It quite grieves me to think of the poor farmers I have known at home, wasting their time and capital and strength in a hopeless effort to make both ends meet, who might be doing well out here, with the certainty that their families will be left in a comfortable position as far as this world’s goods are concerned. One thing, however, I must strongly impress upon the emigrant, and that is, the necessity of coming out in the spring.
It is madness to cross the Atlantic in the autumn; when he lands at Quebec, he will find nothing to do, and must live on his capital, or starve till next spring; and if I might recommend a ship, it certainly would be the _Sarnia_, on which I now write. She is slow but sure. Her commander, Captain Gibson, is all that a captain should be—not a brilliant conversationalist, not one of those men who set the table in a roar; but cautious, skilful, fully alive to the responsibilities of his position and the dangers of his calling. As to the dangers, it is impossible to exaggerate them. There are more than a thousand of us on board, and were anything to happen, not more than three hundred of us could, I should think, be crowded into the boats, provided that the sea were quite calm, and that we had plenty of time to leave the ship; and in a panic and in bad weather, it is clear that even such boats as the _Sarnia_ is supplied with would be of little avail. Safety seems to me a mere matter of chance. You hit on an iceberg, and down goes the ship with all on board, leaving no record behind.
As a matter of fact, I believe these big steamers often, on a dark night, run down the vessels engaged in fishing off the Newfoundland banks. When we passed, the season had scarcely commenced. It is in May, towards the end of the month, that the fishing commences. The chief fishermen are the French, who mostly hail from St. Malo, and who have in the Gulf of Newfoundland two small islands, which they use for fish-curing. You get an idea of the extent of these fisheries, when I tell you that the total value of them amounts to three millions a year, and that the supply seems inexhaustible. Romanists and High Churchmen who indulge in salt cod in Lent have little cause to fear that that aid to true religion will cease—at any rate, in our time. The fishing season lasts until November, when the shoals pass on to their winter quarters in deeper waters.