staple articles of great importance. Linseed, rape, and sunflower oil might also be prepared in large quantities. Salted provisions, butter, flour, wheat, pease, pot and pearl ashes, pork, beef, butter, and the produce of the forests and fisheries, &c. are all regularly inspected before exportation.

Excellent cider and ale are made in both provinces; and whisky, generally of the most abominably deleterious kind, is distilled in great quantities in Upper Canada, often from rye, pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, and even rotten apples. The habitans in Lower Canada make nearly as much maple sugar as they require for domestic consumption; and in Upper Canada, a great part of the sugar used is made in the country. It is sometimes refined, and many prefer it to muscovado, but it does not contain so much saccharine matter.

The extensive frontier boundary which separates Canada from the United States will for ever defy the vigilance of revenue officers; and a contraband trade is carried on between both countries to an extent which bids defiance to tariffs, and confuses custom-house returns. Vast quantities of British manufactures are smuggled into the United States, and French and East India goods find their way into Canada. Before the East India Company sent their annual ship with teas direct from China to Quebec, the greater part of the tea used in the province was smuggled from the United States. The estimated value of the teas introduced in this way from the United States, reckoned at about half the price of tea in England, was about 50,000l., which kept gradually increasing until the arrival of the China ships.

The actual annual value of smuggled teas, at that time, is supposed to have exceeded 120,000l.

The navigation of the St. Lawrence from and to the ocean is restricted to British vessels.

The produce of the United States, for the purpose of being exported in British vessels, is admitted into the Canadas; and American flour, potash, cattle, and timber, in large quantities, pass now to the sea by the St. Lawrence, subject, however, to certain stipulations.*

The increasing population, multiplied wants, and consequent industry, must naturally increase the trade of the Canadas in a rapid ratio, and render it one of the most important branches of commerce to Great Britain.

• See statistical tables, at the end of this book; and summary, at the end of this volume.

CHAP. XIX.

SHIP-BUILDING AND THE TIMBER TRADE. - VARIOUS MODES OF PREPARING THE PRODUCE OF THE FORESTS FOR EXPORTATION.-LUMBERERS. - RAFTSMEN. - MILLS, ETC.

In consequence of the extraordinary speculations which raged in the United Kingdom from 1822 to 1825, the merchants and traders in British America were led into vast undertakings, principally shipbuilding and the timber trade.

Ship-yards were established in almost every harbour in the colonies. Saw-mills were erected on every stream which would float down deals to the shipping ports, and there appeared to be no limit to the extent of contracts entered into for supplies of square timber.

The re-action which occurred in the winter of 1826 extended a full share of its severity to the commercial interests of British America; and Canada experienced its due proportion of the ruinous calamity.

Ships of all dimensions, from those leviathan vessels the Columbus and Baron of Renfrew, to schooners, were constructed in great numbers during the years 1823, 1824, and 1825, and until 1826, when the depreciated value of shipping ruined nearly all those concerned in the trade. Since that period very few vessels, except such as have been required for steam navigation, the fisheries, and the carrying trade, have been built. The Quebec built ships stand in high estimation. The timber trade was also ruinous to most of those concerned in it. The causes arose, principally, from the sudden alteration in the naviga. tion laws, at a period of high prices and extraordinary speculation; and from the lumberers not being able, or indeed willing, to pay the debts they contracted with the merchants, in consequence of the depreciated value of timber. Many adventurers, also, without any capital, from witnessing extraordinary gains having been occasionally made by the merchants and master lumberers, entered into this business; and, having nothing to lose, ventured into daring speculations, which were exceedingly injurious to regularly established merchants.

The most absurd objections are made, either from interest or prejudice, against American timber, although for most purposes it is equal, and for many superior, to that from Norway. One of these objections is at the same time untrue and ridiculous; that is, its being more congenial to the propagation of bugs than any other wood. It has been confidently stated in some of the public prints, that not only do the trees in the forest abound with these disgusting insects, but that the timber, when landed from the ships, has swarmed with them. I need only observe, that there can be little difference between European and American timber, as far as regards the one being more congenial to the increase of bugs than the other; they are exceedingly rare in the wooden buildings in America, except in the oldest houses in the towns; and it is well known that there are few of the old houses in the towns in England that are not infested with those loathsome vermin. The durability of American timber is also questioned; the yellow is certainly not so durable as the red pine of Norway, although for many purposes it is much better adapted. The pitch pine, red pine, and juniper, or American larch, will, I am firmly convinced, last as long as any wood of the same genus growing in any part of Europe. The hemlock, a large tree of the fir tribe, is a most durable wood; and it possesses the peculiar property of preserving iron driven into it, either under water or exposed to the air, from corroding.

The timber trade, which is, in a commercial as well as a political point of view, of more importance in employing our ships and seamen, and the occasioning a great addition to the demand for British manufactures, than it is generally considered to be, employs also a vast number of people in the British colonies, whose manner of living, owing to the nature of the business they follow, is entirely different from that of the other inhabitants of North America.

Several of these people form what is termed a "lumbering party," composed of persons who are all either hired by a master lumberer, who pays them wages and finds them in provisions, or of individuals, who enter into an understanding with each other, to have a joint interest in the proceeds of their labour. The necessary supplies of provisions, clothing, &c., are generally obtained from the merchants on credit, in consideration of receiving the timber, which the lumberers are to bring down the rivers the following summer. The stock deemed requisite for a "lumbering party" consists of axes, a cross-cut saw, cooking utensils, a cask of rum, tobacco and pipes; a sufficient quantity of biscuit, pork, beef, and fish, peas and pearl barley for soup, with a cask of molasses to