It May, Indeed,
Generally Be Regarded As An Act Of Duty Performed At The Expense
Of Personal Enjoyment, And At The Sacrifice Of All Those Local
Attachments Which Stamp The Scenes In Which Our Childhood Grew In
Imperishable Characters Upon The Heart.
Nor is it, until adversity has pressed hard upon the wounded spirit
of the sons and daughters of old, but impoverished, families, that
they can subdue their proud and rebellious feelings, and submit to
make the trial.
This was our case, and our motive for emigrating to one of the
British colonies can be summed up in a few words.
The emigrant's hope of bettering his condition, and securing a
sufficient competence to support his family, to free himself from
the slighting remarks too often hurled at the poor gentleman by the
practical people of the world, which is always galling to a proud
man, but doubly so when he knows that the want of wealth constitues
the sole difference between him and the more favoured offspring of
the same parent stock.
In 1830 the tide of emigration flowed westward, and Canada became
the great landmark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public
newspapers and private letters teemed with the almost fabulous
advantages to be derived from a settlement in this highly favoured
region. Men, who had been doubtful of supporting their families in
comfort at home, thought that they had only to land in Canada to
realize a fortune. The infection became general. Thousands and tens
of thousands from the middle ranks of British society, for the space
of three or four years, landed upon these shores. A large majority
of these emigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their
families: a class perfectly unfitted, by their previous habits and
standing in society, for contending with the stern realities of
emigrant life in the backwoods. A class formed mainly from the
younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only
accustomed to command, but to recieve implicit obedience from the
people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the
woodman's life. Nor will such persons submit cheerfully to the
saucy familiarity of servants, who, republicans at heart, think
themselves quite as good as their employers.
Too many of these brave and honest men took up their grants of wild
land in remote and unfavourable localities, far from churches,
schools, and markets, and fell an easy prey to the land speculators
that swarmed in every rising village on the boarders of civilization.
It was to warn such settlers as these last mentioned, not to take
up grants and pitch their tents in the wilderness, and by so doing
reduce themselves and their families to hopeless poverty, that my
work "Roughing it in the Bush" was written.
I gave the experience of the first seven years we passed in the
woods, attempting to clear a bush farm, as a warning to others, and
the number of persons who have since told me, that my book "told the
history" of their own life in the woods, ought to be the best proof
to every candid mind that I spoke the truth.
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