REMARKS, &c.

LETTER I

Philadelphia, Nov. 6, 1820.

-NEITHER am I able to write to you as fully as I could desire on the subject of emigration to the United States, upon which you say you should wish to hear what occurs to me. On this difficult and interesting topic, I will enter more particularly shortly; and, in the mean time, will send you the result of my observations on the inducements which Canada appeared to me to offer to English labourers and other persons of little or no property. Those observations were necessarily both rapid and superficial; and my information is proportionably scanty, although I endeavoured to seize every opportunity of obtaining intelligence.

The lands which the Government is at present distributing in Upper Canada lie parallel to the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, and constitute a range of townships in the rear of those already granted. They are said to be no where above ten or fifteen miles distant from the old settlements. Land offices are established in ten different districts, in order to save the emigrants the trouble of going up to York; but their power is restricted to grants of a hundred acres. When an emigrant

has chosen the township in which he wishes to settle, and has complied with the necessary formalities, he receives, by lot, a location-ticket for a particular hundred acres, with a condition that he is not to dispose of them for three years. The title is not given till he has performed his settling duties; which are, to clear five acres in each hundred, and the half of the road in front. Now these certainly appear to be very easy conditions on which to obtain the fee-simple of a hundred acres : and the proposal to emigrate must therefore be a tempting one to a starving labourer or mechanic.

The real inducements, however, are so much less than the apparent ones, that although many would wisely emigrate even with a full conviction of the difficulties they had to encounter, I believe that, at present, there is not one emigrant in five hundred who does not feel bitterly disappointed on his arrival at Quebec. Instead of finding himself, as his confused ideas of geography had led him to expect, on the very borders of his little estate, he learns with astonishment that he is still five hundred miles from his transatlantic acres; and, if he has no money in his pocket, he may probably have to encounter, in reaching them, more severe distress than he ever felt at home. There is indeed much benevolent feeling towards emigrants both at Quebec and Montreal; and societies have been formed in each of these places, to afford them information and relief; but the inhabitants are beginning to complain that the requisitions for this purpose are becoming more burdensome than even the English poor-rates. The steam-boat compa

nies are also liberal; (indeed almost every man of property feels a personal interest in the encouragement of emigration;) but an emigrant must be unusually fortunate who reaches the Land Office in Upper Canada, without expending at least 5l. after landing at Quebec. The emigrants who accompanied us in the steam-boat in which I ascended the St. Lawrence, were some of those lately sent out free of expense by our Government; but there was one, a smart shoe-maker, not of that number, who had been detained some weeks at him Quebec earning money to carry up the river. When the emigrant arrives at the Land Office of the district where he proposes to settle, determined perhaps in his choice by the hope that his lot will place him in the vicinity of an old acquaintance, he may probably have to wait some weeks before the next distribution takes place; during which he must be supporting himself at an expense increased by his ignorance of the manners of the country. He then learns, perhaps for the first time, that there are certain fees to be paid at the different offices through which his papers must pass. I have a list of these before me, in which they are stated to be,

For 100 Acres

200 do.

500 do. 1000 do.

£ 5 14 1

16 17 6

39 19 9

78 10 2

I was however informed, by several persons from York with whom I crossed Lake Ontario, one of whom said he was in the habit of transacting this business for the emigrants, that, for a hun

dred acres, the fees were 137. 10s. This I mentioned to the Sheriff and several of the principal merchants at Montreal, who did not dispute it; one of them observing only that he believed there had been cases in which grants of 50 acres were made without fees.* It is much to be regretted that where land is said to be gratuitously bestowed, any fees should be deemed necessary; as the boon, when accompanied with this demand, is calculated to produce discontent rather than gratitude, especially where the emigrant finds that his fees amount to one half the sum at which he could select and buy the same quantity of land, without the delay attending the grant, and unshackled with any conditions or clearing dues. The surveyors receive their compensation in land, and generally secure the most valuable portions. When I was in Canada, they would sell their best lots at one dollar per acre; while 137. 10s. the fees on a hundred acres, amount to more than half a dollar per acre. I never met with any one person among all those with whom I conversed on the subject, who did not agree that, if a settler had but a very little money, it would be much more to his advantage to buy land, than to receive it from government.

Supposing the emigrant to be able to pay his fees, he may still have the misfortune to find that his allotment (for he can only choose his township, not his estate,) is not worth cultivating. In this case he has to pay two respectable persons for

I believe grants of 50 acres are generally, or always, to be obtained without fees.

surveying and certifyihg it to be irreclaimable; and he is then permitted to take his chance in the next distribution. Generally speaking, I believe he may expect to find himself in his own forest from three to six weeks after his arrival at the Land Office in Upper Canada.

carry his proviBut if he has no

Even then his situation is most dreary, especially if he has no neighbour within a reasonable distance, and has to purchase and sions from a remote settlement. money to procure food; if he has a wife and family to provide for, without the forlorn hope of parish assistance; if he is a weaver or a spinner, accustomed to warm rooms, and to employments little calculated to impart either the mental or physical qualifications essential to his very support; if he is, in fact, of a class to which a large proportion of the poor emigrants from Great Britain belong, I can hardly conceive any thing more distressing than his sensations, when, arriving on his new estate, with an axe in his hand and all his worldly goods in his wallet, he finds himself in the midst of a thick forest, whose lofty trees are to be displaced by a labour almost Herculean, before he can erect the most humble shelter, or cultivate the smallest patch. And if at such a time he has further to anticipate the rigours of a long Canadian winter, his situation must be deplorable in the extreme.

Under such circumstances, which I should imagine are the ordinary circumstances of the poorest emigrants to Canada, I can conceive of no resource, nor could I hear of any, except that of hiring them