During The First Year Of Their Settlement, The Means Of Obtaining
The Common Necessaries Of Life Became So Precarious, That, In Order
To Assist Her Friends With A Little Ready Money, Jenny Determined
To Hire Out Into Some Wealthy House As A Servant.
When I use the
term wealth as applied to any bush-settler, it is of course only
comparatively; but Jenny was anxious to obtain a place with settlers
who enjoyed a small income independent of their forest means.
Her first speculation was a complete failure. For five long,
hopeless years she served a master from whom she never received a
farthing of her stipulated wages. Still her attachment to the family
was so strong, and had become so much the necessity of her life,
that the poor creature could not make up her mind to leave them.
The children whom she had received into her arms at their birth,
and whom she had nursed with maternal tenderness, were as dear to
her as if they had been her own; she continued to work for them
although her clothes were worn to tatters, and her own friends were
too poor to replace them.
Her master, Captain N - -, a handsome, dashing officer, who had
served many years in India, still maintained the carriage and
appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his mental and moral
degradation arising from a constant state of intoxication; he still
promised to remunerate at some future day her faithful services;
and although all his neighbours well knew that his means were
exhausted, and that that day would never come, yet Jenny, in the
simplicity of her faith, still toiled on, in the hope that the
better day he spoke of would soon arrive.
And now a few words respecting this master, which I trust may serve
as a warning to others. Allured by the bait that has been the ruin
of so many of his class, the offer of a large grant of land, Captain
N - - had been induced to form a settlement in this remote and
untried township; laying out much, if not all, of his available
means in building a log house, and clearing a large extent of barren
and stony land. To this uninviting home he conveyed a beautiful
young wife, and a small and increasing family. The result may be
easily anticipated. The want of society - a dreadful want to a man of
his previous habits - the absence of all the comforts and decencies
of life, produced inaction, apathy, and at last, despondency, which
was only alleviated by a constant and immoderate use of ardent
spirits. As long as Captain N - - retained his half-pay, he contrived
to exist. In an evil hour he parted with this, and quickly trod the
downhill path to ruin.
And here I would remark that it is always a rash and hazardous step
for any officer to part with his half-pay; although it is almost
every day done, and generally followed by the same disastrous
results. A certain income, however small, in a country where money
is so hard to be procured, and where labour cannot be obtained but
at a very high pecuniary remuneration, is invaluable to a gentleman
unaccustomed to agricultural employment; who, without this reserve
to pay his people, during the brief but expensive seasons of
seed-time and harvest, must either work himself or starve. I have
known no instance in which such sale has been attended with ultimate
advantage; but, alas! too many in which it has terminated in the
most distressing destitution. These government grants of land, to
half-pay officers, have induced numbers of this class to emigrate
to the backwoods of Canada, who are totally unfit for pioneers;
but, tempted by the offer of finding themselves landholders of what,
on paper, appear to them fine estates, they resign a certainty, to
waste their energies, and die half-starved and broken-hearted in
the depths of the pitiless wild.
If a gentleman so situated would give up all idea of settling on
his grant, but hire a good farm in a favourable situation - that is,
not too far from a market - and with his half-pay hire efficient
labourers, of which plenty are now to be had, to cultivate the land,
with common prudence and economy, he would soon obtain a comfortable
subsistence for his family. And if the males were brought up to
share the burthen and heat of the day, the expense of hired labour,
as it yearly diminished, would add to the general means and
well-being of the whole, until the hired farm became the real
property of the industrious tenants. But the love of show, the vain
boast of appearing richer and better-dressed than our neighbours,
too often involves the emigrant's family in debt, from which they
are seldom able to extricate themselves without sacrificing the
means which would have secured their independence.
This, although a long digression, will not, I hope, be without its
use; and if this book is regarded not as a work of amusement but one
of practical experience, written for the benefit of others, it will
not fail to convey some useful hints to those who have contemplated
emigration to Canada: the best country in the world for the
industrious and well-principled man, who really comes out to work,
and to better his condition by the labour of his hands; but a gulf
of ruin to the vain and idle, who only set foot upon these shores
to accelerate their ruin.
But to return to Captain N - -. It was at this disastrous period that
Jenny entered his service. Had her master adapted his habits and
expenditure to his altered circumstances, much misery might have
been spared, both to himself and his family. But he was a proud
man - too proud to work, or to receive with kindness the offers of
service tendered to him by his half-civilised, but well-meaning
neighbours.
"Hang him!" cried an indignant English settler (Captain N - - was
an Irishman), whose offer of drawing wood had been rejected with
unmerited contempt.
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