an 
 hour, but it was merely a scrape, showing, how- 
 ever, that it is “ touch and go.” But we were 
 made to arrange ourselves in regular positions on 
 deck, so as to keep the vessel on an even keel, 
 and the steam was slackened to half speed, as we 
 went down the rapids. The accommodations on 
 board these little steamers are of course wretched ; 
 l spent almost the whole night, wliich was moon- 
 light and beautiful, on deck. 
 
 At French Creek, where we landed for a few 
 minutes, we saw the notorious Bill Johnson, the 
 pirate of the lakes, who infested the Thousand 
 Islands for two summers, and burned, as you may 
 remember, the “ Sir Robert Peel ” steamer at one 
 of her “ wooding-stations.” Ilis object seems to 
 have been, not so much plunder, as hostility to the 
 British government, under which he was born, 
 but against which he conceived himself to have 
 grounds of complaint. It is strange that in these 
 days of civilisation and new police such a notorious 
 
240 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 depredator should be living at large close to the 
 very scene of his outrages, and obviously not only 
 well received by persons in his own class of so- 
 ciety, but considered rather a lion and a hero. I 
 cannot imagine a locality better selected for a 
 pirate’s occupation than the creeks and channels of 
 the Thousand Islands ; and the deficient arrange- 
 ments for mutual restitution of offenders gave him 
 always a secure retreat on the American shore. 
 
 At Montreal I most fortunately met in the 
 street my friend H. W., who was on his way 
 from England to join his regiment, and spent the 
 day with him to my great satisfaction. lie de- 
 scribes the scenery “ south,” on the Hudson and 
 Lake Champlain, as perfectly beautiful, from the 
 gorgeous colouring of the woods ; I can well 
 imagine it from what I see here. The frosts we 
 have had lately (at Kingston there was ice every 
 morning on the pools) have given the trees their 
 autumn tints already to a great extent, and every 
 day adds to their beauty. The cold weather has 
 come unusually early and severely ; the days are 
 now generally fine and pretty warm, but the nights 
 are very cold, and we have had a great deal of 
 rain and wind. Montreal, like all the Canadian 
 towns, is full of troops ; uniforms predominating 
 so much as quite to remind one of continental 
 Europe: they have had, I think, 18,000 men of 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 241 
 
 all arms in the province since the rebellion, but 
 this year the number is to be greatly reduced. 
 It is lamentable to see the amount of drunkenness 
 among the private soldiers in these colonial quar- 
 ters: I have watched them going home to the 
 barracks at night, and I am sure hardly one in 
 five, on an average, is quite sober: there is certainly 
 great temptation, from idleness, command of 
 money, and want of inducement and facility for 
 saving it. 
 
 On Wednesday I dined with the 85th, and slept 
 at St. John’s, where they are quartered; yesterday 
 came up the Richelieu, to Isle aux Noix *, by the 
 American steamer, and am now established in the 
 barracks on the island, which are very good. 
 
 The fort, which was built to command the na- 
 vigation of the Richelieu, is from its position very 
 defensible, though the works are not regular, and 
 it is the last of our posts in the direction of the 
 frontier. At Rouse’s Point, about ten miles off, 
 the American territory begins. The island is 
 about a mile round and entirely marsh. There are 
 no buildings on it but those belonging to the fort, 
 including a small church, where service is per- 
 
 * The French gave this name of Isle aux Noix not only 
 to this place, but to the peninsula formed by the rivers 
 Mississippi and Wabash. It is now corrupted into 
 “ Illinois.’’ 
 
242 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv- 
 
 formed by a clergyman from L’Acadie, a village 
 nine miles off. The river Richelieu is very broad 
 and deep, constituting the outlet from Lake 
 Champlain into the St. Lawrence ; the naviga- 
 tion is interrupted by the Rapids at St. John’s ; but 
 there is a small steamer running from Chambly, 
 about twelve miles below it, to Sorel. The shores 
 are low and marshy, and there is hardly any current, 
 which makes it very well adapted for boating; 
 but the country all about it, and between St. 
 John’s and Montreal, is the most wretched in 
 Canada ; indeed, far from being surprised that it 
 is neglected by settlers, I only wonder what can 
 induce any one to stay there. The natural scenery, 
 the farming, the houses, the people (who are almost 
 all French), are far below any thing else that is to 
 be seen in this part of North America; and one 
 is quite mortified by the idea that this is the first 
 specimen of her Majesty’s dominions which an 
 American meets with. To the eastward, on the 
 contrary, there is a very fine country, I am told, 
 of which I must try to get a glimpse before I go 
 south (one always talks by the compass here, 
 which sounds extensive and fine). 
 
 I should think this was a very pleasant summer 
 quarter, being cheap and independent. There is 
 plenty of boating, and some shooting, though by no 
 means as good as I had heard. In winter it must be 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 243 
 
 dull enough, as of course there is no attempt at 
 society, and except in a sleigh, and wrapped up in 
 furs, it is impossible to stir out, owing to the ex- 
 treme severity of the cold ; in fact, except when 
 the ice is sufficiently clear of snow to admit of 
 skating, exercise must be almost given up, for 
 there is not much temptation to toil about in 
 snow-shoes without an object, when the thermo- 
 meter is below zero. 
 
