In question, and that it was all of the very best quality.
It would be endless to describe all the little artifices practised
by these speculators to induce persons to purchase from them.
Besides a few of these unprincipled traders in land, some of whom
are found in most of the towns, there are a large number of
land-speculators who own both wild and improved farms in all parts
of the colony who do not descend to these discreditable arts, but
wait quietly until their lands become valuable by the progress of
improvement in their neighbourhood, when they readily find
purchasers - or, rather, the purchasers find them out, and obtain
their lands at reasonable prices.
In 1832, when we came to Canada, a great speculation was carried on
in the lands of the U.E. (or United Empire) Loyalists. The sons and
daughters of these loyalists, who had fled to Canada from the United
States at the time of the revolutionary war, were entitled to free
grants of lots of wild land. Besides these, few free grants of land
were made by the British Government, except those made to half-pay
officers of the army and navy, and of course there was a rapid rise
in their value.
Almost all the persons entitled to such grants had settled in the
eastern part of the Upper Province, and as the large emigration
which had commenced to Canada had chiefly flowed into the more
western part of the colony, they were, in general, ignorant of the
increased value of their lands, and were ready to sell them for a
mere trifle.
