THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT, 
 
 ilEMBEE OF LKGISLATIVE COUNCIL IN THE FIBST PAELIAMENT 
 OP UPPER CANADA. 
 
 EDITED BY REV. C. E. CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 BORN 1759, DIED 1815. 
 
 "A man with head, heart, hand 
 Like orte of the simple great one's gone. 
 Forever and ever by. 
 Whatever they call him what care I, 
 Aristocrat, Autocrat, Democrat, one 
 Who can rule, and dare not lie." 
 
 Tenkysox. 
 
 TORONTO, CANADA: SYDNEY, N.S.W.: 
 
 BELFORD BROTHERSi 
 
 MDCCCLXXVI.
 
 PRINTBD ASD BOUND 
 
 BT y 
 
 HUNTER, R08K AND CO., * 
 
 TORONTO.
 
 F 
 
 C 2.i 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Preface. 
 
 Life of Hon. R. Cartwright, by Eev. J. Strachau— 1759 to 1815. 
 
 Chapter I.— Indian Campaign — 1778 to 1780. 
 
 Chapter II. — Letters on Politics — 1792 to 1794. 
 
 Chapter III. — Speech on Judicatiire BiU — 1794. 
 
 Chapter IV.— Letters on Trade— 1797 to 1806. 
 
 Chapter V.— Letters on Land— 1795 to 1800. 
 
 Chapter VI.— Letter on Population— 1799. 
 
 Chapter VII.— Letters on Duties— 1795 to 1801. 
 
 Chapter 7111.- Proceedings of Parliament— 1801 to 1809. 
 
 Chapter IX. — Miscellaneous— 1808. 
 
 llli.r?<2
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting the following letters and papers to the public,. 
 I have been influenced by the idea that they might prove 
 of considerable value to any one who was desirous of presenting 
 to the world a true picture of the political or social history of 
 Canada. 
 
 For the nature and variety of the subjects treated of in these 
 pages the reader is referred to the table of contents, which 
 include a good deal of information not easily obtainable, on 
 war, trade, revenue, politics, &c., supplying a tolerably vivid 
 picture of the early days of Ontario, iu the words of one of the 
 earliest settlers and most intelligent men of the time. 
 
 A short sketch of his life, taken from the funeral sermon 
 preached by the late Bishop of Toronto, is added to the 
 paper. 
 
 C. E. C. 
 
 Kingston, July, 1876.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Bom at Albany — Studies for the Church — Revolution — Joins Butler's 
 Bangers — Serves two Campaigns — Partnership with Mr. Hamilton — 
 His business princii^les — Made Judge of Common Pleas — Member of 
 Legislative Council — Declines Seat in Executive Council — His Patriot- 
 ism in war of 1812 — Loss of his Children — His Death Page 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Expedition to Wyoming, so called massacre a fight — Brant destroys German 
 Flats — Butler destroys Cherry Valley — Canabalism— Governor Hamil- 
 ton captured by Americans and put in irons — Americans bum Anondagcj 
 — McDonald lays waste the Shamokin settlements — Brant defeats Col. 
 Flurstin— Gen. Sullivan's campaign— Buttler Defeated — Say's Ajiibus- 
 cade, it fails — Butler retreats to Niagara — Minor operations.. . .Page 29 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Letter to Mr. Todd— First Parliament— Establishment of English Law— 
 ^ Custom House Bill thrown out by Upper House— Objections to fixing 
 the Seat of Government on the Tranche — Second Letter to Todd^ 
 Commissioners on Revenue — Defeat of Marriage Law — His disgust at 
 Politics — Governor Simcoe at York — His Canvas House — Building Re- 
 gulations — Third Letter — Indignation at charge of disloyalty — Depre- 
 cates establishment of Ecclesiastical Courts — Address to Grand Jury — 
 Proceedings of Third Session — Judicature Bill — Lawyers by Act of 
 Parliament — Revenue Commissioners — Skirmish at Detroit — Canadians 
 killed — Letter to Major Southbridge — Lord Dorchester's Speech — Skir- 
 mish near Detroit — Pork — curing for troops Page 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 District Courts suitable for Province— Expense of proposed system — BlacI^- 
 stone on County Courts— Distance an objection Page 67
 
 viu CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Letter to Davison & Co. — Scarcity of labour — Hessian fly — Price of Flour 
 and Peas— Discontent in Lower Canada — Execution of McLean — Ejqiort 
 of Potash and Staves — Letter to General iHunter—TrauBport to Mont- 
 real- Improvement of Lachine rapids — Cultivation of Hemp — List of 
 Eroduce— Letter from General Hunter — Bruyere's survey of Lachine — 
 letter to Mr. Hamilton— Lachine improvements accomplished.. Page 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Letter to General Simcoe — Grants of Land — Action of Land Board — Delay 
 in issuing Patents — Proposed measures of relief^Letter to James 
 McGiU — Patents to issue — Deeds destroyed — Recent Acts — Quarrel of 
 Houses Page 85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Xetter to General Hunter — First settlers — Loyalists and disbanded troops- 
 Relatives of Loyalists admitted 1788 — Emigrants invited by General 
 Simcoe — Objections — Proposed remedy — Improper Emigration.. Page 93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "JEleport of Commissioners — Duties on Wines — Proportion settled on baais of 
 population — Letter to Hon. J. Lees — Duties on American goods im- 
 possible—Letter to Mr. McGUl — Deprecates Protection Page 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Session of 1801 — Election of Speaker — Disputed election — Appropriations — 
 Bounty on Hemp — Letter to Rev. J. Strachan— Grant for Roa,ds — 
 Grant for purchase of Hemp — Act against Aliens — Act against enticing 
 soldiers to desert — Letter to Chief Justice Alcock — Conduct of Mr. 
 Thorpe— Duty on Tea— On Hawkers — Establishment of District 
 Schools— Letter supposed to be written by Lt. -Governor — Mr. Thorpe 
 sent to Sierra Leone — Character of Attorney General Page 115 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Incorporation of Kingston— Letter to His Excellency F. Gore— Objects to 
 fee for Militia Commissions — Letter to Mayor McKenzie — American 
 troops on the frontier— Ship of War building at Oswego — U. S. Naval 
 Officers in Kingston Harbor Page 142
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 HON, RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 ABRIDGED FROM FUNERAL SERMON 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOHN STRACHAN. 
 
 BORN ATAIBANY — EDTTCATION — STUDIES FOrJtHE CHURCH — REVOLU- 
 TION — JOINS queen's rangers — SERVES TWO CAMPAIGNS — PART- 
 NERSHIP WITH MR. HAMILTON* — HIS BUSINESS PRINCIPLES — MADE 
 JUDGE OF COMMON PLEAS — MEMBER OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 
 DECLINES SEAT IN EXECUTIVE COUNCIL — HIS PATRIOTISM IN WAR 
 OF 1812 — LOSS OF HIS CHILDREN — HIS DEATH. 
 
 KiCHARD CARTWRIGHT was born at Albany, in the State of 
 New York, then a British colony, on the 2nd of February, 
 1759. His father, an emigrant from England, was highly re- 
 spectable, of great hospitality, and possessed of the most agree- 
 able convivial talents. His mother, born of a loyal Dutch 
 family, was remarkable for her strength of mind, excellent 
 judgment, and tenacity of memory — gifts which descended 
 with increased vigour to her affectionate son. His education 
 commenced at a private school, and much pains were taken by 
 his parents to gratify that strong desire of information which 
 
 'ThisMr. Hamilton was the father of the Hon. John Tlamilton, of Kingston, Senator.
 
 10 LIFE OF HON, RICHARD CART WRIGHT. 
 
 he exhibited from his earliest infancy. He was permitted to 
 peruse every book which came in his way, nor was such pro- 
 miscuous reading found injurious to his taste, nor inimical to 
 his progress in useful learning; for the accuracy of his judg- 
 ment soon taught him to distinguish the useful from the trifling. 
 So retentive was his memory, that he seldom forgot anything 
 that he read ; when, therefore, he removed to another school, 
 where the classics and higher branches of education were 
 taught, his industry and abilities secured to him the afi"ection 
 of his teacher, who saw with admiration and delight his rapid 
 progress in Latin and Greek. Indeed his retention of memory 
 gave him a facility in acquiring languages which has been sel- 
 dom equalled. 
 
 To these attainments he added, by private study, an inti- 
 mate acquaintance with almost all the classical works in the 
 English tongue. Arrived at an age when he was to look for- 
 ward to his exertions for an honourable support, he began to 
 consider of a profession. The extent of his knowledge, and 
 the pleasures which he had reaped from the cultivation of his 
 mind, had given him, as frequently happens, a distaste for mer- 
 cantile pursuits. 
 
 The law was not congenial to his mind ; in that lucrative 
 profession there are many transactions which open rather a 
 sombre view of human nature. The various apparatus ne- 
 cessary to secure property and reputation, rights public and 
 private, become a severe satire on mankind ; and as he knew 
 that much talent is employed in delaying justice and defending 
 wrong, he could not reconcile his mind to such exertions. This 
 did not prevent him from admiring many in this profession, nor 
 blind him to the great good which a lawyer of superior talents 
 and inflexible integrity might efiect in preventing wrongs and
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 11 
 
 terminating contentions, directing the doubtful and instructing 
 the ignorant. Possessing those qualities in a most eminent de- 
 gree which constitute a great character and a virtuous man, he 
 had no ambition to figure in public life,' and after mature deli- 
 beration he turned his views to the Church. Perhaps a mis- 
 fortune which had befallen him early in life assisted in leading 
 him to this determination. A boy, in playing, struck him with 
 a stone in his left eye, which deprived him almost entirely of 
 its use, and turned the ball outwards, by which his counte- 
 nance, otherwise remarkably fine, was somewhat deformed. 
 
 Of a parish priest, such as his imagination presented, he 
 spoke always with enthusiasm. He considered him a person 
 appointed to preserve among his people the spirit of vital re- 
 ligion, to be their moral guardian, to keep them in unity and 
 in the constant practice of mutual love and good offices one 
 towards another. The clergyman should be a pattern of mode- 
 ration, temperance and contentment to all his parishioners; by 
 this he will extend his influence among them, increase their feli- 
 city, and prepare them, by aliving example,for securing that bless- 
 ed immortality which the Gospel announces. Not that he was 
 ignorant of the difficulties which a clergyman has to surmount 
 in this country, from the laxity of religious principles, from 
 the want of early impressions, and the general indiff"erence to 
 and total neglect of Gospel ordinances. But those difficulties, he 
 was accustomed to say, would rather stimulate than impede the 
 conscientious priest, who would find infinite delight in forming 
 a congregation where there had been none before ; changing 
 darkness into light ; promoting industry, sobriety and humanity 
 among his people, and proving to them that even in this life 
 the sincere Christian enjoys infinitely more happiness than any 
 other man, and this in a great measure independent of transient
 
 12 LIFE OF HON. RieiTARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 things. Other stations might, he said, possess greater pomp and 
 show, but he knew no social condition which united so many- 
 sources of the highest enjoyment — so many objects for gratifying 
 those passions which lead to self-satisfaction. Animated by these 
 sentiments, he turned his vigorous mind to a full preparation for 
 discharging with ability and success the duties of a parish priest. 
 He read the works of the most eminent divines ; he applied him- 
 self to the study of Hebrew ; he could not bear the idea of 
 mediocrity, and being able to read with care the New Testa- 
 ment in the original Greek, he was desirous of reading the 
 Old Testament as ^ had been revealed. He was proceeding 
 with his accustomed rapidity, and had even ventured upon 
 biblical criticism, when the American Rebellion broke out, and 
 chano-ed the objects of his life. In love with retirement, and 
 turnin" his whole attention towards a station which made peace 
 and harmony the foundation of its exertions, he had never 
 taken any interest in the various disputes which divided Great 
 Britain and her colonies. But the time was now come when 
 neutrality could no longer be maintained, and when it became 
 necessary for him to take a side. Brought up in habitual rever- 
 ence to the King and Parliament by his loyal parents, he did 
 not hesitate a moment in making his choice. Well acquainted 
 with the history of his country, he knew that Great Britain 
 had been involved in two long and expensive wars to defend 
 the colonies, and that they had contributed little or none of the 
 expense ; he thought it but reasonable that they should give 
 something towards remunerating the parent State for the vast 
 burdens she had incurred. It is not probable that his early 
 age ena>)led him to ascertain the degree of authority which 
 mif^ht 1)6 ri<'htfully exercised by the mother country over her co- 
 lonies. It had always been asserted that Parliament possessed
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 13 
 
 the power of binding them in all cases ; this was the opinion 
 of the best informed ; it was recognised in many States, and 
 admitted by the Legislatures of all the colonies, nor was it ever 
 controverted by argument till the colonists had been taught, 
 by the opposition in the British Parliament, the subtle distinc- 
 tion between acts for the regulation of commerce, and those 
 which regulate their interior arrangements. The first opposi- 
 tion to the mother country originated from that republican 
 disposition of the New England people which always submitted 
 with reluctance to the constitutional authority of a government 
 in which monarchy made a considerable part. Ever discon- 
 tented and jealous of usurpation, they were continually at 
 variance with their governors, and claiming exemptions and 
 privileges which could not be granted. But, active in diffusing 
 their sentiments through the other colonies, the spirit of dissatis- 
 faction became at length so general as to enable them to break 
 out in open rebellion. The various artifices made use of to de- 
 ceive the people, the false news invented, the cruelties exercised 
 on those attached to the King, did not escape the notice of our 
 excellent friend, who was disgusted with their proceedings, 
 and more zealous in defending the side which he had chosen. 
 He was convinced that' the rebellion originated from a restless 
 democratic spirit, and that it gained ground only by the im- 
 becility of the measures taken to crush it, the assistance of the 
 Opposition in Parliament, and the treacherous conduct of the 
 commanders employed by sea and land. Displeased with the 
 selfish views of the disaffected, feeling no oppression from 
 Parliament, nor greater restrictions than appeared necessary 
 for the unity of all parts of the empire, and convinced that if 
 any grievance existed rebellion was not the proper remedy, he 
 maintained his loyalty. He had no interests to serve ; he
 
 14 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 sought not for power or emolument from commotions and 
 bloodslied ; yet he was the steady friend of rational freedom, 
 and as ready as any man to stand up in its defence. Actuated 
 by these principles he accompanied his parents into Canada, 
 and for a time attended Colonel Butler, of the Queen's Rangers, 
 as his Secretary. In this station he had several opportunities, 
 during two campaigns, of giving specimens of the penetration 
 and courage which were such prominent parts of his character. 
 After the conclusion of the war, which, by giving success to 
 the rebels, has produced so many miseries to mankind, there 
 appeared no prospect for him in the church ; he was fherefore 
 obliged to relinquish his favourite pursuits and to engage in a 
 profession by no means congenial to his mind. At the solici- 
 tation of a near and worthy relation, he formed a connection 
 with the Honourable Robert Hamilton, a gentleman of such 
 varied information, engaging manners, and princely hospita- 
 lity, as to be justly esteemed an honour to the Province. His 
 memory is gratefully remembered by thousands whom his 
 magnanimous liberality rescued from famine. The connection 
 subsisted with great satisfaction to both parties for several 
 years, when, on account of the extent of their business, a 
 separation took place by mutual consent, Mr. Hamilton going 
 to Niagara, and Mr. Cartwright remaining at Kingston ; but 
 their mutual regard and friendship was only dissolved by death. 
 Although Mr. Cartwright had found it necessary to relinquish 
 his views of becoming a minister of the Gospel, yet he indulged 
 always in a serious turn of mind and a strong predilection for 
 the sacred character. Often has my venerable friend, who was 
 accustomed to address you from this sacred place, with much 
 profit to your souls, lamented that circumstances had prevented 
 a person of such eminent abilities from entering the Church, of
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 15 
 
 which he must have become its chief ornament. The excellence 
 of his disposition, his discrimination of character, his acquain- 
 tance with the human heart, would have made him singularly 
 useful. That elevation of mind which accompanies high prin- 
 ciple and extensive knowledge, while it presided over his mer- 
 cantile pursuits, prevented him from strictly attending to petty 
 gains, or from being tenacious of always obtaining what may 
 be deemed, in common language, his just rights. He knew 
 that justice, unless mixed with benevolence, may frequently 
 become cruelty ; and therefore he was lenient to his debtors, 
 and notwithstanding his extensive concerns, seldom had re- 
 course to law. Riches are not everything ; they may be too 
 dearly bought ; and I may venture to say that never was he 
 the cause of misery to any family. But, though this inflexible 
 integrity and honourable dealing, which produced the same 
 uniform conduct with young and old, ignorant and knowing, 
 and which was more ready to recede than to be severe, had 
 made him less wealthy than he would have otherwise been, 
 he was possessed of all he desired — a liberal competence ; and 
 by his honourable conduct he gave a complete example of those 
 liberal views and magnificent principles which have raised 
 the character of the British merchant so high in the eyes of the 
 world. Soon after his settlement in Kingston he was appoint- 
 ed Judge of the Common Pleas, the duties of which he dis- 
 charged, without any emolument, in a way most honourable to 
 himself and beneficial to the public. His patient attention to 
 the causes before him, his inflexible impartiality, his singular 
 penetration, and the strength of his judgment, added to the 
 energetic firmness of his character, enabled him to perform, in 
 a most correct manner, the duties of this important office. 
 One of his brethren in another district used to say, with much
 
 I() I.IFK OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 naivete, that " Mr. Cartvvright was worth them all ; while we 
 were poring and studying, he sees a thing almost intuitively, 
 overawing us by his very manner, giving dignity to the court, 
 ami inspiring a respect for its decisions." On the bench he had 
 no prejudice or predilection of any kind; accordingly, he was 
 most attentive, mild and discriminating, for he aspired to no 
 praise but that which might be given to the conscientious dis- 
 charge of his duty. In performing the more humble, but va- 
 rious and useful duties of a magistrate, you are all witnesses of 
 his eminence. His addresses to the grand juries at the Quarter 
 Sessions will be long remembered for their sound principles, 
 liberal views, and tempered dignity. In exerting himself to 
 keep the peace, in apprehending and committing felons, and per- 
 forming all the troublesome duties of this office, he was indefa- 
 tigable. He did not drive away the injured who came to com- 
 plain of the oppressor, nor did he attend to his private affairs 
 in preference to theirs. Very few understand the duties of a 
 magistrate ; they are so numerous, and embrace so great a va- 
 riety of objects, that the country is under great obligations to 
 any worthy man who shall prepare himself for this office, and 
 discharge its duties without any sinister motives of his own. 
 No sooner were the provinces divided than he was appointed a 
 member of the Legislative Council ; and I believe was never, 
 during the remainder of his life, absent from a single session 
 of Parliament except one. In a pecuniary point of view this 
 attendance, every season for twenty-three years, was accom- 
 panied with great expense, besides the loss of time in conduct- 
 ing his private business. Nor was it merely while at the seat 
 of government that he was occupied in legislation ; many an 
 hour did he spend in collecting and preparing materials for use- 
 ful laws, in order to render the Province prosperous and happy.
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. l7 
 
 He was not one of those intuitive legislators who can sit down 
 of a morning and write a law upon any whim that strikes their 
 fancy ; such crude excrescences could only raise his contempt 
 and indignation. He deliberated coolly ; he collected informa- 
 tion with care ; he weighed the words and sentences with the 
 most scrupulous anxiety, that the meaning might be plain and 
 simple, and that each clause should express that meaning per- 
 spicuously, and no other. Nor was he one of those narrow- 
 minded though well-intentioned statesmen who look for an 
 immediate effect from their legislative labours ; he knew that, 
 from the nature of mankind, many evils, after the law had 
 afforded a remedy, disappeared slowly ; that there were many 
 enactments of the most useful kind which seemed to take no 
 effect, but which proceeded in silence, with slow but steady 
 pace, to produce the most beneficial results. 
 
 Possessing great comprehension of thought, and the most 
 vigorous talents, attended with a patience of research and a 
 self-control highly advantageous, he was frequently content to 
 give way to the less extended views of his colleagues, and to 
 accept of an imperfect measure rather than lose it altogether. 
 You can never, he would say, bring all into the same way of 
 thinking ; some measures of great and lasting advantage to a 
 State are slow in their operation, and appear to produce, for a 
 season, no beneficial effect, which are yet in the end pregnant 
 with the most precious advantages. But you cannot expect in 
 a public assembly always to transfuse your own views and 
 sentiments into the minds of others. Some are too ignorant 
 to comprehend the force of your arguments ; some too lazy to 
 attend to them ; many are blinded by prejudices, and some 
 have already adopted the contrary side, which they are deter- 
 mined, at all hazards, to maintain. If, therefore, you remain
 
 18 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 inflexible, even in the attainment of good, nothing will be 
 accomplished ; you must concede, and leave a good measure 
 to make its own way after it has began to operate. Nor is it 
 just that you should carryall your plans, however disinterested 
 your intentions. Others may be equally so, though dififering 
 in opinion, and it is right that they should sometimes decide 
 against you, even though wrong, that they may know from 
 experience that they are in possession of liberty. To those 
 who complained of the little interest many took in preparing 
 for their legislative duties, and their narrow views in turning 
 everything to their own county, or their own village, he used 
 to say, that the great imperfection of national as well as do- 
 mestic government arose from the little virtue and soundness 
 of principle, not only in making laws, but in putting them in 
 execution ; that, instead of finding fault, it would be much 
 better to act, and to remember that the wisest laws are of no 
 use unless executed by virtue. Almost every statute that goes 
 into general operation must be delegated to many different 
 persons, judges, juries, constables, &c., who, if not governed by 
 conscience, wiU abuse their discretionary power. Make a 
 nation virtuous, and the laws will be wise and theii* execution 
 sure. He looked for more good from a rational plan of edu- 
 cation, disseminating moral and religious principles among the 
 people, than from legislative enactments. He had been fre- 
 quently offered a seat in the Executive Council, which he 
 declined, not only from a conscientious feeling that he could 
 not discharge its duties strictly, living at a distance from the seat 
 of government, but also because he was conidnced that he could 
 do more good as a magistrate and legislator by not being 
 identified with the Government, as an Executive Councillor 
 must frequently be. Though never aspiring to popularity, his
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHAEB CARTWRIGHT. 19 
 
 known probity had given him a degree of influence which no 
 other man possessed. This made him anxious to guard the 
 independence of his character from any possibility of imputa- 
 tion. His great ambition was to be useful to the Pro^'ince, 
 and to promote the prosperity of its inhabitants. In every 
 situation in which he was placed, we behold the same dignity 
 of character maintained, the same forgetfuluess of self, the 
 same elevation of principle, which, satisfied with the approba- 
 tion of conscience, and future hopes, depended not upon the 
 applause of men, but, on the contrary, sometimes exerted itself 
 when friends and acquaintances were displeased, and even 
 amidst frowns and menaces. It is true, that those did not 
 continue long ; his inflexible probity shone through transient 
 clouds, and many who had determined to find fault were left 
 in admiration. It was in this elevated situation, long at the 
 head of this Society, and possessing the love and esteem of 
 good men, and the respectful homage of the wicked, tlmt the 
 late war found him ; for though taught from former experience 
 to look for everything base and degrading from the faction that 
 ruled our unhappy neighbours, yet he could hardly believe that 
 open war would have been the consequence. Sound policy, 
 interest and afl'ection were in favour of peace ; much might be 
 lost, but nothing could be gained by hostilities. When he 
 found himself mistaken, all the enthusiasm of former times 
 kindled in his bosom, and though sinking under domestic 
 afflictions, his love for his country gave him new life. His 
 patriotism during the whole war burnt with the most noble 
 brightness. Not satisfied with the active discharge of his duties 
 as colonel of the militia, he endeavoured by his writings to 
 inspire every inhabitant of the colony with sentiments and 
 reflections suitable to the dangerous situation of the country.
 
 -0 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD OARTWRIGHT. 
 
 Writing from the lioart, and \vdth the most lively zeal, in 
 the important cause, he contributed in an eminent degree to 
 preserve that noble spirit of independence which enabled us to 
 close the contest so gloriously. When our vindictive enemy 
 threatened to drive us from the fertile fields that we had 
 gained from the wilderness, to sever us from our parent state, 
 to deprive us of all that gives dignity to man and renders life 
 valuable, he was found actively employed in animating the 
 militia to resistance, pointing out the folly of the boastings of 
 the foe, and the certainty of their defeat. His unremitting 
 exertions were continued long after the disease that destroyed 
 him had made great progress ; the strength of his body was not 
 equal to the firmness of his soul ; but he continued till within 
 a few weeks of his death to discharge public duties of the 
 most important nature. Should any suppose that because he 
 was always found ou the side of the Government, and strenu- 
 ous in^ protecting it from the machinations of secret and the 
 attacks of open enemies, that he was not friendly to liberty, 
 they would be much mistaken. No man ever displayed more 
 firmness and independence than he in every situation. As a 
 legislator, he thought always for himself, and was even some- 
 what jealous of his liberty. But when he differed from his 
 colleagues, and opposed a measure desired by the Government, 
 it was a difference arising from conviction ; it was not a fac- 
 tious opposition to exhibit his power and gain popularity ; nor 
 did he ever allow a spirit of insolence and contradiction to 
 thwart any measure in agitation. 
 
 His opposition was therefore equally honourable as his sup- 
 port, and such was the conviction of his pure integrity that it 
 extended his influence, and, consequently, his usefulness. 
 Always a supporter of the liberty and independence of the sub-
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 21 
 
 ject, and a steady asserter of all those privileges which every 
 Briton enjoys by our happy constitution, he knew how easily 
 they were reconciled to the firmest loyalty and patriotism. It 
 was at this time that his situation appeared to combine every- 
 thing that was desirable upon earth. Possessing a rare com- 
 bination of excellent qualities, the most inflexible integrity, 
 and the fairest reputation, derived from a long and uninter- 
 rupted course of steady and meritorious conduct, 1 could not help 
 mentioning to him that he derived even in this life the most 
 grateful rewards of virtue, the esteem, the love, and the vene- 
 ration, not only of those who were intimately connected with 
 him in the bonds of friendship and kindred, but of all who 
 were witnesses of his actions and capable of appreciating the 
 motives which produced them. In his memorable reply, he 
 says : " This day closes my fifty-second year, and I can, I think, 
 safely say that I have lived as much and almost as happily as 
 anybody in the same time. What Providence may prepare for 
 me in the remainder of my course it is impossible to foresee, 
 but I shall always have the consolation that hitherto my life 
 has not been idly or uselessly spent." 
 
 Enjoying so much domestic comfort, and that singleness of 
 mind which accompanies the consciousness of well-doing, it 
 seems that such a state was too happy for man, and by one of 
 those mysterious decrees of Providence which astonish and 
 confound human calculations, he was doomed to suffer the most 
 severe calamities that could be inflicted ; the blows of ad- 
 versity were aimed at his heart. That cheerful and promising 
 family, in the bosom of which he saw rising the most engaging 
 virtues, and from which he anticipated great happiness, was 
 doomed to Avither away before him. He was to mark the 
 slow but certain progress of death prevailing over lives that
 
 22 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 were dearer to him than his own. First, his second son left a 
 blank in this house of domestic felicity, and his death was 
 accompanied with circumstances that give it an interest which 
 cannot fail to engage the warmest sympathy of every feeling 
 heart. It was the reaction of virtuous principles warring 
 against a degrading habit, which had prevailed over his good 
 dispositions at a time when he was not under the eye of 
 parental restraint. The grief, the agitation of contending 
 passions, and the firm determination never again to deviate 
 from the true path, was too much for his physical power to 
 sustain. The conflict threw him into a decline, life ebbed 
 slowly away, but virtue continued to triumph. It was this 
 victory over temptation, which had been accustomed to prevail, 
 though purchased with his life, that rendered his death so 
 bitter to his affectionate father ; his sorrow was the more deep 
 and heartfelt, as it must be concealed from a censorious and 
 unfeeling world. 
 
