I.

Canada West, London, January 7, 1863.

My dear Friends,—I have now reached a point that lies far west in the British province of Canada, and I wish to give you some of my impressions of this part of the world. I shall try to do it just as if I were in the midst of you in conversation,—an easy, off-hand talk, that may serve for my contribution to your winter’s stock of information and discussion. I shall begin by sketching rapidly the course by which I have come to this place.

In the early half of October, after rather a stormy passage across the Atlantic in the S.S. St. Andrew we sighted the coast of Newfoundland, near the Straits of Belleisle, and shortly afterwards entered the straits. From this point to Quebec the distance was still 750 miles. The first view of the New World was bleak enough. Newfoundland on the left seemed made up of low barren hills, surrounding numberless little bays and creeks, and on the right Labrador appeared even more uninviting, the shore fringed with cliff and ice, and the background stunted brushwood. There is, however, wealth in the seas around, the Newfoundland cod and Labrador herring being exported in great quantities; and in the interior of Newfoundland mines are wrought to a considerable extent, chiefly of copper. On the right hand, after entering the straits, we passed the island of Anticosti, nearly half as long as Scotland, but inhabited by little else than foxes and bears. The soil and climate are most unpropitious, and only a few families are found there, employed in superintending the lighthouses and the stores for shipwrecked mariners. The coast is a dangerous one, and two wrecks lying on shore were visible as we passed. It seems strange that the climate here should be so inclement, a severe winter lasting seven or eight months in the year, when the latitude is south of Ireland. It arises, I believe, from the absence of the Gulf Stream, which carries warmth to the European shores, and also from the configuration of the North American continent towards the pole, which causes greater quantities of ice and snow to remain in it during the summer. The course in sailing up the St. Lawrence is south-west, which gradually brings the voyager into a more genial air. Opposite Anticosti, Newfoundland trends away to the south, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence becomes here a great inland sea, where one may be out of sight of land. New Brunswick, Cape Breton, and Nova Scotia would be reached by sailing directly south, but none of these were visible, except the summits of some high mountains that were said to be in New Brunswick. The mouth of the St. Lawrence proper is then reached, with the Canadian shore on both sides, though the water is still salt, and it is impossible to see across from land to land. The northern shore is thinly peopled; the southern, along which our course lay, is more populous. The population is located almost entirely on the bank of the river, and is well-nigh exclusively Canadian French. Old-fashioned houses in the French Norman style succeed each other more and more closely, till they take the form of a continuous village, all fronting the water, with a long strip of cleared ground running back from each of them into the forest, which here slopes away upward till it loses itself on the sides of the distant chain of the St. Ann’s mountains. These people are half farmers and half fishermen, and lead a hard, industrious, contented life, having little tendency to progress, and small desire to press westward like the English - speaking race. By and by the land is seen on both sides, but the north is still in great part unbroken wood. It will probably be the last portion of Canada to be fully filled up, and is at present valuable chiefly from its timber, and from mines of very excellent iron and other minerals that are being wrought in some places. Before approaching Quebec, the population becomes denser on both sides of the river, though still confined chiefly to the banks. The water of the river is now quite fresh, and some beautiful islands stud its surface. The foliage of the changing autumn, which I was just in time to see, was peculiarly beautiful. The colours were vivid and varied beyond anything I have seen in Europe, from the dark purple and deep fiery red to the most delicate yellow. A great chain of hills on the north side, clothed with forest, presented an appearance that would seem to a British eye utterly overcharged and unnatural if transferred to canvas. The approach to Quebec is exceedingly fine, and the impression is not diminished by the various views from points around the city. Very few places in the Old "World will compare with it for position. The river, narrow above, that is, comparatively narrow (about a mile), and flowing between high precipitous banks, here widens out into a beautiful bay many miles in circuit, broken by projecting headlands and wooded islands, with winding channels and smaller bays, in one of which the famed Montmorencieall thunders into the St. Lawrence from a height of 280 feet, while a noble chain of mountains sweeps round, and bounds the view to the north. Quebec stands at the foot, and climbs up the side of a bold cape that runs out on the bay. On the summit, called Cape Diamond, is the citadel of Quebec, the Gibraltar of the New World. It was taken by Wolfe in 1759, lie and the equally gallant Montcalm falling in the battle on the heights of Abraham behind the citadel. Its conquest decided the supremacy for the time being of British power in North America. One may see the spot where Wolfe fell, the narrow cove by which he scaled the cliffs and surprised the French, the reach in the river down which he drifted with muffled oars, while he repeated to his officers Gray’s Elajij, and said he would rather be the author of that poem than the conqueror of Quebec. A monument erected to Wolfe and Montcalm jointly now graces one of the highest points in the city of Quebec, and unites the memories of two high-spirited and patriotic men. The city of Quebec, which has a population of above 50,000/possesses few things that are attractive except its site. The upper town has some good streets, but the lower town is narrow, filthy, and in some parts ill-conditioned and wretched, regarding it by the measure of anything found in European cities. The population is more than two-thirds French Canadian and Roman Catholic. From Quebec my course was by the river St. Lawrence to Montreal, a distance of about 180 miles. The voyage was performed chiefly during the night, but what I saw of the banks resembled the country below Quebec. There was abundance of wood, not the old primeval forest, but an after-growth of diminished size, that fringed the river and ran away back into the interior, broken by clearings and lines of houses that 102,440 in 1881, but now declining.

looked to tlie river as the great highway. The names of the plaees and the appearance of the settlements showed that the great mass of the people was still Canadian French. Montreal is the largest town in Canada, having about 110,000 inhabitants, and the promise of a rapid increase from its advantageous position. It is built chiefly on a plain bordering the St. Lawrence, and has a line of quays accessible to the largest vessels, with a handsome frontage of stately warehouses. The streets of the commercial part of the city are broad and business-like, and have public structures interspersed that would do credit to any city. They reminded me a good deal of Union Street, Aberdeen, the blue limestone, which is the chief material, having a considerable resemblance to the granite. The picturesque feature in Montreal, however, is what is called ‘the mountain' a fine wooded hill that rises immediately behind it, and which has bestowed its name on the city, ‘ Mount Royal,’ abbreviated into Montreal. It forms a beautiful background from every side, and its lower slopes are being covered with streets of villa-like residences, that display much taste and prove the growing wealth of the place. The view from the upper part of the mountain, without being so striking as that from the citadel of Quebec, is yet exceedingly pleasing, and has a breadth about it that rises to the impressive. The city with its spires and towers lies below, and the noble stream of the St. Lawrence, a mile in width, sweeps past its wharves, and is spanned a little way up by that wonder of modern engineering, the Victoria tubular bridge. A great plain extends beyond, covered with villages and farm-houses, and varied by two or three projecting hills that seem to be the foreshoots of the mountains of Vermont in the States, plainly discernible on the verge of the horizon. On the other side of ‘the mountain,’ half-way up its slope, and looking over the isle of Montreal (for the city really stands on an island) is the public cemetery. A finer position for a 'city of the dead’ cannot be conceived, especially when, as I saw it, the primitive forest out of which it is cut was glowing in every colour under the touches of the dying year. I saw a good deal of the religious life of Montreal, and of its philanthropic institutions, but on this I shall not enlarge, as I purpose afterwards saying somewhat of it separately. I shall only say at present that it seemed to me marked by a spirit of progressive energy, and that the different bodies of Protestant Christians appeared to eo-operate with much catholicity Romanism in this part of Canada is still predominant in numbers, though not in influence, and it was a subject of common remark that the spirit of French was different from that of Irish Romanism, much more tolerant and open to inquiry. The French Canadians and Irish, though agreeing in religion, disagree in almost everything else, and their union at the poll is simply a political one, arranged by the priesthood for party purposes.

