John Graves Simcoe

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

EDITION DE LUXE

This edition is limited to Four Hundred
Signed and Numbered Sets, of which this is

Number

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

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JOHN GRAVES
SIMCOE

BY

i

DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT

EDITION i>E LUXE

33*°"*

TORONTO

MORANG & CO., LIMITED
1905

37-

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada
in the year 1905 by Morang & Co., Limited, in the Depart-
ment of Agriculture

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I Page

THE CANADA ACT . 1

CHAPTER II
THE SIMCOE FAMILY .... 15

CHAPTER III
THE MILITARY JOURNAL : 1777 TO 1781 . . 23

CHAPTER IV
BEFORE UPPER CANADA: 1781 TO 1791 . . 39

CHAPTER V
" PIONEERS, O PIONEERS ! " . . .51

CHAPTER VI
THE LEGISLATURE .... 79

CHAPTER VII
LAND AND TRADE . . . .101

CHAPTER VIII
THE ALARMS OF WAR 117

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

CHAPTER IX Page

THE CHURCHES AND EDUCATION . . 165

CHAPTER X
A SILVAN COURT .... 177

CHAPTER XI
FOUNDING A PROVINCE . . . .195

CHAPTER XII
AFTER UPPER CANADA ... 219

CHAPTER XIII
NON SIBI SED PATRI^: . . . .223

INDEX 237

CHAPTER I

THE CANADA ACT

IT was on February 25th, 1791, that a royal
message apprised the House of Commons that
it was the intention to divide Quebec into two
separate provinces, and the bill was introduced on
March 7th by Pitt. The advisability of repealing
the Quebec Act had been the subject of much
agitation and debate, and hardly had the peace
been concluded when demands were made, mainly
by the English-speaking inhabitants of the pro-
vince, for a properly constituted House of Assembly
and for the trial by jury in criminal cases.

The portions of the province above Montreal had
become settled by soldiers of the disbanded regi-
ments and by Loyalist refugees, and they desired a
change in the tenure of land to free and common
socage from the feudal tenure which obtained
under the Quebec Act of 1774. The partizan bias
of some of the foremost agitators for these changes,
in what afterwards became the lower province, led
to proposals designed rather to place the strength
of government in the hands of the minority than
to establish upon broad and generous principles a
government for the people, legislating for the good
of the province. The spokesman of these agitators

1

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

for constitutional changes, Mr. Adam Lymburner,
a Quebec merchant of Scottish extraction, requested
that one half the representatives from Lower Cana-
da should be chosen from the towns, which would
throw the balance of power into the hands of his
party and race. But it was with a very different
desire and actuated by a nobler motive that the
bill which was to inaugurate the principle of col-
onial self-government was designed and carried.
Grenville, writing to Guy Carleton, Lord Dorches-
ter, then governor-general of Canada, on October
20th, 1789, accompanied a draft of the proposed
bill with a general survey of the measure. The
letter contains a paragraph elucidating the prin-
ciples upon which the bill was drawn: " Your Lord-
ship will observe that the general object of this Plan
is to assimilate the constitution of that Province to
that of Great Britain, as nearly as the difference
arising from the manners of the People and from
the present situation of the Province will admit. In
doing this a considerable degree of attention is due
to the prejudices and habits of the French Inhabi-
tants, who compose so large a proportion of the
community, and every degree of caution should be
used to continue to them the enjoyment of those
civil and religious Rights which were secured to
them by the Capitulation of the Province, or have
since been granted by the liberal and enlightened
spirit of the British Government."

It is upon the life and power of these principles
2

THE CANADA ACT

that the welfare and harmonious permanency of the
Canadian confederation depends.

Such expressions could not have fallen coldly
upon the mind of Dorchester ; they are in effect his
own, and are merely the echo of opinions and senti-
ments by which his conduct as governor was con-
sistently guided. The weight of his judgment was
thrown against the division of the province. He
brought to the criticism of the draft bill his great
knowledge of the condition of the country and his
sympathy with the inhabitants. His views previous-
ly expressed were that for some time the only or-
ganization required by the settlements which were
to be included in the upper province was that pro-
vided for a county ; and a survey of the early Acts
and proceedings of the legislature of Upper Canada
will show this to have been to some extent the
case. But the importance of the Canada Act lay
not so much in its immediate necessity as in the
principle of colonial self-government which it car-
ried into effect. While really an Act of separation,
by its clauses cleaving one province into two and
providing for the self-rule of each, it was also dis-
tinctly the forerunner of those Acts of union which
cemented the dominion and made confederation.
In fact confederation, even in its present sense, was
not unknown to the statesmen of the great minis-
ter's day.

A statement is here and there made that the pre-
sent Canadian political union is artificial and will

3

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

not bear the storm of change, which will break upon
it from alien provincial interests, and the very
weight of growth which will encumber it with al-
most imperial burdens. But it augurs well for the
life of this many-branched tree that its planting
is a century old and that its growth has been
gradual.

Colonel Morse was doubtless the first to suggest
the advantage of a union of the colonies in North
America. In 1783 he pointed out that a federation
of the Maritime Provinces with Canada would lead
to the upbuilding of a great and prosperous do-
main.

Chief-Justice Smith, who may be said to have
drafted the first scheme for confederation of the
British possessions in America, was a native of the
old province of New York. In the year 1763 he
was appointed chief-justice of the province. During
the time of doubts and agitations, when the revolu-
tionary spirit was rising like a wave, Smith re-
mained neutral, but in 1778 he espoused the British
cause. Upon the conclusion of the war he accom-
panied Carleton to England, and was subsequently
appointed chief-justice. Whatever opinion may be
held as to Smith's character and motives, and both
have been impugned, it cannot be denied that his
judgment was sound and his opinions of the causes
of the revolution consistent with facts. He argued
that the provinces had outgrown their forms of
government, and that the small legislatures acting
4

THE BILL INTRODUCED

independently had failed to create common politi-
cal interests or to associate themselves as units in
a confederated empire. His recommendation looked
towards the provision of a legislative assembly and
council for the whole of British America from Ber-
muda to Hudson Bay. The council was to consist
of life members. The assembly was to be chosen by
the provincial Houses. A governor-in-chief was to
hold power above the lieutenant-governors, and
was to have the option of assenting to a bill or re-
serving it for the royal decision. Provincial Acts
were to be referred for approval to the federal or
central government. In the main these terms and
those of the British North America Act are syn-
onymous but it needed nearly a century of political
conflict before the colonies and the mother country
were ready for so sweeping and so novel a change.

It had been the intention to introduce the bill
for the division of the province during the previous
session, but the uncertain state of the relations
with Spain rendered this inadvisable. With war
as a contingency it was deemed impolitic to further
unsettle a colonial dependency which might be-
come the cause of demands, if not the scene of
actual invasion, by the United States. Dorchester,
therefore, remained at his post and was not sum-
moned to England until March of 1791. It was
hoped that he might arrive in time to assist in
clearing and adjusting the many points which still
remained open and debatable. He did not arrive,

5

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

however, until the Act had become a statute. But
the fullest discussion was given to the measure, and
its opponents had the privilege of laying before the
House the reasons which they had to urge against
it. Lymburner was heard at the bar of the House
on March 23rd, and presented the adverse views as
forcibly as possible. Time has shown that many of
the contentions were cogent, and that many more
were unworthy of the stress laid upon them.

The difficulty of communication with the terri-
tory of the proposed upper province and its inland
character, together with an alleged hostility of the
inhabitants to any division, were points urged against
the passage of the bill. The measure was criticized
" as dangerous in every point of view to British in-
terests in America, and to the safety, tranquillity,
and prosperity of the inhabitants of the province of
Quebec." His object, and that of the English mer-
chants of the province, was to save themselves from
the domination of the French-Canadians, and to
this end he asked for a complete repeal of the
Quebec Act and the inauguration of a new con-
stitution "unembarrassed with any laws prior to
this period." In this sentence he struck upon the
main cause of the opposition both to the old condi-
tions and the new proposals. It was to the French
Civil Code and the feudal tenure that obtained
under the Quebec Act and would be continued in
Lower Canada under the provisions of the Canada
Act that his party objected. If one large province
6

THE DEBATE

could be constituted, the English inhabitants west
of Montreal would join those of their tongue in
the older section of the country, and in the union
would be a certain safety from French aggression.
But his representations had not sufficient weight to
alter the course of legislation.

Pitt, in introducing the bill, spoke at some length
and stated that " he hoped the division would re-
move the differences of opinion which had arisen
between the old and new inhabitants, since each
province would have the right of enacting laws
desired in its own House of Assembly." Burke and
Fox appeared in conflict ; the former supporting
the division reasoning from the absurdity of at-
tempting to amalgamate the two races, the latter
opposing it with the statement that it was most
desirable " to see the French and English inhabi-
tants coalesce into one body." But the principles of
the bill had no stronger supporter than Fox. " I
am convinced," he said, "that the only means of
retaining distant colonies with advantage is to en-
able them to govern themselves."

Among the members who took a deep interest
and a prominent part in the discussions was one of
the representatives for St. Maw's, Cornwall, Lieu-
tenant-Colonel John Graves Simcoe. His words
were listened to with more than ordinary attention,
for it was known that he had had some years' ex-
perience of British American affairs during the
period of the Revolution, and that this experience

7

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

had led him to form opinions, which were entitled
to consideration, upon the features necessary in a
colonial constitution.

On Thursday, May 12th, 1791, in committee,
he contributed to the discussion by reading an ex-
tract from an American paper to prove that con-
gress thought a very small number of representa-
tives sufficient for a western province, and that two
or four would be enough to represent Montreal or
Quebec. During the second reading on Monday,
May 16th, he spoke forcibly in favour of the whole
bill, and expressed confidence that it would be ac-
ceptable to the inhabitants of both provinces.

It was during the debate in committee upon the
bill that the dramatic incident arose which marked
the close of the life-long and intimate association
between Fox and Burke. It is a peculiarity of our
parliamentary system that these episodes may grow
out of discussion upon matters to which they are
foreign. And, foom the clear sky of a debate
upon this peaceful Act, fell the thunderbolt of
quarrel which, when its work was completed, left
but the wreck of a friendship, the most remarkable
in modern political life. The participants were men
of noble genius, they had been knit together for
very many years, they were alike passionate and
capable of deep feeling, and in their clash upon the
battlefield where they had so often urged their
forces against a common foe there is something
tragic.

8

BURKE AND FOX

Burke, introducing the subject of the French
Revolution, attacked bitterly the constitution of
the new republic. Fox replied by criticizing the
unseemliness of an attack, loaded with abuse, upon
an event which nobody had sought to discuss.
Burke immediately threw the personal element in-
to the discussion, and brought up the question of
Cazales, the French royalist orator, who, as Carlyle
says, " earned the shadow of a name." Repeatedly
was he called to order, but he pressed on with rash
and vehement eloquence. In vain did Fox allude
feelingly to their past cordial relations. " During
the American war," he said, " we had rejoiced to-
gether at the successes of a Washington, and sym-
pathized almost in tears for the fall of a Mont-
gomery." Burke complained of wanton personal
attack and misrepresentation. " It is certainly an
indiscretion at any period, especially at my time of
life," he said, " to give my friends occasion to desert
me, yet if my firm and steady adherence to the
British constitution places me in such a dilemma
I will risk all." Fox, with tears, exclaimed, " There
is no loss of friends." " Yes," cried Burke, " there
is a loss of friends. I know the price of my con-
duct. Our friendship is at an end." The association
thus disrupted was never reformed. Suddenly and
unexpectedly had the episode occurred, and before
morning it was the talk of London and a week
later of the country. The quarrel broke for a
moment or two the peaceful monotony of the de-

9

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

bates upon the Canada Act. It was but an exhibi-
tion of personal passion and rancour, and left no
trace upon the legislation which proceeded without
any other obstruction. Upon May 14th, 1791, the
bill became law.

Following closely Sir John G. Bourinot's precis,
the provisions of the Act were as follows : —

" The legislative council was to be appointed by
the king for life ; in Upper Canada to consist of not
less than seven, and in Lower Canada of not less
than fifteen members. Members of the council and
assembly must be of the age of twenty-one, and
either natural-born subjects or naturalized by act
of parliament, or subjects of the Crown by the
conquest and cession of Canada. The sovereign
might, if he thought proper, annex hereditary titles
of honour to the right of being summoned to the
legislative council in either province. The speaker
of the council was to be appointed by the governor-
general. The whole number of members in the as-
sembly of Upper Canada was not to be less than
sixteen ; in Lower Canada not less than fifty — to
be chosen by a majority of votes in either case.
The limits of districts returning representatives,
and the number of representatives to each, were
fixed by the governor-general. The county mem-
bers were elected by owners of land in freehold, or
in fief, or roture, to the value of forty shillings
sterling a year, over and above all rents and charges
payable out of the same. Members for the towns
10

THE CANADA ACT

and townships were elected by persons having a
dwelling-house and lot of ground therein of the
yearly value of £5 sterling or upwards, or who,
having resided in the town for twelve months pre-
vious to the issue of the election writ, should have
bona fide paid one year's rent for the dwelling-
house in which he shall have resided, at the rate of
£10 sterling a year or upwards. No legislative coun-
cillor or clergyman could be elected to the assem-
bly in either province. The governor was authorized
to fix the time and place of holding the meeting of
the legislature and to prorogue and dissolve it
whenever he deemed either course expedient ; but
it was also provided that the legislature was to be
called together once at least every year, and that
each assembly should continue for four years, unless
it should be sooner dissolved by the governor. It
was in the power of the governor to withhold as
well as to give the royal assent to all bills, and to
reserve such as he should think fit for the significa-
tion of the pleasure of the Crown. The British par-
liament reserved to itself the right of providing
regulations, imposing, levying, and collecting duties
for the regulation of navigation and commerce to
be carried on between the two provinces, or be-
tween either of them and any other part of the
British dominions or any foreign country. Parlia-
ment also reserved the power of appointing or
directing the payment of duties, but at the same
time left the exclusive apportionment of all monies

11

JOHN GRAVES S1MCOE

levied in this way to the legislature, which could
apply them to such public uses as it might deem
expedient. It was also provided in the new consti-
tution that all public functionaries, including the
governor-general, should be appointed by the
Crown, and removable at the royal pleasure. The
free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was
guaranteed permanently. The king was to have the
right to set apart, for the use of the Protestant
clergy in the colony, a seventh part of all uncleared
Crown lands. The governors might also be em-
powered to erect parsonages and endow them, and
to present incumbents or ministers of the Church
of England, and whilst power was given to the
provincial legislatures to amend the provisions re-
specting allotments for the support of the Protes-
tant clergy, all bills of such a nature could not be
assented to until thirty days after they had been
laid before both Houses of the imperial parliament.
The governor and executive council were to remain
a court of appeals until the legislatures of the pro-
vinces might make other provisions. The right of
bequeathing property, real and personal, was to be
absolute and unrestricted. All lands to be granted
in Upper Canada were to be in free and common
socage, as well as in Lower Canada, when the
grantee desired it. English criminal law was to
obtain in both provinces."

In a troubled session of parliament the bill pro-
bably passed as a comparatively unimportant though
12

THE COLONIAL POLICY

necessary measure. Contemporary opinion and criti-
cism laid more stress upon the disruption of the
friendship between the two great Whigs and upon
the message of March 28th, 1791, with its menace
of war with Russia, which, but for the cool and
intrepid retreat of Pitt, would have plunged the
government down a precipice of ruin. But we now
see these events in their true perspective, and no
act of Pitt's long administration has greater rela-
tive importance than this colonial measure. Its
gradual extension to all dependencies pacified them
forever and bound them in perpetual loyalty to the
Crown.

The achievements of peace are saner than those
of war, and no statesman bases his monument upon
a deeper foundation than when by his enactments
he consults and ensures the welfare of people.

13

CHAPTER II

THE SIMCOE FAMILY

THE member for St. Maw's, John Graves Sim-
coe, who brought to the discussion of the
Canada Act no ordinary experience of colonial
conditions and affairs, was, under the provisions of
the Act, appointed governor of the newly-created
province of Upper Canada. He was the son of a
naval captain, John Simcoe, and of Katherine
Stamford, his wife. He was born at Cotterstock,
in the county of Northumberland, on February
25th, 1752. He was named John after his
father, and Graves after his godfather, Admiral
Samuel Graves, who was his father's contem-
porary and friend. At the early age of forty-five,
in the year 1759, John Simcoe ended his career.
His qualities had already made him prominent
among naval officers, and had he lived they would
have carried him far upon the path of useful-
ness. His son, who inherited many of his com-
manding talents, also left his life at a point where
the way seemed to broaden, and both men are
greater in their promise of future accomplishment
than in their actual performance. John Simcoe
was promoted to the rank of captain in the year
1743 at the age of twenty -nine. In 1756-7 he was
a member of the court-martial that found Admiral

15

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Byng guilty of neglect of duty. In 1759 he sailed
under Admiral Saunders in the famous fleet which
played such an important part in the conquest of
Canada. But he was destined to take no part in the
active operations. On board his ship, the Pembroke,
he died during the passage from Halifax to the
river St. Lawrence.

John Graves Simcoe firmly believed that his
father urged the attack on Quebec and was the
principal means of the assault having taken place. It
is stated that he was enabled to supply Wolfe with
a chart of the river and with valuable information
collected during an imprisonment at Quebec. No
details of this capture and imprisonment are any-
where given and the story begins in shadow and
does not close in the light. Wolfe and Saunders
obtained their information as to the currents and
soundings of the river from sources which are
known. The prototype of this tale is that of Major
Stobo, whose capture, detention in Quebec, and
subsequent presence with Wolfe before the belea-
guered city are authenticated.

Had Captain Simcoe lived, his ability and service
would have gained him honour and advancement
greater than the bestowal of the crest of the sea
lion, which had been granted him on account of im-
portant services, and which seems to be the sole
barren recognition which they called forth. He is
everywhere mentioned as an officer of rare ability.
His mind was alert and his judgment sound ; wit-
16

HIS EARLY DAYS

ness this opinion of the importance of Quebec and
Montreal given at a time when they were mere
outposts in a wilderness : " Such is the happy situa-
tion of Quebec, or rather of Montreal, to which
Quebec is the citadel, that with the assistance of a
few sluices it will become the centre of communi-
cation between the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson
Bay, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by
an interior navigation ; formed for drawing to it-
self the wealth and strength of the vast interjacent
countries so advantageously placed, if not destined
to lay the foundation of the most potent and best
connected empire that ever awed the world."

Before Captain Simcoe's death the family resided
in Northumberland but shortly after that event the
widow and her two sons moved to Exeter. The
younger of the boys was drowned while yet a child,
and John Graves was left his mother's sole charge.
He received his early education at the Free Gram-
mar School at Exeter. In 1766, at the age of four-
teen, he was sent to Eton, and on February 4th,
1769, he entered at Merton College, Oxford. As a
student he was successful, and although he did not
take his degree at Oxford it was owing to no lack
of ability or application. He was essentially a man
of action and he lived in times when the rumour of
deeds of daring by land and sea were common in
all men's mouths. Moreover, he had his father's
career to emulate, and his reading and study had
fostered that military ardour which was his pre-
17

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

dominant characteristic. It was against nature that
such a lad could remain at his books while the field
of deeds lay broad before his vision, and while the
gathering trouble in America invited to service
upon shores which his father had visited before him.

As the captain had left a considerable fortune it
was easy for young Simcoe to obtain a commission
as ensign in the 35th Regiment. His father had
been a sailor, but he had also a strong predilec-
tion for the army and left a treatise on military
tactics which was considered of value in his day.
Young John Graves undoubtedly inherited this
talent, chose with his heart the army before the
navy, and developed naturally until he became a
type of all that is excellent in his profession.

Thus he entered upon his military career in the
year 1771, at the early age of nineteen. He did not
at once see active service, and when his regiment
was drafted for America he remained behind, and
reached Boston only on June 17th, 1775, in time to
hear the roar of guns on Bunker Hill and see the
town streets filled with wounded and dying. This
was his first experience of war, and for the next six
years he knew no rest in the service of his king ;
he gave his body in wounds and his estate in gold
to the cause, and he did not desist until his last
desperate offers were rejected by his chiefs, and
until with bitterness he became but a unit in a
defeated army, and sheathed his sword at Yorkton
upon that memorable nineteenth day of October.
18

ACTIVE SERVICE

At this early period of his service Simcoe had a
definite ambition ; that was, to be in command of
a corps of light troops, as he conceived this to be
" the best mode of instruction for those who aim at
higher stations." He was content to learn by the
most arduous practice, that he might excel in his
profession. But he was not content to adopt the
manners and morals which had made such troops
loathed and execrated as pillagers and marauders.
His equal ambition was to change this reputation,
to organize and perfect a corps which would be
ever on the alert, which would always be the forlorn
hope of the army, but which would leave in its
marches unharried fields and homesteads respected.
He compassed his ambitions. He commanded the
Queen's Rangers ; he gave his enemy no rest and
took none himself, but his progress is nowhere
marked by rapine or wanton destruction.

In the earliest days of his service he gave evi-
dence of his energy, his resourcefulness, and his
persistence. He experienced for his first plan the
check which was so often applied by generals in
this war, the indifference which must have been
galling to men who saw opportunities let slip and
knowledge wasted. Through Admiral Graves, who
in 1775 commanded the naval force at Boston, he
proposed to General Gage to enlist the Boston
negroes and lead them, under Sir James Wallace,
in Rhode Island. Gage brushed the plan aside, say-
ing that he had other employment for the Boston

19

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

negroes. So for months he lay pent with his regi-
ment in the besieged town, and when the fourth of
March saw Washington on the Dorchester Heights,
he and his comrades could only use their energies
to secure an orderly embarkation.

Upon March 17th, he took his last view of Boston
harbour and sailed with the rest of Howe's army
for Halifax. The passage was speedy, favoured by
good weather. After an interval of ten or twelve
weeks the army left Halifax for Sandy Hook on
June llth, and arrived on the twenty-ninth of the
month. The expected reinforcements had not arriv-
ed, and as General Howe was apprised by Major-
General Tryon, the governor of New York, that the
Americans were preparing a stubborn resistance
to any attack upon the city, he decided to proceed
to Staten Island which the rebel forces relinquished
when his ships anchored. The army disembarked
on July 3rd. Amongst the troops was the 40th
Regiment, to the grenadier company of which Sim-
coe had, during the sojourn at Halifax, been ap-
pointed captain. During the summer of 1776 he
took part in the operations upon Long Island and
in the Jerseys.

When Washington, on December 26th, pierced
the British lines at Trenton, Simcoe with the 40th
lay at New Brunswick, New Jersey. His regiment
was left to cover that post when Colonel Mawhood
marched on January 3rd with the 17th and 55th
to occupy the little village of Maidenhead between
20

SEEKING COMMAND

Trenton and Princeton. Mawhood's detachment
had hardly begun its march when it encountered
Washington's forces. In the engagement which en-
sued Simcoe must have commanded his company
of the 40th. Mawhood's force retreated to New
Brunswick and soon the whole of Cornwallis's men
were pouring back from Trenton into the post,
while Washington marched north to Morristown.

These disastrous occurrences, furthered as they
were by want of promptitude and foresight, gave
Simcoe cause for reflection. During the winter,
while the army lay at New Brunswick, he went to
New York to ask from Sir William Howe the
command of the Queen's Rangers, which was then
vacant. His boat was detained by contrary winds
and he arrived a few hours too late. But he placed
his request upon record, and used what influence
he had for the first vacancy of the kind which
might occur. He was rapidly gaining experience,
and the operations about New Brunswick in the
early summer, during the eighteen days when
Howe endeavoured to cross the Delaware and
shake off the persistent Washington, gave him ad-
ditional insight into the art of moving men quickly.
At the end of June the plan was abandoned and
the army crossed to Staten Island.

When the army embarked for the Chesapeake
Simcoe wrote General Grant urging his claims to a
command should any opportunity offer. On July
5th, 1777, he sailed with his regiment for the Dela-

21

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

ware, and was detained upon shipboard by southerly
winds and bad weather until the latter part of
August, when the army landed at the head of the
Elk River. Amongst the troops transported to the
scene of the campaign against Philadelphia was the
Queen's Rangers, upon the chief command of which
Simcoe had set his heart. The corps had been raised
in Connecticut and about New York by Colonel
Rogers and had already seen service.

On September llth the armies clashed at Bran-
dywine River, and Simcoe took part for the first
time in an engagement of serious importance. It is
probable that his regiment was attached to Knyp-
hausen's division and fought at Chadd's Ford.
General Grant served under the Hessian com-
mander that day, and it is likely with the same
regiments that had been under his control at New
Brunswick, amongst which was the 40th. It is cer-
tain that at this point the Queen's Rangers were
engaged, for their service was such as to merit
special mention in General Knyphausen's report
of the action, and to be rewarded by record in the
general orders and the promise that all promotions
should go in the regiment. At Chadd's Ford there
was stern fighting and Simcoe was wounded be-
fore the action was won. His hurt could not have
been severe for he was able to resume his duties
on October 16th, and when he again joined the
army it was as major in command of the Queen's
Rangers.
22

CHAPTER III

THE MILITARY JOURNAL: 1777 TO 1781

IN the " Military Journal " Simcoe has left a par-
ticular account of his service with the army
from the date of his appointment to the command
of the Queen's Rangers to the capitulation at York-
ton. The journal was written, from notes taken at
the time, during the years immediately following
the author's arrival in England after the close of the
war, on parole, and was published privately in 1787.
It is written in an admirable style, clear, direct,
sometimes a trifle pompous, and always with an
eye to some great model. Simcoe had not lost his
taste for classics in his pursuit of arms and his
narrative often marches with the stately tread of
the ancients. There is an evident incongruity be-
tween the important, swelling style and the opera-
tions chronicled. A few hundreds of Queen's Ran-
gers move through these pages with the swing of a
whole cavalry division ; a small foray becomes an
incursion shaking a rebel state ; a skirmish thunders
like a battle ; and the smallest plot or regulation
has its imperial effect. This is military history
through a magnifying glass. But, reading the pages
in forgetfulness, one is in the midst of great deeds
and serious undertakings.

23

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

No sooner had Simcoe taken the command which
he had so long desired than he set to work to im-
prove the organization and discipline of the corps.
He was allowed to add a certain number of huzzars
to the force, and altered the headgear and uniform
of the men in order to render them less conspicuous
and, therefore, more valuable for their special duties.
He abolished sergeants' guards ; he insisted on
regularity in messing ; he discontinued written or-
ders as much as possible ; he endeavoured to make
each officer and man self-reliant, and ready to rush
in at close quarters and fight with the bayonet.
From his private purse he outfitted his men, and
rewarded any one who presented recruits. By these
means he produced a company of " disciplined en-
thusiasts in the cause of their country" The words
and the emphasis are his own.

After the battle of Brandywine, during the win-
ter and spring of 1778, the general duty of Simcoe
and the Queen's Rangers was to " secure the coun-
try and facilitate the inhabitants bringing in their
produce to market at Philadelphia." During his
expeditions he took extraordinary precautions to
prevent plunder by his troop and was, in general,
successful. The two most important undertakings
in which they were engaged were the affairs at
Quintin's Bridge and at Hancock's House. They
were little better than skirmishes and gain pro-
minence by being met with in the journal where
every detail is preserved. The affair at Hancock's
24

A PARTIZAN

House is called a massacre by some American
writers. A party was surprised by Simcoe and his
men, over thirty were killed, amongst them Han-
cock and a Loyalist who was a prisoner in the
house. Simcoe remarks that " events like these are
the real miseries of war." These small operations
were never without a certain importance, although
lost in histories which deal only with the large move-
ments of the war. They were spirited and were
undertaken by Simcoe and his men with the parti-
zan feeling which lent fire and force to their move-
ments. Simcoe himself may well be taken as a
type of the most extreme partizan. He never
wavered in his opinion that the war was forced on
Great Britain, and he served in the army from
principle and not alone because such service was
his duty. He despised his opponents as such ; he
considered them cattle, from Washington down to
the meanest batman in the rebel army. But when
he had conquered or taken his enemy prisoner he
treated him with condescension and humanity. No
reverse, not even the final catastrophe, could shake
his blind fidelity to the king's cause.

When Sir William Howe was recalled and Sir
Henry Clinton succeeded him in command, Simcoe
was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
On June 18th, 1778, the British army evacuated
Philadelphia. With its immense baggage train, ex-
tending to the length of twelve miles, it lumbered
through the heat and the dust, and on the twenty-

25

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

sixth it had reached Monmouth court-house. The
Queen's Rangers on the night of the twenty-sixth
covered headquarters, and in the early hours of the
twenty-seventh they changed their position and
joined the left wing under Sir Henry Clinton. On
the morrow the battle of Monmouth was to be
fought and the left wing was to bear the brunt of
the action. At seven in the morning of the twenty-
seventh orders were brought to Simcoe " to take
his huzzars and try to cut off a reconnoitring party
of the enemy." Let us follow the movement in the
words of the journalist ; the passage will give the
reader an idea of the manner of warfare in those
days, and at the same time will serve as an example
of the style in which the narrative is written : —

" As the woods were thick in front, Lieutenant-
Colonel Simcoe had no knowledge of the ground,
no guide, no other direction, and but twenty huz-
zars with him ; he asked of Lord Cathcart, who
brought him the order, whether he might not take
some infantry with him, who, from the nature of
the place, could advance nearly as expeditiously as
his cavalry. To this his Lordship assenting, Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Simcoe immediately marched with
his cavalry and the grenadier company, consisting
of forty rank and file. He had not proceeded far
before he fell in with two rebel videttes, who gal-
loped off; the cavalry were ordered to pursue them
as their best guides ; they flew on the road down
a small hill, at the bottom of which was a rivulet ;
26

A SKIRMISH

on the opposite rising the ground was open, with
a high fence, the left of which reached the road,
and along which, a considerable way to the right, a
large corps was posted. This corps immediately
fired, obliquely, upon the huzzars, who, in their
pursuit of the videttes, went up the road, and gained
their left, when Ellison, a very spirited huzzar,
leapt the fence, and others followed. Lieutenant-
Colonel Simcoe, in the meantime, brought up the
grenadiers, and ordered the huzzars to retreat ; the
enemy gave one universal fire, and, panic-struck,
fled. The Baron Stuben, who was with them, lost
his hat in the confusion. Lieutenant- Colonel Sim-
coe rode along the fence, on the side opposite to
which the enemy had been, posting the grenadiers
there ; the enemy fired several scattering shots, one
of which wounded him in the arm ; for some se-
conds, he thought it broken, and was unable to
guide his horse, which, being also struck, ran away
with him, luckily, to the rear ; his arm soon re-
covered its tone, he got to the place where he had
formed the huzzars, and with fourteen of them re-
turned towards a house to which the right of the
enemy's line had reached. Upon his left flank he
saw two small parties of the enemy ; he galloped
towards them, and they fled ; in this confusion,
seeing two men, who probably had been the ad-
vance of these parties, rather behind the others, he
sent Sergeant Prior, and an huzzar, to take them,
but with strict orders not to pursue too close to the

27

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

wood. This the sergeant executed ; and, after firing
their loaded muskets at the large body which had
been dislodged and was now rallying, the prisoners
were obliged to break them, and to walk between
the huzzars and the enemy. The business was now
to retreat, and to carry off whomsoever might be
wounded in the first attack. The enemy opposite
seemed to increase, and a party, evidently headed
by some general officer and his suite advancing to
reconnoitre, it suggested to Lieutenant- Colonel
Simcoe to endeavour to pass, as on a similar de-
sign; and, for this purpose, he dispatched an huzzar
to the wood in his rear, to take off his cap and
make signals, as if he was receiving directions from
some persons posted in it. The party kept moving,
slowly, close to the fence, and toward the road;
when it got to some distance from the house, which
has been mentioned, Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe
called out audibly, as if to a party posted in it,
not to fire till the main body came close, and
moved on slowly parallel to the enemy, when he
sent Ryan, an huzzar, forward, to see if there were
any wounded men, and whether the grenadiers re-
mained where he had posted them, adding, 'for
we must carry them off or lie with them/ to which
the huzzar replied, 'To be sure, your honour.' On
his return, and reporting there was nobody there,
Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe struck obliquely from
the fence, secured by a falling of the ground from
danger, over the brook to the wood, where he found
28

WOUNDED AND INACTIVE

Captain Armstrong had, with great judgment, with-
drawn his grenadiers ; from thence he returned to
camp, and sending his prisoners to the general,
went himself to the baggage, his wound giving him
excruciating pain, the day being like to prove very
hot, and there not appearing the least probability
of any action."

Simcoe and his men had engaged and driven off
seven or eight hundred of the militia under General
Dickinson. Upon the following day, Captain Ross
led the Queen's Rangers in the battle of Mon-
mouth, and at night they formed the rear-guard,
and moved back " with that silence which was re-
marked in Washington's account of the action."
While his men were in the very hottest of the fight
Simcoe lay with the baggage, suffering and hear-
ing the battle afar off. " During the day," the
journal says, "the baggage was not seriously at-
tacked ; but some very small parties ran across it
from one side of the road to the other ; the rumour
of them, however, added personal solicitude to
Lieutenant- Colonel Simcoe's public anxiety, and
for security he got together the pioneers of his own
and some other corps around his wagon. The un-
certainty of what fate might attend his corps and
the army gave him more uneasiness than he ever
experienced; and, when the baggage halted, he
passed an anxious night till about the middle of it
when he had authentic information of the events."

Simcoe was able to assume command of the

29

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Rangers on July 1st, bat after he had escorted Sir
William Erskine to Sandy Hook he was compelled
through illness to remain in New York inactive
until the fourteenth of the month. During the re-
mainder of the summer his chief services were: in
connection with Tarleton, an ambuscade of the
Stockbridge Indians at Kingsbridge on August
31st, and an attempt to surprise a corps of light
troops under Colonel Gist. The ambush was par-
tially successful, but the surprise failed of its
object.

On November 19th the corps was ordered into
winter quarters at Oyster Bay, Long Island, which
the men fortified. "The situation was extremely well
calculated to secure the health of the .soldiery ; the
water was excellent ; there were plently of vege-
tables and oysters to join with their salt provisions,
and bathing did not a little contribute to render
them in high order for the field." They passed the
winter in drilling, and were exercised particularly in
rapid movements, bayonet charges, and occupying
ground. Simcoe always laid great stress upon the
efficiency of his men at close quarters ; he held
"that the British soldier, who fixes with his eye
the attention of his opponents, and at the same
instant pushes with his bayonet without looking
down on its point, is certain of conquest."

