Near Windsor and Sandwich are several villages of free blacks, probably the major portion of them having been assisted in their escape by the Abolitionists. They are not very good neighbours from their propensity to thieving, which either is innate, or, as Miss Martineau would have it, is the effect of slavery. I shall not dispute that point; but it is certain that they are most inveterately hostile to the Americans, and will fight to the last, from the dread of being again subjected to their former masters. They are an excellent frontier population; and in the last troubles they proved how valuable they would become, in case their services were more seriously required.
Volume Two—Chapter Three.
Once more on board of the Michigan, one of the best vessels on Lake Erie; as usual, full of emigrants, chiefly Irish. It is impossible not to feel compassion for these poor people, wearied as they are with confinement and suffering, and yet they do compose occasionally about as laughable a group as can well be conceived. In the first place, they bring out with them from Ireland, articles which no other people would consider worth the carriage. I saw one Irish woman who had old tin tea pots; there was but one spout among the whole, and I believe not one bottom really sound and good. And then their costumes, more particularly the fitting out of the children, who are not troubled with any extra supply of clothes at any time! I have witnessed the seat of an old pair of corduroy trowsers transformed into a sort of bonnet for a laughing fair-haired girl. But what amused me more was the very reverse of this arrangement; a boy’s father had just put a patch upon the hinder part of his son’s trousers; and cloth not being at hand, he had, as an expedient for stopping the gap, inserted a piece of an old straw bonnet; in so doing he had not taken the precaution to put the smooth side of the plait inwards, and, in consequence, young Teddy when he first sat down felt rather uncomfortable. “What’s the matter wid ye, Teddy; what makes ye wriggle about in that way? Sit aisy, man; sure enough, havn’t ye a strait-bottomed chair to sit down upon all the rest of your journey, which is more than your father ever had before you?” And then their turning in for the night! A single bed will contain one adult and four little ones at one end, and another adult and two half-grown at the other. But they are all packed away so snug and close, and not one venturing to move, there appears to be room for all.
We stopped half an hour at Mackinaw to take in wood, and then started for Green Bay, in the Wisconsin territory. Green Bay is a military station; it is a pretty little place, with soil as rich as garden mould. The Fox river debouches here, but the navigation is checked a few miles above the town by the rapids, which have been dammed up into a water power; yet there is no doubt that as soon as the whole of the Wisconsin lands are offered for sale by the American Government, the river will be made navigable up to its meeting with the Wisconsin, which falls into the Mississippi. There is only a portage of a mile and a half between the two, through which a canal will be cut, and then there will be another junction between the lakes and the Far West. It was my original intention to have taken the usual route by Chicago and Galena to St. Louis, but I fell in with Major F—, with whom I had been previously acquainted, who informed me that he was about to send a detachment of troops from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, across Wisconsin territory. As this afforded me an opportunity of seeing the country, which seldom occurs, I availed myself of an offer to join the party. The detachment consisted of about one hundred recruits, nearly the whole of them Canada patriots, as they are usually called, who, having failed in taking the provinces from John Bull, were fain to accept the shilling from uncle Sam.
Major F— accompanied us to pay the troops at the fort, and we therefore had five waggons with us, loaded with a considerable quantity of bread and pork, and not quite so large a proportion of specie, the latter not having as yet become plentiful again in the United States. We set off, and marched fifteen miles in about half a day, passing through the settlement Des Peres, which is situated at the rapids of the Fox river. Formerly they were called the Rapids des Peres, from a Jesuit college which had been established there by the French. Our course lay along the banks of the Fox river, a beautiful swift stream pouring down between high ridges, covered with fine oak timber.
The American Government have disposed of all the land on the banks of this river and the Lake Winnebago, and consequently it is well settled; but the Winnebago territory in Wisconsin, lately purchased of the Winnebago Indians, and comprising all the prairie land and rich mineral country from Galena to Mineral Point, is not yet offered for sale: when it is, it will be eagerly purchased; and the American Government, as it only paid the Indians at the rate of one cent and a fraction per acre, will make an enormous profit by the speculation. Well may the Indians be said, like Esau, to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage; but, in truth, they are compelled to sell—the purchase-money being a mere subterfuge, by which it may appear as if their lands were not wrested from them, although, in fact, it is.
On the second day we continued our march along the banks of the Fox river, which, as we advanced, continued to be well settled, and would have been more so, if some of the best land had not fallen, as usual, into the hands of speculators, who, aware of its value, hold out that they may obtain a high price for it. The country through which we passed was undulating, consisting of a succession of ridges, covered with oaks of a large size, but not growing close as in a forest; you could gallop your horse through any part of it. The tracks of deer were frequent, but we saw but one herd of fifteen, and that was at a distance. We now left the banks of the river, and cut across the country to Fond du Lac, at the bottom of Lake Winnebago, of which we had had already an occasional glimpse through the openings of the forest. The deer were too wild to allow of our getting near them; so I was obliged to content myself with shooting wood pigeons, which were very plentiful.
On the night of the third day we encamped upon a very high ridge; as usual studded with oak trees. The term used here to distinguish this variety of timber land from the impervious woods is oak openings. I never saw a more beautiful view than that which was afforded us from our encampment. From the high ground upon which our tents were pitched, we looked down to the left, upon a prairie flat and level as a billiard-table, extending, as far as the eye could scan, one rich surface of unrivalled green. To the right the prairie gradually changed to oak openings, and then to a thick forest, the topmost boughs and heads of which were level with our tents. Beyond them was the whole broad expanse of the Winnebago lake, smooth and reflecting like a mirror the brilliant tints of the setting sun, which disappeared, leaving a portion of his glory behind him; while the moon in her ascent, with the dark portion of her disk as clearly defined as that which was lighted, gradually increased in brilliancy, and the stars twinkled in the clear sky. We watched the features of the landscape gradually fading from our sight, until nothing was left but broad masses partially lighted up by the young moon.