From Montreal I proceeded to Ottawa, a long day’s journey, partly by rail and partly by steamboat. The rail is adopted where the river navigation is impeded by rapids. One of these rapids, near the place where the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers join is a picturesque point, and has obtained some classic fame through the poet Moore, whose cottage is pointed out on the banks. The sail up the Ottawa has been compared to that on the Rhine, but I could discover no resemblance, except that in both cases there was a river with banks. The Ottawa is indeed a noble stream, and would be a river of first-rate magnitude in any European country, but its banks are in general low and monotonous. The wood, too, invariably disappoints one who has heard of the mighty forests of the West. It is more brushwood than forest, low, thick, and unvarying, except where it is broken by some village or farmhouse, the whole appurtenances of which, including walls, furniture, stables, and fences, are only part of the forest in another form. The original wood, you are told, has all disappeared under the lumberer’s axe, and to see it as it was in all its giant grandeur, you must travel back where that pioneer of civilization is still plying his hardy task. A few trees I did see that for size might have belonged to the olden race, but they gave unmistakeable signs, as poor Swift said of himself, that they were dying at top. It is a curious fact that trees left alone or in small clumps from the old forest soon begin to droop as if they missed their companions, and stand ere long blasted trunks. They grow well enough, however, when planted. The reason seems to be, that the old forest trees sheltered each other from the blast, and when they lose their fellows cannot change their mode of life to their new circumstances. But planted alone from the beginning, they are exercised early by the wind on every side, and strike down their roots accordingly. A law of vegetable life this, which has its correspondence in the human, and also its moral if I had time to draw it. On the whole, as you may infer, the landscape of Canada is not distinguished by much variety, and probably never can be to so great an extent as in our own country. It wants the great constituent elements of mountain and sea, for even its enormous lakes are a poor equivalent for this last, being simply great water - tracks for the freight of timber and bread-stuffs, and competing with the sea in little else than the power of producing wrecks and nausea, for which they have a name beyond any similar extent of liquid element. This, however, by the way, and it may be added that we are perhaps dealing unfairly in comparing a country that is still much in a state of nature with one where the hand of man has for generations been giving the artistic touches that bring out beauty and variety from what seems most bare and common. Man can never in nature create the grand, but he can the beautiful.

Yet in Canada as it now is, there are points that stand out marked by the hand of Nature. Quebec is one of these and the finest of all, Montreal is another, and Ottawa city is a third. You are probably aware that this last has been fixed on by the Queen as the site of the capital of the now united province of Canada. Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto put in their claims, and the contest was peculiarly keen between Upper and Lower Canada, as the position of the capital would involve at least the temporary predominance of the English or French element. The Queen, to whom the question was referred as being too difficult and delicate for provincial solution, preferred Ottawa, to the displeasure of course of every one of the other candidates, and to the general surprise of Canada. Ottawa has but lately emerged into notice from the obscure name of Bytown; it is the smallest of all the competitors, having only 15,000 inhabitants,1 and is far removed from the great thoroughfare of traffic in the valley of the St. Lawrence. The reasons that seem to have influenced the Queen’s counsellors are these : all the other candidates were decidedly either in Upper or Lower Canada, but Ottawa is on the boundary of both provinces, the river Ottawa forming a marked division between the French and English populations. It was therefore a compromise by an arbiter, where the disputants, if left to themselves, might have pushed the case to a disruption.

In case of war, moreover, Ottawa is farthest removed from the frontier of the United States, and is susceptible of being strongly fortified. Although in a part of the country that has not yet been fully opened up, it has a great extent of the very best land around it, and needs only some stimulus to become a thriving and populous centre. All these considerations seem to have entered into the decision of the Home Government, and though it occasioned at first surprise, and a good deal of dissatisfaction in Canada, it has secured acquiescence in the bulk of the community. It is true that, though the public works have commenced, and are far advanced to completion, there are parties who still wish it to be regarded as an open question, and agitate for some other point; but the safety of Ottawa lies in this, that there is no other point on which all parties can so well agree. I think, then, we may regard Ottawa as the future capital of the Canadas, and it is matter of congratulation that the site is one well worthy of the dignity. The river has a breadth and volume that make it the equal of the Rhine, and here if not elsewhere the banks remind one of the hills of Bingen. They rise perpendicularly to the height of some 300 feet, and on the highest point is ascending the Parliament House of what will yet be a prosperous and powerful commonwealth. I have seldom been more struck with any views than those that extend around this structure. You can look sheer down into the river, which is here strong and deep, and of a colour intensely green. Immediately above, its course is broken by a series of rapids and cataracts, of which the Chaudiere, or Caldron Fall, is the chief. For height, of course, it cannot lie compared with Niagara, but it has features of its own, that prevent one from speaking of it as inferior. Some terrible convulsion of nature has occurred here in past ages, and broken the bed of the river into a wild confusion of precipitous leaps, rapid slides, transverse barriers, narrow, parallel channels, and subterranean caverns, through which the water finds its way with an infinite number of rushes and leaps, appearing and disappearing in manners the most unexpected, perplexing the beholder and even the careful inquirer as to the way in which the different streams reunite themselves, where one that enters a cavern re-emerges, and where one that comes boiling up has its point of departure. There are endless bits of scenery and little mysteries to one who has time to wander here, and from the Parliament Hill the dash and rising smoke of the whole are distinctly visible. In its downward course, the river forms some fine little bays, as if it wished to repose itself after the turmoil of the Chaudiere Fall. These are walled in by the same precipitous lines of cliff’, not so steep, however, but that brushwood and some adventurous trees can cling to their sides. One of these small bays is close below the Parliament Hill, and makes it into a kind of promontory; another farther down is the scene of a fall called the Rideau or Curtain, where the Rideau river precipitates itself into the Ottawa. Across the river is the province of Lower Canada, which rises in rolling folds to a wooded and mountainous country called the Gatineau, and is traversed by a river of the same name, the boast of this part of Canada for its scenery, and joining the Ottawa about a mile below the city. Toward the west and south, the Parliament Hill commands a view of a wide and fertile plain, part of Upper Canada, stretching away for mile upon mile, till lost in the blue distance. It is monotonous enough, as aforesaid, to travel over, but, seen in its expanse, it is grandly impressive, and when the forest is cleared, and smiling villages and farm-houses dot its surface, it will gleam out also into the beautiful. As for the Parliament buildings themselves, they are far on the way to completion, and when finished will form, it is believed, the finest pile on the American continent. They occupy three sides of a square, open at the angles and on the fourth side. They are in the Gothic style, of fine stone, part blue limestone from the neighbourhood, part a red stone from Ohio, and present an appearance exceedingly tasteful and imposing. The only fault I could find was that one of the sides of the quadrangle did not quite correspond in size with the other, and that there was not sufficient space preserved between the whole structure and the advancing streets of the citv, which will in the end mar the general effect. Other faults, however, of a different kind are found by the inhabitants of Canada.

The erection was commenced by the last provincial government upon certain estimates that seemed moderate. These estimates, as frequently happens, have been far exceeded, I believe doubled, and the expenditure must be much greater before the buildings can be ready for use. The present Ministry, which came in on the ground of retrenchment, has appointed a commission to inquire into this and other matters.

