'We should look to that great area cultivated by our own countrymen in our colonial possession in North America- a country to which we are united by the closest relationship—a country to find constant employment for our surplus labourers-a country which still looks to England with feelings of affection-a country which offers a market for our manufactured goods-a country subject to no hostile tariffwhich supports our shipping-which improves the condition of our fellow-countrymen-a country which we may hold with signal benefit to ourselves, but in which we cannot maintain our supremacy unless we are cemented to her by the closest bonds of affection as well as of interest.' EARL OF DERBY, then LORD STANLEY, VIEWS OF CANADA AND THE COLONISTS EMBRACING THE EXPERIENCE OF AN EIGHT YEARS' RESIDENCE; INFORMATION FOR INTENDING EMIGRANTS. BY JAMES B. BROWN. SECOND EDITION CORRECTED THROUGHOUT AND GREATLY ENLARGED. EDINBURGH : ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK. LONDON: LONGMAN, & CO. MDCCCLI. 203, d. 30. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. BECAUSE of the uncertainty of information concerning our colonies,' remarks the writer of one of the recent Atlas Prize Essays, 'few emigrate till things are well-nigh desperate with them at home. And then they go so thoroughly ill-informed, that there is every reason to fear they will return in disgust.' The absence of sufficiently practical and detailed information regarding our colonies has indeed all along been seriously experienced; and, by those well informed in the matter, is believed to be the chief cause which prevents a much more extended flow of colonisation. Books of travels, in a great measure composed of hasty observations, generally speaking do not satisfy the keenly practical inquiries of the numbers naturally desirous of being acquainted with parti *The Rev. Joseph Angus, M.A. vi PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. cular and detailed facts. Another class of works, the compilations from those books, are necessarily similarly deficient. A third class, being written by persons familiar with the facts presented, are the kind of works, which, if moderately comprehensive and faithful, may be considered to be the most practically useful; and, in the absence of other means of information (as might perhaps be expected to be furnished by either the colonial or imperial Governments, or conjointly, regarding the actual and particular condition of our colonies—this description of information having now in this country become a matter of increasing moment)—such sources must prove among the best aids, as they are believed hitherto to have been, in carrying forward the work of peopling England's 'noble openings for enterprise and capital.' The present publication is offered to the public as an humble attempt to add to the stock of general information possessed in relation to one of our finest colonies; and concerning which, in its various familiar aspects, and progressively changing circumstances and prospects, it is natural to suppose that every such attempt, in proportion to the variety and value of the facts, and presumed fidelity of the views presented, will be more or less acceptably received. In addition to the gratification likely to |