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Lea diagrammes sulvants lllustrant la mAthode. 1 2 3 :»■;-■ ■ . *;^'" -% 1 1 A A 5 6 TF EMIGRANT TO NORTH AMERICA: 1 ^ raoN MEMORANDA OF A SETTLER IN CANADA, Bin« A COMPENDIUM OF V8KFUL PRACTlt}AL HI^^S TO IBMlGtMA'STB, 8«ket«d from an nnpvUished NarratW* of the tdventiirM of « large fiunily from the North of England, whieh emigrated la 181% and settled In VarioM parts of the Caaadas, and the Veitom Statesi as frrmera, &o. .1' ■' / TOOETBCB WnrB iM f / ACCOUNT OF EVEPY DAY'9 DOINGS UPON A PARM FOR A YEAR. SECOND EDITION. BY AN IMMIGRANT FJ^RMER, OV TWBRTT TBAR8 SXPn^OS. A '^V. .,^ 51 i - ThevMdsmmdhOl U gtad far Mem, ami jeot— has had sufficient length of time to acquire his knowledge from experience, aaap* pears from his Qneenston letter of 1817, and has o<»veyed his information in such a plaxnand simple style as renders it compare- hensible to the meanest, capacity. In brief, we consider the **'Me> nioranda by a Settler in Lower Canada,** as tu mor<6 Taluable ta the iB^grant than all the "Histories, BeeoSieotioins, Travels^ Convenatibns, Emigrants* Qnid^ Letters,** &o. &&, which' li» coidd obuiin. Our readers will remaric how quaintly but expU- cUly tl^s writer exposes one gross omission of that arch-decdver, mx. £lirkbeck, who, in describing the beauties and attraiBdons of his celebrated Ohio, with a new of decoying setttnrs there^haa carefiilly omitted to meoition (hat thare was no good water in that fine District of Onmtry! i'Vom (ft« Ommereial Messenger tf^pril^ 1842. We have had occasion to allude to a series of excellent papers,, whj^h, under the title of ** Memoranda of a Settlor in Lower Ca- na^'* are in course of publication in the Qm&m Meretoy, They now draw near their termination; but we are gratified to learn,, that it i^ intended by the Author to republish them in pon^hliet form, and that^ with that view, the work will immediatdy be put to press. It must command an extensire circulation» and should find its vi^y into the hands of all new ccnners with the intent to settle. To them it is invaluable. It is capable of b^Dg extremely useful also to those who are already located in the country, from the sound practical view taken by the Author, of "matters and itd^igs in general." \ E.v-,-^' -t«''*j *) From the London Emigration Gazette of July, 1843'. Emigration to Canada. — We have elsewhere introdaoed the first of a series of articles detailing the observations and expe- rience of '*A Settler in Canada." They will famish to the intending Emigrant a mass of practical information which can scarcely fail to prove essentially serviceable to thousands who are on the point of going to the Colony this season. We recommend to all such to possess themselves of a copy of each succeeding number of the Emigration Gazette, until the series is complete, as one of the most valuable appendages with which to beguile the hours on sea-board. From the Montreal Messenger, May 1, 1843. MsHdftANDA OF A Settleb IN CANADA. — Thoso who are advo- cates of a Uberal and extensive system of Emigration will be hap- . py to learn that a new and enlarged edition of the above work is Ti now in press, and will be published in a few weeks. Popular as { was the last edition, — and no publication of the kind was ever more so — ^we venture to predict for the second edition a still greater share of public favour, since instead of being chiefly confined to the Eastern section of the Province, it will take a more extended view, and embrace within its range the whole of United Canada. We have said that the first edition was received with popular favour, and the proofs are to be found in the fact that its contents were transcribed into many leading Canadian papers, as well as into several English journals, among which was the Emig ■Son Gazette, published in London. It was also published simul a- neously in England and in Canada — in the former by the Agent for Emigration, in the latter by the Author, and large impressions of both editions were disposed of. But popular as the book was it was not more so than it deserved, for in no work of even the highest pretensions was there ever given so much really practical and useful information for the guidance of the Emigrant. ' A 2 ' 'I - ^'...■■-^IMM..Vj-^.-f ^.-f*. TO THE READER. * f la the following work, the Author hM no other object in view, thbn to convey to the mind of the Emigrant, before he leaves his native country, some ideo of the nature and importance of the step he is about to take» with such hints and information as he will find useful for his guidance afterwards : and it owes its origin to the great and pal^ble want of plain and practical infbrmationj as tothe general face and i^peatance of the country, its climate, soil, and agricultural capabilities and resources ; its internal communications, especially its winter road» with their ancient cahots, now called reminiacencea, (at one time a great mystery to the Author,) but above all, as to the mode of reducing the nughty forest into such a state of subserviency to the labours of the husbandman, as to make it " bloom and blossom as the rose," when on every acre stands a weight of solid timber, amounting to three or four hundred tons, which, to the total overthrow of all preconceived opinions about the value of timber, must be bunU. In short, as to every thing connected with a Settler's^ life- in the woods of Canada. To remedy the evils arising from this want of information, was the Author's primary object, and he entered upon the task, with the most sanguine and enthusiastic anticipations of success ; but obstacles and rebuffs, of which hfr never dreamt, although only such as are naturally incidental to similar undertakings, damped his ardour and prevented the- completion of his design, when his labours were thrown aside among his useless papers, during a period of more than seven years, where they would still have remained to share the &te of their companions, had not Mr. Kemble, of the Quebic Mercurt^ to> whose consideration they were accidentally submitted, rescued them from their incipient state of oblivion, by giving them to the public, through the me- dium of his well conducted paper, — from whence they were copied into several other journals ; and two copies simultaneously sent home for publication in England, one by Dr. Thomas Rolph, and the other by the Emigration Gazette, — when the Author was earnestly requested to publish them also in this country, in pam- phlet form, for the use and benefit of the great influx of £mi- ^^^ -■ ^^4ip-A v .v ,' /^,^_ -- , - ,.-,..:-.,.., ,„,.:.-. 'j-^ii '-.•ill -to] .,-(.;' '' :: mn ai Tbb ihey make geogi everj adiB< bikbl; oiura I neig ran an^ ahs tio In m v^nw- - »nd while- ^penae of Ibstantial than a ^t h the near at or have fed upon on, met ready onfined aipable to the now, it as to , ore on aching I •>T»* ^v r 'iU V THS EMIGRilNT TO NORTH AMERICA, fBOK MEMORANDA 1 v , I'iti' ■.iIj *i 1 .»'it)#^*t7 1 'rr> SETTLER IN e ANA DA. PAETL t ^/, Li .>T •', -!♦ -'4 ■ . '..-,1 . ' ft. • en The first tliiiig a'inrudentfamUy generally dbe^ they think of anigratting to America^ is, of eourse,, ta make oiquiries about the country, — ^t«) search in some geograpUcal grammar or gazetteer for a description of every province and town in this mighty continent, when a discussion is naturally entered into, and carried on pro- Ittlbly for a length of time, npon thdr comparative merits, till perhaps each member of the family, as was the case in ours, decides upon a differwit part, not in the immediate neighbourhood of one another, but some thousands of miles apart. But before we came to this decision, we ransacked all the booksellers* diops ftdr every thing new and old, that had been published about America, in the shape of Histories, Recollections, IVavels,. Conversa- tions, Emigrants' Guides, Letters tx> Friends^ &c. &c. Indeed, we left no effort untried to obtain such infor« mation as we thought might be depended upon. Wd i 10 even got a young man from the State of Ohio to stay a whole month in the house with us, in order to ensure a perfect practical knoyvledge of the country, which was intended to become the theatre of our fiiture destiny; Yet, after all our laboui* ahd pains. When we landed upon its shores, we found it as different, as totally dif- ferent, from what we had been led, from the fine des- criptions of it, to expect, ajB we could have done, had we never heard of it before. Indeed, this is a feeling that predominates over every other in the mind of the "Emgrmtf when he first obtains a distant vie\y^ of tlie Wild and * interminable forest, which 'cli(>the8 in iso forbidding an aspect that land of promise,, which he had pictured to his imagination, as the very garden of Eden; and he awaked once more, from his long and fondly cherished fantasies, to all the sad realities of life ; and, extending his wondering gaze over the whole face of the country, he sees that the original curse of his nature has reached it, and ho reads, in characters which can neither be mistaken norunfelt, ^' in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." V ■ ^ ., I After having determined upon leaving our native vil-' lage, and the land of our. forefathers forever, we sold our small' patrimonial. ihheritan(;e, consisting of a dwelling house and a few acres of land, together with our move- ables, and divided the proceeds, according to the willof our fathes, equally between us, making a portion for each of about £300 sterUns^. . , , . , , , ' ,. , . r The oldest brother, who was considered a sort of head, and was looked up to accordingly, determined, with the consent and approbation of the whole, to sail for Nova Scotia, as a pioneer for the rest, and if he should not m tea r dif- > des- teeUng of the pf tlie r garden long ^^ .sofUfe; he VTaole CUTS® **^ j^j^acters .tbes^eat native vil- l^e sold our a dweOing pourmove- Lthe^iM jtionforea^l^ a sort of head, Ld,^Hhthe Ufor:t^ova tveBbouWnot like that country, to proceed to Canada; and, of course, like all emigrants, he did not like that country, because it turned out to correspond, in no single feature, with that paradise he had been led, from the whole course of his enquiries, to expect, and which he was now so anx- iously in search of. Therefore the first, and almost the only things he did in that fine country — ^for it is a fiine country— was to look out for a conveyance to Quehec, the capital of Canada ; at which place he arrived, in a fishing sloop, in abo^t.ten days. But here he was also disappointed, and Cuusequently proceeded on to Upper Canada, with no bettbr success. His prospects however, seemed now to begin to brighten, and he imagined himself in the direct road to the "promised land ;" but it was etiU " very far ofi*," and this consti- tuted, perhaps, its only attraction. ''^ From this Province, as he travelled through it, he sent us the following letter, which afterwards ap- peared in the weekly journal of the county town, a gpreat promoter of emigration, upon pohtical principles, the dignified designation, it was pleased to bestow upon the discontent and murmuring it laboured so hard to excite in the public mind, against the then Existing administration. Not that such lucubrations had any effect upon our minds, for we were no politicians ; be- sides, if we had been, we seldom saw it, till at second hand, when it was so bedimmed and fretted, that we could hardly read it. The letter was as follows :— • :" QuBBirsTOir, Uppbb Cakasa, Sept 1, 1817. Mr D»A» Brothers, ' ' ^**'^^ **«l«!'f ? »«wxs! ¥-^¥-miinumi I have just arrired at this place, where, as I must wait two days for a vessel to take me across the great lake, I shall have 12 «Qf&cient klM«e» yrbkh I hvr^ never had before, to give jou lome .account of 1117 adyeAtarea and prospects. I reached fialifax in twenty-three days^ and immediately suled for the Canadas, through a great portion of which I have tra- Veiled. I hear such terrible accounts of their winters m to con- vince me that these coldand inhospitable regions are not the coun- try fpr.ns. BesideS) the.^opds.are sp.thick,as not to^fford eiven Ithe sUghteat •degree qfpfstur^tge. Tke lengt]li of the ^winter too, independent of its severity, saiiidt be very disadvantageous to fiurm- ing occupations. The land, however, is good, and the crops, if I may judge from the little that is yet out, appear to be toleiable. vii I am detetnuoed not to stop till I reach the Ohio country, so :Qne a descri^pn a(^ progress. . I shall, of course, give you every, infor- mation when i reach that fruitful land. .Tom will naturally expect, in a letter from this place, some accountof ike far-famed Falls of Niagara, whose roar booms through, like welkin, to an immense distance, likei the vpice of the recedlBg earthquake. I can only say, that as all, the , very. ^e and very i^raphic descriptions which Ihadseen, have failed, com- pletely fiuled, to convey to my mind any adequate idea of them, it is not for me to presume to draw a portraiture of a scene, so magnificently grand ; Walter Scott ought to take ,i^ trip, to Uus co|untry on purpose to see them," • ♦ • ♦ .. .'j r The next letter .we Feceived; frpm him^ .w^s dated /I i-i. 18 HiUed ettft- I 9Con- (er too, mtry, so u . ^»^"* H^BiBOVn , iato tii« ,tb6 8ame t xaay «** 8iup«w».y-- year: .A»* It. f rota its jie^holeof .9 place, some ,e »oar booms heV9iceo^?® 1 the yery,^® avefafledrcom. t^ideabftiiem, e of ft scene, so .eattt^l?.*^^' im^.^f^s dated at Cincinnati, and stated that there was one circum? stance which Mr. Birkbeck had neglected to mention, and that was that there was no good water in that fine district of country, he had described as so well suited, in every point of view, to the English emigrant. My brother, however, so far from despairing, thought the prize he was in search of so nearly within his reach, that we might venture to sail in the following spring, and he would meet us at Philadelphia. But his promised land appeared to be still so doubtful and distant, that it threw disunion, if not discord, into our councils. Some slight mention was made, too, in some of his letters, of intermittent fevers ; cheapness of farming productions, and one or two other trifling circumstances, which led, at least the oldest that remained, to break the compact they had entered into, and, with his youngest brother, whom he considered as more especially under his guardian care, to seek in Canada, that fulfil- ment of those high hopes which we had, perhaps, foolishly formed; and which had hitherto been sought for, but in vain, on the banks of the mighty tributaries of the far- famed Mississippi. ^^.r-^?«-7f f. y^^Thuswe parted, not in anger — ^farfrom it — ^but iit the most devoted affection, with the warmest wishes for each other's welfare ; not unmingled, however, with commiseration for the hardships to be endured in those hyperborean regions, on the one part, — ^and on the other, for their wilful and needless exposure, to agues and in- termittents, with their never-failing train of diseases, superinduced by the miasmae of that unhealthy climate. Young as we were, we argued the point like philoso- phers. On the one side, it was urged, that with bad *i^: 14 . health and a broken constitution ; hay, tvithbiii 8ucn positive evils, what was life itself, if exposed to such hourlj danger, but " djing a thousand deaths in fear- ing one." While, on the other hand, it was as strenu- ously argued, that sickness, and sorrow, and death,- were the natural inheritance of humanity, and, conse- quently inevitable, wherever we went ; and that the annoyances of such a climate as this, would more than counterbalance those objections, which, on this con- tinent, are incidental to a milder climate. But arguing and deciding are two very different things, seldom having any connection with each other. So at least it proved in this instance, as one party sailed for Philadelphia, in the spring of 1818, and the other for Quebec, '"^- 'The writer of these sheets, with his brother, formed the party to the latter place, and having no instructions, as to what would be suitable for the Canada market, WQ brought out our money in gold, and bills of exchange. While the others, being better informed, took out quite a venture in different articles of merchandise with which they made out but indifferently ; escaping, however, with less loss than could have been anticipated, from their ignorance of mercantile affairs and matters of business. - ^J --■■ ,■ -^ ■. . - - . ' . ' ',," ,. ; , , '-v ■:-''- ■> ^^ The voyages of both parties were prosperous, nothing having occurred but what is common to all such adven- tures, and we reached our several destinations in safety. Our small patrimony was not sufficient to enable ut tolive together at home*; the education we had received, n >' ft This endearing term isalwftys af^lied by ^e Emigrant to his luttiye country. it such sucli tn fear- istrenu- death, conse- |hat the re than is con- ifiereni 1 other, e party and the formed uctions, market, change, •at quite th which lowerer, id, from ktters of nothing i adven- 1 safetjr. lable US ecdved, dgnuitto through the industry and good management of our wor- thy parents, although better than befitted our rank in life, was not such as could be turned to a profitable ac- count, but only tended to render that kind of employ- ment we must occasionally have been subjected to, in some measure degrading, and consequently, more irk- some than laborious : whereas, by coming to America, we could unite our little funds, purchase a good farm, and cultivate it together. How soon, in the cold reali- ties of after life, are the Utopian schemes of youthful visionaries thwarted and forgotten* Two of our num- ber, after losing their little all, in some speculation in the lead mines, in the far West) fell victims to those |Atal diseases, so common in that climate^ Of the others, one pitched his tent on the Mississippi, another in the Ohio country, a third in Upper Canada, and myself in Lower Canada ; not nearer than from four to seven hundred miles to each other. I am thus particular about our dispersion, not for the sake of troubling the reader with circumstances, in which he can feel but little interest, but for the purpose of conveying to him, in a short history of each, some idea of the comparative claims these difierent countries ought to have upon his notice, as the point of destination, to which he may direct his course, when any of the thousand and one stimulants to emigration, shall have induced him to leave his native land, in search of that comfort and in- dependeice which at home are beyond his reach. I shall begin with my own history, in which that of my brothers will be interspersed, as it came to my know- ledge, by letters or otherwise. . ■ ^ -. ' As I write chiefly from memory attd am no bodk ■'&-■■ ■ -.i. • A- 16 ■ maker, mj desultory style and manner, t trust, Will be overlooked, by the ingenuous searcher after that infor- mation he stands so much in need of, and which pub- lications of this kind, frequently, if not generally, fail to convey, owing to their being so deficient in detailing the minutise, the every day circumstances, occurring in the life and occupations of a settler in this new country, without which, no adequate idea can be formed of the diflculties to be encountered, of the varieties to be met with, nor even cif the advantages to be expected : the first are generally overlooked; the second, too little regarded ; while the last, are always magnified beyond measure. , . When I reached Montreal, which is oltie hundred an^ eighty miles above Quebec, (to this port, emigrants should always take their passage, if they possibly can, at the same rate as to Quebec, and more is seldom asked,) I put my money, which had suffered but a trifling diminution, into the Bank at five per cent interest, and immediately went out into that part of the country inhabited by English settlers; when I say English, it is in contradistinction to French Canadians, and comprises also, Irish, Scotch and Americans, all in short, who speak the English language. After travel- ling about forty miles, through the intricate mazes of Canadian roads, made about as crooked as they can be, without turning directly back again, I reached the settlement I was in search of, thanks to the carter who took out my things, and acted as my pilot. As it was too late in the season to commence upon land of my own, and as my little capital would have suffered no small diminution, had I gone about ^" ^'.v.