The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That
Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's
Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful
accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water
privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The
Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The
Nigger's Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political
Courtship--Lundy's Lane--Heroine--Welland Canal.
I can make no stay at Niagara for the present; but, after resting awhile
at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed
in his coach to Queenston.
The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern
improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather
springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move
it along; and, if it should upset, like Falstaff, it may ask for levers
to lift it up again.
We had on board the coach an American, of the species Yankee, a thorough
bluff, rosy, herculean, Yorkshire-farmer, and several highly respectable
females.
I will not say Jonathan did not spit before them, for he is to the
manner born; but, although of inferior grade, if there can be such a
thing mentioned respecting a citizen of the United States, and
particularly of "the Empire State," of which he was, to his credit be it
said, he treated the females with that courtesy, rough as it is, which
seems innate with all Americans.
A stormy discussion arose on the part of John Bull, who hated slavery,
disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short,
looked down with no small share of contempt upon the man of yesterday,
whose ideas of right and wrong were so diametrically opposed to his own,
and who very sententiously expressed them.
John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels
through the Northern and Western States--where he had been to look at
the land with a view to purchase, either there or in Canada, as might be
most advisable--the only thing he had never heard was that all the
citizens of the United States were all "gentlemen."
"I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have
remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said 'that
gentleman.'"
John laughed outright. "No, friend, I never did hear your white
gentlemen call a nigger 'that gentleman;' so, you see, all your folks
ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a
blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your
runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in
Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous."
This is, in a measure, true; such troops of escaped negroes are annually
forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is
overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds.
But they cordially hate both the Southern slaveholders and the
abolitionists.
Talking of slavery, pray read an account of it from an American of the
Northern States.
* * * * *
"New Orleans, January 26, 1846.
"A man may be no abolitionist--I am not one; he may think but little on
the subject of slavery--it has never troubled me one way or the other:
but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the Revolution;
let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of
Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the
thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around
him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and
the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the
throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on
raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the
attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill
that the stranger has noticed in the most conspicuous places in the
city, printed in French and English, announcing the sale of a lot of
fine, likely slaves; at the same time, he observes maps of real estates
spread out--everything in fact around him denoting a 'busy mart where
men do congregate,' as it really is.
"The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first;
joining the crowd in front of the stand, he observes twelve or fifteen
negroes of all ages and both sexes standing in a line to the left of the
auctioneer; they are comfortably, and some of them neatly dressed,
particularly the women, with their yellow Madras handkerchiefs tied
around their heads, and their bright, showy dresses; but they have a
look that irresistibly causes him to think back for a comparison to the
objects before him, and it seems strange that it should bring to mind
some market or field where he has sometimes seen cattle offered for
sale, whose saddened look seemed to forbode some evil to them; but the
animal look is somewhat redeemed by the smiles and plays of the little
_piccaninies_, who seem to wonder why they are there, with so many men
looking at them.--Now for business.
"'Maria, step up here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged
twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a
slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step
down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten
paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but
doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a
Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English.
'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and
sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, deux cent et cinquante
dollars: why, gentlemen, what do you mean! Get down, Maria, and walk a
little more. 275, deux cent soixante et quinze, 300, trois cents!--go
on, gentlemen--325, trois cents et vingt cinq! once, twice, ah! 350,
trois cents et cinquante: une fois! deux fois! going, gone, for 350
dollars. A great bargain, gentlemen.'
"My attention is called to the opposite side of the room: 'Here,
gentlemen, is a likely little orphan yellow girl, six years old--what is
bid? combien? thirty-five dollars, trente cinq, fifty dollars, cinquante
dollars, thank you.' Finally, she is knocked down at seventy-five
dollars.
"Why, there is a whole family on that other stand; let us see them.
'There, gentlemen, is a fine lot: Willy, aged thirty-five, an expert
boy, a good carpenter, brickmaker, driver, in fact, can do anything, il
sait faire tout. His wife, Betty, is thirty-three, can wash, cook, wait
on the table, and make herself generally useful; also their boy George,
five years old; you will observe, gentlemen, that Betty est enceinte.
