my attendant disease became more confirmed and violent, to remove immediately was impossible, and in six weeks, from a fourteen-stone man. I became the ghost of an apology for such of nine stone. This kind of transition is one of the superlative advantages of emigration, which authors have delicately with-held from the public; but as I do not possess such reserve, I think it essential, and, in my humble opinion, of the highest importance and most material consequence, to tell a British people, especially those it may concern to know----there are, in every part of the American Continent, wholesale thinners of the land continually in existence, in the retinue of fevers, yellow, purple, scarlet, black, bilious and intermittent ague, dysentery, cholera morbus, &c. &c.----And now, O stern remembrance, soften thy rigorous detail of human sufferings in a land I blush to acknowledge its rulers, but I am confident, without the concurrence of the Parent Government; such is a part of that vile system that explains my meaning in my observasion, relative to that power Sir P. Maitland has and yet combats, at Montreal. A spirited remonstrance, appeal, and painful exposition, was made by the Grand Jury to the supreme power, that is, the Judges and Magistrates, relative to the prison and prisoners, which "out-herod's Herod;" and in the comparison the Parisian Bastile was the sanctuary of compassion !--Blessed Shade of Howard, descend from thy blissful mansion, aud teach these deputed guardians of British subjects thy creed of sympathy !--and tell them the hapless victims of guilt and sorrow have a claim, consistent with safety and justice, on the pitying alleviation of the children of humanity. "Tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank aud gross in nature But Montreal is not the place for misfortune to seek an asylum in; here are no pitying Institutions; oh yes, one that is a Sunday School, and an attempt at another---a Bible Society, which is not so much in demand as the spirit of the book, and sum total of divine precept and sacred history, Charity. Heavenly Maid, this, this is thine.--If a man supplicates bread, to cram a bible down his throat, it might be considered a pious swallow, but not so easy of digestion as its magnitude in the shape of roast beef. To Colonel Burer and the officers of the 37th Regiment, and to Colonel M'Gregor and officers of the 70th, public gratitude is due; they as British Soldiers felt the misery of their hapless countrymen---exiles in an inclement season, and knowing the vortex of fashion could be transformed into the stream of Charity, converted the drama into the magic illusion; thus, while the respective talents of these gallant Sons of Mars honored Melpomene and Thalia, they shed a lustre on humanity, while pity dropped a tear of gratitude in behalf of pale sorrow, and registered a blessing in Heaven. I am most anxious to recommend to these North-Westers---these Montreal dealers in pot-ash, musk rat, and bear-skins, Benevolence, and shame their frigid apathy, else I would attempt matter more essential. Recent emigrants were perishing or seeking, by broken hearts, premature graves! "Tell not these truths in Gath," or hide your diminished heads, ye who know these things. Would the Arab, the decry'd Algerine, or much-injured, libelled African suppose, that in January last, a man (a Northumbrian) and his wife were or the bed of death, unnoticed but not unknown---on one side, the corpse of a child, and on the other side, a younger one, expiring, surrounded by meagre want, friendless and forlorne !--No no, not friendless; for thy mercy, Eternal Deity, accepted the sigh and ejaculation of fast fleeting misery ;-thus they breathed their last, and fled for and found "another and a better world!" In quitting Canada, I cannot but wonder why England retains so unprofitable an appendage in her dominions; the only answer that can be made will bear an F analogy with Montreal feelings---that is, Timber. One half is boundless snow, and the other half literally a wilderness: it is a colony maintained at an enormous expence. Two distinct branches of Government, a military and naval establishment, and no direct or indirect system of taxation to make any return, except a small import duty; but I place enquiry on the shelf, like an unfashionable Bill in St. Stephen's Chapel--to be read this day six months. In addition, on the bounty of Government, rely numerous Indian Tribes, of little value in peace or war--as few of them possess a TECUMSEH'S fire.---This brave, undaunted Indian, after the death of his friend and patron, Sir Isaac Brocke, found no kindred spirit with whom to act; but stung with grief and indignation, after upbraiding in angry just and bitter sarcasms, the retreat of our forces, his great soul, unequal to the task of fortitude, impetuous he rushed on a corps of cavalry, whose leader he supposed the American General Harrison, and like the gallant Shaw, of Waterloo celebrity, not until others fell by his arm, was he himself numbered with the dead. * * After the fall of poor Tecumseh, so terrible, while living, was his courageous name to the American troops, that although he attacked them singly, and fell at last by the hands of Colonel Johnson, one general shout took place, and they actually, in narrow strips, as memorials, GALLANTLY took off his skin! TO THE Memory of Tecumseh, TECUMSEH has no grave, but eagles dipt Might ye torment him to this earth again |