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he would do good if he knew how-and that any blame which his works may incur should be attributed to his capacity or rather his incapacity. But he is certainly singularly disqualified by his mind and character from being a useful public man; as we could easily shew, were this the place for it, by the history of the three Bills (for we believe they never grew into Acts) which he introduced into the House during the last and present parliament.-In a word, whether advanced in a bill or in a novel, in sad reality or fantastic fiction, his theories are the wildest and yet the meanest,the most impracticable, and the most idle even if they could be put in practice, that we have ever witnessed. For these reasons, and because Mr. Parnell is a very likely person to go on writing, and very unlikely to discern the tendency of what he may write, we have thought it advisable to endeavour, once for all, to render his follies innocuous, and to enable our readers to form a fair judgment of what they may expect from any future attempt at domestic or general reform by this amiable but weak, this well-intentioned but extravagant gentleman, who hoped by the agency of a novel to eradicate sedition and potatoes out of Ireland, and who thinks that the example of his hero is, on the whole, beneficial to his countrymen, because, with the little faults of high treason and suicide, he combined a high and ardent love for short handled spades and long handled scythes.

ART. IV.-1. Facts and Observations respecting Canada and the United States of America; affording a Comparative View of the inducements to Emigration presented in those Countries: to which is added an Appendix of Practical Instructions to Emigrant Settlers in the British Colonies. By Charles F. Grece, Member of the Montreal and Quebec Agricultural Societies; and Author of Essays on Husbandry, addressed to the Canadian Farmers. 8vo. pp. 172. London. 1819.

2. The Emigrant's Guide to Upper Canada; or, Sketches of the Present State of that Province, collected from a Residence therein during the Years 1817, 1818, 1819. Interspersed with Reflections. By C. Stuart, Esq. Retired Captain of the Honourable the East India Company's Service, and one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the Western District of Upper Canada. 12mo. pp. 335. London. 1820.

3. A Visit to the Province of Upper Canada, in 1819. By James Strachan. 8vo. pp. 224. Aberdeen. 1820.

E had occasion in a late Number to discuss generally the subject of emigration; but it is too important a topic to be speedily exhausted of its interest: and the public attention has

been

been of late so particularly directed to the Cape, that it becomes a duty to prevent, as far as our influence extends, an undue neglect of our North American colonies.

In fact, the growth and prosperity of the Cape and of Canada, do not necessarily interfere with each other: both are well deserving the most careful attention of government, and both hold out great advantages to individual emigrants; while these advantages are in many respects so different in the two colonies, as very materially to lessen the rivalship between them. Those whom health or inclination leads to prefer a much warmer climate than our own, will naturally prefer the Cape: those, on the other hand, who wish for a climate and soil, and produce, and culture, the most nearly approaching that to which they have been accustomed, will be more nearly suited, we apprehend, in Upper Canada, than in any other spot they can fix upon. The comparative shortness of the voyage also, will be likely to influence the decision of many emigrants; and the number of colonists of British origin already fixed there, will be an inducement to others, especially to such as have connexions or friends among the number.

Of those, however, who resolve to settle in North America, a very large proportion fix on some part or other (the western territory especially) of the United States, in preference to our own provinces; a preference which, in many instances at least, arises, as we are convinced on the best authority, partly from the exaggerated descriptions of Mr. Birkbeck and others, of the superior advantages held out by the United States, and partly from the misapprehensions and misrepresentations which prevail respecting Canada. Of the effect produced by those exaggerations, a remarkable instance has been transmitted to us by a most respectable correspondent in Upper Canada. A person went from the district of Newcastle, (selling his farm there,) and another, from the Bay of Quinty, allured by the hopes of better success in the United States; one of them looked about for an eligible spot to the north and east of Washington; the other in the western territory: but both ultimately returned, and fixed themselves in the settlements which they had quitted.

The ignorance and misrepresentation also with respect to our own provinces are astonishingly great and wide spread: Lower and Upper Canada are perpetually, even by those who ought to know better, confounded in a great degree in what regards their climate, productions and inhabitants. Many persons have a vague general idea of Canada, as a cold uncomfortable region, inhabited by people of French extraction: but even those whom a glance at the map has satisfied of the wide interval between the extremities of Lower and of Upper Canada, may not be prepared to

expect (and indeed the interval of latitude is not sufficient to account for it) so great a difference as between five months of winter and three; or to believe that the Upper Province enjoys, on the whole, a much warmer climate than this island.

We need not indeed wonder at the prevalence of erroneous opinions on this subject among the mass of the community, when we find even official persons stating in general terms, that our North American colonies labour under the disadvantage of a barren soil, and an ungenial climate! How remote this representation is from the truth may be readily inferred from the remarkable fact, that, notwithstanding the high price of labour, and the utter worthlessness, in most cases, of timber, the settler not only can always find persons willing to clear his land for him, on condition of having the first crop from it, but is considered as having made, if he resorts to this method, a very disadvantageous bargain, and much overpaid the labour. Nor can that be called an ungenial climate which brings to perfection, not only all the fruits of the earth which this country can boast, but others, which we are precluded from cultivating. We need only mention the maize or Indian-corn, which would be an invaluable acquisition to the British agriculturist, if our ordinary summers were sufficient to ripen it, from its producing on moderate soils an immense return, frequently above sixty bushels per acre, of a grain particularly serviceable in feeding all kinds of cattle and poultry, and furnishing several nutritious and not unpalatable articles of diet for man.

Strongly impressed with the importance of our Canadian possessions, and the desirableness of having some authentic and practical information respecting them as widely diffused as possible, we were much gratified with the appearance of the works whose titles are prefixed to this Article.

