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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. ly errata 3d to nt ne pelure, icon S n 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 SIR R LIKL HI i i 1 CANADA AND THE CANADIANS. BY SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, Kt., LIKUTENANT-COLONEL KOYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. L O i\ D O N : HE.XRY COLBUKxY, PUBLISHKR, CJREAT MARLFJOROUcai STRKKT. 184.9. ■ 1 1 \ 4- C, <^ '•' y /^C^/!//li/d-/7^i^^-^ I Emig The] A Joi The I Peneti Friendly F. Shoberl, Jim., "lititcr to H.H.H Piiiiw Allieit, Unpcit Street. Barrie Nature's I^fud—R and the I CONTENTS ■:« OF THE FIRST VOLUME. It Street. Page 1 46 CHAPTER I. Emigrants and Immigration CHAPTER 11. The Emigrant and his Prospects CHAPTER in. A Journey to the Westward CHAPTER IV. The French Canadian * • CHAPTER V. Penetanguishene-^The Nipissang Cannihals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness CHAPTER VI. Barrie and Big Trees_A new Capital of a new District- Nature's Canal-The Devil's Elbow-Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill without the Lass-The Rebellion and the Radicals-Blue Hill and Bricks . , 72 90 127 Vlll CONTEXTS. CHAPTER VII. Toronto and the Transit — The Ice and its innovations — Siege and Storm of a Fortahce hy the Ice-king — Newark, or Niagara — Flags, big and little — Views of American and of English Institutions — Blacklegs and llaccs — Colonial high life — Youth very young . . 195 CHAPTER VIII. The old Canadian Coach — Jonathan and John Eull pas- sengers — "That Gentleman" — Beautiful River, beautiful drive — Brock's Monument — (^ueenston — Bar and Pulpit — Trotting horse Railroad — AanTuI accident — The Falls once more — Speculation — Water Privilege — Barbarism — Mu- seum — Loafers — Tulip-trees — Rattlesnakes — The Burning Spring — Setting fire to Niagara — A eh iritable AVoman —The Nigger's Parrot — John Bull is a Yankee — Political Courtship — Lundy's Lane Heroine — Welland Canal 217 CHAPTER IX. The Great Fresh -water Seas of Canada 200 I V( Motl finest an e] speci Scotl absol chant subm Ir in ai vo ,'ations — -Newark, rican and -Colonial 105 Bull pas- beautiful [ Pulpit- Falls once sm — Mu- e Burning |e "Woman Political nal 217 2 or, (jANAMA AND T II K C A i\ A D I A N S. (.^HAPTEU I. Eniii;rants and Inuni^fration. Very surprising it seems to assert that the Mother Country knows very little about the finest colony which she possesses — and that an enlightened people emigrate from soher, speculative England, sedate and calculating Scotland, and trusting, unreflective Ireland, absolutely and wholly ignorant of the total change of life to which they must necessarily submit in their adopted home. I recollect an old story, that an old gunner, in an old-fashioned, three-cornered cocked VOL. I. B CANADA AND hat, wlio was my favourite playfellow as a child, used to tell about the way in which recruits were obtaijied for the Royal Artil- lery. The recruitin*^ sergeant was in those days dressed much finer than any field-marshal of this dep^enerate, railway era ; in fact, the Horse Guards always turned out to the ser- <^eant-major of the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich, when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentle- men cadets from Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the foot- soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery and sapping. "The way they recruited was thus," said the bombadier. " The gallant sergeant, be- dizened in copper lace from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and with a swagger which no modern drum -major has ever pre- sumed to attempt, addressed a crowd of coun- try bumpkins. *' ' Don't listen to those gentlemen in red ; tlh'ir liraiiisi niiivari bv us oiilv, ii firesho of the uentlei flatfoot pei'ry-f< shot. I ever se( never d Itlie she] Isary. '' ' X. Woolwi vou ioi * ti sliells ii Yes! balloon Iniade— Tin: CANADIANS. .3 \N as ji ; which ,1 Anil- se days marshal act, the the ser- cademy y went Charing gentle- 10 were le foot- rt and ^," said mt, be- of his [wagger [er pre- coun- \n red ; thtMi" sarvicc is one whirli no man who has liiaiiis will ever think of — footini;- it over the uiiivarsal world ; thov have nsnallv hoen called •jM hv us the flatfoots. They uses the mnsquet Hoiilv,and have hands like f(»et, and feet like fiivsliovels. " ' Mind mc, gentlemen, the royal regiment of the lioyal Artillery is a sarvice which no ^ontleman need be ashamed of. " ' We fights with real powder and ball, the flatfoots fights with bird-shot. We knows the perry-ferry of the circumference of a round shot. Did you ever see a mortar ? Did you ever see a shell ? I will answer for it vou I never did, except the poticary's mortar, and I the shell that mortar so often renders neces- Isarv. I ' I " ' Now, gentlemen, at the imperial city of I Woolwich, in the Royal Arsenal, you may, if you join the Royal Artillery, you may see sliells in earnest. Did you ever see a balloon? 1 cs ! Then the shells there are biii-(rer than nn halloons, and are the largest hollow shot ever made — the French has nothing like them. B 2 4 CANAUA AM> *' ' And llic wav \m' uses tlieiii I Wo fiics lluMii out of tlu! mortars into tlic niciiivV towns, and stulls them full of red s()i»oi's. W(dl, they bursts, and out comos tiio Hat foots, opons the .^Jitcs, and lets the Uoyal Artillerv in ; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold, Jind precious stones, after ;i leetle scrimmai'in!'-. " ' Come alon«i' with me, my hoys, and even one of you shall have a coat like mine, which was made out of the plunder; and you shall have a horse to ride, and a carriage behind it ; and you shall see the glorious city ot Woolwich, wdiere the streets are paved with ])enny loaves, and drink is to be bad for ask- ing. > '9 So it is with nine-tenths of the emiu:rants to Canada in these enlightened days ; so it i> with the eirdgrants from old England, and from troubled Ireland, to the free and asto- nishing Union of the States of America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new go- ahead world of the West. Dissatisfied with home, with visionary ideas o f I'd pdon^i IJesot agents ventui of tlu and w their 1 starts never ( faetor\ hod, t with hi l)ort. Thei guifle 1 every a to his mates, heads ] slioop, 1 York able to come tl TIIF, CANADIANS. 5 We files cnotiivV • (1 sobers. Hat toots, Artillery and, ann. IJosot i,^eiierally with agents of companies, with agiMits of private enterprise, with reckless ad- venturers, with ignorant priests, or missionaries of the lowest stamp, with politier.l agitators, and with miseralde traitors to the land of their hirth and hreeding, the poor emigrant starts from the interior, where his ideas have never ex])an{led beyond the weaver's loom or factory lahour, the plough or the spade, the hod, the plane, or the trowel, and hastens with his wife and children to the nearest sea- ])ort. There he finds no friend to receive and guide him, hut ra])acious agents ready to take every advantaije of his i<;norance, with an eye to his scanty purse. A host of captains, mates, and sailors, eager to make up so many heads for the voyage, pack them aboard like slioop, and cross the Atlantic, either to \ew ^ ork or to Quebec, just as they have been able to entice a cargo to either port. Then come the horrors of a long voyage and short 6 CANADA AND provisions, and high prices for stale salt junk and biscuit ; and, at the end, if ilhiess has been on board, the quarantine, that most dreadful visitation of all — for hope deferred maketli the heart sick. From the first discovery of America, there has been a tendency to exaggeration about the resources and capabilities of that country — a mogniloquence on its natural productions, which can be best exemplified by referring the reader to the fac-simile of the one in Sir Walter Raleigh's work on Guiana,^ now in the British Museum. Shakespeare had, no doubt, read Raleigh's fanciful description of '* the men whose heads do ffrow beneath their ^liouli ' Brevis et admiranda dcscriptio IIEGNI GVIAX.E, AVRT abundantissimi, in AMERICA, sev novo orbe, sub linca -ZEquinoctilia siti : quod nuper admodum, Annis ninii- rum lo94, 1595, ct lo9G per generosum Dominuin Dr. GVALTIIERVM RALEGH Equitem Anglum do- tcctum est : paulo post jussa ejus duobus libellis coinprc- hensa. Ex quibus JODOCVS IIONDIVS TARVLAM ( Tcographicam adornavit, addita explicationc Belgico sermone scripta : Nunc vero in Latinum sermoncm translata, ct ex variis authoribus hinc indc declarata. Noriberga;. Inipensi^ LEVINI IIULSII. M.D.XCIX. THE CANADIANS. salt junk s has been i dreadful 1 make til •ica, there on about t country )ductions, referring ►ne in Sir / now in had, no ption of ath their GVIAX.E. orbe, sub Annis ninii- Dominuin ingliim (Ic- is com pre - ABVLA.M ico sermone islata, et ex Impensi^ i shoulders," &c. ; for he was thirty-four years of age when this print was publish od, only seventeen years before his - shops open their doors, and he is frequently obliijed, from the loss of all his hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his kind new friends may think proper, or most aer sons, lephews' nephews of a Lord Mayor, or unprovided heirs in i)0sse. These fancy they confer a sort of honour by selectinn^ the colony as their final restin<(- phiee, and thj.t a governor and his ministers have nothini:: in the world to think about but bow they can provide for such important units. Hence they frequently end by placing- themselves in direct opposition to the powers that be, or take very unwillingly to the la- bours of a farmer's life. ^Fany of tliem, when they find that jiretension is laughed at, par- ticularly if no talents accou'pany it, which is rarely or ever the case, for talent is modest and retiring in its essential nature, turn out violent Republicans or Radicals of the most furious calibre ; but the more modest portion work heartily at their farms, and frequently succeed. Another chiss is your private gentlemen's sons and decent voun<>: farmers from Kuirland, Ireland, or Scotland, who think before thev leap, have connexions already estal)lishe(l in Canada, and small capitals to commence ^ 14 CANADA AND with. These arc tlio really valuable settlers : they go to Canada for land and livinii', and eschew the land and liberty system of the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the London and western districts. It does not require a very lengthened ac- quaintance with Canada to form observations upon the characters of the immiffrants, as the Webster style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be. The Enoflish franklin and the En'j:lisli peasant who come here usually weigh their allegiance a little before they make up n* minds ; but, if they have been persuaded tha Queen Victoria's reign is a " hanefiil domina- tion,'' they either go to the United States at once, or to those portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the order of the day/ * That is, to those portions of the London and westeni district where American settlers ahound, who have so ge- nerously repaid the fostering care which Governor Simcoc If t oonipr ticians mate r>nt the rei sionall; tuate 1 enii:;'ra idread} whose arts of The be said of mec' labour( most a •and on wages their e originall indebted locked 1 through might n( THE CANADIANS. 1.-) 3 settlers . vino-, ,111(1 m of the ley settle, a second )serve(l in lened ac- 'ervations fs, as the have the English g\\ their up h' (led tha domhia' IJ I i ive so ge- >r Simcoe If they ho Scotch Radicals, the most un- compioinising and the most hitter of all poli- ticians, they seek Canada only with the nlti- iiiate hope of revolutionizing it. IJiit the latter are more than halanccd hy the respectahle Scotch, who emigrate occa- sionally upon the same principles which ac- tuate the respectahle portion of the English emigrants, and hy the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue. The oreat mass of emi^ifrants may however be said to come from Ireland, and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages W'ith contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward. originally extended to tliein. One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an inn, pad- locked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their thirst. 