 There goes the gun from St. John’s, announcing 
 a desertion, and warning the frontier posts to be 
 on the look-out. Frequent as desertions are on the 
 frontier, I believe almost all the delinquents would 
 come back if they were sure of pardon. A soldier 
 generally gets on very badly, at least for some 
 time, in any other line of life : he is so accustomed 
 to be provided for, that he is quite helpless and im- 
 provident, and a large proportion of our deserters 
 enlist in the American service in despair, though 
 it is notoriously a harder one than ours. One 
 belonging to the regiment which was here last 
 year came back after some time, and surrendered 
 himself, knowing that he would be punished, 
 which had, as you may suppose, the effect of pre- 
 venting any more desertions for some time in that 
 corps ; there is also a great risk of being appre- 
 hended, as a reward of five pounds is given for 
 each fugitive brought in, which makes the coun- 
 M 2 
 
244 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv. 
 
 try people, as well as the guards on the frontier, 
 very active in pursuit of them ; still desertion 
 goes on to a considerable extent, and is greatly 
 encouraged by the Americans on the borders, 
 who tell the soldiers all sorts of stories about the 
 prospects open to them. Those to whom the 
 greatest temptations are offered are the members 
 of the bands : they generally succeed in obtaining 
 high wages as musicians in orchestras and bands 
 at watering-places ; yet this year the commanding 
 officer of one of our regiments took his full band 
 to a considerable distance through the state of 
 New York with a pleasure-party. They went 
 down Lake George to Saratoga, and returned 
 without losing a man; such was the feeling of 
 honour which their commander’s confidence in 
 them excited. I was told that the astonishment 
 of the Americans was unbounded. 
 
 I have been out shooting two or three times, 
 but with very indifferent success. T here are a 
 good number of ducks hereabouts, but they are 
 very difficult to get at, and the woodcock-shoot- 
 ing, of which I had heard a great deal, proved 
 almost a complete failure. I went up the South 
 River one day in a log canoe*, paddled by a hunter, 
 
 * These canoes, which are hollowed pine logs, simply, 
 are capital instruments for duck-shooting, they draw so 
 little water, and are so noiselessly worked ; besides, as the 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 245 
 
 (all game pursuers are “ hunters” here, this man, 
 consequently, was a duck-hunter,) and though I 
 tried a great deal of likely-looking ground, I 
 got but very few shots, either at ducks or snipes. 
 The fact is, that in this, as in all thinly-peopled 
 forest countries, there are such vast tracts of 
 wasteland, and the game is consequently scat- 
 tered over such a surface, that except where it is 
 very plentiful indeed, from the nature of the 
 ground and the total absence of hunters, one hardly 
 ever gets such good sport as in old countries, 
 where all the game is concentrated in a few spots, 
 and your only difficulty is to know these and pre- 
 serve them. Hence good sport is rare, both in 
 Scandinavia and in America, generally speaking. 
 
 I remember being told by Mr. Lloyd (author of 
 “ Northern Field Sports”), whom I met in Swe- 
 den, that he never shot more than four woodcocks 
 in one day in that country ; and in every kind ot 
 wild shooting Canada, in general, is far inferior to 
 Ireland or Scotland. The best shooting decidedly 
 is at wild-fowl, and the best quarters for it are 
 about Sandwich on Lake St. Clair, and Long 
 
 paddler sits facing the bow, he can look before him, drop 
 his paddle, and take to his gun in a moment, when he gets 
 within shot. It is, however, desperately fatiguing to one 
 who is not accustomed to it, for he works entirely by 
 muscle, and not, as with oars, in a great measure by 
 weight. 
 
 M 3 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 Point on Lake Erie. At both these places very 
 good sport is to be had, but it is necessary to 
 undergo a good deal of hardship for it. At Long 
 1 oint, last October, four men, two of whom I 
 know, bagged in twelve days 750 ducks, and lost, 
 they said, nearly as many more. They took their 
 servants and provisions to an island in the lake, 
 and went out every day and all day. At Amherst- 
 burgh, too, near Sandwich, I have heard of forty 
 couple being killed by a single gun in a day, but 
 I know no other part of Canada where very great 
 sport is to be had. There is an immense variety 
 of wild fowl ; out of a bag of twenty, perhaps no 
 two will be of the same species : the most com- 
 mon are the black duck, which is larger, and the 
 wood duck, which is smaller than our wild duck. 
 The latter is found along the wooded banks of 
 rivers, and sometimes alights upon trees, where it 
 also builds its nest, though its feet are webbed 
 nearly like those of other water-fowl.* Quails 
 are tolerably plentiful to the west of Toronto; 
 there are none in Lower Canada. Woodcocks 
 are also found in considerable numbers, but give 
 very uncertain sport — they arc here to-day and 
 
 gone to-morrow. 
 
