it is for the interest of all parties that new
comers, instead of dwelling apart and bound together by the affinities
whether of sect or party, which united them in the country which they
have left, should be dispersed as widely as possible among the
population already established in that to which they transfer
themselves.

It may not be altogether irrelevant to mention, as bearing on this
subject, that the painful circumstances which attended the emigration
of 1847 created for a time in this Province a certain prejudice
against emigration generally. The poll tax on emigrants was increased,
and the opinion widely disseminated that, however desirable the
introduction of capitalists might be, an emigration of persons of the
poorer classes was likely to prove a burden rather than a benefit.
Commercial depression, and apprehensions as to the probable effect of
the Free-trade policy of Great Britain on the prosperity of the
Colonies, had an influence in the same direction. To counteract these
tendencies which were calculated, as I thought, to be injurious in the
long run both to the Mother-country and the Province, public attention
was especially directed, in the Speech delivered from the Throne in
1849, to emigration by way of the St. Lawrence, as a branch of trade
which it was most desirable to cultivate (irrespective altogether of
its bearing on the settlement of the country) in consequence of the
great excess of exports over imports by that route, and the consequent
enhancement of freights outwards. These views obtained very general
assent, and the measures which have been adopted since that period to
render this route attractive to emigrants destined for the West (the
effect of which is beginning now to be visible in the yearly
increasing amount of emigration by way of Quebec from the continent of
Europe), are calculated not only to promote the trade of the Province,
but also to make settlers of a superior class acquainted with its
advantages.[3]

[Sidenote: Ottawa Valley.]

This important region (the valley of the Ottawa) takes the name by
which it is designated in popular parlance from the mighty stream
which flows through it, and which, though it be but a tributary of the
St. Lawrence, is one of the largest of the rivers that run
uninterruptedly from the source to the discharg