It may be here remarked that one of the greatest
pleasures to be derived from a perusal of the
" Military Journal " arises from the contrast that
30

VAN VACTOR'S BRIDGE

may be drawn between present methods of war-
fare and those followed at the close of the last
century.

On May 18th the Rangers, " in great health and
activity," left Oyster Bay and proceeded to Kings-
bridge and formed the advance of the right column
of the army. The summer was spent in skirmishing
and attempts to engage or ambuscade the patrols
of the enemy, but no encounter of any importance
took place. On October 24th the corps embarked
as if for service in Jamaica, but was relanded and
marched to relieve a regiment at Richmond, Staten
Island. While here Simcoe formed the scheme of
destroying the flat-boats that the enemy had col-
lected at Van Vactor's Bridge. He planned the ex-
pedition with his customary care, and, but for de-
lays and certain happenings which could not have
been foreseen, it would have been brilliantly suc-
cessful. Eighteen new boats were burned, prisoners
were taken, and forage destroyed. The intention
was to reach headquarters at Kingsbridge by way
of New Brunswick and to lead the enemy into an
ambush prepared for them at South River Bridge.

The latter part of the plan failed completely.
News of the expedition had spread like fire and the
country was roused. As Simcoe's party approached
New Brunswick it fell into an ambush. Simcoe
" saw some men concealed behind logs and bushes
and heard the words ' Now, now ! ' and found him-
self when he recovered his senses prisoner with the

31

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

enemy, his horse being killed with five bullets, and
himself stunned by the violence of the fall." As he
lay thus a lad was prevented from bayoneting him,
and for a while his life was in imminent danger.
When he regained his senses he had to face for
some days the fury of the people in that locality on
account of the killing of Captain Vorhees by one of
the Rangers. He remained at New Brunswick until
October 28th when he was removed to Bordentown
on parole. Here he enjoyed some liberty until the
treatment he received from the inhabitants led him
to confine himself to his quarters. Early in Novem-
ber he was removed to the common jail at Burling-
ton, and was in the end confined in the felons' room
in retaliation for the imprisonment of two Ameri-
cans, one of whom had killed a Loyalist. Simcoe
was held by the authorities of New Jersey. He en-
deavoured to arrange an exchange, and as his con-
finement grew unbearable he made a desperate
plan of escape and would doubtless have carried
it out had not a letter to Washington gained him
his release.

On the last day of December Simcoe returned
to Staten Island and joined his corps at Richmond.
The winter passed with but one alarm, that of an
attempt of Lord Stirling's upon Staten Island,
which was unproductive of any result. Simcoe, ever
active in executing stratagems and forays, was
deeply engaged in a plan to carry off Washington,
who, according to rumour, was quartered at some
32

UNDER BENEDICT ARNOLD

distance from his army or any portion of it. But
he did not lead the enterprise; it was entrusted
to Captain Beckwith, who had formed a similar
scheme which failed.

The summer and autumn of 1780 did not produce
any action of importance. Simcoe's health had be-
gun to show the results of his four years of constant
service, with its wounds and innumerable fatigues.
On December llth, 1780, the Rangers embarked
on an expedition to Virginia under command of
Benedict Arnold. It is related in Dunlop's " His-
tory of New York " that Simcoe held a " dormant
commission " during this expedition and that if he
had any cause to suspect Arnold he was to super-
sede him. The story is likely founded on rumour ;
the fact is nowhere mentioned by Simcoe. He says
simply that he was directed by the commander-in-
chief "to communicate with him and to give him
such information from time to time as he thought
might be for the good of the service while he was
under the command of General Arnold."

During the campaign that followed, the Rangers
rendered greater service than ever before. Capturing
stores, and destroying posts, harassing the enemy
by night and by day, they were never at rest. Their
life was full of excitement and peril. It was warfare
in which each man had to depend on himself and
where individual bravery was so common as to pass
without special notice. In a narrative of one of the
forays Simcoe draws this picture : " After the party

33

JOHN GRAVES S1MCOE

had advanced a mile, an artilleryman, who had es-
caped and lay hid in the bushes, came out and in-
formed him that Lieutenant Rynd lay not far
off. Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe found him dread-
fully mangled and mortally wounded ; he sent for
an ox-cart from a neighbouring farm, on which the
unfortunate young gentleman was placed ; the rain
continued in a violent manner, which precluded all
pursuit of the enemy ; it now grew more tempes-
tuous, and ended in a perfect hurricane, accom-
panied by incessant lightning. This small party
slowly moved back toward Herbert's Ferry. It was
with difficulty that the drivers and attendants on
the cart could find their way ; the soldiers marched
on with their bayonets fixed, linked in ranks to-
gether covering the road. The creaking of the wag-
on and the groans of the youth added to the horror
of the night ; the road was no longer to be traced
when it quitted the woods, and it was a great
satisfaction that a flash of lightning, which glared
among the ruins of Norfolk, disclosed Herbert's
house. Here a boat was procured which conveyed
the unhappy youth to the hospital ship, where he
died the next day ; Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe
barricaded the house in which he passed the night."
On June 2nd, 1781, the Queen's Rangers were
dispatched against Baron Stuben, who was guarding
large and valuable stores at the Point of Fork, the
head of James River. The corps was supported by
two hundred rank and file of the 71st Regiment.
34

AT SPENCER'S ORDINARY

Owing to the incessant marches and distance from
their stores the footgear of the Rangers was so
worn that fifty men were barefooted, but when they
were called to attack the Prussian who had turned
the continental troops into an efficient army, not
one would fall to the rear. The pages of the " Mili-
tary Journal" give the strategy of the movement
with the usual particularity. The plans were well
laid and carefully executed, and the baron was ill-
informed as to the force moving against him. When
half a hundred men would have effectually protec-
ted the stores he fled, as he thought, from the army
of Cornwallis. The threadbare corps fell upon the
rich prize, appropriated whatever linen and cloth-
ing was of immediate service, broached the rum
casks, rolled the powder kegs into the Fluvanna,
and set fire to piles of arms, tools, wagons, and
miscellaneous equipment.

The most notable exploit of Simcoe and his
Rangers was the engagement at Spencer's Ordinary
on June 26th, 1781. This action Simcoe himself
considered " the climax of a campaign of five years,
the result of true discipline acquired in that space
by unremitted diligence, toil and danger, an honour-
able victory earned by veteran intrepidity."

The action resulted from an expedition directed
by Cornwallis to destroy a quantity of stores and
some boats that had been brought together by the
Federal troops on the Chickahominy. The end was
attained but upon his return Simcoe found himself

35

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

in opposition to a force under Butler of the Penn-
sylvania line which had been sent by Lafayette to
intercept him. A sharp action followed but Butler
was beaten back and the Queen's Rangers returned
to their quarters flushed with success.

The commander-in-chief specially distinguished
Lieutenant- Colonel Simcoe and the Rangers in the
public orders at Williamsburg on June 28th, " for
their spirited and judicious conduct in the action
of the twenty-sixth instant when he repulsed and
defeated so superior a force of the enemy."

On August 12th, 1781, the Rangers were sta-
tioned at Gloucester " to cover the foraging in
front of that post," and before long they were re-
inforced by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton and his
cavalry. With their old spirit the Rangers con-
tinued their operations, but they were reduced in
numbers, and those that remained were " shattered
in constitution." Simcoe himself, in his twenty-
ninth year, was broken down by continuous fatigue,
wounds, and exposure. The command of the post
at Gloucester he was compelled at length to resign
to Tarleton, but not before he had made a valiant
fight to maintain it, being once, at least, carried
from his bed to his horse to inspire the men with
his presence and example.

But however indomitable the valiant Simcoe and

his handful of brave fellows might be in their minor

undertakings, a larger strategy was shaping events.

On August 31st the French fleet appeared at the

36

THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS

mouth of the York River. Every day after that the
situation grew more hopeless until on October 17th
Cornwallis flew the white flag. Simcoe, anxious for
the safety of the Loyalists who had fought with the
Rangers under his command, requested Cornwallis
to allow him to endeavour to escape with them
through Maryland. But he decided that the whole
of the army should share one fate, and on October
19th with their comrades, the three hundred and
twenty men of the Queen's Rangers laid down
their arms. Simcoe was not likely present at the
surrender for he was still in a dangerous state of
health, and was sent on the Bonetta to New York
in company with the Loyalists. Thence he sailed to
England on parole.

This closed his active military career. He was
promoted and received honour and distinction, but
he was never again to employ his undoubted genius
on the field in fighting the battles of his beloved
king and country.

CHAPTER IV

BEFORE UPPER CANADA: 1781 TO 1791

SIMCOE returned to England, his health broken
by the hardships he had undergone and his
spirit unstrung by the failures and defeats that he
had done his utmost to avoid. His arrival in England
did not go unnoticed. The king had observed the
service of one of his youngest officers, and Lord
Germain had written to Sir Henry Clinton when
it was supposed that Simcoe had been killed : " I
should be glad he had been in a situation to be in-
formed that his spirited conduct had been approved
of by the king." Now on December 19th, 1781,
His Majesty conferred upon him the rank of lieu-
tenant-colonel in the army, which rank he had
before only held nominally. After his departure the
Queen's Rangers fell under the displeasure of Sir
Guy Carleton, who had succeeded Sir Henry Clin-
ton in command of the army, and the promotions
were not allowed to go in the corps. But through
the influence of Sir Henry Clinton, on December
25th, 1782, the rank of all officers in the regiment
was made universally permanent and it was placed
on the roster of the British army. At the close of
the war the corps was disbanded and many of the
men chose to settle in Nova Scotia, where lands
were granted them.

39

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

During the years immediately following his arri-
val in England, Simcoe rested and endeavoured to
win back his strength. The family estate, Wolford
Lodge, in the county of Devon, beautifully situated,
surrounded by a park-like and peaceful country,
gave him the needed change from the rigorous cli-
mate to which he had been exposed, and the well-
ordered life of an English gentleman soon repaired
the havocs of camp-life. But while he rested he
was still active in his interest in public affairs, and
was not lost sight of by the government.

On December 30th, 1782, he was married to
Elizabeth Posthuma, only daughter of Colonel
Thomas Gwillim, of Old Court, Herefordshire.
His wife was her father's only daughter and heir.
The Gwillim family is very honourable, and traces
its source in a direct line to the ancient kings of
North and South Wales and the celebrated Herald
Gwillim. Colonel Gwillim, the father of Elizabeth
Posthuma, had been aide-de-camp to General
Wolfe, which fact proves his worth as an officer.
Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe and his wife were dis-
tantly related through a mutual relationship with
the wife of Admiral Graves, closer upon Miss
Gwillim's side. She was handsome in person, of an
artistic temperament, cultivated and refined, in
manner gentle and retiring. Simcoe was, in con-
trast, lively and energetic, with social qualities
which made him eminent either as guest or host.
His round, amiable face shows to less advantage in
40

HIS POETIC GIFTS

his portraits than when in life it was lit by his small
but vivacious eyes and his friendly, engaging smile.
The young couple spent the first years of their
wedded life between Wolford Lodge and London,
where Simcoe began to be called more frequently
in consultation by the military authorities upon
special subjects upon which his experience made
his opinion of value. It was seen that he inherited
his father's clearsightedness and his lucidity of
statement.

On January 14th, 1783, his exchange was signed
at Passy by Benjamin Franklin, and Simcoe was
released from his parole. He was again free to en-
gage in active service but no occasion offered. The
administration and improvement of his estate took
up the greater part of his time. In general study
and in the composition of the " Military Journal "
he found the intellectual employment which re-
created his mind. A few verses of his have been
preserved which discover his vein of natural senti-
ment if not any remarkable poetic gifts. There is a
long piece in four-line stanzas entitled "Clemen-
tina," which proves that he knew by heart the
" Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." In
rhymed couplets he has celebrated an encounter
in the Revolutionary War in which the disastrous
effect of a bullet upon the Highland bagpipes, and,
therefore, upon the spirit of the corps, is described.
His. most successful essay in verse may here be
quoted : —

41

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

' ' FRAGMENT " *

I

" Fancy ! to thee belongs the coming day !
Adorn it with thy Trophies ! with such flow'rs
As late o'er Wolfe were spread, while his cold clay
Britannia, weeping, in yon fane embow'rs.
Brave youth ! for thee pure Glory framed the wreath,
Not of those tints which fade before the noon,
But of that sober cast, that hue of Death,
True Amaranth, the dying Patriot's boon.
Blest be thy memory and rest in peace !
O may my soul be firm as thine, to meet
Dangers, which skill may lay and which shall cease,
Broke like the wave that bathes the proud rock's feet.
Eliza ! thou my triumphs still shall share ;
Fancy and Hope thy sufferings shall bear,
And crown with twofold joy each fond suspended care.

II

" Hope ! to the sunbeam stretch thy rosebud wreath,
And raise thy mild and all encheering eye,
Piercing beyond the dark domain of Death
To the bright confines of futurity.
Point thou the course of Glory ! Valour rears
For her his veteran spear ; her, Vengeance calls ;
Bid her resume the deeds of former years,
And plant Britannia's colours on those walls !
Then to this land returning Age shall pay.
Hope ! ample tribute to thy guardian power,
And with true science graceful shall delay
Youth's list'ning ear from Pleasure's wanton bower ;
Illume to acts of worth the manly train,
And bid, from thine and Fancy's sacred strain,
New Wolfes in arms arise, and Essex live again !

Ill

ff Hope ! who with smiling and commanding air
Hast thrown thine eaglet to the sky,

1 The author is indebted for these verses to Colonel S. H. P. Graves,
of the Indian Army.

42

HIS POLITICAL CAREER

And bid him soar, with steadfast eye,

To claim Jove's thunder, and to bear

His high behests with forward wing ;

And thou, bright Fancy ! powerful to fling

Thy radiant eyebeams thro' the depths of space,

And there, with keenest energy, to trace

Whatever cold oblivion, with her veil,

Dark mental night, malignant, would conceal,

Receive me, hallowed pair ! and bid my rhyme

Disclose the secrets of revolving time.

IV

" Essex ! (ye Muses bless his name !) thy flight
Nor shall mischance nor envious clouds obscure !
Thou the bold Eaglet, whose superior height,
While Cadiz towers, forever shall endure.
O, if again Hope prompts the daring song,
And Fancy stamps it with the mark of truth,
O, if again Britannia's coasts should throng
With such heroic and determined youth,
Be mine to raise her standards on that height,
Where thou, great Chief ! thy envied trophies bore !
Be mine to snatch from abject Spain the state,
Which, in her mid-day pride, thy valour tore !
And oh ! to crown my triumph, tho' no Queen,
Cold politician, frown on my return,
Sweetly adorning the domestic scene,
Shall my Eliza with true passion burn,
Or smile, amid her grief, at Fame, who hovers o'er my urn ! "

It was not possible that a man so gifted for pub-
lic life, with such ardour for the improvement of
domestic and colonial government, could long re-
main out of politics. It is probable that the party
managers had marked him for nomination as a man
likely to strengthen their hands in the House ; and
it is certain that if Simcoe had resolved upon a
political career his native persistence would urge his

43

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

claim to recognition. He was elected member for
St. Maw's, Cornwall, as colleague with Sir William
Young, Bart., and took his seat in the parliament
which assembled on November 25th, 1790. His
parliamentary career was short, and its most active
period was during the passage of the Constitutional
Act, in the spring of 1791. The only speech of
Simcoe's which was considered worthy of preser-
vation in the parliamentary history of England was
delivered on December 23rd, 1790, in committee
to consider the state in which the impeachment of
Warren Hastings was left at the dissolution of the
last parliament. It escaped the general oblivion
into which so much of the parliamentary discussion
of that period has happily descended because it
was, in effect, an attack upon Burke, and gave
him an opportunity for personal defence and ex-
planation.

Simcoe's political career ended with the passage
of the Canada Act, and it is probable that he was
at once appointed lieutenant-governor of Upper
Canada. Since the year 1789 his name had been
connected with this office. On December 3rd of
that year he writes to his friend Nepean: " Should
Canada act upon the wise, enlarged, and just plan
of annihilating at once every vestige of military
government in her native colonies and undermining
by degrees the miserable feudal system of old
Canada .... too firmly established by a sacred
capitulation to be openly got rid of, I should be
44

FIRST RECOMMENDATIONS

happy to consecrate myself to the service of Great
Britain in that country in preference to any situa-
tion of whatever emolument or dignity." Thus he
offered himself for the position, and very soon his
name became connected with it, if not in a public
way, yet in the way in which confidential servants
and friends of government trade secrets over their
wine, for Haldimand makes an entry in his diary
under July 12th, 1790, that his host Davison
" gave me further confidences, by telling me that
Colonel Simpko was appointed to the new govern-
ment."

Early in February of 1791 he took up the re-
sponsibilities, if not the actual duties of his office.
In his very first recommendation to the govern-
ment, he points out the necessity for a military force
which would operate in opening colonization roads,
and to the last he viewed the province from a mili-
tary standpoint. With his customary energy he
dwells during this correspondence with Grenville
and Dundas upon every point which he considers
of importance to the well-being and improvement
of the colony. His earliest demands not being met
promptly, he states that unless his views are ap-
proved of he will have to decline the office. Dun-
das writes a mollifying letter and states that he
hopes to have the question soon settled.

On August 3rd he writes to Grenville that he
presumes that in Upper Canada he shall be subject
only to the military authority of Dorchester. Thus

45

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

early may be observed the desire to consider him-
self free from authority, and to be the absolute
master in his own domain. His salary was to be
£2,000 a year, and in this letter he states that he
looks "rather to future promotion than to present
emoluments," and offers to give up £500 a year if
a bishop " is withheld on account of the expense."

On August 12th, as he expects that the detail of
the government for Upper Canada will be fixed
the next day, he writes Dundas giving a summary
of the arrangements that he would like to see car-
ried out. He places them in the following order :—
(1) The Episcopal establishment;^) military estab-
lishments ; (3) a company of artificers ; (4, 5) inde-
pendent companies ; (6) deputy quartermaster-
general ; (7) legal appointments ; (8) executive
council ; (9) the appointment of Mr. W. Jarvis to
be secretary and clerk of the council ; (10) a printer
who might also be postmaster ; (11) Mr. Russell to
be collector of customs, auditor, and receiver-gen-
eral; (12) surveyor-general; (13) provision for set-
tlers ; (14) a constant supply of government stores ;
(15) the supply of tools and materials to be disposed
of to settlers at cost price ; (16) a supply of copper
coinage ; (17) books for the foundation of a public
library. Amongst the objects that " may be worth
the attention of the new settlers in Upper Canada "
he noted : — (1) Growing hemp and flax ; (2) supply-
ing the Indian markets with rum from parsnips ;
(3) discovering the best situations for iron forges ;
46

ARRIVES AT QUEBEC

(4) making salt at the salt springs in the high
countries.

During all these negotiations, harassed by severe
indisposition, he was busy preparing his own estab-
lishment, for his wife and family were to accom-
pany him. He induced Captain Stevenson to go
with him to Quebec to act as protector to his
family in case of accident to himself. His official
staff was, on September 30th, estimated as follows :

Major of brigade, Captain Edward Baker Little-
hales, £172 17s. 6d. ; commissary of stores and pro-
visions, Captain John McGill, £172 17s. 6d. ; chap-
lain, Rev. Edward Drewe, £115 5s. Od. ; surgeon,
John McAulay, £172 17s. 6d. ; fort major, Eus-
tache Robert Eyre, £86 8s. 9d. ; barrack-master,
Justic Wright, £69 3s. Od., making a total of
£789 9s. 3d.

On September 21st he set sail from Weymouth
in the Triton. The ocean passage was uneventful,
but very stormy weather was encountered in the
Gulf. Early on the morning of November llth he
arrived in the harbour of Quebec. He was the bearer
of the several commissions, Sir Alured Clarke's
as lieutenant-governor of Lower Canada, and Sir
John Johnson's as superintendent-general of In-
dian affairs. He also delivered the king's letter to
Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, father of Queen
Victoria, who was in Quebec in command of the
7th Fusiliers. Out of consideration for the prince,
whose rank was only that of colonel, Simcoe, al-

47

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

ways a courtier and particular to a degree in all
matters of military etiquette, had refused to take
rank over him as brigadier.

From the date of his arrival until early in June,
Simcoe was in the anomalous position of being in
authority in name only. Virtually he was lieutenant-
governor of Upper Canada and commander of His
Majesty's forces in the province, but in reality he
could not remit a fine or issue a regimental order.
He had no military authority until the arrival of
the troops he was to command, and he could as-
sume no civil power until a majority of the legisla-
tive council was present to administer the oaths.
Four members of this body had been appointed in
England, but only one was at that time in Canada,
Alexander Grant. Until the proclamation dividing
the province was issued, Sir Alured Clarke was
acting governor. The moment that instrument was
issued he became lieutenant-governor of Lower
Canada, and could have no civil control in the
sister province. Simcoe laid these facts before the
government and recommended the appointment of
additional councillors resident in Canada. The pro-
clamation was issued on November 18th, 1791, and
the division of the province was decreed to take
place upon December 26th following. The Quebec
Gazette of December 1st, 1791, contained the pro-
clamation and the full text of the Act.

It was necessary that the administration of justice
should continue without intermission. Sir Alured
48

DEPARTURE FROM QUEBEC

Clarke, properly sworn as lieutenant-governor of
Lower Canada, continued by proclamation the pow-
ers of the judiciary, but Simcoe had not like power.
If Judge Powell had pressed the desirability of a
similar proclamation for Upper Canada the courts
might have been temporarily suspended, but he did
not do so and the administration of justice pro-
ceeded while as yet there was no civil authority in
the province.

The term of uncertainty was ended early in June
by the arrival of two legislative councillors, Osgoode
and Russell, who with Grant formed a quorum.
The governor's military authority had been estab-
lished a few days earlier by the arrival at Quebec
of the Betsy and John on May 28th, with the first
division of the Queen's Rangers ; the second divi-
sion arrived on June llth.

Simcoe had chafed at the long delay. He was
inactive when before him lay a thousand plans to
be carried out. He made what uses he could of the
primitive arrangements for the interchange of let-
ters. The winter, the spring, and a few weeks of
the summer passed without any great accomplish-
ment. The slowness of sailing transports and can-
oes gave time only for the exchange of a few dis-
patches. As soon as he was released from his
trying position, he left Quebec for the seat of his
government. His journey was made in bateaux
and canoes, under sail where the broad waters and
favourable winds would admit, rowed by resolute

49

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

arms where the currents were swift, and tracked
up the rapids where no other method could make
head against the raging water. He reached Mon-
treal on June 17th, remained there until the twen-
ty-second, and arrived at Kingston on July 1st.
Kingston he left on July 24th, and on the twenty-
sixth of that month he saw for the first time the
bluff at the mouth of Niagara River, the walls of
Fort Niagara and the group of buildings on the
north bank which were to be for many months the
scene of his activities.

50

CHAPTER V

"PIONEERS, O PIONEERS!"

F1782 Upper Canada was a wilderness of forest.
Here and there had the axe notched the shore
with clearances for forts or blockhouses. At Catara-
qui stood the barracks on the site of old Fort
Frontenac ; Fort Niagara guarded the entrance of
the river ; Fort Erie protected its blockhouses with
palisades; Detroit remained the most important
post to the westward. Around these military posts
there had been just sufficient cultivation to supply
the officers' mess with vegetables, and the table of
the privates with the necessary relief from a course
of salt pork. But the country had never been
thought of as a field for colonization until the
British government was compelled to turn its at-
tention to the task of providing homes for the
Loyalists who had fled to England from New York
with Carleton, or who were trooping into Quebec
from the south by way of Lake Champlain and the
Richelieu. When Carleton evacuated New York
he took upwards of forty thousand souls, his
army and refugee Loyalists, to England. Despite
the irritation of congress at delay and the con-
stant pressure of his own government, the general
refused to leave the city until every Loyalist

51

•*

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

who wished to accompany him had been pro-
vided for. The experience of those who were un-
fortunate enough to be left behind proved that his
estimate of the importance of removing the men
who had fought, and the women and children who
had suffered, for the loyal cause was not extrava-
gant. Disaster and personal loss had often visited
those of the conquering party, and the events were
too near, their memory was burned too deeply, to
admit of clear sight, or of mercy after victory. To
have left the Loyalists in New York, the great
stronghold of the cause, would have been to aban-
don them to the lawlessness of partizan spirit.
Many were so abandoned, of necessity, throughout
the country, and upon their sufferings in mind,
body and estate, was the province of Upper Cana-
da founded.

The Treaty of Paris attempted to provide for
the protection of the Royalists and their property.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth clauses of the treaty
were as follows : —

"IV — It is agreed, that creditors on either side
shall meet with no lawful impediment to the re-
covery of the full value in sterling money of all
bonafide debts heretofore contracted.

" V — It is agreed, that the congress shall earnestly
recommend it to the legislatures of the respective
states toTprovide for the restitution of all estates,
rights, and properties which have been confiscated,
belonging to real British subjects, and also the
52

THE TREATY OF PARIS

estates, rights, and properties of persons resident
in districts in the possession of His Majesty's arms,
and who have not borne arms against the said United
States ; and that persons of any other description
shall have free liberty to go into any part or parts
of any of the Thirteen United States, and therein
to remain twelve months unmolested in their en-
deavours to obtain the restitution of such of their
estates, rights, and properties as may have been
confiscated ; and that congress shall also earnestly
recommend to the several states a reconsideration
and revision of all Acts or laws regarding the pre-
mises, so as to render the said laws or Acts perfectly
consistent, not only with justice and equity, but
with the spirit of conciliation which, on the return
of the blessings of peace, should universally prevail.
And that congress should also earnestly recommend
to the several states that the estates, rights, and
properties of such last-mentioned persons shall be
restored to them, they refunding to any person
who may be now in possession of the bona fide
price (where any has been given) which such per-
sons may have paid on purchasing any of the said
lands, rights or properties, since the confiscation.

" And it is agreed that all persons who have any
interest in confiscated lands, either by debts, mar-
riage settlements or otherwise, shall meet with no
lawful impediment in the prosecution of their just
rights.

" VI — That there shall be no future confiscation

53

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

made, nor any prosecutions commenced against
any person or persons, for or by reason of the part
which he or they may have taken in the present war ;
and that no person shall on that account suffer any
future loss or damage either in his person, liberty
or property, and that those who may be in confine-
ment on such charges at the time of the ratification
of the treaty in America, shall be immediately set
at liberty and the prosecutions so commenced be
discontinued. "

The clauses might have been regarded as suffi-
ciently clear in statement and just in intention to
merit execution in their integrity by an honourable
nation. But the United States was not yet a nation ;
there was no guiding national sentiment ; even the
separate states were ruled by faction, local interests
and prejudices. The functions of congress were
hardly comprehended by the mass of the population,
and the will of the executive was powerless to cool
this turbulent element just poured from the furnace
of successful rebellion. There may have been in the
minds of some of the leaders of congress the idea
that the articles just quoted were written down in
good faith and should be acted upon, and more
surely there must have been in the minds of many
fair and just men throughout the States the senti-
ment that confiscation and persecution were abom-
inable and unrighteous. But these feelings could
not prevail ; they were overwhelmed, lost, strangled
in the flood of bitter feeling which rolled against the
54

TREATMENT OF THE LOYALISTS

men who, like their opponents and persecutors, had
but done what they conceived their duty.

In many of the states the action in direct contra-
vention of the treaty was overt, and took the form
of legislation designed to prevent the operation of
the pacific clauses, to countenance the alienation of
property, and to shackle the already overweighted
Loyalist with new disabilities and penalties. Where
the statute-book remained unsullied by these vio-
lent enactments, there was yet the body of private
hate and greed and selfishness to be reckoned with.
In society and communities there was ever present
that immense pressure of disapproval, that frown
combined of hatred and suspicion under which no
man could long live and breathe freely. No pro-
perty was ever recovered except by stealth, and no
debt was anywhere collected save through the rare
personal honour of the debtor.

While these things continued, Great Britain kept
her grasp on Oswego, Detroit, Niagara and Michili-
mackinac, the posts which dominated the western
country. Thus her treaty obligations were unful-
filled, and, while acting with firmness towards
the power that had shown willingness to make fair
contracts but inability to carry them out, she gave
her protection and assistance to her faithful people.
Claims for losses were paid to the enormous amount
of $18,912,294, and those who had taken refuge in
the province of Quebec were provided with food
and shelter.

55

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

The first refugees arrived before the war had
ceased, the men were frequently drafted into the
provincial regiments, the women and children
were maintained at Machiche, St. Johns, Chambly,
Sorel and other points at which they arrived natur-
ally upon the termination of their journey. This
influx continued up to 1790, and consisted of those
who had suffered the more actively for the royal
cause. There was at Niagara also a considerable
number of refugees who sought the protection
of the garrison and who began early settlement of
the shores of Lake Ontario. After the year 1790
began the immigration of those who were loyal at
heart and welcomed the opportunity of settlement
again under the British flag, free from the con-
tempt of their republican neighbours and the poli-
tical servitude in which they lived. Simcoe, by his
proclamation of free grants of land, created what
would, in these days, be called a " boom," and the
morals and principles of some of the settlers looked
strangely like those of the ordinary land-grabber
and speculator. But every one was a Royalist to
his ardent mind.

A quotation from the Duke de la Rochefou-
cauld, a shrewd but not altogether unprejudiced
observer, may be made to show the spirit with
which Simcoe received emigrants in his day. "We
met in this excursion an American family who,
with some oxen, cows, and sheep, were emigrating
to Canada. ' We come/ said they, * to the gover-
56

THE FIRST SETTLERS

nor,' whom they did not know, ' to see whether
he will give us land.' ' Aye, aye,' the governor
replied, ' you are tired of the federal government ;
you like not any longer to have so many kings ;
you wish again for your old father ' (it is thus the
governor calls the British monarch when he speaks
with Americans) ; ' you are perfectly right ; come
along, we love such good Royalists as you are, we
will give you land.' " This was in 1795, and there is
truth in the insinuation that all emigrants were not
Loyalists. Writing only four years after the duke,
Mr. Richard Cartwright states pointedly that "it
has so happened that a great portion of the popu-
lation of that part of the province which extends
from the head of the Bay of Kenty upwards is
composed of persons who have evidently no claim
to the appellation of Loyalists."

At one extreme we have the governor who
thought that every American who touched the
soil of Upper Canada was cleansed from his re-
publicanism, and at the other the legislative coun-
cillor who could only see loyalty in those of the
first immigration. A mean of truth might be estab-
lished between them by deciding that these later
arrivals were not partizans either of one side or
the other, and that they chose, not altogether
from selfish motives, to throw in their lot with
the king. Even Mr. Cartwright could not gainsay
that they were good settlers and possessed "re-
sources in themselves which other people are usually

57

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

strangers to." While their loyalty was, may be, luke-
warm, the oath of allegiance presented no terrors ;
they took it calmly and their descendants are now
so staunchly loyal that they have forgotten that
their British sentiment, perhaps, began with kiss-
ing a magistrate's Bible. The Loyalists who, after
Simcoe's arrival, came from England, had not the
pioneer virtues possessed by the New World sett-
lers. They are described by Cartwright as "idle
and profligate," and notwithstanding their aid from
government, their rations, their implements, their
household utensils, they failed to take root in the
country, and disappeared or became paupers and
vagrants.

In the summer of 1782 there were sixteen fami-
lies, comprising ninety-three persons, settled at
Niagara. They had two hundred and thirty-six
acres under cultivation, and had harvested eleven
hundred and seventy-eight bushels of grain and six
hundred and thirty of potatoes. The erection of' a
saw and grist-mill upon the farm of Peter Secord,
one of these pioneers, was contemplated. These
sixteen families were supporting themselves with
the assistance of rations granted by the govern-
ment, and they are the first settlers of Upper
Canada.

The first refugee Loyalists arrived in the east-
ern district in the summer of 1784 and took up
land upon the St. Lawrence below Cataraqui, at
that place, and upon the shores of the Bay of
58

PIONEER DIFFICULTIES

Quinte.1 They were all poorly equipped to gain their
subsistence from the forest- covered domain which
had been granted them. Soldiers and Loyalists alike
had but the clothing upon their backs. When a
family had a few chairs or a table, saved somehow
from the ruin of their homesteads, guarded and
transported with care and labour out of all propor-
tion to the value of the articles, they were affluent
amid the general destitution. The pioneer in our
day can suffer no such isolation, and cannot endure
like hardships. All civilization rushes to help him.
He has only to break through the fringe of forest
that surrounds him and he finds a storehouse of all
the world's goods necessary for him at his com-
mand. By his fire he may read of the last month's
revolutions, or the triumphs of peace in the utter-
most parts of the earth. Whatever he touches in
his cabin of rough logs may remind him of his
comradeship with all the other producers of the
globe, and every kernel of grain that he grows and

1 According- to a return made in 1784, signed by Sir John Johnson,
these settlers consisted of the following bands : The 1st Battalion
King's Royal Regiment, New York, settled on townships 1 to 5, 1,462 ;
part of Jessup's corps on 6, 7, and part of 8, 495 ; the 2nd Battalion
King's Royal Regiment, New York, on 3 and 4, Cataraqui, 310; Captain
Grant's party on 1, Cataraqui, 187 ; part of Jessup's corps on 2, Catara-
qui, 434 ; Major Rogers' corps on 3, Cataraqui, 299 ; Major Van Al-
stine's party of Loyalists on 4, Cataraqui, 258 ; different detachments of
disbanded regulars on 5, Cataraqui, 259 ; detachment of Germans with
Baron Reitzenstein on 5, Cataraqui, 44 ; Rangers of the Six Nation
Department and Loyalists settled with the Mohawk Indians at the Bay
of Quinte, 28. Total : 1,568 men, 626 women, 1,492 children, 90
servants = 3, 776.

59

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

every spare-rib that he fattens goes to swell the
food- wealth of the world. For the pioneers of 1784
it was strife for bare subsistence ; they were as
isolated as castaways on a desert island who had
saved part of the ship's stores and tools.