 The best shooting I have heard 
 
 * There is a slight difference, no web being attached to 
 the hinder claw. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 247 
 
 of this year was twenty-nine brace and a halt 
 killed by three guns : this was near Hamilton, 
 and entirely in Indian corn, hunted with set- 
 ters. The American woodcock affords, in my 
 opinion, at best very indifferent sport: his flight 
 is like that of a jack-snipe, and you can almost 
 always mark him down, as he seldom flies more 
 than 100 or 150 yards. He is a good deal 
 smaller than the European variety, but precisely 
 similar in flavour. The best snipe-shooting I have 
 heard of is at Sorel, on the St. Lawrence, but it is 
 also very uncertain, and decidedly inferior to our 
 own in Ireland. The only birds which remain all 
 the winter are partridges and snow-birds, and in 
 the west a few wild turkeys : the partridge is very 
 like a hen-pheasant in size and plumage : when 
 sprung, he flics invariably to a tree, from whence it 
 is impossible to dislodge him, so if you can see him, 
 which is difficult, you shoot him sitting. Wild tur- 
 keys are tracked in the snow, and stalked like deer 
 with rifles : they show excellent sport, but are very 
 scarce in our provinces. All the other varieties of 
 game disappear during the winter, and go off to 
 the southward, so that the shooting months here 
 are August, September, and October. What they 
 call hares are more like our rabbits in shape and 
 colour; but they do not burrow, and their flesh is 
 brown. In the southern states they are called 
 M 4 
 
248 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 rabbits. There are very few moose south of the 
 St. Lawrence, and none so far to the south-west- 
 ward as the Richelieu. On the whole, Amherst- 
 burgh is the best sporting quarter in Canada : you 
 have ducks, snipes, woodcocks, quails, wild tur- 
 keys, and deer there ; and within 100 miles to the 
 westward prairie-fowl are found, which resemble 
 in habits our grouse, and show very good sport. 
 
 I have just received a large packet of letters 
 from home, among others, one from you. I have 
 incidentally answered almost all your questions, 
 and must repeat, as I have said before, and not- 
 withstanding the assertions to the contrary which 
 are continually made, that there is not only not a 
 superfluity, but not a suflSciency of labour in the 
 colony yet. The continual changing of situations 
 shows the independence of servants, and their 
 general certainty of employment, while the rate of 
 wages and the scale of comfort which is consi- 
 dered necessary, proves that there is not sufficient 
 competition to reduce either. While these remain 
 as they are, I care not how many instances may 
 be produced of individuals at particular localities 
 complaining of want of employment, or even of 
 large numbers returning to the old country in dis- 
 gust and despair. These must result either from 
 misconduct, such as habitual drunkenness, or, 
 which is more commonly the case, from want of 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 249 
 
 the knowledge and energy requisite for bringing 
 their labour to the right places. Where workmen, 
 already getting two shillings a day, are striking 
 for an advance to two and sixpence *, and where 
 every labourer eats meat two or three times a day, 
 it is absurd to say that there can be a superfluity 
 of labour : if it were so, what should hinder em- 
 ployers from getting men at eighteen-pence a day, 
 who would be content to eat meat once ? I admit 
 that the rate of wages will not always accommodate 
 itself immediately to the proportion of the supply 
 to the demand, but as a permanent and habitual 
 state of things it must do so. People come out 
 here almost expecting to find gold in the streets ; 
 and if at the first port they come to they do not 
 get immediate employment at the wages which 
 those already employed are receiving, they will 
 neither go off into the country nor offer their ser- 
 vices at a lower price, but either proceed into the 
 States or return home again. 
 
 To make sure of immediate employment (and 
 this with the poorer emigrants is most important), 
 a man should sail so as to arrive at harvest-time, 
 when he will almost every where be caught up, 
 and when wages are highest. He will find no 
 
 * This was the case the other day at the Beauharnois 
 canal, and was the proximate cause of the riots that took 
 place there. 
 
 M 5 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 difficulty during August and September in getting 
 a dollar a day and his board* and before winter 
 comes he ought to have a good deal of money laid 
 by. In winter “ chopping” is the principal busi- 
 ness; and as many emigrants have not skill or 
 hardihood for the bush at first* and farm-work is 
 scarce, a man who came out late might find diffi- 
 culty in getting employment ; besides the severity 
 of the climate requires him* particularly if lie have 
 a family, to lay in a stock of warm clothing, fuel, 
 and other comforts, so that he ought to have 
 money by him before the cold weather sets in ; 
 after the first winter all is plain sailing, if his health 
 lasts. I have known but few with whom the 
 climate seriously disagrees.* 
 
 The Protestant and Roman Catholic emigrants 
 do not amalgamate at all, nor do I see any ap- 
 pearance of a more friendly feeling between them 
 here than at home ; they do not, however, come so 
 much into collision, for they generally adopt differ- 
 ent lines of life. The Protestants become farm- 
 labourers, or domestic servants in good families, 
 
 * There is an excellent little tract, called “ Information 
 for Emigrants to British North America, published by 
 Authority,” and which every body wishing to come out 
 ought to consult ; the emigration agents, too, give every 
 sort of advice and assistance to those who land at the dif- 
 ferent ports, supplying with provisions, and forwarding to 
 their destination those who are in a state of destitution. 
 This department seemed to me very well managed. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 251 
 
 for a time, but always aim at settling, as soon as 
 possible, on land of their own, while the Homan 
 Catholics, who are invariably of the poorest class, 
 constitute, for the most part, as in the States, the 
 Pariah caste, or “ proletaires : ” they arc the por- 
 ters, carters, waiters at inns, &c., and above all, 
 they monopolise almost entirely the public works, 
 which absorb a great portion of the labouring po- 
 pulation in this country ; numbers also go to the 
 States, so that comparatively few proceed up the 
 country and settle upon farms: those who do, keep 
 very much together, and the Protestant and 
 Roman Catholic townships are quite distinctly 
 marked, and exclusively occupied by the respec- 
 tive parties. In Kingston, Toronto, and all the 
 larger towns of Upper Canada, the Protestants 
 in Montreal and Quebec, on the contrary, the Ro- 
 man Catholics are much the more numerous body ; 
 the latter are not, however, looked upon so 
 favourably by the British Canadians, nor do they 
 find it so easy to get employment in gentlemen’s 
 families as the Protestants. 
 