16 CANADA AND Ff they be Oraii-iiorant as could be conceived. I Such has not hitherto been the case with \ the Catholic priesthood of the Canadas. rrhe French Canadian clergy are a body of H I 18 CANADA AM) pious, cxorn|)l:iry men, not perhaps sliiuin^ in the .i»iil;i\y of sclcnco, l)Ht iino))trusive, ;!:onthMnaMly, juul au honour to the sofffnar iind cliasnhle. The priests from Irehmd are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were, till very hitely, generally presided over hy Scotch mis- sionaries ; and I can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic ])riesthood of Western Canada will not yield the pabn to their Franco-Canadian brethren of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated h\ them. T have long and personally known and admired the late Hishop i\Iac Donell ; :i worthier or a better man never existed. Tho highest and the lowest alike loved him. I saw him bendino- under the wei^'ht of years, passed in his ministry and in the de- fence of his adopted country, just before ho left Canada, to lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing tho Hrst stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the ground and funds to the utmost of his ability. ilo iinwirh lifo of toiichii to see the ar colonel This peace I Uisf from pr ceeded the wou in oflicc hut, dil I do in assert t tion pi love tlij the fien jects \\\ of bene You do, to (1 Tin: CANADIANS. ID III' was a lar;40, vonoraljlo-loukiiii,^ man, iMiwiolJy fmiii the infirniitles of a;^^ anw vents me way e recent ■^ against liat is to without )lic soon d of the IS, and at lire is ■ve that mdoned l)roken to have to have le attri- iiltar at )oses of arraying man against nniii, and of eml)ruing the hands heM uj) ])efore him at prayer in the bl()ovas secondary in Solomon's eyes to the widow's son. These men, says the holy record, were ^lifted expressly for their peculiar mission ; and so are all men, to whom the Inscrutable has leen pleased to assign extraordinary talent. Coesar, the conqueror. Napoleon, his imi- tator, and Nelson, and Wellington, are they on a par ^vitli the rabble of New York? Procul, 0, procul este profani ! c 2 i S8 CANADA AND I'lire (lomocracy is an utter mid unattain- alile iin{)Ossii)ility ; nature has edectually harred against it. The only thing in the course of a life of more than lialf a century that has ever puzzled me ahout it is, that the Catholic clergy should, in so many parts of the world, have lent it a helping hand. The ministers of a creed essentially aristocratic, essentially the pillars of the divine right of kings, have they ever been in earnest about the matter ? Perhaps not ! If that giant of modern Ireland, the paci- ficator citizen king, succeeded in separating the island from Great Britain, would he, on attaining the throne, or the dictatorship, or the })residency, or whatever it might be, for the nonce, desire pure democracy ? Jc crois (jue non, because, if he did, he would reign about one clear week afterwards. Look at the United States, see how each successive president is bowed down before the JNIoloch altar ; he must worship the demo- cratic Baal, if he desires to be elected, or re- elected. It is not the intellect, or the wealth of the Union that rules. Already they seri- ously cf equality ^ion of eient to o\'istenc( fortunate have mu circumstr r*resident to Jive n rest of t indeed a i When t I^SS-IS.*^ thus pare reward of but in sli or two, ac But, no cracy, thei balance in '"iny very fi'ish, from "pon, and THE CVXADIAXS. 1:0 ;iun- uilly tlic ituvy t the ts of The ratic, jht of about paci- •ating lie, on up, or e, for reigu eacli ive the Idemo- or re- Nvealth V seri- ously canvass in the l^npirc State perfect equality in worldly substance, and the divi- sion of the lands into small portions, suffi- cient to aflford the means of respectable existence to every citizen. It is, perhajx, fortunate that very few of the office-hoMers have much substance to spare under these circumstances ; but, if the President, Vice- President, and the Secretaries of State, are to live upon an acre or two of land for the rest of their lives. Spartan broth will be indeed a rich diet to theirs. When the sympathizers invaded Canada, in 1888-1839, the hinds of the Canadians were thus parcelled out amongst them, as the reward of their extremely patriotic services, but in slices of one hundred, instead of one or two, acres. But, notwithstanding all this ultra-demo- cracy, there is at present a sufficient counter- balance in the sense of the people, to prevent any very serious consequences ; and the Irish, from having had their religion trampled upon, and themselves despised, would be 80 CANADA AND very likely to run counter to native feeling. If any country in tlio whole civilized world exhibits the inequality of classes more forcibly tlian another it is the country whicli has lately annexed Texas, and which aims at annexing all the New World. There is a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the dominions of the Czar. JJirth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman, accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a canal boat, the most abomi- nable of all conveyances, resembling Noah's ark in more particulars than its shape, that I was accosted, in the Northern States too, and near the borders, where equality and liberty reign paramount, by a long slab-sided fellow-passenger, who, I thought, was goin^ | to ask me to pay his passage, his appearance was so shabby, with the following questions : iJiquirin was, I large I'tica, o| This I can bd amuse t] Soniei Canada uniform. Bufflilo ^'oniman THE CANADIANS. 31 fltlVC lized liisses untry which itwecii hand, i 311 the ' Czfir. I \oureravo(l a thonsand years the hatth* and the breeze/* I think the majority of the popii- hition must have lined the wharfs to see us come in. They rent the welkin with wel- comes, and, amon<^' other demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main — " Long live George the Third !" — Our gra- cious monarch had for years before bid this worM good night, but that was nothing ; the good folks of BulTalo had not perhaps (piite forgotten that they were once, long before their city was a city, subjects of King George. I and another oflicer ii' uniform were re- ceived with all honours, and escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sump- tuously, and had to run the gauntlet of hand- shaking to great extent. A respectable gen- tleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uni- form,, but he only wanted to ask questions, nnd, n: ] n.'irne, \ i lie said, ^ I have ; hti\o hai never \y inilieard' /Ingellati < Ira tic oq '•inonn'al trophe, f linuHa- lonian education. Tt is a pity, is it not, gentle rearopose< written occurrei commen 5ays, s They and bea. they to ( cliampio; champioi English Two d of the ta Ji crowm Liberty sign. Tl tually siL levelled i uncultiva THE CANADIANS. 35 ice, I Nesv 3f the ioleiit were S7) a ed to n as a J race- nd the 1 at a Queen ivee. I Eiig- racters A very :) Loco- limselt we sat, ert, by iiid an rytliing American. The g-entlemen above alluded to, men who had travelled over Europe, whose education and manners made them that which a true gentleman is all over the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed that a w^eekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that poetry, tales, and essays, should form part of its matter. They agreed to discuss the relative i)oints and bearings of monarchy and democracy ; they to depute one of their number to be the champion of monarchy ; and we to chuse the champion of democracy from amongst the English passengers. Two drawings were fixed up at each end of the table after dinner ; one, representing a crowned Plum-pudding; and the other, Liberty and Equality, by the well-known sign. The blustering animal was soon effec- tually silenced ; a host of first-rate talent levelled a constant battery at his rude and uncultivated mind. 36 CANADA AND I shall never foriret this voyage, and I hope the talent-gifted Canadian lawyer who threw down the gauntlet of Republicanism, and who has since risen to the highest honours of his profession wdiich the Queen can bestow, has preserved copies of the Saturday's Gazette of The Mediator Ame- rican Packet-ship. The mention of this vessel puts me in mind of one more American anecdote, and I must tell it, for I have a good deal of dry work before me. Crossing the Atlantic once in an American vessel, we met another American ship, of the same size, and passed very close. Our cap- tain displayed the stars and stripes in true ship-shape cordial greeting. Brother Jona- than took no notice of this sea civility, and passed on ; upon which the skipper, after taking a long look at him with his ^py-glass, broke out in a passion, " What !" said he, " you won't show your b — d bunting, your old stripy rag ? Now, I guess, if he had been a Britisher, instead of a d — d Yankee, he woi he w( Pliew ! his ciu was en « But, tion of or des] under t United no dou under unexpn preferal r leans, I breed, Catholi( I safety, I They \\\ I Toa< • observeJ 1 I'ant an (I of this tijiniiinr THE CANADIANS. 37 11(1 I who nisin, ghest iueen f the Ame- i mind [ must work lerican , of the ir cap- in true r Jona- ty, and after •y' ■irlass, said he, ig, your he had Yankee, lie wouhl not have been ashamed of his flag ; he would have acted like a gentleman. Phew !" and he whistled, and then chewed his ciii'ar viciouslv, quite unconscious that I WHS enjoying the scene. But, if it be possible that one peculiar por- tion of the old countrvmen are more disliked or despised than another in any country under the sun, connected by such ties as tlie United States are with Britain, there can be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the feeling which native Ame- ricans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal i breed, entertain towards the labourinir Catholic Irish, and would, if they could with I safety, vent upon them in dreadful visitation. i They would exterminate them, if they dared. To account for such a feeling, it niust be : observed that a large portion of these igno- rant and mis^ijuided men have brou'^ht much of this animosity upon themselves ; for, con- tinuing in the New World that barlt.irous 38 CANADA AND tendency to (lemoli!?li all systems and all laws opposed to their limited notions of ri^ulit and wrong', and, whilst their senseless feuds among themselves harass society, they eagerly seek occasions for that restless poli- tical excitement to wliich they are accus- tomed in their own unhappy and regretted country. A ])ody of these hewers of wood and drawers of water, who, when not excited, are tlie most innocent and harmless people in the world — easily led, but never to be driven — get employed on a canal or great public work ; and, no sooner do they settle down upon wages which must appear like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught, some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is recol- lected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful neighbourhood with their insane broils. Or, should a devil, in the shape of an ad- viser, appear among them, and persuade these oxcita ^^■ages and bu J)el con follow, quell tl Tlie I vast SI public ) lias bee hordes I 'iuitted reach o been ca lias bee accident riot been cas followed At M graced I been em voters ; force is n ; an THE CANADIANS. 