Chapter 15

Engineer-officers have little leisure for Book-making--Caution against iced water--Lake St. Clair in a Thunderstorm--A Steaming-dinner--Detroit river and town--Windsor--Sandwich--Yankee Driver--Amherstburgh--French Canadian Politeness--Courtesy not costly--Good effects of the practice of it illustrated--Naked Indians--Origin of the Indians derived from Asia--Piratical attempt and Monument at Amherstburgh--Canadians not disposed to turn Yankees--Present state of public opinion in those Provinces--Policy of the Government--Loyalty of the People.

A person employed actively in public life is a very bad hand to engage in book-making. I often wonder whether this trifle, now intended as an offering to the reading people, will ever get into print. A little memorandum-book supplies the _matériel_, and a tolerable memory the embellishment. An engineer-officer, of all other functionaries, needs a memory; settling at one moment the expenditure of vast sums; at another, looking into the merits of a barrack damage worth sixpence; then, field-officer of the day inspecting guards--next, making experiments on the destructive effects of gunpowder, commencing with a percussion-pistol, and ending with a mine; buying land, taking altitudes of the sun and of the moon, examining a Gunter's chain or a theodolite, sitting as member of a court-martial, or of a board of respective officers, or counting the gold and silver in the military chest; superintending a fortification of the most intricate Vaubanism; regulating the dip of the needle, or the density of the earth; putting an awkward squad through the most approved manoeuvres; studying the integral calculus, or the catenarian curve; bothered by Newton or La Place; reading German or Spanish; exploring Oregon, or any other terra incognita; building docks, supervising railways, surveying Ireland, governing a colony, conducting a siege, leading a forlorn hope; an Indian chief, or commanding an army (both the latter rather rare); well may his motto be, as that of his corps is, _Ubique_. So, gentle reader, if there is wandering in the matter of these pages, put it down, not to the want of method or manners, but to the want of time; for, even in a dull Canadian winter, it is only by fits and snatches that the mysteries of book-making can be practised. The intervals are uncertain, the opportunities few. At one hour, one is drawing one's sword; at the next, in one of the two drawing-rooms, namely, that where ladies congregate, and that in which steel-pens chiefly shine.

But it is necessary, nevertheless, to go on with any thing one seriously begins; and, although the "art and practique part" of book-making is, considering the requisite labour of bad penmanship, rather disgusting, yet the giving "a local habitation and a name" to the ideas floating on the sensorium is pleasant enough. It would be better if one had a steam-pen, for I always find my ideas much more rapid than consists with a goose quill. The unbending of the mind in a trifle like the present is also agreeable; and if the reader only likes it, as much as it amuses me and it whiles away graver cares, and the every-day monotony of a matter-of-fact existence, so much the better. An engineer-officer has no time to become a _blasé_, but every body else is not in his position, and thus this "little boke" may be taken up with the morning paper, and your man of the world may be induced to go so far as to say, "Wild horses in Canada! I never heard of them before; I will positively read a page or two more some rainy morning."

_Blasé_, dear _blasé_, if ever you should muster up courage to go to Canada for relief, and want to see the wild horses, pray do not go towards the end of July; and if you do, don't drink iced water on board the Brothers, with the thermometer at 100° Fahrenheit, as I did, from very exhaustion. An old farmer on board cautioned me, but I was proud and thirsty, and did the deed. Sorely was it repented of; for, when we landed at night, I was seized with a violent pain in the heart region, accompanied by great uneasiness and lassitude; and, it was not until after lying down quietly for several hours that the symptoms abated. I was, however, very well the next day, but will not drink iced water in the dog-days any more in Canada West. Yet the Yankees do it with impunity.

We entered Lake St. Clair in a thunderstorm at half-past five, but, fortunately for us, in this shallow lake, averaging only three fathoms or eighteen feet in depth, the storm, which in other places was a tornado, did nothing but frighten us at a distance.

It tore large trees up by the roots, and unroofed houses not many miles off; and, had it caught us with so much top-hamper as the steamboat had, perhaps we should have sounded the lake _in propriá personá_, without being witnesses as to its actual mysteries afterwards.