 Both parties of Irish behaved very well during 
 the rebellion, and are considered very loyal and 
 well affected ; while the Scotch, on the contrary, 
 are the most radical population, and the least re- 
 lied upon by the friends of government, in Ca- 
 nada. Iu the case of the Roman Catholics, this 
 m 6 
 
252 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 is attributed to the influence of the priests (and 
 particularly the Bishop of Montreal), who have a 
 great, and, as far as their own interests are con- 
 cerned, a just horror of Americanism. They have 
 the sense to perceive, that neither their influence 
 nor their property could be preserved for six months 
 after the Canadas were annexed to the States: 
 they know that republicanism and church autho- 
 rity (in whatever form represented and exercised) 
 are antagonist powers ; and with respect to Ro- 
 manism in particular, the burning of the nunnery 
 at Boston a few years ago proved a salutary les- 
 son. In this respect they are far wiser than their 
 Irish brethren, who ally themselves with the radi- 
 cal and revolutionary spirit, for the purpose of 
 keeping up their influence for the present, and in 
 the hope of continuing to exercise it, after what 
 they consider the obstacles to its predominance 
 are removed. They deceive themselves com- 
 pletely : if they succeed in effecting the revolution 
 which they aim at, and which must eventuate in 
 arming the poor against the rich, i. e. inverting 
 and disorganising society altogether, they will 
 find that they have raised a demon, which they 
 will not have the power to lay, and that the spirit 
 of rebellion and anarchy, once excited, will throw of 
 all restraint and all authority, ecclesiastical as well 
 as political. It has been so in France, in South 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 253 
 
 America, and in Spain. The case of the last- 
 mentioned countiy is particularly curious and in- 
 structive, for Spain was considered the most 
 superstitious and priest-ridden country in the 
 world. Within the last twenty years the revolu- 
 tionary spirit has grown up there, and become 
 finally successful and predominant, and precisely 
 in the same proportion has the influence of the 
 church decreased. In 1836 (I think) Mendi- 
 zabal’s famous decree went forth, and the whole 
 church property, consecrated by the prescription 
 of ages, was confiscated at once. Since that time, 
 it is said that the priests have hardly received any 
 part of the salary that was promised to them : they 
 have generally disappeared, or sunk to the lowest 
 pitch of destitution, and almost the whole of the 
 Spanish male population is now avowedly infidel. 
 This is an extreme case, for it is the re-action from 
 a contrary extreme ; still it affords a pregnant 
 illustration of tendencies. Of course I do not by 
 any means intend to insinuate, that a result simi- 
 lar in degree to this would occur, if republican 
 principles became victorious in Canada ; but I do 
 say, as I say of the United States generally 
 (places where a constant stream of Roman Ca- 
 tholic emigration is kept up being of course excep- 
 tions), that it would not be a pleasant country for 
 priests. 
 
254 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv. 
 
 The worst feature of the population here is 
 one necessarily characteristic of a new country, 
 namely, their love of money. There is such a 
 field for making money, so few that have enough, 
 that to make it appears to a degree, of which we 
 have no notion at home, the absorbing object of 
 every body. Now, if a generous, gentleman-like, 
 spending class, be as important an element in 
 society as a getting class, it is very desirable that 
 correctives should be created (or at least not re- 
 moved), which may tend to prevent the latter 
 from monopolising Canada. The ultra-commer- 
 cial spirit, and the vices which accompany it, are 
 the besetting sins of the age, and are peculiarly 
 observable in the British race, not only in Ame- 
 rica, but at home. In England they are still 
 modified and controlled ; but in Canada, as in 
 the United States, they appear likely to flourish 
 with unchecked luxuriance, and threaten to debase 
 permanently the standard of national character. 
 It should then be the leading object, with all who 
 influence in any way the public mind, not merely 
 government, but authors, teachers, parents, to 
 encourage every disposition, and adopt every mea- 
 sure, of the opposite kind. Such, for example, are 
 the laws relating to property : the effect which 
 they produce, not only upon political institutions, 
 but upon character and habits of life, is immense, 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 255 
 
 and should be deeply considered by those politicians 
 who advocate the abolition of the law of primoge* 
 niture in Canada. That law cannot, humanly speak- 
 ing (for a great length of time at least), lead to any 
 undue accumulation of property. The feudal habits 
 wliich tend to induce such a result with us have 
 hardly any existence among the class from which 
 this country is peopled ; and the neighbourhood of 
 the States, with the influence and example wliich 
 it affords, will prevent them from growing up to 
 any injurious extent. The danger is all the other 
 way: a race of hereditary landed proprietors is 
 wanted, not merely as a permanent spending class, 
 who may have a fixed social position, and, con- 
 sequently, leisure and money to employ in the 
 promotion of arts, literature, and religion, the cul- 
 tivation of which it is difficult to reconcile with 
 habitual money-making, but also as a conserva- 
 tive stationary element, as a drag upon the wheel 
 of commercial radicalism. 
 
