destitute people late in last autumn seemed a serious charge on this district, yet the appeal on their behalf has been so handsomely responded to in this neighbourhood, and from the cities of Montreal and Quebec, that they have been brought through the winter in health, and with the prospect, which they would not exchange for any worldly advantages they ever had in their fatherland. They are placed in a fine fertile tract of land in Bury and Lingwick, along township roads, and near the Salmon River and small lakes, abounding in fish. They have built log-houses, and are clearing their land for crops, and exchanging their ashes for potatoes, and other necessaries. The subscriptions being judiciously converted into oatmeal and axes have furnished them with winter rations in proportion to their numbers, and at present a surplus balance, sent near them, to supply when the winter roads fail, and before the summer road is easily passable. They are exceedingly grateful for all the humanity and kindness extended to them on every side, in this fine healthy part of the country. They have generally preferred to occupy about seventy acres each family; more, of course, where there are grown-up young people. In Scotland, such an aid would leave them next year as poor and helpless as ever; while here, the one effort on our part, and on theirs, places them at once in circumstances of progressive comfort and independence for all the rest of their lives; and they seem to lament that any unfavourable representations to their hopelessly indigent countrymen in the Highlands, should deter them from adventuring on that movement which, with all its difficulty, is the best alternative for permanently relieving the country and the poor. "I have the honour to be, sir, "Your faithful, humble servant, "A. Macnab, Esq., Kingston." On the return of the Deputation to London, the 8th of June was appointed for the third meeting of the Consulting placed opposite to their respective names, it being a stipulation that no call for money should be made upon the shareholders until the sum of £50,000 had been subscribed. Immediately thereafter, the Association was advertised in the newspapers; the prospectus issued to the public; the stock placed on the market; and the pending arrangements above referred to completed, whereby lands in Canada, Prince Edward's Island, and Gaspé, to the extent of 443,594 acres in all, were acquired for the Association upon most advantageous terms, and under agreements mutually binding upon the buyers and sellers. During the whole course of this season I continued to receive applications from all parts of Ireland, from bodies of Emigrants that were preparing to leave that island for Canada. The reason which conduced to this general and vehement desire on the part of such large masses of the Irish population to remove, may be inferred from the following extract of a letter from the celebrated American Professor Durin to Dr. Sewell : : "No country has interested me more than Ireland. She is a problem in society yet to be solved. With a general destitution that has no parallel in Europe, she has increased in population much faster than any other European country; while, at the same time, she has parted with millions of her children by enlistments in the army and navy, and by Emigration to the Colonies and foreign states. This fact of the rapid increase of her population, with the general absence of the comfortable means of subsistence and residence, is directly at variance with what has been considered a settled law in political economy-that the increase of population is in proportion to the means of subsistence. I passed through the length of the island, and made a little volume of notes and reasonings, and finally came to this conclusion that the early marriages (girls generally marry at from fourteen to seventeen,) were owing, not to a natural improvidence of the Irish, but to the utter hopelessness of improving their condition preparatory to marriage. Hence they follow the first sudden impulse of youthful passion, in order to secure the longer continuance of pleasures which cannot be im Р proved by delay. If the inquiry be, Why cannot they improve their condition? the answer is, the land is held mostly in large tracts by absentee proprietors, and the demand for it is so great, owing to the density of the population, and the rent is so high (much higher in proportion than in England), that the family can scarcely meet its payment, while they live on potatoes. Of these last I believe they have a sufficiency; and I was strongly inclined to jump to the conclusion, that potato diet is favourable to the production, as well as the sustenance, of a numerous population. "I satisfied myself that the miseries of Ireland do not arise from misgovernment by the mother country, but from an overgrown population; from large landed estates, divided up into tenures of from half to ten or twenty acres, at exorbitant rents; from the absence of proprietors in England, to whom the rent is sent to be spent in London, or in travelling on the Continent. To remove, therefore, the ills of Ireland, would require an exertion of the Government in the violation of vested rights, by compelling the division of large landed estates, and the common right of citizenship, by compelling the proprietors to reside in the country, and improve it by the products of their estates." This is another forcible demonstration, that evils of this gigantic nature, and continued augmentation, can only be relieved by extensive and regulated Emigration. Fifteen hundred poor persons being desirous of leaving Belfast, in the month of June, they requested their indefatigable and patriotic friend, Mr. Valentine, to place himself in communication with me on the subject; and at a large meeting held in Belfast, over which the Marquess of Donegal presided, the following letter, addressed by me to Mr. Valentine, was publicly read, and occasioned the postponement of this body of Emigrants quitting Ireland until the ensuing year : "June 24, 1842. "Dear Sir,-In conformity with your desire, I proceed to give you the information which the Emigrants intending to proceed from Belfast to Canada have requested. As a general principle, the labouring classes who go to Canada, should leave as early in the season as possible: the passage is shorter; their labour is in greater demand; they are enabled to provide for the ensuing winter; and they acquire a more perfect knowledge of the seasons, and their adaptation to the purposes of husbandry. Had the period of departure generally been a matter of indifference, it is one of the greatest consequence at the present period. A combination of circumstances during the existing season renders it very desirable that the labouring classes, who are destitute, should not proceed to Canada until the following spring. A large number of persons engaged in the lumbering business on the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, and in the adjoining province of New Brunswick, have been thrown out of employment from the alteration in the timber duties; a vast number of persons also have left the United States, and proceeded to Canada. Now, although I do hope that the knowledge which these people have acquired by their occupation in the forest will induce them to become settlers, I am still apprehensive that many will be seeking that employment which has always been absorbed by the Emigrants from the United Kingdom. "As there has been a very large Emigration this year from the United Kingdom, I am not anxious further to provoke or encourage it, lest it might entail a heavy burden on the province, and prove unsatisfactory to those who hoped to find profitable employment and a comfortable home therein. 66 Secondly, I strongly recommend all Emigrants to be furnished with a small sum of money on landing, as they may have to proceed some distance in the country before obtaining employment. 66 Thirdly, I advise them to take the first employment offered; it is of vital consequence to them to commence husbanding their means immediately. Much foolish prejudice has existed against Eastern Canada, and the current of Emigration has been generally directed to the West. Without denying that the climate is somewhat more severe in Eastern than in |