[Footnote 1: Brown Bess, a musket—vide Infantry Dictionary.]

It would appear that in peace-time deserters should not be received into the ranks of a friendly power. Even in war, they are received by European nations with difficulty and distrust; for a man who once voluntarily breaks his oath and casts off his allegiance is very likely to be a double traitor.

The deserters from the regiments stationed in Canada frequently apply to be received back, but it is a rule to refuse them; and very properly so.

It is incredible what pains are taken on the frontier, by the loafing population from the States, to persuade the young soldiers to desert; and that, too, without any adequate prospect of benefit, but merely out of hatred, intense hatred, to England; for they soon leave the unfortunate men, who usually are plied with liquor, to their fate, when once in the land of liberty; and this fate is almost invariably a very miserable one.

The soldier I had with me told me that, while we were at the Falls, a man made up to him at the hotel, for he was then in uniform, being on the British side, and introduced himself as a general, saying that he was surprised he could remain in such a service, and volunteered to place him in their army, which he laughed at, and told him he preferred Queen Victoria's. This man he described to me as a gentleman, in his dress and manner; but, if he was a general, he was certainly a militia one, for the regular generals are not very plenty; and, from what I have heard of them, are above such meanness.

We had a military general, who is, I believe, a shoemaker of Buffalo or of New York, at Kingston last winter, who gave out that he had crossed over the ice to see if it was true that fortifications were actually in progress at Kingston. He met a keen young gentleman, who was determined to have a little fun with General Crispianus, who was attired in a fine furred, frogged, winter coat, and pointed Astracan cap, with a heavy tassel of silk.

"So you are at work here, I guess?"

"Yes," said the young gentleman, "we are."

"Well, I do hope you will be prepared in Kanaday, for though we don't approve some of our president's notions, we shall sustain him to a man; and, as soon as ever war is declared, we shall pour two or three hundred thousand men into your country and annex it."

"Oh, is that all!" replied the youth; "I advise you then, general, to take care of yourself, for we expect sixty thousand regulars from England."

"I didn't hear that before," said General Crispianus; and no doubt he returned to his last somewhat discomfited. Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

Before his departure, however, he went to see a newly invented pile-driver, which was at work, and, after looking at the monkey for some time, which was raised and lowered by two horses, and drove the piles very quickly, with enormous power, he said to his friend suddenly, "Waal, I swar, that does act sassy."

So much for General Crispianus.

We passed the night aboard of the Thames, preferring her spacious accommodations to those of the hotels in such a hot season, when the rain poured in torrents; but sleep was out of the question, for the climate of Sierra Leone could scarcely be more insufferable than the atmosphere then and there.

The rain cleared away in the morning, and a prospect of Lake Erie in a rage presented itself; so we could not quit the miserable apology for a harbour which Buffalo Creek affords, crowded, narrow, and nasty, until half past nine, and then, with great difficulty, on board the Emerald, a small Canadian steamboat, worked out amidst a string or maze of all sorts of merchant-craft.

Lake Erie presented an appearance exactly like the shallow sea, green and foamy, and very angry; and, in passing the shoals at the entrance of the Niagara river, it rolled the boat so that there was some danger; and one old lady vowed that she would never quit the United States any more.

A nice comfortable-looking Massachusetts farmer, the very type of a Buckinghamshire grazier of the year 1800, who was her husband, took a fancy to me because I was endeavouring to assure his old dame that she was not in real danger, and told me various stories, for he was very loquacious.

Among other things, he said it was very disgraceful to the Buffalonians to allow such a miscreant as Benjamin Lett, whom we saw on the wharf, be at large, as he boasted of having blown up Brock's monument, and of shooting Captain Ussher in cool blood at his own door in the night, long after all the disturbances of the insurrection were over. Lett seemed to glory in his villanies, and was a disgusting-looking loafer, for whose punishment the laws of the United States have proved either too lenient or totally inadequate. This fellow escaped when heavily ironed by jumping out of a rail car on his way to the Auburn Penitentiary, and no doubt has many admirers.

The good farmer told me that he had been to see Auburn, and that there was a little boy confined there for setting fire to a barn. He was only eleven years of age, and had been hired for half a dollar by a ruffian to do the deed.

But Auburn (what a misnomer for a penitentiary establishment, enough to make poor Goldsmith shiver in his shroud!) is not the only penitentiary in America where children expiate crime. Kingston in Canada can show several examples, among others, three brothers; and it appears to me that a better system is required in both countries. A house of correction for such juvenile offenders would surely be better than to mix them in labour with the hardened villains of a penitentiary. It is, in fact, punishing thought before it has time to discriminate, and the consequence is that these children return youths to the same place, and when they again leave it as youths, they return as men, for their minds are then callous.

The penitentiary system in Canada is undergoing a strict trial.

It will surprise my readers to state that, in an agricultural country, where the manners of the people are still very primitive, where education is still backward, and civilization slowly advancing, out of a population of about 1,200,000, scattered widely in the woods, there should be so large a proportion as twenty women, and five hundred men, in the Kingston Penitentiary; for, as education and civilization advance, and large towns grow up, new wants arise, and evil communication corrupts good manners, so that the proportion of great crimes between an old and a new country is much in favour always of the latter.

Recent discoveries of the police in Montreal have shown that hells of the most atrocious character, and one in imitation of Crockford's, as far as its inferior means would go, have been found out.

At Kingston a most wretched establishment of the same nature has recently been broken up, and at Toronto great incentives to vice in the very young exist.

Clerks in banks have gambled away the property of their employers in these places to the amount of several thousands, and, the frontier of the United States being so near, they have fled as soon as discovery was apprehended, but, owing to the international arrangements for the arrest of such criminals, have hitherto been detected, and consigned to the laws of their offended country.

The spirit of insubordination, which so forcibly operates in uneducated minds, where the constant example of the excess of freedom in the neighbouring States is ever present, has much changed the aspect of society in all the large towns and villages of Western Canada. There is no longer that honest independence of the working and labouring classes which existed fifteen years ago; but impudent assumption has forced its way very generally, and among servants more particularly. If they are not permitted to make the kitchen a rendezvous for their friends, to go out whenever they like, and in fact to be masters and mistresses of the habitation, they immediately, and without warning, leave, and no laws exist to prevent the growing evil: the consequence is that household economy is every where deranged, and a place, as it is called, is only good where high life below stairs is freely permitted.

The servants too are chiefly Irish, who have neither means nor inclination for settling in the forest, and consequently there is little or no competition, while they are so well known to each other, and so banded in a sort of Carbonari system, that it is extremely difficult to replace bad ones, even by worse.

The women servants are the worst. I saw an instance lately however of a precocious young villain of twelve, who was footboy in a gentleman's family, and his young sister, not fourteen, under-housemaid. His mother, a widow in infirm health, recently imported from Dublin, had brought up her children well, as far as reading and writing went, but had indulged them too much, and beat them so much, that they neither loved nor feared her. The little boy, only twelve, got into bad company, and ran away from his place, where he was well fed, well clothed, and kindly treated, and took his livery with him. He was brought back, after being partially frost-bitten, by his uncle, and received again from mistaken kindness. A cook of bad habits and worse temper got hold of him, and, after staying a short time, he again deserted with all the clothes and things he could carry. A young lady in the family had previously told him that her father would one day take him to the penitentiary to show him what bad boys came to. "That is the very place I want to get into," said the young ruffian, "for I hear there is fine fun there; I will steal something by and by, and then they will send me there."

Accordingly, he did steal, and took French leave one fine morning with Madam Cookey, having previously strangled the young lady's favourite cat, just about to kitten, and having the night before he absconded told the young lady he had made a famous nest for pussy to kitten in, and that if she went to the cellar in the morning, she would find the cat on her nest.

The young lady thought nothing of what he said at the moment, but, after finding when the family got up that the cook and boy were off, she went to look at her kittens, found the cat strangled, frozen, and placed on the nest. A day or two afterwards, the little sister decamped with three suits of dresses. Now what use would there be in putting such a boy or such a girl at so tender an age, and with such principles, into a penitentiary?

Penitentiaries are not proper receptacles for infant villains. The very contagion of working with murderers, coiners, horse-stealers, and scoundrels of the deepest dye is enough alone to confirm their habits and inclinations; and I am not aware of any instance of an infant boy or girl coming out of the Kingston Penitentiary subdued or improved. They are more marked characters when they again join their former friends; for they seldom avoid their former haunts and those whose example first led them astray, but plunge again and again deeper into crime.

It is the same with beating a child to excess; spare the rod and spoil the child, says the Jewish lawgiver; but where slavery does not exist, the rod is not to be used to that extent, and it does not improve even slaves. No; as in the army and in the navy, it hardens culprits, and very seldom indeed acts upon their consciences.