^..tts*6bHM> ni*'i?tfY-'- ""'^iiKlfiaV"""'^''' "' • wm be at infor-v ich pub- Ij, fail to lailing the ng in the country, led of the o be met Jted: the too little d beyond idred and ' emigrants sibly can, is seldom 'ed but a per cent art of the jn I say anadians, ms, all in ir travel- mazes of Y can be, ;hed the rter who »mmenee il would ne about the country hunting for a farm, — ^a practice as com- mon as it is ruinous — ^after making some enquiries into the character of the inhabitants among whom my lot had thus accidentally been cast, I attached myself to the family of one of them, a substantial farmer, a native of the country, being the son of a United Empire Loyalist, as those who remained true to their king and country, during the war with the North American Colonies, now the United States, were designated. I did not actually hire myself as a labourer, but by making myself as useful as I could, I was to pay nothing for my board ; this was certainly a foolish bargain ; but as I happened to fall into good hands, I suffered no loss by my imprudence ; for he gave me, in stock and seed-grain, as much as I could have expected, had I stipulated for regular wages. I thought, like all English farmers, I could teach the people every thing, and had myself nothing to learn; but I must now confess, that I cannot help attributing aU my subsequent success, to the knowledge and experience I obtained during this my year of probation. There were many things, it is true, I cotdd have taught them, had they been as willing to learn as I waa; but they had no confidence in their teacher; indeed, how should they, when he did not even know how to cut a tree down, or to hoe a hill of Indian corn, the very first things afarmer's boy, in this country, learns. A In the foUowiug spring, I purchased in that neigh- v bourhood, a farm of three hundred acres, about fifty of which was cleared, with a log hut, as a dwelling house*^ and a good frame barn upon it ; the price was £30Q.# j£lOO of which was paid at the time, and the remaindervl; -(•J^'-c* n 1 WM to pftj in MliHia} instalments of £50, with interest, (after tiM first year which was free) at six per cent, being Ae rate allowed by law, till the whole was paid. This nodd of paying for land h veiy common throughout every part of North America, and not unAnequently in tilke end, turns out to be more advantageous to the sdler tfian to the buyer, as farms so sold, after a year's la- bour or more in improving them, sometimes revert back to the original proprietor ftom the purchaser's inability tb complete his payments ; when he loses besides, alt he nu^ have paid, sudi bdng a general condition of the bargain. ^i^^ I now bought a yoke of oxen, £15, or 60 doUars ; three cows fbr £16 ; ten sheep for £5, and a horse for £17, several implements oThusbandi'y, some little fur^ niture, a ibw kitchen and dairy utensils, pigs, poultry, &c. The first summer was spent in getting in a littl^B crop, putting up ffsttces, and in clearing up three and a half acre» of wood-land, which I sowed with wheat in '{Sep- tember, after my earliest crops were saved* ; the rest of the autuam (here invariably called the &11) was oocii- I»ed' with my late oats^ potatoes and Indian corn. I then^ hired another man, and commenced' clearing away the underbmsh, uid as soon as the snow came, t cut llie treea down, and into lengths of from tw^ve to fifteen fdet, forpiling in heaps to burn : this work, by the lOth April, was completed upon about thirty acresj besides several^hundreds^of rails cut, split and hauled out of the bush, as the woods- are called^ as well as my winter and summer fire^wood; but as I intend to insert a whole year's diary, iot 1 have always kept one, and I woidd advise every farmer In. any country to do I' m MMM 19 'W, the 8&ffl6, 1 need not here enter into further particulars. The produce of my tana this year did not amount to more than was sufficient to pay its own expettties, and keep me and my fkmily until the fbllowing harvest, nor hardly as much, as I had some provisions to buy' In the spring I began to feel rather uneasy about my prospects ; my money was wasting away very fast ;* I had only about £50 left, and still owed more than three times that sumi ft>r my farm ; and the thirty acres, my chief dependence for a crop, looked like any thing rather than producing one, covered as it was so thickly with felled timber and heaps of brushwood, as to preclude the possibility of passing through it ; and to add to my apprehensions, the rain fell in torrents for nearly a fortnight, soaking it so completely that I thought it would never dry again, not at least, in time to be burnt over for a crop, and to perplex me still *tt( §9 neoeMaryto observe, that money is alway» redtoned herfL ini Halifax currenoy, in which a pound is not quitej e^bteea shUhnes. sterling.! My £300 sterling accordingly amonnted to sdmeming over £S3Sf, this money, besides some £16 prttaSam en myibiUsof exchange, in all about £350, out of which I paid, ,^^ For my farm when I bought it, , . . £100 ^, For ray horsey oxen, cows, &e., .... 95 -^1 J^qif Broivinons, seed ffrain, hay, &e., . . . " Besides what I bought in Montreal, as men- tioned in ray diary of April lOj amount' \,' '- vVages, . • •■ • • • • • • !* •, • "\^t BedattA instalment on my farm, . . "j^ i . £306 Leaving a balance of £44, together with £6 or £7 of interest o«er'a&d above what made up theamount of ray passage out and trurelling e^pensesi f ^ce the above was wiitten, an Act of the Legislature ha# madti the potiiAd HaUfazoitrrendy exactly I6s. 8d, steriiug : thus £100 sterung is pow £120 currency. 95 0^ mi 15 21 • -«*:» 25 X 50 a H'fJ » vUl it* more, my horse died, and two of my sheep were killed by the bears or wolves, or perhaps by my neighbours' dogs; but what annoyed me more than all these, — perhaps because it was the last misfortune that befel me, or probably because we are more apt to be distress- ed at trifles, by not preparing our minds to bear up under them, whereas in greater evils, we rouse up our energies, place our back against a rock and resolve to overcome or die, — was a circumstance, however, of n nature hardly serious enough to excuse the grave reflections of this digression, unless 1 couple what I felt with what it led'to ; as it was nothing more nor less, than a ravenous old sow that I had, getting into the place where my goslings were kept, and crunching them all up, as if they had been so many raw potatoes ; the old thief ! 1 immediately went to my friend the farmer 1 have mentioned, and laid before him all my misfortunes ; the whole family felt due commiseration for my distresses, but when I mentioned my last, the old man laughed at me, and said I was right served, as I could not expect better luck without a wife to look after such things : he might, possibly, I thought afterwards, have been in earnest, for he had a daughter, that he would have liked to have seen married in the neighbourhood, and I knew I stood high in the estimation of the parties concerned ; foe that as it may, in less than three months, I had some one to take better care of my next brood of goslings; but before this important event took place, the weather cleared up, and my prospects brightened with the brightening sun, as it shed its scorching rays upon my Slashf — as the timber I had cut down, is kiere, significantly calied,-~for it was soon dry, when I 21 set fire to it, and had an excellent burn ; all the brusii- wood and branches, as well as the scurf, formed by the accumulation of leaves, small roots and weeds, were completely consumed, and nothing left but the heavy timber : I then planted Indian corn among these logs on about twenty acres of it ; this is done by striking the hoe into the earth, raising it up loaded with soil, then dropping about five grains into the hole and cov- ering it up again, with the soil taken out (the holes three or four feet apart as the logs will permit,) when nothing more is necessary but to gather it in harvest : half of the remaining ten acres, for it will be remem- bered there were thirty in all, I cleared for oats and spring wheat, the latter of which was sown before planting the Indian corn, and the other half I left to be cleared for fall wheat. Other crops upon the old cleared land, though of little consequence compared with those on the new, were all well got in, and while they were growing I commenced clearing up the five acres for wheat, in which work I spent the remains of my last £50, depending upon the sale of my produce, together with some pot ash I had made, and intended to make, to meet my next instalment, which would become due in the following spring ; and in order to subject myself to as little risk as possible, and my mind to the less anxiety, I turned my oxen into good feed, (after my wheat was sown in the beginning of September,) to fatten them for the Montreal market, by the latter end of winter ; but my crops were good, my pot ash brought a good price ; in short, I succeeded so well in every thing, that I was able to purchase another yoke of oxen, 22 in time to get out my fire wood, and fencing tintbei , before the expiration of the winter. In the midst of all my difficulties and distresses, I received the following letter from my brother, which tended, as may well be supposed) not a little to increase them : — Carusls, Illixois, February 10, 1820^ My Dear Brother, — Your letter of last March only reached me about three months ago ; I am extremely sorry to learn from i', that you have purchased a farm, but sell it again immediately, al almost any sacrifice, and come here, where you can get as mudi land as you like, and of the very best quality, for a mere nothing, and what is better still, perfectly free from wood. It will pro- duce, without any other expense than fencing and ploughing, upwards of a hundred bushels of Indian com to the acre ; the climate is rather too warm for wheat, though we do grow it in small quantities ) but gracing is oar chief dependence, t have already upwards of one hund- od head of cattle, which did not cost me much more than half o made it. Europeans, generally, howerer, are subject, on their arrival, to slight attacks of ague and intermittent fevers. And in order that you may not be dis- appointed, if you should come, I will give you a faithful account of the few disadvantages we labour under, which you can balance against those of the country yon now live in. The price of farm- ing produce is certainly rather low, while clothing, and what you have to buy is very dear ; but then an economical farmer will make his own clothes, and live within himself i; mnrb as possi- ble. Labour is also very L^^h ; indeed, such pre tbe ? * "'ies for a man to set up the farming business himself haia^y to be had at any price. We have also some few taxes, but where is the country without them ? »« You have certainly one great advantage over us, in having a ^Vurih in your neighbourhood, as we are, in this respect, totally A tifcute, and the demoralized state of society, I confess, is dread- ful i bu V recollect, -^e have none of the severities of your hyper- D07i iuj. climate t(. contend with i and if our produce fetch but a small prio* it costs but little to raise and the imrket is at oar doors, for w« find a ready sale for every thin;^, in the Tess^U as they descend the river to New Orleans; th' refore, sell everjr thing and come. I have written for Henry, in Ohio, and James in Upper Canada, and br ^ Hi le doubt but they will also come, as they both* seem s lii*>u 'i itS?^ed with the part of the country they have settled in. I I'^oic t in the prospect of our being again united, and I: "it:- omfortably together, in this fruitful and happy country ) itt tb« fttUt aiit^4p^^>^ ^^ "^ desirable an object, I am, &c. ■ ' Obobok W . " Fruitful and happy country !" " none of the seve- rities of your hyperborean climate!" these two remarka struck my mind very forcibly, and I could think of nothing else, overlooking all the drawbacks of agues, fevers, and the demoralized state of society, &c. What a paiadise, I said to myself, and what a fool I was to be so stubbornly bent upon coming to this miseraUe country; and had I met with a purchaser, at almost any sacrifice, I should certainly have taken my brother's advice, had there not been circumstances, with which the reader is acquainted, that prevented me from exert- ing myself to accomplish an object, otherwise apparently so desirable : I might, it is true, have gathered from his letter quite enough to have deterred me from going t!'?re, but my mind was harrassed and perplexed with difficulties I was just then labouring under, so that, at the moment, any change appeared likely to afford relief, but it was well for me I did not take his advice. It was not until after this eventful period in my little history, that I heard of the death of my two brothers •James' diuatto&ction, it appeared afterwards, arose aimplj from SOB)* trilling disappointments common to new settlers wijwliere. > '• '^^« V** at Galena, on the Missouri ; a circumstance I men- tioned in a former page, and now only advert to it again, on account of the salutary effect the melancholy intelligence produced upon my mind at this particular juncture, which I may justly consider as the crisis of my subsequent fate ; for it opened my eyes, on reading George's letter oyer again, to see in its true light the importance of the " disadvantages" he mentions, despite the colours in which his prejudices had pourtrayed them. But that I may not subject myself to the imputa- tion of putting a construction upon it, twisted into accordance with this change in my opinions, I must give his own practical illustration of it, which I received from him five years afterwards in the following letter j :^i/f ," , i5 i^^ Carlisle, Illinois, Sept. 6, 1826. **My Dear Brother, — I have not written to you now for a long time — sorrow and sickness, and misery and disappointment, must plead my excuse ; and as they must have formed the only sub- ject of my letters you may the less regret my silence. Indeed, I could not find in my heart to mar, with a detail of my own suffer- ings, so much comfort and happiness as seem to have fallen to your ehvied lot : my continued silence should still have saved you from the painful commiseration I know you will feel for me, had not the thought struck me that you might possibly be able to find some one in your neighbourhood who would exchange farms, &c.^ with me here, if the rage for coming to this fine country has reached you, of which I make little doubt, as it seems to have reached everywhere. If I cannot dispose of my property in some such way, (selling it is out of the question) I am doomed, I was going to say, to live in this country, but rather to die ; I have had more than a hint of this during the summer : I have suffered dreadfully — you would hardly know me — I am literally and really an old man ; but this is not all, my farm has been totally neglected, as I could do nothing aud hiring being imprapticable. I have consequently mmmnmiifMtilt'iO ^ ' " i t> i mmfnn i w i it no crops, no l^y saved for my cattie, of which I hare moii^ tbMi 1 50 head ; and I cMWOt sell them — not even at 10s. a piece : brwd com I can get, for my own consumption as much as I want for nothing, as every body who has not been sick all summer like myaeU, has more than they can sell, even at 7|d a bushel, I mean, of course, in the ear.* Last year when it waA a lit(tle more nh9>- ble, I had to give fifteen bushels for common cotton doth enOHfh to make me a shirt We have no money in the country, and our Bank notes but ill supply its place ; some of them are at seventy five per cent, discount, while others will not even pay a hopeless debt I offered three bushels of Indian com to the post master in payment of the postage of your last letter, which he refiiaed to take, and I had to give him Is 3d in hard cash. I was at fyrJSt entirely carried away with the fruitfulness of the country — 'the fineness of its soil — the cheapness of land, cattle, &c., as all Europeans are, without duly considering that they must also sell again at such low prices ; but -Qxe difficulty of selUng at all is the principal obstaole. I have lately heard from Henry, in the Ohio country, wbf> had just retumed from a visit to James in Upper Canada, who* hfi says, has actually made his fortune ; but not content with a com- fortable independence, he has entered largely into the lumber trade, in which he has hitherto succeeded even beycmd his most sanguine expectations ; but this, of course, is no news to you, who are, according to the way in which we measure distanpas in this country, in his immediate neighbourhood. ; . ;^ , Henry himself, I fear, is not doing well; for all his letters, (and I hear from him frequently,) are filled with complaints about the high price of labour, the unhealthiness of the climate, and, above all, the enormous taxes he has to pay, whi(di he describes, on comparing them to what we paid at home, as equal in amount upon a man's capital, to what they are there upon his income ; and, since his return from the visit to Canada, he adds to the catalogue of his grievances, the want of markets and money. I have often wished to hear from you a detailed aooount of all * Indian Com is here meant, which constitutes the staple bread stuff of that part of the country. A bushel in the ear is only half as mudi when thrashed, or eheUed, as it is termed. - i 26 the (^rcTunstances that led you to make choice of so happy a country, maugre all the prejudices prevailing against it. i:M-'"ir(tXi I am, &c. G.W. ^r I will take up neither my reader's time nor my own about this part of the country, longer than to make an observation or two upon the letters he has just read, trust- ing that he will already feel convinced that this is not the region of comfort and competency he is in search of. . I am fully aware that there is a very different opinion so generally prevailing as to become (as my brother terms it) a rage, and people with such a bias, previously enter- tained, may fancy, on a cursory view of the last letter, which I consider conclusive, that it is only the ebullition of a mind struggling under disappointment, and sinking under bodily disease ; but let them compare this letter with the former one, and they will find the principal facts mentioned in each, exactly to correspond — viz. the high price of labour and the low price of farming produce ; besides, even the first letter appears to me, and I do not think I judge too unfavorably, to give a clear and compre- hensive, although a succinct account of the country, as adapted to farming p "poses, evidently framed imder a predisposition to view every thing in the most favourable light. Still he does look at every thing, but miscalcu- lates the chances against the fulfilment of his almost unbounded hopes, and the accomplishment of his exag- gerated expectations. In his second letter, admitting that he was equally predisposed to look at every thing in the most unfavourable point of view ; still again he does look at every thing. The same data are given in bc*Ii from which very different deductions are drawn — as different as practical ones are from theoretical in )&* a variety of other cases ; and in none is this difference more manifest, or more frequent than when applied to farming, or settling in America. If I thought this was not sufficient to turn away any emigrant from that grave of Europeans, I could enlist under my banner a whole host of other evidence ; but this having come so immediately under my own notice, naturally forming part of these memoirs, I mention it as such: I would not sully these sheets with garbled stories, about this or that country, framed perhaps at first, by speculators and land jobbers, to suit some interested purpose, and propagated afterwards by the ignorant and book making traveller : let not this, however, be con- strued into an assumption of superior wisdom to which I prefer no claim. vjk' » '"U- ^..ur-'k-L'il: i,<\ ■i>'iiU'mfi-& ffmmhv. At the time I received my brother's last letter, I could not help comparing my circumstances with his ; not only as they then were, but as they would have been, had all the fine expectations in his former one, been realized. We had a church and a Church of England clergy- man, in the settlement — not that every settlement has one, though few are destitute of the labours of a minister of some persuasion or other, and I would strenuously advise all well disposed emigrants not to overlook this circumstance in deciding upon their location: few there are, if any, who come to this country, having never been so situated as to be unable to attend the public worship of God, however negligent they may have been in availing themselves of the privilege, that would not feel most poig- nantly if they were deprived of the opportunity j nor would they see without some annoyance, so little respect paid to that day, set apart for relaxation and rest from f the ewes and laboitra of life, even admitting they forgot the nobler purpose for which it was intended, and to which it ought to be devoted, because it would at least be a constant witness to Ihem, on its weekly return, that Aey were, if not houseless exiles, strangers in a strange land. Indeed, I