CHAPTER XXVIII

CANADIAN SKETCHES

The preceding sketches of Canadian life, as the reader may well

suppose, are necessarily tinctured with somewhat somber hues,

imparted by the difficulties and privations with which, for so many

years the writer had to struggle; but we should be sorry should

these truthful pictures of scenes and characters, observed fifteen

or twenty years ago, have the effect of conveying erroneous

impressions of the present state of a country, which is manifestly

destined, at no remote period, to be one of the most prosperous in

the world. Had we merely desired to please the imagination of our

readers, it would have been easy to have painted the country and the

people rather as we could have wished them to be, than as they

actually were, at the period to which our description refers; and,

probably, what is thus lost in truthfulness, it would have gained

in popularity with that class of readers who peruse books more for

amusement than instruction.

When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous

countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced

by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption. Canada

may not possess mines of gold or silver, but she possesses all those

advantages of climate, geological structure, and position, which are

essential to greatness and prosperity. Her long and severe winter,

so disheartening to her first settlers, lays up, amidst the forests

of the West, inexhaustible supplies of fertilising moisture for the

summer, while it affords the farmer the very best of natural roads

to enable him to carry his wheat and other produce to market. It is

a remarkable fact, that hardly a lot of land containing two hundred

acres, in British America, can be found without an abundant supply

of water at all seasons of the year; and a very small proportion

of the land itself is naturally unfit for cultivation. To crown

the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such

an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and

navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed,

gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an

extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from

shipwreck!

Little did the modern discoverers of America dream, when they called

this country “Canada,” from the exclamation of one of the exploring

party, “Aca nada,”--“there is nothing here,” as the story goes, that

Canada would far outstrip those lands of gold and silver, in which

their imaginations revelled, in that real wealth of which gold

and silver are but the portable representatives. The interminable

forests--that most gloomy and forbidding feature in its scenery to

the European stranger, should have been regarded as the most certain

proof of its fertility.

The severity of the climate, and the incessant toil of clearing the

land to enable the first settlers to procure the mere necessaries of

life, have formed in its present inhabitants an indomitable energy

of character, which, whatever may be their faults, must be regarded

as a distinguishing attribute of the Canadians, in common with our

neighbours of the United States. When we consider the progress of

the Northern races of mankind, it cannot be denied, that while the

struggles of the hardy races of the North with their severe climate,

and their forests, have gradually endowed them with an unconquerable

energy of character, which has enabled them to become the masters of

the world; the inhabitants of more favoured climates, where the

earth almost spontaneously yields all the necessaries of life, have

remained comparatively feeble and inactive, or have sunk into sloth

and luxury. It is unnecessary to quote any other instances in proof

of this obvious fact, than the progress of Great Britain and the

United States of America, which have conquered as much by their

industry as by their swords.

Our neighbours of the United States are in the habit of attributing

their wonderful progress in improvements of all kinds to their

republican institutions. This is no doubt quite natural in a people

who have done so much for themselves in so short a time; but when

we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly

asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic,

the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic

race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of

the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded

extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were

circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to create a

strong desire for the improvement of internal communications; as,

without common roads, rail-roads, or canals, the interior of the

country would have been unfit to be inhabited by any but absolute

barbarians. All the first settlers of America wanted was to be left

to themselves.

When we compare the progress of Great Britain with that of North

America, the contrast is sufficiently striking to attract our

attention. While the progress of the former has been the work of

ages, North America has sprung into wealth and power almost within

a period which we can remember. But the colonists of North America

should recollect, when they indulge in such comparisons, that their

British ancestors took many centuries to civilise themselves, before

they could send free and intelligent settlers to America. The

necessity for improvements in the internal communications is vastly

more urgent in a widely extended continent than in an island, no

part of which is far removed from the sea-coast; and patriotism,

as well as self-interest, would readily suggest such improvements

to the minds of a people who inherited the knowledge of their

ancestors, and were besides stimulated to extraordinary exertions by

their recently-acquired independence. As the political existence of

the United States commenced at a period when civilisation had made

great progress in the mother-country, their subsequent improvement

would, for various reasons, be much more rapid than that of the

country from which they originally emigrated. To show the influence

of external circumstances on the characters of men, let us just

suppose two individuals, equal in knowledge and natural capacity,

to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the

necessary capital and farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of

America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required

to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals

might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and

general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate

interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States

or Canada can hesitate for a reply.

The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten

track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his

more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon

his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads

in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on

all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve

his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his

perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase

his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with

faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school

of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant.

While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler,

it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his

industry. On the one hand, there is want and misery; on the other,

abundance and prosperity. There is no middle course for the settler;

he must work or starve. In North America there is another strong

incentive to improvement, to be found in the scarcity of labour;

and still more, therefore, than in Europe must every mechanical

contrivance which supersedes manual labour tend to increase the

prosperity of the inhabitants. When these circumstances are duly

considered, we need no longer wonder at the rapid improvements in

labour-saving machinery, and in the means of internal communication

throughout the United States. But for the steam-engine, canals, and

railroads, North America would have remained for ages a howling

wilderness of endless forests, and instead of the busy hum of men,

and the sound of the mill and steam-engine, we should now have heard

nothing but

“The melancholy roar of unfrequented floods.”

The scenes and characters presented to the reader in the preceding

pages, belong, in some measure, rather to the past than the present

state of Canada. In the last twenty years great changes have taken

place, as well in the external appearance of the country, as in the

general character of its inhabitants. In many localities where the

land was already under the plough, the original occupants of the

soil have departed to renew their endless wars with the giants of

the forest, in order to procure more land for their increasing

families where it could be obtained at a cheaper price. In the

back-woods, forests have been felled, the blackened stumps have

disappeared, and regular furrows are formed by the ploughman, where

formerly he had not time or inclination to whistle at his work. A

superior class of farmers has sprung up, whose minds are as much

improved by cultivation as their lands, and who are comfortably

settled on farms supposed to be exhausted of their fertility by

their predecessors. As the breadth of land recovered from the

forest is increased, villages, towns, and cities have grown up

and increased in population and wealth in proportion to the

productiveness of the surrounding country.

In Canada, it is particularly to be noted, that there is hardly

any intermediate stage between the rude toil and privation of the

back-woods, and the civilisation, comfort, and luxury of the towns

and cities, many of which are to outward appearance entirely

European, with the encouraging prospect of a continual increase

in the value of fixed property. When a colony, capable, from the

fertility of the soil and abundance of moisture, of supporting a

dense population, has been settled by a civilised race, they are

never long in establishing a communication with the sea-coast and

with other countries. When such improvements have been effected,

the inhabitants may be said at once to take their proper place

among civilised nations. The elements of wealth and power are

already there, and time and population only are required fully

to develope the resources of the country.

Unhappily the natural progress of civilised communities in our

colonies is too often obstructed by the ignorance of governments,

and unwise or short-sighted legislation; and abundance of selfish

men are always to be found in the colonies themselves, who,

destitute of patriotism, greedily avail themselves of this

ignorance, in order to promote their private interests at the

expense of the community. Canada has been greatly retarded in its

progress by such causes, and this will in a great measure account

for its backwardness when compared with the United States, without

attributing the difference to the different forms of government.

It was manifestly the intention of the British government, in

conferring representative institutions on Canada, that the people

should enjoy all the privileges of their fellow-subjects in the

mother-country. The more to assimilate our government to that of its

great original, the idea was for some time entertained of creating a

titled and hereditary aristocracy, but it was soon found that though

“The King can make a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, an' a' that,”

it was not in his power to give permanency to an institution which,

in its origin, was as independent as royalty itself, arising

naturally out of the feudal system: but which was utterly

inconsistent with the genius and circumstances of a modern colony.

The sovereign might endow the members of such an aristocracy with

grants of the lands of the crown to support their dignity, but what

benefit could such grants be, even to the recipients, in a country

covered with boundless forests and nearly destitute of inhabitants?

It is obvious that no tenants could be found to pay rents for such

lands, or indeed even to occupy them, while lands could be purchased

on easy terms in the United States, or in Canada itself. Had this

plan been carried out, Canada would have been a doomed country for

centuries.

The strongest incitements to industry are required, those of

proprietorship and ultimate independence, to induce settlers to

encounter all the privations and toil of a new settlement in such

a country. A genuine aristocracy can only exist in a country

already peopled, and which has been conquered and divided among

the conquerors. In such a state of things, aristocracy, though

artificial in its origin, becomes naturalised, if I may use the

expression, and even, as in Great Britain, when restrained within

proper limits, highly beneficial in advancing civilization. Be it

for good or be it for evil, it is worse than useless to disguise

the fact that the government of a modern colony, where every conquest

is made from the forest by little at a time, must be essentially

republican.

Any allusion to political parties is certainly foreign to the object

of the preceding sketches; but it is impossible to make the British

reader acquainted with the various circumstances which retarded the

progress of this fine colony, without explaining how the patronage

of the local government came formerly to be so exclusively bestowed

on one class of the population,--thus creating a kind of spurious

aristocracy which disgusted the colonists, and drove emigration from

our shores to those of the United States.

After the American Revolution, considerable numbers of loyalists

in the United States voluntarily relinquished their homesteads and

property, and came to Canada, which then, even on the shores of

Lake Ontario, was a perfect wilderness. Lands were of course granted

to them by the government, and very naturally these settlers were

peculiarly favoured by the local authorities. These loyalists were

generally known by the name of “tories,” to distinguish them from

the republicans, and forming the great mass of the population. Any

one who called himself a reformer was regarded with distrust and

suspicion, as a concealed republican or rebel. It must not, however,

be supposed that these loyalists were really tories in their

political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally

crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole

construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly

republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a

misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican

party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered

that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave

them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government

in Canada. Thus the name of U.E. (United Empire) Loyalist or Tory

came to be considered an indispensable qualification for every

office in the colony.

This was all well enough so long as there was no other party in the

country. But gradually a number of other American settlers flowed

into Canada from the United States, who had no claim to the title

of tories or loyalists, but who in their feelings and habits were

probably not much more republican than their predecessors. These

were of course regarded with peculiar jealousy by the older or

loyalist settlers from the same country. It seemed to them as if

a swarm of locusts had come to devour their patrimony. This will

account for the violence of party feeling which lately prevailed

in Canada.