 From this severe blow he might have returned to the world; 
 for while he lamented the loss of a son who displayed in his 
 last moments a firmness of soul capable of raising his character 
 to the highest rank in human excellence, he had still many 
 children of the fairest promise. But, alas ! his first-born was at 
 that very time slowly sinking under a decline, with little or 
 no hopes of a recovery. I am sure I may with confidence ap- 
 peal to all who knew this amiable young man, whether they 
 ever saw one so universally beloved ; the most affectionate of 
 sons, the kindest of brothers, joining to the strictest moral and 
 religious principles a heart expanding to everj' benevolent 
 thought, with a temper of uncommon sweetness : his under- 
 standing was clear, and his views noble. Never did a more ex- 
 cellent young man claim the sympathy of his friends. Social,
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHAKD CARTWRIGHT. 23 
 
 cheerful and affectionate, he was loved by those who knew 
 him almost to enthusiasm, for his cheerfulness, arising from a 
 mind at peace within itself, never failed to enliven his friends 
 and make them happy. Uniformly good-humoured, easy in his 
 conversation, of purity of disposition never surpassed, and of 
 habitual piety, he had been for some years the most pleasant 
 and instructive companion that his father ever enjoyed. Judge 
 then of his feelings, and of the bitter tears he shed over him, 
 when the hand of a relentless disease was leading him to the 
 grave. He could not behold the brightest of his sublunary 
 hopes vanishing away without unutterable anguish ; the prop 
 of his declining years, the protector of the family to whom they 
 might have applied with confidence as their kind and faithful 
 guardian, when from the course of nature his own head should 
 be laid low. From this terrible calamity he never recovered 
 entirely. The consolations of religion were his, but the fondest 
 hopes of his heart were blasted ; and although resigned, the 
 world had lost its charms. His grief undermined his health ; 
 food was loathsome ; he became too abstemious, and laid the 
 foundation of that afflicting disorder which brought him to the 
 grave. His declining health appeared for a time rather a 
 source of joy than of sorrow, and while employed in his usual 
 avocations, nothing appeared capable of interesting his heart, 
 till a new calamity taught him that he had still duties to per- 
 form, and, rousing anew his tender affections, seemed to give 
 him new life and energy, and again to awaken in him a wish 
 to live. His eldest daughter was seized with a cruel disorder 
 which threatened her speedy dissolution. All the tender feel- 
 ings of the father were again called into action ; every exertion 
 was made for her recovery, and for a time with success, but it 
 was only a transient return to health. The remedies given for
 
 24 LIFE OF nON. RTC'HAllD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 her recovery undermined a constitution naturally delicate, and 
 while they cured one disorder, laid the foundation of another 
 still more fatal. He had the misery to behold his amiable and 
 affectionate child put to death by a disorder at once painful and 
 lingering. In her departure was seen, in the strongest light, 
 the peculiar blessings of a peaceful end. But, alas ! her parents 
 were overwhelmed by this new and terrible calamity ; they 
 were deprived of a diamond that gladdened their hearts, and 
 possessing all those excellencies of beauty and mind which 
 they could desire. Her figure was elegant, her action graceful ; 
 the timid modesty of her countenance showed the ingenuous- 
 ness of her soul. Her disposition was so friendly, humane, and 
 gentle, that it was impossible to know and not to love her. 
 Above all, she had a well-grounded assurance of the truth of 
 Christianity, which smoothed her path to the grave. Endowed 
 with uncommon sweetness of temper, her premature death 
 filled this place with deep concern. All sighed at the depar- 
 ture of a person so richly gifted with every requisite to make 
 her lovely ; no wonder that her parents severely felt her loss. 
 A model of filial piety, she spoke not of the progress of her 
 disease lest she should give her parents uneasiness, and suffer- 
 ed without a murmur the most excruciating pain. It was at 
 this period that she displayed that Christian patience and forti- 
 tude which resulted from deep reflection and habitual devotion, 
 and which not only strengthened the gentle qualities of her 
 nature, but enabled her to submit with meek resignation to 
 the Divine will. " It has pleased Heaven," says her heart- 
 broken father, " to take from me those who knew me best and 
 loved me most — those whom parental afi'ection mellowed into 
 the tenderest friendship had entwined most closely around my 
 heart. I, however, claim no exemption from the calamities of
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 25 
 
 life, and pretend not to murmur at the dispensations of Provi- 
 dence ; but the wounds made by this revulsion will bleed. 
 Where can I expect another James and another Hannah on 
 this side of the grave 1 the sources of our most delightful an- 
 ticipations, the ornament and pride of our house." And again 
 he observes : " Young was James in years, but mature in virtue. 
 Since he was capable of reflection, he never gave, by his con- 
 duct, a moment's pain to his parents, and the only consolation 
 they can have for his loss is the hope that their surviving 
 children will imitate his example." And he observes of Han- 
 nah, " If ever child repaid a parent's care or merited their fond- 
 est love, it was her. Beautiful, kind, unassuming, unaffected, 
 she was adored and beloved by all her acquaintance, and almost 
 doated on by her parents." The progress of the war threw upon 
 Mr. Cartwright so many duties that we thought his mind would 
 be so much occupied as in time to divert his grief ; he ceased 
 indeed to complain, but his constitution was impaired and his 
 heart was broken. With that dignity and firmness which 
 were the basis of his character, he seemed to a stranger to have 
 recovered from his misfortunes, but the wounds which they in- 
 flicted never cea.sed to bleed. Never did he omit a particle of 
 his duty ; by night and day he was ready, with his pen and 
 sword, to defend this happy Province ; and his incessant appli- 
 cation to business undoubtedly aggravated his disorder. A 
 fresh calamity was threatening him : his fourth son, the most 
 promising in point of intellectual talents of all, fell into a con- 
 sumption. " It pleased God," says this excellent man, " to 
 take to himself my dear Stephen ; and though I had long ex- 
 pected this termination of his disorder, I was not the less af- 
 fected by it when it did arrive. Our children seem to entwine 
 themselves about our afi'ections in proportion to their helpless-
 
 26 i-iFK (1F HON. iiiciiAun cartwuight. 
 
 ness, and he was withal so patient and considerate, that the 
 separation was like tearing my heart-strings asunder. When I 
 compare the present state of my family with what it was but 
 three short years ago, I am ready to sink under those repeated 
 visitations which have destroyed my fairest prospects of earthly 
 happiness." 
 
 Little more than a year intervened between Stephen's death 
 and his own, yet during that period he shrunk not from busi- 
 ness. He attended his duties in the Legislature, he assisted at 
 the Board of Claims, and while scarcely able to articulate or to 
 swallow food sufficient to support him, he continued to per- 
 form the most important functions. At length the progress of 
 his disorder threatened his immediate dissolution. He was 
 prepared to die, but always alive to the claims of his family. 
 He was willing to try every means to continue a little longer 
 among them. With this intention he went to Kamouraska to 
 bathe in the sea ; this aggravated the symptoms, and on his re- 
 turn he died in Montreal. To strangers, Mr. Cartwright was 
 distant and reserved ; there appeared even a coldness in his 
 manner at your first approach ; but this vanished by degrees, 
 and his conversation was unrivalled in its power of varied 
 amusement, in rich display of original observations, and facility 
 of quotation from the best classical authors, English and Latin. 
 His opinion on literary productions was exceedingly correct, 
 for he was an excellent judge of style, and his acute discern- 
 ment easily detected a fallacy in reasoning. He loved poetry, 
 and was extremely sensible to its charms ; he had even culti- 
 vated a poetical turn, which he possessed from nature, to a con- 
 siderable extent. He relished in a high degree all our best 
 classical poems, and there was hardly a passage of excellence in 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson and Goldsmith,
 
 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 27 
 
 or any other celebrated poet, that he could not repeat. In 
 social discussion he possessed powers of no common stamp, 
 combining accuracy of science with precision of method and 
 richness of illustration. His character was bold, energetic and 
 firm. Seldom do we find such a combination of eminent talents, 
 such extensive knowledge, added to so fine and excursive an 
 imagination. Possessing an innate love of justice and abhor- 
 rence of iniquity, he enforced upon all occasions the strictest 
 integrity. An enemy to affectation and insincerity, he despised 
 intrigue of every kind, or what in modern language is termed 
 address. From the steadiness of his character, it naturally 
 followed that he was constant in his attachments. Never did 
 he desert any of his friends, whom, after trial and selection, he 
 had pressed to his heart. Enjoying his invaluable friendship 
 without interruption from our first acquaintance, I feel his loss 
 as that of an elder brother ; my wisest counsellor and surest 
 protector, to whom I could always apply for instruction and 
 consolation. With the warmest affection for his friends, he 
 joined an eagerness to do them good which no difficulties could 
 diminish ; is it then to be wondered though he carried to the 
 grave their love and veneration 1 In their bosoms his memory 
 will be cherished while their hearts beat and their souls are 
 capable of reflection. His strict probity and inviolable love of 
 truth gave him an influence in the country which no other 
 person ever attained. Never did any man court popular applause 
 less, and never was any person so much esteemed by the general 
 voice of the Province ; it was a homage paid to virtue. Those 
 virtues throw a lustre over his character, and it was the study 
 of his life to transmit so precious an inheritance to his childreu. 
 To accomplish this most important object, and to give blicm a 
 proper foundation, he laboured unceasingly to inculcate the
 
 28 LIFE OF HON. RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 principles of our holy religion upon their hearts, which he justly 
 deemed the root of all true virtue. His was a practical religion, 
 transfused into his life and governing his actions ; not only 
 directing his intercourse with the world, and penetrating the 
 retirement of the closet, but entering the secret recesses of the 
 heart. He was aware of his situation long before his death, 
 but not a murmur escaped him ; no repinings, no forgetfulness ; 
 all was peace and composure, and a steady resignation to the 
 will of God. 
 
 His anxiety was only for his family and his friends ; for him- 
 self he was ready, nay, joyful, as going from a world of pain 
 and suffering to another of infinite happiness and duration. 
 In a letter addressed to his friend, but not to be opened till 
 after his decease, he says : " My infirmities are increasing so 
 fast upon me that it would be infatuation in me to expect to 
 live long, and I may very possibly be called away in a few days. 
 To me this is no otherwise an object of anxiety than as it may 
 affect my family. Adieu, my dear friend ; before this reaches 
 you I shall have finished my earthly career, which has been 
 shortened by the afflicting events which have in the three last 
 years prostrated my fairest hopes. I shall, without dismay, 
 resign my soul into the hands of its Creator, trusting to the 
 merits of our Saviour for all the blessings which Christianity 
 offers to her friends."
 
 LIFE AND LETTEES 
 
 OF 
 
 RICHARD OARTWRIGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EXPEDITION TO WTfOMING SO-CAIiLED MASSACRE A FIGHT — BRANT 
 
 DESTROYS GERMAN FLATS — BUTLER DESTllOYS CHERRY VALLEY 
 — CANNIBALISM — GOV. HAMILTON CAPTURED BY AMERICANS AND 
 PUT m IRONS — AMERICANS BURN ONONDAGO — CAPTAIN m'dON- 
 ELL LAYS WASTE THE SHAMOKEN SETTLEMENTS — BRANT DEFEATS 
 COL. FLURSTIN — GEN. SULLIVAN's CAMP.UGN — RANGERS DEFEAT- 
 ED — LAY AMBUSCADE — IT FAILS — BUTLER RETREATS TO NIAGARA — 
 MINOR OPERATIONS. 
 
 MEMOKANDUM OF INDIAN OPERATIONS FROM 1778 TO 1780, 
 MADE AT NIAGARA IN 1780. 
 
 After the loss of many of their principal Chiefs near Fort 
 Stanwix, the Indians, ever eager for revenge, were easily pre- 
 vailed upon to continue their hostilities against the rebels, in 
 which they had at first engaged with a great, deal of reluctance. 
 It was, however, thought most prudent that they should con- 
 tinue quiet during the winter, and begin their depredations 
 on the frontier early in the spring. In consequence of this 
 resolution, the principal of the Six Nation Chiefs and a number 
 of others came to Niagara early in the season, who, after receiv- 
 ing very liberal presents, marched from th(;ncc on the 1st of
 
 30 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 May with Major Butler and the Rangers, having the fertile set- 
 tlement of Wyoming, a frontier of Pennsylvania, for the object 
 of their expedition. 
 
 That tardiness which usually attends all their operations 
 kept them inactive for more than a month ; a great part of this 
 time was spent in deliberations, in which some adherents of 
 the rebels frequently occasioned much perplexity, and it cost 
 Major Butler some pains to prevent the other Indians from 
 being diverted by them from their purpose. They, however, at 
 length determined to proceed, and on the 1st of July entered 
 the settlement, the party consisting in the whole of 464 In- 
 dians and 110 Rangers. That day and the next, two small forts, 
 in which were a number of women and children and a few men, 
 surrendered on condition of having their lives spared and be- 
 ing allowed to retire into the country. The Indians at first, 
 seeing the inhabitants shut up in forts, and in some measure 
 secured from their fury, thought of nothing but of scattering 
 through the settlement to vent it upon the cattle and buildings, 
 and at the same time to collect as much plunder as they could. 
 Major Butler, however, by his earnest entreaty, prevailed upon 
 them to keep in a body till he tried what effect a flag of truce 
 would have, and finding it attended with such unexpected suc- 
 cess in the two first instances, they were desirous of getting 
 possession of all the rest of the forts by the same method, and 
 a flag was accordingly sent to the principal fort on the 3rd ; 
 but was insulted, and soon after the greatest part of that garri- 
 son, and some small ones below it, in all about 450 men, com- 
 manded by a Colonel Butler, came out to attack them, on 
 which a very warm engagement ensued, and lasted for about 
 fifteen minutes, when the rebels retreated with precipitation, 
 and were hotly pursued by the Indians, who took 226 scalps
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 31 
 
 and three prisoners, and several were besides drowned in 
 attempting to pass the river. 
 
 Major Butler's loss was only seven wounded, two of whom 
 died of their wounds. This victory made them entire masters 
 of all the settlement, as it occasioned such a panic that all the 
 forts were either abandoned or surrendered, on the same condi- 
 tions as the two first, before the 7th instant. Most of the houses 
 were burnt except such as belonged to people under the name 
 of Loyalists ; a very large number of cattle were driven off ; 
 and effects to a great amount brought away in plunder by the 
 Indians. 
 
 All this was said to be done without any acts of cruelty be- 
 ing committed by the savages ; for the deliberate murder of 
 prisoners after they are brought into their camp is not, it seems, 
 reckoned among acts of cruelty by these barbarous wretches. On 
 the 10th, Major Butler arrived at Tioga, and on the 14th set 
 out for Niagara with a party of the Rangers and several families 
 of Loyalists ; having previously detached Captain Caldwell, with 
 part of the Rangers and also some of the Indian ofiicers, to 
 Aughquaga to assist Captain Brant, and at the same time engage 
 recruits for the corps of Rangers from the people who were 
 at that time flocking in from different parts of the frontiers to 
 avoid serving in the militia. Captain Brant had gone from 
 Niagara in April, destroyed the settlement of Cobuskill, in the 
 upper part of Tryon County, and some other settlements in its 
 neighbourhood, and was keeping that part of the country in a 
 constant alarm, when hearing that the rebels intended to send 
 a force into the Indian country, he retired to Aughquaga, where 
 Captain Caldwell joined him, and they continued some time 
 under continual apprehensions of being> attacked. He had re- 
 quested the Senecas to come to his assistance and join in his
 
 32 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 operations ; but through some jealousies and animosities which 
 now began to break out, they refused. About this time Cap- 
 tain Tire, with a party of Mohawks, arrived at Niagara, and 
 proceeded to Aughquaga. 
 
 Towards the latter end of September, their alarms being 
 pretty well quieted. Captain Brant prevailed on his coadjutors, 
 not without some difficulty, to go against the German Flats, 
 which they destroyed without meeting any opposition, and 
 drove off a great number of cattle, but the inhabitants had all 
 taken shelter in the fort. Captain Butler, going into the In- 
 dian country at this time with a party of Rangers, was, agree- 
 able to orders, joined by Captain Caldwell and his detachment 
 at Tioga ; Captain Tire returned immediately to Canada ; and 
 Captain Brant, with his volunteers and only seven or eight In- 
 dians, went down towards the Minisink, where he burnt a 
 number of houses and barns, destroyed a large quantity of 
 grain, and did much other mischief. While this was doing, a 
 party of riflemen burnt the village of Aughquaga, and about 
 the middle of October a Colonel Hartley with a number of men 
 came up the river from Wyoming, and put the camp above 
 Tioga into a good deal of consternation ; but being himself 
 frightened by the appearance of a force he did not expect, he, 
 without doing much mischief, retreated hastily back to Wyo- 
 ming, which the rebels had again taken possession of in force 
 soon after Major Butler left it. About the 1st of November 
 Captain Butler, being joined by a number of Seneca and other 
 Indians, and also by Captain Brant, marched against Cherry 
 Valley, which they reached on the 11th. This settlement was 
 soon destroyed, a number of the inhabitants and some officers 
 and soldiers, who happened to be out of the fort, killed and
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 33 
 
 taken, and such acts of wanton cruelty committed by the blood- 
 thirsty savages as humanity would shudder to mention. 
 
 These are the principal Indian operations in this quarter for 
 1778, but a number of small parties were constantly going to 
 and from different parts of the frontier, and excited such a 
 general terror that the inhabitants abandoned a great part of 
 the frontier settlements entirely. In the autumn of 1788, 
 about 1,500 men, including militia, were sent by the rebels t» 
 Fort Pitt, under the command of a Colonel Gibson, in order to 
 secure the frontiers of Pennsylvania, and intimidate and bring 
 to terms the Indians in that quarter, to do which the more 
 effectually it was thought proper to send forward a part of 
 these forces to build a fort at the Tuskarawas, but this by no 
 means had the desired effect. The Indians were continually 
 hovering about this post, and not a man could stir out of it 
 without falling into their hands, so that they at last abandoned 
 it early in the summer of 1779. 
 
 In the course of the winter, one Davis or Mesuray, and a 
 German doctor, with some soldiers, left Fort Pitt, intending 
 to come to Niagara, but having consumed all their provisions, 
 and destitute of the hope of a further supply, some of the 
 soldiers attempted to return ; four, however^ remained behind 
 besides Davis and the doctor, two of whom soon died with 
 cold and hunger, and the other two, eating very ravenously of 
 the flesh of their comrades, expired immediately after the 
 horrid meal ; and the other two survivors, both deprived of 
 the use of their limbs by the frost, were left under the cruel 
 alternative of either starving or subsisting on the carcases of 
 their late companions. The latter, however hard, was, of 
 course, their choice, and they dragged on their existence in 
 this miserable manner for several weeks, when they were
 
 34 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 found by a party of Indians, in the month of February, with 
 some of the human flesh about them, and brought to Niagara. 
 In order to cover the frontiers of Virginia, and bring, if pos- 
 sible, the Western Indians over to the rebel side. Colonel 
 Clarke, with a number of picked men, set out from the back 
 parts of that Province in the summer of 1778, took possession 
 of the Illinois, where he found a number of friends in the 
 French inhabitants of the place, and it was apprehended that he 
 might advance still further, and by his success draw over the 
 Indians, and finally endanger Detroit itself. Governor Hamil- 
 ton, to prevent these bad consequences, and from some other 
 motives of a private nature, which made him wish to leave 
 Detroit, set out in the fall with a very few soldiers. La 
 Motte's company of volunteers, some militia and a number of 
 Indians, and took possession of Port St. Vincent without 
 opposition, though the inhabitants had before declared in 
 favour of Clarke. In this place he remained till the begin- 
 ning of March, 1779, in great security, when Clarke came 
 upon him by surprise, and the Governor was under the neces- 
 sity of surrendering himself and party as prisoners of war, and 
 was sent into the interior part of the country, where he has 
 ever since remained shut up in prison and loaded with irons. 
 This disaster occasioned a great alarm at Detroit, and Captain 
 Lemoult, the commanding officer there at that time, imme- 
 diately set about building a strong though small fort on a 
 commanding ground for the better security of the place, and a 
 company of Rangers was sent from Niagara to reinforce his 
 garrison. During all the winter the rebels had been making 
 depots of provisions on the frontiers, and every other prepara- 
 tion for a western expedition, the object of which was thought 
 to be Petroit both by the Commander-in-Chief and General
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 35 
 
 Haldimand — and consequently every precaution was taken to 
 secure that place — while the parts against which it was really 
 intended were left in a manner unguarded. The Indians of 
 the Six Nations, after the close of their campaign, if it may be 
 so called, came in crowds to Niagara to receive the presents 
 intended for them, and indulge their passion for liquor, in both 
 of which they were liberally gratified. At the same time 
 several councils were held with the chiefs, wherein every argu- 
 ment was used to make them persevere in the active part they 
 had taken, and promises of support given to encourage them ; 
 and they were exhorted in the meanwhile, as being a matter of 
 consequence, to keep a strict watch upon all the motions of the 
 enemy along the frontiers. 
 
 Some months elapsed in transactions of this kind, and the 
 Indians had scarcely returned to their villages when they were 
 all thrown into the greatest consternation by the destruction 
 of Onondago, which was burnt by a party of the rebels about 
 the 20th of April, 1779, and several of the Indians carried off 
 as prisoners. Messengers were hourly coming in from the In- 
 dians, whose fears had multiplied 600 men to 6,000, request- 
 ing immediate assistance, and reproaching Colonel Bolton with 
 having abandoned them to the resentment of people whom 
 they had made their enemies merely on our account and at 
 our most earnest solicitations. Colonel Bolton resolved upon 
 sending them immediately such succour as he was able. Major 
 Butler accordingly set out to their assistance on the 1st of May 
 with about 200 men, including Rangers, and a small detach- 
 ment of the 8th Regiment, and the officers, kc, of the Indian 
 Department. Part of this force was sent by water to Ironde- 
 quot with provisions. This alarm soon blew over, as the 
 rebels retired immediately, having at that time had nothing
 
 3G LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 further in view than to destroy the Onondago village, which 
 lay nearest to them, and get some prisoners into their hands 
 that might serve as hostages at least for that nation. How- 
 ever, it was thought best that this small force should continue 
 in the Indian country, to be ready to oppose any other attempts 
 that the rebels might make that way, and the village of Onon- 
 dago was judged the mostproper place of rendezvous for that pur- 
 pose. While here, Major Butler received letters from General 
 Haldimand enclosing a speech to the Six Nations and Con- 
 federates, promising them that he would send Sir John John- 
 son and a number of men early in the summer to take post at 
 Oswego, which was what the Indians had very much at heart, 
 and had several times requested to have done. He also sent 
 a menacing speech to the Oneidas, and deputies from the dif- 
 ferent nations of Canada and some of the western nations, at 
 his request, to hold a meeting with them, and endeavour by 
 persuasions and threats to draw them off from the rebels ; but 
 to no purpose, as the Oneidas refused to meet them except at 
 their own village, whither it was not thought prudent to let 
 them go. They therefore returned again to Canada, and one of 
 the principal chiefs of the Six Nations was sent with them, in 
 the name of the whole Confederacy, to urge the General on the 
 subject of taking post at Oswego. While these deputies were 
 in the country of the Six Nations, they, in conjunction with 
 them, addressed a very spirited speech to the western Indians, 
 who, it was apprehended, were at that time wavering, which 
 was said to have had a very good effect. The want of provisions, 
 which was in a great measure irremediable, made it impossible 
 for Major Butler to attempt anything material; however, it 
 was resolved at all events to send a party into the country, in 
 order, if possible, to procure some cattle to subsist upon ; and,
 
 LIFE AND LETTEES OF EICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 37 
 
 accordingly, fifty Eangers, under the command of Captain Mc- 
 Donell, were sent off on the 9th of July to the west branch of 
 the Susquehanna, and were joined on their way by about 120 
 Indians. 
 
 They came upon the settlements near the Shamokin on the 
 27th, and the next day they took a small fort called Fort Free- 
 land, which was defended by thirty men, who surrendered on 
 promise of being sent prisoners to Niagara, and that their wo- 
 men and children, of which there were many in the fort, 
 should be allowed to retire into the country, which was punc- 
 tually fulfilled. The same day he defeated a party of about 
 eighty rebels that came to attack him, killing the captain and 
 between thirty and forty privates, with the loss of only one 
 Indian killed ; and, after having burnt thirty miles of a close- 
 settled country, which the inhabitants in general had abandon- 
 ed at his approach, and driven off 116 head of cattle (many of 
 which the Indians afterwards stole), he returned on the 10th 
 of August with part of the cattle, affording a very seasonable 
 relief. Captain Brant also, who came into the Indian country 
 the latter end of June, collected together a party of Indians, 
 with whom and some of his volunteers he went towards the 
 Minisink, but found the people of that settlement so well upon 
 their guard that he could do nothing more than burn a few 
 houses. On his retreat he was attacked by a party of the 
 militia, under the command of Colonel Flurstin, whom he de- 
 feated with the loss of their colonel and many others ; the loss 
 on his side was four or five killed, and ten or twelve wounded, 
 some of whom afterwards died of their wounds. In the mean- 
 time the rebels were assembling a large body of troops at Wy- 
 oming and Lake Otsego, and, having everything in readiness by 
 the beginning of August, began their march and appeared at
 
 38 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 Tioga on the 9th of that month, but a day or two after Captain 
 McDonell had left it, and before it was known that they were 
 even in motion. 
 
 They immediately began to build a fort, and on the 14th a 
 large party of them advancing burnt Shimong, and were pro- 
 ceeding further when they were waylaid by some Delawares, 
 who killed and wounded several of them, but were obliged to 
 retreat leaving one man dead on the field. The rebels, however, 
 thought proper to advance no further for the present, but re- 
 turned in some haste to Tioga, and applied themselves with 
 great industry to complete their fort. On the first notice of 
 the appearance of the enemy, runners were sent ofi" to all the 
 villages to alarm the Indians and hurry them as fast as possible 
 to Canadasago, the place of general rendezvous ; an express was 
 also dispatched to Captain Butler, who, with, such of the 
 Rangers as had not gone with Captain McDonell, was removed 
 to the mouth of the Genesea River for the convenience of being 
 supplied with provisions ; he arrived on the 15th, as did also a 
 great part of the Indians the same afternoon. The next day 
 being taken up in performing the ceremonies of the war feast 
 and war dance, on the 17th the whole, amounting to between 
 400 and 500 marched from Canadasago, and on the 22nd en- 
 camped at Chuchnut, or New Town, twelve miles distant from 
 the enemy. Captain Brant and party, who were lying here, 
 and the Delawares and others in the neighbourhood, increased 
 the force that was to oppose the rebels to about 700 men. 
 Every endeavour of the Indians and Rangers to get a prisoner 
 or obtain any certain information of their number was inefiec- 
 tual ; however, it was found that they had pushed a consider- 
 able part of their force to Oswego, a place sixteen miles east of 
 Tioga, with the design, as was supposed, to facilitate their
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 39 
 
 junction witli the troops under General Clinton, who were to 
 come from Lake Otsego. This they eflfected without any inter- 
 ruption. On the 27th, Major Butler was informed that the 
 enemy were on their march towards him, and as the Indians 
 had determined to make one general attempt to stop their pro- 
 gress, he, in concert with them, took possession of a rising 
 ground about a mile from the camp at Chuchnut, and threw 
 up a slight breastwork of logs, which was covered with bushes, 
 the whole better calculated to conceal his men than to protect 
 them from the fire of the enemy. Here he waited the coming 
 of the enemy, who made their appearance early in the after- 
 noon of the 29th. They were commanded by General Sullivan, 
 who, having discovered the situation of Major Butler and the 
 Indians, sent some riflemen to amuse them at long shot while 
 he made dispositions for a general attack. He sent two bri- 
 gades, commanded by Clinton and Poor, to encompass a moun- 
 tain that lay to the left of Major Butler's lines, in order to gain 
 his rear ; and another along the bank of the Cayoga River, 
 which lay to his right, to attack him on that side ; while under 
 cover of the wood he placed his artillery, consisting of four 
 small pieces of cannon, a royal and a howitzer, in front, where 
 he had also posted the riflemen, and kept a brigade commanded 
 by a General Maxwell as a reserve. As soon as he supposed 
 the troops to the right and left had reached their appointed 
 stations he ordered his artillery to fire, which they did in so 
 good a direction that many of the Indians fled immediately, and 
 in a few minutes Major Butler was obliged to make a general 
 retreat. The greater part took to the mountain, where the 
 enemy had got before them, and maintained a kind of running 
 fight along the side of it ; keeping the rebels at bay for a con- 
 siderable time, till at length finding themselves on the point of
 
 40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 being surrounded, every man made the best of his way to 
 escape as he could. Many of the Indians never stopped till 
 they reached their own villages, and took away in their flight 
 several of the baggage horses that had been sent forward some 
 miles to be out of the way in case of accidents. Major Butler 
 halted at the Nanticoke Town, a village five miles distant from 
 the place- of action, till evening, and proceeded, with such of the 
 Rangers and Indians as he could then collect, five miles further 
 and then halted till the morning. In the night Captain Butler, 
 with several other officers and about forty men, who it was 
 feared were lost, joined him, and upon strict inquiry it was 
 found that there were only four Rangers and five Indians killed 
 and taken, and three Rangers and nine Indians wounded. 
 General Sullivan, by too great haste in firing his artillery, in a 
 manner forced his prey out of his hands ; for had he delayed 
 this till Clinton and Poor got around the mountain, it would 
 have been impossible for Major Butler and party to have 
 escaped, and they all must have inevitably been either killed 
 or taken. The Indians were so intimidated by this defeat that 
 they could not be brought again to face the enemy, and Major 
 Butler was obliged to retreat as the rebels continued to advance, 
 which they did so rapidly that on the 11th of September they 
 reached Candargo. Major Butler, with the Rangers and part 
 of the Indians, was then at Canawagoras, where they arrived 
 on the 9th, and the rest of the Indians that had not fled to 
 Niagara were at Genesea, about nine miles distant, but so 
 dispirited that they could hardly be got to send small scouts 
 to observe the motions of the enemy. Major Butler had written 
 to Colonel Bolton an account of what had happened as soon as 
 he was able, which was not till the 1st of September. He 
 here received an answer from him, acquainting him that he had
 
 LIFE AND. LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 41 
 
 sent tlie Light Infantry Company of the 8th by water, with 
 orders to land at the Genesea Kiver, and join him immediately 
 and that the Light Company of the 34th, and emigrants who 
 were hourly expected at Niagara, should follow them as soon as 
 possible. The Indians, who, at Major Butler's instance, had 
 agreed once more to face the rebels, began to recover their 
 spirits at this intelligence ; and that they might not have time 
 to relapse into their former despondency. Captain McDonell 
 was immediately despatched to the mouth of the Genesea 
 Eiver to bring up the reinforcements with all expedition. But 
 before this could be done the enemy drew so near that Major 
 Butler, with the Rangers and Indians, only in all about 350 
 was obliged to march with all expedition to the place chosen 
 for an ambuscade, to prevent the rebels getting there before 
 him. This spot was about the side of a hill opposite to the 
 VUlage of Conighsas, at the foot of which was a deep morass 
 extending far to the right, and a lake to the left, and the path 
 through which the rebels must of necessity pass wound along 
 the hill that the Rangers and Indians were to take possession 
 of. Major Butler reached this on the 13th, in the morning, and 
 found the rebels employed very busily in making a bridge over 
 the morass. 
 
