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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the
+last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
+       An Autobiography
+
+Author: Samuel Thompson
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2011 [EBook #35586]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANADIAN PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by K Nordquist, Ross Cooling and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net ( This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF A
+
+  Canadian Pioneer.
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF A
+
+  CANADIAN PIONEER
+
+  FOR
+
+  THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.
+
+
+  AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+  BY
+
+  SAMUEL THOMPSON,
+  _Formerly Editor of the "Toronto Daily Colonist," the "Parliamentary
+  Hansard," &c., &c._
+
+
+  Toronto:
+  HUNTER, ROSE & COMPANY.
+  MDCCCLXXXIV.
+
+
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
+    year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four, by Samuel
+    Thompson, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+  PREFACE.
+
+
+It was in consequence of a suggestion by the late S. J. Watson,
+Librarian of the Ontario Legislature--who urged that one who had gone
+through so many experiences of early Canadian history as myself, ought
+to put the same on record--that I first thought of writing these
+"Reminiscences," a portion of which appeared in the _Canadian Monthly
+Magazine_. For the assistance which has enabled me to complete and issue
+this volume, I am obliged to the kind support of those friends who have
+subscribed for its publication; for which they will please accept my
+grateful thanks.
+
+In the space at my disposal, I have necessarily been compelled to give
+little more than a gossiping narrative of events coming under my own
+observation. But I have been careful to verify every statement of which
+I was not personally cognizant; and to avoid everything of a
+controversial character; as well as to touch gently on those faults of
+public men which I felt obliged to notice.
+
+It has been a labour of love to me, to place on record many honourable
+deeds of Nature's gentlemen, whose lights ought not to be hidden
+altogether "under a bushel," and whose names should be enrolled by
+Canada amongst her earliest worthies. I have had the advantage, in
+several cases, of the use of family records, which have assisted me
+materially in rendering more complete several of the earlier chapters,
+particularly the account of Mackenzie's movements while in the
+neighbourhood of Gallows Hill; also the sketches of the "Tories of
+Rebellion Times;" as well as the history of the Mechanics' Institute, in
+which though a very old member, I never occupied any official position.
+
+Since the first part of these pages was in type, I have had to lament
+the deaths of more than one comrade whose name is recorded therein;
+amongst them Dr. A. A. Riddel--my "Archie"--and my dearest friend Dr.
+Alpheus Todd, to whom I have been indebted for a thousand proofs of
+generous sympathy.
+
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+                                                      PAGE
+           Preface                                     iii
+  Chap. I. The Author's Antecedents and Forbears         9
+       II. History of a Man of Genius                   14
+      III. Some Reminiscences of a London Apprentice    19
+       IV. Westward, Ho!                                21
+        V. Connemara and Galway fifty years ago         27
+       VI. More Sea Experiences                         33
+      VII. Up the St. Lawrence                          36
+     VIII. Muddy Little York                            39
+       IX. A Pioneer Tavern                             42
+        X. A First Day in the Bush                      46
+       XI. A Chapter on Chopping                        52
+      XII. Life in the Backwoods                        65
+     XIII. Some Gatherings from Natural History         69
+      XIV. Our Removal to Nottawasaga                   78
+       XV. Society in the Backwoods                     84
+      XVI. More about Nottawasaga and its People        91
+     XVII. A Rude Winter Experience                     93
+    XVIII. The Forest Wealth of Canada                  98
+      XIX. A Melancholy Tale                           101
+       XX. From Barrie to Nottawasaga                  104
+      XXI. Farewell to the Backwoods                   107
+     XXII. A Journey to Toronto                        109
+    XXIII. Some Glimpses of Upper Canadian Politics    116
+     XXIV. Toronto During the Rebellion                119
+      XXV. The Victor and the Vanquished               134
+     XXVI. Results in the Future                       140
+    XXVII. A Confirmed Tory                            143
+   XXVIII. Newspaper Experiences                       146
+     XXIX. Introduction to Canadian Politics           154
+      XXX. Lord Sydenham's Mission                     156
+     XXXI. Tories of the Rebellion Times:
+              Ald. G. T. Denison, Sen                  165
+              Col. R. L. Denison                       171
+              Col. Geo. T. Denison, of Rusholme        172
+              Alderman Dixon                           174
+    XXXII. More Tories of Rebellion Times:
+              Edward G. O'Brien                        186
+              John W. Gamble                           198
+   XXXIII. A Choice of a Church                        201
+    XXXIV. The Clergy Reserves                         210
+     XXXV. A Political Seed-time                       215
+    XXXVI. The Maple Leaf                              217
+   XXXVII. {St. George's Society                       229
+           {North America St. George's Union           234
+  XXXVIII. A Great Conflagration                       239
+    XXXIX. The Rebellion Losses Bill                   242
+       XL. The British American League                 245
+      XLI. Results of the B. A. League                 261
+     XLII. Toronto Civic Affairs                       262
+    XLIII. Lord Elgin in Toronto                       268
+     XLIV. Toronto Harbour and Esplanade               274
+      XLV. Mayor Bowes--City Debentures                281
+     XLVI. Carlton Ocean Beach                         285
+    XLVII. Canadian Politics from 1853 to 1860         288
+   XLVIII. Business Troubles                           295
+     XLIX. Business Experiences in Quebec              300
+        L. Quebec in 1859-60                           303
+       LI. Departure From Quebec                       315
+      LII. John A. Macdonald and George Brown          317
+     LIII. John Sheridan Hogan                         320
+      LIV. Domestic Notes                              322
+       LV. The Beaver Insurance Company                325
+      LVI. The Ottawa Fires                            326
+     LVII. Some Insurance Experiences                  329
+    LVIII. A Heavy Calamity                            333
+      LIX. The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron                336
+       LX. The Toronto Athenĉum                        340
+      LXI. The Buffalo Fête                            344
+     LXII. The Boston Jubilee                          349
+    LXIII. Vestiges of the Mosaic Deluge               365
+     LXIV. The Franchise                               368
+      LXV. Free Trade and Protection                   371
+     LXVI. The Future of Canada                        374
+    LXVII. The Toronto Mechanics' Institute            377
+   LXVIII. The Free Public Library                     384
+     LXIX. Postscript                                  392
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF
+
+  A CANADIAN PIONEER.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  THE AUTHOR'S ANTECEDENTS AND FORBEARS.
+
+
+The writer of these pages was born in the year 1810, in the City of
+London, and in the Parish of Clerkenwell, being within sound of Bow
+Bells. My father was churchwarden of St. James's, Clerkenwell, and was a
+master-manufacturer of coal measures and coal shovels, now amongst the
+obsolete implements of by-gone days. His father was, I believe, a
+Scotsman, and has been illnaturedly surmised to have run away from the
+field of Culloden, where he may have fought under the name and style of
+Evan McTavish, a name which, like those of numbers of his fellow
+clansmen, would naturally anglicise itself into John Thompson, in order
+to save its owner's neck from a threatened Hanoverian halter. But he
+was both canny and winsome, and by-and-by succeeded in capturing the
+affections and "tocher" of Sarah Reynolds, daughter of the wealthy
+landlord of the Bull Inn, of Meriden, in Warwickshire, the greatest and
+oldest of those famous English hostelries, which did duty as the
+resting-place of monarchs _en route_, and combined within their solid
+walls whole troops of blacksmiths, carpenters, hostlers, and many other
+crafts and callings. No doubt from this source I got my Warwickshire
+blood, and English ways of thinking, in testimony of which I may cite
+the following facts: while living in Quebec, in 1859-60, a mason
+employed to rebuild a brick chimney challenged me as a brother
+Warwickshire man, saying he knew dozens of gentlemen there who were as
+like me "as two peas." Again, in 1841, a lady who claimed to be the last
+direct descendant of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, and
+the possessor of the watch and other relics of the poet, said she was
+quite startled at my likeness to an original portrait of her great
+ancestor, in the possession of her family.
+
+My grandfather carried on the business of timber dealer (we in Canada
+should call it lumber merchant), between Scotland and England, buying up
+the standing timber in gentlemen's parks, squaring and teaming it
+southward, and so became a prosperous man. Finally, at his death, he
+left a large family of sons and daughters, all in thriving
+circumstances. His second son, William, married my mother, Anna Hawkins,
+daughter of the Rev. Isaac Hawkins, of Taunton, in Somersetshire, and
+his wife, Joan Wilmington, of Wilmington Park, near Taunton. My
+grandfather Hawkins was one of John Wesley's earliest converts, and was
+by him ordained to the ministry. Through my mother, we are understood to
+be descended from Sir John Hawkins, the world-renowned buccaneer,
+admiral, and founder of the English Royal Navy, who was honoured by
+being associated with her most sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in a
+secret partnership in the profits of piratical raids undertaken in the
+name and for the behoof of Protestant Christianity. So at least says the
+historian, Froude.
+
+One word more about my father. He was a member of the London
+trained-bands, and served during the Gordon riots, described by Dickens
+in "Barnaby Rudge." He personally rescued a family of Roman Catholics
+from the rioters, secreted them in his house on Holborn Hill, and aided
+them to escape to Jamaica, whence they sent us many valuable presents of
+mahogany furniture, which must be still in the possession of some of my
+nephews or nieces in England. My mother has often told me, that she
+remembered well seeing dozens of miserable victims of riot and
+drunkenness lying in the kennel in front of her house, lapping up the
+streams of gin which ran burning down the foul gutter, consuming the
+poor wretches themselves in its fiery progress.
+
+My father died the same year I was born. My dear mother, who was the
+meekest and most pious of women, did her best to teach her children to
+avoid the snares of worldly pride and ambition, and to be contented with
+the humble lot in which they had been placed by Providence. She was by
+religious profession a Swedenborgian, and in that denomination educated
+a family of eleven children, of whom I am the youngest. I was sent to a
+respectable day-school, and afterwards as boarder to a commercial
+academy, where I learnt the English branches of education, with a little
+Latin, French, and drawing. I was, as a child, passionately fond of
+reading, especially of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and of Sir Walter
+Scott's novels, which latter delightful books have influenced my tastes
+through life, and still hold me fascinated whenever I happen to take
+them up.
+
+So things went on till 1823, when I was thirteen years old. My mother
+had been left a life-interest in freehold and leasehold property worth
+some thirty thousand pounds sterling; but, following the advice of her
+father and brother, was induced to invest in losing speculations, until
+scarcely sufficient was left to keep the wolf from the door. It was,
+therefore, settled that I must be sent to learn a trade, and, by my
+uncle's advice, I was placed as apprentice to one William Molineux, of
+the Liberty of the Rolls, in the district of Lincoln's Inn, printer. He
+was a hard master, though not an unkind man. For seven long years was I
+kept at press and case, working eleven hours a day usually, sometimes
+sixteen, and occasionally all night, for which latter indulgence I got
+half a crown for the night's work, but no other payment or present from
+year's end to year's end. The factory laws had not then been thought of,
+and the condition of apprentices in England was much the same as that of
+convicts condemned to hard labour, except for a couple of hours'
+freedom, and too often of vicious license, in the evenings.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  HISTORY OF A MAN OF GENIUS.
+
+
+The course of my narrative now requires a brief account of my mother's
+only brother, whose example and conversation, more than anything else,
+taught me to turn my thoughts westwards, and finally to follow his
+example by crossing the Atlantic ocean, and seeking "fresh fields and
+pastures new" under a transatlantic sky.
+
+John Isaac Hawkins was a name well known, both in European and American
+scientific circles, fifty years ago, as an inventor of the most fertile
+resource, and an expert in all matters relating to civil engineering. He
+must have left England for America somewhere about the year 1790, full
+of republican enthusiasm and of schemes of universal benevolence. Of his
+record in the United States I know very little, except that he married a
+wife in New Jersey, that he resided at Bordenton, that he acquired some
+property adjacent to Philadelphia, that he was intimate with the elder
+Adams, Jefferson, and many other eminent men. Returning with his wife to
+England, after twenty-five years' absence, he established a sugar
+refinery in Titchfield Street, Cavendish square, London, patronized his
+English relatives with much condescension, and won my childish heart by
+great lumps of rock-candy, and scientific experiments of a delightfully
+awful character. Also, he borrowed my mother's money, to be expended for
+the good of mankind, and the elaboration of the teeming offspring of his
+inexhaustible inventive faculty. Morden's patent lead pencils, Bramah's
+patent locks, and, I think, Gillott's steel pens were among his numerous
+useful achievements, from some or all of which he enjoyed to the day of
+his death a small income, in the shape of a royalty on the profits. He
+assisted in the perfecting of Perkins's steam-gun, which the Duke of
+Wellington condemned as too barbarous for civilized warfare, but which
+its discoverer, Mr. Perkins, looked upon as the destined extirpator of
+all warfare, by the simple process of rendering resistance utterly
+impossible. This appalling and destructive weapon has culminated in
+these times in the famous mitrailleuses of Napoleon III, at Woerth and
+Sedan, which, however, certainly neither exterminated the Prussians nor
+added glory to the French empire.
+
+At his home I was in the habit of meeting the leading men of the Royal
+Society and the Society of Arts, of which he was a member, and of
+listening to their discussions about scientific novelties. The
+eccentric Duke of Norfolk, Earl Stanhope, the inventor of the Stanhope
+press, and other noble amateur scientists, availed themselves of his
+practical skill, and his name became known throughout Europe. In 1825 or
+thereabouts, he was selected by the Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria,
+to design and superintend the first extensive works erected in Vienna
+for the promotion of the new manufacture of beet-root sugar, now an
+important national industry throughout Germany. He described the
+intercourse of the Austrian Imperial-Royal family with all who
+approached them, and even with the mendicants who were daily admitted to
+an audience with the Emperor at five o'clock in the morning, as of the
+most cordial and lovable character.
+
+From Vienna my uncle went to Paris, and performed the same duties there
+for the French Government, in the erection of extensive sugar works. The
+chief difficulty he encountered there, was in parrying the determination
+of the Parisian artisans not to lose their Sunday's labour. They could
+not, they said, support their families on six days' wages, and unless he
+paid them for remaining idle on the Sabbath day, they must and would
+work seven days in the week. I believe they gained their point, much to
+his distress and chagrin.
+
+His next exploit was in the construction of the Thames tunnel, in
+connection with which he acted as superintendent of the works under Sir
+Isambert Brunel. This occupied him nearly up to the time of my own
+departure for Canada, in 1833. The sequel of his story is a melancholy
+one. He made fortunes for other men who bought his inventions but
+himself sank into debt, and at last died in obscurity at Rahway, New
+Jersey, whither he had returned as a last resort, there to find his
+former friends dead, his beloved republic become a paradise for
+office-grabbers and sharpers, his life a mere tale of talents
+dissipated, and vague ambition unsatisfied.[1]
+
+After his return from Vienna, I lived much at my uncle's house, in
+London, as my mother had removed to the pleasant village of Epsom in
+Surrey. There I studied German with some degree of success, and learnt
+much about foreign nations and the world at large. There too I learnt to
+distrust my own ability to make my way amidst the crowded industries of
+the old country, and began to cast a longing eye to lands where there
+was plenty of room for individual effort, and a reasonable prospect of
+a life unblighted by the dread of the parish workhouse and a pauper's
+grave.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since writing the above, I find in _Scribner's Monthly_ for
+November 1880, the following notice of my uncle, which forms a sad
+sequel to a long career of untiring enthusiasm in the service of his
+fellow-creatures. It is the closing paragraph of an article headed
+"Bordentown and the Bonapartes," from the pen of Joseph B. Gilder:
+
+"It yet remains to say a few words of Dr. John Isaac Hawkins--civil
+engineer, inventor, poet, preacher, phrenologist and 'mentor-general to
+mankind,'--who visited the village towards the close of the last
+century, married and lived there for many years; then disappeared, and,
+after a long absence, returned a gray old man, with a wife barely out of
+her teens. 'This isn't the wife you, took away, doctor,' some one
+ventured to remark. 'No,' the blushing girl replied, 'and he's buried
+one between us.' The poor fellow had hard work to gain a livelihood. For
+a time, the ladies paid him to lecture to them in their parlours; but
+when he brought a bag of skulls, and the heart and windpipe of his
+[adopted] son preserved in spirits, they would have nothing more to do
+with him. As a last resort, he started the 'Journal of Human Nature and
+Human Progress,' his wife 'setting up' for the press her husband's
+contributions in prose and rhyme. But the 'Journal' died after a brief
+and inglorious career. Hawkins claimed to have made the first survey for
+a tunnel under the Thames, and he invented the 'ever-pointed pencil,'
+the 'iridium-pointed gold pen,' and a method of condensing coffee. He
+also constructed a little stove with a handle, which he carried into the
+kitchen to cook his meals or into the reception-room when visitors
+called, and at night into his bedroom. He invented also a new religion,
+whose altar was erected in his own small parlour, where Dr. John Isaac
+Hawkins, priest, held forth to Mrs. John Isaac Hawkins, people. But a
+shadow stretched along the poor man's path from the loss of his only
+[adopted] son--'a companion in all of his philosophical researches,' who
+died and was dissected at the early age of seven. Thereafter the old man
+wandered, as 'lonely as a cloud,' sometimes in England, sometimes in
+America; but attended patiently and faithfully by his first wife, then
+by a second, and finally by a third, who clung to him with the devotion
+of Little Nell to her doting grandfather."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LONDON APPRENTICE.
+
+
+Having been an indulged youngest child, I found the life of a printer's
+boy bitterly distasteful, and it was long before I could brace myself up
+to the required tasks. But time worked a change; I got to be a smart
+pressman and compositor; and at eighteen the foremanship of the office
+was entrusted to me, still without remuneration or reward. Those were
+the days of the Corn Law League. Col. Peyronnet Thompson, the apostle of
+Free Trade, author of the "Catholic State Waggon" and other political
+tracts, got his work done at our office. We printed the _Examiner_,
+which brought me into contact with John and Leigh Hunt, with Jeremy
+Bentham, then a feeble old man whose life was passed in an easy chair,
+and with his _protegé_ Edwin Chadwick; also with Albany Fonblanque, Sir
+John Morland the philanthropist, and other eminent men. Last but not
+least, we printed "Figaro in London," the forerunner of "Punch," and I
+was favoured with the kindest encouragement by De Walden, its first
+editor, afterwards Police Magistrate. I have known that gentleman come
+into the office on the morning of publication, ask how much copy was
+still wanted, and have seen him stand at a desk, and without preparation
+or hesitation, dash off paragraph after paragraph of the pungent
+witticisms, which the same afternoon sent all London into roars of
+laughter at the expense of political humbugs of all kinds, whether
+friends or foes. These were not unhappy days for me. With such
+associations, I became a zealous Reformer, and heartily applauded my
+elder brother, when he refused, with thousands of others, to pay taxes
+at the time the first Reform Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.
+
+At this period of my life, as might have been expected from the nature
+of my education and the course of reading which I preferred, I began to
+try my hand at poetry, and wrote several slight pieces for the Christmas
+Annuals, which, sad to say, were never accepted. But the fate of
+Chatterton, of Coleridge, and other like sufferers, discouraged me; and
+I adopted the prudent resolution, to prefer wealth to fame, and comfort
+to martyrdom in the service of the Muses.
+
+With the termination of my seven years' apprenticeship, these literary
+efforts came also to an end. Disgusted with printing, I entered the
+service of my brother, a timber merchant, and in consequence obtained a
+general knowledge of the many varieties of wood used in manufactures,
+which I have since found serviceable. And this brings me to the year
+1831, from which date to the present day, I have identified myself
+thoroughly with Canada, her industries and progress, without for a
+moment ceasing to be an Englishman of the English, a loyal subject of
+the Queen, and a firm believer in the high destinies of the Pan-Anglican
+Empire of the future.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  WESTWARD, HO!
+
+
+"Martin Doyle," was the text-book which first awakened, amongst tens of
+thousands of British readers, a keen interest in the backwoods of what
+is now the Province of Ontario. The year 1832, the first dread year of
+Asiatic cholera, contributed by its terrors to the exodus of alarmed
+fugitives from the crowded cities of the old country. My brothers
+Thomas and Isaac, both a few years older than myself, made up their
+minds to emigrate, and I joyously offered to join them, in the
+expectation of a good deal of fun of the kind described by Dr. Dunlop.
+So we set seriously to work, "pooled" our small means, learnt to make
+seine-nets, economized to an unheard of extent, became curious in the
+purchase of stores, including pannikins and other primitive tinware, and
+at length engaged passage in the bark _Asia_, 500 tons, rated A. No. 1,
+formerly an East Indiaman, and now bound for Quebec, to seek a cargo of
+white pine lumber for the London market. So sanguine were we of
+returning in the course of six or seven years, with plenty of money to
+enrich, and perhaps bring back with us, our dear mother and unmarried
+sisters, that we scarcely realized the pain of leave-taking, and went on
+board ship in the St. Catherine's Docks, surrounded by applauding
+friends, and in the highest possible spirits.
+
+Our fellow-passengers were not of the most desirable class. With the
+exception of a London hairdresser and his wife, very respectable people,
+with whom we shared the second-cabin, the emigrants were chiefly rough
+countrymen, with their wives and numerous children, sent out by the
+parish authorities from the neighbourhood of Dorking, in Surrey, and
+more ignorant than can readily be conceived. Helpless as infants under
+suffering, sulky and even savage under privations, they were a
+troublesome charge to the ship's officers, and very ill-fitted for the
+dangers of the sea which lay before us. Captain Ward was the ship's
+master; there were first and second mates, the former a tall Scot, the
+latter a short thick-set Englishman, and both good sailors. The
+boatswain, cook and crew of about a dozen men and boys, made up our
+ship's company.
+
+All things went reasonably well for some time. Heavy head-winds detained
+us in the channel for a fortnight, which was relieved by landing at
+Torbay, climbing the heights of Brixham, and living on fresh fish for
+twenty-four hours. Then came a fair wind, which lasted until we got near
+the banks of Newfoundland. Head-winds beset us again, and this time so
+seriously that our vessel, which was timber-sheathed, sprang a plank,
+and immediately began to leak dangerously. The passengers had taken to
+their berths for the night, and were of course ignorant of what had
+happened, but feared something wrong from the hurry of tramping of feet
+overhead, the vehement shouts of the mates giving orders for lowering
+sail, and the other usual accompaniments of a heavy squall on board
+ship. It was not long, however, before we learned the alarming truth.
+"All hands on deck to pump ship," came thundering down both hatchways,
+in the coarse tones of the second mate. We hurried on deck half-dressed,
+to face a scene of confusion affrighting in the eyes of landsmen--the
+ship stripped to her storm-sails, almost on her beam-ends in a
+tremendous sea, the wind blowing "great guns," the deck at an angle of
+at least fifteen degrees, flooded with rain pouring in torrents, and
+encumbered with ropes which there had not been time to clew away, the
+four ship's pumps manned by twice as many landsmen, the sailors all
+engaged in desperate efforts to stop the leak by thrumming sails
+together and drawing them under the ship's bows.
+
+Captain Ward told us very calmly that he had been in gales off the Cape
+of Good Hope, and thought nothing of a "little puff" like this; he also
+told us that he should keep on his course in the hope that the wind
+would abate, and that we could manage the leak; but if not, he had no
+doubt of carrying us safely back to the west coast of Ireland, where he
+might comfortably refit.
+
+Certainly courage is infectious. We were twelve hundred miles at sea,
+with a great leak in our ship's side, and very little hope of escape,
+but the master's coolness and bravery delighted us, and even the
+weakest man on board took his spell at the pumps, and worked away for
+dear life. My brother Thomas was a martyr to sea-sickness, and could
+hardly stand without help; but Isaac had been bred a farmer, accustomed
+to hard work and field sports, and speedily took command of the pumps,
+worked two spells for another man's one, and by his example encouraged
+the grumbling steerage passengers to persevere, if only for very shame.
+Some of their wives even took turns with great spirit and effect. I did
+my best, but it was not much that I could accomplish.
+
+In all my after-life I never experienced such supreme comfort and peace
+of mind, as during that night, while lying under wet sails on the
+sloping deck, talking with my brother of the certainty of our being at
+the bottom of the sea before morning, of our mother and friends at home,
+and of our hope of meeting them in the great Hereafter. Tired out at
+last, we fell asleep where we lay, and woke only at the cry, "spell ho!"
+which summoned us again to the pumps.
+
+The report of "five feet of water in the hold--the ballast shifted!"
+determined matters for us towards morning. Capt. Ward decided that he
+must put about and run for Galway, and so he did. The sea had by
+daylight gone down so much, that the captain's cutter could be lowered
+and the leak examined from the outside. This was done by the first mate,
+Mr. Cattanagh, who brought back the cheering news that so long as we
+were running before the wind the leak was four feet out of water, and
+that we were saved for the present. The bark still remained at the same
+unsightly angle, her ballast, which was chiefly coals, having shifted
+bodily over to leeward; the pumps had to be kept going, and in this
+deplorable state, in constant dread of squalls, and wearied with
+incessant hard work, we sailed for eight days and nights, never sighting
+a ship until nearly off the mouth of the Shannon, where we hailed a brig
+whose name I forget. She passed on, however, refusing to answer our
+signals of distress.
+
+Next day, to our immense relief, the _Asia_ entered Galway Bay, and here
+we lay six weeks for repairs, enjoying ourselves not a little, and
+forgetting past danger, except as a memorable episode in the battle of
+life.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  CONNEMARA AND GALWAY FIFTY YEARS AGO.
+
+
+The Town of Galway is a relic of the times when Spain maintained an
+active commerce with the west of Ireland, and meddled not a little in
+the intrigues of the time. Everybody has read of the warden of Galway,
+who hanged his son outside a window of his own house, to prevent a
+rescue from justice by a popular rising in the young man's favour. That
+house still stood, and probably yet stands, a mournful memento of a most
+dismal tragedy. In 1833 it was in ruins, as was also the whole long row
+of massive cut stone buildings of which it formed part. In front there
+was a tablet recording the above event; the walls were entire, but the
+roof was quite gone, and the upper stories open to the winds and storms.
+The basement story appeared to have been solidly arched, and in its
+cavernous recesses, and those of the adjoining cellars along that side
+of the street, dwelt a race of butchers and of small hucksters, dealing
+in potatoes, oats, some groceries and rough wares of many kinds. The
+first floor of a brick store opposite was occupied by a hair-dresser
+with whom our London fellow-passenger claimed acquaintance. One day we
+were sitting at his window, looking across at the old warden's house,
+when a singular scene was enacted under our astonished eyes. A
+beggarman, so ragged as barely to comply with the demands of common
+decency, and bearing an old sack suspended over his shoulder on a short
+cudgel, came lounging along the middle of the street seeking alms. A
+butcher's dog of aristocratic tastes took offence at the man's rags, and
+attacked him savagely. The old man struck at the dog, the dog's owner
+darted out of his cellar and struck at the beggar, somebody else took a
+part, and in the twinkling of an eye as it were, the narrow street was
+blocked up with men furiously-wielding shillelaghs, striking right and
+left at whoever happened to be most handy, and yelling like Dante's
+devils in full chorus. Another minute, and a squad of policemen in green
+uniforms--peelers, they are popularly called--appeared as if by magic,
+and with the effect of magic; for instantly, and with a celerity
+evidently the result of long practice, the crowd, beggarman, butcher,
+dog and all, vanished into the yawning cellars, and the street was left
+as quiet as before, the police marching leisurely back to their
+barracks.
+
+We spent much of our time in rambling along the shore of Galway Bay, a
+beautiful and extensive harbour, where we found many curious specimens
+of sea-weeds, particularly the edible dilosk, and rare shells and
+minerals. Some of our people went out shooting snipe, and were warned on
+all hands to go in parties, and to take care of their guns, which would
+prove too strong a temptation for the native peasantry, as the spirit of
+Ribbonism was rife throughout Connemara. Another amusement was, to watch
+the groups of visitors from Tuam and the surrounding parts of Clare and
+other counties, who were attracted by the marvel of a ship of five
+hundred tons in their bay, no such phenomenon having happened within the
+memory of man. At another time we explored the rapid river Corrib, and
+the beautiful lake of the same name, a few miles distant. The salmon
+weirs on the river were exceedingly interesting, where we saw the
+largest fish confined in cribs for market, and apparently quite
+unconscious of their captivity. The castle of one of the Lynch family
+was visible from the bay, an ancient structure with its walls mounted
+with cannon to keep sheriffs' officers at a distance. Other feudal
+castles were also in sight.
+
+Across the bay loomed the rugged mountains of Clare, seemingly utterly
+barren in their bleak nakedness. With the aid of the captain's telescope
+we could see on these inhospitable hills dark objects, which turned out
+to be the mud cabins of a numerous peasantry, the very class for whom,
+in this present year of 1883, Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues are
+trying to create an elysium of rural contentment. We traversed the
+country roads for miles, to observe the mode of farming there, and could
+find nothing, even up to the very streets of Galway, but mud cabins with
+one or two rooms, shared with the cow and pigs, and entrenched, as it
+were, behind a huge pile of manure that must have been the accumulation
+of years. Anything in the shape of valuable improvements was
+conspicuously absent.
+
+Everything in Connemara seems paradoxical. These rough-coated,
+hard-worked, down-trodden Celts proved to be the liveliest, brightest,
+wittiest of mankind. They came in shoals to our ship, danced reels by
+the hour upon deck to a whistled accompaniment, with the most
+extravagant leaps and snapping of fingers. It was an amusing sight to
+see women driving huge pigs into the sea, held by a string tied to the
+hind leg, and there scraping and sluicing the unwieldy, squealing
+creatures until they came out as white as new cream. These Galway women
+are singularly handsome, with a decidedly Murillo cast of features,
+betokening plainly their Iberian ancestry. They might well have sat as
+models to the chief of Spanish painters.
+
+In the suburbs of Galway are many acres of boggy land, which are
+cultivated as potato plots, highly enriched with salt sea-weed manure,
+and very productive. These farms--by which title they are
+dignified--were rented, we were told, at three to four pounds sterling
+per acre. Rents in the open country ranged from one pound upwards. Yet
+we bought cup potatoes at twopence per stone of sixteen lbs.; and for a
+leg of mutton paid sixpence English.
+
+Enquiring the cause of these singular anomalies, we were assured on all
+hands, that the system of renting through middlemen was the bane of
+Ireland. A farm might be sub-let two or three times, each tenant paying
+an increased rental, and the landlord-in-chief, a Blake, a Lynch, or a
+Martin, realizing less rent than he would obtain in Scotland or England.
+We heard of no Protestant oppressors here; the gentry and nobility
+worshipped at the same altar with the humblest of their dependents, and
+certainly meant them well and treated them considerately.
+
+We attended the English service in the ancient Gothic Abbey Church. The
+ministrations were of the strictest Puritan type; the sculptured
+escutcheons and tablets on the walls--the groined arches and bosses of
+the roof--were almost obliterated by thick coat upon coat of whitewash,
+laid on in an iconoclastic spirit which I have since seen equalled in
+the Dutch Cathedral of Rotterdam, and nowhere else. Another Sunday we
+visited a small Roman Catholic chapel at some distance. It was
+impossible to get inside the building, as the crowd of worshippers not
+only filled the sacred edifice, but spread themselves over a pretty
+extensive and well-filled churchyard, where they knelt throughout
+morning prayer, lasting a full hour or more.
+
+The party-feuds of the town are quite free from sectarian feeling. The
+fishermen, who were dressed from head to foot in hoddengray, and the
+butchers, who clothed themselves entirely in sky-blue--coats,
+waistcoats, breeches, and stockings alike, with black hats and
+shoes--constituted the belligerent powers. Every Saturday night, or
+oftener, they would marshal their forces respectively on the wide
+fish-market place, by the sea-shore, or on the long wharf extending into
+deep water, and with their shillelaghs hold high tournament for the
+honour of their craft and the love of fair maidens. One night, while the
+_Asia_ lay off the wharf, an unfortunate combatant fell senseless into
+the water and was drowned. But no inquiry followed, and no surprise was
+expressed at a circumstance so trivial.
+
+By the way, it would be unpardonable to quit Connemara without recording
+its "potheen." Every homestead had its peat-stack, and every peat-stack
+might be the hiding-place of a keg of illicit native spirits. We were
+invited, and encouraged by example, to taste a glass; but a single
+mouthful almost choked us; and never again did we dare to put the fiery
+liquid to our lips.
+
+Our recollections of Galway are of a mixed character--painful, because
+of the consciousness that the empire at large must be held responsible
+for the unequal distribution of nature's blessings amongst her
+people--pleasant, because of the uniform hospitality and courtesy shown
+to us by all classes and creeds of the townsfolk.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  MORE SEA EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+In the month of July we were ready for sea again. In the meantime
+Captain Ward had got together a new list of passengers, and we more than
+doubled our numbers by the addition of several Roman Catholic gentlemen
+of birth and education with their followers, and a party of Orangemen
+and their families, of a rather rough farming sort, escaping from
+religious feuds and hostile neighbours. A blooming widow Culleeney, of
+the former class, was added to the scanty female society on board; and
+for the first few hours after leaving port, we had fun and dancing on
+deck galore. But alas, sea-sickness put an end to our merriment all too
+soon. Our new recruits fled below, and scarcely showed their faces on
+deck for several days. Yet, in this apparently quiet interval, discord
+had found her way between decks.
+
+We were listening one fine evening to the comical jokes and rich brogue
+of the most gentlemanly of the Irish Catholics above-mentioned, when
+suddenly a dozen men, women and children, armed with sticks and foaming
+at the mouth, rushed up the steerage hatchway, and without note of
+warning or apparent provocation, attacked the defenceless group standing
+near us with the blindness of insanity and the most frantic cries of
+rage. Fortunately there were several of the ship's officers and sailors
+on deck, who laid about them lustily with their fists, and speedily
+drove the attacking party below, where they were confined for some days,
+under a threat of severe punishment from the captain, who meant what he
+said. So this breeze passed over. What it was about, who was offended,
+and how, we never could discover; we set it down to the general
+principle, that the poor creatures were merely 'blue-mowlded for want of
+a bating.'
+
+Moderately fair breezes, occasional dead calms, rude, baffling
+head-winds, attended us until we reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After
+sailing all day northward, and all night southerly, we found ourselves
+next morning actually retrograded some thirty or forty knots. But we
+were rewarded sometimes by strange sights and wondrous spectacles. Once
+a shoal of porpoises and grampuses crossed our course, frolicking and
+turning summersets in the air, and continuing to stream onwards for full
+two hours. Another time, when far north, we had the most magnificent
+display of aurora borealis. Night after night the sea became radiant
+with phosphorescent light. Icebergs attended us in thousands, compelling
+our captain to shorten sail frequently; once we passed near two of these
+ice-cliffs which exceeded five hundred feet in height, and again we were
+nearly overwhelmed by the sudden break-down of a huge mass as big as a
+cathedral. Near the Island of Anticosti we saw at least three hundred
+spouting whales at one view. I have crossed the Atlantic four times
+since, and have scarcely seen a single whale or shark. It seems that
+modern steamship travel has driven away the inhabitants of the deep to
+quieter seas, and robbed "life on the ocean wave" of much of its
+romance.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  UP THE ST. LAWRENCE.
+
+
+The St. Lawrence River was gained, and escaping with a few days'
+quarantine at Grosse Isle, we reached Quebec, there to be transferred to
+a fine steamer for Montreal. At Lachine we were provided with large
+barges, here called batteaux, which sufficed to accommodate the whole of
+the _Asia's_ passengers going west, with their luggage. They were drawn
+by Canadian ponies, lively and perfectly hardy little animals, which,
+with their French-Canadian drivers, amused us exceedingly. While loading
+up, we were favoured with one of those accidental historical "bits"--as
+a painter would say--which occur so rarely in a lifetime. The then
+despot of the North-West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for the
+seat of his government _via_ the Ottawa River. With him were some
+half-dozen officers, civil and military, and the party was escorted by
+six or eight Nor'-West canoes--each thirty or forty feet long, and
+manned by some twenty-four Indians, in the full glory of war-paint,
+feathers, and most dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats, and
+their no less stately crews, gliding with measured stroke, in gallant
+procession, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay
+territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, was a sight
+never to be forgotten. And as they paddled, the woods echoed far and
+wide to the strange weird sounds of their favourite boat-song:--
+
+  "A la claire fontaine,
+   M'en allant promener,
+   J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle,
+   Que je m'y suis baigné.
+  Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+  Jamais je ne t'oublirai."
+
+From Lachine to the Coteau, thence by canal and along shore successively
+to Cornwall, Prescott, and Kingston, occupied several days. We were
+charmed to get on dry land, to follow our batteau along well-beaten
+paths, gathering nuts, stealing a few apples now and then from some
+orchard skirting the road; dining at some weather-boarded way-side
+tavern, with painted floors, and French cuisine, all delightfully
+strange and comical to us; then on board the batteau again at night.
+Once, in a cedar swamp, we were enraptured at finding a dazzling
+specimen of the scarlet _lobelia fulgens_, the most brilliant of wild
+flowers, which Indians use for making red ink. At another time, the
+Long Sault rapids, up which was steaming the double-hulled steamer
+_Iroquois_, amazed us by their grandeur and power, and filled our minds
+with a sense of the vastness of the land we had come to inhabit. And so
+we wended on our way until put aboard the Lake Ontario steamer _United
+Kingdom_ for Little York, where we landed about the first week in
+September, 1833, after a journey of four months. Now-a-days, a trip to
+England by the Allan Line is thought tedious if it last ten days, and
+even five days is considered not unattainable. When we left England, a
+thirty mile railway from Liverpool to Manchester was all that Europe had
+seen. Dr. Dionysius Lardner pronounced steam voyages across the Atlantic
+an impossibility, and men believed him. Now, even China and Japan have
+their railways and steamships; Canada is being spanned from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific by a railroad, destined, I believe, to work still greater
+changes in the future of our race, and of the world.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  MUDDY LITTLE YORK.
+
+
+When we landed at York, it contained 8,500 inhabitants or thereabouts,
+being the same population nearly as Belleville, St. Catharines, and
+Brantford severally claimed in 1881. In addition to King street the
+principal thoroughfares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate streets, now
+more euphoniously styled Queen, Richmond and Adelaide streets
+respectively; Church, George, Bay and York streets were almost without
+buildings; Yonge street ran north thirty-three miles to Lake Simcoe, and
+Dundas street extended westward a hundred miles to London. More or less
+isolated wooden stores there were on King and Yonge streets; taverns
+were pretty numerous; a wooden English church; Methodist, Presbyterian,
+and Roman Catholic churches of the like construction; a brick gaol and
+court-house of the ugliest architecture: scattered private houses, a
+wheat-field where now stands the Rossin House; beyond it a rough-cast
+Government House, brick Parliament Buildings uglier even than the gaol,
+and some government offices located in one-story brick buildings
+twenty-five feet square,--comprised the lions of the Toronto of that
+day. Of brick private buildings, only Moore's hotel at the corner of
+Market square; J. S. Baldwin's residence, now the Canada Company's
+office; James F. Smith's grocery (afterwards the _Colonist_ office), on
+King street; Ridout's hardware store at the corner of King and Yonge
+streets, occur to my memory, but there may have been one or two others.
+So well did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church
+street near St. James's Church, boots were drawn off the feet by the
+tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market lane (now Colborne
+street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along the
+roadside. There was rude flagged pavement here and there, but not a
+solitary planked footpath throughout the town.
+
+To us the sole attraction was the Emigrant Office. At that time, Sir
+John Colborne, Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada, was exerting himself to
+induce retired army officers, and other well-to-do settlers, to take up
+lands in the country north and west of Lake Simcoe. U. E. rights,
+_i.e._, location tickets for two hundred acres of land, subject to
+conditions of actual settlement, were easily obtainable. We purchased
+one of these for a hundred dollars, or rather for twenty pounds
+sterling--dollars and cents not being current in Canada at that
+date--and forthwith booked ourselves for Lake Simcoe, in an open waggon
+without springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking utensils of
+intending settlers, some of them our shipmates of the _Asia_. A day's
+journey brought us to Holland Landing, whence a small steamer conveyed
+us across the lake to Barrie. The Holland River was then a mere muddy
+ditch, swarming with huge bullfrogs and black snakes, and winding in and
+out through thickets of reeds and rushes. Arrived at Barrie, we found a
+wharf, a log bakery, two log taverns--one of them also a store--and a
+farm house, likewise log. Other farm-houses there were at some little
+distance, hidden by trees.
+
+Some of our fellow travellers were discouraged by the solitary
+appearance of things here, and turned back at once. My brothers and
+myself, and one other emigrant, determined to go on; and next afternoon,
+armed with axes, guns, and mosquito nets, off we started for the unknown
+forest, then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. From
+Barrie to the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles, a road had been chopped
+and logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river, nothing but a bush
+path existed.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  A PIONEER TAVERN.
+
+
+We had walked a distance of eight miles, and it was quite dark, when we
+came within sight of the clearing where we were advised to stop for the
+night. Completely blockading the road, and full in our way, was a
+confused mass of felled timber, which we were afterwards told was a
+wind-row or brush-fence. It consisted of an irregular heap of prostrate
+trees, branches and all, thrown together in line, to serve as a fence
+against stray cattle. After several fruitless attempts to effect an
+entrance, there was nothing for it but to shout at the top of our voices
+for assistance.
+
+Presently we heard a shrill cry, rather like the call of some strange
+bird than a human voice; immediately afterwards, the reflection of a
+strong light became visible, and a man emerged from the brush-wood,
+bearing a large blazing fragment of resinous wood, which lighted up
+every object around in a picturesque and singular manner. High over
+head, eighty feet at least, was a vivid green canopy of leaves,
+extending on all sides as far as the eye could penetrate, varied here
+and there by the twinkling of some lustrous star that peeped through
+from the dark sky without, and supported by the straight trunks and
+arching branches of innumerable trees--the rustic pillars of this superb
+natural temple. The effect was strikingly beautiful and surprising.
+
+Nor was the figure of our guide less strange. He was the first genuine
+specimen of a Yankee we had encountered--a Vermonter--tall, bony and
+awkward, but with a good-natured simplicity in his shrewd features; he
+wore uncouth leather leggings, tied with deer sinews--loose mocassins, a
+Guernsey shirt, a scarlet sash confining his patched trowsers at the
+waist, and a palmetto hat, dragged out of all describable shape, the
+colour of each article so obscured by stains and rough usage, as to be
+matter rather of conjecture than certainty. He proved to be our landlord
+for the night, David Root by name.
+
+Following his guidance, and climbing successively over a number of huge
+trunks, stumbling through a net-work of branches, and plunging into a
+shallow stream up to the ankles in soft mud, we reached at length what
+he called his tavern, at the further side of the clearing. It was a log
+building of a single apartment, where presided "the wife," a smart,
+plump, good-looking little Irishwoman, in a stuff gown, and without
+shoes or stockings. They had been recently married, as he promptly
+informed us, had selected this wild spot on a half-opened road,
+impassable for waggons, without a neighbour for miles, and under the
+inevitable necessity of shouldering all their provisions from the embryo
+village we had just quitted: all this with the resolute determination of
+"keeping tavern."
+
+The floor was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness
+with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with
+chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of
+the objects visible outside, and had the advantage, moreover, of
+rendering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the
+ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the
+fire literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet
+lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet. It was a chill
+evening, and the dancing flames were inspiriting, as they threw a
+cheerful radiance all around, and revealed to our curious eyes
+extraordinary pieces of furniture--a log bedstead in the darkest corner,
+a pair of snow-shoes, sundry spiral augers and rough tools, a bundle of
+dried deer-sinews, together with some articles of feminine gear, a small
+red framed looking-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a
+string, and other similar treasures.
+
+We were accommodated with stools of various sizes and heights, on three
+legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off, which latter our
+host justly recommended as being more steady on the uneven floor. We
+exchanged our wet boots for slippers, mocassins, or whatever the
+good-natured fellow could supply us with. The hostess was intently busy
+making large flat cakes; roasting them, first on one side, then on the
+other; and alternately boiling and frying broad slices of salt pork,
+when, suddenly suspending operations, she exclaimed, with a vivacity
+that startled us, "Oh, Root, I've cracked my spider!"
+
+Inquiring with alarm what was the matter, we learned that the cast-iron
+pan on three feet, which she used for her cookery, was called a
+"spider," and that its fracture had occasioned the exclamation. The
+injured spider performed "its spiriting gently" notwithstanding, and,
+sooth to say, all parties did full justice to its savoury contents.
+
+Bed-time drew near. A heap of odd-looking rugs and clean blankets was
+laid for our accommodation and pronounced to be ready. But how to get
+into it? We had heard of some rather primitive practices among the
+steerage passengers on board ship, it is true, but had not accustomed
+ourselves to "uncase" before company, and hesitated to lie down in our
+clothes. After waiting some little time in blank dismay, Mr. Root kindly
+set us an example by quietly slipping out of his nether integuments and
+turning into bed. There was no help for it; by one means or other we
+contrived to sneak under the blankets; and, after hanging up a large
+coloured quilt between our lair and the couch occupied by her now
+snoring spouse, the good wife also disappeared.
+
+In spite of the novelty of the situation, and some occasional
+disturbance from gusts of wind stealing through the "chinks," and
+fanning into brightness the dying embers on the hearth, we slept
+deliciously and awoke refreshed.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  A FIRST DAY IN THE BUSH.
+
+
+Before day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting
+meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes,
+roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea,"
+and chocolate--which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree
+bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our
+host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a
+hearty meal.
+
+It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us
+"a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the
+dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning
+it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing
+themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend
+remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise."
+
+The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road
+with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes
+the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We
+found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the
+track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of
+sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between
+two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt
+or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to
+side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by
+grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a
+collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities.
+Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it
+two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these
+transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and
+earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge."
+
+At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the
+temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then
+in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us
+very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced
+guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers--a very
+necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased
+altogether.
+
+For some miles further, the forest consisted of Norway and white pine,
+almost unmixed with any other timber. There is something majestic in
+these vast and thickly-set labyrinths of brown columnar stems averaging
+a hundred and fifty feet in height, perhaps, and from one to five in
+thickness, making a traveller feel somewhat like a Lilliputian Gulliver
+in a field of Brobdignagian wheat. It is singular to observe the effect
+of an occasional gust of wind in such situations. It may not even fan
+your cheek; but you hear a low surging sound, like the moaning of
+breakers in a calm sea, which gradually increases to a loud boisterous
+roar, still seemingly at a great distance; the branches remain in
+perfect repose, you can discover no evidence of a stirring breeze, till,
+looking perpendicularly upwards, you are astonished to see some
+patriarchal giant close at hand--six yards round and sixty high--which
+alone has caught the breeze, waving its huge fantastic arms wildly at a
+dizzy height above your head.
+
+There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine
+woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their
+strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the
+wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly
+wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of
+the soil, present no very powerful resistance. Nothing but the close
+contiguity of the trees saves them from general prostration. Interlocked
+branches are every moment broken off and flung to a distance, and even
+the trunks clash, and as it were, whet themselves against each other,
+with a shock and uproar that startles the firmest nerves.
+
+It were tedious to detail all the events of our morning's march: How
+armed with English fowling pieces and laden with ammunition, we
+momentarily expected to encounter some grisly she-bear, with a numerous
+family of cubs; or at the least a herd of deer or a flock of wild
+turkeys: how we saw nothing more dangerous than woodpeckers with crimson
+heads, hammering away at decayed trees like transmigrated carpenters;
+how we at last shot two partridges sitting on branches, very unlike
+English ones, of which we were fain to make a meal, which was utterly
+detestable for want of salt; how the government guide led us,
+helter-skelter, into the untracked woods, walking as for a wager,
+through thickets of ground hemlock,[2] which entangled our feet and
+often tripped us up; how we were obliged to follow him over and under
+wind-falls, to pass which it was necessary to climb sometimes twenty
+feet along some half-recumbent tree; how when we enquired whether clay
+or sand were considered the best soil, he said some preferred one, and
+some the other; how he showed us the front of a lot that was bad, and
+guessed that the rear ought to be better; how we turned back at last,
+thoroughly jaded, but no wiser than when we set out--all this and much
+more, must be left to the reader's imagination.
+
+It was drawing towards evening. The guide strode in advance, tired and
+taciturn, like some evil fate. We followed in pairs, each of us provided
+with a small bunch of leafy twigs to flap away the mosquitoes, which
+rose in myriads from the thick, damp underbrush.
+
+"It will be getting dark," said the guide, "you must look out for the
+blaze."
+
+We glanced anxiously around. "What does he mean?" asked one of the
+party, "I see no blaze."
+
+The man explained that the blaze (query, blazon?) was a white mark which
+we had noticed on some of the trees in our route, made by slicing off a
+portion of the bark with an axe, and invariably used by surveyors to
+indicate the road, as well as divisions and sub-divisions of townships.
+After a time this mark loses its whiteness and becomes undistinguishable
+in the dusk of evening, even to an experienced eye.
+
+Not a little rejoiced were we, when we presently saw a genuine blaze in
+the form of a log fire, that brilliantly lighted up the forest in front
+of a wigwam, which, like everything else on that eventful day, was to us
+delightfully new and interesting. We found, seated on logs near the
+fire, two persons in blanket coats and red sashes, evidently gentlemen;
+and occupying a second wigwam at a little distance, half-a-dozen axemen.
+The gentlemen proved to be the Messrs. Walker, afterwards of Barrie,
+sons of the wealthy owner of the great shot-works at Waterloo Bridge,
+London, England. They had purchased a tract of a thousand acres, and
+commenced operations by hiring men to cut a road through the forest
+eight or ten miles to their new estate, which pioneering exploit they
+were now superintending in person. Nothing could exceed the vigour of
+their plans. Their property was to be enclosed in a ring fence like a
+park, to exclude trespassers on their game. They would have herds of
+deer and wild horses. The river which intersected their land was to be
+cleared of the drift logs, and made navigable. In short, they meant to
+convert it into another England. In the meanwhile, the elder brother had
+cut his foot with an axe, and was disabled for the present; and the
+younger was busily engaged in the unromantic occupation of frying
+pancakes, which the axemen, who were unskilled in cookery, were to have
+for their supper.
+
+Nowhere does good-fellowship spring up so readily as in the bush. We
+were soon engaged in discussing the aforesaid pancakes, with some fried
+pork, as well as in sharing the sanguine hopes and bright visions which
+accorded so well with our own ideas and feelings.
+
+We quitted the wigwam and its cheerful tenants with mutual good wishes
+for success, and shortly afterwards reached the river whence we had
+started, where Mr. Richey kindly invited us to stay for the night.
+Exhausted by our rough progress, we slept soundly till the morning sun
+shone high over the forest.
+
+[Footnote 2: Taxus Canadensis, or Canadian Yew, is a trailing evergreen
+shrub which covers the ground in places. Its stems are as strong as
+cart-ropes, and often reach the length of twenty feet.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  A CHAPTER ON CHOPPING.
+
+
+Imagine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your
+days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house,
+and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or
+grandfather's pleasant farm in the country--imagine yourself, I say,
+transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles;
+no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the
+sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there
+are trees innumerable--splendid trees--beech, maple, elm, ash,
+cherry--above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on
+earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market
+for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire--yea,
+burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth
+as "good manure"; unless indeed--a desperately forlorn hope--you may
+"some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash,
+"when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river.
+
+Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees.
+Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe
+or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands,
+you cut away for some distance round--a quarter or half an acre
+perhaps--all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise
+impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood
+bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm,
+white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber--the
+"underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be
+cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like
+appearance--so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of
+Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through.
+
+When you have finished "under-brushing," you stand with whetted axe,
+ready and willing to attack the fathers of the forest--but stay--you
+don't know how to chop? It is rather doubtful, as you have travelled
+hither in a great hurry, whether you have ever seen an axeman at work.
+Your man, Carroll, who has been in the country five or six years, and is
+quite _au fait_, will readily instruct you. Observe--you strike your
+axe, by a dexterous swing backwards and round over your shoulder,--take
+care there are no twigs near you, or you may perhaps hurt yourself
+seriously--you strike your axe into the tree with a downward slant, at
+about thirty inches from the ground; then, by an upward stroke you meet
+the former incision and release a chip, which flies out briskly. Thus
+you proceed, by alternate downward and upward or horizontal strokes on
+that side of the tree which leans over, or towards which you wish to
+compel it to fall, until you have made a clear gap rather more than half
+way through, when you attack it in rear.
+
+Now for the reward of your perspiring exertions--a few well-aimed blows
+on the reverse side of the tree, rather higher than in front, and the
+vast mass "totters to its fall,"--another for the
+_coup-de-grace_--crack! crack! cra-a-ack!--aha!--away with you behind
+yon beech--the noble tree bows gently its leafy honours with graceful
+sweep towards the earth--for a moment slowly and leisurely, presently
+with giddy velocity, until it strikes the ground, amidst a whirlwind of
+leaves, with a loud _thud_, and a concussion both of air and earth, that
+may be _felt_ at a considerable distance. You feel yourself a second
+David, who has overthrown a mightier Goliath.
+
+Now do you step exultingly upon the prostrate trunk, which you forthwith
+proceed to cut up into about fourteen-foot lengths, chopping all the
+branches close off, and throwing the smaller on to your brush piles. It
+is a common mistake of new immigrants, who are naturally enough pleased
+with the novel spectacle of falling trees, to cut down so many before
+they begin to chop them into lengths, that the ground is wholly
+encumbered, and becomes a perfect chaos of confused and heaped-up trunks
+and branches, which nothing but the joint operation of decay and fire
+will clear off, unless at an immense waste of time and trouble. To an
+experienced axeman, these first attempts at chopping afford a ready text
+for all kinds of ironical comments upon the unworkmanlike appearance of
+the stumps and "cuts," which are generally--like those gnawn off by
+beavers in making their dams--haggled all round the tree, instead of
+presenting two clear smooth surfaces, in front and rear, as if sliced
+off with a knife. Your genuine axeman is not a little jealous of his
+reputation as a "clean cutter"--his axe is always bright as burnished
+silver, guiltless of rust or flaw, and fitted with a handle which, with
+its graceful curve and slender proportions, is a tolerable approach to
+Hogarth's "line of beauty;" he would as soon think of deserting his
+beloved "bush" and settling in a town! as trust his keen weapon in the
+hands of inexperience or even mediocrity. With him every blow tells--he
+never leaves the slightest chip in the "cut," nor makes a false stroke,
+so that in passing your hand over the surface thus left, you are almost
+unable to detect roughness or inequality.
+
+But we must return to our work, and take care in so doing to avoid the
+mishap which befel a settler in our neighbourhood. He was busy chopping
+away manfully at one of those numerous trees which, yielding to the
+force of some sudden gust of wind, have fallen so gently among their
+compeers, that the greater portion of their roots still retains a
+powerful hold upon the soil, and the branches put forth their annual
+verdure as regularly as when erect. Standing on the recumbent trunk, at
+a height of five or six feet from the ground, the man toiled away, in
+happy ignorance of his danger, until having chopped nearly to the centre
+on both sides of the tree, instead of leaping off and completing the cut
+in safety on terra firma, he dealt a mighty stroke which severed at once
+the slight portion that remained uncut--in an instant, as if from a
+mortar, the poor fellow was launched sixteen feet into the air, by the
+powerful elasticity of the roots, which, relieved from the immense
+weight of the trunk and branches, reverted violently to their natural
+position, and flung their innocent releaser to the winds. The astonished
+chopper, falling on his back, lay stunned for many minutes, and when he
+was at length able to rise, crawled to his shanty sorely bruised and
+bewildered. He was able, however, to return to his work in a few days,
+but not without vowing earnestly never again to trust himself next the
+root.
+
+There are other precautions to be observed, such as whether the branches
+interlock with other trees, in which case they will probably break off,
+and must be carefully watched, lest they fall or are flung back upon
+oneself--what space you have to escape at the last moment--whether the
+tree is likely to be caught and twisted aside in its fall, or held
+upright, a very dangerous position, as then you must cut down others to
+release it, and can hardly calculate which way it will tend: these and
+many other circumstances are to be noted and watched with a cool
+judgment and steady eye, to avoid the numerous accidents to which the
+inexperienced and rash are constantly exposed. One of these mischances
+befel an Amazonian chopper of our neighbourhood, whose history, as we
+can both chop and talk, I shall relate.
+
+Mary ---- was the second of several daughters of an emigrant from the
+county of Galway, whose family, having suffered from continual hardship
+and privation in their native land, had found no difficulty in adapting
+themselves to the habits and exigencies of the wilderness.
+
+Hardworking they were all and thrifty. Mary and her elder sister,
+neither of them older than eighteen, would start before day-break to the
+nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden
+each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a
+bushel and a half, or 90lbs. weight of potatoes, destined to supply food
+for the family, as well as seed for their first crop. Being much out of
+doors, and accustomed to work about the clearing, Mary became in time a
+"first-rate" chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the
+dexterity with which she would fell, brush and cut up maple or beech;
+and preferring such active exercise to the dull routine of household
+work, took her place at chopping, logging or burning, as regularly and
+with at least as much spirit as her brothers. Indeed, chopping is quite
+an accomplishment among young women in the more remote parts of the
+woods, where schools are unknown, and fashions from New York or
+Philadelphia have not yet penetrated. A belle of this class will employ
+her leisure hours in learning to play--not the piano-forte--but the
+dinner-horn, a bright tin tube sometimes nearly four feet in length,
+requiring the lungs of that almost forgotten individual, an English
+mail-coach-guard; and an intriguing mamma of those parts will bid her
+daughter exhibit the strength of her throat and the delicacy of her
+musical ear, by a series of flourishes and "mots" upon her graceful
+"tooting-weapon." I do not mean, however, that Mary possessed this
+fashionable acquirement, as the neighbourhood had not then arrived at
+such an advanced era of musical taste, but she made up in hard work for
+all other deficiencies; and being a good-looking, sunny-faced,
+dark-eyed, joyous-hearted girl, was not a little admired among the young
+axe-men of the township. But she preferred remaining under her parents'
+roof-tree, where her stout-arm and resolute disposition rendered her
+absolute mistress of the household, to the indignity of promising to
+"obey" any man, who could wield no better axe than her own. At length it
+was whispered that Mary's heart, long hard as rock-elm, had become soft
+as basswood, under the combined influence of the stalwart figure,
+handsome face and good axe of Johnny, a lad of eighteen recently arrived
+in the neighbourhood, who was born in one of the early Scotch
+settlements in the Newcastle District--settlements which have turned out
+a race of choppers, accustomed from their infancy to handle the axe, and
+unsurpassed in the cleanness of their cut, the keenness of their weapon,
+or the amount of cordwood they can chop, split and pile in a day.
+
+Many a fair denizen of the abodes of fashion might have envied Mary the
+bright smiles and gay greetings which passed between her and young
+Johnny, when they met in her father's clearing at sunrise to commence
+the day's work. It is common for axemen to exchange labour, as they
+prefer working in couples, and Johnny was under a treaty of this kind
+with Patsy, Mary's brother. But Patsy vacated his place for Mary, who
+was emulous of beating the young Scotch lad at his own weapon; and she
+had tucked up her sleeves and taken in the slack, as a sailor would say,
+of her dress--Johnny meanwhile laying aside his coat, waistcoat and
+neckcloth, baring his brawny arms, and drawing tight the bright scarlet
+sash round his waist--thus equipped for their favourite occupation, they
+chopped away in merry rivalry, at maple, elm, ash, birch and
+basswood--Johnny sometimes gallantly fetching water from the
+deliciously-cold natural spring that oozed out of the mossy hill-side,
+to quench Mary's thirst, and stealing now and then a kiss by way of
+guerdon--for which he never failed to get a vehement box on the ear, a
+penalty which, although it would certainly have annihilated any lover of
+less robust frame, he seemed nowise unwilling to incur again and again.
+Thus matters proceeded, the maiden by no means acknowledging herself
+beaten, and the young man too gallant to outstrip overmuch his fair
+opponent--until the harsh sound of the breakfast or dinner horn would
+summon both to the house, to partake of the rude but plentiful mess of
+"colcannon" and milk, which was to supply strength for a long and severe
+day's labour.
+
+Alas! that I should have to relate the melancholy termination of poor
+Mary's unsophisticated career. Whether Johnny's image occupied her
+thoughts, to the exclusion of the huge yellow birch she was one day
+chopping, or that the wicked genius who takes delight in thwarting the
+course of true love had caught her guardian angel asleep on his post, I
+know not; but certain it is, that in an evil hour she miscalculated the
+cut, and was thoughtlessly continuing her work, when the birch,
+overbalancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing
+suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life
+instantaneously. Her yet warm remains were carried hastily to the house,
+and every expedient for her recovery that the slender knowledge of the
+family could suggest, was resorted to, but in vain. I pass over the
+silent agony of poor Johnny, and the heart-rending lamentations of the
+mother and sisters. In a decent coffin, contrived after many
+unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was
+carried to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear,
+amid a concourse of simple-minded, coarsely-clad, but kindly
+sympathising neighbours, from all parts of the surrounding district.
+Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave,
+and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told,
+that no other had yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make
+his "bonny bride."
+
+By this time you have cut down trees enough to enable you fairly to see
+the sky! Yes, dear sir, it was entirely hidden before, and the sight is
+not a little exhilarating to a new "bush-whacker." We must think of
+preparing fire-wood for the night. It is highly amusing to see a party
+of axemen, just returning from their work, set about this necessary
+task. Four "hands" commence at once upon some luckless maple, whose
+excellent burning qualities ensure it the preference. Two on each side,
+they strike alternate blows--one with the right hand, his "mate" with
+the left--in a rapid succession of strokes that seem perfectly
+miraculous to the inexperienced beholder--the tree is felled in a
+trice--a dozen men jump upon it, each intent on exhibiting his skill by
+making his "cut" in the shortest possible time. The more modest select
+the upper end of the tree--the bolder attack the butt--their bright
+axes, flashing vividly in the sunbeams, are whirled around their heads
+with such velocity as to elude the eye--huge chips a foot broad are
+thrown off incessantly--they wheel round for the "back cut" at the same
+instant, like a file of soldiers facing about upon some enemy in
+rear--and in the space of two or three minutes, the once tall and
+graceful trunk lies dissevered in as many fragments as there are
+choppers.
+
+It invariably astonishes new comers to observe with what dexterity and
+ease an axeman will fell a tree in the precise spot which he wishes it
+to occupy so as to suit his convenience in cutting it up, or in removing
+it by oxen to the log-pile where it is destined to be consumed. If it
+should happen to overhang a creek or "swale" (wet places where oxen
+cannot readily operate), every contrivance is resorted to, to overcome
+its apparently inevitable tendency. Choosing a time when not a breath of
+air is stirring to defeat his operations, or better still, when the wind
+is favourable, he cuts deeply into the huge victim on the side to which
+he wishes to throw it, until it actually trembles on the slight
+remaining support, cautiously regulating the direction of the "cut" so
+that the tree may not overbalance itself--then he gently fells among its
+branches on the reverse side all the smaller trees with which it may be
+reached--and last and boldest expedient of all, he cuts several "spring
+poles"--trimmed saplings from twenty to forty feet in length and four to
+eight inches thick--which with great care and labour are set up against
+the stem, and by the united strength and weight of several men used as
+spring levers, after the manner in which ladders are employed by
+fire-men to overthrow tottering stacks of chimneys; the squared end of
+these poles holding firmly in the rough bark, they slowly but surely
+compel the unwilling monster to obey the might of its hereditary ruler,
+man. With such certainty is this feat accomplished, that I have seen a
+solitary pine, nearly five feet thick and somewhere about a hundred and
+seventy feet in height, forced by this latter means, aided by the
+strength of two men only, against its decided natural bearing, to fall
+down the side of a mound, at the bottom of which a saw-pit was already
+prepared to convert it into lumber. The moment when the enormous mass is
+about yielding to its fate, is one of breathless interest--it sways
+alarmingly, as if it must inevitably fall backward, crushing poles and
+perhaps axemen to atoms in its overwhelming descent--ha! there is a
+slight cat's paw of air in our favour--cling to your pole--now! an inch
+or two gained!--the stout stick trembles and bends at the revulsive sway
+of the monstrous tree but still holds its own--drive your axe into the
+back cut--that helps her--again, another axe! soh, the first is
+loose--again!--she _must_ go--both axes are fixed in the cut as
+immovably as her roots in the ground--another puff of wind--she sways
+the wrong way--no, no! hold on--she cracks--strike in again the
+slackened axes--bravo! one blow more--quick, catch your axe and clear
+out!--see! what a sweep--what a rush of wind--what an enormous
+top--down! down! how beautifully she falls--hurrah! _just in the right
+place!_
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+We had selected, on the advice of our guide, a tolerably good hard-wood
+lot in the centre of the Township of Sunnidale, part of which is now the
+site of the village of New Lowell, on the Northern Railway. To engage a
+young Scotch axeman from the County of Lanark, on the Ottawa river; to
+try our virgin axes upon the splendid maples and beeches which it seemed
+almost a profanation to destroy; to fell half an acre of trees; to build
+a bark wigwam for our night's lodging; and in time to put up a
+substantial log shanty, roofed with wooden troughs and "chinked" with
+slats and moss--these things were to us more than mortal felicity. Our
+mansion was twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide. At one end an open
+fire-place, at the other sumptuous beds laid on flatted logs, cushioned
+with soft hemlock twigs, redolent of turpentine and health. For our
+provisions, cakes made of flour; salt pork of the best; tea and coffee
+without milk; with the occasional luxury of a few partridges and
+pigeons, and even a haunch of venison of our own shooting; also some
+potatoes. We wanted no more. There were few other settlers within many
+miles, and those as raw as ourselves; so we mended our own clothes, did
+our own cooking, and washed our own linen.
+
+Owing to the tedious length of our sea voyage, there was no time for
+getting in crops that year; not even fall wheat; so we had plenty of
+leisure to make ourselves comfortable for the winter. And we were by no
+means without visitors. Sometimes a surveyor's party sought shelter for
+the night on their way to the strangely-named townships of Alta and
+Zero--now Collingwood and St. Vincent. Among these were Charles Rankin,
+surveyor, now of London; his brother, Arthur Rankin, since M.P. for
+Essex; a young gentleman from England, now Dr. Barrett, late of Upper
+Canada College. By-and-by came some Chippawa Indians, _en route_ to or
+from the Christian Islands of Lake Huron; we were great friends with
+them. I had made a sort of harp or zittern, and they were charmed with
+its simple music. Their mode of counting money on their fingers was
+highly comical--"one cop, one cop, one cop, three cop!" and so on up to
+twenty, which was the largest sum they could accomplish. At night, they
+wrapped their blankets round them, lay down on the bare earthen floor
+near the fire, and slept quietly till day-break, when they would start
+on their way with many smiles and hand-shakings. In fact, our shanty,
+being the only comfortable shelter between Barrie and the Georgian Bay,
+became a sort of half-way house, at which travellers looked for a
+night's lodging; and we were not sorry when the opening of a log-tavern,
+a mile off, by an old Scotchwoman, ycleped Mother McNeil, enabled us to
+select our visitors. This tavern was a curiosity in its way, built of
+the roughest logs, with no artificial floor, but the soil being swaley
+or wet--a mud-hole yawned just inside the door, where bullfrogs not
+unfrequently saluted the wayfarer with their deepest diapason notes.
+
+I must record my own experiences with their congeners, the toads. We
+were annoyed by flies, and I noticed an old toad creep stealthily from
+under the house logs, wait patiently near a patch of sunshine on the
+floor, and as soon as two or three flies, attracted by the sun's warmth,
+drew near its post, dart out its long slender tongue, and so catch them
+all one after another. Improving upon the hint, we afterwards regularly
+scattered a few grains of sugar, to attract more flies within the old
+fellow's reach, and thus kept the shanty comparatively clear of those
+winged nuisances, and secured quiet repose for ourselves in the early
+mornings. Another toad soon joined the first one, and they became so
+much at home as to allow us to scratch their backs gently with a stick,
+when they would heave up their puffed sides to be scrubbed. These toads
+swallow mice and young ducks, and in their turn fall victims to garter
+and other snakes.
+
+During the following year, 1834, the Government opened up a settlement
+on the Sunnidale road, employing the new immigrants in road making,
+chopping and clearing, and putting up log shanties; and gave them the
+land so cleared to live on, but without power of sale. In this way, two
+or three hundred settlers, English, Irish and Highland Scotch, chiefly
+the latter, were located in Sunnidale. A Scottish gentleman, a Mr. H. C.
+Young, was appointed local immigrant agent, and spent some time with us.
+Eventually it was found that the laud was too aguish for settlement,
+being close to a large cedar swamp extending several miles to the
+Nottawasaga River; and on the representation of the agent, it was in
+1835 determined to transfer operations to the adjoining township of
+Nottawasaga, in which the town of Collingwood is now situated.
+
+It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to
+the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River
+being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I
+think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the
+railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him,
+doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific
+Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would
+pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope
+deferred did the delusion cost us.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+
+I need not weary the reader with details of our farming proceedings,
+which differed in no respect from the now well-known routine of bush
+life. I will, however, add one or two notices of occurrences which may
+be thought worth relating. We were not without wild animals in our bush.
+Bears, wolves, foxes, racoons, skunks, mink and ermine among beasts;
+eagles, jays, many kinds of hawks, wood-peckers, loons, partridges and
+pigeons, besides a host of other birds, were common enough. Bears' nests
+abounded, consisting of a kind of arbour which the bear makes for
+himself in the top of the loftiest beech trees, by dragging inwards all
+the upper branches laden with their wealth of nuts, upon which he feasts
+at leisure. The marks of his formidable claws are plainly visible the
+whole length of the trunks of most large beech-trees. In Canada West the
+bear is seldom dangerous. One old fellow which we often encountered,
+haunted a favourite raspberry patch on the road-side; when anybody
+passed near him he would scamper off in such haste that I have seen him
+dash himself violently against any tree or fallen branch that might be
+in his way. Once we saw a bear roll himself headlong from the forks of
+a tree fully forty feet from the ground, tumbling over and over, but
+alighting safely, and "making tracks" with the utmost expedition.
+
+An Englishman whom I knew, of a very studious temperament, was strolling
+along the Medonte road deeply intent upon a volume of Ovid or some other
+Latin author, when, looking up to ascertain the cause of a shadow which
+fell across his book, he found himself nearly stumbling against a huge
+brown bear, standing erect on its hind legs, and with formidable paw
+raised ready to strike. The surprise seems to have been mutual, for
+after waiting a moment or two as if to recognise each other's features
+should they meet again, the student merely said "Oh! a bear!" coolly
+turned on his heel, plunged into his book again, and walked slowly back
+toward the village, leaving Bruin to move off at leisure in an opposite
+direction. So saith my informant.
+
+Another friend, when a youth, was quail-shooting on the site of the City
+of Toronto, which was nothing but a rough swampy thicket of cedars and
+pines mixed with hardwood. Stepping hastily across a rotten pine log,
+the lad plumped full upon a great fat bear taking its siesta in the
+shade. Which of the two fled the fastest is not known, but it was
+probably the animal, judging by my own experience in Sunnidale.
+
+Wolves often disturbed us with their hideous howlings. We had a
+beautiful liver and white English setter, called Dash, with her two
+pups. One night in winter, poor Dash, whom we kept within doors, was
+excited by the yelping of her pups outside, which appeared to be alarmed
+by some intruder about the premises. A wolf had been seen prowling near,
+so we got out our guns and whatever weapon was handy, but incautiously
+opened the door and let out the slut before we were ourselves quite
+dressed. She rushed out in eager haste, and in a few seconds we heard
+the wolf and dog fighting, with the most frightful discord of yells and
+howls that ever deafened the human ear. The noise ceased as suddenly as
+it had begun. We followed as fast as we could to the scene of the
+struggle, but found nothing there except a trampled space in the snow
+stained with blood, the dog having evidently been killed and dragged
+away. Next morning we followed the track further, and found at no great
+distance another similar spot, where the wolf had devoured its victim so
+utterly, that not a hair, bone, nor anything else was left, save the
+poor animal's heart, which had been flung away to a little distance in
+the snow. Beyond this were no signs of blood. We set a trap for the
+wolf, and tracked him for miles in the hope of avenging poor Dash, but
+without effect. This same wolf, we heard afterwards, was killed by a
+settler with a handspike, to our great satisfaction.
+
+Among our neighbours of the Sunnidale settlement was a married couple
+from England, named Sewell, very well-conducted and industrious. They
+had a fair little child under two years old, named Hetty, whom we often
+stopped to admire for her prettiness and engaging simplicity. They also
+possessed, and were very proud of, several broods of newly-hatched
+chickens, some of which had been carried off by an immense falcon, which
+would swoop down from the lofty elm-trees still left standing in the
+half-chopped clearing, too suddenly to be easily shot. One day Hetty was
+feeding the young chickens when the hawk pounced upon the old hen, which
+struggled desperately; whereupon little Hetty bravely joined in the
+battle, seized the intruder by the wings from behind and held him fast,
+crying out loudly, "I've got him, mother!" It turned out, after the hawk
+was killed, that it had been blind of one eye.
+
+In the spring of 1834, we had with infinite labour managed to clear off
+a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched
+its growth with the most intense anxiety, until it attained a height of
+ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears. Already the exquisite
+pleasure of eating bread the product of our own land, and of our own
+labour, was present to our imaginations, and the number of bushels to be
+reaped, the barn for storage, the journeys to mill, were eagerly
+discussed. But one day in August, occurred a hail-storm such as is
+seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell
+upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones measuring two and a
+half inches in diameter, seven and a half in circumference, covered the
+ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was utterly destroyed,
+and with it all our sanguine hopes of plenty for that year. I have
+preserved a tracing which I made at the time, of one of those
+hailstones. The centre was spherical, an inch in girth, from which
+laterally radiated lines three fourths of an inch long, like the spokes
+of a wheel, and outside of them again a wavy border resembling the
+undulating edge of pie crust. The superficial structure of the whole,
+was much like that of a full blown rose. A remarkable hail-storm
+occurred in Toronto, in the year 1878, but the stones, although similar
+in formation, were scarcely as bulky.
+
+It was one night in November following, when our axeman, William
+Whitelaw, who had risen from bed at eleven o'clock to fetch a new log
+for the fire shouted to us to come out and see a strange sight. Lazily
+we complied, expecting nothing extraordinary; but, on getting into the
+cold frosty air outside, we were transfixed with astonishment and
+admiration. Our clearing being small, and the timber partly hemlock, we
+seemed to be environed with a dense black wall the height of the forest
+trees, while over all, in dazzling splendour, shone a canopy of the
+most brilliant meteors, radiating in all directions from a single point
+in the heavens, nearly over-head, but slightly to the north-west. I have
+since read all the descriptions of meteoric showers I could find in our
+scientific annals, and watched year after year for a return of the same
+wonderful vision, but neither in the records of history nor otherwise,
+since that night, have I read of or seen anything so marvellously
+beautiful. Hour after hour we gazed in wonder and awe, as the radiant
+messengers streamed on their courses, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+starry cohorts of thousands, appearing to descend amongst the trees
+close beside us, but in reality shooting far beyond the horizon. Those
+who have looked upwards during a fall of snow will remember how the
+large flakes seem to radiate from a centre. Thus I believe astronomers
+account for the appearance of these showers of stars, by the
+circumstance that they meet the earth full in its orbit, and so dart
+past it from an opposite point, like a flight of birds confronting a
+locomotive, or a storm of hail directly facing a vessel under full
+steam. No description I have read has given even a faint idea of the
+reality as I saw it on that memorable night. From eleven p.m. to three
+in the morning, the majestic spectacle continued in full glory,
+gradually fading away before the approach of daybreak.
+
+We often had knotty and not very logical discussions about the origin of
+seeds, and the cause of the thick growth of new varieties of plants and
+trees wherever the forest had been burnt over. On our land, and
+everywhere in the immediate neighbourhood, the process of clearing by
+fire was sure to be followed by a spontaneous growth, first of fire-weed
+or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick
+as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine-trees had stood for
+a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a
+thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety. Our
+Celtic friends, most of whom were pious Presbyterians, insisted that a
+new creation of plants must be constantly going on to account for such
+miraculous growth. To test the matter, I scooped up a panful of black
+soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of
+cherry-stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest. The cause
+of this surprising accumulation of seed was not far to find. A few miles
+distant was a pigeon-roost. In spring, the birds would come flying round
+the east shore of Lake Huron, skirting the Georgian Bay, in such vast
+clouds as to darken the sun; and so swiftly that swan-shot failed to
+bring them down unless striking them in rear; and, even then, we rarely
+got them, as the velocity of their flight impelled them far into the
+thicket before falling. These beautiful creatures attacked our crops
+with serious results, and devoured all our young peas. I have known
+twenty-five pigeons killed at a single shot; and have myself got a
+dozen by firing at random into a maple-tree on which they had alighted,
+but where not one had been visible.
+
+The pigeon-roost itself was a marvel. Men, women and children went by
+the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up
+the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches
+of trees broken off by the weight of their roosting comrades overhead.
+The women skinned the birds, cut off their plump breasts, throwing the
+remainder away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping. To
+these pigeons we were, doubtless, indebted for our crop of young
+cherry-trees.
+
+Where there was so much seed, a corresponding crop might be expected;
+and dense thickets of choke-cherry trees grew up in neglected clearings
+accordingly. Forcing my way through one of these, I found myself
+literally face to face with a garter snake five feet long, which was
+also in search of cherries, and had wriggled its way to the upper
+branches of a young tree ten feet high. Garter snakes, however, are as
+harmless as frogs, and like them, are the victims of a general
+persecution. In some places they are exceedingly numerous. One summer's
+evening I was travelling on foot from Holland Landing to Bradford,
+across the Holland river, a distance of three miles, nearly all marsh,
+laid with cedar logs placed crosswise, to form a passable road. The sun
+was nearing the horizon; the snakes--garter chiefly, but a few
+copperhead and black--glided on to the logs to bask apparently in the
+sunshine, in such numbers, that after vainly trying to step across
+without treading on them, I was fain to take to flight, springing from
+log to log like some long-legged bird, and so escaping from the
+unpleasant companionship.[3]
+
+One of the most perplexing tasks to new settlers is that of keeping
+cows. "Bossy" soon learns that the bush is "all before her where to
+choose," and she indulges her whims by straying away in the most
+unexpected directions, and putting you to half-a-day's toilsome search
+before she can be captured. The obvious remedy is the cow-bell, but even
+with this tell-tale appendage, the experienced cow contrives to baffle
+your vigilance. She will ensconce herself in the midst of a clump of
+underbrush, lying perfectly still, and paying no heed to your most
+endearing appeals of "Co' bossy, co' bossy," until some fly-sting
+obliges her to jerk her head and betray her hiding-place by a single
+note of the bell. Then she will deliberately get up, and walk off
+straight to the shanty, ready to be milked.
+
+[Footnote 3: It is affirmed that in two or three localities in Manitoba,
+garter snakes sometimes congregate in such multitudes as to form ropes
+as thick as a man's leg, which, by their constant writhing and twining
+in and out, present a strangely glittering and moving spectacle.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  OUR REMOVAL TO NOTTAWASAGA.
+
+
+In the autumn of 1835, we were favoured with a visit from Mr. A. B.
+Hawke, chief emigrant agent for Upper Canada, and a gentleman held in
+general esteem, as a friend to emigrants, and a kind-hearted man. He
+slept, or rather tried to sleep, at our shanty. It was very hot weather,
+the mosquitoes were in full vigour, and the tortures they inflicted on
+the poor man were truly pitiable. We being acclimatised, could cover our
+heads, and lie _perdu_, sleeping in spite of the humming hosts outside.
+But our visitor had learnt no such philosophy. He threw off the
+bedclothes on account of the heat; slapped his face and hands to kill
+his tormentors; and actually roared with pain and anger, relieving
+himself now and then by objurgations mingled with expletives not a
+little profane. It was impossible to resist laughing at the desperate
+emphasis of his protests, although our mirth did not help much to soothe
+the annoyance, at which, however, he could not help laughing in turn.
+
+Mosquitoes do not plague all night, and our friend got a little repose
+in the cool of the morning, but vowed, most solemnly, that nothing
+should induce him to pass another night in Sunnidale.
+
+To this circumstance, perhaps, were we indebted for the permission we
+soon afterwards obtained, to exchange our Sunnidale lot for one in
+Nottawasaga, where some clearing had been done by the new settlers, on
+what was called the Scotch line; and gladly we quitted our first
+location for land decidedly more eligible for farm purposes, although
+seventeen miles further distant from Barrie, which was still the only
+village within reasonably easy access.
+
+We had obtained small government contracts for corduroying, or
+causewaying, the many swampy spots on the Sunnidale road, which enabled
+us to employ a number of axemen, and to live a little more comfortably;
+and about this time, Mr. Young being in weak health, and unequal to the
+hardships of bush life, resigned his agency, and got my brother Thomas
+appointed temporarily as his successor; so we had the benefit of a good
+log-house he had built on the Nottawasaga road, near the Batteau creek,
+on which is now situated the Batteau station of the Northern Railway. We
+abode there until we found time to cut a road to our land, and
+afterwards to erect a comfortable cedar-log house thereon.
+
+Here, with a large open clearing around us, plenty of neighbours, and a
+sawmill at no great distance, we were able to make our home nearly as
+comfortable as are the majority of Canadian farm-houses of to-day. We
+had a neat picket-fenced garden, a large double log barn, a yoke of
+oxen, and plenty of poultry. The house stood on a handsome rising
+eminence, and commanded a noble prospect, which included the Georgian
+Bay, visible at a distance of six miles, and the Christian Islands,
+twenty miles further north. The land was productive, and the air highly
+salubrious.
+
+Would some of my readers like to know how to raise a log barn? I shall
+try to teach them. For such an undertaking much previous labour and
+foresight are required. In our case, fortunately, there was a small
+cedar swamp within a hundred paces of the site we had chosen for our
+barn, which was picturesquely separated from the house by a ravine some
+thirty feet deep, with a clear spring of the sweetest and coldest water
+flowing between steep banks. The barn was to consist of two large bays,
+each thirty feet square and eight logs high, with a threshing floor
+twelve feet wide between, the whole combined into one by an upper story
+or loft, twenty by seventy-two feet, and four logs high, including the
+roof-plates.
+
+It will be seen, then, that to build such a barn would require
+sixty-four logs of thirty feet each for the lower story; and sixteen
+more of the same length, as well as eight of seventy-two feet each, for
+the loft. Our handy swamp provided all these, not from standing trees
+only, but from many fallen patriarchs buried four or five feet under the
+surface in black muck, and perfectly sound. To get them out of the mud
+required both skill and patience. All the branches having been cleared
+off as thoroughly as possible, the entire tree was drawn out by those
+most patient of all patient drudges, the oxen, and when on solid ground,
+sawn to the required length. A number of skids were also provided, of
+the size and kind of the spring-poles already described in chapter XI.,
+and plenty of handspikes.
+
+Having got these prime essentials ready, the next business was to summon
+our good neighbours to a "raising bee." On the day named, accordingly,
+we had about thirty practised axemen on the ground by day-break, all in
+the best of spirits, and confident in their powers for work. Eight of
+the heaviest logs, about two feet thick, had been placed in position as
+sleepers or foundation logs, duly saddled at the corners. Parallel with
+these at a distance of twenty-feet on either side, were ranged in order
+all the logs required to complete the building.
+
+Well, now we begin. Eight of the smartest men jump at once on the eight
+corners. In a few minutes each of the four men in front has his saddle
+ready--that is, he has chopped his end of the first log into an angular
+shape, thus /\. The four men in rear have done the same thing no less
+expeditiously, and all are waiting for the next log. Meanwhile, at the
+ends of both bays, four several parties of three men each, stationed
+below, have placed their skids in a sloping position--the upper end on
+the rising wall and the lower on the ground--and up these skids they
+roll additional logs transversely to those already in position. These
+are received by the corner-men above, and carefully adjusted in their
+places according to their "natural lie," that is, so that they will be
+least likely to render the wall unsteady; then turned half-back to
+receive the undercut, which should be exactly an inverse counterpart of
+the saddle. A skilful hand will make this undercut with unerring
+certainty, so that the log when turned forward again, will fit down upon
+its two saddles without further adjustment. Now for more logs back and
+front; then others at the ends, and so on, every log fitted as before,
+and each one somewhat lighter than its predecessor. All this time the
+oxen have been busily employed in drawing more logs where needed. The
+skids have to be re-adjusted for every successive log, and a supply of
+new logs rolled up as fast as wanted. The quick strokes of eight axes
+wielded by active fellows perched on the still rising walls, and
+balancing themselves dexterously and even gracefully as they work, the
+constant demand for "another log," and the merry voices and rough jokes
+of the workers, altogether form as lively and exciting a picture as is
+often witnessed. Add to these a bright sky and a fresh breeze, with the
+beautiful green back-ground of the noble hardwood trees around--and I
+know of no mere pleasure party that I would rather join.
+
+Breakfast and dinner form welcome interludes. Ample stores of provender,
+meat, bread, potatoes, puddings various, tea and coffee, have been
+prepared and are thoroughly enjoyed, inasmuch as they are rare luxuries
+to many of the guests. Then again to work, until the last crowning
+effort of all--the raising of the seventy-two-foot logs--has to be
+encountered. Great care is necessary here, as accidents are not
+infrequent. The best skids, the stoutest handspikes, the strongest and
+hardiest men, must be selected. Our logs being cedar and therefore
+light, there was comparatively little danger; and they were all
+successfully raised, and well secured by cross-girders before sundown.
+
+Then, and not till then, after supper, a little whiskey was allowed.
+Teetotalism had not made its way into our backwoods; and we were
+considered very straightlaced indeed to set our faces as we did against
+all excess. Our Highland and Irish neighbours looked upon the weak stuff
+sold in Canada with supreme contempt; and recollecting our Galway
+experience, we felt no surprise thereat.
+
+The roofing such a building is a subsequent operation, for which no
+"bee" is required. Shingles four feet long, on round rafters, are
+generally used for log barns, to be replaced at some future day by more
+perfect roofing. A well-made cedar barn will stand for forty years with
+proper care, by which time there should be no difficulty in replacing it
+by a good substantial, roomy frame building.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  SOCIETY IN THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+Sir John Colborne, as has been mentioned already, did all in his power
+to induce well-to-do immigrants, and particularly military men, to
+settle on lands west and north of Lake Simcoe. Some of these gentlemen
+were entitled, in those days, to draw from three to twelve hundred acres
+of land in their own right; but the privilege was of very doubtful
+value. Take an example. Captain Workman, with his wife, highly educated
+and thoroughly estimable people, were persuaded to select their land on
+the Georgian Bay, near the site of the present village of Meaford. A
+small rivulet which enters the bay there, is still called "the Captain's
+creek." To get there, they had to go to Penetanguishene, then a military
+station, now the seat of a Reformatory for boys. From thence they
+embarked on scows, with their servants, furniture, cows, farm implements
+and provisions. Rough weather obliged them to land on one of the
+Christian Islands, very bleak spots outside of Penetanguishene harbour,
+occupied only by a few Chippewa Indians. After nearly two weeks' delay
+and severe privation, they at length reached their destination, and had
+then to camp out until a roof could be put up to shelter them from the
+storms, not uncommon on that exposed coast.
+
+We had ourselves, along with others, taken up additional land on what
+was called "the Blue Mountains," which are considered to be a spur of
+the Alleghanies, extending northerly across by Niagara, from the State
+of New York. The then newly-surveyed townships of St. Vincent and
+Euphrasia were attracting settlers, and amongst them our axe-man,
+Whitelaw, and many more of the like class. To reach this land, we had
+bought a smart sail-boat, and in her enjoyed ourselves by coasting from
+the Nottawasaga river north-westerly along the bay. In this way we
+happened one evening to put in at the little harbour where Capt. Workman
+had chosen his location. It was early in the spring. The snows from the
+uplands had swelled the rivulet into a rushing torrent. The garden,
+prettily laid out, was converted into an island, the water whirling and
+eddying close to the house both in front and rear, and altogether
+presenting a scene of wild confusion. We found the captain highly
+excited, but bravely contending with his watery adversary; the lady of
+the house in a state of alarmed perplexity; the servants at their wits'
+end, hurrying here and there with little effect. Fortunately, when we
+got there the actual danger was past, the waters subsiding rapidly
+during the night. But it struck us as a most cruel and inconsiderate
+act on the part of the Government, to expose tenderly reared families to
+hazards which even the rudest of rough pioneers would not care to
+encounter.
+
+After enduring several years of severe hardship, and expending a
+considerable income in this out-of-the-world spot, Captain Workman and
+his family removed to Toronto, and afterwards returned to England,
+wiser, perhaps, but no richer certainly, than when they left the old
+country.
+
+A couple of miles along the shore, we found another military settler,
+Lieutenant Waddell, who had served as brigade-major at the Battle of
+Waterloo; with him were his wife, two sons, and two daughters. On
+landing, the first person we encountered was the eldest son, John, a
+youth of twenty years--six feet in stature at least, and bearing on his
+shoulder, sustained by a stick thrust through its gills, a sturgeon so
+large that its tail trailed on the ground behind him. He had just caught
+it with a floating line. Here again the same melancholy story: ladies
+delicately nurtured, exposed to rough labour, and deprived of all the
+comforts of civilized life, exhausting themselves in weary struggle with
+the elements. Brave soldiers in the decline of life, condemned to tasks
+only adapted to hinds and navvies. What worse fate can be reserved for
+Siberian exiles! This family also soon removed to Toronto, and
+afterwards to Niagara, where the kindly, excellent old soldier is well
+remembered; then to Chatham, where he became barrack-master, and died
+there. His son, John Waddell, married into the Eberts family, and
+prospered; later he was member for Kent; and ultimately met his death by
+drowning on a lumbering excursion in the Georgian Bay. Other members of
+the family now reside at Goderich.
+
+Along the west shore of Lake Simcoe, several other military and naval
+officers, with their households, were scattered. Some, whose names I
+shall not record, had left their families at home, and brought out with
+them female companions of questionable position, whom, nevertheless,
+they introduced as their wives. The appearance of the true wives rid the
+county of the scandal and its actors.
+
+Conspicuous among the best class of gentlemen settlers was the late Col.
+E. G. O'Brien, of Shanty Bay, near Barrie, of whom I shall have occasion
+to speak hereafter. Capt. St. John, of Lake Couchiching, was equally
+respected. The Messrs. Lally, of Medonte; Walker, of Tecumseth and
+Barrie; Sibbald, of Kempenfeldt Bay; are all names well known in those
+days, as are also many others of the like class. But where are the
+results of the policy which sent them there? What did they gain--what
+have their families and descendants gained--by the ruinous outlay to
+which they were subjected? With one or two exceptions, absolutely
+nothing but wasted means and saddest memories.
+
+It is pleasant to turn to a different class of settlers--the hardy
+Scots, Irish, English, and Germans, to whom the Counties of Simcoe and
+Grey stand indebted for their present state of prosperity. The Sunnidale
+settlement was ill-chosen, and therefore a failure. But in the north of
+that township, much better land and a healthier situation are found, and
+there, as well as in Nottawasaga adjoining, the true conditions of
+rational colonization, and the practical development of those
+conditions, are plainly to be seen.
+
+The system of clearing five acre lots, and erecting log shanties
+thereon, to be given to immigrants without power of sale, which was
+commenced in Sunnidale, was continued in Nottawasaga. The settlement was
+called the Scotch line, nearly all the people being from the islands of
+Arran and Islay, lying off Argyleshire, in Scotland. Very few of them
+knew a word of English. There were Campbells, McGillivrays, Livingstons,
+McDiarmids, McAlmons, McNees, Jardines, and other characteristic names.
+The chief man among them was Angus Campbell, who had been a tradesman of
+some kind in the old country, and exercised a beneficial influence over
+the rest. He was well informed, sternly Presbyterian, and often reminded
+us of "douce Davie Deans" in the "Heart of Midlothian." One of the
+Livingstons was a school-master. They were, one and all, hardy and
+industrious folk. Day after day, month after month, year after year,
+added to their wealth and comfort. Cows were purchased, and soon became
+common. There were a few oxen and horses before long. When I visited the
+township of Nottawasaga some years since, I found Angus Campbell,
+postmaster and justice of the peace; Andrew Jardine, township clerk or
+treasurer; and McDiarmids, Livingstons, Shaws, &c., spread all over the
+surrounding country, possessing large farms richly stocked, good barns
+well-filled, and even commodious frame houses comfortably furnished.
+They ride to church or market in handsome buggies well horsed; have
+their temperance meetings and political gatherings of the most zealous
+sort, and altogether present a model specimen of a prosperous farming
+community. What has been said of the Scotch, is no less applicable to
+the Irish, Germans and English, who formed the minority in that
+township. I hear of their sons, and their sons' sons, as thriving
+farmers and storekeepers, all over Ontario.
+
+Our axeman, Whitelaw, was of Scottish parentage, but a Canadian by
+birth, and won his way with the rest. He settled in St. Vincent, married
+a smart and pretty Irish lass, had many sons and daughters, acquired a
+farm of five hundred acres, of which he cleared and cultivated a large
+portion almost single-handed, and in time became able to build the
+finest frame house in the township; served as reeve, was a justice of
+peace, and even a candidate for parliament, in which, well for himself,
+he failed. His excessive labours, however, brought on asthma, of which
+he died not long since, leaving several families of descendants to
+represent him.
+
+I could go on with the list of prosperous settlers of this class, to
+fill a volume. Some of the young men entered the ministry, and I
+recognise their names occasionally at Presbyterian and Wesleyan
+conventions. Some less fortunate were tempted away to Iowa and Illinois,
+and there died victims to ague and heat.
+
+But if we "look on this picture and on that;" if we compare the results
+of the settlement of educated people and of the labouring classes, the
+former withering away and leaving no sign behind--the latter growing in
+numbers and advancing in wealth and position until they fill the whole
+land, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that except as leaders
+and teachers of their companions, gentlefolk of refined tastes and of
+superior education, have no place in the bush, and should shun it as a
+wild delusion and a cruel snare.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  MORE ABOUT NOTTAWASAGA AND ITS PEOPLE.
+
+
+Among the duties handed over to my brother Thomas, by his predecessor in
+the emigrant agency, was the care of a large medicine chest full of
+quinine, rhubarb, jalap, and a host of other drugs, strong enough for
+horses as well as men, including a long catalogue of poisons, such as
+arsenic, belladonna, vitriol, &c. To assist in the distribution of this
+rather formidable charge, a copy of "Buchan's Domestic Medicine" was
+added. My brother had no taste for drugs, and therefore deputed the care
+of the medicine chest to me. So I studied "Buchan" zealously, and was
+fortunate enough to secure the aid of an old army sergeant, an Irishman
+who had been accustomed to camp hospital life, and knew how to bleed,
+and treat wounds. Time and practice gave me courage to dispense the
+medicines, which I did cautiously, and so successfully as to earn the
+soubriquet of "Doctor," and to be sought after in cases both dangerous
+and difficult. As, however, about this time, a clever, licensed
+practitioner had established himself at Barrie, thirty-four miles
+distant, I declined to prescribe in serious cases, except in one or two
+of great urgency. A Prussian soldier named Murtz, had received a
+gun-shot wound in the chest at the battle of Quatre Bras, under Marshal
+Blücher, and had frequently suffered therefrom. One day in winter, when
+the thermometer ranged far below zero, this man had been threshing in
+our barn, when he was seized with inflammation of the chest, and forced
+to return home. As it appeared to be a case of life and death, I
+ventured to act boldly, ordered bleeding, a blister on the chest, and
+poultices to the feet--in fact, everything that Buchan directed. My
+brave serjeant took charge of the patient; and between us, or perhaps in
+spite of us, the man got over the attack. The singular part of the case
+was, that the old bullet wound never troubled him afterwards, and he
+looked upon me as the first of living physicians.
+
+In 1836, a band of Potawatomie Indians, claiming allegiance to the
+Queen, was allowed to leave the State of Michigan and settle in Canada.
+They travelled from Sarnia through the woods, along the eastern shore of
+Lake Huron, and passed through Nottawasaga, on their way to
+Penetanguishene. Between the Scotch line and Sunnidale, near the present
+village of Stayner, lived an old Highland piper named Campbell, very
+partial to whiskey and dirt. There were two or three small clearings
+grouped together, and the principal crop was potatoes, nearly full
+grown. The old man was sitting sunning himself at his shanty-door. The
+young men were all absent at mill or elsewhere, and none but women and
+children about, when a party of Indians, men and squaws with their
+papooses, came stealing from the woods, and very quietly began to dig
+the potatoes with their fingers and fill their bags with the spoil. The
+poor old piper was horribly frightened and perplexed; and in his
+agitation could think of nothing but climbing on to his shanty roof,
+which was covered with earth, and there playing with all his might upon
+his Highland pipes, partly as a summons for assistance from his friends,
+partly to terrify the enemy. But the enemy were not at all terrified.
+They gathered in a ring round the shanty, laughed, danced, and enjoyed
+the fun immensely; nor would they pass on until the return of some of
+the younger settlers summoned by the din of the bagpipes, relieved the
+old piper from his elevated post. In the meantime, the presence and
+efforts of the women of the settlement sufficed to rescue their potato
+crop.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  A RUDE WINTER EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+The chief inconvenience we sustained in Nottawasaga arose from the depth
+of snow in winter, which was generally four feet and sometimes more. We
+had got our large log barn well filled with grain and hay. Two feet of
+snow had fallen during the day, and it continued snowing throughout the
+night. Next morning, to our great tribulation, neither snow nor roof was
+to be seen on the barn, the whole having fallen inside. No time was to
+be lost. My share of the work was to hurry to the Scotch line, there to
+warn every settler to send at least one stout hand to assist in
+re-raising the roof. None but those who have suffered can imagine what
+it is to have to walk at speed through several feet of soft snow. The
+sinews of the knees very soon begin to be painfully affected, and
+finally to feel as if they were being cut with a sharp knife. This is
+what Indians call "snow evil," their cure for which is to apply a hot
+cinder to the spot, thus raising a blister. I toiled on, however, and
+once in the settlement, walked with comparative ease. Everybody was
+ready and eager to help, and so we had plenty of assistance at our need,
+and before night got our barn roof restored.
+
+The practice of exchanging work is universal in new settlements; and,
+indeed, without it nothing of importance can be effected. Each man gives
+a day's work to his neighbour, for a logging or raising-bee; and looks
+for the same help when he is ready for it. Thus as many as twenty or
+forty able axemen can be relied upon at an emergency.
+
+At a later time, some of us became expert in the use of snow-shoes, and
+took long journeys through the woods, not merely with ease but with a
+great deal of pleasure. As a rule, snow is far from being considered an
+evil in the backwoods, on account of the very great facility it affords
+for travelling and teaming, both for business and pleasure, as well as
+for the aid it gives to the hunter or trapper.
+
+My own feelings on the subject, I found leisure to embody in the
+following verses:
+
+  THE TRAPPER.
+
+  Away, away! my dog and I;
+    The woodland boughs are bare,
+  The radiant sun shines warm and high,
+    The frost-flake[4] gems the air.
+
+  Away, away! thro' forests wide
+    Our course is swift and free;
+  Warm 'neath the snow the saplings hide--
+    Its ice-crust firm pace we.
+
+  The partridge[5] with expanded crest
+    Struts proudly by his mate;
+  The squirrel trims its glossy vest,
+    Or eats its nut in state.
+
+  Quick echoes answer, shrill and short,
+    The woodcock's frequent cry;
+  We heed them not--a keener sport
+    We seek--my dog and I.
+
+  Far in the woods our traps are set
+    In loneliest, thickest glade,
+  Where summer's soil is soft and wet,
+    And dark firs lend their shade.
+
+  Hurrah! a gallant spoil is here
+    To glad a trapper's sight--
+  The warm-clad marten, sleek and fair,
+    The ermine soft and white;
+
+  Or mink, or fox--a welcome prize--
+    Or useful squirrel grey,
+  Or wild-cat fierce with flaming eyes,
+    Or fisher,[6] meaner prey.
+
+  On, on! the cautious toils once more
+    Are set--the task is done;
+  Our pleasant morning's labour o'er,
+    Our pastime but begun.
+
+  Away, away! till fall of eve,
+    The deer-track be our guide,
+  The antler'd stag our quarry brave,
+    Our park the forest wide.
+
+  At night, the bright fire at our feet,
+    Our couch the wigwam dry--
+  No laggard tastes a rest so sweet
+    As thou, good dog, and I.
+
+[Footnote 4: On a fine, bright winter morning, when the slight feathery
+crystals formed from the congealed dew, which have silently settled on
+the trees during the night, are wafted thence by the morning breeze,
+filling the translucent atmosphere with innumerable minute, sparkling
+stars; when the thick, strong coat of ice on the four-foot deep snow is
+slightly covered by the same fine, white dust, betraying the foot-print
+of the smallest wild animal--on such a morning the hardy trapper is best
+able to follow his solitary pursuits. In the glorious winters of Canada,
+he will sometimes remain from home for days, or even weeks, with no
+companions but his dog and rifle, and no other shelter than such as his
+own hands can procure--carried away by his ardour for the sport, and the
+hope of the rich booty which usually rewards his perseverance.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The partridge of Canada--a grey variety of grouse--not only
+displays a handsome black-barred tail like that of the turkey, but has
+the power of erecting his head-feathers, as well as of spreading a black
+fan-like tuft placed on either side of his neck. Although timid when
+alarmed, he is not naturally shy, but at times may be approached near
+enough to observe his very graceful and playful habits--a facility of
+access for which the poor bird commonly pays with his life.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Dr. Johnson, in one of his peculiar moods, has described
+the _fitchew_ or _fitchat_, which is here called the "fisher" as "_a
+stinking little beast that robs the hen-roost and warren_"--a very
+ungrateful libel upon an animal that supplies exceedingly useful fur for
+common purposes.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE FOREST WEALTH OF CANADA.
+
+
+Having been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great
+pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all
+kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and
+showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone.
+
+But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with
+which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the
+country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest
+specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River
+Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round
+scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of
+Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with
+noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie
+with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their
+branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that
+five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving
+little space for younger trees or underbrush.
+
+I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in
+circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble
+tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of
+inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and
+thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black
+birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if
+any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it
+does with hickory for many purposes.
+
+When residing in the city of Quebec, in the year 1859-60, I published a
+series of articles in the Quebec _Advertiser_, descriptive of the
+hardwoods of Ontario. The lumber merchants of that city held then, that
+their correspondents in Liverpool was so wedded to old-fashioned ideas,
+that they would not so much as look at any price-list except for pine
+and the few other woods for which there was an assured demand. But I
+know that my papers were transmitted home, and they may possibly have
+converted some few readers, as, since then, our rock elm, our white ash,
+and the black birch of Lower Canada, have been in increased demand, and
+are regularly quoted at London and Liverpool. But even though old
+country dealers should make light of our products, that is no reason why
+we should undervalue them ourselves.
+
+Not merely is our larger timber improvidently wasted, but the smaller
+kinds, such as blue beech, ironwood or hornbeam, buttonwood or plane
+tree, and red and white cedar, are swept away without a thought of their
+great marketable value in the Old World.[7]
+
+It seems absolute fatuity to allow this waste of our natural wealth to
+go on unheeded. We send our pine across the Atlantic, as if it were the
+most valuable wood that we have, instead of being, as it really is,
+amongst the most inferior. From our eastern seaports white oak is
+shipped in the form of staves chiefly, also some ash, birch and elm. So
+far well. But what about the millions of tons of hardwood of all kinds
+which we destroy annually for fuel, and which ought to realize, if
+exported, four times as many millions of dollars?
+
+Besides the plain, straight-grained timber which we heedlessly burn up
+to get it out of the way, there are our ornamental woods--our beautiful
+curled and bird's eye maple, our waved ash, our serviceable butternut
+or yellow walnut, our comely cherry, and even our exquisite black
+walnut, all doomed to the same perdition. Little of this waste would
+occur if once the owners of land knew that a market could be got for
+their timber. Cheese and butter factories for export, have already
+spread over the land--why not furniture factories also? Why not warm
+ourselves with the coal of Nova Scotia, of Manitoba, and, by-and-by, of
+the Saskatchewan, and spare our forest treasures for nobler uses? Would
+not this whole question be a fitting subject for the appointment of a
+competent parliamentary commission?
+
+To me these reflections are not the birth of to-day, but date from my
+bush residence in the township of Nottawasaga. If I should succeed now
+in bringing them effectively before my fellow Canadians ere it is too
+late, I shall feel that I have neither thought nor written in vain.
+
+[Footnote 7: I have myself, when a youth, sold red cedar in London at
+sixpence sterling per square foot, inch thick. Lime (or basswood) was
+sold at twopence, and ash and beech at about the same price. White or
+yellow pine was then worth one penny, or just half the value of
+basswood. These are retail prices. On referring to the London wholesale
+quotations for July 1881, I find these statements fully borne out. It
+will be news to most of my readers, that Canadian black birch has been
+proved by test, under the authority of the British Admiralty, to be of
+greater specific gravity than English oak, and therefore better fitted
+for ships' flooring, for which purpose it is now extensively used. Also
+for staircases in large mansions.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  A MELANCHOLY TALE.
+
+
+The Scottish settlers in Nottawasaga were respectable, God-fearing, and
+though somewhat stern in their manners, thoroughly estimable people on
+the whole. They married young, had numerous families, and taught their
+children at an early age the duties of good citizenship, and the
+religious principles of their Presbyterian forefathers.
+
+Among them, not the prettiest certainly, but the most amiable and
+beloved, was Flora McDiarmid, a tall, bright-complexioned lass of
+twenty, perhaps, who was the chief mainstay of her widowed father, whose
+log shanty she kept in perfect order as far as their simple resources
+permitted, while she exercised a vigilant watch over her younger
+brothers and sisters, and with their assistance contrived to work their
+four acre allotment to good advantage.
+
+Wherever there was trouble in the settlement, or mirth afoot, Flora was
+sure to be there, nursing the sick, cheering the unhappy, helping to
+provide the good things for the simple feast,--she was, in fact, the
+life of the somewhat dull and overworked community. Was the minister
+from afar to be received with due honour, was the sober church service
+to be celebrated in a shanty with becoming propriety--Flora was ever on
+hand, at the head of all the other lassies, guiding and directing
+everything, and in so kindly and cheerful a way that none thought of
+disputing her behests or hesitating at their fulfilment.
+
+Such being the case, no wonder that Malcolm McAlmon and other young
+fellows contended for her hand in marriage. But Malcolm won the
+preference, and blithely he set to work to build a splendid log shanty,
+twenty-five feet square, divided into inner compartments, with windows
+and doors, and other unequalled conveniences for domestic comfort new to
+the settlement; and when it was ready, and supplied with plenishings of
+all kinds, Flora and Malcolm were married amid the rejoicings of the
+whole township, and settled quietly down to the steady hard work of a
+life in the extreme backwoods, some miles distant from our clearing.
+
+The next thing I heard of them was many months afterwards, when Malcolm
+was happy in the expectation of an heir to his two hundred acre lot, in
+the ninth or tenth concession of the township. But alas! as time stole
+on, accounts were unfavourable, and grew worse and worse. The nearest
+professional man lived at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant. A wandering
+herb doctor, as he called himself, of the Yankee eclectic school, was
+the best who had yet visited the township, and even he was far away at
+this time. There were experienced matrons enough in the settlement, but
+their skill deserted them, or the case was beyond their ability. And so
+poor Flora died, and her infant with her.
+
+The same day her brother John, in deep distress, came to beg us to lend
+them pine boards enough to make the poor dead woman a coffin. Except the
+pine tree which we had cut down and sawn up, as related already, there
+was not a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer
+or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry
+for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next
+morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably handsome box,
+stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them
+at the appointed hour. We of course attended the funeral, which was
+conducted with due solemnity by the Presbyterian minister
+above-mentioned. And never shall I forget the weeping bearers,
+staggering under their burthen through tangled brushwood and round
+upturned roots and cradle holes, and the long train of mourners
+following in their rear, to the chosen grave in the wilderness, where
+now I hear stands a small Presbyterian church in the village of
+Duntroon.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  FROM BARRIE TO NOTTAWASAGA.
+
+
+For nearly three years we continued to work on contentedly at our bush
+farm. In the summer of 1837, we received intelligence that two of our
+sisters were on their way to join us in Canada, and soon afterwards that
+they had reached Toronto, and expected to meet us at Barrie on a certain
+day. At the same time we learnt that the bridge across the Nottawasaga
+river, eleven miles from Barrie, had given way, and was barely passable
+on foot, as it lay floating on the water. One of our span of horses had
+been killed and his fellow sold, so that we had to hire a team to convey
+our sisters' goods from Barrie to the bridge where it was necessary to
+meet them with our own ox-team and waggon. I walked to Barrie
+accordingly, and found my sisters at Bingham's tavern, very glad to see
+me, but in a state of complete bewilderment and some alarm at the rough
+ways of the place, then only containing a tavern or two, and some twenty
+stores and dwellings. My fustian clothes, which I had made myself, and
+considered first-rate, they "laughed at consumedly." My boots! they were
+soaked and trod out of all fashionable proportions. Fortunately, other
+people in Barrie were nearly as open to criticism as myself, and as we
+had to get on our way without loss of time, I forgot my eccentricities
+of dress in the rough experiences of the road.
+
+From Barrie to Root's tavern was pleasant travelling, the day being fine
+and the road fairly good. We took some rest and refreshment there, and
+started again, but had not gone two miles before a serious misfortune
+befel us. I have mentioned corduroy-bridges before; one of these had
+been thrown across a beautifully clear white-paved streamlet known to
+travellers on this road as "sweet-water." The waggon was heavily laden
+with chests and other luggage, and the horses not being very strong,
+found it beyond their power to drag the load across the bridge on
+account of its steepness. Alarmed for my eldest sister, who was riding,
+I persuaded her to descend and walk on. Again and again, the teamster
+whipped his horses, and again and again, after they had almost scaled
+the crest, the weight of the load dragged them backward. I wanted to
+lighten the load, but the man said it was needless, and bade me block
+the wheels with a piece of broken branch lying near, which I did; the
+next moment I was petrified to see the waggon overbalance itself and
+fall sideways into the stream seven or eight feet beneath, dragging the
+horses over with it, their forefeet clinging to the bridge and their
+hind feet entangled amongst the spokes of the wheels below.
+
+My elder sister had gone on. The younger bravely caught the horses'
+heads and held them by main force to quiet their struggles, while the
+man and I got out an axe, cut the spokes of the wheels, and so in a few
+minutes got the horses on to firm ground, where they stood panting and
+terrified for some minutes. Meanwhile, to get the heavy sea-boxes out of
+the water and carry them up the face of a nearly perpendicular bank,
+then get up the waggon and reload it, was no easy task, but was
+accomplished at last.
+
+The teamster, being afraid of injury to his horses' legs, at first
+refused to go further on the road. However, they had suffered no harm;
+and we finished our journey to the bridge where my brother awaited us.
+Here the unlucky boxes had to be carried across loose floating logs, and
+loaded on to the ox-waggon, which ended our hard work for that day.
+
+Two days longer were we slowly travelling through Sunnidale and into
+Nottawasaga, spending each night at some friendly settler's shanty, and
+so lightening the fatigues of the way.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  FAREWELL TO THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+My sisters had come into the woods fresh from the lovely village of
+Epsom, in Surrey, and accustomed to all the comforts of English life.
+Their consternation at the rudeness of the accommodations which we had
+considered rather luxurious than otherwise, dispelled all our illusions,
+and made us think seriously of moving nearer to Toronto. I was the first
+to feel the need of change, and as I had occasionally walked ninety
+miles to the city, to draw money for our road contracts, and the same
+distance back again, and had gained some friends there, it took me very
+little time to make up my mind. My brothers and sisters remained
+throughout the following winter, and then removed to a rented farm at
+Bradford.
+
+Not that the bush has ever lost its charms for me. I still delight to
+escape thither, to roam at large, admiring the stately trees with their
+graceful outlines of varied foliage, seeking in their delicious shade
+for ferns and all kinds of wild plants, forgetting the turmoil and
+anxieties of the business world, and wishing I could leave it behind for
+ever and aye. In some such mood it was that I wrote--
+
+
+  "COME TO THE WOODS."[8]
+
+  Come to the woods--the dark old woods,
+    Where our life is blithe and free;
+  No thought of sorrow or strife intrudes
+    Beneath the wild woodland tree.
+
+  Our wigwam is raised with skill and care
+    In some quiet forest nook;
+  Our healthful fare is of ven'son rare,
+    Our draught from the crystal brook.
+
+  In summer we trap the beaver shy,
+    In winter we chase the deer,
+  And, summer or winter, our days pass by
+    In honest and hearty cheer.
+
+  And when at the last we fall asleep
+    On mother earth's ancient breast,
+  The forest-dirge deep shall o'er us sweep,
+    And lull us to peaceful rest.
+
+[Footnote 8: These lines were set to music by the late J. P. Clarke,
+Mus. Bac. of Toronto University, in his "Songs of Canada."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  A JOURNEY TO TORONTO.
+
+
+To make my narrative intelligible to those who are not familiar with the
+times of which I am about to write, I must revert briefly to the year
+1834. During that year I made my first business visit to Toronto, then
+newly erected into a city. As the journey may be taken as a fair
+specimen of our facilities for travelling in those days, I shall
+describe it.
+
+I left our shanty in Sunnidale in the bright early morning, equipped
+only with an umbrella and a blue bag, such as is usually carried by
+lawyers, containing some articles of clothing. The first three or four
+miles of the road lay over felled trees cut into logs, but not hauled
+out of the way. To step or jump over these logs every few feet may be
+amusing enough by way of sport, but it becomes not a little tiresome
+when repeated mile after mile, with scarcely any intermission, and
+without the stimulus of companionship. After getting into a better
+cleared road, the chief difficulty lay with the imperfectly "stubbed"
+underbrush and the frequency of cradle-holes--that is, hollows caused by
+up-turned roots--in roughly timbered land. This kind of travelling
+continued till mid-day, when I got a substantial dinner and a boisterous
+welcome from my old friend Root and his family. He had a pretty little
+daughter by this time.
+
+An hour's rest, and an easy walk of seven miles to Barrie, were pleasant
+enough, in spite of stumps and hollows. At Barrie I met with more
+friends, who would have had me remain there for the night; but time was
+too valuable. So on I trudged, skirting round the sandy beach of
+beautiful Kempenfeldt Bay, and into the thick dark woods of Innisfil,
+where the road was a mere brushed track, easily missed in the twilight,
+and very muddy from recent rains. Making all the expedition in my power,
+I sped on towards Clement's tavern, then the only hostelry between
+Barrie and Bradford, and situated close to the height of land whence
+arise, in a single field, the sources of various streams flowing into
+the Nottawasaga, the Holland, and the Credit Rivers. But rain came on,
+and the road became a succession of water-holes so deep that I all but
+lost my boots, and, moreover, it was so dark that it was impossible to
+walk along logs laid by the roadside, which was the local custom in
+daylight.
+
+I felt myself in a dilemma. To go forward or backward seemed equally
+unpromising. I had often spent nights in the bush, with or without a
+wigwam, and the thought of danger did not occur to me. Suddenly I
+recollected that about half a mile back I had passed a newly chopped and
+partially-logged clearing, and that there might possibly be workmen
+still about. So I returned to the place, and shouted for assistance; but
+no person was within hearing. There was, however, a small log hut, about
+six feet square, which the axe-men had roughly put up for protection
+from the rain, and in it had left some fire still burning. I was glad
+enough to secure even so poor a shelter as this. Everything was wet. I
+was without supper, and very tired after thirty miles' walk. But I tried
+to make the best of a bad job: collected plenty of half-consumed brands
+from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep up some warmth during the
+night, and then lay down on the round logs that had been used for seats,
+to sleep as best I might.
+
+But this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose from the
+woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a single yelp; then two
+or three yells at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five
+minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming
+nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for
+aught but the howling of wolves. The clearing might be five or six
+acres. Scattered over it were partially or wholly burnt log heaps. I
+knew that wolves would not be likely to venture amongst the fires, and
+that I was practically safe. But the position was not pleasant, and I
+should have preferred a bed at Clement's, as a matter of choice. I,
+however, kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued
+their concert of fiendish discords--sometimes remaining silent for a
+time, and anon bursting into a full chorus _fortissimo_--for many long,
+long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees,
+and the sky grew brighter and brighter; when the wolves ceased their
+serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow.
+
+With the advancing day, I awoke, stiffened in every joint, and very
+hungry. A few minutes' walk on my road showed me a distant opening in
+the woods, towards which I hastened, and found a new shanty, inhabited
+by a good-natured settler and his family, from whom I got some
+breakfast, for which they would accept nothing but thanks. They had
+lately been much troubled, they said, with wolves about their cattle
+sheds at night.
+
+From thence I proceeded to Bradford, fifteen miles, by a road interlaced
+with pine roots, with deep water-holes between, and so desperately
+rugged as to defy any wheeled vehicle but an ox-cart to struggle over
+it. Here my troubles ended for the present. Mr. Thomas Drury, of that
+village, had been in partnership with a cousin of my own, as brewers,
+at Mile End, London. His hospitable reception, and a good night's
+repose, made me forget previous discomforts, and I went on my way next
+morning with a light heart, carrying with me a letter of introduction to
+a man of whom I had occasionally heard in the bush, one William Lyon
+Mackenzie.
+
+The day's journey by way of Yonge Street was easily accomplished by
+stage--an old-fashioned conveyance enough, swung on leather straps, and
+subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones on the rough road,
+innocent of Macadam, and full of the deepest ruts. A fellow-passenger,
+by way of encouragement, told me how an old man, a few weeks before, had
+been jolted so violently against the roof, as to leave marks of his
+blood there, which, being not uncommon, were left unheeded for days. My
+friend advised me to keep on my hat, which I had laid aside on account
+of the heat of the day, and I was not slow to adopt the suggestion.
+
+Arrived in town, my first business was to seek out Mr. William Hawkins,
+well-known in those days as an eminent provincial land surveyor. I found
+him at a house on the south side of Newgate (now Adelaide) street, two
+or three doors west of Bay Street. He was living as a private boarder
+with an English family; and, at his friendly intercession, I was
+admitted to the same privilege. The home was that of Mr. H. C. Todd,
+with his wife and two sons. With them, I continued to reside as often
+as I visited Toronto, and for long after I became a citizen. That I
+spent there many happy days, among kind and considerate friends, numbers
+of my readers will be well assured when I mention, that the two boys
+were Alfred and Alpheus Todd, the one loved and lamented as the late
+Clerk of Committees in the Canadian House of Commons--the other widely
+known in Europe and America, as the late Librarian of the Dominion
+Parliament.
+
+My stay in Toronto on that occasion was very brief. To wait upon the
+Chief Emigrant Agent for instructions about road-making in Sunnidale; to
+make a few small purchases of clothing and tea; and to start back again,
+without loss of time, were matters of course. One thing, however, I
+found time to do, which had more bearing upon this narrative, and that
+was, to present Mr. Drury's letter of introduction to William L.
+Mackenzie, M. P. P., at his printing-office on Hospital Street. I had
+often seen copies, in the bush, of the _Colonial Advocate_, as well as
+of the _Courier_ and _Gazette_ newspapers, but had the faintest possible
+idea of Canadian politics. The letter was from one whose hospitality
+Mackenzie had experienced for weeks in London, and consequently I felt
+certain of a courteous reception. Without descending from the high stool
+he used at his desk, he received the letter, read it, looked at me
+frigidly, and said in his singular, harsh Dundee dialect: "We must look
+after our own people before doing anything for strangers." Mr. Drury had
+told him that I wished to know if there were any opening for
+proof-readers in Toronto. I was not a little surprised to find myself
+ostracized as a stranger in a British colony, but, having other views,
+thought no more of the circumstance at the time.
+
+This reminds me of another characteristic anecdote of Mackenzie, which
+was related to me by one who was on the spot where it happened. In 1820,
+on his first arrival in Montreal from Scotland, he got an engagement as
+chain-bearer on the survey of the Lachine canal. A few days afterwards,
+the surveying party, as usual at noon, sat down on a grassy bank to eat
+their dinner. They had been thus occupied for half an hour, and were
+getting ready for a smoke, when the new chain-bearer suddenly jumped up
+with an exclamation, "Now, boys, time for work! we mustn't waste the
+government money!" The consequence of which ill-timed outburst was his
+prompt dismissal from the service.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  SOME GLIMPSES OF UPPER CANADIAN POLITICS.
+
+
+In the course of the years 1835, '6 and '7, I made many journeys to
+Toronto, sometimes wholly on foot, sometimes partly by steamboat and
+stage. I became very intimate with the Todd family and connections,
+which included Mrs. Todd's brother, William P. Patrick, then, and long
+afterwards, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; his brother-in-law, Dr.
+Thomas D. Morrison, M. P. P.; Thomas Vaux, Accountant of the
+Legislature; Caleb Hopkins, M. P. P., for Halton; William H. Doel,
+brewer; William C. Keele, attorney, and their families. Nearly all these
+persons were, or had been, zealous admirers of Wm. L. Mackenzie's
+political course. And the same thing must be said of my friend Mr.
+Drury, of Bradford; his sister married Edward Henderson, merchant
+tailor, of King Street west, whose father, E. T. Henderson, was well
+known amongst Mackenzie's supporters. It was his cottage on Yonge Street
+(near what is now Gloucester Street), at which the leaders of the
+popular party used often to meet in council. The house stood in an
+orchard, well fenced, and was then very rural and secluded from
+observation.
+
+Amongst all these really estimable people, and at their houses, nothing
+of course was heard disparaging to the Reformers of that day, and their
+active leader. My own political prejudices also were in his favour. And
+so matters went on until the arrival, in 1835, of Sir Francis Bond Head,
+as Lieutenant-Governor, when we, in the bush, began to hear of violent
+struggles between the House of Assembly on the one side, and the
+Lieutenant-Governor supported by the Legislative Council on the other.
+Each political party, by turns, had had its successes and reverses at
+the polls. In 1825, the majority of the Assembly was Tory; in 1826, and
+for several years afterwards, a Reform majority was elected; in 1831,
+again, Toryism was successful; in 1835, the balance veered over to the
+popular side once more, by a majority only of four. This majority, led
+by Mackenzie, refused to pass the supplies; whereupon, Sir Francis
+appealed to the people by dissolving the Parliament.
+
+What were the precise grounds of difference in principle between the
+opposing parties, did not very clearly appear to us in the bush. Sir
+Francis Head had no power to grant "Responsible Government," as it has
+since been interpreted. On each side there were friends and opponents of
+that system. Among Tories, Ogle R. Gowan, Charles Fothergill, and
+others, advocated a responsible ministry, and were loud in their
+denunciations of the "Family Compact." On the Reform side were ranged
+such men as Marshall S. Bidwell and Dr. Rolph, who preferred American
+Republicanism, in which "Responsible Government" was and is utterly
+unknown. We consequently found it hard to understand the party cries of
+the day. But we began to perceive that there was a Republican bias on
+one hand, contending with a Monarchical leaning on the other; and we had
+come to Canada, as had most well-informed immigrants, expressly to avoid
+the evils of Republicanism, and to preserve our British constitutional
+heritage intact.
+
+When therefore Sir Francis Head threw himself with great energy into the
+electoral arena, when he bade the foes of the Empire "come if they
+dare!" when he called upon the "United Empire Loyalists,"--men, who in
+1770 had thrown away their all, rather than accept an alien rule--to
+vindicate once more their right to choose whom they would follow, King
+or President--when he traversed the length and breadth of the land,
+making himself at home in the farm-houses, and calling upon fathers and
+husbands and sons to stand up for their hearths, and their old
+traditions of honour and fealty to the Crown, it would have been strange
+indeed had he failed.
+
+The next House of Assembly, elected in 1837, contained a majority of
+twenty-six to fourteen in favour of Sir F. B. Head's policy. This
+precipitated matters. Had Mackenzie been capable of enduring defeat with
+a good grace; had he restrained his natural irritability of temper, and
+kept his skirts cautiously clear of all contact with men of Republican
+aspirations, he might and probably would have recovered his position as
+a parliamentary leader, and died an honoured and very likely even a
+titled veteran! But he became frantic with choler and disappointment,
+and rushed headlong into the most passionate extremes, which ended in
+making him a mere cat's-paw in the hands of cunning schemers, who did
+not fail, after their manner, to disavow their own handiwork when it had
+ceased to serve their purposes.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  TORONTO DURING THE REBELLION.
+
+
+In November, 1837, I had travelled to Toronto for the purpose of seeking
+permanent employment in the city, and meant to return in the first week
+of December, to spend my last Christmas in the woods. But the fates and
+William Lyon Mackenzie had decided otherwise. I was staying for a few
+days with my friend Joseph Heughen, the London hairdresser mentioned as
+a fellow-passenger on board the _Asia_, whose name must be familiar to
+most Toronto citizens of that day. His shop was near Ridout's
+hardware-store, on King Street, at the corner of Yonge Street. On
+Sunday, the 3rd, we heard that armed men were assembling at the Holland
+Landing and Newmarket to attack the city, and that lists of houses to be
+burned by them were in the hands of their leaders; that Samuel Lount,
+blacksmith, had been manufacturing pikes at the Landing for their use;
+that two or three persons had been warned by friends in the secret to
+sell their houses, or to leave the city, or to look for startling
+changes of some sort. Then it was known that a quantity of arms and a
+couple of cannon were being brought from the garrison, and stored in the
+covered way under the old City Hall. Every idle report was eagerly
+caught up, and magnified a hundred-fold. But the burthen of all
+invariably was, an expected invasion by the Yankees to drive all
+loyalists from Canada. In this way rumour followed rumour, all business
+ceased, and everybody listened anxiously for the next alarm. At length
+it came in earnest. At eleven o'clock on Monday night, the 4th of
+December, every bell in the city was set ringing, occasional gun-shots
+were fired, by accident as it turned out, but none the less startling to
+nervous people; a confused murmur arose in the streets, becoming louder
+every minute; presently the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, echoing
+loudly along Yonge Street. With others I hurried out, and found at
+Ridout's corner a horseman, who proved to be Alderman John Powell, who
+told his breathless listeners, how he had been stopped beyond the Yonge
+Street toll-gate, two miles out, by Mackenzie and Anderson at the head
+of a number of rebels in arms; how he had shot Anderson and missed
+Mackenzie; how he had dodged behind a log when pursued; and had finally
+got into town by the College Avenue.
+
+There was but little sleep in Toronto that night, and next day
+everything was uproar and excitement, heightened by the news that Col.
+Moodie, of Richmond Hill, a retired officer of the army, who was
+determined to force his way through the armed bodies of rebels, to bring
+tidings of the rising to the Government in Toronto, had been shot down
+and inhumanly left to bleed to death at Montgomery's tavern. The flames
+and smoke from Dr. Horne's house at Rosedale, were visible all over the
+city; it had been fired in the presence of Mackenzie in person, in
+retaliation, it was said, for the refusal of discount by the Bank of
+Upper Canada, of which Dr. Horne was teller. The ruins of the
+still-burning building were visited by hundreds of citizens, and added
+greatly to the excitement and exasperation of the hour. By-and-by it
+became known that Mr. Robert Baldwin and Dr. John Rolph had been sent,
+with a flag of truce, to learn the wants of the insurgents. Many
+citizens accompanied the party at a little distance. A flag of truce was
+in itself a delightful novelty, and the street urchins cheered
+vociferously, scudding away at the smallest alarm. Arrived at the
+toll-gate, there were waiting outside Mackenzie, Lount, Gibson, Fletcher
+and other leaders, with a couple of hundred of their men. In reply to
+the Lieutenant-Governor's message of inquiry, as to what was wanted, the
+answer was, "Independence, and a convention to arrange details," which
+rather compendious demand, being reported to Sir Francis, was at once
+rejected. So there was nothing for it but to fight.
+
+Mackenzie did his best to induce his men to advance on the city that
+evening; but as most of his followers had been led to expect that there
+would be no resistance, and no bloodshed, they were shocked and
+discouraged by Col. Moodie's death, as well as by those of Anderson and
+one or two others. A picket of volunteers under Col. Jarvis, fired on
+them, when not far within the toll-gate, killing one and wounding two
+others, and retired still firing. After this the insurgents lost all
+confidence, and even threatened to shoot Mackenzie himself, for
+reproaching them with cowardice. A farmer living by the roadside told me
+at the time, that while a detachment of rebels were marching southwards
+down the hill, since known as Mount Pleasant, they saw a waggon-load of
+cordwood standing on the opposite rise, and supposing it to be a piece
+of artillery loaded to the muzzle with grape or canister, these brave
+warriors leaped the fences right and left like squirrels, and could by
+no effort of their officers be induced again to advance.
+
+By this time the principal buildings in the city--the City Hall, Upper
+Canada Bank, the Parliament Buildings, Osgoode Hall, Government House,
+the Canada Company's office, and many private dwellings and shops, were
+put in a state of defence by barricading the windows and doors with
+two-inch plank, loopholed for musketry; and the city bore a rather
+formidable appearance. Arms and ammunition were distributed to all
+householders who chose to accept them. I remember well the trepidation
+with which my friend Heughen shrank from touching the musket that was
+held out for his acceptance; and the outspoken indignation of the
+militia sergeant, whose proffer of the firearm was declined. The poor
+hairdresser told me afterwards, that many of his customers were rebels,
+and that he dreaded the loss of their patronage.
+
+The same evening came Mr. Speaker McNab, with a steamer from Hamilton,
+bringing sixty of the "men of Gore." It was an inspiriting thing to see
+these fine fellows land on the wharf, bright and fresh from their short
+voyage, and full of zeal and loyalty. The ringing cheers they sent forth
+were re-echoed with interest by the townsmen. From Scarborough also,
+marched in a party of militia, under Captain McLean.
+
+It was on the same day that a lady, still living, was travelling by
+stage from Streetsville, on her way through Toronto to Cornwall, having
+with her a large trunk of new clothing prepared for a long visit to her
+relatives. Very awkwardly for her, Mackenzie had started, at the head of
+a few men, from Yonge Street across to Dundas Street, to stop the stage
+and capture the mails, so as to intercept news of Dr. Duncombe's rising
+in the London District. Not content with seizing the mail-bags and all
+the money they contained, Mackenzie himself, pistol in hand, demanded
+the surrender of the poor woman's portmanteau, and carried it off
+bodily. It was asserted at the time that he only succeeded in evading
+capture a few days after, at Oakville, by disguising himself in woman's
+clothes, which may explain his raid upon the lady's wardrobe; for which,
+I believe, she failed to get any compensation whatsoever under the
+Rebellion Losses Act. This lady afterwards became the wife of John F.
+Rogers, who was my partner in business for several subsequent years.
+
+In the course of the next day, Wednesday, parties of men arrived from
+Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville, Port Credit and other places in greater or
+less numbers--many of them Orangemen, delighted with their new
+occupation. The Lieutenant-Governor was thus enabled to vacate the City
+Hall and take up his headquarters in the Parliament Buildings; and
+before night as many as fifteen hundred volunteers were armed and
+partially drilled. Among them were a number of Mackenzie's former
+supporters, with their sons and relatives, now thoroughly ashamed of the
+man, and utterly alienated by his declared republicanism.
+
+Next morning followed the "Battle of Gallows Hill," or, as it might more
+fitly be styled, the "Skirmish of Montgomery's Farm." Being a stranger
+in the city, I had not then formally volunteered, but took upon myself
+to accompany the advancing force, on the chance of finding something to
+do, either as a volunteer or a newspaper correspondent, should an
+opening occur. The main body, led by Sir Francis himself, with Colonels
+Fitzgibbon and McNab as Adjutants, marched by Yonge Street, and
+consisted of six hundred men with two guns; while two other bodies, of
+two hundred and a hundred and twenty men, respectively, headed by
+Colonels W. Chisholm and S. P. Jarvis, advanced by bye-roads and fields
+on the east and on the west of Yonge Street. Nothing was seen of the
+enemy till within half-a-mile of Montgomery's tavern. The road was there
+bordered on the west side by pine woods, from whence dropping
+rifle-shots began to be heard, which were answered by the louder muskets
+of the militia. Presently our artillery opened their hoarse throats, and
+the woods rang with strong reverberations. Splinters were dashed from
+the trees, threatening, and I believe causing worse mischief than the
+shots themselves. It is said that this kind of skirmishing continued
+for half-an-hour--to me it seemed but a few minutes. As the militia
+advanced, their opponents melted away. Parties of volunteers dashed over
+the fences and into the woods, shouting and firing as they ran. Two or
+three wounded men of both parties were lifted tenderly into carts and
+sent off to the city to be placed in hospital. Others lay bleeding by
+the road-side--rebels by their rustic clothing; their wounds were bound
+up, and they were removed in their turn. Soon a movement was visible
+through the smoke, on the hill fronting the tavern, where some tall
+pines were then standing. I could see there two or three hundred men,
+now firing irregularly at the advancing loyalists; now swaying to and
+fro without any apparent design. Some horsemen were among them, who
+seemed to act more as scouts than as leaders.
+
+We had by this time arrived within cannon shot of the tavern itself. Two
+or three balls were seen to strike and pass through it. A crowd of men
+rushed from the doors, and scattered wildly in a northerly direction.
+Those on the hill wavered, receded under shelter of the undulating land,
+and then fled like their fellows. Their horsemen took the side-road
+westward, and were pursued, but not in time to prevent their escape. Had
+our right and left wings kept pace with the main body, the whole
+insurgent force must have been captured.
+
+Sir Francis halted his men opposite the tavern, and gave the word to
+demolish the building, by way of a severe lesson to the disaffected.
+This was promptly done by firing the furniture in the lower rooms, and
+presently thick clouds of smoke and vivid flames burst from doors and
+windows. The battalion next moved on to perform the same service at
+Gibson's house, several miles further north. Many prisoners were taken
+in the pursuit, all of whom Sir Francis released, after admonishing them
+to be better subjects in future. The march back to Toronto was very
+leisurely executed, several of the mounted officers carrying dead pigs
+and geese slung across their saddle-bows as trophies of victory.
+
+Next day, volunteers for the city guard were called for, and among them
+I was regularly enrolled and placed under pay, at three shillings and
+nine pence per diem. My captain was George Percival Ridout; and his
+brother, Joseph D. Ridout, was lieutenant. Our company was duly drilled
+at the City Hall, and continued to do duty as long as their services
+were required, which was about four months. I have a vivid recollection
+of being stationed at the Don Bridge to look out for a second visit from
+Peter Matthews's band of rebels, eighty of whom had attempted to burn
+the bridge, and succeeded in burning three adjoining houses; also, of
+being forgotten and kept there without food or relief throughout a
+bitter cold winter's night and morning. Also, of doing duty as sentry
+over poor old Colonel Van Egmond, a Dutch officer who had served under
+Napoleon I., and who was grievously sick from exposure in the woods and
+confinement in gaol, of which he soon afterwards died. Another day, I
+was placed, as one of a corporal's guard, in charge of Lesslie's
+stationery and drug-store, and found there a saucy little shop-boy who
+has since developed into the portly person of Alderman Baxter, now one,
+and not the least, of our city notabilities. The guards and the guarded
+were on the best of terms. We were treated with much hospitality by Mr.
+Joseph Lesslie, late Postmaster of Toronto, and have all been excellent
+friends ever since. Our corporal, I ought to say, was Anthony Blachford,
+since a well-known and respected citizen.
+
+Those were exciting times in Toronto. The day after the battle, six
+hundred men of Simcoe, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dewson, came
+marching down Yonge Street, headed by Highland pipers playing the
+national pibroch. In their ranks I first saw Hugh Scobie, a stalwart
+Scotsman, afterwards widely known as publisher of the _British Colonist_
+newspaper. With this party were brought in sixty prisoners, tied to a
+long rope, most of whom were afterwards released on parole.
+
+A day or two afterwards, entered the volunteers from the Newcastle
+District, who had marched the whole distance from Brockville, under the
+command, I think, of Lieutenant-Colonel Ogle R. Gowan. They were a fine
+body of men, and in the highest spirits at the prospect of a fight with
+the young Queen Victoria's enemies.
+
+A great sensation was created when the leaders who had been arrested
+after the battle, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, John G. Parker, and two
+others, preceded by a loaded cannon pointed towards the prisoners, were
+marched along King Street to the Common Jail, which is the same building
+now occupied as York Chambers, at the corner of Toronto and Court
+Streets. The Court House stood, and still stands, converted into shops
+and offices, on Church Street; between the two was an open common which
+was used in those days as the place of public executions. It was here
+that, on the 12th of April following, I witnessed, with great sorrow,
+the execution by hanging of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of the
+principal rebel leaders.
+
+Sir F. B. Head had then left the Province.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+The following narrative of circumstances which occurred during the time
+when Mackenzie was in command of the rebel force on Yonge Street, has
+been kindly communicated to me by a gentleman, who, as a young lad, was
+personally cognizant of the facts described. It has, I believe, never
+been published, and will interest many of my readers:
+
+    "It was on Monday morning, the 5th of December, 1837, when
+    rumours of the disturbances that had broken out in Lower Canada
+    were causing great excitement throughout the Home District, that
+    the late James S. Howard's servant-man, named Bolton, went into
+    his master's bed-room and asked if Mr. H. had heard shots fired
+    during the night. He replied that he had not, and told the man
+    to go down to the street and find out what was the matter.
+    Bolton returned shortly with the news, that a man named Anderson
+    had been shot at the foot of the hill, and that his body was
+    lying in a house near by. Shortly after came the startling
+    report of the death of poor Col. Moodie, which was a great shock
+    to Mrs. Howard, who knew him well, and was herself a native of
+    Fredericton, where the Colonel's regiment (the old Hundred and
+    Fourth) had been raised during the war of 1812. Mr. Howard
+    immediately ordered his carriage, and started for the city, from
+    whence he did not return for ten days. About nine o'clock, a man
+    named Pool, who held the rank of captain in the rebel army,
+    called at Mr. Howard's house, to ask if Anderson's body was
+
+    there. Being told where it was said to be, he turned and went
+    away. Immediately afterwards, the first detachment of the rebel
+    army came in sight, consisting of some fifteen or twenty men,
+    who drew up on the lawn in front of the house. Presently, at the
+    word of command they wheeled round and went away in search of
+    the dead rebel. Next came three or four men (loyalists) hurrying
+    down the road, who said that there were five hundred rebels
+    behind them. Then was heard the report of fire arms, and anon
+    more armed men showed themselves along the brow of Gallows Hill,
+    and took up ground near the present residence of Mr. Hooper.
+    About eleven o'clock, another detachment appeared, headed by a
+    man on a small white horse, almost a pony, who turned out to be
+    the commander-in-chief, Mackenzie himself. He wore a great coat
+    buttoned up to the chin, and presented the appearance of being
+    stuffed. In talking among themselves, the men intimated that he
+    had on a great many coats, as if to make himself bullet proof.
+    To enable the man on the white pony to enter the lawn, his men
+    wrenched off the fence boards; he entered the house without
+    knocking, took possession of the sitting room where Mrs. and
+    Miss Howard and her brother were sitting, and ordered dinner to
+    be got ready for fifty men. Utterly astonished at such a demand,
+    Mrs. Howard said she could do nothing of the kind. After abusing
+    Mr. Howard for some time--who had incurred his dislike by
+    refusing him special privileges at the Post Office--Mackenzie
+    said Howard had held his office long enough, and that it was
+    time somebody else had it. Mrs. Howard at length referred him to
+    the servant in the kitchen; which hint he took, and went to see
+    about dinner himself. There happened to be a large iron
+    sugar-kettle, in which was boiling a sheep killed by dogs
+    shortly before. This they emptied, and refilled with beef from a
+    barrel in the cellar. A baking of bread just made was also
+    confiscated, and cut up by a tall thin man, named Eckhardt, from
+    Markham. While these preparations were going on, other men were
+    busy in the tool house mending their arms, which consisted of
+    all sorts of weapons, from chisels and gouges fixed on poles, to
+    hatchets, knives and guns of all descriptions. About two o'clock
+    there was a regular stampede, and the family were left quite
+    alone, much to their relief; with the exception of a young
+    Highland Scotchman mounting guard. He must have been a recent
+    arrival from the old country, as he wore the blue jacket and
+    trowsers of the sea-faring men of the western isles. Mrs. Howard
+    seeing all the rest had left, went out to speak to him, saying
+    she regretted to see so fine a young Scotchman turning rebel
+    against his Queen. His answer was, "Country first, Queen next."
+    He told her that it was the flag of truce which had called his
+    comrades away. About half-past three they all returned, headed
+    by the commander-in-chief, who demanded of Mrs. Howard whether
+    the dinner he had ordered was ready? She said it was just as
+    they had left it. Irritated at her coolness he got very angry,
+    shook his horse-whip, pulled her from her chair to the window,
+    bidding her look out and be thankful that her own house was not
+    in the same state. He pointed to Dr. Horne's house at Blue Hill,
+    on the east side of the road, which during his absence he had
+    set on fire, much to the disappointment of his men, whom, though
+    very hungry, he would not allow to touch anything, but burnt all
+    up. There was considerable grumbling among the men about it.
+    Poor Lount, who was with them, told Mrs. Howard not to mind
+    Mackenzie, but to give them all they wanted, and they would not
+    harm her. They got through their dinner about dusk, and returned
+    to the lawn, where they had some barrels of whiskey. They kept
+    up a regular--or rather an irregular firing all night. The
+    family were much alarmed, having only one servant woman with
+    them; the man Bolton had escaped for fear as he said of being
+    taken prisoner by the rebels. There the men remained until
+    Wednesday, when they returned to Montgomery's tavern, a mile or
+    two up the street, where is now the village of Eglinton. About
+    eleven o'clock in the morning, the loyalist force marched out to
+    attack the rebels, who were posted at the Paul Pry Inn, on the
+    east side of the road, with their main body at Montgomery's,
+    some distance further north. It was a very fine sunny day, and
+    the loyalists made a formidable appearance, as the sun shone on
+    their bright musket-barrels and bayonets. The first shot fired
+    was from the artillery, under the command of Captain Craig; it
+    went through the Paul Pry under the eaves and out of the roof.
+    The rebels took to the woods on each side of the road, which at
+    that time were much nearer than at present. Thomas Bell, who had
+    charge of a company of volunteers, said that on the morning of
+    the battle, a stranger asked leave to accompany him. The man
+    wore a long beard, and was rumoured to have been one of
+    Napoleon's officers. Mr. Bell saw him take aim at one of the
+    retreating rebels, who was crouching behind a stump, firing at
+    the loyalists. Nothing could be seen but the top of his head.
+    The stranger fired with fatal effect. The dead man turned out to
+    be a farmer of the name of Widman, from Whitchurch. Montgomery's
+    tavern, a large building on the hill-side of the road, was next
+    attacked, and was quickly evacuated by the flying rebels, who
+    got into the woods to the west and dispersed. It was then that
+    Mackenzie made his escape. The tavern having been the rebel
+    head-quarters, and the place from which Col. Moodie was shot,
+    was set on fire and burned down. The house of Gibson, another
+    rebel rendezvous, about eight miles north, was also burnt. With
+    that small effort the rebellion in Upper Canada was crushed. A
+    few days after, some fifty or sixty rebel prisoners from about
+    Sharon and Lloydtown, were marched down to the city, roped
+    together, two and two in a long string; and shortly afterwards a
+    volunteer corps--commanded by Colonels Hill and Dewson, raised
+    amongst the log-cabin settlers, in the County of Simcoe, came
+    down in sleighs to the city, where they did duty all winter. It
+    was an extraordinary fact, that these poor settlers, living in
+    contentment in their log-cabins, with their potato patches
+    around, should turn out and put down a rebellion, originated
+    among old settlers and wealthy farmers in the prosperous County
+    of York. Mackenzie early lost the sympathies of a great
+    proportion of his followers. One of them, named Jacob Kurtz,
+    swore most lustily, the same winter, that if he could catch his
+    old leader he would shoot him. While retreating eastward, a
+    party of the rebels attempted to burn the Don Bridge, and would
+    have succeeded, but for the determined efforts of a Mrs. Ross,
+    who put out the fire, at the expense of a bullet in her knee;
+    the ball was extracted by the late Dr. Widmer, who was very
+    popular about Yorkville and the east end of the city."
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED.
+
+
+It is now forty-five years since the last act of the rebellion was
+consummated, by the defeat of Duncombe's party in the London district,
+the punishment of Sutherland's brigands at Windsor, and the destruction
+of the steamer _Caroline_ and dispersal of the discreditable ruffians,
+of whom their "president," Mackenzie, was heartily sick, at Navy Island.
+None of these events came within my own observation, and I pass them by
+without special remark.
+
+But respecting Sir Francis Bond Head and his antagonist, I feel that
+more should be said, in justice to both. It is eminently unfair to
+censure Sir Francis for not doing that which he was not commissioned to
+do. Even so thorough a Reformer and so just a man as Earl Russell, had
+failed to see the advisability of extending "responsible government" to
+any of Her Majesty's Colonies. Up to the time of Lord Durham's report in
+1839, no such proposal had been even mooted; and it appears to have been
+the general opinion of British statesmen, at the date of Sir Francis
+Head's appointment, that to give a responsible ministry to Canada was
+equivalent to offering her independence. In taking it for granted that
+Canadians as a whole were unfit to have conferred on them the same
+rights of self-government as were possessed by Englishmen, Irishmen and
+Scotchmen in the old country, consisted the original error. This error,
+however, Sir Francis shared with the Colonial Office and both Houses of
+the Imperial Parliament. Since those days the mistake has been admitted,
+and not Canada alone, but the Australian colonies and South Africa have
+profited by our advancement in self-government.
+
+As for Sir Francis's personal character, even Mackenzie's biographer
+allows that he was frank, kindly and generous in an unusual degree. That
+he won the entire esteem of so many men of whom all Canadians of
+whatever party are proud--such men as Chief Justice Robinson, Bishop
+Strachan, Chief Justices Macaulay, Draper and McLean, Sir Allan N.
+McNab, Messrs. Henry Ruttan, Mahlon Burwell, Jno. W. Gamble and many
+others, I hold to be indubitable proof of his high qualities and honest
+intentions. Nobody can doubt that had he been sent here to carry out
+responsible government, he would have done it zealously and honourably.
+But he was sent to oppose it, and, in opposing it, he simply did his
+duty.
+
+A gentleman[9] well qualified to judge, and who knew him personally, has
+favoured me with the following remarks apropos of the subject, which I
+have pleasure in laying before my readers:
+
+    "As a boy, I had a sincere admiration for his [Sir Francis's]
+    devoted loyalty, and genuine English character; and I have since
+    learnt to respect and appreciate with greater discrimination his
+    great services to the Crown and Empire. He was a little Quixotic
+    perhaps. He had a marked individuality of his own. But he was as
+    true as steel, and most staunch to British law and British
+    principle in the trying days of his administration in Canada.
+    His loyalty was chivalrous and magnetic; by his enlightened
+    enthusiasm in a good cause he evoked a true spirit of loyalty in
+    Upper Canada, that had well-nigh become extinct, being overlaid
+    with the spirit of ultra-radicalism that had for years
+    previously got uppermost among our people. But Upper Canada
+    loyalty had a deep and solid foundation in the patriotism of the
+    U. E. Loyalists, a noble race who had proved by deeds, not
+    words, their attachment to the Crown and government of the
+    mother land. These U. E. Loyalists were the true founders of
+    Upper Canada; and they were forefathers of whom we may be justly
+    proud--themselves 'honouring the father and the mother'--their
+    sovereign and the institutions under which they were born--they
+    did literally obtain the promised reward of that 'first
+    commandment with promise,' viz.: length of days and honour."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+William Lyon Mackenzie was principally remarkable for his indomitable
+perseverance and unhesitating self-reliance. Of toleration for other
+men's opinions, he seems to have had none. He did, or strove to do,
+whatsoever he himself thought right, and those who differed with him he
+denounced in the most unmeasured terms. For example, writing of the
+Imperial Government in 1837, he says:
+
+    "Small cause have Highlanders and the descendants of Highlanders
+    to feel a friendship for the Guelphic family. If the Stuarts had
+    their faults, they never enforced loyalty in the glens and
+    valleys of the north by banishing and extirpating the people; it
+    was reserved for the Brunswickers to give, as a sequel to the
+    massacre of Glencoe, the cruel order for depopulation. I am
+    proud of my descent from a rebel race; who held borrowed
+    chieftains, a scrip nobility, rag money and national debt in
+    abomination. . . . Words cannot express my contempt at
+    witnessing the servile, crouching attitude of the country of my
+    choice. If the people felt as I feel, there is never a Grant or
+    Glenelg who crossed the Tay and Tweed to exchange high-born
+    Highland poverty for substantial Lowland wealth, who would dare
+    to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler,
+    of such an equivocal character as this Mr. what do they call
+    him--Francis Bond Head."
+
+Had Mackenzie confined himself to this kind of vituperation, all might
+have gone well for him, and for his followers. People would only have
+laughed at his vehemence. The advocacy of the principle of responsible
+government in Canada would have been and was taken up by Orangemen, U.
+E. Loyalists, and other known Tories. Ever since the day when the
+manufacture of even a hob-nail in the American colonies was declared by
+English statesmen to be intolerable, the struggle has gone on for
+colonial equality as against imperial centralization. The final adoption
+of the theory of ministerial responsibility by all political parties in
+Canada, is Mackenzie's best justification.
+
+But he sold himself in his disappointment to the republican tempter, and
+justly paid the penalty. That he felt this himself long before he died,
+will be incontestably shown by his own words, which I copy from Mr.
+Lindsey's "Life of Mackenzie," vol. ii., page 290:
+
+    "After what I have seen here, I frankly confess to you that, had
+    I passed nine years in the United States before, instead of
+    after, the outbreak, I am very sure I would have been the last
+    man in America to be engaged in it."
+
+And, again, page 291:
+
+    "A course of careful observations during the last eleven years
+    has fully satisfied me that, had the violent movements in which
+    I and many others were engaged on both sides of the Niagara
+    proved successful, that success would have deeply injured the
+    people of Canada, whom I then believed I was serving at great
+    risks; that it would have deprived millions, perhaps, of our own
+    countrymen in Europe of a home upon this continent, except upon
+    conditions which, though many hundreds of thousands of
+    immigrants have been constrained to accept them, are of an
+    exceedingly onerous and degrading character. . . . There is not
+    a living man on this continent who more sincerely desires that
+    British Government in Canada may long continue, and give a home
+    and a welcome to the old countryman, than myself."
+
+Of Mackenzie's imprisonment and career in the United States, nothing
+need be said here. I saw him once more in the Canadian Parliament after
+his return from exile, in the year 1858. He was then remarkable for his
+good humour, and for his personal independence of party. His chosen
+associates were, as it seemed to me, chiefly on the Opposition or
+Conservative side of the House.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I cannot help referring to the unfortunate
+men who suffered in various ways. They were farmers of the best class,
+and of the most simple habits. The poor fellows who lay wounded by the
+road side on Yonge Street, were not persons astute enough to discuss
+political theories, but feeble creatures who could only shed bitter
+tears over their bodily sufferings, and look helplessly for assistance
+from their conquerors. There were among them boys of twelve or fifteen
+years old, one of whom had been commissioned by his ignorant old mother
+at St. Catharines, to be sure and bring her home a check-apron full of
+tea from one of the Toronto groceries.
+
+I thought at the time, and I think still, that the Government ought to
+have interfered before matters came to a head, and so saved all these
+hapless people from the cruel consequences of their leaders' folly. On
+the other hand, it is asserted that neither Sir Francis nor his Council
+could be brought to credit the probability of an armed rising. A friend
+has told me that his father, who was then a member of the Executive
+Council, attended a meeting as late as nine o'clock on the 4th December,
+1837. That he returned home and retired to rest at eleven. In half an
+hour a messenger from Government House came knocking violently at the
+door, with the news of the rising; when he jumped out of bed exclaiming,
+"I hope Robinson will believe me next time." The Chief Justice had
+received with entire incredulity the information laid before the
+Council, of the threatened movement that week.
+
+[Footnote 9: The late lamented Dr. Alpheus Todd, librarian of the
+Dominion Parliament.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  RESULTS IN THE FUTURE.
+
+
+Whatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy--whether we
+prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal--there can be no
+doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of
+Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American
+continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in
+Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved
+a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old
+colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty
+alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think,
+that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard
+of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and
+especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into
+the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837,
+it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic
+and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And
+it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven
+Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and
+the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old
+country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial
+connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously
+repudiates any such policy as suicidal.
+
+That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier
+atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued
+moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one
+confidently hold--with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due
+to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority--Divine
+and secular--I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare
+hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important
+characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to
+all who care to read correctly the signs of the times.
+
+The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best
+clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of
+us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry,
+home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general
+desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On
+the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and
+notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded
+into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum
+or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a
+purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for
+Mormonism.
+
+I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens
+in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the
+flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any
+controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the
+popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And
+so--we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada
+may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national
+faults such as theirs.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  A CONFIRMED TORY.
+
+
+My good friend and host, Henry Cook Todd, was one of the most
+uncompromising Tories I ever met with. He might have sat for the
+portrait of Mr. Grimwig in "Oliver Twist." Like that celebrated old
+gentleman, "his bark was aye waur than his bite." He would pour out a
+torrent of scorn and sarcasm upon some luckless object of his
+indignation, public or private; and, having exhausted the full vials of
+his wrath, would end with some kind act toward, perhaps, the very person
+he had been anathematizing, and subside into an amiable mood of
+compassion for the weaknesses of erring mankind generally.
+
+He was a graduate of the University of Oxford, and afterwards had charge
+of a large private school in one of the English counties. Having
+inherited and acquired a moderate competency, he retired into private
+life; but later on he lost by the failure of companies wherein his
+savings had been invested. He then commenced business as a bookseller,
+did not succeed, and finally decided, at the persuasion of his wife's
+brother, Mr. William P. Patrick, of Toronto, to emigrate to Canada.
+Having first satisfied himself of the prudence of the step, by a tour in
+the United States and Canada, he sent for his family, who arrived here
+in 1833.
+
+His two sons, Alfred and Alpheus, got the full benefit of their father's
+classical attainments, and were kept closely to their studies. At an
+early age, their uncle Patrick took charge of their interests, and
+placed them about him in the Legislative Assembly, where I recollect to
+have seen one or both of them, in the capacity of pages, on the floor of
+the House. From that lowly position, step by step, they worked their
+way, as we have seen, to the very summit of their respective
+departments.
+
+Mr. Todd was also an accomplished amateur artist, and drew exquisitely.
+An etching of the interior of Winchester Cathedral, by him, I have never
+seen surpassed.
+
+He was fond of retirement and of antiquarian reading, and, while engaged
+in some learned philological investigation, would shut himself up in his
+peculiar sanctum and remain invisible for days, even to his own family.
+
+Between the years 1833 and 1840, Mr. Todd published a book, entitled
+"Notes on Canada and the United States," and I cannot better illustrate
+his peculiar habits of thought, and mode of expressing them, than by
+quoting two or three brief passages from that work, and from "Addenda"
+which I printed for him myself, in 1840:
+
+    "As an acidulated mixture with the purest element will embitter
+    its sweetness, so vice and impurity imported to any country must
+    corrupt and debase it. To this hour, when plunderers no longer
+    feel secure in the scenes of their misdeeds, or culprits would
+    evade the strong arm of the law, to what country do they escape?
+    America--for here, if not positively welcomed (?), they are, at
+    least, safe. If it be asked, did not ancient Rome do the same
+    thing? I answer, slightly so, whilst yet an infant, but never in
+    any shape afterwards; but America, by still receiving, and with
+    open arms, the vicious and the vile from all corners of the
+    earth, does so in her full growth. As she therefore plants, so
+    must she also reap.
+
+    * * * "The Episcopal clergy in this country [United States] were
+    originally supported by an annual contribution of tobacco, each
+    male, so tithable, paying 40lbs.; the regular clergy of the then
+    thinly-settled state of Virginia receiving 16,000 lbs. yearly as
+    salary. In Canada they are maintained by an assignment of lands
+    from the Crown, which moreover extends its assistance to
+    ministers of other denominations; so that the people are not
+    called upon to contribute for that or any similar purpose; and
+    yet, such is the deplorable abandonment to error, and obstinate
+    perversion of fact, amongst the low or radical party here--a
+    small one, it is true, but not on that account less
+    censurable--that this very thing which should ensure their
+    gratitude is a never-ending theme for their vituperation and
+    abuse; proving to demonstration, that no government on earth, or
+    any concession whatever, can long satisfy or please them.
+
+    * * * "The mention of periodicals reminds me, that newspapers on
+    the arrival of a stranger are about the first things he takes
+    up; but on perusing them, he must exercise his utmost judgment
+    and penetration; for of all the fabrications, clothed too in the
+    coarsest language, that ever came under my observation, many
+    papers here, for low scurrility, and vilifying the authorities,
+    certainly surpass any I ever met with. It is to be regretted
+    that men without principle and others void of character should
+    be permitted thus to abuse the public ear. * * The misguided
+    individuals in the late disturbance, on being questioned upon
+    the subject, unreservedly admitted, that until reading
+    Mackenzie's flagitious and slanderous newspaper, they were
+    happy, contented, and loyal subjects."
+
+When the seat of Government was removed to Kingston, Mr. Todd's family
+accompanied it thither; but he remained in Toronto, to look after his
+property, which was considerable, and died here at the age of 77.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  NEWSPAPER EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+Early in the year 1838, I obtained an engagement as manager of the
+_Palladium_, a newspaper issued by Charles Fothergill, on the plan of
+the New York _Albion_. The printing office, situated on the corner of
+York and Boulton Streets, was very small, and I found it a mass of
+little better than _pi_, with an old hand-press of the Columbian
+pattern. To bring this office into something like presentable order, to
+train a rough lot of lads to their business, and to supply an occasional
+original article, occupied me during great part of that year. Mr.
+Fothergill was a man of talent, a scholar, and a gentleman; but so
+entirely given up to the study of natural history and the practice of
+taxidermy, that his newspaper received but scant attention, and his
+personal appearance and the cleanliness of his surroundings still less.
+He had been King's Printer under the Family Compact régime, and was
+dismissed for some imprudent criticism upon the policy of the
+Government. His family sometimes suffered from the want of common
+necessaries, while the money which should have fed them went to pay for
+some rare bird or strange fish. This could not last long. The
+_Palladium_ died a natural death, and I had to seek elsewhere for
+employment.
+
+Amongst the visitors at Mr. Todd's house was John F. Rogers, an
+Englishman, who, in conjunction with George H. Hackstaff, published the
+Toronto _Herald_, a weekly journal of very humble pretensions. Mr.
+Hackstaff was from the United States, and found himself regarded with
+great distrust, in consequence of the Navy Island and Prescott
+invasions. He therefore offered to sell me his interest in the newspaper
+and printing office for a few dollars. I accepted the offer, and thus
+became a member of the Fourth Estate, with all the dignities,
+immunities, and profits attaching thereto. From that time until the year
+1860, I continued in the same profession, publishing successively the
+_Herald_, _Patriot_, _News of the Week_, _Atlas_ and _Daily Colonist_
+newspapers, and lastly the Quebec _Advertiser_. I mention them all now,
+to save wearisome details hereafter.
+
+I have a very lively recollection of the first job which I printed in my
+new office. It was on the Sunday on which St. James's Cathedral was
+burnt owing to some negligence about the stoves. Our office was two
+doors north of the burnt edifice, on Church Street, where the Public
+Library now stands; and I was hurriedly required to print a small
+placard, announcing that divine service would be held that afternoon at
+the City Hall, where I had then recently drilled as a volunteer in the
+City Guard.
+
+The _Herald_ was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the
+Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar
+features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight
+into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself
+chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and
+press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an
+occasional paragraph or musical notice.
+
+The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in
+Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume
+of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which
+could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With
+this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from
+relating:
+
+I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next
+door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west
+corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of
+fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of
+manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did
+so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted
+indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more,
+defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible.
+
+Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he
+could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some
+subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to
+a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally
+apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because
+his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time
+in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working
+on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the
+printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was
+first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little
+education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was
+King's printer in Australia.
+
+Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was
+just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition
+rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where
+it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved
+to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early
+German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at
+one impression, and perfecting the sheet--or printing the obverse, as
+medallists would say--with other four pages. Archie was tall and
+strong--I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after
+some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press.
+Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful,
+conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling,
+never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty
+of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on
+with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was
+suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar
+and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it
+tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my
+foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he
+was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry
+Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of
+Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just
+west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to
+practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went
+to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and
+naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money.
+
+The country was at the time in a state of general civil war; not only
+was there national strife between two political parties for the
+ascendency, but in many of the separate states _pronunciamentos_
+(proclamations) were issued against the men in power, followed by bloody
+contests between the different factions. In the "united state" of
+Coahuila and Nuevo-Leon, in which the doctor then resided, General
+Vidauri held the reins of power at Monterey, the capital; and General
+Aramberri flew to arms to wrest the government from him. The opposing
+armies were no other than bands of robbers and murderers. Aramberri's
+forces had passed near the town of Salinas, where the doctor lived,
+plundering everybody on their route. Next day Vidauri's troops came in
+pursuit, appropriating everything of value which had not been already
+confiscated. General Julio Quiroga, one of the most inhuman and cruel
+monsters of the republic--a native of the town, near which he had but
+recently been a cowherd (gauadéro)--commanded the pursuing force. On the
+evening previous to his entry, a _peon_ (really a slave, though slavery
+was said to have been abolished in the republic) had been severely
+injured in a quarrel with another of his class, and the doctor was sent
+for by the Alcalde to dress his wounds. As the man was said to belong to
+a rich proprietor, the doctor objected unless his fee were assured. An
+old, rough, and dirty-looking man thereupon stepped forward and said he
+would be answerable for the pay, stating at the same time that his name
+was Quiroga, and that he was the father of Don Julio! When General
+Quiroga heard his father's account of the affair, he had the wounded man
+placed in the stocks in the open plaza under a broiling sun; fined the
+Alcalde $500 for not having done so himself, as well as for not having
+imprisoned the Doctor; had the Doctor arrested by an armed guard under a
+lieutenant, and in the presence of a dozen or more officers ordered him
+to be shot within twenty minutes for having insulted his (Quiroga's)
+father. The execution, however, as may be inferred, did not take place.
+The explanation the Doctor gives of his escape is a curious one. He
+cursed and swore at the General so bitterly and rapidly in English (not
+being at the time well versed in Spanish expletives) that Don Julio was
+frightened by his grimaces, and the horrible unknown words that issued
+from his lips, and fell off his chair in an epileptic fit, to which he
+was subject. The Doctor had the clothing about the General's throat and
+chest thrown open, and dashed some cold water in his face. On reviving,
+Quiroga told the Doctor to return to his house; that he need be under
+no fear; said he supposed the difficulty was caused by his (the
+Doctor's) not understanding the Spanish language; and added, that he
+intended to consult our friend some day about those _atagues_ (fits).
+Quiroga never returned to Salinas during the Doctor's stay there, and
+some years after these events, like most Mexican generals, was publicly
+executed, thus meeting the fate he had so cruelly dealt out to many
+better men than himself, and to which he had sentenced our
+fellow-citizen.
+
+The Doctor remained in Mexico till the French invasion in 1863, when,
+partly on account of the illness of his wife, and partly because of the
+disturbed state of the country, he returned to Toronto. He practised his
+profession here and became a well-known public character, still, he
+said, cherishing a warm love for the sunny south, styling the land of
+the Montezumas "_Mi Mejico amado_"--my beloved Mexico--and corresponding
+with his friends there, who but very recently offered him some
+inducements to return.
+
+That truant boy was afterwards known as Dr. Archibald A. Riddel,
+ex-alderman, and for many years coroner for the City of Toronto, which
+latter office he resigned so lately as the 30th of June, 1883. He died
+in December last, and was buried in the Necropolis, whither his remains
+were followed by a large concourse of sympathizing friends.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The burning of St. James's Cathedral in 1839, marks another phase of my
+Toronto life, which is associated with many pleasant and some sorrowful
+memories. The services of the Church of England were, for some months
+after that event, conducted in the old City Hall. The choir was an
+amateur one, led by Mr. J. D. Humphreys, whose reputation as an
+accomplished musician must be familiar to many of my readers. Of that
+choir I became a member, and continued one until my removal to Carlton
+in 1853. During those fourteen years I was concerned in almost every
+musical movement in Toronto, wrote musical notices, and even composed
+some music to my own poetry. An amateur glee club, of which Mr. E. L.
+Cull, until lately of the Canada Company's office, and myself are
+probably the only survivors, used occasionally to meet and amuse
+ourselves with singing glees and quartettes on Christmas and New Year's
+Eve, opposite the houses of our several friends. It was then the custom
+to invite our party indoors, to be sumptuously entertained with the good
+things provided for the purpose.
+
+Thus the time passed away after the rebellion, and during the period of
+Sir George Arthur's stay in Canada, without the occurrence of any
+public event in which I was personally concerned. Lord Durham came; made
+his celebrated Report: and went home again. Then followed Lord Sydenham,
+to whom I propose to pay some attention, as with him commenced my first
+experience of Canadian party politics.
+
+Mackenzie's rebellion had convinced me of the necessity of taking and
+holding firm ground in defence of monarchical institutions, as opposed
+to republicanism. It is well known that nearly all Old Country Whigs,
+when transplanted to Canada, become staunch Tories. So most moderate
+Reformers from the British Isles are classed here as Liberal
+Conservatives. Even English Chartists are transformed into Canadian
+Anti-Republicans.
+
+I had been neither Chartist nor ultra-Radical, but simply a quiet
+Reformer, disposed to venerate, but not blindly to idolize, old
+institutions, and by no means to pull down an ancient fabric without
+knowing what kind of structure was to be erected in its place. Thus it
+followed, as a matter of course, that I should gravitate towards the
+Conservative side of Canadian party politics, in which I found so many
+of the solid, respectable, well-to-do citizens of Toronto had ranged
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  LORD SYDENHAM'S MISSION.