The government gave them a little flour and
pork and a few hoes and axes, and with these they
were to dispossess those ancient tenants who had
for ages held undisputed possession. l They drew
lots for their lands. The lucky ones obtained the
farms near the posts or where some advantage of
water, springs, groves, or soil made the situation
desirable. When they were located began the great
work of providing shelter. While the trees were
felled and the rude hut was taking shape, the family
slept under the stars upon the ground, huddled
together for warmth or protection from the dew
and rain. Blankets they had none; their clothes
were tattered, and as the chill nights of September
came upon them, thus exposed, they suffered from
cold. With dull axes, which they could not shar-
pen, they made their clearances, and when they
were made they had no seed, or but a handful, to

1 The later arrivals received the following tools and implements,
but the earliest settlers were aided only by the issue of the most neces-
sary articles, made for them usually by the artificers of the regiments
at Quebec and elsewhere. To every six families, one cross-cut saw ; to
every family, one hand saw, one hammer, two gimblets, ninety pounds
of nails assorted, one set of door-hinges, one axe, one mattock, one
spade, one scythe, one sickle, one set plough-irons, one set harrow -
irons, one broad-axe, two augers, two chisels, one gouge, one drawing
knife, one camp kettle.
60

INDIAN FRIENDSHIP

sow between the stumps upon the rich loam which
was ready to yield them an hundred-fold. Their
single implement was the hoe with which they
chopped roots, turned the soil, covered the little
seed. With toil in the clear air they sharpened
hunger that could not be assuaged from the small
supply of food which they were compelled to hoard
against the length of the winter. Their staples were
flour and pork, but to these could be added fish,
that were in such plenty that a hooked stick was all
that was required to take them from the streams,
and wild fowl that could be captured with the most
primitive snare.

They faced all the harshness of life in the wil-
derness except the hostility of the Indians. These
first Upper Canadian settlers never turned their
cabins into blockhouses, never primed their guns
and stood alert at the loopholes "while shrill
sprang through the dreaming hamlet on the hill,
the war cry of the triumphant Iroquois." The
savages who surrounded them were refugees like
themselves, allies who had fought with the dis-
banded regiments and now, side by side, had turned
them to the peaceful employments which were
alike strange and untoward to the wielders of the
tomahawk and the bearers of the rifle. Only upon
occasion, maddened with rum for which they had
bartered their treaty presents, did they drive off
and kill the precious cattle and frighten the women
and children when the men were at the post for

61

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

rations. The normal attitude of the Indian to the
settler was one of friendliness. In his possession he
held the wisdom produced by centuries of conflict
with the conditions that faced the pioneer. And
when the rewards that he might look for were
small he taught him to take fish without hooks or
bait, to prepare skins without the tanner's vat, to
make delicious sugar from the sap of the maple, to
snare rabbits, to build canoes. He brought to the
cabin door venison and dishes of birch-bark, and
pointed out nuts and roots that were edible and
nutritious.

The government, observant of this friendliness
that made the work of colonization so much easier,
rewarded the Indians in many ways by gifts and
privileges. The Mississaugas, who held the lands
about Kingston and the lower end of the lake,
received, on October 19th, 1787, a special grant of
£2,000, York currency, in goods, as a reward for
giving aid in their country to the Loyalists.

The winter of 1785 found these earliest settlers
for the most part prepared to withstand its rigours.
Their little log huts were reared in the middle of
the clearings supported by immense chimneys of
rough stones, which opened in the dwarf interiors
fireplaces nearly as large as one side of the enclo-
sure. The chinks in the logs were stuffed with moss
and clay, and the stones were cemented by nothing
stronger than the soil from which they had been
gathered. Night and day they kept fires roaring on
62

THE FIRST HARVEST

the hearths. The precincts gradually widened in the
snow as trees fell under the axe, and the interior
of the cabins began to take on an air of rude com-
fort as, one by one, rough articles of furniture were
knocked together by the light of the fire. The en-
forced stinting of the coarse, wholesome food, the
splendid purity of the air, the sweeping ventilation
of the little living-room kept clear by the sweet
flame of maple and birch, the invigorating labour
with axes amongst the resinous pine and the firm-
tr unked hard woods gave health and strong sleep,
and happy hearts followed.

In the spring when the fall wheat began to show
in a shimmer of green rising about the stumps
equally over all inequalities of the ground, spring-
ing up gladly, renewing itself with a bright joy in
the virgin earth, the labourers saw the first of hun-
dreds of springtimes that were to gladden Ontario.
These first blades of wheat, making patches of
green where the axes had cleft the forest for sun-
shine and rain, were flags of hope unfurled for
the women and children. It ripened, this virgin
grain, breast high, strong-headed, crammed with
the force of unwearied soil and sweeping sun-
shine. When hands gathered it, and threshed it,
and winnowed it, it was crushed in the hollow
scooped in a hardwood stump — a rude mortar.
And if the swords of the old soldiers had not actu-
ally become plowshares or their spears pruning-
hooks, at least their cannon balls were frequently

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

made into pestles and, suspended by cords from the
end of a pole which was balanced like a well-sweep,
pounded grain peacefully into coarse and whole-
some flour.

And while the grain waxed plump and ripened,
the women, with resourceful energy, sought to
improve the conditions of life. In most cases they
had saved the seed which produced the first har-
vest, now they endeavoured to clothe their families,
learned the Indian tanning, spun thread from the
fibres of the basswood bark, and made clothing
of deerskin, trousers and smocks and petticoats,
that would withstand for years the rough usage of
a frontier life. Stockings were unknown ; at first the
children frequently spent the whole of the winter
months indoors for lack of the necessary foot-cover-
ing. When it became possible to obtain leather
every man was shoe-maker to his own family,
and produced amorphous but comfortable boots.
Looking forward to the raising of wool, flax, and
hemp, hand-looms were fashioned in the winter
and spinning-wheels, and when the materials were
at hand the women learned to spin and weave, and
linsey-woolsey took the place of buckskin. When
the proper materials were not at hand blankets
were made from anything that could be found, for
instance, " hair picked out of the tanner's vat
and a hemp-like weed growing in the yard." A
common knife and a little invention filled the
housewife's shelves with many a small article that
64

THE HUNGRY YEAR

made keeping the house easier — uncouth basswood
trenchers, spoons, and two-pronged forks whittled
from hard maple, and bowls done out of elm knots.
The steady progress of the colony received but
one serious check. The " hungry year " came with
its dearth and its privation.

After three years of toil some slight degree of
comfort had been reached, but in the summer of
1787 disaster fell upon them. The harvest was a
failure. During the winter that followed there was
dire suffering. They lived upon whatever they
could find in the woods. They killed and ate their
few cattle, their dogs, their horses. The government
could not cope with such wide and far-reaching
destitution, and the people were thrown upon their
own resources. The story of the circulation of the
beef bones among neighbouring families to give
flavour to the thin bran soup is familiar. They
lived on nuts and roots, on anything from which
nourishment could be extracted. When the early
summer brought up the grain they boiled the green,
half-filled ears and stalks, and as the year drew
on distress gradually vanished and comfort and im-
provement marched on.

Transport and communication were difficult, the
lakes and rivers were the natural carriage-ways ;
and bush-trails, a foot or two wide, blazed at every
turn led from one clearance to another. But despite
these obstacles the people were sociable and helpful.
Their interests were alike, their sufferings had been

65

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

similar, and common difficulties drew them together.
They passed on the knowledge of small, but to them
important, discoveries in domestic processes and
economies. The invention of one became common
property. No man endeavoured to conceal his dis-
covery of the best way to extract stumps or mount
a potash-kettle, to build a bake oven, or to
shape felloes. Every woman gave away her im-
provements in bread-making, in weaving, and in
dyeing. They were like members of one family,
and for good-fellowship and economy in labour
they joined forces, and in " bees " the men raised
barn -timbers and rooftrees, the women gathered
around the quilting-frames and the spinning-
wheels.

After labour there was mirth. The young men
fought and wrestled and showed their prowess in
many a forgotten game. The women made matches
and handed on the news. There was dancing, good
eating, and deep drinking. In the winter there were
surprise parties and dances when the company came
early and stayed for a day or two. But the weddings
were the chief occasions for jollity and good fellow-
ship. Before the year 1784 the ceremony was per-
formed by the officer-in-command at the nearest
post, or the adjutant of the regiment ; afterwards,
until the passage of the Marriage Act, by the jus-
tice of the peace for the district. The bride and
groom with their attendants, sometimes on foot,
sometimes on horseback, followed the trail through
66

PURVEYORS OF NEWS

the woods. If the journey were long they rested
overnight at the house of some neighbour. They
made as brave a show as possible, the bride decked
out in calico, calamink, or linsey-woolsey, the
bridegroom in his homespun. Or may be each in
inherited garments of a more prosperous age, the
bride in a white satin that had taken an ivory shade
in its wanderings, the bridegroom in a broadcloth
coat with brass buttons, knee breeches, and beaver
hat. There was a fiddler always to be found, and
no wedding was complete and perfect without a
dance. Sometimes odd expedients were necessary
to supply the ring, and there is record of one faith-
ful pair that were married with the steel ring at-
tached to an old pair of skates.

The chief messengers from the outside world
were the itinerant preachers and the Yankee ped-
lars. They were the newsmongers who brought
into the wilds word of the latest happenings, six
months old : how Robespierre had cut off his king's
head, how Black Dick had beaten the French, how
Jay had made a treaty with King George, how the
king's son was on the way to Niagara, how they
were to have as a governor of their own, the fighting
colonel of the Queen's Rangers, how a real French
duke was at Kingston in the officers' quarters, how
there was to be another war with the States. All
the stray news from Albany or Quebec was talked
over while the pedlar opened his pack of prints and
gee-gaws, or before the preacher turned from these

67

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

worldly subjects to the one nearest his heart, the
welfare of the eternal soul.

They were not greatly troubled with money;
they made their own in effect, by trade and barter,
or, in fact, by writing on small slips of paper that
passed everywhere at their face value until that be-
came indecipherable from soil or friction, when the
last holders made fresh copies, and on they went
with their message of trust and confidence. The
earliest settlers had no means of producing wealth.
Their markets were their own simple tables, their
exports reached the next concession, or the nearest
military post. Their first and chief source of ready
money was the sale of potash, a crude product from
hardwood ashes. In fact, not many years have
passed since the disappearance of the V-shaped ash
vat and the cumbrous potash kettle. Their next
source of revenue was the provisioning of the
troops, and in 1794 agriculture had so developed
that the commissariat was in that year partly sup-
plied from the provincial harvest. Then timber be-
came the staple, and the whole of the exports —
potash, grain, and pork — were freighted to Mon-
treal on rafts. Cattle at first were scarce and hard
to provide for. Some of the earliest settlers had
cows and oxen at places in the States, that had to
be driven hundreds of miles through the woods
over paths slashed out for their passage. In the
first settlement at Oswegatchie (Prescott) for a
population of five hundred and ninety-seven there
68

SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS

were only six horses, eight oxen and eighteen cows.
During the " hungry year " the first cattle were
nearly all killed for food, but before long every
farmer had his oxen and cows that ranged the
woods as nimble as deer and picked up their living
in the same fashion.

Saw and grist-mills were soon established. First
at Niagara, then at Napanee, at Kingston, at York
on the Humber, and gradually they were added to
as the harvests became greater and the demand for
flour and lumber more extensive. Taking the grist
to mill was always the most important event of the
year. By tedious and dangerous voyages along the
lake shore in open boats or scows, the settler took
his bags of grain that were precious as gold to him,
and returned with his flour, less the toll exacted for
grinding, fixed by law at one-twelfth. While he
was away the women kept the houses, lying awake
at night with the children sleeping around them,
shivering at the howling of the wolves. Often were
they alarmed by rumours of disaster and loss to the
one who had gone forth " bearing his sheaves with
him," but who doubtless " came again with re-
joicing."

As time went by there grew up those distinctions
and degrees which must inevitably develop in society
that begins to be settled and secure. Governor
Simcoe to the full extent of his power aided these
divergences. He thought nothing would contribute
so greatly to the solid, four-square loyalty of the

69

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

province as an aristocracy. This aristocracy he hoped
to build out of the materials at his hand : half-pay
officers, many of whom bore names that were
honoured at home and whose traditions were those
of good families and settled ways of life, the few
leading merchants and landed proprietors who were
the financiers and bankers of the colony. Upon
these men fell the honours that Simcoe could re-
commend or bestow ; they were the legislative
councillors, the lieutenants of counties, the magis-
trates. They were the flower of the loyalty of the
province, and from them he would have formed an
aristocracy with hereditary titles, estates, coats-of-
arms, permanent seats in the legislative council.
From this eminence the people descended in degree
through the professional classes, the farmers, the
shopkeepers, to the substratum of the land-grabber
and speculator, whose loyalty was tainted and whose
motives and movements were imagined and ob-
served with suspicion.

Upon even the humblest individual of the early
immigration Simcoe desired to place some distinc-
tion that might make his stand for a united empire
known to posterity.

At Lord Dorchester's instance a minute had been
passed by the executive council of the province of
Quebec on November 9th, 1789, directing the Land
Boards of the different districts to register the
names of those who had joined the royal standard
in America before the Treaty of Separation of 1783.
70

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

But the Land Boards took but little interest in the
matter, and Simcoe found the regulation a dead
letter. He revived it by his proclamation dated at
York on April 6th, 1796. This instrument directed
the magistrates to ascertain under oath and regis-
ter the names of such persons as were entitled to
special distinction and land grants by reason of their
cleaving to the king's cause in a troublous time.
The next ensuing Michaelmas quarter sessions was
the time set for the registration, and from this date
began the designation of United Empire Loyalist.

Manners and customs were British of the same
date, or colonial transplanted from the old pro-
vinces of the Crown. There can be no doubt that
hard drinking was the great vice of the time, and
it penetrated to Upper Canada and flourished there.
To the garrisons of the posts rum was the only
diversion, and the men drowned the feeling of in-
tolerable ennui as often as they could in that fiery
and potent liquor. When they were being tran-
sported from one point to another, even under the
eyes of their officers they became intoxicated and
remained so as long as the supply of liquor lasted.
De la Rochefoucauld notes that, when Captain Parr
and his detachment of the 60th Regiment were pro-
ceeding from Kingston to Montreal, " the soldiers
were without exception as much intoxicated as I
ever saw any in the French service. On the day of
their departure they were scarcely able to row,
which rendered our tour extremely tedious." The

71

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

comparison to the soldiers of his own country re-
moves any suspicion of exaggeration. Again writ-
ing of his trip to Oswego from Kingston, he says :
" The four soldiers, who composed our crew, were
intoxicated to such a degree that the first day we
scarcely made fifteen miles, though we sailed twelve
of them."

The national vice was probably treated with
lenity as an evil preferable to desertion. But the
latter military iniquity was of the most common
occurrence. It was an easy matter at Niagara,
Detroit, or Oswego to leave the immense mono-
tony, the hideous round of a life that was a sort of
servitude without the saving circumstance of hard
labour, and find freedom in the American states.
Rewards were freely offered for the apprehension
of deserters ; the government offered eight dollars
and the officers added another eight for their re-
storation to barracks. The Indians tracked them,
hunted them down and captured them, when and
how they could. The extreme penalty for desertion
was death. This was the usual preliminary sentence,
afterwards remitted to transportation for life at
hard labour. Sometimes the first sentence was one
thousand lashes that would be remitted to trans-
portation. Only in one instance was the utmost
rigour of the finding of a court-martial carried
out " from the absolute necessity of a public ex-
ample." It happened a few weeks more than a
year after Simcoe's arrival at Niagara. Charles
72

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

Grisler, a private of the 5th Regiment had deserted
while acting as night sentry over a few bateaux
at Fort Erie. He was captured, court-martialed
and shot kneeling on his coffin at Fort Niagara
on October 29th, 1793.

An occasional sham fight, an alarm of war, bring-
ing with it increased vigilance and perhaps a change
of posts, labour upon some public road, vessel or
fortification, these were the only reliefs to the hard
barrack life with its interminable round of garrison
duty under officers who for the most part paid
no greater attention to their needs than if they
were automata. They were rarely allowed to labour
for settlers or for the townspeople of Niagara or
Kingston, but sometimes their officers employed
them at ninepence a day to clear land, make gar-
dens, or improve their estates. It was a point of
honour to carry out the code of dress and discipline
as if the corps were at Portsmouth or London. We
can imagine the detachment of the 24th Regiment
under Major Campbell, that Simcoe stationed be-
hind the palisade of Fort Miami, standing to arms
in that utter wilderness in their scarlet coats with
powdered hair and mitre-like helmets, every strap
pipe-clayed, every button polished, every buckle
pulled tight. De la Rochefoucauld draws a lively
picture of a group of soldiers of the 5th Regiment
dressing on board the Onondaga before their arri-
val at Kingston. He saw the soldiers "plastering
their hair or, if they had none, their heads, with a

73

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

thick white mortar, which they laid on with a brush,
and afterwards raked, like a garden-bed, with an
iron comb ; and then fastening on their heads a
piece of wood, as large as the palm of the hand and
shaped like the bottom of an artichoke, to make a
cadogan, which they filled with the same white
mortar, and raked in the same manner, as the
rest of their head-dress." The duke moralizes, not
upon the vanity of the soldiers, but upon the
"forwardness of those who are ever ready to
ridicule all manners and habits which are not their
own."

A day or two before he had seen a crowd of
Indians painted in glaring colours which they con-
stantly freshened as they became dimmed with
sweat. They are the one element of the population
that I have not dwelt upon. The most important
and numerous, the confederated tribes of the Six
Nations, were settled on the Grand River upon
lands set apart for them by Haldimand. In 1784,
when other parts of the province were without
schools or churches, they were supplied with both.
Their church was adorned with crimson pulpit fur-
niture and a service of solid silver, the gift of Queen
Anne. These marks of civilization, the church and
the school, had been given the tribe by the same
government that allowed them to be debauched
by rum. The savage nature was hardly hidden
under the first, thinnest film of European customs.
Scalps were hung up in their log huts, and arms
74

THE INDIAN POLICY

that had brained children upon their parents' door-
stones were yet nervous with power.

Simcoe felt that their loyalty was but skin-deep,
that it was governed by self-interest, and that at
any time unless cajoled and blinded their cunning
could be turned against their former allies. Brant
he distrusted, his power he endeavoured to dissolve.
His feeling upon the Indian situation was too in-
tense, but in the savage nature he saw a real menace
to the peace and prosperity of the colony. It should
be remembered that at the time he governed there
was a league between the Indians of the West
and of Canada, that a concerted movement upon
the new settlements would obliterate them as easily
as a child wipes pictures from off his slate. His
desire for London as a capital was principally that
it would oppose a barrier between the Six Nations
and the Western Indians. He used all the diplo-
macy, in the methods of the day, to satisfy them
that it was to their interest to remain loyal to the
king, and those methods were often no better than
the rum bottle and the abuse of opponents in the
plainest language. The officials who were appointed
to protect them were often their darkest enemies,
cheated them and confirmed them, by their ex-
ample, in idleness and profligacy. Yet there was
at the heart of these puerile negotiations, this con-
trol that seemed to be founded on debauchery and
license, this alliance that was based on a childish
system of presents, a principle that has been carried

75

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

out without cessation and with increased vigilance
to the present day, the principle of the sacredness
of treaty promises. Whatever had been once writ-
ten down and signed by king and chief, both will
be bound by, so long as " the sun shines and the
water runs."

The Indian nature now seems like a fire that
is waning, that is smouldering and dying away in
ashes. In Simcoe's time it was full of force and
heat. It was ready to break out at any moment
in savage dances, in wild and desperate orgies in
which ancient superstitions were involved with
European ideas but dimly understood, and inten-
sified by cunning imaginations inflamed with rum.
Where stood clustered the wigwams and rude
shelters of Brant's people now stretch the opulent
fields of the township of Tuscarora ; and all down
the valley of the Grand River there is no visible
line of demarcation between the farms tilled by
the ancient allies in foray and ambush who have
become confederates throughout a peaceful year in
seed time and harvest.

These aborigines lend a lurid dash of colour
to the romantic procession of the earliest inhabi-
tants of Upper Canada. They file by and we watch
and comment upon each group and character : the
Indians with their wild cries, their tomahawks in
one hand, a few green ears of maize in the other ;
the red-coated soldiers, tramping in their formal
dress with their unwieldy accoutrements ; the civil
76

THE EARLY INHABITANTS

officers in their wigs and silk tights ; the merchants
proud with the virgin gains of the new province ;
the settlers, clad in homespun, the staunch men
with their well-made flails, the noble women, child-
ren at breast, with their distaffs; the priests of
the first churches bearing the weight of the law and
the promise ; the trapper in his bonnet of mink
nodding with squirrel tails, and blouse and leggings
of deerskin ; the circuit rider with his eye of fire,
his tongue ready as a whip of scorpions ; the ex-
plorer with the abstracted step and deep glance
that looks with certitude upon lands and rivers that
no man ever saw ; and before them all the figure of
the governor who was endeavouring by precept
and example to mould their diverse elements into
a nation that would meet and match his own lofty
ideal of what the new western nation should be.

77

CHAPTER VI

THE LEGISLATURE

IT was at Kingston that the government of Up-
per Canada was organized. Simcoe, proceeding
to Niagara, here met the members of the legisla-
tive council. Four had been appointed in England,
William Osgoode, William Robertson, Peter Rus-
sell and Alexander Grant. Robertson did not come
to Canada ; shortly after his appointment he re-
signed, and his place was filled on June 21st, 1793,
by the appointment of ^Eneas Shaw. The remain-
ing members were John Munro, of Matilda; Richard
Duncan, of Rapid Plat ; James Baby, of Detroit ;
Richard Cartwright, jr., of Kingston ; and Robert
Hamilton, of Niagara. In the little church opposite
the market-place the commissions were read and
the oaths administered. It was on July 8th that
Simcoe, surrounded by his councillors and in the
presence of the handful of Loyalists who had left
their clearings to welcome him, solemnly undertook
to administer British principles under a constitution
that he believed to be "the most excellent that
was ever bestowed upon a colony."

Upon the following day Osgoode, Russell and
Baby were sworn as executive councillors ; Little-
hales was appointed clerk of the council, Jarvis

79

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

secretary, and both took the oaths. On the eleventh
Grant was sworn as executive councillor and took
his seat. From the tenth to the fifteenth the
council was engaged upon the division of the pro-
vince into counties and ridings for electoral pur-
poses. A session was held upon Sunday the
fifteenth, so eager was the new council for the
dispatch of business. The division based upon the
militia returns was finished, and a proclamation
was drawn up and issued on the sixteenth. This
proclamation was afterwards printed for circulation
by Fleury Mesplet in Montreal. The division into
counties and the number of members in the as-
sembly to which each riding was entitled together
with the names l of the men who represented the
ridings in the first parliament were as follows :—

FIRST PARLIAMENT OF UPPER CANADA, 1792-6.

Glengarry (2), John Macdonell (speaker), Hugh
Macdonell ; Stormont (1), Jeremiah French ; Dun-
das (1), Alexander Campbell ; Grenville (1), Eph-
raim Jones ; Leeds and Frontenac (1), John White ;
Addington and Ontario (1), Joshua Booth ; Prince
Edward and Adolphustown (l),Philip Borland (not
seated), Peter Van Alstine (seated 1793) ; Lennox,
Hastings, and Northumberland (1), Hazleton Spen-

1 I am indebted for this information to the researches of C. C.
James, Esq., F.R.S.C., the Deputy-Minister of Agriculture for On-
tario, who, for the first time, has compiled a correct list of the members
and their ridings. See Transactions Royal Society of Canada, Vol. viii,
second series.
80

THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

cer ; Durham, York and 1st Lincoln (1), Nathaniel
Pettit ; 2nd Lincoln (1), Benjamin Pawling; 3rd
Lincoln (1), Parshall Terry ; 4th Lincoln and Nor-
folk (1), Isaac Swayze ; Suffolk and Essex (1),
Francis Baby; Kent (2), D. W. Smith and Wil-
liam Macomb. Total: 16.

Philip Dorland, of Prince Edward and Adolphus-
town, was a Quaker, and as he refused to take the
oath and could not be allowed to affirm, a new
election was ordered and Peter Van Alstine was
returned.

Each member was no doubt a man of prominence
in his district, and stood for what was best in the
community. As yet political parties had not been
formed, and the choice was made upon personal
considerations alone. Simcoe had endeavoured to
secure the return of half-pay officers, men of educa-
tion, and he congratulated himself that his tem-
porary residence at Kingston created sufficient in-
fluence to elect Mr. White, who became attorney-
general. But the result of the first election was
that the majority of the seats were filled by men
who kept but one table, who dined in common with
their servants, and who did not belong to the aris-
tocracy of the province. It is a fact worthy of note
that Mr. Baby sat in this first parliament as the
representative from the Detroit district, that fort
and settlement having not then passed from under
British control.

On September 17th, 1792, the scene enacted at

81

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Niagara was a notable one. The frame in which
the moving picture was set was worthy of the sub-
ject: the little niche cut in the forest at the edge
of the river where the great lake swept away to the
horizon, upon every side the untouched forest,
tracked with paths leading through wildernesses to
waterways which lay like oceans impearled in a
setting of emerald ; everywhere the woods peopled
with wild life; to the south the land, alienated and
estranged, where almost every actor in the scene
had shed blood, and upon the edge of which still
waved the flag of England from the bastion of Fort
Niagara. The actors had come from the ends of the
earth : the war-worn regiments of King George;
settlers clad in homespun in which they moved
with as great dignity as when, in days gone by, they
were clad in the height of the mode ; retired officers
who had seen half the civilized world and who
were content with this savage corner; Indians in
their aboriginal pomp of paint and feathers, be-
girdled with their enemies' scalps, the chiefs of the
great confederacy and those of friendly tribes from
the far West. The ceremony which they gazed upon
was the fulfilment of all they had fought for, the
symbol of their principles and faith. It showed
their children that here was the arm of England
again stretched forth to do right, and mete out
justice, to maintain her authority and protect her
people. With as great circumstance as could be
summoned, Simcoe had arranged the drama. It
82

OPENING THE FIRST PARLIAMENT

was a miniature Westminster on the breast of the
wilderness : the brilliancy of the infantry uniforms,
leagues from the Horse Guards, yet burnished as
if they were to meet the eye of the commander-in-
chief, every strap and every button in place ; the
dark green of the Queen's Rangers, who had taken
a name and uniform already tried and famous ; from
the fort the roar of guns answered by the sloops in
the harbour.

The first session was held in Freemasons' Hall,
and the general orders for the day directed that a
subaltern guard of the 5th Regiment should be
there mounted. At mid-day the governor proceeded
to the hall, accompanied by a guard of honour, and
delivered his speech from the Throne. It should be
quoted as the first utterance of a British governor
to the representatives of a colony assembled under
a free constitution.

"Honourable gentlemen of the Legislative Coun-
cil and gentlemen of the House of Assembly : — I
have summoned you together under the authority
of an Act of Parliament of Great Britain, passed
in the last year, which has established the British
Constitution and all the forms which secure and
maintain it in this distant country.

" The wisdom and beneficence of our most gra-
cious sovereign and the British parliament have
been eminently proved, not only in imparting to
us the same form of government, but in securing
the benefit by the many provisions which guard

83

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

this memorable Act, so that the blessings of our
invulnerable constitution, thus protected and am-
plified, we hope will be extended to the remotest
posterity.

"The great and momentous trusts and duties
which have been committed to the representatives
of this province, in a degree infinitely beyond what-
ever, till this period, have distinguished any other
colony, have originated from the British nation up-
on a just consideration of the energy and hazard
with which the inhabitants have so conspicuously
supported and defended the British Constitution.

" It is from the same patriotism now called upon
to exercise, with due deliberation and foresight, the
various offices of the civil administration, that your
fellow-subjects of the British Empire expect the
foundation of union, of industry and wealth, of
commerce and power, which may last through all
succeeding ages. The natural advantages of the
Province of Upper Canada are inferior to none on
this side of the Atlantic. There can be no separate
interest through its whole extent. The British form
of government has prepared the way for its speedy
colonization, and I trust that your fostering care
will improve the favourable situation, and that a
numerous and agricultural people will speedily take
possession of a soil and climate which, under the
British laws and the munificence with which His
Majesty has granted the lands of the Crown, offer
such manifest and peculiar encouragements."
84

THE FIRST SESSION

Of the first House of Assembly Mr. John Mac-
donell, of Glengarry, was elected speaker. Mr. Os-
goode, chief-justice, was speaker of the legislative
council. Captain John Law, a retired officer of the
Queen's Rangers, was sergeant-at-arms. The Rev.
Dr. Addison opened the sessions with the pre-
scribed prayers. The first session lasted for barely
a month, and the House was prorogued on Octo-
ber 15th. But during these weeks eight Acts were
passed. Trial by jury was established ; the toll for
millers was fixed at one-twelfth for milling and
bolting; the ancient laws of Canada were abrogated,
and those of Britain substituted ; the British rules
of evidence were to apply ; a jail or court-house
was to be provided for each of the four districts.
The financial problem early made its appearance,
and for some years difficulty was met in raising a
revenue for the necessary expenditure within the
province. A measure to tax wine and spirits was
passed by the assembly, but was thrown out by the
council. Upon the other hand the assembly viewed
with disfavour a tax upon land. Thus early we see
the divergence of two classes in the community :
the assembly willing to tax the wine of the council,
the council ready to tax the land of the assembly.
But there was small friction in these primary
gatherings.

The most serious question of the day to the
settlers was that of the marriage relation. At the
first parliament a measure to make valid all exist-

85

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

ing marriages was brought before the assembly, but
it was withdrawn, and after the close of the session,
on November 6th, Simcoe submitted a draft bill to
Dundas, accompanied by a report from Richard
Cartwright, jr., dated Newark, October 12th, 1792.
The latter set forth that :

" The country now Upper Canada was not set-
tled or cultivated in any part, except the settle-
ment of Detroit, till the year one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-four, when the several pro-
vincial corps doing duty in the province of Quebec
were reduced, and, together with many Loyalists
from New York, established in different parts of
this province, chiefly along the river St. Lawrence
and the Bay of Quinti. In the meanwhile, from
the year 1777, many families of the Loyalists be-
longing to Butler's Rangers, the Royal Yorkers,
Indian Department, and other corps doing duty
at the upper posts, had from time to time come
into the country, and many young women of
these families were contracted in marriage which
could not be regularly solemnized, there being no
clergymen at the posts, nor in the whole country
between them and Montreal. The practice in such
cases usually was to go before the officer command-
ing the post who publicly read to the parties the
matrimonial service in the Book of Common Prayer,
using the ring and observing the other forms there
prescribed, or if he declined it, as was sometimes
the case, it was done by the adjutants of the regi-
86

THE MARRIAGE QUESTION

ment. After the settlements were formed in 1784,
the justices of the peace used to perform the mar-
riage ceremony till the establishment of clergymen
in the country, when this practice, adopted only
from necessity, hath been discontinued in the dis-
tricts where clergymen reside. This is not yet the
case with them all, for though the two lower dis-
tricts have had each of them a Protestant clergy-
man since the year 1786, it is but a few months
since this (Nassau or Home) district hath been pro-
vided with one ; and the western district, in which
the settlement of Detroit is included, is to this day
destitute of that useful and respectable order of
men, yet the town of Detroit is, and has been since
the conquest of Canada, inhabited for the most part
by traders of the Protestant religion who reside
there with their families, and among whom many
intermarriages have taken place, which formerly
were solemnized by the commanding officer or some
other layman occasionally appointed by the inhabi-
tants for reading prayers to them on Sundays, but
of late more commonly by magistrates, since magis-
trates have been appointed for that district.

"From these circumstances it has happened that
the marriages of the generality of the inhabitants
of Upper Canada are not valid in law, and that
their children must stricto jure be considered as
illegitimate and consequently not entitled to in-
herit their property. Indeed, this would have been
the case, in my opinion, had the marriage ceremony

87

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

been performed even by a regular clergyman, and
with due observance of all the forms prescribed by
the laws of England. For the clause in the Act of
the fourteenth year of his present Majesty for re-
gulating the government of Quebec which declares
' That in all cases of controversy relative to pro-
perty and civil rights, resort shall be had to the
laws of Canada as the rule for the decision of the
same,' appears to me to invalidate all marriages not
solemnized according to the rites of the Church of
Rome, so far as these marriages are considered as
giving any title to property."

During recess the form of the Act to make valid
past and to provide for future marriages was settled,
and the Act was passed at the second session, which
met on May 31st, 1793, and prorogued on July
9th. Simcoe felt the urgency of this measure, and
it at once received his assent and was not referred
to the home government for approval. The Act
provided that marriages contracted irregularly in
the past were made legally binding. It was merely
necessary for the parties to the contract to make
oath that their relations were those of husband and
wife. For the future the ceremony could be per-
formed by a justice of the peace, if the contracting
parties were distant eighteen miles from a clergy-
man; the prescribed Church of England form was
to be in every case followed. When five clergymen
of that church were resident in the district the Act
was to be non-effective.
88

THE SECOND SESSION

At this session the foundation of municipal
government was laid by the passage of an Act " to
provide for the nomination and appointment of
parish and town officers throughout this province."
The Act gave but small powers to the township
councils, but the meetings which it provided for
formed the training-school for politicians. Here the
questions of the day were discussed, and it has
been aptly remarked by Mr. J. M. McEvoy in his
pamphlet on The Ontario Township, that "it
was the conception of law that was fostered in the
men of Ontario by their town meeting, which led
in a large measure to the establishment of respon-
sible government in this province."

The most important remaining Acts of the
second session were : an Act to encourage the de-
struction of wolves and bears; an Act for the main-
tenance of roads ; an Act to prevent the introduc-
tion of negro slaves. The latter Act met with singu-
lar opposition. There are no statistics available to
show the number of slaves in servitude in the pro-
vince, but many had been obtained during the war
by purchase from the Indians who had captured
them in forays in American territory. Obtained
from such a source, the price paid was small, and
owing to the arduous conditions of labour and the
scarcity of labourers in the new colony the value
of the negroes was very great. The feeling even
among those who admitted the necessity for the
legislation was that action should be postponed for

89

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

two years to allow those who had no slaves to pro-
cure them. Simcoe gave his strongest support to
the bill, and his influence led to its passage.