 His small force was posted to the best advantage, and lay 
 till about noon, expecting the rebels to advance, when they 
 were alarmed by a firing in their rear at the right of the line, 
 on which the whole moved to that quarter, those to the left 
 making a circuit to get beyond where it was imagined, from 
 the firing, the rebels had begun an attack. In a few minutes 
 it was discovered that it was only a rebel scout of 26 men 
 that had been sent the night before to Genesea, and on its 
 return had fallen in with the right of the Rangers and Indians,
 
 42 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 tlmt hatl occasioiiod this alium. The whole of this party were 
 killed except a lieutenant and one private, who were taken 
 prisoners, and one or two others who made their escape. The 
 lieutenant stated that the army under General Sullivan con- 
 sisted of between 4,000 and 5,000 men, and that they intended 
 to advance no farther than Genesea. This information and a 
 certainty of being discovered made it necessary for Major 
 Butler, without loss of time, to retreat, and crossing the 
 Genesea River he remained at the Genesea Village that night, 
 the rebels being encamped about three miles off, on the oppo- 
 site side of the river, which it was at that time difficult to 
 pass. The two prisoners were stripped and beaten, and treated 
 with every kind of indignity by the Indians ; and when at 
 last they were given in care of a guard of Eangers, and sent 
 before the rest to Genesea, as soon as they entered that village, 
 in spite of what the guard could do, they were immediately 
 tomahawked by some Indians who had been afraid to venture 
 out, and their bodies treated in too indecent a manner to be 
 described. This, however, was no more than a just retalia- 
 tion ; the party the lieutenant commanded had the night before 
 killed an Indian at Coshequa, a village three miles from 
 Genesea, and exercised the most shocking and scandalous in- 
 dignities on his dead body. Early on the morning of the 14th 
 Major Butler quitted Genesea to make the best of his way to 
 Niagara, and marched that day near 30 miles. The next morn- 
 ing he was joined by the detachment of the 8th, who, from 
 the route they came, must have barely escaped falling in with 
 the rebels ; the detachment of the 34th and the emigrants met 
 him soon after, having marched from Niagara by land. 
 
 Some thoughts were then entertained of turning back, but 
 as there was no prospect of effecting anything against such
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 48 
 
 superior numbers, and his provisions of every kind being nearly 
 expended, MajorButlerdetermined to proceed to Niagara, wliez-e 
 he arrived on the 18th with the troops. Rangers, and a swarm 
 of Indians. General Sullivan entered Genesea, the last of 
 the Indian towns towards Niagara, on the 14th, soon after 
 Major Butler left it, which was the eighteenth day from the 
 time of his leaAing Tioga. After burning the town and de- 
 stroying the corn, he returned to Tioga with all expedition, 
 and without the smallest interruption, and having demolished 
 the fort he had built there, hastened to join General Washing- 
 ton. A part of his army returned by the way of Fort Stanwix, 
 and destroyed Skaias, Cayouga, and such other villages as lay in 
 their route. While the country of the Six Nations was thus 
 overrun on this side, the Delawares and Upper Senecas set- 
 tled in the neighbourhood of Presque Isle, and lower down 
 towards the Ohio, were invaded with the same success. As 
 soon as the General was informed of the progress of the rebels, 
 he sent off Sir John Johnson with the greater part of his own 
 and the 34th Regiment, and a company of German Chasseurs, 
 and Captain Fraser with the Canada Indians ; and Colonel 
 Johnson came also at the same time to the assistance of the 
 Six Nations ; but the mischief was done, and the rebels had 
 retreated before thoy reached Carleton Island. On receiving 
 this intelligence. Sir John determined to convey his troops to 
 Great Asserotus, where he requested Major Butler to join him 
 with the Indians and Rangers, and bring with him all the 
 horses he could collect, intending from thence to march by the 
 shortest route to attack the fort, which was supposed to be 
 still kept at Tioga. 
 
 With this design he left Carleton Island ; but being obliged by 
 the wind to make sail for Niagara, he was there soon convinced
 
 44 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 of the impossibility of putting his plan in execution. However, 
 as soon as the Oneidas had taken an active part in the rebel 
 invasion, it was thought that the other Indians would readily 
 concur in an enterprise against them, which was accordingly 
 resolved on ; and about 150 Rangers being added to his force, 
 he, accompanied by Colonel Johnson, set sail for Oswego on 
 the 10th of October, and landed the troops on the 13th, at 
 night, and Major Butler, who came along the Lake with some 
 Indians, arrived there a few days after. Captain Brant, who 
 conducted a party of Indians by land, did not come up as was 
 expected, and it was found that the Indians, particularly those 
 from Canada, were much averse to go against the Oneidas. 
 Under these circumstances, directions came from the General 
 to Sir John to put the troops into winter quarters, in conse- 
 quence of which he quitted Oswego on the 26th October, in the 
 evening, having occasioned a great alarm in the country and 
 taken three Oneidas that had been reconnoitring the camp, as 
 also a rebel sergeant from Fort Stanwix, who fell in with one 
 of his scouts. In the course of the summer several parties of 
 Canadian Indians had been on excursions to Mohawk River 
 and German Flats, one of which surprised and took an officer 
 and twenty men, near Fort Stanwix, cutting hay. In the spring 
 Captain Bird also set out from Detroit with a large number of 
 Indians, at their desire, to go against the rebel post at Tuskara- 
 was ; but the Indians being rather backward, he was under a 
 necessity of returning without doing anything material. Lieut. 
 Bennett also, some time in the summer, went with a large 
 party of the Western Indians from Mishilimacinac to St 
 Joseph's, with an intention of doing something against Mr. 
 Clarke, who continued about the country of the Illinois, but 
 was in a manner abandoned by the Indians, and obliged to re-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF KICHAUD CARTWRIGHT. 45 
 
 turn. In the month of October a party of Indians from Detroit, 
 conducted by Simon Gertie, an interpreter, fell in with a party 
 of rebels under a Colonel Rogers, going down the Ohio in 
 boats. They killed forty and took the Colonel, and all the 
 boats but one fell into their hands. Colonel Johnson, on his 
 return from Oswego, by desire of the General, and at the 
 instance of Colonel Bolton, endeavoured to prevail on part 
 of the Indians to remove to Canada and Carleton Island, in 
 order that the rest might be more conveniently supplied. 
 
 Between 500 and 600, chiefly Delawares and Onondagos, 
 consented, not without reluctance, to go ; the rest, amounting 
 to upwards of 3,000, exclusive of those whose villages and corn 
 escaped, were maintained at Niagara during the winter. 
 
 At first there was much murmuring and complaining, but 
 as every means was used to quiet them, this soon subsided, and 
 in the month of February, 1 780, several parties — and one pretty 
 large one, conducted by Captain Brant — went out on the 
 frontiers. 
 
 About this time the rebels, under pretence of writing to 
 Colonel Johnson concerning an exchange of prisoners, sent four 
 of the principal Sachems, in their interest, to endeavour to 
 engage the Six Nations to a neutrality. Though these on their 
 arrival were confined in the fort, yet after some time, at the 
 desire of the Indians, they were allowed to open their business 
 in public, which they did, but apparently to no purpose; and in 
 a speech delivered by Aaron, the Mohawk Chief, in reply to 
 what they had said, they were reproached in the severest terms 
 for their defection from the confederacy, and their servile adher- 
 ence to the rebels. Had deputies been sent to them by the rebels, 
 while in that consternation which their first appearance and 
 successes in the Indian country had raised, tliey might in all
 
 4(5 LIKE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT, 
 
 probability have brought the Iiulians to terras ; but it was now 
 too late — they had no longer anything to lose, and their only 
 care was how to be revenged for the destruction of what they 
 held most dear. The first parties returning successful encou- 
 raged others ; and so many were for going out to war, that it was 
 found difficult to prevail on any large number of them to go 
 and plant corn at proper places for their subsistence. In 
 this, however, indolence might have a considerable share. 
 Numbers of them were almost every day going to different parts 
 of the country, in larger or smaller parties, and the rebels must 
 have found that their grand "Western Expedition, attended 
 with such vast labour and enormous expense, instead of con- 
 quering, had only served to exasperate the Indians. 
 
 In taking a view of the Indian war, it is certain that it has 
 very much distressed the rebels by destroying some of their 
 best settlements, drawing off vast quantities of their cattle, 
 and obliging them to leave the greatest part of their frontiers, 
 from Canada to Virginia, uncultivated, besides laying them 
 under the necessity of keeping several thousand men embodied 
 merely to oppose the Indians. 
 
 But, besides that, the expenses of carrying it on have hitherto 
 at least been fully adequate to these advantages. The cruelties 
 that have attended it, and been exercised indiscriminately on 
 friend and foe, without distinction of sex or age, when seriously 
 considered, must make it be regai'ded with general abhorrence.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 47 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LETTER TO ISAAC TODD, ESQ. — FIRST PARLIAMENT — ESTABLISHMENT OF 
 ENGLISH LAW — CUSTOM-HOUSE BILL THROWIST OUT BY UPPER HOUSE 
 — OBJECTIONS TO THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT ON THE TRANCKE 
 — SECOND LETTER TO TODD — COMMISSIONERS ON REVENUE — DE- 
 FECT OF MARRIAGE lAAV — HIS DISGUST AT POLITICS — GOVERNOR 
 SIMCOE AT YORK — HIS CANVAS HOUSE — BUILDING REGULATIONS 
 — THIRD LETTER — INDIGNATION AT CHARGE OF DISLOYALTY — 
 DEPRECATES ESTABLISHMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL COtJRTS — AD- 
 DRESS TO GRAND JURY — PROCEEDINGS OF THIRD SESSION — 
 JUDICATURE BILL — LAWYERS BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT — REVENUE 
 COMMISSIONERS — ALARM AT DETROIT — CANADIANS KILLED — 
 LETTER TO MAJOR LOTHBRIDGE — LORD DORCHESTER's SPEECH — 
 SKIRMISH NEAR DETROIT — PORK CURING FOR TROOPS, 
 
 To Isaac Todd, Esq. 
 
 Kingston, 21st October, 1792. 
 Dear Sir, — I was favoured with a letter from you by the 
 spring ships, and am much obliged to you for the kind men- 
 tion you were so good as to make of me to some of the officers 
 of the new government. The Chief Justice appears to be a 
 very worthy and respectable man, and I am extremely sorry 
 that his necessary attendance at head-quarters, which at present 
 is at Navy Hall, opposite Niagara, will deprive me of the 
 pleasure and benefit of much of his company and conversation. 
 It is but a few days since I returned from thence, the first 
 session of our Legislature having ended only on the 15t]i. 
 Some useful regulations of police have been enacted, but
 
 48 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 the material part of the business has been to establish the 
 English laws as the rule of decision in all cases of controversy- 
 relating to property and civil rights, excluding, however, the 
 bankrupt and poor laws, and those relative to ecclesiastical 
 rights and dues, which are manifestly inapplicable to the situa- 
 tion of this country. The trial by jury is also established in 
 all causes above forty shillings, according to the English mode ; 
 but it has not been thought advisable to change our Writ of 
 Summons, or rules of proceeding in our Courts, for the English 
 Ca2)ias, and the complicated, elaborate, and artificial systems of 
 Westminster Hall ; ' which have always appeared to me the 
 most fruitful sources of oppression and chicanery, and to be 
 rather calculated to swell the importance and fill the pockets 
 of the professors of the law, than for the speedy and effectual 
 administration of justice. Thus far all is very well, but some 
 of the proceedings of the Lower House have a tendency to 
 show that the objections made to the division of the Province 
 as likely to obstruct their trade, and create separate interests 
 between its two portions, were better founded than I at first 
 thought them. A Bill passed the House almost unanimously 
 for establishing custom-houses and appointing officers at the 
 Point of Bodet and on the Ottawa river, for the purpose of 
 levying a duty of sixpence per gallon on all rum and wine 
 that should enter the Province of Upper Canada. Not to 
 mention the impolicy and inexpediency of the tax even so far 
 as it would operate upon the trade and consumption of the 
 settled parts of the country, it appeared so highly unjust 
 as levying a contribution upon our fellow-subjects in Lower 
 Canada who come to trade within our geographical limits, in- 
 deed, but far beyond the sphere of our influence, and where 
 we can neither protect nor facilitate their commerce, as for ex-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 49 
 
 ample, to the North- West and Mississippi, that it met with but a 
 single friend in the Upper House. However, these gentlemen 
 are so full of the idea of getting money, even for county 
 charges, without any apparent expense to themselves, that they 
 cannot, or will not see the injustice and impropriety of the 
 measure, and I have no doubt will renew the attempt at 
 the next session ; not considering that if they should succeed, 
 which is not at all probable, the Lower Province would have 
 it in their power to retaliate upon them most severely. 
 
 The Kiver Trancke is still talked of as the seat of govern- 
 ment, but I hope this plan will not be persisted in, for it ap- 
 pears to me as complete a piece of political Quixotism as I re- 
 collect to have met with, and will be going out of the way of 
 the inhabited part of the country, instead of coming to govern 
 it. The maxim to follow nature not to face it is as proper for 
 our guide in politics as in all other concerns ; and however 
 splendid the project may be of establishing a capital that shall 
 give laws to a numerous population which is to cover the im- 
 mense peninsula formed by the lakes, and the Ottawa and St. 
 Lawrence rivers, it is a scheme perfectly Utopian, to which na- 
 ture has opposed invincible obstacles ; unless Mongolfier's in- 
 genious invention could be adapted to practical purposes, and 
 air balloons be converted into vehicles of commerce. 
 
 To what is to be ascribed the present state of improvement 
 and population of this country 1 Certainly not to its natural 
 advantages, but to the liberality which Government has shewn 
 towards the Loyalists who first settled it ; to the money spent 
 by the numerous garrisons and public departments established 
 amongst us ; and the demand for our produce which so many 
 unproductive consumers occasion on the spot. As long as the 
 Pritish Government shall think proper to hire people to come
 
 ■)() LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 over to eat our flour, we shall go on very well, and continue 
 to make a figure, but when once we come to export our pro- 
 duce, the disadvantages of our remote inland situation will 
 operate in their full force, and the very large portion of the 
 price of our produce that must be absorbed by the expense of 
 transporting it to a place of exportation, and the enhanced 
 value that the same cause must add to every article of Euro- 
 pean manufacture, will give an effectual check to the improve- 
 ment of the country beyond a certain extent ; the farther we 
 go, the more powerfully must these causes operate ; and when 
 we go beyond the banks of Lake Ontario, it will cost as much 
 to bring our rude produce to market, as it will be worth, and 
 yet from such exports alone it is that we can become beneficial 
 to the mother country, who certainly can have no intention to 
 make us manufacturers. I believe, indeed, that the origin of 
 our settlements took its rise from motives more noble than 
 views of commercial advantages ; namely, to provide a com- 
 fortable asylum for the unfortunate Loyalists reduced to poverty 
 and driven into exile by their attachment to Britain ; and it 
 was, perhaps, necessary to crown the generous conduct which 
 has been held with regard to them, that they should have the 
 benefit of the English laws and form of Government. But on 
 the present plan this object is lost sight of for an iffnis fatuus, 
 and the Government will " waste its sweetness on the desert 
 air ; " the energy will be spent where it has nothing to operate 
 upon ; and much money will be lavished away, where it can 
 be of little permanent advantage to the Province, however use- 
 ful it may be to some individuals. Whereas, had the Governor 
 fixed his residence at this end of Lake Ontario, between which 
 and the Point of Bodet, lies the greatest mass of our popula- 
 tion, its influence, co-operating with the comparative advantages
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 51 
 
 of the situation, would have had a powerful, beneficial, and 
 lasting effect. And much chagrin would have been spared to 
 the inhabitants of the two lower districts, who compose full 
 three-fourths of the population of the Province, and who can- 
 not be pleased to find that they are to be neglected^ and left 
 to themselves, while Government is pursuing, at a very great 
 expense, imaginary advantages. I could say a great deal more 
 on this subject, but my letter is already swelled to an immode- 
 rate length, and I should not have gone even so far, had it not 
 been to satisfy you that my sentiments, however uncourtly, 
 are founded in reason and truth, and do not proceed from 
 prejudice or interested considerations. I have given you this 
 sketch of politics rather in compliance with your request, than 
 from an expectation of its attracting much of your attention ; 
 while you are so near such important scenes as are now acting 
 on the continent of Europe ; where the worthy triumvirate of 
 Russia, Prussia and Austria seem determined to rivet the fet- 
 ters of despotism upon mankind, and show themselves equal 
 enemies to the temperate reforms of Poland, and the extrava- 
 gant republicanism of France. 
 
 To Isaac Todd, Esq. 
 
 Kingston, Oct. 14th, 1793- 
 Dear Sir, — Your request, and the flattering reception yoji 
 have given my former letter, induces me to attempt to give you 
 some further account of the public business of the Province. 
 The inclosed paper, containing the titles of Bills passed during 
 the second session of our Legislature, will show that it has not 
 been an idle one. Some of these Acts are very well calculated 
 for arranging the police of the country, and the one authoriz- 
 ing the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint Commissioners is
 
 52 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 intended as a means of amicably adjusting with the Lower 
 Provinces every matter of revenue in vvhich both may be con- 
 cerned. So far is very well. But, as I foresaw, the Custom 
 House Bill was again revived and again rejected, and there are so 
 many private views blended with this measure, that it will not 
 be easily relinquished by its partisans. For instance, now that 
 the members of the Lower House are to have ten shillings per 
 diem, to be paid by their respective Counties, during their at- 
 tendance, the Speaker thinks he ought to have a handsome 
 salary ; and how else is the money to be raised without excit- 
 ing public clamour 1 Besides, two or three appointments in this 
 department, with a good salary annexed, would afford a very 
 comfortable provision forsomeof the members; and, for so young 
 a country, I assure you we are beginning to have a wonderful 
 acuteness in making discoveries of this kind. The Marriage 
 Act was necessary, and is useful as far as it goes, but it is de- 
 fective in omitting to make provision for the marriages of Dis- 
 senters ; and every effort will be made at the next meeting of 
 the Legislature to put this business on a more liberal footing. 
 Amendments to that effect were only withdrawn in the last ses- 
 sion on the most positive assurances that representations 
 would be made at home relative to the propriety of relaxing in 
 this particular. Indeed, the caution with which everything 
 relative to the Church or Dissenters is guarded in the Act of 
 Parliament which establishes our constitution, and the zeal and 
 tenaciousness of the Executive Government in this country on 
 this head, has always astonished me. When a particular sys- 
 tem has been long adopted and acted upon, some evil may 
 perhaps result from a change, although in its principles it may 
 be neither liberal nor just, and at all events there is the bug- 
 bear innovation to guard the abuse j but to make this abuse an
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 53 
 
 essential principle,and where a new Government is to be formed, 
 as in the present case, among a people composed of every re- 
 ligious denomination, and nineteen-twentieths of whom are of 
 persuasions different from the Church of England, to attempt 
 to give to that Church the same exclusive political advantages 
 that it possesses in Great Britain, and which are even there the 
 cause of so much clamour, appears to me to be as impolitic as it 
 is unjust. In the present times one would expect better things 
 from Ministers. That these remarks may not be imputed to 
 prejudice, I think it necessary to mention that I am one of the 
 small number of churchmen in the country. For my part, I 
 assure you T begin to be disgusted with politics. On the divi- 
 sion of the Province, as we had no previous establishments in 
 our way, I fondly imagined that we were to sit down cordially 
 together to form regulations solely for the public good ; but a 
 little experience convinced me that these were the visions of 
 a novice, and I found our Executive Government disposed to 
 calculate their measures as much with a view to patronage and 
 private endowment as the prosperity of the colony. In this 
 I doubt not they will be sufficiently successful, from the 
 interested complaisance of some of our legislators, and the ig- 
 norance of more, who are incapable of foreseeing the conse- 
 quences of their concessions. But such policy is as short- 
 sighted as it is illiberal ; and however little it may be noticed 
 at present, if persisted in and pushed very far will unquestion- 
 ably be sowing the seeds of civil discord, and perhaps laying 
 the foundations of future revolutions. For though almost 
 everybody is now too much taken up with providing the means 
 of subsistence to have leisure for canvassing public measures, 
 yet as we advance in population and improvement they will 
 become objects of more general attention, and in sound policy
 
 54 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 ought to be so calculated as not to furnish cause of disgust to 
 the real patriot, or pretext for clamour to the pretended one. 
 In the course of our proceedings I have found how completely 
 the spirit of that part of the Act might be evaded which pro- 
 fesses to make the Legislative Council entirely independent, 
 by giving the members their seats for life. It is only to com- 
 pose the majority of it — as has in fact been done — of Executive 
 Councillors and officers of Government dependent for their 
 salaries on the good pleasure of the Governor. The Governor 
 is at present at Toronto, where he has laid out a town plot, 
 which he has called York, and where I am told he intends to 
 pass the winter in Ms canvas house, for there is yet no other 
 built, nor preparations for any ; his regiment is also to hut 
 themselves there. 
 
 This situation for the capital unites many advantages, as it 
 will contribute to the more speedy settling of the vacant lands 
 on both sides of it, and be a means of sooner uniting the settle- 
 ments above the Bay of Kenty and below the head of Lake 
 Ontario, and also as it lays at the entrance of a communication 
 into Lake Huron by Lake La Claye, which may by-and-bye 
 be found practicable and useful. But, notwithstanding this, he 
 does not scruple to 'say that he has his eye still fixed on the 
 River Trancke ; and though he may for awhile put up with 
 the Town of York and the Eiver Humber, he seems to be satis- 
 fied with nothing less than another Thames and a second London. 
 You will smile perhaps when I tell you that even at York a 
 town lot is to be granted in the front street only on condition 
 that you shall build a house of not less than forty-seven feet 
 front, two stories high, and after a certain order of architecture. 
 In the second street they may be somewhat less in front, but 
 the two stories and the mode of architecture are indispensable ;
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 55 
 
 and it is only in the back streets and alleys that the tinkers 
 and tailors will be allowed to consult their taste and circum- 
 stances in the structure of their habitations, upon lots of one- 
 tenth of an acre. Seriously, our good Governor is a little wild 
 in his projects, and seems to imagine that he can in two or three 
 years put the country into a situation that it is impossible it 
 can arrive at in a century ; and I fear that a great deal of ex- 
 pense will by this means be thrown away, which, under the 
 management of a less sanguine temper, would have been pro- 
 ductive of solid benefit to the colony. For example, how use- 
 ful might the Kangers have been, had they been employed in 
 the service for which they were ostensibly raised, of opening 
 roads and building bridges between the different settled parts 
 of the country ; but this is a business that the inhabitants are 
 left to do of themselves as well as they can, and the only piece 
 of work of this kind that these folks, who were " to level moun- 
 tains and make valleys rise," have been employed in at all, is 
 in cutting a road from the head of Lake Ontario to the River 
 Trancke, where there is yet not a single inhabitant, and in 
 this duty there is at present a captain and one hundred men 
 engaged. But while I am thus free in my strictures, I must 
 also say that the Governor merits very great praise for his in- 
 defatigable industry in exploring in person the communication 
 between the diiferent parts of the country. Last winter he 
 went to Detroit on snow shoes ; early this spring he coasted the 
 Lake from Niagara to Toronto ; he has nowgone tolookinto Lake 
 Huron by the way of Lake La Claye, and next winter we expect 
 a visit from him here, by way of the Bay of Kenty. You will, 
 before now, have been informed that the American Commis- 
 sioners have failed in the purpose of their cmbas.sy to make 
 peace with the Indians, who would not agree to meet tliem at
 
 5G LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 all, uuless they would previously consent to make the River 
 Ohio the boundary between them and the United States. 
 This is much to be regretted, from motives of humanity as well 
 as the political consequences that may attend it, by making the 
 Government of the States more urgent for the delivery of the 
 posts, in order to overawe the Indians, and whenever this hap- 
 pens it will make a material change in the situation of the two 
 Canadas, certainly not to their advantage. 
 
 To Isaac Todd, Esq. 
 
 Kingston, 1st October, 1794. 
 
 Dear Sir,— It was with a mixture of surprise and indigna- 
 tion that I read an extract of a letter of yours this spring to 
 the House in Montreal, and part of the one of 1st August to 
 me, mentioning that Governor Simcoe had represented both 
 Mr. Hamilton and myself as inimical to Government, and Mr. 
 King's instance of the Marriage Act convinces me that it is 
 not from the Minutes of the Council that the people at home 
 could form such suspicions ; for there it will appear that this 
 Act was brought into the House by myself, and that I was one 
 of a Committee of Conference that induced the Lower House 
 to withdraw their amendment. 
 
 It seems, then, that every man who will not be a mere tool, 
 and pay implicit respect to the caprice and extravagance of a 
 Colonial Governor, must be an object of jealousy and malevo- 
 lence, not only here but at home. Yet ask these gentlemen 
 for what purpose they gave me a seat in the Legislative Coun- 
 cil ? I presume they ■will tell you it was from a desire to avail 
 themselves of my knowledge of the country and acquaintance 
 with the inhabitants, derived from long residence and familiar 
 intercourse with them, to assist in framing such laws as might
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CART^VRIGHT. 57 
 
 be most applicable to the situation of the colony ; not merely 
 to show my complaisance to the person at the head of the 
 Government. Such, at all events, is the duty which I conceive 
 that my appointment imposes on me ; and do they expect that 
 I should either approve of or be silent upon measures that are 
 totally inapplicable to the state of society in this country, that 
 are inconsistent with its geographical situation, and must shock 
 the habits and prejudices of the majority of its inhabitants ? 
 