Now what is bid for this valuable family?' After a lively competition,
they are bid off at 1,550 dollars, the whole family.
"As I have before remarked, everything is done in French and English;
even the negroes speak both languages. I saw one poor old negro, about
sixty, put up, but withdrawn, as only 270 dollars were bid for him.
While waiting to be sold, they are examined and questioned by the
purchasers. One young girl, about sixteen or eighteen, was being
inspected by an elderly, stern, sharp-eyed, horse-jockey looking man,
who sported his gold chains, diamond pin, ruffles, and cane: 'How old
are you?' 'I don't know, sir.' 'Do you know how to eat?' 'Everybody does
that,' she said sullenly.
"Passing up the Esplanade next morning, (Sunday) I saw some forty or
fifty very fine-looking negroes and negresses, all neatly dressed,
standing on a bench directly in front of a building, which I took to be
a meeting or school house: walking by, a genteel-looking man stepped up
and asked me if I wished to buy a likely boy or girl. Telling him I was
a stranger, and asking for information, he told me it was one of the
slave-markets; that they stood there for examination, and that he had
sold 500,000 dollars worth and sent them off that morning.
"The above facts are some of the singular features (to a Northerner) of
this remarkable place, and I assure you that I 'nothing extenuate, or
set down aught in malice;' but may the time come when even a black man
may say, 'I am a man!'
"NORTHROP."
* * * * *
I once relieved a poor black wretch who was starving in the streets of
Kingston, and told him where to go to get proper advice and protection:
all the thanks I received were that he was sorry he ran away, for he had
been a waiter somewhere in the South, and got a good many dollars by his
situation; whereas, he said, Canada was a poor country, and he had no
hope of thriving in it.
The lower class of negroes in Canada, for there are several classes
among even runaways, are very frequently dissolute, idle, impudent, and
assuming--so difficult is it for poor uneducated human nature to bear a
little freedom.
The coloured people, if they get at all up in the world, assume vast
airs, but there are very many well-conducted people among them. As yet
neither coloured people nor negroes have made much advance in Canada.
John Bull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western
States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the
conclusion, which he very plainly expressed, that the state of society
in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap
and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would bring
his old woman and his children.
"For," said he, "in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the
land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by
and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an
Englishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the
British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens
are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind
poisoned by constant elections and everlasting grasping for office.
"While," says John to Jonathan, "I am in Canada, just as free as you
are; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are
laid out in roads, or for my benefit. I can worship after the manner of
my fathers, without being robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who
thinks himself a bit better than myself; but, as I shall take care to
settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor
property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria
as I be myself."
Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a
real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being
understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like
petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to
be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic
was, and no mistake.
And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which
he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members
in so fair a light.
I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that
from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the
expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the
other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon
the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below.
High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank,
covered with trees--oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple--runs the
sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by
little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England,
excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion.
Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by
a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees.
Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when,
the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend,
a splendid view breaks out.
You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock,
two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American
shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the
right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the
south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and
sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant
Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp.
Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument,
and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares
to show his face on the neighbouring shore.
I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than
the gorge of the Niagara river: it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a
tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and
passive life.
Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of
1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building
in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in
the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted
wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an
old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the
type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all
uncomfortable.
The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away
all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in
mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers
and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in
the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the
fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an
hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next
generation will lament.
It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for
dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband
seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in
the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no
such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge
taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other
buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a
better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short,
in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the
next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything
but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who
preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his
trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as
well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the
former than with the latter.
The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada,
surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland
Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat,
Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona
lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant.
Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers,
forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada.
It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada
to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen
and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render
property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in
rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the
peaceable farmer or the timid female.
The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from
the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of
cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the
apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely
be rivalled.
The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the
summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa,
beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three
trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach
the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract.
On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above
the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful
accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close
to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel
Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American
war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all
tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse.
Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden
turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of
the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the
path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right.
The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on
the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered
and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down,
down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient
only remained to bear witness to the terrific result.
