ing dust and hot breath of faction. Neither his futile efforts to philosophise upon events which he only viewed through a microscopic and discoloured medium, nor his affected equanimity in adverse affairs, which is belied by traits of bitter spite and vain anticipation, give any evidence of reflective and wellcentred existence. Yet we cannot withhold our pity from the poor diseased old man, cast off by royal gratitude and by foreign hospitality; while we admire that force of self delusion which led him, as he says, "not to reflect upon any one thing he had done of which he was so much ashamed as he was of the vast expense he had made in the building of his house," and that impotence of mind which laid him prostrate (to employ his own words), "so broken under the daily insupportable instances of his majesty's terrible displeasure, that he knew not what to do, hardly what to wish." Alas for human nature! that such helpless debasement should be compatible with a rule of life which many still panegyrise as a pattern of the highest morality! Alas for mankind! that if such instances affect them with a feeling of indignant amazement, that emotion rarely penetrates to the origin of the evil in the absence of some grand and guiding principle of action. There was a moment in our history when the civic wreaths of yore seemed interwoven with the mild domestic life of later ages. But it is past; and even youth deserts the school-themes of antiquity, and the monuments of old English patriotism, for the perplexed and tortuous paths of modern practical politics. Many a mind that would have spurned the slavish lessons of prerogative is poisoned with the lore of balances, influences, and compromises-many an eye that would have kindled in the Star-chamber sinks beneath the satire of some frivolous circle-many a heart that would have sympathised and bled with Hampden's learns to idolise human power, in the example of Cromwell; to disbelieve in human virtue, on the authority of Clarendon.

ART. XII.-Letters from Nova Scotia, comprising Sketches of a Young Country. By Captain W. Moorsom, 52nd Light Infantry. Lon don. Colburn and Bentley. 1830. post. 8vo.

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OVA SCOTIA, had it been valued according to the price it cost, would have been more highly prized than it has been, and better information would have been obtained respecting it. In our present ignorance of the real condition of the ancient Acadie of the French, and in the daily increasing import

ance of all countries favourable to the purposes of emigration, this little volume by captain Moorsom, is no worthless gift, and on this ground may be forgiven the clumsy and tiresome form of letters to friends, in which it is couched, and that which costs still more in charity, a style of the utmost affectation.

The facts which are collected and condensed from this description of Nova Scotia, we dedicate to the instruction of persons who propose to emigrate and are casting about for intelligence respecting the various open places of the earth.

The principal emporia of commerce in Nova Scotia, are Halifax the capital, on the south-eastern shore bordering the Atlantic, Picton on the Gulf shore, and St. John's in New Brunswick, which is the chief dépôt for the produce of the Bay of Fundy. The present staple productions of the country are timber and fish, of which the forests and shores supply an illimitable quantity. These are exchanged for the manufactured goods and wine of Europe, and for the colonial produce of the West Indies. Latterly, coal and other mineral productions, in which Nova Scotia abounds, have been carried to the United States in return for fine flour and bread. Barley and oats, which grow in great perfection in this country, are also exported to the West Indies. Wheat by either some ignorance in its culture or through the severity of the spring and the shortness of the summer, has not been produced of a sufficiently white colour to satisfy the European wants of the settlers: it is consequently chiefly imported. The fisheries have been the principal source of prosperity to Nova Scotia; it is probable, however, that the mineral productions which have lately been investigated will surpass the advantages hitherto derived from this branch of industry. The cabins of the fishermen line the whole south-eastern coast of Nova Scotia; and if they do not equal in activity and enterprise their rivals from the Northern States it may be attributed to the thinness of the population which converts them both into farmers and fishermen. Each cabin has a small farm attached to it, which, as well as the sea, demands a share of the labours of the proprietor. As, however, the population of the country and the accumulation of capital increases, the fisheries are rising into more efficient operation. Of the value of this source of national wealth, an idea may be formed from the fact, that in 1743 the island of Cape Breton alone, then in possession of the French, produced nearly a million sterling.

British goods are retailed in Nova Scotia at an advance of from fifty to a hundred per cent upon the London price. This is the only tax a Nova Scotian pays whether external or internal. It does not extend to either colonial produce or tea; for latterly,

the East India Company have consigned one or two ships in the year to Halifax, and the best teas may be had at three shillings a pound.

Nova Scotia Proper is estimated to contain, exclusively of the lakes and waters of the interior, nearly eight million acres of land, of which about three fourths may be available for the purposes of cultivation that is to say, six millions of acres. The land in cultivation to that unreclaimed bears the proportion of one to twenty-six. And yet such has been the culpable want of foresight and indiscriminate lavishness with which grants of land have been made, that when the Emigration Committee sent out a commissioner to Nova Scotia, he could not find a single entire lot of forty thousand acres ungranted. The fact is, that many proprietors possess immense tracts which have long lain neglected, and will continue so until the law of escheats is enforced, or till the population arrives at that point when tenants will be found to pay rent. At present, it is scarcely the interest of the landlord to let his land, the only rent he is likely to receive being the improvements which the cultivator bestows upon the soil. So that he prefers waiting until the progress of population shall force purchasers into the market.