39 er IS 111 ad- tliesc oxcitaUc folks tliat they may obtain higher wages by forcing their own terms, bludgeons and bullets are resorted to, in order to com- ])el .compliance, and incendiarism and murder follow, until a military force is called out to quell the riots. The scenes of this kind in Canada, where vast sums are annually expended on the public works, have been frightful; and such has been the terror which these lawless liordes have inspired, that timid people have quitted their prop'^ h'es and fled out of the reach of the moral pestilence ; nay, it has been carried so far, that a Scotch regiment has been marked on account of its having been accidentally on duty in putting down a canal riot ; and, wherever its station has afterwards been cast, the vengeance of these people has followed it. At Montreal, the elections have been dis- graced by bodies of these canallers having been employed to intimidate and overawe voters ; and, were it not that a large military force is always at hand there, no election 40 CANADA AM) could 1)0 mado of a luoinbor, whose seat would be the uiibiasfe•( ^o's, or S' The en Jne, the o who was 'iinner-pa joined th( 'liinier; a was a fine it appear< 'f^ifsaf/e 01 iinexpecte THE CANADIANS. n go to liirc, they generally sit down on the nearest chair to the door in the room, and assume a manner of perfect familiarity, assuring the lady of the house that they never expected to ijo out to service iri America, hut that some fmnily misfortune has rendered such a step necessary. The lady then, of course, asks them what hranch of household service they can undertake; to which the invariahle reply is, anything — cook or housemaid, child's- maid or housekeeper, and that indeed they lived in better places at home than they ex- pect to get in America, such as Lord So-ani( socioiy 1 a- \ wo I or a cha guilty Vou I (•ooks ai or chain! I am li Ib'unnen beauties we have Canada, but the 1 creates a i ami bniss ;, and straw Tho :s are )lace(l (lis- sistcr ewliat 0(1 to is at icy of ig, as OL'ieti' ig-nifi- c and ler of lislied iread- more or a prac- TUE CANAIUANS. 45 ti^e the art of cutting." f therefore how to t'.ic well-(h'esscd grisettes, upon the principle of uvoidin;^ to he thought vnl;>'ar in mixed society by cutting a lady of tremendous rank; a- \ would rather take a cook for a Countess, or a chamhermaid for an Honourable, than be guilty of so much rudeness. \\)\\ must not smile, IAN!5. 47 liiiid, if the n-nind dosinn of Wasliin^'ton luid Ih'OIi carritMJ^ out, aiid perfect freedom of tliounht Jind of action liad booii secured to ilie i»eopl(% instead of a slavisii awe of the iiioh, an absolute drea J02.-_'Gl 20,143 1,904 23,024 04,898 1U,'J98 1,831 30,318 7 1, 98 1 16,289 1,777 16.531 24,201 4,408 377 119,354 2:,!. ,344 51,838 5,589 167,697 96,351 ; 123,860 , 45,517 433,425 Upper Canada would seem to have received the largest share of the influx of population. The increase in the number of its inha- bitants, between 1827 and 1843, is stated at 230,000. The local government has for some few years past encouraged, although rather scan- tily, as Mr. Logan can, I dare say, testify, an exploration of the natural resources of the Canadas, as far as geology and mineralogy are concerned. Its medical statistics, its botany and zoology, will follow ; and agricul- ture, that primary and most noble of all applications of the mind to matter, is r>C) CANADA AND inakin*^ rai)i(l strides, by the formation of district nnd local societies, uhich will do in- finitely more good than any system of govern- ment patronage for the advancement of the welfare of the people could devise. The public works have also, for the first time, been jdaced under the control of the executive and legislative bodies by the forma- tion of a board, which is itself also subject to the supervision of the government. 15ut much remains to be done on this im- portant head. A melancholy error was com- mitted in making the President, and conse- quently all the officers and cmploi/cs, of the l>oard of Works, partizans of the ministry of the day ; thus paralyzing the efforts of a zealous man, on the one hand, by the fear of (lismissal upon any change of the popu- la • will, and neutralizing his efforts whilst in office, by rendering bis measures mere jobs. This has been amended under Lord Met- calfe's administration ; and it is to be hoped that the office of President of the Board of THE CANADIANS. 57 Works will hereafter be one subjected to se- vere but not to vexatious scrutiny, and at the same time carefully guarded against political influence, and only rendered tenable with honour by the capacity of the person selected to fill it and of his subordinates. Canada is, as I have written two former volumes to prove, a magnificent country. I doubt very much if Nature has created a finer country on the whole earth. The soil is generally good, as that made by the decay of forests for thousands of years upon substrata, chiefly formed of alluvion or diluvion, the deposit from waters, must be. It is, moreover, from Quebec to the Falls of St. Mary, almost a flat surface, intersected and interlaced by numberless streams, and studded with small lakes, whilst its littorale is a river unparalleled in the world, expanding into enormous fresh water seas, abounding with fish. If the tropical luxuries are absent, if its winters are long and excessively severe, yet it yields all the European fruits abundantly, D 5 f^ 58 CANADA AND iukI even some of the troj)ical ones, owinp^ to the richness of its soil and the great heat of the summer. Maize, or Tiidian corn, flou- rishes, and is more wholesome and better than that produced in the warm South. The crops of potato, that apple of the earth, as the French so juf^tly term it, are equal, if not superior, to those of any other climate ; \\ hilst all the vegetables of the temperate regions of lh(^ old world grow with greater luxuriance than in their original fields. I Ih^ve successively and successfully cultivated the tomato, the melon, and the cai)sicum, in the open air, for several seasons, at Kingston and Toronto, whicli are not the richest or the best parts of Western Canada, as far as vegetation is con- cerned. Tobacco grows well in the western district, and where is finer wheat harvested than in Western Canada ? — whilst hay, and that beauty of a landscape, the rich green sod, the velvet carpet of the earth, are abundant and luxuriant. If the majesty of vegetation is called in question, and intertropical plants brought innf THE CANADIANS. 59 1(1 in :e in lit forward in contrast, even the woods and trackless forests of (iuiana, where the rankest of luxuriance prevails, will not do more than coin[)ete with the p:lory of the jjriineval woods of Canada. I know of nothiii^^ in this world capahlo of excitinn^ emotions of wonder and adoration more directly, than to travel alone tlirou<^h its forests. Pines, lift- ing their hoary tops heyond man's vision, unless he inclines his head so lar backwards as to he painful to his or^jraiiization, with trunks which require fathoms of line to span them ; oaks, of the most gigantic form ; the immense and graceful wee})ing elm ; enormous poplars, whose magnitude must he seen to he conceived ; lindens, equally vast ; walnut trees of immense size ; the beautiful birch, and the wild cherry, large enough ; make tables an«l furniture of. Oh, the gloom and the glory of these forests, and the deep reflection that, since they were first created by the Divine fiat, civilized man has never desecrated them with his unsparing devastations ; that a peculiar 60 CANADA AM) race, born fur these solitudes, once dwelt junidst their shades, living as Nature's wood- land children, until a more suhtile bein;j^ than the serpiMit of Eden crept anionyst them, and, with his glitterini^ novelties and dangerous heauty, caused their total annihilation ! I see, in sj)irit, the red hunter, lofty, fearless, and stern, stalking in his painted nudity, and . <>^/., it in thodoop Bush, as tho forest is called ; to lOv., if nearer a market ; or \js. and 'JO.v., if very eliii'ihly situat(Nl, Thus for two lunulrtMl pounds a settler can huv two hundnvl acres of i:!:ood land, can build an excellent house for two hundreil and iiftv more, and stock his farm with another iifty, asa beuinniuLi"; or, in other words, he can commence Canadian life for live hundred pounds sterling-, with every prospect before him, if he has a family, of leavini>' them prosperous and happy. Hut he and they must work, work, work. Ho and all his sons must avoid whiskev, that bane of the backwoods, as thev would avoid the rattlesnake, which sometimes comes across their path. Whiskey and wet feet destrov more promisinu: vouno- men in Canada than au'ue and fever, that scourue of all well watered woody countries ; for the auue and fever seldom kill but with the assistance of the dram and of exposure. Tin: CANADIANS. 63 Ih INfcii iHiitunMl in luxury or (unnpctouco at lionic, us soon as tin? unfailini;- t'litifii arisin^j; from want of society in tli(^ backwooMs Ix'^iiiiH to succoimI (lie cxcitcMncnt of s('Ulin<(, too frtMjUcnlly «lrink, and in many ceases drink tVoni their WMkini;- hour until they sink at ni«;ht into sottish sh'cp. This is jx^culiarly tho (•as(» where tliorc is no viHai^e nor town within a day's journey; :ind thus many otherwise estimahle vounif men become hahitual drunk- ards, and sink from the caste of ^•entleinen gradually into the dreu^s of society, whilst their wives aniiey he may have made goes to the fiddle, \h>: t'amale, or the fire-water; and he starts again a;? poor as at first, living perhaj)s by a rare chance to the advanced age, for a lumberer, of forty years. And a curious sight is a raft, joined toge- ther not with ropes but with the limbs and thews of the swamp or blue beech, which is the natural cordage of Canada and is used for sea Abiding and packing. A raft a quarter of a mile long — I hope I do not exaggerate, for it may be half a mile, never having measured one but by the eye — with its little huts of boards, its apo- lo- a French scholar, sang forth, in a paroxysm of gout, this re/rain : — '' Triiviiillcz, tnivailkz, bon tonnclier, IvHconiuiodc/., nicumnuKlcz, ton C'uvicr." And yet he was by no means an ignorant man — was at heart a true John Bull, and had travelled and seen the world. He was blinded by an un(]uenchable hatred of France, a hatred which has now ceased in England in consequence of the facility of inter Hirse, but which is revived in France against Eng- THE CANADIANS. 79 land by those who think la gloire preferable to peace and honour. The miserable feudal system in Lower Canada has kept the French population in abeyance ; that population is literally dor- mant, and the resources of the country unused • a Seigneur, now often anythin^^ but a Frenchman, holds an immense tract, par- celled out into little slips amongst a pea- santry, whose ideas are as limited as their lands. Generation after generation has tilled these i)atches, until they arc exhausted ; and thus tlio few proprietors who have been able to emancipate themselves from the Seignoral thraldom sell as fast as they can obtain pur- chasers ; and the Seignories lapse, by failure of descent or by cutting o(V the entail, as it may be termed, under the dominion of foreigners, to the people. It is surprising that British capitalists do not turn their attention more to Lower Canada, where land is thus to be bought very cheap, and which only requires manuring, a treatment that it rarely receives from a 80 CANADA AND Canadian, to bring it into heart again, and where the vast extent of tlic British town- ships, h.eld in free and common soccage, opens such a fiehl for the agriculturist. These townships are rapidly opening up and improving, and the sales of the Bri- tish American Land Company may in round numbers be said to average ^20,000 a year, or more than 40,000 acres, averaging ten shillings an acre. The day's wages for a labourer on a farm in Lower Canada mav be stated at two shil- lings currency, about one shillinj^ and eiglit- pence sterling, with food and lodging ; but, excepting in the towns and in the ei. ^rn townships, the labourers arf* Canadians, else- where chiefly Irish. Li t])e lar^e towns also they are Irish, anaralyzes tiie settler, and destroys that ari-^toeracy for whose beueKt it was created ; for it prevents the lord of the manor from ever becomin;;; rich, or taking much interest in the improvement of his domain ; and thus every thing continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere he buys land thus enthralled ; and almost all the old French families, who dated from Cliarlemagnc, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the unuvenu riche men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and metaphysical body-curers. It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor- general untrammelled by the lieutenant gover- norship of Western Canada, over which he had IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I !rll^ m^ 12.0 1.8 L25 iU ill 1.6 V] <^ /a ''^A ■ / M Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 l^< 88 CANADA AND had before no control, that it should be consi- dered desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity of abolishing all feudal tax- ation. In Montreal this has been done, and, {3 the seignoral rights of succession lapse, " it will soon be done every where, for the recent enactments have emancipated many already. But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment ; and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force a British popula- tion into the heart of French Canada ? Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we should not forget his truly amiable character ; we should not forget the services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from our last hold on the North American continent ; we should THE CANADIANS. 89 not forget bis worthy and excellent priest- hood ; nor should we ever lose sight of the fact, that he is contented under the old sys- tem. Above all, we should never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our revolted children. I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did before on a similar occa- sion, loyal to a man. All animosity, all heart-burning, v;!l] be forgotten, and the old French glory will shine again, as it did under De Salaberry. Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did, Suivez, mon panage eclatant, Fran(jais ainsi que ma banniere ; Qu'il soit point du ralliement, Yous 3avez tons quel prix attend Le brave, qui dans la carriere, March e sur le pas de Roland. Mourons pour notre patrie C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie. 90 CANADA AND CHAPTER III. A journey to the Westward. We must leave Roucesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good ser- viceable Canadian pony, the best of all hob- bies for seeing the Canadian world, and on which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than by long prosings about political economy and systematic colo- nisation. So, en avant ! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations on men and things made therein. I left Kingston on the 2()th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer, at 8 p. m., the ^ THE CANADIANS. 01 the [the of lade Ithe I the usual hour of startinir bein": seven, for To- ronto ; the weather unusually cold. This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are built nearly alike, are first class sea- boats, and low pressure ; they cond)ine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gilders- leave, also splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal — the latter boats taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal, on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or going upwards, on board the mail boat. Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four hours, a dis- tance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades Rapi'. 6d. a g-allon ! going, going ! Giutlemin, I was ouce a sojcr — don't laugh, you oflicers there, for I was — and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish militia — bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regi- ment — long life to it ! Yes, I was quarter- master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving out of the rations ; and didn't I know what good ration rum v. as ; and didn't I help meself to the prime of it ! Well, then, gintleniin and ladies — I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin — if a quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you think a quarter-master-general gets ?" The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid. You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet, which is about as 9G CANADA AND larffe as a small fri<»ate, and lias the usual sea equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is live dollars in the cabin, or about £l sterling ; and two dollars in the steerage. In the former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is bought at the bar. Wy paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large lookinir-ii'lass, washinfj^-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required. The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for females and fa- milies are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are coloured people, clean, neat, and active ; and you may give seven pence- halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like ; if not, you can keep it, as they are well paid. The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces nnd you bark for L the ( ters are n you are a J)olic( cular presu with , and r Ik] of fen ladies inland the Bi Chippi The call th is verj room ( VOL. THE CANADIANS. 97 •ge [dy niid furbelows, and usually (^-ooddooking. All you have L,rot to do ok euihaikinii^ or on disein- bai'kiii<( is to sec j)crsonally to your lu^-;4a<^o ; for leaving it to a servant unaequainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, mat- ters are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so, and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at liuflalo parti- cularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and insolent serviles I ever met with ; they rush in a body on board the boat, and respect neither persons nor things. I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the Falls ; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland, whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convev them to Chippewa in Canada. The comfort of some of these boats, as thev call them, but which ought to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawing- room on board one called the Chief Justice VOIo I. F f)8 CANADA AND ulioro T saw, just after tho liorticultuijil show lit Toronto, i)ots of tlic most rare and hoaiiti- fiil (lowcM's, arraii;i^(Ml very tastofiilly, with a l)iaiio, highly-c'oluiirtMl luiutical paintin^j^s and portraits, and a foitf evsoitihlc, whi(di, wlion the lamps wore lit, and conversation li^oin*^ on hctwo(Mi tho ladies and <>entlemen then and there assembled, made one (piite forht boards, like a piano-case, only more clumsy ; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with or with- out backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion, or a bufFalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees being the common- est, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the fiddle, drink- ing, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him ; and he jogs along, smoking his dudeen, over corduroy roads, through mud holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the dictionary. He will keep you au courant, at the same 116 CANADA AND time, tell the name of every settler and settle- ment, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital fellow, is *' Paddy the driver," ge- nerally a small farmer, and always has a contract with the commissariat. The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by that river in times long gone by ; a level tract of marsh and wild rice as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Hollar. J River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague. Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight ele- vation of the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in. The road to it is good, but, after passing a o it an prove townj a) on and nume catinr Taver it wa This i Ihiy was, V a sple and as you CO Pro( Englai throuiifi to Bar of Sim On four n suddeni was bet THE CANADIANS. 117 LS in lis it and turning northwards, is but little im- proved, being very primitive through the township of Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or forest burnings, indi- cating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern, where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's. Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we A'isited Mr. Wilson's stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the backwoods. Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in Eno:land would be called an execrable road, througli the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie, the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe. On emero-ino: from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempcnfeldt Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road >vas better, a more beautiful ride there is not 118 can\da and in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that, without any Ilibernicism, the best road is in the wat }r of the lake. This is owing to the swam])y nature of the land, and to the cir- cumstance that a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay ; so Paddy drove smack into the water of Kempenfeldr, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe under us. But natheless we arrived at Barrie by midday, a very fair journey of twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say, inco)iccvahIe ; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J. Bingham, Barrie. Barrie, named after the late comiiiodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good, substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent ffoes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St. Alba unex and i Mrs. must Engli house are w neat c Wli Barrie in 18^ Jittle c ing to admira inlet of ope settlem and the It ha.< ing Bar is the North,' stead of THE CANADIANS. 119 is |iip lor Par a ;t. Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs. Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her. They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837, had only a log-hut : now they are well to do, and have built themselves a neat country-house. When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little clearance. In 1846, it is fast approach- ing to be a town, and will be a city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of Lake ►^'imcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of Lake Huron. It has been objected, to this opinion respect- ing Barrie, that the Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for " The City of the North," as the communication by land, in- stead of being thirty-six miles to Penetangui- 120 Canada and sliene, the best liiirbour on Lake Huron, Is only fourteen, or at most nineteen miles, the former takin<^ to Cold Water Creek, and the latter to Stur^^eon Bay ; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to Beiietanguishene. If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this wouhl be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron ; for, if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the despatch of stores for the government would be sub- jected to continual hindrance and depreda- tion from the multitude of islands and hiding- places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetan- guishene ; whilst, on the other hand, no saga- cious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut oir, and his return rendered impracticable. Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the site of naval opera- tiom uecG F the angii soldi retin Simc deal must our 1 kept i artillc Sin anyth gons, drove the h( Wl it was great VOL HE CANADIANS. 