← catalogue

North America — Volume 1

by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #1865 · 807,226 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of North America — Volume 1
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: North America — Volume 1

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: August 1, 1999 [eBook #1865]
                Most recently updated: February 17, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1865

Credits: E-text prepared by Donald Lainson and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTH AMERICA — VOLUME 1 ***


E-text prepared by Donald Lainson
and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.



Editorial note:

      Anthony Trollope travelled through the United States from
      August, 1861, to May, 1862, visiting all the states that
      did not secede except California. This book is partly a
      journal of his travels and partly his description of American
      customs and culture including industry, education, government,
      military affairs, religion, transportation, and even
      hotels. To an American of today it provides a revealing and
      fascinating picture of life at the time.

      The book was first published in two volumes by Chapman & Hall
      in 1862.

      Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work.
      Volume II: see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1866





NORTH AMERICA

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

In Two Volumes

VOL. I




CONTENTS


       I. INTRODUCTION.
      II. NEWPORT--RHODE ISLAND.
     III. MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND VERMONT.
      IV. LOWER CANADA.
       V. UPPER CANADA.
      VI. THE CONNEXION OF THE CANADAS WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
     VII. NIAGARA.
    VIII. NORTH AND WEST.
      IX. FROM NIAGARA TO THE MISSISSIPPI.
       X. THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.
      XI. CERES AMERICANA.
     XII. BUFFALO TO NEW YORK.
    XIII. AN APOLOGY FOR THE WAR.
     XIV. NEW YORK.
      XV. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
     XVI. BOSTON.
    XVII. CAMBRIDGE AND LOWELL.
   XVIII. THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
     XIX. EDUCATION AND RELIGION.
      XX. FROM BOSTON TO WASHINGTON.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.


It has been the ambition of my literary life to write a book about
the United States, and I had made up my mind to visit the country
with this object before the intestine troubles of the United States
Government had commenced. I have not allowed the division among
the States and the breaking out of civil war to interfere with my
intention; but I should not purposely have chosen this period either
for my book or for my visit. I say so much, in order that it may not
be supposed that it is my special purpose to write an account of the
struggle as far as it has yet been carried. My wish is to describe as
well as I can the present social and political state of the country.
This I should have attempted, with more personal satisfaction in the
work, had there been no disruption between the North and South; but I
have not allowed that disruption to deter me from an object which, if
it were delayed, might probably never be carried out. I am therefore
forced to take the subject in its present condition, and being so
forced I must write of the war, of the causes which have led to it,
and of its probable termination. But I wish it to be understood that
it was not my selected task to do so, and is not now my primary
object.

Thirty years ago my mother wrote a book about the Americans, to which
I believe I may allude as a well known and successful work without
being guilty of any undue family conceit. That was essentially a
woman's book. She saw with a woman's keen eye, and described with a
woman's light but graphic pen, the social defects and absurdities
which our near relatives had adopted into their domestic life.
All that she told was worth the telling, and the telling, if done
successfully, was sure to produce a good result. I am satisfied that
it did so. But she did not regard it as a part of her work to dilate
on the nature and operation of those political arrangements which had
produced the social absurdities which she saw, or to explain that
though such absurdities were the natural result of those arrangements
in their newness, the defects would certainly pass away, while the
political arrangements, if good, would remain. Such a work is fitter
for a man than for a woman. I am very far from thinking that it is
a task which I can perform with satisfaction either to myself or to
others. It is a work which some man will do who has earned a right
by education, study, and success to rank himself among the political
sages of his age. But I may perhaps be able to add something to the
familiarity of Englishmen with Americans. The writings which have
been most popular in England on the subject of the United States have
hitherto dealt chiefly with social details; and though in most cases
true and useful, have created laughter on one side of the Atlantic,
and soreness on the other. If I could do anything to mitigate the
soreness, if I could in any small degree add to the good feeling
which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other
so well, and which do hang upon each other so constantly, I should
think that I had cause to be proud of my work.

But it is very hard to write about any country a book that does
not represent the country described in a more or less ridiculous
point of view. It is hard at least to do so in such a book
as I must write. A De Tocqueville may do it. It may be done
by any philosophico-political or politico-statistical, or
statistico-scientific writer; but it can hardly be done by a man who
professes to use a light pen, and to manufacture his article for the
use of general readers. Such a writer may tell all that he sees of
the beautiful; but he must also tell, if not all that he sees of the
ludicrous, at any rate the most piquant part of it. How to do this
without being offensive is the problem which a man with such a task
before him has to solve. His first duty is owed to his readers, and
consists mainly in this: that he shall tell the truth, and shall
so tell that truth that what he has written may be readable. But
a second duty is due to those of whom he writes; and he does not
perform that duty well if he gives offence to those, as to whom, on
the summing up of the whole evidence for and against them in his own
mind, he intends to give a favourable verdict. There are of course
those against whom a writer does not intend to give a favourable
verdict;--people and places whom he desires to describe, on the peril
of his own judgment, as bad, ill-educated, ugly, and odious. In such
cases his course is straightforward enough. His judgment may be
in great peril, but his volume or chapter will be easily written.
Ridicule and censure run glibly from the pen, and form themselves
into sharp paragraphs which are pleasant to the reader. Whereas
eulogy is commonly dull, and too frequently sounds as though it were
false. There is much difficulty in expressing a verdict which is
intended to be favourable; but which, though favourable, shall not be
falsely eulogistic; and though true, not offensive.

Who has ever travelled in foreign countries without meeting excellent
stories against the citizens of such countries? And how few can
travel without hearing such stories against themselves? It is
impossible for me to avoid telling of a very excellent gentleman whom
I met before I had been in the United States a week, and who asked me
whether lords in England ever spoke to men who were not lords. Nor
can I omit the opening address of another gentleman to my wife. "You
like our institutions, ma'am?" "Yes, indeed," said my wife,--not with
all that eagerness of assent which the occasion perhaps required.
"Ah," said he, "I never yet met the down-trodden subject of a despot
who did not hug his chains." The first gentleman was certainly
somewhat ignorant of our customs, and the second was rather abrupt in
his condemnation of the political principles of a person whom he only
first saw at that moment. It comes to me in the way of my trade to
repeat such incidents; but I can tell stories which are quite as good
against Englishmen. As for instance, when I was tapped on the back in
one of the galleries of Florence by a countryman of mine, and asked
to show him where stood the medical Venus. Nor is anything that one
can say of the inconveniences attendant upon travel in the United
States to be beaten by what foreigners might truly say of us. I shall
never forget the look of a Frenchman whom I found on a wet afternoon
in the best inn of a provincial town in the west of England. He was
seated on a horsehair-covered chair in the middle of a small dingy
ill-furnished private sitting-room. No eloquence of mine could make
intelligible to a Frenchman or an American the utter desolation of
such an apartment. The world as then seen by that Frenchman offered
him solace of no description. The air without was heavy, dull, and
thick. The street beyond the window was dark and narrow. The room
contained mahogany chairs covered with horsehair, a mahogany table
ricketty in its legs, and a mahogany sideboard ornamented with
inverted glasses and old cruet-stands. The Frenchman had come
to the house for shelter and food, and had been asked whether
he was commercial. Whereupon he shook his head. "Did he want a
sitting-room?" Yes, he did. "He was a leetle tired and vanted to
seet." Whereupon he was presumed to have ordered a private room,
and was shown up to the Eden I have described. I found him there at
death's door. Nothing that I can say with reference to the social
habits of the Americans can tell more against them than the story of
that Frenchman's fate tells against those of our country.

From which remarks I would wish to be understood as deprecating
offence from my American friends, if in the course of my book should
be found aught which may seem to argue against the excellence of
their institutions, and the grace of their social life. Of this at
any rate I can assure them in sober earnestness that I admire what
they have done in the world and for the world with a true and hearty
admiration; and that whether or no all their institutions be at
present excellent, and their social life all graceful, my wishes are
that they should be so, and my convictions are that that improvement
will come for which there may perhaps even yet be some little room.

And now touching this war which had broken out between the North and
South before I left England. I would wish to explain what my feelings
were; or rather what I believe the general feelings of England to
have been, before I found myself among the people by whom it was
being waged. It is very difficult for the people of any one nation to
realize the political relations of another, and to chew the cud and
digest the bearings of those external politics. But it is unjust in
the one to decide upon the political aspirations and doings of that
other without such understanding. Constantly as the name of France
is in our mouth, comparatively few Englishmen understand the way
in which France is governed;--that is, how far absolute despotism
prevails, and how far the power of the one ruler is tempered, or, as
it may be, hampered by the voices and influence of others. And as
regards England, how seldom is it that in common society a foreigner
is met who comprehends the nature of her political arrangements! To
a Frenchman,--I do not of course include great men who have made the
subject a study,--but to the ordinary intelligent Frenchman the thing
is altogether incomprehensible. Language, it may be said, has much
to do with that. But an American speaks English; and how often is an
American met, who has combined in his mind the idea of a monarch, so
called, with that of a republic, properly so named;--a combination of
ideas which I take to be necessary to the understanding of English
politics? The gentleman who scorned my wife for hugging her chains
had certainly not done so, and yet he conceived that he had studied
the subject. The matter is one most difficult of comprehension.
How many Englishmen have failed to understand accurately their own
constitution, or the true bearing of their own politics! But when
this knowledge has been attained, it has generally been filtered into
the mind slowly, and has come from the unconscious study of many
years. An Englishman handles a newspaper for a quarter of an hour
daily, and daily exchanges some few words in politics with those
around him, till drop by drop the pleasant springs of his liberty
creep into his mind and water his heart; and thus, earlier or later
in life according to the nature of his intelligence, he understands
why it is that he is at all points a free man. But if this be so of
our own politics; if it be so rare a thing to find a foreigner who
understands them in all their niceties, why is it that we are so
confident in our remarks on all the niceties of those of other
nations?

I hope that I may not be misunderstood as saying that we should not
discuss foreign politics in our press, our parliament, our public
meetings, or our private houses. No man could be mad enough to preach
such a doctrine. As regards our Parliament, that is probably the best
British school of foreign politics, seeing that the subject is not
there often taken up by men who are absolutely ignorant, and that
mistakes when made are subject to a correction which is both rough
and ready. The press, though very liable to error, labours hard at
its vocation in teaching foreign politics, and spares no expense
in letting in daylight. If the light let in be sometimes moonshine,
excuse may easily be made. Where so much is attempted, there must
necessarily be some failure. But even the moonshine does good, if it
be not offensive moonshine. What I would deprecate is, that aptness
at reproach which we assume;--the readiness with scorn, the quiet
words of insult, the instant judgment and condemnation with which we
are so inclined to visit, not the great outward acts, but the smaller
inward politics of our neighbours.

And do others spare us, will be the instant reply of all who may read
this. In my counter reply I make bold to place myself and my country
on very high ground, and to say that we, the older and therefore
more experienced people as regards the United States, and the better
governed as regards France, and the stronger as regards all the world
beyond, should not throw mud again even though mud be thrown at us.
I yield the path to a small chimney-sweeper as readily as to a lady;
and forbear from an interchange of courtesies with a Billingsgate
heroine, even though at heart I may have a proud consciousness that
I should not altogether go to the wall in such an encounter.

I left England in August last--August 1861. At that time, and for
some months previous, I think that the general English feeling on
the American question was as follows. "This wide-spread nationality
of the United States, with its enormous territorial possessions and
increasing population, has fallen asunder, torn to pieces by the
weight of its own discordant parts,--as a congregation when its
size has become unwieldy will separate, and reform itself into two
wholesome wholes. It is well that this should be so, for the people
are not homogeneous, as a people should be who are called to live
together as one nation. They have attempted to combine free-soil
sentiments with the practice of slavery, and to make these two
antagonists live together in peace and unity under the same roof;
but, as we have long expected, they have failed. Now has come the
period for separation; and if the people would only see this, and
act in accordance with the circumstances which Providence and the
inevitable hand of the world's ruler has prepared for them, all
would be well. But they will not do this. They will go to war with
each other. The South will make her demands for secession with an
arrogance and instant pressure which exasperates the North; and the
North, forgetting that an equable temper in such matters is the most
powerful of all weapons, will not recognize the strength of its own
position. It allows itself to be exasperated, and goes to war for
that which if regained would only be injurious to it. Thus millions
on millions sterling will be spent. A heavy debt will be incurred;
and the North, which divided from the South might take its place
among the greatest of nations, will throw itself back for half a
century, and perhaps injure the splendour of its ultimate prospects.
If only they would be wise, throw down their arms, and agree to part!
But they will not."

This was, I think, the general opinion when I left England. It would
not, however, be necessary to go back many months to reach the time
when Englishmen were saying how impossible it was that so great a
national power should ignore its own greatness, and destroy its own
power by an internecine separation. But in August last all that had
gone by, and we in England had realized the probability of actual
secession.

To these feelings on the subject may be added another, which was
natural enough though perhaps not noble. "These western cocks have
crowed loudly," we said; "too loudly for the comfort of those who
live after all at no such great distance from them. It is well that
their combs should be clipped. Cocks who crow so very loudly are a
nuisance. It might have gone so far that the clipping would become a
work necessarily to be done from without. But it is ten times better
for all parties that it should be done from within; and as the cocks
are now clipping their own combs, in God's name let them do it
and the whole world will be the quieter." That, I say, was not a
very noble idea; but it was natural enough, and certainly has done
somewhat in mitigating that grief which the horrors of civil war and
the want of cotton have caused to us in England.

Such certainly had been my belief as to the country. I speak here of
my opinion as to the ultimate success of secession and the folly of
the war,--repudiating any concurrence of my own in the ignoble but
natural sentiment alluded to in the last paragraph. I certainly did
think that the Northern States, if wise, would have let the Southern
States go. I had blamed Buchanan as a traitor for allowing the germ
of secession to make any growth;--and as I thought him a traitor
then, so do I think him a traitor now. But I had also blamed Lincoln,
or rather the government of which Mr. Lincoln in this matter is
no more than the exponent, for his efforts to avoid that which is
inevitable. In this I think that I--or as I believe I may say we, we
Englishmen--were wrong. I do not see how the North, treated as it was
and had been, could have submitted to secession without resistance.
We all remember what Shakespere says of the great armies which were
led out to fight for a piece of ground not large enough to cover
the bodies of those who would be slain in the battle; but I do not
remember that Shakespere says that the battle was on this account
necessarily unreasonable. It is the old point of honour, which, till
it had been made absurd by certain changes of circumstances, was
always grand and usually beneficent. These changes of circumstances
have altered the manner in which appeal may be made, but have not
altered the point of honour. Had the Southern States sought to obtain
secession by constitutional means, they might or might not have been
successful; but if successful there would have been no war. I do not
mean to brand all the Southern States with treason, nor do I intend
to say that having secession at heart they could have obtained it
by constitutional means. But I do intend to say that acting as they
did, demanding secession not constitutionally but in opposition to
the constitution, taking upon themselves the right of breaking up a
nationality of which they formed only a part, and doing that without
consent of the other part, opposition from the North and war was an
inevitable consequence.

It is, I think, only necessary to look back to the revolution by
which the United States separated themselves from England to see
this. There is hardly to be met, here and there, an Englishman who
now regrets the loss of the revolted American colonies;--who now
thinks that civilization was retarded and the world injured by that
revolt; who now conceives that England should have expended more
treasure and more lives in the hope of retaining those colonies. It
is agreed that the revolt was a good thing; that those who were then
rebels became patriots by success, and that they deserved well of all
coming ages of mankind. But not the less absolutely necessary was it
that England should endeavour to hold her own. She was as the mother
bird when the young bird will fly alone. She suffered those pangs
which Nature calls upon mothers to endure.

As was the necessity of British opposition to American independence,
so was the necessity of Northern opposition to Southern secession.
I do not say that in other respects the two cases were parallel.
The States separated from us because they would not endure taxation
without representation--in other words because they were old enough
and big enough to go alone. The South is seceding from the North
because the two are not homogeneous. They have different instincts,
different appetites, different morals, and a different culture. It is
well for one man to say that slavery has caused the separation; and
for another to say that slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying
speaks the truth. Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the
great point on which the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has
not caused it, seeing that other points of difference are to be found
in every circumstance and feature of the two people. The North and
the South must ever be dissimilar. In the North labour will always
be honourable, and because honourable successful. In the South
labour has ever been servile,--at least in some sense, and therefore
dishonourable; and because dishonourable has not, to itself, been
successful. In the South, I say, labour ever has been dishonourable;
and I am driven to confess that I have not hitherto seen a sign of
any change in the Creator's fiat on this matter. That labour will be
honourable all the world over, as years advance and the millennium
draws nigh, I for one never doubt.

So much for English opinion about America in August last. And now I
will venture to say a word or two as to American feeling respecting
this English opinion at that period. It will of course be remembered
by all my readers that at the beginning of the war Lord Russell, who
was then in the lower house, declared as Foreign Secretary of State
that England would regard the North and South as belligerents, and
would remain neutral as to both of them. This declaration gave
violent offence to the North, and has been taken as indicating
British sympathy with the cause of the seceders. I am not going
to explain--indeed it would be necessary that I should first
understand--the laws of nations with regard to blockaded ports,
privateering, ships and men and goods contraband of war, and all
those semi-nautical semi-military rules and axioms which it is
necessary that all Attorneys-General and such like should at the
present moment have at their fingers' end. But it must be evident
to the most ignorant in those matters, among which large crowd I
certainly include myself, that it was essentially necessary that Lord
John Russell should at that time declare openly what England intended
to do. It was essential that our seamen should know where they would
be protected and where not, and that the course to be taken by
England should be defined. Reticence in the matter was not within the
power of the British Government. It behoved the Foreign Secretary of
State to declare openly that England intended to side either with one
party or with the other, or else to remain neutral between them.

I had heard this matter discussed by Americans before I left England,
and I have of course heard it discussed very frequently in America.
There can be no doubt that the front of the offence given by England
to the Northern States was this declaration of Lord John Russell's.
But it has been always made evident to me that the sin did not
consist in the fact of England's neutrality,--in the fact of
her regarding the two parties as belligerents,--but in the open
declaration made to the world by a Secretary of State that she did
intend so to regard them. If another proof were wanting, this would
afford another proof of the immense weight attached in America to all
the proceedings and to all the feelings of England on this matter.
The very anger of the North is a compliment paid by the North to
England. But not the less is that anger unreasonable. To those in
America who understand our constitution, it must be evident that our
Government cannot take official measures without a public avowal of
such measures. France can do so. Russia can do so. The Government
of the United States can do so, and could do so even before this
rupture. But the Government of England cannot do so. All men
connected with the Government in England have felt themselves from
time to time more or less hampered by the necessity of publicity.
Our statesmen have been forced to fight their battles with the plan
of their tactics open before their adversaries. But we, in England,
are inclined to believe, that the general result is good, and that
battles so fought and so won will be fought with the honestest blows,
and won with the surest results. Reticence in this matter was not
possible, and Lord John Russell in making the open avowal which gave
such offence to the Northern States only did that which, as a servant
of England, England required him to do.