The city of Ottawa, like the country of which it is capital, is to be judged more by its future than its present. There are many inhabitants in it older than its first house, and I have conversed with a good old lady who lived two months on the site of the Parliament House, in a hut with a barrel for a chimney. All was then unbroken forest, and she had to wait these two months till a road could be cut to her husband’s concession twenty miles off. Even now, the primitive pine groves and cedar thickets can be seen close at hand, seals are seen disporting themselves in the river, and a fox who commits nightly depredations on the poultry has his headquarters beneath the Parliament House, and defies dislodgment. The town is already stretching out around, occupying at least three times the space that would be allotted to the inhabitants in the old country. Broad rectangular lines of streets run far out into the country, many of them marked by two or three houses, some by none, but all appearing duly completed in the map. A good arrangement this, so far as light and air are concerned, when the sun is in the sky, but rather inconvenient when night comes into the question, and rain or thaw sets in. Lighting and paving then are felt to be at a sad discount, or, if attempted on a comfortable scale, the pockets of the tax-payers feel the burden. It is doubtless this circumstance that makes the local taxes in American towns a more serious item than the contributions to the general revenue. Other things in Ottawa have commenced on a large scale. The hotels are metropolitan in size and appearance, and several daily papers wage tierce warfare with each other. In regard, however, to these matters, hotels and newspapers, Ottawa is not distinguished from Canadian towns of the same size. A stranger cannot understand how such large hotels can be supported in small towns, with no great influx of visitors, and yet they seem to get along and prosper. The system of boarding, instead of living in their own houses, seems to be that which supports many of them, although in Canada this does not prevail to anything like the same extent as in the States. As to the daily papers, not much that is eulogistic can be said. They are meagre in general news, and pervaded by a bitter spirit of personal attack, that is happily disappearing from the old country. Yet here, it must be added, there are many honourable exceptions, and nothing corresponding to the rowdyism of the Xew York journals can be found in Canada.

In Ottawa and its neighbourhood I remained some time, and returned to the valley of the St. Lawrence at Prescott. The season was too far advanced for any regular steamers plying on the river, so that I missed the celebrated scenery of the Thousand Isles at the entrance of Lake Ontario. I had an opportunity of seeing only the commencement of it at the pretty little town of Brockville, where I remained a day or two, and then continued my journey by the Grand Trunk to Toronto. It lasted from two in the afternoon till twelve at midnight, and presented little variety—tracts of woods, separated by intervals of clearing, and occasionally towns that seemed thriving and progressive. Of Kingston and its bay I only saw enough to make me desirous to have seen more. This town and Tort Hope were the only places on the shores of Lake Ontario that offered to my eye anything of the picturesque. The shores of this lake—and the same may be said of Lake Erie—are flat and monotonous, and afford no points of comparison with our lake scenery in Scotland. I am told that on Lake Huron and Lake Superior it is otherwise. Toronto, where I remained a week, is the chief city of Upper Canada, with a population of 45,000/ It slopes gently upwards from the shore of Lake Ontario, and has a number of handsome, well-built streets, resembling much those that might be met with in a good provincial English town. Besides some elegant churches belonging to different denominations, there are two structures that stand out pre-eminent—Osgoode Hall, the centre of the legal profession in Upper Canada, and the University of Toronto. They are in very different styles, but either of them would be an ornament to any European capital. I have seen few things to surpass the University in position, architectural taste, and general arrangements. I had an opportunity also of examining the course and examination papers, and can testify as far as my judgment goes to its breadth and thoroughness. Such a system, if faithfully carried out, cannot fail to raise up men who will be an honour to their country and profession, and take rank with the alumni of any seats of learning in the New World or the Old. Besides the University of Toronto, there are various other institutions of a similar character in Canada, some on a general basis, others under the superintendence of denominations. Of the first, the M'Gill College at Montreal deserves honourable mention, under the principalship of a very accomplished man, Dr. Dawson.1 The Wesleyans have a college at Cobourg, the Episcopalians the Trinity College at Toronto, and there are theological halls for training the ministry of the different churches, the Church of Scotland having one at Kingston, and the Canada Presbyterian Church (Free and United) Knox’s College at Toronto. The Roman Catholics have also their separate colleges, both for general and clerical education, in Upper and Lower Canada. Altogether, the public mind in Canada is directed very much to the question of education, and the common school system has attempted to solve the grand difficulty of the religious element, that continues so to baffle our European statesmen. It cannot be said that this has been done with success. In Lower Canada, which has its own school system, the Protestants complain that the Romanists treat them in the most intolerant manner, and they begin to demand the voluntary system rather than the present one of State support. In Upper Canada a contest is at present going on between those who wish to maintain the common system and a strong party who urge the appropriation of denominational grants. To this last party belong all the Roman Catholics and a portion of the Episcopalians and Wesleyans. The Roman Catholics have indeed already succeeded in introducing the wedge of denominationalism in their own behalf into the system of Upper Canada, and labour incessantly to widen the rent, in which they are aided by the self-seeking of other sects. The appetite for public funds would seem to be as strong here as it is at home, and the wisdom of Government lies in circumscribing the room for its gratification. It would conduce as much to public peace as to public economy. However this contest as to the school system may terminate, there is good reason to believe that the educational wants of Canada will be attended to. The people in the Upper Province are, as a whole, alive to the value of at least the common elements of learning, and in the Lower Province, almost any system would be an improvement on the present one, which is entirely in the hands of the priesthood, and used for the promotion of its interests. On the whole question of the educational and spiritual state of Canada I hope to write more at length, only saying here that, in the midst of all contests and drawbacks, there are signs of progress and hopes of more.

Prom Toronto I took railway to Niagara Falls, and remained in the neighbourhood about a fortnight, visiting that great wonder-work of God several times, and each time being more impressed by it. 1 shall not here attempt to give those impressions. It would require a long letter for this alone, and then it would be done imperfectly. This part of Canada was the scene of some of the chief military operations in the American war of 1812-14, and also of the skirmishing in the insurrection of 1837, in which American sympathizers took a part. As the effect of this, the Canadian sentiment is there ultra-loyal, and I found the descendants of old German Pennsylvanians, who have not yet learned to look at the first American Revolution as anything but a rebellion, and who trace all the present troubles of the States to their insurrection against the authority of poor old George III. Here and in other places I found the descendants of a class of settlers called the U. E. (United Empire) Loyalists, who in considerable numbers removed to Canada when the States gained their independence, and who had grants of land bestowed on them as the reward of their loyalty. They deserved it well, for they had endured much, and had been treated with great harshness by the States. The unrelenting severity of confiscation and banishment with which these men were persecuted is one of the stains upon that great struggle for liberty. Their descendants, as may be supposed, make connection with the mother-country and loyalty to the British Crown their boast and principle. This feeling is shared, if not with equal intensity, yet in all sincerity, by the overwhelming mass of the Canadian people. It seems strange to witness the blindness of the American newspapers, and even of some of their statesmen, to this fact, and to hear them speak as if it needed but a simple invitation to bring the Canadians at once into the Union. Along with the feeling of British loyalty, there is also growing up a sentiment of nationality which would vigorously resist absorption into the American republic. So far as I can judge of general opinion, an attempt to constrain this would lead to a war as sanguinary as that which now rages in the South. Some may regret that distinct nationalities should thus spring up, but it seems the design of Providence, and will probably conduce more in the end to the interests of liberty and human progress. Let us only hope that, in the case of Canada, distinction from their neighbours may be no more embittered by the recollection of war, and that it may take its own shape among the nations of the New World by a peaceful and useful race of emulation.

From Niagara I returned by rail to Hamilton, at the head of Lake Ontario, where I remained a day or two, and then came on to London, whence I write this letter. Hamilton and London are both of them like smaller editions of Toronto, diminishing in size as they proceed westward, Hamilton having a population of about 20,000, and London of about 150,000. This last is a well-built, thriving town, that has suffered somewhat from late disarrangements of trade, but promises to rise again rapidly with the flowing tide.

