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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commen^ant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► signif ie "A SUIVRE'', le symbols V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de Tangle supirieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 H ■J H 1-9 H 03 < H / IN THK DAYS OF THE CAXADA COMPANY: nil.: STOk* „ Till SKTTI.EMENT OK illi; ,IUKON rRA( T ANI^ 1 IKVV OK THK SOCIAL I.IKK OF THE KEHIOll. 1825 -)8S0. a I o H H 1-9 H GQ < n BY KOHINA AND KATIILHEN MACFARUNK LIZARS.. VVrni AN INTRODUCTION iiV G M. (;RAXT, D.D., LL.I)., Pn^^^f^f Qvten'a Umvnsity, Kitn/^or.^ ^un^5^ IVJl/i li \ *' f* * No. ^ ' Jj VV I L L I A xVl B R I O G S , ^x> MON WFSLEV HTM nSMCs C. W. COATES. I8g6. H\i I FAX: a. F. HUKS us. wwamammm IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY: THE STORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE HURON TRACT AND A VIEW OF THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PERIOD. 1825-1850. BY ROBINA AND KATHLEEN MACFARLANE LIZARS. / WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. M. GRANT, D.D., LL.D., Principal Qneen^a Univer.sity, KiHffMfoif, o ^USVI^§ O WITH No. Class T^Oiiiai^ WILLIAM BRIOGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS. MONTREAL: C. W. COATES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS. 1896. Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, In the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by Katiili!bn- Mackarlaki! I.wars, at the Department of Agriculture. TO THE MEMORY OF ROBINSON CRUSOE IN HAND," WHO CAM ^' 'N 1833.34, AND WHOSE KEEN MEMORIES -D EXHAUSTIVE REPUES TO TROUBLESOME QUESTIONS MADE THE WRITING OF THE BOOK POSSIBLE, IS THIS VOLUME DEDICATED. INTRODUCTION. EvEKY monograph which throws light on the making of Canada should be heartily welcomed, and therefore I willingly write a brief preface for this one, entitled "In the Days op the Canada Company." Men have disputed, and will dispute, whether the Company was beneficial or hurtful to Canada, the fact being that it was lx>th, and that the balance is likely to be struck according to their interests or preconceptions ; but no one disputes the claims to honour of John Gait, its founder, and of agents like Dunlop, Pryor and Strickland. With what is probably the last of the great Chartered Companies now on its trial before the bar of British opinion anrl a select committee of the Imperial House of Com- mons, we are slow to admit that a democratic Government is entitled to delegate any of its important functions to private individuals ; but the Government of Canada, in 1824, was not responsible to the people, and it was a good thing that it con- sented to the formation of the Company. At any rate, as regards colonization, road and bridge-building, and the equitable partition or sale of the public domain, things for some time had been so bad, as poor Robert Gourlay, William Lyon Mackenzie and others proved to their own hurt, that they could hardly be worse. The arrival of Gait made them better, and had he been sustained by the directorate in London, who represented the shareholders, the Company would probably have won for itself as honourable a name, on its own smaller scale, as history accords to the Hudson's Bay and the East India Companies. But he was too big a man for his masters, and London was too far away from the Huron Tract to vi INTRODUCTION. I 1 , otliiiinistei' detuilH HutiHfactorily. The London Boiii'd had tu utilize (iaIt'H Hervices, Vmt they were unwillin<{ to truHt him, even to the extent of permitting him to take a clerk from London, though the duty of dealing with a million sterling and of settling two and a half millionH of acres of fertile lands all over Upper Canada had to \ie left to his sole management. Like most corporations of wealthy or of poor men, they demandet) immediate returns on their investeil capital, and it was poor satisfaction to them to have Gait point out that they could not ex})ect rent for a house until it was built. They had undertaken to eft'ect great public improvements, as a condition of getting their charter, and he would not let them forget it, his reputation as Avell as theirs being involved in keeping faith with the Crown. Perhaps the chief trouble with Gait, and the mainspring of their distrust, tvas that which constituted his happiness all through life. Man can have only one paradise on earth, but Gait aimed at having half a do/en simultaneously. He had so many irons in the fire that men doubted whether he could attend properly to the one in which they were interested. Besides, the average practical man is apt at all times to be sceptical of the business capacity of a novelist. Gait was poet, biographer, historian, critic, essayist, politician, as well as novelist. How could a man of letters, so full and free, be trusted as a man of atiairs ? Of course, the reply is obvious, that unless the Company had made up their minds to trust him, they should not have appointed him Commis- sioner and sent him out to a new world as their agent and ref>re- sentative. In justice to Gait, it should be added that even the immediate future verified his forecasts, and proved that what was freely called extravagance was really judicious investment. His chief apparent monuments are the City of Guelph, founded by him with feelings and ceremonial appropriate to a poet, and the road through the Huron Tract, the first overland communication between the sweet water seas of Ontario and Huron. In these undertakings and in organizing the business of the Company, in attracting desirable immigrants to the Province, and in making thoughtful provision foi their necessities, he proved that a literary man could he immeiisur- ably superior to the average immigration agent who is obliged to work by the rule of thumb. His resources seemed to be as infinite IXTIIODHCTION. Vll iiM luH oiiergy. Hh whm hn Protean in wi'RHtling with natura as in \\\H literary lalxiurH ; *' now liunt on the diHcovery of an indelible ink, now on the daniniing of a river, now on the conHtruotion of a bridge, now on the cutting of a canal, now on the felling of a foreHt, now on the draining of a swamp, now on the invention of a hydraulic machine, now on the endowment of an hospital, now on the formation of a Company, and now on the founding of a city." He wan a man of ideas, and it is appointed unto all Huch men to suffer. To-day, we could afford to pay a good price for a John Gait to lead and guide the colonisation of our North-West, but whether we would 'engage him if he were to be had is another question. The salary demanded might be olwtacle enough. A railway will- ingly pays fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year for a first-class managing director. The Dominion, which spends millions annually on public works, grudges one-tenth of the sum to a responsible head, and ends by having no one responsible. A proposal to pay a competent head his market salary would destroy any Govern- ment. A High Commissioner in London is considered dear at ."?! 0,000, and a Governor-General ruinous at !^50,000, though the one or the other is in a position to save or destroy not only millions but the honour of the country. What of that ! Scores of politicians are reofly at a moment's notice to undertake the job for half the money. Perhaps the best thing that Gait did for Canada was to bring to it settlers of the right stock. Immigrants, like other people ov things, should be weigherl rather than counted, though it is difficult to do the weighing. Comparisons are always odious, and in this case time is needed for making tests or arriving at well- established conclusions. Gait hjul the ear of the educated classes in Britain, and in his day there were — for more reasons than one — numbers of people possesses! of some capital who were eager to emigrate. They saw little hope of a future for their children in the old land, and Gait and Dunlop described Canada so as to touch their imaginations. Some of these, after enjoying the fish- ing and the shooting, became bitterly dissatisfied with their lot and with the men who had attracted them from the old easy ruts in which they had moved at home. Others struggled manfully, in some cases heroically, against the difficulties of "the bush" and • • • Vlll ISTRODUCTION. the climate ; against wolves and bears, and the more terrible black- Ay and mosquito. And, as one of them, Major Strickland, testifies, they hod their reward. He, at any rate, accepted the conditions «>f the new life and soon learned to love the new land. Indeed, it took him captive from the first. When the inland ocean of Huron first hurst on his sight, from the wooded heights which overhung the mouth of the Maitland, where the town of Goderich was planted, he says, "I thought Canada then — and I have never changed my opinion — the most beautiful country in the world." Elsewhere* he says, "A man of education will always possess an iafluence even in bush society; he may be poor, but his value will not be tested by the low standard of money, and he will be appealed to for his judgment in many matters, and will be inducted int<» several offices more honourable than lucrative." That is the style of man to lay the foundations and build the walls of a country. His testimony is abundantly confirmed by the lives of men widely different, like Philemon Wright in Hull township. Colonel Talbot on Lake Erie, the Highland Chief McNab on the Ottawa, and many a noble old Loyalist from the States. It is interesting to find that even at the early stage in our history when the Canada Company began its reign, our fathers had grown into a distinct type of humanity. We do not wonder that our French-speaking fellow-countrymen — sometimes rather iil)surdly called French— should be Canadians pure and simple. They are the early core of the Canadian people. What do they know of France or of any other land but their own? For genera- tions their forefathers have dwelt on the banks of the mighty St. Lawrence, and they love it as the Swiss love their mountains. But it was otherwise in Upper Canada. The various nationalities who settled it had — at the time I speak of — little more than one generation in which to become one people. Yet (halt's immigrants, in describing them — sometimes in sketches not flattering to our family pride — after the manner of outspoken Britons when sketch- ing people who are not English, call attention to the singularly complete process of unification which had already taken place. " They deemed it somewhat remarkable that the Canadian popula- Twenty Years' Experience in Canada West. " INTRODUCTION. IX tion, at that time drawn from all Europe and every State in the Union, should exhibit such small variety in manners, customs, dress, or mode of life. Germans, Highlanders, Fr'jnch, English and Irish soon fused and became ' Canadian.' " Probably the war of 1812-15 is in good part the explanation of this ; not merely because gallant resistance to successive waves of invasion had awakened a national spirit, but also because the high prices then paid for produce of every kind had stimulated industry as far into the l)ack woods as population had extended. Men who knew nothing of the horrors of the war, and who had no dread of its penetrating to their remote hamlets or clearings, rejoiced to get three dollars a bushel for wheat. Mr. Philemon Wright, in giving to a committee of the House of Assembly a detailed account of his experiences, from 1800 to 1823, in settling Hull, refers only once to the war, and his reference is entirely along this strictly pecuniary line of personal advantage. Here it is : " 1813 . . . At the finishing of threshing the wheat, we measured 3,000 bushels ; these 3,000 bushels cost me .$2,000, for which I was offered f 9,000, three dollars per bushel being at that time the common price, on account of the war. I must say it was the most advantageous undertaking I ever engaged in since I commenced the settlement. Having a clear profit of $7,000, 1 continued to expend upon the farm." Under such circumstances the average farmer understood that loyalty paid. No matter where he had been born, he was sure to be an enthusiastic Canadian, and sure to entertain a kindly feeling for the Old Mother Country that poured out her sovereigns freely as water. The war might be justifiable or very much the reverse, in his eyes, but it was (luite clear that the gook there is no attempt made at historical writing ; that will be a matter for the future, after condensation of many similar works. If in the meantime it provides pleasant reading for those interested in the story of the Huron -Tract, the wish and aim of the authors are gratified and justified. The book, with all its faults of omission and commission, is offered to that public which so constantly through the press demands historical data. Professor Ramsay Wright, in his circular of 1893, says : " Hi..- ories of individual families should therefore be collected, and the accounts of various local enterprises carefully noted. Information should be obtained from individual recollection of events, traditions, private and public letters, manuscript letters and diaries, old newspapers and pamphlets, grants and commissions, printed or engraved.'' In the subjoined letter of thanks and table of references will be found authorities for the matter herein contained. Although history is the cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of men, recollections, like colours, fade, and these collops of literature, letters, journals, etc., being heritable and private property, are not always procurable. Difficulties, however, all reckoned, the mass acquired is so great that it would delight the German professor who died lamenting he had squandered bis life upon the whole noun instead of confining himself to the dative case ; so great that the five hundred pages here allowed might as easily have l)een one thousand. xu PREFACE. Lack of proper sequence and statements seemingly contradictory are accounted for by, say, three old settlers, all eye-witnesses of some particular event, and all sure they know every detail, telling, in com- mon with the event, some three distinct tales, until, impossible to find a casting vote, one exclaims with Beoconsfield, " What wonder- ful things are events ! " " For since present things appear dififerently to different minds," observes George Ebers, "the same must be more strikingly true of those long past and forgotten." If history be teaching by example, no Canadian can overestimate the value of heroic types ; for the shades of departed braves stand on the threshold of every deserted log cabin. Hard by, in corners of farm lots, in grass-grown churchyards, a silence as heavy as that of the forest they pierced lies above the dust of the sleeping pioneers, and the story of their struggles is about to be forgotten. Stratford, October 1st, 18f)6. LETTER OF THANKS. The authors have been much indebted for reminiscences and anecdotal matter to friends and persons who have shown themselves interested in this recital. In particular to The late Mr. Henry Cowper Hyndman, of Ayrshire, and the late Judge Lizars, of Stratford. The late Hon. John Beverley Robinson, and the late Mr. Patrick Hyndman. A.nd to Mr. and Mrs. Raby Williams, Mrs. Bogie, Mr. and Mrs. J8. Morris, Mr. and Mrs. Jas. Clark, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Morris, Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Morris, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Young, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Morris, Mr. Doherty, Mrs. Ellis, Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Alex. Young, Mr. Scarlet Williams, Mr. Robert Williams, and the late Mr. John Morris, of Colborne. To Mr. D. Macdonald, Mr. W^oodcock, Mr. Cox, Mr. Ira Lewis, Mrs. Matheson, Mr. McGillicuddy, Capt. Murray McGregor, Sheriff Gibbons, Mrs. Garrow, of Goderich ; Mr. Chas. Girvin, Wawanosh. To Mr. and Mrs. McColl, Hensall; Dr. Hyndman, Exeter; Mrs. Rattenbury, Mrs. Wm. Ranee, Mr. Whitely, Mr. Andrew Stinson, Mr. Hanly, of Clinton ; and Mrs. Carlin, of Dublin. To Mr. J. C. McCarthy, Mrs. Lizars, Judge Woods, Mr. S. R. Hesson, Mr. Hugh Nichol, the late Mr. Andrew Monteith, of Stratford. To Professor Herbert Story, of Glasgow University, to Mr. Wm. Baby, Mrs. Alex. Wilkinson and Mr. Gow, of Windsor. XIV LETTER OF THANKS. To Mr. and Mrs. John Haldane, Mr. W. George Eakino, Librarian, Osgoode Hall ; Mr. George F. Shepley, Mr. Justice Robertson, Hon. A. M. Ross, Chief Justice Hagarty and Mr. James Bain, jr., Librarian, Reference Library, of Toronto. For illustrations, the authors are indebted to the Hon. A. M. Ross, Mr. Clarence Young, of Brampton ; and Mr. Sallows, of Goderich. Mr. E. M. Chadwick (author and illustrator of "Ontarian Families") kindly furnished the drawings for the coats of arms. The family portraits have been lent by their respective owners ; and to Mr. Willson, Commissioner of the Canada Company, thanks are especially due for maps and innumerable documents of use and interest. The chief works which have Ijeen consulted are : " The Backwoodsiuun." Dunlop. The various writings of Strickland and Bonnycastle. McTaggart's " Three Years in Upper Canada." " Western Wanderings." Kingston. " Six Years in the Canadas." Talbot. " Winter Studies." Mrs. Jameson. McGrath's " Letters." " The Emigrant." Francis Bond Head. Dent'.s " History of the Last Forty Years." *' Noctes Ambrosianw." Wilson, et al. " Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald." Moore. Gait's " Autobiography and Miscellanj'." " Toronto of Old." . cadding. Together with old numbers of Fraaer^o and lilacJcwoo(T)*, and files of newspapers. Stratford, October I si, ISUV. r,|l CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. "-Aoit Spirit of the Times 17 CHAPTER II. The Father of the Company 24 CHAPl'ER III. Canada as the Company Found It 6S CHAPTER IV. The Face of the Land 66 CHAFl'ER V. From Champlain to Gooding 82 CHAPTER VI. The Kings of the Canada Company 102 CHAPTER VII. The Colboine Clique 117 CHAPTER VIII. ( lairlnaid 151 CHAPTER I.\. liunderston 191 CHAPTER X. * Mcadowlands 222 CHAPTER XI. Tlie Canada Conn)any vn. The People . 255 CHAPTER XII. The Pef)ple rn. The Canada Company .268 CHAPTER XIII. A Social Pot I'ouni 296 CHAPTER XIV. The Bonnie Easthopes 400 CHAPTER XV. The Cairn 460 AppENinx • • 481 Index 486 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Castle Hill, Gooericii Frontinpinee. John Oalt, the " Fathbk ok the Company " "24 PuiVN OF "THE Town ok (iuELF" IN 1827 27 View of Guelph in 1830 28 Plan of the Town of Godekich, 1829 08 View of Ben Miller 86 ••A particularly piCTUREsyiTc spot" 92 llohthoube and old pler, godehicii 110 The Colborne Bridoe to-day 148 The Dunlop Door-pi^tk - l»\ Sketch of the Village of Gairbraii> 165 Captain Dunlop and Wife and William Dunloi- .... 175 Dr. Dunlop's silver cup 184 Sheriff Hyndman 191 View of Meadowlands 232 CojRT House, Goderich ... 241 Daniel Lizars 254 Father Schneider 274 Judge Acland 287 "Looking back on those days" 351 Facsimile of letter written by the Duke of Wellington - - 36(> A WINTER wreck ON Lake Huron 367 Views of Goderich Harbour 371 Captain Clark 373 Charles Girvin, William Yousg, Robert (iibboxs, .John Morris - 375 Seal of the County of Huron 376 Sketch of the Huron District 379 A Clock with a history 388 David Clarke 392 View of the City of Stuatford 400 A home industry of bygone days 404 One of the fikst dwelling-houses and its occupant - - 416 The first Mac in the Settlement 417 J. C. W. Daly - 428 The first School-house, Stratford - - - • - 439 St. James' Anglican Church, Stratford 441 First Court House and County Buildings, Str.4TFord - 453 Seal of the County of Perth 457 A typical rural scene - - 458 Collegiate Institute, Stratford - 459 William Dunlop 474 The Cairn 480 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. CHAPTEK I. SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. " Canada ix a tjiant in its cradle." In 1791 the Reign of Terror had begun, and Britain felt the reflex agitation. There the trial of Warren Hastings held public attention ; and while France was declared a republic, Constantinople was desolated by an unparalleled fire, and Egypt lost a million of her people by the plague. The guillotine be- came the death-bed of a Royal family and of hundreds of the nobility ; the King of Sweden fell by the hand of an assassin ; Europe was in a turmoil ; but the English Government had time to think for the interests of the colony which then was beginning to claim attention from the Mother Country, It, too, vast as was its territory and scattered its sparse population, felt the strain arising f I'om the animosities of race and local faction. In 1811 took place the bitter struggle between the Hudson's Bay Company and its opponents. Lord Selkirk, energetic, persever- ing and indomitable, with his hardy Countess, formed his settle- ment of Highlanders, and Kildonan the New became the scene of a fresh conflict. Even on the fiftieth parallel of north lati- tude there was war and commotion — a struggle for land and power ; and disputed titles, enthusiasm, philanthropy, and com- plexions red and white, made one more slide in the panorama of the world's battle. 2 18 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. The Canadians of these early times were full of a well- founded pride. It arose from the vast natural advantages of their own country ; from pride of descent, which gave them a reflected glory from all British renown; but, best of all, from pride of their own prowess and martial exploits in that ever green page of Canadian liistory, the year 1812. The Scottish Highlanders, especially, had brought from the old to the new wilds the loyal ardour, fervour and devotion which distin- guished them wheresoever destiny drove them. The restless- ness which urged them into forest recesses in quest of indepen- dence, their love of freedom and enterprise, their capacity lor industry, all marked these Canadian pioneers as forces con- trolled by that spirit of democracy which impels civilization to seek new homes amid savage surroundings. They were not victims to that controlling power, local attachment, which made the Frenchman content on his two-acre lot, the sub-division coming to him like a " portion " in one of his native wine pro- vinces. Thanks to Mr. Pitt we then had our beginning, even if in the excess of his zeal he meditated the mistake of rewarding United Empire loyalism with the Dukedom of Niagara ; for the belief was " Niagara must be considered the utmost limit west- ward capable of cultivation." In a word, the country had so far been considered only fit to produce peltries and pine masts. This wish to recompense the losses sustained by those colon- ists who had so faithfully served the parent Government took active form in the inception of the Canada Company. Popular assemblies and ardent patriots are not always good judges of what will benefit industry. Works which promise the over- coming of vast obstacles and the connection of distant points arouse enthusiasm and are themes for oratory. The humbler work of detail, and the choice of men who understand it suflfi- ciently to direct and judge of it when complete, are other affairs. Here was an opportunity for the pamphleteer, for the company organizer, and one not neglected. The enthusiast, .SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. 19 too, was early on the scene, his wish for excitement often being father to the rdle of colonizer, his ambition fired by the highly wrought pictures of the pamphleteer ; or the sight of vast rivers, plains and forests setting his brain on fire with schemes whereby his philanthropic leanings might be gratified in providing homes for the thousands who were starving else- where ; and the most intensely human impulse of all, possible fortune to himself. The British officers who returned after the war ha! f. d o F ir h: hi w B cl vi Si a mt Er in^ lea Sii tal tin no< hoi gre by ing 1 THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 29 Long afterwards, when speak' ng of the various companies in which he was interested, he says : " The Canada Company was the best and greatest colonial project ever formed, but which, I do conceive, was never fully understood by those who had the supreme management. It has, however, in the scope of the arrangements, been improved upon in my second company, the British American Land Company." Perhaps land com- panies in new countries were not Mr. Gait's forte, after all ; for even some of those who were kindly disposed to him are found saying that in his bush work he made what has been demonstrated a grave mistake, nan)ely, appointing persons to oversee the work who were in no way qualified for the task. For this last there is perhaps a partial excuse. He was not a man easily daunted by adverse circumstances ; but even with his powers of grasping a situation, he felt himself sorely handicapped in the administration of the affairs of a concern which had a capital of one million pounds or more, while the Board denied him the indulgence of bringing out even one clerk to assist him in petty details. The Accountant who was sent out, without Mr. Gait's pre- vious knowledge, to oversee not only the accounts but the Superintendent himself and his doings, made the latter's path a rough and thorny one ; and when, matters having grown more than he could stand, Mr. Gait determined to go to England to lay a personal request before the Directorate for investigation, the Accountant took an advantage of him by leaving for home, without warning, thus laying upon the Superintendent the necessity of remaining on the ground to take up the ends of the Accountant's work as well as to con- tinue his own. One result of the Englishman's return was a notification from the Board to the Bank at York to cease to honour Mr. Gait's drafts. Could a high-spirited man suffer a greater indignity ? His expedient for salvation was accepted by the Governor, and, as Mr. Gait says, " the bill was accord- ingly drawn, the honour of the Company saved." Major Strickland adds his quota to the kindly opinions 30 IN THE DAYH OF THE CANADA COMPANV. I ! ! expressed by those who know Oalt bcHt, his own being that " Gait (besides suffering misrepresentations before the home authorities) was ill-used by the Canadian Government." Granting that he was not in a luindredth degree deserving of the ill reports he suffered, Mr. Gait himself depicts a character with which it might, on occasions, be difficult to deal. His spirit of self-reliance wjis particularly shown in his attempts to form his second company entirely on his own responsibility, and in his mortification at being, in the end, forced to call a public meeting — " thus conniving in a mode of proceeding which took the initiatory of all proceedings out of my own hands." We hope, too, that ho merely availed himself of the poetic license in which he sometimes indulged, when he said that " he never scrupled . . . for a great good to do a little wrong." His wrongs, surely, were very little. The man's intentness of purpo.se cannot be beHer shown than by referring to his own description of a visit he paid to a Turkish fort : " In passing, I landed and measured the size of an enormous piece of brass ordnance ; the circumference of the calibre was sixty-five inches. . . . The innocent Turks belonging to the garrison gathered round, and it never occurred to me, until I was again at some distance from the place, the foolishness of the action. I wonder what would be said were a Turk to land on the fortifications of Portsmouth, and measure the size of the guns in the midst of the soldiers. But it quite escaped me that the Turkish soldiers had any- thing to do with the matter." He surprises us somewhat when he says, " I did not feel myself entering seriously the arena of life till I undertook my second mission to Canada. Absurd as the expression may seem, it is nevertheless just. Whatever I had done before, or encountered, seemed mere skirmishing to what then awaited me. When he left Britain a second time for Canada, he " took a lover's farewell of the Muses," intending to give himself to business cares solely. That, however, he was never able to do. THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 31 his regrets ami diHappointmonts, as readily as his ambitions and hopes, finding their way to paper. But many works claimed his attention, and he waH at all times proud of his road through the Huron Tract, the first overland communica- tion between the great lakes, Huron and Ontario. On one of his earlier journeys by water, when he intended to double (Jabot's Head, " the Good Hope of Canada," he did not forbear to set down Kome of his poetic tiiouglit.s as they came to him while his vessei sailed by " the houseless shores and shipless seas of Huron;" but the " predestinarianism " to which he owns he was almost u martyr, had fast hold of him, and the troubles and vexations, almo.st amounting to persecutions even then, with which he was besot, brought out all his Scottish imagination ; when " a vast moth as big as a bird flew over the boat in perfect silence, in coui-se and appearance not like any creature of the element, my imagination exalted it into an imp of darkness flying homeward." Open Gait's poems haphazard and one will find portrayal of morbid anticipation, the senti- ment of the line " O'er every birth a star of fate presides," prevailing — the star too often being an evil one. On this trip to Cabot's Head Mr. Gait was occasionally surprised and, if the truth were known, a little disgusted, at the number of negroes to be met in the Huron Tract. But, just, as ever, he seems to think the negroes entitled to consideration for the thrift which they were endeavouring to practise. Mixed with solicitude for his emigrants is a certain home- sickness which he does not seek to hide. In October, 1828, after adverse reports, circulated by tongues malicious to his interests, had almost succeeded in breaking down the Company, ho writes that he " has no time to think of any matter, but only of emigrants, and the tribe and train of vexations which they bring along with them." In the same letter he speaks of having sent " the boys " to school in the Lower Province, and concludes with, " I need not say that a gossiping letter is here an article above all price, and there is no chance of a glut in liill i ' ■ ill I ■ 1 i h 4 32 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. the market. Mrs. G. desires her kindest regards to you and all Musselburgh friends." And at another time he asks for a " chit-chatting" letter as the most welcome kind he could receive. But, after all, he took chief thought of emigrants. A philanthropic care for the well-being of all settlers brought directly or indirectly to his notice, an intense delight in Cana- dian scenery, a healthy liking for the occupations of the country, and a never-ceasing endeavour to better the condition of the hard-working home-seekers who coiled so bravely in the new world, all went to the making of the less troubled side of Gait's sojourn in Canada. But the time came when he felt he must leave the country finally. He was then doubly anxious that his accounts shotild be audited and his transactions fully inspected, with the result that two of the best qualified men in the United States to so act reported upon his doings in terms of powerful and efficient vindication. From the time of his first visit to Albany Mr. Gait enter- tained a warm liking for many Americans ; and during a later visit to Buifalo he was confirmed in his respect for them. In Albany he had been dined by De Witt Clinton ; but the atten- tion, he thought, was chiefly due to Mrs. Clinton's admiration for " Micah Balwhidder." The lady herself appealed strongly to Mr. Gait's regard, as he " recognized at once a very striking likeness to my mother." In Buffalo, where a distressing state of health and much mental disquietude could not obscure his humorous appreciation of events as they passed before him, we find him describing the hotel as one that " beats the Waterloo Tontine or the Regent Bridge of Edinburgh (as the Yankees would say) to immortal smash." On the same visit he was accorded an honour on entering the theatre at which no man could fail to feel a thrill of gratification, the orchestra striking up a Scottish air to welcome him ; but his loyal spirit was more truly pleased when, out of compliment to the naval friends who were with him, the orchestra played " Rule Britannia " and " God Save the King." His testimony agrees with that of other writers of his time, and even later, that the names of the King THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 33 and Canning were treated with respect and regard by the Americans. Much interest would have been added to our reading of Gait's life had those persons who thought it worth writing about seen fit to give us a clearer picture of the domestic side. Certainly he himself gives little prominence to the episode, of his marriage; but his letters bear witness to the love, even when shielded by Scotch restraint, and anticipation which he put into his home-making at " The Priory" and " The Mountain." Of the former residence he writes, in October, 1828 : " About a month ago, after sending the boys to school in the Lower Province, I brought Mrs. Gait to this city, for now it begins to be worthy of the name, where, all things considered, we are not uncomfortable. Our house, it is true, is but a log one, the first that was erected in the town ; but it is not with- out some pretension to elegance. It has a rustic portico formed with the trunks of trees, in which the constituent parts of the Ionic order are really somewhat intelligibly displayed. In the interior we have a handsome suit of public rooms, a library, etc. But we have only one associable neighbour. ... It is not entirely void of truth that I have some intention of sending home, in the spring, a quire or two about Canada. ... I expect, also, in the long quiet winter nights, to prepare another volume for Blackwood." Mrs. Gait, who was the daughter of an editor — Gait's good friend. Dr. Tilloch — had little cause to love her life in Canada ; but, such as it was, her husband gave to the welfare of his family due thought. With all his absorption in affairs, Mr. Gait never fails to be interested in the doings and sayings of his children, and he devotes a telling paragraph to a description of the play en- gaged in by his two boys with some young Indians — a kind of wild animal never before seen by these two lads fresh from England, but instantly approached with that noble spontaneous- ness which was one of the great and natural weapons of the Gait family when dealing with unknown dangers. On another occasion, when the father wondered " when men cease to be 3 -ir 34 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. children," his son John, a Solomon of three years, sagely remarked that "Papa is the biggest boy I ever knew." In spite of the difficulties which beset him, Mr. Gait long retained the feelings of his boyhood, his heart remaining young. In after time, when he felt impelled to settle himself definitely, his decision was made because " the boys were coming fast for- ward." " You will be surprised that I take no interest in the Reform question ; but the boys are fierce Tories. By the way, the tale in Bogle Corbet is a joint composition of Tom and Alexander, with scarcely a word altered. I have preserved the MS. from which it is printed, and they are engaged on another which is still better. The manners of the trio are somewhat singular, for the whole party have not one companion of their own age, but all their friendships are among their elders." On the 25th April, 1833, he writes : "John and Thomas have sailed for Canada, and you cannot imagine how much this event disconcerts me. . . . John, poor fellow, goes with my full concurrence, though I cannot say the same of Thomas ; but I submit. He is himself in the meantime pleased, but the Canada Company have not acted towards his father so as to give me the slightest hope." The sadness of this letter is completed in its last sentence ; " but I am so helpless, and so many troubles perplex me that require a stouter health to withstand." After that the time was spent in suflTering under and fighting his maladies, while he still looked forward to going with his youngest son to Canada, " where the boys are." But Alexander was suddenly ordered off", and the father in discussing what ultimate effect this move will have on his determination, says : " As yet I am only sensible of his absence." When asked to take up the work of forming still another company, he is made to feel his " inability only more acutely," and is " still a little flattish in parting with Alexander." Some works of reference in noting " Gait, the celebrated Scottish novelist," credit him with two sons only. In the light of Mr. Gait's own letters, this is a mistake not to be excused. THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 35 John Gait the younger, with his handsome face and kindly courtesy of mind and manner, was not a man to bo lightly for- gotten by those who had the privilege of his friendship. His too early death was truly mourned; and had he lived, his character showed that he could not have been kept from reach- ing as prominent a place in the records of Canada as that held by each of his brothers. Of his father Mr. Gait says little, but that little comes from the heart when he writes that " My father was one of the best, as he was one of the handsomest men." Of his mother we know much more. During his early years of delicacy, when his time was given to gardening and verse making, music and mechanics, she watched him, as he then thought, too closely and carefully, and when all his whims were swallowed up in his love for books she feared his lack of constitutional strength, and also hesitated to increase his unbusiness-like proclivities. Afterwards, with deep regret, she deplored her resolute oppo- sition to his passion. Her influence was felt by her son throughout his life, and his "Autobiography " contains an affect- ing account of her death. At a time when Mr. Gait's mind was stretched on the rack of apprehension, fearing that even yet the Canada Company might burst and thus injure many friends whom he had induced to participate in the concern — during the period when the great controversy between the three powers concerned was pending — he composed " The Omen," considered by his biographers to be one of the most beautital and most elaborately finished of his productions. The melancholy tone of the motive received additional food from his surroundings at that time; and one touch calculated to complete his woe was supplied in the manner of the death of his mother. A man of deep feeling and strong attachment, Gait was at all times a devoted son. One of his biogi-aphers takes occasion to remark that Gait owed his chief parts to his mother, if, indeed, " genius and talent are to be considered at all as hereditary." ■i! Mil ! I'll 86 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. The Superintendent was invariably interested in the face of Nature, whether at home or abroad, and he never lost sight of the beauties to be found on his Canadian trips, even when he was, as usual, single-minded for the furtherance of the good of the Company. Of the day on which he gave their names to points on the Grand River, he thus writes : " The day was bright and beautiful, and the trees seemed pleased to see themselves in the clear flowing water. I do not now recollect all the names we gave to the different points. One peninsula, however, that was an island when the snow melted, we called Eldon's Doubt ; another bold bluff" promon- tory, overlooking a turbulence in the stream, we called Can- ning's Front ; and a violent rapid was hailed, in honour of one I could not but consider accessory to our being in such wilds, as- Hoi-ton's Hurries. But it would seem the name was not well taken, for in sailing over it a rock in a most spiteful manner damaged our scow, so that she was more than half full before we could get the ladies landed in a little bay, where the water at the brink was only eight feet deep. By this time it was sun- set, and we had to traverse the forest for some distance before reaching the clearing. At last we got to a farm-house of one Walter Scott, who came, of all places in the world, from Selkirk. We stayed with him that night, and as there is a shallow in the Grand River near his house, we called it Abbots- ford. We thence proceeded to Brants ford, the Indian village, and thence into tlie purlieus of civilization, from which, by the pretty, breezy town of Ancaster on the Bay, I went alone to York. . . . This descent of the Grand River furnished me afterwards with the idea of that similar excursion, which I have described in ' Lawrie Todd.' " Long afterwards, when all business projects had failed him, Mr. Gait went to his desk with a dogged determination to make his pen stand by him to the end of life ; and it was at this time, while labouring under all the morbid introspection which then clouded his mind, that " Lawrie Todd," perhaps his most popular work, was produced. This book received its THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 87 starting point at a meeting with Mr. Grant Thorburn,* of New York, when that person furnished Mr. Gait with his autobio- graphy. To Little York Gait was not very complimentary, describing it in short terms as a place " provocative of blue devils." For Quebec he had almost an affection, and when speaking of Malta as " the kindliest place I was ever in," he qualifies the praise with " save Quebec, in Canada." Some of his few happy Canadian memories were associated with the old capital ; for when, on his second coming to this country, he found he was to undergo all the trials to w^hich at home he had felt himself predestined — " At length the Demon of his Destiny bade Fortune frown, as with a sudden blight," — the misrepresenta- tions made to Sir Peregrine Maitland on his arrival follow- ing Mr. Gait in their baleful effect throughout the remainder of his colonial career, a temporary mitigation of the Super- intendent's position was provided by the kindliness of the Governor-in-Chief and his lady at Quebec. While there his spirits recovered sufficiently to allow him to write a farce, a very successful production, which was performed by the mem- bers and friends of the garrison. " In the course of this time the gentlemen of the garrison got up an amateur theatre, and I engaged to write for them a farce, in which the peculiarities of the inhabitants were to be caricatured. It was not, however, all mine. No less than thirty-three contributors gave jokes and hints to the composition, and some of the characters were outlined by the performers themselves. It was admirably acted ; and what was as good, it yielded fifty pounds to the Emigrant Society of the city, and left a considerable balance, nearly as much, to be appropriated to the expenses of fitting up the theatre. Their Excellencies the Governor-in-Chief and Lady Dalhousie came in state, and as everybody was resolved * During our Paul Pryish peregrinations in New York we dropped in on the identical Lawrie Todd, and found him busy sweeping out the boards of his store with a broom, the handle of which towered far above the head of the dust dis- turbing hero."— Z). Wilkie'B "Summer Trip to New York and the Canadan" 1837. Il I i ! i i'i li i^! i 88 lA THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. to be pleased nothing could go better. ... By the way, I should not forget that Dunlop the 'Backwoodsman,' better known as the ' Tiger,' performed the part of a Highland chief- tain. For those who know his appearance and grotesque man- ner, I need not say how ; the rest of the world cannot conceive a moiety of his excellence. Of my friend I cannot give a more descriptive character than a gentleman once gave of him to me. He said Mr. Dunlop was a compound of a bear and a gentleman. I did not know that bears were so good natured." The names of Gait and Dunlop have a connection earlier than t.i\e days of the Canada Company. An ancestor of the former, oiH> John Gait, when banished — for no crime — to Carolina, iov uci in che same ship the Rev. William Dunlop (afterwards PrincipAl of Glasgow University), who deemed it prudent to absent hvii ilf from home at that time. His lineal descendant, Mi. G&il'i' .iO ^ f •.'.'.or, had no claim to the title of reverend. But, if not reverend, he was a true man ; and it was a constant, if unspoken, gratification to the much-harassed Superintendent to have so closely associated with him one who followed his thoughts and appreciated his actions, the clannish friendship which exists between two Scotchmen hailing from the same neighbourhood clinging to each man. As to Doctor Dunlop's assumed uncouthness, in another connection Mr. Gait says it was more his own habit " to look at God's creatures than at the works of the tailor or milliner;" and in the saying we miss the " Thou fool " which another Scotchman has loved to hurl at inoffensive little tailor-made souls. Mr. Gait himself was never other than the " plain gentleman." " I was, doubtless, not born in the hemisphere of fashion, but I have lived in it as much as a plebeian should do who had any respect for himself." There is no snob clot on the Gait brain. While giving his best thought to his duties, this poetical company inceptor had always time for a second glance at the face of Nature. Once, when caught in a spring flood in a valley of the Mohawk, he described it as " an elegant extract from the universal deluge. What have the Yankee poets to do with U ! THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 39 translating European descriptions? There was more origi- nality of poetry in the business of that morning than in all the rhyme they had yet published." He tells us of " that rare and visionary reflection of land in the water, of which no one has given any satisfactory explana- tion," and he revels for four hours in the sight afforded him when his vessel lay off Cabot's Head. In his tales of journey- ing witli " singing boatmen, a race fast disappearing," he and Bonnycastle, Bond Head, Strickland and McTaggart make ug think that the poetry of travel which f'^sappeared with the advent of steam can never be made up to us by present speed and comforts. Mr. Gait's literary career began before infancy was left behind. When six years of age we find him putting together some couplets inspired by the death of two pet larks ; and later on, when he read Pope's Iliad, his young brain was so wrought upon that he fell upon his knees, praying that some day a like power might be his. His school days were scattered — days and weeks of dreaming over his mechanical contrivances, or spent in hunting out old crones who could tell him tales of older times, taking up much of his early boyhood ; and the life thus led, with its consequent lack of healthy boyish occupation, fostered his originally vivid imagination. Chief of his old cronies was the mother of young Uueliland, a gallant flag-officer to Nelson. She told a stirring tale of her son's death at Trafalgar, and the little Gait spent many an hour in her cottage. He was long enough at school, however, to make some friendships which were terminated only by death, one being with William Spence, the future author of " A Treatise on Logarithmic Transcendents," the other and chief aflection being given to James Park, who in process of time became Gait's literary mentor. Another friend whose subsequent movements were of interest was Eckford, the future architect of the American Navy. But throughout Gait's life he turned to Park for counsel or appreciation, and Park never failed him. Their correspondence shows that the tie between • 40 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. U ;i ii; i I theiu was Htrong enough to stand a friendly candour. When Park replied to Gait's request for criticism on '* The Life and Administration of Cardinal Wolsey," he wrote that " the digni- fied declamatory style has certainly its advantages, but the worst of it is that it is apt to tire by its monotony," adding a line or two pointing out weaknesses ; but the general tone of the letter is laudatory both to tlie man and his work. Gait himself says that before he went abroad his style was declama- tory, and that on his return he found it changed to the senten- tious. In another letter. Park makes a descriptive comparison: " Were we words instead of men, you would be a verb active, with a strong optative mood." He further reminds Gait that " an author, by the frecjuent perusal of his MS., comes to lose his tact entirely, and may be benefited by the criticism of the very printers' devils." Without doubt, Mr. Gait had laid to heart Seneca's ideas on precept and good counsel. " Schemes " indulged in by lads of the present day would have been translated into " high emprise " by these Greenock boys. Mr. Gait gives us a description of their ardent doings, when, at the time of the breaking out of the second Revolu- tionary War, they formed themselves into a corps, and full of patriotism and military ambition offered themselves to their country, which did not properlj'^ appreciate the gift. Then their energies turned to the forming of a literary society, which, to their credit be it said, had a somewhat lengthy existence. Mr. Gait says that they met once a month " to read all sorts of essays on every kind of .subject," characterizing his own as " rigmaroles;" but he had older readers, who declared the frothy manuscript held the mark of a noble soul which was destined to develop. From ordinary school days and days afield when he and Park studied land surveying, from the Customs House at Greenock and the mercantile office of Miller & Company, it is a long step to the point he early tried to reacli in the society of the Muses. Often they would have none of him, scorning his rough Scotch wooing. Neither they nor Fortune smiled upon him, even when THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 41 he carried his pursuit to London. There, h«> say.s, he had neither friend nor acquaintance, " as forlorn an adventurer as could well be." When he had rid himself, anonymously, of his " Battle of Largs," he once more took up mercantile life. But a few years of struggle, intensified by the longing of his soul for a different groove, made him turn to the Bar. At the time that he became a member of Lincoln's Inn there were few better read young men of his age to be found; and his researches on his " Life of Wolsey " opened some libraries to him which were a source of never-ending delight and instruction. A dweller in many cities, his months of sojourn in individual spots made him, in his exten.sive travels, fill his naturally receptive mind with a store of information which turned to his advantage when he found himself forced to authorship in his time of desperate need. Mr. Gait, candid in all things, owns that his " ruling passion is love of fame ; " and " the high faith in his own powers when young " did not desert him through the sorrows of later life. A certain part of the fame he sought to attain now seems to be his, and Canada contains many a testimonial to his correct prevision. The man of whom a book of reference says, " In 1834 he came back to Scotland poverty-stricken and broken in health, and after suffering repeated shocks of paralyses, died at Greenock, April 11, 1839," is the man who did for western Scotland what Scott did for the east ; and it is good to know that this fact is not forgotten in these days of appreciation of " A Window in Thrums," and " Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush." There were some friends who asserted that Gait's name would live. To Mr. Blackwood Gait owed much. The great editor, ever acute and far-seeing^ recognized the little-known writer's forte, and Mr. Gait did not hesitate to affirm that it was to Blackwood's he owed his first success, with an encouragement to go on and prosper. The self-confidence thus given him by one qualified to know whereof he spoke freed Mr. Gait's hand in his sub- sequent work. 42 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. The friendship which then began between the two men afterwards underwent a coolness for a very common cause — a woman — an imaginary female, it is true, but nevertheless too real for Mr. Blackwood. As at that time Mr. Gait was harassed by Canadian concerns, in addition to feeling all the throes of composition upon him without opportunity for a proper out- let, he felt in double measure the cessation of confidence result- ing from Mr. Blackwood's too candid criticism of Mrs. Soorocks in " The Last of the Lairds." In effect the criticism was the highest praise, for he spoke as if she had been a real being, and in a letter written by Mr. Gait on the Ist of October, 1826, he says he wants no better proof of having succeeded in his conception. In 1834, when both men were in Edinburgh, Mr. Blackwood, laid on that sick bed from which he was never to rise, and Mr. Gait, shattered and feeble, endeavouring to give attention to the publication of his " Literary Miscellanies," although separated by not more than one hundred yards be- tween their residences, they were destined not to meet. It was, however, a source of mutual gratification that many kindly messages passed between them, their intercourse at the close of life resuming the friendliness of former years. Many of Mr. Gait's mental disturbances date from the issue of his " Life of Byron." In an article which appeared in Edinburgh, in May, 1839, soon after his death, its writer, after enumerating Gait's good qualities as an author, balances the reluctantly given prajse by asserting that he was too frequently dry and tedious in detail ; and it characterizes his " Life of Byron" as erroneous, absurd and incompetent. Read in the light of Mr. Gait's explanation, it does not appear so incom- petent. His personal knowledge of Byron dated from the day of his arrival at Gibraltar, when setting out on his travels ; and by the time Malta was reached, Mr. Gait had discovered the littleness of the great poet. " All the passengers except Byron and Hobhouse being eager I to land, went on shore with the captain. Byron let out the | secret of his staying behind to me, an expected salute from the THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 48 B two men »n cause — a srtheless too ras harassed tie throes of proper out- lence result- [rs. Soorocks ism was the il being, and ber, 1826, he eded in his inburgh, Mr. ivas never to iring to give Miscellanies," ed yards be- to meet. It 1 that many •i batteries, and sent ashore notice to Sir Alexander Ball, the Governor, of his avatar, but the guns evinced no respect of persons, so that the two magnates were obliged to slip into the town at the heel of the evening, unnoticed and unknown." Between the time of Mr. Gait's return date when his family joined him there, pen that his literary labours added and his secluded life naturalli physical state. At this despom^H^hicture roused by Messrs. Col bourn of Byron ; and scarcely wasj Lockhart & Murray begged ■yf!|^^(?dep^^tjie editorship Courier. A true friendship' hart, which was broken only Mr Gait, thinking himself qualTti©4 for something more use- ful than " stringing blethers into rhyme or writing clishma- j elavers in a closet," accepted the editorship. " It did not appear that there was any particular craft requisite to conduct a newspaper." For once his perceptions failed him. However, j ignorant as he was of those things which go to the making of an editor's success, he thought he found out *' that no species of literature affords so wide a scope for annoyance, or calls for less [ knowledge, than the editorship of a newspaper." In a letter penned in July, 1830, he complains that the [editor's chair is by no means- a comfortable one for a man of his [tastes and bias ; so he accordingly " begged off." In the same [letter he speaks of his " Life of Byron," and the way in which he Iwas tracing the poet's various motives. " You will be surprised jto see how little invention has been used, and yet how, by the Imere force of genius, he should have rendered matters of fact so Ipoetical." Confirmed ill-health was now upon Mr. Gait, and he " could 10 longer equivocate to himself that the afternoon of life was come, and the hour striking," while he knew he " was overpast the summit of his strength." This was not a favourable time in Iwhich to write his biography of the poet, a work which is known 44 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I Jill J] I : h ) ii to have done its author much harm, but wliich did not deserve the hisliin^ it received at the liands of Hohhouso and Moore. For whatever Mr. Gait advances he jjives hi.s reasons ; and in his "Literary Life" he states explicitly the fou '•^tion on which he built his production. In a letter to a liti j friend he says, " I did not expect that my account of Byron would provoke adversaries amon^ tho.se who did not know him." Ljiter he writes : " Notwithstanding all the clamour, however, being on one side, the book is already in a third edition, nearly ten thousand copies being sold. I am (staying) with an old friend of his lordship ; and his cousin, Mt. H n, seems to think 1 have chosen the only proper course in treating of his waywardness." Besides being a widely informed nuin on general subjects and specially versed in many, we Hnd Mr. Gait to be slightly conversant with a few which a man of narrower rpuge might easily have missed. At Palermo, where he was so 3h inter- ested in those " few giblets of antiquity," he adder is store. And during successive periods of his life we find him giving his views to the public on all subjects, from the timber trade to printers' ink, from alchemy and mechanics to witchcraft and predestination ; the history of sugar and the bullion question to casuistry and heraldry. Of music, too, he prided himself upon knowing somewhat. He once set two airs which he in- tended to appear in " Rothelan ; " but the printer was also musical, and a substitution was the result. " Courteous reader, sympathize ! Listead of my two fine airs, with an original inflection that had been much admired by a competent judge, I beheld two that surely had been purchased at the easy charge of a half-penny apiece, from a street piper." Some musical instruments had been part of his boyish mechanical contrivances, but the two airs in question were his chief feats in the art of music since. His knowledge of those " giblets of antiquity " merely whetted his appetite for something more than giblets, and he gives us a racy account of the rape of the Elgin marbles. This THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 45 man of many works was witliin an aco of adding the thou- Mindth to luH number, by procuring the troasureH in his own name. That ho failed was due to the waking of Lord KIgin, not to his own nodding. It has been said, by those who affect to know, that the secret of Mr. Gait's lack of worldly success lay in the multiplicity of his resources. His stores of learning were not of a kind to stand him in practical stead ; the very grasp and comprehen- siveness of his mind led him into a speculative groove whence it was sometimes difficult to emerge. There seems to be but one opinion as to his position in the literary world, although some authorities do not arrive at their conclusion with ease. " For sonie years he tried his hand at almost every kind of literary com])osition," as Alden's Univer- sal Literature not too elegantly expn sses it. One reference which offers itself as a guide describes him as deficient in com- mercial caution and in deference to government and home authorities alike. A more painstaking person states that like all voluminous writers he was exceedingly unequal ; but in his rich humour, genuine pathos and truthful representation of nature, he is not surpassed even by Scott ; that his humour is broader and more contagious than Scott's, and that his pictures of the sleepy life in old Scottish towns are unrivalled in litera- ture ; that it would be difficult to overrate the immense services which he has rendered alike to the history of the manners and to the history of the life of the Scottish people. Alan Cun- ningham adds an opinion as to Gait's variety of tools, and his capability in using them ; but for more definite praise we may turn to the effect created by the appearance of his writings and the testimony which some of them received from Scott. His tale, " The Omen," was honoured by the greater writer's praise ; and as the real author was for long not suspected, Mr. Gait had the pleasure of hearing it ascribed to first one and then another of his contemporaries who held a much higher place in the literary world than he. " Annals of the Parish " was composed years before the ! 46 IN THE DAYS OP THE CANADA COMPANY. 1 1| ' appearance of "Waverley" and "Guy Mannering," although some of his detractors tried to prove that they inspired it. When it was refused by the publishers as something entirely toD Scotch, and therefore not likely to take, it was thrown f.side and forgotten until his success in Blackwood's made him remember his neglected MS. The reception which his " Chronicle of Dalmailing " received put the finishing touch at that period to the establishment of Mr. Gait's reputation as an author. At the same time it was considered that his work bore too great evidence of hurry. Many of his first thoughts as given to the world he would have surely cancelled on a sober review ; but it is claimed for them that underlying all crudities could be discerned the vigor- ous and searching intellect and original thought which de- veloped in later time. His friends thought that his v;^orks might have better stood the criticism of succeeding generations had he given a little care to re-reading ; but always his inclina- tion, and later his circumstances, made him think it wise to write and print almost simultaneously, his copy often not being more than a page in advance. This habit is responsible for some of the phrases which, with his love of elegance, he would otherwise have polished out of existence. " The Entail," lauded by Byron and said by some critics to be Gait's best work, is worthy of record as having been read thrice by Scott and by Byron. "The Spaewife" was drama- tized by Thomas Dibdin, and when played before George IV. that monarch was so well pleased that he sent his congratula- tions to the author; but the most valuable acknowledgment came from Miss Edgeworth, while Gait was in Canada, in the form of a critical letter. " Ringan Gilhaize " was the only novel ever recommended from a Scottish pulpit — a kind of criticism much appreciated by the author. In " The Lives of the Players " he claims no literary merit for the book itself, but he asks for the players a more percep- tive regard than the world hac' "therto given them. For him- THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 47 self he says, " No composition with which I was ever engaged was so pregnant with instruction, or taught the necessity of being more indulgent towards the aberrations of mankind." " The Ayrshire Legatees " published anonymously and rank- ing in Scotland much as " Humphrey Clinker " in England, was credited with no lower a paternity than Waverley. With his " Battle of Largs " he was fairly satisfied, saying " the reviewers were endurable for a young writer, not then ac- (juainted with how small a modicum of knowledge is required to enable a critic to begin business." Another critic, Disraeli, gratified him with an appreciation of " The Life of Wolsey ; " but about the appearance of a later work, " Bogle Corbet," he was not so happy. " It is another proof, if one were wanting, that booksellers step from their line when they give orders like to an upholsterer for a piece of furniture." Mr. Gait regained some of his interest in the outside world when he heard of the great Liverpool company which intended to make New Brunswick the scene of its operations, and he used his best eflforts to form a counter company on what appeared to him better lines. Not succeeding in this, he attempted to bring the two companies into one ; but that design was a failure, and at length he found himself unanimously elected provisional secretary of the company which by his efforts he had formed. During this busy time he had continued to write ; but his works of that period are not those on which to base his reputa- tion as an author. " Stanley Buxton " is a diflficult book to criticize and at the same time to give its author due considera- tion for his intention ; while " The Member " and " The Radical," evidently turned off from the hand of an artist, received little attention in Britain. In France, however, they attracted more notice than any of his other productions. " Eben Erskine " is rated as a clever book and one most suggestive of the changes which took place in Mr. Gait between the times of the penning of his earlier and his later works ; and further it is supposed to contain glimpses of the history of his own youth. 'II \ M \m r: 48 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. Of such alteration he says : " Men are like the chameleon ; they take a new colouring from the objects they are among; the reptile itself never alters either in shape or substance." While he gives us that sentiment he is at the same time depicting the changes of character which overtook him. His pen pictures of the Scotland of his day make the reader wish he had given equal attention to the life and times he found in his wanderings abroad. But even when abroad, his " visita- tions of infirmity " were upon him, and writing was often a labour. When ill at Athens, he employed himself in " the un- profitable industry of poem-making ; " his " excuse for such foolishness was that verses were things of small bulk, easily carried about and, if lumber, were not heavy." When he engaged in " the not very gentlemanly occupation " of writing his own life, he did so while much depressed from circumstances and broken in health. But even in his extremity of pain his sense of humour did not desert him, and we find him declaring that " although a man who has wrestled eleven times with paralysis cannot hide his weakness, his imbecility need not be shown too obviously." In criticizing some of his own sentences, in a letter to Park he says " They showed how green I must have been in my knowledge of the world not to think ignorance and folly had as much to do with human affairs as interest." He was not always complimentary to his own poetry, although, when the critics had agreed he was not at his happiest in verse, he says, in 1833, " As to my poems, I begin to think they are not so bad." But once, when looking back at some of his lines, he exclaims, " Good God ! to think that one was ever so young as to write such stuff!" In 1834 he apologizes for the number of his poems, saying that " it is easier to compose verses in bed than even to dictate prose." Of his general authorship he says : " Notwithstanding I have put together so many booKS and have become so various an author, it has been rather in con- sequence of the want of active engagement than from a pre- dominant predilection for the art." In his diction he could THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 49 be ponderous enough when occasion required, but he was not afraid to express himself in easy form. His request to a friend for a chit-chatting letter is an example of the style in which he conducted much of his early correspondence, his stilted phrases being reserved for cold business and inter- course with those persons who expressed ideas distasteful to him. As to ideas, he adhered to his own with true northern obstinacy. He was not fitted to write of himself as he really was. Perpetual ill-health, culminating in terrible disease, ill-fortune in business and unremunerative literary labour, all tended to bring about a morbidness of mind which made his introspection more painful than trustworthy. Althoiigh he really possessed the power of discriminating character, " which is an attainment that stud}'^ may acquire, but is not much calculated to increase a man's happiness," he sometimes felt himself wounded where no slight was meant ; and there were some pet children of his brain which the critics did not agree with him in admiring. But a man's intellectual power need not be measured by its weakest point. L. E. L., when referring to the superiority of his Scottish novels over his other attempts, thus sums up : " He was, like Antajus, only great when he touched his mother earth." In the criticism of others Gait was noble. He gives a whole- hearted version of his view of " Ivanhoe," and in all his mention of Scott there is no hint of the jealousy which a lesser light so often feels towards a greater. Pure admiration and apprecia- tion are the only elements in his criticism of the great man whom Scotland and the world will go on loving and honouring to the end of time. Scott was, indeed, " one of those rare char- acters lent to the world as a pattern, to show how respectable human nature may become." No jealous man could have said that " there is a kind of inexpressible pleasure in being con- temporary with great men, to witness their dawn and enjoy their uprising." While it cannot be denied that Gait was open to the charge of being possessed by a huge egotism, a close look at the man 60 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. W ' ;4 will show that his was the egotism which is part of most great characters. A good man with a great character, Gait narrowly escaped being a great man with a great character. Of pettinesses he possessed few. Even when his ill-wishers tried to quote to his disfavour his appreciation of the courtesies extended to him by those of higher rank, they could make little of the attempt. When speaki:.g of " The Spaewife," Mr. Gait, who was personally unknown to the King, tells with a pleased humility of the many attentions paid him by certain members of the Royal Family ; bXit the pleased humility never turns to arrogance. Nor had he a proper regard for filthy lucre. There have been geniuses who still appreciated lucre, even if filthy ; but Mr. Gait was not one of them. A man of the world, conversant with the habits, thoughts and customs of civilized society, he was still essentially not a man of the world, one of his characteristics being a total misappreciation of pecuniary matters, his interest only being properly roused where the comfort of his family was concerned. This inability to gather money brings his later life before the reader of his biography in a painful light. A believer in presentiments, he found on his arrival in London that his expected troubles came thick and fast, those touching the welfare of his family striking hard. One of the not least exasperating was that caused by the action of Doctor Valpy, of Reading, his sons' instructor, who, for auld lang syne, might have been expected to pursue a different course. From the time of his return until the end, physically he grew worse. After his removal to Old Brompton in 1831, his com- plaints gradually increased in force until he was doomed to hateful idleness. His only relaxation came by way of his mechanical contrivances, and he renounced the unprofitable art of poem-making. Later, he says : " My invalid condition dis- abled me from writing, and the state of my sight from reading,' so that he resumes his " pastime at the fireside of stringing j blethers up in ryhme." In June, 1832, his friend Moir thus writes of him : " When | li THE FATHER OF THE COMPANY. 51 we parted, seven years ago, he was in the prime and vigour of manhood, his eye glowing with health and his step full of elasticity. But instead of the powerful and vigorous frame, before me sat the drooping figure of one old before his time, crippled in his movements and evidently but half resigned to the curtailment of his mental and bodily exertions. . . . Notwithstanding all these depressing influences, added to the melancholy fact that his helplessness had come upon him just at the time when his most active exertions were necessary for the disposal in life of his three sons, who were all very dear to him and of whom he had every reason to be proud, he not only bore up with a cheerful magnanimity, but at every interval of comparative freedom from suffering took up his pen with all his olden diligence and industry." This picture is a sad one when compared with the idea given of Mr. Gait by an old man who himself makes a picturesque figure in Canada as one of an almost departed generation : " Gait was a fresh-coloured, splendid-looking man, almost six feet four, with a frame in proportion. Not a talkative man, but when questioned clear and courteous in his replies." The massive frame and general features have been faithfully reproduced in his descendants — the black hair and keen eyes, straight nose and curving upper lip over a finely-rounded chin, all being familiar. John Gait had played with capable fingers on the keyboard of life ; and when he recognized the loss of power that came upon him all too soon, the moment was bitter to bear. " When you see the old making their exit, and the young coming upon the scene and who push you from your stool, the tables are turned indeed. Reluctant to admit this to yourself, you become inordinately busy ; but at last you find all your efforts vain, and sullenly, in some cases it may be, submit to be elbowed from the thoroughfares of life." The proud spirit which had once taken as its motto : " Ne'er ask a favour which you cannot claim As due for serrices of gen'rous aim," 52 IN THB DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. was forced to give in to the " inextinguishable sense of help- lessness, sharpened with anguish, and the apprehensions which have usurped the seats of hope and health for ever." To one who had so rejoiced in conscious power, what anguish could be more exquisite than that conveyed in such sentences. And again we have him saying : ' ' The burning thought, the boding sigh. The grief unnamed that old men feel, The languid limbs that withering lie. The powerless will's effectless zeal ; All these are mine ..." Hampered in means, pursued by authors' troubles, a physical wreck, he and his wife desolated by the absence of their sons. Gait still struggled manfully to wrest from the world the living which he felt, on all counts, it owed him. But his moves from London to Edinburgh, thence to Greenock, from there to Gourock, and back again to Greenock, were productive of little good. His acute sufferings in the last years of his life turned to helpless, hopeless debility, while his financial affairs were in a state unguessed by his friends until too late. Sanguine to excess, of untiring industry, open, generous and unsuspicious, endowed with remarkable energy and talent, unselfish, unaffected and sincere, true in his attachments and pure-minded in purpose, is the character written of John Gait by one who knew him best. A good man, and almost a great, was this humorous Scottish novelist whose life was so pathetic. A writer in the National Observer says that the story of his life is the tale of a man of boundless energy, of considerable ambi- tion and of business capacity, ruined by an imagination that minimized difficulties and painted the future as he would have it ; qualities these that have made the Empire. CHAPTER III. CANADA AS THE COMPANY FOUND IT. "Tickler. — But what say you of the. colonies? "North. — Nothing. Canada is peevish, but we shcUt soon settle all that. A most honoured contributor, and a most excellent Tory — our friend Oalt — rtigns there in plenitude of power ; and the Department of Woods and Forests is under the control of a Lord Warden (the Tiger), whose learned hicubrations have fignrtd in the Magazine. Under such control. Sir George Mvi^ray may rest contented. The remainder of the empire is as well as can be expected." It is somewhat of a task, in this age of railroads and electricity, to bring back pictures which lie hidden in an oblivion devoted to log huts and corduroy. If we depend entirely upon the literature of that day the pictures will surely not be flattering to our ancestors, and may hurt what is known as family pride. Those who drew them laid on colours made vivid by their own disappointments, the inevitable reaction following the excite- ment of emigration. They beheld in the rough exteriors and mannera of the native-born Canadians, and those long settled in the country, images of what they too might become under similar conditions. Hard toil had made men turn savageward rather than to the lighter and more cultivated phases of life. The means of learning even the rudiments of education were few ; the travelling preacher was the most cultivated man to be met ; a letter or a newspaper was perhaps a yearly affair ; there was little travel over the abominable roads ; and as amusement is ever a want bound to be supplied, an abuse of Scott's idea that a " life without mirth is as a lamp without oil," followed ; for in the absence of such as might be innocent, people often came together to indulge in that which was demoralizing. il ' 54 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. York they all pass by, in either letters or books, as uncon- genial, pretentious, or crude, and they complain that all Canadian towns had a straggling, unfinished look, as if the houses had not yet got accustomed to one another. But they watched with interest, and recorded at length, the red lights from fishing boats making vivid reflections in the waters beneath, the picturesque dress of a voyageur, or the multitudes of wild fowl and game in the lagoons and forests. They deemed it somewhat remarkable that the Canadian population, at that time drawn from all Europe and every State in the Union, should exhibit such small variety in manners, customs, dress, or mode of life. Germans, Highlanders, French, English, and Irish, soon fused and became " Canadian." The mass of them was of the kind — so says one historian — who, previous to their voyage, had never seen anything more luxurious than " murphies " and buttermilk, oaten cake and porridge, and were as little known to tea as the Highlander who, newly enrolled in a regiment, came for his allowance of coffee, but refused to be content with the " wish-wash " and demanded a goodly portion of the grains to eat, as they were more like to his own " crowdy." Again, this historian says : " Of all the vapid coxcombs upon earth, an Irish emigrant without education is the most intoler- able, the least amiable and the most preposterous, a perfect model of affectation." He is equally hard upon Canadian per- sonal appearance. " The men tall and slight and not badly proportioned, but with complexions little fairer than their Indian neighbours, with features good but utterly void of intel- ligence and expression. Inured to hardship from infancy, and always labouring in the open air, they become strong, athletic, and active." Was it wonderful that the life which made them thus strong physically entailed a void of intelligence and expression, when gloomy forests, rail fences, log huts and decayed stumps met the gaze from infancy, and were the last things looked upon ; when the hammer of the woodpecker, the growl of the bear, the 'n CANADA AS THE COMPANY FOUND IT. 55 monotone of the bluejay, or the melancholy song of the whip- |K)or-will, added minor sounds to Hombre sights. To most the prospect was confined to the limits of a mile ; the distances, with the bad roads, were bars to social intercourse ; and daily sustenance, growth, and harvest — an easy matter in that fertile virgin soil — made life soon beconje " To eat and drink and sleep. What then ? Why, eat and drink and sleep again." The seeds of melons, when carelessly strewed upon the ground and covered, without any further attention attained a degree of perfection in size and flavour which sounds apocryphal to the laborious owner of a latter-day hot-bed. An Upper Canadian melon was at the average when twenty pounds in weight, and fine at fifty ; much thrown away upon " a people who are little capable of duly appreciating the delicacies which their indul- gent skies scatter round them with such profuse liberality. If the climate of Canada were as unfavourable to the growth of fruit and vegetables as that of Great Britain and Ireland, its inhabitatits would live and die without ever partaking of either, for they are too indolent and careless to put forth those exertions which would then be necessary. If manna were showered down from heaven into their mouths, I dare say they would swallow it ; but if it fell upon the ground they would submit to a degree of partial starvation before they would take the trouble of collecting it." Canadians of those times fared sumptuously, not only every (lay but three times a day. A sample breakfast sounds Brad- wardian in its variety ; green tea and fried pork, honey-comb and salted salmon, pound-cake and pickled cucumbers, stewed chicken and apple tart, ginger bread and sauerkraut. Dinner was but a repetition, and supper da capo. The surprise parties, which were then a fashion, needed no baskets of provender for invaded homes and surprised hosts. Ten or twelve families often, indeed, set out in their sleighs for a neighbouring or distant farm ; but the sudden arrival of I 1 Pi ■if ' 1 :\i 56 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. twenty or thirty guests did not discompose a housekeeper whose larder was thus provided against breakfast time. The flour-barrel was never empty ; the pork tub was at hand ; the fowl house full ; and pies, tarts, preserves and cake were im- portant parts of the week's routine. The furniture used was of the most primitive kind. A bedstead roughly hewn out with a felling-axe, the sides, posts and ends held together in screeching trepidation by strips of basswood bark ; a bed of tine tield-feathers, a table like a butcher's chopping-block, four or five benches of rude mechanism, a sap-trough for the baby's cradle ; the indispensable apparatus for cooking ; the one luxury an American rocking-chair ; these constituted the fittings of an average Canadian interior. There was no idea of English cottage comfort. Inexhaustible supplies of pork, pumpkin-pie and sister dainties, satisfied present ambition. It was an era in the wife's dull round when the ut barn cloorH and invited protection with imploring looks andHhrnnken Hides. However, if they survived until spring, the supply of milk was e<|ual to that given by cared-for British cattle. In one township the loss ill one winter was fifteen humlretl head, and entirely from neglect. All this would make melancholy reading, were it not that these travellers' tales sometimes broaot <|uill of a Howison" and other contemporary pens were po' at least in so far as license made them so. At times their 60 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. i ■ , i , !4: pages reveal an epidemic of nostalgia. " The very stones are not like those of England ; . . . the grass is not of the same colour ; even the very suubeams are not as I have felt them." No wonder that one, more honest in his advice than most others, adjures those left behind : " Do not leave your country unless obliged. If you be so, go to Canada. Persevere, and you will attain a comfortable mediocrity." The Upper Canada Gazette of 1818 says : " The swift steam- boat Walk-in-tlte- Water is intended to make a voyage early in the summer from Buffalo, on Lake Erie, to Mackinaw, on Lake Huron, for the conveyance of company. The trip has so near a resemblance to the famous Argonautic expedition in the heroic that expectation is quite alive on the subject." There was no more engrossing theme in the Company, once Gait and his helpers were at York, than this question of loco- motion. In a measure, the possession by the Canada Company of the Huron Tract was due to the ever- vexed question of the Clergy Reserves, the tract having been thought an equivalent for them. To the west and north-west of New London all was unknown wild land. The office at York was a small room, some ten feet square. Here a quartette might be seen, deliber- ating, arguing ; their system and plans regulated by the meagre facilities offered by the country, but their brains suggesting and elaborating schemes which are generally considered as belonging to latter-day wit. There was an experimental farm ; a way to utilize rapids for power ; and, most glorious dream of all, to go by canal from Quebec to Superior, pass the notches of the Rocky Mountains, and lock down the Columbia to the Pacific ; Nootka would yet be as large as London, made so by the trade froii the Orient; and with a steam packet line between London and Quebec, " we may come and go between China and Pritri a in about two months. The names of the stations wj l be J ' idon, Cove of Cork, the Azores, Newfoundland, Qu'^oec, Montreal, Kingston, Port Dalhousie and Maitland, Erie, Huron and Superior, Rocky Mountains, Athabt. ;ka, Nootka, and Canton. Can this be called a foolish prophecy, an idle dream ? By no means ; it is perfectly practicable." CANADA AS THE COMPANY FOUND IT. 61 Seated at the table in that office was John MacDonald, sur- veyor and draughtsman, soon to be named " Stout Mac," from his feats of strength in taking loads up the steep cliffs at Goderich ; large, fair, sanguine-complexioned. Highland in voice and accent, painstaking and a trifle slow. Up and down the confined space paced John Gait, keen of perception, of good constructive and administrative ability, and of cultured mind, as his books and the records of the inception of the Company tell for all time. Now even his phlegmatic humour was tried by the High- lander seated at his little table ; and as he paced slowly up and down he would say, " I'm not in a hurry, Mr. MacDonald." Gradually the pace increased with anxiety, but he still assei'ted, " I'm not in a harry, Mr. MacDonald." He knew that to do a thing at the right moment was the soul of expedition, and he had come to that point when the amount already done seemed nothing when looking forward to all there was to do. Hard by was Charles Pryor, confidential friend and secretary. Of him, Mr. Gait's o\vn record is, " Mr. Pryor's fault is to see things too well done." The last figure in the group was that of the Warden of the Forests of the Canada Company. This man's physique challenged inquiry ; a remarkable man, and one destined to play the most prominent part in the history of the Huron Tract, his look inspired confidence and won aflTection and respect. Already William Dunlop's Canadian experience had been great. He is one of the forgotten heroes of 1812, and he waa the maker of the road to Ptnetang, when that lake point pro- mised to become a place of defence and a dockyard for western Canada. He had then as narrow escapes from death as at the more stirring ?cene of the siege of Fort Erie. Once he and his dog got separated from his following of voyagours and axemen ; night came on, and in a temperature far lyjlow zero there was neither camp nor food for defence against it He dug a hole in the snow, stretched himself in it, and the dog lay upon his chest. In the morning the little animal was dead, and he him- ■■;,;'! r •|-:i 62 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. self in such a state that later, when found by his companions, it took months of the best nursing to restore him and to save his members from amputation. At Fort Erie he was surgeon in the 89th — a raw-looking young man who appeared to have outgrown his clothes: his sleeves reached but a short Way below his elbows, and his trousers refused to cover his ankles — in all, a military Smike. His proportions were herculean, and his strength the same ) his movements and gait were ungainly, and showed little of his long military training! At the assault, our men were beaten back with many killed, and the wounded were still within reach of the enemy's fire. When daybreak appeared, Dunlop, whose avocation was man-curer rather than man-killer, ran through the firing to look closer, and saw some of the wounded who had been unable to get to the rear or even beyond gun range. He caught one man up, carried him to a place of safety, returned for another, and so continued until he had ten or twelve patients safe under the shade of a friendly tree. The last to be brought was struck in the knee. Dunlop heaved him upon his back, but on laying him on the ground found that a mortal wound in the back had been received in transitu. Thus the surgeon escaped a wound which would have terminated a most interesting career. He had six of the soldiers' wooden canteens slung over his shoulder filled with wine for the wounded ; this he now administered and attended to them surgically. In after years it is recorded of him that it waa his habit to raise his glass high before touching it to his lips, with an invariable toast, " The Queen, God bless her." The Victoria Cross could not have rewarded a braver man. Now, as he stands in the Company's office at York, the high- pitched Highland voice of the surveyor, the measured accents of the imperturbable Oalt, and the soft voice of the English Pryor, are interrupted often by chaff" and badinage and the hearty " Ho ! ho ! ho ! " of Dunlop. That laugh is one of the liveliest memories of him among the few who can remember him, which is somewhat remarkable, for an old family chronicle tells us that " Uncle William was never seen to laugh until he was CANADA AS THE COMPANY FOUND IT. 68 three years old, when he saw a woman at her door with two full water stoups ; a man came up and kicked them over. An old friend commented that he had at last found a joke suited to his capacity." His dress was characteristic. He at once assumed a Cana- dian aspect by wearing homespun garments, grey, with a large check ; the big Scotch-featured head-piece, covered with a shock of red hair, was guarded by the broadest of bonnets, or on occasion with a to()ue, red tasselled, as Canadian as the homespun. Round his huge shoulders he wore a plaid ; gloves he despised, but his boots proclaimed a wholesome dread of the possibilities under foot in the bush. He spoke the broadest of Scotch, rolled his r's and interpolated his h's till the oft-repeated " Huron Tract " became in his mouth a reverberation as sonor- ous as the long swell of the Mer Douce, upon whose beauties, grave and gay, he would discourse by the hour. Gait tells us that he himself was not, and never had been, a politician, but Tiger Dunlop was a Tory of the Tories. He had now become an enthusiastic pioneer and colonizer, and his energy, kindliness, bravery and compassionate benevolence were to be taxed to the utmost in the twenty and odd years of remaining life. They were about to build Guelph, name-child of royalty, like Rome upon its many hills, and already had made preparatory expeditions into the woods. But Guelph. as a name, was not pleasing to the Directors, and they peremp- torily decreed that it should be changed to Goderich. Gait's first consultations on Canadian affairs were held personally with Lord Goderich. His was a great name with the Company, and it was determined by the Directors to immortalize him by founding a city in his honour. " The dodo is a clumsy birtl," says a writer in an old maga- zine ; " the Lord Goderich of the feathered creation, whose conciliatory politics have nearly, if not quite, occasioned its extinction." North s correspondent in Blackwood's of the same time maintains that the change from Canning io Goderich was a change for the worse ; " the Government of the former 64 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. was dangerous, not contemptible; that of Lord Goderich is both." It was not till 1828 that they were able to say, "We have at last, thank God, got rid of the Liberals, and once more have the happiness to live under a pure Tory Government." But Guelph the infant city was to remain, and Goderich was reserved for the place which was to become " that pet and youngest darling of the Canada Company." One night, after a late return from a long and cold journey, Gait and Dunlop found themselves hungry and exhausted, all shops and taverns closed, and the Steamboat Hotel, at which they lodged, unable to furnish them with refreshment. The sign was a spirited picture of a steam packet, perhaps inspired by the Walk-in-the- Water. It was of vast dimensions, extend- ing the whole length of the building. At this inn Gait suffered much, as he tells us in his " Autobiography," from those habits of seclusion and quiet to which he had always been accustomed being broken in upon in that flimsy, mean, two-story wooden house. This made him represented as a victim to pride ; and as a two o'clock dinner did not suit him, and he dined in the even- ing, according to habit, he was accused of playing " Captain Grand." The " conciliatory policy " (juoted before came to bear upon him in letters from home, recommending more suavity. However, now in their extremity, they sent Mr. Gait's servant to forage. He returned with two large frozen herrings and two bottles of champagne. The herrings were soon cooked, and one bottle discussed ; the other was reserved for a greater destiny. CHAPTER IV. THE FACE OF THE LAND. " The great wide-spreading earth and the all-embraciitg iky — the birthright of oil." " York, 9th March, 1827. " My dear Nell, — Yours, written soon after my sailing, I received only on my return to Montreal and Quebec, last week, and for the very good and sufficient reason that as the ' via New York ' was written upon it, it was sent via Halifax. There- fore, if you have no better shift, you' may send your further correspondence to Hugh Mather, at Liverpool, who is the Canada Company's agent there, and who will forward it regu- larly by the line packets, their days of sailing being the 3rd, 9th and 16th of each month. " You may tell Sandy his clients are not the kind of emi- j,'rants I desiderate. I have no occasion for a fine young thief of two-and-twenty, or thereabouts, and if I needed such an accommodation I have no need to import it. There is another class which I wish he would send by the first ship that comes with emigrants from the Clyde, that is, a breed of the Patri- arch's and another of Rennie's of Phantasies pigs. The latter he will procure through the intervention of his learned friend, Donald Home, and it will be a strong letter of introduc- tion to any settler who will take charge of them to this place. For the expenses therefrom arising he may draw on my agent, Mr. Chas. Ogilvy, Salvadore House, Bishopsgate, London. " I am now preparing to make a dive into the woods, and 5 r I i 66 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. shall not emerge, most probably, until midsummer, unless some- thing extraordinary occurs in the way ; but all letters sent here will be forwarded to me. In all your letters be particular as to the state of poor Mary's health, as she is the only one about home that I am at all anxious about, the rest of you being habitually in a most vulgar state of good health. I find your ex-handmaiden was, or is to be, married to Lord Dalhousie's gardener, and lives at (illegible). Maule tells me she i.s still a beauty. My love to all the folks. " Thine, " Wm. Dunlop. " P. S., 15th March. As the mail does not go till to-morrow, I left the letter open that any matter might be added. Tell Sandy that his Tulip, Wm. Buckly, made his appearance yester- day. I have procured for him permanent employment at 3s. and his rations per day, on the Rideau Canal, and that want of means ' enforce him not to evil.' I shall subsist him while here and send him off when the lake opens. The two pounds men- tioned by Robert Ker I shall give him, and as much more as necessary to take him to his journey's end. The two pounds Sandy may make a set-ofF in my pig speculation. " I let you know, to wit, that I have got, this day received, a great addition to my dignity, being appointed Justice of the Peace for every county of the province, and as I am busy in church matters I have no doubt will soon be an elder, and the pillars of Satan's kingdom will get a sair jog that day. " Gait sends his compliments to the Patriarch." This letter is addressed to Miss Helen Boyle Dunlop, Keppocli House, Dumbartonshire, N.B. It is folded so as to make its own envelope, and sealed with red, the device on the shield being the same as the seal, a ship without sails, as appears hereafter in this history. The Patriarch was his father, Alexander Dunlop, of Keppoch House. Dr. Dunlop and his friend Gait had a jovial time in the Quebec visit alluded to in this letter. After the farce at the THE FACE OF THE LAND. 67 garrison and the jolly dinner following, they set out on their western journey homewards. Qalt says " that visit to Quebec was a ' glaik ' on the smoke here of a varied life, in which the sliade has ever most prevailed." The " dive into the woods " was taken. The only footway wan the Indian path, but the energetic road-making British power was called upon to furnish communication between Ontario and Huron, an undertaking, when complete, Gait said was the one thing of which he was proud. And yet this " Cffisarian operation on the woods " resulted in only a single track, a track of variable width and which raised a succession of hay crops ; by its side, too, weary travellers were often glad to refresh themselves with the strawberries which grew in abund- ance. Upon this road for years to come, it was no uncommon thing for wayfarers to be detained whilst the trees felled across it by storms were cut away. An old philosopher says a tree feels the first stroke of the axe. " Oh, the gloom and the glory of that vast forest where so many were waiting the axe and the torch." One alone, a kind of representative of royalty, was exempt. Towering above every other tree were the white pines ; these were reserved for His Britannic Majesty's Navy. But, should a windstorm, as often happened, attack these giants and lay them low, they became the property of the person upon whose land they fell. Hence the word " windfall," mean- ing a stroke of good fortune, for they were very valuable. As soon as the " Moon of Lard " was over — our February, so- called because the Indians then went bear-hunting and the grease pot was always full — Dunlop and his Indian friend, Captain Jacob, set out. He had many such friends with him tliat season and during those ensuing, when exploring was combined with more active labours. He selected, as the site for the new Canada Company town, a spot where Champlain was said to have halted while paddling and tramping his famous western journey of adventure. Here the Trader Gooding and one Frank Deschamp, a Frenchman, hrd already established a trading post and had built a hut close by the water's edge. I i I ^i • ! il - 68 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. Before this the Jesuit missionai*ies, whose beat was from ocean to ocean, had been the only white settlers. Sproat, MacDonald, McGregor from Zorra with his yoke of oxen, and others, now joined Dunlop ; supplies arrived for them by water, and on top of the cliff facing the lake and bordering the river they built a 8M«^a*Vi*''*>»" small log house. This was known at once as " The Castle," and Gait, in York, advised of its completion, made haste to visit hia friend and give his sanction to the choice of situation. Already the workmen were there, ready to begin at a word from him. His Majesty's gunboat, the Bee, was placed at Gait's disposal in THE PACE OF THE LAND. 69 sr \ ■%- a letter from the Admiralty authorizing its " use from Penetang for a "oyage on Lake Huron in Lower Canada." Stories of sheltered bays, camping on shore, tea and hot grog decocted on ^fipsy fires, red deer gazing at them from the covert, tell us of a romantic if not comfortable journey until, through a telescope, they made out a small clearing in the forest, and set on the brow of the cliff beheld Dunlop's new-made castle. In a canoe which put out to meet him, Qalt found a strange combination of Indians, velveteens and whiskers, and discovered within the roots of the red hair the living features of the Doctor. McGregor's oxen must have been supplemented by horses, for the latter were then astray in the forest, much to the dismay of the new settlement. The evening closed with a feast, and at it appeared the second bottle of champagne left from the herring feast of the last chapter, presumably the first drunk in that very remote spot. A day was spent in exploring the windings of the beautiful river and the many glades and bosky places which, even then, in spite of painted warriors and squaws, made the scene resemble some pleasant valley of old England. After the founding of Guelph, Dunlop proceeded on his wanderings west and north, and by June was writing the following letter : " Fort Gratiot, 2nd June, 1827. " My Dear Helen, — Your letter and the Skipper's, by the Favourite, I received in the woods a week ago. I came to this place, which is a small settlement on the American side of the lake, to secure provisions and necessaries for the party. I shall only answer the one at present, leaving Bob until I return, when I intend to send out an Indian for despatches. By-the-bye, address me as ' Warden of the Forests of the Canada Company, Office, York, U.C We have had a most laborious journey of seventy-two miles through the woods, but have been rewarded by coming into the most beautiful country in Canada; and while so many poor people are in a state next to starvation 70 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I ! with you, I could easily set eighty thousand families in a fair way of making themselves independent in a few years here. I found that I could not, without incurring very great expense indeed, draw provisions from the east, so have come down with five Indians in a canoe to procure them here, and find I shall get abundance if I had only a fair wind to bring them up ; and as it is at present blowing right in our teeth, I'm not in the sweetest frame of mind, nor agreeable. However, there are fellow-sufierers. I have wasted only two hours, and there is a party bound for Michilimackinac who have been here for a week, lounging along the beach and wishing the d — 1 had them. The day before yesterday, on my way down, I left the canoe and took to my trotters, as the sea was rough and I could not proceed, and walked through the woods thirty miles, and yes- terday twenty, which brought me in. I had not intended to start, so had no provisions or blanket ; but I had my gun, and shot partridges and ducks, which I broiled at my fire at night ; so you may see that a privation of grog for three weeks has not injured my constitution to the extent that might reasonably be expected, for I look upon a thirty-mile walk through the woods as equal to fifty on a good road. " On my route I fell in with many Indian winter settlements which are deserted now, the inmates being away on hunting excursions, and this is the country of all others for game. In sailing along in our canoe, three days ago, we saw on the banks no less than ten deer, and the Indians sold us two haunches for three pints of flour, value 2Jd., so that food is not very bcarce in these parts. As for fish, one man with a spear catches as many in two hours as thirty-five men can eat in a day. " If the wind changes I shall return to-morrow, but shall be back in a day or two, as I have much to arrange here, and if I can so manage it I shall remain at the Red River the greater part of the summer. Gait is going to bring me four sailors and a good boat, so I expect to spend a very pleasant summer of it. Tell the Skipper that Alec Dunlop is going home to make his arrangements for settling here, and that he can tell him as to THE FACE OF THE LAND. 71 CHiuulian matters, as to expenses. I landed in New York with forty pounds in my pocket on the 26th of October, and travelled, living in inns, etc., until the 10th of January, when all my expenses, including things that I bought, were covered, and I hiul twelve dollars in my pocket when I came to Montreal to meet Gait. Give my love to all at home. From the distance at which I write I suppose it will be August at least before you receive this. " Your affectionate brother, " W. DUNLOP." Written in the beginning of June, as this was, he only allowed two months and a margin for its carriage to Scotland. Remote an the place was, this was a marked improvement on Arch- deacon Strachan's express of not many years before, when the twelve months were allowed for transit. So far the postal department of the Huron Tract arranged for missives traced on bark to be placed in an office well known to the tribe — a hollow cedar or a stump, whose letter-slot was hidden by a waving aftergrowth. The skipper mentioned was his brother, Captain Robert Graham Dunlop, sometime of His Majesty's Navy, and then making preparations to join his brother on the banks of the Minnesetung. This last was known as the Red River, as mentioned by him, so called from the colour of the water, which, coming through swamps beyond Lucknow and flowing over the beaver meadows, was always of that colour and particularly bright in the spring of the year. Minnesetung was found to be unpronounceable, and as Red River was a name common to several streams it became the Maitland, so named in honour of the Lieutenant-Governor. A great volume of water then came •lown between its high wooded banks ; and it crossed and re-crossed, and tore along in eddies and smiling rapids among its many islands, which were the camping and burial-grounds of the Indian tribes of the district. Detroit was a favourite rallying point in the early days. Stores came from there, and it offered accessible city excitements when tlie great forests and the silence palled on these pioneers. Even 72 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I !|' ' in the latter part of the eighteenth century the lands i'roni Detroit to J^ke St. Clair were cultivated on both sideH of the strait in conifortable farms, lonely log huts peeping forth from small cleared spaces, while carts and oxen moved along the river-side roadway. In a succeeding trip for supplies, accom- panied by whites and not red-men, Dunlop undertook the pilot- ing of the small schooner which they had hired in Detroit, returning with it laden, instead of in the canoe in which the seventy-four mile journey down hud been made. The Doctor alone understood the lake ; he knew there was a shoal opposite Kettle Point ; but he did not know how far out it extended. They soon found themselves among rocks. Luckily there was little wind, and the lake was so smooth that every stone could be seen below. Dunlop got astride of the bowsprit, his cap ott' and his red hair streaming to the wind. He roared his orders of " Starboard !" " Larboard !" " Steady !" as the rocks came to view, and made no bad figure of Father Neptune in a dilemma. It was no use. They grounded, had to manufacture a raft, which somehow they managed to load from the schooner, and in time got their stores to the Castle. That schooner Dunlop always spoke of as the " Dismal" Major Strickland,* who had some time before settled near Peterboro', now heard of the famous Huron Tract, of the author Gait and of the facetious Dunlop. In 1828 he sought the Commissioner at the Steamboat Hotel, and was received with the greatest kindness. His answers to (juestions put showed him to be the kind of man the chief was in search of, with active disposition and knowing many particulars of bush life, a knowledge quite foreign to most of those already in the Company. Suddenly Mr. Gait turned to him and asked him if he would like to enter the Company's service. " I want," said he, " a practical person to take charge of the outdoor '* Samuel, son of Thomas Strickland, of Reydon Hall, Suffolk, England, ami brother of Mrs. C. P. Traill, authoress of the *' Backwoods of Canada," and of Mrs. Moodie, authoress of " Roughing It in the Bush," came to Canada in 1826. He obtained his rank of Major in the Canadian Militia, and published his "Twenty-Seven Years in Canaest voyageur and the l»est drudge: but as pilot the Indian was superior. The P! '::„ 78 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. Canadian excelled at a portage ; the Indian was best in a rapid. Both could endure extraordinary fatigue. The Indian was the most wakeful, but serious, and by his grave countenance kept the stranger at a distance ; while Baptiste slept well, and when awake made the life and merriment of the party. The heavy- framed Scotchmen, with all their look of strength, were scarcely a match for these when the length of strain and hard- ship from deprivation began to tell upon the party. Yet, as had happened in Hudson's Bay history, in the end the staying power of the Indian was rivalled and outdone by what is known as "Scotch pluck." Van Egniond and his men, Dutch and Irish, were the road-builders; and a fusion of inharmonious sounds, which Babel itself could not have surpassed, was heard roun When as yet the Castle was not comfortable for winter resi- dence, Dunlop spent the coldest days with his friends the Van Egmonds. With them he would remain a week at a tim€>, }i^bour§^^irVitn impassable sandbars, one canndl^ceri^l^Vl^tk the last-named anchored near the Minnesetnnol jT^*^ legend i^ that Champlain landed at the mouth uf that ri^^n* in 1618, wlien no doubt tho^ iHlands and glades were the homoe^^the fUyS^ Huron^^ .But 1 640 saw Huron scalps hanging at thoHMto of the ancestors of these same Mohawks who were now toiling along the lake bank and up the Castle hill laden with logs. The country to the west was the Chippewa hunting-ground, and the wide-spreading flats and woods about the Red River their camping-ground. Wawanosh, the name of a famous chief, perpetuates another memory in a township. 'I'hoir mode of counting money was by cops ; one cop, two cop, three cop, and so on up to twenty, when Chippewa arith- metic failed, and they began again.* " Bqjoo," said they to these newcomers, when they met ; and HH friendships were formed between white and red, after an absence the dusky hands were extended, with the significant j^eoting, " We see each other." Of course whiskey was a commodity in the log storehouse. .\fl Dunlop's followers were chiefly Mohawk and half-breed, so were those of Engineer MacDonald mostly Highland. These livst gave freely to the Chippewas that which they appreciated highly themselves ; and therefrom arose a night of terror to the small community. * It appears that such a method of computation is still in uss. In a settle- rnunt not far from the line of railway in our North- West Territories, one rancher ndopts a simple, if somewhat tedious, device to count cattle for sale. A num- ber of beasts, estimated at ten, is driven into a corral. If the number exceedH ten, the surplus is " thrown back into the bunch," the special ten being specially •vrralled. This is repeated until enough tens have been checked off as having hoen separated from the bunch, and the seller renders his bill to the purcihaser aooordingly. 84 IN THE DAY8 OF THE CANADA COMPANY. H When the Castle's four walls, compactly put together by Dunlop, Brewster and Pryor, stoosawn down the middle for about a foot, and spread for the insertion of the wooden tongue, which was fastened by a pin. When complete it was almost as high as a modern winter sleigh. With summer the mania for exploration broke out again, and these old records and diaries are a daily chronicle of all things new, the temperature, the rise and fall of the lake, the blocking of the ice, a fleet of Pottowattomies, the unusual wild flowers, and the habits of the birda There was the carrier pigeon, with its long forked tail and lovely pink breast, incredible in number. The beech trees swung low with their weight, and the bright sky was clouded by their flight. Their breeding grounds lay all along the upper lake shore, where the small trees were covered with the nests. The flights began in the early morning and continued, flock after flock, until sun- down. They sometimes flew so low that a long pole would bring down all that a pot-hunter required. From twenty to thirty were thought a good addition to the larder. Once, when they were not so conveniently low, and being out of shot, the Major loaded his gun with shingle from the beach and brought down his usual marketing. But as the wheat on Pryor's Point, or, as it was more often called, the Baron's Hill, ripened, they could be found and bagged without either gun or pole, and such leisure taken as to secure only the youngest and most tender. Once, when off" on an exploration, the Major and Dunlop came upon such a rookery. Sleep there was none, for besides the usual song, one not calculated for a lullaby, the breaking branches and the constant flutter of wings made an incessant noise. Near daybreak they made off" to their feeding-grounds, the sound of their wings like that of thunder. Flock after flock took its departure eastwards, keeping up an incessant roar. One single wedge was observed at least one mile in breadth. It took four hours in passing, which, at the rate of 96 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. lilll one mile per minute, gives 2,040 miles. With three pigeons to each square yard, a moderate allowance of room, the number in all was calculated to have been 2,230,272,000 in that single flock. One good point about the carrier pigeon was that he spared the standing grain. Not so the blackbird, especially if decor- ated with an orange bar across his wing. Indian com or oats, all was palatable to him. The smaller blackbird, much like a starling, and a frequenter of reeds and marshes, was equally destructive to the first wheat fields, and his black brother with the cawing rook-like voice, little better. The woodpecker, with his black head, white breast and scarlet wings and back, was called the Field Officer, and amused the people greatly. The cock of the woods, or, as one traveller puts it, the coxcomb of the woods, would have suited him better. These pioneers preferred the canoe called a dug-out. There were three kinds of these vessels made by the Chippewas on the Flats, the birch- bark, the dug-out and the elm canoe. The second was used for all practical purposes by the settler ; but the Indian, and the newly-arrived who " posed," preferred the birch-bark. One famous dug-out was a pine tree twenty-six feet long and three feet nine inches in the beam. It could easily carry nine barrels of pork and four or five men to paddle. Pine, black walnut, bass wood, and a tree for which the Flats were famous, the buttonwood, were all esteemed good, the two last named especially, as they were the lightest and not likely to split from exposure to the sun. They were also the best in the rice and weeds, as there was no swish against their sides, as with the birch. The Chippewas often made theirs from one roll of elm, sewn up at both ends and gummed, the thwarts keeping it spread. But the Minnesetung was too rapid for ascent, and when on the hunt or in the sugar season they went unencumbered, made these temporary elm- bark afiairs, and came back from headquarters laden with sugar and game, afraid of neither rapid nor current. The squaw invariably steered, and did her duty admirably. One enormous Indian :,,l:.i: FROM CHAMPLAIN TO GOODING. 97 canoe emerged from the fog one morning and made for the harbour, the people ashore mistaking it for a schooner. It had crossed from Saginaw Bay with twenty-five Indians aboard, and a load of bales of furs. There were main and top sails! with an ingenious contrivance for hoisting them and lowering them instantaneo!isly, a good precaution for squally weather. On dark nights they tlxed a bark torch in a cleft stick in the bow. The squaws were most industrious fancy workers in beads coloured porcupine quills, and bark. They traced their patterns upon the last with their teeth, after folding it many times with fancy angles; the comers, once bitten, when opened formed a regular design. Their dyes were the hemlock for red, the root of the white ash for yellow, and indigo for blue, or mixed with yellow for green. Like the blind they worked; daylight and dark were one to them. On the north side of the Colborne boundary, upon a high cliff overhanging the lake, there was an ancient Chippewa burying ground. The waves had under- mined the cliff, and the ends of several rude coffins stuck out of the crumbling sand and clay. Coffins were modern, the originals of these having been sheets of cedar bark above and under- neath the bodies. Some nine miles up the same shore a bright little stream bustled into the lake. This was the destination of an exploring party, and a day was fixed for the expedition. They made the mistake of only taking rations and accommodation for one day and night. Gooding's big canoe, the De Witt Clinton, with himself and eight others in it, set out; Mr. Fullarton was captain, and Brewster, known as " the Professor," because he was a cousin of the famous Sir David, was of the party. With daylight one fine sunny morning in June, they set out of the harbour with a light wind, having rigged up tw.. blankets as sprit-sails. These answered as long as the breeze endured, but that soon died away. " Come, boys," said the captain, " we must raise a white ash breeze, or we shall not see Nine-mile Creek to-night." Eight paddles in vigorous hands made the canoe fly through I i ! I if 98 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. the water, which by this time was placid as a mirror. With the fallen wind came intense heat, and by noon huge double- headed thunder clouds came out of the still north-west. This meant a change of wind, as well as storm. A narrow channel, some ten feet wide, let them into the creek through the mass of sand and gravel which choked the entrance. Across the bar they found a snug basin, and landing on the little peninsula began to prepare camp. They dined, and explored ; found a beautiful waterfall, and then, warned by the thunder, made preparations for the night. The Professor brought out a small tent-cloth, and the canoe, turned bottom upwards and supported on forked sticks, made a second shelter. Then came a warm discussion as to the disposal of the party in them. Delicious beds of hemlock-brush and fern invited them to recline, divan fashion ; and here they drank whiskey -punch and told stories far into the night. The lightning became incessant, illuminating their tiny harbour till every bit of shore and dipping branch stood out ; and above, dark masses of piled-up clouds made a spectacle grand to look upon, but unwelcome. An hour's anxious expectancy and a few large drops of rain made them secure the rag of tent and upturned boat as well as might be. Just then the Skipper, to keep their spirits up, appeared with a fresh brew of lemon punch ; but in a deafening roar and one blinding flash the tent was whisked across the harbour, and the boat become their only refuge. Adjust themselves as they might, three had to be left outside ; and there they remained, pelted upon by a pitiless wind and storm of rain till daylight came. The prospect then showed an angry lake, white with breakers, and no chance of the possibility of a launch, barely enough provisions for breakfast, and, as the Professor said, " worst luck of all, not a single horn of whiskey left in the jar." Gooding and three others took to the woods to try to reach Goderich by the shore, leaving Strickland and the others to follow by the canoe when possible. Their larder contained but half a loaf of bread and a few lumps of sugar. They had neither line nor hook ; no one had a gun, and they were five FROM CHAMPLAIN TO GOODING. 99 hungry men with one spear for weapon. It was too windy to use the last in the little harbour, but up the stream they speared a few suckers. Suckers in June ! But they were better than starvation ; so boiled suckers for dinner, with a little bread and a cup of hemlock tea, boiled suckers for supper, with no bread, and tea without sugar, and another night was upon them. But their camp was luxurious ; for they had spent a long day preparing it, and they were a merry party, ready with new stories for the dark hours, despite the absence of punch. The second morning bore no better promise, and the sight of more suckers to boil for breakfast decided them upon following Gooding and his party through the bush. After crossing the harbour, they hid their canoe in the shrubs and began their land journey. They travelled for the most part along the natural terraces overhanging the water, sometimes one hundred feet above its level, sometimes so low that they had to climb to avoid the breakers. Along the banks were patches of luscious strawberries, large and delicious, a most seasonable change from the day before. The prospect before and around them was m ficent; they rested now and then upon the slopes, enjc ig their fruit and gazing their fill across the blue expanse. About four in the afternoon, the white cabins dotted about the Goderich cliff were welcome to the sight, and the travel-stained, half-starved explorers found hearty welcomes therein. There was now a grand encampment of Chippewas upon the Flats ; and pending the arrival of white missionaries, one ■ of their own blood, the famous Peter Jones, from the Credit, came to preach the Gospel to them. He was Strickland's visitor, and seems to have left agreeable impressions on the minds of his hosts. On the Sunday morning he met his congregation, all the community, red and white, and gave them a most power- ful and eloquent sermon, first in English and then in the native tongue. The Indians listened with the deepest attention to a forcible setting forth of the sins of drunkenness. He told them that Christ had come upon earth to save the red man's soul as 100 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. i-i well as that of the white ; he entreated them to repent of their sins and be " saved through Him." His similes were beautiful and well chosen, and his language impressive. Then he gave out a hymn in the Chippewa tongue, and the squaws, who sang^ very sweetly, led a melody wherein all joined. At the giv- ing of another sermon elsewhere on the same sin and its consequences, a chief gravely rose and said : " My father, be- fore the white man came, we could hunt and fish, and raise com enough for our families ; we knew nothing of your fire- water. If it is so bad, why did the white man bring it here ? We did not want it ! " About this time Dunlop writes his sister, the same "dear Nell," but in the meantime transformed into the mistress of Roseneath Manse, Dumbartonshire : " I have written divers letters touch- ing ministers and schoolmasters to David Welch and Dr. McGilL I wish you would ask your husband or Sandy to enquire about them, as Sir John Colbome is education mad, and is collecting- the scattered tribes of Indians into villages for the purpose of civilizing them, and as I promised to get him schoolmasters, I may look for a wigging on my return to York if I can tell him nothing about them. " I had intended," the letter continues, " to go home for a couple of months, but as Mr. Jones, one of the Commissioners, goes home, I must stay while he is gone ; ]^esides, I do not wish to go until I have a most accurate and minute acquaintance with every acre of the colony, and in the winter I shall prob- ably arrange the notes I have made for the purpose of publica- tion, tho* that is probably remote. I have also promised Dr. Buck, of Albany, to write the surgical part of his book on medical jurisprudence, so that I shall Vave enough to do to keep me from hanging myself from ennui." The surgical part of the book was written, and also the notes compiled into that little book known as " The Backwoodsman," the latter giving Dunlop a Canadian title by which he was as often described as by his East Indian one of " The Tiger." ' Tiger " Dunlop, the " Backwoodsman," and " The Doctor," is; •iaiii FROM CHAMPLAIN TO GOODING. 101 were names familiar in this part of the country during the first half of the century. The little book did great work in its day, and was instru- mental in bringing out settlers of a different stamp from those then on the way or in the humour for emigrating. It had been said that no man had a greater talent for throwing an air of romance over the stem realities of settlement-founding than had Gait ; that with his genius and spirit the reality seemed a romance. But it was reserved for the pen of the " Backwoods- man " to put upon paper an accurate, even if sometimes a highly coloured, account of life as he had found it, a tabulated state- ment of the resources and appearance of the Tract, and a list of minute directions as to the modus operandi necessary in transferring families, capital and brains, energy and industry, from one hemisphere to the other. in CHAPTER VI. THE KINGS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. " Ooderich, where the Canada Company have shown how much can be done by enterpriae." Pleasant Judge Read early established himself as postman to the community. This meant that he kept a leather bag, in which to carry letters to and from Goderich. When it was reasonably full, he mounted his horse and made his way to Gait, thence to Hamilton. The "office" in time came to be located on Read's twenty-acre lot. Perhaps letters did not give as much pleasure, at any rate did not furnish the same general excitement, as a well-chosen bundle of Old Country newspapers. To be sure, the news in them was at least eight weeks old ; but receiving and reading them did not leave these inhabitants like Colonel Talbot in his chosen fastness, the Talbot country. No post, no newspaper, brought him tidings of victory or defeat, of revolutions or of wars in contemplation. When he took to the bush. Napoleon was Consul ; when he heard of him again the game had been played out, and Napoleon with his panorama of djmasties was a thing of the past. So that, comparatively speaking. Judge Read kept Goderich up to date. One morning as Major Strickland was busy in the storehouse, Mr. Pryor entered with a newspaper in his hand. It had just arrived. George the Fourth was dead, and this was their first intimation that they were eight weeks old in a new reign. Gait's opinion had been that " it required not the wisdom of Solomon to see that occasional amusements were necessary to promote content." Pryor and Strickland thought the same. THE KINGS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. 103 " I think we must give the workmen a holiday on this mem- orable occasion," said the former. " I have been thinking of inaking a little file, and inviting all the settlers within reach to the Buttonwood Flats. We shall have refreshments ; and if the day is fine, I have no doubt we'll enjoy ourselves." The Buttonwood Flats was a part of the ground about a mile from the mouth of the river, and on it grew some immense buttonwood trees. One in particular, near a welling spring, had left a shell trunk so large that Dunlop and eleven of his cronies tested it by standing in it at one time, and drank a quart of whiskey in honour of its size. Doubtless they would have been willing to celebrate a larch as readily. Thiis tree had an arched doorway high enough to admit a tall man. In it, not long after, a little lad, Murray MacGregor, and his friends crowded when tired of playing shinty. On top of one button- wood still swung securely an eagle's nest. Another trunk had been sawn off, and its goodly circumference was the pulpit from which Dunlop and others gave forth their oratory to the loyal assemblage. Due notice having been given, upon the appointed day every- one within a radius of ten miles gathered to do honour to the new King and to show their loyalty in any way Mr. Pryor might dictate. He ascended the buttonwood rostrum and gave a loyal and patriotic speech. He then read a proclamation, which was received with nine rounds of British cheers. The party formed a circle by joining hands, and sang "God Save the King," accompanied by the Goderich band, which was composed of two fiddles and a tambourine, " Rule Britannia " followed, as appropriate to the sailor King, loyalty and enthusiasm making up for any lack in the parts. Then came a pail of whiskey with a teacup floating in it ; and another pail filled with water, for those " weaker brethren " who diluted their toasts if not their loyalty. All present drank to His Majesty's health before attacking the heavier part of the refreshment. They seated themselves on the grass under the grateful buttonwood shade, while the Union Jack floated in the 104 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. , warm summer breeze and gave a glint of bright colour to the picture. The day was perfect, even in the perfection of a Canadian June ; the spot chosen, lo\ ely at all times, was a smooth, green semi-circular meadow, ornamented with the groups of giant trees ; the steep bank rising like an amphi- theatre, thickly wooded, tier above tier, from base to crown ; the rapid waters of the Minnesetung — a name changed by 1830 to the Maitland — within sight and sound, all formed a prospect to make the colonist happy and loyal. A Yankee millwright, employed at that time by the Company to erect a mill, contributed to the fun by his quaint remarks. •' I declare," said he, " if this don't altnoHt put me in mind of the Fourth of July. Why, you Britishers make as much fuss pro- claiming your King as we do celebrating our Anniversary of Independence ! Wal, it does me good to look at you. I vow if I don't feel quite loyal myself. Come, let's drink the old gentleman's health again ; I guess I feel as dry as a sandbank, after so much hollerin'." His toasts to the good King's health must indeed have put him in good humour ; for although a man of much travel, he told them he had never seen a section of country which pleased him like the Huron Tract. " I guess when this country o' yourn is once cleared up, and roads made and the cricks bridged, there won't be such another place in all creation." As a reason for this last broad statement, he continued : " Wal, just look what a fine frontage you have on that 'ere big pond (Huron), and good harbour, and land that can't be beat nohow. All you want is to go ahead ; and you may take my word for it that this will be the garden of Kennedy yet." They danced that day under the shade, " country dances " and reels to " The Wind that Shakes the Barley " ; there were good old English games and ball-play for those who did not care to dance the old King out and the new King in ; and all went merrily under the greenwood tree until Charles' wain came out, and the dew under foot warned the revellers that it was time to return to the white cabins on the hill-top. ;. '■'' l» 4 : Hi: 1 ■ «l 'i'.l! THE KINGS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. 105 Mr. Pryor thanked them for their attendance and for the 43inooth way in which his programme had been carried out, calling upon them to give three cheers for the King, three for Queen Adelaide, three for the Canada Company and the Commissioners, and three for Doctor Dunlop. The power of lung and enthusiasm spoke volumes for the floating teacup. But this was not all. A ball followed at Read's hotel, by now removed from the harbour to the bluff. Dancing was kept up until daylight, and there was no halfheartedness in ushering the new reign in with proper spirit. Poor Read's hotel, the best hostelry in the place and scene of most of the revels of after days ; where the Clinton people and those outside of the town " put up ; " where the Commissioner and his charming wife. Dr. Hamilton and the Otters and Bignalls, the Evans, Gaits and Lizars, beautiful Jane Long- worth, the lovely Reids, the lovelier Campbells and a host of others, laughed and danced and sang many pleasant hours away; where the green in front was used for cricket and quoits by the Lysters and Dixie Watson and genial Charlie Widder, Daw Don, and others of the beaux who missed their club life ; where Judge Read and WoodlifF and their cronies sat on the benches and sunned themselves of bright afternoons ; where the seats along the bank were filled evening after evening with people who never wearied of that gorgeous pageant — not colour but conflagration — which the sunsets furnished. These sunsets were so famous that travellers hearing of them made the detour to that out-of-the-way corner of the world on purpose to enjoy them. But the lap and the boom of these crimson-dyed waters which the musical Read loved to hear, as in the pink twilight he sang " A Rose Tree in Full Bearing " and crossed their monotone of accompaniment with the keener edge of sound from his own violin, were telling of a time when all these familiar names, which made the life of that day, would be but memories ; and the sward, and the inn itself, undermined, would crumble and disappear, with no sign of life remaining save the busy sand marten burrowing in the face of the Ill ^1 ; ♦ ■ 106 IN THE DAYS OP THE CANADA COMPANY. new-made cliff. Then, and for Hoine time afterwards, this cliff' front wan one thick growth of juniper, wild raspberry and gooseberry and other shrubs, the roots making the warp and woof of the matting which held back the sliding clay and sand> " Clearing," and the action of the water, literally changed the face of this part of the land. Truly the Canada Company furnished a panorama of life never seen elsewhere in Canada, and impossible under any other conditions. On the slides were names and faces, some famous in their day and cjuickly forgotten, others made famous by subsequent history. To illustrate the first ; in 1827 an old Belgian nobleman, the Baron de Tuyle, made an arrangement with the Canada Company whereby he was to have a choice of their lands in the Huron Tract. To ensure a right judgment he brought out Captain (then Lieutenant) Bayfield, R.N., whose name, " dear to Canadian science," is known still as an authority from Huron to Gaspd. Bayfield made a survey of the lake and of the rivers running into it, cruising about in his surveying schooner, the Oulnare, and under pressure of difficulties taking to canoo and bateau, making his way m;ich after the manner of Dunlop, with Indians and half-breeds ; and as a result of his labours made charts which were in use upon the lakes until 1884, and which are still looked upon as authorities. In his count of islands he persevered to the number of thirty-six hundred, and then gave up the task. His minute inspection of the Company's coast line resulted in his advice to the Baron to purchase extensively upon the lower coast, and also at that point which thus early was known as the Ridge, in position opposite to Dunlop's Castle Hill, upon what became known as the Colbome side of the Minnesetung. In the larger tract purchased, choice of a town site was made at the mouth of a river smaller than the Red, but much the same in giving situation and appearance, cliff and harbour, in miniature of Goderich. The river and town site were given the explorer's name. The little hamlet of Bayfield consisted of lumbermen's shan- THE KINGS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. 107 tics, log huts put up for the Baron's men, wliu at once began taking out timber from the estate. But the work seems to have been ill-advised ; for in 183G — the year of the fat, dark little Baron's death — the logs were lying rotting, the buildings con- sisted only of his store and a few huts, and in the year following, the Rebellion year, but fifteen able-boad, were two huge posts, whereon were nailed all notices of marriages, boys lost in the woods, cattle strayed, or ther matters of public importance. The marriage notices were left there for a certain time to challenge enquiry, and the THE KINGS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. 115 ceremony was performed by any magistrate, generally Pryor or Dunlop. Among the notices was one in which the bride's name was set as Matilda Selina Salome Royal Bangs S. P. Cuyler. When questioned, she said she did not remember what the S. P. represented. Mr, Brewster replied that that was well, as the blank forms did not provide space for such signatures. " And were these posts used for all public notices ? " was a (juestion put to an old man who remembered Miss Cuyler and her names. " Why, dammit, there wxs no public," came the answer, with a tire which had burned not less brightly for being sixty years old : " there was no public ; you were Canais Rob Roy MacGregor's store. He was the incomer after Gooding, travelling from Zorra through the woods with his oxen. Farther up the bank came the Strick- lands' little house ; and beyond that, one put up for the new Commissioner, where two trusty servants, Michael and Granny Kelly, kept house for him when he made sojourns in Goderich, liis home as yet being in York. Then came Read's hotel, with its beautiful bank full in the blaze of the setting sun ; and beyond Read's, the stables and workshops of the Canada Company. When excavating at this part of the coast in 1833, the Company's workmen had come upon an interesting relic of a time even prior to the red man's occupancy. This was a vase, made apparently from feld-spar, or some granitic composition in which feld-spar held the chief place. It measured ten and one-half inches in its largest diameter, eight and one-fifth in its shortest, was oval in form, six and one-half inches high, and one-fifth of an inch thick. It was perfect except in part of the 116 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. lip, was apparently without handle, and had been coloured ; in shape it resembled the vessels used to this day in the East for cooling water. It was afterwards given to Lady Colborne. On the bank by the workshops two figures were one evening seen pacing up and down, both tall men of good carriage, with handsome features. Both spoke unmistakably of O'Connor's " land of the valley and the rushing river ; " one was distinctly giving directions, while the other listened with the attention which bespoke complete trust in his superior. The dress of the latter was peculiar, almost more military than civil, the former appearance heightened by a long blue cloak and a dashing cap set soldier-wise. Behind them an employ*^ walked a handsome grey horse up and down, the saddle and all appointments with - out a fault of fashion ; and a closer examination would have discovered good weapons, in the shape of highly polished pistols. These pistols wore to be the toys used in all the duels that were to form one of the exciting features of the coming time. The sun sank lower ; but these men did not spare many glances for the exquisite scene and sounds about them, wooded shore and scroll of heavens, lapping waters and the boom that marked the seventh wave. They were deep in giving and receiving commands and making preparations for new work, fresh labour and a new system. As they stood silhouetted against tlie sky, black figures in the deepening twilight, the superior, with arm outstretched, described where pier and lighthouse yet should be. These were " the Kings of the Canada Company." .^,-;'.^,'-» 1- '■ !ii: Hi CHAPTEK VII. THE COLBOKNE CLIQUE. iHESE seemed to bo « • , G«.erich of Scotch ge^tic^eriwrrL'-^-r' 'o-n'- 1834 and 1335. who took un fh Jl T. '" ""» y*"*™ 1833 ■"honour of s,. John cS/b„™et '""''' '"""'"''• "''°''''' l<»ow„ to D„„lop,the prime ,3Tr" ^ ""^^P-d*"** «'00dsn,a„,"and in other wZ ' J 1^ ''", ^'^ "The Back- he wa» as yet VVarien. S folT'' """ "'" '"'^'« "' ''hioh a strong federation. knowH, 'it'^pT "^"""^ '"^ '"to pathetic to the Company. Cm „' '^™* ^"'"■» ■" »"«- and also through the princiol,: ,? , f^ ^ °°-'"^' »' annoyance ""nlop g^ually iost'^; Zt tl e 1 1 '" *'*" ">- -•«"■ "' ;t« forests, and finally sevCd 1 "' "l"^'^ *" "« ^arien "r to be turned, into the hSl % ^T^"" "'"> ''■ '° '"™. "- took place. Fergusson saT'^'lh'''^''^™"'^- ««'»« 'ffl™rs:..Ifo„„dt,,,*'c„^, 2",! V ^""'P*"y ""d its "bhgmg. ,)r. u. „.ho acts a Z r'""'^''*"™ «"<• t™ly «Pent,„„ch time in their der,,3"?^'f"- "' "" ^°'^^'«- h^ ^'-•''.n the happiest style, when r!o T" "'" ""^^ ™i^'« adventu..^ in the backw^oois i^^ ™ ""^ "" P'°S'^ ""d th-nk, « calcnhted to fo™™,! L" ?''"''»»y' ^ should -nntr,-. although there are „„«?""" '"'"■-^fe' of the .""se; and if it shall continue Lk!-']"? "''° *'™k other- LrT ''''" >-d-^e r^rnT^r"^"""™^'^-'-" ^---Het™nsportandsetti:„enI^:-rts,rth': 118 IN THE DAYS OV THE (JANAUA COMPANV. ■|:; , I liberal terms held out, cannot fail to secure the confidence and ffood-will of intending settlers." But as late as 1835, Tfic. Reformer remarks that " the English press is still devoting its attention to Canadian affairs. A long, lying article from Blackwood's Magazine is now going the rounds of the Tory journals of both provinces." " Why," asked the elder Mrs. Hyndman once of Dunlop, "why did you write as you did f You must have known that all of ' The Backwoodsman ' was not time." " Oh." was the reply, " I knew I didn't tell the truth ; but I wanted good settlers of the better sort." The Hyndmans, Lizars, Kippens, Ljuvsous, Clarkes, John Gait, jun., and a host of others were of the Clicjue ; while some among the English contingent of gentlemen emigrants, though not of the Clique, were anti-Canada Company. The Clique had friends on both sides of the river. Dissatisfaction began early, chiefly from disappointment at finding things not as the Company's maps and illustrations in London and Edinburgh led purchasers to expect ; in many cases, because reality did not tally with scenes conjured up by imagination. Froude says somewhere that when the wise and good are divided in opinion the truth is generally found to be divided, too. The young sons on the long outward voyage beguiled the hours with " Robinson Crusoe." It therefore seemed but a proper part of the expedition when they saw, on the Colborne road, a post with sign pointing the way to Juan Fernandez. The emigrant who had so called his place became' known, and lived and died, by the name of Crusoe Miller. To complete the illusion, ho had a man Friday. Minds, young and old, were in an inflaTjunable state. The first arraignment against the Company carried three indictments : bridges, roads and mills. One tale told that in the London office, as an inducement to intending purchasers, an illustrated map showed a drawbridge at the mouth of the river : beneath the town of Goderich a fleet of vessels rode in the har- bour ; the draw was open, and a fine vessel was passing through. What they found was a Highland fisherman plying between the THE COLBORNE CLIQUE. 119 Ridge and the Goderieh side, who cimrged a York shilling »w his fare ; sometimes he was there, sometimes not, but in either case, " she would not pe long whateffer," and the Colbomites were often dependent upon a friendly Indian or S(iuaw to paddle them across. Dunlop, as usual, was independent. Once when the High- lander was absent, he called no Indian, but took an inoffensive cow, that was chewing the cud of reflection on the bank, by the horns, and when he got her well in the water sprang upon her back. He got over safely, an)een closed for two months, and Lonl knows when it will be open again." Mrs. Pyper, wife of the miller, was a sister of " Stout Mac," MacDonald of the firet surveys. Because Pyper was a Kentish- mun, and had married a Hieland woman, Dunlop nick-named him Bully Pibroch. Mrs. Pyper was as ingenious as her brother, but knew less English. Although her larder would often be laden with venison, pigeons and other meats, it too had its barren times; and a fresh-killed boast was soon cut up and a part •exchanged for something which \\ ould furnish variety. In one neighbourly exchange after the killing of her husband's pigs, Mrs. Pyper offered the other " some of my sow's mutton for a (Hiarter of your sheep's beef." At the Mountcastle homestead oil the Huron Road, a groundhog was caught and shared with a hungry neighbour, " and never a more tasty morsel." That .some of the emigrants did not know how to make the best of what they had did not cro.ss their minds; the Canada Company was the root of all evil. Before the days of the Colborne Clique, the populace wa.s one day brought out by the arrival of a party of Chippewa Indians with the carcases of five bear.s. For a month salt pork had l)L>en the only meat, so the Indians were besot on every side. The chief was a fine looking warrior, wearing a large silver medal with a figure of George the Third which had been given liim for gallant conduct in 1812. Wearied by much asking, he stepped upon the heaviest carcase, and gracefully waving his luind to connnand attention, began an oration. He was very animated, and pointed often to the cows and oxen belonging to the .settlers, grazing near. John Got, a French-Canadian, interpreted that he said, " Indian very great hunter, kill 122 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. II il plenty bear and deer ; white man kill beef. Sometimes Indian very hungry, see his white brother kill an ox. He asks for piece, but white man say, ' No, no, go away.' By-and-bye give him paunch and say, ' Plenty good for blackguard Indian.' If Indian, kill bear, white man say, ' You my friend, give me a piece.' Indian great hunter, he no tell his white brother to wait for paunch, but give him leg or some good piece." The Company's stores furnished another ground for com- plaint. The settlers could find no commodity there but fish. Meadowlands, the Lizars homestead, and Lunderston, the Hyndman place, became centres of discontent and protest. The British Colonist of Toronto, the paper of the day, wa^ called upon to issue articles setting forth grievances, and the muse at home wrote pamphlets, squibs, and parodies. ' ' Sweet Goderich city, So sweet and pretty, I'm sure no ditty It's praise can declare. The stores where the fish are. And the great Commissioner ." Stories went the rounds of how the Company did not keep faith in doing work and in distributing money, which faith, if kept, would destroy these causes of complaint. Not so, said the Colborne Clique ; they were " Standing atill And doing nothing with a deal of skill." It was told how, on a hot summer day, John Longwox'th, one of the " Kings," came to the Company's warehouse, " looking as fine as a fiddle." Inside the big door, in the shed, sat John Crowley, one of the Company's men. The latter were all Irish, the saying on the Colborne side being that none other need apply ; equally, on the Company's side, it was averred that Dunlop had vowed the Scotch should drive the Irish out of the country. " What are you doing, John ? " THE COLBOllNE CLIQUE. 123 " Nothin'. sorr." Gallagher, another employt?, was upstairs, also in the shade, and also idle. " Are you there, Paddy ? " " Yis, sorr." " And what are you doing, ye spalpeer " Helpin' John Crowley, sorr." " And where are you ? " " Above you, thank God, sorr." The bar formed at the entrance] the north-west wind caused the which attempted to cross. The Cll^da Conipanjf applied to the Legislature for permission to levyxdia on iiicbming vessels, in order to obtain interest on the expenditxJreTrBCESsary on the harbour. The bill was thrown out, the bar increased, and the summer of 1835 saw the Minnesetung laid up within, to the great cost of the Company as well as the inconvenience of the settlers. Flour, in consequence, was eight or nine dollars per barrel. The Company got a lease afterwards of the whole harbour, and charged wharfage to those landing goods. They had the water's edge ; but the river, being navigable, could not be made over to them. But the Rattenburys paid fourteen dollars for their first barrel of flour — a valuable which they divided with brother and brother-in-law. The fleet of boats, presumably belonging to the Company, in the London office picture, was for long centred in one keel which, once laid, remained rotting on the beach. But the impetus to be given to affairs by this single vessel doubled tiie price of land in one day. Her successor, the second Minnenetung, made her first roinid trip July 20th, 1834. Her christening was cjuite a fete. The young Van Egmonds, Jimmy Dickson, and many other young men, walked some miles to see the sight. Pretty Helen Lizars stood by John Gait the younger on the deck ; Doctor and Captain Dunlop, red-shirted as backwoodsmen, and the Col- borne Clique and the Canada Company men, all expectant and r Il II 124 IX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. all more or less picturesque in appearance, stood about. The young girl broke a bottle of wine as she pronounced the word Minnenetung in a sweet treble, and the vessel was launched. Her sailing life was short. She was run into by a United States vessel near Fort Maiden, and blown up. It is said that her owners were never able to make good their claim for the amount of her insurance, £4,000. But roads or no roads, the gentlemen settlers must have their mails. Once a week a party of them would make a trip to Goderich, some going by the Lakeshore road, on which lay Lunderston, and which continued to be merely a blaze for many a day, its streams bridged by unsteady crossways. Those whose lands lay up the river, on the road towards Meadow - lands, came by the Khyber Pass — a truly awful spot, the epitome of what causeway, (juagTnire, cedar swamp and corduroj'^ com- bined could do, so named by David Lizars. It was the scene of many stirring events. But Mr. Hyndman, though he grumbled and put his grum- blings into formidable shape, did not expect all and give nothing. After his death, regard for his constant work on his own roadside and the improvements he made and aided others to make, caused the Council to give his widow a year's immu- nity from statute labour. Some one, signing himself " A Huron," furnishes very spicy pamphlet reading. Wliatever else was lacking in Colborne, sti-ong words were plentiful : " . . . until they go back to the liberal 83'stom chalked out to them by the talented Mr. Gait, let the noble lords remember that the Directors of the Canada Company have accjuired for themselves tlie style and title of ' rapacious land-jobbers, peddlers and hucksters ' . . . a want of individual responsibility, which sets honour and virtue alike at defiance . . . the Lord Bishop, who may be found everywhere directing the energies of the Family Compact, which is one and the same thing as the Canada Company." In 1839 there was still no bridge, and the colonists petitioned Sir George Arthur ..." that the Township of Colborne, R THE COLBORNE CLIQUE. 125 in which your petitioners reside, is bounded on the east and south by the broad, deep and rapid river, Maitland . . . that your petitioners were induced from various circumstances to settle on the land belonging to the Canada Company, more particularly from the great advantages that corporation held out to emigrants, in which your petitioners regi*et to say they have been miserably disappointed ; but more particularly from the want of a bridge across the River Maitland, which debars them from all convenient access to Goderich, and consequently to other parts of the province, except in the middle of winter, when Goderich harbour is frozen across, and is safe for teams on an average of about two months in the year." But by the following year the fame of the Canada Company's Maitland bridge had gone farther abroad, as the following extracts from the Britisk Colonist show. The circumstance which drew such writings forth was that Mr. Absalom Shade, member for Gait, had in the House said : " That the Company had paid £43 per mile for cutting and clearing out a road, one chain in width, from Wilmot to Goderich ; that the tender for the same work at £+0 had been rejected, because the person tendering had refused to receive three-quarter payment in lan management" evidently forgot that he himself boasted that his chief road was cheaply constructed under this same system. But at that time the " Autobiography " was not before the Canadian public. Mr. Commissioner Jones replies to Mr. Shade at length : "... Indeed it is difficult to imagine that a man could be found base enough to make such a charge unless he had 126 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. indisputable evidence to support it, and which he had himself thoroughly investigated ; and .still more difficult it is to con- ceive that such a charge, so gravely asserted, should have no foundation whatever in truth, and that it was made purely from personal and vindictive motives." The records show the sums of £220 for four log bridges ; £1,347 for a road to London ; £145 for four more bridges ; £227 for opening road to Bayfield prior to 1838; and in 1838, about the time of most bitter complaint, various other large sums for .similar work. Then follows a series of letters. " No. 1, Canada Company Challenge " to the Britinh Colonist, signed Henry Hyndman, says : " I have no doubt the charge against him (Mr. Shade) will be triumphantly refuterl, and it will be shown that Mr. Jones, priding himself on Ids skill in navigation, has, in attempting to avoid Scylla, plunged himself and the Canada Company into (.'harybdis. My present business with him will remove him From the Straits of Messina to the waters of Lake Huron and the rapids of the Maitland, which he may find as deep and points suitable for forts and likely places to be bought by tht; Government for that purpose. It was then supposed that these points would hold sister forts to " the remotest and most inland dockyard that owes obedience to the meteor flag ol" England," Penetanguishene — " Buy of the Falling Sands." In 1814, when his active military service was no longer needed, Dunlop had contracted to build the road from Simco<- which was to reach that station. The work was one which no one envied him, involving such hardship that his experiences in the Huron Tract afterwards must have seemed as child's play. It came to an end, from " the appalling intelligence that peace had been concluded between His Majesty and the United States," and the regiment to which he belonged was moved, to England. A change in the date of departure debaiTcd them from joining in the greatest action of modern times, " and his Grace, the great Duke, would have been none the worse of from fifteen to twenty thousand of his veteran troops, on whom he could depend." It was fated otherwise; and Dunlop concludes his long and interesting account of that year by a philosophic " Thank God, he managed to do without us." 10 146 iX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. By this time tho Bee, Gait's transport from Penetung to Ooderich, had been sold at auction, and a great reduction had taken place in the naval and military post. But it was still thought that Ooderich and Bayfield were eligible points for fortifications. Sir John Colborne and suite visited both places. Standing on Jewett's Point at Bayfield, the Governor said that he had never seen a place better adapted for defences, or a better harbour. Goderich was about to be honoured with a second visit from vice-royalty, after Sir BVancis Bond Head, who " appears to be a very mild, but acJtive man, unfitted by inclination for revolutionary times," had made his hasty exit. The Goderich pier had been finished in 1835, the much-discussed bridge wa.s up, and, according to the Colborne Clique, was as unsatisfactory as possible ; and it was hoped that the eye accustomed to give stem glances to the inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land would be equally severe in Goderich. Sir George Arthur made his visit, and was feted by the Commissioner ; a cortege, consisting of the Canada Company staff", all mounted, rode through thr town ; and as his business there was to see that Government money spent in public works under the management of tho Company was judiciously used, he was no doubt gratified at the scene of labour at pier and bridge and intermediate points. It will be remembered that shortly before this he had been peti- tioned in regard to the bridge. . Mr. Jones and Mr. Long worth made the most of work already done, and the men who took part in the little farce managed by these oflScers afterwards acknowledged, with a laugh, that all the deception laid to their charge was true. One of the " characters " then in Goderich — and there were many — was a Mr. Roderick Slattery. He had a literary ambi- tion, and was willing to gratify it by allowing others to write while he supplied the signature. The consequence was that his name appeared under sentiments which he did not always approve. The real author of the following letter was one of , the Colborne Clique — without doubt. Doctor Dunlop himself : THK OOLBOHNE CLIQUE. 147 " GOODRUTCH, 13th Augt. (I think I'm not sure. ) " M18THER Editer, — I rite yees the more readily becase I seu youre mighty badly off for a correspondent in these parts — thcni long bethersheen letters of Misther Hyndman's are all collywhish, & he has no call to he making a Judy Fitzsiramons mother of himself atalking against Mr. Longworth, who is the top man of the Canada Company, & Mr. Jone^, who's next to him ; and if you go on in that way both me and Paddy Gal- lagher & Mike Donovan '11 withdraw our countenance from you entirely and patronize the London Gazette, & we're the Ixjys that can do it. Now, what I was going to tell you at this present is that we're in a bit of a botheration here becase we hear that the big Gineral Guvernor is coming up, & we can't just make up our minds how we are to resave him, as they say he's mighty cute and that we can't bo after humbugging him as we did ould Sir George Arthur." Poulett Thomson had succeeded i)oor Lord Durham, and his jiresence so far had not been a soothing one in circles sympa- thetic politically or socially to the Canada Company. Already, on the Goderich side, little echoes from York had come anent •' that fellow, Poulett Thomson." It is not difficult to imagine the good Doctor taking time for burats of hearty laughter as he penned this letter. He goes on to say how the employes were told that " they must make the ould boy belave they were doing a power of work in the way of improvements, though not a haporth had been done for a twelvemonth." They pitch " all the rubbage that had gathered on the pier into the say, only it's fresh water," and all the tools from the stores and offices above are brought down as soon as the steamboat — an American vessel chartered for the purpose — bearing His Excellency and suite is in sight An auger is put into one fellow's hands, a broad-axe into another's, and a mallet and chisel into a third's. When all are armed, the order is given : " You blackguards, though I know you'll handle your tools as nately as a bear would a tayspoon, no matter — work away for bare life whinever he - m 1 J. 1 1 it ti I 148 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMl'ANV. <; . I Hi comcH, and so an you look busy he'll never find you out. " Thf Kinjrs theniHelvcH wore to " resavo Hih Elejraney," und a very flmart pageant they all made — Oovernor, ConnnisHioner, suit*' and Htatt! Fine horse.s and jjootl riders, gay saddle-cloths and uniforms, flags flying and Imnd playing, passed along th«' freshly-cut streets, under the admiring view of employees v/ho were faithful to their institutioti and chief with a fidelity brouglit with then« from the "ould sod"; or under the keen, critical and wholly disapproving glances of hard-featured spectators from farther north, who looked upon all such trap- pings as child's play, and devoutly hoped the " ould Oovernor ' was not as pleased as he looked. "So," Roddy goes on, "when the steamboat comes, we all bored and chipped and chiselled and hammered as if the devil kicked^ us — ocli, it was a beautiful sight for the Governor — fifty new-made carpenters all as busy as the old boy in a gale ot wind. But this is not the best of it, for when they got the o\d with you. Is it not astonishing that you and I keep our health so well ? To think of persons like us, inured to all the sweets and luxuries of London, launched out to Canada to raw pork, Yankified rum and a .soft bed of leaves beneath the wild-wooe fore -break fast undertaking, as casually phrased as in an enumeration of game, "nor is the buffalo to be excepted." McTaggart speaks of gold and many precious minerals as if they lay ready to be picked up. He displays a minute know- ledge of every bird and every living creature that he h»is come across, with a desire to learn still more and to diffuse such knowledge far and near. He speaks of the salt, the deer licks where the huntei-s gather, sure of plenty of game, foretelling fortunes to be made in the Canadian future. A Canadian encyclopaedia was to be published immediately, with a depart- ment of " li'urrology, or Science of Furs," and " Stumpology, or Science of Stumps." All enthusiasts in natural history, natural philosophy and mathematics are called upon, will receive encouragement, and will be fitted out for expeditions for exploring woods, waters and wilds; wnd, it is added, they will be liberally rewarded and all contributors paid. He dis- courses whether the partridge belongs to the pheasant or the turkey brood, and upon the habits of the latter shy bird ; bees come under philosophical examination ; spiders must be laid under the microscope ; and Nootka Sound and Cook's Inlet be explored by rummagers. He skips about from Columbia River to Fort la Prairie ; asks who will write him an essay on Atha- baska, its boundaries and its Indian tribes ; asks for an analysis of the American cocktail ; and dilates at length on the mysteries of bitters. Lake fever, ague, the rivers flowing out of the Rockies, the man who first saw the frozen ocean, windfalls, and whether there are frost-blows as in tropical climates there are sun-blows — all are mixed for consideration, but show in every line the thought of a man who loves his work and never wearies of it. All these questions and many more were published, and judging from the fund of knowledge 11 ri:! I? I . J. t 1:'. / 'Mi i" 1 'M\& , ! "'\ ••:;■( 'I I I'! I i i i t 161 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. displayed, raised exhaustive answers ; and he tells how " sugar- maple rum may be miide of excellent quality, but whether to match Craij^arvroch o)' Perth, I cannot say ; the latter is the name of a whiskey made after the Glenlivet mode by Mr. Fergusson. of Pertli, Upper Canada ; the flavour is verj' good ; it is by far the most excellent spirit distilled in the country." There are some answers received which he cannot credit: " That M.^. Thompson reported on the Columbian boundary between Canada and t)>e States pine trees that it would require a cross-cut saw sixteen feet in the blade to perform the work. . Now, this gentleman is considered to speak something like truth ; however, I should be glad to see these large pines with my owa eyes." What would this enthusiast have said if he had known that that river and pine tree tract was lost to us because " salmon would not rise to the fly" In ^^oC, Dunlop founded "The City of Toronto Literary Club," i.core which "this very able and gifted man" lectured on a variety of subjects. In spite of these various societies, some would-be teacht^rs evidently remained ignorant. We are told that "the plumage of the humming-bird is very indifferent ; barley will not grow in Canada ; " and one man makes the astounding assertion that "my land is silesia, and has a great bed of sulphuret of pyrites." Qairbraid was built of solid oak logs, the house in form somewhat like the letter H. It contained eight or nine roomy apartments, and like the Castle, on a larger scale, was a series of house, lean-to, porches and passages. The double door of the ball carried a door-plate in brass. "Mr. Dunlop," and the windows looked out upon a seene which even in Canada was not often equalled, and which wa:* said to resemble English scenery more than any other spot in America — up the valley of the Minnese- tung, through lovely glades where the red waters glinted against the green, across to the white-washed cottage.s of the new-made hamlet ; and away to the right were the waters ol" Huron, bluer QAIRBRAID. 163 than the skies above them, white with breakers, sullen as smoke, or wild fts the Geiman Ocean itself. At Gairbraid the two rooms most characteristic of the times and of the occupants were the dining-room and kitchen. In the former stood a large, round dining-table of solid mahogany, fitted to seat twelve persons ; and ranged round the room were twelve most Holid chairs to match, upholstered in Brussels carpet. In them the Dunlop brothers and their cronies were to gather by that second Table Round for wassail, merriment, and a new series of Nodes Ambrosiance (Canadenaia). The huge fireplace in the end of the room was flanked by large walnut presses, wherein a wealth of china, silver and g- jSs, was stored, and beside them a napery chest which testified to Scotch thrift and the spinning wheel. In front of the Are was an apparatus, in appearance something like a fender-stool, where plates and hot meats were placed for warmth ; for the Dunlopian sense of comfort was well developed. In the centre hollow of the sideboard stood displayed tlie enticyjnent, " Refro.shn>ont for man and beast." By the year 1S42 the Inns b*'tw«'tM Goderich and London numl>cred forty -two, and so inadequate was even this accommodation timt at night eight or ten travellei-s would be lying on the floor of om of thene pljicos, with bilH of wooti for pillows. On roads where the pace was a mile and a half an hour for u goo < 6" — ► ■7] .% ^. '/ ■^, Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14SB0 (716) 872-4503 6^ 1 ■;!f! i 4 174 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. During Mr. Morris's stay in Toronto, the Captain saw that he was often present at the Parliamentary debates, and his opinion was that the Captain himself and Allan MacNab were the two most gentlemanly men in the House. On their return, the real marriage took place. There is an amusing anecdote connecting the book in which the register was kept with the way in which it came to be so used, a story told by the Rector himself. Before the Commissioner took up his residence in Goderich, on one of his official visits he invited the Rector, Pryor, Brewster, and some others, to dinner. After dinner he made inquiries about the Company's business and particularly hoped they were keeping a record of sales in the book he had sent them. Pryor and Brewster looked blankly r.t each other, knowing nothing of anj'^ book ; the Rector said nothing, but was inwardly amused. He had managed to annex it for his record of births, deaths and marriages, and the Com- pany's sales had continued to be " noted on shingles and sent in slips " to Toronto. Two of the church record books are in thin, sound, yellow millboard covers, beginning their entries in 1835. The goodness of the binding would argue that they are Canada Company books ; but that one containing the first entries of all is a much more ordinary affair of paper-covered foolscap. It i6 tattered now in places, and some of the ink is much faded ; but it .still clearly bears, in a feminine-looking, Italian hand which belongs to the oft repeated signature, Robert Francis Campbell, the following marriage notice : " Robert Graham Dunlop of Gairbraid in the Township of Colborne, Esquire, bachelor, and Louisa McCoU of the same place, spinster, were manied by license, this the fourth day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six. " By me, Robt. Fras. Campbell. " This marriage was solemnized ) R. G. Dunlop, between us / " In the presence of } Louisa McColl. W. Dunlop, James McLean, Graham " bhat his vere ^ an ister tory : up 'ited ifter and the ikly said anex Jon»- sent re in les in are irst ered c is 'in"" ture, of line J of and n i ^' a?*»,i '.iV\^'i^JfLi- W^ 1; *K' i m^ m^- .^^g^'SnZI^^^^^M s mmn ^^^igaTi -^- i^^^^BM ^ 1 1 >^^^^^^^^H i SB j GAIRBRAID. 175 The signature of the wife does not agree with the tale that she could not write. Mrs. Dunlop's relation towards these two men was extra- ordinary — the wife of one, but the good friend and close companion of the other, by whom, undoubtedly, she was better understood than by her husband. The Doctor had regard and respect for, and not a little awe of her ; wliile she again was much attached to him, and was officiously attentive. She was .so careful of his toilet that he feared to let her know when he wished to cross the river to visit his Goderich friends. When .she saw him from a distance she would run after him with his shoes in her hand, imploring him to stop, for in order to deceive her he would saunter off in his slippers. He one day ran into a Goderich house, and laughingly told his friends how he had evaded Lou by walking leisurely down his own hill until far enough on his way, when he " put " across the Flats. Expostulated with for not going to church, he solenudy answered that they didn't " know the difficulties I have to c(mtend with. If I propose to go in the morning, Lou requires me to put on a clean shirt. This I might not object to, but on returning from church she requires me to take it off again ; and this I do object to." She brewed the whiskey, he the beer, and as soon as both fluids were barely matured, they disap- peared in a surprisingly short space of time. Gairbraid was not singular. In Britain every house, gentle or simple, farm or manor, made its own beer as it did its preserves or lavender watei, although the last were not so variable in results. The outcome of the brew was a thing of anxiety and the event of the week. Although Lou kept a sharp eye on him and the fruit of her labours, he would evade her, go to town, and bring back a following of friends as thirsty as himself. " Lou, bring out the Twelve Apostles." The heavy mahogany case rumbled to the table, and Lou saw Peter broached, emptied and re-filled, and knew the precious outcome of her still was going, and would go, to " fill the.se greedy hounds from town." " And am I to iiave a late dinner for them, too," she would ask, when evening drew near and the last drop was gone. ':S |i I :i I I i i if I i Hi 176 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. " No, Lou, no ; take the broom to them, take the broom to them." Nevertheless, the dinners, and good ones too, ^vere ready, with a display of snowy linen, bright glass and silver, that was balm to her spirit. One afternoon the Table Round groaned under the weight of eatables, for there was to be a dinner party of twelve. There was venison and wild duck, pigeon pasty, and ham and poultry of her own curing and raising ; and by the time the last compliment was paid to the only lady present, the " Honour- able and Reverend and Very Drunken " Cassels Stuart, " the Old Gent," Daw Don, or the Baron de Tuyle, might do as they would. The house stood near the edge of the bank, and benches were fixed beneath the trees upon the sloping green. Here they gathered, twelve knights in a new world, and with what wits were left them sat and discussed their lands, their " crops," the last bundle of literature which had come over sea and corduroy to cheer them, the probability of a mail bag during the coming week, the politics of the day in both coun- tries, the last impudence of the Family Compact, the advent of a new Governor, the mistakes of the old one, the grievances which heralded the coming rebellion ; and when talk became too sombre, the Doctor showed them the tricks of his pet fawn and the accomplishments of his gander. The river babbled and flowed at their feet, through the middle of the Flats ; on it were Lou's geese, with their white leader, a bird of the size of a swan, and with a voice of surpassing power. David Don was one of the knights, as true a gentleman as ever made the mistake of trying to be a Canadian farmer. " Daw — Don, Daw — Don," cried the Doctor ; and the gander gravely waddled towards him as it screamed and flapped its wings in reply. Daw Don laughed with the rest, but never grew quite accustomed to the joke. Sunset, with its glories, recalled them to order ; and in silence they watched ° sight, the fame of which had brought many travellers to the Huron banks. Mountains and castles of molten colour in a great arc ider its ever ries, rht, li'on arc CJAIRBRAID. 177 of fading light were banded with royal purple ; pink back- grounds faded to silver, which changed again to violet behind a floating moon. The lake had become to these men as the face of a friend ; they loved its every change, as if it were a thing alive ; its glories could awe, its beauties could silence ; and they were content to sit and watch, to think on the past, to dream of the future, till the stars and the fireflies came out together, and lights from the windows twinkled a recall. A nd then these sweet influences of nature, memory and hope, waned ; the Round Table and the Twelve Apostles saw a night of revelry. All grew too merry; but " the Honourable, Reverend and Very Drunken Cassels Stuart" lapsed into unconsciousness. Then these eleven friends put him on the table, placed a .saucer of salt upon his breast, covered his face with a sheet, set lighted candles at his head and feet, and so left him. The dimensions of Gairbraid at bed-time seemed to enlai'go ; capacious sofas turned into beds, hammocks swung and bunks 3'awned, till sleeping accommodation for the house party was found Then came the awakening of the corpse, who thought himself in another world and was nearly frightened into a sudilen going there. Justice makes one remember tliat a case of total ab.stinence was a phenomenon in any country then, and that the.se men had been fre(|uenters of the old British taverns, places not unlike Lou's own kitchen, where the floor was sanded and the kettle never off" the boil, a department which replaced the waste of ichor with food and liquor ; places where they not oidy ate and drank, but sang, making emphasis with fist-whacks which made the steel-pronged forks and pint gla.sses ring again. The chorus was always of the " whack fol-de-rol-de-rol-de-dido " kind. The Round Table was a piece of beautiful wood and it took a high polish. These gentlemen put their hot glasses on it, with the usual result of white discs overlapping on the Vtright sur- face. Lou got a large piece of oilcloth, extending some inches beyond the edge, put in a running-string, drew it tight, and so saved much polishing and some disfigurement. 12 : I : ' i ■fi I ''■'i 1;' I ; ■!- ■\ i if vm I f 1 'i 1 iii •] Jill (i mu lif I i I II < ! li > 178 IS THE DAYS OF THK CANADA COMl'ANY. I^u, with her hij^jh-Htrurif;, excitahio temperament, lier High- land (laneeH, her "elegant bow " and her tailed gown, was never happier than when entertaining guest.s. If a dinner party formed part of her day she always met her guests at the door, both hands outstretclied, an expansive welcome of word and gesture. The gentlemen were at once " offered something," and the same was taken to the ladies in their dressing-room. At parting there was doch-an'-darn^jh ; and she came out, glass and deamter in hand, after her friends were seated in their waggons, and herself dispense*! the drops to speed the parting guest. She was devoted to a certain class of literature, and the boy Malcolm was reader to her. Two necessaries for interest were lots of excitement and something bearing on Scottish history. " Malcolm, deare poy," had to post to town, no matter wliat the work or >veather, to get the ])apers and the numbers of the newest serial. " The Scottish Chiefs " engrossed her com- pletely while under way, and her Journeys to town were taken in haste, so that she might return to the haunts and names sacred to her from love of country. She stood in the Canadii Company store me morning, her habit, well tucked up, and the steaming horse at the door, telling of flight across the Flats and through the stream with unchecked rein till the opj)Osite bank was scaled, " Malcolm, deare po}'," keeping more than his retpiired distance in his mad scamper after ; seeding and the purchase of a new whip w^ere matters ([uite beside the point. She clasped her hands before the waiting server. " Deare Lady Mar-r-r ! Oh, pooi- deare Lady Helen Mar-r-r ! And oh ! that dreadful, fearsome Countess Mar-r-r ! " As already told. Judge Read, the postman, .served the mails according to the quantity in his bag. When it was full, lu; took it before him on his saddle ; so that the return mail wa^ regulated by the out-going. Sometimes six weeks came be- tween deliveries. Storms, too, made delays; but there were Wallace and Bruce to turn to, and Malcolm had to while the hours away with these twice-told tales. Like all of her country, GAIRBRAID shi' was .suptii'stitious and suspicious, and her brotiier-in-la\v never tired of exliibitinjj the former trait. She had heard of the pranks played by witches in the Hi^hlan when they tied up the cows' tails with red to have her animals' tails so decorated escorted her and her maids, w^ith th(^it^woiR an( pails, to the byre. The dismay ancbwoTHJiA' was all have desired. // \ . ^ a V " Hech ! but yon's awesome • 'Tis the fell airts o' Brown •' Hand yer nash-^ab, an' let me oo ' Kch-wow ! " They were friijjhtened nearly to ; silver snufi-box, as I am informed he is I'ather a decent ChrLstiun, with a sway belly and a Jolly face. "I leave Par.son Chevasso (AFa^jj^'s husband), the snufi-box 1 ffot from the Sarnia JMilitia, as a small token of mv (gratitude for the service he has done the family in taking a sister that no man of taste would have taken. " T leave .Jolin Caddie a silver teapot, to the end that he may drink tea therefrom to comfort him under the affliction of a slatternly wife. " I leave my books to my Itrother Andrew, because he has been so loTiij a .Tun;;ley Wallah,* that he may learn to read with them. * .Mmgle V Wiillali — a Imshiiuiii. (iAlltllltUI). 183 " I ;fi\»' iiiv ,sil- M)V»!r(!i;fn ill it, to (irahiuii Dunlop, old maw nil) loiT will lioriiiii!''. lll'fl'S- Aiid Hiiifr mull, us it set- Jin old woman '' I do lioruUy jioint •loliii Dun- ( iaii'liraid : Alex- Msfinin", Advocate, wv c'U|), with a mv sister Janet l)OcnUMe hIic is an )ious, am 1 tl lere- sarily take to also my (iraniiia's looks decent to tak inu' Sim i\: constitute and ai) lop !.S< ander |Uire, Dun I ap OD V I'Minhurirh : Alan Dunl op. 1^: (|uir( ami W liam (/lialk, of Tuckeismith ; William Stewart and William (loodin";', Ks(|uires, of (Jodericli, to be the executors of this my last Will and Testament. " In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal til"' thirty-first day of August, in the y thousand ei^-ht hundred and forty-two. year of our Lord one •W. DtNl.op. [L.S.I "The above instrument of one shuet was, at the date thereof, ilcelared to us by the Testator, William Dunlop, E.s(|uire, to be Ills la.st Will and Testament, and he then acknowledo-cd to each nf us that he had subscribed the same, and we at his re(piest siji^ned our names hereunto as attestinj>" witnesses. '• .Jamks CLOUTrNr;, " Patiuck McNAr(iHT()N, y[L.S.J" " Elizaheth Stkward. I \ . il ' I 5; ■ 'hi i 1 ;m'! ■ I ; His guests were amused, l»ut the elder Haldane was a triHe shocked. " Doctor, are you not wrorg to treat so sacred a subject in that way 1 I eon.sider that it will invalidate tlie will." " I'hat is serious." The Doctor drove the unwieldy Peter II ^: m 184 IX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANV. nearer Mr. Haldaiu-. " I shall encloHe it to my friend Colonel Prinee, and if he concurH with you I shall alter it." C^olonel Prince wrote on the document in answer : " I have l>eru8eraid house these two and a third Mwaited the comino- of the enemy. Presently came a flyin<;' horse-messenger to say the other principal was ill aiul c(nild not attend. This was a tine opportunity for the Doctor : he pre- ttnided to be in a violent passion, " the maddest man seen for many a day," and brandished the pistols as though to shoot the tool of a messenger, when up came John Morris and caught his lian I If I ■ '. \ : * 4 1 1 J :i (, '-:. 1 ! , A< :'i if- i i--- ' : 1 ■ 1 : t ■ ? t 1? i*- ";f ^jm i 1 i II i 1" [ n i A tall limn, stiaiglit as a tree ; the hest and truest man that set foot in Huron." (Page:i7.) ever CHAPTER IX li LUNDKRSTON. ' " A'c- ry-ilai/ < rents an' fhi inalerialx out of irhirh /'v nui.ki iliul icliich it cnlhd life." With X\w immes of Lundoi-stou and Motulo\vlan1> lor tlieniselves. In 1.\YS OF THK CANADA CO.Ml'ANV. ■' ^^4 action at luwl office, ami the .same ship brouijlit out Mrs. (Salt ami the wifo of her liusbaiKls successor. At the first dinner the Captain <;ave liis arm to tlie former, w liereupon the other lady was .so indijjnant tiuit she would not dine at all. It was also said that this la lolitical Detroit taptaiii en,)o\' b uunl'' >unloii. to luT I rest of u:\DERST()N. \U'.\ Doctoi Duiilop was ol'tt'ti in Detroit an 1 Windso!', sonM't iines tiiki'ii tht'ic in buHiiiosH atjIaces at either end, there was often a capital slide between, and ui) and down its lenjj'th manv small fed went llyin;;'. It was no unccanmon thin^^ in any house for the ff a wintei's ni door wiis a Itlaiikct linn^M)\'t'i' a li<)|«> in til'' kitclit'ii wall, wIumv the loy;.M wnv al'tcrwards cut oul into proper door sliapt . Tlu" men-sorvaiits carriiMJ tlu* cliildreii to the lol't, wliicli, when tiiiislu'(l, Ix'cainc a yood hccoiid story. Mr. Ilyndinaii took his niotlirr up tlic ladder leadiu;; to it, trll- itii; lit-r slit' woiilij liaxc to stay there until he could pi'ovide a I j;()od staircase was .soon ntner stair to I )rinir ln'r down. made into the sipiare entrance hall, a lar^e apaiinient whi<'li servetl as (general room and dinin<,(-liall. The house was fitted conit'ortahly throuehiait with ( Ud Country rurniture, iiit; four- posters and roomy arm-chairs, family poi'traits and silver, warni eui't.iinin;;' and much j^ood linen; and, most valuable of all, a lihrary of over two thousand Nolnnies. The hall with its foiiirortahle aj)pointments had a yrvy hand.sonie ellect, and the other rooms in the adjoinin;^' win<;s opened upon it. Tlu' late Mr. John Mori'is, who was at the raising, tells of the imildini; of the first harn in Coll)orne. It was raised hy hlock jiiid tackle, David Lawson nianaj^ine- that machine with skill and no misfortune to himself or helpt^rs. Mr. Hyndman was one of the latter, and "althoueh he was horn with a pen in oiw. iiand and a i' well nigh forty years. He was one of the i)rineipal promoters of tiie Penny ''Savings' Hank and the I.,ilirary, and for some time was President of the Con- -iivative Association. . . . He died at the age of seventy years." ! !■: 196 IX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANV. 5 had set out from Goderich to walk with his son John to Lunderston to his old friends ; but the heat and the distance made young Strachan give up the walk by the time they had reached Bridge-End-Place. The Bishop continued alone, found the farm, and as he passed the barn could not resist joining the fun going on within — the merriest boy of the party. One 17th of October three of the children went to a friend's birthday party across the bush, whence their mother was to fetch them. She left home, a storm came up, and neither .slie nor they returned. Her boys went to meet her, but came back saying that the night had become so wild they all doubtless had remained at the friend's house. Hospitality was then under- stood in a large way, Lunderston itself having entertained and slept thirty-two souls on one occasion. Tlie father was still anxious ; the storm grew worse ; he went himself to seek them, but got no answer to his shouts. Daybreak found Mrs. Hynd- man with two of her little girls sitting on a log, one on either side cuddled close under the big woollen shawl. Luckily, the third child had been left with the friend. Little Lil afterwards said, " I did think of the wolves, but I didn't tell mother." Perhaps one of the greatest events of 1835 — next to the Dunlop election, when Mr. Hyndman was Returning Officer and things were uncommonly lively — was the arrival of the first piano.* After many adventures by flood, ox-rart and mud- hole, the box was opened, and Mrs. Hyndman, who was a musician of no mean ability, let Beethoven and Mozart give way to the inspiring strains of " The Campbells are Coming." With other tilings brought out were five dogs — three pointers and two bull-terriers — Don, Sancho and Mopsy, and Tory and Nettle. Poor Nettle was drowned off the drawbridge from which her master fell ; Tory was never reconciled to the Indians, whom he would have torn to pieces had he been let near them. Domestic animals were scarce, and whether brought * Each township had its "first piano," and it is as difticult to arrive at the date of the first instrument as it is to ascertain who owned the first horse or in what particular spot the "first school" was held— each sub-section appears to claim the honour. LUNDERSTON. 197 «»r t'ouufl, became of great importance. A dollar was a common price for a cat. Pussy was evidently a favourite animal with Doctor Dunlop, for a friend, writing to him from the Ottawa district, says of a notable there, " Really, Doctor, she keeps a snug little inn, and has plenty of dogs and tom-cats, which I iitn sure would please you." One day Mr. Hyndmaa saw a comfortable mother tabby before the big open kitchen fire at Ciairbraid. The future Sheriff turned covetous, and determined to have one by felony, if not by gift. •' Tiger, will you give me a cat ? " The Tiger roared " No !" as only he knew how to roar; but it was not often that he denied a wish. " Well, then, will you give me a kitten ^ " Again the thunderous " No !" So, after a short diversion to other interests in the dining-room, Mr. Hyndman returned to the kitchen and popped two kittens into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. But Tom, when fully grown, turned out to be a great thief, and was hanged by the neck until he was dead, l)eeause he stole candles, and candles were even more valuable than cats. One moonlight night he was discovered flying out <»r the pantry window with a best " tallow " in his mouth. The Future SherifT thereu})on directed the only execution at which 111! ever assisted. The Lunderston children were free commoners at Gairbraid when, berry-picking oi after wild flowers, sudden panic would seize them, and either there or at Captain Kerr's the frightened things would seek refuge. Once the second little girl, Augusta, tumbled into Lou's bright kitchen in terror. The Doctor heard the commotion and his huge frame soon stood filling the door- nay as he asked what it was about. " If that's one of the Laird's small deevils we'll tak' care of her." Then, kindly to her : " If the Skipper won't tak' ye home, I will myself." The Skipper would not stir out into the cold winter's evening, so the Doctor got his moccasins and his staff with the iron spike, and took her home. Another time one of the boys had his arm broken, and Mr. Hyndman took him to Gairbraid to have it h i!r i i t ' i -I H 198 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA (.OMPANY. set. The Doctor looked about for a splint, and then, turnint;- to the bookcase, deliberately chose out " Stewart's History of America," from the stiff covers of which he 'made it. Mr. Hyndman was shocked at the destruction of a book for such a purpose. " Tut," said the Doctor contemptuously, " there is nothing else Stewart would be good for." Even with Tory at home the Indians were very friendly. In spite of many experiences in other lands, the elder Mrs. Hynd- man felt nervous when with them. Once she found herself alone in the house with a party who came in unusual numbers, and who, with silent pertinacity, prepared to remain. When the red man wished to be attentive, he was not to be shaken off. If he chose, he would arrive at dawn and stay by his host's side until dark, impervious to hints — which, indeed, it was not thought wise to offer. He was harmless and honest, but the Indian plus kinikinic was not a pleasant visitor. English failed to move them, so with admirable presence of mind she addressed them in Hindostanee. The unwonted sounds took effect, and they left. Traour returning to Colborne of a quarter of mutton which the latter was carrying. This was the only load of the horned Four-in-hand, but even it they could not pull through the It' V)> \ i Mill 204 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA (OMPANV. their butlur, and with much service they seeiu to have been able to live. It is to be presumed that on the day followiujj the Tims moved from Lundorston to their new abode and opened their new school. They soon had a fair number of scholars from about Gairbraid ; but like Captain Dunlop's venture, with the Bailie McLean for dominie, the school was a short-lived afl'air. Among the pupils were Mr. Hyndman's elder daughters and son, and some of Mr. David Clarke's children. In the following year Mr. Tims was made master of a school in (Joderich,and in 183() young Henry Hyndman. went to him as a boarder, with William Hicks and Thomas Mayne Daly as companions. It was not a happy period in the lives of these boys, but it did not last long. Mr. Hyndman's mother took a house in town for the winter, solely on the children's account, and daily attendance from girls and boys followed. The roll gradually dwindled, for the master's own attendance was but semi- occasional. Mr. Tims was a spare, slight, talkative man, with a self-satisfied manner; his wife was a pretty, lady-like person, very French and " full of deport- ment." She kept a scliool for girls: but the famous Webb school soon opened, and Mrs. Tims changed hers to a dancing class, which began at four o'clock on the close of the other. Tims' school-room was used for the township meetings at the New Year. Jinuny Thompson, their landlord and general factotum at ( Jairbraid, was the clerical Black Jinnny of the Dunlop wedding, by profession a hair-dresser. His signature, though scrawled, is (|uite legible. Captain Luard's diary l)egins in January, 1836, just two months after his marriage. It is full of such items as " Heavy rains ; decided thaw ; troop of Indians called en route to Saugeen ; observed at 9 a.m. a most extraordinary appearance of a thick cloud descending perpendicularly on the lake, in a column of very considerable dimensions, as dark as the heaviest rain-cloud ; traded with the Indians for two hammocks and a shoulder of venison weighing twenty-nine poimds, and two LUNDERSTON. 205 bjiskets, for about throe bushels of turnips. Saturday, 29th — A. M. MacGregor parsed with four sledges en nute to his schooner, wliich is ashore thirty-six miles to the north-east, for his cargo of salt fish. March 18th — MacGregor passed with four sledges again for tish. Sunday, Gth — Cutting walked up to arrange about the school-house." Then conies an entry about liis dog, " Sailor," a splendid Newfoundland, which by his bark- ing prevented someone being left to freeze to death. Sailoi- was a well-known animal, having saved many lives. He couM liasily draw three hundredweight ; but once when he am! Doherty, a lad who for some time was in Captain Luard's employment, and who afterwards lived with Mr, Hyndman, were returning with a large load they suddenly found them- selves in sludge. The dog called a halt by barking, and steadied himself by spreading well his huge paws. The boy quickly and cautiously hauled himself along by the rope, and by dint of management on his part and sagacity on the dog's, their lives and load were saved. In winter Doherty went for the mail by the ice ; there were always other messages to be attended to, and Sailor and his sleigh made the chief part of the procession. When any article was dropped into the water he would dive and rescue it, if the ice allowed. Once Captain Luard, from his windows, watched his ox-team, directed by Doherty, try to draw in a lumber-laden boat which was pre- vented making a landing by ice having formed inshore. The hoy waded and floundered until he got his fastenings complete, when the Captain came down to take charge of the oxen, and after much ado the lumber was landed. That kind of work, and subsequent hardship with surveying parties, crippled the boy for all his after years. "I had to work, and work hard, and if I had my memory I could tell you of lots like me ; but we were ordinary men who knew what work meant. These gentlemen just brought out their money, and knew it was there — until both it and the land were gone." The state of Mrs. Luard's health at one time made it necessary for her to be near a physician ; and as the ice was soft and the tt- ■: mm uift! 1 i' : 1? II ■:V \ i .i "-I ■in n*. 200 IN THE DAYS <»l" THE CANADA COMI'ANV. roatl iinpassjibk', the ingenuity <>t' l)otli Imsband and friendH was c'XiTcised uh to how to ^et her to (Joderich. A crate in which oliina had been l>rou^d»t was made into an enierj^ency anibn- lance, tilled with hay mattresses, Ithinkets and pillows. She was a tiny woman, and was comfortably accommodated in it. Four stalwai't neighbours orticiatecl as bearers, and the journey Avas safely accomplished. We find an extract from Captain Luard's diary, January, I.S37, {X'^i^J? '•^" account of the dillicul- ties of the tri]> down the hike shore to a spot apjiarently where the Point House now is : "Thursday, 19th. — Up at daylight, oti" with Andrew ((Jreen) to (^larke's and assembled .lohn Annanerty when catering or hi,, '■ """^''t off Langford by '<""■ pounds, and hacl " '"^"7; ?"'' '^"S'"'^*- 'tv- »-«'.ng to fishennen, ,s„cked I bC "*''"*■' "" ''" '"at, ^' ■I i li'' !• 20H IN' THE DAVS OK THK (\\\Ar>.V f'O.MPANV. LutinlN life was now hh ('Vontlul as had Ixmu Dunlop's at the other end of the twenty-two years of peace, in the sanie neiyh boinliood. Under his direction, cannon, morUir ami rockot did their work well, and Macken/.if^ and his followers left tin- island, " scrip and scri])pa;;e." But they left hehind them unmistakable signs of the hell upon earth it had heen while occupieil by them. Sir Francis Bond Head visited it and described "the solitariness and wretchedness " of "the islam I waste," and he also found that what rumour and despatches had cited as citadel, barrack and battery, and which at a distanen were cleverly made to look like a central blockhouse flanked by defences, dwindled into huts made of tree and sod, and ill constructed cndjankmenls. A confusion of boots and shoes, stores, frajifments of American newspapers, littered the hovels, one groat wreckage from the shell and shot of Luard's battery. Two women alone were left to tell the tale of wretchetlness in words ; it needed no words to helj) surmise the sufferings of Mackenzie's faithful wife, who had followed and stuck by him there. Her sleeping-place had been a recess like a ship's berth, furnished with straw, i|uito inade(iuate to .shelter her from biting fro.st and pitiless rain and wind. Piles of bones and pieces of bread and meat told of feasts when some stroke of good luck had turned famine into plenty, and the rags on the bushes showed what their clothing had been. The men had been herded in pens, more like sheep than fortress defenders. In all, a story of clamour, dirt and starvation. The Governor had one body exhumed, but the man had died the death of n spy instead of that of a patriot; his arms were pinioned, and his wound had been made by an island, not a frontier, rifle. One of the men serving the guns which had caused all this havof. lost a leg by a cannon ball, a fine fellow named Miller, an old Navy man. After the mangled member was cut oft' he desired to see it, gave three cheers for the Queen, and in a few hours was dead. Captain Luard afterwards had a post in the Commissariat stationed at Prescott, where he lived until his death in 1852. ill III I MINDERSTON. 20» H(! wiiH ii) (•oiniiiiiiiil of Fort VVt'llInjjton I'or soiik' time, and was there when the battle of tlie Wiiuhnill, the white Ha;; aiui unconditional surreiKh'r, and the tri.vl and ♦•xeeution of Von Shoultz followed «niick one npon the other. This windmill, liuilt in ltS22 by a West Indian merchant, wan near Captain liUards |)oint of (h'fcuice. We have stten from Dnnlop's eorre- Hpondi-nee that in far away Huron pi;js [)lHyed an important part; and later tln!y are actors in a scene madi* memorable by the daring of the Huron True Blues. At the battle of the Windmill a Lieutenant John.ston was .shot, and his body was at one(» attacktid by a horde of thesi! animals. His connnander shot iiMion^ the brutes, killing many, but the poor Lieutenant's I tody had to be placed for safety in the branches of an apph- tree. The mi.sguided Pole simply made the nnstake of meddling iir foreign politics; and Luard pitied the gallant gentleman, wIki- was as brave as he was good-looking. After his condemnation, a despatch came from headfjuarters .saying that, as he was found to be a Field Marshal of Poland, he could not be executed at Kingston, but must be taken to a fort. He was acc<;rdingly con- veyt'd to Fort Henry. Till shortly before this, the dockyar«I at Kingston had been a gi'azing ground : now it echoed, day and night, to the tramp of marching men, bugle calls and roar of cannon. Mr. Charles Girvin, of Wawanosh, tells many a thrilling tale of his militia life at King.ston at that time, and the record from every quarter is the same where Von Shoultz is mentioned. The Pole begged those Canadians who were friendly to him, and they were not few, to bury him just as he was and not to disturb liis clothing. But curiosity made them open the breast of his coat, and they found, hung from a ribbon about his neck, the miniature of a very beautiful girl. They quickly replaced it and buried him honourably. His anxiety had no doubt been prompted by the fear that this precious possession would be tampered with. Mrs. Patten of Prescott, a gi-and -daughter of the great Tecumseh and sister of Captain Ironsides (White HaC of 14 \\\P !*•. ■" f 11 ll H i( SHi i M H jl Hi 1 if ■ mm 1^ rl ■ 1 Si 1 1 I 1 bI .' HH IE ; s ; H Hi i ■ Hi Hi li 210 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA (OMl'AXV. Manitowaiiinj;^, did ^ood service to her town and bankiM- husband l>y tyintj^ all the available money into a .shawl round her waist. She carried a child under each arm and succeeded in saving herself and them and her treasure from the tire caused by the falling of red-hot shot. At home in Colborne and Goderich, (^ sure I'll bring Rattenbury home safe to you, for this." He did get back safe, and always said his sealskin cap had l)een V 1 ; i i 212 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. his most precious possession, for it was the only pillow he hud seen. Edouard Van Egmond was in Lizars' company, no doubt a most unwilling service, for his ill-advised father, brave soldiei- and good pioneer as he had proved himself, was by then with Mackenzie at Toronto. Edouard resisted the " press ; " but his horses were pressed into service, and the young owner saiil wherever they were he must follow. As a sample of messenger speed we have " Black Willie Wallace," one of Colonel (Doctor) Dunlop's scouts, sent tu Clinton from Goderich with a y to the Huronites. Nor was there blood spilled. The "Bloody Useless" had never made themselves into u thin red line to be shot at ; but thev came home to die, many of them, within three montlis, as the result of hardships endured while away. Joseph Elliot, Charles Hanley, John Becket, Robert Morlev, all youno- men under twenty-tive, came back only to leave apjain on a longer journey. The Rebellion had served one local purpose, namely, to draw temporarily together in a common cause those otherwise iiiitagonistic. It was a kind of (lod's truce — that part of the year during which, in medieval times, all private feuds were suspended, and the nobles ceasing from internal strife, took time to protect the weak. But the position of Colonel Van Kgmond in the District, and the virulent personal opposition to the Family Compact via the Canada Company, gave affairs a toiuplexion peculiar to these local causes and effects. There were those who ({uoted for home as well as for higher (juarters that "tyranny is not government, and allegiance is due only to protection." With the exception of Mr. Lizars, who had been an Edinbiirgh radical, and a few others, Huron was solidly Tory. It was impossible to suppose that a Sir Walter lover like Mr. Lizars could have cried " Burke Sir Walter;" but he lielonged to that party which ma<.le the weeping and dying novelist exclaim at Jedburgh: " Little by little, whatever your wishes may be, yon will destroy and undermine until nothing of what makes Scotland Scotland shall remain." At this time, strange to say, in the case of a single Quaker representative' in the House, he was on the side of the agitators. " Radical ' in its broadest Canadian sense was "revolutionary": but selfish- ness and violence were b}^ no means the monopoly of that sliding scale which runs from radicalism to anarchy. A n\a,n liigh in the Company's service had not hesitated to say that those not loyal to the existing state of affaiis sliould not have ! - 'V I!';; iS' il'i;' ( ) • ! ,li i ' I 1. 1 ■ K 1 ti ' ■:5: ii! 1 . i ■ nil 216 IX THE DAVS OF THE CAXADA COMPANY. the l)onefit of trial, Imt '" Ix; shot in their boots, or strung to tlie nearest tree." But the times were as neatly split into two divisions as if there were no rebellion, between Loyalist and Loyalist. The Company represented C/madian people of some .sixty yeHvs' standing, all for British supremacy under their own ll of aJeiiL (lid execution to pay." They had placed them- .selves in sturdy opposition to the formidable array of Place and Power across the river, which .seemed to imagine itself as distinct an order of the State as if the Pitt of the day had made a Brron Huron or an Earl of Minnesetung. Oddly enough, in t'.i) Mc^'iunin;'- oC Mackenzie's literary and journal- i.stic career, !).' .oi Mioneiided the revival of Pitt's proposed order of colonial nobibi} . Re also was then an advocate of the Clergy Reserv • ^)n tl' lipv hand, the friendships in the Clitjue became inttuiitiel, r.n'".- r-lannishne.ss deepened into a growth worthy of the most secluded Highlands. " Do not go to Glengarry if you be not a Highlander," might, with slight change, have been emblazoned on the Colborne bridge. Some writers say that the Rebellion was not only active in those places where the rebels came to an issue with the authorities, but that in counties not very remote from Huron two-thirds of the farming population would have risen in support of any well-organized movement friendly to Mackenzie, and that the story of the Ironsides might have been told again. Altliough this was not the ca.se there, one feeling, on the contrary, guiding every liand that held a pike, there were some who had the double satisfaction of taking decided action against oppression at home and arms against Mackenzie'.s followers abroad. The Colborne Clique laid aside their pens and took up their swords. Proud Scotch independence would not come under what they were pleased to call a yoke ; but Mff'kenzie they would none of. They imagined themselves .r martini ; hut it |)asse(l out of the Lizars hands centuries ay;o, and nothing;' rcnnains hut f^reat scrolls of hlack letter, the proving; of which nu^ht turn out a lartjfe price even for a heritage so valuable and ri'mote. However, the family history tells that they stuck well by the Stuarts : for when Prince Charlie was about to enter Edinburgh and the soldiers were told to resist him, one great-great-granduncle of the present generation, Jacobite at heart, managed to evade the spirit of the charge whilst obe3'ing the letter. He was told to serve out arms to the men in his detachment, which he did. but gave them no ammunition. Either in 174.) or 1746, when the l)onnie Prijice was in hiding in the fastnesses of Dunibai- tonshire, a young (yolcjulioun and a young Campbell, lad and lass, were proud to smuggle food to him. Their contraband ministrations put them under the ban of the law; they werr caught and clapped into Dumbarton Castle, and while so confined finished the courtship, begun under such romantic circmnstances, by being nuirried there. The Prince gave the young fellow a dagger as a kindly recognition of services rendered, a wedding gift which is still in the Lizars' possission: for these two young people were ancestors of whom to be proud. But this was not all. A McTntyre, at the time of tlie MRADOWLAN'DS. •J 2a •(> won- ist an«l iin fov Lizfirs rolls of ;e pric'f or, thf ts : fov nd tlu' nclt* of ido tln' told t" ho did. wht'ii vinibav- xd and raliand worr ile S( I man tit' ve tlu' ervices iossion : to !)»• of thf .liicobito I'xputriatioii, was j^ivon thr ehoicr of iosini; |>i(<|it'rty Mild nanu'.or both property and country. Ho ciioso tho fornior; and JiH his ouJiso was still hold hy him to Ik- a ri^ht on<\ ho iidoptod tho namo of Wrijfht, and this lirinj^s us very cIoho to tlio time of tho Li/ars omi;^nition. Tho old lady who came out with hor son Daniol was " honnio Po^'j^y Homo. " Hor life and doath hoM tra^o(ly of tho dirost kind. Hoi- fathor, a magistrate ar.s, wore loft in cliarifo of Daniol Lizars, a, vouiii; artist and ent^ravor, who completed his trust by marrying' tho jjirl so curiously orphaned. The boy was taken into tlie engraving;- cstaltlishmont, where he was scalded to doath In' lioilin^ oil. In her childhood boiiiiio Afargaret Hoiik^ was school-fellow with Scott at a Dame's School, and sh«> often told how one of his intinuitii^s was a damn nose. Thev .sat .sidr bv sid(>, and as tho L ^ *■ iiiotliorin<; instinct was stronj;, she ompji .ed her [)inafore as handkerchief. Children's pockets wore evidently not fuinish(>d then as now. In time she was left a widow with a lar<;e family : Williuin. an artist; John and Alexander, professors in tho universities of Kdinburj^h and Aberdeen ; Daniel, a publisher, and Henr^', surveyor and architect.* Of the three daughters, one became Mrs Brewster, one Lady Jardine, and the other Mrs. Armstronfjj. When the still pretty mother came to this country with hor .son Daniol, hope was strong in the hearts of all, with no tliought of further tragedy. The last of the tloomed (|uartotto was burnt to death, in a manner terrible and inexplicable. * Robert and Charles died in the British service, the former of fover, at N'cvis, in tho West Indies ; the notice of his death and appointment as captain ajipearod in the same Gazette. Chaile.x, a lietitenaiit, died of fever at Cape <''>:i»t Castle, aged twenty-six. ir I. |i;* r , 1 4 » 1^ !;:i . t n •224 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. In the early part of the century an aunt and uncle had made Huch a trip as is given us in Lord Edward Fitzgerald's " Cana- dian Travels," with the scenery and grandeur of Huron and the be! uty of Mackinaw to come after the usual objective point of the day, Niagara ; a trip which, although it held a few rude alarms, had the charms of variety and novelty. The fame of young Geor/je Simpson in his Hudson's Bay venture had reached Scotland, and these people in Canada were to be with him and follow in his train. That was before he had become " tho Despot of the Northwest : " but his fleet of large canoes, each manned by some score of Indians, all in paint, feathers, and the splendour of savagery, as they paddled and sang along the Canadian waterways,* with the English flag to mark tlu- real power at the helm, naturally impressed this (juiet Scottisli gentlewoman and her husband ; and on her return, round her knee in the Edinburgh home, she would hold entranced a circle of enchanted small hearers named Lizars. She told them of* the tiny crescent bay and the snow-white fort, the water miriDi reflecting the fringed edges of tender green, the glorious skies or star-lit heavens above it, of Michilimackinac ; and as she told, so she pronounced the syllables, many times and con- scientiously, as spelled. That name became to their youn^^ minds a kind of charm by which they could conjure up anothei- world than that of Scotland and Edinburgh. • Henry Lizars was the flrst to make up his mind to the great move, announcing his intention at a dinner party at his brothei- Daniel's house. He talked of the " estate " he intended to takr up on the shores of Lake Huron, near where Gait and Dunloj) wei'e already prepared to settle. A fence, the exclusion of tres- passers, the preserving of game, deer, wild cattle, wild horses, .i log mansion, wooded slopes towards the water's edge, were all discussed during that excited evening, and small listeners •There were two routes to Mackinaw, one by Lakes Ontario and Erie, oii.> by the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River ; botli carried the travellii to Lake Huron. The second and shorter was generally chosen by the canot- and people employed in the Indian trade. i'l MEADOWLANDS. remembering that aunt's stories, repeated Micliiliniackinac many times ere they went to sleep. Henry Lizars marrie leave the direction of the vessel in Mr. Lizars' unaccustomed hands. The latter managed to guide it tlu'ough the niffht and .storm, but morning saw them wrecked on the ))ar, they and the boat's contents all soaked. It was a Sunday morning in the month of October, 1S33, and a service was being held by the Rev. Mr. Home in the building which was to serve a.s sclux)l- ronm and church. In the middle of the service he paused and said, " Let us pi^ay for the safety of a family wrecked on the bar." The eft'ect upon the small congi-egation was much the •>>>i" n,s when now a close fire alarm disturl)s the worship. When the name was asked for and given, ^frs. Armstrong cried out : " My God ! it is my brother ! " She ran down to the liarbour, Mrs. Gooding with her, and there found " Dr. Hannlton, Bob Gibbons, and N'oung Murray MacGregor," all going out to help them. Dr. Hamilton stood up in the small boat, and called out in his cheery way: " Hand me the darlings:" and such of the darlings as were handable were given to him. The hatch was opened, and up came a very Undine, a fair-haired vision of thirteen, her wet curls tangled about her pink-and-white face, hut serene, and with wide opened blue eyes eager to look upon this Ultima Thule. Then came Daniel, a lad of eleven, and Alice and Davie, tumbling up out of the darkness into the 15 ' ' .!i'' f:l !f"5 W'^ H ^' IS: il ! I- 22\VLAND.S. 227 (li red down tlio hill, pausing, a.s jijlinipses up and down the river caujjht the eye, throu<;h the openinjijs up the Flats, and riiraptured when they came across two Indians and a squaw with a canoe moored close by. They could speak no Indian nor could the Indians speak En<^lish : Imt they made friends, ,ind when they were beckoned into the canoe, took their places with palpitating; hearts, eaj^er for adventure, but half-frightened at their own boldness. The birch-bark shot off', and the first wonder was the Hoating body of a deer, evidently newly killed liy the ice. The Indians speared at it and took it in tow, lliinking it a god -send ; for they were short of provisions, and returning from an unsuccessful ])ot-hunt. They brought 11]) at S(|uaw Island, in the midst of a big camp, where scpiaws, |)apooses and dogs clamoured for a hearing. There was a great welcome, and in less time than it takes to tell, the deer was skinned, cut up, distributed and ready for cooking. The two white children were rowed over to (loderich, came raid was the kindly Doctor carrying her up the liill to his house, strapped in a shawl on his back. The way was rough, and the twilight was thickening; he stumbled and IK arly fell, and made ponderous fun for her of their journey. It was a great change of scene from the outside darkness when the door opened and a beautifully-laid dinner table, all lights and silver and glass, with Jimmy Thompson in his white jacket and black face, stood ready for the master's arrival. I Hiiner was a function there, and the two brothers seldom sat I "If '. M ■i—m 228 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I I down to it alone. The larj^e and handsome room with its bright fire, Indian ornaments, and well cooked and well orderi'd dinner was no doubt a sharp contrast to the half-built annex- where the little one's brothers spent most of their indoor time. There, dirmer seemed to come by some operation of divint' chance, or maybe came not at all, for the parents and eldeis had early gone on to the tract taken up further along in Col- lx>rne, named Meadowlands, because of its beaver meadows. But the boys, too, had happy times in the dining-i-oom when Lou brought out her cake-box and the Doctor his double-headed penny, for they played many times with, and tossed, the coin which decided the Captain's fate. At Meadowlands a bark shanty was put up for temporaiy use at the foot of the slope, and there Mr. and Mrs. Lizars anavie, that is a go!" Daniel Lizars, like the rest, not only "farmed" himself, btit t xacted fanning services from his young family, services not nlways cheerfully given nor rememlwred with pleasure. Tlie r.ir 230 IN THE DAYS OF THE ('ANADA COMPANY IMI pretty Httlen was pressed into the turnip field >vlien the work was heavy and hands few; but John Gait managed in a kindly, neighbourly way, to take the row beside her and do a tale fui* two. The father and fanner, a handsome man of mediinii height, in the regulation red shii't and cap, tritid to ape the Ijushwhacker, but with very indifferent success. Afterwards, when Helen Lizars became Mrs. .John (lalt, the young peo}»l(i for a tiine t(x>k up their dwelling at Blarney Hall. David Law.son in after years was made Customs officer, and he seems to have been one after the smugglei's own heart. One morning he was up very early and went to scan th»' horizon from the Lighthouse hill. He saw a schooner evidently standing in, and the owner of snuiggled goods Ijelow on tlu' Harbour Flats looked up at Lawson. Law.son in turn looked gravely down below. " Hullo," he called, " what do you suppose that schooner is :*'" " Can't say, I'm sure." "Oh well, we'll wait until twehe to-night, and then well sfc what she is." By twelve the schooner was innocent of anything to offend the Customs officer. Elverybody smuggled liijuor from Maiden and other places then ; and like Miss Kdgeworth's Irishman wIid supported his (government " against his conscience in a most honourable manner," he " hated to make a disturbance when he could honestly avoid it." When such a schooner was in tin- harbour, invitations to Feltie's and elsewhere poured in on him. and he would be kept l)U8y entertaining and being entertaint' (hiy, drew some money and set oft" for Bayfield to attend to .i days business. As in the case of the Lizars forbears, if the earth had opened and swallowed him he could not have been more completely lost. Men drowned and unidentified were eagerly .sought out by his friends. The names of those employed in the new railway were closely scanned, but neither time nor search afforded clue. He was a kind, good man in his liouse, and there seemed no reason for voluntary disappearance. He had a very lively brother, named Walter, connnonly known and still remembered as Wattie ; sons of a Scotch poat-captjiin. Walter came out in 18-S2 to Doctor Dunlop's care, and the l)rother David followed. At one time they rented Springside, the Hyndman farm adjoining Lunderston, and here they and their friends pursued farming on the methods which ma persons are usuallj'^ country shop-keepers, village lawyers or upstart tavern-koeper.s. If a shop-keeper Avho gives liberal credit appears on tho hustings ho is sure to be elected : but if no such person pre.sents him.self, the freoholdei's invariably select the greatest fool in the lot, consoling themselves with the idea that though he may do but little good he can do no harm." These Members are described as being moi*e fit to dig canals than to frame laws for the uovornmont of their country, and are congratulated upon being iiblo to affix their X marks to documents with some degree of skill. It is told of one Member during .session, a sample of his li I ■ I f M I ;! :Bi; i;i 'i: 234 IN THE DAYS ()F THE l ANADA COMPANY. kind, that, owinjjf to liis ^cnt'ial ability, ho wjif* V(>t«';uage tho most convincing, invidious and obnoxious; but afterwards they would dine ami drink whiskey together without allusion to tho chapters of family history e.\ploito to think Hilly of clcetiii^ an honuHt, indcpciuli'iit piittiot lie uIIikUmI in pathetic t»>nnH to the Ijuiieiited «U»Htli of their late ^'loiious, piouH and iniiiioi'tal sovereign. King William, whieli inournful event wan the ill-wind that blew this present golden ojiportunity ; he Ix^sought them to use well tlieir power of eleetivo franchise, and in the .solx>r exercise of their distinguished privilege to lay aside the rancour of party feeling and all cor- rupt views. Hut there were men in the House of I837dirtereiit from this, as Dunlop himself and his great friend, Colonel Prince of Sandwich, a man who was educated for the English Bar and was of very superior attainments, and who, one day, on meeting Dunlop in the office of the Company in Loiuhm, had been pei- Huaded then and there to emigrate ; Baldwin, called by sonu; the only honest man in the Province, "and this notwithstanding he is an Irishman by birth and a lawyer by profession;" the clever and elo(|uent Rolph, and others of a like kin»'*ly politicians. All interpretations depend upon the intfrpretci and each assigns his own pet motive to the action. T'.ie record of politicians is sui generis, of a kind peculiar to themselves. MEADOWLANDS An old Roman proverb, " It is sometiiuej what you know," proclaims that its ai that the genus then was mueli th century. Although dubbetl the Canadt Strachan was sent to Goderich aucler the £^Q)ices Honourable Robert Baldwin and Irto eolleaeyes. Some! calls the political times of Robert Balchvin "irhat golden age.''* Politicians of either stripe, when in the historical mood, can revert to the father of responsible government with pride and call him their own, so temperate, just and balanced was he. Yet the savour of even his reputation sweetens and mellow.s with age ; the abuse, th(; harassnients, the dis.sensions are forgotten, and we only remember he was " the one honest man in the House." But even his opponents ' liked " Captain Strachan pei"sonally, ,ind could not but contrast him with some of those who did iimch to make his cause unpopular. In person he was hand- some and of distinguished appearance : a good horseman ; most particular in his ilress ; affable, courteous, abrupt or disagree- able as occasion demanded ; in all, a great contrast to and good foil for his adversary of Scottish laird habit and look, who was to carry his snufiy and unf rilled linen to tht; Canadian Capital, where his life reads in parts likv> that of Hume in Paris. A liaolielor b}'^ choice, good-humoured, clumsy as he was clever, inditierent to the arrows of Cupid (if, indeed, Cupid ever both- ired much about him), Dunlop was the exact i-everse of the Canadian exquisite, the ladies' man, the drawing-room grac«', Captain James McGill Strachan. 'J'he Governor of the Province should be an authority, and his decision was that " the Queen was the head of this family,' and credits the family with " a loyal determination to tight and die in her defence." And they had but very lately so fought ; but it was si«le by side with the men of Colborne, so no advantage was given on that point. As to the Irish, contemporary writers attest to their loyalty and tell un unvaried tale. " The Kerry men," says Blackwood's about ?n m I'i \\ h- 2.S8 IN' THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMrANY, tills time, " aro u peaceable race, who talk Latin and till their ^nound in peace and quietness.' In Huron, instead of Latin, many spoke their native tongue : an Black Hawk was monar; h-in-chief ; added to them were George ami Joe Miller, the rest of the Black Hawks, the Magees, the Hodgins (in which tribe were Big Jim, Little Jim, Jerry Jim, Big Billy and Little Billy, and Little Billy's Lenny, Longwortli George, Dublin Tom, Peeler Tom and Naygur Tom). One of these celebrities was a magistrate who coukl neither read nor write : but an axe-handle was much more effective than a (juill at election times. Tips, Far Downs, Black Hawks, however they might disagree between times, were as one man then, and it were well for the Scotch pates if they proved as thick as wit made them out to be. A question agitating lueal interest was tlie building of tho new gaol and courthouse. Like all public work, it was made tributary to the warfare. Up to this time Major Pryor wjvs law epitomised, and rode about the country like a modern Jeffreys. In ca.ses which arose from non-fulnlment of statute lal)Our, non-payment of tax, and all land trouble, he was judge, jury, gaol and tine, in pei'son and on the spot, for he appointed liis serving-man constable, and together they tried and ptm- ished, each waiting, on horse-back, to see justice fultilleti. Elsewhere, as is told of the Gore District, the ideas of justice were probably as primitive as the gaols in which retribution was supjiosed to follow evil-doing. One log prison wjis ao insecure that inmates frecjuently went home at night, xeturnini,' in the morning. One prisoner for debt sent word to tlie 1 'T MEADOWLAXDS. 23(» Sheiitt', as winter approached, " that tlie weather was getting (•old. and if he did not make better fires and keep the phice wann, he should leave." [n 1839 the Upper Canada Gazette of June 20th says: Notice is liereby jjfiven by the magistrates of the County of H\u(Mi that application will be made to the Provincial Legisla- ture in the next session of Parliament to raise an assessment of one penny in the pound, for the purpose of defraying the necessary expenses of erecting a gaol and court-house at (Joderich," etc., etc. In April of 1841, following the election of March, and while Strachan was Member pending the c>i(|uirv which was to unseat him. this letter was filed : " C. C. Office, (Jodekrh. "SiH. — In reference to your apjdication to the Canada Company for a further loan of £1,500, in addition to £1,300 already advanced, towards defraying the expense of the erection (tf the gaol and court-house at this place, I am directed to coiiununicate to you the regret which the court feel at being nhligi'd to decline compliance with the recpiest, owing to the licavy demands upon their funds in this eoiuity, and the small amount of their receipts. " I have the honour to be, etc., "T. M. .loN'Es. To.). M. McDonald, Es.i., " Treasurer of B. C. for the " Eastern District gaol in Goderich." Thrn follows a voluminous eorres}H)ndence between William Day the contractor, the Building Committee, and "The Laird ;" Hyndman, the " chief kicker," as famous as formerly when Uiltiiig at Canada Company bridges. Dated at (loderich, fitli .July, 1840, just before the great Couunission, he writes Mr. Onrroir: Mr. Cwynne will inform you of Mr. Lizars and himself liaviiig joined the schooner on the lake. Mr. Li>;ars left this by 240 IN THE DAYS OK THE CANADA CO.MI'ANV. the .steamboat on Sunday in order to charter a \e.s.sul from Port Huron, and I trust you may look for him by the first southerly lake wind. Mr. Lizars left with a list of things to be .sent to you, which please compare with the articles sent, and deliver them so far as not retjuired (used). If anythinj>' furthci- i.s wanted, let me know by Donald McKay, that we may havf it ready for the next opptjrtunity. Plea.se send me by thr Julia some heads of sills, and next load send the stone for tin- front piece and the copin<;. Mr. Day and the stone-cutters urr very nuich plea.sed with the stone, and by splitting two of them have provided foj lintel fans, ))ehind which a brick arcli will be made. When Mr. Lizars returns, reque.st him to come across with the first shipload himself, as Mr. Day is of tlit- opinion that he shall not want all the stone ori<>iually orderoil. Mr. Lizars can bring with hi'n a list of what is actually (juarried. Mr. Day says he has seen no such .stone in Canad.i '■ I am, sir, your obedient sei-vant, " H. Hyndman, " liiiildirig Com'mixS.'^ loner.' The list enclosed to M;. Day begins with " paper, pens aiu! wafers," and ends with "cairots"; while in between, the items .still further vaiy to " iron wedges, l)lock and tackle, pipes an I tobacco, twelve gallons whiskey, one gallon onions, four pounds tea, x'ice, copper caps, castor oil, candles, pepper, pork, lemons and soap, six dozen eggs, cu))s, saucers, knives, forks, butter, a skiff", one bottle brandy," with tlu' saving clau.se after the last t)f " for medicine,' and tools innumerable. In a letter to his sister .some ten vears be I ore, written in the heart of the Huron bush aiul posted by an Indian scout. Dunlop had said, apropos of affairs in York . " We are now in the middle of an election of the Provincial Parliament, whidi here, as at home, is accompanied with all the noise, confusion, drunkenness, fighting, nuilice, r'ul evil speaking and backbitini; that becomes a free people u the exerci.se of their right.s. Some of my friends proposed for me the honour of representing them in ' that august body, the Provincial Parliament,' but I from ; first to bt- t, ami iirtlK'i' J have >y thf "or tl>«' Ln"H ilVf two of ik sircli o com*' of tb.' irden'tl. kCtuall> 'anailii yner. ens all' I lie items pes au'l ]ioun'l- lemons utter. :i Itbe last |i in til' scout. now ill wbicli lifusioii. Ikbitiui: riglits. Isentiiii:' .' but 1 MEADOWLANDS. 241 iiave too inucli business of my own to attend to tbat of tlu' public." And the " lively MacTaggart," writing to him at this same early date, says : " Politics hero are making a stir amongst the cobblera. I never mind them. What are Canadian petty politics to those we have dabbled with '. When we an- politicians we are so indeed. I believe, however, our wortliy w ■ COURT HOUSK, fiODKIMCri. (Jovonior has had his own vexations of latf. Some French lx)(lios have been bothering him. 1 do not like this. I like the French-Canadian very well — a kind, thoughtless, light hearted soul — but there are bu.sy, meddling, evil-disposed characters among them. We have clapped them too much of late; this spoils thom. We must always keep a respectable distance ; and when a meeting appears about anything, the best way to 10 • f U i Jtu; mm fill ii til 242 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY, have peace is just to take the Northwester's plan, dash into the mob and knock down the fii-st you meet with a whack beneath the ear, when (|uietness is restored in a twinkling." From sucli a great subject lie glides to the announcement that " never was king prouder than I to inform you that I have obtaine. man hy ^Villiaius. istness to IhU hearts ul, and ii plaidt'tl |n powei-s Lime upon fe what 1 laelic, aivl Iree votes. The first party fought with the enthusiasm of loyalty tired by I'tar of losing; possession ; the second blended tie enthusiasm of loyalty M'ith that of liberty. The inns in and about the towns declared for their candidates ; whole pieces of red or blue ribbon found their way under sympathizing feminine fiugera, and soon • very man had a rosette and every horse a Hying bow, which u'avc open s(;same ; and as the sign on one inn proclaimed ludieshmcnt for man and beast, " another inn of the time • Itclared " Live and let live," a uiotto not suitable to the spirit of tilt! times nor to Canada generally. At one house in the town, .scissoi*s, needle and rv<\ ribbon worked up the Strachan talisman ; ;ind out at Meadow lands similar rolls in tints of azure went to • Ucorate what became known in song as " Huron's True Blues." Now came fusion of Orange and Catholic under the banner which, ignoring the coming Member's name, Happed and waved at the Old British with " Vote for the Canada Company " as motto to its device : now two Masons, one the Commissioner himself, the other Peter Green, of 1837 fame, fell out at lodge^ and the latter never attended his duties there again ; now were the springtide terrors of OBrien's Swamp from Flannigan's Corners braved, and Jim Hodgins, of Biddulph, gave the law on one side whiU^ Flannigan himself declared for the Company oil the other ; now did Joe Williamson, a Tory of Tories, a "mad < )rang(Mnan and a born faction fighter," make himself ready to do to death anyone obnoxious to his chief, saying, " Will I l>reak his head,sorr ^ Will I kill him, sorr, or will I only break Ills head, sorr ?"' And, on the other hand, a Canada Company mail was thrown under the wheels of the coming coach, to • niLTge without a tooth in his gums. Junius looked upon a'ljectives as pei^sonal enemies ; the letter writei*s in Huron iiiadc them their dearest friends. Al)out this time Macaulay must have been, as he says himself, " using them under pro- test ;" but here they throve as luxuriantly as the Canadian melon, making no apology for force or size, but, clustering alx)ut the facts they were to illustrate, transfigured instead of i|ualified them. The Horatian maxim to defer publication iv V !''i: >\f «Jj-ii VR i \ ,-.i 244 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMl'ANY. till the ninth year w but another wording of " to Hleep upon it." But the wink of an eyelid stayed not these scribes. Th»' pamphlets and the lettera of 18+1 make a storehouse of vehe- ment expression, and pretend not to vtn'bal prudery. " Mr. Jjizars, sir," to «|Uote one letter, " is held up as thi- Demosthenes of Huron. Oh ! Perhaps a candidate's address iji hand, to comment upon for its cue (with the use of his peb- bles) or a dozen sheets of foolscap compiled of schoolboys' lessons, beginning with patriot Alfred, together with the glorits of Bruce and sacrifice of Wallace. I know of no man mon competent to gull the public with clap-trap than the said Mr. Daniel Lizars, aided by a baneful duminant factUti). which I to my last shilling shall oppose. ... I havf ever loved the glorious Constitution of my native land, ainl the beneficent institutions of itK birth ; and will strenuously uphold the principles it inculcates, and thereby endeavour in my humble sphere to promote the happy features of its boiit- ficial influence, surrounded as it must eventually be by a hido of prosperity. Yet I will invariably expose existing abuses with this same unrelenting determination ; for I deem the local conduct of any man a tolerable proof of his public clainus. Popular applause is not the just criterion of worth, but fulls obli«iue, and like the evening sun gives a gigantic shadow to a dwarf. The are really putting this man beyoiMl himself. . . ." The letter ends with a hope of some blow which will destroy " this Lacerta Stellio." It had been said that the motto of the Canada Company was " Whoever is not with me is against me," and the Colborni' Clique now set about making the words true, putting into effect what might have been their own, " Wha daur meddle wi me f Everyone with the gift of speech, and some without, nuule political speeches; but whatever the question at issue, tht* action was made to the Orange and Green, the Scotch and the Irish, the Canada Company and Colborne Clique. John Haldane, addressing the multitude, with a benignant gaze. MKADOWr.ANDH. 245 ) Upon . The I veh«- as tlu- Iress ill lis pob- jolboys' ; glorit's m mon- the Haiti faction. I hiivf and, arxl enuously ■avour ill its beiK- by a /'"'" i£r abuses the local ic claims. but falls ,hado\v to n beyond me blow Ipany was Colbonie [ting iut*' lir metUllt' out, uiaiU' fissue, thi' (jotch and je, John ant gaze. siiid, " Yer a verm happy people. Yer a' Scotch, yor a' Pres- liyterian, and ye have no riff-raff Irish ainang ye." " Mr. Longworth," cried Tom Payne, a Canada Company man, to his chief, " will »/ow stand that ?" " Oh, I don't mean you, Mr. Longworth," said peaceable Mr. Haldane, turning his black eyes and venerable head in that ilirection ; " I don t mean i/ou." , "Then is it me ye mean V cvwaI Mr. Payne. After a pau.se, Mr. Haldaiu* resumed, " I make no unhappy alUisions," and the speech went on to a peaceable close. Speeches as inflanunatory and personal as the letters were made from the verandah of Isaac Rattenbury's hotel. Once liefore in its shadow a pow-wow and dance of Indians from l\w Manitoulin hud been hehl, which closed with a row, caused hy excitement and fire-water together. Now every man could called "a lawless rabble" to supplement the hindrance with insultin^j lanjjua;;e and buUyin;? actions. The men from Williams, with Doctor Dunlop, were dinin<; at Feltie Fisher's where still more alarming news arrived ; and Messrs. Lizars, Hyndman and Hansford decidi'd that it was necessary to call in military aid for the preservation of the peace. While tin- meeting to effect this was being held at Mcadowlands, anothec took place in town for tlu^ sweai'ing in of special constables : and it was then that ])octor Dunlop and the Commissionei- tiach heard of the prompt measures decided upon by these three magitttrates. The former demurred at the news, think- ing the fears exaggerated and the precaution unnecessary ; tli'- latter fell into a towering rage, declaring that these men by their action were wilfully disgracing the County of Huron. He then wrote to the Doctor : "GoDERioH, 20th March, I.S41. "Sill, — 1 know you feel anxious that the approaching election should, if possible, pass off (juietly, and no person caJi be bettt-r acquainted tlum yourst^lf with the inflammable nuiterial witti which we have to deal. Feeling that you will assist me, if in your power, to secure this desirable object, I venture to address you on a subject in which serious danger to us is, in n)y opinion, involved." [He thereupon goes into the Returning Officers objections, their reasonableness, but also the undesirability of pressing them at that juncture, and that by warning tlusi- people aiid repressing his feelings Mr. Hyndman may prevent disturbance which would be of a very serious character.] " My anxiety on this head must plead my excuse for addressing you on any subject connected with this election, circumstanced as I am and connected as I am with one of the candidates. " I have the honour to be, sir, " Your obedient and humble servant, "Tho.s. Mercer Jones." MEADOWLANUS. 24; To which Dimlop ii-plit'd that he wouM \)v iv8|)on.sibh' with his lite and «'v«'rythint; \iv was wortli in the worM for the (juiet, ((idcrly and peaceful behavicnir of " My Supporters." Tliis all took place on the Sunday, and Monday morning was to see the l)attle bejjun in earnest at the polls. It had been the intention that the men of Williains should arrive on Saturday, but owin^ to the .state of the roads the sleijrhs containin;; them had not |)aH.sed the barriers or plou«;hed their way throuj^h the slush of March before the Sunday mornint;. In deference to the day, tliey kept their Ha»;s furle have Hwn, th»^ roay-ways ami paths in which he would not be likely to be met and hindered. The news of his departure in some way reache«l Feltie Fisher's, where the other meeting was being held, and Mr. Jones' fury was a sight to Im- seen and not forgotten, according to the witnesses of it. The Hiddulph men had brought in ((uantities of axe-handles and buried them in convenient places ; so did the Tips and the Far Downs, swinging them for all they were worth, " and look- ing jis if it were a lau t'onniT shouting: " I've j;<)t Kdouard's ; I've jjot Kdoiiard'H, fiiifl I'll have (/onstant's too! " TIuh, howevei-, was impossible; .IS to (piote tht' Doctor's own words, jjiven in pamphh^t form a wet'k or two later, " Mr. Constant Van K«;mon to allow outside: men and straijglers time. There were the men from Stratford and the Easthopes ; t'roin the VVilmot Line itself, in twelve or tiftet'U waggon loads, whert^ the Hags were omitted but the horses done up in ro.settes and ribbons: others, from Tuckersmith and Hullett, had long hla/es and V>ridle paths to follow on foot (n*e the main road was readied. The Irishmen got possession of the porch at Ratten- l)\u-y's, and congregated there in such force that one man, well known to (Joderich then and since, was so sipieezed in the press tiiat he never again was " right in his heart." They knew the ones desirable to be kept back, and worked faithfully towards that end. There were days and horn's during that week wlien it was not safe for any but an Orangeman to be abroad ; but the message that John Gait's mission was accomplished and that the military contingent had reached Clinton made the warmth of th.at colour fade to a p iler hue ; anil when " that elegant aide-de-camp, Mein," and a resplendent officer of Royal I I; I \ t ^l^f i':- ;:.; U: y I 250 IN' THE IJAVS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. Artillery drew up their men in full view, " with the tirst click of their r.imrotls discietion mastered passion." The result at the enJ of the week showed one hundred and forty-nine for the Tiger and one hundred and fifty-nine for Cap- tain Strachan. The London Enqaiver of April 7th .says, "The election for the County of Huron terminated on Saturday evening last in tlie return of Mr. Strachan after a most severe contest, by a majority of ten. Doctor Dunlop has protested, it is said on >ery good grounds, against the return." Mr. Hyndnfan, as Keturning Officer, advised the protest ; and at a dinner where enthusiasm and indignation ran high, a subscription list towards that end was opened where his name headed the list for twenty pounds. The community went wild ; but not as wild as it might have, had not two gay young lieutenants in uniform been constant reminders of Regulars whose neutrality wjih a new fet^ure in that abode of faction. The very children fou iit. " Some of us boy.s who were imbued with the spirit of the election times made a band of ourselves and paraded tlu' streets as Dunlop's sympathizers. I was the head of our band as the Dunlop man, and I got uj) a flag, which I p^.inteil myself, a tiger with his paw on a puppy. Presently we met n rival band of boys, with Bill Rich as the Strachan man ; they had a flag, but I can't recall that it had a device. Bill made foi' the streamers on mine, and tore them off"; and that led to tlif pitched battle." The old system of single combat was next tried. The sides wen^ town and country, and the champions chosen by lot. Davie Lizars, no doubt much to his own di.sgust, had to defend the honour of the town, while Lewis John Brace was to fight for Colborne. The contestants, with minds full of shivered lances and broken pates, met at the place appointed, the ol i burial ground near the gaol, accompanied by backers and seconds and a host of small spectators. But Lewis John wa^ barefoot, and Davie wore boots — which the former challengeti as not baing in the suite of armour and giving an unfair advantage ; for it is true that in old combats the judges put th' principals as much as po'isible in the same circumstance-. I'm MEADOWLANDS. 251 not always ho. Like the French nuhieiimn of oUl who parried witli liis poniard whilst his advei-sary's left hand, used for the same purpose, hung in riblx>ns, LizaiTj might have said " Thou hast done wrong to leave thy boots at home." But in spite of th«' " Border Ballads " and the romantic lore of the Mcadowland.s I >(K)k -shelves, it was decided that the town champion should g() harefoot. Lewis John's second stratt^gical move was to take liis stand wher*- the ground was covered with thistles, his feet l>eing hardened. He soon had the satisfaction of seeing his fi)e ' iiopping about like a crazy sparrow." Each boy was afraid t»F the other, for apart from the thistles they were evonly matched ; so the tight was declared off. No worldly turmoil liefore this had entered tlie portals of the Misses Webb's sc; (X)l for young ladies : but even he)**' mimic election fc(K)k place. One ringletted damsel "ran"' for the Canada Company against .mother as JJunlop, and thi? latter won, the beaten Strachan candidate finding it hard to undei*stand why she should lost? when her principal was returned. That evening at a childr^Mi s party at the Lizars' house the Tiger caught up his repre.sentativ« , more fortunate than himself, in his arms and kis.sed hei, a*' I }j;av(! her a guinea to boot. It remained a great puzzle to s.')nu' of the girls how such a thing could be, and oin' of them cried heartily over the defeat of her «learest frieiiil. The next excitement was t!ie processions. Kach. ictor ami v>in.(juished, was to march and counter-march and blow exulta- tion, disdain and defiance, from the p"nny whistles which supplied the melody of their respective binds of music. Two f the Kippen Ujys and young J)an Lizai>. n)ade for Dunloj) a tin erown, which they covered with .jold foil pilfered from Mr. Lizars' art box. It was a most creditable ci'own foi" amateur work. "Quite chaf-'oy. b-b-b-bef-f-fore you get it safe to G-Cil-G-(J-(}airbraid." It took a wlujle day to niakf the baubh' : there was a long run to Cairbraid : and after P 1 Jm afX " ' \-, k fi I m i, I ( ' 2.V2 [N THE DAYS OF THK CANADA COMPAN'V all the Doctor, with many thanks, refused it. There is con- flicting testimony jih to what amount of decoration he did per- mit himself. Eye-witnesses say his legs were done up in wheaten straw as a compliment to his farmer supporters; in that case he must have appeared as if mounted on two gigantic champagne bottles. But he did march, and in the centre of a bodyguard of eight young men, blue ribboned, and holding staves also decorated, a similar staff in his own hand. All boro themselves at a dignified pace, and l)ehind them came waggons full of the men of Williams and other supporters. Captain Strachan, as tlie representative of Power and Place, was in a carriage : with him were the Baron de Tuyle and the Commissioner, (iscorted by the Staff of the Canada Com- pany, mounted. From horses' ears, num's button -holes, or wherever a ribbon or rosette couhl be put, th«' red favours Hoatefl and gleamed. Each procession was provided with n band of music. Strachan's consisted of two fifcrs with one Hfc, j)laying " blow and tie," and unr small k«'ttle drum. Tho Stratford conting>*nt, with J. C. W. Daly at its head, John Vivian as his clerk and purser, W. F. McCnIlcK'h and Andrew Montoith in its inimber, had Ikjcu billetf^l alK)ut the town, the ti'ip as well as entertainment lM>ing free of expense to thciu. 'riu^y drove up on the Sunday night, aniving in time to sec " The Royals" march in. The party was ehiotly Catholic, aisd near (Jodcrich was met l)y an Oi-angc one headed by Dr. Hamilton, he and all wearing their red favours. .) (\ McCarthy, one of the nuinber, a fine young fellow who took Tojyism most seriously, was f the fifers in this antiphonal iiiojisure ; Mark Collins, a Crxlerich nian, w .s the second fifer, and Mahoney was the drummer. These three headed the pro- cession in front of the carriage, playing their parts ; but theii repertoire consisted entirely of Irish Catholic tunes, which must have been disturbing to the ears of the Kings. The famous Joe Williamson suggested striking up the " Protestant Boys" as a master-stroke; but prudence stayed their fingers. Williamsf)ji was a big Imndsonie man, with n natural gift ol MEADOWLAXDS. 253 eloquence which was frequently aired in the Division Court. The start was made from Rattenbury's Inn, and they met their rivals a little farther down the street. DunlojVs music was chietiy from the bajrpipes, aj^ainst which the othei*s drummed and fifed in vain. " Now, " said the l(K5al constable, a stront; Canada Company man, adjuring his friend the Black Hawk, " now, wSien the row iKijipns do .some of you fellows iiit me on the head, so that I won't Ihj any use " He was loath to make arrests, as he wished the row to go on " and thought it lK?Ht to be put out of reach of temptation to do his duty." "Boys, for God's sake," cried a J. R, "don't let me read the Ri(jt Act to yau—ilon't ! For as sure as you do, the soldiers 'II tire at you." Some time after thih., one of the Black Hawks got his leg smashed at a " raising." Con.sultation advised amputation, and a suggestion was made for J)unlop's opinion. "It's no use," said the Black Hawk, " not after the way I fought against liim. " However, the Doctor came, .set and savi-d the limb, and, wiuit pleased nearly as much, never charged a farthing. This was trulv a vear when March disdained to come in or go out as a lamb. It was oidy a tempest in a teapot, but it shivered the teapot. The fire .still burned Itrightly on the dogs ill the Meadowlands drawing-njom, and .shone on the old- liLsliioiuMJ carpet strewn with iiiipo.ssible ro.ses, on the book- huilt walls, ami made grotes(|ue lines in the danci g i-eflections iiF the flut«;s and twists of the small upiight. But the company iiljout thi' last mi.sswl some of its tenor; and the groups, seated ill dignifiiMJ (|uartettes at the baize-eovere n .. ». II •:4l. -?:i^-: m 25U IX THE l)AY« OF THE CANADA CuMPANV. out very forcibly the evils resulting to the province froui the violence of the Orange untl Tory factions, and that he fully coincides with Mr. Buchanan's opinion, that until the people obtain protection from the laws, emigration cannot, and ought not, to be encouraged." This series of pamphlets wtis known, from the title of the first, as " The Canada Company va. tht- People," that title telling the gist of them all : "No. I. " To the Freelwlders o) /A« Coivniy of Hui'oii : "My Friends and Nekihbours: — After a protracted contest during which nearly every voter in the county was brought ti • the poll, I have lost my election by a majority of ten out ttf three hundred and ten. This the Canada Company will pi'obably call a triumph. 1 call it a decided and most disgract - ful defeat. What would be said of a nobleman or gentleman in Britain, who, after polling all his hired or paid servants — all who owed him money — all whom he could inHuence — all who %■' were attached to him on principle — and all that numerous and respectable U)dy who exist in every (juarter of this wicktil world of ours, whom Jiurke has so .ju.stly described as persons having a lively sense of gratitude for favoui-s to conie — ajul who in the end could only cany his candidate by such i beggarly and contem{)tible majority :* Would the world not say there is something wrong in the conduct of that man or his tenants to a man woulrofes.sion was useless, for this very plain and simple reason, that the majority of the voters did not believe it : and it wouhl have been strat)ge if they had, when tlioy saw every officer. t!veiy dependent, (^vtuy on-hanger and every man in any way in th(! employment of the Company, busy in the canvass, and using every nieans, fair and foul, for the return of the Canada Company candidate. . . . That tlnsre were acts of gross piirjury committed wo have every reason to believe, particularly if conrtission is lookisd upon as proof. Of every (me of tlu^se perjuries th(! .seccmd officer of the Canada Company was aware : aiitl we refer it to every nuin of eonimon sense whether morally, though not legally, this did not amount to subonuition. And we do also appeal to every man of eonnnou sense and honesty, whether the Connnis.sioners of the Canada Company were t'ntireiy blameless in openly and avowedly vsanctu>ning such iui act. '!t was attem))te8 IN TIIK DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. to iWiH charjjo, that Mr. (Ui\t, as a parti.san of initio, liaada Company will compel me to inflict ujx)n you many •'i(Ually long and ttniious. ' The Canaloctioii, Mr. Hi^iiull, a magis- trate' in thi! int(!n;Ht of i\\v, Canar, that if he (Mr. \\.) did n(»t retract hiH deciHJon to exehide . . . from the }iUHtin^H there wouhl certainly Ix* a riot at the poll. Mr. Hynajjistrat(!s that three of them (Mr. Hyndniun the lleturninjj Ottici^r, and Messrs. Lixars and Kansfonl), having met accidentally, they resolved that it was necessary for tin preservation of tlie peact; of the comity to caU in the aid of tlif military to support the civil power, and for tluit purpose an express was innnediately despatched to London. " At the time when this transacticm took place; 1 was in tlu- town of (loderich, in my friend Mr Fisher's hotel, dining witli my worthy supporter from William.s. So pertectly convijui il were these magLstratca of the necessity of promptly sending lor military assi.stance that I was not called upon or consulted in this matter. When, however, I attended a called meeting of the magistrates, at seven o'clock that night, for the purpose ot swearing in an additional number of special constables, 1 dr clared my opinion that the step was unnecessary. At eiglit o'clock Mr. Commissioner Jones and Mr. Bignall, who had bctii waited for, then arrived ; and wlien Mr. Jones was informed ol it he expressed the bitterest indignation at the step which liinl TIIK CANADA roMPANY m THK I'KOI'LK. 2()l Ixini luloptitd, (loclai'iii^ timt it wiih wilfully (liHgraciiiK tin; (Jounty oF Huron, — to nil wliicli Mr. Hi^niill of conrHe lUMuiitud. Ilnvin;; olijcctcil to tin; conduct ol' my t'riciKlH, I thought it nty iiiiprnitivtt iiti(!nt and impartial invoNti^ation, I am decidedly of opinion that they only did what waH their imperative duty, and had tiitty not done HO they would have Immui resiMniHihIe to (jod and tlnur country for the violenct; and hloodshed which [ hav«j not the moHt distant doubt would have followed Huch a neglect. Had I no other ntaHon to iMilieve that violt.'uce waH intended, I mi^ht have Ikmui convinced that there was danj^er, fmin a letter tome i'roiii Mr. Commission«!r tloiuis, which he handed acrosH the tiilde to me iifler the calling; in of the military had been aimounciid to him." (Tlujn follows the letter from Mr. Jones, IVoiii which we hav«f aln;aily mad responsiMe with my life and everything that I pos.se.sscd in the world for tluj «piiet, orderly ami pt!ac.ss that (pialification. For what purpo.se the.se were brou^^ht in at a ^reat e.xpen.se, and from a lonjij distance, I h^ave you to surmise. I also referred it to Mr. (Commissioner tbmes' knowler|n;(! and jud^miiut, if men who had shown that decent rev(!rt;nce that all who even do not feel it HikI it convenient to exhibit for theSabljath day, were ecpially likely to commit a riot, with tho.se who had o[)enly and pub- licly desecrated it by their riotous cojiduct durinfj the very pt'riod of the public worship of God ! I did th(m say, and I now repeat it, that I would be answerable with my life and ail 1 i)os.seHse«l for the \;()Oi\, peaceable and (piiet behaviour of lay m is r \ *.. il ■ I'm IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) // {./ k w- ij. #p. 7, 1.0 !r«- iia I.I Jij IIIIIM 112.2 116 f «- IIIIIM III 1.8 1-25 1.4 1.6 ■« 6" ► Photographic Sciences Corporation S ^•\ ^ :\ V \ ^9) ^ 4S O 'k n/ "ij,^ 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 873-4503 i ji!i ijjiii liiifi I; 262 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. supporters. Dare the Canada Company, or the most unprin- cipled of their underlings, come before the public and say — shameless as they are — that they could give the same pledge ! " Among the most forward, the most prominent, and the most influential of my opponents were the Orangemen of the county- Every man of them voted against me, though I am well aware that every man of them has a personal regard for me. Their minds were poisoned by falsehoods, insidiously instilled into them by the agents of the Canada Company. I was told by one of the most respectable and influential among them that )u- never would have voted against me but that he heard I would make the Scotch drive the Irish out of the country. I do not blame the honest yeoman for believing this, considering the source from which he I'eceived it ; but J. appeal to the Province of Canada, I appeal to the British Empire, from the St. Law- rence to the Ganges, is there one educated man who could believt' me to be guilty of such base infamy? It has been the policy of the Canada Company on this occasion to sow discord between the races. It never was mine. So far from it, that these very men who were induced by falsehood and calumny to oppose mc professed for me, personally, the very highest esteem, and there is not a house, or a hut, or a shanty possessed by one of them, into which I would not be as cordially received as the Commis- sioners of the Canada Company themselves. With these men, however, politically opposed to me, was it safe, not for me, but for my friends, to remain here without the protection of a military force ? Let the late melancholy events at Toronto answer that question. It is a garrison town. We were upwards of sixty miles from military aid. . "The same factions which produced the deplorable results jit Toronto were opposed to me here, — the Family Compact and the Orangemen. Under what circumstances the latter shouM have been induced to so strenuously oppose me I cannot tell. My family for three hundred years are recorded in the history of Scotland as Whigs of the Covenant — from my great, great, great-grandfather, who was imprisoned and banished for his THE CANADA COMPANY VS. THE PEOPLE. 263 inprin- 1 say— jdge ! he most county- [1 awaiv Their led into told b\- 1 that h<' I would I do not H'ing the Province St. Law- \d believe i policy of 1 between ihese very )ppose me. and there of them. Commis- ,hese men, ,r me, but -tion of a ^t Toronto •e upwards political and religious opinions, by James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England, to my great-grandfather Alexander Dunlop, who, when an infant, was carried to Virginia by his mother to join his expatriated father. Our family had every cause to deplore and deprecate the weak and wicked reign of the latter Prince of the Stuart line ; and to William of Nassau we owe the restoration of our family to their possessions, to promotion, and to honour ; and the very crest that I wear, and the bordure that surrounds my arms, were bestowed upon my i'amily by him of the glorious, pious and immortal memory. It is not to be supposed, therefore, that I can object to the principles of Orangeism, — Protestant and Presbyterian as I am. I only object to the practice of it in this country. I have always looked upon it here as not only an unnecessary but a po.sitively pernicious union, seeing that the Catholics of Upper Canada have proved themselves as loyal, at least, as the Protes- tants ; and if I wanted further reasons for that opinion I would not need to go far from my own door to find them. There has hardly ever, as far as I know, been an Orange procession in Goderich that has not been accompanied by a row. They wliacked the Catholics when they could find them. In default of Catholics they whacked the Protestants ; and when they could find people of no Christian sect, they whacked the Heathen — that is to say, they belaboured one another. The late melan- choly occurrences at Toronto, already alluded to, must open the eyes of the most skeptical to the pernicious nature of that confederation ; and will, it is to be hoped, induce the Legislature of the province to crush it by the strong arm of the law, as nothing but force can control it, or bring it into that subordi- nation which is essential to the well-being of all civilized communities ; and I shall lend my humble aid, in Parliament or out of it, to so desirable a consummation. "The Canada Company since their defeat have disavowed that they have used any — the slightest — exertion for the return of their candidate. If it were not too notorious to the whole world that Captain Strachan had no other claim to represent 264 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. the county but the will of the Caiiada Company, I might enter into proof on the subject. But that the belief of every settler in the Tract was that Captain Strachan was tiieir candidate may be proved from the banners which he carried, from the common parlance of the county, and from the notorious and undeniable fact that three \oters who were brought to the hustings polled for the Canada Company. Had the Returning Officer done his duty he would have recorded the votes as they were given, instead of explaining to them that the illustrious corporation was not a candidate for the honour of representing the County of Huron. " Supposing instead of Captain Strachan, my friend Mr. Henry Sherwood (whom the ungodly call Snarleyow), a gentleman of the same side of politics as Captain Strachan — a leader of the party to which he belongs and a person of acknowledged talent — had come to the County of Huron to oppose me, without any influence direct or indirect from the Canada Company, is there a man in the whole length or breadth of the province who can be found to say that he seriously believes that he could have polled ten votes ? Captain Strachan, amiable and gentlemanly as he is, and I am proud to acknowledge, publicly and privately, and ever have done so, that during the contest his conduct uniformly merited this encomium, is, from his short residence in the province, and not having the same advantages as my friend Mr. Sherwood, infinitely less knov/n than he — a fortiori would he have had jive votes in the County of Huron, unsupported by the Canada Company ? " But it is not to the fair and legitimate influence of the Canada Company that I object. They have the largest stake in the county, and it is natural that they should wish to return a Member who will support their interests and flght their battles on the floor of the House of Assembly ; and God knows they have need of a Member not only entirely devoted to their interests, but of the highest talent for such a difficult service. " But I do object, and protest against the undue and foul means that have been used to gain their ends. I did think THE CANADA COMPANY VS. THE PEOPLE. 265 ■j enter settler didate )m the as and to the mining ab they istriouH isenting that the Court of Directors, with one or two exceptions, know- ing me as they do, would have trusted to my honour and integrity, which I have never given them cause to doubt, and not have permitted the measures which have been taken to oppose me. There is not a man at that Board — except a Httle Cockney of the name of Franks, whom Mr. Bosanquet, who God forgive, being a pious man, told me was his god-son, and who ought to have known better than to take the name of God in vain — and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, of whose character it is unnecessary to speak, but would have trusted nie with any affair where honour and honesty were requisite. But I do object, etc. . . . "The Canada Company necessarily have the best legal advice in the province, yet their emissaries diligently circulated the opinion that a deed from them carried with it the same power as a patent from the Crown, viz., the power of voting the moment the deed was put into their hands. These emissaries also bewildered the ignorant settlers by confounding the ilistinction between 'possession of the lot and deliveri/. Many swore to their qualification in this ignorance. But that remains to be proved in my Scrutiny before the House comes on, and where I am prepared to prove that the Canada Company, whose province it ought to be to protect their settlers from sin and crime, have flagitiously used every mean trick and stratagem to plunge them into open and corrupt perjury, basely manu- facturing votes to defeat the law and the people, exposing their itinerant and innocent settlers to the scorn of the one and the pains and penalties of the other, in their infamous attempt to rob the constituency of their franchise, and to leave them virtually unrepresented by thrusting upon them, by such acts, their own nominee. They have brought forward on this occa- sion the unfledged stripling of ninety en, side by side with the hoary ruffian of fifty, openly, knowingly and impiously, to kiss the sacred volume with a lie upon their lips. "This contest is a struggle not between James McGill Strachan and William Dunlop, but between the Canada Company and Hffli F r'^lu •! ' 1 iJ-ll ■^^ I \M ■■ '-R ) ! * 266 IX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY, the people of the County of Huron ; and if it shall be decided against me in the court of final .resort that the Canadii Company can place their nominee in Parliament by their fiat, it will be a warning to every honest Englishman, to every cautious and calculating Scotchman, to every warm-hearted and blundering though educated Irishman, to shun the Huron Tract as they would the pestilence, where their political rights will be withheld from them by a corporation and its minions, whose apparent interests are difterent and often opposed to theirs. "I may be accused of opposing the interests of the Canada Company. If I op})osed their true interests, I would be the most improper man that you could send to Parliament. Were the power placed in my hands to compel the Canada Company to do what I ordered them, I vow to my God that I would do nothing else than what for twelve years of my life which 1 spent in their service I never ceased to recommend them to do, by letters to them as a body, by letters to their individual Directors, and by personal conference with both, but which recommendations, as Mr. Longworth stated in Mr. Hodgin.s' Tavern on the London Road, on Saturday the 20th instant, in the presence of Mr. Lizars, HE, MR. LONGWORTH, WOULD NOT PERMIT" The foregoing letter bears date 31 st March, 1841. These pamphlets follow the series of letters written the year pre- viously by Mr. Hyndman, and were followed by another series from the Doctor, entitled " Doings in the Huron," wherein answers are made to accusations which appeared against him, based on old scores. One subject which proved an aggravating one for many years was the number and nationalities of the magistrates. In the following letter to the freeholders of Huron, beginninji " My Friends and Neighbours," of M^y 25th, 1841, during that interregnum between the Members reigns, Dunlop says : " It was only yesterday that I saw by accident, in an obscure print, the name of which I never before heard, an attack upon THE CANADA COMPANY vs. THE PEOPLE. 267 lecided Canada eir fiat, » every hearted Huron 1 rights minions, posed to ( Canada d be the t. Were Company would do which 1 lem to do, individual >ut which Hodgins' nstant, i" WOULD 1,1. These year pre- bher series I" wherein lainst hi"'. for many Itrates. I" beginning [luring that lys: an obscure (ttack upon me. Ah it is an axiom in law that no man \h bound to plead to nonsense, I shall say nothing on the rigmarole of this pro- duction, much loss shall I disgrace myself by retorting its Billingsgate. " The writer states, by implication, that of seventeen magis- trates and nine Commissioners of the Court of Requests, then* is no Irishman because of the predominance of the party of which he does me the honour to say I am the head. Now the fact is notorious to all the county, that of these seventeen magistrates — I was made before this county was even explored — Mr. Pryor and Mr. Brewster were made some time after, and all the remainder were made before this was created a county and on the recommendation of the Commissioners and officers of the Canada Company. If these gentlemen had thought that there was an Irishman whose education and standing in society fitted him for so responsible an office, they most undoubtedly would have recommended him, and if it can be shown that there are any Irishmen so circumstanced there is no doubt they will be so recommended yet. There are only two magistrates who have been appointed since this became a county ; these are Mr. Gooding and Mr. Jones. The former was recommended by me ; the latter, I presume, by himself. . . . " As to the Commissioners of the Court of Requests, the office is so undesirable that it is often found difficult and sometimes impossible to form a court in this part of the world, and I am aware of no one who ever courted the distinguished honour of sitting in the Sixpenny Chancery." He makes one exception, and treats the aspii'ant's ambition rather caustically. Concerning the magistrates, Dunlop observed that " Mr. J. C. W. Daly's name has been excluded from the list, which was a great injustice, as although born in Manchester that gentleman was an out and out Irishman." ^ ;: i i|, 5 115* \M in^ Il !i CHAPTEK XII. THE PEOPLE VS. THE CANADA COMPANY. " The highest branch m not always the st^fest room," The people spelt themselves with an extraordinarily big P when August came, and with it a waggon lumbering along the Huron Road from Toronto lakewards; in it were Messrs. Hagarty, Fitzgerald, Gwynne, Phillpotts, Ferguson Blair, Thomas (Jalt, and Sechar Brough, the Commissioners appointed for the special Scrutiny and the counsel for the contending parties. Four of these names were yet to grace the Canadian Bench ; one was to wear the honour of Knighthood ; but they were then tall slips of fellows bent on larks as o^ten as on business, with a wonder- ful trick of coiT>bining both, full of talk, bright ideas and pleasant manneiu Mr. Hagarty was a clever young Irishman, with not only the ready wit and tongue, general birthright of his country, but a ready pen as well, with the power of the versifier and caricaturist. Mr. Gwynne was a friend of young Gait, second son of the great inceptor of the Company and brother of the younger John whose famous walk was still an engrossing theme at a time when themes and their variations were plenty ; young Gwynne was in the succeeding ten years to stand in the same position as Dunlop now did, his own election for Huron in 1848 with the Honourable William Cayley for opponent a protested one. Fitzgerald was the son of Colonel Fitzgerald, an old-time friend of the Tiger, tall, distinguished- looking and fair, of the Rainsford type ; Phillpotts, short, stout THE PEOPLE V8. THE CANADA COMPANY. 209 unil high-featured, was brother to the missionary of that name eaten by cannibals in the South Sea Islands ; lastly, Sechar Brough, who was yet to return to Goderich as its County Judge. In the interim between the victory of March and the enquiry ot August, Captain Strachan had taken his seat in the House, and on the date of "Mercurii 16, Junii 1841, Anno 4, Victoria' Reginae 1841," we find recorded : " A Petition of William Dunlop, of Gairbraid, in the County of Huron, Esquire, was presented to the House by Mr. Prince, and the same was received and read, setting fox'th : " That at the last election for the County of Huron, the petitioner and James McGill Strachan, of the City of Toronto, Esquire, were the only candidates for the representation of the same county, and that Henry Hyndman of the said county, Esquire, executed the office of Returning Officer at the said election. " That a poll being demanded for each candidate, the same was granted and proceeded on from the 22nd day of March until the 27th day of the same month, when the said Returning Officer declared the majority to be ip favour of the said James McGill Strachan ; the number polled for the petitioner being one hundred and forty-nine, and for the said James McGill Strachan one hundred and fifty »nine, and the said James McGill Strachan was thereupon returned by the said Returning Officer as duly elected. " That at the said election divers persons claiming to vote in respect of estates held by them under deeds of conveyance, were admitted to poll for the said James McGill Strachan and counted on the poll in his favour, who were not entitled to vote at the said election, they not having been in actual possession or in receipt of the rents and profits of the estate in respect of which they voted, by virtue of the said respective deeds of conveyance to them, for twelve calendar months next before the said election ; nor the said deeds of conveyance, under which they claimed to hold the estates in respect of which they severally :'TI' 'J Hl^-v ;', )■ •270 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. voted, liavin{jj been registered twelve calendar months beForo the holding; of the said election. " That also votes were polled and jjiven in favour of the said dames McOill Strachan by persons who had not in fact, at tho time of the said election, any fiechold in the lands in respect of which they voted : that also several persons voted at the said election in favour of the said James Mcfiill Strachan who wero not of the full ago of twenty-one years at the time of holding the said election. " That by the admission of persons to vote at the said election, who from the above and other various legal disabilities were incompetent to vote for any candidate at the said election, the said James McGill Strachan obtained a coloiu'able majority of ten votes, and was therefore leturned to serve in this honour- able House for the said County of Huron, to the great prejudice of the petitioner, who had, upon the said election, as he submits it will appear upon a scrutiny of the poll, a majority of good and legal votes, and is therefore entitled to take his seat in this honourable House as the representative member of the said county. " Petitioner therefore humbly prays, that the said James McGill Strachan may be declared not duly elected, and that the petitioner may be declared duly elected and may be substituted in the place of the said James McGill Strachan, to take his seat as Knight to represent the said county in the present Provincial Parliament, and that the honourable House will grant such further relief to petitioner as the merits of the case may require." " Ordered, — That the said petition do lie upon the table." One side of this warfare always maintained, and will maintain while the event is remembered, that there was "a fearful expose," — -and it must be conceded that the public prints and records of the time bear them out ; the other side, and voiced by no mean authority, maintain that " they sat for a week or ten days taking evidence in Rattenbury's hotel, a modest wooden edifice, the evidence chiefly consisting of sifting the titles of the voters liil < 1, THK PEOPLK I'K. THE CANADA COMI'AXV. 271 'if le Haiti at tho pect of lie said lO wero liolding tor Stmchaii, whoso brotlier- in-law, Mr. Mercer Jones, was the ('luiada Company Commissioner; encpiiring whether the votei-s wore actually owners within the then statute laws," but " no pretence that any bribery had been committed. " Further, " none i>f the great expense incurred was unlawful, for in those days candidates could keep open house and pay all the living expense (»t" their large committees." Reference has been made before to a little Irishman named Michael Kelly in Mr. Jones' private seivice, who also acted as porter an'd doorkeeper in the Canada Company's offices. A survey of the Company's books was demanded, and as the Scrutiny was held at Rattenbury's and they could not be left there at night, there was a daily pilgrimage when the faithful little man, full of belief and devotion, wheeled them back and forth in the Company's wheelbarrow, the heavy load bending still more his already crippled back. This was a point not to lio missed by the satirical eyes of the strangers in town and the dreaded Clique. This small Irishman might have stepped out of Lover's or Lever's covers, then being read by all, with his screwed up features, one shoulder higher than the other, and the sinister look peculiar to him interrupted by fear, disdain, outraged loyalty, and a score of contending feelings as he trotted back and forth between the Inquisition and the new Canada Company buildings, then just finished and the pride of his heart. It would be doubly hard for hin>, as for all, to lose now when conquest had been theirs so lately, and conquests so hardly won that men had held politics as tlie maxim did Love and Wai'. On the ultimate decision depended the distribution of the county offices, and each man vvorke«. the canada company. 27 M , Hpaet' . jther, ii iriest by I selling' 10 couUl the tiiiH- throu«:li ttest Ins 1. *' I« it dn't been 'iah wert' phasizinjr lis knees, ; I nearly i. A nuvn ining, and ent on tlif 8 ready to I the party hmen ran. I'll drown liorses out. le ice was ts ticklish ,ked back, close nip. Oh, no. 1 hadn't believe in Catholic : Icause they Babylon, jxclusively I two Iris^^- towns, one at Dennis Downey's, the other at Flannay;an*s Corners. Of the former a brijjht little Irishwoman of the black -eyed, white-capped, neat pattern which nuKlern Canadian life has unfortunately almost obliterated, tells her tale. " In all the Hfty-six years I have known the Orangemen I never heard any- thing but what was kind from them ; and ye must just praisf fools as ye find them. Nolxxly who had any sinse paid any attintion to such little things as an Orangeman when he was happy yelling out ' Down witii the Pope.' But Doctor Chalk, Ood rest his soul, would and did call back ' Hang King William.' But little things like that was all naxight, and everything was peaceable anut we wouldn't be stopped, so they took our seventeen names Holmes, the County Master of the Orange Society, gave us orders not to go into any public house, but just march round the Square. Then on the eleventh of July we were all siipaynaed to stand our trial ; so we marched into Godciich, lots more of us besides seventeen, with our drums and colours, as far as Ellis's on the S(iuare. Ellis was a constable, but he wouldn't take charge of us : so then we marched on to the i;fiol, and we stood there, but they wouldn't open the door. Then, when we turned away a few rods off, the Sheriff opened a window and read the Proclamation. I^hen he ordered them he ha«l warrants for to go into the court room, and them he hadn't warrants for, too: so we turned, a full hundred of us, and went to the court I'oom. We went upstairs in a body, with drum and fife and flag : we furled the fiag, and set it on one side ; a'ld then Harry Read, crier, called our seventeen names over. There were several magistrates, John Holmes, John Longworth and others, lots of spectators, and among them the young women who had walked in from the country side with the < 'rangemen. After all they hadn't magistrates enough, so they swore some in. Then Lonyfworth moved that him and Holmes 278 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. i would j^o security for the whole of us till the Assizes. Then we were dismissed and went home. Well, we hired Gwynne to plade our cause ; but he only got as far as London and tuk sick there. Then the trial was adjounied again until the next Assize, and we got Four-eye Stewart and lie pladed us out of court and brought us out free." A contemporary traveller and historian gives the following story about this time, to the Roman Catholic ])relates at Cork, in Ireland: "I had fortified myself with an al)undance of documentary evidence to show the state of the Irish emigrant settlers in Canada. From Valcartier to Sandwich I showed to the Venerable Prelates that wherever Irishmen settled down — there were exceptions of course in every case — they had provided themselves with a peaceful, comfortable home, and by their conduct had not only benefited themselves and theii* posterity, but wei'e materially adding to the strength ami wealth of the country, in whose defence, indeed, in the hour of danger, they had proved their loyalty by taking up arms and rushing as one man to the point when^ invasion or rebellion threatened." So while in the Mother Country "Tories iniirred wLat Whigs had scarce begun, And Whigs undid what Whigs themselves had done," :i \ ^1 ; ■■ ^! ii heaven and earth were being jumbled together for politicul purposes, things holy to one ridiculed and outraged by the other, and strife instead of peace the outcome of so-called religion ; the Faiths, instead of kneeling side by side, wen- vis-i\-vis and armed to the teeth. Another observer about this time says, " Whilst I am writing', the Hibernian Society passes by. There are four banners, first St. Patrick, second the Queen, third Father Matthew, fourth the glorious Union Jack. It is the l7th of March, and tln' band plays God Save the Queen." But the " fateful document " upon the table of the Legisla- ture continued to do its work. THE PEOPLE VS. THE CANADA COMPANY. 27!) Subsequently wo find a Select Connnittee appointed in the House to entjuire into the merits of the petition. "The Sergeant-at-Arms was directed by Mr. Speaker to ^o with the Mace to the places adjacent and require the attentl- ance of the Members on the business of the House. " And he went accordingly. " And being returned, the House was called, and more than thirty Members being present, " Mr. Speaker called upon the petitioner, his counsel or agent, to appear at the Bar. " Luke [SecharJ Brough, Escpiire, appeared at the Bar as counsel for the petitioner. " Mr. Speaker called upon the .sitting Mend^er, his counsel or agent, to appear at the Bar. " Mr. Strachan, sitting Member for the said County of Huron, appeared at the Bar in his own behalf. " Mr. Luke Brough, counsel for the petitionei", presented a list of witnesses in the case of William Dunlop, which was read bv ^e clerk a.s follows," etc. T .t contains one hundred and seven names, with many papers and reeoixls, the names comprising those of T. M. Jones, Freilerick Widder, Donald McDonald of Toronto, W. Bennett Rich, and Charles Widder: Alexander McDonald, Stratford; Henry Hyndman, Returning Officer; Thomas Gait; Edward Uriffin, agent for the Baron de Tuyle; Mrs. Catherine Papst, wife of Richard Papst. inn-keeper, Goderich ; William Hicks, inn-keeper, and Mary Hicks his wife ; John Clark, of the Lake- shore ; William and James Cleine, of South Easthope ; J. C. W. Daly,- Stratford ; Ben Parsons, jr.; John Gait, Registrar of the County of Huron ; Moi'gan J. Hamilton ; the Cantelons, Elliotts, Duggans, of Goderich; with others from Usborne, Biddulph, North and South Easthope. Strachan handed in a list of one hundred and eighty-two names, in which these were nearly all duplicated ; while added to them are A. D. Naftel, D. Li/ars, John Longworth, Baron de Tuyle, Frasers and Frazers, Lefroy, Cull, Murdoch Gordon, Honourable W. H. 'I i;l 280 IX THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I )raper, Georgo Boomer of Toronto, the Rattenburys ; Lieuten- jint Marriott, R.A., London, and Lieutenant Mein, First Royals, Knfjland, the two last-named there in response to John Gait's petition for military aid. "The Sergeant-at-Arms then locked the doors," and the business of the Committee went on with the usual formality and red tape. It was ordered that the Committee appointed to try the petition " do meet in a committee room in this House to-morrow at eleven o'clock a.m.," and then John H. Hagarty, one of the commissioners for taking evidence in the matter, was appointed chairman. The affair was ended by the Select Committee resolving "That the petitioner, William Dunlop, Esquire, having the majority of legal votes on the poll-book at the last election for the County of Huron, was duly elected. " Resolved, — That the opposition to the petition of the said petitioner was not frivolous or vexatious." The scene of the trial had been changed from Isaac Ratten- bury's to un inn on the London Road, and from there special messengers took the news to Goderich and Kingston. The retui'ns were " amended by erasing the name of Mr. Strachan and inserting the name of Doctor Dunlop, after which Doctor Dunlop took his seat in the House." *' And the Tiger's red whiskers grew redder for joy." Captain Strachan had enjoyed his hardly won honour of representing Huron in the House of Assembly for fourteen days. The Coionis^ of Septemb-^- 8th, 1841, says : " When the news reached Goderich of Doctor Dunlop having taken his seat in Parliament, it spread like wild-fire. A cor- respondent informs us that a voluntary meeting of the inhabi- tants took place at dusk in the Steamboat Hotel, Goderich, to congratulate each other on this important victory of the people over power and corruption. 'Never,' says our cor- respondent, ' have I witnessed so instantaneous, so enthusiastic euten- loyals, Gait's ad the mality nted to House agarty. matter, jsolving ing the election the said Ratten- apecial of Mr. er which mour of fourteen having A cor- inhabi- lerich, to of the )ur cor- liusiaatic THE PEOPLE vs. THE CANADA COMPANY. 281 ill I assemblage — one mind, one lieart — but a thousand voices seemed to pour forth tiio bursts of honest rejoicing.' The mirth grew fast and furious till a decent hour, when they separated as became the friends of order and decorum. ' Not so our dastardly opponents ; a party of them congregated in the Orange Lodge house, from whence a gang of miscreants, headed by a turbulent fellow, . . . sallied forth and waited ill ambush, till they pounced upon a slender, defenceless crea- ture, . . . whom tliey knocked down and beat senseless with clubs. He was carried to the nearest tavern, where he still lies in a tlangorous condition. The affair is undergoing investigation, with every hope of bringing the ruffians to justice, which, however, will be attended with great difficulty, as the greater number of them were disguised. A dinner in honour of the Doctor's return to Parliament was to have taken place at the Goderich hotel yesterday, numerously attended from all parts of the country.' Our (correspondent promises to furnish us with an account of the proceedings, and concludes by expressing the hope that the Legislature will make the attempt to put down these disgraceful Orange confederacies." Another dinner was given as a compliment to Mr. Sechar Brough, the successful counsel to whoni the Doctor owed much, despite the acknowledged righteousness of his case. Mr. Hyndman was in the chair. Michael Kelly and the books, his (log-trot and his wheelbarrow, had aiade food for much fun; and now when some speaker referred to something as " the cart before the horse," another rose to a point of order, 12 ravel v correcting the first as to the vehicle bein<; " not a cart hut a wheelbarrow." Applause and roars of laughter followed such sallies, and Mr. Brough's quizzical Irish face, full of fun and appreciation, was convulsed with merriment. Another clever and satirical guest observed all, with a power of express- ing impressions in prose, verse and speech, and soon election songs began to be sung at supper tables instead of the accus- tomed ones, and squibs and lampoons attested to several clever l)ens. The following, b}' far the best, came anonymously, ■ '■, i ] : I 1 1 ' % ■ 1 ,'•■■; I 282 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA (lOMPANY. Imt the iiutlior could not hide himself, so well was the pen known : " Let Sponai lrembl<\ Wlitit ! tlial (liimj tif sUh, SporitH, that mere ivliite ciwd o/n.ise.s' villi:/ Satire or sen^e, alas! can Spomsfeel? ll'ho hrenkH (( \>ittterfl\i upon a ivheel?" "A Hourish now of pwiny wliiatlen, Old Tiger, sniDctth your angry bristles ; Wave, flags and banners ; beat, ye driiinM, The Huron's charming member comes. See him, electors — there he stands, A masterpiece from Nature's hands. Behold his thousand natural graces, His opera-step, his sweet grimaces ; Be sure in Parliament . . . 'Twas but to charm ye he left the Army. 'Tis true that others hint queer stories Of why he left his martial glories. But they're just like the lies they dish up About his sainted sire, the Bishup. Great head, than wiy-block thicker, stronger, Were but those ears a little longer, Thy matchless titness all surpasses To rule a Commonwealth of Asses, (lods, how your champion will jump onto Poor shivering Syd'n'am in Toronto ; . hear him saying. When Strachan is on his hind legs, braying, ' Go home, Old Boy, thy lirain is addled, For Huron's member now is saddled. " Mr. Moi-f^an, who was also credited with havinj;; a haiul in the " Sale of Horses," contributed " Hurrah for the Bonnets .so Blue." " The election is over, we've seated our man, Our hearts are full of delight. For Hyndman and Steward and resolute Dan Have made a most glorious tight. THE PKOI'LE W. THE CANADA COMPANY. 283 Their opponents wuro mighty and strong, Determine*! to carry tho diiy ; The nominee hIho, the great Ca])tAin Straclian, A Lothario gallant and gay. Tlien hurrali for old Britain's True IMuos, . . . We still will Hupport our Canada's cauHo, Hurrah for Old Britain's True lUuos. Old Scotia's sons now may tho laurel ontwinu With the olive's more sociable branch, While they drain to the dreg.s a chalice of wiiio Which friendship alone can enhance ; And Erin's and Britain's proud sons Unanimous yet may be found, And prove that one heart and one hand still bu1oi:g To all those who tread Canada's "round. — Clmnui. May we live with each other in this our new home, And our axes resound to the stroke ; May we still be found loyal, though distant we ronni. And cling to our long cherished oak ; May the shamrock, too, grace our green sod. And Erin's sons smile at its birth. While securely we sleep in our houses of log And be always surrounded with mirth." — CIkhhx. Mr. Morgan's sentiments did not always scan, but they did civilit to his heart. His pious wishes for peace between Erin's and Britain's sons did not become fulfilled in his own case; for a prominent " Tip " paid him a visit, when the strength of the assaidt warranted Mr. Moi'gan in taking down a broadsword, with which he cut his visitor's leg. His wish was not to wound hiui in a dangerous place, but, as a Biddulph man said, " gives hitn a dacent bating and not kill the man right out." Such iiunume precautions were not without great merit and value in times when on the Twelfth a female — and from over tliu Col- liorne way, too, — sat down on the bank in West Street, calmly took off her stocking, put in a big stone and hit a man sijuarely in the face with it, all by way of celebration, for there was iu> "iicoiinnon invitation to provoke it. I. I ^1 ) :.f'^ I ) > i. 284 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. AnotluT song, sung to the air of "Judy Gallagher," t'ollowcil from the pen of Mr. Morgai , celebrating Mr. Gallagher's recent t(>niporary absence in the bush. " Mrs. UiiUiijrhor H.iid ono night, Ah hIiu whh gniii^ tu bed, Hir, Tho' you are iny joy and delight, I am certainly living in dread, nir. Then only say you will not tarry hero, Don't say nay, charniiiig Patrick Gallaghere ! Now only reuieniher that night The Coniinisaionurs came here, sir, Were not we in a terrible fright. Didn't / shed many a tear, sir I And was not I loft alone For many a woary day, sir, While you, my duck, O' hone. Through the bush were forced to stray, sir. And will you get a place Or pocket any cash, sir ? .lust think of your own disgrace. And of this terrible smash, sir. And the jail, too ; do you think That you will ever be jailer / .lust think of the Colborne Cliciue — Now, isn't that a nailer I " Mr. Gallagher had been an applicant for the post of gaoler, and under the new aspect of impending x'ule his chance vvjus He is then supposed to answer : sniallj[indeed "Mr. Gallagher made reply, — Do you think me such a fool now ; .Just wait till I have a try To get up a tuppenny school, now. Then if I fail I'll not tarry here, But I'll turn my back on the jail, My own Mrs. Gallagher dear." THE PEOPLE Va. THE CANADA COMPANY. 2sr) Tht! Hchool became a fact, kept in East Street, near tlic S«|iiare, in the historical building which served so many sciiool- masters, the Lizars' house of refuse on landing, and which iiccomniodated divines Catholic, Episcopalian and Presbyterian. iVIr. Henry Hansford wjis chairman of the diViner given to relebrate the end of the Scrutiny ; and in his remarks propo.s- ing the health of Doctor Dunlop, who was in Kingston, he was very severe upon the Company generally. This dinner was <,'iven at Judge Read's inn on the bank, and the groups of spec- tiitoi-s in " the gallery " ninnbered several small boys whose iiR'niories now carry forward the scene and the speeches given. Mr. Ransford, too, contributed a song, sung to the air, " Drops of hnindy." It is rather difficult to reconcile the severity of his appearance, described as handsome, imposing, condemnatory, iiiid speech caustic, satiriciil or forcible, with the jovial toiu' of his muse. ■I I I- ; " Como, gentloinon, liHton to mc, I'll sing you a nuivt little ditty, I trust you will all beliuve me, It happened in this fumduscity. An election had set the folk.s wild, Such running and shouting and bawling, All people, to the smallest child, Were canvassing, S(|uabbling and stjualling. Rumpty-tiddy, etc. A lawyer one set did propose. The others they fought for a doctor, The latter they well did oppose 'Gainst Commissioner, Sapper, and Proctor. The Lawyer he did get the seat, And in Parliament looked very big, sir, But he hadn't been there scarce a week. Before we had powdered his wig, sir. They found scarce a vote he had got Would stand the slightest inspection, And perjury, lies, and what not, Had passed at this famous election. .Mliii. 2HG IN THE DAYH OK THE CANADA COMI'ANV. 80 the Doctor 11 |iutiti>))i lio puniiod, And tlii3i) (jot it <|uiokly proNoiitud By II ({runt ' Priiicu' wlio thuro wiis Iuh friuiul, Who Huch trickery groiitly roMi^ntod. CoiiimiHNiouerH throe thou woru Hont, (Not to HOW, nor to renp, nor to hiirrow,) But the Coinimuy's hooks they wore bent SlioiiUl bo Hont to thoiii in n wlieel-lmrrow, A wry fuce imv CoiiniUHHioner madu When ho found they wore l)cnt on iuMpectiun, And said, ' May tlie do'il tiiko tlu; bhido Tliiit Hrst set on this election I ' Oh, then, \\hiit a |)rotty displii}' Of the manner the Lawyer succi-eded, The groat man was all in dismay And the lies that he hoard scarcely hooded. Yet old Bull Dog cotitinued to bark In spite of all proof and detection ; Ho would swear that daylight was dark Before he would lose this election. Let's take a glass all of us round, The Doctor is now in his seat, sir ; We'll deafen all ears with the sound, ' The True Blues can novor bo beat, sir.' Li honesty, frolic, and fun. The Hurons will over abound, sirs, So now that my song's nearly done. Join in the chorus all round, sirs, Uunipty-tiddy, etc." Captain Strachan, wlio was a barrister practising in Toronto, is alluded to thnjughout this effusion as a lawyer. In after years A[r. Hansford himself became a Connnissioner of the Canada Company : but by that time the " pernicious manner in wliicli the influence of the Company had been exerted as regards the settlers in Huron had long been a thing of the past." The hfst institutions are open to abuse : the besetting sin of even the Inst is a desire for power. By the time Henry Ransford was out' ol those in power the adage that " it is the part of a good shcplniil to shear, not to flay, his sheep," had been recognized. THE I'KOPLE i:h. the CANADA COMPANY. 287 Now mine tlu' distribution ol' couiit\' ofKccH. Sunu> witc '^Wi'U to outHidt'i'M, hut the laithlul tviun' into the 1 ti^ iHt nlmrc. TIm' ju(l<(eshi|) WHS ^^ivcn to Mr. Arthur Achiufl, an Kn^^Ushiiuin of thu convivial typr; hu too, likt' thf Tip-r, had a licjuor ca.so, iiiiidt' much after the manner of that of the Twelve Apostles, hut (Piily containin'^ six lx)ttle.s. It went with him on einsuit.and if it rould speak could tell the history of the Bar in early days, i'lrcuit meant travelling at stated times, he the roads us they iiii^'lit, and provisif)n for a belated state was but common prud- ill? JUDfJE .\CLANI). as myself, or more so, who were implicated in the calumnious slanders which had found their way through the back-door into the Secretary's office and on which, and on the faith of which action had been token, I reserved for them the riglit of demanding them if they should see fit. It would appear that Hyndman, backed by his friends of great influence and high official station,' had been in close communication with the Secretary's office up to May last, when my lettei-s to Daly ratlier cracked their ei'edit in that (|uarter. I could not help agreeing with Daly, who, as he turned over the voluminous flle, exclaimed, ' what a busy-bo V 1 ■ .J 'J 292 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. In one caustic speech he said that those who lived in Kingston and had fat berths there might not care ahout spending time : but he and many others had come from afar and had business at home requiring attention, "and therefore he wished to hastei) the work.' In that September of 1841 he was in particu- larly high feather. In a postscript to his letter to Physicians and Surgeons upon the Medical Bill entrusted to his care, he says, " Editors who are anxious to have good advice when sick will have the goodness to insert the following." He made many speeches on the tariff, and seemed especially anxious over the whiskey question, its points and its taxation. Steamboats engrossed much attention. They formed a great part of the property of the province, but paid no revenue to Government, not "even the common tavern license, that every log shanty selling whiskey did." His fellow Member, Mr. McLean, asked, " How would you like a tax on bachelors ? " "Admirably," cried the Doctor; "luxury is always a legiti- mate object of taxation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think he had enough, but in cutting our coat according to our cloth it was always well to have a little selvidge for overlapping and cabbage. However, if it was not necessary to tax them now they might accord to the steamboat proprietors that grace which Polyphemus accorded Ulysses. that they should be the last to be drowned." Silks and satins he was always in favour of taxing heavily. Talking, this same day, September Ist, 1841, of certain proposed improvements, he "was glad to hear the Secretary's declaration that the loan was guaranteed by the Queen. It had been the impression of many persons that a trap had been laid for us and that we liad fallen into it. There was no tax on whiskey ; there was, indeed, a tax on stills ; but a tax on whiskey, which would not add a farthing to the glass of the consumer, would raise a large income. He believed the tax on stills was called the Archdeacon's Cheap Whiskey Bill. He denied that inferior grain was always used in distilleries. In THE PEOPLE V8. THE CANADA COMPANY. 293 liis place as tine wheat as ever grew was used for that purpose. He thought the attention of the House should be directed to the timber duties. His hon. friend from the frontier (Mr. Thorbum) had a fondness for dealing in cheese-paring and candle-ends, but he did not seem to like figures, — perhaps he thought to increase the revenue by taking off the duty — (laughter)." In Montreal one night a Bill was brought in for the taxing of whiskey and dogs. The Doctor gravely asked if any Member present could inform him how many quarts of whiskey were made from a bushel of rye, Indian corn, or wheat. He got an answer, " About sixteen quarts." " I helieve," he rejoined, " the hon. gentleman is right ; but heaven defend me from your sixteen quart whiskey. I like a stiff horn ! I have read of the beast of two horns and of the beast of ten horns, but 1 am a beast of many horns." This convulsed the House, the admission, or boast, being at t'uat time but too true. In passing through Toronto to his Parliamentary duties, on one occasion he as usual lodged at Sword's Hotel, the forerunner of the present Queen's, where his genial face still looks out from a deep gilded frame upon the descendants of those who lodged there then. About breakfast time the Doctor, in an exceedingly unkempt state, came down — hair on end, slippers and trousers and no coat telling their own tale. He called for a seidlitz, two glasses and a jug of water. A Yankee traveller sat watch- ing his preparations and the taking of the draught. " Squire," aaid he, " I wouldn't mind taking one of them there mixtures myself." "All right," said the Doctor, not too confused to lo.se such an opportimity. He gravely handed the man first the blue powder tumbler and then the white. The Yankee nearly expired. The Doctor, instead of being sorry, expressed himself as angry at the " vulgar impertinence " of the man, and would not have stoppeil short at a practical joke which would have lei lied him. We have already seen what Doctor Dunlop's defence of the Canada Company was in 18*t7, and also his opinion of the :<■. > '--S'l'' . ; WSS^^aK I wPlfttnt ^ ^■H| 3 ■IH HlH i ffiSwHN 1 fflaliffi^i 294 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. manner in which the Canadian officials carried out the wi.shtts of the Company in his " Canada Company versus The Peopli." As a context to both, or as a later revelation, we have him in 1844 answering " What was the Canada Company," as follows : "A wealthy monied corporation, that had got an immenHc advantage. He would not apply to them what Lord Sydenham said, that they were a parcel of rapacious land jobbers. No, Ik* would not say that ; but it was the opinion of a man who had some acquaintance with them. They said that the wild lands were just dead stock on tlieir hands; that might be a very pretty story, when they don't examine into it. They bought it at a fair estimate at about Is. .Sd. an acre ! The whole of tli*! Crown and Clergy Reserves were sold to the Company under Lord Batlmrst. There is an agreement on the records of Upper and Lower Canada that they were to get 700,000 acres of the Reserves at 38. 6d. an acre. There was some difference, the Ministry got frightened, and Lord Bathurst sent for the late Mr. Gait and said to him, ' We cannot stand to our bargain :' but Mr. Gait told him ' You must.' ' Well,' said my Lord, ' we will give you an equivalent; we will give you 1,000,000 acres instead of 700,000.' Then they got 100,000 more. That was what might be called a good bargain. 1,100,000 acres instend of 700,000, and they got the whole of it for Is. 3d. an acn?, instead of 3s. 6d. "Mr. Boulton rose to order. He was sure that the hoii. gent, was giving some information which the House had never heard before ; that he could not see any necessity for lettinji the House know of the bad bargains of the Government. " Doctor Dunlop would stop at once if the House were tired of hearing him — (Hear, hear ; Go on.) " That was not all, however ; the Company got sixteen yeurs to pay it (Hear, hear) without interest ; and yet this was the very bad bargain on which they had no profit. " Mr. Anglin : What do they sell it for now i " He was coming to that if they would only let him go on. The very lowest is 128. 6d. an acre, and the town lots for a mm>i THE PEOPLK V8. THE CANADA COMPANY. (|uarter of an acre £50, and for a comer one £75. That was £800 an acre for what they liad got for Is. 3d. This was what they were told was so nnich dead stock. When he first explored the Huron Tract he would not have taken the stand of Goderich, wliicli is now selling for £50 or £75 a lot, and in the more settled parts of the town as much as £300 any humanity. The log house was so close upon the bank that ingress and egress had to be given by the door looking toward the forest and future roadway. The kitchen was the first of the tliree large rooms, with big open fireplace, crane, Dutch oven and ingle-nook of old times. Divided by a screen, one part sorvod the purpose of dining-room. Next came the drawing- room, furnished with skins of beasts — lamb, wolf, bear, calf and coon — rugs for the floor, or stretched upon seats made by the hoys. From this opened the one large bedroom, where mother and daughters slept. Upstairs the loft was divided into the men's sleeping apartment and a stox*e-room. The whole house was thickly overgrown with grapevine, the French window of tlie drawing-room heavily framed with it. That window opened upon the bank, the river some seventy feet below, with wooded islands; and the wild roses whose succession of blooms made the whole summer beautiful, freshly picked, were all about within the room so primitively furnished, yyt which was decorated with miniatures and portraits that told of the life left behind. From openings made in the woods the view gradually disclosed itself, beautiful as any jjoint on the far-famed lower Niagara, with the difference that tiie Minnesetung had hillsides instead of gorge, the stream winding toward the house through the heavily timbered valley, and after rounding the nearest curve made a line of silver so tangled that, where the openings allowed, it could be I m '■ '' I ' ' r .1 ' ' ■''''■'' ' i r- ■ ' ! i ' i ■ :■ • ' I I ! i 11 . 'I 2})« IN THE DAYS (th' TIIK ("AXAUA ('OMI'ANV, Ht'tMi across country for sonm ten miles; ofl'ects beautiful l^'yond words. A plantation of wild plum made a suinmei' snowdril't in the hloomiiif; season, a |)laco which was the objective point of many a picnic. Kacli member of tlie Evans family was indefatigable in device, ingenuity and industry, but never for .» moment forgot the obligations of family and caste. Mrs. Kvaiis in her own little kingdom kept up a kind of I'oyal stat(\ of which the oidy outward signs, past her own stately mannei-s, were black satin gowns and Indian nnislin turbans. With gown tucked back and mittened fingers, she manipulated the long-handled frying-pati in the big tir(!place, where she fried many a dish of ci-isp, delit^ately browned, pink-Heshed trout taken from the stream l>el()w the door ; at all times she disposal of her irregularly supplied larder in a manner more befitting a princess than the wifc^ of a bacK. woods man. Her eyes took their compensation from the portraits on the walls, and h(»r lift- was a mi.xture of the memories called up by the sight of tlicst' pictui-es, a romantic edition of the Swiss Family Robinson edited on the spot, and real and not-to-be-mistaken Canadian hardship. Mr. Kvans' miniature shows a pair of very large and beautiful bi-own eyes with arched, long eyebrows, clear com- plexion, a sensitive mouth with full lips, and a small pointcil chin. He is said to liave died of emigrant heart-ache, nut incredible with such a face. His grandson, Mr. Charles White- Williams, whose place, " Duckworth," is named after Admiral Duckworth, under whom his paternal grandfather served in 1704 on the great First of June, lias numy interesting souvenirs of each side of his family still in his possession. The family pictures and heraldic records, added to the life and death of these people who buried themselves in the wilds in tlif thirties, make chapter headings to the story comnjon to many of their time and class. Gentle blood and ermined coats-of-anns could be of little practical use in the bush, be the latter never so beautiful. Mrs. Evans and her daughtera were most particular in the matter of the dance. A story is told of how once, when gloves A SOCIAL POT I'OUIlHr. 290 vvx'i'u indi.spunHubK' tuul nut to l)e obtuinoti, cuaiHi; W(h)IIc>m winter mitts wero used iiiHttvul. On this oecjiHion tlio piano which furnisliod the niusie was iti one room, and the (hmcera in another ; but so jjentle was the performance on the instnnnent and so thick the lo^ partition, that lialts were called until all HJiould find out just how and where tht^y weri^ situated towards tlu; sound. And then mitt-cased hands plucked at the ;jown to hold it above the satin slippered foot, the turban ^ravelv curtsie*! to its vin-ii-ifi^, and Pantalon went on to a dignified close. Mut feasts were not always of trout atul seasonable berrii-s, set out on tlower-decked tables. On the Huron lload, near ('linton, a Mr, Ledyard had settled, a rather eccentric Enjjlish- iiian. It was told of him that once, in Kn^land, he had leased a house, one of the many provisoes in the lease bein^ tliat the place should be kept properly painted. A ditterence of opinion between him and his lamllord as to what this numnt led to a (|uarrel at the expiration of the lease, the landlord demandiii}^ an entire coat of new paint. This Mr. Ledyard furnished by paintinj; the whole house, from <^arret to cellar, black. Like many others in Canada, his first struggles were with potatoes. A farn» hand, dismisseil suddenly, was ordered to first plant a c(!rtain (piantity of the tubers. Li a .surprisingly shoi't time the man reported the work done. Latei- in tlu! sunnner a turf of potato-vine showed itself in one spot, and it turned out that the planting had been done in one shallow pit. One winter (lay a feast was planned by Mr. and Mrs. Ledyard, invitations having been sent to Mr. and Mrs. Hansford and Mrs. Webb and her daughters. SheriflT Hyndmaii happtined to be taking his wheat to Bell's mills, and drove the Webb ladies with him. A heavy snow-storm hai5i ! .soo IN THK DAYH OF TIIK CANADA COMI'ANY. on the tabic, l)\it hiul to ivturn to Cioderiuh without l\Mlpin{( to < , .; , i ■ '■ '' Jr j; 1 ' >■■' (I ■ 1 m 802 IN THK DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. stared ; she reported that they also talked much and, worse still, laughed. The speech she did not understand, but the laugh she interpreted as offensive, and upon regaining her friends gave a lively report of the meeting. A letter was written to the newspapers, describing the riding party in terms requiring no translation, but asking the editor who would be likely to answer to such a description. The upshot was a challenge by Mr. Ransford to the Baron de Tuyle; the quarrel, as usual, was patched up, and the final and general verdict was that the palm belonged to the three native beauties. One of the Scotch families of l Signet. He tried his maiden farming hand on potatoes anil .swine raising. Like Mr. Tims, he sowed the former broadcast, with similar results. He purchased some hogs which he was told belonged to the famous grass breed — long-snouted creatures fitted to root up an oak as well as an acorn — of the razor-backed, slab-sided variety, resembling the species which increased know- ledge has developed into the later fad of razor-backs. Tlic anatomy of these brutes betokened unce.ising hunger. A neigh - Iwur saw them in Mr. Haldane's root field and notified him : hnt the former was deep in a new book, oblivious to pigs and potatoes. " Mr. Haldane," cried his friend again, " your pifj;s are in your potato field." "Aye, aye," he answered absently; " but never mind, they're the grawss breed, ye ken, and wudna tech the tawtiea." But the pigs of famous pedigree lived not \ip to the tradition of their caste, and he mourned the wreck of his potato field. He was a most polite man, with manner com- ing from a courteous and thankful nature. Whatever was A SOCIAL POT I'OIUHI. ;i08 dont' , it is said his involuntary " Thankye, thankye, thankye yore vera kind," always followed. But he could be roused to anger, and eveii to strong language Wo hear so much in those days of being gated, fined, and what- not, for small offences, that the story of a writ or summons carries no disgrace with it. " Gated " meant not being allowed to cross the town limits. This took the place of being put in ;fiiol. The men were on parole and had bondsmen who saw tliey did not cross the borders. The courts had many cases. The suits sometimes were not for more than half a dollar, but they gave the bailiffs plenty of work. It so happened that one of these disagreeable documents found its way to Mr. Haldane l>y the hands of a bailiff who bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Charles Prvor. Mr. Haldane mistook him for the latter, and thinking he was entertaining one known in the gates, pressed the bailiff to remain to dinner, and killed a goose in his honour. The bailiff, nothing loath to get a good dinner, accepted, and did not disclose his identity or deliver his unwelcome messajre until the feast was over. The gentle Mr. Haldane was very angry. " Ye'ri" a dom leear, sir, ye're a na guse, mon, gie me back ma guse. Get oot o' ma hoose," and so speeded the parting guest. W^ith his three sons and two daughters, he lived on his farm liy tile Bayfield Road. John Haldane, junior, now in his t'i^litieth year — 'an elevated spot in my journey, and com- !iU;nding a long and eventful retrospect," — says, "Our fatiiers made a great mistake : while gratifying their whim of Farming " — note the capital — " they sacrificed their children." For seven years the father and three sons persevered, succeeding in clear- in;; forty acres : in some seasons they carried off the prize for wheat, and the younger John proved his muscular fitness by s])litting two hundred rails in a day, walking to town after the leat and bringing home twenty-five pounds of flour on his back. But the young man, like his father, was a student, and his inner song was, r r I M, liil i I 1 \m \ i ii- 304 IN THE DAYS t)F THE CANADA COMI'AXV. " Rich iH the harvest from the fields That bounteous nature kindly yields ; But fairer growths enrich the soil Ploughed deep by thought's unwearied toil In learning's lirood domain." The three young men now struck out for homes of their own. John and William went into the Canada Company's service, the former as Secretary to Commissioner Jones, and Bernard entered a bank. But John's vocation was teaching, and in 1840 he became Grammar Schoolmaster upon the resignation of his brother-in-law, Mr. McKenzie. The lines succeeding; those last (]Uoted might have been written of or foi* him : " Of you the growing mind demands The patient care, the guiding hands, Through all the mists of morn ; You knowing well the future's need, Your prescient wisdom sows the seed To till the years unborn," for his twenty-tivc years of mastership have left a meinuiv tilled with the satisfaction of success. No law student who left his hands was ever plucked — rather, his boys passed with flyinj; colours; the country is yet governed, taught, and advised I )v many of those who owe to John Haldane the greatest measun of their usefulness to others and their own success in life. "The Pilot" and "The Last of the Mohicans" had wrestle^ I with these translations from the Italian and tales of the Black Forest, with the result that Indian chiefs, hemlock bowers and festoons of wild grape took the place of knights, cnstlts and ivy. There was one tale of feminine disappointment and heaii- break which far outdid those of ordinary settlers; a tale con nected with that " Adonis of the wilds " who was DunlopV faithful follower and friend in his first Huron explorations. An early writer tells us that this Louis Cadotte was first a depen- dent and then a partner of Arthur Rankin, of Essex, "a tall. A SOCIAL POT POrUUl. 305 well-proportioned half-breed, appearliifj capable, if jud<;ed by appearances, of knocking down, like a second Maximilian, an ox witli one list blow," but, like many stronj; men, was mild, of uniiHSuming manners, and deeply loved by the English lady who afterwards Itecame his wife. All agree that he had courtier- like manners, and this historian credits him with high and hon()ural>le sentiments. Heiny, in his travels during the second half ,of the eighteenth century, found the only resident family at the Fort of Sault Ste. Marie was of one named (kdot^e, a Frenchman, who had a Chi])pewa wife and who spoke the Chippewa tongue. This man " enjoyed a powerful iniluence " over the Indians round about, who considered him their chief; indeed, it was through him that the Chippewas of Lake Superior did not join Pontiac at Detioit. No less a per- son than Sir Robert Dorcas was that sunnner at the Sault upon " a voyage of curiosity." People then on such voyag«'s often discovered more than they sought, for it was about this time that a " mess of English broth" was considc^'ed a specific for courage among the Indians bent on war. Henry, whose hook formed the data for most of Parkman's fanious "Pontiac," was still living in M(jntreal, a hale and hearty but white-haired man of eighty, in LSll. His portrait, which is the frontispiece of his very interesting work, is of such a robust and sanguine Eiiy-lishman that the tribes may be forgiven for having once iipj)ointed him to the pot for the making of " English broth." Once, after perils imnunerable, which he desci'ibes with the simple realism of a IJunyan, he escaped from his tormentors in Mdc. Cadotte's canoe, as she was a lady of gieat inflmmce. The (uuioe was manned by Canadians : and in order to escape the eyes of the redskins he was dressed in to<|ue and blanket coat. He was challenged for an Englishman ; but the wily madame made him affect not to understand, and the next dav saw him Hafe in Cadotte's home at the Sault. Carver, the navigator, also tells of the Fort at Sainte Marie, ' coinmanded by Monsieur Cadotte, a French-Canadian who, being proprietor of the soil, is still permitted to keep possession of it." 80 :!i^ I ■': I 306 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. According to the author of " Peter the Whaler," some time in the thirties a hike steamer had on board a young English girl, a bride, who brought with her a piano and a variety of hitherto almost unknown furniture. Handsome and very intelligent, she played and sang well, and had all the manner and mark of a gentlewoman of the times. Some time before this, Mr. Catlin (forerunner of Buffalo Bill), the well-known exhibitor of North Amei'ican Indian curiosities and lecturer upon native customs and mannei's, thought he would collect a band of real live Chippewas for the entertainment of London in itti most civilized quarter, Regent Street. An Iroquois embassy tak(;ii to England by Colonel Schuyler in 1708 was a novel sight for Europeans. Bonnycastle says, " It answers certain purposes <>,very now and then to send people to represent particuiai- interest.'^ in E^ngland ; and in nearly all such cases John Bull receives them with open arms, and with his natural gullibility is often apt to overrate them. The Chippewa Indians so lately in vogue were a pleasant instance." In London they were to dance tiieir war dances, tomahawk and scalp, sing war songs and smoke a pipe of peace, (.h'ivo a sledge, paddle a canoe or harangue after their more peaceful models. Catlin soon had the recjuired nundier, but was minus H chief or any one who had the magnificence and appearance of the typical chief. Our friend Louis Cadotte, the descendant of the Mons. and Mde. Cadotte of Henry's travels, looked the character ; and a chief he became for a certain remuneration. He spoke French anil English, Ciiippewa and many Indian dialects, and had neen an interpreter between the Tribes and the Government at the time of Prizes and Tribute. He looked his part to perfection, and in bears' claws, chamois leather, wampum and war-paint, described to London audiences many gallant deeds, hair-breadth escapes, adventures on shining lakes, buffalo ^hunts and deer stalkings, blazing forests and prairies, and all the pleasures of a freedom unrestrained by the shackles of civilization, where his thousand braves were ready to follow him at a word. A young, impressionable girl was one of the IS' line in ilirl. a itherto nark oi" is, Mr. bitor of native of real itii most \y taken ^ight for purposes articular obn Bull iiUibility so lately A SOCIAL POT POUURI, 307 audience. She was well read in her Cooper, with an enthusi- astic and poetical temperament, and her imagination coloured scenes and circumstances which had no existence outside of it and that of the so-called Indian chief's. Her ears were credulous to the charm of the tale which flowed from Louin Cadotte's facile tongue, and he saw the power he possessed, l^pon learning that she was the daughter of wealthy and highly respectable parents he did not scruple to use the know- ledge. To cut the story short, he talked of love and the happi- ness to be found in the far-off' haunts of his native land. He doubtless loved the girl in his own way, and afterwards claimed that hv never told her he was a chief. She promised to be his wife, and her friends in vain argued against the mad project. The wedding of an English lady and an Indian chief liecame the proverbial nine days' wonder, and Cadotte and his bride sailed for the land of the setting sun. The account relates that lie took her to a "remote village " (supposed to be Goderich), on the banks of one of the Great Lakes, where the total dis- illusionment came to the bride. She found out and endured uncomplainingly the full misery of a squaw's life, which her own sense, if siie had any, must have told her was of her own making, and she supported her husband upon the remittances she received from home. At the end of two years he was tired of the place and went back to his native village, the Sault. She took her piano and furniture with her, and in her log hut had a better life than formerly. Her friends had heard of her unhappiness and were anxious for her return ; but her repeated refusals showed her affection to be tieep-rooted, and her ideas of eonstancy high if somewhat mistaken. She replied that she was his wife for better for worse, and that at the least she must attempt his reformation. She longed for the solace of her own religion ; but the empty, unfinished chapel tells its own tale, and the persevering and successful Jesuit Mission gathered her as a convert. Pioneers in religion always, the Jesuits had in 1034 erected a rude chapel at the Sault, the first log hut built •so far from civilization ; and although the travelling Anglican I'i In I* i _ i-a l^M^i 308 IN THE DAVS OF THE CANADA COMPANY'. missionary, Elliot, later deserved all praise for his untiring zeal, it seems to have been universally conceded by travellers and explorers that " one thing is certtiinly ujost visible, certain and undeniable, that the Roman Catholic converts are, in appear- ance, dress, intelligence and general civilization, superior to all the others." The burnt forest about the Sault seemed the abode of the very spirit of sadness and regret ; churchyard, hdttlefield nor tomb could create feelings more melancholy and oppressive than this burnt forest. The influence of the mis- sionary over Cadotte made his treatment of his wife less harsh, and she added interest to her life by opening a school for tin- Indian children, where she introduced the young squaws to \^" niysteries of her piano. Her great desire was to prepare ^ r 'nsbjiiid for that eternity towards which she felt herself to he q-.ic'tly travelling. This desire may have had much to do with hei ^r version to his faith. She died, and her tomb might !/vj a mou'. ! '.nij to folly and constancy. No sooner was slu^ dead than uer . .'ers seemed answered. Cadotte was incon- solable. Unknown to himself, he belonged to that large class of husbands who expect to wipe out with " beloved wife, carved in marble, the unhappiness of a lifetime. At any rate he became an altered man. His work over, he would spend his time in his hut, or at her grave, and there read and meditate. To the last he denied having ever intentionally deceived the English girl, bitterly regretting her fate and the part he had played in it. In his after Goderich life, when he spent mueli of his time in the rustic porch at Meadowlands, the noble look- ing old man, with his long white scalp-lock, was a hero to all the growing lads. John Brant, Dunlop's friend, was another hero. An educated man of gentleman-like manner and address, a member of the Legislature, one of Canada's bravest defenders in 1812, a con- sistent advocate of his people's rights. Brant was the intimate of many of those in the service of the Canada Company. When Mr. Buchanan, the British Consul, visited Guelph, the Superin- tendent gave a large dinner in his honour, on which occasion ig zeal, rs ami lin and ippear- r to all led the chyard, oly and he mis- s harsh, for the iiaws to pi-epare erself to ;h to do lb might was slu' IS incou- rffe class id wife," iny rate, pend his neditate. lived the he had it mueh lie look- ro to all iducated kr of the 12, a con- lintimate When Buperin- occasion A SOCIAL POT POURRI. »09 Hrant was one of the guests ; his health was drunk, and his response was courteous and eloquent. His filial devotion and pride in his father's name were deeply stirred by the attack made upon the great ciiief by the poet Campbell, and when in England he made a point of seeing that Campbell not only acknowledged the injustice done but that the retraction was put in print. The Black Forest itself, or the wooded fastnesses of the ' Children of the Mist," could not rival the gloom and impassa- hilitv of The Bush ; and to those whose ears had been tuned to the waves of the German Ocean pounding its rocky and desolate .shores, the waste of Huron was no bad exchange. Here, as there, '• TI ■' sunken swells Not one, one moment, in its station dwells." The very thing that had been their attraction became the last straw in the load of weariness which made them homesick. One mother, missed at home and sought for, was found sitting on a stone, looking out over the waste of waters which had brought her thither, heart-sick to I'eturn to the place she knew she would see no more. It was not until Yahonk had led his wild wives through the October skies, and grape leaves fell with the rest of the red and golden leaf harvest ; not until the ripe nuts pattered, and the maples had set the shores ablaze among the sombre pines while the red sun burned through the Indian-summer haze, that a foretaste of things yet to come echoed along the first blast of coming winter. The log dwellings, large and small, the Old Country furniture or New Country makeshifts, and piles of cordwood were wel- come exchanges for the picnic (jualities of the summer gone. But it was not long before the beds of feathei's from field or bird, and coverlids of hitherto unknown thickness, were speckled every morning with snow, and frozen water and victuals faced the hungry ones at breakfast time. It took ni.vny seasons to teach them to live and dress according to 1' i • .,i. la ii m 1 f 1 111 i 'ii: ' 1 '" ' , I'-ii ii III 1 1 j| 1 r f Kp : ' ,a iV. ! r 310 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANV, the clinmtt' ; and in some cases lives were lost before tlie lesson was learned. One younj^ fellow, although warned repeat- edly, persisted in wearing clothing of English weight. He was found one morning in the early spring, frozen to death, resting against a tree, in dress clothes and no overcoat. It is surmised that this story is of the same young man of whom Mr. John Morris used to tell that he (Mr. Morris) found the body and buried it at the foot of the ti'ee where it rested. The name was Summers. Forty years afterwards an English fortun*- awaited him, when Mr. Morris certified to the facts of the death. Terrible as this kind of occurrence was in reality, it served as food for Doctor Dunlop's joking propensity, and no matter how impossible his story he always found some credu- lous listener. He told of a man frozen to death, the snow- covered body left heaped in a shed. A visitor asked what it was. The Doctor replied that it was a man frozen to death three months before. They put him on a table, built a fire to keep themselves warm, and began to dissect him. At the first incision he began to wake. " Hold him tight," said the Doctor, " while he comes to life." " And would you believe it," lie said afterwards, " the man completed the work he was engaged on when frozen." Green timber and unaccustomed workmanship did not pro- vide comfort, and with March it was " Lo, the killdecr i)lover turns again, An exile sick for home." When one returning to tiie Old Country asked what li<' should bring back as a small present, the answer was, " Brin>: me a bushel of haws. That will be the most acceptable, for 1 am tired of snake fences." The older faces grew either sad or hopeless, or more determined, according as God had meted His good gift of fortitude. Some, who took up the role of *' The die is cast, our patrimony spent," perceived that for men of their calibre the next hostel on their journey was " The Sign of the Grave ;" so sang " Let us drink, A SOCIAL POT POURRI. 311 let us love, let us sin^, let us play." Not so, otheiu " To hunt, to light, to wait for years, to liew out a farm, to make a home- stead, one must needs be a man." So out of all that vast lot of mistaken vocations such names as Ransford, Young, Dickson, Hohnes, ring true to the dictum of the Psalmist, " a man was famous according as he liad lifted up axes upon the thick trees." This " Long Ago " was a society made up of world-widi' travellers, some of them satiated, some of them belonging to "Those who beyond seas go will sadly Ond They change their climate only, not their mind ;" barristers English and Scotch, of whose contemporaries Scott had said, " Of all bright, intelligent society, that of barristers is the best ; " clergymen who liked wine and cards and were lat«; to their task because the clock was maliciously put back to iillow the game to be finished ei*e the faint sounds of dawn should be heard; sons of Bishops and of military men, all ignorant of the first requirements of the land and life, whose friends addressed letters of introduction to "J. W., Lake Ontario ; " men whose first season made them weary of lifij through the torture of dreariness, or who took such measure of relief that they found wrong-doing was not that alone but folly also; retired military men and sea capttiins whose half- pay was but an excuse for less labour; a few who were explorers, bound to discover and subdue ; and with them, thost* who played at pioneering as at a new game, musing, dreaming, and using the worlds, old and new, as a panorama got up for their view — more liberal in criticism, abuse and condemnation, than in the labour of observation and intelligent judgment upon new-found exigencies of life. It is not by a change of circum- stances that a man becomes reconciled to life, but by fitting himself to those which are given or chosen. There were many who could not do this. " Give an honest Canadian a bit of pig, his wife and his pipe," says the lively McTaggart, " and he is as happy in the bush as you are (in Britain) and treads his '■I !H' fi ii m ^:\ If if )• ! ( 'M2 IM THE DAYS OF THE CANADA tlOMPANY. hru.sliwood way as pleasantly as you upon a Turkey oai'ptit. ' Hut these Huron people wen? not Canadians. The (piatrefoil of husband, wile, pi^ and pipe, api)ealed not to thoni, and minds strayed to Turkey carpets left behind. As Hrndy Hxed out of the orbit of general events as if livinj^ on a ditt'erent jtlanet, sav»! throu^^h an uncertain correspondence!, the elders fonned a world of iniaii;ination tilleuiupur of }j()(mI li(|Uor Will end n cuntuBt quicker Tlmn .Justice, Judge or Viuur ; So Hll a cheerful glasH And let the humour pass." 'V\\ii huinuur did not always puHS until the farce of the Flats, the Longworth pi.stol.s, Dunlop'H pacing, and tin* ried messenger with regrets from the second party, followed in (jiiick succcsMion. " But if more deep the i|Uiirrel, Why, sooner drain the barrel Than he the hateful fellow • Who's crnbbi'd when he's mellow." As in the time of the swash-bucklers, more wei'e frightencil than hurt, some not even frightened. " Sword and buckler tights begin to grow . ■l':-. A li 318 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. and with the inevitable background of bear, wolf and forest, pronounced the new era one of sham. She animadverts on tho over-laying with stuccoed ornamentations figures historical and poetical, much that was coarse and rotten brick-work, lath and plaster in the older countries, but admits it was necessary; rejoicing, however, that in the new country the absence of conventional manner enabled one to " tell at once the brick from the granite and marble." The section of society belonging to Colborne had also rejoiced in the absence of any need for con- ventionality and thought this return to first principles but a hugging of chains. However, circumstances and the prestige of the names of father and husband favoured Mrs. Jones ; and Church, gaieties, dress, all changed under the new regime. So far the sch(X)l-house had held divines of all sorts ; follow- ers of the early Jesuit and of that Methodist missionary who preached the first English sermon in the Tract. A Roman Catholic Bishop (supposedly McDonnell) was one, and the people, eager to listen to such a novelty as his sermon, had Hocked in crowds which reached to the Square after the small b, ilding was full to overflowing ; there Mr. McKenzie and other Scottish divines had taught ; and Robert Francis Campbell, first Anglican Rector in the Tract, sent by the Missionary Society sometime in the early thirties, had so far officiated. The latter had driven up to his cure, passing thi'ough Stratford, on the hay- covered, strawberry-strewn Huron Road, behind a horse which had a famous history. General McGregor, father of the Roh Roy McGregor of canoe fanxe, had brought it from Scotland. He had been in command of a detachment of the Thirty-first Regiment on board The Kent, an East Indiaman destroyed by fire in the Bay of Biscay in 1825; which incident again had Goderich connection, for her commander, Captain Cobbe, whose fame has furnished exciting reading for successive generations of public school readers, was brother to Mrs. Rich, wife of William Bennett Rich, an officer in the Canada Company. The horse then became the property of General Brock, and wa.s ridden by him on the fatal day at Queenston. It received a A SOCIAL POT PoritlU. 319 other lell, tirst Society latter ae hay- which \e Rob Gotland, y-tirst stroyed ain had I, whose rations kvife of y. The nd was eived d •sliot which did not kill outright, as the one destined for its master did ; but the wound ma.de in the animal's back never iiealed, and yeara afterwards it had become the property of Rector Campbell, had conveyed him to Goderich, and had been made a free commoner on the pasturage of thick sward which made that place then and long after be dubbed Goose-Green. The sight of that tuihealed spot bespoke respect for the ancient shrunken sides. The Rector and his family arrived in Goderich one Sunday morning. A pretty Rectory, with great possibilities of being beautified, had been built by Thomas Kneshaw, an Kuglishman, one of the firet comers. It was a rough, lath-and- plaster house, with brown painted fluted wood-work, French windows filled with small lozenge panes of varying size, with wings which, with its many gables, took from it the bare and ugly square of the general Canadian home. It was secured by Dr. Hamilton, another Churchman ; but history tells that the landlord met the incoming Rector at the doorstep, and would not permit him to enter until the place was paid for. One clergyman about this time when asked the boundaries of his jtarish, answered that it might be considered without any, as no boundary lino lay between him and the North Pole. All clergy then were poorly paid ; but a horse was a necessity, for a man might ride sixteen to sixty miles to perform baptism or marriage. So far the last had been the work of any Justice of the Peace within hail — men such as Dunlop, Pryor, or Hiowster. Besides the Justices, only the ministers of three denominations were privileged, Presbyterians, Roman Cath- olics and Anglicans. According to the Bishop, all but these favoured ones were partners in " skism," and marriages so solemnized were but " noaminal." In after years, when this abuse of power was brought up in Parliament, the question of fees also arose. "Fees!" cried our old friend the Tiger, "I never heard of such a thing. I have married many, and never lusked for any but a kiss from the bride. " One privileged pai-son held what came to be known as " wood-shed weddings," to discourage couples from finding him at his own house, as h'.'. • 320 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. . I there his fee was but one dollar ; by meeting them at an hotel, in their own homes, or elsewhere, he was entitled to collect live dollars. Whatever the price, the said kiss from the bride was one of the benefits of clergy. Less urbane even than this parson was a border American Justice to a flying couple, whose haste proclaimed elopement, who asked his services at dead of night. These he tendered, unintentionally clothed in surplice, from his bedroom window, ending his usual formula with the parting shot, " There go another pair of poor fools !" From the uncertainties and eccentricities of such Justices the advent of the new Rector was a great boon. His is a memory which lives green in many old hearts. Outside of the Tract the travelling missionaries went their rounds, on horseback, in travelling dress, through their successive parishes ; a valise before them containing gown, surplice, books, Com- munion elements, chalice and paten ; a greatcoat and umbrella completed the ensemble. The chief difficulty of these poor men's lives was getting in and out of bed. They often had to " put up" in large families whose houses consisted of but one room, in which males and females all slept. But practice made perfect. At one service, we read of the vessels being a black bottle and tumbler, with a total ignorance on the part of the congregation as to what a surplice was. A perquisite of the clergy was to travel free of tolls. This, then, being the very general state of congregations, and the travelling parsons losinij much by their mode of life, dwellers in Goderich, parish and priest, were mutually pleased. The^Jlectory and garden became an ideal Arcadian home ; and the Rector, with his beautiful voice, cultured accent and high bred face, was a prominent figure in the early picture. He taught the Grammar School for a short time, and farmed his glebe, but he soon gavt; up the former. He had come of a seafaring family, his father or grandfather being at the Battle of the Nile, and he himself a middy in H. M. service. While stationed some- where on the coast of England, the story went that he met a Miss Emily Winter, whose heart he won but who stipulated A SOCIAL POT POURRI. 321 that he should leave the Navy and enter the Church. "Ah," said the quizzical Tiger when he heard it, " Mrs. Campbell, you spoiled a good officer, and made a poor parson." He never pretended to be a theologian. But his social qualities won love, and his natural gifts provoked the admiration of even such caustic judgment as the Bishop's own ; he opined that Rector Campbell was the finest reader in Canada. " It made you vviwh to go to Heaven just to hear him read the prayers." " Rector Campbell was a nice enough man, but it was his wife and Miss Campbell that was the angels," says an old parish- ioner. " Just angels thim wimmin was. I mind they'd go every (lay to the poor people, and the very poorest and wretchedest was. thim they'd stay with most, and they'd talk and pray and stay and help till dark." This from an old man over eighty-nin<', his eyes full of the far-away look that comes when the world is done with, chiefly tender over the doings and children of oUi times, or grave with the gravity whicli belongs to old people who are expecting to go, yet whose minds are still clear. The Rector's simplicity was often imposed upon by his less {guileless parishioners. With his other domestic ventures ho kept a goose flock. A neighbour stole one of the birds an, banish him off God's earth ! " But where," cried the hiunble limb of the law, " where, your worship, am I to take him to f " " Take him to Canada, take him to Canada ! " and the sjish rattled down angrily. A well-appointed carriage. Brown — immaculate in whit' gloves and intended by nature for a L: f e Guardsman — and a foot - man, enlivened the streets, which now began to assume the shapi' of something resembling the name, as alder swamp, swale, and temporary causeways gave way to drained and smooth road- ways. There were driving parties where the carriage wius filled with gay people, with outriders, girls and beaux, for there worf good horsemen and horsewomen then. And the pretty central figure, the charming woman who gathered them all about Iut A SOCIAL POT POUUHI. .T27 and diHarinod personally thoHc whoHo eriticiHins were keen t'Isewhore, made herself delifrhtful to high and low, rich and poor, men anfl ^ 1 i 828 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA ('OMPANY. luind down. Thoso thij'C wore tlicn unconHciouH that they wiwa (U^tined to umcoihI the Hotieh of thoir country. The younj; Kn^liHhnian hecanie Jud^e of Huron, tlu; youn^ 8eotchniaii Judge of Perth; wliile it remained for the Canadian, young KobertHon, to reach the liigher Court of AH.size. There iH an old Scotch Haying that all fiddlers are Scotch- iiion ; but Jimmy ('ollins, who provided the muHic that night and who was an institution of his time, was an IriHhman — like njany of his compatriots, sonjewhat oriifinal. He wjw a travelling tailor — that is to say, he lodgL'd at the house wherein he worked; and as he made cloaks an< drunk in my house. 'Pon my life, I be. i ilw. drunk first myself. / could not see him, m't y< . know." No one emulated the style of the Jones' dinner- iving and balls. Comfortable as were some houses, pretty, tasteful A SOCIAI, POT mURRI. :i2ft aiifl injjenioiis as wore otliors, the old (/iinada Company liuild- iiit; had ^rcatoi' poHHibiliticH. Liltrary, hallH and dinin;;-rooin downstaira; lar^c drawiii^-rooniH alK)ve : pKxl HorvantH, sup- plemented by thoHo of the Conipany, who over manifoNtod towards their chief and his lady a i U' ■( glories and scarlet-runners, S^mI, 1 332 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. for a bnish fire, with a wild grape-vine and lier guiding hand became a thing of beauty. It was a house which, like the Evans', told of the glories of the East India service ; its presses could bring forth wonderful muslins, laces, silks, feathers, shawls, fans, carved ivory and Indian jewelry. A pretty love scene took place here, for the future bride of John Strachan then made her d^but in Goderich society. The Toronto girl sat on a sofa in the drawing-room as he entered the open French window with a rose in his fingers. Its size and beauty drew forth admiration, but he passed all by and gave it to her. "For me!" she exclaimed, "really for me!" and placed it in the belt which encircled her petite and beautiful figure. When some days later the Episcopal carriage turned towards Toronto, she in it, it was escorted some distance on its way by the lover on horseback. She confessed she was not as heart- whole returning as she had been coming. At the Lakeshore, however, although the Commissioner's wife was irresistible, the home society, backed by Old Country visitors, who scrupled at " Canadian display," looked askance at Toronto, and expressed on the spot many of the sentiments which have made Mrs. Jameson and some of her contemporary writers disfavoured by that particular section of Canadians for whom her words were meant. It is a pretty memory of the Ranee i\H a dove, with olive branches of peace, flitting fro'u group to group, bringing smiles upon faces that w^ere all too easily ready to settle into frowns. Sunset brought the garden party to a close, and the girls in merino gowns, or fresh and frilled prints, gathered in groups, and as the democrats, springless waggons and saddle-horses came from the log stables, dis- cussed the manners and dress of a world outside their own. These merino frocks were made low and had small capex which the wearers donned as the dew fell ; while those in print picked their way over the grass, each frightened that her one pretty gown should be spoiled. It was one of those days when calm fell with the setting sun ; no spray fretted against the wall of roots below : the lap upon the shingle was A SOCIAL POT POURRI. 333 at its faintest, and the water added its quota of colour as the cat's-paw made by some vagrant breeze dimpled to the tints of purple, pink and yellow, which made a belt where the blue of water ended and that of sky began. The poke bonnets turned lakewards for one last look, and netted scarfs were plucked up round slender shoulders; another day's pleasure was finished, and five miles or more lay between them and home. " How is it," said a lady at what was called " a Goderich tea- party in Toronto," " how is it that half the names notable in Western Canada, particularly Toronto, have been Goderich ones a generation or so back ? " Ah, why, indeed, had not Dunlop's "Backwoodsman" been written, or the Canada Company not been the unique thing it was. Still farther down this Lakeshore Road came the Bignall place, not so beautiful as the Brown homestead, but possess- ing charms of its own from those of the entertainers, who were West Indian people — one more ingredient in the cosmo- politan flavour. At a winter night's gathering here a Moorish- looking beauty, striking from being so unlike anyone else — one who dared to dress without regard to fashion, and who had she been a belle some fifty years later would have been termed artistic — was a central figure of interest. More interesting would she have been had the boy who stood at her side re- vealed the part he was to take in the military life and history of Canada He was a handsome boy, generally dressed in kilts, but on this occasion was in frock, sash and strapped shoes. " Mrs. Otter was a very Lalla Rookh," and her boy a general pet. Visitors then often took their children with them, and one lady counted as a necessary part of her im- pedimenta, indispensable as her jewel-box, the cradle in which she deposited a series of babies, somewhere out of earshot of the music, but near enough to the maternal eye. Now, however, Mr. and Mr.s. Otter, nurse and children, were house guests at their friends the Bignalls, and Master Willie took occasion to show how bad a boy he could be. The crowning i f = .it ; 11 r i li 334 IS THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. act of his disgrace was to go into the supper-room, solemnly take out the decanter stoppers one after another, lick them, and as solemnly replace them. His father withdrew with him for one of those conferences where power is so miserably one-sided ; but on return, feeling sorry for the boy, made much of him, and told him to say to a certain guest that she was the prettiest girl in the room. The second in loveliness to Mrs. Otter herself, if indeed she was second to anyone, was one of those mentioned in the quotation, for she wore a crimson " merino frock," trimmed M'ith swansdown, which set oft' her dark beauty at its best. Long black curls shaded her sweet face as it 1)ent towards the advancing boy, who stood for a moment beside her toying with the long gold chain wiiich hung round her neck. General attention had not yet wandered from the future hero of Cut- Knife, and a silence fell as he opened his mischievous mouth. " Mi.ss Jane," came the childish treble ; " Miss Jane, my papa fold me to tell you that you wei'e the pi'ettiest girl in the room." It has been said that that com- mon little log-house, with its two rooms below and divided loft above, held more beauty, good birth, fashion, good living and good manners than we manage to cram into half our " palatial residences " of to-day. The belles and the beaux were packed into ponderous sleighs, built by local carpenters, with plenty of foot-room for the hot V>ricks. hot bottles and heated cordwood sticks — " arks on run- ners. ' Out tumbled Griffin, Derbyshire, Charlie Widder and a host of others, all shaggy monsters in bearskin coats, toques or eared caps with pinnacled crowns, ready to loose the girls from their many trappings. A large shawl pinned under the chin, with the corners well spread, was a lady's final precaution against storm. Then what a metamorphosis, when, like Cin- derella's cloak, thr-xe disguises were cast aside and out stepped the severe evening ioat and bright-coloured dresa With the small hours these same butterflies went back into the chrysalis. The sleigh set forth in an atmosphere where everything seemed turning to wreaths like Miss Janes swansdown ; the bells A SOCIAL POT rOLKRI. :^35 tinkled, and silence settled down on the Lakeshore Road. In suininer they entertained in a kind of bower on the green in front of the house, where they danced and made merry, and had comfort, too; for the chairs and tables were brought into it, and with flowers for decoration it was no bad exchange for the meagre winter accommodation. Mrs. Bignall was famous for lier suppers, and all manner of dainties, from jellied turkey to whips, made their appearance at the parties. She had the knack of making all things interesting, knew a little of everything, and with her husband — a huge man, kind, considerate and courteous — helped her friends to pass many bright hours. Their only daughter married a brother of Captain Montgomery. Balls, picnics, routs, followed each other in' quick succession 'luring these few gay years. The fii'st were sometimes held at .fudge Read's on the bank, his big room with a gallery at one end making a famous ball-room. Here one night young Mrs. < lalt provoked the comparison of " the I^ady of the Lake," as she floated about with tartan scarf pinned at the shoulder over her white dress ; whilst turbaned dames, with jewels lying on their . foreheads, held there by one or more black velvet l)ands, after an old-time fashion, lined the walls. On St. Patrick's day of 1844 a charity ball w»is given in the church stable, in aid of a man who had had his arms torn off" in a threshing mill. Miss Jane Hutchison, a visitor from Scot- land, appeared in yellow satin skirt, yellow crepe over-dress, l)lack velvet bodice, and yellow turban, a very striking figure, tor even in Edinburgh she was counted a handsome woman. Her host's collie, Tiger, had taken Miss Hutchison under his ••special protection. He could do everything but speak, and watched everyone's property jealously. On this night Miss Hutchison gave her escort the bag containing her jewels and ornaments ; he lost it on the way home, and next morning Tiger was found at her door with the package in his teeth. These visitors liked new experiences, and sometimes found startling ones. Miss Hutchison, accompanied by a friend, returning from a neighbour's house, lost her way and had I ' n0i V m ii i% V. ■• 336 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. ^ to remain in tlie woods all night. At the time of year when the tree tops are heaviest in leaf, if a dark cloud comes up before sunset the twilight seems to " fall with a clap." One treat got up for her pleasure seems to have been an uncomniun one. A pleasure party consisting of the Lizars and Gaits, a family affair to which a few friends were invited, set off for the Manitoulin to show her the strange sight of Bounty and Presents distributed to the Indians by the Governor. They sailed in two small boats, the Happy-go-lucky and the Go-ahead ; beached their boats at night, lit fires iiiid bivouacked in their tents ; dived in and out of the " pocket Edens;" sang Moore's boat-song; •revelled in the beauty of that wilderness of wood, water, shore and sky, and arrivid at their destination before the Indians. These they saw conn- in at daybreak, the black dots rising out of the water with the sun ; and as the light heightened, the crescent-shaped fleit of blanket-sails came into full view. As the mooring plaoi- was neared the horns of the crescent approached each otlui . the order in which they drew to being worthy of the most perfect movements of a fleet of men-of-war boats. Bv some coincidence various Wilsons, Reads and Reids, Stewarts, Stewards and Hamiltons, settled in and about Goderich; and as Christian names were much too commouphicc a mode of distinguishing people in those times, nicknames followed. There was Horse Stewart, and Four-eye Stewart, Tuppenny Stewart and Fourpenny Steward, and the Stewart corpse at the Dunlop dinner party ; there was Black Hamilton, so called by the Doctor when covered with mud during the building of his cottage in West Street ; White Hamilton, as a matter of distinction ; Judge Read, and Yankee Reid who live n.s8 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. to coiiK' was one who had been stoker of the Rocket when on its famous trip from Manchester to Liv«!rpool — .Joseph Whitc- hnaarn ; but so great was the dnuid of emigrants as possible conveyers of cholera, that no passing Durham would take them on board. In time they progressed as far as Dundas; here the younger of the two children died, from an illneas due to exposure; the other, very ill, was attended to medically in Toronto ; and then the young girl-mother, barely out of her teens, held it in her arms while the waggon journey was made. A night of terror, when her husband, with gun and watch-fires, kept a pack of ^:i '? ■ i ( m' '■f- 340 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. I wolves at bay, was one of the many adventures ere The Comers and the particular spot of the dense forest which they were to call home, were reached. Here in the succeed- ing years, by the light of a strip of cotton drawn to the edge of a saucer of lard, she patched garments torn in the bush and clearing ; rocked her ten forest babies in a long bath- shaped affair, the head of it being a flat seat where the mother sat so placed that the child rocked with her, and, as she rocked, sewed ; here the little boy, carried so far in her tired arms, died, and five of the babies followed him. But nothing daunted by poverty, death and unceasing hard work, she baked, knit, sewed, spun and weaved ; cut up her silk wedding gown into sun-bonnets, and saw her children "capering about her in made- over relics of former days, silk velvet bodices and lace-trimmeil silks, which had come out in the Caroline." What she could not be happy without was her cup of tea ; wild chocolate and the makeshifts of the country tea-table were her last straw. Once, when her husband had a sheep to sell, he drove it to Qoderich ; but no one could be induced to buy, and he " to.saed " whether it should be driven back or a pound of tea be taken in exchange from Christopher Crabbe, merchant (and many other things) there. The toss decided for the tea, and a strong brew was made that night. The accomplishments learned in girlhood taught this woman how to embellish her humble walls, and her love of flowers made for the log cottage a picturescjiie exterior. A life of patient toil, faithfully performed duty, great hardships, yet happy withal " if I could but have kept my babies." There were fashions in those early times which later years have 80 dropped that they are almost forgotten. " Has lie fought duels ? Good heavens ! And how did he comport him- self in love ? " He and she comported themselves sometimes after the ladder of ropes, trysting place and stolen kis.s methods ; nor was the stem father wanting, to throw in a flavour of tragedy. One story of a flying sweetheart and a lover who should have been waiting in an arbour, soft arm.s A SOCIAL l»OT POURRI. 341 thrown ecstatically about the gardener's neck, and a storm of roproaclies and tears when the panting Lothario came, has its humorous side. The vaporish, hysterical heroine who fainted on very small provocation had not yet lost her prestige. Love affairs were not the prosaic things they are now ; no girl gave a fig for a course of true love which would run smooth. The excitements of a larger intercourse were to follow the advent of the rail- ways. Until they came, local politics, duels, elopements, sere- nades and an exchange of locks uf hair, filled up the pauses. Men were not yet bald at twenty-one, and girls had not gone for higher education. The duels were not easily evaded Ml sometimes. Nothing but blood spilled by the hand of the Hj^grieved one seemed an ade(}uate punishment for crimes of the tongue. " The a, Mr. Speaker," says one orator who belonged to the same school of elegance, thought and feeling which animated Huron, " have ever been traitors to their country, personally and politically worthless, from the tooth- h'Hs hag that sits grinning in the gallery to the white-livered lecreant who stands cowering on the floor." The sister of the iveronnt sat in the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons. The constant recurrence to pen in verse, hitting ofl' scfenes political or social, has also l)een given ; but the third, a passion for plaj'ing practical jokes, would, if given in full, furnish material for volumes. Of course the Doctor was a prince of Jesters, full of wicked pranks ; and when they were brought to ji safe conclusion and his victim helpless, he " laughed till the room shook." Once when his friend Dickson, Dr. Chalk and others, were at Gairbraid, they sat in the dining-room where Lou and her maids made preparation for supper. She put some pickles, which consisted mainly of capsicum, in the middle of the table. The Doctor reached over, innocently picked out one and handed it to Mr. Dickson, telling him what rare pickles Lou could make. His friend did not bite hard enough to get the desired results, so the Tiger said, " Chew it, mon, chew it, or you'll no get the flavour." Dickson chewed, grew red, then f t li i 842 IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY. purple, Hpluttered and called For vviiter. This, with iiiDrc than a HOU|)<;on of the creature added, only made him worse, and t)ir two doctors " nearly died of lau^hinjf." Thin happened after an Assize Court, always a tinu' of excitement. Rattenbury's, at The Corners, was the jjood-hye place, the point at which roalm aventie aUme. But the man knew host and visitor too well to miss what might he coming so lie t>, by thv way, had orders to admit nobod;^- — answered the summons (juickly, for a knock was a rare occurrence. In answer to his (juery as to who was there, u roar came out of the darkness wherein loomed the gigantic, ((ueerly dressed figure, " Go to the deil and shake yourself." (Jeoffrey flew to his master, who was in a room abov»' the door. His report made the CoUmcl lean out from the balcony and demand who was there. " Go to the deil and shake your- self," roared Durdop again. " Show him up, Geoffrey," said TallK)t, (piictly ; " it is either Dunlop or the devil." The Colonel betook himself sometimes to Lon)iy one. The custom of puttin|^ in verse the IV^idin^, scene, or events of till! pa.ssin;; moment, j^ave ri.se to tht; follo\vin{j \erseH, which, after "A Flourish Now of I'eiuiy Whistles," I'onii ]>erhapH the best specimen extant o!' this pha.se of ability in that era. Thcv w.'re credited to an <»lHcer in tin; (ommi.ssariat : SINO THi: DKLHiHT.S. " Sing tlio (li'liKlitH of LoimIiiii Sucioty, KpHulcttu, Hiiltretiicbo, Hwiird-knnt and pluiiiu, Always onclmntin^ yet kimwH no viiri'jty, Scarlet HJonu can cniliclliHh a nxini. While Hpurs are clatteriiiK, FlirtinK and chattering, Hend the ftruitd heroes tliat light for the Crown ; Dancitig cotilhonH, Cuttinj^ civilians — These are the joys (»f a garrison town. JoneH, Henderson, chKrinin^ mad Fvans, (80 giHuufiil his cap with ilM peak arricre). ' A SOCIAL POT I'OUllHI. 34.') My HiHtoi'B ami I nru iit hIxur niul soveim WhoM we try to tlucidu »•» his favourite Fair. C'a[>tuinH in pluiity, Of RiihaltoriiH twonty, 'I'hoir iminoH far ton iiuiiiorous liuro to put tlowii, Ot^ling and uyuiri); you, Suoiii){ aixi Hijrhinj^ too, 'riiesu art) tho joys of a garrison town. Thoro's . . . Non of tlie groat Kiiglish Ilrowrr, Tliey toll nio Iuj'h lioir to ton thouHiinil a yuar ; He's hanilaoinu and tall, and Than any of thoHo I havo ovor seen hon . Lust night after d;incing, So tenderly glancing, His arm rountl my waist while I lilmthud and looked down, WoulJ he l)iit make an offer — Mow pleased with Ills prolFer — I'd spend all my life in a garriHon town ! Mttle rock we of you, black coated laity. Forty to one upofi runi-r agaiimt iioir ; On soldiers we lavinli our favours and gaiety F'or the rest, why we leave them to fei i i)'i-.v.^i/i>ir. (hliouH vnlgai iiy, lleckU^HS li.irliarity. Wo have for hucIi oauaille as tiioso hut a frown, W'h le flirting with I'lisiiient, Smiling nn (irenadieis, — These are tlw joys of a garrison tov. . . Olorious picnics (tin- tw<'nty men are all Much celelirated tor giving chaiiipagne), Walking from tliunh with the (iovornor-( Jeneral, Admired by Miat cligaiit aide di* namp. Mein ; While (Jiiloiiels commaiuling, Ices are handing, We are led to the valse 1»3' some suit of renown ; Knsigns and Majors, Old and young stagers, All are alike in a garrison town. Hut there's one drawhacl* to al! this felicity. Ne'er was a rosi; that was minus a tliorn ; When tiie route c learn. They wi-re great stick lers for fortn and eti<|nette. Mi".s. \Velil» went into moniiiiiig when William l\'. died: and as entire ciiange of colour was hard to get, iilial ])ietv foi- tiie sovereign was content witli .1 |)ie)>ald costume in wliich a hroad hiack rihhon, tying down the coloured honnet, was the chief endtlem of wo< Crape was n scarce article in l.S.'»7. for when (jie<»>'ge ( 'art\s riglit Strachan aged twenty-one, an"l. Xone couhl he got Until Mr.s. Kydd, who happen»'d to he in mourning, was ahle to gi\f him eniiUgh for that purpose. In muddy weather then and when was it not niuijdy in early OanacUi!' — hwlies'chitterfd al<»ngon pattens wi' their clae.s tuckil up to tile knee,'' and Mrs. Wehh, shoi1, stout hut [trim, woir pattens. Sherifi' Hyndman had a small r«)und leathern Ha.4 with a gla.ss eyr in its sitie. It was a family joke to call tins (lask "Mrs. Wehh," Iwcau.se sh«* enjoyed the rare distinction of heing a nn)st i''uifri\u'Kiitt'i/nn party to their pupils, and the garden, which was an object of general interest, made a great addi- tional pleasure in the day. One thing much criticized in the community wjis tlie pupils' manner of entering and leaving tho .school-room. They (Md not enter l)y cla.s.ses. Everyone was punctual — there was no difficulty on that score ; two of the ladies. Miss AVibie and Miss Margaret, stood each by a special desk, and as each small girl entenid she curtsied to tlu; Hrst, went on and curtsied to the second, and then took her .seat. At the lunch hour — all lunches w«;re carried there — one or the other read alou