 I am inclined to admit that the opposite system, 
 that of subdivision, increases the aggregate pro- 
 ductiveness, and is more favourable to commerce 
 generally, nor do I think that it necessarily in- 
 duces the evils which I apprehend for this country 
 (for example, it does not seem to have produced 
 them in Norway) ; but I am sure, that where, as 
 in America, the tendency to them exists, it power- 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 fully assists and aggravates that tendency, and if 
 so, its financial advantages should be disregarded. 
 If the law be altered, the custom will, it is pro- 
 bable, invariably attend and give effect to it ; if it 
 be preserved, on the contrary, the custom is likely 
 to modify and correct its operation. Eveiy tiling 
 tends to democracy in Canada : take away Bri- 
 tish institutions, and you leave that tendency 
 unchecked. 
 
 In estimating the prevailing habits and feelings 
 of Canada, we must not forget that as yet they 
 are, to a great extent, formed and leavened by the 
 continual importation of emigrants, who come im- 
 bued with those of a different state of society; 
 otherwise we can hardly judge of the extent to 
 which American influences prevail, and of the 
 necessity for keeping them in check. I have 
 mentioned one of the means which appear to me 
 desirable for that purpose ; another obviously con- 
 sists in the mode of education which should be 
 adopted. M. de Tocqueville recommends the 
 study of classical authors, as peculiarly fitted to 
 counteract the faults in taste which distinguish a 
 democratic age, from the careful, finished style of 
 their composition : he might have added, that the 
 standard which they hold up, though in many 
 respects defective, has also many excellences which 
 the spirit of our age is disposed to overlook. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 257 
 
 The tendency of the Greek and Roman pliilo- 
 sophy is decidedly anti-material ; its to aryadov, its 
 ideal of happiness, is not wealth or power, but the 
 utmost extent of spiritualisation of which man is 
 capable — contemplation, austerity, self-command. 
 So, also, the motives to action which the ancients 
 put forward were at least supersensual : they were, 
 love of fame, patriotism, sense of honour, not self- 
 interest in the material sense of the word, as in the 
 systems of Bentham, Franklin, and the modem mo- 
 ralists. There is a severe simplicity about the an- 
 tique model which is opposed most strongly to the 
 tastes and habits of a commercial age and country, 
 and which for that very reason should be studied 
 by those who endeavour to attain the “ mean.” * 
 But the most important corrective to the evil 
 tendencies of a commercial age, as to every other 
 evil to which our nature is liable, consists in the 
 teaching of the Church, and more peculiarly (in 
 the present circumstances) in that aspect of her 
 teaching which may be called, distinctively, Ca- 
 tholic. I speak not merely, as M. de Tocqueville 
 most forcibly and truly does, of keeping the 
 dogma of immortality and moral government be- 
 before the minds of those who are constantly 
 tempted to forget the invisible and the eternal 
 
 * I see this point well treated in an able review of 
 M. de Tocqueville.— Ed. Rev. vol. lxxii. 
 
258 
 
 LETTERS PROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 in the untiring pursuit of wealth; I speak of 
 inculcating those doctrines and practices which 
 are commonly called superstitious and formal, and 
 unsuited to the temper of the age. It is precisely 
 because they are so “ unsuited” that they are so 
 necessary to it. Is every member of such a so- 
 ciety bent upon getting more, upon rising in the 
 woild, upon adding house to house, and field to 
 field ? The Church denounces woe upon all such ; 
 she jireaches that riches are a positive evil ; that a 
 man is worse off for having them ; and leaves us to 
 reconcile it as we may with the duty of providing 
 for our family, and of putting them forward in 
 the world, with all the good which we say we can 
 do if we can but become rich, and so on. She 
 tells us, that, having food and raiment, we should 
 be therewith content; and to “take no thought, 
 saying, What shall we drink ? or wherewithal shall 
 we be clothed ? ” Does the “ passion du hien-Ztre 
 materiel ” (to use M. de Tocqueville’s words) ab- 
 sorb every mind? She recommends austerities, 
 self-denials, alms-givings, voluntary abandonment 
 of domestic comfort, in order to “ serve the Lord 
 without distraction.” In every tiling the tastes 
 and habits of a Catholic churchman are opposed to 
 those of a money-making age, and in a money- 
 making age should therefore be most insisted 
 on ; and it is, perhaps, a providential appointment 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 259 
 
 that, at a time when seemingly most wanted, a 
 re-action in their favour appears to have sprung up 
 in Protestant Christendom. 
 
 I have sometimes heard the question argued, as 
 to whether the “ loyalty ” so much talked of by 
 Canadians is a chivalrous, disinterested feeling of 
 attachment to the sovereign, as the representative 
 and impersonation of the authority set over them 
 by God, or a cold, calculating spirit, unconnected 
 with honour or religion, and dependent for its 
 continuance upon tlicir idea of the benefits result- 
 ing from British connection, or at best an abstract 
 preference of a monarchical over a republican 
 form of government? Now, probably, with re- 
 gard to this matter, the case is much the same 
 here as in England ; what goes by the name of 
 loyalty consists with a few individuals in the 
 former, with the great majority in the latter feel- 
 ing. I have but little faith in the existence now to 
 any great extent of the kind of loyalty, which raised 
 the Highlands for the Stuarts, and the \ endec foi 
 the Bourbons ; it was essentially a religious prin- 
 ciple, and intimately connected with the doctrine 
 of hereditary right. At the Revolution of 1688 
 that doctrine was set aside; the people did not 
 content themselves with resisting the unlawful 
 commands of their king, but they changed the 
 line of succession, and affixed conditions to the 
 

