THE IRISHMAN IN CANADA.

CHAPTER I.

IT requires no such faith as Abraham's to look forward to a time when Canada will be a great nation. Had the aged Hebrew, when told to count his descendants by the stars, turned away incredulously and re-entered his tent, and sat down to laugh with Sarah over what might well have seemed a mocking promise, he would surely have been excusable. It was hard for him to believe that the withered trunk would sprout and cover the land with forest. But, however strong his faith, he could not have grasped the mighty future which lay locked within his wintry loins. What human vision could have seen in the patriarch, bowed with age, the extraordinary people who were to be to the world what the fruitful cloud and the vivifying sunshine are to the earth-a people, to whose spiritual insight that of the Greeks was blindness, from whose sublime morality Roman virtue differed, as the human differs from the Divine? But there would be no excuse whatever for doubts on our part. We already count ourselves by millions; we live in historical times; we are the heirs in possession of the moral and intellectual wealth of centuries; we carry in our veins the blood of races which have been prolific in martyrs and heroes, poets and statesmen; in beauty, which gives sweetness to strength, and in art, which renders that beauty immortal. We have seen the family

and the clan expand into the nation, and the descendants of robbers and outlaws become the stern lawgivers of the world. From what rude tribes sprang Greece; out of what a coarse chaos came the refined civilization of France and the glory of the BritoHibernian empire. The great Eastern shepherd had long slept in his grave when his children were the slaves of a cruel tyranny; his dust had passed through many forms when Solomon ruled at Jerusalem; ages had intervened when a greater than Solomon promulgated from Zion a kingdom which can know no decline. We, too, shall have long slept with our fathers when Canada's sun will be in the zenith. But they only play their part worthily who live for morrows whose light cannot gladden them. This is a duty which is laid on all, but especially on young peoples. Our politics are evanescent; our ambitions, dreams; there is nothing of reality in the passing show but the qualities which assign the individual and the community their place in the moral scale, and determine the character of their successors. Humanity is immortal; the individual, perishable. Even races disappear and give place to other races. Old forces take new forms, as in the sea the waves spend themselves, transmitting their strength to other waves, which in their turn are doomed to die.

It is natural to wish to know what manner of men our fathers were. On no subject has there been more curiosity, on none has there been so much absurd speculation, as on the ethnology of nations who have taken a foremost place in the world. The fountains of the Nile have not been so baffling as those changes and conditions which preceded the advent and growth of nations. The sources are lost in unrecorded time. It is only yesterday that the clue from language was discovered. Hence, ignorant or uncritical historians, more enamoured of the marvellous than careful about truth, have allowed fancy to run riot, and taught men to reverence fabulous heroes, and sometimes to regulate their conduct by what was no better than idle legend.

When the future historian of Canada sits down to write a story which, we may hope, will be illustrious with great achievements and happy discoveries, triumphs in literature and art, in

OBJECTS OF THE WORK.

3

his library, side by side with lore it has not entered into the heart of man as yet to conceive, will be found records such as the historian of Greece, or Rome, or Ireland, or Scotland, or England looks for in vain. He will have to treat of the races which laid the foundation of the great northern empire on this continent, and he must have adequate information to his hand. But those records will be incomplete, unless we take care that a class of facts, which may easily escape, are duly hoarded. The future historian will find full particulars regarding those heroic Frenchmen-the missionary and the soldier-who were the pioneers of our civilization. He ought to know all about the English settlement. He should be acquainted with all that Scotchmen have done for Canada. He should not be ignorant of the noble elements of national life one of the most brilliant of modern nations has laid at her feet. To point out this is the task I have set myself.

I have another object in view: I wish, while performing this task, to sweep aside misconceptions, to explode cherished fallacies, to point out the truth, and so raise the self-respect of every person of Irish blood in Canada. The time has not yet arrived when we can speak of a Canadian type, and until that day arrives, whether we are born on Canadian soil, or in the mother lands, we cannot safely forego the bracing and inspiring influences which come from country and race.* Our first duty here is to Canada; but one of the best ways efficiently to discharge this duty, is to be just to ourselves and true to facts.