Border population is usually of a low character, and I cannot think it can be worse anywhere than where the maritime, or rather laculine, if such a word is admissible, preponderates, and where that race are unemployed for at least five months of the Boreal winters of Canada. It is only a wonder that serious crime is so infrequent. Burglary was almost unknown, as well as highway robbery, until last year; but instances of both occurred near Toronto, and the former twice at Kingston. The only use to such a class that a war could be of would be to employ them; but it is to be predicted, if peace exists much longer, that the civil and criminal jurisprudence of towns and cities bordering on the great lakes must undergo very great revision, and a suitable police be employed in them.

Nothing can, by any possibility, be more eminently absurd than the police of Kingston as at present constituted. These men are dressed like officers in the army; and, instead of being in the streets to prevent accident or crime, are employed, as they say, hard at work, detecting the latter. How they do now and then, at intervals few and far between, succeed in detecting an unhappy loafer is a mystery to everybody, for they are usually observed on the steps of the Town Hall, or carrying home provisions from the market, with a fine dog following them, or else jaunting about in cabs or sleighs.

London is said to have suffered much by the policemen finding their way down the area steps of houses, and amusing themselves in cupboard courtships with the lady-cooks, housemaids, and scullions; but I verily believe Kingston has not arrived at that perfection of a domestic police, for most of the men are middle-aged and married.

The cabmen and carters of Kingston, it is said, elect the Aldermen and Common Council. Whether this be true or false, I cannot pretend to say, but it is very certain that a more insolent, ungoverned race than the cabmen do not exist anywhere. The best position of the best promenade is occupied by these fellows; and no respectable female or timid man dares to pass them without receiving coarse insult; and, if complaint is made, they mark the complainant; and, if they keep a sleigh or carriage, make a point of running races near them, and cracking heavy whips to frighten their horses. One of these ruffians frightened a gentleman's horse last winter, and threw him, his wife, and daughter on the pavement, in consequence of the animal running away, and overturning the vehicle they were in. They know all the grooms and servants, and act according as they like or dislike them, caring very little what their masters hear or see. The carters are somewhat better, as there are decent men among them; but many of that body care very little about the laws of the road, which, by the by, are different here from those at home.

If you go left you go right, If you go right, you go wrong,

is reversed in Canada, the right side of the road being always the driving side in both provinces; thus, if you go right, you do not go wrong; although such a manifest advantage in ethics, it will appear that right is not always right in Canada, but that cabmen's right and carters' right confer degrees in the Corporation College, which ensure a large share of wrong to the public.

But they are going to change all this, and bring in an Act of Parliament to alter the constitution of the fathers of the city of Regiopolis, who, it appears, have not hitherto rendered any account of their stewardship.

I shall not now enter into any further recapitulation of the journey from the Falls of Niagara to Toronto, or from Toronto to Kingston, save to say that some very intelligent citizens of the United States from Philadelphia were my companions on board the splendid British mail-packet, City of Toronto. The ex-Mayor of Philadelphia and his two amiable daughters were of the party, and I much question whether we could have had a more pleasant voyage than that which terminated on the seventeenth day of July. I omitted to observe, that voyage from Buffalo to Toronto was performed in eight hours and a quarter, as follows: Buffalo to Chippewa, by Emerald steamer, one hour and a half; Chippewa, by horse-car railway, to Queenston, one hour and a quarter; Queenston, by Transit steamer, to Toronto, four hours and a half, including all stoppages and detentions, among which was that of upwards of an hour at Queenston, waiting for the boat. The distance is about seventy miles; and the actual rate of going, for none of the conveyances are very rapid ones, is about ten miles an hour.

Kingston is one hundred and eighty-nine miles from Toronto by land, and one hundred and eighty by water; and the journey is performed in the mail-packets, which stop at several places occasionally, in eighteen hours, or about ten miles an hour, with detention for taking in wood, the speed averaging eleven.



CHAPTER XVII.

Equipage for a Canadian Gentleman Farmer—Superiority of certain iron tools made in the United States to English—Prices of Farming Implements and Stock—Prices of Produce—Local and Municipal Administration—Courts of Law—Excursion to the River Trent—Bay of Quint—Prince Edward's Island—Belleville—Political Parsons—A Democratic Bible needed—Arrogance of American politicians—Trent Port—Brighton—Murray Canal in embryo—Trent River—Percy and Percy Landing—Forest Road—A Neck or nothing Leap—Another perilous leap, and advice about leaping—Life in the Bush exemplified in the History of a Settler—Seymour West—Prices of Land near the Trent—System of Barter—Crow Bay—Wild Rice—Healy's Falls—Forsaken Dwellings.

"A truant disposition" took me into another district on my return to Kingston, as I was thoroughly determined to see a thoroughly new Canadian settlement, and therefore prepared, by purchasing a new waggon and a new pair of horses, to start for Seymour West, in the Newcastle district, some 120 miles north-west, and upwards of twenty miles in the Bush from the main stream of settlement, where a young friend was beginning life, for whom the horses, waggon, and sundry conveniences for farming and a few little luxuries were intended.

A waggon, dear settling reader, in Canada, is not a great lumbering wooden edifice upon four wheels, whose broad circumferences occupy about four feet of the road, and contain some ton or two of iron, as our dear Kentish hop-waggons are wont to show in the Borough of Southwark, or throughout lordly London, those carrying coals. No, it is a long box, painted green or red, a perfect parallelogram, with two seats in it, composed of single boards, and occasionally the luxury of an open-work back to lean against; which boards are fastened to an ash frame on each side, thus affording an apology for a spring seat. This is the body; the soul, or carriage, by which said body is moved, consists of four narrow wheels, the fore pair traversing by a primitive pin under the body, the hind pair attached to the vehicle itself. A pole, or, as it is called, a tongue, projects from the front, and can be easily detached; et voila tout! The expense is sixteen pounds currency, or about twelve sterling for a first-rate article, with swingle bars, or, as they are always called here, "whipple-trees," to attach the traces to. A set of double harness is six pounds, and two very good horses may be obtained for thirty more, making in all fifty-two pounds Canada money, or a little more than forty sterling, for an equipage fit for a gentleman farmer's all work, namely, to carry a field, or to ride to church and market in.

There are two or three other things requisite, and among the foremost a first-rate axe. No man should ever travel in Canada without an axe, for you never know, even on the great main roads, when you may want it to remove a fallen tree, or to mend your waggon with. A first-rate axe will cost you, handle and all, seven shillings and sixpence currency, but then it is a treasure afterwards; whereas, a cheap article will soon wear out or break. Strange to say, Sheffield and Birmingham do not produce coarse cutting tools for the Canada market, that can compete with the American. It has been remarked, of late years, that even all carpenters' tools, and spades, pickaxes, shovels, et id genus omne, are all cheaper, better, and more durable from the States, than those imported from England. Let our manufacturers at home look to this in time, and, eschewing the spirit of gain, cease to make cutting tools like Peter Pindar's razors. In the finer departments, such as surgical and other scientific instruments, Jonathan is as far astern; and, although he may use a sword-blade very well, he has not yet made one like Prosser's.

In heavy ironwork Jonathan is advancing with rapid strides; and even the Canadian, whom he looks down upon with some contempt, is competing with him in the forging and casting of steam-engines. There are very respectable foundries at Kingston, Toronto, Niagara, and Montreal. The only difficulty I have yet heard of is in making large shafts. Every other kind of heavy iron or steel manufacture can now be rapidly and better done in Canada than in the United States—I say advisedly better done, because the boilers made in Canada do not burst, nor do the engines break, as they do in the charming mud valley of the Mississippi. For one accident in Canada there are five hundred in the States; in fact, I remember only one by which lives were lost, and that happened to a small steamer near Montreal, about four years ago; whereas, they go to smash in the Union with the same go-ahead velocity as they go to caucus, and seem to care as little about the matter. John Bull often calculates much more sedately and to the purpose than his restless offspring, who seem to hold it as a first principle of the declaration of independence that a man has a right to be blown up or scalded to death.

They are as national in this as in naming new cities. What names, by the by, they do give them!—think of Alphadelphia in Michigan, Bucyrus in Ohio, Cass-opolis, from, I suppose, General Cass, in Michigan, Juliet in Illinois, Kalida (it ought to be Rowland Kalydor) in Ohio, Milan in Ohio, Massilon in Ohio, Peru in Iowa, Racine in Wisconsin, Tiffin in Ohio, and Ypsilanti in Michigan. Caesar, Pompey, Cassius, Brutus, Homer, Virgil, and all the heathen gods, goddesses, demi-gods, and republicans, are sown as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.

But to return to farming. You may have a plough, of the hundred new Yankee inventions, or of a good substantial Canadian cut, for six dollars, a wheat cradle scythe for the same, complete, a common scythe for ten shillings, or less; and thus for less than one hundred pounds, the farm may be stocked with two horses, two bullocks, two cows, (a good cow is worth five pounds) pigs, and poultry. Sheep you must not attempt, until a sufficient clearance of grazing ground is completed, but you can buy as many there as you want, of the very best kind, for three or four dollars a head. A good ram, bull, or boar, is, however, scarce, and proportionably dear, but most of the districts now have agricultural societies, at whose meetings prizes are given for every kind of stock, and the farmers are devoting much more of their attention to rearing horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, than was the case ten years ago, when almost all the markets were supplied from the United States. Kingston and Toronto now are supplied from their own bulk; and, as it will interest an emigrant intending to settle, I shall give the market prices of both cities, premising only that, in country towns, provision of all kinds is much cheaper.

Toronto, January 2, 1846. s. d. s. d. Flour, per barrel, 196 lb 25 0 @ 28 0 Oatmeal, per barrel, 196 lb 17 6 ... 20 0 Wheat, per bushel, 60 lb 4 9 ... 5 3 Rye, per bushel, 56 lb 2 9 ... 3 0 Barley, per bushel, 48 lb 2 4 ... 2 9 Oats, per bushel, 34 lb 1 10 ... 2 2 Peas, per bushel, 60 lb 2 6 ... 3 0 Timothy, per bushel, 60 lb 4 0 ... 5 0 Beef, farmers', per 100 lb 12 6 ... 17 6 Beef, per lb 0 3 ... 0 4 Pork, farmers', per 100 lb 21 3 ... 27 6 Bacon, per lb 0 4 ... 0 6 Mutton, by the quarter, per lb 0 2 ... 0 3 Veal, by the quarter, per lb 0 2 ... 0 4 Butter, in roll, per lb 0 8 ... 0 10 Butter, in tub, per lb 0 7 ... 0 9 Turkeys, each 1 3 ... 3 9 Geese, each 1 3 ... 1 6 Ducks, per couple 0 10 ... 1 3 Chickens, per pair 0 10 ... 1 3 Eggs, per dozen 1 3 ... 1 3 Potatoes, per bushel 3 0 ... 2 3 Hay, per ton 70 0 ... 90 0 Straw, per ton 40 0 ... 50 0

Kingston, January 31, 1846. s. d. s. d. Flour, per 112 lb 14 0 @ 14 6 Oatmeal, per 112 lb 14 6 ... 0 0 Wheat, per bushel 5 0 ... 5 6 Barley, ditto 3 0 ... 3 3 Hay, per ton 47 6 ... 52 6 Straw, ditto 25 0 ... 30 0 Potatoes, per bushel 2 0 ... 2 3 Beef, per hundred 20 0 ... 22 6 Veal, per lb 0 3 ... 0 4 Mutton, ditto 0 3 ... 0 4 Butter, in roll 0 9 ... 0 10 Eggs, per dozen 0 9 ... 0 10 Turkeys, per couple 5 0 ... 7 6 Partridges, per pair 5 0 ... 0 0 Ducks, per couple 1 8 ... 2 0

The standard weights of grain and pulse, in Canada West, were regulated by Act of Parliament in 1835.

lbs. Wheat 60 Rye 56 Peas 60 Barley 48 Oats 34 Beans 50 Indian Corn 56 Equal to a Winchester bushel.

The price of keeping one horse in Kingston is about sixpence per day, in Toronto a shilling, but much less in all country places.

The affairs of the districts into which Canada is divided are managed by a warden and councillors in each district, and two councillors are elected for each township, having above 300 qualified voters, and one for each having a less number. The improvement of the district roads, bridges, schools, jails, court-houses, and all public matters requiring expenditure of the taxes raised within the district, are arranged by this Board. Some very useful information for settlers is contained in the following:—

Statute Labour.—Every male inhabitant, from twenty-one to sixty, not rated on the Assessment Roll, is liable to work on the highways for two days.

Every assessed inhabitant is, in proportion to the estimate of his real and personal property on the Roll, liable to work on the highways, as follows:—Under L25 two days; under L50 three days; from that to L75 four days; from that to L100 five days; and

For every L50 above L100, up to L500, one day; " 100 " 500, " 1000, " " 200 " 1000, " 2000, " " 300 " 2000, " 3500, " " 500 " 3500, one day;

the fractional part between the different sums being always reckoned as a whole, and giving one day.

Every person possessed of a waggon, cart, or team of horses,[1] oxen, or beasts of burthen or draft, used to draw the same, is liable to work three days.

Indigent persons, oppressed by sickness, age, or having a large family, can be exempted at the discretion of the town warden.

Any person liable can commute at 2s. 6d. per day, if he thinks proper.

[Footnote 1: Team is called in Canada and in the States a span of horses, and means two.]

THE GENERAL ASSESSMENT.

By the 59th Geo. III., chap. 7, sect. 2nd, the following is deemed rateable property at the given valuation:—

Every town-lot in Toronto, Kingston, Niagara, and Queenston, L50; every town-lot in Cornwall, Sandwich, Johnstown, and Belleville, L25; every town-lot on which a dwelling is erected in Brockville, L30; do. in Bath, L20; every acre of arable, pasture, or meadow land, 20s.; every acre of uncultivated land, 4s.; every house built with timber, squared or hewed on two sides, of one story in height, and not two stories, with not more than two fireplaces, L20; for every additional fireplace, L4; every dwelling-house built of squared or flatted timber on two sides, of two stories in height, with not more than two fireplaces, L30, and for every additional fireplace, L8; every framed house under two stories in height, with not more than two fireplaces, L35, and for every additional fireplace L5; every brick or stone house of one story in height, and not more than two fireplaces, L40; every additional fireplace, L10; every framed, brick, or stone house, of two stories in height, and not more than two fireplaces, L60; every additional fireplace, L10; every grist-mill wrought by water, with one pair of stones, L150; every additional pair, L50; every sawmill, L100; every merchant's shop, L200; every storehouse owned or occupied for the receiving and forwarding of goods, wares, or merchandize, for hire or gain, L200; every stud-horse, kept for hire or gain, L100; every horse of the age of three years and upwards, L8; oxen of the age of four years and upwards, per head, L4; milch cows, per head, L3; horned cattle, from the age of two years to four years, per head, L1; every close carriage with four wheels, kept for pleasure, L100; every phaeton, or other open carriage, with four wheels, kept for pleasure only, L25; every curricle, gig, or other carriage, with two wheels, kept for pleasure only, L20; every waggon kept for pleasure only L15; every stove in a room where there is no fireplace to be considered a fireplace.

All lands are rateable, held in fee-simple, or promise of fee-simple, by the land board certificate, order of council, or certificate of any governor of Canada, or by lease. The sum levied in no case to be greater than one penny in the pound for any one year.

The Queen, should she be possessed of, or in occupation of any property in the province, is exempted from the payment of taxes.

Each township of a district elects its own officers; at meetings held annually, on the first Monday in January, and called by the township clerk, after he has obtained a warrant from two or more justices of the peace. All freeholders above twenty-one years of age are entitled to a vote, and choose the undermentioned officers, viz.—one assessor and a collector, with pound-keepers and path-masters, or overseers of highways, three town-wardens, and from three to eighteen fence-viewers, whose duty it is to regulate fences. These town-officers are liable to penalty for refusing to serve, but cannot be elected oftener than once in three years: they have cognizance of all matters relating to cattle, height and nature of enclosures, and nuisances. Their duties are regulated by the district council's by-laws.

Each district has an inspector of licenses, deputy clerk of the crown, judge and clerk of District Court, a judge and a registrar of the Surrogate Court, and one or two registrars for deeds, with coroners, according to the extent, at all the principal towns or villages.

In each district is also a sheriff, a clerk of the peace, a treasurer, and, in some of the district towns, a board of police, with president, clerk, treasurer, and street-surveyor.

The officers of the incorporated cities or towns are similar to those at home.

Justice is administered by the courts of Queen's Bench, Quarter-Sessions, District Courts, and the Town Court, with Division Courts.

The terms of the Court of Queen's Bench are four; and in Western Canada, at these times, the judges sit at Toronto to hear counsel on law questions.

Easter term commences on the first Monday in February, and ends on the Saturday of the following week.

Trinity term, second Monday in June, and ends Saturday of the following week.

Michaelmas term, first Monday in August, until Saturday of the following week.

Hilary, first Monday in November, until Saturday, as before.

The Quarter Sessions are held throughout the province on the 7th of January, 1st of April, 1st of July, and 18th of November.

The District Courts are held at the same time as the Quarter Sessions. This court has jurisdiction in all matters of contract from 40s. to L15; and, when the amount is liquidated or ascertained, either by the act of the parties, or the nature of the transaction, to L40. Thus a promissory note under L40 can be sued in this court before the district judge, who is usually a barrister: and an open or unsettled account under L15, but none above that amount; also, all matters of wrong, or, as the lawyers please to call it, tort, respecting personal chattels, when title to land is not brought in question, and the damages are under L15. The judge of the District Court, by a late Act, presides also at Quarter Session.

The ordinary costs of a suit before him are from L5 to L10; and in the Queen's Bench, before a real judge, from L10 to L30.

The Division Courts are a sort of non-descript Courts of Conscience for recovery of small debts under L10; and here the district judge has his hands full, for he comes into play as president again, and has to hold courts in six divisions of his district once in two months.

The Court of Chancery is the summum bonum; its costs are, of course, very great, and its decisions, though not quite so protracted as those of England, nor involving such stakes, plague many a poor suitor who comes to equity, when he can no longer get justice. I should most strongly advise him to ponder deeply, after wading through Division, District, and Queen's Bench, through judges without a wig and gown to judges in full paraphernalia, and barristers and attorneys without end, before he encounters a Master in Chancery. It may be such a lesson as he will never forget, for Canada is rather a litigious country—it is too near the States to be otherwise, and lawyers, as well as all other trades and professions, must live. Young settler, stick to your farm, get a clear title to your land, and never get into debt.

I left Kingston in autumn, as aforesaid, with the farm stock and implements, and embarked on board the Prince Edward steamboat, Captain Bouter, for the mouth of the river Trent, in the Bay of Quinte.

First you steam along the front of the famous city of Kingston, which now presents something of an imposing front, from the waters of the St. Lawrence, which here leave Lake Ontario and contract into two channels between which are Long Island and some others. The channel nearest to the United States is very narrow, or about a mile; that on the Canada side is very broad, being from three to five or six, with an islet or rock in the centre of the mouth or opening of Lake Ontario, called Snake Island, having one tree upon it, and visible from a great distance.

A few miles above Kingston, you enter the Bay of Quinte by passing between the main land and Amherst Isle, or the Isle of Tanti, owned by Lord Mountcashell, on which are now extensive and flourishing farms. At the east end of the Isle of Tanti are the Lower Gap and the Brothers, two rocky islets famous for black bass fishing and for a deep rolling sea, which makes a landsman very sick indeed in a gale of wind. After passing this Scylla, the bay, an arm rather of Lake Ontario, becomes very smooth and peaceable for several miles, until you leave the pleasant little village of Bath, where is one of the first churches erected by the English settlers in Western Canada, and the beginning of the granary of the Canadas.

After passing Bath, the Upper Gap Charybdis gives you another tremendous rolling in blowing weather, and the expanse of Lake Ontario is seen to the left, with the tortuous bay of Quinte again to the right; this arm of the lake being made for fifty or sixty miles more by the fertile district of Prince Edward, an island of great extent, and one of the oldest of the British settlements in Upper Canada, where Pomona and Ceres reign paramount; for all is fertility.

The Bay of Quinte, in fact, on both the main shore and on Prince Edward, is one unvaried scene of the labours of the husbandman; for the forest is rapidly disappearing there, and the luxuriance of the scenery in harvest can only be compared with the best parts of England. It is indeed a glad and a rich country.

The Lake of the Mountain and the Indian village of Tyandinaga are the lions of this route: the former, a singular crater full of the purest water, on the summit of a hill of some altitude, without any apparent source, but overflowing in a stream sufficient for mill purposes and very deep; the latter the seat of a portion of the Mohawks already mentioned.

The vessel calls at several small settlements, and stops for the night at Hallowell or Picton, for the village has both names. This is a most picturesque locality, in a nook of the bay, with undulating hills and sharp ravines, a handsome church and other public edifices, and a large and thriving population. But we must for the present keep on board the steamer, and, after sleeping there, go on to Belleville, leaving Fredericksburgh, Adolphus Town, and many others in the Midland, to coast the Victoria district, and enter the charming little retreats in this pleasant bay to be described more at leisure.

Belleville, the county town of the Victoria district, is situated on the shores of this bay, and, from an insignificant village in 1837, has risen in 1846 to the rank of a large and flourishing town, the main street of which surprised me not a little by its extent, the beauty of its buildings, and the display of its shops. I mounted the hill-side which overlooks it, and there saw three fine churches, the English, Roman Catholic, and Scotch places of worship, a large well built court-house and jail, and some pretty country-houses. I should think that Belleville has nearly four thousand inhabitants; and, as it is the outlet of a rich back country, and on the main road from Kingston to Toronto, it will increase most rapidly. The worst feature about Belleville in 1837 was that it was the focus of American saddle-bag preachers, teachers, and rebelliously disposed folks; but I am told that most of these uneasy loafers have left it, and that its character has improved wonderfully. What a nuisance are peddling, meddling, politicians of the lowest grade? Wherever they plant their feet, a moral pestilence follows. These fellows won't work, for the voluntary principle in preaching or teaching pays better, and does not cost so much trouble. It is surprising with what facility, in England, as well as in Canada, a saddle-bag doctor of divinity takes his degree, and becomes possessor of the secrets and director of the consciences and household of the small farmer. I once knew a family, a most respectable family of yeomen, of ancient descent and of excellent hearts, devoured by a locust of this kind in Buckinghamshire. In Canada they are devoured every day, and not unfrequently made disloyal into the bargain, although deriving their lands and support originally from the British government.

They travel to the most remote settlements, where no such opportunities as church or chapel of any kind exist for public worship; and, after gaining the good opinion of the simple settler by an exterior sanctity and a snuffling expression of it, they soon slide into the recommendation of the superior chances of salvation that offer themselves, by forgetting the Divine command of "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," and of the Apostolic doctrine of "Honour the King." I have always been surprised that a democratic Bible retains such highly improper translations of the original tongue, as prince, king, queen, and conceive that there should be a special Act of Congress to declare that henceforward the words of the English language should be abolished and the American tongue substituted, under pains and penalties, omitting the aforesaid and all other similar obnoxiosities from dictionary, grammar, and book. The Americans have just discovered that they have a prior claim to Oregon, and therefore must be an older nation than the British, the separation being a mere trifle, and the sway of England over the thirteen colonies and her ancient settlement of America a dream; ergo, the American language is the primitive tongue. A very excellent worthy gentleman of New York wrote to a friend in Kingston lately, stating that he was sorry that England was going to such an expense in fortifying that town, as it and all Canada would soon be American, and then the money thrown away would be missed.[1]

[Footnote 1: In crossing the Atlantic in an American packet with a highly-gifted American, he told me one day that he was really glad to observe that such excellent dockyards were making at Bermuda, as in a few years they would no doubt belong to the Union. This was not said boastingly, but seriously.]

It is actually astonishing, and will scarcely be credited at home, that all except the most reflecting people in the United States have, within the last five years, become really and seriously impressed with the notion that the whole continent of the New World is a part of their birthright, and that it is about to pass under their dominion, as a matter of course, as well as that all the powers of the Old World cannot hinder this consummation one day, or even exist themselves much longer, as a political millennium is speedily coming on.

As an example of the self-sufficiency of this feeling, I quote a letter from a governor of a State, lately written to his constituents, perhaps on the strength of re-election, but really developing the national notion. In reply to a letter addressed to him by the whigs of Chautauque county, desiring his consent to stand as one of their candidates for the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, ex-Governor Seward wrote a reply of which the following is an extract:—

"I want no war—I want no enlargement of territory sooner than it would come if we were contented with a masterly inactivity. I abhor war, as I detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains to be annexed.

"But I cannot exclude the conviction that the popular passion for territorial aggrandizement is irresistible. Prudence, justice, cowardice, may check it for a season, but it will gain strength by its subjugation. An American navy is hovering over Vera Cruz. An American army is at the heart of what was Mexico. Let the Oregon question be settled when it may, it will, nevertheless, come back again. Our population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy barriers of the north, and to encounter oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific. The monarchs of Europe are to have no rest, while they have a colony remaining on this continent. France has already sold out. Spain has sold out. We shall see how long before England inclines to follow their example. It behoves us then to qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our destiny. We can do this, and can only do it by early measures which shall effect the abolition of slavery, without precipitancy, without oppression, without injustice to slaveholders, without civil war, with the consent of mankind, and the approbation of Heaven. The restoration of the right of suffrage to free men is the first act, and will draw after it in due time the sublime catastrophe of emancipation."

It is with nations as it is with individuals; a boy very soon fancies himself a man; he takes a switch in his hand, rides a muck against thistles and stinging nettles, cuts off their heads, might and main, and then fancies himself a Wellington or a Nelson. Young nations have the same notions, and age tames both the one and the other.

Texas was easily tampered with; it was peopled only to be the People's: but Mexico may be a harder bone to pick. Already is a newspaper published there, named El Tiemps, The Times, to advocate a return to monarchy, in order to save the Spanish race from the Stars and the Stripes; and the besotted and wretched Republics of the South, conceived in folly, and born of the splendid dream of Canning, are falling to pieces from internal wars. Will his Ophirian Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, humbly lay his crown at the feet of the Eagle, and are all our West India islands to be sipped up in the spoon of the President?

Let the United States be a great, a free, and an enlightened Republic; no one in England desires otherwise. Let it hold the balance, to curb the semi-barbarous States of South America, and let it spread the gospel of peace, and the literature and laws of Britain to the uttermost parts of that benighted region; but also let it curb itself in time, before it seeks to overthrow all order, all rule, all right, and all reason, under the feet of its mere fancied might.

