Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada and the United States for some time will cure a reflecting mind of many long cherished notions concerning the relative merits of a limited monarchy and of a crude democracy.

The man who views the border people of the United States with calm observation will soon come to the conclusion that a state of government, if it may be so called, where the commonest ruffian asserts privileges which the most educated and refined mind never dreams of, is not an enviable order of things.

In the first fury of a war with England, who were the promoters? the mob on the borders. Who hoped for a new sympathy demonstration, in order to annex Canada? the people of the Western States, who, far removed from the possibility of invasion, valiantly resolve to carry fire and sword among their unoffending brethren.

The intelligence and the wealth of the United States are passive; they are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude masses. And what keeps up this singular action, but the constantly-recurring elections, the incessant balloting and voting, the necessity which every man feels hourly of saving his substance or his life from the devouring rapacity of those who think that all should be equal!

If the government, acutely sensible that war is an evil which must cripple its resources, is unwilling to engage in it, both from principle and from patriotism, it must yield if the mob wills it, or forfeit the sweets of office and of power. Hence, few men enter upon the cares of public life in the States now-a-days who are of that frame of mind which considers personal expediency as worthy of deep reflection. What would Washington have said to such a system?

The batteries or fortalices of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not yet arrived at such a consummation as that of surpassing the vices and crimes of the Old, as we are certain it has not yet achieved such a moral victory as that of outrunning it in the race of scientific or mechanic fame. England is no more in her dotage than America is in her nonage. The former, without vanity or want of verity be it spoken, is as pre-eminent as the latter is honestly and creditably aspiring.

The writer above quoted says their ships sail better, and are manned with fewer hands. We grant that no nation excels the United States in ship-building, and that they build vessels expressly for sailing; but for one English ship lost on the ocean, there are three of the venturous Americans; for one steam-vessel that explodes, and hurls its hundreds to destruction, in England or Canada, there are twenty Americans.

In England, the cautious, the slow and the sure plan prevails; in America, the go-ahead, reckless, dollar-making principle prevails; and so it is through every other concern of life. A hundred ways of worshipping the Creator, after the christian form, exist in America, where half a dozen suffice in England.

Time is money in America; the meals are hurried over, relaxations necessary to the enjoyment of existence forbidden—and what for? to make money. To what end? to spend it faster than it is made, and then to begin again. You have only a faint shadow of the immense wealth realized in England by that of the merchant or the shopkeeper in the States. Capital there is constantly in a rapid consumption; and as the people engaged in the feverish excitement of acquiring it are in the latter country, from their habits, shortlived, so the opposite fact exhibits itself in England. There are no Rothschilds, no railway kings in America. Time and the man will not admit of it. John Jacob Astor is an exception to this fact.

On landing at Niagara, the difference of climate between it and Toronto is at once perceived. Here you are on sandy, there on clayey soil. Here all is heat, there moisture. I tried hard for several seasons to bring the peach to perfection at Toronto, only thirty-six miles from Niagara, without success; at Niagara it grows freely, and almost spontaneously, as well as the quince. The fields and the gardens of Niagara are a fortnight or more in advance of those of Toronto. Strange that the passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a difference!