It is much more metropolitan than a town of the same size would be at home, having handsome banks and extensive warehouses, with the usual allowance of big hotels and daily papers. It is the only considerable town of Canada that does not stand upon a navigable river or lake, but it has the advantage of being connected with several lines of railroad, and is the centre of a large agricultural district, the finest land in the country. It is on the great land highway to the Western States of the Union, and not far from the famed oil-springs. If these last hold out, they will help the prosperity of London, although meanwhile the refining establishments do very little to maintain the good odour of the place. But here as at home scent must give way to centage. A town like this furnishes a good opportunity for comparison with those at home in social morals. So far as I can form an idea, it is fully up to our average, probably above it. It has its quota of ‘drunk and disorderly,’ but they do not seem so sunk in abject misery. Destitution and rags do not obtrude themselves, and I believe do not exist but in a very limited degree. The facilities of remunerative labour of course account for this, and the brief existence of the town, which has not allowed the residuum of a fallen class, too often hereditary, to form itself. Whether they may prevent the growth of that which we are labouring hard to correct, remains to be seen. If one can speak of any class here as the degraded, it would be the poor blacks, though I should be sorry to apply that term to them. They are numerous, more than in other parts of Canada; they are poor, and by many they are not kindly treated. With the disadvantages under which they labour, it is not wonderful if we find a portion of them distinguished by little industry or morality, but not perhaps so much as whites would be in their circumstances. The general accusation of sauciness is brought against them, but, so far as my experience goes, civility will always elicit the proper response from them. If insolence appears, it is only as an attempt to assert the rights of manhood which may be denied to them. At present there is a proposal in this town by the School Trustees to exclude them from the common schools, and to supply them with the means of separate education. It is done on the ground of their low moral character and social habits, which, it is said, affect the other children. The proposal has met with strong opposition on the part of the coloured people themselves, and is condemned in other parts of Canada, where it is very unusual, if not altogether unknown. I do hope it may be repelled, and that the American prejudice against colour will not find an entrance here. The poor negro has enough to contend against without this. It is right enough that there should be protection for the schools from the contamination of immorality and filth, but let this be sought by the separation only of the individuals affected, and not by the exclusion of classes to gratify an odious and unchristian aristocracy of colour. The schools provided for the coloured population cannot offer the same education as those for the whites, and thus a portion of the community will be deprived of the opportunity of rising, and doomed to a modified bondage.

The church accommodation seems fully up to the population. There is one large Roman Catholic church, two Episcopalian, three Presbyterian, one Congregationalist, one Baptist, one Wesleyan, one Episcopal Methodist (a distinction imported from the States), one New Connexion Methodist. Besides these, there are several smaller bodies of Bible Christians and other varieties, and two churches where the coloured population worship by themselves. These last, however, may, if they choose, worship in the other churches, and occasionally I have seen them so doing. The churches, you will see, are ample in lumber, and they are generally large in size. There is, however, a considerable part of the population not church-going.

Here, meanwhile, I must conclude this letter, hoping to give on another occasion a more general view of the country.

II.

Having given in my last letter a sketch of my journey through Canada as far as London, C.W., I proceed in this to give some notices of the country, natural, social, and political.

It was John Cabot, a Venetian in the service of England, who first visited this part of the coast of America in 1497. He touched the exterior only at Newfoundland and Labrador, and Canada proper was not discovered till 1535, by a Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, who penetrated as far as Montreal, then an Indian settlement bearing the name of Hochelaga. The French proceeded to settle the country, at first slowly, but afterwards with more energy, impeded by wars with the Indians, and with the English settlements farther south. At that time the French people were distinguished by a spirit of colonial enterprise which now seems to have forsaken them. They discovered the great lakes, traced the course of the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Mississippi, opened up an extensive commerce, and seemed ready to assume superiority in the whole continent of North America from Quebec round to New Orleans. The intolerant principles of French monarchy both in Church and State checked this growth ; Jesuit control withered it; and slowly and steadily the French power in the New World declined. The capture of Quebec in 1759 by Wolfe was the last blow to it, and established British supremacy. The French, however, have made their mark in Lower Canada, and the proper amalgamation of the race they have left here with fellow-citizens who differ from them in language and religion will be the chief difficulty of Canadian statesmen. The politics of the present and future turn upon this point. After the conquest of Canada, the British Government treated the French Canadians with great justice and liberality, and this conduct prevented them from joining in the revolt of the other American Colonies in 1775. When invited to send delegates to the Philadelphia Congress they refused, and when the Americans invaded the country they met them with active resistance. It is a curious circumstance that well-nigh the only part which remained faithful to the mother-country was that which was alien in race and religion. After the close of the American war in 1783 a number of United Empire Loyalists, whose property had been confiscated in the States, received grants of lands in Canada, and, as they settled chiefly in the western part, the colony was divided into the two governments of Lower and Upper Canada, the first being principally French, the last English. Canada continued slowly to increase till the war of 1812, when it was calculated that Lower Canada contained 200,000, and Upper Canada 80,000. The Americans commenced that war with the avowed intention of speedily conquering and annexing the country. The spirit of the Canadian people, however, was thoroughly roused, and their militia, aided by the regular troops, defeated the invaders in almost every action, and drove them from the soil. The events of history thus far have contributed to form for Canada a national existence distinct from that of the States. As Canada increased in population it began to agitate for greater powers of self-government. Unhappily the Ministry at home did not soon enough recognize this, and an appeal to arms took place in 1837 by an ultra section in both Lower and Upper Canada, aided by some American sympathizers. It was, however, speedily put down by the united efforts of the loyal, and all the demands of the Canadian people were complied with in 1840, when a legislative union of the two provinces took place. This was the beginning of that Liberal Colonial policy on the part of the Home Government, which will avert in future any such unhappy war as that for American independence, and which is building up under the shadow of the British Empire free and attached commonwealths all over the globe. The result in Canada has been that a government has been established for the united colony, with a Ministry responsible to the people. The Constitution resembles that of the home-country, with what would be called a character of Advanced Liberalism. There are two Houses of Parliament, an Upper and a Lower, but both elective. The franchise is not universal, but such as to place it within the reach of any man of common industry and intelligence. There is no established church, and all sects are on an equality. Self-government in the municipal form exists in the towns and also in the counties. The law’s for the transfer and sale of lands, for executing mortgages and wills, are exceedingly simple, and might with great advantage be carried across the Atlantic. The connection with the mother-country is maintained by the presence of a Governor-General, who represents the Queen, and whose assent is necessary to the passing of new lawTs. His salary is the only burden of an imperial kind borne by Canada. The troops that protect the country, and the arms furnished to it, are at the expense of the home-country, while Canada raises its revenue by taxing British produce at the same rate as that of any other nation. The effect of all this is that the Canadians are well contented with their government, as they have every reason to be. It secures safety, freedom, and economy (when compared with other countries), and if they were not loyal and peaceful they would be the most unreasonable of nations. Yet unreason often distinguishes nations, and therefore we must accord the Canadians the credit of recognizing their privileges, and of being thoroughly well-affected to the mother-country, while they feel a growing pride in their own land, and its rapidly increasing resources.

