The roads by which I have at length reached this beautiful little city were not, certainly, the smoothest and the easiest in the world; nor can it be said of Upper Canada, as of wisdom, "that all her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths are paths of peace." On the contrary, one might have fancied oneself in the road to paradise for that matter. It was difficult, and narrow; and foul, and steep enough to have led to the seventh heaven; but in heaven I am not yet—
Since my arrival at Detroit, some malignant planet reigns in place of that favourable and guiding star which has hitherto led me so deftly on my way,
"Through brake, through brier, Through mud, through mire."
Here, where I expected all would go so well, every thing goes wrong, and cross, and contrary.
A severe attack of illness, the combined effect of heat, fatigue, and some deleterious properties in the water at Detroit, against which travellers should be warned, has confined me to my room for the last three days. This mal-à-propos indisposition has prevented me from taking my passage in the great steamer which has just gone up Lake Huron; and I must now wait here six days longer, till the next boat, bound for Mackinaw and Chicago, comes up Lake Erie from Buffalo. What is far worse, I have lost, for the time being, the advantage of seeing and knowing Daniel Webster, and of hearing a display of that wonderful eloquence which they say takes captive all ears, and hearts, and souls. He has been making public speeches here, appealing to the people against the money transactions of the government; and the whole city has been in a ferment. He left Detroit two days after my arrival, to my no small mortification. I had letters for him; and it so happens that several others to whom I had also letters have fled from the city on summer tours, or to escape the heat. Some have gone east, some west; some up the lakes, some down the lakes. So I am abandoned to my own resources, in a miserable state of languor, lassitude, and weakness.
It is not, however, the first time I have had to endure sickness and solitude together in a strange land; and, the worst being over, we must needs make the best of it, and send the time away as well as we can.
Of all the places I have yet seen in these far western regions, Detroit is the most interesting. It is, moreover, a most ancient and venerable place, dating back to the dark, immemorial ages, i.e. almost a century and a quarter ago! and having its history and antiquities, and traditions and heroes, and epochs of peace and war. No place in the United States presents such a series of events interesting in themselves, and permanently affecting, as they occurred, both its progress and prosperity. Five times its flag has changed; three different sovereignties have claimed its allegiance; and, since it has been held by the United States, its government has been thrice transferred: twice it has been besieged by the Indians, once captured in war, and once burned to the ground: truly a long list of events for a young city of a century old! Detroit may almost rival her old grandam Quebec, who sits bristling defiance on the summit of her rocky height, in warlike and tragic experience.
Can you tell me why we gave up this fine and important place to the Americans, without leaving ourselves even a fort on the opposite shore? Dolts and blockheads as we have been in all that concerns the partition and management of these magnificent regions, now that we have ignorantly and blindly ceded whole countries, and millions and millions of square miles of land and water to our neighbours, I am told that we are likely to quarrel and go to war about a partition line through the barren tracts of the east! Well, let our legislators look to it! Colonel Talbot told me that when he took a map, and pointed out to one of the English commissioners the foolish bargain they had made, the real extent, value, and resources of the countries ceded to the United States, the man covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and burst into tears.
The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole internal commerce of these great "successive seas." Michigan, of which it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance, both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day.