Mr. Grece's is evidently the production of a plain, sensible, practical man. He has manifestly no great skill or experience in authorship; but, what is much more important, he seems to possess those requisites in the subject of which he treats; and it is no slight recommendation to the greater part of his readers, and we may add, to his reviewers, that he seems altogether exempt from the ambition of making a book, and conveys his information briefly and plainly, with the air of a man who writes, not because he wants to say something, but because he has something to say.

As a Canadian, his statement of the comparative advantages of settling in his own country, and in the United States, will naturally be exposed to the suspicion of partiality: but those who will judge for themselves by a perusal of his book, cannot fail, we think, to be impressed with an appearance of candour and veracity; VOL. XXIII. NO. 46.—Q. R.

48

and

and where he expresses himself the most strongly, he is borne out by the testimony of unexceptionable witnesses.

And now let us pursue our comparison of these and other advantages of the Canadas with those which are so pompously held out to settlers in the western territories of the United States.

The difference as to distance, and the consequent expense of travelling, by sea and land, have already been sufficiently noticed; as also have the relative situations of the respective markets from the abodes of the growers in Canada and in the Ohio States, by which it has been shewn that in a much less time than a boat can pass between the Ohio country to the Orleans depôt, and return, might a ship make a voyage from Quebec to Europe or the West Indies, and return again to the Canadian port.

'Let us suppose, however, that an emigrant has surmounted the perilous and expensive voyage from Europe to the western territory; on his arrival there what a host of difficulties, expenses, and inconveniences has he got to combat.

Perhaps, with a delicate wife and a family of children, he finds himself seated under a tree in the midst of a wild and trackless region, where not a single human face besides those of his own retinue can be seen; not a hut or a cabin can he behold; and the alluring stories he had been told about luxuriant natural meadows, called prairies, waiting only for the hand of the mower and a day's sun to be converted into food for his horses and cattle, turn out to have been lavished upon wide open fields of grass, towering as high as the first floor window of the comfortable house he has forsaken in Europe, and penetrating with its tough fibrous roots into the earth beyond the reach of the ploughshare, requiring the operation of fire ere the land can be converted to any useful purpose.

Under a burning sun, and with but little shelter from the foliage of trees, or the retreats of the forest, he has to dig wells ere he can quench his thirst, there being no cooling and refreshing springs! and although he may still hope that time will enable him to surmount all his difficulties, and reconcile his complaining, perhaps upbraiding, family to their isolated condition, his heart will be apt to sicken within him, especially when he finds that he must wander many miles in search of some one to assist him in the very commencement of his operations. At length, however, that assistance is procured; but of what species of beings does it consist ?-Alas! alas! they are those very unfortunate wretches whose degraded condition he has, while in Europe, learnt most humanely to commiserate.'-pp. 62—64.

There is much practical detail in Mr. Grece's book, which is calculated to be of great service to emigrants; the chief obstacle to whose success appears to be either the misapplication of their little capital, or, the consumption of it in fruitless delays, while they are hesitating what spot to fix on, and what measures to adopt.

'Emigrants intending to proceed to Upper Canada take their de

parture

parture from Montreal to La Chine, a distance of nine miles. From thence they go to Prescot in boats, 111 miles. From thence there is a steam boat to Kingston, where there are other steam boats proceeding to York, the capital and seat of government for the Upper Province. After landing passengers, the boat proceeds to Queenstown, on the Niagara frontier. Between Queenstown and lake Erie there is a portage of eighteen miles. The total expense from Montreal is generally considered to amount to about five pounds each person.

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Those who proceed farther take carriage past the portage, to avoid the Niagara falls, and embark in vessels on lake Erie for Amhurstburgh on the Detroit river. Few people, however, proceed that distance, except for curiosity they generally concentrate themselves near market towns, where labourers are plentiful, aud artificers are to be found to perform the different kinds of work that may be required. There are, nevertheless, many extensive settlements in the Erie country. Those persons who wish to proceed to the Ottowa river will find a packet boat at La Chine, which leaves that place every Sunday morning, from May to November, for St Andrew's and Carillion, being the foot of the rapids on that river, extending about nine miles. A steam boat is expected to ply between the head of these rapids and the river Rideau, the present summer, to carry goods and passengers to the Perth and Richmond settlements, where, during the summer of 1818, a road was made to communicate with the Ottowa. Another road has been made through the townships of Chatham, Grenville, the seigniory of the Petit Nation, the townships of Norfolk, Templeton, and Hull, forming a regular communication by land from the above settlement to Montreal and Kingston in Upper Canada.-pp. 51, 53.

'As every article of real utility, and even of luxury, can be easily procured in the Canadian cities, and that too at nearly as easy a rate as in London, emigrants need not expend their cash in goods for sale, but preserve as much specie as possible. The emigrant may, however, provide himself with such articles of clothing as are suitable to the climate viz. coarse Yorkshire cloth trowsers and round jacket, a long great coat, striped cotton shirts, and worsted stockings, with boots or high shoes. For the summer dress he may provide Russia-duck trowsers, and smock frock. He may also take out bed and bedding. Kitchen furniture may or may not be taken out; he might, however, include a few rough carpenters' tools. Axes, chains, hoes, and ploughs for new land, are made in Canada, better adapted to the work than can be had in any part of Europe.'-pp. 58-60.

The system of husbandry pursued in both the Canadas appears to be still very defective; a circumstance which ought to be taken into account by those who estimate the quality of the land from reports of the produce. We mean defective in comparison of what it might and should be under actual circumstances; for we are well aware that it would be absurd in the case of a new colony to draw our notions of a perfect system of husbandry from what is considered such in Great Britain. The ratios of the price of

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