ploughs and disappoint our harvests; where, in fact, the soil is frequently prepared with no more delving than as a hen would scratch a dunghill, and the crops are gathered as carelessly as you would make a haul with a casting-net, as much escaping as you gather, and the hogs coming in for an equal participation of profits with their master. Yet we do not promise a farm to every poor labourer who emigrates: like too early marriages, the hurried investment with the rank of landholder will lead him to embarrassments; he has to provide himself with supplies for a year, and to pitch his tent near an accessible market. By a year's labour for hire (at 3s. a-day besides his food) he will become capitalist sufficient to undertake then a clearing,' but not before. The Report of Colonel Cockburn on this matter is highly satisfactory, ensuring the labourer returns if he combine the character of landholder with that of servant in the mode just mentioned.

But this is not the department of the subject of Canadian affairs which we at present enter upon. We would rather listen to the quavering notes that accompany the feathering oar on the inland lakes which feed the Richlieu and St. Francis, or drive our sleigh over the rail-road of snow that bridges the St. Lawrence, or float without thought amid the channels of the deep dark water in the 'lake of a thousand islands,' or steam it on the Hudson, or hear the Niagara mock all the artillery that presumes to roar upon the ocean which he caters to-aye, we have no stomach to persuade the unsettled to become settlers, the thriftless husbands to set their houses in order instead of leaving as a heirloom the bills of tailors, upholsterers, and coach builders who contributed to the establishment in the square,' or of calming the discontent of the unpaid mechanic, and telling him there is a land where labour is property. We have read, as they may read, the shilling and penny knowledge on these heads; we perceive in Canada a new and amended edition of Old England, and the freedom and plenty of the ninth century revived in the nineteenth. We agree with Cowley that we may talk as we please of lilies and lions rampant, and spread eagles in fields d'or or d'argent; but if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.' But we must show that we are aware how our remarks on the subject of this article will be perused We must prove that we do not expect a quiet audience-we must tell them that we know their prejudices, that compass the little all they have ever vented on this subject. They will break away to discuss whether deportation as a substitute for transportation be advisable; there will be sundry objections from place-wrights of sessions and pensioners upon the gaol delivery,' who will be wroth to lose poverty before it has ripened into crime. Then the hundred-branched unproductive of this halt of tavern-like additions to the prime cost of articles supplied to whoever boasts himself a subject and denizen of old England, its rents, and rates,

No. 104.

2 Q

and the taxes, that burnish the sign-board 'glory,' will accuse us of an intent of robbing the Exchequer. Then we shall be asked, (or we may start the inquiry,) whether a great and proud city, where individual character is almost lost in the reigning fashion, and pre-eminent worth smothered in the pretensions of a crowd, is all that it assumes to be: or whether the cloth' in the bale might not be as fair a representative of wealth and importance as when it is paraded, as we see it from our window, the envelope of many-shaped caste and calling. We might similarly stumble on an inquiry whether the adding house to house be always a multiplying of happy hearths; or if not, how many lazar-houses, 'hells,' bagnios, gaols, usurers' dens, surgeries, with their appendant dispensaries and drugs, saws, screws, and wrenches, should be thrown into the shade when St. James's would smile its contempt on lowly hamlet of the forest side, or thriving township on the river's margin. We might be led to doubt whether Fashion and Pomp are the magic bases they pretend to be, setting forth in grace the ugliness they support-hollow friends, false mistresses, treacherous partisans, backward-looking bachelorhood, ennui passing the ivory knife through the pages of the newest novel, and every disease flourishing under the very nose of all that can add lustre to the healing art. When we had satisfied ourselves on these topics, we might set forth the value of Hail fellow,' in the woods, the merriment of a ' clearing,' the comforts of a shanty.' We might then prepare a homily on emigration, omitting to address all who are doomed to attend the rise and fall of stocks until capital has ceased to float on to the port of London, and all who by the instinct of an artist's immortality must spend a life in chiselling a stone that has been for centuries the corner stone of arable acres, and all whose necks ache if not bowing to a customer across the counter, or whose palms itch in the golden expectation of a refresher.' How deep we might proceed in our argument, how many turns it might make about the doctrines of Malthus, or how profound a reverence it might vouchsafe to M'Culloch, we have not fully considered. But without answering all who would be our opponents on this theme we make bold to say, that all who profess to wish to preserve their home are not in our apprehension animated with the Swiss passion, nor would they be the last to fly to foreign ports if the tide of exchange should warn them that commerce was preparing to mark her ebb in the port of London or Liverpool. *

