Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXIII. MARCH, 1850. VOL. LXVII.

CONTENTS.

CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS, 249
A LATE CASE OF COURT-MARTIAL, 269
A FAREWELL TO NAPLES, 279
BARBARIAN RAMBLES, 281
GOLDSMITH. PART II., 296
TO BURNS’S “HIGHLAND MARY,” 309
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART IV., 313
THE GREEN HAND—A “SHORT” YARN. PART IX., 329
CANADIAN LOYALTY. AN ODE, 345
AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES: OPENING OF THE SESSION, 347

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ERRATUM.

Page 372, column second, Estimate of Expenditure of Absentees, _for_ £40,000,000 _read_ £20,000,000.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXIII. MARCH, 1850. VOL. LXVII.

CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS.

We had intended changing the title of our papers on the Canadas, and throwing together for the Magazine the results of many years’ experience, and many opportunities of observing the lights and shades of colonial life. Not that we had a new system of settlement to propound, or a new art of colonisation to illustrate. Our purpose was simply to have conducted the reader along the high road of colonial life, and to have pointed out to him, on the way, houses evidencing comfort, respectability, and plenty, farms proving wealth and independence, and barn-yards filled with stock and with grain, belonging to men, who, but a comparatively short time before, had been labouring in Europe without a hope beyond their daily bread, or a prospect beyond that of constantly toiling for others. We had purposed, too, telling the story of how these men rose; and pointing out, in the same great country, thousands upon thousands of openings for others to go and do likewise. Nor did we intend stopping here. There is a large class of men in Great Britain, who, feeling as men, and wishing to discharge the duties of men, cannot look very comfortably around them, and see those who owe their existence to them likely to be left worse off in the world than they were left themselves; yet who cannot, from the peculiar organisation of society in Britain, help themselves; and who are often prevented—through family connexions that bring them no good, and family pride that often sickens much more than it elevates the heart—even from using those exertions and efforts that might better their condition. We purposed pointing out the adaptation of the colonies to such men, and their adaptation to the colonies. But this to us agreeable undertaking—for we believe it might be attended with good—we are obliged for the present to abandon, to consider the state of the colonies with respect to their government and the institutions of England; and to see if we cannot suggest a plan whereby those we might induce to settle in them might not lose the protection, the glory, and the fostering care of their mother country.

The legislation of Great Britain, for the last ten years, is marked by some peculiar and distinctive features over that of perhaps any other portion of her legislative history. These are eminently, a studied and intentional disregard of the teachings and the experience of the past, in an overweening confidence in the wisdom of present measures, and their being proof against all future disasters; a sort of supercilious spurning, in sailing under the new canvass of free trade, of all the old landmarks which saved England’s power from many a shipwreck, and her glory from many a stain. It will hardly be denied, that that portion of Great Britain’s national worth which is made up of her achievements, of her glory, ever well-earned, and of her fame, ever dearly bought, has been and is regarded, by the philosophy of the Manchester school of politicians, as a possession by no means worth its cost, and little worth the keeping. May it not, in truth, be fairly presumed, from the movements that have followed the portentous measure of _free trade_, and from the recent agitations and speeches of its principal promoters, that they are seeking to establish a new description of glory for Great Britain; that they are endeavouring to change her whole national character; that they are, in short, seeking to raze all the former monuments, sacred to _her_ greatness, in order to construct, in their stead, monuments sacred to their own? Clearly the spirit of the age, in so far as they have evoked it, is destructive alike of reverence for the wisdom, and pride in the achievements, of the past. Neither is it unnatural, with the views of this school of politicians, that it should be so. The free-trade movement has ever advanced, in proportion as it succeeded in converting Great Britain to the belief, that the whole mind of the past was shrouded in darkness and error. It could not, therefore, be expected to inspire admiration or reverence, for what it thus practically taught men to condemn and repudiate. And it may well indeed seek to establish a new and a great glory for Britain; for assuredly great is the glory, and great is the national possession of which it is fast bereaving her. The essential spirit of national patriotism—that chivalrous feeling of disinterestedness, which once made Britons proud of forgetting the world for their country, and themselves in its defence—where is it?—what is now swiftly becoming its doom? Is it not palpably withering beneath the cold shadow of free-trade philosophy? Are not the cosmopolitan doctrines of free trade rapidly making Britons forget their country? Are these doctrines not absorbing all the energies of the nation in the struggles of avarice? Are they not sinking every patriotic, every noble national feeling, in the love of gain? Speak now of a measure involving the glory, the shame, and the interests of England, or of even a single class in England, and what will be its probable treatment? The glorious part may have a few advocates, who will be laughed at for their antiquated notions; or it may serve to evoke a few bright ideas in a debate—the modern surplusage of great men’s speeches. The shame part may occasion a feeling of effervescent indignation for the moment. But the interest portion will instantly call forth all the energies of the economic mind of Britain, and will soon accumulate such an avalanche of figures and calculations, as will bear down and crush every other consideration before it. It was once thought wise that men should be taught, through the achievements of their forefathers, the value of their institutions. Free-trade philosophy calls it wiser to teach them to forget forefathers, achievements, and all, in a gigantic struggle for pounds, shillings, and pence. “Confound your acquiring a manly pride by learning your hereditary right to it!” is the language of this school of politicians, and the language they are rapidly teaching England. “Give us the pride of money.” “Britain against the world, as long as Britain pays; but the world against Britain, the moment she doesn’t,” are the popular and practical lessons of the Manchester school,—though a nation’s glory, all the world’s experience teaches us, is the very vitality of its patriotism. A throne or a republic, without such flowers blooming around it, is a poor, unsightly, unlovable thing, having nothing for a people’s affections to cling to; yet are not these flowers fast withering round the throne of England? Are not the memories of the nation, which nourish and keep them alive, being obliterated by the all-powerful tendencies of a political philosophy which recognises no greatness but that of money, and no pursuit worth following but that of material interests? Are not the ties, too, which bind subjects together, and the duties which men owe to each other in a state, of harmonising their interests for the common good, and of making mutual sacrifices for national unity and great national destiny, being fast relaxed and forgotten in Great Britain?