have myself seen men, whom I knew to have seldom entered the precincts of the sanctuary, travel, what in England would be considered an incre- dible distance, upwards of 20 miles, to attend divine service, or perhaps to get thdr children baptized, or the clergyman to visit the sick of his family, or to " bury his dead out of his sight," consoling himself in his afflic- tion, with the idea, that there was one so near. It is in circumstances such as these, that the heart of the exile yearns after his native land ; he therefore ought to secure to lumself in the home of his adoption, as many of those favourable features in the home he has left, as can possibly be found, and they will be to him as household god*) ; they bring with them associations tLat beguile into the tale of other years ; and if they do not revive in our memory those scenes of pure and unmingled happiness in the bright and buoyant season of youth, they occa- sionally throw a transient halo of delight over our exis- tence by leading us to forget that we are away from them. Every emigrant may feel assured, that however anxious he may be to leave his native country, and how- ever much it may be to his advantage to do so, he will retain a painful recollection of it, to the latest hour of his existence ; no one brought up in a country like Eng- land, where such order and regularity prevail, can form any idea of the demoralized state of society in many portions of the United States, whereas the partoftho m 29 rS. country where I had located myself, might challenge the whole world, for its superior in orderliness and My brother mentions, as a disadvantage, scxne few taxes-; I never heard from him a detailed account of these taxes, but I can give one from my other brother, in the State of Ohio, where they are lower than in almost any other portion of the Union : — ^there is first a tax for the support of the United or General Govenmient ; then a State tax ; and a town tax, exclusive of the Road duty, which must be a tax every where; besides which he can- not well avoid paying something towards the salaries of the Minister and School Master, amoimting, without the two last, to about one per cent upon his whole property, or two shillings in the pound upon his annual income, supposing his property brings him ten per cent upon his outlay. — ^I leave it to the Emigrant himselfto compare this with the taxes he pays at home. In Upper Canada, the taxes to which I shall have occasion to advert hereafter, are much lighter, but in Lower Canada the case is very dif- ferent : at this moment (1837) I have increased my pro- perty by care and industry, under the blessing of an over- ruling Providence, about nine fold, as I consider it worth little less than £3,000, and I might have made it much more, if I had not remitted in my exertions to increase it, and indulged in more of the comforts and luxuries of life than were absolutely necessary ; yet in all the course of my progress to wealth and independence, I never paid one farthing neither of direct taxes,* nor to Ministers' or * This, since the union of the provinces, does not generally apply to the Eastern portion, direct taxes being now imposed by the Municipal Councils ; but as that body has refiised to act in C2 u , K 80 SdMol Masters' salaries, whi^ are provided for from other sonroes, and all the indirect taxes would hardly amount to a moiety of what is thus paid by the inhabi- ■tantsof any other ciyilized country upooa earth. As to markets* a very material and important c(msid- eration, I may assert at once, without the fear of ccmtra- ^diotion, that Montreal is the best on the whole continent of North America, sufficient proof of this, is exhibited in the well known fact, that great numbers, from hun- dreds of miles within the limits of Unit United States, xesort to iL Our produce fetches a iakr remvnerating {irice, the aecessaries we have to purchase are cheaper than any where else on this side the Atlantic. The facilities c^ conveyance to this market are very great, by roads tolerably good in summer, supeib in winter ; by lUKvigable rivers, canals and one nail road ; and if ^e cannot grow so much upon an acre of hmd here, nor so easily, as m warmer latitudes, we can cultivate it at so much less expence, in consequence of the price of labor being so much more reasonable, «o that if a farmer in this Province were to pay for the tillage of an acre oat of its own produce, he would have as much left, or nearly so, as a fiirmer in the Western States after doii^ the same thing, which would sell for three or four tunes as much as it would in the West ; this also applies to liie more distant parts of Upper Canada though not to the same extent. Th« length and severity of our winters, of which s much is said, form generally the diief^ if not the only MTgument^ver attf^mpted to be used agamst^s part of Haa distriot, the aagertion b still true, 40 iu at kast m Mttler is ooocflraed.— Bp. ..t .*., 'M^-.^'f-iyKi-^' ii^^.fi^■*'X'?.ifVK^ -^-.(.l ••MM the country ; and to look only at the state of tlie thet* mometer and the depth of snow, it would appear rather a formidable one, but the thermometer and our feelings do not unfrequently measure heat and cold, especially the latter, very differently .—I have actually suffered more from cold in England, while closely shut up in a mail coach, during a night in July, when the thermometer could not be so low as the freezing point, than ever I suffered in this country when it has been near zero: and this is easily accounted for by the fact, that, in the one case, the atmosphere was saturated with moisture; while in the other it was dry. From which it would appear that our feelings, as far as the cold is concerned, would correspond more nearly with the range of the hydrometer than with that of the thermometer. It must, however, be admitted, that the thermometer is so low for a day or two every winter, as to indicate such an intense degree of cold, as to require care to avoid suffering from its As to the snow ; its depth and long continuance on the ground, are such a convenience and benefit to the farmer, that he is anxious for its coming, and sorry when it leaves him ; it also acts as manure uid pulverizes the land, superseding in a great measure the necessity of fallowing. Half at least of what is said about this climate, has no other foundaticMi than what is to be found in ^e imagination and credulity of travellers ; according to these, to be frost bitten is of so frequent occurrence as to become the suh^ect of a necessary and almost daily salutation, ** Sir, your nose is frozen !" I have been a farmer in this very severe climatei, uj)ward8 of 20 yea^s, 32 i and have never seen or heard of, a single instance of material suffering fh)m the cold : people may ha?e lost their waj in a stormy night and perished, but I do not consider these exceptions peculiar to this country, as such cases have happened in Great Britain, and even in Spain, as a sentinel on duty at Madrid, was frozen to death in his sentry box in 1836. The length of our winter too, has been much exaggerated : while now writing, this 29th November 1827, my cattle are out grazing night and day, not yet having had any snow, nor scarcely any frost ; I have sometimes not been obliged to take them in or to feed them till a few days before Christmas, though this is rarely the case : and by the middle of April we conmience sowing our grain, so that our winter is on an average not of more than four or five months duration, instead of six or seven, as people have been led to sup- pose. I am not prepared to give advice so well as the author of one emigrants' guide, who states that he has read every thing that has been published on the subject, during the last ten years ; whereas, I have read scarcely any- thing of the kind during a much longer period ; yet do I hesitate not, to claim from the emigrant, for th^^t^c observations of mine, an equal, if not a greater share of his confidence and attention ; not because they are faultless ; far from it, the writer is by no means blind to their blemishes ; but because of their plain practical truth ; being the ungarnished history of many years experience, with conclusions, resulting from mature consideration. With such means and opportunities, another could unquestionably have produced something of the kind equally useful, and perhaps better calculated 39 to answer the purpose for which this is design^ ; but how difficult would it be to find a person, with the same opportunities of information that I have had the good or bad fortune to have had thrown in my way. One person makes a hasty journey through Canada, to the Western States, and back again, and publishes an account of it, as a ^uide to the poor emigrant with a largo family to those distant regions ; another, who was perhaps never out of his counting-house, or from behind his counter, farther away from some large town in which he had resided from his boyhood, than a Sunday morn- ing's ride into the country would take him ; and he forbooth, must needs point out to the weary pilgriob the very spot, in this wild wilderness of woods, where his foot might rest : there are others still more likely to mislead emigrants, than either of the scribblers I have mentioned, who, not satisfied with writing alone, have agents at every port to direct and ci^ole as many as possible, into certain districts where they have large tracts of land for sale at a very cheap rate. The best and only remedy for all such evils would be found in the establishment of a board of emigration, an object no less desirable from other and more important considera- tions. See note B in Appendix. .*-^:^^ -^isw^.coii. There is, I trust, another advantage, which this little work will possess, at least over some of a more im- posing appearance, and it will consist in afibrding the emigrant, before he leaves his native country, what he has hitherto anxiously sought for but in vain, namely an idea of the every day transactions and occurrences of a settler's life j the common trifles, that have never yet been thought worth mentioning by more learned writers, 84 but which, notwithstanding, constitute the greater por- tion of our employment, and occupy most of our time. Indeed what is it that renders the works of the most popular writers so interesting to men like me, but the happj talent they display of describing, so familiarly, the common fireside nothings of real life ; but as I nei- ther possess, nor pretend to any such excellence, I must make up for the deficiency as far aa such a thing may make up for it, by giving an account of my daily occu- pations, during the first and most anxious year or my hfe, in the woods of Canada, as noted down by me at the time. Sometimes it will be observed, that a few days are omitted, this is generally owing to there being no variation in the work, or else that they were forgot- ten: •-•- !(.--;i**' ;.,-. sifln .a*c.. . .-li ;. >■ • .:-. i'''''.' "'{. vv,. •/'.•>» ...fj .; April 10th.* — Returned, withmyh>r'»d man Richard, and a load, with a horse and ox cart, from Montreal, 40 miles, 2 days on the road, which is very bad, the frost not quite out of the ground — my loading all safe, con- sisting of the following items ; a plough $17, 2 axes 8s. each — ^harrow teeth — 8s. for a bush harrow, in shape of the letter A. — 2 logging chains 10s. each — 2 scythes and stones 9s. 8d. — 1 spade 3s. — 1 shovel 4s. — 1 dung fork 2s. 6d. — 2 steel pitchforks Ss. 6d. each — 3 augers 1, 1^ and 2 inches, 15s. — 1 bbl. pork $20 — 1 bbl. N. shore herrings $5 — 2 bbls. flour 278. 6d. each — 20 apple trees, and 6 plumb trees, at 28. each — 16 gooseberry bushes and grape vines, at Is. 3d. each, amounting to £21 2s. 2d. Put my apple trees, &c., into a hole in the garden — * The 1st of this month may be considered generally as the commencement of the agricultural year. ' '3.** *.^^**.'^ ^^-'^".''^■'^^ur^'-''''^^ r--A^--\f ■■ I got a good cup of tea, saw my horse and oxen well taken care of, and went to bed — thus ended the first day of my new mode of life. April 11th. — My man Richard fed and watered the cattle — got breakfast with some difficulty, owing to the want of many things we ought to have got in Montreal ; we had no frying pan for instance— herrings superb— being Sunday, went to church morning and afternoon. April 12th. — Up at daylight — reprimanded Richard for being out too late the night before, planted my apple, plumb trees, &c., in what had been an apology for a gar- den — mended the fence round it — broke open our pork barrel, found it good — ^had some for dinner — knocked the spout off the new tea kettle, of course cracked before — worse off than ever for cooking utensils — ^borrowed a frying pan, and boiled potatoes for dinner in a forty gal- lon pot — 2 cows calved and a ewe yeaned 2 lambs. April 13th. — Got a supply of cooking apparatus at a shop in the nei^bouring village-— commenced plough- ing for wheat, making garden, &c. Hired another man for the summer at $10 a month, same as I gave Richard, another cow calved. This was considered a very early spring, but I have since sown wheat, on this day, two years consecutively, and might have done so oftener, had it been otherwise convenient. April 14. — Hired a house-keeper at $4 a month — sowed onions, beets, sallad, &c., — new man Charles, mending fences — drawing rails with the horse and cart — Richard still ploughing with the oxen — myself at the garden — bought 4 cows at $18 each — 2 of them calved a month before — made a harrow. April 15th. — Sowed wheat after washing it with brine m ■'J ■ : and drying it with lime — Charles harrowed it in with the horie — 4 bushels (our measure which is nearly the same as Imperial) upon 3^ acres, according to the custom of the country — ^];)lAnted early peas and sowed garden seeds — Richard still ploughing — 2 ewes yeaned. April 16th. — Charles and myself making fence — one of the new cows calved — ploughing for potatoes and corn, first time. April 17th. — Same as yesterday, and same to the end of the month, except tliat we sowed about four acres of oats and peas mixed. May 1st. — All at work on the roadB~fini8hed our highway duty. May 2nd. — Sunday. — All to church. May 3rd. — One of the men churned before breakfast, with a 8*ving-chum,* lately invented — cut up a little firewood — too warm to plough with oxen in the middle of the day — all making fence. - - - >■ •■ ■ May 4th and 5th. — Wet days — made four rakes and handled and ground the new axes, one having been parti- ally ground and a temporary handle in it before— ^ .. . ,..»*k , May 6th. — Fine again — ^land too wet to plough — making fences — Richard went to the mill with a few bushels of oats to be made into meal — ^got the horse shod. 1 ,. ; '■ -^u '.-i. -:" , •.,-'-!•:. ^.-.x." ';•:';,'.. May 7th. — ^Very warm and sultry — ploughing for In- * The intelligent reader might discover from this mention of the swing chum so lately invented, as well as from a reference to mills for making oat meal so recently established, that this ^ary was not written at the period referred to. To which I can only re^ly that in correcting it for the press, such impjortant dis- crej^ancies were introduced for the better information of the Emigrant, being more in accordance with the present time. . vu 87 •• •« *. ireakfast, p a little [e middle rakes and Ben parti- -— cleared plough — rith a few the horse ng for In- > mention of a reference d, that this nrhioh I ean portant dis- tion of the ; time. dian corn by day -light, left off at 10 and commenced again at 4, P. M., continued till dark— carting stones off the corn-land — finishing my garden — got home the grist sent away yesterday. May 8th. — One of the principal farmers of the settle- ment killed by a tree falling upon him. Work same as yesterday until noon, when wc all went to assist in rais- ing a wooden building for a barn 40 feet by 30 for one of our neighbours. *'' ' ' '* May 9th. — Sunday. — All Wont to Church — I need not again mention this, as wc never allowed anything to interfere with this duty. A tremendous thunder- storm. f 1 . , V - May 10th and 11th. — Drawing manure for Indian corn, ploughing it in, &c. * • ' May 12th and 13th. — Same work as two preceding days — and planting Indian corn and pumpkins — atten- ded funeral of the neighbour killed on the 8th. May 14th and 15th. — Sowed more oats and finished planting Indian corn — ^killed a fat calf — sold one quar- ter for 5s. and the skin for the saine. .* * ^ May 16th.— Sunday. '" ' May I7th. — To end of month clearing up an old «* Slash," which terra has previously been defined ; draw- ing the logs together with the oxen ; then piling and burning them. • One wet d;iy, sheared the sheep, which were got in before the rain came on. Commenced plant- <^ ing corn on the new clearing. June 1st and 2d. — Sowing H acre of oats on the clearing ; Richard ploughing the potatoe land second time; Charles drawing out manure and spreading it before him ; myself planting potatoes with a hoe after 38 him : it may be here remarked^ that before the stumps are all out, or nearly so, it is not possible to drill up land for this crop. June 3d. — Finished the potatoes, and reckoned up my crop — stands as follows : wheat 3^, peas 3, oats 5, Indian corn 6, potatoes 5^ — ^in all, 23 acres — meadow 20, pasture 13, partially cleared 20, added to the 23, makes 76 acres. It may be remembered here, that I said my farm contained about 50 acres of cleared land, whereas I make out 76 acres, but I did not then take into the account neither the 20 acres partially clear- ed, nor the 6 or 7 I cleared myself. June 4th. — A holiday, which I have always kept in commemoration of the birth of good King George the III. of blessed memory. > ; ^ .-,. ■ ... June 5th. — Went to a training^ as it is here called. All the men in the country, with some trifling excep- tions, between the . ^es of sixteen and sixty, capable of bearing arms, are obliged by law to muster once a year j and this constitutes the militia of the Province. June 6th — Sunday. — I witnessed on this evening a splendid and gorgeous sunset, far surpassing any thing of the kind I had ever seen at home. Even a sunset in Italy, as a Commissariat Officer, settled on a farm near me, who had served in that country, declared could not be compared to it. June 7th to 15th. — Finished mending and making fences. Made a road through a little swamp near the rear of my farm, where I had commenced a clearing- carting out upon it an accumulated heiap of chips from the front of my wood-shed — put up a small building behind my garden, which, though not always to be found on a farm-stead here, is not the less necessary. .1- •i:t :i 39 June 16th to eitid.— Hbeirig corn and excessively hot, thennometer, one day, 86 in the shade; sowed an acre of turnips on my new clearing. July Ist, 2d, and 3d. — Finished hoeing Indik^ >i4f [I I to clear land, because the brush is in ^ull leaf, which, when drj, helps to burn it, all which a person soon learns when he comes to the country, but would doubt- less like to know something about it before. August 2d. — Attending a meeting of the principal inhabitants about repairing the roof of the church- steeple ; gave a dollar towards the expense — bought a pew, £6 — the two men underbrushing — ^first new po- tatoes — ^bought a sickle and a cradle scythe — made the cradle, having had the fingers blocked out before — a very difficult thing to make. August 4th to 7th. — Clearing part of the under- brushed land, for winter wheat — same until 10th, when I began reaping and cradling — continued tiU 21st — finished harvesting, except 1^ acre of late oats and the Indian corn — cut first melon, but I am very late. August 31st — Resumed clearing land — ^killed a lamb. September 1st to 10th. — Same work, and sowed three acres of winter wheat — commenced making pot- ash from the ashes I had saved when clearing the land. _ , ■ ; '--f -"■«;. _ September 11th to 22d. — At the underbrushing — continued at the potash till I made two larrels, which 1 sold for something over £15 — my neighbour's cattle broke into my Indian corn, but did little damage. , * September 23d. — Wet day — threshing and dressing up 1^ bushels wheat and 8 of oats — sent them to mill at night— oats weighed 48 lbs. , ^^ ; ; ^iS* -»4^i w^**^* September 24th. — Got home grist — oats produced 2 cwt. qr. 14 lbs. — got a certificate from the miller and a farmer of the weight of the oats — 40 lbs. being the general average weight of good oats — made a "*" fcr'*»*^'^r*'^'*«« 41 under- )th, when a 21st— 9 and the ate. , id a lamb. Ld sowed k.ing pot- ring the usbing — lis, which ir's cattle ige. . dressing tn to mill ~c^ wooden box as a steamer for my boiler — ^box containing 12 bushels. >'"->^^-^r^^ F^ '^q^Krr-T ^ ' September 25th. — Commenced ploughing — ^had a cow dried up and bled, and turned into the best feed to make beef ' >'. ■'*'■'''' ■'*' :^•■-•i•.li-■^' ^^ ri^i'- • ■ An ox, belonging to my neighbour being one of the cattle which broke into my com, died of a surfeit, as was supposed, of such rich succulent food as the green corn. This made him mend his portion of the line fence between my farm and his, which I never could get him to do before. 