There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give

point and pungency to party feeling. The British immigrants, who

afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course

brought with them their own particular political predilections.

They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the

ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more

early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful

and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the

old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as

republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the

original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government

became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation

of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the

peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious

dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added

to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now

beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk

of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these

U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the

descendants of republican settlers from the United States.

As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the

mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they

now considerably out-number the conservatives. While the mass of

the people held tory, or, I should rather call them, _conservative_

principles, our government seemed to work as well as any

representative government may be supposed to work without the

necessary check of a constitutional opposition. Favouritism was, of

course, the order of the day; and the governor, for the time being,

filled up all offices according to his will and pleasure, without

many objections being made by the people as to the qualifications

of the favourite parties, provided the selections for office were

made from the powerful party. Large grants of land were given to

favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with

commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters

the people certainly possessed the external form of a free

government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an

ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to

carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in

consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and

executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from

the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the

majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as

systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was

kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst

these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country,

and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As

matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had

the colony been ruled by a governor and council; for, in that case,

beneficial measures might have been carried into effect. Such a

state of things could not last long; and the discontent of a large

portion of the people, terminating, through the indiscretion of an

infatuated local government, in actual rebellion, soon produced

the remedy. The party generally most powerful in the Legislative

Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so

unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the

government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled,

and the people being thus given the power of governing by their

majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily

advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and

contentment have increased in an equal proportion.

Had the first settlement of Canada been conducted on sound and

philosophical principles, much hardship and privation, as well as

loss of capital in land speculations, would have been saved to its

first settlers, and the country, improved and improving as it now

is, would have presented a very different aspect at the present

time. With the best intentions, the British government may be justly

accused of gross ignorance of the true principles of colonisation,

and the local governments are still more open to the accusation of

squandering the resources of the colony--its lands--in building

up the fortunes of a would-be aristocracy, who being non-resident

proprietors of wild lands, necessarily obstructed the progress of

improvement, while the people were tantalised with the empty

semblance of a free government.

No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper

Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming

saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many

of the old colonists. This land speculation has no doubt enriched

many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the

natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have

thus been sacrificed to those of the few. Almost all other

speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but

land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it

occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared

and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own

price for it.

The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada,

and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often

at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their

children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers

from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive

state. A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of

course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which

their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision

of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations. By

far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located

or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape

of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the

speculators. These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d.,

2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for

old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three

dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set

on such grants in the then state of Canada. These grants, though

well meant, and with respect to the U.E. Loyalists, perhaps,

unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country.

The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided,

was the opening of too great an extent of land _at once_ for

settlement. A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced

a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population

would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and

capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep

pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now

have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United

States. The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an

extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown

the evil. Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the

causes which have retarded improvements in Canada.

Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the

country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various

rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter

as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local

assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we

suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable

of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any

government, however well disposed to promote their interests.

Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions

for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements

in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the

majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant.

These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or

manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he

was considered the best member who could get the most money for

his county. Commissioners resident in the particular localities

were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these

commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge,

these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing

equivalent results. Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable

than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate

themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement,

which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but

nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament,

which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not

disappointment. The time and attention of the provincial parliament

were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have

been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot.

When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became

evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be

carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and

distracted with the contending claims of so many localities. This

consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County)

Municipal Councils. These municipal councils were denounced by the

conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism! Were

this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican

neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions

have been eminently beneficial to Canada. But municipal councils are

necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of

Commons in England. However this may be, the true prosperity of

Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the

minds of the people.

Possessing many of the external forms of a parliament, they are

admirable political schools for a free people. The most intelligent

men in the different townships are freely elected by the

inhabitants, and assemble in the county town to deliberate and make

by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in

their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents.

Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits,

it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be

somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished

prejudices to overcome. Their daily intercourse with the more

educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these

prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their

minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education

is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited

opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express

their views and opinions in appropriate language. These municipal

councillors go home among their constituents, where they have to

explain and defend their proceedings; while so engaged, they have

occasion to communicate facts and opinions, which are fairly

discussed, and thus enlightened views are diffused through the

mass of people.

The councillors, at first, were averse to the imposition or increase

of taxation, however desirable the object might be; but pride and

emulation very soon overcame this natural reluctance; and the

example of some neighbouring county, with that natural desire to do

good, which, more or less, influences the feelings and conduct of

all public men, were not long in producing their beneficial results,

even with the risk of offending their constituents. When the County

Municipal Councils were first established, the warden or president

of the council, and also the treasurer, were appointed by the

governor; but both these offices were afterwards made elective, the

warden being elected by the council from their own body, and the

treasurer being selected by them, without previous election by the

people.

Lately, councils have been also established in each township for

municipal purposes affecting the interest of the township only, the

reeves, or presidents, of which minor councils form the members of

the county council. This general system of municipalities, and a

late act of the provincial parliament, enabling the inhabitants to

form themselves into road companies, have converted the formerly

torpid and inactive townships into busy hives of industry and

progressive improvement.

Our agricultural societies have also played no mean part in

furthering the progress of the colony. In colonies fewer prejudices

are entertained on the subject of agricultural matters than on any

others, and the people are ever ready to try any experiment which

offers any prospect of increased remuneration for labour. Education,

of late, has also made rapid advances in this province; and now, the

yeomanry of the more improved townships, though they may be inferior

to the yeomanry of England in the acquirements derived from common

school education, are certainly far superior to them in general

intelligence. Their minds are better stocked with ideas, and they

are infinitely more progressive. When we consider the relative

periods at which the first settlements were formed in the United

States and in Upper Canada, and the accumulation of capital in the

former, it will not be difficult to show that the progress of Canada

has been much more rapid.

The excavation of the Erie Canal, the parent of all the subsequent

improvements of a similar nature in the United States, opened-up for

settlement a vast country to the westward, which would otherwise for

many years have remained a wilderness, unfit for the habitation of

man. The boundless success of this experiment necessarily led to

all the other similar undertakings. The superior advantages Canada

enjoyed in her river and lake navigation, imperfect as that

navigation was, operated in a manner rather to retard than to

accelerate improvements of this kind; while the construction of

the Erie Canal was a matter of prospective necessity, in order to

provide for a rapidly increasing population and immigration. In the

same manner, the recent completion of the works on the St. Lawrence,

and the enlargement of the Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and

Ontario, will just as necessarily be followed by similar results,

with the additional advantage of the whole colony being greatly

benefitted by the commerce of the United States, in addition to

her own.

We have now, thanks to responsible government, municipal councils,

and common schools, no longer any reason to consider their

institutions better calculated to develope the resources of the

colony, than our own. Our interests are almost identical, and with

our canals and railroads on both sides mutually beneficial, our

former hostility has merged into a friendly rivalry in the march of

intellect, and we may now truly say that, without wishing for any

change in political institutions, which are most congenial to the

feelings of the people where they exist, each country now sincerely

rejoices in the prosperity of its neighbour.

Before concluding this chapter, I shall endeavour to give the reader

a short description of the county of Hastings, in which I have held

the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I

believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over

all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should

premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony

should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative

advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally

intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that

when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give,

what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my

conclusion.

The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to

chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views

and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential

individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course,

involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute

loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country.

The circumstances and situation of the United States were less

productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because

settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the

interior. The mighty rivers and lakes of Canada, though productive

of boundless prosperity, operated in the first period of its

settlement, most unfavourably on the growth of the colony, by

throwing open for settlement an extensive inland coast, at that

time unconnected with the ocean by means of canals. Hence numerous

detached, feeble, and unprogressive settlements, came into

existence, where the new settlers had to struggle for years with

the most disheartening difficulties.

European settlers know but little of the value of situation. In most

cases they are only desirous of acquiring a large extent of land at

a low price, and thus, unless restrained by the wise regulations of

a provident government, they too often ruin themselves, and waste

their capital in a wilderness, where it does good to no one. When

emigration from the United Kingdom began to set in to Upper Canada,

the pernicious speculation in wild lands commenced in earnest. As

most of the land speculators possessed shares in the steam-boats on

Lake Ontario, the interests of both speculations were combined. It

was, of course, the interest of the steam-boat proprietors to direct

emigration as far to the westward as possible; and influenced by

their interested representations and those of the land speculators

settled in Toronto, Cobourg, and Hamilton, the greater portion of

the emigrants possessing capital were thrown into these towns, near

which they were led to expect desirable locations. In the same

manner the agents of the Canada Land Company, who were to be found

on every steamer, were actively employed in directing the emigrants

to the Huron tract.

By a simple inspection of the map of Upper Canada, it will be seen,

that as the Bay of Quinte was out of the general route of the

steamers, and too near the lower end of the lake navigation, it

did not suit the views of the parties most interested to direct

emigration to its shores. Thus the beautiful Bay of Quinte, with

the most fertile land on its shores, and scenery which exceeds in

variety and picturesque beauty that of any part of Upper Canada,

Hamilton and Niagara alone excepted, has been passed by for years

for situations much less desirable or attractive to European

settlers.

The forbidding aspect of the country near Kingston, which is

situated at the entrance of the bay from the St. Lawrence, where

the soil has a rocky and barren appearance, has no doubt deterred

emigrants from proceeding in this direction.

The shores of the Bay of Quinte were originally occupied principally

by U.E. loyalists and retired officers, who had served during the

late war with the United States, but the emigration from Europe has

chiefly consisted of the poorer class of Irish Catholics, and of

Protestants from the North of Ireland, settled in two very thriving

townships in the county of Hastings. There is also a sprinkling of

Scotch and English in different parts of the county. Comparatively

few possessing any considerable amount of capital have found their

way here, as the county town, Belleville, is not in the line of the

summer travel on the lakes.

The scenery along the shores of the bay is exceedingly beautiful all

the way from Kingston to the head, where a large river, the Trent,

discharges itself into it at a thriving village, of about a thousand

inhabitants, called Trent Port. A summer ride along the lower

portion of this river presents scenery of a bolder and grander

character than is often met with in Upper Canada, and it is

enlivened by spectacles of immense rafts of timber descending the

rapids, and by the merry chorus of the light-hearted lumbermen,

as they pursue their toilsome and perilous voyage to Quebec.

