The Choice Of The Country To Which They Devote Their Talents And
Energies Depends Less Upon Their Pecuniary Means Than Upon The
Fancy Of The Emigrant Or The Popularity Of A Name.
From the year
1826 to 1829, Australia and the Swan River were all the rage.
No
other portions of the habitable globe were deemed worthy of notice.
These were the El Dorados and lands of Goshen to which all
respectable emigrants eagerly flocked. Disappointment, as a matter
of course, followed their high-raised expectations. Many of the
most sanguine of these adventurers returned to their native shores
in a worse condition than when they left them. In 1830, the great
tide of emigration flowed westward. Canada became the great
land-mark for the rich in hope and poor in purse. Public newspapers
and private letters teemed with the unheard-of advantages to be
derived from a settlement in this highly-favoured region.
Its salubrious climate, its fertile soil, commercial advantages,
great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and
last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation - that
bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant
ferment - were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all
praise. The general interest, once excited, was industriously
kept alive by pamphlets, published by interested parties, which
prominently set forth all the good to be derived from a settlement
in the Backwoods of Canada; while they carefully concealed the toil
and hardship to be endured in order to secure these advantages.
They told of lands yielding forty bushels to the acre, but they
said nothing of the years when these lands, with the most careful
cultivation, would barely return fifteen; when rust and smut,
engendered by the vicinity of damp over-hanging woods, would blast
the fruits of the poor emigrant's labour, and almost deprive him
of bread.
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