27th. — Conmienced steaming pumpkins for my hogs — ^shut them up— threshed 5 bushels of peas and oats, had them ground to mix with the pumpkins — ^fed the hogs with raw food for some weeks before — ^made a hog-trough, by hollowing out a pine k)g. Went to a squirrel hunt which I must give some account of. Some years, when the nuts in the woods are plenti- ful, the squirrels are so numerous as to do great dam- age to the Indian eom^ when a conspiracy like the fol- lowing, is entered into, for the destruction of them, as well as of all enemies that may be met with, whose depredations are chiefly confined to this valuable crop. All the men, young and old, for miles round, form them- selves into two bands, each under a Captain, and which- ever gets the least quantity of game, has to pay for a ball and supper, at the village tavern, for the whole- — each kind of animal being reckoned according to its impor- tance, thus the right paw of a betu:. counts for 400 — of a racoon 100 — squirrel 1 — right daw of a crow, woodpecker, or blue jay, 1 &c. — ^by daylight of the morning of muster, the woods were all alive with the d2 14 eager hunters, and in the afterpart of the day, the fields were swarming with groups of women and children, with provisions and ammunition for their several parti- zans, and to disburthen them of their spoils — ^it was truly a season of merry and joyous holiday, in which all business and work was suspended; many a small party spent sleepless nights watching for bears and racoons, for it is only then they come out — ^this lasted 'for three days, when we all met at the tavern to count up our spoils, in trembling anxiety for the award of two judges appointed to decide upon the claim for victory — the party I belonged to had 2 bears, counting 800 — 4 racoons, 400 — 473 squirrels — ^27 crows — 105 blue jays and woodpeckers— counting altogether 1,835, and yet we lost, as the other party had nearly the same, besides one bear more. " The child may rue that was unborn, ti?rr.1 v'>i" ; : r . . i i,. i^e hunting of that day." - r-' September 29th and 30th. — Richard ploughing-^ Charles and I gathering Indian corn ; at night had a <'bee," a term used for a mustering t<^ether of the neighbours, to assist in any work, which would puzzle an individual to do alone, when all the young men and boys in the settlement came to help me to husk it. Got the first premium for it from the Agricultural Society. «l:?i^^^iSi::-ii?tfi*jfe'**ir»ifvj^ffr'fe<»4f--^^^ October 1st and 2d.-— Same work — evening to husk- -ing bee at a neighboursi»t»!S03^.>j'f -ip^&M'imiWm 1H r'ff?^f October 4th to 7th. — ^Ploughing-^finished getting in the Indian com— cutting the com stalks-^husking our- selves at night what little we had gathered during Uie dfty : oollected md brought home pumpkins, ^i:^^*:^ m % 'is 48 m October 8th to 9th. — Binding com stalks, and stack- ing them up to dry, — collected and got in pumpkins. October II th. — Got in remainder of pumpkins and the onions. October 12th. — Stacked corn stalks, and fenced them round together with the hay stack. - ,.,^. October 13th. — Commenced digging potatoes. • October 14th to 20th. — Finished taking up potatoes —800 bushels — ^ploughed over the land to the end of the month — ploughing — clearing land, &c. — ^hired Charles for the winter, for $7 a month. October 22d. — The boundless, measureless forest — the stupendous wilderness of woods, which overwhelms the whole face of the country, exhibited, in the bright sunshine and the pure atmosphere of this lovely morn- ing, a picture as novel as it was beautiful in the eyes of a stranger ; for, instead of waving their luxuriant foliage over mountain, hill and valley, in the same rich though monotonous hue of living green, the trees now had assumed a colouring which, in brilliancy and vari- ety, exceeded all description. The soft mantle is the first to commence this gorgeous display, by hanging to a rich crimson ; the sugar maple then follows in simi- lar, though more sombre tints, variegated with the yellow of the trembling poplar, the orange and gold of the beech, and the sere brown of the butternut, while the sturdy oak still maintains his deep green in defiance of those harbingers of winter. November 1st. — Same work, and getting in turnips and cabbages, and all other garden stuffs — ^took in the cows at night. 350 bushels turnips. November 2d. — First hard froBt~-oould not plough till noon — clearing, &c. 44 ll November 3d to 20th. — Underbrushing— cutting fire •firood— cattle out all day and only the cows in at night — ^hard frost, no more ploughing I suppose. November 21st. — ^First snow, — ^took jn all the cattle. November 22d. — A thaw and wet day — ^threshing more grain for the hogs — sent it to the miU. i^^x November 23d to 30th, — ^Ploughing again one day — clearing — Skilled a sheep— hard frost again, but fine weather called the Indian Summer, with a slight smoky haziness in the atmosphere, through which the sun is seen with a deadened lustre — something like a full moon. Dececmber 1st to 4th. — ^Indian Summer continues — clearing and chopping. December 5tb. — Killed my hogs. December 6th. — ^Fall of snow — ^threshing— cutting up and salting pork. December 7th. — ^Drawing wood home for fuel, in the log, with the horses and oxen, not being snow enough to draw it on the sled. December 8th and 9th. — Made an ox sled^ — cutting fire wood. ^'■-■'^^'-^''■' December 10th and 11th. — Drawing fire wood as on December 13th. — Snow storm — ^threi^ng. ^'<'ii.> December 14th. — ^Drawing in stack of com stalks to to give to the cattle instead of hayj which I cannot yet get at in my bams, it being covered with grain, and not wishing to cut into my hay stack till I should have room enough to take it all in at once. y* ' '-*^- Dec. 15th. — Commenced cutting down the trees on the land I had underbrushed, and chopping them into lengths for piling— cutting firewood and drawing it — cutting, splitting and drawing out rails for fence:-, and timber for a new barn — threshing and 'tending the cat- tle — getting out hemlock logs for the saw mill, for boards for the new barn — drawing them home, and making shingles, occupied our time all winter with the exception of my journey to Montreal with butter and a few bushels of grain, v '^ich I sold, and, with the pro- ceeds, bought some groceries and other necessaries, preparatory to my anticipated change of circumstances. In the following spring it was the 20th of April be- fore the snow was all off the ground when vegitation commenced and progressed with a rapidity unknown to the British Isles, it is indeed a disadvantage for the ,snow to go away earlier. ^ — ■ ■v- .*- - Had this diary been kept in some other locations, on the Ottawa for instance, the winter would have been much more advantageously employed, by getting out wood for the steamboats, as a yoke of oxen or a pair of horses could easily clear £20 or £30 besides ' doing the work already mentioned, by being constantly employed and well fed. In that section of the country there is also a ready market in every village, perhaps k) the best in America for all kinds of agricultural . produce. ,^::)r'? 'ii.«^Sj;« ,yj' 4 'i*.-i-'tff.h:tmym'^ When an emigrant first attempts to cut down a tree, to make use of a homely but characteristic simile, he seldom succeeds, even to his own satisfaction, and I ^ feel that the same may be said of a first attempt at I book-making, if it should not apply to first attempts at every thing else ; and this was my principal reason for attempting to revise and improve this little . work, ,,^-,A»»v.,i««i',-r-c.,«"— '•■^•! ■??• '^^•.'^"'''- '"Nj..'^-/^^. ^4 I. " ■•■.•.•■- 1," '* ., . ; ■ • V . ■: ■'•■; ■■ t ■ .' from an earnest desire to render it more deserving the reception it has already met with from an indulgent public, and, in accordance with this wish, I must not allow the present opportunity to escape me of correcting an erroneous impression, which these memoirs, without such explanation, might produce. I allude to their apparent exclusive recommendation of Lower Canada to the notice of the emigrant. I say apparent, because I do equally recommend to his notice, not only both banks of the Ottawa, the left of which is in Upper Can- ada throughout nearly the whole course of that stupen- dous river, which now forms the best and most com- modious communication with the interior, and will doubtless become, at no very distant period, what it has been not inaptly termed, the very back bone of this mij^hty Province ; but I also speak as favourably of the whole of Upper Canada, below and away from the Great Lakes, whose shores, in some places, are unheal- thy. I have said more, it is true, about Lower Canada, where I myself, and others that I know, have succeeded so well : at the same time I wish it to be distinctly understood that the objects I had in view, were first, to shew that certain portions of Lower Canada had as good a claim to the notice of the Emigrant, as any por- tion of Upper Canada, and secondly, to prove that either had a much better than any portion of the United States could pretend to, or why do such num- bers of ♦Iieir citizens flock to this country while so few ere found to migrate from hence to theirs, and that few I believe generally return, or would do so if they could. '■■^7i: '"IJ'J '•■' tnil.->r '.• rv' -w^T.V • i,"...ni;,li.!J.,;7 4>'' III m k jr~tJ^M*a^^f^*-\-..h/' . \h. I 47 rving the indulgent must not orrecting 3, without I to their T Canada because )nly both jper Can- it stupen- lost com- and will hat it has le of this jurably of from the '6 unheal- ? Canada, succeeded distinctly re first; to da had as i any por- •rove that >n of the luch num- lile so few d that few 10 if they This is strikingly illustrated '.^ the following reflec- Itions, from the Bytown Gazette, upon an observation [of my own, bearing upon this point, supported and Strengthened by explanatory facts : — " We could mention many other instances in which the oldest lettler even, as well as the strange emigrant, have been deceived y either over-colourinjj the advantages of remote sections of he country, or concealing important objections to which they ere liable for settlement. Within the last month we were fa- oured with the perusal of a letter from a family who were a few ears ago allured by these deceptive misrepresentations to go rom this neighbourhood to *he State of Michigan. The father, pretty well advanced in life, has been for some years comfortably settled on a lot of laud (100 acres) on the bank of the Ottawa, |hrd what is termed a good clearing, well stocked with comfortable luildings, within eight miles of this town, the best market for the mer in British North America, and to which he had access by good road. The old gentleman paid a good share of attention the cultivation of a small spot of a garden, and being generally e earliest in the market, commanded the highest price for his rden stuffs, so much so that he informed us in one season he alized £60 currency, from the produce of his garden alone, sides what his farm yielded him. All this would not do ; he some sons grown up, and fearing that the extent of his farm !i»Vrould not be sufficient for his family, and flattered by the accounts '^ the cheap rate at which lands could be procured in Michigan, Ithd the great returns it yieited, he abandoned all his present illttering prospects and determined to transport himself and ftimily to that country. As might be expected, his property l^re, by a forced sale, brought a price under value. The whole tvas, however, converted into cash, and the unfortunates, as they m^y be truly called, set out for the land of promise in the State pf Michigan. It was from this family, being their joint produc-;^ ion, that the letter was sent to one of their old neighbours, and ith which we were favoured with a perusal It was filled with lurmurings and regrets at their having left Canada. True, they ed land at what they considered a fair rate ; higher, how- / ii.:'' ii:^ ever, than it would have cost them in Canada, but they were pro- mised larger returns of crops from it. When they came to pur- chase the other requisites, it was then they suffered from the exorbitant charges. The soil was of that deep alluvial clay de- scription, that no less than four or frequently six oxen were required for a plough. The usual price of each yoke was from £40 to £50, and every other description of farming stock high in a like proportion. To procure these, drained them of all their pecuniary resources ; and if, as not unfrequently happens with new comers, they had been obliged to purchase a part of their stock upon credit, many years of hard and almost helpless toil had to be endured before they could be freed from their debt, the low price they obtained for the produce of their land far over- balancing the larger returns in these crops when compared with the state of these matters in Canada. To similar ills many others, equally deceived, have become the unfortunate victims." John S. Evans, a native of the State of Vermont, came into this province, and settled in a seigniorj bor- dering on the Eastern Townships : as he had no money, he took a wild lot of land, upon which he made, in a few years, rather a valuable improvement, and acquired some little stock, sold out, and returned to the States, under the impression that although this country was better than his own without a capital, (no mean praise,) yet, with a capital small even as his own, he would do better there, found out his mistake, and in two years returned, no better than lie went, to the vicinity of his old location, and is now doing welL The following is a case I feel pleasure in recording: — Elon Lee settled in the Eastern Townships, got dis- satisfied, sold out, and returned to his native country, one of the States — I believe Massachusetts — failed in his attempts to establish himself there, got overhead and ears in debt, made a moon-light flitting again into after remainiog there three years, returned to Broagh- ton, and i« now content to remain, and is in a thriying condition. John Kojle went to the States, worked hard for three or four yearn, found he could not ** go ahead," returned to Broughtl BKD OF PABI I, I- , .--i-r > -A ;?»'vrfr'';'im>'.? '•< ^ ■tr.t'r..' I . J ■ .Ur^J'iy^ 'ji'j ''?t""!' j'Vj^rt'v 'C-il >)'f- • Ij .'*i(>i- ■\.% i>. 'is f^*"' ^ ^..■ V. ^.-I'lir, -rj; t'A- 'i^. >( i^fe'lt M/il-j ,f.;,i^ .^= y^».A \JiVf j: minimi jf -h^! Hj fJTVr. '/ 1?' .r.K l». .^ ;i«lk. - .,.,'!f* rv^^: ?! nD^r^l m "iL, I -I — I ttt M di fifnfrfi^-*!. *- :-^ ^ :',', '.*': '/.'' •■ y . THB EMIGRANT TO NORTH AMERICA, * - fBOM MEMORANDA or A 4 ;■■ at SETTLER IN CANADA. ■; K 1' ■■ PART IL ««''? "^•'i'"'? >;y.i'n''^'»;'T,K It may be remeny^ilH| that I mentioned, in the former part of this true and iaithful narrative, that one of my brothers (James) had located himself in Western or Upper Canada ; and it may also have been observed, that I never afterwards referred to any communication from him, and this was owing to the simple fact of my never having received any; and, consequently, I endea- voured to make up for the deficiency, as best I might, from other sources of information, some of which, as will appear from allusions to them hereafter, were not altogether so pure and free from error as they ought to liave been. Thinking, however, that this brother, not- withstanding his negligence, would be pleased to see our little history in print, I sent him a copy of my pamphlet, and I am rejoiced that I did so, as it has roused 52 him from his indolent apathy and produced the follow- ing letter from him : — N , NEAB GODERICH, AugUSt 14, 1842. : My dear Brothbb, I have duly received your affecticmate letter ; but it was not until three weeks afterwards, and I cannot accxmnt for the delay, that the mail brought me your long wished fbrpoaiphlet, for which, from some equally unaccountable cause, I had 18s. 9d. postage to pay > this, as you may easily suppose, put me rather into a bad humour with it ; however, as I read on through several pages, I got so far interested, and I may say delighted, that I forgot the 18s. 9d. till I came to your description of Upper Canada, as you persist in calling this part of the Province, when the unfortunate three dollars and three quarters again rose up in judgment against you, because you speak disparagingly of a sec- lion of the country, near as it is to you, of which you seem to know but very little ; or rather, I ought per- haps to say, that your assertions, though true, only apply to a very small portion of this vast and boundless country.. As to fever and ague, for instance, was not the Isle-aux-Noix, ^.ear St. Johns, in your own section of the Province, abandoned, in consequence of the pre- valence of that disease in that particular locality? And yet, how absurd to say that it prevailed in Eas- tern Canada. You yourself, and I am delighted to hear it, have succeeded in obtaining a comfortable competency, and I doubt not but hundreds of others may have done as well, but I suspect that you would have to pick them } ,«*4-/--.t5!4, a "#,-. 53 #C^S l??*M out of multitudes less fortunate ; whereas, in this place, from which I now write, you might find a whole settle- ment, with hardlj a solitary exception, equally sue- cessful. I myself, to give you some account of my own his- tory, which I have so long neglected to do, have not, it is true, been so uniformly prosperous as you seem to have been, owing to misfortunes, which, however, have nothing to do with either the country or the climate, but were entirely and solely attributable to my own folly. I was not satisfied with a comfortable competency, but must make a fortune ; to this end I entered into the lumber trade, and lost all, about ten years ago. I then came here a beggar, and commenced anew ; and, suffice it to say, I am now a rich man. Therefore, in the new edition of your pamphlet, which you talk of publishing, instead of saying a word against this portion of the Province, insert in it a number of letters, I send you herewith, from a plain, practical Scotsman, an Ayrshire emigrant, as they contain the plainest and best descrip- tion of it that I have ever met with. These letters were written to his brother, a mechanic, in Glasgow, and a copy of them taken by a Lanarkshire farmer for his own guidance in coming to Canada, the originals being kept by the person to whom they were addressed, to serve as a guide to himself in his intended emigra- tion next spring. wv»k-jp-^^'^^ij Uifd&^l .h ■m:A,:^M^^ This Lanarkshire farmer is now settled in this neigh- bourhood, and kindly sent them to me on returning your pamphlet, which I had lent him. He wishes them to be returned ; but if you make such use of them as I recommend, and send him a copy of your work, I sup- e2 pose you need not trouble yourself further about the MSS. If you send me a copy it will do as weU^ but mind about the postage ! -^ '^ '■ ' '*'^ ^m^^mm Tour's, &c. #«^^ ^mmm:^^ James W -. The following are the letters to which my brother refers, and it is hoped they will be considered a vahia" ble addition to this little work :— ^^ ,,^, ,. ^,^.,,„,, ,, .^■Wi;-]i%9iU^^liimr^^' LETTER L uuu^u^;r%-Mif./^;*ii , MV Dear Bjiotheh, ^f^^^} , ^;:. - ' • -;"^''^^ ^^,; ''^m.^^^'- As I promised to write you anent every thing, just as it happened, I shall not trouble you with any attempt to arrange and classify, or to divide my letters, into heads, as our wortliy minister used to do his preachings ; > I Shall just note down every thing as it happened, even foot foremost. "When I wrote you last from Greenock, I thought we should have sailed the next day, as the ship lay at the tail of the bank ; but as the wind was contrary, we were delayed two days longer— so, as I was leaving my native country, perhaps for ever, I considered that 1 ought to see as much of it as possible, and therefore I took advantage of our second mate's proceeding to Port Glasgow, to take farewell of his fiiends, to accom* pany him to behold the wonders of that celebrated place. '■lm-/imMm •^«)ia':»r-'mi^"-Kt i-'ii.(,^ai'tii«rui -'iAl ^"4'Travellers are proverbially given not to under state what they see in far away parts, and so I found by experience, for the Port Glasgow steeple, so far from slanting over like the hanging tower of Saragossa, in .*■'■ b> %..:/•*< ^'.* -^'iiaiiiitiijl ■■ ... 