During the time we stopped at Prescot, I had different opportunities of correcting my hearsay information respecting the country, by the practical knowledge of the different gentlemen with whom I happened to enter into conversation.

It seemed to me, although it is alleged that political dissatisfaction is indigenous to all colonies, that the Canadians, especially the inhabitants of this upper province, have less cause of complaint against the mother country, than she has with them. I speak of their respective people; for Canada, and indeed all colonies, are a burden on the British people greater than need be. I do, not, however, ascribe the fault to them but to the negligent colonial system of the mother country—if system it can be called, which is literally no more than the sending of troops to keep possession, and of making a few civil appointments for the sake of patronage.

I heard many complaints made against the Provincial Government, but facts of misrule were not often adduced. From the scattered state of the population, magistrates—men dressed in a little brief authority—are necessarily numerous, and necessarily, from its kind, selected from a class sufficiently prone to play fantastic tricks. It must therefore probably be allowed that something of a meddling spirit is abroad; for few, either high or low, can imagine that there is any difference between the possession and the exercise of power. Justices of the peace may be said to be as numerous here as the constablery of an ancient kingdom, and the irksome evil of excessive surveillance cannot fail to be the natural consequence.