The quality of the soil in Nova Scotia is variable: there is much of an ungrateful description, much exceedingly well adapted to the purposes of the agriculturist. Captain Moorsom divides the country into three great agricultural districts. The Eastern division consists of a strong upland soil well adapted for grain, with strips of rich intervale land along the sides of its rivers. Abundance of limestone may be found here, and which, with the mud from the saltmarshes and sea-weed, will provė invaluable manure. On some of these uplands, seven successive crops of wheat have been raised without the aid of manure, and the seventh crop appeared equally luxuriant with the first. From ten to twelve bushels of wheat for one, or from twenty to twenty-five bushels per acre, and nearly two tons per acre of hay, are the average return of good land in this division. The settlers are however recent, and, being chiefly Highlanders accustomed to extensive sheep walks, are but poor farmers. The southern district, including the capital, is rocky and unfertile, with some remarkable exceptions. The north-western division presents the most promising aspect to the agriculturist. The land is of three descriptions: upland, intervale, and marsh; each of which presents great variety in the soil. Intervale land bears a striking difference of appearance from the broad vallies of England: it resembles the beds of rivers which have shrunk from the enormously high banks which at time contained

their copious streams. When the snows melt from the uplands in spring, a flood occurs technically termed a "Freshet," which rushes down, and covers the entire breadth of the valley: when, however, this has subsided, a second flood is rarely experienced, and the hay or harvest is secured without danger. The marshland spoken of is of two kinds: one is usually called saltmarsh, the other dyked marsh. The former produces a kind of coarse hay found of great benefit as an alterative for cattle during the winter. Dyked marsh owes its formation to a natural phenomenon which appears to have been in operation for ages on the upper shores of the bay of Fundy. The tide of this singular bay rushing with vast impetuosity through the narrow necks of Capes Split and Chignecto, carries along with it fine loamy particles which accumulate at every step of its progress up the various inlets, till its waves assume the appearance of a compound of water and mud. As the tide recedes, these particles are left behind; and in course of time, a succession of layers raises the surface of the land as high as the usual rise of spring tides. As soon as this takes place, a bank of earth is thrown up to prevent any further overflow. A dam of this description is called an Abviteau," a term introduced by the Acadian French, by whom they were first introduced. A marsh newly dyked is left untouched for three or four years, during which time rank weeds first show themselves, followed by coarse wild grass. In the third year it is generally fit to receive the plough, and is then sown for wheat. The first crop is extraordinary: twenty-five bushels of wheat for one, or sixty bushels an acre. On marsh dyke, that has been long cultivated, the return of wheat is usually forty bushels per acre of hay, from two and a half to three tons. Speaking of the district of the NorthWestern side of the country, our author observes, that

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"I have often wished while passing through these extensive districts from Windsor even beyond Annapolis, that those who condemn this country as sterile and unproductive, could have been by my side to scent the fragrance that pervades the whole atmosphere: to mark the variegated sheet of apple blossoms and clover flower spread over the face of the country in spring; and to revel in the abundance of fruits which cluster upon the trees in every cottage garden in autumn, like so many oases (?) among the waving crops of grain and Indian corn.'-p. 191.

The crops cultivated by the farmer are wheat, oats, barley, and less commonly peas, buckwheat and rye. Potatoes form the chief article of food throughout the province, and are cultivated accordingly. Indian corn is also raised in large quantities. Crops of beans or cabbage are seldom seen here: the farmers have not acquired the habit of using them for

stall-feeding as is customary in England. Garden vegetables are likewise but little cultivated, certainly not because the soil is unfriendly to them. Some parts of the country are peculiarly favourable to the production of hops, and the plant may be seen in the cottage windows with its luxuriant foliage: its culture is, however, neglected.

The manures chiefly used are those from the stable and marsh mud. Lime is gradually coming into use, and in Windsor, quarries of gypsum have been worked for many years, and, at one time, the annual exportation was supposed to amount to one hundred thousand tons, chiefly to the United States, where it was ground in mills and applied as manure. The effects of marsh mud when used as manure, are said to be felt for ten years after it has been applied.

The average produce per acre of a medium farm about Windsor may be stated at twenty-five bushels of wheat, forty of oats, two hundred of potatoes, thirty-five of Indian corn, and two tons of hay. It is customary to sow two bushels to the acre where the stumps are remaining: and two bushels and a half, and sometimes three bushels in old cleared land. This excess of seed over the quantity used in England, is adopted in order to cause the corn to ripen more speedily. Indian corn produces a greater return than any other kind sown. One bushel is spread in hills over four or five acres, and two hundred bushels for one is a common return. The number of uses to which it may be applied, we have not to learn from captain Moorsom. Cobbett has already sung its praises, and we have repeated his song.

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Nova Scotia has hitherto been held not to be a corn country, and the importation of fine wheat and flour has sanctioned the idea. There are reasons for supposing that the wheat of this country could never rival in fineness that of Pennsylvania. Winter-wheat has not or perhaps cannot be produced, the alternate frosts and thaws of the early part of the spring, are said to throw the shoots of the winter grain out of the furrow, and prevent their vegetation. The inferiority of provincial flour may arise from its being made from spring wheat-or from the great quantity of seed to the acre; a practice which deteriorates the plant; or from the carelessness of the farmer in drying and cleaning; or the miller in bolting, or perhaps from the badness of the miller's machinery, No country is better adapted for the production of barley and oats; captain Moorsom found casually in the inns, white oats, weighing fortyfour and forty-six pounds to the bushel. As to the live stock, the horse is strong and hardy, well adapted to the country: