It is not our intention to descend to the other minor branches of trade particularized at great length by our author; we may mention, however, that of "Notions," which seem to be in great demand among the Creoles, consisting of potatoes, biscuits, crackers, cheese, hams, butter, tongues, salt-beef, pork, poultry, eggs, apples, jams, soused and smoked fish, with other articles, says our authority, too numerous for detail. Doubting whether these are fit subjects for an Act of Parliament, and knowing how essential they are to a comfortable existence on this side the Atlantic as well as on the other, we have only to express a hope that our colonies on the Western Continent, will soon be so much improved as to meet fully all the wants of the luxurious islanders, and in this way to secure the riches which at present go into the hands of our most malignant foes. That they are capable of raising such a supply was completely proved during the late war; for Halifax being made the principal station of a large naval and military force, a sudden demand was thus created for provisions for all kinds, which, without any previous arrangements, was immediately answered from the resources of Nova Scotia alone. The town was also swelled by a prodigious concourse of strangers, not military; and yet so far from any appearance of famine or even of scarcity, the author declares that there was a profusion of all the necessaries of life, and the prices only such as all markets will obtain, when there exists a great demand and brisk sales. Indeed there is no room for doubt that our provinces might readily be converted into extensive depots of corn, as well as of fish, sufficient not only to supply the West India islands, but even to lend assistance to the mother country in bad seasons; and as this would answer the double purpose of increasing the power of our fellow-subjects, and of limiting the resources of their ambitious neighbours, we should sincerely hope that the attention of government will be speedily directed to bring it about.

Our author is greatly alarmed at the prospect of a powerful competition, on the part of the native artizans and mechanics in the United States, in every department of manufacturing skill; and he even foresees an epoch, as at no great distance, when we shall be completely driven not only from the American market, but also from that of the West Indies, and from all other countries, in fact, to which their enterprising spirit may lead them. We cannot enter into all his fears on this subject. The Americans are, indeed, using every measure, fair and foul, to equal us in cheapness and excellence of manufactured goods, and, we must add that, their efforts have not been altogether unaccompanied with success; still in a country of which half the soil is still to be cleared, where money is laid out to so much advantage in the culture of land, where labour is dear and capital comparatively small, it would be extremely unwise, and must involve considerable sacrifices, to force the national industry into a new channel.

Be this as it may, however, we cannot interfere with the internal policy of any state. Let us keep them out of the West Indies, and diminish, as much as possible, their facility of trading with our Eastern empire; and, then, let us meet them fairly in the general market of the world.

Following the order we proposed, we are now to consider the best means of security and defence; and with the conviction before us, that the Americans have resolved, sooner or later, to annex our northern provinces to their dominions, it becomes a matter of the most urgent consideration to defeat their projects. Canada, they say, naturally belongs to them; and on the same principle they ought to have Novia Scotia, and the West India islands, as being very conveniently situated for the several branches of commerce in which they wish to embark. Our business, however, is to anticipate them in all their plans of conquest and aggrandizement, for if ever they shall reduce our provinces on the main land, our insular colonies will be exposed to the greatest hazard, and our maritime superiority can no longer rest on a solid foundation.

The first step, then, which should be taken for strengthening our American provinces, is to increase the population, by encouraging emigrants to settle in them. Various plans have been adopted for this purpose, at different eras. Charters have been granted by government for the exclusive possession of large districts, and, at other times, premiums have been held out to individuals and families, to form settlements under the immediate patronage of the crown. The plan adopted by the present ministers, and to which we alluded in the outset of the article, was to grant to every settler, eighteen years of age and upwards, one hundred acres of land in perpetuity, upon the condition that such settler should pay into the hands of a public agent, before leaving Great Britain, the sum of sixteen pounds, to be repaid to him after having resided for a given time in the colony. The object of this arrangement, it is very obvious, was in the first place, to have the settlers of a respectable order of men, and secondly, to prevent them from repairing to the United states in preference to remaining in Canada. Both these points, we are fully of opinion, deserved all the attention which was paid to them; for as the emigrants were to be carried out, free of expense, there can be no doubt that thousands would have availed themselves of the opportunity, thus presented, of crossing the ocean, who had no serious intention to continue thereafter British subjects. The author of the work which we are now examining, admits that this scheme appears well caculated for the purpose of introducing into our provinces worthy and respectable characters; though he is of opinion, at the same time, that an auxiliary measure, embracing a still lower class of settlers, might be safely adopted, and he recommends that it should be founded on the following regulations:

