The History of Emily Montague Part 36

How superior, my dear, is her character to mine! I blush for myself on the comparison; I am shocked to see how much she soars above me: how is it possible Rivers should not have preferred her to me? Yet this is the woman I fancied incapable of any pa.s.sion but vanity.

I am sure, my dear Bell, I am not naturally envious of the merit of others; but my excess of love for Rivers makes me apprehensive of every woman who can possibly rival me in his tenderness.

I was hurt at Madame Des Roches's uncommon merit; I saw with pain the amiable qualities of her mind; I could scarce even allow her person to be pleasing: but this injustice is not that of my natural temper, but of love.

She is certainly right, my dear, to see him no more; I applaud, I admire her resolution: do you think, however, she would pursue it if she loved as I do? she has perhaps loved before, and her heart has lost something of its native trembling sensibility.

I wish my heart felt her merit as strongly as my reason: I esteem, I admire, I even love her at present; but I am convinced Rivers's return while she continues here would weaken these sentiments of affection: the least appearance of preference, even for a moment, would make me relapse into my former weakness. I adore, I idolize her character; but I cannot sincerely wish to cultivate her friends.h.i.+p.

Let me see you this afternoon at Quebec; I am told the roads will not be pa.s.sable for carrioles above three days longer: let me therefore see you as often as I can before we are absolutely shut from each other.

Adieu! my dear!

Your faithful Emily Montague.

LETTER 123.

To the Earl of ----.

Silleri, April 14.

England, however populous, is undoubtedly, my Lord, too small to afford very large supplies of people to her colonies: and her people are also too useful, and of too much value, to be suffered to emigrate, if they can be prevented, whilst there is sufficient employment for them at home.

It is not only our interest to have colonies; they are not only necessary to our commerce, and our greatest and surest sources of wealth, but our very being as a powerful commercial nation depends on them: it is therefore an object of all others most worthy our attention, that they should be as flouris.h.i.+ng and populous as possible.

It is however equally our interest to support them at as little expence of our own inhabitants as possible: I therefore look on the acquisition of such a number of subjects as we found in Canada, to be a much superior advantage to that of gaining ten times the immense tract of land ceded to us, if uncultivated and dest.i.tute of inhabitants.

But it is not only contrary to our interest to spare many of our own people as settlers in America; it must also be considered, that, if we could spare them, the English are the worst settlers on new lands in the universe.

Their attachment to their native country, especially amongst the lower ranks of people, is so very strong, that few of the honest and industrious can be prevailed on to leave it; those therefore who go, are generally the dissolute and the idle, who are of no use any where.

The English are also, though industrious, active, and enterprizing, ill fitted to bear the hards.h.i.+ps, and submit to the wants, which inevitably attend an infant settlement even on the most fruitful lands.

The Germans, on the contrary, with the same useful qualities, have a patience, a perseverance, an abstinence, which peculiarly fit them for the cultivation of new countries; too great encouragement therefore cannot be given to them to settle in our colonies: they make better settlers than our own people; and at the same time their numbers are an acquisition of real strength where they fix, without weakening the mother country.

It is long since the populousness of Europe has been the cause of her sending out colonies: a better policy prevails; mankind are enlightened; we are now convinced, both by reason and experience, that no industrious people can be too populous.

The northern swarms were compelled to leave their respective countries, not because those countries were unable to support them, but because they were too idle to cultivate the ground: they were a ferocious, ignorant, barbarous people, averse to labor, attached to war, and, like our American savages, believing every employment not relative to this favorite object, beneath the dignity of man.

Their emigrations therefore were less owing to their populousness, than to their want of industry, and barbarous contempt of agriculture and every useful art.

It is with pain I am compelled to say, the late spirit of encouraging the monopoly of farms, which, from a narrow short-sighted policy, prevails amongst our landed men at home, and the alarming growth of celibacy amongst the peasantry which is its necessary consequence, to say nothing of the same ruinous increase of celibacy in higher ranks, threaten us with such a decrease of population, as will probably equal that caused by the ravages of those scourges of heaven, the sword, the famine, and the pestilence.

If this selfish policy continues to extend itself, we shall in a few years be so far from being able to send emigrants to America, that we shall be reduced to solicit their return, and that of their posterity, to prevent England's becoming in its turn an uncultivated desart.

