The following facts, translated from an interesting article in the "Melanges Religieux," a Roman Catholic periodical, published in Montreal, in the French language, may be relied on, to show how narrowed the ideas of a man constantly residing in the woods are:—

"There arrived in Montreal, on Wednesday last, a young man about twenty years of age, who had come down from Hudson's Bay, without having, during his long journey, stopped in any town, village, or civilized settlement; so that he stumbled into Montreal with as little idea of a town or of civilization as if he had fallen from the moon, for he had lived on the northern shores of the bay, and had but seldom visited the fur-trading establishments. He had only last spring seen, at Abbititi, Messieurs Moreau and Durauquet, the Roman Catholic Missionaries. He was born of Roman Catholic parents, his father being Scotch, his mother Irish. But he had never left the woods nor the life in the wilds, and had never seen a priest before last spring. How strange must have been the emotions in the breast of this young man on finding himself thus suddenly cast into the midst of this large town, as one would throw a bale of furs! He expressed his feelings at the time as partaking more of stupor than of admiration.

"When he had recovered from the confusion of his ideas consequent upon the novelty of his situation, he sought the Bishop's residence, according to the instructions of his father; and at length found himself more at ease, for, understanding his singular position, those he there met with assisted him to collect his scattered thoughts. In answer to the questions addressed to him (he speaks English, and can read and write), he replied that he could not consent to live in such a place; that the noise deafened him, while the crowds of people, running in all directions, agitated and astonished him in a manner he could not explain. He experienced a sensation of suffocation on finding himself enclosed, as it were, in streets of lofty houses; he saw and admired nothing, being every moment in dread of losing himself in the labyrinth of streets, more difficult for him to recognize than the scarcely marked pathways of his native forests. He was not curious to see any thing, and felt only the desire to fly at once, and again to breathe freely, away from what he felt to be the restraints of civilization. He was taken to the cathedral, where he saw the pictures, the paintings on the roof, and all the ornaments of the church—they were explained to him, and he prayed before the high altar and that of the Holy Virgin. He believed all the instructions of the Church, and was sufficiently informed to receive baptism. During his visit to the church, the organ was played, and an explanation was given him of its harmony. In the midst of all these to him surprising novelties, he was asked what was the predominant sensation in his mind; he answered fear, and that his other feelings he was unable to explain.

"This simple child of nature, the naivete of whose language, emotions, and habits so strongly contrasted with the surrounding artificial civilization, afforded a singular study to those present. However humiliating to our self-love, the conduct of this young man abundantly proved that the civilization of which we are so proud, our buildings, our wealth, our industry, all our activity and noise, do not fill with the admiration we expect those who are brought up far from our opulent cities and our artificial manners. Nature, in these immense solitudes, in these primitive manners, has then charms unknown to us, to be preferred to those which, in our existing state, we find so incomparable. We must here close our reflections, for fear of falling into paradoxes difficult to be avoided in questions of this nature.

"This young man has departed, without regret, and has gone to the township of Raudon, where he has relations. There he will again find forests, and will be able to breathe freely, without fearing that the lofty dwellings of the city will intercept his view of the blue sky and the bright sun which he loves."

Even near population, the settler has, in his way to town and market, to bait his cattle at roadside taverns, where the bar is the place of business, where he meets neighbours, and hears the news of the market and of the world; and the facility with which, throughout Upper Canada, these grog-shops obtain licenses from the magistrates is so great that the evil every day increases.

In towns, this is most particularly observed, and also that, under the designation of "beer-licenses" the most infamous houses for drinking and vice are suffered to exist. It is full time that the parliament interfered with these license-granters, who increase intemperance instead of using their magisterial office to put a stop to it. Father Matthew's principles are much wanted in Canada West.

In Eastern Canada, or, as it is better known, Lower Canada, the contrary is the case. The Canadian French, as a people, are temperate, although the canoe and batteaux men, lumberers and voyageurs, from the lonely and hard lives they lead, drink to excess; yet the Canadian is a sober character.



CHAPTER XIII.

Beachville—Ingersoll—Dorchester—Plank road—Westminster Hall—London—The great Fire of London—Longwoods—Delaware—The Pious, glorious, and immortal Memory—Moncey—The German Flats—Tecumseh—Moravian settlement—Thamesville—The Mourning Dove—The War, the War—Might against Right—Cigar-smoking and all sorts of curiosity—Young Thames—The Albion—The loyal Western District—America as it now is.

I was detained at Woodstock for some time by the sickness of one of the horses. The animal had dropped in his stable after our arrival, and refused to feed; consequently, our driver had to look for another; and a miserable one, at a large price, he got. The intense heat had overpowered the horse.

We departed, however, at half-past six in the morning, on the 10th July, and reached Beachville, five miles westward.

Beachville is a small country village, beautifully situated, and the country between is undulating and rich. The driver pointed out Mr. John Vansittart's house, an English looking residence, with extensive grounds.

A creek, called Hard Creek, runs along the road with several mill-sites on it. It loses itself every now and then in deep woods; and altogether this is the prettiest country I have ever seen in Canada. The land also appears good.

At Beachville are saw, grist, and water-mills on an extensive scale, the best in the country, owned and worked by Scotch people.

The creek called Little Thames is seen also, which runs through the Canada Company's lands to the Forks of the Thames at London. This is a settlement forty years old; consequently, every thing is forward in it.

We then came through an equally fine, old-settled country, to Ingersoll, five miles farther. This is a straggling place of about the same age, with mills and creeks, and a large inn, called the Mansion House (Hoffman's).

We drove on to Dorchester, a small settlement and an old mill-site, about eighteen miles from London, where we stopped to recruit our wretched horse, at half-past ten. Here we breakfasted at a roadside inn, not very good nor very comfortable, but were glad to observe that the plank road commenced again.

A plank road in England would be a curiosity indeed: here it is none: fancy rolling along a floor of thick boards through field and forest for a hundred miles. The boards are covered with earth, or gravel, if it can be had, and this deadens the noise and prevents the wear and tear, so that you glide along pretty much the same as a child's go-cart goes over the carpet. But this will only do where wood is plentiful, and thus the time must come, even in Canada, when gravelled roads or iron rails will supersede it.

The country was poorer in this section, being very sandy, until near the tavern called Westminster Hall; what a name! But the beautiful little river was occasionally in sight in a hollow of woods of the richest foliage. At one place we saw a party of Indians with ponies and goods, going down to a ford, where no doubt their canoes awaited them. Their appearance as they descended was very picturesque, armed as they were with rifles and fowling-pieces, very Salvator Rosaish.

Westminster Hall, where we arrived at ten minutes to two o'clock, and staid an hour to bait, is six miles and a half from London. Cockney land everywhere.

On our approaching the new capital of the London District, we saw evident signs of recent exertions. Fine turnpike-gates, excellent roads, arbours for pic-nic parties, and before us, at a distance, a large wide-spread clearance, in which spires and extensive buildings lifted their heads.

London is a perfectly new city; it was nothing but a mere forest settlement before 1838, and is now a very large, well laid out town. We arrived at five p.m., and put up at a very indifferent inn, the best however which the great fire of London had spared. The town is laid out at right angles, each street being very wide and very sandy, and where the fire had burnt the wooden squares of houses we saw brick ones rising up rapidly. There is now a splendid hotel, (O'Neill's and Hackstaff's) where you may really meet with luxury as well as comfort, for I see, mirabile dictu, that fresh lobsters and oysters are advertised for every day in the season. These come from the Atlantic coast of the United States, some thousand miles or so; but what will not steam and railroad do! We saw a stone church erecting; and there is an immense barrack, containing the 81st regiment of infantry and a mounted company, or, as it is called in military parlance, a battery of artillery.

London was so thickly beset with disaffected Americans during the rebellion, that it was deemed necessary to check them by stationing this force in the heart of the district; and since then the military expenditure and the excellent situation of the place has created a town, and will soon create a large city.

The adjacent country is very beautiful, particularly along the meandering banks of the Thames. I saw some excellent stores, or general shops; and, although the houses, excepting in the main street, are at present scattered, and there is nothing but oceans of sand in the middle, it wants only time to become a very important place. General Simcoe, when he first settled Upper Canada, thought of making it the metropolis, but it is not well situated for that purpose, being too accessible from the United States.

I staid here all night and part of next day; and here I found the disadvantages of an education for the bar; for my bedroom was immediately over it, and it was open the greatest part of the night. Drinking, smoking, smoking, drinking, incessant, with concomitant noise and bad language; which, combined with a necessity for keeping the window open on account of the heat, rendered sleep impossible. I have slept from sheer fatigue under a cannon, or rather very near it, when it was firing, but Vauban himself could not have slept with the thermometer at 100 deg. Fahrenheit over a Canadian tap-room.

I was glad to leave London in Canada West for that reason, and departed the next day in a fresh waggon at half-past five p.m., arriving at the Corners, six miles off, where a bran-new settlement and bran-new toll-gate appeared with a fine cross road, that to the right leading to Westminster, that to the left to Lake Erie. I was sorry that the plank road was finished only to this place; but we had fine settlements all the way.

Then begins a new country, and that most dreary and monotonous of Canadian landscape scenery—the Long Woods. This lasts to Delaware, where we stopped at eight o'clock, on a fine evening, having travelled twelve miles from the Corners.

Here the road suddenly turns from the river to the right; and we drove past Buller's New House, which he is building, to his old stand. It was ancient enough, but respectable; and if the rats and mice and other small deer could only have been persuaded that one had had no sleep the night before and that the weather was intensely hot, we should have done well enough; although some soldiers on a look-out party for deserters, and some travellers, were not at all inclined to sleep themselves, or to let others enjoy the blessings of repose.

Delaware is a very pretty village, and the Indians are settled some seven miles from it. It has a very large and very long bridge over the Thames.

We started, most militarily, at four in the morning of Friday the 12th of July, without recollecting King William, or the Pious, Glorious, and Immortal Memory. But we were to be reminded of it.

Here we saw the labours of the Board of Works in the Great Western Road to much advantage, in deep cuttings and embankments, fine culverts and bridges, with lots of the sons of green Erin—"first flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea"—and their cabins along the line of works, preparing the level for planking.

The country is flat, but very fine and well settled. Quails amused themselves along the road, looking at us from the wooden rail fences, and did not leave their perches without persuasion. The rascals looked knowing, too, as if they were aware that waggoners did not carry guns.

I heard the real whip-poor-will or night-jar last night frequently, sighing his melancholy ditty along the banks of the beautiful Thames. The cry of the Canada quail, which is a very small partridge-like bird, is very plaintive. As we passed them, they gave it out heartily—Phu—Phoo-iey. We arrived at Smith's tavern, seventeen miles, at half-past seven, breakfasted, and stayed until ten, at that miserable place.

We then drove on, and passed Moncey in Caradoc, so named from an Indian tribe. It is a pretty village, where they had just finished a church, whereon banners were flying, which showed us, that if we had forgotten King William, some folks here had not; and, out of bravado, a refugee American had stuck a pocket-handkerchief flag of the Stars and Stripes up at his shop-door, which we prophesied, as evening came, would be pulled down, because orange, blue, and red flags flourished near it. This is an Indian village, into which the Americans and other white traders and adventurers have set foot.

I was charmed with the scenery, consisting of fertile fields, rich woods, the ever-winding Thames and undulating mammillated hills, covered with verdure. Happy Indians, if unhappy Whites were not thrusting you out!

We arrived at one o'clock at Fleming's Inn, much better than the last, twelve miles. Here we rested awhile.—Starting again, the country was found but very little settled, with long tiresome woods, but still beautiful, all nearly oak. We halted at the German Flats, not to get out, for there was no abiding-place, but to look at the ground, where the battle in the last American war took place, in which Tecumseh, the great Tecumseh, met his death, and where Kentucky heroes made razor-straps of his skin.

Seven miles after leaving these immense woods, the valley of the Thames opens most magnificently in a gorge below, and spreads into rich flats to the left, embowered with the most beautiful forest scenery, in which, about a mile off, stand the Moravian church, school, and Indian village. A more lovely spot could not have been selected. There is a large Indian settlement of old date here; and, as we drove along, we passed through two deserted orchards; the road had rendered them useless; and, from which and its neighbourhood, the Indians had retired into their settled village below. Here the forest was gradually regaining the mastery: fruit-trees had become wild, and the Thames ran in a deep bold ravine far below, clothed with aged and solemn trees, willows and poplars, intermixed with oak, beech, ash, and altogether English and park-like. It put me in mind of the opening chapter of "Ivanhoe."

The road was a deep sand; and we stopped a little at Smith's Inn, three miles and a half from our night's halt. Here the soil changes to clay, and the country is not much settled, but is beginning to be so. We saw bevies of quail on the roadside, which the driver cut at with his whip, but they were not disposed to fly. We arrived at Freeman's Inn at half-past six p.m., twelve miles, and brought up for the night at Thamesville, where there is a dam and an extensive bridge, and altogether the preparation for the plank road is a very extraordinary work, embracing much deep cutting. Here all is sand again, but the occasional glimpses of the Thames, as you approach this village, are very fine and picturesque. Squirrels, particularly the ground species, or chippemunk, amused us a good deal by their gambols as we drove along. The village of Thamesville is very small.

Oh, Father Thames, did you ever dream of having ville tacked to your venerable name? But, as the Nevilles have it, ne vile velis.

I amused myself here on a scorching evening with looking about me, as well as the heat would permit; and here I first heard and first saw that curious little Canadian bird, the mourning dove. It came hopping along the ground close to the inn, but the evening was not light enough for me to distinguish more than that it was very small, not so big as a quail, and dark-coloured. It seemed to prefer the sandy road; and, as it had probably never been molested, picked up the oats or grain left in feeding the horses. It became so far domesticated as to approach mankind, although the slightest advance towards it sent it away. My host, a very intelligent man, told me that it always came thus on the hot summer nights; and we soon heard at various distances its soft but exceedingly melancholy call. It appears peculiar to this part of Canada, and is the smallest of the dove kind. I know of nothing to compare with its soft, cadenced, and plaintive cry; it almost makes one weep to hear it, and is totally different from the coo of the turtle dove. When it begins, and the whip-poor-will joins the concert, one is apt to fancy there is a lament among the feathered kind for some general loss, in the stillness and solemnity of a summer's night, when the leaves of the vast and obscure forest are unruffled, when the river is just murmuring in the distance, and the moon emerging from and re-entering the drifting night-cloud, in a land of the mere remnant of the Indian tribes gone to their eternal rest.

This in a contemplative mood forcibly reminds us of that sublime passage of holy writ, wherein that thrilling command is embodied, to "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when he shall rise up at the voice of the bird."

The cruel treatment of the aborigines of that half of the world discovered by Columbus rises, on such an occasion, to the memory, with all its force. Here we stood on that soil, a small portion of which has been doled out to them in return for an empire; and here we could not avoid reflecting upon the injustice which has been so unsparingly dealt out to the Indian in that neighbouring Republic instituted to secure freedom and impartial government to all men.

Yes, a nation claiming to be the most powerful under the sun, claiming a common origin, quarrelled for self-government; the mild sway of a limited monarchy was tyranny and bigotry; established laws and a state religion were swept away under a feeling that the child was strong enough to defy the parent. A more perfect form of government was necessary to the welfare of the human race: Washington arose, and a Republic was created. Did it continue in unison with the aspirations and views of that great man? did he think it requisite to extirpate the Red Men? did he forbid the Catholic to exercise the rights of conscience? did he intend that the Conscript Fathers should break their ivory wands, and bow to the dust before plebeian rule? did he imagine, in declaring all men equal, that mind was to succumb before mere matter, that intelligence was to be ground under the foot of physical force?

The Englishman, the true Englishman, and by that word I mean a citizen of England, a Canadian, as well as he born in Britain or Ireland, judges differently; he acknowledges all men equal, and that all have an equal right inherent in them to receive equal protection; but he renders to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and as he loves his own self, so loves he the representative of every soul bearing the proud name of a British subject.

He well knows, from the experience of all history, sacred and profane, that it is by maintaining order, in the institution of divers ranks in society and in government, that the true balance of power is found; and he feels that, if once that power is obtained by either extreme of the scale, his liberty, both of mind and of body, is at an end.

The manner in which Indian rights are treated in America is so glaring, that the philanthropist shudders. Protocols pass; the country west of the Mississippi is declared to belong first to Mexico, then to Spain, then to France, then to England, then to the United States. At last, the United States, strong enough to play a new game, a much more lofty one than the Tea Tragedy, defies the whole world, issues a decree irrevocable as those famous ones of the Medes and the Persians, and, perhaps, equally to pass into oblivion, that all the New World is to be the property of the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons—all the New World, never mind whether it be Monarchical England's, Imperial Brazil, Republican Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, &c.—all is to be guided by the banner of the Stars and Stripes.

Who among the statesmen ever dreams that the Red Man has any rights, who ever cares about his property in the wilds of the Prairies, of the Rocky Mountains, of the unknown lands of the Pacific! The United States declares that all Northern America is hers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the bloody flag of war is unfurled to obtain the commencement of this crusade against right and against reason, although the United States has ten times as much land already as ten times its present population can fill or cultivate, and then, Oregon is the war cry,

"Truly to speak it, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name; To pay five dollars, five, I would not farm it; Two thousand souls and twenty million dollars Will not debate the question of this straw; This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies—"

and then, in case Oregon should fail, advantage is taken of Mexico's distractions to negotiate for California.

The Red Man, the poor Red Man, may however have a voice in all this, that may speak in thunder. He is neither so powerless, nor so utterly contemptible as is supposed. In the wilds of the West, it is said, including the roaming horsemen of Mexico, 100,000 warriors exist. Even against 20,000, what army entangled in the forest, hidden in the Prairie grass, lost in the wilderness defiles of the vast Andes of the north, could also exist? and can the American government afford to detach regular troops for such a dreadful warfare? will the militia undertake it? Can an American fleet of sufficient power and resources be kept in the Pacific to counteract and send supplies? He who knows the western wilds well knows that once concentrate Indian warfare, and it would be impossible to keep together or to supply such an army as that of the Republic, unsupported, as it must necessarily be, by a fleet.

The time is coming, and that rapidly, there can be no doubt, when the white man will possess exclusively the Pacific coast; but this is to be achieved by the commercial and not by the physical power, and that it is yet very distant when any one nation will obtain it is the belief of all reasoning people; for even should the Americans force Mexico from its proper station, should they obtain California and Oregon, will Russia look quite quietly on, will France see her great scheme of Pacific colonization in danger, and will England tamely submit to have her eastern territories and the new trade with China put in jeopardy?

I think not, and also conceive that it is as impossible for the United States to support a lengthened war with any great European power as it is for any great European power to conquer or to subdue any portion of the United States.

Spain too is gradually recovering from the shock, which the loss of her Ophir inflicted on her; more liberal notions are gaining ground in Iberia; and it is by no means impossible, that, backed by France, she may yet resume her power in America. Look at the tenacity with which, amidst all her reverses, she has held on to Cuba.

There is, in fact, no surmising the results of a mad war on the part of America.

But, in all their profound calculations, the Indian, the poor despised Indian, is forgotten. How he is to live, how he is to die, are alike matters of indifference.

Well may the mourning dove haunt the villages of the Five Nations!

Thamesville—how I detest the combination! it must have been named in the very spirit of gin-sling—is a place very likely to become of importance when the great western road is quite completed.

I was listening to the mourning dove, which then gave a balm to my wounded spirit, when I observed on the bench under the verandah, or stoup, as the Dutch settlers call it, of the inn, on the seat near me, a mass of black mud, or some such substance. Always curious—a phrenologic doctor told me I had the bump of wonder—I took hold of it, and found it to be adherent. It smelt strongly of bitumen. The landlord seeing me examining it chimed in, and said that the Indians had brought it to him from thirteen miles beyond Cornwall's Creek, where there was an immense deposit of the same kind. It was, in fact, soft asphalte, or petroleum, or bitumen, or whatever the learned may please to designate it, in a state of coherence.

My researches did not stop here: I had had specimens of all the Canadian woods to send officially for transmission to England, and amongst others I had observed a very curious one, called white wood, which was certainly neither pine, nor any thing approaching to the fir kind. It was very light, very tenacious, and is extensively employed in this portion of Canada, where fir and pine are not common, for the purposes of flooring and building, making an extremely delicate and ornamental board.

In travelling along I had asked the name of every strange tree, and so frequently had received the words white wood for answer, that I at last found it was a Canadian poplar, which grows in the western and London districts to an enormous size.

The cotton wood is also another species of western poplar, and both would form a useful and an ornamental addition to our park scenery at home.

The white wood, the cotton wood, and the yellow white wood, are used in this part of Canada for all building purposes, wherein pine is employed elsewhere, and the last named makes the best flooring. I should think, from its lightness and beauty, that it might be used with great advantage in Tunbridge ware.

The quaking asp is also another poplar of western West Canada, and is a variety of the aspen.

Here too I began to observe gigantic walnut-trees, from which such a large proportion of household furniture throughout Canada is manufactured, but regretted to find that it is much wasted in being split up into rails for fences by the farmers, on account of its durability. They are, however, beginning to be sensible of its value, for it is now largely exported to England and elsewhere. The size of the black walnut and of the cotton wood is inconceivable: of the latter curbs for the mouths of large wells are often made, by merely hollowing out the trunk.

Vegetation in the western district is, in fact, extraordinary, and altogether it is undoubtedly the garden of Canada. Tobacco grows well in some portions of it, and is largely cultivated near the shores of Lake Erie. I believe most of the Havana cigars smoked in Canada, particularly at Montreal, are Canadian tobacco. So much the better; for if a man must put an enemy to his digestive organs into his mouth, it is better that that enemy should be the produce of the soil of which he is a native or denizen, as he derives some benefit from the consumption, although consumption of another sort may accrue.

I have long and earnestly thought upon the subject of the weed, and have come to the conclusion that, as a necessary of life, it is about upon a par with opium. Men of the lower classes, I mean labouring people, who leave off drinking either from religious motives or from fear, usually take to smoking, and in general their constitutions are as much injured by the one as by the other. Cigar-smoking is a sort of devil-may-care imitation of the vulgar by gentlemen, and is no more requisite for health or amusement than whiskey, dice, or cards. It is amusing in the extreme to see old fellows aping extreme juvenility, and professing to smoke before breakfast; and it is ridiculous to see young gentlemen, very young and very green, cigar in mouth, fancying it very manly and very independent to imitate a rough, weather-beaten sailor or soldier, who, not being able to smoke a cigar, sticks to the pipe. That it stupifies is certain, that it is very vulgar is more certain, and that it injures health is more certain still. I wonder if Father Matthew smokes—almost all priests do: they have very little other solace.

The approach to Chatham is very pretty. Young Thames, for I do not see why there should not be Young Thames as well as Young England, that most absurd of all D'Israelisms, looks enchanting in a country where lakes as flat on their shores as a pancake take the lead, and where rivers are creeks, and creeks are—nothing.

We crossed a long whitewashed bridge, much out of repair, and saw an enormous American flag upon a very little American schooner, which had penetrated thus far into the bowels of the land. Bunting cannot be dear in the United States, and English Manchester must drive a pretty good trade in this article.

The town of Chatham is situated on the banks of the Thames and of a large creek; and, being a Kentish man, I should have felt quite at home but for three things, videlicet, that enormous American flag; the name of the creek, which was Mac Gill or Mac something; and a thermometer pointing to somewhere about 101 deg. Fahrenheit at nine a.m. Besides this, the town is a wooden one, and has a wooden little fort, which divides Scotland from Kent, or the river from the creek, nicely picketed in, and kept in the most perfect order by a worthy barrack serjeant, its sole tenant, whose room was hung round with prints of the Queen, Windsor Castle, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Nelson—all in frames, and excellently well engraved, from the "Albion" newspaper.

The Albion newspaper is no ordinary hebdomadal; it has disseminated loyalty throughout America for years, and, as a gift on each 1st of January, has been in the habit of publishing a print of large size, engraved in exceedingly brilliant style, which is presented to its subscribers. The Queen, the Duke, the Conqueror of the Seas, Walter Scott, and his Monument at Edinburgh, &c., are the fruits; and these plates would sell in England for at least half a guinea, or a guinea each.

The Albion, moreover, gives extracts at length from the current literature of England; and thus science, art, politics, agriculture, find admirers and readers in every corner of the backwoods.

Dr. Bartlett, its editor, at New York, deserves much more than this ephemeral encomium, for he has done more than all the orators upon loyalty in the Canadas towards keeping up a true British spirit in it. The Albion, in fact, in Canada is a Times as far as influence and sound feeling go; and although, like that autocrat of newspapers, it differs often from the powers that be, John Bull's, Paddy's, and Sawney's real interests are at the bottom, and the bottom is based upon the imperishable rock of real liberty. It steers a medium course between the extreme droit of the so-called Family Compact, and the extreme gauche of the Baldwin opposition.

Political feeling ran very high in the section of country through which we are travelling, both in the war of 1812 and in the rebellion of 1837; and, from the vicinity of the Western district to the United States, in both instances it was inferred by the American people that an easy conquest was certain. Proclamations followed upon proclamations, and attacks upon attacks, but the people loved their soil, and the invaders were driven back. So it will be again, if, unhappily, war should follow the mad courses now pursuing. The Canadians at heart are sound, and nowhere is this soundness more apparent than in the western district. It is not the mere name of liberty which can tempt thinking men to abandon the reality.

It has fallen to my lot to be acquainted with many leaders of faction, both in the Old and in the New World, and I never yet knew one whose personal ambition or whose private hatred had not stimulated him to endeavour to overturn all order, all rule. The patriot, whose sole aim is to amend and not to destroy, is now-a-days a rara avis, particularly if he is needy. One has only to read with attention the details of the horrors of the French revolution to be fully impressed with this fact. Where was patriotism then? and was not Napoleon the real patriot when he said, "two or three six-pounders would have settled the canaille of Paris!" I by no means advocate the ultima ratio regum being resorted to in popular commotions, in saying this; but France would have been happier had the little corporal been permitted to use his artillerymen. It has often surprised me, in reading the history of the American revolution, assisted as the Americans were by the demoralised French of that day, that that revolution was so bloodless a one; a fact only to be accounted for by the agricultural and pastoral character of the people who engaged in it, and by the unwillingness, even at the last moment, to sever all ties between the parent and the child. The character of that population has greatly altered since; generations have been born on the soil, whose recollections of their progenitors across the Atlantic have dwindled to the smallest span; and the intermixture of races has since done everything but destroy all filial feeling, has in fact destroyed nearly all but the common language, whilst ultra-democracy has been steadily at work upon the young idea to inculcate hatred to monarchy, and, above all, to the limited monarchy of England. Will the result be less harmless than the Tea Triumph? The world, it is to be feared, will yet see two nations, the most free in the world, speaking the same tongue, educated from the same sources, embruing their hands in each other's blood, to build up a new universal system, impossible in its very nature, or to support that which the experience of ages has perfected, and which three estates so continually watch over each other to guard.



CHAPTER XIV.

Intense Heat—Pigs, the Scavengers of Canada—Dutch Country—Moravian Indians—Young Father Thames—Ague, a cure for Consumption—Wild Horses—Immense Marsh.

I never remember so hot a day as the 13th of July; people in England can have no idea of the heat in Canada, which they always figure to themselves as an hyperborean region. On our journey from Thamesville, when near Louisville, a neat hamlet by the wayside, in a beautiful country, settled by old Dutch families, on a fine bend of the Thames, we passed in the woods a dead horse, and found some friends at Chatham, who told us that it had dropped down from the intense heat. Those scavengers of Canada, the pigs, were like certain politic worms already busily at work on the carcase, in which indeed one had buried itself.

In this Dutch country, you find the new road to Lake Erie, to the Rondeau from Chatham graded, or ready for planking, for twenty-six miles, and the new road to Windsor is also nearly finished; so that Chatham will now have an excellent land route to the Detroit river, as well as to Lake Erie; and as the Rondeau, a remarkable round littoral lake, is also converting into an excellent harbour, all this portion of Canada, the fairest as well as the most fertile, will progress amazingly.

I saw the chief of the Moravian Indians near Thamesville, and had some conversation with him. He is a modest, middle-aged man, and rules over about two hundred and fifty well-behaved people. The government have given him two hundred acres of land in sight of the Moravian village, and there he dwells in patriarchal simplicity.

Their spiritual and temporal concerns are under the supervision of the brethren at Bethlehem, the principal settlement of the Moravian fraternity in the United States; and they have a neat chapel and school, conducted with the decorum and good results for which that sect are noted.

Petrolean springs and mineral oil fountains are frequent near this village, and the whole country here appears bituminous, the bed of the Thames being composed of shales highly impregnated with it. Salt is manufactured in small quantities by the Indians from brine-springs here.

We saw the remarkable harvest of 1845 in all its glory on this route, as the Dutch farmers were every where at this early period cutting the wheat, and heard that on Willett's farm on the Thames it had been cut as early as the 10th of July.

My compagnon de voyage I had taken up in the morning, on account of the intelligence which he displayed, and in return for the ride he gave me much information.

The banks of Young Father Thames, after leaving Chatham, and about it, are very low and flat, consequently, fever and ague are by no means rare visitors. He described the ague as being beyond a common Canada one; and, as he was of Yankee origin, the reader will readily understand his description of it. I asked him if he had ever had it. "Had it, I guess I have; I had it last fall, and it would have taken three fellows with such a fit as mine was to have made a shadow; why, my nose and ears were isinglass, and I shook the bedposts out of the perpendicular."

I queried whether the country was subject to any other diseases, such as consumption.

"If you have any friend with a consumption," said he, "send him to Thamesville; consumption would walk off slick as soon as he got the ague. No disorder is guilty of coming on before it, and it leaves none behind."