Belleville was originally a spot reserved for the Mississagua

Indians, and was laid out in 1816 for a village, when there were

only two or three white men settled among them as traders in

the place. It was only during the last year that the two frame

farm-houses, situated about a quarter of a mile apart, were

removed to make room for more substantial buildings. Belleville

remained nearly stationary for several years, during which a few

persons realised handsome fortunes, by means of large profits,

not withstanding the limited extent of their business. It at

length began to grow in importance as the fine country in its

neighbourhood was cleared and rendered productive.

In 1839, when the county of Hastings was set apart from the Midland

district, under the name of the District of Victoria, and Belleville

became the District town, the population of the county, including

Belleville, was about 12,000, and that of Belleville about 1500. In

1850 the population of the county had reached 23,454, of which that

of Belleville was 3326. By the census just taken, on a much more

correct principle than formerly, the population of Belleville in

1852 appears to be 4554, showing an increase of 1228 in two years.

During the same period, from 1850 to 1852, the population of Cobourg

on Lake Ontario, which town formerly enjoyed the full benefit of a

large emigration, has risen from 3379 to 3867, showing an increase

of only 488. The town of Dundas in the same time has increased its

population from 2311 in 1850 to 3519 in 1852, showing an increase

of 1208. The population of the city of Hamilton in 1850 was 10,312,

and now, in 1852, it is said to exceed 13,000. In 1838 the then

_town_ of Hamilton contained a population of only 3116. When I first

visited that place in 1832 it was a dull insignificant village,

which might, I suppose, contain a population of 1200 or 1500. I can

hardly describe my surprise on revisiting it in 1849, to behold a

city grown up suddenly, as if by enchantment, with several handsome

churches and public and private buildings of cut stone, brought

from the fine freestone quarries in the precipitous mountains or

tableland behind the city.

Little need be said of the capital of the province, the city of

Toronto, the progress of which has been less remarkable in the

same period, for the obvious reason that its merits were sooner

appreciated or known by the emigrants from Europe. The population

of Toronto, then called Little York, in 1826 was 1677, while that

of the now city of Kingston was 2329. In 1838 the population

of Toronto was 12,571, and that of Kingston 3877. In 1850 the

population of Toronto was 25,166, and that of Kingston 10,097.

These few facts will enable the reader to form some idea of the

comparative progress of different towns in Upper Canada, under

circumstances similar in some cases and different in others. When

it is considered that all of these last-mentioned towns have for

many years reaped the full benefit of the influx of emigration and

capital from the mother country, while the shores of the Bay of

Quinte were little known or appreciated, it will appear that the

progress of Belleville has been at least equal to that of any of

them. The prosperity of Belleville may in fact be almost entirely

attributed to the gradual development of its own internal resources,

the fertility of the lands in its vicinity, and a large exportation,

of late years, of lumber of all kinds to the United States.

Having no desire unnecessarily to trouble the reader with dry

statistical tables, I shall merely quote the following facts and

figures, kindly furnished me by G. Benjamin, Esq., the present

warden of the county of Hastings, to whose business talents and

public spirit the county is largely indebted for its progress in

internal improvement.

The increase of business at the port of Belleville has been most

extraordinary. In 1839, the total amount of duties paid at this port

amounted to 280l; and in the year (1850) the amount reached 3659l.

12s. 4d. The total arrivals at this port from the United States are

as follows:

No. of Tons Hands

Vessels employed

British propellers ........... 8 2,400 104

British sailing vessels ...... 81 4,140 375

Foreign do. do. .............. 124 12,643 730

--------- ---------- ---------

Total ........................ 213 19,183 1209

This in addition to our daily steamers.

Our exports to the United States are ............ L52,532 17 5

And British ports below Belleville .............. 153,411 16 6

----------------------

L205,944 13 11

L s d

Total imports from United States 25,067 2 6

Total acceptances from United States 17,435 0 0

Total importations from lower ports,

including drafts and other resources 130,294 0 0 172,796 2 6

----------------- ---------------------

Showing the balance of trade in

favour of this port to be ........................ L33,148 11 5

Our exports to the lower ports are made up as follows:

3,485 barrels of Potash .................... L27,880 0 0

33,198 “ Flour ..................... 33,198 0 0

357 bushels of Grass seed ................ 133 17 6

1,450 “ Barley .................... 181 5 0

4,947 “ Peas ...................... 594 14 0

4,349 “ Rye ....................... 434 18 0

37,360 “ Wheat ..................... 7,472 0 0

198 barrels of Pork ...................... 396 0 0

54 “ Beef ...................... 74 5 0

1,141 Sheep-skins .......................... 114 2 0

4,395,590 feet square Timber ................... 74,903 2 6

173 kegs of Butter ....................... 540 12 6

Furs ................................. 716 0 0

Fatted Cattle ........................ 1,840 0 0

High Wines ........................... 3,098 0 0

Whiskey .............................. 1,830 0 0

-------------------------

L153,411 16 6

Our exports to the United States are made up as follows:

30,686 bushels of Wheat ..................... L6,137 4 11

3,514 “ Rye ....................... 351 8 0

3,728 “ Peas ...................... 466 0 0

90 “ Barley .................... 9 0 0

316 “ Grass seed ................ 118 10 0

18,756 barrels of Flour ..................... 18,756 0 0

338 “ Potash .................... 2,366 0 0

1,000 bushels of Potatoes .................. 62 10 0

92 M. Shingles .................. 23 0 0

117 M. Laths ..................... 43 15 0

18,210 lbs. Rags ...................... 190 0 0

9,912 lbs. Wool ...................... 481 19 6

466 Sheep-skins .......................... 57 10 0

61 kegs of Butter ....................... 122 0 0

19,648,000 feet sawed Lumber .................... 21,296 0 0

513 Cows ................................. 2,052 0 0

------------------------

L52,532 17 5

The River Moira passing through Belleville, where it discharges

itself into the Bay of Quinte, is one principal source of its

prosperity. The preceding statement will show the quantity of sawed

lumber exported, most of which is furnished by the saw-mills of

Belleville, or its immediate vicinity. Besides saw and flour-mills,

there are cloth and paper manufactories, a manufactory of edge

tools; pail manufactories, where great quantities of these useful

articles are made at a low price by machinery; planing machines,

several iron foundries, breweries, distilleries, &c., in almost all

of which establishments steam-engines, or water-power from the

river, are used. A remarkable feature in Belleville, in common

with other towns in Canada, is the great number of tailoring and

shoe-making establishments, when compared with towns of an equal

population in Great Britain. This shows, more than anything I am

aware of, the general prosperity of the people, who can afford to

be large consumers of such articles.

There is very little difference to be observed in the costliness of

the clothing of the different classes of society in Upper Canadian

towns and cities, and much less difference in the taste with which

these articles are selected, than might be expected. With the

exception of the lower class of labourers, all persons are well

and suitably clad, and they can afford to be so.

Twelve years ago there were not more than five or six piano-fortes

in Belleville. Now there are nearly one hundred of a superior

description, costing from 80 to 150 pounds.

Another remarkable circumstance in Upper Canada is the number of

lawyers in all the towns. In Belleville there are about a dozen,

which seems to be a large number for a town containing only 4554

inhabitants, when in an English town of the same size there is

often not more than one. Of course, I do not mention this as any

particular advantage, but to show the great difference in the

amount of transactions, and of subjects of contention, in an old

and a new country. The same may be said of the number of newspapers,

as indicative of commercial activity. Two newspapers, representing

the two political parties, are well-supported in Belleville, both

by their subscribers, and the number of advertisements.

The mouth of the Moira River, which widens out at its junction

with the Bay of Quinte, is completely covered with saw-logs and

square timber of various kinds during the summer months. This river,

at Belleville, is often dammed up by confused piles of timber. No

sooner are these removed than its waters are covered over by vast

quantities of oak staves, which are floated down separately to

be rafted off like the squared lumber for the Quebec market.

The greater proportion of the saw-logs are, however, cut up for

exportation to the United States by the various saw-mills on the

river, or by a large steam saw-mill with twenty or thirty run of

saws, erected on a little island in the mouth of the river. Several

large schooners are constantly loading with sawed lumber, and there

are two or three steamboats always running between Belleville and

Kingston, carrying passengers to and fro, and generally heavily

laden with goods or produce. The Bay of Quinte offers more

than common facilities in the summer months for rapid and safe

communication with other places; and, in the winter time, being

but slightly affected by the current of the river Trent, it

affords excellent sleighing.

Large quantities of wheat and other farm produce are transported

over the ice to Belleville from the neighbouring county of Prince

Edward, which is an exceedingly prosperous agricultural settlement,

yielding wheat of the finest quality, and particularly excellent

cheese and butter. The scenery on the shores of Prince Edward is

exceedingly picturesque, and there are numerous wharfs at short

distances, from whence the farmers roll their barrels of flour and

other articles on board the steamers on their way to market. I have

seen no scenery in Upper Canada presenting the same variety and

beauty as that of the shores of Prince Edward in particular.

The peninsular situation of this county is its only

disadvantage--being out of the line of the land travel and of the

telegraphic communication which passes through Belleville. The

county of Prince Edward having nearly exhausted its exportation

lumber--the people are thus freed from the evils of a trade that

is always more or less demoralising in its tendency and can now

give their undivided attention to the cultivation of their farms.

Certain it is, that more quiet, industrious, and prosperous

settlers, are not to be found in the Province.

A few miles below Belleville, on the south side of the bay, is a

very remarkable natural curiosity, called “The Stone Mills.” On the

summit of a table-land, rising abruptly several hundred feet above

the shore of the bay, there is a lake of considerable size and very

great depth, and which apparently receives a very inadequate supply

from the elevated land on which it is situated. The lake has no

natural outlet, and the common opinion is that it is unfathomable,

and that it is supplied with water by means of a subterranean

communication with Lake Huron, or some other lake at the same level.