There is not in England that hatred of its American offspring, which exists so largely towards the Parent State in the Union; on the contrary, there is an earnest, a sincere desire for the well-being and advancement of its best interests; but it is useless to conceal, and it would be unmanly also to attempt to do so, that the British pulse does not beat in unison with Lynch law, or with mob-rule, any more than it would with the tyranny of a despotism; neither will the honest pride of the English, the Irish, or the Scotch, permit that mob dominion, the might of the mass, to dictate a line of conduct upon any question, territorial or gubernative. Many master-minds at home admire the principles of the American constitution, as established by Washington; but they deeply regret the gulf that has opened since the era of that lawgiver; and there are few indeed who would dream even of exchanging the freedom of England for the freedom of the United States.

The Reformers of British origin in Canada are, no doubt, very numerous; and, owing to misconception and other causes, with which the public are now acquainted, were once desirous of hoisting a new flag; but time and reflection have been at work since, and the term reformer in Canada is no longer one with which a word of fewer syllables is synonymous. Even during the rebellion, as it was called, of 1837, but which more properly should be called the border troubles, there were very few Upper or Western Canadians concerned, as the brigands were chiefly American borderers; the real rebellion being confined to Lower Canada. I commanded a very large body of militia, much of which had been gathered from the districts and counties where the Reformers had their strongholds, and in the ranks there were full as many Reformers as there were Tories, as the other party were then called.

These subjects force themselves upon my attention, from the voyage near the shores of Sydney, Thurlow, and other townships, where Reformers and the really disaffected were very numerous in 1837; but, notwithstanding all this, it may be freely and fairly asserted again and again, that, let an invading force appear on their soil, the people of Canada will fight for home, for liberty, and for Queen Victoria.

We steamed on to the Trent river through a glorious corn and apple country, and arrived there in time to meet my young friend, and to proceed in our waggon to Brighton, a few miles westward on the Toronto road, where we slept.

Trent Port, or Trent village, is situated on both banks of the exitus of the Trent river into the Bay of Quinte, and is remarkable for two things: as being the intended outlet of one of the finest back countries in Canada, by a gigantic canal, which was to open Lake Huron to Ontario, through a succession of inland lakes and rivers, but which noble scheme was nipped in the bud after several of the locks had been excavated, and very many thousands of pounds expended. It is now remarkable only for its long, covered wooden bridge, and the quantity of lumber, i.e., in the new American Dictionary, deals, plank, staves, square timber, and logs floating on the tranquil water for exportation.

Brighton is a little pleasant high-road hamlet, with two inns, and no outs, as it is not a place of trade, excepting as far as a small sawmill is concerned; but this will change, for it is near Presqu'ile, the only natural harbour on Lake Ontario's Canada shore, from Toronto to Kingston, or from one end to the other. Here the Bay of Quinte approaches the lake so close, that a canal of four or five miles only is requisite, through a natural level, in order to have a safe and sheltered voyage from Kingston without going at all into the real and dangerous lake, which is every where beset with "ducks and drakes," as its rocky and treacherous islets are called.

This canal, which may be constructed easily for about five and twenty thousand pounds, must soon be made, and the bar of Presqu'ile Harbour deepened, so as to ensure a shelter for vessels in the furious gales of October and November.

The canal is always traced on maps, and called Murray Canal, I presume, after the late Master-General of the Ordnance, during his government of the province. It is, without doubt, one of the most important and necessary works in Canada West; and, as it will lead into the Trent navigation, when that shall be finished, will be the means of adding some millions of inhabitants to the fairest portion of the land, now known only to wretched lumbermen.

The River Trent is a large stream, full of shallows, and rapids, and beautiful lakes, taking its rise north of the township of Somerville, in the Colborne District, not very far from a chain of lakes, which reach the Ottawa on the east, and the Black River, a feeder of Lake Simcoe, and a tributary of Huron and the Severn, on the west.

The river Trent is strangely tortuous, but keeps almost entirely within the Colborne district, named after Lord Seaton, and at Rice Lake afforded a site for the Colonial Office to establish a flourishing colony a few years ago at Peterborough, and to open an entirely new and very rich portion of Canada West.

This river, placed, as it were, by Nature as the connecting link of a great chain of inland navigation, embracing the expanse of Huron, Ontario, and the Ottawa, opens a field of research both to the agriculturist and the forester. The woods abound with the finest kind of untouched timber; the land is fertile in the extreme; and the rivers, streams, and lakes abound with fish. In short, had the Trent Canal been finished, instead of the miserable and decaying timber-slides, which now encumber that noble river, another million of inhabitants would, in ten years more, have filled up the forests, which are now only penetrated by the Indian or the seeker after timber.

A private individual has, however, put a steamboat upon the centre of the river's course; and Mr. Weller, no doubt, finds that it pays him well, for the portion of Colborne district near Rice Lake is settling rapidly.

The Trent Canal, or a railroad, in the same direction, would lead to the Georgian Bay of Huron, and thus render a journey to the far West easy of accomplishment, as it is the most direct route from Oswego and New York.

But I must journey on, and, after resting at Brighton, start by daylight, and penetrate into the bowels of the land by a sandy road, which, after passing that village, stretches into the forest due north.

Away the waggon went, not at a hand-gallop, for the sand was too deep for that, and, passing through woods by a tolerably good road for so new a settlement, we, every now and then, at intervals few and far between, saw a new farm or a new log-hut.

The day was fine, and so, having carried our provision with us, we halted in the deep woods, upon the muddy banks of the Cold Creek, to breakfast. A Tartar camp was visited by an English traveller somewhere in the dominions of the Grand Lama, and he was treated to London porter. So were we in the deep forest of Central Canada, for London porter appears to travel everywhere; and, discussing it with much relish, we fed the horses, and gave them what they liked much better, clear and pure water—which indeed I now think would have been quite as good for us—and waggoned on, until we came to a surprising new settlement in the Bush, the villages of Percy and Percy Landing, where, there being mill "privileges," as a sharp running water-stream is called in the United States, flour and saw-mills have been established, and a very thriving population is rising both in numbers and in means. Here we dined in a new inn, or rather tavern, kept by a French Canadian, and then pursued our journey for a few miles on a decent new road, amidst fine settlements and good farms, and, crossing a beautiful stream, plunged into the undisturbed forest by a road in which every rut was a canal, and every stone as big as a bomb-shell at the very least. How the waggon stood it, and the roots and stumps of the trees with which these boulders were diversified, I am still unable to explain; for my part, I walked the greater part of it, for the bones of my body seemed as if they were very likely, after a short trial, to part company with each other.

At length, after jolting, jumping, complaining, and comforting, we came to a bridge near Myer's Mills. Our conducteur, my young friend aforesaid, who was more used to the road, saw at a glance that something had gone wrong with the said bridge; for it exhibited a very disorderly, drunken sort of devil-may-care aspect.

He was too far advanced upon it to retreat, when he discovered that a beam or two had departed into the lively current below. With true backwoodsman's energy, he pulled his horses up sharp, reined them well up, and then, with a tremendous shout, applied the whip, and actually leaped horses, waggon, and passengers over the chasm, the remainder of the bridge groaning, and saying most plainly, "I will not bear this any longer." Next morning, we heard that the whole structure had fallen in and disappeared.

I have been in some danger in the course of my life; but a visit afterwards to this spot convinced me that one's existence is often a sort of size-ace throw; and whether the six or the one comes up or goes down, is a miracle. I never had a nearer leap for clearing Styx than this, excepting one shortly afterwards upon the timber-slides of the Trent, at Healy's Falls.

A vast timber canal or way had been constructed here by the Board of Works, to convey timber down a rapid without danger, the slide being alongside of that rapid. It was an interesting work; and, with my young friend and two naval officers, settled in Seymour, I went to examine it. At the sluice-way, or timber-dam, was a sort of bridge, composed of parallel pieces of heavy square joists and a platform; we walked along this Mahomet's railway, where Azrael seemed to have established pretty much the same sentry as Cerberus, having two or three mouths ready to devour the adventurous passenger.

The parallel pieces were about two feet distant from each other; I walked on one, and my companions on the other, until a good view of the whole work and the splendid rapids was attained. Under our feet, at some distance, was the water of the slide running on an inclined plane of woodwork, at a great angle, and with enormous power and velocity into a pitch or cauldron far below.

The day was bright, and the shadow of the parallel logs left between the space no view of the water underneath. They called me suddenly to look at the rapid. I jumped, as I thought, over the space between us; but my jump was into the shadow. One of the naval officers, a powerful man, six feet and more in height, saw me jump; and, just as I was disappearing between the timbers, caught me by the arm, and, by sheer muscle and strength, held me in mid-air. The other immediately assisted him, but my young friend became deadly pale and sick. I did not visit either the slide or the cauldron; in either, instantaneous and suffocating death was inevitable. Reader, never leap in dark places, and look before you leap. My young friend looked before he leaped over the bridge with his span of horses, and, like a gallant auriga, guided his van without fear; but he told me afterwards that the cold sweat sat on his brow, when the chasm was cleared, as much on the bridge as it did at my Quintus Curtius venture. By the by, did Quinte Curce, as the French so adroitly call him, ever leap—I doubt the fact—into the chasm which closed over him?

