The Settlers in Canada are an upper-class British family who are rendered less than prosperous in a way familiar to Jane Austen's readers by the appearance of an unknown heir with a better claim upon Mr Campbell's inherited estate, into which he had poured all the proceeds of said estate to improve the property and the well-being of his tenants. The only thing to do rather than live "destitute" in England is to emigrate. The children, especially the young adults, rise to the challenge; the second son gives up his naval career temporarily. However, the deeply favourable impression he has made upon his superiors opens many doors to the family. Upon arrival in Canada, they receive a surprising amount of help from the governor and from the military garrison near which they take up land. Marryat, a naval captain himself, probably has a very good grasp of the politicking and the favours that can be given and received among comrades in uniform. He also has an excellent grasp of history and the short precis of the story of North America from the time of the French and Indian Wars through the Napoleonic Wars is probably the most concise and insightful I've ever read. He also has a general grasp of conditions in the backwoods, although his colonial-born characters hired as servants are so deferential as to completely contradict the accounts of Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill, who actually lived among them. The treatment of the indigenous peoples ("Indians") is more problematic; the whites pronounce upon The Character of the Indian, The Religion of the Indian, and have nothing useful to say on the topic, at length. There are some glaring errors in the course of the seasons as well, collecting maple sap in April (!) and stockpiling the sap until there is enough to boil it down all at once to make two or three hundred pounds of sugar. ... Assuming 200 pounds of syrup (not sugar), they needed to find enough containers to stockpile 1000 gallons of sap to boil down; for that weight of sugar of course they'd need more sap. And it spoils very fast in April weather. After over 50 years of syrup-making, I find errors this egregious hard to ignore, especially when they take up pages of the story. The kidnapped-by-Indians plot was sort of tedious and cringe-worthy. And when the family's fortunes take another turn and they head back to take up their Responsibilities in England, poor Percival -- shortchanged throughout the story, first forced to stick close to home and tend animals when he wants to learn hunting, then kidnapped by "Indians", is stated as wanting to remain in Canada but there's no discussion of this -- has to come home and become a successful lawyer while his younger brother stays behind on the farm and hunts. Not a really satisfying novel, but historically interesting. ( )