"1st. That printed proposals be circulated, stating explicitly, the terms of emigration.

"2d. That all persons indiscriminately, (except notorious villains) of an age proper to labour, be permitted to enrol their names in lists, gratuitously prepared for that purpose; at the same time stating to which of the colonies they intend removing. These lists should be posted in public places, for the purpose of guarding against fraud, that no persons be permitted to leave the kingdom, if their creditors choose to affix a negative on the list.

"3d. That the emigrants should be under martial law, but guaranteed against all kind of military service, except that common to all inhabitants of colonies in the time of war; and that proper officers, civil and agricultural, should be appointed with a commissariat, &c.

"4th. That the emigrants, while they remain embodied, should be fed at the expense of government; but, except in special cases, they should clothe themselves.

"5th. That agricultural implements should be advanced gratuitously by government.

"6th. That the several corps of emigrants should proceed in transports, provided by government, to Canada, Nova Scotia, or New-Brunswick.

"7th. That when arrived at their destination, they should with all convenient spced, commence the clearance of the precise district allotted to them, performing the labour in a body until the whole was cleared, drained, and ready for culture.

"8th. The land when thus prepared should be divided to each by lot; the whole being previously surveyed, and laid out into equal shares of one hundred acres or more per man.

"9th. The officers to be paid an equivalent for their superintendance, either out of the cleared estate, or by a salary from government.

"10th. The emigrants to be invested with their respective estates, free of all fees or charges; to hold them by the tenure of free and common soccage; and to be discharged from further services."

"The author likewise recommends that, instead of disbanding soldiers at home, all regiments in future, intended to be reduced, should be sent to one of the four provinces in North America, particularly to Upper Canada, to clear land in the manner stated in the 7th and 8th regulations, reserving to them the option of settling on their respective allotments, when cleared, or of selling their shares and returning home. There appears, at first view, an apparent hardship in sending men to be disbanded so far from their native land, after the fatigues, perhaps of a lengthened war; yet, as they would be left at liberty to dispose of their estates as soon as cleared, if they should not choose to cultivate them, and would thus secure a property of four or five hundred pounds to increase the comforts of their old age, the objection loses much of its force. The great advantages of employing a regiment, as a body, in the clearance of land, and then dividing by lot to each man his proportional share, must occur to the mind the very first moment one thinks on the subject. The men, in such circumstances, act under authority, and the work is done regularly and systematically; and we all know, there are thousands of persons who would engage heartily in the cultiva

tion of a hundred acres of cleared land, who would shrink from the previous labour of cutting down the trees, and of grubbing out the roots. At the conclusion of the revolutionary war accordingly, when government granted certain tracts of land to particular regiments, the ground being divided among the men in an uncleared state, was abandoned by the majority of them, or sold for a trifle; and it was only a few of the more industrious who cleared and cultivated their own portions, or purchased those of the others; on which, however, they had the satisfaction to leave their descendants in the condition of opulent farmers, and to see them spring up around them as the chief support of provincial independence. We may give an instance too, with which we are supplied in this little volume, of the rapid progress in the clearing of land, which is made by a body of men working in concert. The colony of Berbice was cleared and settled full three quarters of a mile into the interior, for near sixty miles extending along the sea coast, and the shores of the rivers Berbice and Corantain, in the comparatively short space of seven years. There the labour was performed by negroes, while that performed by whites, in a temperate climate, would be as three to one in favour of the latter; besides the clearance in this instance required that, around every lot of a thousand acres, a dike or fosse, nine feet wide and six feet deep, should be dug for the purpose of draining. How much then might be accomplished by a body of one thousand men, labouring in unison; and with the certainty of a speedy recompence before their eyes! We agree with the author in thinking, that more land would be cleared by such a corps in one year, than by the same number of individuals, unorganized and uncontroled, in the space of twelve years. In short, if government should ever deem it expedient to give land in America to the discharged military, there can be no doubt that it should be cleared by the men before they are disombodied; for, by this means, the ground will, in the first place, be actually cleared, and secondly, there is every chance that it will be also occupied by those who clear it.