121 a- tions on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may he necessarv. For this reason, <»overnnient comnienced the military road between Barrie and Penet- anguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our nidit's lodo^insf at the Ordnance Anns, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an old artilleryman. Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very small light wag- gons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on, afterdinner atBingham's, through the heavy rain a merveille ! When I passed this road before, what a road it was ! or, in the words of the eulogist of the "•reat Hiiihland road-maker, General Wade, " Had you seen tlii'j road, before it was made, You would have lift up your eyes and bles sed" General somebody. VOL. I. G l^i> CANADA AND It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a French Canadian named Fran- rois; and many an adventure in the inter- minable forest have we experienced together ; for if Fran(|^ois had lost his way, we should have i)erhaps reached the Copj)er-mine River, or the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our horses invisible ; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide. An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with Francois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours, whicli was lent to him hy the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at Penetan- THE CANADIANS. 12.'} »y' lit guislioiie, f>'ot ahead of us considerably, aiul, }>y some accident, wandered into the gh)omy pine forest. Missino- liim for a quarter of an hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered Avith ba<><>anre, would '•o ahead, and, observin<»" fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn woods faint shouts, wdiich, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never again, as he had never been there before, to think of leavin": us. Had he '^one out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse, used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again ; but horses and cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when lost, they wander in a circle, and thus fre- quently come near the place from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost invisible path. But although the road, excepting in the G 9. I?l CANADA AM) middle of summer, is still indiflfeient, it is j)errectly safe, and a lady may now p;o to renetan^aiisliene comparatively eomfortahly. Ilriiee's tavern is a respectable lo<^-lionse, twelve miles from Barrie; and here you can - the country roads of Canada. F 'om Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and comfortable. It is seven miles distant. Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road ; and three miles further (which place eschew), seven years ago, T heard the voice chidinir a litt df g\] had been sent a quarter of a mile for a jug of water. I beard the same voice aaain in action, and for the same cause, and a very of P P( J UK CANADIANS. 1^5 dirty urchin {i<;aiii brouglit some very dirty water. In fact, whiskey was too plentiful any French Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very j)rettily sitiiat^'d at the I)Ottoni of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Pliillpotts, of the Royal ]Mi<>ineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drunmiond's Island on Lake Huron was resi^nied to the Americans, for an asylum for such of the Ca- nadian French settled there as would not transfer their allc'^iance. They mi<^*rated in a body. This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from Europe can ob- serve the unmixed Indian, the real wihl man of the woods, with medals hangin\i^art, a lively Scotch, civil eniiineer, who wrote, in 1829, an amusino- work, enti- tled " Three Years in Canada," was even 140 CANADA AND more sjui^uine on tins suhject ; and, us ho was a clork of works on the Kideau Canal, iiatnrally turned Ids attention to the practi- (^ability of ()peinnt(*d the* still more fratjile trans- j)ort afVordod hy the canoe of the Indian, in which, singinuf nierril \ , he traversed the ♦jroator ]):irt of the northern continent, and actuallv discovered all that we now know, and much more, since lapsed into ohlivion. l^ut his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization ; and, tram- melled hy feudal laws and observances, al- thouu'h he extended the national domain and the o'lorv of France bevond his most ardent (U^sire, yet betook no steps to insure its dura- tion, and thus left the Saxon and the Aiiirlo- Norman to consolidate the structure of which he bad merely laid the extensive foundation. 1 VJ CANADA AM) But, evon now, Mniidstall tlieeiili'iliteiiinent of tlio Christian nations, tlie descendants of tlie French in Canada shake oiY the dust of feudality with painful difficulty ; and, instead of quietly yieldin^f to a better order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a des})otic monarchy. Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adherin rec equ can ada] pris Mlie T Indi; conij child com outw wou pven alteri plent temp( forth toil ai neers THE CANADIANS. 143 tlic :em- ])erameiit with llio solemn taciturnity and im- moveable plileg-m of the savage ; dazzling him with the )sj)leiidour of his religious ceremonies ; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life ; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed as ^ye\\ adapted as the Red Man himself; the enter- prising Gaul was everywhere feared and every- where welcome. The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, hut not so cunning; accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the woods as an inferior caste ; ac- companied in his wars or wanderings by no outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant; unaccustomed to yieh) even to his equals in opinion ; unprepared for alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty ; and wholly without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations ; was not the best of pio- neers in the wilderness, and was, therefore. 144 CANADA AND not received with open firms l)y the American aborioinal nations, nntil experience ha- in the wihis of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease ; and, having crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in Liie trackless forest, under their sole guidf.nco and protection. Ilonneur a Jean Baptistc ! C'est un si boii entuL't ! VOL. I. H 146 CANADA AND CHAPTER V. Penctanguishcne — The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness. Penetangnisliene, pronounced by the In- dians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, " the Bay of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent har- bour, about three miles in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here is always a steam -vessel of war, of a small class, with others in ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hos- pital and commiiisariat, an Indian inter- preter, and a surgeon. But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and previously, to the wild tribes ; so that, to see the Indian in perfec- tion, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern i pr ha blu OtJ] the Gre bein lent! SUC( deni call( tripsl last I tenti( her, fail u II Stur^ the nl THE CANADIANS. 147 shore of Lake Huron, where, at Manitoii-a- wainiing, there is a large settlement of Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes, knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are annually supplied. The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevo- lent intentions of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or superinten- dent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich, has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last summer. I went to Penetanguishene with the in- tention of meeting this vessel and going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection U 2 118 CANADA AND with the mail or sta<]fo from Toronto, and the lioavor steamboat, plyinii^ on Lake Simcoe. I^'rom Stur<»eou Bay she went to Penetan- *»iiishene, and then to St. Vincent Settle- ment, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of emigrants are locatinpf. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hun- ht take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary to Gros Cap. But Ji variety of obstacles occurred in this immense vovaoe, althou<>h ultimately they will no y starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller slept on board the (Joderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been formed from the Narrows, al- though, by some strange oversight, this road M Bf m gUlSl Soui THE CANADIANS. 14f) i (1 toniiiiiates in si marsh six liundred foot fr >ui tlio bank to tlio island, on which the wliart' and storohoiiso built for the steamer are erected. This caused much inconvenience to the j)assen;:>ers. The stage went, or pfocs, once a week, on Monday, to lloUand Lan*ht, or in a foof. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough 150 CANADA AND advanced to build tlie extensive wharf requi- site, or to lay in sufficient supjdies of fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and detention again arose. Then afrain, after rounding Cabot's Head and getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, wdiich is a pier-harbour ; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot be ap])roached by a large vessel. If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in a fresh- water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River. However, the vessel did perform the voyage THE CANADIANS. 151 successfully seven times ; and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalcu- lable benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of Canada. I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable steamboat speculation, althou<;h vast quantities of very superior fish are caught and cured now on tho shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any salt sea-fish whatever. The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great im- portance to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from the United States. The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon a smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over that 152 CANADA AND liikc, and is novv sol-I plentifully in the Kingston market, where it was never seen only seven years a^o. It is a beautiful fish, firm and well tasted, Lut rather too fat. A farmer on the Penetannuishene road has introduced English breeds of cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, an;ht they were eyeing liini suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country. He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject ! But the wampum ple(!ge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of friend- ship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Xi- pissang, starving as he must also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fat- ness. This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene ; for the American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to tri and s enorn steam necess fleet c the ^V mount bark c Tiie horses haps ^ great Brothc clieapl clocks difliciil Th. a little liouse sum me at some as idle The THE CANADIANS. 