+
+
+I have frequently remarked that, although in England any person may pass
+a life-time without becoming acquainted with his next-door neighbour, he
+can hardly fall into conversation with a fellow-countryman in Canada,
+without finding some latent link of relationship or propinquity between
+them. Thus, in the case of Mr. C. Poulett Thomson, I trace more than one
+circumstance connecting that great man with my humble self. He was a
+member--the active member--of the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co., Russia
+Merchants, Cannon Street, London, at the same time that my
+brother-in-law, William Tatchell, of the firm of Tatchell & Clarke,
+carried on the same business of Russia Merchants in Upper Thames Street.
+There were occasional transactions between them: and my brother Thomas,
+who was chief accountant in the Thames Street house, has told me that
+the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co. was looked upon in the trade with a
+good deal of distrust, for certain sharp practices to which they were
+addicted.
+
+Again, Sir John Rae Reid, of the East India Company, had been the Tory
+member of Parliament for Dover. On his retirement, Mr. Poulett Thomson
+started as Reform candidate for the same city. I knew the former
+slightly as a neighbour of my mother's, at Ewell, in Surrey, and felt
+some interest in the Dover election in consequence. It was in the old
+borough-mongering times, and the newspapers on both sides rang with
+accounts of the immense sums that were expended in this little Dover
+contest, in which Mr. Thomson, aided by his party, literally bought
+every inch of his way, and succeeded in obtaining his first seat in the
+House of Commons, at a cost, as his biographer states, of £3,000
+sterling. In the matter of corruption, there was probably little
+difference between the rival candidates.
+
+The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, it was understood in England,
+always had the dirty work of the Melbourne Ministry to do; and it was
+probably his usefulness in that capacity that recommended him for the
+task of uniting the two Canadas, in accordance with that report of Lord
+Durham, which his lordship himself disavowed.[10] That Mr. Thomson did
+his work well, cannot be denied. He was, in fact, the Castlereagh of
+Canadian Union. What were the exact means employed by him in Montreal
+and Toronto is not known, but the results were visible enough.
+Government officials coerced, sometimes through the agency of their
+wives, sometimes by direct threats of dismissal; the Legislature
+overawed by the presence and interference of His Excellency's
+secretaries and aides-de-camp; votes sought and obtained by appeals to
+the personal interests of members of Parliament. These and such-like
+were the dignified processes by which the Union of the Canadas was
+effected, in spite of the unwillingness of at least one of the parties
+to that ceremony.
+
+His Excellency did not even condescend to veil his contempt for his
+tools. When a newly nominated Cabinet Minister waited upon the great man
+with humility, to thank him for an honour for which he felt his
+education did not qualify him, the reported answer was--"Oh, I think you
+are all pretty much alike here."
+
+In Toronto, anything like opposition to His Excellency's policy was
+sought to be silenced by the threat of depriving the city of its tenure
+of the Seat of Government. The offices of the principal city journals,
+the _Patriot_ and _Courier_, were besieged by anxious subscribers,
+entreating that nothing should appear at all distasteful to His
+Excellency. Therefore it happened, that our little sheet, the _Herald_,
+became the only mouth-piece of Toronto dissentients; and was well
+supplied with satires and criticisms upon the politic manoeuvres of
+Government House. We used to issue on New Year's Day a sheet of
+doggerel verses, styled, "The News Boy's Address to his Patrons," which
+gave me an opportunity, of which I did not fail to avail myself, of
+telling His Excellency some wholesome truths in not very complimentary
+phrase. It is but justice to him to say, that he enjoyed the fun, such
+as it was, as much as anybody, and sent a servant in livery to our
+office, for extra copies to be placed on his drawing-room tables for the
+amusement of New Year's callers, to whom he read them himself. I am
+sorry that I cannot now treat my readers to extracts from those sheets,
+which may some centuries hence be unearthed by future Canadian
+antiquaries, as rare and priceless historical documents.
+
+Whether the course he pursued be thought creditable or the reverse,
+there is no doubt that Lord Sydenham did Canada immense service by the
+measures enacted under his dictation. The Union of the Provinces,
+Municipal Councils, Educational Institutions, sound financial
+arrangements, and other minor matters, are benefits which cannot be
+ignored. But all these questions were carried in a high-handed,
+arbitrary manner, and some of them by downright compulsion. To connect
+in any way with his name the credit of bestowing upon the united
+provinces "Responsible Government" upon the British model, is a gross
+absurdity.
+
+In the Memoirs of his lordship, by his brother, Mr. G. Poulett Scrope,
+page 236, I find the following plain statements:
+
+    "On the subject of 'Responsible Government,' which question was
+    again dragged into discussion by Mr. Baldwin, with a view of
+    putting the sincerity of the Government to the test, he (Lord
+    S.) introduced and carried unanimously a series of resolutions
+    in opposition to those proposed by Mr. Baldwin, distinctly
+    recognising the irresponsibility of the Governor to any but the
+    Imperial authorities, and placing the doctrine on the sound and
+    rational basis which he had ever maintained."
+
+What that "sound and rational basis" was, is conclusively shown in an
+extract from one of his own private letters, given on page 143 of the
+same work:
+
+    "I am not a bit afraid of the Responsible Government cry. I have
+    already done much to put it down in its inadmissible sense,
+    namely, that the Council shall be responsible to the Assembly,
+    and that the Government shall take their advice, and be bound by
+    it. In fact, this demand has been made much more _for_ the
+    people than _by_ them. And I have not met with any one who has
+    not at once admitted the absurdity of claiming to put the
+    Council over the head of the Governor. It is but fair too, to
+    say that everything has in times past been done by the different
+    Governors to excite the feelings of the people on this question.
+    First, the Executive Council has generally been composed of the
+    persons most obnoxious to the majority of the Assembly; and
+    next, the Governor has taken extreme care to make every act of
+    his own go forth to the public _on the responsibility_ of the
+    Executive Council. So the people have been carefully taught to
+    believe that the Governor is nobody, and the Executive Council
+    the real power, and that by the Governor himself. At the same
+    time they have seen that power placed in the hands of their
+    opponents. Under such a system it is not to be wondered at, if
+    one argument founded on the responsibility of the Governor to
+    the Home Government falls to the ground. I have told the people
+    plainly that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the
+    Home Government, I will place no responsibility on the Council;
+    that they are _a Council_ for the Governor to consult, but no
+    more. And I have yet met with no 'Responsible Government' man,
+    who was not satisfied with the doctrine. In fact, there is no
+    other theory which has common sense. Either the Governor is the
+    Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers,
+    but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all
+    colonial government becomes impossible. He must, therefore, be
+    the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of
+    men in the colony."
+
+It is only just that the truth should be clearly established on this
+question. Responsible Government was not an issue between Canadian
+Reformers and Tories in any sense; but exclusively between the Colonies
+and the statesmen of the Mother Country. On several occasions prior to
+Mackenzie's Rebellion, Tory majorities had affirmed the principle; and
+Ogle R. Gowan, an influential Orangeman, had published a pamphlet in its
+favour. Yet some recent historians of Canada have fallen into the
+foolish habit of claiming for the Reform party all the good legislation
+of the past forty years, until they seem really to believe the figment
+themselves.[11]
+
+I am surprised that writers who condemn Sir F. B. Head for acting as his
+own Prime Minister, in strict accordance with his instructions, can see
+nothing to find fault with in Lord Sydenham's doing the very same thing
+in an infinitely more arbitrary and offensive manner. Where Sir Francis
+persuaded, Lord Sydenham coerced, bribed and derided.
+
+Lower Canada was never consulted as to her own destiny. Because a
+fraction of her people chose to strike for independence, peaceable
+French Canadians were treated bodily as a conquered race, with the
+undisguised object of swamping their nationality and language, and
+over-riding their feelings and wishes. It is said that the result has
+justified the means. But what casuistry is this? What sort of friend to
+Responsible Government must he be, who employs force to back his
+argument? To inculcate the voluntary principle at the point of the
+bayonet, is a peculiarly Hibernian process, to say the least.
+
+[Footnote 10: On reference to Sir F. B. Head's "Emigrant," pp. 376-8,
+the reader will find the following letters:--
+
+      "1. _From the Hon. Sir. A. N. MacNab._
+        "Legislative Assembly,
+            "Montreal, 28th March, 1846.
+
+    "My dear Sir Francis,
+
+    "I have no hesitation in putting on paper the conversation which
+    took place between Lord Durham and myself, on the subject of the
+    Union. He asked me if I was in favour of the Union; I said,
+    'No;' he replied, 'If you are a friend to your country, _oppose
+    it to the death._'
+
+        "I am, &c.,
+            "(Signed) Allan N. MacNab.
+
+    "Sir F. B. Head, Bart."
+      "2. _From W. E. Jervis, Esq._
+        "Toronto, March 12th, 1846.
+
+    "Dear Sir Allan,
+
+    "In answer to the inquiry contained in your letter of the 2nd
+    inst., I beg leave to state, that, in the year 1838, I was in
+    Quebec, and had a long conversation with the Earl of Durham upon
+    the subject of an Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower
+    Canada--a measure which I had understood his Lordship intended
+    to propose.
+
+    "I was much gratified by his Lordship then, in the most
+    unqualified terms, declaring his strong disapprobation of such a
+    measure, as tending, in his opinion, to the injury of this
+    Province; and he advised me, as a friend to Upper Canada, _to
+    use all the influence I might possess in opposition to it_.
+
+    "His Lordship declared that, in his opinion, no statesman could
+    propose so injurious a project, and authorized me to assure my
+    friends in Upper Canada, _that he was decidedly averse to the
+    measure_.
+
+    "I have a perfect recollection of having had a similar enquiry
+    made of me, by the private secretary of Sir George Arthur, and
+    that I made a written reply to the communication. I have no copy
+    of the letter which I sent upon that occasion, but the substance
+    must have been similar to that I now send you.
+
+        "I remain, &c.,
+            "(Signed) W. E. Jervis.
+
+    "Sir Allan MacNab."
+      "3. _From the Hon. Justice Hagerman._
+        "13 St. James's Street,
+            "London, 12th July, 1846.
+
+    "My dear Sir Francis,
+
+    "It is well known to many persons that the late Lord Durham, up
+    to the time of his departure from Canada, expressed himself
+    strongly opposed to the Union of the then two Provinces. I
+    accompanied Sir George Arthur on a visit to Lord Durham, late in
+    the autumn, and a very few days only before he threw up his
+    Government and embarked for this country. In a conversation I
+    had with him, he spoke of the Union as _the selfish scheme of a
+    few merchants of Montreal--that no statesman would advise the
+    measure--and that it was absurd to suppose that Upper and Lower
+    Canada could ever exist in harmony as one Province_.
+
+    "In returning to Toronto with Sir George Arthur, he told me that
+    Lord Durham had expressed to him similar opinions, and had at
+    considerable length detailed to him reasons and arguments which
+    existed against a measure which he considered would be
+    destructive of the legitimate authority of the British
+    Government, and in which opinion _Sir George declared he fully
+    coincided._
+
+        "I am, Sir,
+            "(Signed) C. A. Hagerman.
+
+    "Sir F. B. Head, Bart."
+      "4. _From the Earl of Durham._
+          "Quebec, Oct. 2nd, 1838.
+
+    "Dear Sir,
+
+    "I thank you kindly for your account of the meeting [in
+    Montreal], which was the first I received. I fully expected the
+    'outbreak' about the Union of the two Provinces:--It is a pet
+    Montreal project, beginning and ending in Montreal selfishness.
+
+        "Yours, truly,
+            "(Signed) Durham."]
+
+[Footnote 11: I am very glad to see that Mr. Dent, in his "Forty
+Years--Canada since the Union of 1841," recently published, has avoided
+the current fault of those writers who can recognise no historical truth
+not endorsed by the _Globe_. In vol. i, p. 357, he says:
+
+"There can be no doubt that the Reform party, as a whole, were unjust to
+Mr. Draper. They did not even give him credit for sincerity or good
+intentions. The historian of to-day, no matter what his political
+opinions may be, who contemplates Mr. Draper's career as an Executive
+Councillor, must doubtless arrive at the conclusion that he was wrong;
+that he was an obstructionist--a drag on the wheel of progress. But this
+fact was by no means so easy of recognition in 1844 as it is in 1881;
+and there is no good reason for impugning his motives, which, so far as
+can be ascertained, were honourable and patriotic. No impartial mind can
+review the acts and characters of the leading members of the
+Conservative party of those times, and come to the conclusion that they
+were all selfish and insincere. Nay, it is evident enough that they were
+at least as sincere and as zealous for the public good as were their
+opponents."
+
+I wish I could also compliment Mr. Dent upon doing like justice to Sir
+Francis B. Head.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  TORIES OF THE REBELLION TIMES.
+
+
+Having, I hope, sufficiently exposed the misrepresentations of party
+writers, who have persistently made it their business to calumniate the
+Loyalists of 1837-8, I now proceed to the pleasanter task of recording
+the good deeds of some of those Loyalists, with whom I was brought into
+personal contact. I begin with--
+
+
+  ALDERMAN GEORGE T. DENISON, SEN.
+
+No Toronto citizen of '37 can fail to recall the bluff, hale,
+strongly-built figure of George Taylor Denison, of Bellevue, the very
+embodiment of the English country squire of the times of Addison and
+Goldsmith. Resolute to enforce obedience, generous to the poor, just and
+fair as a magistrate, hospitable to strangers and friends, a sound and
+consistent Churchman, a brave soldier and a loyal subject, it seemed
+almost an anachronism to meet with him anywhere else than at his own
+birth-place of Dover Court, within sight of the Goodwin Sands, in the
+old-fashioned County of Essex, in England.
+
+He was the son of John Denison, of Hedon, Yorkshire, and was born in
+1783. He came with his father to Canada in 1792, and to Toronto in 1796.
+Here he married the only daughter of Captain Richard Lippincott, a noted
+U. E. Loyalist, who had fought through the Civil War in the revolted
+Colonies now forming the United States. In the war of 1812, Mr. Denison
+served as Ensign in the York Volunteers, and was frequently employed on
+special service. He was the officer who, with sixty men, cut out the
+present line of the Dundas Road, from the Garrison Common to Lambton
+Mills, which was necessary to enable communication between York and the
+Mills to be carried on without interruption from the hostile fleet on
+the lake. During the attack on York, in the following year, he was
+commissioned to destroy our vessels in the Bay, to save them from
+falling into the enemy's hands. With some he succeeded, but on one
+frigate the captain refused to obey the order, and while the point was
+in dispute, the enemy settled the question by capturing the ship, in
+consequence of which Mr. Denison was held as a prisoner for several
+months, until exchanged.
+
+Of his services and escapes during the war many amusing stories are
+told. He was once sent with a very large sum in army bills--some
+$40,000--to pay the force then on the Niagara River. To avoid suspicion,
+the money was concealed in his saddle-bags, and he wore civilian's
+clothing. His destination was the village of St. David's. Within a mile
+or two of the place, he became aware of a cavalry soldier galloping
+furiously towards him, who, on coming up, asked if he was the officer
+with the money, and said he must ride back as fast as possible; the
+Yankees had driven the British out of St. David's, and parties of their
+cavalry were spreading over the country. Presently another dragoon came
+in sight, riding at speed and pursued by several of the enemy's
+horsemen. Ensign Denison turned at once, and after an exciting chase for
+many miles, succeeded in distancing his foes and escaping with his
+valuable charge.
+
+On another occasion, he had under his orders a number of boats employed
+in bringing army munitions from Kingston to York. Somewhere near Port
+Hope, while creeping alongshore to avoid the United States vessels
+cruising in the lake, he observed several of them bearing down in his
+direction. Immediately he ran his boats up a small stream, destroying a
+bridge across its mouth to open a passage, and hid them so effectually
+that the enemy's fleet passed by without suspecting their presence.
+
+About the year 1821, Captain Denison formed the design to purchase the
+farm west of the city, now known as the Rusholme property. The owner
+lived at Niagara. A friend who knew of his intention, told him one
+summer's morning, while he was looking at some goods in a store, that he
+would not get the land, as another man had left that morning for
+Niagara, in Oates's sloop, to gain the start of him. The day being
+unusually fine, Mr. Denison noticed that the sloop was still in sight,
+becalmed a mile or two off Gibraltar Point. Home he went, put up some
+money for the purchase, mounted his horse and set out for Niagara round
+the head of the lake, travelling all day and through the night, and
+arriving shortly after daybreak. There he saw the sloop in the river,
+endeavouring with the morning breeze to make the landing. To rouse up
+the intending vendor, to close the bargain, and get a receipt for the
+money, was soon accomplished; and when the gentleman who had hoped to
+forestall him came on the scene, he was wofully chopfallen to find
+himself distanced in the race.
+
+From the close of the war until the year 1837, Mr. Denison was occupied,
+like other men of his position, with his duties as a magistrate, the
+cultivation of his farm, and the rearing of his family. In 1822, he
+organized the cavalry corps now known as the Governor-General's
+Body-Guard. When the rebellion broke out, he took up arms again in
+defence of the Crown, and on the day of the march up Yonge Street, was
+entrusted with the command of the Old Fort. At about noon a body of men
+was seen approaching. Eagerly and anxiously the defenders waited,
+expecting every moment an onset, and determined to meet it like men. The
+suspense lasted some minutes, when suddenly the Major exclaimed, "Why
+surely that's my brother Tom!" And so it was. The party consisted of a
+number of good loyalists, headed by Thomas Denison, of Weston, hastening
+to the aid of the Government against Mackenzie and his adherents. Of
+course, the gates were soon thrown open, and, with hearty cheers on both
+sides, the new-comers entered the Fort.
+
+For six months Major Denison continued in active service with his
+cavalry, and in the summer of 1838, was promoted to command the
+battalion of West York Militia. His eldest son, the late Richard L.
+Denison, succeeded to the command of the cavalry corps, which was kept
+on service for six months in the winter of 1838-9.
+
+Mr. Denison was elected an alderman of Toronto in the year 1834, and
+served in the same capacity up to the end of 1843.
+
+That he was quite independent of the "Family Compact," or of any other
+official clique, is shown by the fact, that on Mackenzie's second
+expulsion from the House of Assembly in 1832, Alderman Denison voted
+for his re-election for the County of York.
+
+Our old friend died in 1853, leaving four sons, viz.: Richard L.
+Denison, of Dover Court, named above; the late George Taylor Denison, of
+Rusholme; Robert B. Denison, of Bellevue, now Deputy-Adjutant-General
+for this district; Charles L. Denison, of Brockton: and also one
+daughter, living. Among his grandchildren are Colonel George T. Denison,
+commanding the Governor-General's Body Guard, and Police Magistrate;
+Major F. C. Denison, of the same corps: and Lieutenant John Denison, R.
+N. The whole number of the Canadian descendants of John Denison, of
+Hedon, now living, is over one hundred.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Col. Richard Lippincott Denison, eldest son of the above, was born June
+13th, 1814, at the old family estate near Weston, on the Humber River,
+and followed the occupation of farming all his life. During the troubles
+of 1837-8, he served his country as captain in command of a troop of the
+Queen's Light Dragoons. He took a prominent part in the organization of
+the Agricultural and Arts Association in 1844, and for twenty-two years
+was its treasurer. In 1855, he was a commissioner from Canada at the
+great exposition in Paris, France. He also held a prominent position in
+the different county and township agricultural societies for over
+forty-five years; was one of the first directors of the Canada Landed
+Credit Company, and served on its board for several years; was at one
+time President of the late Beaver Fire Insurance Company; and at the
+time of his death, President of the Society of York Pioneers. For many
+years he commanded the Militia in the West Riding of the City of
+Toronto; and was alderman for St. Stephen's Ward in the City Council,
+which he represented at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in
+1876.
+
+As a private citizen, Richard L. Denison was generally popular,
+notwithstanding his strongly-marked Toryism, and outspoken bluntness of
+speech. His portly presence, handsome features, flowing beard, and
+kindly smile were universally welcomed; and when he drove along in his
+sleigh on a bright winter's day, strangers stopped to look at him with
+admiration, and to ask who that fine-looking man was? Nor did his
+personal qualities belie his noble exterior. For many years his house at
+Dover Court was one continuous scene of open-handed hospitality. He was
+generous to a fault; a warm friend, and an ever reliable comrade.
+
+He died March 10th, 1878, at the age of sixty-four years, leaving his
+widow and eight sons and one daughter. Few deaths have left so wide a
+gap as his, in our social circles.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Colonel George T. Denison, of Rusholme, second son of Alderman George T.
+Denison, sen., was born 17th of July, 1816, at Bellevue, Toronto. He was
+educated at Upper Canada College, and became a barrister in 1840.
+
+He was a volunteer in Col. Fitzgibbon's rifle company, prior to the
+Rebellion of 1837, and attended every drill until it was disbanded. On
+the Rebellion breaking out, he served for a while as one of the guard
+protecting the Commercial Bank; and was in the force that marched out to
+Gallows Hill and dispersed Mackenzie's followers. A few days after, he
+went as lieutenant in a company of militia, forming part of the column
+commanded by Col. Sir A. MacNab, to the village of Scotland, in the
+County of Brant, and from thence to Navy Island, where he served
+throughout the whole siege. He was one of the three officers who carried
+the information to Sir Allan, which led to the cutting out and
+destruction of the steamer _Caroline_.
+
+In November, 1838, he was appointed lieutenant in his father's troop of
+cavalry, now the Governor-General's Body Guard; and then just placed
+under the command of his brother, the late Col. Richard L. Denison. He
+served for six months in active service that winter, and put in a course
+of drill for some weeks with the King's Dragoon Guards, at Niagara.
+
+He was alderman for St. Patrick's ward for some years. In 1849, when
+Lord Elgin, in Toronto, opened the session of Parliament, Col. G. T.
+Denison escorted His Excellency to and from the Parliament House.
+
+The following account of this affair is copied from the "Historical
+Record of the Governor-General's Body Guard," by Capt. F. C. Denison:--
+
+    "In Montreal, during the riots that followed the passage of the
+    Rebellion Losses bill, the troops of cavalry that had been on
+    regular service for over ten years, forgot their discipline,
+    forgot their duty to their Queen's representative, forgot their
+    _esprit de corps_, and sat on their horses and laughed while the
+    mob were engaged in pelting Lord Elgin with eggs. This Toronto
+    troop acted differently, and established a name then for
+    obedience to orders, that should be looked back to with pride by
+    every man who ever serves in its ranks. Unquestionably there was
+    a great deal politically to tempt them from their duty, and to
+    lead them to remain inactive if nothing worse. But their sense
+    of duty to their Queen, through her representative, was so
+    strong, that they turned out, taking the Governor-General safely
+    to and from the Parliament Buildings, much against the will of a
+    noisy, turbulent crowd. This was an excellent proof of what
+    _esprit de corps_ will do, and of the good state the troop must
+    have been in. His Excellency was so pleased with the loyalty,
+    discipline and general conduct of the escort on this occasion,
+    that he sent orders to the officer commanding, to dismount his
+    men, and bring them into the drawing room. By His Excellency's
+    request, Captain Denison presented each man individually to him,
+    and he shook hands with them all, thanking them personally for
+    their services. They were then invited to sit down to a handsome
+    lunch with His Excellency's staff."
+
+In 1855, when the volunteer force was created, Col. Denison took a
+squadron of cavalry into the new force, and afterwards organized the
+Toronto Field Battery, and in 1860, the Queen's Own Rifles; and was
+appointed commandant of the 5th and 10th Military Districts, which
+position he held until his death. He was recommended, with Colonel
+Sewell and Colonel Dyde, for the order of St. Michael and St. George;
+but before the order was granted he had died, and Col. Dyde, C.M.G.,
+alone of the three, lived to enjoy the honour. Col. Denison was the
+senior officer in Ontario at the time of his death, and may be said to
+have been the father of the volunteer force of this district.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  ALDERMAN DIXON.
+
+Few persons engaged in business took a more prominent part in the early
+history of Toronto, and in the political events of the time, than the
+subject of this sketch. For several years he was engaged in trade in the
+City of Dublin, being the proprietor of the most extensive business of
+the kind, in saddlery and hardware, having the contracts for the supply
+of the cavalry in the Dublin garrison, and also the Viceregal
+establishment. At that time he took a very active part in the political
+warfare of the day, when Daniel O'Connell was in the zenith of his
+power. He and Mr. S. P. Bull--father of the late Senator Harcourt P.
+Bull--were active agents in organizing the "Brunswick Lodges," which
+played no inconsiderable part in the politics of that exciting period.
+The despondency that fell upon Irish Protestant loyalists when the
+Emancipation Bill became law, induced many to emigrate to America, and
+among them Mr. Dixon. Though actively employed in the management of his
+business both in Dublin and Toronto, yet he had found time to lay in a
+solid foundation of standard literature, and even of theological lore,
+which qualified him to take a position in intellectual society of a high
+order. He also possessed great readiness of speech, a genial,
+good-natured countenance and manner, and a fund of drollery and comic
+wit, which, added to a strong Irish accent he at times assumed, made him
+a special favourite in the City Council, as well as at public dinners,
+and on social festive occasions. I had the privilege of an intimate
+acquaintance with him from 1838 until his death, and can speak with
+confidence of his feelings and principles.
+
+Though so thoroughly Irish, his ancestors came originally from
+Lanarkshire in Scotland, in the reign of James I., and held a grant of
+land in the north of Ireland. He felt proud of one of his ancestors, who
+raised a troop of volunteer cavalry, lost an arm at the Battle of the
+Boyne, and was rewarded by a captain's commission given under King
+William's own hand a few days after. His own father served in the "Black
+Horse," a volunteer regiment of much note in the Irish rebellion.
+
+When Mr. Dixon came to York, his intention was to settle at Mount
+Vernon, in the State of Ohio, where he had been informed there was an
+Episcopal College, and a settlement of Episcopalians on the College
+territory. In order to satisfy himself of the truth of these statements,
+he travelled thither alone, leaving his family in the then town of York.
+Disappointed in the result of his visit, he returned here, and had
+almost made up his mind to go back to Dublin, but abandoned the
+intention in consequence of the urgent arguments of the Hon. John Henry
+Dunn, Receiver-General,[12] who persuaded him to remain. His first step
+was to secure a lease of the lot of land on King Street, where the
+Messrs. W. A. Murray & Co's. warehouses now stand. He built there two
+frame shops, which were considered marvels of architecture at that day,
+and continued to occupy one of them until Wellington Buildings, between
+Church and Toronto Streets, were erected by himself and other
+enterprising tradesmen. Merchants of all ranks lived over their shops in
+those times, and very handsome residences these buildings made.
+
+In 1834, Mr. Dixon was elected alderman for St. Lawrence Ward, which
+position he continued to hold against all assailants, up to the end of
+1850. He was also a justice of the peace, and did good service in that
+capacity. In the City Council no man was more useful and industrious in
+all good works, and none exercised greater influence over its
+deliberations.
+
+When the troubles of 1837 began, Alderman Dixon threw all his energies
+into the cause of loyalty, and took so active a part in support of Sir
+F. B. Head's policy, that his advice was on most occasions sought by the
+Lieutenant-Governor, and frequently acted upon. Many communications on
+the burning questions of the day passed between them. This continued
+throughout the rule of Sir George Arthur, and until the arrival of the
+Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, who cared little for the opinions of
+other men, however well qualified to advise and inform. Mr. Dixon was
+too independent and too incorruptible a patriot for that accomplished
+politician.
+
+Few men in Toronto have done more for the beautifying of our city. The
+Adelaide Buildings on King Street were long the handsomest, as they were
+the best built, of their class. His house, at the corner of Jarvis and
+Gerrard Streets, set an example for our finest private residences. The
+St. Lawrence Hall, which is considered by visitors a great ornament to
+the city, was erected from plans suggested by him. And among religious
+edifices, Trinity Church and St. James's Cathedral are indebted to him,
+the former mainly and the latter in part, for their complete adaptation
+in style and convenience, to the services of the Church to which he
+belonged and which he highly venerated. To Trinity Church, especially,
+which was finished and opened for divine service on February 14th, 1844,
+he gave himself up with the most unflagging zeal and watchfulness,
+examining the plans in the minutest details, supervising the work as it
+progressed, almost counting the bricks and measuring the stonework, with
+the eye of a father watching his infant's first footsteps. In fact, he
+was popularly styled "the father and founder of Trinity Church," a
+designation which was justly recognised by Bishop Strachan in his
+dedication sermon.[13]
+
+As a friend, I had something to say respecting most of his building
+plans, and fully sympathized with the objects he had in view; one of the
+fruits of my appreciation was the following poem, which, although of
+little merit in itself, is perhaps worth preserving as a record of
+honourable deeds and well employed talents:
+
+
+  THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH.
+
+  Wake, harp of Zion, silent long,
+    Nor voiceless and unheard be thou
+  While meetest theme of sacred song
+    Awaits thy chorded numbers now!
+
+  Too seldom, 'mid the sounds of strife
+    That rudely ring unwelcome here,
+  Thy music soothes this fever'd life
+    With breathings from a holier sphere.
+
+  The warrior, wading deep in crime,
+    Desertless, lives in poets' lays;
+  The statesman wants not stirring rhyme
+    To cheer the chequer'd part he plays:
+
+  And Zion's harp, to whom alone,
+    Soft-echoing, higher themes belong,
+  Oh lend thy sweet aerial tone--
+    'Tis meek-eyed Virtue claims the song.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Beyond the limits of the town
+    A summer's ramble, may be seen
+  A scattered suburb, newly grown,
+    Rude huts, and ruder fields between.
+
+  Life's luxuries abound not there,
+    Labour and hardship share the spot;
+  Hope wrestles hard with frowning care,
+    And lesser wants are heeded not.
+
+  Religion was neglected too--
+    'Twas far to town--the poor are proud--
+  They could not boast a garb as new,
+    And shunn'd to join the well-drest crowd.
+
+  No country church adorned the scene,
+    In modest beauty smiling fair,
+  Of mien so peaceful and serene,
+    The poor man feels his home is there.
+
+  Oh England! with thy village chimes,
+    Thy church-wed hamlets, scattered wide,
+  The emigrant to other climes
+    Remembers thee with grateful pride;
+
+  And owns that once at home again,
+    With fonder love his heart would bless
+  Each humble, lowly, haloëd fane
+    That sanctifies thy loveliness.
+
+  But here, alas! the heart was wrung
+    To see so wan, so drear a waste--
+  Life's thorns and briars rankly sprung,
+    And peace and love, its flowers, displaced.
+
+  And weary seasons pass'd away,
+    As time's fast ebbing tide roll'd by,
+  To thousands rose no Sabbath-day,
+    They lived--to suffer--sin--and die!
+
+  Then men of Christian spirit came,
+    They saw the mournful scene with grief;
+  To such it e'er hath been the same
+    To know distress and give relief.
+
+  They told the tale, nor vainly told--
+    They won assistance far and wide;
+  His heart were dull indeed and cold
+    Who such petitioner denied.
+
+  They chose a slightly rising hill
+    That bordered closely on the road,
+  And workmen brought of care and skill,
+    And wains with many a cumbrous load.
+
+  With holy prayer and chanted hymn
+    The task was sped upon its way;
+  And hearts beat high and eyes were dim
+    To see so glad a sight that day.
+
+  And slowly as the work ascends,
+    In just proportions strong and fair,
+  How watchfully its early friends
+    With zealous ardour linger near.
+
+  'Tis finished now--a Gothic pile,
+    --Brave handiwork of faith and love--
+  In England's ancient hallowed style,
+    That pointeth aye, like hope, above:
+
+  With stately tower and turret high,
+    And quaint-arch'd door, and buttress'd wall,
+  And window stain'd of various dye,
+    And antique moulding over all.
+
+  And hark! the Sabbath-going bell!
+    A solemn tale it peals abroad--
+  To all around its echoes tell
+    "This building is the house of God!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Say, Churchman! doth no still, small voice
+    Within you whisper--"while 'tis day
+  Go bid the desert place rejoice!"
+    Your Saviour's high behest obey:
+
+  "Say not your pow'rs are scant and weak,
+    What hath been done, may be anew;
+  He addeth strength to all who seek
+    To serve Him with affection true."
+
+Alderman Dixon was not only a thorough-going and free-handed Churchman,
+but was very popular with the ministers and pastors of other religious
+denominations. The heads of the Methodist Church, and even the higher
+Roman Catholic clergy of Toronto, frequently sought his advice and
+assistance to smooth down asperities and reconcile feuds. He was every
+man's friend, and had no enemies of whom I ever heard. He wrote with
+facility, and argued with skill and readiness. His memory was
+exceedingly retentive; he knew and could repeat page after page from
+Dryden's "Virgil" and Pope's "Homer." Any allusion to them would draw
+from him forty or fifty lines in connection with its subject. Mickle's
+"Lusiad" he knew equally well, and was fond of reciting its most
+beautiful descriptions of scenery and places in South Africa and India.
+He was an enthusiastic book-collector, and left a valuable library,
+containing many very rare and curious books he had brought from Dublin,
+and to which he made several additions. It is now in the possession of
+his eldest son, Archdeacon Dixon, of Guelph.
+
+With the Orange body, Alderman Dixon exercised considerable influence,
+which he always exerted in favour of a Christian regard for the rights
+and feelings of those who differed from them. On one occasion, and only
+one, I remember his suffering some indignity at their hands. He and
+others had exerted themselves to induce the Orangemen to waive their
+annual procession, and had succeeded so far as the city lodges were
+concerned. But the country lodges would not forego their cherished
+rights, and on "the 12th"--I forget the year--entered Toronto from the
+west in imposing numbers. At the request of the other magistrates,
+Alderman Dixon and, I think, the late Mayor Gurnett, met the procession
+opposite Osgoode Hall, and remonstrated with the leaders for
+disregarding the wishes of the City Council and the example of their
+city brethren. His eloquence, however, was of no avail, and he and his
+colleague were rudely thrust aside.
+
+As president of the St. Patrick's Society, he did much to preserve
+unanimity in that body, which then embraced Irishmen of all creeds among
+its members. His speeches at its annual dinners were greatly admired for
+their ability and liberality; and it was a favourite theme of his, that
+the three nationalities--Irish, Scotch and English--together formed an
+invincible combination; while if unhappily separated, they might have to
+succumb to inferior races. He concluded his argument on one occasion by
+quoting Scott's striking lines on the Battle of Waterloo:--
+
+  "Yes--Agincourt may be forgot,
+  And Cressy be an unknown spot,
+    And Blenheim's name be new:
+  But still in glory and in song,
+  For many an age remembered long,
+  Shall live the tow'rs of Hougoumont
+    And Field of Waterloo."
+
+The peals of applause and rapture with which these patriotic sentiments
+were received, will not easily be forgotten by his hearers.
+
+Nor were his literary acquirements limited to such subjects. The works
+of Jeremy Taylor and the other great divines of the Stewart period, he
+was very familiar with, and esteemed highly. He was also a great
+authority in Irish history and antiquities; enquiries often came to him
+from persons in the United States and elsewhere, respecting disputed and
+doubtful questions, which he was generally competent to solve.
+
+Mr. Dixon was long an active member of the committee of the Church
+Society; and the first delegate of St. James's Church to the first
+Diocesan Synod. In these and all other good works, he was untiring and
+disinterested. Whenever there was any gathering of clergy he received as
+many as possible in his house, treating them with warm-hearted
+hospitality.
+
+Mr. Dixon died in the year 1855, leaving a large family of sons and
+daughters, of whom several have acquired distinction in various ways.
+His eldest son, Alexander, graduated in King's College, at the time when
+Adam Crooks, Judge Boyd, Christopher Robinson, Judge Kingsmill, D.
+McMichael, the Rev. W. Stennett, and others well known in public life,
+were connected with that university. Mr. Dixon was university prizeman
+in History and Belles-Lettres in his third year; took the prize for
+English oration; and wrote the prize poem two years in succession. He is
+now Rector of Guelph, and Archdeacon of the northern half of the Niagara
+diocese. He was also one of the contributors to the "Maple Leaf."
+
+William, second son of Alderman Dixon, was Dominion Emigration Agent in
+London, England, where he died in 1873. Concerning him, the Hon. J. H.
+Pope, Minister of Agriculture, stated that he "was the most correct and
+conscientious administrator he had ever met." He said further in
+Parliament:--
+
+    "The Premier had gone so far as to state that the present Agent
+    General was a person of wonderful ability, and had done more
+    than his predecessors to promote emigration to Canada. He (Mr.
+    Pope) regretted more than he could express the death of Mr.
+    Dixon, the late agent. He was held in high esteem both here and
+    in the old country, and was a gentleman who never identified
+    himself with any political party, but fairly and honestly
+    represented Canada."
+
+Another son, Major Fred. E. Dixon, is well known in connection with the
+Queen's Own, of Toronto.
+
+[Footnote 12: Father of the lamented Lieut.-Col. A. R. Dunn, who won the
+Victoria Cross at Balaklava, and died as is believed, by the accidental
+discharge of a gun in Abyssinia.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The Building Committee of Trinity Church comprised,
+besides Alderman Dixon, Messrs. William Gooderham, Enoch Turner, and
+Joseph Shuter, all since deceased.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  MORE TORIES OF REBELLION TIMES.
+
+  EDWARD G. O'BRIEN.
+
+
+My first introduction to this gentleman was on the day after I landed at
+Barrie, in 1833. He was then living at his log cottage at Shanty Bay, an
+indentation of the shore near the mouth of Kempenfeldt Bay, at the
+south-west angle of Lake Simcoe. I was struck with the comparative
+elegance pervading so primitive an establishment. Its owner was
+evidently a thorough gentleman, his wife an accomplished lady, and their
+children well taught and courteous. The surrounding scenery was
+picturesque and delightful. The broad expanse of the bay opening out to
+Lake Simcoe--the graceful sweep of the natural foliage sloping down from
+high banks to the water's edge--are impressed vividly upon my memory,
+even at this long interval of fifty years. It seemed to me a perfect gem
+of civilization, set in the wildest of natural surroundings.
+
+I was a commissioner of the Court of Requests at Barrie, along with Col.
+O'Brien, in 1834, and in that capacity had constant opportunities of
+meeting and appreciating him. He had seen service as midshipman in the
+Royal Navy, as well as in the Army; was an expert yachtsman of course;
+and had ample opportunities of indulging his predilection for the water,
+on the fine bay fronting his house. At that time it was no unusual thing
+in winter, to see wolves chasing deer over the thick ice of the bay. On
+one occasion, being laid up with illness, the Captain was holding a
+magistrate's court in his dining-room overlooking the bay. In front of
+the house was a wide lawn, and beyond it a sunken fence, not visible
+from the house. The case under consideration was probably some riotous
+quarrel among the inhabitants of a coloured settlement near at hand, who
+were constantly at loggerheads with each other or with their white
+neighbours. In the midst of the proceedings, the Captain happened to
+catch sight of a noble stag dashing across the ice, pursued by several
+wolves. He beckoned a relative who assisted on the farm, and whispered
+to him to get out the dogs. A few seconds afterwards the baying of the
+hounds was heard. The unruly suitors caught the sound, rushed to the
+window and door, then out to the grounds, plaintiff, defendant,
+constables and all, helter skelter, until they reached the sunken fence,
+deeply buried in snow, over which they tumbled _en masse_, amid a chorus
+of mingled shouts and objurgations that baffles description. Whether the
+hearing of the case was resumed that day or not, I cannot say, but it
+seems doubtful.
+
+His naval and military experience naturally showed itself in Colonel
+O'Brien's general bearing; he possessed the polished manners and
+high-bred courtesy of some old Spanish hidalgo, together with a
+sufficient share of corresponding hauteur when displeased. The first
+whispers of the Rebellion of 1837, brought him to the front. He called
+together his loyal neighbours, who responded so promptly that not a
+single able-bodied man was left in the locality; only women and
+children, and two or three male invalids, staying behind. With his men
+he marched for Toronto; but, when at Bond Head, received orders from the
+Lieutenant-Governor to remain there, and take charge of the district,
+which had been the head quarters of disaffection. When quiet was
+restored, he returned to Shanty Bay, and resided there for several
+years; occupying the position of chairman of the Quarter Sessions for
+the Simcoe District. After the erection of the County of Simcoe into a
+municipality, he removed with his family to Toronto, where he entered
+into business as a land agent; was instrumental in forming a company to
+construct a railroad to Lake Huron _via_ Sarnia, of which he acted as
+secretary; afterwards organized and became manager of the Provincial
+Insurance Company, which position he occupied until 1857.
+
+In the year 1840, died Mr. Thos. Dalton, proprietor and editor of the
+_Toronto Patriot_ newspaper; the paper was continued by his widow until
+1848, when Col. O'Brien, through my agency, became proprietor of that
+journal, which I engaged to manage for him. The editor was his brother,
+Dr. Lucius O'Brien, a highly educated and talented, but not popular,
+writer. Col. O'Brien's motive in purchasing the paper was solely
+patriotic, and he was anxiously desirous that its columns should be
+closed to everything that was not strictly--even
+quixotically--chivalrous. His sensitiveness on this score finally led to
+a difference of opinion between the brothers, which ended in Dr.
+O'Brien's retirement.
+
+At that time, as a matter of course, the _Patriot_ and the _Globe_ were
+politically antagonistic. The _Colonist_, then conducted by Hugh Scobie,
+represented the Scottish Conservatives in politics, and the Kirk of
+Scotland in religious matters. Therefore, it often happened, that the
+_Patriot_ and _Colonist_ were allied together against the _Globe_; while
+at other times, the _Patriot_ stood alone in its support of the English
+Church, and had to meet the assaults of the other two journals--a
+triangular duel, in fact. A spiteful correspondent of the _Colonist_ had
+raked up some old Edinburgh slanders affecting the personal reputation
+of Mr. Peter Brown, father of George Brown, and joint publisher of the
+_Globe_. Those slanders were quoted editorially in the _Patriot_,
+without my knowledge until I saw them in print on the morning of
+publication. I at once expressed my entire disapproval of their
+insertion; and Col. O'Brien took the matter so much to heart, that,
+without letting me know his decision, he removed his brother from the
+editorship, and placed it temporarily in my hands. My first editorial
+act was, by Col. O'Brien's desire, to disavow the offensive allusions,
+and to apologize personally to Mr. Peter Brown therefor. This led to a
+friendly feeling between the latter gentleman and myself, which
+continued during his lifetime.
+
+On the 25th of May, 1849, the great fire occurred in Toronto, which
+consumed the _Patriot_ office, as well as the cathedral and many other
+buildings. Soon afterwards Col. O'Brien sold his interest in the
+_Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan.
+
+I have been favoured with the perusal of some "jottings" in the
+Colonel's own hand-writing, from which I make an extract, describing his
+first experience of the service at the age of fourteen, as midshipman on
+board H. M. 36 gun Frigate _Doris_, commanded by his father's cousin,
+Capt. (afterwards Admiral) Robert O'Brien:
+
+    "The _Doris_ joined the outward-bound fleet at Portsmouth, where
+    about 1700 vessels of all sizes, from first-class Indiamen of
+    1400 tons to small fruit-carriers from the Mediterranean of 60
+    tons, were assembled for convoy. At first, and along the more
+    dangerous parts of the Channel from privateers, the convoy
+    continued to be a large one, including especially many of the
+    smaller men-of-war, but among them were two or three
+    line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates under orders for the
+    Mediterranean. The whole formed a magnificent sight, not often
+    seen. After a while the outsiders dropped off, some to one
+    place, some to another, one large section being the North
+    American trade, another the Mediterranean, until the _Doris_ was
+    left commodore of the main body, being the West Indiamen, South
+    American traders, and Cape and East Indiamen, and a stately
+    fleet it was. With the _Doris_ was the _Salsette_, a frigate of
+    the same class, and some smaller craft. This convoy, though
+    small apparently for such a fleet in that very active war, was
+    materially strengthened by the heavy armaments of the regular
+    traders in the East India Company's service in the China trade,
+    of which there were twelve, I think. These ships were arranged
+    in two lines, between which all the others were directed to keep
+    their course; the _Doris_ leading in the centre between the two
+    lines of Chinamen, and the _Salsette_ bringing up the rear,
+    while two or three sloops of war hovered about. My berth on
+    board the _Doris_ was that of signal midshipman, which was
+    simply to keep an eye on every individual craft in the
+    fleet. . . . . On reaching the Canaries, the fleet came to an anchor
+    in Santa Cruz roads, at the island of Teneriffe, for the purpose of
+    filling up water, and enabling the Indiamen to lay in a stock of
+    wine for the round voyage. The _Doris_ and larger ships outside,
+    and the _Salsette_ and smaller ones closer in, and an uncommon
+    tight pack it was. The proper landing place, and only place
+    indeed where casks could be conveniently shipped, was the mole,
+    a long, narrow, high pier or wharf, with a flight of stairs or
+    steps to the water. This was generally one jam from end to end,
+    as well on the pier as on the water, crowded above by casks of
+    all sizes, wine and water, every spare foot or interstice
+    between the casks crammed with idle, lazy, loafing Portuguese,
+    the scum and chief part of the population of the town, assembled
+    there certainly not to work, but amazingly active and busy in
+    looking on, swearing, directing and scolding--terribly in the
+    seamen's way, and by them very unceremoniously kicked and flung
+    aside and into the next man's path. Sometimes there was a
+    scuffle, and then a rare scrimmage caused by a party of soldiers
+    from the mole rushing in to keep the peace. They were
+    immediately pitched into by the blue jackets, who instead of
+    rolling their casks towards their boats, tacked as they called
+    it, and sent the barrels flying among the soldiers' legs. More
+    than one cask of wine in this manner went the wrong way over the
+    pier, down among the boats below, where there was, in its own
+    way, much the same state of confusion, with a good deal more
+    danger. Ships' boats, from the jolly-boat manned by lads,
+    hurried ashore to seek stray pursers' clerks with their small
+    plunder, or stewards and servants with bundles of washed
+    clothing--to the heavy launch loaded with water casks pushing
+    out or striving to get in--each boat's crew utterly reckless,
+    and under no control, intent only on breaking their own way in
+    or out, so that it was marvellous how any escaped damage. And
+    the thing reached its climax, when at daylight on the last day,
+    the signal was made to prepare to weigh anchor. I had been
+    ashore the day before, with a strong working party and three of
+    the frigate's boats, under the command of one of the
+    lieutenants, assisting the Indiamen in getting off their wine
+    and water; and so, when sent this morning on the same duty, I
+    was somewhat up to the work. I had therefore put on my worst
+    clothes; all I wanted was to have my midshipman's jacket as
+    conspicuous as possible, having discovered in the previous day's
+    experience the value of the authority of discipline. Our work
+    this day was also increased by the sure precursor of bad
+    weather, a rising sea; and as the town is situated on an open
+    roadstead, the surf on the beach, which, though always more or
+    less an obstruction, had been hitherto passable, was now
+    insurmountable; all traffic had to be crowded over the pier,
+    including late passengers, men and women, and more than one
+    bunch of children, with all the odds and ends of
+    clothes-baskets, marketing, curiosities, &c., &c. What a scene!
+    We naval mids found ourselves suddenly raised to great
+    importance; and towards noon I became a very great man indeed.
+    The _Doris_ being outside, she was of course the first under
+    weigh, and around her were the larger Indiamen, also getting
+    under sail--the commodore constantly enforcing his signals by
+    heavy firing. But big as these ships were, and notwithstanding
+    their superior discipline, they had nearly as many laggards as
+    the smaller fry. . . . All the forenoon the weather had been
+    getting more and more threatening, and the breeze and sea rose
+    together. About 11 o'clock a.m. we all knew that we were in for
+    something in the shape of a gale, and the _Doris_ made signal
+    for her boats and the working party to return to the ship; and
+    soon after, for the _Salsette_ and the inshore ships to get
+    under weigh. Our lieutenant, however, seeing the state of things
+    ashore, directed me to remain with one of the cutters and three
+    or four spare hands; and if the frigate should be blown off
+    during the night, to get on board a particular vessel--a fast
+    sailing South Sea whaler, that had acted as tender to the
+    frigate, and whose master promised to look after us, as well as
+    any others of the _Doris's_ people who might still be on shore.
+    Thus I was left in sole command, as the _Salsette_ had also
+    recalled her boats and working parties. Although she would send
+    no help ashore, she remained still at anchor. Capt. Bowen, her
+    commander, contenting himself with sheeting home his top-sails,
+    and repeating the commodore's signal to the inshore ships. We
+    afterwards found out the secret of all this. Bowen disliked the
+    idea of playing second fiddle, and wanted to be commodore
+    himself, and this was a beautiful opportunity to divide the
+    fleet. But as matters got worse, and difficulties increased, we
+    succeeded in getting them more under control. The crowd, both of
+    casks and live stock on the wharf, and of boats beneath,
+    gradually diminished. The merchant seamen, and especially the
+    crews of the larger boats of the Indiamen, worked manfully. The
+    smaller boats were taken outside, and regular gangs formed to
+    pass all small parcels, and especially women and children
+    passengers, across the inner heavy tier to them. This, the
+    moment the seamen caught the idea, became great fun; and a
+    rousing cheer was raised when a fat, jolly steward's wife was
+    regularly parbuckled over the side of the pier, and passed,
+    decently and decorously (on her back, she dare not kick for fear
+    of showing her legs) like a bale of goods, from hand to hand, or
+    rather from arms to arms, to a light gig outside all. This being
+    successfully achieved, I turned to a party of passengers
+    standing by, and who, though anxious themselves, could not help
+    laughing, and proposed to pass them out in the same manner;
+    making the first offer to a comely nurse-maid of the party. I
+    was very near getting my ears boxed for my kindness and
+    courtesy, so I turned to the mistress instead, who however
+    contented herself by quietly enquiring whether there was no
+    other way; of course another way was soon found; a few chairs
+    were got, which were soon rigged by the seamen, by means of
+    which, first the children, and then their elders, men and women,
+    were easily passed down to the boats below, and from thence to
+    the boat waiting safely outside. In all this work I was not only
+    supported in authority by the different ships' officers and
+    mates superintending their own immediate concerns, but also by a
+    number of gentlemen, merchants and others, most of whom came
+    down to the pier to see and assist their friends among the
+    passengers safe off. By their help also I was enabled, not
+    knowing a word of their language myself, to get material help
+    from the Portuguese standing by; and also got the officer in
+    command of the guard at the mole-head, to clear the pier of all
+    useless hands, and place sentries here and there over stray
+    packages, put down while the owners sought their own proper
+    boats among the crowd. And so at length our work was fairly
+    pushed through, and though late, I managed to get my party safe
+    aboard our friend the whaler, who had kept his signal lights
+    burning for us. Long before, the _Doris_ had bore up, and under
+    bare poles had drifted with a large portion of the fleet to the
+    southward; and I saw no more of her, until some months
+    afterwards I joined her in Macao Roads."
+
+This was in the year 1814; soon afterwards the peace with America put an
+end to our midshipman's prospects of advancement in the navy, to his
+great and life-long regret. He obtained a commission in the Scots Greys,
+and exchanged into the 58th Regiment, then under orders for service in
+the West Indies, where his health failed him, and he was compelled to
+retire on half-pay. But his love for the sea soon induced him to enter
+the merchant service, in which he made many voyages to the East. This
+also, a severe illness obliged him to resign, and to abandon the sea for
+ever. He then came to Canada, to seek his fortune in the backwoods,
+where I found him in 1833.
+
+Mr. O'Brien's relations with his neighbours in the backwoods were always
+kindly, and gratifying to both parties. One evening, some friends of his
+heard voices on the water, as a boat rowed past his grounds. One man
+asked "Who lives here?" "Mr. O'Brien," was the reply. "What is he like?"
+"He's a regular old tory." "Oh then, I suppose he's very proud and
+distant?" But that he was either proud or distant, his neighbour would
+not allow, and other voices joined in describing him as the freest and
+kindest of men--still they all agreed that he was a "regular old tory."
+The colonel was the last man in the world to object to such an epithet,
+but those who used it meant probably to describe his sturdy,
+uncompromising principles, and manly independence. A more utterly
+guileless, single-hearted man never breathed. Warm and tender-hearted,
+humble-minded and forgiving, he deplored his hastiness of temper, which
+was, indeed, due to nervous irritability, the result of severe illness
+coupled with heavy mental strain when young, from the effects of which
+he never entirely recovered. He was incapable of a mean thought or
+dishonourable deed, and never fully realized that there could be others
+who were unlike him in this respect. Hence, during the long course of
+his happy and useful, but not wholly prosperous life, he met each such
+lapse from his own high standard of honour with the same indignant
+surprise and pain. His habitual reverent-mindedness led him to respect
+men of all shades of thought and feeling, while to sympathize with
+sorrow and suffering was as natural to him as the air he breathed.
+
+A neighbour who had had a sudden, sharp attack of illness, meeting one
+of the colonel's family, said very simply, "I knew you had not heard
+that I was ill, for Mr. O'Brien has not been to see me; but please tell
+him I shall not be about for some time." The man looked upon it as a
+matter of course that his old friend the colonel would have gone to see
+him if informed of his illness.
+
+And if Mr. O'Brien's friends and neighbours have kindly recollections of
+him and of his family, these latter on their part are never tired of
+recalling unvarying friendliness and countless acts of kindness from all
+their neighbours.
+
+Before leaving this subject, it may be appropriately added that Mrs.
+O'Brien (his wife) was his guardian angel--a mother in Israel--the nurse
+of the sick, the comforter of the miserable; wise, discreet, loving,
+patient, adored by children, the embodiment of unselfishness. To her
+Toronto was indebted for its first ragged school.
+
+A few years before the colonel's death, his foreman on the farm, living
+at the lodge, had five children, of whom three died there of diphtheria.
+Mrs. O'Brien brought the remainder to her own house--"The Woods,"--to
+try and save them, the parents being broken-hearted and helpless. It is
+said to have been a touching spectacle to see the old Colonel carrying
+about one poor dying child to soothe it, while Mrs. O'Brien nursed the
+other. Of these two, one died and the other recovered.
+
+The selfish are--happily--forgotten. The unselfish, never. Their memory
+lives in Shanty Bay as a sweet odour that never seems to pass away. It
+is still a frequent suggestion, "what would Mrs. O'Brien or the Colonel
+have done under the circumstances."
+
+In his declining years, failing health, and disease contracted in India,
+dimmed the cheerfulness of Mr. O'Brien's nature. But none so
+chivalrously anxious to repair an unintentional injury or a hasty word.
+
+He and his wife lie side by side in the burial ground of the church he
+was mainly instrumental in building. Over them is a simple monument in
+shape of an Irish cross--on it these words:--
+
+    "In loving remembrance of Edward George O'Brien, who died
+    September 8, 1875, age 76: and of Mary Sophia his wife, who died
+    October 14, 1876, age 78: This stone is raised by their
+    children. He, having served his country by sea and land, became
+    A.D. 1830 the founder of the settlement and mission of Shanty
+    Bay. She was a true wife and zealous in all good works. Faithful
+    servants, they rest in hope."
+
+
+  JOHN W. GAMBLE.
+
+"Squire Gamble"--the name by which this gentleman was familiarly known
+throughout the County of York--was born at the Old Fort in Toronto, in
+1799. His father, Dr. John Gamble, was stationed there as resident
+surgeon to the garrison. The family afterwards removed to Kingston,
+where the boy received his education. It was characteristic of him, that
+when about to travel to York, at the age of fifteen, to enter the store
+of the late Hon. Wm. Allan, he chose to make the journey in a canoe, in
+which he coasted along by day, and by night camped on shore. In course
+of time, he entered extensively into the business of a miller and
+country merchant, in which he continued all his life with some
+intervals.
+
+In manner and appearance Mr. Gamble was a fine specimen of a country
+magistrate of half a century ago. While the rougher sort of farming men
+looked up to him with very salutary apprehension, as a stern represser
+of vice and evil doing, they and everybody else did justice to his
+innate kindness of heart, and his generosity towards the poor and
+suffering. He was, in the best sense of the phrase, a popular man. His
+neighbours knew that in every good work, either in the way of personal
+enterprise, in the promotion of religious and educational objects, or in
+the furtherance of the general welfare, Squire Gamble was sure to be in
+the foremost place. His farm was a model to all others; his fields were
+better cleared; his fences better kept; his homestead was just
+perfection, both in point of orderly management and in an intellectual
+sense--at least, such was the opinion of his country neighbours, and
+they were not very far astray. Add to these merits, a tall manly form,
+an eagle eye, and a commanding mien, and you have a pretty fair picture
+of Squire Gamble.
+
+As a member of parliament, to which he was three times elected by
+considerable majorities, Mr. Gamble was hard-working and independent. He
+supported good measures, from whichever side of the House they might
+originate, and his vote was always safe for progressive reforms. His
+toryism was limited entirely to questions of a constitutional character,
+particularly such as involved loyalty to the throne and the Empire. And
+in this, Mr. Gamble was a fair representative of his class. And here I
+venture to assert, that more narrowness of political views, more
+rigidity of theological dogma, more absolutism in a party sense, has
+been exhibited in Canada by men of the Puritan school calling themselves
+Reformers, than by those who are styled Tories.
+
+Perhaps the most important act of Mr. Gamble's political life, was the
+part he took in the organization of the British American League in 1849.
+Into that movement he threw all his energies, and the ultimate
+realization of its views affords the best proof of the correctness of
+his judgment and foresight. About it, however, I shall have more to say
+in another chapter.
+
+Mr. Gamble, as I have said, was foremost in all public improvements. To
+his exertions are chiefly due the opening and construction of the
+Vaughan plank road, from near Weston, by St. Andrew's, to Woodbridge,
+Pine Grove, and Kleinburg; which gave an easy outlet to a large tract of
+country to the north-west of Toronto, and enabled the farmers to reach
+our market to their and our great mutual advantage.
+
+He was a man who made warm friends and active enemies, being very
+outspoken in the expression of his opinions and feelings. But even his
+strongest political foes came to him in full confidence that they were
+certain to get justice at his hands. And occasionally his friends found
+out, that no inducement of personal regard could warp his judgment in
+any matter affecting the rights of other men. In this way he made some
+bitter adversaries on his own side of politics.
+
+Among Mr. Gamble's public acts was the erection of the church at Mimico,
+and that at Pine Grove; in aid of which he was the chief promoter,
+giving freely both time and means to their completion. For years he
+acted as lay-reader at one or other of those churches, travelling some
+distance in all weathers to do so. His whole life, indeed, was spent in
+benefiting his neighbours in all possible ways.
+
+He died in December, 1873, and was buried at Woodbridge.
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+  A CHOICE OF A CHURCH.
+
+
+I have mentioned that I was educated as a Swedenborgian, or rather a
+member of the New Jerusalem Church, as the followers of Emanuel
+Swedenborg prefer to be called. As a boy, I was well read in his works,
+and was prepared to tilt with all comers in his cause. But I grew less
+confident as I became more conversant with the world and with general
+literature. At the age of fifteen I was nominated a Sunday-school
+teacher in a small Swedenborgian chapel in the Waterloo road, and
+declined to act because the school was established with the object of
+converting from the religion of their parents the children of poor Roman
+Catholic families in that neighbourhood, which I thought an insidious,
+and therefore an evil mode of disseminating religious doctrine. Of
+course, this was a sufficiently conceited proceeding on the part of so
+young a theologian. But the same feeling has grown up with me in after
+life. I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength
+in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the
+Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better
+utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect,
+the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the
+teachings of the Gospel of Christ.
+
+It will, perhaps, surprise some of my readers to hear that Swedenborg
+never contemplated the founding of a sect. He was a civil engineer, high
+in rank at the Swedish court, and was ennobled for the marvellous feat
+of transporting the Swedish fleet from sea to sea, across the kingdom
+and over a formidable chain of mountains. He was also what would now be
+called an eminent scientist, ranking with Buffon, Humboldt, Kant,
+Herschel, and others of the first men of his day in Europe, and even
+surpassing them all in the extent and variety of his philosophical
+researches. His "Animal Kingdom" and "Physical Sciences" are wonderful
+efforts of the human mind, and still maintain a high reputation as
+scientific works.
+
+At length Swedenborg conceived the idea that he enjoyed supernatural
+privileges--that he had communings with angels and archangels--that he
+was permitted to enter the spiritual world, and to record what he there
+saw and heard. Nay, even to approach our Saviour himself, in His
+character of the Triune God, or sole impersonation of the Divine
+Trinity. Unlike Mahomet and most other pretenders to inspired missions,
+Swedenborg never sought for power, honour or applause. He was to the day
+of his death a quiet gentleman of the old school, unassuming, courteous,
+and a good man in every sense of the word.
+
+I remember that one of my first objections to the writings of
+Swedenborg, was on account of his declaring the Church of France to be
+the most spiritual of all the churches on earth; which dogma immensely
+offended my youthful English pride. His first "readers" were members of
+various churches--clergymen of the Church of England, professors in
+universities, literary students, followers of Wesley, and generally
+devout men and women of all denominations. In time they began to
+assemble together for "reading meetings;" and so at length grew into a
+sect--a designation, by the way, which they still stoutly repudiate. I
+remember one clergyman, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of a church in
+Manchester, who applied to the Bishop of Lichfield for leave to read and
+teach from the works of Swedenborg, and was permitted to do so on
+account of their entirely harmless character.
+
+When still young, I noticed with astonishment, that the transcendental
+virtues which Swedenborg inculcated were very feebly evidenced in the
+lives of his followers; that they were not by any means free from pride,
+ostentation, even peculation and the ordinary trickery of trade--in
+fact, that they were no better than their fellow-Christians generally.
+When I came to Toronto, I of course mixed with all sorts of people, and
+found examples of thoroughly consistent Christian life amongst all the
+various denominations--Roman Catholics, English Churchmen, Methodists,
+Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and many others--which
+taught me the lesson, that it is not a man's formal creed that is of
+importance, so much as his personal sincerity as a follower of Christ's
+teachings and example.
+
+I was at the same time forcibly impressed with another leading
+idea--that no where in the Scriptures have we any instance of a
+divinely regulated government, in which the worship of God did not
+occupy a chief place. I thought--I still think--that the same beneficent
+principle which makes Christianity a part of the common law of England,
+and of all her colonies, including the United States, should extend to
+the religious instruction of every soul in the community, gentle or
+simple, and more especially to what are called the off-scourings of
+society.
+
+Looking around me, I saw that of all the churches within my purview, the
+Church of England most completely met my ideal--that she was the Church
+by law established in my motherland--that she allowed the utmost
+latitude to individual opinion--in fine, that she held the Bible wide
+open to all her children, and did her best to extend its knowledge to
+all mankind. Had I been a native of Scotland, upon the same reasoning I
+must have become a Presbyterian, or a Lutheran in Holland or Germany, or
+a Roman Catholic in France or Spain. But that contingency did not then
+present itself to me.
+
+So I entered the Church of England; was confirmed by Bishop Strachan, at
+St. James's Cathedral, in the year 1839, if I remember rightly, and have
+never since, for one instant, doubted the soundness of my conclusions.
+
+On this occasion, as on many others, my emotions shaped themselves in a
+poetical form. The two following pieces were written for the _Church_
+newspaper, of which I was then the printer, in partnership with the
+Messrs. Rowsell:--
+
+
+  HYMN FOR EASTER.
+
+  "CHRIST IS RISEN."[14]
+
+    "Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
+    them that slept. "For since by man came death; by man came also
+    the resurrection of the dead. "For as in Adam all die; even so
+    in Christ shall all be made alive."
+
+  Christ is risen! Jesu lives;
+    He lives His faithful ones to bless;
+  The grave to life its victim gives--
+    Our grief is changed to joyfulness.
+
+  The sleeping Saints, whom Israel slew,
+    Waking, shall list the joyful sound;
+  He--their first fruits--doth live anew,
+    Hell hath a mighty conqueror found.
+
+  Paschal offering! spotless Lamb!
+    For us was heard thy plaintive cry;
+  For us, in agony and shame,
+    Thy blood's sweet incense soar'd on high.
+
+  By erring man came woe--the grave--
+    The ground accurs'd--the blighted tree--
+  Jesus, as man, for ransom gave
+    Himself, from death to set us free.
+
+  Christ is risen! saints, rejoice!
+    Your hymns of praise enraptured pour--
+  Ye heavenly angels, lend your voice--
+    Jesus shall reign for evermore!
+                           Hallelujah! Amen.
+
+
+
+  THE SINNER'S COMPLAINT AND CONSOLATION.
+
+        Oh for a conscience free from sin!
+        Oh for a breast all pure within--
+        A soul that, seraph winged, might fly
+        'Mid heav'n's full blaze unshrinkingly,
+        And bask in rays of wisdom, bright
+        From His own throne of life and light.
+
+  Peace, pining spirit! know'st thou not that Jesus died for thee--
+  For thee alone His last sigh breathed upon th' accursed tree;
+  For thee His Omnipresence chain'd within a mortal "clod"--
+  And bore _thy_ guilt, to be as well thy Saviour as thy God:
+  Aye, suffered anguish more--far more--than thou canst e'en conceive,
+  _Thy_ sins to cleanse--_thy_ self-earnt condemnation to relieve.
+
+        And did He suffer so for me?
+        Did HE endure upon the tree
+        A living death--a mortal's woe,
+        With pangs that mortals _cannot_ know!
+        Oh triumph won most wofully!
+        My SAVIOUR died for me--for _me_!
+
+  And have I basely wish'd to make this wondrous off'ring vain;
+  Shall love so vast, be unrepaid by grateful love again?
+  Oh! true affection never chafes at obligation's chain,
+  But hugs with joy the gracious yoke whose guidance is its gain;
+  And such the Saviour's ardent love--His suff'ring patience--these
+  Most unlike human bonds, are cancell'd by their own increase.
+
+        Rejoice, my soul! though sin be thine,
+        Thy refuge seek in grace divine:
+        And mark His Word--more joy shall be
+        In heav'n for sinners such as thee
+        Repenting, than can e'er be shown
+        For scores whom guilt hath never known.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+In explanation of my having become, in 1840, printer of the _Church_
+newspaper, I must go back to the date of Lord Sydenham's residence in
+Toronto. The Loyalist party, as stated already, became grievously
+disgusted with the iron grasp which that nobleman fastened upon each and
+every person in the remotest degree under government control. Not only
+the high officers of the Crown, such as the Provincial Treasurer and
+Secretary, the Executive Councillors, the Attorney-General and the
+Sheriff, but also the editors of newspapers publishing the government
+advertisements, in Toronto and elsewhere, were dictated to, as to what
+measures they should oppose, and what support. It was "my
+government,"--"my policy"--not "the policy of my administration," before
+which they were required to bow down and blindly worship. There were,
+however, still men in Toronto independent enough to refuse to stoop to
+the dust; and they met together and taking up the _Toronto Herald_ as
+their mouth-piece, subscribed sufficient funds for the payment of a
+competent editor, in the person of George Anthony Barber, English Master
+of Upper Canada College, now chiefly remembered as the introducer and
+fosterer of the manly game of cricket in Toronto. He was an eloquent and
+polished writer, and created for the paper a wide reputation as a
+conservative journal.
+
+About the same time, Messrs. Henry and William Rowsell, well-known
+booksellers, undertook the printing of the _Church_ newspaper, which was
+transferred from Cobourg to Toronto, under the editorship of Mr. John
+Kent,--a giant in his way--and subsequently of the Rev. A. N. Bethune,
+since, and until lately, Bishop of Toronto.
+
+Being intimate friends of my own, they offered me the charge of their
+printing office, with the position of a partner, which I accepted; and
+made over my interest in the _Herald_ to Mr. Barber.
+
+[Footnote 14: Easter salutation of the Primitive Church.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+  THE CLERGY RESERVES.
+
+
+I have lately astonished some of my friends with the information, that
+William Lyon Mackenzie was originally an advocate of the Clergy
+Reserves--that is, of state endowment for religious purposes--a fact
+which makes his fatal plunge into treason the more to be regretted by
+all who coincide with him on the religious question.
+
+In Lindsey's "Memoirs" we read (vol. 1, p. 46):
+
+    "A Calvinist in religion, proclaiming his belief in the
+    Westminster Confession of Faith, and a Liberal in politics, yet
+    was Mr. Mackenzie, at that time, no advocate of the voluntary
+    principle. On the contrary, he lauded the British Government for
+    making a landed endowment for the Protestant clergy in the
+    Provinces, and was shocked at the report that, in 1812,
+    voluntaryism had robbed three millions of people of all means of
+    religious ordinances. 'In no part of the constitution of the
+    Canadas,' he said, 'is the wisdom of the British Legislature
+    more apparent than in its setting apart a portion of the
+    country, while yet it remained a wilderness, for the support of
+    religion.'
+
+    . . . "Mr. Mackenzie compared the setting apart of one-seventh
+    of the public lands for religious purposes to a like dedication
+    in the time of the [early] Christians. But he objected that the
+    revenues were monopolized by one church, to which only a
+    fraction of the population belonged. The envy of the
+    non-recipient denominations made the favoured Church of England
+    unpopular.
+
+    . . . "Where the majority of the present generation of Canadians
+    will differ from him, is that on the Clergy Reserves question,
+    he did not hold the voluntary view. At that time, he would have
+    denounced secularization as a monstrous piece of sacrilege."[15]
+
+How much to be regretted is it, that instead of splitting up the Clergy
+Reserves into fragments, the friends of religious education had not
+joined their forces for the purpose of endowing all Christian
+denominations with the like means of usefulness. We are now extending
+across the entire continent what I cannot help regarding as the
+anti-Christian practice of non-religious popular education. We are, I
+believe, but smoothing the road to crime in the majority of cases.
+Cannot something be done now, while yet the lands of the vast North-West
+are at our disposal? Will no courageous legislator raise his voice to
+advocate the dedication of a few hundred thousand acres to unselfish
+purposes? Have we wiled away the Indian prairies from their aboriginal
+owners, to make them little better than a race-course for speculating
+gamblers?
+
+Even if the jealousy of rival politicians--each bent upon
+self-aggrandizement at the expense of more honourable aims--should
+defeat all efforts in behalf of religious endowments through the
+Dominion Legislature, cannot the religious associations amongst us
+bestir themselves in time? Cannot the necessity for actual settlement be
+waived in favour of donations by individuals for Church uses? Cannot the
+powerful Pacific Railway Syndicate themselves take up this great duty,
+of setting apart certain sections in favour of a Christian ministry?
+
+The signs of the times are dark--dark and fearful. In Europe, by the
+confession of many eminent public writers, heathenism is overspreading
+the land. In the United States, a community of the sexes is shamelessly
+advocated; and there is no single safeguard of public or private order
+and morality, that is not openly scoffed at and set at nought.
+
+Oh, men! men! preachers, and dogmatists, and hierarchs of all sects! see
+ye not that your strifes and your jealousies are making ye as traitors
+in the camp, in the face of the common enemy? See ye not the multitudes
+approaching, armed with the fell weapons of secular knowledge--cynicism,
+self-esteem, greed, envy, ambition, ill-regulated passions unrestrained!
+
+One symptom of a nobler spirit has shown itself in England, in the
+understanding lately suggested, or arrived at, that the missions of any
+one Protestant Church in the South Sea Islands shall be entirely
+undisturbed by rival missionaries. This is right; and if right in
+Polynesia, why not in Great Britain? why not in Canada? Why cultivate
+half-a-dozen contentious creeds in every new township or village? Would
+it not be more amiable, more humble, more self-denying, more
+exemplary--in one word, more like our Master and Saviour--if each
+Christian teacher were required to respect the ministrations of his next
+neighbour, even though there might be some faint shade of variety in
+their theological opinions; provided always that those ministrations
+were accredited by some duly constituted branch of the Christian Church.
+
+I profess that I can see no reason why an endowment should not be
+provided in every county in the North-West, to be awarded to the first
+congregation, no matter how many or how few, that could secure the
+services of a missionary duly licensed, be he Methodist, Presbyterian,
+Baptist, Congregationalist, Disciple--aye, even Anglican or Roman
+Catholic. No sane man pretends, I think, that eternal salvation is
+limited to any one, or excluded from any one, of those different
+churches. That great essential, then, being admitted, what right have I,
+or have you, dear reader, to demand more? What right have you or I to
+withhold the Word of God from the orphan or the outcast, for no better
+reason than such as depends upon the construction of particular words or
+texts of Holy Scripture, apart from its general tenor and teaching?
+
+Again I say, it is much to be deplored that Canada had not more
+Reformers, and Conservatives too, as liberal-minded as was W. L.
+Mackenzie, in regard to the maintenance and proper use of the Clergy
+Reserves.
+
+It was not the Imperial Government, it was not Lord John Russell, or Sir
+Robert Peel, or Lords Durham and Sydenham, that were answerable for the
+dispersion of the Clergy Reserves. What they did was to leave the
+question in the hands of the Canadian Legislature. It was the old, old
+story of the false mother in the "Judgment of Solomon," who preferred
+that the infant should be cut in twain rather than not wrested from a
+rival claimant.
+
+I would fain hope that the future may yet see a reversal of that
+disgrace to our Canadian Statute Book. Not by restoring the lands to the
+Church of England, or the Churches of England and Scotland--they do not
+now need them--but by endowing all Christian churches for the religious
+teaching of the poorer classes in the vast North-West.
+
+[Footnote 15: Mackenzie afterwards drew up petitions which prayed,
+amongst other things, for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, but
+I judge that on that question these petitions rather represented the
+opinions of other men than his own, and were specially aimed at the
+Church of England monopoly.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+  A POLITICAL SEED-TIME.
+
+
+From the arrival of Sir Charles Bagot in January, 1842, up to the
+departure of Lord Metcalfe in November, 1844, was a period chiefly
+remarkable for the struggles of political leaders for power, without any
+very essential difference of principle between them. Lord Cathcart
+succeeded as Administrator, but took no decided stand on any Canadian
+question. And it was not until the Earl of Elgin arrived, in January,
+1847, that anything like violent party spirit began again to agitate the
+Provinces.
+
+In that interval, some events happened of a minor class, which should
+not be forgotten. It was, I think, somewhere about the month of May,
+1843, that there walked into my office on Nelson Street, a young man of
+twenty-five years, tall, broad-shouldered, somewhat lantern jawed, and
+emphatically Scottish, who introduced himself to me as the travelling
+agent of the New York _British Chronicle_, published by his father. This
+was George Brown, afterwards publisher and editor of the _Globe_
+newspaper. He was a very pleasant-mannered, courteous, gentlemanly
+young fellow, and impressed me favourably. His father, he said, found
+the political atmosphere of New York hostile to everything British, and
+that it was as much as a man's life was worth to give expression to any
+British predilections whatsoever (which I knew to be true). They had,
+therefore, thought of transferring their publication to Toronto, and
+intended to continue it as a thoroughly Conservative journal. I, of
+course, welcomed him as a co-worker in the same cause with ourselves;
+little expecting how his ideas of conservatism were to develop
+themselves in subsequent years. The publication of the _Banner_--a
+religious journal, edited by Mr. Peter Brown--commenced on the 18th of
+August following, and was succeeded by the _Globe_, on March 5th, 1844.
+
+About the same time, there entered upon public life, another noted
+Canadian politician, Mr. John A. Macdonald, then member for Kingston,
+with whom I first became personally acquainted at the meeting of the
+British American League in 1849, of which I shall have occasion to speak
+more fully in its order; as it seems to have escaped the notice of
+Canadian historians, although an event of the first magnitude in our
+annals.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+  "THE MAPLE LEAF."
+
+
+It was in the year 1841, that the Rev. Dr. John McCaul entered upon his
+duties as Vice-President of King's College, after having been Principal
+of Upper Canada College since 1838. With this gentleman are closely
+connected some of the most pleasurable memories of my own life. He was a
+zealous promoter of public amusement, musical as well as literary. Some
+of the best concerts ever witnessed in Toronto were those got up by him
+in honour of the Convocation of the University of Toronto, October 23rd,
+1845, and at the several public concerts of the Philharmonic Society, of
+which he was president, in that and following years. As a member of the
+managing committee, I had the honour of conducting one of the Society's
+public concerts, which happened, being a mixed concert of sacred and
+secular music, to be the most popular and profitable of the series,
+greatly to my delight.
+
+In 1846, 1847 and 1848, Dr. McCaul edited the _Maple Leaf, or Canadian
+Annual_, a handsomely illustrated and bound quarto volume, which has not
+since been surpassed, if equalled, in combined beauty and literary
+merit, by any work that has issued from the Canadian press.
+
+Each volume appeared about Christmas day, and was eagerly looked for.
+The principal contributors were Dr. McCaul himself; the Hon. Chief
+Justice Hagarty; the late Rev. R. J. McGeorge, then of Streetsville,
+since of Scotland; the late Hon. Justice Wilson, of London; Miss Page,
+of Cobourg; the Rev. Dr. Scadding; the late Rev. J. G. D. McKenzie; the
+late Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron; the Rev. Alex. (now Archdeacon) Dixon, of
+Guelph; the Rev. Walter Stennett, of Cobourg; C. W. Cooper, Esq., now of
+Chicago; the late T. C. Breckenridge; the late Judge Cooper, of
+Goderich; and myself; besides a few whose names are unknown to me.
+
+My own connection, as a writer, with the "Maple Leaf" originated thus:
+While printing the first volume, I had ventured to send to Dr. McCaul,
+through the post-office, anonymously, a copy of my poem entitled
+"Emmeline," as a contribution to the work. It did not appear, and I felt
+much discouraged in consequence. Some months afterwards, I happened to
+mention to him my unsuccessful effusion, when he at once said that he
+had preserved it for the second volume. This was the first ray of
+encouragement I had ever received as a poet, and it was very welcome to
+me. He also handed me two or three of the plates intended for the second
+volume, to try what I could make of them, and most kindly gave me
+carte-blanche to take up any subject I pleased. The consequence of which
+was, that I set to work with a new spirit, and supplied four pieces for
+the second and five for the third volume. Two of my prose pieces--"A
+Chapter on Chopping," and "A First Day in the Bush"--with two of the
+poems, I have incorporated in these "Reminiscences:" my other accepted
+poems, I give below. After this explanation, the reader will not be
+surprised at the affection with which I regard the "Maple Leaf." I know
+that the generous encouragement which Dr. McCaul invariably extended to
+even the humblest rising talent, in his position as head of our Toronto
+University, has been the means of encouraging many a youthful student to
+exertions, which have ultimately placed him in the front rank among our
+public men. Had I met with Dr. McCaul thirty years earlier, he would
+certainly have made of me a poet by profession.
+
+
+  EMMELINE.
+
+  The faynt-rayed moone shynes dimme and hoar,
+  The nor-wynde moans with fittful roare,
+  The snow-drift hydes the cottage doore,
+        Emmeline,
+  I wander lonelie on the moore,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thou sittest in the castle halle
+  In festal tyre and silken palle,
+  'Mid smylinge friendes--all hartes thy thrall,
+        Emmeline,
+  My best-beloved--my lyfe--my all,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  I marke the brightness quit thy cheeke,
+  I knowe the thought thou dost not speake,
+  Some absent one thy glances seeke,
+        Emmeline,
+  I pace alone the mooreland bleake,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thy willfull brother--woe the daye!
+  Why did hee cross mee on my waye?
+  I slewe him that I would not slaye,
+        Emmeline,
+  I cannot washe his bloode awaye,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Oh, why, when stricken from his hande,
+  Far flew his weapon o'er the strande--
+  Why did hee rush upon my brande?
+        Emmeline,
+  Colde lyes his corse upon the sande,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thou'rt too, too younge--too younge and fayre
+  To learne the wearie rede of care--
+  My bitter griefe thou must not share,
+        Emmeline,
+  I could not bidde thee wedde despaire,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Through noisome fenne and tangled brake,
+  Where crawle the lizard and the snake,
+  My mournfull hopelesse way I take,
+        Emmeline,
+  To live a hermitt for thy sake,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thy buoyaunt spirit may forgett
+  The happie houre when last we mett--
+  My sunne of hope is darklie sett,
+        Emmeline,
+  I'll bee thy guardian-angell yett,
+        Emmeline.
+
+
+  CHANGES OF AN HOUR
+
+  ON LAKE ERIE.
+
+  Smiles the sunbeam on the waters--
+    On the waters glad and free;
+  Sparkling, flashing, laughing, dancing--
+    Emblem fair of childhood's glee.
+
+  Ruddy on the waves reflected,
+    Deeper glows the sinking ray;
+  Like the smile of young affection
+    Flushed by fancy's changeful play.
+
+  Mist-enwreathing, chill and gloomy,
+    Steals grey twilight o'er the lake--
+  Ah! to days of autumn sadness
+    Soon our dreaming souls awake.
+
+  Night has fallen, dark and silent,
+    Starry myriads gem the sky;
+  Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,
+    Brighter visions beam on high.
+
+  A CANADIAN ECLOGUE.
+
+  An aged man sat lonesomely within a rustic porch,
+  His eyes in troubled thoughtfulness were bent upon the ground:
+  Why pondered he so mournfully, that venerable man?
+  He dreamt sad dreams of early days, the happy days of youth.
+
+  He dreamt fond dreams of early days, the lightsome days of youth;
+  He saw his distant island home--the cot his fathers built--
+  The bright green fields their hands had tilled--the once accustomed haunts;
+  And, dearer still, the old churchyard where now their ashes lie.
+
+  Long, weary years had slowly passed--long years of thrift and toil--
+  The hair, once glossy brown, was white, the hands were rough and hard;
+  Deep-delving care had plainly marked its furrows on the brow;
+  The form, once tall and lithe and strong, now bent and stiff and weak.
+
+  His many kind and duteous sons, his daughters, meek and good,
+  Like scattered leaves from autumn gales, were reft the parent tree;
+  Tho' lands, and flocks, and rustic wealth, an ample store he owned,
+  They seemed but transitory gains--a coil of earthly care.
+
+  Old neighbours, from that childhood's home, have paused before his door;
+  Oh, gladly hath he welcomed them, and warmly doth he greet;
+  They bring him--token of old love--a little cage of birds,
+  The songsters of his native vale, companions of his youth.
+
+  Those warbled notes, too well they tell of other, happier hours,
+  Of joyous, childish innocence, of boyhood's gleeful sports,
+  A mother's tender watchfulness, a father's gentle sway--
+  The silent tear rolls stealthily adown his furrowed cheek.
+
+  Sweet choristers of England's fields, how fondly are ye prized!
+  Your melody, like mystic strains upon the dying ear,
+  Awakes a chord that, all unheard, long slumbered in the breast,
+  That vibrates but to one loved sound--the sacred name of "Home."
+
+  ZAYDA.
+
+  "Come lay thy head upon my breast,
+  And I will kiss thee into rest."
+                             _--Byron._
+
+  Wherefore art thou sad, my brother? why that shade upon thy brow,
+  Like yon clouds each other chasing o'er the summer landscape now?
+  What hath moved thy gentle spirit from its wonted calm the while?
+  Shall not Zayda share thy sorrow, as she loves to share thy smile?
+
+  Tell me, hath our cousin Hassan passed thee on a fleeter steed?
+  Hath thy practised arm betrayed thee when thou threwst the light jereed?
+  Hath some rival, too ungently, taunted thee with scoffing pride?
+  Tell me what hath grieved thee, Selim--ah, I will not be denied.
+
+  Some dark eye, I much mistrust me, hath too brightly answered thine;
+  Some sweet voice hath, all too sweetly, whispered in the Bezestein.
+  Nay, doth sadder, deeper feeling dim the gladness of thine eye?
+  Tell me, dearest, tell me truly, why thou breath'st that mournful sigh?
+
+  Oh, if thou upon poor Zayda cast one look of cold regard,
+  Whither shall she turn for comfort in a world unkind and hard?
+  Since our tender mother, dying, gave me trustfully to thee,
+  Selim, brother, thou hast always been far more than worlds to me.
+
+  Take this rose--upon my bosom I have worn it all the day;
+  Like thy sister's true affection, never can its scent decay:
+  As the pure wave, murm'ring fondly, lingers round some lonely isle,
+  Life-long shall my love enchain thee, Selim, asking but a smile.
+
+  THE TWO FOSCARI.[16]
+
+  Ho! gentlemen of Venice!
+    Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!
+  Pile high your blazing beacon-fire,
+    The night is wild and dark,
+  Behoves us all be wary,
+    Behoves us have a care
+  No traitor spy of Austria
+    Our watch is prowling near.
+
+  Time was, would princely Venice
+    No foreign tyrant brook;
+  Time was, before her stately wrath
+    The proudest Kaiser shook;
+  When o'er the Adriatic
+    The Wingéd Lion hurled
+  Destruction on his enemies--
+    Defiance to the world.
+
+  'Twas when the Turkish crescent
+    Contended with the cross,
+  And many a Christian kingdom rued
+    Discomfiture and loss;
+  We taught the turban'd Paynim--
+    We taught his boastful fleet,
+  Venetian freemen scorned alike
+    Submission or retreat.
+
+  Alas, for fair Venezia,
+    When wealth and pomp and pride
+  --The pride of her patrician lords--
+    Her freedom thrust aside:
+  When o'er the trembling commons
+    The haughty nobles rode,
+  And red with patriotic blood
+    The Adrian waters flowed.
+
+  'Twas in the year of mercy
+    Just fourteen fifty two
+  --When Francis Foscari was Doge,
+    A valiant prince and true--
+  He won for the Republic
+    Ravenna--Brescia bright--
+  And Crema--aye, and Bergamo
+    Submitted to his might:
+
+  Young Giacopo, his darling,
+    --His last and fairest child--
+  A gallant soldier in the wars,
+    In peace serene and mild--
+  Woo'd gentle Mariana,
+    Old Contarini's pride,
+  And glad was Venice on that day
+    He claimed her for his bride.
+
+  The Bucentaur showed bravely
+    In silks and cloth of gold,
+  And thousands of swift gondolas
+    Were gay with young and old;
+  Where spann'd the Canalazo
+    A boat-bridge wide and strong,
+  Amid three hundred cavaliers
+    The bridegroom rode along.
+
+  Three days were joust and tourney,
+    Three days the Plaza bore
+  Such gallant shock of knight and steed
+    Was never dealt before,
+  And thrice ten thousand voices
+    With warm and honest zeal,
+  Loud shouted for the Foscari
+    Who loved the Commonweal.
+
+  For this the Secret Council--
+    The dark and subtle Ten--
+  Pray God and good San Marco
+    None like may rule again!
+  Because the people honoured
+    Pursued with bitter hate,
+  And foully charged young Giacopo
+    With treason to the state.
+
+  The good old prince, his father--
+    Was ever grief like his!--
+  They forced, as judge, to gaze upon
+    His own child's agonies!
+  No outward mark of sorrow
+    Disturb'd his awful mien--
+  No bursting sigh escaped to tell
+    The anguish'd heart within.
+
+  Twice tortured and twice banish'd,
+    The hapless victim sighed
+  To see his old ancestral home,
+    His children and his bride:
+  Life seem'd a weary burthen
+    Too heavy to be borne,
+  From all might cheer his waning hours
+    A hopeless exile torn.
+
+  In vain--no fond entreaty
+    Could pierce the ear of hate--
+  He knew the Senate pitiless,
+    Yet rashly sought his fate;
+  A letter to the Sforza
+    Invoking Milan's aid,
+  He wrote, and placed where spies might see--
+    'Twas seen, and was betrayed.
+
+  Again the rack--the torture--
+    Oh! cruelty accurst!--
+  The wretched victim meekly bore--
+    They could but wreak their worst;
+  So he but lay in Venice,
+    Contented, if they gave
+  What little space his bones might fill--
+    The measure of a grave.
+
+  The white-haired sire, heart-broken,
+    Survived his happier son,
+  To learn a Senate's gratitude
+    For faithful service done;
+  What never Doge of Venice
+    Before had lived to tell,
+  He heard for a successor peal
+    San Marco's solemn bell.
+
+  When, years before, his honours
+    Twice would he fain lay down,
+  They bound him by his princely oath
+    To wear for life the crown;
+  But now, his brow o'ershadow'd
+    By fourscore winters' snows,
+  Their eager malice would not wait
+    A spent life's mournful close.
+
+  He doff'd his ducal ensigns
+    In proud obedient haste,
+  And through the sculptured corridors
+    With staff-propt footsteps paced;
+  Till on the giant's staircase,
+    Which first in princely pride
+  He mounted as Venezia's Doge,
+    The old man paused--and died.
+
+  Thus govern'd the Patricians
+    When Venice owned their sway,
+  And thus Venetian liberties
+    Became a helpless prey:
+  They sold us to the Teuton,
+    They sold us to the Gaul--
+  Thank God and good San Marco,
+    We've triumph'd over all!
+
+  Ho! gentlemen of Venice!
+    Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!
+  You've driven from your palaces
+    The Austrian, cold and dark!
+  But better for Venezia
+    The stranger ruled again,
+  Than the old patrician tyranny,
+    The Senate and the Ten!
+
+[Footnote 16: This and the preceding poem were written as illustrations
+of two beautiful plates which appeared in the Maple Leaf. One, Zayda
+presenting a rose to her supposed brother, Selim; the other, the Doge
+Foscari passing sentence of exile upon his son. The incidents in the
+Venetian story are all historical facts.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+  ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY.
+
+
+My new partner, Mr. William Rowsell, and Mr. Geo. A. Barber, are
+entitled to be called the founders of the St. George's Society of
+Toronto. Mr. Barber was appointed secretary at its first meeting in
+1835, and was very efficient in that capacity. But it was the
+enthusiastic spirit and the galvanic energy of William Rowsell that
+raised the society to the high position it has ever since maintained in
+Toronto. Other members, especially George P. Ridout, William Wakefield,
+W. B. Phipps, Jos. D. Ridout, W. B. Jarvis, Rev. H. Scadding, and many
+more, gave their hearty co-operation then and afterwards. In those early
+days, the ministrations of the three national societies of St. George,
+St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, were as angels' visits to thousands of poor
+emigrants, who landed here in the midst of the horrors of fever and
+want. Those poor fellows, who, like my companions on board the _Asia_,
+were sent out by some parochial authority, and found themselves, with
+their wives and half a dozen young children, left without a shilling to
+buy their first meal, must have been driven to desperation and crime but
+for the help extended to them by the three societies.
+
+The earliest authorized report of the Society's proceedings which I can
+find, is that for the year 1843-4, and I think I cannot do better than
+give the list of the officers and members entire:
+
+
+  ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF TORONTO.
+
+  _Officers for 1844._
+
+    Patron--His Excellency the Right Hon. Sir Charles T. Metcalfe,
+    Bart., K. G. B., Governor-General of British North America, &c.
+
+    President--William Wakefield. Vice-Presidents--W. B. Jarvis, G.
+    P. Ridout, W. Atkinson. Chaplain--The Rev. Henry Scadding, M. A.
+    Physician--Robt. Hornby, M. D. Treasurer--Henry Rowsell.
+    Managing Committee--G. Walton, T. Clarke, J. D. Ridout, F.
+    Lewis, J. Moore, J. G. Beard, W. H. Boulton. Secretary--W.
+    Rowsell. Standard Bearers--G. D. Wells, A. Wasnidge, F. W.
+    Coate, T. Moore.
+
+  _List of Members, March, 1844._
+
+    E. H. Ades, E. S. Alport, Thos. Armstrong, W. Atkinson.
+
+    Thos. Baines, G. W. Baker, Jr.; G. A. Barber, F. W. Barron,
+    Robert Barwick, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, Edwin Bell, Matthew
+    Betley, J. C. Bettridge, G. Bilton, T. W. Birchall, W. H.
+    Boulton, Josh. Bound, W. Bright, Jas. Brown, Jno. Brown, Thos.
+    Brunskill, E. C. Bull, Jas. Burgess, Mark Burgess, Thos.
+    Burgess.
+
+    F. C. Capreol, W. Cayley, Thos. Champion, E. C. Chapman, Jas.
+    Christie, Edw. Clarke, Jno. Clarke, Thos. Clarke, Thos.
+    Clarkson, D. Cleal, F. W. Coate, Edw. Cooper, C. N. B. Cozens.
+
+    Jno. Davis, Nath. Davis, G. T. Denison, Sen., Robt. B. Denison,
+    Hon. W. H. Draper.
+
+    Jno. Eastwood, Jno. Elgie, Thos. Elgie, Jno. Ellis, Christopher
+    Elliott, J. P. Esten, Jas. Eykelbosch.
+
+    C. T. Gardner, Jno. Garfield, W. Gooderham, G. Gurnett.
+
+    Chas. Hannath, W. Harnett, Josh. Hill, Rich. Hockridge, Joseph
+    Hodgson, Dr. R. Hornby, G. C. Horwood, J. G. Howard.
+
+    Ĉ. Irving, Jr.
+
+    Hon. R. S. Jameson, W. B. Jarvis, H. B. Jessopp.
+
+    Alfred Laing, Jno. Lee, F. Lewis, Henry Lutwych, C. Lynes, S. G.
+    Lynn.
+
+    Hon. J. S. Macaulay, Rich. Machell, J. F. Maddock, Jno. Mead,
+    And. Mercer, Jas. Mirfield, Sam. Mitchell, Jno. Moore, Thos.
+    Moore, Jas. Moore, Jas. Morris, W. Morrison, J. G. Mountain, W.
+    Mudford.
+
+    J. R. Nash.
+
+    Thos. Pearson, Jno. E. Pell, W. B. Phipps, Sam. Phillips, Hiram
+    Piper, Jno. Popplewell, Jno. Powell.
+
+    M. Raines, J. D. Ridout, G. P. Ridout, Sam. G. Ridout, Ewd.
+    Robson, H. Rowsell, W. Rowsell, F. Rudyerd.
+
+    Chas. Sabine, J. H. Savigny, Hugh Savigny, Geo. Sawdon, Rev. H.
+    Scadding, Jas. Severs, Rich. Sewell, Hon. Henry Sherwood, Jno.
+    Sleigh, I. A. Smith, L. W. Smith, Thos. Smith (Newgate Street),
+    Thos. Smith, (Market Square), J. G. Spragge, Jos. Spragge, W.
+    Steers, J. Stone.
+
+    Leonard Thompson, S. Thompson, Rich. Tinning, Enoch Turner.
+
+    Wm. Wakefield, Jas. Wallis, Geo. Walton, W. Walton, Alf.
+    Wasnidge, Hon. Col. Wells, G. D. Wells, Thos. Wheeler, F.
+    Widder, H. B. Williams, J. Williams, W. Wynn.
+
+    Thos. Young.
+
+The list of Englishmen thus reproduced, may well raise emotions of love
+and regret in us their survivors. Most of them have died full of years,
+and rich in the respect of their compatriots of all nations. There are
+still living some twenty out of the above one hundred and thirty-seven
+members.
+
+The following song, written and set to music by me for the occasion, was
+sung by the late Mr. J. D. Humphreys, the well-known Toronto tenor, at
+the annual dinner held on the 24th April, 1845:--
+
+  THE ROSE OF ENGLAND.
+
+  The Rose, the Rose of England,
+    The gallant and the free!
+  Of all our flow'rs the fairest,
+    The Rose, the Rose for me!
+  Our good old English fashion
+    What other flow'r can show?
+  Its smiles of beauty greet its friends,
+    Its thorns defy the foe!
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose of England,
+                         The gallant and the free!
+                       Of all our flow'rs the fairest,
+                         The Rose, the Rose for me!
+
+  Though proudly for the Thistle
+    Each Scottish bosom swell,
+  The Thistle hath no charms for me
+    Like the Rose I love so well.
+  And Erin's native Shamrock,
+    In lonely wilds that grows,
+  Its modest leaflet would not strive
+    To vie with England's Rose.
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc.
+
+  Yet Scotia's Thistle bravely
+    Withstands the rudest blast,
+  And Erin's cherished Shamrock
+    Keeps verdant to the last;
+  And long as British feeling
+    In British bosoms glows,
+  Right joyfully we'll honour them,
+    As they will England's Rose.
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc.
+
+Before closing my reminiscences of the St. George's Society, it may not
+be out of place to give some account of its legitimate congener, the
+North America St. George's Union. Englishmen in the United States, like
+those of Canada, have formed themselves into societies for the relief of
+their suffering brethren from the Fatherland, in all their principal
+cities. The necessity of frequent correspondence respecting cases of
+destitution, naturally led the officers of those societies to feel an
+interest in each other's welfare and system of relief, which at length
+gave rise to a desire for formal meeting and consultation, and that
+finally to the establishment of an organized association.
+
+In 1876, the fourth annual convention of the St. George's Union was for
+the first time held in Canada, at the City of Hamilton; in 1878 at
+Guelph; in 1880 at Ottawa; and in August, 1883, at Toronto--the
+intervening meetings taking place at Philadelphia, Bridgeport and
+Washington, U. S., respectively.
+
+To give an idea of what has been done, and of the spirit which actuates
+this great representative body of Englishmen, I avail myself of the
+opening speech of the President, our fellow-citizen and much esteemed
+friend, J. Herbert Mason, Esq., which was delivered at the City Hall
+here, on the 29th of August last. After welcoming the delegates from
+other cities, he went on to say:--
+
+    "Met together to promote objects purely beneficent, for which,
+    in the interests of humanity, we claim the support of all good
+    citizens, of whatever flag or origin, we may here give
+    expression to our sentiments and opinions without reserve, and
+    with confidence that they will be received with respect, even by
+    those who may not be able to share in the glorious memories, and
+    vastly more glorious anticipations, with which we, as Englishmen
+    and the descendants of Englishmen, are animated.
+
+    "And in the term Englishmen, I wish to be understood as
+    including all loyal Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. There
+    need be no division among men of British origin in regard to the
+    objects we are banded together to promote.
+
+    "The city of Toronto is in some respects peculiarly suitable as
+    a place for holding a convention of representative men of
+    English blood. Its Indian name, Toronto, signifies a place of
+    meeting. Ninety years ago its site was selected as that of the
+    future capital of Upper Canada, by General Simcoe, a Devonshire
+    man, distinguished both as a soldier and a statesman, who, in
+    the following year, founded the city.
+
+    "At that time the shore of our beautiful bay, and nearly the
+    entire country from the Detroit river to Montreal, was a dense
+    forest, the home of the wolf, the beaver and the bear. In
+    earlier years the surrounding country had been inhabited by
+    powerful Indian tribes; but after a prolonged contest, carried
+    on with the persistence and ferocity which distinguished them,
+    the dreaded Iroquois from the southern shores of Lake Ontario
+    had exterminated or driven away the Hurons, their less warlike
+    kinsmen, and at the time I speak of, the only human beings that
+    were found here was a single family of the Mississaga Indians.
+    The story of the contest which ended in the supremacy of the
+    Iroquois Confederacy, taken from the records of the Jesuit
+    fathers, who shared in the destruction of their Huron converts,
+    so graphically described by Parkman, the New England historian,
+    furnishes one of the most interesting and romantic chapters of
+    American history. In the names and general appearance of its
+    streets, the style of its habitations, in its social life, and
+    the characteristics of its people (if the opinions of tourists
+    and visitors may be accepted), Toronto recals to Englishmen
+    vivid impressions of home in a greater degree than any other
+    American city.
+
+    "The opening up of the Canadian North-West, and the increased
+    tendency of English emigration towards this Continent, instead
+    of, as formerly, towards those great English communities in the
+    Southern hemisphere, proportionately increases the
+    responsibility thrown upon their kindred living here, to see
+    that all reasonable and necessary counsel and assistance are
+    afforded to them on their arrival. One of the most suitable
+    agencies for effecting this object is the formation of St.
+    George's Societies in every city and town where Englishmen
+    exist. To the friendless immigrant, suddenly placed in a new and
+    unknown world, not understanding the conditions of success, and,
+    in many cases, suffering in health from change of climate, the
+    familiar tones, the kindly hand, and the brotherly sympathy of a
+    fellow-countryman, are most welcome. It supplies to the stranger
+    help of the right kind when most needed, and is one of those
+    acts of divine charity which covers a multitude of sins. One of
+    the chief objects of the St. George's Union is to increase the
+    number and usefulness, and enlarge the membership of such
+    societies, and if, under its fostering influence and encouraging
+    example, Englishmen generally, and their descendants, are
+    aroused to a more faithful discharge of their duty in this
+    respect, the Union is surely well worth maintaining. In this
+    connection, and for the information and example of younger
+    societies, permit me to point out some features of the work of
+    the St. George's Society of this city. It was organized in 1835,
+    when the population of the city was only 8,000. In the nearly
+    fifty years of its existence, it has had enrolled among its
+    chief officers, men of distinguished position and high moral
+    excellence. It is a notable circumstance, that at the time of
+    the meeting of this Union in Toronto, the Lieutenant-Governor of
+    Ontario, whose official residence is here, as well as the Mayor,
+    the Police Magistrate, the Treasurer, the Commissioners, the
+    Acting Engineer, and the Chairman of the Free Library Board of
+    Toronto, are all members of the St. George's Society, and two of
+    them past-presidents of it. It has a membership of about six
+    hundred, an annual income of about $2,400, and invested funds to
+    the amount of nearly $9,000. The office of the Society is open
+    daily, where cases requiring immediate advice or assistance are
+    promptly attended to by its indefatigable Secretary, Mr. J. E.
+    Pell. The Committee for General Relief meets weekly. Every case
+    is investigated and treated on its merits. Efforts are made to
+    secure employment for those who are able to work, and all
+    tendencies towards pauperism, or the formation of a pauper
+    class, are severely discouraged. One feature in the work of this
+    society I invite special attention to, which is its annual
+    distribution of 'Christmas Cheer' to the English poor. Last
+    Christmas Eve there were given away 7,500 pounds of excellent
+    beef; 4,400 pounds of bread; 175 pounds of tea, and 650 pounds
+    of sugar. Each member of the society had, therefore, the
+    satisfaction of knowing when he sat down to his Yule-tide table,
+    loaded with the good things of this life, and surrounded by the
+    happy faces of those he loved best, that every one of his needy
+    fellow-countrymen was, on that day, bountifully supplied with
+    the necessaries of life."
+
+From the Annual Report of the Committee I gather a few items:
+
+    "Reports from nineteen societies (affiliated to the Union) show
+    the following results:--
+
+  Membership (excluding honorary members)             3,247
+  Receipts during the year                          $19,618
+  Expended for charity during the year (excluding
+  private donations)                                 12,003
+  Value of investments, furniture and fixtures       96,568
+
+    "The Society of St. George, of London, England, has intimate
+    relations with the Union. The General Committee embraces such
+    eminent names as those of the Duke of Manchester, Lord Alfred
+    Churchill, Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen; Messrs. Beresford-Hope and
+    Puleston, of the House of Commons; Blanchard Jerrold and Hyde
+    Clarke, while death has removed from the Committee Messrs. W.
+    Hepworth Dixon and Walter Besant. St. George's Day has been
+    publicly celebrated ever since the institution of the Society in
+    1879. A new history of the titular saint, by the Rev. Dr.
+    Barons, has been promoted by the Society, and by its efforts
+    appropriate mortuary honours were paid to Colonel Chester, the
+    Anglo-American antiquarian, who died while prosecuting in
+    England his researches concerning the genealogy of the Pilgrim
+    Fathers. Through the industry and zeal of the chairman of the
+    Executive Committee there has been much revival of interest, at
+    home and abroad, respecting England's patron saint and the
+    ancient celebrations of his legendary natal day."
+
+After the official business of the convention had been disposed of, the
+American and Canadian visitors were hospitably entertained, on Wednesday
+the 30th, at "Ermeleigh," the private residence of the President, on
+Jarvis street; on Thursday afternoon at Government House, as guests of
+the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Robinson; and in the evening at the
+Queen's Hotel, where a handsome entertainment was provided.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+  A GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
+
+
+The 7th of April, 1849, will be fresh in the memory of many old
+Torontonians. It was an unusually fine spring day, and a large number of
+farmers' teams thronged the old market, then the only place within the
+city where meat was allowed to be sold. The hotel stables were crowded,
+and among them those of Graham's tavern on King and George Streets. At
+two o'clock in the afternoon, an alarm of fire was heard, occasioned by
+the heedlessness of some teamster smoking his after-dinner pipe. It was
+only a wooden stable, and but little notice was taken at first. The
+three or four hand-engines which constituted the effective strength of
+the fire brigade of that day, were brought into play one by one; but the
+stable, and Post's stable adjoining, were soon in full blaze. A powerful
+east wind carried the flames in rear of a range of brick stores
+extending on the north side of King Street from George to Nelson (now
+Jarvis) Street, and they attacked a small building on the latter street,
+next adjoining my own printing office, which was in the third story of a
+large brick building on the corner of King and Nelson Streets,
+afterwards well-known as Foy & Austin's corner. The _Patriot_ newspaper
+was printed there, and the compositors and press-men not only of that
+office, but of nearly all the newspaper offices in the city, were busily
+occupied in removing the type and presses downstairs. Suddenly the
+flames burst through our north windows with frightful strength, and we
+shouted to the men to escape, some by the side windows, some by the
+staircase. As we supposed, all got safely away; but unhappily it proved
+otherwise. Mr. Richard Watson was well known and respected as Queen's
+Printer since the rebellion times. He was at the head of the profession,
+universally liked, and always foremost on occasions of danger and
+necessity. He had persisted in spite of all remonstrance in carrying
+cases of type down the long, three-story staircase, and was forgotten
+for a while. Being speedily missed, however, cries were frantically
+raised for ladders to the south windows; and our brave friend, Col.
+O'Brien, was the first to climb to the third story, dash in the
+window-sash--using his hat as a weapon--but not escaping severe cuts
+from the broken glass--and shouting to the prisoner within. But in vain.
+No person could be seen, and the smoke and flames forcing their way at
+that moment through the front windows, rendered all efforts at rescue
+futile.
+
+In the meantime, the flames had crossed Nelson Street to St. James's
+buildings on King Street; thence across King Street to the old city hall
+and the market block, and here it was thought the destruction would
+cease. But not so. One or two men noticed a burning flake, carried by
+the fierce gale, lodge itself in the belfry of St. James's Cathedral,
+two or three hundred yards to the west. The men of the fire brigade were
+all busy and well-nigh exhausted by their previous efforts, but one of
+them was found, who, armed with an axe, hastily rushed up the
+tower-stairs and essayed to cut away the burning woodwork. The fire had
+gained too much headway. Down through the tower to the loft over the
+nave, then through the flat ceiling in flakes, setting in a blaze the
+furniture and prayer-books in the pews; and up to the splendid organ not
+long before erected by May & Son, of the Adelphi Terrace, London, at an
+expense of £1200 sterling, if I recollect rightly. I was a member of the
+choir, and with other members stood looking on in an agony of suspense,
+hoping against hope that our beloved instrument might yet be saved; but
+what the flames had spared, the intense heat effected. While we were
+gazing at the sea of fire visible through the wide front doorway, a
+dense shower of liquid silvery metal, white hot, suddenly descended from
+the organ loft. The pipes had all melted at once, and the noble organ
+was only an empty case, soon to be consumed with the whole interior of
+the building, leaving nothing but ghostly-looking charred limestone
+walls.
+
+Next morning there was a general cry to recover the remains of poor
+Watson. The brick walls of our office had fallen in, and the heat of the
+burning mass in the cellar was that of a vast furnace. But nothing
+checked the zeal of the men, all of whom knew and liked him. Still
+hissing hot, the burnt masses were gradually cleared away, and after
+long hours of labour, an incremated skeleton was found, and restored to
+his sorrowing family for interment, with funeral obsequies which were
+attended by nearly all the citizens.
+
+Shortly afterwards, Col. O'Brien's interest in the _Patriot_ newspaper
+was sold to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, and it continued to be conducted by him
+and myself until, in 1853, we dissolved partnership by arbitration, he
+being awarded the weekly, and I the daily edition.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+  THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL.
+
+
+On the 25th of the same month of April, 1849, the Parliament Houses at
+Montreal were sacked and burnt by a disorderly mob, stirred up to riot
+by the unfortunate act of Lord Elgin, in giving the royal assent to a
+bill for compensating persons whose property had been destroyed or
+injured during the rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837-8. That the payment
+of those losses was a logical consequence of the general amnesty
+proclaimed earlier in the same year, and that men equally guilty in
+Upper Canada, such as Montgomery and others, were similarly compensated,
+is indisputable. But in Upper Canada there was no race hatred, such as
+Lord Durham, in the Report written for him by Messrs. C. Buller & E. G.
+Wakefield, describes as existing between the French and British of Lower
+Canada.[17] The rebels of Gallows Hill and the militia of Toronto were
+literally brothers and cousins; while the rival factions of Montreal
+were national enemies, with their passions aroused by long-standing
+mutual injuries and insults. Had Lord Elgin reserved the bill for
+imperial consideration, no mischief would probably have followed. What
+might have been considered magnanimous generosity if voluntarily
+accorded by the conquerors, became a stinging insult when claimed by
+conquered enemies and aliens. And so it was felt to be in Montreal and
+the Eastern Townships. But the opportunity of putting in force the new
+theory of ministerial responsibility to the Canadian commons, seems to
+have fascinated Lord Elgin's mind, and so he "threw a cast" which all
+but upset the loyalty of Lower Canada, and caused that of the Upper
+Province almost to hesitate for a brief instant.
+
+In Toronto, sympathy with the resentment of the rioters was blended with
+a deep sense of the necessity for enforcing law and order. To the
+passionate movement in Montreal for annexation to the English race south
+of the line, no corresponding sentiment gained a hold in the Upper
+Province. And in the subsequent interchange of views between Montreal
+and Toronto, which resulted in the convention of the British American
+League at Kingston in the following July, it was sternly insisted by
+western men, that no breath of disloyalty to the Empire would be for a
+moment tolerated here. By the loss of her metropolitan honours which
+resulted, Montreal paid a heavy penalty for her mad act of lawlessness.
+
+[Footnote 17: As originally introduced by the Lafontaine-Baldwin
+Ministry, the bill recognised no distinction between the claims of men
+actually in arms and innocent sufferers, nor was it until the last
+reading that a pledge not to compensate actual criminals was wrested
+from the Government.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XL.
+
+  THE BRITISH AMERICAN LEAGUE.
+
+
+The Union of all the British American colonies now forming the Dominion
+of Canada, was discussed at Quebec as long ago as the year 1815; and at
+various times afterwards it came to the surface amid the politics of the
+day. The Tories of 1837 were generally favourable to union, while many
+Reformers objected to it. Lord Durham's report recommended a general
+union of the five Provinces, as a desirable sequel to the proposed union
+of Upper and Lower Canada.
+
+But it was not until the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, that the
+question of a larger confederation began to assume importance. The
+British population of Montreal, exasperated at the action of the
+Parliament in recognising claims for compensation on the part of the
+French Canadian rebels of 1837--that is, on the part of those who had
+slain loyalists and ruined their families--were ready to adopt any
+means--reasonable or unreasonable--of escaping from the hated domination
+of an alien majority. The Rebellion Losses Bill was felt by them to
+imply a surrender of all those rights which they and theirs had fought
+hard to maintain. Hence the burning of the Parliament buildings by an
+infuriated populace. Hence the demand in Montreal for annexation to the
+United States. Hence the attack upon Lord Elgin's carriage in the same
+city, and the less serious demonstration in Toronto. But wiser men and
+cooler politicians saw in the union of all the British-American
+Provinces a more constitutional, as well as a more pacific remedy.
+
+The first public meetings of the British American League were held in
+Montreal, where the movement early assumed a formal organization;
+auxiliary branches rapidly sprang up in almost every city, town and
+village throughout Upper Canada, and the Eastern Townships of Lower
+Canada. In Toronto, meetings were held at Smith's Hotel, at the corner
+of Colborne Street and West Market Square, and were attended by large
+numbers, chiefly of the Tory party, but including several known
+Reformers. In fact, from first to last, the sympathies of the Reformers
+were with the League; and hence there was no serious attempt at a
+counter demonstration, notwithstanding that the Government and the
+_Globe_ newspaper--at the time--did their best to ridicule and contemn
+the proposed union.
+
+The principal speakers at the Toronto meetings were P. M. Vankoughnet,
+John W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, David B. Read, E. G. O'Brien, John Duggan
+and others. They were warmly supported.
+
+After some correspondence between Toronto and Montreal, it was arranged
+that a general meeting of the League, to consist of delegates from all
+the town and country branches, formally accredited, should be held at
+Kingston, in the new Town Hall, which had been placed at their disposal
+by the city authorities. Here, in a lofty, well-lighted and
+commodiously-seated hall, the British American League assembled on the
+25th day of July, 1849. The number of delegates present was one hundred
+and forty, each representing some hundreds of stout yeomen, loyal to the
+death, and in intelligence equal to any constituency in the Empire or
+the world. The number of people so represented, with their families,
+could not have been less than half a million.
+
+The first day was spent in discussion (with closed doors) of the manner
+in which the proceedings should be conducted, and in the appointment of
+a committee to prepare resolutions for submission on the morrow. On the
+26th, accordingly, the public business commenced.[18]
+
+The proceedings were conducted in accordance with parliamentary
+practice. The chairman, the Hon. George Moffatt, of Montreal, sat on a
+raised platform at the east end of the hall; at a table in front of him
+were placed the two secretaries, W. G. Mack, of Montreal, and Wm.
+Brooke, of Shipton, C. E. On either side were seated the delegates, and
+outside a rail, running transversely across the room, benches were
+provided for spectators, of whom a large number attended. A table for
+reporters stood on the south side, near the secretaries' table. I was
+present both as delegate and reporter.
+
+The business of the day was commenced with prayer, by a clergyman of
+Kingston.
+
+Mr. John W. Gamble, of Vaughan, then, as chairman of the committee
+nominated the previous day, introduced a series of resolutions, the
+first of which was as follows:--
+
+    "That it is essential to the prosperity of the country that the
+    tariff should be so proportioned and levied, as to give just and
+    adequate protection to the manufacturing and industrial classes
+    of the country, and to secure to the agricultural population a
+    home market with fair and remunerative prices for all
+    descriptions of farm produce."
+
+    Resolutions in favour of economy in public expenditure, of equal
+    justice to all classes of the people, and condemnatory of the
+    Government in connection with the Rebellion Losses Bill, were
+    proposed in turn, and unanimously adopted, after discussions
+    extending over two or three days. The principal speakers in
+    support of the resolution were J. W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, P.
+    M. Vankoughnet, Thos. Wilson, of Quebec, Geo. Crawford, A. A.
+    Burnham,--Aikman, John Duggan, Col. Frazer, Geo. Benjamin, and
+    John A. Macdonald.
+
+    At length, the main object of the assemblage was reached, and
+    embodied in the form of a motion introduced by Mr. Breckenridge,
+    of Cobourg.
+
+    That delegates be appointed to consult with similar delegates
+    from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, concerning the
+    practicability of a union of all the provinces.
+
+    This resolution was adopted unanimously after a full discussion.
+    Other resolutions giving effect thereto were passed, and a
+    committee appointed to draft an address founded thereon, which
+    was issued immediately afterwards.
+
+    On the 1st November following, the League reassembled in the
+    City Hall, Toronto, to receive the report of the delegates to
+    the Maritime Provinces, which was altogether favourable. It was
+    then decided, that the proper course would be to bring the
+    subject before the several legislatures through the people's
+    representatives; and so the matter rested for the time.
+
+    In consequence of the removal of the seat of government to
+    Toronto, I was appointed secretary of the League, with Mr. C. W.
+    Cooper as assistant secretary. Meetings of the Executive
+    Committee took place from time to time. At one of these Mr. J.
+    W. Gamble submitted a resolution, pledging the League to join
+    its forces with the extreme radical party represented by Mr.
+    Peter Perry and other Reformers, who were dissatisfied with the
+    action of the Baldwin-Lafontaine-Hincks administration, and the
+    course of the _Globe_ newspaper in sustaining the same. This
+    proposition I felt it my duty to oppose, as being unwarranted by
+    the committee's powers; it was negatived by a majority of two,
+    and never afterwards revived.
+
+I subjoin Mr. Gamble's speech on Protection to Native Industry, reported
+by myself for the _Patriot_, July 27, 1849, as a valuable historical
+document, which the _Globe_ of that day refused to publish:
+
+    J. W. Gamble, Esq., in rising to support the motion said:--He
+    came to this convention to represent the views and opinions of a
+    portion of the people of the Home District, and to deliberate
+    upon important measures necessary for the good of the country,
+    and not to subserve the interests of any party whatever; to
+    consider what it was that retarded the onward progress of this
+    country in improvement, in wealth, in the arts and amenities of
+    life; why we were behind a neighbouring country in so many
+    important respects. Unless we made some great change, unless we
+    learnt speedily how to overtake that country, it followed in the
+    natural course of events that we should be inevitably merged in
+    that great republic, which he (Mr. G.) wished to avoid. The
+    political questions which would engage the attention of the
+    convention, embracing gross violations of our constitution and
+    involving momentous consequences, were yet of small importance
+    when compared with the great question of protection to native
+    industry. A perusal of the statutes enacted by the Parliament of
+    Great Britain from the time of the conquest of Canada to the
+    abolition of the corn laws, for the regulation of the commercial
+    intercourse of this colony, leads to the unavoidable conviction,
+    that the first object of the framers of those statutes was to
+    protect and advance the interests of the people of England and
+    such of them as might temporarily resort to the colony for the
+    purpose of trade; and that when their tendency was to promote
+    colonial interests, that tendency was more incidental than their
+    chief purpose. That such a course of legislation was to be
+    expected in the outset it was but reasonable to suppose, and
+    that a continuation of enactments in the same spirit should be
+    suffered by the British Canadians, with but few and feeble
+    remonstrances on their part, might be accounted for and even
+    anticipated when we remember the material of which a large
+    portion of the original population of Canada was composed. Ten
+    thousand U. E. Loyalists had emigrated from the United States
+    to Upper Canada in 1783, rather than surrender their allegiance
+    to the British throne; their enthusiastic attachment to the
+    Crown of Great Britain had made them ever prone to sacrifice
+    their own, to what had been improperly termed the _interests of
+    the empire_. He (Mr. G.) was himself a grandson of one of those
+    U. E. Loyalists, and might be said to have imbibed his British
+    feelings with his mother's milk. He remembered the time well,
+    when the utterance of a word disrespectful of the Sovereign was
+    looked upon as an insult to be resented on the spot. Remembering
+    all this, and that these same people, Canada's earliest
+    settlers, rather than live under a foreign government, though
+    the people of that government were their own countrymen, yea,
+    their very kinsmen and relatives--that they had forsaken their
+    cultivated farms, their lands and possessions, to take up their
+    abode with their families in a wilderness; remembering these
+    circumstances, it need excite no surprise that the old colonial
+    commercial system was allowed to continue without any very
+    weighty remonstrance from the colonists, until it expired in
+    Britain's free trade policy. Although that same system,
+    primarily intended for Britain's benefit, was not calculated to
+    advance the settlement, the improvement, or the wealth of
+    Canada, with equal rapidity to that of the adjoining country,
+    whose inhabitants enacted their own commercial regulations with
+    a view to their own immediate benefit and without reference to
+    that of others. The United States had legislated solely for
+    their own interests. Our commercial legislation, instead of
+    consulting exclusively our good, had been directed for the
+    benefit of England. If that same policy were continued
+    hereafter, to overtake our neighbours would be hopeless, and he
+    reiterated that the consequences would be fatal to our connexion
+    with Great Britain.
+
+    We must protect the industry of our country. The people of this
+    country surely are the first entitled to the benefits of the
+    markets of their country. He had been brought up a commercial
+    man, and until lately held to the free trade principles of
+    commercial men. From his youth, Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had
+    been almost as familiar to him as his Catechism, and was
+    regarded with almost equal deference; but practical experience
+    had of late forced upon him the conviction, that that beautiful
+    theory was not borne out by corresponding benefits; he had
+    looked at its practical results, and was constrained to
+    acknowledge, in spite of early predilections, that that theory
+    was a fallacy. He had adopted the views of the American
+    Protectionists as those most consonant with sound reason and
+    common sense. Their arguments he looked upon as unanswerable;
+    with them he believed that economists and free trade advocates
+    had overlooked three principles which to him appeared like
+    economic laws of nature, and the disregard of which alone was
+    sufficient to account for the present position of our country.
+    They say, and he believed with them, that the earth, the only
+    source of all production, requires the refuse of its products to
+    be returned to its soil, or productiveness diminishes and
+    eventually ceases. That the expense of carriage to distant
+    markets not only wastes the manure of animals on the road, but
+    that the expenses of freight and commissions, of charges to
+    carriers and exchangers, are in themselves a _waste_, avoided by
+    a home market whenever the _consumer_ is not separated from the
+    _producer_; and that those productions fitted for distant
+    markets, such as wheat and other grains, are only _yielded by
+    bushels_, while those adapted for the use of the home consumer,
+    and unsuited for distant transportation, as potatoes, turnips,
+    cabbages, are yielded by tons. These were facts well worthy the
+    attention of our agriculturists--eight-tenths of our whole
+    population--and which could not be too often or too plainly
+    placed before them. It is essential to the prosperity of every
+    agricultural country that the consumer should be placed side by
+    side with the producer, the loom and anvil side by side with
+    the plough and harrow. The truth of these principles is well
+    known in England, and practically carried out there by her
+    agriculturists every day. She possesses within herself unlimited
+    stores of lime, chalk and marl, besides animal manures, valued
+    in McQueen's Statistics in 1840 at nearly sixty millions of
+    pounds, more than the then value of the whole of her cotton
+    manufactures. Yet England employs whole fleets in conveying
+    manure, guano and animal bones to her shores; yes, has ransacked
+    the whole habitable globe for materials to enrich her fields,
+    and yet, forsooth, her economists and hosts of other writers
+    would fain persuade all nations and make the world believe, that
+    all countries are to be enriched by sending their food, their
+    raw produce, their wheat, their rye, their barley, their oats
+    and their grains to her market, to be eaten upon her ground,
+    which thus receives the benefit of the refuse of the food of
+    man, while that of animals employed in its carriage is wasted on
+    the road, and the grower's profits are reduced by freight to her
+    ship-owners and commission to her merchants. Behold the
+    inconsistency, behold the practice of England and the preaching
+    of England; behold how it is exemplified in the countries most
+    closely in connection with her: look at Portugal, "our ancient
+    ally." By the famous Methuen treaty she surrendered her
+    manufactures for a market for her wines, and thus separated the
+    _producer_ from the consumer. From that hour Portugal declined,
+    and is now--what?--the least among the nations of the earth.
+    Next, let us direct our attention to the West India Islands.
+    They do not even refine their own sugar, but import what they
+    consume of that article from England, whither they send the raw
+    material from which it is made, in order, he supposed, to enrich
+    the British ship-owner with two voyages across the Atlantic, and
+    the British refiner in England, instead of bringing him and his
+    property within their own islands. Such is their commercial
+    policy; and with free trade the West India planter has been
+    ruined, the prospects of the country are blighted, and discord
+    and discontent pervade the land. Next comes the East Indies:
+    partial free trade with England has destroyed her manufactures.
+    He (Mr. G.) could well recollect when Indian looms supplied the
+    nation with cottons; here in Canada they were the only cottons
+    used: he appealed to the chairman, who could corroborate his
+    statement, and must remember the Salampores and Baftas of India.
+    But Arkwright's invention of the spinning jenny enabled England
+    to import the raw material from India, and send back the
+    finished article better and cheaper than the native operatives
+    could furnish it. It was forced into their markets in spite of
+    their earnest protests, which only sought for the imposition on
+    British goods in India of like duties to those levied upon
+    Indian products in Britain, and which was denied them. Now, mark
+    the result. The agriculture of India is impoverished, many
+    tracts of her richest soil have relapsed into jungle, and both
+    her import and export trade are now in a most unsatisfactory
+    state--at least so says the "Economist," the best free trade
+    journal in England. India was prosperous while clothed in
+    fabrics the work of her own people. What country can compare
+    with her in the richness of her raw products? But England forced
+    her to separate the producer and consumer, and bitter
+    fruits--the inevitable results of the breach of that economic
+    law of nature which requires they should be placed side by
+    side--have been the consequence. Turn next to Nova Scotia, New
+    Brunswick and our own Canada. Are those countries in a
+    prosperous condition? (No, No!) Are we prosperous in Canada? The
+    meeting of this convention tells another story. Canada exports
+    the sweat of her sons; she sends to England her wheat, her
+    flour, her timber, and other raw produce, the product of manual
+    labour, and receives in return England's cottons, woollens and
+    hardwares, the product of labour-saving, self-acting and
+    inexpensive machinery. We separate the consumer and the
+    producer; we seek in distant markets a reward for our labour; it
+    is denied us, and this suicidal policy must exist no longer.
+    Behold its effects in our currency; not a dollar in specie can
+    we retain, unless it is circulated at a greater value than it
+    bears in the countries of our indebtedness, while our government
+    is obliged to issue shin-plasters to eke out its revenue. The
+    true policy for Canada is to consult her own interests, as the
+    people of the United States have consulted theirs, irrespective
+    of the interests of any other country. Leave others to take care
+    of themselves. Our present system has inundated us with English
+    and Foreign manufactures, and has swept away all the products of
+    our soil, all the products of our forests, all the capital
+    brought into the country by emigration, all the money expended
+    by the British Government for military purposes, and leaves us
+    poor enough. Why does not Canada prosper equally with the
+    adjacent republic? He had often asked the question. "Oh, the
+    Americans have more enterprise, more capital, and more
+    emigration than Canada," is the universal answer. It is true,
+    these are causes of prosperity in the Union, but they are
+    secondary causes only; in the first instance, they are effects,
+    the legitimate effects of her commercial code, which protects
+    the industry of her citizens, stimulates enterprise and largely
+    rewards labour. Why does the poor western emigrant leave
+    Canada?--because in the union he gets better reward for his
+    labour. * * * * This was strictly a labour question. He desired
+    not to see the wages of labour reduced until a man's unremitting
+    toil procured barely sufficient for the supply of his animal
+    wants--he desired to behold our labourers, mechanics, and
+    operatives a well fed, well clothed and well educated part of
+    the community. The country must support its labour; is it not
+    then far preferable to support it in the position of an
+    independent, intelligent body, than as a mass of paupers--you
+    may bring it down, down, down, until, as in Ireland, the man
+    will be forced to do his daily work for his daily potatoes. He
+    had forgotten Ireland, a case just in point; she exports to
+    England vast quantities of food, of raw produce--who has not
+    heard in the English markets of Irish wheat, Irish oats, Irish
+    pork, beef and butter. Ireland has but few manufactures--she has
+    separated the producer and consumer, and has reaped the
+    consequence of exporting her food, in poverty, wretchedness and
+    rags. Ireland has denied the earth the refuse of its
+    productions, and the earth has cast out her sons. Ask the
+    reason--it is the con-acre system, says one; it is the absentee
+    landlords, says another. But if the absenteeism invariably
+    produced such results, why is it not the case in Scotland?
+    Scotland, since the union, has doubled, trebled, aye, quadrupled
+    her wealth, he knew not how often. Since the union, Scotland
+    exports but little food, the food produced by the soil is there
+    consumed upon the soil, and to her absentee landlords, she pays
+    the rent of that soil in the produce of her looms and her
+    furnaces. This led him to consider the policy of those countries
+    that support the greatest number of human beings in proportion
+    to their area. First, Belgium, the battle field of Europe; that
+    country had suffered immeasurably from the effects of war, yet
+    her people were always prosperous, quiet and contented, amid the
+    convulsions of Europe, for there the consumer and producer were
+    side by side. In Normandy, China, the North of England, and
+    South of Scotland, in the Eastern States, the same system
+    prevailed. The speaker that preceded him (Mr. Gowan), had said
+    that under the present system we were led to speculate in human
+    blood, upon the chance of European wars; it was too true, it was
+    horrible to contemplate; but he would say, was it not more
+    horrible still, to speculate upon the chance of famine? Had we
+    never looked, never hoped, for a famine in Ireland, England or
+    the continent of Europe, that we might increase our store
+    thereby!!! put money in our pockets!!! to such dreadful shifts,
+    dreadful to reflect upon, had the disregard of the great
+    principle he had enunciated reduced us. The proper remedy was to
+    protect our native industry, to protect it from the surplus
+    products of the industry of other countries--surplus products
+    sold in our markets without any reference to the cost of
+    production. Manufacturers look at home consumption in the first
+    place for their profits; that market being filled, they do not
+    force off their surplus among their own people--that might
+    injure their credit, or permanently lower the value of their
+    manufactures at home. They send their surplus abroad to sell for
+    what it will bring. Another view of the question was, that in
+    the exchanging produce for foreign manufactures, one half of the
+    commodities is raised by native industry and capital, and one
+    half by foreign. One half goes to promote native industry and
+    capital, and the other half foreign industry and capital, but if
+    the exchange is made at home, it stands to common sense, that
+    all the commodities are raised by native industry and capital,
+    and the benefit of the barter if retained _at home_, to promote
+    and support them. Where the raw material produced in any country
+    is worked up in that country, the difference between the value
+    of the material and the finished article is retained in the
+    country.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+He would be met, he supposed, with a stale objection that protection is
+a tax imposed for the benefit of one class upon the rest of the
+community. Never was any assertion more fallacious. Admitting that the
+value of an article was enhanced by protection, which he (Mr. G.) did
+not admit, the rest of the community were benefited a thousand fold by
+that very protection; for instance, if a farmer paid a little more for
+his coat, was he not doubly, quadruply compensated for his wool, to say
+nothing of the market, also at his own door, for his potatoes, turnips,
+cabbages, eggs, and milk. But he denied that increase of price
+invariably followed a protective policy; that policy furnished the
+manufacturer a market at home _for quantity and quantity only_, while
+home competition, stimulated by a system securing a fair reward for
+industrial pursuits, soon brought down the manufactured article as low
+as it ought to be. He might be answered, your system will destroy our
+foreign trade altogether. The fact was the very reverse; the saving made
+by home consumption of food and raw produce on the soil where it was
+grown, to the producer, enabled that producer to purchase a greater
+quantity of articles brought from a distance, and made him a greater
+consumer of those very articles than when the value of the produce of
+his own farm was diminished by carriage to, and by charges in a distant
+market. He had now in his possession statistical tables of the United
+States, for successive periods, sufficient to convince the most
+sceptical, that during the periods their manufacturers had been most
+strongly protected, the average prices of such manufactures had been
+less, while the amount of imported goods had exceeded that of similar
+periods under low duties. Mr. Gowan had alluded to a case in which the
+very sand of the opposite shore was turned into a source of wealth by a
+glass manufactory, and also to the rocks of New Hampshire. He had also
+visited the Eastern States, and was delighted with the industry, the
+economy and intelligence of the people; but as to the country, he
+believed it would be a hard matter to induce a Canadian to take up his
+abode among its granite rocks and ice, yet those very rocks and that ice
+were by that thrifty people converted into wealth, and formed no small
+item in their resources.
+
+Such are the results, the legitimate results of a protective policy, but
+the United States have not always followed that policy. The revolution
+did not do away with their prejudices in favour of British goods; for a
+long period after, nothing would go down but British cloths, cottons,
+and hardware. Then came the war of 1812, which showed them that they
+were but nominally independent while other nations supplied their
+wants; the war forced them to manufacture for themselves. After that
+war, excepting in some coarse goods, low _ad valorem_ duties were
+imposed; the consequence was, a general prostration of the manufacturing
+interests, followed by low prices in all agricultural staples. In 1824
+recourse was again had to protection; national prosperity was soon
+visible; but why should he further detail the experiments made by that
+country? Suffice it to say, three times was the trial of free trade
+made, and three times had they to retrace their steps and return to the
+protective system, now so successfully in operation. England herself,
+with above one hundred millions of unprotected subjects, now declares
+the partially protected United States her best customer; in 1844 the
+amount of her exports to that country was eight millions, a sum equal to
+the whole of her exports to all her colonies. In 1846 the amount of
+cotton goods imported into the United States was one-fifth of their
+whole consumption, the amount of woollens likewise a fifth, and the
+amount of iron imported one-eighth of the entire quantity consumed. What
+proportion our importation of these articles in Canada bears to our
+consumption he had not been able to ascertain; but his conviction was,
+that if we adopted a similar commercial policy to that of the United
+States, the time would come when we should only import one-fifth of our
+cottons, one-fifth of our woollens, one-eighth of our iron; and when
+that time did come, and not till then, might we hope to cast our eye
+upon our republican neighbour without envying her greater prosperity.
+
+[Footnote 18: Although no notice of the annexation movement in Montreal
+was taken publicly at the meeting, it was well known that in the
+discussions with closed doors, all violence, and all tendencies towards
+disloyalty were utterly condemned and repudiated. The best possible
+testimony on this point is contained in the following extract from the
+Kingston correspondence of the _Globe_ newspaper, of July 31st, 1849,
+the perusal of which now must, I think, rather astonish the well-known
+writer himself, should he happen to cast his eye upon these pages:
+
+"The British Anglo-Saxons of Lower Canada will be most miserably
+disappointed in the League. They have held lately that they owed no
+allegiance to the crown of England, even if they did not go for
+annexation. _The League is loyal to the backbone_; many of the Lower
+Canadians are Free Traders, at least they look to Free Trade with the
+United States as the great means for promoting the prosperity of the
+Province--_the League is strong for protection as the means of reviving
+our trade_. * * * * Will the old Tory compact party, with protection and
+vested rights as its cry, ever raise its head in Upper Canada again,
+think you?"]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLI.
+
+  RESULTS OF THE B. A. LEAGUE.
+
+
+The very brief summary which I have been able to give in the preceding
+chapter, may suffice to show, as I have desired to do, that no lack of
+progressiveness, no lack of patriotism, no lack of energy on great
+public occasions, is justly chargeable against Canadian Tories. I could
+produce page after page of extracts, in proof that the objects of the
+League were jeered at and condemned by the Reform press, led by the
+_Globe_ newspaper. But in that instance stance Mr. George Brown was
+deserted by his own party. I spoke at the time with numbers of Reformers
+who entirely sympathized with us; and it was not long before we had our
+triumph, which was in the year 1864, when the Hon. George Brown and the
+Hon. John A. Macdonald clasped hands together, for the purpose of
+forming an administration expressly pledged to effect the union of the
+five Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
+and Prince Edward Island.
+
+In the importance of the object, the number and intelligence of the
+actors, and, above all, in the determined earnestness of every man
+concerned, the meetings of the British American League may well claim
+to rank with those famous gatherings of the people, which have marked
+great eras in the world's progress both in ancient and modern times. In
+spite of every effort to dwarf its importance, and even to ignore its
+existence, the British American League fulfilled its mission.
+
+By the action of the League, was Canada lifted into a front rank amongst
+progressive peoples.
+
+By the action of the League, the day was hastened, when our rivers, our
+lakes, our canals, our railroads, shall constitute the great highway
+from Europe to Eastern Asia and Australasia.
+
+By the action of the League, a forward step was taken towards that great
+future of the British race, which is destined to include in its
+heaven-directed mission, the whole world--east, west, north and south!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLII.
+
+  TORONTO CIVIC AFFAIRS.
+
+
+My first step in public life was in 1848. I had leased from the heirs of
+the late Major Hartney (who had been barrack-master of York during its
+siege and capture by the American forces under Generals Pike and
+Dearborn in 1813) his house on Wellington street, opposite the rear of
+Bishop Strachan's palace. I thus became a resident ratepayer of the ward
+of St. George, and in that capacity contested the representation of the
+ward as councilman, in opposition to the late Ezekiel F. Whittemore,
+whose American antecedents rendered him unpopular just then. As neither
+Mr. Whittemore nor myself resorted to illegitimate means of influencing
+votes, we speedily became fast friends--a friendship which lasted until
+his death. I was defeated after a close contest. Before the end of the
+year, however, Mr. Whittemore resigned his seat in the council and
+offered me his support, so that I was elected councilman in his stead,
+and held the seat as councilman, and afterwards as alderman,
+continuously until 1854, when I removed to Carlton, on the Davenport
+Road, five miles north-west of the city. The electors have since told me
+that I taught them how to vote without bribery, and certainly I never
+purchased a vote. My chief outlay arose from a custom--not bad, as I
+think--originated by the late Alderman Wakefield, of providing a hearty
+English dinner at the expense of the successful candidates, at the
+Shades Hotel, in which the candidates and voters on both sides were wont
+to participate. Need I add, that the company was jovial, and the toasts
+effusively loyal.
+
+The members of the council, when I took my seat, were: George Gurnett,
+Mayor, who had been conspicuous as an officer of the City Guard in
+1837-38; aldermen, G. Duggan, jr., Geo. P. Ridout, Geo. W. Allan, R.
+Dempsey, Thos. Bell, Jno. Bell, Q.C., Hon. H. Sherwood, Q.C., Robt.
+Beard, Jas. Beatty, Geo. T. Denison, jr., and Wm. A. Campbell; also,
+councilmen Thos. Armstrong, Jno. Ritchey, W. Davis, Geo. Coulter, Jas.
+Ashfield, R. James, jr., Edwin Bell, Samuel Platt, Jno. T. Smith, Jno.
+Carr and Robt. B. Denison. My own name made up the twenty-four that then
+constituted the council. The city officers were: Chas. Daly, clerk; A.
+T. McCord, chamberlain; Clarke Gamble, solicitor; Jno. G. Howard,
+engineer; Geo. L. Allen, chief of police; Jno. Kidd, governor of jail;
+and Robt. Beard, chief engineer of fire brigade.
+
+During the years 1850, '1, '2 and '3, I had for colleagues, in addition
+to those of the above who were re-elected: aldermen John G. Bowes, Hon.
+J. H. Cameron, Q.C., R. Kneeshaw, Wm. Wakefield, E. F. Whittemore, Jno.
+B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard, Geo. Brooke, J. M. Strachan, Jno. Hutchison,
+Wm. H. Boulton, John Carr, S. Shaw, Jas. Beaty, Samuel Platt, E. H.
+Rutherford, Angus Morrison, Ogle R. Gowan, M. P. Hayes, Wm. Gooderham
+and Hon. Wm. Cayley; and councilmen Jonathan Dunn, Jno. Bugg, Adam
+Beatty, D. C. Maclean, Edw. Wright, Jas. Price, Kivas Tully, Geo. Platt,
+Chas. E. Romain, R. C. McMullen, Jos. Lee, Alex. Macdonald, Samuel
+Rogers, F. C. Capreol, Samuel T. Green, Wm. Hall, Robert Dodds, Thos.
+McConkey and Jas. Baxter.
+
+The great majority of these men were persons of high character and
+standing, with whom it was both a privilege and a pleasure to work; and
+the affairs of the city were, generally speaking, honestly and
+disinterestedly administered. Many of my old colleagues still fill
+conspicuous positions in the public service, while others have died full
+of years and honours.
+
+My share of the civic service consisted principally in doing most of the
+hard work, in which I took a delight, and found my colleagues remarkably
+willing to cede to me. All the city buildings were re-erected or
+improved under my direct charge, as chairman of the Market Block and
+Market committees. The St. Lawrence Hall, St. Lawrence Market, City
+Hall, St. Patrick's Market, St. Andrew's Market, the Weigh-House, were
+all constructed in my time. And lastly, the original contract for the
+esplanade was negotiated by the late Ald. W. Gooderham and myself, as
+active members of the Wharves and Harbours committee. The by-laws for
+granting £25,000 to the Northern Railway, and £100,000 to the Toronto &
+Guelph Railway, were both introduced and carried through by me, as
+chairman of the Finance committee, in 1853.
+
+The old market was a curiously ugly and ill-contrived erection. Low
+brick shops surrounded three sides of the square, with cellars used for
+slaughtering sheep and calves; the centre space was paved with rubble
+stones, and was rarely free from heaps of cabbage leaves, bones and
+skins. The old City Hall formed the fourth or King Street side, open
+underneath for fruit and other stalls. The owners of imaginary vested
+rights in the old stalls raised a small rebellion when their dirty
+purlieus were invaded; and the decision of the Council, to rent the new
+stalls by public auction to avoid charges of favouritism, brought
+matters to a climax. On the Saturday evening when the new arcade and
+market were lighted with gas and opened to the public, the Market
+committee walked through from King to Front Street to observe the
+effect. The indignation of the butchers took the form of closing all
+their shutters, and as a last expression of contempt nailing thereon
+miserable shanks of mutton! Dire as this omen was meant to be, it does
+not seem to have prevented the St. Lawrence Market from being a credit
+to the city ever since.
+
+There is a historical incident connected with the old market, of a very
+tragic character. One day towards the latter end of 1837, William Lyon
+Mackenzie held there a political meeting to denounce the Family Compact.
+There was a wooden gallery round the square, the upright posts of which
+were full of sharp hooks, used by the butchers to expose their meat for
+sale, as were also the cross beams from post to post. A considerable
+number of people--from three to four hundred--were present, and the
+great agitator spoke from an auctioneer's desk placed near the western
+stalls. Many young men of Tory families, as well as Orangemen and their
+party allies, attended to hear the speeches. In the midst of the
+excitement--applauding or derisive, according to the varying feelings of
+the crowd--the iron stays of the balcony gave way and precipitated
+numbers to the ground. Two or three were caught on the meat-hooks, and
+one--young Fitzgibbon, a son of Col. Fitzgibbon who afterwards commanded
+at Gallows Hill--was killed. Others were seriously wounded, amongst whom
+was Charles Daly, then stationer, and afterwards city clerk, whose leg
+was broken in the fall. I well remember seeing him carried into his own
+shop insensible, and supposed to be fatally hurt.
+
+The routine of city business does not afford much occasion for
+entertaining details, and I shall therefore only trouble my readers with
+notices of the principal civic events to which I was a party, from 1849
+to 1853.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+  LORD ELGIN IN TORONTO.
+
+
+On the 9th day of October, 1849, Lord Elgin made his second public entry
+into Toronto. The announcement of his intention to do so, communicated
+to the mayor, Geo. Gurnett, Esq., by letter signed by his lordship's
+brother and secretary, Col. Bruce, raised a storm of excitement in the
+city, which was naturally felt in the city council. The members were
+almost to a man Tories, a large proportion of whom had served as
+volunteers in 1837-8. The more violent insisted upon holding His
+Excellency personally responsible for the payment of rebels for losses
+arising out of the rebellion in Lower Canada; while moderate men
+contended, that as representative of the Queen, the Governor-General
+should be received with respect and courtesy at least, if not with
+enthusiasm. So high did party feeling run, that inflammatory placards
+were posted about the streets, calling on all loyal men to oppose His
+Excellency's entrance, as an encourager and abettor of treason. A
+special meeting of the council was summoned in consequence, for
+September 13th, at which the Hon. Henry Sherwood, member for the city,
+moved a resolution declaring the determination of the council to repress
+all violence, whether of word or deed, which was carried by a large
+majority.
+
+The draft of an address which had been prepared by a committee of the
+citizens, and another by Ald. G. T. Denison, were considered at a
+subsequent meeting of the council held on the 17th, and strongly
+objected to--the first as too adulatory, the second as too political. As
+I had the readiest pen in the council, and was in the habit of helping
+members on both sides to draft their ideas in the form of resolutions,
+the mayor requested me to prepare an address embodying the general
+feelings of the members. I accordingly did so to the best of my ability,
+and succeeded in writing one which might express the loyalty of the
+citizens, without committing them to an approval of the conduct of the
+Hincks-Taché government in carrying through Parliament the Rebellion
+Losses Bill. The other addresses having been either defeated or
+withdrawn, I submitted mine, which was carried by a majority of
+seventeen to four. And thus was harmony restored.
+
+His Excellency arrived on the appointed day, being the 9th of October.
+The weather was beautiful, and the city was alive with excitement, not
+unmingled with apprehension. Lieut.-Col. and Ald. G. T. Denison had
+volunteered the services of the Governor-General's Body Guard, which
+were graciously accepted. A numerous cortege of officials and prominent
+citizens met and accompanied the Vice-regal party from the Yonge St.
+wharf to Ellah's Hotel, on King St. west. As they were proceeding up
+Yonge street, one or two rotten eggs were thrown at the
+Governor-General's carriage, by men who were immediately arrested.
+
+On arriving at Ellah's Hotel, His Excellency took his stand on the
+porch, where the City Address was presented, which with the reply I give
+in full:--
+
+      ADDRESS.
+
+_To His Excellency the Right Hon. James Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+Governor-General, &c., &c._
+
+    May it Please Your Excellency,
+
+    We, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of Toronto,
+    in Common Council assembled, beg leave to approach Your
+    Excellency as the representative of our Most Gracious and
+    beloved Sovereign, with renewed assurances of our attachment and
+    devotion to Her Majesty's person and government.
+
+    We will not conceal from Your Excellency, that great diversity
+    of opinion, and much consequent excitement, exists among us on
+    questions connected with the political condition of the
+    Province; but we beg to assure Your Excellency, that however
+    warmly the citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they
+    will be prepared on all occasions to demonstrate their high
+    appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+    according to the Governor-General of this Province that respect
+    and consideration which are no less due to his exalted position,
+    than to the well tried loyalty and decorum which have ever
+    distinguished the inhabitants of this peaceful and flourishing
+    community.
+
+    The City of Toronto has not escaped the commercial depression
+    which has for some time so generally prevailed. We trust,
+    however, that the crisis is now past, and that the abundant
+    harvest with which a kind Providence has blessed us, will ere
+    long restore the commerce of the country to a healthy tone.
+
+    We watch with lively interest the prospect which the completion
+    of our great water communications with the ocean, will open to
+    us; and we fervently hope that the extension of trade thus
+    opened to Her Majesty's North American Provinces will tend to
+    strengthen the union between these Provinces and the Parent
+    State.
+
+    We congratulate Your Excellency and Lady Elgin upon the birth of
+    an heir to Your Excellency's house; and we truly sympathise with
+    Her Ladyship upon her present delicate and weak state, and
+    venture to hope that her tour through Upper Canada will have the
+    effect of restoring her to the enjoyment of perfect health.
+
+      REPLY.
+
+    Gentlemen,--I receive with much satisfaction the assurance of
+    your attachment and devotion to Her Majesty's person and
+    government.
+
+    That the diversities of opinion which exist among you, on
+    questions connected with the political condition of the
+    Province, should be attended with much excitement, is greatly to
+    be regretted, and I fully appreciate the motives which induce
+    you at the present time, to call my attention to the fact. I am
+    willing, nevertheless, to believe that however warmly the
+    citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they will be
+    prepared, on all occasions, to demonstrate their high
+    appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+    according to the Governor-General that respect and consideration
+    which are no less due to his position than to their own
+    well-tried loyalty and decorum.
+
+    It is my firm conviction, moreover, that the inhabitants of
+    Canada, generally, are averse to agitation, and that all
+    communities as well as individuals, who aspire to take a lead in
+    the affairs of the Province, will best fit themselves for that
+    high avocation, by exhibiting habitually in their demeanour, the
+    love of order and of peaceful progress.
+
+    I have observed with much anxiety and concern the commercial
+    depression from which the City of Toronto, in common with other
+    important towns in the Province, has of late so seriously
+    suffered. I trust, however, with you, that the crisis is now
+    past, and that the abundant harvest, with which a kind
+    Providence has blessed the country, will ere long restore its
+    commerce to a healthy tone.
+
+    The completion of your water communications with the ocean must
+    indeed be watched with a lively interest by all who have at
+    heart the welfare of Canada and the continuance of the
+    connection so happily subsisting between the Province and the
+    Parent State. These great works have undoubtedly been costly,
+    and the occasion of some financial embarrassment while in
+    progress. But I firmly believe that the investment you have made
+    in them has been judicious, and that you have secured thereby
+    for your children, and your children's children, an inheritance
+    that will not fail them so long as the law of nature endures
+    which causes the waters of your vast inland seas to seek an
+    outlet to the ocean.
+
+    I am truly obliged to you for the congratulations which you
+    offer me on the birth of my son, and for the kind interest which
+    you express in Lady Elgin's health: I am happy to be able to
+    inform you, that she has already derived much benefit from her
+    sojourn in Upper Canada.
+
+As not a little fictitious history has been woven out of these events, I
+shall call in evidence here the _Globe_ newspaper of the 11th, the
+following day, in which I find this editorial paragraph:--
+
+    "It is seldom we have had an opportunity of speaking in terms of
+    approbation of our civic authorities, but we cannot but express
+    our high sense of the manly, independent manner in which all
+    have done their duty on this occasion. The grand jury[19] is
+    chiefly composed of Conservatives, the Mayor, Aldermen and the
+    police are all Conservatives, but no men could have carried out
+    more fearlessly their determination to maintain order in the
+    community."
+
+Of all the Governors-General who have been sent out to Canada, Lord
+Elgin was by far the best fitted, by personal suavity of manners,
+eloquence in speech, and readiness in catching the tone of his hearers,
+to tide over a stormy political crisis. He had not been long in Toronto
+before his praises rang from every tongue, even the most embittered.
+Americans who came in contact with him, went away charmed with his
+flattering attentions.
+
+[Footnote 19: The grand jury, who happened to be in session, had
+presented some thirteen young men as parties to an attempt to create a
+riot. Some months afterwards, the persons accused were brought to trial,
+and three of them found guilty and sentenced to short terms of
+imprisonment.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+  TORONTO HARBOUR AND ESPLANADE.
+
+
+The number of citizens is becoming few indeed, who remember Toronto Bay
+when its natural surroundings were still undefaced and its waters pure
+and pellucid. From the French Fort to the Don River, curving gently in a
+circular sweep, under a steep bank forty feet high covered with
+luxuriant forest trees, was a narrow sandy beach used as a pleasant
+carriage-drive, much frequented by those residents who could boast
+private conveyances. A wooden bridge spanned the Don, and the road was
+continued thence, still under the shade of umbrageous trees, almost to
+Gibraltar Point on the west, and past Ashbridge's Bay eastward. At that
+part of the peninsula, forming the site of the present east entrance,
+the ground rose at least thirty feet above high-water mark, and was
+crested with trees. Those trees and that bank were destroyed through the
+cupidity of city builders, who excavated the sand and brought it away in
+barges to be used in making mortar. This went on unchecked till about
+the year 1848, when a violent storm--almost a tornado--from the east
+swept across the peninsula, near Ashbridge's Bay, where it had been
+denuded of sand nearly to the ordinary level of the water. This aroused
+public attention to the danger of further neglect.
+
+The harbour had been for some years under the charge of a Board of
+Commissioners, of which the chairman was nominated by the Government,
+two members by the City Council, and two by the Board of Trade. The
+Government, through the chairman, exercised of course the chief control
+of the harbour and of the harbour dues.
+
+In the spring of 1849, the chairman of the Harbour Commission was Col.
+J. G. Chewett, a retired officer I think of the Royal Engineers; the
+other members were Ald. Geo. W. Allan and myself, representing the City
+Council; Messrs. Thos. D. Harris, hardware merchant, and Jno. G. Worts,
+miller, nominees of the Board of Trade. I well remember accompanying
+Messrs. Allan, Harris and Worts round the entire outer beach, on wheels
+and afoot, and a very pleasant trip it was. The waters on retiring had
+left a large pool at the place where they had crossed, but no actual gap
+then existed. Our object was to observe the extent of the mischief, and
+to adopt a remedy if possible. Among the several plans submitted was one
+by Mr. Sandford Fleming, for carrying out into the water a number of
+groynes or jetties, so as to intercept the soil washed down from the
+Scarboro' heights, and thus gradually widen the peninsula as well as
+resist the further erasion of the existing beach. At a subsequent
+meeting of the Harbour Commission, this suggestion was fully discussed.
+The chairman, who was much enfeebled by age and ill-health, resented
+angrily the interference of non-professional men, and refused even to
+put a motion on the subject. Thereupon, Mr. Allan, who was as zealously
+sanguine as Col. Chewett was the reverse, offered to pay the whole cost
+of the groynes out of his own pocket. Still the chairman continued
+obdurate, and became so offensive in his remarks, that the proposition
+was abandoned in disgust.[20]
+
+In following years, the breach recurred again and again, until it
+produced an established gap. Efforts were made at various times to have
+the gap closed, but always defeated by the influence of eastern property
+owners, who contended that a free current through the Bay was necessary
+to the health of the east end of the city. The only thing accomplished
+from 1849 to 1853, was the establishment of buoys at the western
+entrance of the harbour, and a lighthouse and guide light on the Queen's
+wharf; also the employment of dredges in deepening the channel between
+the wharf and the buoys, in which Mr. T. D. Harris took a lively
+interest, and did great service to the mercantile community.
+
+Beyond the erection of wharves at several points, no attempt was made to
+change the shore line until 1853, when it became necessary to settle the
+mode in which the Northern and Grand Trunk Railways should enter the
+city. An esplanade had been determined upon so long ago as 1838; and in
+1840 a by-law was passed by the City Council, making it a condition of
+all water-lot leases, that the lessees should construct their own
+portion of the work. In May, 1852, the first active step was taken by
+notifying lessees that their covenants would be enforced. The Mayor,
+John G. Bowes, having reported to the Council that he had made verbal
+application to members of the government at Quebec, for a grant of the
+water-lots west of Simcoe Street, then under the control of the
+Respective Officers of Her Majesty's Ordnance in Upper Canada, a formal
+memorial applying for those lots was adopted and transmitted
+accordingly.
+
+The Committee on Wharves, Harbours, etc., for 1852, consisted of the
+Mayor, Councilmen Tully and Lee, with myself as chairman. We were
+actively engaged during the latter half of the year and the following
+spring, in negotiations with the Northern and Grand Trunk Railway
+boards, in making surveys and obtaining suggestions for the work of the
+Esplanade, and in carrying through Parliament the necessary legislation.
+Messrs. J. G. Howard, city engineer; William Thomas, architect; and
+Walter Shanly, chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway, were severally
+employed to prepare plans and estimates; and no pains were spared to get
+the best advice from all quarters. The Mayor was indefatigable on behalf
+of the city's interests, and to him undoubtedly, is mainly due the
+success of the Council in obtaining the desired grant from Government,
+both of the water-lots and the peninsula.
+
+The chairman of the Committee on Wharves and Harbours, etc., for 1853,
+was the late Alderman W. Gooderham, a thoroughly respected and
+respectable citizen, who took the deepest interest in the subject. I
+acted with and for him on all occasions, preparing reports for the
+Council, and even went so far as to calculate minutely from the
+soundings the whole details of excavation, filling in, breastwork, etc.,
+in order to satisfy myself that the interests of the city were duly
+protected.
+
+In September, 1853, tenders for the work were received from numerous
+parties, and subjected to rigorous examination, the opinions of citizens
+being freely taken thereon. In the meantime, it was necessary, before
+closing the contract, to obtain authority from the Government with
+respect to the western water lots, and I was sent to Quebec for that
+purpose, in which, but for the influence of the Grand Trunk Company, and
+of Messrs. Gzowski & Macpherson, I might have failed. The Hon. Mr.
+Hincks, then premier, received me rather brusquely at first, and it was
+not until he was thoroughly satisfied that the railway interests were
+fairly consulted, that I made much progress with him. I did succeed,
+however, and brought back with me all necessary powers both as to the
+water lots and the peninsula.
+
+Finally, the tender of Messrs. Gzowski & Co. was very generally judged
+to be most for the interests of the city. They offered to allow £10,000
+for the right of way for the Grand Trunk Railway along the Esplanade;
+and engaged for the same sum to erect five bridges, with brick abutments
+and stone facings, to be built on George, Church, Yonge, Bay, and either
+York or Simcoe Streets, to the wharves.[21] The contract also provided
+that the cribwork should be of sufficient strength to carry stone facing
+hereafter.[22]
+
+When canvassing St. George's Ward in December, 1852, for re-election as
+alderman, I told my constituents that nothing but my desire to complete
+the Esplanade arrangements could induce me to sacrifice my own business
+interests by giving up more than half my time for another year: and it
+was with infinite satisfaction that on the 4th of January, 1854--the
+last week but one of my term in the Council--I saw the Esplanade
+contract "signed, sealed and delivered" in the presence of the Wharves
+and Harbours Committee. On the 11th January, a report of the same
+committee, recommending the appointment of a proper officer to take
+charge of the peninsula, and put a stop to the removal of sand, was
+adopted in Council.
+
+I heartily wish that my reminiscences of the Esplanade contract could
+end here. I ceased to have any connection with it, officially or
+otherwise; but in 1854, an agitation was commenced within the Council
+and out of doors, the result of which was, the cancellation by mutual
+consent of the contract made with Messrs. Gzowski & Co., and the making
+a new contract with other parties, by which it was understood the city
+lost money to the tune of some $50,000, while Messrs. Gzowski & Co.
+benefited to the extent of at least $16,000, being the difference
+between the rates of wages in 1853 and 1855. The five bridges were set
+aside, to which circumstance is due the unhappy loss of life by which we
+have all been shocked of late years. Of the true cause of all these
+painful consequences, I shall treat in my next chapter.
+
+[Footnote 20: After I had left the Council, the question of harbour
+preservation was formally taken up at Mayor Allan's instance, and three
+premiums offered for the best reports on the subject. The first prize
+was adjudged to the joint report of Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. H. Y.
+Hind, in which the system of groynes was recommended. The reports were
+printed, but the Council--did nothing. Mr. Allan again offered to put
+down a groyne at his own expense, Mr. Fleming agreeing to superintend
+the work. The offer, however, was never accepted.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The necessary plans and specifications for these five
+bridges were prepared by Mr. Shanly accordingly,--their value when
+completed, being put at fully £15,000.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The same year, I was chairman of the Walks and Gardens
+Committee, and in that capacity instructed Mr. John Tully, City
+Surveyor, to extend the surveys of all streets leading towards the Bay,
+completely to the water line of the Esplanade. This was before any
+concession was made to the Northern, or any other railway. I mention
+this by way of reminder to the city authorities, who seem to me to have
+overlooked the fact.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLV.
+
+  MAYOR BOWES--CITY DEBENTURES.
+
+
+Of all the members of the City Council for 1850, and up to 1852, John G.
+Bowes was the most active and most popular. In educational affairs, in
+financial arrangements, and indeed, in all questions affecting the
+city's interests, he was by far the ablest man who had ever filled the
+civic chair. His acquirements as an arithmetician were extraordinary;
+and as a speaker he possessed remarkable powers. I took pleasure in
+seconding his declared views on nearly all public questions; and in
+return, he showed me a degree of friendship which I could not but highly
+appreciate. By his persuasion, and rather against my own wish, I
+accepted, in 1852, the secretaryship of the Toronto and Guelph Railway
+Company, which I held until it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk Company
+in 1853.[23]
+
+In the same year, rumours began to be rife in the city, that Mr. Bowes,
+in conjunction with the Hon. Francis Hincks, then premier, had made
+$10,000 profits out of the sale of city debentures issued to the
+Northern Railway Company. Had the Mayor admitted the facts at once,
+stating his belief that he was right in so doing, it is probable that
+his friends would have been spared the pain, and himself the loss and
+disgrace which ensued. But he denied in the most solemn manner, in full
+Council, that he had any interest whatever in the sale of those
+debentures, and his word was accepted by all his friends there. When, in
+1854, he was compelled to admit in the Court of Chancery, that he had
+not only sold the debentures for his own profit to the extent of $4,800,
+but that the Hon. Francis Hincks was a partner in the speculation, and
+had profited to the same amount, the Council and citizens were alike
+astounded. Not so much at the transaction itself, for it must be
+remembered that more than one judge in chancery held the dealing in city
+debentures to be perfectly legal both on the part of Mr. Bowes and Sir
+Francis Hincks, but at the palpable deception which had been perpetrated
+on the Finance Committee, and through them on the Council.
+
+While the sale of the $50,000 Northern Railway debentures was under
+consideration, Mr. Bowes as Mayor had been commissioned to get a bill
+passed at Quebec to legalize such sale. On his return it was found that
+new clauses had been introduced into the bill, and particularly one
+requiring the debentures to be made payable in England, to which
+Alderman Joshua G. Beard and myself took objection as unnecessarily
+tying the hands of the Council. Mr. Bowes said, "Mr. Hincks would have
+it so." Had the committee supposed that in insisting upon those clauses
+Mr. Hincks was using his official powers for his own private profit,
+they could never have consented to the change in the bill, but would
+have insisted upon the right of the Council to make their own debentures
+payable wheresoever the city's interests would be best subserved.[24]
+
+It is matter of history, that the suit in Chancery resulted in a
+judgment against Mr. Bowes for the whole amount of his profits, and that
+in addition to that loss he had to pay a heavy sum in costs, not only of
+the suit, but of appeals both here and in England. The consequence to
+myself was a great deal of pain, and the severance of a friendship that
+I had valued greatly. In October, 1853, a very strong resolution
+denouncing his conduct was moved by Alderman G. T. Denison, to which I
+moved an amendment declaring him to have been guilty of "a want of
+candour," which was carried, and which was the utmost censure that the
+majority of the Council would consent to pass. For this I was subjected
+to much animadversion in the public press. Yet from the termination of
+the trial to the day of his death, I never afterwards met Mr. Bowes on
+terms of amity. At an interview with him, at the request and in presence
+of my partner, Col. O. R. Gowan, I told the Mayor that I considered him
+morally responsible for all the ill-feeling that had caused the
+cancellation of the first Esplanade contract, and for the loss to the
+city which followed. I told him that it had become impossible for any
+man to trust his word. And afterwards when he became a candidate for a
+seat in parliament, I opposed his election in the columns of the
+_Colonist_, which I had then recently purchased; for which he denounced
+me personally, at his election meetings, as a man capable of
+assassination.
+
+Notwithstanding, I believe John G. Bowes to have been punished more
+severely than justice required; that he acted in ignorance of the law;
+and that his great services to the city more than outweighed any injury
+sustained. His subsequent election to Parliament, while it may have
+soothed his pride, can hardly have repaid him for the forfeiture of the
+respect of a very large number of his fellow-citizens.
+
+[Footnote 23: I was offered by Sir Cusack Roney, chief secretary of the
+G. T. R. Co., a position worth $2,000 a year in their Montreal office,
+but declined to break up my connections in Toronto. On my resigning the
+secretaryship, the Board honoured me with a resolution of thanks, and a
+gratuity of a year's salary.]
+
+[Footnote 24: The judgment given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council expressly stated that "the evidence of Ald. Thompson and
+Councilman Tully was conclusive as to the effect of their having been
+kept in ignorance of the corrupt bargain respecting the sale of the city
+debentures issued for the construction of the Northern Railway; and that
+they would not have voted for the proposed bill for the consolidation of
+the city debt, if they had been aware of the transaction."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+  CARLTON OCEAN BEACH.
+
+
+In 1853, I removed to the village of Carlton West, on the gravel road to
+Weston, and distant seven miles north-west of the city. My house stood
+on a gravel ridge which stretches from the Carlton station of the
+Northern Railway to the River Humber, and which must have formed the
+beach of the antediluvian northern ocean, one hundred and eighty feet
+above the present lake, and four hundred and thirty above the sea. This
+gravel ridge plainly marks the Toronto Harbour at the mouth of the
+Humber, as it existed in those ancient days, before the Niagara River
+and the Falls had any place on our world's surface. East of Carlton
+station, a high bluff of clay continues the old-line of coast, like the
+modern, to Scarboro' Heights, showing frequent depressions caused by the
+ice of the glacial period. In corroboration of this theory, I remember
+that for the first house built on the Avenue Road, north of Davenport
+Road, the excavations for a cellar laid bare great boulders of granite,
+limestone, and other rock, evidently deposited there by icebergs, which
+had crossed the clay bluff by channels of their own dredging, and melted
+away in the warmer waters to the south. I think it was Professor
+Chapman, of Toronto University, who pointed this out to me, and
+mentioned a still more remarkable case of glacial action which occurred
+in the Township of Albion, where a limestone quarry which had been
+worked profitably for several years, turned out to the great
+disappointment of its owner to be neither more nor less than a vast
+glacial boulder, which had been transported from its natural site at a
+distance of at least eighty miles. This locomotive rock is said to have
+been seventy feet in thickness and as much in breadth.
+
+While speaking of the Carlton gravel ridge, it is worth while to note
+that, in taking gravel from its southern face, at a depth of twenty
+feet, I found an Indian flint arrow-head; also a stone implement similar
+to what is called by painters a muller, used for grinding paint. Several
+massive bones, and the horns of some large species of deer, were also
+found in the same gravel pit, and carried or given away by the workmen.
+The two articles first named are still in my possession. Being at the
+very bottom of the gravel deposit, they must have lain there when no
+such beach existed, or ever since the Oak Ridges ceased to be an ocean
+beach.
+
+My house on the Davenport Road was a very pleasant residence, with a
+fine lawn ornamented with trees chiefly planted by my own hands, and was
+supplied with all the necessaries for modest competence. It is worth
+recording, that some of the saplings--silver poplars (abeles) planted by
+me, grew in twelve years to be eighteen inches thick at the butt, and
+sixty feet in spread of branches; while maples and other hardwoods did
+not attain more than half that size. Thus it would seem, that our
+North-West prairies might be all re-clothed with full-grown ash-leaved
+maples--their natural timber--in twenty-five years, or with balm of
+Gilead and abele poplars in half that time. Would it not be wise to
+enact laws at once, having that object in view?
+
+I have been an amateur gardener since early childhood; and at Carlton
+indulged my taste to the full by collecting all kinds of flowers
+cultivated and wild. I still envy the man who, settling in the new
+lands, say in the milder climates of Vancouver's Island or British
+Columbia, may utilize to the full his abundant opportunities of
+gathering into one group the endless floral riches of the Canadian
+wilderness. We find exquisite lobelias, scarlet, blue and lilac;
+orchises with pellucid stems and fairy elegance of blossom; lovely
+prairie roses; cacti of infinite delicacy and the richest hues. Then as
+to shrubs--the papaw, the xeranthemum of many varieties, the Indian pear
+(or saskatoon of the North-West), spirĉa prunifolia of several kinds,
+shrubby St. John's-wort, oenothera grandiflora, _cum multis aliis_.