Writing the history of Irishmen in Canada, I can afford to speak in this way, for it was in great part due to the eloquence and enthusiasm of an Irishman that the scattered provinces were brought together, and men born on this soil have acknowledged

* Let the miserables who would deny a country because the shadow of a vanished oppression is only passing from it, and who do not scruple to abuse their fellow-countrymen, ponder the following remarks of an Englishman :"The moral degradation arising from this vast mass of helotage could not fail to affect the bearing even of the upper classes of Ireland. It produced in them that want of self-respect and respect for their country in their intercourse with the English which drew from Johnson the bitter remark, 'The Irish, sir, are a very candid people; they never speak well of each other."""Irish History and Irish Character." By Goldwin Smith.

their indebtedness to his winged words for the most precious

of gifts.*

Happily, to write the history of Irishmen in Canada is no uninviting task. It is not merely that Ireland can advance her claim to recognition and respect as no inconsiderable contributor to the great work of laying the foundation of this young nation. She has helped to reclaim the land from barrenness; to substitute for the wilderness the garden. In clearing and in counsel, her sons have done their part. Whether it was necessary to spea.. or strike, they have been at the post of duty. This is not all which makes the task so pleasant. The heroism, the endurance, the versatile genius implied by all this may be found written on the tearful pages of the history of the motherland. What renders the task so pleasant is, that here the factions which have afflicted successive centuries exist but in shadow because the ground of quarrel is wholly absent. Whoever studies the history of Ireland, not in what are called popular histories and student's manuals, but in contemporary documents, will learn that the great bone of contention, from age to age, was not religion, nor form of government, but the land. Here, land can be no apple of discord. Ireland, nay, the three kingdoms, might be drowned in one of our lakes. We have, too, outlived the age of plunder and confiscation, and never can any difficulty arise on this score in a country where we open up provinces as men in the old world make a paddock.

And if there can be no misgiving as to the abundance, neither can there be any as to the wealth and fruitfulness of the land. Ireland's fields are greener, but they are not as variously fruitful as those of Canada; her hills-nothing could surpass their beauty, but they do not contain the mineral treasures which are to be found here; her rivers have unspeakable charm, but their sands are not of gold.

A glance at the physical geography of Canada will show it to be one of the richest sections of the globe. Its forests will

"There is a name I would fain approach.

one who breathed into our new Dominion the spirit of a proud self-reliance, and first taught Canadians to respect themselves-Thomas D'Arcy McGee.”—"Canada First; or, Our New Nationality." By W. A. Foster.

RESOURCES OF THE DOMINION.

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build thousands of fleets and warm the hearths of many generations. Already great as a wheat-growing country, it is destined to be greater, the isotherm of wheat running right across the greater portion of the whole Dominion. The red loam of Prince Edward is among the most fertile of soils. What country is so beautifully wooded and watered as New Brunswick, whose fertility is only surpassed by the wealth of its mines and fisheries? Nova Scotia, variegated by lofty hills and broad valleys, by lakes and rivers, is rich in geological resources, and, while bountiful to the agriculturalist, is still more bountiful to the miner. Gold and iron and copper, lead and silver and tin, abound. Shipbuilding is carried on extensively, as in New Brunswick and in Quebec. The agricultural resources of Quebec and those of Ontario need not be dwelt on. It is now known that the land to the northwest of Manitoba is richer than any prairie land in the world. Our minerals held their heads high at the Centennial of 1876. Canadian horses and cattle are finding a market in England, and the gates of commerce are thrown open to us under the Southern Cross. If the eastern bounds of our Dominion, washed by the stormy Atlantic, are variously rich, so are the western bounds, whose golden feet are laved by the calmer waters of the Pacific. Destined at once to be the England and the California of the future, British Columbia is as beautiful as she is richly dowered. The traveller who proceeds up the highway made where the Fraser cleaves the granite ridges of the Cascade range and enters the open valleys beyond, is face to face with "the unequalled pastoral and agricultural resources of the bunch-grass country." * From an eminence in the neighbourhood of Kamloops he commands an interminable prospect of grazing lands and valleys waiting for the husbandman. He may see the mouths of the coal-pits opening into the hulls of the vessels; here, inexhaustible supplies of iron ore; there, the woodsman laying the axe to trees two hundred and fifty feet high and over four hundred years old. Skirting the Fraser, he will see the Indian fisherman haul out a salmon on the sands, whence the miner is sifting sparkling ore. In Cariboo, in Cassiar, in the valley of the Stickeen, the precious metal is still more abundant.

See Lord Dufferin's speech at Victoria, Sept. 20th, 1876.