We steamed on, however, near the south shore for twenty miles, and entered the Detroit, or Narrow St. Lawrence, before the light of day had vanished, observing islands, &c., and arrived safely at Windsor, at Iron's Inn, at ten p.m., having experienced the pleasures of an adverse gale and intense heat.

The dinner on board was by no means a luxury, for, although very good, the company was numerous, the cabin near the boiler, all the dishes smoking, the room low and small, and the thermometer as aforesaid on deck, so that we literally were steaming, for it must have been close to the boiling point.

Thursday morning, the 14th of July, was as hot as ever; and if I could, I would not have crossed over to the United States, where the famous city of Detroit stared me in the face on the other side of the river, about as broad as the Thames just below bridge.

It was, like all recent American cities, very staring and very juvenile, with large piles of brick buildings scattered amidst white painted wooden ones, and covered an immense space, with many churches, looking very fine at a distance, an immense crowd of very large, bright, white, and green, coarsely painted and loosely built steam-vessels at the wharfs, and small, dirty, steam ferry-boats, constantly plying to and from the British shore.

Windsor is a small village, scattered, as most Canadian villages are, with a little barrack, in which a detachment of the Royal Canadian Rifle corps is stationed, to watch the frontier. The Americans are now building a large fort on the opposite side.

I left Windsor at nine a.m., in a light waggon and pair, and rolled along the bank of the river to Sandwich, the county or district town, two miles from Windsor, opposite to which the Americans are building a fortification of some size, but apparently only an extensive earth-work.

It is a very pleasant drive along the banks of the Straitened River, or Detroit, close to the water, and occasionally in it, to refresh the horses. The population, chiefly French Canadians and Indians, occupy the roadside in detached farms; the Canadian huts and houses being, as in Lower Canada, invariably whitewashed and planted at short intervals.

We saw the Indians both industrious and idle: some were hoeing maize, others harvesting wheat, and the _habitants_ were also very busy in the fields.

The idle Indians, the most numerous, were lounging along the banks, under the shade of melancholy boughs, as naked as they were born, bathing, smoking, or making baskets. In the intense heat I envied them, and thought of the days of Paradise when tailors were not.

We stopped in this intense heat at Maître Samondon's tavern, having passed Sandwich, which has church, chapel, jail, and court-house, and is plentifully inhabited by French, whose domiciles evidently date from its first settlement. I saw some of the largest pear-trees here that I had ever seen; they were as big as good-sized walnut-trees in England.

We had a Yankee driver, a young fellow, whose ease and good-temper amused me very much. He had good horses, drove well, and had been in his time all sorts of things; the last trade, that of a mail-driver on the opposite shores, where, he said, the republic were going ahead fast, for they were copying Europeans, and had taken to robbing the mail by way of raising the wind; so that, in some place he mentioned in Pennsylvania, it was a service of danger to drive, for they fired out of the Bush and killed the horses occasionally. He told us several feats of his own against these robbers, but concluded by guessing that he should not have to carry a six-barrel Colt's revolver in Canaday; for "them French" never robbed mails.

He drove us to Amherstburgh, through a rich and beautiful grain country, in four hours, eighteen miles, and we stopped an hour at Samondon's, where nothing but French was spoken, and a long discourse held upon the crops and the state of the country. As I had an orderly with me, and as red coats had not been seen in that part of the world since the rebellion, we caused some emotion and conversation on the road. A very old, garrulous French Canadian, who was smoking his pipe in the "kitchen and parlour and hall," came and sat by me, and, after beating about the bush a long time with all the "_politesse possible_," at length asked me who I was, and if the army was coming back among them. I told him who I was, a lieutenant-colonel of engineers; and the old Jean Jacques, after looking at me a minute or so, got up and fetched a small glass of whiskey and water, and with the best grace in the world presented it, with a cigar, taking another of both himself, and, touching his glass to mine in true French style, bowed and said, "_A votre santé, mon colonel_; you have got a devilish good place of it!" The French Canadians on the Detroit river were all loyal during the rebellion, and this old farmer was a sample of them.