"What would you in England have thought," a gentleman of much weight
in Boston said to me, "if when you were in trouble in India, we had
openly declared that we regarded your opponents there as belligerents
on equal terms with yourselves?" I was forced to say that, as far as
I could see, there was no analogy between the two cases. In India an
army had mutinied, and that an army composed of a subdued, if not a
servile race. The analogy would have been fairer had it referred to
any sympathy shown by us to insurgent negroes. But, nevertheless,
had the army which mutinied in India been in possession of ports and
sea-board; had they held in their hands vast commercial cities and
great agricultural districts; had they owned ships and been masters
of a wide-spread trade, America could have done nothing better
towards us than have remained neutral in such a conflict, and have
regarded the parties as belligerents. The only question is whether
she would have done so well by us. "But," said my friend in answer
to all this, "we should not have proclaimed to the world that we
regarded you and them as standing on an equal footing." There again
appeared the true gist of the offence. A word from England such as
that spoken by Lord John Russell was of such weight to the South,
that the North could not endure to have it spoken. I did not say to
that gentleman,--but here I may say, that had such circumstances
arisen as those conjectured, and had America spoken such a word,
England would not have felt herself called upon to resent it.

But the fairer analogy lies between Ireland and the Southern States.
The monster meetings and O'Connell's triumphs are not so long gone by
but that many of us can remember the first demand for secession made
by Ireland, and the line which was then taken by American sympathies.
It is not too much to say that America then believed that Ireland
would secure secession, and that the great trust of the Irish
repealers was in the moral aid which she did and would receive from
America. "But our Government proclaimed no sympathy with Ireland,"
said my friend. No. The American Government is not called on to make
such proclamations; nor had Ireland ever taken upon herself the
nature and labours of a belligerent.

That this anger on the part of the North is unreasonable I cannot
doubt. That it is unfortunate, grievous, and very bitter I am quite
sure. But I do not think that it is in any degree surprising. I am
inclined to think that did I belong to Boston as I do belong to
London, I should share in the feeling, and rave as loudly as all men
there have raved against the coldness of England. When men have on
hand such a job of work as the North has now undertaken they are
always guided by their feelings rather than their reason. What two
men ever had a quarrel in which each did not think that all the
world, if just, would espouse his own side of the dispute? The North
feels that it has been more than loyal to the South, and that the
South has taken advantage of that over-loyalty to betray the North.
"We have worked for them, and fought for them, and paid for them,"
says the North. "By our labour we have raised their indolence to a
par with our energy. While we have worked like men, we have allowed
them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our bosom, and now
they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that this is so.
England, above all, must see it, and seeing it should speak out her
true opinion." The North is hot with such thoughts as these, and
one cannot wonder that she should be angry with her friend, when
her friend, with an expression of certain easy good wishes, bids
her fight out her own battles. The North has been unreasonable with
England;--but I believe that every reader of this page would have
been as unreasonable had that reader been born in Massachusetts.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones are the dearly beloved friends of my family. My
wife and I have lived with Mrs. Jones on terms of intimacy which have
been quite endearing. Jones has had the run of my house with perfect
freedom, and in Mrs. Jones' drawing-room I have always had my own
arm-chair, and have been regaled with large breakfast-cups of tea,
quite as though I were at home. But of a sudden Jones and his wife
have fallen out, and there is for a while in Jones' Hall a cat and
dog life that may end--in one hardly dare to surmise what calamity.
Mrs. Jones begs that I will interfere with her husband, and Jones
entreats the good offices of my wife in moderating the hot temper of
his own. But we know better than that. If we interfere, the chances
are that my dear friends will make it up and turn upon us. I grieve
beyond measure in a general way at the temporary break up of the
Jones' Hall happiness. I express general wishes that it may be
temporary. But as for saying which is right or which is wrong,--as
to expressing special sympathy on either side in such a quarrel,--it
is out of the question. "My dear Jones, you must excuse me. Any news
in the City to-day? Sugars have fell; how are teas?" Of course Jones
thinks that I'm a brute; but what can I do?

I have been somewhat surprised to find the trouble that has been
taken by American orators, statesmen, and logicians to prove that
this secession on the part of the South has been revolutionary;--that
is to say, that it has been undertaken and carried on not in
compliance with the constitution of the United States, but in
defiance of it. This has been done over and over again by some of
the greatest men of the North, and has been done most successfully.
But what then? Of course the movement has been revolutionary and
anti-constitutional. Nobody, no single Southerner, can really believe
that the Constitution of the United States as framed in 1787, or
altered since, intended to give to the separate States the power of
seceding as they pleased. It is surely useless going through long
arguments to prove this, seeing that it is absolutely proved by the
absence of any clause giving such licence to the separate States.
Such licence would have been destructive to the very idea of a great
nationality. Where would New England have been as a part of the
United States, if New York, which stretches from the Atlantic to the
borders of Canada, had been endowed with the power of cutting off the
six Northern States from the rest of the Union? No one will for a
moment doubt that the movement was revolutionary, and yet infinite
pains are taken to prove a fact that is patent to every one.

It is revolutionary, but what then? Have the Northern States of
the American Union taken upon themselves in 1861 to proclaim their
opinion that revolution is a sin? Are they going back to the divine
right of any sovereignty? Are they going to tell the world that
a nation or a people is bound to remain in any political status,
because that status is the recognized form of government under which
such a people have lived? Is this to be the doctrine of United
States' citizens,--of all people? And is this the doctrine preached
now, of all times, when the King of Naples and the Italian dukes
have just been dismissed from their thrones with such enchanting
nonchalance, because their people have not chosen to keep them? Of
course the movement is revolutionary; and why not? It is agreed now
among all men and all nations that any people may change its form of
government to any other, if it wills to do so,--and if it can do so.

There are two other points on which these Northern statesmen and
logicians also insist, and these two other points are at any rate
better worth an argument than that which touches the question of
revolution. It being settled that secession on the part of the
Southerners is revolution, it is argued, firstly, that no occasion
for revolution had been given by the North to the South; and,
secondly, that the South has been dishonest in its revolutionary
tactics. Men certainly should not raise a revolution for nothing; and
it may certainly be declared that whatever men do, they should do
honestly.

But in that matter of the cause and ground for revolution, it
is so very easy for either party to put in a plea that shall be
satisfactory to itself! Mr. and Mrs. Jones each had a separate story.
Mr. Jones was sure that the right lay with him: but Mrs. Jones was
no less sure. No doubt the North had done much for the South;--had
earned money for it; had fed it;--and had moreover in a great measure
fostered all its bad habits. It had not only been generous to the
South, but over-indulgent. But also it had continually irritated the
South by meddling with that which the Southerners believed to be a
question absolutely private to themselves. The matter was illustrated
to me by a New Hampshire man who was conversant with black bears. At
the hotels in the New Hampshire mountains it is customary to find
black bears chained to poles. These bears are caught among the hills,
and are thus imprisoned for the amusement of the hotel guests. "Them
Southerners," said my friend, "are jist as one as that 'ere bear. We
feeds him and gives him a house and his belly is ollers full. But
then, jist becase he's a black bear, we're ollers a poking him with
sticks, and a' course the beast is kinder riled. He wants to be back
to the mountains. He wouldn't have his belly filled, but he'd have
his own way. It's jist so with them Southerners."

It is of no use proving to any man or to any nation that they have
got all they should want, if they have not got all that they do want.
If a servant desires to go, it is of no avail to show him that he
has all he can desire in his present place. The Northerners say that
they have given no offence to the Southerners, and that therefore the
South is wrong to raise a revolution. The very fact that the North is
the North, is an offence to the South. As long as Mr. and Mrs. Jones
were one in heart and one in feeling, having the same hopes and the
same joys, it was well that they should remain together. But when it
is proved that they cannot so live without tearing out each other's
eyes, Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the revolutionary institution of
domestic life, interferes and separates them. This is the age of such
separations. I do not wonder that the North should use its logic to
show that it has received cause of offence but given none. But I
do think that such logic is thrown away. The matter is not one for
argument. The South has thought that it can do better without the
North than with it; and if it has the power to separate itself, it
must be conceded that it has the right.

And then as to that question of honesty. Whatever men do they
certainly should do honestly. Speaking broadly one may say that the
rule applies to nations as strongly as to individuals, and should
be observed in politics as accurately as in other matters. We must,
however, confess that men who are scrupulous in their private
dealings do too constantly drop those scruples when they handle
public affairs,--and especially when they handle them at stirring
moments of great national changes. The name of Napoleon III. stands
fair now before Europe, and yet he filched the French empire with a
falsehood. The union of England and Ireland is a successful fact, but
nevertheless it can hardly be said that it was honestly achieved. I
heartily believe that the whole of Texas is improved in every sense
by having been taken from Mexico and added to the Southern States,
but I much doubt whether that annexation was accomplished with
absolute honesty. We all reverence the name of Cavour, but Cavour did
not consent to abandon Nice to France with clean hands. When men have
political ends to gain they regard their opponents as adversaries,
and then that old rule of war is brought to bear, Deceit or
valour,--either may be used against a foe. Would it were not so! The
rascally rule--rascally in reference to all political contests--is
becoming less universal than it was. But it still exists with
sufficient force to be urged as an excuse; and while it does exist it
seems almost needless to show that a certain amount of fraud has been
used by a certain party in a revolution. If the South be ultimately
successful, the fraud of which it may have been guilty will be
condoned by the world.

The Southern or democratic party of the United States had, as all
men know, been in power for many years. Either Southern Presidents
had been elected, or Northern Presidents with Southern politics. The
South for many years had had the disposition of military matters, and
the power of distributing military appliances of all descriptions. It
is now alleged by the North that a conspiracy had long been hatching
in the South with the view of giving to the Southern States the power
of secession whenever they might think fit to secede; and it is
further alleged that President after President for years back has
unduly sent the military treasure of the nation away from the North
down to the South, in order that the South might be prepared when
the day should come. That a President with Southern instincts should
unduly favour the South, that he should strengthen the South, and
feel that arms and ammunition were stored there with better effect
than they could be stored in the North, is very probable. We all
understand what is the bias of a man's mind, and how strong that
bias may become when the man is not especially scrupulous. But I do
not believe that any President previous to Buchanan sent military
materials to the South with the self-acknowledged purpose of using
them against the Union. That Buchanan did so, or knowingly allowed
this to be done, I do believe, and I think that Buchanan was a
traitor to the country whose servant he was and whose pay he
received.

And now, having said so much in the way of introduction, I will begin
my journey.




CHAPTER II.

NEWPORT--RHODE ISLAND.


We--the we consisting of my wife and myself--left Liverpool for
Boston on the 24th August, 1861, in the "Arabia," one of Cunard's
North American mail packets. We had determined that my wife should
return alone at the beginning of winter, when I intended to go to a
part of the country in which, under the existing circumstances of the
war, a lady might not feel herself altogether comfortable. I proposed
staying in America over the winter, and returning in the spring; and
this programme I have carried out with sufficient exactness.

The "Arabia" touched at Halifax; and as the touch extended from 11
A.M. to 6 P.M. we had an opportunity of seeing a good deal of that
colony;--not quite sufficient to justify me at this critical age in
writing a chapter of travels in Nova Scotia, but enough perhaps to
warrant a paragraph. It chanced that a cousin of mine was then in
command of the troops there, so that we saw the fort with all the
honours. A dinner on shore was, I think, a greater treat to us even
than this. We also inspected sundry specimens of the gold which is
now being found for the first time in Nova Scotia,--as to the glory
and probable profits of which the Nova Scotians seemed to be fully
alive. But still, I think, the dinner on shore took rank with us as
the most memorable and meritorious of all that we did and saw at
Halifax. At seven o'clock on the morning but one after that, we were
landed at Boston.

At Boston I found friends ready to receive us with open arms, though
they were friends we had never known before. I own that I felt myself
burdened with much nervous anxiety at my first introduction to men
and women in Boston. I knew what the feeling there was with reference
to England, and I knew also how impossible it is for an Englishman
to hold his tongue and submit to dispraise of England. As for going
among a people whose whole minds were filled with affairs of the
war, and saying nothing about the war,--I knew that no resolution
to such an effect could be carried out. If one could not trust
oneself to speak, one should have stayed at home in England. I will
here state that I always did speak out openly what I thought and
felt, and that though I encountered very strong--sometimes almost
fierce--opposition, I never was subjected to anything that was
personally disagreeable to me.

In September we did not stay above a week in Boston, having been
fairly driven out of it by the mosquitoes. I had been told that I
should find nobody in Boston whom I cared to see, as everybody was
habitually out of town during the heat of the latter summer and early
autumn; but this was not so. The war and attendant turmoils of war
had made the season of vacation shorter than usual, and most of those
for whom I asked were back at their posts. I know no place at which
an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a pleasanter circle of
acquaintance, or find himself with a more clever set of men, than he
can do at Boston. I confess that in this respect I think that but few
towns are at present more fortunately circumstanced than the capital
of the Bay State, as Massachusetts is called, and that very few towns
make a better use of their advantages. Boston has a right to be proud
of what it has done for the world of letters. It is proud; but I have
not found that its pride was carried too far.

Boston is not in itself a fine city, but it is a very pleasant city.
They say that the harbour is very grand and very beautiful. It
certainly is not so fine as that of Portland in a nautical point of
view, and as certainly it is not as beautiful. It is the entrance
from the sea into Boston of which people say so much; but I did not
think it quite worthy of all I had heard. In such matters, however,
much depends on the peculiar light in which scenery is seen. An
evening light is generally the best for all landscapes; and I did not
see the entrance to Boston harbour by an evening light. It was not
the beauty of the harbour of which I thought the most, but of the tea
that had been sunk there, and of all that came of that successful
speculation. Few towns now standing have a right to be more proud of
their antecedents than Boston.

But as I have said, it is not specially interesting to the eye--what
new town, or even what simply adult town, can be so? There is an
Athenæum, and a State Hall, and a fashionable street,--Beacon Street,
very like Piccadilly as it runs along the Green Park,--and there is
the Green Park opposite to this Piccadilly, called Boston Common.
Beacon Street and Boston Common are very pleasant. Excellent houses
there are, and large churches, and enormous hotels; but of such
things as these a man can write nothing that is worth the reading.
The traveller who desires to tell his experience of North America
must write of people rather than of things.

As I have said, I found myself instantly involved in discussions on
American politics, and the bearing of England upon those politics.
"What do you think, you in England--what do you all believe will
be the upshot of this war?" That was the question always asked in
those or other words. "Secession, certainly," I always said, but not
speaking quite with that abruptness. "And you believe, then, that the
South will beat the North?" I explained that I, personally, had never
so thought, and that I did not believe that to be the general idea.
Men's opinions in England, however, were too divided to enable me to
say that there was any prevailing conviction on the matter. My own
impression was, and is, that the North will, in a military point of
view, have the best of the contest,--will beat the South; but that
the Northerners will not prevent secession, let their success be what
it may. Should the North prevail after a two years' conflict, the
North will not admit the South to an equal participation of good
things with themselves, even though each separate rebellious State
should return suppliant, like a prodigal son, kneeling on the floor
of Congress, each with a separate rope of humiliation round its neck.
Such was my idea as expressed then, and I do not know that I have
since had much cause to change it.

"We will never give it up," one gentleman said to me--and, indeed,
many have said the same,--"till the whole territory is again united
from the Bay to the Gulf! It is impossible that we should allow
of two nationalities within those limits." "And do you think it
possible," I asked, "that you should receive back into your bosom
this people which you now hate with so deep a hatred, and receive
them again into your arms as brothers on equal terms? Is it in
accordance with experience that a conquered people should be so
treated--and that, too, a people whose every habit of life is at
variance with the habits of their presumed conquerors? When you have
flogged them into a return of fraternal affection, are they to keep
their slaves or are they to abolish them?" "No," said my friend; "it
may not be practicable to put those rebellious States at once on an
equality with ourselves. For a time they will probably be treated as
the Territories are now treated." (The Territories are vast outlying
districts belonging to the Union, but not as yet endowed with State
governments, or a participation in the United States Congress.) "For
a time they must, perhaps, lose their full privileges; but the Union
will be anxious to readmit them at the earliest possible period."
"And as to the slaves?" I asked again. "Let them emigrate to Liberia:
back to their own country." I could not say that I thought much of
the solution of the difficulty. It would, I suggested, overtask even
the energy of America to send out an emigration of four million
souls, to provide for their wants in a new and uncultivated country,
and to provide after that for the terrible gap made in the labour
market of the Southern States. "The Israelites went back from
bondage," said my friend. But a way was opened for them by a miracle
across the sea, and food was sent to them from heaven, and they had
among them a Moses for a leader and a Joshua to fight their battles.
I could not but express my fear that the days of such immigrations
were over. This plan of sending back the negroes to Africa did not
reach me only from one or from two mouths; and it was suggested by
men whose opinions respecting their country have weight at home and
are entitled to weight abroad. I mention this merely to show how
insurmountable would be the difficulty of preventing secession, let
which side win that may.

"We will never abandon the right to the mouth of the Mississippi."
That in all such arguments is a strong point with men of the Northern
States;--perhaps the point to which they all return with the greatest
firmness. It is that on which Mr. Everett insists in the last
paragraph of the oration which he made in New York on the 4th of
July, 1861. "The Missouri and the Mississippi rivers," he says, "with
their hundred tributaries give to the great central basin of our
continent its character and destiny. The outlet of this system lies
between the States of Tennessee and Missouri, of Mississippi and
Arkansas, and through the State of Louisiana. The ancient province
so called, the proudest monument of the mighty monarch whose
name it bears, passed from the jurisdiction of France to that of
Spain in 1763. Spain coveted it; not that she might fill it with
prosperous colonies and rising States, but that it might stretch
as a broad waste barrier, infested with warlike tribes, between
the Anglo-American power and the silver mines of Mexico. With the
independence of the United States, the fear of a still more dangerous
neighbour grew upon Spain; and in the insane expectation of checking
the progress of the Union westward, she threatened, and at times
attempted, to close the mouth of the Mississippi on the rapidly
increasing trade of the West. The bare suggestion of such a
policy roused the population upon the banks of the Ohio, then
inconsiderable, as one man. Their confidence in Washington scarcely
restrained them from rushing to the seizure of New Orleans, when
the treaty of San Lorenzo El Real, in 1795, stipulated for them a
precarious right of navigating the noble river to the sea, with a
right of deposit at New Orleans. This subject was for years the
turning-point of the politics of the West; and it was perfectly well
understood that, sooner or later, she would be content with nothing
less than the sovereign control of the mighty stream from its
head-spring to its outlet in the Gulf. _And that is as true now as it
was then._"

This is well put. It describes with force the desires, ambition,
and necessities of a great nation, and it tells with historical truth
the story of the success of that nation. It was a great thing done
when the purchase of the whole of Louisiana was completed by the
United States,--that cession by France, however, having been made
at the instance of Napoleon, and not in consequence of any demand
made by the States. The district then called Louisiana included
the present State of that name, and the States of Missouri and
Arkansas;--included also the right to possess, if not the absolute
possession of, all that enormous expanse of country running from
thence back to the Pacific; a huge amount of territory of which the
most fertile portion is watered by the Mississippi and its vast
tributaries. That river and those tributaries are navigable through
the whole centre of the American continent up to Wisconsin and
Minnesota. To the United States the navigation of the Mississippi
was, we may say, indispensable; and to the States when no longer
united the navigation will be equally indispensable. But the days are
gone when any country, such as Spain was, can interfere to stop the
highways of the world with the all but avowed intention of arresting
the progress of civilization. It may be that the North and the South
can never again be friends as the component parts of one nation. Such
I take it is the belief of all politicians in Europe, and of many of
those who live across the water. But as separate nations they may yet
live together in amity, and share between them the great water-ways
which God has given them for their enrichment. The Rhine is free to
Prussia and to Holland. The Danube is not closed against Austria. It
will be said that the Danube has in fact been closed against Austria,
in spite of treaties to the contrary. But the faults of bad and weak
governments are made known as cautions to the world, and not as facts
to copy. The free use of the waters of a common river between two
nations is an affair for treaty; and it has not yet come to that that
treaties must necessarily be null and void through the falseness of
politicians.