+
+Now that the taste for wild-flower gardens has become the fashion in
+Great Britain, it will doubtless soon spread to this Continent. No
+English park is considered complete without its special garden for wild
+flowers, carefully tended and kept as free from stray weeds as the more
+formal parterre of the front lawn. Our wealthier Canadian families
+cannot do better than follow the example of the Old Country in this
+respect, and assuredly they will be abundantly repaid for the little
+trouble and expenditure required.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+  CANADIAN POLITICS FROM 1853 to 1860.
+
+
+In May, 1853, I sold out my interest in the _Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R.
+Gowan, and having a little capital of my own, invested it in the
+purchase of the _Colonist_ from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie, who
+died December 6th, 1852. It was a heavy undertaking, but I was sanguine
+and energetic, and--as one of my friends told me--thorough. The
+_Colonist_, as an organ of the old Scottish Kirk party in Canada, had
+suffered from the rivalry of its Free Kirk competitor, the _Globe_; and
+its remaining subscribers, being, as a rule, strongly Conservative, made
+no objection to the change of proprietorship; while I carried over with
+me, by agreement, the subscribers to the daily _Patriot_, thus combining
+the mercantile strength of the two journals.
+
+I had hitherto confined myself to the printing department, leaving the
+duties of editorship to others. On taking charge of the _Colonist_, I
+assumed the whole political responsibility, with Mr. John Sheridan Hogan
+as assistant editor and Quebec correspondent. My partners were the late
+Hugh C. Thomson, afterwards secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who
+acted as local editor; and James Bain, now of the firm of Jas. Bain &
+Son, to whom the book-selling and stationery departments were committed.
+We had a strong staff of reporters, and commenced the new enterprise
+under promising circumstances. Our office and store were in the old
+brick building extending from King to Colborne Street, long previously
+known as the grocery store of Jas. F. Smith.
+
+The ministry then in power was that known as the Hincks-Taché
+Government. Francis Hincks had parted with his old radical allies, and
+become more conservative than many of the Tories whom he used to
+denounce. People remembered Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's prophecy, who said he
+feared that Francis Hincks could not be trusted to resist temptation.
+When Lord Elgin went to England, it was whispered that his lordship had
+paid off £80,000 sterling of mortgages on his Scottish estates, out of
+the proceeds of speculations which he had shared with his clever
+minister. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic purchase, the £50,000 Grand
+Trunk stock placed to Mr. Hincks' credit--as he asserted without his
+consent--and the Bowes transaction, gave colour to the many stories
+circulated to his prejudice. And when he went to England, and received
+the governorship of Barbadoes, many people believed that it was the
+price of his private services to the Earl of Elgin.
+
+Whatever the exact truth in these cases may have been, I am convinced
+that from the seed then sown, sprang up a crop of corrupt influences
+that have since permeated all the avenues to power, and borne their
+natural fruit in the universal distrust of public men, and the
+wide-spread greed of public money, which now prevail. Neither political
+party escapes the imputation of bribing the constituencies, both
+personally at elections, and by parliamentary grants for local
+improvements. The wholesale expenditure at old country elections, which
+transferred so much money from the pockets of the rich to those of the
+poor, without any prospect of pecuniary return, has with us taken the
+form of a speculative investment to be "re-couped" by value in the shape
+of substantial government favours.
+
+Could I venture to enter the lists against so tremendous a rhetorical
+athlete as Professor Goldwin Smith, I should say, that his idea of
+abolishing party government to secure purity of election is an utter
+fallacy; I should say that the great factor of corruption in Canada has
+been the adoption of the principle of coalitions. I told a prominent
+Conservative leader in 1853, that I looked upon coalitions as
+essentially immoral, and that the duty of either political party was to
+remain contentedly "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," and to support
+frankly all good measures emanating from the party in office, until the
+voice of the country, fairly expressed, should call the Opposition to
+assume the reins of power legitimately. I told the late Hon. Mr. Spence,
+when he joined the coalition ministry of 1854, that we (of the
+_Colonist_) looked upon that combination as an organized attempt to
+govern the country through its vices; and that nothing but the violence
+of the _Globe_ party could induce us to support any coalition
+whatsoever. And I think still that I was right, and that the Minister
+who buys politicians to desert their principles, resembles nothing so
+much as the lawyer who gains a verdict in favour of his client by
+bribing the jury.
+
+The union of Upper and Lower Canada is chargeable, no doubt, with a
+large share of the evils that have crept into our constitutional system.
+The French Canadian _habitans_, at the time of the Union, were true
+scions of the old peasantry of Normandy and Brittany, with which their
+songs identify them so strikingly. All their ideas of government were
+ultra-monarchical; their allegiance to the old French Kings had been
+transferred to the Romish hierarchy and clergy, who, it must be said,
+looked after their flocks with undying zeal and beneficent care. But
+this formed an ill preparation for representative institutions. The
+_Rouge_ party, at first limited to lawyers and notaries chiefly, had
+taken up the principles of the first French revolution, and for some
+years made but little progress; in time, however, they learnt the
+necessity of cultivating the assistance, or at least the neutrality of
+the clergy, and in this they were aided by ties of relationship. As in
+Ireland, where almost every poor family emaciates itself to provide for
+the education of one of its sons as a "counsellor" or a priest, so in
+Lower Canada, most families contain within themselves both priest and
+lawyer. Thus it came to pass, that in the Lower Province, a large
+proportion of the people lived in the hope that they might sooner or
+later share in "government pap," and looked upon any means to that end
+as unquestionably lawful. It is not difficult to perceive how much and
+how readily this idea would communicate itself to their Upper Canadian
+allies after the Union; that it did so, is matter of history.
+
+In fact, the combination of French and British representatives in a
+single cabinet, itself constitutes a coalition of the most objectionable
+kind; as the result can only be a perpetual system of compromises. For
+example, one of the effects of the Union, and of the coalition of 1854,
+was the passage of the bill secularizing the Clergy Reserves, and
+abolishing all connection between church and state in Upper Canada,
+while leaving untouched the privileges of the Romish Church in the Lower
+Province. That some day, there will arise a formidable Nemesis spawned
+of this one-sided act, when the agitation for disendowment shall have
+reached the Province of Quebec, who can doubt?
+
+In 1855 and subsequently, followed a series of struggles for office,
+without any great political object in view, each party or clique
+striving to bid higher than all the rest for popular votes, which went
+on amid alternate successes and reverses, until the denouement came in
+1859, when neither political party could form a Ministry that should
+command a majority in parliament, and they were fain to coalesce _en
+masse_ in favour of confederation. At one time, Mr. George Brown was
+defeated by Wm. Lyon Mackenzie in Halton; at another, he voted with the
+Tories against the Hincks ministry; again, he was a party to a proposed
+coalition with Sir Allan MacNab. I was myself present at Sir Allan's
+house in Richey's Terrace, Adelaide Street, where I was astonished to
+meet Mr. Brown himself in confidential discussion with Sir Allan. I
+recollect a member of the Lower House--I think Mr. Hillyard
+Cameron--hurrying in with the information that at a meeting of
+Conservative members which he had just left, they had chosen Mr. John A.
+Macdonald as their leader in place of Sir Allan, which report broke up
+the conference, and defeated the plans of the coalitionists. This was, I
+think, in 1855. Then came on the "Rep. by Pop." agitation led by the
+_Globe_, in 1856.[25] In 1857, the great business panic superseded all
+other questions. In 1858, the turn of the Reform party came, with Mr.
+Brown again at their head, who held power for precisely four days.
+
+In 1858, also, the question of protection for native industry, which had
+been advocated by the British-American League, was taken up in
+parliament by the Hon. Wm. Cayley and Hon. Isaac Buchanan separately. In
+1859, came Mr. Brown's and Mr. Galt's federal union resolutions, and Mr.
+Cayley's motion for protection once more.
+
+All these years--from 1853 to 1860--I was in confidential communication
+with the leaders of the Conservative party, and after 1857 with the
+Upper Canadian members of the administration personally; and I am bound
+to bear testimony to their entire patriotism and general
+disinterestedness whenever the public weal was involved. I was never
+asked to print a line which I could not conscientiously endorse; and had
+I been so requested, I should assuredly have refused.
+
+[Footnote 25: The same year occurred the elections for members of the
+Legislative Council. I was a member of Mr. G. W. Allan's committee, and
+saw many things there which disgusted me with all election tactics. Men
+received considerable sums of money for expenses, which it was believed
+never left their own pockets. Mr. Allan was in England, and sent
+positive instructions against any kind of bribery whatsoever, yet when
+he arrived here, claims were lodged against him amounting to several
+thousand dollars, which he was too high-minded to repudiate.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+  BUSINESS TROUBLES.
+
+
+Up to the year 1857, I had gone on prosperously, enlarging my
+establishment, increasing my subscription list, and proud to own the
+most enterprising newspaper published in Canada up to that day. The
+_Daily Colonist_ consisted of eight pages, and was an exact counterpart
+of the _London Times_ in typographical appearance, size of page and
+type, style of advertisements, and above all, in independence of
+editorial comment and fairness in its treatment of opponents. No
+communication courteously worded was refused admission, however caustic
+its criticisms on the course taken editorially. The circulation of the
+four editions (daily, morning and evening, bi-weekly and weekly)
+amounted to, as nearly as I can recollect, 30,000 subscribers, and its
+readers comprised all classes and creeds.
+
+In illustration of the kindly feeling existing towards me on the part of
+my political adversaries, I may record the fact that, when in the latter
+part of 1857, it became known in the profession that I had suffered
+great losses arising out of the commercial panic of that year, Mr.
+George Brown, with whom I was on familiar terms, told me that he was
+authorized by two or three gentlemen of high standing in the Liberal
+party, whom he named, to advance me whatever sums of money I might
+require to carry on the _Colonist_ independently, if I would accept
+their aid. I thanked him and replied, that I could publish none other
+than a Conservative paper, which ended the discussion.
+
+The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being himself embarrassed by the
+tremendous pressure of the money market, in which he had operated
+heavily, counselled me to act upon a suggestion that the _Colonist_
+should become the organ of the Macdonald-Cartier Government, to which
+position would be attached the right of furnishing certain of the public
+departments with stationery, theretofore supplied by the Queen's Printer
+at fixed rates. I did so, reserving to myself the absolute control of
+the editorial department, and engaging the services of Mr. Robert A.
+Harrison (of the Attorney-General's office, afterwards Chief Justice),
+as assistant editor. Instead, however, of alleviating, this change of
+base only intensified my troubles.
+
+I found that, throughout the government offices, a system had been
+prevalent, something like that described in _Gil Blas_ as existing at
+the Court of Spain, by which, along with the stationery required for the
+departments, articles for ladies' toilet use, etc., were included, and
+had always theretofore been charged in the government accounts as a
+matter of course. I directed that those items should be supplied as
+ordered, but that their cost be placed to my own private account, and
+that the parties be notified, that they must thereafter furnish separate
+orders for such things. I also took an early opportunity of pointing out
+the abuse to the Attorney-General, who said his colleagues had suspected
+the practice before, but had no proof of misconduct; and added, that if
+I would lay an information, he would send the offenders to the
+Penitentiary; as in fact he did in the Reiffenstein case some years
+afterwards. I replied, that were I to do so, nearly every man in the
+public service would be likely to become my personal enemy, which he
+admitted to be probable. As it was, the apparent consequence of my
+refusal to make fraudulent entries, was an accusation that I charged
+excessive prices, although I had never charged as much as the rate
+allowed the Queen's Printer, considering it unreasonable. My accounts
+were at my request referred to an expert, and adjudged by him to be fair
+in proportion to quality of stationery furnished. Gradually I succeeded
+in stopping the time-honoured custom as far as I was concerned.
+
+Years after, when I had the contract for Parliamentary printing at
+Quebec, matters proved even more vexatious. When the Session had
+commenced, and I had with great outlay and exertion got every thing into
+working order, I was refused copies of papers from certain sub-officers
+of the Legislature, until I had agreed upon the percentage expected upon
+my contract rates. My reply, through my clerk, was, that I had
+contracted at low rates, and could not afford gratuities such as were
+claimed, and that if I could, I would not. The consequence was a
+deadlock, and it was not until I brought the matter to the attention of
+the Speaker, Sir Henry Smith, that I was enabled to get on with the
+work. These things happened a quarter of a century ago, and although I
+suffer the injurious consequences myself to this day, I trust no other
+living person can be affected by their publication now.
+
+The position of ministerial organist, besides being both onerous and
+unpleasant, was to me an actual money loss. My newspaper expenses
+amounted to over four hundred dollars per week, with a constantly
+decreasing subscription list.[26] The profits on the government
+stationery were no greater than those realized by contractors who gave
+no additional _quid pro quo_; and I was only too glad, when the
+opportunity of competing for the Legislative printing presented itself
+in 1858, to close my costly newspaper business in Toronto. I sold the
+goodwill of the _Colonist_ to Messrs. Sheppard & Morrison,[27] and on my
+removal to Quebec next year, established a cheap journal there called
+the _Advertiser_, the history of which in 1859-60, I shall relate in a
+chapter by itself.
+
+[Footnote 26: The late Mr. George Brown has often told me, that whenever
+the _Globe_ became a Government organ, the loss in circulation and
+advertising was so great as to counter-balance twice over the profits
+derived from government advertising and printing.]
+
+[Footnote 27: On my retirement from the publication of the _Colonist_,
+the Attorney-General offered me a position under Government to which was
+attached a salary of $1,400 a year, which I declined as unsuited to my
+tastes and habits.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+  BUSINESS EXPERIENCES IN QUEBEC.
+
+
+When I began to feel the effects of official hostility in Quebec, as
+above stated, I was also suffering from another and more vital evil. I
+had taken the contract for parliamentary printing at prices slightly
+lower than had before prevailed. My knowledge of printing in my own
+person gave me an advantage over most other competitors. The consequence
+of this has been, that large sums of money were saved to the country
+yearly for the last twenty-four years. But the former race of
+contractors owed me a violent grudge, for, as they alleged, taking the
+contract below paying prices. I went to work, however, confident of my
+resources and success. But no sooner had I got well under weigh, than my
+arrangements were frustrated, my expenditure nullified, my just hopes
+dashed to the ground, by the action of the Legislature itself. A joint
+committee on printing had been appointed, of which the Hon. Mr. Simpson,
+of Bowmanville, was chairman, which proceeded deliberately to cut down
+the amount of printing to be executed, and particularly the quantity of
+French documents to be printed, to such an extent as to reduce the work
+for which I had contracted by at least one-third. And this without the
+smallest regard to the terms of my contract. Thus were one-half of all
+my expenditures--one-half of my thirty thousand dollars worth of
+type--one-half of my fifteen thousand dollars worth of presses and
+machinery--literally rendered useless, and reduced to the condition of
+second-hand material. I applied to my solicitor for advice. He told me
+that, unless I threw up the contract, I could make no claim for breach
+of conditions. Unfortunately for me, the many precedents since
+established, of actions on "petition of right" for breach of contract by
+the Government and the Legislature, had not then been recorded, and I
+had to submit to what I was told was the inevitable.
+
+I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and
+malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French
+contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in
+Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my
+workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my
+contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to
+my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier
+of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the
+Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination
+against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it,
+unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance.
+
+I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send
+a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I
+hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of
+Messrs Cameron & Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could
+command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of
+the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a
+hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada,
+which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due
+by farmers who--as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857--had
+made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment
+of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so
+thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements
+submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee,
+and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their
+benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they
+undertook to do in three days.
+
+What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term,
+that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in
+Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and
+influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to
+abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so.
+
+Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent
+abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by
+marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides
+command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my
+counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought
+in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and
+in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with
+the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more
+into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert
+Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and François Lemieux.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER L.
+
+  QUEBEC IN 1859-60.
+
+
+I resided for eighteen months in the old, picturesque and many-memoried
+city. My house was a three-story cedar log building known as the White
+House, near the corner of Salaberry Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It
+was weather-boarded outside, comfortably plastered and finished within,
+and was the most easily warmed house I ever occupied. The windows were
+French, double in winter, opening both inwards and outwards, with
+sliding panes for ventilation. It had a good garden, sloping northerly
+at an angle of about fifteen degrees, which I found a desolate place
+enough, and left a little oasis of beauty and productiveness. One of my
+amusements there was to stroll along the garden paths, watching for the
+sparkle of Quebec diamonds, which after every rainfall glittered in the
+paths and flower-beds. They are very pretty, well shaped octagonal
+crystals of rock quartz, and are often worn in necklaces by the Quebec
+demoiselles. On the plains of Abraham I found similar specimens
+brilliantly black.
+
+Quebec is famous for good roads and pleasant shady promenades. By the
+St. Foy Road to Spencer Wood, thence onward to Cap Rouge, back by the
+St. Louis Road or Grande Allée, past the citadel and through the
+old-fashioned St. Louis Gate, is a charming stroll; or along the by-path
+from St. Louis Road to the pretty Gothic chapel overhanging the Cove,
+and so down steep rocky steps descending four hundred feet to the mighty
+river St. Lawrence; or along the St. Charles river and the country road
+to Lorette; or by the Beauport road to the old chateau or manor house of
+Colonel Gugy, known by the name of "Darnoc." The toll-gate on the St.
+Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple _habitans_,
+who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a
+bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or
+some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with
+which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St.
+Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and
+return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from
+their day's traffic.
+
+One of the specialties of the city is its rats. In my house-yard was a
+sink, or rather hole in the rock, covered by a wooden grating. A large
+cat, who made herself at home on the premises, would sit watching at the
+grating for hours, every now and then inserting her paw between the bars
+and hooking out leisurely a squeaking young rat, of which thirty or
+forty at a time showed themselves within the cavity. I was assured that
+these rats have underground communications, like those of the rock of
+Gibraltar, from every quarter of the city to the citadel, and so
+downward to the quays and river below. Besides the cat, there was a
+rough terrier dog named Cĉsar, also exercising right of occupancy. To
+see him pouncing upon rats in the pantry, from which they could not be
+easily excluded by reason of a dozen entrances through the stone
+basement walls, was something to enchant sporting characters. I was not
+of that class, so stopped up the rock with broken bottles and mortar,
+and provided traps for stray intruders.
+
+The Laurentine mountains, distant a few miles north of the city, rise to
+a height of twenty-five hundred feet. By daylight they are bleak and
+barren enough; but at night, seen in the light of the glorious Aurora
+Borealis which so often irradiates that part of Canada, they are a
+vision of enchanting beauty. This reminds me of a conversation which I
+was privileged to have with the late Sir William Logan, who most kindly
+answered my many inquisitive questions on geological subjects. He
+explained that the mountains of Newfoundland, of Quebec, of the height
+of land between the St. Lawrence and Lake Nipissing, and of Manitoba and
+Keewatin in the North-West, are all links of one continuous chain, of
+nearly equal elevation, and marked throughout that vast extent by
+ancient sea-beaches at an uniform level of twelve hundred feet above the
+sea, with other ancient beaches seven hundred feet above the sea at
+various points; two remarkable examples of which latter class are the
+rock of Quebec and the Oak Ridges eighteen miles north of Toronto. He
+pointed out further, that those two points indicate precisely the level
+of the great ocean which covered North America in the glacial period,
+when Toronto was six hundred feet under salt water, and Quebec was the
+solitary rock visible above water for hundreds of miles east, west and
+south--the Laurentides then, as now, towering eighteen hundred feet
+higher, on the north.
+
+In winter also, Quebec has many features peculiar to itself. Close
+beside, and high above the little steep roofed houses--crowded into
+streets barely wide enough to admit the diminutive French carts without
+crushing unlucky foot-passengers,--rise massive frowning bastions
+crowned with huge cannon, all black with age and gloomy with desperate
+legends of attack and defence. The snow accumulates in these streets to
+the height of the upper-floor windows, with precipitous steps cut
+suddenly down to each doorway, so that at night it is a work of no
+little peril to navigate one's way home. Near the old Palace Gate are
+beetling cliffs, seventy feet above the hill of rocky debris which forms
+one side of the street below. It is high carnival with the Quebec
+_gamins_, when they can collect there in hundreds, each with his frail
+handsleigh, and poising themselves on the giddy edge of the "horrent
+summit," recklessly shoot down in fearful descent, first to the sharp
+rocky slope, and thence with alarming velocity to the lower level of the
+street. Outside St. John's Gate is another of these infantile
+race-grounds. Down the steep incline of the glacis, crowds of children
+are seen every fine winter's day, sleighing and tobogganing from morning
+till night, not without occasional accidents of a serious nature.
+
+But the crowning triumph of Quebec scenery, summer and winter, centres
+in the Falls of Montmorenci, a seven mile drive, over Dorchester bridge,
+along the Beauport road, commanding fine views of the wide St. Lawrence
+and the smiling Isle of Orleans, with its pilot-inhabited houses painted
+blue, red and yellow--all three colours at once occasionally--(the
+paints wickedly supposed to be perquisites acquired in a professional
+capacity from ships' stores)--and so along shady avenues varied by
+brightest sunshine, we find ourselves in front and at the foot of a
+cascade four hundred feet above us, broken into exquisite facets and
+dancing foam by projecting rocky points, and set in a bordering of
+lovely foliage on all sides. This is of course in summer. In winter how
+different. Still the descending torrent, but only bare tree-stems and
+icy masses for the frame-work, and at the base a conical mountain of
+snow and ice, a hundred and fifty feet high, sloping steeply on all
+sides, and with the frozen St. Lawrence spread out for miles to the
+east. He who covets a sensation for life, has only to climb the gelid
+hill by the aid of ice-steps cut in its side, and commit himself to the
+charge of the habitant who first offers his services, and the thing is
+soon accomplished. The gentleman adventurer sits at the back of the
+sleigh,--which is about four feet long--tucks his legs round the
+habitant, who sits in front and steers with his heels; for an instant
+the steersman manoeuvres into position on the edge of the cone, which
+slightly overhangs--then away we go, launching into mid-air, striking
+ground--or rather ice--thirty feet below, and down and still down, fleet
+as lightning, to the level river plain, over which we glide by the
+impetus of our descent fully half-a-mile further. I tried it twice. My
+companion was severely affected by the shock, and gave in with a bad
+headache at the first experiment. The same day, several reckless young
+officers of the garrison would insist upon steering themselves, paying a
+guinea each for the privilege. One of them suffered for his freak from a
+broken arm. But with experienced guides no ill-consequences are on
+record.
+
+An appalling tragedy is related of this ice-mountain. An American
+tourist with his bride was among the visitors to the Falls one day some
+years back. They were both young and high-spirited, and had immensely
+enjoyed their marriage trip by way of the St. Lawrence. Standing on the
+summit of the cone, in raptures with the cataract, the cliffs
+ice-bedecked, the trees ice-laden, their attention was for an instant
+diverted from each other. The young man, gazing eastward across the
+river, talking gaily to his wife, was surprised at receiving no reply,
+and looking round found himself alone. Shouting frantically, no
+answering cry could be distinguished,--the roaring of the cascade was
+loud enough to drown any human voice. Hanging madly over the edge next
+the Falls, which is quite precipitous, there was nothing to be seen but
+a boiling whirlpool of angry waters. The poor girl had stepped
+unconsciously backward,--had slipped down into the boiling surf,--had
+been instantaneously carried beneath the ice of the river.
+
+Another peculiarity of Quebec is its ice-freshets in spring. Near the
+vast tasteless church of St. John, on the road of that name, a torrent
+of water from the higher level crosses the street, and thunders down the
+steep ways descending to the Lower Town. At night it freezes solidly
+again, and becomes so dangerously slippery, that I have seen ladies
+piloted across for several hundred feet, by holding on to the
+courteously extended walking stick of the first gentlemanly stranger to
+whom they could appeal for help in their utter distress and perplexity.
+These freshets flood the business streets named after St. Peter and St.
+Paul on the level of the wharves. To cross them at such times, floating
+planks are put in requisition, and no little skill is required to escape
+a wetting up to the knees.
+
+The social aspects of the city are as unique as its natural features.
+The Romish hierarchy exercises an arbitrary, and I must add a
+beneficial, rule over the mixed maritime and crimping elements which
+form its lowest stratum. Private charity is universal on the part of the
+well-to-do citizens. It is an interesting sight to watch the numbers of
+paupers who are supplied weekly from heaps of loaves of bread piled
+high on the tradesmen's counters, to which all comers are free to help
+themselves.
+
+The upper classes are divided into castes as marked as those of
+Hindostan. French Canadian seigniors, priestly functionaries of high
+rank, government officials of the ruling race, form an exclusive, and it
+is said almost impenetrable coterie by themselves. The sons or nephews
+of Liverpool merchants having branch firms in the city, and wealthy
+Protestant tradesmen, generally English churchmen, constitute a second
+division scarcely less isolated. Next to these come the members of other
+religious denominations, who keep pretty much to themselves. I am sorry
+to hear from a respected Methodist minister whom I met in Toronto
+lately, that the last named valuable element of the population has been
+gradually diminishing in numbers and influence, and that it is becoming
+difficult to keep their congregations comfortably together. This is a
+consequence, and an evil consequence, of confederation.
+
+Another characteristic singularity of Quebec life arises from the
+association, without coalescing, of two distinct nationalities having
+diverse creeds and habits. This is often ludicrously illustrated by the
+system of mixed juries. I was present in the Recorder's Court on one
+occasion, when a big, burly Irishman was in the prisoner's dock, charged
+with violently ejecting a bailiff in possession, which I believe in
+Scotland is called a deforcement on the premises. It appeared that the
+bailiff, a little habitant, had been riotously drunk and disorderly,
+having helped himself to the contents of a number of bottles of ale
+which he discovered in a cupboard. The prisoner, moved to indignation,
+coolly took up the drunken offender in his arms, tossed him down a
+flight of steps into the middle of the street, and shut the door in his
+face. The counsel for the complainant, a popular Irish barrister,
+lamented privately that he was on the wrong side, being more used to
+defending breaches of the laws than to enforcing them--that there was no
+hope of a verdict in favour of authority--and that the jury were certain
+to disagree, however clearly the facts and the law were shown. And so it
+proved. The French jurors looked puzzled--the English enjoyed the
+fun--the judge charged with a half smile on his countenance--and the
+jury disagreed--six to six. On leaving the court, one of the jurors
+whispered to the discharged prisoner, "Did you think we were agoing to
+give in to them French fellows?"
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LI.
+
+  DEPARTURE FROM QUEBEC.
+
+
+I suppose it is in the very nature of an autobiography to be
+egotistical, a fault which I have desired to avoid; but find that my own
+personal affairs have been often so strangely interwoven with public
+events, that I could not make the one intelligible without describing
+the other. My departure from Quebec, for instance, was caused by
+circumstances which involved many public men of that day, and made me an
+involuntary party to important political movements.
+
+I have mentioned that, with the sanction of the Upper Canadian section
+of the Ministry, I had commenced the publication in Quebec of a daily
+newspaper with an evening edition, under the title of the _Advertiser_.
+I strove to make it an improvement upon the style of then existing
+Quebec journals, but without any attempt at business rivalry, devoting
+my attention chiefly to the mercantile interests of the city, including
+its important lumber trade. I wrote articles describing the various
+qualities of Upper Canadian timber, which I thought should be made known
+in the British market. This was to some degree successful, and as a
+consequence I gained the friendship of several influential men of
+business. But I did not suspect upon how inflammable a mine I was
+standing. A discourteous remark in a morning contemporary, upon some
+observations in the _Courrier du Canada_, in which the ground was taken
+by the latter that French institutions in Europe exceeded in liberality,
+and ensured greater personal freedom than those of Great Britain, and by
+consequence of Canada, induced me to enter into an amicable controversy
+with the _Courrier_ as to the relative merits of French imperial and
+British monarchical government. About the same time, I gave publicity to
+some complaints of injustice suffered by Protestant--I think
+Orange--workmen who had been dismissed from employment under a local
+contractor on one of the wharves, owing as was asserted to their
+religious creed. Just then a French journalist, the editor of the
+_Courrier de Paris_, was expelled by the Emperor Louis Napoleon for some
+critique on "my policy." This afforded so pungent an opportunity for
+retort upon my Quebec friend, that I could not resist the temptation to
+use it. From that moment, it appears, I was considered an enemy of
+French Canadians and a hater of Roman Catholics, to whom in truth I
+never felt the least antipathy, and never even dreamt of enquiring
+either the religious or political principles of men in my employment.
+
+I was informed, that the Hon. Mr. Cartier desired that I should
+discontinue the _Advertiser_. Astonished at this, I spoke to one of his
+colleagues on the subject. He said I had been quite in the right; that
+the editor of the _Courrier_ was a d--d fool; but I had better see
+Cartier. I did so; pointed out that I had no idea of having offended any
+man's prejudices; and could not understand why my paper should be
+objectionable. He vouchsafed no argument; said curtly that his friends
+were annoyed; and that I had better give up the paper. I declined to do
+so, and left him.
+
+This was subsequent to the events related in Chapter xlix. I spoke to
+others of the Ministers. One of them--he is still living--said that I
+was getting too old [I was fifty], and it was time I was
+superannuated--but that--they could not go against Cartier! My pride was
+not then subdued, and revolted against such treatment. I was under no
+obligations to the Ministry; on the contrary, I felt they were heavily
+indebted to me. I waited on the Hon. L. V. Sicotte, who was on neutral
+terms with the government, placed my columns at his disposal, and
+shortly afterwards, on the conclusion of an understanding between him
+and the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald, to which the Hon. A. A. Dorion was
+a party, I published an article prepared by them, temperately but
+strongly opposed to the policy of the existing government. This
+combination ultimately resulted in the formation of the
+Macdonald-Sicotte Ministry in 1862.
+
+But this was not all. The French local press took up the quarrel
+respecting French institutions--told me plainly that Quebec was a
+"Catholic city," and that I would not be allowed to insult their
+institutions with impunity--hinted at mob-chastisement, and other
+consequences. I knew that years before, the printing office of a friend
+of my own--since high in the public service--had been burnt in Quebec
+under similar circumstances. I could not expose my partners to absolute
+ruin by provoking a similar fate. The Protestants of the city were quite
+willing to make my cause a religious and national feud, and told me so.
+There was no knowing where the consequences might end. For myself, I had
+really no interest in the dispute; no prejudices to gratify; no love of
+fighting for its own sake, although I had willingly borne arms for my
+Queen; so I gave up the dispute; sold out my interest in the printing
+contract to my partners for a small sum, which I handed to the rightful
+owner of the materials, and left Quebec with little more than means
+enough to pay my way to Toronto.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LII.
+
+  JOHN A. MACDONALD AND GEORGE BROWN.
+
+
+In chapter XXXV. I noticed the almost simultaneous entrance of these two
+men into political life. Their history and achievements have been
+severally recorded by friendly biographers, and it is unnecessary for me
+to add anything thereto. Personally, nothing but kindly courtesy was
+ever shown me by either. In some respects their record was much alike,
+in some how different. Both Scotchmen, both ambitious, both resolute and
+persevering, both carried away by political excitement into errors which
+they would gladly forget--both unquestionably loyal and true to the
+empire. But in temper and demeanour, no two men could be more unlike.
+Mr. Brown was naturally austere, autocratic, domineering. Sir John was
+kindly, whether to friends or foes, and always ready to forget past
+differences.
+
+A country member, who had been newly elected for a Reform constituency,
+said to a friend of mine, "What a contrast between Brown and Macdonald!
+I was at the Reform Convention the other day, and there was George
+Brown dictating to us all, and treating rudely every man who dared to
+make a suggestion. Next day, I was talking to some fellows in the
+lobby, when a stranger coming up slapped me on the shoulder, and said
+in the heartiest way 'How d'ye do, M----? shake hands--glad to see you
+here--I'm John A.!'"
+
+Another member, the late J. Sheridan Hogan--who, after writing for the
+_Colonist_, had gone into opposition, and was elected member for
+Grey--told me that it was impossible to help liking Sir John--he was so
+good-natured to men on both sides of the House, and never seemed to
+remember an injury, or resent an attack after it was past.
+
+Hence probably the cause of the differing careers of these two men.
+Standing together as equals during the coalition of 1862, and separating
+again after a brief alliance of eighteen months' duration, the one
+retained the confidence of his party under very discouraging
+circumstances, while the other gradually lapsed into the position of a
+governmental impossibility, and only escaped formal deposition as a
+party leader by his own violent death.
+
+I am strongly under the impression that the assassination of George
+Brown by the hands of a dismissed employee, in May, 1880, was one of the
+consequences of his own imperious temper. Many years ago, Mr. Brown
+conceived the idea of employing females as compositors in the _Globe_
+printing office, which caused a "strike" amongst the men. Great
+excitement was created, and angry threats were used against him; while
+the popular feeling was intensified by his arresting several of the
+workmen under an old English statute of the Restoration. The ill-will
+thus aroused extended among the working classes throughout Ontario, and
+doubtless caused his party the loss of more than one constituency. It
+seems highly probable, that the bitterness which rankled in the breast
+of his murderer, had its origin in this old class-feud.
+
+Sir John is reported to have said, that he liked supporters who voted
+with him, not because they thought him in the right, but even when they
+believed him to be in the wrong. I fancy that in so saying, he only gave
+candid expression to the secret feeling of all ambitious leaders. This
+brusque candour is a marked feature of Sir John's character, and no
+doubt goes a great way with the populace. A friend told me, that one of
+our leading citizens met the Premier on King Street, and accosted him
+with--"Sir John, our friend ---- says that you are the d--st liar in
+all Canada!" Assuming a very grave look, the answer came--"I dare say
+it's true enough!"
+
+Sir John once said to myself. "I don't care for office for the sake of
+money, but for the sake of power, and for the sake of carrying out my
+own views of what is best for the country." And I believe he spoke
+sincerely. Mr. Collins, his biographer, has evidently pictured to
+himself his hero some day taking the lead in the demand for Canadian
+independence. I trust and think he is mistaken, and that the great
+Conservative leader would rather die as did his late rival, than quit
+for a moment the straight path of loyalty to his Sovereign and the
+Empire.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIII.
+
+  JOHN SHERIDAN HOGAN.
+
+
+I have several times had occasion to mention this gentleman, who first
+came into notice on his being arrested, when a young man, and
+temporarily imprisoned in Buffalo, for being concerned in the burning of
+the steamer _Caroline_, in 1838. He was then twenty-three years old, was
+a native of Ireland, a Roman Catholic by religious profession, and
+emigrated to Canada in 1827. I engaged him in 1853, as assistant-editor
+and correspondent at Quebec, then the seat of the Canadian legislature.
+He had previously distinguished himself at college, and became one of
+the ablest Canadian writers of his day. He was the successful competitor
+for the prize given for the best essay on Canada at the Universal
+Exhibition of 1856, and had he lived, might have proved a strong man in
+political life.
+
+In 1858, Mr. Hogan suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that he had
+gone on a shooting expedition to Texas. But in the following spring, a
+partially decomposed corpse was found in the melting snow near the mouth
+of the Don, in Toronto Bay. Gradually the fearful truth came to light
+through the remorse of one of the women accessory to the crime. A gang
+of loose men and women who infested what was called Brooks's Bush, east
+of the Don, were in the habit of robbing people who had occasion to
+cross the Don bridge at late hours of the night. Mr. Hogan frequently
+visited a friend who resided east of the bridge, on the Kingston Road,
+and on the night in question, was about crossing the bridge, when a
+woman who knew him, accosted him familiarly, while at the same moment
+another woman struck him on the forehead with a stone slung in a
+stocking; two or three men then rushed upon him, while partially
+insensible, and rifled his pockets. He recovered sufficiently to cry
+faintly, "Don't murder me!" to a man whom he recognised and called by
+name. This recognition was fatal to him. To avoid discovery, the
+villains lifted him bodily, in spite of his cries and struggles, and
+tossed him over the parapet into the stream, where he was drowned. In
+1861, some of the parties were arrested; one of them, named Brown, was
+convicted and hanged for the murder; two others managed to prove an
+_alibi_, and so escaped punishment.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIV.
+
+  DOMESTIC NOTES.
+
+
+The Rev. Henry C. Cooper was the eldest of a family of four brothers,
+who emigrated to Canada in 1832, and settled in what is known as the old
+Exeter settlement in the Huron tract. He was accompanied to Canada by
+his wife and two children, afterwards increased to nine, who endured
+with him all the hardships and privations of a bush life. In 1848 he was
+appointed to the rectory of Mimico, in the township of Etobicoke, to
+which was afterwards added the charge of the church and parish of St.
+George's, Islington, including the village of Lambton on the Humber.
+
+In 1863, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became my wife. Our married
+life was in all respects a happy one, saddened only by anxieties arising
+from illness, which resulted in the death of one child, a daughter, at
+the age of six months, and of two others prematurely. These losses
+affected their mother's health, and she died in November, 1868, aged 36
+years. To express my sense of her loss, I quote from Tennyson's "In
+Memoriam":
+
+  "The path by which we twain did go,
+    Which led by tracts which pleased us well,
+    Through four sweet years arose and fell,
+  From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
+
+  "And we with singing cheer'd the way,
+    And crown'd with all the season lent,
+    From April on to April went,
+  And glad at heart from May to May:
+
+  "But where the path we walked began
+    To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
+    As we descended, following Hope,
+  There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
+
+  "Who broke our fair companionship,
+    And spread his mantle dark and cold,
+    And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
+  And dull'd the murmur on thy lip;
+
+  "And bore thee where I could not see
+    Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
+    And think that somewhere in the waste
+  The Shadow sits and waits for me."
+
+For the following epitaph on our infant daughter, I am myself
+responsible. It is carved on a tomb-stone where the mother and her
+little ones lie together in St. George's churchyard:
+
+  We loved thee as a budding flow'r
+    That bloomed in beauty for awhile;
+  We loved thee as a ray of light
+    To bless us with its sunny smile;
+
+  We loved thee as a heavenly gift
+    So rich, we trembled to possess,--
+  A hope to sweeten life's decline,
+    And charm our griefs to happiness.
+
+  The flower, the ray, the hope is past--
+    The chill of death rests on thy brow--
+  But ah! our Father's will be done,
+    We love thee as an angel now!
+
+Mr. Cooper died Sept. 10, 1877, leaving behind him the reputation of an
+earnest, upright life, and a strong attachment to the evangelical school
+in the English Church. His widow still resides at St. George's Hill,
+with one of her daughters. Two of her sons are in the ministry, the Rev.
+Horace Cooper, of Lloydtown, and the Rev. Robert St. P. O. Cooper, of
+Chatham.
+
+One of Mr. H. C. Cooper's brothers became Judge Cooper, of Huron, who
+died some years since. Another, still living, is Mr. C. W. Cooper,
+barrister, formerly of Toronto, now of Chicago. He was recording
+secretary to the B. A. League, in 1849, and is a talented writer for the
+press.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LV.
+
+  THE BEAVER INSURANCE COMPANY.
+
+
+In 1860, soon after my return to Toronto, I was asked by my old friend
+and former partner, Mr. Henry Rowsell, to take charge of the Beaver
+Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which had been organized a year or two
+before by W. H. Smith, author of a work called "Canada--Past, Present,
+and Future," and a Canadian Gazetteer. Of this company I became managing
+director, and continued to conduct it until the year 1876, when it was
+legislated out of existence by the Mackenzie government. I do not
+propose to inflict upon my readers any details respecting its operations
+or fortunes, except in so far as they were matters of public history.
+Suffice it here to say, that I assumed its charge with two hundred
+members or policy holders; that, up to the spring of 1876, it had issued
+seventy-four thousand policies, and that not a just claim remained
+unsatisfied. Its annual income amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars, and its agencies numbered a hundred. That so powerful an
+organization should have to succumb to hostile influences, is a striking
+example of the ups and downs of fortune.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVI.
+
+  THE OTTAWA FIRES.
+
+
+The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa
+fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the
+17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned
+into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps,
+throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa,
+bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain
+had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to
+such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous
+exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry,
+that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the
+condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean,
+Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief
+space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a
+dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings,
+out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned
+cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals,
+and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common
+destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with
+extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden
+with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some
+smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their
+flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their
+bodies.
+
+The soil in places was burned so deeply as to render farms worthless,
+while the highways were made impassable by the destruction of bridges
+and corduroy roads. To the horrors of fire were added those of
+starvation and exposure; it was many days before shelter could be
+provided, or even food furnished to all who needed it. The harvest, just
+gathered, had been utterly consumed in the barns and stacks; and the
+green crops, such as corn, oats, turnips and potatoes, were so scorched
+in the fields as to render them worthless.
+
+The number of families burnt out was stated at over four hundred, of
+whom eighty-two were insurers in the Beaver Company to the extent of
+some seventy thousand dollars, all of which was satisfactorily paid.
+
+The government and people of Canada generally took up promptly the
+charitable task of providing relief, and it is pleasant to be able to
+add that, within two years after, the farmers of the burnt district
+themselves acknowledged that they were better off than before the great
+fire--partly owing to a succession of good harvests, but mainly to the
+thorough cleansing which the land had received, and the perfect
+destruction of all stumps and roots by the fervid heat.
+
+One or two remarkable circumstances are worth recording. A farmer was
+sitting at his door, having just finished his evening meal, when he
+noticed a lurid smoke with flames miles off. In two or three minutes it
+had swept over the intervening country, across his farm and through his
+house, licking up everything as it went, and leaving nothing but ashes
+behind it. He escaped by throwing himself down in a piece of wet swamp
+close at hand. His wife and children were from home fortunately. Every
+other living thing was consumed. Another family was less fortunate. It
+consisted of a mother and several children. Driven into a swamp for
+shelter, they became separated and bewildered. The calcined skeletons of
+the poor woman and one child were found several days afterward. The rest
+escaped.
+
+The fire seems to have resembled an electric flash, leaping from place
+to place, passing over whole farms to pounce upon others in rear, and
+again vaulting to some other spot still further eastward.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVII.
+
+  SOME INSURANCE EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+In the course of the ordinary routine of a fire insurance office,
+circumstances are frequently occurring that may well figure in a
+sensational novel. One or two such may not be uninteresting here. I
+suppress the true names and localities, and some of the particulars.
+
+One dark night, in a frontier settlement of the County of Simcoe, a
+young man was returning through the bush from a township gathering, when
+he noticed loaded teams passing along a concession line not far distant.
+As this was no unusual occurrence, he thought little of it, until some
+miles further on, he came to a clearing of some forty acres, where there
+was no dwelling-house apparently, but a solitary barn, which, while he
+was looking at it, seemed to be lighted up by a lanthorn, and after some
+minutes, by a flickering flame which gradually increased to a blaze, and
+shortly enveloped the whole building. Hastening to the spot, no living
+being was to be seen there, and he was about to leave the place; but
+giving a last look at the burning building, it struck him that there was
+very little fire inside, and he turned to satisfy his curiosity. There
+was nothing whatever in the barn.
+
+In due course, a notice was received at our office, that on a certain
+night the barn of one Dennis ----, containing one thousand bushels of
+wheat, had been burnt from an unknown cause, and that the value thereof,
+some eight-hundred dollars, was claimed from the company. At the same
+time, an anonymous letter reached me, suggesting an inquiry into the
+causes of the fire. The inquiry was instituted accordingly. The holder
+of the policy, an old man upwards of sixty years of age, a miser,
+reputed worth ten thousand dollars at least, was arrested, committed to
+---- gaol, and finally tried and found guilty, without a doubt of his
+criminality being left on any body's mind who was present. Through the
+skill of his counsel, however, he escaped on a petty technicality; and
+considering his miserable condition, the loss he had inflicted on
+himself, and his seven months' detention in gaol, we took no further
+steps for his punishment.
+
+A country magistrate of high standing and good circumstances at ----,
+had a son aged about twenty-seven, to whom he had given the best
+education that grammar-school and college could afford, and who was
+regarded in his own neighbourhood as the model of gallantry and spirited
+enterprise. His father had supplied him with funds to erect substantial
+farm buildings, well stocked and furnished, in anticipation of his
+marriage with an estimable and well-educated young lady. Amongst the
+other buildings was a cheese-factory, in connection with which the young
+man commenced the business of making and selling cheese on an extensive
+scale. So matters went on for some months, until we received advices
+that the factory which we had insured, had been burnt during the night,
+and that the owner claimed three-thousand dollars for his loss. Our
+inspector was sent to examine and report, and was returning quite
+satisfied of the integrity of the party and the justice of the claim,
+when just as he was leaving the hotel where he had staid, a bystander
+happened to remark how curious it was that cheese should burn without
+smell. "That is impossible," said the landlord. "I am certain," said the
+former speaker, "that this had no smell, for I remarked it to Jack at
+the time."
+
+The inspector reported this conversation, and I sent a detective to
+investigate the case. He remained there, disguised of course, for two or
+three weeks, and then reported that large shipments of cheese to distant
+parts had taken place previously to the fire; but he could find nothing
+to criminate any individual, until accidentally he noticed what looked
+like a dog's muzzle lying in a corner of the stable. He picked it up,
+and untying a string that was wound around it, found it to be the leg of
+a new pair of pantaloons of fine quality. Watching his opportunity the
+same evening, while in conversation with the claimant, he produced the
+trowser-leg quietly, and enquired where the fellow-leg was? Taken by
+surprise, the young man slunk silently away. He had evidently cut off a
+leg of his own pants, and used it to muzzle his house-dog, to silence
+its barking while he set the factory afire. He left the country that
+night, and we heard no more of the claim.
+
+A letter was received one day from a Roman Catholic priest, which
+informed me that a woman whose dying confession he had received, had
+acknowledged that several years before she had been accessary to a fraud
+upon our company of one hundred dollars. Her husband had insured a horse
+with us for that amount. The horse had been burnt in his stable. The
+claim was paid. Her confession was, that the horse had died a natural
+death, and that the stable was set on fire for the purpose of recovering
+the value of the horse. In this case, the woman's confession becoming
+known to her husband, he left the country for the United States. The
+woman recovered and followed him.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+  A HEAVY CALAMITY.
+
+
+In the year 1875, the blow fell which destroyed the Beaver Insurance
+Company, and well nigh ruined every man concerned in it, from the
+president to the remotest agent. In April of that year, a bill was
+passed by the Dominion Legislature relative to mutual fire insurance
+companies. It so happened that the Premier of Canada was then the Hon.
+Alexander Mackenzie, for whose benefit, it was understood, the Hon.
+George Brown had got up a stock company styled the Isolated Risk
+Insurance Co., of which Mr. Mackenzie became president. There was a
+strong rivalry between the two companies, and possibly from this cause
+the legislation of the Dominion took a complexion hostile to mutual
+insurance. Be that as it may, a clause was introduced into the Act
+without attracting attention, which required the Beaver Company to
+deposit with the Government the sum of fifty-thousand dollars, being the
+same amount as had been customary with companies possessing a stock
+capital. For eighteen months this clause remained unobserved, when the
+Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being engaged as counsel in an insurance case,
+happened to light upon it, and mentioned it to me at the last meeting
+of the Board which he attended before his death, which took place two or
+three weeks afterwards. At the following Board meeting, I stated the
+facts as reported by him, and was instructed to take the opinion of Mr.
+Christopher Robinson, the eminent Queen's counsel, upon the case. I did
+so at once, and was advised by him to submit the question to Professor
+Cherriman, superintendent of insurance, by whom it was referred to the
+law officers of the Crown at Ottawa. Their decision was, that the Beaver
+Company had been required by the new Act to make a deposit of fifty
+thousand dollars before transacting any new business since April, 1876,
+and that nothing but an Act of Parliament could relieve the company and
+its agents from the penalties already incurred in ignorance of the
+statute.
+
+On receipt of this opinion, immediate notice was sent by circular to all
+the company's agents, warning them to suspend operations at once. A bill
+was introduced at the following session, in February, 1877, which
+received the royal assent in April, remitting all penalties, and
+authorizing the company either to wind up its business or to transmute
+itself into a stock company. But in the meantime, fire insurance had
+received so severe a shock from the calamitous fire at St. John, N. B.,
+by which many companies were ruined, and all shaken, that it was found
+impossible to raise the necessary capital to resume the Beaver
+business.
+
+Thus, without fault or error on the part of its Board of Management,
+without warning or notice of any kind, was a strong and useful
+institution struck to the ground as by a levin-bolt. The directors, who
+included men of high standing of all political parties, lost, in the
+shape of paid-up guarantee stock and promissory notes, about sixty
+thousand dollars of their own money, and the officers suffered in the
+same way. The expenses of winding up, owing to vexatious litigation,
+have amounted to a sum sufficient to cover the outside liabilities of
+the company.
+
+These particulars may not interest the majority of my readers, but I
+have felt it my duty to give them, as the best act of justice in my
+power to the public-spirited and honourable men, with whom for
+twenty-three years I have acted, and finally suffered. That the members
+of the company--the insured--have sustained losses by fire since
+October, 1876, to the amount of over $45,000, which remain unpaid in
+consequence of its inability to collect its assets, adds another to the
+many evils which are chargeable to ill-considered and reckless
+legislation, in disregard of the lawful vested rights of innocent
+people, including helpless widows and orphans.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIX.
+
+  THE HON. JOHN HILLYARD CAMERON.
+
+
+On the 20th day of April, 1844, I was standing outside the railing of
+St. James's churchyard, Toronto, on the occasion of a very sad funeral.
+The chief mourner was a slightly built, delicate-looking young man of
+prepossessing appearance. His youthful wife, the daughter of the late
+Hon. H. J. Boulton, at one time Chief Justice of Newfoundland, had died,
+and it was at her burial he was assisting. When the coffin had been
+committed to the earth, the widowed husband's feelings utterly overcame
+him, and he fell insensible beside the still open grave.
+
+This was my first knowledge of John Hillyard Cameron. From that day,
+until his death in November, 1876, I knew him more or less intimately,
+enjoyed his confidence personally and politically, and felt a very
+sincere regard for him in return. I used at one time to oppose his views
+in the City Council, but always good-naturedly on both sides. I was
+chairman of the Market Committee, and it was my duty to resist his
+efforts to establish a second market near the corner of Queen and Yonge
+Streets, in the rear of the buildings now known as the Page Block. He
+was a prosperous lawyer, highly in repute, gaining a considerable
+revenue from his profession, and being of a lively, sanguine
+temperament, launched out into heavy speculations in exchange operations
+and in real estate.
+
+As an eloquent pleader in the courts, he excelled all his
+contemporaries, and it was a common saying among solicitors, that
+Cameron ruled the Bench by force of argument, and the jury by power of
+persuasion. In the Legislature he was no less influential. His speeches
+on the Clergy Reserve question, on the Duval case, and many others,
+excited the House of Assembly to such a degree, that on one occasion an
+adjournment was carried on the motion of the ministerial leader, to give
+time for sober reflection. So it was in religious assemblies. At
+meetings of the Synod of the Church of England, at missionary meetings,
+and others, his fervid zeal and flowing sentences carried all before
+them, and left little for others to say.
+
+In 1849, Mr. Cameron married again, this time a daughter of General
+Mallett, of Baltimore, who survives him, and still resides in Toronto.
+After that date, and for years until 1857, everything appeared to
+prosper with him. A comfortable residence, well stored with valuable
+paintings, books and rarities of all kinds. The choicest of society and
+hosts of friends. An amiable growing family of sons and daughters.
+Affluence and elegance, popular favour, and the full sunshine of
+prosperity. Honours were showered upon him from all sides.
+Solicitor-General in 1846, member of Parliament for several
+constituencies in turn, Treasurer of the Law Society, and Grand Master
+of the Orange Association. Judgeships and Chief-Justiceships were known
+to be at his disposal, but declined for personal reasons.
+
+My political connection with Mr. Cameron commenced in 1854, when, having
+purchased from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie the _Colonist_
+newspaper, I thought it prudent to strengthen myself by party alliances.
+He entered into the project with an energy and disinterestedness that
+surprised me. It had been a semi-weekly paper; he offered to furnish
+five thousand dollars a year to make it a daily journal, independent of
+party control; stipulated for no personal influence over its editorial
+views, leaving them entirely in my discretion, and undertaking that he
+would never reclaim the money so advanced, as long as his means should
+last. I was then comparatively young, enterprising, and unembarrassed in
+circumstances, popular amongst my fellow-citizens, and mixed up in
+nearly every public enterprise and literary association then in
+existence in Toronto. Quite ready, in fact, for any kind of newspaper
+enterprise.
+
+My arrangement with Mr. Cameron continued, with complete success, until
+1857. The paper was acknowledged as a power in the state; my relations
+with contemporary journals were friendly, and all seemed well.
+
+In the summer of 1857 occurred the great business panic, which spread
+ruin and calamity throughout Canada West, caused by the cessation of the
+vast railway expenditure of preceding years, and by the simultaneous
+occurrence of a business pressure in the United States. The great house
+of Duncan Sherman & Co., of New York, through which Mr. Cameron was in
+the habit of transacting a large exchange business with England, broke
+down suddenly and unexpectedly. Drafts on London were dishonoured, and
+Mr. Cameron's bankers there, to protect themselves, sold without notice
+the securities he had placed in their hands, at a loss to him personally
+of over a hundred thousand pounds sterling.
+
+Mr. Cameron was for a time prostrated by this reverse, but soon rallied
+his energies. Friends advised him to offer a compromise to his
+creditors, which would have been gladly accepted; but he refused to do
+so, saying, he would either pay twenty shillings in the pound or die in
+the effort. He made the most extraordinary exertions, refusing the
+highest seats on the judicial bench to work the harder at his
+profession; toiling day and night to retrieve his fortunes; insuring his
+life for heavy sums by way of security to his creditors; and felt
+confident of final success, when in October, 1876, while attending the
+assize at Orillia, he imprudently refreshed himself after a night's
+labour in court, by bathing in the cold waters of the Narrows of Lake
+Couchiching, and contracted a severe cold which laid him on a sick bed,
+which he never quitted alive.
+
+I saw him a day or two before his death, when he spoke of a heavy draft
+becoming due, for which he had made provision. In this he was
+disappointed. He tried to leave his bed to rectify the error, but fell
+back from exhaustion, and died in the struggle--as his friends
+think--from a broken heart.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LX.
+
+  TORONTO ATHENĈUM.
+
+
+About the year 1843, the first effort to establish a free public library
+in Toronto, was made by myself. Having been a member of the Birkbeck
+Institute of London, I exerted myself to get up a similar society here,
+and succeeded in enlisting the sympathies of several of the masters of
+Upper Canada College, of whom Mr. Henry Scadding (now the Rev. Dr.
+Scadding) was the chief. He became president of the Athenĉum, a literary
+association, of which I was secretary and librarian. In that capacity I
+corresponded with the learned societies of England and Scotland, and in
+two or three years got together several hundred volumes of standard
+works, all in good order and well bound. Meetings for literary
+discussion were held weekly, the principal speakers being Philip M.
+Vankoughnet (since chancellor), Alex. Vidal (now senator), David B. Read
+(now Q.C.), J. Crickmore,-- Martin, Macdonald the younger (of
+Greenfield), and many others whose names I cannot recall. I recollect
+being infinitely amused by a naïve observation of one of these young
+men-- "Remember, gentlemen, that we are the future legislators of
+Canada!" which proved to be prophetic, as most of them have since made
+their mark in some conspicuous public capacity.
+
+We met in the west wing of the old City Hall. The eastern wing was
+occupied by the Commercial News room, and in course of time the two
+associations were united. As an interesting memento of many honoured
+citizens, I copy the deed of transfer in full:
+
+    "We, the undersigned shareholders of the Commercial News Room,
+    do hereby make over, assign, and transfer unto the members, for
+    the time being, of the Toronto Athenĉum, all our right, title,
+    and interest in and to each our share in the said Commercial
+    News Room, for the purposes and on the terms and conditions
+    mentioned in the copy of a Resolution of the Committee of the
+    said Commercial News Room, hereunto annexed.
+
+
+"In witness whereof we have hereunto placed our hands and seals this 3rd
+day of September, 1847."
+
+    Thos. D. Harris.
+    Jos. D. Ridout.
+    W. C. Ross.
+    A. T. McCord.
+    D. Paterson.
+    Wm. Proudfoot.
+    F. W. Birchall.
+    Geo. Perc. Ridout.
+    Alexander Murray.
+    W. Allan.
+    J. Mitchell.
+    James F. Smith.
+    W. Gamble.
+    Richard Kneeshaw.
+    John Ewart.
+    George Munro.
+    Thos. Mercer Jones.
+    Joseph Dixon.
+
+    Signed, sealed and delivered  }
+    in the presence of            }
+    Samuel Thompson.              }
+
+After the destruction by fire of the old City Hall, the Athenĉum
+occupied handsome rooms in the St. Lawrence Hall, until 1855, when a
+proposition was received to unite with the Canadian Institute, then
+under the presidency of Chief Justice Sir J. B. Robinson. Dr. Wilson
+(now President Toronto University) was its leading spirit. It was
+thereupon decided to transfer the library and some minerals, with the
+government grant of $400, to the Canadian Institute. In order to
+legalize the transfer, application was made to Parliament, and on the
+19th May, 1855, the Act 18 Vic., c. 236, received the royal assent. The
+first clause reads as follows:-- "The members of the Toronto Athenĉum
+shall have power to transfer and convey to the Canadian Institute, such
+and so much of the books, minerals, and other property of the said
+Toronto Athenĉum, whether held absolutely or in trust, as they may
+decide upon so conveying, and upon such conditions as they may think
+advisable, which conditions, if accepted by the said Canadian Institute,
+shall be binding."
+
+Accordingly a deed of transfer was prepared and executed by the two
+contracting parties, by which it was provided:
+
+    "That the library formed by the books of the two institutions,
+    with such additions as may be made from the common funds, should
+    constitute a library to which the public should have access for
+    reference, free of charge, under such regulations as may be
+    adopted by the said Canadian Institute in view of the proper
+    care and management of the same."
+
+The books and minerals were handed over in due time, and acknowledged in
+the _Canadian Journal_, vol. 3, p. 394, old series. On the 9th February,
+1856, Professor Chapman presented his report as curator, "on the
+minerals handed over by the Toronto Athenĉum," which does not appear to
+have been published in the _Journal_. The reading room was subsequently
+handed over to the Mechanics' Institute, which was then in full vigour.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that the library of the Canadian Institute
+is, to all intents and purposes, a public library by statute, and free
+to all citizens for ever. I am sorry to add, that for many years back
+the conditions of the trust have been very indifferently carried
+out--few citizens know their rights respecting it, and still fewer avail
+themselves thereof. The Institute now has a substantial building, very
+comfortably fitted up, on Richmond Street east; has a good reading room
+in excellent order, and very obliging officials; gives weekly readings
+or lectures on Saturday evenings, and has accumulated a valuable library
+of some eight thousand volumes.
+
+I have thus been identified with almost every movement made in Toronto,
+for affording literary recreation to her citizens, and rejoice to see
+the good work progressing in younger and abler hands.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXI.
+
+  THE BUFFALO FETE.
+
+
+In the month of July, 1850, the Mayor and citizens of Buffalo, hearing
+that our Canadian legislators were about to attend the formal opening of
+the Welland Canal, very courteously invited them to extend their trip to
+that city, and made preparations for their reception. Circumstances
+prevented the visit, but in acknowledgment of the good will thus shown,
+a number of members of the Canadian Parliament, then in session here,
+acting in concert with our City Council, proposed a counter-invitation,
+which was accordingly sent and accepted, and a joint committee formed to
+carry out the project.
+
+The St. Lawrence Hall, then nearly finished, was hurriedly fitted up as
+a ball-room for the occasion, under the volunteered charge chiefly of
+Messrs. F. W. Cumberland and Kivas Tully, architects. The hall was lined
+throughout, tent-fashion, the ceiling with blue and white, the walls
+with pink and white calico, in alternate stripes, varied with a
+multitude of flags, British and American, mottoes and other showy
+devices. The staircase was decorated with evergreens, which were also
+utilized to convert the unfinished butchers' arcade into a bowery vista
+500 feet long, lighted with gas laid for the occasion, and extending
+across Front Street to the entrance of the City Hall, then newly
+restored, painted and papered.
+
+Lord Elgin warmly seconded the hospitable views of the joint committee,
+and Colonel Sir Hew Dalrymple promised a review of the troops then in
+garrison. All was life and preparation throughout the city.
+
+On Friday, August 8th, the steamer _Chief Justice_ was despatched to
+Lewiston to receive the guests from Buffalo. On her return, in the
+afternoon, she was welcomed with a salute of cannon, the men of the Fire
+Brigade lining the wharf and Front Street, along which the visitors were
+conveyed in carriages to the North American Hotel.
+
+Soon after nine o'clock, the Hall began to fill with a brilliant and
+joyous assemblage of visitors and citizens with their ladies. Lord and
+Lady Elgin arrived at about ten o'clock, and were received with the
+strains of "God Save the Queen," by the admirable military band, which
+was one of the city's chief attractions in those times.
+
+The day was very wet, and the evening still rainy. The arcade had been
+laid with matting, but it was nevertheless rather difficult for the fair
+dancers to trip all the way to the City Hall, in the council chamber of
+which supper had been prepared. However, they got safely through, and
+seemed delighted with the adventure. Never since, I think, has the City
+Hall presented so distinguished and charming a scene. Of course there
+was a lady to every gentleman. The fair Buffalonians were loud in their
+praises of the whole arrangements, and thoroughly disposed to enjoy
+themselves.
+
+On a raised dais at the south side of the room was a table, at which
+were seated Mayor Gurnett as host, with Lady Elgin; the Governor-General
+and Mrs. Judge Sill, of Buffalo; Mayor Smith, of Buffalo, and Madame
+Lafontaine; the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, with Mrs.
+Alderman Tiffany of Buffalo, and the Hon. Mrs. Bruce. Four long tables
+placed north and south, and two side tables, accommodated the rest of
+the party, amounting to about three hundred. All the tables were
+tastefully decorated with floral and other ornaments, and spread with
+every delicacy that could be procured. The presiding stewards were the
+Hon. Mr. Bourret, Hon. Sir Allan N. McNab, Hon. Messrs. Hincks, Cayley,
+J. H. Cameron, S. Taché, Drummond and Merritt.
+
+Toasts and speeches followed in the usual order, after which everybody
+returned to the St. Lawrence Hall, where dancing was resumed and kept up
+till an early hour next morning.
+
+The next day, being the 9th, the promised review of the 71st Regiment
+took place, with favourable weather, and was a decided success.
+
+In the afternoon, Lord Elgin gave a fête champêtre at Elmsley Villa,
+where he then resided, and which has since been occupied as Knox's
+College. The grounds then extended from Yonge Street to the University
+Park, and an equal distance north and south. They were well kept, and on
+this occasion charmingly in unison with the bright smiles and gay
+costumes of the ladies who, with their gentlemen escorts, made up the
+most joyous of scenes.
+
+Having paid my respects at the Government House on New Year's day, I was
+present as an invited guest at the garden party. His Excellency showed
+me marked attention, in recognition probably of my services as a
+peacemaker. The corporation, as a body, were not invited, which was the
+only instance in which Lord Elgin betrayed any pique at the unflattering
+reception given him in October, 1849.[28] While conversing with him, I
+was amused at the enthusiasm of a handsome Buffalo lady, who came up,
+unceremoniously exclaiming, "Oh, my lord, I heard your beautiful speech
+(in the marquee), you should come among us and go into politics. If you
+would only take the stump for the Presidency, I am confident you would
+sweep every state of the Union!"
+
+An excellent déjeuner had been served in a large tent on the lawn.
+Speeches and toasts were numerous and complimentary. The conservatory
+was cleared for dancing, which was greatly enjoyed, and the festivities
+were wound up by a brilliant display of fireworks.
+
+The guests departed next morning, amid hearty handshaking and
+professions of friendship. Before leaving the wharf, the Mayor of
+Buffalo expressed in warm and pleasing terms, his high sense of the
+hospitality shown himself and his fellow-citizens. And so ended the
+Buffalo Fête.
+
+[Footnote 28: Some members of the corporation were much annoyed at their
+exclusion, and inclined to resent it as a studied insult, but wiser
+counsels prevailed.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXII.
+
+  THE BOSTON JUBILEE.
+
+
+The year 1851 is memorable for the celebration, at Boston, of the
+opening of the Ogdensburg Railway, to connect Boston with Canada and the
+Lakes, and also of the Grand Junction Railway, a semicircular line by
+which all the railways radiating from that city are linked together, so
+that a passenger starting from any one of the city stations can take his
+ticket for any other station on any of those railways, either in the
+suburbs or at distant points. I am not aware that so perfect a system
+has been attempted elsewhere. The natural configuration of its site has
+probably suggested the scheme. Boston proper is built on an irregular
+tri-conical hill, with its famous bay to the east; on the north the wide
+Charles River, with the promontory and hills of Charlestown and East
+Cambridge; on the south Dorchester Heights. Between the principal
+elevations are extensive salt marshes, now rapidly disappearing under
+the encroachments of artificial soil, covered in turn by vast
+warehouses, streets, railway tracks, and all the various structures
+common to large commercial cities.
+
+It was in the month of July, that a deputation from the Boston City
+Council visited our principal Canadian cities, as the bearers of an
+invitation to Lord Elgin and his staff, with the government officials,
+as well as the mayors and corporations and leading merchants of those
+cities, and other principal towns of Upper and Lower Canada, to visit
+Boston on the occasion of a great jubilee to be held in honour of the
+opening of its new railway system.
+
+Numerous as were the invited Canadian guests, however, they formed but a
+mere fraction of the visitors expected. Every railway staff, every
+municipal corporation throughout the Northern States, was included in
+the list of invitations; free passes and free quarters were provided for
+all; and it would be hard to conceive a more joyous invasion of merry
+travellers, than those who were pouring in by a rapid succession of
+loaded trains on all the numerous lines converging upon "the hub of the
+universe."
+
+Our Toronto party was pretty numerous. Mr. J. G. Bowes was mayor, and
+among the aldermen present were Messrs. W. Wakefield (who was a host of
+jollity in himself), G. P. Ridout, R. Dempsey, E. F. Whittemore, J. G.
+Beard, Robt. Beard, John B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard and myself; also
+councilmen James Ashfield, James Price, M. P. Hayes, S. Platt, Jonathan
+Dunn, and others. There were besides, of leading citizens, Messrs. Alex.
+Dixon, E. G. O'Brien, Alex. Manning, E. Goldsmith, Kivas Tully, Fred.
+Perkins, Rice Lewis, George Brown, &c. We had a delightful trip down
+the lake by steamer, and at Ogdensburg took the cars for Lake Champlain.
+We arrived at Boston about 10 a.m. Waiting for us at the Western
+Railroad Depot were the mayor and several of the city council of Boston,
+with carriages for our whole party. But we were too dusty and tired with
+our long journey to think of anything but refreshments and baths, and
+all the other excellent things which awaited us at the American Hotel.
+Here we were confidentially informed that the Jubilee was to be
+celebrated on temperance principles, but that in compliment to the
+Canadian guests, a few baskets of champagne had been provided for our
+especial delectation; and I am compelled to add, that on the strength
+thereof, two or three worshipful aldermen of Toronto got themselves
+locked up for the night in the police stations.
+
+It is but justice to explain here, that a very small offence is
+sufficient to procure such a distinction in Boston. Even the smoking of
+a cigar on the side-walks, or the least symptom of unsteadiness in gait,
+is enough to consign a man to durance vile. The police were everywhere.
+
+The first day of the Jubilee was occupied by the members of the
+committee in receiving their visitors, providing them with comfortable
+and generally luxurious quarters, and introducing the principal guests
+to each other--also in exhibiting the local lions. On the second day
+there was an excursion down the harbour, which is many miles long and
+broad. Six steamboats and two large cutters, gay with flags and
+streamers, conveyed the party; champagne was in abundance (always for
+the Canadian visitors!)--each boat had its band of music--very fine
+German bands too. Then, as the flotilla left the wharf and passed in
+succession the fortifications and other prominent points, salvoes of
+cannon boomed across the bright waters, re-echoing far and wide amid the
+surrounding hills. President Fillmore and his suite were on board the
+leading vessel, and to him, of course, these honours were paid. On every
+boat was spread a banquet for the guests; toasts and sentiments were
+given and duly honoured; and to judge by the noise and excited
+gesticulations of the banqueters, nothing could be more complete than
+the fusion of Yankees and Canadians.
+
+At noon, a regatta was held, which, the weather being fine, with a light
+breeze, was pronounced by yachtsmen a distinguished success. At five
+o'clock the citizens crowded in vast numbers to the Western Railway
+Station, there to meet His Excellency the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+with his brother Colonel Bruce and a numerous staff. He was welcomed by
+Mayor Bigelow, a fine venerable old man of the Mayflower stock. Mutual
+compliments were exchanged, and the new comers escorted to the Revere
+House, a very handsome hotel, the best in Boston. Everywhere the streets
+were lined with throngs of people, who cheered our Governor-General to
+the uttermost extent of their lung-power.
+
+On the third day took place a monster procession, at least a mile and
+a-half in length, and modelled after the plan of the German trades
+festivals. Besides the long line of carriages filled with guests, from
+the President and the Governor-General down to the humblest city
+officer, there was an immense array of "trades expositions" or pageants,
+that is, huge waggons drawn by four, six, eight and sometimes ten
+horses, each waggon serving as a model workshop, whereon printers,
+hatters, bootmakers, turners, carriage-makers, boat-riggers,
+stone-cutters, silversmiths, plumbers, market-men, piano-forte makers,
+and many other handicraftsmen worked at their respective callings.
+
+The finest street of private residences was Dover Street, a noble avenue
+of cut stone buildings, occupied by wealthy people of old Boston
+families. The decorations here were both costly and tasteful; and the
+hospitality unbounded. As each carriage passed slowly along, footmen in
+livery presented at its doors silver trays loaded with refreshments, in
+the shape of pastry, bon-bons, and costly wines. The ladies of each
+house, richly dressed, stood on the lower steps and welcomed the
+visitors with smiles and waving of handkerchiefs. At two or three places
+in the line of procession, were platforms handsomely festooned, occupied
+by bevies of fair girls in white, or by hundreds of children of both
+sexes, belonging to the common schools, prettily dressed, and bearing
+bouquets of bright flowers which they presented to the occupants of the
+carriages.
+
+I could not help remarking to my companion, one of the members of the
+Boston City Council, that more aristocratic-looking women than these
+Dover Street matrons, were not, I thought, to be found in all Europe. He
+told me not to whisper such a sentiment in Boston, for fear it might
+expose the objects of my complimentary remark to being mobbed by the
+democracy.
+
+At length the procession came to an end. But it was only a prelude to a
+still more magnificent demonstration, which was the great banquet given
+to four thousand people under one vast tent covering half an acre of
+ground on the Common. Thither the visitors were escorted in carriages,
+with the usual attention and solicitude for their every comfort, and
+when within, and placed according to their several ranks and localities,
+it was truly a sight to be remembered. The tent was two hundred and
+fifty feet in length by ninety in width. The roof and sides were all but
+hidden by the profusion of flags and bunting festooned everywhere. A
+raised table for the visitors extended around the entire tent. For the
+citizens proper were placed ten rows of parallel tables running the
+whole length of the inner area; altogether providing seats for three
+thousand six hundred people, besides smaller tables at convenient
+spots. There were present also a whole army of waiters, one to each
+dozen guests, and indefatigable in their duties.
+
+The repast included all kinds of cold meats and temperance drinks.
+Flowers for every person and great flower trophies on the tables;
+abundance of huge water and musk melons, and other fruits in great
+variety and perfection, especially native grown peaches and Bartlett
+pears, which Boston produces of the finest quality. Also plenty of
+pastry of many tempting kinds. It took scarcely twenty minutes to seat
+the entire "dinner party" comfortably, so excellent were the
+arrangements.
+
+Before dinner commenced, Mayor Bigelow, who presided, announced that
+President Fillmore was required to leave for Washington on urgent state
+business; which he did after his health had been proposed and
+acknowledged. A little piece of dramatic acting was noticeable here,
+when the President and Lord Elgin, one on each side of the Mayor, shook
+hands across his worshipful breast, the President retaining his
+lordship's hand firmly clasped in his own for some time; a tableau which
+gave rise to a tumultuous burst of applause from the whole assemblage.
+
+Then commenced in earnest the play of knives and forks, four thousand of
+each, producing a unique and somewhat droll effect. After the President
+had gone, Lord Elgin became the chief lion of the day, and right well
+did his lordship play his part, entering thoroughly into the prejudices
+of his auditors while disclaiming all flattery, pouring out witticism
+after witticism, sometimes of the broadest, and altogether carrying the
+audience with him until they were worked up into a perfect frenzy of
+applause.
+
+"The health of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
+Britain and Ireland" having been proposed by His Honour Mayor John P.
+Bigelow, was received, as the Boston account of the Jubilee says, "with
+nine such cheers as would have made Her Majesty, had she been present,
+forget that she was beyond the limits of her own dominions; and the band
+struck up 'God save the Queen,' as if to complete the illusion." The
+compliment was acknowledged by Lord Elgin, who said:
+
+    "Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some
+    little misconception on these points, to observe, that we,
+    monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of
+    self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative
+    assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump
+    orators, lobbyings and log-rollings--(Laughter)--and I am not
+    sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying--(renewed
+    laughter)--almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with
+    yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused
+    the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour
+    to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common
+    Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me,
+    with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find,
+    upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there
+    was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the
+    kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking
+    that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in
+    Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his
+    entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a
+    'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed
+    laughter.)
+
+    "Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the
+    voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a
+    regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously
+    slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this
+    point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high
+    authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American--a
+    member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been
+    in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly
+    backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one
+    particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries
+    his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen,
+    deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and
+    conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent
+    my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed
+    utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings
+    are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened
+    under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I
+    believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of
+    Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and
+    its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses,
+    and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and
+    Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State,
+    moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the
+    illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union.
+    (Applause.)
+
+    "But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must
+    tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries
+    to express his feelings when his heart is full--that is to say,
+    when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether
+    (sensation)--in that homely way I must express to you how deeply
+    grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the
+    kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of
+    Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could
+    not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they
+    have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus
+    enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has
+    been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the
+    State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had
+    before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects
+    to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although
+    it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the
+    conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a
+    bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or
+    careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I
+    may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial
+    men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on
+    the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has
+    fallen. (Applause and cheers.)
+
+    "Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that
+    remark about him was received. (Laughter.)
+
+    "Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the
+    progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are
+    now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway
+    that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the
+    iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the
+    pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of
+    mine, whom I see now present--Governor Paine--I think as far as
+    Concord, upon that line.
+
+    "Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont--It was Franklin.
+
+    "Lord Elgin--He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but
+    Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will
+    not contradict; it is this--that although we travelled together
+    two or three days--after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and
+    in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place
+    which we could with any propriety have christened Discord.
+    (Laughter and applause.)
+
+           *     *     *     *     *
+
+    "As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail
+    their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit,
+    which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem
+    to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue
+    of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find
+    one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that
+    their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military
+    men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account
+    for this observation (laughter)--and what do you think that
+    occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the
+    citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when
+    it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to
+    Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their
+    wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all
+    they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+    "I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I
+    think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty
+    millions in railways since that time."
+
+After his lordship, followed Edward Everett, whose speech was a complete
+contrast in every respect. Eloquent exceedingly, but chaste, terse and
+poetical; it charmed the Canadian visitors as much as Lord Elgin's had
+delighted the natives. Here are a few extracts:--
+
+    "It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with
+    which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate
+    speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of
+    Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest
+    and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be
+    reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after
+    beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset
+    that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest,
+    most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were
+    travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I
+    should say to him, in the language of the natives of those
+    regions, sma sheen--very well, my lord. But in plain English,
+    sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed
+    new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother
+    tongue.' (Great cheering.)
+
+           *     *     *     *     *
+
+    "We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced
+    of the importance of this system of communication; although it
+    may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even
+    yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have,
+    however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have
+    felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of
+    our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of
+    agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt
+    them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant
+    of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts
+    to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The
+    inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which
+    he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he
+    can get back to his native village;--to see the old folks, aye,
+    Sir, and some of the young folks--with which he can get a
+    mouthful of pure mountain air--or run down in dog days to
+    Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New
+    Bedford.
+
+    "I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in
+    these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far
+    beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the
+    concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had
+    its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present
+    occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in
+    reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and
+    delight!
+
+    "When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these
+    colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a
+    reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated
+    about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently
+    reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I
+    believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us
+    with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than
+    twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to
+    Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more
+    to New York, and ten more to Boston.
+
+    "And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region--but now
+    brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in
+    that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with
+    such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to
+    start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the
+    Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought
+    of--never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes
+    unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it
+    made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more
+    practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more
+    inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the
+    savage; these it was that filled the space between us and
+    Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered
+    Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian
+    captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on.
+    (Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred
+    years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born
+    before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to
+    the banks of the Connecticut river.
+
+    "As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the
+    Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his
+    arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French
+    in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His
+    Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the
+    warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of
+    these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open--the rivers
+    and lakes are bridged--the valleys rise, the mountains bow their
+    everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his
+    breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;--reading a
+    newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago
+    in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the
+    construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil
+    whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I
+    believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting
+    in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely
+    into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's
+    morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers
+    would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could
+    it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the
+    circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.]
+
+    "I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project
+    to carry a railroad into the lake country in England--into the
+    heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately
+    deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed
+    the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of
+    this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the
+    locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not
+    mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the
+    enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a
+    most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it
+    seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be
+    disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible.
+    The bustle of the station house may take the place of the
+    Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens!
+    sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the
+    hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful
+    worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers).
+
+    "How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of
+    comparatively narrow dimensions like England--how less than
+    little in a country so vast as this--by works of this
+    description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road,
+    which partially changes its character; while, as the
+    compensation, you bring all this rural beauty--
+
+  "The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
+    The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"
+
+    within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering
+    tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have
+    senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open,
+    with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands
+    who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and
+    died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the
+    mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone
+    to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever
+    having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful
+    spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man--that of a
+    glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes
+    swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green
+    ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along
+    the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)
+
+    "But even this is nothing compared with the great social and
+    moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in
+    many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been
+    kindly given to the public. All important also are its
+    political effects in binding the States together as one family,
+    and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do
+    not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from
+    the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit
+    to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have
+    preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as
+    long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent,
+    may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this
+    generation." [Cheers.]
+
+Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due
+time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the
+lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a
+wonderful and pleasing spectacle.
+
+We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public
+institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a
+series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether
+novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite
+accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+  VESTIGES OF THE MOSAIC DELUGE.
+
+
+In chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain
+conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean
+beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an
+altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea
+level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above
+Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a
+third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake,
+which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In
+chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human
+remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on
+the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto.
+
+When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January,
+1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or
+unreliable. I have now, however, just seen in _Good Words_ for this
+month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the
+Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I
+allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern
+portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land;
+secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and
+remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a
+further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to
+the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these
+subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled,
+and within historic times--probably at the date of the deluge recorded
+by Moses.
+
+His Grace says:--
+
+    "I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be
+    to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place
+    within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts
+    which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the
+    whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does
+    now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the
+    submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the
+    Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden
+    submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country
+    than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with
+    that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which
+    lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known,
+    and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet
+    of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the
+    Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous
+    carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes
+    complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence
+    of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet,
+    taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I
+    must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man
+    co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found
+    in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain
+    the bones of those great mammalia."
+
+I should be glad to quote more, but this is enough to account for the
+circumstances I have myself noted, and to explain also, I think, the
+vast deposit of mud which forms the prairies of the Western States, and
+of the Canadian North-West; which has its counterpart in the European
+prairie countries of Moldavia and Wallachia. But the Duke appears to me
+to overlook the circumstance, that the vast accumulation of animal
+remains in Siberia, mostly of southern varieties, to which he refers,
+must have been swept there, not by an upheaval, but by a depression in
+the northern hemisphere, and a corresponding rise in the southern,
+whence all these mammoths, lions and tigers, are supposed to have been
+swept. To account for their present elevated position, a second
+convulsion restoring the depressed parts to their original altitude,
+must apparently have occurred--at least that is my unscientific
+conclusion. It would seem that we ought to look for similar
+accumulations of animal matter in our own Hudson's Bay territory, where,
+also, it is stated, the ground remains frozen throughout summer to
+within three feet of the surface, as in Siberia.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+  THE FRANCHISE.
+
+
+While I was a member of the City Council, the question of the proper
+qualification for electors of municipal councils and of the legislature,
+was much under discussion. I told my Reform opponents, who advocated an
+extremely low standard, that the lower they fixed the qualification for
+voters, the more bitterly they would be disappointed; that the poorer
+the electors the greater the corruption that must necessarily prevail.
+And so it has proved.
+
+In thinking over the subject since, I have been led to compare the body
+politic to a pyramid, the stones in every layer of which shall be more
+numerous than the aggregate of all the layers above it. And this
+comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that
+each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes
+higher in social rank--the idlers than the industrious--the workers than
+the employers--the children than the parents--the illiterate than the
+instructed--and so on. Thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that
+the adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage, now so much
+advocated, must necessarily place all political power in the hands of
+the worst offscourings of the community--law-breakers, vagrants, and
+outcasts of all kinds. This would be equivalent to inverting the
+pyramid, and expecting it to remain poised upon its apex--which is a
+mere impossibility.
+
+Whether the capstone of the social pyramid ought to be king or
+president, is not material to my argument. On republican principles--and
+with the French King, Louis Philippe, I hold that the British
+constitutional monarchy is "the best of all republics"--the true theory
+of representative institutions must be, that each class of the electors
+should have a voice in the councils of the country equal to, and no
+greater than, each of the several classes (or strata) above. This would
+greatly resemble the old Scandinavian storthings, in which there were
+four orders of legislators--king, nobles, clergy, and peasants, each of
+which had a veto on all questions brought before any one of them.
+
+Thus, the election of members of local municipal councils would be
+vested in the rate-payers, much as at present. The district (not county)
+councils would be elected by the local municipalities; and would
+themselves be entitled to elect members of the provincial legislatures.
+These latter again might properly be entrusted with the election of the
+Dominion House of Commons. And to carry the idea a step further, the
+Dominion Legislature itself would be a fitting body to nominate
+representatives to a great council of the Empire, which should decide
+all questions of peace or war, of commerce, and other matters affecting
+the whole body politic. To make the analogy complete, and bind the whole
+structure together, each class should be limited in its choice to the
+class next above it, by which process, it is to be presumed, "the
+survival of the fittest" would be secured, and every man elected to the
+higher bodies must have won his way from the municipal council up
+through all the other grades.
+
+I should give each municipal voter such number of votes as would
+represent his stake in the municipality, say one vote for every four
+hundred dollars of assessable property, and an additional vote for every
+additional four hundred dollars, up to a maximum of perhaps ten votes,
+and no more, which would sufficiently protect the richer ratepayers
+without neutralizing the wishes of the poorer voters.
+
+On such a system, every voter would influence the entire legislation of
+the country to the exact extent of his intelligence, and of his
+contributions to the general expenditure. Corruption would be almost,
+and intimidation quite, impracticable.
+
+To meet the need for a revisory body or senate, the retired judges of
+the Upper Courts, and retired members of the House of Commons, after ten
+or twenty years' service, should form an unexceptionable tribunal for
+any of the colonies.
+
+I am aware that the election of legislators by the county councils has
+been already advocated in Canada, and that in other respects this
+chapter may be considered not a little presumptuous; but I conclude,
+nevertheless, to print it for what it is worth.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXV.
+
+  FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.
+
+
+I have, I believe, in the preceding pages, established beyond
+contradiction the historical fact, that the Conservative party, whatever
+their other faults may have been, are not justly chargeable with making
+use of the Protection cry as a mere political manoeuvre, only adopted
+immediately prior to the general elections of 1878.
+
+I have mentioned, that when I was about eighteen years of age, the
+Corn-Law League was in full blast in England. I was foreman and
+proof-reader of the printing office whence all its principal
+publications issued, and was in daily communication with Col. Peyronnet
+Thompson, M. P., and the other free-trade leaders. I was even then
+struck with the circumstance, that while loudly professing their
+disinterested desire for the welfare of the whole human race, the
+authors of the movement urged as their main argument with the
+manufacturers and farmers, that England could undersell the whole world
+in cheap goods, while her agriculturists could never be under-sold in
+their own markets. This reasoning appeared to me both hypocritical and
+fraudulent; and I hold that it has proved so, and that for England and
+Scotland, the day of retribution is already looming in the near future.
+As righteously might a single shop-keeper build his hopes of profit upon
+the utter ruin of all his trade competitors, as a single country dare to
+speculate, as the British free-trader has done, on the destruction of
+the manufacturing industries of all other nations.
+
+The present troubles in Ireland, are they not the direct fruit of the
+crushing out of its linen industry? The Scindian war in India, was it
+not caused by the depopulation of a whole province of a million and a
+half of people, through the annihilation of its nankeen manufacture. And
+if Manchester and Birmingham had their way, would not France and
+Germany, and Switzerland and America--including Canada--become the mere
+bond-slaves of the Cobdens and the Brights--_et hoc genus omne_?
+
+But there is a Power above all, that has ordered events otherwise. I
+assume it to be undeniable, that according to natural laws, the country
+which produces any raw material, must ultimately become its cheapest
+manipulator. England has no inherent claim to control any manufactures
+but those of tin, iron, brass and wool; and with time, all or most of
+these may be wrested from her. Her cotton mills must ultimately fade
+away before those of India, the Southern States, and Africa. Her grain
+can never again compete with that of Russia and the Canadian North-West.
+Her iron-works with difficulty now hold their own against Germany and
+the United States. Birmingham and Sheffield are threatened by
+Switzerland, by the New England States, and--before many decades--by
+Canada. And so on with all the rest of England's monopolies. Dear
+labour, dear farming, dear soil, will tell unfavourably in the end, in
+spite of all trade theories and _ex parte_ arguments.
+
+Yet more. It would not be hard to show, I think, that the tenant-right
+and agrarian agitations of the present day are due to Free Trade; that
+the cry, "the land belongs to the labourer," is the direct offspring of
+the Cobden teaching; and that the issue will but too probably be, a
+disastrous revulsion of labour against capital, and poverty against
+wealth. They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind! God send that it
+may not happen in our day!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+  THE FUTURE OF CANADA.
+
+
+I may venture, I hope, to put down here some of the conclusions to which
+my fifty years' experience in Canada, and my observation of what has
+been going on during the same term in the United States, have led me. It
+is a favourite boast with our neighbours, that all North America must
+ultimately be brought under one government, and that the manifest
+destiny of Canada will irresistibly lead her on to annexation. And we
+have had, and still have amongst us, those who welcome the idea, and
+some who have lately grown audacious enough to stigmatize as traitors
+those who, like myself, claim to be citizens, not of the Dominion only,
+but of the Empire.
+
+To say nothing of the semi-barbarous population of Mexico, who would
+have to be consulted, there is a section of the Southern States which
+may yet demand autonomy for the Negro race, and which will in all
+probability seize the first opportunity for so doing. Then in Canada, we
+have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their
+preference for French over British alliance; and who will surely claim
+their right to act upon their convictions the moment British authority
+shall have become relaxed. Nor can they be blamed for this, however we
+may doubt the soundness of their conclusions. Then we have the Acadians
+of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow French Canada wheresoever she
+might lead; nor could the few British people of New Brunswick and Prince
+Edward Island--unaided by England--escape the same fate. Even Eastern
+Ontario might have to fight hard to escape a French Republican régime.
+
+There remain Middle and Western Ontario, and the North-West--two
+naturally isolated territories, neither of which could be expected to
+incur the horrors of war for the sake of the other. It is not, I think,
+difficult to foresee, that, given independence, Ontario must inevitably
+cast her lot in with the United States. But with the North-West, the
+case is entirely different.
+
+From Liverpool to Winnipeg, _via_ Hudson's Bay, the distance is less by
+eleven hundred miles than by way of the St. Lawrence. From Liverpool to
+China and Japan, _via_ the same northern route, the distance is--as a
+San Francisco journal points out--a thousand miles shorter than by any
+other trans-American line. It is really _two thousand miles_ shorter
+than _via_ San Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the
+cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and
+Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the
+power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route
+through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she
+holds it under her sole control. And where is the nation that can
+prevent her so holding it, while her fleets command the North Atlantic
+Ocean. Is it not utterly inconceivable, that English statesmen can be
+found so mad or so unpatriotic, as to throw away the very key of the
+world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the
+North-West; or that Manchester and Birmingham--Sheffield and
+Glasgow--should sustain for a moment any government that could dream of
+so doing. I firmly believe, in fine, that either by the St. Lawrence or
+the Hudson's Bay route, or both, British connexion with Canada is
+destined to endure, all prognostications to the contrary
+notwithstanding. England may afford to be shut out of the Suez canal, or
+the Panama canal, or the entire of her South African colonies, better
+than she can afford to part with the Dominion, and notably the Canadian
+North-West. If there be any two countries in the world whose interests
+are inseparable, they are the British Isles and North-Western
+Canada--the former being constrained by her food necessities, the latter
+by her want of a secure grain market. Old Canada, some say, has her
+natural outlet in the United States--which is only very partially true,
+as the reverse might be asserted with equal force. Not so the
+North-West. She has her natural market in Great Britain; and Great
+Britain, in turn, will find in the near future her best customer in
+Manitoba and the North-Western prairies.
+
+So mote it be!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+  THE TORONTO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.
+
+
+The following account of the rise and progress of this institution, has
+been obligingly furnished me by one of its earliest and best friends,
+Mr. William Edwards, to whom, undoubtedly, more than to any other man,
+it has been indebted for its past success and usefulness:
+
+    The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January,
+    1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by
+    James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly
+    meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the
+    report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled
+    members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon.
+    Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm.
+    Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts,
+    John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B.
+    Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James
+    Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons,
+    A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the
+    organization and progress of the Institute.
+
+    Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not
+    been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic
+    Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building,
+    on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by
+    Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures
+    delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the
+    improvement of its members.
+
+    During the year 1835, a grant of £200 was made by the
+    legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was
+    entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were
+    made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The
+    apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete,
+    and was never of much value to the Institute.
+
+    The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837,
+    and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the
+    Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they
+    had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the
+    accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the
+    Market Buildings--the site of the present St. Lawrence Market.
+
+    In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the
+    Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12
+    Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and,
+    through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the
+    use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During
+    this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story
+    fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court
+    buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council
+    extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary
+    accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the
+    Institute continued the building of the second story for its
+    accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference
+    between the cost of the extended building and the building first
+    contracted for, which amounted to £465 5s. 6d.--this sum being
+    raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to £1 each.
+
+    The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of
+    August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John
+    Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when
+    the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B.
+    Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the
+    Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its
+    purposes.
+
+    The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented
+    to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was
+    made to the Institute during the same year.
+
+    In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of
+    exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work,
+    antiquities, curiosities, &c. This was kept open for two weeks,
+    and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and
+    of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were
+    repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an
+    exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700
+    paintings and drawings--many of them being copies of the old
+    masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of
+    nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other
+    departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was
+    always an indefatigable worker.
+
+    In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact
+    that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September,
+    1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was
+    purchased by public auction, for £1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a
+    new building were at once prepared, and committees were
+    appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the
+    citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the
+    year the sum of £1,200 was contributed. The president of the
+    Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously
+    presented the plans and specifications and superintendence,
+    free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building
+    was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was
+    laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854.
+
+    During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the
+    unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes,
+    the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the
+    Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the
+    expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute
+    the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary
+    changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible
+    in accordance with the original plans. The building had a
+    frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on
+    Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was
+    $48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49;
+    sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site,
+    $14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities,
+    $5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and
+    from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000;
+    leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of
+    $1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied
+    during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable
+    entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a
+    bazaar--the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds
+    of the Institute.
+
+    During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of
+    literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the
+    first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction,
+    in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special
+    feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated
+    a more complete system than had before been carried out. These
+    classes were continued annually with marked success until the
+    winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of
+    its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing
+    evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses.
+
+    In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its
+    building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting
+    thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated
+    improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free
+    Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first
+    intended, but for library purposes only.
+
+    In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property
+    from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a
+    School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in
+    the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all
+    its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government
+    in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room,
+    and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in
+    a very favourable position, and considerably improved its
+    finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more
+    suitable building for the School of Technology (then named
+    "School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the
+    property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many
+    alterations were made in the building when the Institute got
+    possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music
+    hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables,
+    chess-boards, &c., for the use of the members. This latter
+    feature was a success, both financially and otherwise.
+
+    In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which
+    provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics'
+    Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all
+    its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of
+    Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free
+    Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting
+    held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved
+    to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities,
+    to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes;
+    and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed
+    giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of
+    June, in the said year 1883.
+
+    With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the
+    usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed
+    away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence,
+    than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During
+    its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work.
+    Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and
+    educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned
+    into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise
+    have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to
+    society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy,
+    mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated
+    with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of
+    great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members
+    to study the useful books in the library, to join with their
+    fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take
+    responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops,
+    that only for the Institute they would not have attained to.
+
+    Until the Canadian Institute--which was nursed into existence in
+    the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of
+    Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members--the Institute had
+    the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young
+    Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free
+    reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and
+    better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to
+    have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence.
+
+
+    This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in
+    its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to
+    close without noticing some of those who have for extended
+    periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I
+    fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however,
+    the names of those who served the Institute in the various
+    positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries,
+    librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty
+    years in all, as follows:--
+
+    W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E.
+    Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13),
+    John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H.
+    Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H.
+    Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee
+    (each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice
+    Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8
+    years).
+
+    Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records
+    have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have
+    been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4,
+    7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach
+    (1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B.
+    Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland
+    (1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland
+    (1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore
+    (1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout
+    (1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate
+    (1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870),
+    John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos.
+    Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout
+    (1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3).
+
+    The recording secretaries have been in the following order and
+    number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3,
+    4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840
+    and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859,
+    1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861,
+    2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel
+    Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
+    1880, 1, 2, 3).
+
+    The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C.
+    Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward
+    (1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland
+    (1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John
+    Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the
+    office was not continued.
+
+    The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M.
+    Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4,
+    5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6),
+    John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W.
+    Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos.
+    Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay
+    (1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880).
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+  THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
+
+
+The establishment of Free Libraries, adapted to meet the wants of
+readers of all classes, has made rapid progress within the last few
+years. Some, such as the Chetham Library of Manchester, owe their origin
+to the bequests of public-spirited citizens of former days; some, like
+the British Museum Library, to national support; but they remained
+comparatively unused, until the modern system of common school
+education, and the wonderful development of newspaper enterprise, made
+readers of the working classes. I remember when London had but one daily
+journal, the _Times_, and one weekly, the _News_, which latter paper was
+sold for sixpence sterling by men whom I have seen running through the
+streets on Sunday morning, blowing tin horns to announce their approach
+to their customers.
+
+The introduction of Mechanics' Institutes by the joint efforts of Lord
+Brougham and Dr. Birkbeck, I also recollect; as a lad I was one of the
+first members. They spread over all English-speaking communities, throve
+for many years, then gradually waned. Scientific knowledge became so
+common, that lectures on chemistry, astronomy, &c., ceased to attract
+audiences. But the appetite for reading did not diminish in the least,
+and hence it happened that Free Libraries began to supersede Mechanics'
+Institutes.
+
+Toronto has heretofore done but little in this way, and it remained for
+a few public-spirited citizens of the present decade, to effect any
+marked advance in the direction of free reading for all classes. In
+August, 1880, the Rev. Dr. Scadding addressed a letter to the City
+Council, calling its attention to the propriety of establishing a Public
+Library in Toronto. In the following December, Alderman Taylor, in an
+address to his constituents, wrote--"In 1881 the nucleus of a free
+Public Library should be secured by purchase or otherwise, so that in a
+few years we may boast of a library that will do no discredit to the
+educational centre of the Dominion. Cities across the lake annually vote
+a sum to be so applied, Chicago alone voting $39,000 per annum for a
+similar purpose. Surely Toronto can afford say $5,000 a year for the
+mental improvement of her citizens." In the City Council for 1881, the
+subject was zealously taken up by Aldermen Hallam, Taylor and Mitchell.
+Later in the year, Alderman Hallam presented to the council an
+interesting report of his investigations among English public libraries,
+describing their system and condition.
+
+Early in 1882, an Act was passed by the Ontario Legislature, giving
+power to the ratepayers of any municipality in Ontario to tax themselves
+for the purchase or erection and maintenance of a Free Public Library,
+limiting the rate to be so levied to one half mill on the dollar on
+taxable property.[29] The Town of Guelph was the first to avail itself
+of the privilege, and was followed by Toronto, which, on 1st January,
+1883, adopted a by-law submitted by the City Council in accordance with
+the statute, the majority thereon being 2,543, the largest ever polled
+at any Toronto city election for raising money for any special object.
+
+This result was not obtained without very active exertions on the part
+of the friends of the movement, amongst whom, as is admitted on all
+hands, Alderman Hallam is entitled to the chief credit. But for his
+liberal expenditure for printing, his unwearied activity in addressing
+public meetings, and his successful appeals through the children of the
+common schools to their parents, the by-law might have failed. Ald.
+Taylor and other gentlemen gave efficient aid. Professor Wilson,
+President of Toronto University, presided at meetings held in its
+favour; and Messrs. John Hague, W. H. Knowlton and other citizens
+supported it warmly through the press. The editors of the principal city
+papers also doing good service through their columns.
+
+In Toronto, as elsewhere, the Mechanics' Institute has had its day. But
+times change, and the public taste changes with them. A library and
+reading-room supported by subscription, could hardly hope to compete
+with an amply endowed rival, to which admission would be absolutely
+free. So the officers of the Mechanics' Institute threw themselves
+heartily into the new movement, and after consultation with their
+members, offered, in accordance with the statute, to transfer their
+property, valued at some twenty thousand dollars, exclusive of all
+encumbrances, to the City Council for the use of the Free Library, which
+offer was gladly accepted.
+
+The first Board of Management was composed as follows:--The Mayor, A. R.
+Boswell (ex-officio); John Hallam, John Taylor and George D'Arcy
+Boulton,[30] nominated by the City Council; Dr. George Wright, W. H.
+Knowlton and J. A. Mills, nominees of the Public School Board; and James
+Mason and Wm. Scully, representing the Board of Separate School
+Trustees. At their first meeting, held February 15th, 1883, the new
+Board elected John Hallam to be their chairman for the year, and myself
+as secretary _pro tem_.
+
+The following extract from the Chairman's opening address, illustrates
+the spirit in which the library is to be conducted:
+
+    "Toronto is pre-eminently a city of educational institutions. We all
+    feel a pride in her progress, and feel more so now that it is
+    possible to add a free public library to her many noble and useful
+    institutions. I feel sure that the benefit to the people of a
+    reference and lending library of carefully selected books, is
+    undisputed by all who are interested in the mental, moral, and
+    social advancement of our city. The books in such a library should
+    be as general and as fascinating as possible. I would have this
+    library a representative one, with a grand foundation of solid,
+    standard fact literature, with a choice, clear-minded, finely-
+    imaginative superstructure of light reading, and avoid the vulgar,
+    the sensuously sensational, the garbage of the modern press. A rate-
+    supported library should be practical in its aims, and not a mere
+    curiosity shop for a collection of curious and rare books--their
+    only merit being their rarity, their peculiar binding, singular
+    type, or quaint illustrations. It is very nice to have these
+    literary rare-bits; but the taxes of the people should not be spent
+    in buying them. A library of this kind, to be valuable as far as our
+    own country is concerned, should contain a full collection of--
+
+    "1. Manuscript statements and narratives of pioneer settlers;
+    old letters and journals relative to the early history and
+    settlement of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New
+    Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, and the wars
+    of 1776 and 1812; biographical notes of our pioneers and of
+    eminent citizens deceased, and facts illustrative of our Indian
+    tribes, their history, characteristics, sketches of their
+    prominent chiefs, orators, and warriors.
+
+    "2. Diaries, narratives, and documents relative to the U. E.
+    Loyalists, their expulsion from the old colonies, and their
+    settlement in the Maritime Provinces.
+
+    "3. Files of newspapers, books, pamphlets, college catalogues,
+    minutes of ecclesiastical conventions, associations,
+    conferences, and synods, and all other publications relating to
+    this and other provinces.
+
+    "4. Indian geographical names of streams and localities, with
+    their signification, and all information generally respecting
+    the condition, language, and history of different tribes of the
+    Indians.
+
+    "5. Books of all kinds, especially such as relate to Canadian
+    history, travels, and biography in general, and Lower Canada or
+    Quebec in particular, family genealogies, old magazines,
+    pamphlets, files of newspapers, maps, historical manuscripts and
+    autographs of distinguished persons.
+
+    "I feel sure such a library will rank and demand recognition
+    among the permanent institutions in the city for sustaining,
+    encouraging and stimulating everything that is great and good.
+
+    "Free libraries have a special claim on every ratepayer who
+    desires to see our country advance to the front, and keep pace
+    with the world in art, science, and commerce, and augment the
+    sum of human happiness. This far-reaching movement is likely to
+    extend to every city and considerable town in this Province. The
+    advantages are many. They help on the cause of education. They
+    tend to promote public virtue. Their influence is on the side of
+    order, self-respect, and general enlightenment. There are few
+    associations so pleasant as those excited by them. They are a
+    literary park where all can enjoy themselves during their
+    leisure hours. To all lovers of books and students, to the rich
+    and poor alike, the doors of these institutions are open without
+    money and without price."
+
+The year 1883 was employed in getting things into working order. The
+City Council did their part by voting the sum of $50,000 in debentures,
+for the equipment and enlargement of the Mechanics' Institute building
+for the purposes of the main or central library and reading room; the
+opening of branch libraries and reading rooms in the north and west; and
+for the purchase of 25,000 volumes of books, of which 5,000 each were
+destined for the two branches.
+
+On the 3rd July, the Board of Management appointed Mr. James Bain, jr.,
+as librarian-in-chief, with a staff of three assistant librarians, and
+four junior assistants (females). The duties of secretary were at the
+same time attached to the office of first assistant-librarian, which was
+given to Mr. John Davy, former secretary and librarian to the Mechanics'
+Institute. I was relegated to the charge of the Northern Branch, at St.
+Paul's Hall; while the Western Branch, at St. Andrew's Market, was
+placed in the hands of Miss O'Dowd, an accomplished scholar and teacher.
+
+The Chairman and Librarian, Messrs. Hallam and Bain, proceeded in
+October to England for the purchase of books, most of which arrived here
+in January. _The Week_ for December 13th last says of the books
+selected, that they "would make the mouth water of every bibliophile in
+the country." While I am writing these lines they are being catalogued
+and arranged for use, and the Free Library of Toronto will become an
+accomplished fact, almost simultaneously with the publication of these
+"Reminiscences."
+
+[Footnote 29: "Whatever may be its fate, the friends of progress will
+remember that the Province is indebted for this bill (the Free Libraries
+Act) to the zeal and public spirit of an alderman of the City of
+Toronto, Mr. John Hallam. With a disinterested enthusiasm and an
+assurance that the inhabitants of the towns and villages of Ontario
+would derive substantial benefits from the introduction of free public
+libraries, Mr. Hallam has spared no pains to stimulate public opinion in
+their favour. He has freely distributed a pamphlet on the subject, which
+embodies the result of much enquiry and reflection, gathered from
+various sources, and he seems to be very sanguine of success."--See Dr.
+Alpheus Todd's paper "_On the Establishment of Free Libraries in
+Canada_," read before the Royal Society of Canada, 25th May, 1882.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Mr. Boulton retired January 1st, 1884, and Alderman
+Bernard Saunders was appointed in his stead.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+  Postscript.
+
+
+After having spent the greater part of half a century in various public
+capacities--after having been the recipient of nearly every honorary
+distinction which it was in the power of my fellow-citizens to
+confer--there now remains for me no further object of ambition, unless
+to die in harness, and so escape the taunt--
+
+  "Unheeded lags the veteran on the stage."
+
+Three times have I succeeded in gaining a position of reasonable
+competence; and as often--in 1857, 1860 and 1876--the "great
+waterfloods" have swept over me, and left me to begin life anew. It is
+too late now, however, to scale another Alp, so let us plod on in the
+valley, watching the sunshine fading away behind the mountains, until
+the darkness comes on; and aye singing--
+
+  "Night is falling dark and silent,
+     Starry myriads gem the sky;
+   Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,
+     Brighter visions beam on high."
+
+
+  =Transcriber's Notes:=
+  hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
+  Page 13, and occassionally all night ==> and occasionally all night
+  Page 34, want of a bating." ==> want of a bating."'
+  Page 38, and of the world ==> and of the world.
+  Page 62, have cutdown trees enough ==> have cut down trees enough
+  Page 74, the appeoach of daybreak ==> the approach of daybreak
+  Page 105, streamlet know to travellers ==> streamlet known to travellers
+  Page 127, further north Many prisoners ==> further north. Many prisoners
+  Page 136, greater discriminatiou his ==> greater discrimination his
+  Page 156, Thomson, Bonar &. Co. ==> Thomson, Bonar & Co.
+  Page 166, Mr Denison served ==> Mr. Denison served
+  Page 169, it was The party ==> it was. The party
+  Page 181, many a cumbrous load ==> many a cumbrous load.
+  Page 258, (Mr. G) did not admit ==> (Mr. G.) did not admit
+  Page 362, signed the pen ion warrant ==> signed the pension warrant
+  Page 362, the vallesy rise ==> the valleys rise
+  Page 364, on this generation. ==> on this generation."
+  Page 383, T. G. Ridout, 1845, 6, 8) ==> T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8)
+  Page 389, 2. "Diaries, narratives ==> "2. Diaries, narratives
+  Page 389, 3. "Files of newspapers ==> "3. Files of newspapers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer
+for the last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANADIAN PIONEER ***
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the
+last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
+       An Autobiography
+
+Author: Samuel Thompson
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2011 [EBook #35586]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANADIAN PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by K Nordquist, Ross Cooling and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net ( This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br /><br />
+<h2>REMINISCENCES</h2>
+
+<h3>OF A</h3>
+
+<h1><span class="smcap">Canadian Pioneer.</span></h1>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2>REMINISCENCES</h2>
+
+<h3>OF A</h3>
+
+<h1>CANADIAN PIONEER</h1>
+
+<h3>FOR</h3>
+
+<h2>THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h3>
+<br />
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>SAMUEL THOMPSON,</h2>
+
+<h4><i>Formerly Editor of the "Toronto Daily Colonist," the "Parliamentary
+Hansard," &amp;c., &amp;c.</i></h4>
+<br /><br />
+<h3>Toronto:</h3>
+<h2>HUNTER, ROSE &amp; COMPANY.</h2>
+<h4>MDCCCLXXXIV.</h4>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<div class="bbox"><p><span class="smcap">Entered</span> according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
+year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four, by <span class="smcap">Samuel
+Thompson</span>, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.</p></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>t was in consequence of a suggestion by the late S. J. Watson,
+Librarian of the Ontario Legislature&mdash;who urged that one who had gone
+through so many experiences of early Canadian history as myself, ought
+to put the same on record&mdash;that I first thought of writing these
+"Reminiscences," a portion of which appeared in the <i>Canadian Monthly
+Magazine</i>. For the assistance which has enabled me to complete and issue
+this volume, I am obliged to the kind support of those friends who have
+subscribed for its publication; for which they will please accept my
+grateful thanks.</p>
+
+<p>In the space at my disposal, I have necessarily been compelled to give
+little more than a gossiping narrative of events coming under my own
+observation. But I have been careful to verify every statement of which
+I was not personally cognizant; and to avoid everything of a
+controversial character; as well as to touch gently on those faults of
+public men which I felt obliged to notice.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a labour of love to me, to place on record many honourable
+deeds of Nature's gentlemen, whose lights ought not to be hidden
+altogether "under a bushel," and whose names should be enrolled by
+Canada amongst her earliest worthies. I have had the advantage, in
+several cases, of the use of family records, which have assisted me
+materially in rendering more complete several of the earlier chapters,
+particularly the account of Mackenzie's movements while in the
+neighbourhood of Gallows Hill; also the sketches of the "Tories of
+Rebellion Times;" as well as the history of the Mechanics' Institute, in
+which though a very old member, I never occupied any official position.</p>
+
+<p>Since the first part of these pages was in type, I have had to lament
+the deaths of more than one comrade whose name is recorded therein;
+amongst them Dr. A. A. Riddel&mdash;my "Archie"&mdash;and my dearest friend Dr.
+Alpheus Todd, to whom I have been indebted for a thousand proofs of
+generous sympathy.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 80%;">THE AUTHOR.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents" width="60%">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">page</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#PREFACE"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">iii</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Chap.</span> I.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">The Author's Antecedents and Forbears</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">History of a Man of Genius</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Some Reminiscences of a London Apprentice</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">19</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Westward, Ho!</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">21</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Connemara and Galway fifty years ago</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">27</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">More Sea Experiences</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">33</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Up the St. Lawrence</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Muddy Little York</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">39</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">A Pioneer Tavern</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">42</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">A First Day in the Bush</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">46</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">A Chapter on Chopping</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">52</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Life in the Backwoods</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">65</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Some Gatherings from Natural History</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">69</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Our Removal to Nottawasaga</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">78</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">Society in the Backwoods</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">84</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">More about Nottawasaga and its People</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">91</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">A Rude Winter Experience</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">93</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">The Forest Wealth of Canada</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">98</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">A Melancholy Tale</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">101</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">From Barrie to Nottawasaga</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">104</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">Farewell to the Backwoods</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">107</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">A Journey to Toronto</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">109</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><span class="smcap">Some Glimpses of Upper Canadian Politics</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">116</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><span class="smcap">Toronto During the Rebellion</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">119</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><span class="smcap">The Victor and the Vanquished</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">134</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><span class="smcap">Results in the Future</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">140</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><span class="smcap">A Confirmed Tory</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">143</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><span class="smcap">Newspaper Experiences</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">146</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><span class="smcap">Introduction to Canadian Politics</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">154</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><span class="smcap">Lord Sydenham's Mission</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">156</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><span class="smcap">Tories of the Rebellion Times:</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#G_T_DENISON"><span class="smcap">Ald. G. T. Denison, Sen</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">165</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#R_L_DENISON"><span class="smcap">Col. R. L. Denison</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">171</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#GEO_T_DENISON"><span class="smcap">Col. Geo. T. Denison, of Rusholme</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">172</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#ALDERMAN_DIXON"><span class="smcap">Alderman Dixon</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">174</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><span class="smcap">More Tories of Rebellion Times:</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><span class="smcap">Edward G. O'Brien</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">186</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="#JOHN_GAMBLE"><span class="smcap">John W. Gamble</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">198</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><span class="smcap">A Choice of a Church</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">201</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><span class="smcap">The Clergy Reserves</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">210</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><span class="smcap">A Political Seed-time</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">215</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><span class="smcap">The Maple Leaf</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">217</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">{<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><span class="smcap">St. George's Society</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">229</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl">{<a href="#N_A_S_G_UNION"><span class="smcap">North America St. George's Union</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">234</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><span class="smcap">A Great Conflagration</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">239</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><span class="smcap">The Rebellion Losses Bill</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">242</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XL.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><span class="smcap">The British American League</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">245</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><span class="smcap">Results of the B. A. League</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">261</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><span class="smcap">Toronto Civic Affairs</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">262</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><span class="smcap">Lord Elgin in Toronto</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">268</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><span class="smcap">Toronto Harbour and Esplanade</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">274</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV"><span class="smcap">Mayor Bowes&mdash;City Debentures</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">281</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI"><span class="smcap">Carlton Ocean Beach</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">285</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII"><span class="smcap">Canadian Politics from 1853 to 1860</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">288</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII"><span class="smcap">Business Troubles</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">295</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX"><span class="smcap">Business Experiences in Quebec</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">300</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">L.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_L"><span class="smcap">Quebec in 1859-60</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">303</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LI"><span class="smcap">Departure From Quebec</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">315</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LII"><span class="smcap">John A. Macdonald and George Brown</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">317</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LIII"><span class="smcap">John Sheridan Hogan</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">320</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LIV"><span class="smcap">Domestic Notes</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">322</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LV"><span class="smcap">The Beaver Insurance Company</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">325</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LVI"><span class="smcap">The Ottawa Fires</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">326</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LVII"><span class="smcap">Some Insurance Experiences</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">329</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII"><span class="smcap">A Heavy Calamity</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">333</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LIX"><span class="smcap">The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">336</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LX"><span class="smcap">The Toronto Athen&aelig;um</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">340</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXI"><span class="smcap">The Buffalo Fete</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">344</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXII"><span class="smcap">The Boston Jubilee</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">349</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIII"><span class="smcap">Vestiges of the Mosaic Deluge</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">365</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIV"><span class="smcap">The Franchise</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">368</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXV"><span class="smcap">Free Trade and Protection</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">371</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVI"><span class="smcap">The Future of Canada</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">374</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVII"><span class="smcap">The Toronto Mechanics' Institute</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">377</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXVIII"><span class="smcap">The Free Public Library</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">384</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_LXIX"><span class="smcap">Postscript</span></a></td>
+<td class="tdr">392</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<br />
+<h2>REMINISCENCES</h2>
+
+<h3>OF</h3>
+
+<h1>A CANADIAN PIONEER.</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE AUTHOR'S ANTECEDENTS AND FORBEARS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he writer of these pages was born in the year 1810, in the City of
+London, and in the Parish of Clerkenwell, being within sound of Bow
+Bells. My father was churchwarden of St. James's, Clerkenwell, and was a
+master-manufacturer of coal measures and coal shovels, now amongst the
+obsolete implements of by-gone days. His father was, I believe, a
+Scotsman, and has been illnaturedly surmised to have run away from the
+field of Culloden, where he may have fought under the name and style of
+Evan McTavish, a name which, like those of numbers of his fellow
+clansmen, would naturally anglicise itself into John Thompson, in order
+to save its owner's neck from a threatened Hanoverian halter. But he
+was both canny and winsome, and by-and-by succeeded in capturing the
+affections and "tocher" of Sarah Reynolds, daughter of the wealthy
+landlord of the Bull Inn, of Meriden, in Warwickshire, the greatest and
+oldest of those famous English hostelries, which did duty as the
+resting-place of monarchs <i>en route</i>, and combined within their solid
+walls whole troops of blacksmiths, carpenters, hostlers, and many other
+crafts and callings. No doubt from this source I got my Warwickshire
+blood, and English ways of thinking, in testimony of which I may cite
+the following facts: while living in Quebec, in 1859-60, a mason
+employed to rebuild a brick chimney challenged me as a brother
+Warwickshire man, saying he knew dozens of gentlemen there who were as
+like me "as two peas." Again, in 1841, a lady who claimed to be the last
+direct descendant of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, and
+the possessor of the watch and other relics of the poet, said she was
+quite startled at my likeness to an original portrait of her great
+ancestor, in the possession of her family.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather carried on the business of timber dealer (we in Canada
+should call it lumber merchant), between Scotland and England, buying up
+the standing timber in gentlemen's parks, squaring and teaming it
+southward, and so became a prosperous man. Finally, at his death, he
+left a large family of sons and daughters, all in thriving
+circumstances. His second son, William, married my mother, Anna Hawkins,
+daughter of the Rev. Isaac Hawkins, of Taunton, in Somersetshire, and
+his wife, Joan Wilmington, of Wilmington Park, near Taunton. My
+grandfather Hawkins was one of John Wesley's earliest converts, and was
+by him ordained to the ministry. Through my mother, we are understood to
+be descended from Sir John Hawkins, the world-renowned buccaneer,
+admiral, and founder of the English Royal Navy, who was honoured by
+being associated with her most sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in a
+secret partnership in the profits of piratical raids undertaken in the
+name and for the behoof of Protestant Christianity. So at least says the
+historian, Froude.</p>
+
+<p>One word more about my father. He was a member of the London
+trained-bands, and served during the Gordon riots, described by Dickens
+in "Barnaby Rudge." He personally rescued a family of Roman Catholics
+from the rioters, secreted them in his house on Holborn Hill, and aided
+them to escape to Jamaica, whence they sent us many valuable presents of
+mahogany furniture, which must be still in the possession of some of my
+nephews or nieces in England. My mother has often told me, that she
+remembered well seeing dozens of miserable victims of riot and
+drunkenness lying in the kennel in front of her house, lapping up the
+streams of gin which ran burning down the foul gutter, consuming the
+poor wretches themselves in its fiery progress.</p>
+
+<p>My father died the same year I was born. My dear mother, who was the
+meekest and most pious of women, did her best to teach her children to
+avoid the snares of worldly pride and ambition, and to be contented with
+the humble lot in which they had been placed by Providence. She was by
+religious profession a Swedenborgian, and in that denomination educated
+a family of eleven children, of whom I am the youngest. I was sent to a
+respectable day-school, and afterwards as boarder to a commercial
+academy, where I learnt the English branches of education, with a little
+Latin, French, and drawing. I was, as a child, passionately fond of
+reading, especially of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and of Sir Walter
+Scott's novels, which latter delightful books have influenced my tastes
+through life, and still hold me fascinated whenever I happen to take
+them up.</p>
+
+<p>So things went on till 1823, when I was thirteen years old. My mother
+had been left a life-interest in freehold and leasehold property worth
+some thirty thousand pounds sterling; but, following the advice of her
+father and brother, was induced to invest in losing speculations, until
+scarcely sufficient was left to keep the wolf from the door. It was,
+therefore, settled that I must be sent to learn a trade, and, by my
+uncle's advice, I was placed as apprentice to one William Molineux, of
+the Liberty of the Rolls, in the district of Lincoln's Inn, printer. He
+was a hard master, though not an unkind man. For seven long years was I
+kept at press and case, working eleven hours a day usually, sometimes
+sixteen, and occasionally all night, for which latter indulgence I got
+half a crown for the night's work, but no other payment or present from
+year's end to year's end. The factory laws had not then been thought of,
+and the condition of apprentices in England was much the same as that of
+convicts condemned to hard labour, except for a couple of hours'
+freedom, and too often of vicious license, in the evenings.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>HISTORY OF A MAN OF GENIUS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he course of my narrative now requires a brief account of my mother's
+only brother, whose example and conversation, more than anything else,
+taught me to turn my thoughts westwards, and finally to follow his
+example by crossing the Atlantic ocean, and seeking "fresh fields and
+pastures new" under a transatlantic sky.</p>
+
+<p>John Isaac Hawkins was a name well known, both in European and American
+scientific circles, fifty years ago, as an inventor of the most fertile
+resource, and an expert in all matters relating to civil engineering. He
+must have left England for America somewhere about the year 1790, full
+of republican enthusiasm and of schemes of universal benevolence. Of his
+record in the United States I know very little, except that he married a
+wife in New Jersey, that he resided at Bordenton, that he acquired some
+property adjacent to Philadelphia, that he was intimate with the elder
+Adams, Jefferson, and many other eminent men. Returning with his wife to
+England, after twenty-five years' absence, he established a sugar
+refinery in Titchfield Street, Cavendish square, London, patronized his
+English relatives with much condescension, and won my childish heart by
+great lumps of rock-candy, and scientific experiments of a delightfully
+awful character. Also, he borrowed my mother's money, to be expended for
+the good of mankind, and the elaboration of the teeming offspring of his
+inexhaustible inventive faculty. Morden's patent lead pencils, Bramah's
+patent locks, and, I think, Gillott's steel pens were among his numerous
+useful achievements, from some or all of which he enjoyed to the day of
+his death a small income, in the shape of a royalty on the profits. He
+assisted in the perfecting of Perkins's steam-gun, which the Duke of
+Wellington condemned as too barbarous for civilized warfare, but which
+its discoverer, Mr. Perkins, looked upon as the destined extirpator of
+all warfare, by the simple process of rendering resistance utterly
+impossible. This appalling and destructive weapon has culminated in
+these times in the famous mitrailleuses of Napoleon III, at Woerth and
+Sedan, which, however, certainly neither exterminated the Prussians nor
+added glory to the French empire.</p>
+
+<p>At his home I was in the habit of meeting the leading men of the Royal
+Society and the Society of Arts, of which he was a member, and of
+listening to their discussions about scientific novelties. The
+eccentric Duke of Norfolk, Earl Stanhope, the inventor of the Stanhope
+press, and other noble amateur scientists, availed themselves of his
+practical skill, and his name became known throughout Europe. In 1825 or
+thereabouts, he was selected by the Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria,
+to design and superintend the first extensive works erected in Vienna
+for the promotion of the new manufacture of beet-root sugar, now an
+important national industry throughout Germany. He described the
+intercourse of the Austrian Imperial-Royal family with all who
+approached them, and even with the mendicants who were daily admitted to
+an audience with the Emperor at five o'clock in the morning, as of the
+most cordial and lovable character.</p>
+
+<p>From Vienna my uncle went to Paris, and performed the same duties there
+for the French Government, in the erection of extensive sugar works. The
+chief difficulty he encountered there, was in parrying the determination
+of the Parisian artisans not to lose their Sunday's labour. They could
+not, they said, support their families on six days' wages, and unless he
+paid them for remaining idle on the Sabbath day, they must and would
+work seven days in the week. I believe they gained their point, much to
+his distress and chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>His next exploit was in the construction of the Thames tunnel, in
+connection with which he acted as superintendent of the works under Sir
+Isambert Brunel. This occupied him nearly up to the time of my own
+departure for Canada, in 1833. The sequel of his story is a melancholy
+one. He made fortunes for other men who bought his inventions but
+himself sank into debt, and at last died in obscurity at Rahway, New
+Jersey, whither he had returned as a last resort, there to find his
+former friends dead, his beloved republic become a paradise for
+office-grabbers and sharpers, his life a mere tale of talents
+dissipated, and vague ambition unsatisfied.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>After his return from Vienna, I lived much at my uncle's house, in
+London, as my mother had removed to the pleasant village of Epsom in
+Surrey. There I studied German with some degree of success, and learnt
+much about foreign nations and the world at large. There too I learnt to
+distrust my own ability to make my way amidst the crowded industries of
+the old country, and began to cast a longing eye to lands where there
+was plenty of room for individual effort, and a reasonable prospect of
+a life unblighted by the dread of the parish workhouse and a pauper's
+grave.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LONDON APPRENTICE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">H</span>aving been an indulged youngest child, I found the life of a printer's
+boy bitterly distasteful, and it was long before I could brace myself up
+to the required tasks. But time worked a change; I got to be a smart
+pressman and compositor; and at eighteen the foremanship of the office
+was entrusted to me, still without remuneration or reward. Those were
+the days of the Corn Law League. Col. Peyronnet Thompson, the apostle of
+Free Trade, author of the "Catholic State Waggon" and other political
+tracts, got his work done at our office. We printed the <i>Examiner</i>,
+which brought me into contact with John and Leigh Hunt, with Jeremy
+Bentham, then a feeble old man whose life was passed in an easy chair,
+and with his <i>proteg&eacute;</i> Edwin Chadwick; also with Albany Fonblanque, Sir
+John Morland the philanthropist, and other eminent men. Last but not
+least, we printed "Figaro in London," the forerunner of "Punch," and I
+was favoured with the kindest encouragement by De Walden, its first
+editor, afterwards Police Magistrate. I have known that gentleman come
+into the office on the morning of publication, ask how much copy was
+still wanted, and have seen him stand at a desk, and without preparation
+or hesitation, dash off paragraph after paragraph of the pungent
+witticisms, which the same afternoon sent all London into roars of
+laughter at the expense of political humbugs of all kinds, whether
+friends or foes. These were not unhappy days for me. With such
+associations, I became a zealous Reformer, and heartily applauded my
+elder brother, when he refused, with thousands of others, to pay taxes
+at the time the first Reform Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of my life, as might have been expected from the nature
+of my education and the course of reading which I preferred, I began to
+try my hand at poetry, and wrote several slight pieces for the Christmas
+Annuals, which, sad to say, were never accepted. But the fate of
+Chatterton, of Coleridge, and other like sufferers, discouraged me; and
+I adopted the prudent resolution, to prefer wealth to fame, and comfort
+to martyrdom in the service of the Muses.</p>
+
+<p>With the termination of my seven years' apprenticeship, these literary
+efforts came also to an end. Disgusted with printing, I entered the
+service of my brother, a timber merchant, and in consequence obtained a
+general knowledge of the many varieties of wood used in manufactures,
+which I have since found serviceable. And this brings me to the year
+1831, from which date to the present day, I have identified myself
+thoroughly with Canada, her industries and progress, without for a
+moment ceasing to be an Englishman of the English, a loyal subject of
+the Queen, and a firm believer in the high destinies of the Pan-Anglican
+Empire of the future.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>WESTWARD, HO!</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap"><small><small><sup>"</sup></small></small>M</span>artin Doyle," was the text-book which first awakened, amongst tens of
+thousands of British readers, a keen interest in the backwoods of what
+is now the Province of Ontario. The year 1832, the first dread year of
+Asiatic cholera, contributed by its terrors to the exodus of alarmed
+fugitives from the crowded cities of the old country. My brothers
+Thomas and Isaac, both a few years older than myself, made up their
+minds to emigrate, and I joyously offered to join them, in the
+expectation of a good deal of fun of the kind described by Dr. Dunlop.
+So we set seriously to work, "pooled" our small means, learnt to make
+seine-nets, economized to an unheard of extent, became curious in the
+purchase of stores, including pannikins and other primitive tinware, and
+at length engaged passage in the bark <i>Asia</i>, 500 tons, rated A. No. 1,
+formerly an East Indiaman, and now bound for Quebec, to seek a cargo of
+white pine lumber for the London market. So sanguine were we of
+returning in the course of six or seven years, with plenty of money to
+enrich, and perhaps bring back with us, our dear mother and unmarried
+sisters, that we scarcely realized the pain of leave-taking, and went on
+board ship in the St. Catherine's Docks, surrounded by applauding
+friends, and in the highest possible spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Our fellow-passengers were not of the most desirable class. With the
+exception of a London hairdresser and his wife, very respectable people,
+with whom we shared the second-cabin, the emigrants were chiefly rough
+countrymen, with their wives and numerous children, sent out by the
+parish authorities from the neighbourhood of Dorking, in Surrey, and
+more ignorant than can readily be conceived. Helpless as infants under
+suffering, sulky and even savage under privations, they were a
+troublesome charge to the ship's officers, and very ill-fitted for the
+dangers of the sea which lay before us. Captain Ward was the ship's
+master; there were first and second mates, the former a tall Scot, the
+latter a short thick-set Englishman, and both good sailors. The
+boatswain, cook and crew of about a dozen men and boys, made up our
+ship's company.</p>
+
+<p>All things went reasonably well for some time. Heavy head-winds detained
+us in the channel for a fortnight, which was relieved by landing at
+Torbay, climbing the heights of Brixham, and living on fresh fish for
+twenty-four hours. Then came a fair wind, which lasted until we got near
+the banks of Newfoundland. Head-winds beset us again, and this time so
+seriously that our vessel, which was timber-sheathed, sprang a plank,
+and immediately began to leak dangerously. The passengers had taken to
+their berths for the night, and were of course ignorant of what had
+happened, but feared something wrong from the hurry of tramping of feet
+overhead, the vehement shouts of the mates giving orders for lowering
+sail, and the other usual accompaniments of a heavy squall on board
+ship. It was not long, however, before we learned the alarming truth.
+"All hands on deck to pump ship," came thundering down both hatchways,
+in the coarse tones of the second mate. We hurried on deck half-dressed,
+to face a scene of confusion affrighting in the eyes of landsmen&mdash;the
+ship stripped to her storm-sails, almost on her beam-ends in a
+tremendous sea, the wind blowing "great guns," the deck at an angle of
+at least fifteen degrees, flooded with rain pouring in torrents, and
+encumbered with ropes which there had not been time to clew away, the
+four ship's pumps manned by twice as many landsmen, the sailors all
+engaged in desperate efforts to stop the leak by thrumming sails
+together and drawing them under the ship's bows.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Ward told us very calmly that he had been in gales off the Cape
+of Good Hope, and thought nothing of a "little puff" like this; he also
+told us that he should keep on his course in the hope that the wind
+would abate, and that we could manage the leak; but if not, he had no
+doubt of carrying us safely back to the west coast of Ireland, where he
+might comfortably refit.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly courage is infectious. We were twelve hundred miles at sea,
+with a great leak in our ship's side, and very little hope of escape,
+but the master's coolness and bravery delighted us, and even the
+weakest man on board took his spell at the pumps, and worked away for
+dear life. My brother Thomas was a martyr to sea-sickness, and could
+hardly stand without help; but Isaac had been bred a farmer, accustomed
+to hard work and field sports, and speedily took command of the pumps,
+worked two spells for another man's one, and by his example encouraged
+the grumbling steerage passengers to persevere, if only for very shame.
+Some of their wives even took turns with great spirit and effect. I did
+my best, but it was not much that I could accomplish.</p>
+
+<p>In all my after-life I never experienced such supreme comfort and peace
+of mind, as during that night, while lying under wet sails on the
+sloping deck, talking with my brother of the certainty of our being at
+the bottom of the sea before morning, of our mother and friends at home,
+and of our hope of meeting them in the great Hereafter. Tired out at
+last, we fell asleep where we lay, and woke only at the cry, "spell ho!"
+which summoned us again to the pumps.</p>
+
+<p>The report of "five feet of water in the hold&mdash;the ballast shifted!"
+determined matters for us towards morning. Capt. Ward decided that he
+must put about and run for Galway, and so he did. The sea had by
+daylight gone down so much, that the captain's cutter could be lowered
+and the leak examined from the outside. This was done by the first mate,
+Mr. Cattanagh, who brought back the cheering news that so long as we
+were running before the wind the leak was four feet out of water, and
+that we were saved for the present. The bark still remained at the same
+unsightly angle, her ballast, which was chiefly coals, having shifted
+bodily over to leeward; the pumps had to be kept going, and in this
+deplorable state, in constant dread of squalls, and wearied with
+incessant hard work, we sailed for eight days and nights, never sighting
+a ship until nearly off the mouth of the Shannon, where we hailed a brig
+whose name I forget. She passed on, however, refusing to answer our
+signals of distress.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, to our immense relief, the <i>Asia</i> entered Galway Bay, and here
+we lay six weeks for repairs, enjoying ourselves not a little, and
+forgetting past danger, except as a memorable episode in the battle of
+life.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>CONNEMARA AND GALWAY FIFTY YEARS AGO.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Town of Galway is a relic of the times when Spain maintained an
+active commerce with the west of Ireland, and meddled not a little in
+the intrigues of the time. Everybody has read of the warden of Galway,
+who hanged his son outside a window of his own house, to prevent a
+rescue from justice by a popular rising in the young man's favour. That
+house still stood, and probably yet stands, a mournful memento of a most
+dismal tragedy. In 1833 it was in ruins, as was also the whole long row
+of massive cut stone buildings of which it formed part. In front there
+was a tablet recording the above event; the walls were entire, but the
+roof was quite gone, and the upper stories open to the winds and storms.
+The basement story appeared to have been solidly arched, and in its
+cavernous recesses, and those of the adjoining cellars along that side
+of the street, dwelt a race of butchers and of small hucksters, dealing
+in potatoes, oats, some groceries and rough wares of many kinds. The
+first floor of a brick store opposite was occupied by a hair-dresser
+with whom our London fellow-passenger claimed acquaintance. One day we
+were sitting at his window, looking across at the old warden's house,
+when a singular scene was enacted under our astonished eyes. A
+beggarman, so ragged as barely to comply with the demands of common
+decency, and bearing an old sack suspended over his shoulder on a short
+cudgel, came lounging along the middle of the street seeking alms. A
+butcher's dog of aristocratic tastes took offence at the man's rags, and
+attacked him savagely. The old man struck at the dog, the dog's owner
+darted out of his cellar and struck at the beggar, somebody else took a
+part, and in the twinkling of an eye as it were, the narrow street was
+blocked up with men furiously-wielding shillelaghs, striking right and
+left at whoever happened to be most handy, and yelling like Dante's
+devils in full chorus. Another minute, and a squad of policemen in green
+uniforms&mdash;peelers, they are popularly called&mdash;appeared as if by magic,
+and with the effect of magic; for instantly, and with a celerity
+evidently the result of long practice, the crowd, beggarman, butcher,
+dog and all, vanished into the yawning cellars, and the street was left
+as quiet as before, the police marching leisurely back to their
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p>We spent much of our time in rambling along the shore of Galway Bay, a
+beautiful and extensive harbour, where we found many curious specimens
+of sea-weeds, particularly the edible dilosk, and rare shells and
+minerals. Some of our people went out shooting snipe, and were warned on
+all hands to go in parties, and to take care of their guns, which would
+prove too strong a temptation for the native peasantry, as the spirit of
+Ribbonism was rife throughout Connemara. Another amusement was, to watch
+the groups of visitors from Tuam and the surrounding parts of Clare and
+other counties, who were attracted by the marvel of a ship of five
+hundred tons in their bay, no such phenomenon having happened within the
+memory of man. At another time we explored the rapid river Corrib, and
+the beautiful lake of the same name, a few miles distant. The salmon
+weirs on the river were exceedingly interesting, where we saw the
+largest fish confined in cribs for market, and apparently quite
+unconscious of their captivity. The castle of one of the Lynch family
+was visible from the bay, an ancient structure with its walls mounted
+with cannon to keep sheriffs' officers at a distance. Other feudal
+castles were also in sight.</p>
+
+<p>Across the bay loomed the rugged mountains of Clare, seemingly utterly
+barren in their bleak nakedness. With the aid of the captain's telescope
+we could see on these inhospitable hills dark objects, which turned out
+to be the mud cabins of a numerous peasantry, the very class for whom,
+in this present year of 1883, Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues are
+trying to create an elysium of rural contentment. We traversed the
+country roads for miles, to observe the mode of farming there, and could
+find nothing, even up to the very streets of Galway, but mud cabins with
+one or two rooms, shared with the cow and pigs, and entrenched, as it
+were, behind a huge pile of manure that must have been the accumulation
+of years. Anything in the shape of valuable improvements was
+conspicuously absent.</p>
+
+<p>Everything in Connemara seems paradoxical. These rough-coated,
+hard-worked, down-trodden Celts proved to be the liveliest, brightest,
+wittiest of mankind. They came in shoals to our ship, danced reels by
+the hour upon deck to a whistled accompaniment, with the most
+extravagant leaps and snapping of fingers. It was an amusing sight to
+see women driving huge pigs into the sea, held by a string tied to the
+hind leg, and there scraping and sluicing the unwieldy, squealing
+creatures until they came out as white as new cream. These Galway women
+are singularly handsome, with a decidedly Murillo cast of features,
+betokening plainly their Iberian ancestry. They might well have sat as
+models to the chief of Spanish painters.</p>
+
+<p>In the suburbs of Galway are many acres of boggy land, which are
+cultivated as potato plots, highly enriched with salt sea-weed manure,
+and very productive. These farms&mdash;by which title they are
+dignified&mdash;were rented, we were told, at three to four pounds sterling
+per acre. Rents in the open country ranged from one pound upwards. Yet
+we bought cup potatoes at twopence per stone of sixteen lbs.; and for a
+leg of mutton paid sixpence English.</p>
+
+<p>Enquiring the cause of these singular anomalies, we were assured on all
+hands, that the system of renting through middlemen was the bane of
+Ireland. A farm might be sub-let two or three times, each tenant paying
+an increased rental, and the landlord-in-chief, a Blake, a Lynch, or a
+Martin, realizing less rent than he would obtain in Scotland or England.
+We heard of no Protestant oppressors here; the gentry and nobility
+worshipped at the same altar with the humblest of their dependents, and
+certainly meant them well and treated them considerately.</p>
+
+<p>We attended the English service in the ancient Gothic Abbey Church. The
+ministrations were of the strictest Puritan type; the sculptured
+escutcheons and tablets on the walls&mdash;the groined arches and bosses of
+the roof&mdash;were almost obliterated by thick coat upon coat of whitewash,
+laid on in an iconoclastic spirit which I have since seen equalled in
+the Dutch Cathedral of Rotterdam, and nowhere else. Another Sunday we
+visited a small Roman Catholic chapel at some distance. It was
+impossible to get inside the building, as the crowd of worshippers not
+only filled the sacred edifice, but spread themselves over a pretty
+extensive and well-filled churchyard, where they knelt throughout
+morning prayer, lasting a full hour or more.</p>
+
+<p>The party-feuds of the town are quite free from sectarian feeling. The
+fishermen, who were dressed from head to foot in hoddengray, and the
+butchers, who clothed themselves entirely in sky-blue&mdash;coats,
+waistcoats, breeches, and stockings alike, with black hats and
+shoes&mdash;constituted the belligerent powers. Every Saturday night, or
+oftener, they would marshal their forces respectively on the wide
+fish-market place, by the sea-shore, or on the long wharf extending into
+deep water, and with their shillelaghs hold high tournament for the
+honour of their craft and the love of fair maidens. One night, while the
+<i>Asia</i> lay off the wharf, an unfortunate combatant fell senseless into
+the water and was drowned. But no inquiry followed, and no surprise was
+expressed at a circumstance so trivial.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, it would be unpardonable to quit Connemara without recording
+its "potheen." Every homestead had its peat-stack, and every peat-stack
+might be the hiding-place of a keg of illicit native spirits. We were
+invited, and encouraged by example, to taste a glass; but a single
+mouthful almost choked us; and never again did we dare to put the fiery
+liquid to our lips.</p>
+
+<p>Our recollections of Galway are of a mixed character&mdash;painful, because
+of the consciousness that the empire at large must be held responsible
+for the unequal distribution of nature's blessings amongst her
+people&mdash;pleasant, because of the uniform hospitality and courtesy shown
+to us by all classes and creeds of the townsfolk.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>MORE SEA EXPERIENCES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the month of July we were ready for sea again. In the meantime
+Captain Ward had got together a new list of passengers, and we more than
+doubled our numbers by the addition of several Roman Catholic gentlemen
+of birth and education with their followers, and a party of Orangemen
+and their families, of a rather rough farming sort, escaping from
+religious feuds and hostile neighbours. A blooming widow Culleeney, of
+the former class, was added to the scanty female society on board; and
+for the first few hours after leaving port, we had fun and dancing on
+deck galore. But alas, sea-sickness put an end to our merriment all too
+soon. Our new recruits fled below, and scarcely showed their faces on
+deck for several days. Yet, in this apparently quiet interval, discord
+had found her way between decks.</p>
+
+<p>We were listening one fine evening to the comical jokes and rich brogue
+of the most gentlemanly of the Irish Catholics above-mentioned, when
+suddenly a dozen men, women and children, armed with sticks and foaming
+at the mouth, rushed up the steerage hatchway, and without note of
+warning or apparent provocation, attacked the defenceless group standing
+near us with the blindness of insanity and the most frantic cries of
+rage. Fortunately there were several of the ship's officers and sailors
+on deck, who laid about them lustily with their fists, and speedily
+drove the attacking party below, where they were confined for some days,
+under a threat of severe punishment from the captain, who meant what he
+said. So this breeze passed over. What it was about, who was offended,
+and how, we never could discover; we set it down to the general
+principle, that the poor creatures were merely 'blue-mowlded for want of
+a bating.'</p>
+
+<p>Moderately fair breezes, occasional dead calms, rude, baffling
+head-winds, attended us until we reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After
+sailing all day northward, and all night southerly, we found ourselves
+next morning actually retrograded some thirty or forty knots. But we
+were rewarded sometimes by strange sights and wondrous spectacles. Once
+a shoal of porpoises and grampuses crossed our course, frolicking and
+turning summersets in the air, and continuing to stream onwards for full
+two hours. Another time, when far north, we had the most magnificent
+display of aurora borealis. Night after night the sea became radiant
+with phosphorescent light. Icebergs attended us in thousands, compelling
+our captain to shorten sail frequently; once we passed near two of these
+ice-cliffs which exceeded five hundred feet in height, and again we were
+nearly overwhelmed by the sudden break-down of a huge mass as big as a
+cathedral. Near the Island of Anticosti we saw at least three hundred
+spouting whales at one view. I have crossed the Atlantic four times
+since, and have scarcely seen a single whale or shark. It seems that
+modern steamship travel has driven away the inhabitants of the deep to
+quieter seas, and robbed "life on the ocean wave" of much of its
+romance.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>UP THE ST. LAWRENCE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he St. Lawrence River was gained, and escaping with a few days'
+quarantine at Grosse Isle, we reached Quebec, there to be transferred to
+a fine steamer for Montreal. At Lachine we were provided with large
+barges, here called batteaux, which sufficed to accommodate the whole of
+the <i>Asia's</i> passengers going west, with their luggage. They were drawn
+by Canadian ponies, lively and perfectly hardy little animals, which,
+with their French-Canadian drivers, amused us exceedingly. While loading
+up, we were favoured with one of those accidental historical "bits"&mdash;as
+a painter would say&mdash;which occur so rarely in a lifetime. The then
+despot of the North-West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for the
+seat of his government <i>via</i> the Ottawa River. With him were some
+half-dozen officers, civil and military, and the party was escorted by
+six or eight Nor'-West canoes&mdash;each thirty or forty feet long, and
+manned by some twenty-four Indians, in the full glory of war-paint,
+feathers, and most dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats, and
+their no less stately crews, gliding with measured stroke, in gallant
+procession, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay
+territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, was a sight
+never to be forgotten. And as they paddled, the woods echoed far and
+wide to the strange weird sounds of their favourite boat-song:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A la claire fontaine,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;M'en allant promener,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;J'ai trouv&eacute; l'eau si belle,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;Que je m'y suis baign&eacute;.</span>
+<span class="i0">Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,</span>
+<span class="i0">Jamais je ne t'oublirai."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>From Lachine to the Coteau, thence by canal and along shore successively
+to Cornwall, Prescott, and Kingston, occupied several days. We were
+charmed to get on dry land, to follow our batteau along well-beaten
+paths, gathering nuts, stealing a few apples now and then from some
+orchard skirting the road; dining at some weather-boarded way-side
+tavern, with painted floors, and French cuisine, all delightfully
+strange and comical to us; then on board the batteau again at night.
+Once, in a cedar swamp, we were enraptured at finding a dazzling
+specimen of the scarlet <i>lobelia fulgens</i>, the most brilliant of wild
+flowers, which Indians use for making red ink. At another time, the
+Long Sault rapids, up which was steaming the double-hulled steamer
+<i>Iroquois</i>, amazed us by their grandeur and power, and filled our minds
+with a sense of the vastness of the land we had come to inhabit. And so
+we wended on our way until put aboard the Lake Ontario steamer <i>United
+Kingdom</i> for Little York, where we landed about the first week in
+September, 1833, after a journey of four months. Now-a-days, a trip to
+England by the Allan Line is thought tedious if it last ten days, and
+even five days is considered not unattainable. When we left England, a
+thirty mile railway from Liverpool to Manchester was all that Europe had
+seen. Dr. Dionysius Lardner pronounced steam voyages across the Atlantic
+an impossibility, and men believed him. Now, even China and Japan have
+their railways and steamships; Canada is being spanned from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific by a railroad, destined, I believe, to work still greater
+changes in the future of our race, and of the world.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>MUDDY LITTLE YORK.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>hen we landed at York, it contained 8,500 inhabitants or thereabouts,
+being the same population nearly as Belleville, St. Catharines, and
+Brantford severally claimed in 1881. In addition to King street the
+principal thoroughfares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate streets, now
+more euphoniously styled Queen, Richmond and Adelaide streets
+respectively; Church, George, Bay and York streets were almost without
+buildings; Yonge street ran north thirty-three miles to Lake Simcoe, and
+Dundas street extended westward a hundred miles to London. More or less
+isolated wooden stores there were on King and Yonge streets; taverns
+were pretty numerous; a wooden English church; Methodist, Presbyterian,
+and Roman Catholic churches of the like construction; a brick gaol and
+court-house of the ugliest architecture: scattered private houses, a
+wheat-field where now stands the Rossin House; beyond it a rough-cast
+Government House, brick Parliament Buildings uglier even than the gaol,
+and some government offices located in one-story brick buildings
+twenty-five feet square,&mdash;comprised the lions of the Toronto of that
+day. Of brick private buildings, only Moore's hotel at the corner of
+Market square; J. S. Baldwin's residence, now the Canada Company's
+office; James F. Smith's grocery (afterwards the <i>Colonist</i> office), on
+King street; Ridout's hardware store at the corner of King and Yonge
+streets, occur to my memory, but there may have been one or two others.
+So well did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church
+street near St. James's Church, boots were drawn off the feet by the
+tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market lane (now Colborne
+street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along the
+roadside. There was rude flagged pavement here and there, but not a
+solitary planked footpath throughout the town.</p>
+
+<p>To us the sole attraction was the Emigrant Office. At that time, Sir
+John Colborne, Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada, was exerting himself to
+induce retired army officers, and other well-to-do settlers, to take up
+lands in the country north and west of Lake Simcoe. U. E. rights,
+<i>i.e.</i>, location tickets for two hundred acres of land, subject to
+conditions of actual settlement, were easily obtainable. We purchased
+one of these for a hundred dollars, or rather for twenty pounds
+sterling&mdash;dollars and cents not being current in Canada at that
+date&mdash;and forthwith booked ourselves for Lake Simcoe, in an open waggon
+without springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking utensils of
+intending settlers, some of them our shipmates of the <i>Asia</i>. A day's
+journey brought us to Holland Landing, whence a small steamer conveyed
+us across the lake to Barrie. The Holland River was then a mere muddy
+ditch, swarming with huge bullfrogs and black snakes, and winding in and
+out through thickets of reeds and rushes. Arrived at Barrie, we found a
+wharf, a log bakery, two log taverns&mdash;one of them also a store&mdash;and a
+farm house, likewise log. Other farm-houses there were at some little
+distance, hidden by trees.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our fellow travellers were discouraged by the solitary
+appearance of things here, and turned back at once. My brothers and
+myself, and one other emigrant, determined to go on; and next afternoon,
+armed with axes, guns, and mosquito nets, off we started for the unknown
+forest, then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. From
+Barrie to the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles, a road had been chopped
+and logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river, nothing but a bush
+path existed.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PIONEER TAVERN.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e had walked a distance of eight miles, and it was quite dark, when we
+came within sight of the clearing where we were advised to stop for the
+night. Completely blockading the road, and full in our way, was a
+confused mass of felled timber, which we were afterwards told was a
+wind-row or brush-fence. It consisted of an irregular heap of prostrate
+trees, branches and all, thrown together in line, to serve as a fence
+against stray cattle. After several fruitless attempts to effect an
+entrance, there was nothing for it but to shout at the top of our voices
+for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Presently we heard a shrill cry, rather like the call of some strange
+bird than a human voice; immediately afterwards, the reflection of a
+strong light became visible, and a man emerged from the brush-wood,
+bearing a large blazing fragment of resinous wood, which lighted up
+every object around in a picturesque and singular manner. High over
+head, eighty feet at least, was a vivid green canopy of leaves,
+extending on all sides as far as the eye could penetrate, varied here
+and there by the twinkling of some lustrous star that peeped through
+from the dark sky without, and supported by the straight trunks and
+arching branches of innumerable trees&mdash;the rustic pillars of this superb
+natural temple. The effect was strikingly beautiful and surprising.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the figure of our guide less strange. He was the first genuine
+specimen of a Yankee we had encountered&mdash;a Vermonter&mdash;tall, bony and
+awkward, but with a good-natured simplicity in his shrewd features; he
+wore uncouth leather leggings, tied with deer sinews&mdash;loose mocassins, a
+Guernsey shirt, a scarlet sash confining his patched trowsers at the
+waist, and a palmetto hat, dragged out of all describable shape, the
+colour of each article so obscured by stains and rough usage, as to be
+matter rather of conjecture than certainty. He proved to be our landlord
+for the night, David Root by name.</p>
+
+<p>Following his guidance, and climbing successively over a number of huge
+trunks, stumbling through a net-work of branches, and plunging into a
+shallow stream up to the ankles in soft mud, we reached at length what
+he called his tavern, at the further side of the clearing. It was a log
+building of a single apartment, where presided "the wife," a smart,
+plump, good-looking little Irishwoman, in a stuff gown, and without
+shoes or stockings. They had been recently married, as he promptly
+informed us, had selected this wild spot on a half-opened road,
+impassable for waggons, without a neighbour for miles, and under the
+inevitable necessity of shouldering all their provisions from the embryo
+village we had just quitted: all this with the resolute determination of
+"keeping tavern."</p>
+
+<p>The floor was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness
+with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with
+chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of
+the objects visible outside, and had the advantage, moreover, of
+rendering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the
+ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the
+fire literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet
+lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet. It was a chill
+evening, and the dancing flames were inspiriting, as they threw a
+cheerful radiance all around, and revealed to our curious eyes
+extraordinary pieces of furniture&mdash;a log bedstead in the darkest corner,
+a pair of snow-shoes, sundry spiral augers and rough tools, a bundle of
+dried deer-sinews, together with some articles of feminine gear, a small
+red framed looking-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a
+string, and other similar treasures.</p>
+
+<p>We were accommodated with stools of various sizes and heights, on three
+legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off, which latter our
+host justly recommended as being more steady on the uneven floor. We
+exchanged our wet boots for slippers, mocassins, or whatever the
+good-natured fellow could supply us with. The hostess was intently busy
+making large flat cakes; roasting them, first on one side, then on the
+other; and alternately boiling and frying broad slices of salt pork,
+when, suddenly suspending operations, she exclaimed, with a vivacity
+that startled us, "Oh, Root, I've cracked my spider!"</p>
+
+<p>Inquiring with alarm what was the matter, we learned that the cast-iron
+pan on three feet, which she used for her cookery, was called a
+"spider," and that its fracture had occasioned the exclamation. The
+injured spider performed "its spiriting gently" notwithstanding, and,
+sooth to say, all parties did full justice to its savoury contents.</p>
+
+<p>Bed-time drew near. A heap of odd-looking rugs and clean blankets was
+laid for our accommodation and pronounced to be ready. But how to get
+into it? We had heard of some rather primitive practices among the
+steerage passengers on board ship, it is true, but had not accustomed
+ourselves to "uncase" before company, and hesitated to lie down in our
+clothes. After waiting some little time in blank dismay, Mr. Root kindly
+set us an example by quietly slipping out of his nether integuments and
+turning into bed. There was no help for it; by one means or other we
+contrived to sneak under the blankets; and, after hanging up a large
+coloured quilt between our lair and the couch occupied by her now
+snoring spouse, the good wife also disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the novelty of the situation, and some occasional
+disturbance from gusts of wind stealing through the "chinks," and
+fanning into brightness the dying embers on the hearth, we slept
+deliciously and awoke refreshed.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>A FIRST DAY IN THE BUSH.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">B</span>efore day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting
+meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes,
+roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea,"
+and chocolate&mdash;which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree
+bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our
+host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a
+hearty meal.</p>
+
+<p>It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us
+"a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the
+dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning
+it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing
+themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend
+remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise."</p>
+
+<p>The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road
+with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes
+the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We
+found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the
+track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of
+sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between
+two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt
+or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to
+side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by
+grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a
+collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities.
+Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it
+two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these
+transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and
+earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge."</p>
+
+<p>At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the
+temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then
+in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us
+very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced
+guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers&mdash;a very
+necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>For some miles further, the forest consisted of Norway and white pine,
+almost unmixed with any other timber. There is something majestic in
+these vast and thickly-set labyrinths of brown columnar stems averaging
+a hundred and fifty feet in height, perhaps, and from one to five in
+thickness, making a traveller feel somewhat like a Lilliputian Gulliver
+in a field of Brobdignagian wheat. It is singular to observe the effect
+of an occasional gust of wind in such situations. It may not even fan
+your cheek; but you hear a low surging sound, like the moaning of
+breakers in a calm sea, which gradually increases to a loud boisterous
+roar, still seemingly at a great distance; the branches remain in
+perfect repose, you can discover no evidence of a stirring breeze, till,
+looking perpendicularly upwards, you are astonished to see some
+patriarchal giant close at hand&mdash;six yards round and sixty high&mdash;which
+alone has caught the breeze, waving its huge fantastic arms wildly at a
+dizzy height above your head.</p>
+
+<p>There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine
+woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their
+strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the
+wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly
+wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of
+the soil, present no very powerful resistance. Nothing but the close
+contiguity of the trees saves them from general prostration. Interlocked
+branches are every moment broken off and flung to a distance, and even
+the trunks clash, and as it were, whet themselves against each other,
+with a shock and uproar that startles the firmest nerves.</p>
+
+<p>It were tedious to detail all the events of our morning's march: How
+armed with English fowling pieces and laden with ammunition, we
+momentarily expected to encounter some grisly she-bear, with a numerous
+family of cubs; or at the least a herd of deer or a flock of wild
+turkeys: how we saw nothing more dangerous than woodpeckers with crimson
+heads, hammering away at decayed trees like transmigrated carpenters;
+how we at last shot two partridges sitting on branches, very unlike
+English ones, of which we were fain to make a meal, which was utterly
+detestable for want of salt; how the government guide led us,
+helter-skelter, into the untracked woods, walking as for a wager,
+through thickets of ground hemlock,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> which entangled our feet and
+often tripped us up; how we were obliged to follow him over and under
+wind-falls, to pass which it was necessary to climb sometimes twenty
+feet along some half-recumbent tree; how when we enquired whether clay
+or sand were considered the best soil, he said some preferred one, and
+some the other; how he showed us the front of a lot that was bad, and
+guessed that the rear ought to be better; how we turned back at last,
+thoroughly jaded, but no wiser than when we set out&mdash;all this and much
+more, must be left to the reader's imagination.</p>
+
+<p>It was drawing towards evening. The guide strode in advance, tired and
+taciturn, like some evil fate. We followed in pairs, each of us provided
+with a small bunch of leafy twigs to flap away the mosquitoes, which
+rose in myriads from the thick, damp underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be getting dark," said the guide, "you must look out for the
+blaze."</p>
+
+<p>We glanced anxiously around. "What does he mean?" asked one of the
+party, "I see no blaze."</p>
+
+<p>The man explained that the blaze (query, blazon?) was a white mark which
+we had noticed on some of the trees in our route, made by slicing off a
+portion of the bark with an axe, and invariably used by surveyors to
+indicate the road, as well as divisions and sub-divisions of townships.
+After a time this mark loses its whiteness and becomes undistinguishable
+in the dusk of evening, even to an experienced eye.</p>
+
+<p>Not a little rejoiced were we, when we presently saw a genuine blaze in
+the form of a log fire, that brilliantly lighted up the forest in front
+of a wigwam, which, like everything else on that eventful day, was to us
+delightfully new and interesting. We found, seated on logs near the
+fire, two persons in blanket coats and red sashes, evidently gentlemen;
+and occupying a second wigwam at a little distance, half-a-dozen axemen.
+The gentlemen proved to be the Messrs. Walker, afterwards of Barrie,
+sons of the wealthy owner of the great shot-works at Waterloo Bridge,
+London, England. They had purchased a tract of a thousand acres, and
+commenced operations by hiring men to cut a road through the forest
+eight or ten miles to their new estate, which pioneering exploit they
+were now superintending in person. Nothing could exceed the vigour of
+their plans. Their property was to be enclosed in a ring fence like a
+park, to exclude trespassers on their game. They would have herds of
+deer and wild horses. The river which intersected their land was to be
+cleared of the drift logs, and made navigable. In short, they meant to
+convert it into another England. In the meanwhile, the elder brother had
+cut his foot with an axe, and was disabled for the present; and the
+younger was busily engaged in the unromantic occupation of frying
+pancakes, which the axemen, who were unskilled in cookery, were to have
+for their supper.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere does good-fellowship spring up so readily as in the bush. We
+were soon engaged in discussing the aforesaid pancakes, with some fried
+pork, as well as in sharing the sanguine hopes and bright visions which
+accorded so well with our own ideas and feelings.</p>
+
+<p>We quitted the wigwam and its cheerful tenants with mutual good wishes
+for success, and shortly afterwards reached the river whence we had
+started, where Mr. Richey kindly invited us to stay for the night.
+Exhausted by our rough progress, we slept soundly till the morning sun
+shone high over the forest.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CHAPTER ON CHOPPING.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>magine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your
+days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house,
+and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or
+grandfather's pleasant farm in the country&mdash;imagine yourself, I say,
+transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles;
+no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the
+sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there
+are trees innumerable&mdash;splendid trees&mdash;beech, maple, elm, ash,
+cherry&mdash;above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on
+earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market
+for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire&mdash;yea,
+burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth
+as "good manure"; unless indeed&mdash;a desperately forlorn hope&mdash;you may
+"some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash,
+"when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river.</p>
+
+<p>Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees.
+Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe
+or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands,
+you cut away for some distance round&mdash;a quarter or half an acre
+perhaps&mdash;all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise
+impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood
+bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm,
+white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber&mdash;the
+"underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be
+cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like
+appearance&mdash;so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of
+Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through.</p>
+
+<p>When you have finished "under-brushing," you stand with whetted axe,
+ready and willing to attack the fathers of the forest&mdash;but stay&mdash;you
+don't know how to chop? It is rather doubtful, as you have travelled
+hither in a great hurry, whether you have ever seen an axeman at work.
+Your man, Carroll, who has been in the country five or six years, and is
+quite <i>au fait</i>, will readily instruct you. Observe&mdash;you strike your
+axe, by a dexterous swing backwards and round over your shoulder,&mdash;take
+care there are no twigs near you, or you may perhaps hurt yourself
+seriously&mdash;you strike your axe into the tree with a downward slant, at
+about thirty inches from the ground; then, by an upward stroke you meet
+the former incision and release a chip, which flies out briskly. Thus
+you proceed, by alternate downward and upward or horizontal strokes on
+that side of the tree which leans over, or towards which you wish to
+compel it to fall, until you have made a clear gap rather more than half
+way through, when you attack it in rear.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the reward of your perspiring exertions&mdash;a few well-aimed blows
+on the reverse side of the tree, rather higher than in front, and the
+vast mass "totters to its fall,"&mdash;another for the
+<i>coup-de-grace</i>&mdash;crack! crack! cra-a-ack!&mdash;aha!&mdash;away with you behind
+yon beech&mdash;the noble tree bows gently its leafy honours with graceful
+sweep towards the earth&mdash;for a moment slowly and leisurely, presently
+with giddy velocity, until it strikes the ground, amidst a whirlwind of
+leaves, with a loud <i>thud</i>, and a concussion both of air and earth, that
+may be <i>felt</i> at a considerable distance. You feel yourself a second
+David, who has overthrown a mightier Goliath.</p>
+
+<p>Now do you step exultingly upon the prostrate trunk, which you forthwith
+proceed to cut up into about fourteen-foot lengths, chopping all the
+branches close off, and throwing the smaller on to your brush piles. It
+is a common mistake of new immigrants, who are naturally enough pleased
+with the novel spectacle of falling trees, to cut down so many before
+they begin to chop them into lengths, that the ground is wholly
+encumbered, and becomes a perfect chaos of confused and heaped-up trunks
+and branches, which nothing but the joint operation of decay and fire
+will clear off, unless at an immense waste of time and trouble. To an
+experienced axeman, these first attempts at chopping afford a ready text
+for all kinds of ironical comments upon the unworkmanlike appearance of
+the stumps and "cuts," which are generally&mdash;like those gnawn off by
+beavers in making their dams&mdash;haggled all round the tree, instead of
+presenting two clear smooth surfaces, in front and rear, as if sliced
+off with a knife. Your genuine axeman is not a little jealous of his
+reputation as a "clean cutter"&mdash;his axe is always bright as burnished
+silver, guiltless of rust or flaw, and fitted with a handle which, with
+its graceful curve and slender proportions, is a tolerable approach to
+Hogarth's "line of beauty;" he would as soon think of deserting his
+beloved "bush" and settling in a town! as trust his keen weapon in the
+hands of inexperience or even mediocrity. With him every blow tells&mdash;he
+never leaves the slightest chip in the "cut," nor makes a false stroke,
+so that in passing your hand over the surface thus left, you are almost
+unable to detect roughness or inequality.</p>
+
+<p>But we must return to our work, and take care in so doing to avoid the
+mishap which befel a settler in our neighbourhood. He was busy chopping
+away manfully at one of those numerous trees which, yielding to the
+force of some sudden gust of wind, have fallen so gently among their
+compeers, that the greater portion of their roots still retains a
+powerful hold upon the soil, and the branches put forth their annual
+verdure as regularly as when erect. Standing on the recumbent trunk, at
+a height of five or six feet from the ground, the man toiled away, in
+happy ignorance of his danger, until having chopped nearly to the centre
+on both sides of the tree, instead of leaping off and completing the cut
+in safety on terra firma, he dealt a mighty stroke which severed at once
+the slight portion that remained uncut&mdash;in an instant, as if from a
+mortar, the poor fellow was launched sixteen feet into the air, by the
+powerful elasticity of the roots, which, relieved from the immense
+weight of the trunk and branches, reverted violently to their natural
+position, and flung their innocent releaser to the winds. The astonished
+chopper, falling on his back, lay stunned for many minutes, and when he
+was at length able to rise, crawled to his shanty sorely bruised and
+bewildered. He was able, however, to return to his work in a few days,
+but not without vowing earnestly never again to trust himself next the
+root.</p>
+
+<p>There are other precautions to be observed, such as whether the branches
+interlock with other trees, in which case they will probably break off,
+and must be carefully watched, lest they fall or are flung back upon
+oneself&mdash;what space you have to escape at the last moment&mdash;whether the
+tree is likely to be caught and twisted aside in its fall, or held
+upright, a very dangerous position, as then you must cut down others to
+release it, and can hardly calculate which way it will tend: these and
+many other circumstances are to be noted and watched with a cool
+judgment and steady eye, to avoid the numerous accidents to which the
+inexperienced and rash are constantly exposed. One of these mischances
+befel an Amazonian chopper of our neighbourhood, whose history, as we
+can both chop and talk, I shall relate.</p>
+
+<p>Mary &mdash;&mdash; was the second of several daughters of an emigrant from the
+county of Galway, whose family, having suffered from continual hardship
+and privation in their native land, had found no difficulty in adapting
+themselves to the habits and exigencies of the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>Hardworking they were all and thrifty. Mary and her elder sister,
+neither of them older than eighteen, would start before day-break to the
+nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden
+each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a
+bushel and a half, or 90lbs. weight of potatoes, destined to supply food
+for the family, as well as seed for their first crop. Being much out of
+doors, and accustomed to work about the clearing, Mary became in time a
+"first-rate" chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the
+dexterity with which she would fell, brush and cut up maple or beech;
+and preferring such active exercise to the dull routine of household
+work, took her place at chopping, logging or burning, as regularly and
+with at least as much spirit as her brothers. Indeed, chopping is quite
+an accomplishment among young women in the more remote parts of the
+woods, where schools are unknown, and fashions from New York or
+Philadelphia have not yet penetrated. A belle of this class will employ
+her leisure hours in learning to play&mdash;not the piano-forte&mdash;but the
+dinner-horn, a bright tin tube sometimes nearly four feet in length,
+requiring the lungs of that almost forgotten individual, an English
+mail-coach-guard; and an intriguing mamma of those parts will bid her
+daughter exhibit the strength of her throat and the delicacy of her
+musical ear, by a series of flourishes and "mots" upon her graceful
+"tooting-weapon." I do not mean, however, that Mary possessed this
+fashionable acquirement, as the neighbourhood had not then arrived at
+such an advanced era of musical taste, but she made up in hard work for
+all other deficiencies; and being a good-looking, sunny-faced,
+dark-eyed, joyous-hearted girl, was not a little admired among the young
+axe-men of the township. But she preferred remaining under her parents'
+roof-tree, where her stout-arm and resolute disposition rendered her
+absolute mistress of the household, to the indignity of promising to
+"obey" any man, who could wield no better axe than her own. At length it
+was whispered that Mary's heart, long hard as rock-elm, had become soft
+as basswood, under the combined influence of the stalwart figure,
+handsome face and good axe of Johnny, a lad of eighteen recently arrived
+in the neighbourhood, who was born in one of the early Scotch
+settlements in the Newcastle District&mdash;settlements which have turned out
+a race of choppers, accustomed from their infancy to handle the axe, and
+unsurpassed in the cleanness of their cut, the keenness of their weapon,
+or the amount of cordwood they can chop, split and pile in a day.</p>
+
+<p>Many a fair denizen of the abodes of fashion might have envied Mary the
+bright smiles and gay greetings which passed between her and young
+Johnny, when they met in her father's clearing at sunrise to commence
+the day's work. It is common for axemen to exchange labour, as they
+prefer working in couples, and Johnny was under a treaty of this kind
+with Patsy, Mary's brother. But Patsy vacated his place for Mary, who
+was emulous of beating the young Scotch lad at his own weapon; and she
+had tucked up her sleeves and taken in the slack, as a sailor would say,
+of her dress&mdash;Johnny meanwhile laying aside his coat, waistcoat and
+neckcloth, baring his brawny arms, and drawing tight the bright scarlet
+sash round his waist&mdash;thus equipped for their favourite occupation, they
+chopped away in merry rivalry, at maple, elm, ash, birch and
+basswood&mdash;Johnny sometimes gallantly fetching water from the
+deliciously-cold natural spring that oozed out of the mossy hill-side,
+to quench Mary's thirst, and stealing now and then a kiss by way of
+guerdon&mdash;for which he never failed to get a vehement box on the ear, a
+penalty which, although it would certainly have annihilated any lover of
+less robust frame, he seemed nowise unwilling to incur again and again.
