tion of those who desire to settle on the government grants. We shall extract the substance of Mr. Hodgson's remarks in his own words : 'When the emigrant arrives at the Land Office of the district where he proposes to settle, determined perhaps in his choice by the hope that his lot will place him in the vicinity of an old acquaintance, he may probably have to wait some weeks before the next distribution takes place; during which he must be supporting himself at an expense increased by his ignorance of the manners of the country. He then learns, perhaps for the first time, that there are certain fees to be paid at the different offices through which his papers must pass. I have a list of these before me in which they are stated to be, * * 'I was, however, informed by several persons from York, with whom I crossed Lake Ontario, one of whom said he was in the habit of transacting this business for the emigrants, that, for a hundred acres the fees were £13 10s. This I mentioned to the Sheriff and several of the principal merchants at Montreal, who did not dispute it; one of them observing only that he believed there had been cases in which grants of 50 acres were made without fees.* The surveyors receive their compensation in land, and generally secure the most valuable portions. When I was in Canada, they would sell their best lots at one dollar per acre; while £13 10s., the fees on a hundred acres, amount to more than half a dollar per acre. I never met with any one person among all those with whom I conversed on the subject, who did not agree that, if a settler had but a very little money, it would be much more to his advantage to buy land, than to receive it from government.' Supposing the emigrant to be able to pay his fees, he may still have the misfortune to find that his allotment (for he can only choose his township, not his estate), is not worth cultivating. In this case he has to pay two respectable persons for surveying and certifying it to be irreclaimable; and he is then permitted to take his chance in the next distribution.', But this it seems is not all the difficulty. The lands which the government is at present distributing in Upper Canada lie parallel to the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. Hence, when the emigrant arrives at Quebec, he has still five hundred miles to traverse before he reaches his allotment. The expense of this journey is considerable; and Mr. Hodgson observes, that an emigrant must be unusually fortunate who reaches the Landoffice in Upper Canada, without expending at least 51. after landing at Quebec. Our author's observations on this subject, are, for the most part, judicious and instructive, and well worth the attention both of future settlers and of government. We may add a few words on the subject of slavery in the United States. We shall abstain from any observations on the facts. Mr. Hodgson feels, in common with us, the great difficulties of the question; and although he occasionally adopts a fanatical mode of speaking on the subject, this is rather to be attributed to his earnestness in the cause of emancipation, than to any inclination to exaggerate the horrors of slavery, or to deal unfairly by the slave-holders. His candour may be judged by the following remarks : 'I have no doubt that many of them pass through life with as much enjoyment and as little actual suffering as their free brethren. I have hitherto conversed with but few slaves, comparatively, on the plantations, but I have been surprised with the ease, cheerfulness, and intelligence of the domestic slaves. Their manners, and their mode of expressing themselves, have, generally, been decidedly superior to those of many of the lower classes in England. The servants at almost all the hotels in the southern States are slaves; some belonging to the landlord, others to farmers in the neighbourhood, who let them out by the year.' Three out of the four black coachmen we had the other day (all slaves), I found very intelligent. They said, all they wanted was good masters, but that their liability to be sold to bad ones, and to be separated from their families, was a cruel part of their condition;-that in that part of the country (Virginia) they had Sunday to themselves; one holiday in April, one in May, and four at Christmas;-that they had public worship on Sundays, and on one evening in the week-that many of them could read; and that some of their preachers were slaves.' The following is his account of the plantation slaves in the Carolinas : : After breakfast, the General took me over the plantation; and in the course of our walk we visited the little dwellings of the Negroes. These were generally grouped together round something like a farmyard; and behind each of them was a little garden, which they cultivate on their own account. The huts themselves are not unlike a poor Irish cabin, with the addition of a chimney. The bedding of the Negroes consists simply of blankets, and their clothing is generally confined to a sort of flannel garment, made up in different forms. I was told that their provisions were prepared for them, and that twice every day they had as much as they asked for of Indian corn, sweet potatoes, and broth, with the occasional addition of a little meat. Besides this, they frequently prepare for themselves a little supper from the produce of their garden, and fish which they catch in the river. On many plantations it is usual to give out their allowance once a week, and to let them cook it for themselves, their fuel costing them nothing but the trouble of gathering it. A nurse and doctor, both negroes I believe, are provided for them; and making allowance for the sick, the children, &c. I was told that on the rice plantations in that neighbourhood, half the gangs were effective hands." His remarks on the slave system, as opposed to free labour, are judicious and forcible "It is one of the inconveniences to which slave-proprietors are exposed (especially where the range of articles to which this climate is favourable is limited), that they are constantly liable to a great extinc tion of capital by a reduction in the foreign market of the value of the articles they produce. The cost of production in that country which can supply the articles at the cheapest rate, and in sufficient quantity, fixes the price to which all the others must conform. Now if that price be insufficient to remunerate the cultivator by free labour, he discon tinues the cultivation, and dismisses his labourers. The cultivator by slave labour, on the contrary, being compelled still to maintain his slaves, continues also to employ them; but the value of the articles being reduced, the value of man, the machine which produces them, is depreciated nearly in the same proportion, and this depreciation may proceed so far, as to render the labour of a slave worth so little more than his maintenance, as to afford no recompence to his owner for care and superintendance. In the progress towards this state of things, manumissions would multiply rapidly, for they would cost little; experiments would be made favourable to the freedom of the Negro; many slaves would become free labourers, and slavery would verge towards its termination.' Neither these nor any other considerations seem likely to operate at present on the minds of the southern and western planters. It is not without feelings of the deepest grief that we observe the spirit of the inhabitants of the new State of Illinois, as exemplified in a late resolution of their legislature with respect to this subject. The existence and introduction of slavery is forbidden by the existing constitution. The legislature has advised the people, by a majority of two-thirds, to call a Convention of the State for the purpose of modifying the constitution. The modification intended is no other than a repeal of that clause which forbids the introduction of slavery : 'Those, observes the " English Gentleman," who have been the cause of this convention, are the men who have come from the slave-holding States. On their success in getting the votes of two-thirds of the legislature, the Conventionalists assembled at two or three public dinners, at which they drank, among other toasts, "The State of Illinois-give us plenty of negroes, a little industry, and she will dis tribute her treasures." "A nen constitution, purely republican, which may guarantee to the people of Illinois the peaceable enjoyment of all species of property.” It has somehow perversely happened that the "English -- He Gentleman," who seems to be tolerably acquainted with the principles of government, has omitted, amongst other important topics, to describe what must have fallen under his notice of the operation of the representative system in America; whilst Mr. Hodgson, who, we have before observed, is but little qualified for such an office, has dilated on the subject at some length. The observations of the latter on certain facts which he found it difficult to explain in his theory of the British constitution, are both useful and amusing. Whilst he laughs at the chimerical caucus, which Mr. Fearon imported in 1818, and which my lord Grey considered as decisive against extensive suffrage and, ballot-voting, whilst he ridicules, in common with every man of ordinary sense who has visited the United States, the absurd idea of influence in their popular elections, whilst he bears testimony to the perfect practicability and usefulness of the broad representative system, he has profited so little by his observations, that, as far as regards the principles of the republican government, he is as much in the dark as ever. complains of the eagerness after popularity which characterizes the public men, not reflecting that the members of a representative government are elected for no other purpose than to transact the business of the state in conformity with the popular will. Mr. Canning may disdain the sentiments of the people, without risking the loss of his place; but Mr. Crawford or Mr. Adams must bow to public opinion or abandon for ever all hope of public favour. No man will deny that as long as the bulk of mankind are afflicted by any portion of that blindness to their real interests in which they have been nursed during ages of ignorance and mis-government, no man will deny for a moment that, in proportion to that blindness, evil will result from the subserviency of public men to popular opinion. Under a representative system, the government can never be perfect whilst the people are unenlightened. This is a mere truism. But what will it be under any other? In America we observe the same ignorance on the subject of law that prevails in England. Hence we see them still submitting to the absurdities of that legal system which they borrowed from their English ancestors. But then they have only these absurdities which are inherent in and inseparable from British law: they retain its vexatious procedure and imperfect code; but it is only under another form of government that it shoots out in all its strength and overshadows the whole land with its evil influence. The Americans are bad political economists; hence their late tariff, an absurd and ruinous measure, which can only be equalled by the English corn laws. But the corn laws, though the worst, are only part of the extensive system of prohibition which prevails in England; and were the members of the House of Commons but half as amenable to public opinion as the senate and representatives of the United States, they would not survive another session. In short, under a representative go vernment the national interests may be mistaken; under any other they will be not only mistaken but knowingly abused. ART. IX. Redgauntlet; a Tale of the Eighteenth Century. By the Author of "Waverley." Edinburgh, 1824. IT T is the established custom of critics to commence all notices of the Scotch Novels with some wonderment touching the prolific powers of the author. Nothing can, however, be more fatiguing than the labour of wondering every quarter at the same phenomenon, and, to confess the simple truth, we have ceased, for some time past, to wonder at all about the matter. In fact, if we must acknowledge any portion of surprise, it is, that sir Walter Scott does not write more novels, considering the slight materials of which his latter productions are composed; and so far from feeling any amazement at the period of gestation being three months, we shortly expect to see his offspring brought forth more frequently, and in litters of half a score at a time. We now begin, indeed, to think sir Walter's readers much more wonderful than his writings. In a word, the thing is, to use the trading phrase, overdone. There is only one instance on record of an individual who has successfully told a thousand and one tales, and that is the far-famed princess Scheherazade; but as the sultan was likely to mark any disrelish of her performances with the sword as the penalty of dulness was the loss of her head, this entertaining lady was necessarily kept on the qui vive, and never slumbered in the execution of her long task. Any attempt to rival the renown of this princess we regard, therefore, as most hazardous, where the lively stimulus of the edge of the scymitar is not present to quicken the vivacity and abate the prolixity of the narrator: and should the author of Waverley have conceived the design of giving us a thousand and one tales, we would entreat him to desist, even though he may have advanced nearly half way towards its accomplishment. It is, indeed, quite manifest that the genius of this writer does not keep pace with the rapidity of his pen, and it would be marvellous, indeed, if it did so, yet his inferior performances have met with a degree of favour and success that doubtless encourages him to persevere in producing slight works stans pede in uno-if the public will read, why |