"And what will England do for cotton? Is it not the fact that Lord
John Russell with his professed neutrality intends to express
sympathy with the South, intends to pave the way for the advent
of Southern cotton?" "You ought to love us," so say men in Boston,
"because we have been with you in heart and spirit for long,
long years. But your trade has eaten into your souls, and you
love American cotton better than American loyalty and American
fellowship." This I found to be unfair, and in what politest language
I could use I said so. I had not any special knowledge of the minds
of English statesmen on this matter; but I knew as well as Americans
could do what our statesmen had said and done respecting it. That
cotton, if it came from the South, would be made very welcome in
Liverpool, of course, I knew. If private enterprise could bring it,
it might be brought. But the very declaration made by Lord John
Russell was the surest pledge that England as a nation would not
interfere, even to supply her own wants. It may easily be imagined
what eager words all this would bring about; but I never found that
eager words led to feelings which were personally hostile.

All the world has heard of Newport in Rhode Island as being the
Brighton, and Tenby, and Scarborough of New England. And the glory
of Newport is by no means confined to New England, but is shared by
New York and Washington, and in ordinary years by the extreme South.
It is the habit of Americans to go to some watering place every
summer,--that is, to some place either of sea water or of inland
waters. This is done much in England; more in Ireland than in
England; but, I think, more in the States than even in Ireland.
But of all such summer haunts, Newport is supposed to be in many
ways the most captivating. In the first place it is certainly the
most fashionable, and in the next place it is said to be the most
beautiful. We decided on going to Newport,--led thither by the latter
reputation rather than the former. As we were still in the early part
of September we expected to find the place full, but in this we were
disappointed;--disappointed, I say, rather than gratified, although
a crowded house at such a place is certainly a nuisance. But a house
which is prepared to make up six hundred beds, and which is called
on to make up only twenty-five becomes, after a while, somewhat
melancholy. The natural depression of the landlord communicates
itself to his servants, and from the servants it descends to the
twenty-five guests, who wander about the long passages and deserted
balconies like the ghosts of those of the summer visitors, who cannot
rest quietly in their graves at home.

In England we know nothing of hotels prepared for six hundred
visitors, all of whom are expected to live in common. Domestic
architects would be frightened at the dimensions which are needed,
and at the number of apartments which are required to be clustered
under one roof. We went to the Ocean Hotel at Newport, and fancied,
as we first entered the hall under a verandah as high as the house,
and made our way into the passage, that we had been taken to a
well-arranged barrack. "Have you rooms?" I asked, as a man always
does ask on first reaching his inn. "Rooms enough," the clerk
said. "We have only fifty here." But that fifty dwindled down to
twenty-five during the next day or two.

We were a melancholy set, the ladies appearing to be afflicted in
this way worse than the gentlemen, on account of their enforced
abstinence from tobacco. What can twelve ladies do scattered about
a drawing-room, so-called, intended for the accommodation of two
hundred? The drawing-room at the Ocean Hotel, Newport, is not as big
as Westminster Hall, but would, I should think, make a very good
House of Commons for the British nation. Fancy the feelings of a lady
when she walks into such a room intending to spend her evening there,
and finds six or seven other ladies located on various sofas at
terrible distances,--all strangers to her. She has come to Newport
probably to enjoy herself; and as, in accordance with the customs of
the place, she has dined at two, she has nothing before her for the
evening but the society of that huge furnished cavern. Her husband,
if she have one, or her father, or her lover, has probably entered
the room with her. But a man has never the courage to endure such a
position long. He sidles out with some muttered excuse, and seeks
solace with a cigar. The lady, after half an hour of contemplation,
creeps silently near some companion in the desert, and suggests in a
whisper that Newport does not seem to be very full at present.

We stayed there for a week, and were very melancholy; but in our
melancholy we still talked of the war. Americans are said to be given
to bragging, and it is a sin of which I cannot altogether acquit
them. But I have constantly been surprised at hearing the Northern
men speak of their own military achievements with anything but
self-praise. "We've been whipped, sir; and we shall be whipped again
before we've done; uncommon well whipped we shall be." "We began
cowardly, and were afraid to send our own regiments through one of
our own cities." This alluded to a demand that had been made on
the Government, that troops going to Washington should not be sent
through Baltimore, because of the strong feeling for rebellion which
was known to exist in that city. President Lincoln complied with this
request, thinking it well to avoid a collision between the mob and
the soldiers. "We began cowardly, and now we're going on cowardly,
and darn't attack them. Well; when we've been whipped often enough,
then we shall learn the trade." Now all this,--and I heard much of
such a nature,--could not be called boasting. But yet with it all
there was a substratum of confidence. I have heard northern gentlemen
complaining of the President, complaining of all his ministers one
after another, complaining of the contractors who were robbing the
army, of the commanders who did not know how to command the army,
and of the army itself which did not know how to obey; but I do not
remember that I have discussed the matter with any Northerner who
would admit a doubt as to ultimate success.

We were certainly rather melancholy at Newport, and the empty house
may perhaps have given its tone to the discussions on the war.
I confess that I could not stand the drawing-room--the ladies'
drawing-room as such-like rooms are always called at the hotels,--and
that I basely deserted my wife. I could not stand it either here or
elsewhere, and it seemed to me that other husbands,--ay, and even
lovers,--were as hard pressed as myself. I protest that there is no
spot on the earth's surface so dear to me as my own drawing-room,
or rather my wife's drawing-room at home; that I am not a man
given hugely to clubs, but one rather rejoicing in the rustle of
petticoats. I like to have women in the same room with me. But at
these hotels I found myself driven away,--propelled as it were by
some unknown force,--to absent myself from the feminine haunts.
Anything was more palatable than them; even "liquoring up" at a
nasty bar, or smoking in a comfortless reading-room among a deluge
of American newspapers. And I protest also,--hoping as I do so
that I may say much in these volumes to prove the truth of such
protestation,--that this comes from no fault of the American women.
They are as lovely as our own women. Taken generally, they are better
instructed--though perhaps not better educated. They are seldom
troubled with _mauvaise honte_,--I do not say it in irony, but
begging that the words may be taken at their proper meaning. They
can always talk, and very often can talk well. But when assembled
together in these vast, cavernous, would-be luxurious, but in truth
horribly comfortless hotel drawing-rooms,--they are unapproachable.
I have seen lovers, whom I have known to be lovers, unable to remain
five minutes in the same cavern with their beloved ones.

And then the music! There is always a piano in an hotel drawing-room,
on which, of course, some one of the forlorn ladies is generally
employed. I do not suppose that these pianos are in fact, as a
rule, louder and harsher, more violent and less musical, than other
instruments of the kind. They seem to be so, but that, I take it,
arises from the exceptional mental depression of those who have to
listen to them. Then the ladies, or probably some one lady, will
sing, and as she hears her own voice ring and echo through the lofty
corners and round the empty walls, she is surprised at her own force,
and with increased efforts sings louder and still louder. She is
tempted to fancy that she is suddenly gifted with some power of vocal
melody unknown to her before, and filled with the glory of her own
performance shouts till the whole house rings. At such moments she at
least is happy, if no one else is so. Looking at the general sadness
of her position, who can grudge her such happiness?

And then the children,--babies, I should say if I were speaking of
English bairns of their age; but seeing that they are Americans, I
hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these perfectly
civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to four. One
will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner-table of
the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and going
through the ceremony with all the gravity, and more than all the
decorum of their grandfathers. When I was three years old I had not
yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of my own
wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery, and I feel assured
that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as I gobbled up
my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. But at hotel life in
the States the adult infant lisps to the waiter for everything at
table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is choice in his
selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak at breakfast
shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice in his
water. But perhaps his, or in this case her, retreat from the
room when the meal is over, is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the whole
performance. The little precocious, full-blown beauty of four
signifies that she has completed her meal,--or is "through" her
dinner, as she would express it,--by carefully extricating herself
from the napkin which has been tucked around her. Then the waiter,
ever attentive to her movements, draws back the chair on which she is
seated, and the young lady glides to the floor. A little girl in Old
England would scramble down, but little girls in New England never
scramble. Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief
ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she--swims
after them. But swimming is not the proper word. Fishes in making
their way through the water assist, or rather impede, their motion
with no dorsal riggle. No animal taught to move directly by its
Creator adopts a gait so useless, and at the same time so graceless.
Many women, having received their lessons in walking from a less
eligible instructor, do move in this way, and such women this
unfortunate little lady has been instructed to copy. The peculiar
step to which I allude is to be seen often on the Boulevards in
Paris. It is to be seen more often in second rate French towns, and
among fourth rate French women. Of all signs in women betokening
vulgarity, bad taste, and aptitude to bad morals, it is the surest.
And this is the gait of going which American mothers,--some American
mothers I should say,--love to teach their daughters! As a comedy at
an hotel, it is very delightful, but in private life I should object
to it.

To me Newport could never be a place charming by reason of its own
charms. That it is a very pleasant place when it is full of people
and the people are in spirits and happy, I do not doubt. But then the
visitors would bring, as far as I am concerned, the pleasantness with
them. The coast is not fine. To those who know the best portions of
the coast of Wales or Cornwall,--or better still, the western coast
of Ireland, of Clare and Kerry for instance,--it would not be in any
way remarkable. It is by no means equal to Dieppe or Biarritz, and
not to be talked of in the same breath with Spezzia. The hotels, too,
are all built away from the sea; so that one cannot sit and watch the
play of the waves from one's window. Nor are there pleasant rambling
paths down among the rocks, and from one short strand to another.
There is excellent bathing for those who like bathing on shelving
sand. I don't. The spot is about half a mile from the hotels, and to
this the bathers are carried in omnibuses. Till one o'clock ladies
bathe;--which operation, however, does not at all militate against
the bathing of men, but rather necessitates it as regards those men
who have ladies with them. For here ladies and gentlemen bathe in
decorous dresses, and are very polite to each other. I must say, that
I think the ladies have the best of it. My idea of sea-bathing for
my own gratification is not compatible with a full suit of clothing.
I own that my tastes are vulgar and perhaps indecent; but I love
to jump into the deep clear sea from off a rock, and I love to be
hampered by no outward impediments as I do so. For ordinary bathers,
for all ladies, and for men less savage in their instincts than I am,
the bathing at Newport is very good.

The private houses--villa residences as they would be termed by an
auctioneer in England--are excellent. Many of them are, in fact,
large mansions, and are surrounded with grounds, which, as the shrubs
grow up, will be very beautiful. Some have large, well-kept lawns,
stretching down to the rocks, and these to my taste give the charm
to Newport. They extend about two miles along the coast. Should my
lot have made me a citizen of the United States, I should have had no
objection to become the possessor of one of these "villa residences,"
but I do not think that I should have "gone in" for hotel life at
Newport.

We hired saddle-horses, and rode out nearly the length of the island.
It was all very well, but there was little in it remarkable either
as regards cultivation or scenery. We found nothing that it would be
possible either to describe or remember. The Americans of the United
States have had time to build and populate vast cities, but they have
not yet had time to surround themselves with pretty scenery. Outlying
grand scenery is given by nature; but the prettiness of home scenery
is a work of art. It comes from the thorough draining of land, from
the planting and subsequent thinning of trees, from the controlling
of waters, and constant use of minute patches of broken land.
In another hundred years or so Rhode Island may be, perhaps, as
pretty as the Isle of Wight. The horses which we got were not good.
They were unhandy and badly mouthed, and that which my wife rode
was altogether ignorant of the art of walking. We hired them
from an Englishman, who had established himself at New York as a
riding-master for ladies, and who had come to Newport for the season
on the same business. He complained to me with much bitterness of the
saddle-horses which came in his way,--of course thinking that it was
the special business of a country to produce saddle-horses,--as I
think it the special business of a country to produce pens, ink, and
paper of good quality. According to him, riding has not yet become
an American art, and hence the awkwardness of American horses. "Lord
bless you, sir! they don't give an animal a chance of a mouth." In
this he alluded only, I presume, to saddle-horses. I know nothing of
the trotting-horses, but I should imagine that a fine mouth must be
an essential requisite for a trotting-match in harness. As regards
riding at Newport, we were not tempted to repeat the experiment. The
number of carriages which we saw there,--remembering as I did that
the place was comparatively empty,--and their general smartness,
surprised me very much. It seemed that every lady with a house of her
own had also her own carriage. These carriages were always open, and
the law of the land imperatively demands that the occupants shall
cover their knees with a worked worsted apron of brilliant colours.
These aprons at first, I confess, seemed tawdry; but the eye soon
becomes used to bright colours, in carriage aprons as well as in
architecture, and I soon learned to like them.

Rhode Island, as the State is usually called, is the smallest State
in the Union. I may perhaps best show its disparity to other States
by saying that New York extends about 250 miles from north to south
and the same distance from east to west; whereas the State called
Rhode Island is about forty miles long by twenty broad, independently
of certain small islands. It would, in fact, not form a considerable
addition, if added on to many of the other States. Nevertheless, it
has all the same powers of self-government as are possessed by such
nationalities as the States of New York and Pennsylvania; and sends
two senators to the Senate at Washington, as do those enormous
States. Small as the State is, Rhode Island itself forms but a
small portion of it. The authorized and proper name of the State is
Providence Plantation and Rhode Island. Roger Williams was the first
founder of the colony, and he established himself on the mainland
at a spot which he called Providence. Here now stands the city of
Providence, the chief town of the State; and a thriving, comfortable
town it seems to be, full of banks, fed by railways and steamers, and
going ahead quite as quickly as Roger Williams could in his fondest
hopes have desired.

Rhode Island, as I have said, has all the attributes of government in
common with her stouter and more famous sisters. She has a governor,
and an upper house, and a lower house of legislature; and she is
somewhat fantastic in the use of these constitutional powers, for she
calls on them to sit now in one town and now in another. Providence
is the capital of the State; but the Rhode Island parliament sits
sometimes at Providence and sometimes at Newport. At stated times
also it has to collect itself at Bristol, and at other stated times
at Kingston, and at others at East Greenwich. Of all legislative
assemblies it is the most peripatetic. Universal suffrage does not
absolutely prevail in this State, a certain property qualification
being necessary to confer a right to vote even for the State
Representatives. I should think it would be well for all parties
if the whole State could be swallowed up by Massachusetts or by
Connecticut, either of which lie conveniently for the feat; but I
presume that any suggestion of such a nature would be regarded as
treason by the men of Providence Plantation.

We returned back to Boston by Attleborough, a town at which in
ordinary times the whole population is supported by the jewellers'
trade. It is a place with a speciality, upon which speciality it has
thriven well and become a town. But the speciality is one ill-adapted
for times of war; and we were assured that the trade was for the
present at an end. What man could now-a-days buy jewels, or even what
woman, seeing that everything would be required for the war? I do not
say that such abstinence from luxury has been begotten altogether by
a feeling of patriotism. The direct taxes which all Americans will
now be called on to pay, have had, and will have much to do with such
abstinence. In the mean time the poor jewellers of Attleborough have
gone altogether to the wall.




CHAPTER III.

MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND VERMONT.


Perhaps I ought to assume that all the world in England knows that
that portion of the United States called New England consists of
the six States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island. This is especially the land of
Yankees, and none can properly be called Yankees but those who belong
to New England. I have named the States as nearly as may be in order
from the North downwards. Of Rhode Island, the smallest State in the
Union, I have already said what little I have to say. Of these six
States Boston may be called the capital. Not that it is so in any
civil or political sense;--it is simply the capital of Massachusetts.
But as it is the Athens of the Western world; as it was the cradle
of American freedom; as everybody of course knows that into Boston
harbour was thrown the tea which George III. would tax, and that at
Boston, on account of that and similar taxes, sprang up the new
revolution; and as it has grown in wealth, and fame, and size beyond
other towns in New England, it may be allowed to us to regard it as
the capital of these six Northern States, without guilt of _lèse
majesté_ towards the other five. To me, I confess, this Northern
division of our once unruly colonies is, and always has been, the
dearest. I am no Puritan myself, and fancy that had I lived in
the days of the Puritans, I should have been anti-Puritan to the
full extent of my capabilities. But I should have been so through
ignorance and prejudice, and actuated by that love of existing rights
and wrongs which men call loyalty. If the Canadas were to rebel now,
I should be for putting down the Canadians with a strong hand; but
not the less have I an idea that it will become the Canadas to rebel
and assert their independence at some future period;--unless it
be conceded to them without such rebellion. Who, on looking back,
can now refuse to admire the political aspirations of the English
Puritans, or decline to acknowledge the beauty and fitness of what
they did? It was by them that these States of New England were
colonized. They came hither stating themselves to be pilgrims, and as
such they first placed their feet on that hallowed rock at Plymouth,
on the shore of Massachusetts. They came here driven by no thirst of
conquest, by no greed for gold, dreaming of no Western empire such as
Cortez had achieved and Raleigh had meditated. They desired to earn
their bread in the sweat of their brow, worshipping God according to
their own lights, living in harmony under their own laws, and feeling
that no master could claim a right to put a heel upon their necks.
And be it remembered that here in England, in those days, earthly
masters were still apt to put their heels on the necks of men. The
Star Chamber was gone, but Jeffreys had not yet reigned. What earthly
aspirations were ever higher than these, or more manly? And what
earthly efforts ever led to grander results?

We determined to go to Portland, in Maine, from thence to the White
Mountains in New Hampshire--the American Alps, as they love to call
themselves,--and then on to Quebec and up through the two Canadas
to Niagara; and this route we followed. From Boston to Portland we
travelled by railroad,--the carriages on which are in America always
called cars. And here I beg, once for all, to enter my protest loudly
against the manner in which these conveyances are conducted. The one
grand fault--there are other smaller faults--but the one grand fault
is that they admit but one class. Two reasons for this are given.
The first is that the finances of the companies will not admit of
a divided accommodation; and the second is that the republican
nature of the people will not brook a superior or aristocratic
classification of travelling. As regards the first, I do not in the
least believe in it. If a more expensive manner of railway travelling
will pay in England, it would surely do so here. Were a better class
of carriages organized, as large a portion of the population would
use them in the United States as in any country in Europe. And it
seems to be evident that in arranging that there shall be only one
rate of travelling, the price is enhanced on poor travellers exactly
in proportion as it is made cheap to those who are not poor. For the
poorer classes, travelling in America is by no means cheap,--the
average rate being, as far as I can judge, fully three halfpence a
mile. It is manifest that dearer rates for one class would allow
of cheaper rates for the other; and that in this manner general
travelling would be encouraged and increased.

