Canada and the Canadians Volume I Part 13

"'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?'

"We came away."

Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an inherent principle.

But the train is progressing, and we are pa.s.sing Lundy's Lane, or, as the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a b.l.o.o.d.y fight between Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where

"The bones, unburied on the naked plain,"

still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very trees have the b.a.l.l.s still sticking in them.

Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry was so conspicuous.

Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat, immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house, and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield come to his rescue.

Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.

The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.

Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him, and ran and hid it in the cellar.

Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward, and with his a.s.sistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners, and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place, hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.

I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.

Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.

Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered, with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh, and was condemned to a traitor's death.

From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is still living.

The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pa.s.s Lundy's Lane, b.l.o.o.d.y Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore, and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few words concerning the Welland Ca.n.a.l.

The Welland Ca.n.a.l, the most important in a commercial point of view of any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico, which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the middle, until it pa.s.sed into the hands of the local government. If there has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Ca.n.a.l; and when the Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes, it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.

The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into splendid stone walls and a s.h.i.+p navigation; and, to give some idea of the rising importance of the Welland Ca.n.a.l, I shall briefly state that the tolls in 1832 amounted to 2,432, in 1841 had risen to 20,210, and in 1843 to 25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished, which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have pa.s.sed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was 26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the locks.

All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can pa.s.s freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.

To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Ca.n.a.ls, the Atlantic Ocean, and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once, and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the ca.n.a.l is fairly finished.

WELLAND Ca.n.a.l.

AMOUNT OF PROPERTY Pa.s.sED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.

Beef and pork barrels, 41,976-1/4 Flour do. 305,208-1/2 Ashes do. 3,412 Beer and cider do. 50 Salt do. 213,212 Whiskey do. 931 Plaster do. 2,068-1/2 Fruit and nuts do. 470 b.u.t.ter and lard do. 4,639-1/2 Seeds do. 1,429-1/2 Tallow do. 1,182 Water-lime do. 1,662 Pitch and tar do. 75 Fish do. 1,758-1/2 Oatmeal do. 132 Beeswax do. 36 Empty do. 3,044 Oil barrels, 96 Soap do. 13 Vinegar do. 24 Mola.s.ses do. 1 Caledonia water do. 10 Saw logs No. 10,411 Boards feet, 7,493,574 Square timber cubic feet, 490,525 Half flatted do. do. 13,922 Round do. do. 20,879 Staves, pipe do. 630,602 Do. W. I. do. 1,197,916 Do. flour barrel do. 130,500 s.h.i.+ngles do. 330,400 Rails do. 12,318 Racked hoops do. 59,300 Wheat bushels, 2,122,592 Corn do. 73,328 Barley do. 930 Rye do. 142 Oats do. 5,653 Potatoes do. 7,311 Peas do. 138 b.u.t.ter and lard kegs, 4,669 Merchandize tons, 11,318 16 Coal do. 1,689 7 Castings do. 211 6 Iron do. 1,748 10 Tobacco do. 140 7 Grindstones do. 151 14 Plaster do. 1,491 10 Hides do. 101 15 Bacon and Hams do. 307 0 Bran and shorts tons, 231 11 Water-lime do. 441 7 Rags do. 3 0 Hemp do. 500 11 Wool do. 15 9 Leather do. 9 17 Cheese do. 1 2 Marble do. 1 10 Stone cords, 738-1/2 Firewood do. 3,251 Tan bark do. 957 Cedar posts do. 69 Hoop timber do. 16 Knees do. 184 Small packages No. 459 Pumps do. 102 Pa.s.sengers do. 3,261-1/2 Sleighs do. 2 Waggons do. 177 Pails do. 136 Horses do. 2 Ploughs do. 25 Thras.h.i.+ng-machines do. 18 Cotton bales, 25 Fruit-trees bundles, 268 Sand cubic yards, 10,778 Schooners No. 2,121 Propellers do. 484 Scows do. 1,671 Boats do. 4 Rafts do. 118 Tonnage 327,570 Amount collected 25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.

CHAPTER IX.

The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada.

A sentimental journey in Canada is not like Sterne's, all about corking-pins and _remises_, monks and Marias, nor is it likely, in this utilitarian age, even if Sterne could be revived to write it, to be as immortal; nevertheless, let us ramble.

The Welland Ca.n.a.l naturally leads one to reflect on the great sources of power spread before the Canadian nation; for, although it will never, never be _la nation Canadienne_, yet it will inevitably some day or other be the Canadian nation, and its limits the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

President Polk--they say his name is an abbreviation of Pollok--can no more dive into "the course of time" than that poet could do, and it is about as vain for him to predict that the American bald eagle shall claw all the fish on the continent of the New World, as it is to fancy that the time is never to come when the Canadian races, Norman-Saxon as they are, shall not a.s.sert some claim to the spoils.

Canada is now happier under the dominion of Victoria than she could possibly be under that of the people of the States, and she knows and feels it. The natural resources of Canada are enormous, and developing themselves every day; and it needs neither Lyell, nor the yet unheard-of geologists of Canada to predict that the day is not far distant when her iron mines, her lead ores, her copper, and perhaps her silver, will come into the market.[6]

[Footnote 6: Since I penned this, a company is forming to work valuable argentiferous copper-mines lately discovered on Lake Superior. The Americans are actually working rich mines of silver, copper, &c.]

I see, in a paper lying before me, that Colonel Prince, a person who has already flourished before the public as an enterprising English farming gentleman, who combines the long robe with the red coat, has, with a worthy patriotism, obtained a very large grant of lands from the government to explore the sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior, in order to find whether the Yankees are to have all the copper to themselves; and that, in searching a little to the eastward of St. Mary's Rapids, a very valuable deposit has been discovered, which has stimulated other adventurers, who have found another mine nearer the outlet of the lake and still more valuable, the copper of which, lying near the surface, yields somewhere about seventy-five per cent.[7]

[Footnote 7: A recent number of "The Scientific American," published in New York, contains the following:--Some of the British officers in Canada have lately made an important discovery of some of the richest copper-mines in the world. This discovery has created great excitement.

Some of the officers, _en route_ to England, are now in the city, and will carry with them some specimens of the ore, and among them one piece weighing 2,200 lbs. The ore is very rich, yielding, as we learn, seventy-two per cent. of pure copper. Some of the copper was taken from the bed of a river, and some broken off from a cliff on the banks. The latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.]

We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the towns.h.i.+p of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron from being used but the finis.h.i.+ng of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by the government, _ex cathedra_, says there is no coal in Canada; but still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gaspe lands will furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada.

Canada, thus limited, is now, _de facto_, ay, and _de jure_, British North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright.

The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they are usually thought to be at home.

The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others, are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper, then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the remaining six for his food.

Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with s.h.i.+ps of all nations, the ca.n.a.ls carrying their burthens to the far West and the great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown resources and extent.

These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless, they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply because there is some little error in the very accurate computations which give all the regulations of tidal waters to lunar influences.

Barlow, one of the mathematical master-spirits of the age, was bold enough once to doubt this vast power of suction on the part of the ruler of the night; and there were certain wiseacres who, as in the case of Galileo, thought it very religiously dangerous indeed, to attempt to interfere with her privileges.

But, in fact, the phenomenon of the tides is just as easy of explanation by the motion of the earth as it is by the moon's presumed drinking propensities, and, as she is a lady, let us hope she has been belied.

The motion of the earth would not affect such narrow bodies of water as the Canadian lakes, but the moon's power of attraction would, if it existed to the extent supposed, be under the necessity of doing it, unless she prefers salt to fresh liquors.

One may venture, now-a-days, to express such a doubt, particularly as Madam Moon is a Pagan deity.

The great lakes are, however, very extraordinary in their way. Let us recollect what I have seen and thought of them.

We will commence with Lake Superior, which is 400 miles in length, 100 miles wide, and 900 feet deep, where it has been sounded. It contains 32,000 square miles of water, and it is 628 feet above the level of the sea.

Lake Michigan is 220 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1,000 deep, as far as it has been sounded; contains 22,400 square miles, and is 584 feet above tide-water; but it is, in fact, only a large bay of Lake Huron, the grand lake, which is 240 miles long, without it averaging 86 miles in width, also averaging 1,000 feet deep, as far as soundings have been tried, contains 20,400 square miles, and is also about 584 feet above the tidal waters.

Off Saginaw Bay, in this lake, leads have been sunk 1,800 feet, or 1,200 feet below the level of the Atlantic, without finding bottom.

Green Bay, an arm of Michigan, is in itself 106 miles long, 20 miles wide, and contains 2,000 square miles.

Lake St. Clair, 6 feet above Lake Erie, follows Lake Huron; but it is a mere enlargement of the St. Lawrence, of immense size, however, and shallow: it is 20 miles long, 14 wide, 20 feet deep, and contains 360 square miles.