55 v;:. ;■. the Penny Magazine, is just a wee thocht agee» From canny and cautious investigation) for it is a ticklish subject with them, I found that it is a real fact that they first painted their grand bell, which deadened the sound, and then boiled it to take aff the paint ; but they succeeded no better in this than in another boiling ploy they had about this time. Ye see, a young man from the town set aff to Jamaica, and in course of time be- came a grand planter ; so he sent home to the Magis- trates of his native town, a queer kind of beast of the shell-fish kind, caUed a turtle. Now, the Magistrates hcd heard that the Lord Provost and Baillies of London t; > ] t it a great dainty, for' it made noble soup, i.'i.'dingly they put it bodily into the same tar pot they had used for the bell, with plenty of barley and cabbage ; but it would not turn red like a lobster, as they supposed it would, and the kail, though they supped all for fashion's sake, they said was but indifferent, and as for the fiesh, it was tasteless, and they would greatly have preferred a gigot of mutton. The next day, at four in the afternoon, we might have sailed, but the Captain would not hear of it, being a Friday j but on Saturday we got under weigh before daylight in the morning, with a fine easterly breeze,^ which, the mate told me, always blows about the time of the Greenock spring preachings,* and by the time it was good daylight, we were passing the Auld Kirk. ' As the wind was rather off the land, we sailed close under the Ayrshire coast, and you may be sure I never took my eyes off it while it could be distinguished from * The spring celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- ■, per — the middle or end of March. The mate was correct. — Eo. ->-^- 56 r the &ky. Oh, it is a sore and f^ hea^.-sinking thing to take the last look of a land that is endeared to us by so many .^membrances — ^gradually to lose sight of the farm where we were bom — ^the village at which we went to school — ^the woods and glens in which we play- j ed — the bums in which we "paddled*' — ^the Kirk in ' which we were christened, and where we first heard in \ public the word of God, and under whose shadow is ; the turf that covers the mouldering bones of our parents — ^blessed be their memory ! But for their pious in- structions I should have sunk in despair — but they early taught me to put my trust in Him, whose arm is not shortened, and who can throw the shield of His prelecting providence over me, and cause His staff and His rod to support me equally in the wild forests of Canada as on the sunny slopes and shady glens of my V native land. I did not recover :ny spirits all that day ; for, do what I would, sad thoughts would thrust themselves into my breast, but at night I prayed fervently, and felt relieved — next morning we had lost sight of land, having gone round the north of Ireland in the night, and in the morning we were standing onward with a fine steady breeze and a moderately smooth sea. Many of our passengers were sorely afflicted with sea sickness, which is a most grievous dispensation — ^but I . ao have been so often at Arran and Campbelltown, was in a manner seasoned, and suffered but little. . ,, a I shall not trouble you with a minute account of the voyage. Like all other voyages^ it was wearisome— sometimes we had calms and sometimes gales, but I have reason to believe it was not much better or worse &ii«i .1 • ■#■'• . ■ than most passages across the Atlantic. We were told at starting, that we should he thankful if we were not over six weeks — we were four days over it, hut I was thankful notwithstanding. "We arrived at Quebec on the 15th of May, and I was just landed when I forgathered with one Mr. Corbett, a gawcy, sponsible looking man from Stra^en, who is Agent for the Canada Company. We took half a mutchkin together, and never was time better bestowed, for he told me more about the country in half an hour than I coold have learned from all the booka that ever were written on the sul^ect, and he gave me a wee map of the Province, which, in the long run, will turn out to be very useful. He advised me to go well west, for there was little good land on this side of Toronto. He said the best land was in the Huron District, but ad- vised me to look for myself. When I told him that I was sent to took for Tantf for some families in the neighbourhood of Irvine and the parishes thereunto adjoining, he was then more kind than ever, and gave me letters to all the Canada Com- pany's Agents, and advised me not to stay a minute in a big town, where I would spend more- money in a day than would keep me in the woods for a week. Accord- ingly he took me to the steamboat, the captain of which was a friend of his, and in her I proceeded to this place. I would fain give you a description of Quebec, but I only saw it from the river, for I was not further up the hill than the Neptune Inn, but if ye can imagine the Craig of Ailsa, on the banks of a river a mile broad, ye may have some notion of it — only it has houses stuck to it like swallows' nests to a wall, and fortifica- tions bristling with cannons to the very top. m 58 0, man, but its a beautiful country between Quebec and this. The bonny white farm-houseS| in the middle of their orchards, which are now in full bloom — ^the grand elm trees on the banks of the river, that would look grand even in my Lord Eglinton*s park, and the beautiful kirks, at every three or four miles, with their tinned steeples glancing in the sun. What a pity that the poor deluded creatures that worship therein should drink of the cup of the abominations of the red harlot of Babylon ! 0, that we could but send out our min- ister, and a dozen or two more of the right sort from Ayrshire, where they have the root of the matter, to shake them over the pit and frighten them from the errors of their ways. Pray, my dear John, that these days may come, when all mankind may come into the only true fold, the Kirk of Scotland, and believe me your affectionate brother, . a'.:.w . a . Robert Stevenson, Montreal, Endorsed: i To Mr. John Stevenson, Cordwaiher,""^" '^^ Care of Deacon M*Awl, Hutchison Glasgow. f4. ■■Jv..m LETTER II. ^:% t^ii m My Dear Brother, ^^^'^ •' *^ ■ ^'* ■'■ ^'^'^^^^"^'^ - ■ ' On the Sabbath, I remained iu Montreal, and I went to the Kirk in St. Peter Street, where I heard a most weighty discourse from Dr. Mathieson. He's a Boan- nrges yon, and toots the Lord's trumpet in a manner to shake the ramparts of Satan's kingdom, even as those ««*«B^ .-^ 59 of Jericho were shaken before the rams* !ioms of the priests carrying the ark of the covenant. In the after- noon, I attended the ministrations of Doctor Black, (I never could fathom the reason wh;^, when ministers are getting auld and doited, they aye call them Doctor,) who is equally orthodox, but not so awakening. I proceeded up the Lachine Canal, which takes us safely round a rapid, as they call it in this country, that is where the river tumbles over rocks at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. Its ateful to look at, and to think of the danger of the poor creatures that bring down rafts of timber in such a torrent. After some : , other rapids, we came to Coteau du Lac, a French name, which I om told means a hill on a lake, but I ' could see no hill higher than a midden, (and they are ; higher here than ever I saw them any where else,) and as for a lake, its no broader than the rest of the river. I had now an opportunity of examining the soil, as I walked on the bank, while the French bodies pulled and shoved the fiat-bottomed lout, (which they poor deluded creatures in their barbarous lingo call a batto,) up the rapid. Its no ill land yon— deep rich clay, which I would think must be dour of the tilth, but bears wonderful crops, considering that it has been cropped ' and cropped with white crops for a hundred years, and no a grapeful of dung laid upon it, nor a green crop ' ever thought of. What would the folk of Dundonald, [ Saltcoats, or Irvine say, who live like the rabbits among the land, if they were to hear of folk calling themsdives farmers, who, when their midden of horse dung and cow dung and straw became too large for their con- venience, carted it aff bodily, and couped it into the river to get quit of it ? But that's the way here. 60 At a place they call Lancaster, I had another oppor- tunity of ins^ ;ting the country ; the land is not so good, being stony here and there — ^but if it was in the hands of skilful farmers, it might be brought to- good purpose ; but the folk are Highlanders, so no good can be expected of it. About Cornwall the land is to that ill, but inland it gets worse. We stopped at Brockville to take in wood^ for the steamboat; it is a flourishing place, but the people are yankeefied, and remarkably hoggish in their manners. I met one decent man, howeyer, their mem- l;»er, who is from Kilmarnock, and a remarkably good judge of night caps. From that to Kingston, the greater part of the way, the land is rocky and bad, covered with pine trees, which, I am told, are always found in a barren, sandy soil ; and, as for Kingston, if it were for us to presume to give our thoughts on the judgment of I^ovidence, we would say that certainly the land round it was formed whereon to place the wicked for the punishment of their sins. Tell Mary and the bairns that I arrived in Kingston safe from any attack of wild beasts. She was dread- fully frightened, poor thing, when a seijeant's wife of the 71st told her that her husband had written her home, that the road between ConiwaU and Kingston was infested by a certain lang soo which swallowed up many people passing — and so, to be sure it is, but it is not an overgrown brute of the swine tribe, as we thocht at the time, but merely one of these plunging rapids that drowns folks going down, and taigles them coming up. The sow's tusks, however, are like to be drawn <;iMf, ')Mrl-'i4 ? «««*».«-i«*^*^ 61 '; : by a Mr. Killalj, who is cutting a canal through it, by order of thj5 Government. I took the steamboat for Toronto, and we touched I during the night at two places, Coburg and Fort Hope, but I was asleep and did not see them. Next day, how- ever, a fuc highlandman, with a reddish head the colour of a fox, and who lives in the Rice Lake country, as the interior of the Newcastle District is called, told me that it was a very rich and fertilv country, and sent a vast of wheat to these markets, and that a canal was cutting, that would render its communication with the Lake easy. I had heard much of the fertility of Yonge Street ')y;^l>>r-| — that is the road that goes right back from Toronto ; for in this country a road is a street, though it should not have a house on it once in a mile ; I walked over it, and went back occasionally into the country, resolved to take my time to it, as it is not every body that is so clever as Mr. Sheriff, of Mungo's "Wells, who could fly over a country twice as big as Europe in five months, and describe it as minutely as a minister dooB his parish in Sir John Sinclair's* Statistical ; and really it is a fine country, and grand large barns and outhouses, and the crops to all appearance remarkably thriving. The folk here have great advantages. Toronto is ( an excellent market for all kinds of produce, and in clearing their land they get as much for the firewood as will cover the expense ; and above all they have a mac- adamized road, and though some of them grumble at being obliged to pay the Toll, yet, by their own confes- sion, they can carry at one load now, as much as they could at two and a half formerly, to say nothing of the 62 bi'eaking of their wagons, the tearing of their harness and the utter murder of their horses. The only ob- jection to this part of the country is, that the half of the people are rank rebels, and I would never settle myself, nor advise a friend to settle among an unsauc- tiiied clanjamfray, that neither fear God nor honour the Queen. t I shall leave this place tomorrow, and give you some account of it in my next ; I go round the head of the V^ake to the FaUs of Niagara. I might go across in a st'.>am boat, but wish to see the country. Yours, &c. B. S. ;>ij ii LETTER ni. ■■''1'', .; ^a ■ ^^i.-i;. My D£Ab Brotheb, Toronto is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants, with good brick houses, and as for the shops, or as they call them here, stores, they may be compared with those of either Quebec or Montreal. It is situated on the side of Lake Ontario, the harbour being protected from storms, by a long low sandy point, that forms a safe haven of about three miles from east to west. Ifo^ /j > The growth of this town has, like nmny others in this country, been most rapid. Li 1816 there were only 76 houses, (counting log huts and shanties, that is sheilings.) Jn 1832 it was still a dirty village, but a great emigration took place in that and the following years, and it is now a good sized town, and the seat of a very considerable trade, as St suj^lies the coimtrybe- h 68 |ob- of Ittle luc- lour I -> )me [the in a »*«■ hind and above it, with all the British good^ they re- quire, and that, to judge from the state of its wharfs, warehouses, and wholesale stores, must be no trifle. I started on my wiy upwards along the lower or Lake shore road — tho land here is good, being the mud and clay deposited by tho Lake, though sometimes it is encumbered by round stones, rounded doubtless by the action of the water. Further on, here and there, is a kind of reddish marl, which seems very productive. The streams or creeks, as the bums and waters are uni- formly called in this country, are hero creeks in reality, for they are, where they join the Lake, deep dull inlets, most of them navigable for miles. It is probable that the first explorers of tho country went in boats and ca- noes to carry their provisions — these creeks would form their harbours, and having once named them from the wood that grew on their sides, as Alder Creek or Cedar Creek, or from their distance from an ascertained point, as Sixteen Mile Creek, they remained for ever after creeks to their very source. I slept this night at Oakville,a neat, thriving village, where they have a ver}' ~ood harbour, from which they ship a great deal of grain and barrel-staves from the back country. Next morning I proceeded to the Burlington canal, that is an artificial cut through a ridge of land that crosses tho head of Lake Ontario, and divides it from a smaller Lake on which stands the town of Hamilton. You'll mind that Captain Basil Hall mentions this, and supposes that the ridge was formed by the shoving of the ice — but a decent man that I met there with a broad blue bonnet, told me that he thought the captain m D 64 was wrong — that it was merely a sand bar left above water bj the subsiding of the Lake, and that it had been formed as all other bars were, by two currents meeting and neutralizing each other, so at the point where they become still, the deposits of both must fall — the streams falling into the inner lake cause a rush out, and the Lake agitated by an easterly wind rushes in, and here they came to a stand still. While waiting for the steamboat, I watched the canal, and found the vrax^r rushing in at the rate of three or four miles an hour, and I was told by a man who lives on the npot, that when the wip i changed, it would rush out even faster than it came in ; and as there is always a current one way or other, instead of forming u bar, it washes away any that may have a tendency to form. When the steamboat came up, I got on to Hamilton, a clean little town, which is getting on wonderfully. It is situated at the foot of a hill which the folk call a mountain — ^in Scotland we would call it a brae ; but it is easy to be a mountain in a country that's as flat as this table. ' - ' I was particularly struck with Dundurn castle, which stands on a height overhanging the lake — it is so uncommon in this country to see any thing like a country gentleman's house, that it reminds you of home. It belongs to Sir Allan McNab, who commanded in this country during the rebellion ; but, though born in this Province himself, his forbears came from the high- lands, and he is no unlike a highlandman himself, being a weel faur'd man, with broad shoulders and heather legs. j^ ^ I set off the next morning on the road towards Dun-' ) ■■: ) ft ^^ Mi- i -f* mim * 66 ) -.5 ) ^i lias, and as good a macadamized road as any in j\.yv- ehire ; it is well made and thoroughly drained ; and as it passes over several glens and valleys, the slopes down and up are gentle and gradual. I was told that the country owes this and many other improvements to the exertions of Sir Allan. There is here too, some grum- bling about paying the toll — ^but it is always the way ; folk think more of the twopence they have to pay, than the good road they have to travel. My piandvather told me that when toll bars were first established in Scotland, the Highland drover bodies were like to gc distracted at the "tam turnumspike" as they calLtl them, and in Ireland the chief qualification of a toll man was bodily strength and being a jiood cudgel play- er ; for as he expected a thump on the head instca 1 u) the money that was his due, he came out guarding St. George with " will your honour be pleased to pay tlie "pike." This was the first opportunity I had of seeing what is called plain land ; that is sandy land, whereon oak or pinegrows — there is a pr^udice against it, as it is thought to be light and easily e-^chausted, but this seems to have worn tolerably well, though it must be confessed it has got a reasonable share of manure of IttU.', Formerly, the farmers here, like their brethren of Lower Canada, thought manure a nuisance, but as they liad not, like them, the convenience of a river wherein to throw it, they piled it before their barns, and when the heap became too large, they dragged the barn back, and commenced anew — ^this has been done here within these ten or twelve years — but the land being soon worn out, they began to bethink them of the despised 66 dung heap, and an accumulation of fifteen or twenty years being laid on, in the course of tv^o or three, the land was restored, and produced excellent crops. One thing that strikes Scotchmen as strange is, that the land is either not in ridges at all, or they are so broad, that, for the purpose of drainage, they must be utterly useless — ^but they all agree that narrow ridges like ours are not necessary, and as old country people give into it, I suppose it must be so. Otherwise the cultivation is good; ploughing straight and well laid, while the frost in winter and heat in spring crumbles the clods, so that a reasonable harrowing reduces them to powder, and makes a wheat field resemble a well raked garden bed. — The gravel of these plains is always lime, and that, exposed to the sun, wind and frost, makes a manure of itself. On the lower side of the road, on the banks of streams and in the valleys, there is some remarkably fine carse land — ^rather wet, but could easily be drained, and even as it is, produces capital crops of hay. After passing through Dundas, a neat village buried in a valley, I ascended the mountain, where I got a view of remarkable beauty, being the valley between this and the opposite hill, on which stands the village of Ancaster. I have seldom, if ever, seen any thing of its kind to equal it. I there went down into a glen, to see a waterfall, or rather a number of them — to ray surprise, in this hollow I stumbled on a village. I asked the name of it, and was told it had no name ; it was just the Hon. Wm. Crooks' mills, and to be sure here were saw mills, and grist mills, and paper mills and carding mills, and wauk (fulling) mills, and distille- ri I S( mty the 67 ries and tanneries, and the Lord knows what beside. I asked who Mr. Crooks was, and was told he was a Scotchman from Kilmarnock — ^weel dune Ayrshire yet, thocht I; ye'll find us in every quarter of the globe, but never as hewers o' wood or drawers o' water. This glen is really beautiful, but the natives of the country neither ken nor care about these things ; they have no notion of beauty, but how money can be made of it. I remarked to a rather decent looking man, what a splendid waterfall vf as before us ; and what do you think was the reply of the uucircumcised PliiHs- tine ? " Why, yes, mister, I guess it is a very nice water privilege ; I wonder no one don't put a mill on it ; it should'nt ought to stand idle." They look at a water- fall in a wooded glen with precisely the same feelings they would at the muddy waters of a canal tumbling over a gate into a lock-pit. That night I returned late to Mr. Press's inn, in Hamilton, who is a worthy man and a civil landlord, where, after a hearty supper, I spent a most pleasant evening with a party of the most celebrated characters of the place, at the head of which was Mr. John Law, who comes from Galloway, and^whose company cured me of a prejudice I had entertained from my youth up- wards, viz : that nothing civilized ever came out of that benighted and moorland district. ' ' ■ ^ . : . The next morning I started off for the southward. The land under the mountain is rich clay, having doubtless received all the soil that the slope of the hill had to give it ; but the road is abominable, for they say in this country, where they are not in the habit of putting any metal on roads, that you never can have good roads and good land in the same place. <-r- A il^i-.'