June 27.
In a strange country much is to be learned by travelling in the public
carriages: in Germany and elsewhere I have preferred this mode of
conveyance, even when the alternative lay within my choice, and I never
had reason to regret it.
The Canadian stage-coaches[7] are like those of the United States, heavy
lumbering vehicles, well calculated to live in roads where any decent
carriage must needs founder. In one of these I embarked to return to the
town of Niagara, thence to pursue my journey westward: a much easier and
shorter course had been by the lake steamers; but my object was not
haste, nor to see merely sky and water, but to see the country.
In the stage-coach two persons were already seated--an English emigrant
and his wife, with whom I quickly made acquaintance after my usual
fashion. The circumstances and the story of this man I thought worth
noting--not because there was anything uncommon or peculiarly
interesting in his case, but simply because his case is that of so many
others, while the direct good sense, honesty, and intelligence of the
man pleased me exceedingly.
He told me that he had come to America in his own behalf and that of
several others of his own class--men who had each a large family and a
small capital, who found it difficult to _get on_ and settle their
children in England. In his own case, he had been some years ago the
only one of his trade in a flourishing country town where he had now
fourteen competitors. Six families, in a similar position, had delegated
him on a voyage of discovery: it was left to him to decide whether they
should settle in the United States or in the Canadas; so leaving his
children at school in Long Island, "he was just," to use his own phrase,
"taking a turn through the two countries, to look about him and gather
information before he decided, and had brought his little wife to see
the grand Falls of Niagara, of which he had heard so much in the old
country."
As we proceeded, my companion mingled with his acute questions, and his
learned calculations on crops and prices of land, certain observations
on the beauty of the scenery, and talked of lights and shades and
foregrounds, and effects, in very homely, plebeian English, but with so
much of real taste and feeling that I was rather astonished, till I
found he had been a printseller and frame-maker, which last branch of
trade had brought him into contact with artists and amateurs; and he
told me, with no little exultation, that among his stock of moveables,
he had brought out with him several fine drawings of Prout, Hunt, and
even Turner, acquired in his business. He said he had no wish at present
to part with these, for it was his intention, wherever he settled, to
hang them up in his house, though that house were a log-hut, that his
children might have the pleasure of looking at them, and learn to
distinguish what is excellent in its kind.
The next day, on going on from Niagara to Hamilton in a storm of rain, I
found, to my no small gratification, the English emigrant and his quiet,
silent little wife, already seated in the stage, and my only _compagnons
de voyage_. In the deportment of this man there was that deferential
courtesy which you see in the manners of respectable tradesmen, who are
brought much into intercourse with their superiors in rank, without,
however, a tinge of servility; and his conversation amused and
interested me more and more. He told me he had been born on a farm, and
had first worked as a farmer's boy, then as a house-carpenter, lastly,
as a decorative carver and gilder, so that there was no kind of business
to which he could not readily turn his hand. His wife was a good
sempstress, and he had brought up all his six children to be useful,
giving them such opportunities of acquiring knowledge as he could. He
regretted his own ignorance, but, as he said, he had been all his life
too busy to find time for reading much. He was, however, resolved that
his boys and girls should read, because, as he well observed, "every
sort of knowledge, be it much or little, was sure to turn to account,
some time or other." His notions on education, his objections to the
common routine of common schools, and his views for his children, were
all marked by the same originality and good sense. Altogether he
appeared to be, in every respect, just the kind of settler we want in
Upper Canada. I was therefore pleased to hear that hitherto he was
better satisfied with the little he had seen of this province than with
those States of the Union through which he had journeyed; he said truly,
it was more "home-like, more English-like." I did my best to encourage
him in this favourable opinion, promising myself that the little I might
be able to do to promote his views, that I _would_ do.
[Footnote 7: That is, the better class of them. In some parts of Upper
Canada, the stage-coaches conveying the mail were large oblong wooden
boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together and placed on wheels, into
which you entered by the windows, there being no doors to open and shut,
and no springs. Two or three seats were suspended inside on leather
straps. The travellers provided their own buffalo-skins or cushions to
sit on.]