The parties ruling the United States of America are at this moment making sacrifices of the vastest magnitude to each other—sacrifices of great principles as well as of great interests. And why? Because, did they not do so, the republic could not hold together perhaps for a twelvemonth; and, once severed, they know full well what would be the magnitude of their disaster. Mutual sacrifices and concessions are, in truth, the ties that bind them together. Let their common glory and their common destiny, let the knowledge of what they have achieved united, and what they would become if severed, once fail to produce a patriotism, or national virtue, powerful enough to cause them to yield sectional interests for the common good, and to forego great party principles and objects, for the preservation of their institutions and the integrity of their government, and glory would soon take leave of their Israel.

Now in Great Britain, where the operation of free institutions occasions similar necessities for sacrifices and concessions being made by each great class in the state to the other, or others, in order to secure that harmony and unity necessary to all national permanency, and to the perpetuation of national power, what does the legislation of the last ten years exhibit? Does it not exhibit one great class struggling for the giant’s power over another, and, having gained it, using it like a giant? In the great co-partnery in national property and national destiny, men owe it to each other to balance their books fairly as to national advantages. What ruins one large class, though it may temporarily benefit another, must eventually ruin the nation. A nation cannot, more than an individual, bear a constantly mortifying limb. Now it is impossible for an intelligent mind not to see, not to have the conviction forced upon it, that free trade in Britain is destroying the great agricultural limb of the state; and that, if the giant’s power is much longer wielded by the giant, fearful consequences must ensue.

But whether the philosophy of free trade has produced, or is producing, such great changes as these upon English national character—whether it is un-Anglifying England to the extent that we have indicated or not, we can answer, at least, for its training to forgetfulness of Britain the North American colonies. We can answer for its causing the sinking of the subject in the avaricious struggler for “material interests” in America. We can answer for its obliterating all national memories, obligations, and ties on the part of the colonists, in following the selfish lessons that have been sent to them from England, “to take care of themselves, for England no longer cares for them.” Perhaps the seeds that have been thrown upon the winds by free-trade discussions in England, have first taken root in the colonies. Perhaps it was designed that they should. Be this as it may, let England learn from the result of these on the colonies what it may soon be with herself. Let her learn, by their example, the effect of the doctrines, that allegiance may be made wholly subservient to interest, and that love of country must give way to love of gain.

Twelve years ago, in the month in which we write, the city of Montreal presented an appearance that no similarly situated city in the world perhaps ever presented before. Its whole British population, educated to business, little accustomed to ordinary exercises, least of all to those of war, were in the short space of a few days literally converted into an army; for, though they knew not the use of arms, and were incapable of systematic movements, yet each had the heart to grapple, hand to hand, with his foe: and in this they were soldiers. Old men of sixty and seventy years of age, accustomed to ease and luxuries, might have been seen, at this period, doing duty in the streets of Montreal, in the middle of a Canadian winter’s night, as common sentinels. Boys, taken away from their schools, might have been seen doing the same. A regiment of regulars at the time marched through the city; they struck up, as they halted, an air as familiar as the rhymes of children. The strains of the music were drowned in the spontaneous cheers of the people. Women shed tears of gladness. The air the soldiers played was _God save the Queen!_ But why this enthusiasm? and why this military display? Two-thirds of the people of Lower Canada—its French inhabitants—had taken up arms against the institutions of England. The people of Montreal were British.