* A work entitled 'Colonial Policy, Military Colonization, &c.,' deserves consideration, (published by Cochrane and Co.) though many prejudices are apparent. Why should the writer make the case of one successful military township in Canada a ground for blaming all other plans of settlement? Colonel Cockburn's Report shows that civilians were equally thriving in their townships; and the Canada Company (the writer has a feeling of hostility to public companies) has, under its own civil establishment, sown rather densely a whole province with townships. The case of the married soldier in barracks, and the system of enlistment for life, are blemishes in the administration of the Horse Guards. If the writer had restrained his theory

We must, however, claim to break through any more formal introduction to our notices of Canada, leaving prejudice to his own. dark corner, and enlightening our readers in our own way. That there have been, and should continue to be, blunders in the Colonial Office, will not be doubted. For what magic can there be in the place-giving majority of a debate in Parliament, which shall make some winner in an argument on a point of etiquette, or some wielder of oratory from the schools, suddenly possessed of all the particulars of the history and statistics of the East and West Indies, of all the British Isles in the Pacific, and all its cities and townships across the Atlantic? But, as we have exemplified in the outset, there has been more than the usual share of statesmanlike ignorance in the management of our relations with Canada. We have, however, to warn our readers that they be not misled in reading a catalogue of the grievances of the French Canadians since the fall of Quebec, as a statement of those at present complained of; nor the promises of extinct Tory ministers, as contracts to be enforced without a re-claim of all that State owes to England; nor the indefeasible rights of a sovereign state, as things to be surrendered until a re-conquest has pulled down the British flag from the forts of the Saint Lawrence.

The question is how we are to govern the colony of Lower Canada,-how to dispose of above half a million of British subjects. Have they not a charter? True; but when that was granted, Canada or Acadie was a united province consisting of 300,000 square miles; but now two-thirds of this quantity, with a population of about half a million, have a separate legislature from the remainder, who, (the Lower Canadians,) as it is well known, are generally a French community, (though emigration to the eastern townships in the inland portion of Lower Canada is rapidly diminishing the preponderancy of an anti-national caste); so that, admitting a case of general discontent at our administration under the charter, (which, for the sake of argument only, we do allow,) the question remains, how is Lower Canada to be kept quiet? We should be answered by their neighbours of the surrounding British provinces, (as we have frequently heard those provincials express themselves,) Bring the militia down the Ottawa, let the New Brunswickers pass their border, and we'll soon make a settlement of the stiff-necked Frenchmen.' Again: we shall be answered by a tourist, an officer now or late in the British service,

of military colonization to draughts of the married and sober soldiery, sent with their adjutant or quarter-master, and subject to the orders of the day, we should not object to such a nucleus of civilization; but heaven forefend that a province should be spread with a flock of wild recruits, warping on the east wind,' making the land one camp, and permitting the monopoly of the commissariat, instead of thronging to communities of market towns, and cities with free harbours.

Many very useful hints, independent of the prevailing theories, are contained in the above work. The postage from Canada, which is the principal medium for communicating healthy views on emigration to the classes most to be benefited by it, should be placed on a very liberal footing.