One may be sure that he had been deeply and
actively interested in the agitation begun in 1787
by Wilberforce, Sharpe, and their associates for the
abolition of the trade. It took twenty years of con-
stant work before the end was accomplished in
Great Britain. Denmark led the nations and struck
down the wretched traffic by royal order of May
16th, 1792 ; then followed the Upper Canadian
legislature, first of all British colonies. Simcoe had
broken the ring that bound the dependencies of the
mother country. His feeling upon the subject was
strong, and one of his earliest resolves was to purge
the colony of this evil. He had stated that : " The
moment that I assume the government of Upper
Canada under no modification will I assent to a law
that discriminates, by dishonest policy, between the
natives of Africa, America, or Europe." The Act of
George III, ch. 27, which permitted the admission
of slaves into a colony, was repealed ; in future, no
slave could be brought into the province ; the term
of contract under which a slave could be bound was
nine years ; children of slaves then in the province
were to be declared free when they reached the age
of twenty-five, until which time they were to re-
main with their mothers. In due time, owing to
the gradual operation of these provisions, slavery
disappeared, and it was no longer possible to read
90

THE THIRD SESSION

in the Gazette such notices as the following that
appeared in the issue of August 19th, 1795 : —

" Sale for three years of a negro wench named
Chloe, 23 years old, who understands washing,
cooking, etc. Apply to Robert Franklin, at the
Receiver- General's. "

The third session of the legislature opened on
June 2nd, 1794, and closed on July 7th. It may be
termed the war-session of Simcoe's administration.
He believed that hostilities had been declared by
Great Britain against the United States, and he
had, but a few weeks before the opening, returned
from the rapids of the Miami, where he had estab-
lished a strong post as part of a system for the de-
fence of Detroit. The Militia Act was, therefore,
the most important of the twelve Acts passed dur-
ing this session. It gave the governor power to em-
ploy the militia upon the water in vessels or bat-
eaux, and thus made it possible to dispute the
control of the lakes and to oppose any naval force
that a hostile power might collect to destroy the
exposed settlements upon the shores. It also gave
the governor power to form troops of cavalry, and
completed the organization of all branches of the
militia.

By the Act to regulate the practice of the law
the governor was given power to license proper
persons to appear before the courts ; at the time
the Act was passed there were only two duly quali-
fied lawyers in the province. The bill to establish

91

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

a superior court was the measure that caused the
greatest discussion. The need of some tribunal of
appeal was keenly felt, and so great was the interest
that the legislative assembly adjourned to hear the
debate in the council. Here the opposition cen-
tred with Cartwright and Hamilton, and to these
gentlemen Simcoe does not ascribe disinterested
motives. He thought they wished to keep in their
own hands the trial of such cases as could under
the Act be referred to the new court. But their op-
position, though it now appears disinterested, was
fruitless. So eager was the Lower House to further
the bill that it could hardly be restrained from the
undignified course of passing all its readings at one
session.

An Act imposing a duty upon stills was also
placed upon the statute-book. Annual licenses
were to be granted ; the fee was to be 15d. for
every gallon that the body of the still was capable
of containing.

Of the opening of the fourth session, which took
place on July 6th, 1795, an account has been pre-
served by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld- Liancourt.
He says : " The governor had deferred it till that
time on account of the expected arrival of a chief-
justice, who was to come from England ; and from
a hope that he should be able to acquaint the
members with the particulars of the treaty with the
United States, but the harvest was now begun,
which, in a higher degree than elsewhere, engages
92

THE FOURTH SESSION

in Canada the public attention, far beyond what
state affairs can do. Two members of the legislative
council were present instead of seven ; no chief-jus-
tice appeared, who was to act as speaker ; instead
of sixteen members of the assembly five only at-
tended, and this was the whole number which
could be collected at this time. The law requires a
greater number of members for each House to dis-
cuss and determine upon any business, but, within
two days, a year will have expired since the last
session. The governor has, therefore, thought it
right to open the session, reserving, however, to
either House the right of proroguing the sittings
from one day to another in expectation that the
ships from Detroit and Kingston will either bring
the members who are yet wanting, or certain in-
telligence of their not being able to attend.

" The whole retinue of the governor consisted of
a guard of fifty men of the garrison of the fort.
Dressed in silk, he entered the hall with his hat on
his head, attended by his adjutant and two secre-
taries. The two members of the legislative council
gave, by their speaker, notice of it to the assembly.
Five members of the latter having appeared at the
bar, the governor delivered a speech modelled after
that of the king."

Only five Acts were passed at the fourth ses-
sion, and none of these were of great importance.
The agreement with Lower Canada as to the pro-
portion of the revenue derived from duties on

93

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

wines and liquors payable to the upper province
was confirmed. The amount which the former
was found to owe the latter for the years 1793
and 1794 was £333 4s. 2d. It was also agreed
that one-eighth of all the revenue collected in the
lower was to be set apart for the use and benefit
of the upper province, and the agreement was to
terminate in 1796. The Act to provide for the
public register of deeds, conveyances, and wills
was rendered necessary by the failure of many
of the settlers to exchange their land certificates
for grants. The motive of the bill was "to au-
thenticate and confirm the title and property of
individuals." The remaining Acts were: to regu-
late the practice of physic and surgery, it abro-
gated a law of Quebec which did not apply to
Upper Canada ; as to the eligibility of persons to
be returned to the House of Assembly ; to amend
the Act of the third session with regard to superior
courts. The House prorogued on August 19th.

The fifth and last session of the first parliament
met on May 16th and was prorogued on June 20th,
1796. The Acts numbered seven. The most impor-
tant were an Act which amended the Superior
Court Bill of the session of 1794, and an Act to
ascertain and limit the value of certain current
coins. The names of a few of these pieces with their
value as regulated by this Act will show how
mixed were the coins then in circulation. The
Johannes of Portugal, weighing 18 dwt. Troy, was
94

THE FIFTH SESSION

valued at £4 ; the Moidora of Portugal, weighing
16 dwt. and 18 grains Troy, was valued at £1
10s. ; the milled dubloon or four-pistole piece of
Spain, 17 dwt. Troy, was valued at £3 16s. The
penalty for counterfeiting was death ; and for utter-
ing or tendering false coins was one year's im-
prisonment and one hour in the pillory for the first
offence, and for the second the culprit was ad-
judged guilty of felony without benefit of clergy.

As the settlement of the country had progressed,
it was found necessary to repeal the Act for the
destruction of wolves and bears.

The governor, who was upon the eve of depar-
ture for England, closed the legislature with a few
pompous and overwrought periods. His official
utterances were all set in a key remote from that
in which he composed his dispatches or his inti-
mate epistles. He evidently thought it becoming
to speak with as heavy an accent as possible when
he addressed the Houses from the throne. "It is
not possible for me without emotion to contem-
plate that we have been called upon to execute the
most important trust that can be delegated by the
king and British parliament during a period of
awful and stupendous events which still agitate the
greater part of mankind, and which have threatened
to involve all that is valuable in court society in one
promiscuous ruin. However remote we have been
happily placed from the scene of these events, we
have not been without their influence ; but, by the

95

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

blessing of God, it has only been sufficient to prove
that this province, founded upon the rock of loyal-
ty, demonstrates one common spirit in the defence
of its king and country. . . .

"It is our immediate duty to recommend our
public acts to our fellow-subjects by the efficacy of
our private example ; and to contribute, in this
tract of the British empire, to form a nation obe-
dient to the laws, frugal, temperate, industrious,
impressed with a steadfast love of justice, of honour,
of public good, with unshaken probity and fortitude
amongst men, with Christian piety and gratitude
to God. Conscious of the intentions of well-doing,
I shall ever cherish with reverence and humble
acknowledgment the remembrance that it is my
singular happiness to have borne to this province
the powers, the privileges and the practice of the
British Constitution ; that perpetual acknowledg-
ment of the good-will of the empire, the reward of
tried affection and loyalty, can but fulfil the just
end of all government, as the experience of ages
hath proved, by communicating universally protec-
tion and prosperity to those who make a rightful
use of its advantages."

As has been stated, the first session of the legis-
lature was held in Freemasons' Hall. The business
of the next four sessions was transacted in addi-
tions to the barracks of Butler's Rangers. These
additions were made by Simcoe's orders in the
spring of 1793. They were of a temporary charac-
96

HIS ANTI-REPUBLICANISM

ter, in fact, Simcoe refers to them as " sheds," and
they were likely built of rough lumber and fur-
nished with benches and tables made by the car-
penters of the regiments. They were sufficiently
commodious to cover the little parliament and the
officers of the government. As the work was per-
formed by the garrison, and as Simcoe intended
the additions to house the soldiers from Fort Nia-
gara when the posts should be evacuated, he re-
quested that the expenditure might be charged to
the military chest ; but the war office would not
consent, and the charge was made against the pub-
lic account. In those days no detail of management
was too petty for notice, and the war office con-
sidered it of enough importance to order, over the
Duke of Richmond's signature, that a new lock
should be placed on a storehouse door and the key
should be kept by the commandant of the post.

Simcoe had, for the greater part, nothing but
praise for his legislators. They were loyal and true,
and supported government worthily, a matter, pro-
bably, of surprise to his mind, seeing that some of
them were dissenters and others would sit down
with and pass food to their servants in the republi-
can fashion. And republican principles he could not
abide. His life had been a continuous struggle
against them. He abhorred them when he recog-
nized them in his legislative council. He brands
Hamilton as an avowed republican, and Cartwright
as his friend and in league with him. He finds

97

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

them opposing his schemes, and requests the ap-
pointment of Captain Shaw to the legislative coun-
cil, so that the plotters may have to face another
staunch friend of the constitution. A little later he
causes them to be told that he was the arbiter in
all contracts. Now the contract for provisioning
the troops with flour was in Cartwright's hands,
and Simcoe alleges that after this announcement
he grew more civil and amenable.

These hasty charges show the temper of the gov-
ernor, and Cartwright and his companion have the
best of the argument when their motives are ex-
amined. The former, writing to his friend Isaac
Todd says manfully that "though I do not think it
necessary to bow with reverence to the wayward
fancies of every sub-delegate of the executive gov-
ernment, I will not hesitate to assert that His Ma-
jesty has not two more loyal subjects, and in this
province certainly none more useful than Mr. Ham-
ilton and myself, nor shall even the little pitiful
jealousy that exists with respect to us make us
otherwise, and though I hope we shall always have
fortitude enough to do our duty, we are by no
means disposed to form cabals, and certainly have
not, nor do intend wantonly to oppose or thwart
the governor."

It required only the closer contact with Mr.

Cartwright, that Governor Simcoe's residence at

Kingston during the winter of 1794-5 gave, to

show him what a valuable man to the province and

98

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

particularly to his own section the legislative coun-
cillor was, and this the governor ungrudingly ac-
knowledged in his dispatches. It is probable that
he was met with reserve by some of the chief men
of the province, for Sir John Johnson, who from
Lord Dorchester's influence had confidently ex-
pected the appointment as governor, had promised
office and distinction to several who were passed
over by Simcoe. During his first days in the coun-
try Simcoe had sought an explanation with Sir
John which " restored his good humour," and there
can be no doubt that the governor's singleness of
purpose and his native sense of justice would soon
conquer any small hostility that may have been
occasioned by his appointment. When he bade
farewell to the first parliament of Upper Canada
he may have expected to meet a newly-elected
House the next summer; but his leave of absence
was changed to commission for other important
service, and he never again saw Toronto harbour,
its sparkling waters and low shores darkly covered
with a cloud of trees, or the little town of Niagara,
clustered by the dark, turbulent river, or Navy
Hall under the ensign of England that blew freely
in the lake breeze.

99

CHAPTER VII

LAND AND TRADE

IN a country newly opened for settlement the
land regulations are of the greatest import-
ance to the inhabitants and the prospective settlers,
and in the early days of Upper Canada they were
the first rules that had to be observed. They were,
however, of the simplest. The settler held his lands
under a certificate signed by the governor and
countersigned by the surveyor-general or his de-
puty. The locations were decided by chance, lots
being drawn and situations fixed accordingly. The
certificate set forth that at the end of twelve
months the holder should be entitled to a deed
and become possessor of his land with power to
dispose of it at will. Now if the original grantee
had held his land secure until the patent was handed
him, no confusion would have ensued. But so soon
as the allotments were made in 1784 and certifi-
cates issued, barter and exchange began. Some
settlers were compelled by sheer necessity to sell
or mortgage a portion of their lands; others found
that their locations were too small to admit of suc-
cessful farming operations and added to them by
purchasing from their neighbours. So under these

101

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

unsafe conditions of title, property was constantly
changing hands. The Land Boards, constituted in
1788, attempted to check land speculation, which
had made its appearance even at that early date in
the history of the province, by issuing all new
certificates subject to the condition that lands so
granted would be forfeited if not actually settled
upon within the year. They were also not trans-
ferable without the sanction of the board.

These regulations were but a rude attempt to
maintain a proper system of registration. They
could not control the larger grants to officers nor
affect the lands in townships only in part surveyed.
The exchanges, purchases, and mortgaging went on
unchecked, and for ten years the only foundation
of title was the original certificate or a scrap of
paper that had at some time taken its place. Simcoe
found that, although ten years had elapsed since
the first allotments had been made, scarcely a single
grant had been ratified, and that there seemed to be
a disposition in many persons to deny the necessity
of the exchange of certificates for grants. This state
of affairs was viewed with extreme dissatisfaction
by those who had any large landed interest in the
province and could understand the gravity of the
situation.

The fourth session of parliament paved the way

for a general issue of patents by providing for

the registry of all deeds, mortgages, wills and

transfers. Simcoe had the advice of his law officers

102

LAND SPECULATION

and his legislative councillors, and Cartwright, fore-
most among the latter, gave him the benefit of his
views which were sound and well considered. He
had not a very favourable opinion of Governor
Simcoe as a lawyer, nor of his colleagues in the
executive council. " They are not very deep law-
yers," he remarked. Mr. Hamilton also laid the
whole matter before a London lawyer, while upon
a visit to England in 1795, as a member of the
community and not in his capacity of legislative
councillor. For this he was called to account by
the governor who thought the intention should
have been mentioned to him. The moot point was
whether the original certificates should be recog-
nized by the patents, or the current deed or transfer.
The wise view prevailed at length, and when pat-
ents were finally issued under the great seal of the
province they were so issued to the holders of the
land and not to the original possessors under the
Land Board certificates.

Land speculation was rife in the province, and
the council had to refuse many applications for
grants from persons who did not intend to become
active settlers. Even with this care many allotments
were made for speculative purposes, and the entries
for many townships had eventually to be cancelled
for non-settlement. Officers of the British army in
the Revolutionary War made demands for large
tracts of land in Upper Canada as a reward for
service. Benedict Arnold was an applicant for a

103

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

domain in the new land. He wrote to the Duke
of Portland on January 2nd, 1797: "There is no
other man in England that has made so great
sacrifices as I have done of property, rank, pros-
pects, etc., in support of government, and no man
who has received less in return." The moderate
area that he desired was about thirty-one square
miles. Simcoe was asked his opinion of such a grant,
and on March 26th, 1798, he replies that there is no
legal objection but that "General Arnold is a
character extremely obnoxious to the original
Loyalists of America." From the date of this letter
it will be observed that during his residence in
England, after leaving Upper Canada, Simcoe was
consulted by the government upon Upper Canadian
affairs. He, himself, on July 9th, 1793, received a
grant of five thousand acres, as colonel of the first
regiment of Queen's Rangers. The operations of
colonization companies began after Simcoe left the
country, and, interesting as some of them are, they
do not fall within the term of this story. The Land
Boards, which had existed since 1788, were discon-
tinued on November 6th, 1794, after which date
the council dealt with all petitions for large grants
of land, the magistrates of the different districts
dealt with allotments of small areas of two hundred
acres.

The beginnings of trade and commerce in a
province that now takes such a great and worthy
place in the world as a producing power are in-
104

THE FUR TRADE

teresting, and to trace and chronicle them is a use-
ful task.

The fur trade was the first and for many years
the only source of wealth in the country afterwards
called Upper Canada. It was carried on by the
great companies as well as by individual traders.
The Indians were the producers of this wealth and
the first, and, it may be said, by far the smallest,
profits came to them. Whatever small benefit was
derived from the supply of clothing and provisions
which the traders bartered for the peltry, was offset
by the debauchery and licentiousness that follows
wherever and whenever the white man comes into
contact with an aboriginal race.

The tribes were often ruled by these traders
who flattered the chiefs, hoodwinked the warriors,
fomented quarrels to serve their own ends and did
not scruple to attribute to governments policies
and compacts which they had never contemplated
nor completed. Rum was the great argument that
preceded and closed every transaction. The natural
craving for this stimulant was so well served that
after a successful trade an Indian camp became
a wild and raging scene of debauchery, wantonness
and license. During the dances that accompanied
and fanned these orgies the great chiefs changed
their dresses nine or ten times, covered themselves
with filthy magnificence and vied one with the
other in the costliness and completeness of their
paraphernalia. Such a trade could add but little

105

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

to the capital of a country ; it served to enrich
those who had made the adventure in goods,
but no permanent investment of capital was neces-
sary for its maintenance, and when the source
of supply was drained it disappeared and left the
Indians worse off than they were before its advent
and development.

Simcoe saw the positive evils and negative re-
sults of this factitious trade and endeavoured to
control it. He proposed as a means to this end to
confine the traders to the towns and settled com-
munities, and thus prevent them from crossing into
the Indian country. By this regulation the Indians
would become the carriers of their own furs, and
coming first into contact with the settlers would
part with their wealth in exchange for provisions
and not spirits. The settler would for his part re-
ceive skins that were as ready money when that
article was scarce. Thus an internal fur trade would
be established, and a certain portion of the wealth
would be retained in the country. With the advent
of hatters, the craft they carried on would consume
a great number of the skins and the contraband
trade in hats would gradually diminish. In 1794
three hatters had already come into the province to
establish themselves.

One result of this trade and barter between set-
tler and Indian was that an illegal exchange sprang
up between the former and the Americans who
settled New York state. All the cattle, many of the
106

TRADE AND AGRICULTURE

implements, and much of the furniture of the first
Upper Canadians were obtained by the sale of furs
in this manner. Not only did American products
thus find their way into the country, but goods of
the East India Company and even articles and
materials made in Great Britain. Smuggling was
too common and too convenient to be looked upon
with disfavour. The frontiers lay open and unpro-
tected, and the thickly wooded country made de-
tection impossible even had there been an army of
preventive officers, and these were, in fact, but few.
This dishonest trade was beyond the power of
government to control, but Simcoe was impressed
with the importance of promoting commercial con-
nections with the republic He recommended the es-
tablishment of depots of the East India Company
at Kingston and Niagara to sell merchandise, chiefly
teas, to the people of the state of New York. He
believed his province to be the best agricultural
district in North America, and pointed out how
its forests might be replaced by fields of hemp, flax,
tobacco and indigo. Hemp, as a source of wealth
to the settler and of supply for the cordage of the
lake fleet, was a subject of his constant attention.
The exports of potash had begun to fall away
somewhat during the term of Simcoe's govern-
ment ; affected by the war in Europe prices had
fallen, and as the land became cleared, and the area
under crop more extensive this early industry grad-
ually waned.

107

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

The staple product of the country was wheat
and Simcoe paid the greatest attention to de-
veloping this source of prosperity and wealth.
Pork came next in importance as an article
for export and for domestic consumption. The
exports from Kingston during the year 1794 will
show what progress the colony had made. The
figures are interesting as they mark a term of ten
years from the time the first kernel of seed was
sown.

EXPORTS FROM KINGSTON, 1794
To LOWER CANADA

£ s. D.
12,823 bushels of wheat (Winchester measure)

at 3s 1,923 9 0

896 bbls. of flour at 23s. 4d 1,045 6 8

83 " middlings or biscuit flour at 15s 62 5 0

3,016 Ibs. hogs' lard at 6d 75 8 0

15 tons of potash at £18 270 0 0

£3,376 8 8
FOR THE TROOPS

£ s. p.

3,240 bbls. of flour at 23s. 4d 3,780 0 0

2,938 bush, of pease at 4s. 6d 661 1 0

480 bbls. of pork at 90s 2,160 0 0

£6,601 1 0
To NIAGARA AND YORK

£ s. D.

1,624 bush, of wheat at 3s 243 12 0

356 bbls. of flour at 23s. 4d 415 6 8

2,500 Ibs. of gammon at 8d 83 6 8

£742 5 4
Total, £10,719 15s. Od.

The most important achievement that these
figures set forth is the victualling of the troops.
108

A SYSTEM OF EXCHANGE

Agriculture, from furnishing a bare subsistence to
the people during the first few years, had developed
so rapidly that the surplus was sufficiently large to
supply York and Niagara where settlement was
still active, and to relieve the commissariat to a
great extent from the necessity of importing the
staples — flour and pork. Upon the quantity of sup-
plies furnished for the troops mentioned in the
statement, there was a saving of £2,420 14s., so
excessive were the rates of carriage. It cost ten
pence to freight one bushel of wheat from Kingston
to Montreal. The only means of transport were
rude bateaux, the risk of total loss was great,
and after a most favourable voyage the actual loss
from waste in transhipment was very considerable.

Commerce in the country was on every side
beset with difficulties. Mr. Richard Cartwright thus
describes the business methods of his day : " The
merchant sends his order for English goods to his
correspondent at Montreal, who imports them from
London, guarantees the payment of them there,
and receives and forwards them to this country
for a commission of five per cent, on the amount
of the English invoice. The payments are all made
by the Upper Canada merchant in Montreal, and
there is no direct communication whatever between
him and the shipper in London. The order, too,
must be limited to dry goods, and he must pur-
chase his liquors on the best terms he can in the
home market; and if he wishes to have his furs or

109

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

potash shipped for the London market, he pays
a commission of one per cent, on their estimated
value; if sold in Montreal, he is charged two and
one-half per cent on the amount of the sales."

But while the merchant had these barriers of com-
missions and difficult transportation to surmount
the settler was in a most unenviable position. His
sole sources of wealth were his wheat and pork ;
these the merchants would buy only in such
quantities as they chose and when it suited them.
They would pay only in goods charged at the
highest current prices, or by note of hand redeem-
able always on a fixed date, October 10th. The
absence of any adequate and plentiful medium
of exchange was a heavy burden upon the strug-
gling settler, who was in the hands of the buyer.
The latter might say "it is naught, it is naught,"
but, nevertheless, it was a real, pressing and over-
bearing weight to be carried.

Simcoe had endeavoured to loosen the grasp of
the merchant, so far as his immediate power would
serve, by resuming the contracts for the purchase
of supplies for the troops and placing the respon-
sibility in the hands of an agent who would deal
justly and equitably both in the matter of prices
and quantities. Although his duty was to the king
primarily, yet it was largely in the king's interest
that his pioneers should have fair pay and ready
money, so that his duty was also to the struggling
settler and his little field of grain filling between
110

HIS SCHEME FOR PUBLIC FINANCE

the charred stumps of his clearing. This was a step
in advance, yet the main branch of the trouble
would remain untouched until some medium of
exchange — in fact, a currency — appeared to cover
the small local transactions between buyer and
seller.

Simcoe, who left not the smallest need of the
country untouched in his exhaustive dispatches,
did not pass by this grave want. He had great faith
in the intervention of government in all matters
pertaining to the welfare of the people. He was
ever making demands that argued the inexhaustible
treasure-chest and the beneficent will. When Eng-
land was engaged in wars and treaties that called
for her utmost resources, a cry came out from Up-
per Canada for grants for all purposes, from the
founding of a university to the providing of an in-
structor in the manufacture of salt.

He proposed a grand and far-reaching scheme
to meet the obstructions to trade which I have
mentioned. He proposed that Great Britain should
send out a large sum in gold which would form
the capital of a company to be formed of the
executive and legislative councillors and the chief
men in the province. This sum, he says naively,
should be repaid, if expedient, by the sale of
lands on Lake Erie. Inspectors were to be ap-
pointed whose duty it would be to examine all
mills and recommend such processes as would re-
duce their products to a normal standard of quality.

Ill

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

The king's vessels should be used for transport
across the lakes. A large d£pot or receiving-house
was to be erected at Montreal, where all the flour
was to be pooled. For every barrel there received
a note was to issue, payable in gold or silver at
stated periods, and these notes were to be legal
tender for the payment of taxes. The freight of all
government stores was to be conducted by the com-
pany under a contract based upon the prices paid for
the three or four years preceding. The benefits that
Simcoe hoped to secure by this arrangement were:
a provision for the consumption of the flour pro-
duced, a medium of exchange instead of merchants'
notes, lower rates for transportation from Montreal,
ease and certainty in victualling the troops, a sure
supply of flour for the West Indies, and a stimulat-
ing effect upon agriculture as well as upon the
allegiance of the Upper Canadians. He wrote, "it
cannot fail of conciliating their affection and in-
sensibly connecting them with the British people
and government." The lords of trade to whom the
scheme was presented could hardly have considered
it, and Upper Canada was left to work out its cur-
rency problems upon the safer basis of provincial
initiative.

The earliest canals were all constructed within
the boundaries of the upper province, but during
Simcoe's government they received no enlarge-
ment. They had been constructed by Haldimand's
order, and were maintained by the government, as-
112

THE LAKE FLEET

sisted by a toll revenue of ten shillings for each
ascent. All transportation took place in bateaux,
built strongly, with a draft of about two feet, with
a width of six and a length of twenty feet. These
were towed or " tracked " up the river and passed
through the primitive canals wherever they had been
constructed. The first canal was met with at Coteau
du Lac, it consisted of three locks six feet wide at
the gates ; the second was at Cascades Point ; the
third at the Mill Rapids; the fourth at Split Rock.
It was many years before these canals were en-
larged sufficiently to accommodate the schooners
that sailed the upper lakes.

These vessels were constructed upon their shores,
and never left their waters. In 1794 there were
six boats in the king's service upon the lakes.
These were armed ; the largest vessels were of
the dimensions of the Onondaga, eighty tons
burden, carrying twelve guns. They were built
of unseasoned timber, and their life was barely
three years. It cost about four thousand guineas to
construct one of the size of the Onondaga, and the
cost of repairs was proportionately large. The mer-
chant fleet on the lakes numbered fifteen.

The rate of wages throughout the province was
high and labourers were scarce. The usual pay for
skilled labour was three dollars per diem\ for farm
labourers one dollar per diem with board and lodg-
ing ; for sailors from nine to ten dollars a month ;
for voyageurs eight dollars a month.

113

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Prices were correspondingly high, salt was three
dollars a bushel, flour eight dollars a barrel, wood
two dollars and a quarter a cord. The commodities
that we consider as the commonest necessaries of
the table were beyond the reach of the majority of
the people ; loaf sugar was two shillings and six-
pence per pound, and the coarse muscovado one
shilling and sixpence ; green tea was the most ex-
pensive of the teas at seven shillings and sixpence,
and Bohea the cheapest at four shillings. The cost
of spices may be gauged by the rates charged for
ginger, five shillings a pound. A japan teapot cost
seven shillings and a copper tea kettle twenty-
seven. Fabrics were most expensive, " sprigged "
muslin was ten shillings and sixpence a yard, and
blue kersey five shillings and sixpence.

Every industry was carried on under great diffi-
culties, mills with insufficient stones, saws and
machinery; trades with the fewest tools and those
not often the best of quality. The salt wells in which
the governor took an early interest were hampered
by lack of boilers or any proper appliances. In four
years only four hundred and fifty-two bushels of
salt had been produced at a selling price of £362.
The only requisites at the wells for the production
of this most necessary staple were a few old pots
and kettles picked up casually. But the trades and
manufactures served the needs of the growing
population, the units of which were self-reliant and
of a courageous temper. The actual population of
114

POPULATION

Upper Canada is difficult to arrive at accurately.
It is stated to have been ten thousand in 1791
when the division of the provinces took place.
Writing in 1795, de la Rochefoucauld places it at
thirty thousand, but this appears to be exaggerated.
The militia returns sent to the lords of trade by
Simcoe in 1794 place the number of men able to
bear arms at four thousand seven hundred and six-
teen, and Mr. Cartwright says that upon June 24th,
1794, the militia returns amounted to five thousand
three hundred and fifty. The population during
1796 may have increased to twenty-five thousand.
For the breadth of the land this was a mere
sprinkling of humanity over an area that now sup-
ports above two millions.

115

CHAPTER VIII
THE ALARMS OF WAR

THE possibility of war with the United States
had always been present to Simcoe's mind.
He feared that before the Canadas could develop
sufficient strength to render assault and capture by
a determined foe a difficult and uncertain operation
the belt of neutral Indian country would be ab-
sorbed, the boundary of the nation and the colony
would become a single intangible line, and the
forces of the United States would overwhelm the
weak garrisons of the widely separated posts. All
his desire had been for peace. His avowed policy
was to prevent war " by the appearance of force
and by its concentration," and he hoped that five
years of continuous peace and prosperity would
find Upper Canada able to sustain itself against
any attack that might be made. Upon May 27th,
1793, he had received the dispatch which announced
officially the declaration of war with France. To
his mind the political leaders of the United States
only awaited a pretext to disclose their real feeling
of hostility and to begin an invasion. That he might
be in possession of the latest advices from Europe,
he had sent his secretary, Talbot, to Philadelphia
to confer with Hammond, the British plenipoten-

117

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

tiary, but before his return the news had come
direct to his hand. Although it was necessary for
him to be vigilant and to take the utmost precau-
tions he was also compelled to be extremely cau-
tious at the moment of his receipt of the dispatch,
for he had under his roof three commissioners from
the power he distrusted, whose object was to
make a treaty of peace with the Indians. It was
important that this treaty should be concluded, and
that by an acknowledgment of the Ohio as the
boundary of the Indian domain, a belt of neutral
territory should be imposed between the two coun-
tries.

The relations of Great Britain with the United
States at this time were peculiar, and there
is no room for wonder that they were strained
almost to the breaking point. Certain articles of
the Treaty of Paris had not been carried out in
their integrity by the United States. These clauses
were precisely those the non-observance of which
would cause the most bitter feeling of hostility on
the part of the colonists. Clauses V and VI dealt,
respectively, with the restitution of Loyalist losses
and complete cessation of all reprisals by the
Americans on those who had taken the king's side
in the war. In the event, reprisals were made, and
any movement to restore property destroyed during
the Revolution was as unsubstantial as the smoke
which had swallowed up the Loyalist rooftrees and
granaries. The most important effect of the ehica-
118

THE INDIAN LANDS

nery was to give the British colonies an infusion of
the best blood of the republic. The Loyalists came
trooping in with empty hands but with stern and
intrepid hearts. A less important result was that
Great Britain refused to evacuate certain of the
western posts, and over them, well within United
States territory as deliminated by the treaty of
1783, the royal flag still flew.

In vain had the United States demanded the deli-
very of these posts ; they were quietly retained as an
earnest that a treaty remained unfulfilled. Of itself
this position was sufficiently delicate, but it was com-
plicated by the war which for some time had been
raging between the troops of the United States
and the Indians. And in this conflict Great Britain
was bound to the Indian cause. In the view of the
States she was fomenting the trouble and assisting
the savages by her advice and protection. But her
policy was far different. She felt compelled to see
justice done her Indians, and there was no basis of
right or justice in the appropriation by American
settlers of lands which had never been surrendered
by their aboriginal owners. Despite all the argu-
ment and all the force which the Indians could use
these spoliations went steadily on until the friend-
ship of Great Britain with the tribes was shaken.
It came to be alleged that, by the treaty, the king
had given away these Indian lands to which he had
no right or title, and this view was enforced where-
ever possible by emissaries of the republic. This

119

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Indian estrangement had to be conquered, and we
shall see in a page or two how Dorchester, aided
by Simcoe, overcame it and quieted the fears and
suspicions of the tribes. It was necessary, as well
for the safety of the Indians as for the protection of
Canada, that these Indian lands should be respected.
The trend of all the British diplomacy of that day
was to endeavour to maintain the territory north of
the Ohio and east of the Mississippi as an Indian
domain that would serve as a breakwater before the
British frontier against the waves of American ag-
gression. Now in the light of events the policy seems
as infantine as to endeavour to keep back Atlantic
surges by a frail wall of sand heaped up by children
at play. But it was honestly and with every peac-
able desire kept in the front by the officers of the
king's government.

Upon the side of the United States the efforts
for peace were more persistent and strenuous as
the troubled state of the border checked the settle-
ment of the rich watershed of the Ohio, and the
activity of the Indians filled the pioneers with
terror and dismay. Force had been tried, and with
lamentable results. The expedition under General
St. Clair that was organized with such care and
forwarded with every hope of success, had been
crushed upon its first encounter with the Indians.
Moving incautiously, without those safeguards so
necessary in border warfare, the force became in-
volved in an ambuscade. Suddenly the woods were
120

JOSEPH BRANT

alive with Indians, the pickets were driven in, the
soldiers were hurled back and swept through the
camp, and it was the greed of the Indians alone
that enabled any portion of the army to escape.
The sight of the stores was too great a temptation
for the savages, who preferred plunder to a feast of
blood. This battle was fought on November 4th,
1791. St. Clair lost fifteen hundred men, and all
the supplies and impedimenta of his army — artil-
lery, baggage, and ammunition. The Indian loss
was only twenty-one killed and forty wounded.
Another force was placed under General Wayne's
command to accomplish the task in which St. Clair
had failed so disastrously ; and Wayne was a leader
of a very different stamp.

While the pacification by force was still looked
upon as possible, the American government had
decided to adopt, as well, milder methods. In June
of 1792 Brant had visited Philadelphia. Upon the
Indian side of the controversy he was held to be
the most powerful single force. Although there
was a suspicion that he had led the attack upon
St. Clair it was ill-founded. Only ten braves of the
Six Nations and one chief, Du Quania, participated
with the western Indians in the savage glory of
that rout. From the late encounter there was no
stain upon the great chief of the confederacy, and
much was expected from his diplomacy. Accord-
ingly he was received with respect by Washington,
and was feted and honoured in the chief cities of

121

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

the republic. A multitude of councillors was also
working for peace, chief among whom were the
Quakers, who were regarded as friends of all the
interested tribes.

The news of the French imbroglio reached Navy
Hall during a pause of preparation. As a fruit of
Brant's visit to Philadelphia, the tribes had as-
sembled in the autumn of 1792 at the Au Glaize,
and it was arranged that the chiefs and warriors
should meet the representatives of the United
States government during the following spring at
Sandusky. It was fixed upon in the council that
the Ohio should be demanded as the Indian boun-
dary, and during all the subsequent negotiations
this remained the position from which the western
Indians never retreated. The Six Nations were
fully represented by their chiefs, but Brant himself
was not present, having been detained, it is alleged,
by illness. It is apparent that at this stage of the
negotiations he did not wish to appear as the media-
tor. He felt that the time had not come when he
could stand as the sole bulwark between peace and
war, that amid such a number of diverse forces, all
tending to one purpose, his influence would be
obscured. He, therefore, stood aloof and waited to
observe the reception which his chiefs, publishing
peace, might be accorded. They were, in fact, treated
with expressed scorn in their character of peace- *
makers with "the voice of the United States folded
under their arm." The hostiles triumphed signally,
122

THE INDIAN COMMISSIONERS

and the Ohio was to be pressed as the only boun-
dary. Brant did not appear until October 28th,
when he met the Shawanese and Delawares at the
foot of the Miami Rapids and was officially in-
formed, as it were, of the decision of the great
council and warned against Washington and his
cunning, advice which must have been unpalatable
to the great warrior.