When the horses were fed, and I had, as is customary, treated the driver, we departed amidst the pleasing sounds of _Bien obligé, bon voyage_. If they had cheated me, I should have been content, so much is politeness worth; and the Canadian French peasant is a primitive being, and as polite as a baron of the _ancien régime_. It was quite refreshing in such hot weather to meet with a little civilization, after being occasionally witness to the reverse from the newest people in the world. _Il coute si peu._

How shocking, a sensitive _parvenu_ will say, to sit down in a common kitchen, and drink a glass of whiskey and water with peasants! It puts me in mind of a very fine young lady, whose grandfather had been a butcher, and her father none of the richest; who, being met in the streets with some threadpapers or small package of lace in her hand early on a cold day, said, to a gentleman who stopped to ask her how she did, "I am very well, I thank you; but this parcel makes my hand so cold!" Or, for a still finer illustration, I knew a _nouvelle riche_ who, not being addressed by a tradesman in a little town in his bill by a factitious title, to which she imagined that she had a right, sent back his letter open to the post-office, with an intimation to the postmaster that letters so improperly addressed would not be received.

I have always perceived that a fuss about family and noble connections betrays either that the fuss-maker is naturally a vulgar soul, or that it is deemed necessary, from an excess of weakness, to support a position of an equivocal nature. A gentleman never derogates from his true position, let him be placed in whatever circumstances he may; and an over-fastidious traveller, or a pretender to great importance in a new country, is the most foolish of all foolish folks.

I remember travelling once in the wild Bush with a person, who, from long-established military habits of command, thought that he could order everything as he liked. We were benighted at a farm-house, where the old lady proprietress eked out her livelihood by receiving casual visitors, but disdained the thought of "keeping tavern," as it is called, in the backwoods of Canada West. He ordered, rather peremptorily, supper and beds for two--it would have been better that he had ordered pistols and coffee for the same number, for then the dame would have looked upon him as simply mad. No notice whatever was taken of his demands, but I saw her choler rising; fortunately, I knew her character. We were many miles from any habitation: and the horses jaded out as well as ourselves; so I took no notice either; but, observing the dame take her seat in the old-fashioned ample chimney, I took another opposite to her, and, observing her commence lighting her pipe, asked her for one, and we puffed out volumes of smoke--those were my smoking days--for a long time at each other in perfect silence. At last, I broke the ice.

"Mrs. Craig, your tobacco is bad; next time I come by, I will bring you some excellent."--A gracious nod!--We smoked on, and every now and then she condescended to speak upon indifferent subjects. At last, she got up and went into another room. I followed her; for I saw she wanted to speak to me without my friend.--"Who is that man?" quoth the dame.--"Colonel So and so," responded I.--"I don't care whether he be a colonel or a general; all I can say is, that he has got no manners; and the devil a supper or a bed shall he get here!"--"Oh, my good lady," said I, "he is not used to travel in the Bush, and is a stranger, and not over-young, as you see; besides, he is regularly tired out. Let me give him half my supper, and perhaps he can sleep in the chimney-corner. I don't care about a bed myself; pine branches will do for me, and an old buffalo robe, which I have in the waggon."

She said nothing, but, returning to the kitchen, which is the common reception-room in country places, put a few eggs into the pot over the fire, and got the tea-pot. I saw several fine hams hanging to the rafters, so I took one down, got a knife, and was about to cut some slices to broil, when she stopped me. "You haven't got the best," says the old dame; "I shall cut you one myself." And so she did, spread the cloth, set two tea-cups, &c., and a capital supper we had, for a fine fowl was spitchcocked.

After supper, Mother Craig asked me to smoke another pipe with her and her good man, who was lame and unable to work, and some of her sons, &c. came in from the fields. I missed her soon afterwards; but, after a quarter of an hour, she came in again, whispered that she wanted me, and I followed her. "It is time," said the dame, "for you to go to bed; for you must be up by candlelight to-morrow morning, as your journey is a long one; see if this will do." In an inner chamber were two beds; one a feather bed, the other a pine-branch one, with clean blankets, snow-white sheets, a night-cap of the best, water, &c. "That's your bed," said Mrs. Craig; "the other is for the colonel, as you call him. Good night; I will call you in the morning--take care, and put your candle out." I laughed in my sleeve, went out, called the colonel, who would have been otherwise left in the dark, for the family soon retired for the night, and I need not say gave him the best bed, as he thought; the best, however, I kept myself, for a bed of fresh pine shoots to a weary traveller in Canada is better than all the feather beds in the world, particularly in the New World.

So much for life in the Bush; and I was then not quite so old as at present; but, even in youth, experience had taught me the utility of taking the world easy. My friend the colonel, next morning, after a sound sleep, said, "Whenever I am obliged to travel in the Bush, I wish you may be with me;" and old mother Craig, who is now no longer in this world, thought the next morning, as she afterwards said, that, after all, the colonel was not so bad as she had imagined.

This is, for one may as well deprecate a little in talking about fastidiousness, not told by way of evincing superior knowledge of the world, but just to show you, gentle or simple reader, whichever you may be, that, in a sentimental journey through Canada, you must accommodate yourself a little to the manners and customs of the population, if you expect to get along quietly, and to form any just opinion of the country.

When we saw the naked Indians under the wide-spreading trees, literally taking their ease, _sub tegmine fagi_, I thought that, if a Cockney could be transported in a balloon from Temple Bar right down here, what a barbarous land he would say Canada was, and his note-book would run thus: "Landed on the banks of a river twice as broad as the Thames, and saw the inhabitants burnt brown, and stark naked, under the trees. Oh, fie!"

Really, however, there is nothing very startling in seeing a naked Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110° at the moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks natural, and a naked Cockney would look _contra bonos mores_, to say the least of it.

The Indian, whether dressed or undressed, is a modest man--not so always the Cockney; and there is an air of grandeur and natural freedom about the savage, which civilized man wants, or which modern coats, waistcoats, trowsers, and hats, are unquestionably not calculated to inspire.

Look at the statue of a Roman Consul, or at Apollo Belvidere, in his scanty clothing, and then you will understand what I mean; or, what is better, look at your grandmother's picture, with her hair powdered, stomacher, and farthingale, and then at the Venus de Medicis, and you will know better, if you are a man of taste. How the American ladies, who do not admit such words as _naked_ or _legs_ into their vocabulary, there being an especial act of Congress forbidding females to use them, get over the difficulty of Indians in their war costume, has puzzled me not a little. To draw a curtain before an Indian chief would be rather a venturous affair, as he is a little sensitive; and, when well painted, thinks himself extremely _comme il faut_, and very well dressed. But _de gustibus non est disputandum_, and so forth.

It is a queer country, this Amherstburgh country: French Canadians as primitive as Père Adam and Mère Eve; Indians of the old stock and of the new stock, that is to say, very few of the former, but a good many of the latter; owning both to French and to British half parentage; negroes in abundance; runaway slaves and their descendants, a mixture of all three; and plenty of loafers from the United States. In fact, it would seem as though Shem, Ham, and Japhet, had all representatives here, for Europeans and Americans of every possible caste are exhibited along this frontier, only I did not either see or hear of an Israelite; but some antiquarians contend that the Indians are a portion of the lost tribes. Their Asiatic origin is more decided. The feather of an eagle stuck in the warrior's hair is nothing more than the peacock's plume in a Tartar's bonnet. Then there is the patriarchal mode of government in the nations. Polybius says that the Carthaginians (Africans, by the way) scalped their enemies. The Kalmucks pluck out their beards, so do the Indians. The Pottawotamies, and most of the more savage tribes, like the Asiatics, look upon women as inferior in the scale of creation. White is a sacred colour, as in many parts of Asia. An Indian never eats with his guest, but serves him. Their nomadic life, their choice of war-chiefs, the difficulty of pronouncing labials, the use of the battleaxe or tomahawk, which is absolutely Tartarian, the worship of the Good and the Evil Spirit, form other points of resemblance. West says, that the emblems of the Indian nations are similar to those of the Israelitish tribes, and the Tartars fight under _totems_ of the wolf, the snake, the bear, &c., in the same way. The belief in a future state and in transmigration is similar, and the use of charms or amulets common to both Asiatics and Indians of America. The cross-legged sitting posture, and the Tartarian contour of the face and head, are very remarkable. I once saw an Indian chief, whose countenance was perfectly and purely Asiatic, and that of the Ganges rather than Mongolian. The shaven crown and single lock of hair are Asiatic and Chinese; and tattooing is common to both sides of the Pacific. A thousand other instances may be cited; but the strongest proof of all is the discovery of vast ruins in Mexico, which, as it is well known, contain indubitable proofs of a common origin of the people who built them with the Asiatics, and these ruins extend in a line through that country from Guatemala as far almost as the Colombia River; whilst South America produces edifices, not so extraordinary perhaps, but equally evincing that the worshippers of the Sun might claim descent from the Guebres and the Parsees.

But to pursue this subject would lead me into a research which would consume both time and paper, and can only be adequately entered upon with great leisure. I have collected much upon this interesting subject, and, having bestowed great attention upon it, have not much doubt upon the matter.

Singular discoveries are occasionally made in opening the Canadian forests, though it would seem that ancient civilization had been chiefly confined to the western shores of the Andean chain, exclusive of Mexico only. In a former volume was described a vase of Etruscan shape, which was discovered during the operations of the Canada Company, near the shores of Lake Huron, and vast quantities of broken pottery, of beautiful forms, are often turned up by the plough. I have a specimen, of large size, of an emerald green glassy substance, which was unfortunately broken when sent to me, but described as presenting a regular polygonal figure: two of the faces, measuring some inches, are yet perfect. It is a work of art, and was found in the virgin forest in digging.

But we are at Amherstburgh, otherwise called Malden, a small town of two parallel streets and divergencies, famous for a miserable fort, for Negroes, Indians, fine straw hats, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, and loyalty.

I shall never forget the heat of this place, having had the exceeding luxury of a sitting-room to myself, quite large enough to turn round in, with one door and one window, and a bed-closet off it, without the latter. If ever a mortal was fried without a gridiron, it was the inhabitant of that bed-closet; and right glad was I the next day to get into a gallant row-boat, belonging to the commandant of the Canadian riflemen, rowed by a gallant crew, and take the air on the River Detroit, as well as the breezes on Bois Blanc Island. Bois blanc, in Western Canadian parlance, is the white wood tree, with which this island formerly abounded, and now converted into several blockhouses for its defence.

Amherstburgh was the scene of piratical exploit during the rebellion, and bravely did the militia beat off the _soi-disant+ general and his sympathizing vagabond patriots; but this is a page of Canadian history for hereafter, and need not be repeated here. The sufferers have had a monument erected to their memory in these words by the spirited inhabitants:--

This Monument is erected by the Inhabitants of Amherstburgh, in memory of

Thomas Mac Cartan, Samuel Holmes, Edwin Millar, Thomas Symonds, of H.M. 32nd Regiment of Foot, and of Thomas Parish, of the St. Thomas Volunteer Cavalry, who gloriously fell in repelling a band of Brigands from Pelé Island, on the 3rd March, 1838.

Many of those who escaped from this villanous aggression upon a people at peace with the United States afterwards lost their lives from exposure to cold at such a season, the coldest portion of a Canadian winter, and misery and distress were brought home to the bosom of many a sorrowing family.

The annexation of Canada was contemplated by these hordes of semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas! for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent government for an honest man to exist under, but a _loaferism_, to use a Yankee term, would indeed be frightful. The recklessness of life among the least civilized portions of the States is quite sufficient already, without its assuming a power and a place.

That there is at present but little prospect for American dominion taking root in Canada, is evident to every person well acquainted with the country, although dislike to British rule and "the baneful domination" is also obvious enough among a large class of inhabitants, who are swayed by a small portion of the press, and by disappointed speculators in politics--men who have lost high offices, for which they were never fitted, either by capacity or connection with the best interests of the people, and who allied themselves to the French Canadian party merely to accomplish their own ends.

The real substance, or, as Cobbett called it, the bone and marrow of Canada, is not composed of needy politicians or of reckless adventurers, caring not whether they plunge their adopted country into all the horrors of revolution or of anarchy.