The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa.
If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton
House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's,
where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville,
a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you
came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a
steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of
Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from
the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing
further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader
may think the less that is said about them the better.
But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had not seen the
Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether they are altered or
improved; and most likely you will take some little interest in so old a
friend as the Falls of Niagara; for you must have read about those
before you read Robinson Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your
notice by every tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, _on dit_, I
mean, which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of
Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think so indeed, if
you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara twice in ten years.
They are materially injured by the Utilitarian mania. The Yankees put an
ugly shot tower on the brink of the Horseshoe at the beginning of that
era, and they are about to consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire
bridge, if the British government is consenting, over the river, just
below the American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid "Water Privilege,"
and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls--a most enlightened
body of British subjects, who first disfigured the Table Rock, by
putting a water-mill on it, and now are adding the horror of
gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the sale of juleps and
sling, all along the venerable edge of the precipice, so that trees of
unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees which grow no where else in
Canada, are daily falling before the monster of gain.
What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but
it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and
self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the
inhabitants of this part of the world.
If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought to the Falls,
one leg standing in Canada, and the other in the United States, there
would be a company immediately formed for hydraulic purposes, to convey
a waste pipe from the tips of the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another
to light the paltry village of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps,
with the natural gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grogshop
would be set up in his head; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes,
and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate whether
the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, so as to turn a
few cotton mills more in Manchester, as it is called, which scheme some
Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting to Mr. Lyell's proof that the
whole river might once have flowed, and may again be made to flow, down
to St. David's--thus, by expending a few millions, cutting off
Jonathan's chance.
But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to the
United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a public
property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world here below,
and should be protected from the rapacity of private speculations, and
not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars and thimble-riggers, niggers
and barkers, the lowest trulls and the vilest scum of society,
congregate to disgust and annoy the visitors from all parts of the
world, plundering and pestering them without control.
The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, the
result of the indefatigable labours of Mr. Barnett, a person who, by his
own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most interesting
collection of animals, shells, coins, &c., and has added a garden, in
which all the choicest plants and flowers of North America and of
Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of the Great Fall. In this
garden I saw, for the first time in Canada, the English holly, the box,
the heath, and the ivy; and there is a willow from the St. Helena stock.
It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this
together, for _loafers_ are rife in these parts. He had gathered a very
choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case in the
Museum. A loafer cast his eye upon them, visited the Museum frequently,
until he fully comprehended the whereabouts, and then, by the help of a
comrade or two, broke a window-pane, passed through a glazed division of
stuffed snakes, &c., and bore off his prize in the dead of the night. By
advertising in time, and by dint of much exertion, the greater part was
recovered, but the proprietor has not dared publicly to exhibit them
since.
He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of fossils and
minerals from the neighbourhood, with a camera obscura. He is, in short,
a specimen of what untiring industry can accomplish, even when
unassisted.
There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does not grow
to any size so far north; and, although native to the soil, it is,
perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake-wood, a sort of
slender bush, is found here, with very many other rare Canadian plants,
which are no doubt fostered by the continual humidity of the place; and,
if you wish to sup full of horrors,[4] Mr. Barnett has plenty of live
rattlesnakes.
[Footnote 4: This puts me in mind of the vulgar received opinion that my
godfather Fuseli supped on pork-steaks, to have horrid dreams.
Originally said in joke, this absurd story has been repeated even by
persons affecting respectability as writers. His Greek learning alone
should have saved his memory from this.]
To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another immense
gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to the excellent
taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a huge steamboat to cross
the rapids at the foot of the Manchester Falls. The next speculation, as
I hinted above, must be to turn the Niagara into the Erie, or into the
Welland Canal, and make it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty
which the political economists of this thriving place consider all
rivers as alone created for.
One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the traveller's
album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water running over to
waste per minute; and another writes, "What an almighty splash!"
I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever
that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had
been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds
every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian
limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those
visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet of Water," as the
place is called where the Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract
slides over it; for, on reaching the angle next to the spiral stair, a
strong smell is plainly perceptible, something between rotten eggs and
sulphur; and there you find a little trickling spring oozing out of the
precipice tasting of those delectable compounds.