+Thus matters proceeded, the maiden by no means acknowledging herself
+beaten, and the young man too gallant to outstrip overmuch his fair
+opponent&mdash;until the harsh sound of the breakfast or dinner horn would
+summon both to the house, to partake of the rude but plentiful mess of
+"colcannon" and milk, which was to supply strength for a long and severe
+day's labour.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! that I should have to relate the melancholy termination of poor
+Mary's unsophisticated career. Whether Johnny's image occupied her
+thoughts, to the exclusion of the huge yellow birch she was one day
+chopping, or that the wicked genius who takes delight in thwarting the
+course of true love had caught her guardian angel asleep on his post, I
+know not; but certain it is, that in an evil hour she miscalculated the
+cut, and was thoughtlessly continuing her work, when the birch,
+overbalancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing
+suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life
+instantaneously. Her yet warm remains were carried hastily to the house,
+and every expedient for her recovery that the slender knowledge of the
+family could suggest, was resorted to, but in vain. I pass over the
+silent agony of poor Johnny, and the heart-rending lamentations of the
+mother and sisters. In a decent coffin, contrived after many
+unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was
+carried to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear,
+amid a concourse of simple-minded, coarsely-clad, but kindly
+sympathising neighbours, from all parts of the surrounding district.
+Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave,
+and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told,
+that no other had yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make
+his "bonny bride."</p>
+
+<p>By this time you have cut down trees enough to enable you fairly to see
+the sky! Yes, dear sir, it was entirely hidden before, and the sight is
+not a little exhilarating to a new "bush-whacker." We must think of
+preparing fire-wood for the night. It is highly amusing to see a party
+of axemen, just returning from their work, set about this necessary
+task. Four "hands" commence at once upon some luckless maple, whose
+excellent burning qualities ensure it the preference. Two on each side,
+they strike alternate blows&mdash;one with the right hand, his "mate" with
+the left&mdash;in a rapid succession of strokes that seem perfectly
+miraculous to the inexperienced beholder&mdash;the tree is felled in a
+trice&mdash;a dozen men jump upon it, each intent on exhibiting his skill by
+making his "cut" in the shortest possible time. The more modest select
+the upper end of the tree&mdash;the bolder attack the butt&mdash;their bright
+axes, flashing vividly in the sunbeams, are whirled around their heads
+with such velocity as to elude the eye&mdash;huge chips a foot broad are
+thrown off incessantly&mdash;they wheel round for the "back cut" at the same
+instant, like a file of soldiers facing about upon some enemy in
+rear&mdash;and in the space of two or three minutes, the once tall and
+graceful trunk lies dissevered in as many fragments as there are
+choppers.</p>
+
+<p>It invariably astonishes new comers to observe with what dexterity and
+ease an axeman will fell a tree in the precise spot which he wishes it
+to occupy so as to suit his convenience in cutting it up, or in removing
+it by oxen to the log-pile where it is destined to be consumed. If it
+should happen to overhang a creek or "swale" (wet places where oxen
+cannot readily operate), every contrivance is resorted to, to overcome
+its apparently inevitable tendency. Choosing a time when not a breath of
+air is stirring to defeat his operations, or better still, when the wind
+is favourable, he cuts deeply into the huge victim on the side to which
+he wishes to throw it, until it actually trembles on the slight
+remaining support, cautiously regulating the direction of the "cut" so
+that the tree may not overbalance itself&mdash;then he gently fells among its
+branches on the reverse side all the smaller trees with which it may be
+reached&mdash;and last and boldest expedient of all, he cuts several "spring
+poles"&mdash;trimmed saplings from twenty to forty feet in length and four to
+eight inches thick&mdash;which with great care and labour are set up against
+the stem, and by the united strength and weight of several men used as
+spring levers, after the manner in which ladders are employed by
+fire-men to overthrow tottering stacks of chimneys; the squared end of
+these poles holding firmly in the rough bark, they slowly but surely
+compel the unwilling monster to obey the might of its hereditary ruler,
+man. With such certainty is this feat accomplished, that I have seen a
+solitary pine, nearly five feet thick and somewhere about a hundred and
+seventy feet in height, forced by this latter means, aided by the
+strength of two men only, against its decided natural bearing, to fall
+down the side of a mound, at the bottom of which a saw-pit was already
+prepared to convert it into lumber. The moment when the enormous mass is
+about yielding to its fate, is one of breathless interest&mdash;it sways
+alarmingly, as if it must inevitably fall backward, crushing poles and
+perhaps axemen to atoms in its overwhelming descent&mdash;ha! there is a
+slight cat's paw of air in our favour&mdash;cling to your pole&mdash;now! an inch
+or two gained!&mdash;the stout stick trembles and bends at the revulsive sway
+of the monstrous tree but still holds its own&mdash;drive your axe into the
+back cut&mdash;that helps her&mdash;again, another axe! soh, the first is
+loose&mdash;again!&mdash;she <i>must</i> go&mdash;both axes are fixed in the cut as
+immovably as her roots in the ground&mdash;another puff of wind&mdash;she sways
+the wrong way&mdash;no, no! hold on&mdash;she cracks&mdash;strike in again the
+slackened axes&mdash;bravo! one blow more&mdash;quick, catch your axe and clear
+out!&mdash;see! what a sweep&mdash;what a rush of wind&mdash;what an enormous
+top&mdash;down! down! how beautifully she falls&mdash;hurrah! <i>just in the right
+place!</i></p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>e had selected, on the advice of our guide, a tolerably good hard-wood
+lot in the centre of the Township of Sunnidale, part of which is now the
+site of the village of New Lowell, on the Northern Railway. To engage a
+young Scotch axeman from the County of Lanark, on the Ottawa river; to
+try our virgin axes upon the splendid maples and beeches which it seemed
+almost a profanation to destroy; to fell half an acre of trees; to build
+a bark wigwam for our night's lodging; and in time to put up a
+substantial log shanty, roofed with wooden troughs and "chinked" with
+slats and moss&mdash;these things were to us more than mortal felicity. Our
+mansion was twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide. At one end an open
+fire-place, at the other sumptuous beds laid on flatted logs, cushioned
+with soft hemlock twigs, redolent of turpentine and health. For our
+provisions, cakes made of flour; salt pork of the best; tea and coffee
+without milk; with the occasional luxury of a few partridges and
+pigeons, and even a haunch of venison of our own shooting; also some
+potatoes. We wanted no more. There were few other settlers within many
+miles, and those as raw as ourselves; so we mended our own clothes, did
+our own cooking, and washed our own linen.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the tedious length of our sea voyage, there was no time for
+getting in crops that year; not even fall wheat; so we had plenty of
+leisure to make ourselves comfortable for the winter. And we were by no
+means without visitors. Sometimes a surveyor's party sought shelter for
+the night on their way to the strangely-named townships of Alta and
+Zero&mdash;now Collingwood and St. Vincent. Among these were Charles Rankin,
+surveyor, now of London; his brother, Arthur Rankin, since M.P. for
+Essex; a young gentleman from England, now Dr. Barrett, late of Upper
+Canada College. By-and-by came some Chippawa Indians, <i>en route</i> to or
+from the Christian Islands of Lake Huron; we were great friends with
+them. I had made a sort of harp or zittern, and they were charmed with
+its simple music. Their mode of counting money on their fingers was
+highly comical&mdash;"one cop, one cop, one cop, three cop!" and so on up to
+twenty, which was the largest sum they could accomplish. At night, they
+wrapped their blankets round them, lay down on the bare earthen floor
+near the fire, and slept quietly till day-break, when they would start
+on their way with many smiles and hand-shakings. In fact, our shanty,
+being the only comfortable shelter between Barrie and the Georgian Bay,
+became a sort of half-way house, at which travellers looked for a
+night's lodging; and we were not sorry when the opening of a log-tavern,
+a mile off, by an old Scotchwoman, ycleped Mother McNeil, enabled us to
+select our visitors. This tavern was a curiosity in its way, built of
+the roughest logs, with no artificial floor, but the soil being swaley
+or wet&mdash;a mud-hole yawned just inside the door, where bullfrogs not
+unfrequently saluted the wayfarer with their deepest diapason notes.</p>
+
+<p>I must record my own experiences with their congeners, the toads. We
+were annoyed by flies, and I noticed an old toad creep stealthily from
+under the house logs, wait patiently near a patch of sunshine on the
+floor, and as soon as two or three flies, attracted by the sun's warmth,
+drew near its post, dart out its long slender tongue, and so catch them
+all one after another. Improving upon the hint, we afterwards regularly
+scattered a few grains of sugar, to attract more flies within the old
+fellow's reach, and thus kept the shanty comparatively clear of those
+winged nuisances, and secured quiet repose for ourselves in the early
+mornings. Another toad soon joined the first one, and they became so
+much at home as to allow us to scratch their backs gently with a stick,
+when they would heave up their puffed sides to be scrubbed. These toads
+swallow mice and young ducks, and in their turn fall victims to garter
+and other snakes.</p>
+
+<p>During the following year, 1834, the Government opened up a settlement
+on the Sunnidale road, employing the new immigrants in road making,
+chopping and clearing, and putting up log shanties; and gave them the
+land so cleared to live on, but without power of sale. In this way, two
+or three hundred settlers, English, Irish and Highland Scotch, chiefly
+the latter, were located in Sunnidale. A Scottish gentleman, a Mr. H. C.
+Young, was appointed local immigrant agent, and spent some time with us.
+Eventually it was found that the laud was too aguish for settlement,
+being close to a large cedar swamp extending several miles to the
+Nottawasaga River; and on the representation of the agent, it was in
+1835 determined to transfer operations to the adjoining township of
+Nottawasaga, in which the town of Collingwood is now situated.</p>
+
+<p>It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to
+the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River
+being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I
+think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the
+railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him,
+doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific
+Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would
+pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope
+deferred did the delusion cost us.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> need not weary the reader with details of our farming proceedings,
+which differed in no respect from the now well-known routine of bush
+life. I will, however, add one or two notices of occurrences which may
+be thought worth relating. We were not without wild animals in our bush.
+Bears, wolves, foxes, racoons, skunks, mink and ermine among beasts;
+eagles, jays, many kinds of hawks, wood-peckers, loons, partridges and
+pigeons, besides a host of other birds, were common enough. Bears' nests
+abounded, consisting of a kind of arbour which the bear makes for
+himself in the top of the loftiest beech trees, by dragging inwards all
+the upper branches laden with their wealth of nuts, upon which he feasts
+at leisure. The marks of his formidable claws are plainly visible the
+whole length of the trunks of most large beech-trees. In Canada West the
+bear is seldom dangerous. One old fellow which we often encountered,
+haunted a favourite raspberry patch on the road-side; when anybody
+passed near him he would scamper off in such haste that I have seen him
+dash himself violently against any tree or fallen branch that might be
+in his way. Once we saw a bear roll himself headlong from the forks of
+a tree fully forty feet from the ground, tumbling over and over, but
+alighting safely, and "making tracks" with the utmost expedition.</p>
+
+<p>An Englishman whom I knew, of a very studious temperament, was strolling
+along the Medonte road deeply intent upon a volume of Ovid or some other
+Latin author, when, looking up to ascertain the cause of a shadow which
+fell across his book, he found himself nearly stumbling against a huge
+brown bear, standing erect on its hind legs, and with formidable paw
+raised ready to strike. The surprise seems to have been mutual, for
+after waiting a moment or two as if to recognise each other's features
+should they meet again, the student merely said "Oh! a bear!" coolly
+turned on his heel, plunged into his book again, and walked slowly back
+toward the village, leaving Bruin to move off at leisure in an opposite
+direction. So saith my informant.</p>
+
+<p>Another friend, when a youth, was quail-shooting on the site of the City
+of Toronto, which was nothing but a rough swampy thicket of cedars and
+pines mixed with hardwood. Stepping hastily across a rotten pine log,
+the lad plumped full upon a great fat bear taking its siesta in the
+shade. Which of the two fled the fastest is not known, but it was
+probably the animal, judging by my own experience in Sunnidale.</p>
+
+<p>Wolves often disturbed us with their hideous howlings. We had a
+beautiful liver and white English setter, called Dash, with her two
+pups. One night in winter, poor Dash, whom we kept within doors, was
+excited by the yelping of her pups outside, which appeared to be alarmed
+by some intruder about the premises. A wolf had been seen prowling near,
+so we got out our guns and whatever weapon was handy, but incautiously
+opened the door and let out the slut before we were ourselves quite
+dressed. She rushed out in eager haste, and in a few seconds we heard
+the wolf and dog fighting, with the most frightful discord of yells and
+howls that ever deafened the human ear. The noise ceased as suddenly as
+it had begun. We followed as fast as we could to the scene of the
+struggle, but found nothing there except a trampled space in the snow
+stained with blood, the dog having evidently been killed and dragged
+away. Next morning we followed the track further, and found at no great
+distance another similar spot, where the wolf had devoured its victim so
+utterly, that not a hair, bone, nor anything else was left, save the
+poor animal's heart, which had been flung away to a little distance in
+the snow. Beyond this were no signs of blood. We set a trap for the
+wolf, and tracked him for miles in the hope of avenging poor Dash, but
+without effect. This same wolf, we heard afterwards, was killed by a
+settler with a handspike, to our great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Among our neighbours of the Sunnidale settlement was a married couple
+from England, named Sewell, very well-conducted and industrious. They
+had a fair little child under two years old, named Hetty, whom we often
+stopped to admire for her prettiness and engaging simplicity. They also
+possessed, and were very proud of, several broods of newly-hatched
+chickens, some of which had been carried off by an immense falcon, which
+would swoop down from the lofty elm-trees still left standing in the
+half-chopped clearing, too suddenly to be easily shot. One day Hetty was
+feeding the young chickens when the hawk pounced upon the old hen, which
+struggled desperately; whereupon little Hetty bravely joined in the
+battle, seized the intruder by the wings from behind and held him fast,
+crying out loudly, "I've got him, mother!" It turned out, after the hawk
+was killed, that it had been blind of one eye.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1834, we had with infinite labour managed to clear off
+a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched
+its growth with the most intense anxiety, until it attained a height of
+ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears. Already the exquisite
+pleasure of eating bread the product of our own land, and of our own
+labour, was present to our imaginations, and the number of bushels to be
+reaped, the barn for storage, the journeys to mill, were eagerly
+discussed. But one day in August, occurred a hail-storm such as is
+seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell
+upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones measuring two and a
+half inches in diameter, seven and a half in circumference, covered the
+ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was utterly destroyed,
+and with it all our sanguine hopes of plenty for that year. I have
+preserved a tracing which I made at the time, of one of those
+hailstones. The centre was spherical, an inch in girth, from which
+laterally radiated lines three fourths of an inch long, like the spokes
+of a wheel, and outside of them again a wavy border resembling the
+undulating edge of pie crust. The superficial structure of the whole,
+was much like that of a full blown rose. A remarkable hail-storm
+occurred in Toronto, in the year 1878, but the stones, although similar
+in formation, were scarcely as bulky.</p>
+
+<p>It was one night in November following, when our axeman, William
+Whitelaw, who had risen from bed at eleven o'clock to fetch a new log
+for the fire shouted to us to come out and see a strange sight. Lazily
+we complied, expecting nothing extraordinary; but, on getting into the
+cold frosty air outside, we were transfixed with astonishment and
+admiration. Our clearing being small, and the timber partly hemlock, we
+seemed to be environed with a dense black wall the height of the forest
+trees, while over all, in dazzling splendour, shone a canopy of the
+most brilliant meteors, radiating in all directions from a single point
+in the heavens, nearly over-head, but slightly to the north-west. I have
+since read all the descriptions of meteoric showers I could find in our
+scientific annals, and watched year after year for a return of the same
+wonderful vision, but neither in the records of history nor otherwise,
+since that night, have I read of or seen anything so marvellously
+beautiful. Hour after hour we gazed in wonder and awe, as the radiant
+messengers streamed on their courses, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+starry cohorts of thousands, appearing to descend amongst the trees
+close beside us, but in reality shooting far beyond the horizon. Those
+who have looked upwards during a fall of snow will remember how the
+large flakes seem to radiate from a centre. Thus I believe astronomers
+account for the appearance of these showers of stars, by the
+circumstance that they meet the earth full in its orbit, and so dart
+past it from an opposite point, like a flight of birds confronting a
+locomotive, or a storm of hail directly facing a vessel under full
+steam. No description I have read has given even a faint idea of the
+reality as I saw it on that memorable night. From eleven p.m. to three
+in the morning, the majestic spectacle continued in full glory,
+gradually fading away before the approach of daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>We often had knotty and not very logical discussions about the origin of
+seeds, and the cause of the thick growth of new varieties of plants and
+trees wherever the forest had been burnt over. On our land, and
+everywhere in the immediate neighbourhood, the process of clearing by
+fire was sure to be followed by a spontaneous growth, first of fire-weed
+or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick
+as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine-trees had stood for
+a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a
+thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety. Our
+Celtic friends, most of whom were pious Presbyterians, insisted that a
+new creation of plants must be constantly going on to account for such
+miraculous growth. To test the matter, I scooped up a panful of black
+soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of
+cherry-stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest. The cause
+of this surprising accumulation of seed was not far to find. A few miles
+distant was a pigeon-roost. In spring, the birds would come flying round
+the east shore of Lake Huron, skirting the Georgian Bay, in such vast
+clouds as to darken the sun; and so swiftly that swan-shot failed to
+bring them down unless striking them in rear; and, even then, we rarely
+got them, as the velocity of their flight impelled them far into the
+thicket before falling. These beautiful creatures attacked our crops
+with serious results, and devoured all our young peas. I have known
+twenty-five pigeons killed at a single shot; and have myself got a
+dozen by firing at random into a maple-tree on which they had alighted,
+but where not one had been visible.</p>
+
+<p>The pigeon-roost itself was a marvel. Men, women and children went by
+the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up
+the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches
+of trees broken off by the weight of their roosting comrades overhead.
+The women skinned the birds, cut off their plump breasts, throwing the
+remainder away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping. To
+these pigeons we were, doubtless, indebted for our crop of young
+cherry-trees.</p>
+
+<p>Where there was so much seed, a corresponding crop might be expected;
+and dense thickets of choke-cherry trees grew up in neglected clearings
+accordingly. Forcing my way through one of these, I found myself
+literally face to face with a garter snake five feet long, which was
+also in search of cherries, and had wriggled its way to the upper
+branches of a young tree ten feet high. Garter snakes, however, are as
+harmless as frogs, and like them, are the victims of a general
+persecution. In some places they are exceedingly numerous. One summer's
+evening I was travelling on foot from Holland Landing to Bradford,
+across the Holland river, a distance of three miles, nearly all marsh,
+laid with cedar logs placed crosswise, to form a passable road. The sun
+was nearing the horizon; the snakes&mdash;garter chiefly, but a few
+copperhead and black&mdash;glided on to the logs to bask apparently in the
+sunshine, in such numbers, that after vainly trying to step across
+without treading on them, I was fain to take to flight, springing from
+log to log like some long-legged bird, and so escaping from the
+unpleasant companionship.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>One of the most perplexing tasks to new settlers is that of keeping
+cows. "Bossy" soon learns that the bush is "all before her where to
+choose," and she indulges her whims by straying away in the most
+unexpected directions, and putting you to half-a-day's toilsome search
+before she can be captured. The obvious remedy is the cow-bell, but even
+with this tell-tale appendage, the experienced cow contrives to baffle
+your vigilance. She will ensconce herself in the midst of a clump of
+underbrush, lying perfectly still, and paying no heed to your most
+endearing appeals of "Co' bossy, co' bossy," until some fly-sting
+obliges her to jerk her head and betray her hiding-place by a single
+note of the bell. Then she will deliberately get up, and walk off
+straight to the shanty, ready to be milked.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>OUR REMOVAL TO NOTTAWASAGA.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the autumn of 1835, we were favoured with a visit from Mr. A. B.
+Hawke, chief emigrant agent for Upper Canada, and a gentleman held in
+general esteem, as a friend to emigrants, and a kind-hearted man. He
+slept, or rather tried to sleep, at our shanty. It was very hot weather,
+the mosquitoes were in full vigour, and the tortures they inflicted on
+the poor man were truly pitiable. We being acclimatised, could cover our
+heads, and lie <i>perdu</i>, sleeping in spite of the humming hosts outside.
+But our visitor had learnt no such philosophy. He threw off the
+bedclothes on account of the heat; slapped his face and hands to kill
+his tormentors; and actually roared with pain and anger, relieving
+himself now and then by objurgations mingled with expletives not a
+little profane. It was impossible to resist laughing at the desperate
+emphasis of his protests, although our mirth did not help much to soothe
+the annoyance, at which, however, he could not help laughing in turn.</p>
+
+<p>Mosquitoes do not plague all night, and our friend got a little repose
+in the cool of the morning, but vowed, most solemnly, that nothing
+should induce him to pass another night in Sunnidale.</p>
+
+<p>To this circumstance, perhaps, were we indebted for the permission we
+soon afterwards obtained, to exchange our Sunnidale lot for one in
+Nottawasaga, where some clearing had been done by the new settlers, on
+what was called the Scotch line; and gladly we quitted our first
+location for land decidedly more eligible for farm purposes, although
+seventeen miles further distant from Barrie, which was still the only
+village within reasonably easy access.</p>
+
+<p>We had obtained small government contracts for corduroying, or
+causewaying, the many swampy spots on the Sunnidale road, which enabled
+us to employ a number of axemen, and to live a little more comfortably;
+and about this time, Mr. Young being in weak health, and unequal to the
+hardships of bush life, resigned his agency, and got my brother Thomas
+appointed temporarily as his successor; so we had the benefit of a good
+log-house he had built on the Nottawasaga road, near the Batteau creek,
+on which is now situated the Batteau station of the Northern Railway. We
+abode there until we found time to cut a road to our land, and
+afterwards to erect a comfortable cedar-log house thereon.</p>
+
+<p>Here, with a large open clearing around us, plenty of neighbours, and a
+sawmill at no great distance, we were able to make our home nearly as
+comfortable as are the majority of Canadian farm-houses of to-day. We
+had a neat picket-fenced garden, a large double log barn, a yoke of
+oxen, and plenty of poultry. The house stood on a handsome rising
+eminence, and commanded a noble prospect, which included the Georgian
+Bay, visible at a distance of six miles, and the Christian Islands,
+twenty miles further north. The land was productive, and the air highly
+salubrious.</p>
+
+<p>Would some of my readers like to know how to raise a log barn? I shall
+try to teach them. For such an undertaking much previous labour and
+foresight are required. In our case, fortunately, there was a small
+cedar swamp within a hundred paces of the site we had chosen for our
+barn, which was picturesquely separated from the house by a ravine some
+thirty feet deep, with a clear spring of the sweetest and coldest water
+flowing between steep banks. The barn was to consist of two large bays,
+each thirty feet square and eight logs high, with a threshing floor
+twelve feet wide between, the whole combined into one by an upper story
+or loft, twenty by seventy-two feet, and four logs high, including the
+roof-plates.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen, then, that to build such a barn would require
+sixty-four logs of thirty feet each for the lower story; and sixteen
+more of the same length, as well as eight of seventy-two feet each, for
+the loft. Our handy swamp provided all these, not from standing trees
+only, but from many fallen patriarchs buried four or five feet under the
+surface in black muck, and perfectly sound. To get them out of the mud
+required both skill and patience. All the branches having been cleared
+off as thoroughly as possible, the entire tree was drawn out by those
+most patient of all patient drudges, the oxen, and when on solid ground,
+sawn to the required length. A number of skids were also provided, of
+the size and kind of the spring-poles already described in chapter XI.,
+and plenty of handspikes.</p>
+
+<p>Having got these prime essentials ready, the next business was to summon
+our good neighbours to a "raising bee." On the day named, accordingly,
+we had about thirty practised axemen on the ground by day-break, all in
+the best of spirits, and confident in their powers for work. Eight of
+the heaviest logs, about two feet thick, had been placed in position as
+sleepers or foundation logs, duly saddled at the corners. Parallel with
+these at a distance of twenty-feet on either side, were ranged in order
+all the logs required to complete the building.</p>
+
+<p>Well, now we begin. Eight of the smartest men jump at once on the eight
+corners. In a few minutes each of the four men in front has his saddle
+ready&mdash;that is, he has chopped his end of the first log into an angular
+shape, thus /\. The four men in rear have done the same thing no less
+expeditiously, and all are waiting for the next log. Meanwhile, at the
+ends of both bays, four several parties of three men each, stationed
+below, have placed their skids in a sloping position&mdash;the upper end on
+the rising wall and the lower on the ground&mdash;and up these skids they
+roll additional logs transversely to those already in position. These
+are received by the corner-men above, and carefully adjusted in their
+places according to their "natural lie," that is, so that they will be
+least likely to render the wall unsteady; then turned half-back to
+receive the undercut, which should be exactly an inverse counterpart of
+the saddle. A skilful hand will make this undercut with unerring
+certainty, so that the log when turned forward again, will fit down upon
+its two saddles without further adjustment. Now for more logs back and
+front; then others at the ends, and so on, every log fitted as before,
+and each one somewhat lighter than its predecessor. All this time the
+oxen have been busily employed in drawing more logs where needed. The
+skids have to be re-adjusted for every successive log, and a supply of
+new logs rolled up as fast as wanted. The quick strokes of eight axes
+wielded by active fellows perched on the still rising walls, and
+balancing themselves dexterously and even gracefully as they work, the
+constant demand for "another log," and the merry voices and rough jokes
+of the workers, altogether form as lively and exciting a picture as is
+often witnessed. Add to these a bright sky and a fresh breeze, with the
+beautiful green back-ground of the noble hardwood trees around&mdash;and I
+know of no mere pleasure party that I would rather join.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast and dinner form welcome interludes. Ample stores of provender,
+meat, bread, potatoes, puddings various, tea and coffee, have been
+prepared and are thoroughly enjoyed, inasmuch as they are rare luxuries
+to many of the guests. Then again to work, until the last crowning
+effort of all&mdash;the raising of the seventy-two-foot logs&mdash;has to be
+encountered. Great care is necessary here, as accidents are not
+infrequent. The best skids, the stoutest handspikes, the strongest and
+hardiest men, must be selected. Our logs being cedar and therefore
+light, there was comparatively little danger; and they were all
+successfully raised, and well secured by cross-girders before sundown.</p>
+
+<p>Then, and not till then, after supper, a little whiskey was allowed.
+Teetotalism had not made its way into our backwoods; and we were
+considered very straightlaced indeed to set our faces as we did against
+all excess. Our Highland and Irish neighbours looked upon the weak stuff
+sold in Canada with supreme contempt; and recollecting our Galway
+experience, we felt no surprise thereat.</p>
+
+<p>The roofing such a building is a subsequent operation, for which no
+"bee" is required. Shingles four feet long, on round rafters, are
+generally used for log barns, to be replaced at some future day by more
+perfect roofing. A well-made cedar barn will stand for forty years with
+proper care, by which time there should be no difficulty in replacing it
+by a good substantial, roomy frame building.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOCIETY IN THE BACKWOODS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">S</span>ir John Colborne, as has been mentioned already, did all in his power
+to induce well-to-do immigrants, and particularly military men, to
+settle on lands west and north of Lake Simcoe. Some of these gentlemen
+were entitled, in those days, to draw from three to twelve hundred acres
+of land in their own right; but the privilege was of very doubtful
+value. Take an example. Captain Workman, with his wife, highly educated
+and thoroughly estimable people, were persuaded to select their land on
+the Georgian Bay, near the site of the present village of Meaford. A
+small rivulet which enters the bay there, is still called "the Captain's
+creek." To get there, they had to go to Penetanguishene, then a military
+station, now the seat of a Reformatory for boys. From thence they
+embarked on scows, with their servants, furniture, cows, farm implements
+and provisions. Rough weather obliged them to land on one of the
+Christian Islands, very bleak spots outside of Penetanguishene harbour,
+occupied only by a few Chippewa Indians. After nearly two weeks' delay
+and severe privation, they at length reached their destination, and had
+then to camp out until a roof could be put up to shelter them from the
+storms, not uncommon on that exposed coast.</p>
+
+<p>We had ourselves, along with others, taken up additional land on what
+was called "the Blue Mountains," which are considered to be a spur of
+the Alleghanies, extending northerly across by Niagara, from the State
+of New York. The then newly-surveyed townships of St. Vincent and
+Euphrasia were attracting settlers, and amongst them our axe-man,
+Whitelaw, and many more of the like class. To reach this land, we had
+bought a smart sail-boat, and in her enjoyed ourselves by coasting from
+the Nottawasaga river north-westerly along the bay. In this way we
+happened one evening to put in at the little harbour where Capt. Workman
+had chosen his location. It was early in the spring. The snows from the
+uplands had swelled the rivulet into a rushing torrent. The garden,
+prettily laid out, was converted into an island, the water whirling and
+eddying close to the house both in front and rear, and altogether
+presenting a scene of wild confusion. We found the captain highly
+excited, but bravely contending with his watery adversary; the lady of
+the house in a state of alarmed perplexity; the servants at their wits'
+end, hurrying here and there with little effect. Fortunately, when we
+got there the actual danger was past, the waters subsiding rapidly
+during the night. But it struck us as a most cruel and inconsiderate
+act on the part of the Government, to expose tenderly reared families to
+hazards which even the rudest of rough pioneers would not care to
+encounter.</p>
+
+<p>After enduring several years of severe hardship, and expending a
+considerable income in this out-of-the-world spot, Captain Workman and
+his family removed to Toronto, and afterwards returned to England,
+wiser, perhaps, but no richer certainly, than when they left the old
+country.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of miles along the shore, we found another military settler,
+Lieutenant Waddell, who had served as brigade-major at the Battle of
+Waterloo; with him were his wife, two sons, and two daughters. On
+landing, the first person we encountered was the eldest son, John, a
+youth of twenty years&mdash;six feet in stature at least, and bearing on his
+shoulder, sustained by a stick thrust through its gills, a sturgeon so
+large that its tail trailed on the ground behind him. He had just caught
+it with a floating line. Here again the same melancholy story: ladies
+delicately nurtured, exposed to rough labour, and deprived of all the
+comforts of civilized life, exhausting themselves in weary struggle with
+the elements. Brave soldiers in the decline of life, condemned to tasks
+only adapted to hinds and navvies. What worse fate can be reserved for
+Siberian exiles! This family also soon removed to Toronto, and
+afterwards to Niagara, where the kindly, excellent old soldier is well
+remembered; then to Chatham, where he became barrack-master, and died
+there. His son, John Waddell, married into the Eberts family, and
+prospered; later he was member for Kent; and ultimately met his death by
+drowning on a lumbering excursion in the Georgian Bay. Other members of
+the family now reside at Goderich.</p>
+
+<p>Along the west shore of Lake Simcoe, several other military and naval
+officers, with their households, were scattered. Some, whose names I
+shall not record, had left their families at home, and brought out with
+them female companions of questionable position, whom, nevertheless,
+they introduced as their wives. The appearance of the true wives rid the
+county of the scandal and its actors.</p>
+
+<p>Conspicuous among the best class of gentlemen settlers was the late Col.
+E. G. O'Brien, of Shanty Bay, near Barrie, of whom I shall have occasion
+to speak hereafter. Capt. St. John, of Lake Couchiching, was equally
+respected. The Messrs. Lally, of Medonte; Walker, of Tecumseth and
+Barrie; Sibbald, of Kempenfeldt Bay; are all names well known in those
+days, as are also many others of the like class. But where are the
+results of the policy which sent them there? What did they gain&mdash;what
+have their families and descendants gained&mdash;by the ruinous outlay to
+which they were subjected? With one or two exceptions, absolutely
+nothing but wasted means and saddest memories.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to turn to a different class of settlers&mdash;the hardy
+Scots, Irish, English, and Germans, to whom the Counties of Simcoe and
+Grey stand indebted for their present state of prosperity. The Sunnidale
+settlement was ill-chosen, and therefore a failure. But in the north of
+that township, much better land and a healthier situation are found, and
+there, as well as in Nottawasaga adjoining, the true conditions of
+rational colonization, and the practical development of those
+conditions, are plainly to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The system of clearing five acre lots, and erecting log shanties
+thereon, to be given to immigrants without power of sale, which was
+commenced in Sunnidale, was continued in Nottawasaga. The settlement was
+called the Scotch line, nearly all the people being from the islands of
+Arran and Islay, lying off Argyleshire, in Scotland. Very few of them
+knew a word of English. There were Campbells, McGillivrays, Livingstons,
+McDiarmids, McAlmons, McNees, Jardines, and other characteristic names.
+The chief man among them was Angus Campbell, who had been a tradesman of
+some kind in the old country, and exercised a beneficial influence over
+the rest. He was well informed, sternly Presbyterian, and often reminded
+us of "douce Davie Deans" in the "Heart of Midlothian." One of the
+Livingstons was a school-master. They were, one and all, hardy and
+industrious folk. Day after day, month after month, year after year,
+added to their wealth and comfort. Cows were purchased, and soon became
+common. There were a few oxen and horses before long. When I visited the
+township of Nottawasaga some years since, I found Angus Campbell,
+postmaster and justice of the peace; Andrew Jardine, township clerk or
+treasurer; and McDiarmids, Livingstons, Shaws, &amp;c., spread all over the
+surrounding country, possessing large farms richly stocked, good barns
+well-filled, and even commodious frame houses comfortably furnished.
+They ride to church or market in handsome buggies well horsed; have
+their temperance meetings and political gatherings of the most zealous
+sort, and altogether present a model specimen of a prosperous farming
+community. What has been said of the Scotch, is no less applicable to
+the Irish, Germans and English, who formed the minority in that
+township. I hear of their sons, and their sons' sons, as thriving
+farmers and storekeepers, all over Ontario.</p>
+
+<p>Our axeman, Whitelaw, was of Scottish parentage, but a Canadian by
+birth, and won his way with the rest. He settled in St. Vincent, married
+a smart and pretty Irish lass, had many sons and daughters, acquired a
+farm of five hundred acres, of which he cleared and cultivated a large
+portion almost single-handed, and in time became able to build the
+finest frame house in the township; served as reeve, was a justice of
+peace, and even a candidate for parliament, in which, well for himself,
+he failed. His excessive labours, however, brought on asthma, of which
+he died not long since, leaving several families of descendants to
+represent him.</p>
+
+<p>I could go on with the list of prosperous settlers of this class, to
+fill a volume. Some of the young men entered the ministry, and I
+recognise their names occasionally at Presbyterian and Wesleyan
+conventions. Some less fortunate were tempted away to Iowa and Illinois,
+and there died victims to ague and heat.</p>
+
+<p>But if we "look on this picture and on that;" if we compare the results
+of the settlement of educated people and of the labouring classes, the
+former withering away and leaving no sign behind&mdash;the latter growing in
+numbers and advancing in wealth and position until they fill the whole
+land, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that except as leaders
+and teachers of their companions, gentlefolk of refined tastes and of
+superior education, have no place in the bush, and should shun it as a
+wild delusion and a cruel snare.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>MORE ABOUT NOTTAWASAGA AND ITS PEOPLE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>mong the duties handed over to my brother Thomas, by his predecessor in
+the emigrant agency, was the care of a large medicine chest full of
+quinine, rhubarb, jalap, and a host of other drugs, strong enough for
+horses as well as men, including a long catalogue of poisons, such as
+arsenic, belladonna, vitriol, &amp;c. To assist in the distribution of this
+rather formidable charge, a copy of "Buchan's Domestic Medicine" was
+added. My brother had no taste for drugs, and therefore deputed the care
+of the medicine chest to me. So I studied "Buchan" zealously, and was
+fortunate enough to secure the aid of an old army sergeant, an Irishman
+who had been accustomed to camp hospital life, and knew how to bleed,
+and treat wounds. Time and practice gave me courage to dispense the
+medicines, which I did cautiously, and so successfully as to earn the
+soubriquet of "Doctor," and to be sought after in cases both dangerous
+and difficult. As, however, about this time, a clever, licensed
+practitioner had established himself at Barrie, thirty-four miles
+distant, I declined to prescribe in serious cases, except in one or two
+of great urgency. A Prussian soldier named Murtz, had received a
+gun-shot wound in the chest at the battle of Quatre Bras, under Marshal
+Bl&uuml;cher, and had frequently suffered therefrom. One day in winter, when
+the thermometer ranged far below zero, this man had been threshing in
+our barn, when he was seized with inflammation of the chest, and forced
+to return home. As it appeared to be a case of life and death, I
+ventured to act boldly, ordered bleeding, a blister on the chest, and
+poultices to the feet&mdash;in fact, everything that Buchan directed. My
+brave serjeant took charge of the patient; and between us, or perhaps in
+spite of us, the man got over the attack. The singular part of the case
+was, that the old bullet wound never troubled him afterwards, and he
+looked upon me as the first of living physicians.</p>
+
+<p>In 1836, a band of Potawatomie Indians, claiming allegiance to the
+Queen, was allowed to leave the State of Michigan and settle in Canada.
+They travelled from Sarnia through the woods, along the eastern shore of
+Lake Huron, and passed through Nottawasaga, on their way to
+Penetanguishene. Between the Scotch line and Sunnidale, near the present
+village of Stayner, lived an old Highland piper named Campbell, very
+partial to whiskey and dirt. There were two or three small clearings
+grouped together, and the principal crop was potatoes, nearly full
+grown. The old man was sitting sunning himself at his shanty-door. The
+young men were all absent at mill or elsewhere, and none but women and
+children about, when a party of Indians, men and squaws with their
+papooses, came stealing from the woods, and very quietly began to dig
+the potatoes with their fingers and fill their bags with the spoil. The
+poor old piper was horribly frightened and perplexed; and in his
+agitation could think of nothing but climbing on to his shanty roof,
+which was covered with earth, and there playing with all his might upon
+his Highland pipes, partly as a summons for assistance from his friends,
+partly to terrify the enemy. But the enemy were not at all terrified.
+They gathered in a ring round the shanty, laughed, danced, and enjoyed
+the fun immensely; nor would they pass on until the return of some of
+the younger settlers summoned by the din of the bagpipes, relieved the
+old piper from his elevated post. In the meantime, the presence and
+efforts of the women of the settlement sufficed to rescue their potato
+crop.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A RUDE WINTER EXPERIENCE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he chief inconvenience we sustained in Nottawasaga arose from the depth
+of snow in winter, which was generally four feet and sometimes more. We
+had got our large log barn well filled with grain and hay. Two feet of
+snow had fallen during the day, and it continued snowing throughout the
+night. Next morning, to our great tribulation, neither snow nor roof was
+to be seen on the barn, the whole having fallen inside. No time was to
+be lost. My share of the work was to hurry to the Scotch line, there to
+warn every settler to send at least one stout hand to assist in
+re-raising the roof. None but those who have suffered can imagine what
+it is to have to walk at speed through several feet of soft snow. The
+sinews of the knees very soon begin to be painfully affected, and
+finally to feel as if they were being cut with a sharp knife. This is
+what Indians call "snow evil," their cure for which is to apply a hot
+cinder to the spot, thus raising a blister. I toiled on, however, and
+once in the settlement, walked with comparative ease. Everybody was
+ready and eager to help, and so we had plenty of assistance at our need,
+and before night got our barn roof restored.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of exchanging work is universal in new settlements; and,
+indeed, without it nothing of importance can be effected. Each man gives
+a day's work to his neighbour, for a logging or raising-bee; and looks
+for the same help when he is ready for it. Thus as many as twenty or
+forty able axemen can be relied upon at an emergency.</p>
+
+<p>At a later time, some of us became expert in the use of snow-shoes, and
+took long journeys through the woods, not merely with ease but with a
+great deal of pleasure. As a rule, snow is far from being considered an
+evil in the backwoods, on account of the very great facility it affords
+for travelling and teaming, both for business and pleasure, as well as
+for the aid it gives to the hunter or trapper.</p>
+
+<p>My own feelings on the subject, I found leisure to embody in the
+following verses:</p>
+
+<h3>THE TRAPPER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Away, away! my dog and I;</span>
+<span class="i2">The woodland boughs are bare,</span>
+<span class="i0">The radiant sun shines warm and high,</span>
+<span class="i2">The frost-flake<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> gems the air.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Away, away! thro' forests wide</span>
+<span class="i2">Our course is swift and free;</span>
+<span class="i0">Warm 'neath the snow the saplings hide&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Its ice-crust firm pace we.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The partridge<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> with expanded crest</span>
+<span class="i2">Struts proudly by his mate;</span>
+<span class="i0">The squirrel trims its glossy vest,</span>
+<span class="i2">Or eats its nut in state.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Quick echoes answer, shrill and short,</span>
+<span class="i2">The woodcock's frequent cry;</span>
+<span class="i0">We heed them not&mdash;a keener sport</span>
+<span class="i2">We seek&mdash;my dog and I.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Far in the woods our traps are set</span>
+<span class="i2">In loneliest, thickest glade,</span>
+<span class="i0">Where summer's soil is soft and wet,</span>
+<span class="i2">And dark firs lend their shade.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Hurrah! a gallant spoil is here</span>
+<span class="i2">To glad a trapper's sight&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">The warm-clad marten, sleek and fair,</span>
+<span class="i2">The ermine soft and white;</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Or mink, or fox&mdash;a welcome prize&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Or useful squirrel grey,</span>
+<span class="i0">Or wild-cat fierce with flaming eyes,</span>
+<span class="i2">Or fisher,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> meaner prey.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">On, on! the cautious toils once more</span>
+<span class="i2">Are set&mdash;the task is done;</span>
+<span class="i0">Our pleasant morning's labour o'er,</span>
+<span class="i2">Our pastime but begun.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Away, away! till fall of eve,</span>
+<span class="i2">The deer-track be our guide,</span>
+<span class="i0">The antler'd stag our quarry brave,</span>
+<span class="i2">Our park the forest wide.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">At night, the bright fire at our feet,</span>
+<span class="i2">Our couch the wigwam dry&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">No laggard tastes a rest so sweet</span>
+<span class="i2">As thou, good dog, and I.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FOREST WEALTH OF CANADA.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">H</span>aving been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great
+pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all
+kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and
+showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone.</p>
+
+<p>But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with
+which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the
+country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest
+specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River
+Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round
+scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of
+Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with
+noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie
+with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their
+branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that
+five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving
+little space for younger trees or underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in
+circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble
+tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of
+inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and
+thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black
+birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if
+any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it
+does with hickory for many purposes.</p>
+
+<p>When residing in the city of Quebec, in the year 1859-60, I published a
+series of articles in the Quebec <i>Advertiser</i>, descriptive of the
+hardwoods of Ontario. The lumber merchants of that city held then, that
+their correspondents in Liverpool was so wedded to old-fashioned ideas,
+that they would not so much as look at any price-list except for pine
+and the few other woods for which there was an assured demand. But I
+know that my papers were transmitted home, and they may possibly have
+converted some few readers, as, since then, our rock elm, our white ash,
+and the black birch of Lower Canada, have been in increased demand, and
+are regularly quoted at London and Liverpool. But even though old
+country dealers should make light of our products, that is no reason why
+we should undervalue them ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Not merely is our larger timber improvidently wasted, but the smaller
+kinds, such as blue beech, ironwood or hornbeam, buttonwood or plane
+tree, and red and white cedar, are swept away without a thought of their
+great marketable value in the Old World.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>It seems absolute fatuity to allow this waste of our natural wealth to
+go on unheeded. We send our pine across the Atlantic, as if it were the
+most valuable wood that we have, instead of being, as it really is,
+amongst the most inferior. From our eastern seaports white oak is
+shipped in the form of staves chiefly, also some ash, birch and elm. So
+far well. But what about the millions of tons of hardwood of all kinds
+which we destroy annually for fuel, and which ought to realize, if
+exported, four times as many millions of dollars?</p>
+
+<p>Besides the plain, straight-grained timber which we heedlessly burn up
+to get it out of the way, there are our ornamental woods&mdash;our beautiful
+curled and bird's eye maple, our waved ash, our serviceable butternut
+or yellow walnut, our comely cherry, and even our exquisite black
+walnut, all doomed to the same perdition. Little of this waste would
+occur if once the owners of land knew that a market could be got for
+their timber. Cheese and butter factories for export, have already
+spread over the land&mdash;why not furniture factories also? Why not warm
+ourselves with the coal of Nova Scotia, of Manitoba, and, by-and-by, of
+the Saskatchewan, and spare our forest treasures for nobler uses? Would
+not this whole question be a fitting subject for the appointment of a
+competent parliamentary commission?</p>
+
+<p>To me these reflections are not the birth of to-day, but date from my
+bush residence in the township of Nottawasaga. If I should succeed now
+in bringing them effectively before my fellow Canadians ere it is too
+late, I shall feel that I have neither thought nor written in vain.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A MELANCHOLY TALE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Scottish settlers in Nottawasaga were respectable, God-fearing, and
+though somewhat stern in their manners, thoroughly estimable people on
+the whole. They married young, had numerous families, and taught their
+children at an early age the duties of good citizenship, and the
+religious principles of their Presbyterian forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>Among them, not the prettiest certainly, but the most amiable and
+beloved, was Flora McDiarmid, a tall, bright-complexioned lass of
+twenty, perhaps, who was the chief mainstay of her widowed father, whose
+log shanty she kept in perfect order as far as their simple resources
+permitted, while she exercised a vigilant watch over her younger
+brothers and sisters, and with their assistance contrived to work their
+four acre allotment to good advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever there was trouble in the settlement, or mirth afoot, Flora was
+sure to be there, nursing the sick, cheering the unhappy, helping to
+provide the good things for the simple feast,&mdash;she was, in fact, the
+life of the somewhat dull and overworked community. Was the minister
+from afar to be received with due honour, was the sober church service
+to be celebrated in a shanty with becoming propriety&mdash;Flora was ever on
+hand, at the head of all the other lassies, guiding and directing
+everything, and in so kindly and cheerful a way that none thought of
+disputing her behests or hesitating at their fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the case, no wonder that Malcolm McAlmon and other young
+fellows contended for her hand in marriage. But Malcolm won the
+preference, and blithely he set to work to build a splendid log shanty,
+twenty-five feet square, divided into inner compartments, with windows
+and doors, and other unequalled conveniences for domestic comfort new to
+the settlement; and when it was ready, and supplied with plenishings of
+all kinds, Flora and Malcolm were married amid the rejoicings of the
+whole township, and settled quietly down to the steady hard work of a
+life in the extreme backwoods, some miles distant from our clearing.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing I heard of them was many months afterwards, when Malcolm
+was happy in the expectation of an heir to his two hundred acre lot, in
+the ninth or tenth concession of the township. But alas! as time stole
+on, accounts were unfavourable, and grew worse and worse. The nearest
+professional man lived at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant. A wandering
+herb doctor, as he called himself, of the Yankee eclectic school, was
+the best who had yet visited the township, and even he was far away at
+this time. There were experienced matrons enough in the settlement, but
+their skill deserted them, or the case was beyond their ability. And so
+poor Flora died, and her infant with her.</p>
+
+<p>The same day her brother John, in deep distress, came to beg us to lend
+them pine boards enough to make the poor dead woman a coffin. Except the
+pine tree which we had cut down and sawn up, as related already, there
+was not a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer
+or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry
+for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next
+morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably handsome box,
+stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them
+at the appointed hour. We of course attended the funeral, which was
+conducted with due solemnity by the Presbyterian minister
+above-mentioned. And never shall I forget the weeping bearers,
+staggering under their burthen through tangled brushwood and round
+upturned roots and cradle holes, and the long train of mourners
+following in their rear, to the chosen grave in the wilderness, where
+now I hear stands a small Presbyterian church in the village of
+Duntroon.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM BARRIE TO NOTTAWASAGA.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>or nearly three years we continued to work on contentedly at our bush
+farm. In the summer of 1837, we received intelligence that two of our
+sisters were on their way to join us in Canada, and soon afterwards that
+they had reached Toronto, and expected to meet us at Barrie on a certain
+day. At the same time we learnt that the bridge across the Nottawasaga
+river, eleven miles from Barrie, had given way, and was barely passable
+on foot, as it lay floating on the water. One of our span of horses had
+been killed and his fellow sold, so that we had to hire a team to convey
+our sisters' goods from Barrie to the bridge where it was necessary to
+meet them with our own ox-team and waggon. I walked to Barrie
+accordingly, and found my sisters at Bingham's tavern, very glad to see
+me, but in a state of complete bewilderment and some alarm at the rough
+ways of the place, then only containing a tavern or two, and some twenty
+stores and dwellings. My fustian clothes, which I had made myself, and
+considered first-rate, they "laughed at consumedly." My boots! they were
+soaked and trod out of all fashionable proportions. Fortunately, other
+people in Barrie were nearly as open to criticism as myself, and as we
+had to get on our way without loss of time, I forgot my eccentricities
+of dress in the rough experiences of the road.</p>
+
+<p>From Barrie to Root's tavern was pleasant travelling, the day being fine
+and the road fairly good. We took some rest and refreshment there, and
+started again, but had not gone two miles before a serious misfortune
+befel us. I have mentioned corduroy-bridges before; one of these had
+been thrown across a beautifully clear white-paved streamlet known to
+travellers on this road as "sweet-water." The waggon was heavily laden
+with chests and other luggage, and the horses not being very strong,
+found it beyond their power to drag the load across the bridge on
+account of its steepness. Alarmed for my eldest sister, who was riding,
+I persuaded her to descend and walk on. Again and again, the teamster
+whipped his horses, and again and again, after they had almost scaled
+the crest, the weight of the load dragged them backward. I wanted to
+lighten the load, but the man said it was needless, and bade me block
+the wheels with a piece of broken branch lying near, which I did; the
+next moment I was petrified to see the waggon overbalance itself and
+fall sideways into the stream seven or eight feet beneath, dragging the
+horses over with it, their forefeet clinging to the bridge and their
+hind feet entangled amongst the spokes of the wheels below.</p>
+
+<p>My elder sister had gone on. The younger bravely caught the horses'
+heads and held them by main force to quiet their struggles, while the
+man and I got out an axe, cut the spokes of the wheels, and so in a few
+minutes got the horses on to firm ground, where they stood panting and
+terrified for some minutes. Meanwhile, to get the heavy sea-boxes out of
+the water and carry them up the face of a nearly perpendicular bank,
+then get up the waggon and reload it, was no easy task, but was
+accomplished at last.</p>
+
+<p>The teamster, being afraid of injury to his horses' legs, at first
+refused to go further on the road. However, they had suffered no harm;
+and we finished our journey to the bridge where my brother awaited us.
+Here the unlucky boxes had to be carried across loose floating logs, and
+loaded on to the ox-waggon, which ended our hard work for that day.</p>
+
+<p>Two days longer were we slowly travelling through Sunnidale and into
+Nottawasaga, spending each night at some friendly settler's shanty, and
+so lightening the fatigues of the way.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>FAREWELL TO THE BACKWOODS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y sisters had come into the woods fresh from the lovely village of
+Epsom, in Surrey, and accustomed to all the comforts of English life.
+Their consternation at the rudeness of the accommodations which we had
+considered rather luxurious than otherwise, dispelled all our illusions,
+and made us think seriously of moving nearer to Toronto. I was the first
+to feel the need of change, and as I had occasionally walked ninety
+miles to the city, to draw money for our road contracts, and the same
+distance back again, and had gained some friends there, it took me very
+little time to make up my mind. My brothers and sisters remained
+throughout the following winter, and then removed to a rented farm at
+Bradford.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the bush has ever lost its charms for me. I still delight to
+escape thither, to roam at large, admiring the stately trees with their
+graceful outlines of varied foliage, seeking in their delicious shade
+for ferns and all kinds of wild plants, forgetting the turmoil and
+anxieties of the business world, and wishing I could leave it behind for
+ever and aye. In some such mood it was that I wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h3>"COME TO THE WOODS."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come to the woods&mdash;the dark old woods,</span>
+<span class="i2">Where our life is blithe and free;</span>
+<span class="i0">No thought of sorrow or strife intrudes</span>
+<span class="i2">Beneath the wild woodland tree.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Our wigwam is raised with skill and care</span>
+<span class="i2">In some quiet forest nook;</span>
+<span class="i0">Our healthful fare is of ven'son rare,</span>
+<span class="i2">Our draught from the crystal brook.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">In summer we trap the beaver shy,</span>
+<span class="i2">In winter we chase the deer,</span>
+<span class="i0">And, summer or winter, our days pass by</span>
+<span class="i2">In honest and hearty cheer.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And when at the last we fall asleep</span>
+<span class="i2">On mother earth's ancient breast,</span>
+<span class="i0">The forest-dirge deep shall o'er us sweep,</span>
+<span class="i2">And lull us to peaceful rest.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A JOURNEY TO TORONTO.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>o make my narrative intelligible to those who are not familiar with the
+times of which I am about to write, I must revert briefly to the year
+1834. During that year I made my first business visit to Toronto, then
+newly erected into a city. As the journey may be taken as a fair
+specimen of our facilities for travelling in those days, I shall
+describe it.</p>
+
+<p>I left our shanty in Sunnidale in the bright early morning, equipped
+only with an umbrella and a blue bag, such as is usually carried by
+lawyers, containing some articles of clothing. The first three or four
+miles of the road lay over felled trees cut into logs, but not hauled
+out of the way. To step or jump over these logs every few feet may be
+amusing enough by way of sport, but it becomes not a little tiresome
+when repeated mile after mile, with scarcely any intermission, and
+without the stimulus of companionship. After getting into a better
+cleared road, the chief difficulty lay with the imperfectly "stubbed"
+underbrush and the frequency of cradle-holes&mdash;that is, hollows caused by
+up-turned roots&mdash;in roughly timbered land. This kind of travelling
+continued till mid-day, when I got a substantial dinner and a boisterous
+welcome from my old friend Root and his family. He had a pretty little
+daughter by this time.</p>
+
+<p>An hour's rest, and an easy walk of seven miles to Barrie, were pleasant
+enough, in spite of stumps and hollows. At Barrie I met with more
+friends, who would have had me remain there for the night; but time was
+too valuable. So on I trudged, skirting round the sandy beach of
+beautiful Kempenfeldt Bay, and into the thick dark woods of Innisfil,
+where the road was a mere brushed track, easily missed in the twilight,
+and very muddy from recent rains. Making all the expedition in my power,
+I sped on towards Clement's tavern, then the only hostelry between
+Barrie and Bradford, and situated close to the height of land whence
+arise, in a single field, the sources of various streams flowing into
+the Nottawasaga, the Holland, and the Credit Rivers. But rain came on,
+and the road became a succession of water-holes so deep that I all but
+lost my boots, and, moreover, it was so dark that it was impossible to
+walk along logs laid by the roadside, which was the local custom in
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself in a dilemma. To go forward or backward seemed equally
+unpromising. I had often spent nights in the bush, with or without a
+wigwam, and the thought of danger did not occur to me. Suddenly I
+recollected that about half a mile back I had passed a newly chopped and
+partially-logged clearing, and that there might possibly be workmen
+still about. So I returned to the place, and shouted for assistance; but
+no person was within hearing. There was, however, a small log hut, about
+six feet square, which the axe-men had roughly put up for protection
+from the rain, and in it had left some fire still burning. I was glad
+enough to secure even so poor a shelter as this. Everything was wet. I
+was without supper, and very tired after thirty miles' walk. But I tried
+to make the best of a bad job: collected plenty of half-consumed brands
+from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep up some warmth during the
+night, and then lay down on the round logs that had been used for seats,
+to sleep as best I might.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose from the
+woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a single yelp; then two
+or three yells at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five
+minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming
+nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for
+aught but the howling of wolves. The clearing might be five or six
+acres. Scattered over it were partially or wholly burnt log heaps. I
+knew that wolves would not be likely to venture amongst the fires, and
+that I was practically safe. But the position was not pleasant, and I
+should have preferred a bed at Clement's, as a matter of choice. I,
+however, kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued
+their concert of fiendish discords&mdash;sometimes remaining silent for a
+time, and anon bursting into a full chorus <i>fortissimo</i>&mdash;for many long,
+long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees,
+and the sky grew brighter and brighter; when the wolves ceased their
+serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow.</p>
+
+<p>With the advancing day, I awoke, stiffened in every joint, and very
+hungry. A few minutes' walk on my road showed me a distant opening in
+the woods, towards which I hastened, and found a new shanty, inhabited
+by a good-natured settler and his family, from whom I got some
+breakfast, for which they would accept nothing but thanks. They had
+lately been much troubled, they said, with wolves about their cattle
+sheds at night.</p>
+
+<p>From thence I proceeded to Bradford, fifteen miles, by a road interlaced
+with pine roots, with deep water-holes between, and so desperately
+rugged as to defy any wheeled vehicle but an ox-cart to struggle over
+it. Here my troubles ended for the present. Mr. Thomas Drury, of that
+village, had been in partnership with a cousin of my own, as brewers,
+at Mile End, London. His hospitable reception, and a good night's
+repose, made me forget previous discomforts, and I went on my way next
+morning with a light heart, carrying with me a letter of introduction to
+a man of whom I had occasionally heard in the bush, one William Lyon
+Mackenzie.</p>
+
+<p>The day's journey by way of Yonge Street was easily accomplished by
+stage&mdash;an old-fashioned conveyance enough, swung on leather straps, and
+subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones on the rough road,
+innocent of Macadam, and full of the deepest ruts. A fellow-passenger,
+by way of encouragement, told me how an old man, a few weeks before, had
+been jolted so violently against the roof, as to leave marks of his
+blood there, which, being not uncommon, were left unheeded for days. My
+friend advised me to keep on my hat, which I had laid aside on account
+of the heat of the day, and I was not slow to adopt the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived in town, my first business was to seek out Mr. William Hawkins,
+well-known in those days as an eminent provincial land surveyor. I found
+him at a house on the south side of Newgate (now Adelaide) street, two
+or three doors west of Bay Street. He was living as a private boarder
+with an English family; and, at his friendly intercession, I was
+admitted to the same privilege. The home was that of Mr. H. C. Todd,
+with his wife and two sons. With them, I continued to reside as often
+as I visited Toronto, and for long after I became a citizen. That I
+spent there many happy days, among kind and considerate friends, numbers
+of my readers will be well assured when I mention, that the two boys
+were Alfred and Alpheus Todd, the one loved and lamented as the late
+Clerk of Committees in the Canadian House of Commons&mdash;the other widely
+known in Europe and America, as the late Librarian of the Dominion
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>My stay in Toronto on that occasion was very brief. To wait upon the
+Chief Emigrant Agent for instructions about road-making in Sunnidale; to
+make a few small purchases of clothing and tea; and to start back again,
+without loss of time, were matters of course. One thing, however, I
+found time to do, which had more bearing upon this narrative, and that
+was, to present Mr. Drury's letter of introduction to William L.
+Mackenzie, M. P. P., at his printing-office on Hospital Street. I had
+often seen copies, in the bush, of the <i>Colonial Advocate</i>, as well as
+of the <i>Courier</i> and <i>Gazette</i> newspapers, but had the faintest possible
+idea of Canadian politics. The letter was from one whose hospitality
+Mackenzie had experienced for weeks in London, and consequently I felt
+certain of a courteous reception. Without descending from the high stool
+he used at his desk, he received the letter, read it, looked at me
+frigidly, and said in his singular, harsh Dundee dialect: "We must look
+after our own people before doing anything for strangers." Mr. Drury had
+told him that I wished to know if there were any opening for
+proof-readers in Toronto. I was not a little surprised to find myself
+ostracized as a stranger in a British colony, but, having other views,
+thought no more of the circumstance at the time.</p>
+
+<p>This reminds me of another characteristic anecdote of Mackenzie, which
+was related to me by one who was on the spot where it happened. In 1820,
+on his first arrival in Montreal from Scotland, he got an engagement as
+chain-bearer on the survey of the Lachine canal. A few days afterwards,
+the surveying party, as usual at noon, sat down on a grassy bank to eat
+their dinner. They had been thus occupied for half an hour, and were
+getting ready for a smoke, when the new chain-bearer suddenly jumped up
+with an exclamation, "Now, boys, time for work! we mustn't waste the
+government money!" The consequence of which ill-timed outburst was his
+prompt dismissal from the service.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME GLIMPSES OF UPPER CANADIAN POLITICS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the course of the years 1835, '6 and '7, I made many journeys to
+Toronto, sometimes wholly on foot, sometimes partly by steamboat and
+stage. I became very intimate with the Todd family and connections,
+which included Mrs. Todd's brother, William P. Patrick, then, and long
+afterwards, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; his brother-in-law, Dr.
+Thomas D. Morrison, M. P. P.; Thomas Vaux, Accountant of the
+Legislature; Caleb Hopkins, M. P. P., for Halton; William H. Doel,
+brewer; William C. Keele, attorney, and their families. Nearly all these
+persons were, or had been, zealous admirers of Wm. L. Mackenzie's
+political course. And the same thing must be said of my friend Mr.
+Drury, of Bradford; his sister married Edward Henderson, merchant
+tailor, of King Street west, whose father, E. T. Henderson, was well
+known amongst Mackenzie's supporters. It was his cottage on Yonge Street
+(near what is now Gloucester Street), at which the leaders of the
+popular party used often to meet in council. The house stood in an
+orchard, well fenced, and was then very rural and secluded from
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst all these really estimable people, and at their houses, nothing
+of course was heard disparaging to the Reformers of that day, and their
+active leader. My own political prejudices also were in his favour. And
+so matters went on until the arrival, in 1835, of Sir Francis Bond Head,
+as Lieutenant-Governor, when we, in the bush, began to hear of violent
+struggles between the House of Assembly on the one side, and the
+Lieutenant-Governor supported by the Legislative Council on the other.
+Each political party, by turns, had had its successes and reverses at
+the polls. In 1825, the majority of the Assembly was Tory; in 1826, and
+for several years afterwards, a Reform majority was elected; in 1831,
+again, Toryism was successful; in 1835, the balance veered over to the
+popular side once more, by a majority only of four. This majority, led
+by Mackenzie, refused to pass the supplies; whereupon, Sir Francis
+appealed to the people by dissolving the Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>What were the precise grounds of difference in principle between the
+opposing parties, did not very clearly appear to us in the bush. Sir
+Francis Head had no power to grant "Responsible Government," as it has
+since been interpreted. On each side there were friends and opponents of
+that system. Among Tories, Ogle R. Gowan, Charles Fothergill, and
+others, advocated a responsible ministry, and were loud in their
+denunciations of the "Family Compact." On the Reform side were ranged
+such men as Marshall S. Bidwell and Dr. Rolph, who preferred American
+Republicanism, in which "Responsible Government" was and is utterly
+unknown. We consequently found it hard to understand the party cries of
+the day. But we began to perceive that there was a Republican bias on
+one hand, contending with a Monarchical leaning on the other; and we had
+come to Canada, as had most well-informed immigrants, expressly to avoid
+the evils of Republicanism, and to preserve our British constitutional
+heritage intact.</p>
+
+<p>When therefore Sir Francis Head threw himself with great energy into the
+electoral arena, when he bade the foes of the Empire "come if they
+dare!" when he called upon the "United Empire Loyalists,"&mdash;men, who in
+1770 had thrown away their all, rather than accept an alien rule&mdash;to
+vindicate once more their right to choose whom they would follow, King
+or President&mdash;when he traversed the length and breadth of the land,
+making himself at home in the farm-houses, and calling upon fathers and
+husbands and sons to stand up for their hearths, and their old
+traditions of honour and fealty to the Crown, it would have been strange
+indeed had he failed.</p>
+
+<p>The next House of Assembly, elected in 1837, contained a majority of
+twenty-six to fourteen in favour of Sir F. B. Head's policy. This
+precipitated matters. Had Mackenzie been capable of enduring defeat with
+a good grace; had he restrained his natural irritability of temper, and
+kept his skirts cautiously clear of all contact with men of Republican
+aspirations, he might and probably would have recovered his position as
+a parliamentary leader, and died an honoured and very likely even a
+titled veteran! But he became frantic with choler and disappointment,
+and rushed headlong into the most passionate extremes, which ended in
+making him a mere cat's-paw in the hands of cunning schemers, who did
+not fail, after their manner, to disavow their own handiwork when it had
+ceased to serve their purposes.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>TORONTO DURING THE REBELLION.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n November, 1837, I had travelled to Toronto for the purpose of seeking
+permanent employment in the city, and meant to return in the first week
+of December, to spend my last Christmas in the woods. But the fates and
+William Lyon Mackenzie had decided otherwise. I was staying for a few
+days with my friend Joseph Heughen, the London hairdresser mentioned as
+a fellow-passenger on board the <i>Asia</i>, whose name must be familiar to
+most Toronto citizens of that day. His shop was near Ridout's
+hardware-store, on King Street, at the corner of Yonge Street. On
+Sunday, the 3rd, we heard that armed men were assembling at the Holland
+Landing and Newmarket to attack the city, and that lists of houses to be
+burned by them were in the hands of their leaders; that Samuel Lount,
+blacksmith, had been manufacturing pikes at the Landing for their use;
+that two or three persons had been warned by friends in the secret to
+sell their houses, or to leave the city, or to look for startling
+changes of some sort. Then it was known that a quantity of arms and a
+couple of cannon were being brought from the garrison, and stored in the
+covered way under the old City Hall. Every idle report was eagerly
+caught up, and magnified a hundred-fold. But the burthen of all
+invariably was, an expected invasion by the Yankees to drive all
+loyalists from Canada. In this way rumour followed rumour, all business
+ceased, and everybody listened anxiously for the next alarm. At length
+it came in earnest. At eleven o'clock on Monday night, the 4th of
+December, every bell in the city was set ringing, occasional gun-shots
+were fired, by accident as it turned out, but none the less startling to
+nervous people; a confused murmur arose in the streets, becoming louder
+every minute; presently the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, echoing
+loudly along Yonge Street. With others I hurried out, and found at
+Ridout's corner a horseman, who proved to be Alderman John Powell, who
+told his breathless listeners, how he had been stopped beyond the Yonge
+Street toll-gate, two miles out, by Mackenzie and Anderson at the head
+of a number of rebels in arms; how he had shot Anderson and missed
+Mackenzie; how he had dodged behind a log when pursued; and had finally
+got into town by the College Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>There was but little sleep in Toronto that night, and next day
+everything was uproar and excitement, heightened by the news that Col.
+Moodie, of Richmond Hill, a retired officer of the army, who was
+determined to force his way through the armed bodies of rebels, to bring
+tidings of the rising to the Government in Toronto, had been shot down
+and inhumanly left to bleed to death at Montgomery's tavern. The flames
+and smoke from Dr. Horne's house at Rosedale, were visible all over the
+city; it had been fired in the presence of Mackenzie in person, in
+retaliation, it was said, for the refusal of discount by the Bank of
+Upper Canada, of which Dr. Horne was teller. The ruins of the
+still-burning building were visited by hundreds of citizens, and added
+greatly to the excitement and exasperation of the hour. By-and-by it
+became known that Mr. Robert Baldwin and Dr. John Rolph had been sent,
+with a flag of truce, to learn the wants of the insurgents. Many
+citizens accompanied the party at a little distance. A flag of truce was
+in itself a delightful novelty, and the street urchins cheered
+vociferously, scudding away at the smallest alarm. Arrived at the
+toll-gate, there were waiting outside Mackenzie, Lount, Gibson, Fletcher
+and other leaders, with a couple of hundred of their men. In reply to
+the Lieutenant-Governor's message of inquiry, as to what was wanted, the
+answer was, "Independence, and a convention to arrange details," which
+rather compendious demand, being reported to Sir Francis, was at once
+rejected. So there was nothing for it but to fight.</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie did his best to induce his men to advance on the city that
+evening; but as most of his followers had been led to expect that there
+would be no resistance, and no bloodshed, they were shocked and
+discouraged by Col. Moodie's death, as well as by those of Anderson and
+one or two others. A picket of volunteers under Col. Jarvis, fired on
+them, when not far within the toll-gate, killing one and wounding two
+others, and retired still firing. After this the insurgents lost all
+confidence, and even threatened to shoot Mackenzie himself, for
+reproaching them with cowardice. A farmer living by the roadside told me
+at the time, that while a detachment of rebels were marching southwards
+down the hill, since known as Mount Pleasant, they saw a waggon-load of
+cordwood standing on the opposite rise, and supposing it to be a piece
+of artillery loaded to the muzzle with grape or canister, these brave
+warriors leaped the fences right and left like squirrels, and could by
+no effort of their officers be induced again to advance.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the principal buildings in the city&mdash;the City Hall, Upper
+Canada Bank, the Parliament Buildings, Osgoode Hall, Government House,
+the Canada Company's office, and many private dwellings and shops, were
+put in a state of defence by barricading the windows and doors with
+two-inch plank, loopholed for musketry; and the city bore a rather
+formidable appearance. Arms and ammunition were distributed to all
+householders who chose to accept them. I remember well the trepidation
+with which my friend Heughen shrank from touching the musket that was
+held out for his acceptance; and the outspoken indignation of the
+militia sergeant, whose proffer of the firearm was declined. The poor
+hairdresser told me afterwards, that many of his customers were rebels,
+and that he dreaded the loss of their patronage.</p>
+
+<p>The same evening came Mr. Speaker McNab, with a steamer from Hamilton,
+bringing sixty of the "men of Gore." It was an inspiriting thing to see
+these fine fellows land on the wharf, bright and fresh from their short
+voyage, and full of zeal and loyalty. The ringing cheers they sent forth
+were re-echoed with interest by the townsmen. From Scarborough also,
+marched in a party of militia, under Captain McLean.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the same day that a lady, still living, was travelling by
+stage from Streetsville, on her way through Toronto to Cornwall, having
+with her a large trunk of new clothing prepared for a long visit to her
+relatives. Very awkwardly for her, Mackenzie had started, at the head of
+a few men, from Yonge Street across to Dundas Street, to stop the stage
+and capture the mails, so as to intercept news of Dr. Duncombe's rising
+in the London District. Not content with seizing the mail-bags and all
+the money they contained, Mackenzie himself, pistol in hand, demanded
+the surrender of the poor woman's portmanteau, and carried it off
+bodily. It was asserted at the time that he only succeeded in evading
+capture a few days after, at Oakville, by disguising himself in woman's
+clothes, which may explain his raid upon the lady's wardrobe; for which,
+I believe, she failed to get any compensation whatsoever under the
+Rebellion Losses Act. This lady afterwards became the wife of John F.
+Rogers, who was my partner in business for several subsequent years.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the next day, Wednesday, parties of men arrived from
+Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville, Port Credit and other places in greater or
+less numbers&mdash;many of them Orangemen, delighted with their new
+occupation. The Lieutenant-Governor was thus enabled to vacate the City
+Hall and take up his headquarters in the Parliament Buildings; and
+before night as many as fifteen hundred volunteers were armed and
+partially drilled. Among them were a number of Mackenzie's former
+supporters, with their sons and relatives, now thoroughly ashamed of the
+man, and utterly alienated by his declared republicanism.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning followed the "Battle of Gallows Hill," or, as it might more
+fitly be styled, the "Skirmish of Montgomery's Farm." Being a stranger
+in the city, I had not then formally volunteered, but took upon myself
+to accompany the advancing force, on the chance of finding something to
+do, either as a volunteer or a newspaper correspondent, should an
+opening occur. The main body, led by Sir Francis himself, with Colonels
+Fitzgibbon and McNab as Adjutants, marched by Yonge Street, and
+consisted of six hundred men with two guns; while two other bodies, of
+two hundred and a hundred and twenty men, respectively, headed by
+Colonels W. Chisholm and S. P. Jarvis, advanced by bye-roads and fields
+on the east and on the west of Yonge Street. Nothing was seen of the
+enemy till within half-a-mile of Montgomery's tavern. The road was there
+bordered on the west side by pine woods, from whence dropping
+rifle-shots began to be heard, which were answered by the louder muskets
+of the militia. Presently our artillery opened their hoarse throats, and
+the woods rang with strong reverberations. Splinters were dashed from
+the trees, threatening, and I believe causing worse mischief than the
+shots themselves. It is said that this kind of skirmishing continued
+for half-an-hour&mdash;to me it seemed but a few minutes. As the militia
+advanced, their opponents melted away. Parties of volunteers dashed over
+the fences and into the woods, shouting and firing as they ran. Two or
+three wounded men of both parties were lifted tenderly into carts and
+sent off to the city to be placed in hospital. Others lay bleeding by
+the road-side&mdash;rebels by their rustic clothing; their wounds were bound
+up, and they were removed in their turn. Soon a movement was visible
+through the smoke, on the hill fronting the tavern, where some tall
+pines were then standing. I could see there two or three hundred men,
+now firing irregularly at the advancing loyalists; now swaying to and
+fro without any apparent design. Some horsemen were among them, who
+seemed to act more as scouts than as leaders.</p>
+
+<p>We had by this time arrived within cannon shot of the tavern itself. Two
+or three balls were seen to strike and pass through it. A crowd of men
+rushed from the doors, and scattered wildly in a northerly direction.
+Those on the hill wavered, receded under shelter of the undulating land,
+and then fled like their fellows. Their horsemen took the side-road
+westward, and were pursued, but not in time to prevent their escape. Had
+our right and left wings kept pace with the main body, the whole
+insurgent force must have been captured.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Francis halted his men opposite the tavern, and gave the word to
+demolish the building, by way of a severe lesson to the disaffected.
+This was promptly done by firing the furniture in the lower rooms, and
+presently thick clouds of smoke and vivid flames burst from doors and
+windows. The battalion next moved on to perform the same service at
+Gibson's house, several miles further north. Many prisoners were taken
+in the pursuit, all of whom Sir Francis released, after admonishing them
+to be better subjects in future. The march back to Toronto was very
+leisurely executed, several of the mounted officers carrying dead pigs
+and geese slung across their saddle-bows as trophies of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, volunteers for the city guard were called for, and among them
+I was regularly enrolled and placed under pay, at three shillings and
+nine pence per diem. My captain was George Percival Ridout; and his
+brother, Joseph D. Ridout, was lieutenant. Our company was duly drilled
+at the City Hall, and continued to do duty as long as their services
+were required, which was about four months. I have a vivid recollection
+of being stationed at the Don Bridge to look out for a second visit from
+Peter Matthews's band of rebels, eighty of whom had attempted to burn
+the bridge, and succeeded in burning three adjoining houses; also, of
+being forgotten and kept there without food or relief throughout a
+bitter cold winter's night and morning. Also, of doing duty as sentry
+over poor old Colonel Van Egmond, a Dutch officer who had served under
+Napoleon I., and who was grievously sick from exposure in the woods and
+confinement in gaol, of which he soon afterwards died. Another day, I
+was placed, as one of a corporal's guard, in charge of Lesslie's
+stationery and drug-store, and found there a saucy little shop-boy who
+has since developed into the portly person of Alderman Baxter, now one,
+and not the least, of our city notabilities. The guards and the guarded
+were on the best of terms. We were treated with much hospitality by Mr.
+Joseph Lesslie, late Postmaster of Toronto, and have all been excellent
+friends ever since. Our corporal, I ought to say, was Anthony Blachford,
+since a well-known and respected citizen.</p>
+
+<p>Those were exciting times in Toronto. The day after the battle, six
+hundred men of Simcoe, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dewson, came
+marching down Yonge Street, headed by Highland pipers playing the
+national pibroch. In their ranks I first saw Hugh Scobie, a stalwart
+Scotsman, afterwards widely known as publisher of the <i>British Colonist</i>
+newspaper. With this party were brought in sixty prisoners, tied to a
+long rope, most of whom were afterwards released on parole.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two afterwards, entered the volunteers from the Newcastle
+District, who had marched the whole distance from Brockville, under the
+command, I think, of Lieutenant-Colonel Ogle R. Gowan. They were a fine
+body of men, and in the highest spirits at the prospect of a fight with
+the young Queen Victoria's enemies.</p>
+
+<p>A great sensation was created when the leaders who had been arrested
+after the battle, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, John G. Parker, and two
+others, preceded by a loaded cannon pointed towards the prisoners, were
+marched along King Street to the Common Jail, which is the same building
+now occupied as York Chambers, at the corner of Toronto and Court
+Streets. The Court House stood, and still stands, converted into shops
+and offices, on Church Street; between the two was an open common which
+was used in those days as the place of public executions. It was here
+that, on the 12th of April following, I witnessed, with great sorrow,
+the execution by hanging of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of the
+principal rebel leaders.</p>
+
+<p>Sir F. B. Head had then left the Province.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The following narrative of circumstances which occurred during the time
+when Mackenzie was in command of the rebel force on Yonge Street, has
+been kindly communicated to me by a gentleman, who, as a young lad, was
+personally cognizant of the facts described. It has, I believe, never
+been published, and will interest many of my readers:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was on Monday morning, the 5th of December, 1837, when
+rumours of the disturbances that had broken out in Lower Canada
+were causing great excitement throughout the Home District, that
+the late James S. Howard's servant-man, named Bolton, went into
+his master's bed-room and asked if Mr. H. had heard shots fired
+during the night. He replied that he had not, and told the man
+to go down to the street and find out what was the matter.
+Bolton returned shortly with the news, that a man named Anderson
+had been shot at the foot of the hill, and that his body was
+lying in a house near by. Shortly after came the startling
+report of the death of poor Col. Moodie, which was a great shock
+to Mrs. Howard, who knew him well, and was herself a native of
+Fredericton, where the Colonel's regiment (the old Hundred and
+Fourth) had been raised during the war of 1812. Mr. Howard
+immediately ordered his carriage, and started for the city, from
+whence he did not return for ten days. About nine o'clock, a man
+named Pool, who held the rank of captain in the rebel army,
+called at Mr. Howard's house, to ask if Anderson's body was
+there. Being told where it was said to be, he turned and went
+away. Immediately afterwards, the first detachment of the rebel
+army came in sight, consisting of some fifteen or twenty men,
+who drew up on the lawn in front of the house. Presently, at the
+word of command they wheeled round and went away in search of
+the dead rebel. Next came three or four men (loyalists) hurrying
+down the road, who said that there were five hundred rebels
+behind them. Then was heard the report of fire arms, and anon
+more armed men showed themselves along the brow of Gallows Hill,
+and took up ground near the present residence of Mr. Hooper.
+About eleven o'clock, another detachment appeared, headed by a
+man on a small white horse, almost a pony, who turned out to be
+the commander-in-chief, Mackenzie himself. He wore a great coat
+buttoned up to the chin, and presented the appearance of being
+stuffed. In talking among themselves, the men intimated that he
+had on a great many coats, as if to make himself bullet proof.
+To enable the man on the white pony to enter the lawn, his men
+wrenched off the fence boards; he entered the house without
+knocking, took possession of the sitting room where Mrs. and
+Miss Howard and her brother were sitting, and ordered dinner to
+be got ready for fifty men. Utterly astonished at such a demand,
+Mrs. Howard said she could do nothing of the kind. After abusing
+Mr. Howard for some time&mdash;who had incurred his dislike by
+refusing him special privileges at the Post Office&mdash;Mackenzie
+said Howard had held his office long enough, and that it was
+time somebody else had it. Mrs. Howard at length referred him to
+the servant in the kitchen; which hint he took, and went to see
+about dinner himself. There happened to be a large iron
+sugar-kettle, in which was boiling a sheep killed by dogs
+shortly before. This they emptied, and refilled with beef from a
+barrel in the cellar. A baking of bread just made was also
+confiscated, and cut up by a tall thin man, named Eckhardt, from
+Markham. While these preparations were going on, other men were
+busy in the tool house mending their arms, which consisted of
+all sorts of weapons, from chisels and gouges fixed on poles, to
+hatchets, knives and guns of all descriptions. About two o'clock
+there was a regular stampede, and the family were left quite
+alone, much to their relief; with the exception of a young
+Highland Scotchman mounting guard. He must have been a recent
+arrival from the old country, as he wore the blue jacket and
+trowsers of the sea-faring men of the western isles. Mrs. Howard
+seeing all the rest had left, went out to speak to him, saying
+she regretted to see so fine a young Scotchman turning rebel
+against his Queen. His answer was, "Country first, Queen next."
+He told her that it was the flag of truce which had called his
+comrades away. About half-past three they all returned, headed
+by the commander-in-chief, who demanded of Mrs. Howard whether
+the dinner he had ordered was ready? She said it was just as
+they had left it. Irritated at her coolness he got very angry,
+shook his horse-whip, pulled her from her chair to the window,
+bidding her look out and be thankful that her own house was not
+in the same state. He pointed to Dr. Horne's house at Blue Hill,
+on the east side of the road, which during his absence he had
+set on fire, much to the disappointment of his men, whom, though
+very hungry, he would not allow to touch anything, but burnt all
+up. There was considerable grumbling among the men about it.
+Poor Lount, who was with them, told Mrs. Howard not to mind
+Mackenzie, but to give them all they wanted, and they would not
+harm her. They got through their dinner about dusk, and returned
+to the lawn, where they had some barrels of whiskey. They kept
+up a regular&mdash;or rather an irregular firing all night. The
+family were much alarmed, having only one servant woman with
+them; the man Bolton had escaped for fear as he said of being
+taken prisoner by the rebels. There the men remained until
+Wednesday, when they returned to Montgomery's tavern, a mile or
+two up the street, where is now the village of Eglinton. About
+eleven o'clock in the morning, the loyalist force marched out to
+attack the rebels, who were posted at the Paul Pry Inn, on the
+east side of the road, with their main body at Montgomery's,
+some distance further north. It was a very fine sunny day, and
+the loyalists made a formidable appearance, as the sun shone on
+their bright musket-barrels and bayonets. The first shot fired
+was from the artillery, under the command of Captain Craig; it
+went through the Paul Pry under the eaves and out of the roof.
+The rebels took to the woods on each side of the road, which at
+that time were much nearer than at present. Thomas Bell, who had
+charge of a company of volunteers, said that on the morning of
+the battle, a stranger asked leave to accompany him. The man
+wore a long beard, and was rumoured to have been one of
+Napoleon's officers. Mr. Bell saw him take aim at one of the
+retreating rebels, who was crouching behind a stump, firing at
+the loyalists. Nothing could be seen but the top of his head.
+The stranger fired with fatal effect. The dead man turned out to
+be a farmer of the name of Widman, from Whitchurch. Montgomery's
+tavern, a large building on the hill-side of the road, was next
+attacked, and was quickly evacuated by the flying rebels, who
+got into the woods to the west and dispersed. It was then that
+Mackenzie made his escape. The tavern having been the rebel
+head-quarters, and the place from which Col. Moodie was shot,
+was set on fire and burned down. The house of Gibson, another
+rebel rendezvous, about eight miles north, was also burnt. With
+that small effort the rebellion in Upper Canada was crushed. A
+few days after, some fifty or sixty rebel prisoners from about
+Sharon and Lloydtown, were marched down to the city, roped
+together, two and two in a long string; and shortly afterwards a
+volunteer corps&mdash;commanded by Colonels Hill and Dewson, raised
+amongst the log-cabin settlers, in the County of Simcoe, came
+down in sleighs to the city, where they did duty all winter. It
+was an extraordinary fact, that these poor settlers, living in
+contentment in their log-cabins, with their potato patches
+around, should turn out and put down a rebellion, originated
+among old settlers and wealthy farmers in the prosperous County
+of York. Mackenzie early lost the sympathies of a great
+proportion of his followers. One of them, named Jacob Kurtz,
+swore most lustily, the same winter, that if he could catch his
+old leader he would shoot him. While retreating eastward, a
+party of the rebels attempted to burn the Don Bridge, and would
+have succeeded, but for the determined efforts of a Mrs. Ross,
+who put out the fire, at the expense of a bullet in her knee;
+the ball was extracted by the late Dr. Widmer, who was very
+popular about Yorkville and the east end of the city."</p></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>t is now forty-five years since the last act of the rebellion was
+consummated, by the defeat of Duncombe's party in the London district,
+the punishment of Sutherland's brigands at Windsor, and the destruction
+of the steamer <i>Caroline</i> and dispersal of the discreditable ruffians,
+of whom their "president," Mackenzie, was heartily sick, at Navy Island.
+None of these events came within my own observation, and I pass them by
+without special remark.</p>
+
+<p>But respecting Sir Francis Bond Head and his antagonist, I feel that
+more should be said, in justice to both. It is eminently unfair to
+censure Sir Francis for not doing that which he was not commissioned to
+do. Even so thorough a Reformer and so just a man as Earl Russell, had
+failed to see the advisability of extending "responsible government" to
+any of Her Majesty's Colonies. Up to the time of Lord Durham's report in
+1839, no such proposal had been even mooted; and it appears to have been
+the general opinion of British statesmen, at the date of Sir Francis
+Head's appointment, that to give a responsible ministry to Canada was
+equivalent to offering her independence. In taking it for granted that
+Canadians as a whole were unfit to have conferred on them the same
+rights of self-government as were possessed by Englishmen, Irishmen and
+Scotchmen in the old country, consisted the original error. This error,
+however, Sir Francis shared with the Colonial Office and both Houses of
+the Imperial Parliament. Since those days the mistake has been admitted,
+and not Canada alone, but the Australian colonies and South Africa have
+profited by our advancement in self-government.</p>
+
+<p>As for Sir Francis's personal character, even Mackenzie's biographer
+allows that he was frank, kindly and generous in an unusual degree. That
+he won the entire esteem of so many men of whom all Canadians of
+whatever party are proud&mdash;such men as Chief Justice Robinson, Bishop
+Strachan, Chief Justices Macaulay, Draper and McLean, Sir Allan N.
+McNab, Messrs. Henry Ruttan, Mahlon Burwell, Jno. W. Gamble and many
+others, I hold to be indubitable proof of his high qualities and honest
+intentions. Nobody can doubt that had he been sent here to carry out
+responsible government, he would have done it zealously and honourably.
+But he was sent to oppose it, and, in opposing it, he simply did his
+duty.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> well qualified to judge, and who knew him personally, has
+favoured me with the following remarks apropos of the subject, which I
+have pleasure in laying before my readers:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As a boy, I had a sincere admiration for his [Sir Francis's]
+devoted loyalty, and genuine English character; and I have since
+learnt to respect and appreciate with greater discrimination his
+great services to the Crown and Empire. He was a little Quixotic
+perhaps. He had a marked individuality of his own. But he was as
+true as steel, and most staunch to British law and British
+principle in the trying days of his administration in Canada.
+His loyalty was chivalrous and magnetic; by his enlightened
+enthusiasm in a good cause he evoked a true spirit of loyalty in
+Upper Canada, that had well-nigh become extinct, being overlaid
+with the spirit of ultra-radicalism that had for years
+previously got uppermost among our people. But Upper Canada
+loyalty had a deep and solid foundation in the patriotism of the
+U. E. Loyalists, a noble race who had proved by deeds, not
+words, their attachment to the Crown and government of the
+mother land. These U. E. Loyalists were the true founders of
+Upper Canada; and they were forefathers of whom we may be justly
+proud&mdash;themselves 'honouring the father and the mother'&mdash;their
+sovereign and the institutions under which they were born&mdash;they
+did literally obtain the promised reward of that 'first
+commandment with promise,' viz.: length of days and honour."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>William Lyon Mackenzie was principally remarkable for his indomitable
+perseverance and unhesitating self-reliance. Of toleration for other
+men's opinions, he seems to have had none. He did, or strove to do,
+whatsoever he himself thought right, and those who differed with him he
+denounced in the most unmeasured terms. For example, writing of the
+Imperial Government in 1837, he says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Small cause have Highlanders and the descendants of Highlanders
+to feel a friendship for the Guelphic family. If the Stuarts had
+their faults, they never enforced loyalty in the glens and
+valleys of the north by banishing and extirpating the people; it
+was reserved for the Brunswickers to give, as a sequel to the
+massacre of Glencoe, the cruel order for depopulation. I am
+proud of my descent from a rebel race; who held borrowed
+chieftains, a scrip nobility, rag money and national debt in
+abomination. . . . Words cannot express my contempt at
+witnessing the servile, crouching attitude of the country of my
+choice. If the people felt as I feel, there is never a Grant or
+Glenelg who crossed the Tay and Tweed to exchange high-born
+Highland poverty for substantial Lowland wealth, who would dare
+to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler,
+of such an equivocal character as this Mr. what do they call
+him&mdash;Francis Bond Head."</p></div>
+
+<p>Had Mackenzie confined himself to this kind of vituperation, all might
+have gone well for him, and for his followers. People would only have
+laughed at his vehemence. The advocacy of the principle of responsible
+government in Canada would have been and was taken up by Orangemen, U.
+E. Loyalists, and other known Tories. Ever since the day when the
+manufacture of even a hob-nail in the American colonies was declared by
+English statesmen to be intolerable, the struggle has gone on for
+colonial equality as against imperial centralization. The final adoption
+of the theory of ministerial responsibility by all political parties in
+Canada, is Mackenzie's best justification.</p>
+
+<p>But he sold himself in his disappointment to the republican tempter, and
+justly paid the penalty. That he felt this himself long before he died,
+will be incontestably shown by his own words, which I copy from Mr.
+Lindsey's "Life of Mackenzie," vol. ii., page 290:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"After what I have seen here, I frankly confess to you that, had
+I passed nine years in the United States before, instead of
+after, the outbreak, I am very sure I would have been the last
+man in America to be engaged in it."</p></div>
+
+<p>And, again, page 291:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A course of careful observations during the last eleven years
+has fully satisfied me that, had the violent movements in which
+I and many others were engaged on both sides of the Niagara
+proved successful, that success would have deeply injured the
+people of Canada, whom I then believed I was serving at great
+risks; that it would have deprived millions, perhaps, of our own
+countrymen in Europe of a home upon this continent, except upon
+conditions which, though many hundreds of thousands of
+immigrants have been constrained to accept them, are of an
+exceedingly onerous and degrading character. . . . There is not
+a living man on this continent who more sincerely desires that
+British Government in Canada may long continue, and give a home
+and a welcome to the old countryman, than myself."</p></div>
+
+<p>Of Mackenzie's imprisonment and career in the United States, nothing
+need be said here. I saw him once more in the Canadian Parliament after
+his return from exile, in the year 1858. He was then remarkable for his
+good humour, and for his personal independence of party. His chosen
+associates were, as it seemed to me, chiefly on the Opposition or
+Conservative side of the House.</p>
+
+<p>Before closing this chapter, I cannot help referring to the unfortunate
+men who suffered in various ways. They were farmers of the best class,
+and of the most simple habits. The poor fellows who lay wounded by the
+road side on Yonge Street, were not persons astute enough to discuss
+political theories, but feeble creatures who could only shed bitter
+tears over their bodily sufferings, and look helplessly for assistance
+from their conquerors. There were among them boys of twelve or fifteen
+years old, one of whom had been commissioned by his ignorant old mother
+at St. Catharines, to be sure and bring her home a check-apron full of
+tea from one of the Toronto groceries.</p>
+
+<p>I thought at the time, and I think still, that the Government ought to
+have interfered before matters came to a head, and so saved all these
+hapless people from the cruel consequences of their leaders' folly. On
+the other hand, it is asserted that neither Sir Francis nor his Council
+could be brought to credit the probability of an armed rising. A friend
+has told me that his father, who was then a member of the Executive
+Council, attended a meeting as late as nine o'clock on the 4th December,
+1837. That he returned home and retired to rest at eleven. In half an
+hour a messenger from Government House came knocking violently at the
+door, with the news of the rising; when he jumped out of bed exclaiming,
+"I hope Robinson will believe me next time." The Chief Justice had
+received with entire incredulity the information laid before the
+Council, of the threatened movement that week.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>RESULTS IN THE FUTURE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>hatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy&mdash;whether we
+prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal&mdash;there can be no
+doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of
+Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American
+continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in
+Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved
+a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old
+colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty
+alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think,
+that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard
+of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and
+especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into
+the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837,
+it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic
+and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And
+it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven
+Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and
+the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old
+country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial
+connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously
+repudiates any such policy as suicidal.</p>
+
+<p>That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier
+atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued
+moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one
+confidently hold&mdash;with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due
+to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority&mdash;Divine
+and secular&mdash;I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare
+hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important
+characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to
+all who care to read correctly the signs of the times.</p>
+
+<p>The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best
+clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of
+us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry,
+home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general
+desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On
+the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and
+notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded
+into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum
+or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a
+purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for
+Mormonism.</p>
+
+<p>I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens
+in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the
+flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any
+controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the
+popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And
+so&mdash;we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada
+may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national
+faults such as theirs.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONFIRMED TORY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y good friend and host, Henry Cook Todd, was one of the most
+uncompromising Tories I ever met with. He might have sat for the
+portrait of Mr. Grimwig in "Oliver Twist." Like that celebrated old
+gentleman, "his bark was aye waur than his bite." He would pour out a
+torrent of scorn and sarcasm upon some luckless object of his
+indignation, public or private; and, having exhausted the full vials of
+his wrath, would end with some kind act toward, perhaps, the very person
+he had been anathematizing, and subside into an amiable mood of
+compassion for the weaknesses of erring mankind generally.</p>
+
+<p>He was a graduate of the University of Oxford, and afterwards had charge
+of a large private school in one of the English counties. Having
+inherited and acquired a moderate competency, he retired into private
+life; but later on he lost by the failure of companies wherein his
+savings had been invested. He then commenced business as a bookseller,
+did not succeed, and finally decided, at the persuasion of his wife's
+brother, Mr. William P. Patrick, of Toronto, to emigrate to Canada.
+Having first satisfied himself of the prudence of the step, by a tour in
+the United States and Canada, he sent for his family, who arrived here
+in 1833.</p>
+
+<p>His two sons, Alfred and Alpheus, got the full benefit of their father's
+classical attainments, and were kept closely to their studies. At an
+early age, their uncle Patrick took charge of their interests, and
+placed them about him in the Legislative Assembly, where I recollect to
+have seen one or both of them, in the capacity of pages, on the floor of
+the House. From that lowly position, step by step, they worked their
+way, as we have seen, to the very summit of their respective
+departments.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Todd was also an accomplished amateur artist, and drew exquisitely.
+An etching of the interior of Winchester Cathedral, by him, I have never
+seen surpassed.</p>
+
+<p>He was fond of retirement and of antiquarian reading, and, while engaged
+in some learned philological investigation, would shut himself up in his
+peculiar sanctum and remain invisible for days, even to his own family.</p>
+
+<p>Between the years 1833 and 1840, Mr. Todd published a book, entitled
+"Notes on Canada and the United States," and I cannot better illustrate
+his peculiar habits of thought, and mode of expressing them, than by
+quoting two or three brief passages from that work, and from "Addenda"
+which I printed for him myself, in 1840:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As an acidulated mixture with the purest element will embitter
+its sweetness, so vice and impurity imported to any country must
+corrupt and debase it. To this hour, when plunderers no longer
+feel secure in the scenes of their misdeeds, or culprits would
+evade the strong arm of the law, to what country do they escape?
+America&mdash;for here, if not positively welcomed (?), they are, at
+least, safe. If it be asked, did not ancient Rome do the same
+thing? I answer, slightly so, whilst yet an infant, but never in
+any shape afterwards; but America, by still receiving, and with
+open arms, the vicious and the vile from all corners of the
+earth, does so in her full growth. As she therefore plants, so
+must she also reap.</p>
+
+<p>* * * "The Episcopal clergy in this country [United States] were
+originally supported by an annual contribution of tobacco, each
+male, so tithable, paying 40lbs.; the regular clergy of the then
+thinly-settled state of Virginia receiving 16,000 lbs. yearly as
+salary. In Canada they are maintained by an assignment of lands
+from the Crown, which moreover extends its assistance to
+ministers of other denominations; so that the people are not
+called upon to contribute for that or any similar purpose; and
+yet, such is the deplorable abandonment to error, and obstinate
+perversion of fact, amongst the low or radical party here&mdash;a
+small one, it is true, but not on that account less
+censurable&mdash;that this very thing which should ensure their
+gratitude is a never-ending theme for their vituperation and
+abuse; proving to demonstration, that no government on earth, or
+any concession whatever, can long satisfy or please them.</p>
+
+<p>* * * "The mention of periodicals reminds me, that newspapers on
+the arrival of a stranger are about the first things he takes
+up; but on perusing them, he must exercise his utmost judgment
+and penetration; for of all the fabrications, clothed too in the
+coarsest language, that ever came under my observation, many
+papers here, for low scurrility, and vilifying the authorities,
+certainly surpass any I ever met with. It is to be regretted
+that men without principle and others void of character should
+be permitted thus to abuse the public ear. * * The misguided
+individuals in the late disturbance, on being questioned upon
+the subject, unreservedly admitted, that until reading
+Mackenzie's flagitious and slanderous newspaper, they were
+happy, contented, and loyal subjects."</p></div>
+
+<p>When the seat of Government was removed to Kingston, Mr. Todd's family
+accompanied it thither; but he remained in Toronto, to look after his
+property, which was considerable, and died here at the age of 77.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>NEWSPAPER EXPERIENCES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">E</span>arly in the year 1838, I obtained an engagement as manager of the
+<i>Palladium</i>, a newspaper issued by Charles Fothergill, on the plan of
+the New York <i>Albion</i>. The printing office, situated on the corner of
+York and Boulton Streets, was very small, and I found it a mass of
+little better than <i>pi</i>, with an old hand-press of the Columbian
+pattern. To bring this office into something like presentable order, to
+train a rough lot of lads to their business, and to supply an occasional
+original article, occupied me during great part of that year. Mr.
+Fothergill was a man of talent, a scholar, and a gentleman; but so
+entirely given up to the study of natural history and the practice of
+taxidermy, that his newspaper received but scant attention, and his
+personal appearance and the cleanliness of his surroundings still less.
+He had been King's Printer under the Family Compact r&eacute;gime, and was
+dismissed for some imprudent criticism upon the policy of the
+Government. His family sometimes suffered from the want of common
+necessaries, while the money which should have fed them went to pay for
+some rare bird or strange fish. This could not last long. The
+<i>Palladium</i> died a natural death, and I had to seek elsewhere for
+employment.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the visitors at Mr. Todd's house was John F. Rogers, an
+Englishman, who, in conjunction with George H. Hackstaff, published the
+Toronto <i>Herald</i>, a weekly journal of very humble pretensions. Mr.
+Hackstaff was from the United States, and found himself regarded with
+great distrust, in consequence of the Navy Island and Prescott
+invasions. He therefore offered to sell me his interest in the newspaper
+and printing office for a few dollars. I accepted the offer, and thus
+became a member of the Fourth Estate, with all the dignities,
+immunities, and profits attaching thereto. From that time until the year
+1860, I continued in the same profession, publishing successively the
+<i>Herald</i>, <i>Patriot</i>, <i>News of the Week</i>, <i>Atlas</i> and <i>Daily Colonist</i>
+newspapers, and lastly the Quebec <i>Advertiser</i>. I mention them all now,
+to save wearisome details hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>I have a very lively recollection of the first job which I printed in my
+new office. It was on the Sunday on which St. James's Cathedral was
+burnt owing to some negligence about the stoves. Our office was two
+doors north of the burnt edifice, on Church Street, where the Public
+Library now stands; and I was hurriedly required to print a small
+placard, announcing that divine service would be held that afternoon at
+the City Hall, where I had then recently drilled as a volunteer in the
+City Guard.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Herald</i> was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the
+Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar
+features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight
+into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself
+chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and
+press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an
+occasional paragraph or musical notice.</p>
+
+<p>The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in
+Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume
+of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which
+could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With
+this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from
+relating:</p>
+
+<p>I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next
+door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west
+corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of
+fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of
+manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did
+so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted
+indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more,
+defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he
+could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some
+subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to
+a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally
+apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because
+his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time
+in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working
+on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the
+printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was
+first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little
+education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was
+King's printer in Australia.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was
+just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition
+rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where
+it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved
+to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early
+German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at
+one impression, and perfecting the sheet&mdash;or printing the obverse, as
+medallists would say&mdash;with other four pages. Archie was tall and
+strong&mdash;I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after
+some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press.
+Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful,
+conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling,
+never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty
+of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on
+with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was
+suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar
+and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it
+tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my
+foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he
+was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry
+Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of
+Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just
+west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to
+practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went
+to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and
+naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money.</p>
+
+<p>The country was at the time in a state of general civil war; not only
+was there national strife between two political parties for the
+ascendency, but in many of the separate states <i>pronunciamentos</i>
+(proclamations) were issued against the men in power, followed by bloody
+contests between the different factions. In the "united state" of
+Coahuila and Nuevo-Leon, in which the doctor then resided, General
+Vidauri held the reins of power at Monterey, the capital; and General
+Aramberri flew to arms to wrest the government from him. The opposing
+armies were no other than bands of robbers and murderers. Aramberri's
+forces had passed near the town of Salinas, where the doctor lived,
+plundering everybody on their route. Next day Vidauri's troops came in
+pursuit, appropriating everything of value which had not been already
+confiscated. General Julio Quiroga, one of the most inhuman and cruel
+monsters of the republic&mdash;a native of the town, near which he had but
+recently been a cowherd (gauad&eacute;ro)&mdash;commanded the pursuing force. On the
+evening previous to his entry, a <i>peon</i> (really a slave, though slavery
+was said to have been abolished in the republic) had been severely
+injured in a quarrel with another of his class, and the doctor was sent
+for by the Alcalde to dress his wounds. As the man was said to belong to
+a rich proprietor, the doctor objected unless his fee were assured. An
+old, rough, and dirty-looking man thereupon stepped forward and said he
+would be answerable for the pay, stating at the same time that his name
+was Quiroga, and that he was the father of Don Julio! When General
+Quiroga heard his father's account of the affair, he had the wounded man
+placed in the stocks in the open plaza under a broiling sun; fined the
+Alcalde $500 for not having done so himself, as well as for not having
+imprisoned the Doctor; had the Doctor arrested by an armed guard under a
+lieutenant, and in the presence of a dozen or more officers ordered him
+to be shot within twenty minutes for having insulted his (Quiroga's)
+father. The execution, however, as may be inferred, did not take place.
+The explanation the Doctor gives of his escape is a curious one. He
+cursed and swore at the General so bitterly and rapidly in English (not
+being at the time well versed in Spanish expletives) that Don Julio was
+frightened by his grimaces, and the horrible unknown words that issued
+from his lips, and fell off his chair in an epileptic fit, to which he
+was subject. The Doctor had the clothing about the General's throat and
+chest thrown open, and dashed some cold water in his face. On reviving,
+Quiroga told the Doctor to return to his house; that he need be under
+no fear; said he supposed the difficulty was caused by his (the
+Doctor's) not understanding the Spanish language; and added, that he
+intended to consult our friend some day about those <i>atagues</i> (fits).
+Quiroga never returned to Salinas during the Doctor's stay there, and
+some years after these events, like most Mexican generals, was publicly
+executed, thus meeting the fate he had so cruelly dealt out to many
+better men than himself, and to which he had sentenced our
+fellow-citizen.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor remained in Mexico till the French invasion in 1863, when,
+partly on account of the illness of his wife, and partly because of the
+disturbed state of the country, he returned to Toronto. He practised his
+profession here and became a well-known public character, still, he
+said, cherishing a warm love for the sunny south, styling the land of
+the Montezumas "<i>Mi Mejico amado</i>"&mdash;my beloved Mexico&mdash;and corresponding
+with his friends there, who but very recently offered him some
+inducements to return.</p>
+
+<p>That truant boy was afterwards known as Dr. Archibald A. Riddel,
+ex-alderman, and for many years coroner for the City of Toronto, which
+latter office he resigned so lately as the 30th of June, 1883. He died
+in December last, and was buried in the Necropolis, whither his remains
+were followed by a large concourse of sympathizing friends.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he burning of St. James's Cathedral in 1839, marks another phase of my
+Toronto life, which is associated with many pleasant and some sorrowful
+memories. The services of the Church of England were, for some months
+after that event, conducted in the old City Hall. The choir was an
+amateur one, led by Mr. J. D. Humphreys, whose reputation as an
+accomplished musician must be familiar to many of my readers. Of that
+choir I became a member, and continued one until my removal to Carlton
+in 1853. During those fourteen years I was concerned in almost every
+musical movement in Toronto, wrote musical notices, and even composed
+some music to my own poetry. An amateur glee club, of which Mr. E. L.
+Cull, until lately of the Canada Company's office, and myself are
+probably the only survivors, used occasionally to meet and amuse
+ourselves with singing glees and quartettes on Christmas and New Year's
+Eve, opposite the houses of our several friends. It was then the custom
+to invite our party indoors, to be sumptuously entertained with the good
+things provided for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the time passed away after the rebellion, and during the period of
+Sir George Arthur's stay in Canada, without the occurrence of any
+public event in which I was personally concerned. Lord Durham came; made
+his celebrated Report: and went home again. Then followed Lord Sydenham,
+to whom I propose to pay some attention, as with him commenced my first
+experience of Canadian party politics.</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie's rebellion had convinced me of the necessity of taking and
+holding firm ground in defence of monarchical institutions, as opposed
+to republicanism. It is well known that nearly all Old Country Whigs,
+when transplanted to Canada, become staunch Tories. So most moderate
+Reformers from the British Isles are classed here as Liberal
+Conservatives. Even English Chartists are transformed into Canadian
+Anti-Republicans.</p>
+
+<p>I had been neither Chartist nor ultra-Radical, but simply a quiet
+Reformer, disposed to venerate, but not blindly to idolize, old
+institutions, and by no means to pull down an ancient fabric without
+knowing what kind of structure was to be erected in its place. Thus it
+followed, as a matter of course, that I should gravitate towards the
+Conservative side of Canadian party politics, in which I found so many
+of the solid, respectable, well-to-do citizens of Toronto had ranged
+themselves.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>LORD SYDENHAM'S MISSION.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have frequently remarked that, although in England any person may pass
+a life-time without becoming acquainted with his next-door neighbour, he
+can hardly fall into conversation with a fellow-countryman in Canada,
+without finding some latent link of relationship or propinquity between
+them. Thus, in the case of Mr. C. Poulett Thomson, I trace more than one
+circumstance connecting that great man with my humble self. He was a
+member&mdash;the active member&mdash;of the firm of Thomson, Bonar &amp; Co., Russia
+Merchants, Cannon Street, London, at the same time that my
+brother-in-law, William Tatchell, of the firm of Tatchell &amp; Clarke,
+carried on the same business of Russia Merchants in Upper Thames Street.
+There were occasional transactions between them: and my brother Thomas,
+who was chief accountant in the Thames Street house, has told me that
+the firm of Thomson, Bonar &amp; Co. was looked upon in the trade with a
+good deal of distrust, for certain sharp practices to which they were
+addicted.</p>
+
+<p>Again, Sir John Rae Reid, of the East India Company, had been the Tory
+member of Parliament for Dover. On his retirement, Mr. Poulett Thomson
+started as Reform candidate for the same city. I knew the former
+slightly as a neighbour of my mother's, at Ewell, in Surrey, and felt
+some interest in the Dover election in consequence. It was in the old
+borough-mongering times, and the newspapers on both sides rang with
+accounts of the immense sums that were expended in this little Dover
+contest, in which Mr. Thomson, aided by his party, literally bought
+every inch of his way, and succeeded in obtaining his first seat in the
+House of Commons, at a cost, as his biographer states, of &pound;3,000
+sterling. In the matter of corruption, there was probably little
+difference between the rival candidates.</p>
+
+<p>The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, it was understood in England,
+always had the dirty work of the Melbourne Ministry to do; and it was
+probably his usefulness in that capacity that recommended him for the
+task of uniting the two Canadas, in accordance with that report of Lord
+Durham, which his lordship himself disavowed.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> That Mr. Thomson did
+his work well, cannot be denied. He was, in fact, the Castlereagh of
+Canadian Union. What were the exact means employed by him in Montreal
+and Toronto is not known, but the results were visible enough.
+Government officials coerced, sometimes through the agency of their
+wives, sometimes by direct threats of dismissal; the Legislature
+overawed by the presence and interference of His Excellency's
+secretaries and aides-de-camp; votes sought and obtained by appeals to
+the personal interests of members of Parliament. These and such-like
+were the dignified processes by which the Union of the Canadas was
+effected, in spite of the unwillingness of at least one of the parties
+to that ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>His Excellency did not even condescend to veil his contempt for his
+tools. When a newly nominated Cabinet Minister waited upon the great man
+with humility, to thank him for an honour for which he felt his
+education did not qualify him, the reported answer was&mdash;"Oh, I think you
+are all pretty much alike here."</p>
+
+<p>In Toronto, anything like opposition to His Excellency's policy was
+sought to be silenced by the threat of depriving the city of its tenure
+of the Seat of Government. The offices of the principal city journals,
+the <i>Patriot</i> and <i>Courier</i>, were besieged by anxious subscribers,
+entreating that nothing should appear at all distasteful to His
+Excellency. Therefore it happened, that our little sheet, the <i>Herald</i>,
+became the only mouth-piece of Toronto dissentients; and was well
+supplied with satires and criticisms upon the politic manoeuvres of
+Government House. We used to issue on New Year's Day a sheet of
+doggerel verses, styled, "The News Boy's Address to his Patrons," which
+gave me an opportunity, of which I did not fail to avail myself, of
+telling His Excellency some wholesome truths in not very complimentary
+phrase. It is but justice to him to say, that he enjoyed the fun, such
+as it was, as much as anybody, and sent a servant in livery to our
+office, for extra copies to be placed on his drawing-room tables for the
+amusement of New Year's callers, to whom he read them himself. I am
+sorry that I cannot now treat my readers to extracts from those sheets,
+which may some centuries hence be unearthed by future Canadian
+antiquaries, as rare and priceless historical documents.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the course he pursued be thought creditable or the reverse,
+there is no doubt that Lord Sydenham did Canada immense service by the
+measures enacted under his dictation. The Union of the Provinces,
+Municipal Councils, Educational Institutions, sound financial
+arrangements, and other minor matters, are benefits which cannot be
+ignored. But all these questions were carried in a high-handed,
+arbitrary manner, and some of them by downright compulsion. To connect
+in any way with his name the credit of bestowing upon the united
+provinces "Responsible Government" upon the British model, is a gross
+absurdity.</p>
+
+<p>In the Memoirs of his lordship, by his brother, Mr. G. Poulett Scrope,
+page 236, I find the following plain statements:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the subject of 'Responsible Government,' which question was
+again dragged into discussion by Mr. Baldwin, with a view of
+putting the sincerity of the Government to the test, he (Lord
+S.) introduced and carried unanimously a series of resolutions
+in opposition to those proposed by Mr. Baldwin, distinctly
+recognising the irresponsibility of the Governor to any but the
+Imperial authorities, and placing the doctrine on the sound and
+rational basis which he had ever maintained."</p></div>
+
+<p>What that "sound and rational basis" was, is conclusively shown in an
+extract from one of his own private letters, given on page 143 of the
+same work:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I am not a bit afraid of the Responsible Government cry. I have
+already done much to put it down in its inadmissible sense,
+namely, that the Council shall be responsible to the Assembly,
+and that the Government shall take their advice, and be bound by
+it. In fact, this demand has been made much more <i>for</i> the
+people than <i>by</i> them. And I have not met with any one who has
+not at once admitted the absurdity of claiming to put the
+Council over the head of the Governor. It is but fair too, to
+say that everything has in times past been done by the different
+Governors to excite the feelings of the people on this question.
+First, the Executive Council has generally been composed of the
+persons most obnoxious to the majority of the Assembly; and
+next, the Governor has taken extreme care to make every act of
+his own go forth to the public <i>on the responsibility</i> of the
+Executive Council. So the people have been carefully taught to
+believe that the Governor is nobody, and the Executive Council
+the real power, and that by the Governor himself. At the same
+time they have seen that power placed in the hands of their
+opponents. Under such a system it is not to be wondered at, if
+one argument founded on the responsibility of the Governor to
+the Home Government falls to the ground. I have told the people
+plainly that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the
+Home Government, I will place no responsibility on the Council;
+that they are <i>a Council</i> for the Governor to consult, but no
+more. And I have yet met with no 'Responsible Government' man,
+who was not satisfied with the doctrine. In fact, there is no
+other theory which has common sense. Either the Governor is the
+Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers,
+but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all
+colonial government becomes impossible. He must, therefore, be
+the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of
+men in the colony."</p></div>
+
+<p>It is only just that the truth should be clearly established on this
+question. Responsible Government was not an issue between Canadian
+Reformers and Tories in any sense; but exclusively between the Colonies
+and the statesmen of the Mother Country. On several occasions prior to
+Mackenzie's Rebellion, Tory majorities had affirmed the principle; and
+Ogle R. Gowan, an influential Orangeman, had published a pamphlet in its
+favour. Yet some recent historians of Canada have fallen into the
+foolish habit of claiming for the Reform party all the good legislation
+of the past forty years, until they seem really to believe the figment
+themselves.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>I am surprised that writers who condemn Sir F. B. Head for acting as his
+own Prime Minister, in strict accordance with his instructions, can see
+nothing to find fault with in Lord Sydenham's doing the very same thing
+in an infinitely more arbitrary and offensive manner. Where Sir Francis
+persuaded, Lord Sydenham coerced, bribed and derided.</p>
+
+<p>Lower Canada was never consulted as to her own destiny. Because a
+fraction of her people chose to strike for independence, peaceable
+French Canadians were treated bodily as a conquered race, with the
+undisguised object of swamping their nationality and language, and
+over-riding their feelings and wishes. It is said that the result has
+justified the means. But what casuistry is this? What sort of friend to
+Responsible Government must he be, who employs force to back his
+argument? To inculcate the voluntary principle at the point of the
+bayonet, is a peculiarly Hibernian process, to say the least.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>TORIES OF THE REBELLION TIMES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">H</span>aving, I hope, sufficiently exposed the misrepresentations of party
+writers, who have persistently made it their business to calumniate the
+Loyalists of 1837-8, I now proceed to the pleasanter task of recording
+the good deeds of some of those Loyalists, with whom I was brought into
+personal contact. I begin with&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h3><a name="G_T_DENISON" id="G_T_DENISON"></a>ALDERMAN GEORGE T. DENISON, SEN.</h3>
+
+<p>No Toronto citizen of '37 can fail to recall the bluff, hale,
+strongly-built figure of George Taylor Denison, of Bellevue, the very
+embodiment of the English country squire of the times of Addison and
+Goldsmith. Resolute to enforce obedience, generous to the poor, just and
+fair as a magistrate, hospitable to strangers and friends, a sound and
+consistent Churchman, a brave soldier and a loyal subject, it seemed
+almost an anachronism to meet with him anywhere else than at his own
+birth-place of Dover Court, within sight of the Goodwin Sands, in the
+old-fashioned County of Essex, in England.</p>
+
+<p>He was the son of John Denison, of Hedon, Yorkshire, and was born in
+1783. He came with his father to Canada in 1792, and to Toronto in 1796.
+Here he married the only daughter of Captain Richard Lippincott, a noted
+U. E. Loyalist, who had fought through the Civil War in the revolted
+Colonies now forming the United States. In the war of 1812, Mr. Denison
+served as Ensign in the York Volunteers, and was frequently employed on
+special service. He was the officer who, with sixty men, cut out the
+present line of the Dundas Road, from the Garrison Common to Lambton
+Mills, which was necessary to enable communication between York and the
+Mills to be carried on without interruption from the hostile fleet on
+the lake. During the attack on York, in the following year, he was
+commissioned to destroy our vessels in the Bay, to save them from
+falling into the enemy's hands. With some he succeeded, but on one
+frigate the captain refused to obey the order, and while the point was
+in dispute, the enemy settled the question by capturing the ship, in
+consequence of which Mr. Denison was held as a prisoner for several
+months, until exchanged.</p>
+
+<p>Of his services and escapes during the war many amusing stories are
+told. He was once sent with a very large sum in army bills&mdash;some
+$40,000&mdash;to pay the force then on the Niagara River. To avoid suspicion,
+the money was concealed in his saddle-bags, and he wore civilian's
+clothing. His destination was the village of St. David's. Within a mile
+or two of the place, he became aware of a cavalry soldier galloping
+furiously towards him, who, on coming up, asked if he was the officer
+with the money, and said he must ride back as fast as possible; the
+Yankees had driven the British out of St. David's, and parties of their
+cavalry were spreading over the country. Presently another dragoon came
+in sight, riding at speed and pursued by several of the enemy's
+horsemen. Ensign Denison turned at once, and after an exciting chase for
+many miles, succeeded in distancing his foes and escaping with his
+valuable charge.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion, he had under his orders a number of boats employed
+in bringing army munitions from Kingston to York. Somewhere near Port
+Hope, while creeping alongshore to avoid the United States vessels
+cruising in the lake, he observed several of them bearing down in his
+direction. Immediately he ran his boats up a small stream, destroying a
+bridge across its mouth to open a passage, and hid them so effectually
+that the enemy's fleet passed by without suspecting their presence.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1821, Captain Denison formed the design to purchase the
+farm west of the city, now known as the Rusholme property. The owner
+lived at Niagara. A friend who knew of his intention, told him one
+summer's morning, while he was looking at some goods in a store, that he
+would not get the land, as another man had left that morning for
+Niagara, in Oates's sloop, to gain the start of him. The day being
+unusually fine, Mr. Denison noticed that the sloop was still in sight,
+becalmed a mile or two off Gibraltar Point. Home he went, put up some
+money for the purchase, mounted his horse and set out for Niagara round
+the head of the lake, travelling all day and through the night, and
+arriving shortly after daybreak. There he saw the sloop in the river,
+endeavouring with the morning breeze to make the landing. To rouse up
+the intending vendor, to close the bargain, and get a receipt for the
+money, was soon accomplished; and when the gentleman who had hoped to
+forestall him came on the scene, he was wofully chopfallen to find
+himself distanced in the race.</p>
+
+<p>From the close of the war until the year 1837, Mr. Denison was occupied,
+like other men of his position, with his duties as a magistrate, the
+cultivation of his farm, and the rearing of his family. In 1822, he
+organized the cavalry corps now known as the Governor-General's
+Body-Guard. When the rebellion broke out, he took up arms again in
+defence of the Crown, and on the day of the march up Yonge Street, was
+entrusted with the command of the Old Fort. At about noon a body of men
+was seen approaching. Eagerly and anxiously the defenders waited,
+expecting every moment an onset, and determined to meet it like men. The
+suspense lasted some minutes, when suddenly the Major exclaimed, "Why
+surely that's my brother Tom!" And so it was. The party consisted of a
+number of good loyalists, headed by Thomas Denison, of Weston, hastening
+to the aid of the Government against Mackenzie and his adherents. Of
+course, the gates were soon thrown open, and, with hearty cheers on both
+sides, the new-comers entered the Fort.</p>
+
+<p>For six months Major Denison continued in active service with his
+cavalry, and in the summer of 1838, was promoted to command the
+battalion of West York Militia. His eldest son, the late Richard L.
+Denison, succeeded to the command of the cavalry corps, which was kept
+on service for six months in the winter of 1838-9.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Denison was elected an alderman of Toronto in the year 1834, and
+served in the same capacity up to the end of 1843.</p>
+
+<p>That he was quite independent of the "Family Compact," or of any other
+official clique, is shown by the fact, that on Mackenzie's second
+expulsion from the House of Assembly in 1832, Alderman Denison voted
+for his re-election for the County of York.</p>
+
+<p>Our old friend died in 1853, leaving four sons, viz.: Richard L.
+Denison, of Dover Court, named above; the late George Taylor Denison, of
+Rusholme; Robert B. Denison, of Bellevue, now Deputy-Adjutant-General
+for this district; Charles L. Denison, of Brockton: and also one
+daughter, living. Among his grandchildren are Colonel George T. Denison,
+commanding the Governor-General's Body Guard, and Police Magistrate;
+Major F. C. Denison, of the same corps: and Lieutenant John Denison, R.
+N. The whole number of the Canadian descendants of John Denison, of
+Hedon, now living, is over one hundred.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<a name="R_L_DENISON" id="R_L_DENISON"></a><p>Col. Richard Lippincott Denison, eldest son of the above, was born June
+13th, 1814, at the old family estate near Weston, on the Humber River,
+and followed the occupation of farming all his life. During the troubles
+of 1837-8, he served his country as captain in command of a troop of the
+Queen's Light Dragoons. He took a prominent part in the organization of
+the Agricultural and Arts Association in 1844, and for twenty-two years
+was its treasurer. In 1855, he was a commissioner from Canada at the
+great exposition in Paris, France. He also held a prominent position in
+the different county and township agricultural societies for over
+forty-five years; was one of the first directors of the Canada Landed
+Credit Company, and served on its board for several years; was at one
+time President of the late Beaver Fire Insurance Company; and at the
+time of his death, President of the Society of York Pioneers. For many
+years he commanded the Militia in the West Riding of the City of
+Toronto; and was alderman for St. Stephen's Ward in the City Council,
+which he represented at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in
+1876.</p>
+
+<p>As a private citizen, Richard L. Denison was generally popular,
+notwithstanding his strongly-marked Toryism, and outspoken bluntness of
+speech. His portly presence, handsome features, flowing beard, and
+kindly smile were universally welcomed; and when he drove along in his
+sleigh on a bright winter's day, strangers stopped to look at him with
+admiration, and to ask who that fine-looking man was? Nor did his
+personal qualities belie his noble exterior. For many years his house at
+Dover Court was one continuous scene of open-handed hospitality. He was
+generous to a fault; a warm friend, and an ever reliable comrade.</p>
+
+<p>He died March 10th, 1878, at the age of sixty-four years, leaving his
+widow and eight sons and one daughter. Few deaths have left so wide a
+gap as his, in our social circles.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<a name="GEO_T_DENISON" id="GEO_T_DENISON"></a><p>Colonel George T. Denison, of Rusholme, second son of Alderman George T.
+Denison, sen., was born 17th of July, 1816, at Bellevue, Toronto. He was
+educated at Upper Canada College, and became a barrister in 1840.</p>
+
+<p>He was a volunteer in Col. Fitzgibbon's rifle company, prior to the
+Rebellion of 1837, and attended every drill until it was disbanded. On
+the Rebellion breaking out, he served for a while as one of the guard
+protecting the Commercial Bank; and was in the force that marched out to
+Gallows Hill and dispersed Mackenzie's followers. A few days after, he
+went as lieutenant in a company of militia, forming part of the column
+commanded by Col. Sir A. MacNab, to the village of Scotland, in the
+County of Brant, and from thence to Navy Island, where he served
+throughout the whole siege. He was one of the three officers who carried
+the information to Sir Allan, which led to the cutting out and
+destruction of the steamer <i>Caroline</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1838, he was appointed lieutenant in his father's troop of
+cavalry, now the Governor-General's Body Guard; and then just placed
+under the command of his brother, the late Col. Richard L. Denison. He
+served for six months in active service that winter, and put in a course
+of drill for some weeks with the King's Dragoon Guards, at Niagara.</p>
+
+<p>He was alderman for St. Patrick's ward for some years. In 1849, when
+Lord Elgin, in Toronto, opened the session of Parliament, Col. G. T.
+Denison escorted His Excellency to and from the Parliament House.</p>
+
+<p>The following account of this affair is copied from the "Historical
+Record of the Governor-General's Body Guard," by Capt. F. C. Denison:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In Montreal, during the riots that followed the passage of the
+Rebellion Losses bill, the troops of cavalry that had been on
+regular service for over ten years, forgot their discipline,
+forgot their duty to their Queen's representative, forgot their
+<i>esprit de corps</i>, and sat on their horses and laughed while the
+mob were engaged in pelting Lord Elgin with eggs. This Toronto
+troop acted differently, and established a name then for
+obedience to orders, that should be looked back to with pride by
+every man who ever serves in its ranks. Unquestionably there was
+a great deal politically to tempt them from their duty, and to
+lead them to remain inactive if nothing worse. But their sense
+of duty to their Queen, through her representative, was so
+strong, that they turned out, taking the Governor-General safely
+to and from the Parliament Buildings, much against the will of a
+noisy, turbulent crowd. This was an excellent proof of what
+<i>esprit de corps</i> will do, and of the good state the troop must
+have been in. His Excellency was so pleased with the loyalty,
+discipline and general conduct of the escort on this occasion,
+that he sent orders to the officer commanding, to dismount his
+men, and bring them into the drawing room. By His Excellency's
+request, Captain Denison presented each man individually to him,
+and he shook hands with them all, thanking them personally for
+their services. They were then invited to sit down to a handsome
+lunch with His Excellency's staff."</p></div>
+
+<p>In 1855, when the volunteer force was created, Col. Denison took a
+squadron of cavalry into the new force, and afterwards organized the
+Toronto Field Battery, and in 1860, the Queen's Own Rifles; and was
+appointed commandant of the 5th and 10th Military Districts, which
+position he held until his death. He was recommended, with Colonel
+Sewell and Colonel Dyde, for the order of St. Michael and St. George;
+but before the order was granted he had died, and Col. Dyde, C.M.G.,
+alone of the three, lived to enjoy the honour. Col. Denison was the
+senior officer in Ontario at the time of his death, and may be said to
+have been the father of the volunteer force of this district.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h3><a name="ALDERMAN_DIXON" id="ALDERMAN_DIXON"></a>ALDERMAN DIXON.</h3>
+
+<p>Few persons engaged in business took a more prominent part in the early
+history of Toronto, and in the political events of the time, than the
+subject of this sketch. For several years he was engaged in trade in the
+City of Dublin, being the proprietor of the most extensive business of
+the kind, in saddlery and hardware, having the contracts for the supply
+of the cavalry in the Dublin garrison, and also the Viceregal
+establishment. At that time he took a very active part in the political
+warfare of the day, when Daniel O'Connell was in the zenith of his
+power. He and Mr. S. P. Bull&mdash;father of the late Senator Harcourt P.
+Bull&mdash;were active agents in organizing the "Brunswick Lodges," which
+played no inconsiderable part in the politics of that exciting period.
+The despondency that fell upon Irish Protestant loyalists when the
+Emancipation Bill became law, induced many to emigrate to America, and
+among them Mr. Dixon. Though actively employed in the management of his
+business both in Dublin and Toronto, yet he had found time to lay in a
+solid foundation of standard literature, and even of theological lore,
+which qualified him to take a position in intellectual society of a high
+order. He also possessed great readiness of speech, a genial,
+good-natured countenance and manner, and a fund of drollery and comic
+wit, which, added to a strong Irish accent he at times assumed, made him
+a special favourite in the City Council, as well as at public dinners,
+and on social festive occasions. I had the privilege of an intimate
+acquaintance with him from 1838 until his death, and can speak with
+confidence of his feelings and principles.</p>
+
+<p>Though so thoroughly Irish, his ancestors came originally from
+Lanarkshire in Scotland, in the reign of James I., and held a grant of
+land in the north of Ireland. He felt proud of one of his ancestors, who
+raised a troop of volunteer cavalry, lost an arm at the Battle of the
+Boyne, and was rewarded by a captain's commission given under King
+William's own hand a few days after. His own father served in the "Black
+Horse," a volunteer regiment of much note in the Irish rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Dixon came to York, his intention was to settle at Mount
+Vernon, in the State of Ohio, where he had been informed there was an
+Episcopal College, and a settlement of Episcopalians on the College
+territory. In order to satisfy himself of the truth of these statements,
+he travelled thither alone, leaving his family in the then town of York.
+Disappointed in the result of his visit, he returned here, and had
+almost made up his mind to go back to Dublin, but abandoned the
+intention in consequence of the urgent arguments of the Hon. John Henry
+Dunn, Receiver-General,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> who persuaded him to remain. His first step
+was to secure a lease of the lot of land on King Street, where the
+Messrs. W. A. Murray &amp; Co's. warehouses now stand. He built there two
+frame shops, which were considered marvels of architecture at that day,
+and continued to occupy one of them until Wellington Buildings, between
+Church and Toronto Streets, were erected by himself and other
+enterprising tradesmen. Merchants of all ranks lived over their shops in
+those times, and very handsome residences these buildings made.</p>
+
+<p>In 1834, Mr. Dixon was elected alderman for St. Lawrence Ward, which
+position he continued to hold against all assailants, up to the end of
+1850. He was also a justice of the peace, and did good service in that
+capacity. In the City Council no man was more useful and industrious in
+all good works, and none exercised greater influence over its
+deliberations.</p>
+
+<p>When the troubles of 1837 began, Alderman Dixon threw all his energies
+into the cause of loyalty, and took so active a part in support of Sir
+F. B. Head's policy, that his advice was on most occasions sought by the
+Lieutenant-Governor, and frequently acted upon. Many communications on
+the burning questions of the day passed between them. This continued
+throughout the rule of Sir George Arthur, and until the arrival of the
+Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, who cared little for the opinions of
+other men, however well qualified to advise and inform. Mr. Dixon was
+too independent and too incorruptible a patriot for that accomplished
+politician.</p>
+
+<p>Few men in Toronto have done more for the beautifying of our city. The
+Adelaide Buildings on King Street were long the handsomest, as they were
+the best built, of their class. His house, at the corner of Jarvis and
+Gerrard Streets, set an example for our finest private residences. The
+St. Lawrence Hall, which is considered by visitors a great ornament to
+the city, was erected from plans suggested by him. And among religious
+edifices, Trinity Church and St. James's Cathedral are indebted to him,
+the former mainly and the latter in part, for their complete adaptation
+in style and convenience, to the services of the Church to which he
+belonged and which he highly venerated. To Trinity Church, especially,
+which was finished and opened for divine service on February 14th, 1844,
+he gave himself up with the most unflagging zeal and watchfulness,
+examining the plans in the minutest details, supervising the work as it
+progressed, almost counting the bricks and measuring the stonework, with
+the eye of a father watching his infant's first footsteps. In fact, he
+was popularly styled "the father and founder of Trinity Church," a
+designation which was justly recognised by Bishop Strachan in his
+dedication sermon.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>As a friend, I had something to say respecting most of his building
+plans, and fully sympathized with the objects he had in view; one of the
+fruits of my appreciation was the following poem, which, although of
+little merit in itself, is perhaps worth preserving as a record of
+honourable deeds and well employed talents:</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wake, harp of Zion, silent long,</span>
+<span class="i2">Nor voiceless and unheard be thou</span>
+<span class="i0">While meetest theme of sacred song</span>
+<span class="i2">Awaits thy chorded numbers now!</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Too seldom, 'mid the sounds of strife</span>
+<span class="i2">That rudely ring unwelcome here,</span>
+<span class="i0">Thy music soothes this fever'd life</span>
+<span class="i2">With breathings from a holier sphere.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The warrior, wading deep in crime,</span>
+<span class="i2">Desertless, lives in poets' lays;</span>
+<span class="i0">The statesman wants not stirring rhyme</span>
+<span class="i2">To cheer the chequer'd part he plays:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And Zion's harp, to whom alone,</span>
+<span class="i2">Soft-echoing, higher themes belong,</span>
+<span class="i0">Oh lend thy sweet aerial tone&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">'Tis meek-eyed Virtue claims the song.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beyond the limits of the town</span>
+<span class="i2">A summer's ramble, may be seen</span>
+<span class="i0">A scattered suburb, newly grown,</span>
+<span class="i2">Rude huts, and ruder fields between.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Life's luxuries abound not there,</span>
+<span class="i2">Labour and hardship share the spot;</span>
+<span class="i0">Hope wrestles hard with frowning care,</span>
+<span class="i2">And lesser wants are heeded not.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Religion was neglected too&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas far to town&mdash;the poor are proud&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">They could not boast a garb as new,</span>
+<span class="i2">And shunn'd to join the well-drest crowd.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">No country church adorned the scene,</span>
+<span class="i2">In modest beauty smiling fair,</span>
+<span class="i0">Of mien so peaceful and serene,</span>
+<span class="i2">The poor man feels his home is there.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Oh England! with thy village chimes,</span>
+<span class="i2">Thy church-wed hamlets, scattered wide,</span>
+<span class="i0">The emigrant to other climes</span>
+<span class="i2">Remembers thee with grateful pride;</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And owns that once at home again,</span>
+<span class="i2">With fonder love his heart would bless</span>
+<span class="i0">Each humble, lowly, halo&euml;d fane</span>
+<span class="i2">That sanctifies thy loveliness.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">But here, alas! the heart was wrung</span>
+<span class="i2">To see so wan, so drear a waste&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Life's thorns and briars rankly sprung,</span>
+<span class="i2">And peace and love, its flowers, displaced.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And weary seasons pass'd away,</span>
+<span class="i2">As time's fast ebbing tide roll'd by,</span>
+<span class="i0">To thousands rose no Sabbath-day,</span>
+<span class="i2">They lived&mdash;to suffer&mdash;sin&mdash;and die!</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Then men of Christian spirit came,</span>
+<span class="i2">They saw the mournful scene with grief;</span>
+<span class="i0">To such it e'er hath been the same</span>
+<span class="i2">To know distress and give relief.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">They told the tale, nor vainly told&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">They won assistance far and wide;</span>
+<span class="i0">His heart were dull indeed and cold</span>
+<span class="i2">Who such petitioner denied.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">They chose a slightly rising hill</span>
+<span class="i2">That bordered closely on the road,</span>
+<span class="i0">And workmen brought of care and skill,</span>
+<span class="i2">And wains with many a cumbrous load.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">With holy prayer and chanted hymn</span>
+<span class="i2">The task was sped upon its way;</span>
+<span class="i0">And hearts beat high and eyes were dim</span>
+<span class="i2">To see so glad a sight that day.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And slowly as the work ascends,</span>
+<span class="i2">In just proportions strong and fair,</span>
+<span class="i0">How watchfully its early friends</span>
+<span class="i2">With zealous ardour linger near.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">'Tis finished now&mdash;a Gothic pile,</span>
+<span class="i2">&mdash;Brave handiwork of faith and love&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">In England's ancient hallowed style,</span>
+<span class="i2">That pointeth aye, like hope, above:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">With stately tower and turret high,</span>
+<span class="i2">And quaint-arch'd door, and buttress'd wall,</span>
+<span class="i0">And window stain'd of various dye,</span>
+<span class="i2">And antique moulding over all.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And hark! the Sabbath-going bell!</span>
+<span class="i2">A solemn tale it peals abroad&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">To all around its echoes tell</span>
+<span class="i2">"This building is the house of God!"</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Say, Churchman! doth no still, small voice</span>
+<span class="i2">Within you whisper&mdash;"while 'tis day</span>
+<span class="i0">Go bid the desert place rejoice!"</span>
+<span class="i2">Your Saviour's high behest obey:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">"Say not your pow'rs are scant and weak,</span>
+<span class="i2">What hath been done, may be anew;</span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">He</span> addeth strength to all who seek</span>
+<span class="i2">To serve Him with affection true."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Alderman Dixon was not only a thorough-going and free-handed Churchman,
+but was very popular with the ministers and pastors of other religious
+denominations. The heads of the Methodist Church, and even the higher
+Roman Catholic clergy of Toronto, frequently sought his advice and
+assistance to smooth down asperities and reconcile feuds. He was every
+man's friend, and had no enemies of whom I ever heard. He wrote with
+facility, and argued with skill and readiness. His memory was
+exceedingly retentive; he knew and could repeat page after page from
+Dryden's "Virgil" and Pope's "Homer." Any allusion to them would draw
+from him forty or fifty lines in connection with its subject. Mickle's
+"Lusiad" he knew equally well, and was fond of reciting its most
+beautiful descriptions of scenery and places in South Africa and India.
+He was an enthusiastic book-collector, and left a valuable library,
+containing many very rare and curious books he had brought from Dublin,
+and to which he made several additions. It is now in the possession of
+his eldest son, Archdeacon Dixon, of Guelph.</p>
+
+<p>With the Orange body, Alderman Dixon exercised considerable influence,
+which he always exerted in favour of a Christian regard for the rights
+and feelings of those who differed from them. On one occasion, and only
+one, I remember his suffering some indignity at their hands. He and
+others had exerted themselves to induce the Orangemen to waive their
+annual procession, and had succeeded so far as the city lodges were
+concerned. But the country lodges would not forego their cherished
+rights, and on "the 12th"&mdash;I forget the year&mdash;entered Toronto from the
+west in imposing numbers. At the request of the other magistrates,
+Alderman Dixon and, I think, the late Mayor Gurnett, met the procession
+opposite Osgoode Hall, and remonstrated with the leaders for
+disregarding the wishes of the City Council and the example of their
+city brethren. His eloquence, however, was of no avail, and he and his
+colleague were rudely thrust aside.</p>
+
+<p>As president of the St. Patrick's Society, he did much to preserve
+unanimity in that body, which then embraced Irishmen of all creeds among
+its members. His speeches at its annual dinners were greatly admired for
+their ability and liberality; and it was a favourite theme of his, that
+the three nationalities&mdash;Irish, Scotch and English&mdash;together formed an
+invincible combination; while if unhappily separated, they might have to
+succumb to inferior races. He concluded his argument on one occasion by
+quoting Scott's striking lines on the Battle of Waterloo:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yes&mdash;Agincourt may be forgot,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;And Cressy be an unknown spot,</span>
+<span class="i2">And Blenheim's name be new:</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;But still in glory and in song,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;For many an age remembered long,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;Shall live the tow'rs of Hougoumont</span>
+<span class="i2">And Field of Waterloo."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The peals of applause and rapture with which these patriotic sentiments
+were received, will not easily be forgotten by his hearers.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were his literary acquirements limited to such subjects. The works
+of Jeremy Taylor and the other great divines of the Stewart period, he
+was very familiar with, and esteemed highly. He was also a great
+authority in Irish history and antiquities; enquiries often came to him
+from persons in the United States and elsewhere, respecting disputed and
+doubtful questions, which he was generally competent to solve.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dixon was long an active member of the committee of the Church
+Society; and the first delegate of St. James's Church to the first
+Diocesan Synod. In these and all other good works, he was untiring and
+disinterested. Whenever there was any gathering of clergy he received as
+many as possible in his house, treating them with warm-hearted
+hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dixon died in the year 1855, leaving a large family of sons and
+daughters, of whom several have acquired distinction in various ways.
+His eldest son, Alexander, graduated in King's College, at the time when
+Adam Crooks, Judge Boyd, Christopher Robinson, Judge Kingsmill, D.
+McMichael, the Rev. W. Stennett, and others well known in public life,
+were connected with that university. Mr. Dixon was university prizeman
+in History and Belles-Lettres in his third year; took the prize for
+English oration; and wrote the prize poem two years in succession. He is
+now Rector of Guelph, and Archdeacon of the northern half of the Niagara
+diocese. He was also one of the contributors to the "Maple Leaf."</p>
+
+<p>William, second son of Alderman Dixon, was Dominion Emigration Agent in
+London, England, where he died in 1873. Concerning him, the Hon. J. H.
+Pope, Minister of Agriculture, stated that he "was the most correct and
+conscientious administrator he had ever met." He said further in
+Parliament:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Premier had gone so far as to state that the present Agent
+General was a person of wonderful ability, and had done more
+than his predecessors to promote emigration to Canada. He (Mr.
+Pope) regretted more than he could express the death of Mr.
+Dixon, the late agent. He was held in high esteem both here and
+in the old country, and was a gentleman who never identified
+himself with any political party, but fairly and honestly
+represented Canada."</p></div>
+
+<p>Another son, Major Fred. E. Dixon, is well known in connection with the
+Queen's Own, of Toronto.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>MORE TORIES OF REBELLION TIMES.</h3>
+
+
+<h3>EDWARD G. O'BRIEN.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y first introduction to this gentleman was on the day after I landed at
+Barrie, in 1833. He was then living at his log cottage at Shanty Bay, an
+indentation of the shore near the mouth of Kempenfeldt Bay, at the
+south-west angle of Lake Simcoe. I was struck with the comparative
+elegance pervading so primitive an establishment. Its owner was
+evidently a thorough gentleman, his wife an accomplished lady, and their
+children well taught and courteous. The surrounding scenery was
+picturesque and delightful. The broad expanse of the bay opening out to
+Lake Simcoe&mdash;the graceful sweep of the natural foliage sloping down from
+high banks to the water's edge&mdash;are impressed vividly upon my memory,
+even at this long interval of fifty years. It seemed to me a perfect gem
+of civilization, set in the wildest of natural surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>I was a commissioner of the Court of Requests at Barrie, along with Col.
+O'Brien, in 1834, and in that capacity had constant opportunities of
+meeting and appreciating him. He had seen service as midshipman in the
+Royal Navy, as well as in the Army; was an expert yachtsman of course;
+and had ample opportunities of indulging his predilection for the water,
+on the fine bay fronting his house. At that time it was no unusual thing
+in winter, to see wolves chasing deer over the thick ice of the bay. On
+one occasion, being laid up with illness, the Captain was holding a
+magistrate's court in his dining-room overlooking the bay. In front of
+the house was a wide lawn, and beyond it a sunken fence, not visible
+from the house. The case under consideration was probably some riotous
+quarrel among the inhabitants of a coloured settlement near at hand, who
+were constantly at loggerheads with each other or with their white
+neighbours. In the midst of the proceedings, the Captain happened to
+catch sight of a noble stag dashing across the ice, pursued by several
+wolves. He beckoned a relative who assisted on the farm, and whispered
+to him to get out the dogs. A few seconds afterwards the baying of the
+hounds was heard. The unruly suitors caught the sound, rushed to the
+window and door, then out to the grounds, plaintiff, defendant,
+constables and all, helter skelter, until they reached the sunken fence,
+deeply buried in snow, over which they tumbled <i>en masse</i>, amid a chorus
+of mingled shouts and objurgations that baffles description. Whether the
+hearing of the case was resumed that day or not, I cannot say, but it
+seems doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>His naval and military experience naturally showed itself in Colonel
+O'Brien's general bearing; he possessed the polished manners and
+high-bred courtesy of some old Spanish hidalgo, together with a
+sufficient share of corresponding hauteur when displeased. The first
+whispers of the Rebellion of 1837, brought him to the front. He called
+together his loyal neighbours, who responded so promptly that not a
+single able-bodied man was left in the locality; only women and
+children, and two or three male invalids, staying behind. With his men
+he marched for Toronto; but, when at Bond Head, received orders from the
+Lieutenant-Governor to remain there, and take charge of the district,
+which had been the head quarters of disaffection. When quiet was
+restored, he returned to Shanty Bay, and resided there for several
+years; occupying the position of chairman of the Quarter Sessions for
+the Simcoe District. After the erection of the County of Simcoe into a
+municipality, he removed with his family to Toronto, where he entered
+into business as a land agent; was instrumental in forming a company to
+construct a railroad to Lake Huron <i>via</i> Sarnia, of which he acted as
+secretary; afterwards organized and became manager of the Provincial
+Insurance Company, which position he occupied until 1857.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1840, died Mr. Thos. Dalton, proprietor and editor of the
+<i>Toronto Patriot</i> newspaper; the paper was continued by his widow until
+1848, when Col. O'Brien, through my agency, became proprietor of that
+journal, which I engaged to manage for him. The editor was his brother,
+Dr. Lucius O'Brien, a highly educated and talented, but not popular,
+writer. Col. O'Brien's motive in purchasing the paper was solely
+patriotic, and he was anxiously desirous that its columns should be
+closed to everything that was not strictly&mdash;even
+quixotically&mdash;chivalrous. His sensitiveness on this score finally led to
+a difference of opinion between the brothers, which ended in Dr.
+O'Brien's retirement.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, as a matter of course, the <i>Patriot</i> and the <i>Globe</i> were
+politically antagonistic. The <i>Colonist</i>, then conducted by Hugh Scobie,
+represented the Scottish Conservatives in politics, and the Kirk of
+Scotland in religious matters. Therefore, it often happened, that the
+<i>Patriot</i> and <i>Colonist</i> were allied together against the <i>Globe</i>; while
+at other times, the <i>Patriot</i> stood alone in its support of the English
+Church, and had to meet the assaults of the other two journals&mdash;a
+triangular duel, in fact. A spiteful correspondent of the <i>Colonist</i> had
+raked up some old Edinburgh slanders affecting the personal reputation
+of Mr. Peter Brown, father of George Brown, and joint publisher of the
+<i>Globe</i>. Those slanders were quoted editorially in the <i>Patriot</i>,
+without my knowledge until I saw them in print on the morning of
+publication. I at once expressed my entire disapproval of their
+insertion; and Col. O'Brien took the matter so much to heart, that,
+without letting me know his decision, he removed his brother from the
+editorship, and placed it temporarily in my hands. My first editorial
+act was, by Col. O'Brien's desire, to disavow the offensive allusions,
+and to apologize personally to Mr. Peter Brown therefor. This led to a
+friendly feeling between the latter gentleman and myself, which
+continued during his lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>On the 25th of May, 1849, the great fire occurred in Toronto, which
+consumed the <i>Patriot</i> office, as well as the cathedral and many other
+buildings. Soon afterwards Col. O'Brien sold his interest in the
+<i>Patriot</i> to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan.</p>
+
+<p>I have been favoured with the perusal of some "jottings" in the
+Colonel's own hand-writing, from which I make an extract, describing his
+first experience of the service at the age of fourteen, as midshipman on
+board H. M. 36 gun Frigate <i>Doris</i>, commanded by his father's cousin,
+Capt. (afterwards Admiral) Robert O'Brien:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The <i>Doris</i> joined the outward-bound fleet at Portsmouth, where
+about 1700 vessels of all sizes, from first-class Indiamen of
+1400 tons to small fruit-carriers from the Mediterranean of 60
+tons, were assembled for convoy. At first, and along the more
+dangerous parts of the Channel from privateers, the convoy
+continued to be a large one, including especially many of the
+smaller men-of-war, but among them were two or three
+line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates under orders for the
+Mediterranean. The whole formed a magnificent sight, not often
+seen. After a while the outsiders dropped off, some to one
+place, some to another, one large section being the North
+American trade, another the Mediterranean, until the <i>Doris</i> was
+left commodore of the main body, being the West Indiamen, South
+American traders, and Cape and East Indiamen, and a stately
+fleet it was. With the <i>Doris</i> was the <i>Salsette</i>, a frigate of
+the same class, and some smaller craft. This convoy, though
+small apparently for such a fleet in that very active war, was
+materially strengthened by the heavy armaments of the regular
+traders in the East India Company's service in the China trade,
+of which there were twelve, I think. These ships were arranged
+in two lines, between which all the others were directed to keep
+their course; the <i>Doris</i> leading in the centre between the two
+lines of Chinamen, and the <i>Salsette</i> bringing up the rear,
+while two or three sloops of war hovered about. My berth on
+board the <i>Doris</i> was that of signal midshipman, which was
+simply to keep an eye on every individual craft in the fleet. .
+. . . On reaching the Canaries, the fleet came to an anchor in
+Santa Cruz roads, at the island of Teneriffe, for the purpose of
+filling up water, and enabling the Indiamen to lay in a stock of
+wine for the round voyage. The <i>Doris</i> and larger ships outside,
+and the <i>Salsette</i> and smaller ones closer in, and an uncommon
+tight pack it was. The proper landing place, and only place
+indeed where casks could be conveniently shipped, was the mole,
+a long, narrow, high pier or wharf, with a flight of stairs or
+steps to the water. This was generally one jam from end to end,
+as well on the pier as on the water, crowded above by casks of
+all sizes, wine and water, every spare foot or interstice
+between the casks crammed with idle, lazy, loafing Portuguese,
+the scum and chief part of the population of the town, assembled
+there certainly not to work, but amazingly active and busy in
+looking on, swearing, directing and scolding&mdash;terribly in the
+seamen's way, and by them very unceremoniously kicked and flung
+aside and into the next man's path. Sometimes there was a
+scuffle, and then a rare scrimmage caused by a party of soldiers
+from the mole rushing in to keep the peace. They were
+immediately pitched into by the blue jackets, who instead of
+rolling their casks towards their boats, tacked as they called
+it, and sent the barrels flying among the soldiers' legs. More
+than one cask of wine in this manner went the wrong way over the
+pier, down among the boats below, where there was, in its own
+way, much the same state of confusion, with a good deal more
+danger. Ships' boats, from the jolly-boat manned by lads,
+hurried ashore to seek stray pursers' clerks with their small
+plunder, or stewards and servants with bundles of washed
+clothing&mdash;to the heavy launch loaded with water casks pushing
+out or striving to get in&mdash;each boat's crew utterly reckless,
+and under no control, intent only on breaking their own way in
+or out, so that it was marvellous how any escaped damage. And
+the thing reached its climax, when at daylight on the last day,
+the signal was made to prepare to weigh anchor. I had been
+ashore the day before, with a strong working party and three of
+the frigate's boats, under the command of one of the
+lieutenants, assisting the Indiamen in getting off their wine
+and water; and so, when sent this morning on the same duty, I
+was somewhat up to the work. I had therefore put on my worst
+clothes; all I wanted was to have my midshipman's jacket as
+conspicuous as possible, having discovered in the previous day's
+experience the value of the authority of discipline. Our work
+this day was also increased by the sure precursor of bad
+weather, a rising sea; and as the town is situated on an open
+roadstead, the surf on the beach, which, though always more or
+less an obstruction, had been hitherto passable, was now
+insurmountable; all traffic had to be crowded over the pier,
+including late passengers, men and women, and more than one
+bunch of children, with all the odds and ends of
+clothes-baskets, marketing, curiosities, &amp;c., &amp;c. What a scene!
+We naval mids found ourselves suddenly raised to great
+importance; and towards noon I became a very great man indeed.
+The <i>Doris</i> being outside, she was of course the first under
+weigh, and around her were the larger Indiamen, also getting
+under sail&mdash;the commodore constantly enforcing his signals by
+heavy firing. But big as these ships were, and notwithstanding
+their superior discipline, they had nearly as many laggards as
+the smaller fry. . . . All the forenoon the weather had been
+getting more and more threatening, and the breeze and sea rose
+together. About 11 o'clock a.m. we all knew that we were in for
+something in the shape of a gale, and the <i>Doris</i> made signal
+for her boats and the working party to return to the ship; and
+soon after, for the <i>Salsette</i> and the inshore ships to get
+under weigh. Our lieutenant, however, seeing the state of things
+ashore, directed me to remain with one of the cutters and three
+or four spare hands; and if the frigate should be blown off
+during the night, to get on board a particular vessel&mdash;a fast
+sailing South Sea whaler, that had acted as tender to the
+frigate, and whose master promised to look after us, as well as
+any others of the <i>Doris's</i> people who might still be on shore.
+Thus I was left in sole command, as the <i>Salsette</i> had also
+recalled her boats and working parties. Although she would send
+no help ashore, she remained still at anchor. Capt. Bowen, her
+commander, contenting himself with sheeting home his top-sails,
+and repeating the commodore's signal to the inshore ships. We
+afterwards found out the secret of all this. Bowen disliked the
+idea of playing second fiddle, and wanted to be commodore
+himself, and this was a beautiful opportunity to divide the
+fleet. But as matters got worse, and difficulties increased, we
+succeeded in getting them more under control. The crowd, both of
+casks and live stock on the wharf, and of boats beneath,
+gradually diminished. The merchant seamen, and especially the
+crews of the larger boats of the Indiamen, worked manfully. The
+smaller boats were taken outside, and regular gangs formed to
+pass all small parcels, and especially women and children
+passengers, across the inner heavy tier to them. This, the
+moment the seamen caught the idea, became great fun; and a
+rousing cheer was raised when a fat, jolly steward's wife was
+regularly parbuckled over the side of the pier, and passed,
+decently and decorously (on her back, she dare not kick for fear
+of showing her legs) like a bale of goods, from hand to hand, or
+rather from arms to arms, to a light gig outside all. This being
+successfully achieved, I turned to a party of passengers
+standing by, and who, though anxious themselves, could not help
+laughing, and proposed to pass them out in the same manner;
+making the first offer to a comely nurse-maid of the party. I
+was very near getting my ears boxed for my kindness and
+courtesy, so I turned to the mistress instead, who however
+contented herself by quietly enquiring whether there was no
+other way; of course another way was soon found; a few chairs
+were got, which were soon rigged by the seamen, by means of
+which, first the children, and then their elders, men and women,
+were easily passed down to the boats below, and from thence to
+the boat waiting safely outside. In all this work I was not only
+supported in authority by the different ships' officers and
+mates superintending their own immediate concerns, but also by a
+number of gentlemen, merchants and others, most of whom came
+down to the pier to see and assist their friends among the
+passengers safe off. By their help also I was enabled, not
+knowing a word of their language myself, to get material help
+from the Portuguese standing by; and also got the officer in
+command of the guard at the mole-head, to clear the pier of all
+useless hands, and place sentries here and there over stray
+packages, put down while the owners sought their own proper
+boats among the crowd. And so at length our work was fairly
+pushed through, and though late, I managed to get my party safe
+aboard our friend the whaler, who had kept his signal lights
+burning for us. Long before, the <i>Doris</i> had bore up, and under
+bare poles had drifted with a large portion of the fleet to the
+southward; and I saw no more of her, until some months
+afterwards I joined her in Macao Roads."</p></div>
+
+<p>This was in the year 1814; soon afterwards the peace with America put an
+end to our midshipman's prospects of advancement in the navy, to his
+great and life-long regret. He obtained a commission in the Scots Greys,
+and exchanged into the 58th Regiment, then under orders for service in
+the West Indies, where his health failed him, and he was compelled to
+retire on half-pay. But his love for the sea soon induced him to enter
+the merchant service, in which he made many voyages to the East. This
+also, a severe illness obliged him to resign, and to abandon the sea for
+ever. He then came to Canada, to seek his fortune in the backwoods,
+where I found him in 1833.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. O'Brien's relations with his neighbours in the backwoods were always
+kindly, and gratifying to both parties. One evening, some friends of his
+heard voices on the water, as a boat rowed past his grounds. One man
+asked "Who lives here?" "Mr. O'Brien," was the reply. "What is he like?"
+"He's a regular old tory." "Oh then, I suppose he's very proud and
+distant?" But that he was either proud or distant, his neighbour would
+not allow, and other voices joined in describing him as the freest and
+kindest of men&mdash;still they all agreed that he was a "regular old tory."
+The colonel was the last man in the world to object to such an epithet,
+but those who used it meant probably to describe his sturdy,
+uncompromising principles, and manly independence. A more utterly
+guileless, single-hearted man never breathed. Warm and tender-hearted,
+humble-minded and forgiving, he deplored his hastiness of temper, which
+was, indeed, due to nervous irritability, the result of severe illness
+coupled with heavy mental strain when young, from the effects of which
+he never entirely recovered. He was incapable of a mean thought or
+dishonourable deed, and never fully realized that there could be others
+who were unlike him in this respect. Hence, during the long course of
+his happy and useful, but not wholly prosperous life, he met each such
+lapse from his own high standard of honour with the same indignant
+surprise and pain. His habitual reverent-mindedness led him to respect
+men of all shades of thought and feeling, while to sympathize with
+sorrow and suffering was as natural to him as the air he breathed.</p>
+
+<p>A neighbour who had had a sudden, sharp attack of illness, meeting one
+of the colonel's family, said very simply, "I knew you had not heard
+that I was ill, for Mr. O'Brien has not been to see me; but please tell
+him I shall not be about for some time." The man looked upon it as a
+matter of course that his old friend the colonel would have gone to see
+him if informed of his illness.</p>
+
+<p>And if Mr. O'Brien's friends and neighbours have kindly recollections of
+him and of his family, these latter on their part are never tired of
+recalling unvarying friendliness and countless acts of kindness from all
+their neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving this subject, it may be appropriately added that Mrs.
+O'Brien (his wife) was his guardian angel&mdash;a mother in Israel&mdash;the nurse
+of the sick, the comforter of the miserable; wise, discreet, loving,
+patient, adored by children, the embodiment of unselfishness. To her
+Toronto was indebted for its first ragged school.</p>
+
+<p>A few years before the colonel's death, his foreman on the farm, living
+at the lodge, had five children, of whom three died there of diphtheria.
+Mrs. O'Brien brought the remainder to her own house&mdash;"The Woods,"&mdash;to
+try and save them, the parents being broken-hearted and helpless. It is
+said to have been a touching spectacle to see the old Colonel carrying
+about one poor dying child to soothe it, while Mrs. O'Brien nursed the
+other. Of these two, one died and the other recovered.</p>
+
+<p>The selfish are&mdash;happily&mdash;forgotten. The unselfish, never. Their memory
+lives in Shanty Bay as a sweet odour that never seems to pass away. It
+is still a frequent suggestion, "what would Mrs. O'Brien or the Colonel
+have done under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>In his declining years, failing health, and disease contracted in India,
+dimmed the cheerfulness of Mr. O'Brien's nature. But none so
+chivalrously anxious to repair an unintentional injury or a hasty word.</p>
+
+<p>He and his wife lie side by side in the burial ground of the church he
+was mainly instrumental in building. Over them is a simple monument in
+shape of an Irish cross&mdash;on it these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In loving remembrance of Edward George O'Brien, who died
+September 8, 1875, age 76: and of Mary Sophia his wife, who died
+October 14, 1876, age 78: This stone is raised by their
+children. He, having served his country by sea and land, became
+A.D. 1830 the founder of the settlement and mission of Shanty
+Bay. She was a true wife and zealous in all good works. Faithful
+servants, they rest in hope."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h3><a name="JOHN_GAMBLE" id="JOHN_GAMBLE"></a>JOHN W. GAMBLE.</h3>
+
+<p>"Squire Gamble"&mdash;the name by which this gentleman was familiarly known
+throughout the County of York&mdash;was born at the Old Fort in Toronto, in
+1799. His father, Dr. John Gamble, was stationed there as resident
+surgeon to the garrison. The family afterwards removed to Kingston,
+where the boy received his education. It was characteristic of him, that
+when about to travel to York, at the age of fifteen, to enter the store
+of the late Hon. Wm. Allan, he chose to make the journey in a canoe, in
+which he coasted along by day, and by night camped on shore. In course
+of time, he entered extensively into the business of a miller and
+country merchant, in which he continued all his life with some
+intervals.</p>
+
+<p>In manner and appearance Mr. Gamble was a fine specimen of a country
+magistrate of half a century ago. While the rougher sort of farming men
+looked up to him with very salutary apprehension, as a stern represser
+of vice and evil doing, they and everybody else did justice to his
+innate kindness of heart, and his generosity towards the poor and
+suffering. He was, in the best sense of the phrase, a popular man. His
+neighbours knew that in every good work, either in the way of personal
+enterprise, in the promotion of religious and educational objects, or in
+the furtherance of the general welfare, Squire Gamble was sure to be in
+the foremost place. His farm was a model to all others; his fields were
+better cleared; his fences better kept; his homestead was just
+perfection, both in point of orderly management and in an intellectual
+sense&mdash;at least, such was the opinion of his country neighbours, and
+they were not very far astray. Add to these merits, a tall manly form,
+an eagle eye, and a commanding mien, and you have a pretty fair picture
+of Squire Gamble.</p>
+
+<p>As a member of parliament, to which he was three times elected by
+considerable majorities, Mr. Gamble was hard-working and independent. He
+supported good measures, from whichever side of the House they might
+originate, and his vote was always safe for progressive reforms. His
+toryism was limited entirely to questions of a constitutional character,
+particularly such as involved loyalty to the throne and the Empire. And
+in this, Mr. Gamble was a fair representative of his class. And here I
+venture to assert, that more narrowness of political views, more
+rigidity of theological dogma, more absolutism in a party sense, has
+been exhibited in Canada by men of the Puritan school calling themselves
+Reformers, than by those who are styled Tories.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most important act of Mr. Gamble's political life, was the
+part he took in the organization of the British American League in 1849.
+Into that movement he threw all his energies, and the ultimate
+realization of its views affords the best proof of the correctness of
+his judgment and foresight. About it, however, I shall have more to say
+in another chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gamble, as I have said, was foremost in all public improvements. To
+his exertions are chiefly due the opening and construction of the
+Vaughan plank road, from near Weston, by St. Andrew's, to Woodbridge,
+Pine Grove, and Kleinburg; which gave an easy outlet to a large tract of
+country to the north-west of Toronto, and enabled the farmers to reach
+our market to their and our great mutual advantage.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man who made warm friends and active enemies, being very
+outspoken in the expression of his opinions and feelings. But even his
+strongest political foes came to him in full confidence that they were
+certain to get justice at his hands. And occasionally his friends found
+out, that no inducement of personal regard could warp his judgment in
+any matter affecting the rights of other men. In this way he made some
+bitter adversaries on his own side of politics.</p>
+
+<p>Among Mr. Gamble's public acts was the erection of the church at Mimico,
+and that at Pine Grove; in aid of which he was the chief promoter,
+giving freely both time and means to their completion. For years he
+acted as lay-reader at one or other of those churches, travelling some
+distance in all weathers to do so. His whole life, indeed, was spent in
+benefiting his neighbours in all possible ways.</p>
+
+<p>He died in December, 1873, and was buried at Woodbridge.</p>
+
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CHOICE OF A CHURCH.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have mentioned that I was educated as a Swedenborgian, or rather a
+member of the New Jerusalem Church, as the followers of Emanuel
+Swedenborg prefer to be called. As a boy, I was well read in his works,
+and was prepared to tilt with all comers in his cause. But I grew less
+confident as I became more conversant with the world and with general
+literature. At the age of fifteen I was nominated a Sunday-school
+teacher in a small Swedenborgian chapel in the Waterloo road, and
+declined to act because the school was established with the object of
+converting from the religion of their parents the children of poor Roman
+Catholic families in that neighbourhood, which I thought an insidious,
+and therefore an evil mode of disseminating religious doctrine. Of
+course, this was a sufficiently conceited proceeding on the part of so
+young a theologian. But the same feeling has grown up with me in after
+life. I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength
+in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the
+Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better
+utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect,
+the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the
+teachings of the Gospel of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>It will, perhaps, surprise some of my readers to hear that Swedenborg
+never contemplated the founding of a sect. He was a civil engineer, high
+in rank at the Swedish court, and was ennobled for the marvellous feat
+of transporting the Swedish fleet from sea to sea, across the kingdom
+and over a formidable chain of mountains. He was also what would now be
+called an eminent scientist, ranking with Buffon, Humboldt, Kant,
+Herschel, and others of the first men of his day in Europe, and even
+surpassing them all in the extent and variety of his philosophical
+researches. His "Animal Kingdom" and "Physical Sciences" are wonderful
+efforts of the human mind, and still maintain a high reputation as
+scientific works.</p>
+
+<p>At length Swedenborg conceived the idea that he enjoyed supernatural
+privileges&mdash;that he had communings with angels and archangels&mdash;that he
+was permitted to enter the spiritual world, and to record what he there
+saw and heard. Nay, even to approach our Saviour himself, in His
+character of the Triune God, or sole impersonation of the Divine
+Trinity. Unlike Mahomet and most other pretenders to inspired missions,
+Swedenborg never sought for power, honour or applause. He was to the day
+of his death a quiet gentleman of the old school, unassuming, courteous,
+and a good man in every sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that one of my first objections to the writings of
+Swedenborg, was on account of his declaring the Church of France to be
+the most spiritual of all the churches on earth; which dogma immensely
+offended my youthful English pride. His first "readers" were members of
+various churches&mdash;clergymen of the Church of England, professors in
+universities, literary students, followers of Wesley, and generally
+devout men and women of all denominations. In time they began to
+assemble together for "reading meetings;" and so at length grew into a
+sect&mdash;a designation, by the way, which they still stoutly repudiate. I
+remember one clergyman, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of a church in
+Manchester, who applied to the Bishop of Lichfield for leave to read and
+teach from the works of Swedenborg, and was permitted to do so on
+account of their entirely harmless character.</p>
+
+<p>When still young, I noticed with astonishment, that the transcendental
+virtues which Swedenborg inculcated were very feebly evidenced in the
+lives of his followers; that they were not by any means free from pride,
+ostentation, even peculation and the ordinary trickery of trade&mdash;in
+fact, that they were no better than their fellow-Christians generally.
+When I came to Toronto, I of course mixed with all sorts of people, and
+found examples of thoroughly consistent Christian life amongst all the
+various denominations&mdash;Roman Catholics, English Churchmen, Methodists,
+Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and many others&mdash;which
+taught me the lesson, that it is not a man's formal creed that is of
+importance, so much as his personal sincerity as a follower of Christ's
+teachings and example.</p>
+
+<p>I was at the same time forcibly impressed with another leading
+idea&mdash;that no where in the Scriptures have we any instance of a
+divinely regulated government, in which the worship of God did not
+occupy a chief place. I thought&mdash;I still think&mdash;that the same beneficent
+principle which makes Christianity a part of the common law of England,
+and of all her colonies, including the United States, should extend to
+the religious instruction of every soul in the community, gentle or
+simple, and more especially to what are called the off-scourings of
+society.</p>
+
+<p>Looking around me, I saw that of all the churches within my purview, the
+Church of England most completely met my ideal&mdash;that she was the Church
+by law established in my motherland&mdash;that she allowed the utmost
+latitude to individual opinion&mdash;in fine, that she held the Bible wide
+open to all her children, and did her best to extend its knowledge to
+all mankind. Had I been a native of Scotland, upon the same reasoning I
+must have become a Presbyterian, or a Lutheran in Holland or Germany, or
+a Roman Catholic in France or Spain. But that contingency did not then
+present itself to me.</p>
+
+<p>So I entered the Church of England; was confirmed by Bishop Strachan, at
+St. James's Cathedral, in the year 1839, if I remember rightly, and have
+never since, for one instant, doubted the soundness of my conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>On this occasion, as on many others, my emotions shaped themselves in a
+poetical form. The two following pieces were written for the <i>Church</i>
+newspaper, of which I was then the printer, in partnership with the
+Messrs. Rowsell:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h2>HYMN FOR EASTER.</h2>
+
+<h3>"CHRIST IS RISEN."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
+them that slept. "For since by man came death; by man came also
+the resurrection of the dead. "For as in Adam all die; even so
+in Christ shall all be made alive."</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Christ is risen! Jesu lives;</span>
+<span class="i2">He lives His faithful ones to bless;</span>
+<span class="i0">The grave to life its victim gives&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Our grief is changed to joyfulness.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The sleeping Saints, whom Israel slew,</span>
+<span class="i2">Waking, shall list the joyful sound;</span>
+<span class="i0">He&mdash;their first fruits&mdash;doth live anew,</span>
+<span class="i2">Hell hath a mighty conqueror found.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Paschal offering! spotless Lamb!</span>
+<span class="i2">For us was heard thy plaintive cry;</span>
+<span class="i0">For us, in agony and shame,</span>
+<span class="i2">Thy blood's sweet incense soar'd on high.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">By erring man came woe&mdash;the grave&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">The ground accurs'd&mdash;the blighted tree&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Jesus, as man, for ransom gave</span>
+<span class="i2">Himself, from death to set us free.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Christ is risen! saints, rejoice!</span>
+<span class="i2">Your hymns of praise enraptured pour&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Ye heavenly angels, lend your voice&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Jesus shall reign for evermore!</span>
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">Hallelujah! Amen.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<h2>THE SINNER'S COMPLAINT AND CONSOLATION.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Oh for a conscience free from sin!</span>
+<span class="i4">Oh for a breast all pure within&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i4">A soul that, seraph winged, might fly</span>
+<span class="i4">'Mid heav'n's full blaze unshrinkingly,</span>
+<span class="i4">And bask in rays of wisdom, bright</span>
+<span class="i4">From <span class="smcap">His</span> own throne of life and light.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Peace, pining spirit! know'st thou not that <span class="smcap">Jesus</span> died for thee&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">For thee alone His last sigh breathed upon th' accursed tree;</span>
+<span class="i0">For thee His Omnipresence chain'd within a mortal "clod"&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">And bore <i>thy</i> guilt, to be as well thy Saviour as thy <span class="smcap">God</span>:</span>
+<span class="i0">Aye, suffered anguish more&mdash;far more&mdash;than thou canst e'en conceive,</span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thy</i> sins to cleanse&mdash;<i>thy</i> self-earnt condemnation to relieve.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i4">And did He suffer so for me?</span>
+<span class="i4">Did <span class="smcap">He</span> endure upon the tree</span>
+<span class="i4">A living death&mdash;a mortal's woe,</span>
+<span class="i4">With pangs that mortals <i>cannot</i> know!</span>
+<span class="i4">Oh triumph won most wofully!</span>
+<span class="i4">My <span class="smcap">Saviour</span> died for me&mdash;for <i>me</i>!</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">And have I basely wish'd to make this wondrous off'ring vain;</span>
+<span class="i0">Shall love so vast, be unrepaid by grateful love again?</span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! true affection never chafes at obligation's chain,</span>
+<span class="i0">But hugs with joy the gracious yoke whose guidance is its gain;</span>
+<span class="i0">And such the Saviour's ardent love&mdash;His suff'ring patience&mdash;these</span>
+<span class="i0">Most unlike human bonds, are cancell'd by their own increase.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i4">Rejoice, my soul! though sin be thine,</span>
+<span class="i4">Thy refuge seek in grace divine:</span>
+<span class="i4">And mark His Word&mdash;more joy shall be</span>
+<span class="i4">In heav'n for sinners such as thee</span>
+<span class="i4">Repenting, than can e'er be shown</span>
+<span class="i4">For scores whom guilt hath never known.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In explanation of my having become, in 1840, printer of the <i>Church</i>
+newspaper, I must go back to the date of Lord Sydenham's residence in
+Toronto. The Loyalist party, as stated already, became grievously
+disgusted with the iron grasp which that nobleman fastened upon each and
+every person in the remotest degree under government control. Not only
+the high officers of the Crown, such as the Provincial Treasurer and
+Secretary, the Executive Councillors, the Attorney-General and the
+Sheriff, but also the editors of newspapers publishing the government
+advertisements, in Toronto and elsewhere, were dictated to, as to what
+measures they should oppose, and what support. It was "my
+government,"&mdash;"my policy"&mdash;not "the policy of my administration," before
+which they were required to bow down and blindly worship. There were,
+however, still men in Toronto independent enough to refuse to stoop to
+the dust; and they met together and taking up the <i>Toronto Herald</i> as
+their mouth-piece, subscribed sufficient funds for the payment of a
+competent editor, in the person of George Anthony Barber, English Master
+of Upper Canada College, now chiefly remembered as the introducer and
+fosterer of the manly game of cricket in Toronto. He was an eloquent and
+polished writer, and created for the paper a wide reputation as a
+conservative journal.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time, Messrs. Henry and William Rowsell, well-known
+booksellers, undertook the printing of the <i>Church</i> newspaper, which was
+transferred from Cobourg to Toronto, under the editorship of Mr. John
+Kent,&mdash;a giant in his way&mdash;and subsequently of the Rev. A. N. Bethune,
+since, and until lately, Bishop of Toronto.</p>
+
+<p>Being intimate friends of my own, they offered me the charge of their
+printing office, with the position of a partner, which I accepted; and
+made over my interest in the <i>Herald</i> to Mr. Barber.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CLERGY RESERVES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have lately astonished some of my friends with the information, that
+William Lyon Mackenzie was originally an advocate of the Clergy
+Reserves&mdash;that is, of state endowment for religious purposes&mdash;a fact
+which makes his fatal plunge into treason the more to be regretted by
+all who coincide with him on the religious question.</p>
+
+<p>In Lindsey's "Memoirs" we read (vol. 1, p. 46):</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A Calvinist in religion, proclaiming his belief in the
+Westminster Confession of Faith, and a Liberal in politics, yet
+was Mr. Mackenzie, at that time, no advocate of the voluntary
+principle. On the contrary, he lauded the British Government for
+making a landed endowment for the Protestant clergy in the
+Provinces, and was shocked at the report that, in 1812,
+voluntaryism had robbed three millions of people of all means of
+religious ordinances. 'In no part of the constitution of the
+Canadas,' he said, 'is the wisdom of the British Legislature
+more apparent than in its setting apart a portion of the
+country, while yet it remained a wilderness, for the support of
+religion.'</p>
+
+<p>. . . "Mr. Mackenzie compared the setting apart of one-seventh
+of the public lands for religious purposes to a like dedication
+in the time of the [early] Christians. But he objected that the
+revenues were monopolized by one church, to which only a
+fraction of the population belonged. The envy of the
+non-recipient denominations made the favoured Church of England
+unpopular.</p>
+
+<p>. . . "Where the majority of the present generation of Canadians
+will differ from him, is that on the Clergy Reserves question,
+he did not hold the voluntary view. At that time, he would have
+denounced secularization as a monstrous piece of sacrilege."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>How much to be regretted is it, that instead of splitting up the Clergy
+Reserves into fragments, the friends of religious education had not
+joined their forces for the purpose of endowing all Christian
+denominations with the like means of usefulness. We are now extending
+across the entire continent what I cannot help regarding as the
+anti-Christian practice of non-religious popular education. We are, I
+believe, but smoothing the road to crime in the majority of cases.
+Cannot something be done now, while yet the lands of the vast North-West
+are at our disposal? Will no courageous legislator raise his voice to
+advocate the dedication of a few hundred thousand acres to unselfish
+purposes? Have we wiled away the Indian prairies from their aboriginal
+owners, to make them little better than a race-course for speculating
+gamblers?</p>
+
+<p>Even if the jealousy of rival politicians&mdash;each bent upon
+self-aggrandizement at the expense of more honourable aims&mdash;should
+defeat all efforts in behalf of religious endowments through the
+Dominion Legislature, cannot the religious associations amongst us
+bestir themselves in time? Cannot the necessity for actual settlement be
+waived in favour of donations by individuals for Church uses? Cannot the
+powerful Pacific Railway Syndicate themselves take up this great duty,
+of setting apart certain sections in favour of a Christian ministry?</p>
+
+<p>The signs of the times are dark&mdash;dark and fearful. In Europe, by the
+confession of many eminent public writers, heathenism is overspreading
+the land. In the United States, a community of the sexes is shamelessly
+advocated; and there is no single safeguard of public or private order
+and morality, that is not openly scoffed at and set at nought.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, men! men! preachers, and dogmatists, and hierarchs of all sects! see
+ye not that your strifes and your jealousies are making ye as traitors
+in the camp, in the face of the common enemy? See ye not the multitudes
+approaching, armed with the fell weapons of secular knowledge&mdash;cynicism,
+self-esteem, greed, envy, ambition, ill-regulated passions unrestrained!</p>
+
+<p>One symptom of a nobler spirit has shown itself in England, in the
+understanding lately suggested, or arrived at, that the missions of any
+one Protestant Church in the South Sea Islands shall be entirely
+undisturbed by rival missionaries. This is right; and if right in
+Polynesia, why not in Great Britain? why not in Canada? Why cultivate
+half-a-dozen contentious creeds in every new township or village? Would
+it not be more amiable, more humble, more self-denying, more
+exemplary&mdash;in one word, more like our Master and Saviour&mdash;if each
+Christian teacher were required to respect the ministrations of his next
+neighbour, even though there might be some faint shade of variety in
+their theological opinions; provided always that those ministrations
+were accredited by some duly constituted branch of the Christian Church.</p>
+
+<p>I profess that I can see no reason why an endowment should not be
+provided in every county in the North-West, to be awarded to the first
+congregation, no matter how many or how few, that could secure the
+services of a missionary duly licensed, be he Methodist, Presbyterian,
+Baptist, Congregationalist, Disciple&mdash;aye, even Anglican or Roman
+Catholic. No sane man pretends, I think, that eternal salvation is
+limited to any one, or excluded from any one, of those different
+churches. That great essential, then, being admitted, what right have I,
+or have you, dear reader, to demand more? What right have you or I to
+withhold the Word of God from the orphan or the outcast, for no better
+reason than such as depends upon the construction of particular words or
+texts of Holy Scripture, apart from its general tenor and teaching?</p>
+
+<p>Again I say, it is much to be deplored that Canada had not more
+Reformers, and Conservatives too, as liberal-minded as was W. L.
+Mackenzie, in regard to the maintenance and proper use of the Clergy
+Reserves.</p>
+
+<p>It was not the Imperial Government, it was not Lord John Russell, or Sir
+Robert Peel, or Lords Durham and Sydenham, that were answerable for the
+dispersion of the Clergy Reserves. What they did was to leave the
+question in the hands of the Canadian Legislature. It was the old, old
+story of the false mother in the "Judgment of Solomon," who preferred
+that the infant should be cut in twain rather than not wrested from a
+rival claimant.</p>
+
+<p>I would fain hope that the future may yet see a reversal of that
+disgrace to our Canadian Statute Book. Not by restoring the lands to the
+Church of England, or the Churches of England and Scotland&mdash;they do not
+now need them&mdash;but by endowing all Christian churches for the religious
+teaching of the poorer classes in the vast North-West.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A POLITICAL SEED-TIME.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>rom the arrival of Sir Charles Bagot in January, 1842, up to the
+departure of Lord Metcalfe in November, 1844, was a period chiefly
+remarkable for the struggles of political leaders for power, without any
+very essential difference of principle between them. Lord Cathcart
+succeeded as Administrator, but took no decided stand on any Canadian
+question. And it was not until the Earl of Elgin arrived, in January,
+1847, that anything like violent party spirit began again to agitate the
+Provinces.</p>
+
+<p>In that interval, some events happened of a minor class, which should
+not be forgotten. It was, I think, somewhere about the month of May,
+1843, that there walked into my office on Nelson Street, a young man of
+twenty-five years, tall, broad-shouldered, somewhat lantern jawed, and
+emphatically Scottish, who introduced himself to me as the travelling
+agent of the New York <i>British Chronicle</i>, published by his father. This
+was George Brown, afterwards publisher and editor of the <i>Globe</i>
+newspaper. He was a very pleasant-mannered, courteous, gentlemanly
+young fellow, and impressed me favourably. His father, he said, found
+the political atmosphere of New York hostile to everything British, and
+that it was as much as a man's life was worth to give expression to any
+British predilections whatsoever (which I knew to be true). They had,
+therefore, thought of transferring their publication to Toronto, and
+intended to continue it as a thoroughly Conservative journal. I, of
+course, welcomed him as a co-worker in the same cause with ourselves;
+little expecting how his ideas of conservatism were to develop
+themselves in subsequent years. The publication of the <i>Banner</i>&mdash;a
+religious journal, edited by Mr. Peter Brown&mdash;commenced on the 18th of
+August following, and was succeeded by the <i>Globe</i>, on March 5th, 1844.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time, there entered upon public life, another noted
+Canadian politician, Mr. John A. Macdonald, then member for Kingston,
+with whom I first became personally acquainted at the meeting of the
+British American League in 1849, of which I shall have occasion to speak
+more fully in its order; as it seems to have escaped the notice of
+Canadian historians, although an event of the first magnitude in our
+annals.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>"THE MAPLE LEAF."</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>t was in the year 1841, that the Rev. Dr. John McCaul entered upon his
+duties as Vice-President of King's College, after having been Principal
+of Upper Canada College since 1838. With this gentleman are closely
+connected some of the most pleasurable memories of my own life. He was a
+zealous promoter of public amusement, musical as well as literary. Some
+of the best concerts ever witnessed in Toronto were those got up by him
+in honour of the Convocation of the University of Toronto, October 23rd,
+1845, and at the several public concerts of the Philharmonic Society, of
+which he was president, in that and following years. As a member of the
+managing committee, I had the honour of conducting one of the Society's
+public concerts, which happened, being a mixed concert of sacred and
+secular music, to be the most popular and profitable of the series,
+greatly to my delight.</p>
+
+<p>In 1846, 1847 and 1848, Dr. McCaul edited the <i>Maple Leaf, or Canadian
+Annual</i>, a handsomely illustrated and bound quarto volume, which has not
+since been surpassed, if equalled, in combined beauty and literary
+merit, by any work that has issued from the Canadian press.</p>
+
+<p>Each volume appeared about Christmas day, and was eagerly looked for.
+The principal contributors were Dr. McCaul himself; the Hon. Chief
+Justice Hagarty; the late Rev. R. J. McGeorge, then of Streetsville,
+since of Scotland; the late Hon. Justice Wilson, of London; Miss Page,
+of Cobourg; the Rev. Dr. Scadding; the late Rev. J. G. D. McKenzie; the
+late Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron; the Rev. Alex. (now Archdeacon) Dixon, of
+Guelph; the Rev. Walter Stennett, of Cobourg; C. W. Cooper, Esq., now of
+Chicago; the late T. C. Breckenridge; the late Judge Cooper, of
+Goderich; and myself; besides a few whose names are unknown to me.</p>
+
+<p>My own connection, as a writer, with the "Maple Leaf" originated thus:
+While printing the first volume, I had ventured to send to Dr. McCaul,
+through the post-office, anonymously, a copy of my poem entitled
+"Emmeline," as a contribution to the work. It did not appear, and I felt
+much discouraged in consequence. Some months afterwards, I happened to
+mention to him my unsuccessful effusion, when he at once said that he
+had preserved it for the second volume. This was the first ray of
+encouragement I had ever received as a poet, and it was very welcome to
+me. He also handed me two or three of the plates intended for the second
+volume, to try what I could make of them, and most kindly gave me
+carte-blanche to take up any subject I pleased. The consequence of which
+was, that I set to work with a new spirit, and supplied four pieces for
+the second and five for the third volume. Two of my prose pieces&mdash;"A
+Chapter on Chopping," and "A First Day in the Bush"&mdash;with two of the
+poems, I have incorporated in these "Reminiscences:" my other accepted
+poems, I give below. After this explanation, the reader will not be
+surprised at the affection with which I regard the "Maple Leaf." I know
+that the generous encouragement which Dr. McCaul invariably extended to
+even the humblest rising talent, in his position as head of our Toronto
+University, has been the means of encouraging many a youthful student to
+exertions, which have ultimately placed him in the front rank among our
+public men. Had I met with Dr. McCaul thirty years earlier, he would
+certainly have made of me a poet by profession.</p>
+
+
+<h3>EMMELINE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The faynt-rayed moone shynes dimme and hoar,</span>
+<span class="i0">The nor-wynde moans with fittful roare,</span>
+<span class="i0">The snow-drift hydes the cottage doore,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">I wander lonelie on the moore,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Thou sittest in the castle halle</span>
+<span class="i0">In festal tyre and silken palle,</span>
+<span class="i0">'Mid smylinge friendes&mdash;all hartes thy thrall,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">My best-beloved&mdash;my lyfe&mdash;my all,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">I marke the brightness quit thy cheeke,</span>
+<span class="i0">I knowe the thought thou dost not speake,</span>
+<span class="i0">Some absent one thy glances seeke,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">I pace alone the mooreland bleake,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Thy willfull brother&mdash;woe the daye!</span>
+<span class="i0">Why did hee cross mee on my waye?</span>
+<span class="i0">I slewe him that I would not slaye,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">I cannot washe his bloode awaye,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Oh, why, when stricken from his hande,</span>
+<span class="i0">Far flew his weapon o'er the strande&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Why did hee rush upon my brande?</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">Colde lyes his corse upon the sande,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Thou'rt too, too younge&mdash;too younge and fayre</span>
+<span class="i0">To learne the wearie rede of care&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">My bitter griefe thou must not share,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">I could not bidde thee wedde despaire,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Through noisome fenne and tangled brake,</span>
+<span class="i0">Where crawle the lizard and the snake,</span>
+<span class="i0">My mournfull hopelesse way I take,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">To live a hermitt for thy sake,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Thy buoyaunt spirit may forgett</span>
+<span class="i0">The happie houre when last we mett&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">My sunne of hope is darklie sett,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline,</span>
+<span class="i0">I'll bee thy guardian-angell yett,</span>
+<span class="i6">Emmeline.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>CHANGES OF AN HOUR</h2>
+
+<h3>ON LAKE ERIE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Smiles the sunbeam on the waters&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">On the waters glad and free;</span>
+<span class="i0">Sparkling, flashing, laughing, dancing&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Emblem fair of childhood's glee.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Ruddy on the waves reflected,</span>
+<span class="i2">Deeper glows the sinking ray;</span>
+<span class="i0">Like the smile of young affection</span>
+<span class="i2">Flushed by fancy's changeful play.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Mist-enwreathing, chill and gloomy,</span>
+<span class="i2">Steals grey twilight o'er the lake&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! to days of autumn sadness</span>
+<span class="i2">Soon our dreaming souls awake.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Night has fallen, dark and silent,</span>
+<span class="i2">Starry myriads gem the sky;</span>
+<span class="i0">Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,</span>
+<span class="i2">Brighter visions beam on high.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h3>A CANADIAN ECLOGUE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An aged man sat lonesomely within a rustic porch,</span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes in troubled thoughtfulness were bent upon the ground:</span>
+<span class="i0">Why pondered he so mournfully, that venerable man?</span>
+<span class="i0">He dreamt sad dreams of early days, the happy days of youth.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">He dreamt fond dreams of early days, the lightsome days of youth;</span>
+<span class="i0">He saw his distant island home&mdash;the cot his fathers built&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">The bright green fields their hands had tilled&mdash;the once accustomed haunts;</span>
+<span class="i0">And, dearer still, the old churchyard where now their ashes lie.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Long, weary years had slowly passed&mdash;long years of thrift and toil&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">The hair, once glossy brown, was white, the hands were rough and hard;</span>
+<span class="i0">Deep-delving care had plainly marked its furrows on the brow;</span>
+<span class="i0">The form, once tall and lithe and strong, now bent and stiff and weak.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">His many kind and duteous sons, his daughters, meek and good,</span>
+<span class="i0">Like scattered leaves from autumn gales, were reft the parent tree;</span>
+<span class="i0">Tho' lands, and flocks, and rustic wealth, an ample store he owned,</span>
+<span class="i0">They seemed but transitory gains&mdash;a coil of earthly care.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Old neighbours, from that childhood's home, have paused before his door;</span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, gladly hath he welcomed them, and warmly doth he greet;</span>
+<span class="i0">They bring him&mdash;token of old love&mdash;a little cage of birds,</span>
+<span class="i0">The songsters of his native vale, companions of his youth.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Those warbled notes, too well they tell of other, happier hours,</span>
+<span class="i0">Of joyous, childish innocence, of boyhood's gleeful sports,</span>
+<span class="i0">A mother's tender watchfulness, a father's gentle sway&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">The silent tear rolls stealthily adown his furrowed cheek.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Sweet choristers of England's fields, how fondly are ye prized!</span>
+<span class="i0">Your melody, like mystic strains upon the dying ear,</span>
+<span class="i0">Awakes a chord that, all unheard, long slumbered in the breast,</span>
+<span class="i0">That vibrates but to one loved sound&mdash;the sacred name of "Home."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h3>ZAYDA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come lay thy head upon my breast,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;And I will kiss thee into rest."</span>
+<span class="i6"><i>&mdash;Byron.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wherefore art thou sad, my brother? why that shade upon thy brow,</span>
+<span class="i0">Like yon clouds each other chasing o'er the summer landscape now?</span>
+<span class="i0">What hath moved thy gentle spirit from its wonted calm the while?</span>
+<span class="i0">Shall not Zayda share thy sorrow, as she loves to share thy smile?</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Tell me, hath our cousin Hassan passed thee on a fleeter steed?</span>
+<span class="i0">Hath thy practised arm betrayed thee when thou threwst the light jereed?</span>
+<span class="i0">Hath some rival, too ungently, taunted thee with scoffing pride?</span>
+<span class="i0">Tell me what hath grieved thee, Selim&mdash;ah, I will not be denied.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Some dark eye, I much mistrust me, hath too brightly answered thine;</span>
+<span class="i0">Some sweet voice hath, all too sweetly, whispered in the Bezestein.</span>
+<span class="i0">Nay, doth sadder, deeper feeling dim the gladness of thine eye?</span>
+<span class="i0">Tell me, dearest, tell me truly, why thou breath'st that mournful sigh?</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Oh, if thou upon poor Zayda cast one look of cold regard,</span>
+<span class="i0">Whither shall she turn for comfort in a world unkind and hard?</span>
+<span class="i0">Since our tender mother, dying, gave me trustfully to thee,</span>
+<span class="i0">Selim, brother, thou hast always been far more than worlds to me.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Take this rose&mdash;upon my bosom I have worn it all the day;</span>
+<span class="i0">Like thy sister's true affection, never can its scent decay:</span>
+<span class="i0">As the pure wave, murm'ring fondly, lingers round some lonely isle,</span>
+<span class="i0">Life-long shall my love enchain thee, Selim, asking but a smile.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h2>THE TWO FOSCARI.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></h2>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ho! gentlemen of Venice!</span>
+<span class="i2">Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!</span>
+<span class="i0">Pile high your blazing beacon-fire,</span>
+<span class="i2">The night is wild and dark,</span>
+<span class="i0">Behoves us all be wary,</span>
+<span class="i2">Behoves us have a care</span>
+<span class="i0">No traitor spy of Austria</span>
+<span class="i2">Our watch is prowling near.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Time was, would princely Venice</span>
+<span class="i2">No foreign tyrant brook;</span>
+<span class="i0">Time was, before her stately wrath</span>
+<span class="i2">The proudest Kaiser shook;</span>
+<span class="i0">When o'er the Adriatic</span>
+<span class="i2">The Wing&eacute;d Lion hurled</span>
+<span class="i0">Destruction on his enemies&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Defiance to the world.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">'Twas when the Turkish crescent</span>
+<span class="i2">Contended with the cross,</span>
+<span class="i0">And many a Christian kingdom rued</span>
+<span class="i2">Discomfiture and loss;</span>
+<span class="i0">We taught the turban'd Paynim&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">We taught his boastful fleet,</span>
+<span class="i0">Venetian freemen scorned alike</span>
+<span class="i2">Submission or retreat.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Alas, for fair Venezia,</span>
+<span class="i2">When wealth and pomp and pride</span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;The pride of her patrician lords&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Her freedom thrust aside:</span>
+<span class="i0">When o'er the trembling commons</span>
+<span class="i2">The haughty nobles rode,</span>
+<span class="i0">And red with patriotic blood</span>
+<span class="i2">The Adrian waters flowed.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">'Twas in the year of mercy</span>
+<span class="i2">Just fourteen fifty two</span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;When Francis Foscari was Doge,</span>
+<span class="i2">A valiant prince and true&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">He won for the Republic</span>
+<span class="i2">Ravenna&mdash;Brescia bright&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">And Crema&mdash;aye, and Bergamo</span>
+<span class="i2">Submitted to his might:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Young Giacopo, his darling,</span>
+<span class="i2">&mdash;His last and fairest child&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">A gallant soldier in the wars,</span>
+<span class="i2">In peace serene and mild&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Woo'd gentle Mariana,</span>
+<span class="i2">Old Contarini's pride,</span>
+<span class="i0">And glad was Venice on that day</span>
+<span class="i2">He claimed her for his bride.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The Bucentaur showed bravely</span>
+<span class="i2">In silks and cloth of gold,</span>
+<span class="i0">And thousands of swift gondolas</span>
+<span class="i2">Were gay with young and old;</span>
+<span class="i0">Where spann'd the Canalazo</span>
+<span class="i2">A boat-bridge wide and strong,</span>
+<span class="i0">Amid three hundred cavaliers</span>
+<span class="i2">The bridegroom rode along.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Three days were joust and tourney,</span>
+<span class="i2">Three days the Plaza bore</span>
+<span class="i0">Such gallant shock of knight and steed</span>
+<span class="i2">Was never dealt before,</span>
+<span class="i0">And thrice ten thousand voices</span>
+<span class="i2">With warm and honest zeal,</span>
+<span class="i0">Loud shouted for the Foscari</span>
+<span class="i2">Who loved the Commonweal.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">For this the Secret Council&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">The dark and subtle Ten&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Pray God and good San Marco</span>
+<span class="i2">None like may rule again!</span>
+<span class="i0">Because the people honoured</span>
+<span class="i2">Pursued with bitter hate,</span>
+<span class="i0">And foully charged young Giacopo</span>
+<span class="i2">With treason to the state.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The good old prince, his father&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Was ever grief like his!&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">They forced, as judge, to gaze upon</span>
+<span class="i2">His own child's agonies!</span>
+<span class="i0">No outward mark of sorrow</span>
+<span class="i2">Disturb'd his awful mien&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">No bursting sigh escaped to tell</span>
+<span class="i2">The anguish'd heart within.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Twice tortured and twice banish'd,</span>
+<span class="i2">The hapless victim sighed</span>
+<span class="i0">To see his old ancestral home,</span>
+<span class="i2">His children and his bride:</span>
+<span class="i0">Life seem'd a weary burthen</span>
+<span class="i2">Too heavy to be borne,</span>
+<span class="i0">From all might cheer his waning hours</span>
+<span class="i2">A hopeless exile torn.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">In vain&mdash;no fond entreaty</span>
+<span class="i2">Could pierce the ear of hate&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">He knew the Senate pitiless,</span>
+<span class="i2">Yet rashly sought his fate;</span>
+<span class="i0">A letter to the Sforza</span>
+<span class="i2">Invoking Milan's aid,</span>
+<span class="i0">He wrote, and placed where spies might see&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas seen, and was betrayed.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Again the rack&mdash;the torture&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">Oh! cruelty accurst!&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">The wretched victim meekly bore&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">They could but wreak their worst;</span>
+<span class="i0">So he but lay in Venice,</span>
+<span class="i2">Contented, if they gave</span>
+<span class="i0">What little space his bones might fill&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">The measure of a grave.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The white-haired sire, heart-broken,</span>
+<span class="i2">Survived his happier son,</span>
+<span class="i0">To learn a Senate's gratitude</span>
+<span class="i2">For faithful service done;</span>
+<span class="i0">What never Doge of Venice</span>
+<span class="i2">Before had lived to tell,</span>
+<span class="i0">He heard for a successor peal</span>
+<span class="i2">San Marco's solemn bell.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">When, years before, his honours</span>
+<span class="i2">Twice would he fain lay down,</span>
+<span class="i0">They bound him by his princely oath</span>
+<span class="i2">To wear for life the crown;</span>
+<span class="i0">But now, his brow o'ershadow'd</span>
+<span class="i2">By fourscore winters' snows,</span>
+<span class="i0">Their eager malice would not wait</span>
+<span class="i2">A spent life's mournful close.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">He doff'd his ducal ensigns</span>
+<span class="i2">In proud obedient haste,</span>
+<span class="i0">And through the sculptured corridors</span>
+<span class="i2">With staff-propt footsteps paced;</span>
+<span class="i0">Till on the giant's staircase,</span>
+<span class="i2">Which first in princely pride</span>
+<span class="i0">He mounted as Venezia's Doge,</span>
+<span class="i2">The old man paused&mdash;and died.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Thus govern'd the Patricians</span>
+<span class="i2">When Venice owned their sway,</span>
+<span class="i0">And thus Venetian liberties</span>
+<span class="i2">Became a helpless prey:</span>
+<span class="i0">They sold us to the Teuton,</span>
+<span class="i2">They sold us to the Gaul&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">Thank God and good San Marco,</span>
+<span class="i2">We've triumph'd over all!</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Ho! gentlemen of Venice!</span>
+<span class="i2">Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!</span>
+<span class="i0">You've driven from your palaces</span>
+<span class="i2">The Austrian, cold and dark!</span>
+<span class="i0">But better for Venezia</span>
+<span class="i2">The stranger ruled again,</span>
+<span class="i0">Than the old patrician tyranny,</span>
+<span class="i2">The Senate and the Ten!</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y new partner, Mr. William Rowsell, and Mr. Geo. A. Barber, are
+entitled to be called the founders of the St. George's Society of
+Toronto. Mr. Barber was appointed secretary at its first meeting in
+1835, and was very efficient in that capacity. But it was the
+enthusiastic spirit and the galvanic energy of William Rowsell that
+raised the society to the high position it has ever since maintained in
+Toronto. Other members, especially George P. Ridout, William Wakefield,
+W. B. Phipps, Jos. D. Ridout, W. B. Jarvis, Rev. H. Scadding, and many
+more, gave their hearty co-operation then and afterwards. In those early
+days, the ministrations of the three national societies of St. George,
+St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, were as angels' visits to thousands of poor
+emigrants, who landed here in the midst of the horrors of fever and
+want. Those poor fellows, who, like my companions on board the <i>Asia</i>,
+were sent out by some parochial authority, and found themselves, with
+their wives and half a dozen young children, left without a shilling to
+buy their first meal, must have been driven to desperation and crime but
+for the help extended to them by the three societies.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest authorized report of the Society's proceedings which I can
+find, is that for the year 1843-4, and I think I cannot do better than
+give the list of the officers and members entire:</p>
+
+
+<h3>ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF TORONTO.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Officers for 1844.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Patron</span>&mdash;His Excellency the Right Hon. Sir <span class="smcap">Charles T. Metcalfe</span>,
+Bart., K. G. B., Governor-General of British North America, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">President</span>&mdash;William Wakefield. <span class="smcap">Vice-Presidents</span>&mdash;W. B. Jarvis, G.
+P. Ridout, W. Atkinson. <span class="smcap">Chaplain</span>&mdash;The Rev. Henry Scadding, M. A.
+<span class="smcap">Physician</span>&mdash;Robt. Hornby, M. D. <span class="smcap">Treasurer</span>&mdash;Henry Rowsell.
+<span class="smcap">Managing Committee</span>&mdash;G. Walton, T. Clarke, J. D. Ridout, F.
+Lewis, J. Moore, J. G. Beard, W. H. Boulton. <span class="smcap">Secretary</span>&mdash;W.
+Rowsell. <span class="smcap">Standard Bearers</span>&mdash;G. D. Wells, A. Wasnidge, F. W.
+Coate, T. Moore.</p></div>
+
+<h3><i>List of Members, March, 1844.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>E. H. Ades, E. S. Alport, Thos. Armstrong, W. Atkinson.</p>
+
+<p>Thos. Baines, G. W. Baker, Jr.; G. A. Barber, F. W. Barron,
+Robert Barwick, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, Edwin Bell, Matthew
+Betley, J. C. Bettridge, G. Bilton, T. W. Birchall, W. H.
+Boulton, Josh. Bound, W. Bright, Jas. Brown, Jno. Brown, Thos.
+Brunskill, E. C. Bull, Jas. Burgess, Mark Burgess, Thos.
+Burgess.</p>
+
+<p>F. C. Capreol, W. Cayley, Thos. Champion, E. C. Chapman, Jas.
+Christie, Edw. Clarke, Jno. Clarke, Thos. Clarke, Thos.
+Clarkson, D. Cleal, F. W. Coate, Edw. Cooper, C. N. B. Cozens.</p>
+
+<p>Jno. Davis, Nath. Davis, G. T. Denison, Sen., Robt. B. Denison,
+Hon. W. H. Draper.</p>
+
+<p>Jno. Eastwood, Jno. Elgie, Thos. Elgie, Jno. Ellis, Christopher
+Elliott, J. P. Esten, Jas. Eykelbosch.</p>
+
+<p>C. T. Gardner, Jno. Garfield, W. Gooderham, G. Gurnett.</p>
+
+<p>Chas. Hannath, W. Harnett, Josh. Hill, Rich. Hockridge, Joseph
+Hodgson, Dr. R. Hornby, G. C. Horwood, J. G. Howard.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;. Irving, Jr.</p>
+
+<p>Hon. R. S. Jameson, W. B. Jarvis, H. B. Jessopp.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred Laing, Jno. Lee, F. Lewis, Henry Lutwych, C. Lynes, S. G.
+Lynn.</p>
+
+<p>Hon. J. S. Macaulay, Rich. Machell, J. F. Maddock, Jno. Mead,
+And. Mercer, Jas. Mirfield, Sam. Mitchell, Jno. Moore, Thos.
+Moore, Jas. Moore, Jas. Morris, W. Morrison, J. G. Mountain, W.
+Mudford.</p>
+
+<p>J. R. Nash.</p>
+
+<p>Thos. Pearson, Jno. E. Pell, W. B. Phipps, Sam. Phillips, Hiram
+Piper, Jno. Popplewell, Jno. Powell.</p>
+
+<p>M. Raines, J. D. Ridout, G. P. Ridout, Sam. G. Ridout, Ewd.
+Robson, H. Rowsell, W. Rowsell, F. Rudyerd.</p>
+
+<p>Chas. Sabine, J. H. Savigny, Hugh Savigny, Geo. Sawdon, Rev. H.
+Scadding, Jas. Severs, Rich. Sewell, Hon. Henry Sherwood, Jno.
+Sleigh, I. A. Smith, L. W. Smith, Thos. Smith (Newgate Street),
+Thos. Smith, (Market Square), J. G. Spragge, Jos. Spragge, W.
+Steers, J. Stone.</p>
+
+<p>Leonard Thompson, S. Thompson, Rich. Tinning, Enoch Turner.</p>
+
+<p>Wm. Wakefield, Jas. Wallis, Geo. Walton, W. Walton, Alf.
+Wasnidge, Hon. Col. Wells, G. D. Wells, Thos. Wheeler, F.
+Widder, H. B. Williams, J. Williams, W. Wynn.</p>
+
+<p>Thos. Young.</p></div>
+
+<p>The list of Englishmen thus reproduced, may well raise emotions of love
+and regret in us their survivors. Most of them have died full of years,
+and rich in the respect of their compatriots of all nations. There are
+still living some twenty out of the above one hundred and thirty-seven
+members.</p>
+
+<p>The following song, written and set to music by me for the occasion, was
+sung by the late Mr. J. D. Humphreys, the well-known Toronto tenor, at
+the annual dinner held on the 24th April, 1845:&mdash;</p>
+
+<h3>THE ROSE OF ENGLAND.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Rose, the Rose of England,</span>
+<span class="i2">The gallant and the free!</span>
+<span class="i0">Of all our flow'rs the fairest,</span>
+<span class="i2">The Rose, the Rose for me!</span>
+<span class="i0">Our good old English fashion</span>
+<span class="i2">What other flow'r can show?</span>
+<span class="i0">Its smiles of beauty greet its friends,</span>
+<span class="i2">Its thorns defy the foe!</span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;The Rose, the Rose of England,</span>
+<span class="i4">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The gallant and the free!</span>
+<span class="i4">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Of all our flow'rs the fairest,</span>
+<span class="i4">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Rose, the Rose for me!</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Though proudly for the Thistle</span>
+<span class="i2">Each Scottish bosom swell,</span>
+<span class="i0">The Thistle hath no charms for me</span>
+<span class="i2">Like the Rose I love so well.</span>
+<span class="i0">And Erin's native Shamrock,</span>
+<span class="i2">In lonely wilds that grows,</span>
+<span class="i0">Its modest leaflet would not strive</span>
+<span class="i2">To vie with England's Rose.</span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;The Rose, the Rose, etc.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">Yet Scotia's Thistle bravely</span>
+<span class="i2">Withstands the rudest blast,</span>
+<span class="i0">And Erin's cherished Shamrock</span>
+<span class="i2">Keeps verdant to the last;</span>
+<span class="i0">And long as British feeling</span>
+<span class="i2">In British bosoms glows,</span>
+<span class="i0">Right joyfully we'll honour them,</span>
+<span class="i2">As they will England's Rose.</span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Chorus</i>&mdash;The Rose, the Rose, etc.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<a name="N_A_S_G_UNION" id="N_A_S_G_UNION"></a><p>Before closing my reminiscences of the St. George's Society, it may not
+be out of place to give some account of its legitimate congener, the
+North America St. George's Union. Englishmen in the United States, like
+those of Canada, have formed themselves into societies for the relief of
+their suffering brethren from the Fatherland, in all their principal
+cities. The necessity of frequent correspondence respecting cases of
+destitution, naturally led the officers of those societies to feel an
+interest in each other's welfare and system of relief, which at length
+gave rise to a desire for formal meeting and consultation, and that
+finally to the establishment of an organized association.</p>
+
+<p>In 1876, the fourth annual convention of the St. George's Union was for
+the first time held in Canada, at the City of Hamilton; in 1878 at
+Guelph; in 1880 at Ottawa; and in August, 1883, at Toronto&mdash;the
+intervening meetings taking place at Philadelphia, Bridgeport and
+Washington, U. S., respectively.</p>
+
+<p>To give an idea of what has been done, and of the spirit which actuates
+this great representative body of Englishmen, I avail myself of the
+opening speech of the President, our fellow-citizen and much esteemed
+friend, J. Herbert Mason, Esq., which was delivered at the City Hall
+here, on the 29th of August last. After welcoming the delegates from
+other cities, he went on to say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Met together to promote objects purely beneficent, for which,
+in the interests of humanity, we claim the support of all good
+citizens, of whatever flag or origin, we may here give
+expression to our sentiments and opinions without reserve, and
+with confidence that they will be received with respect, even by
+those who may not be able to share in the glorious memories, and
+vastly more glorious anticipations, with which we, as Englishmen
+and the descendants of Englishmen, are animated.</p>
+
+<p>"And in the term Englishmen, I wish to be understood as
+including all loyal Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. There
+need be no division among men of British origin in regard to the
+objects we are banded together to promote.</p>
+
+<p>"The city of Toronto is in some respects peculiarly suitable as
+a place for holding a convention of representative men of
+English blood. Its Indian name, Toronto, signifies a place of
+meeting. Ninety years ago its site was selected as that of the
+future capital of Upper Canada, by General Simcoe, a Devonshire
+man, distinguished both as a soldier and a statesman, who, in
+the following year, founded the city.</p>
+
+<p>"At that time the shore of our beautiful bay, and nearly the
+entire country from the Detroit river to Montreal, was a dense
+forest, the home of the wolf, the beaver and the bear. In
+earlier years the surrounding country had been inhabited by
+powerful Indian tribes; but after a prolonged contest, carried
+on with the persistence and ferocity which distinguished them,
+the dreaded Iroquois from the southern shores of Lake Ontario
+had exterminated or driven away the Hurons, their less warlike
+kinsmen, and at the time I speak of, the only human beings that
+were found here was a single family of the Mississaga Indians.
+The story of the contest which ended in the supremacy of the
+Iroquois Confederacy, taken from the records of the Jesuit
+fathers, who shared in the destruction of their Huron converts,
+so graphically described by Parkman, the New England historian,
+furnishes one of the most interesting and romantic chapters of
+American history. In the names and general appearance of its
+streets, the style of its habitations, in its social life, and
+the characteristics of its people (if the opinions of tourists
+and visitors may be accepted), Toronto recals to Englishmen
+vivid impressions of home in a greater degree than any other
+American city.</p>
+
+<p>"The opening up of the Canadian North-West, and the increased
+tendency of English emigration towards this Continent, instead
+of, as formerly, towards those great English communities in the
+Southern hemisphere, proportionately increases the
+responsibility thrown upon their kindred living here, to see
+that all reasonable and necessary counsel and assistance are
+afforded to them on their arrival. One of the most suitable
+agencies for effecting this object is the formation of St.
+George's Societies in every city and town where Englishmen
+exist. To the friendless immigrant, suddenly placed in a new and
+unknown world, not understanding the conditions of success, and,
+in many cases, suffering in health from change of climate, the
+familiar tones, the kindly hand, and the brotherly sympathy of a
+fellow-countryman, are most welcome. It supplies to the stranger
+help of the right kind when most needed, and is one of those
+acts of divine charity which covers a multitude of sins. One of
+the chief objects of the St. George's Union is to increase the
+number and usefulness, and enlarge the membership of such
+societies, and if, under its fostering influence and encouraging
+example, Englishmen generally, and their descendants, are
+aroused to a more faithful discharge of their duty in this
+respect, the Union is surely well worth maintaining. In this
+connection, and for the information and example of younger
+societies, permit me to point out some features of the work of
+the St. George's Society of this city. It was organized in 1835,
+when the population of the city was only 8,000. In the nearly
+fifty years of its existence, it has had enrolled among its
+chief officers, men of distinguished position and high moral
+excellence. It is a notable circumstance, that at the time of
+the meeting of this Union in Toronto, the Lieutenant-Governor of
+Ontario, whose official residence is here, as well as the Mayor,
+the Police Magistrate, the Treasurer, the Commissioners, the
+Acting Engineer, and the Chairman of the Free Library Board of
+Toronto, are all members of the St. George's Society, and two of
+them past-presidents of it. It has a membership of about six
+hundred, an annual income of about $2,400, and invested funds to
+the amount of nearly $9,000. The office of the Society is open
+daily, where cases requiring immediate advice or assistance are
+promptly attended to by its indefatigable Secretary, Mr. J. E.
+Pell. The Committee for General Relief meets weekly. Every case
+is investigated and treated on its merits. Efforts are made to
+secure employment for those who are able to work, and all
+tendencies towards pauperism, or the formation of a pauper
+class, are severely discouraged. One feature in the work of this
+society I invite special attention to, which is its annual
+distribution of 'Christmas Cheer' to the English poor. Last
+Christmas Eve there were given away 7,500 pounds of excellent
+beef; 4,400 pounds of bread; 175 pounds of tea, and 650 pounds
+of sugar. Each member of the society had, therefore, the
+satisfaction of knowing when he sat down to his Yule-tide table,
+loaded with the good things of this life, and surrounded by the
+happy faces of those he loved best, that every one of his needy
+fellow-countrymen was, on that day, bountifully supplied with
+the necessaries of life."</p></div>
+
+<p>From the Annual Report of the Committee I gather a few items:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Reports from nineteen societies (affiliated to the Union) show
+the following results:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary="Report" width="60%">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Membership (excluding honorary members)</td>
+<td class="tdr">3,247</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Receipts during the year</td>
+<td class="tdr">$19,618</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Expended for charity during the year (excluding private donations)</td>
+<td class="tdr">12,003</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Value of investments, furniture and fixtures</td>
+<td class="tdr">96,568</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The Society of St. George, of London, England, has intimate
+relations with the Union. The General Committee embraces such
+eminent names as those of the Duke of Manchester, Lord Alfred
+Churchill, Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen; Messrs. Beresford-Hope and
+Puleston, of the House of Commons; Blanchard Jerrold and Hyde
+Clarke, while death has removed from the Committee Messrs. W.
+Hepworth Dixon and Walter Besant. St. George's Day has been
+publicly celebrated ever since the institution of the Society in
+1879. A new history of the titular saint, by the Rev. Dr.
+Barons, has been promoted by the Society, and by its efforts
+appropriate mortuary honours were paid to Colonel Chester, the
+Anglo-American antiquarian, who died while prosecuting in
+England his researches concerning the genealogy of the Pilgrim
+Fathers. Through the industry and zeal of the chairman of the
+Executive Committee there has been much revival of interest, at
+home and abroad, respecting England's patron saint and the
+ancient celebrations of his legendary natal day."</p></div>
+
+<p>After the official business of the convention had been disposed of, the
+American and Canadian visitors were hospitably entertained, on Wednesday
+the 30th, at "Ermeleigh," the private residence of the President, on
+Jarvis street; on Thursday afternoon at Government House, as guests of
+the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Robinson; and in the evening at the
+Queen's Hotel, where a handsome entertainment was provided.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A GREAT CONFLAGRATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he 7th of April, 1849, will be fresh in the memory of many old
+Torontonians. It was an unusually fine spring day, and a large number of
+farmers' teams thronged the old market, then the only place within the
+city where meat was allowed to be sold. The hotel stables were crowded,
+and among them those of Graham's tavern on King and George Streets. At
+two o'clock in the afternoon, an alarm of fire was heard, occasioned by
+the heedlessness of some teamster smoking his after-dinner pipe. It was
+only a wooden stable, and but little notice was taken at first. The
+three or four hand-engines which constituted the effective strength of
+the fire brigade of that day, were brought into play one by one; but the
+stable, and Post's stable adjoining, were soon in full blaze. A powerful
+east wind carried the flames in rear of a range of brick stores
+extending on the north side of King Street from George to Nelson (now
+Jarvis) Street, and they attacked a small building on the latter street,
+next adjoining my own printing office, which was in the third story of a
+large brick building on the corner of King and Nelson Streets,
+afterwards well-known as Foy &amp; Austin's corner. The <i>Patriot</i> newspaper
+was printed there, and the compositors and press-men not only of that
+office, but of nearly all the newspaper offices in the city, were busily
+occupied in removing the type and presses downstairs. Suddenly the
+flames burst through our north windows with frightful strength, and we
+shouted to the men to escape, some by the side windows, some by the
+staircase. As we supposed, all got safely away; but unhappily it proved
+otherwise. Mr. Richard Watson was well known and respected as Queen's
+Printer since the rebellion times. He was at the head of the profession,
+universally liked, and always foremost on occasions of danger and
+necessity. He had persisted in spite of all remonstrance in carrying
+cases of type down the long, three-story staircase, and was forgotten
+for a while. Being speedily missed, however, cries were frantically
+raised for ladders to the south windows; and our brave friend, Col.
+O'Brien, was the first to climb to the third story, dash in the
+window-sash&mdash;using his hat as a weapon&mdash;but not escaping severe cuts
+from the broken glass&mdash;and shouting to the prisoner within. But in vain.
+No person could be seen, and the smoke and flames forcing their way at
+that moment through the front windows, rendered all efforts at rescue
+futile.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the flames had crossed Nelson Street to St. James's
+buildings on King Street; thence across King Street to the old city hall
+and the market block, and here it was thought the destruction would
+cease. But not so. One or two men noticed a burning flake, carried by
+the fierce gale, lodge itself in the belfry of St. James's Cathedral,
+two or three hundred yards to the west. The men of the fire brigade were
+all busy and well-nigh exhausted by their previous efforts, but one of
+them was found, who, armed with an axe, hastily rushed up the
+tower-stairs and essayed to cut away the burning woodwork. The fire had
+gained too much headway. Down through the tower to the loft over the
+nave, then through the flat ceiling in flakes, setting in a blaze the
+furniture and prayer-books in the pews; and up to the splendid organ not
+long before erected by May &amp; Son, of the Adelphi Terrace, London, at an
+expense of &pound;1200 sterling, if I recollect rightly. I was a member of the
+choir, and with other members stood looking on in an agony of suspense,
+hoping against hope that our beloved instrument might yet be saved; but
+what the flames had spared, the intense heat effected. While we were
+gazing at the sea of fire visible through the wide front doorway, a
+dense shower of liquid silvery metal, white hot, suddenly descended from
+the organ loft. The pipes had all melted at once, and the noble organ
+was only an empty case, soon to be consumed with the whole interior of
+the building, leaving nothing but ghostly-looking charred limestone
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning there was a general cry to recover the remains of poor
+Watson. The brick walls of our office had fallen in, and the heat of the
+burning mass in the cellar was that of a vast furnace. But nothing
+checked the zeal of the men, all of whom knew and liked him. Still
+hissing hot, the burnt masses were gradually cleared away, and after
+long hours of labour, an incremated skeleton was found, and restored to
+his sorrowing family for interment, with funeral obsequies which were
+attended by nearly all the citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards, Col. O'Brien's interest in the <i>Patriot</i> newspaper
+was sold to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, and it continued to be conducted by him
+and myself until, in 1853, we dissolved partnership by arbitration, he
+being awarded the weekly, and I the daily edition.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>n the 25th of the same month of April, 1849, the Parliament Houses at
+Montreal were sacked and burnt by a disorderly mob, stirred up to riot
+by the unfortunate act of Lord Elgin, in giving the royal assent to a
+bill for compensating persons whose property had been destroyed or
+injured during the rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837-8. That the payment
+of those losses was a logical consequence of the general amnesty
+proclaimed earlier in the same year, and that men equally guilty in
+Upper Canada, such as Montgomery and others, were similarly compensated,
+is indisputable. But in Upper Canada there was no race hatred, such as
+Lord Durham, in the Report written for him by Messrs. C. Buller &amp; E. G.
+Wakefield, describes as existing between the French and British of Lower
+Canada.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The rebels of Gallows Hill and the militia of Toronto were
+literally brothers and cousins; while the rival factions of Montreal
+were national enemies, with their passions aroused by long-standing
+mutual injuries and insults. Had Lord Elgin reserved the bill for
+imperial consideration, no mischief would probably have followed. What
+might have been considered magnanimous generosity if voluntarily
+accorded by the conquerors, became a stinging insult when claimed by
+conquered enemies and aliens. And so it was felt to be in Montreal and
+the Eastern Townships. But the opportunity of putting in force the new
+theory of ministerial responsibility to the Canadian commons, seems to
+have fascinated Lord Elgin's mind, and so he "threw a cast" which all
+but upset the loyalty of Lower Canada, and caused that of the Upper
+Province almost to hesitate for a brief instant.</p>
+
+<p>In Toronto, sympathy with the resentment of the rioters was blended with
+a deep sense of the necessity for enforcing law and order. To the
+passionate movement in Montreal for annexation to the English race south
+of the line, no corresponding sentiment gained a hold in the Upper
+Province. And in the subsequent interchange of views between Montreal
+and Toronto, which resulted in the convention of the British American
+League at Kingston in the following July, it was sternly insisted by
+western men, that no breath of disloyalty to the Empire would be for a
+moment tolerated here. By the loss of her metropolitan honours which
+resulted, Montreal paid a heavy penalty for her mad act of lawlessness.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BRITISH AMERICAN LEAGUE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Union of all the British American colonies now forming the Dominion
+of Canada, was discussed at Quebec as long ago as the year 1815; and at
+various times afterwards it came to the surface amid the politics of the
+day. The Tories of 1837 were generally favourable to union, while many
+Reformers objected to it. Lord Durham's report recommended a general
+union of the five Provinces, as a desirable sequel to the proposed union
+of Upper and Lower Canada.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not until the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, that the
+question of a larger confederation began to assume importance. The
+British population of Montreal, exasperated at the action of the
+Parliament in recognising claims for compensation on the part of the
+French Canadian rebels of 1837&mdash;that is, on the part of those who had
+slain loyalists and ruined their families&mdash;were ready to adopt any
+means&mdash;reasonable or unreasonable&mdash;of escaping from the hated domination
+of an alien majority. The Rebellion Losses Bill was felt by them to
+imply a surrender of all those rights which they and theirs had fought
+hard to maintain. Hence the burning of the Parliament buildings by an
+infuriated populace. Hence the demand in Montreal for annexation to the
+United States. Hence the attack upon Lord Elgin's carriage in the same
+city, and the less serious demonstration in Toronto. But wiser men and
+cooler politicians saw in the union of all the British-American
+Provinces a more constitutional, as well as a more pacific remedy.</p>
+
+<p>The first public meetings of the British American League were held in
+Montreal, where the movement early assumed a formal organization;
+auxiliary branches rapidly sprang up in almost every city, town and
+village throughout Upper Canada, and the Eastern Townships of Lower
+Canada. In Toronto, meetings were held at Smith's Hotel, at the corner
+of Colborne Street and West Market Square, and were attended by large
+numbers, chiefly of the Tory party, but including several known
+Reformers. In fact, from first to last, the sympathies of the Reformers
+were with the League; and hence there was no serious attempt at a
+counter demonstration, notwithstanding that the Government and the
+<i>Globe</i> newspaper&mdash;at the time&mdash;did their best to ridicule and contemn
+the proposed union.</p>
+
+<p>The principal speakers at the Toronto meetings were P. M. Vankoughnet,
+John W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, David B. Read, E. G. O'Brien, John Duggan
+and others. They were warmly supported.</p>
+
+<p>After some correspondence between Toronto and Montreal, it was arranged
+that a general meeting of the League, to consist of delegates from all
+the town and country branches, formally accredited, should be held at
+Kingston, in the new Town Hall, which had been placed at their disposal
+by the city authorities. Here, in a lofty, well-lighted and
+commodiously-seated hall, the British American League assembled on the
+25th day of July, 1849. The number of delegates present was one hundred
+and forty, each representing some hundreds of stout yeomen, loyal to the
+death, and in intelligence equal to any constituency in the Empire or
+the world. The number of people so represented, with their families,
+could not have been less than half a million.</p>
+
+<p>The first day was spent in discussion (with closed doors) of the manner
+in which the proceedings should be conducted, and in the appointment of
+a committee to prepare resolutions for submission on the morrow. On the
+26th, accordingly, the public business commenced.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>The proceedings were conducted in accordance with parliamentary
+practice. The chairman, the Hon. George Moffatt, of Montreal, sat on a
+raised platform at the east end of the hall; at a table in front of him
+were placed the two secretaries, W. G. Mack, of Montreal, and Wm.
+Brooke, of Shipton, C. E. On either side were seated the delegates, and
+outside a rail, running transversely across the room, benches were
+provided for spectators, of whom a large number attended. A table for
+reporters stood on the south side, near the secretaries' table. I was
+present both as delegate and reporter.</p>
+
+<p>The business of the day was commenced with prayer, by a clergyman of
+Kingston.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. John W. Gamble, of Vaughan, then, as chairman of the committee
+nominated the previous day, introduced a series of resolutions, the
+first of which was as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"That it is essential to the prosperity of the country that the
+tariff should be so proportioned and levied, as to give just and
+adequate protection to the manufacturing and industrial classes
+of the country, and to secure to the agricultural population a
+home market with fair and remunerative prices for all
+descriptions of farm produce."</p>
+
+<p>Resolutions in favour of economy in public expenditure, of equal
+justice to all classes of the people, and condemnatory of the
+Government in connection with the Rebellion Losses Bill, were
+proposed in turn, and unanimously adopted, after discussions
+extending over two or three days. The principal speakers in
+support of the resolution were J. W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, P.
+M. Vankoughnet, Thos. Wilson, of Quebec, Geo. Crawford, A. A.
+Burnham,&mdash;Aikman, John Duggan, Col. Frazer, Geo. Benjamin, and
+John A. Macdonald.</p>
+
+<p>At length, the main object of the assemblage was reached, and
+embodied in the form of a motion introduced by Mr. Breckenridge,
+of Cobourg.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That delegates be appointed to consult with similar delegates
+from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, concerning the
+practicability of a union of all the provinces.</span></p>
+
+<p>This resolution was adopted unanimously after a full discussion.
+Other resolutions giving effect thereto were passed, and a
+committee appointed to draft an address founded thereon, which
+was issued immediately afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st November following, the League reassembled in the
+City Hall, Toronto, to receive the report of the delegates to
+the Maritime Provinces, which was altogether favourable. It was
+then decided, that the proper course would be to bring the
+subject before the several legislatures through the people's
+representatives; and so the matter rested for the time.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of the removal of the seat of government to
+Toronto, I was appointed secretary of the League, with Mr. C. W.
+Cooper as assistant secretary. Meetings of the Executive
+Committee took place from time to time. At one of these Mr. J.
+W. Gamble submitted a resolution, pledging the League to join
+its forces with the extreme radical party represented by Mr.
+Peter Perry and other Reformers, who were dissatisfied with the
+action of the Baldwin-Lafontaine-Hincks administration, and the
+course of the <i>Globe</i> newspaper in sustaining the same. This
+proposition I felt it my duty to oppose, as being unwarranted by
+the committee's powers; it was negatived by a majority of two,
+and never afterwards revived.</p></div>
+
+<p>I subjoin Mr. Gamble's speech on Protection to Native Industry, reported
+by myself for the <i>Patriot</i>, July 27, 1849, as a valuable historical
+document, which the <i>Globe</i> of that day refused to publish:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>J. W. Gamble, Esq., in rising to support the motion said:&mdash;He
+came to this convention to represent the views and opinions of a
+portion of the people of the Home District, and to deliberate
+upon important measures necessary for the good of the country,
+and not to subserve the interests of any party whatever; to
+consider what it was that retarded the onward progress of this
+country in improvement, in wealth, in the arts and amenities of
+life; why we were behind a neighbouring country in so many
+important respects. Unless we made some great change, unless we
+learnt speedily how to overtake that country, it followed in the
+natural course of events that we should be inevitably merged in
+that great republic, which he (Mr. G.) wished to avoid. The
+political questions which would engage the attention of the
+convention, embracing gross violations of our constitution and
+involving momentous consequences, were yet of small importance
+when compared with the great question of protection to native
+industry. A perusal of the statutes enacted by the Parliament of
+Great Britain from the time of the conquest of Canada to the
+abolition of the corn laws, for the regulation of the commercial
+intercourse of this colony, leads to the unavoidable conviction,
+that the first object of the framers of those statutes was to
+protect and advance the interests of the people of England and
+such of them as might temporarily resort to the colony for the
+purpose of trade; and that when their tendency was to promote
+colonial interests, that tendency was more incidental than their
+chief purpose. That such a course of legislation was to be
+expected in the outset it was but reasonable to suppose, and
+that a continuation of enactments in the same spirit should be
+suffered by the British Canadians, with but few and feeble
+remonstrances on their part, might be accounted for and even
+anticipated when we remember the material of which a large
+portion of the original population of Canada was composed. Ten
+thousand U. E. Loyalists had emigrated from the United States
+to Upper Canada in 1783, rather than surrender their allegiance
+to the British throne; their enthusiastic attachment to the
+Crown of Great Britain had made them ever prone to sacrifice
+their own, to what had been improperly termed the <i>interests of
+the empire</i>. He (Mr. G.) was himself a grandson of one of those
+U. E. Loyalists, and might be said to have imbibed his British
+feelings with his mother's milk. He remembered the time well,
+when the utterance of a word disrespectful of the Sovereign was
+looked upon as an insult to be resented on the spot. Remembering
+all this, and that these same people, Canada's earliest
+settlers, rather than live under a foreign government, though
+the people of that government were their own countrymen, yea,
+their very kinsmen and relatives&mdash;that they had forsaken their
+cultivated farms, their lands and possessions, to take up their
+abode with their families in a wilderness; remembering these
+circumstances, it need excite no surprise that the old colonial
+commercial system was allowed to continue without any very
+weighty remonstrance from the colonists, until it expired in
+Britain's free trade policy. Although that same system,
+primarily intended for Britain's benefit, was not calculated to
+advance the settlement, the improvement, or the wealth of
+Canada, with equal rapidity to that of the adjoining country,
+whose inhabitants enacted their own commercial regulations with
+a view to their own immediate benefit and without reference to
+that of others. The United States had legislated solely for
+their own interests. Our commercial legislation, instead of
+consulting exclusively our good, had been directed for the
+benefit of England. If that same policy were continued
+hereafter, to overtake our neighbours would be hopeless, and he
+reiterated that the consequences would be fatal to our connexion
+with Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>We must protect the industry of our country. The people of this
+country surely are the first entitled to the benefits of the
+markets of their country. He had been brought up a commercial
+man, and until lately held to the free trade principles of
+commercial men. From his youth, Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had
+been almost as familiar to him as his Catechism, and was
+regarded with almost equal deference; but practical experience
+had of late forced upon him the conviction, that that beautiful
+theory was not borne out by corresponding benefits; he had
+looked at its practical results, and was constrained to
+acknowledge, in spite of early predilections, that that theory
+was a fallacy. He had adopted the views of the American
+Protectionists as those most consonant with sound reason and
+common sense. Their arguments he looked upon as unanswerable;
+with them he believed that economists and free trade advocates
+had overlooked three principles which to him appeared like
+economic laws of nature, and the disregard of which alone was
+sufficient to account for the present position of our country.
+They say, and he believed with them, that the earth, the only
+source of all production, requires the refuse of its products to
+be returned to its soil, or productiveness diminishes and
+eventually ceases. That the expense of carriage to distant
+markets not only wastes the manure of animals on the road, but
+that the expenses of freight and commissions, of charges to
+carriers and exchangers, are in themselves a <i>waste</i>, avoided by
+a home market whenever the <i>consumer</i> is not separated from the
+<i>producer</i>; and that those productions fitted for distant
+markets, such as wheat and other grains, are only <i>yielded by
+bushels</i>, while those adapted for the use of the home consumer,
+and unsuited for distant transportation, as potatoes, turnips,
+cabbages, are yielded by tons. These were facts well worthy the
+attention of our agriculturists&mdash;eight-tenths of our whole
+population&mdash;and which could not be too often or too plainly
+placed before them. It is essential to the prosperity of every
+agricultural country that the consumer should be placed side by
+side with the producer, the loom and anvil side by side with
+the plough and harrow. The truth of these principles is well
+known in England, and practically carried out there by her
+agriculturists every day. She possesses within herself unlimited
+stores of lime, chalk and marl, besides animal manures, valued
+in McQueen's Statistics in 1840 at nearly sixty millions of
+pounds, more than the then value of the whole of her cotton
+manufactures. Yet England employs whole fleets in conveying
+manure, guano and animal bones to her shores; yes, has ransacked
+the whole habitable globe for materials to enrich her fields,
+and yet, forsooth, her economists and hosts of other writers
+would fain persuade all nations and make the world believe, that
+all countries are to be enriched by sending their food, their
+raw produce, their wheat, their rye, their barley, their oats
+and their grains to her market, to be eaten upon her ground,
+which thus receives the benefit of the refuse of the food of
+man, while that of animals employed in its carriage is wasted on
+the road, and the grower's profits are reduced by freight to her
+ship-owners and commission to her merchants. Behold the
+inconsistency, behold the practice of England and the preaching
+of England; behold how it is exemplified in the countries most
+closely in connection with her: look at Portugal, "our ancient
+ally." By the famous Methuen treaty she surrendered her
+manufactures for a market for her wines, and thus separated the
+<i>producer</i> from the consumer. From that hour Portugal declined,
+and is now&mdash;what?&mdash;the least among the nations of the earth.
+Next, let us direct our attention to the West India Islands.
+They do not even refine their own sugar, but import what they
+consume of that article from England, whither they send the raw
+material from which it is made, in order, he supposed, to enrich
+the British ship-owner with two voyages across the Atlantic, and
+the British refiner in England, instead of bringing him and his
+property within their own islands. Such is their commercial
+policy; and with free trade the West India planter has been
+ruined, the prospects of the country are blighted, and discord
+and discontent pervade the land. Next comes the East Indies:
+partial free trade with England has destroyed her manufactures.
+He (Mr. G.) could well recollect when Indian looms supplied the
+nation with cottons; here in Canada they were the only cottons
+used: he appealed to the chairman, who could corroborate his
+statement, and must remember the Salampores and Baftas of India.
+But Arkwright's invention of the spinning jenny enabled England
+to import the raw material from India, and send back the
+finished article better and cheaper than the native operatives
+could furnish it. It was forced into their markets in spite of
+their earnest protests, which only sought for the imposition on
+British goods in India of like duties to those levied upon
+Indian products in Britain, and which was denied them. Now, mark
+the result. The agriculture of India is impoverished, many
+tracts of her richest soil have relapsed into jungle, and both
+her import and export trade are now in a most unsatisfactory
+state&mdash;at least so says the "Economist," the best free trade
+journal in England. India was prosperous while clothed in
+fabrics the work of her own people. What country can compare
+with her in the richness of her raw products? But England forced
+her to separate the producer and consumer, and bitter
+fruits&mdash;the inevitable results of the breach of that economic
+law of nature which requires they should be placed side by
+side&mdash;have been the consequence. Turn next to Nova Scotia, New
+Brunswick and our own Canada. Are those countries in a
+prosperous condition? (No, No!) Are we prosperous in Canada? The
+meeting of this convention tells another story. Canada exports
+the sweat of her sons; she sends to England her wheat, her
+flour, her timber, and other raw produce, the product of manual
+labour, and receives in return England's cottons, woollens and
+hardwares, the product of labour-saving, self-acting and
+inexpensive machinery. We separate the consumer and the
+producer; we seek in distant markets a reward for our labour; it
+is denied us, and this suicidal policy must exist no longer.
+Behold its effects in our currency; not a dollar in specie can
+we retain, unless it is circulated at a greater value than it
+bears in the countries of our indebtedness, while our government
+is obliged to issue shin-plasters to eke out its revenue. The
+true policy for Canada is to consult her own interests, as the
+people of the United States have consulted theirs, irrespective
+of the interests of any other country. Leave others to take care
+of themselves. Our present system has inundated us with English
+and Foreign manufactures, and has swept away all the products of
+our soil, all the products of our forests, all the capital
+brought into the country by emigration, all the money expended
+by the British Government for military purposes, and leaves us
+poor enough. Why does not Canada prosper equally with the
+adjacent republic? He had often asked the question. "Oh, the
+Americans have more enterprise, more capital, and more
+emigration than Canada," is the universal answer. It is true,
+these are causes of prosperity in the Union, but they are
+secondary causes only; in the first instance, they are effects,
+the legitimate effects of her commercial code, which protects
+the industry of her citizens, stimulates enterprise and largely
+rewards labour. Why does the poor western emigrant leave
+Canada?&mdash;because in the union he gets better reward for his
+labour. * * * * This was strictly a labour question. He desired
+not to see the wages of labour reduced until a man's unremitting
+toil procured barely sufficient for the supply of his animal
+wants&mdash;he desired to behold our labourers, mechanics, and
+operatives a well fed, well clothed and well educated part of
+the community. The country must support its labour; is it not
+then far preferable to support it in the position of an
+independent, intelligent body, than as a mass of paupers&mdash;you
+may bring it down, down, down, until, as in Ireland, the man
+will be forced to do his daily work for his daily potatoes. He
+had forgotten Ireland, a case just in point; she exports to
+England vast quantities of food, of raw produce&mdash;who has not
+heard in the English markets of Irish wheat, Irish oats, Irish
+pork, beef and butter. Ireland has but few manufactures&mdash;she has
+separated the producer and consumer, and has reaped the
+consequence of exporting her food, in poverty, wretchedness and
+rags. Ireland has denied the earth the refuse of its
+productions, and the earth has cast out her sons. Ask the
+reason&mdash;it is the con-acre system, says one; it is the absentee
+landlords, says another. But if the absenteeism invariably
+produced such results, why is it not the case in Scotland?
+Scotland, since the union, has doubled, trebled, aye, quadrupled
+her wealth, he knew not how often. Since the union, Scotland
+exports but little food, the food produced by the soil is there
+consumed upon the soil, and to her absentee landlords, she pays
+the rent of that soil in the produce of her looms and her
+furnaces. This led him to consider the policy of those countries
+that support the greatest number of human beings in proportion
+to their area. First, Belgium, the battle field of Europe; that
+country had suffered immeasurably from the effects of war, yet
+her people were always prosperous, quiet and contented, amid the
+convulsions of Europe, for there the consumer and producer were
+side by side. In Normandy, China, the North of England, and
+South of Scotland, in the Eastern States, the same system
+prevailed. The speaker that preceded him (Mr. Gowan), had said
+that under the present system we were led to speculate in human
+blood, upon the chance of European wars; it was too true, it was
+horrible to contemplate; but he would say, was it not more
+horrible still, to speculate upon the chance of famine? Had we
+never looked, never hoped, for a famine in Ireland, England or
+the continent of Europe, that we might increase our store
+thereby!!! put money in our pockets!!! to such dreadful shifts,
+dreadful to reflect upon, had the disregard of the great
+principle he had enunciated reduced us. The proper remedy was to
+protect our native industry, to protect it from the surplus
+products of the industry of other countries&mdash;surplus products
+sold in our markets without any reference to the cost of
+production. Manufacturers look at home consumption in the first
+place for their profits; that market being filled, they do not
+force off their surplus among their own people&mdash;that might
+injure their credit, or permanently lower the value of their
+manufactures at home. They send their surplus abroad to sell for
+what it will bring. Another view of the question was, that in
+the exchanging produce for foreign manufactures, one half of the
+commodities is raised by native industry and capital, and one
+half by foreign. One half goes to promote native industry and
+capital, and the other half foreign industry and capital, but if
+the exchange is made at home, it stands to common sense, that
+all the commodities are raised by native industry and capital,
+and the benefit of the barter if retained <i>at home</i>, to promote
+and support them. Where the raw material produced in any country
+is worked up in that country, the difference between the value
+of the material and the finished article is retained in the
+country.</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He would be met, he supposed, with a stale objection that protection is
+a tax imposed for the benefit of one class upon the rest of the
+community. Never was any assertion more fallacious. Admitting that the
+value of an article was enhanced by protection, which he (Mr. G.) did
+not admit, the rest of the community were benefited a thousand fold by
+that very protection; for instance, if a farmer paid a little more for
+his coat, was he not doubly, quadruply compensated for his wool, to say
+nothing of the market, also at his own door, for his potatoes, turnips,
+cabbages, eggs, and milk. But he denied that increase of price
+invariably followed a protective policy; that policy furnished the
+manufacturer a market at home <i>for quantity and quantity only</i>, while
+home competition, stimulated by a system securing a fair reward for
+industrial pursuits, soon brought down the manufactured article as low
+as it ought to be. He might be answered, your system will destroy our
+foreign trade altogether. The fact was the very reverse; the saving made
+by home consumption of food and raw produce on the soil where it was
+grown, to the producer, enabled that producer to purchase a greater
+quantity of articles brought from a distance, and made him a greater
+consumer of those very articles than when the value of the produce of
+his own farm was diminished by carriage to, and by charges in a distant
+market. He had now in his possession statistical tables of the United
+States, for successive periods, sufficient to convince the most
+sceptical, that during the periods their manufacturers had been most
+strongly protected, the average prices of such manufactures had been
+less, while the amount of imported goods had exceeded that of similar
+periods under low duties. Mr. Gowan had alluded to a case in which the
+very sand of the opposite shore was turned into a source of wealth by a
+glass manufactory, and also to the rocks of New Hampshire. He had also
+visited the Eastern States, and was delighted with the industry, the
+economy and intelligence of the people; but as to the country, he
+believed it would be a hard matter to induce a Canadian to take up his
+abode among its granite rocks and ice, yet those very rocks and that ice
+were by that thrifty people converted into wealth, and formed no small
+item in their resources.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the results, the legitimate results of a protective policy, but
+the United States have not always followed that policy. The revolution
+did not do away with their prejudices in favour of British goods; for a
+long period after, nothing would go down but British cloths, cottons,
+and hardware. Then came the war of 1812, which showed them that they
+were but nominally independent while other nations supplied their
+wants; the war forced them to manufacture for themselves. After that
+war, excepting in some coarse goods, low <i>ad valorem</i> duties were
+imposed; the consequence was, a general prostration of the manufacturing
+interests, followed by low prices in all agricultural staples. In 1824
+recourse was again had to protection; national prosperity was soon
+visible; but why should he further detail the experiments made by that
+country? Suffice it to say, three times was the trial of free trade
+made, and three times had they to retrace their steps and return to the
+protective system, now so successfully in operation. England herself,
+with above one hundred millions of unprotected subjects, now declares
+the partially protected United States her best customer; in 1844 the
+amount of her exports to that country was eight millions, a sum equal to
+the whole of her exports to all her colonies. In 1846 the amount of
+cotton goods imported into the United States was one-fifth of their
+whole consumption, the amount of woollens likewise a fifth, and the
+amount of iron imported one-eighth of the entire quantity consumed. What
+proportion our importation of these articles in Canada bears to our
+consumption he had not been able to ascertain; but his conviction was,
+that if we adopted a similar commercial policy to that of the United
+States, the time would come when we should only import one-fifth of our
+cottons, one-fifth of our woollens, one-eighth of our iron; and when
+that time did come, and not till then, might we hope to cast our eye
+upon our republican neighbour without envying her greater prosperity.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+
+<h3>RESULTS OF THE B. A. LEAGUE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he very brief summary which I have been able to give in the preceding
+chapter, may suffice to show, as I have desired to do, that no lack of
+progressiveness, no lack of patriotism, no lack of energy on great
+public occasions, is justly chargeable against Canadian Tories. I could
+produce page after page of extracts, in proof that the objects of the
+League were jeered at and condemned by the Reform press, led by the
+<i>Globe</i> newspaper. But in that instance stance Mr. George Brown was
+deserted by his own party. I spoke at the time with numbers of Reformers
+who entirely sympathized with us; and it was not long before we had our
+triumph, which was in the year 1864, when the Hon. George Brown and the
+Hon. John A. Macdonald clasped hands together, for the purpose of
+forming an administration expressly pledged to effect the union of the
+five Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
+and Prince Edward Island.</p>
+
+<p>In the importance of the object, the number and intelligence of the
+actors, and, above all, in the determined earnestness of every man
+concerned, the meetings of the British American League may well claim
+to rank with those famous gatherings of the people, which have marked
+great eras in the world's progress both in ancient and modern times. In
+spite of every effort to dwarf its importance, and even to ignore its
+existence, the British American League fulfilled its mission.</p>
+
+<p>By the action of the League, was Canada lifted into a front rank amongst
+progressive peoples.</p>
+
+<p>By the action of the League, the day was hastened, when our rivers, our
+lakes, our canals, our railroads, shall constitute the great highway
+from Europe to Eastern Asia and Australasia.</p>
+
+<p>By the action of the League, a forward step was taken towards that great
+future of the British race, which is destined to include in its
+heaven-directed mission, the whole world&mdash;east, west, north and south!</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+
+<h3>TORONTO CIVIC AFFAIRS.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>y first step in public life was in 1848. I had leased from the heirs of
+the late Major Hartney (who had been barrack-master of York during its
+siege and capture by the American forces under Generals Pike and
+Dearborn in 1813) his house on Wellington street, opposite the rear of
+Bishop Strachan's palace. I thus became a resident ratepayer of the ward
+of St. George, and in that capacity contested the representation of the
+ward as councilman, in opposition to the late Ezekiel F. Whittemore,
+whose American antecedents rendered him unpopular just then. As neither
+Mr. Whittemore nor myself resorted to illegitimate means of influencing
+votes, we speedily became fast friends&mdash;a friendship which lasted until
+his death. I was defeated after a close contest. Before the end of the
+year, however, Mr. Whittemore resigned his seat in the council and
+offered me his support, so that I was elected councilman in his stead,
+and held the seat as councilman, and afterwards as alderman,
+continuously until 1854, when I removed to Carlton, on the Davenport
+Road, five miles north-west of the city. The electors have since told me
+that I taught them how to vote without bribery, and certainly I never
+purchased a vote. My chief outlay arose from a custom&mdash;not bad, as I
+think&mdash;originated by the late Alderman Wakefield, of providing a hearty
+English dinner at the expense of the successful candidates, at the
+Shades Hotel, in which the candidates and voters on both sides were wont
+to participate. Need I add, that the company was jovial, and the toasts
+effusively loyal.</p>
+
+<p>The members of the council, when I took my seat, were: George Gurnett,
+Mayor, who had been conspicuous as an officer of the City Guard in
+1837-38; aldermen, G. Duggan, jr., Geo. P. Ridout, Geo. W. Allan, R.
+Dempsey, Thos. Bell, Jno. Bell, Q.C., Hon. H. Sherwood, Q.C., Robt.
+Beard, Jas. Beatty, Geo. T. Denison, jr., and Wm. A. Campbell; also,
+councilmen Thos. Armstrong, Jno. Ritchey, W. Davis, Geo. Coulter, Jas.
+Ashfield, R. James, jr., Edwin Bell, Samuel Platt, Jno. T. Smith, Jno.
+Carr and Robt. B. Denison. My own name made up the twenty-four that then
+constituted the council. The city officers were: Chas. Daly, clerk; A.
+T. McCord, chamberlain; Clarke Gamble, solicitor; Jno. G. Howard,
+engineer; Geo. L. Allen, chief of police; Jno. Kidd, governor of jail;
+and Robt. Beard, chief engineer of fire brigade.</p>
+
+<p>During the years 1850, '1, '2 and '3, I had for colleagues, in addition
+to those of the above who were re-elected: aldermen John G. Bowes, Hon.
+J. H. Cameron, Q.C., R. Kneeshaw, Wm. Wakefield, E. F. Whittemore, Jno.
+B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard, Geo. Brooke, J. M. Strachan, Jno. Hutchison,
+Wm. H. Boulton, John Carr, S. Shaw, Jas. Beaty, Samuel Platt, E. H.
+Rutherford, Angus Morrison, Ogle R. Gowan, M. P. Hayes, Wm. Gooderham
+and Hon. Wm. Cayley; and councilmen Jonathan Dunn, Jno. Bugg, Adam
+Beatty, D. C. Maclean, Edw. Wright, Jas. Price, Kivas Tully, Geo. Platt,
+Chas. E. Romain, R. C. McMullen, Jos. Lee, Alex. Macdonald, Samuel
+Rogers, F. C. Capreol, Samuel T. Green, Wm. Hall, Robert Dodds, Thos.
+McConkey and Jas. Baxter.</p>
+
+<p>The great majority of these men were persons of high character and
+standing, with whom it was both a privilege and a pleasure to work; and
+the affairs of the city were, generally speaking, honestly and
+disinterestedly administered. Many of my old colleagues still fill
+conspicuous positions in the public service, while others have died full
+of years and honours.</p>
+
+<p>My share of the civic service consisted principally in doing most of the
+hard work, in which I took a delight, and found my colleagues remarkably
+willing to cede to me. All the city buildings were re-erected or
+improved under my direct charge, as chairman of the Market Block and
+Market committees. The St. Lawrence Hall, St. Lawrence Market, City
+Hall, St. Patrick's Market, St. Andrew's Market, the Weigh-House, were
+all constructed in my time. And lastly, the original contract for the
+esplanade was negotiated by the late Ald. W. Gooderham and myself, as
+active members of the Wharves and Harbours committee. The by-laws for
+granting &pound;25,000 to the Northern Railway, and &pound;100,000 to the Toronto &amp;
+Guelph Railway, were both introduced and carried through by me, as
+chairman of the Finance committee, in 1853.</p>
+
+<p>The old market was a curiously ugly and ill-contrived erection. Low
+brick shops surrounded three sides of the square, with cellars used for
+slaughtering sheep and calves; the centre space was paved with rubble
+stones, and was rarely free from heaps of cabbage leaves, bones and
+skins. The old City Hall formed the fourth or King Street side, open
+underneath for fruit and other stalls. The owners of imaginary vested
+rights in the old stalls raised a small rebellion when their dirty
+purlieus were invaded; and the decision of the Council, to rent the new
+stalls by public auction to avoid charges of favouritism, brought
+matters to a climax. On the Saturday evening when the new arcade and
+market were lighted with gas and opened to the public, the Market
+committee walked through from King to Front Street to observe the
+effect. The indignation of the butchers took the form of closing all
+their shutters, and as a last expression of contempt nailing thereon
+miserable shanks of mutton! Dire as this omen was meant to be, it does
+not seem to have prevented the St. Lawrence Market from being a credit
+to the city ever since.</p>
+
+<p>There is a historical incident connected with the old market, of a very
+tragic character. One day towards the latter end of 1837, William Lyon
+Mackenzie held there a political meeting to denounce the Family Compact.
+There was a wooden gallery round the square, the upright posts of which
+were full of sharp hooks, used by the butchers to expose their meat for
+sale, as were also the cross beams from post to post. A considerable
+number of people&mdash;from three to four hundred&mdash;were present, and the
+great agitator spoke from an auctioneer's desk placed near the western
+stalls. Many young men of Tory families, as well as Orangemen and their
+party allies, attended to hear the speeches. In the midst of the
+excitement&mdash;applauding or derisive, according to the varying feelings of
+the crowd&mdash;the iron stays of the balcony gave way and precipitated
+numbers to the ground. Two or three were caught on the meat-hooks, and
+one&mdash;young Fitzgibbon, a son of Col. Fitzgibbon who afterwards commanded
+at Gallows Hill&mdash;was killed. Others were seriously wounded, amongst whom
+was Charles Daly, then stationer, and afterwards city clerk, whose leg
+was broken in the fall. I well remember seeing him carried into his own
+shop insensible, and supposed to be fatally hurt.</p>
+
+<p>The routine of city business does not afford much occasion for
+entertaining details, and I shall therefore only trouble my readers with
+notices of the principal civic events to which I was a party, from 1849
+to 1853.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LORD ELGIN IN TORONTO.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>n the 9th day of October, 1849, Lord Elgin made his second public entry
+into Toronto. The announcement of his intention to do so, communicated
+to the mayor, Geo. Gurnett, Esq., by letter signed by his lordship's
+brother and secretary, Col. Bruce, raised a storm of excitement in the
+city, which was naturally felt in the city council. The members were
+almost to a man Tories, a large proportion of whom had served as
+volunteers in 1837-8. The more violent insisted upon holding His
+Excellency personally responsible for the payment of rebels for losses
+arising out of the rebellion in Lower Canada; while moderate men
+contended, that as representative of the Queen, the Governor-General
+should be received with respect and courtesy at least, if not with
+enthusiasm. So high did party feeling run, that inflammatory placards
+were posted about the streets, calling on all loyal men to oppose His
+Excellency's entrance, as an encourager and abettor of treason. A
+special meeting of the council was summoned in consequence, for
+September 13th, at which the Hon. Henry Sherwood, member for the city,
+moved a resolution declaring the determination of the council to repress
+all violence, whether of word or deed, which was carried by a large
+majority.</p>
+
+<p>The draft of an address which had been prepared by a committee of the
+citizens, and another by Ald. G. T. Denison, were considered at a
+subsequent meeting of the council held on the 17th, and strongly
+objected to&mdash;the first as too adulatory, the second as too political. As
+I had the readiest pen in the council, and was in the habit of helping
+members on both sides to draft their ideas in the form of resolutions,
+the mayor requested me to prepare an address embodying the general
+feelings of the members. I accordingly did so to the best of my ability,
+and succeeded in writing one which might express the loyalty of the
+citizens, without committing them to an approval of the conduct of the
+Hincks-Tach&eacute; government in carrying through Parliament the Rebellion
+Losses Bill. The other addresses having been either defeated or
+withdrawn, I submitted mine, which was carried by a majority of
+seventeen to four. And thus was harmony restored.</p>
+
+<p>His Excellency arrived on the appointed day, being the 9th of October.
+The weather was beautiful, and the city was alive with excitement, not
+unmingled with apprehension. Lieut.-Col. and Ald. G. T. Denison had
+volunteered the services of the Governor-General's Body Guard, which
+were graciously accepted. A numerous cortege of officials and prominent
+citizens met and accompanied the Vice-regal party from the Yonge St.
+wharf to Ellah's Hotel, on King St. west. As they were proceeding up
+Yonge street, one or two rotten eggs were thrown at the
+Governor-General's carriage, by men who were immediately arrested.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at Ellah's Hotel, His Excellency took his stand on the
+porch, where the City Address was presented, which with the reply I give
+in full:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h3>ADDRESS.</h3>
+
+<p><i>To His Excellency the Right Hon. James Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+Governor-General, &amp;c., &amp;c.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">May it Please Your Excellency,</span></p>
+
+<p>We, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of Toronto,
+in Common Council assembled, beg leave to approach Your
+Excellency as the representative of our Most Gracious and
+beloved Sovereign, with renewed assurances of our attachment and
+devotion to Her Majesty's person and government.</p>
+
+<p>We will not conceal from Your Excellency, that great diversity
+of opinion, and much consequent excitement, exists among us on
+questions connected with the political condition of the
+Province; but we beg to assure Your Excellency, that however
+warmly the citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they
+will be prepared on all occasions to demonstrate their high
+appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+according to the Governor-General of this Province that respect
+and consideration which are no less due to his exalted position,
+than to the well tried loyalty and decorum which have ever
+distinguished the inhabitants of this peaceful and flourishing
+community.</p>
+
+<p>The City of Toronto has not escaped the commercial depression
+which has for some time so generally prevailed. We trust,
+however, that the crisis is now past, and that the abundant
+harvest with which a kind Providence has blessed us, will ere
+long restore the commerce of the country to a healthy tone.</p>
+
+<p>We watch with lively interest the prospect which the completion
+of our great water communications with the ocean, will open to
+us; and we fervently hope that the extension of trade thus
+opened to Her Majesty's North American Provinces will tend to
+strengthen the union between these Provinces and the Parent
+State.</p>
+
+<p>We congratulate Your Excellency and Lady Elgin upon the birth of
+an heir to Your Excellency's house; and we truly sympathise with
+Her Ladyship upon her present delicate and weak state, and
+venture to hope that her tour through Upper Canada will have the
+effect of restoring her to the enjoyment of perfect health.</p>
+
+<h3>REPLY.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,&mdash;I receive with much satisfaction the assurance of
+your attachment and devotion to Her Majesty's person and
+government.</p>
+
+<p>That the diversities of opinion which exist among you, on
+questions connected with the political condition of the
+Province, should be attended with much excitement, is greatly to
+be regretted, and I fully appreciate the motives which induce
+you at the present time, to call my attention to the fact. I am
+willing, nevertheless, to believe that however warmly the
+citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they will be
+prepared, on all occasions, to demonstrate their high
+appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+according to the Governor-General that respect and consideration
+which are no less due to his position than to their own
+well-tried loyalty and decorum.</p>
+
+<p>It is my firm conviction, moreover, that the inhabitants of
+Canada, generally, are averse to agitation, and that all
+communities as well as individuals, who aspire to take a lead in
+the affairs of the Province, will best fit themselves for that
+high avocation, by exhibiting habitually in their demeanour, the
+love of order and of peaceful progress.</p>
+
+<p>I have observed with much anxiety and concern the commercial
+depression from which the City of Toronto, in common with other
+important towns in the Province, has of late so seriously
+suffered. I trust, however, with you, that the crisis is now
+past, and that the abundant harvest, with which a kind
+Providence has blessed the country, will ere long restore its
+commerce to a healthy tone.</p>
+
+<p>The completion of your water communications with the ocean must
+indeed be watched with a lively interest by all who have at
+heart the welfare of Canada and the continuance of the
+connection so happily subsisting between the Province and the
+Parent State. These great works have undoubtedly been costly,
+and the occasion of some financial embarrassment while in
+progress. But I firmly believe that the investment you have made
+in them has been judicious, and that you have secured thereby
+for your children, and your children's children, an inheritance
+that will not fail them so long as the law of nature endures
+which causes the waters of your vast inland seas to seek an
+outlet to the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>I am truly obliged to you for the congratulations which you
+offer me on the birth of my son, and for the kind interest which
+you express in Lady Elgin's health: I am happy to be able to
+inform you, that she has already derived much benefit from her
+sojourn in Upper Canada.</p></div>
+
+<p>As not a little fictitious history has been woven out of these events, I
+shall call in evidence here the <i>Globe</i> newspaper of the 11th, the
+following day, in which I find this editorial paragraph:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is seldom we have had an opportunity of speaking in terms of
+approbation of our civic authorities, but we cannot but express
+our high sense of the manly, independent manner in which all
+have done their duty on this occasion. The grand jury<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> is
+chiefly composed of Conservatives, the Mayor, Aldermen and the
+police are all Conservatives, but no men could have carried out
+more fearlessly their determination to maintain order in the
+community."</p></div>
+
+<p>Of all the Governors-General who have been sent out to Canada, Lord
+Elgin was by far the best fitted, by personal suavity of manners,
+eloquence in speech, and readiness in catching the tone of his hearers,
+to tide over a stormy political crisis. He had not been long in Toronto
+before his praises rang from every tongue, even the most embittered.
+Americans who came in contact with him, went away charmed with his
+flattering attentions.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>TORONTO HARBOUR AND ESPLANADE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he number of citizens is becoming few indeed, who remember Toronto Bay
+when its natural surroundings were still undefaced and its waters pure
+and pellucid. From the French Fort to the Don River, curving gently in a
+circular sweep, under a steep bank forty feet high covered with
+luxuriant forest trees, was a narrow sandy beach used as a pleasant
+carriage-drive, much frequented by those residents who could boast
+private conveyances. A wooden bridge spanned the Don, and the road was
+continued thence, still under the shade of umbrageous trees, almost to
+Gibraltar Point on the west, and past Ashbridge's Bay eastward. At that
+part of the peninsula, forming the site of the present east entrance,
+the ground rose at least thirty feet above high-water mark, and was
+crested with trees. Those trees and that bank were destroyed through the
+cupidity of city builders, who excavated the sand and brought it away in
+barges to be used in making mortar. This went on unchecked till about
+the year 1848, when a violent storm&mdash;almost a tornado&mdash;from the east
+swept across the peninsula, near Ashbridge's Bay, where it had been
+denuded of sand nearly to the ordinary level of the water. This aroused
+public attention to the danger of further neglect.</p>
+
+<p>The harbour had been for some years under the charge of a Board of
+Commissioners, of which the chairman was nominated by the Government,
+two members by the City Council, and two by the Board of Trade. The
+Government, through the chairman, exercised of course the chief control
+of the harbour and of the harbour dues.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1849, the chairman of the Harbour Commission was Col.
+J. G. Chewett, a retired officer I think of the Royal Engineers; the
+other members were Ald. Geo. W. Allan and myself, representing the City
+Council; Messrs. Thos. D. Harris, hardware merchant, and Jno. G. Worts,
+miller, nominees of the Board of Trade. I well remember accompanying
+Messrs. Allan, Harris and Worts round the entire outer beach, on wheels
+and afoot, and a very pleasant trip it was. The waters on retiring had
+left a large pool at the place where they had crossed, but no actual gap
+then existed. Our object was to observe the extent of the mischief, and
+to adopt a remedy if possible. Among the several plans submitted was one
+by Mr. Sandford Fleming, for carrying out into the water a number of
+groynes or jetties, so as to intercept the soil washed down from the
+Scarboro' heights, and thus gradually widen the peninsula as well as
+resist the further erasion of the existing beach. At a subsequent
+meeting of the Harbour Commission, this suggestion was fully discussed.
+The chairman, who was much enfeebled by age and ill-health, resented
+angrily the interference of non-professional men, and refused even to
+put a motion on the subject. Thereupon, Mr. Allan, who was as zealously
+sanguine as Col. Chewett was the reverse, offered to pay the whole cost
+of the groynes out of his own pocket. Still the chairman continued
+obdurate, and became so offensive in his remarks, that the proposition
+was abandoned in disgust.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>In following years, the breach recurred again and again, until it
+produced an established gap. Efforts were made at various times to have
+the gap closed, but always defeated by the influence of eastern property
+owners, who contended that a free current through the Bay was necessary
+to the health of the east end of the city. The only thing accomplished
+from 1849 to 1853, was the establishment of buoys at the western
+entrance of the harbour, and a lighthouse and guide light on the Queen's
+wharf; also the employment of dredges in deepening the channel between
+the wharf and the buoys, in which Mr. T. D. Harris took a lively
+interest, and did great service to the mercantile community.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the erection of wharves at several points, no attempt was made to
+change the shore line until 1853, when it became necessary to settle the
+mode in which the Northern and Grand Trunk Railways should enter the
+city. An esplanade had been determined upon so long ago as 1838; and in
+1840 a by-law was passed by the City Council, making it a condition of
+all water-lot leases, that the lessees should construct their own
+portion of the work. In May, 1852, the first active step was taken by
+notifying lessees that their covenants would be enforced. The Mayor,
+John G. Bowes, having reported to the Council that he had made verbal
+application to members of the government at Quebec, for a grant of the
+water-lots west of Simcoe Street, then under the control of the
+Respective Officers of Her Majesty's Ordnance in Upper Canada, a formal
+memorial applying for those lots was adopted and transmitted
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The Committee on Wharves, Harbours, etc., for 1852, consisted of the
+Mayor, Councilmen Tully and Lee, with myself as chairman. We were
+actively engaged during the latter half of the year and the following
+spring, in negotiations with the Northern and Grand Trunk Railway
+boards, in making surveys and obtaining suggestions for the work of the
+Esplanade, and in carrying through Parliament the necessary legislation.
+Messrs. J. G. Howard, city engineer; William Thomas, architect; and
+Walter Shanly, chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway, were severally
+employed to prepare plans and estimates; and no pains were spared to get
+the best advice from all quarters. The Mayor was indefatigable on behalf
+of the city's interests, and to him undoubtedly, is mainly due the
+success of the Council in obtaining the desired grant from Government,
+both of the water-lots and the peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>The chairman of the Committee on Wharves and Harbours, etc., for 1853,
+was the late Alderman W. Gooderham, a thoroughly respected and
+respectable citizen, who took the deepest interest in the subject. I
+acted with and for him on all occasions, preparing reports for the
+Council, and even went so far as to calculate minutely from the
+soundings the whole details of excavation, filling in, breastwork, etc.,
+in order to satisfy myself that the interests of the city were duly
+protected.</p>
+
+<p>In September, 1853, tenders for the work were received from numerous
+parties, and subjected to rigorous examination, the opinions of citizens
+being freely taken thereon. In the meantime, it was necessary, before
+closing the contract, to obtain authority from the Government with
+respect to the western water lots, and I was sent to Quebec for that
+purpose, in which, but for the influence of the Grand Trunk Company, and
+of Messrs. Gzowski &amp; Macpherson, I might have failed. The Hon. Mr.
+Hincks, then premier, received me rather brusquely at first, and it was
+not until he was thoroughly satisfied that the railway interests were
+fairly consulted, that I made much progress with him. I did succeed,
+however, and brought back with me all necessary powers both as to the
+water lots and the peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the tender of Messrs. Gzowski &amp; Co. was very generally judged
+to be most for the interests of the city. They offered to allow &pound;10,000
+for the right of way for the Grand Trunk Railway along the Esplanade;
+and engaged for the same sum to erect five bridges, with brick abutments
+and stone facings, to be built on George, Church, Yonge, Bay, and either
+York or Simcoe Streets, to the wharves.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The contract also provided
+that the cribwork should be of sufficient strength to carry stone facing
+hereafter.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>When canvassing St. George's Ward in December, 1852, for re-election as
+alderman, I told my constituents that nothing but my desire to complete
+the Esplanade arrangements could induce me to sacrifice my own business
+interests by giving up more than half my time for another year: and it
+was with infinite satisfaction that on the 4th of January, 1854&mdash;the
+last week but one of my term in the Council&mdash;I saw the Esplanade
+contract "signed, sealed and delivered" in the presence of the Wharves
+and Harbours Committee. On the 11th January, a report of the same
+committee, recommending the appointment of a proper officer to take
+charge of the peninsula, and put a stop to the removal of sand, was
+adopted in Council.</p>
+
+<p>I heartily wish that my reminiscences of the Esplanade contract could
+end here. I ceased to have any connection with it, officially or
+otherwise; but in 1854, an agitation was commenced within the Council
+and out of doors, the result of which was, the cancellation by mutual
+consent of the contract made with Messrs. Gzowski &amp; Co., and the making
+a new contract with other parties, by which it was understood the city
+lost money to the tune of some $50,000, while Messrs. Gzowski &amp; Co.
+benefited to the extent of at least $16,000, being the difference
+between the rates of wages in 1853 and 1855. The five bridges were set
+aside, to which circumstance is due the unhappy loss of life by which we
+have all been shocked of late years. Of the true cause of all these
+painful consequences, I shall treat in my next chapter.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+<h3>MAYOR BOWES&mdash;CITY DEBENTURES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>f all the members of the City Council for 1850, and up to 1852, John G.
+Bowes was the most active and most popular. In educational affairs, in
+financial arrangements, and indeed, in all questions affecting the
+city's interests, he was by far the ablest man who had ever filled the
+civic chair. His acquirements as an arithmetician were extraordinary;
+and as a speaker he possessed remarkable powers. I took pleasure in
+seconding his declared views on nearly all public questions; and in
+return, he showed me a degree of friendship which I could not but highly
+appreciate. By his persuasion, and rather against my own wish, I
+accepted, in 1852, the secretaryship of the Toronto and Guelph Railway
+Company, which I held until it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk Company
+in 1853.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the same year, rumours began to be rife in the city, that Mr. Bowes,
+in conjunction with the Hon. Francis Hincks, then premier, had made
+$10,000 profits out of the sale of city debentures issued to the
+Northern Railway Company. Had the Mayor admitted the facts at once,
+stating his belief that he was right in so doing, it is probable that
+his friends would have been spared the pain, and himself the loss and
+disgrace which ensued. But he denied in the most solemn manner, in full
+Council, that he had any interest whatever in the sale of those
+debentures, and his word was accepted by all his friends there. When, in
+1854, he was compelled to admit in the Court of Chancery, that he had
+not only sold the debentures for his own profit to the extent of $4,800,
+but that the Hon. Francis Hincks was a partner in the speculation, and
+had profited to the same amount, the Council and citizens were alike
+astounded. Not so much at the transaction itself, for it must be
+remembered that more than one judge in chancery held the dealing in city
+debentures to be perfectly legal both on the part of Mr. Bowes and Sir
+Francis Hincks, but at the palpable deception which had been perpetrated
+on the Finance Committee, and through them on the Council.</p>
+
+<p>While the sale of the $50,000 Northern Railway debentures was under
+consideration, Mr. Bowes as Mayor had been commissioned to get a bill
+passed at Quebec to legalize such sale. On his return it was found that
+new clauses had been introduced into the bill, and particularly one
+requiring the debentures to be made payable in England, to which
+Alderman Joshua G. Beard and myself took objection as unnecessarily
+tying the hands of the Council. Mr. Bowes said, "Mr. Hincks would have
+it so." Had the committee supposed that in insisting upon those clauses
+Mr. Hincks was using his official powers for his own private profit,
+they could never have consented to the change in the bill, but would
+have insisted upon the right of the Council to make their own debentures
+payable wheresoever the city's interests would be best subserved.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is matter of history, that the suit in Chancery resulted in a
+judgment against Mr. Bowes for the whole amount of his profits, and that
+in addition to that loss he had to pay a heavy sum in costs, not only of
+the suit, but of appeals both here and in England. The consequence to
+myself was a great deal of pain, and the severance of a friendship that
+I had valued greatly. In October, 1853, a very strong resolution
+denouncing his conduct was moved by Alderman G. T. Denison, to which I
+moved an amendment declaring him to have been guilty of "a want of
+candour," which was carried, and which was the utmost censure that the
+majority of the Council would consent to pass. For this I was subjected
+to much animadversion in the public press. Yet from the termination of
+the trial to the day of his death, I never afterwards met Mr. Bowes on
+terms of amity. At an interview with him, at the request and in presence
+of my partner, Col. O. R. Gowan, I told the Mayor that I considered him
+morally responsible for all the ill-feeling that had caused the
+cancellation of the first Esplanade contract, and for the loss to the
+city which followed. I told him that it had become impossible for any
+man to trust his word. And afterwards when he became a candidate for a
+seat in parliament, I opposed his election in the columns of the
+<i>Colonist</i>, which I had then recently purchased; for which he denounced
+me personally, at his election meetings, as a man capable of
+assassination.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding, I believe John G. Bowes to have been punished more
+severely than justice required; that he acted in ignorance of the law;
+and that his great services to the city more than outweighed any injury
+sustained. His subsequent election to Parliament, while it may have
+soothed his pride, can hardly have repaid him for the forfeiture of the
+respect of a very large number of his fellow-citizens.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>CARLTON OCEAN BEACH.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n 1853, I removed to the village of Carlton West, on the gravel road to
+Weston, and distant seven miles north-west of the city. My house stood
+on a gravel ridge which stretches from the Carlton station of the
+Northern Railway to the River Humber, and which must have formed the
+beach of the antediluvian northern ocean, one hundred and eighty feet
+above the present lake, and four hundred and thirty above the sea. This
+gravel ridge plainly marks the Toronto Harbour at the mouth of the
+Humber, as it existed in those ancient days, before the Niagara River
+and the Falls had any place on our world's surface. East of Carlton
+station, a high bluff of clay continues the old-line of coast, like the
+modern, to Scarboro' Heights, showing frequent depressions caused by the
+ice of the glacial period. In corroboration of this theory, I remember
+that for the first house built on the Avenue Road, north of Davenport
+Road, the excavations for a cellar laid bare great boulders of granite,
+limestone, and other rock, evidently deposited there by icebergs, which
+had crossed the clay bluff by channels of their own dredging, and melted
+away in the warmer waters to the south. I think it was Professor
+Chapman, of Toronto University, who pointed this out to me, and
+mentioned a still more remarkable case of glacial action which occurred
+in the Township of Albion, where a limestone quarry which had been
+worked profitably for several years, turned out to the great
+disappointment of its owner to be neither more nor less than a vast
+glacial boulder, which had been transported from its natural site at a
+distance of at least eighty miles. This locomotive rock is said to have
+been seventy feet in thickness and as much in breadth.</p>
+
+<p>While speaking of the Carlton gravel ridge, it is worth while to note
+that, in taking gravel from its southern face, at a depth of twenty
+feet, I found an Indian flint arrow-head; also a stone implement similar
+to what is called by painters a muller, used for grinding paint. Several
+massive bones, and the horns of some large species of deer, were also
+found in the same gravel pit, and carried or given away by the workmen.
+The two articles first named are still in my possession. Being at the
+very bottom of the gravel deposit, they must have lain there when no
+such beach existed, or ever since the Oak Ridges ceased to be an ocean
+beach.</p>
+
+<p>My house on the Davenport Road was a very pleasant residence, with a
+fine lawn ornamented with trees chiefly planted by my own hands, and was
+supplied with all the necessaries for modest competence. It is worth
+recording, that some of the saplings&mdash;silver poplars (abeles) planted by
+me, grew in twelve years to be eighteen inches thick at the butt, and
+sixty feet in spread of branches; while maples and other hardwoods did
+not attain more than half that size. Thus it would seem, that our
+North-West prairies might be all re-clothed with full-grown ash-leaved
+maples&mdash;their natural timber&mdash;in twenty-five years, or with balm of
+Gilead and abele poplars in half that time. Would it not be wise to
+enact laws at once, having that object in view?</p>
+
+<p>I have been an amateur gardener since early childhood; and at Carlton
+indulged my taste to the full by collecting all kinds of flowers
+cultivated and wild. I still envy the man who, settling in the new
+lands, say in the milder climates of Vancouver's Island or British
+Columbia, may utilize to the full his abundant opportunities of
+gathering into one group the endless floral riches of the Canadian
+wilderness. We find exquisite lobelias, scarlet, blue and lilac;
+orchises with pellucid stems and fairy elegance of blossom; lovely
+prairie roses; cacti of infinite delicacy and the richest hues. Then as
+to shrubs&mdash;the papaw, the xeranthemum of many varieties, the Indian pear
+(or saskatoon of the North-West), spir&aelig;a prunifolia of several kinds,
+shrubby St. John's-wort, oenothera grandiflora, <i>cum multis aliis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the taste for wild-flower gardens has become the fashion in
+Great Britain, it will doubtless soon spread to this Continent. No
+English park is considered complete without its special garden for wild
+flowers, carefully tended and kept as free from stray weeds as the more
+formal parterre of the front lawn. Our wealthier Canadian families
+cannot do better than follow the example of the Old Country in this
+respect, and assuredly they will be abundantly repaid for the little
+trouble and expenditure required.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>CANADIAN POLITICS FROM 1853 to 1860.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n May, 1853, I sold out my interest in the <i>Patriot</i> to Mr. Ogle R.
+Gowan, and having a little capital of my own, invested it in the
+purchase of the <i>Colonist</i> from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie, who
+died December 6th, 1852. It was a heavy undertaking, but I was sanguine
+and energetic, and&mdash;as one of my friends told me&mdash;thorough. The
+<i>Colonist</i>, as an organ of the old Scottish Kirk party in Canada, had
+suffered from the rivalry of its Free Kirk competitor, the <i>Globe</i>; and
+its remaining subscribers, being, as a rule, strongly Conservative, made
+no objection to the change of proprietorship; while I carried over with
+me, by agreement, the subscribers to the daily <i>Patriot</i>, thus combining
+the mercantile strength of the two journals.</p>
+
+<p>I had hitherto confined myself to the printing department, leaving the
+duties of editorship to others. On taking charge of the <i>Colonist</i>, I
+assumed the whole political responsibility, with Mr. John Sheridan Hogan
+as assistant editor and Quebec correspondent. My partners were the late
+Hugh C. Thomson, afterwards secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who
+acted as local editor; and James Bain, now of the firm of Jas. Bain &amp;
+Son, to whom the book-selling and stationery departments were committed.
+We had a strong staff of reporters, and commenced the new enterprise
+under promising circumstances. Our office and store were in the old
+brick building extending from King to Colborne Street, long previously
+known as the grocery store of Jas. F. Smith.</p>
+
+<p>The ministry then in power was that known as the Hincks-Tach&eacute;
+Government. Francis Hincks had parted with his old radical allies, and
+become more conservative than many of the Tories whom he used to
+denounce. People remembered Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's prophecy, who said he
+feared that Francis Hincks could not be trusted to resist temptation.
+When Lord Elgin went to England, it was whispered that his lordship had
+paid off &pound;80,000 sterling of mortgages on his Scottish estates, out of
+the proceeds of speculations which he had shared with his clever
+minister. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic purchase, the &pound;50,000 Grand
+Trunk stock placed to Mr. Hincks' credit&mdash;as he asserted without his
+consent&mdash;and the Bowes transaction, gave colour to the many stories
+circulated to his prejudice. And when he went to England, and received
+the governorship of Barbadoes, many people believed that it was the
+price of his private services to the Earl of Elgin.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the exact truth in these cases may have been, I am convinced
+that from the seed then sown, sprang up a crop of corrupt influences
+that have since permeated all the avenues to power, and borne their
+natural fruit in the universal distrust of public men, and the
+wide-spread greed of public money, which now prevail. Neither political
+party escapes the imputation of bribing the constituencies, both
+personally at elections, and by parliamentary grants for local
+improvements. The wholesale expenditure at old country elections, which
+transferred so much money from the pockets of the rich to those of the
+poor, without any prospect of pecuniary return, has with us taken the
+form of a speculative investment to be "re-couped" by value in the shape
+of substantial government favours.</p>
+
+<p>Could I venture to enter the lists against so tremendous a rhetorical
+athlete as Professor Goldwin Smith, I should say, that his idea of
+abolishing party government to secure purity of election is an utter
+fallacy; I should say that the great factor of corruption in Canada has
+been the adoption of the principle of coalitions. I told a prominent
+Conservative leader in 1853, that I looked upon coalitions as
+essentially immoral, and that the duty of either political party was to
+remain contentedly "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," and to support
+frankly all good measures emanating from the party in office, until the
+voice of the country, fairly expressed, should call the Opposition to
+assume the reins of power legitimately. I told the late Hon. Mr. Spence,
+when he joined the coalition ministry of 1854, that we (of the
+<i>Colonist</i>) looked upon that combination as an organized attempt to
+govern the country through its vices; and that nothing but the violence
+of the <i>Globe</i> party could induce us to support any coalition
+whatsoever. And I think still that I was right, and that the Minister
+who buys politicians to desert their principles, resembles nothing so
+much as the lawyer who gains a verdict in favour of his client by
+bribing the jury.</p>
+
+<p>The union of Upper and Lower Canada is chargeable, no doubt, with a
+large share of the evils that have crept into our constitutional system.
+The French Canadian <i>habitans</i>, at the time of the Union, were true
+scions of the old peasantry of Normandy and Brittany, with which their
+songs identify them so strikingly. All their ideas of government were
+ultra-monarchical; their allegiance to the old French Kings had been
+transferred to the Romish hierarchy and clergy, who, it must be said,
+looked after their flocks with undying zeal and beneficent care. But
+this formed an ill preparation for representative institutions. The
+<i>Rouge</i> party, at first limited to lawyers and notaries chiefly, had
+taken up the principles of the first French revolution, and for some
+years made but little progress; in time, however, they learnt the
+necessity of cultivating the assistance, or at least the neutrality of
+the clergy, and in this they were aided by ties of relationship. As in
+Ireland, where almost every poor family emaciates itself to provide for
+the education of one of its sons as a "counsellor" or a priest, so in
+Lower Canada, most families contain within themselves both priest and
+lawyer. Thus it came to pass, that in the Lower Province, a large
+proportion of the people lived in the hope that they might sooner or
+later share in "government pap," and looked upon any means to that end
+as unquestionably lawful. It is not difficult to perceive how much and
+how readily this idea would communicate itself to their Upper Canadian
+allies after the Union; that it did so, is matter of history.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the combination of French and British representatives in a
+single cabinet, itself constitutes a coalition of the most objectionable
+kind; as the result can only be a perpetual system of compromises. For
+example, one of the effects of the Union, and of the coalition of 1854,
+was the passage of the bill secularizing the Clergy Reserves, and
+abolishing all connection between church and state in Upper Canada,
+while leaving untouched the privileges of the Romish Church in the Lower
+Province. That some day, there will arise a formidable Nemesis spawned
+of this one-sided act, when the agitation for disendowment shall have
+reached the Province of Quebec, who can doubt?</p>
+
+<p>In 1855 and subsequently, followed a series of struggles for office,
+without any great political object in view, each party or clique
+striving to bid higher than all the rest for popular votes, which went
+on amid alternate successes and reverses, until the denouement came in
+1859, when neither political party could form a Ministry that should
+command a majority in parliament, and they were fain to coalesce <i>en
+masse</i> in favour of confederation. At one time, Mr. George Brown was
+defeated by Wm. Lyon Mackenzie in Halton; at another, he voted with the
+Tories against the Hincks ministry; again, he was a party to a proposed
+coalition with Sir Allan MacNab. I was myself present at Sir Allan's
+house in Richey's Terrace, Adelaide Street, where I was astonished to
+meet Mr. Brown himself in confidential discussion with Sir Allan. I
+recollect a member of the Lower House&mdash;I think Mr. Hillyard
+Cameron&mdash;hurrying in with the information that at a meeting of
+Conservative members which he had just left, they had chosen Mr. John A.
+Macdonald as their leader in place of Sir Allan, which report broke up
+the conference, and defeated the plans of the coalitionists. This was, I
+think, in 1855. Then came on the "Rep. by Pop." agitation led by the
+<i>Globe</i>, in 1856.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> In 1857, the great business panic superseded all
+other questions. In 1858, the turn of the Reform party came, with Mr.
+Brown again at their head, who held power for precisely four days.</p>
+
+<p>In 1858, also, the question of protection for native industry, which had
+been advocated by the British-American League, was taken up in
+parliament by the Hon. Wm. Cayley and Hon. Isaac Buchanan separately. In
+1859, came Mr. Brown's and Mr. Galt's federal union resolutions, and Mr.
+Cayley's motion for protection once more.</p>
+
+<p>All these years&mdash;from 1853 to 1860&mdash;I was in confidential communication
+with the leaders of the Conservative party, and after 1857 with the
+Upper Canadian members of the administration personally; and I am bound
+to bear testimony to their entire patriotism and general
+disinterestedness whenever the public weal was involved. I was never
+asked to print a line which I could not conscientiously endorse; and had
+I been so requested, I should assuredly have refused.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>BUSINESS TROUBLES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">U</span>p to the year 1857, I had gone on prosperously, enlarging my
+establishment, increasing my subscription list, and proud to own the
+most enterprising newspaper published in Canada up to that day. The
+<i>Daily Colonist</i> consisted of eight pages, and was an exact counterpart
+of the <i>London Times</i> in typographical appearance, size of page and
+type, style of advertisements, and above all, in independence of
+editorial comment and fairness in its treatment of opponents. No
+communication courteously worded was refused admission, however caustic
+its criticisms on the course taken editorially. The circulation of the
+four editions (daily, morning and evening, bi-weekly and weekly)
+amounted to, as nearly as I can recollect, 30,000 subscribers, and its
+readers comprised all classes and creeds.</p>
+
+<p>In illustration of the kindly feeling existing towards me on the part of
+my political adversaries, I may record the fact that, when in the latter
+part of 1857, it became known in the profession that I had suffered
+great losses arising out of the commercial panic of that year, Mr.
+George Brown, with whom I was on familiar terms, told me that he was
+authorized by two or three gentlemen of high standing in the Liberal
+party, whom he named, to advance me whatever sums of money I might
+require to carry on the <i>Colonist</i> independently, if I would accept
+their aid. I thanked him and replied, that I could publish none other
+than a Conservative paper, which ended the discussion.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being himself embarrassed by the
+tremendous pressure of the money market, in which he had operated
+heavily, counselled me to act upon a suggestion that the <i>Colonist</i>
+should become the organ of the Macdonald-Cartier Government, to which
+position would be attached the right of furnishing certain of the public
+departments with stationery, theretofore supplied by the Queen's Printer
+at fixed rates. I did so, reserving to myself the absolute control of
+the editorial department, and engaging the services of Mr. Robert A.
+Harrison (of the Attorney-General's office, afterwards Chief Justice),
+as assistant editor. Instead, however, of alleviating, this change of
+base only intensified my troubles.</p>
+
+<p>I found that, throughout the government offices, a system had been
+prevalent, something like that described in <i>Gil Blas</i> as existing at
+the Court of Spain, by which, along with the stationery required for the
+departments, articles for ladies' toilet use, etc., were included, and
+had always theretofore been charged in the government accounts as a
+matter of course. I directed that those items should be supplied as
+ordered, but that their cost be placed to my own private account, and
+that the parties be notified, that they must thereafter furnish separate
+orders for such things. I also took an early opportunity of pointing out
+the abuse to the Attorney-General, who said his colleagues had suspected
+the practice before, but had no proof of misconduct; and added, that if
+I would lay an information, he would send the offenders to the
+Penitentiary; as in fact he did in the Reiffenstein case some years
+afterwards. I replied, that were I to do so, nearly every man in the
+public service would be likely to become my personal enemy, which he
+admitted to be probable. As it was, the apparent consequence of my
+refusal to make fraudulent entries, was an accusation that I charged
+excessive prices, although I had never charged as much as the rate
+allowed the Queen's Printer, considering it unreasonable. My accounts
+were at my request referred to an expert, and adjudged by him to be fair
+in proportion to quality of stationery furnished. Gradually I succeeded
+in stopping the time-honoured custom as far as I was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Years after, when I had the contract for Parliamentary printing at
+Quebec, matters proved even more vexatious. When the Session had
+commenced, and I had with great outlay and exertion got every thing into
+working order, I was refused copies of papers from certain sub-officers
+of the Legislature, until I had agreed upon the percentage expected upon
+my contract rates. My reply, through my clerk, was, that I had
+contracted at low rates, and could not afford gratuities such as were
+claimed, and that if I could, I would not. The consequence was a
+deadlock, and it was not until I brought the matter to the attention of
+the Speaker, Sir Henry Smith, that I was enabled to get on with the
+work. These things happened a quarter of a century ago, and although I
+suffer the injurious consequences myself to this day, I trust no other
+living person can be affected by their publication now.</p>
+
+<p>The position of ministerial organist, besides being both onerous and
+unpleasant, was to me an actual money loss. My newspaper expenses
+amounted to over four hundred dollars per week, with a constantly
+decreasing subscription list.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> The profits on the government
+stationery were no greater than those realized by contractors who gave
+no additional <i>quid pro quo</i>; and I was only too glad, when the
+opportunity of competing for the Legislative printing presented itself
+in 1858, to close my costly newspaper business in Toronto. I sold the
+goodwill of the <i>Colonist</i> to Messrs. Sheppard &amp; Morrison,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and on my
+removal to Quebec next year, established a cheap journal there called
+the <i>Advertiser</i>, the history of which in 1859-60, I shall relate in a
+chapter by itself.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>BUSINESS EXPERIENCES IN QUEBEC.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>hen I began to feel the effects of official hostility in Quebec, as
+above stated, I was also suffering from another and more vital evil. I
+had taken the contract for parliamentary printing at prices slightly
+lower than had before prevailed. My knowledge of printing in my own
+person gave me an advantage over most other competitors. The consequence
+of this has been, that large sums of money were saved to the country
+yearly for the last twenty-four years. But the former race of
+contractors owed me a violent grudge, for, as they alleged, taking the
+contract below paying prices. I went to work, however, confident of my
+resources and success. But no sooner had I got well under weigh, than my
+arrangements were frustrated, my expenditure nullified, my just hopes
+dashed to the ground, by the action of the Legislature itself. A joint
+committee on printing had been appointed, of which the Hon. Mr. Simpson,
+of Bowmanville, was chairman, which proceeded deliberately to cut down
+the amount of printing to be executed, and particularly the quantity of
+French documents to be printed, to such an extent as to reduce the work
+for which I had contracted by at least one-third. And this without the
+smallest regard to the terms of my contract. Thus were one-half of all
+my expenditures&mdash;one-half of my thirty thousand dollars worth of
+type&mdash;one-half of my fifteen thousand dollars worth of presses and
+machinery&mdash;literally rendered useless, and reduced to the condition of
+second-hand material. I applied to my solicitor for advice. He told me
+that, unless I threw up the contract, I could make no claim for breach
+of conditions. Unfortunately for me, the many precedents since
+established, of actions on "petition of right" for breach of contract by
+the Government and the Legislature, had not then been recorded, and I
+had to submit to what I was told was the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and
+malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French
+contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in
+Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my
+workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my
+contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to
+my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier
+of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the
+Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination
+against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it,
+unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance.</p>
+
+<p>I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send
+a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I
+hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of
+Messrs Cameron &amp; Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could
+command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of
+the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a
+hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada,
+which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due
+by farmers who&mdash;as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857&mdash;had
+made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment
+of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so
+thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements
+submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee,
+and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their
+benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they
+undertook to do in three days.</p>
+
+<p>What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term,
+that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in
+Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and
+influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to
+abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent
+abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by
+marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides
+command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my
+counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought
+in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and
+in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with
+the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more
+into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert
+Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and Fran&ccedil;ois Lemieux.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2>
+
+<h3>QUEBEC IN 1859-60.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> resided for eighteen months in the old, picturesque and many-memoried
+city. My house was a three-story cedar log building known as the White
+House, near the corner of Salaberry Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It
+was weather-boarded outside, comfortably plastered and finished within,
+and was the most easily warmed house I ever occupied. The windows were
+French, double in winter, opening both inwards and outwards, with
+sliding panes for ventilation. It had a good garden, sloping northerly
+at an angle of about fifteen degrees, which I found a desolate place
+enough, and left a little oasis of beauty and productiveness. One of my
+amusements there was to stroll along the garden paths, watching for the
+sparkle of Quebec diamonds, which after every rainfall glittered in the
+paths and flower-beds. They are very pretty, well shaped octagonal
+crystals of rock quartz, and are often worn in necklaces by the Quebec
+demoiselles. On the plains of Abraham I found similar specimens
+brilliantly black.</p>
+
+<p>Quebec is famous for good roads and pleasant shady promenades. By the
+St. Foy Road to Spencer Wood, thence onward to Cap Rouge, back by the
+St. Louis Road or Grande All&eacute;e, past the citadel and through the
+old-fashioned St. Louis Gate, is a charming stroll; or along the by-path
+from St. Louis Road to the pretty Gothic chapel overhanging the Cove,
+and so down steep rocky steps descending four hundred feet to the mighty
+river St. Lawrence; or along the St. Charles river and the country road
+to Lorette; or by the Beauport road to the old chateau or manor house of
+Colonel Gugy, known by the name of "Darnoc." The toll-gate on the St.
+Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple <i>habitans</i>,
+who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a
+bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or
+some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with
+which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St.
+Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and
+return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from
+their day's traffic.</p>
+
+<p>One of the specialties of the city is its rats. In my house-yard was a
+sink, or rather hole in the rock, covered by a wooden grating. A large
+cat, who made herself at home on the premises, would sit watching at the
+grating for hours, every now and then inserting her paw between the bars
+and hooking out leisurely a squeaking young rat, of which thirty or
+forty at a time showed themselves within the cavity. I was assured that
+these rats have underground communications, like those of the rock of
+Gibraltar, from every quarter of the city to the citadel, and so
+downward to the quays and river below. Besides the cat, there was a
+rough terrier dog named C&aelig;sar, also exercising right of occupancy. To
+see him pouncing upon rats in the pantry, from which they could not be
+easily excluded by reason of a dozen entrances through the stone
+basement walls, was something to enchant sporting characters. I was not
+of that class, so stopped up the rock with broken bottles and mortar,
+and provided traps for stray intruders.</p>
+
+<p>The Laurentine mountains, distant a few miles north of the city, rise to
+a height of twenty-five hundred feet. By daylight they are bleak and
+barren enough; but at night, seen in the light of the glorious Aurora
+Borealis which so often irradiates that part of Canada, they are a
+vision of enchanting beauty. This reminds me of a conversation which I
+was privileged to have with the late Sir William Logan, who most kindly
+answered my many inquisitive questions on geological subjects. He
+explained that the mountains of Newfoundland, of Quebec, of the height
+of land between the St. Lawrence and Lake Nipissing, and of Manitoba and
+Keewatin in the North-West, are all links of one continuous chain, of
+nearly equal elevation, and marked throughout that vast extent by
+ancient sea-beaches at an uniform level of twelve hundred feet above the
+sea, with other ancient beaches seven hundred feet above the sea at
+various points; two remarkable examples of which latter class are the
+rock of Quebec and the Oak Ridges eighteen miles north of Toronto. He
+pointed out further, that those two points indicate precisely the level
+of the great ocean which covered North America in the glacial period,
+when Toronto was six hundred feet under salt water, and Quebec was the
+solitary rock visible above water for hundreds of miles east, west and
+south&mdash;the Laurentides then, as now, towering eighteen hundred feet
+higher, on the north.</p>
+
+<p>In winter also, Quebec has many features peculiar to itself. Close
+beside, and high above the little steep roofed houses&mdash;crowded into
+streets barely wide enough to admit the diminutive French carts without
+crushing unlucky foot-passengers,&mdash;rise massive frowning bastions
+crowned with huge cannon, all black with age and gloomy with desperate
+legends of attack and defence. The snow accumulates in these streets to
+the height of the upper-floor windows, with precipitous steps cut
+suddenly down to each doorway, so that at night it is a work of no
+little peril to navigate one's way home. Near the old Palace Gate are
+beetling cliffs, seventy feet above the hill of rocky debris which forms
+one side of the street below. It is high carnival with the Quebec
+<i>gamins</i>, when they can collect there in hundreds, each with his frail
+handsleigh, and poising themselves on the giddy edge of the "horrent
+summit," recklessly shoot down in fearful descent, first to the sharp
+rocky slope, and thence with alarming velocity to the lower level of the
+street. Outside St. John's Gate is another of these infantile
+race-grounds. Down the steep incline of the glacis, crowds of children
+are seen every fine winter's day, sleighing and tobogganing from morning
+till night, not without occasional accidents of a serious nature.</p>
+
+<p>But the crowning triumph of Quebec scenery, summer and winter, centres
+in the Falls of Montmorenci, a seven mile drive, over Dorchester bridge,
+along the Beauport road, commanding fine views of the wide St. Lawrence
+and the smiling Isle of Orleans, with its pilot-inhabited houses painted
+blue, red and yellow&mdash;all three colours at once occasionally&mdash;(the
+paints wickedly supposed to be perquisites acquired in a professional
+capacity from ships' stores)&mdash;and so along shady avenues varied by
+brightest sunshine, we find ourselves in front and at the foot of a
+cascade four hundred feet above us, broken into exquisite facets and
+dancing foam by projecting rocky points, and set in a bordering of
+lovely foliage on all sides. This is of course in summer. In winter how
+different. Still the descending torrent, but only bare tree-stems and
+icy masses for the frame-work, and at the base a conical mountain of
+snow and ice, a hundred and fifty feet high, sloping steeply on all
+sides, and with the frozen St. Lawrence spread out for miles to the
+east. He who covets a sensation for life, has only to climb the gelid
+hill by the aid of ice-steps cut in its side, and commit himself to the
+charge of the habitant who first offers his services, and the thing is
+soon accomplished. The gentleman adventurer sits at the back of the
+sleigh,&mdash;which is about four feet long&mdash;tucks his legs round the
+habitant, who sits in front and steers with his heels; for an instant
+the steersman manoeuvres into position on the edge of the cone, which
+slightly overhangs&mdash;then away we go, launching into mid-air, striking
+ground&mdash;or rather ice&mdash;thirty feet below, and down and still down, fleet
+as lightning, to the level river plain, over which we glide by the
+impetus of our descent fully half-a-mile further. I tried it twice. My
+companion was severely affected by the shock, and gave in with a bad
+headache at the first experiment. The same day, several reckless young
+officers of the garrison would insist upon steering themselves, paying a
+guinea each for the privilege. One of them suffered for his freak from a
+broken arm. But with experienced guides no ill-consequences are on
+record.</p>
+
+<p>An appalling tragedy is related of this ice-mountain. An American
+tourist with his bride was among the visitors to the Falls one day some
+years back. They were both young and high-spirited, and had immensely
+enjoyed their marriage trip by way of the St. Lawrence. Standing on the
+summit of the cone, in raptures with the cataract, the cliffs
+ice-bedecked, the trees ice-laden, their attention was for an instant
+diverted from each other. The young man, gazing eastward across the
+river, talking gaily to his wife, was surprised at receiving no reply,
+and looking round found himself alone. Shouting frantically, no
+answering cry could be distinguished,&mdash;the roaring of the cascade was
+loud enough to drown any human voice. Hanging madly over the edge next
+the Falls, which is quite precipitous, there was nothing to be seen but
+a boiling whirlpool of angry waters. The poor girl had stepped
+unconsciously backward,&mdash;had slipped down into the boiling surf,&mdash;had
+been instantaneously carried beneath the ice of the river.</p>
+
+<p>Another peculiarity of Quebec is its ice-freshets in spring. Near the
+vast tasteless church of St. John, on the road of that name, a torrent
+of water from the higher level crosses the street, and thunders down the
+steep ways descending to the Lower Town. At night it freezes solidly
+again, and becomes so dangerously slippery, that I have seen ladies
+piloted across for several hundred feet, by holding on to the
+courteously extended walking stick of the first gentlemanly stranger to
+whom they could appeal for help in their utter distress and perplexity.
+These freshets flood the business streets named after St. Peter and St.
+Paul on the level of the wharves. To cross them at such times, floating
+planks are put in requisition, and no little skill is required to escape
+a wetting up to the knees.</p>
+
+<p>The social aspects of the city are as unique as its natural features.
+The Romish hierarchy exercises an arbitrary, and I must add a
+beneficial, rule over the mixed maritime and crimping elements which
+form its lowest stratum. Private charity is universal on the part of the
+well-to-do citizens. It is an interesting sight to watch the numbers of
+paupers who are supplied weekly from heaps of loaves of bread piled
+high on the tradesmen's counters, to which all comers are free to help
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The upper classes are divided into castes as marked as those of
+Hindostan. French Canadian seigniors, priestly functionaries of high
+rank, government officials of the ruling race, form an exclusive, and it
+is said almost impenetrable coterie by themselves. The sons or nephews
+of Liverpool merchants having branch firms in the city, and wealthy
+Protestant tradesmen, generally English churchmen, constitute a second
+division scarcely less isolated. Next to these come the members of other
+religious denominations, who keep pretty much to themselves. I am sorry
+to hear from a respected Methodist minister whom I met in Toronto
+lately, that the last named valuable element of the population has been
+gradually diminishing in numbers and influence, and that it is becoming
+difficult to keep their congregations comfortably together. This is a
+consequence, and an evil consequence, of confederation.</p>
+
+<p>Another characteristic singularity of Quebec life arises from the
+association, without coalescing, of two distinct nationalities having
+diverse creeds and habits. This is often ludicrously illustrated by the
+system of mixed juries. I was present in the Recorder's Court on one
+occasion, when a big, burly Irishman was in the prisoner's dock, charged
+with violently ejecting a bailiff in possession, which I believe in
+Scotland is called a deforcement on the premises. It appeared that the
+bailiff, a little habitant, had been riotously drunk and disorderly,
+having helped himself to the contents of a number of bottles of ale
+which he discovered in a cupboard. The prisoner, moved to indignation,
+coolly took up the drunken offender in his arms, tossed him down a
+flight of steps into the middle of the street, and shut the door in his
+face. The counsel for the complainant, a popular Irish barrister,
+lamented privately that he was on the wrong side, being more used to
+defending breaches of the laws than to enforcing them&mdash;that there was no
+hope of a verdict in favour of authority&mdash;and that the jury were certain
+to disagree, however clearly the facts and the law were shown. And so it
+proved. The French jurors looked puzzled&mdash;the English enjoyed the
+fun&mdash;the judge charged with a half smile on his countenance&mdash;and the
+jury disagreed&mdash;six to six. On leaving the court, one of the jurors
+whispered to the discharged prisoner, "Did you think we were agoing to
+give in to them French fellows?"</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2>
+
+<h3>DEPARTURE FROM QUEBEC.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> suppose it is in the very nature of an autobiography to be
+egotistical, a fault which I have desired to avoid; but find that my own
+personal affairs have been often so strangely interwoven with public
+events, that I could not make the one intelligible without describing
+the other. My departure from Quebec, for instance, was caused by
+circumstances which involved many public men of that day, and made me an
+involuntary party to important political movements.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned that, with the sanction of the Upper Canadian section
+of the Ministry, I had commenced the publication in Quebec of a daily
+newspaper with an evening edition, under the title of the <i>Advertiser</i>.
+I strove to make it an improvement upon the style of then existing
+Quebec journals, but without any attempt at business rivalry, devoting
+my attention chiefly to the mercantile interests of the city, including
+its important lumber trade. I wrote articles describing the various
+qualities of Upper Canadian timber, which I thought should be made known
+in the British market. This was to some degree successful, and as a
+consequence I gained the friendship of several influential men of
+business. But I did not suspect upon how inflammable a mine I was
+standing. A discourteous remark in a morning contemporary, upon some
+observations in the <i>Courrier du Canada</i>, in which the ground was taken
+by the latter that French institutions in Europe exceeded in liberality,
+and ensured greater personal freedom than those of Great Britain, and by
+consequence of Canada, induced me to enter into an amicable controversy
+with the <i>Courrier</i> as to the relative merits of French imperial and
+British monarchical government. About the same time, I gave publicity to
+some complaints of injustice suffered by Protestant&mdash;I think
+Orange&mdash;workmen who had been dismissed from employment under a local
+contractor on one of the wharves, owing as was asserted to their
+religious creed. Just then a French journalist, the editor of the
+<i>Courrier de Paris</i>, was expelled by the Emperor Louis Napoleon for some
+critique on "my policy." This afforded so pungent an opportunity for
+retort upon my Quebec friend, that I could not resist the temptation to
+use it. From that moment, it appears, I was considered an enemy of
+French Canadians and a hater of Roman Catholics, to whom in truth I
+never felt the least antipathy, and never even dreamt of enquiring
+either the religious or political principles of men in my employment.</p>
+
+<p>I was informed, that the Hon. Mr. Cartier desired that I should
+discontinue the <i>Advertiser</i>. Astonished at this, I spoke to one of his
+colleagues on the subject. He said I had been quite in the right; that
+the editor of the <i>Courrier</i> was a d&mdash;d fool; but I had better see
+Cartier. I did so; pointed out that I had no idea of having offended any
+man's prejudices; and could not understand why my paper should be
+objectionable. He vouchsafed no argument; said curtly that his friends
+were annoyed; and that I had better give up the paper. I declined to do
+so, and left him.</p>
+
+<p>This was subsequent to the events related in Chapter xlix. I spoke to
+others of the Ministers. One of them&mdash;he is still living&mdash;said that I
+was getting too old [I was fifty], and it was time I was
+superannuated&mdash;but that&mdash;they could not go against Cartier! My pride was
+not then subdued, and revolted against such treatment. I was under no
+obligations to the Ministry; on the contrary, I felt they were heavily
+indebted to me. I waited on the Hon. L. V. Sicotte, who was on neutral
+terms with the government, placed my columns at his disposal, and
+shortly afterwards, on the conclusion of an understanding between him
+and the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald, to which the Hon. A. A. Dorion was
+a party, I published an article prepared by them, temperately but
+strongly opposed to the policy of the existing government. This
+combination ultimately resulted in the formation of the
+Macdonald-Sicotte Ministry in 1862.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not all. The French local press took up the quarrel
+respecting French institutions&mdash;told me plainly that Quebec was a
+"Catholic city," and that I would not be allowed to insult their
+institutions with impunity&mdash;hinted at mob-chastisement, and other
+consequences. I knew that years before, the printing office of a friend
+of my own&mdash;since high in the public service&mdash;had been burnt in Quebec
+under similar circumstances. I could not expose my partners to absolute
+ruin by provoking a similar fate. The Protestants of the city were quite
+willing to make my cause a religious and national feud, and told me so.
+There was no knowing where the consequences might end. For myself, I had
+really no interest in the dispute; no prejudices to gratify; no love of
+fighting for its own sake, although I had willingly borne arms for my
+Queen; so I gave up the dispute; sold out my interest in the printing
+contract to my partners for a small sum, which I handed to the rightful
+owner of the materials, and left Quebec with little more than means
+enough to pay my way to Toronto.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2>
+
+<h3>JOHN A. MACDONALD AND GEORGE BROWN.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n chapter <span class="smcap">xxxv</span>. I noticed the almost simultaneous entrance of these two
+men into political life. Their history and achievements have been
+severally recorded by friendly biographers, and it is unnecessary for me
+to add anything thereto. Personally, nothing but kindly courtesy was
+ever shown me by either. In some respects their record was much alike,
+in some how different. Both Scotchmen, both ambitious, both resolute and
+persevering, both carried away by political excitement into errors which
+they would gladly forget&mdash;both unquestionably loyal and true to the
+empire. But in temper and demeanour, no two men could be more unlike.
+Mr. Brown was naturally austere, autocratic, domineering. Sir John was
+kindly, whether to friends or foes, and always ready to forget past
+differences.</p>
+
+<p>A country member, who had been newly elected for a Reform constituency,
+said to a friend of mine, "What a contrast between Brown and Macdonald!
+I was at the Reform Convention the other day, and there was George
+Brown dictating to us all, and treating rudely every man who dared to
+make a suggestion. Next day, I was talking to some fellows in the
+lobby, when a stranger coming up slapped me on the shoulder, and said
+in the heartiest way 'How d'ye do, M&mdash;&mdash;? shake hands&mdash;glad to see you
+here&mdash;I'm John A.!'"</p>
+
+<p>Another member, the late J. Sheridan Hogan&mdash;who, after writing for the
+<i>Colonist</i>, had gone into opposition, and was elected member for
+Grey&mdash;told me that it was impossible to help liking Sir John&mdash;he was so
+good-natured to men on both sides of the House, and never seemed to
+remember an injury, or resent an attack after it was past.</p>
+
+<p>Hence probably the cause of the differing careers of these two men.
+Standing together as equals during the coalition of 1862, and separating
+again after a brief alliance of eighteen months' duration, the one
+retained the confidence of his party under very discouraging
+circumstances, while the other gradually lapsed into the position of a
+governmental impossibility, and only escaped formal deposition as a
+party leader by his own violent death.</p>
+
+<p>I am strongly under the impression that the assassination of George
+Brown by the hands of a dismissed employee, in May, 1880, was one of the
+consequences of his own imperious temper. Many years ago, Mr. Brown
+conceived the idea of employing females as compositors in the <i>Globe</i>
+printing office, which caused a "strike" amongst the men. Great
+excitement was created, and angry threats were used against him; while
+the popular feeling was intensified by his arresting several of the
+workmen under an old English statute of the Restoration. The ill-will
+thus aroused extended among the working classes throughout Ontario, and
+doubtless caused his party the loss of more than one constituency. It
+seems highly probable, that the bitterness which rankled in the breast
+of his murderer, had its origin in this old class-feud.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John is reported to have said, that he liked supporters who voted
+with him, not because they thought him in the right, but even when they
+believed him to be in the wrong. I fancy that in so saying, he only gave
+candid expression to the secret feeling of all ambitious leaders. This
+brusque candour is a marked feature of Sir John's character, and no
+doubt goes a great way with the populace. A friend told me, that one of
+our leading citizens met the Premier on King Street, and accosted him
+with&mdash;"Sir John, our friend &mdash;&mdash; says that you are the d&mdash;st liar in
+all Canada!" Assuming a very grave look, the answer came&mdash;"I dare say
+it's true enough!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir John once said to myself. "I don't care for office for the sake of
+money, but for the sake of power, and for the sake of carrying out my
+own views of what is best for the country." And I believe he spoke
+sincerely. Mr. Collins, his biographer, has evidently pictured to
+himself his hero some day taking the lead in the demand for Canadian
+independence. I trust and think he is mistaken, and that the great
+Conservative leader would rather die as did his late rival, than quit
+for a moment the straight path of loyalty to his Sovereign and the
+Empire.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>JOHN SHERIDAN HOGAN.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have several times had occasion to mention this gentleman, who first
+came into notice on his being arrested, when a young man, and
+temporarily imprisoned in Buffalo, for being concerned in the burning of
+the steamer <i>Caroline</i>, in 1838. He was then twenty-three years old, was
+a native of Ireland, a Roman Catholic by religious profession, and
+emigrated to Canada in 1827. I engaged him in 1853, as assistant-editor
+and correspondent at Quebec, then the seat of the Canadian legislature.
+He had previously distinguished himself at college, and became one of
+the ablest Canadian writers of his day. He was the successful competitor
+for the prize given for the best essay on Canada at the Universal
+Exhibition of 1856, and had he lived, might have proved a strong man in
+political life.</p>
+
+<p>In 1858, Mr. Hogan suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that he had
+gone on a shooting expedition to Texas. But in the following spring, a
+partially decomposed corpse was found in the melting snow near the mouth
+of the Don, in Toronto Bay. Gradually the fearful truth came to light
+through the remorse of one of the women accessory to the crime. A gang
+of loose men and women who infested what was called Brooks's Bush, east
+of the Don, were in the habit of robbing people who had occasion to
+cross the Don bridge at late hours of the night. Mr. Hogan frequently
+visited a friend who resided east of the bridge, on the Kingston Road,
+and on the night in question, was about crossing the bridge, when a
+woman who knew him, accosted him familiarly, while at the same moment
+another woman struck him on the forehead with a stone slung in a
+stocking; two or three men then rushed upon him, while partially
+insensible, and rifled his pockets. He recovered sufficiently to cry
+faintly, "Don't murder me!" to a man whom he recognised and called by
+name. This recognition was fatal to him. To avoid discovery, the
+villains lifted him bodily, in spite of his cries and struggles, and
+tossed him over the parapet into the stream, where he was drowned. In
+1861, some of the parties were arrested; one of them, named Brown, was
+convicted and hanged for the murder; two others managed to prove an
+<i>alibi</i>, and so escaped punishment.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>DOMESTIC NOTES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Rev. Henry C. Cooper was the eldest of a family of four brothers,
+who emigrated to Canada in 1832, and settled in what is known as the old
+Exeter settlement in the Huron tract. He was accompanied to Canada by
+his wife and two children, afterwards increased to nine, who endured
+with him all the hardships and privations of a bush life. In 1848 he was
+appointed to the rectory of Mimico, in the township of Etobicoke, to
+which was afterwards added the charge of the church and parish of St.
+George's, Islington, including the village of Lambton on the Humber.</p>
+
+<p>In 1863, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became my wife. Our married
+life was in all respects a happy one, saddened only by anxieties arising
+from illness, which resulted in the death of one child, a daughter, at
+the age of six months, and of two others prematurely. These losses
+affected their mother's health, and she died in November, 1868, aged 36
+years. To express my sense of her loss, I quote from Tennyson's "In
+Memoriam":</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The path by which we twain did go,</span>
+<span class="i2">Which led by tracts which pleased us well,</span>
+<span class="i2">Through four sweet years arose and fell,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;From flower to flower, from snow to snow:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">"And we with singing cheer'd the way,</span>
+<span class="i2">And crown'd with all the season lent,</span>
+<span class="i2">From April on to April went,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;And glad at heart from May to May:</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">"But where the path we walked began</span>
+<span class="i2">To slant the fifth autumnal slope,</span>
+<span class="i2">As we descended, following Hope,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">"Who broke our fair companionship,</span>
+<span class="i2">And spread his mantle dark and cold,</span>
+<span class="i2">And wrapt thee formless in the fold,</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;And dull'd the murmur on thy lip;</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">"And bore thee where I could not see</span>
+<span class="i2">Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,</span>
+<span class="i2">And think that somewhere in the waste</span>
+<span class="i0">The Shadow sits and waits for me."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For the following epitaph on our infant daughter, I am myself
+responsible. It is carved on a tomb-stone where the mother and her
+little ones lie together in St. George's churchyard:</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We loved thee as a budding flow'r</span>
+<span class="i2">That bloomed in beauty for awhile;</span>
+<span class="i0">We loved thee as a ray of light</span>
+<span class="i2">To bless us with its sunny smile;</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">We loved thee as a heavenly gift</span>
+<span class="i2">So rich, we trembled to possess,&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">A hope to sweeten life's decline,</span>
+<span class="i2">And charm our griefs to happiness.</span>
+&nbsp;
+<span class="i0">The flower, the ray, the hope is past&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i2">The chill of death rests on thy brow&mdash;</span>
+<span class="i0">But ah! our Father's will be done,</span>
+<span class="i2">We love thee as an angel now!</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Cooper died Sept. 10, 1877, leaving behind him the reputation of an
+earnest, upright life, and a strong attachment to the evangelical school
+in the English Church. His widow still resides at St. George's Hill,
+with one of her daughters. Two of her sons are in the ministry, the Rev.
+Horace Cooper, of Lloydtown, and the Rev. Robert St. P. O. Cooper, of
+Chatham.</p>
+
+<p>One of Mr. H. C. Cooper's brothers became Judge Cooper, of Huron, who
+died some years since. Another, still living, is Mr. C. W. Cooper,
+barrister, formerly of Toronto, now of Chicago. He was recording
+secretary to the B. A. League, in 1849, and is a talented writer for the
+press.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BEAVER INSURANCE COMPANY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n 1860, soon after my return to Toronto, I was asked by my old friend
+and former partner, Mr. Henry Rowsell, to take charge of the Beaver
+Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which had been organized a year or two
+before by W. H. Smith, author of a work called "Canada&mdash;Past, Present,
+and Future," and a Canadian Gazetteer. Of this company I became managing
+director, and continued to conduct it until the year 1876, when it was
+legislated out of existence by the Mackenzie government. I do not
+propose to inflict upon my readers any details respecting its operations
+or fortunes, except in so far as they were matters of public history.
+Suffice it here to say, that I assumed its charge with two hundred
+members or policy holders; that, up to the spring of 1876, it had issued
+seventy-four thousand policies, and that not a just claim remained
+unsatisfied. Its annual income amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars, and its agencies numbered a hundred. That so powerful an
+organization should have to succumb to hostile influences, is a striking
+example of the ups and downs of fortune.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE OTTAWA FIRES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa
+fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the
+17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned
+into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps,
+throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa,
+bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain
+had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to
+such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous
+exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry,
+that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the
+condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean,
+Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief
+space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a
+dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else&mdash;dwellings,
+out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows&mdash;nay, even horses, horned
+cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals,
+and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings&mdash;involved in one common
+destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with
+extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden
+with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some
+smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their
+flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their
+bodies.</p>
+
+<p>The soil in places was burned so deeply as to render farms worthless,
+while the highways were made impassable by the destruction of bridges
+and corduroy roads. To the horrors of fire were added those of
+starvation and exposure; it was many days before shelter could be
+provided, or even food furnished to all who needed it. The harvest, just
+gathered, had been utterly consumed in the barns and stacks; and the
+green crops, such as corn, oats, turnips and potatoes, were so scorched
+in the fields as to render them worthless.</p>
+
+<p>The number of families burnt out was stated at over four hundred, of
+whom eighty-two were insurers in the Beaver Company to the extent of
+some seventy thousand dollars, all of which was satisfactorily paid.</p>
+
+<p>The government and people of Canada generally took up promptly the
+charitable task of providing relief, and it is pleasant to be able to
+add that, within two years after, the farmers of the burnt district
+themselves acknowledged that they were better off than before the great
+fire&mdash;partly owing to a succession of good harvests, but mainly to the
+thorough cleansing which the land had received, and the perfect
+destruction of all stumps and roots by the fervid heat.</p>
+
+<p>One or two remarkable circumstances are worth recording. A farmer was
+sitting at his door, having just finished his evening meal, when he
+noticed a lurid smoke with flames miles off. In two or three minutes it
+had swept over the intervening country, across his farm and through his
+house, licking up everything as it went, and leaving nothing but ashes
+behind it. He escaped by throwing himself down in a piece of wet swamp
+close at hand. His wife and children were from home fortunately. Every
+other living thing was consumed. Another family was less fortunate. It
+consisted of a mother and several children. Driven into a swamp for
+shelter, they became separated and bewildered. The calcined skeletons of
+the poor woman and one child were found several days afterward. The rest
+escaped.</p>
+
+<p>The fire seems to have resembled an electric flash, leaping from place
+to place, passing over whole farms to pounce upon others in rear, and
+again vaulting to some other spot still further eastward.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME INSURANCE EXPERIENCES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the course of the ordinary routine of a fire insurance office,
+circumstances are frequently occurring that may well figure in a
+sensational novel. One or two such may not be uninteresting here. I
+suppress the true names and localities, and some of the particulars.</p>
+
+<p>One dark night, in a frontier settlement of the County of Simcoe, a
+young man was returning through the bush from a township gathering, when
+he noticed loaded teams passing along a concession line not far distant.
+As this was no unusual occurrence, he thought little of it, until some
+miles further on, he came to a clearing of some forty acres, where there
+was no dwelling-house apparently, but a solitary barn, which, while he
+was looking at it, seemed to be lighted up by a lanthorn, and after some
+minutes, by a flickering flame which gradually increased to a blaze, and
+shortly enveloped the whole building. Hastening to the spot, no living
+being was to be seen there, and he was about to leave the place; but
+giving a last look at the burning building, it struck him that there was
+very little fire inside, and he turned to satisfy his curiosity. There
+was nothing whatever in the barn.</p>
+
+<p>In due course, a notice was received at our office, that on a certain
+night the barn of one Dennis &mdash;&mdash;, containing one thousand bushels of
+wheat, had been burnt from an unknown cause, and that the value thereof,
+some eight-hundred dollars, was claimed from the company. At the same
+time, an anonymous letter reached me, suggesting an inquiry into the
+causes of the fire. The inquiry was instituted accordingly. The holder
+of the policy, an old man upwards of sixty years of age, a miser,
+reputed worth ten thousand dollars at least, was arrested, committed to
+---- gaol, and finally tried and found guilty, without a doubt of his
+criminality being left on any body's mind who was present. Through the
+skill of his counsel, however, he escaped on a petty technicality; and
+considering his miserable condition, the loss he had inflicted on
+himself, and his seven months' detention in gaol, we took no further
+steps for his punishment.</p>
+
+<p>A country magistrate of high standing and good circumstances at &mdash;&mdash;,
+had a son aged about twenty-seven, to whom he had given the best
+education that grammar-school and college could afford, and who was
+regarded in his own neighbourhood as the model of gallantry and spirited
+enterprise. His father had supplied him with funds to erect substantial
+farm buildings, well stocked and furnished, in anticipation of his
+marriage with an estimable and well-educated young lady. Amongst the
+other buildings was a cheese-factory, in connection with which the young
+man commenced the business of making and selling cheese on an extensive
+scale. So matters went on for some months, until we received advices
+that the factory which we had insured, had been burnt during the night,
+and that the owner claimed three-thousand dollars for his loss. Our
+inspector was sent to examine and report, and was returning quite
+satisfied of the integrity of the party and the justice of the claim,
+when just as he was leaving the hotel where he had staid, a bystander
+happened to remark how curious it was that cheese should burn without
+smell. "That is impossible," said the landlord. "I am certain," said the
+former speaker, "that this had no smell, for I remarked it to Jack at
+the time."</p>
+
+<p>The inspector reported this conversation, and I sent a detective to
+investigate the case. He remained there, disguised of course, for two or
+three weeks, and then reported that large shipments of cheese to distant
+parts had taken place previously to the fire; but he could find nothing
+to criminate any individual, until accidentally he noticed what looked
+like a dog's muzzle lying in a corner of the stable. He picked it up,
+and untying a string that was wound around it, found it to be the leg of
+a new pair of pantaloons of fine quality. Watching his opportunity the
+same evening, while in conversation with the claimant, he produced the
+trowser-leg quietly, and enquired where the fellow-leg was? Taken by
+surprise, the young man slunk silently away. He had evidently cut off a
+leg of his own pants, and used it to muzzle his house-dog, to silence
+its barking while he set the factory afire. He left the country that
+night, and we heard no more of the claim.</p>
+
+<p>A letter was received one day from a Roman Catholic priest, which
+informed me that a woman whose dying confession he had received, had
+acknowledged that several years before she had been accessary to a fraud
+upon our company of one hundred dollars. Her husband had insured a horse
+with us for that amount. The horse had been burnt in his stable. The
+claim was paid. Her confession was, that the horse had died a natural
+death, and that the stable was set on fire for the purpose of recovering
+the value of the horse. In this case, the woman's confession becoming
+known to her husband, he left the country for the United States. The
+woman recovered and followed him.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVIII" id="CHAPTER_LVIII"></a>CHAPTER LVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A HEAVY CALAMITY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the year 1875, the blow fell which destroyed the Beaver Insurance
+Company, and well nigh ruined every man concerned in it, from the
+president to the remotest agent. In April of that year, a bill was
+passed by the Dominion Legislature relative to mutual fire insurance
+companies. It so happened that the Premier of Canada was then the Hon.
+Alexander Mackenzie, for whose benefit, it was understood, the Hon.
+George Brown had got up a stock company styled the Isolated Risk
+Insurance Co., of which Mr. Mackenzie became president. There was a
+strong rivalry between the two companies, and possibly from this cause
+the legislation of the Dominion took a complexion hostile to mutual
+insurance. Be that as it may, a clause was introduced into the Act
+without attracting attention, which required the Beaver Company to
+deposit with the Government the sum of fifty-thousand dollars, being the
+same amount as had been customary with companies possessing a stock
+capital. For eighteen months this clause remained unobserved, when the
+Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being engaged as counsel in an insurance case,
+happened to light upon it, and mentioned it to me at the last meeting
+of the Board which he attended before his death, which took place two or
+three weeks afterwards. At the following Board meeting, I stated the
+facts as reported by him, and was instructed to take the opinion of Mr.
+Christopher Robinson, the eminent Queen's counsel, upon the case. I did
+so at once, and was advised by him to submit the question to Professor
+Cherriman, superintendent of insurance, by whom it was referred to the
+law officers of the Crown at Ottawa. Their decision was, that the Beaver
+Company had been required by the new Act to make a deposit of fifty
+thousand dollars before transacting any new business since April, 1876,
+and that nothing but an Act of Parliament could relieve the company and
+its agents from the penalties already incurred in ignorance of the
+statute.</p>
+
+<p>On receipt of this opinion, immediate notice was sent by circular to all
+the company's agents, warning them to suspend operations at once. A bill
+was introduced at the following session, in February, 1877, which
+received the royal assent in April, remitting all penalties, and
+authorizing the company either to wind up its business or to transmute
+itself into a stock company. But in the meantime, fire insurance had
+received so severe a shock from the calamitous fire at St. John, N. B.,
+by which many companies were ruined, and all shaken, that it was found
+impossible to raise the necessary capital to resume the Beaver
+business.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without fault or error on the part of its Board of Management,
+without warning or notice of any kind, was a strong and useful
+institution struck to the ground as by a levin-bolt. The directors, who
+included men of high standing of all political parties, lost, in the
+shape of paid-up guarantee stock and promissory notes, about sixty
+thousand dollars of their own money, and the officers suffered in the
+same way. The expenses of winding up, owing to vexatious litigation,
+have amounted to a sum sufficient to cover the outside liabilities of
+the company.</p>
+
+<p>These particulars may not interest the majority of my readers, but I
+have felt it my duty to give them, as the best act of justice in my
+power to the public-spirited and honourable men, with whom for
+twenty-three years I have acted, and finally suffered. That the members
+of the company&mdash;the insured&mdash;have sustained losses by fire since
+October, 1876, to the amount of over $45,000, which remain unpaid in
+consequence of its inability to collect its assets, adds another to the
+many evils which are chargeable to ill-considered and reckless
+legislation, in disregard of the lawful vested rights of innocent
+people, including helpless widows and orphans.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIX" id="CHAPTER_LIX"></a>CHAPTER LIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HON. JOHN HILLYARD CAMERON.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>n the 20th day of April, 1844, I was standing outside the railing of
+St. James's churchyard, Toronto, on the occasion of a very sad funeral.
+The chief mourner was a slightly built, delicate-looking young man of
+prepossessing appearance. His youthful wife, the daughter of the late
+Hon. H. J. Boulton, at one time Chief Justice of Newfoundland, had died,
+and it was at her burial he was assisting. When the coffin had been
+committed to the earth, the widowed husband's feelings utterly overcame
+him, and he fell insensible beside the still open grave.</p>
+
+<p>This was my first knowledge of John Hillyard Cameron. From that day,
+until his death in November, 1876, I knew him more or less intimately,
+enjoyed his confidence personally and politically, and felt a very
+sincere regard for him in return. I used at one time to oppose his views
+in the City Council, but always good-naturedly on both sides. I was
+chairman of the Market Committee, and it was my duty to resist his
+efforts to establish a second market near the corner of Queen and Yonge
+Streets, in the rear of the buildings now known as the Page Block. He
+was a prosperous lawyer, highly in repute, gaining a considerable
+revenue from his profession, and being of a lively, sanguine
+temperament, launched out into heavy speculations in exchange operations
+and in real estate.</p>
+
+<p>As an eloquent pleader in the courts, he excelled all his
+contemporaries, and it was a common saying among solicitors, that
+Cameron ruled the Bench by force of argument, and the jury by power of
+persuasion. In the Legislature he was no less influential. His speeches
+on the Clergy Reserve question, on the Duval case, and many others,
+excited the House of Assembly to such a degree, that on one occasion an
+adjournment was carried on the motion of the ministerial leader, to give
+time for sober reflection. So it was in religious assemblies. At
+meetings of the Synod of the Church of England, at missionary meetings,
+and others, his fervid zeal and flowing sentences carried all before
+them, and left little for others to say.</p>
+
+<p>In 1849, Mr. Cameron married again, this time a daughter of General
+Mallett, of Baltimore, who survives him, and still resides in Toronto.
+After that date, and for years until 1857, everything appeared to
+prosper with him. A comfortable residence, well stored with valuable
+paintings, books and rarities of all kinds. The choicest of society and
+hosts of friends. An amiable growing family of sons and daughters.
+Affluence and elegance, popular favour, and the full sunshine of
+prosperity. Honours were showered upon him from all sides.
+Solicitor-General in 1846, member of Parliament for several
+constituencies in turn, Treasurer of the Law Society, and Grand Master
+of the Orange Association. Judgeships and Chief-Justiceships were known
+to be at his disposal, but declined for personal reasons.</p>
+
+<p>My political connection with Mr. Cameron commenced in 1854, when, having
+purchased from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie the <i>Colonist</i>
+newspaper, I thought it prudent to strengthen myself by party alliances.
+He entered into the project with an energy and disinterestedness that
+surprised me. It had been a semi-weekly paper; he offered to furnish
+five thousand dollars a year to make it a daily journal, independent of
+party control; stipulated for no personal influence over its editorial
+views, leaving them entirely in my discretion, and undertaking that he
+would never reclaim the money so advanced, as long as his means should
+last. I was then comparatively young, enterprising, and unembarrassed in
+circumstances, popular amongst my fellow-citizens, and mixed up in
+nearly every public enterprise and literary association then in
+existence in Toronto. Quite ready, in fact, for any kind of newspaper
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>My arrangement with Mr. Cameron continued, with complete success, until
+1857. The paper was acknowledged as a power in the state; my relations
+with contemporary journals were friendly, and all seemed well.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1857 occurred the great business panic, which spread
+ruin and calamity throughout Canada West, caused by the cessation of the
+vast railway expenditure of preceding years, and by the simultaneous
+occurrence of a business pressure in the United States. The great house
+of Duncan Sherman &amp; Co., of New York, through which Mr. Cameron was in
+the habit of transacting a large exchange business with England, broke
+down suddenly and unexpectedly. Drafts on London were dishonoured, and
+Mr. Cameron's bankers there, to protect themselves, sold without notice
+the securities he had placed in their hands, at a loss to him personally
+of over a hundred thousand pounds sterling.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cameron was for a time prostrated by this reverse, but soon rallied
+his energies. Friends advised him to offer a compromise to his
+creditors, which would have been gladly accepted; but he refused to do
+so, saying, he would either pay twenty shillings in the pound or die in
+the effort. He made the most extraordinary exertions, refusing the
+highest seats on the judicial bench to work the harder at his
+profession; toiling day and night to retrieve his fortunes; insuring his
+life for heavy sums by way of security to his creditors; and felt
+confident of final success, when in October, 1876, while attending the
+assize at Orillia, he imprudently refreshed himself after a night's
+labour in court, by bathing in the cold waters of the Narrows of Lake
+Couchiching, and contracted a severe cold which laid him on a sick bed,
+which he never quitted alive.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him a day or two before his death, when he spoke of a heavy draft
+becoming due, for which he had made provision. In this he was
+disappointed. He tried to leave his bed to rectify the error, but fell
+back from exhaustion, and died in the struggle&mdash;as his friends
+think&mdash;from a broken heart.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LX" id="CHAPTER_LX"></a>CHAPTER LX.</h2>
+
+<h3>TORONTO ATHEN&AElig;UM.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>bout the year 1843, the first effort to establish a free public library
+in Toronto, was made by myself. Having been a member of the Birkbeck
+Institute of London, I exerted myself to get up a similar society here,
+and succeeded in enlisting the sympathies of several of the masters of
+Upper Canada College, of whom Mr. Henry Scadding (now the Rev. Dr.
+Scadding) was the chief. He became president of the Athen&aelig;um, a literary
+association, of which I was secretary and librarian. In that capacity I
+corresponded with the learned societies of England and Scotland, and in
+two or three years got together several hundred volumes of standard
+works, all in good order and well bound. Meetings for literary
+discussion were held weekly, the principal speakers being Philip M.
+Vankoughnet (since chancellor), Alex. Vidal (now senator), David B. Read
+(now Q.C.), J. Crickmore,&mdash; Martin, Macdonald the younger (of
+Greenfield), and many others whose names I cannot recall. I recollect
+being infinitely amused by a na&iuml;ve observation of one of these young
+men&mdash; "Remember, gentlemen, that we are the future legislators of
+Canada!" which proved to be prophetic, as most of them have since made
+their mark in some conspicuous public capacity.</p>
+
+<p>We met in the west wing of the old City Hall. The eastern wing was
+occupied by the Commercial News room, and in course of time the two
+associations were united. As an interesting memento of many honoured
+citizens, I copy the deed of transfer in full:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We, the undersigned shareholders of the Commercial News Room,
+do hereby make over, assign, and transfer unto the members, for
+the time being, of the Toronto Athen&aelig;um, all our right, title,
+and interest in and to each our share in the said Commercial
+News Room, for the purposes and on the terms and conditions
+mentioned in the copy of a Resolution of the Committee of the
+said Commercial News Room, hereunto annexed.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>"In witness whereof we have hereunto placed our hands and seals this 3rd
+day of September, 1847."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+Thos. D. Harris.<br />
+Jos. D. Ridout.<br />
+W. C. Ross.<br />
+A. T. McCord.<br />
+D. Paterson.<br />
+Wm. Proudfoot.<br />
+F. W. Birchall.<br />
+Geo. Perc. Ridout.<br />
+Alexander Murray.<br />
+W. Allan.<br />
+J. Mitchell.<br />
+James F. Smith.<br />
+W. Gamble.<br />
+Richard Kneeshaw.<br />
+John Ewart.<br />
+George Munro.<br />
+Thos. Mercer Jones.<br />
+Joseph Dixon.<br />
+<br />
+Signed, sealed and delivered  }<br />
+in the presence of &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;}<br />
+Samuel Thompson. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; }<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>After the destruction by fire of the old City Hall, the Athen&aelig;um
+occupied handsome rooms in the St. Lawrence Hall, until 1855, when a
+proposition was received to unite with the Canadian Institute, then
+under the presidency of Chief Justice Sir J. B. Robinson. Dr. Wilson
+(now President Toronto University) was its leading spirit. It was
+thereupon decided to transfer the library and some minerals, with the
+government grant of $400, to the Canadian Institute. In order to
+legalize the transfer, application was made to Parliament, and on the
+19th May, 1855, the Act 18 Vic., c. 236, received the royal assent. The
+first clause reads as follows:&mdash; "The members of the Toronto Athen&aelig;um
+shall have power to transfer and convey to the Canadian Institute, such
+and so much of the books, minerals, and other property of the said
+Toronto Athen&aelig;um, whether held absolutely or in trust, as they may
+decide upon so conveying, and upon such conditions as they may think
+advisable, which conditions, if accepted by the said Canadian Institute,
+shall be binding."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly a deed of transfer was prepared and executed by the two
+contracting parties, by which it was provided:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"That the library formed by the books of the two institutions,
+with such additions as may be made from the common funds, should
+constitute a library to which the public should have access for
+reference, free of charge, under such regulations as may be
+adopted by the said Canadian Institute in view of the proper
+care and management of the same."</p></div>
+
+<p>The books and minerals were handed over in due time, and acknowledged in
+the <i>Canadian Journal</i>, vol. 3, p. 394, old series. On the 9th February,
+1856, Professor Chapman presented his report as curator, "on the
+minerals handed over by the Toronto Athen&aelig;um," which does not appear to
+have been published in the <i>Journal</i>. The reading room was subsequently
+handed over to the Mechanics' Institute, which was then in full vigour.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen, therefore, that the library of the Canadian Institute
+is, to all intents and purposes, a public library by statute, and free
+to all citizens for ever. I am sorry to add, that for many years back
+the conditions of the trust have been very indifferently carried
+out&mdash;few citizens know their rights respecting it, and still fewer avail
+themselves thereof. The Institute now has a substantial building, very
+comfortably fitted up, on Richmond Street east; has a good reading room
+in excellent order, and very obliging officials; gives weekly readings
+or lectures on Saturday evenings, and has accumulated a valuable library
+of some eight thousand volumes.</p>
+
+<p>I have thus been identified with almost every movement made in Toronto,
+for affording literary recreation to her citizens, and rejoice to see
+the good work progressing in younger and abler hands.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXI" id="CHAPTER_LXI"></a>CHAPTER LXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BUFFALO FETE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n the month of July, 1850, the Mayor and citizens of Buffalo, hearing
+that our Canadian legislators were about to attend the formal opening of
+the Welland Canal, very courteously invited them to extend their trip to
+that city, and made preparations for their reception. Circumstances
+prevented the visit, but in acknowledgment of the good will thus shown,
+a number of members of the Canadian Parliament, then in session here,
+acting in concert with our City Council, proposed a counter-invitation,
+which was accordingly sent and accepted, and a joint committee formed to
+carry out the project.</p>
+
+<p>The St. Lawrence Hall, then nearly finished, was hurriedly fitted up as
+a ball-room for the occasion, under the volunteered charge chiefly of
+Messrs. F. W. Cumberland and Kivas Tully, architects. The hall was lined
+throughout, tent-fashion, the ceiling with blue and white, the walls
+with pink and white calico, in alternate stripes, varied with a
+multitude of flags, British and American, mottoes and other showy
+devices. The staircase was decorated with evergreens, which were also
+utilized to convert the unfinished butchers' arcade into a bowery vista
+500 feet long, lighted with gas laid for the occasion, and extending
+across Front Street to the entrance of the City Hall, then newly
+restored, painted and papered.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Elgin warmly seconded the hospitable views of the joint committee,
+and Colonel Sir Hew Dalrymple promised a review of the troops then in
+garrison. All was life and preparation throughout the city.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday, August 8th, the steamer <i>Chief Justice</i> was despatched to
+Lewiston to receive the guests from Buffalo. On her return, in the
+afternoon, she was welcomed with a salute of cannon, the men of the Fire
+Brigade lining the wharf and Front Street, along which the visitors were
+conveyed in carriages to the North American Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after nine o'clock, the Hall began to fill with a brilliant and
+joyous assemblage of visitors and citizens with their ladies. Lord and
+Lady Elgin arrived at about ten o'clock, and were received with the
+strains of "God Save the Queen," by the admirable military band, which
+was one of the city's chief attractions in those times.</p>
+
+<p>The day was very wet, and the evening still rainy. The arcade had been
+laid with matting, but it was nevertheless rather difficult for the fair
+dancers to trip all the way to the City Hall, in the council chamber of
+which supper had been prepared. However, they got safely through, and
+seemed delighted with the adventure. Never since, I think, has the City
+Hall presented so distinguished and charming a scene. Of course there
+was a lady to every gentleman. The fair Buffalonians were loud in their
+praises of the whole arrangements, and thoroughly disposed to enjoy
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>On a raised dais at the south side of the room was a table, at which
+were seated Mayor Gurnett as host, with Lady Elgin; the Governor-General
+and Mrs. Judge Sill, of Buffalo; Mayor Smith, of Buffalo, and Madame
+Lafontaine; the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, with Mrs.
+Alderman Tiffany of Buffalo, and the Hon. Mrs. Bruce. Four long tables
+placed north and south, and two side tables, accommodated the rest of
+the party, amounting to about three hundred. All the tables were
+tastefully decorated with floral and other ornaments, and spread with
+every delicacy that could be procured. The presiding stewards were the
+Hon. Mr. Bourret, Hon. Sir Allan N. McNab, Hon. Messrs. Hincks, Cayley,
+J. H. Cameron, S. Tach&eacute;, Drummond and Merritt.</p>
+
+<p>Toasts and speeches followed in the usual order, after which everybody
+returned to the St. Lawrence Hall, where dancing was resumed and kept up
+till an early hour next morning.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, being the 9th, the promised review of the 71st Regiment
+took place, with favourable weather, and was a decided success.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, Lord Elgin gave a f&ecirc;te champ&ecirc;tre at Elmsley Villa,
+where he then resided, and which has since been occupied as Knox's
+College. The grounds then extended from Yonge Street to the University
+Park, and an equal distance north and south. They were well kept, and on
+this occasion charmingly in unison with the bright smiles and gay
+costumes of the ladies who, with their gentlemen escorts, made up the
+most joyous of scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Having paid my respects at the Government House on New Year's day, I was
+present as an invited guest at the garden party. His Excellency showed
+me marked attention, in recognition probably of my services as a
+peacemaker. The corporation, as a body, were not invited, which was the
+only instance in which Lord Elgin betrayed any pique at the unflattering
+reception given him in October, 1849.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> While conversing with him, I
+was amused at the enthusiasm of a handsome Buffalo lady, who came up,
+unceremoniously exclaiming, "Oh, my lord, I heard your beautiful speech
+(in the marquee), you should come among us and go into politics. If you
+would only take the stump for the Presidency, I am confident you would
+sweep every state of the Union!"</p>
+
+<p>An excellent d&eacute;jeuner had been served in a large tent on the lawn.
+Speeches and toasts were numerous and complimentary. The conservatory
+was cleared for dancing, which was greatly enjoyed, and the festivities
+were wound up by a brilliant display of fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>The guests departed next morning, amid hearty handshaking and
+professions of friendship. Before leaving the wharf, the Mayor of
+Buffalo expressed in warm and pleasing terms, his high sense of the
+hospitality shown himself and his fellow-citizens. And so ended the
+Buffalo F&ecirc;te.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXII" id="CHAPTER_LXII"></a>CHAPTER LXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOSTON JUBILEE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he year 1851 is memorable for the celebration, at Boston, of the
+opening of the Ogdensburg Railway, to connect Boston with Canada and the
+Lakes, and also of the Grand Junction Railway, a semicircular line by
+which all the railways radiating from that city are linked together, so
+that a passenger starting from any one of the city stations can take his
+ticket for any other station on any of those railways, either in the
+suburbs or at distant points. I am not aware that so perfect a system
+has been attempted elsewhere. The natural configuration of its site has
+probably suggested the scheme. Boston proper is built on an irregular
+tri-conical hill, with its famous bay to the east; on the north the wide
+Charles River, with the promontory and hills of Charlestown and East
+Cambridge; on the south Dorchester Heights. Between the principal
+elevations are extensive salt marshes, now rapidly disappearing under
+the encroachments of artificial soil, covered in turn by vast
+warehouses, streets, railway tracks, and all the various structures
+common to large commercial cities.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the month of July, that a deputation from the Boston City
+Council visited our principal Canadian cities, as the bearers of an
+invitation to Lord Elgin and his staff, with the government officials,
+as well as the mayors and corporations and leading merchants of those
+cities, and other principal towns of Upper and Lower Canada, to visit
+Boston on the occasion of a great jubilee to be held in honour of the
+opening of its new railway system.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous as were the invited Canadian guests, however, they formed but a
+mere fraction of the visitors expected. Every railway staff, every
+municipal corporation throughout the Northern States, was included in
+the list of invitations; free passes and free quarters were provided for
+all; and it would be hard to conceive a more joyous invasion of merry
+travellers, than those who were pouring in by a rapid succession of
+loaded trains on all the numerous lines converging upon "the hub of the
+universe."</p>
+
+<p>Our Toronto party was pretty numerous. Mr. J. G. Bowes was mayor, and
+among the aldermen present were Messrs. W. Wakefield (who was a host of
+jollity in himself), G. P. Ridout, R. Dempsey, E. F. Whittemore, J. G.
+Beard, Robt. Beard, John B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard and myself; also
+councilmen James Ashfield, James Price, M. P. Hayes, S. Platt, Jonathan
+Dunn, and others. There were besides, of leading citizens, Messrs. Alex.
+Dixon, E. G. O'Brien, Alex. Manning, E. Goldsmith, Kivas Tully, Fred.
+Perkins, Rice Lewis, George Brown, &amp;c. We had a delightful trip down
+the lake by steamer, and at Ogdensburg took the cars for Lake Champlain.
+We arrived at Boston about 10 a.m. Waiting for us at the Western
+Railroad Depot were the mayor and several of the city council of Boston,
+with carriages for our whole party. But we were too dusty and tired with
+our long journey to think of anything but refreshments and baths, and
+all the other excellent things which awaited us at the American Hotel.
+Here we were confidentially informed that the Jubilee was to be
+celebrated on temperance principles, but that in compliment to the
+Canadian guests, a few baskets of champagne had been provided for our
+especial delectation; and I am compelled to add, that on the strength
+thereof, two or three worshipful aldermen of Toronto got themselves
+locked up for the night in the police stations.</p>
+
+<p>It is but justice to explain here, that a very small offence is
+sufficient to procure such a distinction in Boston. Even the smoking of
+a cigar on the side-walks, or the least symptom of unsteadiness in gait,
+is enough to consign a man to durance vile. The police were everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The first day of the Jubilee was occupied by the members of the
+committee in receiving their visitors, providing them with comfortable
+and generally luxurious quarters, and introducing the principal guests
+to each other&mdash;also in exhibiting the local lions. On the second day
+there was an excursion down the harbour, which is many miles long and
+broad. Six steamboats and two large cutters, gay with flags and
+streamers, conveyed the party; champagne was in abundance (always for
+the Canadian visitors!)&mdash;each boat had its band of music&mdash;very fine
+German bands too. Then, as the flotilla left the wharf and passed in
+succession the fortifications and other prominent points, salvoes of
+cannon boomed across the bright waters, re-echoing far and wide amid the
+surrounding hills. President Fillmore and his suite were on board the
+leading vessel, and to him, of course, these honours were paid. On every
+boat was spread a banquet for the guests; toasts and sentiments were
+given and duly honoured; and to judge by the noise and excited
+gesticulations of the banqueters, nothing could be more complete than
+the fusion of Yankees and Canadians.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, a regatta was held, which, the weather being fine, with a light
+breeze, was pronounced by yachtsmen a distinguished success. At five
+o'clock the citizens crowded in vast numbers to the Western Railway
+Station, there to meet His Excellency the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+with his brother Colonel Bruce and a numerous staff. He was welcomed by
+Mayor Bigelow, a fine venerable old man of the Mayflower stock. Mutual
+compliments were exchanged, and the new comers escorted to the Revere
+House, a very handsome hotel, the best in Boston. Everywhere the streets
+were lined with throngs of people, who cheered our Governor-General to
+the uttermost extent of their lung-power.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day took place a monster procession, at least a mile and
+a-half in length, and modelled after the plan of the German trades
+festivals. Besides the long line of carriages filled with guests, from
+the President and the Governor-General down to the humblest city
+officer, there was an immense array of "trades expositions" or pageants,
+that is, huge waggons drawn by four, six, eight and sometimes ten
+horses, each waggon serving as a model workshop, whereon printers,
+hatters, bootmakers, turners, carriage-makers, boat-riggers,
+stone-cutters, silversmiths, plumbers, market-men, piano-forte makers,
+and many other handicraftsmen worked at their respective callings.</p>
+
+<p>The finest street of private residences was Dover Street, a noble avenue
+of cut stone buildings, occupied by wealthy people of old Boston
+families. The decorations here were both costly and tasteful; and the
+hospitality unbounded. As each carriage passed slowly along, footmen in
+livery presented at its doors silver trays loaded with refreshments, in
+the shape of pastry, bon-bons, and costly wines. The ladies of each
+house, richly dressed, stood on the lower steps and welcomed the
+visitors with smiles and waving of handkerchiefs. At two or three places
+in the line of procession, were platforms handsomely festooned, occupied
+by bevies of fair girls in white, or by hundreds of children of both
+sexes, belonging to the common schools, prettily dressed, and bearing
+bouquets of bright flowers which they presented to the occupants of the
+carriages.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help remarking to my companion, one of the members of the
+Boston City Council, that more aristocratic-looking women than these
+Dover Street matrons, were not, I thought, to be found in all Europe. He
+told me not to whisper such a sentiment in Boston, for fear it might
+expose the objects of my complimentary remark to being mobbed by the
+democracy.</p>
+
+<p>At length the procession came to an end. But it was only a prelude to a
+still more magnificent demonstration, which was the great banquet given
+to four thousand people under one vast tent covering half an acre of
+ground on the Common. Thither the visitors were escorted in carriages,
+with the usual attention and solicitude for their every comfort, and
+when within, and placed according to their several ranks and localities,
+it was truly a sight to be remembered. The tent was two hundred and
+fifty feet in length by ninety in width. The roof and sides were all but
+hidden by the profusion of flags and bunting festooned everywhere. A
+raised table for the visitors extended around the entire tent. For the
+citizens proper were placed ten rows of parallel tables running the
+whole length of the inner area; altogether providing seats for three
+thousand six hundred people, besides smaller tables at convenient
+spots. There were present also a whole army of waiters, one to each
+dozen guests, and indefatigable in their duties.</p>
+
+<p>The repast included all kinds of cold meats and temperance drinks.
+Flowers for every person and great flower trophies on the tables;
+abundance of huge water and musk melons, and other fruits in great
+variety and perfection, especially native grown peaches and Bartlett
+pears, which Boston produces of the finest quality. Also plenty of
+pastry of many tempting kinds. It took scarcely twenty minutes to seat
+the entire "dinner party" comfortably, so excellent were the
+arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Before dinner commenced, Mayor Bigelow, who presided, announced that
+President Fillmore was required to leave for Washington on urgent state
+business; which he did after his health had been proposed and
+acknowledged. A little piece of dramatic acting was noticeable here,
+when the President and Lord Elgin, one on each side of the Mayor, shook
+hands across his worshipful breast, the President retaining his
+lordship's hand firmly clasped in his own for some time; a tableau which
+gave rise to a tumultuous burst of applause from the whole assemblage.</p>
+
+<p>Then commenced in earnest the play of knives and forks, four thousand of
+each, producing a unique and somewhat droll effect. After the President
+had gone, Lord Elgin became the chief lion of the day, and right well
+did his lordship play his part, entering thoroughly into the prejudices
+of his auditors while disclaiming all flattery, pouring out witticism
+after witticism, sometimes of the broadest, and altogether carrying the
+audience with him until they were worked up into a perfect frenzy of
+applause.</p>
+
+<p>"The health of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
+Britain and Ireland" having been proposed by His Honour Mayor John P.
+Bigelow, was received, as the Boston account of the Jubilee says, "with
+nine such cheers as would have made Her Majesty, had she been present,
+forget that she was beyond the limits of her own dominions; and the band
+struck up 'God save the Queen,' as if to complete the illusion." The
+compliment was acknowledged by Lord Elgin, who said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some
+little misconception on these points, to observe, that we,
+monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of
+self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative
+assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump
+orators, lobbyings and log-rollings&mdash;(Laughter)&mdash;and I am not
+sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying&mdash;(renewed
+laughter)&mdash;almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with
+yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused
+the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour
+to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common
+Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me,
+with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find,
+upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there
+was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the
+kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking
+that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in
+Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his
+entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a
+'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed
+laughter.)</p>
+
+<p>"Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the
+voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a
+regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously
+slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this
+point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high
+authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American&mdash;a
+member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been
+in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly
+backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one
+particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries
+his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen,
+deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and
+conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent
+my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed
+utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings
+are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened
+under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I
+believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of
+Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and
+its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses,
+and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and
+Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State,
+moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the
+illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union.
+(Applause.)</p>
+
+<p>"But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must
+tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries
+to express his feelings when his heart is full&mdash;that is to say,
+when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether
+(sensation)&mdash;in that homely way I must express to you how deeply
+grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the
+kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of
+Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could
+not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they
+have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus
+enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has
+been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the
+State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had
+before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects
+to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although
+it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the
+conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a
+bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or
+careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I
+may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial
+men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on
+the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has
+fallen. (Applause and cheers.)</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that
+remark about him was received. (Laughter.)</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the
+progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are
+now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway
+that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the
+iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the
+pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of
+mine, whom I see now present&mdash;Governor Paine&mdash;I think as far as
+Concord, upon that line.</p>
+
+<p>"Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont&mdash;It was Franklin.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Elgin&mdash;He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but
+Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will
+not contradict; it is this&mdash;that although we travelled together
+two or three days&mdash;after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and
+in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place
+which we could with any propriety have christened Discord.
+(Laughter and applause.)</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail
+their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit,
+which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem
+to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue
+of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find
+one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that
+their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military
+men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account
+for this observation (laughter)&mdash;and what do you think that
+occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the
+citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when
+it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to
+Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their
+wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all
+they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York.
+(Laughter.)</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I
+think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty
+millions in railways since that time."</p></div>
+
+<p>After his lordship, followed Edward Everett, whose speech was a complete
+contrast in every respect. Eloquent exceedingly, but chaste, terse and
+poetical; it charmed the Canadian visitors as much as Lord Elgin's had
+delighted the natives. Here are a few extracts:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with
+which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate
+speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of
+Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest
+and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be
+reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after
+beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset
+that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest,
+most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were
+travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I
+should say to him, in the language of the natives of those
+regions, sma sheen&mdash;very well, my lord. But in plain English,
+sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed
+new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother
+tongue.' (Great cheering.)</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced
+of the importance of this system of communication; although it
+may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even
+yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have,
+however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have
+felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of
+our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of
+agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt
+them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant
+of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts
+to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The
+inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which
+he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he
+can get back to his native village;&mdash;to see the old folks, aye,
+Sir, and some of the young folks&mdash;with which he can get a
+mouthful of pure mountain air&mdash;or run down in dog days to
+Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New
+Bedford.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in
+these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far
+beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the
+concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had
+its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present
+occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in
+reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and
+delight!</p>
+
+<p>"When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these
+colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a
+reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated
+about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently
+reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I
+believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us
+with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than
+twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to
+Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more
+to New York, and ten more to Boston.</p>
+
+<p>"And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region&mdash;but now
+brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in
+that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with
+such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to
+start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the
+Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought
+of&mdash;never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes
+unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it
+made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more
+practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more
+inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the
+savage; these it was that filled the space between us and
+Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered
+Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian
+captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on.
+(Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred
+years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born
+before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to
+the banks of the Connecticut river.</p>
+
+<p>"As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the
+Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his
+arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French
+in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His
+Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the
+warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of
+these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open&mdash;the rivers
+and lakes are bridged&mdash;the valleys rise, the mountains bow their
+everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his
+breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;&mdash;reading a
+newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago
+in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the
+construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil
+whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I
+believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting
+in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely
+into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's
+morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers
+would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could
+it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the
+circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.]</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project
+to carry a railroad into the lake country in England&mdash;into the
+heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately
+deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed
+the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of
+this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the
+locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not
+mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the
+enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a
+most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it
+seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be
+disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible.
+The bustle of the station house may take the place of the
+Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens!
+sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the
+hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful
+worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers).</p>
+
+<p>"How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of
+comparatively narrow dimensions like England&mdash;how less than
+little in a country so vast as this&mdash;by works of this
+description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road,
+which partially changes its character; while, as the
+compensation, you bring all this rural beauty&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,</span>
+<span class="i2">The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering
+tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have
+senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open,
+with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands
+who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and
+died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the
+mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone
+to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever
+having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful
+spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man&mdash;that of a
+glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes
+swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green
+ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along
+the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)</p>
+
+<p>"But even this is nothing compared with the great social and
+moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in
+many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been
+kindly given to the public. All important also are its
+political effects in binding the States together as one family,
+and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do
+not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from
+the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit
+to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have
+preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as
+long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent,
+may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this
+generation." [Cheers.]</p></div>
+
+<p>Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due
+time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the
+lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a
+wonderful and pleasing spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public
+institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a
+series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether
+novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite
+accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIII" id="CHAPTER_LXIII"></a>CHAPTER LXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>VESTIGES OF THE MOSAIC DELUGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>n chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain
+conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean
+beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an
+altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea
+level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above
+Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a
+third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake,
+which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In
+chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human
+remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on
+the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto.</p>
+
+<p>When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January,
+1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or
+unreliable. I have now, however, just seen in <i>Good Words</i> for this
+month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the
+Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I
+allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern
+portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land;
+secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and
+remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a
+further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to
+the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these
+subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled,
+and within historic times&mdash;probably at the date of the deluge recorded
+by Moses.</p>
+
+<p>His Grace says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be
+to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place
+within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts
+which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the
+whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does
+now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the
+submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the
+Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden
+submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country
+than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with
+that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which
+lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known,
+and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet
+of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the
+Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous
+carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes
+complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence
+of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet,
+taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I
+must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man
+co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found
+in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain
+the bones of those great mammalia."</p></div>
+
+<p>I should be glad to quote more, but this is enough to account for the
+circumstances I have myself noted, and to explain also, I think, the
+vast deposit of mud which forms the prairies of the Western States, and
+of the Canadian North-West; which has its counterpart in the European
+prairie countries of Moldavia and Wallachia. But the Duke appears to me
+to overlook the circumstance, that the vast accumulation of animal
+remains in Siberia, mostly of southern varieties, to which he refers,
+must have been swept there, not by an upheaval, but by a depression in
+the northern hemisphere, and a corresponding rise in the southern,
+whence all these mammoths, lions and tigers, are supposed to have been
+swept. To account for their present elevated position, a second
+convulsion restoring the depressed parts to their original altitude,
+must apparently have occurred&mdash;at least that is my unscientific
+conclusion. It would seem that we ought to look for similar
+accumulations of animal matter in our own Hudson's Bay territory, where,
+also, it is stated, the ground remains frozen throughout summer to
+within three feet of the surface, as in Siberia.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIV" id="CHAPTER_LXIV"></a>CHAPTER LXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FRANCHISE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>hile I was a member of the City Council, the question of the proper
+qualification for electors of municipal councils and of the legislature,
+was much under discussion. I told my Reform opponents, who advocated an
+extremely low standard, that the lower they fixed the qualification for
+voters, the more bitterly they would be disappointed; that the poorer
+the electors the greater the corruption that must necessarily prevail.
+And so it has proved.</p>
+
+<p>In thinking over the subject since, I have been led to compare the body
+politic to a pyramid, the stones in every layer of which shall be more
+numerous than the aggregate of all the layers above it. And this
+comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that
+each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes
+higher in social rank&mdash;the idlers than the industrious&mdash;the workers than
+the employers&mdash;the children than the parents&mdash;the illiterate than the
+instructed&mdash;and so on. Thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that
+the adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage, now so much
+advocated, must necessarily place all political power in the hands of
+the worst offscourings of the community&mdash;law-breakers, vagrants, and
+outcasts of all kinds. This would be equivalent to inverting the
+pyramid, and expecting it to remain poised upon its apex&mdash;which is a
+mere impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the capstone of the social pyramid ought to be king or
+president, is not material to my argument. On republican principles&mdash;and
+with the French King, Louis Philippe, I hold that the British
+constitutional monarchy is "the best of all republics"&mdash;the true theory
+of representative institutions must be, that each class of the electors
+should have a voice in the councils of the country equal to, and no
+greater than, each of the several classes (or strata) above. This would
+greatly resemble the old Scandinavian storthings, in which there were
+four orders of legislators&mdash;king, nobles, clergy, and peasants, each of
+which had a veto on all questions brought before any one of them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, the election of members of local municipal councils would be
+vested in the rate-payers, much as at present. The district (not county)
+councils would be elected by the local municipalities; and would
+themselves be entitled to elect members of the provincial legislatures.
+These latter again might properly be entrusted with the election of the
+Dominion House of Commons. And to carry the idea a step further, the
+Dominion Legislature itself would be a fitting body to nominate
+representatives to a great council of the Empire, which should decide
+all questions of peace or war, of commerce, and other matters affecting
+the whole body politic. To make the analogy complete, and bind the whole
+structure together, each class should be limited in its choice to the
+class next above it, by which process, it is to be presumed, "the
+survival of the fittest" would be secured, and every man elected to the
+higher bodies must have won his way from the municipal council up
+through all the other grades.</p>
+
+<p>I should give each municipal voter such number of votes as would
+represent his stake in the municipality, say one vote for every four
+hundred dollars of assessable property, and an additional vote for every
+additional four hundred dollars, up to a maximum of perhaps ten votes,
+and no more, which would sufficiently protect the richer ratepayers
+without neutralizing the wishes of the poorer voters.</p>
+
+<p>On such a system, every voter would influence the entire legislation of
+the country to the exact extent of his intelligence, and of his
+contributions to the general expenditure. Corruption would be almost,
+and intimidation quite, impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>To meet the need for a revisory body or senate, the retired judges of
+the Upper Courts, and retired members of the House of Commons, after ten
+or twenty years' service, should form an unexceptionable tribunal for
+any of the colonies.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware that the election of legislators by the county councils has
+been already advocated in Canada, and that in other respects this
+chapter may be considered not a little presumptuous; but I conclude,
+nevertheless, to print it for what it is worth.</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXV" id="CHAPTER_LXV"></a>CHAPTER LXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have, I believe, in the preceding pages, established beyond
+contradiction the historical fact, that the Conservative party, whatever
+their other faults may have been, are not justly chargeable with making
+use of the Protection cry as a mere political manoeuvre, only adopted
+immediately prior to the general elections of 1878.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned, that when I was about eighteen years of age, the
+Corn-Law League was in full blast in England. I was foreman and
+proof-reader of the printing office whence all its principal
+publications issued, and was in daily communication with Col. Peyronnet
+Thompson, M. P., and the other free-trade leaders. I was even then
+struck with the circumstance, that while loudly professing their
+disinterested desire for the welfare of the whole human race, the
+authors of the movement urged as their main argument with the
+manufacturers and farmers, that England could undersell the whole world
+in cheap goods, while her agriculturists could never be under-sold in
+their own markets. This reasoning appeared to me both hypocritical and
+fraudulent; and I hold that it has proved so, and that for England and
+Scotland, the day of retribution is already looming in the near future.
+As righteously might a single shop-keeper build his hopes of profit upon
+the utter ruin of all his trade competitors, as a single country dare to
+speculate, as the British free-trader has done, on the destruction of
+the manufacturing industries of all other nations.</p>
+
+<p>The present troubles in Ireland, are they not the direct fruit of the
+crushing out of its linen industry? The Scindian war in India, was it
+not caused by the depopulation of a whole province of a million and a
+half of people, through the annihilation of its nankeen manufacture. And
+if Manchester and Birmingham had their way, would not France and
+Germany, and Switzerland and America&mdash;including Canada&mdash;become the mere
+bond-slaves of the Cobdens and the Brights&mdash;<i>et hoc genus omne</i>?</p>
+
+<p>But there is a Power above all, that has ordered events otherwise. I
+assume it to be undeniable, that according to natural laws, the country
+which produces any raw material, must ultimately become its cheapest
+manipulator. England has no inherent claim to control any manufactures
+but those of tin, iron, brass and wool; and with time, all or most of
+these may be wrested from her. Her cotton mills must ultimately fade
+away before those of India, the Southern States, and Africa. Her grain
+can never again compete with that of Russia and the Canadian North-West.
+Her iron-works with difficulty now hold their own against Germany and
+the United States. Birmingham and Sheffield are threatened by
+Switzerland, by the New England States, and&mdash;before many decades&mdash;by
+Canada. And so on with all the rest of England's monopolies. Dear
+labour, dear farming, dear soil, will tell unfavourably in the end, in
+spite of all trade theories and <i>ex parte</i> arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Yet more. It would not be hard to show, I think, that the tenant-right
+and agrarian agitations of the present day are due to Free Trade; that
+the cry, "the land belongs to the labourer," is the direct offspring of
+the Cobden teaching; and that the issue will but too probably be, a
+disastrous revulsion of labour against capital, and poverty against
+wealth. They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind! God send that it
+may not happen in our day!</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVI" id="CHAPTER_LXVI"></a>CHAPTER LXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FUTURE OF CANADA.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> may venture, I hope, to put down here some of the conclusions to which
+my fifty years' experience in Canada, and my observation of what has
+been going on during the same term in the United States, have led me. It
+is a favourite boast with our neighbours, that all North America must
+ultimately be brought under one government, and that the manifest
+destiny of Canada will irresistibly lead her on to annexation. And we
+have had, and still have amongst us, those who welcome the idea, and
+some who have lately grown audacious enough to stigmatize as traitors
+those who, like myself, claim to be citizens, not of the Dominion only,
+but of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>To say nothing of the semi-barbarous population of Mexico, who would
+have to be consulted, there is a section of the Southern States which
+may yet demand autonomy for the Negro race, and which will in all
+probability seize the first opportunity for so doing. Then in Canada, we
+have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their
+preference for French over British alliance; and who will surely claim
+their right to act upon their convictions the moment British authority
+shall have become relaxed. Nor can they be blamed for this, however we
+may doubt the soundness of their conclusions. Then we have the Acadians
+of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow French Canada wheresoever she
+might lead; nor could the few British people of New Brunswick and Prince
+Edward Island&mdash;unaided by England&mdash;escape the same fate. Even Eastern
+Ontario might have to fight hard to escape a French Republican r&eacute;gime.</p>
+
+<p>There remain Middle and Western Ontario, and the North-West&mdash;two
+naturally isolated territories, neither of which could be expected to
+incur the horrors of war for the sake of the other. It is not, I think,
+difficult to foresee, that, given independence, Ontario must inevitably
+cast her lot in with the United States. But with the North-West, the
+case is entirely different.</p>
+
+<p>From Liverpool to Winnipeg, <i>via</i> Hudson's Bay, the distance is less by
+eleven hundred miles than by way of the St. Lawrence. From Liverpool to
+China and Japan, <i>via</i> the same northern route, the distance is&mdash;as a
+San Francisco journal points out&mdash;a thousand miles shorter than by any
+other trans-American line. It is really <i>two thousand miles</i> shorter
+than <i>via</i> San Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the
+cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and
+Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the
+power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route
+through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she
+holds it under her sole control. And where is the nation that can
+prevent her so holding it, while her fleets command the North Atlantic
+Ocean. Is it not utterly inconceivable, that English statesmen can be
+found so mad or so unpatriotic, as to throw away the very key of the
+world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the
+North-West; or that Manchester and Birmingham&mdash;Sheffield and
+Glasgow&mdash;should sustain for a moment any government that could dream of
+so doing. I firmly believe, in fine, that either by the St. Lawrence or
+the Hudson's Bay route, or both, British connexion with Canada is
+destined to endure, all prognostications to the contrary
+notwithstanding. England may afford to be shut out of the Suez canal, or
+the Panama canal, or the entire of her South African colonies, better
+than she can afford to part with the Dominion, and notably the Canadian
+North-West. If there be any two countries in the world whose interests
+are inseparable, they are the British Isles and North-Western
+Canada&mdash;the former being constrained by her food necessities, the latter
+by her want of a secure grain market. Old Canada, some say, has her
+natural outlet in the United States&mdash;which is only very partially true,
+as the reverse might be asserted with equal force. Not so the
+North-West. She has her natural market in Great Britain; and Great
+Britain, in turn, will find in the near future her best customer in
+Manitoba and the North-Western prairies.</p>
+
+<p>So mote it be!</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVII" id="CHAPTER_LXVII"></a>CHAPTER LXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TORONTO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he following account of the rise and progress of this institution, has
+been obligingly furnished me by one of its earliest and best friends,
+Mr. William Edwards, to whom, undoubtedly, more than to any other man,
+it has been indebted for its past success and usefulness:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January,
+1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by
+James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly
+meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the
+report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled
+members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon.
+Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm.
+Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts,
+John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B.
+Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James
+Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons,
+A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the
+organization and progress of the Institute.</p>
+
+<p>Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not
+been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic
+Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building,
+on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by
+Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures
+delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the
+improvement of its members.</p>
+
+<p>During the year 1835, a grant of &pound;200 was made by the
+legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was
+entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were
+made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The
+apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete,
+and was never of much value to the Institute.</p>
+
+<p>The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837,
+and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the
+Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they
+had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the
+accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the
+Market Buildings&mdash;the site of the present St. Lawrence Market.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the
+Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12
+Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and,
+through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the
+use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During
+this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story
+fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court
+buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council
+extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary
+accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the
+Institute continued the building of the second story for its
+accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference
+between the cost of the extended building and the building first
+contracted for, which amounted to &pound;465 5s. 6d.&mdash;this sum being
+raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to &pound;1 each.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of
+August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John
+Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when
+the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B.
+Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the
+Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p>The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented
+to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was
+made to the Institute during the same year.</p>
+
+<p>In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of
+exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work,
+antiquities, curiosities, &amp;c. This was kept open for two weeks,
+and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and
+of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were
+repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an
+exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700
+paintings and drawings&mdash;many of them being copies of the old
+masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of
+nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other
+departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was
+always an indefatigable worker.</p>
+
+<p>In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact
+that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September,
+1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was
+purchased by public auction, for &pound;1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a
+new building were at once prepared, and committees were
+appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the
+citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the
+year the sum of &pound;1,200 was contributed. The president of the
+Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously
+presented the plans and specifications and superintendence,
+free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building
+was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was
+laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854.</p>
+
+<p>During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the
+unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes,
+the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the
+Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the
+expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute
+the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary
+changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible
+in accordance with the original plans. The building had a
+frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on
+Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was
+$48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49;
+sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site,
+$14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities,
+$5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and
+from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000;
+leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of
+$1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied
+during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable
+entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a
+bazaar&mdash;the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds
+of the Institute.</p>
+
+<p>During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of
+literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the
+first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction,
+in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special
+feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated
+a more complete system than had before been carried out. These
+classes were continued annually with marked success until the
+winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of
+its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing
+evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses.</p>
+
+<p>In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its
+building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting
+thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated
+improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free
+Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first
+intended, but for library purposes only.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property
+from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a
+School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in
+the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all
+its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government
+in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room,
+and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in
+a very favourable position, and considerably improved its
+finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more
+suitable building for the School of Technology (then named
+"School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the
+property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many
+alterations were made in the building when the Institute got
+possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music
+hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables,
+chess-boards, &amp;c., for the use of the members. This latter
+feature was a success, both financially and otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which
+provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics'
+Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all
+its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of
+Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free
+Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting
+held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved
+to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities,
+to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes;
+and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed
+giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of
+June, in the said year 1883.</p>
+
+<p>With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the
+usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed
+away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence,
+than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During
+its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work.
+Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and
+educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned
+into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise
+have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to
+society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy,
+mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated
+with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of
+great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members
+to study the useful books in the library, to join with their
+fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take
+responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops,
+that only for the Institute they would not have attained to.</p>
+
+<p>Until the Canadian Institute&mdash;which was nursed into existence in
+the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of
+Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members&mdash;the Institute had
+the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young
+Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free
+reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and
+better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to
+have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence.</p>
+
+
+<p>This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in
+its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to
+close without noticing some of those who have for extended
+periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I
+fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however,
+the names of those who served the Institute in the various
+positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries,
+librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty
+years in all, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E.
+Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13),
+John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H.
+Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H.
+Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee
+(each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice
+Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8
+years).</p>
+
+<p>Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records
+have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have
+been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4,
+7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach
+(1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B.
+Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland
+(1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland
+(1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore
+(1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout
+(1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate
+(1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870),
+John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos.
+Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout
+(1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3).</p>
+
+<p>The recording secretaries have been in the following order and
+number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3,
+4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840
+and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859,
+1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861,
+2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel
+Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
+1880, 1, 2, 3).</p>
+
+<p>The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C.
+Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward
+(1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland
+(1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John
+Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the
+office was not continued.</p>
+
+<p>The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M.
+Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4,
+5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6),
+John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W.
+Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos.
+Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay
+(1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880).</p></div>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVIII" id="CHAPTER_LXVIII"></a>CHAPTER LXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he establishment of Free Libraries, adapted to meet the wants of
+readers of all classes, has made rapid progress within the last few
+years. Some, such as the Chetham Library of Manchester, owe their origin
+to the bequests of public-spirited citizens of former days; some, like
+the British Museum Library, to national support; but they remained
+comparatively unused, until the modern system of common school
+education, and the wonderful development of newspaper enterprise, made
+readers of the working classes. I remember when London had but one daily
+journal, the <i>Times</i>, and one weekly, the <i>News</i>, which latter paper was
+sold for sixpence sterling by men whom I have seen running through the
+streets on Sunday morning, blowing tin horns to announce their approach
+to their customers.</p>
+
+<p>The introduction of Mechanics' Institutes by the joint efforts of Lord
+Brougham and Dr. Birkbeck, I also recollect; as a lad I was one of the
+first members. They spread over all English-speaking communities, throve
+for many years, then gradually waned. Scientific knowledge became so
+common, that lectures on chemistry, astronomy, &amp;c., ceased to attract
+audiences. But the appetite for reading did not diminish in the least,
+and hence it happened that Free Libraries began to supersede Mechanics'
+Institutes.</p>
+
+<p>Toronto has heretofore done but little in this way, and it remained for
+a few public-spirited citizens of the present decade, to effect any
+marked advance in the direction of free reading for all classes. In
+August, 1880, the Rev. Dr. Scadding addressed a letter to the City
+Council, calling its attention to the propriety of establishing a Public
+Library in Toronto. In the following December, Alderman Taylor, in an
+address to his constituents, wrote&mdash;"In 1881 the nucleus of a free
+Public Library should be secured by purchase or otherwise, so that in a
+few years we may boast of a library that will do no discredit to the
+educational centre of the Dominion. Cities across the lake annually vote
+a sum to be so applied, Chicago alone voting $39,000 per annum for a
+similar purpose. Surely Toronto can afford say $5,000 a year for the
+mental improvement of her citizens." In the City Council for 1881, the
+subject was zealously taken up by Aldermen Hallam, Taylor and Mitchell.
+Later in the year, Alderman Hallam presented to the council an
+interesting report of his investigations among English public libraries,
+describing their system and condition.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1882, an Act was passed by the Ontario Legislature, giving
+power to the ratepayers of any municipality in Ontario to tax themselves
+for the purchase or erection and maintenance of a Free Public Library,
+limiting the rate to be so levied to one half mill on the dollar on
+taxable property.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The Town of Guelph was the first to avail itself
+of the privilege, and was followed by Toronto, which, on 1st January,
+1883, adopted a by-law submitted by the City Council in accordance with
+the statute, the majority thereon being 2,543, the largest ever polled
+at any Toronto city election for raising money for any special object.</p>
+
+<p>This result was not obtained without very active exertions on the part
+of the friends of the movement, amongst whom, as is admitted on all
+hands, Alderman Hallam is entitled to the chief credit. But for his
+liberal expenditure for printing, his unwearied activity in addressing
+public meetings, and his successful appeals through the children of the
+common schools to their parents, the by-law might have failed. Ald.
+Taylor and other gentlemen gave efficient aid. Professor Wilson,
+President of Toronto University, presided at meetings held in its
+favour; and Messrs. John Hague, W. H. Knowlton and other citizens
+supported it warmly through the press. The editors of the principal city
+papers also doing good service through their columns.</p>
+
+<p>In Toronto, as elsewhere, the Mechanics' Institute has had its day. But
+times change, and the public taste changes with them. A library and
+reading-room supported by subscription, could hardly hope to compete
+with an amply endowed rival, to which admission would be absolutely
+free. So the officers of the Mechanics' Institute threw themselves
+heartily into the new movement, and after consultation with their
+members, offered, in accordance with the statute, to transfer their
+property, valued at some twenty thousand dollars, exclusive of all
+encumbrances, to the City Council for the use of the Free Library, which
+offer was gladly accepted.</p>
+
+<p>The first Board of Management was composed as follows:&mdash;The Mayor, A. R.
+Boswell (ex-officio); John Hallam, John Taylor and George D'Arcy
+Boulton,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> nominated by the City Council; Dr. George Wright, W. H.
+Knowlton and J. A. Mills, nominees of the Public School Board; and James
+Mason and Wm. Scully, representing the Board of Separate School
+Trustees. At their first meeting, held February 15th, 1883, the new
+Board elected John Hallam to be their chairman for the year, and myself
+as secretary <i>pro tem</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The following extract from the Chairman's opening address, illustrates
+the spirit in which the library is to be conducted:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Toronto is pre-eminently a city of educational institutions. We all
+feel a pride in her progress, and feel more so now that it is possible
+to add a free public library to her many noble and useful institutions.
+I feel sure that the benefit to the people of a reference and lending
+library of carefully selected books, is undisputed by all who are
+interested in the mental, moral, and social advancement of our city. The
+books in such a library should be as general and as fascinating as
+possible. I would have this library a representative one, with a grand
+foundation of solid, standard fact literature, with a choice,
+clear-minded, finely-imaginative superstructure of light reading, and
+avoid the vulgar, the sensuously sensational, the garbage of the modern
+press. A rate-supported library should be practical in its aims, and not
+a mere curiosity shop for a collection of curious and rare books&mdash;their
+only merit being their rarity, their peculiar binding, singular type, or
+quaint illustrations. It is very nice to have these literary rare-bits;
+but the taxes of the people should not be spent in buying them. A
+library of this kind, to be valuable as far as our own country is
+concerned, should contain a full collection of&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"1. Manuscript statements and narratives of pioneer settlers;
+old letters and journals relative to the early history and
+settlement of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New
+Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, and the wars
+of 1776 and 1812; biographical notes of our pioneers and of
+eminent citizens deceased, and facts illustrative of our Indian
+tribes, their history, characteristics, sketches of their
+prominent chiefs, orators, and warriors.</p>
+
+<p>"2. Diaries, narratives, and documents relative to the U. E.
+Loyalists, their expulsion from the old colonies, and their
+settlement in the Maritime Provinces.</p>
+
+<p>"3. Files of newspapers, books, pamphlets, college catalogues,
+minutes of ecclesiastical conventions, associations,
+conferences, and synods, and all other publications relating to
+this and other provinces.</p>
+
+<p>"4. Indian geographical names of streams and localities, with
+their signification, and all information generally respecting
+the condition, language, and history of different tribes of the
+Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"5. Books of all kinds, especially such as relate to Canadian
+history, travels, and biography in general, and Lower Canada or
+Quebec in particular, family genealogies, old magazines,
+pamphlets, files of newspapers, maps, historical manuscripts and
+autographs of distinguished persons.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel sure such a library will rank and demand recognition
+among the permanent institutions in the city for sustaining,
+encouraging and stimulating everything that is great and good.</p>
+
+<p>"Free libraries have a special claim on every ratepayer who
+desires to see our country advance to the front, and keep pace
+with the world in art, science, and commerce, and augment the
+sum of human happiness. This far-reaching movement is likely to
+extend to every city and considerable town in this Province. The
+advantages are many. They help on the cause of education. They
+tend to promote public virtue. Their influence is on the side of
+order, self-respect, and general enlightenment. There are few
+associations so pleasant as those excited by them. They are a
+literary park where all can enjoy themselves during their
+leisure hours. To all lovers of books and students, to the rich
+and poor alike, the doors of these institutions are open without
+money and without price."</p></div>
+
+<p>The year 1883 was employed in getting things into working order. The
+City Council did their part by voting the sum of $50,000 in debentures,
+for the equipment and enlargement of the Mechanics' Institute building
+for the purposes of the main or central library and reading room; the
+opening of branch libraries and reading rooms in the north and west; and
+for the purchase of 25,000 volumes of books, of which 5,000 each were
+destined for the two branches.</p>
+
+<p>On the 3rd July, the Board of Management appointed Mr. James Bain, jr.,
+as librarian-in-chief, with a staff of three assistant librarians, and
+four junior assistants (females). The duties of secretary were at the
+same time attached to the office of first assistant-librarian, which was
+given to Mr. John Davy, former secretary and librarian to the Mechanics'
+Institute. I was relegated to the charge of the Northern Branch, at St.
+Paul's Hall; while the Western Branch, at St. Andrew's Market, was
+placed in the hands of Miss O'Dowd, an accomplished scholar and teacher.</p>
+
+<p>The Chairman and Librarian, Messrs. Hallam and Bain, proceeded in
+October to England for the purchase of books, most of which arrived here
+in January. <i>The Week</i> for December 13th last says of the books
+selected, that they "would make the mouth water of every bibliophile in
+the country." While I am writing these lines they are being catalogued
+and arranged for use, and the Free Library of Toronto will become an
+accomplished fact, almost simultaneously with the publication of these
+"Reminiscences."</p>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIX" id="CHAPTER_LXIX"></a>CHAPTER LXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Postscript.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After having spent the greater part of half a century in various public
+capacities&mdash;after having been the recipient of nearly every honorary
+distinction which it was in the power of my fellow-citizens to
+confer&mdash;there now remains for me no further object of ambition, unless
+to die in harness, and so escape the taunt&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Unheeded lags the veteran on the stage."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Three times have I succeeded in gaining a position of reasonable
+competence; and as often&mdash;in 1857, 1860 and 1876&mdash;the "great
+waterfloods" have swept over me, and left me to begin life anew. It is
+too late now, however, to scale another Alp, so let us plod on in the
+valley, watching the sunshine fading away behind the mountains, until
+the darkness comes on; and aye singing&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Night is falling dark and silent,</span>
+<span class="i2">Starry myriads gem the sky;</span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,</span>
+<span class="i2">Brighter visions beam on high."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<br /><br />
+<div class="footnotes">
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Since writing the above, I find in <i>Scribner's Monthly</i> for
+November 1880, the following notice of my uncle, which forms a sad
+sequel to a long career of untiring enthusiasm in the service of his
+fellow-creatures. It is the closing paragraph of an article headed
+"Bordentown and the Bonapartes," from the pen of Joseph B. Gilder:
+</p><p>
+"It yet remains to say a few words of Dr. John Isaac Hawkins&mdash;civil
+engineer, inventor, poet, preacher, phrenologist and 'mentor-general to
+mankind,'&mdash;who visited the village towards the close of the last
+century, married and lived there for many years; then disappeared, and,
+after a long absence, returned a gray old man, with a wife barely out of
+her teens. 'This isn't the wife you, took away, doctor,' some one
+ventured to remark. 'No,' the blushing girl replied, 'and he's buried
+one between us.' The poor fellow had hard work to gain a livelihood. For
+a time, the ladies paid him to lecture to them in their parlours; but
+when he brought a bag of skulls, and the heart and windpipe of his
+[adopted] son preserved in spirits, they would have nothing more to do
+with him. As a last resort, he started the 'Journal of Human Nature and
+Human Progress,' his wife 'setting up' for the press her husband's
+contributions in prose and rhyme. But the 'Journal' died after a brief
+and inglorious career. Hawkins claimed to have made the first survey for
+a tunnel under the Thames, and he invented the 'ever-pointed pencil,'
+the 'iridium-pointed gold pen,' and a method of condensing coffee. He
+also constructed a little stove with a handle, which he carried into the
+kitchen to cook his meals or into the reception-room when visitors
+called, and at night into his bedroom. He invented also a new religion,
+whose altar was erected in his own small parlour, where Dr. John Isaac
+Hawkins, priest, held forth to Mrs. John Isaac Hawkins, people. But a
+shadow stretched along the poor man's path from the loss of his only
+[adopted] son&mdash;'a companion in all of his philosophical researches,' who
+died and was dissected at the early age of seven. Thereafter the old man
+wandered, as 'lonely as a cloud,' sometimes in England, sometimes in
+America; but attended patiently and faithfully by his first wife, then
+by a second, and finally by a third, who clung to him with the devotion
+of Little Nell to her doting grandfather."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Taxus Canadensis, or Canadian Yew, is a trailing evergreen
+shrub which covers the ground in places. Its stems are as strong as
+cart-ropes, and often reach the length of twenty feet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It is affirmed that in two or three localities in Manitoba,
+garter snakes sometimes congregate in such multitudes as to form ropes
+as thick as a man's leg, which, by their constant writhing and twining
+in and out, present a strangely glittering and moving spectacle.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> On a fine, bright winter morning, when the slight feathery
+crystals formed from the congealed dew, which have silently settled on
+the trees during the night, are wafted thence by the morning breeze,
+filling the translucent atmosphere with innumerable minute, sparkling
+stars; when the thick, strong coat of ice on the four-foot deep snow is
+slightly covered by the same fine, white dust, betraying the foot-print
+of the smallest wild animal&mdash;on such a morning the hardy trapper is best
+able to follow his solitary pursuits. In the glorious winters of Canada,
+he will sometimes remain from home for days, or even weeks, with no
+companions but his dog and rifle, and no other shelter than such as his
+own hands can procure&mdash;carried away by his ardour for the sport, and the
+hope of the rich booty which usually rewards his perseverance.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The partridge of Canada&mdash;a grey variety of grouse&mdash;not only
+displays a handsome black-barred tail like that of the turkey, but has
+the power of erecting his head-feathers, as well as of spreading a black
+fan-like tuft placed on either side of his neck. Although timid when
+alarmed, he is not naturally shy, but at times may be approached near
+enough to observe his very graceful and playful habits&mdash;a facility of
+access for which the poor bird commonly pays with his life.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Dr. Johnson, in one of his peculiar moods, has described
+the <i>fitchew</i> or <i>fitchat</i>, which is here called the "fisher" as "<i>a
+stinking little beast that robs the hen-roost and warren</i>"&mdash;a very
+ungrateful libel upon an animal that supplies exceedingly useful fur for
+common purposes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> I have myself, when a youth, sold red cedar in London at
+sixpence sterling per square foot, inch thick. Lime (or basswood) was
+sold at twopence, and ash and beech at about the same price. White or
+yellow pine was then worth one penny, or just half the value of
+basswood. These are retail prices. On referring to the London wholesale
+quotations for July 1881, I find these statements fully borne out. It
+will be news to most of my readers, that Canadian black birch has been
+proved by test, under the authority of the British Admiralty, to be of
+greater specific gravity than English oak, and therefore better fitted
+for ships' flooring, for which purpose it is now extensively used. Also
+for staircases in large mansions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> These lines were set to music by the late J. P. Clarke,
+Mus. Bac. of Toronto University, in his "Songs of Canada."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The late lamented Dr. Alpheus Todd, librarian of the
+Dominion Parliament.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> On reference to Sir F. B. Head's "Emigrant," pp. 376-8,
+the reader will find the following letters:&mdash;
+</p><div class="blockquot">
+<div class="blockquot">"1. <i>From the Hon. Sir. A. N. MacNab.</i>
+<div class="blockquot">"<span class="smcap">Legislative Assembly,</span>
+<div class="blockquot">"Montreal, 28th March, 1846.</div></div></div>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">"My dear Sir Francis,</span>
+</p><p>
+"I have no hesitation in putting on paper the conversation which
+took place between Lord Durham and myself, on the subject of the
+Union. He asked me if I was in favour of the Union; I said,
+'No;' he replied, 'If you are a friend to your country, <i>oppose
+it to the death.</i>'
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">"I am, &amp;c.,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"(Signed) <span class="smcap">Allan N. MacNab</span>.</p>
+"Sir F. B. Head, Bart."
+<br /><br />
+<div class="blockquot">"2. <i>From W. E. Jervis, Esq.</i><br />
+<div class="blockquot">"<span class="smcap">Toronto</span>, March 12th, 1846.</div></div>
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir Allan,</span>
+</p><p>
+"In answer to the inquiry contained in your letter of the 2nd
+inst., I beg leave to state, that, in the year 1838, I was in
+Quebec, and had a long conversation with the Earl of Durham upon
+the subject of an Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower
+Canada&mdash;a measure which I had understood his Lordship intended
+to propose.
+</p><p>
+"I was much gratified by his Lordship then, in the most
+unqualified terms, declaring his strong disapprobation of such a
+measure, as tending, in his opinion, to the injury of this
+Province; and he advised me, as a friend to Upper Canada, <i>to
+use all the influence I might possess in opposition to it</i>.
+</p><p>
+"His Lordship declared that, in his opinion, no statesman could
+propose so injurious a project, and authorized me to assure my
+friends in Upper Canada, <i>that he was decidedly averse to the
+measure</i>.
+</p><p>
+"I have a perfect recollection of having had a similar enquiry
+made of me, by the private secretary of Sir George Arthur, and
+that I made a written reply to the communication. I have no copy
+of the letter which I sent upon that occasion, but the substance
+must have been similar to that I now send you.
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">"I remain, &amp;c.,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"(Signed) <span class="smcap">W. E. Jervis.</span></p>
+<p>
+"Sir Allan MacNab."</p>
+<br />
+<div class="blockquot">"3. <i>From the Hon. Justice Hagerman.</i><br />
+<div class="blockquot">"<span class="smcap">13 St. James's Street</span>,<br />
+<div class="blockquot">"<span class="smcap">London</span>, 12th July, 1846.</div></div></div>
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">My dear Sir Francis</span>,<br />
+</p><p>
+"It is well known to many persons that the late Lord Durham, up
+to the time of his departure from Canada, expressed himself
+strongly opposed to the Union of the then two Provinces. I
+accompanied Sir George Arthur on a visit to Lord Durham, late in
+the autumn, and a very few days only before he threw up his
+Government and embarked for this country. In a conversation I
+had with him, he spoke of the Union as <i>the selfish scheme of a
+few merchants of Montreal&mdash;that no statesman would advise the
+measure&mdash;and that it was absurd to suppose that Upper and Lower
+Canada could ever exist in harmony as one Province</i>.
+</p><p>
+"In returning to Toronto with Sir George Arthur, he told me that
+Lord Durham had expressed to him similar opinions, and had at
+considerable length detailed to him reasons and arguments which
+existed against a measure which he considered would be
+destructive of the legitimate authority of the British
+Government, and in which opinion <i>Sir George declared he fully
+coincided.</i>
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">"I am, Sir,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"(Signed) <span class="smcap">C. A. Hagerman</span>.</p>
+<p>
+"Sir F. B. Head, Bart."<br />
+</p>
+<br />
+<div class="blockquot">"4. <i>From the Earl of Durham.</i><br />
+<div class="blockquot">"<span class="smcap">Quebec</span>, Oct. 2nd, 1838.</div></div>
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir,</span>
+</p><p>
+"I thank you kindly for your account of the meeting [in
+Montreal], which was the first I received. I fully expected the
+'outbreak' about the Union of the two Provinces:&mdash;<span class="smcap">It is a pet
+Montreal project, beginning and ending in Montreal selfishness</span>.
+</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">"Yours, truly,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"(Signed) <span class="smcap">Durham</span>."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I am very glad to see that Mr. Dent, in his "Forty
+Years&mdash;Canada since the Union of 1841," recently published, has avoided
+the current fault of those writers who can recognise no historical truth
+not endorsed by the <i>Globe</i>. In vol. i, p. 357, he says:
+</p><p>
+"There can be no doubt that the Reform party, as a whole, were unjust to
+Mr. Draper. They did not even give him credit for sincerity or good
+intentions. The historian of to-day, no matter what his political
+opinions may be, who contemplates Mr. Draper's career as an Executive
+Councillor, must doubtless arrive at the conclusion that he was wrong;
+that he was an obstructionist&mdash;a drag on the wheel of progress. But this
+fact was by no means so easy of recognition in 1844 as it is in 1881;
+and there is no good reason for impugning his motives, which, so far as
+can be ascertained, were honourable and patriotic. No impartial mind can
+review the acts and characters of the leading members of the
+Conservative party of those times, and come to the conclusion that they
+were all selfish and insincere. Nay, it is evident enough that they were
+at least as sincere and as zealous for the public good as were their
+opponents."
+</p><p>
+I wish I could also compliment Mr. Dent upon doing like justice to Sir
+Francis B. Head.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Father of the lamented Lieut.-Col. A. R. Dunn, who won the
+Victoria Cross at Balaklava, and died as is believed, by the accidental
+discharge of a gun in Abyssinia.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The Building Committee of Trinity Church comprised,
+besides Alderman Dixon, Messrs. William Gooderham, Enoch Turner, and
+Joseph Shuter, all since deceased.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Easter salutation of the Primitive Church.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Mackenzie afterwards drew up petitions which prayed,
+amongst other things, for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, but
+I judge that on that question these petitions rather represented the
+opinions of other men than his own, and were specially aimed at the
+Church of England monopoly.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This and the preceding poem were written as illustrations
+of two beautiful plates which appeared in the Maple Leaf. One, Zayda
+presenting a rose to her supposed brother, Selim; the other, the Doge
+Foscari passing sentence of exile upon his son. The incidents in the
+Venetian story are all historical facts.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> As originally introduced by the Lafontaine-Baldwin
+Ministry, the bill recognised no distinction between the claims of men
+actually in arms and innocent sufferers, nor was it until the last
+reading that a pledge not to compensate actual criminals was wrested
+from the Government.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Although no notice of the annexation movement in Montreal
+was taken publicly at the meeting, it was well known that in the
+discussions with closed doors, all violence, and all tendencies towards
+disloyalty were utterly condemned and repudiated. The best possible
+testimony on this point is contained in the following extract from the
+Kingston correspondence of the <i>Globe</i> newspaper, of July 31st, 1849,
+the perusal of which now must, I think, rather astonish the well-known
+writer himself, should he happen to cast his eye upon these pages:
+</p><p>
+"The British Anglo-Saxons of Lower Canada will be most miserably
+disappointed in the League. They have held lately that they owed no
+allegiance to the crown of England, even if they did not go for
+annexation. <i>The League is loyal to the backbone</i>; many of the Lower
+Canadians are Free Traders, at least they look to Free Trade with the
+United States as the great means for promoting the prosperity of the
+Province&mdash;<i>the League is strong for protection as the means of reviving
+our trade</i>. * * * * Will the old Tory compact party, with protection and
+vested rights as its cry, ever raise its head in Upper Canada again,
+think you?"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The grand jury, who happened to be in session, had
+presented some thirteen young men as parties to an attempt to create a
+riot. Some months afterwards, the persons accused were brought to trial,
+and three of them found guilty and sentenced to short terms of
+imprisonment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> After I had left the Council, the question of harbour
+preservation was formally taken up at Mayor Allan's instance, and three
+premiums offered for the best reports on the subject. The first prize
+was adjudged to the joint report of Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. H. Y.
+Hind, in which the system of groynes was recommended. The reports were
+printed, but the Council&mdash;did nothing. Mr. Allan again offered to put
+down a groyne at his own expense, Mr. Fleming agreeing to superintend
+the work. The offer, however, was never accepted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The necessary plans and specifications for these five
+bridges were prepared by Mr. Shanly accordingly,&mdash;their value when
+completed, being put at fully &pound;15,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The same year, I was chairman of the Walks and Gardens
+Committee, and in that capacity instructed Mr. John Tully, City
+Surveyor, to extend the surveys of all streets leading towards the Bay,
+completely to the water line of the Esplanade. This was before any
+concession was made to the Northern, or any other railway. I mention
+this by way of reminder to the city authorities, who seem to me to have
+overlooked the fact.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> I was offered by Sir Cusack Roney, chief secretary of the
+G. T. R. Co., a position worth $2,000 a year in their Montreal office,
+but declined to break up my connections in Toronto. On my resigning the
+secretaryship, the Board honoured me with a resolution of thanks, and a
+gratuity of a year's salary.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The judgment given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council expressly stated that "the evidence of Ald. Thompson and
+Councilman Tully was conclusive as to the effect of their having been
+kept in ignorance of the corrupt bargain respecting the sale of the city
+debentures issued for the construction of the Northern Railway; and that
+they would not have voted for the proposed bill for the consolidation of
+the city debt, if they had been aware of the transaction."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The same year occurred the elections for members of the
+Legislative Council. I was a member of Mr. G. W. Allan's committee, and
+saw many things there which disgusted me with all election tactics. Men
+received considerable sums of money for expenses, which it was believed
+never left their own pockets. Mr. Allan was in England, and sent
+positive instructions against any kind of bribery whatsoever, yet when
+he arrived here, claims were lodged against him amounting to several
+thousand dollars, which he was too high-minded to repudiate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The late Mr. George Brown has often told me, that whenever
+the <i>Globe</i> became a Government organ, the loss in circulation and
+advertising was so great as to counter-balance twice over the profits
+derived from government advertising and printing.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> On my retirement from the publication of the <i>Colonist</i>,
+the Attorney-General offered me a position under Government to which was
+attached a salary of $1,400 a year, which I declined as unsuited to my
+tastes and habits.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Some members of the corporation were much annoyed at their
+exclusion, and inclined to resent it as a studied insult, but wiser
+counsels prevailed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> "Whatever may be its fate, the friends of progress will
+remember that the Province is indebted for this bill (the Free Libraries
+Act) to the zeal and public spirit of an alderman of the City of
+Toronto, Mr. John Hallam. With a disinterested enthusiasm and an
+assurance that the inhabitants of the towns and villages of Ontario
+would derive substantial benefits from the introduction of free public
+libraries, Mr. Hallam has spared no pains to stimulate public opinion in
+their favour. He has freely distributed a pamphlet on the subject, which
+embodies the result of much enquiry and reflection, gathered from
+various sources, and he seems to be very sanguine of success."&mdash;See <span class="smcap">Dr.
+Alpheus Todd's</span> paper "<i>On the Establishment of Free Libraries in
+Canada</i>," read before the Royal Society of Canada, 25th May, 1882.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Mr. Boulton retired January 1st, 1884, and Alderman
+Bernard Saunders was appointed in his stead.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<br /><br />
+<b>Transcriber's Notes:</b><br />
+hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original<br />
+Page 13, and occassionally all night ==> and occasionally all night<br />
+Page 34, want of a bating." ==> want of a bating."'<br />
+Page 38, and of the world ==> and of the world.<br />
+Page 62, have cutdown trees enough ==> have cut down trees enough<br />
+Page 74, the appeoach of daybreak ==> the approach of daybreak<br />
+Page 105, streamlet know to travellers ==> streamlet known to travellers<br />
+Page 127, further north Many prisoners ==> further north. Many prisoners<br />
+Page 136, greater discriminatiou his ==> greater discrimination his<br />
+Page 156, Thomson, Bonar &amp;. Co. ==> Thomson, Bonar &amp; Co.<br />
+Page 166, Mr Denison served ==> Mr. Denison served<br />
+Page 169, it was The party ==> it was. The party<br />
+Page 181, many a cumbrous load ==> many a cumbrous load.<br />
+Page 258, (Mr. G) did not admit ==> (Mr. G.) did not admit<br />
+Page 362, signed the pen ion warrant ==> signed the pension warrant<br />
+Page 362, the vallesy rise ==> the valleys rise<br />
+Page 364, on this generation. ==> on this generation."<br />
+Page 383, T. G. Ridout, 1845, 6, 8) ==> T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8)<br />
+Page 389, 2. "Diaries, narratives ==> "2. Diaries, narratives<br />
+Page 389, 3. "Files of newspapers ==> "3. Files of newspapers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer
+for the last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
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+</pre>
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+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the
+last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
+       An Autobiography
+
+Author: Samuel Thompson
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2011 [EBook #35586]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANADIAN PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by K Nordquist, Ross Cooling and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net ( This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet
+Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF A
+
+  Canadian Pioneer.
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF A
+
+  CANADIAN PIONEER
+
+  FOR
+
+  THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.
+
+
+  AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+  BY
+
+  SAMUEL THOMPSON,
+  _Formerly Editor of the "Toronto Daily Colonist," the "Parliamentary
+  Hansard," &c., &c._
+
+
+  Toronto:
+  HUNTER, ROSE & COMPANY.
+  MDCCCLXXXIV.
+
+
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
+    year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four, by Samuel
+    Thompson, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+  PREFACE.
+
+
+It was in consequence of a suggestion by the late S. J. Watson,
+Librarian of the Ontario Legislature--who urged that one who had gone
+through so many experiences of early Canadian history as myself, ought
+to put the same on record--that I first thought of writing these
+"Reminiscences," a portion of which appeared in the _Canadian Monthly
+Magazine_. For the assistance which has enabled me to complete and issue
+this volume, I am obliged to the kind support of those friends who have
+subscribed for its publication; for which they will please accept my
+grateful thanks.
+
+In the space at my disposal, I have necessarily been compelled to give
+little more than a gossiping narrative of events coming under my own
+observation. But I have been careful to verify every statement of which
+I was not personally cognizant; and to avoid everything of a
+controversial character; as well as to touch gently on those faults of
+public men which I felt obliged to notice.
+
+It has been a labour of love to me, to place on record many honourable
+deeds of Nature's gentlemen, whose lights ought not to be hidden
+altogether "under a bushel," and whose names should be enrolled by
+Canada amongst her earliest worthies. I have had the advantage, in
+several cases, of the use of family records, which have assisted me
+materially in rendering more complete several of the earlier chapters,
+particularly the account of Mackenzie's movements while in the
+neighbourhood of Gallows Hill; also the sketches of the "Tories of
+Rebellion Times;" as well as the history of the Mechanics' Institute, in
+which though a very old member, I never occupied any official position.
+
+Since the first part of these pages was in type, I have had to lament
+the deaths of more than one comrade whose name is recorded therein;
+amongst them Dr. A. A. Riddel--my "Archie"--and my dearest friend Dr.
+Alpheus Todd, to whom I have been indebted for a thousand proofs of
+generous sympathy.
+
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+                                                      PAGE
+           Preface                                     iii
+  Chap. I. The Author's Antecedents and Forbears         9
+       II. History of a Man of Genius                   14
+      III. Some Reminiscences of a London Apprentice    19
+       IV. Westward, Ho!                                21
+        V. Connemara and Galway fifty years ago         27
+       VI. More Sea Experiences                         33
+      VII. Up the St. Lawrence                          36
+     VIII. Muddy Little York                            39
+       IX. A Pioneer Tavern                             42
+        X. A First Day in the Bush                      46
+       XI. A Chapter on Chopping                        52
+      XII. Life in the Backwoods                        65
+     XIII. Some Gatherings from Natural History         69
+      XIV. Our Removal to Nottawasaga                   78
+       XV. Society in the Backwoods                     84
+      XVI. More about Nottawasaga and its People        91
+     XVII. A Rude Winter Experience                     93
+    XVIII. The Forest Wealth of Canada                  98
+      XIX. A Melancholy Tale                           101
+       XX. From Barrie to Nottawasaga                  104
+      XXI. Farewell to the Backwoods                   107
+     XXII. A Journey to Toronto                        109
+    XXIII. Some Glimpses of Upper Canadian Politics    116
+     XXIV. Toronto During the Rebellion                119
+      XXV. The Victor and the Vanquished               134
+     XXVI. Results in the Future                       140
+    XXVII. A Confirmed Tory                            143
+   XXVIII. Newspaper Experiences                       146
+     XXIX. Introduction to Canadian Politics           154
+      XXX. Lord Sydenham's Mission                     156
+     XXXI. Tories of the Rebellion Times:
+              Ald. G. T. Denison, Sen                  165
+              Col. R. L. Denison                       171
+              Col. Geo. T. Denison, of Rusholme        172
+              Alderman Dixon                           174
+    XXXII. More Tories of Rebellion Times:
+              Edward G. O'Brien                        186
+              John W. Gamble                           198
+   XXXIII. A Choice of a Church                        201
+    XXXIV. The Clergy Reserves                         210
+     XXXV. A Political Seed-time                       215
+    XXXVI. The Maple Leaf                              217
+   XXXVII. {St. George's Society                       229
+           {North America St. George's Union           234
+  XXXVIII. A Great Conflagration                       239
+    XXXIX. The Rebellion Losses Bill                   242
+       XL. The British American League                 245
+      XLI. Results of the B. A. League                 261
+     XLII. Toronto Civic Affairs                       262
+    XLIII. Lord Elgin in Toronto                       268
+     XLIV. Toronto Harbour and Esplanade               274
+      XLV. Mayor Bowes--City Debentures                281
+     XLVI. Carlton Ocean Beach                         285
+    XLVII. Canadian Politics from 1853 to 1860         288
+   XLVIII. Business Troubles                           295
+     XLIX. Business Experiences in Quebec              300
+        L. Quebec in 1859-60                           303
+       LI. Departure From Quebec                       315
+      LII. John A. Macdonald and George Brown          317
+     LIII. John Sheridan Hogan                         320
+      LIV. Domestic Notes                              322
+       LV. The Beaver Insurance Company                325
+      LVI. The Ottawa Fires                            326
+     LVII. Some Insurance Experiences                  329
+    LVIII. A Heavy Calamity                            333
+      LIX. The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron                336
+       LX. The Toronto Athenaeum                        340
+      LXI. The Buffalo Fete                            344
+     LXII. The Boston Jubilee                          349
+    LXIII. Vestiges of the Mosaic Deluge               365
+     LXIV. The Franchise                               368
+      LXV. Free Trade and Protection                   371
+     LXVI. The Future of Canada                        374
+    LXVII. The Toronto Mechanics' Institute            377
+   LXVIII. The Free Public Library                     384
+     LXIX. Postscript                                  392
+
+
+
+
+  REMINISCENCES
+
+  OF
+
+  A CANADIAN PIONEER.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  THE AUTHOR'S ANTECEDENTS AND FORBEARS.
+
+
+The writer of these pages was born in the year 1810, in the City of
+London, and in the Parish of Clerkenwell, being within sound of Bow
+Bells. My father was churchwarden of St. James's, Clerkenwell, and was a
+master-manufacturer of coal measures and coal shovels, now amongst the
+obsolete implements of by-gone days. His father was, I believe, a
+Scotsman, and has been illnaturedly surmised to have run away from the
+field of Culloden, where he may have fought under the name and style of
+Evan McTavish, a name which, like those of numbers of his fellow
+clansmen, would naturally anglicise itself into John Thompson, in order
+to save its owner's neck from a threatened Hanoverian halter. But he
+was both canny and winsome, and by-and-by succeeded in capturing the
+affections and "tocher" of Sarah Reynolds, daughter of the wealthy
+landlord of the Bull Inn, of Meriden, in Warwickshire, the greatest and
+oldest of those famous English hostelries, which did duty as the
+resting-place of monarchs _en route_, and combined within their solid
+walls whole troops of blacksmiths, carpenters, hostlers, and many other
+crafts and callings. No doubt from this source I got my Warwickshire
+blood, and English ways of thinking, in testimony of which I may cite
+the following facts: while living in Quebec, in 1859-60, a mason
+employed to rebuild a brick chimney challenged me as a brother
+Warwickshire man, saying he knew dozens of gentlemen there who were as
+like me "as two peas." Again, in 1841, a lady who claimed to be the last
+direct descendant of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, and
+the possessor of the watch and other relics of the poet, said she was
+quite startled at my likeness to an original portrait of her great
+ancestor, in the possession of her family.
+
+My grandfather carried on the business of timber dealer (we in Canada
+should call it lumber merchant), between Scotland and England, buying up
+the standing timber in gentlemen's parks, squaring and teaming it
+southward, and so became a prosperous man. Finally, at his death, he
+left a large family of sons and daughters, all in thriving
+circumstances. His second son, William, married my mother, Anna Hawkins,
+daughter of the Rev. Isaac Hawkins, of Taunton, in Somersetshire, and
+his wife, Joan Wilmington, of Wilmington Park, near Taunton. My
+grandfather Hawkins was one of John Wesley's earliest converts, and was
+by him ordained to the ministry. Through my mother, we are understood to
+be descended from Sir John Hawkins, the world-renowned buccaneer,
+admiral, and founder of the English Royal Navy, who was honoured by
+being associated with her most sacred Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in a
+secret partnership in the profits of piratical raids undertaken in the
+name and for the behoof of Protestant Christianity. So at least says the
+historian, Froude.
+
+One word more about my father. He was a member of the London
+trained-bands, and served during the Gordon riots, described by Dickens
+in "Barnaby Rudge." He personally rescued a family of Roman Catholics
+from the rioters, secreted them in his house on Holborn Hill, and aided
+them to escape to Jamaica, whence they sent us many valuable presents of
+mahogany furniture, which must be still in the possession of some of my
+nephews or nieces in England. My mother has often told me, that she
+remembered well seeing dozens of miserable victims of riot and
+drunkenness lying in the kennel in front of her house, lapping up the
+streams of gin which ran burning down the foul gutter, consuming the
+poor wretches themselves in its fiery progress.
+
+My father died the same year I was born. My dear mother, who was the
+meekest and most pious of women, did her best to teach her children to
+avoid the snares of worldly pride and ambition, and to be contented with
+the humble lot in which they had been placed by Providence. She was by
+religious profession a Swedenborgian, and in that denomination educated
+a family of eleven children, of whom I am the youngest. I was sent to a
+respectable day-school, and afterwards as boarder to a commercial
+academy, where I learnt the English branches of education, with a little
+Latin, French, and drawing. I was, as a child, passionately fond of
+reading, especially of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and of Sir Walter
+Scott's novels, which latter delightful books have influenced my tastes
+through life, and still hold me fascinated whenever I happen to take
+them up.
+
+So things went on till 1823, when I was thirteen years old. My mother
+had been left a life-interest in freehold and leasehold property worth
+some thirty thousand pounds sterling; but, following the advice of her
+father and brother, was induced to invest in losing speculations, until
+scarcely sufficient was left to keep the wolf from the door. It was,
+therefore, settled that I must be sent to learn a trade, and, by my
+uncle's advice, I was placed as apprentice to one William Molineux, of
+the Liberty of the Rolls, in the district of Lincoln's Inn, printer. He
+was a hard master, though not an unkind man. For seven long years was I
+kept at press and case, working eleven hours a day usually, sometimes
+sixteen, and occasionally all night, for which latter indulgence I got
+half a crown for the night's work, but no other payment or present from
+year's end to year's end. The factory laws had not then been thought of,
+and the condition of apprentices in England was much the same as that of
+convicts condemned to hard labour, except for a couple of hours'
+freedom, and too often of vicious license, in the evenings.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  HISTORY OF A MAN OF GENIUS.
+
+
+The course of my narrative now requires a brief account of my mother's
+only brother, whose example and conversation, more than anything else,
+taught me to turn my thoughts westwards, and finally to follow his
+example by crossing the Atlantic ocean, and seeking "fresh fields and
+pastures new" under a transatlantic sky.
+
+John Isaac Hawkins was a name well known, both in European and American
+scientific circles, fifty years ago, as an inventor of the most fertile
+resource, and an expert in all matters relating to civil engineering. He
+must have left England for America somewhere about the year 1790, full
+of republican enthusiasm and of schemes of universal benevolence. Of his
+record in the United States I know very little, except that he married a
+wife in New Jersey, that he resided at Bordenton, that he acquired some
+property adjacent to Philadelphia, that he was intimate with the elder
+Adams, Jefferson, and many other eminent men. Returning with his wife to
+England, after twenty-five years' absence, he established a sugar
+refinery in Titchfield Street, Cavendish square, London, patronized his
+English relatives with much condescension, and won my childish heart by
+great lumps of rock-candy, and scientific experiments of a delightfully
+awful character. Also, he borrowed my mother's money, to be expended for
+the good of mankind, and the elaboration of the teeming offspring of his
+inexhaustible inventive faculty. Morden's patent lead pencils, Bramah's
+patent locks, and, I think, Gillott's steel pens were among his numerous
+useful achievements, from some or all of which he enjoyed to the day of
+his death a small income, in the shape of a royalty on the profits. He
+assisted in the perfecting of Perkins's steam-gun, which the Duke of
+Wellington condemned as too barbarous for civilized warfare, but which
+its discoverer, Mr. Perkins, looked upon as the destined extirpator of
+all warfare, by the simple process of rendering resistance utterly
+impossible. This appalling and destructive weapon has culminated in
+these times in the famous mitrailleuses of Napoleon III, at Woerth and
+Sedan, which, however, certainly neither exterminated the Prussians nor
+added glory to the French empire.
+
+At his home I was in the habit of meeting the leading men of the Royal
+Society and the Society of Arts, of which he was a member, and of
+listening to their discussions about scientific novelties. The
+eccentric Duke of Norfolk, Earl Stanhope, the inventor of the Stanhope
+press, and other noble amateur scientists, availed themselves of his
+practical skill, and his name became known throughout Europe. In 1825 or
+thereabouts, he was selected by the Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria,
+to design and superintend the first extensive works erected in Vienna
+for the promotion of the new manufacture of beet-root sugar, now an
+important national industry throughout Germany. He described the
+intercourse of the Austrian Imperial-Royal family with all who
+approached them, and even with the mendicants who were daily admitted to
+an audience with the Emperor at five o'clock in the morning, as of the
+most cordial and lovable character.
+
+From Vienna my uncle went to Paris, and performed the same duties there
+for the French Government, in the erection of extensive sugar works. The
+chief difficulty he encountered there, was in parrying the determination
+of the Parisian artisans not to lose their Sunday's labour. They could
+not, they said, support their families on six days' wages, and unless he
+paid them for remaining idle on the Sabbath day, they must and would
+work seven days in the week. I believe they gained their point, much to
+his distress and chagrin.
+
+His next exploit was in the construction of the Thames tunnel, in
+connection with which he acted as superintendent of the works under Sir
+Isambert Brunel. This occupied him nearly up to the time of my own
+departure for Canada, in 1833. The sequel of his story is a melancholy
+one. He made fortunes for other men who bought his inventions but
+himself sank into debt, and at last died in obscurity at Rahway, New
+Jersey, whither he had returned as a last resort, there to find his
+former friends dead, his beloved republic become a paradise for
+office-grabbers and sharpers, his life a mere tale of talents
+dissipated, and vague ambition unsatisfied.[1]
+
+After his return from Vienna, I lived much at my uncle's house, in
+London, as my mother had removed to the pleasant village of Epsom in
+Surrey. There I studied German with some degree of success, and learnt
+much about foreign nations and the world at large. There too I learnt to
+distrust my own ability to make my way amidst the crowded industries of
+the old country, and began to cast a longing eye to lands where there
+was plenty of room for individual effort, and a reasonable prospect of
+a life unblighted by the dread of the parish workhouse and a pauper's
+grave.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since writing the above, I find in _Scribner's Monthly_ for
+November 1880, the following notice of my uncle, which forms a sad
+sequel to a long career of untiring enthusiasm in the service of his
+fellow-creatures. It is the closing paragraph of an article headed
+"Bordentown and the Bonapartes," from the pen of Joseph B. Gilder:
+
+"It yet remains to say a few words of Dr. John Isaac Hawkins--civil
+engineer, inventor, poet, preacher, phrenologist and 'mentor-general to
+mankind,'--who visited the village towards the close of the last
+century, married and lived there for many years; then disappeared, and,
+after a long absence, returned a gray old man, with a wife barely out of
+her teens. 'This isn't the wife you, took away, doctor,' some one
+ventured to remark. 'No,' the blushing girl replied, 'and he's buried
+one between us.' The poor fellow had hard work to gain a livelihood. For
+a time, the ladies paid him to lecture to them in their parlours; but
+when he brought a bag of skulls, and the heart and windpipe of his
+[adopted] son preserved in spirits, they would have nothing more to do
+with him. As a last resort, he started the 'Journal of Human Nature and
+Human Progress,' his wife 'setting up' for the press her husband's
+contributions in prose and rhyme. But the 'Journal' died after a brief
+and inglorious career. Hawkins claimed to have made the first survey for
+a tunnel under the Thames, and he invented the 'ever-pointed pencil,'
+the 'iridium-pointed gold pen,' and a method of condensing coffee. He
+also constructed a little stove with a handle, which he carried into the
+kitchen to cook his meals or into the reception-room when visitors
+called, and at night into his bedroom. He invented also a new religion,
+whose altar was erected in his own small parlour, where Dr. John Isaac
+Hawkins, priest, held forth to Mrs. John Isaac Hawkins, people. But a
+shadow stretched along the poor man's path from the loss of his only
+[adopted] son--'a companion in all of his philosophical researches,' who
+died and was dissected at the early age of seven. Thereafter the old man
+wandered, as 'lonely as a cloud,' sometimes in England, sometimes in
+America; but attended patiently and faithfully by his first wife, then
+by a second, and finally by a third, who clung to him with the devotion
+of Little Nell to her doting grandfather."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LONDON APPRENTICE.
+
+
+Having been an indulged youngest child, I found the life of a printer's
+boy bitterly distasteful, and it was long before I could brace myself up
+to the required tasks. But time worked a change; I got to be a smart
+pressman and compositor; and at eighteen the foremanship of the office
+was entrusted to me, still without remuneration or reward. Those were
+the days of the Corn Law League. Col. Peyronnet Thompson, the apostle of
+Free Trade, author of the "Catholic State Waggon" and other political
+tracts, got his work done at our office. We printed the _Examiner_,
+which brought me into contact with John and Leigh Hunt, with Jeremy
+Bentham, then a feeble old man whose life was passed in an easy chair,
+and with his _protege_ Edwin Chadwick; also with Albany Fonblanque, Sir
+John Morland the philanthropist, and other eminent men. Last but not
+least, we printed "Figaro in London," the forerunner of "Punch," and I
+was favoured with the kindest encouragement by De Walden, its first
+editor, afterwards Police Magistrate. I have known that gentleman come
+into the office on the morning of publication, ask how much copy was
+still wanted, and have seen him stand at a desk, and without preparation
+or hesitation, dash off paragraph after paragraph of the pungent
+witticisms, which the same afternoon sent all London into roars of
+laughter at the expense of political humbugs of all kinds, whether
+friends or foes. These were not unhappy days for me. With such
+associations, I became a zealous Reformer, and heartily applauded my
+elder brother, when he refused, with thousands of others, to pay taxes
+at the time the first Reform Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.
+
+At this period of my life, as might have been expected from the nature
+of my education and the course of reading which I preferred, I began to
+try my hand at poetry, and wrote several slight pieces for the Christmas
+Annuals, which, sad to say, were never accepted. But the fate of
+Chatterton, of Coleridge, and other like sufferers, discouraged me; and
+I adopted the prudent resolution, to prefer wealth to fame, and comfort
+to martyrdom in the service of the Muses.
+
+With the termination of my seven years' apprenticeship, these literary
+efforts came also to an end. Disgusted with printing, I entered the
+service of my brother, a timber merchant, and in consequence obtained a
+general knowledge of the many varieties of wood used in manufactures,
+which I have since found serviceable. And this brings me to the year
+1831, from which date to the present day, I have identified myself
+thoroughly with Canada, her industries and progress, without for a
+moment ceasing to be an Englishman of the English, a loyal subject of
+the Queen, and a firm believer in the high destinies of the Pan-Anglican
+Empire of the future.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  WESTWARD, HO!
+
+
+"Martin Doyle," was the text-book which first awakened, amongst tens of
+thousands of British readers, a keen interest in the backwoods of what
+is now the Province of Ontario. The year 1832, the first dread year of
+Asiatic cholera, contributed by its terrors to the exodus of alarmed
+fugitives from the crowded cities of the old country. My brothers
+Thomas and Isaac, both a few years older than myself, made up their
+minds to emigrate, and I joyously offered to join them, in the
+expectation of a good deal of fun of the kind described by Dr. Dunlop.
+So we set seriously to work, "pooled" our small means, learnt to make
+seine-nets, economized to an unheard of extent, became curious in the
+purchase of stores, including pannikins and other primitive tinware, and
+at length engaged passage in the bark _Asia_, 500 tons, rated A. No. 1,
+formerly an East Indiaman, and now bound for Quebec, to seek a cargo of
+white pine lumber for the London market. So sanguine were we of
+returning in the course of six or seven years, with plenty of money to
+enrich, and perhaps bring back with us, our dear mother and unmarried
+sisters, that we scarcely realized the pain of leave-taking, and went on
+board ship in the St. Catherine's Docks, surrounded by applauding
+friends, and in the highest possible spirits.
+
+Our fellow-passengers were not of the most desirable class. With the
+exception of a London hairdresser and his wife, very respectable people,
+with whom we shared the second-cabin, the emigrants were chiefly rough
+countrymen, with their wives and numerous children, sent out by the
+parish authorities from the neighbourhood of Dorking, in Surrey, and
+more ignorant than can readily be conceived. Helpless as infants under
+suffering, sulky and even savage under privations, they were a
+troublesome charge to the ship's officers, and very ill-fitted for the
+dangers of the sea which lay before us. Captain Ward was the ship's
+master; there were first and second mates, the former a tall Scot, the
+latter a short thick-set Englishman, and both good sailors. The
+boatswain, cook and crew of about a dozen men and boys, made up our
+ship's company.
+
+All things went reasonably well for some time. Heavy head-winds detained
+us in the channel for a fortnight, which was relieved by landing at
+Torbay, climbing the heights of Brixham, and living on fresh fish for
+twenty-four hours. Then came a fair wind, which lasted until we got near
+the banks of Newfoundland. Head-winds beset us again, and this time so
+seriously that our vessel, which was timber-sheathed, sprang a plank,
+and immediately began to leak dangerously. The passengers had taken to
+their berths for the night, and were of course ignorant of what had
+happened, but feared something wrong from the hurry of tramping of feet
+overhead, the vehement shouts of the mates giving orders for lowering
+sail, and the other usual accompaniments of a heavy squall on board
+ship. It was not long, however, before we learned the alarming truth.
+"All hands on deck to pump ship," came thundering down both hatchways,
+in the coarse tones of the second mate. We hurried on deck half-dressed,
+to face a scene of confusion affrighting in the eyes of landsmen--the
+ship stripped to her storm-sails, almost on her beam-ends in a
+tremendous sea, the wind blowing "great guns," the deck at an angle of
+at least fifteen degrees, flooded with rain pouring in torrents, and
+encumbered with ropes which there had not been time to clew away, the
+four ship's pumps manned by twice as many landsmen, the sailors all
+engaged in desperate efforts to stop the leak by thrumming sails
+together and drawing them under the ship's bows.
+
+Captain Ward told us very calmly that he had been in gales off the Cape
+of Good Hope, and thought nothing of a "little puff" like this; he also
+told us that he should keep on his course in the hope that the wind
+would abate, and that we could manage the leak; but if not, he had no
+doubt of carrying us safely back to the west coast of Ireland, where he
+might comfortably refit.
+
+Certainly courage is infectious. We were twelve hundred miles at sea,
+with a great leak in our ship's side, and very little hope of escape,
+but the master's coolness and bravery delighted us, and even the
+weakest man on board took his spell at the pumps, and worked away for
+dear life. My brother Thomas was a martyr to sea-sickness, and could
+hardly stand without help; but Isaac had been bred a farmer, accustomed
+to hard work and field sports, and speedily took command of the pumps,
+worked two spells for another man's one, and by his example encouraged
+the grumbling steerage passengers to persevere, if only for very shame.
+Some of their wives even took turns with great spirit and effect. I did
+my best, but it was not much that I could accomplish.
+
+In all my after-life I never experienced such supreme comfort and peace
+of mind, as during that night, while lying under wet sails on the
+sloping deck, talking with my brother of the certainty of our being at
+the bottom of the sea before morning, of our mother and friends at home,
+and of our hope of meeting them in the great Hereafter. Tired out at
+last, we fell asleep where we lay, and woke only at the cry, "spell ho!"
+which summoned us again to the pumps.
+
+The report of "five feet of water in the hold--the ballast shifted!"
+determined matters for us towards morning. Capt. Ward decided that he
+must put about and run for Galway, and so he did. The sea had by
+daylight gone down so much, that the captain's cutter could be lowered
+and the leak examined from the outside. This was done by the first mate,
+Mr. Cattanagh, who brought back the cheering news that so long as we
+were running before the wind the leak was four feet out of water, and
+that we were saved for the present. The bark still remained at the same
+unsightly angle, her ballast, which was chiefly coals, having shifted
+bodily over to leeward; the pumps had to be kept going, and in this
+deplorable state, in constant dread of squalls, and wearied with
+incessant hard work, we sailed for eight days and nights, never sighting
+a ship until nearly off the mouth of the Shannon, where we hailed a brig
+whose name I forget. She passed on, however, refusing to answer our
+signals of distress.
+
+Next day, to our immense relief, the _Asia_ entered Galway Bay, and here
+we lay six weeks for repairs, enjoying ourselves not a little, and
+forgetting past danger, except as a memorable episode in the battle of
+life.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  CONNEMARA AND GALWAY FIFTY YEARS AGO.
+
+
+The Town of Galway is a relic of the times when Spain maintained an
+active commerce with the west of Ireland, and meddled not a little in
+the intrigues of the time. Everybody has read of the warden of Galway,
+who hanged his son outside a window of his own house, to prevent a
+rescue from justice by a popular rising in the young man's favour. That
+house still stood, and probably yet stands, a mournful memento of a most
+dismal tragedy. In 1833 it was in ruins, as was also the whole long row
+of massive cut stone buildings of which it formed part. In front there
+was a tablet recording the above event; the walls were entire, but the
+roof was quite gone, and the upper stories open to the winds and storms.
+The basement story appeared to have been solidly arched, and in its
+cavernous recesses, and those of the adjoining cellars along that side
+of the street, dwelt a race of butchers and of small hucksters, dealing
+in potatoes, oats, some groceries and rough wares of many kinds. The
+first floor of a brick store opposite was occupied by a hair-dresser
+with whom our London fellow-passenger claimed acquaintance. One day we
+were sitting at his window, looking across at the old warden's house,
+when a singular scene was enacted under our astonished eyes. A
+beggarman, so ragged as barely to comply with the demands of common
+decency, and bearing an old sack suspended over his shoulder on a short
+cudgel, came lounging along the middle of the street seeking alms. A
+butcher's dog of aristocratic tastes took offence at the man's rags, and
+attacked him savagely. The old man struck at the dog, the dog's owner
+darted out of his cellar and struck at the beggar, somebody else took a
+part, and in the twinkling of an eye as it were, the narrow street was
+blocked up with men furiously-wielding shillelaghs, striking right and
+left at whoever happened to be most handy, and yelling like Dante's
+devils in full chorus. Another minute, and a squad of policemen in green
+uniforms--peelers, they are popularly called--appeared as if by magic,
+and with the effect of magic; for instantly, and with a celerity
+evidently the result of long practice, the crowd, beggarman, butcher,
+dog and all, vanished into the yawning cellars, and the street was left
+as quiet as before, the police marching leisurely back to their
+barracks.
+
+We spent much of our time in rambling along the shore of Galway Bay, a
+beautiful and extensive harbour, where we found many curious specimens
+of sea-weeds, particularly the edible dilosk, and rare shells and
+minerals. Some of our people went out shooting snipe, and were warned on
+all hands to go in parties, and to take care of their guns, which would
+prove too strong a temptation for the native peasantry, as the spirit of
+Ribbonism was rife throughout Connemara. Another amusement was, to watch
+the groups of visitors from Tuam and the surrounding parts of Clare and
+other counties, who were attracted by the marvel of a ship of five
+hundred tons in their bay, no such phenomenon having happened within the
+memory of man. At another time we explored the rapid river Corrib, and
+the beautiful lake of the same name, a few miles distant. The salmon
+weirs on the river were exceedingly interesting, where we saw the
+largest fish confined in cribs for market, and apparently quite
+unconscious of their captivity. The castle of one of the Lynch family
+was visible from the bay, an ancient structure with its walls mounted
+with cannon to keep sheriffs' officers at a distance. Other feudal
+castles were also in sight.
+
+Across the bay loomed the rugged mountains of Clare, seemingly utterly
+barren in their bleak nakedness. With the aid of the captain's telescope
+we could see on these inhospitable hills dark objects, which turned out
+to be the mud cabins of a numerous peasantry, the very class for whom,
+in this present year of 1883, Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues are
+trying to create an elysium of rural contentment. We traversed the
+country roads for miles, to observe the mode of farming there, and could
+find nothing, even up to the very streets of Galway, but mud cabins with
+one or two rooms, shared with the cow and pigs, and entrenched, as it
+were, behind a huge pile of manure that must have been the accumulation
+of years. Anything in the shape of valuable improvements was
+conspicuously absent.
+
+Everything in Connemara seems paradoxical. These rough-coated,
+hard-worked, down-trodden Celts proved to be the liveliest, brightest,
+wittiest of mankind. They came in shoals to our ship, danced reels by
+the hour upon deck to a whistled accompaniment, with the most
+extravagant leaps and snapping of fingers. It was an amusing sight to
+see women driving huge pigs into the sea, held by a string tied to the
+hind leg, and there scraping and sluicing the unwieldy, squealing
+creatures until they came out as white as new cream. These Galway women
+are singularly handsome, with a decidedly Murillo cast of features,
+betokening plainly their Iberian ancestry. They might well have sat as
+models to the chief of Spanish painters.
+
+In the suburbs of Galway are many acres of boggy land, which are
+cultivated as potato plots, highly enriched with salt sea-weed manure,
+and very productive. These farms--by which title they are
+dignified--were rented, we were told, at three to four pounds sterling
+per acre. Rents in the open country ranged from one pound upwards. Yet
+we bought cup potatoes at twopence per stone of sixteen lbs.; and for a
+leg of mutton paid sixpence English.
+
+Enquiring the cause of these singular anomalies, we were assured on all
+hands, that the system of renting through middlemen was the bane of
+Ireland. A farm might be sub-let two or three times, each tenant paying
+an increased rental, and the landlord-in-chief, a Blake, a Lynch, or a
+Martin, realizing less rent than he would obtain in Scotland or England.
+We heard of no Protestant oppressors here; the gentry and nobility
+worshipped at the same altar with the humblest of their dependents, and
+certainly meant them well and treated them considerately.
+
+We attended the English service in the ancient Gothic Abbey Church. The
+ministrations were of the strictest Puritan type; the sculptured
+escutcheons and tablets on the walls--the groined arches and bosses of
+the roof--were almost obliterated by thick coat upon coat of whitewash,
+laid on in an iconoclastic spirit which I have since seen equalled in
+the Dutch Cathedral of Rotterdam, and nowhere else. Another Sunday we
+visited a small Roman Catholic chapel at some distance. It was
+impossible to get inside the building, as the crowd of worshippers not
+only filled the sacred edifice, but spread themselves over a pretty
+extensive and well-filled churchyard, where they knelt throughout
+morning prayer, lasting a full hour or more.
+
+The party-feuds of the town are quite free from sectarian feeling. The
+fishermen, who were dressed from head to foot in hoddengray, and the
+butchers, who clothed themselves entirely in sky-blue--coats,
+waistcoats, breeches, and stockings alike, with black hats and
+shoes--constituted the belligerent powers. Every Saturday night, or
+oftener, they would marshal their forces respectively on the wide
+fish-market place, by the sea-shore, or on the long wharf extending into
+deep water, and with their shillelaghs hold high tournament for the
+honour of their craft and the love of fair maidens. One night, while the
+_Asia_ lay off the wharf, an unfortunate combatant fell senseless into
+the water and was drowned. But no inquiry followed, and no surprise was
+expressed at a circumstance so trivial.
+
+By the way, it would be unpardonable to quit Connemara without recording
+its "potheen." Every homestead had its peat-stack, and every peat-stack
+might be the hiding-place of a keg of illicit native spirits. We were
+invited, and encouraged by example, to taste a glass; but a single
+mouthful almost choked us; and never again did we dare to put the fiery
+liquid to our lips.
+
+Our recollections of Galway are of a mixed character--painful, because
+of the consciousness that the empire at large must be held responsible
+for the unequal distribution of nature's blessings amongst her
+people--pleasant, because of the uniform hospitality and courtesy shown
+to us by all classes and creeds of the townsfolk.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  MORE SEA EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+In the month of July we were ready for sea again. In the meantime
+Captain Ward had got together a new list of passengers, and we more than
+doubled our numbers by the addition of several Roman Catholic gentlemen
+of birth and education with their followers, and a party of Orangemen
+and their families, of a rather rough farming sort, escaping from
+religious feuds and hostile neighbours. A blooming widow Culleeney, of
+the former class, was added to the scanty female society on board; and
+for the first few hours after leaving port, we had fun and dancing on
+deck galore. But alas, sea-sickness put an end to our merriment all too
+soon. Our new recruits fled below, and scarcely showed their faces on
+deck for several days. Yet, in this apparently quiet interval, discord
+had found her way between decks.
+
+We were listening one fine evening to the comical jokes and rich brogue
+of the most gentlemanly of the Irish Catholics above-mentioned, when
+suddenly a dozen men, women and children, armed with sticks and foaming
+at the mouth, rushed up the steerage hatchway, and without note of
+warning or apparent provocation, attacked the defenceless group standing
+near us with the blindness of insanity and the most frantic cries of
+rage. Fortunately there were several of the ship's officers and sailors
+on deck, who laid about them lustily with their fists, and speedily
+drove the attacking party below, where they were confined for some days,
+under a threat of severe punishment from the captain, who meant what he
+said. So this breeze passed over. What it was about, who was offended,
+and how, we never could discover; we set it down to the general
+principle, that the poor creatures were merely 'blue-mowlded for want of
+a bating.'
+
+Moderately fair breezes, occasional dead calms, rude, baffling
+head-winds, attended us until we reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After
+sailing all day northward, and all night southerly, we found ourselves
+next morning actually retrograded some thirty or forty knots. But we
+were rewarded sometimes by strange sights and wondrous spectacles. Once
+a shoal of porpoises and grampuses crossed our course, frolicking and
+turning summersets in the air, and continuing to stream onwards for full
+two hours. Another time, when far north, we had the most magnificent
+display of aurora borealis. Night after night the sea became radiant
+with phosphorescent light. Icebergs attended us in thousands, compelling
+our captain to shorten sail frequently; once we passed near two of these
+ice-cliffs which exceeded five hundred feet in height, and again we were
+nearly overwhelmed by the sudden break-down of a huge mass as big as a
+cathedral. Near the Island of Anticosti we saw at least three hundred
+spouting whales at one view. I have crossed the Atlantic four times
+since, and have scarcely seen a single whale or shark. It seems that
+modern steamship travel has driven away the inhabitants of the deep to
+quieter seas, and robbed "life on the ocean wave" of much of its
+romance.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  UP THE ST. LAWRENCE.
+
+
+The St. Lawrence River was gained, and escaping with a few days'
+quarantine at Grosse Isle, we reached Quebec, there to be transferred to
+a fine steamer for Montreal. At Lachine we were provided with large
+barges, here called batteaux, which sufficed to accommodate the whole of
+the _Asia's_ passengers going west, with their luggage. They were drawn
+by Canadian ponies, lively and perfectly hardy little animals, which,
+with their French-Canadian drivers, amused us exceedingly. While loading
+up, we were favoured with one of those accidental historical "bits"--as
+a painter would say--which occur so rarely in a lifetime. The then
+despot of the North-West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for the
+seat of his government _via_ the Ottawa River. With him were some
+half-dozen officers, civil and military, and the party was escorted by
+six or eight Nor'-West canoes--each thirty or forty feet long, and
+manned by some twenty-four Indians, in the full glory of war-paint,
+feathers, and most dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats, and
+their no less stately crews, gliding with measured stroke, in gallant
+procession, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay
+territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, was a sight
+never to be forgotten. And as they paddled, the woods echoed far and
+wide to the strange weird sounds of their favourite boat-song:--
+
+  "A la claire fontaine,
+   M'en allant promener,
+   J'ai trouve l'eau si belle,
+   Que je m'y suis baigne.
+  Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+  Jamais je ne t'oublirai."
+
+From Lachine to the Coteau, thence by canal and along shore successively
+to Cornwall, Prescott, and Kingston, occupied several days. We were
+charmed to get on dry land, to follow our batteau along well-beaten
+paths, gathering nuts, stealing a few apples now and then from some
+orchard skirting the road; dining at some weather-boarded way-side
+tavern, with painted floors, and French cuisine, all delightfully
+strange and comical to us; then on board the batteau again at night.
+Once, in a cedar swamp, we were enraptured at finding a dazzling
+specimen of the scarlet _lobelia fulgens_, the most brilliant of wild
+flowers, which Indians use for making red ink. At another time, the
+Long Sault rapids, up which was steaming the double-hulled steamer
+_Iroquois_, amazed us by their grandeur and power, and filled our minds
+with a sense of the vastness of the land we had come to inhabit. And so
+we wended on our way until put aboard the Lake Ontario steamer _United
+Kingdom_ for Little York, where we landed about the first week in
+September, 1833, after a journey of four months. Now-a-days, a trip to
+England by the Allan Line is thought tedious if it last ten days, and
+even five days is considered not unattainable. When we left England, a
+thirty mile railway from Liverpool to Manchester was all that Europe had
+seen. Dr. Dionysius Lardner pronounced steam voyages across the Atlantic
+an impossibility, and men believed him. Now, even China and Japan have
+their railways and steamships; Canada is being spanned from the Atlantic
+to the Pacific by a railroad, destined, I believe, to work still greater
+changes in the future of our race, and of the world.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  MUDDY LITTLE YORK.
+
+
+When we landed at York, it contained 8,500 inhabitants or thereabouts,
+being the same population nearly as Belleville, St. Catharines, and
+Brantford severally claimed in 1881. In addition to King street the
+principal thoroughfares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate streets, now
+more euphoniously styled Queen, Richmond and Adelaide streets
+respectively; Church, George, Bay and York streets were almost without
+buildings; Yonge street ran north thirty-three miles to Lake Simcoe, and
+Dundas street extended westward a hundred miles to London. More or less
+isolated wooden stores there were on King and Yonge streets; taverns
+were pretty numerous; a wooden English church; Methodist, Presbyterian,
+and Roman Catholic churches of the like construction; a brick gaol and
+court-house of the ugliest architecture: scattered private houses, a
+wheat-field where now stands the Rossin House; beyond it a rough-cast
+Government House, brick Parliament Buildings uglier even than the gaol,
+and some government offices located in one-story brick buildings
+twenty-five feet square,--comprised the lions of the Toronto of that
+day. Of brick private buildings, only Moore's hotel at the corner of
+Market square; J. S. Baldwin's residence, now the Canada Company's
+office; James F. Smith's grocery (afterwards the _Colonist_ office), on
+King street; Ridout's hardware store at the corner of King and Yonge
+streets, occur to my memory, but there may have been one or two others.
+So well did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church
+street near St. James's Church, boots were drawn off the feet by the
+tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market lane (now Colborne
+street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along the
+roadside. There was rude flagged pavement here and there, but not a
+solitary planked footpath throughout the town.
+
+To us the sole attraction was the Emigrant Office. At that time, Sir
+John Colborne, Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada, was exerting himself to
+induce retired army officers, and other well-to-do settlers, to take up
+lands in the country north and west of Lake Simcoe. U. E. rights,
+_i.e._, location tickets for two hundred acres of land, subject to
+conditions of actual settlement, were easily obtainable. We purchased
+one of these for a hundred dollars, or rather for twenty pounds
+sterling--dollars and cents not being current in Canada at that
+date--and forthwith booked ourselves for Lake Simcoe, in an open waggon
+without springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking utensils of
+intending settlers, some of them our shipmates of the _Asia_. A day's
+journey brought us to Holland Landing, whence a small steamer conveyed
+us across the lake to Barrie. The Holland River was then a mere muddy
+ditch, swarming with huge bullfrogs and black snakes, and winding in and
+out through thickets of reeds and rushes. Arrived at Barrie, we found a
+wharf, a log bakery, two log taverns--one of them also a store--and a
+farm house, likewise log. Other farm-houses there were at some little
+distance, hidden by trees.
+
+Some of our fellow travellers were discouraged by the solitary
+appearance of things here, and turned back at once. My brothers and
+myself, and one other emigrant, determined to go on; and next afternoon,
+armed with axes, guns, and mosquito nets, off we started for the unknown
+forest, then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. From
+Barrie to the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles, a road had been chopped
+and logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river, nothing but a bush
+path existed.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  A PIONEER TAVERN.
+
+
+We had walked a distance of eight miles, and it was quite dark, when we
+came within sight of the clearing where we were advised to stop for the
+night. Completely blockading the road, and full in our way, was a
+confused mass of felled timber, which we were afterwards told was a
+wind-row or brush-fence. It consisted of an irregular heap of prostrate
+trees, branches and all, thrown together in line, to serve as a fence
+against stray cattle. After several fruitless attempts to effect an
+entrance, there was nothing for it but to shout at the top of our voices
+for assistance.
+
+Presently we heard a shrill cry, rather like the call of some strange
+bird than a human voice; immediately afterwards, the reflection of a
+strong light became visible, and a man emerged from the brush-wood,
+bearing a large blazing fragment of resinous wood, which lighted up
+every object around in a picturesque and singular manner. High over
+head, eighty feet at least, was a vivid green canopy of leaves,
+extending on all sides as far as the eye could penetrate, varied here
+and there by the twinkling of some lustrous star that peeped through
+from the dark sky without, and supported by the straight trunks and
+arching branches of innumerable trees--the rustic pillars of this superb
+natural temple. The effect was strikingly beautiful and surprising.
+
+Nor was the figure of our guide less strange. He was the first genuine
+specimen of a Yankee we had encountered--a Vermonter--tall, bony and
+awkward, but with a good-natured simplicity in his shrewd features; he
+wore uncouth leather leggings, tied with deer sinews--loose mocassins, a
+Guernsey shirt, a scarlet sash confining his patched trowsers at the
+waist, and a palmetto hat, dragged out of all describable shape, the
+colour of each article so obscured by stains and rough usage, as to be
+matter rather of conjecture than certainty. He proved to be our landlord
+for the night, David Root by name.
+
+Following his guidance, and climbing successively over a number of huge
+trunks, stumbling through a net-work of branches, and plunging into a
+shallow stream up to the ankles in soft mud, we reached at length what
+he called his tavern, at the further side of the clearing. It was a log
+building of a single apartment, where presided "the wife," a smart,
+plump, good-looking little Irishwoman, in a stuff gown, and without
+shoes or stockings. They had been recently married, as he promptly
+informed us, had selected this wild spot on a half-opened road,
+impassable for waggons, without a neighbour for miles, and under the
+inevitable necessity of shouldering all their provisions from the embryo
+village we had just quitted: all this with the resolute determination of
+"keeping tavern."
+
+The floor was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness
+with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with
+chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of
+the objects visible outside, and had the advantage, moreover, of
+rendering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the
+ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the
+fire literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet
+lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet. It was a chill
+evening, and the dancing flames were inspiriting, as they threw a
+cheerful radiance all around, and revealed to our curious eyes
+extraordinary pieces of furniture--a log bedstead in the darkest corner,
+a pair of snow-shoes, sundry spiral augers and rough tools, a bundle of
+dried deer-sinews, together with some articles of feminine gear, a small
+red framed looking-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a
+string, and other similar treasures.
+
+We were accommodated with stools of various sizes and heights, on three
+legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off, which latter our
+host justly recommended as being more steady on the uneven floor. We
+exchanged our wet boots for slippers, mocassins, or whatever the
+good-natured fellow could supply us with. The hostess was intently busy
+making large flat cakes; roasting them, first on one side, then on the
+other; and alternately boiling and frying broad slices of salt pork,
+when, suddenly suspending operations, she exclaimed, with a vivacity
+that startled us, "Oh, Root, I've cracked my spider!"
+
+Inquiring with alarm what was the matter, we learned that the cast-iron
+pan on three feet, which she used for her cookery, was called a
+"spider," and that its fracture had occasioned the exclamation. The
+injured spider performed "its spiriting gently" notwithstanding, and,
+sooth to say, all parties did full justice to its savoury contents.
+
+Bed-time drew near. A heap of odd-looking rugs and clean blankets was
+laid for our accommodation and pronounced to be ready. But how to get
+into it? We had heard of some rather primitive practices among the
+steerage passengers on board ship, it is true, but had not accustomed
+ourselves to "uncase" before company, and hesitated to lie down in our
+clothes. After waiting some little time in blank dismay, Mr. Root kindly
+set us an example by quietly slipping out of his nether integuments and
+turning into bed. There was no help for it; by one means or other we
+contrived to sneak under the blankets; and, after hanging up a large
+coloured quilt between our lair and the couch occupied by her now
+snoring spouse, the good wife also disappeared.
+
+In spite of the novelty of the situation, and some occasional
+disturbance from gusts of wind stealing through the "chinks," and
+fanning into brightness the dying embers on the hearth, we slept
+deliciously and awoke refreshed.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  A FIRST DAY IN THE BUSH.
+
+
+Before day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting
+meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes,
+roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea,"
+and chocolate--which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree
+bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our
+host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a
+hearty meal.
+
+It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us
+"a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the
+dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning
+it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing
+themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend
+remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise."
+
+The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road
+with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes
+the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We
+found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the
+track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of
+sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between
+two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt
+or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to
+side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by
+grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a
+collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities.
+Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it
+two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these
+transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and
+earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge."
+
+At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the
+temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then
+in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us
+very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced
+guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers--a very
+necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased
+altogether.
+
+For some miles further, the forest consisted of Norway and white pine,
+almost unmixed with any other timber. There is something majestic in
+these vast and thickly-set labyrinths of brown columnar stems averaging
+a hundred and fifty feet in height, perhaps, and from one to five in
+thickness, making a traveller feel somewhat like a Lilliputian Gulliver
+in a field of Brobdignagian wheat. It is singular to observe the effect
+of an occasional gust of wind in such situations. It may not even fan
+your cheek; but you hear a low surging sound, like the moaning of
+breakers in a calm sea, which gradually increases to a loud boisterous
+roar, still seemingly at a great distance; the branches remain in
+perfect repose, you can discover no evidence of a stirring breeze, till,
+looking perpendicularly upwards, you are astonished to see some
+patriarchal giant close at hand--six yards round and sixty high--which
+alone has caught the breeze, waving its huge fantastic arms wildly at a
+dizzy height above your head.
+
+There are times when the hardiest woodman dares not enter the pine
+woods; when some unusually severe gale sweeping over them bends their
+strong but slender stems like willow wands, or catches the
+wide-spreading branches of the loftier trees with a force that fairly
+wrenches them out by the roots, which creeping along on the surface of
+the soil, present no very powerful resistance. Nothing but the close
+contiguity of the trees saves them from general prostration. Interlocked
+branches are every moment broken off and flung to a distance, and even
+the trunks clash, and as it were, whet themselves against each other,
+with a shock and uproar that startles the firmest nerves.
+
+It were tedious to detail all the events of our morning's march: How
+armed with English fowling pieces and laden with ammunition, we
+momentarily expected to encounter some grisly she-bear, with a numerous
+family of cubs; or at the least a herd of deer or a flock of wild
+turkeys: how we saw nothing more dangerous than woodpeckers with crimson
+heads, hammering away at decayed trees like transmigrated carpenters;
+how we at last shot two partridges sitting on branches, very unlike
+English ones, of which we were fain to make a meal, which was utterly
+detestable for want of salt; how the government guide led us,
+helter-skelter, into the untracked woods, walking as for a wager,
+through thickets of ground hemlock,[2] which entangled our feet and
+often tripped us up; how we were obliged to follow him over and under
+wind-falls, to pass which it was necessary to climb sometimes twenty
+feet along some half-recumbent tree; how when we enquired whether clay
+or sand were considered the best soil, he said some preferred one, and
+some the other; how he showed us the front of a lot that was bad, and
+guessed that the rear ought to be better; how we turned back at last,
+thoroughly jaded, but no wiser than when we set out--all this and much
+more, must be left to the reader's imagination.
+
+It was drawing towards evening. The guide strode in advance, tired and
+taciturn, like some evil fate. We followed in pairs, each of us provided
+with a small bunch of leafy twigs to flap away the mosquitoes, which
+rose in myriads from the thick, damp underbrush.
+
+"It will be getting dark," said the guide, "you must look out for the
+blaze."
+
+We glanced anxiously around. "What does he mean?" asked one of the
+party, "I see no blaze."
+
+The man explained that the blaze (query, blazon?) was a white mark which
+we had noticed on some of the trees in our route, made by slicing off a
+portion of the bark with an axe, and invariably used by surveyors to
+indicate the road, as well as divisions and sub-divisions of townships.
+After a time this mark loses its whiteness and becomes undistinguishable
+in the dusk of evening, even to an experienced eye.
+
+Not a little rejoiced were we, when we presently saw a genuine blaze in
+the form of a log fire, that brilliantly lighted up the forest in front
+of a wigwam, which, like everything else on that eventful day, was to us
+delightfully new and interesting. We found, seated on logs near the
+fire, two persons in blanket coats and red sashes, evidently gentlemen;
+and occupying a second wigwam at a little distance, half-a-dozen axemen.
+The gentlemen proved to be the Messrs. Walker, afterwards of Barrie,
+sons of the wealthy owner of the great shot-works at Waterloo Bridge,
+London, England. They had purchased a tract of a thousand acres, and
+commenced operations by hiring men to cut a road through the forest
+eight or ten miles to their new estate, which pioneering exploit they
+were now superintending in person. Nothing could exceed the vigour of
+their plans. Their property was to be enclosed in a ring fence like a
+park, to exclude trespassers on their game. They would have herds of
+deer and wild horses. The river which intersected their land was to be
+cleared of the drift logs, and made navigable. In short, they meant to
+convert it into another England. In the meanwhile, the elder brother had
+cut his foot with an axe, and was disabled for the present; and the
+younger was busily engaged in the unromantic occupation of frying
+pancakes, which the axemen, who were unskilled in cookery, were to have
+for their supper.
+
+Nowhere does good-fellowship spring up so readily as in the bush. We
+were soon engaged in discussing the aforesaid pancakes, with some fried
+pork, as well as in sharing the sanguine hopes and bright visions which
+accorded so well with our own ideas and feelings.
+
+We quitted the wigwam and its cheerful tenants with mutual good wishes
+for success, and shortly afterwards reached the river whence we had
+started, where Mr. Richey kindly invited us to stay for the night.
+Exhausted by our rough progress, we slept soundly till the morning sun
+shone high over the forest.
+
+[Footnote 2: Taxus Canadensis, or Canadian Yew, is a trailing evergreen
+shrub which covers the ground in places. Its stems are as strong as
+cart-ropes, and often reach the length of twenty feet.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  A CHAPTER ON CHOPPING.
+
+
+Imagine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your
+days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house,
+and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or
+grandfather's pleasant farm in the country--imagine yourself, I say,
+transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles;
+no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the
+sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there
+are trees innumerable--splendid trees--beech, maple, elm, ash,
+cherry--above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on
+earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market
+for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire--yea,
+burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth
+as "good manure"; unless indeed--a desperately forlorn hope--you may
+"some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash,
+"when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river.
+
+Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees.
+Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe
+or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands,
+you cut away for some distance round--a quarter or half an acre
+perhaps--all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise
+impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood
+bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm,
+white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber--the
+"underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be
+cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like
+appearance--so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of
+Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through.
+
+When you have finished "under-brushing," you stand with whetted axe,
+ready and willing to attack the fathers of the forest--but stay--you
+don't know how to chop? It is rather doubtful, as you have travelled
+hither in a great hurry, whether you have ever seen an axeman at work.
+Your man, Carroll, who has been in the country five or six years, and is
+quite _au fait_, will readily instruct you. Observe--you strike your
+axe, by a dexterous swing backwards and round over your shoulder,--take
+care there are no twigs near you, or you may perhaps hurt yourself
+seriously--you strike your axe into the tree with a downward slant, at
+about thirty inches from the ground; then, by an upward stroke you meet
+the former incision and release a chip, which flies out briskly. Thus
+you proceed, by alternate downward and upward or horizontal strokes on
+that side of the tree which leans over, or towards which you wish to
+compel it to fall, until you have made a clear gap rather more than half
+way through, when you attack it in rear.
+
+Now for the reward of your perspiring exertions--a few well-aimed blows
+on the reverse side of the tree, rather higher than in front, and the
+vast mass "totters to its fall,"--another for the
+_coup-de-grace_--crack! crack! cra-a-ack!--aha!--away with you behind
+yon beech--the noble tree bows gently its leafy honours with graceful
+sweep towards the earth--for a moment slowly and leisurely, presently
+with giddy velocity, until it strikes the ground, amidst a whirlwind of
+leaves, with a loud _thud_, and a concussion both of air and earth, that
+may be _felt_ at a considerable distance. You feel yourself a second
+David, who has overthrown a mightier Goliath.
+
+Now do you step exultingly upon the prostrate trunk, which you forthwith
+proceed to cut up into about fourteen-foot lengths, chopping all the
+branches close off, and throwing the smaller on to your brush piles. It
+is a common mistake of new immigrants, who are naturally enough pleased
+with the novel spectacle of falling trees, to cut down so many before
+they begin to chop them into lengths, that the ground is wholly
+encumbered, and becomes a perfect chaos of confused and heaped-up trunks
+and branches, which nothing but the joint operation of decay and fire
+will clear off, unless at an immense waste of time and trouble. To an
+experienced axeman, these first attempts at chopping afford a ready text
+for all kinds of ironical comments upon the unworkmanlike appearance of
+the stumps and "cuts," which are generally--like those gnawn off by
+beavers in making their dams--haggled all round the tree, instead of
+presenting two clear smooth surfaces, in front and rear, as if sliced
+off with a knife. Your genuine axeman is not a little jealous of his
+reputation as a "clean cutter"--his axe is always bright as burnished
+silver, guiltless of rust or flaw, and fitted with a handle which, with
+its graceful curve and slender proportions, is a tolerable approach to
+Hogarth's "line of beauty;" he would as soon think of deserting his
+beloved "bush" and settling in a town! as trust his keen weapon in the
+hands of inexperience or even mediocrity. With him every blow tells--he
+never leaves the slightest chip in the "cut," nor makes a false stroke,
+so that in passing your hand over the surface thus left, you are almost
+unable to detect roughness or inequality.
+
+But we must return to our work, and take care in so doing to avoid the
+mishap which befel a settler in our neighbourhood. He was busy chopping
+away manfully at one of those numerous trees which, yielding to the
+force of some sudden gust of wind, have fallen so gently among their
+compeers, that the greater portion of their roots still retains a
+powerful hold upon the soil, and the branches put forth their annual
+verdure as regularly as when erect. Standing on the recumbent trunk, at
+a height of five or six feet from the ground, the man toiled away, in
+happy ignorance of his danger, until having chopped nearly to the centre
+on both sides of the tree, instead of leaping off and completing the cut
+in safety on terra firma, he dealt a mighty stroke which severed at once
+the slight portion that remained uncut--in an instant, as if from a
+mortar, the poor fellow was launched sixteen feet into the air, by the
+powerful elasticity of the roots, which, relieved from the immense
+weight of the trunk and branches, reverted violently to their natural
+position, and flung their innocent releaser to the winds. The astonished
+chopper, falling on his back, lay stunned for many minutes, and when he
+was at length able to rise, crawled to his shanty sorely bruised and
+bewildered. He was able, however, to return to his work in a few days,
+but not without vowing earnestly never again to trust himself next the
+root.
+
+There are other precautions to be observed, such as whether the branches
+interlock with other trees, in which case they will probably break off,
+and must be carefully watched, lest they fall or are flung back upon
+oneself--what space you have to escape at the last moment--whether the
+tree is likely to be caught and twisted aside in its fall, or held
+upright, a very dangerous position, as then you must cut down others to
+release it, and can hardly calculate which way it will tend: these and
+many other circumstances are to be noted and watched with a cool
+judgment and steady eye, to avoid the numerous accidents to which the
+inexperienced and rash are constantly exposed. One of these mischances
+befel an Amazonian chopper of our neighbourhood, whose history, as we
+can both chop and talk, I shall relate.
+
+Mary ---- was the second of several daughters of an emigrant from the
+county of Galway, whose family, having suffered from continual hardship
+and privation in their native land, had found no difficulty in adapting
+themselves to the habits and exigencies of the wilderness.
+
+Hardworking they were all and thrifty. Mary and her elder sister,
+neither of them older than eighteen, would start before day-break to the
+nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden
+each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a
+bushel and a half, or 90lbs. weight of potatoes, destined to supply food
+for the family, as well as seed for their first crop. Being much out of
+doors, and accustomed to work about the clearing, Mary became in time a
+"first-rate" chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the
+dexterity with which she would fell, brush and cut up maple or beech;
+and preferring such active exercise to the dull routine of household
+work, took her place at chopping, logging or burning, as regularly and
+with at least as much spirit as her brothers. Indeed, chopping is quite
+an accomplishment among young women in the more remote parts of the
+woods, where schools are unknown, and fashions from New York or
+Philadelphia have not yet penetrated. A belle of this class will employ
+her leisure hours in learning to play--not the piano-forte--but the
+dinner-horn, a bright tin tube sometimes nearly four feet in length,
+requiring the lungs of that almost forgotten individual, an English
+mail-coach-guard; and an intriguing mamma of those parts will bid her
+daughter exhibit the strength of her throat and the delicacy of her
+musical ear, by a series of flourishes and "mots" upon her graceful
+"tooting-weapon." I do not mean, however, that Mary possessed this
+fashionable acquirement, as the neighbourhood had not then arrived at
+such an advanced era of musical taste, but she made up in hard work for
+all other deficiencies; and being a good-looking, sunny-faced,
+dark-eyed, joyous-hearted girl, was not a little admired among the young
+axe-men of the township. But she preferred remaining under her parents'
+roof-tree, where her stout-arm and resolute disposition rendered her
+absolute mistress of the household, to the indignity of promising to
+"obey" any man, who could wield no better axe than her own. At length it
+was whispered that Mary's heart, long hard as rock-elm, had become soft
+as basswood, under the combined influence of the stalwart figure,
+handsome face and good axe of Johnny, a lad of eighteen recently arrived
+in the neighbourhood, who was born in one of the early Scotch
+settlements in the Newcastle District--settlements which have turned out
+a race of choppers, accustomed from their infancy to handle the axe, and
+unsurpassed in the cleanness of their cut, the keenness of their weapon,
+or the amount of cordwood they can chop, split and pile in a day.
+
+Many a fair denizen of the abodes of fashion might have envied Mary the
+bright smiles and gay greetings which passed between her and young
+Johnny, when they met in her father's clearing at sunrise to commence
+the day's work. It is common for axemen to exchange labour, as they
+prefer working in couples, and Johnny was under a treaty of this kind
+with Patsy, Mary's brother. But Patsy vacated his place for Mary, who
+was emulous of beating the young Scotch lad at his own weapon; and she
+had tucked up her sleeves and taken in the slack, as a sailor would say,
+of her dress--Johnny meanwhile laying aside his coat, waistcoat and
+neckcloth, baring his brawny arms, and drawing tight the bright scarlet
+sash round his waist--thus equipped for their favourite occupation, they
+chopped away in merry rivalry, at maple, elm, ash, birch and
+basswood--Johnny sometimes gallantly fetching water from the
+deliciously-cold natural spring that oozed out of the mossy hill-side,
+to quench Mary's thirst, and stealing now and then a kiss by way of
+guerdon--for which he never failed to get a vehement box on the ear, a
+penalty which, although it would certainly have annihilated any lover of
+less robust frame, he seemed nowise unwilling to incur again and again.
+Thus matters proceeded, the maiden by no means acknowledging herself
+beaten, and the young man too gallant to outstrip overmuch his fair
+opponent--until the harsh sound of the breakfast or dinner horn would
+summon both to the house, to partake of the rude but plentiful mess of
+"colcannon" and milk, which was to supply strength for a long and severe
+day's labour.
+
+Alas! that I should have to relate the melancholy termination of poor
+Mary's unsophisticated career. Whether Johnny's image occupied her
+thoughts, to the exclusion of the huge yellow birch she was one day
+chopping, or that the wicked genius who takes delight in thwarting the
+course of true love had caught her guardian angel asleep on his post, I
+know not; but certain it is, that in an evil hour she miscalculated the
+cut, and was thoughtlessly continuing her work, when the birch,
+overbalancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing
+suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life
+instantaneously. Her yet warm remains were carried hastily to the house,
+and every expedient for her recovery that the slender knowledge of the
+family could suggest, was resorted to, but in vain. I pass over the
+silent agony of poor Johnny, and the heart-rending lamentations of the
+mother and sisters. In a decent coffin, contrived after many
+unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was
+carried to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear,
+amid a concourse of simple-minded, coarsely-clad, but kindly
+sympathising neighbours, from all parts of the surrounding district.
+Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave,
+and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told,
+that no other had yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make
+his "bonny bride."
+
+By this time you have cut down trees enough to enable you fairly to see
+the sky! Yes, dear sir, it was entirely hidden before, and the sight is
+not a little exhilarating to a new "bush-whacker." We must think of
+preparing fire-wood for the night. It is highly amusing to see a party
+of axemen, just returning from their work, set about this necessary
+task. Four "hands" commence at once upon some luckless maple, whose
+excellent burning qualities ensure it the preference. Two on each side,
+they strike alternate blows--one with the right hand, his "mate" with
+the left--in a rapid succession of strokes that seem perfectly
+miraculous to the inexperienced beholder--the tree is felled in a
+trice--a dozen men jump upon it, each intent on exhibiting his skill by
+making his "cut" in the shortest possible time. The more modest select
+the upper end of the tree--the bolder attack the butt--their bright
+axes, flashing vividly in the sunbeams, are whirled around their heads
+with such velocity as to elude the eye--huge chips a foot broad are
+thrown off incessantly--they wheel round for the "back cut" at the same
+instant, like a file of soldiers facing about upon some enemy in
+rear--and in the space of two or three minutes, the once tall and
+graceful trunk lies dissevered in as many fragments as there are
+choppers.
+
+It invariably astonishes new comers to observe with what dexterity and
+ease an axeman will fell a tree in the precise spot which he wishes it
+to occupy so as to suit his convenience in cutting it up, or in removing
+it by oxen to the log-pile where it is destined to be consumed. If it
+should happen to overhang a creek or "swale" (wet places where oxen
+cannot readily operate), every contrivance is resorted to, to overcome
+its apparently inevitable tendency. Choosing a time when not a breath of
+air is stirring to defeat his operations, or better still, when the wind
+is favourable, he cuts deeply into the huge victim on the side to which
+he wishes to throw it, until it actually trembles on the slight
+remaining support, cautiously regulating the direction of the "cut" so
+that the tree may not overbalance itself--then he gently fells among its
+branches on the reverse side all the smaller trees with which it may be
+reached--and last and boldest expedient of all, he cuts several "spring
+poles"--trimmed saplings from twenty to forty feet in length and four to
+eight inches thick--which with great care and labour are set up against
+the stem, and by the united strength and weight of several men used as
+spring levers, after the manner in which ladders are employed by
+fire-men to overthrow tottering stacks of chimneys; the squared end of
+these poles holding firmly in the rough bark, they slowly but surely
+compel the unwilling monster to obey the might of its hereditary ruler,
+man. With such certainty is this feat accomplished, that I have seen a
+solitary pine, nearly five feet thick and somewhere about a hundred and
+seventy feet in height, forced by this latter means, aided by the
+strength of two men only, against its decided natural bearing, to fall
+down the side of a mound, at the bottom of which a saw-pit was already
+prepared to convert it into lumber. The moment when the enormous mass is
+about yielding to its fate, is one of breathless interest--it sways
+alarmingly, as if it must inevitably fall backward, crushing poles and
+perhaps axemen to atoms in its overwhelming descent--ha! there is a
+slight cat's paw of air in our favour--cling to your pole--now! an inch
+or two gained!--the stout stick trembles and bends at the revulsive sway
+of the monstrous tree but still holds its own--drive your axe into the
+back cut--that helps her--again, another axe! soh, the first is
+loose--again!--she _must_ go--both axes are fixed in the cut as
+immovably as her roots in the ground--another puff of wind--she sways
+the wrong way--no, no! hold on--she cracks--strike in again the
+slackened axes--bravo! one blow more--quick, catch your axe and clear
+out!--see! what a sweep--what a rush of wind--what an enormous
+top--down! down! how beautifully she falls--hurrah! _just in the right
+place!_
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+We had selected, on the advice of our guide, a tolerably good hard-wood
+lot in the centre of the Township of Sunnidale, part of which is now the
+site of the village of New Lowell, on the Northern Railway. To engage a
+young Scotch axeman from the County of Lanark, on the Ottawa river; to
+try our virgin axes upon the splendid maples and beeches which it seemed
+almost a profanation to destroy; to fell half an acre of trees; to build
+a bark wigwam for our night's lodging; and in time to put up a
+substantial log shanty, roofed with wooden troughs and "chinked" with
+slats and moss--these things were to us more than mortal felicity. Our
+mansion was twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide. At one end an open
+fire-place, at the other sumptuous beds laid on flatted logs, cushioned
+with soft hemlock twigs, redolent of turpentine and health. For our
+provisions, cakes made of flour; salt pork of the best; tea and coffee
+without milk; with the occasional luxury of a few partridges and
+pigeons, and even a haunch of venison of our own shooting; also some
+potatoes. We wanted no more. There were few other settlers within many
+miles, and those as raw as ourselves; so we mended our own clothes, did
+our own cooking, and washed our own linen.
+
+Owing to the tedious length of our sea voyage, there was no time for
+getting in crops that year; not even fall wheat; so we had plenty of
+leisure to make ourselves comfortable for the winter. And we were by no
+means without visitors. Sometimes a surveyor's party sought shelter for
+the night on their way to the strangely-named townships of Alta and
+Zero--now Collingwood and St. Vincent. Among these were Charles Rankin,
+surveyor, now of London; his brother, Arthur Rankin, since M.P. for
+Essex; a young gentleman from England, now Dr. Barrett, late of Upper
+Canada College. By-and-by came some Chippawa Indians, _en route_ to or
+from the Christian Islands of Lake Huron; we were great friends with
+them. I had made a sort of harp or zittern, and they were charmed with
+its simple music. Their mode of counting money on their fingers was
+highly comical--"one cop, one cop, one cop, three cop!" and so on up to
+twenty, which was the largest sum they could accomplish. At night, they
+wrapped their blankets round them, lay down on the bare earthen floor
+near the fire, and slept quietly till day-break, when they would start
+on their way with many smiles and hand-shakings. In fact, our shanty,
+being the only comfortable shelter between Barrie and the Georgian Bay,
+became a sort of half-way house, at which travellers looked for a
+night's lodging; and we were not sorry when the opening of a log-tavern,
+a mile off, by an old Scotchwoman, ycleped Mother McNeil, enabled us to
+select our visitors. This tavern was a curiosity in its way, built of
+the roughest logs, with no artificial floor, but the soil being swaley
+or wet--a mud-hole yawned just inside the door, where bullfrogs not
+unfrequently saluted the wayfarer with their deepest diapason notes.
+
+I must record my own experiences with their congeners, the toads. We
+were annoyed by flies, and I noticed an old toad creep stealthily from
+under the house logs, wait patiently near a patch of sunshine on the
+floor, and as soon as two or three flies, attracted by the sun's warmth,
+drew near its post, dart out its long slender tongue, and so catch them
+all one after another. Improving upon the hint, we afterwards regularly
+scattered a few grains of sugar, to attract more flies within the old
+fellow's reach, and thus kept the shanty comparatively clear of those
+winged nuisances, and secured quiet repose for ourselves in the early
+mornings. Another toad soon joined the first one, and they became so
+much at home as to allow us to scratch their backs gently with a stick,
+when they would heave up their puffed sides to be scrubbed. These toads
+swallow mice and young ducks, and in their turn fall victims to garter
+and other snakes.
+
+During the following year, 1834, the Government opened up a settlement
+on the Sunnidale road, employing the new immigrants in road making,
+chopping and clearing, and putting up log shanties; and gave them the
+land so cleared to live on, but without power of sale. In this way, two
+or three hundred settlers, English, Irish and Highland Scotch, chiefly
+the latter, were located in Sunnidale. A Scottish gentleman, a Mr. H. C.
+Young, was appointed local immigrant agent, and spent some time with us.
+Eventually it was found that the laud was too aguish for settlement,
+being close to a large cedar swamp extending several miles to the
+Nottawasaga River; and on the representation of the agent, it was in
+1835 determined to transfer operations to the adjoining township of
+Nottawasaga, in which the town of Collingwood is now situated.
+
+It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to
+the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River
+being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I
+think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the
+railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him,
+doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific
+Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would
+pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope
+deferred did the delusion cost us.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+
+I need not weary the reader with details of our farming proceedings,
+which differed in no respect from the now well-known routine of bush
+life. I will, however, add one or two notices of occurrences which may
+be thought worth relating. We were not without wild animals in our bush.
+Bears, wolves, foxes, racoons, skunks, mink and ermine among beasts;
+eagles, jays, many kinds of hawks, wood-peckers, loons, partridges and
+pigeons, besides a host of other birds, were common enough. Bears' nests
+abounded, consisting of a kind of arbour which the bear makes for
+himself in the top of the loftiest beech trees, by dragging inwards all
+the upper branches laden with their wealth of nuts, upon which he feasts
+at leisure. The marks of his formidable claws are plainly visible the
+whole length of the trunks of most large beech-trees. In Canada West the
+bear is seldom dangerous. One old fellow which we often encountered,
+haunted a favourite raspberry patch on the road-side; when anybody
+passed near him he would scamper off in such haste that I have seen him
+dash himself violently against any tree or fallen branch that might be
+in his way. Once we saw a bear roll himself headlong from the forks of
+a tree fully forty feet from the ground, tumbling over and over, but
+alighting safely, and "making tracks" with the utmost expedition.
+
+An Englishman whom I knew, of a very studious temperament, was strolling
+along the Medonte road deeply intent upon a volume of Ovid or some other
+Latin author, when, looking up to ascertain the cause of a shadow which
+fell across his book, he found himself nearly stumbling against a huge
+brown bear, standing erect on its hind legs, and with formidable paw
+raised ready to strike. The surprise seems to have been mutual, for
+after waiting a moment or two as if to recognise each other's features
+should they meet again, the student merely said "Oh! a bear!" coolly
+turned on his heel, plunged into his book again, and walked slowly back
+toward the village, leaving Bruin to move off at leisure in an opposite
+direction. So saith my informant.
+
+Another friend, when a youth, was quail-shooting on the site of the City
+of Toronto, which was nothing but a rough swampy thicket of cedars and
+pines mixed with hardwood. Stepping hastily across a rotten pine log,
+the lad plumped full upon a great fat bear taking its siesta in the
+shade. Which of the two fled the fastest is not known, but it was
+probably the animal, judging by my own experience in Sunnidale.
+
+Wolves often disturbed us with their hideous howlings. We had a
+beautiful liver and white English setter, called Dash, with her two
+pups. One night in winter, poor Dash, whom we kept within doors, was
+excited by the yelping of her pups outside, which appeared to be alarmed
+by some intruder about the premises. A wolf had been seen prowling near,
+so we got out our guns and whatever weapon was handy, but incautiously
+opened the door and let out the slut before we were ourselves quite
+dressed. She rushed out in eager haste, and in a few seconds we heard
+the wolf and dog fighting, with the most frightful discord of yells and
+howls that ever deafened the human ear. The noise ceased as suddenly as
+it had begun. We followed as fast as we could to the scene of the
+struggle, but found nothing there except a trampled space in the snow
+stained with blood, the dog having evidently been killed and dragged
+away. Next morning we followed the track further, and found at no great
+distance another similar spot, where the wolf had devoured its victim so
+utterly, that not a hair, bone, nor anything else was left, save the
+poor animal's heart, which had been flung away to a little distance in
+the snow. Beyond this were no signs of blood. We set a trap for the
+wolf, and tracked him for miles in the hope of avenging poor Dash, but
+without effect. This same wolf, we heard afterwards, was killed by a
+settler with a handspike, to our great satisfaction.
+
+Among our neighbours of the Sunnidale settlement was a married couple
+from England, named Sewell, very well-conducted and industrious. They
+had a fair little child under two years old, named Hetty, whom we often
+stopped to admire for her prettiness and engaging simplicity. They also
+possessed, and were very proud of, several broods of newly-hatched
+chickens, some of which had been carried off by an immense falcon, which
+would swoop down from the lofty elm-trees still left standing in the
+half-chopped clearing, too suddenly to be easily shot. One day Hetty was
+feeding the young chickens when the hawk pounced upon the old hen, which
+struggled desperately; whereupon little Hetty bravely joined in the
+battle, seized the intruder by the wings from behind and held him fast,
+crying out loudly, "I've got him, mother!" It turned out, after the hawk
+was killed, that it had been blind of one eye.
+
+In the spring of 1834, we had with infinite labour managed to clear off
+a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched
+its growth with the most intense anxiety, until it attained a height of
+ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears. Already the exquisite
+pleasure of eating bread the product of our own land, and of our own
+labour, was present to our imaginations, and the number of bushels to be
+reaped, the barn for storage, the journeys to mill, were eagerly
+discussed. But one day in August, occurred a hail-storm such as is
+seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell
+upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones measuring two and a
+half inches in diameter, seven and a half in circumference, covered the
+ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was utterly destroyed,
+and with it all our sanguine hopes of plenty for that year. I have
+preserved a tracing which I made at the time, of one of those
+hailstones. The centre was spherical, an inch in girth, from which
+laterally radiated lines three fourths of an inch long, like the spokes
+of a wheel, and outside of them again a wavy border resembling the
+undulating edge of pie crust. The superficial structure of the whole,
+was much like that of a full blown rose. A remarkable hail-storm
+occurred in Toronto, in the year 1878, but the stones, although similar
+in formation, were scarcely as bulky.
+
+It was one night in November following, when our axeman, William
+Whitelaw, who had risen from bed at eleven o'clock to fetch a new log
+for the fire shouted to us to come out and see a strange sight. Lazily
+we complied, expecting nothing extraordinary; but, on getting into the
+cold frosty air outside, we were transfixed with astonishment and
+admiration. Our clearing being small, and the timber partly hemlock, we
+seemed to be environed with a dense black wall the height of the forest
+trees, while over all, in dazzling splendour, shone a canopy of the
+most brilliant meteors, radiating in all directions from a single point
+in the heavens, nearly over-head, but slightly to the north-west. I have
+since read all the descriptions of meteoric showers I could find in our
+scientific annals, and watched year after year for a return of the same
+wonderful vision, but neither in the records of history nor otherwise,
+since that night, have I read of or seen anything so marvellously
+beautiful. Hour after hour we gazed in wonder and awe, as the radiant
+messengers streamed on their courses, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+starry cohorts of thousands, appearing to descend amongst the trees
+close beside us, but in reality shooting far beyond the horizon. Those
+who have looked upwards during a fall of snow will remember how the
+large flakes seem to radiate from a centre. Thus I believe astronomers
+account for the appearance of these showers of stars, by the
+circumstance that they meet the earth full in its orbit, and so dart
+past it from an opposite point, like a flight of birds confronting a
+locomotive, or a storm of hail directly facing a vessel under full
+steam. No description I have read has given even a faint idea of the
+reality as I saw it on that memorable night. From eleven p.m. to three
+in the morning, the majestic spectacle continued in full glory,
+gradually fading away before the approach of daybreak.
+
+We often had knotty and not very logical discussions about the origin of
+seeds, and the cause of the thick growth of new varieties of plants and
+trees wherever the forest had been burnt over. On our land, and
+everywhere in the immediate neighbourhood, the process of clearing by
+fire was sure to be followed by a spontaneous growth, first of fire-weed
+or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick
+as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine-trees had stood for
+a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a
+thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety. Our
+Celtic friends, most of whom were pious Presbyterians, insisted that a
+new creation of plants must be constantly going on to account for such
+miraculous growth. To test the matter, I scooped up a panful of black
+soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of
+cherry-stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest. The cause
+of this surprising accumulation of seed was not far to find. A few miles
+distant was a pigeon-roost. In spring, the birds would come flying round
+the east shore of Lake Huron, skirting the Georgian Bay, in such vast
+clouds as to darken the sun; and so swiftly that swan-shot failed to
+bring them down unless striking them in rear; and, even then, we rarely
+got them, as the velocity of their flight impelled them far into the
+thicket before falling. These beautiful creatures attacked our crops
+with serious results, and devoured all our young peas. I have known
+twenty-five pigeons killed at a single shot; and have myself got a
+dozen by firing at random into a maple-tree on which they had alighted,
+but where not one had been visible.
+
+The pigeon-roost itself was a marvel. Men, women and children went by
+the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up
+the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches
+of trees broken off by the weight of their roosting comrades overhead.
+The women skinned the birds, cut off their plump breasts, throwing the
+remainder away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping. To
+these pigeons we were, doubtless, indebted for our crop of young
+cherry-trees.
+
+Where there was so much seed, a corresponding crop might be expected;
+and dense thickets of choke-cherry trees grew up in neglected clearings
+accordingly. Forcing my way through one of these, I found myself
+literally face to face with a garter snake five feet long, which was
+also in search of cherries, and had wriggled its way to the upper
+branches of a young tree ten feet high. Garter snakes, however, are as
+harmless as frogs, and like them, are the victims of a general
+persecution. In some places they are exceedingly numerous. One summer's
+evening I was travelling on foot from Holland Landing to Bradford,
+across the Holland river, a distance of three miles, nearly all marsh,
+laid with cedar logs placed crosswise, to form a passable road. The sun
+was nearing the horizon; the snakes--garter chiefly, but a few
+copperhead and black--glided on to the logs to bask apparently in the
+sunshine, in such numbers, that after vainly trying to step across
+without treading on them, I was fain to take to flight, springing from
+log to log like some long-legged bird, and so escaping from the
+unpleasant companionship.[3]
+
+One of the most perplexing tasks to new settlers is that of keeping
+cows. "Bossy" soon learns that the bush is "all before her where to
+choose," and she indulges her whims by straying away in the most
+unexpected directions, and putting you to half-a-day's toilsome search
+before she can be captured. The obvious remedy is the cow-bell, but even
+with this tell-tale appendage, the experienced cow contrives to baffle
+your vigilance. She will ensconce herself in the midst of a clump of
+underbrush, lying perfectly still, and paying no heed to your most
+endearing appeals of "Co' bossy, co' bossy," until some fly-sting
+obliges her to jerk her head and betray her hiding-place by a single
+note of the bell. Then she will deliberately get up, and walk off
+straight to the shanty, ready to be milked.
+
+[Footnote 3: It is affirmed that in two or three localities in Manitoba,
+garter snakes sometimes congregate in such multitudes as to form ropes
+as thick as a man's leg, which, by their constant writhing and twining
+in and out, present a strangely glittering and moving spectacle.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  OUR REMOVAL TO NOTTAWASAGA.
+
+
+In the autumn of 1835, we were favoured with a visit from Mr. A. B.
+Hawke, chief emigrant agent for Upper Canada, and a gentleman held in
+general esteem, as a friend to emigrants, and a kind-hearted man. He
+slept, or rather tried to sleep, at our shanty. It was very hot weather,
+the mosquitoes were in full vigour, and the tortures they inflicted on
+the poor man were truly pitiable. We being acclimatised, could cover our
+heads, and lie _perdu_, sleeping in spite of the humming hosts outside.
+But our visitor had learnt no such philosophy. He threw off the
+bedclothes on account of the heat; slapped his face and hands to kill
+his tormentors; and actually roared with pain and anger, relieving
+himself now and then by objurgations mingled with expletives not a
+little profane. It was impossible to resist laughing at the desperate
+emphasis of his protests, although our mirth did not help much to soothe
+the annoyance, at which, however, he could not help laughing in turn.
+
+Mosquitoes do not plague all night, and our friend got a little repose
+in the cool of the morning, but vowed, most solemnly, that nothing
+should induce him to pass another night in Sunnidale.
+
+To this circumstance, perhaps, were we indebted for the permission we
+soon afterwards obtained, to exchange our Sunnidale lot for one in
+Nottawasaga, where some clearing had been done by the new settlers, on
+what was called the Scotch line; and gladly we quitted our first
+location for land decidedly more eligible for farm purposes, although
+seventeen miles further distant from Barrie, which was still the only
+village within reasonably easy access.
+
+We had obtained small government contracts for corduroying, or
+causewaying, the many swampy spots on the Sunnidale road, which enabled
+us to employ a number of axemen, and to live a little more comfortably;
+and about this time, Mr. Young being in weak health, and unequal to the
+hardships of bush life, resigned his agency, and got my brother Thomas
+appointed temporarily as his successor; so we had the benefit of a good
+log-house he had built on the Nottawasaga road, near the Batteau creek,
+on which is now situated the Batteau station of the Northern Railway. We
+abode there until we found time to cut a road to our land, and
+afterwards to erect a comfortable cedar-log house thereon.
+
+Here, with a large open clearing around us, plenty of neighbours, and a
+sawmill at no great distance, we were able to make our home nearly as
+comfortable as are the majority of Canadian farm-houses of to-day. We
+had a neat picket-fenced garden, a large double log barn, a yoke of
+oxen, and plenty of poultry. The house stood on a handsome rising
+eminence, and commanded a noble prospect, which included the Georgian
+Bay, visible at a distance of six miles, and the Christian Islands,
+twenty miles further north. The land was productive, and the air highly
+salubrious.
+
+Would some of my readers like to know how to raise a log barn? I shall
+try to teach them. For such an undertaking much previous labour and
+foresight are required. In our case, fortunately, there was a small
+cedar swamp within a hundred paces of the site we had chosen for our
+barn, which was picturesquely separated from the house by a ravine some
+thirty feet deep, with a clear spring of the sweetest and coldest water
+flowing between steep banks. The barn was to consist of two large bays,
+each thirty feet square and eight logs high, with a threshing floor
+twelve feet wide between, the whole combined into one by an upper story
+or loft, twenty by seventy-two feet, and four logs high, including the
+roof-plates.
+
+It will be seen, then, that to build such a barn would require
+sixty-four logs of thirty feet each for the lower story; and sixteen
+more of the same length, as well as eight of seventy-two feet each, for
+the loft. Our handy swamp provided all these, not from standing trees
+only, but from many fallen patriarchs buried four or five feet under the
+surface in black muck, and perfectly sound. To get them out of the mud
+required both skill and patience. All the branches having been cleared
+off as thoroughly as possible, the entire tree was drawn out by those
+most patient of all patient drudges, the oxen, and when on solid ground,
+sawn to the required length. A number of skids were also provided, of
+the size and kind of the spring-poles already described in chapter XI.,
+and plenty of handspikes.
+
+Having got these prime essentials ready, the next business was to summon
+our good neighbours to a "raising bee." On the day named, accordingly,
+we had about thirty practised axemen on the ground by day-break, all in
+the best of spirits, and confident in their powers for work. Eight of
+the heaviest logs, about two feet thick, had been placed in position as
+sleepers or foundation logs, duly saddled at the corners. Parallel with
+these at a distance of twenty-feet on either side, were ranged in order
+all the logs required to complete the building.
+
+Well, now we begin. Eight of the smartest men jump at once on the eight
+corners. In a few minutes each of the four men in front has his saddle
+ready--that is, he has chopped his end of the first log into an angular
+shape, thus /\. The four men in rear have done the same thing no less
+expeditiously, and all are waiting for the next log. Meanwhile, at the
+ends of both bays, four several parties of three men each, stationed
+below, have placed their skids in a sloping position--the upper end on
+the rising wall and the lower on the ground--and up these skids they
+roll additional logs transversely to those already in position. These
+are received by the corner-men above, and carefully adjusted in their
+places according to their "natural lie," that is, so that they will be
+least likely to render the wall unsteady; then turned half-back to
+receive the undercut, which should be exactly an inverse counterpart of
+the saddle. A skilful hand will make this undercut with unerring
+certainty, so that the log when turned forward again, will fit down upon
+its two saddles without further adjustment. Now for more logs back and
+front; then others at the ends, and so on, every log fitted as before,
+and each one somewhat lighter than its predecessor. All this time the
+oxen have been busily employed in drawing more logs where needed. The
+skids have to be re-adjusted for every successive log, and a supply of
+new logs rolled up as fast as wanted. The quick strokes of eight axes
+wielded by active fellows perched on the still rising walls, and
+balancing themselves dexterously and even gracefully as they work, the
+constant demand for "another log," and the merry voices and rough jokes
+of the workers, altogether form as lively and exciting a picture as is
+often witnessed. Add to these a bright sky and a fresh breeze, with the
+beautiful green back-ground of the noble hardwood trees around--and I
+know of no mere pleasure party that I would rather join.
+
+Breakfast and dinner form welcome interludes. Ample stores of provender,
+meat, bread, potatoes, puddings various, tea and coffee, have been
+prepared and are thoroughly enjoyed, inasmuch as they are rare luxuries
+to many of the guests. Then again to work, until the last crowning
+effort of all--the raising of the seventy-two-foot logs--has to be
+encountered. Great care is necessary here, as accidents are not
+infrequent. The best skids, the stoutest handspikes, the strongest and
+hardiest men, must be selected. Our logs being cedar and therefore
+light, there was comparatively little danger; and they were all
+successfully raised, and well secured by cross-girders before sundown.
+
+Then, and not till then, after supper, a little whiskey was allowed.
+Teetotalism had not made its way into our backwoods; and we were
+considered very straightlaced indeed to set our faces as we did against
+all excess. Our Highland and Irish neighbours looked upon the weak stuff
+sold in Canada with supreme contempt; and recollecting our Galway
+experience, we felt no surprise thereat.
+
+The roofing such a building is a subsequent operation, for which no
+"bee" is required. Shingles four feet long, on round rafters, are
+generally used for log barns, to be replaced at some future day by more
+perfect roofing. A well-made cedar barn will stand for forty years with
+proper care, by which time there should be no difficulty in replacing it
+by a good substantial, roomy frame building.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  SOCIETY IN THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+Sir John Colborne, as has been mentioned already, did all in his power
+to induce well-to-do immigrants, and particularly military men, to
+settle on lands west and north of Lake Simcoe. Some of these gentlemen
+were entitled, in those days, to draw from three to twelve hundred acres
+of land in their own right; but the privilege was of very doubtful
+value. Take an example. Captain Workman, with his wife, highly educated
+and thoroughly estimable people, were persuaded to select their land on
+the Georgian Bay, near the site of the present village of Meaford. A
+small rivulet which enters the bay there, is still called "the Captain's
+creek." To get there, they had to go to Penetanguishene, then a military
+station, now the seat of a Reformatory for boys. From thence they
+embarked on scows, with their servants, furniture, cows, farm implements
+and provisions. Rough weather obliged them to land on one of the
+Christian Islands, very bleak spots outside of Penetanguishene harbour,
+occupied only by a few Chippewa Indians. After nearly two weeks' delay
+and severe privation, they at length reached their destination, and had
+then to camp out until a roof could be put up to shelter them from the
+storms, not uncommon on that exposed coast.
+
+We had ourselves, along with others, taken up additional land on what
+was called "the Blue Mountains," which are considered to be a spur of
+the Alleghanies, extending northerly across by Niagara, from the State
+of New York. The then newly-surveyed townships of St. Vincent and
+Euphrasia were attracting settlers, and amongst them our axe-man,
+Whitelaw, and many more of the like class. To reach this land, we had
+bought a smart sail-boat, and in her enjoyed ourselves by coasting from
+the Nottawasaga river north-westerly along the bay. In this way we
+happened one evening to put in at the little harbour where Capt. Workman
+had chosen his location. It was early in the spring. The snows from the
+uplands had swelled the rivulet into a rushing torrent. The garden,
+prettily laid out, was converted into an island, the water whirling and
+eddying close to the house both in front and rear, and altogether
+presenting a scene of wild confusion. We found the captain highly
+excited, but bravely contending with his watery adversary; the lady of
+the house in a state of alarmed perplexity; the servants at their wits'
+end, hurrying here and there with little effect. Fortunately, when we
+got there the actual danger was past, the waters subsiding rapidly
+during the night. But it struck us as a most cruel and inconsiderate
+act on the part of the Government, to expose tenderly reared families to
+hazards which even the rudest of rough pioneers would not care to
+encounter.
+
+After enduring several years of severe hardship, and expending a
+considerable income in this out-of-the-world spot, Captain Workman and
+his family removed to Toronto, and afterwards returned to England,
+wiser, perhaps, but no richer certainly, than when they left the old
+country.
+
+A couple of miles along the shore, we found another military settler,
+Lieutenant Waddell, who had served as brigade-major at the Battle of
+Waterloo; with him were his wife, two sons, and two daughters. On
+landing, the first person we encountered was the eldest son, John, a
+youth of twenty years--six feet in stature at least, and bearing on his
+shoulder, sustained by a stick thrust through its gills, a sturgeon so
+large that its tail trailed on the ground behind him. He had just caught
+it with a floating line. Here again the same melancholy story: ladies
+delicately nurtured, exposed to rough labour, and deprived of all the
+comforts of civilized life, exhausting themselves in weary struggle with
+the elements. Brave soldiers in the decline of life, condemned to tasks
+only adapted to hinds and navvies. What worse fate can be reserved for
+Siberian exiles! This family also soon removed to Toronto, and
+afterwards to Niagara, where the kindly, excellent old soldier is well
+remembered; then to Chatham, where he became barrack-master, and died
+there. His son, John Waddell, married into the Eberts family, and
+prospered; later he was member for Kent; and ultimately met his death by
+drowning on a lumbering excursion in the Georgian Bay. Other members of
+the family now reside at Goderich.
+
+Along the west shore of Lake Simcoe, several other military and naval
+officers, with their households, were scattered. Some, whose names I
+shall not record, had left their families at home, and brought out with
+them female companions of questionable position, whom, nevertheless,
+they introduced as their wives. The appearance of the true wives rid the
+county of the scandal and its actors.
+
+Conspicuous among the best class of gentlemen settlers was the late Col.
+E. G. O'Brien, of Shanty Bay, near Barrie, of whom I shall have occasion
+to speak hereafter. Capt. St. John, of Lake Couchiching, was equally
+respected. The Messrs. Lally, of Medonte; Walker, of Tecumseth and
+Barrie; Sibbald, of Kempenfeldt Bay; are all names well known in those
+days, as are also many others of the like class. But where are the
+results of the policy which sent them there? What did they gain--what
+have their families and descendants gained--by the ruinous outlay to
+which they were subjected? With one or two exceptions, absolutely
+nothing but wasted means and saddest memories.
+
+It is pleasant to turn to a different class of settlers--the hardy
+Scots, Irish, English, and Germans, to whom the Counties of Simcoe and
+Grey stand indebted for their present state of prosperity. The Sunnidale
+settlement was ill-chosen, and therefore a failure. But in the north of
+that township, much better land and a healthier situation are found, and
+there, as well as in Nottawasaga adjoining, the true conditions of
+rational colonization, and the practical development of those
+conditions, are plainly to be seen.
+
+The system of clearing five acre lots, and erecting log shanties
+thereon, to be given to immigrants without power of sale, which was
+commenced in Sunnidale, was continued in Nottawasaga. The settlement was
+called the Scotch line, nearly all the people being from the islands of
+Arran and Islay, lying off Argyleshire, in Scotland. Very few of them
+knew a word of English. There were Campbells, McGillivrays, Livingstons,
+McDiarmids, McAlmons, McNees, Jardines, and other characteristic names.
+The chief man among them was Angus Campbell, who had been a tradesman of
+some kind in the old country, and exercised a beneficial influence over
+the rest. He was well informed, sternly Presbyterian, and often reminded
+us of "douce Davie Deans" in the "Heart of Midlothian." One of the
+Livingstons was a school-master. They were, one and all, hardy and
+industrious folk. Day after day, month after month, year after year,
+added to their wealth and comfort. Cows were purchased, and soon became
+common. There were a few oxen and horses before long. When I visited the
+township of Nottawasaga some years since, I found Angus Campbell,
+postmaster and justice of the peace; Andrew Jardine, township clerk or
+treasurer; and McDiarmids, Livingstons, Shaws, &c., spread all over the
+surrounding country, possessing large farms richly stocked, good barns
+well-filled, and even commodious frame houses comfortably furnished.
+They ride to church or market in handsome buggies well horsed; have
+their temperance meetings and political gatherings of the most zealous
+sort, and altogether present a model specimen of a prosperous farming
+community. What has been said of the Scotch, is no less applicable to
+the Irish, Germans and English, who formed the minority in that
+township. I hear of their sons, and their sons' sons, as thriving
+farmers and storekeepers, all over Ontario.
+
+Our axeman, Whitelaw, was of Scottish parentage, but a Canadian by
+birth, and won his way with the rest. He settled in St. Vincent, married
+a smart and pretty Irish lass, had many sons and daughters, acquired a
+farm of five hundred acres, of which he cleared and cultivated a large
+portion almost single-handed, and in time became able to build the
+finest frame house in the township; served as reeve, was a justice of
+peace, and even a candidate for parliament, in which, well for himself,
+he failed. His excessive labours, however, brought on asthma, of which
+he died not long since, leaving several families of descendants to
+represent him.
+
+I could go on with the list of prosperous settlers of this class, to
+fill a volume. Some of the young men entered the ministry, and I
+recognise their names occasionally at Presbyterian and Wesleyan
+conventions. Some less fortunate were tempted away to Iowa and Illinois,
+and there died victims to ague and heat.
+
+But if we "look on this picture and on that;" if we compare the results
+of the settlement of educated people and of the labouring classes, the
+former withering away and leaving no sign behind--the latter growing in
+numbers and advancing in wealth and position until they fill the whole
+land, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that except as leaders
+and teachers of their companions, gentlefolk of refined tastes and of
+superior education, have no place in the bush, and should shun it as a
+wild delusion and a cruel snare.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  MORE ABOUT NOTTAWASAGA AND ITS PEOPLE.
+
+
+Among the duties handed over to my brother Thomas, by his predecessor in
+the emigrant agency, was the care of a large medicine chest full of
+quinine, rhubarb, jalap, and a host of other drugs, strong enough for
+horses as well as men, including a long catalogue of poisons, such as
+arsenic, belladonna, vitriol, &c. To assist in the distribution of this
+rather formidable charge, a copy of "Buchan's Domestic Medicine" was
+added. My brother had no taste for drugs, and therefore deputed the care
+of the medicine chest to me. So I studied "Buchan" zealously, and was
+fortunate enough to secure the aid of an old army sergeant, an Irishman
+who had been accustomed to camp hospital life, and knew how to bleed,
+and treat wounds. Time and practice gave me courage to dispense the
+medicines, which I did cautiously, and so successfully as to earn the
+soubriquet of "Doctor," and to be sought after in cases both dangerous
+and difficult. As, however, about this time, a clever, licensed
+practitioner had established himself at Barrie, thirty-four miles
+distant, I declined to prescribe in serious cases, except in one or two
+of great urgency. A Prussian soldier named Murtz, had received a
+gun-shot wound in the chest at the battle of Quatre Bras, under Marshal
+Bluecher, and had frequently suffered therefrom. One day in winter, when
+the thermometer ranged far below zero, this man had been threshing in
+our barn, when he was seized with inflammation of the chest, and forced
+to return home. As it appeared to be a case of life and death, I
+ventured to act boldly, ordered bleeding, a blister on the chest, and
+poultices to the feet--in fact, everything that Buchan directed. My
+brave serjeant took charge of the patient; and between us, or perhaps in
+spite of us, the man got over the attack. The singular part of the case
+was, that the old bullet wound never troubled him afterwards, and he
+looked upon me as the first of living physicians.
+
+In 1836, a band of Potawatomie Indians, claiming allegiance to the
+Queen, was allowed to leave the State of Michigan and settle in Canada.
+They travelled from Sarnia through the woods, along the eastern shore of
+Lake Huron, and passed through Nottawasaga, on their way to
+Penetanguishene. Between the Scotch line and Sunnidale, near the present
+village of Stayner, lived an old Highland piper named Campbell, very
+partial to whiskey and dirt. There were two or three small clearings
+grouped together, and the principal crop was potatoes, nearly full
+grown. The old man was sitting sunning himself at his shanty-door. The
+young men were all absent at mill or elsewhere, and none but women and
+children about, when a party of Indians, men and squaws with their
+papooses, came stealing from the woods, and very quietly began to dig
+the potatoes with their fingers and fill their bags with the spoil. The
+poor old piper was horribly frightened and perplexed; and in his
+agitation could think of nothing but climbing on to his shanty roof,
+which was covered with earth, and there playing with all his might upon
+his Highland pipes, partly as a summons for assistance from his friends,
+partly to terrify the enemy. But the enemy were not at all terrified.
+They gathered in a ring round the shanty, laughed, danced, and enjoyed
+the fun immensely; nor would they pass on until the return of some of
+the younger settlers summoned by the din of the bagpipes, relieved the
+old piper from his elevated post. In the meantime, the presence and
+efforts of the women of the settlement sufficed to rescue their potato
+crop.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  A RUDE WINTER EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+The chief inconvenience we sustained in Nottawasaga arose from the depth
+of snow in winter, which was generally four feet and sometimes more. We
+had got our large log barn well filled with grain and hay. Two feet of
+snow had fallen during the day, and it continued snowing throughout the
+night. Next morning, to our great tribulation, neither snow nor roof was
+to be seen on the barn, the whole having fallen inside. No time was to
+be lost. My share of the work was to hurry to the Scotch line, there to
+warn every settler to send at least one stout hand to assist in
+re-raising the roof. None but those who have suffered can imagine what
+it is to have to walk at speed through several feet of soft snow. The
+sinews of the knees very soon begin to be painfully affected, and
+finally to feel as if they were being cut with a sharp knife. This is
+what Indians call "snow evil," their cure for which is to apply a hot
+cinder to the spot, thus raising a blister. I toiled on, however, and
+once in the settlement, walked with comparative ease. Everybody was
+ready and eager to help, and so we had plenty of assistance at our need,
+and before night got our barn roof restored.
+
+The practice of exchanging work is universal in new settlements; and,
+indeed, without it nothing of importance can be effected. Each man gives
+a day's work to his neighbour, for a logging or raising-bee; and looks
+for the same help when he is ready for it. Thus as many as twenty or
+forty able axemen can be relied upon at an emergency.
+
+At a later time, some of us became expert in the use of snow-shoes, and
+took long journeys through the woods, not merely with ease but with a
+great deal of pleasure. As a rule, snow is far from being considered an
+evil in the backwoods, on account of the very great facility it affords
+for travelling and teaming, both for business and pleasure, as well as
+for the aid it gives to the hunter or trapper.
+
+My own feelings on the subject, I found leisure to embody in the
+following verses:
+
+  THE TRAPPER.
+
+  Away, away! my dog and I;
+    The woodland boughs are bare,
+  The radiant sun shines warm and high,
+    The frost-flake[4] gems the air.
+
+  Away, away! thro' forests wide
+    Our course is swift and free;
+  Warm 'neath the snow the saplings hide--
+    Its ice-crust firm pace we.
+
+  The partridge[5] with expanded crest
+    Struts proudly by his mate;
+  The squirrel trims its glossy vest,
+    Or eats its nut in state.
+
+  Quick echoes answer, shrill and short,
+    The woodcock's frequent cry;
+  We heed them not--a keener sport
+    We seek--my dog and I.
+
+  Far in the woods our traps are set
+    In loneliest, thickest glade,
+  Where summer's soil is soft and wet,
+    And dark firs lend their shade.
+
+  Hurrah! a gallant spoil is here
+    To glad a trapper's sight--
+  The warm-clad marten, sleek and fair,
+    The ermine soft and white;
+
+  Or mink, or fox--a welcome prize--
+    Or useful squirrel grey,
+  Or wild-cat fierce with flaming eyes,
+    Or fisher,[6] meaner prey.
+
+  On, on! the cautious toils once more
+    Are set--the task is done;
+  Our pleasant morning's labour o'er,
+    Our pastime but begun.
+
+  Away, away! till fall of eve,
+    The deer-track be our guide,
+  The antler'd stag our quarry brave,
+    Our park the forest wide.
+
+  At night, the bright fire at our feet,
+    Our couch the wigwam dry--
+  No laggard tastes a rest so sweet
+    As thou, good dog, and I.
+
+[Footnote 4: On a fine, bright winter morning, when the slight feathery
+crystals formed from the congealed dew, which have silently settled on
+the trees during the night, are wafted thence by the morning breeze,
+filling the translucent atmosphere with innumerable minute, sparkling
+stars; when the thick, strong coat of ice on the four-foot deep snow is
+slightly covered by the same fine, white dust, betraying the foot-print
+of the smallest wild animal--on such a morning the hardy trapper is best
+able to follow his solitary pursuits. In the glorious winters of Canada,
+he will sometimes remain from home for days, or even weeks, with no
+companions but his dog and rifle, and no other shelter than such as his
+own hands can procure--carried away by his ardour for the sport, and the
+hope of the rich booty which usually rewards his perseverance.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The partridge of Canada--a grey variety of grouse--not only
+displays a handsome black-barred tail like that of the turkey, but has
+the power of erecting his head-feathers, as well as of spreading a black
+fan-like tuft placed on either side of his neck. Although timid when
+alarmed, he is not naturally shy, but at times may be approached near
+enough to observe his very graceful and playful habits--a facility of
+access for which the poor bird commonly pays with his life.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Dr. Johnson, in one of his peculiar moods, has described
+the _fitchew_ or _fitchat_, which is here called the "fisher" as "_a
+stinking little beast that robs the hen-roost and warren_"--a very
+ungrateful libel upon an animal that supplies exceedingly useful fur for
+common purposes.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE FOREST WEALTH OF CANADA.
+
+
+Having been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great
+pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all
+kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and
+showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone.
+
+But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with
+which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the
+country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest
+specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River
+Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round
+scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of
+Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with
+noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie
+with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their
+branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that
+five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving
+little space for younger trees or underbrush.
+
+I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in
+circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble
+tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of
+inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and
+thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black
+birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if
+any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it
+does with hickory for many purposes.
+
+When residing in the city of Quebec, in the year 1859-60, I published a
+series of articles in the Quebec _Advertiser_, descriptive of the
+hardwoods of Ontario. The lumber merchants of that city held then, that
+their correspondents in Liverpool was so wedded to old-fashioned ideas,
+that they would not so much as look at any price-list except for pine
+and the few other woods for which there was an assured demand. But I
+know that my papers were transmitted home, and they may possibly have
+converted some few readers, as, since then, our rock elm, our white ash,
+and the black birch of Lower Canada, have been in increased demand, and
+are regularly quoted at London and Liverpool. But even though old
+country dealers should make light of our products, that is no reason why
+we should undervalue them ourselves.
+
+Not merely is our larger timber improvidently wasted, but the smaller
+kinds, such as blue beech, ironwood or hornbeam, buttonwood or plane
+tree, and red and white cedar, are swept away without a thought of their
+great marketable value in the Old World.[7]
+
+It seems absolute fatuity to allow this waste of our natural wealth to
+go on unheeded. We send our pine across the Atlantic, as if it were the
+most valuable wood that we have, instead of being, as it really is,
+amongst the most inferior. From our eastern seaports white oak is
+shipped in the form of staves chiefly, also some ash, birch and elm. So
+far well. But what about the millions of tons of hardwood of all kinds
+which we destroy annually for fuel, and which ought to realize, if
+exported, four times as many millions of dollars?
+
+Besides the plain, straight-grained timber which we heedlessly burn up
+to get it out of the way, there are our ornamental woods--our beautiful
+curled and bird's eye maple, our waved ash, our serviceable butternut
+or yellow walnut, our comely cherry, and even our exquisite black
+walnut, all doomed to the same perdition. Little of this waste would
+occur if once the owners of land knew that a market could be got for
+their timber. Cheese and butter factories for export, have already
+spread over the land--why not furniture factories also? Why not warm
+ourselves with the coal of Nova Scotia, of Manitoba, and, by-and-by, of
+the Saskatchewan, and spare our forest treasures for nobler uses? Would
+not this whole question be a fitting subject for the appointment of a
+competent parliamentary commission?
+
+To me these reflections are not the birth of to-day, but date from my
+bush residence in the township of Nottawasaga. If I should succeed now
+in bringing them effectively before my fellow Canadians ere it is too
+late, I shall feel that I have neither thought nor written in vain.
+
+[Footnote 7: I have myself, when a youth, sold red cedar in London at
+sixpence sterling per square foot, inch thick. Lime (or basswood) was
+sold at twopence, and ash and beech at about the same price. White or
+yellow pine was then worth one penny, or just half the value of
+basswood. These are retail prices. On referring to the London wholesale
+quotations for July 1881, I find these statements fully borne out. It
+will be news to most of my readers, that Canadian black birch has been
+proved by test, under the authority of the British Admiralty, to be of
+greater specific gravity than English oak, and therefore better fitted
+for ships' flooring, for which purpose it is now extensively used. Also
+for staircases in large mansions.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  A MELANCHOLY TALE.
+
+
+The Scottish settlers in Nottawasaga were respectable, God-fearing, and
+though somewhat stern in their manners, thoroughly estimable people on
+the whole. They married young, had numerous families, and taught their
+children at an early age the duties of good citizenship, and the
+religious principles of their Presbyterian forefathers.
+
+Among them, not the prettiest certainly, but the most amiable and
+beloved, was Flora McDiarmid, a tall, bright-complexioned lass of
+twenty, perhaps, who was the chief mainstay of her widowed father, whose
+log shanty she kept in perfect order as far as their simple resources
+permitted, while she exercised a vigilant watch over her younger
+brothers and sisters, and with their assistance contrived to work their
+four acre allotment to good advantage.
+
+Wherever there was trouble in the settlement, or mirth afoot, Flora was
+sure to be there, nursing the sick, cheering the unhappy, helping to
+provide the good things for the simple feast,--she was, in fact, the
+life of the somewhat dull and overworked community. Was the minister
+from afar to be received with due honour, was the sober church service
+to be celebrated in a shanty with becoming propriety--Flora was ever on
+hand, at the head of all the other lassies, guiding and directing
+everything, and in so kindly and cheerful a way that none thought of
+disputing her behests or hesitating at their fulfilment.
+
+Such being the case, no wonder that Malcolm McAlmon and other young
+fellows contended for her hand in marriage. But Malcolm won the
+preference, and blithely he set to work to build a splendid log shanty,
+twenty-five feet square, divided into inner compartments, with windows
+and doors, and other unequalled conveniences for domestic comfort new to
+the settlement; and when it was ready, and supplied with plenishings of
+all kinds, Flora and Malcolm were married amid the rejoicings of the
+whole township, and settled quietly down to the steady hard work of a
+life in the extreme backwoods, some miles distant from our clearing.
+
+The next thing I heard of them was many months afterwards, when Malcolm
+was happy in the expectation of an heir to his two hundred acre lot, in
+the ninth or tenth concession of the township. But alas! as time stole
+on, accounts were unfavourable, and grew worse and worse. The nearest
+professional man lived at Barrie, thirty-four miles distant. A wandering
+herb doctor, as he called himself, of the Yankee eclectic school, was
+the best who had yet visited the township, and even he was far away at
+this time. There were experienced matrons enough in the settlement, but
+their skill deserted them, or the case was beyond their ability. And so
+poor Flora died, and her infant with her.
+
+The same day her brother John, in deep distress, came to beg us to lend
+them pine boards enough to make the poor dead woman a coffin. Except the
+pine tree which we had cut down and sawn up, as related already, there
+was not a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer
+or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry
+for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next
+morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably handsome box,
+stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them
+at the appointed hour. We of course attended the funeral, which was
+conducted with due solemnity by the Presbyterian minister
+above-mentioned. And never shall I forget the weeping bearers,
+staggering under their burthen through tangled brushwood and round
+upturned roots and cradle holes, and the long train of mourners
+following in their rear, to the chosen grave in the wilderness, where
+now I hear stands a small Presbyterian church in the village of
+Duntroon.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  FROM BARRIE TO NOTTAWASAGA.
+
+
+For nearly three years we continued to work on contentedly at our bush
+farm. In the summer of 1837, we received intelligence that two of our
+sisters were on their way to join us in Canada, and soon afterwards that
+they had reached Toronto, and expected to meet us at Barrie on a certain
+day. At the same time we learnt that the bridge across the Nottawasaga
+river, eleven miles from Barrie, had given way, and was barely passable
+on foot, as it lay floating on the water. One of our span of horses had
+been killed and his fellow sold, so that we had to hire a team to convey
+our sisters' goods from Barrie to the bridge where it was necessary to
+meet them with our own ox-team and waggon. I walked to Barrie
+accordingly, and found my sisters at Bingham's tavern, very glad to see
+me, but in a state of complete bewilderment and some alarm at the rough
+ways of the place, then only containing a tavern or two, and some twenty
+stores and dwellings. My fustian clothes, which I had made myself, and
+considered first-rate, they "laughed at consumedly." My boots! they were
+soaked and trod out of all fashionable proportions. Fortunately, other
+people in Barrie were nearly as open to criticism as myself, and as we
+had to get on our way without loss of time, I forgot my eccentricities
+of dress in the rough experiences of the road.
+
+From Barrie to Root's tavern was pleasant travelling, the day being fine
+and the road fairly good. We took some rest and refreshment there, and
+started again, but had not gone two miles before a serious misfortune
+befel us. I have mentioned corduroy-bridges before; one of these had
+been thrown across a beautifully clear white-paved streamlet known to
+travellers on this road as "sweet-water." The waggon was heavily laden
+with chests and other luggage, and the horses not being very strong,
+found it beyond their power to drag the load across the bridge on
+account of its steepness. Alarmed for my eldest sister, who was riding,
+I persuaded her to descend and walk on. Again and again, the teamster
+whipped his horses, and again and again, after they had almost scaled
+the crest, the weight of the load dragged them backward. I wanted to
+lighten the load, but the man said it was needless, and bade me block
+the wheels with a piece of broken branch lying near, which I did; the
+next moment I was petrified to see the waggon overbalance itself and
+fall sideways into the stream seven or eight feet beneath, dragging the
+horses over with it, their forefeet clinging to the bridge and their
+hind feet entangled amongst the spokes of the wheels below.
+
+My elder sister had gone on. The younger bravely caught the horses'
+heads and held them by main force to quiet their struggles, while the
+man and I got out an axe, cut the spokes of the wheels, and so in a few
+minutes got the horses on to firm ground, where they stood panting and
+terrified for some minutes. Meanwhile, to get the heavy sea-boxes out of
+the water and carry them up the face of a nearly perpendicular bank,
+then get up the waggon and reload it, was no easy task, but was
+accomplished at last.
+
+The teamster, being afraid of injury to his horses' legs, at first
+refused to go further on the road. However, they had suffered no harm;
+and we finished our journey to the bridge where my brother awaited us.
+Here the unlucky boxes had to be carried across loose floating logs, and
+loaded on to the ox-waggon, which ended our hard work for that day.
+
+Two days longer were we slowly travelling through Sunnidale and into
+Nottawasaga, spending each night at some friendly settler's shanty, and
+so lightening the fatigues of the way.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  FAREWELL TO THE BACKWOODS.
+
+
+My sisters had come into the woods fresh from the lovely village of
+Epsom, in Surrey, and accustomed to all the comforts of English life.
+Their consternation at the rudeness of the accommodations which we had
+considered rather luxurious than otherwise, dispelled all our illusions,
+and made us think seriously of moving nearer to Toronto. I was the first
+to feel the need of change, and as I had occasionally walked ninety
+miles to the city, to draw money for our road contracts, and the same
+distance back again, and had gained some friends there, it took me very
+little time to make up my mind. My brothers and sisters remained
+throughout the following winter, and then removed to a rented farm at
+Bradford.
+
+Not that the bush has ever lost its charms for me. I still delight to
+escape thither, to roam at large, admiring the stately trees with their
+graceful outlines of varied foliage, seeking in their delicious shade
+for ferns and all kinds of wild plants, forgetting the turmoil and
+anxieties of the business world, and wishing I could leave it behind for
+ever and aye. In some such mood it was that I wrote--
+
+
+  "COME TO THE WOODS."[8]
+
+  Come to the woods--the dark old woods,
+    Where our life is blithe and free;
+  No thought of sorrow or strife intrudes
+    Beneath the wild woodland tree.
+
+  Our wigwam is raised with skill and care
+    In some quiet forest nook;
+  Our healthful fare is of ven'son rare,
+    Our draught from the crystal brook.
+
+  In summer we trap the beaver shy,
+    In winter we chase the deer,
+  And, summer or winter, our days pass by
+    In honest and hearty cheer.
+
+  And when at the last we fall asleep
+    On mother earth's ancient breast,
+  The forest-dirge deep shall o'er us sweep,
+    And lull us to peaceful rest.
+
+[Footnote 8: These lines were set to music by the late J. P. Clarke,
+Mus. Bac. of Toronto University, in his "Songs of Canada."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  A JOURNEY TO TORONTO.
+
+
+To make my narrative intelligible to those who are not familiar with the
+times of which I am about to write, I must revert briefly to the year
+1834. During that year I made my first business visit to Toronto, then
+newly erected into a city. As the journey may be taken as a fair
+specimen of our facilities for travelling in those days, I shall
+describe it.
+
+I left our shanty in Sunnidale in the bright early morning, equipped
+only with an umbrella and a blue bag, such as is usually carried by
+lawyers, containing some articles of clothing. The first three or four
+miles of the road lay over felled trees cut into logs, but not hauled
+out of the way. To step or jump over these logs every few feet may be
+amusing enough by way of sport, but it becomes not a little tiresome
+when repeated mile after mile, with scarcely any intermission, and
+without the stimulus of companionship. After getting into a better
+cleared road, the chief difficulty lay with the imperfectly "stubbed"
+underbrush and the frequency of cradle-holes--that is, hollows caused by
+up-turned roots--in roughly timbered land. This kind of travelling
+continued till mid-day, when I got a substantial dinner and a boisterous
+welcome from my old friend Root and his family. He had a pretty little
+daughter by this time.
+
+An hour's rest, and an easy walk of seven miles to Barrie, were pleasant
+enough, in spite of stumps and hollows. At Barrie I met with more
+friends, who would have had me remain there for the night; but time was
+too valuable. So on I trudged, skirting round the sandy beach of
+beautiful Kempenfeldt Bay, and into the thick dark woods of Innisfil,
+where the road was a mere brushed track, easily missed in the twilight,
+and very muddy from recent rains. Making all the expedition in my power,
+I sped on towards Clement's tavern, then the only hostelry between
+Barrie and Bradford, and situated close to the height of land whence
+arise, in a single field, the sources of various streams flowing into
+the Nottawasaga, the Holland, and the Credit Rivers. But rain came on,
+and the road became a succession of water-holes so deep that I all but
+lost my boots, and, moreover, it was so dark that it was impossible to
+walk along logs laid by the roadside, which was the local custom in
+daylight.
+
+I felt myself in a dilemma. To go forward or backward seemed equally
+unpromising. I had often spent nights in the bush, with or without a
+wigwam, and the thought of danger did not occur to me. Suddenly I
+recollected that about half a mile back I had passed a newly chopped and
+partially-logged clearing, and that there might possibly be workmen
+still about. So I returned to the place, and shouted for assistance; but
+no person was within hearing. There was, however, a small log hut, about
+six feet square, which the axe-men had roughly put up for protection
+from the rain, and in it had left some fire still burning. I was glad
+enough to secure even so poor a shelter as this. Everything was wet. I
+was without supper, and very tired after thirty miles' walk. But I tried
+to make the best of a bad job: collected plenty of half-consumed brands
+from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep up some warmth during the
+night, and then lay down on the round logs that had been used for seats,
+to sleep as best I might.
+
+But this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose from the
+woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a single yelp; then two
+or three yells at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five
+minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming
+nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for
+aught but the howling of wolves. The clearing might be five or six
+acres. Scattered over it were partially or wholly burnt log heaps. I
+knew that wolves would not be likely to venture amongst the fires, and
+that I was practically safe. But the position was not pleasant, and I
+should have preferred a bed at Clement's, as a matter of choice. I,
+however, kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued
+their concert of fiendish discords--sometimes remaining silent for a
+time, and anon bursting into a full chorus _fortissimo_--for many long,
+long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees,
+and the sky grew brighter and brighter; when the wolves ceased their
+serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow.
+
+With the advancing day, I awoke, stiffened in every joint, and very
+hungry. A few minutes' walk on my road showed me a distant opening in
+the woods, towards which I hastened, and found a new shanty, inhabited
+by a good-natured settler and his family, from whom I got some
+breakfast, for which they would accept nothing but thanks. They had
+lately been much troubled, they said, with wolves about their cattle
+sheds at night.
+
+From thence I proceeded to Bradford, fifteen miles, by a road interlaced
+with pine roots, with deep water-holes between, and so desperately
+rugged as to defy any wheeled vehicle but an ox-cart to struggle over
+it. Here my troubles ended for the present. Mr. Thomas Drury, of that
+village, had been in partnership with a cousin of my own, as brewers,
+at Mile End, London. His hospitable reception, and a good night's
+repose, made me forget previous discomforts, and I went on my way next
+morning with a light heart, carrying with me a letter of introduction to
+a man of whom I had occasionally heard in the bush, one William Lyon
+Mackenzie.
+
+The day's journey by way of Yonge Street was easily accomplished by
+stage--an old-fashioned conveyance enough, swung on leather straps, and
+subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones on the rough road,
+innocent of Macadam, and full of the deepest ruts. A fellow-passenger,
+by way of encouragement, told me how an old man, a few weeks before, had
+been jolted so violently against the roof, as to leave marks of his
+blood there, which, being not uncommon, were left unheeded for days. My
+friend advised me to keep on my hat, which I had laid aside on account
+of the heat of the day, and I was not slow to adopt the suggestion.
+
+Arrived in town, my first business was to seek out Mr. William Hawkins,
+well-known in those days as an eminent provincial land surveyor. I found
+him at a house on the south side of Newgate (now Adelaide) street, two
+or three doors west of Bay Street. He was living as a private boarder
+with an English family; and, at his friendly intercession, I was
+admitted to the same privilege. The home was that of Mr. H. C. Todd,
+with his wife and two sons. With them, I continued to reside as often
+as I visited Toronto, and for long after I became a citizen. That I
+spent there many happy days, among kind and considerate friends, numbers
+of my readers will be well assured when I mention, that the two boys
+were Alfred and Alpheus Todd, the one loved and lamented as the late
+Clerk of Committees in the Canadian House of Commons--the other widely
+known in Europe and America, as the late Librarian of the Dominion
+Parliament.
+
+My stay in Toronto on that occasion was very brief. To wait upon the
+Chief Emigrant Agent for instructions about road-making in Sunnidale; to
+make a few small purchases of clothing and tea; and to start back again,
+without loss of time, were matters of course. One thing, however, I
+found time to do, which had more bearing upon this narrative, and that
+was, to present Mr. Drury's letter of introduction to William L.
+Mackenzie, M. P. P., at his printing-office on Hospital Street. I had
+often seen copies, in the bush, of the _Colonial Advocate_, as well as
+of the _Courier_ and _Gazette_ newspapers, but had the faintest possible
+idea of Canadian politics. The letter was from one whose hospitality
+Mackenzie had experienced for weeks in London, and consequently I felt
+certain of a courteous reception. Without descending from the high stool
+he used at his desk, he received the letter, read it, looked at me
+frigidly, and said in his singular, harsh Dundee dialect: "We must look
+after our own people before doing anything for strangers." Mr. Drury had
+told him that I wished to know if there were any opening for
+proof-readers in Toronto. I was not a little surprised to find myself
+ostracized as a stranger in a British colony, but, having other views,
+thought no more of the circumstance at the time.
+
+This reminds me of another characteristic anecdote of Mackenzie, which
+was related to me by one who was on the spot where it happened. In 1820,
+on his first arrival in Montreal from Scotland, he got an engagement as
+chain-bearer on the survey of the Lachine canal. A few days afterwards,
+the surveying party, as usual at noon, sat down on a grassy bank to eat
+their dinner. They had been thus occupied for half an hour, and were
+getting ready for a smoke, when the new chain-bearer suddenly jumped up
+with an exclamation, "Now, boys, time for work! we mustn't waste the
+government money!" The consequence of which ill-timed outburst was his
+prompt dismissal from the service.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  SOME GLIMPSES OF UPPER CANADIAN POLITICS.
+
+
+In the course of the years 1835, '6 and '7, I made many journeys to
+Toronto, sometimes wholly on foot, sometimes partly by steamboat and
+stage. I became very intimate with the Todd family and connections,
+which included Mrs. Todd's brother, William P. Patrick, then, and long
+afterwards, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; his brother-in-law, Dr.
+Thomas D. Morrison, M. P. P.; Thomas Vaux, Accountant of the
+Legislature; Caleb Hopkins, M. P. P., for Halton; William H. Doel,
+brewer; William C. Keele, attorney, and their families. Nearly all these
+persons were, or had been, zealous admirers of Wm. L. Mackenzie's
+political course. And the same thing must be said of my friend Mr.
+Drury, of Bradford; his sister married Edward Henderson, merchant
+tailor, of King Street west, whose father, E. T. Henderson, was well
+known amongst Mackenzie's supporters. It was his cottage on Yonge Street
+(near what is now Gloucester Street), at which the leaders of the
+popular party used often to meet in council. The house stood in an
+orchard, well fenced, and was then very rural and secluded from
+observation.
+
+Amongst all these really estimable people, and at their houses, nothing
+of course was heard disparaging to the Reformers of that day, and their
+active leader. My own political prejudices also were in his favour. And
+so matters went on until the arrival, in 1835, of Sir Francis Bond Head,
+as Lieutenant-Governor, when we, in the bush, began to hear of violent
+struggles between the House of Assembly on the one side, and the
+Lieutenant-Governor supported by the Legislative Council on the other.
+Each political party, by turns, had had its successes and reverses at
+the polls. In 1825, the majority of the Assembly was Tory; in 1826, and
+for several years afterwards, a Reform majority was elected; in 1831,
+again, Toryism was successful; in 1835, the balance veered over to the
+popular side once more, by a majority only of four. This majority, led
+by Mackenzie, refused to pass the supplies; whereupon, Sir Francis
+appealed to the people by dissolving the Parliament.
+
+What were the precise grounds of difference in principle between the
+opposing parties, did not very clearly appear to us in the bush. Sir
+Francis Head had no power to grant "Responsible Government," as it has
+since been interpreted. On each side there were friends and opponents of
+that system. Among Tories, Ogle R. Gowan, Charles Fothergill, and
+others, advocated a responsible ministry, and were loud in their
+denunciations of the "Family Compact." On the Reform side were ranged
+such men as Marshall S. Bidwell and Dr. Rolph, who preferred American
+Republicanism, in which "Responsible Government" was and is utterly
+unknown. We consequently found it hard to understand the party cries of
+the day. But we began to perceive that there was a Republican bias on
+one hand, contending with a Monarchical leaning on the other; and we had
+come to Canada, as had most well-informed immigrants, expressly to avoid
+the evils of Republicanism, and to preserve our British constitutional
+heritage intact.
+
+When therefore Sir Francis Head threw himself with great energy into the
+electoral arena, when he bade the foes of the Empire "come if they
+dare!" when he called upon the "United Empire Loyalists,"--men, who in
+1770 had thrown away their all, rather than accept an alien rule--to
+vindicate once more their right to choose whom they would follow, King
+or President--when he traversed the length and breadth of the land,
+making himself at home in the farm-houses, and calling upon fathers and
+husbands and sons to stand up for their hearths, and their old
+traditions of honour and fealty to the Crown, it would have been strange
+indeed had he failed.
+
+The next House of Assembly, elected in 1837, contained a majority of
+twenty-six to fourteen in favour of Sir F. B. Head's policy. This
+precipitated matters. Had Mackenzie been capable of enduring defeat with
+a good grace; had he restrained his natural irritability of temper, and
+kept his skirts cautiously clear of all contact with men of Republican
+aspirations, he might and probably would have recovered his position as
+a parliamentary leader, and died an honoured and very likely even a
+titled veteran! But he became frantic with choler and disappointment,
+and rushed headlong into the most passionate extremes, which ended in
+making him a mere cat's-paw in the hands of cunning schemers, who did
+not fail, after their manner, to disavow their own handiwork when it had
+ceased to serve their purposes.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  TORONTO DURING THE REBELLION.
+
+
+In November, 1837, I had travelled to Toronto for the purpose of seeking
+permanent employment in the city, and meant to return in the first week
+of December, to spend my last Christmas in the woods. But the fates and
+William Lyon Mackenzie had decided otherwise. I was staying for a few
+days with my friend Joseph Heughen, the London hairdresser mentioned as
+a fellow-passenger on board the _Asia_, whose name must be familiar to
+most Toronto citizens of that day. His shop was near Ridout's
+hardware-store, on King Street, at the corner of Yonge Street. On
+Sunday, the 3rd, we heard that armed men were assembling at the Holland
+Landing and Newmarket to attack the city, and that lists of houses to be
+burned by them were in the hands of their leaders; that Samuel Lount,
+blacksmith, had been manufacturing pikes at the Landing for their use;
+that two or three persons had been warned by friends in the secret to
+sell their houses, or to leave the city, or to look for startling
+changes of some sort. Then it was known that a quantity of arms and a
+couple of cannon were being brought from the garrison, and stored in the
+covered way under the old City Hall. Every idle report was eagerly
+caught up, and magnified a hundred-fold. But the burthen of all
+invariably was, an expected invasion by the Yankees to drive all
+loyalists from Canada. In this way rumour followed rumour, all business
+ceased, and everybody listened anxiously for the next alarm. At length
+it came in earnest. At eleven o'clock on Monday night, the 4th of
+December, every bell in the city was set ringing, occasional gun-shots
+were fired, by accident as it turned out, but none the less startling to
+nervous people; a confused murmur arose in the streets, becoming louder
+every minute; presently the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard, echoing
+loudly along Yonge Street. With others I hurried out, and found at
+Ridout's corner a horseman, who proved to be Alderman John Powell, who
+told his breathless listeners, how he had been stopped beyond the Yonge
+Street toll-gate, two miles out, by Mackenzie and Anderson at the head
+of a number of rebels in arms; how he had shot Anderson and missed
+Mackenzie; how he had dodged behind a log when pursued; and had finally
+got into town by the College Avenue.
+
+There was but little sleep in Toronto that night, and next day
+everything was uproar and excitement, heightened by the news that Col.
+Moodie, of Richmond Hill, a retired officer of the army, who was
+determined to force his way through the armed bodies of rebels, to bring
+tidings of the rising to the Government in Toronto, had been shot down
+and inhumanly left to bleed to death at Montgomery's tavern. The flames
+and smoke from Dr. Horne's house at Rosedale, were visible all over the
+city; it had been fired in the presence of Mackenzie in person, in
+retaliation, it was said, for the refusal of discount by the Bank of
+Upper Canada, of which Dr. Horne was teller. The ruins of the
+still-burning building were visited by hundreds of citizens, and added
+greatly to the excitement and exasperation of the hour. By-and-by it
+became known that Mr. Robert Baldwin and Dr. John Rolph had been sent,
+with a flag of truce, to learn the wants of the insurgents. Many
+citizens accompanied the party at a little distance. A flag of truce was
+in itself a delightful novelty, and the street urchins cheered
+vociferously, scudding away at the smallest alarm. Arrived at the
+toll-gate, there were waiting outside Mackenzie, Lount, Gibson, Fletcher
+and other leaders, with a couple of hundred of their men. In reply to
+the Lieutenant-Governor's message of inquiry, as to what was wanted, the
+answer was, "Independence, and a convention to arrange details," which
+rather compendious demand, being reported to Sir Francis, was at once
+rejected. So there was nothing for it but to fight.
+
+Mackenzie did his best to induce his men to advance on the city that
+evening; but as most of his followers had been led to expect that there
+would be no resistance, and no bloodshed, they were shocked and
+discouraged by Col. Moodie's death, as well as by those of Anderson and
+one or two others. A picket of volunteers under Col. Jarvis, fired on
+them, when not far within the toll-gate, killing one and wounding two
+others, and retired still firing. After this the insurgents lost all
+confidence, and even threatened to shoot Mackenzie himself, for
+reproaching them with cowardice. A farmer living by the roadside told me
+at the time, that while a detachment of rebels were marching southwards
+down the hill, since known as Mount Pleasant, they saw a waggon-load of
+cordwood standing on the opposite rise, and supposing it to be a piece
+of artillery loaded to the muzzle with grape or canister, these brave
+warriors leaped the fences right and left like squirrels, and could by
+no effort of their officers be induced again to advance.
+
+By this time the principal buildings in the city--the City Hall, Upper
+Canada Bank, the Parliament Buildings, Osgoode Hall, Government House,
+the Canada Company's office, and many private dwellings and shops, were
+put in a state of defence by barricading the windows and doors with
+two-inch plank, loopholed for musketry; and the city bore a rather
+formidable appearance. Arms and ammunition were distributed to all
+householders who chose to accept them. I remember well the trepidation
+with which my friend Heughen shrank from touching the musket that was
+held out for his acceptance; and the outspoken indignation of the
+militia sergeant, whose proffer of the firearm was declined. The poor
+hairdresser told me afterwards, that many of his customers were rebels,
+and that he dreaded the loss of their patronage.
+
+The same evening came Mr. Speaker McNab, with a steamer from Hamilton,
+bringing sixty of the "men of Gore." It was an inspiriting thing to see
+these fine fellows land on the wharf, bright and fresh from their short
+voyage, and full of zeal and loyalty. The ringing cheers they sent forth
+were re-echoed with interest by the townsmen. From Scarborough also,
+marched in a party of militia, under Captain McLean.
+
+It was on the same day that a lady, still living, was travelling by
+stage from Streetsville, on her way through Toronto to Cornwall, having
+with her a large trunk of new clothing prepared for a long visit to her
+relatives. Very awkwardly for her, Mackenzie had started, at the head of
+a few men, from Yonge Street across to Dundas Street, to stop the stage
+and capture the mails, so as to intercept news of Dr. Duncombe's rising
+in the London District. Not content with seizing the mail-bags and all
+the money they contained, Mackenzie himself, pistol in hand, demanded
+the surrender of the poor woman's portmanteau, and carried it off
+bodily. It was asserted at the time that he only succeeded in evading
+capture a few days after, at Oakville, by disguising himself in woman's
+clothes, which may explain his raid upon the lady's wardrobe; for which,
+I believe, she failed to get any compensation whatsoever under the
+Rebellion Losses Act. This lady afterwards became the wife of John F.
+Rogers, who was my partner in business for several subsequent years.
+
+In the course of the next day, Wednesday, parties of men arrived from
+Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville, Port Credit and other places in greater or
+less numbers--many of them Orangemen, delighted with their new
+occupation. The Lieutenant-Governor was thus enabled to vacate the City
+Hall and take up his headquarters in the Parliament Buildings; and
+before night as many as fifteen hundred volunteers were armed and
+partially drilled. Among them were a number of Mackenzie's former
+supporters, with their sons and relatives, now thoroughly ashamed of the
+man, and utterly alienated by his declared republicanism.
+
+Next morning followed the "Battle of Gallows Hill," or, as it might more
+fitly be styled, the "Skirmish of Montgomery's Farm." Being a stranger
+in the city, I had not then formally volunteered, but took upon myself
+to accompany the advancing force, on the chance of finding something to
+do, either as a volunteer or a newspaper correspondent, should an
+opening occur. The main body, led by Sir Francis himself, with Colonels
+Fitzgibbon and McNab as Adjutants, marched by Yonge Street, and
+consisted of six hundred men with two guns; while two other bodies, of
+two hundred and a hundred and twenty men, respectively, headed by
+Colonels W. Chisholm and S. P. Jarvis, advanced by bye-roads and fields
+on the east and on the west of Yonge Street. Nothing was seen of the
+enemy till within half-a-mile of Montgomery's tavern. The road was there
+bordered on the west side by pine woods, from whence dropping
+rifle-shots began to be heard, which were answered by the louder muskets
+of the militia. Presently our artillery opened their hoarse throats, and
+the woods rang with strong reverberations. Splinters were dashed from
+the trees, threatening, and I believe causing worse mischief than the
+shots themselves. It is said that this kind of skirmishing continued
+for half-an-hour--to me it seemed but a few minutes. As the militia
+advanced, their opponents melted away. Parties of volunteers dashed over
+the fences and into the woods, shouting and firing as they ran. Two or
+three wounded men of both parties were lifted tenderly into carts and
+sent off to the city to be placed in hospital. Others lay bleeding by
+the road-side--rebels by their rustic clothing; their wounds were bound
+up, and they were removed in their turn. Soon a movement was visible
+through the smoke, on the hill fronting the tavern, where some tall
+pines were then standing. I could see there two or three hundred men,
+now firing irregularly at the advancing loyalists; now swaying to and
+fro without any apparent design. Some horsemen were among them, who
+seemed to act more as scouts than as leaders.
+
+We had by this time arrived within cannon shot of the tavern itself. Two
+or three balls were seen to strike and pass through it. A crowd of men
+rushed from the doors, and scattered wildly in a northerly direction.
+Those on the hill wavered, receded under shelter of the undulating land,
+and then fled like their fellows. Their horsemen took the side-road
+westward, and were pursued, but not in time to prevent their escape. Had
+our right and left wings kept pace with the main body, the whole
+insurgent force must have been captured.
+
+Sir Francis halted his men opposite the tavern, and gave the word to
+demolish the building, by way of a severe lesson to the disaffected.
+This was promptly done by firing the furniture in the lower rooms, and
+presently thick clouds of smoke and vivid flames burst from doors and
+windows. The battalion next moved on to perform the same service at
+Gibson's house, several miles further north. Many prisoners were taken
+in the pursuit, all of whom Sir Francis released, after admonishing them
+to be better subjects in future. The march back to Toronto was very
+leisurely executed, several of the mounted officers carrying dead pigs
+and geese slung across their saddle-bows as trophies of victory.
+
+Next day, volunteers for the city guard were called for, and among them
+I was regularly enrolled and placed under pay, at three shillings and
+nine pence per diem. My captain was George Percival Ridout; and his
+brother, Joseph D. Ridout, was lieutenant. Our company was duly drilled
+at the City Hall, and continued to do duty as long as their services
+were required, which was about four months. I have a vivid recollection
+of being stationed at the Don Bridge to look out for a second visit from
+Peter Matthews's band of rebels, eighty of whom had attempted to burn
+the bridge, and succeeded in burning three adjoining houses; also, of
+being forgotten and kept there without food or relief throughout a
+bitter cold winter's night and morning. Also, of doing duty as sentry
+over poor old Colonel Van Egmond, a Dutch officer who had served under
+Napoleon I., and who was grievously sick from exposure in the woods and
+confinement in gaol, of which he soon afterwards died. Another day, I
+was placed, as one of a corporal's guard, in charge of Lesslie's
+stationery and drug-store, and found there a saucy little shop-boy who
+has since developed into the portly person of Alderman Baxter, now one,
+and not the least, of our city notabilities. The guards and the guarded
+were on the best of terms. We were treated with much hospitality by Mr.
+Joseph Lesslie, late Postmaster of Toronto, and have all been excellent
+friends ever since. Our corporal, I ought to say, was Anthony Blachford,
+since a well-known and respected citizen.
+
+Those were exciting times in Toronto. The day after the battle, six
+hundred men of Simcoe, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dewson, came
+marching down Yonge Street, headed by Highland pipers playing the
+national pibroch. In their ranks I first saw Hugh Scobie, a stalwart
+Scotsman, afterwards widely known as publisher of the _British Colonist_
+newspaper. With this party were brought in sixty prisoners, tied to a
+long rope, most of whom were afterwards released on parole.
+
+A day or two afterwards, entered the volunteers from the Newcastle
+District, who had marched the whole distance from Brockville, under the
+command, I think, of Lieutenant-Colonel Ogle R. Gowan. They were a fine
+body of men, and in the highest spirits at the prospect of a fight with
+the young Queen Victoria's enemies.
+
+A great sensation was created when the leaders who had been arrested
+after the battle, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison, John G. Parker, and two
+others, preceded by a loaded cannon pointed towards the prisoners, were
+marched along King Street to the Common Jail, which is the same building
+now occupied as York Chambers, at the corner of Toronto and Court
+Streets. The Court House stood, and still stands, converted into shops
+and offices, on Church Street; between the two was an open common which
+was used in those days as the place of public executions. It was here
+that, on the 12th of April following, I witnessed, with great sorrow,
+the execution by hanging of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of the
+principal rebel leaders.
+
+Sir F. B. Head had then left the Province.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+The following narrative of circumstances which occurred during the time
+when Mackenzie was in command of the rebel force on Yonge Street, has
+been kindly communicated to me by a gentleman, who, as a young lad, was
+personally cognizant of the facts described. It has, I believe, never
+been published, and will interest many of my readers:
+
+    "It was on Monday morning, the 5th of December, 1837, when
+    rumours of the disturbances that had broken out in Lower Canada
+    were causing great excitement throughout the Home District, that
+    the late James S. Howard's servant-man, named Bolton, went into
+    his master's bed-room and asked if Mr. H. had heard shots fired
+    during the night. He replied that he had not, and told the man
+    to go down to the street and find out what was the matter.
+    Bolton returned shortly with the news, that a man named Anderson
+    had been shot at the foot of the hill, and that his body was
+    lying in a house near by. Shortly after came the startling
+    report of the death of poor Col. Moodie, which was a great shock
+    to Mrs. Howard, who knew him well, and was herself a native of
+    Fredericton, where the Colonel's regiment (the old Hundred and
+    Fourth) had been raised during the war of 1812. Mr. Howard
+    immediately ordered his carriage, and started for the city, from
+    whence he did not return for ten days. About nine o'clock, a man
+    named Pool, who held the rank of captain in the rebel army,
+    called at Mr. Howard's house, to ask if Anderson's body was
+
+    there. Being told where it was said to be, he turned and went
+    away. Immediately afterwards, the first detachment of the rebel
+    army came in sight, consisting of some fifteen or twenty men,
+    who drew up on the lawn in front of the house. Presently, at the
+    word of command they wheeled round and went away in search of
+    the dead rebel. Next came three or four men (loyalists) hurrying
+    down the road, who said that there were five hundred rebels
+    behind them. Then was heard the report of fire arms, and anon
+    more armed men showed themselves along the brow of Gallows Hill,
+    and took up ground near the present residence of Mr. Hooper.
+    About eleven o'clock, another detachment appeared, headed by a
+    man on a small white horse, almost a pony, who turned out to be
+    the commander-in-chief, Mackenzie himself. He wore a great coat
+    buttoned up to the chin, and presented the appearance of being
+    stuffed. In talking among themselves, the men intimated that he
+    had on a great many coats, as if to make himself bullet proof.
+    To enable the man on the white pony to enter the lawn, his men
+    wrenched off the fence boards; he entered the house without
+    knocking, took possession of the sitting room where Mrs. and
+    Miss Howard and her brother were sitting, and ordered dinner to
+    be got ready for fifty men. Utterly astonished at such a demand,
+    Mrs. Howard said she could do nothing of the kind. After abusing
+    Mr. Howard for some time--who had incurred his dislike by
+    refusing him special privileges at the Post Office--Mackenzie
+    said Howard had held his office long enough, and that it was
+    time somebody else had it. Mrs. Howard at length referred him to
+    the servant in the kitchen; which hint he took, and went to see
+    about dinner himself. There happened to be a large iron
+    sugar-kettle, in which was boiling a sheep killed by dogs
+    shortly before. This they emptied, and refilled with beef from a
+    barrel in the cellar. A baking of bread just made was also
+    confiscated, and cut up by a tall thin man, named Eckhardt, from
+    Markham. While these preparations were going on, other men were
+    busy in the tool house mending their arms, which consisted of
+    all sorts of weapons, from chisels and gouges fixed on poles, to
+    hatchets, knives and guns of all descriptions. About two o'clock
+    there was a regular stampede, and the family were left quite
+    alone, much to their relief; with the exception of a young
+    Highland Scotchman mounting guard. He must have been a recent
+    arrival from the old country, as he wore the blue jacket and
+    trowsers of the sea-faring men of the western isles. Mrs. Howard
+    seeing all the rest had left, went out to speak to him, saying
+    she regretted to see so fine a young Scotchman turning rebel
+    against his Queen. His answer was, "Country first, Queen next."
+    He told her that it was the flag of truce which had called his
+    comrades away. About half-past three they all returned, headed
+    by the commander-in-chief, who demanded of Mrs. Howard whether
+    the dinner he had ordered was ready? She said it was just as
+    they had left it. Irritated at her coolness he got very angry,
+    shook his horse-whip, pulled her from her chair to the window,
+    bidding her look out and be thankful that her own house was not
+    in the same state. He pointed to Dr. Horne's house at Blue Hill,
+    on the east side of the road, which during his absence he had
+    set on fire, much to the disappointment of his men, whom, though
+    very hungry, he would not allow to touch anything, but burnt all
+    up. There was considerable grumbling among the men about it.
+    Poor Lount, who was with them, told Mrs. Howard not to mind
+    Mackenzie, but to give them all they wanted, and they would not
+    harm her. They got through their dinner about dusk, and returned
+    to the lawn, where they had some barrels of whiskey. They kept
+    up a regular--or rather an irregular firing all night. The
+    family were much alarmed, having only one servant woman with
+    them; the man Bolton had escaped for fear as he said of being
+    taken prisoner by the rebels. There the men remained until
+    Wednesday, when they returned to Montgomery's tavern, a mile or
+    two up the street, where is now the village of Eglinton. About
+    eleven o'clock in the morning, the loyalist force marched out to
+    attack the rebels, who were posted at the Paul Pry Inn, on the
+    east side of the road, with their main body at Montgomery's,
+    some distance further north. It was a very fine sunny day, and
+    the loyalists made a formidable appearance, as the sun shone on
+    their bright musket-barrels and bayonets. The first shot fired
+    was from the artillery, under the command of Captain Craig; it
+    went through the Paul Pry under the eaves and out of the roof.
+    The rebels took to the woods on each side of the road, which at
+    that time were much nearer than at present. Thomas Bell, who had
+    charge of a company of volunteers, said that on the morning of
+    the battle, a stranger asked leave to accompany him. The man
+    wore a long beard, and was rumoured to have been one of
+    Napoleon's officers. Mr. Bell saw him take aim at one of the
+    retreating rebels, who was crouching behind a stump, firing at
+    the loyalists. Nothing could be seen but the top of his head.
+    The stranger fired with fatal effect. The dead man turned out to
+    be a farmer of the name of Widman, from Whitchurch. Montgomery's
+    tavern, a large building on the hill-side of the road, was next
+    attacked, and was quickly evacuated by the flying rebels, who
+    got into the woods to the west and dispersed. It was then that
+    Mackenzie made his escape. The tavern having been the rebel
+    head-quarters, and the place from which Col. Moodie was shot,
+    was set on fire and burned down. The house of Gibson, another
+    rebel rendezvous, about eight miles north, was also burnt. With
+    that small effort the rebellion in Upper Canada was crushed. A
+    few days after, some fifty or sixty rebel prisoners from about
+    Sharon and Lloydtown, were marched down to the city, roped
+    together, two and two in a long string; and shortly afterwards a
+    volunteer corps--commanded by Colonels Hill and Dewson, raised
+    amongst the log-cabin settlers, in the County of Simcoe, came
+    down in sleighs to the city, where they did duty all winter. It
+    was an extraordinary fact, that these poor settlers, living in
+    contentment in their log-cabins, with their potato patches
+    around, should turn out and put down a rebellion, originated
+    among old settlers and wealthy farmers in the prosperous County
+    of York. Mackenzie early lost the sympathies of a great
+    proportion of his followers. One of them, named Jacob Kurtz,
+    swore most lustily, the same winter, that if he could catch his
+    old leader he would shoot him. While retreating eastward, a
+    party of the rebels attempted to burn the Don Bridge, and would
+    have succeeded, but for the determined efforts of a Mrs. Ross,
+    who put out the fire, at the expense of a bullet in her knee;
+    the ball was extracted by the late Dr. Widmer, who was very
+    popular about Yorkville and the east end of the city."
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED.
+
+
+It is now forty-five years since the last act of the rebellion was
+consummated, by the defeat of Duncombe's party in the London district,
+the punishment of Sutherland's brigands at Windsor, and the destruction
+of the steamer _Caroline_ and dispersal of the discreditable ruffians,
+of whom their "president," Mackenzie, was heartily sick, at Navy Island.
+None of these events came within my own observation, and I pass them by
+without special remark.
+
+But respecting Sir Francis Bond Head and his antagonist, I feel that
+more should be said, in justice to both. It is eminently unfair to
+censure Sir Francis for not doing that which he was not commissioned to
+do. Even so thorough a Reformer and so just a man as Earl Russell, had
+failed to see the advisability of extending "responsible government" to
+any of Her Majesty's Colonies. Up to the time of Lord Durham's report in
+1839, no such proposal had been even mooted; and it appears to have been
+the general opinion of British statesmen, at the date of Sir Francis
+Head's appointment, that to give a responsible ministry to Canada was
+equivalent to offering her independence. In taking it for granted that
+Canadians as a whole were unfit to have conferred on them the same
+rights of self-government as were possessed by Englishmen, Irishmen and
+Scotchmen in the old country, consisted the original error. This error,
+however, Sir Francis shared with the Colonial Office and both Houses of
+the Imperial Parliament. Since those days the mistake has been admitted,
+and not Canada alone, but the Australian colonies and South Africa have
+profited by our advancement in self-government.
+
+As for Sir Francis's personal character, even Mackenzie's biographer
+allows that he was frank, kindly and generous in an unusual degree. That
+he won the entire esteem of so many men of whom all Canadians of
+whatever party are proud--such men as Chief Justice Robinson, Bishop
+Strachan, Chief Justices Macaulay, Draper and McLean, Sir Allan N.
+McNab, Messrs. Henry Ruttan, Mahlon Burwell, Jno. W. Gamble and many
+others, I hold to be indubitable proof of his high qualities and honest
+intentions. Nobody can doubt that had he been sent here to carry out
+responsible government, he would have done it zealously and honourably.
+But he was sent to oppose it, and, in opposing it, he simply did his
+duty.
+
+A gentleman[9] well qualified to judge, and who knew him personally, has
+favoured me with the following remarks apropos of the subject, which I
+have pleasure in laying before my readers:
+
+    "As a boy, I had a sincere admiration for his [Sir Francis's]
+    devoted loyalty, and genuine English character; and I have since
+    learnt to respect and appreciate with greater discrimination his
+    great services to the Crown and Empire. He was a little Quixotic
+    perhaps. He had a marked individuality of his own. But he was as
+    true as steel, and most staunch to British law and British
+    principle in the trying days of his administration in Canada.
+    His loyalty was chivalrous and magnetic; by his enlightened
+    enthusiasm in a good cause he evoked a true spirit of loyalty in
+    Upper Canada, that had well-nigh become extinct, being overlaid
+    with the spirit of ultra-radicalism that had for years
+    previously got uppermost among our people. But Upper Canada
+    loyalty had a deep and solid foundation in the patriotism of the
+    U. E. Loyalists, a noble race who had proved by deeds, not
+    words, their attachment to the Crown and government of the
+    mother land. These U. E. Loyalists were the true founders of
+    Upper Canada; and they were forefathers of whom we may be justly
+    proud--themselves 'honouring the father and the mother'--their
+    sovereign and the institutions under which they were born--they
+    did literally obtain the promised reward of that 'first
+    commandment with promise,' viz.: length of days and honour."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+William Lyon Mackenzie was principally remarkable for his indomitable
+perseverance and unhesitating self-reliance. Of toleration for other
+men's opinions, he seems to have had none. He did, or strove to do,
+whatsoever he himself thought right, and those who differed with him he
+denounced in the most unmeasured terms. For example, writing of the
+Imperial Government in 1837, he says:
+
+    "Small cause have Highlanders and the descendants of Highlanders
+    to feel a friendship for the Guelphic family. If the Stuarts had
+    their faults, they never enforced loyalty in the glens and
+    valleys of the north by banishing and extirpating the people; it
+    was reserved for the Brunswickers to give, as a sequel to the
+    massacre of Glencoe, the cruel order for depopulation. I am
+    proud of my descent from a rebel race; who held borrowed
+    chieftains, a scrip nobility, rag money and national debt in
+    abomination. . . . Words cannot express my contempt at
+    witnessing the servile, crouching attitude of the country of my
+    choice. If the people felt as I feel, there is never a Grant or
+    Glenelg who crossed the Tay and Tweed to exchange high-born
+    Highland poverty for substantial Lowland wealth, who would dare
+    to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler,
+    of such an equivocal character as this Mr. what do they call
+    him--Francis Bond Head."
+
+Had Mackenzie confined himself to this kind of vituperation, all might
+have gone well for him, and for his followers. People would only have
+laughed at his vehemence. The advocacy of the principle of responsible
+government in Canada would have been and was taken up by Orangemen, U.
+E. Loyalists, and other known Tories. Ever since the day when the
+manufacture of even a hob-nail in the American colonies was declared by
+English statesmen to be intolerable, the struggle has gone on for
+colonial equality as against imperial centralization. The final adoption
+of the theory of ministerial responsibility by all political parties in
+Canada, is Mackenzie's best justification.
+
+But he sold himself in his disappointment to the republican tempter, and
+justly paid the penalty. That he felt this himself long before he died,
+will be incontestably shown by his own words, which I copy from Mr.
+Lindsey's "Life of Mackenzie," vol. ii., page 290:
+
+    "After what I have seen here, I frankly confess to you that, had
+    I passed nine years in the United States before, instead of
+    after, the outbreak, I am very sure I would have been the last
+    man in America to be engaged in it."
+
+And, again, page 291:
+
+    "A course of careful observations during the last eleven years
+    has fully satisfied me that, had the violent movements in which
+    I and many others were engaged on both sides of the Niagara
+    proved successful, that success would have deeply injured the
+    people of Canada, whom I then believed I was serving at great
+    risks; that it would have deprived millions, perhaps, of our own
+    countrymen in Europe of a home upon this continent, except upon
+    conditions which, though many hundreds of thousands of
+    immigrants have been constrained to accept them, are of an
+    exceedingly onerous and degrading character. . . . There is not
+    a living man on this continent who more sincerely desires that
+    British Government in Canada may long continue, and give a home
+    and a welcome to the old countryman, than myself."
+
+Of Mackenzie's imprisonment and career in the United States, nothing
+need be said here. I saw him once more in the Canadian Parliament after
+his return from exile, in the year 1858. He was then remarkable for his
+good humour, and for his personal independence of party. His chosen
+associates were, as it seemed to me, chiefly on the Opposition or
+Conservative side of the House.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I cannot help referring to the unfortunate
+men who suffered in various ways. They were farmers of the best class,
+and of the most simple habits. The poor fellows who lay wounded by the
+road side on Yonge Street, were not persons astute enough to discuss
+political theories, but feeble creatures who could only shed bitter
+tears over their bodily sufferings, and look helplessly for assistance
+from their conquerors. There were among them boys of twelve or fifteen
+years old, one of whom had been commissioned by his ignorant old mother
+at St. Catharines, to be sure and bring her home a check-apron full of
+tea from one of the Toronto groceries.
+
+I thought at the time, and I think still, that the Government ought to
+have interfered before matters came to a head, and so saved all these
+hapless people from the cruel consequences of their leaders' folly. On
+the other hand, it is asserted that neither Sir Francis nor his Council
+could be brought to credit the probability of an armed rising. A friend
+has told me that his father, who was then a member of the Executive
+Council, attended a meeting as late as nine o'clock on the 4th December,
+1837. That he returned home and retired to rest at eleven. In half an
+hour a messenger from Government House came knocking violently at the
+door, with the news of the rising; when he jumped out of bed exclaiming,
+"I hope Robinson will believe me next time." The Chief Justice had
+received with entire incredulity the information laid before the
+Council, of the threatened movement that week.
+
+[Footnote 9: The late lamented Dr. Alpheus Todd, librarian of the
+Dominion Parliament.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  RESULTS IN THE FUTURE.
+
+
+Whatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy--whether we
+prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal--there can be no
+doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of
+Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American
+continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in
+Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved
+a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old
+colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty
+alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think,
+that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard
+of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and
+especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into
+the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837,
+it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic
+and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And
+it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven
+Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and
+the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old
+country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial
+connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously
+repudiates any such policy as suicidal.
+
+That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier
+atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued
+moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one
+confidently hold--with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due
+to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority--Divine
+and secular--I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare
+hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important
+characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to
+all who care to read correctly the signs of the times.
+
+The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best
+clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of
+us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry,
+home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general
+desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On
+the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and
+notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded
+into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum
+or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a
+purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for
+Mormonism.
+
+I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens
+in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the
+flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any
+controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the
+popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And
+so--we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada
+may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national
+faults such as theirs.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  A CONFIRMED TORY.
+
+
+My good friend and host, Henry Cook Todd, was one of the most
+uncompromising Tories I ever met with. He might have sat for the
+portrait of Mr. Grimwig in "Oliver Twist." Like that celebrated old
+gentleman, "his bark was aye waur than his bite." He would pour out a
+torrent of scorn and sarcasm upon some luckless object of his
+indignation, public or private; and, having exhausted the full vials of
+his wrath, would end with some kind act toward, perhaps, the very person
+he had been anathematizing, and subside into an amiable mood of
+compassion for the weaknesses of erring mankind generally.
+
+He was a graduate of the University of Oxford, and afterwards had charge
+of a large private school in one of the English counties. Having
+inherited and acquired a moderate competency, he retired into private
+life; but later on he lost by the failure of companies wherein his
+savings had been invested. He then commenced business as a bookseller,
+did not succeed, and finally decided, at the persuasion of his wife's
+brother, Mr. William P. Patrick, of Toronto, to emigrate to Canada.
+Having first satisfied himself of the prudence of the step, by a tour in
+the United States and Canada, he sent for his family, who arrived here
+in 1833.
+
+His two sons, Alfred and Alpheus, got the full benefit of their father's
+classical attainments, and were kept closely to their studies. At an
+early age, their uncle Patrick took charge of their interests, and
+placed them about him in the Legislative Assembly, where I recollect to
+have seen one or both of them, in the capacity of pages, on the floor of
+the House. From that lowly position, step by step, they worked their
+way, as we have seen, to the very summit of their respective
+departments.
+
+Mr. Todd was also an accomplished amateur artist, and drew exquisitely.
+An etching of the interior of Winchester Cathedral, by him, I have never
+seen surpassed.
+
+He was fond of retirement and of antiquarian reading, and, while engaged
+in some learned philological investigation, would shut himself up in his
+peculiar sanctum and remain invisible for days, even to his own family.
+
+Between the years 1833 and 1840, Mr. Todd published a book, entitled
+"Notes on Canada and the United States," and I cannot better illustrate
+his peculiar habits of thought, and mode of expressing them, than by
+quoting two or three brief passages from that work, and from "Addenda"
+which I printed for him myself, in 1840:
+
+    "As an acidulated mixture with the purest element will embitter
+    its sweetness, so vice and impurity imported to any country must
+    corrupt and debase it. To this hour, when plunderers no longer
+    feel secure in the scenes of their misdeeds, or culprits would
+    evade the strong arm of the law, to what country do they escape?
+    America--for here, if not positively welcomed (?), they are, at
+    least, safe. If it be asked, did not ancient Rome do the same
+    thing? I answer, slightly so, whilst yet an infant, but never in
+    any shape afterwards; but America, by still receiving, and with
+    open arms, the vicious and the vile from all corners of the
+    earth, does so in her full growth. As she therefore plants, so
+    must she also reap.
+
+    * * * "The Episcopal clergy in this country [United States] were
+    originally supported by an annual contribution of tobacco, each
+    male, so tithable, paying 40lbs.; the regular clergy of the then
+    thinly-settled state of Virginia receiving 16,000 lbs. yearly as
+    salary. In Canada they are maintained by an assignment of lands
+    from the Crown, which moreover extends its assistance to
+    ministers of other denominations; so that the people are not
+    called upon to contribute for that or any similar purpose; and
+    yet, such is the deplorable abandonment to error, and obstinate
+    perversion of fact, amongst the low or radical party here--a
+    small one, it is true, but not on that account less
+    censurable--that this very thing which should ensure their
+    gratitude is a never-ending theme for their vituperation and
+    abuse; proving to demonstration, that no government on earth, or
+    any concession whatever, can long satisfy or please them.
+
+    * * * "The mention of periodicals reminds me, that newspapers on
+    the arrival of a stranger are about the first things he takes
+    up; but on perusing them, he must exercise his utmost judgment
+    and penetration; for of all the fabrications, clothed too in the
+    coarsest language, that ever came under my observation, many
+    papers here, for low scurrility, and vilifying the authorities,
+    certainly surpass any I ever met with. It is to be regretted
+    that men without principle and others void of character should
+    be permitted thus to abuse the public ear. * * The misguided
+    individuals in the late disturbance, on being questioned upon
+    the subject, unreservedly admitted, that until reading
+    Mackenzie's flagitious and slanderous newspaper, they were
+    happy, contented, and loyal subjects."
+
+When the seat of Government was removed to Kingston, Mr. Todd's family
+accompanied it thither; but he remained in Toronto, to look after his
+property, which was considerable, and died here at the age of 77.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  NEWSPAPER EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+Early in the year 1838, I obtained an engagement as manager of the
+_Palladium_, a newspaper issued by Charles Fothergill, on the plan of
+the New York _Albion_. The printing office, situated on the corner of
+York and Boulton Streets, was very small, and I found it a mass of
+little better than _pi_, with an old hand-press of the Columbian
+pattern. To bring this office into something like presentable order, to
+train a rough lot of lads to their business, and to supply an occasional
+original article, occupied me during great part of that year. Mr.
+Fothergill was a man of talent, a scholar, and a gentleman; but so
+entirely given up to the study of natural history and the practice of
+taxidermy, that his newspaper received but scant attention, and his
+personal appearance and the cleanliness of his surroundings still less.
+He had been King's Printer under the Family Compact regime, and was
+dismissed for some imprudent criticism upon the policy of the
+Government. His family sometimes suffered from the want of common
+necessaries, while the money which should have fed them went to pay for
+some rare bird or strange fish. This could not last long. The
+_Palladium_ died a natural death, and I had to seek elsewhere for
+employment.
+
+Amongst the visitors at Mr. Todd's house was John F. Rogers, an
+Englishman, who, in conjunction with George H. Hackstaff, published the
+Toronto _Herald_, a weekly journal of very humble pretensions. Mr.
+Hackstaff was from the United States, and found himself regarded with
+great distrust, in consequence of the Navy Island and Prescott
+invasions. He therefore offered to sell me his interest in the newspaper
+and printing office for a few dollars. I accepted the offer, and thus
+became a member of the Fourth Estate, with all the dignities,
+immunities, and profits attaching thereto. From that time until the year
+1860, I continued in the same profession, publishing successively the
+_Herald_, _Patriot_, _News of the Week_, _Atlas_ and _Daily Colonist_
+newspapers, and lastly the Quebec _Advertiser_. I mention them all now,
+to save wearisome details hereafter.
+
+I have a very lively recollection of the first job which I printed in my
+new office. It was on the Sunday on which St. James's Cathedral was
+burnt owing to some negligence about the stoves. Our office was two
+doors north of the burnt edifice, on Church Street, where the Public
+Library now stands; and I was hurriedly required to print a small
+placard, announcing that divine service would be held that afternoon at
+the City Hall, where I had then recently drilled as a volunteer in the
+City Guard.
+
+The _Herald_ was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the
+Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar
+features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight
+into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself
+chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and
+press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an
+occasional paragraph or musical notice.
+
+The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in
+Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume
+of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which
+could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With
+this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from
+relating:
+
+I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next
+door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west
+corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of
+fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of
+manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did
+so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted
+indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more,
+defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible.
+
+Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he
+could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some
+subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to
+a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally
+apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because
+his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time
+in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working
+on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the
+printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was
+first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little
+education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was
+King's printer in Australia.
+
+Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was
+just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition
+rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where
+it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved
+to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early
+German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at
+one impression, and perfecting the sheet--or printing the obverse, as
+medallists would say--with other four pages. Archie was tall and
+strong--I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after
+some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press.
+Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful,
+conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling,
+never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty
+of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on
+with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was
+suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar
+and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it
+tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my
+foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he
+was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry
+Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of
+Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just
+west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to
+practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went
+to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and
+naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money.
+
+The country was at the time in a state of general civil war; not only
+was there national strife between two political parties for the
+ascendency, but in many of the separate states _pronunciamentos_
+(proclamations) were issued against the men in power, followed by bloody
+contests between the different factions. In the "united state" of
+Coahuila and Nuevo-Leon, in which the doctor then resided, General
+Vidauri held the reins of power at Monterey, the capital; and General
+Aramberri flew to arms to wrest the government from him. The opposing
+armies were no other than bands of robbers and murderers. Aramberri's
+forces had passed near the town of Salinas, where the doctor lived,
+plundering everybody on their route. Next day Vidauri's troops came in
+pursuit, appropriating everything of value which had not been already
+confiscated. General Julio Quiroga, one of the most inhuman and cruel
+monsters of the republic--a native of the town, near which he had but
+recently been a cowherd (gauadero)--commanded the pursuing force. On the
+evening previous to his entry, a _peon_ (really a slave, though slavery
+was said to have been abolished in the republic) had been severely
+injured in a quarrel with another of his class, and the doctor was sent
+for by the Alcalde to dress his wounds. As the man was said to belong to
+a rich proprietor, the doctor objected unless his fee were assured. An
+old, rough, and dirty-looking man thereupon stepped forward and said he
+would be answerable for the pay, stating at the same time that his name
+was Quiroga, and that he was the father of Don Julio! When General
+Quiroga heard his father's account of the affair, he had the wounded man
+placed in the stocks in the open plaza under a broiling sun; fined the
+Alcalde $500 for not having done so himself, as well as for not having
+imprisoned the Doctor; had the Doctor arrested by an armed guard under a
+lieutenant, and in the presence of a dozen or more officers ordered him
+to be shot within twenty minutes for having insulted his (Quiroga's)
+father. The execution, however, as may be inferred, did not take place.
+The explanation the Doctor gives of his escape is a curious one. He
+cursed and swore at the General so bitterly and rapidly in English (not
+being at the time well versed in Spanish expletives) that Don Julio was
+frightened by his grimaces, and the horrible unknown words that issued
+from his lips, and fell off his chair in an epileptic fit, to which he
+was subject. The Doctor had the clothing about the General's throat and
+chest thrown open, and dashed some cold water in his face. On reviving,
+Quiroga told the Doctor to return to his house; that he need be under
+no fear; said he supposed the difficulty was caused by his (the
+Doctor's) not understanding the Spanish language; and added, that he
+intended to consult our friend some day about those _atagues_ (fits).
+Quiroga never returned to Salinas during the Doctor's stay there, and
+some years after these events, like most Mexican generals, was publicly
+executed, thus meeting the fate he had so cruelly dealt out to many
+better men than himself, and to which he had sentenced our
+fellow-citizen.
+
+The Doctor remained in Mexico till the French invasion in 1863, when,
+partly on account of the illness of his wife, and partly because of the
+disturbed state of the country, he returned to Toronto. He practised his
+profession here and became a well-known public character, still, he
+said, cherishing a warm love for the sunny south, styling the land of
+the Montezumas "_Mi Mejico amado_"--my beloved Mexico--and corresponding
+with his friends there, who but very recently offered him some
+inducements to return.
+
+That truant boy was afterwards known as Dr. Archibald A. Riddel,
+ex-alderman, and for many years coroner for the City of Toronto, which
+latter office he resigned so lately as the 30th of June, 1883. He died
+in December last, and was buried in the Necropolis, whither his remains
+were followed by a large concourse of sympathizing friends.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The burning of St. James's Cathedral in 1839, marks another phase of my
+Toronto life, which is associated with many pleasant and some sorrowful
+memories. The services of the Church of England were, for some months
+after that event, conducted in the old City Hall. The choir was an
+amateur one, led by Mr. J. D. Humphreys, whose reputation as an
+accomplished musician must be familiar to many of my readers. Of that
+choir I became a member, and continued one until my removal to Carlton
+in 1853. During those fourteen years I was concerned in almost every
+musical movement in Toronto, wrote musical notices, and even composed
+some music to my own poetry. An amateur glee club, of which Mr. E. L.
+Cull, until lately of the Canada Company's office, and myself are
+probably the only survivors, used occasionally to meet and amuse
+ourselves with singing glees and quartettes on Christmas and New Year's
+Eve, opposite the houses of our several friends. It was then the custom
+to invite our party indoors, to be sumptuously entertained with the good
+things provided for the purpose.
+
+Thus the time passed away after the rebellion, and during the period of
+Sir George Arthur's stay in Canada, without the occurrence of any
+public event in which I was personally concerned. Lord Durham came; made
+his celebrated Report: and went home again. Then followed Lord Sydenham,
+to whom I propose to pay some attention, as with him commenced my first
+experience of Canadian party politics.
+
+Mackenzie's rebellion had convinced me of the necessity of taking and
+holding firm ground in defence of monarchical institutions, as opposed
+to republicanism. It is well known that nearly all Old Country Whigs,
+when transplanted to Canada, become staunch Tories. So most moderate
+Reformers from the British Isles are classed here as Liberal
+Conservatives. Even English Chartists are transformed into Canadian
+Anti-Republicans.
+
+I had been neither Chartist nor ultra-Radical, but simply a quiet
+Reformer, disposed to venerate, but not blindly to idolize, old
+institutions, and by no means to pull down an ancient fabric without
+knowing what kind of structure was to be erected in its place. Thus it
+followed, as a matter of course, that I should gravitate towards the
+Conservative side of Canadian party politics, in which I found so many
+of the solid, respectable, well-to-do citizens of Toronto had ranged
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  LORD SYDENHAM'S MISSION.
+
+
+I have frequently remarked that, although in England any person may pass
+a life-time without becoming acquainted with his next-door neighbour, he
+can hardly fall into conversation with a fellow-countryman in Canada,
+without finding some latent link of relationship or propinquity between
+them. Thus, in the case of Mr. C. Poulett Thomson, I trace more than one
+circumstance connecting that great man with my humble self. He was a
+member--the active member--of the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co., Russia
+Merchants, Cannon Street, London, at the same time that my
+brother-in-law, William Tatchell, of the firm of Tatchell & Clarke,
+carried on the same business of Russia Merchants in Upper Thames Street.
+There were occasional transactions between them: and my brother Thomas,
+who was chief accountant in the Thames Street house, has told me that
+the firm of Thomson, Bonar & Co. was looked upon in the trade with a
+good deal of distrust, for certain sharp practices to which they were
+addicted.
+
+Again, Sir John Rae Reid, of the East India Company, had been the Tory
+member of Parliament for Dover. On his retirement, Mr. Poulett Thomson
+started as Reform candidate for the same city. I knew the former
+slightly as a neighbour of my mother's, at Ewell, in Surrey, and felt
+some interest in the Dover election in consequence. It was in the old
+borough-mongering times, and the newspapers on both sides rang with
+accounts of the immense sums that were expended in this little Dover
+contest, in which Mr. Thomson, aided by his party, literally bought
+every inch of his way, and succeeded in obtaining his first seat in the
+House of Commons, at a cost, as his biographer states, of L3,000
+sterling. In the matter of corruption, there was probably little
+difference between the rival candidates.
+
+The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, it was understood in England,
+always had the dirty work of the Melbourne Ministry to do; and it was
+probably his usefulness in that capacity that recommended him for the
+task of uniting the two Canadas, in accordance with that report of Lord
+Durham, which his lordship himself disavowed.[10] That Mr. Thomson did
+his work well, cannot be denied. He was, in fact, the Castlereagh of
+Canadian Union. What were the exact means employed by him in Montreal
+and Toronto is not known, but the results were visible enough.
+Government officials coerced, sometimes through the agency of their
+wives, sometimes by direct threats of dismissal; the Legislature
+overawed by the presence and interference of His Excellency's
+secretaries and aides-de-camp; votes sought and obtained by appeals to
+the personal interests of members of Parliament. These and such-like
+were the dignified processes by which the Union of the Canadas was
+effected, in spite of the unwillingness of at least one of the parties
+to that ceremony.
+
+His Excellency did not even condescend to veil his contempt for his
+tools. When a newly nominated Cabinet Minister waited upon the great man
+with humility, to thank him for an honour for which he felt his
+education did not qualify him, the reported answer was--"Oh, I think you
+are all pretty much alike here."
+
+In Toronto, anything like opposition to His Excellency's policy was
+sought to be silenced by the threat of depriving the city of its tenure
+of the Seat of Government. The offices of the principal city journals,
+the _Patriot_ and _Courier_, were besieged by anxious subscribers,
+entreating that nothing should appear at all distasteful to His
+Excellency. Therefore it happened, that our little sheet, the _Herald_,
+became the only mouth-piece of Toronto dissentients; and was well
+supplied with satires and criticisms upon the politic manoeuvres of
+Government House. We used to issue on New Year's Day a sheet of
+doggerel verses, styled, "The News Boy's Address to his Patrons," which
+gave me an opportunity, of which I did not fail to avail myself, of
+telling His Excellency some wholesome truths in not very complimentary
+phrase. It is but justice to him to say, that he enjoyed the fun, such
+as it was, as much as anybody, and sent a servant in livery to our
+office, for extra copies to be placed on his drawing-room tables for the
+amusement of New Year's callers, to whom he read them himself. I am
+sorry that I cannot now treat my readers to extracts from those sheets,
+which may some centuries hence be unearthed by future Canadian
+antiquaries, as rare and priceless historical documents.
+
+Whether the course he pursued be thought creditable or the reverse,
+there is no doubt that Lord Sydenham did Canada immense service by the
+measures enacted under his dictation. The Union of the Provinces,
+Municipal Councils, Educational Institutions, sound financial
+arrangements, and other minor matters, are benefits which cannot be
+ignored. But all these questions were carried in a high-handed,
+arbitrary manner, and some of them by downright compulsion. To connect
+in any way with his name the credit of bestowing upon the united
+provinces "Responsible Government" upon the British model, is a gross
+absurdity.
+
+In the Memoirs of his lordship, by his brother, Mr. G. Poulett Scrope,
+page 236, I find the following plain statements:
+
+    "On the subject of 'Responsible Government,' which question was
+    again dragged into discussion by Mr. Baldwin, with a view of
+    putting the sincerity of the Government to the test, he (Lord
+    S.) introduced and carried unanimously a series of resolutions
+    in opposition to those proposed by Mr. Baldwin, distinctly
+    recognising the irresponsibility of the Governor to any but the
+    Imperial authorities, and placing the doctrine on the sound and
+    rational basis which he had ever maintained."
+
+What that "sound and rational basis" was, is conclusively shown in an
+extract from one of his own private letters, given on page 143 of the
+same work:
+
+    "I am not a bit afraid of the Responsible Government cry. I have
+    already done much to put it down in its inadmissible sense,
+    namely, that the Council shall be responsible to the Assembly,
+    and that the Government shall take their advice, and be bound by
+    it. In fact, this demand has been made much more _for_ the
+    people than _by_ them. And I have not met with any one who has
+    not at once admitted the absurdity of claiming to put the
+    Council over the head of the Governor. It is but fair too, to
+    say that everything has in times past been done by the different
+    Governors to excite the feelings of the people on this question.
+    First, the Executive Council has generally been composed of the
+    persons most obnoxious to the majority of the Assembly; and
+    next, the Governor has taken extreme care to make every act of
+    his own go forth to the public _on the responsibility_ of the
+    Executive Council. So the people have been carefully taught to
+    believe that the Governor is nobody, and the Executive Council
+    the real power, and that by the Governor himself. At the same
+    time they have seen that power placed in the hands of their
+    opponents. Under such a system it is not to be wondered at, if
+    one argument founded on the responsibility of the Governor to
+    the Home Government falls to the ground. I have told the people
+    plainly that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the
+    Home Government, I will place no responsibility on the Council;
+    that they are _a Council_ for the Governor to consult, but no
+    more. And I have yet met with no 'Responsible Government' man,
+    who was not satisfied with the doctrine. In fact, there is no
+    other theory which has common sense. Either the Governor is the
+    Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers,
+    but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all
+    colonial government becomes impossible. He must, therefore, be
+    the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of
+    men in the colony."
+
+It is only just that the truth should be clearly established on this
+question. Responsible Government was not an issue between Canadian
+Reformers and Tories in any sense; but exclusively between the Colonies
+and the statesmen of the Mother Country. On several occasions prior to
+Mackenzie's Rebellion, Tory majorities had affirmed the principle; and
+Ogle R. Gowan, an influential Orangeman, had published a pamphlet in its
+favour. Yet some recent historians of Canada have fallen into the
+foolish habit of claiming for the Reform party all the good legislation
+of the past forty years, until they seem really to believe the figment
+themselves.[11]
+
+I am surprised that writers who condemn Sir F. B. Head for acting as his
+own Prime Minister, in strict accordance with his instructions, can see
+nothing to find fault with in Lord Sydenham's doing the very same thing
+in an infinitely more arbitrary and offensive manner. Where Sir Francis
+persuaded, Lord Sydenham coerced, bribed and derided.
+
+Lower Canada was never consulted as to her own destiny. Because a
+fraction of her people chose to strike for independence, peaceable
+French Canadians were treated bodily as a conquered race, with the
+undisguised object of swamping their nationality and language, and
+over-riding their feelings and wishes. It is said that the result has
+justified the means. But what casuistry is this? What sort of friend to
+Responsible Government must he be, who employs force to back his
+argument? To inculcate the voluntary principle at the point of the
+bayonet, is a peculiarly Hibernian process, to say the least.
+
+[Footnote 10: On reference to Sir F. B. Head's "Emigrant," pp. 376-8,
+the reader will find the following letters:--
+
+      "1. _From the Hon. Sir. A. N. MacNab._
+        "Legislative Assembly,
+            "Montreal, 28th March, 1846.
+
+    "My dear Sir Francis,
+
+    "I have no hesitation in putting on paper the conversation which
+    took place between Lord Durham and myself, on the subject of the
+    Union. He asked me if I was in favour of the Union; I said,
+    'No;' he replied, 'If you are a friend to your country, _oppose
+    it to the death._'
+
+        "I am, &c.,
+            "(Signed) Allan N. MacNab.
+
+    "Sir F. B. Head, Bart."
+      "2. _From W. E. Jervis, Esq._
+        "Toronto, March 12th, 1846.
+
+    "Dear Sir Allan,
+
+    "In answer to the inquiry contained in your letter of the 2nd
+    inst., I beg leave to state, that, in the year 1838, I was in
+    Quebec, and had a long conversation with the Earl of Durham upon
+    the subject of an Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower
+    Canada--a measure which I had understood his Lordship intended
+    to propose.
+
+    "I was much gratified by his Lordship then, in the most
+    unqualified terms, declaring his strong disapprobation of such a
+    measure, as tending, in his opinion, to the injury of this
+    Province; and he advised me, as a friend to Upper Canada, _to
+    use all the influence I might possess in opposition to it_.
+
+    "His Lordship declared that, in his opinion, no statesman could
+    propose so injurious a project, and authorized me to assure my
+    friends in Upper Canada, _that he was decidedly averse to the
+    measure_.
+
+    "I have a perfect recollection of having had a similar enquiry
+    made of me, by the private secretary of Sir George Arthur, and
+    that I made a written reply to the communication. I have no copy
+    of the letter which I sent upon that occasion, but the substance
+    must have been similar to that I now send you.
+
+        "I remain, &c.,
+            "(Signed) W. E. Jervis.
+
+    "Sir Allan MacNab."
+      "3. _From the Hon. Justice Hagerman._
+        "13 St. James's Street,
+            "London, 12th July, 1846.
+
+    "My dear Sir Francis,
+
+    "It is well known to many persons that the late Lord Durham, up
+    to the time of his departure from Canada, expressed himself
+    strongly opposed to the Union of the then two Provinces. I
+    accompanied Sir George Arthur on a visit to Lord Durham, late in
+    the autumn, and a very few days only before he threw up his
+    Government and embarked for this country. In a conversation I
+    had with him, he spoke of the Union as _the selfish scheme of a
+    few merchants of Montreal--that no statesman would advise the
+    measure--and that it was absurd to suppose that Upper and Lower
+    Canada could ever exist in harmony as one Province_.
+
+    "In returning to Toronto with Sir George Arthur, he told me that
+    Lord Durham had expressed to him similar opinions, and had at
+    considerable length detailed to him reasons and arguments which
+    existed against a measure which he considered would be
+    destructive of the legitimate authority of the British
+    Government, and in which opinion _Sir George declared he fully
+    coincided._
+
+        "I am, Sir,
+            "(Signed) C. A. Hagerman.
+
+    "Sir F. B. Head, Bart."
+      "4. _From the Earl of Durham._
+          "Quebec, Oct. 2nd, 1838.
+
+    "Dear Sir,
+
+    "I thank you kindly for your account of the meeting [in
+    Montreal], which was the first I received. I fully expected the
+    'outbreak' about the Union of the two Provinces:--It is a pet
+    Montreal project, beginning and ending in Montreal selfishness.
+
+        "Yours, truly,
+            "(Signed) Durham."]
+
+[Footnote 11: I am very glad to see that Mr. Dent, in his "Forty
+Years--Canada since the Union of 1841," recently published, has avoided
+the current fault of those writers who can recognise no historical truth
+not endorsed by the _Globe_. In vol. i, p. 357, he says:
+
+"There can be no doubt that the Reform party, as a whole, were unjust to
+Mr. Draper. They did not even give him credit for sincerity or good
+intentions. The historian of to-day, no matter what his political
+opinions may be, who contemplates Mr. Draper's career as an Executive
+Councillor, must doubtless arrive at the conclusion that he was wrong;
+that he was an obstructionist--a drag on the wheel of progress. But this
+fact was by no means so easy of recognition in 1844 as it is in 1881;
+and there is no good reason for impugning his motives, which, so far as
+can be ascertained, were honourable and patriotic. No impartial mind can
+review the acts and characters of the leading members of the
+Conservative party of those times, and come to the conclusion that they
+were all selfish and insincere. Nay, it is evident enough that they were
+at least as sincere and as zealous for the public good as were their
+opponents."
+
+I wish I could also compliment Mr. Dent upon doing like justice to Sir
+Francis B. Head.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  TORIES OF THE REBELLION TIMES.
+
+
+Having, I hope, sufficiently exposed the misrepresentations of party
+writers, who have persistently made it their business to calumniate the
+Loyalists of 1837-8, I now proceed to the pleasanter task of recording
+the good deeds of some of those Loyalists, with whom I was brought into
+personal contact. I begin with--
+
+
+  ALDERMAN GEORGE T. DENISON, SEN.
+
+No Toronto citizen of '37 can fail to recall the bluff, hale,
+strongly-built figure of George Taylor Denison, of Bellevue, the very
+embodiment of the English country squire of the times of Addison and
+Goldsmith. Resolute to enforce obedience, generous to the poor, just and
+fair as a magistrate, hospitable to strangers and friends, a sound and
+consistent Churchman, a brave soldier and a loyal subject, it seemed
+almost an anachronism to meet with him anywhere else than at his own
+birth-place of Dover Court, within sight of the Goodwin Sands, in the
+old-fashioned County of Essex, in England.
+
+He was the son of John Denison, of Hedon, Yorkshire, and was born in
+1783. He came with his father to Canada in 1792, and to Toronto in 1796.
+Here he married the only daughter of Captain Richard Lippincott, a noted
+U. E. Loyalist, who had fought through the Civil War in the revolted
+Colonies now forming the United States. In the war of 1812, Mr. Denison
+served as Ensign in the York Volunteers, and was frequently employed on
+special service. He was the officer who, with sixty men, cut out the
+present line of the Dundas Road, from the Garrison Common to Lambton
+Mills, which was necessary to enable communication between York and the
+Mills to be carried on without interruption from the hostile fleet on
+the lake. During the attack on York, in the following year, he was
+commissioned to destroy our vessels in the Bay, to save them from
+falling into the enemy's hands. With some he succeeded, but on one
+frigate the captain refused to obey the order, and while the point was
+in dispute, the enemy settled the question by capturing the ship, in
+consequence of which Mr. Denison was held as a prisoner for several
+months, until exchanged.
+
+Of his services and escapes during the war many amusing stories are
+told. He was once sent with a very large sum in army bills--some
+$40,000--to pay the force then on the Niagara River. To avoid suspicion,
+the money was concealed in his saddle-bags, and he wore civilian's
+clothing. His destination was the village of St. David's. Within a mile
+or two of the place, he became aware of a cavalry soldier galloping
+furiously towards him, who, on coming up, asked if he was the officer
+with the money, and said he must ride back as fast as possible; the
+Yankees had driven the British out of St. David's, and parties of their
+cavalry were spreading over the country. Presently another dragoon came
+in sight, riding at speed and pursued by several of the enemy's
+horsemen. Ensign Denison turned at once, and after an exciting chase for
+many miles, succeeded in distancing his foes and escaping with his
+valuable charge.
+
+On another occasion, he had under his orders a number of boats employed
+in bringing army munitions from Kingston to York. Somewhere near Port
+Hope, while creeping alongshore to avoid the United States vessels
+cruising in the lake, he observed several of them bearing down in his
+direction. Immediately he ran his boats up a small stream, destroying a
+bridge across its mouth to open a passage, and hid them so effectually
+that the enemy's fleet passed by without suspecting their presence.
+
+About the year 1821, Captain Denison formed the design to purchase the
+farm west of the city, now known as the Rusholme property. The owner
+lived at Niagara. A friend who knew of his intention, told him one
+summer's morning, while he was looking at some goods in a store, that he
+would not get the land, as another man had left that morning for
+Niagara, in Oates's sloop, to gain the start of him. The day being
+unusually fine, Mr. Denison noticed that the sloop was still in sight,
+becalmed a mile or two off Gibraltar Point. Home he went, put up some
+money for the purchase, mounted his horse and set out for Niagara round
+the head of the lake, travelling all day and through the night, and
+arriving shortly after daybreak. There he saw the sloop in the river,
+endeavouring with the morning breeze to make the landing. To rouse up
+the intending vendor, to close the bargain, and get a receipt for the
+money, was soon accomplished; and when the gentleman who had hoped to
+forestall him came on the scene, he was wofully chopfallen to find
+himself distanced in the race.
+
+From the close of the war until the year 1837, Mr. Denison was occupied,
+like other men of his position, with his duties as a magistrate, the
+cultivation of his farm, and the rearing of his family. In 1822, he
+organized the cavalry corps now known as the Governor-General's
+Body-Guard. When the rebellion broke out, he took up arms again in
+defence of the Crown, and on the day of the march up Yonge Street, was
+entrusted with the command of the Old Fort. At about noon a body of men
+was seen approaching. Eagerly and anxiously the defenders waited,
+expecting every moment an onset, and determined to meet it like men. The
+suspense lasted some minutes, when suddenly the Major exclaimed, "Why
+surely that's my brother Tom!" And so it was. The party consisted of a
+number of good loyalists, headed by Thomas Denison, of Weston, hastening
+to the aid of the Government against Mackenzie and his adherents. Of
+course, the gates were soon thrown open, and, with hearty cheers on both
+sides, the new-comers entered the Fort.
+
+For six months Major Denison continued in active service with his
+cavalry, and in the summer of 1838, was promoted to command the
+battalion of West York Militia. His eldest son, the late Richard L.
+Denison, succeeded to the command of the cavalry corps, which was kept
+on service for six months in the winter of 1838-9.
+
+Mr. Denison was elected an alderman of Toronto in the year 1834, and
+served in the same capacity up to the end of 1843.
+
+That he was quite independent of the "Family Compact," or of any other
+official clique, is shown by the fact, that on Mackenzie's second
+expulsion from the House of Assembly in 1832, Alderman Denison voted
+for his re-election for the County of York.
+
+Our old friend died in 1853, leaving four sons, viz.: Richard L.
+Denison, of Dover Court, named above; the late George Taylor Denison, of
+Rusholme; Robert B. Denison, of Bellevue, now Deputy-Adjutant-General
+for this district; Charles L. Denison, of Brockton: and also one
+daughter, living. Among his grandchildren are Colonel George T. Denison,
+commanding the Governor-General's Body Guard, and Police Magistrate;
+Major F. C. Denison, of the same corps: and Lieutenant John Denison, R.
+N. The whole number of the Canadian descendants of John Denison, of
+Hedon, now living, is over one hundred.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Col. Richard Lippincott Denison, eldest son of the above, was born June
+13th, 1814, at the old family estate near Weston, on the Humber River,
+and followed the occupation of farming all his life. During the troubles
+of 1837-8, he served his country as captain in command of a troop of the
+Queen's Light Dragoons. He took a prominent part in the organization of
+the Agricultural and Arts Association in 1844, and for twenty-two years
+was its treasurer. In 1855, he was a commissioner from Canada at the
+great exposition in Paris, France. He also held a prominent position in
+the different county and township agricultural societies for over
+forty-five years; was one of the first directors of the Canada Landed
+Credit Company, and served on its board for several years; was at one
+time President of the late Beaver Fire Insurance Company; and at the
+time of his death, President of the Society of York Pioneers. For many
+years he commanded the Militia in the West Riding of the City of
+Toronto; and was alderman for St. Stephen's Ward in the City Council,
+which he represented at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in
+1876.
+
+As a private citizen, Richard L. Denison was generally popular,
+notwithstanding his strongly-marked Toryism, and outspoken bluntness of
+speech. His portly presence, handsome features, flowing beard, and
+kindly smile were universally welcomed; and when he drove along in his
+sleigh on a bright winter's day, strangers stopped to look at him with
+admiration, and to ask who that fine-looking man was? Nor did his
+personal qualities belie his noble exterior. For many years his house at
+Dover Court was one continuous scene of open-handed hospitality. He was
+generous to a fault; a warm friend, and an ever reliable comrade.
+
+He died March 10th, 1878, at the age of sixty-four years, leaving his
+widow and eight sons and one daughter. Few deaths have left so wide a
+gap as his, in our social circles.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Colonel George T. Denison, of Rusholme, second son of Alderman George T.
+Denison, sen., was born 17th of July, 1816, at Bellevue, Toronto. He was
+educated at Upper Canada College, and became a barrister in 1840.
+
+He was a volunteer in Col. Fitzgibbon's rifle company, prior to the
+Rebellion of 1837, and attended every drill until it was disbanded. On
+the Rebellion breaking out, he served for a while as one of the guard
+protecting the Commercial Bank; and was in the force that marched out to
+Gallows Hill and dispersed Mackenzie's followers. A few days after, he
+went as lieutenant in a company of militia, forming part of the column
+commanded by Col. Sir A. MacNab, to the village of Scotland, in the
+County of Brant, and from thence to Navy Island, where he served
+throughout the whole siege. He was one of the three officers who carried
+the information to Sir Allan, which led to the cutting out and
+destruction of the steamer _Caroline_.
+
+In November, 1838, he was appointed lieutenant in his father's troop of
+cavalry, now the Governor-General's Body Guard; and then just placed
+under the command of his brother, the late Col. Richard L. Denison. He
+served for six months in active service that winter, and put in a course
+of drill for some weeks with the King's Dragoon Guards, at Niagara.
+
+He was alderman for St. Patrick's ward for some years. In 1849, when
+Lord Elgin, in Toronto, opened the session of Parliament, Col. G. T.
+Denison escorted His Excellency to and from the Parliament House.
+
+The following account of this affair is copied from the "Historical
+Record of the Governor-General's Body Guard," by Capt. F. C. Denison:--
+
+    "In Montreal, during the riots that followed the passage of the
+    Rebellion Losses bill, the troops of cavalry that had been on
+    regular service for over ten years, forgot their discipline,
+    forgot their duty to their Queen's representative, forgot their
+    _esprit de corps_, and sat on their horses and laughed while the
+    mob were engaged in pelting Lord Elgin with eggs. This Toronto
+    troop acted differently, and established a name then for
+    obedience to orders, that should be looked back to with pride by
+    every man who ever serves in its ranks. Unquestionably there was
+    a great deal politically to tempt them from their duty, and to
+    lead them to remain inactive if nothing worse. But their sense
+    of duty to their Queen, through her representative, was so
+    strong, that they turned out, taking the Governor-General safely
+    to and from the Parliament Buildings, much against the will of a
+    noisy, turbulent crowd. This was an excellent proof of what
+    _esprit de corps_ will do, and of the good state the troop must
+    have been in. His Excellency was so pleased with the loyalty,
+    discipline and general conduct of the escort on this occasion,
+    that he sent orders to the officer commanding, to dismount his
+    men, and bring them into the drawing room. By His Excellency's
+    request, Captain Denison presented each man individually to him,
+    and he shook hands with them all, thanking them personally for
+    their services. They were then invited to sit down to a handsome
+    lunch with His Excellency's staff."
+
+In 1855, when the volunteer force was created, Col. Denison took a
+squadron of cavalry into the new force, and afterwards organized the
+Toronto Field Battery, and in 1860, the Queen's Own Rifles; and was
+appointed commandant of the 5th and 10th Military Districts, which
+position he held until his death. He was recommended, with Colonel
+Sewell and Colonel Dyde, for the order of St. Michael and St. George;
+but before the order was granted he had died, and Col. Dyde, C.M.G.,
+alone of the three, lived to enjoy the honour. Col. Denison was the
+senior officer in Ontario at the time of his death, and may be said to
+have been the father of the volunteer force of this district.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  ALDERMAN DIXON.
+
+Few persons engaged in business took a more prominent part in the early
+history of Toronto, and in the political events of the time, than the
+subject of this sketch. For several years he was engaged in trade in the
+City of Dublin, being the proprietor of the most extensive business of
+the kind, in saddlery and hardware, having the contracts for the supply
+of the cavalry in the Dublin garrison, and also the Viceregal
+establishment. At that time he took a very active part in the political
+warfare of the day, when Daniel O'Connell was in the zenith of his
+power. He and Mr. S. P. Bull--father of the late Senator Harcourt P.
+Bull--were active agents in organizing the "Brunswick Lodges," which
+played no inconsiderable part in the politics of that exciting period.
+The despondency that fell upon Irish Protestant loyalists when the
+Emancipation Bill became law, induced many to emigrate to America, and
+among them Mr. Dixon. Though actively employed in the management of his
+business both in Dublin and Toronto, yet he had found time to lay in a
+solid foundation of standard literature, and even of theological lore,
+which qualified him to take a position in intellectual society of a high
+order. He also possessed great readiness of speech, a genial,
+good-natured countenance and manner, and a fund of drollery and comic
+wit, which, added to a strong Irish accent he at times assumed, made him
+a special favourite in the City Council, as well as at public dinners,
+and on social festive occasions. I had the privilege of an intimate
+acquaintance with him from 1838 until his death, and can speak with
+confidence of his feelings and principles.
+
+Though so thoroughly Irish, his ancestors came originally from
+Lanarkshire in Scotland, in the reign of James I., and held a grant of
+land in the north of Ireland. He felt proud of one of his ancestors, who
+raised a troop of volunteer cavalry, lost an arm at the Battle of the
+Boyne, and was rewarded by a captain's commission given under King
+William's own hand a few days after. His own father served in the "Black
+Horse," a volunteer regiment of much note in the Irish rebellion.
+
+When Mr. Dixon came to York, his intention was to settle at Mount
+Vernon, in the State of Ohio, where he had been informed there was an
+Episcopal College, and a settlement of Episcopalians on the College
+territory. In order to satisfy himself of the truth of these statements,
+he travelled thither alone, leaving his family in the then town of York.
+Disappointed in the result of his visit, he returned here, and had
+almost made up his mind to go back to Dublin, but abandoned the
+intention in consequence of the urgent arguments of the Hon. John Henry
+Dunn, Receiver-General,[12] who persuaded him to remain. His first step
+was to secure a lease of the lot of land on King Street, where the
+Messrs. W. A. Murray & Co's. warehouses now stand. He built there two
+frame shops, which were considered marvels of architecture at that day,
+and continued to occupy one of them until Wellington Buildings, between
+Church and Toronto Streets, were erected by himself and other
+enterprising tradesmen. Merchants of all ranks lived over their shops in
+those times, and very handsome residences these buildings made.
+
+In 1834, Mr. Dixon was elected alderman for St. Lawrence Ward, which
+position he continued to hold against all assailants, up to the end of
+1850. He was also a justice of the peace, and did good service in that
+capacity. In the City Council no man was more useful and industrious in
+all good works, and none exercised greater influence over its
+deliberations.
+
+When the troubles of 1837 began, Alderman Dixon threw all his energies
+into the cause of loyalty, and took so active a part in support of Sir
+F. B. Head's policy, that his advice was on most occasions sought by the
+Lieutenant-Governor, and frequently acted upon. Many communications on
+the burning questions of the day passed between them. This continued
+throughout the rule of Sir George Arthur, and until the arrival of the
+Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, who cared little for the opinions of
+other men, however well qualified to advise and inform. Mr. Dixon was
+too independent and too incorruptible a patriot for that accomplished
+politician.
+
+Few men in Toronto have done more for the beautifying of our city. The
+Adelaide Buildings on King Street were long the handsomest, as they were
+the best built, of their class. His house, at the corner of Jarvis and
+Gerrard Streets, set an example for our finest private residences. The
+St. Lawrence Hall, which is considered by visitors a great ornament to
+the city, was erected from plans suggested by him. And among religious
+edifices, Trinity Church and St. James's Cathedral are indebted to him,
+the former mainly and the latter in part, for their complete adaptation
+in style and convenience, to the services of the Church to which he
+belonged and which he highly venerated. To Trinity Church, especially,
+which was finished and opened for divine service on February 14th, 1844,
+he gave himself up with the most unflagging zeal and watchfulness,
+examining the plans in the minutest details, supervising the work as it
+progressed, almost counting the bricks and measuring the stonework, with
+the eye of a father watching his infant's first footsteps. In fact, he
+was popularly styled "the father and founder of Trinity Church," a
+designation which was justly recognised by Bishop Strachan in his
+dedication sermon.[13]
+
+As a friend, I had something to say respecting most of his building
+plans, and fully sympathized with the objects he had in view; one of the
+fruits of my appreciation was the following poem, which, although of
+little merit in itself, is perhaps worth preserving as a record of
+honourable deeds and well employed talents:
+
+
+  THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH.
+
+  Wake, harp of Zion, silent long,
+    Nor voiceless and unheard be thou
+  While meetest theme of sacred song
+    Awaits thy chorded numbers now!
+
+  Too seldom, 'mid the sounds of strife
+    That rudely ring unwelcome here,
+  Thy music soothes this fever'd life
+    With breathings from a holier sphere.
+
+  The warrior, wading deep in crime,
+    Desertless, lives in poets' lays;
+  The statesman wants not stirring rhyme
+    To cheer the chequer'd part he plays:
+
+  And Zion's harp, to whom alone,
+    Soft-echoing, higher themes belong,
+  Oh lend thy sweet aerial tone--
+    'Tis meek-eyed Virtue claims the song.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Beyond the limits of the town
+    A summer's ramble, may be seen
+  A scattered suburb, newly grown,
+    Rude huts, and ruder fields between.
+
+  Life's luxuries abound not there,
+    Labour and hardship share the spot;
+  Hope wrestles hard with frowning care,
+    And lesser wants are heeded not.
+
+  Religion was neglected too--
+    'Twas far to town--the poor are proud--
+  They could not boast a garb as new,
+    And shunn'd to join the well-drest crowd.
+
+  No country church adorned the scene,
+    In modest beauty smiling fair,
+  Of mien so peaceful and serene,
+    The poor man feels his home is there.
+
+  Oh England! with thy village chimes,
+    Thy church-wed hamlets, scattered wide,
+  The emigrant to other climes
+    Remembers thee with grateful pride;
+
+  And owns that once at home again,
+    With fonder love his heart would bless
+  Each humble, lowly, haloed fane
+    That sanctifies thy loveliness.
+
+  But here, alas! the heart was wrung
+    To see so wan, so drear a waste--
+  Life's thorns and briars rankly sprung,
+    And peace and love, its flowers, displaced.
+
+  And weary seasons pass'd away,
+    As time's fast ebbing tide roll'd by,
+  To thousands rose no Sabbath-day,
+    They lived--to suffer--sin--and die!
+
+  Then men of Christian spirit came,
+    They saw the mournful scene with grief;
+  To such it e'er hath been the same
+    To know distress and give relief.
+
+  They told the tale, nor vainly told--
+    They won assistance far and wide;
+  His heart were dull indeed and cold
+    Who such petitioner denied.
+
+  They chose a slightly rising hill
+    That bordered closely on the road,
+  And workmen brought of care and skill,
+    And wains with many a cumbrous load.
+
+  With holy prayer and chanted hymn
+    The task was sped upon its way;
+  And hearts beat high and eyes were dim
+    To see so glad a sight that day.
+
+  And slowly as the work ascends,
+    In just proportions strong and fair,
+  How watchfully its early friends
+    With zealous ardour linger near.
+
+  'Tis finished now--a Gothic pile,
+    --Brave handiwork of faith and love--
+  In England's ancient hallowed style,
+    That pointeth aye, like hope, above:
+
+  With stately tower and turret high,
+    And quaint-arch'd door, and buttress'd wall,
+  And window stain'd of various dye,
+    And antique moulding over all.
+
+  And hark! the Sabbath-going bell!
+    A solemn tale it peals abroad--
+  To all around its echoes tell
+    "This building is the house of God!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Say, Churchman! doth no still, small voice
+    Within you whisper--"while 'tis day
+  Go bid the desert place rejoice!"
+    Your Saviour's high behest obey:
+
+  "Say not your pow'rs are scant and weak,
+    What hath been done, may be anew;
+  He addeth strength to all who seek
+    To serve Him with affection true."
+
+Alderman Dixon was not only a thorough-going and free-handed Churchman,
+but was very popular with the ministers and pastors of other religious
+denominations. The heads of the Methodist Church, and even the higher
+Roman Catholic clergy of Toronto, frequently sought his advice and
+assistance to smooth down asperities and reconcile feuds. He was every
+man's friend, and had no enemies of whom I ever heard. He wrote with
+facility, and argued with skill and readiness. His memory was
+exceedingly retentive; he knew and could repeat page after page from
+Dryden's "Virgil" and Pope's "Homer." Any allusion to them would draw
+from him forty or fifty lines in connection with its subject. Mickle's
+"Lusiad" he knew equally well, and was fond of reciting its most
+beautiful descriptions of scenery and places in South Africa and India.
+He was an enthusiastic book-collector, and left a valuable library,
+containing many very rare and curious books he had brought from Dublin,
+and to which he made several additions. It is now in the possession of
+his eldest son, Archdeacon Dixon, of Guelph.
+
+With the Orange body, Alderman Dixon exercised considerable influence,
+which he always exerted in favour of a Christian regard for the rights
+and feelings of those who differed from them. On one occasion, and only
+one, I remember his suffering some indignity at their hands. He and
+others had exerted themselves to induce the Orangemen to waive their
+annual procession, and had succeeded so far as the city lodges were
+concerned. But the country lodges would not forego their cherished
+rights, and on "the 12th"--I forget the year--entered Toronto from the
+west in imposing numbers. At the request of the other magistrates,
+Alderman Dixon and, I think, the late Mayor Gurnett, met the procession
+opposite Osgoode Hall, and remonstrated with the leaders for
+disregarding the wishes of the City Council and the example of their
+city brethren. His eloquence, however, was of no avail, and he and his
+colleague were rudely thrust aside.
+
+As president of the St. Patrick's Society, he did much to preserve
+unanimity in that body, which then embraced Irishmen of all creeds among
+its members. His speeches at its annual dinners were greatly admired for
+their ability and liberality; and it was a favourite theme of his, that
+the three nationalities--Irish, Scotch and English--together formed an
+invincible combination; while if unhappily separated, they might have to
+succumb to inferior races. He concluded his argument on one occasion by
+quoting Scott's striking lines on the Battle of Waterloo:--
+
+  "Yes--Agincourt may be forgot,
+  And Cressy be an unknown spot,
+    And Blenheim's name be new:
+  But still in glory and in song,
+  For many an age remembered long,
+  Shall live the tow'rs of Hougoumont
+    And Field of Waterloo."
+
+The peals of applause and rapture with which these patriotic sentiments
+were received, will not easily be forgotten by his hearers.
+
+Nor were his literary acquirements limited to such subjects. The works
+of Jeremy Taylor and the other great divines of the Stewart period, he
+was very familiar with, and esteemed highly. He was also a great
+authority in Irish history and antiquities; enquiries often came to him
+from persons in the United States and elsewhere, respecting disputed and
+doubtful questions, which he was generally competent to solve.
+
+Mr. Dixon was long an active member of the committee of the Church
+Society; and the first delegate of St. James's Church to the first
+Diocesan Synod. In these and all other good works, he was untiring and
+disinterested. Whenever there was any gathering of clergy he received as
+many as possible in his house, treating them with warm-hearted
+hospitality.
+
+Mr. Dixon died in the year 1855, leaving a large family of sons and
+daughters, of whom several have acquired distinction in various ways.
+His eldest son, Alexander, graduated in King's College, at the time when
+Adam Crooks, Judge Boyd, Christopher Robinson, Judge Kingsmill, D.
+McMichael, the Rev. W. Stennett, and others well known in public life,
+were connected with that university. Mr. Dixon was university prizeman
+in History and Belles-Lettres in his third year; took the prize for
+English oration; and wrote the prize poem two years in succession. He is
+now Rector of Guelph, and Archdeacon of the northern half of the Niagara
+diocese. He was also one of the contributors to the "Maple Leaf."
+
+William, second son of Alderman Dixon, was Dominion Emigration Agent in
+London, England, where he died in 1873. Concerning him, the Hon. J. H.
+Pope, Minister of Agriculture, stated that he "was the most correct and
+conscientious administrator he had ever met." He said further in
+Parliament:--
+
+    "The Premier had gone so far as to state that the present Agent
+    General was a person of wonderful ability, and had done more
+    than his predecessors to promote emigration to Canada. He (Mr.
+    Pope) regretted more than he could express the death of Mr.
+    Dixon, the late agent. He was held in high esteem both here and
+    in the old country, and was a gentleman who never identified
+    himself with any political party, but fairly and honestly
+    represented Canada."
+
+Another son, Major Fred. E. Dixon, is well known in connection with the
+Queen's Own, of Toronto.
+
+[Footnote 12: Father of the lamented Lieut.-Col. A. R. Dunn, who won the
+Victoria Cross at Balaklava, and died as is believed, by the accidental
+discharge of a gun in Abyssinia.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The Building Committee of Trinity Church comprised,
+besides Alderman Dixon, Messrs. William Gooderham, Enoch Turner, and
+Joseph Shuter, all since deceased.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  MORE TORIES OF REBELLION TIMES.
+
+  EDWARD G. O'BRIEN.
+
+
+My first introduction to this gentleman was on the day after I landed at
+Barrie, in 1833. He was then living at his log cottage at Shanty Bay, an
+indentation of the shore near the mouth of Kempenfeldt Bay, at the
+south-west angle of Lake Simcoe. I was struck with the comparative
+elegance pervading so primitive an establishment. Its owner was
+evidently a thorough gentleman, his wife an accomplished lady, and their
+children well taught and courteous. The surrounding scenery was
+picturesque and delightful. The broad expanse of the bay opening out to
+Lake Simcoe--the graceful sweep of the natural foliage sloping down from
+high banks to the water's edge--are impressed vividly upon my memory,
+even at this long interval of fifty years. It seemed to me a perfect gem
+of civilization, set in the wildest of natural surroundings.
+
+I was a commissioner of the Court of Requests at Barrie, along with Col.
+O'Brien, in 1834, and in that capacity had constant opportunities of
+meeting and appreciating him. He had seen service as midshipman in the
+Royal Navy, as well as in the Army; was an expert yachtsman of course;
+and had ample opportunities of indulging his predilection for the water,
+on the fine bay fronting his house. At that time it was no unusual thing
+in winter, to see wolves chasing deer over the thick ice of the bay. On
+one occasion, being laid up with illness, the Captain was holding a
+magistrate's court in his dining-room overlooking the bay. In front of
+the house was a wide lawn, and beyond it a sunken fence, not visible
+from the house. The case under consideration was probably some riotous
+quarrel among the inhabitants of a coloured settlement near at hand, who
+were constantly at loggerheads with each other or with their white
+neighbours. In the midst of the proceedings, the Captain happened to
+catch sight of a noble stag dashing across the ice, pursued by several
+wolves. He beckoned a relative who assisted on the farm, and whispered
+to him to get out the dogs. A few seconds afterwards the baying of the
+hounds was heard. The unruly suitors caught the sound, rushed to the
+window and door, then out to the grounds, plaintiff, defendant,
+constables and all, helter skelter, until they reached the sunken fence,
+deeply buried in snow, over which they tumbled _en masse_, amid a chorus
+of mingled shouts and objurgations that baffles description. Whether the
+hearing of the case was resumed that day or not, I cannot say, but it
+seems doubtful.
+
+His naval and military experience naturally showed itself in Colonel
+O'Brien's general bearing; he possessed the polished manners and
+high-bred courtesy of some old Spanish hidalgo, together with a
+sufficient share of corresponding hauteur when displeased. The first
+whispers of the Rebellion of 1837, brought him to the front. He called
+together his loyal neighbours, who responded so promptly that not a
+single able-bodied man was left in the locality; only women and
+children, and two or three male invalids, staying behind. With his men
+he marched for Toronto; but, when at Bond Head, received orders from the
+Lieutenant-Governor to remain there, and take charge of the district,
+which had been the head quarters of disaffection. When quiet was
+restored, he returned to Shanty Bay, and resided there for several
+years; occupying the position of chairman of the Quarter Sessions for
+the Simcoe District. After the erection of the County of Simcoe into a
+municipality, he removed with his family to Toronto, where he entered
+into business as a land agent; was instrumental in forming a company to
+construct a railroad to Lake Huron _via_ Sarnia, of which he acted as
+secretary; afterwards organized and became manager of the Provincial
+Insurance Company, which position he occupied until 1857.
+
+In the year 1840, died Mr. Thos. Dalton, proprietor and editor of the
+_Toronto Patriot_ newspaper; the paper was continued by his widow until
+1848, when Col. O'Brien, through my agency, became proprietor of that
+journal, which I engaged to manage for him. The editor was his brother,
+Dr. Lucius O'Brien, a highly educated and talented, but not popular,
+writer. Col. O'Brien's motive in purchasing the paper was solely
+patriotic, and he was anxiously desirous that its columns should be
+closed to everything that was not strictly--even
+quixotically--chivalrous. His sensitiveness on this score finally led to
+a difference of opinion between the brothers, which ended in Dr.
+O'Brien's retirement.
+
+At that time, as a matter of course, the _Patriot_ and the _Globe_ were
+politically antagonistic. The _Colonist_, then conducted by Hugh Scobie,
+represented the Scottish Conservatives in politics, and the Kirk of
+Scotland in religious matters. Therefore, it often happened, that the
+_Patriot_ and _Colonist_ were allied together against the _Globe_; while
+at other times, the _Patriot_ stood alone in its support of the English
+Church, and had to meet the assaults of the other two journals--a
+triangular duel, in fact. A spiteful correspondent of the _Colonist_ had
+raked up some old Edinburgh slanders affecting the personal reputation
+of Mr. Peter Brown, father of George Brown, and joint publisher of the
+_Globe_. Those slanders were quoted editorially in the _Patriot_,
+without my knowledge until I saw them in print on the morning of
+publication. I at once expressed my entire disapproval of their
+insertion; and Col. O'Brien took the matter so much to heart, that,
+without letting me know his decision, he removed his brother from the
+editorship, and placed it temporarily in my hands. My first editorial
+act was, by Col. O'Brien's desire, to disavow the offensive allusions,
+and to apologize personally to Mr. Peter Brown therefor. This led to a
+friendly feeling between the latter gentleman and myself, which
+continued during his lifetime.
+
+On the 25th of May, 1849, the great fire occurred in Toronto, which
+consumed the _Patriot_ office, as well as the cathedral and many other
+buildings. Soon afterwards Col. O'Brien sold his interest in the
+_Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan.
+
+I have been favoured with the perusal of some "jottings" in the
+Colonel's own hand-writing, from which I make an extract, describing his
+first experience of the service at the age of fourteen, as midshipman on
+board H. M. 36 gun Frigate _Doris_, commanded by his father's cousin,
+Capt. (afterwards Admiral) Robert O'Brien:
+
+    "The _Doris_ joined the outward-bound fleet at Portsmouth, where
+    about 1700 vessels of all sizes, from first-class Indiamen of
+    1400 tons to small fruit-carriers from the Mediterranean of 60
+    tons, were assembled for convoy. At first, and along the more
+    dangerous parts of the Channel from privateers, the convoy
+    continued to be a large one, including especially many of the
+    smaller men-of-war, but among them were two or three
+    line-of-battle ships and heavy frigates under orders for the
+    Mediterranean. The whole formed a magnificent sight, not often
+    seen. After a while the outsiders dropped off, some to one
+    place, some to another, one large section being the North
+    American trade, another the Mediterranean, until the _Doris_ was
+    left commodore of the main body, being the West Indiamen, South
+    American traders, and Cape and East Indiamen, and a stately
+    fleet it was. With the _Doris_ was the _Salsette_, a frigate of
+    the same class, and some smaller craft. This convoy, though
+    small apparently for such a fleet in that very active war, was
+    materially strengthened by the heavy armaments of the regular
+    traders in the East India Company's service in the China trade,
+    of which there were twelve, I think. These ships were arranged
+    in two lines, between which all the others were directed to keep
+    their course; the _Doris_ leading in the centre between the two
+    lines of Chinamen, and the _Salsette_ bringing up the rear,
+    while two or three sloops of war hovered about. My berth on
+    board the _Doris_ was that of signal midshipman, which was
+    simply to keep an eye on every individual craft in the
+    fleet. . . . . On reaching the Canaries, the fleet came to an anchor
+    in Santa Cruz roads, at the island of Teneriffe, for the purpose of
+    filling up water, and enabling the Indiamen to lay in a stock of
+    wine for the round voyage. The _Doris_ and larger ships outside,
+    and the _Salsette_ and smaller ones closer in, and an uncommon
+    tight pack it was. The proper landing place, and only place
+    indeed where casks could be conveniently shipped, was the mole,
+    a long, narrow, high pier or wharf, with a flight of stairs or
+    steps to the water. This was generally one jam from end to end,
+    as well on the pier as on the water, crowded above by casks of
+    all sizes, wine and water, every spare foot or interstice
+    between the casks crammed with idle, lazy, loafing Portuguese,
+    the scum and chief part of the population of the town, assembled
+    there certainly not to work, but amazingly active and busy in
+    looking on, swearing, directing and scolding--terribly in the
+    seamen's way, and by them very unceremoniously kicked and flung
+    aside and into the next man's path. Sometimes there was a
+    scuffle, and then a rare scrimmage caused by a party of soldiers
+    from the mole rushing in to keep the peace. They were
+    immediately pitched into by the blue jackets, who instead of
+    rolling their casks towards their boats, tacked as they called
+    it, and sent the barrels flying among the soldiers' legs. More
+    than one cask of wine in this manner went the wrong way over the
+    pier, down among the boats below, where there was, in its own
+    way, much the same state of confusion, with a good deal more
+    danger. Ships' boats, from the jolly-boat manned by lads,
+    hurried ashore to seek stray pursers' clerks with their small
+    plunder, or stewards and servants with bundles of washed
+    clothing--to the heavy launch loaded with water casks pushing
+    out or striving to get in--each boat's crew utterly reckless,
+    and under no control, intent only on breaking their own way in
+    or out, so that it was marvellous how any escaped damage. And
+    the thing reached its climax, when at daylight on the last day,
+    the signal was made to prepare to weigh anchor. I had been
+    ashore the day before, with a strong working party and three of
+    the frigate's boats, under the command of one of the
+    lieutenants, assisting the Indiamen in getting off their wine
+    and water; and so, when sent this morning on the same duty, I
+    was somewhat up to the work. I had therefore put on my worst
+    clothes; all I wanted was to have my midshipman's jacket as
+    conspicuous as possible, having discovered in the previous day's
+    experience the value of the authority of discipline. Our work
+    this day was also increased by the sure precursor of bad
+    weather, a rising sea; and as the town is situated on an open
+    roadstead, the surf on the beach, which, though always more or
+    less an obstruction, had been hitherto passable, was now
+    insurmountable; all traffic had to be crowded over the pier,
+    including late passengers, men and women, and more than one
+    bunch of children, with all the odds and ends of
+    clothes-baskets, marketing, curiosities, &c., &c. What a scene!
+    We naval mids found ourselves suddenly raised to great
+    importance; and towards noon I became a very great man indeed.
+    The _Doris_ being outside, she was of course the first under
+    weigh, and around her were the larger Indiamen, also getting
+    under sail--the commodore constantly enforcing his signals by
+    heavy firing. But big as these ships were, and notwithstanding
+    their superior discipline, they had nearly as many laggards as
+    the smaller fry. . . . All the forenoon the weather had been
+    getting more and more threatening, and the breeze and sea rose
+    together. About 11 o'clock a.m. we all knew that we were in for
+    something in the shape of a gale, and the _Doris_ made signal
+    for her boats and the working party to return to the ship; and
+    soon after, for the _Salsette_ and the inshore ships to get
+    under weigh. Our lieutenant, however, seeing the state of things
+    ashore, directed me to remain with one of the cutters and three
+    or four spare hands; and if the frigate should be blown off
+    during the night, to get on board a particular vessel--a fast
+    sailing South Sea whaler, that had acted as tender to the
+    frigate, and whose master promised to look after us, as well as
+    any others of the _Doris's_ people who might still be on shore.
+    Thus I was left in sole command, as the _Salsette_ had also
+    recalled her boats and working parties. Although she would send
+    no help ashore, she remained still at anchor. Capt. Bowen, her
+    commander, contenting himself with sheeting home his top-sails,
+    and repeating the commodore's signal to the inshore ships. We
+    afterwards found out the secret of all this. Bowen disliked the
+    idea of playing second fiddle, and wanted to be commodore
+    himself, and this was a beautiful opportunity to divide the
+    fleet. But as matters got worse, and difficulties increased, we
+    succeeded in getting them more under control. The crowd, both of
+    casks and live stock on the wharf, and of boats beneath,
+    gradually diminished. The merchant seamen, and especially the
+    crews of the larger boats of the Indiamen, worked manfully. The
+    smaller boats were taken outside, and regular gangs formed to
+    pass all small parcels, and especially women and children
+    passengers, across the inner heavy tier to them. This, the
+    moment the seamen caught the idea, became great fun; and a
+    rousing cheer was raised when a fat, jolly steward's wife was
+    regularly parbuckled over the side of the pier, and passed,
+    decently and decorously (on her back, she dare not kick for fear
+    of showing her legs) like a bale of goods, from hand to hand, or
+    rather from arms to arms, to a light gig outside all. This being
+    successfully achieved, I turned to a party of passengers
+    standing by, and who, though anxious themselves, could not help
+    laughing, and proposed to pass them out in the same manner;
+    making the first offer to a comely nurse-maid of the party. I
+    was very near getting my ears boxed for my kindness and
+    courtesy, so I turned to the mistress instead, who however
+    contented herself by quietly enquiring whether there was no
+    other way; of course another way was soon found; a few chairs
+    were got, which were soon rigged by the seamen, by means of
+    which, first the children, and then their elders, men and women,
+    were easily passed down to the boats below, and from thence to
+    the boat waiting safely outside. In all this work I was not only
+    supported in authority by the different ships' officers and
+    mates superintending their own immediate concerns, but also by a
+    number of gentlemen, merchants and others, most of whom came
+    down to the pier to see and assist their friends among the
+    passengers safe off. By their help also I was enabled, not
+    knowing a word of their language myself, to get material help
+    from the Portuguese standing by; and also got the officer in
+    command of the guard at the mole-head, to clear the pier of all
+    useless hands, and place sentries here and there over stray
+    packages, put down while the owners sought their own proper
+    boats among the crowd. And so at length our work was fairly
+    pushed through, and though late, I managed to get my party safe
+    aboard our friend the whaler, who had kept his signal lights
+    burning for us. Long before, the _Doris_ had bore up, and under
+    bare poles had drifted with a large portion of the fleet to the
+    southward; and I saw no more of her, until some months
+    afterwards I joined her in Macao Roads."
+
+This was in the year 1814; soon afterwards the peace with America put an
+end to our midshipman's prospects of advancement in the navy, to his
+great and life-long regret. He obtained a commission in the Scots Greys,
+and exchanged into the 58th Regiment, then under orders for service in
+the West Indies, where his health failed him, and he was compelled to
+retire on half-pay. But his love for the sea soon induced him to enter
+the merchant service, in which he made many voyages to the East. This
+also, a severe illness obliged him to resign, and to abandon the sea for
+ever. He then came to Canada, to seek his fortune in the backwoods,
+where I found him in 1833.
+
+Mr. O'Brien's relations with his neighbours in the backwoods were always
+kindly, and gratifying to both parties. One evening, some friends of his
+heard voices on the water, as a boat rowed past his grounds. One man
+asked "Who lives here?" "Mr. O'Brien," was the reply. "What is he like?"
+"He's a regular old tory." "Oh then, I suppose he's very proud and
+distant?" But that he was either proud or distant, his neighbour would
+not allow, and other voices joined in describing him as the freest and
+kindest of men--still they all agreed that he was a "regular old tory."
+The colonel was the last man in the world to object to such an epithet,
+but those who used it meant probably to describe his sturdy,
+uncompromising principles, and manly independence. A more utterly
+guileless, single-hearted man never breathed. Warm and tender-hearted,
+humble-minded and forgiving, he deplored his hastiness of temper, which
+was, indeed, due to nervous irritability, the result of severe illness
+coupled with heavy mental strain when young, from the effects of which
+he never entirely recovered. He was incapable of a mean thought or
+dishonourable deed, and never fully realized that there could be others
+who were unlike him in this respect. Hence, during the long course of
+his happy and useful, but not wholly prosperous life, he met each such
+lapse from his own high standard of honour with the same indignant
+surprise and pain. His habitual reverent-mindedness led him to respect
+men of all shades of thought and feeling, while to sympathize with
+sorrow and suffering was as natural to him as the air he breathed.
+
+A neighbour who had had a sudden, sharp attack of illness, meeting one
+of the colonel's family, said very simply, "I knew you had not heard
+that I was ill, for Mr. O'Brien has not been to see me; but please tell
+him I shall not be about for some time." The man looked upon it as a
+matter of course that his old friend the colonel would have gone to see
+him if informed of his illness.
+
+And if Mr. O'Brien's friends and neighbours have kindly recollections of
+him and of his family, these latter on their part are never tired of
+recalling unvarying friendliness and countless acts of kindness from all
+their neighbours.
+
+Before leaving this subject, it may be appropriately added that Mrs.
+O'Brien (his wife) was his guardian angel--a mother in Israel--the nurse
+of the sick, the comforter of the miserable; wise, discreet, loving,
+patient, adored by children, the embodiment of unselfishness. To her
+Toronto was indebted for its first ragged school.
+
+A few years before the colonel's death, his foreman on the farm, living
+at the lodge, had five children, of whom three died there of diphtheria.
+Mrs. O'Brien brought the remainder to her own house--"The Woods,"--to
+try and save them, the parents being broken-hearted and helpless. It is
+said to have been a touching spectacle to see the old Colonel carrying
+about one poor dying child to soothe it, while Mrs. O'Brien nursed the
+other. Of these two, one died and the other recovered.
+
+The selfish are--happily--forgotten. The unselfish, never. Their memory
+lives in Shanty Bay as a sweet odour that never seems to pass away. It
+is still a frequent suggestion, "what would Mrs. O'Brien or the Colonel
+have done under the circumstances."
+
+In his declining years, failing health, and disease contracted in India,
+dimmed the cheerfulness of Mr. O'Brien's nature. But none so
+chivalrously anxious to repair an unintentional injury or a hasty word.
+
+He and his wife lie side by side in the burial ground of the church he
+was mainly instrumental in building. Over them is a simple monument in
+shape of an Irish cross--on it these words:--
+
+    "In loving remembrance of Edward George O'Brien, who died
+    September 8, 1875, age 76: and of Mary Sophia his wife, who died
+    October 14, 1876, age 78: This stone is raised by their
+    children. He, having served his country by sea and land, became
+    A.D. 1830 the founder of the settlement and mission of Shanty
+    Bay. She was a true wife and zealous in all good works. Faithful
+    servants, they rest in hope."
+
+
+  JOHN W. GAMBLE.
+
+"Squire Gamble"--the name by which this gentleman was familiarly known
+throughout the County of York--was born at the Old Fort in Toronto, in
+1799. His father, Dr. John Gamble, was stationed there as resident
+surgeon to the garrison. The family afterwards removed to Kingston,
+where the boy received his education. It was characteristic of him, that
+when about to travel to York, at the age of fifteen, to enter the store
+of the late Hon. Wm. Allan, he chose to make the journey in a canoe, in
+which he coasted along by day, and by night camped on shore. In course
+of time, he entered extensively into the business of a miller and
+country merchant, in which he continued all his life with some
+intervals.
+
+In manner and appearance Mr. Gamble was a fine specimen of a country
+magistrate of half a century ago. While the rougher sort of farming men
+looked up to him with very salutary apprehension, as a stern represser
+of vice and evil doing, they and everybody else did justice to his
+innate kindness of heart, and his generosity towards the poor and
+suffering. He was, in the best sense of the phrase, a popular man. His
+neighbours knew that in every good work, either in the way of personal
+enterprise, in the promotion of religious and educational objects, or in
+the furtherance of the general welfare, Squire Gamble was sure to be in
+the foremost place. His farm was a model to all others; his fields were
+better cleared; his fences better kept; his homestead was just
+perfection, both in point of orderly management and in an intellectual
+sense--at least, such was the opinion of his country neighbours, and
+they were not very far astray. Add to these merits, a tall manly form,
+an eagle eye, and a commanding mien, and you have a pretty fair picture
+of Squire Gamble.
+
+As a member of parliament, to which he was three times elected by
+considerable majorities, Mr. Gamble was hard-working and independent. He
+supported good measures, from whichever side of the House they might
+originate, and his vote was always safe for progressive reforms. His
+toryism was limited entirely to questions of a constitutional character,
+particularly such as involved loyalty to the throne and the Empire. And
+in this, Mr. Gamble was a fair representative of his class. And here I
+venture to assert, that more narrowness of political views, more
+rigidity of theological dogma, more absolutism in a party sense, has
+been exhibited in Canada by men of the Puritan school calling themselves
+Reformers, than by those who are styled Tories.
+
+Perhaps the most important act of Mr. Gamble's political life, was the
+part he took in the organization of the British American League in 1849.
+Into that movement he threw all his energies, and the ultimate
+realization of its views affords the best proof of the correctness of
+his judgment and foresight. About it, however, I shall have more to say
+in another chapter.
+
+Mr. Gamble, as I have said, was foremost in all public improvements. To
+his exertions are chiefly due the opening and construction of the
+Vaughan plank road, from near Weston, by St. Andrew's, to Woodbridge,
+Pine Grove, and Kleinburg; which gave an easy outlet to a large tract of
+country to the north-west of Toronto, and enabled the farmers to reach
+our market to their and our great mutual advantage.
+
+He was a man who made warm friends and active enemies, being very
+outspoken in the expression of his opinions and feelings. But even his
+strongest political foes came to him in full confidence that they were
+certain to get justice at his hands. And occasionally his friends found
+out, that no inducement of personal regard could warp his judgment in
+any matter affecting the rights of other men. In this way he made some
+bitter adversaries on his own side of politics.
+
+Among Mr. Gamble's public acts was the erection of the church at Mimico,
+and that at Pine Grove; in aid of which he was the chief promoter,
+giving freely both time and means to their completion. For years he
+acted as lay-reader at one or other of those churches, travelling some
+distance in all weathers to do so. His whole life, indeed, was spent in
+benefiting his neighbours in all possible ways.
+
+He died in December, 1873, and was buried at Woodbridge.
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+  A CHOICE OF A CHURCH.
+
+
+I have mentioned that I was educated as a Swedenborgian, or rather a
+member of the New Jerusalem Church, as the followers of Emanuel
+Swedenborg prefer to be called. As a boy, I was well read in his works,
+and was prepared to tilt with all comers in his cause. But I grew less
+confident as I became more conversant with the world and with general
+literature. At the age of fifteen I was nominated a Sunday-school
+teacher in a small Swedenborgian chapel in the Waterloo road, and
+declined to act because the school was established with the object of
+converting from the religion of their parents the children of poor Roman
+Catholic families in that neighbourhood, which I thought an insidious,
+and therefore an evil mode of disseminating religious doctrine. Of
+course, this was a sufficiently conceited proceeding on the part of so
+young a theologian. But the same feeling has grown up with me in after
+life. I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength
+in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the
+Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better
+utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect,
+the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the
+teachings of the Gospel of Christ.
+
+It will, perhaps, surprise some of my readers to hear that Swedenborg
+never contemplated the founding of a sect. He was a civil engineer, high
+in rank at the Swedish court, and was ennobled for the marvellous feat
+of transporting the Swedish fleet from sea to sea, across the kingdom
+and over a formidable chain of mountains. He was also what would now be
+called an eminent scientist, ranking with Buffon, Humboldt, Kant,
+Herschel, and others of the first men of his day in Europe, and even
+surpassing them all in the extent and variety of his philosophical
+researches. His "Animal Kingdom" and "Physical Sciences" are wonderful
+efforts of the human mind, and still maintain a high reputation as
+scientific works.
+
+At length Swedenborg conceived the idea that he enjoyed supernatural
+privileges--that he had communings with angels and archangels--that he
+was permitted to enter the spiritual world, and to record what he there
+saw and heard. Nay, even to approach our Saviour himself, in His
+character of the Triune God, or sole impersonation of the Divine
+Trinity. Unlike Mahomet and most other pretenders to inspired missions,
+Swedenborg never sought for power, honour or applause. He was to the day
+of his death a quiet gentleman of the old school, unassuming, courteous,
+and a good man in every sense of the word.
+
+I remember that one of my first objections to the writings of
+Swedenborg, was on account of his declaring the Church of France to be
+the most spiritual of all the churches on earth; which dogma immensely
+offended my youthful English pride. His first "readers" were members of
+various churches--clergymen of the Church of England, professors in
+universities, literary students, followers of Wesley, and generally
+devout men and women of all denominations. In time they began to
+assemble together for "reading meetings;" and so at length grew into a
+sect--a designation, by the way, which they still stoutly repudiate. I
+remember one clergyman, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of a church in
+Manchester, who applied to the Bishop of Lichfield for leave to read and
+teach from the works of Swedenborg, and was permitted to do so on
+account of their entirely harmless character.
+
+When still young, I noticed with astonishment, that the transcendental
+virtues which Swedenborg inculcated were very feebly evidenced in the
+lives of his followers; that they were not by any means free from pride,
+ostentation, even peculation and the ordinary trickery of trade--in
+fact, that they were no better than their fellow-Christians generally.
+When I came to Toronto, I of course mixed with all sorts of people, and
+found examples of thoroughly consistent Christian life amongst all the
+various denominations--Roman Catholics, English Churchmen, Methodists,
+Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and many others--which
+taught me the lesson, that it is not a man's formal creed that is of
+importance, so much as his personal sincerity as a follower of Christ's
+teachings and example.
+
+I was at the same time forcibly impressed with another leading
+idea--that no where in the Scriptures have we any instance of a
+divinely regulated government, in which the worship of God did not
+occupy a chief place. I thought--I still think--that the same beneficent
+principle which makes Christianity a part of the common law of England,
+and of all her colonies, including the United States, should extend to
+the religious instruction of every soul in the community, gentle or
+simple, and more especially to what are called the off-scourings of
+society.
+
+Looking around me, I saw that of all the churches within my purview, the
+Church of England most completely met my ideal--that she was the Church
+by law established in my motherland--that she allowed the utmost
+latitude to individual opinion--in fine, that she held the Bible wide
+open to all her children, and did her best to extend its knowledge to
+all mankind. Had I been a native of Scotland, upon the same reasoning I
+must have become a Presbyterian, or a Lutheran in Holland or Germany, or
+a Roman Catholic in France or Spain. But that contingency did not then
+present itself to me.
+
+So I entered the Church of England; was confirmed by Bishop Strachan, at
+St. James's Cathedral, in the year 1839, if I remember rightly, and have
+never since, for one instant, doubted the soundness of my conclusions.
+
+On this occasion, as on many others, my emotions shaped themselves in a
+poetical form. The two following pieces were written for the _Church_
+newspaper, of which I was then the printer, in partnership with the
+Messrs. Rowsell:--
+
+
+  HYMN FOR EASTER.
+
+  "CHRIST IS RISEN."[14]
+
+    "Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
+    them that slept. "For since by man came death; by man came also
+    the resurrection of the dead. "For as in Adam all die; even so
+    in Christ shall all be made alive."
+
+  Christ is risen! Jesu lives;
+    He lives His faithful ones to bless;
+  The grave to life its victim gives--
+    Our grief is changed to joyfulness.
+
+  The sleeping Saints, whom Israel slew,
+    Waking, shall list the joyful sound;
+  He--their first fruits--doth live anew,
+    Hell hath a mighty conqueror found.
+
+  Paschal offering! spotless Lamb!
+    For us was heard thy plaintive cry;
+  For us, in agony and shame,
+    Thy blood's sweet incense soar'd on high.
+
+  By erring man came woe--the grave--
+    The ground accurs'd--the blighted tree--
+  Jesus, as man, for ransom gave
+    Himself, from death to set us free.
+
+  Christ is risen! saints, rejoice!
+    Your hymns of praise enraptured pour--
+  Ye heavenly angels, lend your voice--
+    Jesus shall reign for evermore!
+                           Hallelujah! Amen.
+
+
+
+  THE SINNER'S COMPLAINT AND CONSOLATION.
+
+        Oh for a conscience free from sin!
+        Oh for a breast all pure within--
+        A soul that, seraph winged, might fly
+        'Mid heav'n's full blaze unshrinkingly,
+        And bask in rays of wisdom, bright
+        From His own throne of life and light.
+
+  Peace, pining spirit! know'st thou not that Jesus died for thee--
+  For thee alone His last sigh breathed upon th' accursed tree;
+  For thee His Omnipresence chain'd within a mortal "clod"--
+  And bore _thy_ guilt, to be as well thy Saviour as thy God:
+  Aye, suffered anguish more--far more--than thou canst e'en conceive,
+  _Thy_ sins to cleanse--_thy_ self-earnt condemnation to relieve.
+
+        And did He suffer so for me?
+        Did HE endure upon the tree
+        A living death--a mortal's woe,
+        With pangs that mortals _cannot_ know!
+        Oh triumph won most wofully!
+        My SAVIOUR died for me--for _me_!
+
+  And have I basely wish'd to make this wondrous off'ring vain;
+  Shall love so vast, be unrepaid by grateful love again?
+  Oh! true affection never chafes at obligation's chain,
+  But hugs with joy the gracious yoke whose guidance is its gain;
+  And such the Saviour's ardent love--His suff'ring patience--these
+  Most unlike human bonds, are cancell'd by their own increase.
+
+        Rejoice, my soul! though sin be thine,
+        Thy refuge seek in grace divine:
+        And mark His Word--more joy shall be
+        In heav'n for sinners such as thee
+        Repenting, than can e'er be shown
+        For scores whom guilt hath never known.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+In explanation of my having become, in 1840, printer of the _Church_
+newspaper, I must go back to the date of Lord Sydenham's residence in
+Toronto. The Loyalist party, as stated already, became grievously
+disgusted with the iron grasp which that nobleman fastened upon each and
+every person in the remotest degree under government control. Not only
+the high officers of the Crown, such as the Provincial Treasurer and
+Secretary, the Executive Councillors, the Attorney-General and the
+Sheriff, but also the editors of newspapers publishing the government
+advertisements, in Toronto and elsewhere, were dictated to, as to what
+measures they should oppose, and what support. It was "my
+government,"--"my policy"--not "the policy of my administration," before
+which they were required to bow down and blindly worship. There were,
+however, still men in Toronto independent enough to refuse to stoop to
+the dust; and they met together and taking up the _Toronto Herald_ as
+their mouth-piece, subscribed sufficient funds for the payment of a
+competent editor, in the person of George Anthony Barber, English Master
+of Upper Canada College, now chiefly remembered as the introducer and
+fosterer of the manly game of cricket in Toronto. He was an eloquent and
+polished writer, and created for the paper a wide reputation as a
+conservative journal.
+
+About the same time, Messrs. Henry and William Rowsell, well-known
+booksellers, undertook the printing of the _Church_ newspaper, which was
+transferred from Cobourg to Toronto, under the editorship of Mr. John
+Kent,--a giant in his way--and subsequently of the Rev. A. N. Bethune,
+since, and until lately, Bishop of Toronto.
+
+Being intimate friends of my own, they offered me the charge of their
+printing office, with the position of a partner, which I accepted; and
+made over my interest in the _Herald_ to Mr. Barber.
+
+[Footnote 14: Easter salutation of the Primitive Church.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+  THE CLERGY RESERVES.
+
+
+I have lately astonished some of my friends with the information, that
+William Lyon Mackenzie was originally an advocate of the Clergy
+Reserves--that is, of state endowment for religious purposes--a fact
+which makes his fatal plunge into treason the more to be regretted by
+all who coincide with him on the religious question.
+
+In Lindsey's "Memoirs" we read (vol. 1, p. 46):
+
+    "A Calvinist in religion, proclaiming his belief in the
+    Westminster Confession of Faith, and a Liberal in politics, yet
+    was Mr. Mackenzie, at that time, no advocate of the voluntary
+    principle. On the contrary, he lauded the British Government for
+    making a landed endowment for the Protestant clergy in the
+    Provinces, and was shocked at the report that, in 1812,
+    voluntaryism had robbed three millions of people of all means of
+    religious ordinances. 'In no part of the constitution of the
+    Canadas,' he said, 'is the wisdom of the British Legislature
+    more apparent than in its setting apart a portion of the
+    country, while yet it remained a wilderness, for the support of
+    religion.'
+
+    . . . "Mr. Mackenzie compared the setting apart of one-seventh
+    of the public lands for religious purposes to a like dedication
+    in the time of the [early] Christians. But he objected that the
+    revenues were monopolized by one church, to which only a
+    fraction of the population belonged. The envy of the
+    non-recipient denominations made the favoured Church of England
+    unpopular.
+
+    . . . "Where the majority of the present generation of Canadians
+    will differ from him, is that on the Clergy Reserves question,
+    he did not hold the voluntary view. At that time, he would have
+    denounced secularization as a monstrous piece of sacrilege."[15]
+
+How much to be regretted is it, that instead of splitting up the Clergy
+Reserves into fragments, the friends of religious education had not
+joined their forces for the purpose of endowing all Christian
+denominations with the like means of usefulness. We are now extending
+across the entire continent what I cannot help regarding as the
+anti-Christian practice of non-religious popular education. We are, I
+believe, but smoothing the road to crime in the majority of cases.
+Cannot something be done now, while yet the lands of the vast North-West
+are at our disposal? Will no courageous legislator raise his voice to
+advocate the dedication of a few hundred thousand acres to unselfish
+purposes? Have we wiled away the Indian prairies from their aboriginal
+owners, to make them little better than a race-course for speculating
+gamblers?
+
+Even if the jealousy of rival politicians--each bent upon
+self-aggrandizement at the expense of more honourable aims--should
+defeat all efforts in behalf of religious endowments through the
+Dominion Legislature, cannot the religious associations amongst us
+bestir themselves in time? Cannot the necessity for actual settlement be
+waived in favour of donations by individuals for Church uses? Cannot the
+powerful Pacific Railway Syndicate themselves take up this great duty,
+of setting apart certain sections in favour of a Christian ministry?
+
+The signs of the times are dark--dark and fearful. In Europe, by the
+confession of many eminent public writers, heathenism is overspreading
+the land. In the United States, a community of the sexes is shamelessly
+advocated; and there is no single safeguard of public or private order
+and morality, that is not openly scoffed at and set at nought.
+
+Oh, men! men! preachers, and dogmatists, and hierarchs of all sects! see
+ye not that your strifes and your jealousies are making ye as traitors
+in the camp, in the face of the common enemy? See ye not the multitudes
+approaching, armed with the fell weapons of secular knowledge--cynicism,
+self-esteem, greed, envy, ambition, ill-regulated passions unrestrained!
+
+One symptom of a nobler spirit has shown itself in England, in the
+understanding lately suggested, or arrived at, that the missions of any
+one Protestant Church in the South Sea Islands shall be entirely
+undisturbed by rival missionaries. This is right; and if right in
+Polynesia, why not in Great Britain? why not in Canada? Why cultivate
+half-a-dozen contentious creeds in every new township or village? Would
+it not be more amiable, more humble, more self-denying, more
+exemplary--in one word, more like our Master and Saviour--if each
+Christian teacher were required to respect the ministrations of his next
+neighbour, even though there might be some faint shade of variety in
+their theological opinions; provided always that those ministrations
+were accredited by some duly constituted branch of the Christian Church.
+
+I profess that I can see no reason why an endowment should not be
+provided in every county in the North-West, to be awarded to the first
+congregation, no matter how many or how few, that could secure the
+services of a missionary duly licensed, be he Methodist, Presbyterian,
+Baptist, Congregationalist, Disciple--aye, even Anglican or Roman
+Catholic. No sane man pretends, I think, that eternal salvation is
+limited to any one, or excluded from any one, of those different
+churches. That great essential, then, being admitted, what right have I,
+or have you, dear reader, to demand more? What right have you or I to
+withhold the Word of God from the orphan or the outcast, for no better
+reason than such as depends upon the construction of particular words or
+texts of Holy Scripture, apart from its general tenor and teaching?
+
+Again I say, it is much to be deplored that Canada had not more
+Reformers, and Conservatives too, as liberal-minded as was W. L.
+Mackenzie, in regard to the maintenance and proper use of the Clergy
+Reserves.
+
+It was not the Imperial Government, it was not Lord John Russell, or Sir
+Robert Peel, or Lords Durham and Sydenham, that were answerable for the
+dispersion of the Clergy Reserves. What they did was to leave the
+question in the hands of the Canadian Legislature. It was the old, old
+story of the false mother in the "Judgment of Solomon," who preferred
+that the infant should be cut in twain rather than not wrested from a
+rival claimant.
+
+I would fain hope that the future may yet see a reversal of that
+disgrace to our Canadian Statute Book. Not by restoring the lands to the
+Church of England, or the Churches of England and Scotland--they do not
+now need them--but by endowing all Christian churches for the religious
+teaching of the poorer classes in the vast North-West.
+
+[Footnote 15: Mackenzie afterwards drew up petitions which prayed,
+amongst other things, for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, but
+I judge that on that question these petitions rather represented the
+opinions of other men than his own, and were specially aimed at the
+Church of England monopoly.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+  A POLITICAL SEED-TIME.
+
+
+From the arrival of Sir Charles Bagot in January, 1842, up to the
+departure of Lord Metcalfe in November, 1844, was a period chiefly
+remarkable for the struggles of political leaders for power, without any
+very essential difference of principle between them. Lord Cathcart
+succeeded as Administrator, but took no decided stand on any Canadian
+question. And it was not until the Earl of Elgin arrived, in January,
+1847, that anything like violent party spirit began again to agitate the
+Provinces.
+
+In that interval, some events happened of a minor class, which should
+not be forgotten. It was, I think, somewhere about the month of May,
+1843, that there walked into my office on Nelson Street, a young man of
+twenty-five years, tall, broad-shouldered, somewhat lantern jawed, and
+emphatically Scottish, who introduced himself to me as the travelling
+agent of the New York _British Chronicle_, published by his father. This
+was George Brown, afterwards publisher and editor of the _Globe_
+newspaper. He was a very pleasant-mannered, courteous, gentlemanly
+young fellow, and impressed me favourably. His father, he said, found
+the political atmosphere of New York hostile to everything British, and
+that it was as much as a man's life was worth to give expression to any
+British predilections whatsoever (which I knew to be true). They had,
+therefore, thought of transferring their publication to Toronto, and
+intended to continue it as a thoroughly Conservative journal. I, of
+course, welcomed him as a co-worker in the same cause with ourselves;
+little expecting how his ideas of conservatism were to develop
+themselves in subsequent years. The publication of the _Banner_--a
+religious journal, edited by Mr. Peter Brown--commenced on the 18th of
+August following, and was succeeded by the _Globe_, on March 5th, 1844.
+
+About the same time, there entered upon public life, another noted
+Canadian politician, Mr. John A. Macdonald, then member for Kingston,
+with whom I first became personally acquainted at the meeting of the
+British American League in 1849, of which I shall have occasion to speak
+more fully in its order; as it seems to have escaped the notice of
+Canadian historians, although an event of the first magnitude in our
+annals.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+  "THE MAPLE LEAF."
+
+
+It was in the year 1841, that the Rev. Dr. John McCaul entered upon his
+duties as Vice-President of King's College, after having been Principal
+of Upper Canada College since 1838. With this gentleman are closely
+connected some of the most pleasurable memories of my own life. He was a
+zealous promoter of public amusement, musical as well as literary. Some
+of the best concerts ever witnessed in Toronto were those got up by him
+in honour of the Convocation of the University of Toronto, October 23rd,
+1845, and at the several public concerts of the Philharmonic Society, of
+which he was president, in that and following years. As a member of the
+managing committee, I had the honour of conducting one of the Society's
+public concerts, which happened, being a mixed concert of sacred and
+secular music, to be the most popular and profitable of the series,
+greatly to my delight.
+
+In 1846, 1847 and 1848, Dr. McCaul edited the _Maple Leaf, or Canadian
+Annual_, a handsomely illustrated and bound quarto volume, which has not
+since been surpassed, if equalled, in combined beauty and literary
+merit, by any work that has issued from the Canadian press.
+
+Each volume appeared about Christmas day, and was eagerly looked for.
+The principal contributors were Dr. McCaul himself; the Hon. Chief
+Justice Hagarty; the late Rev. R. J. McGeorge, then of Streetsville,
+since of Scotland; the late Hon. Justice Wilson, of London; Miss Page,
+of Cobourg; the Rev. Dr. Scadding; the late Rev. J. G. D. McKenzie; the
+late Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron; the Rev. Alex. (now Archdeacon) Dixon, of
+Guelph; the Rev. Walter Stennett, of Cobourg; C. W. Cooper, Esq., now of
+Chicago; the late T. C. Breckenridge; the late Judge Cooper, of
+Goderich; and myself; besides a few whose names are unknown to me.
+
+My own connection, as a writer, with the "Maple Leaf" originated thus:
+While printing the first volume, I had ventured to send to Dr. McCaul,
+through the post-office, anonymously, a copy of my poem entitled
+"Emmeline," as a contribution to the work. It did not appear, and I felt
+much discouraged in consequence. Some months afterwards, I happened to
+mention to him my unsuccessful effusion, when he at once said that he
+had preserved it for the second volume. This was the first ray of
+encouragement I had ever received as a poet, and it was very welcome to
+me. He also handed me two or three of the plates intended for the second
+volume, to try what I could make of them, and most kindly gave me
+carte-blanche to take up any subject I pleased. The consequence of which
+was, that I set to work with a new spirit, and supplied four pieces for
+the second and five for the third volume. Two of my prose pieces--"A
+Chapter on Chopping," and "A First Day in the Bush"--with two of the
+poems, I have incorporated in these "Reminiscences:" my other accepted
+poems, I give below. After this explanation, the reader will not be
+surprised at the affection with which I regard the "Maple Leaf." I know
+that the generous encouragement which Dr. McCaul invariably extended to
+even the humblest rising talent, in his position as head of our Toronto
+University, has been the means of encouraging many a youthful student to
+exertions, which have ultimately placed him in the front rank among our
+public men. Had I met with Dr. McCaul thirty years earlier, he would
+certainly have made of me a poet by profession.
+
+
+  EMMELINE.
+
+  The faynt-rayed moone shynes dimme and hoar,
+  The nor-wynde moans with fittful roare,
+  The snow-drift hydes the cottage doore,
+        Emmeline,
+  I wander lonelie on the moore,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thou sittest in the castle halle
+  In festal tyre and silken palle,
+  'Mid smylinge friendes--all hartes thy thrall,
+        Emmeline,
+  My best-beloved--my lyfe--my all,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  I marke the brightness quit thy cheeke,
+  I knowe the thought thou dost not speake,
+  Some absent one thy glances seeke,
+        Emmeline,
+  I pace alone the mooreland bleake,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thy willfull brother--woe the daye!
+  Why did hee cross mee on my waye?
+  I slewe him that I would not slaye,
+        Emmeline,
+  I cannot washe his bloode awaye,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Oh, why, when stricken from his hande,
+  Far flew his weapon o'er the strande--
+  Why did hee rush upon my brande?
+        Emmeline,
+  Colde lyes his corse upon the sande,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thou'rt too, too younge--too younge and fayre
+  To learne the wearie rede of care--
+  My bitter griefe thou must not share,
+        Emmeline,
+  I could not bidde thee wedde despaire,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Through noisome fenne and tangled brake,
+  Where crawle the lizard and the snake,
+  My mournfull hopelesse way I take,
+        Emmeline,
+  To live a hermitt for thy sake,
+        Emmeline.
+
+  Thy buoyaunt spirit may forgett
+  The happie houre when last we mett--
+  My sunne of hope is darklie sett,
+        Emmeline,
+  I'll bee thy guardian-angell yett,
+        Emmeline.
+
+
+  CHANGES OF AN HOUR
+
+  ON LAKE ERIE.
+
+  Smiles the sunbeam on the waters--
+    On the waters glad and free;
+  Sparkling, flashing, laughing, dancing--
+    Emblem fair of childhood's glee.
+
+  Ruddy on the waves reflected,
+    Deeper glows the sinking ray;
+  Like the smile of young affection
+    Flushed by fancy's changeful play.
+
+  Mist-enwreathing, chill and gloomy,
+    Steals grey twilight o'er the lake--
+  Ah! to days of autumn sadness
+    Soon our dreaming souls awake.
+
+  Night has fallen, dark and silent,
+    Starry myriads gem the sky;
+  Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,
+    Brighter visions beam on high.
+
+  A CANADIAN ECLOGUE.
+
+  An aged man sat lonesomely within a rustic porch,
+  His eyes in troubled thoughtfulness were bent upon the ground:
+  Why pondered he so mournfully, that venerable man?
+  He dreamt sad dreams of early days, the happy days of youth.
+
+  He dreamt fond dreams of early days, the lightsome days of youth;
+  He saw his distant island home--the cot his fathers built--
+  The bright green fields their hands had tilled--the once accustomed haunts;
+  And, dearer still, the old churchyard where now their ashes lie.
+
+  Long, weary years had slowly passed--long years of thrift and toil--
+  The hair, once glossy brown, was white, the hands were rough and hard;
+  Deep-delving care had plainly marked its furrows on the brow;
+  The form, once tall and lithe and strong, now bent and stiff and weak.
+
+  His many kind and duteous sons, his daughters, meek and good,
+  Like scattered leaves from autumn gales, were reft the parent tree;
+  Tho' lands, and flocks, and rustic wealth, an ample store he owned,
+  They seemed but transitory gains--a coil of earthly care.
+
+  Old neighbours, from that childhood's home, have paused before his door;
+  Oh, gladly hath he welcomed them, and warmly doth he greet;
+  They bring him--token of old love--a little cage of birds,
+  The songsters of his native vale, companions of his youth.
+
+  Those warbled notes, too well they tell of other, happier hours,
+  Of joyous, childish innocence, of boyhood's gleeful sports,
+  A mother's tender watchfulness, a father's gentle sway--
+  The silent tear rolls stealthily adown his furrowed cheek.
+
+  Sweet choristers of England's fields, how fondly are ye prized!
+  Your melody, like mystic strains upon the dying ear,
+  Awakes a chord that, all unheard, long slumbered in the breast,
+  That vibrates but to one loved sound--the sacred name of "Home."
+
+  ZAYDA.
+
+  "Come lay thy head upon my breast,
+  And I will kiss thee into rest."
+                             _--Byron._
+
+  Wherefore art thou sad, my brother? why that shade upon thy brow,
+  Like yon clouds each other chasing o'er the summer landscape now?
+  What hath moved thy gentle spirit from its wonted calm the while?
+  Shall not Zayda share thy sorrow, as she loves to share thy smile?
+
+  Tell me, hath our cousin Hassan passed thee on a fleeter steed?
+  Hath thy practised arm betrayed thee when thou threwst the light jereed?
+  Hath some rival, too ungently, taunted thee with scoffing pride?
+  Tell me what hath grieved thee, Selim--ah, I will not be denied.
+
+  Some dark eye, I much mistrust me, hath too brightly answered thine;
+  Some sweet voice hath, all too sweetly, whispered in the Bezestein.
+  Nay, doth sadder, deeper feeling dim the gladness of thine eye?
+  Tell me, dearest, tell me truly, why thou breath'st that mournful sigh?
+
+  Oh, if thou upon poor Zayda cast one look of cold regard,
+  Whither shall she turn for comfort in a world unkind and hard?
+  Since our tender mother, dying, gave me trustfully to thee,
+  Selim, brother, thou hast always been far more than worlds to me.
+
+  Take this rose--upon my bosom I have worn it all the day;
+  Like thy sister's true affection, never can its scent decay:
+  As the pure wave, murm'ring fondly, lingers round some lonely isle,
+  Life-long shall my love enchain thee, Selim, asking but a smile.
+
+  THE TWO FOSCARI.[16]
+
+  Ho! gentlemen of Venice!
+    Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!
+  Pile high your blazing beacon-fire,
+    The night is wild and dark,
+  Behoves us all be wary,
+    Behoves us have a care
+  No traitor spy of Austria
+    Our watch is prowling near.
+
+  Time was, would princely Venice
+    No foreign tyrant brook;
+  Time was, before her stately wrath
+    The proudest Kaiser shook;
+  When o'er the Adriatic
+    The Winged Lion hurled
+  Destruction on his enemies--
+    Defiance to the world.
+
+  'Twas when the Turkish crescent
+    Contended with the cross,
+  And many a Christian kingdom rued
+    Discomfiture and loss;
+  We taught the turban'd Paynim--
+    We taught his boastful fleet,
+  Venetian freemen scorned alike
+    Submission or retreat.
+
+  Alas, for fair Venezia,
+    When wealth and pomp and pride
+  --The pride of her patrician lords--
+    Her freedom thrust aside:
+  When o'er the trembling commons
+    The haughty nobles rode,
+  And red with patriotic blood
+    The Adrian waters flowed.
+
+  'Twas in the year of mercy
+    Just fourteen fifty two
+  --When Francis Foscari was Doge,
+    A valiant prince and true--
+  He won for the Republic
+    Ravenna--Brescia bright--
+  And Crema--aye, and Bergamo
+    Submitted to his might:
+
+  Young Giacopo, his darling,
+    --His last and fairest child--
+  A gallant soldier in the wars,
+    In peace serene and mild--
+  Woo'd gentle Mariana,
+    Old Contarini's pride,
+  And glad was Venice on that day
+    He claimed her for his bride.
+
+  The Bucentaur showed bravely
+    In silks and cloth of gold,
+  And thousands of swift gondolas
+    Were gay with young and old;
+  Where spann'd the Canalazo
+    A boat-bridge wide and strong,
+  Amid three hundred cavaliers
+    The bridegroom rode along.
+
+  Three days were joust and tourney,
+    Three days the Plaza bore
+  Such gallant shock of knight and steed
+    Was never dealt before,
+  And thrice ten thousand voices
+    With warm and honest zeal,
+  Loud shouted for the Foscari
+    Who loved the Commonweal.
+
+  For this the Secret Council--
+    The dark and subtle Ten--
+  Pray God and good San Marco
+    None like may rule again!
+  Because the people honoured
+    Pursued with bitter hate,
+  And foully charged young Giacopo
+    With treason to the state.
+
+  The good old prince, his father--
+    Was ever grief like his!--
+  They forced, as judge, to gaze upon
+    His own child's agonies!
+  No outward mark of sorrow
+    Disturb'd his awful mien--
+  No bursting sigh escaped to tell
+    The anguish'd heart within.
+
+  Twice tortured and twice banish'd,
+    The hapless victim sighed
+  To see his old ancestral home,
+    His children and his bride:
+  Life seem'd a weary burthen
+    Too heavy to be borne,
+  From all might cheer his waning hours
+    A hopeless exile torn.
+
+  In vain--no fond entreaty
+    Could pierce the ear of hate--
+  He knew the Senate pitiless,
+    Yet rashly sought his fate;
+  A letter to the Sforza
+    Invoking Milan's aid,
+  He wrote, and placed where spies might see--
+    'Twas seen, and was betrayed.
+
+  Again the rack--the torture--
+    Oh! cruelty accurst!--
+  The wretched victim meekly bore--
+    They could but wreak their worst;
+  So he but lay in Venice,
+    Contented, if they gave
+  What little space his bones might fill--
+    The measure of a grave.
+
+  The white-haired sire, heart-broken,
+    Survived his happier son,
+  To learn a Senate's gratitude
+    For faithful service done;
+  What never Doge of Venice
+    Before had lived to tell,
+  He heard for a successor peal
+    San Marco's solemn bell.
+
+  When, years before, his honours
+    Twice would he fain lay down,
+  They bound him by his princely oath
+    To wear for life the crown;
+  But now, his brow o'ershadow'd
+    By fourscore winters' snows,
+  Their eager malice would not wait
+    A spent life's mournful close.
+
+  He doff'd his ducal ensigns
+    In proud obedient haste,
+  And through the sculptured corridors
+    With staff-propt footsteps paced;
+  Till on the giant's staircase,
+    Which first in princely pride
+  He mounted as Venezia's Doge,
+    The old man paused--and died.
+
+  Thus govern'd the Patricians
+    When Venice owned their sway,
+  And thus Venetian liberties
+    Became a helpless prey:
+  They sold us to the Teuton,
+    They sold us to the Gaul--
+  Thank God and good San Marco,
+    We've triumph'd over all!
+
+  Ho! gentlemen of Venice!
+    Ho! soldiers of St. Mark!
+  You've driven from your palaces
+    The Austrian, cold and dark!
+  But better for Venezia
+    The stranger ruled again,
+  Than the old patrician tyranny,
+    The Senate and the Ten!
+
+[Footnote 16: This and the preceding poem were written as illustrations
+of two beautiful plates which appeared in the Maple Leaf. One, Zayda
+presenting a rose to her supposed brother, Selim; the other, the Doge
+Foscari passing sentence of exile upon his son. The incidents in the
+Venetian story are all historical facts.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+  ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY.
+
+
+My new partner, Mr. William Rowsell, and Mr. Geo. A. Barber, are
+entitled to be called the founders of the St. George's Society of
+Toronto. Mr. Barber was appointed secretary at its first meeting in
+1835, and was very efficient in that capacity. But it was the
+enthusiastic spirit and the galvanic energy of William Rowsell that
+raised the society to the high position it has ever since maintained in
+Toronto. Other members, especially George P. Ridout, William Wakefield,
+W. B. Phipps, Jos. D. Ridout, W. B. Jarvis, Rev. H. Scadding, and many
+more, gave their hearty co-operation then and afterwards. In those early
+days, the ministrations of the three national societies of St. George,
+St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, were as angels' visits to thousands of poor
+emigrants, who landed here in the midst of the horrors of fever and
+want. Those poor fellows, who, like my companions on board the _Asia_,
+were sent out by some parochial authority, and found themselves, with
+their wives and half a dozen young children, left without a shilling to
+buy their first meal, must have been driven to desperation and crime but
+for the help extended to them by the three societies.
+
+The earliest authorized report of the Society's proceedings which I can
+find, is that for the year 1843-4, and I think I cannot do better than
+give the list of the officers and members entire:
+
+
+  ST. GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF TORONTO.
+
+  _Officers for 1844._
+
+    Patron--His Excellency the Right Hon. Sir Charles T. Metcalfe,
+    Bart., K. G. B., Governor-General of British North America, &c.
+
+    President--William Wakefield. Vice-Presidents--W. B. Jarvis, G.
+    P. Ridout, W. Atkinson. Chaplain--The Rev. Henry Scadding, M. A.
+    Physician--Robt. Hornby, M. D. Treasurer--Henry Rowsell.
+    Managing Committee--G. Walton, T. Clarke, J. D. Ridout, F.
+    Lewis, J. Moore, J. G. Beard, W. H. Boulton. Secretary--W.
+    Rowsell. Standard Bearers--G. D. Wells, A. Wasnidge, F. W.
+    Coate, T. Moore.
+
+  _List of Members, March, 1844._
+
+    E. H. Ades, E. S. Alport, Thos. Armstrong, W. Atkinson.
+
+    Thos. Baines, G. W. Baker, Jr.; G. A. Barber, F. W. Barron,
+    Robert Barwick, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, Edwin Bell, Matthew
+    Betley, J. C. Bettridge, G. Bilton, T. W. Birchall, W. H.
+    Boulton, Josh. Bound, W. Bright, Jas. Brown, Jno. Brown, Thos.
+    Brunskill, E. C. Bull, Jas. Burgess, Mark Burgess, Thos.
+    Burgess.
+
+    F. C. Capreol, W. Cayley, Thos. Champion, E. C. Chapman, Jas.
+    Christie, Edw. Clarke, Jno. Clarke, Thos. Clarke, Thos.
+    Clarkson, D. Cleal, F. W. Coate, Edw. Cooper, C. N. B. Cozens.
+
+    Jno. Davis, Nath. Davis, G. T. Denison, Sen., Robt. B. Denison,
+    Hon. W. H. Draper.
+
+    Jno. Eastwood, Jno. Elgie, Thos. Elgie, Jno. Ellis, Christopher
+    Elliott, J. P. Esten, Jas. Eykelbosch.
+
+    C. T. Gardner, Jno. Garfield, W. Gooderham, G. Gurnett.
+
+    Chas. Hannath, W. Harnett, Josh. Hill, Rich. Hockridge, Joseph
+    Hodgson, Dr. R. Hornby, G. C. Horwood, J. G. Howard.
+
+    AE. Irving, Jr.
+
+    Hon. R. S. Jameson, W. B. Jarvis, H. B. Jessopp.
+
+    Alfred Laing, Jno. Lee, F. Lewis, Henry Lutwych, C. Lynes, S. G.
+    Lynn.
+
+    Hon. J. S. Macaulay, Rich. Machell, J. F. Maddock, Jno. Mead,
+    And. Mercer, Jas. Mirfield, Sam. Mitchell, Jno. Moore, Thos.
+    Moore, Jas. Moore, Jas. Morris, W. Morrison, J. G. Mountain, W.
+    Mudford.
+
+    J. R. Nash.
+
+    Thos. Pearson, Jno. E. Pell, W. B. Phipps, Sam. Phillips, Hiram
+    Piper, Jno. Popplewell, Jno. Powell.
+
+    M. Raines, J. D. Ridout, G. P. Ridout, Sam. G. Ridout, Ewd.
+    Robson, H. Rowsell, W. Rowsell, F. Rudyerd.
+
+    Chas. Sabine, J. H. Savigny, Hugh Savigny, Geo. Sawdon, Rev. H.
+    Scadding, Jas. Severs, Rich. Sewell, Hon. Henry Sherwood, Jno.
+    Sleigh, I. A. Smith, L. W. Smith, Thos. Smith (Newgate Street),
+    Thos. Smith, (Market Square), J. G. Spragge, Jos. Spragge, W.
+    Steers, J. Stone.
+
+    Leonard Thompson, S. Thompson, Rich. Tinning, Enoch Turner.
+
+    Wm. Wakefield, Jas. Wallis, Geo. Walton, W. Walton, Alf.
+    Wasnidge, Hon. Col. Wells, G. D. Wells, Thos. Wheeler, F.
+    Widder, H. B. Williams, J. Williams, W. Wynn.
+
+    Thos. Young.
+
+The list of Englishmen thus reproduced, may well raise emotions of love
+and regret in us their survivors. Most of them have died full of years,
+and rich in the respect of their compatriots of all nations. There are
+still living some twenty out of the above one hundred and thirty-seven
+members.
+
+The following song, written and set to music by me for the occasion, was
+sung by the late Mr. J. D. Humphreys, the well-known Toronto tenor, at
+the annual dinner held on the 24th April, 1845:--
+
+  THE ROSE OF ENGLAND.
+
+  The Rose, the Rose of England,
+    The gallant and the free!
+  Of all our flow'rs the fairest,
+    The Rose, the Rose for me!
+  Our good old English fashion
+    What other flow'r can show?
+  Its smiles of beauty greet its friends,
+    Its thorns defy the foe!
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose of England,
+                         The gallant and the free!
+                       Of all our flow'rs the fairest,
+                         The Rose, the Rose for me!
+
+  Though proudly for the Thistle
+    Each Scottish bosom swell,
+  The Thistle hath no charms for me
+    Like the Rose I love so well.
+  And Erin's native Shamrock,
+    In lonely wilds that grows,
+  Its modest leaflet would not strive
+    To vie with England's Rose.
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc.
+
+  Yet Scotia's Thistle bravely
+    Withstands the rudest blast,
+  And Erin's cherished Shamrock
+    Keeps verdant to the last;
+  And long as British feeling
+    In British bosoms glows,
+  Right joyfully we'll honour them,
+    As they will England's Rose.
+        _Chorus_--The Rose, the Rose, etc.
+
+Before closing my reminiscences of the St. George's Society, it may not
+be out of place to give some account of its legitimate congener, the
+North America St. George's Union. Englishmen in the United States, like
+those of Canada, have formed themselves into societies for the relief of
+their suffering brethren from the Fatherland, in all their principal
+cities. The necessity of frequent correspondence respecting cases of
+destitution, naturally led the officers of those societies to feel an
+interest in each other's welfare and system of relief, which at length
+gave rise to a desire for formal meeting and consultation, and that
+finally to the establishment of an organized association.
+
+In 1876, the fourth annual convention of the St. George's Union was for
+the first time held in Canada, at the City of Hamilton; in 1878 at
+Guelph; in 1880 at Ottawa; and in August, 1883, at Toronto--the
+intervening meetings taking place at Philadelphia, Bridgeport and
+Washington, U. S., respectively.
+
+To give an idea of what has been done, and of the spirit which actuates
+this great representative body of Englishmen, I avail myself of the
+opening speech of the President, our fellow-citizen and much esteemed
+friend, J. Herbert Mason, Esq., which was delivered at the City Hall
+here, on the 29th of August last. After welcoming the delegates from
+other cities, he went on to say:--
+
+    "Met together to promote objects purely beneficent, for which,
+    in the interests of humanity, we claim the support of all good
+    citizens, of whatever flag or origin, we may here give
+    expression to our sentiments and opinions without reserve, and
+    with confidence that they will be received with respect, even by
+    those who may not be able to share in the glorious memories, and
+    vastly more glorious anticipations, with which we, as Englishmen
+    and the descendants of Englishmen, are animated.
+
+    "And in the term Englishmen, I wish to be understood as
+    including all loyal Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. There
+    need be no division among men of British origin in regard to the
+    objects we are banded together to promote.
+
+    "The city of Toronto is in some respects peculiarly suitable as
+    a place for holding a convention of representative men of
+    English blood. Its Indian name, Toronto, signifies a place of
+    meeting. Ninety years ago its site was selected as that of the
+    future capital of Upper Canada, by General Simcoe, a Devonshire
+    man, distinguished both as a soldier and a statesman, who, in
+    the following year, founded the city.
+
+    "At that time the shore of our beautiful bay, and nearly the
+    entire country from the Detroit river to Montreal, was a dense
+    forest, the home of the wolf, the beaver and the bear. In
+    earlier years the surrounding country had been inhabited by
+    powerful Indian tribes; but after a prolonged contest, carried
+    on with the persistence and ferocity which distinguished them,
+    the dreaded Iroquois from the southern shores of Lake Ontario
+    had exterminated or driven away the Hurons, their less warlike
+    kinsmen, and at the time I speak of, the only human beings that
+    were found here was a single family of the Mississaga Indians.
+    The story of the contest which ended in the supremacy of the
+    Iroquois Confederacy, taken from the records of the Jesuit
+    fathers, who shared in the destruction of their Huron converts,
+    so graphically described by Parkman, the New England historian,
+    furnishes one of the most interesting and romantic chapters of
+    American history. In the names and general appearance of its
+    streets, the style of its habitations, in its social life, and
+    the characteristics of its people (if the opinions of tourists
+    and visitors may be accepted), Toronto recals to Englishmen
+    vivid impressions of home in a greater degree than any other
+    American city.
+
+    "The opening up of the Canadian North-West, and the increased
+    tendency of English emigration towards this Continent, instead
+    of, as formerly, towards those great English communities in the
+    Southern hemisphere, proportionately increases the
+    responsibility thrown upon their kindred living here, to see
+    that all reasonable and necessary counsel and assistance are
+    afforded to them on their arrival. One of the most suitable
+    agencies for effecting this object is the formation of St.
+    George's Societies in every city and town where Englishmen
+    exist. To the friendless immigrant, suddenly placed in a new and
+    unknown world, not understanding the conditions of success, and,
+    in many cases, suffering in health from change of climate, the
+    familiar tones, the kindly hand, and the brotherly sympathy of a
+    fellow-countryman, are most welcome. It supplies to the stranger
+    help of the right kind when most needed, and is one of those
+    acts of divine charity which covers a multitude of sins. One of
+    the chief objects of the St. George's Union is to increase the
+    number and usefulness, and enlarge the membership of such
+    societies, and if, under its fostering influence and encouraging
+    example, Englishmen generally, and their descendants, are
+    aroused to a more faithful discharge of their duty in this
+    respect, the Union is surely well worth maintaining. In this
+    connection, and for the information and example of younger
+    societies, permit me to point out some features of the work of
+    the St. George's Society of this city. It was organized in 1835,
+    when the population of the city was only 8,000. In the nearly
+    fifty years of its existence, it has had enrolled among its
+    chief officers, men of distinguished position and high moral
+    excellence. It is a notable circumstance, that at the time of
+    the meeting of this Union in Toronto, the Lieutenant-Governor of
+    Ontario, whose official residence is here, as well as the Mayor,
+    the Police Magistrate, the Treasurer, the Commissioners, the
+    Acting Engineer, and the Chairman of the Free Library Board of
+    Toronto, are all members of the St. George's Society, and two of
+    them past-presidents of it. It has a membership of about six
+    hundred, an annual income of about $2,400, and invested funds to
+    the amount of nearly $9,000. The office of the Society is open
+    daily, where cases requiring immediate advice or assistance are
+    promptly attended to by its indefatigable Secretary, Mr. J. E.
+    Pell. The Committee for General Relief meets weekly. Every case
+    is investigated and treated on its merits. Efforts are made to
+    secure employment for those who are able to work, and all
+    tendencies towards pauperism, or the formation of a pauper
+    class, are severely discouraged. One feature in the work of this
+    society I invite special attention to, which is its annual
+    distribution of 'Christmas Cheer' to the English poor. Last
+    Christmas Eve there were given away 7,500 pounds of excellent
+    beef; 4,400 pounds of bread; 175 pounds of tea, and 650 pounds
+    of sugar. Each member of the society had, therefore, the
+    satisfaction of knowing when he sat down to his Yule-tide table,
+    loaded with the good things of this life, and surrounded by the
+    happy faces of those he loved best, that every one of his needy
+    fellow-countrymen was, on that day, bountifully supplied with
+    the necessaries of life."
+
+From the Annual Report of the Committee I gather a few items:
+
+    "Reports from nineteen societies (affiliated to the Union) show
+    the following results:--
+
+  Membership (excluding honorary members)             3,247
+  Receipts during the year                          $19,618
+  Expended for charity during the year (excluding
+  private donations)                                 12,003
+  Value of investments, furniture and fixtures       96,568
+
+    "The Society of St. George, of London, England, has intimate
+    relations with the Union. The General Committee embraces such
+    eminent names as those of the Duke of Manchester, Lord Alfred
+    Churchill, Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen; Messrs. Beresford-Hope and
+    Puleston, of the House of Commons; Blanchard Jerrold and Hyde
+    Clarke, while death has removed from the Committee Messrs. W.
+    Hepworth Dixon and Walter Besant. St. George's Day has been
+    publicly celebrated ever since the institution of the Society in
+    1879. A new history of the titular saint, by the Rev. Dr.
+    Barons, has been promoted by the Society, and by its efforts
+    appropriate mortuary honours were paid to Colonel Chester, the
+    Anglo-American antiquarian, who died while prosecuting in
+    England his researches concerning the genealogy of the Pilgrim
+    Fathers. Through the industry and zeal of the chairman of the
+    Executive Committee there has been much revival of interest, at
+    home and abroad, respecting England's patron saint and the
+    ancient celebrations of his legendary natal day."
+
+After the official business of the convention had been disposed of, the
+American and Canadian visitors were hospitably entertained, on Wednesday
+the 30th, at "Ermeleigh," the private residence of the President, on
+Jarvis street; on Thursday afternoon at Government House, as guests of
+the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Robinson; and in the evening at the
+Queen's Hotel, where a handsome entertainment was provided.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+  A GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
+
+
+The 7th of April, 1849, will be fresh in the memory of many old
+Torontonians. It was an unusually fine spring day, and a large number of
+farmers' teams thronged the old market, then the only place within the
+city where meat was allowed to be sold. The hotel stables were crowded,
+and among them those of Graham's tavern on King and George Streets. At
+two o'clock in the afternoon, an alarm of fire was heard, occasioned by
+the heedlessness of some teamster smoking his after-dinner pipe. It was
+only a wooden stable, and but little notice was taken at first. The
+three or four hand-engines which constituted the effective strength of
+the fire brigade of that day, were brought into play one by one; but the
+stable, and Post's stable adjoining, were soon in full blaze. A powerful
+east wind carried the flames in rear of a range of brick stores
+extending on the north side of King Street from George to Nelson (now
+Jarvis) Street, and they attacked a small building on the latter street,
+next adjoining my own printing office, which was in the third story of a
+large brick building on the corner of King and Nelson Streets,
+afterwards well-known as Foy & Austin's corner. The _Patriot_ newspaper
+was printed there, and the compositors and press-men not only of that
+office, but of nearly all the newspaper offices in the city, were busily
+occupied in removing the type and presses downstairs. Suddenly the
+flames burst through our north windows with frightful strength, and we
+shouted to the men to escape, some by the side windows, some by the
+staircase. As we supposed, all got safely away; but unhappily it proved
+otherwise. Mr. Richard Watson was well known and respected as Queen's
+Printer since the rebellion times. He was at the head of the profession,
+universally liked, and always foremost on occasions of danger and
+necessity. He had persisted in spite of all remonstrance in carrying
+cases of type down the long, three-story staircase, and was forgotten
+for a while. Being speedily missed, however, cries were frantically
+raised for ladders to the south windows; and our brave friend, Col.
+O'Brien, was the first to climb to the third story, dash in the
+window-sash--using his hat as a weapon--but not escaping severe cuts
+from the broken glass--and shouting to the prisoner within. But in vain.
+No person could be seen, and the smoke and flames forcing their way at
+that moment through the front windows, rendered all efforts at rescue
+futile.