The winter and early spring passed without any
change in the position of affairs, but both the
Indians and the British viewed with distrust the
continued activity of General Wayne. On May
17th two commissioners appointed to meet the In-
dians at Sandusky, according to agreement, arrived
at Navy Hall : Beverley Randolph, late governor
of Virginia, and Colonel Timothy Pickering, the
postmaster-general. A few days later came the
third commissioner, General Benjamin Lincoln,
who had fought throughout the Revolutionary
War with distinction. They remained at Navy
Hall, the guests of Governor Simcoe, until early in
July. At the outset there was unexpected difficulty
in arranging a date for the conference. Brant had
gone westward with his chiefs to attend a prelimin-
ary council of the tribes, there were vague rumours
of dissension and intrigue. At length the patience
of the commissioners was exhausted, and on June
26th they left Niagara, intending to proceed at
once to the Detroit River. If the Indians would
not come to them, they would approach the In-

123

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

dians. But they had only reached Fort Erie when
they met Brant with representatives of all the
western tribes. Back they trooped to Niagara, and
on Sunday morning, July 7th, they met in Free-
masons' Hall in the presence of the governor, the
British officers, and the prominent Canadians of the
district. Brant, the spokesman of the confederates,
was expected by them to ask definitely whether the
commissioners were empowered to fix the Ohio as
a boundary. Now Brant perceived that a negative
answer to this demand would close all hope of a
compromise, would, in fact, destroy the very foun-
dation on which the peace party hoped to build;
therefore he temporized. He emasculated the
question which became merely a request to know
whether the commissioners were authorized to fix
the boundary. The answer was simply affirmative.
Brant had gained time, but he had lost every ves-
tige of power over the western tribes, who, from
that day forward, considered him a traitor to their
common interests.

After lasting for a few days the preliminary
meeting broke up, and the commissioners proceeded
to the mouth of the Detroit River and remained at
Captain Elliot's, the local Indian superintendent.
Simcoe had refused politely to allow them to gain
a sight of the defences of Detroit. Here they dallied
until the fourteenth of August. The great council
was in progress at the Au Glaize and messages
were sent and received. But the Indians were now
124

THE POLICY OF BRANT

thoroughly alarmed ; from the south their runners
brought word of Wayne's activity, and they had no
assurance that the waters of the Ohio would flow
across the path of future aggression. Brant had
weakened his influence and all the eloquence of the
Corn-planter, the great chief of the Senecas, failed
to move the warriors who saw nothing but falseness
and duplicity in these efforts. Abruptly the final
message came; all hope for further negotiations
was at an end, and the friends of peace departed
discomfited by their failure.

Thus the peace negotiations fell through and the
Indian problem was still unsettled. The proceedings
had shown how far separate were the parties to the
conference, but they had other effects. They com-
pleted Simcoe's distrust of Brant. The governor
found only one leading principle in Brant's conduct:
"the wish to involve the British empire in a
quarrel with the United States." He held him
responsible for the collapse of the negotiations
and reported that "he [Brant] knew the Potta-
wattamies of St. Joseph had determined to obtain
peace at any rate, and that he thought by siding
with them in not absolutely insisting on the Ohio
for the boundary might be the means of reconcil-
ing them to the general interest." On September
20th, 1793, he wrote to Dundas enclosing a
letter from Brant, "by which," he says, "it will
appear that he is labouring to effect a pacification
upon such terms and principles as he shall think

125

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

proper, and which will eventually make him that
mediator which the United States have declined to
request from His Majesty's government. In this
arduous task I cannot believe that he will succeed,
as the western Indians consider him as a traitor to
their interests and totally in the service of the
United States. I am by no means of such an
opinion. I believe that he considers the Indian
interests as his first object, that as a secondary,
though very inferior one, he prefers the British
in a certain degree to the people of the States.
I consider the use he has made or may make of his
power to be an object of just alarm, and that it is
necessary, by degrees and on just principles, that it
should be diminished. From circumstances, the
almost guidance of the superintendent's office, as
far as the Six Nations have been concerned, has very
imprudently centred in the hands of this chieftain.
He has made an artful use of such means of power,
and appears in himself to be the dispenser of His
Majesty's bounty."

The governor closes this arraignment of the
great Mohawk by another appeal for a re-
organization of the Indian department, for the
abolition of the office of superintendent-general,
and for the control by the executive council of the
Indian interests with Colonel McKee, the western
superintendent, as a member of the council. In
truth, the state of the Indian department and its
government was a source of constant and just
126

THE INDIAN DEPARTMENT

vexation to Simcoe. The Indian policy was the
only field in all his government in which there was
any room for diplomacy, and from that field he was
officially excluded. The superintendent-general, Sir
John Johnson, had been absent for long periods,
during which each superintendent administered his
office according to instructions that gave no direc-
tions for emergencies. Their orders came direct
from the superintendent-general or the commander-
in-chief at Quebec ; the governor was ignorant of
them and was not consulted as to the Indian policy.
Owing to the influence of Sir John Johnson no
change had been made in the administration of the
department, although from the first Simcoe had
pointed out the advisability of placing the control
of the Indians in his province in the hands of the
lieutenant-governor.

Simcoe's constant representations as to the un-
popularity and dishonesty of the officials of this
important department met with no favourable
response from Dorchester. His friend, Sir John
Johnson, was at the head of that service, and
should so remain, subject only to the governor of
the province in which it was necessary for him to
reside ; and it had never come to pass that Upper
Canada needed his special attention and residence.
Simcoe's final charge threw all responsibility upon
other shoulders. He wrote to Dorchester : " I there-
fore, if it [the Indian department] shall continue on
its present independent footing, declare that I con-

127

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

sider the present power and authority of my station
... to be materially and unnecessarily weakened,
but more especially, should it be permitted to re-
main in this insecure situation, I beg not to be
understood as responsible for the continuance of
peace with the Indian nations, and, as far as their
interests are implicated and interwoven, with the
subjects of the United States." This vigorous pro-
test called forth a frigid reply from the commander-
in- chief, and no changes were inaugurated.

While Simcoe could neither give orders to,
nor control, the officers of this department, he
yet managed to keep a firm hand upon Indian
affairs. To state the fact that he was loved and
respected by the Indians is equivalent to the state-
ment that by nature and policy he was fitted to
deal with them. He was affectionately called in
the Iroquois tongue Deyotenhokarawen — " an open
door." He was an ideal representative of that firm,
true and uniform policy that has made the Cana-
dian Indian believe the British sovereign his
great parent and himself a child under beneficent
protection.

In thus censuring Brant, Simcoe was taking too
absolute a view of the circumstances, as was his
wont. The Six Nations, allies and comrades-in-
arms of the British, had already suffered much for
the cause. Brant had thrown all his personal
courage and cunning on the royal side of the bal-
ance, and was a terror to the king's enemies on the
128

THE DEFENCE OF THE FRONTIER

field or before the council fire. But circumstances
had arrived, in 1792, at a point where mere courage
was of non-effect and where the magnitude of the
interest at stake paralyzed his diplomacy. He de-
sired to save their lands for his people, but his am-
bition led him to hope for a personal triumph as
well as a tribal, confederate victory. Thus misled,
he appeared shifty to those from whom he gained
his chief power, and in consequence it crumbled
away. That his allegiance to Great Britain may for
the moment have become attainted is not impos-
sible. His mind was sufficiently natural to dislike
a policy which wore all the semblance of friendship
without the warm and active support which com-
panioned that friendship in the old war time. His
experience taught him that there would be only
one outcome of a war between his people and the
United States, and it may have been that by his
vacillation, as Simcoe suspected, he wished to gain
the open and active assistance of the great power
which had always supported him.

While these events were occurring the governor
was using every effort to place his frontier in a
state of defence. Fort Niagara was strengthened,
and York, in the autumn of 1793, was given at
least an appearance of fortification by mounting
some condemned cannon from Carleton Island.
Simcoe had removed to York immediately after the
departure of the American commissioners, and ar-
rived in the harbour on July 30th. Here he spent

129

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

the summer and the ensuing winter. His corre-
spondence with Sir Alured Clarke upon the mili-
tary affairs of the province had been harmonious,
even cordial. But on September 23rd Lord Dor-
chester relieved Clarke and took up the reins of
government, and from that time forward the rela-
tions between the commander-in-chief and the
lieutenant-governor were strained. Upon Simcoe's
part there was evidently a strong personal feeling
against Dorchester. He could not forget his censure
of the Queen's Rangers or his patronage of Sir John
Johnson for the governorship of Upper Canada.

There are a few words in Simcoe's correspondence
with Dundas that lead one to believe that he hoped
Dorchester would not assume his government and
that he might himself take command at Quebec.
To increase this feeling of hostility there soon arose
a divergence of opinion which rendered the rela-
tions of the two officers unsatisfactory to each.
Dorchester, seeing the defence of Canada with a
broad sweep, could not approve of Simcoe's sugges-
tions for the protection of the upper province. He
disapproved particularly of fortifying York. Simcoe
had stated to Clarke that he found it impossible,
and, indeed, unnecessary to separate his civil and his
military duties, and upon this line he carried on his
correspondence with Dorchester. His temper in
the circumstances that followed cannot be com-
mended. He was hasty and petulant, his words to
Dundas were frequently ill-considered and violent.
130

CONFLICT WITH DORCHESTER

Dorchester's views as to the military force necessary
for his province are called "immoral." He wrote on
December 15th, 1793, to Dundas : " Nothing but
the pure principle of doing my utmost for the
king's service would for a moment make me wish
to remain in a situation where I consider myself
liable to become the instrument of the most flagi-
tious breach of national honour and public faith
without any military necessity." Dorchester, on the
contrary, contained himself and was considerate of
his insubordinate officer. The friction is of no pub-
lic moment, for it resulted in nothing more impor-
tant than the quarrel itself.

Dorchester was officially correct in controlling
the military operations in Upper Canada ; and,
when he was commanded to act in affairs of im-
portance, Simcoe pushed on with his wonted
vigour and dispatch. Very near the close of their
relations Dorchester stated to Simcoe that be-
tween them there seemed to be some unfortunate
mistake which required to be cleared up. "I do
not understand," he wrote, " how the officer
commanding the troops in this country, whether
he approves or disapproves of provincial projects,
can interfere with the lieutenant-governor in the
exercise of the means intrusted to him by the king's
ministers for carrying on the great public measures
of his province ; and I must suppose, till further
explained, that the commander-in-chief is as little
under the control of the lieutenant-governor."

131

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

I have said that the friction or quarrel of these
two officers, each laden with great responsibility,
each endeavouring to carry out his duty amid pecu-
liar difficulties, was of no public moment. But it
had intimate and private results. The home govern-
ment endeavoured to conciliate the opposition, and
traced with tact the boundaries of the two guber-
natorial spheres, and pointed out how, with mutual
consideration, no clash need occur. But the personal
wounds remained unsalved to the last. Simcoe,
upon the eve of his departure, was bitter in his in-
vective ; and Dorchester, provoked by the captious
opposition of the chief-justices in his own capital, and
the insolence of the commander of the forces in the
upper province, would fain have recommended the
recall of each. " I think," he wrote, " this would not
only prevent any disorder for the present, but teach
gentlemen in these distant provinces to beware
how they sport with the authority of the king,
their master, and the tranquillity of his subjects."

But, while upon many points Dorchester and
Simcoe differed, there was one opinion which they
shared — that war with the United States was in-
evitable. The autumn and winter of 1793 heard the
clamour and din of the American fire-eaters and
filabusters rise to such a height that the voices of
the prudent and moderate were lost, overwhelmed
in the tumult. It was urged that with a French
alliance the time would be ripe to sweep the power
of Great Britain from the continent. Added to this
132

THE TENSION INCREASES

agitation there was the menace of Wayne's force
ready to strike at Detroit when a favourable oppor-
tunity should arise. Dorchester, in November,
1793, gives to Hammond the information that
this army consisted of three thousand regulars, two
thousand militia, and two hundred Indians. It was
his first duty to defend the posts, and Detroit was
in no state to stand before such an army. During
the early weeks of 1794 the tension increased, and
Dorchester wrote to Hammond on February 17th
that " Wayne's language implies hostile designs re-
quiring other measures than complaints or repair-
ing a fort of pickets." He believed " a frank state-
ment best, so that it may be understood that trust
in forbearance and the desire of peace may be car-
ried too far." A few days earlier, on February 10th,
he had made a speech to a deputation of the Seven
Nations which had the effect of a frank statement,
and was taken by the United States as such. He
told the Indians " that from the manner in which
the people of the States push on and act and talk,
I shall not be surprised if we were at war with them
in the course of the present year." The speech, in-
tended only for Indian ears, reached the United
States, was printed in the newspapers, and the
secretary of state wrote to Hammond that the
words were " hostility itself."

Although the letter to Hammond just cited does
not contain a hint that Dorchester had decided to
take any active measures, upon the same day he

133

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

advised Simcoe that as he heard Wayne proposed
to close the British up at Detroit he should occupy
nearly the same posts as were demolished after the
peace on the Miami ; he should arm ships upon the
lakes, and prepare to resist Wayne should he at-
tempt to take possession of the country.

For some time the governor had sought guidance
from his superior officer as to what his course of
action should be if the Americans appeared with an
armed naval force upon the lakes. He had been
referred in answer to the British plenipotentiary at
Philadelphia, and, accordingly, in alarm at the im-
possibility of obtaining definite instructions in a
matter of such moment, he had dispatched Major
Littlehales to the American capital to learn from
Hammond the "mind of His Majesty's ministers."
While his envoy was still at Philadelphia, Dor-
chester's dispatch was received. Simcoe interpreted
it as the declaration of a war policy, and on March
14th he dispatched to the commander-in-chief his
plan of aggression, as it was his belief that Upper
Canada could not be defended from its own soil.
Immediately afterwards he left York. He arrived
at the Mohawk village on the Grand River on
March 26th, and taking canoes there he reached the
rapids of the Miami on April 10th.

An episode now occurred that is worthy of re-
cord, more from its strangeness than from any
remote bearing upon the subject. Upon April 8th
a letter had been received by Simcoe from Baron
134

A LETTER FROM CARONDELET

Carondelet, the Spanish governor-general of Louis-
iana, dated January 2nd, 1794, asking him for aid
against an expedition that he believed was designed
against Louisiana. His information was explicit;
the attack was to be made by way of the upper
and lower Mississippi ; France had intrigued with
American Jacobins, the force was known, as well
as the fund to supply the insurgents. He asked
Simcoe to send five hundred men by way of St.
Louis to defeat the designs of the common enemy,
as he believed that it was in the interest of Britain
that Illinois should remain in possession of Spain.
Simcoe agreed to the general statement that such a
secured possession was in Great Britain's interests,
but that he could not afford assistance to St. Louis
even if authorized so to do. He averred that he
would be happy were the alliance between the two
Crowns strengthened as, in cooperation, their forces
would be of consequence should the United States
force a war. The letter closed with those courteous
messages that Simcoe, gifted in the expression of
sentiment, would feel constrained to deliver to a
Spanish governor. It was many months afterwards,
in the winter of 1794-5, that Simcoe received an an-
swer to his letter ; the expected invasion of Spanish
territory had not occurred, and Carondelet wasted
his words in pointing out how combinations of the
Indian forces might be made, and in what manner
communications could be maintained. Simcoe, up-
on reading this epistle, may have smiled at the

135

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

recollection of the request for aid from one who
was the leader of what he considered a forlorn
hope, at the request of Carondelet coming to him
in the wilderness while he was gathering his puny
force and felling trees to make a breastwork against
his immediate foe.

At the rapids of the Miami Simcoe erected as
effectual a stronghold as possible, and garrisoned it
with one hundred and twenty rank and file of the
24th Regiment, commanded by Major Campbell,
and one non-commissioned officer and ten privates
of the Royal Artillery. He reports to Dorchester
that he also "directed a log house, defensible against
necessity, to be built at Turtle Island and another
at the River aux Raisins, and mertons of logs in the
hog-pen manner to be provided at these posts
which, being filled as occasion shall require, will
give the adequate means of speedily erecting bat-
teries, and in the meantime these houses will be-
come immediate deposits absolutely necessary to
the security of the navigation." Having thus created
an outpost to the defenae of Detroit, Simcoe hur-
ried back to Niagara to further strengthen the fort,
to make a better disposition of the troops under
his command, to call out the militia, and to com-
plete the naval force upon Lake Erie. He arrived
at Navy Hall on April 27th. The next three months
were spent in these preparations, and in this inter-
val the legislature met on June 2nd and prorogued
on July 7th. Early in August the governor dis-
136

GENERAL WAYNE'S ADVANCE

patched Lieutenant SheafFe to the Sodus to pro-
test, in the name of the British government, against
the settlement of Americans on that bay, which
indents the shore of Lake Ontario in Wayne
county, in the state of New York. This visit was
made in no hostile spirit, and the lieutenant was
accompanied by but one officer and seven unarmed
soldiers as oarsmen.

On August 18th all that Simcoe could do for the
defence of Canada had been done, the militia of
Niagara and Detroit had been drafted, and he was
ready to leave for the latter post with all his avail-
able force, one hundred men of the 5th Regiment
and forty of the Queen's Rangers. With his small
army he feared that Wayne could not be success-
fully opposed. But since Dorchester's speech to the
Indians and the establishment of the post at the
Miami, Brant had acted with firmness and vigour,
and Simcoe expected his assistance and that of
every warrior of the Six Nations.

The establishment of a fort by the British fifty
miles south of Detroit and within territory for-
mally ceded by treaty, caused violent comment in
the United States. An acrimonious correspondence
was carried on between Jefferson and Hammond,
and the newspapers fanned the excitement. But
while this episode was in progress far from the
scene of activity, and while Simcoe was disposing
his forces and rallying his Indians, Wayne was
cautiously advancing. No opportunity was given

137

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

for such an ambuscade as broke St. Clair and de-
stroyed his army. His object was solely to crush
the Indians, obeying the order of his government.
On June 30th he met his foe under the stockade of
Fort Recovery, which had been erected upon the
ground where Butler fell and St. Clair was de-
feated. The Indians cut off and drove away a train
of pack animals laden with provisions and killed
fifty men of the escort. For two days a desultory,
but at intervals a fierce fight was maintained.
Wayne was not to be surprised or drawn from his
defences, and his men, from the loopholes of Fort
Recovery, inflicted heavy loss upon the Indians.
Discouraged from the continuance of a contest in
which they were at a disadvantage, the Indians
carried off their dead and wounded and left the
field where they had less than two years before
crushed St. Clair. But in Wayne they had an ad-
versary of a different stamp. In the wilderness he
made no step of which he was not perfectly sure,
and when he received reinforcements at Fort Re-
covery he advanced as rapidly as the nature of the
country would permit.

His objective point was the junction of the
Au Glaize and the Miami, upon the fertile banks
of which lay the Indian villages. When he ar-
rived he met with no resistance. The Indians
were taken unawares, and as they retreated towards
the rapids, where Major Campbell and his little
force held the walls of the new British fort, they
138

WAYNE AND CAMPBELL

saw above the trees the dense smoke from their
huts and cornfields drift away in the wind. Here
they took up a position; their left secured by
the strong rocky bank of the river, their centre and
right involved in a thicket of wood rendered im-
passable by fallen trees mingled with underbrush,
the track of a tornado. The Americans numbered
about four thousand, the Indians but one thousand
three hundred. With this superior force Wayne ad-
vanced, and on August 20th he struck at the posi-
tion. His dispositions were well planned, the charge
was impetuous and intrepid ; in a single hour the
Indians were rolled back upon the British post,
with few losses but thoroughly broken and de-
feated. The day after the battle Major Campbell
addressed a letter to Wayne in which he requested
to be informed in what light he was to view
Wayne's near approaches to his garrison. The in-
terchange of letters which followed exposed the
differing views of the commanders, but had no other
result. Wayne demanded that Campbell retire;
Campbell retorted that he would not abandon his
post at the summons of any power whatever.
Wayne's cavalry ranged about within reach of
Campbell's guns, over which hung the port-fire,
but they withdrew and the match did not de-
scend. Wayne had positive orders not to attack
any British garrison, and after burning everything
of value which he could discover, including the
house and barns of Colonel McKee, the Indian

139

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

superintendent, he retired to the Au Glaize on
August 28th.

Major Campbell's conduct was highly approved
by Simcoe. In a difficult position he had main-
tained a bold and determined front. His fort was
an impromptu affair, half completed, and with but
a semblance of strength ; his garrison was weak
and his guns few ; but he did not flinch at Wayne's
challenge, and would no doubt have fought him
to the death. He received nothing more than the
thanks of the home government, that coldly agreed
with Simcoe's warm words : " The conduct of this
gentleman which, in substance, may have prevented
the greatest miseries to the province . . . has
most nobly supported the national character." The
governor sent one hundred guineas to Major Camp-
bell for distribution as rewards, and if his view
could have prevailed, advancement and honour
would have followed for the commander of the
post. No gun had been fired but many had lost their
lives by fever. At the end of August six had died
and one hundred and twenty of the garrison were
upon the sick list.

Thus the decisive action was fought while
Brant was still at his village on the Grand River.
If he had at heart the successful prosecution of
the war, his inactivity at this critical time is inex-
plicable. He knew that Wayne was steadily ad-
vancing, yet he withheld his hand ; he answered
Simcoe that he was ready to move with his best
140

A TREATY OF PEACE

fighters, yet he remained at home. He wrote to
McKee on January 14th, 1795, that he should
have been present at the affair with Wayne had
the nations, "agreeable to our ancient customs,
informed me of his approaches." When he and Sim-
coe on September 27th arrived at Miami's Bay all
reason for their presence had vanished. The Indians
were discouraged and disunited, and Wayne had
moved southward victorious.

In the spring and summer of 1794, while these
men of action were manoeuvring for an advantage
in the far west, each party alive for a pretext to
strike at the other, the diplomats of Philadelphia
and Downing Street were quietly settling the diffi-
culty in their own fashion. Jay landed at Fal-
mouth on June 8th upon a pacific mission, and
while Simcoe thought that war had been de-
clared and was straining every nerve to place
his province upon the defensive, Dundas was
writing him from London that peace was secured
and that nothing should be done to irritate the
United States or provoke hostilities. These dis-
patches were received many days after all fear of a
clash had past. If Washington's determination to
maintain peace had been less firm, if his directions
to Wayne had left any loophole for that impulsive
officer to resent hostility, the nations might again
have been involved in war. The motive may not
have been higher than that which prompted the
communication of the war office to the unfortunate

141

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

St. Clair, but it was sufficient : " We must by all
means avoid involving the United States with Great
Britain until events arise of the quality and magni-
tude as to impress the people of the United States
and the world at large of the rank injustice and un-
fairness of their procedure. But a war with that
power in the present state of affairs would retard
our power, growth and happiness beyond almost
the power of calculation." The restraint put upon
Wayne was in part actuated by self-interest, and
the opposition that he met so far from Detroit
prevented him from pitching his tents under the
walls of that fort.

The treaty that was concluded between Great
Britain and the United States, which is usually
called Jay's Treaty, settled the pending difficulties
between the two countries, and in the summer of
1796 the posts were delivered to the United States.
The American flag was hoisted over Fort Niagara
on August llth. About the same time the reliev-
ing party, assisted by the British with supplies of
pork and flour, arrived at Michilimackinac, and the
dominion of the west passed peaceably to the
United States.

Dorchester, misled by alarming signs, had nearly
brought disaster upon the country. For his in-
flammatory speech to the Indians and his directions
to Simcoe to establish the post on the Miami, he
was reproved by the government. His spirited de-
fence of his action ends with his resignation. But
142

A DEFENSIVE LETTER

with these facts the present writing has but little
concern. It is with Simcoe's position we must deal.
He had been the chief actor in the scene and he
apprehended that his would be the chief blame. In
this he was wrong, but the fear drew from him a
characteristic letter to the Duke of Portland. It
follows with but slight abridgment as it sums up
with vigour and almost vehemence the situation
from his standpoint. It exhibits many of the essen-
tial points of his character, his intense spirit of
partizanship, his impatience of restraint, his deep
integrity, his devotion to duty which was in his
mind inseparable from his religion, and from all
that he held sacred in life.

"KINGSTON, December 20th, 1794.
"MY LORD DUKE, — As the manner in which
the disputes relative to the barrier forts of this pro-
vince shall be terminated must probably become
the subject of discussion, I feel it indispensably
necessary to state to your grace the orders of the
commander-in-chief, Lord Dorchester, under which
I acted and the principles which in the event of
war would have guided my discretion. ... It is
necessary that I should premise to your grace what
transpired on my arrival in this province. I found
it to be the common language of all classes of
people, military as well as civil, the well-informed
as well as the ignorant, that any attempt of the
United States to launch a single boat upon the
lakes was to be repelled as hostility ; it, therefore,

143

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

became incumbent upon me to obtain as soon as
possible positive instructions upon so important a
subject. The manner in which his Lordship had pre-
viously declined to give such instructions and his
observations to me on January 27th that ' Mr.
Hammond was best qualified to speak the language
that will be approved by His Majesty's ministers,'
when contrasted with the orders of February 19th
following, to occupy the post at the Miami; and his
Lordship's answer to the speech of the Seven Nations
of Canada as deputies from part of the Indian na-
tions, which speech was totally unknown to me:
these circumstances, added to the total silence of
His Majesty's ministers in respect to the applica-
tion made by me to Major-General Clarke, and
communicated by him in his letter to Mr. Dundas
of February 2nd, 1793, left no justifiable doubt up-
on my mind but that war with the United States
was inevitable, and that his Lordship's recent
measures had originated under the instructions of
His Majesty's confidential servants; I immediately,
therefore, decided personally to proceed through the
woods to Detroit, and to carry into execution his
Lordship's directions upon the principles, which are
explained by the letter, which I beg to transmit a
copy of to your grace. Previously to the receipt of
the commander- in-chief 's orders, the same informa-
tion from Lieutenant-Colonel England, to which
his Lordship alludes in his instructions, having
passed through my hands, I had sent Major of Bri-
144

THE LETTER TO PORTLAND

gade Littlehales to Mr. Hammond to request that
if 'he thought it was seasonable, he would interfere
with the government of the United States to pre-
vent any ill consequences that might follow Mr.
Wayne's menaces and approach.' In particular I
stated to Mr. Hammond : * That I considered the
settlement at the River aux Raisins as the boun-
dary of the territory occupied by His Majesty's
subjects, dependent on Detroit.' It, therefore, will
not escape your grace that had Mr. Hammond
acted upon my communication and had entered in-
to an amicable discussion with the government of
the United States, nearly at the same period that
a post at the Miami Rapids, thirty miles in advance
of the River aux Raisins, should have been occupied
by His Majesty's troops, the conduct of the British
government would have appeared in the most un-
favourable light, and, personally, I should have been
liable to the charge of extreme duplicity. . . .
Your grace will be pleased to observe that Lord
Dorchester, by his speaking of my 'local know-
ledge ' of the country where it must have been
known to his Lordship I never could have been, in
person, seems to intimate the propriety of my go-
ing thither ; upon this expression, I determined to
waive the peculiar circumstances of my situation,
and, as I conceived, the general impropriety of His
Majesty's representative in this province passing its
boundaries without the most urgent occasion. I
more readily embraced this resolution, as I had not

145

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

an officer of experience, and in my confidence as
deputy quartermaster-general, whose general super-
intendence, not confining him to local duties, might
with propriety have been employed in a matter of
such importance. Had I possessed such an officer,
most certainly I should not have felt myself under
the necessity of proceeding to the Miami's ; nor in any
case would I personally have done it, without fur-
ther explanations with the commander-in-chief, had
I not conceived a war to have been inevitable, that
an opposition to Mr. Wayne's approaches had been
determined upon by His Majesty's ministers, and
that not a moment was to be neglected. I stated,
therefore, to his Lordship, after a general sketch of
such military defence as then appeared proper, that
I should procure better information at Detroit,
' and, if it can be done with propriety, by personal
investigation.'

"Fortunately for me, Lord Dorchester's speech
to the Seven Nations having been made publick
before Brigade-Major Littlehales reached Mr. Ham-
mond, all communication between that gentleman
and the government of the United States on the sub-
ject of my dispatch was prevented and superseded.

" On my arrival at Detroit, I found it necessary
for the king's service that I should in person pro-
ceed to the Miami's ; and subsequent events have
in all respects justified the military principles I
stated to Lord Dorchester in respect to the occupa-
tion of that post. Your grace will have the good-
146

THE LETTER TO PORTLAND

ness to observe, upon the question of the com-
mander-in-chief, 'whether by collecting all the
force in your power to assemble, you would be in a
condition to resist Wayne's attack should he at-
tempt by force to take possession of the country ? '
that I answer, ' I think no force in this country
could resist Wayne's direct attack* Your grace will
also observe that the commander-in-chief had ex-
pressed himself: ' It may not be amiss to consider
what reinforcements you may draw from other
posts within your command without exposing any
to insult.' I need not call to your grace's attention
the vague and indeterminate idea annexed to in-
sult in a military acceptation of the term. Lord
Dorchester has never yet by name mentioned to
me the Indian nations as part of the force or
powers. He knows the garrison of Oswego to be
untenable, and that I consider Niagara alone to
have been so extensive as to require all the force
in this country to garrison it ; that my opinions
were that there were neither competent magazines
nor military stores in the province. I also know
that American militia are not fitted for garrison
duty, and will not perform it ; and that what I
stated to the king's ministers before I left England
I affirm to be true, * that Upper Canada is not to be
defended remaining within it,' that is, on a defen-
sive plan. However, I beg respectfully to remark
to your grace, after having stated these difficul-
ties, that I did not shrink from the encounter, and,

147

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

therefore, I transmitted to his Lordship a series of
operations that might possibly counteract Wayne's
approach and possibly ruin his army. The details
upon which the execution of these operations de-
pended, though they could not at that moment be
brought to bear, were instantly put into a train,
and if war had been declared and it had then been
advisable, I could have attempted its execution in
June following. I transmitted this plan to Lord
Dorchester to show that I was in person ready to
undertake any enterprise, however hazardous, that
might, in my judgment, conduce to the public ser-
vice, and I beg here most respectfully to state to
your grace, and I hope without impropriety, as this
letter is meant for personal protection, that having
embraced the military profession on principle, and
having cultivated it on the most extensive theory
and no uncommon practice, I have always been
ready to apply my attainments to the king's ser-
vice, measuring the value of command by its public
utility and not by its extent, and being equally
prepared for the smallest detachment or the largest
army, leaving to the timid or the superficial to distin-
guish between the partizan and the general. I have
now shown to your grace the precipice on which I
stood, namely, my belief that it was the intention
of His Majesty to commence a war with the United
States, and that on a defensive plan Upper Canada
must fall inevitably. I have stated the opinions I
had thrown out to Lord Dorchester and the mo-
148

THE LETTER TO PORTLAND

lives which led to them. Mr. Wayne approached
the Miami's, at the same time the Pennsylvanians
garrisoned Le Bceuf on the way to Presqu'isle.
They were prevented by the Six Nations (and Pre-
sident Washington's consequent interference), from
proceeding and occupying that important station.
The occupation of Le Bceuf with one hundred men
appeared to me a false step of the United States,
and I prepared to take due advantage of it. At the
time of Mr. Wayne's approach and summons of
Major Campbell, I was collecting artillery, boats,
and troops at Fort Erie, and had sent off such a de-
tachment as I had means of transporting to secure
Turtle Island. Had Mr. Wayne besieged the
Miami Fort I had good hopes of relieving it,
having well considered on the spot every arrange-
ment necessary to effect that purpose ; had he been
repulsed in an attempt to have assaulted the fort,
the Indians would have regained their spirits, and,
supported by the Canadian militia, who, it is pro-
bable, in numbers would then have joined the sav-
ages, and by two hundred at least of the king's
troops, led by Major Campbell, 1 doubt not but
they would have destroyed General Wayne's army,
or at least disabled it for further operations. That
officer seems to have been unprepared for meeting
with so compact a fortress, and perhaps he was in-
timidated by the very permission to reconnoitre the
post on all sides. His horse appearing after all fur-
ther approach had been forbidden by Major Camp-

149

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

bell, he directed a cannon to be pointed ; the match
was lighted and if the party had not been with-
drawn, it would have been fired upon. So near was
the war being commenced !

"Your grace will be pleased to advert to my situ-
ation if Mr. Wayne's ferocity had tempted him to
have attempted an assault, and those consequences
had followed that I have stated and which I firmly
believed would have been the case.

" I should have known of the event of these hos-
tilities before their commission could have possibly
been communicated to the government of the
United States. I should, I had, decided; I was
prepared and would have instantly surrounded Le
Bceuf, and cut off Fort Franklin (not tenable). Le
Bceuf, weakly garrisoned and scarcely fortified,
could not have held out an hour against my can-
non ; destroyed, there would not have been an In-
dian of the Six Nations but who would have taken
up arms. My immediate operation would have been
by small parties of white men, as the mildest mode
of warfare, to have burnt every mill in the forks of
the Susquehanna down to Northumberland or Sun-
bery, and on the Delaware to Minesink, which
would have driven in those settlements ; and from
every circumstance I have no reason to doubt but
that in three weeks the whole of the Genesees, al-
most without resistance, would have been aban-
doned, the inhabitants taking refuge in the king's
or the dominions of the States, and that by a post
150

THE LETTER TO PORTLAND

on the Three Rivers Point, Sodus Harbour, and
Oswego, I should have effectually for the season
protected Upper Canada. I am persuaded there is
not an Indian in North America but would have
flown to arms, and by a right use of their terror
rather than their action, I have reason to believe
that Vermont, and it is possible that Kentucky
would have declared themselves neutral.

" The British militia to a man, on the first ap-
pearance of hostilities, had avowed the most deter-
mined loyalty. They are as well calculated for of-
fensive war as they would be impotent in garrisons.
There are few families among them but what can
relate some barbarous murder or atrocious requisi-
tions which their relations have undergone from the
rulers of the United States, however those trans-
actions may have been concealed and glossed over
in Europe. It is probable that, once called into
action and movement, and successful, they would
have been a most formidable assistance. Offensive
operations, therefore, would have been impressed
upon me by every consideration. I beg respectfully
to call your grace's attention to what must have
been my situation, if, under such circumstances, at
any moment of these operations, I had received
Mr. Dundas's letter No. 6, and that of your grace
dated July 16th, 1794, the former and its enclosures
stating that it was not the intention of His Majes-
ty's government to commence hostilities with the
United States on the subject of the posts, and the

151

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

latter recalling me in the midst of my operations,
and of operations of such a nature and extent. But,
my Lord Duke, I must beg your permission to state
what (though I am not of that opinion) may be
thought an extreme case.

" It would have been of public service, among
such a people as those of the United States, who are
governed by newspapers, to have published reasons
for my operations, and probably it might have been
politic to have limited their extent. In this case it
is not impossible the people near Pittsburg, who
perhaps have broken out into their late violences in
hopes of Great Britain and the United States going
to war, might have entered into some compact in
which it would have been prudent to have acquiesced ;
supported as these people could easily be by Upper
Canada and the Indians, they would present a most
systematic and formidable opposition to the United
States. I have no doubt that the president, Mr.
Washington, in person must have marched to crush
it. The first object of my heart would certainly be,
with adequate force and on a just occasion, to meet
this gentleman face to face ; of course public duty
and private inclination would have made me almost
surmount impossibilities to have effected such a pur-
pose, and on the supposition that Lord Dorchester
should not call for the troops of Upper Canada,
such an event might have been possible. At that
moment the communications from your grace and
Mr. Dundas must have come through the presi-
152

THE LETTER TO PORTLAND

dent, whom I believe to be the most treacherous
of mankind, and most hostile to the interests of
Great Britain. In what a dreadful situation this
circumstance must have placed me imagination
can scarcely devise.

" I have, my Lord Duke, in an early part of my
life, sacrificed much to my sense of obedience and
essential subordination ; at present, were it neces-
sary, these principles must be doubly enforced on
my mind. I have long held it as a maxim that in
proportion as the general mass of mankind are re-
laxed in their habits of due subordination, the
stricter and more exemplary will be the obedience
of every true servant and soldier of his country to
His Majesty's authority, and to whom he shall be
pleased to delegate it, but in the situation I have
represented, where enterprise must have been
hazardous and inactivity desperate, your grace will
see it might have been almost impossible for me at
once to have stopped in my career, to have exem-
plified prompt obedience, and, acting most con-
scientiously in what I conceived the letter and
spirit of my orders, to have preserved myself from
calumny and ruin.

" The consequences of the orders which I have
already executed must, as I conceive, prove most
injurious to the king's interests. The giving up the
posts at present will have the appearance (and ap-
pearance becomes reality in disgrace), as having
been extorted by armed America, and acquiesced in

153

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

under the apparently unfortunate termination of
the present European campaign. This the Federal
party of the States will dilate upon as a proof of
the wisdom of Mr. Jay's appointment, and the anti-
Federalists as resulting from their opposition to
British encroachments.

" The having brought this dormant question into
discussion will, therefore, at the least, appear repre-
hensible in the eyes of those who may imagine
their interests injured by its termination or whose
aims are to impede His Majesty's government.
These circumstances will renew in the minds of
Englishmen the memory of the late American war,
and above all the loss of honour in which it ter-
minated, a loss that is now understood from its
consequences and felt universally.

"I, therefore, in my very peculiar situation most
respectfully repose on the justice of your grace
and His Majesty's ministers, and hope and trust that
should any public or parliamentary question arise
upon the subject in which my name may be impli-
cated, that it will be clearly understood that all my
late transactions were in obedience to the orders of
the command er-in- chief, Lord Dorchester.

" I have the honour to be, my lord, with utmost
respect and deference, your grace's most obedient
and most humble servant,

"J. G. SIMCOE.

" His Grace the Duke of Portland, one of His
Majesty's principal Secretaries of State."
154

CHAPTER IX

THE CHURCHES AND EDUCATION

64 rilHE best security that all just government
has for its existence is founded on the
morality of the people, and that such morality has
no true basis but when based upon religious prin-
ciples, it is, therefore, I have always been extremely
anxious, from political as well as more worthy mo-
tives, that the Church of England shall be essen-
tially established in Upper Canada." Thus wrote
Governor Simcoe to Henry Dundas on November
6th, 1792, after he had been for a few weeks at
Niagara. The first clause in the loose sentence
would pass without challenge, and the second,
although vague and indeterminate, has elements
of truth, but the deduction falls somewhat flat
upon the mind raised to expectancy by the fine
statement of the premises. It seems far-fetched and
unreasonable to argue that because just govern-
ment is founded on morality and morality upon
religious principles that, therefore, the Church of
England should be essentially established in Upper
Canada. Simcoe could thus write, feelingly and
with absolute sincerity, and could at the same time
entertain vigorous, wise and prudent plans for the
government of the province. The establishment of

155

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

the church was a scheme apart, founded upon pre-
conceived ideas.

But in urging it Simcoe was instant in season
and out of season. He wished to assimilate the
government as nearly as possible to that of Great
Britain, and as an established clergy was a com-
ponent part of the one it must of necessity be
imported into the other. He held the view that
" every establishment of church and state that
upholds a distinction of ranks, and lessens the
undue weight of democratic influence must be
indispensably introduced" into such a colony as
Upper Canada. When we reflect that the Can-
ada Act was largely influenced by Simcoe, we can
trace his hand in the clauses which created the
Clergy Reserves and made possible hereditary titles
in the legislative, council. This view, now that
we have passed the period of agitation and strife
which it occasioned, seems odd and perverse, but
Simcoe drew from the facts of the American Re-
volution the conclusion that too great a freedom
in the matter of forms and institutions had brought
about that dire and lamentable result. Jn his
government, church and state were to go hand-
in-hand ; the people were to fear their rulers, the
rulers were to be just and considerate to the
people.

Reviewing the elements of the population: Ger-
mans of Lutheran descent, Moravians, Calvinists,
Tunkers, Methodists, the blood of Puritan New
156

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

England, one wonders how a man of Simcoe's
penetration could think his established fold adapt-
able to such motley and contentious factions. But,
to tell the truth, Simcoe was no statesman, not even
a shrewd politician ; he was a soldier first, last and
always, with a military love of fixed orders and
implicit faith in duty as the one law needful. Now
it was to be the glory of Upper Canada that free-
dom in its integrity, both political and religious,
should there abide, and that bureaucracy, mili-
tarism, and the rule of a governor with an eye
single for sedition and political heresy should be
cast forth. The influence of Simcoe, and those who
followed in his pathway, postponed only for a little
the responsible government and religious freedom
that was potential in the disposition and desire of
the people.

When Simcoe reached Niagara in the autumn of
1792, there were three clergymen of the Church of
England in Upper Canada. The first to arrive was
the Rev. John Stuart. He was born in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, in 1730. His father was a Presby-
terian, but the son decided to join the Church of
England, and was ordained in England in 1770.
For seven years he was missionary to the Mohawks
at Fort Hunter. During the war he was subjected
to injustice and indignity at the hands of the rebels.
His house was plundered and his church turned
into a stable. In 1780 he made up his mind to
emigrate to Canada, and he arrived with his family

157

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

at St. Johns, Que., on October 9th, 1781. After a
sojourn in Montreal, where he conducted a success-
ful day school, he moved to Cataraqui, as Kingston
was then called, in 1786. Here he established him-
self, ministering to the Loyalists, refugees like him-
self, and to the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, to
whom he could preach in their own language. The
next to arrive, in August, 17£7, was the Rev. John
Langhorn, who laboured in Ernestown and Freder-
icksburgh. He was paid £150 a year by the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel. To Niagara the
Rev. Robert Addison had been sent by the society
just mentioned. He arrived there in the autumn
of 1792, shortly before the governor.

Over these scattered pastors it was Simcoe's de-
sire to have a bishop appointed. Before he had left
England he had urged the importance of the action,
and had offered to give up £500 of his own salary
annually if the consideration of cost was to prevent
the creation of the new see. His request was at last
met, and the first anglican bishop of Canada, the
Rev. Jehoshaphat Mountain, arrived in Quebec on
November 1st, 1793. His jurisdiction extended over
both provinces, and it was not until the summer of
1794 that he visited Upper Canada, and was wel-
comed by the governor at Niagara on August 9th.
He found that there was but one Lutheran chapel
and one or two Presbyterian churches between
Montreal and Kingston. At the latter place he
found a " small but decent church," and in the Bay
158

THE METHODIST CHURCH

of Quinte district there were three or four log huts
wherein at various points Mr. Langhorn met his
parishioners. At Niagara there was no church ; the
services were held sometimes in the chamber of the
legislative council, and other times at Freemasons'
Hall, which is described as a house of public enter-
tainment.

Roving through the country, the zealous bishop
found a few itinerant and mendicant Methodists,
"a set of ignorant enthusiasts, whose preaching
is calculated only to perplex the understanding,
to corrupt the morals, to relax the nerves of indus-
try, and dissolve the bands of society." The popu-
lation he found to be largely composed of dissenters,
but he was of the opinion that if a proper number
of clergymen were at once sent into the country,
these would rapidly give their adherence and thus
would the province be saved to the church. The
outcome of his earnest representations was that
£500 was set apart annually for the building of
churches, which was expended during the follow-
ing years at Cornwall, York, and Niagara. But the
pitiful stipends of the clergy were not materially
increased ; the home government pointed out that
"the act respecting rectories included tithes, so
that no additional grant was needed," and trusted
that a small salary from government and an allow-
ance from the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel would be sufficient for the comfortable
maintenance of the incumbents. That the incum-

159

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

bents were comfortable is open to doubt, living as
they did in a country thinly populated by people as
yet struggling for a bare existence, where even the
necessaries of life were both scarce and expensive.
But upon their foundation of self-denial and zeal
was based the great power of the Church of England
in Canada. To weld the connection between church
and state Bishop Mountain was given a seat in the
legislative council on May 29th, 1794, and was ap-
pointed an executive councillor on January 25th,
1796.

While Simcoe was thus looking forward to the
establishment of the Church of England in Upper
Canada, there were forces at work which in the
end rendered his schemes fruitless. There was the
deep spring of dissent in the hearts of the people
which was by and by to swell into a torrent, not to
be dammed or bridged ; and there was everywhere,
growing more and more powerful, the influence of
the ministers and preachers who lived the pioneer
life and guided their small flocks in the wilderness.
Whenever the governor became officially aware of
the presence of these sectaries, and the persons who
ministered to them, he treated them with lofty scorn.
After his customary fashion he faced their position
with petulance and represented their motives as base
and unworthy, themselves as disloyal and contu-
macious.

During the session of 1796 a petition was pre-
sented from the eastern district asking for the re-
160

THE MARRIAGE ACT

peal of the Marriage Act. It was signed by all the
magistrates in the eastern district and by many of
the inhabitants. If the views therein expressed had
been set forth in the most abject manner they
would not have received favour with the governor,
but instead of a proper humility pervading the
document, it was composed in a manner which
irritated him. There was something jaunty and in
effect flippant in the phrases. It was couched in
argumentative terms, and to his mind there was no
basis of argument. It was marked with honest yet
homely similes, out of place when dealing with so
grave a matter. But above all it showed republican
tendencies. The authorship was in doubt, but it was
alleged that it had been indited by one Bethune,
a Presbyterian minister, who, while writing such
reprehensible stuff, was actually in receipt of the
king's bounty to the extent of £50 a year. It was
also hinted that the document proceeded from
Montreal and dangerous men there who had the
ruin of the country at heart. This monstrous peti-
tion only asked the privilege that now is considered
everywhere as the plainest right — that ministers of
every denomination should be permitted legally to
solemnize marriage. Simcoe, a most stubborn son
of the church, stamped upon the request, and it
took years of agitation upon one side and gradual
broadening of principles upon the other before 1830
saw the repeal of the burdensome Act. In conversa-
tion "he thought it proper to say that he looked

161

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

upon the petition as the product of a wicked head
and a most disloyal heart "; he considered it an
open attack upon the national church, and opined
that the next attempt would be upon the sevenths
set apart for the established clergy. Indeed, it was
not long before the Clergy Reserves began to re-
ceive attention from the same quarter.

While Simcoe was trying thus to hedge the in-
fant church from harm, the obscure sectaries were
taking root, watered and pruned and nourished by
the pioneer exhorters — Methodists and others, who
roved throughout the province and preached every-
where, after their own forms and in their own
manner, the gospel of Jesus Christ. These zealots,
their personality and their methods, are one of the
most picturesque features in the country where
all men had taken on some quality of native rug-
gedness, power and simplicity from the earth, very
near to which they lived and reared their young.
Like Orson, who was nourished by bears, the people
had been habituated to the wilderness. They re-
quired for their religious awakening and the con-
tinuance of their spiritual life some power full of
elemental force and vital energy. As their needs
were so were they filled.

The itinerants came and set up their altars
wherever a willing human heart could be found,
beneath the primeval maples, between the fire-
blackened stumps of the new clearing, or under
the rude scoop-roof of the first log shanty. They
162

ITINERANT PREACHERS

travelled about sometimes on horseback, some-
times on foot, roughly garbed, their knapsacks
filled with a little dried venison and hard bread,
sleeping in the woods, often fighting sleep when
the snow lay thick on the ground, keeping at
a distance a frosty death by hymns and homilies
shouted to the glory of God in the keen air. Their
stipends were almost naught, their parish coter-
minous with the trails of the savages or the slash
roads of the settlers, their license to preach con-
tained in one inspiring sentence in a little leather-
covered book, their churches and rectories wherever
under the sky might be found human hearts to
reach and native hospitality. They met the oppo-
sition which they frequently encountered each in his
own way, but no threats of hanging or stripes could
push them from their appointed path. Sometimes
the force was met by force, and the bully felt the
power of the evangelist in the stroke of a fist hard
as granite, launched with unerring swiftness ; some-
times his ribs were crushed in an ursine grasp and
he felt himself held high and hurled beyond the
circle of the camp-fire ; sometimes he was appealed
to in a way that won all the manliness in his heart,
and caused him to choke with shame at a merited
disgrace. As settlements increased their circuits be-
came smaller, their people reared churches and the
hardness of their lives was softened, but their zeal
was unquenchable. Fanatics they undoubtedly were,
yet they were cast as salt into the society of that

163

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

day to preserve it on the one hand from ecclesias-
tical formalism, and upon the other from the cor-
ruption of the lawless and ignorant.

The first Presbyterian minister to reach Upper
Canada was the Rev. John Bethune. Like his con-
temporary, Mr. Stuart, he had suffered for the royal
cause in North Carolina, where he was the chap-
lain of the loyal militia. During the war he was
captured and imprisoned, lost whatever he had
gained in the colony, and after peace was declared
he left for the country where he could express his
attachment for the king's government without fear
of insult or vengeance. He arrived in Montreal in
1786, and gathered about him the adherents of his
faith. After the short sojourn of a year he left the
city for the new settlements on the St. Lawrence,
which contained many Scottish Presbyterians. Here
he carried on a successful work for many years. He
was the only minister not belonging to the Estab-
lished Church who received any financial aid from
the government. From this source he had an annual
stipend of £50, paid him by Governor Simcoe at
the instance of Lord Dorchester. He it was who
in a sturdy way agitated for the repeal of the Mar-
riage Act, and he was probably the author of the
petition against it which so incensed the governor.
His opposition to the Act was, however, legal, and
did not include the overt course adopted by the
Rev. Robert Dunn, of Newark, who took upon
himself to perform marriages in contravention of
164

MISSIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME

the Act. This brought down upon him the power
of the government, and he was duly prosecuted.
There is no record of the result, whether he was
punished or not, or whether those he married com-
plied with the law or braved the world with the
insufficient blessing of Robert Dunn. He was the
second comer to the Niagara district ; he arrived in
1784 from Scotland, and quickly reared a church
with the help of all denominations about Niagara,
a fact which Simcoe deplored as it delayed the
erection of a building for the Church of England.
Mr. Dunn did not long maintain his connection, as
he lost faith in the doctrines of the church. He
entered business and was lost in the wreck of the
Speedy on Lake Ontario. His forerunner had been
the Rev. Jabez Collver, who came to the county of
Norfolk in 1783, and took up land there, one thou-
sand acres, it is said, granted by the government,
which appears at least doubtful. He laboured long
and zealously in the district, having a stronger faith
than his contemporary, Mr. Dunn.

Missionaries of the Church of Rome had visited
the Indians and ministered spiritually to them for
many years before the conquest. At the time of the
division of the province they were labouring at De-
troit amongst the western tribes, and the first resi-
dent priest in Upper Canada was the Rev. Mr.
McDonnell, who came to the county of Glengarry,
where were settled a number of Scottish adherents
to the Roman Catholic faith. The government wel-

165

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

corned Mr. McDonnell, and showed him the greatest
courtesy upon his arrival. De la Rochefoucauld ob-
serves in the governor a preference for the Roman
Catholic clergy as instructors for the Indians. The
duke ascribes it to the urgency of Simcoe in foster-
ing monarchical principles. "The policy of General
Simcoe," he says, "inclines him to encourage a
religion, the ministers of which are interested in a
connection with the authority of thrones, and who,
therefore, never lose sight of the principle to pre-
serve and propagate arbitrary power."

While Simcoe sought by all the means in his
power to provide for the spiritual needs of his
growing nation of pioneers, he also gave great
attention to the means of education, which were
deficient. In January, 1791, he wrote to Sir Joseph
Banks, the president of the Royal Society : " In
a literary way I should be glad to lay the founda-
tion stone of some society that I trust might here-
after conduce to the extension of science. Schools
have been shamefully neglected — a college of a
higher class would be eminently useful, and would
give a tone of principle and manners that would be
of infinite support to government." The first settlers
had for some years been without schools, whatever
instruction had been given was by the parents to
their children in the intervals of work.

The first school in the province was opened by the
Rev. Dr. Stuart at Cataraqui in 1786, and in the
years between that date and Governor Simcoe's ar-
166

EARLY SCHOOLMASTERS

rival several other schools were established. There
was one at Fredericksburgh, taught by Mr. Johna-
than Clarke, in 1786, and two years later he opened
one at Matilda. At Hay Bay Mr. Lyons had
gathered a few scholars around him in 1789, and a
Baptist deacon, Trayes by name, had also begun to
teach at Port Rowan. At Napanee Mr. D. A. At-
kins opened his school in 1791, and the Rev. Robert
Addison, probably the best equipped teacher in the
province settled at Niagara in 1792, and supplied
that growing town with educational advantages.
Two years later the Rev. Mr. Burns, a Presby-
terian, opened another school at Niagara, and in
1797 Mr. Cockrel established a night school at the
same place, which he soon handed over to the Rev.
Mr. Arthur, and himself removed to Ancaster to
open still another school.

From the nature of things, there could be no
uniformity in the tuition offered at these schools.
The masters, when they were not ministers of the
Church of England, may have had but an elemen-
tary training. The scholars were not numerous, but
gave evidence of zeal by tramping miles through
the bush and facing the stress of weather. Winter
was the studious season in the province, and many
a man who rose to prominence, fought his life
battles nobly and went to his fathers, toiled at his
tasks by day over the rough wooden desks in the
log school-house and at night by the light of the
fire that roared in the rubble chimney. Books were

167

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

scarce ; those for sale in the general stores of the
period were principally spelling books and primers ;
arithmetics were few and correspondingly precious.
A tattered copy or two of Dilworth's spelling book
and of the New Testament comprised the equip-
ment of many of these schools. The Rev. Mr.
Arthur announced upon opening his night school
that " if any number of boys offer, and books can be
procured, a Latin class will be commenced immedi-
ately."

From Kingston eastward and from Niagara west-
ward to the boundaries of the province the people
were without schools during the years of Simcoe's
governorship. He desired the establishment of a
system of education for the same reason as the
establishment of the church — that the province
might be kept loyal upon religious principles,
and that government, both of church and state,
might be conformable in all things to the British
Constitution. He, therefore, warmly urged the great
need for provision for higher education, for the
establishment of a university in the capital city of
the province. In this capital he imagined a society
gathered together that would form a bulwark
against the inroads of republicanism and demo-
cratic tendencies. There would dwell the governor,
the bishop, the judges, the officers of the Houses
and of the civil establishment, the officers of the
garrison, and thither would come the legislators
to be affected by this body of loyal opinion which
168

HIS EDUCATIONAL POLICY

they would carry to the four corners of the pro-
vince. There would be trained the sons of the best
families for the church and the higher offices of the
government, and no temptation would be offered
them to wander to the American seats of learning
where their morals would become corrupted and
their loyalty overthrown. The church recruited
from such a vigorous source would be more suc-
cessful, he thought, than when manned by English
parsons who, "habituated to a greater degree of
refinement and culture," could not understand nor
influence their parishioners.

The definite plan that Simcoe laid before the
secretary of state was moderate. He asked for
£1,000 per annum for the purposes of education.
Of this amount £100 were to go towards the main-
tenance of each of two grammar schools at Kings-
ton and Niagara, and the remainder was to be
devoted to the university. He wished the pro-
fessors, with the exception of the medical professor,
to be clergymen of the Church of England. The
home government did not adopt the plan, and
Dundas wrote that he thought "the schools will
be sufficient for some time." Simcoe replied that
the measures he had proposed were important for
the welfare of the country, and would chiefly con-
tribute to an intimate union with Great Britain.
He then allowed the subject to drop, so far as
extraneous aid was concerned, and gave what at-
tention he could to the small beginnings of educa-

169

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

tion within the province. But when his arm was
strengthened by the appointment of a bishop he
again turned his attention to the foundation of
a university, but again without result. Almost the
last word penned by Simcoe in Upper Canada
refers to this endowment " from which, more than
any other source or circumstance whatever, a grate-
ful attachment to His Majesty, morality, and re-
ligion will be fostered and take root throughout
the whole province."

One unexpected result of the governor's desire
to improve the schools was the coming of a man
who filled for many years the public eye of Upper
Canada, so strong was his character and so great
his influence. Dr. Strachan, the first bishop of
Toronto, was not a contemporary of Simcoe's in
the province. His advent must have been the out-
come of a series of misunderstandings. Dr. Strachan
himself believed that the governor, wishing to
obtain "a gentleman from Scotland to organize
and take charge" of the proposed university, placed
the negotations in the hands of Mr. Cartwright and
Mr. Hamilton. They "applied to friends in St.
Andrews, who offered the appointment first to Mr.
Duncan and then to Mr. Chalmers but both de-
clined." Mr. Strachan accepted the proposed ap-
pointment, and arrived at Kingston, after a tedious
voyage, on December 31st, 1799, only to find the
expected position a myth. It is a pointed illustra-
tion of the extreme slowness of communication in
170

BISHOP STRACHAN

those days that, although General Simcoe had
been in England on foreign service, and then again
in England for three years, when Mr. Strachan left
St. Andrews he expected to find him in Canada.

As this statement is autobiographical, and was,
therefore, held as truth by Dr. Strachan himself, it
has been printed constantly without comment. In
the very nature of things it appears incorrect.
There never was a time when Simcoe felt that the
foundation of a university was within sight. In
February, 1796, the year of his departure, he wrote
to Bishop Mountain " I have no idea that a uni-
versity will be established, though I am daily con-
firmed in its necessity." If the time had come to
arrange for a principal he would have again urged,
as he did in April, 1795, that the officers of the
institution should be Englishmen and clergymen of
the Church of England. Mr. Strachan was a Scots-
man and a Presbyterian. There was not even a
minor vacancy, as the school at Kingston was taught
by the Rev. John Stuart. The obscurity cannot be
cleared, yet in the event no more propitious choice
than this Scottish Presbyterian lad could have been
made by Simcoe to further his darling plans regard-
ing the mother church. He developed into the
prelate whom the governor would have upheld
loyally in his own sphere.

Amongst the items which Simcoe sketched in
his early memorandum of August 12th, 1791, as
desirable for the furtherance of good government

171

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

in the colony, the tenth was, "a printer, who might
also be postmaster." The first printer in Upper
Canada was Louis Roy, who set up his press at
Niagara some time during the winter of 1792-3. The
first copy of his paper, The Upper Canada Gazette
or American Oracle, was issued on April 13th,
1793. Some doubt has been expressed as to whe-
ther the printed copy of the governor's speeches at
the opening and closing of the first session of par-
liament is synchronous with the event. Was there
a printing press in Niagara at that time ? The date
of the issue of the first copy of the Upper Canada
Gazette gives an affirmative reply to this question.
In order to print a copy of the paper early in April
the heavy press and founts of type must have been
transported from Montreal before the close of navi-
gation in the summer or autumn of 1792. No tran-
sportation of heavy articles was undertaken in win-
ter until years after that date. It may be concluded
that the printer and the printing plant arrived some
time before the session of 1792, and that the first
printed document issued from the press in Upper
Canada was the aforesaid copy of Simcoe's speeches.
This assertion is supported by the wording of a
letter written by Simcoe on July 4th, 1793, in
which he says that Mr. Roy "has long been em-
ployed as king's printer." He would hardly have
used these words if the service had covered but
three or four months.

The proclamations issued by the governor in
172

THE UPPER CANADA GAZETTE

July, 1792, when he took up the government,
were printed by Fleury Mesplet, of Montreal,
who submitted his accounts for the work on Octo-
ber 5th, 1793. He was the printer who had been
arrested by Haldimand's orders for sowing strife
and discord in the province. He is described
as a printer sent by congress, in 1774, to publish
and disperse seditious literature. At the time of
which I write his press was loyally occupied in
multiplying the proclamations of the government.
Simcoe, maybe, had his former escapade in mind
when he roughly checked his assumption of the
dignity of king's printer for Upper Canada. That
officer was Louis Roy, who received a salary and
free rations with accommodations for himself and
his paraphernalia. His service does not appear to
have been entirely satisfactory as he had to be cen-
sured for delay in printing the statutes of the first
parliament. The delay he ascribed to sickness ; and
on December 5th, 1793, it was stated that the work
would then be completed. It is probable that there
was a change in the office during the next summer,
and Mr. Roy was replaced by Mr. G. Tiffany.

The Upper Canada Gazette was a folio of fif-
teen by nine and a half inches. It was printed
upon good stout paper, obtained in part from Al-
bany until the governor ascertained the fact, when
the printer was reprimanded for using paper from
the United States and cautioned not to do so again.
The price of a subscription to the paper was three

173

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

dollars per annum, and advertisements not exceed-
ing twelve lines were to be paid for at the rate of
four shillings Quebec currency.

The governor took an intimate interest in every-
thing in the province, and the printer did not
escape his notice. He had occasion to censure him
for certain libellous articles and schooled him in the
character that his paper should assume. He desired
him to establish for the Gazette a character that
should be founded on truth ; he wished him to
print all news, and to give the source from which
his information was obtained, and added naively,
print such news " preferably as is favourable to the
British government if it appears true." In February,
1796, Mr. Tiffany had to be checked in a plan
that seemed extravagant to the governor's mind.
He wished to publish a monthly magazine ! But
the printing of the provincial statutes was far in
arrears and Simcoe thought it of greater importance
that these should be printed and promulgated. He
was advised to print in the Gazette articles upon
agricultural subjects, and was told that the gentle-
men of the government at Niagara would assist
him in making proper selections. It was pointed
out to him that he had a salary as printer princi-
pally for printing the Gazette regularly, and that he
should do so. In 1799 the Gazette was removed to
York, and Mr. Tiffany's connection with it ceased ;
he remained in Niagara and began to publish the
Constellation, a paper that had but a short life.
174

LIBRARIES AND BOOKS

Simcoe was not able to carry out his project for
establishing a public library in the province, and
books were rare and correspondingly precious. The
Rev. Mr. Addison had a private library that is
said to be in part preserved in the rectory of St.
Mark's, Niagara. The governor would not consent
to be separated wholly from books, and likely
brought copies of his favourite authors with him.
On April 25th, 1793, he made a present of a copy
of " Yonge on Agriculture " and other books deal-
ing with the subject, together with ten guineas as
a premium, to the Agricultural Society of Upper
Canada. These books were evidently from his own
library. But while the houses of the government
may have been supplied with books, the cabins of
the settlers were almost destitute of them. Perhaps
a well-worn copy of the Bible had escaped many
perils to find at last a resting-place in the first shel-
ter at Niagara or upon the shores of the Bay of
Quint^. This, with the Book of Common Prayer,
would often form the library of the Loyalist, some-
times augmented by a copy of Elliot's "Medical
Pocket Book," Stackhouse's * 'History of the Bible,"
or " Ricketson on Health," books that have served
their day and found the limbo of printed pages.
The first shops retailed only necessaries, and the
stock of books was limited to almanacs, spelling
books, primers, Bibles and Testaments.

175

CHAPTER X

A SILVAN COURT

WHEN the Triton sailed away from Wey-
mouth in the autumn of 1791, she bore
with her the beginnings of the viceregal court for
Upper Canada. The British government had been
generous in its provision for officers of the new pro-
vince. The first estimate for the civil list was as
follows : —

Lieutenant-governor, £2,000; chief-justice,
£1,000; attorney-general, £300; solicitor-general,
£100 ; two judges of the common pleas, each £500
= £1,000; clerk of the Crown and pleas, £100;
two sheriffs, each £100 = £200 ; secretary of the
province and registrar, £300 ; clerk of the council,
£100 ; surveyor of lands (fees) ; receiver-general,
£200; five executive councillors, £500; naval officer,
£100. Total: £5,900.

The governor's aides-de-camp were Major Little-
hales and Lieutenant Talbot, who drew their pay
as officers of the regular army. Captain Stevenson
had accompanied the party as a personal friend of
the governor to supervise the household during his
absence. Major Littlehales was a most popular
secretary; he conducted the whole of the governor's
official correspondence with great ability. De la

177

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Rochefoucauld speaks of his politeness, prudence,
and judgment, and states that he enjoyed universal
confidence and respect. He remained with the
governor during the whole term of his residence in
Canada. Lieutenant Talbot, a more vivid and in-
teresting figure to Canadians, left to rejoin his
regiment in Ireland on June 21st, 1794, on account
of his promotion. But some years later he was to
return to Canada to found a permanent settlement,
give his name to a locality, and fill the province
with traditions.

William Osgoode was the first chief-justice ; he
served until the summer of 1794, when he was ap-
pointed chief-justice of Lower Canada. The impor-
tant position remained vacant until John Elmsley
was appointed on January 1st, 1796. The attorney-
general was John White. The clerk of the coun-
cil was John Small. The clerk of the Crown and
pleas was Edward Burns. The first surveyor was
Holland. Russell was receiver-general ; he also
acted as puisne judge while the office of chief-jus-
tice was vacant. William Jarvis was the secretary
of the province; he belonged to a Loyalist family of
Connecticut, and was born at Stamford in 1756 ;
he was for twenty-five years connected with Upper
Canadian affairs, and died at York in 1817. The
naval officer was Francis Costa. Charles Goddard
was agent for the government. William Dummer
Powell was judge of the common pleas.

Gradually upon the arrival of these officers at
178

SOCIETY AT NIAGARA

Niagara a genial society grew up, of which the
governor's wife was the centre. She was gentle,
amiable, and attractive. To her pencil and brush
we owe the many sketches that show us landscapes,
now familiar under a changed condition and aspect,
as they were before civilization had transformed
them. When Simcoe arrived the family consisted
of one son, Frank, but a daughter was born during
their sojourn in the country. Frank was the pet of
the settlement. He was named by the Indians
"Tioga" — the swift — and the governor dressed him
in deerskin on state occasions to please the savage
allies. He grew up and adopted his father's pro-
fession. It led him to the Peninsular War, and to
the town of Badajoz. On the night of April 7th he
was engaged with the force that stormed the de-
fences, and in the morning his dead body lay under
a heap of the slain in one of the dreadful breaches
of the wall.

The social opportunities of the new seat of
government were not extensive. The number of
private houses in which entertainment could be of-
fered was small. The governor's residence, that of
Colonel Smith of the 5th Regiment, and Mr. Ham-
ilton's house at Queenston were the largest in or
near Niagara. De la Rochefoucauld thus describes
Colonel Smith's residence : " It consists of joiner's
work, but is constructed, embellished, and painted
in the best style ; the yard, garden and court are
surrounded with railings, made and painted as ele-

179

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

gantly as they could be in England. His large
garden has the appearance of a French kitchen-
garden, kept in good order."

But the dependence upon a small circle for the
pleasures of society made the assemblies more inti-
mate ; they were the reunions of a large and in-
terdependent family rather than formal gatherings.
The wife of any true Loyalist might find her place
at the governor's entertainments with a warm wel-
come, and feel at home with the governor's wife.
Simcoe did not depend upon his salary of two
thousand pounds to maintain fittingly the dignity
of his position. He drew largely upon his private
fortune to keep the style and manner of his menage
to the standard of viceroyalty. The cost of living
was excessive, and all the officials of that day
complained that they could not live decently upon
the salaries paid them by government, which ranged
from the £1,000 of the chief-justice to the £100 of
the solicitor-general.

Simcoe considered it one part of his duty to do
all that lay in his power to render as light as pos-
sible all the disabilities and hardships that life in
the new country presented. This condescension on
the part of the governor was met by graceful ac-
knowledgments on the part of the people. Presents
of game, furs, and fruits, and occasionally gifts of
greater importance, flowed into Navy Hall. At a
time when horses were the richest possession in
Upper Canada, Richard Duncan, lieutenant of the
180

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

county of Dundas, presented Mrs. Simcoe with a
horse called "Jack," that bore her to and fro over
the roads and bridle-paths of the peninsula.

The very contrasts ever present in the population
of early Niagara gave an interest to life that went
far to compensate for the slowness of its movement.
It was, in effect at least, a slave-holding community
and a garrison town ; its little street and square
were trod by wild Indians, negroes, British officers,
half-breeds, voyageurs, adventurers, spies, and
grande dames. Society was democratic, and in the
midst of it was the great aristocrat, Simcoe, en-
deavouring to run this fluid society into a mould
of his own fashioning. The manners and customs of
the English were those of their own country and
time transplanted to new ground. Perhaps with
the feelings of comradeship and altruism intensified
came also a deepening of those other feelings of
envy, jealousy, and hatred upon which tragedies
are founded. In small communities where the offi-
cial and military class predominates, these passions
are of quick growth and flourish luxuriantly. Duels
were not uncommon. It was only a few years after
Simcoe's departure that two of his civil officers met
on the field at York. John Small, the clerk of
the council, challenged the attorney-general, John
White, to clear his wife's character. They met on
January 2nd, 1800, and White was carried off the
field dangerously wounded. Two days after he
died.

181

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

The scarcity of servants must have made house-
keeping a difficult task. De la Rochefoucauld states:
" they, who are brought hither from England,
either demand lands or emigrate into the United
States. All persons belonging to the army employ
soldiers in their stead. By the English regulations
every officer is allowed one soldier, to whom he
pays one shilling a week ; and this privilege is ex-
tended in proportion as the officers have need of a
greater number of people. The governor, who is
also colonel of a regiment of Queen's Rangers sta-
tioned in the province, is attended in his house and
and at dinner merely by privates of this regiment,
who also take care of his horses. He has not been
able to keep one of the men servants he brought
with him from England."

