Highly estimable as a sect, these people were respectable and amiable in their collective capacity as a colony. But then it was an institution so constructed, that, without a miracle, its virtues must have expired with its minority. I do not here speak of the necessity of its being governed and protected by those of different opinions, but merely of wealth stagnating without its proper application. Of this humane community it is but just to say, that they were the only Europeans in the new world who always treated the Indians with probity like their own, and with kindness calculated to do honour to the faith they professed. I speak of them now in their collective capacity. They, too, are the only people that, in a temperate, judicious, (and, I trust, successful) manner, have endeavoured and still endeavour to convert the Indians to Christianity; for them, too, was reserved the honourable distinction of being the only body who sacrificed interest to humanity, by voluntarily giving freedom to those slaves whom they held in easy bondage. That a government so constituted could not, in the nature of things, long exist, is to be regretted; that it produced so much good to others, and so much comfort and prosperity to its subjects while it did exist, is an honourable testimony of the worth and wisdom of its benevolent founder.
CHAP. LXVI.
Prospects brightening in British America—Desirable country on the interior
lakes, &c.
However discouraging the prospect of society on this great continent may at present appear, there is every reason to hope that time, and the ordinary course of events, may bring about a desirable change; but in the present state of things, no government seems less calculated to promote the happiness of its subjects, or to ensure permanence to itself, than that feeble and unstable system which is only calculated for a community comprising more virtue and more union than such a heterogeneous mixture can be supposed to have attained. States, like individuals, purchase wisdom by suffering, and they have probably much to endure before they assume a fixed and determinate form.
Without partiality it may be safely averred, that notwithstanding the severity of the climate, and other unfavourable circumstances, the provinces of British America are the abode of more present safety and happiness, and contain situations more favourable to future establishments, than any within the limits of the United States.
To state all the grounds upon which this opinion is founded, might lead me into discussions, narratives, and description, which might swell into a volume, more interesting than the preceding one. But being at present neither able nor inclined to do justice to the subject, I shall only briefly observe first, with regard to the government, it is one to which the governed are fondly attached, and which like religion, becomes endeared to its votaries, by the sufferings they have endured for their adherence to it. It is consonant to their earliest prejudices, and sanctioned by hereditary attachment. The climate is, indeed, severe, but it is steady and regular; the skies in the interior are clear, the air is pure. The summer, with all the heat of warm climates to cherish the productions of the earth, is not subject to the drought that in such climates scorches and destroys them. Abundant woods afford shelter and fuel, to mitigate the severity of winter; and streams rapid and copious, flow in all directions to refresh the plants and cool the air, during their short but ardent summer.
The country, barren at the sea side, does not afford an inducement for those extensive settlements which have a tendency to become merely commercial from their situation. It becomes more fertile as it recedes further from the sea; thus holding out an inducement to pursue nature into her favourite retreats, where on the banks of mighty waters, calculated to promote all the purposes of social traffic among the inhabitants, the richest soil, the happiest climate, and the most complete detachment from the world, promise a safe asylum to those who carry the arts and the literature of Europe, hereafter to grace and enlighten scenes where agriculture has already made rapid advances.
In the dawning light which already begins to rise in these remote abodes, much may be discovered of what promises a brighter day. Excepting the remnant of the old Canadians, who are a very inoffensive people, patient and cheerful, attached to monarchy, and much assimilated to our modes of thinking and living, these provinces are peopled, for the most part, with inhabitants possessed of true British hearts and principles. Veterans who have shed their blood, and spent their best days in the service of the parent country, and royalists who have fled here for a refuge, after devoting their property to the support of their honour and loyalty; who adhere together, and form a society graced by that knowledge and those manners which rendered them respectable in their original state, with all the experience gained from adversity; and that elevation of sentiment which results from the consciousness of having suffered in a good cause. Here, too, are clusters of emigrants who have fled, unacquainted with the refinements, and uncontaminated by the old world, to seek for that bread and peace, which the progress of luxury and the change of manners denied them at home. Here they come in kindly confederation, resolved to cherish in those kindred groups, which have left with social sorrow their native mountains, the customs and traditions, the language and the love of their ancestors, and to find comfort in that religion which has ever been their support and their shield, for all that they have left behind.[[27]]