Now this city of Montreal was little, if at all, capable of military defence. It was so constructed as to have been peculiarly liable to destruction by fire; and, at the time that the spectacle we have faintly sketched might have been witnessed, the chances of war were at least two to one against its determined British inhabitants. Nor should it be forgotten, that nearly the whole of the property in this city was owned by these British inhabitants; was the fruits of many years of their honest toil; and as it is well known that policies of insurance do not cover losses occasioned by the Queen’s enemies, the loss to them might have been total had it been burned.

These British inhabitants of Montreal, therefore, without a moment’s hesitation, in an indefensible city, and with the chances of war as two to one against them, willingly and even cheerfully perilled their lives, their families, their hearths, their property, their all, to uphold the flag of England.

In the month of October last, upwards of twelve hundred persons, in the space of a few days—one half of whom were the very men who acted in 1838 as we have described—openly and deliberately called upon their fellow colonists to haul down the flag of Britain upon the continent of America; and coupled that request with another, that the flag of a rival power should be put up in its stead.

Now what are the causes of this most extraordinary change? What is it which has exerted so powerful an influence, as to have caused men capable of making the noblest sacrifices to uphold the institutions of their forefathers at one time, capable of making such attempts to destroy them at another? We answer, emphatically, it was free trade and its attendant philosophy. It was the injuries it inflicted upon the colonies—not in the spirit of national compromise or mutual sacrifices, but in the spirit of the giant using the giant’s power. It was the lessons, too, that accompanied the injuries. It was the obliterating the love of country in the pursuits of avarice. It was the ruinous latitude that free-trade philosophy had to allow to others, in claiming the same for its own disciples.

To those who have closely observed the opinions expressed regarding the colonies, in the debates upon free trade, little need be said to prove that the Manchester school of politicians not only considered their connexion with Britain as of no importance, but as actually undesirable in itself. There was no attempt made at harmonising interests with them. There was no intention expressed of making sacrifices for them, and incidentally, as we shall show, for England. There was no respect paid to their love of Britain; for loyalty is not a word in the free-trade catalogue. But there was a studious and intentional under-rating and disparaging of them and their country, to subserve the free-trade cause, and to destroy the force that the argument of their ruin might possibly have upon the people of England. They were made the subject too of cold, mercenary calculations, which were enough to insult them into sedition, and to disgust them out of their connexion with the mother country. When the disastrous effect that the loss of a protection, to the benefits of which they had been educated by England for fifty years, and to which the whole business arrangements of their country were as much adapted and which they as much required as the very crops in their ground required sunshine and rain—when these were pointed out in England, how were they met by the free-trade leaders? Was it not by cold calculations of how much they consumed per head of this, and how much they consumed, in comparison with the rest of the world, of that; and how much they cost for this, and how little they required of that; until, by some strange mystification of arithmetic, they were made out to be an actual injury to England. And had the colonies the satisfaction, if they must needs be injured and crippled, of knowing that one single individual connected with the free-trade movement had the justice to regret the injury that was being perpetrated against them, and to say, that England would endeavour to retrieve it in some other way? We believe we are justified in saying there was not one. The vilification of the colonies was an argument in favour of free trade, and they were vilified. And when the consequences of free trade upon the colonies have been alluded to; when the shops which had been built, in expectation of the agricultural interests of the country being stimulated as they had formerly been, and large quantities of land being taken up and cleared, as was formerly the case—when these shops became unrequired and useless; when store-houses, and wharves, and vessels, and steamers, which, before free trade came into operation, were full of activity, life, and business, became as so much dead property on the hands of their owners, and the people connected with them had to seek a livelihood by other means, and in other places than the colonies: when these disastrous consequences of free trade were experienced and pointed out, how were they also met? how were they regarded, and were the colonists sympathised with on account of them? They were spoken of and accounted for, by the free-trade leaders, in a spirit similar to the following paragraph—in a spirit of exaggerated detraction, instead of national sympathy and management. And we put it to the candour of the English public, if the succeeding remarks of the _Daily News_ are not a fair sample of the manner in which the party that paper represents are in the habit of speaking of the colonies:—

“The argument of the Montreal traders is: ‘The Americans are more
prosperous than we. If our territory was incorporated into the Union,
we would be as prosperous as the Americans.’ The fallacy of this
argument is obvious to dispassionate lookers-on. The superior
prosperity of the Americans was as marked when the late Mr Stuart
visited Canada and the United States as it is now. It has not
originated in the change of British mercantile policy. It has all
along been owing to the superior energy and enterprise of the
Americans. The Canadians were listless, relying upon protection in the
British market; the Americans were active, because they had only their
own enterprise to rely upon. The Americans, in the position of the
Canadians, are not afraid of free competition. The stronghold of the
protectionist party in America is in the sea-board manufacturing
states. If the Canadians would be as prosperous as the Americans, they
must become as active and enterprising as the Americans. The
self-government of the people of the United States promoted the spirit
of enterprise; but, for all essential purposes, Canadians now enjoy
that spring of energy. Canada annexed to the United States would
advance more rapidly than Canada under its former close government and
protective system did; but the advance would be the work of, and its
profits would be reaped by, the hardy emigrants from the United
States. The dreamers who think that their prosperity depends upon
their being subject to this or the other government, not upon their
own exertions, would be driven to the wall before the new-comers.
Their individual plight, be that of the province what it might, would
be worse than ever.”

