INTRODUCTION

"Dear foster-mother, on whose ample breast

The hungry still find food, the weary rest;

The child of want that treads thy happy shore,

Shall feel the grasp of poverty no more;

His honest toil meet recompense can claim,

And Freedom bless him with a freeman's name!"

S.M.

In our work of "Roughing it in the Bush," I endeavoured to draw a picture of Canadian life, as I found it twenty years ago, in the Backwoods. My motive in giving such a melancholy narrative to the British public, was prompted by the hope of deterring well-educated people, about to settle in this colony, from entering upon a life for which they were totally unfitted by their previous pursuits and habits.