OF UPPER CANADA. 387 



does not always furnish regular employment, and their poverty 

 renders cash difficult to be had. In remote parts of the coun 

 try, the traffic is carried on chiefly in barter, and many trades 

 men in such situations almost never finger money. 



The merchants and storekeepers are said to be the most 

 wealthy and influential people in the province, and owe the 

 position they have attained to the situation and character of 

 the inhabitants. The settlers being thinly scattered over an 

 immense and almost inaccessible territory, are necessarily un 

 acquainted with traffic and the price of commodities. Their 

 limited produce does not spur them into active exertion to 

 dispose of it ; and the state of the roads only admitting of 

 transport for a part of the year, confines the time of sale to the 

 winter months. During this season, the St Lawrence, which 

 is the only channel of trade, being closed by ice, limits the 

 number of merchants, and drives all out of the market but 

 capitalists. The necessities of farmers do not enable them 

 to hold produce from year to year, and they appear to be at 

 the mercy of the merchants, who obtain thousands and tens 

 of thousands of bushels of wheat, at the head of Lake Onta 

 rio, in exchange for shoes and other necessaries, without a 

 fraction of cash being paid on either side. The inland store 

 keeper has still greater advantages over the farmer, and their 

 profits are said to be excessive ; 300 per cent on dry goods 

 having been currently obtained at one time. The merchant 

 and storekeeper is, however, distant from the markets of Bri 

 tain, which regulates the price of Canadian wheat ; and the 

 navigation of the St Lawrence, and transport of goods, are 

 so expensive, that profits may not be so great as is reported. 

 Of their influence in the country, there is, however, no doubt ; 

 and that it arises from the pecuniary difficulties of landown 

 ers is universally admitted, who, in numerous instances, are 

 irretrievably burdened with debt. 



The first settlers, at the close of the war with the colonies, 

 being at too great a distance to admit of much intercourse 

 with each other, and having no outlet for their produce, soon 

 sunk into listless inactivity. Many Germans and Dutch 

 afterwards followed, who commonly settled near each other, 

 and although quiet and industrious people, were altogether 