Now, that the deductions and statements in this paragraph—if they are intended to apply to the state of Canada before as well as after free trade, and they certainly seem so intended—are as untrue, ungenerous, and unjust, towards the colonists—towards the hardy, persevering, and hard-working people of Great Britain in them—as they are grossly misrepresentative and unfair with respect to the prosperity of the country—we here undertake and pledge ourselves to the reader satisfactorily to prove.

We are no enemies to the American States; and in the incidental references we have had occasion to make to them, in the course of our papers upon the colonies, we have candidly and fully admitted their extraordinary advancement; we have conceded to the fullest the great impetus their peculiar working of the institutions of Britain—for this is in reality the true state of the case—has imparted to human progress. But we are practically and well acquainted with their agricultural interests, and with much of their great country, and with the comforts and prosperity enjoyed and gained by its farmers; and we are also well and practically acquainted with the whole of Upper Canada, and we assert without fear of question by any man in America who understands the matter, that, in period of settlement, and prosperity to show for it; in crops raised from the land, and evidences of good management and good farming; in stock proving comfort and plenty; in houses, carriages, dress; in all that establishes that an agricultural people are easy in their circumstances, and are enjoying comfort and plenty—the farmers of Upper Canada are behind none in any part of the United States, and are before them in many.

Now, London, as all the world knows, is a great leviathan city; but its being so does not prove that individual comfort, happiness, and prosperity are greater in it than they are in many a small town in England. The United States, too, have vastly more territory than Upper Canada has; have many larger and more bustling cities, and have finer and more gorgeous steamers; but this does not prove, more than London does as respects England, that this larger territory brings greater prosperity, health, and comfort, to the farmers in it, than Canada does; that the business in the larger and bustling cities is more healthy, or more profitable, than that which is the legitimate offspring of the people’s wants in Canada; or that the gorgeous steamers pay better, or are better, than those which are adapted to the purposes, and are admirably suited to the conveniences and comforts, of the agricultural population of the Canadas. The question therefore, to any man who has settled in either country, or who wishes to do so, is not how much larger one’s territory is over that of the other, but which secures, and has secured, the greater amount of benefits and prosperity for the same amount of labour and capital invested in it; and which has by experience been proved to be the most desirable place for man to live in? Now, that the only interest which Great Britain has ever fostered or encouraged in America, and indeed the only interest which, with her policy of manufacturing for the colonies, she has allowed to grow up in them—namely, their agricultural interest—was not in Canada, before free trade withered it, behind its state in any part of America; and that the Canadas as a country were before any portion of it, we adduce the conclusive and unquestionable proof, that, distributed over the last thirty years, twenty-five thousand shrewd and sagacious American citizens have left the institutions that they so much prized, have foregone the temptations of their magnificent prairies and valleys that the world has heard so much of, and have taken leave of all their fine and prosperous cities, to take up their abode in Upper Canada. As equally conclusive evidence that the legitimate business of the province was, in proportion to the requirements of the country, always in a healthy and prosperous state, we adduce the fact of the invariable success in every branch of business that they ever engaged in, in Upper Canada, of these same American citizens. And we here state it as a fact that will not be denied by a single American farmer in the province, that, before free trade prostrated its agricultural interests, there was not a single farmer, American or of other country—with the exception of the time of the rebellion in 1837–8—who would have been willing to exchange his property for similar property in any part of the whole United States. And does not, in truth, the fact that these Americans came and settled in the province, under their circumstances, and with their feelings of regard for their own institutions, prove that this must have been the case? And does not the fact of these men carrying with them the same energy and industry into Canada that their friends were possessed of in the States, prove, that in everything that marked the success of labour in a generous land, Canada could not have been behind the rest of America? But it is a well-known fact, as the Americans quaintly observe of themselves, “that they do not love to work as well as the English, Irish, and Scotch do.” They are, as a nation, given to speculating; and an American farmer or mechanic would rather at any time make a dollar by a “trade,” than he would two by hard work. So that, in the march of improvement in agriculture in the Canadas, and in the growth of wealth, these American settlers are by no means before their Canadian neighbours; and, excepting where they have combined some business with their farming, they have not wherewithal to show that they have equally prospered with them. Now, these are facts—facts whose force and justice will not be questioned by a single individual in America who understands the matter; and we state them, not only with the view of vindicating our own countrymen against the injustice of those who wilfully or ignorantly underrate their exertions and the success that has attended their labours, but we state them to save the Americans themselves from unjust and unfair comparisons, and in defence of one of the finest countries that a beneficent Creator ever spread out before needy humanity—a country teeming with unappropriated wealth; with a climate pure, bracing, and adapted to the largest development of the best energies of man, and with millions of openings for poverty to raise itself out of the ashes of its degradation; and for capital to reproduce itself to an extent unheard of in Europe.

Now the people living adjacent to Lake Windermere might just as well be supposed to be an inert, unprosperous race, because their beautiful little lake has fewer steamers, and sailing craft, and bustle upon it, than the Thames exhibits near London, as the people of the Canadas, in comfort and prosperity, can be said to be behind those of the States, because their towns have less bustle, and their waters fewer steamers and less trade upon them. The Canadas have been, and are, a purely agricultural country; and it is in this respect only they can be compared with the rest of America. Their trade and business is, and could only have been, such as naturally grew out of their other interests. If that trade and business was, though less bustling than that of the States, as it naturally would be from its character, healthy and paying, no man could expect more of it. Have we not fairly proved that it must have been so? But if any traveller wishes to judge truly and justly of Upper Canada and the States, he must not skim over their borders, and be deceived by the superficial glare. He must learn the intrinsic value of the thing itself, by going into the interior of the country. He must see men plough. He must see how deep they plough, and what sort of cattle they plough with, and how hard they work. He must examine the farmers’ houses, and learn how they are finished, furnished, and provisioned. He must hover round their barn-yards, and linger along their fences. He must witness their harvests, and be fortunate enough occasionally to be their guests. He must make his observations on their children; and we would excuse him even coming a little closer to their young women, although it would be hardly fair to expect him to judge impartially under such circumstances. But let any man of intelligence do this with regard to the farmers of Upper Canada, and of any portion of the American States—we care not which—and if he does not find that industry has secured as large rewards, and the farmers have as many comforts, in the British possessions as the American, he is at liberty to say that our upwards of seventeen years’ practical experience in them has been of no use to us; or, to use the words of an American friend of ours upon the subject, “we might be inclined to recommend his friends not to trust him very far away from home again.”

But now we would put it to the proverbial sense of justice and fairness of the people of England, if the calling such men “listless, relying upon protection in the British market,” is a fair way of treating them, after educating them to the benefits of that protection; and after checking the manufacturing interests that might have grown up in the colonies, and placed them on a par with the States, for the express benefit of the manufacturing interests of Britain? Men who built vessels, and store-houses, and purchased property in the colonies, upon the faith that England, having established the system of manufacturing for them, would continue that of discriminating in their favour in her markets, have now not only their property in ruin on their hands, but they are abused because it is in ruins. Farmers who, as we have shown, and as no man in America will deny, have worked hard, and have wherewithal to show for it—have achieved that which is no less a credit to themselves than it is to the country they came from—are vilified because they complain that England’s policy, in destroying manufacturing interests in the colonies, has deprived them of a home market such as the farmers of the United States have got; and England’s free-trade system, in destroying so much, and injuring so much more property, in the colonies, has involved them in the general depression and retrogression. The plain English, and the plain truth of the whole matter, is this—that the free-trade leaders of England, having sacrificed the colonies, are desirous of making their former history harmonise with the picture of the injury and ruin they have brought upon them. But we trust that we have established, to the satisfaction of every honest man, what we promised we should—namely, that the attempt is no less unjust and unfair to the colonists, to their industry, and to their perseverance, than it is to the country they came from—its institutions, and its patient, cheerful, and successful labour.