+
+In the meantime, the flames had crossed Nelson Street to St. James's
+buildings on King Street; thence across King Street to the old city hall
+and the market block, and here it was thought the destruction would
+cease. But not so. One or two men noticed a burning flake, carried by
+the fierce gale, lodge itself in the belfry of St. James's Cathedral,
+two or three hundred yards to the west. The men of the fire brigade were
+all busy and well-nigh exhausted by their previous efforts, but one of
+them was found, who, armed with an axe, hastily rushed up the
+tower-stairs and essayed to cut away the burning woodwork. The fire had
+gained too much headway. Down through the tower to the loft over the
+nave, then through the flat ceiling in flakes, setting in a blaze the
+furniture and prayer-books in the pews; and up to the splendid organ not
+long before erected by May & Son, of the Adelphi Terrace, London, at an
+expense of L1200 sterling, if I recollect rightly. I was a member of the
+choir, and with other members stood looking on in an agony of suspense,
+hoping against hope that our beloved instrument might yet be saved; but
+what the flames had spared, the intense heat effected. While we were
+gazing at the sea of fire visible through the wide front doorway, a
+dense shower of liquid silvery metal, white hot, suddenly descended from
+the organ loft. The pipes had all melted at once, and the noble organ
+was only an empty case, soon to be consumed with the whole interior of
+the building, leaving nothing but ghostly-looking charred limestone
+walls.
+
+Next morning there was a general cry to recover the remains of poor
+Watson. The brick walls of our office had fallen in, and the heat of the
+burning mass in the cellar was that of a vast furnace. But nothing
+checked the zeal of the men, all of whom knew and liked him. Still
+hissing hot, the burnt masses were gradually cleared away, and after
+long hours of labour, an incremated skeleton was found, and restored to
+his sorrowing family for interment, with funeral obsequies which were
+attended by nearly all the citizens.
+
+Shortly afterwards, Col. O'Brien's interest in the _Patriot_ newspaper
+was sold to Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, and it continued to be conducted by him
+and myself until, in 1853, we dissolved partnership by arbitration, he
+being awarded the weekly, and I the daily edition.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+  THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL.
+
+
+On the 25th of the same month of April, 1849, the Parliament Houses at
+Montreal were sacked and burnt by a disorderly mob, stirred up to riot
+by the unfortunate act of Lord Elgin, in giving the royal assent to a
+bill for compensating persons whose property had been destroyed or
+injured during the rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837-8. That the payment
+of those losses was a logical consequence of the general amnesty
+proclaimed earlier in the same year, and that men equally guilty in
+Upper Canada, such as Montgomery and others, were similarly compensated,
+is indisputable. But in Upper Canada there was no race hatred, such as
+Lord Durham, in the Report written for him by Messrs. C. Buller & E. G.
+Wakefield, describes as existing between the French and British of Lower
+Canada.[17] The rebels of Gallows Hill and the militia of Toronto were
+literally brothers and cousins; while the rival factions of Montreal
+were national enemies, with their passions aroused by long-standing
+mutual injuries and insults. Had Lord Elgin reserved the bill for
+imperial consideration, no mischief would probably have followed. What
+might have been considered magnanimous generosity if voluntarily
+accorded by the conquerors, became a stinging insult when claimed by
+conquered enemies and aliens. And so it was felt to be in Montreal and
+the Eastern Townships. But the opportunity of putting in force the new
+theory of ministerial responsibility to the Canadian commons, seems to
+have fascinated Lord Elgin's mind, and so he "threw a cast" which all
+but upset the loyalty of Lower Canada, and caused that of the Upper
+Province almost to hesitate for a brief instant.
+
+In Toronto, sympathy with the resentment of the rioters was blended with
+a deep sense of the necessity for enforcing law and order. To the
+passionate movement in Montreal for annexation to the English race south
+of the line, no corresponding sentiment gained a hold in the Upper
+Province. And in the subsequent interchange of views between Montreal
+and Toronto, which resulted in the convention of the British American
+League at Kingston in the following July, it was sternly insisted by
+western men, that no breath of disloyalty to the Empire would be for a
+moment tolerated here. By the loss of her metropolitan honours which
+resulted, Montreal paid a heavy penalty for her mad act of lawlessness.
+
+[Footnote 17: As originally introduced by the Lafontaine-Baldwin
+Ministry, the bill recognised no distinction between the claims of men
+actually in arms and innocent sufferers, nor was it until the last
+reading that a pledge not to compensate actual criminals was wrested
+from the Government.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XL.
+
+  THE BRITISH AMERICAN LEAGUE.
+
+
+The Union of all the British American colonies now forming the Dominion
+of Canada, was discussed at Quebec as long ago as the year 1815; and at
+various times afterwards it came to the surface amid the politics of the
+day. The Tories of 1837 were generally favourable to union, while many
+Reformers objected to it. Lord Durham's report recommended a general
+union of the five Provinces, as a desirable sequel to the proposed union
+of Upper and Lower Canada.
+
+But it was not until the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, that the
+question of a larger confederation began to assume importance. The
+British population of Montreal, exasperated at the action of the
+Parliament in recognising claims for compensation on the part of the
+French Canadian rebels of 1837--that is, on the part of those who had
+slain loyalists and ruined their families--were ready to adopt any
+means--reasonable or unreasonable--of escaping from the hated domination
+of an alien majority. The Rebellion Losses Bill was felt by them to
+imply a surrender of all those rights which they and theirs had fought
+hard to maintain. Hence the burning of the Parliament buildings by an
+infuriated populace. Hence the demand in Montreal for annexation to the
+United States. Hence the attack upon Lord Elgin's carriage in the same
+city, and the less serious demonstration in Toronto. But wiser men and
+cooler politicians saw in the union of all the British-American
+Provinces a more constitutional, as well as a more pacific remedy.
+
+The first public meetings of the British American League were held in
+Montreal, where the movement early assumed a formal organization;
+auxiliary branches rapidly sprang up in almost every city, town and
+village throughout Upper Canada, and the Eastern Townships of Lower
+Canada. In Toronto, meetings were held at Smith's Hotel, at the corner
+of Colborne Street and West Market Square, and were attended by large
+numbers, chiefly of the Tory party, but including several known
+Reformers. In fact, from first to last, the sympathies of the Reformers
+were with the League; and hence there was no serious attempt at a
+counter demonstration, notwithstanding that the Government and the
+_Globe_ newspaper--at the time--did their best to ridicule and contemn
+the proposed union.
+
+The principal speakers at the Toronto meetings were P. M. Vankoughnet,
+John W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, David B. Read, E. G. O'Brien, John Duggan
+and others. They were warmly supported.
+
+After some correspondence between Toronto and Montreal, it was arranged
+that a general meeting of the League, to consist of delegates from all
+the town and country branches, formally accredited, should be held at
+Kingston, in the new Town Hall, which had been placed at their disposal
+by the city authorities. Here, in a lofty, well-lighted and
+commodiously-seated hall, the British American League assembled on the
+25th day of July, 1849. The number of delegates present was one hundred
+and forty, each representing some hundreds of stout yeomen, loyal to the
+death, and in intelligence equal to any constituency in the Empire or
+the world. The number of people so represented, with their families,
+could not have been less than half a million.
+
+The first day was spent in discussion (with closed doors) of the manner
+in which the proceedings should be conducted, and in the appointment of
+a committee to prepare resolutions for submission on the morrow. On the
+26th, accordingly, the public business commenced.[18]
+
+The proceedings were conducted in accordance with parliamentary
+practice. The chairman, the Hon. George Moffatt, of Montreal, sat on a
+raised platform at the east end of the hall; at a table in front of him
+were placed the two secretaries, W. G. Mack, of Montreal, and Wm.
+Brooke, of Shipton, C. E. On either side were seated the delegates, and
+outside a rail, running transversely across the room, benches were
+provided for spectators, of whom a large number attended. A table for
+reporters stood on the south side, near the secretaries' table. I was
+present both as delegate and reporter.
+
+The business of the day was commenced with prayer, by a clergyman of
+Kingston.
+
+Mr. John W. Gamble, of Vaughan, then, as chairman of the committee
+nominated the previous day, introduced a series of resolutions, the
+first of which was as follows:--
+
+    "That it is essential to the prosperity of the country that the
+    tariff should be so proportioned and levied, as to give just and
+    adequate protection to the manufacturing and industrial classes
+    of the country, and to secure to the agricultural population a
+    home market with fair and remunerative prices for all
+    descriptions of farm produce."
+
+    Resolutions in favour of economy in public expenditure, of equal
+    justice to all classes of the people, and condemnatory of the
+    Government in connection with the Rebellion Losses Bill, were
+    proposed in turn, and unanimously adopted, after discussions
+    extending over two or three days. The principal speakers in
+    support of the resolution were J. W. Gamble, Ogle R. Gowan, P.
+    M. Vankoughnet, Thos. Wilson, of Quebec, Geo. Crawford, A. A.
+    Burnham,--Aikman, John Duggan, Col. Frazer, Geo. Benjamin, and
+    John A. Macdonald.
+
+    At length, the main object of the assemblage was reached, and
+    embodied in the form of a motion introduced by Mr. Breckenridge,
+    of Cobourg.
+
+    That delegates be appointed to consult with similar delegates
+    from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, concerning the
+    practicability of a union of all the provinces.
+
+    This resolution was adopted unanimously after a full discussion.
+    Other resolutions giving effect thereto were passed, and a
+    committee appointed to draft an address founded thereon, which
+    was issued immediately afterwards.
+
+    On the 1st November following, the League reassembled in the
+    City Hall, Toronto, to receive the report of the delegates to
+    the Maritime Provinces, which was altogether favourable. It was
+    then decided, that the proper course would be to bring the
+    subject before the several legislatures through the people's
+    representatives; and so the matter rested for the time.
+
+    In consequence of the removal of the seat of government to
+    Toronto, I was appointed secretary of the League, with Mr. C. W.
+    Cooper as assistant secretary. Meetings of the Executive
+    Committee took place from time to time. At one of these Mr. J.
+    W. Gamble submitted a resolution, pledging the League to join
+    its forces with the extreme radical party represented by Mr.
+    Peter Perry and other Reformers, who were dissatisfied with the
+    action of the Baldwin-Lafontaine-Hincks administration, and the
+    course of the _Globe_ newspaper in sustaining the same. This
+    proposition I felt it my duty to oppose, as being unwarranted by
+    the committee's powers; it was negatived by a majority of two,
+    and never afterwards revived.
+
+I subjoin Mr. Gamble's speech on Protection to Native Industry, reported
+by myself for the _Patriot_, July 27, 1849, as a valuable historical
+document, which the _Globe_ of that day refused to publish:
+
+    J. W. Gamble, Esq., in rising to support the motion said:--He
+    came to this convention to represent the views and opinions of a
+    portion of the people of the Home District, and to deliberate
+    upon important measures necessary for the good of the country,
+    and not to subserve the interests of any party whatever; to
+    consider what it was that retarded the onward progress of this
+    country in improvement, in wealth, in the arts and amenities of
+    life; why we were behind a neighbouring country in so many
+    important respects. Unless we made some great change, unless we
+    learnt speedily how to overtake that country, it followed in the
+    natural course of events that we should be inevitably merged in
+    that great republic, which he (Mr. G.) wished to avoid. The
+    political questions which would engage the attention of the
+    convention, embracing gross violations of our constitution and
+    involving momentous consequences, were yet of small importance
+    when compared with the great question of protection to native
+    industry. A perusal of the statutes enacted by the Parliament of
+    Great Britain from the time of the conquest of Canada to the
+    abolition of the corn laws, for the regulation of the commercial
+    intercourse of this colony, leads to the unavoidable conviction,
+    that the first object of the framers of those statutes was to
+    protect and advance the interests of the people of England and
+    such of them as might temporarily resort to the colony for the
+    purpose of trade; and that when their tendency was to promote
+    colonial interests, that tendency was more incidental than their
+    chief purpose. That such a course of legislation was to be
+    expected in the outset it was but reasonable to suppose, and
+    that a continuation of enactments in the same spirit should be
+    suffered by the British Canadians, with but few and feeble
+    remonstrances on their part, might be accounted for and even
+    anticipated when we remember the material of which a large
+    portion of the original population of Canada was composed. Ten
+    thousand U. E. Loyalists had emigrated from the United States
+    to Upper Canada in 1783, rather than surrender their allegiance
+    to the British throne; their enthusiastic attachment to the
+    Crown of Great Britain had made them ever prone to sacrifice
+    their own, to what had been improperly termed the _interests of
+    the empire_. He (Mr. G.) was himself a grandson of one of those
+    U. E. Loyalists, and might be said to have imbibed his British
+    feelings with his mother's milk. He remembered the time well,
+    when the utterance of a word disrespectful of the Sovereign was
+    looked upon as an insult to be resented on the spot. Remembering
+    all this, and that these same people, Canada's earliest
+    settlers, rather than live under a foreign government, though
+    the people of that government were their own countrymen, yea,
+    their very kinsmen and relatives--that they had forsaken their
+    cultivated farms, their lands and possessions, to take up their
+    abode with their families in a wilderness; remembering these
+    circumstances, it need excite no surprise that the old colonial
+    commercial system was allowed to continue without any very
+    weighty remonstrance from the colonists, until it expired in
+    Britain's free trade policy. Although that same system,
+    primarily intended for Britain's benefit, was not calculated to
+    advance the settlement, the improvement, or the wealth of
+    Canada, with equal rapidity to that of the adjoining country,
+    whose inhabitants enacted their own commercial regulations with
+    a view to their own immediate benefit and without reference to
+    that of others. The United States had legislated solely for
+    their own interests. Our commercial legislation, instead of
+    consulting exclusively our good, had been directed for the
+    benefit of England. If that same policy were continued
+    hereafter, to overtake our neighbours would be hopeless, and he
+    reiterated that the consequences would be fatal to our connexion
+    with Great Britain.
+
+    We must protect the industry of our country. The people of this
+    country surely are the first entitled to the benefits of the
+    markets of their country. He had been brought up a commercial
+    man, and until lately held to the free trade principles of
+    commercial men. From his youth, Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had
+    been almost as familiar to him as his Catechism, and was
+    regarded with almost equal deference; but practical experience
+    had of late forced upon him the conviction, that that beautiful
+    theory was not borne out by corresponding benefits; he had
+    looked at its practical results, and was constrained to
+    acknowledge, in spite of early predilections, that that theory
+    was a fallacy. He had adopted the views of the American
+    Protectionists as those most consonant with sound reason and
+    common sense. Their arguments he looked upon as unanswerable;
+    with them he believed that economists and free trade advocates
+    had overlooked three principles which to him appeared like
+    economic laws of nature, and the disregard of which alone was
+    sufficient to account for the present position of our country.
+    They say, and he believed with them, that the earth, the only
+    source of all production, requires the refuse of its products to
+    be returned to its soil, or productiveness diminishes and
+    eventually ceases. That the expense of carriage to distant
+    markets not only wastes the manure of animals on the road, but
+    that the expenses of freight and commissions, of charges to
+    carriers and exchangers, are in themselves a _waste_, avoided by
+    a home market whenever the _consumer_ is not separated from the
+    _producer_; and that those productions fitted for distant
+    markets, such as wheat and other grains, are only _yielded by
+    bushels_, while those adapted for the use of the home consumer,
+    and unsuited for distant transportation, as potatoes, turnips,
+    cabbages, are yielded by tons. These were facts well worthy the
+    attention of our agriculturists--eight-tenths of our whole
+    population--and which could not be too often or too plainly
+    placed before them. It is essential to the prosperity of every
+    agricultural country that the consumer should be placed side by
+    side with the producer, the loom and anvil side by side with
+    the plough and harrow. The truth of these principles is well
+    known in England, and practically carried out there by her
+    agriculturists every day. She possesses within herself unlimited
+    stores of lime, chalk and marl, besides animal manures, valued
+    in McQueen's Statistics in 1840 at nearly sixty millions of
+    pounds, more than the then value of the whole of her cotton
+    manufactures. Yet England employs whole fleets in conveying
+    manure, guano and animal bones to her shores; yes, has ransacked
+    the whole habitable globe for materials to enrich her fields,
+    and yet, forsooth, her economists and hosts of other writers
+    would fain persuade all nations and make the world believe, that
+    all countries are to be enriched by sending their food, their
+    raw produce, their wheat, their rye, their barley, their oats
+    and their grains to her market, to be eaten upon her ground,
+    which thus receives the benefit of the refuse of the food of
+    man, while that of animals employed in its carriage is wasted on
+    the road, and the grower's profits are reduced by freight to her
+    ship-owners and commission to her merchants. Behold the
+    inconsistency, behold the practice of England and the preaching
+    of England; behold how it is exemplified in the countries most
+    closely in connection with her: look at Portugal, "our ancient
+    ally." By the famous Methuen treaty she surrendered her
+    manufactures for a market for her wines, and thus separated the
+    _producer_ from the consumer. From that hour Portugal declined,
+    and is now--what?--the least among the nations of the earth.
+    Next, let us direct our attention to the West India Islands.
+    They do not even refine their own sugar, but import what they
+    consume of that article from England, whither they send the raw
+    material from which it is made, in order, he supposed, to enrich
+    the British ship-owner with two voyages across the Atlantic, and
+    the British refiner in England, instead of bringing him and his
+    property within their own islands. Such is their commercial
+    policy; and with free trade the West India planter has been
+    ruined, the prospects of the country are blighted, and discord
+    and discontent pervade the land. Next comes the East Indies:
+    partial free trade with England has destroyed her manufactures.
+    He (Mr. G.) could well recollect when Indian looms supplied the
+    nation with cottons; here in Canada they were the only cottons
+    used: he appealed to the chairman, who could corroborate his
+    statement, and must remember the Salampores and Baftas of India.
+    But Arkwright's invention of the spinning jenny enabled England
+    to import the raw material from India, and send back the
+    finished article better and cheaper than the native operatives
+    could furnish it. It was forced into their markets in spite of
+    their earnest protests, which only sought for the imposition on
+    British goods in India of like duties to those levied upon
+    Indian products in Britain, and which was denied them. Now, mark
+    the result. The agriculture of India is impoverished, many
+    tracts of her richest soil have relapsed into jungle, and both
+    her import and export trade are now in a most unsatisfactory
+    state--at least so says the "Economist," the best free trade
+    journal in England. India was prosperous while clothed in
+    fabrics the work of her own people. What country can compare
+    with her in the richness of her raw products? But England forced
+    her to separate the producer and consumer, and bitter
+    fruits--the inevitable results of the breach of that economic
+    law of nature which requires they should be placed side by
+    side--have been the consequence. Turn next to Nova Scotia, New
+    Brunswick and our own Canada. Are those countries in a
+    prosperous condition? (No, No!) Are we prosperous in Canada? The
+    meeting of this convention tells another story. Canada exports
+    the sweat of her sons; she sends to England her wheat, her
+    flour, her timber, and other raw produce, the product of manual
+    labour, and receives in return England's cottons, woollens and
+    hardwares, the product of labour-saving, self-acting and
+    inexpensive machinery. We separate the consumer and the
+    producer; we seek in distant markets a reward for our labour; it
+    is denied us, and this suicidal policy must exist no longer.
+    Behold its effects in our currency; not a dollar in specie can
+    we retain, unless it is circulated at a greater value than it
+    bears in the countries of our indebtedness, while our government
+    is obliged to issue shin-plasters to eke out its revenue. The
+    true policy for Canada is to consult her own interests, as the
+    people of the United States have consulted theirs, irrespective
+    of the interests of any other country. Leave others to take care
+    of themselves. Our present system has inundated us with English
+    and Foreign manufactures, and has swept away all the products of
+    our soil, all the products of our forests, all the capital
+    brought into the country by emigration, all the money expended
+    by the British Government for military purposes, and leaves us
+    poor enough. Why does not Canada prosper equally with the
+    adjacent republic? He had often asked the question. "Oh, the
+    Americans have more enterprise, more capital, and more
+    emigration than Canada," is the universal answer. It is true,
+    these are causes of prosperity in the Union, but they are
+    secondary causes only; in the first instance, they are effects,
+    the legitimate effects of her commercial code, which protects
+    the industry of her citizens, stimulates enterprise and largely
+    rewards labour. Why does the poor western emigrant leave
+    Canada?--because in the union he gets better reward for his
+    labour. * * * * This was strictly a labour question. He desired
+    not to see the wages of labour reduced until a man's unremitting
+    toil procured barely sufficient for the supply of his animal
+    wants--he desired to behold our labourers, mechanics, and
+    operatives a well fed, well clothed and well educated part of
+    the community. The country must support its labour; is it not
+    then far preferable to support it in the position of an
+    independent, intelligent body, than as a mass of paupers--you
+    may bring it down, down, down, until, as in Ireland, the man
+    will be forced to do his daily work for his daily potatoes. He
+    had forgotten Ireland, a case just in point; she exports to
+    England vast quantities of food, of raw produce--who has not
+    heard in the English markets of Irish wheat, Irish oats, Irish
+    pork, beef and butter. Ireland has but few manufactures--she has
+    separated the producer and consumer, and has reaped the
+    consequence of exporting her food, in poverty, wretchedness and
+    rags. Ireland has denied the earth the refuse of its
+    productions, and the earth has cast out her sons. Ask the
+    reason--it is the con-acre system, says one; it is the absentee
+    landlords, says another. But if the absenteeism invariably
+    produced such results, why is it not the case in Scotland?
+    Scotland, since the union, has doubled, trebled, aye, quadrupled
+    her wealth, he knew not how often. Since the union, Scotland
+    exports but little food, the food produced by the soil is there
+    consumed upon the soil, and to her absentee landlords, she pays
+    the rent of that soil in the produce of her looms and her
+    furnaces. This led him to consider the policy of those countries
+    that support the greatest number of human beings in proportion
+    to their area. First, Belgium, the battle field of Europe; that
+    country had suffered immeasurably from the effects of war, yet
+    her people were always prosperous, quiet and contented, amid the
+    convulsions of Europe, for there the consumer and producer were
+    side by side. In Normandy, China, the North of England, and
+    South of Scotland, in the Eastern States, the same system
+    prevailed. The speaker that preceded him (Mr. Gowan), had said
+    that under the present system we were led to speculate in human
+    blood, upon the chance of European wars; it was too true, it was
+    horrible to contemplate; but he would say, was it not more
+    horrible still, to speculate upon the chance of famine? Had we
+    never looked, never hoped, for a famine in Ireland, England or
+    the continent of Europe, that we might increase our store
+    thereby!!! put money in our pockets!!! to such dreadful shifts,
+    dreadful to reflect upon, had the disregard of the great
+    principle he had enunciated reduced us. The proper remedy was to
+    protect our native industry, to protect it from the surplus
+    products of the industry of other countries--surplus products
+    sold in our markets without any reference to the cost of
+    production. Manufacturers look at home consumption in the first
+    place for their profits; that market being filled, they do not
+    force off their surplus among their own people--that might
+    injure their credit, or permanently lower the value of their
+    manufactures at home. They send their surplus abroad to sell for
+    what it will bring. Another view of the question was, that in
+    the exchanging produce for foreign manufactures, one half of the
+    commodities is raised by native industry and capital, and one
+    half by foreign. One half goes to promote native industry and
+    capital, and the other half foreign industry and capital, but if
+    the exchange is made at home, it stands to common sense, that
+    all the commodities are raised by native industry and capital,
+    and the benefit of the barter if retained _at home_, to promote
+    and support them. Where the raw material produced in any country
+    is worked up in that country, the difference between the value
+    of the material and the finished article is retained in the
+    country.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+He would be met, he supposed, with a stale objection that protection is
+a tax imposed for the benefit of one class upon the rest of the
+community. Never was any assertion more fallacious. Admitting that the
+value of an article was enhanced by protection, which he (Mr. G.) did
+not admit, the rest of the community were benefited a thousand fold by
+that very protection; for instance, if a farmer paid a little more for
+his coat, was he not doubly, quadruply compensated for his wool, to say
+nothing of the market, also at his own door, for his potatoes, turnips,
+cabbages, eggs, and milk. But he denied that increase of price
+invariably followed a protective policy; that policy furnished the
+manufacturer a market at home _for quantity and quantity only_, while
+home competition, stimulated by a system securing a fair reward for
+industrial pursuits, soon brought down the manufactured article as low
+as it ought to be. He might be answered, your system will destroy our
+foreign trade altogether. The fact was the very reverse; the saving made
+by home consumption of food and raw produce on the soil where it was
+grown, to the producer, enabled that producer to purchase a greater
+quantity of articles brought from a distance, and made him a greater
+consumer of those very articles than when the value of the produce of
+his own farm was diminished by carriage to, and by charges in a distant
+market. He had now in his possession statistical tables of the United
+States, for successive periods, sufficient to convince the most
+sceptical, that during the periods their manufacturers had been most
+strongly protected, the average prices of such manufactures had been
+less, while the amount of imported goods had exceeded that of similar
+periods under low duties. Mr. Gowan had alluded to a case in which the
+very sand of the opposite shore was turned into a source of wealth by a
+glass manufactory, and also to the rocks of New Hampshire. He had also
+visited the Eastern States, and was delighted with the industry, the
+economy and intelligence of the people; but as to the country, he
+believed it would be a hard matter to induce a Canadian to take up his
+abode among its granite rocks and ice, yet those very rocks and that ice
+were by that thrifty people converted into wealth, and formed no small
+item in their resources.
+
+Such are the results, the legitimate results of a protective policy, but
+the United States have not always followed that policy. The revolution
+did not do away with their prejudices in favour of British goods; for a
+long period after, nothing would go down but British cloths, cottons,
+and hardware. Then came the war of 1812, which showed them that they
+were but nominally independent while other nations supplied their
+wants; the war forced them to manufacture for themselves. After that
+war, excepting in some coarse goods, low _ad valorem_ duties were
+imposed; the consequence was, a general prostration of the manufacturing
+interests, followed by low prices in all agricultural staples. In 1824
+recourse was again had to protection; national prosperity was soon
+visible; but why should he further detail the experiments made by that
+country? Suffice it to say, three times was the trial of free trade
+made, and three times had they to retrace their steps and return to the
+protective system, now so successfully in operation. England herself,
+with above one hundred millions of unprotected subjects, now declares
+the partially protected United States her best customer; in 1844 the
+amount of her exports to that country was eight millions, a sum equal to
+the whole of her exports to all her colonies. In 1846 the amount of
+cotton goods imported into the United States was one-fifth of their
+whole consumption, the amount of woollens likewise a fifth, and the
+amount of iron imported one-eighth of the entire quantity consumed. What
+proportion our importation of these articles in Canada bears to our
+consumption he had not been able to ascertain; but his conviction was,
+that if we adopted a similar commercial policy to that of the United
+States, the time would come when we should only import one-fifth of our
+cottons, one-fifth of our woollens, one-eighth of our iron; and when
+that time did come, and not till then, might we hope to cast our eye
+upon our republican neighbour without envying her greater prosperity.
+
+[Footnote 18: Although no notice of the annexation movement in Montreal
+was taken publicly at the meeting, it was well known that in the
+discussions with closed doors, all violence, and all tendencies towards
+disloyalty were utterly condemned and repudiated. The best possible
+testimony on this point is contained in the following extract from the
+Kingston correspondence of the _Globe_ newspaper, of July 31st, 1849,
+the perusal of which now must, I think, rather astonish the well-known
+writer himself, should he happen to cast his eye upon these pages:
+
+"The British Anglo-Saxons of Lower Canada will be most miserably
+disappointed in the League. They have held lately that they owed no
+allegiance to the crown of England, even if they did not go for
+annexation. _The League is loyal to the backbone_; many of the Lower
+Canadians are Free Traders, at least they look to Free Trade with the
+United States as the great means for promoting the prosperity of the
+Province--_the League is strong for protection as the means of reviving
+our trade_. * * * * Will the old Tory compact party, with protection and
+vested rights as its cry, ever raise its head in Upper Canada again,
+think you?"]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLI.
+
+  RESULTS OF THE B. A. LEAGUE.
+
+
+The very brief summary which I have been able to give in the preceding
+chapter, may suffice to show, as I have desired to do, that no lack of
+progressiveness, no lack of patriotism, no lack of energy on great
+public occasions, is justly chargeable against Canadian Tories. I could
+produce page after page of extracts, in proof that the objects of the
+League were jeered at and condemned by the Reform press, led by the
+_Globe_ newspaper. But in that instance stance Mr. George Brown was
+deserted by his own party. I spoke at the time with numbers of Reformers
+who entirely sympathized with us; and it was not long before we had our
+triumph, which was in the year 1864, when the Hon. George Brown and the
+Hon. John A. Macdonald clasped hands together, for the purpose of
+forming an administration expressly pledged to effect the union of the
+five Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
+and Prince Edward Island.
+
+In the importance of the object, the number and intelligence of the
+actors, and, above all, in the determined earnestness of every man
+concerned, the meetings of the British American League may well claim
+to rank with those famous gatherings of the people, which have marked
+great eras in the world's progress both in ancient and modern times. In
+spite of every effort to dwarf its importance, and even to ignore its
+existence, the British American League fulfilled its mission.
+
+By the action of the League, was Canada lifted into a front rank amongst
+progressive peoples.
+
+By the action of the League, the day was hastened, when our rivers, our
+lakes, our canals, our railroads, shall constitute the great highway
+from Europe to Eastern Asia and Australasia.
+
+By the action of the League, a forward step was taken towards that great
+future of the British race, which is destined to include in its
+heaven-directed mission, the whole world--east, west, north and south!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLII.
+
+  TORONTO CIVIC AFFAIRS.
+
+
+My first step in public life was in 1848. I had leased from the heirs of
+the late Major Hartney (who had been barrack-master of York during its
+siege and capture by the American forces under Generals Pike and
+Dearborn in 1813) his house on Wellington street, opposite the rear of
+Bishop Strachan's palace. I thus became a resident ratepayer of the ward
+of St. George, and in that capacity contested the representation of the
+ward as councilman, in opposition to the late Ezekiel F. Whittemore,
+whose American antecedents rendered him unpopular just then. As neither
+Mr. Whittemore nor myself resorted to illegitimate means of influencing
+votes, we speedily became fast friends--a friendship which lasted until
+his death. I was defeated after a close contest. Before the end of the
+year, however, Mr. Whittemore resigned his seat in the council and
+offered me his support, so that I was elected councilman in his stead,
+and held the seat as councilman, and afterwards as alderman,
+continuously until 1854, when I removed to Carlton, on the Davenport
+Road, five miles north-west of the city. The electors have since told me
+that I taught them how to vote without bribery, and certainly I never
+purchased a vote. My chief outlay arose from a custom--not bad, as I
+think--originated by the late Alderman Wakefield, of providing a hearty
+English dinner at the expense of the successful candidates, at the
+Shades Hotel, in which the candidates and voters on both sides were wont
+to participate. Need I add, that the company was jovial, and the toasts
+effusively loyal.
+
+The members of the council, when I took my seat, were: George Gurnett,
+Mayor, who had been conspicuous as an officer of the City Guard in
+1837-38; aldermen, G. Duggan, jr., Geo. P. Ridout, Geo. W. Allan, R.
+Dempsey, Thos. Bell, Jno. Bell, Q.C., Hon. H. Sherwood, Q.C., Robt.
+Beard, Jas. Beatty, Geo. T. Denison, jr., and Wm. A. Campbell; also,
+councilmen Thos. Armstrong, Jno. Ritchey, W. Davis, Geo. Coulter, Jas.
+Ashfield, R. James, jr., Edwin Bell, Samuel Platt, Jno. T. Smith, Jno.
+Carr and Robt. B. Denison. My own name made up the twenty-four that then
+constituted the council. The city officers were: Chas. Daly, clerk; A.
+T. McCord, chamberlain; Clarke Gamble, solicitor; Jno. G. Howard,
+engineer; Geo. L. Allen, chief of police; Jno. Kidd, governor of jail;
+and Robt. Beard, chief engineer of fire brigade.
+
+During the years 1850, '1, '2 and '3, I had for colleagues, in addition
+to those of the above who were re-elected: aldermen John G. Bowes, Hon.
+J. H. Cameron, Q.C., R. Kneeshaw, Wm. Wakefield, E. F. Whittemore, Jno.
+B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard, Geo. Brooke, J. M. Strachan, Jno. Hutchison,
+Wm. H. Boulton, John Carr, S. Shaw, Jas. Beaty, Samuel Platt, E. H.
+Rutherford, Angus Morrison, Ogle R. Gowan, M. P. Hayes, Wm. Gooderham
+and Hon. Wm. Cayley; and councilmen Jonathan Dunn, Jno. Bugg, Adam
+Beatty, D. C. Maclean, Edw. Wright, Jas. Price, Kivas Tully, Geo. Platt,
+Chas. E. Romain, R. C. McMullen, Jos. Lee, Alex. Macdonald, Samuel
+Rogers, F. C. Capreol, Samuel T. Green, Wm. Hall, Robert Dodds, Thos.
+McConkey and Jas. Baxter.
+
+The great majority of these men were persons of high character and
+standing, with whom it was both a privilege and a pleasure to work; and
+the affairs of the city were, generally speaking, honestly and
+disinterestedly administered. Many of my old colleagues still fill
+conspicuous positions in the public service, while others have died full
+of years and honours.
+
+My share of the civic service consisted principally in doing most of the
+hard work, in which I took a delight, and found my colleagues remarkably
+willing to cede to me. All the city buildings were re-erected or
+improved under my direct charge, as chairman of the Market Block and
+Market committees. The St. Lawrence Hall, St. Lawrence Market, City
+Hall, St. Patrick's Market, St. Andrew's Market, the Weigh-House, were
+all constructed in my time. And lastly, the original contract for the
+esplanade was negotiated by the late Ald. W. Gooderham and myself, as
+active members of the Wharves and Harbours committee. The by-laws for
+granting L25,000 to the Northern Railway, and L100,000 to the Toronto &
+Guelph Railway, were both introduced and carried through by me, as
+chairman of the Finance committee, in 1853.
+
+The old market was a curiously ugly and ill-contrived erection. Low
+brick shops surrounded three sides of the square, with cellars used for
+slaughtering sheep and calves; the centre space was paved with rubble
+stones, and was rarely free from heaps of cabbage leaves, bones and
+skins. The old City Hall formed the fourth or King Street side, open
+underneath for fruit and other stalls. The owners of imaginary vested
+rights in the old stalls raised a small rebellion when their dirty
+purlieus were invaded; and the decision of the Council, to rent the new
+stalls by public auction to avoid charges of favouritism, brought
+matters to a climax. On the Saturday evening when the new arcade and
+market were lighted with gas and opened to the public, the Market
+committee walked through from King to Front Street to observe the
+effect. The indignation of the butchers took the form of closing all
+their shutters, and as a last expression of contempt nailing thereon
+miserable shanks of mutton! Dire as this omen was meant to be, it does
+not seem to have prevented the St. Lawrence Market from being a credit
+to the city ever since.
+
+There is a historical incident connected with the old market, of a very
+tragic character. One day towards the latter end of 1837, William Lyon
+Mackenzie held there a political meeting to denounce the Family Compact.
+There was a wooden gallery round the square, the upright posts of which
+were full of sharp hooks, used by the butchers to expose their meat for
+sale, as were also the cross beams from post to post. A considerable
+number of people--from three to four hundred--were present, and the
+great agitator spoke from an auctioneer's desk placed near the western
+stalls. Many young men of Tory families, as well as Orangemen and their
+party allies, attended to hear the speeches. In the midst of the
+excitement--applauding or derisive, according to the varying feelings of
+the crowd--the iron stays of the balcony gave way and precipitated
+numbers to the ground. Two or three were caught on the meat-hooks, and
+one--young Fitzgibbon, a son of Col. Fitzgibbon who afterwards commanded
+at Gallows Hill--was killed. Others were seriously wounded, amongst whom
+was Charles Daly, then stationer, and afterwards city clerk, whose leg
+was broken in the fall. I well remember seeing him carried into his own
+shop insensible, and supposed to be fatally hurt.
+
+The routine of city business does not afford much occasion for
+entertaining details, and I shall therefore only trouble my readers with
+notices of the principal civic events to which I was a party, from 1849
+to 1853.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+  LORD ELGIN IN TORONTO.
+
+
+On the 9th day of October, 1849, Lord Elgin made his second public entry
+into Toronto. The announcement of his intention to do so, communicated
+to the mayor, Geo. Gurnett, Esq., by letter signed by his lordship's
+brother and secretary, Col. Bruce, raised a storm of excitement in the
+city, which was naturally felt in the city council. The members were
+almost to a man Tories, a large proportion of whom had served as
+volunteers in 1837-8. The more violent insisted upon holding His
+Excellency personally responsible for the payment of rebels for losses
+arising out of the rebellion in Lower Canada; while moderate men
+contended, that as representative of the Queen, the Governor-General
+should be received with respect and courtesy at least, if not with
+enthusiasm. So high did party feeling run, that inflammatory placards
+were posted about the streets, calling on all loyal men to oppose His
+Excellency's entrance, as an encourager and abettor of treason. A
+special meeting of the council was summoned in consequence, for
+September 13th, at which the Hon. Henry Sherwood, member for the city,
+moved a resolution declaring the determination of the council to repress
+all violence, whether of word or deed, which was carried by a large
+majority.
+
+The draft of an address which had been prepared by a committee of the
+citizens, and another by Ald. G. T. Denison, were considered at a
+subsequent meeting of the council held on the 17th, and strongly
+objected to--the first as too adulatory, the second as too political. As
+I had the readiest pen in the council, and was in the habit of helping
+members on both sides to draft their ideas in the form of resolutions,
+the mayor requested me to prepare an address embodying the general
+feelings of the members. I accordingly did so to the best of my ability,
+and succeeded in writing one which might express the loyalty of the
+citizens, without committing them to an approval of the conduct of the
+Hincks-Tache government in carrying through Parliament the Rebellion
+Losses Bill. The other addresses having been either defeated or
+withdrawn, I submitted mine, which was carried by a majority of
+seventeen to four. And thus was harmony restored.
+
+His Excellency arrived on the appointed day, being the 9th of October.
+The weather was beautiful, and the city was alive with excitement, not
+unmingled with apprehension. Lieut.-Col. and Ald. G. T. Denison had
+volunteered the services of the Governor-General's Body Guard, which
+were graciously accepted. A numerous cortege of officials and prominent
+citizens met and accompanied the Vice-regal party from the Yonge St.
+wharf to Ellah's Hotel, on King St. west. As they were proceeding up
+Yonge street, one or two rotten eggs were thrown at the
+Governor-General's carriage, by men who were immediately arrested.
+
+On arriving at Ellah's Hotel, His Excellency took his stand on the
+porch, where the City Address was presented, which with the reply I give
+in full:--
+
+      ADDRESS.
+
+_To His Excellency the Right Hon. James Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+Governor-General, &c., &c._
+
+    May it Please Your Excellency,
+
+    We, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of Toronto,
+    in Common Council assembled, beg leave to approach Your
+    Excellency as the representative of our Most Gracious and
+    beloved Sovereign, with renewed assurances of our attachment and
+    devotion to Her Majesty's person and government.
+
+    We will not conceal from Your Excellency, that great diversity
+    of opinion, and much consequent excitement, exists among us on
+    questions connected with the political condition of the
+    Province; but we beg to assure Your Excellency, that however
+    warmly the citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they
+    will be prepared on all occasions to demonstrate their high
+    appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+    according to the Governor-General of this Province that respect
+    and consideration which are no less due to his exalted position,
+    than to the well tried loyalty and decorum which have ever
+    distinguished the inhabitants of this peaceful and flourishing
+    community.
+
+    The City of Toronto has not escaped the commercial depression
+    which has for some time so generally prevailed. We trust,
+    however, that the crisis is now past, and that the abundant
+    harvest with which a kind Providence has blessed us, will ere
+    long restore the commerce of the country to a healthy tone.
+
+    We watch with lively interest the prospect which the completion
+    of our great water communications with the ocean, will open to
+    us; and we fervently hope that the extension of trade thus
+    opened to Her Majesty's North American Provinces will tend to
+    strengthen the union between these Provinces and the Parent
+    State.
+
+    We congratulate Your Excellency and Lady Elgin upon the birth of
+    an heir to Your Excellency's house; and we truly sympathise with
+    Her Ladyship upon her present delicate and weak state, and
+    venture to hope that her tour through Upper Canada will have the
+    effect of restoring her to the enjoyment of perfect health.
+
+      REPLY.
+
+    Gentlemen,--I receive with much satisfaction the assurance of
+    your attachment and devotion to Her Majesty's person and
+    government.
+
+    That the diversities of opinion which exist among you, on
+    questions connected with the political condition of the
+    Province, should be attended with much excitement, is greatly to
+    be regretted, and I fully appreciate the motives which induce
+    you at the present time, to call my attention to the fact. I am
+    willing, nevertheless, to believe that however warmly the
+    citizens of Toronto may feel on such subjects, they will be
+    prepared, on all occasions, to demonstrate their high
+    appreciation of the blessings of the British Constitution, by
+    according to the Governor-General that respect and consideration
+    which are no less due to his position than to their own
+    well-tried loyalty and decorum.
+
+    It is my firm conviction, moreover, that the inhabitants of
+    Canada, generally, are averse to agitation, and that all
+    communities as well as individuals, who aspire to take a lead in
+    the affairs of the Province, will best fit themselves for that
+    high avocation, by exhibiting habitually in their demeanour, the
+    love of order and of peaceful progress.
+
+    I have observed with much anxiety and concern the commercial
+    depression from which the City of Toronto, in common with other
+    important towns in the Province, has of late so seriously
+    suffered. I trust, however, with you, that the crisis is now
+    past, and that the abundant harvest, with which a kind
+    Providence has blessed the country, will ere long restore its
+    commerce to a healthy tone.
+
+    The completion of your water communications with the ocean must
+    indeed be watched with a lively interest by all who have at
+    heart the welfare of Canada and the continuance of the
+    connection so happily subsisting between the Province and the
+    Parent State. These great works have undoubtedly been costly,
+    and the occasion of some financial embarrassment while in
+    progress. But I firmly believe that the investment you have made
+    in them has been judicious, and that you have secured thereby
+    for your children, and your children's children, an inheritance
+    that will not fail them so long as the law of nature endures
+    which causes the waters of your vast inland seas to seek an
+    outlet to the ocean.
+
+    I am truly obliged to you for the congratulations which you
+    offer me on the birth of my son, and for the kind interest which
+    you express in Lady Elgin's health: I am happy to be able to
+    inform you, that she has already derived much benefit from her
+    sojourn in Upper Canada.
+
+As not a little fictitious history has been woven out of these events, I
+shall call in evidence here the _Globe_ newspaper of the 11th, the
+following day, in which I find this editorial paragraph:--
+
+    "It is seldom we have had an opportunity of speaking in terms of
+    approbation of our civic authorities, but we cannot but express
+    our high sense of the manly, independent manner in which all
+    have done their duty on this occasion. The grand jury[19] is
+    chiefly composed of Conservatives, the Mayor, Aldermen and the
+    police are all Conservatives, but no men could have carried out
+    more fearlessly their determination to maintain order in the
+    community."
+
+Of all the Governors-General who have been sent out to Canada, Lord
+Elgin was by far the best fitted, by personal suavity of manners,
+eloquence in speech, and readiness in catching the tone of his hearers,
+to tide over a stormy political crisis. He had not been long in Toronto
+before his praises rang from every tongue, even the most embittered.
+Americans who came in contact with him, went away charmed with his
+flattering attentions.
+
+[Footnote 19: The grand jury, who happened to be in session, had
+presented some thirteen young men as parties to an attempt to create a
+riot. Some months afterwards, the persons accused were brought to trial,
+and three of them found guilty and sentenced to short terms of
+imprisonment.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+  TORONTO HARBOUR AND ESPLANADE.
+
+
+The number of citizens is becoming few indeed, who remember Toronto Bay
+when its natural surroundings were still undefaced and its waters pure
+and pellucid. From the French Fort to the Don River, curving gently in a
+circular sweep, under a steep bank forty feet high covered with
+luxuriant forest trees, was a narrow sandy beach used as a pleasant
+carriage-drive, much frequented by those residents who could boast
+private conveyances. A wooden bridge spanned the Don, and the road was
+continued thence, still under the shade of umbrageous trees, almost to
+Gibraltar Point on the west, and past Ashbridge's Bay eastward. At that
+part of the peninsula, forming the site of the present east entrance,
+the ground rose at least thirty feet above high-water mark, and was
+crested with trees. Those trees and that bank were destroyed through the
+cupidity of city builders, who excavated the sand and brought it away in
+barges to be used in making mortar. This went on unchecked till about
+the year 1848, when a violent storm--almost a tornado--from the east
+swept across the peninsula, near Ashbridge's Bay, where it had been
+denuded of sand nearly to the ordinary level of the water. This aroused
+public attention to the danger of further neglect.
+
+The harbour had been for some years under the charge of a Board of
+Commissioners, of which the chairman was nominated by the Government,
+two members by the City Council, and two by the Board of Trade. The
+Government, through the chairman, exercised of course the chief control
+of the harbour and of the harbour dues.
+
+In the spring of 1849, the chairman of the Harbour Commission was Col.
+J. G. Chewett, a retired officer I think of the Royal Engineers; the
+other members were Ald. Geo. W. Allan and myself, representing the City
+Council; Messrs. Thos. D. Harris, hardware merchant, and Jno. G. Worts,
+miller, nominees of the Board of Trade. I well remember accompanying
+Messrs. Allan, Harris and Worts round the entire outer beach, on wheels
+and afoot, and a very pleasant trip it was. The waters on retiring had
+left a large pool at the place where they had crossed, but no actual gap
+then existed. Our object was to observe the extent of the mischief, and
+to adopt a remedy if possible. Among the several plans submitted was one
+by Mr. Sandford Fleming, for carrying out into the water a number of
+groynes or jetties, so as to intercept the soil washed down from the
+Scarboro' heights, and thus gradually widen the peninsula as well as
+resist the further erasion of the existing beach. At a subsequent
+meeting of the Harbour Commission, this suggestion was fully discussed.
+The chairman, who was much enfeebled by age and ill-health, resented
+angrily the interference of non-professional men, and refused even to
+put a motion on the subject. Thereupon, Mr. Allan, who was as zealously
+sanguine as Col. Chewett was the reverse, offered to pay the whole cost
+of the groynes out of his own pocket. Still the chairman continued
+obdurate, and became so offensive in his remarks, that the proposition
+was abandoned in disgust.[20]
+
+In following years, the breach recurred again and again, until it
+produced an established gap. Efforts were made at various times to have
+the gap closed, but always defeated by the influence of eastern property
+owners, who contended that a free current through the Bay was necessary
+to the health of the east end of the city. The only thing accomplished
+from 1849 to 1853, was the establishment of buoys at the western
+entrance of the harbour, and a lighthouse and guide light on the Queen's
+wharf; also the employment of dredges in deepening the channel between
+the wharf and the buoys, in which Mr. T. D. Harris took a lively
+interest, and did great service to the mercantile community.
+
+Beyond the erection of wharves at several points, no attempt was made to
+change the shore line until 1853, when it became necessary to settle the
+mode in which the Northern and Grand Trunk Railways should enter the
+city. An esplanade had been determined upon so long ago as 1838; and in
+1840 a by-law was passed by the City Council, making it a condition of
+all water-lot leases, that the lessees should construct their own
+portion of the work. In May, 1852, the first active step was taken by
+notifying lessees that their covenants would be enforced. The Mayor,
+John G. Bowes, having reported to the Council that he had made verbal
+application to members of the government at Quebec, for a grant of the
+water-lots west of Simcoe Street, then under the control of the
+Respective Officers of Her Majesty's Ordnance in Upper Canada, a formal
+memorial applying for those lots was adopted and transmitted
+accordingly.
+
+The Committee on Wharves, Harbours, etc., for 1852, consisted of the
+Mayor, Councilmen Tully and Lee, with myself as chairman. We were
+actively engaged during the latter half of the year and the following
+spring, in negotiations with the Northern and Grand Trunk Railway
+boards, in making surveys and obtaining suggestions for the work of the
+Esplanade, and in carrying through Parliament the necessary legislation.
+Messrs. J. G. Howard, city engineer; William Thomas, architect; and
+Walter Shanly, chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway, were severally
+employed to prepare plans and estimates; and no pains were spared to get
+the best advice from all quarters. The Mayor was indefatigable on behalf
+of the city's interests, and to him undoubtedly, is mainly due the
+success of the Council in obtaining the desired grant from Government,
+both of the water-lots and the peninsula.
+
+The chairman of the Committee on Wharves and Harbours, etc., for 1853,
+was the late Alderman W. Gooderham, a thoroughly respected and
+respectable citizen, who took the deepest interest in the subject. I
+acted with and for him on all occasions, preparing reports for the
+Council, and even went so far as to calculate minutely from the
+soundings the whole details of excavation, filling in, breastwork, etc.,
+in order to satisfy myself that the interests of the city were duly
+protected.
+
+In September, 1853, tenders for the work were received from numerous
+parties, and subjected to rigorous examination, the opinions of citizens
+being freely taken thereon. In the meantime, it was necessary, before
+closing the contract, to obtain authority from the Government with
+respect to the western water lots, and I was sent to Quebec for that
+purpose, in which, but for the influence of the Grand Trunk Company, and
+of Messrs. Gzowski & Macpherson, I might have failed. The Hon. Mr.
+Hincks, then premier, received me rather brusquely at first, and it was
+not until he was thoroughly satisfied that the railway interests were
+fairly consulted, that I made much progress with him. I did succeed,
+however, and brought back with me all necessary powers both as to the
+water lots and the peninsula.
+
+Finally, the tender of Messrs. Gzowski & Co. was very generally judged
+to be most for the interests of the city. They offered to allow L10,000
+for the right of way for the Grand Trunk Railway along the Esplanade;
+and engaged for the same sum to erect five bridges, with brick abutments
+and stone facings, to be built on George, Church, Yonge, Bay, and either
+York or Simcoe Streets, to the wharves.[21] The contract also provided
+that the cribwork should be of sufficient strength to carry stone facing
+hereafter.[22]
+
+When canvassing St. George's Ward in December, 1852, for re-election as
+alderman, I told my constituents that nothing but my desire to complete
+the Esplanade arrangements could induce me to sacrifice my own business
+interests by giving up more than half my time for another year: and it
+was with infinite satisfaction that on the 4th of January, 1854--the
+last week but one of my term in the Council--I saw the Esplanade
+contract "signed, sealed and delivered" in the presence of the Wharves
+and Harbours Committee. On the 11th January, a report of the same
+committee, recommending the appointment of a proper officer to take
+charge of the peninsula, and put a stop to the removal of sand, was
+adopted in Council.
+
+I heartily wish that my reminiscences of the Esplanade contract could
+end here. I ceased to have any connection with it, officially or
+otherwise; but in 1854, an agitation was commenced within the Council
+and out of doors, the result of which was, the cancellation by mutual
+consent of the contract made with Messrs. Gzowski & Co., and the making
+a new contract with other parties, by which it was understood the city
+lost money to the tune of some $50,000, while Messrs. Gzowski & Co.
+benefited to the extent of at least $16,000, being the difference
+between the rates of wages in 1853 and 1855. The five bridges were set
+aside, to which circumstance is due the unhappy loss of life by which we
+have all been shocked of late years. Of the true cause of all these
+painful consequences, I shall treat in my next chapter.
+
+[Footnote 20: After I had left the Council, the question of harbour
+preservation was formally taken up at Mayor Allan's instance, and three
+premiums offered for the best reports on the subject. The first prize
+was adjudged to the joint report of Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. H. Y.
+Hind, in which the system of groynes was recommended. The reports were
+printed, but the Council--did nothing. Mr. Allan again offered to put
+down a groyne at his own expense, Mr. Fleming agreeing to superintend
+the work. The offer, however, was never accepted.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The necessary plans and specifications for these five
+bridges were prepared by Mr. Shanly accordingly,--their value when
+completed, being put at fully L15,000.]
+
+[Footnote 22: The same year, I was chairman of the Walks and Gardens
+Committee, and in that capacity instructed Mr. John Tully, City
+Surveyor, to extend the surveys of all streets leading towards the Bay,
+completely to the water line of the Esplanade. This was before any
+concession was made to the Northern, or any other railway. I mention
+this by way of reminder to the city authorities, who seem to me to have
+overlooked the fact.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLV.
+
+  MAYOR BOWES--CITY DEBENTURES.
+
+
+Of all the members of the City Council for 1850, and up to 1852, John G.
+Bowes was the most active and most popular. In educational affairs, in
+financial arrangements, and indeed, in all questions affecting the
+city's interests, he was by far the ablest man who had ever filled the
+civic chair. His acquirements as an arithmetician were extraordinary;
+and as a speaker he possessed remarkable powers. I took pleasure in
+seconding his declared views on nearly all public questions; and in
+return, he showed me a degree of friendship which I could not but highly
+appreciate. By his persuasion, and rather against my own wish, I
+accepted, in 1852, the secretaryship of the Toronto and Guelph Railway
+Company, which I held until it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk Company
+in 1853.[23]
+
+In the same year, rumours began to be rife in the city, that Mr. Bowes,
+in conjunction with the Hon. Francis Hincks, then premier, had made
+$10,000 profits out of the sale of city debentures issued to the
+Northern Railway Company. Had the Mayor admitted the facts at once,
+stating his belief that he was right in so doing, it is probable that
+his friends would have been spared the pain, and himself the loss and
+disgrace which ensued. But he denied in the most solemn manner, in full
+Council, that he had any interest whatever in the sale of those
+debentures, and his word was accepted by all his friends there. When, in
+1854, he was compelled to admit in the Court of Chancery, that he had
+not only sold the debentures for his own profit to the extent of $4,800,
+but that the Hon. Francis Hincks was a partner in the speculation, and
+had profited to the same amount, the Council and citizens were alike
+astounded. Not so much at the transaction itself, for it must be
+remembered that more than one judge in chancery held the dealing in city
+debentures to be perfectly legal both on the part of Mr. Bowes and Sir
+Francis Hincks, but at the palpable deception which had been perpetrated
+on the Finance Committee, and through them on the Council.
+
+While the sale of the $50,000 Northern Railway debentures was under
+consideration, Mr. Bowes as Mayor had been commissioned to get a bill
+passed at Quebec to legalize such sale. On his return it was found that
+new clauses had been introduced into the bill, and particularly one
+requiring the debentures to be made payable in England, to which
+Alderman Joshua G. Beard and myself took objection as unnecessarily
+tying the hands of the Council. Mr. Bowes said, "Mr. Hincks would have
+it so." Had the committee supposed that in insisting upon those clauses
+Mr. Hincks was using his official powers for his own private profit,
+they could never have consented to the change in the bill, but would
+have insisted upon the right of the Council to make their own debentures
+payable wheresoever the city's interests would be best subserved.[24]
+
+It is matter of history, that the suit in Chancery resulted in a
+judgment against Mr. Bowes for the whole amount of his profits, and that
+in addition to that loss he had to pay a heavy sum in costs, not only of
+the suit, but of appeals both here and in England. The consequence to
+myself was a great deal of pain, and the severance of a friendship that
+I had valued greatly. In October, 1853, a very strong resolution
+denouncing his conduct was moved by Alderman G. T. Denison, to which I
+moved an amendment declaring him to have been guilty of "a want of
+candour," which was carried, and which was the utmost censure that the
+majority of the Council would consent to pass. For this I was subjected
+to much animadversion in the public press. Yet from the termination of
+the trial to the day of his death, I never afterwards met Mr. Bowes on
+terms of amity. At an interview with him, at the request and in presence
+of my partner, Col. O. R. Gowan, I told the Mayor that I considered him
+morally responsible for all the ill-feeling that had caused the
+cancellation of the first Esplanade contract, and for the loss to the
+city which followed. I told him that it had become impossible for any
+man to trust his word. And afterwards when he became a candidate for a
+seat in parliament, I opposed his election in the columns of the
+_Colonist_, which I had then recently purchased; for which he denounced
+me personally, at his election meetings, as a man capable of
+assassination.
+
+Notwithstanding, I believe John G. Bowes to have been punished more
+severely than justice required; that he acted in ignorance of the law;
+and that his great services to the city more than outweighed any injury
+sustained. His subsequent election to Parliament, while it may have
+soothed his pride, can hardly have repaid him for the forfeiture of the
+respect of a very large number of his fellow-citizens.
+
+[Footnote 23: I was offered by Sir Cusack Roney, chief secretary of the
+G. T. R. Co., a position worth $2,000 a year in their Montreal office,
+but declined to break up my connections in Toronto. On my resigning the
+secretaryship, the Board honoured me with a resolution of thanks, and a
+gratuity of a year's salary.]
+
+[Footnote 24: The judgment given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
+Council expressly stated that "the evidence of Ald. Thompson and
+Councilman Tully was conclusive as to the effect of their having been
+kept in ignorance of the corrupt bargain respecting the sale of the city
+debentures issued for the construction of the Northern Railway; and that
+they would not have voted for the proposed bill for the consolidation of
+the city debt, if they had been aware of the transaction."]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+  CARLTON OCEAN BEACH.
+
+
+In 1853, I removed to the village of Carlton West, on the gravel road to
+Weston, and distant seven miles north-west of the city. My house stood
+on a gravel ridge which stretches from the Carlton station of the
+Northern Railway to the River Humber, and which must have formed the
+beach of the antediluvian northern ocean, one hundred and eighty feet
+above the present lake, and four hundred and thirty above the sea. This
+gravel ridge plainly marks the Toronto Harbour at the mouth of the
+Humber, as it existed in those ancient days, before the Niagara River
+and the Falls had any place on our world's surface. East of Carlton
+station, a high bluff of clay continues the old-line of coast, like the
+modern, to Scarboro' Heights, showing frequent depressions caused by the
+ice of the glacial period. In corroboration of this theory, I remember
+that for the first house built on the Avenue Road, north of Davenport
+Road, the excavations for a cellar laid bare great boulders of granite,
+limestone, and other rock, evidently deposited there by icebergs, which
+had crossed the clay bluff by channels of their own dredging, and melted
+away in the warmer waters to the south. I think it was Professor
+Chapman, of Toronto University, who pointed this out to me, and
+mentioned a still more remarkable case of glacial action which occurred
+in the Township of Albion, where a limestone quarry which had been
+worked profitably for several years, turned out to the great
+disappointment of its owner to be neither more nor less than a vast
+glacial boulder, which had been transported from its natural site at a
+distance of at least eighty miles. This locomotive rock is said to have
+been seventy feet in thickness and as much in breadth.
+
+While speaking of the Carlton gravel ridge, it is worth while to note
+that, in taking gravel from its southern face, at a depth of twenty
+feet, I found an Indian flint arrow-head; also a stone implement similar
+to what is called by painters a muller, used for grinding paint. Several
+massive bones, and the horns of some large species of deer, were also
+found in the same gravel pit, and carried or given away by the workmen.
+The two articles first named are still in my possession. Being at the
+very bottom of the gravel deposit, they must have lain there when no
+such beach existed, or ever since the Oak Ridges ceased to be an ocean
+beach.
+
+My house on the Davenport Road was a very pleasant residence, with a
+fine lawn ornamented with trees chiefly planted by my own hands, and was
+supplied with all the necessaries for modest competence. It is worth
+recording, that some of the saplings--silver poplars (abeles) planted by
+me, grew in twelve years to be eighteen inches thick at the butt, and
+sixty feet in spread of branches; while maples and other hardwoods did
+not attain more than half that size. Thus it would seem, that our
+North-West prairies might be all re-clothed with full-grown ash-leaved
+maples--their natural timber--in twenty-five years, or with balm of
+Gilead and abele poplars in half that time. Would it not be wise to
+enact laws at once, having that object in view?
+
+I have been an amateur gardener since early childhood; and at Carlton
+indulged my taste to the full by collecting all kinds of flowers
+cultivated and wild. I still envy the man who, settling in the new
+lands, say in the milder climates of Vancouver's Island or British
+Columbia, may utilize to the full his abundant opportunities of
+gathering into one group the endless floral riches of the Canadian
+wilderness. We find exquisite lobelias, scarlet, blue and lilac;
+orchises with pellucid stems and fairy elegance of blossom; lovely
+prairie roses; cacti of infinite delicacy and the richest hues. Then as
+to shrubs--the papaw, the xeranthemum of many varieties, the Indian pear
+(or saskatoon of the North-West), spiraea prunifolia of several kinds,
+shrubby St. John's-wort, oenothera grandiflora, _cum multis aliis_.
+
+Now that the taste for wild-flower gardens has become the fashion in
+Great Britain, it will doubtless soon spread to this Continent. No
+English park is considered complete without its special garden for wild
+flowers, carefully tended and kept as free from stray weeds as the more
+formal parterre of the front lawn. Our wealthier Canadian families
+cannot do better than follow the example of the Old Country in this
+respect, and assuredly they will be abundantly repaid for the little
+trouble and expenditure required.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+  CANADIAN POLITICS FROM 1853 to 1860.
+
+
+In May, 1853, I sold out my interest in the _Patriot_ to Mr. Ogle R.
+Gowan, and having a little capital of my own, invested it in the
+purchase of the _Colonist_ from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie, who
+died December 6th, 1852. It was a heavy undertaking, but I was sanguine
+and energetic, and--as one of my friends told me--thorough. The
+_Colonist_, as an organ of the old Scottish Kirk party in Canada, had
+suffered from the rivalry of its Free Kirk competitor, the _Globe_; and
+its remaining subscribers, being, as a rule, strongly Conservative, made
+no objection to the change of proprietorship; while I carried over with
+me, by agreement, the subscribers to the daily _Patriot_, thus combining
+the mercantile strength of the two journals.
+
+I had hitherto confined myself to the printing department, leaving the
+duties of editorship to others. On taking charge of the _Colonist_, I
+assumed the whole political responsibility, with Mr. John Sheridan Hogan
+as assistant editor and Quebec correspondent. My partners were the late
+Hugh C. Thomson, afterwards secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who
+acted as local editor; and James Bain, now of the firm of Jas. Bain &
+Son, to whom the book-selling and stationery departments were committed.
+We had a strong staff of reporters, and commenced the new enterprise
+under promising circumstances. Our office and store were in the old
+brick building extending from King to Colborne Street, long previously
+known as the grocery store of Jas. F. Smith.
+
+The ministry then in power was that known as the Hincks-Tache
+Government. Francis Hincks had parted with his old radical allies, and
+become more conservative than many of the Tories whom he used to
+denounce. People remembered Wm. Lyon Mackenzie's prophecy, who said he
+feared that Francis Hincks could not be trusted to resist temptation.
+When Lord Elgin went to England, it was whispered that his lordship had
+paid off L80,000 sterling of mortgages on his Scottish estates, out of
+the proceeds of speculations which he had shared with his clever
+minister. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic purchase, the L50,000 Grand
+Trunk stock placed to Mr. Hincks' credit--as he asserted without his
+consent--and the Bowes transaction, gave colour to the many stories
+circulated to his prejudice. And when he went to England, and received
+the governorship of Barbadoes, many people believed that it was the
+price of his private services to the Earl of Elgin.
+
+Whatever the exact truth in these cases may have been, I am convinced
+that from the seed then sown, sprang up a crop of corrupt influences
+that have since permeated all the avenues to power, and borne their
+natural fruit in the universal distrust of public men, and the
+wide-spread greed of public money, which now prevail. Neither political
+party escapes the imputation of bribing the constituencies, both
+personally at elections, and by parliamentary grants for local
+improvements. The wholesale expenditure at old country elections, which
+transferred so much money from the pockets of the rich to those of the
+poor, without any prospect of pecuniary return, has with us taken the
+form of a speculative investment to be "re-couped" by value in the shape
+of substantial government favours.
+
+Could I venture to enter the lists against so tremendous a rhetorical
+athlete as Professor Goldwin Smith, I should say, that his idea of
+abolishing party government to secure purity of election is an utter
+fallacy; I should say that the great factor of corruption in Canada has
+been the adoption of the principle of coalitions. I told a prominent
+Conservative leader in 1853, that I looked upon coalitions as
+essentially immoral, and that the duty of either political party was to
+remain contentedly "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition," and to support
+frankly all good measures emanating from the party in office, until the
+voice of the country, fairly expressed, should call the Opposition to
+assume the reins of power legitimately. I told the late Hon. Mr. Spence,
+when he joined the coalition ministry of 1854, that we (of the
+_Colonist_) looked upon that combination as an organized attempt to
+govern the country through its vices; and that nothing but the violence
+of the _Globe_ party could induce us to support any coalition
+whatsoever. And I think still that I was right, and that the Minister
+who buys politicians to desert their principles, resembles nothing so
+much as the lawyer who gains a verdict in favour of his client by
+bribing the jury.
+
+The union of Upper and Lower Canada is chargeable, no doubt, with a
+large share of the evils that have crept into our constitutional system.
+The French Canadian _habitans_, at the time of the Union, were true
+scions of the old peasantry of Normandy and Brittany, with which their
+songs identify them so strikingly. All their ideas of government were
+ultra-monarchical; their allegiance to the old French Kings had been
+transferred to the Romish hierarchy and clergy, who, it must be said,
+looked after their flocks with undying zeal and beneficent care. But
+this formed an ill preparation for representative institutions. The
+_Rouge_ party, at first limited to lawyers and notaries chiefly, had
+taken up the principles of the first French revolution, and for some
+years made but little progress; in time, however, they learnt the
+necessity of cultivating the assistance, or at least the neutrality of
+the clergy, and in this they were aided by ties of relationship. As in
+Ireland, where almost every poor family emaciates itself to provide for
+the education of one of its sons as a "counsellor" or a priest, so in
+Lower Canada, most families contain within themselves both priest and
+lawyer. Thus it came to pass, that in the Lower Province, a large
+proportion of the people lived in the hope that they might sooner or
+later share in "government pap," and looked upon any means to that end
+as unquestionably lawful. It is not difficult to perceive how much and
+how readily this idea would communicate itself to their Upper Canadian
+allies after the Union; that it did so, is matter of history.
+
+In fact, the combination of French and British representatives in a
+single cabinet, itself constitutes a coalition of the most objectionable
+kind; as the result can only be a perpetual system of compromises. For
+example, one of the effects of the Union, and of the coalition of 1854,
+was the passage of the bill secularizing the Clergy Reserves, and
+abolishing all connection between church and state in Upper Canada,
+while leaving untouched the privileges of the Romish Church in the Lower
+Province. That some day, there will arise a formidable Nemesis spawned
+of this one-sided act, when the agitation for disendowment shall have
+reached the Province of Quebec, who can doubt?
+
+In 1855 and subsequently, followed a series of struggles for office,
+without any great political object in view, each party or clique
+striving to bid higher than all the rest for popular votes, which went
+on amid alternate successes and reverses, until the denouement came in
+1859, when neither political party could form a Ministry that should
+command a majority in parliament, and they were fain to coalesce _en
+masse_ in favour of confederation. At one time, Mr. George Brown was
+defeated by Wm. Lyon Mackenzie in Halton; at another, he voted with the
+Tories against the Hincks ministry; again, he was a party to a proposed
+coalition with Sir Allan MacNab. I was myself present at Sir Allan's
+house in Richey's Terrace, Adelaide Street, where I was astonished to
+meet Mr. Brown himself in confidential discussion with Sir Allan. I
+recollect a member of the Lower House--I think Mr. Hillyard
+Cameron--hurrying in with the information that at a meeting of
+Conservative members which he had just left, they had chosen Mr. John A.
+Macdonald as their leader in place of Sir Allan, which report broke up
+the conference, and defeated the plans of the coalitionists. This was, I
+think, in 1855. Then came on the "Rep. by Pop." agitation led by the
+_Globe_, in 1856.[25] In 1857, the great business panic superseded all
+other questions. In 1858, the turn of the Reform party came, with Mr.
+Brown again at their head, who held power for precisely four days.
+
+In 1858, also, the question of protection for native industry, which had
+been advocated by the British-American League, was taken up in
+parliament by the Hon. Wm. Cayley and Hon. Isaac Buchanan separately. In
+1859, came Mr. Brown's and Mr. Galt's federal union resolutions, and Mr.
+Cayley's motion for protection once more.
+
+All these years--from 1853 to 1860--I was in confidential communication
+with the leaders of the Conservative party, and after 1857 with the
+Upper Canadian members of the administration personally; and I am bound
+to bear testimony to their entire patriotism and general
+disinterestedness whenever the public weal was involved. I was never
+asked to print a line which I could not conscientiously endorse; and had
+I been so requested, I should assuredly have refused.
+
+[Footnote 25: The same year occurred the elections for members of the
+Legislative Council. I was a member of Mr. G. W. Allan's committee, and
+saw many things there which disgusted me with all election tactics. Men
+received considerable sums of money for expenses, which it was believed
+never left their own pockets. Mr. Allan was in England, and sent
+positive instructions against any kind of bribery whatsoever, yet when
+he arrived here, claims were lodged against him amounting to several
+thousand dollars, which he was too high-minded to repudiate.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+  BUSINESS TROUBLES.
+
+
+Up to the year 1857, I had gone on prosperously, enlarging my
+establishment, increasing my subscription list, and proud to own the
+most enterprising newspaper published in Canada up to that day. The
+_Daily Colonist_ consisted of eight pages, and was an exact counterpart
+of the _London Times_ in typographical appearance, size of page and
+type, style of advertisements, and above all, in independence of
+editorial comment and fairness in its treatment of opponents. No
+communication courteously worded was refused admission, however caustic
+its criticisms on the course taken editorially. The circulation of the
+four editions (daily, morning and evening, bi-weekly and weekly)
+amounted to, as nearly as I can recollect, 30,000 subscribers, and its
+readers comprised all classes and creeds.
+
+In illustration of the kindly feeling existing towards me on the part of
+my political adversaries, I may record the fact that, when in the latter
+part of 1857, it became known in the profession that I had suffered
+great losses arising out of the commercial panic of that year, Mr.
+George Brown, with whom I was on familiar terms, told me that he was
+authorized by two or three gentlemen of high standing in the Liberal
+party, whom he named, to advance me whatever sums of money I might
+require to carry on the _Colonist_ independently, if I would accept
+their aid. I thanked him and replied, that I could publish none other
+than a Conservative paper, which ended the discussion.
+
+The Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being himself embarrassed by the
+tremendous pressure of the money market, in which he had operated
+heavily, counselled me to act upon a suggestion that the _Colonist_
+should become the organ of the Macdonald-Cartier Government, to which
+position would be attached the right of furnishing certain of the public
+departments with stationery, theretofore supplied by the Queen's Printer
+at fixed rates. I did so, reserving to myself the absolute control of
+the editorial department, and engaging the services of Mr. Robert A.
+Harrison (of the Attorney-General's office, afterwards Chief Justice),
+as assistant editor. Instead, however, of alleviating, this change of
+base only intensified my troubles.
+
+I found that, throughout the government offices, a system had been
+prevalent, something like that described in _Gil Blas_ as existing at
+the Court of Spain, by which, along with the stationery required for the
+departments, articles for ladies' toilet use, etc., were included, and
+had always theretofore been charged in the government accounts as a
+matter of course. I directed that those items should be supplied as
+ordered, but that their cost be placed to my own private account, and
+that the parties be notified, that they must thereafter furnish separate
+orders for such things. I also took an early opportunity of pointing out
+the abuse to the Attorney-General, who said his colleagues had suspected
+the practice before, but had no proof of misconduct; and added, that if
+I would lay an information, he would send the offenders to the
+Penitentiary; as in fact he did in the Reiffenstein case some years
+afterwards. I replied, that were I to do so, nearly every man in the
+public service would be likely to become my personal enemy, which he
+admitted to be probable. As it was, the apparent consequence of my
+refusal to make fraudulent entries, was an accusation that I charged
+excessive prices, although I had never charged as much as the rate
+allowed the Queen's Printer, considering it unreasonable. My accounts
+were at my request referred to an expert, and adjudged by him to be fair
+in proportion to quality of stationery furnished. Gradually I succeeded
+in stopping the time-honoured custom as far as I was concerned.
+
+Years after, when I had the contract for Parliamentary printing at
+Quebec, matters proved even more vexatious. When the Session had
+commenced, and I had with great outlay and exertion got every thing into
+working order, I was refused copies of papers from certain sub-officers
+of the Legislature, until I had agreed upon the percentage expected upon
+my contract rates. My reply, through my clerk, was, that I had
+contracted at low rates, and could not afford gratuities such as were
+claimed, and that if I could, I would not. The consequence was a
+deadlock, and it was not until I brought the matter to the attention of
+the Speaker, Sir Henry Smith, that I was enabled to get on with the
+work. These things happened a quarter of a century ago, and although I
+suffer the injurious consequences myself to this day, I trust no other
+living person can be affected by their publication now.
+
+The position of ministerial organist, besides being both onerous and
+unpleasant, was to me an actual money loss. My newspaper expenses
+amounted to over four hundred dollars per week, with a constantly
+decreasing subscription list.[26] The profits on the government
+stationery were no greater than those realized by contractors who gave
+no additional _quid pro quo_; and I was only too glad, when the
+opportunity of competing for the Legislative printing presented itself
+in 1858, to close my costly newspaper business in Toronto. I sold the
+goodwill of the _Colonist_ to Messrs. Sheppard & Morrison,[27] and on my
+removal to Quebec next year, established a cheap journal there called
+the _Advertiser_, the history of which in 1859-60, I shall relate in a
+chapter by itself.
+
+[Footnote 26: The late Mr. George Brown has often told me, that whenever
+the _Globe_ became a Government organ, the loss in circulation and
+advertising was so great as to counter-balance twice over the profits
+derived from government advertising and printing.]
+
+[Footnote 27: On my retirement from the publication of the _Colonist_,
+the Attorney-General offered me a position under Government to which was
+attached a salary of $1,400 a year, which I declined as unsuited to my
+tastes and habits.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+  BUSINESS EXPERIENCES IN QUEBEC.
+
+
+When I began to feel the effects of official hostility in Quebec, as
+above stated, I was also suffering from another and more vital evil. I
+had taken the contract for parliamentary printing at prices slightly
+lower than had before prevailed. My knowledge of printing in my own
+person gave me an advantage over most other competitors. The consequence
+of this has been, that large sums of money were saved to the country
+yearly for the last twenty-four years. But the former race of
+contractors owed me a violent grudge, for, as they alleged, taking the
+contract below paying prices. I went to work, however, confident of my
+resources and success. But no sooner had I got well under weigh, than my
+arrangements were frustrated, my expenditure nullified, my just hopes
+dashed to the ground, by the action of the Legislature itself. A joint
+committee on printing had been appointed, of which the Hon. Mr. Simpson,
+of Bowmanville, was chairman, which proceeded deliberately to cut down
+the amount of printing to be executed, and particularly the quantity of
+French documents to be printed, to such an extent as to reduce the work
+for which I had contracted by at least one-third. And this without the
+smallest regard to the terms of my contract. Thus were one-half of all
+my expenditures--one-half of my thirty thousand dollars worth of
+type--one-half of my fifteen thousand dollars worth of presses and
+machinery--literally rendered useless, and reduced to the condition of
+second-hand material. I applied to my solicitor for advice. He told me
+that, unless I threw up the contract, I could make no claim for breach
+of conditions. Unfortunately for me, the many precedents since
+established, of actions on "petition of right" for breach of contract by
+the Government and the Legislature, had not then been recorded, and I
+had to submit to what I was told was the inevitable.
+
+I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and
+malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French
+contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in
+Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my
+workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my
+contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to
+my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier
+of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the
+Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination
+against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it,
+unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance.
+
+I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send
+a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I
+hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of
+Messrs Cameron & Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could
+command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of
+the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a
+hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada,
+which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due
+by farmers who--as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857--had
+made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment
+of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so
+thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements
+submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee,
+and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their
+benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they
+undertook to do in three days.
+
+What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term,
+that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in
+Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and
+influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to
+abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so.
+
+Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent
+abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by
+marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides
+command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my
+counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought
+in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and
+in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with
+the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more
+into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert
+Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and Francois Lemieux.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER L.
+
+  QUEBEC IN 1859-60.
+
+
+I resided for eighteen months in the old, picturesque and many-memoried
+city. My house was a three-story cedar log building known as the White
+House, near the corner of Salaberry Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It
+was weather-boarded outside, comfortably plastered and finished within,
+and was the most easily warmed house I ever occupied. The windows were
+French, double in winter, opening both inwards and outwards, with
+sliding panes for ventilation. It had a good garden, sloping northerly
+at an angle of about fifteen degrees, which I found a desolate place
+enough, and left a little oasis of beauty and productiveness. One of my
+amusements there was to stroll along the garden paths, watching for the
+sparkle of Quebec diamonds, which after every rainfall glittered in the
+paths and flower-beds. They are very pretty, well shaped octagonal
+crystals of rock quartz, and are often worn in necklaces by the Quebec
+demoiselles. On the plains of Abraham I found similar specimens
+brilliantly black.
+
+Quebec is famous for good roads and pleasant shady promenades. By the
+St. Foy Road to Spencer Wood, thence onward to Cap Rouge, back by the
+St. Louis Road or Grande Allee, past the citadel and through the
+old-fashioned St. Louis Gate, is a charming stroll; or along the by-path
+from St. Louis Road to the pretty Gothic chapel overhanging the Cove,
+and so down steep rocky steps descending four hundred feet to the mighty
+river St. Lawrence; or along the St. Charles river and the country road
+to Lorette; or by the Beauport road to the old chateau or manor house of
+Colonel Gugy, known by the name of "Darnoc." The toll-gate on the St.
+Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple _habitans_,
+who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a
+bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or
+some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with
+which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St.
+Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and
+return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from
+their day's traffic.
+
+One of the specialties of the city is its rats. In my house-yard was a
+sink, or rather hole in the rock, covered by a wooden grating. A large
+cat, who made herself at home on the premises, would sit watching at the
+grating for hours, every now and then inserting her paw between the bars
+and hooking out leisurely a squeaking young rat, of which thirty or
+forty at a time showed themselves within the cavity. I was assured that
+these rats have underground communications, like those of the rock of
+Gibraltar, from every quarter of the city to the citadel, and so
+downward to the quays and river below. Besides the cat, there was a
+rough terrier dog named Caesar, also exercising right of occupancy. To
+see him pouncing upon rats in the pantry, from which they could not be
+easily excluded by reason of a dozen entrances through the stone
+basement walls, was something to enchant sporting characters. I was not
+of that class, so stopped up the rock with broken bottles and mortar,
+and provided traps for stray intruders.
+
+The Laurentine mountains, distant a few miles north of the city, rise to
+a height of twenty-five hundred feet. By daylight they are bleak and
+barren enough; but at night, seen in the light of the glorious Aurora
+Borealis which so often irradiates that part of Canada, they are a
+vision of enchanting beauty. This reminds me of a conversation which I
+was privileged to have with the late Sir William Logan, who most kindly
+answered my many inquisitive questions on geological subjects. He
+explained that the mountains of Newfoundland, of Quebec, of the height
+of land between the St. Lawrence and Lake Nipissing, and of Manitoba and
+Keewatin in the North-West, are all links of one continuous chain, of
+nearly equal elevation, and marked throughout that vast extent by
+ancient sea-beaches at an uniform level of twelve hundred feet above the
+sea, with other ancient beaches seven hundred feet above the sea at
+various points; two remarkable examples of which latter class are the
+rock of Quebec and the Oak Ridges eighteen miles north of Toronto. He
+pointed out further, that those two points indicate precisely the level
+of the great ocean which covered North America in the glacial period,
+when Toronto was six hundred feet under salt water, and Quebec was the
+solitary rock visible above water for hundreds of miles east, west and
+south--the Laurentides then, as now, towering eighteen hundred feet
+higher, on the north.
+
+In winter also, Quebec has many features peculiar to itself. Close
+beside, and high above the little steep roofed houses--crowded into
+streets barely wide enough to admit the diminutive French carts without
+crushing unlucky foot-passengers,--rise massive frowning bastions
+crowned with huge cannon, all black with age and gloomy with desperate
+legends of attack and defence. The snow accumulates in these streets to
+the height of the upper-floor windows, with precipitous steps cut
+suddenly down to each doorway, so that at night it is a work of no
+little peril to navigate one's way home. Near the old Palace Gate are
+beetling cliffs, seventy feet above the hill of rocky debris which forms
+one side of the street below. It is high carnival with the Quebec
+_gamins_, when they can collect there in hundreds, each with his frail
+handsleigh, and poising themselves on the giddy edge of the "horrent
+summit," recklessly shoot down in fearful descent, first to the sharp
+rocky slope, and thence with alarming velocity to the lower level of the
+street. Outside St. John's Gate is another of these infantile
+race-grounds. Down the steep incline of the glacis, crowds of children
+are seen every fine winter's day, sleighing and tobogganing from morning
+till night, not without occasional accidents of a serious nature.
+
+But the crowning triumph of Quebec scenery, summer and winter, centres
+in the Falls of Montmorenci, a seven mile drive, over Dorchester bridge,
+along the Beauport road, commanding fine views of the wide St. Lawrence
+and the smiling Isle of Orleans, with its pilot-inhabited houses painted
+blue, red and yellow--all three colours at once occasionally--(the
+paints wickedly supposed to be perquisites acquired in a professional
+capacity from ships' stores)--and so along shady avenues varied by
+brightest sunshine, we find ourselves in front and at the foot of a
+cascade four hundred feet above us, broken into exquisite facets and
+dancing foam by projecting rocky points, and set in a bordering of
+lovely foliage on all sides. This is of course in summer. In winter how
+different. Still the descending torrent, but only bare tree-stems and
+icy masses for the frame-work, and at the base a conical mountain of
+snow and ice, a hundred and fifty feet high, sloping steeply on all
+sides, and with the frozen St. Lawrence spread out for miles to the
+east. He who covets a sensation for life, has only to climb the gelid
+hill by the aid of ice-steps cut in its side, and commit himself to the
+charge of the habitant who first offers his services, and the thing is
+soon accomplished. The gentleman adventurer sits at the back of the
+sleigh,--which is about four feet long--tucks his legs round the
+habitant, who sits in front and steers with his heels; for an instant
+the steersman manoeuvres into position on the edge of the cone, which
+slightly overhangs--then away we go, launching into mid-air, striking
+ground--or rather ice--thirty feet below, and down and still down, fleet
+as lightning, to the level river plain, over which we glide by the
+impetus of our descent fully half-a-mile further. I tried it twice. My
+companion was severely affected by the shock, and gave in with a bad
+headache at the first experiment. The same day, several reckless young
+officers of the garrison would insist upon steering themselves, paying a
+guinea each for the privilege. One of them suffered for his freak from a
+broken arm. But with experienced guides no ill-consequences are on
+record.
+
+An appalling tragedy is related of this ice-mountain. An American
+tourist with his bride was among the visitors to the Falls one day some
+years back. They were both young and high-spirited, and had immensely
+enjoyed their marriage trip by way of the St. Lawrence. Standing on the
+summit of the cone, in raptures with the cataract, the cliffs
+ice-bedecked, the trees ice-laden, their attention was for an instant
+diverted from each other. The young man, gazing eastward across the
+river, talking gaily to his wife, was surprised at receiving no reply,
+and looking round found himself alone. Shouting frantically, no
+answering cry could be distinguished,--the roaring of the cascade was
+loud enough to drown any human voice. Hanging madly over the edge next
+the Falls, which is quite precipitous, there was nothing to be seen but
+a boiling whirlpool of angry waters. The poor girl had stepped
+unconsciously backward,--had slipped down into the boiling surf,--had
+been instantaneously carried beneath the ice of the river.
+
+Another peculiarity of Quebec is its ice-freshets in spring. Near the
+vast tasteless church of St. John, on the road of that name, a torrent
+of water from the higher level crosses the street, and thunders down the
+steep ways descending to the Lower Town. At night it freezes solidly
+again, and becomes so dangerously slippery, that I have seen ladies
+piloted across for several hundred feet, by holding on to the
+courteously extended walking stick of the first gentlemanly stranger to
+whom they could appeal for help in their utter distress and perplexity.
+These freshets flood the business streets named after St. Peter and St.
+Paul on the level of the wharves. To cross them at such times, floating
+planks are put in requisition, and no little skill is required to escape
+a wetting up to the knees.
+
+The social aspects of the city are as unique as its natural features.
+The Romish hierarchy exercises an arbitrary, and I must add a
+beneficial, rule over the mixed maritime and crimping elements which
+form its lowest stratum. Private charity is universal on the part of the
+well-to-do citizens. It is an interesting sight to watch the numbers of
+paupers who are supplied weekly from heaps of loaves of bread piled
+high on the tradesmen's counters, to which all comers are free to help
+themselves.
+
+The upper classes are divided into castes as marked as those of
+Hindostan. French Canadian seigniors, priestly functionaries of high
+rank, government officials of the ruling race, form an exclusive, and it
+is said almost impenetrable coterie by themselves. The sons or nephews
+of Liverpool merchants having branch firms in the city, and wealthy
+Protestant tradesmen, generally English churchmen, constitute a second
+division scarcely less isolated. Next to these come the members of other
+religious denominations, who keep pretty much to themselves. I am sorry
+to hear from a respected Methodist minister whom I met in Toronto
+lately, that the last named valuable element of the population has been
+gradually diminishing in numbers and influence, and that it is becoming
+difficult to keep their congregations comfortably together. This is a
+consequence, and an evil consequence, of confederation.
+
+Another characteristic singularity of Quebec life arises from the
+association, without coalescing, of two distinct nationalities having
+diverse creeds and habits. This is often ludicrously illustrated by the
+system of mixed juries. I was present in the Recorder's Court on one
+occasion, when a big, burly Irishman was in the prisoner's dock, charged
+with violently ejecting a bailiff in possession, which I believe in
+Scotland is called a deforcement on the premises. It appeared that the
+bailiff, a little habitant, had been riotously drunk and disorderly,
+having helped himself to the contents of a number of bottles of ale
+which he discovered in a cupboard. The prisoner, moved to indignation,
+coolly took up the drunken offender in his arms, tossed him down a
+flight of steps into the middle of the street, and shut the door in his
+face. The counsel for the complainant, a popular Irish barrister,
+lamented privately that he was on the wrong side, being more used to
+defending breaches of the laws than to enforcing them--that there was no
+hope of a verdict in favour of authority--and that the jury were certain
+to disagree, however clearly the facts and the law were shown. And so it
+proved. The French jurors looked puzzled--the English enjoyed the
+fun--the judge charged with a half smile on his countenance--and the
+jury disagreed--six to six. On leaving the court, one of the jurors
+whispered to the discharged prisoner, "Did you think we were agoing to
+give in to them French fellows?"
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LI.
+
+  DEPARTURE FROM QUEBEC.
+
+
+I suppose it is in the very nature of an autobiography to be
+egotistical, a fault which I have desired to avoid; but find that my own
+personal affairs have been often so strangely interwoven with public
+events, that I could not make the one intelligible without describing
+the other. My departure from Quebec, for instance, was caused by
+circumstances which involved many public men of that day, and made me an
+involuntary party to important political movements.
+
+I have mentioned that, with the sanction of the Upper Canadian section
+of the Ministry, I had commenced the publication in Quebec of a daily
+newspaper with an evening edition, under the title of the _Advertiser_.
+I strove to make it an improvement upon the style of then existing
+Quebec journals, but without any attempt at business rivalry, devoting
+my attention chiefly to the mercantile interests of the city, including
+its important lumber trade. I wrote articles describing the various
+qualities of Upper Canadian timber, which I thought should be made known
+in the British market. This was to some degree successful, and as a
+consequence I gained the friendship of several influential men of
+business. But I did not suspect upon how inflammable a mine I was
+standing. A discourteous remark in a morning contemporary, upon some
+observations in the _Courrier du Canada_, in which the ground was taken
+by the latter that French institutions in Europe exceeded in liberality,
+and ensured greater personal freedom than those of Great Britain, and by
+consequence of Canada, induced me to enter into an amicable controversy
+with the _Courrier_ as to the relative merits of French imperial and
+British monarchical government. About the same time, I gave publicity to
+some complaints of injustice suffered by Protestant--I think
+Orange--workmen who had been dismissed from employment under a local
+contractor on one of the wharves, owing as was asserted to their
+religious creed. Just then a French journalist, the editor of the
+_Courrier de Paris_, was expelled by the Emperor Louis Napoleon for some
+critique on "my policy." This afforded so pungent an opportunity for
+retort upon my Quebec friend, that I could not resist the temptation to
+use it. From that moment, it appears, I was considered an enemy of
+French Canadians and a hater of Roman Catholics, to whom in truth I
+never felt the least antipathy, and never even dreamt of enquiring
+either the religious or political principles of men in my employment.
+
+I was informed, that the Hon. Mr. Cartier desired that I should
+discontinue the _Advertiser_. Astonished at this, I spoke to one of his
+colleagues on the subject. He said I had been quite in the right; that
+the editor of the _Courrier_ was a d--d fool; but I had better see
+Cartier. I did so; pointed out that I had no idea of having offended any
+man's prejudices; and could not understand why my paper should be
+objectionable. He vouchsafed no argument; said curtly that his friends
+were annoyed; and that I had better give up the paper. I declined to do
+so, and left him.
+
+This was subsequent to the events related in Chapter xlix. I spoke to
+others of the Ministers. One of them--he is still living--said that I
+was getting too old [I was fifty], and it was time I was
+superannuated--but that--they could not go against Cartier! My pride was
+not then subdued, and revolted against such treatment. I was under no
+obligations to the Ministry; on the contrary, I felt they were heavily
+indebted to me. I waited on the Hon. L. V. Sicotte, who was on neutral
+terms with the government, placed my columns at his disposal, and
+shortly afterwards, on the conclusion of an understanding between him
+and the Hon. J. Sandfield Macdonald, to which the Hon. A. A. Dorion was
+a party, I published an article prepared by them, temperately but
+strongly opposed to the policy of the existing government. This
+combination ultimately resulted in the formation of the
+Macdonald-Sicotte Ministry in 1862.
+
+But this was not all. The French local press took up the quarrel
+respecting French institutions--told me plainly that Quebec was a
+"Catholic city," and that I would not be allowed to insult their
+institutions with impunity--hinted at mob-chastisement, and other
+consequences. I knew that years before, the printing office of a friend
+of my own--since high in the public service--had been burnt in Quebec
+under similar circumstances. I could not expose my partners to absolute
+ruin by provoking a similar fate. The Protestants of the city were quite
+willing to make my cause a religious and national feud, and told me so.
+There was no knowing where the consequences might end. For myself, I had
+really no interest in the dispute; no prejudices to gratify; no love of
+fighting for its own sake, although I had willingly borne arms for my
+Queen; so I gave up the dispute; sold out my interest in the printing
+contract to my partners for a small sum, which I handed to the rightful
+owner of the materials, and left Quebec with little more than means
+enough to pay my way to Toronto.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LII.
+
+  JOHN A. MACDONALD AND GEORGE BROWN.
+
+
+In chapter XXXV. I noticed the almost simultaneous entrance of these two
+men into political life. Their history and achievements have been
+severally recorded by friendly biographers, and it is unnecessary for me
+to add anything thereto. Personally, nothing but kindly courtesy was
+ever shown me by either. In some respects their record was much alike,
+in some how different. Both Scotchmen, both ambitious, both resolute and
+persevering, both carried away by political excitement into errors which
+they would gladly forget--both unquestionably loyal and true to the
+empire. But in temper and demeanour, no two men could be more unlike.
+Mr. Brown was naturally austere, autocratic, domineering. Sir John was
+kindly, whether to friends or foes, and always ready to forget past
+differences.
+
+A country member, who had been newly elected for a Reform constituency,
+said to a friend of mine, "What a contrast between Brown and Macdonald!
+I was at the Reform Convention the other day, and there was George
+Brown dictating to us all, and treating rudely every man who dared to
+make a suggestion. Next day, I was talking to some fellows in the
+lobby, when a stranger coming up slapped me on the shoulder, and said
+in the heartiest way 'How d'ye do, M----? shake hands--glad to see you
+here--I'm John A.!'"
+
+Another member, the late J. Sheridan Hogan--who, after writing for the
+_Colonist_, had gone into opposition, and was elected member for
+Grey--told me that it was impossible to help liking Sir John--he was so
+good-natured to men on both sides of the House, and never seemed to
+remember an injury, or resent an attack after it was past.
+
+Hence probably the cause of the differing careers of these two men.
+Standing together as equals during the coalition of 1862, and separating
+again after a brief alliance of eighteen months' duration, the one
+retained the confidence of his party under very discouraging
+circumstances, while the other gradually lapsed into the position of a
+governmental impossibility, and only escaped formal deposition as a
+party leader by his own violent death.
+
+I am strongly under the impression that the assassination of George
+Brown by the hands of a dismissed employee, in May, 1880, was one of the
+consequences of his own imperious temper. Many years ago, Mr. Brown
+conceived the idea of employing females as compositors in the _Globe_
+printing office, which caused a "strike" amongst the men. Great
+excitement was created, and angry threats were used against him; while
+the popular feeling was intensified by his arresting several of the
+workmen under an old English statute of the Restoration. The ill-will
+thus aroused extended among the working classes throughout Ontario, and
+doubtless caused his party the loss of more than one constituency. It
+seems highly probable, that the bitterness which rankled in the breast
+of his murderer, had its origin in this old class-feud.
+
+Sir John is reported to have said, that he liked supporters who voted
+with him, not because they thought him in the right, but even when they
+believed him to be in the wrong. I fancy that in so saying, he only gave
+candid expression to the secret feeling of all ambitious leaders. This
+brusque candour is a marked feature of Sir John's character, and no
+doubt goes a great way with the populace. A friend told me, that one of
+our leading citizens met the Premier on King Street, and accosted him
+with--"Sir John, our friend ---- says that you are the d--st liar in
+all Canada!" Assuming a very grave look, the answer came--"I dare say
+it's true enough!"
+
+Sir John once said to myself. "I don't care for office for the sake of
+money, but for the sake of power, and for the sake of carrying out my
+own views of what is best for the country." And I believe he spoke
+sincerely. Mr. Collins, his biographer, has evidently pictured to
+himself his hero some day taking the lead in the demand for Canadian
+independence. I trust and think he is mistaken, and that the great
+Conservative leader would rather die as did his late rival, than quit
+for a moment the straight path of loyalty to his Sovereign and the
+Empire.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIII.
+
+  JOHN SHERIDAN HOGAN.
+
+
+I have several times had occasion to mention this gentleman, who first
+came into notice on his being arrested, when a young man, and
+temporarily imprisoned in Buffalo, for being concerned in the burning of
+the steamer _Caroline_, in 1838. He was then twenty-three years old, was
+a native of Ireland, a Roman Catholic by religious profession, and
+emigrated to Canada in 1827. I engaged him in 1853, as assistant-editor
+and correspondent at Quebec, then the seat of the Canadian legislature.
+He had previously distinguished himself at college, and became one of
+the ablest Canadian writers of his day. He was the successful competitor
+for the prize given for the best essay on Canada at the Universal
+Exhibition of 1856, and had he lived, might have proved a strong man in
+political life.
+
+In 1858, Mr. Hogan suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that he had
+gone on a shooting expedition to Texas. But in the following spring, a
+partially decomposed corpse was found in the melting snow near the mouth
+of the Don, in Toronto Bay. Gradually the fearful truth came to light
+through the remorse of one of the women accessory to the crime. A gang
+of loose men and women who infested what was called Brooks's Bush, east
+of the Don, were in the habit of robbing people who had occasion to
+cross the Don bridge at late hours of the night. Mr. Hogan frequently
+visited a friend who resided east of the bridge, on the Kingston Road,
+and on the night in question, was about crossing the bridge, when a
+woman who knew him, accosted him familiarly, while at the same moment
+another woman struck him on the forehead with a stone slung in a
+stocking; two or three men then rushed upon him, while partially
+insensible, and rifled his pockets. He recovered sufficiently to cry
+faintly, "Don't murder me!" to a man whom he recognised and called by
+name. This recognition was fatal to him. To avoid discovery, the
+villains lifted him bodily, in spite of his cries and struggles, and
+tossed him over the parapet into the stream, where he was drowned. In
+1861, some of the parties were arrested; one of them, named Brown, was
+convicted and hanged for the murder; two others managed to prove an
+_alibi_, and so escaped punishment.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIV.
+
+  DOMESTIC NOTES.
+
+
+The Rev. Henry C. Cooper was the eldest of a family of four brothers,
+who emigrated to Canada in 1832, and settled in what is known as the old
+Exeter settlement in the Huron tract. He was accompanied to Canada by
+his wife and two children, afterwards increased to nine, who endured
+with him all the hardships and privations of a bush life. In 1848 he was
+appointed to the rectory of Mimico, in the township of Etobicoke, to
+which was afterwards added the charge of the church and parish of St.
+George's, Islington, including the village of Lambton on the Humber.
+
+In 1863, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became my wife. Our married
+life was in all respects a happy one, saddened only by anxieties arising
+from illness, which resulted in the death of one child, a daughter, at
+the age of six months, and of two others prematurely. These losses
+affected their mother's health, and she died in November, 1868, aged 36
+years. To express my sense of her loss, I quote from Tennyson's "In
+Memoriam":
+
+  "The path by which we twain did go,
+    Which led by tracts which pleased us well,
+    Through four sweet years arose and fell,
+  From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
+
+  "And we with singing cheer'd the way,
+    And crown'd with all the season lent,
+    From April on to April went,
+  And glad at heart from May to May:
+
+  "But where the path we walked began
+    To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
+    As we descended, following Hope,
+  There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
+
+  "Who broke our fair companionship,
+    And spread his mantle dark and cold,
+    And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
+  And dull'd the murmur on thy lip;
+
+  "And bore thee where I could not see
+    Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
+    And think that somewhere in the waste
+  The Shadow sits and waits for me."
+
+For the following epitaph on our infant daughter, I am myself
+responsible. It is carved on a tomb-stone where the mother and her
+little ones lie together in St. George's churchyard:
+
+  We loved thee as a budding flow'r
+    That bloomed in beauty for awhile;
+  We loved thee as a ray of light
+    To bless us with its sunny smile;
+
+  We loved thee as a heavenly gift
+    So rich, we trembled to possess,--
+  A hope to sweeten life's decline,
+    And charm our griefs to happiness.
+
+  The flower, the ray, the hope is past--
+    The chill of death rests on thy brow--
+  But ah! our Father's will be done,
+    We love thee as an angel now!
+
+Mr. Cooper died Sept. 10, 1877, leaving behind him the reputation of an
+earnest, upright life, and a strong attachment to the evangelical school
+in the English Church. His widow still resides at St. George's Hill,
+with one of her daughters. Two of her sons are in the ministry, the Rev.
+Horace Cooper, of Lloydtown, and the Rev. Robert St. P. O. Cooper, of
+Chatham.
+
+One of Mr. H. C. Cooper's brothers became Judge Cooper, of Huron, who
+died some years since. Another, still living, is Mr. C. W. Cooper,
+barrister, formerly of Toronto, now of Chicago. He was recording
+secretary to the B. A. League, in 1849, and is a talented writer for the
+press.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LV.
+
+  THE BEAVER INSURANCE COMPANY.
+
+
+In 1860, soon after my return to Toronto, I was asked by my old friend
+and former partner, Mr. Henry Rowsell, to take charge of the Beaver
+Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which had been organized a year or two
+before by W. H. Smith, author of a work called "Canada--Past, Present,
+and Future," and a Canadian Gazetteer. Of this company I became managing
+director, and continued to conduct it until the year 1876, when it was
+legislated out of existence by the Mackenzie government. I do not
+propose to inflict upon my readers any details respecting its operations
+or fortunes, except in so far as they were matters of public history.
+Suffice it here to say, that I assumed its charge with two hundred
+members or policy holders; that, up to the spring of 1876, it had issued
+seventy-four thousand policies, and that not a just claim remained
+unsatisfied. Its annual income amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars, and its agencies numbered a hundred. That so powerful an
+organization should have to succumb to hostile influences, is a striking
+example of the ups and downs of fortune.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVI.
+
+  THE OTTAWA FIRES.
+
+
+The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa
+fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the
+17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned
+into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps,
+throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa,
+bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain
+had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to
+such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous
+exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry,
+that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the
+condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean,
+Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief
+space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a
+dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings,
+out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned
+cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals,
+and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common
+destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with
+extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden
+with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some
+smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their
+flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their
+bodies.
+
+The soil in places was burned so deeply as to render farms worthless,
+while the highways were made impassable by the destruction of bridges
+and corduroy roads. To the horrors of fire were added those of
+starvation and exposure; it was many days before shelter could be
+provided, or even food furnished to all who needed it. The harvest, just
+gathered, had been utterly consumed in the barns and stacks; and the
+green crops, such as corn, oats, turnips and potatoes, were so scorched
+in the fields as to render them worthless.
+
+The number of families burnt out was stated at over four hundred, of
+whom eighty-two were insurers in the Beaver Company to the extent of
+some seventy thousand dollars, all of which was satisfactorily paid.
+
+The government and people of Canada generally took up promptly the
+charitable task of providing relief, and it is pleasant to be able to
+add that, within two years after, the farmers of the burnt district
+themselves acknowledged that they were better off than before the great
+fire--partly owing to a succession of good harvests, but mainly to the
+thorough cleansing which the land had received, and the perfect
+destruction of all stumps and roots by the fervid heat.
+
+One or two remarkable circumstances are worth recording. A farmer was
+sitting at his door, having just finished his evening meal, when he
+noticed a lurid smoke with flames miles off. In two or three minutes it
+had swept over the intervening country, across his farm and through his
+house, licking up everything as it went, and leaving nothing but ashes
+behind it. He escaped by throwing himself down in a piece of wet swamp
+close at hand. His wife and children were from home fortunately. Every
+other living thing was consumed. Another family was less fortunate. It
+consisted of a mother and several children. Driven into a swamp for
+shelter, they became separated and bewildered. The calcined skeletons of
+the poor woman and one child were found several days afterward. The rest
+escaped.
+
+The fire seems to have resembled an electric flash, leaping from place
+to place, passing over whole farms to pounce upon others in rear, and
+again vaulting to some other spot still further eastward.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVII.
+
+  SOME INSURANCE EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+In the course of the ordinary routine of a fire insurance office,
+circumstances are frequently occurring that may well figure in a
+sensational novel. One or two such may not be uninteresting here. I
+suppress the true names and localities, and some of the particulars.
+
+One dark night, in a frontier settlement of the County of Simcoe, a
+young man was returning through the bush from a township gathering, when
+he noticed loaded teams passing along a concession line not far distant.
+As this was no unusual occurrence, he thought little of it, until some
+miles further on, he came to a clearing of some forty acres, where there
+was no dwelling-house apparently, but a solitary barn, which, while he
+was looking at it, seemed to be lighted up by a lanthorn, and after some
+minutes, by a flickering flame which gradually increased to a blaze, and
+shortly enveloped the whole building. Hastening to the spot, no living
+being was to be seen there, and he was about to leave the place; but
+giving a last look at the burning building, it struck him that there was
+very little fire inside, and he turned to satisfy his curiosity. There
+was nothing whatever in the barn.
+
+In due course, a notice was received at our office, that on a certain
+night the barn of one Dennis ----, containing one thousand bushels of
+wheat, had been burnt from an unknown cause, and that the value thereof,
+some eight-hundred dollars, was claimed from the company. At the same
+time, an anonymous letter reached me, suggesting an inquiry into the
+causes of the fire. The inquiry was instituted accordingly. The holder
+of the policy, an old man upwards of sixty years of age, a miser,
+reputed worth ten thousand dollars at least, was arrested, committed to
+---- gaol, and finally tried and found guilty, without a doubt of his
+criminality being left on any body's mind who was present. Through the
+skill of his counsel, however, he escaped on a petty technicality; and
+considering his miserable condition, the loss he had inflicted on
+himself, and his seven months' detention in gaol, we took no further
+steps for his punishment.
+
+A country magistrate of high standing and good circumstances at ----,
+had a son aged about twenty-seven, to whom he had given the best
+education that grammar-school and college could afford, and who was
+regarded in his own neighbourhood as the model of gallantry and spirited
+enterprise. His father had supplied him with funds to erect substantial
+farm buildings, well stocked and furnished, in anticipation of his
+marriage with an estimable and well-educated young lady. Amongst the
+other buildings was a cheese-factory, in connection with which the young
+man commenced the business of making and selling cheese on an extensive
+scale. So matters went on for some months, until we received advices
+that the factory which we had insured, had been burnt during the night,
+and that the owner claimed three-thousand dollars for his loss. Our
+inspector was sent to examine and report, and was returning quite
+satisfied of the integrity of the party and the justice of the claim,
+when just as he was leaving the hotel where he had staid, a bystander
+happened to remark how curious it was that cheese should burn without
+smell. "That is impossible," said the landlord. "I am certain," said the
+former speaker, "that this had no smell, for I remarked it to Jack at
+the time."
+
+The inspector reported this conversation, and I sent a detective to
+investigate the case. He remained there, disguised of course, for two or
+three weeks, and then reported that large shipments of cheese to distant
+parts had taken place previously to the fire; but he could find nothing
+to criminate any individual, until accidentally he noticed what looked
+like a dog's muzzle lying in a corner of the stable. He picked it up,
+and untying a string that was wound around it, found it to be the leg of
+a new pair of pantaloons of fine quality. Watching his opportunity the
+same evening, while in conversation with the claimant, he produced the
+trowser-leg quietly, and enquired where the fellow-leg was? Taken by
+surprise, the young man slunk silently away. He had evidently cut off a
+leg of his own pants, and used it to muzzle his house-dog, to silence
+its barking while he set the factory afire. He left the country that
+night, and we heard no more of the claim.
+
+A letter was received one day from a Roman Catholic priest, which
+informed me that a woman whose dying confession he had received, had
+acknowledged that several years before she had been accessary to a fraud
+upon our company of one hundred dollars. Her husband had insured a horse
+with us for that amount. The horse had been burnt in his stable. The
+claim was paid. Her confession was, that the horse had died a natural
+death, and that the stable was set on fire for the purpose of recovering
+the value of the horse. In this case, the woman's confession becoming
+known to her husband, he left the country for the United States. The
+woman recovered and followed him.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+  A HEAVY CALAMITY.
+
+
+In the year 1875, the blow fell which destroyed the Beaver Insurance
+Company, and well nigh ruined every man concerned in it, from the
+president to the remotest agent. In April of that year, a bill was
+passed by the Dominion Legislature relative to mutual fire insurance
+companies. It so happened that the Premier of Canada was then the Hon.
+Alexander Mackenzie, for whose benefit, it was understood, the Hon.
+George Brown had got up a stock company styled the Isolated Risk
+Insurance Co., of which Mr. Mackenzie became president. There was a
+strong rivalry between the two companies, and possibly from this cause
+the legislation of the Dominion took a complexion hostile to mutual
+insurance. Be that as it may, a clause was introduced into the Act
+without attracting attention, which required the Beaver Company to
+deposit with the Government the sum of fifty-thousand dollars, being the
+same amount as had been customary with companies possessing a stock
+capital. For eighteen months this clause remained unobserved, when the
+Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, being engaged as counsel in an insurance case,
+happened to light upon it, and mentioned it to me at the last meeting
+of the Board which he attended before his death, which took place two or
+three weeks afterwards. At the following Board meeting, I stated the
+facts as reported by him, and was instructed to take the opinion of Mr.
+Christopher Robinson, the eminent Queen's counsel, upon the case. I did
+so at once, and was advised by him to submit the question to Professor
+Cherriman, superintendent of insurance, by whom it was referred to the
+law officers of the Crown at Ottawa. Their decision was, that the Beaver
+Company had been required by the new Act to make a deposit of fifty
+thousand dollars before transacting any new business since April, 1876,
+and that nothing but an Act of Parliament could relieve the company and
+its agents from the penalties already incurred in ignorance of the
+statute.
+
+On receipt of this opinion, immediate notice was sent by circular to all
+the company's agents, warning them to suspend operations at once. A bill
+was introduced at the following session, in February, 1877, which
+received the royal assent in April, remitting all penalties, and
+authorizing the company either to wind up its business or to transmute
+itself into a stock company. But in the meantime, fire insurance had
+received so severe a shock from the calamitous fire at St. John, N. B.,
+by which many companies were ruined, and all shaken, that it was found
+impossible to raise the necessary capital to resume the Beaver
+business.
+
+Thus, without fault or error on the part of its Board of Management,
+without warning or notice of any kind, was a strong and useful
+institution struck to the ground as by a levin-bolt. The directors, who
+included men of high standing of all political parties, lost, in the
+shape of paid-up guarantee stock and promissory notes, about sixty
+thousand dollars of their own money, and the officers suffered in the
+same way. The expenses of winding up, owing to vexatious litigation,
+have amounted to a sum sufficient to cover the outside liabilities of
+the company.
+
+These particulars may not interest the majority of my readers, but I
+have felt it my duty to give them, as the best act of justice in my
+power to the public-spirited and honourable men, with whom for
+twenty-three years I have acted, and finally suffered. That the members
+of the company--the insured--have sustained losses by fire since
+October, 1876, to the amount of over $45,000, which remain unpaid in
+consequence of its inability to collect its assets, adds another to the
+many evils which are chargeable to ill-considered and reckless
+legislation, in disregard of the lawful vested rights of innocent
+people, including helpless widows and orphans.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LIX.
+
+  THE HON. JOHN HILLYARD CAMERON.
+
+
+On the 20th day of April, 1844, I was standing outside the railing of
+St. James's churchyard, Toronto, on the occasion of a very sad funeral.
+The chief mourner was a slightly built, delicate-looking young man of
+prepossessing appearance. His youthful wife, the daughter of the late
+Hon. H. J. Boulton, at one time Chief Justice of Newfoundland, had died,
+and it was at her burial he was assisting. When the coffin had been
+committed to the earth, the widowed husband's feelings utterly overcame
+him, and he fell insensible beside the still open grave.
+
+This was my first knowledge of John Hillyard Cameron. From that day,
+until his death in November, 1876, I knew him more or less intimately,
+enjoyed his confidence personally and politically, and felt a very
+sincere regard for him in return. I used at one time to oppose his views
+in the City Council, but always good-naturedly on both sides. I was
+chairman of the Market Committee, and it was my duty to resist his
+efforts to establish a second market near the corner of Queen and Yonge
+Streets, in the rear of the buildings now known as the Page Block. He
+was a prosperous lawyer, highly in repute, gaining a considerable
+revenue from his profession, and being of a lively, sanguine
+temperament, launched out into heavy speculations in exchange operations
+and in real estate.
+
+As an eloquent pleader in the courts, he excelled all his
+contemporaries, and it was a common saying among solicitors, that
+Cameron ruled the Bench by force of argument, and the jury by power of
+persuasion. In the Legislature he was no less influential. His speeches
+on the Clergy Reserve question, on the Duval case, and many others,
+excited the House of Assembly to such a degree, that on one occasion an
+adjournment was carried on the motion of the ministerial leader, to give
+time for sober reflection. So it was in religious assemblies. At
+meetings of the Synod of the Church of England, at missionary meetings,
+and others, his fervid zeal and flowing sentences carried all before
+them, and left little for others to say.
+
+In 1849, Mr. Cameron married again, this time a daughter of General
+Mallett, of Baltimore, who survives him, and still resides in Toronto.
+After that date, and for years until 1857, everything appeared to
+prosper with him. A comfortable residence, well stored with valuable
+paintings, books and rarities of all kinds. The choicest of society and
+hosts of friends. An amiable growing family of sons and daughters.
+Affluence and elegance, popular favour, and the full sunshine of
+prosperity. Honours were showered upon him from all sides.
+Solicitor-General in 1846, member of Parliament for several
+constituencies in turn, Treasurer of the Law Society, and Grand Master
+of the Orange Association. Judgeships and Chief-Justiceships were known
+to be at his disposal, but declined for personal reasons.
+
+My political connection with Mr. Cameron commenced in 1854, when, having
+purchased from the widow of the late Hugh Scobie the _Colonist_
+newspaper, I thought it prudent to strengthen myself by party alliances.
+He entered into the project with an energy and disinterestedness that
+surprised me. It had been a semi-weekly paper; he offered to furnish
+five thousand dollars a year to make it a daily journal, independent of
+party control; stipulated for no personal influence over its editorial
+views, leaving them entirely in my discretion, and undertaking that he
+would never reclaim the money so advanced, as long as his means should
+last. I was then comparatively young, enterprising, and unembarrassed in
+circumstances, popular amongst my fellow-citizens, and mixed up in
+nearly every public enterprise and literary association then in
+existence in Toronto. Quite ready, in fact, for any kind of newspaper
+enterprise.
+
+My arrangement with Mr. Cameron continued, with complete success, until
+1857. The paper was acknowledged as a power in the state; my relations
+with contemporary journals were friendly, and all seemed well.
+
+In the summer of 1857 occurred the great business panic, which spread
+ruin and calamity throughout Canada West, caused by the cessation of the
+vast railway expenditure of preceding years, and by the simultaneous
+occurrence of a business pressure in the United States. The great house
+of Duncan Sherman & Co., of New York, through which Mr. Cameron was in
+the habit of transacting a large exchange business with England, broke
+down suddenly and unexpectedly. Drafts on London were dishonoured, and
+Mr. Cameron's bankers there, to protect themselves, sold without notice
+the securities he had placed in their hands, at a loss to him personally
+of over a hundred thousand pounds sterling.
+
+Mr. Cameron was for a time prostrated by this reverse, but soon rallied
+his energies. Friends advised him to offer a compromise to his
+creditors, which would have been gladly accepted; but he refused to do
+so, saying, he would either pay twenty shillings in the pound or die in
+the effort. He made the most extraordinary exertions, refusing the
+highest seats on the judicial bench to work the harder at his
+profession; toiling day and night to retrieve his fortunes; insuring his
+life for heavy sums by way of security to his creditors; and felt
+confident of final success, when in October, 1876, while attending the
+assize at Orillia, he imprudently refreshed himself after a night's
+labour in court, by bathing in the cold waters of the Narrows of Lake
+Couchiching, and contracted a severe cold which laid him on a sick bed,
+which he never quitted alive.
+
+I saw him a day or two before his death, when he spoke of a heavy draft
+becoming due, for which he had made provision. In this he was
+disappointed. He tried to leave his bed to rectify the error, but fell
+back from exhaustion, and died in the struggle--as his friends
+think--from a broken heart.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LX.
+
+  TORONTO ATHENAEUM.
+
+
+About the year 1843, the first effort to establish a free public library
+in Toronto, was made by myself. Having been a member of the Birkbeck
+Institute of London, I exerted myself to get up a similar society here,
+and succeeded in enlisting the sympathies of several of the masters of
+Upper Canada College, of whom Mr. Henry Scadding (now the Rev. Dr.
+Scadding) was the chief. He became president of the Athenaeum, a literary
+association, of which I was secretary and librarian. In that capacity I
+corresponded with the learned societies of England and Scotland, and in
+two or three years got together several hundred volumes of standard
+works, all in good order and well bound. Meetings for literary
+discussion were held weekly, the principal speakers being Philip M.
+Vankoughnet (since chancellor), Alex. Vidal (now senator), David B. Read
+(now Q.C.), J. Crickmore,-- Martin, Macdonald the younger (of
+Greenfield), and many others whose names I cannot recall. I recollect
+being infinitely amused by a naive observation of one of these young
+men-- "Remember, gentlemen, that we are the future legislators of
+Canada!" which proved to be prophetic, as most of them have since made
+their mark in some conspicuous public capacity.
+
+We met in the west wing of the old City Hall. The eastern wing was
+occupied by the Commercial News room, and in course of time the two
+associations were united. As an interesting memento of many honoured
+citizens, I copy the deed of transfer in full:
+
+    "We, the undersigned shareholders of the Commercial News Room,
+    do hereby make over, assign, and transfer unto the members, for
+    the time being, of the Toronto Athenaeum, all our right, title,
+    and interest in and to each our share in the said Commercial
+    News Room, for the purposes and on the terms and conditions
+    mentioned in the copy of a Resolution of the Committee of the
+    said Commercial News Room, hereunto annexed.
+
+
+"In witness whereof we have hereunto placed our hands and seals this 3rd
+day of September, 1847."
+
+    Thos. D. Harris.
+    Jos. D. Ridout.
+    W. C. Ross.
+    A. T. McCord.
+    D. Paterson.
+    Wm. Proudfoot.
+    F. W. Birchall.
+    Geo. Perc. Ridout.
+    Alexander Murray.
+    W. Allan.
+    J. Mitchell.
+    James F. Smith.
+    W. Gamble.
+    Richard Kneeshaw.
+    John Ewart.
+    George Munro.
+    Thos. Mercer Jones.
+    Joseph Dixon.
+
+    Signed, sealed and delivered  }
+    in the presence of            }
+    Samuel Thompson.              }
+
+After the destruction by fire of the old City Hall, the Athenaeum
+occupied handsome rooms in the St. Lawrence Hall, until 1855, when a
+proposition was received to unite with the Canadian Institute, then
+under the presidency of Chief Justice Sir J. B. Robinson. Dr. Wilson
+(now President Toronto University) was its leading spirit. It was
+thereupon decided to transfer the library and some minerals, with the
+government grant of $400, to the Canadian Institute. In order to
+legalize the transfer, application was made to Parliament, and on the
+19th May, 1855, the Act 18 Vic., c. 236, received the royal assent. The
+first clause reads as follows:-- "The members of the Toronto Athenaeum
+shall have power to transfer and convey to the Canadian Institute, such
+and so much of the books, minerals, and other property of the said
+Toronto Athenaeum, whether held absolutely or in trust, as they may
+decide upon so conveying, and upon such conditions as they may think
+advisable, which conditions, if accepted by the said Canadian Institute,
+shall be binding."
+
+Accordingly a deed of transfer was prepared and executed by the two
+contracting parties, by which it was provided:
+
+    "That the library formed by the books of the two institutions,
+    with such additions as may be made from the common funds, should
+    constitute a library to which the public should have access for
+    reference, free of charge, under such regulations as may be
+    adopted by the said Canadian Institute in view of the proper
+    care and management of the same."
+
+The books and minerals were handed over in due time, and acknowledged in
+the _Canadian Journal_, vol. 3, p. 394, old series. On the 9th February,
+1856, Professor Chapman presented his report as curator, "on the
+minerals handed over by the Toronto Athenaeum," which does not appear to
+have been published in the _Journal_. The reading room was subsequently
+handed over to the Mechanics' Institute, which was then in full vigour.
+
+It will be seen, therefore, that the library of the Canadian Institute
+is, to all intents and purposes, a public library by statute, and free
+to all citizens for ever. I am sorry to add, that for many years back
+the conditions of the trust have been very indifferently carried
+out--few citizens know their rights respecting it, and still fewer avail
+themselves thereof. The Institute now has a substantial building, very
+comfortably fitted up, on Richmond Street east; has a good reading room
+in excellent order, and very obliging officials; gives weekly readings
+or lectures on Saturday evenings, and has accumulated a valuable library
+of some eight thousand volumes.
+
+I have thus been identified with almost every movement made in Toronto,
+for affording literary recreation to her citizens, and rejoice to see
+the good work progressing in younger and abler hands.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXI.
+
+  THE BUFFALO FETE.
+
+
+In the month of July, 1850, the Mayor and citizens of Buffalo, hearing
+that our Canadian legislators were about to attend the formal opening of
+the Welland Canal, very courteously invited them to extend their trip to
+that city, and made preparations for their reception. Circumstances
+prevented the visit, but in acknowledgment of the good will thus shown,
+a number of members of the Canadian Parliament, then in session here,
+acting in concert with our City Council, proposed a counter-invitation,
+which was accordingly sent and accepted, and a joint committee formed to
+carry out the project.
+
+The St. Lawrence Hall, then nearly finished, was hurriedly fitted up as
+a ball-room for the occasion, under the volunteered charge chiefly of
+Messrs. F. W. Cumberland and Kivas Tully, architects. The hall was lined
+throughout, tent-fashion, the ceiling with blue and white, the walls
+with pink and white calico, in alternate stripes, varied with a
+multitude of flags, British and American, mottoes and other showy
+devices. The staircase was decorated with evergreens, which were also
+utilized to convert the unfinished butchers' arcade into a bowery vista
+500 feet long, lighted with gas laid for the occasion, and extending
+across Front Street to the entrance of the City Hall, then newly
+restored, painted and papered.
+
+Lord Elgin warmly seconded the hospitable views of the joint committee,
+and Colonel Sir Hew Dalrymple promised a review of the troops then in
+garrison. All was life and preparation throughout the city.
+
+On Friday, August 8th, the steamer _Chief Justice_ was despatched to
+Lewiston to receive the guests from Buffalo. On her return, in the
+afternoon, she was welcomed with a salute of cannon, the men of the Fire
+Brigade lining the wharf and Front Street, along which the visitors were
+conveyed in carriages to the North American Hotel.
+
+Soon after nine o'clock, the Hall began to fill with a brilliant and
+joyous assemblage of visitors and citizens with their ladies. Lord and
+Lady Elgin arrived at about ten o'clock, and were received with the
+strains of "God Save the Queen," by the admirable military band, which
+was one of the city's chief attractions in those times.
+
+The day was very wet, and the evening still rainy. The arcade had been
+laid with matting, but it was nevertheless rather difficult for the fair
+dancers to trip all the way to the City Hall, in the council chamber of
+which supper had been prepared. However, they got safely through, and
+seemed delighted with the adventure. Never since, I think, has the City
+Hall presented so distinguished and charming a scene. Of course there
+was a lady to every gentleman. The fair Buffalonians were loud in their
+praises of the whole arrangements, and thoroughly disposed to enjoy
+themselves.
+
+On a raised dais at the south side of the room was a table, at which
+were seated Mayor Gurnett as host, with Lady Elgin; the Governor-General
+and Mrs. Judge Sill, of Buffalo; Mayor Smith, of Buffalo, and Madame
+Lafontaine; the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament, with Mrs.
+Alderman Tiffany of Buffalo, and the Hon. Mrs. Bruce. Four long tables
+placed north and south, and two side tables, accommodated the rest of
+the party, amounting to about three hundred. All the tables were
+tastefully decorated with floral and other ornaments, and spread with
+every delicacy that could be procured. The presiding stewards were the
+Hon. Mr. Bourret, Hon. Sir Allan N. McNab, Hon. Messrs. Hincks, Cayley,
+J. H. Cameron, S. Tache, Drummond and Merritt.
+
+Toasts and speeches followed in the usual order, after which everybody
+returned to the St. Lawrence Hall, where dancing was resumed and kept up
+till an early hour next morning.
+
+The next day, being the 9th, the promised review of the 71st Regiment
+took place, with favourable weather, and was a decided success.
+
+In the afternoon, Lord Elgin gave a fete champetre at Elmsley Villa,
+where he then resided, and which has since been occupied as Knox's
+College. The grounds then extended from Yonge Street to the University
+Park, and an equal distance north and south. They were well kept, and on
+this occasion charmingly in unison with the bright smiles and gay
+costumes of the ladies who, with their gentlemen escorts, made up the
+most joyous of scenes.
+
+Having paid my respects at the Government House on New Year's day, I was
+present as an invited guest at the garden party. His Excellency showed
+me marked attention, in recognition probably of my services as a
+peacemaker. The corporation, as a body, were not invited, which was the
+only instance in which Lord Elgin betrayed any pique at the unflattering
+reception given him in October, 1849.[28] While conversing with him, I
+was amused at the enthusiasm of a handsome Buffalo lady, who came up,
+unceremoniously exclaiming, "Oh, my lord, I heard your beautiful speech
+(in the marquee), you should come among us and go into politics. If you
+would only take the stump for the Presidency, I am confident you would
+sweep every state of the Union!"
+
+An excellent dejeuner had been served in a large tent on the lawn.
+Speeches and toasts were numerous and complimentary. The conservatory
+was cleared for dancing, which was greatly enjoyed, and the festivities
+were wound up by a brilliant display of fireworks.
+
+The guests departed next morning, amid hearty handshaking and
+professions of friendship. Before leaving the wharf, the Mayor of
+Buffalo expressed in warm and pleasing terms, his high sense of the
+hospitality shown himself and his fellow-citizens. And so ended the
+Buffalo Fete.
+
+[Footnote 28: Some members of the corporation were much annoyed at their
+exclusion, and inclined to resent it as a studied insult, but wiser
+counsels prevailed.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXII.
+
+  THE BOSTON JUBILEE.
+
+
+The year 1851 is memorable for the celebration, at Boston, of the
+opening of the Ogdensburg Railway, to connect Boston with Canada and the
+Lakes, and also of the Grand Junction Railway, a semicircular line by
+which all the railways radiating from that city are linked together, so
+that a passenger starting from any one of the city stations can take his
+ticket for any other station on any of those railways, either in the
+suburbs or at distant points. I am not aware that so perfect a system
+has been attempted elsewhere. The natural configuration of its site has
+probably suggested the scheme. Boston proper is built on an irregular
+tri-conical hill, with its famous bay to the east; on the north the wide
+Charles River, with the promontory and hills of Charlestown and East
+Cambridge; on the south Dorchester Heights. Between the principal
+elevations are extensive salt marshes, now rapidly disappearing under
+the encroachments of artificial soil, covered in turn by vast
+warehouses, streets, railway tracks, and all the various structures
+common to large commercial cities.
+
+It was in the month of July, that a deputation from the Boston City
+Council visited our principal Canadian cities, as the bearers of an
+invitation to Lord Elgin and his staff, with the government officials,
+as well as the mayors and corporations and leading merchants of those
+cities, and other principal towns of Upper and Lower Canada, to visit
+Boston on the occasion of a great jubilee to be held in honour of the
+opening of its new railway system.
+
+Numerous as were the invited Canadian guests, however, they formed but a
+mere fraction of the visitors expected. Every railway staff, every
+municipal corporation throughout the Northern States, was included in
+the list of invitations; free passes and free quarters were provided for
+all; and it would be hard to conceive a more joyous invasion of merry
+travellers, than those who were pouring in by a rapid succession of
+loaded trains on all the numerous lines converging upon "the hub of the
+universe."
+
+Our Toronto party was pretty numerous. Mr. J. G. Bowes was mayor, and
+among the aldermen present were Messrs. W. Wakefield (who was a host of
+jollity in himself), G. P. Ridout, R. Dempsey, E. F. Whittemore, J. G.
+Beard, Robt. Beard, John B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard and myself; also
+councilmen James Ashfield, James Price, M. P. Hayes, S. Platt, Jonathan
+Dunn, and others. There were besides, of leading citizens, Messrs. Alex.
+Dixon, E. G. O'Brien, Alex. Manning, E. Goldsmith, Kivas Tully, Fred.
+Perkins, Rice Lewis, George Brown, &c. We had a delightful trip down
+the lake by steamer, and at Ogdensburg took the cars for Lake Champlain.
+We arrived at Boston about 10 a.m. Waiting for us at the Western
+Railroad Depot were the mayor and several of the city council of Boston,
+with carriages for our whole party. But we were too dusty and tired with
+our long journey to think of anything but refreshments and baths, and
+all the other excellent things which awaited us at the American Hotel.
+Here we were confidentially informed that the Jubilee was to be
+celebrated on temperance principles, but that in compliment to the
+Canadian guests, a few baskets of champagne had been provided for our
+especial delectation; and I am compelled to add, that on the strength
+thereof, two or three worshipful aldermen of Toronto got themselves
+locked up for the night in the police stations.
+
+It is but justice to explain here, that a very small offence is
+sufficient to procure such a distinction in Boston. Even the smoking of
+a cigar on the side-walks, or the least symptom of unsteadiness in gait,
+is enough to consign a man to durance vile. The police were everywhere.
+
+The first day of the Jubilee was occupied by the members of the
+committee in receiving their visitors, providing them with comfortable
+and generally luxurious quarters, and introducing the principal guests
+to each other--also in exhibiting the local lions. On the second day
+there was an excursion down the harbour, which is many miles long and
+broad. Six steamboats and two large cutters, gay with flags and
+streamers, conveyed the party; champagne was in abundance (always for
+the Canadian visitors!)--each boat had its band of music--very fine
+German bands too. Then, as the flotilla left the wharf and passed in
+succession the fortifications and other prominent points, salvoes of
+cannon boomed across the bright waters, re-echoing far and wide amid the
+surrounding hills. President Fillmore and his suite were on board the
+leading vessel, and to him, of course, these honours were paid. On every
+boat was spread a banquet for the guests; toasts and sentiments were
+given and duly honoured; and to judge by the noise and excited
+gesticulations of the banqueters, nothing could be more complete than
+the fusion of Yankees and Canadians.
+
+At noon, a regatta was held, which, the weather being fine, with a light
+breeze, was pronounced by yachtsmen a distinguished success. At five
+o'clock the citizens crowded in vast numbers to the Western Railway
+Station, there to meet His Excellency the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
+with his brother Colonel Bruce and a numerous staff. He was welcomed by
+Mayor Bigelow, a fine venerable old man of the Mayflower stock. Mutual
+compliments were exchanged, and the new comers escorted to the Revere
+House, a very handsome hotel, the best in Boston. Everywhere the streets
+were lined with throngs of people, who cheered our Governor-General to
+the uttermost extent of their lung-power.
+
+On the third day took place a monster procession, at least a mile and
+a-half in length, and modelled after the plan of the German trades
+festivals. Besides the long line of carriages filled with guests, from
+the President and the Governor-General down to the humblest city
+officer, there was an immense array of "trades expositions" or pageants,
+that is, huge waggons drawn by four, six, eight and sometimes ten
+horses, each waggon serving as a model workshop, whereon printers,
+hatters, bootmakers, turners, carriage-makers, boat-riggers,
+stone-cutters, silversmiths, plumbers, market-men, piano-forte makers,
+and many other handicraftsmen worked at their respective callings.
+
+The finest street of private residences was Dover Street, a noble avenue
+of cut stone buildings, occupied by wealthy people of old Boston
+families. The decorations here were both costly and tasteful; and the
+hospitality unbounded. As each carriage passed slowly along, footmen in
+livery presented at its doors silver trays loaded with refreshments, in
+the shape of pastry, bon-bons, and costly wines. The ladies of each
+house, richly dressed, stood on the lower steps and welcomed the
+visitors with smiles and waving of handkerchiefs. At two or three places
+in the line of procession, were platforms handsomely festooned, occupied
+by bevies of fair girls in white, or by hundreds of children of both
+sexes, belonging to the common schools, prettily dressed, and bearing
+bouquets of bright flowers which they presented to the occupants of the
+carriages.
+
+I could not help remarking to my companion, one of the members of the
+Boston City Council, that more aristocratic-looking women than these
+Dover Street matrons, were not, I thought, to be found in all Europe. He
+told me not to whisper such a sentiment in Boston, for fear it might
+expose the objects of my complimentary remark to being mobbed by the
+democracy.
+
+At length the procession came to an end. But it was only a prelude to a
+still more magnificent demonstration, which was the great banquet given
+to four thousand people under one vast tent covering half an acre of
+ground on the Common. Thither the visitors were escorted in carriages,
+with the usual attention and solicitude for their every comfort, and
+when within, and placed according to their several ranks and localities,
+it was truly a sight to be remembered. The tent was two hundred and
+fifty feet in length by ninety in width. The roof and sides were all but
+hidden by the profusion of flags and bunting festooned everywhere. A
+raised table for the visitors extended around the entire tent. For the
+citizens proper were placed ten rows of parallel tables running the
+whole length of the inner area; altogether providing seats for three
+thousand six hundred people, besides smaller tables at convenient
+spots. There were present also a whole army of waiters, one to each
+dozen guests, and indefatigable in their duties.
+
+The repast included all kinds of cold meats and temperance drinks.
+Flowers for every person and great flower trophies on the tables;
+abundance of huge water and musk melons, and other fruits in great
+variety and perfection, especially native grown peaches and Bartlett
+pears, which Boston produces of the finest quality. Also plenty of
+pastry of many tempting kinds. It took scarcely twenty minutes to seat
+the entire "dinner party" comfortably, so excellent were the
+arrangements.
+
+Before dinner commenced, Mayor Bigelow, who presided, announced that
+President Fillmore was required to leave for Washington on urgent state
+business; which he did after his health had been proposed and
+acknowledged. A little piece of dramatic acting was noticeable here,
+when the President and Lord Elgin, one on each side of the Mayor, shook
+hands across his worshipful breast, the President retaining his
+lordship's hand firmly clasped in his own for some time; a tableau which
+gave rise to a tumultuous burst of applause from the whole assemblage.
+
+Then commenced in earnest the play of knives and forks, four thousand of
+each, producing a unique and somewhat droll effect. After the President
+had gone, Lord Elgin became the chief lion of the day, and right well
+did his lordship play his part, entering thoroughly into the prejudices
+of his auditors while disclaiming all flattery, pouring out witticism
+after witticism, sometimes of the broadest, and altogether carrying the
+audience with him until they were worked up into a perfect frenzy of
+applause.
+
+"The health of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
+Britain and Ireland" having been proposed by His Honour Mayor John P.
+Bigelow, was received, as the Boston account of the Jubilee says, "with
+nine such cheers as would have made Her Majesty, had she been present,
+forget that she was beyond the limits of her own dominions; and the band
+struck up 'God save the Queen,' as if to complete the illusion." The
+compliment was acknowledged by Lord Elgin, who said:
+
+    "Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some
+    little misconception on these points, to observe, that we,
+    monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of
+    self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative
+    assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump
+    orators, lobbyings and log-rollings--(Laughter)--and I am not
+    sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying--(renewed
+    laughter)--almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with
+    yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused
+    the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour
+    to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common
+    Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me,
+    with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find,
+    upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there
+    was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the
+    kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking
+    that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in
+    Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his
+    entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a
+    'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed
+    laughter.)
+
+    "Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the
+    voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a
+    regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously
+    slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this
+    point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high
+    authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American--a
+    member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been
+    in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly
+    backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one
+    particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries
+    his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen,
+    deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and
+    conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent
+    my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed
+    utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings
+    are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened
+    under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I
+    believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of
+    Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and
+    its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses,
+    and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and
+    Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State,
+    moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the
+    illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union.
+    (Applause.)
+
+    "But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must
+    tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries
+    to express his feelings when his heart is full--that is to say,
+    when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether
+    (sensation)--in that homely way I must express to you how deeply
+    grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the
+    kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of
+    Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could
+    not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they
+    have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus
+    enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has
+    been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the
+    State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had
+    before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects
+    to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although
+    it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the
+    conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a
+    bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or
+    careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I
+    may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial
+    men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on
+    the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has
+    fallen. (Applause and cheers.)
+
+    "Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that
+    remark about him was received. (Laughter.)
+
+    "Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the
+    progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are
+    now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway
+    that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the
+    iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the
+    pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of
+    mine, whom I see now present--Governor Paine--I think as far as
+    Concord, upon that line.
+
+    "Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont--It was Franklin.
+
+    "Lord Elgin--He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but
+    Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will
+    not contradict; it is this--that although we travelled together
+    two or three days--after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and
+    in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place
+    which we could with any propriety have christened Discord.
+    (Laughter and applause.)
+
+           *     *     *     *     *
+
+    "As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail
+    their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit,
+    which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem
+    to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue
+    of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find
+    one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that
+    their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military
+    men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account
+    for this observation (laughter)--and what do you think that
+    occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the
+    citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when
+    it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to
+    Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their
+    wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all
+    they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York.
+    (Laughter.)
+
+    "I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I
+    think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty
+    millions in railways since that time."
+
+After his lordship, followed Edward Everett, whose speech was a complete
+contrast in every respect. Eloquent exceedingly, but chaste, terse and
+poetical; it charmed the Canadian visitors as much as Lord Elgin's had
+delighted the natives. Here are a few extracts:--
+
+    "It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with
+    which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate
+    speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of
+    Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest
+    and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be
+    reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after
+    beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset
+    that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest,
+    most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were
+    travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I
+    should say to him, in the language of the natives of those
+    regions, sma sheen--very well, my lord. But in plain English,
+    sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed
+    new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother
+    tongue.' (Great cheering.)
+
+           *     *     *     *     *
+
+    "We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced
+    of the importance of this system of communication; although it
+    may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even
+    yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have,
+    however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have
+    felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of
+    our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of
+    agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt
+    them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant
+    of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts
+    to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The
+    inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which
+    he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he
+    can get back to his native village;--to see the old folks, aye,
+    Sir, and some of the young folks--with which he can get a
+    mouthful of pure mountain air--or run down in dog days to
+    Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New
+    Bedford.
+
+    "I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in
+    these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far
+    beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the
+    concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had
+    its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present
+    occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in
+    reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and
+    delight!
+
+    "When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these
+    colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a
+    reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated
+    about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently
+    reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I
+    believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us
+    with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than
+    twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to
+    Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more
+    to New York, and ten more to Boston.
+
+    "And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region--but now
+    brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in
+    that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with
+    such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to
+    start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the
+    Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought
+    of--never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes
+    unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it
+    made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more
+    practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more
+    inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the
+    savage; these it was that filled the space between us and
+    Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered
+    Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian
+    captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on.
+    (Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred
+    years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born
+    before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to
+    the banks of the Connecticut river.
+
+    "As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the
+    Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his
+    arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French
+    in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His
+    Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the
+    warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of
+    these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open--the rivers
+    and lakes are bridged--the valleys rise, the mountains bow their
+    everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his
+    breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;--reading a
+    newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago
+    in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the
+    construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil
+    whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I
+    believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting
+    in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely
+    into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's
+    morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers
+    would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could
+    it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the
+    circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.]
+
+    "I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project
+    to carry a railroad into the lake country in England--into the
+    heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately
+    deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed
+    the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of
+    this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the
+    locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not
+    mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the
+    enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a
+    most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it
+    seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be
+    disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible.
+    The bustle of the station house may take the place of the
+    Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens!
+    sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the
+    hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful
+    worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers).
+
+    "How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of
+    comparatively narrow dimensions like England--how less than
+    little in a country so vast as this--by works of this
+    description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road,
+    which partially changes its character; while, as the
+    compensation, you bring all this rural beauty--
+
+  "The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
+    The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"
+
+    within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering
+    tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have
+    senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open,
+    with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands
+    who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and
+    died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the
+    mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone
+    to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever
+    having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful
+    spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man--that of a
+    glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes
+    swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green
+    ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along
+    the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)
+
+    "But even this is nothing compared with the great social and
+    moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in
+    many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been
+    kindly given to the public. All important also are its
+    political effects in binding the States together as one family,
+    and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do
+    not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from
+    the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit
+    to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have
+    preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as
+    long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent,
+    may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this
+    generation." [Cheers.]
+
+Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due
+time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the
+lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a
+wonderful and pleasing spectacle.
+
+We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public
+institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a
+series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether
+novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite
+accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+  VESTIGES OF THE MOSAIC DELUGE.
+
+
+In chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain
+conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean
+beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an
+altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea
+level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above
+Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a
+third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake,
+which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In
+chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human
+remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on
+the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto.
+
+When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January,
+1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or
+unreliable. I have now, however, just seen in _Good Words_ for this
+month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the
+Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I
+allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern
+portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land;
+secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and
+remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a
+further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to
+the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these
+subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled,
+and within historic times--probably at the date of the deluge recorded
+by Moses.
+
+His Grace says:--
+
+    "I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be
+    to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place
+    within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts
+    which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the
+    whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does
+    now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the
+    submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the
+    Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden
+    submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country
+    than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with
+    that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which
+    lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known,
+    and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet
+    of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the
+    Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous
+    carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes
+    complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence
+    of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet,
+    taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I
+    must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man
+    co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found
+    in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain
+    the bones of those great mammalia."
+
+I should be glad to quote more, but this is enough to account for the
+circumstances I have myself noted, and to explain also, I think, the
+vast deposit of mud which forms the prairies of the Western States, and
+of the Canadian North-West; which has its counterpart in the European
+prairie countries of Moldavia and Wallachia. But the Duke appears to me
+to overlook the circumstance, that the vast accumulation of animal
+remains in Siberia, mostly of southern varieties, to which he refers,
+must have been swept there, not by an upheaval, but by a depression in
+the northern hemisphere, and a corresponding rise in the southern,
+whence all these mammoths, lions and tigers, are supposed to have been
+swept. To account for their present elevated position, a second
+convulsion restoring the depressed parts to their original altitude,
+must apparently have occurred--at least that is my unscientific
+conclusion. It would seem that we ought to look for similar
+accumulations of animal matter in our own Hudson's Bay territory, where,
+also, it is stated, the ground remains frozen throughout summer to
+within three feet of the surface, as in Siberia.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+  THE FRANCHISE.
+
+
+While I was a member of the City Council, the question of the proper
+qualification for electors of municipal councils and of the legislature,
+was much under discussion. I told my Reform opponents, who advocated an
+extremely low standard, that the lower they fixed the qualification for
+voters, the more bitterly they would be disappointed; that the poorer
+the electors the greater the corruption that must necessarily prevail.
+And so it has proved.
+
+In thinking over the subject since, I have been led to compare the body
+politic to a pyramid, the stones in every layer of which shall be more
+numerous than the aggregate of all the layers above it. And this
+comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that
+each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes
+higher in social rank--the idlers than the industrious--the workers than
+the employers--the children than the parents--the illiterate than the
+instructed--and so on. Thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that
+the adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage, now so much
+advocated, must necessarily place all political power in the hands of
+the worst offscourings of the community--law-breakers, vagrants, and
+outcasts of all kinds. This would be equivalent to inverting the
+pyramid, and expecting it to remain poised upon its apex--which is a
+mere impossibility.
+
+Whether the capstone of the social pyramid ought to be king or
+president, is not material to my argument. On republican principles--and
+with the French King, Louis Philippe, I hold that the British
+constitutional monarchy is "the best of all republics"--the true theory
+of representative institutions must be, that each class of the electors
+should have a voice in the councils of the country equal to, and no
+greater than, each of the several classes (or strata) above. This would
+greatly resemble the old Scandinavian storthings, in which there were
+four orders of legislators--king, nobles, clergy, and peasants, each of
+which had a veto on all questions brought before any one of them.
+
+Thus, the election of members of local municipal councils would be
+vested in the rate-payers, much as at present. The district (not county)
+councils would be elected by the local municipalities; and would
+themselves be entitled to elect members of the provincial legislatures.
+These latter again might properly be entrusted with the election of the
+Dominion House of Commons. And to carry the idea a step further, the
+Dominion Legislature itself would be a fitting body to nominate
+representatives to a great council of the Empire, which should decide
+all questions of peace or war, of commerce, and other matters affecting
+the whole body politic. To make the analogy complete, and bind the whole
+structure together, each class should be limited in its choice to the
+class next above it, by which process, it is to be presumed, "the
+survival of the fittest" would be secured, and every man elected to the
+higher bodies must have won his way from the municipal council up
+through all the other grades.
+
+I should give each municipal voter such number of votes as would
+represent his stake in the municipality, say one vote for every four
+hundred dollars of assessable property, and an additional vote for every
+additional four hundred dollars, up to a maximum of perhaps ten votes,
+and no more, which would sufficiently protect the richer ratepayers
+without neutralizing the wishes of the poorer voters.
+
+On such a system, every voter would influence the entire legislation of
+the country to the exact extent of his intelligence, and of his
+contributions to the general expenditure. Corruption would be almost,
+and intimidation quite, impracticable.
+
+To meet the need for a revisory body or senate, the retired judges of
+the Upper Courts, and retired members of the House of Commons, after ten
+or twenty years' service, should form an unexceptionable tribunal for
+any of the colonies.
+
+I am aware that the election of legislators by the county councils has
+been already advocated in Canada, and that in other respects this
+chapter may be considered not a little presumptuous; but I conclude,
+nevertheless, to print it for what it is worth.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXV.
+
+  FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.
+
+
+I have, I believe, in the preceding pages, established beyond
+contradiction the historical fact, that the Conservative party, whatever
+their other faults may have been, are not justly chargeable with making
+use of the Protection cry as a mere political manoeuvre, only adopted
+immediately prior to the general elections of 1878.
+
+I have mentioned, that when I was about eighteen years of age, the
+Corn-Law League was in full blast in England. I was foreman and
+proof-reader of the printing office whence all its principal
+publications issued, and was in daily communication with Col. Peyronnet
+Thompson, M. P., and the other free-trade leaders. I was even then
+struck with the circumstance, that while loudly professing their
+disinterested desire for the welfare of the whole human race, the
+authors of the movement urged as their main argument with the
+manufacturers and farmers, that England could undersell the whole world
+in cheap goods, while her agriculturists could never be under-sold in
+their own markets. This reasoning appeared to me both hypocritical and
+fraudulent; and I hold that it has proved so, and that for England and
+Scotland, the day of retribution is already looming in the near future.
+As righteously might a single shop-keeper build his hopes of profit upon
+the utter ruin of all his trade competitors, as a single country dare to
+speculate, as the British free-trader has done, on the destruction of
+the manufacturing industries of all other nations.
+
+The present troubles in Ireland, are they not the direct fruit of the
+crushing out of its linen industry? The Scindian war in India, was it
+not caused by the depopulation of a whole province of a million and a
+half of people, through the annihilation of its nankeen manufacture. And
+if Manchester and Birmingham had their way, would not France and
+Germany, and Switzerland and America--including Canada--become the mere
+bond-slaves of the Cobdens and the Brights--_et hoc genus omne_?
+
+But there is a Power above all, that has ordered events otherwise. I
+assume it to be undeniable, that according to natural laws, the country
+which produces any raw material, must ultimately become its cheapest
+manipulator. England has no inherent claim to control any manufactures
+but those of tin, iron, brass and wool; and with time, all or most of
+these may be wrested from her. Her cotton mills must ultimately fade
+away before those of India, the Southern States, and Africa. Her grain
+can never again compete with that of Russia and the Canadian North-West.
+Her iron-works with difficulty now hold their own against Germany and
+the United States. Birmingham and Sheffield are threatened by
+Switzerland, by the New England States, and--before many decades--by
+Canada. And so on with all the rest of England's monopolies. Dear
+labour, dear farming, dear soil, will tell unfavourably in the end, in
+spite of all trade theories and _ex parte_ arguments.
+
+Yet more. It would not be hard to show, I think, that the tenant-right
+and agrarian agitations of the present day are due to Free Trade; that
+the cry, "the land belongs to the labourer," is the direct offspring of
+the Cobden teaching; and that the issue will but too probably be, a
+disastrous revulsion of labour against capital, and poverty against
+wealth. They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind! God send that it
+may not happen in our day!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+  THE FUTURE OF CANADA.
+
+
+I may venture, I hope, to put down here some of the conclusions to which
+my fifty years' experience in Canada, and my observation of what has
+been going on during the same term in the United States, have led me. It
+is a favourite boast with our neighbours, that all North America must
+ultimately be brought under one government, and that the manifest
+destiny of Canada will irresistibly lead her on to annexation. And we
+have had, and still have amongst us, those who welcome the idea, and
+some who have lately grown audacious enough to stigmatize as traitors
+those who, like myself, claim to be citizens, not of the Dominion only,
+but of the Empire.
+
+To say nothing of the semi-barbarous population of Mexico, who would
+have to be consulted, there is a section of the Southern States which
+may yet demand autonomy for the Negro race, and which will in all
+probability seize the first opportunity for so doing. Then in Canada, we
+have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their
+preference for French over British alliance; and who will surely claim
+their right to act upon their convictions the moment British authority
+shall have become relaxed. Nor can they be blamed for this, however we
+may doubt the soundness of their conclusions. Then we have the Acadians
+of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow French Canada wheresoever she
+might lead; nor could the few British people of New Brunswick and Prince
+Edward Island--unaided by England--escape the same fate. Even Eastern
+Ontario might have to fight hard to escape a French Republican regime.
+
+There remain Middle and Western Ontario, and the North-West--two
+naturally isolated territories, neither of which could be expected to
+incur the horrors of war for the sake of the other. It is not, I think,
+difficult to foresee, that, given independence, Ontario must inevitably
+cast her lot in with the United States. But with the North-West, the
+case is entirely different.
+
+From Liverpool to Winnipeg, _via_ Hudson's Bay, the distance is less by
+eleven hundred miles than by way of the St. Lawrence. From Liverpool to
+China and Japan, _via_ the same northern route, the distance is--as a
+San Francisco journal points out--a thousand miles shorter than by any
+other trans-American line. It is really _two thousand miles_ shorter
+than _via_ San Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the
+cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and
+Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the
+power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route
+through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she
+holds it under her sole control. And where is the nation that can
+prevent her so holding it, while her fleets command the North Atlantic
+Ocean. Is it not utterly inconceivable, that English statesmen can be
+found so mad or so unpatriotic, as to throw away the very key of the
+world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the
+North-West; or that Manchester and Birmingham--Sheffield and
+Glasgow--should sustain for a moment any government that could dream of
+so doing. I firmly believe, in fine, that either by the St. Lawrence or
+the Hudson's Bay route, or both, British connexion with Canada is
+destined to endure, all prognostications to the contrary
+notwithstanding. England may afford to be shut out of the Suez canal, or
+the Panama canal, or the entire of her South African colonies, better
+than she can afford to part with the Dominion, and notably the Canadian
+North-West. If there be any two countries in the world whose interests
+are inseparable, they are the British Isles and North-Western
+Canada--the former being constrained by her food necessities, the latter
+by her want of a secure grain market. Old Canada, some say, has her
+natural outlet in the United States--which is only very partially true,
+as the reverse might be asserted with equal force. Not so the
+North-West. She has her natural market in Great Britain; and Great
+Britain, in turn, will find in the near future her best customer in
+Manitoba and the North-Western prairies.
+
+So mote it be!
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+  THE TORONTO MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.
+
+
+The following account of the rise and progress of this institution, has
+been obligingly furnished me by one of its earliest and best friends,
+Mr. William Edwards, to whom, undoubtedly, more than to any other man,
+it has been indebted for its past success and usefulness:
+
+    The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January,
+    1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by
+    James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly
+    meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the
+    report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled
+    members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon.
+    Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm.
+    Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts,
+    John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B.
+    Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James
+    Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons,
+    A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the
+    organization and progress of the Institute.
+
+    Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not
+    been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic
+    Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building,
+    on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by
+    Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures
+    delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the
+    improvement of its members.
+
+    During the year 1835, a grant of L200 was made by the
+    legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was
+    entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were
+    made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The
+    apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete,
+    and was never of much value to the Institute.
+
+    The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837,
+    and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the
+    Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they
+    had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the
+    accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the
+    Market Buildings--the site of the present St. Lawrence Market.
+
+    In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the
+    Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12
+    Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and,
+    through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the
+    use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During
+    this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story
+    fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court
+    buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council
+    extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary
+    accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the
+    Institute continued the building of the second story for its
+    accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference
+    between the cost of the extended building and the building first
+    contracted for, which amounted to L465 5s. 6d.--this sum being
+    raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to L1 each.
+
+    The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of
+    August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John
+    Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when
+    the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B.
+    Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the
+    Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its
+    purposes.
+
+    The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented
+    to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was
+    made to the Institute during the same year.
+
+    In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of
+    exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work,
+    antiquities, curiosities, &c. This was kept open for two weeks,
+    and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and
+    of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were
+    repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an
+    exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700
+    paintings and drawings--many of them being copies of the old
+    masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of
+    nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other
+    departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was
+    always an indefatigable worker.
+
+    In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact
+    that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September,
+    1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was
+    purchased by public auction, for L1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a
+    new building were at once prepared, and committees were
+    appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the
+    citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the
+    year the sum of L1,200 was contributed. The president of the
+    Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously
+    presented the plans and specifications and superintendence,
+    free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building
+    was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was
+    laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854.
+
+    During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the
+    unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes,
+    the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the
+    Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the
+    expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute
+    the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary
+    changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible
+    in accordance with the original plans. The building had a
+    frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on
+    Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was
+    $48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49;
+    sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site,
+    $14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities,
+    $5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and
+    from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000;
+    leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of
+    $1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied
+    during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable
+    entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a
+    bazaar--the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds
+    of the Institute.
+
+    During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of
+    literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the
+    first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction,
+    in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special
+    feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated
+    a more complete system than had before been carried out. These
+    classes were continued annually with marked success until the
+    winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of
+    its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing
+    evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses.
+
+    In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its
+    building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting
+    thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated
+    improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free
+    Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first
+    intended, but for library purposes only.
+
+    In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property
+    from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a
+    School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in
+    the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all
+    its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government
+    in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room,
+    and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in
+    a very favourable position, and considerably improved its
+    finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more
+    suitable building for the School of Technology (then named
+    "School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the
+    property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many
+    alterations were made in the building when the Institute got
+    possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music
+    hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables,
+    chess-boards, &c., for the use of the members. This latter
+    feature was a success, both financially and otherwise.
+
+    In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which
+    provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics'
+    Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all
+    its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of
+    Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free
+    Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting
+    held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved
+    to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities,
+    to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes;
+    and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed
+    giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of
+    June, in the said year 1883.
+
+    With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the
+    usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed
+    away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence,
+    than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During
+    its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work.
+    Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and
+    educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned
+    into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise
+    have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to
+    society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy,
+    mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated
+    with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of
+    great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members
+    to study the useful books in the library, to join with their
+    fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take
+    responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops,
+    that only for the Institute they would not have attained to.
+
+    Until the Canadian Institute--which was nursed into existence in
+    the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of
+    Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members--the Institute had
+    the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young
+    Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free
+    reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and
+    better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to
+    have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence.
+
+
+    This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in
+    its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to
+    close without noticing some of those who have for extended
+    periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I
+    fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however,
+    the names of those who served the Institute in the various
+    positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries,
+    librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty
+    years in all, as follows:--
+
+    W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E.
+    Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13),
+    John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H.
+    Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H.
+    Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee
+    (each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice
+    Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8
+    years).
+
+    Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records
+    have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have
+    been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4,
+    7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach
+    (1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B.
+    Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland
+    (1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland
+    (1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore
+    (1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout
+    (1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate
+    (1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870),
+    John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos.
+    Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout
+    (1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3).
+
+    The recording secretaries have been in the following order and
+    number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3,
+    4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840
+    and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859,
+    1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861,
+    2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel
+    Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
+    1880, 1, 2, 3).
+
+    The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C.
+    Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward
+    (1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland
+    (1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John
+    Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the
+    office was not continued.
+
+    The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M.
+    Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4,
+    5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6),
+    John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W.
+    Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos.
+    Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay
+    (1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880).
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+  THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
+
+
+The establishment of Free Libraries, adapted to meet the wants of
+readers of all classes, has made rapid progress within the last few
+years. Some, such as the Chetham Library of Manchester, owe their origin
+to the bequests of public-spirited citizens of former days; some, like
+the British Museum Library, to national support; but they remained
+comparatively unused, until the modern system of common school
+education, and the wonderful development of newspaper enterprise, made
+readers of the working classes. I remember when London had but one daily
+journal, the _Times_, and one weekly, the _News_, which latter paper was
+sold for sixpence sterling by men whom I have seen running through the
+streets on Sunday morning, blowing tin horns to announce their approach
+to their customers.
+
+The introduction of Mechanics' Institutes by the joint efforts of Lord
+Brougham and Dr. Birkbeck, I also recollect; as a lad I was one of the
+first members. They spread over all English-speaking communities, throve
+for many years, then gradually waned. Scientific knowledge became so
+common, that lectures on chemistry, astronomy, &c., ceased to attract
+audiences. But the appetite for reading did not diminish in the least,
+and hence it happened that Free Libraries began to supersede Mechanics'
+Institutes.
+
+Toronto has heretofore done but little in this way, and it remained for
+a few public-spirited citizens of the present decade, to effect any
+marked advance in the direction of free reading for all classes. In
+August, 1880, the Rev. Dr. Scadding addressed a letter to the City
+Council, calling its attention to the propriety of establishing a Public
+Library in Toronto. In the following December, Alderman Taylor, in an
+address to his constituents, wrote--"In 1881 the nucleus of a free
+Public Library should be secured by purchase or otherwise, so that in a
+few years we may boast of a library that will do no discredit to the
+educational centre of the Dominion. Cities across the lake annually vote
+a sum to be so applied, Chicago alone voting $39,000 per annum for a
+similar purpose. Surely Toronto can afford say $5,000 a year for the
+mental improvement of her citizens." In the City Council for 1881, the
+subject was zealously taken up by Aldermen Hallam, Taylor and Mitchell.
+Later in the year, Alderman Hallam presented to the council an
+interesting report of his investigations among English public libraries,
+describing their system and condition.
+
+Early in 1882, an Act was passed by the Ontario Legislature, giving
+power to the ratepayers of any municipality in Ontario to tax themselves
+for the purchase or erection and maintenance of a Free Public Library,
+limiting the rate to be so levied to one half mill on the dollar on
+taxable property.[29] The Town of Guelph was the first to avail itself
+of the privilege, and was followed by Toronto, which, on 1st January,
+1883, adopted a by-law submitted by the City Council in accordance with
+the statute, the majority thereon being 2,543, the largest ever polled
+at any Toronto city election for raising money for any special object.
+
+This result was not obtained without very active exertions on the part
+of the friends of the movement, amongst whom, as is admitted on all
+hands, Alderman Hallam is entitled to the chief credit. But for his
+liberal expenditure for printing, his unwearied activity in addressing
+public meetings, and his successful appeals through the children of the
+common schools to their parents, the by-law might have failed. Ald.
+Taylor and other gentlemen gave efficient aid. Professor Wilson,
+President of Toronto University, presided at meetings held in its
+favour; and Messrs. John Hague, W. H. Knowlton and other citizens
+supported it warmly through the press. The editors of the principal city
+papers also doing good service through their columns.
+
+In Toronto, as elsewhere, the Mechanics' Institute has had its day. But
+times change, and the public taste changes with them. A library and
+reading-room supported by subscription, could hardly hope to compete
+with an amply endowed rival, to which admission would be absolutely
+free. So the officers of the Mechanics' Institute threw themselves
+heartily into the new movement, and after consultation with their
+members, offered, in accordance with the statute, to transfer their
+property, valued at some twenty thousand dollars, exclusive of all
+encumbrances, to the City Council for the use of the Free Library, which
+offer was gladly accepted.
+
+The first Board of Management was composed as follows:--The Mayor, A. R.
+Boswell (ex-officio); John Hallam, John Taylor and George D'Arcy
+Boulton,[30] nominated by the City Council; Dr. George Wright, W. H.
+Knowlton and J. A. Mills, nominees of the Public School Board; and James
+Mason and Wm. Scully, representing the Board of Separate School
+Trustees. At their first meeting, held February 15th, 1883, the new
+Board elected John Hallam to be their chairman for the year, and myself
+as secretary _pro tem_.
+
+The following extract from the Chairman's opening address, illustrates
+the spirit in which the library is to be conducted:
+
+    "Toronto is pre-eminently a city of educational institutions. We all
+    feel a pride in her progress, and feel more so now that it is
+    possible to add a free public library to her many noble and useful
+    institutions. I feel sure that the benefit to the people of a
+    reference and lending library of carefully selected books, is
+    undisputed by all who are interested in the mental, moral, and
+    social advancement of our city. The books in such a library should
+    be as general and as fascinating as possible. I would have this
+    library a representative one, with a grand foundation of solid,
+    standard fact literature, with a choice, clear-minded, finely-
+    imaginative superstructure of light reading, and avoid the vulgar,
+    the sensuously sensational, the garbage of the modern press. A rate-
+    supported library should be practical in its aims, and not a mere
+    curiosity shop for a collection of curious and rare books--their
+    only merit being their rarity, their peculiar binding, singular
+    type, or quaint illustrations. It is very nice to have these
+    literary rare-bits; but the taxes of the people should not be spent
+    in buying them. A library of this kind, to be valuable as far as our
+    own country is concerned, should contain a full collection of--
+
+    "1. Manuscript statements and narratives of pioneer settlers;
+    old letters and journals relative to the early history and
+    settlement of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New
+    Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, and the wars
+    of 1776 and 1812; biographical notes of our pioneers and of
+    eminent citizens deceased, and facts illustrative of our Indian
+    tribes, their history, characteristics, sketches of their
+    prominent chiefs, orators, and warriors.
+
+    "2. Diaries, narratives, and documents relative to the U. E.
+    Loyalists, their expulsion from the old colonies, and their
+    settlement in the Maritime Provinces.
+
+    "3. Files of newspapers, books, pamphlets, college catalogues,
+    minutes of ecclesiastical conventions, associations,
+    conferences, and synods, and all other publications relating to
+    this and other provinces.
+
+    "4. Indian geographical names of streams and localities, with
+    their signification, and all information generally respecting
+    the condition, language, and history of different tribes of the
+    Indians.
+
+    "5. Books of all kinds, especially such as relate to Canadian
+    history, travels, and biography in general, and Lower Canada or
+    Quebec in particular, family genealogies, old magazines,
+    pamphlets, files of newspapers, maps, historical manuscripts and
+    autographs of distinguished persons.
+
+    "I feel sure such a library will rank and demand recognition
+    among the permanent institutions in the city for sustaining,
+    encouraging and stimulating everything that is great and good.
+
+    "Free libraries have a special claim on every ratepayer who
+    desires to see our country advance to the front, and keep pace
+    with the world in art, science, and commerce, and augment the
+    sum of human happiness. This far-reaching movement is likely to
+    extend to every city and considerable town in this Province. The
+    advantages are many. They help on the cause of education. They
+    tend to promote public virtue. Their influence is on the side of
+    order, self-respect, and general enlightenment. There are few
+    associations so pleasant as those excited by them. They are a
+    literary park where all can enjoy themselves during their
+    leisure hours. To all lovers of books and students, to the rich
+    and poor alike, the doors of these institutions are open without
+    money and without price."
+
+The year 1883 was employed in getting things into working order. The
+City Council did their part by voting the sum of $50,000 in debentures,
+for the equipment and enlargement of the Mechanics' Institute building
+for the purposes of the main or central library and reading room; the
+opening of branch libraries and reading rooms in the north and west; and
+for the purchase of 25,000 volumes of books, of which 5,000 each were
+destined for the two branches.
+
+On the 3rd July, the Board of Management appointed Mr. James Bain, jr.,
+as librarian-in-chief, with a staff of three assistant librarians, and
+four junior assistants (females). The duties of secretary were at the
+same time attached to the office of first assistant-librarian, which was
+given to Mr. John Davy, former secretary and librarian to the Mechanics'
+Institute. I was relegated to the charge of the Northern Branch, at St.
+Paul's Hall; while the Western Branch, at St. Andrew's Market, was
+placed in the hands of Miss O'Dowd, an accomplished scholar and teacher.
+
+The Chairman and Librarian, Messrs. Hallam and Bain, proceeded in
+October to England for the purchase of books, most of which arrived here
+in January. _The Week_ for December 13th last says of the books
+selected, that they "would make the mouth water of every bibliophile in
+the country." While I am writing these lines they are being catalogued
+and arranged for use, and the Free Library of Toronto will become an
+accomplished fact, almost simultaneously with the publication of these
+"Reminiscences."
+
+[Footnote 29: "Whatever may be its fate, the friends of progress will
+remember that the Province is indebted for this bill (the Free Libraries
+Act) to the zeal and public spirit of an alderman of the City of
+Toronto, Mr. John Hallam. With a disinterested enthusiasm and an
+assurance that the inhabitants of the towns and villages of Ontario
+would derive substantial benefits from the introduction of free public
+libraries, Mr. Hallam has spared no pains to stimulate public opinion in
+their favour. He has freely distributed a pamphlet on the subject, which
+embodies the result of much enquiry and reflection, gathered from
+various sources, and he seems to be very sanguine of success."--See Dr.
+Alpheus Todd's paper "_On the Establishment of Free Libraries in
+Canada_," read before the Royal Society of Canada, 25th May, 1882.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Mr. Boulton retired January 1st, 1884, and Alderman
+Bernard Saunders was appointed in his stead.]
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+  Postscript.
+
+
+After having spent the greater part of half a century in various public
+capacities--after having been the recipient of nearly every honorary
+distinction which it was in the power of my fellow-citizens to
+confer--there now remains for me no further object of ambition, unless
+to die in harness, and so escape the taunt--
+
+  "Unheeded lags the veteran on the stage."
+
+Three times have I succeeded in gaining a position of reasonable
+competence; and as often--in 1857, 1860 and 1876--the "great
+waterfloods" have swept over me, and left me to begin life anew. It is
+too late now, however, to scale another Alp, so let us plod on in the
+valley, watching the sunshine fading away behind the mountains, until
+the darkness comes on; and aye singing--
+
+  "Night is falling dark and silent,
+     Starry myriads gem the sky;
+   Thus, when earthly hopes have failed us,
+     Brighter visions beam on high."
+
+
+  =Transcriber's Notes:=
+  hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
+  Page 13, and occassionally all night ==> and occasionally all night
+  Page 34, want of a bating." ==> want of a bating."'
+  Page 38, and of the world ==> and of the world.
+  Page 62, have cutdown trees enough ==> have cut down trees enough
+  Page 74, the appeoach of daybreak ==> the approach of daybreak
+  Page 105, streamlet know to travellers ==> streamlet known to travellers
+  Page 127, further north Many prisoners ==> further north. Many prisoners
+  Page 136, greater discriminatiou his ==> greater discrimination his
+  Page 156, Thomson, Bonar &. Co. ==> Thomson, Bonar & Co.
+  Page 166, Mr Denison served ==> Mr. Denison served
+  Page 169, it was The party ==> it was. The party
+  Page 181, many a cumbrous load ==> many a cumbrous load.
+  Page 258, (Mr. G) did not admit ==> (Mr. G.) did not admit
+  Page 362, signed the pen ion warrant ==> signed the pension warrant
+  Page 362, the vallesy rise ==> the valleys rise
+  Page 364, on this generation. ==> on this generation."
+  Page 383, T. G. Ridout, 1845, 6, 8) ==> T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8)
+  Page 389, 2. "Diaries, narratives ==> "2. Diaries, narratives
+  Page 389, 3. "Files of newspapers ==> "3. Files of newspapers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer
+for the last Fifty Years, by Samuel Thompson
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