Note 55 — Front matter (continued 2)

The details of the frightful mortality connected with the great emigration of 1847 from Ireland to Canada, are as follows:—

Whole number of British emigrants embarked 89,738

Died on the passage 5,293

at the quarantine station 3,452

at the Quebec Emigrant Hospital 1,041

at the Montreal ditto 3,579

at Kingston and Toronto 1,965

15,330

showing a mortality of rather more than 17 per cent. on the number embarked. One-third of those who arrived in Canada were received into hospital.

The people of Canada deserve great praise for the spirited and benevolent exertions made by them to meet the exigencies of this disastrous emigration, which is described as having “left traces of death and misery along its course, from the Quarantine Establishment at Grosse Isle to the most distant parts of Upper Canada, cutting down in its progress numbers of estimable citizens.” Besides the larger hospital establishments, twenty-four Boards of Health were formed in Upper Canada. Numerous deaths also took place among the emigrants to New Brunswick. The ships containing the German emigrants, and two ships fitted out by the Duke of Sutherland from Sutherlandshire, arrived in Canada in a perfectly healthy state.