We have dwelt somewhat at length upon this matter; and for two reasons. The first is, because the reiteration of the same, or similar remarks and reflections as those contained in the extract we have made from the _Daily News_, has given a false impression, both in England and America, of the true state of the Canadas. People, forgetting that they were settled—at least the great province of Upper Canada was—by the very same people who have settled the greater portion of the States, and by whose labour these States have become what they are—people in England, unknowingly or unthinkingly, have been led to associate the inhabitants of the colonies with ideas of listlessness, inertness, and poverty, when, in truth, on the whole continent of America, there is not a hardier or a steadier working people, or a people whose success, independence, and comfort would afford a better example to the poor of Europe. The locomotives by which the farmers of Canada should be judged of, after all, are their waggons and their teams. The bustle which best shows their prosperity, is the bustle of their harvest fields. The business which gives the best proof of success to the world, is that which can show good balance-sheets, and few bankruptcies. Now, before free trade overtook the prosperity of these colonies, we can, with the most perfect safety, challenge any and all America to show a better state of things in all these several branches of their business and interests, than the province of Upper Canada did and could exhibit. We have felt that we owed it to this great province, to this province which might, and we trust will, be made a great right arm of Britain’s power and empire, to say thus much in its defence. We owed it to the manly and hard-working people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, who have settled in it, and whose industry and skill have made many parts of it the very gardens of America, to shield them against the unjust representations that have been sent abroad to the world concerning them, and that have been the more galling, because they have emanated from home and friends. Our other reason for going into this matter so fully, is to ask, at this important juncture, how it is possible to expect that these colonists will or can continue loyal to Britain long, with vilification and detraction thus added to the injuries that they have so unquestionably and undeniably suffered? They point to their vessels lying unused, and rotting in their harbours; and they point to the lands of the province not being taken up as they used to be, and those that are cleared not paying for the labour of tilling them: and they ask themselves, and they ask America, and they ask England,—Why is it so? And all answer—Free trade will not make it pay to clear the lands; free trade will not make it pay to till the lands; free trade has knocked Canadian farming on the head. Yet free trade, upon hearing this, turns round and asserts it to be all false, and says that the vessels are decaying because the Canadians are too indolent to use them, although they have nothing to carry. Free trade says, that the stagnation of the country, and the indisposition of people to settle in it, are owing to the country’s own backwardness, are the result of its inertness; whereas we have shown that its people, of all others on earth, least deserve such injustice and insults at the hands of England. Free trade, when driven—for it sometimes is—to admit that it must inevitably separate Great Britain from her colonies, then turns round, and charges the colonies with being an expense and an injury to England. Yet, after all this, free trade expects the colonies to continue loyal to England. Free trade affects to be shocked at the effects of the storm which itself palpably, and in a thousand ways, sowed. Free trade having sickened, weakened, and struck down the colonies, now literally stands over them, taunting them with the effects of its own medicines, and, at the same time, affects to wonder that they should be sick or depressed.

That these effects of free trade upon the colonies have been foreseen and accurately judged of by the shrewd and far-seeing mind of America, we may show, by quoting the opinions in point of the great leading journal of the New England States. This journal, the _Boston Atlas_, like many of the leading papers in Britain, is occasionally contributed to by the leading statesmen of the great Whig party in America; and as we happen to know that the article from which we quote was written by a gentleman who commands a wide and powerful influence as a statesman and political economist in the States, his views may be considered entitled to the greater attention in England:—

“We have said that Canada has been deliberately sacrificed; and we
have too high an opinion of the intelligence of the British ministry
not to suppose that, when they made the sacrifice, they foresaw the
probable ultimate result. We do not believe that they will be
surprised at the movements which are now taking place, or that they
will think of making serious resistance to any step which the
Provinces may decide to take—whether it be for annexation or
independence—though we have no doubt the latter would best suit their
views, for grave reasons upon which we do not now think it necessary
to expatiate.

“As matters now stand, Canada is an agricultural State, paying for all
the manufactures she consumes in the raw productions of the earth. She
has been but a very short time in this position, and yet she already
groans under the free-trade experiment. Her wants are the same; but
the more timber and corn she exports, the less she gets for them.
Instead of growing rich under this beneficent free-trade system, she
is every day getting poorer. She has had enough of free trade, and is
anxiously seeking some way of escape from it. Such is ever the
inevitable result, when the attempt is made to pay for manufactures
with raw productions; and the longer it is continued, the worse will
be the situation of the agricultural state.

“Can she mend her position by adopting the proposed ‘Remedy?’ If her
representatives in parliament happen to be the true representatives of
her interests—which is very far from certain—and if they can persuade
the government to restore the bounty upon her timber and corn—the
answer is, yes. But we see little chance of that, for the situation of
Canada is perfectly well known now by that same government; her case
has been examined in all its bearings, and she has been deliberately
sacrificed to ‘free trade,’—in other words, to the manufacturing
interest of Great Britain; and it will take something more than the
eloquence of a few Canadian orators, admitted to seats in parliament,
to induce that interest to reconsider her case, or to yield a
hair’s-breadth to her claims. She has not been sacrificed through
ignorance, but because she stood in the way of a great theory. She
will look in vain to this source for relief. But if the proposed
consolidation should cause British capital to cross the water and set
up manufacturing establishments, would not the end be gained? Perhaps
so. Of this, however, the chance is small, unless labour is as cheap
in Canada as it is in England, which it never can be until the United
States, ceasing to afford any protection to labour, become parties to
the Free Trade League, and so bring all the labour of North America
down to the level of the labour of Europe. Such a suicidal system can
never be permanently established here, and, therefore, we look upon
this second source of relief as equally visionary with the
first.”—_Boston Atlas._