Let me now come to a view of the resources as seen in the extent and character of the United Province. Canada is nearly 1300 miles in length, and averages some 200 in breadth. Its area is 357,822 square miles, the proportion of which to our own country can be estimated, when it is remembered that the area of Scotland is about 32,000 square miles. It should be remembered, besides, that the whole British possessions in Xorth America comprise 2,897,560 square miles, and that there is indefinable room, therefore, for the expansion of Canada to the "West whenever it may be thought desirable. At present Canada may be said to lie entirely in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and along the lakes formed by it. This magnificent river, including these lakes, is 3000 miles in length, and, with the help of two or three short canals, is navigable through its whole extent for first-class vessels. Its great drawback is that during the winter months, from November till the end of April, its mouth is closed by ice, and Canada is thus entirely cut off from direct communication with the ocean during a great part of the year. The climate of Canada, as may be supposed, varies in different parts. The Lower Province has a more severe and steady winter, and also greater heat in summer—the Upper Province having its climate tempered by the large inland lakes. On the whole, the climate is colder than that of Europe in the same parallels, and the winter greatly more severe. The thermometer falls sometimes to 40" below zero, while in summer it rises on some days to above 100°, a very great extreme, and yet not unfavourable to health. The air is almost invariably clear, and free from mist or fog. The sky is bright as that of Italy, and the stars shine with peculiar brilliancy. The dryness of the atmosphere makes the cold of winter much less felt than could be supposed, and this season is esteemed by many the most pleasant in the year. Up to within a few days of this date (the middle of January), winter had scarcely made its appearance, and every one was lamenting the long delay. Without the snow, transit is difficult, the health of the people languishes, influenzas and slow fevers spring up from the decaying vegetation, and social life stagnates. A heavy fall of snow has taken place with a sharp frost of 2G° below freezing, and everything appears to have received a quickening impulse. The farmers are bringing in their wheat and other produce on sleighs that glide on the snow as smoothly as a carriage on a rail, and indeed much more smoothly than most. The streets are alive with cutters (so the small driving sleigh is called), making a merry jingling with their bells, which are necessary to give warning of their otherwise noiseless movements, and are skimming hither and thither like so many swallows on the wing. The horses enjoy the sport as much as the drivers, and can scarcely be restrained, so full are they of life and spirit. The dogs can never be satisfied enough with rolling in the snow, and snuffing and eating it, and seem the happiest dogs alive. Visits are paid on all sides, long-deferred parties are made up, and everybody goes about congratulating everybody else on the happy change, and hoping it may continue. The substitution of a good, smooth, hard road for endless, bottomless mud is one cause of the thankfulness, the bracing frost that carries off malaria and bad humours is another, and more than all is the immense quantity of oxygen thrown into the atmosphere, which revivifies the whole animal frame, and makes the step light and the heart happy. The winter in Canada is certainly not what we deem of winter, and we must not judge its five months’ duration by our murky fogs and slushy thaws. The winter day, besides, is considerably longer than ours, owing to the southerly latitude, and is made longer still by the reflection from the snow. Probably, however, in an economic point of view, its long winter is against the interests of Canada. It stops much out-door labour, checks the plough and harrow, and compresses the work of the farmer into such a narrow space, that one operation can scarcely be completed till another is crying out for instant notice. Spring comes in with a sudden rush like the Solway tide, and summer flowers out into instantaneous blossom. The rapid transitions of nature form one of the features of the climate of Canada. The sun rises and sets more suddenly than with us, and in a like manner enters upon and quits his work of the year, so that there is little 'gloamin’, a smaller amount of the insensible buddings of April and long-drawn greenness of May, and autumn tints, though more vivid, are shorter-lived. If I might refer to it here, human life partakes of the law. The child shoots up more quickly into the man and woman than at home. The month of May seems blotted out of the consciousness of humanity,—a loss, this, greater, it seems to me, in the human than in the vegetable world, as it effaces one of the most pleasurable, as well as one of the most profitable periods of life, the period that has the keenest sense of joy, and that receives the seeds of finest culture. Yet here, perhaps, the ages may contain some compensation, of which we do not at present dream. These climatic differences in Canada bring a difference in the outward face of things. The bird and flower life in its prominent features is not the same, and we look round in vain for the most familiar things of sight and sound that are enshrined in the household poetry of the old land. One cannot say with poor Mary in her prison,—

‘Now laverocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle in his noontide bower
Makes woodland echoes ring.’

The lark and thrush are unknown, save in cages, and, for all the woods of Canada, it cannot boast a single cuckoo. The fond recollections of the home country have fixed the well-known names on some inhabitants of the adopted land, but how changed ! There is a blackbird, but a corpulent, ungraceful, tuneless fowl; and there is a redbreast, twice the size of the original, but he wants the song, and he flies from winter. The poor Babes in the Wood want their undertaker, and the ballad as a consequence cannot live. As might be expected from the close friendship between the bird and the flower, our Old-World favourites of the field do not open their eyes on this hemisphere. The daisy, of course, cannot exist without the morning song of the lark, Wordsworth’s commonplace man would find no ‘yellow primrose’ to be a stumbling-block to him, there is no broom upon the lea, and the ‘furzy prickle’ of Tennyson never ‘fires the dells.’ Even the hardy heather cannot brave the stern winter, and is only seen occasionally in a flowerpot, looking inglorious enough, under the fostering care of some patriotic Scotsman, who guards it as a precious morsel against the festival of St. Andrew’s Day. To some, this entire separation from the most cherished associations of home would be a sore deprivation, and perhaps it is so felt, but it brings with it a chastened tenderness. It is pleasant to hear the parents trying to give their children some idea of the daisy and the lark, that they may enjoy the better the poetry and the story of old Scotland, and the descendants begin to see the land of their fathers through a lustrous haze like that which to us rests on the hills of the olive and the palm. Canada, however, has its own substitutes, though they have not yet been visited by the light of song. Some flowers of rare beauty there are, though their season is more brief than with us, owing to the summer’s heat; and many of the birds are marked by a tropical brilliancy of plumage. I am sorry that I have to speak of them more as I saw them in the museums of Montreal and Toronto than in their native forests, but when life is poured into the humming-birds that seemed like fragments of rainbows, and into the finely - tinted oriole, I could see that the future poet of Canada will not want his illustrations, drawn from the nature around him. There is promise of his coming already, and then doubtless his eye and ear will discover sights and sounds that will make the land beautiful and dear as any upon earth. Canada is not Scotland, and it would be foolish to wish that it were, but it has features of its own, and they are neither mean nor unlovely. Before closing these rather desultory remarks on the climate of Canada, I should say that it has one season peculiar to itself, or rather to North America, the Indian summer. This period occurs generally in October, and lasts from two to three weeks. It is mild, slightly hazy, and spoken of by all the long residents as specially delightful. I have said by the long residents, because some seasons it is scarcely discernible, and such happened to be the one that I passed in this part of the world. A few days of doubtful glimmer were the only approach to it. This curious phenomenon used to be absurdly enough attributed to the Indians burning the woods, hence its name; but the exact cause of it has not yet been ascertained.

The climate leads naturally to the soil and its productions. It is customary in these scientific days to begin this by a geological table, which I shall avoid, and touch only the more practical part by saying that the strata of Canada are all beneath the coal measures, so that this most useful mineral can never be found there. Whether it existed and has been denuded, or whether it was never formed, this is certain, that coal does not and cannot exist in Canada. It is found to the east of it, in Nova Seotia, and to the south and west of it, and by means of railway and steamer it now enters Canada in large quantities. For a long season, too, if not for ever, Canada will have in its wood some compensation.

Each farmer for this very reason leaves a portion of his land in the forest state, that he may have fuel at hand. In defect of coal, Canada abounds in other minerals. The finest iron is to be found in the Lower Province. Lead, copper, and zinc are found abundantly on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Silver and gold are native minerals, though they have not yet been discovered so plentifully as in Nova Scotia. Agate, jasper, and the most beautiful marbles exist in great quantity. Petroleum or mineral oil has been extensively found lately, and has taken an important place as an article of commerce. Pears are, however, entertained that the supply may not be lasting. I may remark that it is not dear whether the origin of this oil is mineral or vegetable, but certainly coal-oil is a misnomer. The time will come when the wealth of Canada in these different directions will be developed; at present the main industry of its inhabitants is turned to more palpable sources. Besides fishing, which occupies a good many in the Lower Province, the main elements of its labour lie in lumbering and agriculture. Lumbering, which is the term applied to cutting and rough - hewing the trees, employs many thousands of hardy labourers. In the forests of the Saguenay, the Ottawa, and other branches of the St. Lawrence, these men are plying the axe and navigating their rafts down the rivers, acting as the pioneers of the farmer, and often turning round and converting their own axe into the plough.

Some of the most thriving men in Canada have risen from this employment. Many more are indirectly dependent on it, and mechanical ingenuity in beautiful applications is seen in the saw-mills, lath, window, and door-frame manufactories of Ottawa and other towns. Immense quantities of oak, pine, walnut, maple, and other timbers are continually floating down to Montreal and Quebec, to cross the ocean, chiefly to Great Britain.

