[Hints on Emigration to Upper Canada, &c., by Martin Doyle. Price One
Shilling. Second Edition, 1832.]
The name of Martin Doyle is no doubt familiar to many of our readers,
and if it is not, we hope to make it so by directing their attention to
a sensible little book on Emigration to Upper Canada. It is chiefly
addressed, as its title tells us, to “the middle and lower classes of
Great Britain and Ireland,” who being blessed with health, strength, and
the laudable desire of improving their condition, meditate a trip across
the Atlantic. Whether the causes which annually induce so many thousands
to quit their native shores are likely to increase or diminish, we can
yet hardly form a judgment, but this we do know, that while the
industrious emigrant, who is hard pressed at home, will undoubtedly be a
gainer by the change, and while the province of Upper Canada is daily
receiving a vigorous and healthy population into her bosom, we of the
old country cannot at present consider ourselves otherwise than as
losers by the change. It may be urged that a new market will be created
in the Canadas for the products of British industry, and that thus
emigration may ultimately, and indeed in no short period, prove
beneficial to the mother-country. Such advantages we may reasonably
expect, if the produce of Upper Canada is at all times freely allowed to
enter our markets; but in the mean time we lose the honest and
industrious labourer, we lose the small capitalist who has been
struggling against difficulties at home, while the lazy, the vicious,
and the good-for-nothings are left behind.
But as people _will_ emigrate with the hope of improving their
condition, it is not fair to grumble at them for trying to mend their
fortune. Let us rather give them every reasonable facility for doing so,
and above all let us encourage every attempt to show them what is really
the state of an emigrant to our American provinces, and what
qualifications are essential to ensure his success. This our friend
Martin, we think, has successfully accomplished in a little shilling
book, in which he treats of the soil, climate, animal and vegetable
productions, of Upper Canada, mingling with his remarks on these
subjects sound sense and good advice. His picture of the fertility of
these countries must make a hungry labourer’s mouth water,--to think of
the plenty of Indian corn, of wheat, oats, barley, &c., all raised on a
virgin soil, with no labour but the sowing, after the necessary
preliminaries of cutting down the trees or barking them are finished. We
do not think that the products of Upper Canada are at all overrated by
our author, save perhaps in the article of fruits, when he tells us (p.
42) that “pine-apples are raised without trouble, and melons and grapes
grow wild in the woods:” it is of very little importance whether
pine-apples can be easily raised or not, as we are persuaded turnips
will prove a more profitable crop,--but we doubt the fact. As to the
wild melons and the grapes, there is no danger of a man eating them in a
country where bread, meat, and potatoes abound; otherwise we might put
in a word of caution against them.
Though Martin Doyle has perhaps not been at all inclined to underrate
the advantages open to an emigrant into Upper Canada, he has at the same
time carefully avoided all such false views as might seduce the man who
is comfortable at home to try the discomforts inseparable from settling
in a new land. We fully agree with him in advising those who are well
off at home to stay there, and to weigh all matters carefully before
they think of leaving it. The industrious labourer who struggles hard
against poverty, the skilful carpenter or shoe-maker, and others of the
same class, may, by industry and perseverance, provide for their
families in Canada, and find a refuge from the threatening evils of
poverty. The single man who is disposed to the same adventure may lay
the foundation of wealth and respectability by a few years of steady
labour in the new world, But there is _one_ condition on which we are
glad to see that Martin Doyle has most strongly insisted--_sobriety_;
which everywhere is an essential, but in North America it is all in all.
In a country where the cheapness of ardent spirits, the very general
want of some comfortable beverage such as beer, and the contagion of bad
example, are all combined, it is indispensable that the emigrant arm
himself with every possible precaution against the assaults of the
beastly and degrading vice of drunkenness. Dram-drinking spreads
disease, poverty, vice, and misery, from the fertile banks of the North
American lakes to the warm and tropical shores of the Mexican gulf: it
is destroying more than war and famine cut off in older and less
favoured parts of the world. Let then the drunkard stay at home to
finish his short and filthy course: he will not improve his condition or
his health by a settlement in the Canadas. We sincerely hope that the
efforts of many excellent and enlightened men, both in North America and
elsewhere, are even now doing something towards eradicating the vice of
drunkenness.
We believe Martin Doyle’s little book contains as much information as a
man can require who thinks of going to the Canadas, and we strongly
recommend its perusal to them as well as to others who are interested in
the subject of emigration. As far as we are able to judge, the facts are
in general correct, and have been collected with all proper diligence
and discrimination. The advice is sound and wholesome; and a spirit of
benevolence breathes through the whole. Not having space for any
extracts, we must limit ourselves to noticing a mode of preparing milk
for sea use, which is recommended to those who take provisions for the
voyage. “Milk, after having been boiled should be carefully sealed up in
jars, and if loaf sugar be added to it, there is no danger of its not
keeping fresh during the voyage.”
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