This is, of course, extremely improbable, but there can be no doubt

of its great depth, and that it cannot be supplied from the Bay of

Quinte, so far beneath its level. As a small rivulet runs into this

lake from the flat ground in its vicinity, and as the soil of this

remarkable excavation, however it may have been originally formed,

is tenacious, I think we require no such improbable theory to

account for its existence. Availing himself of the convenient

position of this lake, a farmer in the neighbourhood erected a mill,

which gives its name to the lake, on the shore of the Bay of Quinte,

and which he supplied with water by making a deep cutting from the

lake to the edge of the precipice, from whence it is conveyed in

troughs to the mill.

There is a somewhat similar lake in the township of Sidney in the

county of Hastings, covering some hundred acres. This lake is also

of great depth, though situated on the summit of a range of high

hills, from whence it gets the name of the “Oak Hill Pond.”

The Bay of Quinte abounds in excellent fish of various kinds,

affording excellent sport to those who are fond of fishing. When the

ice breaks up in the spring, immense shoals of pickerel commence

running up the Moira river, at Belleville, to spawn in the interior.

At that time a number of young men amuse themselves with spearing

them, standing on the flat rocks at the end of the bridge which

crosses the river. They dart their spears into the rushing waters at

hap-hazard in the darkness, bringing up a large fish at every second

or third stroke. My eldest son, a youth of fifteen, sometimes caught

so many fish in this manner in two or three hours, that we had to

send a large wheelbarrow to fetch them home. Formerly, before so

many mills were erected, the fish swarmed in incredible numbers in

all our rivers and lakes.

In the back-woods there is excellent deer-hunting, and parties are

often formed for this purpose by the young men, who bring home whole

waggon-loads of venison.

While speaking of Belleville, I may mention, as one of its chief

advantages, the long period for which the sleighing continues in

this part of the country, when compared with other places on the

shore of Lake Ontario. Nearly the whole winter there is excellent

sleighing on the Bay of Quinte; and on the land we have weeks of

good sleighing for days in most other places. This is owing to the

influence of a large sheet of frozen water interposed between us

and Lake Ontario, which is never frozen.

The county of Prince Edward is a peninsula connected with the main

land by a narrow isthmus of low swampy land about four miles wide.

Through this neck of land it has long been in contemplation to cut

a canal to enable the lake steam-boats to take Belleville in their

route between Kingston and Toronto, thus affording a safe navigation

in stormy weather. The effect of such a work on the prosperity of

the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward would be very great, as

European emigrants would have an opportunity of seeing a country

which has hitherto escaped their notice, from the causes already

mentioned.

Besides the usual variety of churches, there is a grammar-school,

and also four large common schools, which latter are free schools,

being supported by assessments on the people of the town.

Every Saturday, which is the great day for business from the

country, the streets are crowded with farmers' waggons or sleighs,

with their wives and pretty daughters, who come in to make their

little purchases of silk gowns and ribbons, and to sell their butter

and eggs, which are the peculiar perquisites for the females in this

country. The counties of Hastings and Prince Edward are celebrated

for female beauty, and nowhere can you see people in the same class

more becomingly attired. At the same time there is nothing rustic

about them, except genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity

of manners. To judge by their light elastic step and rosy smiling

countenances, no people on earth seem to enjoy a greater share of

health and contentment.

Since the establishment of the county municipal councils, plank and

macadamised roads have branched out in all directions from the

various central county towns, stretching their ramifications like

the veins of the human body, conveying nourishment and prosperity

throughout the country, increasing the trade and the travel,

connecting man with man and promoting intelligence and civilisation;

while the magnetic telegraph, now traversing the whole length of

the country, like the nervous system, still further stimulates the

inhabitants to increased activity.

The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in

these improvements. The first plank-road which they constructed was

from Belleville to Canniff's Mills, a distance of three miles over

a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid

foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the

water. So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was

a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the

better mode of conveyance. Notwithstanding the badness of this road,

it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the

only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to

Belleville, from the back country. It was, however, with the utmost

difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the

county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the

expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the

effects of such works.

The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting,

it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent. This extraordinary

success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means

of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers. All these

plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated,

fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair. More than

thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county.

In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every

part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to

the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed

through the entire length of the province, and which has been

already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton. A single track plank-road

costs from 375 to 425 pounds per mile, according to the value of the

land to be purchased, or other local causes. The cost of a gravel

road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two

feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more

lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road. Macadamised or

gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others.

In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads

will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and

with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourers'

wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their

own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their

instalments on the stock taken in the roads. In fact, by making

arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally

manage to get several months' credit, so that they will receive the

first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay

any money. The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple.

The space required for the road is first levelled, ditched, and

drained, and then pieces of scantling, five or six inches square,

are laid longitudinally on each side, at the proper distance for

a road-way twelve feet wide, and with the ends of each piece sawn

off diagonally, so as to rest on the end of the next piece, which

is similarly prepared, to prevent the road from settling down

unequally. The pieces of scantling thus connected are simply bedded

firmly in the ground, which is levelled up to their upper edges.

Pine planks, three inches thick, are then laid across with their

ends resting on the scantling. The planks are closely wedged

together like the flooring of a house, and secured here and there by

strong wooden pins, driven into auger-holes bored through the planks

into the scantling. The common way is to lay the plank-flooring

at right angles with the scantling, but a much better way has

been adopted in the county of Hastings. The planks are here laid

diagonally, which of course requires that they should be cut several

feet longer. This ensures greater durability, as the shoes of the

horses cut up the planks much more when the grain of the wood

corresponds in direction with their sharp edges. When a double track

is required, three longitudinal courses of scantling are used, and

the ends of the planks meet on the centre one. Very few, if any,

iron nails are generally used.

The great advantage of a plank-road is the large load it enables the

horses to draw. Whilst on a common road a farmer can only carry

twenty-five bushels of wheat in his waggon, a plank-road will enable

him to carry forty or fifty bushels of the same grain with a pair of

horses. The principal disadvantage of the plank-roads is, that they

are found by experience to be injurious to horses, particularly when

they are driven quickly on them. They are best adapted for a large

load drawn at a slow pace. I shall not attempt to describe the

country in the neighbourhood of Belleville, or the more northern

parts of the county. It will suffice to observe, that the country

is generally much varied in its surface, and beautiful, and the soil

is generally excellent. Within the last ten or twelve years the

whole country has been studded with good substantial stone or

brick houses, or good white painted frame houses, even for thirty

miles back, and the farms are well fenced and cultivated, showing

undeniable signs of comfort and independence. Streams and water

are abundant, and there are several thriving villages and hamlets

scattered through the county,--the village of Canniff's Mills,

three miles from Belleville, and soon destined to form a part of it,

alone containing a population of about a thousand.

In describing the progress of this county, I may be understood as

describing that of most other counties in the Upper Province; the

progress of all of them being rapid, though varying according to

the advantages of situation or from causes already alluded to.

From what has been said, the reader will perceive that the present

condition of Canada generally is exceedingly prosperous, and when

the resources of the country are fully developed by the railroads

now in progress of construction, and by the influx of capital and

population from Europe, no rational person can doubt that it will

ultimately be as prosperous and opulent as any country in the world,

ancient or modern.

It may be said, “should we not then be hopeful and contented with

our situation and prospects.” And so the people are in the main, and

the shrewd capitalists of England think so, or they would not be so

ready to invest their money in our public works. But some deduction

from this general state of contentment and confidence must be

made for those little discontents and grumblings created by the

misrepresentations of certain disappointed politicians and ambitious

men of all parties, who expect to gain popularity by becoming

grievance-mongers. Much has been done, and a great deal still

remains to be done in the way of reform, here as elsewhere. But

there never was any just cause or motive in that insane cry for

“annexation” to the United States, which was raised some years ago,

and by the tories, too, of all people in the world! The “annexation”

mania can now only be regarded as indicative of the last expiring

struggle of a domineering party--it would not be correct to call

it a political party--which had so long obstructed the progress of

Canada by its selfish and monopolising spirit, when it found that

its reign had ceased for ever.

Great sacrifices have been, and will be made, by men of loyalty and

principle in support of institutions, which are justly dear to every

Briton and to every freeman; but this feeling necessarily has its

limits among the mass of mankind; and the loyalty of a people must

be supported by reason and justice. They should have good reason

to believe that their institutions are more conducive to happiness

and prosperity than those of all other countries. Without this

conviction, loyalty in a people who have by any means been deprived

of the power of correcting the abuses of their government, would be

hardly rational. Canadians now have that power to its full extent.

Why, then, should we not be loyal to the constitution of our country

which has stood the test of ages, purifying itself and developing

its native energies as a vigorous constitution outgrows disease

in the human frame. The government of Canada is practically more

republican than that of the mother country and nearly as republican

as that of the United States. Our government is also notoriously

much less expensive. Our public officers are also, practically, much

more responsible to the people, though indirectly, because they are

appointed by a Colonial Ministry who are elected by the people, and

whose popularity depends in a great degree on the selections they

make and upon their watchfulness over their conduct.

The government of the United States is not a cheap government,

because all officers being elective by the people, the responsibility

of the selections to office is divided and weakened. Moreover, the

change or prospect of the electors being the elected inclines them

to put up with abuses and defalcations which would be considered

intolerable under another form of government. The British Government

now holds the best security for the continued loyalty of the people

of Canada, in their increasing prosperity. To Great Britain they

are bound by the strongest ties of duty and interest; and nothing

but the basest ingratitude or absolute infatuation can ever tempt

them to transfer their allegiance to another country.

I shall conclude this chapter with a few verses written two years

ago, and which were suggested by an indignant feeling at the cold

manner with which the National Anthem was received by some persons

who used to be loud in their professions of loyalty on former public

occasions. Happily, this wayward and pettish, I will not call it

disloyal spirit, has passed away, and most of the “Annexationists”

are now heartily ashamed of their conduct.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

God save the Queen. The time has been

When these charmed words, or said or sung,

Have through the welkin proudly rung;

And, heads uncovered, every tongue

Has echoed back--“God save the Queen!”

God save the Queen!

It was not like the feeble cry

That slaves might raise as tyrants pass'd,

With trembling knees and hearts downcast,

While dungeoned victims breathed their last

In mingled groans of agony!