Let it go. We do not see the necessity of this surrender of fruits of victory: and as to the bloody work of the former respondent we should say, The widest province of our empire were too dearly purchased at your price.' We will shape the question in another form.-Here is Lower Canada, an extensive country, as you well know; a portion comprising about one-fiftieth of its territory is at present peopled, and partially cultivated; we have given this portion the exclusive legislative powers over the whole, and this legislature would absorb the executive. Would absorb the executive,' we say; for there constitutional privilege' of refusing the supplies is become, not the exception, but the rule of their conduct: for a period of five years successively they have acted up to their constitution, and now they are disposed to offer a like period of rebellious sessions. We apprehend an answer might be returned in this form: You have given to one county out of fifty, not a charter of old customs, as was accorded to Kent by the Saxon and Norman conquerors respectively, (we say 'Saxon and Norman' advisedly, but will not farther enter here into the antiquity of gavelkind,) but you have given them their ancient dominion, where the forty-nine other counties were unprovided with a population to secure the law of the land as paramount, and to secure the integrity of your kingdom or viceroyalty. There are only two alternatives: the one is to re-unite the two provinces of Canada under one legislature, (to which both will say, No,) the other to fill up with a British population the forty-nine parts of Lower Canada which remain untenanted. This is the common sense view of the case; in this way were the old and new population of Europe, upon the overthrow of the Roman empire, united in the several states; we see this in the state of landed property in England, the common tenure, (first soccage, then military services,) pervading the entirety, while isolated manors, boroughs, and gavelkind districts point to the remnant of ancient proprietors. And we are of opinion that this plan of following up civilization in the Canadian province, subject to the British Crown, should be immediately put into active execution, notwithstanding the reluctance of the French minority to its adoption.

But the question of grievances is not to be thus abruptly dismissed, although their remonstrances point to results which must be provided for, we submit, according to the above recommenda tion. The principal grievance of the French Canadians is that of indemnity for losses during the American war, withheld though promised, ascertained by a royal commission, of which Lord Stanley was a member with Mr. Galt an active coadjutor, but not liquidated, nor in progress to be paid. They have been cheated of a large part, not of the pay for the services of those gallant and noble subjects and allies, but of the restoration of property deteriorated or destroyed by the havoc of war between the English and the American states upon the Canadian frontier.

Now, with the United States' bearding us in respect of the 'North-Eastern Boundary,' which they will not condescend to determine, (it has already been concluded by the award of the sovereign to whom it was referred) we do not think our Government can afford to insult the whole (almost) of the population of Lower Canada by the refusal of a demand equally just, at least, and similar in circumstances (except that this is for losses sustained by allies, that by neutrals or enemies) to that which has so fiercely agitated the legislature of the United States,' and so recently divided the Chamber of Deputies.' And, if the tone of remonstrance in the present case be one unsuited to subjects, we have the concurring testimony of Colonel Cockburn, Commissioner Richards, Galt, and others, that the mass of the French population, exclusive of their agitators, the supporters of Papineau, are well affected. It would be painful to see that simple contented family of Jean Baptiste, the best disposed and best bred community in the world,' spirited to feel with his seigneurs, insulted as they without doubt have been, and to revenge insults, as they no doubt would do, even to their own extermination. We would rather see true British faith and feeling carried into our provincial relations, than witness a stubborn, stiff-necked support of policy as wrong, and politicians as ignorant of the subject they were attempting to deal with, as ever led to the loss of provinces and the dismemberment of an empire. The Duke of Richmond can tell whether we speak in terms of unmerited reproach of Tory governors in Canada; he may know what state of feeling existed at Quebec when his uncle took up his residence in the castle of Saint Louis, and how that feeling was excited, and why it was necessary to present then the ribbon of the Order of the Bath to the chivalrous and right loyal Canadian seigneurs. If we have reform at home, let us not cook the discontents of a province over the embers of Tory mal-administration. The conquest of Quebec was the immediate precursor of the three-quarters of a century of the Tory dynasty within the British dominions; let us return to the scene of our ancient glories with thegenerous feelings of the liberal Government that achieved those glories. We have purged that leaven of corruption from our constitution; let the remotest extremities feel the invigorating principle which now stimulates the life-blood of our nation. We cannot imagine that the Canadian seigneurs would nourish a feeling of discontent towards the order of things, to the preservation of which their noble cooperation has materially contributed during an era of alarm; their Church (the Catholic) is recognised (by 14 Geo. III. c. 83); their revenue, in their own keeping, is raised without any burden to individuals, consisting as it does of very moderate duties on imports, and of the produce of the sale of public lands; they pay tithes to their own clergy, while the Protestant Church is supported upon reserves made on