We left Chatham in the steamboat Brothers for Windsor at three o'clock p.m., after having had a very good dinner at Captain Ebbert's inn, the Royal Exchange, which would do credit to any town.

The Thames rolls for some miles, broad and deep, through a succession of corn-fields and meadows, with fine settlements, and, after passing through the great western marshes, enters Lake St. Clair, at twenty miles from Chatham. The rest of the route is across the lake by its southern shore, twenty miles more, and into the Detroit river for eleven miles to Windsor, on the Canada shore, and the city of Detroit, on the American side.

The Thames keeps up its English character well, for it passes through the townships of Chatham, Dover, Harwich, Raleigh, and Tilbury, before it reaches Lake St. Clair, and then we coast Rochester, Maidstone, and Sandwich.

The most curious thing on this route is the sinuosity of the river and the immense marsh, where the grasses are so luxuriant, that its appearance is that of the Pampas of South America, or of one unbroken sea of verdure. Nor is the grass, in its luxuriance, the only reminiscence of those vast meadows. Three hundred thousand acres, wholly unreclaimed on both sides of the river, are filled, particularly on the south side, with droves of wild horses and cattle—the former so numerous, that strings of them may be seen as far as the eye can reach; nor can you see the whole even near you from the deck of the vessel, as the grass is so high that sometimes they are hidden, and frequently you observe only their backs. They live here both in summer and in winter, but in very severe weather are said to go ashore, or into the higher lands, in search of the bark of the red elm. The owners brand them on the shoulder, and they are caught, when any are wanted, by snaring them with a noose.

These horses are small, and usually dark-coloured; and a good one is valued at fifty dollars, or twelve pounds ten shillings currency, about ten pounds English money. Hardy, patient, and excellent little animals they are.

I thought of the worthy lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, when these wild horses of Canada first met my sight, as I saw, on a small scale, that which he has so vividly represented on so splendid a one in South America.

It is said that this immense prairie may be drained by lowering the St. Clair Lake, and some attempts have been ineffectually made to cultivate small portions of it near the mouth of the river, where there is a lighthouse. There were two huts, and people residing in them, with small garden patches of potatoes and peas. Forty acres had been ploughed by a settler, Mr. Thompson, of Chatham; but, although the soil is excellent, such is the vigorous growth of the grass, and the difficulty of getting rid of its roots, that it soon recovered its ancient domain. In fact, the wind spreads the seed rapidly; and as the kind is chiefly the blue-joint, it is almost impossible ever to get rid of it, unless the water-level is lowered, which is not very probable at present.



CHAPTER XV.

Engineer-officers have little leisure for Book-making—Caution against iced water—Lake St. Clair in a Thunderstorm—A Steaming-dinner—Detroit river and town—Windsor—Sandwich—Yankee Driver—Amherstburgh—French Canadian Politeness—Courtesy not costly—Good effects of the practice of it illustrated—Naked Indians—Origin of the Indians derived from Asia—Piratical attempt and Monument at Amherstburgh—Canadians not disposed to turn Yankees—Present state of public opinion in those Provinces—Policy of the Government—Loyalty of the People.

A person employed actively in public life is a very bad hand to engage in book-making. I often wonder whether this trifle, now intended as an offering to the reading people, will ever get into print. A little memorandum-book supplies the materiel, and a tolerable memory the embellishment. An engineer-officer, of all other functionaries, needs a memory; settling at one moment the expenditure of vast sums; at another, looking into the merits of a barrack damage worth sixpence; then, field-officer of the day inspecting guards—next, making experiments on the destructive effects of gunpowder, commencing with a percussion-pistol, and ending with a mine; buying land, taking altitudes of the sun and of the moon, examining a Gunter's chain or a theodolite, sitting as member of a court-martial, or of a board of respective officers, or counting the gold and silver in the military chest; superintending a fortification of the most intricate Vaubanism; regulating the dip of the needle, or the density of the earth; putting an awkward squad through the most approved manoeuvres; studying the integral calculus, or the catenarian curve; bothered by Newton or La Place; reading German or Spanish; exploring Oregon, or any other terra incognita; building docks, supervising railways, surveying Ireland, governing a colony, conducting a siege, leading a forlorn hope; an Indian chief, or commanding an army (both the latter rather rare); well may his motto be, as that of his corps is, Ubique. So, gentle reader, if there is wandering in the matter of these pages, put it down, not to the want of method or manners, but to the want of time; for, even in a dull Canadian winter, it is only by fits and snatches that the mysteries of book-making can be practised. The intervals are uncertain, the opportunities few. At one hour, one is drawing one's sword; at the next, in one of the two drawing-rooms, namely, that where ladies congregate, and that in which steel-pens chiefly shine.

But it is necessary, nevertheless, to go on with any thing one seriously begins; and, although the "art and practique part" of book-making is, considering the requisite labour of bad penmanship, rather disgusting, yet the giving "a local habitation and a name" to the ideas floating on the sensorium is pleasant enough. It would be better if one had a steam-pen, for I always find my ideas much more rapid than consists with a goose quill. The unbending of the mind in a trifle like the present is also agreeable; and if the reader only likes it, as much as it amuses me and it whiles away graver cares, and the every-day monotony of a matter-of-fact existence, so much the better. An engineer-officer has no time to become a blase, but every body else is not in his position, and thus this "little boke" may be taken up with the morning paper, and your man of the world may be induced to go so far as to say, "Wild horses in Canada! I never heard of them before; I will positively read a page or two more some rainy morning."

Blase, dear blase, if ever you should muster up courage to go to Canada for relief, and want to see the wild horses, pray do not go towards the end of July; and if you do, don't drink iced water on board the Brothers, with the thermometer at 100 deg. Fahrenheit, as I did, from very exhaustion. An old farmer on board cautioned me, but I was proud and thirsty, and did the deed. Sorely was it repented of; for, when we landed at night, I was seized with a violent pain in the heart region, accompanied by great uneasiness and lassitude; and, it was not until after lying down quietly for several hours that the symptoms abated. I was, however, very well the next day, but will not drink iced water in the dog-days any more in Canada West. Yet the Yankees do it with impunity.

We entered Lake St. Clair in a thunderstorm at half-past five, but, fortunately for us, in this shallow lake, averaging only three fathoms or eighteen feet in depth, the storm, which in other places was a tornado, did nothing but frighten us at a distance.

It tore large trees up by the roots, and unroofed houses not many miles off; and, had it caught us with so much top-hamper as the steamboat had, perhaps we should have sounded the lake in propria persona, without being witnesses as to its actual mysteries afterwards.

We steamed on, however, near the south shore for twenty miles, and entered the Detroit, or Narrow St. Lawrence, before the light of day had vanished, observing islands, &c., and arrived safely at Windsor, at Iron's Inn, at ten p.m., having experienced the pleasures of an adverse gale and intense heat.

The dinner on board was by no means a luxury, for, although very good, the company was numerous, the cabin near the boiler, all the dishes smoking, the room low and small, and the thermometer as aforesaid on deck, so that we literally were steaming, for it must have been close to the boiling point.

Thursday morning, the 14th of July, was as hot as ever; and if I could, I would not have crossed over to the United States, where the famous city of Detroit stared me in the face on the other side of the river, about as broad as the Thames just below bridge.

It was, like all recent American cities, very staring and very juvenile, with large piles of brick buildings scattered amidst white painted wooden ones, and covered an immense space, with many churches, looking very fine at a distance, an immense crowd of very large, bright, white, and green, coarsely painted and loosely built steam-vessels at the wharfs, and small, dirty, steam ferry-boats, constantly plying to and from the British shore.

Windsor is a small village, scattered, as most Canadian villages are, with a little barrack, in which a detachment of the Royal Canadian Rifle corps is stationed, to watch the frontier. The Americans are now building a large fort on the opposite side.

I left Windsor at nine a.m., in a light waggon and pair, and rolled along the bank of the river to Sandwich, the county or district town, two miles from Windsor, opposite to which the Americans are building a fortification of some size, but apparently only an extensive earth-work.

It is a very pleasant drive along the banks of the Straitened River, or Detroit, close to the water, and occasionally in it, to refresh the horses. The population, chiefly French Canadians and Indians, occupy the roadside in detached farms; the Canadian huts and houses being, as in Lower Canada, invariably whitewashed and planted at short intervals.

We saw the Indians both industrious and idle: some were hoeing maize, others harvesting wheat, and the habitants were also very busy in the fields.

The idle Indians, the most numerous, were lounging along the banks, under the shade of melancholy boughs, as naked as they were born, bathing, smoking, or making baskets. In the intense heat I envied them, and thought of the days of Paradise when tailors were not.

We stopped in this intense heat at Maitre Samondon's tavern, having passed Sandwich, which has church, chapel, jail, and court-house, and is plentifully inhabited by French, whose domiciles evidently date from its first settlement. I saw some of the largest pear-trees here that I had ever seen; they were as big as good-sized walnut-trees in England.

We had a Yankee driver, a young fellow, whose ease and good-temper amused me very much. He had good horses, drove well, and had been in his time all sorts of things; the last trade, that of a mail-driver on the opposite shores, where, he said, the republic were going ahead fast, for they were copying Europeans, and had taken to robbing the mail by way of raising the wind; so that, in some place he mentioned in Pennsylvania, it was a service of danger to drive, for they fired out of the Bush and killed the horses occasionally. He told us several feats of his own against these robbers, but concluded by guessing that he should not have to carry a six-barrel Colt's revolver in Canaday; for "them French" never robbed mails.

He drove us to Amherstburgh, through a rich and beautiful grain country, in four hours, eighteen miles, and we stopped an hour at Samondon's, where nothing but French was spoken, and a long discourse held upon the crops and the state of the country. As I had an orderly with me, and as red coats had not been seen in that part of the world since the rebellion, we caused some emotion and conversation on the road. A very old, garrulous French Canadian, who was smoking his pipe in the "kitchen and parlour and hall," came and sat by me, and, after beating about the bush a long time with all the "politesse possible," at length asked me who I was, and if the army was coming back among them. I told him who I was, a lieutenant-colonel of engineers; and the old Jean Jacques, after looking at me a minute or so, got up and fetched a small glass of whiskey and water, and with the best grace in the world presented it, with a cigar, taking another of both himself, and, touching his glass to mine in true French style, bowed and said, "A votre sante, mon colonel; you have got a devilish good place of it!" The French Canadians on the Detroit river were all loyal during the rebellion, and this old farmer was a sample of them.

