The following is a copy of a letter written by James Laidlaw, then residing where the “Metropolitan” Church of Toronto now stands, to his son William, in Scotland.

James Hogg, known to fame as the “Ettrick Shepherd” and a cousin-german of Laidlaw, forwarded the letter to Christopher North for publication, and it appeared in “Chambers Journal,” in 1819.

The result of the publicity thus given to the letter was a great increase in the tide of Scotch emigration to Canada. James Laidlaw’s voyage to the new world lasted thirteen weeks! But the love of free and fertile land made many brave the sea.

Ettrick, March 3rd, 1820.

Dear Christopher:

I enclose you a very curious letter from a cousin-german of mine. It has given me so much amusement that I thought it would be acceptable to you for publication in the magazine. The writer was a highly respectable shepherd in this country, and as successful as most men in the same degree of life, but for a number of years bygone he talked and read so much about America till he grew perfectly unhappy, and at last when approaching his sixtieth year, actually set off to seek a temporary home and a grave in the New World, but some of his sons had formed attachments at home and refused to accompany him. He was always a singular and highly amusing character, cherishing antiquated and exploded ideas in science, religion and politics. He never was at any school, and what scraps of education he has attained had all been picked up by himself.

JAMES HOGG.

NOTE:—Hogg stipulated that his Cousin’s letter should be printed with all its errors of orthography and syntax untouched, but its curious spelling and lavish use of Capital letters made it such a puzzle to read that in these respects some alterations were made by the Editor.

York, Sept. 19th, 1819.

Dear Robert:—

I write you this to let you know that we are still alive which is a great mercy. We came here on the 25th of April, but as there was no land ready measured we were obliged to take a house for the summer and an acre of garden. We had to stay in it till we get the crop off the garden. When we are ready to go out to our land we have got each of us one hundred acres. Andrew’s is a little off from us. Walter and me had Two hundred acres in one Lot. We had to draw it all by ballot in two hundred acre lots. Andrew and George Bell from Eskdale are in one lot. ' We are mostly all Scotchmen and have got a township to be all together, or what is called a parish in Scotland. They give 60,000 acres for one Township. There are a great many people settling here. Government has bought a large tract of Country from the Indians last year. One end of it was about twelve miles from York and very good land so that people are all going on it, it being so near the capital of the Province. But we were too long in getting our grant and the land was all taken up near the town and we will be fifty miles from York but the land is good for Walter and Andrew has been on it. Andrew has a fine stream of water running through the middle of his Lot but I am afraid that Walter and me will be scarce of water unless we dig a well. We have got eighteen months to do our settling duties in. We have to clear five acres each and put up a house and then we get our deed forever to ourselves and heirs. Robert I will not advise you to come here as I am afraid yon will not like the place so you may take your own will when you did not come along with us. I do not expect ever to see you here. I am very glad that you have got a place for you and your wife. May the good will of Him who dwelt in the bush rest on you and her, and may you be a blessing to one another. If I had thought you would have deserted us I would not have come here. It was my aim to get you all near me made me come, but man's thoughts are but vanity, for I have scattered you far wider, but I cannot help it now. These whom I have are far more contented than I am. Indeed I can do very little for the support of a family for the work here is very heavy. It is no place for an old man like me, though it is a fine country and produces plenty.

Robert, if this comes to you as I suppose it will you may take it over to Wolfhope and let William see it. I have sent one to him by the man that takes letters to Scotland. We have had our health middling well since we came here until six weeks ago, when Walter was taken with the ague. He had it only about two weeks when Andrew took it and he has had it this month but is now getting better but very weak. They have wrought all this summer for people in the town for six shillings a day but did not get their victuals. They have made a good deal of money but we have to pay dear for the house, but we have a good garden that we can live upon and have sold a good deal out of it. A hundred dozen of cucumbers and thirty bushels of potatoes we had. Pease ten feet high, beans twelve feet, some hundreds after one. It has been a very warm summer here, and there is a fine crop of every kind of green and hundreds of people coming from the old Country to eat it. We get the finest of wheat here. Twelve stone of it is twenty-seven shillings. We took fifteen acres of meadow hay to mow and win from one Mr. McGill. It was three dollars the acre, and we made it in three weeks, and he has given us as much Lea Hay for nothing as will winter our cow but we had it to mow to win. He is a very rich man and has befriended me more than all the farmers in Ester, Ettrick, or Yarrow could have done. The money here with merchants and people and trade is as plenty as ever I saw it in any town in Scotland. There is a market here every day for veal and mutton, and people come in from the County with butter and cheese and eggs, potatoes, onions and carrots and melons, squashes and pumpkins with many things unknown in Scotland. The people here speak very good English. There is many of our Scotch words they cannot understand. They live more independent than King George, for if they have been any time here and got a few acres of their farm cleared, they have all plenty to live upon and what they have to sell they get always money for it for bringing it to York. There is a good road goes straight north from York into the County for Fifty miles, and the farm houses almost all two storeys high. Some of them will have as good as twelve cows and four or five horses. They are growing very rich, for they pay no taxes, but just a perfect trifle, and ride in their gig or chaise like lords. We like this place much better than the States. We have got sermons three times every Sabbath. There is a large English Chapel and Methodist Chapel but I do not think the Methodists very sound in their doctrine. They save all infants and suppose that a man may be justified to-day and fall away to-morrow. There are the Baptists and we hear there is no Presbyterian minister in this town as yet. The English minister reads all he says unless it be his clerk crying at the end of every period “Good Lord, deliver us.” If James Hogg could come over and hear the Methodists for one day, it would serve him for cracking about it for one year, for the minister prays as loud as ever he can and the people all down on their knees keep crying “Amen” so that you can scarce hear him and I have seen some of them jumping up as if they would have gone to Heaven, soul and body, through the loft, but their body was a filthy clog to them for they always fell down again. They have their field meetings where some thousands attend and some will be asleep and some falling down under conviction and others eating and drinking. Now Robert if this comes to you write and tell us how you are, and all the news you can think of and whether you think William will come here or not. We have got as much land as will serve us all but neither you nor William will like America first, as everything is new here and people have everything to learn. There are not many carts here, but all waggons with four wheels. I have seen three yoke of oxen to one waggon, and they plough with oxen.

Many of their ploughs have but one stilt and no coulter. The wages are not so good here as formerly as so many people are coming from Britain and Ireland. Tell John Riddle that I have as much Hickory on my farm as will be fishing wands for thousands, and many of them a hundred feet high, and they are no use but to burn, but it is the best of firewood in the world. I shall say no more but wish that the God of Jacob may be your God and may be your Guide for ever and ever is the sincere prayer of your loving father till death.

JAMES LAIDLAW.

Pay your letters to the sea or they will not come to us.