Before Concluding This Chapter, I Shall Endeavour To Give The Reader
A Short Description Of The County Of Hastings, In
Which I have held
the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I
believe, possesses many advantages
As a place of settlement, over
all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should
premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony
should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative
advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally
intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that
when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give,
what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my
conclusion.
The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to
chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views
and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential
individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course,
involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute
loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country.
The circumstances and situation of the United States were less
productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because
settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the
interior. The mighty rivers and lakes of Canada, though productive
of boundless prosperity, operated in the first period of its
settlement, most unfavourably on the growth of the colony, by
throwing open for settlement an extensive inland coast, at that
time unconnected with the ocean by means of canals.
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