 In the intercourse of private life I am disposed to be as ac- 
 commodating as any man, but in the discharge of a public 
 trust I must follow my own sense of duty and propriety. I 
 do not doubt the disposition of the Governor to consult the 
 welfare of the Province, yet this disposition sometimes puts on 
 an odd appearance. He is a man of warm and sanguine tem- 
 per, that will not let him see any obstacles to his views ; he 
 thinks every existing regulation in England would be proper 
 here. Not attending sufficiently, perhaps, to the spirit of the 
 constitution, he seems bent on copying all the subordinate 
 establishments without considering the great disparity of the 
 two countries in every respect. And it really would not sur- 
 prise me to see attempts made to establish among us Eccle- 
 siastical Courts, tithes and religious tests, though nine-tenths 
 at least of our people are of persuasions different from the 
 Church of England, though the whole have been bred in a 
 country where there was the most perfect freedom in religious 
 matters, and though this would certainly occasion almost a 
 general emigration. One would, however, have thought that 
 politics in the abstract would by this time have been suffi- 
 ciently out of repute. I did not expect or wish for the place 
 I hold in the Legislature, nor do I care how soon I resign it ; 
 but while I do retain it I will most certainly do my duty, re-
 
 58 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 gardless of the smiles or frowns, the favours or the calumnies of 
 any person whatever. Were I to act differently, I am sure 
 you would be the first to despise me, and I certainly should 
 despise myself — a degradation that would be poorly compensated 
 by all the emolument or favour that could flow from a different 
 line of conduct. All my prospects, as well for myself as my 
 family, are confined to this Province ; I am bound to it by the 
 strongest ties, and with its welfare my interest is most essen- 
 tially connected. On this account, too, I cannot look tamely 
 on and see measures pursued that by sowing the seed of dis- 
 content among us may ultimately avert from us the favour of 
 Great Britain, which is so necessary to our prosperity. It is 
 much to be regretted that Government seldom receives colonial 
 information but through persons who too frequently are dis- 
 posed to misrepresent both men and things. 
 
 Perhaps they were last spring reading imputations on my 
 loyalty, while, in the discharge of my duty as a magistrate, I 
 was addressing the following language to a Grand Jury : — 
 
 "We are happily exempt from those political dissensions 
 that are now covering Europe with crimes and blood. Happy 
 in a liberal constitution, and reposing under the protection of 
 a Government from whose bounty we possess a soil that fur- 
 nishes to the industrious every necessary of life — a Govern- 
 ment that hath liberally assisted us in converting our forests 
 into comfortable habitations and fruitful fields — we seem little 
 disposed to forget, and base would we be if we could forget, the 
 ties of gratitude as well as duty by which our allegiance is 
 secured. We have therefore no public incendiaries to point 
 out for your animadversion ; and I trust that the conduct of 
 you, gentlemen, and others, in your private capacities, by dis- 
 countenancing every insidious whisper or more open discourse
 
 LIFE AND LETTEES OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 59 
 
 that may tend to lessen in the people their attachment to the 
 Government, will ever prevent the public peace from being 
 disturbed in this way, with the necessity of judicial inter- 
 ference." 
 
 Such has been uniformly the tenor of all my public ad- 
 dresses, and also my private conversation when such topics 
 have occurred. And though I do not think it necessary to 
 bow with reverence to the wayward fancies of every sub- 
 delegate of the Executive Government, I will not hesitate to 
 assert that His Majesty has not two more loyal subjects, and 
 in this Province certainly none more useful, than Mr. Hamil- 
 ton and myself, nor shall even the little pitiful jealousy that 
 exists with respect to us make us otherwise. And though I 
 hope we shall always have fortitude enough to do our duty, we 
 are by no means disposed to form cabals, and certainly have 
 not, nor do, intend wantonly to oppose or thwart the Governor. 
 I am ashamed to have said so much on this subject, but I can- 
 not help being provoked by such unhandsome conduct, and, 
 besides, I am anxious to lay open to you my motives, for your 
 approbation has always been of importance to me, and has be- 
 come more so since my conduct is deemed of consequence 
 enough to become the subject of misrepresentation among the 
 people in power. It is, however, high time for me to proceed, 
 in compliance with your wishes, to give you some further ac- 
 count of our legislative proceedings. In the transactions of 
 our late session, the object most deserving of notice is our 
 Judicature Bill, and two other Bills connected with it, for 
 completing the scheme of administering civil justice among us. 
 By the first all the former Courts are abolished, and every pro- 
 cess for certain matters arising in any part of tlie Province 
 above lorty shilling.s must now be sued out and returned for
 
 00 LIFE AND LKTTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 trial at the Court which is to be held four times in the year at 
 the seat of goverument. But a Court of concurrent jurisdic- 
 tion has been established in every district, for the cognizance of 
 matters of account and simple contract only, to the amount of 
 £15, so that the plaintiff, if he pleases, may resort to the 
 Supreme Court in every case, and must in all cases of trespass, 
 or when damages are only consequential, or when special bail 
 has been put in, be they ever so trifling. But pressed by the 
 total want of professional men to set the machinery in motion, 
 they have, at the very outset of the business, been reduced to 
 the miserable expedient of qualifying by another Act, certain 
 persons, to the number of sixteen, who are to be nominated by 
 the Governor, to act as lawyers ; and who, without any pre- 
 vious study or training, and by the mere magic virtue of the 
 Privy Seal, are at once to start up adepts in the science of the 
 law, and proficients in the intricate practice of Westminster 
 Hall. This Bill was hurried through in a manner not very de- 
 cent. Aly proposal to have it printed previous to discussion 
 was overruled with some warmth and blustering ; and you will 
 be astonished to hear that a law of such importance, and, in 
 conversation at least, disapproved by several of the members of 
 the Lower House, should be passed through that House with- 
 out debate, and in a single day. We are too much in a corner 
 to pay any great respect to public opinion, or to trouble our- 
 selves about saving appearances. 
 
 It is not yet in print, but I am sure, when it does appear, 
 it will bear evident marks of its precipitate progress. The 
 Court is to consist of the Chief Justice and two Puisne Judges, 
 and to have all the powers incident to the King's Bench, Com- 
 mon Pleas, and Exchequer in England. The presidency of the 
 Chief Justice in this Court renders our Court of Appeals a mere
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 61 
 
 name. Neither "the Governor himself, nor our friends Mr. 
 Baby and Mr. Grant, nor the other members of the Executive 
 Council, are very deep lawyers. The Chief Justice will na- 
 turally be called on for his opinion, on which the decision must 
 be founded, and the business then is simply an appeal from 
 the Chief Justice in the King's Bench to the Chief Justice in 
 the Court of Appeals. The enclosed speech and protest will 
 show you the part I took in the business, and explain it to you 
 more fully. In the protest, Mr. Hamilton and myself had it 
 chiefly iu view that the people at home should know the real 
 grounds of our opposition — a duty we owe ourselves, especially 
 since there exists a disposition to represent it as factious. The 
 same expense that this arrangement will occasion, by holding 
 the late District Courts only once in six months, and appoint- 
 ing one Judge of professional respectability to preside over two 
 districts, would have provided as effectually, and with infi- 
 nitely more ease, for the due administration of justice, than the 
 present mode. And indeed, with the aid of all our new created 
 attornpys, I cannot yet see how business can be done with any 
 degree of convenience under this system in a country where the 
 intercourse between the different districts is casual at best, and 
 where, for five months in the year, the most populous parts of 
 the Province could more easily communicate with Europe than 
 with the seat of our government. Some further regulations 
 have been made respecting our militia, enabling the Governor 
 very properly to call them out by detachments, and to keep 
 them employed six months, either by land or upon the lakes ; 
 the other business related chiefly to matters of municipal 
 arrangement, except a tax on stills, very proper in itself, 
 and that may in time become ])roductive. But the prodigality 
 of our Lower House will, I fear, greatly exceed our sources of
 
 G2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIOHT. 
 
 revenue. The trait I before mentioned of tfieir passing the 
 Judicature Bill in a single day must give you a better idea of 
 these worthies than I could otherwise convey to you by writing 
 a volume. And although we have yet no certain funds for the 
 payment of the clerks and other officers of the two Houses, they 
 have had the liberality to vote £600 to the Speaker for his 
 past services, and a salary of £200 per annum in future. It is 
 true the vote is conditional " if there are funds," but I fear it 
 will be considered a sufficient pledge for creating them, and 
 how this is to be done without greatly embarrassing our own 
 little business, or involving us in difficulties with the Lower 
 Provinces, exceeds my penetration to discover. Indeed, expe- 
 rience has almost made me a convert to Mr. Lymburner's 
 opinion with respect to the division of the late Province of 
 Quebec ; and his assertion that the country would be found 
 unequal to support the expense of two Governments, at the 
 rate our gentry proceed, will soon prove to have been too well 
 founded. We are shortly to have a conference with the Lower 
 Province on the subject of revenue, and in order to ascertain 
 our share of the duty on wines imposed by the House of As- 
 sembly. Their commissioners have been nominated for some 
 time, and are our friends James McG-ill, J. Eichardson, Mr. J. 
 Walker, Mr. Papineau, and another Frenchman whose name 
 I do not recollect ; who ours are to be I know not, for our 
 Governor has been lately so full of war and warlike arrange- 
 ments as not to have thought much of the civil branches of his 
 government, and no person having yet taken Mr. Osgoode's 
 place the latter can at best go on but indifferently. 
 
 You are not unacquainted with Lord Dorchester's speech to 
 the Indians, which I see has been the subject of parliamentary 
 discussion, nor with the other causes of discontent existing
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 63 
 
 between Great Britain and America, as well arising from 
 transactions at sea as respecting the western posts and fron- 
 tiers. Our Governor this spring erected a fort at the Miamis, 
 of considerable strength, which has given great umbrage to our 
 neighbours. General Wayne lately, after defeating the In- 
 dians, encamped around the fort a few days, but without at- 
 tempting hostilities ; he has withdrawn to the Glaize, where it 
 is said he intends to fortify. In the meantime the militia of 
 Detroit and Niagara were drafted, and reinforcements from the 
 Rangers and 5th Regiment pushed on to Detroit, and we are 
 in expectation that war would be kindled among us imme- 
 diately. From this, however, we are relieved for the present ; 
 and as the season for action is almost over, I trust that all diffi- 
 culties between the two Governments will be adjusted during 
 the winter. In this hope I am strengthened by the accounts in 
 the public prints of Mr. Jay's favourable reception ; for how- 
 ever an American war might terminate in a national point of 
 view, it must, at all events, be ruinous to this Province were it 
 to have no other effect than that of merely calling away the 
 inhabitants from the plough to the sword. In the action be- 
 tween the Americans and Indians, some of the Detroit militia, 
 with Colonel Caldwell at their head, very imprudently joined 
 the Indians ; they had five men killed and several wounded. 
 Among the former were McKillop, my quondam correspondent, 
 and Charles Smith, Clerk of the Court at Detroit, both of 
 whom, I believe, you knew. I send you two of our newspapers, 
 in one of which you will find a list of the Acts passed during 
 our late session, and the Governor's speech at the conclusion of 
 it ; the other, in the Loyal Association of the Home District, 
 at the head of which is our friend Hamilton, contains a curious 
 example to show how people can be led by a spirit of imitation,
 
 G-i LIFE AND LETTKKS OF RICHARD CARTWRIOHT. 
 
 without regard to circumstances. This flourish, however, is, I 
 believe, confined to head-quarters, and is certainly singular in 
 its kind. I am afraid you will by tliis time be sick of so ver- 
 bose a correspondent, but remember it is your own seeking, 
 for I certainly should not otherwise have had the conscience to 
 have obtruded upon you such a voluminous packet. 
 
 To Major Lothhridge. 
 
 Kingston, 10th Oct., 1794. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — I have been some time your debtor /or 
 your very friendly letter of 7th February last, which reached 
 me in the latter end of June, at Niagara. I am much obliged 
 by your political communications, and sorry that events would 
 not warrant a more favourable account ; and from those still 
 more untoward ones that have reached us through the medium 
 of the pubUc prints, there seems reason to apprehend that the 
 issue of the contest is not likely to prove favourable to the com- 
 bined Powers. For, however glorious our naval victories, they 
 seem rather to have ensured our own safety than to tend 
 greatly to subdue the French. "M\Tiile occupied with the 
 interesting scenes that are acting around you, in which the 
 fate of Europe seems to be involved, our little local affairs can 
 hardly claim your notice. To us, however, they lately ap- 
 peared under a very unpleasant aspect ; and some weeks ago 
 we expected to have been ere now at war with our neighbours, 
 the States. You have doubtless heard of Lord Dorchester's 
 speech to the Indians, for I see it has been the subject of dis- 
 cussion in Parliament, and will naturally suppose that it would 
 not make a very favourable impression on the Americans, who 
 were still further irritated by our building a fort about twelve
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 65 
 
 miles up the Miamis River. On both these subjects very 
 strong remonstrances were made to Mr. Hammond, and it was 
 rather expected that under the immediate impulse of the ill- 
 humour which they created, or at least fomented, some un- 
 warrantable acts would have been committed on the frontiers. 
 Indeed, they did go the lengths of stopping boats and seizing 
 goods that were coming into the country by the way of 
 Oswego, not, however, with the sanction of the Government. 
 In the meantime General Wayne was advancing into the 
 Indian country, and, either more prudent or more fortunate 
 than his predecessors, baffled any attempts of the savages — and 
 they made some pretty strong ones — to stop his progress. At 
 length, about the latter end of August, he had got within a 
 league of the fort ; he was here attacked by the Indians, 
 whom he had the address to draw into an ambuscade, and 
 defeat, with considerable loss, however, on his side ; while that 
 of the Indians is said not to have exceeded twenty killed and 
 about as many wounded. Among these, however, were some of 
 the bravest of their Chiefs ; and it seems to have discouraged 
 and dispersed them as effectually as though the victory had 
 been much more bloody. In this engagement some of the 
 Detroit militia very imprudently, and contrary to the orders 
 of Major Campbell, who commanded the fort, mixed "with the 
 Indians and had five killed, one taken prisoner, and several 
 wounded. On the same day General Wayne encamped within 
 a mile of the fort, and small parties of his people came oc- 
 casionally very near and carried away some corn and hay from 
 an island within gunshot. During these transactions, the 
 Governor, as you may suppose, was not idle. Part of the 
 Eangers and 5th Kegiment were pushed on to Detroit ; the 
 Detroit and Niagara militia embodied, and we were in hourly
 
 Gt) LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CART^VRIGHT. 
 
 expectation of being engaged in actual hostilities. But the 
 removal of General Wayne to the Glaize, a principal settle- 
 ment of the Indians, where it is said he is fortifying, has for 
 the present restored quiet, and we now learn with satisfaction 
 that Mr. Jay is to return with the olive branch ; for, however 
 the war might terminate as a national concern, to this Province 
 it must at all events have been ruinous. 
 
 Our Chief Justice, Mr. Osgoode, removed to Quebec in July 
 last, to take Mr. Smith's place, and his successor, if appointed, 
 has not yet made his appearance among us. 
 
 York, aliai Toronto, it is said is to be the seat of govern- 
 ment. The Governor and Mrs. Simcoe actually spent the last 
 winter there in their canvas house ; she has gone to pass the 
 ensuing one at Quebec ; he is at present at Detroit. Our 
 Province still continues its progress in improvement, and we 
 begin to think seriously of attempting to facilitate the export 
 of our produce to Montreal by means of scows and rafts ; for, 
 to say nothing of the expense by return batteaux, they are 
 really inadequate to the object. We cured here the last 
 season 480 barrels of pork for the use of the troops, and it is 
 thought double the quantity may be furnished this year. To 
 a brother member of a Land Board, we may be allowed, you 
 know, to talk of these things.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 67 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SPEECH ON JUDICATURE BILL — DISTRICT COURTS SUITABLE FOR PRO- 
 VINCE — EXPENSE OF PROPOSED SYSTEM — BLACKSTONE ON COUNTY 
 COURTS — DISTANCE AN OBJECTION, 
 
 SPEECH ON THE JUDICATURE BILL, IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUN- 
 CIL, MONDAY, 16th JUNE, 1794. 
 
 There is no maxim more incontestable in politics than that a 
 government should be formed for a country, and not a country 
 strained and distorted for the accommodation of a preconceived 
 or speculative scheme of government ; that in all the several 
 departments of it the arrangements should be calculated for 
 performing the business of the department in a manner the 
 least tedious and embarrassing to the public, rather than for 
 conferring splendour and emolument upon individuals. This is 
 a principle that every man who is called to the important busi- 
 ness of legislation should bear constantly in mind, but more 
 especially so when he comes to deliberate respecting the mode 
 of administering justice, in which every individual is, more or 
 less, immediately interested. And as the British Legislature 
 has left us unrestrained in everything that does not t militate 
 with the constitution they have given us, I apprehend we are 
 at perfect liberty, in the present instance, to pursue this prin- 
 ciple to its full extent. Since the settlements which were 
 formed in this country after the American War began to 
 acquire any degree of stability, that part of the administration 
 of justice which relates to property and civil rights has been
 
 68 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 maiiagod by Courts of origiual aud exclusive jurisdiction (sub- 
 ject to the revision of a Court of Appeals) erected in each of 
 the districts into which it has been divided. In these Courts 
 every cause might be, and has been, decided with very little 
 expense of time and money to the suitors ; how greatly to 
 their general satisfaction, let the solitary instance of a single 
 appeal determine. This arrangement was formed under the 
 auspices of a noble Lord who has ever bestowed the most 
 friendly and paternal attention to the welfare of this Province ; 
 and though I feel, from the experience of my own personal in- 
 capacity, that the Judges who preside in these domestic tribunals, 
 as I may without impropriety call them, may in one instance 
 at least be changed with advantage ; yet I do not hesitate to 
 affirm that, regard being had to the circumstances of the Pro- 
 vince, the constitution of the Courts themselves can be altered 
 only for the worse. Yet this establishment, so well adapted 
 to the nature of the country, the present Bill is intended 
 totally to overturn, and to erect in its stead a system which, 
 by the expense, delays and embarrassments that must necessarily 
 attend it, will infallibly operate as a denial of justice in nine 
 out of ten, I had almost said ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 cases that our small and uncomplicated affairs are likely to 
 produce. In England, where the system now proposed to us 
 has long obtained, the " law's delay " has been frequently and 
 pathetically declaimed on as one of the great evils of life ; yet, 
 in point of size, England is hardly equal to the smallest of our 
 districts; the territory is compact and crowded with an immense 
 population ; the intercourse from the centre to the extremities, 
 and from one part to the other, is easy and expeditious; profes- 
 sional men swarm in every quarter ; and the City of London, 
 the great emporium of the commercial world, where the Court,
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 69 
 
 is fixed, furnishes of itself at least nineteen-twentieths of all 
 the suits in the kingdom. But let us look around and see if 
 there be in our situation the smallest analogy to this. 
 With a thin population scattered over an immense extent of 
 country, interrupted by inland seas and large tracts of unin- 
 habited lands of from two to three hundred miles in extent, 
 without communication or intercourse for at least five months 
 in the year, with but a single lawyer within the compass of 
 more than seven hundred miles, and where every part is equally 
 barren of intricate or important subjects of litigation; — is there 
 any similarity in the circumstances of the two countries? 
 Can the same judicial arrangements be at all applicable to 
 both 1 To persist in the attempts to make them so will 
 literally be bringing the mountain to Mahomet ; or saying, like 
 the famous tyrant of antiquity, " Here is our standard ; if you 
 are too long we wQl lop you, if you are too short we will stretch 
 you to our dimensions." But let us hear Mr. Justice 
 Blackstone, with all the prejudices of a professional man 
 about him, on the subversion of the County Courts in Eng- 
 land ; for even in England itself, for its infinitely smaller sub- 
 division of counties, the system that now actually obtains in this 
 Province was the original one, and was overturned, not by the 
 calm, deUberate voice of legislation, but by the violence of in- 
 vasion and conquest. After speaking of other changes that 
 had been attended with the most injurious consequences, he 
 says : " A third alteration in the English laws was by narrow- 
 ing the remedial influence of the County Courts, the great seats 
 of Saxon justice, and extending the original jurisdiction of the 
 King's Justiciars to all kinds of causes arising in all parts of 
 the kingdom. The constitution of this Court, and the Judges 
 themselves who presided there, were brought from the Duchy
 
 70 LIFli AND LKITKUS OF RIL'HAIU) CARTWlllGHT. 
 
 of Normandy ; and instead of the plain and easy method of 
 determining suits in the County Courts, the chicanes and sub- 
 tleties of Norman jurisprudence were introduced into the 
 King's Courts, to which every cause of consequence was drawn." 
 Here behold the change in contemplation completely anticipated. 
 And if this Bill should pass, our posterity will find some 
 future historian of the colony deploring, in similar language, 
 the pernicious innovation, and reprobating the folly of our ill- 
 judged acquiescence. For most unquestionably it will have the 
 same effects upon our mode of administering justice that the 
 Norman invasion had upon the English, except that from the 
 great difference of local circumstances already stated, its ope- 
 ration must be proportionably much more injurious. For 
 see it comes with all the glorious uncertainties of the law in its 
 train, holding out wealth and distinction to the man of law, 
 but poverty and distress to the unfortunate client. It comes 
 with its multifarious actions of debt, covenant, account, as- 
 sumpsit, case, trespass, trover and detinue — distinctions with- 
 out essential difference, running into endless mazes where even 
 the sages of the profession have themselves been fre- 
 quently bewildered. It comes with all its hydra of demurrers, 
 replications, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters and surrebut- 
 ters, and all the monstrous offspring of metaphysical subtlety 
 begotten upon chicane, to swallow up our simple forms and 
 modes of process which are easy to be understood and followed 
 by any man of plain sense and common education. Here let 
 us pause a moment and ask ourselves if this be indeed a desir- 
 able change. But admitting — what, however, is not intended — 
 that these technical perplexities might be done away, let us ex- 
 amine simply the conse<^uences that must inevitably result from 
 thke constitution of the Cpjirt itself. It is to be fixed, if we are to
 
 • LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 71 
 
 judge what has hitherto been, and what has been talked of as 
 the seat of government, rather in the geographical centre of the 
 colony than with any attention to its population. The eastern 
 district at least, if not the western, far outnumbers in in- 
 habitants the other districts, and, consequently, are likely to fur- 
 nish the greatest number of lawsuits ; yet the man who has cause 
 of action iu the eastern or in the western district must travel 
 from the Eiver Raisin perhaps, or the River Trancke, across 
 Lake Erie, or a hundred miles up the River St. Lawrence and 
 across Lake Ontario, to sue out his process at Newark or York ; 
 he' must travel back with it, to put it into the hands of the 
 Sheriff of the district whence he came ; the process must go 
 back again to the place from whence it issued ; the defendant 
 must resort thither to put in his pleas, and the plaintiff trudge 
 back again to make his reply. Six months afterwards, it may 
 be nine or twelve months, a Court of Assize may be held in 
 the district where the cause originated, and the issue be tried 
 by a jury if both parties are disposed to come to trial. But the 
 matter ends not here ; the plaintiff or defendant, as either may 
 have been so far successful, must the next term go back again 
 and move for judgment, which he will probably obtain, unless he 
 should be opposed by a motion for a new trial, or in arrest of 
 judgment, which, if his money and patience holds out for an- 
 other journey or two, may possibly be settled in a couple of 
 terms more ; so that, on a moderate computation, if the parties 
 do neither of them wish to protract the business, and are toler- 
 ably diligent, after spending a great deal both of their time 
 and money, they may probably bring it to a conclusion in 
 about two years. And with respect to the two most distant 
 districts which I have named, it is hardly possible for the rou- 
 tine to be completed in a shorter time. But should any
 
 72 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 studied delay be interposed, it is impossible to foretell how long 
 it may Last. But gentlemen will perhaps say that this ar- 
 rangement will soon bring lawyers among us, and then the 
 business may be managed more expeditiously. Yes, we all 
 know how anxious gentlemen of the law usually are to bring 
 suits to a speedy termination. Yet, were this not the most 
 palpable irony, as the same circle must be trodden round, I can- 
 not see that, with their utmost diligence, the time I have cal- 
 culated for the duration of a cause could be at all shortened. 
 But admitting that it might in some degree, the business of the 
 country is by no means equal to support respectable charac- 
 ters of the profession, and the House need not be told that 
 the understrappers of it are the greatest pest that a society can 
 be cursed with. I have thus endeavoured to point out some, 
 for it is impossible to foresee and enumerate all the evils with 
 which, under our circumstances, this Bill is pregnant. I 
 trust, however, I have said enough to convince the House of 
 its inexpediency, and to induce them to set their faces against 
 it, as a measure, I will not say calculated, but certainly tending, 
 to swell the importance and fill the pockets of the professors 
 of the law, rather than promote the speedy and effectual ad- 
 ministration of justice ; and that they will support me in the 
 motion I now make, that this Bill be committed for this day 
 three months.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LETTER TO DAVIDSON & CO. — SCARCITY OF LABOUR — HESSIAN FLY — 
 PRICE OF FLOUR AND PEAS — DISCONTENT IN LOWER CANADA — EX- 
 ECUTION OF M'LEAN — EXPORT OF POTASH AND STAVES — LETTER 
 TO GENERAL HUNTER — TRANSPORT TO MONTREAL — IMPROVEMENT 
 OF LACHINE — HEMP — LIST OF PRODUCE — LETTER FROM GENERAL 
 HUNTER — BRUYERE's REPORT — LETTER TO MR. HAMILTON, LA- 
 CHINE — nrPROVEMENTS ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 Messrs. Davison & Co., 
 London. 
 
