Tour of the West

LETTERS BY VIATOR FOR THE BRITISH WHIG - 1847

LETTER NO. I

I left your loyal City of Kingston, on board the Royal Mail Boat Sovereign, at 5 o'clock on a Summer's evening, for the "Queen City" of the West. Or rather I should have said I intended to do so; for on account of the non-arrival of the Montreal host at her usual time, we did not leave the wharf until 10 o'clock. The night was rough and stormy; peculiarly trying for those who seldom plough the "vastly deep," but more so for the five or six hundred wretched emigrants we had on board.

On getting up in the morning, completely sick for inhaling the pestilential air that found its way through the sky-lights and door into the cabin, I made my way for the deck in order to breathe the morning air; but this was a task more difficult to be accomplished than I anticipated; for every avenue to the middle and saloon deck was so choked up with boxes, beds and prostrate men and women, the effluvia from whom was perfectly disgusting, that it was by dint of squeezing I was able to accomplish my intention; and when I did succeed, I found myself, if possible, only in a worse situation; I had nothing else to do but turn back, go through the same pushing and squeezing, and confine myself to the cabin, until some change for the better should be wrought.

This is a disagreeable position for passengers to be placed in, yet the extraordinary influx of emigrants this season renders such unavoidable.

Before leaving this subject, allow me to pay a justly deserved tribute to the kindness and humanity of Captain Twoby. About noon of the day after departure, he had all the emigrants, men, women and children submitted to a perfect ablution. He did not leave this unenviable task to deputies, but was himself actually engaged in scrubbing and drenching them. I am the more ready to pay this trifling expression of merit from finding that an unfortunate dissension exists between a portion of the Irish and him - a dissension which I regret to understand has spread among the great body ofthe lately united Irish. I deeply deplore this. I thought the events of last winter had for ever eradicated and destroyed the very germs of that baneful animosity which so long and so unfortunately made them the scoff and byword of their enemies. Are they again to become the pliant tools of the designing? -- Are their naturally excitable temperaments to be made the means by which they are to be disunited. I fondly, ardently, hope not. As an Irishman I entreat of them to throw from them the firebrand that is causing so much ruin. As Protestant Irishmen I must assert that I do not think so meanly of the Roman Catholic Clergy, as to believe, that any one of them would be aiding and exciting a mob to do mischief.

The scenery from Coburg to Toronto is really beautiful and picturesque. Here and there fine table lands, waving like a sea of ruddy gold under their heavy crops, high cliffs crowned with majestic forest trees, and snow white cottages peering here and there through the opening of the woods, render the scene highly pleasing, while the still and placid lake, upon whose bosem we are sailing, reflects, like a broad mirror, the different objects that lie adjacent to its borders, giving the whole a similitude to some of these quiet, but exquisite scenes so beautifully described in Llala Rookh.

We arrived in Toronto at 4 P.M., and landed the emigrants at a wharf at the west end of the city, reserved exclusively for them. The "Eclipse" steamer, which had been waiting some hours for our arrival, came along side to take off those going to the "far West," and as I was for Port Credit, I got on Board. A few moments and we were under way skirting the shores of blue Ontario.

How differently were the emigrants disposed on board the "Eclipse" to those on the "Sovereign." All communication was cut of between the emigrants and regular passengers. The same thing could be done on board the latter if there were not such a crowd put on board.

The "fittings" up of this boat are chaste and beautiful; the Ladies' Cabin and Saloon are finished with taste; nothing gaudy, but every thing elegantly simple. Her Commander is affable and courteous, her officers obliging, and crew attentive. But enough for one letter. I am now safely landed at Port Credit. For the present, then, I bid your readers adieu, and gently squeeze them by the hand.

VIATOR

Township of Kingston, August 15, 1847A