A Yankee, with the soaring imagination of that imaginative race,
proposes to set fire to the Horseshoe Fall, and thus get up a grand
nocturnal exhibition, to which the Surrey Zoological pyrotechny would
bear the same ratio as a sky-rocket to Vesuvius.
There is no great impossibility in this fact, if it was "not a fact"
that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to
permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of
_materiel_ at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit
with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the
Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company
there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might
cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of
railway stags on both shores, if you will only buy their stock to
establish it; and, at all events, it would improve the City of the
Falls, which now exhibits the deplorable aspect of three stuccoed
cottages turned seedy, and a bare common, in place of a magnificent
grove of chestnut trees, which formerly almost rivalled Greenwich Park.
But the crowning glory of "the City" is the Reflecting Pagoda, a thing
perched over Table Rock bank; very like a huge pile engine, with a
ten-shilling mirror, where the monkey should be. Blessings on Time!
though he is a very thoughtless rogue, he has touched this grand effort
of human genius in the wooden line slightly, and it will soon follow the
horrid water-mill which stood on that most singular and indescribable
freak of Nature, the Table Rock. I would have forgiven Lett, the
sympathizer, if, instead of assassination and the blowing-up of Brock's
Monument, he had confined his attentions to a little serious Guy Fauxing
at the Mill and the Reflecting Pagoda.
Niagara--Ne-aw-gaw-rah, thou thundering water! thy glories are
departing; the abominable Railway Times has driven along thy borders;
and, if I should live to see thee again ten years hence, verily I should
not be astounded to find thee locked-up, and a station-house staring me
in the visage, from that emerald bower, in thy most mysterious recess,
where the vapour is rose-coloured, and the bright rainbow alone now
forms the bridge from the Iris Rock!
I was so disgusted to see the spirit of pelf, that concentration of
self, hovering over one of the last of the wonders of the world, that I
rushed to the Three Horse Railway, and soon forgot all my misery in
scrambling for a place; for there was no alternative. There were only
three carriages and one open cart on the rail; the three aristocratic
conveniences were full; and the coal-box--for it looked very like
one--was full also, of loafers and luggage; so I despaired of quitting
the Falls almost as much, by way of balance, as I rejoiced when they
once again met my ken.
But women are women all the world over; a black lady nursed Mungo Park,
when he was abandoned by the world; and a charitable she-Samaritan
crowded to make room for a disconsolate wayfarer.
I felt very much as the nigger's parrot at New York did.
Blacky was selling a parrot, and a gentleman asked him what the bird
could do. Could he speak well? "No, massa; no peaky at all." "Can he
sing?"--"No, massa; no peaky, no singy." "Why, what can he do, then,
that you ask twenty dollars for him?" "Oh! massa, golly, he thinky
dreadful much." So, when the daughter of Eve made way for me in the
rail-car, why I thinky very much, that, wherever a stranger meets
unexpected kindness, it is sure to be a woman that offers it.
There were the usual host of American travellers in the cars; and as one
generally gets a fund of anecdote and amusement on these occasions, from
their habits of communicativeness, I shall put the English reader in
possession of the meaning of words he often sees in the perusal of
American newspapers and novels which I gathered.
New York is the Empire State, and with the following comprises Yankee
land, which word Yankee is most properly a corruption of Yengeese, the
old Indian word for English; so that, by parity of reasoning, John Bull
is, after all, a Yankee.
Massachusetts The Bay State, Steady Habits.
Rhode Island Plantation State.
Vermont Banner State, or Green Mountain Boys.
New Hampshire The Granite State.
Connecticut Freestone State.
Maine Lumber State.
These are the Yankees, _par excellence_; and it is not polite or even
civil for a traveller to consider or mention any of the other States as
labouring under the idea that they ever could, by any possibility, be
considered as Yankees; for, in the South, the word Yankee is almost
equivalent to a tin pedlar, a sharp, Sam Slick.