1G3 to truth, (lisoovercd a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the Hritish o-ovennneiit kept enormous supjdies of naval stores, several steam-vessels .i depot of coal, and everything necessary for the erpiipment of a lari^e war lleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always ready to em- bark on board of it at all times. There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in 1837, per- haps one might have found out a dozen by great researcli there : as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply and as lucratively as he docs wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be somewhat difticidt to raise it at PenetaniT^uisheiie. The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic church and a store- house or general shop or two, about which, in summer, you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else smoking with as idle villagers. The garrison is three miles from the village, IGt CANADA AND and is alwjiys cillod " Tlic Kstablisliinont ;'* and in the forest between the two places is a new cliurcli, built of wood, very small, hut sufficient for the Established Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A cler« . n' is constantly stationed here for the arm , *i: '/, and civilians, and near the church is a coil .tion of lo;^' huts, w^hi(di I placed there some years ago by or ler of Lord Soaton, Avith small })lots of pfround attached to each as a refui:;e for destitute soldiers who had commuted their pensions. This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets of thchirofe towns of ( 'anada of the miserable objects ; but, such was the improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken constitutions, that, on my j)resent visit, T found but one old serjeant left, and he was on the point of moving. The commutation of pensions was an expe- riment of the most benevolent intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase stock for a small farm, and set him- self down to provide for his children \vith a THE CANADIANS. IG D .'» 1 a sum of money in li.ind wliicli lie could never have obtained in any other way. Many did 90, and are now indej)endont; hut the majority, holj)lcss in their hahits, and givinij: way to drink, soon got cheattMJ of their dollars and became beo-frjirs ; so that the government was actually obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keej) them fron:* starvation. They died out, would not wo ; at the l*enetanguisliene settlement, and hav^ vanished from the thinus that be. Poor ''ody 1 windo' J''t-bec .rounds the wh ^\as w .'ibout, aiKJ, a: forth, tlian tl tiirbed. at last venture dow ; compos ujj very a decen VOL. Tin: CANADIANS. 1G9 41er the may was rlosoy tlio loiio wanlor. No ono could come to liis assistanco, if he had the \)U<^\e that roused the echoes of Foiita- rahia. \h) had retired to rest early one iiii^ht in theyoun«j^sj)rin<^-time, when he heard a singu- lar noise on the outside of Lis house, like some- hody moaning-, and ruh])inruin su])[)0sed, no doubt, that Blaekey did it (Hit of compassionate feelino- for a fel- low denizen of the forest, and repeated his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbinii' himself, to get rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against tlie rougli logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient at not being noticed, an puttern of btironial mansion, with a little touch of v^^e card-house. In short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village wonderfully well. The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishenc country, grows to an enormous size. I measured one near BiUi'ie no less than twenty-six feet in in tin- base, have stony, causei r' f THE CANADIANS. 175 i i irirtli, and tliis was merely a chance one hy the path-side. Its hei^j^ht, I thiidi, must have heen at least two hundred feet, and it was vii^orously healthy. What was its a^e ? It would have made a plank ei.ulit feet broad, after the bark was stripped oft'. But the woods li^enerally disappoint tra- vellers, as they never })enetrate them ; and the luml)erers have cut down all avaiiiihle pines and oaks within reach of the settle- ments, exeeptin^^ where they were not worth the expence of transport. The pines, more- over, take no deep root ; and, as soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, tliev fall before the storm. Provident settlers, there- fore, rarely leave large and lofty trees near their dwellings for fear of accident. The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start out of the eu u in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at \ lie base, and each trunk an enormous tree I have an idea that this has arisen froi the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange freak of Nature, by 176 CANADA AND Tn;ikiiii( it dinicult for the young plant to roar its liead out of tlio ground. Whutever is the roason, however, all the masts of some "groat Amiral" might he truly j)rovided out of a single pine-tree. But we must leave Harrie, after just men- tioning Kemj)enfeldt, ahout a mile or so distant, wliieh was the original village; and, although at the actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still consists of soin(» half dozen houses. The newer Ad- miral superseded the more ancient one; for jiarrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the C-niadians to commemorate much more thaii the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and \m melancholy end. If ever there was an infamou> road hetween two villages so close together, it is the road hetween these two places ; 1 ho[)c it will he mended, for it is hoth dark and dangerous. I always wondered not a little how it hap- ])encd tlwit i Bingham of Harrie kept such a good tahle, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto. 1 looked for the market-place TIIK CANADIANS. 177 of the cai>it{il of Simcoe : tliore wiis none. ]]ut the mystery was solved the moment I i)ut my foot on hoard the Beaver steamer to <;o hack hy the water road. What will the reader think of Leadeidiall Market heins(>l tried to cut a cliannel ; hut, after getting a straight course through the mud for two-thirds of tiiii way, he found it too expensive to pro- ceed, hut dechires that he will j)ersevere. Whv does not the Hoard of Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take the business in hand, and com- plete it? One or two hundred j)ounds would finish the alDiir. l>ut ])erhap8 it is too trilling, and, like the cut at the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is overlooked in the magnitude of ^ireater things. Of all the unformed, unfinished public esta- blishments in Canada, it has always a])peared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of Works, are pre-emin<'nt. One costs more to manage the funds it raises than the funds amount to ; and the other was for several years a mere i)olitical jol). No very eminent civil engineer couhl have all'orded to devote his time and talents to it, as he nmst have been constantly exposed to be 180 CANADA ANH tunioil out of office by rjiprico or riipidity. I <1() !H)t know liow it is now iii;iii;i;:;o(l, but the political jobl)iiirovincial funds. The timber slides on the Trent are so much money put into the tim- ber-merchants' pockets, to the extreme detri- ment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters enellioii broke out, to nnider the river Trent ii!ivi<^able )»}' a s|)leinli(l canal, which wonld liave opened tho finest hinds in ('ana(hi for hundrecls of miles, and eventually to have connected Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A larj^o sum of money as expended on it before the lioard of Works was constituted, and an experienced elerk of works, fresh from the Itideau Canal, was chosen to superintend ; but th(» troubles coinnienced, and the money was wanted else- \\ 1 wnere. When money became afjffiin }dentiful, and the country so loudly demanded the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall j)erhaps learn more about it, and why perishinn^ tind»er sli^ 6^ > %" '"•b" I 18-2 CANADA AND Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laui,^liton piloted us safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon, which was in waiting, and in which we were driven ofT as a coloured gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an Ameri- can Irishman (a sad compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished on a road which will be macadamized some fine day ; for the Board of Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it — of course no Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of engineering — and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant I cannot guess at. I suppose they w^ere going to grade it, which is the favourite American term — a '^ THE CANADIANS. 183 lies ock, 1 is be )ard ork to of icks uess e it, — a ff \ term, by the by, by no manner or method meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even hiying it out in steps and stairs, like the Scotch militr.ry road near Loch Ness ; but Avhich, as far as my limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, l)e mis- taken ; and this puts me in mind of another tale to beguile the way. A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a person who knew him, but whom he knew not. " I have not quite made up my mind," said the character, " as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada ; but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best ; and I hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an ap- prenticeship being necessary ; for, if he has only brains, bread will come — now, what do you think would be the best business for my market ?" " Why," said the gentleman, after ponder- 184. CANADA AND iiig a little, " I should Jidvisc you to try civil engineering ; for tlicy are gettirig up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of in- dustry very much, for they won't take natives ; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down." *^ What is a civil engineer?" said the character. " A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, " and that will just suit you." " So it will," rejoined Character ; and a civil engineer he became accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain ; for he had brains, and had used a yard measure all his lifetime. I was told this story by a person of vera- city, who heard the conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one ; for such is the versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders, that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel, and who und( the Uiii ful THE CANADIANS. IcSj go i> a laJ his the of w a ial, or, vho undertook to buihl a snspeiisioTi bridge across the cataracted river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canaihi for .€8,000, hiw- ful money of the colony ; an undertaking which liennie would perchance have valued at about £100,000; but n'i?fiportc, the bill was passed, and a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose, for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out. Behold us, however, at Richmond Ilill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of wdiich road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites, with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tom- fooleries of a long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for such knavery. Another curiosity is less j 186 CANADA AND >; pitiable and more natural. It is Bond Lake, a lar<^e narrow sheet of uater, on tlie summit between Lake Simcoe and Lake Oiitario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is therefore, like David Wilson, mysteri- ous, althouo'h common sense soon lays the mystery in both cases bare ; one is a freak of Nature concealing;' the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man. The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most thoughtless that here ancient shores of an- cient seas once bounded the forest, gra- dually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell visited these with the late ^Ir. lioy, a person little appreciated and less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an excellent geo- logical survt-y of this part of the province, and \vhose ^\idow had infinite difficulty in obtain- ing a paltry recompense for his labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey wdiich this industrious bee manu- THE CANADIANS. 187 and :ain- factiirod was sucked by drones, and no one has done him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial depen- dence, had no fears in so doing. But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is neither very liighly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although Dolby's Tavern is a most comfort- able resting-place for a wearied traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven. Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English. I have observed two things in journeying tlirougli Upper Canada. If you find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country peo- ple. If you meet with indiHerence and greasy meats, they are Americans, If you see the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like ^lormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to the 188 CANADA AND windows, tbc said prints ropresenting Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty and John BuUism reif^n there ; and, although you meet with no servility, you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not deigning to answer a civil question. Poi*sonally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so ; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhi- bitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his un- willing guests renders only more hateful. We departed from Richmond Hill at half- past five, and waggoned on to Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is anothc count I I foi'iXi t ravel 1 rebelli from Shop, the sn up to 1 of the Loui with s getting lived u was, to( and th( (T great yet liv( your ui met wi luul th< things, curbed THE CANADIANS. 189 half- Inn, another excellent resting-place, and the country hetween the two is thickly settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling- through scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from Holland Landinof is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses, and suiiered the penalty of the outraged laws. Lount was a misled person, w^ho, imbued with strong republican feelings, and for- getting the favours of the government he lived under, which had made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and thought he had a call — a call to be a great general. He passed to his account, so ^reqidcscas in j)ace^ Lount! for many a villain yet lives, to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man in some things, for it is well know^n that his counsels curbed the bloody and incendiary spirit of i 190 CANADA AM) jMuckenzio in ni.'iny instimces. The f^ovoni- ment lias not sequestered bis property, jiltli(>iiij;-li his sons were cquiilly .u;'nilty with liiniself. Wo iilso pass, in f;'oin«^ to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Fineh's Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious ^Fontu'omery, another ge- neral, a tavern ^^'cneral of Mackenzie's, Avho moved to a jdacc about four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was foui>'ht. !Mont^i]fomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark nig'ht, fell into a ditch, broke his le/r, and afterwards was hauled b} his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St, Law- rence into the United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the action, on accou Colon \\ ho V blood. scale ; nn'tted coiiiisc Sue ment v is the . dians ^ Nox on the Toront witli a river i where Ontaric Mr. Tl ports f ment b which Red M others. THE CANADIANS. 1[)1 it to with on a s leji, rades Law- e ^vas much ) the on, on account of tlic barbarous murder there of Coh)Mel Moodic, a very obi retireil oflicer, Avho was kilbnl by Mackenzie's onbn'S in cobl blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is a^ain there, liavinii" been per- mitted to return, and his i>roperty, whicli was confiscated, has been restored to his creditors. Such were Mackenzie's intended •govern- ment and the tools he was to govern by ! Such is tlie British government ! Tiie Tpper Cana- dians wisely preferred the latter. Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very ])retty ]dace, with a neat church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but where now a streandet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a w^ealthy merchant, who ex- ports flour largely, the Yonge Street settle- ment being a grain country of vast extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near Holland Landing, and many others. ID^i CANADA AND From Mont<^oinery's Tjiverii to Toronto is ulinost 51 continued series for four miles of efore. The window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys soon be- come disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone ; but \vood -ood-lookino' church, and the living is a rectory. A Roman Catholic church stands close to the English, and a handsome Scots church is at the other end of the town. There is an ugly jail and Court- ITouse about a mile in the country, and an excellent market, where every thing is cheap and good. Barracks for the Royal Canadian Rifle regiment stand on a large plain. Old Fort George, the scene of former battling, is in total ruin ; and Fort Mississagua, w^ith its square tower, looks frowningly at Fort Niagara, on the American side of the estuary of the Great River. I never see these rival batteries, for it is too magniloquent to style thein fortresses, but they picture to my mind England and the United States. Mississagua looks cureless and confident, with a little bit of a flag — the flag, however, THE CANADIANS. 199 of a thousand years, displayed, only on Sun- days and holidays, on a staff which looks something like that which the king-making Warwick tied his heraldic bear to. The antiquity and warlike renown of Eng- land sit equally and visibly impressed on the crest of the miserable Mississagua as on that of Gibraltar. Fort Niagara, an old French Indian stock- ade, modernized by the American engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-for- tification, glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly tell the tale that America is a second edition of the best work of English industry and of British valour — a second edition interwoven, how- ever, w^ith foreign matter, with French fierte without French politesse, with German mys- ticism without German learning, with tJK' ^iOO CANADA AND lostless and ral)i(l dcniocmcy of the whole world without the salutary check of venera])le laws, and with that stran^>'e mixture of free- dom and slavery, of tolerance and intolerance, which distinguishes America of the nine- teenth century. I Jut it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary sjicctacle, to contemplate the rise and progress of the union in so short a period since the declaration of independence. An Irish gentleman, apparently a clergy- m;;n, last year favoured the public with the result of an extensive tour in Canada and the United States, in " Letters from Ame- rica." Tie starts in his preface with these remark- ahle expressions, v.hich must be weW con- sidered and analyzed^ because they are the ileliherate convictions of an observant and well-informed ma:i, who had, moreover, sin- gular opportunities of reflecting upon the people he had so long travelled amongst. lie says that *^ In energy, perseverance, en- terprise, sagacity, activity, and varied re- THE CANADIANS. ^iOl <()Ui'Oos " tho Ain(4'ic{in>? iiiHiiitely siirj)ass the Hritisli; th.it he never met with ''tistui)iil Aiuericiiu, Tl lilt oil I' Am eiieiui c hihl leii au'p.iss us not only in oiii" g'ood, but ** in our This I ciimiot umlei'stand: 1, rii evil peculiarities for, surely, it' we li;ive /tfc/tfiarifies, which there is no denying-, they must by all the rules of loii'ic be limited to ourselves. r>ut the writer observes, in a paragraph too long for quotation, that they exceed us in materialism ami in utilitarianism ; that we, a nation of sliopkee[)ers, as Napoleon >tvled the English, were outdone in the wor- ship of Mammon by them; that we have re- jected too much the higher branches of art und science, and the cultivation of the aesthetic faculty — what an abominable word iosthetic is I it always puts me in mind of astlunatic, for it is broken-winded learnimr. Is it not common," savs he. (( ill n lod em England to reject authorities both in Church anvill yet take him some cen- turies to distinguish between the original an' tlie lawful government, hut have coiH|uere(l where conquest was not only hailed hy the enslnved people hut was a positive benefit, l)y the introduction of mild and equi- tahle laws instead of brutal and bloody des- potisms. We have not snatched from a weak republic, whose principles had been expressly f(»rmed on our own model, that which ))overty alone obliged it to relinquish. If the writer, wlio appears to be an excellent man and a good christia!!, had lived for several years on the borders of the eagerly desired Canada, F very much doubt whether he would have seen such a cofdeur de rose in the transactions of the mighty commonwealth, where the rulers are the ruled, and where education, intellect, integrity, innocence, and Avealth must all alike bow before the Juggernaut of an unattainable perfection of equality. Tin: CANADIANS. CO.") If Ijill Joluisoii, tlio iiKiil roMior and siniiL!:- i'lor, is us o'ood as William Pitt or any otlior William of siijx'rior mind, why tlxMi tlio sooner tlu^ millennium of demoo'acv ai'i'ivos the hotter. ft is un fortunate for the present ii'eiieration — what it will he for the next no man can pre- tend to say — tliat this dehasiui;- principle is " ground not only in Canada hut in biUL»lan(]. A reHectim;- mind has no ohjection to the creed that all men were created equal ; hut history, sacred and profane, ])laiidy shows that mind as well as matter is aftcn'wards, for the wisest of purposes, very ditlcrently de- veloped. Does the meanest white American, the sweeper of liroadway, if there he such a citi- zen, believe in this perfection of eipiality amonirst men as a fundamental axiom of the ri/^hts of man ? Place a black sweeper of crossings in juxtaposition, and the question will verv soon solve itself. Whv, the free and enliuhtened citizens will not even ])ermit tlieir black or coloured brethren to worship their common Creator in the same pew with !;>U(; CANADA AM) tlit»ins('lv(»s — it is lionur, it is (l('<;'rji(latioii ! And }'('t tlicro is a universal outcry about sacnvl liberty and e([uality all over the Union. The {in;r(ds ^veep to witness the tricks of men placed in a little hrief authority. Can such a state of thin<»s last as that, where the Irish labourer is treated as an inferior bein<;' in the scale of creation, and the Negro, or the oil- sprinn^ of the Ne<»ro and the white, is branded with the stigma of servile? It cannot — it will not. Either let democracy assume its true and legitimate features, or let it cease — for the re-ac**on will be a fearful one, as dread and as horribly diabolical as that which the folly of the aristocracy of old France brought on that devoted land. I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada and the United States for some time will cure a reflectin<«: mind of many long cherished notions concern- ing the relative merits of a limited monarchy and of a crude democracy. The man who views the border people of the United States with calm observation will Tin: CANADIANS. CO' '11(1 the ght nice ited le of I will soon C'Oino to the ooiiclusion that Ji >tato of ^ovcninuMit, if it iiiay ho so callo'l, where the eoimnoiicst ruHiaii assiM'ts j)iivileuies which the most oretliren. The iiitelli^^ence and the wealth of tlu^ United States are passive ; they are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude masses. And what keeps up this siuijular action, but the constantlv-recurrin'e that the passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a ditlerence ! Niagara is a grand racing-stand, where all the loafers of the neighbouring republic con- gregate in the autumn ; I was unfortunately present at the last races, and never desire to repeat my visit at that season. Blacklegs and whitelegs prevail ; and the next morning tlie course was strewed with the bodies of drunken vagabonds. It api)ears to me very strange that the gentry of the neighbourhood suffer a very small modicum of ephemeral iiewspaper notoriety to get the better of their good sense. The patronage of such a race- course as that of Niagara, so fiir from being an honour, is the reverse. It is too near the frontier to be even decently respectable ; nor is the course itself a good one, for the sand is too deep. Many a young gentleman of Toronto, who thinks that he copies the aris- tocracy of England by patronizing the turf, tinds out to his own loss and sorrow tliat it would have been much better to have had his () 1 () TANADV AM) r.K'iii^- (lunlilicalloiis exhiltited iioanM* liis own le often fancy that cold re- .