 •<: 
 
 
 260 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letteb xiv. 
 
 future possession of the throne. From that mo- 
 ment their feeling towards their sovereign changed 
 its nature : the new line derived its title not from 
 Divine right founded on prescription, but from 
 the people’s choice ; and it is not in the nature of 
 man to regard the creation of his will with the 
 sentiment of religious veneration, which is yielded 
 to an authority claiming to be derived from an in- 
 dependent and paramount source.* For a long 
 time the nation retained the impress of its old 
 spirit — “servabit odorem testa diu,” — and be- 
 sides, the principle, as Burke elaborately contends, 
 was preserved in theory, though virtually neutral- 
 ised by the precedent of so important an excep- 
 tion; but it appeal’s to me that the victory of 
 Whig principles which was then consummated 
 has now nearly worked itself out, and produced 
 its legitimate effect, and that, in fact, the new 
 symbol of the anti-democratic party, viz. Con- 
 servatism, accurately expresses the principle which 
 
 * I would not be supposed to argue against the lawful- 
 ness of resisting James’s unlawful proceedings ; on the 
 contrary, as I know that a British sovereign has “articled 
 with the people,” and is, consequently, as much bound by 
 the conditions of the contract as they are, so I believe it 
 to follow, that he may be prevented (by force, if neces- 
 sary) from violating that contract. Nor am I at present 
 canvassing the rightfulness or expediency of the course 
 
 adopted in placing a foreign prince upon the throne I 
 
 speak only of its effects upon national loyalty. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 261 
 
 has taken the place of loyalty. There is, no 
 doubt, at tills moment a wide-spread and deep- 
 rooted attachment to the person of the Queen ; for 
 human nature, when not utterly hardened, yearns 
 for objects of veneration, and gladly seizes an 
 opportunity of yielding it : but I am convinced 
 that that attachment depends upon the personal 
 qualifications and circumstances of the individual, 
 not upon her commission as God’s anointed, and is 
 plainly to be distinguished from the feeling which 
 induced Prynne on the scaffold to pray for the 
 king by whose orders he was suffering, and thou- 
 sands to “ follow to the last gasp with love and 
 loyalty” men of whom they knew nothing, or 
 knew only that they were unworthy and wicked. 
 But tills is a digression into which I have been 
 led by a conversation which I have just had with 
 a distinguished Canadian, who maintained that 
 the old original loyalty still exists here. I im- 
 pugned his position, and, upon reflection, think 
 that I might have extended my view of the ques- 
 tion to the rest of the British dominions. 
 
 But putting this out of the question, there re- 
 main to Canada as bonds of union with Great 
 Britain, 1st, the principle of submission for con- 
 science’ sake to the powers that be ; 2dly, that of 
 regard and attachment felt by the colonists to the 
 mother-country, and pride in being identified with 
 
262 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 her history ; and, 3dly, a sense of the benefits re- 
 sulting from the connexion. Now, as to the 
 first, without going the length of Mr. Stephen, 
 who seems to treat with utter contempt the idea 
 that in this enlightened age, and particularly in 
 the New World, any body could be influenced by 
 so old-fashioned a notion, I fear that, whether in 
 the Old World or the New, it is impossible to 
 rely upon it as very deeply or generally enter- 
 tained. We live in an age, not of faith, but of 
 “enlightened self-interest” (noble principle!); 
 and I doubt the operation to any great extent of 
 religious motives for any thing. The second prin- 
 ciple which I have mentioned is still powerfully 
 influential in Upper Canada. Whatever may have 
 been the merits or faults of Sir Francis Head, he 
 at least revealed and elicited an enthusiasm in 
 favour of England, which was never dreamt of in 
 the philosophy of the economists. The American 
 sympathisers were fully convinced that they had 
 nothing to do but erect the banner of independence 
 and fraternisation in Canada, and that the pro- 
 vince would at once eagerly throw off the yoke 
 
 but that delusion at least is at an end. There is 
 a wide difference between discontent with the 
 policy of England and ripeness for separation and 
 republicanism. This attachment to England, how- 
 ever, though still strongly felt, and capable of 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 263 
 
 being indefinitely increased and preserved, lias a 
 natural tendency to become weaker in the course 
 of years, as the proportion of native Canadians to 
 emigrants increases, and the relative importance 
 of the province to the mother-country becomes 
 greater, and offers in consequence more strongly the 
 temptation of establishing a distinctive nationality. 
 But, independently of any feeling of loyalty or at- 
 tachment, the Canadians feel strongly the interest 
 which they have in the connexion : England fur- 
 nishes troops to protect them, lends money to their 
 public works, and admits their pork, flour, and tim- 
 ber, at low duties. Now, I foresee that this bond 
 also will be considerably weakened within no re- 
 mote period. England is obviously tending to- 
 wards free trade with all nations, as far as they will 
 allow her ; and it is out of the question to suppose 
 that she will permanently keep up differential du- 
 ties for the benefit of her colonies ; nor can any one 
 say how long the colonists may think (whether 
 justly or not) that they benefit by their connexion 
 with England : there will always be plausible ar- 
 guments for the discontented. For my part I can- 
 not look forward to a permanent and satisfactory 
 arrangement of the relation between Canada and 
 England, except under the form of complete amal- 
 gamation, so that the former should be considered 
 in every respect as an integral part of the empire, 
 