When the horses were fed, and I had, as is customary, treated the driver, we departed amidst the pleasing sounds of Bien oblige, bon voyage. If they had cheated me, I should have been content, so much is politeness worth; and the Canadian French peasant is a primitive being, and as polite as a baron of the ancien regime. It was quite refreshing in such hot weather to meet with a little civilization, after being occasionally witness to the reverse from the newest people in the world. Il coute si peu.

How shocking, a sensitive parvenu will say, to sit down in a common kitchen, and drink a glass of whiskey and water with peasants! It puts me in mind of a very fine young lady, whose grandfather had been a butcher, and her father none of the richest; who, being met in the streets with some threadpapers or small package of lace in her hand early on a cold day, said, to a gentleman who stopped to ask her how she did, "I am very well, I thank you; but this parcel makes my hand so cold!" Or, for a still finer illustration, I knew a nouvelle riche who, not being addressed by a tradesman in a little town in his bill by a factitious title, to which she imagined that she had a right, sent back his letter open to the post-office, with an intimation to the postmaster that letters so improperly addressed would not be received.

I have always perceived that a fuss about family and noble connections betrays either that the fuss-maker is naturally a vulgar soul, or that it is deemed necessary, from an excess of weakness, to support a position of an equivocal nature. A gentleman never derogates from his true position, let him be placed in whatever circumstances he may; and an over-fastidious traveller, or a pretender to great importance in a new country, is the most foolish of all foolish folks.

I remember travelling once in the wild Bush with a person, who, from long-established military habits of command, thought that he could order everything as he liked. We were benighted at a farm-house, where the old lady proprietress eked out her livelihood by receiving casual visitors, but disdained the thought of "keeping tavern," as it is called, in the backwoods of Canada West. He ordered, rather peremptorily, supper and beds for two—it would have been better that he had ordered pistols and coffee for the same number, for then the dame would have looked upon him as simply mad. No notice whatever was taken of his demands, but I saw her choler rising; fortunately, I knew her character. We were many miles from any habitation: and the horses jaded out as well as ourselves; so I took no notice either; but, observing the dame take her seat in the old-fashioned ample chimney, I took another opposite to her, and, observing her commence lighting her pipe, asked her for one, and we puffed out volumes of smoke—those were my smoking days—for a long time at each other in perfect silence. At last, I broke the ice.

"Mrs. Craig, your tobacco is bad; next time I come by, I will bring you some excellent."—A gracious nod!—We smoked on, and every now and then she condescended to speak upon indifferent subjects. At last, she got up and went into another room. I followed her; for I saw she wanted to speak to me without my friend.—"Who is that man?" quoth the dame.—"Colonel So and so," responded I.—"I don't care whether he be a colonel or a general; all I can say is, that he has got no manners; and the devil a supper or a bed shall he get here!"—"Oh, my good lady," said I, "he is not used to travel in the Bush, and is a stranger, and not over-young, as you see; besides, he is regularly tired out. Let me give him half my supper, and perhaps he can sleep in the chimney-corner. I don't care about a bed myself; pine branches will do for me, and an old buffalo robe, which I have in the waggon."

She said nothing, but, returning to the kitchen, which is the common reception-room in country places, put a few eggs into the pot over the fire, and got the tea-pot. I saw several fine hams hanging to the rafters, so I took one down, got a knife, and was about to cut some slices to broil, when she stopped me. "You haven't got the best," says the old dame; "I shall cut you one myself." And so she did, spread the cloth, set two tea-cups, &c., and a capital supper we had, for a fine fowl was spitchcocked.

After supper, Mother Craig asked me to smoke another pipe with her and her good man, who was lame and unable to work, and some of her sons, &c. came in from the fields. I missed her soon afterwards; but, after a quarter of an hour, she came in again, whispered that she wanted me, and I followed her. "It is time," said the dame, "for you to go to bed; for you must be up by candlelight to-morrow morning, as your journey is a long one; see if this will do." In an inner chamber were two beds; one a feather bed, the other a pine-branch one, with clean blankets, snow-white sheets, a night-cap of the best, water, &c. "That's your bed," said Mrs. Craig; "the other is for the colonel, as you call him. Good night; I will call you in the morning—take care, and put your candle out." I laughed in my sleeve, went out, called the colonel, who would have been otherwise left in the dark, for the family soon retired for the night, and I need not say gave him the best bed, as he thought; the best, however, I kept myself, for a bed of fresh pine shoots to a weary traveller in Canada is better than all the feather beds in the world, particularly in the New World.

So much for life in the Bush; and I was then not quite so old as at present; but, even in youth, experience had taught me the utility of taking the world easy. My friend the colonel, next morning, after a sound sleep, said, "Whenever I am obliged to travel in the Bush, I wish you may be with me;" and old mother Craig, who is now no longer in this world, thought the next morning, as she afterwards said, that, after all, the colonel was not so bad as she had imagined.

This is, for one may as well deprecate a little in talking about fastidiousness, not told by way of evincing superior knowledge of the world, but just to show you, gentle or simple reader, whichever you may be, that, in a sentimental journey through Canada, you must accommodate yourself a little to the manners and customs of the population, if you expect to get along quietly, and to form any just opinion of the country.

When we saw the naked Indians under the wide-spreading trees, literally taking their ease, sub tegmine fagi, I thought that, if a Cockney could be transported in a balloon from Temple Bar right down here, what a barbarous land he would say Canada was, and his note-book would run thus: "Landed on the banks of a river twice as broad as the Thames, and saw the inhabitants burnt brown, and stark naked, under the trees. Oh, fie!"

Really, however, there is nothing very startling in seeing a naked Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110 deg. at the moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks natural, and a naked Cockney would look contra bonos mores, to say the least of it.

The Indian, whether dressed or undressed, is a modest man—not so always the Cockney; and there is an air of grandeur and natural freedom about the savage, which civilized man wants, or which modern coats, waistcoats, trowsers, and hats, are unquestionably not calculated to inspire.

Look at the statue of a Roman Consul, or at Apollo Belvidere, in his scanty clothing, and then you will understand what I mean; or, what is better, look at your grandmother's picture, with her hair powdered, stomacher, and farthingale, and then at the Venus de Medicis, and you will know better, if you are a man of taste. How the American ladies, who do not admit such words as naked or legs into their vocabulary, there being an especial act of Congress forbidding females to use them, get over the difficulty of Indians in their war costume, has puzzled me not a little. To draw a curtain before an Indian chief would be rather a venturous affair, as he is a little sensitive; and, when well painted, thinks himself extremely comme il faut, and very well dressed. But de gustibus non est disputandum, and so forth.

It is a queer country, this Amherstburgh country: French Canadians as primitive as Pere Adam and Mere Eve; Indians of the old stock and of the new stock, that is to say, very few of the former, but a good many of the latter; owning both to French and to British half parentage; negroes in abundance; runaway slaves and their descendants, a mixture of all three; and plenty of loafers from the United States. In fact, it would seem as though Shem, Ham, and Japhet, had all representatives here, for Europeans and Americans of every possible caste are exhibited along this frontier, only I did not either see or hear of an Israelite; but some antiquarians contend that the Indians are a portion of the lost tribes. Their Asiatic origin is more decided. The feather of an eagle stuck in the warrior's hair is nothing more than the peacock's plume in a Tartar's bonnet. Then there is the patriarchal mode of government in the nations. Polybius says that the Carthaginians (Africans, by the way) scalped their enemies. The Kalmucks pluck out their beards, so do the Indians. The Pottawotamies, and most of the more savage tribes, like the Asiatics, look upon women as inferior in the scale of creation. White is a sacred colour, as in many parts of Asia. An Indian never eats with his guest, but serves him. Their nomadic life, their choice of war-chiefs, the difficulty of pronouncing labials, the use of the battleaxe or tomahawk, which is absolutely Tartarian, the worship of the Good and the Evil Spirit, form other points of resemblance. West says, that the emblems of the Indian nations are similar to those of the Israelitish tribes, and the Tartars fight under totems of the wolf, the snake, the bear, &c., in the same way. The belief in a future state and in transmigration is similar, and the use of charms or amulets common to both Asiatics and Indians of America. The cross-legged sitting posture, and the Tartarian contour of the face and head, are very remarkable. I once saw an Indian chief, whose countenance was perfectly and purely Asiatic, and that of the Ganges rather than Mongolian. The shaven crown and single lock of hair are Asiatic and Chinese; and tattooing is common to both sides of the Pacific. A thousand other instances may be cited; but the strongest proof of all is the discovery of vast ruins in Mexico, which, as it is well known, contain indubitable proofs of a common origin of the people who built them with the Asiatics, and these ruins extend in a line through that country from Guatemala as far almost as the Colombia River; whilst South America produces edifices, not so extraordinary perhaps, but equally evincing that the worshippers of the Sun might claim descent from the Guebres and the Parsees.

But to pursue this subject would lead me into a research which would consume both time and paper, and can only be adequately entered upon with great leisure. I have collected much upon this interesting subject, and, having bestowed great attention upon it, have not much doubt upon the matter.

Singular discoveries are occasionally made in opening the Canadian forests, though it would seem that ancient civilization had been chiefly confined to the western shores of the Andean chain, exclusive of Mexico only. In a former volume was described a vase of Etruscan shape, which was discovered during the operations of the Canada Company, near the shores of Lake Huron, and vast quantities of broken pottery, of beautiful forms, are often turned up by the plough. I have a specimen, of large size, of an emerald green glassy substance, which was unfortunately broken when sent to me, but described as presenting a regular polygonal figure: two of the faces, measuring some inches, are yet perfect. It is a work of art, and was found in the virgin forest in digging.

But we are at Amherstburgh, otherwise called Malden, a small town of two parallel streets and divergencies, famous for a miserable fort, for Negroes, Indians, fine straw hats, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, and loyalty.