But I do not believe that the question of expenditure has had
anything to do with it. I conceive it to be true that the railways
are afraid to put themselves at variance with the general feeling of
the people. If so the railways may be right. But then, on the other
hand, the general feeling of the people must in such case be wrong.
Such a feeling argues a total mistake as to the nature of that
liberty and equality for the security of which the people are so
anxious, and that mistake the very one which has made shipwreck so
many attempts at freedom in other countries. It argues that confusion
between social and political equality which has led astray multitudes
who have longed for liberty fervently, but who have not thought of
it carefully. If a first-class railway carriage should be held as
offensive, so should a first-class house, or a first-class horse, or
a first-class dinner. But first-class houses, first-class horses,
and first-class dinners are very rife in America. Of course it may
be said that the expenditure shown in these last-named objects is
private expenditure, and cannot be controlled; and that railway
travelling is of a public nature, and can be made subject to public
opinion. But the fault is in that public opinion which desires to
control matters of this nature. Such an arrangement partakes of all
the vice of a sumptuary law, and sumptuary laws are in their very
essence mistakes. It is well that a man should always have all for
which he is willing to pay. If he desires and obtains more than is
good for him, the punishment, and thus also the preventive, will come
from other sources.

It will be said that the American cars are good enough for all
purposes. The seats are not very hard, and the room for sitting is
sufficient. Nevertheless I deny that they are good enough for all
purposes. They are very long, and to enter them and find a place
often requires a struggle and almost a fight. There is rarely any
person to tell a stranger which car he should enter. One never meets
an uncivil or unruly man, but the women of the lower ranks are not
courteous. American ladies love to lie at ease in their carriages, as
thoroughly as do our women in Hyde Park, and to those who are used
to such luxury, travelling by railroad in their own country must be
grievous. I would not wish to be thought a Sybarite myself, or to be
held as complaining because I have been compelled to give up my seat
to women with babies and bandboxes who have accepted the courtesy
with very scanty grace. I have borne worse things than these, and
have roughed it much in my days from want of means and other reasons.
Nor am I yet so old but what I can rough it still. Nevertheless
I like to see things as well done as is practicable, and railway
travelling in the States is not well done. I feel bound to say as
much as this, and now I have said it, once for all.

Few cities, or localities for cities, have fairer natural advantages
than Portland--and I am bound to say that the people of Portland have
done much in turning them to account. This town is not the capital of
the State in a political point of view. Augusta, which is further to
the North, on the Kenebec river, is the seat of the State Government
for Maine. It is very generally the case that the States do not hold
their legislatures and carry on their Government at their chief
towns. Augusta and not Portland is the capital of Maine. Of the State
of New York, Albany is the capital, and not the city which bears the
State's name. And of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and not Philadelphia
is the capital. I think the idea has been that old-fashioned notions
were bad in that they were old-fashioned; and that a new people,
bound by no prejudices, might certainly make improvement by choosing
for themselves new ways. If so the American politicians have not been
the first in the world who have thought that any change must be a
change for the better. The assigned reason is the centrical position
of the selected political capitals: but I have generally found the
real commercial capital to be easier of access than the smaller
town in which the two legislative houses are obliged to collect
themselves.

What must be the natural excellence of the harbour of Portland will
be understood when it is borne in mind that the Great Eastern can
enter it at all times, and that it can lie along the wharves at any
hour of the tide. The wharves which have been prepared for her--and
of which I will say a word further by-and-by--are joined to and in
fact are a portion of the station of the Grand Trunk Railway, which
runs from Portland up to Canada. So that passengers landing at
Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great Eastern can walk
at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to the railway without
any of the cost of removal. I will not say that there is no other
harbour in the world that would allow of this, but I do not know any
other that would do so.

From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of the
Canada Grand Trunk line, runs across the State of Maine through the
Northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to Montreal, a branch
striking from Richmond, a little within the limits of Canada, to
Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Rivière du Loup. The main line
is continued from Montreal, through Upper Canada to Toronto, and from
thence to Detroit in the State of Michigan. The total distance thus
traversed is in a direct line about 900 miles. From Detroit there is
railway communication through the immense North-Western States of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of
the globe affords no finer districts for purposes of agriculture. The
produce of the two Canadas must be poured forth to the Eastern world,
and the men of the Eastern world must throng into these lands, by
means of this railroad,--and, as at present arranged, through the
harbour of Portland. At present the line has been opened, and they
who have opened are sorely suffering in pocket for what they have
done. The question of the railway is rather one applying to Canada
than to the State of Maine, and I will therefore leave it for the
present.

But the Great Eastern has never been to Portland, and as far as I
know has no intention of going there. She was, I believe, built with
that object. At any rate it was proclaimed during her building that
such was her destiny, and the Portlanders believed it with a perfect
faith. They went to work and built wharves expressly for her; two
wharves prepared to fit her two gangways, or ways of exit and
entrance. They built a huge hotel to receive her passengers. They
prepared for her advent with a full conviction that a millennium of
trade was about to be wafted to their happy port. "Sir, the town has
expended two hundred thousand dollars in expectation of that ship,
and that ship has deceived us." So was the matter spoken of to me by
an intelligent Portlander. I explained to that intelligent gentleman
that two hundred thousand dollars would go a very little way towards
making up the loss which the ill-fortuned vessel had occasioned
on the other side of the water. He did not in words express
gratification at this information, but he looked it. The matter
was as it were a partnership without deed of contract between the
Portlanders and the shareholders of the vessel, and the Portlanders,
though they also have suffered their losses, have not had the worst
of it.

But there are still good days in store for the town. Though the Great
Eastern has not gone there, other ships from Europe, more profitable
if less in size, must eventually find their way thither. At present
the Canada line of packets runs to Portland only during those months
in which it is shut out from the St. Lawrence and Quebec by ice.
But the St. Lawrence and Quebec cannot offer the advantages which
Portland enjoys, and that big hotel and those new wharves will not
have been built in vain.

I have said that a good time is coming, but I would by no means wish
to signify that the present times in Portland are bad. So far from
it, that I doubt whether I ever saw a town with more evident signs of
prosperity. It has about it every mark of ample means, and no mark
of poverty. It contains about 27,000 people, and for that population
covers a very large space of ground. The streets are broad and
well built, the main streets not running in those absolutely
straight parallels which are so common in American towns, and are so
distressing to English eyes and English feelings. All these, except
the streets devoted exclusively to business, are shaded on both sides
by trees--generally, if I remember rightly, by the beautiful American
elm, whose drooping boughs have all the grace of the willow without
its fantastic melancholy. What the poorer streets of Portland may be
like I cannot say. I saw no poor street. But in no town of 30,000
inhabitants did I ever see so many houses which must require an
expenditure of from six to eight hundred a year to maintain them.

The place too is beautifully situated. It is on a long promontory,
which takes the shape of a peninsula;--for the neck which joins it
to the mainland is not above half a mile across. But though the
town thus stands out into the sea, it is not exposed and bleak. The
harbour again is surrounded by land, or so guarded and locked by
islands as to form a series of salt-water lakes running round the
town. Of those islands there are, of course, 365. Travellers who
write their travels are constantly called upon to record that
number, so that it may now be considered as a superlative in local
phraseology, signifying a very great many indeed. The town stands
between two hills, the suburbs or outskirts running up on to each of
them. The one looking out towards the sea is called Mountjoy--though
the obstinate Americans will write it Munjoy on their maps. From
thence the view out to the harbour and beyond the harbour to the
islands is, I may not say unequalled, or I shall be guilty of running
into superlatives myself; but it is, in its way, equal to anything I
have seen. Perhaps it is more like Cork harbour, as seen from certain
heights over Passage than anything else I can remember; but Portland
harbour, though equally landlocked, is larger; and then from Portland
harbour there is as it were a river outlet, running through delicious
islands, most unalluring to the navigator, but delicious to the eyes
of an uncommercial traveller. There are in all four outlets to the
sea, one of which appears to have been made expressly for the Great
Eastern. Then there is the hill looking inwards. If it has a name
I forget it. The view from this hill is also over the water on each
side, and though not so extensive is perhaps as pleasing as the
other.

The ways of the people seemed to be quiet, smooth, orderly, and
republican. There is nothing to drink in Portland of course, for,
thanks to Mr. Neal Dow, the Father Mathew of the State of Maine, the
Maine Liquor Law is still in force in that State. There is nothing
to drink, I should say, in such orderly houses as that I selected.
"People do drink some in the town, they say," said my hostess to
me; "and liquor is to be got. But I never venture to sell any. An
ill-natured person might turn on me, and where should I be then?" I
did not press her, and she was good enough to put a bottle of porter
at my right hand at dinner, for which I observed she made no charge.
"But they advertise beer in the shop-windows," I said to a man
who was driving me--"Scotch ale, and bitter beer. A man can get
drunk on them." "Wa'al, yes. If he goes to work hard, and drinks a
bucket-full," said the driver, "perhaps he may." From which and other
things I gathered that the men of Maine drank pottle deep before Mr.
Neal Dow brought his exertions to a successful termination.

The Maine Liquor Law still stands in Maine, and is the law of the
land throughout New England; but it is not actually put in force in
the other States. By this law no man may retail wine, spirits, or, in
truth, beer, except with a special license, which is given only to
those who are presumed to sell them as medicines. A man may have what
he likes in his own cellar for his own use--such at least is the
actual working of the law--but may not obtain it at hotels and
public-houses. This law, like all sumptuary laws, must fail. And it
is fast failing even in Maine. But it did appear to me from such
information as I could collect that the passing of it had done much
to hinder and repress a habit of hard drinking which was becoming
terribly common, not only in the towns of Maine, but among the
farmers and hired labourers in the country.

But if the men and women of Portland may not drink they may eat, and
it is a place, I should say, in which good living on that side of the
question is very rife. It has an air of supreme plenty, as though the
agonies of an empty stomach were never known there. The faces of the
people tell of three regular meals of meat a day, and of digestive
powers in proportion. Oh happy Portlanders, if they only knew their
own good fortune! They get up early, and go to bed early. The women
are comely and sturdy, able to take care of themselves without
any fal-lal of chivalry; and the men are sedate, obliging, and
industrious. I saw the young girls in the streets, coming home from
their tea-parties at nine o'clock, many of them alone, and all with
some basket in their hands which betokened an evening not passed
absolutely in idleness. No fear there of unruly questions on the way,
or of insolence from the ill-conducted of the other sex! All was, or
seemed to be, orderly, sleek, and unobtrusive. Probably of all modes
of life that are allotted to man by his Creator, life such as this is
the most happy. One hint, however, for improvement I must give, even
to Portland! It would be well if they could make their streets of
some material harder than sand.

I must not leave the town without desiring those who may visit it to
mount the Observatory. They will from thence get the best view of the
harbour and of the surrounding land; and, if they chance to do so
under the reign of the present keeper of the signals, they will find
a man there able and willing to tell them everything needful about
the State of Maine in general, and the harbour in particular. He will
come out in his shirt sleeves, and, like a true American, will not
at first be very smooth in his courtesy; but he will wax brighter in
conversation, and if not stroked the wrong way will turn out to be an
uncommonly pleasant fellow. Such I believe to be the case with most
of them.

From Portland we made our way up to the White Mountains, which lay on
our route to Canada. Now I would ask any of my readers who are candid
enough to expose their own ignorance whether they ever heard, or
at any rate whether they know anything of the White Mountains. As
regards myself I confess that the name had reached my ears; that I
had an indefinite idea that they formed an intermediate stage between
the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies, and that they were inhabited
either by Mormons, Indians, or simply by black bears. That there was
a district in New England containing mountain scenery superior to
much that is yearly crowded by tourists in Europe, that this is
to be reached with ease by railways and stage-coaches, and that
it is dotted with huge hotels, almost as thickly as they lie in
Switzerland, I had no idea. Much of this scenery, I say, is superior
to the famed and classic lands of Europe. I know nothing, for
instance, on the Rhine equal to the view from Mount Willard, down the
mountain pass called the Notch.

Let the visitor of these regions be as late in the year as he can,
taking care that he is not so late as to find the hotels closed.
October, no doubt, is the most beautiful month among these mountains,
but according to the present arrangement of matters here, the hotels
are shut up by the end of September. With us, August, September, and
October are the holiday months; whereas our rebel children across the
Atlantic love to disport themselves in July and August. The great
beauty of the autumn, or fall, is in the brilliant hues which are
then taken by the foliage. The autumnal tints are fine with us. They
are lovely and bright wherever foliage and vegetation form a part
of the beauty of scenery. But in no other land do they approach the
brilliancy of the fall in America. The bright rose colour, the rich
bronze which is almost purple in its richness, and the glorious
golden yellows must be seen to be understood. By me at any rate they
cannot be described. These begin to show themselves in September, and
perhaps I might name the latter half of that month as the best time
for visiting the White Mountains.

I am not going to write a guide-book, feeling sure that Mr. Murray
will do New England, and Canada, including Niagara and the Hudson
river, with a peep into Boston and New York before many more seasons
have passed by. But I cannot forbear to tell my countrymen that
any enterprising individual with a hundred pounds to spend on his
holiday,--a hundred and twenty would make him more comfortable, in
regard to wine, washing, and other luxuries,--and an absence of two
months from his labours, may see as much and do as much here for the
money as he can see or do elsewhere. In some respects he may do more;
for he will learn more of American nature in such a journey than he
can ever learn of the nature of Frenchmen or Americans by such an
excursion among them. Some three weeks of the time, or perhaps a day
or two over, he must be at sea, and that portion of his trip will
cost him fifty pounds,--presuming that he chooses to go in the most
comfortable and costly way;--but his time on board ship will not be
lost. He will learn to know much of Americans there, and will perhaps
form acquaintances of which he will not altogether lose sight for
many a year. He will land at Boston, and staying a day or two there
will visit Cambridge, Lowell, and Bunker Hill; and, if he be that
way given, will remember that here live, and occasionally are to
be seen alive, men such as Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, and a
host of others whose names and fames have made Boston the throne of
Western Literature. He will then,--if he take my advice and follow
my track,--go by Portland up into the White Mountains. At Gorham, a
station on the Grand Trunk line, he will find an hotel as good as any
of its kind, and from thence he will take a light waggon, so called
in these countries;--and here let me presume that the traveller
is not alone; he has his wife or friend, or perhaps a pair of
sisters,--and in his waggon he will go up through primeval forests to
the Glen House. When there he will ascend Mount Washington on a pony.
That is _de rigueur_, and I do not, therefore, dare to recommend him
to omit the ascent. I did not gain much myself by my labour. He will
not stay at the Glen House, but will go on to--Jackson's I think they
call the next hotel; at which he will sleep. From thence he will take
his waggon on through the Notch to the Crawford House, sleeping there
again; and when here let him of all things remember to go up Mount
Willard. It is but a walk of two hours, up and down, if so much. When
reaching the top he will be startled to find that he looks down into
the ravine without an inch of fore-ground. He will come out suddenly
on a ledge of rock, from whence, as it seems, he might leap down at
once into the valley below. Then going on from the Crawford House
he will be driven through the woods of Cherry Mount, passing,
I fear without toll of custom, the house of my excellent friend
Mr. Plaistead, who keeps an hotel at Jefferson. "Sir," said Mr.
Plaistead, "I have everything here that a man ought to want; air,
sir, that ain't to be got better nowhere; trout, chickens, beef,
mutton, milk,--and all for a dollar a day. A top of that hill, sir,
there's a view that ain't to be beaten this side of the Atlantic, or
I believe the other. And an echo, sir!--We've an echo that comes back
to us six times, sir; floating on the light wind, and wafted about
from rock to rock till you would think the angels were talking to
you. If I could raise that echo, sir, every day at command I'd give a
thousand dollars for it. It would be worth all the money to a house
like this." And he waved his hand about from hill to hill, pointing
out in graceful curves the lines which the sounds would take. Had
destiny not called on Mr. Plaistead to keep an American hotel, he
might have been a poet.

My traveller, however, unless time were plenty with him, would pass
Mr. Plaistead, merely lighting a friendly cigar, or perhaps breaking
the Maine Liquor Law if the weather be warm, and would return to
Gorham on the railway. All this mountain district is in New
Hampshire, and presuming him to be capable of going about the world
with his mouth, ears, and eyes open, he would learn much of the way
in which men are settling themselves in this still sparsely populated
country. Here young farmers go into the woods, as they are doing
far down west in the Territories, and buying some hundred acres at
perhaps six shillings an acre, fell and burn the trees and build
their huts, and take the first steps, as far as man's work is
concerned, towards accomplishing the will of the Creator in those
regions. For such pioneers of civilization there is still ample room
even in the long settled States of New Hampshire and Vermont.

But to return to my traveller, whom having brought so far, I must
send on. Let him go on from Gorham to Quebec, and the heights of
Abraham, stopping at Sherbrooke that he might visit from thence the
lake of Memphra Magog. As to the manner of travelling over this
ground I shall say a little in the next chapter, when I come to the
progress of myself and my wife. From Quebec he will go up the St.
Lawrence to Montreal. He will visit Ottawa, the new capital, and
Toronto. He will cross the Lake to Niagara, resting probably at the
Clifton House on the Canada side. He will then pass on to Albany,
taking the Trenton falls on his way. From Albany he will go down the
Hudson to West-Point. He cannot stop at the Catskill Mountains, for
the hotel will be closed. And then he will take the river boat, and
in a few hours will find himself at New York. If he desires to go
into American city society, he will find New York agreeable; but in
that case he must exceed his two months. If he do not so desire, a
short sojourn at New York will show him all that there is to be seen,
and all that there is not to be seen in that great city. That the
Cunard line of steamers will bring him safely back to Liverpool
in about eleven days, I need not tell to any Englishman, or, as
I believe, to any American. So much, in the spirit of a guide,
I vouchsafe to all who are willing to take my counsel,--thereby
anticipating Murray, and leaving these few pages as a legacy to him
or to his collaborateurs.

I cannot say that I like the hotels in those parts, or indeed the
mode of life at American hotels in general. In order that I may not
unjustly defame them, I will commence these observations by declaring
that they are cheap to those who choose to practise the economy which
they encourage, that the viands are profuse in quantity and wholesome
in quality, that the attendance is quick and unsparing, and that
travellers are never annoyed by that grasping greedy hunger and
thirst after francs and shillings which disgrace in Europe many
English and many continental inns. All this is, as must be admitted,
great praise; and yet I do not like the American hotels.

One is in a free country and has come from a country in which one
has been brought up to hug one's chains,--so at least the English
traveller is constantly assured--and yet in an American inn one can
never do as one likes. A terrific gong sounds early in the morning,
breaking one's sweet slumbers, and then a second gong sounding some
thirty minutes later, makes you understand that you must proceed to
breakfast, whether you be dressed or no. You certainly can go on with
your toilet and obtain your meal after half an hour's delay. Nobody
actually scolds you for so doing, but the breakfast is, as they say
in this country, "through." You sit down alone, and the attendant
stands immediately over you. Probably there are two so standing. They
fill your cup the instant it is empty. They tender you fresh food
before that which has disappeared from your plate has been swallowed.
They begrudge you no amount that you can eat or drink; but they
begrudge you a single moment that you sit there neither eating nor
drinking. This is your fate if you're too late, and therefore as a
rule you are not late. In that case you form one of a long row of
eaters who proceed through their work with a solid energy that is
past all praise. It is wrong to say that Americans will not talk at
their meals. I never met but few who would not talk to me, at any
rate till I got to the far west; but I have rarely found that they
would address me first. Then the dinner comes early; at least it
always does so in New England, and the ceremony is much of the same
kind. You came there to eat, and the food is pressed on you almost
_ad nauseam_. But as far as one can see there is no drinking. In
these days, I am quite aware, that drinking has become improper, even
in England. We are apt at home to speak of wine as a thing tabooed,
wondering how our fathers lived and swilled. I believe that as a fact
we drink as much as they did; but nevertheless that is our theory. I
confess, however, that I like wine. It is very wicked, but it seems
to me that my dinner goes down better with a glass of sherry than
without it. As a rule I always did get it at hotels in America.
But I had no comfort with it. Sherry they do not understand at
all. Of course I am only speaking of hotels. Their claret they get
exclusively from Mr. Gladstone, and looking at the quality, have a
right to quarrel even with Mr. Gladstone's price. But it is not the
quality of the wine that I hereby intend to subject to ignominy, so
much as the want of any opportunity for drinking it. After dinner,
if all that I hear be true, the gentlemen occasionally drop into the
hotel bar and "liquor up." Or rather this is not done specially after
dinner, but without prejudice to the hour at any time that may be
found desirable. I also have "liquored up," but I cannot say that
I enjoy the process. I do not intend hereby to accuse Americans of
drinking much, but I maintain that what they do drink, they drink in
the most uncomfortable manner that the imagination can devise.

The greatest luxury at an English inn is one's tea, one's fire, and
one's book. Such an arrangement is not practicable at an American
hotel. Tea, like breakfast, is a great meal, at which meat should
be eaten, generally with the addition of much jelly, jam, and sweet
preserve; but no person delays over his tea-cup. I love to have my
tea-cup emptied and filled with gradual pauses, so that time for
oblivion may accrue, and no exact record be taken. No such meal is
known at American hotels. It is possible to hire a separate room and
have one's meals served in it; but in doing so a man runs counter to
all the institutions of the country, and a woman does so equally. A
stranger does not wish to be viewed askance by all around him; and
the rule which holds that men at Rome should do as Romans do, if true
anywhere, is true in America. Therefore I say that in an American inn
one can never do as one pleases.

In what I have here said I do not intend to speak of hotels in the
largest cities, such as Boston or New York. At them meals are served
in the public room separately, and pretty nearly at any or at all
hours of the day; but at them also the attendant stands over the
unfortunate eater, and drives him. The guest feels that he is
controlled by laws adapted to the usages of the Medes and Persians.
He is not the master on the occasion, but the slave; a slave well
treated and fattened up to the full endurance of humanity; but yet a
slave.

From Gorham we went on to Island Pond, a station on the same Canada
Trunk Railway, on a Saturday evening, and were forced by the
circumstances of the line to pass a melancholy Sunday at the place.
The cars do not run on Sundays, and run but once a day on other days
over the whole line; so that in fact the impediment to travelling
spreads over two days. Island Pond is a lake with an island in it,
and the place which has taken the name is a small village, about
ten years old, standing in the midst of uncut forests, and has been
created by the railway. In ten years more there will no doubt be
a spreading town at Island Pond; the forests will recede, and men
rushing out from the crowded cities will find here food and space
and wealth. For myself I never remain long in such a spot without
feeling thankful that it has not been my mission to be a pioneer of
civilization.

The farther that I got away from Boston the less strong did I find
the feeling of anger against England. There, as I have said before,
there was a bitter animosity against the mother country in that she
had shown no open sympathy with the North. In Maine and New Hampshire
I did not find this to be the case to any violent degree. Men spoke
of the war as openly as they did at Boston, and in speaking to me
generally connected England with the subject. But they did so simply
to ask questions as to England's policy. What will she do for cotton
when her operatives are really pressed? Will she break the blockade?
Will she insist on a right to trade with Charlestown and New Orleans?
I always answered that she would insist on no such right, if that
right were denied to others and the denial enforced. England, I took
upon myself to say, would not break a veritable blockade, let her be
driven to what shifts she might in providing for her operatives. "Ah;
that's what we fear," a very stanch patriot said to me, if words may
be taken as a proof of stanchness. "If England allies herself with
the Southerners, all our trouble is for nothing." It was impossible
not to feel that all that was said was complimentary to England. It
is her sympathy that the Northern men desire, to her co-operation
that they would willingly trust, on her honesty that they would
choose to depend. It is the same feeling whether it shows itself
in anger or in curiosity. An American whether he be embarked in
politics, in literature, or in commerce, desires English admiration,
English appreciation of his energy, and English encouragement. The
anger of Boston is but a sign of its affectionate friendliness. What
feeling is so hot as that of a friend when his dearest friend refuses
to share his quarrel or to sympathize in his wrongs? To my thinking
the men of Boston are wrong and unreasonable in their anger; but were
I a man of Boston I should be as wrong and as unreasonable as any
of them. All that, however, will come right. I will not believe it
possible that there should in very truth be a quarrel between England
and the Northern States.

In the guidance of those who are not quite _au fait_ at the details
of American Government, I will here in a few words describe the
outlines of State Government as it is arranged in New Hampshire.
The States in this respect are not all alike, the modes of election
of their officers and periods of service being different. Even the
franchise is different in different States. Universal suffrage is not
the rule throughout the United States; though it is I believe very
generally thought in England that such is the fact. I need hardly
say that the laws in the different States may be as various as the
different legislatures may choose to make them.

In New Hampshire universal suffrage does prevail; which means that
any man may vote who lives in the State, supports himself, and
assists to support the poor by means of poor rates. A governor of the
State is elected for one year only, but it is customary or at any
rate not uncustomary to re-elect him for a second year. His salary is
a thousand dollars a year, or £200. It must be presumed therefore
that glory and not money is his object. To him is appended a council,
by whose opinions he must in a great degree be guided. His functions
are to the State what those of the President are to the country, and
for the short period of his reign he is as it were a Prime Minister
of the State with certain very limited regal attributes. He however
by no means enjoys the regal attribute of doing no wrong. In every
State there is an Assembly, consisting of two houses of elected
representatives; the Senate, or upper house, and the House of
Representatives so called. In New Hampshire this Assembly, or
Parliament, is styled The General Court of New Hampshire. It sits
annually; whereas the legislature in many States sits only every
other year. Both Houses are re-elected every year. This Assembly
passes laws with all the power vested in our Parliament, but such
laws apply of course only to the State in question. The Governor
of the State has a veto on all bills passed by the two Houses. But,
after receipt of his veto, any bill so stopped by the Governor can
be passed by a majority of two thirds in each House. The General
Court usually sits for about ten weeks. There are in the State eight
judges, three Supreme who sit at Concord, the capital, as a court
of appeal both in civil and criminal matters; and then five lesser
judges, who go circuit through the State. The salaries of these
lesser judges do not exceed from £250 to £300 a year; but they are, I
believe, allowed to practise as lawyers in any counties except those
in which they sit as judges,--being guided in this respect by the
same law as that which regulates the work of assistant barristers
in Ireland. The assistant barristers in Ireland are attached to the
counties as judges at Quarter Sessions, but they practise or may
practise as advocates in all counties except that to which they
are so attached. The judges in New Hampshire are appointed by
the Governor with the assistance of his Council. No judge in New
Hampshire can hold his seat after he has reached seventy years of
age.

So much at the present moment with reference to the Government of New
Hampshire.




CHAPTER IV.

LOWER CANADA.


The Grand Trunk Railway runs directly from Portland to Montreal,
which latter town is, in fact, the capital of Canada, though it never
has been so exclusively, and, as it seems, never is to be so, as
regards authority, government, and official name. In such matters
authority and government often say one thing while commerce says
another; but commerce always has the best of it and wins the game
whatever Government may decree. Albany in this way is the capital of
the State of New York, as authorized by the State Government; but New
York has made herself the capital of America, and will remain so. So
also Montreal has made herself the capital of Canada. The Grand Trunk
Railway runs from Portland to Montreal; but there is a branch from
Richmond, a township within the limits of Canada, to Quebec; so that
travellers to Quebec, as we were, are not obliged to reach that place
_viâ_ Montreal.

Quebec is the present seat of Canadian Government, its turn for that
honour having come round some two years ago; but it is about to be
deserted in favour of Ottawa, a town which is, in fact, still to be
built on the river of that name. The public edifices are, however, in
a state of forwardness; and if all goes well the Governor, the two
Councils, and the House of Representatives will be there before
two years are over whether there be any town to receive them or no.
Who can think of Ottawa without bidding his brothers to row, and
reminding them that the stream runs fast, that the rapids are near
and the daylight past? I asked, as a matter of course, whether Quebec
was much disgusted at the proposed change, and I was told that the
feeling was not now very strong. Had it been determined to make
Montreal the permanent seat of government Quebec and Toronto would
both have been up in arms.

I must confess that in going from the States into Canada, an
Englishman is struck by the feeling that he is going from a richer
country into one that is poorer, and from a greater country into one
that is less. An Englishman going from a foreign land into a land
which is in one sense his own, of course finds much in the change to
gratify him. He is able to speak as the master, instead of speaking
as the visitor. His tongue becomes more free, and he is able to fall
back to his national habits and national expressions. He no longer
feels that he is admitted on sufferance, or that he must be careful
to respect laws which he does not quite understand. This feeling was
naturally strong in an Englishman in passing from the States into
Canada at the time of my visit. English policy at that moment was
violently abused by Americans, and was upheld as violently in Canada.
But, nevertheless, with all this, I could not enter Canada without
seeing, and hearing, and feeling that there was less of enterprise
around me there than in the States--less of general movement, and
less of commercial success. To say why this is so would require a
long and very difficult discussion, and one which I am not prepared
to hold. It may be that a dependent country, let the feeling of
dependence be ever so much modified by powers of self-governance,
cannot hold its own against countries which are in all respects their
own masters. Few, I believe, would now maintain that the Northern
States of America would have risen in commerce as they have risen,
had they still remained attached to England as colonies. If this be
so, that privilege of self-rule which they have acquired, has been
the cause of their success. It does not follow as a consequence that
the Canadas fighting their battle alone in the world could do as
the States have done. Climate, or size, or geographical position
might stand in their way. But I fear that it does follow, if not as a
logical conclusion at least as a natural result, that they never will
do so well unless some day they shall so fight their battle. It may
be argued that Canada has in fact the power of self-governance; that
she rules herself and makes her own laws as England does; that the
Sovereign of England has but a veto on those laws, and stands in
regard to Canada exactly as she does in regard to England. This is
so, I believe, by the letter of the Constitution, but is not so in
reality, and cannot, in truth, be so in any colony, even of Great
Britain. In England the political power of the Crown is nothing. The
Crown has no such power, and now-a-days makes no attempt at having
any. But the political power of the Crown, as it is felt in Canada,
is everything. The Crown has no such power in England because it must
change its ministers whenever called upon to do so by the House of
Commons. But the Colonial Minister in Downing Street is the Crown's
Prime Minister as regards the Colonies, and he is changed not as any
Colonial House of Assembly may wish, but in accordance with the will
of the British Commons. Both the Houses in Canada--that, namely,
of the Representatives, or Lower House, and of the Legislative
Council, or Upper House--are now elective, and are filled without
direct influence from the Crown. The power of self-government is
as thoroughly developed as perhaps may be possible in a colony. But
after all it is a dependent form of government, and as such may
perhaps not conduce to so thorough a development of the resources of
the country as might be achieved under a ruling power of its own, to
which the welfare of Canada itself would be the chief if not the only
object.

I beg that it may not be considered from this that I would propose to
Canada to set up for itself at once and declare itself independent.
In the first place I do not wish to throw over Canada; and in the
next place I do not wish to throw over England. If such a separation
shall ever take place, I trust that it may be caused, not by Canadian
violence but by British generosity. Such a separation, however, never
can be good till Canada herself shall wish it. That she does not
wish it yet is certain. If Canada ever should wish it, and should
ever press for the accomplishment of such a wish, she must do so in
connection with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. If at any future time
there be formed such a separate political power, it must include the
whole of British North America.

In the meantime, I return to my assertion, that in entering Canada
from the States one clearly comes from a richer to a poorer country.
When I have said so, I have heard no Canadian absolutely deny it;
though in refraining from denying it, they have usually expressed a
general conviction, that in settling himself for life, it is better
for a man to set up his staff in Canada than in the States. "I do not
know that we are richer," a Canadian says, "but on the whole we are
doing better and are happier." Now, I regard the golden rules against
the love of gold, the "_aurum irrepertum et sic melius situm_," and
the rest of it, as very excellent when applied to individuals. Such
teaching has not much effect, perhaps, in inducing men to abstain
from wealth,--but such effect as it may have will be good. Men and
women do, I suppose, learn to be happier when they learn to disregard
riches. But such a doctrine is absolutely false as regards a nation.
National wealth produces education and progress, and through them
produces plenty of food, good morals, and all else that is good.
It produces luxury also, and certain evils attendant on luxury.
But I think it may be clearly shown, and that it is universally
acknowledged, that national wealth produces individual well-being. If
this be so, the argument of my friend the Canadian is nought.

To the feeling of a refined gentleman, or of a lady whose eye loves
to rest always on the beautiful, an agricultural population that
touches its hat, eats plain victuals, and goes to church is more
picturesque and delightful than the thronged crowd of a great city by
which a lady and gentleman is hustled without remorse, which never
touches its hat, and perhaps also never goes to church. And as we
are always tempted to approve of that which we like, and to think
that that which is good to us is good altogether, we--the refined
gentlemen and ladies of England I mean--are very apt to prefer the
hat-touchers to those who are not hat-touchers. In doing so we
intend, and wish, and strive to be philanthropical. We argue to
ourselves that the dear, excellent lower classes receive an immense
amount of consoling happiness from that ceremony of hat-touching,
and quite pity those who, unfortunately for themselves, know nothing
about it. I would ask any such lady or gentleman whether he or she
does not feel a certain amount of commiseration for the rudeness of
the town-bred artisan, who walks about with his hands in his pockets
as though he recognized a superior in no one.

But that which is good and pleasant to us, is often not good and
pleasant altogether. Every man's chief object is himself; and the
philanthropist should endeavour to regard this question, not from
his own point of view, but from that which would be taken by the
individuals for whose happiness he is anxious. The honest, happy
rustic makes a very pretty picture; and I hope that honest rustics
are happy. But the man who earns two shillings a day in the country
would always prefer to earn five in the town. The man who finds
himself bound to touch his hat to the squire would be glad to
dispense with that ceremony, if circumstances would permit. A crowd
of greasy-coated town artisans with grimy hands and pale faces, is
not in itself delectable; but each of that crowd has probably more
of the goods of life than any rural labourer. He thinks more, reads
more, feels more, sees more, hears more, learns more, and lives more.
It is through great cities that the civilization of the world has
progressed, and the charms of life been advanced. Man in his rudest
state begins in the country, and in his most finished state may
retire there. But the battle of the world has to be fought in the
cities; and the country that shows the greatest city population is
ever the one that is going most ahead in the world's history.

If this be so, I say that the argument of my Canadian friend was
nought. It may be that he does not desire crowded cities with
dirty, independent artisans; that to his view small farmers, living
sparingly but with content on the sweat of their brows, are surer
signs of a country's prosperity than hives of men and smoking
chimneys. He has, probably, all the upper classes of England with him
in so thinking, and as far as I know the upper classes of all Europe.
But the crowds themselves, the thick masses of which are composed
those populations which we count by millions, are against him. Up in
those regions which are watered by the great lakes, Lake Michigan,
Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and by the St. Lawrence, the
country is divided between Canada and the States. The cities in
Canada were settled long before those in the States. Quebec and
Montreal were important cities before any of the towns belonging to
the States had been founded. But taking the population of three of
each, including the three largest Canadian towns, we find they are
as follows:--In Canada, Quebec has 60,000; Montreal, 85,000; Toronto,
55,000. In the States, Chicago has 120,000; Detroit, 70,000; and
Buffalo, 80,000. If the population had been equal, it would have
shown a great superiority in the progress of those belonging to the
States, because the towns of Canada had so great a start. But the
numbers are by no means equal, showing instead a vast preponderance
in favour of the States. There can be no stronger proof that the
States are advancing faster than Canada,--and in fact doing better
than Canada. Quebec is a very picturesque town,--from its natural
advantages almost as much so as any town I know. Edinburgh, perhaps,
and Innspruck may beat it. But Quebec has very little to recommend it
beyond the beauty of its situation. Its public buildings and works of
art do not deserve a long narrative. It stands at the confluence of
the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers; the best part of the town is
built high upon the rock,--the rock which forms the celebrated plains
of Abram; and the view from thence down to the mountains which shut
in the St. Lawrence is magnificent. The best point of view is, I
think, from the esplanade, which is distant some five minutes' walk
from the hotels. When that has been seen by the light of the setting
sun, and seen again, if possible, by moonlight, the most considerable
lion of Quebec may be regarded as "done," and may be ticked off from
the list.

The most considerable lion according to my taste. Lions which roar
merely by the force of association of ideas are not to me very
valuable beasts. To many the rock over which Wolfe climbed to the
plains of Abram, and on the summit of which he fell in the hour of
victory, gives to Quebec its chiefest charm. But I confess to being
somewhat dull in such matters. I can count up Wolfe, and realize his
glory, and put my hand as it were upon his monument, in my own room
at home as well as I can at Quebec. I do not say this boastingly or
with pride, but truly acknowledging a deficiency. I have never cared
to sit in chairs in which old kings have sat, or to have their crowns
upon my head.

Nevertheless, and as a matter of course, I went to see the rock,
and can only say, as so many have said before me, that it is very
steep. It is not a rock which I think it would be difficult for
any ordinarily active man to climb,--providing, of course, that he
was used to such work. But Wolfe took regiments of men up there at
night--and that in face of enemies who held the summits. One grieves
that he should have fallen there and have never tasted the sweet cup
of his own fame. For fame is sweet, and the praise of one's brother
men the sweetest draught which a man can drain. But now, and for
coming ages, Wolfe's name stands higher than it probably would have
done had he lived to enjoy his reward.

But there is another very worthy lion near Quebec,--the Falls,
namely, of Montmorency. They are eight miles from the town, and the
road lies through the suburb of St. Roch, and the long straggling
French village of Beauport. These are in themselves very interesting,
as showing the quiet, orderly, unimpulsive manner in which the French
Canadians live. Such is their character, although there have been
such men as Papineau, and although there have been times in which
English rule has been unpopular with the French settlers. As far as
I could learn there is no such feeling now. These people are quiet,
contented; and as regards a sufficiency of the simple staples of
living, sufficiently well to do. They are thrifty;--but they do not
thrive. They do not advance, and push ahead, and become a bigger
people from year to year as settlers in a new country should do. They
do not even hold their own in comparison with those around them. But
has not this always been the case with colonists out of France; and
has it not always been the case with Roman Catholics when they have
been forced to measure themselves against Protestants? As to the
ultimate fate in the world of this people, one can hardly form a
speculation. There are, as nearly as I could learn, about 800,000 of
them in Lower Canada; but it seems that the wealth and commercial
enterprise of the country is passing out of their hands. Montreal,
and even Quebec are, I think, becoming less and less French every
day; but in the villages and on the small farms the French remain,
keeping up their language, their habits, and their religion. In the
cities they are becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water. I am
inclined to think that the same will ultimately be their fate in
the country. Surely one may declare as a fact that a Roman Catholic
population can never hold its ground against one that is Protestant.
I do not speak of numbers, for the Roman Catholics will increase
and multiply, and stick by their religion, although their religion
entails poverty and dependence; as they have done and still do in
Ireland. But in progress and wealth the Romanists have always gone
to the wall when the two have been made to compete together. And
yet I love their religion. There is something beautiful and almost
divine in the faith and obedience of a true son of the Holy Mother.
I sometimes fancy that I would fain be a Roman Catholic,--if I
could; as also I would often wish to be still a child, if that were
possible.

All this is on the way to the Falls of Montmorency. These falls are
placed exactly at the mouth of the little river of the same name, so
that it may be said absolutely to fall into the St. Lawrence. The
people of the country, however, declare that the river into which
the waters of the Montmorency fall is not the St. Lawrence, but the
Charles. Without a map I do not know that I can explain this. The
river Charles appears to, and in fact does, run into the St. Lawrence
just below Quebec. But the waters do not mix. The thicker, browner
stream of the lesser river still keeps the north-eastern bank till
it comes to the island of Orleans, which lies in the river five or
six miles below Quebec. Here or hereabouts are the Falls of the
Montmorency, and then the great river is divided for twenty-five
miles by the Isle of Orleans. It is said that the waters of the
Charles and the St. Lawrence do not mix till they meet each other at
the foot of this island.

I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a waterfall,
and what little capacity I may have in this way I would wish to keep
for Niagara. One thing I can say very positively about Montmorency,
and one piece of advice I can give to those who visit the falls.
The place from which to see them is not the horrible little wooden
temple, which has been built immediately over them on that side which
lies nearest to Quebec. The stranger is put down at a gate through
which a path leads to this temple, and at which a woman demands from
him twenty-five cents for the privilege of entrance. Let him by all
means pay the twenty-five cents. Why should he attempt to see the
falls for nothing, seeing that this woman has a vested interest in
the showing of them? I declare that if I thought that I should hinder
this woman from her perquisites by what I write, I would leave it
unwritten, and let my readers pursue their course to the temple--to
their manifest injury. But they will pay the twenty-five cents. Then
let them cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander
round on the open field till they get the view of the falls, and the
view of Quebec also, from the other side. It is worth the twenty-five
cents, and the hire of the carriage also. Immediately over the falls
there was a suspension bridge, of which the supporting, or rather
non-supporting, pillars are still to be seen. But the bridge fell
down one day into the river; and, alas, alas! with the bridge fell
down an old woman, and a boy, and a cart,--a cart and horse,--and
all found a watery grave together in the spray. No attempt has been
made since that to renew the suspension bridge; but the present
wooden bridge has been built higher up, in lieu of it.

Strangers naturally visit Quebec in summer or autumn, seeing that
a Canada winter is a season with which a man cannot trifle; but I
imagine that the mid-winter is the best time for seeing the Falls of
Montmorency. The water in its fall is dashed into spray, and that
spray becomes frozen, till a cone of ice is formed immediately under
the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary glacier
reaches nearly half-way to the level of the higher river. Up this men
climb,--and ladies also, I am told,--and then descend with pleasant
rapidity on sledges of wood, sometimes not without an innocent
tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in September, we did not
experience the delights of this pastime.

As I was too early for the ice cone under the Montmorency Falls, so
also was I too late to visit the Saguenay river which runs into the
St. Lawrence some hundred miles below Quebec. I presume that the
scenery of the Saguenay is the finest in Canada. During the summer
steamers run down the St. Lawrence and up the Saguenay, but I was
too late for them. An offer was made to us through the kindness of
Sir Edmund Head, who was then the Governor-General, of the use of a
steam-tug belonging to a gentleman who carries on a large commercial
enterprise at Chicoutimi, far up the Saguenay; but an acceptance
of this offer would have entailed some delay at Quebec, and as we
were anxious to get into the North Western States before the winter
commenced, we were obliged with great regret to decline the journey.

I feel bound to say that a stranger regarding Quebec merely as a
town, finds very much of which he cannot but complain. The foot-paths
through the streets are almost entirely of wood, as indeed seems
to be general throughout Canada. Wood is of course the cheapest
material, and though it may not be altogether good for such a purpose
it would not create animadversion if it were kept in tolerable order.
But in Quebec the paths are intolerably bad. They are full of holes.
The boards are rotten and worn in some places to dirt. The nails have
gone, and the broken planks go up and down under the feet, and in
the dark they are absolutely dangerous. But if the paths are bad the
roadways are worse. The street through the lower town along the quays
is, I think, the most disgraceful thoroughfare I ever saw in any
town. I believe the whole of it, or at any rate a great portion,
has been paved with wood; but the boards have been worked into mud,
and the ground under the boards has been worked into holes, till
the street is more like the bottom of a filthy ditch than a roadway
through one of the most thickly populated parts of a city. Had Quebec
in Wolfe's time been as it is now, Wolfe would have stuck in the mud
between the river and the rock, before he reached the point which he
desired to climb. In the upper town the roads are not so bad as they
are below, but still they are very bad. I was told that this arose
from disputes among the municipal corporations. Everything in Canada
relating to roads, and a very great deal affecting the internal
government of the people, is done by these municipalities. It is made
a subject of great boast in Canada that the communal authorities
do carry on so large a part of the public business, and that they
do it generally so well, and at so cheap a rate. I have nothing to
say against this, and as a whole believe that the boast is true. I
must protest, however, that the streets of the greater cities,--for
Montreal is nearly as bad as Quebec,--prove the rule by a very sad
exception. The municipalities of which I speak extend, I believe, to
all Canada; the two provinces being divided into counties, and the
counties subdivided into townships to which, as a matter of course,
the municipalities are attached.

From Quebec to Montreal there are two modes of travel. There are the
steamers up the St. Lawrence which, as all the world know is, or at
any rate hitherto has been, the high road of the Canadas; and there
is the Grand Trunk Railway. Passengers choosing the latter go towards
Portland as far as Richmond, and there join the main line of the
road, passing from Richmond on to Montreal. We learned while at
Quebec that it behoved us not to leave the colony till we had seen
the lake and mountains of Memphra-Magog, and as we were clearly
neglecting our duty with regard to the Saguenay, we felt bound to
make such amends as lay in our power, by deviating from our way to
the lake above named. In order to do this we were obliged to choose
the railway, and to go back beyond Richmond to the station at
Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke is a large village on the confines of Canada,
and as it is on the railway will no doubt become a large town. It is
very prettily situated on the meeting of two rivers; it has three
or four different churches, and intends to thrive. It possesses two
newspapers, of the prosperity of which I should be inclined to feel
less assured. The annual subscription to such a newspaper published
twice a week is ten shillings per annum. A sale of a thousand copies
is not considered bad. Such a sale would produce £500 a year, and
this would, if entirely devoted to that purpose, give a moderate
income to a gentleman qualified to conduct a newspaper. But the paper
and printing must cost something, and the capital invested should
receive its proper remuneration. And then,--such at least is the
general idea,--the getting together of news and the framing of
intelligence is a costly operation. I can only hope that all this is
paid for by the advertisements, for I must trust that the editors do
not receive less than the moderate sum above named. At Sherbrooke we
are still in Lower Canada. Indeed, as regards distance, we are when
there nearly as far removed from Upper Canada as at Quebec. But the
race of people here is very different. The French population had made
their way down into these townships before the English and American
war broke out, but had not done so in great numbers. The country was
then very unapproachable, being far to the south of the St. Lawrence,
and far also from any great line of internal communication towards
the Atlantic. But, nevertheless, many settlers made their way in here
from the States; men who preferred to live under British rule, and
perhaps doubted the stability of the new order of things. They or
their children have remained here since, and as the whole country
has been opened up by the railway many others have flocked in. Thus
a better class of people than the French hold possession of the
larger farms, and are on the whole doing well. I am told that many
Americans are now coming here, driven over the borders from Maine,
New Hampshire, and Vermont by fears of the war and the weight of
taxation. I do not think that fears of war or the paying of taxes
drive many individuals away from home. Men who would be so influenced
have not the amount of foresight which would induce them to avoid
such evils; or, at any rate, such fears would act slowly. Labourers,
however, will go where work is certain, where work is well paid, and
where the wages to be earned will give plenty in return. It may be
that work will become scarce in the States, as it has done with those
poor jewellers at Attleborough, of whom we spoke, and that food will
become dear. If this be so, labourers from the States will no doubt
find their way into Canada.

From Sherbrooke we went with the mails on a pair-horse waggon to
Magog. Cross country mails are not interesting to the generality
of readers, but I have a professional liking for them myself. I
have spent the best part of my life in looking after and I hope
in improving such mails, and I always endeavour to do a stroke of
work when I come across them. I learned on this occasion that the
conveyance of mails with a pair of horses in Canada costs little more
than half what is paid for the same work in England with one horse,
and something less than what is paid in Ireland, also for one horse.
But in Canada the average pace is only five miles an hour. In Ireland
it is seven, and the time is accurately kept, which does not seem to
be the case in Canada. In England the pace is eight miles an hour.
In Canada and in Ireland these conveyances carry passengers; but in
England they are prohibited from doing so. In Canada the vehicles
are much better got up than they are in England, and the horses too
look better. Taking Ireland as a whole they are more respectable in
appearance there than in England. From all which it appears that pace
is the article that costs the highest price, and that appearance does
not go for much in the bill. In Canada the roads are very bad in
comparison with the English or Irish roads; but to make up for this,
the price of forage is very low.

I have said that the cross mail conveyances in Canada did not seem
to be very closely bound as to time; but they are regulated by
clock-work in comparison with some of them in the United States.
"Are you going this morning?" I said to a mail-driver in Vermont. "I
thought you always started in the evening." "Wa'll; I guess I do. But
it rained some last night, so I jist stayed at home." I do not know
that I ever felt more shocked in my life, and I could hardly keep my
tongue off the man. The mails, however, would have paid no respect to
me in Vermont, and I was obliged to walk away crestfallen.

We went with the mails from Sherbrooke to a village called Magog at
the outlet of the lake, and from thence by a steamer up the lake to a
solitary hotel called the Mountain House, which is built at the foot
of the mountain on the shore, and which is surrounded on every side
by thick forest. There is no road within two miles of the house. The
lake therefore is the only highway, and that is frozen up for four
months in the year. When frozen, however, it is still a road, for it
is passable for sledges. I have seldom been in a house that seemed
so remote from the world, and so little within reach of doctors,
parsons, or butchers. Bakers in this country are not required, as all
persons make their own bread. But in spite of its position the hotel
is well kept, and on the whole we were more comfortable there than at
any other inn in Lower Canada. The Mountain House is but five miles
from the borders of Vermont, in which State the head of the lake
lies. The steamer which brought us runs on to Newport,--or rather
from Newport to Magog and back again. And Newport is in Vermont.

The one thing to be done at the Mountain House is the ascent of the
mountain called the Owl's Head. The world there offers nothing else
of active enterprise to the traveller, unless fishing be considered
an active enterprise. I am not capable of fishing, therefore we
resolved on going up the Owl's Head. To dine in the middle of the day
is absolutely imperative at these hotels, and thus we were driven
to select either the morning or the afternoon. Evening lights we
declared were the best for all views, and therefore we decided on the
afternoon. It is but two miles; but then, as we were told more than
once by those who had spoken to us on the subject, those two miles
are not like other miles. "I doubt if the lady can do it," one man
said to me. I asked if ladies did not sometimes go up. "Yes; young
women do, at times," he said. After that my wife resolved that she
would see the top of the Owl's Head, or die in the attempt, and so
we started. They never think of sending a guide with one in these
places, whereas in Europe a traveller is not allowed to go a step
without one. When I asked for one to show us the way up Mount
Washington, I was told that there were no idle boys about that place.
The path was indicated to us, and off we started with high hopes.

I have been up many mountains, and have climbed some that were
perhaps somewhat dangerous in their ascent. In climbing the Owl's
Head there is no danger. One is closed in by thick trees the whole
way. But I doubt if I ever went up a steeper ascent. It was very hard
work, but we were not beaten. We reached the top, and there sitting
down thoroughly enjoyed our victory. It was then half-past five
o'clock, and the sun was not yet absolutely sinking. It did not seem
to give us any warning that we should especially require its aid,
and as the prospect below us was very lovely we remained there for
a quarter of an hour. The ascent of the Owl's Head is certainly a
thing to do, and I still think, in spite of our following misfortune,
that it is a thing to do late in the afternoon. The view down upon
the lakes and the forests around, and on the wooded hills below, is
wonderfully lovely. I never was on a mountain which gave me a more
perfect command of all the country round. But as we arose to descend
we saw a little cloud coming towards us from over Newport.

The little cloud came on with speed, and we had hardly freed
ourselves from the rocks of the summit before we were surrounded by
rain. As the rain became thicker, we were surrounded by darkness
also, or if not by darkness by so dim a light that it became a task
to find our path. I still thought that the daylight had not gone, and
that as we descended and so escaped from the cloud we should find
light enough to guide us. But it was not so. The rain soon became a
matter of indifference, and so also did the mud and briars beneath
our feet. Even the steepness of the way was almost forgotten as we
endeavoured to thread our path through the forest before it should
become impossible to discern the track. A dog had followed us up, and
though the beast would not stay with us so as to be our guide, he
returned ever and anon and made us aware of his presence by dashing
by us. I may confess now that I became much frightened. We were wet
through, and a night out in the forest would have been unpleasant to
us. At last I did utterly lose the track. It had become quite dark,
so dark that we could hardly see each other. We had succeeded in
getting down the steepest and worst part of the mountain, but we were
still among dense forest-trees, and up to our knees in mud. But the
people at the Mountain House were Christians, and men with lanterns
were sent hallooing after us through the dark night. When we were
thus found we were not many yards from the path, but unfortunately on
the wrong side of a stream. Through that we waded and then made our
way in safety to the inn. In spite of which misadventure I advise all
travellers in Lower Canada to go up the Owl's Head.

On the following day we crossed the lake to Georgeville, and drove
round another lake called the Massawhippi back to Sherbrooke. This
was all very well, for it showed us a part of the country which
is comparatively well tilled, and has been long settled; but the
Massawhippi itself is not worth a visit. The route by which we
returned occupies a longer time than the other, and is more costly
as it must be made in a hired vehicle. The people here are quiet,
orderly, and I should say a little slow. It is manifest that a strong
feeling against the Northern States has lately sprung up. This is
much to be deprecated, but I cannot but say that it is natural. It is
not that the Canadians have any special Secession feelings, or that
they have entered with peculiar warmth into the questions of American
politics; but they have been vexed and acerbated by the braggadocio
of the Northern States. They constantly hear that they are to be
invaded, and translated into citizens of the Union: that British rule
is to be swept off the Continent, and that the star-spangled banner
is to be waved over them in pity. The star-spangled banner is in fact
a fine flag, and has waved to some purpose; but those who live near
it, and not under it, fancy that they hear too much of it. At the
present moment the loyalty of both the Canadas to Great Britain
is beyond all question. From all that I can hear I doubt whether
this feeling in the Provinces was ever so strong, and under such
circumstances American abuse of England and American braggadocio
is more than usually distasteful. All this abuse and all this
braggadocio comes to Canada from the Northern States, and therefore
the Southern cause is at the present moment the more popular with
them.

I have said that the Canadians hereabouts are somewhat slow. As we
were driving back to Sherbrooke it became necessary that we should
rest for an hour or so in the middle of the day, and for this purpose
we stopped at a village inn. It was a large house, in which there
appeared to be three public sitting-rooms of ample size, one of which
was occupied as the bar. In this there were congregated some six or
seven men, seated in arm-chairs round a stove, and among these I
placed myself. No one spoke a word either to me or to any one else.
No one smoked, and no one read, nor did they even whittle sticks. I
asked a question first of one and then of another, and was answered
with monosyllables. So I gave up any hope in that direction, and sat
staring at the big stove in the middle of the room, as the others
did. Presently another stranger entered, having arrived in a waggon
as I had done. He entered the room and sat down, addressing no one,
and addressed by no one. After a while, however, he spoke. "Will
there be any chance of dinner here?" he said. "I guess there'll be
dinner by-and-by," answered the landlord, and then there was silence
for another ten minutes, during which the stranger stared at the
stove. "Is that dinner any way ready?" he asked again. "I guess it
is," said the landlord. And then the stranger went out to see after
his dinner himself. When we started at the end of an hour nobody said
anything to us. The driver "hitched" on the horses, as they call
it, and we started on our way, having been charged nothing for our
accommodation. That some profit arose from the horse provender is to
be hoped.

On the following day we reached Montreal, which, as I have said
before, is the commercial capital of the two Provinces. This question
of the capitals is at the present moment a subject of great interest
in Canada, but as I shall be driven to say something on the matter
when I report myself as being at Ottawa, I will refrain now. There
are two special public affairs at the present moment to interest a
traveller in Canada. The first I have named, and the second is the
Grand Trunk Railway. I have already stated what is the course of this
line. It runs from the Western State of Michigan to Portland on the
Atlantic in the State of Maine, sweeping the whole length of Canada
in its route. It was originally made by three Companies. The Atlantic
and St. Lawrence constructed it from Portland to Island Pond on the
borders of the States. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic took it from the
South Eastern side of the river at Montreal to the same point, viz.,
Island Pond. And the Grand Trunk Company have made it from Detroit to
Montreal, crossing the river there with a stupendous tubular bridge,
and have also made the branch connecting the main line with Quebec
and Rivière du Loup. This latter company is now incorporated with the
St. Lawrence and Atlantic, but has only leased the portion of the
line running through the States. This they have done, guaranteeing
the shareholders an interest of six per cent. There never was a
grander enterprise set on foot. I will not say there never was one
more unfortunate, for is there not the Great Eastern, which by the
weight and constancy of its failures demands for itself a proud
pre-eminence of misfortune? But surely the Grand Trunk comes next
to it. I presume it to be quite out of the question that the
shareholders should get any interest whatever on their shares for
years. The company when I was at Montreal had not paid the interest
due to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Company for the last year, and
there was a doubt whether the lease would not be broken. No party
that had advanced money to the undertaking was able to recover what
had been advanced. I believe that one firm in London had lent nearly
a million to the Company and is now willing to accept half the sum so
lent in quittance of the whole debt. In 1860 the line could not carry
the freight that offered, not having or being able to obtain the
necessary rolling stock; and on all sides I heard men discussing
whether the line would be kept open for traffic. The Government of
Canada advanced to the Company three millions of money, with an
understanding that neither interest nor principal should be demanded
till all other debts were paid, and all shareholders in receipt of
six per cent. interest. But the three millions were clogged with
conditions which, though they have been of service to the country,
have been so expensive to the Company that it is hardly more solvent
with it than it would have been without it. As it is, the whole
property seems to be involved in ruin; and yet the line is one of the
grandest commercial conceptions that was ever carried out on the face
of the globe, and in the process of a few years will do more to make
bread cheap in England than any other single enterprise that exists.

I do not know that blame is to be attached to any one. I at least
attach no such blame. Probably it might be easy now to show that the
road might have been made with sufficient accommodation for ordinary
purposes without some of the more costly details. The great tubular
bridge on which was expended £1,300,000 might, I should think, have
been dispensed with. The Detroit end of the line might have been
left for later time. As it stands now, however, it is a wonderful
operation carried to a successful issue as far as the public are
concerned, and one can only grieve that it should be so absolute a
failure to those who have placed their money in it. There are schemes
which seem to be too big for men to work out with any ordinary regard
to profit and loss. The Great Eastern is one, and this is another.
The national advantage arising from such enterprises is immense; but
the wonder is that men should be found willing to embark their money
where the risk is so great, and the return even hoped for is so
small.

While I was in Canada some gentlemen were there from the Lower
Provinces--Nova Scotia, that is, and New Brunswick--agitating the
subject of another great line of railway from Quebec to Halifax.
The project is one in favour of which very much may be said. In a
national point of view an Englishman or a Canadian cannot but regret
that there should be no winter mode of exit from, or entrance to,
Canada, except through the United States. The St. Lawrence is blocked
up for four or five months in winter, and the steamers which run
to Quebec in the summer run to Portland during the season of ice.
There is at present no mode of public conveyance between the Canadas
and the Lower Provinces, and an immense district of country on the
borders of Lower Canada, through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia
is now absolutely closed against civilization, which by such a
railway would be opened up to the light of day. We all know how much
the want of such a road was felt when our troops were being forwarded
to Canada during the last winter. It was necessary they should reach
their destination without delay; and as the river was closed, and
the passing of troops through the States was of course out of the
question, that long overland journey across Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick became a necessity. It would certainly be a very great
thing for British interests if a direct line could be made from such
a port as Halifax, a port which is open throughout the whole year,
up into the Canadas. If these Colonies belonged to France or to any
other despotic Government, the thing would be done. But the Colonies
do not belong to any despotic Government.

Such a line would in fact be a continuance of the Grand Trunk; and
who that looks at the present state of the finances of the Grand
Trunk can think it to be on the cards that private enterprise should
come forward with more money,--with more millions? The idea is that
England will advance the money, and that the English House of Commons
will guarantee the interest, with some counter-guarantee from the
Colonies that this interest shall be duly paid. But it would seem
that if such Colonial guarantee is to go for anything, the Colonies
might raise the money in the money market without the intervention of
the British House of Commons.

Montreal is an exceedingly good commercial town, and business there
is brisk. It has now 85,000 inhabitants. Having said that of it, I do
not know what more there is left to say. Yes; one word there is to
say of Sir William Logan the creator of the Geological Museum there
and the head of all matters geological throughout the Province.
While he was explaining to me with admirable perspicuity the result
of investigations into which he had poured his whole heart, I stood
by understanding almost nothing, but envying everything. That I
understood almost nothing, I know he perceived. That, ever and anon,
with all his graciousness became apparent. But I wonder whether
he perceived also that I did envy everything. I have listened to
geologists by the hour before--have had to listen to them, desirous
simply of escape. I have listened and understood absolutely nothing,
and have only wished myself away. But I could have listened to Sir
William Logan for the whole day, if time allowed. I found even in
that hour that some ideas found their way through to me, and I began
to fancy that even I could become a geologist at Montreal.

Over and beyond Sir William Logan there is at Montreal for strangers
the drive round the mountain, not very exciting; and there is the
tubular bridge over the St. Lawrence. This, it must be understood,
is not made in one tube, as is that over the Menai Straits, but is
divided into, I think, thirteen tubes. To the eye there appear to be
twenty-five tubes; but each of the six side tubes is supported by a
pier in the middle. A great part of the expense of the bridge was
incurred in sinking the shafts for these piers.




CHAPTER V.

UPPER CANADA.


Ottawa is in Upper Canada, but crossing the suspension bridge from
Ottawa into Hull the traveller is in Lower Canada. It is therefore
exactly in the confines, and has been chosen as the site of the new
Government capital very much for this reason. Other reasons have,
no doubt, had a share in the decision. At the time when the choice
was made Ottawa was not large enough to create the jealousy of the
more populous towns. Though not on the main line of railway, it was
connected with it by a branch railway, and it is also connected with
the St. Lawrence by water communication. And then it stands nobly
on a magnificent river, with high overhanging rock, and a natural
grandeur of position which has perhaps gone far in recommending it to
those whose voice in the matter has been potential. Having the world
of Canada from whence to choose the site of a new town, the choosers
have certainly chosen well. It is another question whether or no a
new town should have been deemed necessary.

Perhaps it may be well to explain the circumstances under which it
was thought expedient thus to establish a new Canadian capital. In
1841 when Lord Sydenham was Governor General of the Provinces, the
two Canadas, separate till then, were united under one Government.
At that time the people of Lower or French Canada, and the people
of Upper or English Canada differed much more in their habits and
language than they do now. I do not know that the English have become
in any way Gallicized, but the French have been very materially
Anglicized. But while this has been in progress, national jealousy
has been at work; and even yet that national jealousy is not at an
end. While the two provinces were divided, there were, of course,
two capitals, and two seats of Government. These were at Quebec for
Lower Canada, and at Toronto for Upper Canada, both which towns are
centrically situated as regards the respective provinces. When the
union was effected, it was deemed expedient that there should be but
one capital; and the small town of Kingstown was selected, which is
situated on the lower end of Lake Ontario in the Upper Province.
But Kingstown was found to be inconvenient, lacking space and
accommodation for those who had to follow the Government, and the
Governor removed it and himself to Montreal. Montreal is in the
Lower Province, but is very central to both the provinces; and it is,
moreover, the chief town in Canada. This would have done very well,
but for an unforeseen misfortune.

It will be remembered by most readers that in 1837 took place the
Mackenzie-Papineau rebellion, of which those who were then old enough
to be politicians heard so much in England. I am not going back to
recount the history of the period, otherwise than to say that the
English Canadians at that time, in withstanding and combating the
rebels, did considerable injury to the property of certain French
Canadians, and that when the rebellion had blown over and those
in fault had been pardoned, a question arose whether or no the
Government should make good the losses of those French Canadians who
had been injured. The English Canadians protested that it would be
monstrous that they should be taxed to repair damages suffered by
rebels, and made necessary in the suppression of rebellion. The
French Canadians declared that the rebellion had been only a just
assertion of their rights, that if there had been crime on the part
of those who took up arms that crime had been condoned, and that the
damages had not fallen exclusively or even chiefly on those who had
done so. I will give no opinion on the merits of the question, but
simply say that blood ran very hot when it was discussed. At last
the Houses of the Provincial Parliament, then assembled at Montreal,
decreed that the losses should be made good by the public treasury;
and the English mob in Montreal, when this decree became known, was
roused to great wrath by a decision which seemed to be condemnatory
of English loyalty. It pelted Lord Elgin, the Governor General, with
rotten eggs, and burned down the Parliament House. Hence, there
arose, not unnaturally, a strong feeling of anger on the part of the
local Government against Montreal; and moreover there was no longer a
House in which the Parliament could be held in that town. For these
conjoint reasons it was decided to move the seat of Government again,
and it was resolved that the Governor and the Parliament should
sit alternately at Toronto in Upper Canada, and at Quebec in Lower
Canada, remaining four years at each place. They went at first to
Toronto for two years only, having agreed that they should be there
on this occasion only for the remainder of the term of the then
Parliament. After that they were at Quebec for four years; then at
Toronto for four; and now are again at Quebec. But this arrangement
has been found very inconvenient. In the first place there is a great
national expenditure incurred in moving old records, and in keeping
double records, in moving the library, and as I have been informed
even the pictures. The Government clerks also are called on to
move as the Government moves; and though an allowance is made to
them from the national purse to cover their loss, the arrangement
has nevertheless been felt by them to be a grievance, as may be
well understood. The accommodation also for the ministers of the
Government, and for members of the two Houses has been insufficient.
Hotels, lodgings, and furnished houses could not be provided to the
extent required, seeing that they would be left nearly empty for
every alternate space of four years. Indeed it needs but little
argument to prove that the plan adopted must have been a thoroughly
uncomfortable plan, and the wonder is that it should have been
adopted. Lower Canada had undertaken to make all her leading citizens
wretched, providing Upper Canada would treat hers with equal
severity. This has now gone on for some twelve years, and as the
system was found to be an unendurable nuisance it has been at last
admitted that some steps must be taken towards selecting one capital
for the country.

I should here, in justice to the Canadians, state a remark made to
me on this matter by one of the present leading politicians of the
colony. I cannot think that the migratory scheme was good; but he
defended it, asserting that it had done very much to amalgamate the
people of the two provinces; that it had brought Lower Canadians into
Upper Canada, and Upper Canadians into Lower Canada, teaching English
to those who spoke only French before, and making each pleasantly
acquainted with the other. I have no doubt that something,--perhaps
much,--has been done in this way; but valuable as the result may have
been, I cannot think it worth the cost of the means employed. The
best answer to the above argument consists in the undoubted fact that
a migratory Government would never have been established for such
a reason. It was so established because Montreal, the central town,
had given offence, and because the jealousy of the provinces against
each other would not admit of the Government being placed entirely at
Quebec, or entirely at Toronto.

But it was necessary that some step should be taken; and as it was
found to be unlikely that any resolution should be reached by the
joint provinces themselves, it was loyally and wisely determined to
refer the matter to the Queen. That Her Majesty has constitutionally
the power to call the Parliament of Canada at any town of Canada
which she may select, admits, I conceive, of no doubt. It is, I
imagine, within her prerogative to call the Parliament of England
where she may please within that realm, though her lieges would be
somewhat startled if it were called otherwhere than in London. It
was therefore well done to ask Her Majesty to act as arbiter in
the matter. But there are not wanting those in Canada who say that
in referring the matter to the Queen it was in truth referring it
to those by whom very many of the Canadians were least willing to
be guided in the matter; to the Governor General namely, and the
Colonial Secretary. Many indeed in Canada now declare that the
decision simply placed the matter in the hands of the Governor
General.

Be that as it may, I do not think that any unbiassed traveller will
doubt that the best possible selection has been made, presuming
always, as we may presume in the discussion, that Montreal could
not be selected. I take for granted that the rejection of Montreal
was regarded as a _sine quâ non_ in the decision. To me it appears
grievous that this should have been so. It is a great thing for any
country to have a large, leading, world-known city, and I think that
the Government should combine with the commerce of the country in
carrying out this object. But commerce can do a great deal more
for Government than Government can do for commerce. Government has
selected Ottawa as the capital of Canada; but commerce has already
made Montreal the capital, and Montreal will be the chief city of
Canada, let Government do what it may to foster the other town. The
idea of spiting a town because there has been a row in it seems to
me to be preposterous. The row was not the work of those who have
made Montreal rich and respectable. Montreal is more centrical than
Ottawa,--nay, it is as nearly centrical as any town can be. It is
easier to get to Montreal from Toronto than to Ottawa;--and if from
Toronto, then from all that distant portion of Upper Canada, back of
Toronto. To all Lower Canada Montreal is, as a matter of course, much
easier of access than Ottawa. But having said so much in favour of
Montreal, I will again admit that, putting aside Montreal, the best
possible selection has been made.

When Ottawa was named, no time was lost in setting to work to prepare
for the new migration. In 1859 the Parliament was removed to Quebec,
with the understanding that it should remain there till the new
buildings should be completed. These buildings were absolutely
commenced in April 1860, and it was, and I believe still is, expected
that they will be completed in 1863. I am now writing in the winter
of 1861; and, as is necessary in Canadian winters, the works are
suspended. But unfortunately they were suspended in the early part
of October,--on the 1st of October,--whereas they might have been
continued, as far as the season is concerned, up to the end of
November. We reached Ottawa on the 3rd of October, and more than a
thousand men had then been just dismissed. All the money in hand
had been expended, and the Government,--so it was said,--could give
no more money till Parliament should meet again. This was most
unfortunate. In the first place the suspension was against the
contract as made with the contractors for the building; in the next
place there was the delay; and then, worst of all, the question again
became agitated whether the colonial legislature were really in
earnest with reference to Ottawa. Many men of mark in the colony were
still anxious--I believe are still anxious,--to put an end to the
Ottawa scheme, and think that there still exists for them a chance
of success. And very many men who are not of mark are thus united,
and a feeling of doubt on the subject has been created. £225,000 has
already been spent on these buildings, and I have no doubt myself
that they will be duly completed, and duly used.

We went up to the new town by boat, taking the course of the river
Ottawa. We passed St. Ann's, but no one at St. Ann's seemed to know
anything of the brothers who were to rest there on their weary oars.
At Maxwellstown I could hear nothing of Annie Laurie or of her
trysting place on the braes, and the turnpike man at Tara could
tell me nothing of the site of the hall, and had never even heard
of the harp. When I go down South I shall expect to find that the
negro melodies have not yet reached "Old Virginie." This boat
conveyance from Montreal to Ottawa is not all that could be wished
in convenience, for it is allied too closely with railway travelling.
Those who use it leave Montreal by a railway; after nine miles, they
are changed into a steamboat. Then they encounter another railway,
and at last reach Ottawa in a second steamboat. But the river is
seen, and a better idea of the country is obtained than can be had
solely from the railway cars. The scenery is by no means grand, nor
is it strikingly picturesque; but it is in its way interesting. For a
long portion of the river the old primeval forests come down close to
the water's edge, and in the fall of the year the brilliant colouring
is very lovely. It should not be imagined,--as I think it often is
imagined,--that these forests are made up of splendid trees, or
that splendid trees are even common. When timber grows on undrained
ground, and when it is uncared for, it does not seem to approach
nearer to its perfection than wheat and grass do under similar
circumstances. Seen from a little distance the colour and effect is
good, but the trees themselves have shallow roots and grow up tall,
narrow, and shapeless. It necessarily is so with all timber that is
not thinned in its growth. When fine forest trees are found, and are
left standing alone by any cultivator who may have taste enough to
wish for such adornment, they almost invariably die. They are robbed
of the sickly shelter by which they have been surrounded; the hot
sun strikes the uncovered fibres of the roots, and the poor solitary
invalid languishes and at last dies.

As one ascends the river, which by its breadth forms itself into
lakes, one is shown Indian villages clustering down upon the bank.
Some years ago these Indians were rich, for the price of furs, in
which they dealt, was high; but furs have become cheaper, and the
beavers with which they used to trade are almost valueless. That a
change in the fashion of hats should have assisted to polish these
poor fellows off the face of creation must, one may suppose, be very
unintelligible to them; but nevertheless it is probably a subject of
deep speculation. If the reading world were to take to sermons again
and eschew their novels, Messrs. Thackeray, Dickens, and some others
would look about them and inquire into the causes of such a change
with considerable acuteness. They might not, perhaps, hit the truth,
and these Indians are much in that predicament. It is said that very
few pure-blooded Indians are now to be found in their villages, but I
doubt whether this is not erroneous. The children of the Indians are
now fed upon baked bread, and on cooked meat, and are brought up in
houses. They are nursed somewhat as the children of the white men are
nursed; and these practices no doubt have done much towards altering
their appearance. The negroes who have been bred in the States, and
whose fathers have been so bred before them, differ both in colour
and form from their brothers who have been born and nurtured in
Africa.

I said in the last chapter that the city of Ottawa was still to be
built; but I must explain, lest I should draw down on my head the
wrath of the Ottawaites, that the place already contains a population
of 15,000 inhabitants. As, however, it is being prepared for four
times that number--for eight times that number let us hope--and as it
straggles over a vast extent of ground, it gives one the idea of a
city in an active course of preparation. In England we know nothing
about unbuilt cities. With us four or five blocks of streets together
never assume that ugly, unfledged appearance which belongs to the
half-finished carcase of a house, as they do so often on the other
side of the Atlantic. Ottawa is preparing for itself broad streets,
and grand thoroughfares. The buildings already extend over a length
considerably exceeding two miles, and half a dozen hotels have been
opened, which, if I were writing a guide-book in a complimentary
tone, it would be my duty to describe as first-rate. But the
half-dozen first-rate hotels, though open, as yet enjoy but a
moderate amount of custom. All this justifies me, I think, in saying
that the city has as yet to get itself built. The manner in which
this is being done justifies me also in saying that the Ottawaites
are going about their task with a worthy zeal.

To me I confess that the nature of the situation has great
charms,--regarding it as the site for a town. It is not on a plain,
and from the form of the rock overhanging the river, and of the
hill that falls from thence down to the water, it has been found
impracticable to lay out the place in right-angled parallelograms. A
right-angled parallelogramical city, such as are Philadelphia and the
new portion of New York, is from its very nature odious to me. I know
that much may be said in its favour--that drainage and gas-pipes come
easier to such a shape, and that ground can be better economized.
Nevertheless I prefer a street that is forced to twist itself about.
I enjoy the narrowness of Temple Bar, and the misshapen curvature
of Pickett Street. The disreputable dinginess of Holywell Street is
dear to me, and I love to thread my way up by the Olympic into Covent
Garden. Fifth Avenue in New York is as grand as paint and glass can
make it; but I would not live in a palace in Fifth Avenue if the
corporation of the city would pay my baker's and butcher's bills.

The town of Ottawa lies between two waterfalls. The upper one, or
Rideau Fall, is formed by the confluence of a small river with the
larger one; and the lower fall--designated as lower because it is at
the foot of the hill, though it is higher up the Ottawa river--is
called the Chaudière, from its resemblance to a boiling kettle.
This is on the Ottawa river itself. The Rideau fall is divided into
two branches, thus forming an island in the middle as is the case
at Niagara. It is pretty enough, and worth visiting, even were it
further from the town than it is; but by those who have hunted out
many cataracts in their travels it will not be considered very
remarkable. The Chaudière fall I did think very remarkable. It is of
trifling depth, being formed by fractures in the rocky bed of the
river; but the waters have so cut the rock as to create beautiful
forms in the rush which they make in their descent. Strangers are
told to look at these falls from the suspension bridge; and it
is well that they should do so. But in so looking at them they
obtain but a very small part of their effect. On the Ottawa side
of the bridge is a brewery, which brewery is surrounded by a
huge timber-yard. This timber-yard I found to be very muddy, and
the passing and repassing through it is a work of trouble; but
nevertheless let the traveller by all means make his way through the
mud, and scramble over the timber, and cross the plank bridges which
traverse the streams of the sawmills, and thus take himself to the
outer edge of the woodwork over the water. If he will then seat
himself, about the hour of sunset, he will see the Chaudière fall
aright.

But the glory of Ottawa will be--and, indeed, already is--the set of
public buildings which is now being erected on the rock which guards
as it were the town from the river. How much of the excellence of
these buildings may be due to the taste of Sir Edmund Head, the late
Governor, I do not know. That he has greatly interested himself
in the subject is well known: and as the style of the different
buildings is so much alike as to make one whole, though the designs
of different architects were selected, and these different architects
employed, I imagine that considerable alterations must have been made
in the original drawings. There are three buildings, forming three
sides of a quadrangle; but they are not joined, the vacant spaces
at the corner being of considerable extent. The fourth side of the
quadrangle opens upon one of the principal streets of the town. The
centre building is intended for the Houses of Parliament, and the
two side buildings for the Government offices. Of the first Messrs.
Fuller and Jones are the architects, and of the latter Messrs. Stent
and Laver. I did not have the pleasure of meeting any of these
gentlemen; but I take upon myself to say that as regards purity of
art and manliness of conception their joint work is entitled to the
very highest praise. How far the buildings may be well arranged
for the required purposes, how far they may be economical in
construction, or specially adapted to the severe climate of the
country, I cannot say; but I have no hesitation in risking my
reputation for judgment in giving my warmest commendation to them as
regards beauty of outline and truthful nobility of detail.

I will not attempt to describe them, for I should interest no one in
doing so, and should certainly fail in my attempt to make any reader
understand me. I know no modern Gothic purer of its kind, or less
sullied with fictitious ornamentation. Our own Houses of Parliament
are very fine, but it is, I believe, generally felt that the
ornamentation is too minute; and, moreover, it may be questioned
whether perpendicular Gothic is capable of the highest nobility which
architecture can achieve. I do not pretend to say that these Canadian
public buildings will reach that highest nobility. They must be
finished before any final judgment can be pronounced; but I do feel
very certain that that final judgment will be greatly in their
favour. The total frontage of the quadrangle, including the side
buildings, is 1,200 feet; that of the centre buildings is 475. As
I have said before, £225,000 has already been expended, and it
is estimated that the total cost, including the arrangement and
decoration of the ground behind the building and in the quadrangle,
will be half a million.

The buildings front upon what will, I suppose, be the principal
street of Ottawa, and they stand upon a rock looking immediately down
upon the river. In this way they are blessed with a site peculiarly
happy. Indeed I cannot at this moment remember any so much so. The
castle of Edinburgh stands very well; but then, like many other
castles, it stands on a summit by itself, and can only be approached
by a steep ascent. These buildings at Ottawa, though they look down
from a grand eminence immediately on the river, are approached
from the town without any ascent. The rock, though it falls
almost precipitously down to the water, is covered with trees and
shrubs, and then the river that runs beneath is rapid, bright, and
picturesque in the irregularity of all its lines. The view from the
back of the library, up to the Chaudière falls, and to the saw-mills
by which they are surrounded, is very lovely. So that I will say
again, that I know no site for such a set of buildings so happy as
regards both beauty and grandeur. It is intended that the library, of
which the walls were only ten feet above the ground when I was there,
shall be an octagonal building, in shape and outward character like
the chapter-house of a cathedral. This structure will, I presume, be
surrounded by gravel walks and green sward. Of the library there is a
large model showing all the details of the architecture; and if that
model be ultimately followed, this building alone will be worthy of a
visit from English tourists. To me it was very wonderful to find such
an edifice in the course of erection on the banks of a wild river,
almost at the back of Canada. But if ever I visit Canada again it
will be to see those buildings when completed.

And now, like all friendly critics, having bestowed my modicum of
praise, I must proceed to find fault. I cannot bring myself to
administer my sugar-plum without adding to it some bitter morsel by
way of antidote. The building to the left of the quadrangle as it is
entered is deficient in length, and on that account appears mean to
the eye. The two side buildings are brought up close to the street,
so that each has a frontage immediately on the street. Such being the
case they should be of equal length, or nearly so. Had the centre of
one fronted the centre of the other, a difference of length might
have been allowed; but in this case the side front of the smaller
one would not have reached the street. As it is, the space between
the main building and the smaller wing is disproportionably large,
and the very distance at which it stands will, I fear, give to
it that appearance of meanness of which I have spoken. The clerk
of the works, who explained to me with much courtesy the plan of
the buildings, stated that the design of this wing was capable of
elongation, and had been expressly prepared with that object. If this
be so, I trust that the defect will be remedied.

The great trade of Canada is lumbering; and lumbering consists in
cutting down pine trees up in the far distant forests, in hewing or
sawing them into shape for market, and getting them down the rivers
to Quebec, from whence they are exported to Europe, and chiefly
to England. Timber in Canada is called lumber; those engaged in
the trade are called lumberers, and the business itself is called
lumbering. After a lapse of time it must no doubt become monotonous
to those engaged in it, and the name is not engaging; but there is
much about it that is very picturesque. A saw-mill worked by water
power is almost always a pretty object, and stacks of new cut timber
are pleasant to the smell, and group themselves not amiss on the
water's edge. If I had the time, and were a year or two younger, I
should love well to go up lumbering into the woods. The men for this
purpose are hired in the fall of the year, and are sent up hundreds
of miles away to the pine forests in strong gangs. Everything is
there found for them. They make log huts for their shelter, and food
of the best and the strongest is taken up for their diet. But no
strong drink of any kind is allowed, nor is any within reach of the
men. There are no publics, no shebeen houses, no grog-shops. Sobriety
is an enforced virtue; and so much is this considered by the masters,
and understood by the men, that very little contraband work is done
in the way of taking up spirits to these settlements. It may be said
that the work up in the forests is done with the assistance of no
stronger drink than tea; and it is very hard work. There cannot be
much work that is harder; and it is done amidst the snows and forests
of a Canadian winter. A convict in Bermuda cannot get through his
daily eight hours of light labour without an allowance of rum; but
a Canadian lumberer can manage to do his daily task on tea without
milk. These men, however, are by no means teetotallers. When they
come back to the towns they break out, and reward themselves for
their long enforced moderation. The wages I found to be very various,
running from thirteen or fourteen dollars a month to twenty-eight or
thirty, according to the nature of the work. The men who cut down the
trees receive more than those who hew them when down, and these again
more than the under class who make the roads and clear the ground.
These money wages, however, are in addition to their diet. The
operation requiring the most skill is that of marking the trees for
the axe. The largest only are worth cutting, and form and soundness
must also be considered.

But if I were about to visit a party of lumberers in the forest, I
should not be disposed to pass a whole winter with them. Even of a
very good thing one may have too much. I would go up in the spring,
when the rafts are being formed in the small tributary streams, and
I would come down upon one of them, shooting the rapids of the rivers
as soon as the first freshets had left the way open. A freshet in the
rivers is the rush of waters occasioned by melting snow and ice. The
first freshets take down the winter waters of the nearer lakes and
rivers. Then the streams become for a time navigable, and the rafts
go down. After that comes the second freshet, occasioned by the
melting of far-off snow and ice up in the great northern lakes which
are little known. These rafts are of immense construction, such as
those which we have seen on the Rhone and Rhine, and often contain
timber to the value of two, three, and four thousand pounds. At the
rapids the large rafts are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into
small portions, which go down separately. The excitement and motion
of such transit must, I should say, be very joyous. I was told that
the Prince of Wales desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that
the men in charge would not undertake to say that there was no
possible danger. Whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested
his Royal Highness to forbear. I fear that in these careful days
crowned heads and their heirs must often find themselves in the
position of Sancho at the banquet. The sailor prince who came after
his brother was allowed to go down a rapid, and got, as I was told,
rather a rough bump as he did so.

Ottawa is a great place for these timber rafts. Indeed, it may, I
think, be called the head-quarters of timber for the world. Nearly
all the best pine wood comes down the Ottawa and its tributaries.
The other rivers by which timber is brought down to the St. Lawrence
are chiefly the St. Maurice, the Madawaska, and the Saguenay; but
the Ottawa and its tributaries water 75,000 square miles; whereas
the other three rivers with their tributaries water only 53,000.
The timber from the Ottawa and St. Maurice finds its way down the
St. Lawrence to Quebec, where, however, it loses the whole of its
picturesque character. The Saguenay and the Madawaska fall into the
St. Lawrence below Quebec.

From Ottawa we went by rail to Prescott, which is surely one of the
most wretched little places to be found in any country. Immediately
opposite to it, on the other side of the St. Lawrence, is the
thriving town of Ogdensburgh. But Ogdensburgh is in the United
States. Had we been able to learn at Ottawa any facts as to the hours
of the river steamers and railways we might have saved time and have
avoided Prescott; but this was out of the question. Had I asked the
exact hour at which I might reach Calcutta by the quickest route, an
accurate reply would not have been more out of the question. I was
much struck at Prescott--and indeed all through Canada, though more
in the upper than in the lower province--by the sturdy roughness,
some would call it insolence, of those of the lower classes of the
people with whom I was brought into contact. If the words "lower
classes" give offence to any reader, I beg to apologize;--to
apologize and to assert that I am one of the last of men to apply
such a term in a sense of reproach to those who earn their bread by
the labour of their hands. But it is hard to find terms which will
be understood; and that term, whether it give offence or no, will be
understood. Of course such a complaint as that I now make is very
common as made against the States. Men in the States with horned
hands and fustian coats are very often most unnecessarily insolent
in asserting their independence. What I now mean to say is that
precisely the same fault is to be found in Canada. I know well what
the men mean when they offend in this manner. And when I think on
the subject with deliberation, at my own desk, I can not only excuse,
but almost approve them. But when one personally encounters their
corduroy braggadocio; when the man to whose services one is entitled
answers one with determined insolence; when one is bidden to follow
"that young lady," meaning the chambermaid, or desired, with a toss
of the head, to wait for the "gentleman who is coming," meaning the
boots, the heart is sickened, and the English traveller pines for the
civility,--for the servility, if my American friends choose to call
it so,--of a well-ordered servant. But the whole scene is easily
construed, and turned into English. A man is asked by a stranger some
question about his employment, and he replies in a tone which seems
to imply anger, insolence, and a dishonest intention to evade the
service for which he is paid. Or if there be no question of service
or payment, the man's manner will be the same, and the stranger feels
that he is slapped in the face and insulted. The translation of
it is this. The man questioned, who is aware that as regards coat,
hat, boots, and outward cleanliness he is below him by whom he is
questioned, unconsciously feels himself called upon to assert his
political equality. It is his shibboleth that he is politically equal
to the best, that he is independent, and that his labour, though it
earn him but a dollar a day by porterage, places him as a citizen on
an equal rank with the most wealthy fellow-man that may employ or
accost him. But being so inferior in that coat, hat and boots matter,
he is forced to assert his equality by some effort. As he improves in
externals he will diminish the roughness of his claim. As long as the
man makes his claim with any roughness, so long does he acknowledge
within himself some feeling of external inferiority. When that has
gone,--when the American has polished himself up by education and
general well being to a feeling of external equality with gentlemen,
he shows, I think, no more of that outward braggadocio of
independence than a Frenchman.

But the blow at the moment of the stroke is very galling. I confess
that I have occasionally all but broken down beneath it. But when it
is thought of afterwards it admits of full excuse. No effort that a
man can make is better than a true effort at independence. But this
insolence is a false effort, it will be said. It should rather be
called a false accompaniment to a life-long true effort. The man
probably is not dishonest, does not desire to shirk any service which
is due from him,--is not even inclined to insolence. Accept his first
declaration of equality for that which it is intended to represent,
and the man afterwards will be found obliging and communicative.
If occasion offer he will sit down in the room with you and will
talk with you on any subject that he may choose; but having once
ascertained that you show no resentment for this assertion of
equality, he will do pretty nearly all that he is asked. He will at
any rate do as much in that way as an Englishman. I say thus much on
this subject now especially, because I was quite as much struck by
the feeling in Canada as I was within the States.

From Prescott we went on by the Grand Trunk Railway to Toronto, and
stayed there for a few days. Toronto is the capital of the province
of Upper Canada, and I presume will in some degree remain so in spite
of Ottawa and its pretensions. That is, the law courts will still
be held there. I do not know that it will enjoy any other supremacy,
unless it be that of trade and population. Some few years ago Toronto
was advancing with rapid strides, and was bidding fair to rival
Quebec, or even perhaps Montreal. Hamilton, also, another town of
Upper Canada, was going a head in the true American style; but
then reverses came in trade, and the towns were checked for a
while. Toronto, with a neighbouring suburb which is a part of it,
as Southwark is of London, contains now over 50,000 inhabitants.
The streets are all parallelogramical, and there is not a single
curvature to rest the eye. It is built down close upon Lake Ontario;
and as it is also on the Grand Trunk Railway it has all the aid which
facility of traffic can give it.

The two sights of Toronto are the Osgoode Hall and the University.
The Osgoode Hall is to Upper Canada what the Four Courts are to
Ireland. The law courts are all held there. Exteriorly little can
be said for Osgoode Hall, whereas the exterior of the Four Courts
in Dublin is very fine; but as an interior the temple of Themis at
Toronto beats hollow that which the goddess owns in Dublin. In Dublin
the Courts themselves are shabby, and the space under the dome is
not so fine as the exterior seems to promise that it should be. In
Toronto the Courts themselves are, I think, the most commodious that
I ever saw, and the passages, vestibules, and hall are very handsome.
In Upper Canada the common law judges and those in Chancery are
divided as they are in England; but it is, as I was told, the opinion
of Canadian lawyers that the work may be thrown together. Appeal is
allowed in criminal cases; but as far as I could learn such power of
appeal is held to be both troublesome and useless. In Lower Canada
the old French laws are still administered.

But the University is the glory of Toronto. This is a Gothic building
and will take rank after, but next to the buildings at Ottawa. It
will be the second piece of noble architecture in Canada, and as far
as I know on the American continent. It is, I believe, intended to be
purely Norman, though I doubt whether the received types of Norman
architecture have not been departed from in many of the windows. Be
this as it may the College is a manly, noble structure, free from
false decoration, and infinitely creditable to those who projected
it. I was informed by the head of the College that it has been open
only two years, and here also I fancy that the colony has been much
indebted to the taste of the late Governor, Sir Edmund Head.

Toronto as a city is not generally attractive to a traveller. The
country around it is flat; and, though it stands on a lake, that
lake has no attributes of beauty. Large inland seas such as are
these great Northern lakes of America never have such attributes.
Picturesque mountains rise from narrow valleys, such as form the beds
of lakes in Switzerland, Scotland, and Northern Italy. But from such
broad waters as those of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan,
the shores shelve very gradually, and have none of the materials of
lovely scenery.

The streets in Toronto are framed with wood, or rather planked, as
are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better order.
I should say that the planks are first used at Toronto, then sent
down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out there, are
again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the thoroughfares
of the old French capital. But if the streets of Toronto are better
than those of the other towns, the roads round it are worse. I had
the honour of meeting two distinguished members of the Provincial
Parliament at dinner some few miles out of town, and, returning back
a short while after they had left our host's house, was glad to be
of use in picking them up from a ditch into which their carriage had
been upset. To me it appeared all but miraculous that any carriage
should make its way over that road without such misadventure. I may
perhaps be allowed to hope that the discomfiture of those worthy
legislators may lead to some improvement in the thoroughfare.

I had on a previous occasion gone down the St. Lawrence, through the
thousand isles, and over the rapids in one of those large summer
steamboats which ply upon the lake and river. I cannot say that I was
much struck by the scenery, and therefore did not encroach upon my
time by making the journey again. Such an opinion will be regarded
as heresy by many who think much of the thousand islands. I do not
believe that they would be expressly noted by any traveller who was
not expressly bidden to admire them.

From Toronto we went across to Niagara, re-entering the States at
Lewiston in New York.




CHAPTER VI.

THE CONNEXION OF THE CANADAS WITH GREAT BRITAIN.


When the American war began troops were sent out to Canada, and when
I was in the Provinces more troops were then expected. The matter was
much talked of, as a matter of course, in Canada; and it had been
discussed in England before I left. I had seen much said about it
in the English papers since, and it also had become the subject of
very hot question among the politicians of the Northern States.
The measure had at that time given more umbrage to the North than
anything else done or said by England from the beginning of the war
up to that time, except the declaration made by Lord John Russell in
the House of Commons as to the neutrality to be preserved by England
between the two belligerents. The argument used by the Northern
States was this. If France collects men and material of war in the
neighbourhood of England, England considers herself injured, calls
for an explanation, and talks of invasion. Therefore as England is
now collecting men and material of war in our neighbourhood, we
will consider ourselves injured. It does not suit us to ask for an
explanation, because it is not our habit to interfere with other
nations. We will not pretend to say that we think we are to be
invaded. But as we clearly are injured, we will express our anger at
that injury, and when the opportunity shall come will take advantage
of having that new grievance.

As we all know, a very large increase of force was sent when we
were still in doubt as to the termination of the Trent affair, and
imagined that war was imminent. But the sending of that large force
did not anger the Americans, as the first despatch of troops to
Canada had angered them. Things had so turned out that measures of
military precaution were acknowledged by them to be necessary. I
cannot, however, but think that Mr. Seward might have spared that
offer to send British troops across Maine; and so, also, have all his
countrymen thought by whom I have heard the matter discussed.

As to any attempt at invasion of Canada by the Americans, or idea
of punishing the alleged injuries suffered by the States from Great
Britain by the annexation of those provinces, I do not believe that
any sane-minded citizens of the States believe in the possibility of
such retaliation. Some years since the Americans thought that Canada
might shine in the Union firmament as a new star, but that delusion
is, I think, over. Such annexation if ever made, must have been made
not only against the arms of England but must also have been made
in accordance with the wishes of the people so annexed. It was then
believed that the Canadians were not averse to such a change, and
there may possibly have then been among them the remnant of such a
wish. There is certainly no such desire now, not even a remnant of
such a desire; and the truth on this matter is, I think, generally
acknowledged. The feeling in Canada is one of strong aversion to the
United States Government, and of predilection for self-government
under the English Crown. A fainéant Governor and the prestige of
British power is now the political aspiration of the Canadians in
general; and I think that this is understood in the States. Moreover
the States have a job of work on hand which, as they themselves
are well aware, is taxing all their energies. Such being the case
I do not think that England needs to fear any invasion of Canada,
authorized by the States Government.

This feeling of a grievance on the part of the States was a manifest
absurdity. The new reinforcement of the garrisons in Canada did not,
when I was in Canada, amount as I believe to more than 2,000 men. But
had it amounted to 20,000 the States would have had no just ground
for complaint. Of all nationalities that in modern days have risen
to power, they above all others have shown that they would do what
they liked with their own, indifferent to foreign councils, and
deaf to fore

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/1865