A man possessing a few hundred acres of land, with every comfort about him, paying no taxes but those for the improvement of his property, feeling the government rein only as a salutary check to lawlessness, and looking stedfastly abroad, is not very likely, for abstract notions of right and equality, to sacrifice reality, or to suppose that Mr. Baldwin, amiable as he is, is infallible: whilst Mr. Baldwin himself, the ostensible, but not the real leader of the out-and-out reformers, will pause before he even dreams of alienating the country in which he, from being a very poor man originally, has, through the industry and talent of his father, and a fortuitous train of circumstances, connected with the rise and progress of the city of Toronto, and the rise of the price of land as Canada advances in population and wealth, become a great land-holder.

I have no idea that this Corypheus of Canadian reform has the most remote idea of annexing Canada to the United States, or that he is mentally fighting for anything more than an Utopia similar to that of O'Connell in Ireland. In short, the grand struggle of the radical reform party of Upper Canada has been, and for which they joined the French Canadian party, to have a repeal of the union as far as control over the provincial funds and offices exists, on the side of England.

They would have no objection to see a British prince on the Canadian throne, or a British viceroy sitting at the council board of Montreal, but they want to be governed without the intervention of the colonial office; and perhaps, rather than not have the loaves and fishes at their own entire disposal, they would in the end go so far as to desire entire separation from the Mother Country, and seek the armed protection of that enormous power which is so rapidly rising into notice on their borders.

But then they calculate--for there is a good sprinkling of Jonathanism in their ranks--that that enormous power is grasping at too much already, defying the whole world, and seeking to establish a perfectly despotic dominion itself over the whole continent which Columbus and Cabot discovered, and not excluding the archipelago of the Western Indies.

They live too near the littorale of the Republic, or rather the democracy of America, not to see hourly the effects of Lynch law and mob rule; and, however some of the most daring or reckless among them may occasionally employ that very mob rule to intimidate and carry elections, they very well know that the peaceable inhabitants of both Canadas are too respectable and too numerous to permit such courses to arrive at a head. Once rouse the yeomanry of Canada West, and their energies would soon manifest themselves in truly British honesty and British feeling. John Bull is not enamoured of the tender mercies of canallers and loafers, and the French Canadian peasantry and small farmers are innocent of the desire to imitate the heroes of Poissardism.

No person in public life can judge better of the feelings of the people as a mass, in Canada, than those who have commanded large bodies of the militia. Put the query to any officer in the army who has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should need be, for Victoria, her crown, and dignity."

It may be said that an officer in the army is not the best judge of the feelings of the people, as they would not express them in his presence; but when an officer has been intimately mingled with them by such events as those of the troubles of 1837 and 1838, and has so long known the country, the case is altered; he comes to have a personal as well as a general knowledge of all ranks, degrees, and classes, and can weigh the ultimate objects of popular expression. I have no hesitation in saying, possessed as I have been of this knowledge, that _the people_ of Canada have not a desire to become independent now, any more than they have a desire to be annexed to and fraternize with the United States.

Many years ago, on my first visit to Canada, in 1826, when such a thing as expressions of disloyalty was almost unknown, and long before Mackenzie's folly, I remember being struck with the speech at a private dinner party of a person who has since held high office, respecting the independence of Canada: he observed that it must ultimately be brought about. The colony then was in its mere infancy, and this person no doubt had dreams of glory, although in outward life he was one of the most uncompromising of the colonial ultra-tories.

Just before the rebellion broke out, I was conversing with another person, now no more, of a similar stamp, but possessing much more influence, who began to be alarmed for his extensive lands, all of which he had obtained by grants from the Crown, and he feared that the time specified by the first-mentioned person had arrived. His observations to me were revelations of an astounding nature; for he thought that we were too near a republic to continue long under a monarchy, and that, in fact, absurd titles, such as those borne by the then governor, Sir Francis Head, alluding to his being merely a knight bachelor, were likely to create contempt in Canada, instead of affection. My friend, who, like the first-mentioned, was rather weak, although acute enough when self-interest was concerned, was evidently casting about in his mind's eye for a new order of things, in which to secure _his_ property and _his_ official influence.

