TRAISES AND DETRACTIONS. 381 



of the produce to market will amount to 30s., or double the 

 price of what the land is originally worth, and this charge 

 will operate as a tax, or rent, on every crop that is raised 

 afterwards. The distance from water-conveyance, also, tends 

 to render dear every imported commodity that may be re 

 quired. When the Ouse or Grand river is made navigable, 

 Nichol will be nearer water-carriage ; but, at present, I would 

 rather pay a high price for land in a good situation and cli 

 mate in Upper Canada, than take a present of land in Nichol, 

 if I was bound to occupy it. 



The writers of private letters, the verbal tales of indivi 

 duals, and the public journals, are often called into requisi 

 tion to laud and misrepresent the country, and people of Bri 

 tain ought to consider the accounts well before giving them 

 credence. In a Montreal newspaper, which lately reached 

 me, I observed a paragraph announcing that a yacht club had 

 been formed at Goderich, of which Captain Dunlop was pre 

 sident. At the time of my visit to Goderich, in the end of 

 August, 1833, the population were chiefly subsisting on flour 

 and salt pork, imported from Detroit. The harbour contain 

 ed three craft of the smallest size, and I did not see a boat or 

 yacht of any description. The youth of Britain, who antici 

 pates displaying at Goderich the uniform of a yacht club, and 

 having the fair sex greeting his triumphant entry into the 

 harbour by the waving of handkerchiefs, may delay his depar 

 ture for half a century. A steam-boat had appeared off the 

 village in 1833, and could not gain admittance into the har 

 bour for want of water. I did not learn the object of her call, 

 but I am sure all the disposable agricultural produce of the 

 settlement, up to the present time, would not freight a nut 

 shell. 



Captain A , in the township of Blenheim, was told by 



an agent of the Canada Company, that a stage-coach would 

 convey himself and family from Hamilton to the property he had 

 purchased. No such conveyance existed. On representing the 

 imposition which had been practised on him to the managers 

 at York, an abatement of price was offered. I saw the cor 

 respondence on the subject. 



If Upper Canada has been too much praised on the one 