Restricted as was this life, it yet had its excite-
ments, its interests, and its diversions ; the novelty
of the situation enhanced the smallest occurrences.
The little court was the heart of the country, and
through it flowed all the life of the people with its
hopes, fears, successes, and failures. Navy Hall,
the Canvas House at York, or the quarters at
Kingston were more in the life of the province than
Government House can ever be again. Not only
was the residence of the governor the social centre
of the country, it was the seat of power, favour,
and honour, and at the same time a home where a
welcome existed for any loyal settler who might
stray thither from the confines of the province.
182

THE DUKE OF KENT'S VISIT

Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, the father of
Queen Victoria, was Governor Simcoe's first and
most distinguished guest at Navy Hall. He was
stationed at Quebec with his regiment, the 7th
Fusiliers. He desired to visit Niagara Falls, and it
is probable that during Simcoe's lengthy stay at
Quebec the journey was arranged. The repairs to
Navy Hall could hardly have been completed when
the prince arrived. He left Quebec on Saturday,
August 12th, 1792. Sir Alured Clarke wrote to
Simcoe on the seventh of that month that the
prince would be accompanied by "a larger suite
than I wish attended him from an apprehension
that it must occasion some embarrassment." Sim-
coe began early in August to arrange a fitting re-
ception for his royal visitor. A barge was prepared
at Kingston, decorated with flags* newly painted,
and covered with an awning. Mr. Peter Clark was
detailed to command the craft and meet the prince
at Oswegatchie, as far below Kingston as the rapids
would permit. From this point he was rowed to
Kingston, where he embarked on the armed schoo-
ner Onondaga and sailed for Niagara. Here he ar-
rived on August 21st, welcomed by a royal salute
from the guns of Fort Niagara. On the twenty-
third, at half-past six in the morning, he reviewed
the 5th Regiment. He was evidently pleased with
the corps, for he expressed the desire to have some
of the men drafted into his own regiment, the 7th
Fusiliers. A parade of all the men above five feet

183

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

nine inches was ordered, they were cautioned to be
"perfectly clean," and were informed that "no one
was expected to join but by his own choice and
acquiescence." On the same day the prince pro-
ceeded on his way to the falls. At that time there
was no settlement at the cataract ; the shores were
lined with unbroken forest On the Upper Canada
side there was one mean inn, and the paths and de-
scents to the points from which the falls could be
seen were so infrequently used as to be dangerous.
But the loneliness added to the grandeur, and the
difficulties to be overcome gave a tang of adven-
ture to the visit. Upon his return the prince dined
at Mr. Hamilton's at Queenston. During his
short stay the resources of the province were taxed
to provide entertainment. The Mohawks, in paint
and feathers, gave their national war-dance. The
prince was presented with wampum and created a
chief above all other chiefs. Upon August 26th he
sailed again for Kingston on the Onondaga, while
the regiments stood at arms and the guns fired the
salute.

The next guests of importance entertained by
the governor were the American commissioners to
the Indians. Beverley Randolph and Timothy Pic-
kering arrived on May 17th, 1793, General Lincoln
on the twenty-eighth of the same month, and they
remained until early in July. General Lincoln dur-
ing his sojourn kept a diary which gives an intimate
account of the visit. It enables us to understand
184

THE AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS

the straits to which the menage must have been
put to entertain three such distinguished visitors.

May 25th. — "Immediately on my arrival at Nia-
gara Governor Simcoe sent for me. The other
commissioners were with him ; he showed me my
room. We remained with him a number of days,
but knowing that we occupied a large proportion
of his house, and that Mrs. Simcoe was absent and
so probably on our account, we contemplated a
removal and of encamping at the landing, six miles
from this place. But when the governor was in-
formed of our intention he barred a removal. His
politeness and hospitality, of which he has a large
share, prevented our executing the designs we had
formed."

June 24th. — "The king's birthday. At eleven
o'clock the governor had a levee at his house, at
which the officers of government, the members of
the legislature, the officers of the army, and a
number of strangers attended. After some time the
governor came in, preceded by two of his family.
He walked up to the head of the hall and began a
conversation with those standing in that part of the
hall, and went around to the whole, and I believe
spoke with every person present. This was soon
over, and we all retired. At one o'clock there was
firing from the troops, the battery, and from the
ship in the harbour. In the evening there was quite
a splendid ball, about twenty well-dressed handsome
ladies and about three times that number of gentle-

185

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

men present. * They danced from seven o'clock until
eleven. Supper was then announced, where we
found everything good and in pretty taste. The
music and dancing were good, and everything was
conducted with propriety. What excited the best
feelings of my heart was the ease and affection with
which the ladies met each other, although there
were a number present whose mothers sprang from
the aborigines of the country. They appeared as well
dressed as the company in general, and intermixed
with them in a manner which evinced at once the
dignity of their own minds and the good sense of
others. These ladies possessed great ingenuity and
industry and have great merit, for the education
which they have acquired is owing principally to
their own industry, as their father, Sir William
Johnson, was dead, and the mother retained the
dress and manners of her tribe. Governor Simcoe
is exceedingly attentive in these public assemblies,
and makes it his study to reconcile the inhabitants,
who have tasted the pleasures of society, to their
present situation in an infant province. He intends
the next winter to have concerts and assemblies
very frequently. Hereby he at once evinces a re-
gard to the happiness of the people and his knowl-
edge of the world; for while the people are allured
to become settlers in this country from the rich-
ness of the soil and the clemency of the seasons,
it is important to make their situation as flattering
as possible."
186

THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

The next visitor of distinction that Navy Hall
sheltered was the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Lian-
court. He had fled from France to escape the blood-
thirstiness of Robespierre. His estates had been
confiscated, and he wandered about America home-
less and with a heart sick for home. His travels are
still entertaining, and they give the best available
contemporaneous account of early Upper Canada.
The duke was an acute observer and a lively writer.
His book is not entirely free from errors into which
his feelings led him, but it is generally composed
in great good humour, and his statistics are valu-
able and may be relied upon. Simcoe had been
apprised by Hammond that the duke was to visit
the country, and that he had a mind to proceed
through Upper Canada to Quebec. But while mak-
ing him welcome, the governor could not allow
him to proceed without a permit from Lord Dor-
chester. While waiting for this, de la Rochefoucauld
spent his time pleasantly enough in social inter-
course with his hosts, of whom he draws an en-
gaging picture. Simcoe he describes as "simple,
plain and obliging. He lives in a noble and hospit-
able manner without pride ; his mind is enlightened,
his character mild and obliging." Mrs. Simcoe, he
says, "is bashful and speaks little, but she is a
woman of sense, handsome and amiable, and ful-
fils all the duties of a mother and a wife with the
most scrupulous exactness. The performance of
the latter she carries so far as to act the part of

187

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

a private secretary to her husband. Her talents for
drawing, the practice of which she confines to maps
and plans, enables her to be extremely useful to the
governor." By some means unknown to the sex in
this day he discovered her age and set it down in his
book as thirty-six. The familiar tone of these and
other remarks was not relished by Simcoe, who
thought that they cast reflections upon the dignity
of his position and his humanity in war. In a pam-
phlet printed at Exeter, probably in 1799, he re-
buts the latter charge in words tending to scathe
the noble marquis : " If the United States had at-
tempted to over-run Upper Canada I should have
defended myself by such measures as English
generals have been accustomed to, and not fought
for the morality of war, in the suspicious data of
the insidious economist : my humanity, I trust, is
founded on the religion of my country, and not on
the hypocritical possessions of a puny philosophy."
In the autumn of 1794 the governor received
a visit from Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer
who had taken during the spring and summer of
the previous year his adventurous trip overland to
the Pacific. He had left a post on the Peace River
on May 9th, 1793, and, after an arduous trip, had
succeeded in crossing the height of land dividing
the watershed. After proceeding for some days
down the waters that flowed south, he had retraced
his course* and had for the space of fifteen days
travelled through a wilderness where no white man
188

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

had ever trod, and had been greeted at the end by
a view of the ocean glittering around the rocky
islands that towered off the coast. He had arrived
again at his Peace River post on August 24th, 1793.
Simcoe was no doubt deeply interested in this tale
of daring and intrepidity. He says in one of his
dispatches that Mackenzie seemed to be as intelli-
gent as he was adventurous. As usual, Simcoe was
alive to the advantages of the water routes, the
means of communication and the trade possibilities
opened up by such a voyage of discovery. The
explorer sketched for him the advantages that
would accrue from the establishment of two trad-
ing-posts on the Pacific coast, and mentioned the
possibility of diverting, with advantage, the trade
of the far north to the western ocean. It was
thought that the East India Company should
be favourable to the development of the fur trade,
and that a national advantage would follow from
the retention in the country of a large amount
of silver that was then being sent to China. Mac-
kenzie's experience had, however, taught him that
the Indians of the coast must be conciliated, not
coerced, as they too often had been, and he pointed
out that a solid advantage from the commerce
could not arise unless there was a reconcilement
of rival claims and a blending of all scattered effort
in one common interest.

While Simcoe was burdened with state cares, he
found time to be interested in many matters that

189

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

in our day would be considered unworthy the
attention of the governor. He kept an ear attentive
for all gossip or idle talk of sedition and disloyalty,
and many a man and officer who had felt secure in
his use of careless words was surprised to receive
caution that a repetition would lead to his banish-
ment or imprisonment. Spies had to be guarded
against, and suspicious persons were detained and
put across the lines. A French priest called Le Du
gave him trouble in the summer of 1794, at a time
when it was undesirable that any information as to
the preparations of the country for war should
become known. But he was apprehended, detained
and finally sent into the country to which by
sympathy he belonged.

Sometimes Simcoe had to adjust disputes be-
tween his clergy and their parishioners, and once
the Rev. J. Burk, of Grand River, came under
his censure for refusing a pew, and the honours
proper to his station, to the lieutenant of the
county. While it was impossible for him to prevent
the progress of itinerant preachers from the United
States through the country, he put a stop when he
could to such questionable rovers. One preacher,
the Rev. Mr. Ogden, received notice that he could
not officiate in Upper Canada as he was a citizen
of the United States.

The administration of justice amongst the In-
dians was always a matter of the gravest concern
to the governor. As settlements began to press in
190

ISAAC BRANT

upon the reserved lands of the tribes, small depre-
dations became frequent, and then the fear was
constantly present lest some serious crime might
occur that would bring the Indians into open con-
flict with the settlers. The arm of the law might be
strong enough to punish an Indian criminal, but
would the little army be sufficient to deal with the
savage rebellion that might follow ? When the
crisis came it arose in the family of Brant, and but
for a strange and untoward circumstance it might
have proved a test of that great chief's loyalty.
One of his sons, Isaac, in the spring of 17^5 mur-
dered a white man who had settled at the Grand
River. His name was Lowell. He was a deserter
from Wayne's army, and as he was a saddler by
trade he was a welcome addition to the settlement.
The act was committed without any provocation
upon Lowell's part, and from no cause that could
be discovered. Simcoe considered the matter one
of grave importance, and asked advice from the
home authorities. He was prepared to demand the
murderer, and wrote the Duke of Portland that in
case of refusal he meant " to have supported the
civil power in his apprehension with the whole mili-
tary force of the country, for which I have begun
preparations." The bold step was not needed. The
murderer was allowed to go free during the sum-
mer, but in the autumn his career was suddenly
and tragically terminated. At the end of a drunken
bout he lashed himself into a furious passion against

191

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

his father, and when the latter entered the room he
rushed upon him with a knife. The blow Brant
caught upon his hand, and, in self defence, struck
Isaac upon the head with a dirk. In a moment
father and son were separated. A week after Isaac
died from the effects of the wound, and the applica-
tion of the law to Indian crimes was for that time
avoided.

The public health also received the attention of
the governor, and at Niagara, in the year 1796,
there was a general inoculation as a safeguard
against smallpox.

The vast distances to be traversed between the
capital and the chief towns of the country bred
a hardihood in all those whose duty led them to
travel. The aide-de-camp sewed his dispatches into
the lining of his cloak or bound them in a girdle
around his waist, and set off with a couple of
Indian guides for Philadelphia or Quebec. It took
a month to reach either place, a month of constant
exposure and peril.

While remote from the scene of the world's great
events, the little court in Upper Canada was stirred
by them, and the governor would not omit any
act or word that might demonstrate to those about
him that he was the representative of the king.
The dramatic incidents of the French Revolution
affected the little circle at York as keenly as the
court of St. James. Each one of these outbursts of
a demoniac people would give such an ardent and
192

PUBLIC MOURNING

confirmed monarchist as Simcoe deep pain. Public
mourning was ordered for King Louis, and, a little
later, for Marie Antoinette when the delayed news
of their executions reached the government. The
half-masted flag before the Canvas House upon the
shore of Toronto Bay reminded the handful of
soldiers and civilians that they, too, were in a
current of the great stream of events.

193

CHAPTER XI

FOUNDING A PROVINCE

SIMCOE arrived at Niagara on July 26th, 1792.
He had chosen this place for his temporary
capital more on account of inconvenient position
than from any importance it had attained as a cen-
tre of settlement. It had the one advantage of be-
ing under the guns of Fort Niagara, but this would
turn to a disadvantage as soon as the stars and
stripes should float from its bastion. It had not
even the distinction of being the head of the por-
tage, that was at Queenston. In fact, when Sim-
coe's eyes first fell upon it, Niagara, or Newark as
he afterwards christened the place, consisted of two
houses. Besides these there were the barracks of
Butler's Rangers and Navy Hall, a building erected
during the War of Independence by order of Hal-
dimand for the accommodation of the officers of
the naval department on Lake Ontario. It was a
log building, constructed after the usual method
and without any provision for comfort or even con-
venience. But with such changes and additions as
the artificers of the regiment could make, it re-
mained during Simcoe's term the official residence
of the governor. The building was reshingled, par-
titions were altered, chimneys and fire-places were

195

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

constructed, new window-sashes were provided, the
interior walls were plastered and the woodwork
painted. The repairs were estimated to cost £473
5s. 2d., labour £116 5s., and material £357 Os.
2d. There are references in sketches of early Nia-
gara to a residence that was erected for the gover-
nor, but such a house never existed. In Navy Hall,
with its straitened accommodation and homely ap-
pearance, Simcoe carried on the business of his
government, entertained his guests, and was the
kingly representative of a king. While the altera-
tions were in progress, the governor lived in three
marquees which, as Mrs. Simcoe says in her jour-
nal, "were pitched for us on the hill above the
house, which is very dry ground and rises beauti-
fully, in parts covered with oak bushes ; a fine turf
leads into the woods, through which runs a very
good road leading to the falls. The side of our hill
is terminated by a very steep bank covered with
wood, a hundred feet in height in some places, at
the bottom of which runs the Niagara River."

The first months at Navy Hall were occupied in
a careful survey of all the necessities of the new
government and the infant settlements. The bills
to be presented to the first assembly had to be con-
sidered and framed, and the policy that the gover-
nor was to adopt had to be debated, if not fixed.
The meeting of parliament gave an opportunity for
consultation with the members from the widely
separated ridings, and when it adjourned on Octo-
196

LIEUTENANTS OF COUNTIES

her 15th, 1792, the governor had gained a knowl-
edge of the conditions of life in the various parts
of his province, he had met and appraised its prin-
cipal men, and had weighed the materials that he
must use in founding his state.

One of Simcoe's earliest civil measures was the
appointment of lieutenants to the more populous
counties of the province. He intended thus to pro-
mote an aristocracy, and further to render the
government of Upper Canada an exact transcript
of that of England. In the hands of these lieu-
tenants he placed the recommendatory power for
the militia and. the magistrates. He reported this
step to Dundas on November 4th, but it was not
commented upon either favourably or unfavourably
until he laid before the Duke of Portland, on De-
cember 21st, 1794, a plan for the incorporation of
Kingston and Niagara. Then the duke criticized
both measures, the tendency of which he found to
be "to fritter down his direct power and to portion
it out among corporations and lieutenants, who on
many occasions may be disposed to use it in ob-
structing the measures of government." The duke
argued that " the power of the person having the
government is the power of this country, but such
subordinate powers are not ours, and we have no
connection with them, or direct influence over those
who exercise them. They are rather means and in-
struments of independence." It was a characteristic
of Simcoe to hold stoutly his own view, despite

197

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

contradiction, and he opposed the duke with the
argument that the American war was brought on
by the "usurpation of civil authority by commit-
tees who dealt with power arbitrarily." He wished
to check the elective system from operating so
universally as in the United States, and asked
hereditary titles for his lieutenants of counties, an
aristocracy being the truest safeguard against sedi-
tion. He asked for instructions : will these offices
die out or simply be abolished ? Whereupon, hav-
ing a great horror of sedition and democratic ten-
dencies, the duke allowed the governor to retain
his lieutenants. The last one that Simcoe appointed
was Robert Hamilton, to be lieutenant of Lincoln;
his successors did not renew the appointments and
the office, a useless one, was allowed to disappear.

A very early interest was taken in agriculture,
and on October 21st, 1792, it was ordered by the
council that an annual fair should be held at New-
ark on the second Monday of each October, to last
for six days. This minute was passed on a Sunday,
and it is curious to observe that the advent of that
day never hindered the performance of public busi-
ness of the most ordinary character.

Upon February 4th, 1793, Simcoe began an offi-
cial tour through his western domain. It was the
first of three important journeys he made in order
that he might understand thoroughly the topo-
graphy of the country for military purposes, and
also that he might be made aware by personal in-
198

JOURNEY TO DETROIT

spection of the resources of the land for cultivation
and settlement. His company consisted of Major
Littlehales, Captain FitzGerald and Lieutenant
Smith of the 5th Regiment, and Lieutenants Tal-
bot, Gray, and Givins. They began their journey
in sleighs. The roads were wet, as the season had
been unusually mild. The first objective point was
the Mohawk village on the Grand River, which
they reached about noon on the seventh. Here
they attended service in the mission church on
Sunday the 10th, and left the village at noon on
the same day. As they were now to follow Indian
trails they left their sleighs and proceeded on foot
with Brant and twelve of the Mohawks. They wore
moccasins but not snowshoes. They tramped over
land now covered with fine farms and opulent towns,
then crowded with a thick growth of forest. Each
night they slept in wigwams constructed by the
Indians, and lived upon the trapper's fare of pork
and hard bread. They passed Indian burial grounds,
trees that bore picture-writing, discovered springs
of salt and petroleum, assisted in hunting raccoons,
squirrels, and lynxes, came upon an encampment of
Chippewas making maple sugar in their ancient
fashion. They rescued a man that was starving,
sometimes lost themselves for hours in the inter-
minable forest, enjoyed strange food in the flesh of
the raccoon and squirrel, and rejoiced in the civi-
lized fare of the Moravian settlement of the Dela-
wares. For days they lived the life of trappers, ex-

199

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

posed to the fickle humours of the weather. At
length, on February 18th, they met twelve or four-
teen carioles and drove to Detroit. Here the gover-
nor examined the fort and military works and re-
viewed the 24th Regiment.

The party left Detroit on the morning of Satur-
day, February 23rd, and began the return jour-
ney. Upon March 2nd they had reached a point
upon the river Thames (La Tranche as it had
been called before Simcoe's time), where they halted
for a day as the governor wished thoroughly to ex-
amine the place and its surroundings. It was the
site of the present city of London, and there Simcoe
fixed the situation of the capital of the province.

Major Littlehales, whose short diary of the jour-
ney gives a lively picture of its incidents, thus de-
scribes the spot : " We struck the Thames at one
end of a low flat island, enveloped with shrubs and
trees ; the rapidity and strength of the current
were such as to have forced a channel through the
mainland, being a peninsula, and to have formed
the island. We walked over a rich meadow and
came to the forks of the river. The governor wished
to examine this situation and its environs, and we
therefore remained here all the day. He judged it
to be a situation eminently calculated for the metro-
polis of all Canada. Among many other essentials
it possesses the following advantages : command of
territory, internal situation, central position, facility
of water communication up and down the Thames
200

THE PROVINCIAL CAPITAL

into Lakes St. Clair, Erie, Huron and Superior ;
navigable by boats to near its source, and for small
crafts probably to the Moravian settlement; to the
northward, by a small portage, to the waters flowing
into Lake Huron, to the south-east by a carrying-
place into Lake Ontario and the river St. Law-
rence ; the soil luxuriantly fertile, the land rich
and capable of being easily cleared and soon put
into a state of agriculture ; a pinery upon an adja-
cent high knoll, and other timber on the heights
well calculated for the erection of public buildings ;
a climate not inferior to any part of Canada."

After this day's halt they proceeded on their
way without misadventure, but suffering from severe
cold and incessant snow-storms. They arrived at
Navy Hall on Sunday, March 10th. The opinions
that are expressed by Major Littlehales as to the
desirable situation for the capital of the province on
the Thames are reflected from those of the gover-
nor. He viewed the country, chiefly from the mili-
tary standpoint, as a wedge of territory driven down
into an enfolding foreign country that might at
any time become hostile. His capital should there-
fore be fixed within defences and removed from
the water front of the lakes which might be swept
by an enemy's fleet. The point chosen on the
Thames seemed to him to offer all possible advan-
tages, and he at once began a military road from
Burlington Bay to the forks of the river. This road,
that he called Dundas Street, after the Right Hon.

201

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Henry Dundas, secretary of state for the colonies,
was begun in the summer of 1793 ; an officer and
one hundred men of the Queen's Rangers were en-
gaged during the autumn pushing the road west-
ward from the lake ; and in the autumn of 1794 it
was completed as far as the Grand River. It was
designed to form a permanent communication be-
tween York, or Toronto, at which place an arsenal
was to be established, and London, a link between
the chief military centre and the capital. The west
and the great water highways of the lakes lay open
and accessible to London by the waters of the
Thames. The road after this western beginning
was to be extended to the east, following the con-
tour of Lake Ontario to the Pointe au Baudet and
the confines of the province.

After resting through April, the governor, with
a company of officers, set out for Toronto harbour
on Thursday, May 2nd, skirting the shores of the
lake in open boats rowed by the soldiers. They ar-
rived probably on the next day, and spent nine or
ten days in a thorough survey of the harbour and
the shores. The schooners Caldwell and Buffalo ac-
companied the party, and their sails were probably
the first ever furled in the chief harbour of Ontario.
After Simcoe had satisfied himself as to the nature
of the harbour and the advantages of the situation
for a naval station he returned to Navy Hall, ar-
riving at two o'clock on Monday, May 13th. Four
days after, the commissioners appointed by the
202

GOES TO YORK

United States to treat with the Indians arrived at
Niagara ; they did not leave until nearly the middle
of July.

On May 27th Simcoe received the dispatch an-
nouncing the declaration of war with France. It
warned him to make definite plans for the defence
of the province against suspected American aggres-
sion, and as soon as the commissioners had left for
the Miami he took the first steps to carry them out.
He transferred the Queen's Rangers to the harbour
that a few weeks before he had surveyed, and pre-
pared himself to follow. He was delayed for some
time by the serious illness of his son Frank, but he
sailed with Mrs. Simcoe and his family on July
29th, and arrived at Toronto on the next day.
Here they lived in a wigwam after the Indian
fashion, and the governor superintended the erec-
tion of huts for the soldiers. The general orders of
August 26th, 1793, officially changed the name of
Toronto to York, "in consideration and compli-
ment of the Duke of York's victories in Flanders."
But nearly a year before this date the name York
had been attached to the position where the capital
of the province was destined to stand. The town
was laid out on an ambitious scale, and the building
regulations for the time and circumstances were
exacting. No lot was to be granted on the front
street unless the holder was prepared to erect a
house forty-seven feet wide, two stories high, and
built after a certain design.

203

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

It is evident that after his arrival the governor
decided to spend the winter at York, and seeing
that no proper accommodation could be provided,
on August 28th he ordered that his canvas house
and all its apparatus should be sent over from Nia-
gara in the schooner Onondaga, that was engaged
in transporting from that place to York military
stores. In this canvas house which, before his depar-
ture from London in 1791, he had purchased from
Captain Cook, the navigator, he and his family
spent the winter of 1793-4. The house appears to
have been constructed in two sections upon a
wooden framework fastened by screws. It could
not have been very commodious, but for winter
use it was boarded upon the outside ; the dead air
space between the canvas and the boards would
check the penetrating cold, and the house, intended
for use in warmer climes, made a comfortable shel-
ter from the Canadian winter.

By September 20th Simcoe had completed his
plans for the defence of the country. He rejected
Kingston as an arsenal, as he found that it could
not be "so fortified as to protect shipping." He
therefore settled upon York as the arsenal for
Lake Ontario. His careful preliminary survey and
subsequent residence at the place had confirmed
his opinion that it was the best harbour on the
lakes and might readily be " made very strong at a
slight expense, and in the progress of the country
impregnable." Long Point was to be the arsenal
204

PLAN OF DEFENCE

for Lake Erie, opposed to any establishment the
Americans might place at Presqu'ile. London was
to be the capital and "mart of all the indepen-
dent Indian nations. In the present situation of
affairs the extension of the settlements from it to
Burlington Bay on the one side, to Long Point
and Chatham on the other, will in a short space
effectually add the influence of command over all
the nations within the British territory." This capi-
tal was to be fortified and strongly occupied ; de-
fences were to be erected at York and Long Point ;
blockhouses at Bois Blanc Island and Maison-
ville's Island, or, if Detroit was abandoned, at Chat-
ham. York was to guard its harbour with a fortress
mounting heavy guns and ten-inch howitzers. The
military road was to connect all posts by a well
constructed and permanent highway. A harbour
had been reported three miles south of Matchedash
Bay, and if a way could be opened from York an-
other independent communication by a short port-
age to the head waters of the Thames, so it was
stated, could be secured with London. These plans
were transmitted to Dundas and Clarke almost
simultaneously ; the support of the commander-in-
chief was strenuously demanded for the system.

Sir Alured Clarke might have allowed these well-
wrought, exact schemes of the governor to go un-
opposed, but it was not for him to pass upon them.
Just as they were well fixed in Simcoe's mind he
withdrew from the government, and Lord Dor-

205

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Chester assumed control on September 23rd, 1793.
From this date begins the discord that embittered
the remaining three years of Simcoe's sojourn in
Upper Canada, made his duty a task, and checked
his enthusiasm. In Simcoe's mind the whole future
welfare of the province was rooted in his military
system. He, in imagination, saw populous towns
spring up around the garrisoned posts ; military
discipline, be there war or peace, was the model
upon which communities were to be founded.
Judge then of his chagrin when he saw Dorchester
treat his plans as worthy of little consideration.
One by one his recommendations were disapproved
of, gradually his troops were withdrawn, prop after
prop vanished, until his schemes lay before him as
confused and ineffectual as a flattened house of
cards. Dorchester's military policy, frequently stated
and as often met by Simcoe with complete non-
comprehension, was simply that after the signing
of Jay's Treaty no large number of troops was
needed in Upper Canada ; that " a wise adminis-
tration of justice and natural advantages " are more
powerful for the welfare of a province than an ex-
pensive military establishment ; that so long as war
continued with France, Lower Canada was the
proper station for all available troops.

Simcoe, without command, had to bow to supe-
rior authority, and he made his submission with an
ill grace. Almost the last words he penned at York
were these addressed to the Duke of Portland on
206

JOURNEY TO GEORGIAN BAY

June 18th, 1796 : " I have long seen with patience
that nothing but my public duty could possibly
justify or support the unsafe and hollow footing on
which has rested all that is dear to a man who
prefers his untainted character to his existence. . . .
In the civil administration of this government I
have no confidence whatsoever in any assistance
from Lord Dorchester."

But in the summer of 1793, these things were
not dreamed of, and Simcoe, with a buoyant spirit,
prepared to discover a road to the harbours reported
south of Matchedash Bay. For some time he was
detained by an attack of gout, but at length, on
September 23rd, he set out northward. He walked
the thirty miles to Hollands River, took canoe
through Lac aux Claies (renamed Simcoe by the
governor in honour of his father) and then ran
the Severn into the waters of the large inlet
of Lake Huron now called Georgian Bay. Skirt-
ing the shore he examined the harbour of Pene-
tanguishene, which he found commodious and of
a depth everywhere sufficient to float the largest
lake- craft he could imagine. But a north-west
wind was rolling the waters of Huron into the
gap, and the survey could only be conducted
under the lee of the islands. It was found hazardous
to remain longer, and as the provisions began to
fail, he returned with difficulty to York. The street
or long portage that was to be the outcome of this
journey was called Yonge Street after Sir George

207

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Yonge, the secretary of state for war and member
of parliament for Honiton in the county of Devon.
Simcoe hoped to complete it by the autumn of
1794, but it was not finished by the Queen's Ran-
gers until April, 1796.

He deemed that the new route for the north-
west posts would supersede the old canoe way
by the Ottawa and French Rivers, that it would
draw from the part of Upper Canada adjacent
to York supplies for Michilimackinac which then
were furnished by Detroit and surrounding settle-
ments. It would, he thought, complete the circu-
lar communication with London by way of the
head-waters of the river that flows into the har-
bour of Penetanguishene and the head- waters of
the Thames, that lie so many miles apart. The
saving, if this route were used for the transport
of goods to the north-west post$ and for the fur
trade, instead of the established communication by
way of the Ottawa, was estimated at £18 2s. 3d.
per ton. A canot de maitre will carry one hundred
pieces weighing ninety pounds each, equal to four
tons and a few pounds, freight per ton Lachine to
Michilimackinac by the Ottawa, £47 16s. 8d. A
bateau will carry three tons, freight per ton La-
chine to Michilimackinac by the York and Yonge
Street route, £29 14s. 5d. ; saving £18 2s. 3d.
Simcoe's expectations regarding the permanent
value of this route were never met, and Pene-
tanguishene, which he expected to develop into
208

GOVERNMENT FARMS

the most " considerable town " in Upper Canada,
has been dwarfed by its neighbours.

The winter was passed uneventfully at. York
amid the felling of trees and the squaring of
timber. There were the usual difficulties to contend
with, heightened by the blunders of the supply
officers who sent axes from England that were
poorly tempered and would not hold an edge, and
mill machinery with the parts confused and broken.
A sawmill, with but one saw, was put together
from these heterogeneous materials and the frame
of an old mill, and with its help and the strong arm
of the Rangers Toronto was founded.

One of the schemes that formed in Simcoe's
mind at this time was the establishment of govern-
ment farms. The need of horses was evident.
He determined to establish the farms in chosen
situations. The labour was to be supplied by the
soldiers, and the farms would produce sufficient
to pay wages and provide "sustenance for a few
horses necessary to the service." These horses,
used as pack and dispatch animals, would destroy
the dependence upon the Indians for such service,
and would end their extortionate charges. None of
these farms were established. During the next
spring the governor was occupied upon duty more
extensive and of deeper importance, and this plan
was allowed to lapse like many another that
could not be carried out with the resources at his
command.

209

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

It was early in March that Simcoe received at
York Lord Dorchester's dispatch that was, so far
as the governor of Upper Canada was concerned,
a declaration of war with the States. He threw him-
self into the action with his accustomed vigour,
and at once dispatched a plan of campaign to the
commander-in-chief. He hurried runners to the
Indian villages and ordered canoes to be in readi-
ness at the forks of the Thames, where London
now stands, and in less than three weeks he was
on the Miami River. The incidents of this invasion
have been set forth in a preceding chapter; the
journey is again mentioned to complete the itine-
rary of Simcoe's movements. The summer and
autumn of 1794 were crowded with activities and
with the excitement of apprehension, if not of
actual conflict. April 27th saw Simcoe again at
Navy Hall and May 5th at York, where he went
to design at least a mock defence, as nothing sub-
stantial was possible. The legislature was opened
on June 2nd, and Simcoe was at Navy Hall until
early in September, when he again set out for
the Miami with Brant. He arrived at the bay on
September 27th, accompanied by McKee, the In-
dian superintendent. He found Wayne withdrawn
beyond all danger of attack, the posts under Colonel
England watchful and prepared, and the Indians
cowed but suspicious and disunited.

The purpose of this trip was " to crush the spirit
of disaffection in the Canadian militia there," but
210

WINTER AT KINGSTON

he found that the company called out had gone to
Fort Miami. As he found all danger from Wayne's
approach to Detroit past, he disbanded two hun-
dred militia that had been levied, and after a
council with the tribes he returned to Navy Hall.

In pursuance of the plan to conduct a personal
inspection of all sections of the province, Simcoe
left Niagara, by way of York, for Kingston, where
he spent the winter and spring of 1794-5. His
wife and family sailed at a more clement season
and upon a more comfortable craft for Quebec,
where they spent the winter. The governor did not
leave Navy Hall until November 14th. It was late
in the month before he left York, and, in an open
boat, proceeded to Kingston, where he arrived on
December 4th. The journey was hazardous by
reason of the furious storms that at this season
spring upon the lake, and make it a peril for all
mariners. Everywhere the shore ice had taken, and
the Bay of Quinte was closed. The days were
bleak with the lake winds laden with moisture,
with sudden flaws of rain or sleet ; the nights were
cold and cheerless upon the dark forest-clad shores,
between the howling of the wolves and the grind-
ing of the small ice broken by the waves. He made
his port, however, without serious misadventure,
and spent the winter actively at Kingston. He
found the town much improved after the lapse of
nearly three years. Many stores for the sale of
provisions and merchandise had been opened. New

211

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

wharves had been constructed to accommodate the
lake shipping, and others had been planned. He
found that the fur trade had waned somewhat, and
that general trade was taking its place.

He resided in the officers' quarters, and thence
many of his most important dispatches are dated.
Many claims of the Loyalists had to be investigated
and adjusted. He was for these months of the
sojourn at Kingston in the heart of the province,
for, although the peninsula was considered of the
greatest military and strategical importance, the
eastern district was more populous and prosperous.
He became acquainted with the resources of the
district and of the lands upon the Ottawa. He
found time and courage to lay his hand upon the
abuses in the commissariat department. The pur-
chase of flour for the garrisons had for some time
been in the hands of contractors who bought from
whom they pleased, favouring their friends, and the
settlers had petitioned against the favouritism and
extortion, every member of the assembly having
set his hand to the document. Simcoe appointed
Captain McGill to be agent for purchases in the
province, under the authority of the secretary of
the treasury, Rose, and ordered all sub-agents to
take orders from him. He hoped through the fair
and honest action of this officer to equalize prices
and to destroy the abuses of the department. But
again Dorchester intervened, and appointed Davi-
son to supply the troops under a contract from the
212

THE QUARTERS AT KINGSTON

victualling office. Simcoe felt himself degraded and
humiliated before the assembly, but avowed him-
self absolved from all responsibility. It was only
a temporary check, however, for on November 3rd,
1795, Captain McGill was appointed agent of pur-
chases, and carried on the duties of his office for
some years.