264 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 represented in her parliament, contributing to her 
 revenue and to her naval and military establish- 
 ment ; nor do I see that to such a scheme, now 
 that steam has brought the two continents so near 
 to each other, any greater objections can be brought 
 than would have applied to Caithness 140, or to 
 Kerry and Mayo 40 years ago. As the repre- 
 sentative system is at present applied, it is certainly 
 defective, and presents no security for working 
 well : the imperial and provincial legislatures must 
 occasionally come into collision, as did the English 
 and Irish parliaments during the short period of 
 their independence (from 1782 to 1800), and then 
 a suspension of the constitution, or some equally 
 strong measure, is rendered necessary, which is as 
 great an infraction of the “ principles of constitu- 
 tional government,” as the permanent authority of 
 an irresponsible governor. 
 
 Mr. Hume and his school say, that it would be 
 better to have no colonies ; for that if there were 
 free trade all over the world we should not want 
 any control over their commerce, and their com- 
 merce is the only benefit we derive from them. 
 Now, while we keep in mind the fact that there 
 is not free trade, nor any prospect of free trade till 
 over the world, and that we can have no security 
 that our colonies, if independent, would not become 
 not only rival but hostile powers, we may, at least, 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 265 
 
 allow so much force to these arguments as to ad- 
 mit that we by no means derive the full advantage 
 from our colonies which we might do if we could 
 treat them in every respect as fellow-citizens and 
 fellow-subjects : the idea of doing so is then highly 
 important, and should, I tliink, be more seriously 
 considered than it hitherto has been. 
 
 In order to show the advantages which a coun- 
 try derives from republican institutions it has 
 been for many years the fashion to point to the 
 immense superiority asserted to be apparent on 
 the American side of the border; and, amongst 
 others, Lord Durham, in the most offensive man- 
 ner, appears to exult in perpetually repeating the 
 assertion. I arrived in Canada myself fully pos- 
 sessed by this idea, and prepared to see the most 
 painful contrast between the condition of my 
 countrymen and the Americans. As you may 
 easily gather from my letters, I was most agree- 
 ably disappointed ; nor can I conceive any other 
 cause for the prevalence which the notion has ob- 
 tained than that the wish was father to the thought 
 in its first maintainers, and that others repeated 
 what they had been told, without taking the 
 trouble to test it by observation. It is curious, by- 
 the-by, that M. de Tocqueville is almost the only 
 writer who has done justice to Upper Canada (of 
 which alone I am speaking) ; and he does so fully 
 N 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv. 
 
 though incidentally. I think, and have always 
 said, that popular institutions, and the national 
 character which they assist in forming, are emi- 
 nently favourable to material prosperity ; and I 
 admit that the Americans are the best settlers and 
 traders in the world, and “ go a-head ” faster than 
 any other people : but that there is any thing like 
 the immense and palpable difference which Lord 
 Durham insists upon, I utterly deny — nay, I think 
 it even doubtful whether the slower system may 
 not be the surer, and whether in the end the tor- 
 toise may not beat the hare. There is no doubt 
 a more rapid growth of wealth and population on 
 the southern than on the northern shore of the 
 lakes, but not by any means more so than may be 
 accounted for without any reference to political 
 causes. If Canada, for example, were attached to 
 the west of Ireland, so that there were no Atlantic 
 to be crossed, no difference of institutions, circum- 
 stances, soil, climate, involving change of habits 
 and mode of life altogether, to be met with by 
 those who wished to settle there, it is impossible 
 to over-estimate the rapidity with which it would 
 be peopled, and its resources developed. And such 
 being precisely the position of the Western States, 
 with respect to the rest of the Union, it is evi- 
 dently unfair to compare them with a country 
 whose supplies of capital and labour are derived 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 267 
 
 from such a distance, and to found an argument 
 as to the comparative advantages of their forms ot 
 government upon such a comparison. 
 
 But even without reference to this consideration 
 of the geograpliical disadvantages under which she 
 labours, I maintain that Upper Canada need not, 
 at this moment, shrink from a comparison, as to 
 the use which she has made of the means at her dis- 
 posal r , with the contemporary States of the Union. 
 We must not forget that the prosperity of America, 
 her railroads, canals, steam navigation, and banks, 
 are the fruit of English capital, and that that ca- 
 pital has not been repaid. England has sunk 
 nearly 40,000,000/. in the States ; and it is impos- 
 sible to avoid reflecting how profitably and securely 
 a great part of this enormous sum might have been 
 spent in assisting our own countrymen. America 
 was all the rage ; her resources were unbounded, 
 the energies of her people invincible ; and nothing 
 but the judicious application of capital was re- 
 quired to develope and assist them. Such was 
 the story told by the agents whom the States 
 sent over to negotiate loans in England; and 
 their success was such as to astonish themselves : 
 money was absolutely pressed upon them, and 
 generally on terms greatly more advantageous than 
 those which they were authorised to accept. 
 Under these circumstances how can we blame 
 
 N 2 
 
268 
 
 LETTERS FROM AMERICA, letter xiv. 
 
 them for taking all they could get, and vaguely 
 hoping that they should be able to repay it? 
 Well, as long as the borrowed money lasted, all 
 looked well and flourishing ; and any interest, ten, 
 fifteen per cent., was punctually paid : by degrees, 
 however, as the works came into operation, it was 
 found that there was not trade in the country to 
 support them ; the money was sunk, the interest 
 due, the profits deficient ; and then came the trial 
 of the people’s honesty. Alas ! in too many cases 
 the result speaks for itself: they refused to tax 
 themselves, either boldly denying that they were 
 bound by the acts of their constituted authorities 
 or, while admitting the debt, refusing to make 
 provision for its payment. 
 
