50 



other countries. To this must be added the quarter- 

 ing of the troops, who are billeted on private 

 houses; and however well discipline may be main- 

 tained amongst them, must be a great annoyance, 

 and in most cases an expense, which, though appa- 

 rently trifling in amount, becomes weighty to those 

 whose means of supporting it are small. 



In a country where four-fifths of the inhabitants 

 subsist wholly by producing food, and depend for the 

 conveniences besides bare food, on the price whicli 

 they can obtain for their surplus, the low rate at 

 which that surplus can be disposed of must be felt and 

 observed in every rank of society. 



The Scale of Living in the country we are consi- 

 dering, corresponds with the low prices of the objects 

 in which their labour is employed. The working 

 class of the inhabitants, amounting in the maritime 

 provinces to upwards of a million, including both 

 those who work for daily wages and those who culti- 

 vate their own little portions of land, cannot be com- 

 pared to any class of persons in England. This large 

 description of the inhabitants live in dwellings pro- 

 vided with few conveniences, on the lowest and 

 coarsest food ; potatoes, or rye or buck wheat, 'are 

 their chief, and frequently their only food; linen, 

 from flax of their own growth, and wool, spun by 

 their own hands, both coarse and both worn as long 

 as they will hold together, furnish their dress ; whilst 

 an earthen pot that will bear fire, forms one of the 

 most valuable articles of their furniture. 



As fuel is abundant, they are warmed more by 

 close stoves than by the shelter of their wooden or 

 mud houses covered by shingles, which admit the 

 piercing cold of the severe weather through abundant 

 crevices. If they have bees and a plot of chicory, 

 their produce serves as a substitute for sugar and 

 coffee ; but too often these must be sent to market to 

 raise the scanty pittance which the tax-gatherer de- 