^x,.A',- ,JL.i r > I ascended the mountain to see a fall at what ia called the Albion Mills. It is in fact broken into two falls, and there being a flood in the river to-day, I saw it to great advantage. This too is a scene that not one in a thousand of the inhabitants of this country has ever seen or heard tell of. - ■ '' "' • -^v^ i V Here a cliff was pointed out to me that had been the scene of a melancholy tale some years ago. ^ ;-- A young lady of beauty and accomplishments, had emigrated with her parents from Ireland. A young man in the neighboarhood paid his addresses to her, and won her affections. Soon after, however, his at- tentions grew cold, and at last ceased altogether, and he began to draw up with another. This preyed upon her mind, but none of her friends anticipated any thing serious. She came to pass a few days with the lady of the gentleman who then owned the property, and one forenoon led his daughter, a girl of oight or ten years of age, out to walk. She took her way towards the cliff which is upwards of a hundred feet plumb down into the stream. She looked steadily into the chasm, while the girl, from fear, stood aloof. She then returned to the child, hastily adjusted her dis- ordered hair, knelt down and kissed her, and then, suddenly turning round, she took a race, and leaped over the precipice. Two labourers on the opposite side of the glen beheld the whole scene. They said that at first she fell rapidly, feet foremost — then her descent was more gradual — and at one time, when considerably more than half way down, she seemed to pause in the air, her clothes acting as a parachute ; then her descent again began, and seemed to increase in rapidity as she neared the grcun-f v hen she alighted '^*^t,.. 69 ^P on her feet and fell over in a heap. - They hurried do\*^n the glen as fast as the nature of the ground would permit ; thej found she had lit on a plank, into which the brass heels of her walking boots were deeply dented. They raised her ; she had not a bone broken, nor was she insensible. She spoke calmly and without difficulty, though she breathed heavily. She was car- ried to the house, where medical aid was procured j but she expired that night. The cliff from which she sprang, in memory of the event, is stiU called " The Lover's Leap." I returned to Hamilton by the high road that is on the top of the mountain. The land is not so rich as below, still it is good. I shall leave this to-morrow for Niagara. Love to Mary and the bairns. Your's affectionately, "^ R. S» Hamilton, June. J ■■X\ vi.,' LETTER IV. ; ' My Dear Brothee, ' ... I started for Niagara, the road still keeping near the Lake shore, and the land much as before — this is an old settlement and most of the houses are surrounded with orchards, and have snug neat gardens, which gives a great look of comfort, to say nothing of the conveni- : ence. Wherever a stream of any size comes down, . there is sure to be a mill on it. The hill here some* times comes near the lake, and sometimes falls back ; at one time it is very steep, and at another a slope, but always wooded and beautiful* At some miles from u h / f { Niagara it goes off from the shore of the lake alto- gether, when there is a level plain of rather hard clay, and, from what I could see, not very productive. I was determined to take it easy, so that I might have time to make my observations. I slept at a place they call the Forty-mile Creek, and it was well on in the second day before I arrived at the town of Niagara. This town was entirely burned down during the war, so that the present one wae built since the peace. It's a very nice town in its way, but has not the stir and bustle of others in the country. Here is a fort and a -garrison of soldiers^ and opposite to it the Americans have another. It seemed a strange thing to me, who never saw a foreign flag before but on a ship, to see the colours of two nations hoisted over their forts, divided only by a river, not, I should think, quite a mile broad. I proceeded through Queenston through a sandy soil, but well cultivated, with many large brick farm houses and fine orchards — ^for the people along the Niagara river make a vast of cider. It struck me as strange that the people should let their orchards be exposed with only a common fence, which, though it keeps out beasts, yet a body can easily get over it, even if they kept a watch. "When I mentioned tliis to a farmer, he burst out laughing, and said these were old country notions, — that fruit was too common here to be much coveted, and if a passing traveller did take a pocket full of apples or peaches, they would never be missed among so many, and they were of too little conse- quence to quarrel about. On Queenston Heights i« the ruins of a monument, raised to the memory of General Brock, where he fell. ^ h A «« ^j%. U!*' ■ ;. to- after having defeated the Americans, who were three times his number. A yankee loafer^ (that's the name they give to a ne'er-do-weel in this country), blew it up with gun powder some years back. The country between this and the Falls is still sandy, but the crops looked well. r ° *' I shall not attempt to describe the Falls ; it has often been tried by far abler hands than me, and, so far as I have seen, has never yet been done. To have any notion of them, you must see them yourself. I staid there three days, and if I had staid three months I am sure I never should have been wearied of looking at them. You see something new and something won- derful every time you look at them, and they vary at every new point you see them from. ^j.t. From the Falls I went on to Chippaway Creek, which communicates with the Welland Canal, and taking advantage of a schooner going up, I sailed through a fine settled old country with a rich soil, but rather scant of water. When I came to the canal I staid on board the schooner ; the captain thereof, being a kind, civil man, he said it was a pity I should not see their grand canal, which he considered the eighth won- der of tho world, and far better worth waring ? ime on than the Falls of Niagara, which were well enough to look at, but were of no use. The land here is good too, and there are grand fp* ius on it, and it is a great convenience to the farmer, that, instead of wading to market through deep roads, he can take his sack on his back in his barn, and fling it on board a vessel as easily as he could lay it on a cart. •■- The captain told me that the canal was cut in con- [V / i v y^ sequence of the exf liions of one Mr. Hamilton Mer" ritt, a flushing, phraiFmg, plausible cheil, that Ct;n gar folk believe that, he can make spade shafts bepr p?umr, The locks are of wood, which seems i^trange to me, seeing that there is a: much atone taken out of the lock-pits as would have bisilt them ; they say they are now going to make them of stone ; it wo ild have been }i8 well had they done so at iirst. Havlr.g ?eea tlie canal to the locks abore St. Cas^'ie- rines, 1 >• tm'ned to where I started, and there took the track-boat i Dnnuville, where there is a dam on the Grand Rivov iba*> supplies the feedor of the canal, — thence by boat towards Brantford, through some of the finest holm land I ever saw, belonging to the Six Na- tion Indians, and well cultivated, considering that the folk axe only kind of half tamed savages ; many of them iiave farms of seventy acres under tillage, with good stocks of horses and kye, and no doubt in a gene- ration or two they will be just like other folk — for it takes many generations to tame wild creatures, and you might as well expect that by setting the eggs of a wild duck under a hen you would hatch a decking of tame ducks, as that you could make a wild man tame in one or even two generations. • r v - • , >i; ..r. - They are Christians however, the most feck of them ; that is to say, they are Episcopalians ; and they showed me the Bible and tha sacrament cups that they got from Queen Anne, more than a hundred yesu.5 ngo, and which they carried with them through Ixeir troubles and trih'dations during the Ameri vraa*, )%i where they fou bravely on the Kir^ which they got tueir lands here. .e, for ' f : n h gar me, the are I been *he- >i< After looking about me for a day or two in this neighbourhood, I intend, God willing, to proceed by London to the west. This is no that bad country — indeed I think the land improves the farther I go. Tell Mary that though I do not write to her, that I intend my letter just as muckle for her as for you, but it is well known that the post office folk are no just so precise about women folks' letters as about men's, in respect that they are not supposed to contain matters of such weighty concernment. With kindest regards to all enquiring friends, I remain, ^' ^"'' - •- -_' ■ ' ^-^ i:i.;^i.|;,-Jvt,T*}u) My dear brother, (^ h-'-^ '.yir., > ;4.;:4 ^,iU ■ jS^d V ji^. Your aflfectionate, till death, , ^^i Robert Stevenson. ' Brantfbrd. ^^ ' '^' - • *:• '--i ■' i>ii 'M-^-> V' '^^^i^'''*'^ ^f^ 'ii'.uv LETTER V. •>':>n.;, ;;^^V ■^:.,ii, My dear Brother, ■ • >• • ■ : ^ '".. ' ■ ■ -■"'-'-; '}Mt From Brantford I proceeded up the Grand River, and a beautiful river it is. It runs mostly through plain ianJs, and the folk tell me it is remarkably fertile and easily cleared, and as easily worked. The people are mostly Scotch, being chiefly from Dumfriesshire, and the township is called Dumfries in consequence. I did not go up to Gait (the capital) because I mean TO go berg by unjther road. ■^ v'*5i8 toi«i of a story here I think worth relating. ' L w^o young men cr me out from Scotland together, and took adjoining farms ', and t fter they had built houses, and got things something purpose like, one of them, who bad courted a lass in Scotland, went home to a I M»rry her ,nd bring her out R„f friend e«me to him „d told hi .k ?"* "•"'"S '"'^ too, but he did Stm^^l 1^ '"'"*^ « ''ife » tin trumpet J tZ 1^^ ^' "'*>' *»»'<» fke fr»n. the plough t> f^ w:L s!?""* *» -»« '» *hen he „„ ;„ Scothmd, t oiot h '^'"^ '"'"'' 6nng her out. AecordL " '^L ^ *"" ' "'^ «■«• own wife', to comet^;"^ ', ^* «"' ' <^'»*'' "^ «« them in H«nilton * d!„T ^ ""* '^^ '««°'i "»«t tow there is no^Cpitr r^f*" ""^ '«»''• »'» ^ -^ j- Shows that:^r:r ^:ctff "-'"^'^ ther an overly fuU way of !i, • ''*' '">''«''«>•. ra- and very little kail, l,„t aL'.' ? °« "^ P^-^teh, they look strong and hlltvT '""''* *^™» « ''"^ I then proee^ed to Con t"' r"*^">- ™ is fine land, aetUed wiTH^w ^^ *?"** "^ ««'- of the frozen oceaTb^nlfr^*^?"''*" from *- ^'«»^s »ess-it has otCsSme r "^''""' """ C"*- that the folk have a l"h oTkl^""" ''™ ''=»^ «'•' them, for they ^ « hard f^!^/""'" ^"*'«' » ■ ratter savage in their way ^ 8^o»-ati«n, and try whieh is sandy pUins ^.^a^^'n | °"' '^''""- "nd drifts like snow andT„ Sometimes the i-arm, just as we are toldTd^r " "^ "/''»'« «'<«red " They use^reen „„^ here tw t""""- ^'"»- .* .. "" ''*™' they sow buck whcM-,;-a fV-^gjl* ,/ tl K 75 '♦. grain 1 never saw before, but it is good for swine and hens, and makes special good pancakes,) and when it is in flower or coming into seed, they plough it down and put in their fall wheat on the top of it, and this produ- ces fair crops as to quantity, and excellent as to quality. I think this might be done to advantage in many of the sandy soils on the Ayrshire coast. Besides this they have a kind of stone they call gypsum (which when burned in a kiln makes the Paris plaster that they make the poll parots and the Buonapartes, and the other stocco images out of, that the Italian boys sell,) and this laid on at so small a proportion as a bushel to the acre (that is one fourth of a boll) fertilizes the ground in a wonderful manner — it is also wonderful the extraor- dinary bounty of Providence that whenever there is an extensive tract of sandy land, i> ^'s almost certftiu tuxb there is a quarry of gypsum at no great distfuice. The land rather improves as we approach London, and is in many cases, a fine dayey loam exceedingly rich, and producing heavy crops of every thing — the potatoes, however, are wet, which I r^ttribute more to their not changing the seed, than to the soil, for in the clay lands of the Lothians I have seen as good potatoes grown, as in the light soils of our own country. "^ London is beautifully situated on the junction of hv-^ branches of the river Thames, which, from the '.ligh banks above them, looks as if all the three rivers were about one size. It is a thriving place, as the surround- ing country is all good, and they send in a great deal of wb m ; . nd other produce, which in the summer is shipped on J "i-ikc llrie, and in T/jc winter-time is taken in sleighs down to Hamilton. This pi*ace may oe considered as w.^'' 76 the capital of *yo.t part of the province that borders on Lake Erie i^ > ^^'om the wholesale dealers of this, that the id'u^aller stores in the country parts receive their supplies, and to pay for these, they send in the produce they obtain from their customers — ^besides it is a coun- try town and a garrison, so 'I ^ •,, o lively appearance with it. I staid three days in London and visited its neigh- bourhood. I find it all good land. There are many excellent farms — very extensive and very well stocked ai\d cultivated. The people who came in here at first, were mostly poor, and received their land from Govern- ment, gratis — ^but they have got on wonderfully, though they 1.11 me they had terrible hardships to contend with at first, but on the whole it strikes me that r- aan had better, if he can manage it, pay a good price for his land where there are roads, and mills, a market and a neighbourhood, than to get land in the wild bush for nothing. I remain, my dear John, with love to Mary and the bairns. >. Your afTjctionate brother, ** ' , Rt S. London. "*~. ' ' ■ ' - ■■• - !' LETTER VL :/.': '"^*'^^' . ■•'^':/ ■ 't f My Dear John, " I started from Londori on my way to Chatham, I went through generally a rich clay land, but when I crossed the Thames it was rather sandy, but still not barren land, having a good deal of clay mixed with it, ) I 'K I %, ■' " ■' * '" ' ■'Umiimmmittm H-^ ) f \ as is easily to be perceived if you have to pass through it OS I had after a shower, from the mud that sticks to your shoes. The land all along this road is a deep rich clay, and the farms are mostly well cultivated and extensive — a great deal of good has accrued to the country from the formation of Agricultural Associations, and the conse- quent cattle shows. — Stock has iraprovea amazingly — Tees-water cows — Leicester and South down sheep, and Berkshire swine that would not shame any agriculture show in the kingdom. •*. "'■ -^« •• ^-'^^^ ' The river Thames is a line stream from its source to Chatham. It runs rapidly over its rocky or gravelly bed, and would furnish mill power for the whole pro- vince, but unluckily it runs the wrong way — arising in the cast at no great distance from Ontario, and run- ning parallel to !Lake Erie, it falls into Lake St. Clair, so that no use can be made of it, for bringing produce to market, for the further down you go, the further y< u are from your place of sale. The only use there- fore that is made of it in this way is, to carry rafts of lumber down to Detroit and the neighbourhood, where pine is scarce. From Chatham downward, it is a lazy, Ci^nal' look- ing river, with no perceptible current, but deej) and navigable for any vessel that can sail these Lfiices. The land on its banks is about the richest I ever saw in any country. Six or seven feet deep of earth that would do for a gardien, and extensive grass plains stretching for nales into the country, without a tree, save here amd there a small clump like an island in the plain — the grass, particularly that called blue joint, fur- aif*wti%Bi,:,i^iM. ia^jL=t..i^, . dii.:^.-,„' ■■&■■ IB niihes excellent pastiore and haj. Indeed, your bea«tfl af- ter they are weaned, are branded and turned out to pas- ture, and never reclaimed till wanted for usO'xHrunning water, however, is scant, and the people, from finding it 80 easy to scramble along after a fashion, are a lazy ge- neration, and only half do their workr-*their ground is generally foul, and their wheat, of course, mixed with the seeds of the weeds which are allowed to grow in such profusion among it Add to all ibis the stagnant water that is allowed to stand in these plains in the spring and fall (for they never dreaox of draining, Uiough that would be easy) breeds fever and ague, so that (^ the whole I do not coi^sider U a 4fsirf^biie loca- When you get down to the Lake at the moKth of the river (which you do through a road that when the Lake is high takes the horses up to their bellies in water,) yoif .have the same low grass plain land until you come within a few miles of the village of Windsor, when it improves, and is rather higher above l^e bed of the ri- ver, ';«»; .^ 'jf ■ Ot ■ ■■ •^'»t V ■!f.M»'iii.i'ii ■''<:•'■ Ati\M''ii ):. A "' ' ' The village of Windsor is a new place, formed in consequence of the American tarifi*, to enable the inha- bitants to smuggle British goods across ^ rive?. The village, therefore, consists of two classes of men, store- keepers and tailor's, the former to violate the laws of the United Statef , the latter to evade them^or a man coming over frori Detroit buys cloth for a suit of clothes —gets them miide, and then marches back to Detroit with the new clothes on his back and the old ones in a bundle, under the very nose of the Collector of Cus- *-- . toms. T ,&-»i-*rJ- .'W^i' -■ ■ fjV ' 'i%y LETTER VIL •My Dear Bbother, ^'i 1 '-i-.rm ^..-j^r' 'j^ '■■r-'-i.mti.^ vt»^j-i I proceeded from Amherstburg in an easterly direc- tion, along the shore of the lake. For scmie way the land is rich, and descends towards the Lake with a very gentle slope— further on there are high steep banks of liard clay, perhaps 100 feet higher than the Lake, and here it is extraordinary that the streams flow from the Lake, as the top of these banks which overhang it are higher than the land in the interior— this has produced swamp, and creates a necessity for drainage, which is 80 veiy easily accomplished bj each raan cutting a narrow ditch of sufficient depth to cause a run on each side of his farm — these, when the snow melts, soon sc6urthem- selves to a proper width and depth, and in the course of a very few years, where they join the Lake, cause a gully across the road that is difficult to bridge. To remedy this they every two or three years remove the road u little back, but the only way they can ever ef- fectually remove this obstacle is by at once putting the road back to the far end of the lot. Thett they will have onlj- i;o bridge the ditch, not the ravine, "i 1^''; This Innd is remarkably rich, but not farmed in the very best manner. I suspect the most of the inhabi- tants never were bred farmers. -'^ • "'■ • ' i ' ' • ' Through the Talbot settlement, so called^ from hav- ing been settled by Colonel Talbot, and great credit is due him from having settled it so effectually, the land is generally good, but after passing Dunwich the soil is not so strong ; the plains commence, and chestnut and other woods that indicate a light soil appear. I took a day and a half s journey into the Long Point Country ; but I do not like it. The roads here, however, are gooct, because the land is bad ; but, they have this diffi- culty about them, that, like Hampshire in England, you have only to drive a wagon forward to make a road, and by and by the wheels cut through the turf into the sand. Accordingly, every farmer leaves the main road at any angle that best suits his own convenience, so that every farm road looks as big as the main road, and I wandered a dozen times in the course of a few miles. 1 took my way, therefore, towards St. Thomas — a very pretty village on a bank overhanging a river — and a 81 having staid there to see the countiy about, I proceeded towards London. ''^^^^"'^ ^-iw. The land round St. Thomas is all good ; some of it richer and some of it lighter ; but the folk there tell me that the difference in the production of the two kinds of land is made up, by the lighter being easier tilled. It may be so ; but I would prefer the rich land, though it may be no so free to the plough. On arriving in London I found it was the quarter sessions and a fair day. I went through among the beasts, and saw some very good Durham cattle and Leister and South Down sheep. I have my doubts whether Leisters and Durhams will do in this country ^ after two or three generations. It's the pasture that makes the breed, and I doubt if their new pastures are sufficient to support these large beasts. Sir James Graham tried them in Cumberland, and had to go back to the Cherrots and Ayrsliires. Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford brought a very large breed of cattle from Rome, where they are fed in the salt marshes by the sea side, but they fell off every generation, and they are now not much larger than the common cattle of the country. As I was sauntering through the fair, who should I forgather with but my old friend Tam Kennedy. Tam came to this country ten ys3ars ago, and having no more than paid his passage, he went to service to the clerk of this district, who is. a wonderful agriculturist, and has a noble breed of cattle. He has made a very useful discovery of how to know whether land is fit for barley in the spring. By rather a queer process he ascer- tains its temperature ; and, if it fceis Avarm, he knows it 82 is in a fit state for sowing. I'm astonii^ed he never published his discovery, "Well, Tam was some years with him, and saved his wages till he coidd buy a farm and stock it, and he is now in a very thriving way, with a good farm and a good stock of cattle. I went out with Tam that night, for it is scrimp ten miles from London, and a snug bein place he has. When he began farming he bee't to get married, so he got a farmer's daughter, from Fenwich, and a handy stirring lass she is, and a grand one for butter and cheese. - Their oldest bairn (a lassie) is no six years of age yet, and it's wonderful how useful she is to her mother* It's astonishing how early in this country tbey make children useful. Boys are set to look after oxen at an age that in Scotland we would be afraid to trust them out of our sight, without somebody to look after them. I had a long crack with Tam about where to settle,, and he advised me to buy a fkrm at Sheriff^s sale, amd he recommended me to one, only the fifth part of a mile from his own. He said I would not get better land ill the district, and it had considerable improve- ments on it. Accordingly, next morning, when he went back to the court to be a something they call a grand juror, I went to look at the land. There is one hundred acres of it, and thirty of them cleared. It has a good barn upon it, and a fine young orchard close to the house. The house has been good, but has been sorely abused, the windows being broken and the water coming through the roof in two or three places, so that it would require a good deal of repair. The land is excellent, but has been neglected, briar* i> ■•imiL^'u 83 Und raspberries being the principal crop. The fences are in bad order, and all the cattle in the country have been grazing in it for the last two years, or else it would have been a thicket of brambles. But as it never has been much wrought, and the grazing has given it a rest, it is ia good order for the plough. The poor gomeril of a bodie that owned it was doing well as a farmer, and wanted to do better. 3o he neglected his farm, and took to lumber and potashes. This brought him in to giving bills and backing bills, and like all folk that take in hand a business they do not understand, he fell through with it, and seeing nothing before him but the tolbooth, he yoked his waggon one night, and put all his matters in it that would carry easily, and made a moonlight flitting of it to the United States. Tarn tells me that that is in- variably the end of a farmer who quits his own busi- ness, and takes to one he knows nothing about. When I got back to dinner, I found Tam there be- fore me, there being no more business for the grand jury that day. I told him I Uked the farm, and asked him what he thought would be the value of it. He said were he valuing it between man and man he could not call It less than £260. This was a sore damper, for I told him that besides what I had to bear my charges, I had only a lett>3r of credit for £150. He said he thought that might do, so I went to London with him, for that was the day of the sale. When it was put up there was only one man bid against me, and that was a wee gleg looking deevil they called Diggory, a storekeeper : he bid it up to £105 ; I bid £110 ; he then turned round on his heel. f-f \ ) B4 and said, that that was thirty shillings more than it owed him ; so I was declared the purchaser, and I paid for it by a draught on the Bank of Scotland of £91 3s, 4^., the difference of exchange and currency making the odds. I have been staying with Tam for ten days. I bought a yoke of oxen for sixty dollars, and a prime yoke they are ; but every thing is cheap nov, and luckily so for us new settlers, for you have had good harvests at home for the three past years j but I hope that the Lord, in his mercy, will send a blight or a dearth among you by the time I have any thing to sell, which will be next year.* I have hired a man to plough and summer fallow fifteen aci^es, which I mean to put in fall wheat, and then to plough the rest for a spring crop of wheat. I have to leave this to go to the district of Huron, because it was recommended as being good land, and I shall start tomorrow, as I behoove to see all the best parts of Canada, for the good of the folk at whose ex- pense I came out. When I come back, I shaU take charge of the farm myself. I am to live with Tam during the winter and pay two dollars and a half a week for the board of myself and my oxen, and that's no dear considering the vittles they give. I hope to get the whole farm ploughed before the ♦ This honest aspiration of Robert Stevenson's reminds us of a story we have somewhere heard of a Minister in the Hebrides, where the inhabitants depended, in a great measure, upon the winds and waves for their precarious subsistence, who, after a long season of calm weather, added the following to his usual prayer ; — We do not pray that the vessels on the great deep should be wrecked ; but if they providentially should be, send them in mtrcy upon these rocks ! — Ed. ^v ^ y >• r \1 85 frost sets in, and Tain tells me that exposing the roots of the weeds and briars to the frost, is the best way to kill them, and clear the land. I shall then chop dur- ing the winter, and I hear that I may have enough to plant potatoes, oats, and barley, forby some turnips, before the fore-part of the summer is over. Tell Mary Til be sure to have the house soi*ted for her and the bairns. She should come out in one of the earliest ships. Go to Mr. Corbett's at Quebec, get to the head of Ontario, then through the Welland Canal, and ril meet her, and blythe will I be to see hej: and the bairns, on the banks of Lake Erie, and take them to their own home with the wagon and ox team. I remain. My dear brother. Yours, affectionately, R. S. Dunure Houst^ July, , LETTER VIIL I started from London, my dear brother, and pro- ceeded into the district of Huron ; I found the land e xcellent. It is a curious thing, and I never heard of it any where else, that the cattle here turned into the woods, in the course of six weeks after the snow is gone, are fit for the butcher. I stopped all ni^t at a tavern kept by a Mr. Balkwill, a Devonshire man, and there is a ]>3Vonshire settlement hereabouts, and very decent folk ; they are hard working, and have a great talent at bvllding day houses and chimneys, a . v H r r •' H m s II ■■,;i h\ h 86 further bft I in^t with HigHlaniJaieii, firom 5Tova Scdtia, aind really, considering all things, they aw get- ting on extraordinary. I then came on -to the cud of the 1s, Tm^doubtij^. *'■!*; >■'■ . v>--.j ,■'.-;; '■.:-pv- \ (Thedoitor^hdwedme'a statem^t, which was pub- lished by; the 'Canada Company about two years ^^, thlit astonielied me-mu6h, as shewing the' rapid advance- ment of ihe Cdmipaeny^s settlements here, anid \^hidi wtoe only Lcoi&meno^ i in -the latter part of the .^year .1<$29, before which period this extensive tract had^aot 'even'b^n explored, and y«t in l^e tprifig -of 1840, tiieir popolitbm exceeded 6000, and tine- vidile of tile improvement? nmde )upon their laKkdc^^ttiiS -c^ i tiie ' live k>->*ssKu^S3Wr"'^^^ - ■• ■ l'.:'^**^ 87 nn Nova areget- le end of one Mr. rag with oodtflll getsgra- )king the y bonny he asked a bonny the finest winding I devout tion as a d he is a rs spiri- the full > makes is a well L braln,s. f.i aispub- M ^jo, ivance- le.year ladaet 1840, of Oie he live stock which they had acquired, was £242,287 ; and of this large amount, it is worthy of deep attention, that £90,486 was acquired by 514 families, who had come into the settlement altogether destitute. £10,^424 by 61 families, whose means were under £10. £40j526 by 254 families, whose means were under £50, and £100,850 17 9, was accumulated by parties whose means though small, were over that amount, but still they were so very limited that they would not have been equal to securing for themselves at home one fiftieth part of the independence that they now enjoy. What ample encouragement is here held out to the poor labourer and small farmer, who is struggling at home for a bare subsistence, to emigrate to a country where so much may be accomplished by honest indus- try, unaided even by any monied capital whatever. The plans adopted by this company, at the com- mencement of their operations, were eminently calcula- ted to produce this most satisfactory result, and in a country such as Canada then was, they afford an example of the manner in which the wilderness can be opened to settlement; and, in all probability, of the only principle on which it can be done within a reasonable period. ^ ... ; Abundant employment was offered in making roads, and all were allowed to take up lands upon the condi- tion of actual settlement, and at the low price of a dol- lar and a half an acre, or at very low rates. No por- tion of the purchase money was required in cash, and as a result, we find that in the short space of ten years iB'V , 514 families have thus, from their own labours alone, made clearings and improvements on the land, and acquired stock worth upwards of £90,000 ; or, if we were to add to this amount, the large sums paid on account of the ptachase of the lands, where numbers are now freeholders, as well as the increased value given to their land over and above the cost price, by those improvements, and by the settlement of the lands around, the amount would be immensely increased — for as mere land it has quadrupled in value^ in many situations, and in all it has more than doubled. But the land being thus opened to settlement, the chief difficulties overcome, and the lots abutting on the principal roads aU occupied, this indulgence was dis- continued, excepting in special cases, and a first instal- ment of one-fifth of the purchase money was required in cash, most probably under an impression that since there was abundant employment for labourers at high wages, — ^and that, since every industrious labouring man could thus, in the course of a year, save sufficient from his wages to pay an instalment of ten or twelve pounds, and at the same time acquire a knowledge of the mode of managing farming operations in this coun- try, they were thus doing a real kindness to the labouring classes ; and, by increasing the number of ap- plicants for labour, benefiting the farmers by reducing the rate of wages, which for years have been much higher than the prices of farming produce would war- rant. It is not to be supposed that tailors and shoemakers should all at once become expert axe-men and good farmers, and it may be said that the mass of the people ^'-(IIMMilliWlw *'*^ s^^*«**fe- 89 of Canada, since •■'i manufacturing district? supply the greatest number c'' jmigrants, never held plough or worked upon a farm till after their arrival in 3anada, and yet one of these raw hands will spurn lower wages than are paid to experienced labourers ; and I am told that although flour is now on^7 Jftsi a barrel, labourers' wages are just as high as when it -was $6, or even $12. The Company have, however, now again returned to the jld principle whloh v, us found to work bo well, an I ooor people can obtain Ian '3 on a lease for twelve years, on the payment of an annual rent, commencing at £2 per 100 acres, and gradually increasing to £16 10s. on the twelfth year, when the lessee is entitled to a deed in fee simple, and then becomes a freeholder. The Huron Tract contains about one million acres, of which about seven hundred thousand are still the property of the Canada Company, and the circumstance of there being so much unoccupied land at the back of these settlements, affords an '-imense advantage in their favour over the Governi. ont settlements for the encouragement of the Emigrant, since the Company's lands are rather heavily taxed — at present one penny and an eighth of a penny per acre — the whole of which is expended on public improvements and in the dis- charge of the district expeix^es — the improvements being confined to the immediate, neighbourhood of the present settlements, or, at all events, it is only rea- sonable to suppose that such sljould be the case, since the expenditure of the money and the levying of the taxes, is in the hands of the District Council, or in fact in the hands of the very people, through their re- presentatives, who are to be benefited by it — -and thit 90 VP!/ t)ody may, when they please, add one halfpenny per acre to the amount of this tax. At the present rate, the amount to be paid for the last year by the Canada Company is about £3,300 ! Now if all these lands, instead of being in a wild state, were already settled, the same amount would cer- tainly be paid to the district, but its expenditure would be distributed throughout the whole Tract — and as it must, under the most favourable circumstances, take many years to settle the whole (^ these lands, those portions which happen to be actually settled, will, in the interim, receive the whole advantage of this large expenditure, i These are advantages which cannot fail to have a very fi&vourable effect in inducing emigrants to select the Hiiioiii Tract as their place of location, and in con- sequer!';e, I am informed that^ of last year's emigration, about iiOW) have come into the Huron Tract, and about 700 have moved in from the less favoured portions of the Province, tempted by the superior quality of the soil, and the liberal odera of the Company for the en- couragement of settlers, r.? ,/; The population of the Huron Tract, it appears, was : In 1840, 5,921 In April, 1842, 7,293 And at the preseut hour, it is supposed to be, at the least, 9,600. And I am informed that several thousands may be ex- pected out next year, to join their friends already set- tled, in consequence of the very satisfactory accounts which have been transmitted home, and that in one Township alone there are already letters arrived from i}. i i - f m»m tmnim tm- •' Utmimmitu lK ma m^*^^''^*^" T' - 91 h letters trans- "ij one of which ^'intry and com- inore highly forty families, advising their friends of their intention ol" coming out next spring. , _,^„^^, The Postmasters in the different portions of the Tract have remarked, that an ' 'cnse increase has taken place in the number oi x mitted and received by settlers tends to render this highly fav< oi munity better knovm — its adva appreciated — and upon the safest grounds and the most undeniable evidence, that of the success of those who have already emigrated. One Postmaster alone has assured me that the number of English letter^ received and despatched from his office last year, exceeded in number that of the two previous years put together. I was shown a letter from a clergyman in the eastern part of the Province, who intends moving into this district next summer, and who expects that not only Ills whole congregation, but some hundred families be- sides, will follow him and estal^sh themselves together in one Township ; and here is a great advantage also, which these settlements possess, that any number of families can thus set themselves down together and have all their old friends and neighbours around them.^ _ But a very remarkable circumstance connected with this gentleman's removal here is the character of the people who accompany him, and who are all Highland- ers, that he has in the course of nine years intercourse with them, only seen two glasses of whiskey drank,, and, as a matter of course, never saw a fou maa amongst them^ and that he has often seen meuj^ who have come from a distance with their oxen to help at bees, (which the Doctor says ought more properly to IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 \u UitZA 12.5 itt lii 12.2 u tii £ lis no IL25 III 1.4 i 1.6 PhotDgraphic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STMiT WEBSTiR.N.Y. MSSO (716)872-4503 <\ #! ^-:>:.R 92 be caU)ed hives,) leave the hive, in profound disgust, merely because the master, or head bee of the hive, ventured to hint, that a glass of whiskey might be re- fi^esbing to them after their long walk — an unusual feeling of temperance for a Highlander and a lumber- man, and which it is devoutly to be hoped, in this land of whiskey, they may long continue to cherisL. I returned twelve miles on the road by which I came, and then passed through a fine country towards Water- loo. It is entirely inhabited by old country people, whose clearings and farms are a sufficient contradiction to the very generally received notion in this country, that it requires a lifetime to learn to chop down trees. Tlie farms are as good as any of their age in Canada, and the people as well off, though none of them have been on their land more than ten or twelve years, and many of them not half so long. They have one great advantage over the rest of the Province — ^the Canada Company have made them good roads and built good mills, and that is STire to make a good settlement. When at Goderich I heard a story worthy of record. A poor half-witted Frenchwoman came up to a village about thirteen miles below Groderich, where the ne'er-do- weel, with whom she kept company, deserted her. A man in whose house they had Uved, hired a canoe at his own expense, to take her and her infant of a year old, down to her friends on the St. Clair, but a geAe coming on, they were driven on shore, and it being the begin- ning of winter, the snow was on the ground. The canoe-man took her on to the next hous^ and went to secure his canoe. The poor foolish creature thought ^i $8 that she could get on, flye miles farther to the village she had left> through a wood path drifted vp with snow, and not a house but one on the whole line. Accord- ingly die started, and must have lost her way, for she was found lying on her back with her long hair ftozeb in the snow. But though He tiiat made ns, had bes- towed but little reason upon her, the instinct, idiich he hath given to all living things for the preservation of their young, Was strong in her, for it appeared tliat when the poor natural thought she must perish, her last care was about her inffrnt. She had stripped her* self of her under petticoat, torn it into stripes, and wrapped it round her child — ^then, taking off her hood, she had bound it over its head and face. When found by the Indi&n traders she was insensible, but the diild was warm and well. They carried her to the next house ; it was found tliat her feet were frozen, as was her back. She was tiien taken on a bed to Goderich, where her feet came off. She was long before she recov^*ed, but her motherly affection caused a strong feeling in favour of the poor weak minded Sophie La Yoie. It was remarked to me, that, to judge of good land, you should look at tiie tree^ for if they are healthy and of the right sort (maple, elm, bass, that is lime tree, with some beech) the land is good. This is remarka- bly shewn in the district of Huron. The trees, parti- cularly the elms, are the finest I have seen in Canada. When a party first started from Guelph, to cut the road, they comphuned on their return, that the Guelph trees had grown less. Coming out of the rich loamy land of Huron you all of a sudden come on the light soil of Waterloo, one of 94 the oldeet. settlements in; the Fiovince. It was settled hj GrennanafrMnPenns^lTaoia, nearl;|^£brty years ago, and a, fine setAlement th^ have made; of iL The iairma are laif e and well cultivated ; the barns the largest I ever saw» built generallj on the slope of a bll]^ so as to give wann stables^ byres, sheds and poultiy houses be- bw them, and the houses good two story buildings. It is said that this, township produces more wheat than the Eastern and Ottawa districts put together, and if you were to add to it, its neighbour township of Damfrie& I dare! say more than the whole lower province. I proceeded on to Gait, the capital of Dumfries, whicit is a thriving village-<-tiie Grand River at this place is as large a stream as can weU be dammed, and a good dam dyke has been thrown across it here, enough to supply power for all the mills that can ever be re- quired here. I have got my report of the land I have visited ready, and am copying it for the purpose of sendmg it home. It is much more particular anent lands than this, which is a mere sketch of my journal, you can see it if you like, but as you have more to do with leather than land, I enclose you the prices of work in your trade, which I procured from a snob in Toron- to. {Herefottows a great many details (^family matters and the sendingi out of his wife and chUdreny of no m- terest to the general reader.). The result of aH my travels and enquiriea is, that I would recommend to my friends to settle to the west of Brantford but not further west than Chatham. I would give the preference to the District of Huron, and next to that, the District of London. tied 96 I shall start for home in three daysi and set to work on my farm, so as I have not so many wonders to see 111 have the fewer to tell you of, and therefore I will not write tiU the beginning of the new year, when I hope to be able to inform you that my house is in order for my wife and family. With kindest regards to them and all enquiring friends, I remain, my dear John, &c. Golt, August. Ein> OF PABT n. #*# .0\ \ i ) ' ^ ^3*««>«1 APPENDIX NOTE A. Jr the course of these memoirs, I li«ve given such information to Emigrants, possessing a captal of £300 sterling, as will enable them, with prodence and good managem^Ttt, to accomplish this object, viz: a comfortable competency. To those who have larger means it is only necessary to obst^x^e. that they can do all that I have done, and more, in much less time. But, as these who have less, say £100 sterling, may fieel that their circum- stances have not been taken into consideration sufficiently to form even the ground plan of that substantial and matter of fact edifice, which they percMve^ on their arrival in the country, they oan erect upon the ruins of those air-buUt castles they had formed on the commencement of their pilgrimage, I would propose the fol- lowing mode of laying it out ; £100 sterling, at the present rate of exchange, will amount to nearly £120 currency. A farm of 150 acres, one-fourth .cleared, may be purchased with a small house and bam upon it, for £150 ; £25 down, and £25 a year, with interest, until aU be pud, thus : Db. £ «. d. To first payment for farm, say April 1,... To Stove, Kitchen and Daii^ Utensils, and some Utde Furniture, To Provisions for a man and his wife, be- - ; sides milk andtutter from his cows, for ' hftlf a year,.