Lord Sydenham and Lord Durham saw and knew a great deal of this vacillation among all parties in Canada. They saw that the great game of the leaders was office, office, office; and when Lord Metcalfe had had sufficient time to discover the real state of the country, he saw it too. Hence arose the absolute necessity for removing the seat of government from Toronto to Kingston. The ultra-tories were just as troublesome as the ultra-levellers, and it was requisite to neutralize both, by getting out of the sphere of their hourly influence. The inhabitants of Kingston, a naval and military town, whose revenues had been chiefly derived from those sources, were loyal, without considering it of the utmost consequence that their loyalty should form the basis of every government, or that the governor was not to open his mouth, or use his pen, unless by permission. They were the true medium party.

Then arose the desire to do justice to the Gallo-Canadians, who had before been wholly neglected, and looked upon as too insignificant to have any voice in public affairs, whilst they were mistrusted also, owing to the Papineau demonstration.

The British government, superior to all these petty colonial interests, saw at once that to ensure loyalty it was only proper to administer justice impartially to all creeds and to all classes, and that the French Canadians, whose numbers were at least equal to the British Canadians, had a positive right to be heard and a positive claim to be equitably treated.

There was no actual innate desire in the Canadian mind to shake off the British domination for that of the democracy of the United States. An absurd notion had gathered strength in 1837 that they were at last powerful enough to set up for themselves, to constitute _la Nation Canadienne_, forgetting that Great Britain could swallow them up at a mouthful, and that the Americans would, if John Bull did not. The proclamation of General Nelson or Brown, or some such patriot, set the affair in its true point of view. No longer any religion was to be predominant; the feudal laws were to be abolished; and the celebrated ninety-two resolutions, which had cost Papineau and his legion so much care and anxiety, were swept away as if they were dust. A Jack Cade had started up, whose laws were to be administered at the point of the bayonet.

The eyes of the leading French Canadians, gentlemen of education, were soon opened, and the vision of glory evaporated into thin air. But still they felt themselves oppressed, they enjoyed not the coveted rights of subjects of England; and accordingly the successive governments of Lord Durham, Lord Sydenham, and Sir Charles Bagot were eras of political struggles to obtain it.

Lord Metcalfe had had experience in colonies of long standing, had been successful, bore the character of a just, patient, and decided man, and had wealth enough to cause his independence to be respected.

The fight for supremacy between the ultra-tory and ultra-radical parties became fiercer and more fierce, and it was dolefully augured that the province was lost to England, as he would not yield to the haughty demands of the first, nor to the threats and menaces of the latter.

When the Baldwin ministry was dismissed, even cautious people were heard to say, that new troubles were at hand; and the ultra-tories did not scruple to avow that the country was in danger, unless they were readmitted to power.

Placed between these belligerents, Lord Metcalfe, who kept his own counsel to the last secret and undivulged, steered a course which has hitherto worked well. He chose a medium party, and removed the seat of government to Montreal, not in the heart of French Canada, as it is supposed in England, but within a few miles of British Canada and close to the eastern townships, where a British population is dominant, whilst in the city itself British interests surpass all others; it being the heart and lungs of the Canadian mercantile world, whilst it has the advantage of easy steam communication with Quebec, the seat of military power, and with Upper Canada, both by the St. Lawrence and the Rideau Canals.

The French, no longer neglected and seeing the seat of government permanently located in their country, seeing also that they had been admitted to share power and office, have been tranquillized; and the result of the elections placed Lord Metcalfe comparatively at ease, and rendered the task of his successor less onerous. Had his health been spared, the blessing of his wise rule would long have been felt. He is deeply and universally regretted throughout Canada.

As a proof of the loyalty of the Canadians, it is right to mention that, whilst I am penning these pages, the press is teeming with calls to the volunteers and militia to sustain Britain in the Oregon war; and, because the militia is not prematurely called out, the administrator of the government is attacked on all sides. Whilst I am writing, the Hibernian Society, in an immense Roman Catholic procession, passes by. There are four banners. The first is St. Patrick, the second Queen Victoria, the third Father Matthew, the fourth the glorious Union flag. Reader, it is the 17th of March, St. Patrick's Day, and the band plays God save the Queen!