Let us, however, compare the inducements which he holds out to people in England to leave that country for America, that is, for the United States, with the inducements there would be to settle in Canada, under the premised supposition, that the land was there granted in an unexceptionable manner.
From the land being plentiful in Canada, and consequently at a very low price, but likely to increase in value, whilst in the States, on the contrary, it has risen to an exorbitant value, beyond which it is not likely to rise for some time to come, there can be no doubt but that a man of moderate property could provide for his family with much more ease in Canada than in the United States, as far as land were his object.
OBSERVATIONS.
In Canada, also, there is a much greater opening for young men acquainted with any business or profession that can be carried on in America, than there is in the United States. The expence of settling in Canada would be far less also than in any one of the States; for in the former country the necessaries and conveniencies of life are remarkably cheap, whilst, on the contrary, in the other they are far dearer than in England; a man therefore would certainly have no greater anxiety about the future success of a family in Canada than in the United States, and the absence of this anxiety, according to Mr. Cooper, is the great inducement to settle in the States, which weighs with him more than all other considerations put together.
The taxes of Lower Canada have already been enumerated; they are of acknowledged necessity, and much lower in amount and number than those paid in the States.
There are no animosities in Canada about religion, and people of all persuasions are on a perfect equality with each other, except, indeed, it be the protestant dissenters, who may happen to live on lands that were subject to tithes under the French government; they have to pay tithes to the English episcopalian clergy; but there is not a dissenter living on tithe lands, perhaps, in the whole province. The lands granted since the conquest are not liable to tithes. The English episcopalian clergy are provided for by the crown out of the waste lands; and all dissenters have simply to pay their own clergy.
There are no game laws in Canada, nor any excise laws whatsoever.
As for the observation made by Mr. Cooper in respect to the military, it is almost too futile to deserve notice. If a soldier, however, be an object of terror, the timid man will not find himself at ease in the United States any more than in England, as he will meet with soldiers in New York, on Governor’s Island, at Mifflin Fort near Philadelphia, at the forts on the North River, at Niagara, at Detroit, and at Oswego, &c. on the lakes, and all through the western country, at the different posts which were established by General Wayne.
In every other respect, what Mr. Cooper has said of the United States holds good with regard to Canada; nay more, it must certainly in addition be allowed by every unprejudiced person that has been in both countries, that morality and good order are much more conspicuous amongst the Canadians of every description, than the people of the States; drunkenness is undoubtedly much less common amongst them, as is gambling, and also quarrels.
OBSERVATIONS.