As regards the agricultural resources of Canada, it may be said that the soil, like the climate, gradually improves as it proceeds westward. Lower Canada would please most the lover of the picturesque, with its ranges of mountains, its pine-embosomed lakes, and resounding cataracts ; but Upper Canada would delight the eye of the farmer. While excellent land is to be found in the neighbourhood of Montreal and Ottawa, it is to the western region, specially to the peninsula between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, that the agriculturist by a sure instinct has been pressing, and now the settled districts are climbing up the side of Lake Huron, and looking with a wistful eye beyond Lake Superior to the far Bed Paver. That Canada is a good land for the farmer, and that the soil in many parts is equal to any in the States, I have never heard questioned. The part of Western Canada to which I have more especially referred is probably superior to any found in the States under the same latitude. The only objections I have ever heard made are to the restrictions with which the sale of land is hampered. It has in many cases got into the hands of speculators, who maintain it at an undue premium, but means are being taken to abate this evil and to open up fresh lands. A large quantity of most excellent soil has lately been made available in the Manitoulin Islands in Lake Huron, by a treaty entered into with the Indians. The best proof of the thriving condition of the farming interest in Canada is found by a short residence in any of the hospitable farmhouses that stud the country. There is a profusion existing in the use of bread, animal food, poultry, preserves, which in the old country would be deemed extravagance. It may be thought that this very profusion argues the want of a good market for the produce, and to some extent there is truth in this, but to a greater extent it arises from that style of good living that has become almost universal in the land. The Canadian farmer has a market that is constantly improving, and that is at this moment better than that of most of the Western States, owing to his proximity to the lakes and the St. Lawrence. I can imagine few more comfortably-placed men than a right - minded farmer who has settled down on Canadian soil, with his lane) cleared from wood and pecuniary encumbrance. I can speak from experience, having spent some time with such an one. Beef, mutton, and pork his own farmyard supplies him with in all abundance. Turkeys and poultry of every kind seem to have a peculiar habit of thriving, for their number is legion. Bread of the finest is baked in his own house, from his own flour, and it never appears without its friend the butter-pot. Apples, plums, and cherries from his orchard come up in open form, and in all sorts of disguises. Corn-cakes, maize-puddings, and other products of Yankee ingenuity, sent across the border, come in as interludes. The fanner is hard enough wrought in summer, but in winter he has his time for recreation, friendly intercourse, and reading. For this last there is good opportunity in the plentiful issues of standard books in Canada and the States, and it is a feature of the country that there are few houses in which comfort is at all found that have not their own little library and their weekly, if not daily, newspaper. What the hazy Arcadia sung by the pastoral poets may have been, it is hard to say, but, in any case, it was less rational and pleasurable than the home of an honest Canadian farmer, above all when Christian principle enters it, as I hope it does in not a few cases; and, when the evening shutters are closed, and the wind is heard swaying the pines without, and the log crackles in the clear frost in the fireplace, in addition to the general warmth of the diffusive stove, I think that Cowper’s picture of a happy winter evening is realized.

Wheat is the great staple of the Canadian soil, but the Upper Province is more adapted to it than the Lower. The heat of the summer gives an opportunity for cultivating many of the crops and fruits that belong to the southern countries of Europe, such as maize and buckwheat, the grape and peach. The fruit of which Canada, however, is entitled most to boast is its apple, which attains here a size and flavour not surpassed in any country.

There is room in Canada to almost any extent for farmers and farm-labourers, who are willing to submit to some hardship at first, and to rough labour in the wood and field fur the sake of growing independence and comfort in coming years. For those engaged in mercantile life the room is by no means so large, and can only increase as the cities extend to meet the wants of the rural population. For mechanics and handicraftsmen there is more room than for the last-mentioned, especially if they can adapt themselves to new exigencies. What is wanted in this country is not a man who is a mere part of a machine, but one who can stand and walk and work alone. Capital also would be a great benefit to the country if lent out at a moderate rate of interest, ten and twelve per cent, being a very common rate paid by farmers on the security of their own lands. As to the literary professions, Canada is making very creditable efforts to raise them for itself. Its universities and colleges are sending out lawyers, doctors, teachers, and ministers of all the leading denominations. Still, in a country where material industry presents more than usual inducements, the different professions are more likely to want candidates, and I believe that not a little of the superfluous mind of the old country might find space for exercise here. Of the want of Christian ministers I hope to say more again, and shall only remark now that a minister, if at all acceptable and industrious, will not fail to find his sphere and fitting support in Canada. He must, however, be a man who, like the farmer, must often be ready to rough it, to preach at first in very plain edifices, and sleep in homely lodgings; a man of common sense, who can make allowance for a new country; a man of a contented temper, not over-fond of ease and dainties; and, above all, one who has his heart in his Master’s work. Canada could yet take many such to keep abreast of the advancing tide of its population, and though I am free to confess that in many places there is a very inadequate idea of ministerial support, yet there is progress being made in this as in other things, and the Gospel will call forth its response here as elsewhere, and prove the labourer to be worthy of his hire. It is to be considered that a sound state of public sentiment in political and still more in religious matters is of slow growth, that the people of Canada are drawn, not only from all parts of the British Empire, but from all parts of Europe, and that most of them have been accustomed to the State Church principle, which incapacitates them for a length of time for the support and management of their own religious ordinances. Let us be considerate and hopeful, and, instead of wondering that there are instances of coldness and parsimoniousness in the churches of Canada, we shall be surprised that there are not more.

I am now brought naturally to say something on the population of Canada and its component elements, as this question bears very much upon the present state of parties in it, and on its future prospects. In 1783 it was estimated that it contained 130,000 inhabitants, 10,000 of these being United Empire Loyalists, the rest Canadian French. There are now nearly as many in the eity of Montreal alone. In 1812 Lower Canada contained 200,000, and Upper Canada 80,000. In 1851 Upper Canada contained 952,004, Lower Canada 890,201. In 1861 Upper Canada contained 1,39G,091, Lower Canada 1,110,664, —total population two millions and a half.1 The population of Lower Canada, which consists chiefly of the French element, has thus been gradually falling behind in the race, and there is every prospect that it will continue to do so, as the stream of emigration passes it 011 to the 'Western province. It must be admitted, however, that the last census showed a greater increase of the French population than had been expected. As to religion, the population by last census, 1861, may be divided as follows:—Roman Catholics, 1,200,863; Protestants, 1,305,890, so that they are not far from being equally balanced, the great proportion of the Pioman Catholics being found, of course, in the Lower Province, though the Irish give a considerable admixture of the same persuasion in the Upper Province. The Protestants, again, are divided as follows:—Episcopalians, 374,887; Methodists, 372,154; Presbyterians, 346,991; Baptists, 69,310; Congregationalists, 14,284; other denominations of all kinds, 128,264. It will be observed here that the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians are nearly equal. The two last have probably a greater number of real adherents than the Episcopalians, as the non - church - going class in the country generally writes itself down Church of England. The Methodists are divided into a considerable number of sects, the Presbyterians into two—the party adhering to the Church of Scotland and the Canada Presbyterian Church, the last composed of the Eree Church and United Presbyterians.