 On the other hand, hardly a sh illin g of English 
 capital has found its way into this province : six 
 per cent, on the best security might readily have 
 been obtained. But no — Canada was too slow a 
 coach ; the capitalists preferred the giant republic’s 
 gigantic promises, and they have had their reward. 
 The reaction is now taking place ; the bubble has 
 burst; and the steady equable flow of public pros- 
 perity on the Canadian side of the water is as 
 remarkable as the stagnation, distrust, depression, 
 and gloom upon the American. I do not for a 
 moment believe that the present state of things 
 will last. The distress of the States is as unnatural 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 269 
 
 as was their prosperity : the total absence of com- 
 mercial credit is but the temporary result of that 
 exaggerated banking system which forced and 
 supported trade. I believe also in the uncon- 
 querable energy, in the unlimited resources of the 
 Americans, as fully as any of themselves do ; I 
 only deprecate as unfair a comparison between 
 Canada and the States during their unnatural ad- 
 vance, just as I should now, during their unnatural 
 prostration. The stream of emigration which has 
 heretofore flowed from Canada into the States 
 while their great public works were in progress 
 has now begun to flow back again, as those works 
 have been either completed or discontinued*; and 
 the English public are becoming more alive to the 
 advantages and capabilities of Canada, so that we 
 may hope that the capital and labour requisite for 
 their development will be more freely supplied. 
 Two measures are especially requisite with a view 
 to this end — free trade with England, and the 
 establishment of a good system of land sales. The 
 first, it is now hoped, will be immediately obtained, 
 on condition of the provincial parliament imposing 
 
 * It appears from the reports of the emigration agents 
 that 9500 persons returned during the year 1842 to 
 Europe from the port of New York alone; while (as far 
 as can be ascertained) only fifty or sixty did so from 
 Canada 
 

 LETTERS FROM AMERICA. letter xiv. 
 
 a proportionate duty on American wheat ; and if 
 so, an immense stimulus will be given to the agri- 
 cultural interest and to the carrying trade of the 
 St. Lawrence. The American papers are already 
 full of anticipations as to the effects which such a 
 measure would have upon the Erie canal. 
 
 The second presents great difficulties, from the 
 manner in which the old systems have operated in 
 promoting the accumulation of wild land in the 
 hands of land-jobbers and absentees, and the diffi- 
 culty, without encroaching on the right of pro- 
 perty, of making them dispose of it or turn it to 
 account. The plan adopted by the municipal 
 councils in some districts of taxing wild land, 
 though involving a dangerous principle, will pro- 
 bably be effectual, and by degrees force those who 
 cannot clear to sell their land. In disposing of 
 church and crown lands something analogous to 
 the American system must be adopted. 
 
 Though, however, the general state of affairs in 
 Canada is liighly satisfactory, there is this year a 
 considerable amount of distress consequent upon 
 the alteration of the timber duties. I am con- 
 vinced, as is every one here, that the colony will 
 ultimately be benefited by it; but there must be 
 great temporary losses : and it certainly appears to 
 me that sufficient warning was not given. A vast 
 stock of timber has been cut, and brought down to 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 ISLE AUX NOIX. 
 
 271 
 
 Quebec, upon the natural supposition that the old 
 prices would continue: the change is made, and 
 the price falls nearly one half. Can it be won- 
 dered at that many merchants are unable to meet 
 their engagements? There have been already 
 five or six failures in Montreal ; and many more 
 are expected during the winter. It is the custom 
 of the day to carry out the maxim of salus populi 
 suprema lex , or, “ the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number,” sound as it is, too indiscrimi- 
 nately, and to pass over as of no importance the 
 vested rights of individuals. All the lumber- 
 merchants wanted was time to dispose of the 
 stock on hand; and that has been denied to them. 
 There is already enough of timber for two years’ 
 consumption at Quebec, and yet they are going 
 into the bush to a great extent this winter again. 
 They tell me that they have shanties built, pro- 
 visions laid in, and timber chopped, but not rafted, 
 last year, all of which will be lost if they do not 
 return into the woods. The unexpected excellence 
 of the harvest, too, in England and Ireland, has 
 been the cause of considerable losses here ; mer- 
 chants have exported flour to a great extent this 
 “ fall,” and have not been able to get a price in 
 England sufficient to cover what they paid here, 
 and the duty, leaving the expenses of transport- 
 ation a dead loss. Notwithstanding these causes 
 
of temporary distress, however, I feel sure that 
 every impartial and observant traveller will be 
 surprised and delighted, as I was, at the appear- 
 ances of prosperity which present themselves in 
 Canada. By far the worst part of the province is 
 this immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
1 
 
 S?a39?0 V'