Pennsylvania is The Keystone State.
New Jersey The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues.
Delaware Little Delaware.
Maryland Monumental.
Virginia The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers.
North Carolina Rip Van Winckle.
South Carolina The Palmetto State.
Georgia Pine State.
Ohio The Buckeyes.
Kentucky The Corncrackers.
Alabama Alabama.
Tennessee The Lion's Den.
Missouri The Pukes.
Illinois The Suckers.
Indiana The Hoosiers.
Michigan The Wolverines.
Arkansas The Toothpickers.
Louisiana The Creole State.
Mississippi The Border Beagles.
I do not know what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the
Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally
significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called Annexation State.
This information, although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as
without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be
understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation
and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more
intellectual, and more enterprising than all the rest put together; and
Pennsylvania should be enrolled among them.
In short, in the north-east you have the cool, calculating, confident,
and persevering Yankee; in the south, the fiery, somewhat aristocratic,
bold, and uncompromising American, full of talent, but with his energies
a little slackened by his proximity to the equator and his habitual use
of slave assistance.
In the central States, all is progressive; a more agricultural
population of mixed races, as energetic as the Yankee, but not
possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the
pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more
turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun,
very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the
arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle and the axe.
It is these Western States and the vast labouring population of the
seaboard, who have only their manual labour to maintain them, without
property or without possessions of any kind, that control the
legislature, their numerical strength beating and bearing down mind,
matter, and wealth.
Doubtless it is the bane of the republican institution, as now settled
in North America, that every man, woman, and child, in order to assert
their equality, must meddle with matters far above the comprehension of
a great majority; for, although the people of the United States can, as
George the Third so piously wished for the people of England, read their
bible, whenever they are inclined to do so, yet it is beyond
possibility, as human nature is constituted, that all can be endowed
with the same, or any thing like the same, faculties. Too much learning
makes them mad; and hence the constant danger of disruption, from
opposing interests, which the masses--for the word mob is not applicable
here--must always enforce. The north and the south, the east and the
west, are as dissimilar in habits, in thought, in action, and in
interests, as Young Russia is from Old England, or as republican France
was from the monarchy of Louis the Great.
Hence is it that a Canadian, residing, as it were, on the Neutral
Ground, can so much better appreciate the tone of feeling in America, as
the United States' people love to call their country, than an
Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman can; for here are visible the very
springs that regulate the machinery, which are covered and hidden by the
vast space of the Atlantic. You can form no idea of the American
character by the merchants, travelling gentry, or diplomatists, who
visit London and the sea-ports. You must have lengthened and daily
opportunities of observing the people of a new country, where a new
principle is working, before you can venture safely to pronounce an
attempt even at judgment.
Monsieur Tocqueville, who is always lauded to the skies for his
philosophic and truly extraordinary view of American policy and
institutions, has perhaps been as impartial as most republican writers
since the days of the enthusiast Volney, on the merits or demerits of
the monarchical and democratic systems; yet his opinions are to be
listened to very cautiously, for the leaven was well mixed in his own
cake before it was matured for consumption by the public.
Weak and prejudiced minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like
Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced _ex cathedra_ his doctrines,
and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that
universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history read a different
sermon.
That democracy is an essential principle, and must sooner or later
prevail amongst all people, is very analogous to the prophecy of Miller,
that the material world is to be rolled up as a garment, and shrivelled
in the fire on the thirteenth day of some month next year, _or_ the year
after.
These fulminations are very semblable to those of the popes--harmless
corruscations--a sort of aurora borealis, erratic and splendid, but very
unreal and very unsearchable as to cause and effect.
There can be, however, very little doubt in the mind of a person whose
intellects have been carefully developed, and who has used them quietly
to reason on apparent conclusions, that the form of government in the
United States has answered a purpose hitherto, and that a wise one; for
the impatience of control which every new-comer from the Old World
naturally feels, when he discovers that he has only escaped the dominion
of long-established custom to fall under the more despotic dominion of
new opinions, prompts him, if he differs, and he always naturally does,
where so many opinions are suddenly brought to light and forced on his
acquiescence, to move out of their sphere. Hence emigration westward is
the result; and hence, for the same reasons, the old seaboard States,
where the force of the laws operates more strongly than in the central
regions, annually pour out to the western forests their masses of
discontented citizens.
