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PREFACE
It is much to be
regretted, by every one who has at heart the promotion of British
prosperity, that the province of New Brunswick should be so little
known in England ; that a colony containing many millions of acres
of excellent land, magnificent rivers, inexhaustible mineral wealth,
and most extensive coal-fields, should be passed over as unheeded as
if it belonged not to the British empire. Even in Parliament the
advantages of emigration to Canada or the United States are
frequently expatiated upon in glowing and persuasive terms, but very
rarely is any notice taken of New Brunswick.
Owing to the diffusion of information, by means of numerous
publications respecting our other northern colonies, the stream of
emigration has been directed that way; so that, though some
thousands who have left their homes in the Old World in search of
new abodes annually find their way to the shores of this our nearest
colony, yet few, and those of the most indigent class only, remain.
In Canada, moreover, where public works have been of late years
carried on, the government and private companies have held out
strong inducement to emigrants by assisting them to procure lands;
while the great public enterprises continually going on in the
United States attract the great majority of the labouring classes,
especially Irish, who eventually become settlers.
In none of our colonies does the agricultural settler find so many
advantages as in New Brunswick. In the counties of Gloucester and
Restigouche, the most northern parts of the province, have been
grown excellent crops of wheat; and scarcely an instance can be
adduced in which the crop of grain of any kind has failed; whilst,
in the production of potatoes and other nutritious roots, New
Brunswick cannot be excelled.
Lord Sydenham, in a letter to Lord John Russell, which accompanied
his Report on Emigration to Upper Canada, observes:— “Give me
yeomen, with a few hundred pounds each, who will buy cleared farms,
not throw themselves into the Bush, and I will ensure them comforts
and independence at the end of a couple of years—pigs, pork, flour,
potatoes, horses to ride, cows to milk, but you must eat all you
produce, for devil a purchaser is to be found: however, the man’s
wants are supplied and those of his family; he has no rent or taxes
to pay, and he ought to be satisfied.”
So said Lord Sydenham of Canada; and all this is true in regard to
New Brunswick, with this essential and striking difference, that in
New Brunswick there is a market, and a man may not only supply his
own wants and those of his family, but actually accumulate money
from the sale of his surplus produce. And, above all, nowhere are
the liberties so dear to Englishmen to be enjoyed in a higher degree
than in this province. It is therefore to be hoped that the time is
not far distant when a spur shall be given to enterprise; when the
tide of emigration, instead of flowing through this magnificent
colony, shall be arrested in its course; when mining and
manufactures shall give employment to thousands of workmen, who,
from the lack of such sources in our own colonies, are forced to
seek them in the United States.
In placing before the public these volumes, the author takes leave
to premise that, favourable as may appear to be the picture which he
draws of New Brunswick, he has no schemes of speculators or
adventurers to second, neither is he biassed by any motive of
personal interest; in one or other of which too many works of this
nature have originated. His main object has been to present facts
and information derived chiefly from his own observation,
particularly of a kind likely to prove useful to persons intending
to settle in the country of which he treats.
Subjects of less important interest have not been omitted; and he
flatters himself that the sportsman in his own chimney-corner in Old
England will be gratified, at least, if not warmed, by his account
of the opportunities afforded in New Brunswick for the display of
skill and dexterity in exercises in which it may never be his lot to
participate.
Information concerning the haunts of game in North America is often
not to be obtained at all, and, if so, often not to be relied on. It
frequently happens, therefore, that, after hard fagging, and great
perseverance, just as the sportsman is obliged to leave the country,
he then, and not till then, discovers their favourite resorts. Many
hints collected from the Indians, from personal experience in the
pursuit of deer and other game, of fish and fishing, and of what is
termed wood-craft, are offered to such sportsmen whom accident,
inclination, or duty may lead to the New World.
If Brother Jonathan should feel rather sore about the sketches of
himself and his hopeful progeny introduced into these volumes, I can
assure him in all sincerity that, if I have nothing extenuated,
still less have I been prompted by the national antipathy too
prevalent on his side of the Atlantic to “set down aught in malice.”
To the kindness of Mr. Perley I am indebted for some particulars
concerning the remnants of the two Indian tribes still resident in
New Brunswick, and for much statistical information; This gentleman
is a descendant of that Isaac Perley who first explored the St. John
: he is the head of all enterprise in the colony, Government
Emigration Agent, and last, but not least, Wun-jeet Sagamore, or
head Chief of the Micmacs.
R. G. A. L.
London, June, 1846.
The favourable
notices bestowed on the first edition of this work, coupled with the
desire to furnish information, however slight, on the state of the
North American Colonies, have induced the Author to offer a Second
Edition to the Public. The Government survey of the line for a
proposed railway from the Atlantic to Quebec, passing across New
Brunswick, and the swelling tide of emigration to that favoured
colony, have had the effect of bringing it prominently forward, and
rendering every species of information in relation to it of great
interest. The Author is anxious to add his mite to the general
stock, and toserve, to the best of his ability, a colony of whose
capabilities and resources he has the highest opinion, and of which
his recollections are most agreeable.
To the sportsman it may not be amiss to mention its having recently
been ascertained that the rivers on the northern side of New
Brunswick, which flow into the Gulf of St. Lawrence abound with
salmon, and offer every facility for fly-fishing, fully equal to
that found in Norway. The best season to pursue this sportin New
Brunswick is from the middle of Julyto the middle of September;
after which there is a succession of snipe, woodcock, and wildfowl
shooting of every description on the coast, until the setting in of
winter compels the birds to migrate to a more southern clime. The
regularity and certainty with which the Cunard steamers now cross
the Atlantic would enable the sportsman to reach this region in
fifteen days from London. He may fish and shoot, ascend the mighty
St. Lawrence, visit the Lakes, look upon "The Thunder of the
Waters," close his autumnal tour with a run through the United
States, visit the principal Atlantic cities, and be at "the meet" at
Kirby Gate.
The far West, too, might be reached by a slight extension of time,
and although the spirit of Davy Crockett exists there still, that
hero would be found to have departed.—He fell gallantly fighting at
the storming of the Alamo, in Mexico, and was found dead within the
walls, with six enemies whom he had slain lying around him.
Innumerable as are the stories arising out of the "Sayings and
Doings" of Davy Crockett, which circulate in the United States, one
which relates to his introduction into society at Washington would
seem worth presenting to the reader. Davy was invited, with other
members of Congress, to dine at the White House with General
Jackson, then President of the United States, and amongst other good
things with which he was regaled on that occasion waschampagne, to
which Crockett was a stranger.
He was told that it was northern cider. Davy imbibed it freely. On
calling for a fresh supply, he was presented with a plate of olives,
ahandful of which, supposing them to be pickles, he grasped, and
commenced munching; disgusted with the flavour, he began spluttering
and spitting them forth, jumped upon his feet, and shouted high over
all the din to General Jackson at the other end of the table, "Gin'ral!
gin'ral! I like your cider —I like your cider, gin'ral! —but curse
your little pickles!" The Author trusts that if the Public find in
these volumes any "cider" which may be totheir fancy, they will, in
consideration, excuse the "little pickles."
R. G. A. L.
London, May, 1847.
Echoes from the Backwoods
Or Sketches from Transatlantic Life by Captain R. G. A. Levinge
(Second Edition) (1847) (pdf) |
