in the fisheries, accumulated considerable sums of money, which have been forwarded to Ireland, in order to bring after them their parents, brothers, or sisters, and often young women to whom they were previously affianced or attached. This I know to be a very common trait in the character of the Irish peasantry, and no circumstance can illustrate a more powerful force of affectionate attachment.

The leading fault of Irish emigrants is their apparent indifference about fixing at once on the permanent and certain employment which the cultivation of the soil alone can secure to them. Transient labour among the old settlers, employment at the public works, seems more congenial to their habits than working on a wood farm on their own account. Exceptions, however, there are to this general observation; and, in comparing the condition of the Irish settlers in America with that of the peasantry in Ireland, I may say, without the least fear of being incorrect, that I have beheld more apparent wretchedness, and, I would infer, real misery, in one day's travelling in Ireland, than I have witnessed during several years' residence in, and while travelling through the principal parts of, the British empire in North America. My observations, while travelling among new settlements, always led me to the conclusion, that many of the inconveniences and all the dreariness of emigration would soon disappear, if several families, say ten to twenty or more, from the same parish in the United Kingdom, were to remove to America and settle together in one place. Mutual ideas, habits, and wants would unite them, and they would soon find their social condition happy and prosperous. The practice of the Swiss and German emigrants is, in this respect, worthy of imitation. - They embark at Havre in the American packet ships, and, on their arrival at New York, go immediately on board the tow boats for Albany, and thence like birds of passage to their destination in the Western States, where they settle together, and soon prosper. They form a most excellent class of inhabitants, - quiet, honest, and industrious.

About one third of the emigrants landing at New York are of this description. I saw many of them embarking last year (1832) at Havre, and the circumstance afforded ample materials for reflection. They had for ever left the country of their forefathers, passed through France, to cross what they never before beheld - the ocean, - in order to fix their future destinies in the wilds of the Western World.

In remarking generally on the condition of the inhabitants of our American colonies, as respects their means, none, except those engaged immediately or indirectly in commerce, have accumulated fortunes. The majority of the whole population possess considerable property in land and cattle; among the remainder, many are poor; but beggars are scarcely ever seen, unless it be in the towns, where some accidental calamity or natural infirmity brings occasionally a destitute individual to solicit food or other articles. Many of the Irish emigrants are frequently observed begging, for a short time after landing.

The old settlers are not always discovered to be the most opulent, notwithstanding the advantages they have had of selecting the best lands. It is even lamentable to observe the condition of some of those who have long occupied the finest farms, and whose poverty is the visible consequence of unsteadiness, extravagance, and often a silly species of pride that attaches contempt to rural industry. In each of the colonies I know many farmers of this character, who, before the month of May each year, have to purchase grain and potatoes from their more provident neighbours.

It is, however, most satisfactory to know, that, in every instance, the early settler who has confined his labour to agriculture, and who has managed the fruits of his toil with frugality and judgment, is found to be respectably opulent, to have brought up his family in a creditable manner; and with his sons and daughters commonly married and settled around him. In a contrary view, we find that those who only considered farming as a secondary employment, and who have engaged in other pursuits according as their fancy directed, have had poverty an ever-present attendant, with their families scattered in different places, subjected to a precarious subsistence, and often leading an irregular and indolent life.

As an example of a body of some hundreds of emigrants thriving by steady industry, I know of none who have succeeded better than those sent by the late Earl of Selkirk, in 1802, from the highlands and isles of Scotland to Prince Edward Island, where his lordship first began his colonising experiments, by settling them along the sea-coast, on lands which he purchased in one of the finest districts of that colony. They were nearly all acquainted with each other before they left the mother country of the same religion, spoke the same language, and their minister is from the same part of Scotland. It would have been happy for those he sent to Red River, if they had been equally fortunate; and however good

and honest his lordship's intentions were (and I believe them to have been so), he was undoubtedly imprudent in his measures and plans in respect to the Red River settlement.

Many instances might also be pointed out in Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, of the prosperity of emigrants who had to encounter all the hardships attached to a wilderness country, without money, or any support but what depended on their industry, to carry them through their difficulties.

In alluding to the prosperity of new settlements, I might point out numberless instances in Upper Canada. Nearly all the townships contain flourishing villages, with many improving settlements, cornfields, and meadows, occupying the place of dark forests, and presenting cheering and enlivening scenes, which afford to man the articles necessary to support him in comfortable independence.

The settlement of Hull, begun and established on the plan frequently adopted by the Americans, who remove with oxen, horses, all the materials for mill work and smithies, tools, provisions, and clothing, from the old states to the western districts, I have alluded to already, in the description of Lower Canada.

In Nova Scotia, the Scotch settlements on the East River of Pictou, and even those among the hilly districts of the country, have made rapid strides towards independence; and the Highlanders, also, who have settled within the Bras d'Or Lake, and along the sea-coasts of Cape Breton, are, at least those who have been located for three or four years, in tolerable circumstances, although they have not so much ambition to become comfortable as the English or Lowland Scotch.

In 1818, several families from Yorkshire arrived at Prince Edward Island, where they did not, on leaving England, intend to remain; but being delighted with the appearance of the colony, they applied to the agent of one of the proprietors, for leases of one hundred acres to some, and of two hundred acres of woodland to others, fronting on the road leading from Charlotte Town to Stanhope. The terms were, the first two years free, the third year at sixpence, the fourth at nine pence, and afterwards, for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, to continue at the annual rent of one shilling sterling per acre. A cow was also given by the proprietor to each of the settlers, to be paid for when their circumstances admitted. These people went to work with such determination, and economised their time and means with so much prudence, that, in 1826, they had each from fifteen to twenty acres of land cleared, and under excellent cultivation, one or two horses, four or five horned cattle, a few sheep, some pigs, and poultry. They were allowed to name their settlement Little York, and it was delightful to observe the order in which they kept their agricultural impliments; and the neatness and cleanliness of every thing about them reminded me of England.

Not far from them, on another road, I had the opportunity of observing the industrious progress of an old man of the name of Sinclair. He was upwards of sixty years when I saw him beginning in the woods. His family consisted of his wife, and two grown-up daughters; one of the latter usually spent three fourths of the year at service; their means were limited, and