The feeling of old Daniel Boone and of Leather Stockings is a very
natural one to a half-educated or a wholly uneducated man, and no doubt
also many quiet and respectable people get harassed and tired of the
caucusing and canvassing for political power, which is incessantly going
on under the modern system of things in America, and take up their
household gods to seek out the land flowing with milk and honey beyond
the wilderness.
No person can imagine the constant turmoil of politics in the Northern
States. The writer already quoted says, that there is "one singular
proof of the general energy and capacity for business, which early
habits of self-dependence have produced;--almost every American
understands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many
abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part),
and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or
county, but with those of the State or of the Union; almost every man
reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for
hours, (_tant bien que mal_) if you will listen to him, about the tariff
and the Ashburton treaty."
And he continues by stating that this by no means interferes with his
private affairs; on the contrary, he appears to have time for both, and
can reconcile "the pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man
of business. Such a union is rarely found in England, and never on, the
Continent."
But what is the result of such a union of versatile talent? Politics and
dollars absorb all the time which might be used to advantage for the
mental aggrandizement of the nation; and every petty pelting quidnunc
considers himself as able as the President and all his cabinet, and not
only plainly tells them so every hour, but forces them to act as _he_
wills, not as _wisdom_ wills. There is a Senate, it is true, where some
of this popular fervour gets a little cooling occasionally: but,
although there are doubtless many acute minds in power, and many great
men in public situations, yet the majority of the people of intellect
and of wealth in the United States keep aloof whilst this order of
things remains: for, from the penny-postman and the city scavenger to
the very President himself, the qualification for office is popular
subserviency.
Thus, when Mr. Polk thunders from the Capitol, it is most likely not
Mr. Polk's heart that utters such warlike notes of preparation, but Mr.
Polk would never be re-elected, if he did not do as his rulers bid him
do.
It may seem absurd enough, it is nevertheless true, that this political
furor is carried into the most obscure walks of life, and the Americans
themselves tell some good stories about it; while, at the same time,
they constantly din your ears with "the destinies of the Great
Republic," the absolute certainty of universal American dominion over
the New World, and the rapid decay and downfall of the Old, which does
not appear fitted to receive pure Democracy.[5]
[Footnote 5: One of the speakers against time, in a late debate on the
Oregon question, quoted those fine lines, about "The flag that braved a
thousand years the battle and the breeze," and said its glory was
departing before the Stars and Stripes, which were to occupy its place
in the event of war, from this time forth and for ever.]
They tell a good story of a political courtship in the "New York
Mercury," as decidedly one of the best things introduced in a late
political campaign:--
"Inasmuch," says the editor, "as all the States hereabouts have
concluded their labours in the presidential contest, we think we run no
risk of upsetting the constitution, or treading upon the most fastidious
toe in the universe, by affording our readers the same hearty laugh into
which we were betrayed.
"Jonathan walks in, takes a seat and looks at Sukey; Sukey rakes up the
fire, blows out the candle, and don't look at Jonathan. Jonathan hitches
and wriggles about in his chair, and Sukey sits perfectly still. At
length he musters courage and speaks--
"'Sewkey?'
"'Wall, Jon-nathan?'
"'I love you like pizan and sweetmeats?'
"'Dew tell.'
"'It's a fact and no mistake--wi--will--now--will you have me--Sew--ky?'
"'Jon--nathan Hig--gins, what am your politics?'
"'I'm for Polk, straight.'
"'Wall, sir, yew can walk straight to hum, cos I won't have nobody that
ain't for Clay! that's a fact.'
"'Three cheers for the Mill Boy of the Slashes!' sung out Jonathan.
"'That's your sort,' says Sukey. 'When shall we be married,
Jon--nathan?'
"'Soon's Clay's e--lect--ed.'
"'Ahem, ahem!'