I shall never forget the heat of this place, having had the exceeding luxury of a sitting-room to myself, quite large enough to turn round in, with one door and one window, and a bed-closet off it, without the latter. If ever a mortal was fried without a gridiron, it was the inhabitant of that bed-closet; and right glad was I the next day to get into a gallant row-boat, belonging to the commandant of the Canadian riflemen, rowed by a gallant crew, and take the air on the River Detroit, as well as the breezes on Bois Blanc Island. Bois blanc, in Western Canadian parlance, is the white wood tree, with which this island formerly abounded, and now converted into several blockhouses for its defence.

Amherstburgh was the scene of piratical exploit during the rebellion, and bravely did the militia beat off the _soi-disant+ general and his sympathizing vagabond patriots; but this is a page of Canadian history for hereafter, and need not be repeated here. The sufferers have had a monument erected to their memory in these words by the spirited inhabitants:—

This Monument is erected by the Inhabitants of Amherstburgh, in memory of

Thomas Mac Cartan, Samuel Holmes, Edwin Millar, Thomas Symonds, of H.M. 32nd Regiment of Foot, and of Thomas Parish, of the St. Thomas Volunteer Cavalry, who gloriously fell in repelling a band of Brigands from Pele Island, on the 3rd March, 1838.

Many of those who escaped from this villanous aggression upon a people at peace with the United States afterwards lost their lives from exposure to cold at such a season, the coldest portion of a Canadian winter, and misery and distress were brought home to the bosom of many a sorrowing family.

The annexation of Canada was contemplated by these hordes of semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas! for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent government for an honest man to exist under, but a loaferism, to use a Yankee term, would indeed be frightful. The recklessness of life among the least civilized portions of the States is quite sufficient already, without its assuming a power and a place.

That there is at present but little prospect for American dominion taking root in Canada, is evident to every person well acquainted with the country, although dislike to British rule and "the baneful domination" is also obvious enough among a large class of inhabitants, who are swayed by a small portion of the press, and by disappointed speculators in politics—men who have lost high offices, for which they were never fitted, either by capacity or connection with the best interests of the people, and who allied themselves to the French Canadian party merely to accomplish their own ends.

The real substance, or, as Cobbett called it, the bone and marrow of Canada, is not composed of needy politicians or of reckless adventurers, caring not whether they plunge their adopted country into all the horrors of revolution or of anarchy.

A man possessing a few hundred acres of land, with every comfort about him, paying no taxes but those for the improvement of his property, feeling the government rein only as a salutary check to lawlessness, and looking stedfastly abroad, is not very likely, for abstract notions of right and equality, to sacrifice reality, or to suppose that Mr. Baldwin, amiable as he is, is infallible: whilst Mr. Baldwin himself, the ostensible, but not the real leader of the out-and-out reformers, will pause before he even dreams of alienating the country in which he, from being a very poor man originally, has, through the industry and talent of his father, and a fortuitous train of circumstances, connected with the rise and progress of the city of Toronto, and the rise of the price of land as Canada advances in population and wealth, become a great land-holder.

I have no idea that this Corypheus of Canadian reform has the most remote idea of annexing Canada to the United States, or that he is mentally fighting for anything more than an Utopia similar to that of O'Connell in Ireland. In short, the grand struggle of the radical reform party of Upper Canada has been, and for which they joined the French Canadian party, to have a repeal of the union as far as control over the provincial funds and offices exists, on the side of England.

They would have no objection to see a British prince on the Canadian throne, or a British viceroy sitting at the council board of Montreal, but they want to be governed without the intervention of the colonial office; and perhaps, rather than not have the loaves and fishes at their own entire disposal, they would in the end go so far as to desire entire separation from the Mother Country, and seek the armed protection of that enormous power which is so rapidly rising into notice on their borders.

But then they calculate—for there is a good sprinkling of Jonathanism in their ranks—that that enormous power is grasping at too much already, defying the whole world, and seeking to establish a perfectly despotic dominion itself over the whole continent which Columbus and Cabot discovered, and not excluding the archipelago of the Western Indies.

They live too near the littorale of the Republic, or rather the democracy of America, not to see hourly the effects of Lynch law and mob rule; and, however some of the most daring or reckless among them may occasionally employ that very mob rule to intimidate and carry elections, they very well know that the peaceable inhabitants of both Canadas are too respectable and too numerous to permit such courses to arrive at a head. Once rouse the yeomanry of Canada West, and their energies would soon manifest themselves in truly British honesty and British feeling. John Bull is not enamoured of the tender mercies of canallers and loafers, and the French Canadian peasantry and small farmers are innocent of the desire to imitate the heroes of Poissardism.

No person in public life can judge better of the feelings of the people as a mass, in Canada, than those who have commanded large bodies of the militia. Put the query to any officer in the army who has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should need be, for Victoria, her crown, and dignity."

It may be said that an officer in the army is not the best judge of the feelings of the people, as they would not express them in his presence; but when an officer has been intimately mingled with them by such events as those of the troubles of 1837 and 1838, and has so long known the country, the case is altered; he comes to have a personal as well as a general knowledge of all ranks, degrees, and classes, and can weigh the ultimate objects of popular expression. I have no hesitation in saying, possessed as I have been of this knowledge, that the people of Canada have not a desire to become independent now, any more than they have a desire to be annexed to and fraternize with the United States.

Many years ago, on my first visit to Canada, in 1826, when such a thing as expressions of disloyalty was almost unknown, and long before Mackenzie's folly, I remember being struck with the speech at a private dinner party of a person who has since held high office, respecting the independence of Canada: he observed that it must ultimately be brought about. The colony then was in its mere infancy, and this person no doubt had dreams of glory, although in outward life he was one of the most uncompromising of the colonial ultra-tories.

Just before the rebellion broke out, I was conversing with another person, now no more, of a similar stamp, but possessing much more influence, who began to be alarmed for his extensive lands, all of which he had obtained by grants from the Crown, and he feared that the time specified by the first-mentioned person had arrived. His observations to me were revelations of an astounding nature; for he thought that we were too near a republic to continue long under a monarchy, and that, in fact, absurd titles, such as those borne by the then governor, Sir Francis Head, alluding to his being merely a knight bachelor, were likely to create contempt in Canada, instead of affection. My friend, who, like the first-mentioned, was rather weak, although acute enough when self-interest was concerned, was evidently casting about in his mind's eye for a new order of things, in which to secure his property and his official influence.

Lord Sydenham and Lord Durham saw and knew a great deal of this vacillation among all parties in Canada. They saw that the great game of the leaders was office, office, office; and when Lord Metcalfe had had sufficient time to discover the real state of the country, he saw it too. Hence arose the absolute necessity for removing the seat of government from Toronto to Kingston. The ultra-tories were just as troublesome as the ultra-levellers, and it was requisite to neutralize both, by getting out of the sphere of their hourly influence. The inhabitants of Kingston, a naval and military town, whose revenues had been chiefly derived from those sources, were loyal, without considering it of the utmost consequence that their loyalty should form the basis of every government, or that the governor was not to open his mouth, or use his pen, unless by permission. They were the true medium party.

Then arose the desire to do justice to the Gallo-Canadians, who had before been wholly neglected, and looked upon as too insignificant to have any voice in public affairs, whilst they were mistrusted also, owing to the Papineau demonstration.

The British government, superior to all these petty colonial interests, saw at once that to ensure loyalty it was only proper to administer justice impartially to all creeds and to all classes, and that the French Canadians, whose numbers were at least equal to the British Canadians, had a positive right to be heard and a positive claim to be equitably treated.

There was no actual innate desire in the Canadian mind to shake off the British domination for that of the democracy of the United States. An absurd notion had gathered strength in 1837 that they were at last powerful enough to set up for themselves, to constitute la Nation Canadienne, forgetting that Great Britain could swallow them up at a mouthful, and that the Americans would, if John Bull did not. The proclamation of General Nelson or Brown, or some such patriot, set the affair in its true point of view. No longer any religion was to be predominant; the feudal laws were to be abolished; and the celebrated ninety-two resolutions, which had cost Papineau and his legion so much care and anxiety, were swept away as if they were dust. A Jack Cade had started up, whose laws were to be administered at the point of the bayonet.

The eyes of the leading French Canadians, gentlemen of education, were soon opened, and the vision of glory evaporated into thin air. But still they felt themselves oppressed, they enjoyed not the coveted rights of subjects of England; and accordingly the successive governments of Lord Durham, Lord Sydenham, and Sir Charles Bagot were eras of political struggles to obtain it.

Lord Metcalfe had had experience in colonies of long standing, had been successful, bore the character of a just, patient, and decided man, and had wealth enough to cause his independence to be respected.

The fight for supremacy between the ultra-tory and ultra-radical parties became fiercer and more fierce, and it was dolefully augured that the province was lost to England, as he would not yield to the haughty demands of the first, nor to the threats and menaces of the latter.

When the Baldwin ministry was dismissed, even cautious people were heard to say, that new troubles were at hand; and the ultra-tories did not scruple to avow that the country was in danger, unless they were readmitted to power.

Placed between these belligerents, Lord Metcalfe, who kept his own counsel to the last secret and undivulged, steered a course which has hitherto worked well. He chose a medium party, and removed the seat of government to Montreal, not in the heart of French Canada, as it is supposed in England, but within a few miles of British Canada and close to the eastern townships, where a British population is dominant, whilst in the city itself British interests surpass all others; it being the heart and lungs of the Canadian mercantile world, whilst it has the advantage of easy steam communication with Quebec, the seat of military power, and with Upper Canada, both by the St. Lawrence and the Rideau Canals.

The French, no longer neglected and seeing the seat of government permanently located in their country, seeing also that they had been admitted to share power and office, have been tranquillized; and the result of the elections placed Lord Metcalfe comparatively at ease, and rendered the task of his successor less onerous. Had his health been spared, the blessing of his wise rule would long have been felt. He is deeply and universally regretted throughout Canada.

