Prospects brightening in British America—Desirable country on the
interior
lakes, &c.
HOWEVER discouraging the prospect of society on this great continent may
at present appear, there is every reason to hope that time, and the
ordinary course of events, may bring about a desirable change; but in
the present state of things, no government seems less calculated to
promote the happiness of its subjects, or to ensure permanence to
itself, than that feeble and unstable system which is only calculated
for a community comprising more virtue and more union than such a
heterogeneous mixture can be supposed to have attained. States, like
individuals, purchase wisdom by suffering, and they have probably much
to endure before they assume a fixed and determinate form.
Without partiality it may be safely averred, that notwithstanding the
severity of the climate, and other unfavourable circumstances, the
provinces of British America are the abode of more present safety and
happiness, and contain situations more favourable to future
establishments, than any within the limits of the United States.
To state all the grounds upon which this opinion is founded, might lead
me into discussions, narratives, and description, which might swell into
a volume, more interesting than the preceding one. But being at present
neither able nor inclined to do justice to the subject, I shall only
briefly observe first, with regard to the government, it is one to which
the governed are fondly attached, and which like religion, becomes
endeared to its votaries, by the sufferings they have endured for their
adherence to it. It is consonant to their earliest prejudices, and
sanctioned by hereditary attachment. The climate is, indeed, severe, but
it is steady and regular; the skies in the interior are clear, the air
is pure. The summer, with all the heat of warm climates to cherish the
productions of the earth, is not subject to the drought that in such
climates scorches and destroys them. Abundant woods afford shelter and
fuel, to mitigate the severity of winter; and streams rapid and copious,
flow in all directions to refresh the plants and cool the air, during
their short but ardent summer.
The country, barren at the sea side, does not afford an inducement for
those extensive settlements which have a tendency to become merely
commercial from their situation. It becomes more fertile as it recedes
further from the sea; thus holding out an inducement to pursue nature
into her favourite retreats, where on the banks of mighty waters,
calculated to promote all the purposes of social traffic among the
inhabitants, the richest soil, the happiest climate, and the most
complete detachment from the world, promise a safe asylum to those who
carry the arts and the literature of Europe, hereafter to grace and
enlighten scenes where agriculture has already made rapid advances.
In the dawning light which already begins to rise in these remote
abodes, much may be discovered of what promises a brighter day.
Excepting the remnant of the old Canadians, who are a very inoffensive
people, patient and cheerful, attached to monarchy, and much assimilated
to our modes of thinking and living, these provinces are peopled, for
the most part, with inhabitants possessed of true British hearts and
principles. Veterans who have shed their blood, and spent their best
days in the service of the parent country, and royalists who have fled
here for a refuge, after devoting their property to the support of their
honour and loyalty; who adhere together, and form a society graced by
that knowledge and those manners which rendered them respectable in
their original state, with all the experience gained from adversity; and
that elevation of sentiment which results from the consciousness of
having suffered in a good cause. Here, too, are clusters of emigrants
who have fled, unacquainted with the refinements, and uncontaminated by
the old world, to seek for that bread and peace, which the progress of
luxury and the change of manners denied them at home. Here they come in
kindly confederation, resolved to cherish in those kindred groups, which
have left with social sorrow their native mountains, the customs and
traditions, the language and the love of their ancestors, and to find
comfort in that religion which has ever been their support and their
shield, for all that they have left behind.[27]
Footnote 27:
It is needless to enlarge on a subject, to which Lord Selkirk has done
such ample justice, who wanted nothing but a little experience and a
little aid, to make the best practical comments on his own judicious,
observations.
It is by tribes of individuals intimately connected with each other by
some common tie, that a country is most advantageously settled, to which
the obvious superiority in point of principle and union that
distinguishes British America from the United States, is chiefly owing.
Our provinces afford no room for wild speculations, either of the
commercial or political kind; regular, moderate trade, promising little
beyond a comfortable subsistence, and agriculture, requiring much
industry and settled habits, are the only paths open to adventurers; and
the chief inducement to emigration is the possibility of an attached
society of friends and kindred, finding room to dwell together, and
meeting, in the depth of these fertile wilds, with similar associations.
Hence, solitary and desperate adventurers, the vain, the turbulent, and
the ambitious, shun these regulated abodes of quiet industry, for scenes
more adapted to their genius.
I shall now conclude my recollections, which circumstances have often
rendered very painful; but will not take upon me to enlarge on those
hopes that stretch a dubious wing into temporal futurity, in search of a
brighter day, and a better order of things. Content if I have preserved
some records of a valuable life; thrown some glimmering light upon the
progress of society in that peculiar state, which it was my fate to
witness and to share, and afforded some hours of harmless amusement to
those lovers of nature and of truth, who can patiently trace their
progress through a tale devoid alike of regular arrangement, surprising
variety, and artificial embellishment.