 Kingston, Upper Canada, 
 
 4th Nov., 1797. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I have been duly favoured with your Mr. 
 Palgrave's letter of the 10th March, aud yours of the 27th 
 April and 11th July last, together with the public prints men- 
 tioned in the two first, for which and for your able and inte- 
 resting sketch of public affairs be pleased to accept my sincere 
 thanks. 1 would gladly hope that before this time the convul- 
 sions which have so long agitated Europe have subsided, and 
 that the negotiations at Lisle have terminated in restoring that 
 peace so necessary to all the belligerent powers, and which 
 the withholding of specie at the bank, the late alarming meet- 
 ing among the seamen, and the enormous expense of carrying 
 on the war, are very serious mementos that it will be prudence 
 on our part to purchase by any sacrifices consistent with the 
 national safety and honour. Ii^pendent of our general inte-
 
 74< LIFE AND LF:TTERS of RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 rest as a part of the British Empire, we look forward to a peace 
 as to a period of particular prosperity for this Province, not 
 only on account of the very considerable fall that it will occa- 
 sion in the price of every article of our importations, but from 
 the expectation that on the reduction of the navy and army we 
 shall receive a large accession of inhabitants better calculated 
 for becoming orderly and well-affected settlers than the emi- 
 grants from the American Republic. In the present state of 
 the country labour is not to be had at almost any price. The 
 raising of two Provincial regiments has drained us of every 
 man that would work for hire, and the cultivation of the 
 farmer must consequently be circumscribed within the limits ^f 
 that labour which his own family can supply. This cause has 
 concurred with the ravtges of the Hessian fly, and unfavour- 
 able seasons, to diminish very considerably our surplus produce. 
 I believe the agent for purchases did not Collect quite two 
 thousand quintals of flour, though he got nearly a sufficiency of 
 peas this spring ; the former he paid for at $4 per cwt., the 
 latter at $1 per bushel, casks included, and no pork was adver- 
 tised for. This, however, is not now a just criterion of what 
 we have had to spare. The American garrisons and their set- 
 tlements on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie have been almost 
 wholly supplied with bread from this Province, at a rate consi- 
 derably higher than the price paid by our Government. And 
 our breweries and distilleries have consumed no inconsiderable 
 portion of our grain ; the prices by this means have been so 
 kept up that at this moment flour sells at 22s. 6d. per cwt. 
 Indeed, although we have not suff"ered so much from the fly 
 this season as we have done for a year or two before, a wet and 
 backward spring and a very hot and dry summer have occa- 
 sioned our wheat to be very much shrunk indeed, and to be
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 75 
 
 consequently light and unproductive. Our peas and Indian 
 corn, I understand, have turned out better, and I look forward 
 to an increase of that valuable article, pork, in another year. 
 I fear it is not at this time more abundant than it was last 
 year, but the quantity is not now to be so easily ascertained as 
 it was heretofore. The high prices given for this article in the 
 new American settlements, and by the people engaged in the 
 lumber business, have induced many of the principal farmers 
 and the shopkeepers in the country to undertake the curing of 
 it themselves. For this purpose it is not necessary to be so 
 particular as when it is put up for the troops, and what there 
 was to spare last year has generally been sold at $26 per bbl., 
 and in some instances it has been sent to Lachine at that 
 price^for the purpose of victualling the batteau men in the 
 merchants' service. Under these circumstances, you will see 
 that the sending out provisions from England for the troops 
 cannot be prejudicial to the Province just at this juncture, and 
 in the situation that Lower Canada was in last winter, border- 
 ing upon revolt, it was certainly a matter of proper precaution 
 in the Governor-General not to be in a state of dependence 
 upon it for victualling the army. The execution of a Mr. 
 McLean, one of Mons. Adet's emissaries, and other vigorous 
 measures of General Prescott, have, however, effectually 
 checked every seditious symptom among the Lower Canadians 
 for the present. The demand for our produce at the American 
 garrisons, and for their settlers, will of course be but tempo- 
 rary ; their own settlements near and along the lakes, it roust 
 be expected, will soon furnish enough for their troops, and 
 become in a few years our competitors in the markets of this 
 and the Lower Provinces. There being no place in the Pro- 
 vince where lumber or potash are entered, it is impossilbe to
 
 7G LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 give you any accurate iuformation of the quantity of these ar- 
 ticles which we export. In estimating them at about one hun- 
 dred and fifty tons of potash, and four hundred thousand 
 staves, exclusive of a large quantity of square oak timber, I 
 think I do not overrate them. The staves are principally of 
 that valuable kind called double butts, and are hewn smooth. 
 These are all sent to England, but there is a large quantity of 
 pine boards, plank and scantling, annually sent to Montreal, 
 and consumed there. The rafts into which these boai'ds and 
 lumber are formed for the purpose of floating them down the 
 river have been occasionally used as vehicles for transporting 
 the potash to Montreal, and may be applied to any extent that 
 the circumstances of the Province may hereafter require for 
 the exportation of every article of its produce, from this and 
 other places further down the St. Lawrence, to the ports of 
 Lower Canada. About two-thirds of the potash, and nearly 
 the whole of the lumber, is supplied by the Eastern District, 
 which lies between this and Point au Bodet, the boundary of 
 the Lower Province. No potash has yet been manufactured, 
 nor has any person engaged in the lumber business, higher up 
 than the Bay of Kenty, an inlet extending from hence to the 
 westward about 60 miles, and from three-fourths of a mile to 
 two miles wide, with several deep bays branching from it in 
 different directions, bordering upon which are the principal 
 settlements that form what is called the Midland District. I 
 am much flattered by the obliging tender of your good ofl&ces, 
 which I shall not hesitate to avail myself of if anything should 
 occur that will require them. Not having a seaport in our 
 Province, it would be impossible or extremely inconvenient 
 for any person here to import goods except through the me- 
 dium of a Montreal house. Goods must be there received, the
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT, 77 
 
 damages they have sustained at sea (as this sometimes hap- 
 pens) looked into and authenticated ; from thence they must be 
 carted to Lachine, where boats and men are to be procured 
 to transport them this far. On the other hand, payments can 
 be made there in bills or money when it would be difficult to 
 convert them into remittances for England. Furs must be 
 there examined, sorted and baled ; potash inspected, and lum- 
 ber culled. The mode usually practised here is this : the mer- 
 chant sends his order for English goods to his correspondent 
 at Montreal, who imports them from London, guarantees the 
 payment of them there, and receives and forwards them to this 
 country for a commission of five per cent, on the amount of 
 the English invoice. The payments are all made b}'^ the Up- 
 per Canada merchant in Montreal, and there is no direct com- 
 munication whatever between him and the shipper in London. 
 The order, too, must be limited to (Ivy goods, and he must 
 purchase his liquors on the best terms he can in the home mar- 
 ket ; and if he wishes to have his furs or potash shipped for 
 the London market, he pays a commission of one per cent, on 
 their estimated value ; if sold in Montreal, he is charged two 
 and one-half per cent, on the amount of the sales. This mode 
 of business seems necessarily to be imposed upon us by our 
 inland situation, but the terms upon which it has hitherto been 
 conducted will become less burdensome when the mercantile 
 capital of the country comes to bear a greater proportion to 
 the trade of the country than it does at present. In speaking 
 of the situation and trade of the Province, these particulars of 
 its mercantile intercourse Avith Europe naturally offer them- 
 selves to me, and to you they may not have been so obvious, 
 and will not perhaps be unacceptable. 
 
 When we turn our view to New York, still greater difficulr
 
 78 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 ties occur ; among these are tlie very considerable duties laid 
 upon almost every article entering the Atlantic ports, and 
 which it is, from local circumstances, impossible to drawback 
 upon exporting into this Province, without subjecting their 
 revenue to frauds which no vigilance or custom-house restric- 
 tions could prevent. And besides, I do not think, from the 
 experience we have yet had, that the American treaty is likely 
 to operate unfavourably upon tlie trade of even Lower Canada. 
 Notwithstanding all the vapouring of our neighbours about the 
 communication by the Mohawk Eiver, it can never be made equal 
 to that by the St. Lawrence even in its present state. No mer- 
 cantile house in the States has yet embarked in the trade of 
 this country, and though there has been a number of petty 
 adventurers, they have not frequently found their enterprises 
 profitable, and in this part of the country they, have latterly 
 disappeared altogether. On the contrary, some of the Ameri- 
 can merchants at Detroit are supplied with liquors and goods 
 from Montreal, and I have seen casks of wine sent from thence 
 directed for General Wilkinson, their Commander-in-Chief. 
 Those merchants who were settled there while the place was 
 under our jurisdiction have also considerably increased their 
 importations through Montreal, and I mention with plea- 
 sure that they have almost unanimously elected to remain 
 British subjects. Whatever arbitrary or irregular acts may 
 have occasionally been committed by some of our own military 
 officers in that remote part of the country, they were soon 
 effaced by the conduct of the Republican chiefs, who have at 
 once declared the town of Detroit subject to military law, and 
 have conducted themselves accordingly.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 79 
 
 To His Excellency General Hunter. 
 
 Kingston, 24th Oct., 1801. 
 Sir, — I have the honour herewith to transmit to your Ex- 
 cellency an account of the different articles of provision, and 
 the potash exported since the 20th April last, from this dis- 
 trict, and from other parts of the Province to the westward, 
 which may be relied on as accurate as far as it goes. The 
 exports from that part of the Province which is situated be- 
 tween this and Lower Canada has been, in proportion, at 
 least equally considerable, but I have no materials from which 
 to form even a satisfactory conjecture of their amount. For 
 there is no place there, as there is here, in which everything 
 must centre previous to its exportation, and a great part is 
 transported by the farmers themselves in sleds during the win- 
 ter. Their average value in this account is stated rather below 
 than above the truth, and when the price of the provisions fur- 
 nished to Government for the use of the troops is added, it will 
 compose a sum which, though a mere trifle in the immense 
 aggregate of British commerce, will not appear contemptible 
 when considered as arising from the rude produce of so recent 
 an establishment. A large portion of these articles have been 
 transported to Montreal on rafts of boards and timber and in 
 scows, for the boats which transport the merchandise which we 
 require nolonger sufficefor the export of articles of such compara- 
 tively great bulk and little value. Of these two modes of trans- 
 port, that by scows will in future be preferred, as the flour on 
 rafts cannot be kept dry, whereas in the scows it is equally secure 
 as in common batteaux. These scows have carried to Montreal, 
 and of course could carry to Quebec, from 350 to 400 barrels 
 each, and might have taken 100 more as far as Lachine ; but 
 the water having been higher than usual during this summer,
 
 ,80 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 has made the passage of the Lachine rapids more easy than is 
 to be expected in common seasons. These rapids have been 
 found the principal if not the only material obstruction in the 
 river to the safe and easy conveyance of our produce to the 
 ports of Lower Canada. The difficulties arising from the 
 scarcity of labour, which at present very much increase the 
 expense, time can only remove. But we hope, through the 
 assistance of your Excellency, that the navigation itself will 
 soon be facilitated. The improvement of the canals will do 
 much for the transport up, but the transport down is an object 
 at least equally important, and in this the canals are of no ser- 
 vice. It will pi'obably be found, upon examination by some 
 skilful engineer, that the channel in the Lachine rapids may, 
 without very great expense, be so improved as to render it per- 
 fectly safe for our scows and rafts in all seasons. But they lay 
 beyond the jurisdiction of our Legislature, and if they did not, 
 we have little in our power. From the Legislature of Lower 
 Canada I am not sanguine enough to expect much, and we can at 
 present look with confidence only to the liberality of Great 
 Britain for this among other means necessary to make this 
 Province as valuable to its inhabitants, and as useful to herself 
 in a commercial point of view, as its remote inland situation 
 will admit. Those who have been concerned in the scows, state 
 the expense, after deducting the price received for this vehicle 
 in Lower Canada, at about four shillings per barrel, but, as is 
 the case in all new undertakings, much expense has been 
 incurred that experience will now enable them to save ; and 
 they say that by getting the materials prepared in the winter, 
 and contracting with workmen in time, the expense of con- 
 struction may be lessened nearly if not entirely one-half, and 
 that flour may in another season be floated down in this way
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 81 
 
 to Montreal at the comparatively moderate rate of half a dol- 
 lar per barrel. Nor is this the only benefit to be expected ; for 
 by getting them built in the neighbourhood of the mills, and 
 other deposits of flour in the Bay of Kenty, they will save a 
 great part of the expense now incurred for transport in the 
 small vessels which have hitherto been used to carry it to this 
 place. By means of large grooved cases reaching from side to 
 side, they may be fitted for transporting wheat and other 
 grain in bulk, and may be adapted by-and-bye for the secure 
 transportation of our hemp, which I expect will be added to 
 our exports at no very distant period. There is every dis- 
 position to give it a fair trial in this district, and Alexander 
 Fisher, Esc{., of Adolphustown, is preparing to sow from twelve 
 to fifteen acres in the manner that is pointed out by the Society 
 for the Encouragement of Arts, &c., and in the hope of obtain- 
 ing the premium off"ered by that patriotic Society ; but seed is 
 wanting. I some time since wrote to Mr. McGill, whom your 
 Excellency has appointed, jointly with Mr. Smith, to apply and 
 distribute the Provincial grant for this purpose. His answer, 
 which I send herewith, is not very encouraging ; and as I learn 
 from another quarter that their agent, Mr. Swezy, had not, 
 unless very lately indeed, proceeded on his mission, I fear 
 much that this part of the Province is not likely to benefit in 
 time by any supplies which he may procure ; and I take the 
 liberty to suggest the expediency of sending us some in the 
 meantime from Lower Canada, to prevent our ardour from 
 cooling. 
 
 I intended to have sent your Excellency this account sooner, 
 but some of the gentlemen from whom I was to collect my 
 information were absent.
 
 82 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect and es- 
 teem, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your Excellency's very obedient servant, 
 
 Richard Cartwright. 
 
 Account of Flour and other Articles of Produce 
 Shipped for Montreal by the respective Merchants 
 of Kingston in 1801. 
 
 
 Produce of Kingsto 
 
 n and 
 
 From 
 
 From 
 
 
 parts adjacent 
 
 
 Niagtira. 
 
 Detroit. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 By Whom Forwarded. 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 CO 3 
 
 IE 
 
 
 
 
 
 *« 
 
 
 ci o 
 
 •^ 
 
 =So 
 
 •s 
 
 
 ffl c 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 ce 
 
 
 = « 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 etc 
 
 ^ 
 
 SiC 
 
 o 
 
 
 fa 
 
 S 
 
 P^ 
 
 c 
 
 fa 
 
 b 
 
 fa 
 
 Oh 
 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 Bus. 
 
 Bbls 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 Bbls. 
 
 R. Cartwright 
 
 2453 
 
 282 
 
 96 
 
 77 
 
 1150 
 
 
 613 
 
 
 
 729 
 965 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 100 
 
 "iso' 
 
 1375 
 524 
 
 14 
 
 773 
 
 
 Peter Smith 
 
 
 T. Marklaiid 
 
 719 
 250 
 342 
 
 
 18 
 43 
 
 75 
 
 
 
 
 
 L. Herkiniar 
 
 
 
 
 J. Forsyth, for self and Robins 
 
 803 
 250 
 
 
 
 
 298 
 
 
 1103 
 
 6 
 
 Do for B. Sevmour . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 J. Robins, for self. Son and E, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Smith ■. 
 
 431 
 623 
 249 
 
 "'so' 
 
 9 
 34 
 
 8 
 
 50 
 
 43 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 D. McDonell 
 
 
 Do for W. Washburn 
 
 
 Do for B. Seymour.. 
 
 100 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Do for J. McXab .... 
 
 140 
 
 
 65 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Do for J. Barton 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 8084 
 
 322 
 
 427 
 
 352 
 
 3390 
 
 51 
 
 2489 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Note. — There is besides 350 bushels wheat from Mr. Crooks, and 500 lbs. cheese from 
 Mr. Hamilton, of Nia^ra, 72 lbs. hogs' lard from R. CartwTiglit, and 1000 lbs. butter from 
 Mr. Smith and others from Kingston, besides staves, boardi and lumber. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 13.903 bbls. Fine and Superfine Flour, @ 35s £24,435 5 
 
 322 " Middlings, or 2nd Flour, " 23s. 4d 375 13 4 
 
 350 bus Wheat, " 6s. 8d 116 13 4 
 
 352 " Peas, " 5s 88 
 
 484 bbls. Potash, "908 2,178 
 
 1,000 lbs. Butter, 500 lbs. Cheese, " Is 75 
 
 78 " Hogs' lard, " 8d 2 12 
 
 17,000 Oak Staves, " £J8 476 
 
 Pine and Cedar timber, quantity not ascertained, sold for about 120 
 
 Province Currency £27,867 3 S
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 83 
 
 From His Excellency General Ihmter. 
 
 Quebec, 24th Nov., 1801. 
 Dear Sir, — It gives me pleasure to find, from the return 
 enclosed in your letter to me of 20th Oct., that the articles of 
 provisions, potash, &c., exported from Kingston during the 
 last summer, amount to so considerable a sum as you have 
 therein stated. Under circumstances of equal industry and 
 success, there is no doubt but the farmers and others concerned 
 in the export trade will be rendered easy and affluent in the 
 course of a few years. I lost no time, upon the receipt of your 
 letter, in ordering a careful examination of the Lachine rapids 
 by Captain Bruyere, Eoyal Engineer, assisted by two of the 
 best pilots, on the communication between Lachine and Mon- 
 treal. A copy of Captain Bruyere's report to Colonel Mann 
 upon that subject I enclose herewith for your information. 
 Although it appears from Captain Bruyere's report that the 
 removing the rocks and shoals, for the purpose of rendering the 
 navigation for loaded boats and rafts more easy and safe, is 
 nearly if not quite impracticable, yet the report afi"ords some 
 useful hints to all concerned in the construction of rafts, scows, 
 &c. As Colonel Mann will, early in the ensuing spring, visit 
 the works now carrying on at the Cascades, I shall direct him 
 to inspect the Lachine rapids himself, and if his report should 
 be favourable to the removal or lessening thtf present ob- 
 structions, I shall have much pleasure in doing everything in 
 my power towards facilitating so desirable an object. I have 
 no doubt but the cultivation of hemp in Upper Canada will 
 succeed beyond our most sanguine expectations, when the 
 difficulty of procuring good seed in sufficient quantities can be 
 got over. I have the firmest reliance on the exertions of the 
 Commissioners appointed by me for that purpose. When
 
 84 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CART^VRIGHT. 
 
 sleighing begins, they will, no doubt, distribute among the 
 farmers in the several districts of the Province what seed they 
 have purchased, which will be in sufficient time for sowing it 
 in the spring. In Lower Canada no hemp seed can be pro- 
 cured for any price ; Mr. Clarke, at Montreal, raised about 40 
 bushels of hemp seed, but the whole of that quantity must 
 remain for the disposal of Sir Robert Milnes, who advanced 
 
 money for the experiment. 
 
 I am, &c., 
 
 P. Hunter. 
 To R. Hamilton. 
 
 Kingston, 14th May, 1806. 
 Dear Sir, — You will be pleased to learn that, notwithstand- 
 ing the impracticability stated by Lt. Bruyere, in his report to 
 Col. Mann, the three large rocks which formed so considerable 
 an impediment in the rapids of Lachine have been blown to 
 pieces and removed ; and that by making a dyke or embank- 
 ment upon the principles stated by you and Mr. Clarke in 
 summer of 1804, the water was at once raised from ten inches 
 to three feet. All this has been done for £600, and the work 
 has stood the test of one winter. It is proposed to extend it 
 considerably this summer, and Mr. Auldjo, who is one of the 
 Commissioners, tells me that he has no doubt that by this 
 means there will always be at least three feet of water in 
 the channel. They have remaining £400 of last year's appro- 
 priation, to which the Legislature have this season added 
 £1,000, so that there is £1,400 for this object alone ; and they 
 have besides given the sum of £500, if I recollect aright, for 
 other parts of the river between that and Coteau du Lac. Say, 
 therefore, what they will of the House of Assembly of Lower 
 Canada, these are no bad specimens of their public spirit. 
 
 Ft. C,
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 85 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LETTER TO GEK. SIMCOE — GRANTS OP LAJ^D — ACTION OF LAND BOARD — 
 DELAY IN ISSUING PATENTS — PROPOSED MEASURES OF RELIEF — 
 LETTER TO MR. m'gILL— PATENTS TO ISSUE — DEEDS DESTROYED — 
 RECENT ACTS — QUARREL OF HOUSES. 
 
 REPESENTATION RESPECTING THE STATE OF LANDED PROPERTY, 
 IN UPPER CANADA, DELIVERED TO GENERAL SIMCOE, JULY, 
 1795. 
 
 The settlements in the now Province of Upper CanacLa were 
 begun in the year 1784, after the 24th of June in that year, 
 when the lands, by the bounty of His Majesty, were distributed 
 in certain regulated proportions to the disbanded troops and 
 loyalists who had joined the royal standard. Each person, or 
 more frequently two persons in conjunction, received a cer- 
 tificate signed by the Governor, and countersigned by the Sur- 
 veyor General or Deputy Surveyor General, declaring that 
 A. B. being, by His Majesty's instructions, entitled to a certain 
 quantity of land, had drawn Lot No. 1, or part of said lot, as 
 the case might be, in a certain concession of a certain township 
 or seigniory, and being settled and having improved thereon, 
 he should at the end of twelve months receive a deed of con- 
 cession authorizing him to alienate the same. The grantee 
 having complied with the condition, by settling and improving 
 his location, became evidently entitled to his deed, and had, 
 in equity and justice, at least a right to dispose of the lands 
 so ceded to him. From the very mistaken plan of generally
 
 8G LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 giving but 100 acres together to any persons, the people soon 
 found themselves straitened in their locations, which were too 
 small to make good farms ; various exchanges were made in 
 consequence, upon principles of mutual accommodation, in order 
 to increase the size of the farms to two hundred acres and 
 upwards. 
 
 Besides the very numerous transfers that were made for this 
 principle, persons who had obtained land for their families, or 
 on other accounts, had a larger portion than they immediately 
 wanted, were disposed to sell a part in order the better to en- 
 able them to improve the remainder, and a variety of other 
 causes which constantly operate in shifting property from hand 
 to hand induced the loyalists to part with a portion of theirs, 
 or frequently to mortgage it, to enable them to obtain the con- 
 veniences or even the necessaries of life. Thus matters were 
 conducted till the year 1789, when, upon suggestions from the 
 Land Boards, which had been appointed in the preceding year 
 in the several districts, " that people came in from the States 
 to apply for lands without any intention to settle them, but 
 merely to make money by the sale of them," certificates were 
 sent up to be issued by them, declaring lands so granted to be 
 forfeited if not settled upon within the year, and particularly 
 expressing that they and all others of a similar nature were not 
 transferable unless by the sanction of the Land Board. This 
 was principally intended to prevent the abuse above-mentioned, 
 and was further useful, as far as it went, to authenticate sales or 
 assignments among the settled inhabitants. But this had no 
 retrospective operation, and could not attach upon the large 
 additional grants of lands to ofl&cers, to whom the Boards could 
 regularly issue no certificates, nor to those townships where, 
 through the neglect of the Surveying Department, the settlers
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CAETWRIGHT. 87 
 
 had nothing but a ticket bai-ely expressing the number of the 
 lot. Ten years had thus elapsed before any preparations for 
 granting the patents were in forwardness, and such have been 
 the mutations of landed property, if indeed it can be so called, 
 that very few inhabitants of the Province are unconcerned in 
 them. That patents were not issued agreeable to the tenor of 
 the certificates was not the fault of the people, and if they 
 should now be delivered to the original holders of the certifi- 
 cates, the whole country will be thrown into confusion. The 
 strongest temptations will be held out to fraud and avarice, 
 and all the mutual confidence between the people destroyed, 
 and such heats and animosities be kindled as may be attended 
 with the most pernicious consequences ; for althougli, on com- 
 plying with the terms of the certificate, the holder had in jus- 
 tice the entire and complete property of the soil, to do there- 
 with as he pleased, yet. in the technical precision of the law, 
 the delivery of the patent completely overturns every prior 
 sale or exchange — even those sanctioned by the Land Boards 
 perhaps not excepted — invalidates every mortgage, and gives a 
 power to the party, his heirs or subsequent assigns, to eject 
 the person who may have made a bona fide purchase, and who 
 may have expended in improvements twenty-five times the 
 original value of the soil. These are evils that every friend to 
 the Province must deprecate, and should interpose to prevent 
 if possible, and the attempt would come forward with peculiar 
 propriety under the auspices of the Executive Government, as 
 a most agreeable and popular measure. Indeed, from the 44th 
 and 45th clauses of the Act of Parliament establishing the 
 Constitution of this Province, it would seem that the 
 Legislature of Great Britain considered the certificates as 
 actual grants, and so did the Legislature of Lower Canada,
 
 88 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 for in an Act pa.ssod in the 33id year of His Majesty's 
 reign, intituled " An Act to continue the ordinances regu- 
 lating the practice of the law, and to provide more 
 effectually for the dispensation of justice, and especially 
 in the new districts," part of the 12th clause establishes 
 regulations for the mode of advertising the sale of real 
 estates seized in execution. But as the certificates have 
 not, either in the one case or the other, been declared to 
 convey an assignable title, they still rest upon their own 
 foundation, only that these Acts seem strongly to countenance 
 the propriety of confirming all fair and honest alienations made 
 under these certificates. For this purpose it is proposed to be 
 enacted, " That all bona fide sales or mortgages of lands to 
 which the settler or mortgagor had a just claim by having com- 
 plied with the conditions on which the lands were ceded to him 
 by His Majesty's instructions, shall be good and valid in law, 
 although no patent had actually been granted for the same, 
 and that no patent which shall hereafter be granted for such 
 lands shall be deemed to invalidate any title or claim under 
 such sale or mortgages as aforesaid. That it shall be sufficient 
 evidence of such bona fide sales if the same shall have been 
 made under the sanction of the Land Board, regularly endorsed 
 on the certificate, or by deed of sale under the hand and seal 
 of the Sheriff when sold by process of law, or by a written in- 
 strument under the hand and seal of the party, subscribed by 
 two witnesses, or by assignment on the certificate itself under 
 the hand of the party, and attested by two subscribing witnesses. 
 And that it shall be sufficient evidence of such bona fide mort- 
 gages, that they have been given under the hand and seal of 
 the party, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses : Pro- 
 vided that such sales and mortgages shall be entered in the
 
 LIFE AND LETTEKS OF EICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 89 
 
 Register Office of the district in which the lands are situated, 
 within one year after the passing of this Act, or mthin one 
 year from the establishment and opening of such office, other- 
 wise the holders shall be deprived of the benefit of this Act. 
 That all lands held under certificates of occupation shall be 
 liable to claims under judgment of a Court of law, rights of in- 
 heritance, or otherwise, in the same manner as they would have 
 been if held by patent under the Great Seal. That these pro- 
 visions shall have only a retrospective operation from the jDass- 
 ing of this Act, or refer only to such transactions as may have 
 taken place before the 1st of January last. That the lands so 
 transferred or assigned shall be liable to the payment of all 
 fees due for grants of the said lands to the officers of the Crown, 
 provided they were originally held by such persons as were 
 liable to the payment of such fees, and the possessor shall have 
 recourse upon the vendor for repayment of such fees, provided 
 there has been no stipulation between them to the contrary." 
 The claims to lands as above stated have been provided for in 
 a diflferent and perhaps a better mode by laws passed from time 
 to time to authorize commissioners to hear and report on such 
 claims, and allowing the patents to issue in favour of the per- 
 son whose claim was [duly established before such commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 James McGill, Esq. 
 
 Kingston, 12th July, 1800. 
 Dear Sir, — My letters to the House will have informed you 
 of my arrival once more under my own shed on the 10th instant, 
 where I liad the satisfaction of finding all well. I have been at 
 Niagara and saw H. W. Dickson, who says the patents shall be 
 sent me as soon as they can be made out. The whole winter's
 
 90 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 labour at the different offices has been thrown away, and about 
 eight hundred deeds prepared for the Governor's signature have 
 become waste paper, from his refusal to put his name to them. 
 He has determined that they shall be upon parchment, that 
 they shall contain the complete and legal designation of the 
 grantee, be expressed as to the number of acres, &c., in letters 
 instead of figures, and free from those erasures and interline- 
 ations with which they have too generally been disgraced. 
 That General Hunter should make a point of this will not sur- 
 prise you ; the wonder rather is, that such culpable negligence 
 should be tolerated so long. I have already informed you that 
 we had passed a temporary law to authorize the Executive Gov- 
 ernment to take such steps as might be deemed expedient to 
 collect such duties as we were by treaty authorized to levy on 
 articles imported from the United States, and which I presume 
 will be speedily acted upon. We have also passed a law for 
 arranging the representation of the Province more conform- 
 able to existing circumstances, and by which the members of 
 the Assembly are augmented to twenty, and in which it is pro- 
 vided that none but bona fide British subjects shall vote at the 
 ensuing election who have not been four years personally resi- 
 dent in the Province and taken the oath of allegiance, nor at 
 any subsequent election unless they have been seven years pre- 
 viously resident. Some others of less importance have also been 
 agreed on, but General Hunter has thought it necessary to re- 
 serve two of the most consequence for His Majesty's pleasure : 
 one of which defines the different objects to be rated in our 
 County assessments, and fixes their value ; and the other calcu- 
 lated to prevent an effect which certainly was not intended, and 
 which yet must necessarily follow from several persons having 
 been frequently joined as grantees of certain parcels of land in
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 91 
 
 one deed, by which they become joint tenants, and which gives 
 a right to the survivor to take the whole, instead of each hav- 
 ing in severalty their distinct and separate portions, which was 
 evidently the intention of the Crown. The Council and the 
 Assembly have parted on very ill terms with each other, and I 
 was unfortunate enough to differ with the majority of my bre- 
 thren, and to think our conduct towards the House of Assembly 
 neither decent or warrantable. I see that in your Province, 
 though the fund is raised by the Legislature in general, the ap- 
 propriations are annually made by vote of the House of Assem- 
 bly, and paid in consequence of an address from them to the 
 Governor to issue his warrant, &c. Now, this point was given 
 up by our Commons, and a Bill brought in for the appropriations, 
 specifying the salaries of the officers of the two Houses, &c. To 
 this, amendments were carried in our House to strike out £150 
 for printing the Journals of the Assembly ; £4 10s. incurred 
 for printing an Act brought forward in the course of the pre- 
 ceding session, that the public might become acquainted with 
 its purport and tendency ; and £5 odd to the Sergeant-at-Arms 
 for contingencies, under pretence that the particular items of 
 the account had not been submitted to our inspection. It has 
 not, I beUeve, been very usual for a House of Commons to be 
 so treated ; and without entering into the question about our 
 right to control the expenditures of the Assembly in matters 
 particularly relating to their own proceedings, I could not help 
 thinking that in the case before us the attempt to exercise it 
 was neither necessary nor proper. On receiving back the Bill 
 with our amendments, the Commons were all in a flame, and 
 voted that their proceedings relative to it should be expunged 
 from their journals, and we were the next day prorogued ; so 
 that unless healing measures be adopted in our next Parliament,
 
 92 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 we have a comfortable prospect before us. At the hazard, 
 however, of the imputation of sacrificing to popularity, I must 
 say that 1 think our House were the aggressors ; and the best 
 way of supporting our own consequence and privileges is cer- 
 tainly not to encroach on the privileges of the Assembly. I did 
 not think, when I began, that ray letter would have been of its 
 present length, but you will probably have no objections to have 
 some idea of what we have been doing, and I have been as brief 
 as possible. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Richard Cartwright.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTER TO GENERAL HUNTER — FIRST SETTLERS LOYALISTS AND 
 TROOPS — RELATIVES OF LOYALISTS ADMITTED, 1788 — EMIGRANTS 
 INVITED BY GOVERNOR SIMCOE — OBJECTIONS — PROPOSED REMEDY 
 — IMPROPER EMIGRATION. 
 
 To His Excellency General Hunter. 
 
 Kingston, 23rd August, 1799. 
 Sir, — From the conversations with which I have been honoured 
 by your Excellency, I am induced to present you with the fol- 
 lowing sketch of the history and present state of the population 
 of this Province, together with some suggestions respecting the 
 means of its amelioration. Your Excellency is already aware 
 that the settlement of this Province was originally suggested 
 by the propriety and necessity of providing an asylum tor the 
 American Loyalists after the peace of 1783. Those who were 
 already in the Province of Quebec were afterwards joined by a 
 considerable number from New York, who preferred this coun- 
 try to Nova Scotia, and there were further added to them 
 several of the German troops, and some of the disbanded 
 soldiers of the British regiments. The great mass of this 
 population was settled between the Point of Bodet and the 
 head of the Bay of Kenty ; for except the single regiment of 
 Butler's Rangers, and the persons attached to the Indian De- 
 partment, there were none to settle the country in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Niagara and Detroit, and the North sides of Lake 
 Erie and Lake Ontario were left wholly uninhabited. For the
 
 04 LIFE AND LETTERS OP RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 four first years the strictest attention was paid, not to admit 
 any other description of persons ai settlers ; but in the year 
 1788 some little relaxation took place in this particular, and it 
 having been represented to Lord Dorchester that there were 
 'in the States many relations of the Loyalists as well as other 
 persons, who, although they had not joined the Royal standard, 
 were, however, well affected to the British Government, his 
 Lordship was pleased to give it as an instruction to the Boards 
 which he at this time established in each of the four dis- 
 tricts into which the new settlements had been recently di- 
 vided, for the purpose of inspecting the details of the land 
 granting business therein, to examine into the loyalty and good 
 character of such persons as were disposed to become settlers, 
 and if they appeared to be unexceptionable in these respects, 
 to give them a certificate of location for a lot of not more than 
 two hundred acres, under the express condition of becoming 
 bona fide settlers. Thus many useful inhabitants were gradu- 
 ally acquired ; and if now and then any improper character 
 slipped in by surprise, the danger Avas small, as he would be 
 kept in order by a well-disposed neighbourhood. In this train 
 affairs continued till this country was made a separate Province, 
 and General Simcoe sent over to govern it. He appears to 
 have thought that the immediate peopling of the country was 
 an object of sufficient importance to supersede the regulations 
 which had been hitherto observed in distributing the waste 
 lands of the Crown. A proclamation was immediately issued 
 for the purpose of inviting emigrants, and the speculations in 
 lands being about this time at their height in the American 
 States, jobbers flocked in from every quarter, proposing to 
 bring a large number of settlers, and the Loyalists heard, with 
 astonishment and indignation, persons spoken of as proprietors
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 95 
 
 of townsliips whom they had encountered in the field under 
 the banners of the rebellion, or who had been otherwise no- 
 toriously active in promoting the American revolution. For- 
 tunately, however, their diligence or ability to fulfil their pro- 
 mises was not equal to their assurance in making their appli- 
 cations ; and so little was done in the course of several years 
 towards the actual settlement of a large number of townships 
 which had been reserved for these speculators and their associ- 
 ates, that the Government in 1797 considered themselves at 
 liberty to dispose of them otherwise. In the meantime a con- 
 siderable number of people were brought into the country of a 
 very different description from the original settlers, and the 
 functions of the Land Boards having been put an end to in the 
 year 1 794, every application for lands was afterwards made 
 immediately to the Executive Council, who of course ex- 
 ercised a discretion with respect to the character of the appli- 
 cant, and the quantum of the grant that the Boards were not 
 competent to, and it has so happened that a great portion of 
 the population of that part of the Province which extends from 
 the head of the Bay of Kcnty upwards is composed of persons 
 who have evidently no claim to the appellation of Loj'^alists. 
 I will not disguise from your Excellency the opinion which I 
 have always entertained, and on every proper occasion expressed, 
 that this ought never to have been permitted. One necessary 
 consequence has been to dispel the opinion fondly cherished by 
 the Loyalists, that the donation of lands to them in this coun- 
 try was intended as a mark of peculiar favour and a reward 
 for their attachment to their Sovereign ; for how could such an 
 idea remain upon their minds, when they afterwards saw them 
 lavished upon persons who had such pretensions 1 
 
 This, however, is not the greatest evil. In all establish-
 
 !»() LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 mcnts of a political nature, it is of more consequence to lay a 
 solid foundation than to give "them a sudden and premature 
 celebrity. In the founding of a colony, the character of the in- 
 habitants seems to be much more material than their numbers ; 
 these, in the course of time, will be sufficiently multiplied by 
 natural causes, that, if originally faulty, is not so easily changed. 
 It must beadmitted that the Americans understood the mode of 
 agriculture proper for a new country better than any other peo- 
 ple, and being, from necessity, in the habit of providing with 
 their own hands many things which in other countries the 
 artizan is always at hand to supply, they possess resources in 
 themselves which other people are usually strangers to ; and 
 boldly began their operations in a wilderness, when the dreary 
 novelty of the situation would appal an European. But their 
 political notions in general are as exceptionable as theii- intel- 
 ligence and hardihood are deserving of praise. I am not, how- 
 ever, inclined to impute to such of them as emigrate to this 
 Province either hostile or treacherous views ; but it would be 
 an error equally as great to suppose that they are induced by 
 any preference they entertain for our government. They 
 come probably with no other intent than to better their cir- 
 cumstances, by acquiring lands upon easy terms. Now, it is 
 not to be expected that a man will change his political principles 
 or prejudices by crossing a river, or that an oath of allegiance 
 is at once to check the bias of the mind, and prevent the pre- 
 dilection for those maxims and modes of estimating and con- 
 ducting the concerns of the public to which he has been trained, 
 from displaying itself, even without any sinister purpose, 
 whenever an opportunity shall be presented. It would be 
 cruel and invidious to point this to individual instances. But 
 the principle is founded on human nature, and its operation
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 97 
 
 ought to be calculated upon in every political combination. 
 Indeed, the Government, even while throwing wide the door 
 to invite them, seem to have been in some measure aware of 
 this, for an Act was brought forward by the Attorney-General 
 in the House of Assembly, and passed in the year 1795, to pre- 
 vent such persons from being eligible to a seat in that House 
 till after a residence of seven years within the Province — a 
 feeble and temporary palliative to a radical disease which it 
 would have been easier to prevent than it will be to cure. Let 
 us see, however, if any more effectual remedy can be applied. 
 The best that occurs to me will be to settle among the emi- 
 grants of this description men of tried loyalty, and who have 
 been bred up in habits of subordination, in sufficient num- 
 bers to discountenance that affectation of equality so discernible 
 in the manner of tliose who come to us from the American re- 
 public. It would seem that the French will not be able much 
 longer to disturb the repose of the world, and it is probable 
 that a peace which will crown Great Britain with everlasting 
 laurels will also leave her with a number of deserving men to 
 provide for. And here I cannot but regret that the whole of the 
 first range of townships along Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are 
 preoccupied. Those, however, extend only twelve miles to- 
 wards the interior part of the country, and there is beyond 
 them land equally fertile, though not so conveniently situated. 
 To those who can and will cultivate them, they will soon furnish 
 a comfortable subsistence. In the meantime the high price of 
 labour, which is not less than eight or ten dollars per month for 
 common servants, and from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter 
 for carpenters, masons, etc., per day, will soon enable a man who 
 comes without anything but his health, and frugal and industri- 
 ous habits, to acquire a few cattle and other articles necessary
 
 98 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 for improving and stocking a farm. If Government, therefore, 
 gives him the land, and provides a passage, together with a 
 few months' provisions to guard against contingencies, it will 
 not be necessary to go to any further expense. Indeed, there 
 is at this moment in the public stores of the Province a 
 large quantity of various kinds of implements of husbandry and 
 materials for building that cannot be so well disposed of in 
 any other manner as by being distributed to this description 
 of persons. Should they have families, they will thrive the 
 faster, for here, instead of being a burden, a numerous family 
 of children ensures the prosperity of their parents — the boys, 
 by their labour in the field ; the girls, by their assistance in the 
 dairy and the coarser kinds of household manufactures. If 
 there should be a few persons of a liberal education, and manners 
 calculated to make them respectable, part of the reserves of 
 the Crown in some of the townships already occupied could 
 not, perhaps, be better disposed of than by being allotted to 
 them. These reserves are so situated that the occupants would 
 be interspersed in the most desirable manner among the other 
 settlers, and would enable the Government to make a proper 
 selection of Justices of the Peace and other officers necessary 
 for the support of good order in the different parts of the 
 colony. In the distribution of lands not less than two hun- 
 dred acres should be given to every man — a smaller quantity 
 will not be sufficient to make him a good farm — and fifty acres 
 more for each member of his family, if he has one, will not be 
 an improper augmentation. Supposing that a scheme of this 
 kind should be approved of by His Majesty's Ministers, I think 
 the number of persons sent at one time should not be very 
 great, and that measures should be previously concerted with 
 the Colonial Government for their reception and accommoda-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 99 
 
 tion. A very large number might not at once be properly accom- 
 modated or fall into immediate employment, and in that case 
 the time unavoidably taken up in marking out to each their 
 locations would be tedious and discouraging ; and it would be 
 desirable to avoid everything likely to increase that discomfort 
 which, however favourable his future prospects may be, the 
 needy emigrant must inevitably encounter for a while in every 
 strange country. The greatest precaution also should be used 
 to exclude improper persons from the projected emigration. I 
 take the liberty of mentioning this from a notorious instance 
 of the neglect of it which occurred in the year 1792. In that 
 year a considerable number of persons were sent from England, 
 under the denomination of Loyalists, provided in the most 
 ample manner with bedding and clothing, with nails, hinges, 
 &c., for building, and with the necessary implements of husban- 
 dry, and with orders to be victualled for three years from the 
 King's stores. With a few exceptions, one would have supposed 
 that London had been ransacked to collect the idle and the 
 profligate. The donations of the Grovernment were very gene- 
 rally disposed of to procure the means of gratifying their pas- 
 sion for ardent spirits, and when they could no longer resort to 
 the King's stores for provisions, some of them enlisted, others 
 abandoned the Province, or in some instances became a burden 
 upon the inhabitants for support. I am perfectly warranted 
 in asserting that there are not more than a dozen families of 
 them now settled in the Province, and some of these are in no 
 very good repute. Thus has the liberality of the Government 
 been perverted, and a very considerable expense been thrown 
 away, which, api)lied to proper objects, would have placed them 
 in easy circumstances, and added greatly to the flourishing state 
 of the colony.
 
 100 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 I have thus camlidly given your Excellency my sentiments on 
 this subject ; but while I have expressed them without reserve, 
 it has been far from my intention to cast the slightest degree 
 of obloquy upon any of those who may not have viewed it pre- 
 cisely in the same light with myself. 
 
 I am, &c., 
 
 ElCHARD CaRTWRIGHT.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 101 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BEPORT OF COMMISSIONERS — DUTIES ON WINES — PROPORTION SET- 
 TLED ON BASIS OF POPULATION — LETTER TO MR. LEES — DUTIES 
 ON AMERICAN GOODS IMPOSSIBLE — LETTER TO MR. m'GILL — DE- 
 PRECATES PROTECTION. 
 
 REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMISSIONERS FOR 
 SETTLING DUTIES, &C., IN 1795. 
 
 After some preliminary correspondence relative to the place 
 of meeting, the undersigned Commissioners met the Commis- 
 sioners of the Province of Lower Canada at Montreal on the 
 13th day of February, and continued their conferences till the 
 18th day of the same month, when they were terminated by 
 the provisional agreement now before the House, to which we 
 also beg leave to submit the principal motives and arguments 
 by which we were induced to subscribe to this agreement. 
 
 The first object of our appointment being to ascertain our 
 proportion of certain duties collected upon wines in the Lower 
 Province during the years 1793 and 1794, the Commissioners 
 of that Province produced an account, a copy of which is here- 
 to annexed, containing an accurate statement, as far as could 
 be collected, of all the wines sent into this Province, distin- 
 guishing those sent by the Ottawa River from those sent by 
 the River St. Lawrence. We claimed the duty on the whole 
 quantity, insisting that the passing into our geographical limits 
 was the proper criterion for determining our proportion ; and 
 as we could establish custom-houses to enforce our demands,
 
 10-2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 there could be no pretence for disputing them. To this it was 
 answered, that however true these positions might be in gene- 
 ral, and when appHed to sovereign and independent States, yet 
 they would not always hold good between dependencies of the 
 same Empire, especially under the peculiar circumstances and 
 relations of these two Provinces ; that if power and right were 
 to be considered as synonymous, they were not accountable to 
 us for any part of the present duty, or any other that they 
 might be disposed to lay hereafter, but upon this principle 
 each Province must be left to pursue their own plans, regard- 
 less of the other ; that though they had nothing to fear from a 
 contest of this kind, they, however, were disposed to do every- 
 thing that could reasonably be expected to shun it, and were 
 willing to give us as large a share of the revenue arising from 
 the duties upon their imports as we could in justice claim ; that, 
 therefore, they had no objections to our receiving the duty 
 upon every article of this kind transported by the Eiver St. 
 Lawrence, whether for the consumption of the inhabitants or 
 for the Indian trade, but that they could not make us any such 
 allowance upon articles transported by the Ottawa River, 
 which barely passed along the extreme limits of our Province, 
 and through a very small and uninhabited portion of it, to be 
 traded with remote and independent tribes of Indians ; for that 
 this would, in fact, be taxing their capital and industry for our 
 benefit, and deriving a revenue from a source which, but for 
 their exertions, would have no existence. We replied that 
 our negotiation was to be conducted upon principles of equity ; 
 and, though we were not disposed to give up the just claims 
 of our Province, we had no wish to involve the two Provinces 
 in a contest that would be injurious and disreputable to both, 
 by insisting upon demands that were not reasonable ; but that
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 103 
 
 if the distinction of geographical limits was once laid aside, it 
 would not be easy to make any proper discrimination ; that it 
 might, perhaps, as well be said that the trade by the St. Law- 
 rence was carried on by the capital of Lower Canada as the 
 trade by the Ottawa Eiver, and that we could not see that 
 there were just grounds for making the difference they 
 contended for. 
 
 To this they answered that the difference was palpable and 
 striking ; that the trade by the former route not only found 
 convenience and protection from the extensive tract of settled 
 country which it passed through, but was for the most part 
 carried on by the industry and for the benefit of persons resi- 
 dent in the Upper Province ; and whenever the trade by the 
 Ottawa River should derive the same benefit from establish- 
 ments of ours, and be carried on by the agency of persons resi- 
 dent amongst us, they should be very willing to admit our 
 claims to their full extent, but that at present they derived 
 not the smallest protection or advantage from any establish- 
 ment of ours ; that every person engaged in this business was 
 brought from Lower Canada ; and with respect to the particu- 
 lar article in question, that it was not even made an article of 
 trade, but was carried as the private stores of the persons em- 
 ployed in this trade. To put this question in a proper light, 
 they would ask, Was it reasonable, was it just, that the 
 Province of Lower Canada should pay a sum of money to the 
 Province of Upper Canada for liberty to trade with the In- 
 dians in the country about the Hudson's Bay or on the Mis- 
 sissippi 1 The arguments prevailed with us to give up our claim 
 for the present upon articles transported by the Grand 
 River ; and as they forcbore to urge any allowance for leakage 
 or abatement on account of wines sent into this Province on
 
 104 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 which no duty had been paid, we agreed to accept of the sum 
 of £333 4s. 2d. as our proportion of the duty upon wines. 
 The next object was to fix upon a principle for arranging our 
 future proportion of this or such other duties as might be here- 
 after imposed. For this end various expedients were mentioned, 
 such as a declaration upon oath to be made by persons forward- 
 ing goods to Upper Canada, or that every bill of lading should 
 express the quantity of dutiable articles, and duplicates of these 
 be deposited with some person to be appointed for that purpose 
 at Lachine ; but these were found to be liable to too much 
 uncertainty, and could not possibly attach upon that part of 
 the trade carried on by the farmers, or other persons not es- 
 tablished merchants, who resort themselves to Montreal for 
 their supplies. An officer at the Point of Bodet was next 
 proposed ; but besides the expense of such an establishment, 
 which was a very material objection, it was considered as likely 
 to occasion much delay and embarrassment to the trade of the 
 two Provinces, and to become a source of discord between them, 
 for to make it effectual there must be a power to stop, to 
 search and consficate, and besides, by a change in the road in 
 the eastern district which is in contemplation, it would be 
 rendered wholly useless in the Avinter. A certain determinate 
 proportion was then recurred to, and it Avas unanimously agreed 
 that, all circumstances considered, the respective population of 
 the two Provinces would form the most eligible, if not the 
 most equitable principle of agreement, and that this might be 
 considered in the proportion of one to seven. This at once super- 
 sedes the necessity of officers and salaries that must otherwise 
 have absorbed, unavoidably, a large portion of the revenue, and 
 probably have created dissensions between the Provinces. It re- 
 moves at once every clog to their intercourse^ jand takes away
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHAED CARTWRIGHT. 105 
 
 all the grounds of jealousy and distrust that appeared insepar- 
 able from any other plan, and we are persuaded that, on de- 
 liberate examination, it will not be thought that these benefits 
 have been obtained by any material sacrifices on our part. 
 The number of men on the militia returns of the Lower Pro- 
 vince in June, 1792, amounted to 37,446, which, on a very 
 moderate computation, may be considered as augmented to 
 40,000 by the 24th June, 1794, at which time the militia returns 
 of Upper Canada, amounted to 5,350 ; and we must further 
 consider the religious communities, the numerous parochial 
 clergy, and no less numerous practitioners of physic and law in 
 the Lower Province, as still increasing this disproportion, to 
 say nothing of the diminution of our numbers by the re- 
 cruits engaged in the Provincial corps. We are aware that it 
 will be objected that the Indian trade, joined to our other 
 demands, consumes a much larger proportion of Uquor than an 
 eighth. We are, however, induced to believe that the quantity so 
 consumed is overrated in the estimation of the pubUc. Let it be 
 considered that the extensive settlements of Vermont are sup- 
 plied with this article through Montreal, and that the fisheries 
 at Chaleur and Gaspe, and the canoeing and batteauing busi- 
 ness, take oflF a large quantity for the people so employed, over 
 and above their ordinary consumption. Besides, from an attentive 
 examination and inquiry, it appeared to us that the same number 
 of inhabitants of Lower Canada consumed a far more consider- 
 able quantity of spirits, perhaps double, of what would be used by 
 an equal number in this Province. Instead of tea, so generally in 
 use among us, a glass of rum and a crust of bread is the usual 
 breakfast of the French Canadian. The rigour of their climate 
 is alleged as the cause of their having frequent recourse to it at 
 other times in the day, and their numerous holidays lead to
 
 KM! LIKK AND LETTERS OF RICIIARD t'ARTWRIGHT. 
 
 such habits of idleness and dissipation as are favourable to the 
 consumption of rum. And let it also be considered that upon 
 this plan we participate in the articles transported by the Ottawa 
 River. But whatever doubt may exist with respect to this 
 particular article, in every other that is likely to become liable 
 to taxation our consumption will be far less than an eighth ; for 
 besides the articles of this description that will enter into the 
 very considerable trade which the Lower Province carries on 
 Avith Vermont, the luxury of its towns will consume more than, 
 merely in proportion to the number of its inhabitants. While 
 we were thus receiving a proportional share of the duties levied 
 at Quebec, we considered it as no unreasonable concession on 
 our parts to agree to suspend the exercise of our right to lay 
 duties upon any articles coming into this country from Lower 
 Canada, and thus to satisfy their Commissioners that while we 
 were participating in the revenues collected by them, we would 
 not embarrass their trade with any additional impositions. In 
 thus resigning to them for a time the right to impose and levy 
 duties for us, as well as for themselves, we had the best 
 of all securities that this confidence would not be abused — 
 namely, that they could do nothing to injure us that would not in- 
 jure themselves much more. Besides, we were well assured before 
 we consented to this Article, that such a sum was about to be 
 raised as would afford for our part a sufficiency to defray our 
 necessary expenditure. In a business so entirely new and un- 
 tried, we judge it expedient to make the term of our agreement 
 short, as the relative situation between the two Provinces may 
 probably in a little time undergo such a change that regula- 
 tions which would be highly reasonable and expedient might 
 in a few years be inconvenient and improper, and under the 
 expectation that the experience of a couple of years would en-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 107 
 
 able us to rectify whatever may have been mistaken or over- 
 looked in the present agreement. 
 
 All of which is most respectfully submitted, &c. 
 
 John Munro. 
 
 John McDowell. 
 
 Richard Cartwright. 
 To the Hon John Lees. 
 
 Kingston, 10th August, 1798. 
 Dear Sir, — As we shall meet in a few months to discuss 
 the subject of the provisional agreement between our respective 
 Provinces, it may probably facilitate and forward the business 
 to enter into some previous explanation, and indeed it is in- 
 cumbent on us to account for our non-compliance with this 
 agreement. Though individually I cannot send you anything 
 formal or authentic, and my brother Commissioners are at too 
 great a distance to be consulted, yet I have reason to believe 
 that they will not disavow either my principles or facts, and 
 indeed these appear too evident and conchisive to derive addi- 
 tional impdttance from any diplomatic sanction. Being, how- 
 ever, myself a convert (for you know my bias was originally 
 the other way), I may possibly, like other converts, have too 
 much zeal for my new opinions, and shall therefore be glad to 
 receive any remarks or strictures on them from you or any 
 of your colleagues previous to our personal conference. But to 
 proceed to the question : Our rights to a portion of the duties 
 collected at Quebec, under the authority of the Legislature of 
 Lower Canada, arises from the plainest principles of equity, 
 and is not derived from any positive stipulations between the 
 two Provinces. This was so obvious, that the Act for laying 
 such duties was immediately followed by one for appointing 
 Commissioners to treat with Commissioners from this Province,
 
 lOS LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 whose object was not to discuss this right, but to ascertain the 
 proportion of tlie duties justly applicable to each Province. This 
 was in the first instance adjusted agreeably to the respective 
 population of each, it being supposed to imply the same rela- 
 tive trade iu, and consumption of, the dutiable articles, and at 
 the same time occasion was very properly taken to make such 
 regulations as would prevent the Legislatures of the two Pro- 
 vinces from clashing with each other in matters of revenue. 
 Before the expiration of the agreement under the first commis- 
 sion, the treaty with the United States of America took place, 
 which rendered this plain and simple criterion no longer pro- 
 per or just, and it required a more complicated plan to ascer- 
 tain the quantity of the dutiable articles consumed with us or 
 passing up the St. Lawrence for the purposes of trade; but our 
 right to the amount of the duties on such articles, when ascer- 
 tained, hath been unequivocally recognised under the Commis- 
 sioners. It rests, indeed, on the solid foundations' of justice 
 and candour ; and though the amount may be varied, the prin- 
 ciple cannot be affected by the state of our intercc^irse with the 
 United States. This being premised, I am equally ready to 
 declare that it results as an indisputable duty, from our political 
 relation as a dependency of the British Empire, to adopt and 
 enforce, as far as practicable, every regulation of trade that 
 may tend to employ British ships and enrich British subjects, 
 and exclude or discourage the interference of aliens. On this 
 principle, and not on any idea of its being a sim qua non to our 
 receiving a share of the duties, we assented without hesitation 
 to the proposal made by the Commissioners of the Lower Pro- 
 vince, that we should, agreeably to the power given us by the 
 Treaty, impose the same duties on articles coming into this 
 Province from the American States as they would be liable to
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 109 
 
 at the port of Quebec, and take measures for the collecting of 
 them, as far as our local circumstances loould admit. It was sup- 
 posed at this time that the Government of the United States 
 would on their parts have immediately proceeded to avail 
 themselves of the power given them by this Treaty to check our 
 intercourse with their territory, by making establishments at 
 Detroit and elsewhere for collecting the Atlantic duties ; and 
 yet it is evident, from the penning of the article, that difficul- 
 ties respecting its being carried into effect were even then fore- 
 seen, but certainly not to the extent in which they prosecuted 
 themselves when the measure came under the discussiou of the 
 Legislature, and when gentlemen assembled from every part of 
 the Province could point out the facility with which every 
 regulation might be eluded. Indeed, when our geographical 
 situation comes to be attentively considered, and the unlimited 
 participation given to the citizens of America in the use of our 
 portages, and in the navigation of the lakes and rivers which 
 are common boundary between them and us for more than a 
 thousand miles, it is not easy to point out how the collection of 
 duties could be at all enforced ; and it will be readily agreed 
 that it would require a much larger sura than the amount of all 
 our revenues to support the establishments necessary for this 
 purpose, and it would not only be absurd and ridiculous in the 
 extreme to pass a law without providing for the execution of 
 it, but in this case would be a fraud upon the Lower Province, 
 by a compliance merely in words, and not in effect, with the 
 article in question. In a Bill for this purpose which made 
 some progress in our Legislature, about sixteen places were 
 fixed upon for the residence of custom-house officers, and even 
 these were thought too few. Another necessary consequence 
 of such provisions must have been, to subject the trade of
 
 110 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 Lower Canada with this country to all the expense, delay, and 
 embarrassment of custom-house formalities, at every place of 
 lading or unlading, whether in vessels or boats, or in carriages 
 on the portages, in order to ascertain whether they were really 
 what they were declared to be, and not a cloke for dutiable 
 articles brought from the States. The effect of this upon 
 tlie trade will be best understood by the commercial gen- 
 tlemen of Montreal, who are so greatly and justly alarmed at a 
 Bill brought into the Legislative Council of the then Province 
 of Quebec in 1787, entitled " A Bill to explain and amend the 
 Act entitled ' An Act or Ordinance for promoting the inland 
 navigation.' " The declarations, manifests, and entries then 
 contemplated were full as easy and simple as they could be ad- 
 mitted to be in the present case, and they were considered so 
 harassing and vexatious as to call forth the united remon- 
 strance of all the mercantile people concerned in the trade, in 
 consequence of which they were very properly given up. 
 
 These considerations would of themselves, perhaps, be 
 allowed to be sufficient to have made us pause, but they are 
 at present the less necessary to be insisted upon, as, however 
 weighty and important, they were not the predominant ones to 
 induce our Legislature to postpone the ratification of the 
 Provincial agreement, and to request a further conference with 
 the Lower Province on that part of it which respects the im- 
 position of duties on articles coming from the American States. 
 In taking a view of the present state of our commercial inter- 
 course with these States, I believe I am much within the bounds 
 in asserting, that we annually send into their territory in the 
 neighbourhood of Detroit, and towards the Illinois and Mis- 
 sissippi, to the amount of £60,000 sterling in articles of British 
 manufacture ; wine, and the produce of our West Jndian islands j
 
 LIFE AND LETTEES OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. Ill 
 
 all of which, according to the table of American duties, would be 
 liable to the exactions of from 25 to 50 cents per gallon on 
 spirits ; from 20 to 56 cents per gallon on wine; 9 cents per lb* 
 on loaf sugar ; 5 cents per lb. on coffee ; 15 per cent, ad valorem 
 on arms, leather, and several articles; 12|^ per cent, on others ; 
 and not less than 10 per cent, on any. Compared with these, 
 our scale of duties is low indeed, limited at present to a very 
 few articles, and I presume will never be extended to British 
 manufactures, which greatly exceed in value all the other 
 articles which are used in this trade. What we receive from th^ 
 States is really almost nothing, and of that little but a part is 
 liable to pay duty. What is brought in is by adventurers who 
 can only be considered as mere peddlers ; even they seldom ap*" 
 pear a second time, and no established mercantile house 
 among them, great or small, hath yet engaged in the trade of 
 this country. Let the mercantile gentlemen of Montreal say 
 whether, since the Treaty, the quantity of goods, even wines and 
 spirits not excepted, sent to Detroit and Machinac has not 
 rather increased than diminished. The demand for spirits 
 and sugar for our internal consumption, indeed, is probably 
 lessened, as the first has been in a considerable degree supplied 
 by our distillations from grain, and the latter from the domes- 
 tic manufacture of maple sugar. But the imports of all kinds 
 for what may be called our foreign trade, if I may judge by the 
 quantity of goods that pass tliis place, are annually increasing, 
 and as the American settlements along the St. Lawrence and 
 the Lakes increase, will go on augmenting. The natural, I had 
 almost said the only outlet for all the produce of these set- 
 tlements is by the St. Lawrence, whose waters are sufficient to 
 carry the largest rafts of lumber to your sea-ports, and tliis 
 lumber, wliicli is itself a valuable article of commerce, may
 
 112 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTVVRIGHT. 
 
 at the same time be made a vehicle for transporting their 
 wheat, flour, and potash to a market. This by the way of 
 Oswego is utterly impossible, as besides going against the 
 current, no raft could be got through Wood Creek, and there 
 is moreover the land carriage from Schenectady to Albany 
 Now, it is a matter of course to purchase our supplies where 
 we sell our surplus produce, particularly when these supplies 
 are to be had on as good terms and can be more easily trans- 
 ported than from other markets ; and the price of transport 
 from Albany to Oswego is actually double the expense of that 
 from Montreal to Kingston, and consequently to any place not 
 more distant on the American shore. Such are the advantages 
 we possess, which, co-operating with the high duties in the 
 American ports, give us a superiority that wje should be cau- 
 tious of depriving ourselves of. Could the United States 
 enforce the collection of their Atlantic duties on our inland 
 commerce with them, they must necessarily operate as a 
 bounty to take the trade from us, and turn it into their own 
 channels; or at best we should have to pay a pound where we 
 could collect a penny. It is therefore greatly to our own 
 advantage, for the Lower Province in a still greater degree 
 than for us, that the intercourse between us and the States 
 should remain unrestrained. But it will be said that we have 
 no security that the Government of America will allow it to 
 remain so. This is true, and it is so much their interest that 
 it should not, that they have probably been passive on the 
 occasion, only from the difficulty and expense of enforcing 
 revenue laws under the circumstances we are placed in with 
 regard to each other. But as we must lose more than we can 
 well calculate should they make the experiment, it does not 
 seem consistent with common prudence for us, by first adopting
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 113 
 
 the measure, to provoke them to it, for Ave cannot suppose that 
 they would be slow in attempting to retaliate. 
 
 From this view of the subject, which has presented itself in 
 the course of the lengthy and deliberate discussion which it has 
 undergone in our Legislature, and which, though i)erhaps not 
 the most obvious, is the true point in which it ought to be re- 
 garded, the Lower Province will see that it is not because we 
 are unwilling to concur with them in any necessary or useful 
 regulations of trade, or from any partial or selfish motives, that 
 we have not proceeded to confirm in its fullest extent the Pro- 
 vincial agreement entered into in January, 1797, but because 
 our compliance appeared likely to produce the very evils it was 
 intended to guard against, and instead of operating to establish 
 and promote trade in the hands of British subjects, to have a 
 direct tendency to make it of less value to them, and to encou- 
 rage aliens to supjilant them in a very valuable and growing 
 branch of it. Indeed, their very liberal conduct in voting us 
 our proportion of the duties last year, previous to any formal 
 reconsideration of the agreement, leaves us no reason to doubt 
 of their candour in the prosecution of the business, and of their 
 willingness to concur in such modifications as shall appear best 
 calculated to meet the exigencies of the case. For my part, I. 
 am impressed with the fullest conviction that they will depre- 
 cate rather than urge us to begin a war of revenue regulations 
 with the United States, by which they may lose a great deal 
 and can certainly gain very little. 
 
 To this lengthy epistle about matters of public concern, per- 
 mit me to add assurances of my personal regard and esteem. 
 I am, &c., 
 
 Richard Cartwright.
 
 114 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 To J. McGill, Esq. „ oi X T^ TOAi 
 
 ^ Kingston, 31st Dec, 1801. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — I hope your Legislature will not be too 
 much in haste to multiply duties upon imports, for though I 
 do not consider them as any breach of the Treaty with the 
 Americans, to whom they will still leave all their relative ad- 
 vantages, they will bear hard upon this Province, who, from 
 the nature of their returns, which consist chiefly in bulky ar- 
 ticles, can have little direct intercourse with the United States. 
 For my part, I have never had a single article from thence, and 
 the duty on tobacco, as far as I am concerned, may be con- 
 sidered a duty on British manufacture rather than an article 
 of trade with America. I am, however, very ready to aban- 
 don this and tea to the discretion of your Legislature ; but iron 
 and leather are articles of such general and indispensable ne- 
 cessity as should induce the Legislature to give every en- 
 couragement to render them plenty and cheap. Such evidently 
 is the interest of the public, and the manufacture of leather at 
 L' Assumption, and of iron at Bastican and St. Maurice, are 
 certainly not of that importance as to warrant them in levying 
 a contribution of ten per cent, on the consumption of these 
 Provinces for their support, whatever Messrs. Craigie, CoflSn, 
 Bell, and Badgley may say to the contrary. In addition to the 
 articles of the peace which you mention, I understand that Por- 
 tugal, Naples, and Turkey remain as before the war. I should 
 certainly have rejoiced at any further acquisitions that Great 
 Britain had retained, but however highly we may be disposed 
 to rate her strength and resources (and they have in this strug- 
 gle been displayed to an extent that would heretofore have 
 been deemed romantic), on a cool consideration of circum- 
 stances, I think it will be agreed that the present peace has 
 in no degree blasted her laurels. 
 
 R. C.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 115 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SESSION OF 1801 — ELECTION OF SPEAKER — DISPUTED ELECTION — 
 APPROPRIATIONS — BOUNTY ON HEMP — LETTER TO REV. J. 
 STRACHAN — GRANT FOR ROADS — GRANT FOR PURCHASE OF HEMP — 
 ALIEN ACT — DESERTION ACT — LETTER TO CHIEF JUSTICE ALCOCK — 
 CONDUCT OF MR. THORPE — DUTY ON TEA ON HAWKERS — ESTABLISH- 
 MENT OF DISTRICT SCHOOLS — LETTER SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY 
 LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR — MR. THORPE SENT TO SIERRA LEONE — 
 CHARACTER OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF TRANSACTIONS IN FIRST SESSION OF THE 
 THIRD PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT OF UPPER CANADA. 
 
 The election of a Speaker gave rise to considerable intrigue. 
 Some part of the private conduct of D. W. Smith, Esq., which 
 was supposed to have occasioned the fall of the late Attorney- 
 General, and to have produced other breaches in the society 
 at York, was made use of with such success that he who had 
 been unanimously called to the chair on a former occasion, had 
 now the majority of but a single voice. Three members, how- 
 ever, who would have voted for him, did not arrive till the 
 election was over. The session began with a considerable de- 
 gree of warmth in the House of Assembly respecting the ap- 
 pointment of a new Clerk to that House. On some contro- 
 versy between the emigrant French general, Count de Puisaye 
 and Mr. Angus McDonell, which had been examined before a 
 Committee of Council in the month of August, the Committee, 
 in their report to the Governor, had declared Mr, Mc-
 
 IIC) LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 Ponell's conduct to have been such as to render him unworthy 
 of any office under the Government. The Governor hereupon 
 signified to Mr. McDonell tliat he was no longer Clerk to the 
 House of Assembly, and appointed a Mr. McLean in his stead. 
 At the meeting of the Assembly both Clerks took their seats at 
 the table, Mr. McLean by virtue of his recent commission 
 from the Governor, which was the only notice the House had 
 of his appointment, and Mr. McDonell under his old commis- 
 sion, which he contended could not be set aside without the 
 consent of the House. In these pretensions he was warmly 
 supported by several members, and it was not till after some 
 days spent in the controversy that the point was given up : yet 
 the House did not allow Mr. McDonell to i-etire without pass- 
 ing a vote which expressed their approbation of his con- 
 duct, and thanked him for his diligence in the discharge of 
 the duties of the office he had filled. That the appointment 
 rests in the Governor is without dispute ; yet, in filling it, some 
 regard should be had to the body under which it is to be ex- 
 ercised, and it is probable that had the Governor signified by 
 a message to the House that he could not with propriety allow 
 Mr. McDonell to hold his office, and had therefore appointed 
 another, which was an act of civility they had a right to ex- 
 pect, in all probability there would have been an immediate 
 and silent acquiescence. The House of Assembly were next 
 occupied in settling the mode of proceeding on a petition of 
 the inhabitants of York and Northumberland respecting a dis- 
 puted election, and examining into the merits of the petition. 
 The result was that Mr. Justice Alcock, the sitting member, 
 was declared not duly elected, and the election itself void. It 
 appeared in evidence that very unwarrantable steps had been 
 taken by the friends of Mr. Alcock to procure him to be re-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 117 
 
 turned. A large majority of the electors were evidently 
 against him ; but while those on his side were giving him votes, 
 a drunken man of the opposite party was ordered to be taken 
 into the custody of a constable for some noisy behaviour which, 
 on such an occasion, might very well have been passed over. 
 This act of authority gave such ofience to some of the bystand- 
 ers that they interposed themselves between him and the officer 
 after he had been arrested, by which means the man made 
 his escape in the crowd. While this was doing, two or three 
 people were hastily called up to vote for Mr. Alcock, which gave 
 him a small majority ; and hereupon a Mr. Weeks, an Irish 
 lawyer, the Judge's most active agent, cried out, " A riot ! a 
 riot ! " and prevailed with the returning officer to close the poll. 
 During the whole of this investigation, Mr. Alcock behaved in 
 a most extraordinary manner, being constantly present in the 
 House and taking notes, but pertinaciously declining to reply 
 to the attorney for the petitioners, or to enter at all upon a 
 vindication of his election. Before the House had come to a 
 determination, he handed to some of the members, while the 
 House was sitting, a paper, drawn up by his friend the Attor- 
 ney-General, stating doubts of the competency of the House to 
 decide the case, as no law had been enacted in the Province re- 
 lative to this subject, and the law that regulated such pro- 
 ceedings in England being wholly inapplicable here from the 
 paucity of members, and concluding with the insinuation that 
 the Governor might very probably not agree to the issuing 
 another writ. When all the evidence had been gone through, 
 and the result was to be determined upon, Mr. Alcock was, at 
 the request of the House, desired by the Speaker to withdraw ; 
 but he replied that " he was still a member of that House, 
 and would not withdraw unless they threw him out nec/c ami
 
 lis LIFT, AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 heels," ami he actually kept his seat while the resolutions re- 
 specting himself were determining. Such conduct requires no 
 comment. It is allowed that some of the members had, indi- 
 vidually, little claim to respectability, and that some others 
 held doctrines respecting the extent of their authority that no 
 reasonable man would subscribe to ; yet, as a public body, they 
 have, unquestionably, a claim to at least the appearance of re- 
 spect, and when this is so glaringly withheld by persons high 
 in office, it tends evidently to excite opposition against the 
 Government itself, and to raise an idea that they, wish to con- 
 trol, in an authoritative manner, the freedom of their delibera- 
 tions. It seems hardly proper for a Judge of the Court of 
 King's Bench to become a candidate for a seat in a popular 
 Assembly. The usual mode of canvassing for such a situation 
 but little accords \vith the gravity and dignity expected in such 
 a character, and it might be feared that in the administration 
 of criminal law he would not be altogether unbaissed should 
 any of his opponents be convicted before him in cases where 
 the penalty is undefined and left to the discretion of the 
 Judge. But there seemed to be a peculiar degree of indecorum 
 in a person of this description taking his seat in the House of 
 Assembly under a return which had been obtained by the most 
 glaring violation of law. While these transactions were go- 
 ing on in the House of Assembly, some attempts were made 
 there to repeal so much of an Act passed in the 4th session of 
 the second Provincial Parliament, entitled "An Act for the more 
 equal representation of the Commons of the Province in Par- 
 liament, and for the better defining the qualification of elec- 
 tors," as made a previous residence of seven years in the 
 Province a necessary qualification for an elector, and also to 
 abolish the mode of summary convictions before the magistrates
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 119 
 
 for selling of spirits, &c., without license, under pretence of 
 its being a dangerous encroachment on the privilege of 
 trial by jury ; but these attempts proved ineffectual, and 
 were rejected by a considerable majority of the House. The 
 measure that was first passed in that House, and brought up 
 to the Council in the shape of a Bill, was for paying the wages 
 of the members of the Assembly out of the Provincial fund ; 
 and because that Bill was rejected by the Council, they were 
 so highly offended that some of the most violent had nearly 
 prevailed upon the majority of the House to do no more busi- 
 ness ; and although they did not succeed to the extent of their 
 wishes, yet they prevailed so far as to procure their concur- 
 rence to an attempt to force the Council to a compliance with 
 this selfish measure, by tacking it to the Bill for ratifying the 
 provisional agreement with Lower Canada relating to duties, 
 &c. But this attempt being unanimously repulsed by that 
 body with proper steadiness, though without asperity, as cal- 
 culated to infringe the constitutional freedom of their delibera- 
 tions, another fit of ill-humour succeeded ; and it was not with- 
 out allowing some time for this to subside, and using a consi- 
 derable degree of management, that a majority of three could 
 be procured to prevent the public business from being wholly 
 impeded. With this feeble majority the provisional agreement 
 with the Lower Province was carried through, as well as the 
 necessary measures consequent thereto of establishing ports of 
 entry and proper officers for collecting, on articles coming into 
 this Province from the United States, the same duties that are 
 payable at Quebec. The business of appropriating the money 
 in the hands of the Receiver-General, arising from various 
 funds, which had till General Hunter's administration been 
 done simply by a vote of the House of Assembly, was also put
 
 120 LIFK AND LETTERS OF RICHARD OARTWRIGHT. 
 
 upon :i proper footing by a Bill specifying the different items 
 of expenditure. And though these articles were again inserted 
 which had been struck out by the Council in the last session 
 of tlie preceding Parliament as amendments, and which occa- 
 sioned the different branches of the Legislature to separate in 
 very ill humour, that body had recovered sufficient temper 
 and moderation to give them no opposition on the present oc- 
 casion. The reasons which induced the Legislative Council 
 not to accede to the \vishes of the Assembly in changing the 
 mode of paying their allowance of 10s. per diem, which they 
 now receive by a direct assessment on their constituents, to a 
 charge on the general revenue, were that this sum, if taken 
 from the Provincial fund, would require to be replaced by 
 some other tax, at which the public, as is generally the case - 
 on the imposition of any new tax, would be dissatisfied and 
 pay it with reluctance ; whereas they were reconciled by long 
 usage to the one at present applied to this purpose. Besides, 
 it appeared highly probable that could the members of the 
 Assembly take their allowance immediately from the Provin- 
 cial treasury, they might be less inclined to dispatch than to 
 protract business ; the temptation to which was much weaker 
 at present, as their payment was attended with some delay, 
 and being immediately felt by their constituents, they would 
 be cautious of any unnecessary augmentation. The plan of 
 allowing wages to any branch of the Legislature seems to be 
 reprehensible under any form. The honour of such a situation 
 ought to be considered as a sufficient compensation, and per- 
 sons who, from circumstances of fortune and education, can be 
 influenced by such motives, are likely to discharge their duty 
 better than the needy and the ignorant, with whom, perhaps, 
 the allowance is the principal object, and who are often the
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 121 
 
 favourites of a majority of the electors, thougli geuei'ally inca- 
 pable of understanding the tendency of public measures, and 
 liable consequently to be influenced, by artful management, to 
 support, alike such as may be either factious or oppressive. 
 The only remedy left for this evil is, that as the electors now 
 feel immediately the burden of paying their representatives, 
 they may be induced to prefer those who would decline any 
 pecuniary compensation. The Council would therefore have 
 ill discharged their duty were they to have given up a point 
 so beneficial in its tendency, and which would have been lost 
 for ever by yielding to the wishes of the Assemby, which pro- 
 ceeded evidently from motives of mere personal advantage to 
 the individuals who composed it. During these proceedings a 
 new writ was issued for the Counties of York and Northum- 
 berland, and Mr. Angus McDonell, the late Clerk of the House 
 of Assembly, was elected by a large majority, and took his 
 seat as a member. Mr. Alcock declined becoming a candidate 
 on this occasion, yet the people, whose zeal was occasionally 
 heightened by the effect of ardent spirits during this exercise 
 of their sovereign authority, showed a strong disposition at 
 intervals to insult him and his friends. 
 
 Two days before the time at which it was generally under- 
 stood that the business of the session was to close, a Bill passed 
 the Assembly to encourage the growth of hemp by a bounty, 
 but so loosely drawn up as to make it necessary for the Council 
 to new-model it entirely. On returning it thus altered to the 
 Assembly, it was rejected under the pretence of its being a 
 Money Bill, in which it was trenching upon their privileges for 
 the Council to make alterations, and they passed a vote au- 
 thorizing the Li(!Utenant-Governor to expend several hundred 
 pounds iu bounties, and for the purchase of seed, at his discre-
 
 122 LIFE AND LETTEES OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 tion. Though the present Governor had hitherto constantly 
 refused to advance money upon a vote of the House, and in- 
 sisted that this could only be done by a legislative act, yet in 
 this instance he seemed to have abandoned his own principles; 
 for under sanction of this vittc he appointed, by proclamation, 
 commissioners to dispose of this money for the purpose therein 
 expressed. Influenced by a favourite measure that had also 
 been pressed upon him by His Majesty's Ministers, he perhaps 
 overlooked the inconsistency of his conduct, and the improper 
 weight he was giving to the democratic branch, by now coun- 
 tenancing their former 2Dretensions, and thus encouraging them 
 again to regard the Council, in money matters, as mere cyphers. 
 Probably he might have thought himself at liberty to act in 
 this manner from a knowledge that the Council were full as 
 much disposed as the Assembly to promote the object in view. 
 But in matters of legislation and government nothing should 
 be assumed as the will and intention of any public body, in the 
 exercise of such functions, that is not sanctioned by its formal 
 and official act. It was the general wish of the Legislature to 
 make the Court of King's Bench more easily accessible, and 
 an Act was passed to allow all proceedings preparatory to the 
 trial, and previous to judgment and execution, to be transacted 
 in the office of the Clerk of the Crown, which was erected in 
 each District of the Province. Another Act on the subject of 
 holding to bail also passed both Houses. 
 
 As it was the intention of the Legislature not to allow of 
 imprisonment for debt except in cases of meditated fraud by 
 leaving the Province, which the plaintiff" was to avow his sus- 
 picion of upon oath, they considered that such fraud should be 
 a sufficient ground for arrest in all cases, however small the 
 amount, and that to carry this into effect it was necessary to
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 123 
 
 authorize the Justices of the Peace, upou oath made before 
 them of suspicion of such meditated fraud, to grant a warrant 
 for the temporary detention of the party till the regular pro- 
 cess of the Clerk's office could be obtained, and detention in 
 no case to exceed eight days. This last provision was, how- 
 ever, so carelessly worded, that upon strict construction it was 
 considered to extend only to cases where a suit had been pre- 
 viously commenced, and the former, by a very arbitrary con- 
 struction of the Court of King's Bench, in the face as well of 
 the spirit as the letter of the Act, was made to extend only 
 to sums above £10 sterling. To explain these, and to prevent 
 all possibility of misconstruction for the future, was the sole 
 purport of the Act in question ; but though brought into the 
 House of Assembly by the Solicitor-General, and supported 
 and amended in the Council by the Chief Justice, the Gover- 
 nor refused his assent to it. It was but too evident that he 
 was influenced in this, as well as in some other measures, by 
 Mr. Justice Alcock, seconded by the Attorney-General, his 
 most obsequious friend ; and it was equally notorious that Mr. 
 Alcock was so much at enmity with the Chief Justice that the 
 support of any measure by the latter was sufficient to draw 
 upon it the hostility of the former, who was, besides, deter- 
 mined to resist every departure from the established rules of 
 English practice. It seems not very consistent with the sound 
 understanding usually displayed by our Governor to allow any 
 man to have so nmch his ear as to lead him to oppose the 
 wishes of the other branches of the Legislature in measures 
 from which no ill consequences could possibly follow, and 
 which were merely explanatory of a former law ; and it may 
 be regarded as a singularity that a man Ijied to the profession 
 of a soldier should appear to have so much reverence for the
 
 124 I.IFK AND LliTTKUS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 intricacies of legal chicanery. A Bill was carried through the 
 House of Assembly to prevent lands from being taken in exe- 
 cution, and declaring that they should be no otherwise liable for 
 debt than they were in England. This Bill was rejected by 
 the Council, who, in consequence thereof, passed another, which 
 was concurred in by the Assembly, " to regulate the sale of 
 lands taken in execution," wherein it was directed that per- 
 sonal chattels should be sold in the first instance, and resort 
 had to the land only in cases where these were insufficient for 
 the discharge of the debt, and that they should in no case be 
 sold till a year after they had been seized and advertised by 
 the Sheriff. This Bill was reserved by the Governor for His 
 Majesty's pleasure, merely because it appeared, as he expressed 
 himself in private conversation, " to confirm by a side wind 
 the decision of the Court of King's Bench." The decision here 
 referred to was, that lauds in this Province were liable to be 
 seized and sold in execution for debt, in which Mr, Alcock had 
 dissented from the other two judges, and which it was under- 
 stood would be put in train for being appealed to the King in 
 Council for their final determination. The promoters of the 
 Bill, however, had no such view, nor could the Bill in candour 
 be so considered ; it contained no declaratory clause upon the 
 subject, but left the question where it found it, and was merely 
 calculated to remedy the inconvenience complained of by a ma- 
 jority of the Assembly, that lands might be seized and sold 
 with such a rapidity as to afford little hope of its yielding more 
 than a small part of its value. 
 
 Whatever may be the final determination of this question, 
 it appears but just that a man's property of every description 
 should be liable to the payment of his debts. It is not only 
 more consonant to our notions of equity, but in my opinion
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 125 
 
 more agreeable to sound policy, than to shut him up in a prison, 
 by which his labour is lost to society, and his family often re- 
 duced to the utmost distress ; and as this imprisonment has no 
 other limitation than the will of the creditor, or an occasional 
 Insolvent Act, he is frequently made to suffer for his, in- 
 discretion, or perhaps misfortune, a severer punishment than 
 the law inflicts on many crimes. In other instances, again, the 
 profligate wretch lives in luxury within the limits of his con- 
 finement, while the law has placed his property out of the reach 
 of his creditors. The mode pointed out in England of levying 
 a third part of the yearly value of an estate cannot apply here, 
 where lands are yet but in the first stage of cultivation, and 
 where all being proprietors, it would not, at all events, be easy 
 to find lessees for an improved farm. Yet even in England real 
 property is sold in cases of bankruptcy, and recently to satisfy 
 debts due to Government ; and why the principle of the bank- 
 ruptcy laws should not in this particular be applied to all 
 other cases, no reason could probably be assigned that would 
 appear valid to those who have not been in the habit of re- 
 specting precedent more than justice. A Bill brought in by 
 the Chief Justice for enabling married women to alienate landed 
 property without levying a fine, also passed both Houses ; this, 
 while it retained the practice of private examination, to prevent 
 a surprise upon the party and to make her sensible of the sacri- 
 fice she was about to make, retrenched such forms as tended 
 only to create expense, and which, under the peculiar situation 
 of this Province, would be productive of great embarrassment. 
 This Bill, however, was reserved for His Majesty's ph^asuri', 
 and, with others formerly sent home under the same circum- 
 stances, will probably be heard of no more. His Majesty's 
 Ministers have matters of more importance to attend to than
 
 120 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 investigate nicely those comparatively so minute, and are, be- 
 sides, not likely to be in haste to sanction measures the pro- 
 priety of which seemed to be doubtful to their agent upon the 
 spot, to whose control they were constitutionally committed. 
 A Bill to define what should be deemed and taken to be pub- 
 lic roads throughout this Province was rejected by the Gover- 
 nor, it haAang been omitted therein expressly to except the 
 rights of the Crown. These were the only things worthy of 
 notice that passed during this session, which began on the 
 28th of May and ended the 9th day of July, 1801. In the 
 meantime very rapid progress was making in passing the 
 patents for lands which had hitherto been very much neglected, 
 to the great disgust of the people. This neglect was in part 
 owing to the subject itself, which, from the lapse of time, was 
 involved in some difficulty ; but much more to the indolence, 
 ignorance and perverseness of the officers employed in the 
 principal departments through which they must pass, of whom 
 scarcely one seemed to possess either talents or inclination for 
 business except the Surveyor-General, whose diligence was 
 always exemplary, and to whose methodical correctness the 
 Province is much indebted. The zeal of the Governor in 
 urging this business was well seconded by the Attorney-Gene- 
 ral, who seems to be as diligent and regular as his predecessor 
 was indolent and incorrect. 
 
 To the Rev. J. Strachan. 
 
