The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-19 00:00:00

CANADIAN EMIGRANTS.

We have been favoured with two letters from Canada,
descriptive of the present condition of the people who
emigrated from the Island of Lewis, in this county.
One gentleman writes—" The poor people who came
from Uile, in Lewis, settled on a fruitful bill, or swell
of land, near a river, about thirty miles from Sher-
brooke. I went to visit them last week. They had
just fourpence among them when they came here, and
of course they had to struggle• through hardship the
first winter. Now they have cows and oxen ; pigs and
fowls ; more potatoes and grain than they can use ;
their own sugar.; and they have discovered an herb
on the river side that makes a most excellent substitu! e
for tea. The table was spread for me, and ail on it
was their own conquest, except the salt and tea. I
told them that next visit they must allow me to enjoy
their native tea, so as to be indebted to trade for salt
alone. The young people are branching off on new
clearings ; and if there were as many more, as to af-
ford a Gaelic minister and schoolmaster, they would
really be a very happy community." The second let-
ter, which is dated from the "Scotch Settlement,
Bury," gives an equally favourable account of the poor
islanders--" The Lewis people that emigrated to this
country are still in being, from the child to the grey-
headed. They are coming on well. You can hardly
believe their success as to crops. Some of them raise
upwards of 600 bushels of potatoes and 200 Scotch
pecks of grain. The whole of them have their own
cows and oxen. Some of them will have upwards of
twenty acres ready for crops next spring. We heard
severe account. of the coldness of this country, but I
was working without my coat throughout the winter,
and the climate is exceedingly healthy.
Oa the general subject of emigration to the New
World, one cf our Canadian Correspondents makes
some observations of a moral, or rather religious na-
ture, which we are tempted to transcribe :
" Families earning a tolerable subsistence at home do
well to keep there in the land of schools, bibles, and
churches. In a new country society is dislocated, and
it takes a long time to build up the public mind, the
feelings, principles, and habits, to anything like the
'staid consistency, order, propriety, and comfort of an
old country. Around you, a tboesand people in a
parish are professedly of the same sentiments, and
subordinate, in their outward habits, to the same rules,
and the same cense of propriety. In a new country men
act out their principles, without the advantage of your
public standard of decency and respectability to
smooth and control them. Teetotall.!rs and drunk-
ards; Sabbath keepers and Sabbath-breakers, even
Sabbath-workers ; Trinitarians and Socinians ; Chris-
tians and Universalista ; ranting, ignotant fana-
tics, and scoffing infidels, arc mixed up in one mass;
they trust each to his own understanding and are un-
teachable ; and their mixed location, side by side, with
their divers opinions, make it difficult to maintain ade-
quate religious institutions in any one district ,or to in-
duce such a conformity of general opinions and outward
habits, as a Christian parent who can provide for his
family at home could desire. The habits and principles
of individuals should be formed for life ere they seek
such neighbourhood. At the same time, if the sources of
subsistence and the profitable subjects of industry fail at
home, it is fortunate that we have the alternative of
emigrating, under the protection of Britain, to all the
climates of the world. In emigrating, however, there
are certain privations and sufferings of heart and
outward
habit, which none but emigrants can know, and
and
which
inwardare
ic dte3p
mdb ens© embitter
of the
their
with all but the most abject. The characters to emi-
een
ir new
enjoyment
ve condition
e-rate should he such as went to David in the cave of
Nlullarn, every one that is in distress, and every oac
'-'ht, and every one that is disconteated.' If
-et nadu‘try poor labourers cannot
*hernselves respectahle
6rwera, with

Ca at is it, —_
they persevere is
in a few years,. to floa
master mechanics, or xnaependetat yewuu

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