But to return to Canada; this large acquisition of people is an invaluable treasure, if managed, as I doubt not it will be, to the best advantage; if they are won by the gentle arts of persuasion, and the gradual progress of knowledge, to adopt so much of our manners as tends to make them happier in themselves, and more useful members of the society to which they belong: if with our language, which they should by every means be induced to learn, they acquire the mild genius of our religion and laws, and that spirit of industry, enterprize, and commerce, to which we owe all our greatness.

Amongst the various causes which concur to render France more populous than England, notwithstanding the disadvantage of a less gentle government, and a religion so very unfavorable to the increase of mankind, the cultivation of vineyards may be reckoned a princ.i.p.al one; as it employs a much greater number of hands than even agriculture itself, which has however infinite advantages in this respect above pasturage, the certain cause of a want of people wherever it prevails above its due proportion.

Our climate denies us the advantages arising from the culture of vines, as well as many others which nature has accorded to France; a consideration which should awaken us from the lethargy into which the avarice of individuals has plunged us, and set us in earnest on improving every advantage we enjoy, in order to secure us by our native strength from so formidable a rival.

The want of bread to eat, from the late false and cruel policy of laying small farms into great ones, and the general discouragement of tillage which is its consequence, is in my opinion much less to be apprehended than the want of people to eat it.

In every country where the inhabitants are at once numerous and industrious, there will always be a proportionable cultivation.

This evil is so very destructive and alarming, that, if the great have not virtue enough to remedy it, it is to be hoped it will in time, like most great evils, cure itself.

Your Lords.h.i.+p enquires into the nature of this climate in respect to health. The air being uncommonly pure and serene, it is favorable to life beyond any I ever knew: the people live generally to a very advanced age; and are remarkably free from diseases of every kind, except consumptions, to which the younger part of the inhabitants are a good deal subject.

It is however a circ.u.mstance one cannot help observing, that they begin to look old much sooner than the people in Europe; on which my daughter observes, that it is not very pleasant for women to come to reside in a country where people have a short youth, and a long old age.

The diseases of cold countries are in general owing to want of perspiration; for which reason exercise, and even dissipation, are here the best medicines.

The Indians therefore shewed their good sense in advising the French, on their first arrival, to use dancing, mirth, chearfulness, and content, as the best remedies against the inconveniences of the climate.

I have already swelled this letter to such a length, that I must postpone to another time my account of the peculiar natural productions of Canada; only observing, that one would imagine heaven intended a social intercourse between the most distant nations, by giving them productions of the earth so very different each from the other, and each more than sufficient for itself, that the exchange might be the means of spreading the bond of society and brotherhood over the whole globe.

In my opinion, the man who conveys, and causes to grow, in any country, a grain, a fruit, or even a flower, it never possessed before, deserves more praise than a thousand heroes: he is a benefactor, he is in some degree a creator.

I have the honor to be, My Lord, Your Lords.h.i.+p's &c.

William Fermor.

LETTER 124.

To Miss Montague, at Quebec.

Montreal, April 14.

Is it possible, my dear Emily, you can, after all I have said, persist in endeavoring to disswade me from a design on which my whole happiness depends, and which I flattered myself was equally essential to yours? I forgave, I even admired, your first scruple; I thought it generosity: but I have answered it; and if you had loved as I do, you would never again have named so unpleasing a subject.

Does your own heart tell you mine will call a settlement here, with you, an exile? Examine yourself well, and tell me whether your aversion to staying in Canada is not stronger than your tenderness for your Rivers.

I am hurt beyond all words at the earnestness with which you press Mrs. Melmoth to disswade me from staying in this country: you press with warmth my return to England, though it would put an eternal bar between us: you give reasons which, though the understanding may approve, the heart abhors: can ambition come in compet.i.tion with tenderness? you fancy yourself generous, when you are only indifferent.

Insensible girl! you know nothing of love.

Write to me instantly, and tell me every emotion of your soul, for I tremble at the idea that your affection is less lively than mine.

Adieu! I am wretched till I hear from you. Is it possible, my Emily, you can have ceased to love him, who, as you yourself own, sees no other object than you in the universe?

Adieu! Yours, Ed. Rivers.

You know not the heart of your Rivers, if you suppose it capable of any ambition but that dear one of being beloved by you.