« A double advantage would be gained by the country, were this plan adopted; the old soldier would be richly provided for at a very small expense, and our colonies would be furnished with an efficient population, who would not only be instrumental in defending the frontiers by their own personal bravery; but would also instruct the young in the use of arms. It would also prove an inducement to the people of this country to enter into the regular army, were they to see before them not only a limit to their service in active war, but also the means of providing for the wants of age, and the comfort of their surviving families. Had it not been for this powerful stimulus, the United States it is said, could not have raised an army at all; and in this particular it would be wisdom in us to learn from an enemy, whose

motions we have to watch, and whose policy we have to coun

teract.

"When writing on the defence of our American provinces, it naturally occurs to mention the great importance of having a powerful fleet on the lakes. Our failures in the last war, both on the ocean and in the inland seas, arose chiefly from the inadequacy of our means, generally considered, to encounter the enemy's force, and more especially from the small number of seamen, either able or ordinary, on board our ships. It appears from a general order, issued by the commander in chief, Sir G. Prevost, that in the whole of our squadron, on Lake Erie, there were not more than fifty sailors; the crews consisting, for the most part, of militiamen, peasantry, and raw recruits, total strangers of course, to naval tactics, and to every point of seamanship. A great mistake was, no doubt, committed in 1783, by those who adjusted the boundaries between British and Independent America, in giving to the latter so very extensive a line of coast, and the strongest positions on almost all the lakes; more particularly, as a straight line drawn from the point at which the commissioners begun, on the river St. Lawrence, to that where they ended, on the Mississipi, would have shut out the Americans from these waters altogether. To give to that people the great advantages which they now possess, it was necessary to turn off, at a right angle, from the natural direction of the boundary line, the evil of which aberration, it should seem, consists not only in opening up to our enemies the means of creating a naval power, but moreover in interposing a tongue of land, so as actually to intercept, in certain circumstances, all communication with two districts of the upper province. This error not having been corrected by the treaty of Ghent, we shall be put to the expense of maintaining a large naval armament to protect the Canadian frontiers, exposed as they must be to incessant inroads, whensoever war shall be renewed in that quarter of the world.

"If Britain lose Canada," says our traveller, "the loss of the West Indies must inevitably follow; and the ruin of her navy will succeed. But if she well people, and thereby strengthen Canada, the West Indies will also increase in population; and wealth will reanimate the drooping commerce of the realm in general. And with proper restrictions on the American fisheries, the provinces may yet bear up for a short time, without feeling the direful effects of the treaty of Ghent. However, if America should think proper again to declare war, the British nation is faithfully exhorted not to conduct another contest on the principles by which the last was regulated; and not again to make peace until she can coerce the enemy into an abandonment of the whole line from St. Regis in the river St. Lawrence, to the Lake of the woods, including also Lake Michigan and the Michigan territory, and insisting on the Americans retiring from the waters of the rivers and lakes, a few miles into the interior. All that portion, too, of the district of Maine, extending from the Grand Lake in New-Brunswick, in a straight line, to the river Chandiere in Lower Canada, ought also to be secured: or, if thought more advisable, a straight