The politics of Canada take their shape and colour very much from the divisions of race and religion above enumerated, and must long continue to be influenced by them. The business of Parliament is conducted in both languages, and every Ministry must try carefully to balance itself upon members drawn equally from the French and English element. At present, the Lower Province, notwithstanding its inferiority in population, sends by the constitution as many members to the legislature as the Upper Province, and by its power of voting as a unit, through the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy, it manages generally to carry its own measures. The Canadians of the West complain that though they are a majority of the population, and raise two-thirds of the revenue, their interests are continually sacrificed, and the public money squandered on objects that do not concern them. The money that should open up postal communication with the Red River Settlement, and that should give Canadians an entrance to the agriculture and commerce of a great country westward, is now being spent in schemes of Roman Catholic colonization in the Lower Province, and in making roads to begging settlements of Trappist monks. They complain, moreover, that the Roman Catholics have possessed themselves of the national education of the Lower Province so as to make it thoroughly sectarian and intolerant, and that, by the aid of High Church Episcopalians and others, they are striving to break down the national system in the Upper Province and make it the spoil of plundering sects. They urge that the present constitution gives the unprogressive and bigoted part of the nation the power of hanging like a drag upon all movements toward improvement, because that improvement would interfere with their own selfish interests. For this reason, their watchword at present is ‘ representation by population;’ that is, such a change in the constitution as would give the Upper Province a number of members proportioned to its inhabitants. The Lower Province—at least the French Canadian part of it— complains again that the French language and race are unduly depressed, and have not the share in Government situations which proportionally belongs to them. In regard to representation, they say that the principle of equality in membership was adopted when Lower Canada had a larger population than the Upper Province, and it is unfair to alter it now. It was this question of race and religion that gave such importance to the settlement of the seat of government, and it is causing at present a keen debate on a fragment of the same question. Before Ottawa was fixed on as the capital, the custom was for Parliament to meet four years alternately in Quebec and Toronto. The four years in Quebec are just expiring, and, as the buildings in Ottawa cannot be ready for two or three years to come, the discussion is as to where Parliament shall meet meanwhile. The press of Lower Canada contends that it is a waste of public money to remove all the governmental apparatus from Quebec for so short an interval; and the press of the Upper Province rings with the injustice of such an objection, and insists on its share of influence, however brief may be the time. It is evident that this is the great internal difficulty of Canada. Every nation must have its own, that none may become too arrogant. Russia has its serfdom, Italy its popedom, Germany its impracticable princedom, France its smouldering fires of revolution, Britain had old and now it has young Ireland, the States have slavery and disunion, and Canada has its antagonistic races and religions. IIow the question may be solved it is hard to conjecture; prophecy was always difficult, and it is harder now than ever, the turns are so rapid and so strange. Who would have said, three years ago, that the great American Union would have in so short a time stained its map with so many battlefields, and that a decree would issue from the President declaring slavery null in so many slave States ? Politics march with the giant steps of mechanical science. One thing seems to me more clear than I formerly saw it to be, that some connection with the mother-country is most important, if not indispensable to Canada for a length of time. Without it, there would be no moderating element in its politics, and Canada would break in sunder at the Ottawa. The influence from Britain, though not controlling in any way the Canadian freedom of action, has a happy effect in tempering animosities, and in coming in as an impartial arbiter with admitted authority. This has been felt already in the settlement of the seat of Government directly, and its indirect operation is of even more importance. The presence of the Governor-General, as the representative of the Queen and the head of the Executive, saves Canada from the periodical convulsions of a presidential election, that have done so much to demoralize the politics of the neighbouring republic, and to create the animosity that has culminated in civil war. A change of Ministers whenever popular opinion demands it is more conducive to good feeling and order, not to speak of freedom, than a battle every four years for a policy that may go on rigidly in the line of the victorious party, whatever alterations may meanwhile take place before that President can be constitutionally unseated. In the British Constitution we have the great advantage of a fixed point, in the Sovereign belonging to no party in the State, while the popular feeling can make itself felt at any time in a change of the Ministry. The President of the United States, on the other hand, is chosen by a party, and must continue to act for his term of office in the line of its policy, else he is unfaithful to those who elected him. Whatever changes may occur in the popular mind during the four years of his presidency, he cannot be displaced save by a revolution. It resembles a vessel that would have its helm tied to one point of the compass for a certain fixed number of days, and that cannot change it whatever wind may blow. The danger of the system is illustrated at this very crisis. The present President was put in to represent the Republican party, and is in the midst of his term of office. Meanwhile the Democratic party has recruited its forces, and gained the recent elections in all the great central States, yet it cannot control the presidential action. If it were strong enough, and not very scrupulous, the effect would be the overthrow of the President by violence. The tendency of the whole system of presidential elections is to provoke a spirit of animosity, which has been for years becoming more intense, and is rendered doubly so by the fact that, when a new party comes into office, all the adherents of the previous party are turned out of their situations down to postmasters and tide-waiters. From this we are happily free in Britain, and Canada partakes of the advantage through the connection with the mother-country. There are some writers who have compared Canada disadvantageously with the States from the greater amount of energy and progress manifested in the latter. They compare the growth of towns on the States frontier with that of those along the Canadian line, and, finding it on the whole inferior, they characterize the Canadians as lethargic, and account for it by their want of entire self-government. The most recent of these writers is Trollope, the author of A Visit to America during last year. But the want of entire self-government (if we can so speak of it, where the self-government is as perfect as in the States itself) has not prevented Australia and New Zealand from making a progress that is unprecedented. "Why should a similar connection with the mother-country retard Canada? Moreover, it is unfair to compare the frontier towns of a country like the States, which has a far larger population, with those of Canada, comparatively sparsely peopled. The frontier towns are like doors to a house, and will correspond to the population that uses them for ingress and egress. The cities can only be in proportion to the people behind them in the rural districts. But take the cities of Canada, and let allowance be made for the difference in the general population, and in soil, climate, and other circumstances, and it will be seen that their progress equals, if it does not exceed, that of the States contiguous to them. That the connection with the mother-country is any drawback to their material progress is not the opinion of the Canadians themselves. If the connection with Britain is necessary as a balancing power within Canada, it is not less so to secure its independence without. There are two separate dangers. The one is that, if British sovereignty were withdrawn, the French Canadians would be ready to establish a connection with France, with which they have the strong bond of race and religion. They would thus interpose between the Upper Canadians and the sea, and cut them off from the natural alliance which must connect them more and more with their brethren of the Lower Provinces in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Even as it is, and comparing as they may their own freedom with the despotism that reigns in France, the predilection of nationality is ever and again breaking out. While British connection continues, it is harmless; but let it cease, and there might be either an alliance with France, or such a threat of it as would enable them constantly to perplex and concuss the British portion of the population. This certainly would be a great misfortune in every point of view, both for the material interests of the country and for the progress of civil and religious liberty. This last is, here as in Europe, bound up with the predominance of British over French ideas. The other danger to the independence of Canada lies in the proximity of the United States, with the proved disposition of its democracy to extend the limits of its dominion. Whatever may be the result of the present war, the States would be much too powerful for Canada to resist alone, and, whether we have a restored or a curtailed Union, the expressed mind of the people of the North has been for the incorporation of Canada. One grand North American empire seems a favourite idea with a portion of the American statesmen, and floats as a darling dream before the mind of the mass of the people. It is the direct result of the Monroe doe-trine, the heart of which is the sovereignty of the United States on this continent. That this dream, if carried out, would be fraught with great evil to freedom and to the best interests of man in this part of the world, I sincerely believe. Unbroken dominion, either in the Old World or the New, as long as man remains the being he is, must be disastrous in its issue, whether it be lodged in a single despot or in a democracy. "When the ancient Roman republic embraced the known world, it began rapidly to decline; and the balance of states in modern Europe, with all the dangers of war which it brings, yet maintains a healthy emulation in the national spirit of each, and affords a refuge in one, when individual liberty is assailed in another. If the United States could establish their dominion over the entire North American continent, it would ere long be to the sore detriment of personal freedom among themselves. Even as it is, the tendency of the majority is to curtail the rights and free speech of a minority that differs strongly from them, and there would be less limit to this than there now is, if Canada were incorporated with the States. It is not long since it was the only place on the Northern continent where the hunted slave felt himself safe, and at present it affords a shelter both to the refugees of the South and to the fugitives from the Northern military conscription. It may be natural enough for a dominant majority to fret at this cheek to the full rigour of its measures, but it is fur it to consider that the time may not be long when a change of numbers may make it as thankful to have a neutral frontier near it. These considerations receive greater force when we reflect that, as dominion extends, there must be a corresponding growth in centralizing power to give it cohesion. We can sec the consequences of a want of this in the present crisis, and if in any way it were surmounted, and a still wider empire aimed at, centralization, as it has not yet been witnessed in the New "World, would be the natural consequence. As we have a regard, then, to the best interests of the United States themselves, and to the growth of true freedom and civilization in North America, we cannot desire that Canada should be added to their already vast territory. For Canada itself this is, of course, still less desirable. It would be burdened with the share of a huge debt which it did not help to contract, and would be cut off indefinitely from the hope of adopting those principles of free trade which would peculiarly promote its prosperity, and which are growing in the estimation of its most intelligent citizens. It would be dragged into the turmoil of conflicts from which it instinctively shrinks back, and be bound up in political associations with which it has no sympathy. Canada has already its own national recollections, and is beginning to manifest its own distinct national life, a life which many more than Canadians believe to be both politically and socially more healthy than that of the States, as it is certainly more closely allied to the tone of thinking that prevails in the mother-country. It is for the profit and happiness of Canada that this life should be allowed to develop itself freely and fully. We may then expect from it its own distinct and not unworthy contribution to the varied forms of modern civilization. That the preservation of a separate national existence is the wish of the Canadian people themselves cannot at all be doubted. They have exerted themselves at various periods of their history to repel invasions from the States. In 1837, when they had just causes for dissatisfaction, it was a very small minority that favoured the idea of annexation to the American Union; and the mass of the people, while desiring reform, remained firm in their allegiance to the British Crown. The causes of discontent and the results have long since disappeared, and the attachment to connection with the mother-country is not only sincere, but deep, and in many cases enthusiastic. No one can help coming to this conclusion who consults the utterances of its public men, the language of its press, or the sentiments of the people as heard in common intercourse. The liberal contribution made in all parts of Canada to the distress in Lancashire, and the spirit that accompanied it, show how the heart of all classes beats to the interests of the common empire. A great misconception existed at home, a year ago, when the Canadian Assembly threw out the Militia Bill of the late Ministry. The case is now, however, better understood, for that vote did not turn upon the question of national defence, but on the manner in which the late Ministry sought to carry it out—a manner reckoned by the majority of the country unwarrantably extravagant. The Canadians are willing to the utmost to assist in their own defence, and their desire to do so is shown by the fact that the enrolled and active volunteers are in a considerably greater proportion to the population than in Great Britain. There is a school of politicians that has arisen lately in England, represented by Mr. Goldwin Smith, who hold it to be for the advantage of Britain herself to withdraw7 from all connection with Canada, and leave it to settle its own future arrangements, internal and external, without the shadow of imperial authority or aid. A good deal may be said in favour of this, from the British point of view, and perhaps it is the reaction from the policy of a bygone age that placed undue importance on the possession of colonies, and strained the bond of connection until it broke. "We should be sorry, however, to see the question placed on the ground merely of the material interests of the mother-country. There are other and wider obligations than those that can be measured by revenue and commercial profits. Great Britain has sent forth her children to this colony on the understanding that they would still be under the broad tegis of imperial protection and law, and while they are wishful to keep their part of the engagement, she must be true to hers. Men have struggled and fought and made sacrifices of every kind to remain British subjects here, property lias been invested under the guarantee of her dominion, and such claims cannot be lightly cast aside. A great country, moreover, owes something not only to itself, but to the world. There are surely some designs towards humanity at large, in Providence having given to Britain the position she has among the nations, and having bestowed upon her a constitution that has so long stood the test of time, and that unites so many elements of freedom and stability, of regard to the past, and elastic power of expansion. If we owe sympathy and aid to a country like Italy, struggling to reach our footing, do we not owe something more to a country like Canada, sprung to a great extent from ourselves, and desirous to consolidate those principles it has learned, or rather inherited from us. The true greatness and glory of Britain is to plant and foster such communities, and this heritage will remain to her when her own commercial predominance may long have passed away. Such views may be termed ideal, but they have constantly been those that have filled the hearts of nations when they have been in the highest flush of progress. They have felt that there was a Providence and a world-wide aim in their history, and have sought in their own way, though that way might be mistaken, to carry it out. Let us aim at it in a generous spirit, and for the highest ends,—the progress of civil and religious liberty, and the reign of righteousness and peace among the families of men.