God save the Queen!

Nor were these shouts without the will,

Which servile crowds oft send on high,

When gold and jewels meet the eye,

When pride looks down on poverty,

And makes the poor man poorer still!

God save the Queen!

No!--it was like the thrilling shout--

The joyous sounds of price and praise

That patriot hearts are wont to raise,

'Mid cannon's roar and bonfires blaze,

When Britain's foes are put to rout--

God save the Queen!

For 'mid those sounds, to Britons dear,

No dastard selfish thoughts intrude

To mar a nation's gratitude:

But one soul moves that multitude--

To sing in accents loud and clear--

God save the Queen!

Such sounds as these in days of yore,

On war-ship's deck and battle plain,

Have rung o'er heaps of foemen slain--

And with God's help they'll ring again,

When warriors' blood shall flow no more,

God save the Queen!

God save the Queen! let patriots cry;

And palsied be the impious hand

Would guide the pen, or wield the brand,

Against our glorious Fatherland.

Let shouts of freemen rend the sky,

God save the Queen!--and Liberty!

Reader! my task is ended.

APPENDIX A

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION

Published by Richard Bentley in 1854

In justice to Mrs. Moodie, it is right to state that being still

resident in the far-west of Canada, she has not been able to

superintend this work whilst passing through the press. From this

circumstance some verbal mistakes and oversights may have occurred,

but the greatest care has been taken to avoid them.

Although well known as an authoress in Canada, and a member of a

family which has enriched English literature with works of very

high popularity, Mrs. Moodie is chiefly remembered in this country

by a volume of Poems published in 1831, under her maiden name of

Susanna Strickland. During the rebellion in Canada, her loyal

lyrics, prompted by strong affection for her native country, were

circulated and sung throughout the colony, and produced a great

effect in rousing an enthusiastic feeling in favour of law and

order. Another of her lyrical compositions, the charming Sleigh

Song, printed in the present work [at the end of chapter VII],

has been extremely popular in Canada. The warmth of feeling

which beams through every line, and the touching truthfulness

of its details, won for it a reception there as universal as it

was favourable.

The glowing narrative of personal incident and suffering which

she gives in the present work, will no doubt attract general

attention. It would be difficult to point out delineations of

fortitude under privation, more interesting or more pathetic

than those contained in her second volume.

London, January 22, 1852

APPENDIX B

CANADA: A CONTRAST

Introductory Chapter to the First Canadian Edition (1871)

In the year 1832 I landed with my husband, J.W. Dunbar Moodie,

in Canada. Mr. Moodie was the youngest son of Major Moodie, of

Mellsetter, in the Orkney Islands; he was a lieutenant in the

21st Regiment of Fusileers, and had been severely wounded in

the night-attack upon Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland.

Not being overgifted with the good things of this world--the

younger sons of old British families seldom are--he had, after

mature deliberation, determined to try his fortunes in Canada,

and settle upon the grant of 400 acres of land ceded by the

Government to officers upon half-pay.

Emigration, in most cases--and ours was no exception to the general

rule--is a matter of necessity, not of choice. It may, indeed,

generally be regarded as an act of duty performed at the expense

of personal enjoyment, and at the sacrifice of all those local

attachments which stamp the scenes in which our childhood grew in

imperishable characters upon the heart.

Nor is it, until adversity has pressed hard upon the wounded spirit

of the sons and daughters of old, but impoverished, families, that

they can subdue their proud and rebellious feelings, and submit to

make the trial.

This was our case, and our motive for emigrating to one of the

British colonies can be summed up in a few words.

The emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and securing a

sufficient competence to support his family, to free himself from

the slighting remarks too often hurled at the poor gentleman by the

practical people of the world, which is always galling to a proud

man, but doubly so when he knows that the want of wealth constitues

the sole difference between him and the more favoured offspring of

the same parent stock.

In 1830 the tide of emigration flowed westward, and Canada became

the great landmark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public

newspapers and private letters teemed with the almost fabulous

advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly favoured

region. Men, who had been doubtful of supporting their families in

comfort at home, thought that they had only to land in Canada to

realize a fortune. The infection became general. Thousands and tens

of thousands from the middle ranks of British society, for the space

of three or four years, landed upon these shores. A large majority

of these emigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their

families: a class perfectly unfitted, by their previous habits and

standing in society, for contending with the stern realities of

emigrant life in the backwoods. A class formed mainly from the

younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only

accustomed to command, but to recieve implicit obedience from the

people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the

woodman's life. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the

saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans at heart, think

themselves quite as good as their employers.

Too many of these brave and honest men took up their grants of wild

land in remote and unfavourable localities, far from churches,

schools, and markets, and fell an easy prey to the land speculators

that swarmed in every rising village on the borders of civilization.

It was to warn such settlers as these last mentioned, not to take

up grants and pitch their tents in the wilderness, and by so doing

reduce themselves and their families to hopeless poverty, that my

work “Roughing it in the Bush” was written.

I gave the experience of the first seven years we passed in the

woods, attempting to clear a bush farm, as a warning to others, and

the number of persons who have since told me, that my book “told the

history” of their own life in the woods, ought to be the best proof

to every candid mind that I spoke the truth. It is not by such feeble

instruments as the above that Providence works when it seeks to

reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to

the wants and happiness of its creatures. The great Father of the

souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from the

infancy has made strong, the nerves that have become iron by patient

endurance, and He chooses such to send forth into the forest to hew

out the rough paths for the advance of civilization.

These men became wealthy and prosperous, and are the bones and

sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not

exhaustion; it produces content, not home-sickness and despair.

What the backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and

ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are

to the refined and polished gentleman, these sketches have

endeavoured to show.

The poor man is in his native element; the poor gentleman totally

unfitted, by his previous habits and education, to be a hewer of the

forest and a tiller of the soil. What money he brought out with him

is lavishly expended during the first two years in paying for labour

to clear and fence lands which, from his ignorance of agricultural

pursuits, will never make him the least profitable return and barely

find coarse food for his family. Of clothing we say nothing. Bare

feet and rags are too common in the bush.

Now, had the same means and the same labour been employed in the

cultivation of a leased farm, or one purchased for a few hundred

dollars, near a village, how different would have been the results,

not only to the settler, but it would have added greatly to the

wealth and social improvement of the country.

I am well aware that a great and, I must think, a most unjust

prejudice has been felt against my book in Canada because I dared to

give my opinion freely on a subject which had engrossed a great deal

of my attention; nor do I believe that the account of our failure in

the bush ever deterred a single emigrant from coming to the country,

as the only circulation it ever had in the colony was chiefly through

the volumes that often formed a portion of their baggage. The many

who have condemned the work without reading it will be surprised to

find that not one word has been said to prejudice intending emigrants

from making Canada their home. Unless, indeed, they ascribe the

regret expressed at having to leave my native land, so natural in

the painful home-sickness which, for several months, preys upon the

health and spirits of the dejected exile, to a deep-rooted dislike

to the country.

So far from this being the case, my love for the country has steadily

increased from year to year, and my attachment to Canada is now

so strong that I cannot imagine any inducement, short of absolute

necessity, which could induce me to leave the colony where as a wife

and mother, some of the happiest years of my life have been spent.

Contrasting the first years of my life in the bush with Canada as

she now is, my mind is filled with wonder and gratitude at the rapid

strides she has made towards the fulfilment of a great and glorious

destiny.

What important events have been brought to pass within the narrow

circle of less than forty years! What a difference since _now_ and

_then_. The country is the same only in name. Its aspect is wholly

changed. The rough has become smooth, the crooked has been made

straight, the forests have been converted into fruitful fields, the

rude log cabin of the woodsman has been replaced by the handsome,

well-appointed homestead, and large populous cities have pushed the

small clap-boarded village into the shade.

The solitary stroke of the axe that once broke the uniform silence of

the vast woods is only heard in remote districts, and is superseded

by the thundering tread of the iron horse and the ceaseless panting of

the steam-engine in our sawmills and factories.

Canada is no longer a child, sleeping in the arms of nature,

dependant for her very existence on the fostering care of her

illustrious mother. She has outstepped infancy, and is in the full

enjoyment of a strong and vigorous youth. What may not we hope for

her maturity ere another forty summers have glided down the stream

of time! Already she holds in her hand the crown of one of the

mightiest empires that the world has seen, or is yet to see.

Look at her vast resources--her fine healthy climate--her fruitful

soil--the inexhaustible wealth of her pine forests--the untold

treasures hidden in her unexplored mines. What other country

possesses such an internal navigation for transporting its products

from distant Manitoba to the sea, and from thence to every port in

the world!

If an excellent Government, defended by wise laws, a loyal people,

and a free Church, can make people happy and proud of their country,

surely we have every reason to rejoice in our new Dominion.

When we first came to the country it was a mere struggle for bread to

the many, while all the offices of emolument and power were held by a

favoured few. The country was rent to pieces by political factions,

and a fierce hostility existed between the native born Canadians--the

first pioneers of the forest--and the British emigrants, who looked

upon each other as mutual enemies, who were seeking to appropriate

the larger share of the new country.

Those who had settled down in the woods were happily unconscious

that these quarrels threatened to destroy the peace of the colony.

The insurrection of 1837 came upon them like a thunder clap; they

could hardly believe such an incredible tale. Intensely loyal, the

emigrant officers rose to a man to defend the British flag and

chastise the rebels and their rash leader.

In their zeal to uphold British authority, they made no excuse for

the wrongs that the dominant party had heaped upon a clever and

high-spirited man. To them he was a traitor, and, as such, a public

enemy. Yet the blow struck by that injured man, weak as it was,

without money, arms, or the necessary munitions of war, and defeated

and broken in its first effort, gave freedom to Canada, and laid

the foundation of the excellent constitution that we now enjoy. It

drew the attention of the Home Government to the many abuses then

practised in the colony, and made them aware of its vast importance

in a political point of view, and ultimately led to all our great

national improvements.

The settlement of the long-vexed clergy reserves question, and the

establishment of common schools was a great boon to the colony. The

opening up of new townships, the making of roads, the establishments

of municipal councils in all the old districts, leaving to the

citizens the free choice of their own members in the council for

the management of their affairs, followed in rapid succession.