"'What's the matter, Sukey?'
"'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?'
"We came away."
Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an
inherent principle.
But the train is progressing, and we are passing Lundy's Lane, or, as
the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a bloody fight between
Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where
"The bones, unburied on the naked plain,"
still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very
trees have the balls still sticking in them.
Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part
in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the
history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry
was so conspicuous.
Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got
into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat,
immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two
American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house,
and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield
come to his rescue.
Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors
were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and
musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the
rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from
him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the
weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.
The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.
Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the
side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of
receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two
hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it
behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him,
and ran and hid it in the cellar.
Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer
happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward,
and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners,
and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an
American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place,
hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.
I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government
granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward
Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.
Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling
on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the
settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the
Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.
Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered,
with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near
Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh,
and was condemned to a traitor's death.
From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in
consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is
still living.
The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane,
Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore,
and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few
words concerning the Welland Canal.
The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of
any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico,
which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that
other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere
job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the
middle, until it passed into the hands of the local government. If there
has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a
most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great
portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that
magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Canal; and when the
Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes,
it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from
ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.
The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into
splendid stone walls and a ship navigation; and, to give some idea of
the rising importance of the Welland Canal, I shall briefly state that
the tolls in 1832 amounted to L2,432, in 1841 had risen to L20,210, and
in 1843 to L25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished,
which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it
has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have
passed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was
26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the
locks.
All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can
pass freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose
aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their
regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and
have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.
To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as
it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Canals, the Atlantic Ocean,
and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a
determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of
personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once,
and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried
through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export
trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the canal is
fairly finished.
WELLAND CANAL.
AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.
Beef and pork barrels, 41,976-1/4
Flour do. 305,208-1/2
Ashes do. 3,412
Beer and cider do. 50
Salt do. 213,212
Whiskey do. 931
Plaster do. 2,068-1/2
Fruit and nuts do. 470
Butter and lard do. 4,639-1/2
Seeds do. 1,429-1/2
Tallow do. 1,182
Water-lime do. 1,662
Pitch and tar do. 75
Fish do. 1,758-1/2
Oatmeal do. 132
Beeswax do. 36
Empty do. 3,044
Oil barrels, 96
Soap do. 13
Vinegar do. 24
Molasses do. 1
Caledonia water do. 10
Saw logs No. 10,411
Boards feet, 7,493,574
Square timber cubic feet, 490,525
Half flatted do. do. 13,922
Round do. do. 20,879
Staves, pipe do. 630,602
Do. W. I. do. 1,197,916
Do. flour barrel do. 130,500
Shingles do. 330,400
Rails do. 12,318
Racked hoops do. 59,300
Wheat bushels, 2,122,592
Corn do. 73,328
Barley do. 930
Rye do. 142
Oats do. 5,653
Potatoes do. 7,311
Peas do. 138
Butter and lard kegs, 4,669
Merchandize tons, 11,318 16
Coal do. 1,689 7
Castings do. 211 6
Iron do. 1,748 10
Tobacco do. 140 7
Grindstones do. 151 14
Plaster do. 1,491 10
Hides do. 101 15
Bacon and Hams do. 307 0
Bran and shorts tons, 231 11
Water-lime do. 441 7
Rags do. 3 0
Hemp do. 500 11
Wool do. 15 9
Leather do. 9 17
Cheese do. 1 2
Marble do. 1 10
Stone cords, 738-1/2
Firewood do. 3,251
Tan bark do. 957
Cedar posts do. 69
Hoop timber do. 16
Knees do. 184
Small packages No. 459
Pumps do. 102
Passengers do. 3,261-1/2
Sleighs do. 2
Waggons do. 177
Pails do. 136
Horses do. 2
Ploughs do. 25
Thrashing-machines do. 18
Cotton bales, 25
Fruit-trees bundles, 268
Sand cubic yards, 10,778
Schooners No. 2,121
Propellers do. 484
Scows do. 1,671
Boats do. 4
Rafts do. 118
Tonnage 327,570
Amount collected L25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.