388 STATE OF THE INHABITANTS 



without enterprise. The greater portion of British emigrants, 

 who first settled in the province, having little capital or edu 

 cation, and obtaining grants of forest in isolated situations, 

 made small progress in a mode of farming so new to them. 

 Having been nurtured in poverty, they had few wants and 

 were not ambitious to improve their condition. From a people 

 so situated, and composed of such materials, little could be 

 expected. Individuals connected with government seem to 

 have been more solicitous about their own than the people s 

 \velfare, and little was done to call forth the resources of the 

 country, or to rouse the slumbering energies of the inhabi 

 tants. The people, however, formed good subjects for 

 active traders, who still gather a plentiful harvest. How 

 long this state of things may last with traders will depend 

 on competition. Their profits will fall with the opening 

 of communication throughout the country, but capital 

 employed in trade is likely to yield a good return, so long 

 as the necessities of the agricultural population continue 

 urgent. 



Every inhabitant of Britain, contemplating the com 

 mencement of trade in Upper Canada, must be prepared to 

 do so in a new mode, and, while he views high profits, he 

 ought not to lose sight of transacting business on a limited 

 scale, and in an expensive and disagreeable manner. 



If the early inhabitants of Upper Canada sunk into indo 

 lence, some of the succeeding settlers were ill fitted to im 

 prove them, being blended with the scum and refuse of man 

 kind. For many years the bankrupts in character and fortune, 

 the poor, the idle, and the dissipated, departed from Britain. 

 From the United States the knavish whites, and the runaway 

 blacks found shelter, and after having cheated the Canadians 

 again set off. Such a population receiving grants of forest, 

 separated from each other by clergy reserves and large ab 

 sentee estates, could not be expected to exert themselves 

 amidst the difficulties of first settlement. People of enter 

 prise, who reached the province, soon made a fortune and 

 retired again. 



I found some of the oldest settlers treading out their wheat 

 crop with horses ; living in miserable houses, and without a 