These changes of course took some years to accomplish, and led to

others equally important. The Provincial Exhibitions have done much

to improve the agricultural interests, and have led to better and

more productive methods of cultivation than were formerly practiced

in the Province. The farmer gradually became a wealthy and

intelligent landowner, proud of his improved flocks and herds, of

his fine horses and handsome homestead. He was able to send his sons

to college and his daughters to boarding school, and not uncommonly

became an honourable member of the Legislative Council.

While the sons of poor gentlemen have generally lost caste and sunk

into useless sots, the children of these honest tillers of the soil

have steadily risen to the highest class, and have given to Canada

some of her best and wisest legislators.

Men who rest satisfied with the mere accident of birth for their

claims to distinction, without energy and industry to maintain

their position in society, are sadly at discount in a country which

amply rewards the worker, but leaves the indolent loafer to die in

indigence and obscurity.

Honest poverty is encouraged, not despised, in Canada. Few of her

prosperous men have risen from obscurity to affluence without going

through the mill, and therefore have a fellow-feeling for those who

are struggling to gain the first rung on the ladder.

Men are allowed in this country a freedom enjoyed by few of the more

polished countries in Europe--freedom in religion, politics, and

speech; freedom to select their own friends and to visit with whom

they please without consulting the Mrs. Grundys of society--and they

can lead a more independent social life than in the mother country,

because less restricted by the conventional prejudices that govern

older communities.

Few people who have lived many years in Canada and return to England

to spend the remainder of their days, accomplish the fact. They

almost invariably come back, and why? They feel more independent and

happier here; they have no idea what a blessed country it is to live

in until they go back and realize the want of social freedom. I have

heard this from so many educated people, persons of taste and

refinement, that I cannot doubt the truth of their statements.

Forty years has accomplished as great a change in the habits and

tastes of the Canadian people as it has in the architecture of their

fine cities and the appearance of the country. A young Canadian

gentleman is as well educated as any of his compeers across the

big water, and contrasts very favourably with them. Social and

unaffected, he puts on no airs of offensive superiority, but meets a

stranger with the courtesy and frankness best calculated to shorten

the distance between them and to make his guest feel perfectly at

home.

Few countries possess a more beautiful female population. The women

are elegant in their tastes, graceful in their manners, and naturally

kind and affectionate in their dispositions. Good housekeepers,

sociable neighbours, and lively and active in speech and movement,

they are capital companions and make excellent wives and mothers. Of

course there must be exceptions to every rule; but cases of divorce,

or desertion of their homes, are so rare an occurrence that it speaks

volumes for their domestic worth. Numbers of British officers have

chosen their wives in Canada, and I never heard that they had cause

to repent of their choice. In common with our American neighbours, we

find that the worst members of our community are not Canadian born,

but importations from other countries.

The Dominion and Local Governments are now doing much to open up

the resources of Canada by the Intercolonial and projected Pacific

Railways and other Public Works, which, in time, will make a vast

tract of land available for cultivation, and furnish homes for

multitudes of the starving populations of Europe.

And again, the Government of the flourishing Province of Ontario--of

which the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald is premier--has done wonders

during the last four years by means of its Immigration policy, which

has been most successfully carried out by the Hon. John Carling, the

Commissioner, and greatly tended to the development of the country.

By this policy liberal provision is made for free grants of land to

actual settlers, for general education, and for the encouragement of

the industrial Arts and Agriculture; by the construction of public

roads and the improvement of the internal navigable waters of the

province; and by the assistance now given to an economical system of

railways connecting these interior waters with the leading railroads

and ports on the frontier; and not only are free grants of land given

in the districts extending from the eastern to the western extremity

of the Province, but one of the best of the new townships has been

selected in which the Government is now making roads, and upon each

lot is clearing five acres and erecting thereon a small house, which

will be granted to heads of families, who, by six annual instalments,

will be required to pay back to the Government the cost of these

improvements--not exceeding $200, or 40 pounds sterling--when a free

patent (or deed) of the land will be given, without any charge

whatever, under a protective Homestead Act. This wise and liberal

policy would have astonished the Colonial Legislature of 1832, but

will, no doubt, speedily give to the Province a noble and progressive

back country, and add much to its strength and prosperity.

Our busy factories and foundries--our copper, silver, and plumbago

mines--our salt and petroleum--the increasing exports of native

produce--speak volumes for the prosperity of the Dominion and for the

government of those who are at the head of affairs. It only requires

the loyal co-operation of an intelligent and enlightened people to

render this beautiful and free country the greatest and the happiest

upon the face of the earth.

When we contrast forest life in Canada forty years ago with the

present state of the country, my book will not be without interest

and significance. We may truly say, old things have passed away,

all things have become new.

What an advance in the arts and sciences and in the literature of

the country has been made during the last few years. Canada can

boast of many good and even distinguished authors, and the love of

books and booklore is daily increasing.

Institues and literary associations for the encouragement of

learning are now to be found in all the cities and large towns in

the Dominion. We are no longer dependent upon the States for the

reproduction of the works of celebrated authors; our own publishers,

both in Toronto and Montreal, are furnishing our handsome bookstores

with volumes that rival, in cheapness and typographical excellence,

the best issues from the large printing establishments in America.

We have no lack of native talent or books, or of intelligent readers

to appreciate them.

Our print shops are full of the well-educated designs of native

artists. And the grand scenery of our lakes and forests, transferred

to canvas, adorns the homes of our wealthy citizens.

We must not omit in this slight sketch to refer to the number of fine

public buildings which meet us at every turn, most of which have been

designed and executed by native architects. Montreal can point to her

Victoria Bridge, and challenge the world to produce its equal. This

prodigy of mechanical skill should be a sufficient inducement to

strangers from other lands to visit our shores, and though designed

by the son of the immortal George Stephenson, it was Canadian hands

that helped him to execute his great project--to raise that glorious

monument to his fame, which we hope, will outlast a thousand years.

Our new Houses of Parliment, our churches, banks, public halls,

asylums for the insane, the blind, and the deaf and dumb are

buildings which must attract the attention of every intelligent

traveller; and when we consider the few brief years that have

elapsed since the Upper Province was reclaimed from the wilderness,

our progress in mechanical arts, and all the comforts which pertain

to modern civilization, is unprecedented in the history of older

nations.

If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures

proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective

of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close

of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality.

May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people!

Susanna Moodie

Belleville, 1871

APPENDIX C

JEANIE BURNS

[This chapter was originally intended by Mrs. Moodie for inclusion

in the first edition of Roughing it in the Bush but was instead

published in the periodical Bentley's Miscellany, in August 1852.

It was later revised and included in the book Life in the Clearings

versus the Bush by the same author.]

“Ah, human hearts are strangely cast,

Time softens grief and pain;

Like reeds that shiver in the blast,

They bend to rise again.

“But she in silence bowed her head,

To none her sorrow would impart;

Earth's faithful arms enclose the dead,

And hide for aye her broken heart!”

Our man James came to me to request the loan of one of the horses,

to attend a funeral. M---- was absent on business, and the horses

and the man's time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for

the fall crops. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed;

and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a

strict injunction that he should return to his work the moment the

funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I

had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying

out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one,

and that was shared in common with the servants) opened, and the

delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle,

and sat down by the blazing hearth without speaking a word.

“What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an

acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day.”

“Verra true, mistress. It was nae fau't o' mine. I had mista'en the

hour. The funeral didna' come in afore sun-down, and I cam' awa'

directly it was ower.”

“Was it any relation of yours?”

“Na, na, jist a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o' mine ain

kin. I never felt sare sad in a' my life, as I ha' dune this day.

I ha' seen the clods piled on mony a heid, and never felt the saut

tear in my e'en. But, puir Jeanie! puir lass. It was a sair sight

to see them thrown doon upon her.”

My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told

Bell to give James his supper.

“Naething for me the night, Bell--I canna' eat--my thoughts will a'

rin on that puir lass. Sae young--sae bonnie, an' a few months ago

as blythe as a lark, an' now a clod o' the earth. Hout we maun all

dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna' think that

Jeanie ought to ha' gane sae sune.”

“Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her.”

In compliance with my request, the man gave me the following story.

I wish I could convey it in his own words, but though I can

perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when spoken, I could not

write it in its charming simplicity: that honest, truthful brevity,

which is so characteristic of this noble people. The smooth tones

of the blarney may flatter our vanity, and please us for the

moment; but who places any confidence in those by whom it is

employed. We know that it is only uttered to cajole and deceive,

and when the novelty wears off, the repetition awakens indignation

and disgust; but who mistrusts the blunt, straightforward speech of

the land of Burns--for good or ill, it strikes home to the heart.

“Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who

gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town in

Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed

the same vocation, and wrought under the same roof that his father

had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses,

and now helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity

of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he

might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parent.

His mother had been dead for some years. She was a meek, pious

woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed, 'That it had pleased the Lord

to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his

arm could win, proud and happy as he would have been to have

supported her when she was no longer able to work for him.'

“Jock's paternal love was repaid at last; chance threw in his way

a cannie young lass, baith guid and bonnie: they were united, and

Jeanie was the sole fruit of this marriage. But Jeanie proved a

host in herself, and grew up the best natured, the prettiest,

and the most industrious lass in the village, and was a general

favourite both with young and old. She helped her mother in the

house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of

her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns; who was so much attached

to his little handmaid, that he was never happy when she was absent.

“Happiness is not a flower of long growth in this world; it requires

the dew and sunlight of heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers,

removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote

village. It smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and

the matron in the beauty of her prime; while it spared the helpless

and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the parent of many

years. Both Jeanie's parents fell victims to the fatal disease,

and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight

alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are

never entirely forsaken. God may afflict them with many trials, but

he watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a

manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the

orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient

employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and

herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life.

“Jeannie was an excellent sempstress, and what between making

waistcoats and trousers for the tailors and binding shoes for the

shoemakers, a business that she thoroughly understood, she soon

had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather

as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a

Sabbath morning, all the neighbours greeted the dutiful daughter

with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and

happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labours of love.

“Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to

the young lads of the village. 'What a guid wife Jeanie Burns will

mak',' cried one. 'Aye,' said another, 'he need na complain of

ill-fortin, who has the luck to get the like o' her.'

“'An' she's sae bonnie,' would Willie Robertson add with a sigh.

'I would na' covet the wealth o' the hale world an she were mine.'

“Willie was a fine active young man, who bore an excellent

character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was

to be the fortunate man.

“Robertson was the youngest son of a farmer in the neighbourhood.

He had no land of his own, and he was one of a very large family.

From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their

common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at

kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had

a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her

grandfather to share. He made his wishes known to his father.

The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no

advantages in a pecuniary view. But the girl was a good honest

girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for

love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife.

“'Willie, my lad,' he said, 'I canna' gi'e ye a share o' the farm.

It is ower sma' for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha'e laid by

a little siller for a rainy day, an' this I will gi'e ye to win a

farm for yersel' in the woods o' Canada. There is plenty o' room

there, an' industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo'es

you, as weel as yer dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow

you there.'

“Willie grasped his father's hand, for he was too much elated to

speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his

heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not

long in settling the matter. They forgot in their first moments of

joy that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined

to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred of

which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders

obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that

held the remains of his wife and son was dearer to him than all

the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far

foreign land. Jeanie wept--but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither

heard nor saw her grief, and, like a dutiful child, she breathed

no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his

head rested upon the same pillow with the dead.

“This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he

consoled himself for his disappointment with the thought that

Saunders could not live long, and that he would go and prepare a

place for his Jean, and have everything ready for her reception

against the old man died.

“'I was a cousin of Willie's,' continued James, 'by the mither's

side, and he persuaded me to accompany him to Canada. We set sail

the first day of May, and were here in time to chop a small fallow

for a fall crop. Willie Robertson had more of this world's gear

than I, for his father had provided him with sufficient funds to

purchase a good lot of wild land, which he did in the township of

M----, and I was to work with him on shares. We were one of the

first settlers in that place, and we found the work before us rough

and hard to our heart's content. But Willie had a strong motive for

exertion--and never did man work harder than he did that first year

on his bush-farm, for the love of Jeanie Burns.'

“We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by

the few neighbours we had, who likewise lent a hand in clearing

ten acres we had chopped for fall crop.

“All this time Willie kept up a constant correspondence with Jeanie

Burns, and he used to talk to me of her coming out, and his future

plans, every night when our work was done. If I had not loved and

respected the girl mysel' I should have got unco' tired o' the

subject.

“We had just put in our first crop of wheat, when a letter came

from Jeanie bringing us the news of her grandfather's death. Weel

I ken the word that Willie spak' to me when he closed that letter.

'Jamie, the auld man is gane at last--an', God forgi'e me, I feel

too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin' to come whenever I ha'e

the means to bring her out, an', hout man, I'm jist thinkin' that

she winna' ha'e to wait lang.'

“Good workmen were getting very high wages just then, and Willie

left the care of the place to me, and hired for three months with

auld Squire Jones. He was an excellent teamster, and could put his

hand to any sort of work. When his term of service expired he sent

Jeanie forty dollars to pay her passage out, which he hoped she

would not delay longer than the spring.

“He got an answer from Jeanie full of love and gratitude, but she

thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The good

woman, with whom she had lodged since her parents died, had just

lost her husband, and was in a bad state of health, and she begged

Jeanie to stay with her until her daughter could leave her service

in Edinburgh and come to take charge of the house. This person had

been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and

had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it

was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked

more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was

an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, 'If that was a'

the lo'e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman's

comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she

might bide awa' as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble

himsel' to write to her again.'

“I did na' think that the man was in earnest, an' I remonstrated

with him on his folly an' injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel

atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an' went to live

with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith's forge in the village.

“After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a

Canadian woman--neither young nor good-looking, and very much his

inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of

his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir

Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage.

“It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first

flush o' green--an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring

dress--when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane

up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her

as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in

the afternoon when the steam-boat brought her to C----, and, without

waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and

cart to take her and her luggage to M----. The road through the bush

was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson's

clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among

the logs to the cabin-door.

“Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse ill-dressed

slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an

out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. “Puir Jeanie! I can weel

imagine the fluttering o' her heart when she spier'd of the woman

for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?'

“'Yes,' answered the wife gruffly. 'But he is not in from the fallow

yet--you may see him up yonder tending the blazing logs.'

“While Jeanie was striving to look in the direction which the woman

pointed out, and could na' see through the tears that blinded her

e'e, the driver jumped down from the cart, and asked the puir girl

where he should leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must

be off?

“'You need not bring these big chests in here,' said Mrs. Robertson,

'I have no room in my house for strangers and their luggage.'

“'Your house!' gasped Jeanie, catching her arm. 'Did ye na' tell me

that _he_ lived here?--and wherever Willie Robertson bides Jeanie

Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,' she continued, trembling

all ower, for she told me afterwards that there was something in the

woman's look and tone that made the cold chills run to her heart,

'that an auld friend from Scotland has jist come off a lang

wearisome journey to see him.'

“'You may speak for yourself!' cried the woman angrily, 'for my

husband is now coming down the clearing.'

“The word husband was scarcely out o' her mouth than puir Jeanie

fell as ane dead across the door-step.

“The driver lifted up the unfortunate girl, carried her into the

cabin, and placed her in a chair, regardless of the opposition of

Mrs. Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, and who

declared that the bold huzzie should not enter her doors.

“It was a long time before the driver succeeded in bringing Jeanie

to herself, and she had only just unclosed her eyes when Willie

came in.

“'Wife,' he said, 'whose cart is this standing at the door, and what

do these people want here?'

“'You know best,' cried the angry woman, bursting into tears; 'that

creature is no acquaintance of mine, and if she is suffered to

remain here, I will leave the house at once.'

“'Forgi'e me, gude woman, for having unwittingly offended ye,' said

Jeanie, rising. 'But, merciful Father! how sud I ken that Willie

Robertson, my ain Willie, had a wife? Oh, Willie!' she cried,

covering her face in her hands to hide all the agony that was in

her heart. 'I ha' come a lang way, an' a weary to see ye, an' ye

might ha' spared me the grief--the burning shame o' this. Farewell,

Willie Robertson, I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi' my

presence, but this cruel deed of yours has broken my heart!'

“She went away weeping, and he had not the courage to detain her,

or say one word to comfort her, or account for his strange conduct;

yet, if I know him right, that must ha' been the most sorrowfu'

moment in his life.

“Jeanie was a distant connexion of my uncle's, and she found us out

that night, on her return to the village, and told us all her

grief. My aunt, who was a kind good woman, was indignant at the

treatment she had received; and loved and cherished her as if she

had been her own child.

“For two whole weeks she kept her bed, and was so ill that the

doctor despaired of her life; and when she did come again among us,

the colour had faded from her cheeks, and the light from her sweet

blue eyes, and she spoke in a low subdued voice, but she never

spoke of _him_ as the cause of her grief.

“One day she called me aside and said--

“'Jamie, you know how I lo'ed an' trusted _him,_ an' obeyed his ain

wishes in comin' out to this strange country to be his wife. But

'tis all over now,' and she pressed her sma' hands tightly over her

breast to keep doon the swelling o' her heart. 'Jamie, I know now

that it is a' for the best; I lo'ed him too weel--mair than ony

creature sud lo'e a perishing thing o' earth. But I thought that he

wud be sae glad an' sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But,

oh!--ah, weel!--I maun na think o' that; what I wud jist say is

this,' an' she took a sma' packet fra' her breast, while the tears

streamed down her pale cheeks. 'He sent me forty dollars to bring

me ower the sea to him--God bless him for that, I ken he worked

hard to earn it, for he lo'ed me then--I was na' idle during his

absence. I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, and

to pay my ain expenses out, and I thought, like the gude servant

in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain with interest; an' I

hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an' ca' me his bonnie gude

lassie. Jamie, I canna' keep this siller, it lies like a weight o'

lead on my heart. Tak' it back to him, an' tell him fra' me, that

I forgi'e him a' his cruel deceit, an' pray to God to grant him

prosperity, and restore to him that peace o' mind o' which he has

robbed me for ever.'

“I did as she bade me. Willie looked stupified when I delivered her

message. The only remark he made, when I gave him back the money,

was, 'I maun be gratefu', man, that she did na' curse me.' The wife

came in, and he hid away the packet and slunk off. The man looked

degraded in his own eyes, and so wretched, that I pitied him from

my very heart.

“When I came home, Jeanie met me at my uncle's gate. 'Tell me,' she

said in a low anxious voice, 'tell me, cousin Jamie, what passed

atween ye. Had he nae word for me?'

“'Naething, Jeanie, the man is lost to himsel', to a' who ance

wished him weel. He is not worth a decent body's thought.'

“She sighed deeply, for I saw that her heart craved after some word

fra' him, but she said nae mair, but pale an' sorrowfu', the very

ghaist o' her former sel', went back into the house.

“From that hour she never breathed his name to ony of us; but we all

ken'd that it was her love for him that was preying upon her life.

The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, always lies

ne'est to the heart. Puir Jeanie! she held out during the simmer,

but when the fall came, she just withered awa' like a flower, nipped

by the early frost, and this day we laid her in the earth.

“After the funeral was ower, and the mourners were all gone, I stood

beside her grave, thinking ower the days of my boyhood, when she and

I were happy weans, an' used to pu' the gowans together on the

heathery hills o' dear auld Scotland. An' I tried in vain to

understan' the mysterious providence o' God, who had stricken her,

who seemed sae gude and pure, an' spared the like o' me, who was mair

deservin' o' his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an' I saw Willie

Robertson standing near me beside the grave.

“'Ye may as weel spare your grief noo,' said I, for I felt hard

towards him, 'an' rejoice that the weary is at rest.'

“'It was I murdered her,' said he, 'an' the thought will haunt me to

my last day. Did she remember me on her death bed?'

“'Her thoughts were only ken'd by Him who reads the secrets of a'

hearts, Willie. Her end was peace, an' her Saviour's blessed name

was the last sound upon her lips. But if ever woman died fra' a

broken heart, there she lies.'