We shall find in this our own lasting profit as a nation, though we may not directly see it or seek it. Our own freedom and peace shall be more established by growing liberty and friendly alliances around, and our commerce shall find opening fields all over the world, not by the advantages it claims, but by those which it offers. It is with nations as with individuals; they prosper best eventually when they act on the largest and most generous rule. Let a nation lose sight of what is called the ideal, and fix its eye only on its own material interests, and we may then fairly conclude that it has lost the chief spring of progress, and is verging to its decline. It is the often maligned ideal in the heart of either a man or a people that preserves from utter corruption, and that makes material progress lasting and beneficial. Notwithstanding the views of the utilitarian school, however, we believe that the mass of the British people will maintain the connection with the colonies, so long as the colonies wish to remain connected with the mother-country, and that the utmost efforts of imperial power would be put forth for their protection, as much as for that of the centre of the Empire itself. This, of course, involves reciprocal duties, and a willingness on the part of the colonies to do their utmost in self-defence, in which we believe they will not be found wanting. It would require too much space to speculate here on the possible future of Canada. It is the question of race that is at present the most perplexing element. The English-speaking population of the Upper Province demands that it be no longer confined to the same number of members in the legislature as the Lower Province, and complains that all its efforts at progress are thwarted by the jealousy of the French Canadians. The French Canadians contend for the equality of representation from the two Provinces as settled by the terms of Union, and watch every movement that might increase the preponderance of the Upper Province. This preponderance, however, is constantly growing, from the fact that the Upper Province is superior in soil and climate, and draws to itself the stream of emigration. Its own limits are now well-nigh occupied, but beyond it to the north-west lies a vast region with almost boundless resources, that might easily be made available for settlers, and that would naturally carry on its communication with Europe through the great highway of the lakes and the St. Lawrence. This region lies beyond Lake Superior in the great valleys of the Tied Liver and the Saskatchewan, reaching onward towards British Columbia. Though lying in a higher latitude than Canada, it is said to be milder in its climate, possessed of a fertile soil, of rich minerals, including coal, iron, gold, and silver, and penetrated by rivers that would form a water-way for its inhabitants toward either the Atlantic or the Pacific. A recent survey affirms that there is room here for twelve States, each as large as Ohio, and for a population of decades of millions. Along this line, too, lies the best route for a great railway across the North American continent, as the Rocky Mountains can be crossed here more easily than at any other part of the chain. The Americans have their eye already on this territory, with the hope of turning its produce down the valley of the Mississippi, and it would be much to be regretted if they were suffered to forestall the Canadians, to whom the soil and the commerce naturally belong. The heart of the Upper Province is set upon opening up this vast and rich North-west Territory, and probably it would be more wise to concentrate its energies upon this object, than to divide them by a struggle at the same time for increased representation. The growth of population that must follow will bring the reform in representation by its own weight, and it will then be so clearly a matter of justice and necessity, that it will not leave in the minds of the French population the grudge of wounded pride. There may follow then the union of all the British Provinces of North America into one great confederation, which may either retain the bond of connection with the parent country, or gracefully drop it by mutual consent, to continue as firmly attached by the ties of a common history and kindred institutions. That the valley of the St. Lawrence is destined to become the home of a great nation seems already indicated by nature and Providence, and the cradles of nations yet unnamed can be seen opening beyond it. To watch over the formation of these, and protect and foster their growth, is one of the greatest works that can be assigned to any people, and to be successful in it must be one of the highest glories. It is a work assigned to Britain. Let us hope that she may do it so unselfishly and so wisely as to win the lasting gratitude of these rising commonwealths, and win for herself the title of ‘Mother of Free and Christian Nations'.

Note.—The union desiderated in the close of the foregoing letter has since been accomplished by ‘The British North American Act, 1867' which provided for the confederation of the whole of British North America, under the name of the Dominion of Canada. The provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united on July 1, 1867; Manitoba followed in 1870, British Columbia in 1871, and Prince Edward Island in 1872. The Canadian Pacific 1 tail way, taking the route Dr. Ker refers to, has now been completed from the Atlantic to the Pacific entirely through British territory. In the projection and execution of this vast undertaking (extending with its connections to fully 5000 miles) Scotsmen have taken a very prominent part,—especially Sir George Stephen, Bart., the president of the company, and Sir Donald Smith, one of the leading directors.