As a proof of the loyalty of the Canadians, it is right to mention that, whilst I am penning these pages, the press is teeming with calls to the volunteers and militia to sustain Britain in the Oregon war; and, because the militia is not prematurely called out, the administrator of the government is attacked on all sides. Whilst I am writing, the Hibernian Society, in an immense Roman Catholic procession, passes by. There are four banners. The first is St. Patrick, the second Queen Victoria, the third Father Matthew, the fourth the glorious Union flag. Reader, it is the 17th of March, St. Patrick's Day, and the band plays God save the Queen!



CHAPTER XVI.

The Thames Steamer—Torrid Night—"The Lady that helped" and her Stays—Port Stanley—Buffalo City—Its Commercial Prosperity—Newspaper Advertisements—Hatred to England and encouragement of Desertion—General Crispianus—Lake Erie in a rage—Benjamin Lett—Auburn Penitentiary—Crime and Vice in the Canadas—Independence of Servants—Penitentiaries unfit for juvenile offenders—Inefficiency of the Police—Insolence of Cabmen—Carters—English rule of the road reversed—Return to Toronto.

The heat at Amherstburgh was so desiccating, that I was glad to leave even my urbane host, serjeant-major as he had been of a royal regiment, and his crowded though clean and comfortable inn, for the spacious deck of the splendid Canadian steamer Thames, Captain Van Allan, on board of which was to be enjoyed the absolute luxury of a spacious state-room upon deck. Alas for the roomy state-room! even in its commodious berth, rest could not be enjoyed, for the night was a torrid one; nothing in the Western Indies could beat it, only there was no yellow fever, although plenty of yellow countenances presented themselves on the shoulders of Americans from the South, and coloured waiters; but that which actually at last put me in a fever was the sight of the female attendant of the ladies' cabin, whose form was so buckled up in stays of the most rigid order, that the heat, American-bred as she was, appeared to have rendered her a Niobe, for she was tall and as straight as a poplar-tree, and much of the colour of its inner rind. Oh! the heat, the intolerable heat, on Lake Erie that night! The worthy captain declared he had never experienced its like, and that as for rest it was impracticable. If the lady's-maid, or "the lady that helped" in the ladies' cabin, as she is called in American boats, kept her stays on that night, Heaven help her! She must have been in a greater state of despair than the man in armour on Lord Mayor's day, who requires to go to bed after a warm bath, the moment he takes his stays off.

But we steamed on, and the boilers themselves were not a whit hotter than we were. How the stokers stood it is a marvel to this day. I suffered dreadfully with the prickly heat, as if in the West Indies.

The Thames is the most splendid boat on Lake Erie, and that is saying a good deal; for the Americans have so many, and several so much larger than this Britisher, that it is a matter of surprise that she should beat them all in convenience, build, and speed; and yet, according to received opinion, the Yankee builders of vessels excel us "by a long chalk," to use a Yankee figure of speech. It is so, however, and is so acknowledged on both sides of the water, that the Thames, Captain Van Allan, takes the shine out of them all.

We started from Amherstburgh, where she called on her way from Detroit, and left Bullock's inn for the steamer which was close at hand, at nine o'clock p.m., and got under steam and travelled all night at a most rapid rate, nor stopped until eight a.m., the next morning, at Port Stanley, formerly called Kettle Creek, a small village with a fine parallel pier harbour, which, unlike Amherstburgh, has thriven amazingly during the past seven years, before which I recollect it to have consisted of about three or four houses. It is now a thriving village; and, as it has a planked road reaching far into the interior, is every day going ahead. The plank road leads to London, twenty-six miles distant. The piers of this artificial harbour are much too narrow, consequently it is dangerous to approach in stormy weather; and, as Lake Erie is a very turbulent little ocean, they must be modified some day or other, whenever the Board of Works is rich enough.

We took in several passengers here, mostly Americans touring, and the vessel was now full, for we had a large proportion of the same class from Detroit. They were chiefly people from the hotter regions of the States, and resembled each other remarkably; sallow, sharp-angled, acute-looking physiognomies: the men tall and loosely jointed; the women prematurely old, and not very handsome. They were quiet and respectable in their manners and demeanour; in fact, too quiet, contrasting strongly in this respect with the real, genuine Yankee.

We reached Buffalo at seven in the evening, after encountering a thunderstorm, which appeared to be very severe towards the shores of the American side of Lake Erie.

Such a mob as poured on board the vessel, after she had with much difficulty threaded the inconvenient, narrow, muddy creek on which Buffalo is located, I never beheld before: blacks and whites, browns and yellows, cabmen and carters, porters and tavern-scouts, pickpockets and free and enlightened citizens.

How the passengers got their baggage conveyed to their hotels, or dwellings, is beyond my art to imagine. Insolent and daring, if these be a pattern mob, Heaven defend us Britishers from democracy! for freedom reigns at Buffalo in a pattern of the newest, which the seldomer copied the better. But one must not judge the money-getting citizens of this fine town by the scenes in the Wapping part of it; for, if one did, it would necessarily be said that they were not an enviable race.

Buffalo, a mere wooden village, burnt during the war of 1812, is now a large and flourishing city, containing 30,000 inhabitants; and, if it had a good harbour, would soon rival New York. To prove this, I beg the reader to take the trouble to peruse the accompanying statement of the present commerce of that city, from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of January 10, 1846, by which it will be seen that in the year 1845 the increase of vessels trading with it was enormous, and that by the Welland Canal, or an American ship canal, round the Falls of Niagara, they already contemplate a direct trade with Europe in British bottoms.

"There has been a prodigious accession to the Lake marine during the past season—no less than sixty vessels, whose aggregate tonnage is over 13,000 tons, and at an outlay of 825,000 dollars. Had we not the evidence before us, the assertion would stagger belief.

"More than usual pains were taken by us, during the past season, to procure information on this head and others touching thereto, the result of which we now present in our annual list of new vessels. This season we have ventured beyond the immediate margin of Lake Erie, and those other broad lakes beyond, to Lake Ontario, a knowledge of whose marine is now deemed essential to a thorough understanding of our lake matters.

NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND ESTIMATED COST OF NEW VESSELS BUILT IN 1845, FROM THIS CITY WESTWARD TO CHICAGO.

Name. Class. Tons. Where built. Dollars. Niagara steamer 1,075 Buffalo 95,000 Oregon ... 781 Newport, Michigan 55,000 Boston ... 775 Detroit 55,000 Superior ... 567 Perrysburg, O. 45,000 Troy ... 547 Maumee City, O. 40,000 London ... 456 Chippewa, C. W. 46,000 Helen Strong ... 253 Monroe, Michigan 22,000 John Owen ... 205 Truago, do. 20,000 Romeo ... 180 Detroit, do. 12,000 Enterprise ... 100 Green Bay, W. T. 8,000 Empire, 2nd steamer 100 Grand Rapids, Mic. 8,000 Algomah ... 100 St. Joseph River, do. 8,000 Pilot ... 80 Union City, do. 5,000 Princeton propeller 456 Perrysburg, O. 40,000 Oregon ... 313 Cleveland, O. 18,000 Phoenix ... 305 ditto 22,000 Detroit ... 290 Detroit, Michigan 15,000 Odd Fellow brig 225 Cleveland, O. 9,000 Enterprise ... 267 Grand Rapids, Mich. 8,000 Wing-and-wing schooner 228 Cleveland, O. 9,000 Magnolia ... 200 Charlestown, O. 2,000 Scotland ... 300 Perrysburg, O. 8,000 J. Y. Seammon ... 134 Chicago, Ill. 8,000 Napoleon ... 250 Sault Ste Marie 8,000 Freeman ... 190 Charleston, O. 7,500 Eagle ... 180 Sandusky, O. 7,000 Bonesteel ... 150 Milwaukie, W. T. 6,000 Sheppardson ... 130 ditto 5,000 Rockwell ... 120 ditto 5,000 E. Henderson ... 110 ditto 4,500 Rainbow ... 117 Sheboygan 4,000 C. Howard ... 103 Huron, O. 4,000 J. Irwin ... 101 Cleveland, O. 4,000 Avenger ... 78 Cottesville, Michigan 3,000 Flying Dutchman ... 74 Madison, O. 4,000 Cadet ... 72 Cleveland, O. 3,500 W. A. Adair ... 61 ditto 3,000 Elbe ... 57 ditto 3,000 Planet ... 24 ditto 3,000 Albany ... 148 Raised and re-rigged 2,503 Pilot ... 50 Milwaukie, W. T. 2,500 Mary Anne schooner 60 Milwaukie, W. T. 1,000 Marinda ... 60 Lexington, Michigan 3,000 Sparrow ... 50 Chora, ditto 2,500 Big B. ... 60 18 mile creek, 2,500 Hard Times ... 45 ditto 1,500 Friendship sloop 45 Sheboygan, W. T. 2,000 Buffalo ... 30 New Buffalo, Mich. 1,000 ——— ———- Total, 48 vessels 10,207 659,000

"During the past season we stated that there was employed on the lakes a marine equal to 80,000 tons; we have assurance now that even that large estimate was below the reality. The latest returns to Congress, in 1843, gave 60,000 tons; but, as those documents are always a year or two behind the reality, and embrace dead as well as living vessels, they are of very little consequence. The existing and employed tonnage is what is most desired. The subjoined shows the number, class, tonnage, and cost of vessels built on this and the other upper lakes during the past five seasons. By adding the cost of annual repairs and money expended in enlarging and re-modelling vessels, the sum would reach 2,500,000 dollars. The total number of vessels built during that period is 179.

Steamers. Prop'rs. Sail. Tons. Dollars. 1845 13 4 32 10,207 659,000 1844 9 none 34 9,145 548,000 1843 6 4 23 4,830 336,000 1842 2 none 23 3,000 164,000 1841 1 none 28 3,530 173,000 — —— —- ——— ————- Total 31 8 140 30,302 1,880,000

"The whole of the above vessels were built above the Falls, at places between this port and Chicago, by capital drawn from the many sources legitimately pertaining to the lake business, and designed as a permanent investment. What has been done below Niagara, in the same field, during the past season, may be seen in the subjoined list of

VESSELS BUILT ON LAKE ONTARIO, 1845.