After passing this bridge, and a slough of despond beyond it, we again plunged into the woods, and, mounting over boulders, sinking into bog-holes, and fairly jolted to jelly, on a sudden turned into an open space of near a hundred acres, round which the solemn and stately forest kept eternal guard. Here, in the space of ten or twelve years, our pioneer friends had laboured through weal and through woe, through Siberian winters and West Indian summers, through ague and fever, to create a little modern paradise.

My young friend commenced in this secluded region, where the outer barbarian was never seen and seldom heard of, where even the troubles of 1837-8 never showed themselves, his location upon one hundred acres. He had received the very best education which a public institution in England could afford; but circumstances obliged him, at the early age of twenty-five, to turn his thoughts, with a young wife, to "life in the Bush," as a sole provision. The partner of his cares, equally well educated, and of an ancient family, by the death of her father, who was high in office in his country's service, was left equally unprovided for.

With youth and good constitutions, a determination to make their own way in life spurred them on to the most disheartening task, a task which thousands of young people from Britain have, however, daily to encounter in Canada, and the progress of which I relate simply from a desire to show that "life in the Bush" is not to be entered into without solemn and serious reflection.

Their first undertaking was to clear an acre or two of the forest, and crop it with grain and potatoes; then to build a log-house. In all this they were assisted by friends and neighbours as far as the limited means of those friends and neighbours, who were all similarly engaged, and the settlement containing not more than four or five families, would admit of.

My young friend really set his shoulder to the wheel, and did not call upon Hercules whiningly. He had a fondness for carpenter's work, and, having cut down the huge pine trees on his lot, for so a property is called in Canada West, he hewed them, squared them, and dovetailed them; he quarried stone with infinite toil, burnt lime, and in the short space of two years had a decent log-palace, consisting of two large rooms, and a kitchen and cellar, with an excellent chimney, a well which he dug himself, and a very large framed barn, which he built himself, the only outlay being for nails, shingles to cover his roofs, and boards. These he had to bring with oxen and a waggon from the saw-mills at Percy, many miles off, and by the most hideous road I ever saw, even in Canada. He split his own rails, made his own fences, and cleared his own forest. This first settlement was commenced in 1840, and, when I saw it in 1845, he had nearly thirty acres cleared, and this clearance and his really good house let to a settler just arrived.

By one of those freaks of fortune unforeseen and unaccountable, a connexion, who occupied the adjacent farm of two hundred acres, and had had the command of money, died, and his property was left to the young couple.

This gentleman, in the course of six or seven years, from the first settlement of this portion of Canada, had built an excellent house, had cleared a hundred acres, had a good garden, and everything which a settler could desire, with a well-stocked farm-yard, and a well-furnished house, into which my young friend stepped from his log-palace and became monarch of all he surveyed.

But money, the sinews of war, was wanted; for, although the land, house, goods, and chattels became his, the funds went to another person, all but a trifling annual sum.

The young couple had now a family growing about them, and, as they were very old friends of mine, they asked me to come and see "life in the Bush."

Farmer Harry, as we will call my young friend, had now three instead of two hundred acres to attend to, but he had a flock of sheep, a pair of oxen, the span of horses I brought for him, several cows, much poultry, and a whole drove of pigs, with barns full of wheat, peas, hay, and oats; an excellent garden, a fine little brook full of trout at his door, plenty of meadow, and his harvest just over.

To help him, he had a hired man, who drove the oxen and assisted in ploughing; and to bring in his harvest there were three hired labourers, at two shillings and sixpence a day each, and their food and beds, with two maid-servants, one to assist in the dairy. Labour, constant and toilsome labour, was still necessary in order to make the farm pay; for there is no market near, and everything is to be bought by barter.

Salt, tea, sugar, and all the little luxuries must be had by giving wheat, peas, timber, oats, barley, the fleeces of the sheep, salted pork, or any other exchangeable property; and thus constant care and constant supervision of the employed, as well as constant personal labour, are requisite in Canada on a farm for very many years, before its owner can sit down and say, "I will now take mine ease."

The female part of the family must spin, weave, make homespun cloth, candles, salt the pork, make butter for sale, and even sell poultry and eggs whenever required; in short, they must, however delicately brought up, turn their hands to every thing, to keep the house warm.

The labour of bringing home logs for fuel in winter is not one of the least in a farm, and then these logs have to be sawed and split into convenient lengths for the fireplaces and stoves.

But all this may be achieved, if done cheerfully; and, to show that it can, I will add that, amidst all this labour, my young friend was building himself a dam, where the beavers, in times when that politic and hard-working little trowel-tailed race owned his property, had seen the value of collecting the waters of the brook. He was repairing their decayed labours, for the purpose of washing his sheep, of getting a good fish-pond, and of keeping a bath always full for the comfort of his family.

What a change in ten years! The forest, which had been silent and untrodden since the beavers first heard afar off the sound of the white men's axes, was now converted into a smiling region, in which a prattling brook ran meandering at the foot of gently swelling hill-sides, on which the snowy sheep were browsing, and the cattle lowing.

A field of Indian corn was rustling its broad and vivid green flaggy leaves, whilst its fruit, topped by long silky pennons, waving in the breeze, seemed to say to me, "Good Englishman, why do your countrymen despise my golden spikes? do they think, as they do of my ugly, prickly friend the oat, that I am not good enough for man, and fit only for the horse or the negro? You know better, and you have often eaten of a pound-cake made of my flour, which you said was sweeter and better than that of wheat. You have often tasted my puddings; come now, Mr. John Bull, were they not very good?"

"Certainly they were, Mr. Maize, and hominy and hoe-cake and all that sort of thing are good too; but pray don't ask me to devour you in the shape of mush, molasses and butter. Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves will never tremble."

Jesting apart, the flour of Indian corn, or maize, is as much superior, as nutritive food, to potatoes, as wheat flour is to Indian corn. I wish the poor Irish had plenty of it.

The farmers in Upper Canada use it much, but in that wheat country it cannot of course be expected that it supersedes flour, properly so called. They also use buckwheat flour largely in the shape of pancakes, and a most excellent thing it is.

My friend's life was diversified; for, during the season that the crops are ripening, he had time to spare to go out on fishing and shooting excursions on the Trent, and occasionally in winter a little deer-hunting, with, longo intervallo, a bear-killing event.

I went to a combined fishing and shooting pic-nickery, and travelled from Rainey's mills and Falls all along the valley of the Trent to Healy's Falls.

The Trent is a beautiful and most picturesque river, rushing and roaring along over a series of falls and rapids for miles together, and expanding in noble reaches and little lakes.

Rainey's Falls I have faintly sketched, to show the soft beauty of some parts of this river; at Healy's Falls it is more broken.

We went to Crow Bay, just above which the Crow River, from the iron mine country of Marmora, runs into the Trent. Here we found two friends, brothers, settled in great comfort. They had been about ten years in the "Bush," and had excellent farms and houses equal to any I have seen so far in the interior, with every comfort around them. In one of their pleasure-boats, we embarked for the junction of the rivers, on which it is intended to place a town when the country becomes more settled.

All is now forest, excepting a very extensive and very flourishing settlement of twelve hundred acres, undertaken by a retired field-officer in the army, which was a grant about ten years ago for his services, and is now worth two thousand pounds, or perhaps more, since a bridge has been built by the provincial legislature over the Trent, in order to connect the mail route between the townships of Seymour-East and Seymour-West, as both are filling up rapidly, and land becomes consequently dear and scarce.

The price of land in Seymour at present is, improved farm, if a good house and barns are on it, at least two pounds an acre, including clearance and forest; Canada Company's land, from fifteen to twenty shillings an acre; wild land, in lots of one hundred or two hundred acres; Clergy Reserve, or College land, called School land, according to situation, from twenty-five shillings an acre upwards to thirty, all wild land. Private Proprietors' wild land, in good situations, twenty shillings an acre, and very little for less. Along the river-banks, none, I believe, is to be had, unless at very high prices.

It is intended, no doubt, to complete the navigation of this splendid river by and by, and thus holders of land are not very anxious to sell at a cheap rate; and as the Board of Works has constructed, at an expenditure of upwards of twenty thousand pounds, timber slides, along all the worst rapids by which the lumber is taken to the mouth of the Trent, a certain importance is now attained for this river which did not before exist; but this is of very little use to Seymour, in which, new as the township is, all the best pine has already been culled and cut down by the lawless hordes of lumberers, who, of course, no longer consume any of the farm produce; yet it adds to the importance of the river generally.

The first settlers in Seymour were lumber merchants, who, seeing the wealth of the country in pine, and oak, and ash, the great fertility of the soil, and the facilities afforded everywhere for erecting mills, established themselves permanently, and, before the agriculturists were induced to think of it, had removed from all land within miles of the river the only valuable timber that the township contained. Thus one source of profit, and that a very great one to the farming settler, has been destroyed, and the enterprising timber-merchant has established at convenient distances several saw-mills, where his lumber is converted into plank and boards for the lower markets, and where he is at all times ready to saw whatever timber the farmer has left into boards and planks for him, receiving so many feet of timber, and giving so many feet of lumber, as sawed timber is called, taking care of himself, of course, in the exchange.

The flour-mills at Percy proceed upon the same principle: a farmer brings sacks of grain and receives sacks of flour in exchange, said exchange being of course three to one, or more, against him.

Throughout Canada is this truck or barter system pursued, and very little money finds its way either into or out of the back townships, unless it be the receipts of the lumber-merchant from Quebec or the lakes. The lumber-merchant is, therefore, the lord of the Trent, or of any other great internal river, whereon are new settlements; and many of them have amassed large fortunes.

Thus came timber-slides, instead of canal, upon this splendid river, which must, as soon as the Murray Canal, on the Bay of Quinte, is undertaken, be also opened to navigation, as by it the richest part of Western Canada, both in soil and in minerals, will be reached, and a direct communication had in war-time from Kingston, the great naval key of the lakes, with Penetangueshene, and Lakes Huron and Superior.

I have not time now, nor would it amuse the reader, to give a detail of the project for canalling the Trent, part of which was well executed before the troubles of 1837; but the money was voted, and is not so enormous as to justify the non-performance of so important a public work. The timber-slides I look upon as mere temporary expedients.

But let us launch upon Crow Bay, and, stealing silently along, get near the wild rice which grows so plentifully on its shallows, and where is found the favourite food of the wild duck, which, by the by, is no inconsiderable addition to a Canadian dinner-table in the Bush. I do not mean, reader, the wild duck, but the wild rice, which said duck eats; for, when well made into a rice pudding, I prefer it, and so do many who are greater epicures, to either Carolina or East India rice.

The wild ducks suffered not from me, for I had no gun, and, after crossing the rapid current of the junction of the rivers, we landed on the isthmus formed by them, where, striking a light, and making a fire, we bivouacked, and one of the party went in search of a deer, whose tracks were seen. This is a singular place, covered with dwarf oaks, on a sandy soil, and looking for all the world like an English park in Chancery.

Almost every oak bore the marks of bears' claws, as it was a favourite place for those hermits, who live on acorns, blackberries, wild gooseberries and currants, and I dare say raspberries, strawberries, and whortle-berries, with which the place abounds in their seasons. The boughs of the oaks were also broken by the repeated climbings of Bruin, and it must be somewhat dangerous, when he is very hungry, to land here and traverse the Bush alone: but we saw none, although we walked through it, admiring the rushing river, and occasionally going down the steep banks to fish in the rapids for black bass, of which several were caught, and, with several wild ducks, formed the day's sport, which day's sport was twice or thrice repeated, until I had seen as much of the beauty of the wild river and the nature of the soil and country as was desirable.

It was somewhat melancholy, on reaching Healy's Falls, which are turbulent rapids of the most picturesque character, with an immense timber-slide, or broad wooden sloping canal alongside of them, to see the clearance in this far solitude formed by the workmen. They had built houses, shanties, and sheds, and had lived and loved together for many a month, with their families, on this charming spot. Nothing was in ruin: all was new, even to the window-glass; and when our party, after toiling away through the forest, reached the opening, and saw below us the foaming rapids, the grand forest, the rugged banks, the timber-slide, and the little wooden town, we thought, here at least, is a well chosen hamlet, at which we may rest awhile.

No smoke rose from the chimneys; not a soul appeared to greet us; the eagle soared above; the cunning fox, or the murderous wolf, the snake and the toad, alone found shelter, where so many human beings had so recently congregated, where, from morn till dewy eve, the hum of human voices had been incessant, and where toil and labour had won support for so many.

Occasionally, the rude and reckless lumberman halts here, whilst his timber is passing the slide; the coarse jest and the coarser oath are alone heard at the falls of the Trent, save when the neighbouring farmer visits them, to procure a day's relaxation from his toils, and to view the grandeur of creation, and, we trust, to be thankful for the dispensation which has cast his lot in strange places. What must be the occasional thoughts of a man educated tenderly and luxuriously in England, when he reflects upon the changes and the chances which have brought him into contact with the domain of the bear, of the snake, and of the lumberer? Dear, dear England, thy green glades, thy peaceful villages, thy thousand comforts, the scenes of youth, the friends, the parents, who have gone to the land of promise—will these memories not intrude? No where in this wonderful world do they come upon the mind with more solemn impressiveness than in the wild woods of Canada.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Prospects of the Emigrant in Canada—Caution against Ardent Spirits and excessive Smoking—Militia of Canada—Population—The mass of the Canadians soundly British—Rapidly increasing prosperity of the North American Colonies, compared with the United States—Kingston—Its commercial importance—Conclusion.

It is time to take leave of the reader, and to say again some few parting words about the prospects which an emigrant will have before him in leaving the sacred homes of Britain, hallowed by the memories of ages, for a world and a country so new as Western Canada.

If the well-educated emigrant is determined to try his fortunes in Canada, let him choose either the eastern townships, in Lower Canada, or almost any portions of Canada West. I premise that he must have a little money at command; and, if possible, that either he, or some member of his family, have an annual income of at least fifty pounds, and that the young are healthy, and determined not to drink whiskey.

Drink not ardent spirits, for it is not necessary to strengthen or cheer you in labouring in the Bush. I am not an advocate for an educated man joining Temperance Societies, and look upon them as very great humbugs in many instances; but, with the uneducated, it is another affair altogether. If an educated man has not sufficient confidence in himself, and wishes to reduce himself to the degraded condition of an habitual drunkard, all the temperance pledges and sanctimonious tea-parties in the world will not eventually prevent him from wallowing in the mire. Father Matthew deserves canonizing for his bringing the Irish peasantry into the condition of a temperate people, but there religion is the vehicle; with Protestants such a vehicle should never be attempted, unless the clergy once more are the directors of conscience and of action, and could conscientiously absolve the taker of the pledge, should he fail. With the diversity of sects now existing in Protestantism, this would be obviously impracticable, and the attempt lead to a result one can hardly imagine without horror. No oath ought to be administered to a Protestant on such a subject; as, if a believer of that class of Christians should voluntarily take one and then break it, how much greater would his sin be than the sin of one who really and truly is convinced that a human being could pardon him, should he perjure himself!

The effects of drinking spirits in Canada are beyond anything I had imagined, until the report of the census of the Lower province for 1843, and that of Dr. Rees upon the lunatic asylum at Toronto, in the Upper, were published. The population of Lower Canada was 693,649, of which there were—

Males. Females. Total. Deaf and dumb 447 278 725 Blind 273 250 523 Idiots 478 472 950 Lunatics 156 152 308 —— —— —— Total 1354 1152 2506

The proportion of deaf and dumb to the whole population is as 1 to about 957: a greater proportion than prevails throughout all Europe (1 to 1537), United States (1 in 2000), or the whole world throughout (1 in 1556.)

The census of Upper Canada, taken a year before, gives the total population as 506,505. Of these there were—

Males. Females. Total. Deaf and dumb 222 132 354 Blind 114 89 203 Idiots 221 178 393 Lunatics 241 478 719 —— —— —— Total 798 877 1669

Thus, of a total population of 1,200,154, in 1833, there were 1027 persons confined in the provincial lunatic asylums, and perhaps a great many more out of them, as they have only just come into operation, and are still very inefficient. The idiots, it will appear, amounted to 1349.

In the whole North American continent, Canada is only exceeded by the States of New Hampshire and Connecticut, in the lists of insanity; and, to show that intemperance as well as climate has something to do with this melancholy result, I shall only state, without entering into details, that a well-informed resident has calculated that, when the province contained the above number of inhabitants, the consumption of alcoholic liquors, chiefly whiskey, was, excluding children under fifteen years of age, five gallons a year for every inhabitant; whilst, in 1843, in England and Wales, where the most accurate returns of the Excise prove the fact, it is only 0.69 of a gallon; in Scotland, 2.16; in Ireland, 0.64; and the total consumed by each individual, not excluding those under fifteen, is only 0.82 per annum for the three kingdoms. If the children under fifteen in Canada are to be included, still the consumption of spirit is awful, being 2-3/4 gallons for each; but it must be much higher, since the Excise is not regulated as at home.

That such excessive drinking prevails in Canada may be attributed partly to the cheapness of a vile mixture, called Canadian whiskey, and partly to climate, with a thermometer ranging to 120 deg., and with such rapid alternations. In Canada, also, man really conquers the earth by the sweat of his brow; for there is no harder labour than the preparation of timber, and the subduing of a primeval forest in a country of lakes and swamps.

