A class formed mainly from the
younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only
accustomed to command, but to recieve implicit obedience from the
people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the
woodman's life. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the
saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans at heart, think
themselves quite as good as their employers.
Too many of these brave and honest men took up their grants of wild
land in remote and unfavourable localities, far from churches,
schools, and markets, and fell an easy prey to the land speculators
that swarmed in every rising village on the boarders of civilization.
It was to warn such settlers as these last mentioned, not to take
up grants and pitch their tents in the wilderness, and by so doing
reduce themselves and their families to hopeless poverty, that my
work "Roughing it in the Bush" was written.
I gave the experience of the first seven years we passed in the
woods, attempting to clear a bush farm, as a warning to others, and
the number of persons who have since told me, that my book "told the
history" of their own life in the woods, ought to be the best proof
to every candid mind that I spoke the truth. It it not by such feeble
instruments as the above that Providence works when it seeks to
reclaim the waste places of the earth, and make them subservient to
the wants and happiness of its creatures. The great Father of the
souls and bodies of men knows the arm which wholesome labour from the
infancy has made strong, the nerves that have become iron by patient
endurance, and He chooses such to send forth into the forest to hew
out the rough paths for the advance of civilization.
These men became wealthy and prosperous, and are the bones and
sinews of a great and rising country. Their labour is wealth, not
exhaustion; it produces content, not home-sickness and despair.
What the backwoods of Canada are to the industrious and
ever-to-be-honoured sons of honest poverty, and what they are
to the refined and polished gentleman, these sketches have
endeavoured to show.
The poor man is in his native element; the poor gentleman totally
unfitted, by his previous habits and education, to be a hewer of the
forest and a tiller of the soil. What money he brought out with him
is lavishly expended during the first two years in paying for labour
to clear and fence lands which, from his ignorance of agricultural
pursuits, will never make him the least profitable return and barely
find coarse food for his family. Of clothing we say nothing. Bare
feet and rags are too common in the bush.
Now, had the same means and the same labour been employed in the
cultivation of a leased farm, or one purchased for a few hundred
dollars, near a village, how different would have been the results,
not only to the settler, but it would have added greatly to the
wealth and social improvement of the country.
I am well aware that a great and, I must think, a most unjust
prejudice has been felt against my book in Canada because I dared to
give my opinion freely on a subject which had engrossed a great deal
of my attention; nor do I believe that the account of our failure in
the bush ever deterred a single emigrant from coming to the country,
as the only circulation it ever had in the colony was chiefly through
the volumes that often formed a portion of their baggage. The many
who have condemned the work without reading it will be surprised to
find that not one word has been said to prejudice intending emigrants
from making Canada their home. Unless, indeed, they ascribe the
regret expressed at having to leave my native land, so natural in
the painful home-sickness which, for several months, preys upon the
health and spirits of the dejected exile, to a deep-rooted dislike
to the country.
So far from this being the case, my love for the country has steadily
increased from year to year, and my attachment to Canada is now
so strong that I cannot imagine any inducement, short of absolute
necessity, which could induce me to leave the colony where as a wife
and mother, some of the happiest years of my life have been spent.
Contrasting the first years of my life in the bush with Canada as
she now is, my mind is filled with wonder and gratitude at the rapid
strides she has made towards the fulfilment of a great and glorious
destiny.
What important events have been brought to pass within the narrow
circle of less than forty years! What a difference since NOW and
THEN. The country is the same only in name. Its aspect is wholly
changed. The rough has become smooth, the crooked has been made
straight, the forests have been converted into fruitful fields, the
rude log cabin of the woodsman has been replaced by the handsome,
well-appointed homestead, and large populous cities have pushed the
small clap-boarded village into the shade.
The solitary stroke of the axe that once broke the uniform silence of
the vast woods is only heard in remote districts, and is superseded
by the thundering tread of the iron horse and the ceaseless panting of
the steam-engine in our sawmills and factories.
Canada is no longer a child, sleeping in the arms of nature,
dependant for her very existence on the fostering care of her
illustrious mother. She has outstepped infancy, and is in the full
enjoyment of a strong and vigorous youth.