We had purposed showing that, in addition to the free trade party in England’s having literally endeavoured to injure and insult the colonies out of their allegiance to their mother country, they have also been educating them, by their speeches in parliament and otherwise, to the same end. But we trust that we have already proved enough to satisfy any man, not unwilling to believe the truth, that if some men in the colonies have fallen from their high estate, they have but taken the course that the free-trade policy of England left open to them; the course that that policy, if not intentionally, at least inevitably, must sooner or later compel them to take. If, therefore, England thinks that those men in the colonies who have looked towards another government have acted unworthily of themselves and of her, let her lay the blame at once on those who compelled them to take to the boats by making the ship no longer a home for them. If their love for their great and glorious mother country has diminished, it is only, and it is solely, because the nutriment which supported the affection has been poisoned by men who have ruled the councils of England. Yet, injured though they were, and galled and insulted though they unquestionably have been, to palliate and to justify that injury, still, we believe that the loyalists would have looked beyond the sway of the free-trade party over England; would have been willing to trust to England’s justice eventually doing justice to them, had it not been for the lessons which we have already referred to as having been diffused by free-trade philosophy with free trade itself. It is the colonists being practically told, that those who ruled the councils of the empire would do the best they could for themselves, and that they must and might do likewise, that made the inroads upon their loyalty. It is the utter absence of the spirit of compromise—of a disposition to make a single sacrifice, or to harmonise a single interest, either to preserve the empire or to save it from humiliation, by the free-trade party of England, that has taught the colonists selfishness sufficient to make them say that they would leave Britain behind for “material interests;” that they too had allowed all memories of the past to be obliterated in the struggles and aspirations of avarice. Let England contrast the conduct of these colonies twelve years ago with what it is now. Let her ask those who have been willing to forego their connexion with her destiny, and the glory and the safety of her protection, what it is that causes them to do so; and they will answer, to a man, it is the teachings and the effects of free trade. These lessons have been falling upon the colonial mind for years, like water upon a rock, and they have worn seams and made impressions upon it, that the swords of many enemies in many years could not have effected.

But we have now arrived at a point when that plain and straightforward question, common to Englishmen to ask, may be put to us—and that is, What is to be done with the colonies, situated as they are? Connected with this, too, is another question, equally necessary to be answered, which is—What is Great Britain likely to lose, in possessions, people, and character, with the Canadas, if she loses them?

With regard to the latter question, which, as it is suggestive of the consequences to be provided against, it may be better to consider before that which is suggestive of a remedy—it seems clear enough to us, that the loss of all the North American colonies would inevitably follow that of the Canadas. The situation of all of them is the same. Free trade has affected them nearly equally; and it is a significant fact, that the agitation upon the subject of “annexation,” without concert, common interests, or agreement, commenced in all the provinces simultaneously, though not to the same extent in some as in others. But, apart from this, if the great province of Upper Canada should take leave of Britain, the following of the others would be as natural as the limbs following the dictates of the head. It is indeed useless to waste words upon a matter that is perfectly self-evident; for if the Canadas separate from Britain, it must and will go forth to the world, that they had to do so in order to prosper; and all the colonies being dissatisfied, and chafing under the same mortifications, and suffering the same injuries from England’s free-trade policy, would claim, upon the same grounds, to be relieved of the withering shadow of her power in America. However uncomplimentary or unjust this may or might be, such will be the opinion of the world, and Great Britain must prepare to meet it, or to counteract what will occasion it. As misfortunes, too, do not come single with a nation more than with an individual, the West Indian possessions would assuredly follow the North American; and would certainly not give any more complimentary reasons for doing so. Great Britain would therefore stand forth before the rest of her colonies and the world, as having utterly and humiliatingly failed to govern those she lost with that success which ought to result from her free institutions, and the freedom of her people. Now this momentous consideration is clearly bound up with that of what she is to do with the Canadas. Now, will Great Britain—by whatsoever cause or policy they may justify their claim for separation, or by whatsoever party in England it may be or may have been favoured—permit the Canadas to shake off her power, with these consequences palpably before her eyes? Will she not the rather prefer coming back to that best of all systems—mutual sacrifices for common good, and mutual concessions for national integrity and destiny? Will she not rather endeavour to impart to them that capital and those people, which would benefit her much, and make them rich indeed? We think so; and we think she will, because we know she can devise a plan for doing so, and for governing them in a manner that will not be attended with the mortifications that have accrued to both the colonists and the mother country, from all former patchings and props to a constitutionally bad colonial system. Thinking this, we shall now proceed briefly to consider—for in the space we have at our command, it would be impossible fully to show—what great Britain would lose, in possessions, by losing the Canadas. In this we shall be obliged to lay under tribute a short but interesting sketch of the Canadas, their value and extent, by the late Charles Fothergill. He spent many years in the colonies; knew them well; and his opinions are those of an intelligent English gentleman, who saw, and made himself practically and thoroughly acquainted with what he wrote concerning

“THE CANADAS.