I have an instance of the effect of excessive drinking daily before my door, in the person of a man of respectable family and of excellent talents, who, after habitually indulging himself with at last the moderate quantum of sixty glasses of spirits and water a day, now roams the streets a confirmed idiot, but, strange to say, never touches the cause of his malady. Are, therefore, not idiocy, madness, and perhaps two-thirds of the dreadful calamities to which human nature is subject here, owing to whiskey? I have seen an Irish labourer on the works take off at a draught a tumbler of raw whiskey, made from Indian corn or oats, to refresh himself; this would kill most men unaccustomed to it; but a corroded stomach it only stimulates.

Canada is a fine place for drunkards; it is their paradise—"Get drunk for a penny; clean straw for nothing" there. Think, my dear reader, of whiskey at tenpence a gallon—cheaper than water from the New River in London. Father Matthew, your principles are much wanted on this side of Great Britain.

Then, smoking to excess is another source of immense evil in the Backwoods. A man accustomed only to a cigar gets at last accustomed to the lowest and vilest of tobacco. I used to laugh at some of my friends in Seymour, when I saw them with a broken tobacco-pipe stuck in the ribbon of their straw hats. These were men who had paraded in their day the shady side of Pall Mall. They found a pipe a solace, and cigars were not to be had for love or money. "Why do you not put your pipe at least out of sight?" said I.

"It is the Seymour Arms' crest," responded my good-natured gentlemen farmers, "and we wear it accordingly."

Smoking all day, from the hour of rising, is, I actually believe, more injurious to the nerves than hard drinking. It paralyzes exertion. I never saw an Irish labourer, with his hod and his pipe, mounting a ladder, but I was sure to discover that he was an idler. I never had a groom that smoked much who took proper care of my horses; and I never knew a gentleman seriously addicted to smoking, who cared much for any thing beyond self. A Father Matthew pledge against the excessive use of tobacco would be of much more benefit among the labouring Irish than King James his Counterblast proved among the English.

The emigrant of education will naturally inquire, if, in case of war, he will be under the necessity of leaving his farm for the defence of the country.

The militia laws are now undergoing revision, in order to create an efficient force.

The militia of Western Canada are well composed, and have become a most formidable body of 80,000 men,[1] and are not to be classed with rude and undisciplined masses. In 1837, they rushed to the defence of their soil; and, so eager were they to attain a knowledge of the duties of a soldier, that, in the course of four months, many divisions were able to go through field-days with the regulars; and the embodied regiments, being clothed in scarlet, were always supposed by American visitors to be of the line.

There is a military spirit in this people, which only requires development and a good system of officer and sub-officer to make it shine. Any attempt to create partizan officers must be repressed, and merit and stake in the country alone attended to.

The population of the British provinces cannot now be less than nearly two millions; and it only requires judgment to bring forward the Canadian French to insure their acting against an enemy daring to invade the country, as they so nobly did in 1812. I subjoin the latest correct census, 1844, of the Franco-Canadian race, as it will now be interesting in a high degree to the reader in Europe.

[Footnote 1: Eastern and Western Canada comprise an able-bodied militia of 160,000.]

It is taken from a French Canadian journal of talent and resources, and agrees with the published authorities on this subject.

Population of Lower Canada in 1831 and 1844.—The following table of the comparative population of Lower Canada at the periods above-mentioned first appeared in the Canadien.

1831. 1844. Saguenay 8,385 13,445 Montmorency (1) 8,089 8,434 Quebec 36,173 45,676 Portneuf 13,656 15,922 Champlain 6,991 10,404 St. Maurice 16,909 20,594 Berthier 20,225 26,700 Leinster (2) 22,122 25,300 Terrebonne 16,623 20,646 Deux Montagnes 20,905 26,835 Outaouais 4,786 11,340 Montreal 43,773 64,306 Vaudreuil 13,111 16,616 Beauharnois 16,859 28,580 Huntingdon (3) 29,916 36,204 Rouville 18,115 20,098 Chambly 15,483 17,171 Vercheres 12,819 12,968 Richelieu 16,146 20,983 St. Hyacinthe 13,366 21,734 Shefford 5,087 9,996 Missisqoui 8,801 10,875 Stanstead 10,306 11,846 Sherbrooke 7,104 13,302 Drummond 3,566 9,374 Vamaska 9,495 11,645 Nicolet 12,509 16,280 Lothiniere 9,191 13,697 Megantic 2,283 6,730 Dorchester (4) 23,816 34,826 Bellechasse 13,529 14,540 L'Islet 13,518 16,990 Kamouraska 14,557 17,465 Rimouski 10,061 17,577 Gaspe 5,003 7,458 Bonaventure 8,109 8,230 Total 511,919 678,590 In 1844 678,590 In 1831 511,919 Augmentation in 13 years 166,671

The increase during the interval between the years cited is about 32-1/2 per cent. It would no doubt have been more considerable but for the cholera, which in 1832 and 1834 decimated the population. The troubles of 1837-8 likewise contributed to check any increase; as, at those periods, numbers emigrated from this province to the United States, and the usual immigration from Europe hither was also materially interfered with.

Assuming 1,500,000 as the present actual population of the Canadas, we shall examine the strength of British North America from published returns in 1845, or the best authorities.



CHIEF CITIES. POPULATION POPULATION, 1845. OF 1845.

Canada 1,500,000 {Montreal 60,000 {Quebec 30,000 {Kingston 12,000 {Toronto 20,000

New Brunswick 200,000 {Fredericton 6,000 {St. John 31,000

Nova Scotia,} 250,000 {Halifax 16,000 including} {Sydney ——— Cape Breton}

Newfoundland 100,000 St. John's 20,000

Prince Edward's} Island and the} 45,000 Charlotte Town ——— Magdalen Isles} ————- Total Population 2,095,000.

A serviceable militia of 80,000 young men may, therefore, without distressing the population, be easily raised in British North America, with a reserve sufficient to keep an army of 40,000 able-bodied soldiers in Canada always in the field; and, if necessary, 100,000 could be assembled at any point, for any given purpose.

The Great Gustavus said that he would not desire a larger military force for defensive purposes than 40,000 men fit for actual service, to accomplish any military object, as such a force would always enable him to choose his positions. Two such armies of effective men could be easily maintained in the two Canadas, and concentrated rapidly and with certainty upon any given point, notwithstanding the extent of frontier; and the Canadians are much more essentially soldiers than the people of the United States, without any reference to valour or contempt of danger: whilst they would be fighting for everything dear to them, and the aggressors for mere extension of territory, and to accomplish the fixed object of destroying all monarchical institutions.

I have already said that there is no sympathy of the Irish settlers in Canada with the native Americans, and the best proof of this is the public demonstrations upon St. Patrick's day at Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, where the two parties, Protestant and Catholic, exhibited no party emblems, no flags but loyal ones, and where the ancient enmity between the rival houses of Capulet and Montague, the Green and the Orange, appeared to have vanished before the approaching arrogant demands of a newly-erected Imperium.

Independence may exist to a great extent in Canada. Gourlay figured it, twenty years ago, by placing the word in capitals on the arch formed by the prismatic hues of the cloud-spray of Niagara. He could get no better ground than a fog-bank to hoist his flag upon, and the vision and the visionary have alike been swallowed up in oblivion.

Canada does not hate democracy so very totally and unequivocally as my excellent friend, Sir Francis Head, so tersely observed, but Canada repudiates annexation.

That a great portion of the population of this rapidly advancing colony feel a vast pride in imagining themselves about to become ranked among the nations of the world, I entertain not the shadow of a doubt; but that the physical and moral strength of Canada desire immediate separation from England, or annexation to the republic presided over by President Polk, is about as absurd a chimera as that of Gourlay and the spray of Niagara. The rainbow there, splendid as it is, owes its colours to the sun.

The mass in Canada is soundly British; and, having weighed the relative advantages and disadvantages of British principles and laws with those of the United States, the beam of the latter has mounted into the thin air of Mr. Gourlay's vision. The greatest absurdity at present discoverable is in the ideas of unfortunate individuals, who imagine themselves placed near the pivot desired by the philosopher, and that they possess the lever which is to move the solid globe to any position into which it may suit them to upheave it.

A poor man by origin, and with some talent, suddenly becomes the Sir Oracle of his village; and, because the Governor-General does not advance his protege or connexions, or because he does not imagine that the welfare of the province hinges upon his support, turns sulky, and obtaining, by very easy means, a seat in the Assembly, becomes all at once an ultra on the opposite side of the question.

In all new countries ambition gets the better of discretion, but fortunately soon finds its natural level: the violent ultra-tory, and the violent ultra-demagogue sink alike, after a few years of excitement, into the moth-eaten receptacle of newspaper renown, alike unheeded, and alike forgotten, by a newer and more enlightened generation, who find that, to the cost of the real interest of the people, the mouthing orator, the agitator, the exciter, is not the patriot.