Syracuse propeller 315 Oswego, N. Y. H. Clay ... 300 Dexter, do. Hampton brig 300 Pt. Peninsula, do. T. Wyman ... 258 Oswego, do. Algomah ... 335 Cape Vincent, do. Wabash ... 314 Sack. Harbour, do. Crispin ... 151 ditto Liverpool ... 350 Garden Is., C.W. Quebec brig 280 Long Island, do. H. H. Sizer schooner 242 Pillar Point, N.Y. Maid of the Mill ... 200 Oswego, do. Milan ... 147 Pt. Peninsula, do. H. Wheaton ... 200 Oswego, do. Welland ... 220 ditto Josephine ... 175 ditto —- Total 15 vessels, 3,787 tons.

"To which must be added the schooner J. S. Weeks, rebuilt and enlarged at Point Peninsula, at a heavy outlay; and also the schooner Georgiana Jenia, at St. Catharine's, which was cut in two, and rebuilt. The Josephine and Wyman are rebuilds, but so thoroughly as almost to fall within the denomination of new craft. The Wyman is polacca-rigged, the only one in service, we think. The Algomah is full rigged, and, like the others, very strongly built. The Quebec and Liverpool are also well ironed, and designed for Atlantic service, when the St. Lawrence locks will admit of a free passage.

"There have been built on the lower lake other vessels than those embraced in the above list, including some steamers; and, in order to give our exchanges an opportunity to present the entire number and amount of expense, we omit any estimate of the cost and general outlay of the vessels named above. Applying our data, however, we make the outlay 25,000 dollars each, for the two propellers, and 127,000 dollars for the fifteen sail vessels, being a total of 177,000 dollars.

"Of some sixty steamers now owned on the lake (Erie), there are required for the several lines, when the consolidation exists, about thirty boats. There are also used, at the same time, some ten more small boats, between intermediate ports, for towing, &c., to which we also add the London and four others, belonging to and owned in Canada. There are also fourteen propellers, and ten more to be added on the opening of navigation in the spring, with fifty brigs and two hundred and seventy schooners, known to be in commission, giving the annexed summary of lake tonnage:—

Tons. Dollars. Steamers 60 21,500 1,500,000 Propellers 20 6,000 350,000 Brigs 50 11,000 } Schooners 270 42,000 } 2,000,000 —- ——— ————- Total 400 80,000 4,050,000

"In this we enumerate the seven Oswego propellers, and such sail craft belonging to Lake Ontario only as we know participate in the business of the upper lakes.

"On the stocks.—The desire to invest farther capital in vessels is seen in the number of new craft now on the stocks at various places throughout the whole range of the lakes. At this early day, we hear of the following to be rapidly pushed towards completion:

"At this port, a steamer of 750 tons, for Mr. Reed, the iron steamer Dallas, of 370 tons, for government, and three propellers of large size; at Chippewa, C. W., a large steamer; at Euclid, O., a brig of 290 tons; at Conneaut, O., a brig of 300 tons; at Cleveland, O., a steamer of 700 tons, three propellers of 350 tons each, a brig of 280 tons, a schooner of 230 tons, and another of 70 tons, all to be out early; at Charleston, O., a steamer of 800 tons, a propeller of 350 tons, and a schooner of 200 tons. An Oswego house has an interest in the propeller: at Maumee City, O., two propellers of 350 tons each; at Truago, Michigan, a large steamer of 225 feet keel, for Captain Whitaker; at Detroit, a large steamer for Mr. Newbury, another for Captain Gager, and a third, of the largest class, for Captain Randall; at Palmer, Michigan, a propeller for Captain Easterbrooks; at Newport, Michigan, a steamer for the Messrs. Wards, and the frame of another but smaller boat, for the same firm, to run between Detroit and Port Huron.

"At Goderich, C. W., or vicinity, a propeller; at Milwaukie, a barque and brig, of large tonnage, 300 each. One of these vessels is nearly planked up already, and will be down with a cargo of wheat as soon as the straits are navigable; at Depere, W. T., a large-sized schooner, and a yacht of 70 tons; at Chicago, a large brig, or schooner, for Captain Parker, late of the Indiana; at St. Catherine's, C. W., a brig; and at the mouth of the Genesee River a propeller, for a Rochester company, making, in all, ten steamers, twelve propellers, and twelve sail vessels—thirty-four in all."

Another American paper, in its remarks on the preceding article, furnishes some additional information.

"The introduction of steam upon the lakes was gradual, yet commensurate with our wants. From the building of the second boat, in 1822, to the launch of the Sheldon Thompson, at Huron, in 1830, six or seven small steamers had only been put in commission, and for the ensuing four years a press of business kept in advance of the facilities. But the zeal and extended desire to invest capital in new steamers was reached in 1837-8, when no less than thirty-three boats, with an aggregate of 11,000 tons, were built at an outlay of 1,000,000 dollars. This period points to the maximum, and then came the reaction. In 1840, only one steamer came off the stocks, and the same prostration and dearth in this department continued for three years, when it again received a new and fresh impulse, and now presents one of the leading characteristics of investment in our inland trade. The sum of 1,000,000 dollars has been diverted from other channels of business to this branch within the past two years, in addition to a very large outlay in sail vessels; and as the wants of commerce develop, some marked changes may be observed. The small, or medium-sized boats, into which the merchant farmer and foreign immigrant were indiscriminately huddled, have given place to capacious, swift, and stately vessels, in which are to be found a concentration of all that is desirable in water conveyance. Such is now the characteristic of steamboat building on the western lake.

"The following is the number and value of vessels owned and exclusively engaged in the trade of Upper Canada in 1844:—

Dollars. 51 Steamers valued at 1,220,000 5 Propellers 46,000 80 Sail Vessels 114,000 ————- Total, 136 Vessels 1,380,000

Having employed thereon 3,000 men.

"The whole number of men employed between Buffalo and Chicago is estimated at about 5,000. During the season of non-navigation, half of these are employed upon farms in Ohio.

"Demonstrable evidence from many sources is at command to show the progressive change and accumulative power of the lake trade. In 1827, a steamer first visited Green Bay, for government purposes, and the Black Hawk war in 1832 drew two boats to Chicago for the first time. Now the trade of the latter place, in connexion with the business growing out of the rapid settlement of Wisconsin, sustains a daily line. A glance at the trade of Chicago for last year will illustrate the change that has taken place there.

"The gross tonnage of the lakes above the Falls, in 1845, was 100 vessels and 80,000 tons. This spring it will be found to have augmented from 5,000 to 10,000 tons.

"In 1845, the whole number of arrivals at the port of Buffalo was 1,700. Last season, 1,320 entries were made at Chicago. The entries at the port of Buffalo for 1845 were—

Steamers 42 tons 18,000 Arriv. 1,000 Ag. ton. 385,167 Propellers 9 2,550 ... 76 ... 23,477 Brigs 46 10,000 ... } ... Schooners 211 40,000 ... } 1,625 ... 50,818 —- ——— ———- Total 308 70,550 611,235

"From a valuable table given by the "Commercial Advertiser," we learn that the available steam marine of the lakes is 60 steamers, and a tonnage of 30,000 tons. This is irrespective of 20 propellers."

If the spirit of trade locates any where on this earth of ours, it does so specially at Buffalo, where dollars and cents, cents and dollars, occupy almost every thought of almost every mind. It is very amusing to look at the advertisements in a Buffalo paper. I shall give two or three as specimens.

Another Lot of those worsted dress goods, at one dollar a pattern, received this morning.

A. Wattles.

French Corded Skirts. Another lot of those French corded skirts just received, and for sale at

J. G. Latimer's, 216, Main Street.

Crash, Crash. Pure linen crash, slightly damaged, at half price at

Wattles' Cheap Store.

What kind of goods do you want? Ladies and gentlemen can find every kind of goods they may wish, in the dry goods line, at Garbutt's, plain or fanciful, any kind of dress you are in want of. Call at the Big Window, 204, Main Street.

Running off again. After Friday next, I shall commence running off my beautiful stock of Paris muslins and Balzorines, at great reduction.

N. B. Palmer, 194, Main Street.

History of Oregon, by George Wilkes, 25 cents.

T. S. Hawkes.

Gaiter Pants made to order, No. 11, Pearl Street.

E. W. Smith.

Voice of the People. Need not force them down. Sugar-coated Indian vegetable pills.

G. B. Smith.

Illustrations of the most ridiculous kinds show that newspaper advertisements must be very cheap indeed, for everything literally, from a washing-tub to a steamboat, is advertised daily for sale at Buffalo.

Buffalo is a sample city of the lake frontier of the United States, better than Rochester, a more manufacturing mill-power place; a specimen of what enterprise, energy, and paper money credit can do: a specimen of the border population, where hatred to England reigns supreme among the lower classes, and where a residence of six months would quite cure any English ultra-radical destructive of good education; an ultra-radical destructive of no education, or half educated, would, however, be vastly improved.

I had a soldier with me, and he asked leave to go on shore, which I freely granted, convinced, from what I knew of him, that he was proof against Buffalonian eloquence. He had scarcely stepped out of the vessel, on the wharf, in plain clothes, before he was hailed by a deserter, who was doing duty as a porter to some shopkeeper, and told of the delights of liberty and independence; but the porter had left the regiment for a little false estimate of the words meum and tuum, and therefore the old soldier declined turning from the carrying of Brown Bess[1] to being a beast of burden. He was then assailed by a sergeant, who had been obliged to desert for misconduct in a pecuniary point of view, and shown into a little grog-shop on the quay, that he was keeping; but appearances were here not very flattering either: in short, the deserter is not at a premium in the United States, for he is always suspected. Strange to say, these men are occasionally enlisted in the regular American army; a proof of which was witnessed last winter at Sackett's Harbour, where some of our officers from Kingston saw a man who had been received, and who had deceived all the American officers, except the surgeon. This gentleman, suspecting he was not a free and enlightened citizen, although he assumed the drawl and guess, suddenly said to him, "Attention!" upon which the deserter immediately dropped his hands straight, and stood, confessed, a soldier.