The month of February was spent at Johns-
town, a small hamlet a few miles east of Pres-
cott. Simcoe writes to Dorchester from that place
that he had planned a road to the forks of the
Rideau in order to establish settlements surveyed
in 1790 and 1791. He also states that he in-
tended to investigate personally the water com-
munication with the Ottawa, and he notes the
importance of this route for civil and military
reasons. But all exploratory schemes were aban-
doned, and early in March the governor returned
to Kingston accompanied by Mrs. Simcoe, who
joined him at Johnstown after her winter in
Quebec. She thus describes their residence: "We
are very comfortably lodged in barracks. As there
are few officers here we have the mess-room to
dine in and a room over it for the governor's office,
and these, as well as the kitchen, are detached from
our other three rooms, which is very comfortable.
The drawing-room has not a stove in it, which is
a misfortune, but it is too late in the winter to be
of much consequence. We have excellent wood
fires."

213

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

During the spring Simcoe suffered from a serious
and prolonged illness, and it was not until May
15th that he was able to travel. He left the town
upon that day, and arrived at York on the twenty-
sixth of the same month. Here there was as yet no
proper accommodation for him, and, after a thorough
inspection of the winter's work and the condition of
the settlers who had come to take up lands upon
the line of Yonge Street, he sailed across the lake
to Niagara, and there he spent the summer and
entertained, between June 22nd and July 10th, his
distinguished visitor the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-
Liancourt. The only trip that he made during
this season was to Long Point, where he fixed
upon the site of the proposed town, located the bar-
racks and a pier for the use of the war-sloops and
gunboats. Upon his return he went up the Grand
River as far as a point known locally as Dochstaders,
where he portaged into the Chipewyan or Welland
River, and by this way reached his headquarters.
He preferred the route above the usual course, by
way of the Niagara River to Fort Erie. The furious
rapids above the falls wearied the soldiers, toiling
like galley-slaves at the oars of the bateaux.

On the last day of November, 1795, he arrived
at York, where he purposed spending the winter.
York had increased to twelve houses gathered near
the Don, the barracks were two miles from the
town near the harbour ; two blockhouses had been
erected at the entrance to the roadstead. A cha-
214.

CASTLE FRANK

teau had been prepared for the governor which was
called Castle Frank, after his son and heir. It was
situated upon a ridge overlooking the Don at
some distance from the barracks and the town,
with which it was connected by a carriage road and
bridle-path. The building was constructed of small,
well-hewn logs, with a massive chimney, and a
portico formed by an extension of the whole roof.
The windows were protected by massive shutters.
It remained standing until 1829, when it was de-
stroyed by fire. This house was intended as a pavi-
lion in the woods, which the family might visit for
pleasure or to enjoy alfresco entertainments. It was
not fitted for use as a residence, and the governor
continued to live in the canvas house boarded and
banked as during the winter of 1793-4. It was his
intention, as soon as practicable, to erect a tem-
porary government house at York, with accommo-
dation for the legislature in wings. The officers of
the government he ordered to York on February
1st, 1796. They were granted one hundred acres of
land each, and were expected to settle in their new
home without delay. But all establishments at
York were considered as merely temporary ; Lon-
don had not as yet been deposed, it was the poten-
tial capital of the province.

The winter passed in the midst of activities. The
Queen's Rangers were busy felling trees and squar-
ing timber for the new government buildings, and
detachments of the same troop were working their

215

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

way towards Lake Simcoe through the forest, slow-
ly building Yonge Street. As soon as the ice had
left the harbour Simcoe sailed for Niagara, and ar-
rived at Navy Hall on April 30th. The session of
the legislature lasted from May 16th to June 20th,
upon which day he returned to York.

During the spring and early summer he was anx-
iously awaiting a reply to his application for leave
of absence. Hardly had he reached York in the
previous autumn when he presented his request to
Portland in a letter dated December 1st, 1795. He
felt compelled to request an extended leave owing
to the state of his health. A slow* fever was gradu-
ally consuming his strength, and his physicians
thought he should avoid the heat of the approach-
ing summer. He was urgent in his application and
stated that the only alternative to leave was resig-
nation. When the answer came to his application
it was favourable and in most flattering terms. The
leave was granted : " Such is the confidence,"
writes Portland on April 9th, 1796, "that His
Majesty places in your attachment to his service
and so satisfied is he with the unremitting zeal and
assiduity you have uniformly manifested in pro-
moting his interests and those of his subjects com-
mitted to your care." A gunboat was placed at his
disposal for transport. Whatever the differences of
opinion and misunderstandings with his immediate
superior may have been, Simcoe must have felt
that his policy and conduct had been approved
216

DEPARTURE FROM CANADA

generally by the government of which both Dor-
chester and himself were servants. He might turn
his face towards home with the light heart and
clear conscience of a man who has been approved
in an earnest effort to do his duty with singleness
of purpose. The letter granting his leave in such
gratifying terms did not reach him until early in
July. He immediately made preparations for de-
parture. His successor, the Hon. Peter Russell,
was sworn in as administrator on July 21st, and
upon the same day Simcoe left York. The frigate
Pearl was then lying at Quebec ready to sail upon
August 10th, and the captain expected to carry as
passengers Simcoe and his family. The Active, in
which Lord Dorchester had taken passage, was
wrecked upon the shore of Anticosti on July 15th,
and when Simcoe arrived at Quebec he found that
the Pearl had gone down the gulf to save the
stores. Dorchester had sailed for Perce in a schooner
and the Pearl, after salvage of the wreck at the
island, was to call at Perce for him, and then
proceed to England without returning to Quebec.
Simcoe was therefore compelled to remain in the
country until late in September, and it was not
until November that he arrived in London after
an absence of nearly five years.

He was destined never to see the country again
but his mind was never free from thoughts of it.
That the government also connected him during
his lifetime with plans for the administration of the

217

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

colony is evident. Writing from Bath on October
14th, 1802, he says: "Ten days have not elapsed
since I gave up all views of Canada for the present.
It is about three years ago that the Duke of Port-
land invited me to succeed Prescott." He was re-
served for even higher service which fate designed
that he was not to carry out.

218

CHAPTER XII

AFTER UPPER CANADA

NO sooner had Simcoe arrived in London in
November, 1796, than he was ordered to
Santo Domingo. With but a few weeks rest, and
suffering always from ill-health, he sailed for the
scene of his new duties, where he arrived in March,
1797. The island was in a state of insurrection and
the task that confronted him was the pacification
of a horde of blacks who had all the advantage of
fighting on their own ground and in a climate that
was in itself death to the foreigner. The circum-
stances were most desperate. With his accustomed
thoroughness, Simcoe endeavoured to discover the
true reasons for the state of affairs, and he began
to carry out reforms that had a beneficial effect if
they did not form the basis for final success. To
quote from Ramsford's " History of Hayti " : " He
compelled a surrender of all private leases obtained
of the vacated property of French absentees to the
public use, and he reformed the Colonial Corps."
His military operations were also frequently suc-
cessful, but no person in his state of health could
long withstand the strain of such a war and the ad-
verse conditions of the climate. He was compelled
to ask for leave on account of sickness, and he left

219

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

the island on September 27th, 1797. The rumour
gained currency in London that he had abandoned
the government without proper authority. A cleri-
cal error in substituting the name of Sir Ralph
Abercromby in the order granting the leave had
given rise to this unpleasantness. But the matter
was satisfactorily settled, and on October 3rd, 1798,
he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general
and called to the colonelcy of the 22nd Foot.

For the next year or two he remained at Wolford
Lodge endeavouring to regain his health after the
years of arduous life since 1791, in the widely differ-
ing climates of Upper Canada and Santo Domingo.
In 1800 and 1801 he commanded at Plymouth, an
important post in those years when the invasion
from France was expected. But that danger passed,
and tired of the inactive life and garrison duty,
Simcoe resigned and applied to be sent on foreign
service. He was thereupon appointed commander-
in-chief in India as successor to Lord Lake, but
before his departure for the East he was assigned
an important diplomatic mission with Lord St.
Vincent and the Earl of Roslyn.

The reasons for the expedition are thus given by
Lord Brougham, who was secretary to the com-
mission: "Early in August, 1806, the English
government had received intelligence of the inten-
tion of France to invade Portugal with an army of
30,000 men then assembled at Bayonne. From
perfectly reliable information it was believed that
220

THE EXPEDITION TO LISBON

it was the object and intention of Bonaparte to
dethrone the royal family and to partition Portugal,
alloting one part to Spain and the other to the
Prince of Peace or to the Queen of Etruria. The
ministers thereupon resolved to send an army to
the Tagus, to be there met by a competent naval
force, the whole to be intrusted to the command of
Lord St. Vincent and Lieutenant-General Simcoe,
with full powers, conjointly with Lord Roslyn, to
negotiate with the court of Lisbon."

During the voyage Simcoe was able to discuss
daily with his colleagues the subject of their mis-
sion, but shortly after the arrival at Lisbon he was
compelled to leave for England by his continued
illness that alarmed both himself and his physicians.
In one of the swiftest ships of the squadron he
sailed for home, unable longer to sustain his part in
the negotiations. Mrs. Simcoe had gone to London
to make preparations for their departure for India,
and in the midst of them, when her mind was en-
gaged with plans for the future, looking forward
to the larger life which the new command would
bring, she received the news of her husband's death.
He had reached Torbay on October 20th, 1806,
in the Illustrious, man-of-war. Suffering acutely,
and hardly able to undergo the last miles of his
journey, he was taken up the River Exe to Tops-
ham in a sloop prepared for his need, and thence
by carriage to Exeter. There, on Sunday, October
26th, in the house of Archdeacon Moore, under

221

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

the shadow of Exeter Cathedral, he passed away.
On November 4th, he was buried at Wolford
Lodge in the domestic chapel. The county of
Devon erected in the cathedral at Exeter a monu-
ment by Flaxman, which commemorates his deeds
and his worth in the following inscription : —

"Sacred to the memory of JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE,
Lieutenant-General in the Army and Colonel of
the 22nd Regiment of Foot, who died on the twen-
ty-sixth day of October, 1806, aged 54. In whose
life and character the virtues of the hero, patriot,
and Christian were so eminently conspicuous, that
it may justly be said he served his king and his
country with a zeal exceeded only by his piety
towards his God. During the erection of this
monument, his eldest son, Francis Gwillim Simcoe,
Lieutenant in 27th Foot, born at Wolford Lodge
in this county, June 6th, 1791, fell in the breach at
the siege of Badajoz, April 6th, 1812, in the 21st
year of his age."

222

CHAPTER XIII

NON SIBI SED PATRLE

TO imagine Simcoe influenced by the legend
graven upon his family arms may be a quaint
idea, but at the end of his life he might have pointed
to it as an epitome of his motives and actions. He
was in truth governed largely by his enthusiasms
and his sentiments, and when this is understood it
is conceivable that a family motto in such perfect
harmony with his ideals and so apt to the circum-
stances of his chosen career would at last come to
be an invisible monitor encouraging the sacrifice of
self for the country's weal. His presence in Upper
Canada is an evidence of how far he could be
swayed by sentiment. He turned his face from the
source of preferment and left the court and parlia-
ment at a time when he could have forced recogni-
tion of his abilities. In his absence ministers might
change and power centre itself in men who knew
him not. He exiled himself and left his interests
to the chance of decay. Why? He answers the
question. "To establish the British Constitution
hitherto imperfectly communicated by our colonial
system, among a people who had so steadfastly ad-
hered to their loyal principles, was an object so
salutary for the present and so extensive in its con-

223

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

sequences that I overlooked all personal considera-
tions."

He had frequent reason during the American
war and his term in Upper Canada to gain ad-
monishment from his family motto. His life was
worn away in the public service. At the close of
the struggle with the Americans, his constitution
was undermined. The kind of warfare he followed,
sudden forays, ambuscades, forced marches, strata-
gems, and subterfuges kept his mind in a condition
of strain and excitement, and gave his body no
rest. Time and again during those years he broke
down but stuck to his saddle when he should have
kept his pallet. And above and beyond the exhaus-
tion of such a dashing and haphazard life there was
the sense of failure, of lost opportunities, of pon-
derous blunders, of weak-kneed strategy and palsied
inactivity. These were the things that burned deeply
and bitterly into this valiant and heroic soul. Could
he have felt that he was responsible and had failed
to conquer a more capable commander, the bitter-
ness would have been galling, but it could not have
been so unbearable as defeat brought about by the
wild errors of others. As many another subordinate
in that same captured army felt, and as many an-
other has had cause to feel since, he realized in
hopelessness the vast inertia of the mass of incom-
petence above him. This opinion, that the war was
lost by stupidity, bred in him a violence of feeling
towards the United States that he was never slow
224

DESIRE FOR PEACE

to express. He was a soldier with a great talent, if
not a positive genius, for war ; this talent he had
developed by study and reflection. His mind was
full of resource, he had the strategic instinct, he
adapted his means to the end in view. There is
abundant evidence to prove that this talent was ob-
served and often made use of by his superiors.
After he became eligible there was no board of
general officers called by the king of which Simcoe
was not a member. De la Rochefoucauld writes,
" He is acquainted with the military history of all
countries ; no hillock catches his eye without ex-
citing in his mind the idea of a fort, which might
be constructed on the spot; and with the construc-
tion of this fort he associates the plan of operations
for a campaign, especially of that which is to lead
him to Philadelphia."

He desired peace with the United States, and
peace he constantly guarded and preserved by his
actions and words. Yet there is nothing irreconcil-
able between this desire and his expressed hostility
towards the young nation. Always in a soldier's
mind the desire for active service is implicit. Sim-
coe would no doubt have welcomed the opportunity
of again crossing swords with his old antagonists.
He was constantly reverting to his past campaigns
and laying plans for those of the future. In 1794
he thought his opportunity had come, and he ac-
cepted the tremendous responsibility without flinch-
ing. In his dash from York to the rapids of the

225

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Miami, in his plans for intercepting Wayne and
defeating him, there was all the old vigour, keen-
sightedness, sureness of aim. He saw what was to
be done, and in the best way, using all the natural
advantages, he did it. His swiftness on this occa-
sion alone would justify the praise of George III,
that if every person had served during the Ameri-
can war as Simcoe had done, it would have had
a different termination. The governor himself be-
lieved that he had had a passive victory at the
forks of the Miami — that by a show of strength he
had prevented an invasion of the province. But
there is no equation between the terms of his gift
as a soldier and the opportunity of using it in a
successful issue. Fortune always meted out to him
a forlorn hope. In the American war and later in
Santo Domingo adverse conditions were heaped
upon him in huge bulk, immovable. He seemed to
copy the broken career of his father, and pass on
the example to his son.

The military cast of his mind is evident in nearly
all his plans for the development of the colony. He
would have had it evolve into a peaceful camp, into
settlements of which the blockhouse would be the
heart and head. The mainstay of loyalty, religion,
and prosperity would be the garrison — and loyalty
in this sentence is not written carelessly before
religion. Loyalty was to be the creed of the Up-
per Canadian. So familiar is Simcoe with this virtue
that at last it begins to smirk and take on a comic
226

THE BUREAUCRATIC SPIRIT

cast. In his vision of a provincial capital there is
the pure comic. Within its walls there was to be
erected the palladium of British loyalty, all repub-
licans were to be cast forth, there was to be one
true church, there was to be the university as a
safeguard of the Constitution, there opinion and
character were to be so schooled and moulded that
to consider them would be to look upon the ob-
verse and reverse of a Georgian guinea ; there was
to be a sort of worship of the British Constitution,
there at every street corner was to be a sentry,
there the very stones were to sing " God save the
King," and over it all there was to be the primness
of a flint-box and the odour of pipe-clay. The
vision in reality has taken on a different form, but
it is easy to think that Simcoe would be satisfied
with the actuality and claim it as a growth from
his seedling.

The compact bureaucracy that rose and flourished
and was cut down after his day must be traced to
the official system that he inaugurated. It was de-
signed to prevent sedition, and to destroy the very
seeds of republicanism as with a penetrating frost.
But the error at the heart of this system was, that
democratic principles and practices could not be
enwrapt with the practice and principles of the
British Constitution. Simcoe had unearthed many
of the roots that nourished the tree of the Ameri-
can Revolution, but the tap-root he had not traced.
It must be said that he was made of the same

227

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

metal as many of the colonial governors, and in
their positions he would have opposed a like stub-
bornness to the new, restless, over-eager under-
current that was running strongly in colonial af-
fairs. Instead of delving a wider channel in which
it might run safely and spend its energy usefully,
he would also have built the dams and barriers that
fretted the current which finally rose and swept
them out into the ocean. He would have failed to
appreciate the new conditions that free life had
formed in the western air. Desire for constitutional
changes and outcry against taxation and monopoly
he would have endeavoured to crush as subversive
and contumacious ; for Simcoe had the defects of
his qualities. Against his vivacity, his power of in-
centive, his courage, his intrepid uprightness, we
must place impatience, stubbornness, suspicion and
lack of self-restraint. When he was opposed he
gave his adversary no credit for sincerity, he im-
puted unworthy motives, and in expressing his case
in rebuttal he went beyond all bounds in the extra-
vagance of his language. These petulant outbursts,
in which sentences are swollen and turgid with a
sort of protesting rhetoric, sometimes cancel sym-
pathy. Against Lord Dorchester one is prone to
take the side of Governor Simcoe, seeing how ear-
nest and zealous he was, but there is much in his
correspondence with his superior officer that is not
of perfect temper. Many of these letters, fluttering
often upon the borders of pure impertinence, gain
228

HIS HOSPITALITY

support for the old warrior, whose replies did not
fail in dignity and a sort of amiable condescension.
When it is comprehended how fine a gentleman
Simcoe could be, some of his expressions are often
inexplicable. But he was supersensitive in the re-
gion of personal and public honour, particularly
when the attack pierced also his sense of duty. It
was when so stricken that he made the loudest
outcry.

With all these minor faults, faults of a sanguine
and buoyant temperament, he yet was a great
gentleman. Twice at least during his stay in Up-
per Canada he was called upon to occupy positions
that required the utmost tact, and in neither was
he in the least wanting. In the summer of 1793 for
many days he entertained three American com-
missioners to the Indians at a time when he sus-
pected early active hostilities and when his civil
position was involved and complicated with mili-
tary preparations and the nervous and tricky diplo-
macy of Brant and his confederates. One of his
guests was that General Lincoln who capitulated
to Clinton at Charleston, and the past must have
contained bitter memories for both guest and host,
but the general in his memoirs has nothing but
praise for the consideration shown him. Simcoe's
dislike of the new republic, his fear of American
politics, and his sympathy with the Indian demands
were carefully cloaked and nothing appeared but a
fine hospitality that placed his guests at ease.

229

.*

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

The second occasion was when he entertained
the French Royalist, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld,
at a time when republican France was at war with
England. The duke during all the days of his stay
was in the country under sufferance, but was made
at home in the large simple manner that won his
admiration. In Simcoe's relations with his people he
showed a like consideration, and although he was
criticized, misunderstood, and disliked, it was not
often so. These cases oftenest arose from the oppo-
sition of his honesty, brusque but open and fearless,
to the small plots for gain and preferment that he
discovered. To persons thus engaged he seemed
like a withering fire, he burned them with scorn.
He had none of the finesse that can measure faults
and adjust rebuke in degree. He used the same
sledge-hammer to break the mill-stone of some
great public abuse and the hazel-nut of a private
peccadillo.

But his character held in happy combination
traits that made him an almost perfect governor
for the place and the time. He treated his people
as a nobleman might treat his tenants if his temper
were magnanimous and progressive. In Upper Can-
ada he appeared as an urbane landlord upon a huge,
wild estate. Any attitude other than the one he
adopted would have made him the most unpopular
man in the province. His genius for exhibiting per-
sonal interest in the individual concerns of his little
people made him beloved and respected. His stern
230

HIS INTEGRITY

sense of duty and his military prowess gave a feel-
ing of security to scattered settlements in a troubled
and uncertain time.

After all is said the essential quality of this man's
mind and temper was integrity. Every thought
and action rose from that deep, pure spring. It was
the perception that the man was filled with lofty
patriotism, that the sense of duty was inherent in
him and unassailable, that led Pitt to remark that
he was needed in Santo Domingo by reason of his
integrity, not for his military exertion. And in
closing a review of his character and aims it is this
quality more than all others that comes into pro-
minence, and remains massed, large and luminous.
For in the end it comes to be a question as to what
this man's work in our country is to stand for, what
we are to think of when we bring into our minds
him and those early days that he filled so full with
untiring energy. He has all the advantage and all
the disadvantage that clings about his position as
a pioneer of government. He could do but little in
his five years of power to direct the future of the
province, and from many of his ideals and aims we
have swung far away. But he possessed the advan-
tage of having no forerunner, and even what he
did has a larger value than the acts of those who
may have had richer, fuller opportunity. Certain
waterways and highways, very many place-names,
and a few great centres of population will always
be associated with his memory. These are material

231

lory. 1]

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

things, and in a country where the interests of trade
and the minutiae of barter and exchange must per-
force receive an undue prominence, it is well that
some character, some utterance of an ideal position
may exist which we may uplift for guidance, to
which we may turn when wearied by the sordid-
ness of the time and the garishness of party aims
and mean local ambitions. In Simcoe's character
and utterance we have such a possession. He had in
abundance, and used to the full, that great quality
of integrity which is the corner-stone of public and
private usefulness, that quality without which both
acts and words sound as brass and tinkle as a cymbal.
We might choose more widely and not choose so well
if, in a search for ideals, we passed by the worth of
the first governor of Upper Canada. It is by his
purity of purpose and his lofty rectitude that he may
be of abiding use to us. His words are now as cogent
as they were in his day. They may look as dim to
the eyes of a practical politician as an old-fashioned
lanthorn, but they shed an honest light. And we
might all profit exceedingly by a close observation
of the group of virtues that, in the following words,
our exemplar has brought together that he con-
siders the prime qualities to assist at the founding
of a nation : " It is our immediate duty to recom-
mend our public acts to our fellow-subjects by the
efficacy of our private example ; and to contribute
in this tract of the British empire to form a nation,
obedient to the laws, frugal, temperate, industrious,
232

HIS IDEALS

impressed with a steadfast love of justice, of honour,
of public good, with unshaken probity and forti-
tude amongst men, with Christian piety and grati-
tude to God."

It would be well in reading them to remember
that they were written of our country and spoken
to our forefathers, and that by direct inheritance
they belong and appertain to our national life and
to ourselves. This recollection might lead us to
return to them with profit again, and yet again.

233

INDEX

INDEX

ADDISON, REV. ROBERT, 158, 167 ;
his library, 175

Agricultural Fair, 198

Aristocracy in Upper Canada, 69

Arnold, Benedict, Simcoe's ex-
pedition with, 33

Arthur, Rev. Mr., 167, 168

Assembly, House of, first members
of, 80 ; first session, 85 ; second
session, 88 ; third session, 91 ;
fourth session, 92 ; fifth session,
94

Atkins, Mr. D. A., 167

B
BANKS, Sir Joseph, Simcoe's letter

to, 166

Bethune, Rev. John, 164
Bourinot, Sir J. G., his precis of

the Canada Act, 10-12
Brant, Isaac, murders Lowell, 191
Brant, Joseph, visits Philadelphia,

121 ; his policy, 122 ; looses

influence with western Indians,

124 ; Simcoe's opinion of, 125 ;

kills his son Isaac, 192
Brougham, Lord, secretary to the

commission to Lisbon, 220
Burk, Rev. J., censured, 190
Burke, Edmund, quarrels with Fox,

8
Burns, Edward, clerk of the Crown,

178
Burns, Rev. Mr. schoolmaster, 167

CAMPBELL, Major, in command at
the Miami, 136 ; opposes Wayne,
139

Canada Act, the, 1-15

Canals, the first, 112, 113

Carondelet, Baron, his letter to
Simcoe, 134-6

Cartwright, Richard, remarks on
Loyalists, 57, 58 ; report on mar-
riage, 86-8 ; asserts his loyalty,
98 ; memorandum on exchange,
109

Castle Frank, 215

Churches, the, 155-67

Civil list, first estimate for, 177

Clarke, Jonathan, 167

Cockrel, Mr , his night school, 167

Collver, Rev. Jabez, 165

Commissioners to the Indians,
123, 184

Costa, Francis, naval officer, 178

Currency, early substitutes for, 68 ;
act regulating, 94

D

DESERTION, punishment for, 72
Dorchester, Lord, his interest in
the Canada Act, 3 ; his difference
with Simcoe, 130; his resig-
nation, 142 ; wrecked on Anti-
costi, 217

Drinking, the vice of the time, 71,
72

237

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

Duel, between Messrs. Small and

White, 181
Duke of Kent, visits Upper Canada,

183
Dunn, Rev. Robert, 164

E

EDUCATION, 166-75

Elmsley, John, chief-justice, 178

Exports from Kingston, 1794, 108

F
Fox, CHARLES JAMES, quarrels with

Burke, 8

Freemasons' Hall, 83, 96
Fur Trade, the, 105

G

GODDABD, CHARLES, government
agent, 178

Grenville, Lord, his letter re Can-
ada Act, 2

H

HAMILTON, ROBERT, lieutenant of
the county of Lincoln, 198

Holland, Mr.,- surveyor, 178

" Hungry year," the, 65

I
INDIANS, their friendship with the

Loyalists, 61 ; Six Nations, 74 ;

government's policy towards, 75,

119; administration of justice

among, 190
Indian department, organization,

127
Itinerant preachers, 162

J
JARVIS, WILLIAM, secretary of the

province of Upper Canada 178
Jay's Treaty, 141, 142

238

KENT, DUKE OF, visits Upper Can-
ada, 183

King's birthday celebration 1793,
185, 186

Kingston, Simcoe's residence at,
212

LAKE, LORD, Simcoe succeeds, 220

Land Boards, 102-4

Langhorn, Rev. John, 158

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Duke
de, extracts from his journal re
emigrants, 56 ; describes soldiers
dressing on the Onondaga, 73;
describes opening of fourth ses-
sion of the legislature, 92, 93 ;
refers to Simcoe's preference for
Roman Catholic clergy for the
Indians, 166 ; reference to houses
in Upper Canada, 179 ; scarcity
of servants, 182 ; visits Simcoe,
187, 188, 214

Le Du, priest, sent to United
States, 190

Legislative council, the, members
sworn in, 79

Library, the public, 175 ; Rev. Mr.
Addison's, 175

Lieutenants of counties, 197, 198

Lincoln, General Benjamin, 1 23 ;
his diary, 184-6

Lisbon, the commission to, 221

Littlehales, Major, aide-de-camp,
177

London, capital of Upper Canada,
200

Loyalists, persecution of, 54, 55 ;
first refugees, 56-8

INDEX

Loyalists, United Empire, pro-
clamation regarding, 71

Lymburner, Mr. Adam, opposes
the Canada Act, 2

Lyons, Mr., schoolmaster, 167

M

MCDONNELL, REV. MB., 165

McGill, Captain, agent of pur-
chases, 212

Mackenzie, Alexander, 188-9

Marriage Act, passed, 88 ; the re-
peal of, 161

Marriages, 66; Cartwright's re-
port upon, 86-8

Mesplet, Fleury, prints proclama-
tions, 173

Militia Act, the, 91

Morse, .Colonel, his scheme for
confederation of the colonies, 4

Mountain, Rev. Jehoshaphat, first
Anglican bishop, 158; his opin-
ion of itinerant preachers, 159 ;
given seat in legislative council,
160

N

NAVY HALL, 195, 196

Niagara or Newark, first settlement
at, 58, 195

O
OGDEN, REV. MR., a citizen of the

United States, 190
Osgoode, William, chief-justice,

speaker of the legislative council,

85, 178

P

PICKERING, TIMOTHY, 123, 184
Pioneer life in Upper Canada,
51-77

Pitt, his speech during the debate

on the Canada Act, 7 ; remarks

re Simcoe's integrity, 231
Plymouth, Simcoe commander at,

220

Population, 115
Portland, Duke of, Simcoe's letter

to, regarding military operations

of 1794, 143-54
Powell, William Dummer, judge

of the common pleas, 178
Presbyterian Church, first ministers

of, 164
Prices of merchandise, 114

QUEEN'S RANGERS, origin of corps,
22 ; discipline introduced by
Simcoe, 24 ; placed on roster of
British army, 39 ; disbanded, 39 ;
arrive at Quebec, 49

R

RANDOLPH, BEVBRLBY, 123, 184
Rate of wages, 113
Rideau River route, 213
Roman Catholic Church, 165
Roy, Louis, king's printer, 172, 173
Russell, Hon. Peter, sworn as ad-
ministrator, 217

SANTO DOMINGO, Simcoe appointed

governor of, 219
Schools, teachers and equipment,

166, 167
Simcoe, Captain John, father of

John Graves, member of court

martial on Admiral Byng, 15;

dies, 1759, on Pembroke en route

239

JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

to Quebec, 16 ; his opinion of
Quebec and Montreal, 17

Simcoe, Frank, 179, 203

Simcoe, Mrs. John Graves, her
character, 40; presented with a
horse by Richard Duncan, 180 ;
her description of Newark, 196 ;
describes quarters at Kingston,
213

Simcoe, John Graves, takes part in
debate on Canada Act, 7, 8 ; his
birth and parentage, 15.; removes
to Exeter, 17 ; education, 17 ; en-
ters the army, 18 ; reaches Bos-
ton, June 17th, 1775, 18 ; his am-
bition to command light troops,

19 ; leaves Boston, 20 ; appointed
captain in the 40th Regiment,

20 ; winters at New Brunswick,
N. J., 21 ; lands at Elk River,
22 ; wounded at battle of Brandy-
wine River, 22 ; takes command
of Queen's Rangers, 22 ; his
Military Journal, 23 ; the en-
gagements at Quintin's Bridge
and Hancock's House, 24 ; an
extreme partizan, 25 ; promoted
to rank of lieutenant-colonel,
25 ; battle of Monmouth Court
House, 26 ; is wounded, 27 ;
winter quarters at Oyster Bay,
30 ; ambushed and taken prison-
er, 32 ; expedition with Benedict
Arnold, 33 ; description of night
attack, 34 ; the attack at Point of
Fork, 34 ; the engagement at
Spencer's Ordinary, 35 ; surren-
der at Yorkton, 37 ; sails for
England on parole, 37 ; his mar-
riage, 40 ; his poetic gifts, 41, 42 ;

240

enters 'parliament, 44 ; speech on
impeachment of Hastings, 44 ;
appointed to Upper Canada, 44 ;
sails in the Triton and arrives at
Quebec, 47 ; delayed at Quebec,
48 ; leaves for Upper Canada, 49 ;
arrives at Niagara, 50 ; his opinion
as to an aristocracy, 69 ; opens
legislature, 83 ; his opinions on
slavery, 90 ; his opinion of Cart-
wright and Hamilton, 92, 98 ; last
speech to the legislature, 95 ; re-
marks on Arnold, 104 ; gives at-
tention to agriculture, 107 ; views
on trade and exchange, 111 ; his
peace policy, 117 ; entertains In-
dian commissioners, 123; his dis-
trust of Brant, 125 ; wishes to
reorganize Indian department,
127 ; his Indian name, 128 ; ar-
rives at York, 129 ; his quarrel
with Dorchester, 130 ; goes to
the Miami River, 134 ; his letter
in defence of his military actions
during 1794, 143-54 ; his opinion
regarding church establishment,
155 ; letter to Sir Joseph Banks
on education, 166 ; views on
education, 168, 169 ; university
foundation, 170, 171 ; his ad-
vice to publisher of Gazette,
174; public library, 175; aids
Agricultural Society, 175 ; re-
ference to de la Rouchefou-
cauld, 188 ; appoints lieutenants
of counties, 197 ; official tour to
Detroit, 198-201 ; his opinion of
the situation of London, 200, 201 ;
begins road from Burlington Bay,
201 ; voyage to Toronto harbour,

INDEX

202 ; lives in wigwam at Toronto,
203 ; winters at Toronto in can-
vas house, 204 ; opinion of To-
ronto harbour, 204; his plan of
defence, 205 ; disagreement with
Dorchester, 206, 207 ; visits Mat-
chedash Bay, 207 ; changes name
of Lac aux Claies to Simcoe, 207 ;
plans Yonge Street, 207 ; wishes
to establish government farms,
209 ; visits Detroit and the Miami
River, 210 ; visits and spends
winter of 1794-5 at Kingston,
211 ; improves commissariat de-
partment, 212 ; visits Johnstown,
213 ; illness, spring of 1795, 214 ;
entertains de la Rochefoucauld,
214 ; visits Long Point, 214 ;
spends winter of 1795-6 at York,
214 ; granted leave of absence,
216; sails for England, 217;
leaving England for Santo Domin-
go, 219 ; promoted to rank of
lieutenant-general, 220 ; com-
mands at Plymouth, 220; ap-
pointed commander-in-chief in
India, 220 ; diplomatic mission to
Lisbon, 220 ; last illness and
death, 221 ; his monument in
Exeter Cathedral, 222; his char-
acter and aims, 223-33
Slavery in Upper Canada, 89, 90
Small, John, clerk of the council,
178 ; duel with John White, 181
Smith, Chief-Justice, 4
Smuggling, 107
Society at Niagara, 180-2, 186
St. Clair, General, his defeat, 120

Strachan, Dr. John, Bishop of To-
ronto, 170, 171
Stuart, Rev. John, 157, 166
Superior court, instituted, 92

TALBOT, Lieutenant, aide-de-camp,

177, 178
Tiffany, Mr. G., king's printer,

173 ; wishes to print a magazine,

174 ; publishes the Constellation,
174

Toronto, name changed to York,

203
Transportation, cost of, Lachine to

Michilimackinac, 208
Trayes, Mr., schoolmaster, 167
Treaty of Paris, Clauses IV, V, VI,

52-4

U

Upper Canada Gazette, The, 172,
173, 174

VESSELS on the lakes, 113

W

WAYNE, GENERAL, his expedition
against the Indians, 121, 138

White, JOHN, elected attorney-
general, 81 ; duel with John
Small, 181

YONGE Street, 207
York, new name for Toronto, 203 ;
selected as arsenal, 204

241

9603

WOV 5