To state all the grounds upon which this opinion is founded, might lead me into discussions, narratives, and description, which might swell into a volume, more interesting than the preceding one. But being at present neither able nor inclined to do justice to the subject, I shall only briefly observe first, with regard to the government, it is one to which the governed are fondly attached, and which like religion, becomes endeared to its votaries, by the sufferings they have endured for their adherence to it. It is consonant to their earliest prejudices, and sanctioned by hereditary attachment. The climate is, indeed, severe, but it is steady and regular; the skies in the interior are clear, the air is pure. The summer, with all the heat of warm climates to cherish the productions of the earth, is not subject to the drought that in such climates scorches and destroys them. Abundant woods afford shelter and fuel, to mitigate the severity of winter; and streams rapid and copious, flow in all directions to refresh the plants and cool the air, during their short but ardent summer.
The country, barren at the sea side, does not afford an inducement for those extensive settlements which have a tendency to become merely commercial from their situation. It becomes more fertile as it recedes further from the sea; thus holding out an inducement to pursue nature into her favourite retreats, where on the banks of mighty waters, calculated to promote all the purposes of social traffic among the inhabitants, the richest soil, the happiest climate, and the most complete detachment from the world, promise a safe asylum to those who carry the arts and the literature of Europe, hereafter to grace and enlighten scenes where agriculture has already made rapid advances.
In the dawning light which already begins to rise in these remote abodes, much may be discovered of what promises a brighter day. Excepting the remnant of the old Canadians, who are a very inoffensive people, patient and cheerful, attached to monarchy, and much assimilated to our modes of thinking and living, these provinces are peopled, for the most part, with inhabitants possessed of true British hearts and principles. Veterans who have shed their blood, and spent their best days in the service of the parent country, and royalists who have fled here for a refuge, after devoting their property to the support of their honour and loyalty; who adhere together, and form a society graced by that knowledge and those manners which rendered them respectable in their original state, with all the experience gained from adversity; and that elevation of sentiment which results from the consciousness of having suffered in a good cause. Here, too, are clusters of emigrants who have fled, unacquainted with the refinements, and uncontaminated by the old world, to seek for that bread and peace, which the progress of luxury and the change of manners denied them at home. Here they come in kindly confederation, resolved to cherish in those kindred groups, which have left with social sorrow their native mountains, the customs and traditions, the language and the love of their ancestors, and to find comfort in that religion which has ever been their support and their shield, for all that they have left behind.[27]