“'Oh, Jeanie!' he cried, 'mine ain darling Jeanie! my blessed

lammie! I was na' worthy o' yer love--my heart, too, is breaking.

To bring ye back aince mair, I wad lay me down an' dee.'

“An' he flung himsel' upon the grave and embraced the fresh clods,

and greeted like a child.

“When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past,

and truly I believe that the man was not in his right senses when he

married yon wife; at ony rate, he is not lang for this warld; he has

fretted the flesh aff his banes, an' before many months are ower,

his heid will lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns's.”

While I was pondering this sad story in my mind, Mrs. H---- came in.

“You have heard the news, Mrs. M----?”

I looked inquiringly.

“One of Clark's little boys that were lost last Wednesday in the

woods has been found.”

“This is the first I have heard about it. How were they lost?”

“Oh, 'tis a thing of very common occurrence here. New settlers, who

are ignorant of the danger of going astray in the forest, are always

having their children lost. This is not the first instance by many

that I have known, having myself lived for many years in the bush.

I only wonder that it does not more frequently happen.

“These little fellows are the sons of a poor man who came out this

summer, and who has taken up some wild land about a mile back of us,

towards the plains. Clark is busy logging up a small fallow for fall

wheat, on which his family must depend for bread during the ensuing

year; and he is so anxious to get it ready in time, that he will not

allow himself an hour at noon to go home to his dinner, which his

wife generally sends in a basket to the woods by his eldest

daughter.

“Last Wednesday the girl had been sent on an errand by her mother,

who thought, in her absence, that she might venture to trust the two

boys to take the dinner to their father. The boys were from seven

to five years old, and very smart and knowing for their age. They

promised to mind all her directions, and went off quite proud of

the task, carrying the basket between them.

“How they came to ramble away into the woods, the younger child

is too much stupified to tell; and perhaps he is too young to

remember. At night the father returned, and scolded the wife for

not sending his dinner as usual; but the poor woman (who all day

had quieted her fears with the belief that the children had stayed

with their father), instead of paying any regard to his angry

words, demanded, in a tone of agony, what had become of her

children?

“Tired and hungry as Clark was, in a moment he comprehended their

danger, and started off in pursuit of the boys. The shrieks of the

distracted woman soon called the neighbours together, who instantly

joined in the search.

“It was not until this afternoon that any trace could be obtained

of the lost children, when Brian, the hunter, found the youngest

boy, Johnnie, lying fast asleep upon the trunk of a fallen tree,

fifteen miles back in the bush.”

“And the other boy?”

“Will never, I fear, be heard of again,” said she. “They have

searched for him in all directions and have not discovered him. The

story little Johnnie tells is to this effect. During the first two

days of their absence, the food they had brought in the basket for

their father's dinner, sustained life; but to-day it seems that the

little Johnnie grew very hungry, and cried continually for bread.

William, the elder boy, he says, promised him bread if he would try

and walk further; but his feet were bleeding and sore, and he could

not stir another step. William told him to sit down upon the log on

which he was found, and not stir from the place until he came back,

and he would run on until he found a house and brought him

something to eat. He then wiped his eyes, and bade him not to be

frightened or to cry, and kissed him and went away.

“This is all the little fellow knows about his brother; and it is

very probable the generous-hearted boy has been eaten by the

wolves. The Indians traced him for more than a mile along the banks

of a stream, when they lost his trail altogether. If he had fallen

into the water, they would have discovered his body, but they say

that he has been dragged into some hole in the bank among the

tangled cedars and devoured.

“Since I have been in the country,” continued Mrs. H----, “I have

known many cases of children, and even of grown persons, being lost

in the woods, who were never heard of again. It is a frightful

calamity to happen to any one, and mothers cannot be too careful

in guarding their children against rambling alone into the bush.

Persons, when once they lose sight of the beaten track, get

frightened and bewildered and lose all presence of mind; and

instead of remaining where they are, which is their only chance

of being discovered, they plunge desperately on, running hither

and thither, in the hope of getting out, while they only involve

themselves more deeply among the mazes of the interminable forest.

“Two winters ago, the daughter of a settler in the remote township

of Dummer, where my husband took up his grant of wild land, went

with her father to the mill, which was four miles from their log

shanty and the road lay entirely through the bush. For a while the

girl, who was about twelve years of age, kept up with her father,

who walked briskly ahead with his bag of corn on his back, for, as

their path lay through a tangled swamp, he was anxious to get home

before night. After a time Sarah grew tired, and lagged a long way

behind. The man felt not the least apprehensive when he lost sight

of her, expecting that she would soon come up with him again.

Once or twice he stopped and shouted, and she answered, 'Coming,

father;' and he did not turn to look after her again. He reached the

mill--saw the grist ground, resumed his burthen and took the road

home, expecting to meet Sarah by the way. He trod the path alone,

but still thought that the girl, tired of the long walk, had turned

back, and that he should find her safe at home.

“You may imagine, Mrs. M----, his consternation and that of the

family, when they found that the girl was lost.

“It was now dark, and all search for her was given up for the night

as hopeless. By day-break the next morning, the whole settlement,

which was then confined to a few lonely log tenements inhabited

by Cornish miners, were roused from their sleep to assist in the

search.

“The men turned out with guns and arms, and parties started in

different directions. Those who first discovered the girl were to

fire their guns, which was to be the signal to guide the rest to

the spot. It was not long before they found the object of their

search seated under a tree, about half a mile from the path she had

lost on the preceding day.

“She had been tempted by the beauty of some wild berries to leave

the road, and when once in the bush she grew bewildered and could

not find her way back. At first she ran to and fro in an agony of

terror at finding herself in the woods all alone, and uttered loud

and frantic cries, but her father had by this time reached the mill

and was out of hearing.

“With a sagacity beyond her years and not very common to her class,

instead of wandering further into the labyrinth which surrounded

her, she sat down under a large tree, covered her face with her

apron, said the Lord's Prayer--the only one she knew--and hoped that

God would send her father back to find her the moment he discovered

that she was lost.

“When night came down upon the dark forest (and oh how dark night is

in the woods!), the poor girl said, that she felt horribly afraid of

being eaten by the wolves which abound in those dreary swamps. But

she did not cry, for fear they should hear her. Simple girl! she did

not know that the scent of a wolf is far keener that his ear, but

that was her notion, and she lay down close to the ground and never

once raised her head, for fear of seeing something dreadful standing

beside her, until overcome by terror and fatigue she fell fast

asleep, and did not awake until roused by the shrill braying of the

horns and the shouts of the party who were seeking her.”

“What a dreadful situation! I am sure that I should not have had the

courage of this poor girl, but should have died with fear.”

“We don't know how much we can bear, Mrs. M----, until we are tried.

This girl was more fortunate than a boy of the same age, who was

lost in the same township, just as the winter set in. The lad was

sent by his father, an English settler, in company with two boys of

his own age, to be measured for a pair of shoes. George Desne, who

followed the double employment of farmer and shoemaker, lived about

three miles from the clearing known by the name of the English

line. After the lads left the clearing, their road lay entirely

through the bush. But it was a path they had often travelled both

alone and with their parents, and they felt no fear.

“There had been a slight fall of snow, just enough to cover the

ground, and the day was clear and frosty. The boys in this country

always hail with delight the first fall of snow, and they ran races

and slid over all the shallow pools until they reached George

Desne's cabin.

“He measured young Brown for a strong pair of winter boots, and the

boys went on their homeward way, shouting and laughing in the glee

of their hearts.

“About halfway they suddenly missed their companion, and ran back

nearly a mile to find him. Not succeeding in this, they

thought that he had hidden behind some of the trees, and pretended

to be lost, in order to frighten them, and after shouting at the top

of their voices, and receiving no answer, they determined to go

home without him. They knew that he was well acquainted with the

road, and that it was still broad day, and that he could easily

find his way home alone. When his father inquired for George, they

said that he was coming, and went to their respective homes.

“Night came, and the lad did not return, and his parents began to

be alarmed at his absence. Mr. Brown went over to the neighbouring

cabins, and made the lads tell him all they knew about his son.

They described the place where they first missed him; but they

concluded that he had either run home before them, or gone back to

spend the night with the young Desnes, who had been very urgent

for him to stay. This account pacified the anxious father. Early

the next morning he went to Desne's himself to bring home the boy,

but the lad had not been there.

“His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a thousand strange

surmises. The whole settlement turned out in search of the boy.

His steps were traced from the road a few yards into the bush, and

entirely disappeared at the foot of a large tree. The moss was

rubbed from the trunk of the tree, but the tree was lofty, and the

branches so far from the ground, that it was almost impossible for

any boy, unassisted, to have raised himself to such a height. There

was no track of any animal all around in the unbroken snow, no

shred of garment or stain of blood,--that boy's fate will ever

remain a great mystery, for he was never found.”

“He must have been carried up that tree by a bear, and dragged down

into the hollow trunk,” said I.

“If that had been the case, there would have been the print of the

bear's feet in the snow. It does not, however, follow that the boy

is dead, though it is more than probable. I knew of a case where

two boys and a girl were sent into the woods by their mother to

fetch home the cows. The children were lost; the parents mourned

them for dead, for all search for them proved fruitless, and after

seven years the eldest son returned. They had been overtaken

and carried off by a party of Indians, who belonged to a tribe

inhabiting the islands in Lake Huron, several hundred miles away

from their forest-home. The girl, as she grew into woman, married

one of the tribe; the boys followed the occupation of hunters and

fishers, and from their dress and appearance might have passed for

the red sons of the forest. The eldest boy, however, never forgot

the name of his parent, and the manner in which he had been lost,

and took the first opportunity of making his escape, and travelling

back to the home of his childhood.

“When he made himself known to his mother, who was a widow, but

still resided upon the same spot, he was so dark and Indian-like,

that she could not believe that he was her son, until he brought to

her mind a little incident, that, forgotten by her, had never left

his memory.

“Mother, don't you remember saying to me on that afternoon, 'Ned,

you need not look for the cows in the swamp, they went off towards

the big hill.'

“The delighted mother clasped him in her arms, exclaiming, 'You say

truly,--you are indeed my own, my long lost son!'”

End of Project Gutenberg's Roughing it in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie