584,176 pieces Deal-ends, oars, battens, handspikes, lathwood, puncheon shooks, treenails, shingles, ship 23,641 17,285 113,116 cwt. - 149,876 67,578 Pork, beef, butter, lard, live stock, hides castorum, Total experts, the produce of the Canadas £1,027,563 The remaining exports consist of British fabrics, West India produce, and teas re-exported. A great proportion of the imports are consumed in Upper Canada; and a very large share of the exports are sent down from that province; but the returns are far from correct; and it is impossible to ascertain the quantity that comes by the roads, lakes, and St. Lawrence from the United States, and down the Ottawa from Upper Canada. From the 12th of April to the 20th of April, the following articles, exclusive of timber, deals, staves, and spars, came down the St. Lawrence by Côteau du Lac : Indian corn meal, bbls. 1,875 Raw hides bbls. 216 Apples do. 625 Whisky casks 124 The quantity of timber, deals, and staves sent down the St. Lawrence and Ottawa to Montreal, is stated to be more than three-fourths of the whole export. The customs' returns give the following, for 1832, as the principal imports from the United States: 517 BOOK IX. MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. IN AMERICA, INDUSTRY SECURES Independent CIRCUMSTANCES. EMIGRATING. IN British America, notwithstanding the difficulties which are incident to all new countries, it is a wellestablished fact, substantiated by the evidence of all who have marked the progress of new settlers, that all those who have with persevering industry and frugality applied their labour to the cultivation of forest lands, have, with few exceptions, succeeded in acquiring the means of comfortable independence, and all that is requisite to render rural life happy. It frequently happens, however, that emigrants are disappointed in realising the prospects they entertained on leaving their native country. Lured by low, unprincipled, interested persons, into the belief that all they can possibly wish for is to be obtained with little difficulty on the shores and amidst the forests of America, they consequently embark with sanguine, unattainable expectations. No sooner, however, do they tread the lands of the western world, than the delusion vanishes; and they then discover that neither food, clothing, nor any article of necessity, use, or luxury, is to be obtained without labour, money, or some exchangeable value. These disappointments, productive of no small degree of anxiety and discontent, are caused by emigrants not being told of the difficulties as well as the advantages of new countries: - for, persons preparing to leave these kingdoms require not only to be informed of all that is necessary to govern them before deciding on leaving their abodes at home, but honest advice also to guide them afterwards, until they are enabled to secure a comfortable living in the land to which they go. The Board of Emigration has, it is true, circulated useful information in a brief shape; but it was vain to expect that its members would attend to the detailed advice and intelligence necessary for emigrants to know. It would indeed be well, if adequate persons were appointed by government at the principal ports in the United Kingdom for the purpose of giving correct information to emigrants; in order to prevent, as far as possible, the daily frauds practised on them at the sea-ports. * An office of correspondence in London, established by the authority of government, to which full information respecting the actual condition of unsettled or ungranted lands in the colonies, prices of provisions, wages of labour, expenses of passages, should be transmitted by each surveyor-general in British America, would extend eminent benefit to emigrants, and information of the best kind to parishes. Emigrant agency offices of every description, whether in London or elsewhere, however specious their pretensions, should be regarded at least with suspicion, as we cannot but know, that their profits arise from whatever they get in commission or otherwise from the emigrants, or from parish associations. A public office only may be considered as an independent channel of correspondence or trust. Persons who are deliberating about leaving their native country, should especially guard against those who are connected with the hiring of passenger ships, for the mere gains of passage money: that is, the difference between the freight which they pay the ship-owner, and the amount they screw out of the passengers.t From the little regard observed by these people, first, in obtaining money in advance, for passages, * At Liverpool, for instance, there are numerous places, principally cellars opening to the streets, with a huge sign-board over them, on which is painted in large letters, the words, " American Passengers' Office." These dens, and the crimps who keep them, are vile beyond conception. † Varying from 10s. to 15s. for each passenger; besides certain allowances which they receive from public-houses for bringing to them the custom of passengers. |