or United States, with the immoralities and crimes of those whose wickedness makes them notorious; yet travellers have indulged too frequently in doing so; and erroneous impressions respecting the inhabitants of North America are consequently cherished in the United Kingdom.

The inhabitants of Upper Canada are, with few exceptions, obliging, industrious, and religious; and the great body of the people form an independent yeomanry, whose condition gives them a freedom of manner, and a boldness of opinion in matters which they consider to be right, very different from the language of servility and hypocrisy which prevails in countries where the inhabitants are generally in a state of dependence.

The following characteristic sketches, which apply generally to the inhabitants of British America, are equally correct in regard to Upper Canada.

In the English farmer we observe the dialect of his county, the honest John Bull bluntness of his style, and other peculiarities that mark his character. His house or cottage is distinguished by cleanliness and neatness, his agricultural implements and utensils are always in order; and wherever we find that an English farmer has perseverance, for he seldom wants industry, he is sure to do well. He does not, however, reconcile himself so readily as the Scotch settler does to the privations necessarily connected, for the first few years, with being set down in a new country, where the habits of those around him, and almost every thing else attached to his situation, are somewhat different from what he has been accustomed to; and it is not until he is sensibly assured of

succeeding, and bettering his condition, that he becomes fully reconciled to the country.

There are, indeed, in the very face of a wood farm, a thousand seeming, and, it must be admitted, many real difficulties to encounter, sufficient to stagger people of more than ordinary resolution, but more particularly an English farmer, who has all his life been accustomed to cultivate land subjected for centuries to the plough. It is not therefore to be wondered that he feels discouraged at the aspect of wilderness lands, covered with heavy forest trees, which he must cut down and destroy. He is not acquainted with the use of the axe; and if he were, the very piling and burning of the wood, after the trees are felled, is a most disagreeable piece of labour. He has, besides, to make a fence of the logs, to keep off the cattle, sheep, and hogs, which range at large; and when all this is done, he must not only submit to the hard toil of hoeing in grain or potatoes, but often to live on coarse diet. Were it not for the example which he has before him of others, who had to undergo similar hardships before they attained the means which yield them independence, he might indeed give up in despair, and be forgiven for doing so.

The Scotchman, habituated to greater privations in his native country, has probably left it with the full determination of undergoing any hardships that may lead to the acquisition of solid advantages. He therefore acts with great caution and industry, subjects himself to many inconveniences, neglects the comforts for some time which the Englishman considers indispensable, and in time certainly succeeds in surmounting all difficulties, and then, and not till then, does he willingly enjoy the comforts of life.

The Irish peasant is soon distinguished by his brogue, his confident manner, readiness of reply, seeming happiness, although often describing his situation as worse than it is. The Irish emigrants are more anxious, in general, to gain a temporary advantage, by working some time for others, than by beginning immediately on a piece of land for themselves; and by having abundant means, in a country where ardent spirits are so very cheap, they are too frequently tempted into the habit of drinking-a vice to which a great number of English and Scotch become also unfortunately addicted. But the inhabitants are generally much more temperate during late years than formerly. When the Irish are for a few years stationary settlers, they become steady farmers, moral in their habits, and kind obliging neighbours.

The farmers and labourers born and brought up in America possess, in an eminent degree, a quickness of expedients where any thing is required that can be supplied by the use of edge-tools; and, as carpenters and joiners, they are not only expert but ingenious workmen.

Almost every farmer, particularly in the thinly settled districts of America, has a loom in his house, and their wives and daughters not only spin the yarn, but weave the cloth. The quantity, however, manufactured among the farmers, is not more than half what is required for domestic use.

The houses of the American loyalists residing in the colonies are better constructed, and more convenient and clean within, than those of the Highland Scotch and Irish, or indeed those of any other settlers who have not lived some years in America. Although

the house of an English farmer who settles on a new farm is, from his awkward acquaintance with edgetools, usually very clumsy in its construction; yet that comfortable neatness, which is so peculiar to England, prevails within doors, and shows that the virtue of cleanliness is one that few Englishwomen, let them go where they may, ever forget. The wives of the loyalists are also remarkable for indoor cleanliness and orderly arrangements. They seldom assist, like the Scotch and Canadian women, in agricultural operations. *

The Highland Scotch, unless intermixed with other settlers, are not only careless, in many particulars, of cleanliness, within their houses, but are also regardless of neatness and convenience in their agricultural implements and arrangements. All this arises from the force of habit, and the long prevalence of the make-shift system; for whenever a Scotch Highlander is planted among a promiscuous population, no one is more anxious than he to rival the more respectable establishment of his neighbour.

The Scotch settlers from the Lowland counties, although they generally know much better, yet remain, from a determination first to accumulate property, for some years regardless of comfort or

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convenience in their dwellings; but they at last build respectable houses, and enjoy the fruits of their industry.

The lower classes of Irish, familiarised from their birth to a miserable subsistence and wretched residences, are, particularly if they have emigrated after the prime of life, perfectly reconciled to any condition which places them above want, although by no means free of that characteristic habit of complaining which poverty at first created.

Of all the civilised people of America, there are none who can more readily accommodate themselves to all the circumstances peculiar to a country in a state of nature than the descendants of those who first settled in the United States. Far from being discouraged at the toil of clearing a new farm, they, in countless instances, make what may with great propriety be called a trade of doing so. These people fix on a piece of woodland, clear the trees away from off a few acres, build a house and barn, and then sell the land and improvements the first opportunity that offers. When this is accomplished, they probably travel one, two, or three hundred miles before they settle on another wood farm, which they clear, build on, and dispose of in the same manner as the first. These men must generally be excluded, in point of character, from the honest, stationary American loyalists. Those who make a trade of levelling the forest will run in debt and cheat whenever they can; yet, like private vices which often become public benefits, these men are useful in their own way, being the pioneers that open the roads to the remote districts. *