^oi've, and an assumption of ^reat state, in- dicate hii^li hirth and brooilinn'. The youn^^-er branches seem froiiuentlv to think that there is no such thiiii*' at home as the period of th)le^cenee coiisoiiuontlv, vou 1 t 1. oft en see a pert youiiLi* master deliver his unasked opinicMi and behave before his seniois and superiors as ihouLih he wanted to intimate that he was wiser in his o-oneration than they. In crossing to Niagara, we had a specimen of the precocious colonist of 1845, The table of the captain of the boat, like that of his re- spected father, was good and decorously con- ducted, and there were several ladies and some TIIK CANADIANS. 1.U3 of :^ a most ros|)(Tt:il)]o travollcd Aiiiciicaiis at diinior. A very yoiin^i;" <,n'iilk'maii, who hoasted how much hv haeare(l, tho- roughly disgusted ; and I afterwards saw tl lis w'oul d-be man peeping in to the win- dows of the hidies'-eabin, and performing a thousand other antic tricks, cigar in mouth, for wliich he would in l^^ngland have met with his deserts. The precociousness of Transatlantic cliihireii is not confined to the United States — it is equally and unpleasantly visible in Canada. 2U CANADA AND The Amoi'icjins ^vllo travel, lean safely say, are not guilty of these inonstrous absurdities. I have crossed the Atlantic more than once with boys of from seventeen to twenty, who have left college to make the grand tour, without ever observing any thing to find fault with. The American youth is observant, and soon discovers that attempting to do the cha- racter of men before his time in the society of English strangers invariably lowers instead of raising an interest. There is a good caricature of this in an American book, I forget its title, written some time ago, to show the simplicity, gullibility, and vindictivness of our Trollopean travellers. It is a boy of sixteen, or thereabouts, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat cocked on three curls, and all the modern etceteras of a complete youth, saying to his father, " Here, take my boots, old fellow, and clean them." The father looks a little amazed, upon which the manikin ejaculates, '' Why don't you take them? what's the use of having a father?" There will be a railway smash in this, as iIIE CANADIANS. nC) as well as In the locomotive mania. Re- juiblicanism towards elders and parents is un- natural ; the chiM and the man were not born equal. I remember reading- in a voluminous ac- count of the terrors of the French revolution a remarkable passage : — servants denounced n)asters, debtors denounced creditors, women denounced husbands, children denounced pa- rents, youth denounced protecting age ; gra- titude was unknown ; a favour conferred led to the guillotine : but never, never in that awful period, in that reign of the vilest passions of our nature over reason, was there one instance, one single instance, of a parent denouncing its child. It is not a good sign when extreme youth pretends to have discovered the true laws of the universe, when the son is wiser than the father, or when immature reason usurps the functions of the ripened faculties. I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the system of edu- cation in the greatest city of Western Canada ; 21G CANADA AND ])Ocanse I licir :unl see ciiildicii of fonrtooii swa' 5il)oiit tlio streets witli all tlie con- sequence of unfled.i^ed men, smoking' ci<4ais, frequenting- tavern-bars and Idlliard-ioonis, and no doubt led by sucli unbridled license into deei)er mysteries and excesses ; because T bear clerii-ymon lament tbat boys of tbat a<>e lose tlieir liealtb bv excesses too difficult of belief to fancy true. Surely a salutarv cbeck in time may be applied to such an evil. But liberty and equality, as I said before, are extendiuii' on both sides of the Atlantic : and in their train come these evils. Sim} )1V !)ecause liberty and equality are as much mis- understood as real republicanism and limited monar chv are. THE CANADIANS. 217 CHAPTER VIII. The old Canadian Coach — Jonathan and John Bull pas- sengers — "That Gentleman" — Beautiful Hiver, beautiful drive — Brock's Monument — Queenston — Bar and I'ulpit — Trotting horse Railroad — Awful accident — The Falls once more — Speculation — Water privilege — Barbarism — Mu- seum — Loafers — Tulip-trees — Rattlesnakes — The Burning Spring — Setting fire to Niagara — A charitable Woman — The Nigger's Parrot — John Bull is a Yankee — Political Courtship — Lundy's Lane — Heroine — Welland Canal. I can make no stay at Niag'ara for the present; but, after resting awhile at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed in his coach to Queenston. The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move it along ; and, if it should upset, like FalstafF, it may ask for levers to lift it up again. VOL. I. L 218 CANADA AND Wo had oil )>oar(l llio coach an AiiKMicaii, of tho species Yankee, a thorough l)lufr, ro\v, her- culean, Yorkshire fanner, and several highly respectahle females. I will not say Jonatlian did not sj)it before tliein, for he is to the nianiier born ; but, al- tliou^h of inferior ^rade, if there can be such a thing mentioned resi)ectiiio' a citizen of the t'niteh as it is, which seems innate with all Americans. A stormy discussion arose on the part of .John Bull, who hated slavery, disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short, looked dowMi with no small share of contempt upon the man of yester- day, whose ideas of right and w^rong were so diametrically opposed to his own, and wlio very sententiously expressed them. John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels through the Xorthein and Western States — where he had been to THE CANADIANS. 21D look jit tlie land wltli a view to j)ur('liaso, either there or in CaiuKhi, as iniLtht he most advisahle — the only thini;- he had never hoard was that all the citizens of the United States wore all "gentlemen." " I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said * that gentleman.' " John laughed outright. " Xo, friend, 1 never did hear your white gentlemen Cvill a nigger * that gentleman ;' so, you see, all your folks ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous." This is, in a measure, true ; sucli troops of escaped negroes are annually forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds. But L 2 S>2() CANADA AM) tlioy cordially luite hotli the Soutliorn sljivo- lioldors and tlio abolitionists. Talkin^^ of slavery, pray read an aceount of it from an American of the Northern States. '* Xew Orleans, January QG, 184(). "A man may he no aholitionist — I am not one; he may think hut little on the subject of slavery — it has never troubled me one way or the other : but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the He- volution ; let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of Independence, Fhmj- dom, and the rights of man ; let him muse on the thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life aro "d lii?n. Suddeidv the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hannnor startles him, and the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the throng of men around him, and the appear- ance of three or four men on raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calliii;^' the attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill that the stranger THE CANADIANS. 221 h;is noticed in tlio most conspicuous places iu tiie city, printed in I'rcncli iuu\ Mnulisli, an- ii()uncin;jf the sal«' of a lot of i\\u\ likely slaves; at the same time, he ohserves maps of real estates spread out — everythin^^ in fact around liim denoting- a ' Inisy mart whero men do con- (^rn.njito,' as it really is. The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first; joining the crowd ill front of the stand, he observes twtdve or fifteen ne;L^roe3 of all a L5 22G CANADA AND ill the world, assume vast airs, but there are very iiiaiiy well-conducted people among them. As yet neither coloured people nor nenfroes have made much advance in Ca- nada. John Cull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the conclusion, which he very plainly ex- pressed, that the state of society in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would briiiu" his old woman and his children. -' For/' said he, " in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an Eng- lishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind poisoned by THE CANADIANS. oo 27 constant elections and everlasting gnisi)in,ir for oflice. " While," says John to Jonathan, " 1 am in Canada, just as free as you are ; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are laid out in roads, or for my benefit . 1 can worship r.t'ter the manner of my fathers, without being' robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who thinks himself a h\x better than myself; but, as I shtdl take care to settle a good way from republican sym- pathizers for the sake of my poor property, I shall always H d my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria as I be myself." Jonathan replied that he had no manner ot doubt that Miss Victoria was a real lady, for every female is a lady in the States ; the word l)eing understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like pet- ticoat government, but, for his part, he cal- culated it was better to be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened re- public was, and no mistake. And kings they are, for all power resides 228 CANADA AND there, in the holy of which he was a favour- able specimen, but which does not always show its members in so fair a light. I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green com- mon, with the expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the other; and. after passing through a little coppice, sud- denly come upon the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below. High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank, covered with trees — oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple — runs the sandy road, bordered by corn-lields, by orchards, and occasionally by little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England, excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion. Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward ; now it is hidden by a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees. Thus vou travel until within a couple of miks or so of Queenston, when, the THE CANADIANS. »» iv i/ road leaving the bank, and tlie river forming a large bay-like bend, a splendid view breaks out. You catch a distant glimpse of that nar- row pass, where a wall of rock, two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American shore, vomits forth the pent- up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the south, and w^ith the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp. Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument, and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares to show his face on the neighbouring shore. I cannot conceive^ in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than the gorge of the Niagara river : it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and passive life. 230 CANADA AND Quocnston is a poor phice ; it has novel gained an inch since the war of 1812; but, as a railroad has been estal dished, and a wliarf is bllildin^" in connection with it, it will *e ; and thus, except in the wealthy class, or among- the contemplative and re- tired, there is no such thing as p'' 'ate life in the northern cities an