Canada and the Canadians | Page 4

really valuable settlers: they go to Canada for land and living; and eschew the land and liberty system of the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the London and western districts.
It does not require a very lengthened acquaintance with Canada to form observations upon the characters of the immigrants, as the Webster style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be.
The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "baneful domination," they either go to the United States at once, or to those portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the order of the day.[2]
[Footnote 2: That is, to those portions of the London and western district where American settlers abound, who have so generously repaid the fostering care which Governor Simcoe originally extended to them. One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an inn, padlocked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their thirst.]
If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of revolutionizing it.
But the latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue.
The great mass of emigrants may however be said to come from Ireland, and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward.
If they be Orangemen, they defy the Pope and the devil as heartily in Canada as in Londonderry, and are loyal to the backbone.
If they are Repealers, they come here sure of immediate wealth, to kick up a deuce of a row, for two shillings and sixpence currency is paid for a day's labour, which two shillings and sixpence was a hopeless week's fortune in Ireland; and yet the Catholic Irish who have been long settled in the country are by no means the worst subjects in this Trans-Atlantic realm, as I can personally testify, having had the command of large bodies of them during the border troubles of 1837-8. They are all loyal and true.
In the event of a war, the Catholic Irish, to a man--and what a formidable body it is in Canada and the United States!--will be on the side of England. O'Connell has prophesied rightly there, for it is not in human nature to forget the wrongs which the Catholics have suffered for the past ten years in a country professing universal freedom and toleration.
The Americans of the better classes with whom I have conversed admit this, but their dislike of the Irish is rooted and general among all the native race; and they fear as well as mistrust them, because, in many of the largest cities, New York for one, the Irish predominate.
The Americans say, and so do the Canadians, that, for some years back, since the repeal agitation at home, a few very ignorant and very turbulent priests, of the lowest grade, have found their way across the Atlantic. I have travelled all over Canada, and lived many years in the country, and have been thrown among all classes, from my having been connected with the militia. I never saw but one specimen of Irish hedge-priest, and therefore do not credit the assertion; this one came out last year, and a more furious bigot or a more republican ultra I never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be conceived.
Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men, not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive, gentlemanly, and an honour to the soutane and chasuble.
The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were, till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier or a better man