“The geographical position of this vast country may be thus generally
stated:—It is bounded on the east by the Gulf of St Lawrence and
Labrador; on the north by the territories of Hudson’s Bay; on the west
by the Pacific Ocean; on the south by Indian countries, which extend
to Mexico, and part of the United States of America—viz., Wisconsin,
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont,
New Hampshire, the district of Maine, and by the British province of
New Brunswick. These boundaries describe a large and magnificent
portion of the globe we inhabit, large enough for the foundation of an
empire, which may become hereafter the arbitress of the destinies of
the new world, embracing with her mighty arms the whole width of the
great continent of America. Secured in her rear by the frozen regions
of the north, and with such a front as she possesses towards the
south, it is impossible but that, with the adoption of wise and
decisive measures, she must be able, hereafter, to hold a far more
potential influence over the countries of the south, than was ever
held by the Tartars, (in their best days,) over Asia; or by the
northern hordes of Europe over the empire of Rome, at the period of
her overthrow. The foundation stone of this empire has been laid by
England, and it depends on the wisdom of her councils, and on the
loyalty, ambition, temper, skill, industry, bravery, high qualities,
and perseverance of the Canadians, no matter of what origin, how far
the fairy vision which is kindled up in fancy may be realised.

“We have only to cast our eyes slightly over a map of North America,
to be immediately assured of the singularly advantageous situation of
the settled parts of Upper Canada. Seated like a gem in the bosom of a
country that is neither scorched by the sultry summers of the south,
nor blasted by the tardy, bitter, winters of the north; surrounded by
the most magnificent lakes, and possessing the most extensive internal
navigation in the known world, it would be difficult, perhaps
impossible, to find in any other region of the globe a tract of
country of the same magnitude with so many natural advantages, as that
part of Upper Canada which lies between the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and
Huron, and the Ottawa, or Grand River, nine-tenths of the whole extent
of which are calculated for the exercise of almost every description
of agricultural labour, and with such a prospect of success as,
perhaps, no other part of this continent could realise. A part of this
tract of country, commencing in the neighbourhood of Kingston, and
running westward nearly 500 miles to the Sandwich frontier, by a
depth, northward, of from 40 to 100 miles, is, alone, capable of
supplying all Europe with grain; besides being rich in cattle, and
producing silver, lead, copper, iron, lime, marl, gypsum, marble,
freestone, coal, salt, wool, hemp and flax, of the best quality,
tobacco and timber of every description, besides furs, game, fish, and
many other valuable productions.

Much has been said, at a distance, against the climate of this fine
country. Those, however, who have removed to it from Great Britain are
agreeably disappointed in finding it more pleasant, (all things
considered,) than that which they have left, because it is neither so
moist nor so unsettled. It might be said, with no great impropriety,
that the present inhabitants of Canada have but two seasons—summer and
winter—for winter has no sooner disappeared, which generally happens
by the middle of April, than the whole animal and vegetable creation
starts into renewed life, with a rapidity and vigour that leaves the
season of spring with such doubtful limits as to be scarcely
perceptible, or deserving a specific character. Again, in the fall of
the year, the months of September and October are generally so fine
and summerlike, and these being succeeded by what is aptly termed the
Indian summer, in November, (that month which is so gloomy in England,
and said to be so fatal to Englishmen,) that we should have great
difficulty, were it not for an artificial calendar, in saying when it
was autumn. As a proof of the general nature of our climate, and to
show that we have other sources of wealth, by the exercise of domestic
industry, in store, it must not be here forgotten that the culture of
both cotton and indigo has been attempted, on a small scale, in the
western district, with success; that the various species of Mulberry,
necessary for the growth of silk, flourish under the care of those who
have made the experiment in the London and western districts; that
vineyards may be advantageously laid out; and the hop is found in
perfection almost everywhere. It may be readily supposed that, in such
a vast extent of country, every description of soil, and every variety
of surface, as to mountains, hills, valleys, and plains, must occur.
Speaking of the inhabited parts of Canada, the Lower Province is the
most mountainous, and the Upper the most level and champagne; indeed,
from the division line on Lake St Francis to Sandwich, a distance of
nearly six hundred miles, nothing like a mountain occurs, although the
greater part of the country which is passed through, between those
places, is gently undulated into pleasing hills, fine slopes, and
fertile valleys. There is, however, a ridge of rocky and generally
barren country, running south-easterly from Lake Huron, through the
Newcastle district, towards the Ottawa, or Grand River, at the
distance of from 50 to 100 miles from the northern shore of Lake
Ontario, and the course of the River St Lawrence; a ridge which
divides and directs the course of innumerable streams, those on one
side running to the northward or north-east, whilst those on the other
run to the southward, and empty themselves into Lake Ontario or the
River St Lawrence. The base of this ridge has an elevation of not much
less than 200 feet above the level of Ontario, and it is rich in
silver, lead, copper, and iron, and near the Lake Marmora, in white
marble. In the neighbourhood of Gunanoque, a beautifully variegated
marble of green and yellow is found; and, in the vicinity of Kingston,
there is an immense bed of black and also gray marble.