 March 17th, 1804. 
 Dear Sir, — The late session of our Legislature will, I think, 
 be found to have been useful to the public, and, consequently, 
 honourable to the members. They have passed an Act for ap- 
 propriating £1,000 towards opening and repairing the pubUc
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 127 
 
 roads. As it was foreseen that, from local attachments and 
 partialities, it would be difficult for the members of the Coun- 
 cil and Assembly to agree in opinion respecting the distribution 
 of this sum, in order to avoid this source of discord, which 
 might probably have proved fatal to the measure, it was pru- 
 dently left with the Governor and Executive Council to appoint 
 Commissioners to lay out the money in such places as they 
 should deem most generally useful. By another Act, the sum 
 of £400 has been apjjropriated annually towards the erecting 
 of public buildings in the town of York, for the accommodation 
 of the Legislative Council and House of Assembly, the Execu- 
 tive Council, the Courts of Justice, and the several public 
 offices of the Province. By another Act, a sum (about £190) 
 has been appropriated for purchasing a set of the Statutes of the 
 British Parliament for each of the several districts of the Pro- 
 vince. Under a former Act the sum of £300 had been annually 
 appropriated for printing the laws and journals, and the latter, 
 with the merits of which you are acquainted, have actually cost 
 the Province £800. The House of Assembly, sensible at last 
 of this waste of public money, passed a Bill for applying on the 
 present occasion this sum of £300 for printing a complete edi- 
 tion of all the Provincial Statutes, including those of the pre- 
 sent session, to be distributed for the information of the public, 
 and reserving the sum of £80 for the printing of the laws in 
 future, and left the remaining £220 to be disposed of hereafter 
 as the Legislature should think proper. From such a Bill you 
 will naturally conclude that the other branches of the Legisla- 
 ture would not withhold their assent, and I think it likely that 
 better use will hereafter be made of the money than publishing 
 the Journals of the Assembly, which are about as useful and 
 entertaining as the log-book of a ship. It was also thought ex-
 
 128 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICITARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 pedicnt to hold out some further encouragement for tlie culti- 
 vation of hemp, and it was agreed on all hands that the most 
 successful expedient for this purpose would be to put it in the 
 power of the cultivator to obtain on the spot a reasonable 
 price in ready money. This the scarcity of mercantile capital 
 in the country left no room to expect without legislative aid. 
 An Act was therefore passed to authorize the Governor to ap- 
 ply the sum of £1,000, together with the further sum of about 
 £400 remaining of a foi-mer grant, for paying a bounty on the 
 growth and exportation of hemp, to purchase hemp at £40 per 
 ton. This money is to be laid out by Commissioners to be 
 appointed in diii'ereut parts of the Province, and it is supposed 
 will be fully equal to the purchase of all the hemp that has 
 been raised. This is to be shipped under the direction of the 
 Commissioners, and the proceeds returned to the Provincial 
 Treasury, so that the Province is not likely to lose by the mea- 
 sure even in a pecuniary point of view. In the meantime, the 
 cultivation of the. article will be more generally attended to, 
 and the Government at home, it is hoped, will take the hint 
 and adopt some similar plan for purchasing the hemp of the 
 country, without which the business will infallibly languish ; 
 though under such an arrangement it would probably be pushed 
 to considerable extent, and be of much benefit to the Province? 
 particularly to the western parts of it, where the soil and 
 climate appear best adapted to the growth of the article, and 
 the remote situation of which must prevent them from export- 
 ing wheat, flour, &c. Government, through the medium of 
 their Commissary and Naval Departments, might purchase and 
 send it to England without any, or at very little, extra expense- 
 The renewal of the war with France having been mentioned in 
 the Governor's speech, and the necessity thence inferred of
 
 LIFE AND LETTEES OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 129 
 
 guarding the internal tranquillity of the Province against the 
 insidious attempts of secret enemies, the subject was consid- 
 ered with the attention that so weighty a matter deserved. In 
 the course of the investigation it was understood that the Ex- 
 ecutive Government already possessed sufficient power of 
 coercion and restraint over alien enemies ; but it appeared likely 
 that other instruments might be employed, and some upon 
 whom it would be difficult to fix the proposed discriminating 
 term of alien. It was agreed also, that every political society 
 ought to possess the power of excluding from its limits all 
 strangers who evinced a disposition to excite dissensions and 
 inflame discontents among its respective orders ; oi', in other 
 words, to disturb the established government thereof; and on 
 this principle a law was framed, authorizing persons in certain 
 public situations — namely, the Governor, members of the Legis 
 lative and Executive Council, Judges of the Court of King's 
 Bench, and others, to be commissioned by the Governor — 
 on complaint being made against any person not a stated 
 resident in the Province- (that is, who had not been an inhabi- 
 tant for six months before, and had not taken the oath of 
 allegiance), to call such person before them and require him 
 to give an account of himself; and if he appeared to have been 
 guilty of improper conduct in this respect, or to have given just 
 cause of suspicion of having sinister views of this kind, to 
 order him out of the Province, or to make him find sureties 
 for his good behaviour while remaining therein, and the neces- 
 sary provisions were added for enforcing obedience to such 
 orders. An Act has also passed for the more exemplary 
 punishment of persons enticing soldiers to desert, and of those 
 who harbour or conceal deserters. The peculiar circumstances 
 of this country required a law of this kind, and it docs little
 
 130 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 more than authorize the detention of persons charged with 
 such offences, by a warrant from a magistrate, till they can be 
 tried before the Judge of Assize or Court of King's Bench, and 
 if found guilty by a jury, they are to suffer six months' im- 
 prisonment, and in very flagrant cases a fine of £40 besides, 
 and in case of inability to discharge the fine, public whipping. 
 This punishment is little different from what is already inflicted 
 by the English statute law ; and the principal advantage of the 
 Provincial law is, that it no longer leaves a doubt whether the 
 provisions of the English law extended to this Province, and 
 takes away the hope of escape from the offender, who might 
 otherwise brave the law, and till the very moment of conviction 
 withdraw beyond its reach. These are the matters of chief 
 importance upon which the Legislature were employed, and it 
 will be readily granted that they must have been tolerably 
 diligent to have brought them to a close in a short session of 
 four or five weeks. It is hardly necessary to take notice of Mr. 
 Washburn's extravagant project for making Quebec a free port, 
 or the zealous attempt of Mr. Rogers and a few others, in 
 order probably to secure their re-election, to repeal the law 
 which makes a residence of seven years in the Province neces- 
 sary, before any person who does not come immediately from 
 some other part of His Majesty's dominions can legally vote 
 for a member of the House of Assembly, as they were both re- 
 jected in the Assembly itself. The Legislature were convened 
 on the 1st of February, but there was not a quorum of the 
 Assembly till the 8th ; they were prorogued on the 9th of 
 March. This will be their last session, as there'must be a new 
 election in July next, the present members of the House of 
 Assembly having there continued for four years. 
 
 R. C.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 131 
 
 To the Hon. Chief Justice Alcock. 
 
 Kingston, 14th March, 1807. 
 Dear Sir, — Our Session of Parliament hath terminated in 
 a manner the most desirable to the friends of good order, and 
 the most mortifying to Mr. Thorpe, who has been completely 
 foiled in his attempts to do mischief The House of Assembly, 
 by their late conduct, have made amends for the improprieties 
 of the preceding session. Mr. Thorpe endeavoured to per- 
 suade them that the duties levied under Acts of the British 
 Parliament were at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature, 
 and that this Province was entitled to a proportion of such of 
 those duties as were received at the port of Quebec, in the 
 same manner as it was to a proportion of those levied under 
 the authority of the Legislature of Lower Canada ; and they 
 were suflSciently inclined to listen to a doctrine which would 
 place a large additional sum of money at their disposal. But 
 after attentively considering the 31st of the King, they, to a 
 man, saw the absurdity of such a pretension, and gave up the 
 point. Driven from this broad ground, he then insisted that 
 the duties imposed by the 1 4th of the King, on licenses for re-- 
 tailing spirits, were certainly at their disposal, and had actual- 
 ly been appropriated by a Provincial statute passed in the 33rd 
 year of His Majesty's reign ; but it was contended that the 
 words of this statute would not bear the construction which 
 the Judge laboured to give it, and that the constant usage ever 
 since showed that in passing that law the Legislature had no 
 such object in contemplation ; or, granting him both these 
 points, it was shown that by the 31st of the King the Provin- 
 cial Legislature had not the power, if they had the intention, 
 to do so. He was here again left alone;, notwithstanding his 
 pathetic exclamation, that " if they gave up this they gave up
 
 V^'2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 their freedom," and liis almost treasonable allusions to the 
 American revolution, produced, as he said, by parliamentary 
 taxation. Tlie only one of his factious measures on which 
 there was a close division was a motion for an address respect- 
 ing the U. E. Loyalists and military claimants, couched in in- 
 sidious and inflammatory language, and which, being on a popu- 
 lar subject, he prevailed on Nelles, Washburn, Howard, Dor- 
 land, and a few others of equal capacity to support, and his 
 motion was negatived by a majority of one only. On a question 
 respecting the appointment of trustees to schools, he declaimed 
 most vehemently against their being made Government jobs, 
 and insisted that as five was to be the number, the House of 
 Assembly should appoint three and the Legislative Council 
 two ; but here he had only Mr. Clinch and Mr. Rogers on his 
 side. You know the clamour raised by Mr. Weeks about a 
 sum of money charged, very improperly we must allow, against 
 the Pro\dncial Fund, but on the order of General Hunter, without 
 the concurrence of the other branches of the Legislature. This 
 the Governor ordered to be replaced, and mentioned it in his 
 speech. The House of Assembly, to show that it was not the 
 money, but the principle, they had been contending for, on the 
 7th inst., passed a resolution to give back the money, and pre- 
 sented a handsome address to the Governor, expressing them- 
 selves satisfied that it had been expended for the benefit of the 
 Province. On this occasion Mr. Thorpe was almost furious ; 
 he accused them of sacrificing their freedom, giving up their 
 constitution, &c. But in vain he declaimed and raved; every- 
 body but himself declared in favour of the resolution and ad- 
 dress. It is impossible for me to speak of this man's conduct 
 without indignation and contempt ; but our friend the Chief 
 Justice has so much of the milk of human kindness in his dis-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 133 
 
 position, that neither the personal indignities which he has re- 
 ceiA'ed from Mr. Thorpe and his family, nor his political con- 
 duct, have been sufficient to rouse him into anything like hos- 
 tility. Indeed, his tameness and condescension with respect 
 to him are almost criminal in a person in his situation, besides 
 being derogatory to his dignity. He endeavours, too, to per- 
 suade the Governor that as long as ]VIi\ Thorpe does not act 
 corruptly as a Judge, the other parts of his conduct are not 
 sufficient grounds for suspending him. I have strenuously 
 combated this doctrine, and insisted that he ought to have 
 been suspended the moment his answer to the London address 
 appeared ; but as that was not done, that his conduct in the 
 House of Assembly would justly warrant this step as soon as 
 the Legislature should be prorogued. The Governor, how- 
 ever, seems inclined to wait till he hears from home, in the 
 hope that he will be recalled, as he wishes, in common Avith 
 every good subject, that the Province should be rid of him ; 
 and Mr. Thorpe, it seems, has expressed himself as if he were 
 indifferent about holding his situation as a Judge, alleging that 
 he could make more by practising as a lawyer in this country. 
 You see that I write you with the utmost freedom ; but I 
 should not, perhaps, have entered so minutely into all these 
 matters had not the Governor requested nic to give you a par. 
 ticular account of our transactions, as he has not leisure to 
 write himself I left York on the 8th, and the Legislature was 
 to be prorogued on the 10th. The business of the session was 
 considered as finished when I came away. We have passed a 
 law imposing the additional duties on teas, &c., laid by the 
 Legislature of Lower Canada two years ago, for the purpose of 
 building their gaols, solely, however, on the principle of expe- 
 diency, and from a wish to preserve a good understanding be-
 
 134 LIFE AND L1:TTP:RS of RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 tween the two Provinces, aud in full confidence that the duties 
 upon such of these articles as have passed Coteau du Lac since 
 the operation of the above-mentioned law will be accounted 
 for to this Province. If it be said that this ought not to be 
 done, except from the time in which we co-operated in this 
 measure, 1 consider it in the first place as a matter of right, and 
 independent of any stipulation, that we are entitled to a draw- 
 back on everything consumed within the Province ; and, at all 
 events, we could not, without degrading ourselves, take up the 
 measure till it had been formally announced by your Govern- 
 ment to ours, which it never was till late in the last year. We 
 have also passed a law imposing a duty on licenses to hawkers, 
 peddlers, etc., and one for establishing a school in every dis- 
 trict which gives £100 per annum to the master of each such 
 school, who is to be selected by trustees nominated by the 
 Lieut.-Governor, with a power in the latter to approve or re- 
 ject the person they recommend. It expires in four years if 
 not renewed, and this circumstance will probably very much 
 lessen its good effects. These, and the law which modifies and 
 renews our laws for imposing and levying rates and assess- 
 ments in each district, are the only ones of material import- 
 ance that have been passed, A Bill was brought in by Mr. 
 Sherwood, to repeal the law for establishing courts of jus- 
 tice and regulating their proceedings, and to introduce a new 
 system in its stead. That you may have a perfect idea of his 
 plan, I enclose you a copy of the Bill, which has been printed, 
 and which, by common consent, is to lie over till the next ses- 
 sion. That our present system is not well adapted to the situ- 
 ation of the Province, we all feel ; but a single Judge invested 
 with all the powers of the Court of King's Bench, Common 
 Pleas and Exchequer, would be a bold innovation, and there
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CAHTWRIGHT. 135 
 
 are other parts of the scheme that I have very strong objec- 
 tions to. If you could hud leisure to communicate to me your 
 opinion upon it, I should esteem it a particular favour. I be- 
 lieve the Legislature would be very ready to supply the ex- 
 pense of any establishment that might be necessary to make 
 our judicial system more applicable to our geographical situa- 
 tion. I fear I have trespassed upon your patience, but I am 
 disposed to consider you as still interested in what is passing 
 amongst us, and, on that account, anxious that you should not 
 be informed by halves. 
 
 The following letter may be supposed to have been written 
 by the Lieutenant-Governor immediately after the prorogation 
 of the Legislature iu March, 1809 : — 
 
 The removal of Mr. Thorpe has unquestionably relieved the 
 Government of the Province from an active and indefatigable 
 instrument of mischief; yet his friends here boast of his 
 appointment at .Sierra Leone as an unequivocal proof of the 
 approbation of his conduct by His Majesty's Ministers ; and 
 this view of the subject is industriously obtruded upon the 
 public, through the press of Mr. W^ilcox, his bosom, friend and 
 most zealous partizan. The eftects of his residence in this Pro- 
 vince, however, will long be felt ; for although we no longer 
 hear the Government abused from the Bench by one of 
 His Majesty's Judges, yet his example has given a degree of 
 audacity to tlie factious that they would otherwise never have 
 assumed. One of the most prominent characters among these 
 is the before mentioned Mr. Wilcox, the printer, who, although 
 once imprisoned by the House of Assembly for a libel on the 
 majority of that House, and prosecuted, by the advice of the 
 Attorney-General, for a most impudent libel on myself, still 
 persists in attempting, by the grossest misrepresentations, to
 
 13() J.IFE AND LKITERS <>F UIC'HARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 lessen the confidence of the people in the Government. In the 
 prosecution for a libel, though its application was so pointed 
 that its drift could not have been more clearly understood had 
 my name been inserted at full length, he was acquitted ; and 
 such is the disposition of some of the people of this Province, 
 that he has been returned a member of the House of Assembly 
 for one of the Counties without opposition. It is, indeed, much 
 to be regretted that while every demagogue has a probable 
 chance of obtaining a seat in that House, the Government have 
 it not in their power to return a single member. This is owing 
 to a want of proper foresight and precaution on the part of the 
 late General Simcoe, who, on entering upon his administration, 
 had it in his power to have made such arrangements with 
 regard to the representation of the Province as might have 
 always ensured the return of one of the Law OflBcers of the 
 Crown to that House, which would have given great facility in 
 conducting the business of the House, without affording any 
 ground of complaint of undue influence on the part of the 
 Governor. But such opportunity having been once lost will 
 never be recovered, as the 34th of the King directs all subse- 
 quent arrangements to be made by the Provincial Legislature. 
 During the session of 1 808, a circumstance took place unpre- 
 cedented, I believe, in any legislative body. On a question that 
 arose in the House of Assembly respecting some modification 
 of a law for establishing schools, three of Mr. Thorpe's friends, 
 who were opposed to the majority of the House, were deter- 
 mined, at all events, to carry their point, and rather put a stop 
 to all the business of the session than submit to the determi- 
 nation of the majority. With this view, when the question 
 was about to be put, they withdrew from the House, 
 leaving it without^ quorum, and immediately set off for their
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 137 
 
 respective homes, which were at a very considerable distance. 
 This happened near the close of the session, and after several 
 of the members had obtained leave of absence. Some of these 
 it became necessary to recall in order to give efficiency to the 
 business that had actually been finished by the two Houses, 
 and this could not be done till after an interval of several days. 
 1 thought it my duty to show the sense I entertained of the 
 extraordinary conduct of these refractory members by taking 
 from them some appointments they held under Government, 
 and their conduct would of course be reprobated by every sen- 
 sible man. These, however, are, unfortunately, not everywhere 
 the majority, and the gentlemen in question have been returned 
 to the present Parliament, in which they seem determined to 
 be as troublesome as possible. Amidst all these perplexities, 
 however, several measures of importance to the prosperity of 
 the Province have been accomplished. The education of youth 
 hath been provided for on a liberal scale ; considerable sums of 
 money have been obtained for improving the public roads ; the 
 culture of hemp hath been liberally encouraged, and collision 
 with the Legislature of Lower Canada on the subject of revenue 
 hath been avoided. I have also been able to obtain such a 
 modification of the Militia Law, as abolishes the Lieutenancies in 
 Counties, which were not only inapplicable to the circumstances 
 of the Province, from the want of characters sufficiently distin- 
 guished to fill them, but by interposing the person in that situa- 
 tion to commission the officers, and issue all orders in their re- 
 spective Counties, kept the Governor too much out of sight. The 
 Legislative Council, originally nine in number^ is now reduced to 
 five members, including the Speaker, whose attendance can be re- 
 lied on. Mr. Grant's age and infirmities and his distant residence 
 render it impracticable for him to attend at the season when
 
 138 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 the Legislature is usually convened, and Mr. Duncan hath 
 vacated his seat, he residing in a foreign State beyond 
 the term prescribed by law. It has therefore become necessary 
 to appoint some new members, in order to give this body, 
 which forms so useful a counterpoise to the rashness of the House 
 of Assembly, its proper weight and influence. To recommend 
 the persons who may occur to me as best qualified for this 
 purpose will be the subject of another letter. I had flattered 
 myself that in the Attorney-General I should have found an 
 able and faithful adviser, and that his conduct would have 
 added strength and respectability to the Government, but in 
 this I have been most miserably disappointed. He not only 
 has the most ungovernable temper that ever man was cursed 
 with, but is withal self-sufficient, mercenary and rapacious. I 
 give you the following as one among many instances of his 
 indiscretion. In the session of the Legislature that was held 
 in Feb., 1808, a Bill was introduced into the House of Assem- 
 bly to alter the present mode of administering justice in civil 
 cases by establishing in each district Courts of concurrent 
 jurisdiction with the King's Bench in such cases. Without 
 waiting to see what was likely to be the fate of the Bill, or 
 what shape it would assume in its progress, he immediately 
 presented a petition to the House, in his capacity of Attorney- 
 General, requiring to be heard at their bar against the Bill, and 
 this not only without my concurrence, but contrary to my 
 remonstrances and even injunctions. His petition was treated, 
 as might have been expected, with contempt ; but it was not 
 easy to remove the impression which it gave rise to, that this 
 egregious piece of folly of Mr. Firth was a measure of the 
 Government. As for the Bill in question it came to nothing. 
 Instead of setting an example to the rest of the bar, of decent
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 139 
 
 language and demeanour in Court, and a proper respect for the 
 Bench, he indulges in the most intemperate sallies and insolent 
 abuse against his opponents, and has on this account been more 
 than once involved in very serious personal difficulties. Should 
 the Bench not concur with him in his opinions, which are full 
 as often wrong as right, he does not abstain from the most 
 indecent reflections, exclaiming that he has no chance of obtain- 
 ing justice, and uttering other insinuations equally improper 
 and disrespectful to the Judges. Nothing, indeed, has withheld 
 them from making the strongest representations to me, in form, 
 of his improper conduct, but the fear lest His Majesty's Minis- 
 ters, from the frequency of my complaints against the public 
 officers they send to the Colony, should form an opinion that I 
 was improperly hard, harsh and unreasonably difficult in the 
 article of their behaviour. His accounts are swelled with 
 charges unknown in those of his predecessors, and though these 
 are, of course, struck out at the audit, yet they evince a disposi- 
 tion not very creditable to the character of any man, and 
 might, without any great breach of charity, lead one to suspect 
 that it might induce the person in question to avail himself of 
 his official position to multiply prosecutions with a view to his 
 own emolument. From this sketch, which is very far from 
 exaggeration, you will readily believe that instead of leaning 
 upon him for support, or recurring to him for advice, I am 
 obliged to be always upon my guard against him, and to exert 
 my authority, which is not always sufficient to keep him 
 within proper bounds. 
 
 The situation of the Governor of a distant Colony has, with 
 the best aid that is possible for him to derive from his subordi- 
 nate officers, enough of perplexity and vexation ; but when those 
 who are sent expressly to assist him in the administration,
 
 140 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 become the principal sources of the embarrassments he meets 
 with, it is hardly in human nature to support it with com- 
 posure. On the opening of the session of the Legislature which 
 hath just teminated, I received the most respectful and loyal 
 addresses from both Houses in reference to the present posture 
 of our affairs with the American States, and the representations 
 of the dispositions of the Militia received from various parts of 
 the Province are flattering. That their loyalty in general is to 
 be relied on, I aim ready to believe ; but unsupported by a com- 
 petent mihtary force, it would be too much to say that they are 
 equal to defend the Province against the force that may be 
 brought against it by the Americans. At present we have in 
 all the different posts of the Province, on a frontier of more 
 than five hundred miles, only the 41st Regiment, whose strength 
 
 upon paper amounts only to , but whose efficient force, 
 
 from the number of old and worn-out men, is in reality much 
 less. This weakness of our military establishment has not 
 escaped the notice of the Indian tribes who have been hitherto 
 friendly to"us,'and my information from the agents of Government 
 among them, as well as from other sources, leads me to believe 
 that unless this establishment is very considerably augmented 
 we must not rely on their co-operation in the event of a rupture 
 with America. 
 
 Your friend Mr. Bond,* who is deservedly in no great repute 
 in this country, and who has completely imposed on the Lords 
 of the Committee of Trade and Plantations, not satisfied with 
 
 * This man, a hatter by trade, but too idle (or his business, of character the very re- 
 verse of respectable, went to England in 1807 with some communication from Mr. 
 Thorpe's Agricultural Society, and without any recommendation from the Governor 
 procured an introduction to the Board of Trade, and under pretence of growing hemp, 
 and extending the culture, by his example and instructions, cajoled them into an ap- 
 proval of his project, and through their recommendation obtained an order from Lord 
 Castlereagh for 1,200 acres of land, one-half of which was to be cleared, and if the Gov- 
 ernor had not any such in his gift he was to purchase it.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRlffHT. 141 
 
 the 1,200 acres of land which I shall most certainly give him, 
 agreeably to Lord Castlereagh's order, now applies to me for 
 money about which His Lordship is silent, and which I cer- 
 tainly should not give to a better man than Mr. Bond without 
 further authority for so doing. He would be more likely to 
 spend it in some other way than in the culture of hemp. I 
 would not, however, be surprised if the gentleman should in 
 consequence complain of being thwarted and ill-used. The cul- 
 ture of hemp is in a better train than Mr. Bond is likely to 
 place it. The Legislature have appropriated a sum of money 
 to pay the growers of hemp in every part of the Province a 
 liberal price for it on the spot, and through commissioners ap- 
 pointed for that purpose two considerable parcels have been 
 consigned to Messrs. Brickwood & Daniels, in London, one in 
 1807 and another in 1808, and during the present year a 
 larger and better sample will be shipped.
 
 142 LIF^^AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 INCORPORATION OF KINGSTON — LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY FRANCIS 
 GORE — OBJECTS TO FEE FOR MILITIA COMMISSIONS — LETTER TO 
 MAJOR m'kENZIE — AMERICAN TROOPS ON THE FRONTIER — SHIP 
 OF WAR BUILDING AT OSWEGO — U. S. NAVAL OFFICERS IN KING- 
 STON HARBOUR. 
 
 IDEAS ON THE SUBJECT OF INCORPORATING THE TOWN OF 
 KINGSTON ARE SUBMITTED TO LIEUT. -GOVERNOR SIMCOE. 
 
 First, — That the corporation should consist of a certain 
 number of persons, suppose four, to be increased in proportion 
 to the future population of the town, to be appointed by the 
 Governor, or elected by the inhabitants, or partly one and 
 partly the other, for the purpose of regulating the police of the 
 town under the following heads : 
 
 Eegulations for preventing accidents by fire. 
 
 The times and places of holding the public markets. 
 
 Establishing the price and weight of bread. 
 
 Regulations for improving streets and keeping them clean. 
 
 Fares of carters within the limits. 
 
 Second. That the power of granting town lots should be vest- 
 ed in them, under the same instructions as were formerly laid 
 down for the Land Board, with a small fee for their clerk, who 
 is to be appointed by themselves. 
 
 Third. That a certain part of these lots, suppose one-sixth, 
 shall be reserved, and, together with the water lots and the 
 vacant ground beyond the limits of the town plot, and such as
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 143 
 
 may hereafter become vacant by the dereliction of Government, 
 be vested in them, with power to lease or alienate the same 
 reserving always a certain ground rent, and the money so 
 raised to serve as a fund to be applied to the improvement of 
 the town. That they should be empowered to purchase ground 
 contiguous to the town, foB the same purpose, if they should 
 deem it expedient. That in the event of the town increasing 
 beyond its present limits, their authority shall alsoextend over 
 such addition, and include what is usually understood by the 
 suburbs of a town. And it might also be expedient that they, 
 or any three of them, should, six times in the year, hold Pleas 
 of all causes under a certain sum, suppose £10, arising within 
 their limits, to be tried by a jury, following, as nearly as cir- 
 cumstances will admit, the rules laid down for the proceedings 
 in the District Court. I would not deem it expedient that 
 this corporation should possess any power to prohibit any per 
 son whatever from exercising any lawful profession or calling 
 within their limits,^or to require any fee for the admission of 
 any such persons. 
 
 To His Excellency Francis Gore. 
 
 Kingston, 18th April, 1808. 
 Sir, — The post some days ago, brought me a letter from 
 the Adjutant General, enclosing the new Militia Law, and the 
 schedule of fees intended to be charged on the commissions to 
 be issued from your Excellency's office in consequence of it 
 As commissions in the Militia have heretofore been given free 
 of expense, as well while we were a part of the late Province 
 of Quebec as since we were made a separate Province, this 
 measure, however trivial in itself, will give very general dis- 
 satisfaction, and be made the subject of much obloquy and mis-
 
 144 LIFE AND LETTERS OF RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 
 
 representation. Of the persons most concerned, some observe 
 that however proper it might be that they should pay for a 
 commission for any new appointment, yet for the mere renewal 
 of the same commission under a different form they ought not 
 to be put to any charge, and that if the Legislature have made 
 this necessary, they ought to provide for the expense attending 
 it. Others say facetiously that they have no objection to the 
 price of their commissiou being deducted from their first 
 muster's subsistence. That those who wish, at all events, to 
 find fault with your Excellency's-administration, will say worse 
 of it, you will hardly doubt. However disposed I may be to 
 acquiesce in this or any other regulation you may deem ex- 
 pedient, I consider it as my duty, and what you will expect 
 from me, to acquaint you with the public sentiment on the 
 occasion. What weight it ought to have is for your Excel- 
 lency to judge. As it has become necessary to form another com- 
 pany, this and the details required respecting the ages, &c., of 
 the different officers will take up some tjme, and prevent me 
 from replying at present to the Adjutant General. 
 
 It would seem that the Government at home deem the 
 Militia of the Canadas of very considerable importance, from 
 their sending out for them six inspecting field officers with 
 the rank and pay of lieutenant-colonels. 
 
 To Major McKenzie. 
 
 Kingston, 2nd Nov., 1808. 
 Sir, — Some movements of troops and other transactions are 
 taking place on the American frontier along the St. Lawrence 
 and Lake Ontario, that ought not to escape observation. Within 
 a few weeks more than 200 regular troops have been stationed 
 between Great Sodus, about 20 miles to the westward of Os-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF EICHARD CARTWRIGHT. 145 
 
 wego and Ogdensburg, of which there are two full companies 
 at this latter place, which is at the head of the rapids, on the 
 site of the old fort of Oswegatchie, and other troops are stated 
 to be actually on their march to augment these several detach- 
 ments to a thousand men. Colonel Simmons, who is to com- 
 mand these troops, is said to have declared publicly that they 
 would be augmented to 2,000 men before the spring. He is an 
 officer high in the confidence of the American Government, and 
 is now actually examining the banks of the St. Lawrence for 
 the most proper military stations. The ostensible object of 
 all this is, more completely to enforce the embargo ; but the 
 vessel building at OsAvego, which is to carry 18 guns, besides a 
 24-pounder in the bow, is much less adapted to this service 
 than armed boats ; and it is now known that there were on 
 board a small A.merican schooner which put in here a few days 
 ago, under pretence of being driven in by stress of weather, 
 two officers of the American navy, who came for the express 
 purpose of informing themselves of the different entrances to 
 this port. She came through the passage at the head of the 
 Isle Tonte, and anchored in that neighbourhood a day or two. 
 It is, in short, considered by some of the most intelligent men 
 among whom these preparations are carrying on, that they 
 proceed from views not altogether relating to the embargo, and 
 at all events they appear to merit the notice of the Commander- 
 in-Chief. 
 
 I am, &c.. 
 
 ElCHARD CARTWRIGHT.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
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