If, however, the Americans from the States are people that would abuse such favours from the crown, why were they admitted into the province at all? The government might easily have kept them out, by refusing to them any grants of lands; but at any rate, were it thought expedient to admit them, and were such measures necessary to keep them in due subjection, it seems hard that the same measures should be adopted in regard to the inhabitants of the province, who stood firm to the British government, even at the time when the people in every other part of the continent revolted.
For whatever reason this system of not granting unexceptionable titles with the land, which the crown voluntarily bestows on its faithful subjects, has been adopted, one thing appears evident, namely, that it has very considerably retarded the improvement of both the provinces; and indeed, as long as it is continued, they must both remain very backward countries, compared with any of the adjoining states. Were an opposite system, however, pursued, and the lands granted merely with such restrictions as were found absolutely necessary, in order to prevent jobbing, the happy effects of a measure of that nature would soon become visible; the face of the country would be quickly meliorated, and it is probable that there would not be any part of North America, where they would, after a short period, be able to boast that improvement had taken place more rapidly.
OBSERVATIONS.
It is very certain, that were the lands granted in this manner, many more people would annually emigrate into Canada from the United States than at present; for there are numbers who come yearly into the country to “explore it,” that return back solely because they cannot get lands with an indisputable title; I have repeatedly met with these people myself in Upper Canada, and have heard them express the utmost disappointment at not being able to get lands on such terms even for money; I have heard others in the States also speak to the same purport after they had been in Canada; it is highly probable, moreover, that many of the people, who leave Great Britain and Ireland for America, would then be induced to settle in Canada instead of the United States, and the British empire would not, in that case, lose, as it does now, thousands of valuable citizens every year.
What are the general inducements, may here be asked, to people to quit Great Britain for the United States? They have been summed up by Mr. Cooper[[39]], in his letters published in 1794, on the subject of emigrating to America; and we cannot have recourse, on the whole, to better authority.
[39]. Mr. Cooper, late of Manchester, who emigrated to America with all his family, and whose authority has been very generally quoted by the Americans who have since written on the subject of emigration.
OBSERVATIONS.
“In my mind,” he says, “the first and principal inducement to a person to quit England for America is, the total absence of anxiety respecting the future success of a family. There is little fault to find with the government of America, that is, of the United States, either in principle or practice. There are few taxes to pay, and those are of acknowledged necessity, and moderate in amount. There are no animosities about religion, and it is a subject about which few questions are asked; there are few respecting political men or political measures; the present irritation of men’s minds in Great Britain, and the discordant state of society on political accounts, is not known there. The government is the government of the people, and for the people. There are no tythes nor game laws; and excise laws upon spirits only, and similar to the British only in name. There are no great men of rank, nor many of great riches; nor have the rich the power of oppressing the less rich, for poverty is almost unknown; nor are the streets crowded with beggars. You see no where the disgusting and melancholy contrast, so common in Europe, of vice and filth, and rags and wretchedness, in the immediate neighbourhood of the most wanton extravagance, and the most useless and luxurious parade; nor are the common people so depraved as in Great Britain. Quarrels are uncommon, and boxing matches unknown in the streets. There are no military to keep the people in awe. Robberies are very rare. All these are real advantages; but great as they are, they do not weigh with me so much as the single consideration first mentioned.”
Any person that has travelled generally through the United States must acknowledge, that Mr. Cooper has here spoken with great partiality; for as to the morality and good order that prevails amongst the people, he has applied to all of them what only holds true with respect to those who live in the most improved parts of the country.
He is extremely inaccurate also, in representing the people of the States as free from all animosities about political measures; on the contrary, there is no country on the face of the globe, perhaps, where party spirit runs higher, where political subjects are more frequently the topic of conversation amongst all classes, and where such subjects are more frequently the cause of rancorous disputations and lasting differences amongst the people. I have repeatedly been in towns where one half of the inhabitants would scarcely deign to speak to the other half, on account of the difference of their political opinions; and it is scarcely possible, in any part of the country, to remain for a few hours in a mixed company of men, without witnessing some acrimonious dispute from the same cause.