*. Carried forward, I £ ^9 ». d. 12 iQ Q 7 6 £44 5 98 £ 8. d. £ ». d. Brought forward, 44 5 To Seed, Grain and Potatoes, 5 2 To a Yoke of light Oxen and Yoke, 14 10 To half a ton of Hay for them, 308. and Prorender SOs., 3 To Ox Cart and Wheeb X5, Plough £0, Harrow 308., 9 To Sled 158., 3 Chains SO3., 8 Cows £10, 4 Sheep £3, 14 5 To an Axe 10s., 3 Hoes 7s., Spade and Sho- vel 7s., Dung and Hay Fork 5s., 19 To 2 Bakes 3s., 3 Sickles Ss., Omdle and Scythe 15s., 10 To 2 other Scythes ISs. 6d., afew Carpen- ters' Tools, Iluls, See, ISs., 110 6 To 3 Sfaoats ads., 3 Figs 158., Poultry 10s., Qarden 86«ds Ss.,..........^ ' 8 To a ICan's wages, 1 month in 8ttmraer« and board. 3 15 To ditto in Autumn, 1^ month 4 10 Tosnndry trifles and contingencieB......... 2 10 I >ii I £106 16 6 Cb. ByCa8h,£lOO'SterUnff sayCwrency,.... 130 By proceeds frcHU two Cows, besides con- sumption,. 3 10 By sale of 150 bushels of Potatoes, at ls.6d., 11 5 By do. of 7 bushels of Wheat for send, at 6s. a a 0* By do. of 10 cwt of Oat Meal, at 15s., 7 10 jBy do. 6f1iObtu3ieIstndianCotQ,at4s.,. 4 By remsiiiidet of j[irdduce, feedsng Fig, Provender, FrovisionStJicc......... 0^ Balance in hand, 41 10 6 £148 7 0.148 7 * For this and the two following items, Agrwim gumitit^ of wheat would be substituted in the ^western parts of the Pnmnce. The prices are much lower now ; but being a detaail of ftrcts, they are retained in the hope that they will rise again, or that other thugs will come dowii to tJmf level. Tf*^'- T .I » n i | irO Miin ii |K ■t Mii ii #'!t?i1 ii i.#! » toliM] « a Y 10 |3 5 9 10 6 9e SECOND YlCAll. £ ». Br. To second pavmeat oa Farm with intereflt, To another Cow £5, 4 young Figs 208., 2 additional Sheep 208., To Grass, Turnip and (harden Seeds, To WagM, 3 months in Summer, and 2 in Winterer. To Kettle to make Salts, Suear, Soap, &;c., To another Axe lOs., Sundries 203., By Balance on hand from last year, 41 10 By sale of Produce, besides consumption. Seed, &c., 43 10 Balance on hand carried down to Cr.... £85 TfllED YEAtt. Db. To third instalment for farm, To a Ifon's wrares during Summer and Winter, To Doctors' IKll 35s., Shoemalurs' and Twiors* BiUs 708.,...„ To Subscription for building School House, To a pair of Horses, £25, Harness £7,.... To a pair of Wheels for a Wagon, To Wagon Body 20s, Horse Sled 25s, box for ditto, 15s., To Blacksmiths' Bill 50s., Sundries 25s.,.. Cb. By Balance on hand from last year,. 30 10 By sale of Grain and Potatoes, 68 By do. of Butter85s,Pork75s,Onions308, 9 10 By do. of Oxen, Stall-fed through Winter, 30 By do. of 9 owt. Black Salts at 15s, G 15 By do. of a Fat Calf 20s., and two Fat Sheep 1 7s. 6d. each, 2 15 Baluiee on hand carried down^ £137 10 (/. £ <. d, 32: 10 7 I 5 10 15 1 10 1 10 C 54 10 sa 10 6 6 85 6 31 10 19 S 5 1 32 4 10 3 3 15 £100 6 87 10 6 6 137 10 6 ■"..;wr.jfC»LV"' —i^^ w?^ "' 100 Db. I'ourth year's Instalment with interest,.... X29 10 Leaving a balance of £8 15s. in hand to carry on the farm during the spring; but it is unnecessary to carry the account Airther ; indeed I cannot do so without anticipating the real his* tory of the person from which it has been taken, who has now a' good stock of cattle, with his clearing doubled, and every prospect of good crops, besides a stack of hay of 10 tons, remaining over from last year, and only two more instalments to pay on his farm, when he will build himself a new house, in which to enjoy a comfortable competency for the remainder of his life. So much for a small capitaL But as I have recommended the country to such as have none, for the satisfaction and encourage- itaent of emigrants of this class, I submit to their consideration the following instances of the success of sober, steady, industrious men, anu, I ought to add, whose conduct and deportment had been decent, orderly, and moral, not to say religious ; qualities, which I con- ceive essential to worldly prosperity, as I never yet knew an in- stance, (and I am no ianatic,) of a man succeeding in the world to an extent at all commensurate with his means, who paid little or no regard to the Lord's day, and who did not constantly attend his church. Case 1. — My manBichard is the son of a sett^3r who had been peculiarly unfbrtunate and consequently very poor, but as his jnisfortuncs and poverty had nothing to do Avith emigration or farming, it is unnecessary f\irther to advert to either ; sufRce it that such was the fact, which had something to do with Bichard's history, for he was a good yoiug man and a dutiful son : — he devoted'the whole of his wages, during the first two, of the three years he was with me, after clothing himself ;a the cheapest possi- ble way to be at all decent, to the support of Lis father and family^ and I have no doubt would have continued to do so much longed had they required such assistance, but they did not, and Richard found himself enabled to purchase a small farm at Abbottdford, on the borders of the Eastern Townships, for which he was to pay £40, £10 down, ready money, and £10 a year with interest, till the whole was paid. The first instalment he paid out of the savings of his third year's wages, and got my oxen and plough for R uriiMa^'Vii 101 a few days to break np some Ave or six acres, (which wai all tliat had been cleared upon it,) for which he paid me in his own work. This he pUnted with Indian com, and cleared an acre or two for potatoes, planted them, hoed them and his Indian com in due season : harrested his com, took up bis potatoes, making cribs for the former and pits for the latter. During the spring and summer of that year he was thus occupied, he worked for me all the rest of his time, at $8 a month, which, with the proceeds from the sale of part of his potatoes and com, enabled him to meet his sec^ 5 to 6 dollars an acre, according to their quality. 104 Whereas if half the labour had been expended in making roads from front to rear, according to my suffeestion, which has been laid out in thpse running parallel with the front line of the Township, this very block or land would have been worth, and would have sold for, ten times the amount The following rude sketches of a portion of a Township laid out, the first, according to the mode here suegested, and the second, according to the plan hitherto observed, will most flilly illustrate my meaning :— _ W^:) to Bi th hf U ct Si h FRONT K04D ROAD- ROAO ROAD. wssrvsjiS o p« H B s m im NOTE C. t would here direct the reader's particular atteutioii to the following caution against re-emigrating from the British Colonies into the adjoining States, as more to the purpose than any thing I could say. Extract of a Despatch, dated 30th September, 1841, from the Consul at New York, to the Lieutenant Governor of NcW Brunswick. *'i beg to say that my office is daily beset by numbers who have landed at Quebec, St Johns, and other ports from the United Kingdom, who merely remain as long in Her Majesty's possessions as they can either earn by their labour, or as they can obtain without labour, as much money as wi^^ pay their pas- sage to the States. I may state that in nine casb^ jut of ten the poor people deplore how they have been duped, while, from their having left Her Majesty's possessions, I do not feel it my duty to render them any pecuniary aid. " Several Emigrant Associations have been formed in this city, but they have been short-lived from, being so borne down with, applicants, and one established last year will,! presiune, expire mth the year. *' It may appear extraordinary to your Excellency that more persons receive charitable aid in this city than in Dublin, or any city in Her Majesty's dominions of the same extent of population. The numerous charitable institutions have entailed this evil upon the city. " There is continually arriving in this city a class of British Emigrants, whose condition here is truly distressing, viz., persons above the rank of the labouring class, the sons and daughters above the scale which furnish servants, some of them who have been well educated ; some are well qualified to act as teachers in various branches, but all such are miserably disappointed ; not a few are provided for by death, in the unhealthy climate of the Southern States, to which they have to resort, while many enter the service of the United States army. " For above 25 years I have witnessed the misery and disap- pointment of thousands who have arrived here, while the most dieplorable sufferers are females, and those inen who will Aot labour. I know not how it is in New Brunswick, but in Upper Canada females are sure of employment, and if prudent and well conducted, certain of getting comfortably married, while their distress drives hundreds to the most degrading haunts of prosti- tution. If females are good looking, and out of employment, they are picked up at the office fbr servants, and carried to ihe South for prostitution, without their being aware of it, until entangled in a net from whence they cannot extricate themselves, and houses of ill fame are genially supplied by girls from these offices^ " A labouring mtixi nay work hard all his life in the United Kingdom, or Ireland, and never will acquire 50 acres of land, while five years of such labour if he avoids spirituous liquors, will enable a labouring man in Canada, and I presume also in New Brunswick, to acquire 50 acres, if not more, with a dwelling ; I speak from actual observation^ Labouring with the axe and ttoe i^s so different, l! may say so gentlemanly a diescriptibn of labour, that our respectable young men do not view it as working with a spade and reaping-hook in Ireland is considered, while in a short time an active young man may obtain £3 per month,* steady wages, with board, and be regarded as one of the farmer's family." NOTE D. GENETRAL INSTRUCTIONS TO EMIGRANTS. As a great many copies of this work will probably be sent, by settlers in this country, to their friends at home, I have indeed already been applied to for numbers to be thus disposed of, I therefore here subjoin for the information of such as intend to emigrate to this country, a few hints and directions which they will find useful, and would do well to attend to on taking their departure. Let them take their passage to Quebec or Montreal, it matters not which, provided there be a difference in the charge, of five per cent, as that would take them from the former to the latter town. If they find their own provisions for the voyage; (say for one) let him take a couple of loaves of bread, 60 lbs. of well cured . ♦The Consul must^ I think, refer only ta the honest months. ■- . a-iliW l M l lil f liiiMii will jiot in Upper wid well lile their of prosti- lent, they South for igled in a houses of United of land, i liquors, also in w^elling; axe and pfioxt of Working while in month,* fanner's lent, by indeed d of,r end to li thejr ' their tatters ve per town, rone) cured thsT m bacon or hams, as many of biaeoits, 10 lbs. of cheese, 1 n>. ef tea, 6 lbs. of sugar, 30 r merchfuit in Quebec or Montreal, keejwig, however afew sovereigns in case of contingencies. When he arrives here, whaiev^ doubts and firaara and miig^v- ings he may have, and I can assure him he wiUhave.many, aUfae has to do, is to4)aU«t tiie Offices of the Emigrant Agents, and he will reoeivfi every assiataace is his difficnUiea, and all the instructionand adnoe neecssar^ for his giudaaoe afterwards. Or »-^^ 108 when in tiio country, if he have no private friend with whom to advise* let him apply to the clergyman, if there be one, or, if not, to a magistrate, either of whom will readily give him all the information he may require, and upon which he can depend. A TABLE Shewing the prices of conveyance to Quebec from the different ports mentioned below, in the cabin with aU necessaries except bedding, and in the intermediate and steerage, the passengers to provide themselves with every thing. To Quebec Cabin. I ntermediai te. Steeragt From London, £20 £5 £4 Liverpool, 19 3 2 Leith, 12 2 10 Greenock, 15 4 2 Dublin, 11 2 5 Belfast, 14 2 5 Londonderry, 12 2 10 SUgo, 10 2 15 Limerick, 14 2 10 Cork, 14 2 10 Zist of th/e Government Emigration Agents in the United K{ng-< dam. Lieut. LEA37, E. N., (Office, East Smithfield.) Lieut HksBT, R. N., liverpool, (Office, 83, Union-street) Lieut FoBRSST, B. N., Leith. Lieut Hbhmans, B. N., Greenock. laeut HoBDEB, B. N., Dublin. Lieut Faimn), B. N., Cork. Lieut Starke, R N. Belfast <¥^. Mr. Ltnch, B. N. Limerick. Lieut Shuttlbwobth, R N., Sligo. Lieut Bamsat, R N. Londonderry. These officers act imder the immediate directions of the Colo- nial Land and Emigration Commissioners, and the following is a summary of their duties: — They correspond with any mi^trates, clergymen, parish offi- cers, or others who may apply to them for information as to the facilities for emigration from their respective stations. They ) KtkM iMJMiili kttMiaiiMM whom to I or, if not, all the Ipend. different 1*8 except angers i ICtng-, Colo- lOffi- > the Phey 109 prooure, and give gratuitously, information as ftb the iaiffiiig TEAB. Db. To mowing and taking off hay, at 7s. 6d. per acre ^ 3 15 Cb. By 1^ ton per acre of hay, at 6 dollars per ton, 22 10 thibd teab, Db. To mowing and taking off the hay, at 78. 6d. per acre, 3 15 Cb. By 1^ ton per acre of Lay, at 6 dollars per ton 22 10 82 10 58 15 Balance in clear profit, 23 15 £82 10 82 10 >v. --..-'. 114 ABSTRACT OF PASSENGER ACT. The following is an outline of the principal Regulations ofthtf Passengers Act, 5 and 6 YictjCh. 107 1 so /or as relate* to wyofea to Norw America : — No vessel proceeding to any place out of Europe, not being within the Mediterranean Sea, to carry more than three persons (master and crew included) lo every five tons burthen, nor what- ever be the tonnage, more than one passenger to every ten clear superficial feet of the space appointed for the use of the passen- gers, under a penalty not exceeding £5 for every passenger in excess. The lower deck must be not less than one and a half inch i^ thickness, and secured to the hold beams. The height between decks is to be six feet at least There must not be more than two tiers of berths ; the bottom of the lower tier to be six inches above the deck. The berths not to be less than after the rate of six feet in length, and eighteen inches in width, for each passenger, and to be securely constructed. At least three quarts of water per diem to be issued to each passenger, and a supply of provisions, not less often than twice a week, at the rate of 7 lbs. of bread stuffs per week, half at least to be bread or biscuit, the other half may be potatoes, of 'which 5 lbs. are to be reckoned equal to 1 lb. of breaid stuffs. The water to be taken in tanks or sweet casks, none exceeding 300 gallons in capacity. The length of the voyage to North America to be computed at ten weeks. Two children under 14 to be reckoned equal to one passenger ; children under 1 not to count. Provisions and water to be inspected and surveyed by the Government Emigration Agents, or, in their absence, by the Oificers of Customs. Seaworthiness of vessels to be ascertained by those officers who may order a survey, if necessary. Sufficient boats to be taken. Two copies of the Act to be kept on board, to be produced to the passengers on demand. A proper supply of medicines, &c., with directions for their use, to be provided for the voyage. The sale of spirits prohibited under a penalty not exceeding £100. Lists of passengers to be delivered by the Master to proper officers, previous to clearance, and counterfeits to be deposited with Officers of Customs, or Consuls, at final port of discharge. Same Regulations in respect of additional passengers taken on board after clearance. Parties contracting to find passages to North America, to give wnl the auti peJ A *'*<;: ^***»'^, ■■'■^.■'»^ -/ 118 written tecoipts in a prescribed form for rtoiie^ received, under ft S malty not exceeding XIO, and forfeiture of license if a Passage roker. Ko person, except Owner or Master of the ship, to bet as a Passage Broker or Dealer, unless licensed by Magistrates at the Petty or Quarter Sessions, under a penalty of £10 for each offence. Brokers liable to a penalty of £10 and forfeiture of license, if they receive passage money as Agents for others, without written authority from their Principals, or if they fraudulently induce persons to engage passages. In case the contract for a passage is not performed on the shipper's part, the aggrieved parties, unless maintained at the contractor s expense, and provided within a reasonable time with a passage to the same place, may recover, by summary process, before two Justices of the Peace, any passage money they may have paid, with a sum not exceeding £10 as compensation. Passengers to be victualled during detention of ships ; but if detention (except caused hv wind or weather,) exceed two clear working days, to receive instead Is. per diem, unless suitably lodged and maintained with their own consent by the Contractor. Passengers not to be landed against their consent at any place other than the one contracted for. Passengers to be maintained on board for 48 hours after arri- val, unless the ship, in the prosecution of her voyage, quits the port sooner. The Master is to afford every facility to the proper officers for inspecting the ship, communicating vrith the passengers, and ascertaining that the Act has been duly observed. The Owners and Charterers, or, in their absence, some ap- proved person on their behalf, and the Master of vessels carrying more than 50 passengers, must, before clearance, give bond with- out stamp, to the Crown, for the due performance of the Act. The Act extends to foreign as well as British ships, but not to vessels carrying fewor than 30 passengers, nor to cabin passengers. Passengers suing under the Act for money made recoverable to their use, not to be deemed on that account incompetent wit- nesses. Their right to proceed at law for any breach of contract re- served. A penalty not exceeding £50 imposed for the breach of any of the provisions of the Act, except m the five cases where spe- cific penalties are affixed. The enforcement of this law rests with the Government Emi- gration Agents and the Officers of Her Majesty's Customs ; and persons, therefore, having complaints to make of its infraction, should apply to those officers, who alone can enforce the various penalties. '■■■ ^''^ \ . -y <»-7