their offers of friendship.

The dreadful vice of drunkenness, of which I shall have occasion to
speak hereafter, is nowhere displayed in more revolting colours, or
occurs more frequently, than in the bush; nor is it exhibited by the
lower classes in so shameless a manner as by the gentlemen settlers,
from whom a better example might be expected. It would not be difficult
to point out the causes which too often lead to these melancholy
results. Loss of property, incapacity for hard labour, yielding the mind
to low and degrading vices, which destroy self-respect and paralyse
honest exertion, and the annihilation of those extravagant hopes that
false statements, made by interested parties, had led them to entertain
of fortunes that might be realised in the woods: these are a few among
the many reasons that could be given for the number of victims that
yearly fill a drunkard's dishonourable grave.

At the period when the greatest portion of "Roughing it in the Bush"
was written, I was totally ignorant of life in Canada, as it existed in
the towns and villages. Thirteen years' residence in one of the most
thriving districts in the Upper Province has given me many opportunities
of becoming better acquainted with the manners and habits of her busy,
bustling population, than it was possible for me ever to obtain in the
green prison of the woods.

Since my residence in a settled part of the country, I have enjoyed
as much domestic peace and happiness as ever falls to the lot of poor
humanity. Canada has become almost as dear to me as my native land;
and the homesickness that constantly preyed upon me in the Backwoods,
has long ago yielded to the deepest and most heartfelt interest in
the rapidly increasing prosperity and greatness of the country of my